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Tag: JFK ASSASSINATION

  • “Echoes of a Lost America” by Monika Wiesak – A Review

    Monika Wiesak has followed up her fine volume on the presidency of John F. Kennedy with a book about JFK’s murder.  But it also includes a look at the RFK case and a glimpse into the psyche of John Kennedy Jr.

    Echoes of a Lost America

    By Monika Wiesak

    Three years ago, in 2022, Monika Wiesak published America’s Last President. This remains one of the best, if not the best, of all contemporary books on the presidency of John F. Kennedy. If you have not read it, I strongly urge you to do so. (Click here for my review https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/last-president) Wiesak has now published a book about the assassination of President Kennedy, entitled Echoes of a Lost America.

    I

    She begins her new book by looking at the crime in a macroscopic manner. She describes some of the things that Kennedy was doing as president that likely disturbed people in the higher circles. She labels his foreign policy as anti-imperialist and mentions his attempt to forge a rapprochement with Fidel Castro in 1963. She uses a telling quote on Vietnam by Gen. Maxwell Taylor: “I don’t recall anyone who was strongly against sending combat troops, except one man, and that was the president.” (Wiesak, p. 10; all references to paperback version) She then discusses how, after Kennedy’s murder, LBJ Americanized the Vietnam War and provoked the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964. (Wiesak, p. 6) She continues in this vein by mentioning reversals by Johnson of Kennedy policies in the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, and the Congo.

    Unlike almost all other authors in the field, Wiesak brings in Kennedy’s clashes with Israeli/Zionist interests as part of her overview. For one example, she mentions Kennedy’s backing of UN emissary Joseph Johnson’s Palestinian refugee plan. Kennedy supported this concept until the end of his presidency. It allowed three methods of repatriation for the Palestinians. Either they could stay where they were and be compensated for their loss during the Nakba; they could move elsewhere and the UN would pay for it; or they could return to where they were originally. Secretly, President David Ben Gurion violently opposed the Johnson Plan. (p. 16)

    She also brings in a rather ignored piece of information. Namely, the highly enriched uranium that was used by the Israelis at the Dimona nuclear reactor was very likely stolen from the United States. (p. 21). This data is examined in minute detail by author Roger Mattson in his book Stealing the Atom Bomb. (Click here for a review https://consortiumnews.com/2016/09/11/how-israel-stole-the-bomb/) She adds that this heist was likely known to James Angleton. She concludes that Kennedy’s Middle East policy was overhauled in almost every aspect by President Johnson. And she adds this telling fact:

    The 92 million in military assistance provided in fiscal year 1966 was greater than the total of all official military aid provided to Israel cumulatively in all the years going back to the foundation of that nation in 1948. (Wiesak, p. 23)

    From here, she goes to Kennedy’s economic policies by beginning with an appropriate Kennedy quotation:

    The president must serve as the defender of the public good and the public interest against all the narrow private interests which operate in our society. (p. 26)

    Like many observers on this topic, she points out the importance of the appointment of James Saxon as Comptroller of the Currency. (p. 27). She wisely quotes from the famous interview that Saxon gave to US News and World Report just before Kennedy was killed. Saxon was trying to loosen bank regulations and also encouraging the opening of more state banks. He and Kennedy wanted an easier flow of credit and loans to small businessmen and farmers. This put Saxon at odds with the Federal Reserve Board. As the magazine summed up his policy:

    The Comptroller approved scores of new national banks, and branches, spurred key mergers, revised outmoded rules. Result: keener competition for deposits and customers. (p. 28)

    During this interview, Saxon said something rather bold. In reply to a question about if the Federal Reserve System should be updated or overhauled, his response was–in no uncertain terms–yes. He went as far as to say bank membership in the system should be voluntary. He clearly depicted himself as in opposition to the Fed, but he said he had Kennedy’s backing on this. He added that it was not surprising to him that the big banks in New York, like Chase Manhattan, did not like him. Because he wanted more open competition for deposits. At that time, Chase Manhattan was a Rockefeller controlled bank. This is an important point, and one that few writers have addressed, save perhaps Donald Gibson.

    II

    Amplifying on Kennedy’s economic reforms, she concentrates on Kennedy building a production-based economy—as opposed to a service economy. One way he was trying to do this was through the investment tax credit. In other words, he was giving companies tax credits if they would modernize their plant and equipment, which would result in higher production rates. This would lead to American products being more competitive in foreign markets. (p.29)

    He also tried to help those in need with welfare benefits by doubling the number of people eligible for surplus food, and also signing a bill extending unemployment benefits from 26-39 weeks. He raised the minimum wage and signed off on increased Social Security benefits. (p.29)

    She becomes the first writer to accent the showdown between Kennedy and the steel industry since Gibson. She rightly pictures the conflict as a battle. One between Kennedy trying to control inflation, the steel companies initially agreeing, but then reneging on the deal and confronting the president with an accomplished fact: they were raising their prices.

    As Gibson introduced the episode through John Blair:

    The April 1962 face-off between President Kennedy and US Steel had been described as the most dramatic confrontation in history between a president and a corporate management. (John Blair, Economic Concentration, p. 635)

    Kennedy felt he needed the steel company/labor union agreement to keep inflationary forces from spiraling throughout the economy. He figured his increase in minimum wages would be eaten up by what he called “the cruel tax of inflation.” (Wiesak, p 29) Kennedy thought he had an agreement that the workers would not demand higher wages and the company would not raise prices. But four days after the labor contract had been signed, on April 10th, Roger Blough, Chairman of US Steel, visited Washington. He then handed the president a PR release: the company would announce a 3.5 % price increase at midnight. (Gibson, Battling Wall Street, p.10) Kennedy reportedly said, “My father always told me that all businessmen were sons of bitches, but I never believed it till now.” (Wiesak, p. 30).

    After five other companies joined US Steel to break the agreement, Kennedy decided that, if his economic policy was going to have any impact or credibility, he would have to begin a counter-attack. Which he did. This was through Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and Attorney General Robert Kennedy. The former stated that no company that broke the agreement would be given any more Pentagon contracts. The latter began investigating charges of collusion and price fixing by issuing subpoenas, some at 3 AM. (Ibid). Kennedy also used the bully pulpit to hit back. On April 11th, he said that he thought the American people would find it difficult to accept,

    A situation in which a tiny handful of steel executives whose pursuit of private power and profit exceeds their sense of public responsibility can show such utter contempt for the interest of 185,000,000 Americans. (Gibson, p. 13)

    Within 48 hours of handing over the announcement, big steel had taken back the price rise. Her synopsis of the crisis is fine, I just wish she had done a bit more with the part of Gibson’s book that deals with Kennedy’s struggle against the CFR globalists.

    From here, she goes on to describe Kennedy’s advocacy of Rachel Carson’s work against the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Although Carson was attacked for Silent Spring, Kennedy formed a committee that vindicated the book in May of 1963. (Wiesak, p. 31) Kennedy also backed the work of Dr. Frances Kelsey against the drug thalidomide, and this then led to the FDA having approval over when a drug could be marketed. (ibid., p 32)

    With the banks, steel companies and big pharma, Kennedy was not looked upon as a friend of big business.

    III

    After adroitly laying out this backdrop, Wiesak now shifts over to the assassination itself. She begins with an examination of the alleged assassin, Lee Oswald. Was Oswald really a self-declared Marxist? There is a lot of evidence to indicate the contrary: namely that he was really an agent provocateur. And she wastes little time in mounting a case showing that he was. She includes the puzzle about Oswald’s 201 file, or the lack of the CIA opening one for the first 13 months after he defected to the Soviet Union. (p. 45). She adds that James Angleton’s successor, George Kalaris, gave a possible answer as to why it was finally opened: Oswald had made queries “concerning possible reentry into the United States.” (p. 45) This would suggest that Oswald understood he had failed to gull the KGB and wanted to return for reassignment.

    So once Oswald returned to Texas, he kept up this image by subscribing to communist and socialist newspapers. (p. 48). But at the same time, he is ingratiating himself with the White Russian community in Dallas, who all loathe communism and want a return to a monarchy. In the face of this returned Soviet defector and his strange behavior, inexplicably, the FBI closed their file on Oswald in October of 1962. Then they reopened it in March of 1963, allegedly based on communist periodical subscriptions that the Bureau already knew he had.

    Wiesak discusses the enigmatic figure of George DeMohrenschildt, nicknamed the Baron. Since he figured right into the midst of this whole contradictory White Russian/Oswald milieu. And she notes that the majority of the Baron’s contact with Oswald was during that six-month period when the FBI closed down their Oswald file. She also discusses the Baron’s acquaintance with Jean de Menil, president of the Schlumberger Corporation, which had close ties to the CIA; and through the Agency to the OAS, which was trying to overthrow French president Charles de Gaulle. DeMohrenschildt and his father also met and worked with Allen Dulles. (p. 49) In early 1963, DeMohrenschildt left for a reputed CIA assignment in Haiti. And now Ruth and Michael Paine have become the best friends of Lee and his wife Marina. And she examines their rather interesting connections to the higher circles. (p. 51)

    She concludes that Oswald appears “to be some sort of intelligence asset, either witting or unwitting, who James Angleton closely monitored.” (ibid)

    From here, the book segues into what she calls the “Lead Up to the Crime”. Jim Garrison thought the early announcement that Kennedy would be coming to Dallas, which was in the Dallas Times Herald in late April, marked the beginning of the maneuvering of Oswald away from the White Russians. (p. 53). In a bit over two weeks, Oswald would be looking for a job at Reilly Coffee Company in the Crescent City. She makes note that New Orleans DA Jim Garrison found out how some of Oswald’s cohorts moved on to the NASA base at Michoud. She then adds that Oswald thought he was going there also. (p. 54). Importantly, she also relates the heist by Oswald’s friend David Ferrie of arms from Schlumberger, which was operated by DeMohrenschildt’s friend Jean de Menil. These arms were then rerouted through Guy Banister’s office at 544 Camp Street, an office at which several witnesses saw Oswald. It was also the address that Oswald placed on some of the pro-Castro literature he was handing out that summer.

    She turns to Clay Shaw and notes the fact that he was reliably identified by the local sheriff as being seen with Ferrie and Oswald in the Clinton/Jackson area in the late summer of 1963. (p. 57) Through the work of Whitney Webb and Michelle Metta, she then links Shaw with DeMenil and Canadian lawyer Louis Mortimer Bloomfield through Permindex. About Permindex, she advances the case that it was a hydra-headed creation: CIA, Italian intelligence and the Mossad. She fingers Bloomfield as a key figure in Permindex because he had access to the majority of the shares in that enigmatic company. (p. 59) She also states that those associated with Permindex were globalists in their views of a world economy, e.g., Bloomfield, Edmond de Rothschild and Shaw. She points out, briefly, that this was opposed to Kennedy’s nationalist views.

    She then offers both views of Oswald in Mexico City: that he may have been there, and he might not have been. But when he returned to Dallas, the FBI’s Marvin Gheesling took the FLASH warning on him off the Watch List. (p. 65). If he had not done that, Oswald likely would not have been on the motorcade route. Also, if Ruth Paine had told Oswald about a job offer that came in from Robert Adams of the Texas Employment Commission, he also would likely not have been on the route.

    IV

    About the assassination itself, in Chapter 4, she does a nice synoptic job of gathering the evidence that Kennedy was undoubtedly killed by a conspiracy. She does this in a microscopic way, but says we should always keep our eye on the Big Picture. (p. 83)

    She then turns to Jack Ruby, the slayer of Oswald. We know that Ruby was the original Man for All Seasons. A guy who had connections in many different directions. She connects him to Meyer Lansky, and uses Seth Kantor’s biography to do so. (p. 110) She also notes that Lansky had worked with the ONI and OSS to help create Operation Underworld, where the Mob helped the war effort during World War II. Lansky had large investments in Cuba before the revolution, and she notes he was also involved with the Haganah, a kind of umbrella paramilitary group devoted to the establishment of Israel. (p. 110). Ruby was also known to Mayor Earle Cabell, who ended up being exposed as a CIA asset.

    Wiesak notes the connection between PR man Sam Bloom and Ruby. Ruby had Sam Bloom’s contact information scribbled down on a card in his apartment. Bloom was also the PR man for Judge Joe Brown at Ruby’s trial. Ruby’s lawyer Melvin Belli commented that “Bloom was making legal history—the first public-relations counselor to a judge in the history of jurisprudence.” (p. 115)

    With Oswald dead and the world seeing Ruby as his killer on TV, the media and the Power Elite were able to fashion and snap on a cover-up almost instantly. To say that it was effective and all-consuming does not do it justice. Wiesak discusses the phone calls from Eugene Rostow and Joseph Alsop to the White House urging Johnson to appoint a blue ribbon commission, because no one was believing what was coming out of Dallas. She also writes that Earle Cabell labeled the assassination “the irrational act of a single man.” (p. 122) And, most pungently, how the New York Times labeled Oswald as the assassin of Kennedy after Ruby killed him. This about a man who always insisted on his innocence and never had a lawyer. Assistant Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach then cooperated with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to close the case in about 48 hours. (p. 125)

    What made that so problematic is that, from the beginning, the case against Oswald was full of question marks. And any serious journalist or investigator could have found them. Mark Lane did so in his article published in The Guardian on December 19, 1963. (Lane, Plausible Denial, pp. 335-60). When Lane asked to represent Oswald before the Warren Commission, he was turned down by J. Lee Rankin, the Chief Counsel. (Lane, p. 22) As Wiesak shows throughout Chapter 6, that was purely a decision made upon expediency, not on proper procedure or in the interests of justice. For the Commission’s case, as she demonstrates, was hapless. It would never have withstood the challenge of a properly prepared defense counsel.

    V

    She closes the book with chapters on the murder of Robert Kennedy, attempts to reopen the JFK case and a brief chapter on John F. Kennedy Jr.

    Her chapter on the facts of the RFK case is sharp and compelling. But I wish she had used more of David Talbot’s book on that issue. To give her credit, she does say at the beginning that critics usually consider the two cases as separate matters; but if one thinks that powerful forces killed JFK, then those same forces should be suspects in the removal of Robert. (p. 140) And she repeats this motif at the end of the chapter. (p. 192). If it had been me, I would have spent some more time on this issue, for example, showing that Bobby knew his brother had been killed by a large domestic conspiracy and that Dallas was the perfect place to execute such an action. Also, that he sent such a message to Moscow pertaining to this. (Talbot, Brothers, pp. 29-34)

    But I should mention something that I think was quite striking and relevant in this chapter. Quoting from the trial, Sirhan was asked what he thought about John Kennedy:

    I loved him, sir. More than any American could have….He was working sir, with the leaders of the Arab governments, the Arab countries, to bring a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem. And he promised these Arab leaders that he would do his utmost and his best to force or to put some pressure on Israel to comply with the 1948 United Nations Resolution sir, to either repatriate those Arab refugees or give them back, give them the right to return to their homes. And when he was killed that never happened. (p. 186)

    As we have seen previously, Sirhan was correct on this.

    In her review of attempts to reopen the JFK case, she treats Jim Garrison and his case against Clay Shaw with respect. She then describes the figurative earthquake that took place when ABC showed the Zapruder film in 1975 and how that caused the creation of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA). She has notable disdain for the HSCA. Commenting that their version of the Magic Bullet is as bad or worse than the Warren Commission’s. (p. 205) She is one of the very few writers to note the almost thunderous irony of the alleged plot against Jimmy Carter in May of 1979. Which just happened to involve two men: one named Raymond Lee Harvey and the other Osvaldo Espinoza-Ortiz.

    Her chapter on JFK Jr. hits the important points in relation to the topic at hand. She mentions Meg Azzoni, a former girlfriend, who said, “His heartfelt quest was to expose and bring to trial who killed his father and who covered it up.” (p. 213) She also adds that George magazine was really a presidential platform for him. Interestingly, she describes how he was very interested in the Yitzhak Rabin assassination and published an article on that case, which he himself edited, containing lengthy interviews with shooter Yigal Amir’s mother. She believed that Amir had been manipulated by the Shin Bet.

    The capper to all this? JFK Jr. was going to run for governor in 2002. (p. 217)

    She concludes that what Americans have been handed on the JFK case by the MSM and the political establishment is a counterfeit history. One that its citizens should resist. She also says that she has little doubt that America would be a different place if JFK had lived. And she ends in reference to Kennedy more or less what Kennedy said about Dag Hammarskjold before the United Nations, “Let us not allow his efforts to have been in vain.”

  • Joan Mellen’s Passing

    Prolific author on world cinema, the John Kennedy assassination, and particularly Jim Garrison, and professor of English at Temple, Joan Mellen, has passed away. Here is a notice from the AARC.

  • Luna Committee Discovery makes MSM

    The latest discovery of the Luna Committee made at the request of Jefferson Morley has made the MSM. Take a look.

  • “That Day in Dallas: …” by Robert K. Tanenbaum – A Review

    HSCA Deputy Counsel Robert Tanenbaum took a long time to write his book about the John F. Kennedy murder. But, in Jim DiEugenio’s opinion, the author chose the wrong path to follow in that regard.

    That Day in Dallas

    by Robert Tanenbaum

     

    Back in 1996, attorney Robert Tanenbaum did an interview for Probe magazine discussing his role overseeing the JFK case as Deputy Counsel for the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA). Many readers were impressed by the revelations in that interview. (Click here for it https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/robert-tanenbaum-interviewed-by-probe) One who contacted Tanenbaum was first-generation researcher Ray Marcus. Ray encouraged Bob to write a book on his experience in Washington with the case. Tanenbaum said he would think about it.

    Well, it appears that he thought about it for almost three decades. Because he has now released a rather slim volume entitled That Day in Dallas. In advance, I must say that I have known Tanenbaum for over thirty years and have visited him at his home in Beverly Hills on several occasions. He is a likeable man of many accomplishments, among them being the former mayor of Beverly Hills. He has maintained a strong interest in the John Kennedy assassination over the intervening years. So it is with reluctance that I have to say that his book, That Day in Dallas, is a disappointment. Made more so by his prominence as a leading attorney in the JFK field.

    I

    The author is from New York City. His father was a lawyer/businessman, and his mother was a teacher. (Tanenbaum, p. 36, all references to e-book version) He excelled at playing basketball in high school. At a summer camp, he met NBA all-star Bob Cousy, and Cousy recommended him to coach Pete Newell at Cal Berkeley. (p. 50) After a year at a prep school in Washington, DC, Tanenbaum decided to take up Newell on his offer. At Cal, he played basketball and attended their storied Boalt Hall School of Law. He then interviewed for a position under Frank Hogan, the DA of New York City. Hogan had a long and illustrious career of 32 years in the DA’s office. Tanenbaum felt fortunate to be selected for service in that office, and he devotes several pages to how that hiring process played out. (pp. 58-64)

    Tanenbaum rose to supervise the homicide department, oversaw the court schedule, and ran legal training in Hogan’s office. He never lost a felony case that he tried to verdict, and he was one of the most — if not the most — active court lawyers in the office. He has stated that if Hogan had not passed on, he likely would have stayed there. But after Hogan died, Tanenbaum thought the office lost its stature. Therefore, when Philadelphia prosecutor Richard Sprague called him to come to Washington to work with him on the HSCA, Tanenbaum accepted.

    The deceased Sprague was a first assistant in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office who had an excellent record. And most people believe that, given both his ability and work ethic, Sprague would have helmed the first full-court prosecution of the JFK case. The author clearly sees what happened with the HSCA as a legal proceeding sunk on the sandbar of politics. This is why he tries to fill in the background of his book with vignettes on how he was brought up and was instilled with a certain moral code. And it was not just by his family, but also certain professional mentors: like all-time great basketball coach Lou Carnesecca, and his colleague in the DA’s office Mel Glass. The former taught him the value of preparation. (pp. 42-43) The latter was a paragon of honesty about evidence. (p. 64) Tanenbaum notes this because he wants to get across the message that what he was faced with at the HSCA was something that was simply anathema to his upbringing.

    II

    The book has a circular structure to it. The author fills in the opening with the fact that the Warren Commission was a rigged game from the start since they largely relied on the FBI for their investigation. And J. Edgar Hoover had made up his mind on the case within about 48 hours of Kennedy’s death. (p. 8) So, in reality the Commission was a sham inquiry which ignored the importance of key witnesses. He identifies the Parkland doctors as an example of crucial testimony that was discounted. (p. 11). Tanenbaum also mentions the famous memo from Hoover to James Rowley of the Secret Service. That memo stated that FBI agents had listened to a tape supplied by the CIA of Oswald in Mexico City, and the voice on the tape did not match the Oswald the Bureau was questioning in Dallas. The memo also states that the picture produced by the Agency of Oswald in Mexico City does not look like Oswald. (Memo from Hoover to Rowley of 11/23/63)

    Tanenbaum read the memo and was very interested, especially since the Warren Commission had done little or nothing about Mexico City. He decided to ask CIA officer David Phillips about this tape, since he was stationed in Mexico City at this time. Phillips said it was CIA policy to recycle tapes every 6 or 7 days, so the tape did not exist after the second week of October. Tanenbaum handed Phillips the Hoover memorandum, which undermined his sworn testimony. Phillips folded the memo, placed it in his jacket pocket and left the room. (p. 14). Sprague had already questioned Phillips about the matter, but he did not have the Hoover memo.

    At this point in the HSCA inquiry, Tanenbaum told Sprague they needed to call Phillips back with his lawyer. The whole issue of perjury and contempt needed to be spelled out to him. But the committee balked at this.

    At this point in the volume, Tanenbaum now flashes back to his acceptance of the position in the first place. (p. 23) He and Sprague were under the impression that there would be no compromise in their search for the facts. He was now realizing that they had been gulled. Congress was not the right place for a high-profile murder investigation. He now describes how he was hit with a cold towel by this fact in one of his meetings with the chair of the HSCA, Congressman Louis Stokes.

    At this meeting, Tanenbaum told Stokes that he had strong suspicions about the Agency. This was not just based on his encounter with Phillips. It was also based on his meeting with Senator Richard Schweiker of the Church Committee. The senator told him the following:

    Beware, the CIA will stonewall your investigation, refuse to hand over key documents, and intentionally mislead to further advance its cover-up—all of which it has done monumentally already. You see, during my participation in the Senate investigation regarding possible intel Agency abuse, I came to realize that the godawful truth was that the CIA participated actively in the assassination of our president. (p. 24)

    Schweiker then handed him his Church Committee investigative file. Tanenbaum was trying to use that file, plus his own work, to convince Stokes to sign subpoenas. In what is probably the best scene in the book, Stokes declined. The reason he gave was that the HSCA would not go along with it because of the fear of Agency retaliation. This meant that neither Tanenbaum nor Sprague had the support of the committee any longer. When Stokes asked what the Deputy Counsel would now do, Tanenbaum said he would resign. When Sprague was informed of this impediment, he said he had no choice but to also resign.

    The problem with this being the best episode in the book is simple: we are only on page 26.

    III

    When I first heard that Tanenbaum would be writing a book on his experience with the JFK case, I thought he would be writing a memoir. That is, something like Jim Garrison’s book On the Trail of the Assassins. But that is not what That Day in Dallas is. There is much that is left out of the book that the author has related to me or at conferences. For instance, after Senator Schweiker gave him the file, he and his investigator, Cliff Fenton, went back to his apartment. They stayed up all night reading it. When they were done, Fenton turned to his boss and said, “Bob, this is not a New York City felony case. We are in over our heads.”

    This would have been a telling follow-up scene. Well, Fenton is not even in the book. And Tanenbaum himself curtailed what happened in his meeting with Schweiker. Because before the senator took the file out of his desk, he asked that Fenton leave the room. This is the gravity with which Schweiker regarded what he was about to say to the HSCA attorney: He wanted no witnesses there. And, in fact, when I visited Schweiker in his Washington office many years later, he denied he ever said that about CIA complicity in the JFK case. I told Tanenbaum about this interview, and he called it out as BS. He said Fenton would back him up on this since he told him about it. But my point is this would have all made for a gripping material in a memoir about his experience on the JFK case. For whatever reason, that is not what the author decided to pen.

    From that scene with Scheiker, the book goes into his upbringing in New York, his basketball and academic career, and his hiring by Hogan– which I have already outlined. In other words, it breaks the actual JFK narrative. And this goes on for about thirty pages. As I said, this does have a thematic purpose. But does it merit almost one quarter of the book? What makes this even more puzzling is that Tanenbaum knows how to write this kind of finely hewn, intricately referenced book. Because he has done it before. Three times to be exact: in Echoes of My Soul, Badge of the Assassin, and Coal Country Killing. These were all about celebrated homicide cases, so it’s not like he does not know how to do such a book.

    It is not until he arrives at his meeting with Richard Sprague that he completes the circle and gets back to the JFK case. And he now presents some of the evidence for why he believes the Kennedy murder was a conspiracy. He gives us things like the exposure of the junk science around the Comparative Bullet Lead Analysis test that falsely linked the bullets to each other in the case. (p. 78) He then goes on to the dispute about the fingerprint evidence between Lt. Day of the Dallas Police and Sebastian La Tona of the FBI. (p. 80)

    He describes how the eyewitness testimony in Dealey Plaza links to that at Parkland Hospital. (pp. 88-98) He also tries to show that, through x ray analysis, one can demonstrate the direction of the fatal head shot at Z frame 313, although this needed some finer elucidation. (p. 104)

    Towards the end, the author does make a new revelation. He writes that he had evidence that intelligence agents literally rewrote testimony of key witnesses to make the single shooter scenario stick. Again, this is something I wish he would have expanded on. (p. 120)

    But there is something wrong with his presentation. And that is his backing of the McCone/Rowley document. (p. 124) This is a memo that CIA Director John McCone allegedly wrote in 1964 to Secret Service chief James Rowley, In it, McCone writes that Oswald was a CIA operative and some of their agents were involved in what he termed the Dallas Action. There are so many problems with this exhibit that I really do not know why the author included it, except he was not aware of the controversy surrounding it. In addition to there being no paper trail for it at NARA, there are also internal problems with it. I discussed them in a previous review. (Click here for that https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/groden-robert-absolute-proof)

    What makes the book even more disappointing is that I know the author did have new things to reveal. Because, for instance, he told me that Fenton had a back channel to the CIA giving him information about David Phillips using the name of Maurice Bishop. I also know that he saw documents showing that the CIA had surveillance on Garrison’s witnesses for harassment purposes, and the paper came out of Deputy Director Richard Helms’ office. I also know that his apartment in Washington was burglarized for certain documents he had there.

    All this and more could have made for a compelling, revelatory volume about one man’s journey into the abyss of the JFK case. In my opinion, Bob Tanenbaum missed a great opportunity.

  • Video Talk of JFK Relevancy Today

    At an exclusive conference in San Francisco, Jim DiEugenio lectures about why the JFK case is relevant today. One reason is because President Kennedy’s ideas about the Middle East were visionary and objective, and tried to be fair to both sides. President Johnson, with help from Mathilde Krim, altered that policy beyond recognition, thus leading to the mess we have today.

    View the video here.

  • Critical ARRB Final Determinations Buried and Ignored – Part 2

    Andrew Iler completes his two part milestone series on why, according to the ARRB’s own rulings on final determinations, we should not be declassifying documents today. Is NARA part of this resistance?.

    CRITICAL ARRB FINAL DETERMINATIONS BURIED AND IGNORED.
    SERIAL NEGLIGENCE…OR THE MECHANICS OF SUPPRESSION?

    By: Andrew A. Iler
    June 27, 2025

    PART II


    Recap of Part I and Overview of Part Two

    In Part One of this two-part series, we examined the legal framework established by the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act, 1992 (“JFK Records Act” or the “Act”), looking particularly at the Assassination Records Review Board’s (“ARRB”) mandate to issue agency final orders, known as “Final Determination Notifications”, for each and every assassination record that it reviewed during its four-year existence. Part One also looked at how the ARRB and the Executive Office of the President actually implemented the statutory process unanimously passed by Congress in the Act.

    There is a provision in the Act that is absolutely critical to the enforceability of the ARRB’s declassification decisions. Section 9(d)(1) of the JFK Records Act mandated that after the ARRB issued a Final Determination Notification, the President only had 30 days in which he was legally authorized to issue a written certification overriding an ARRB Final Determination. After that 30-day period expired, if the President did not issue a written certification overriding an ARRB decision, the ARRB Final Determination became the final, binding and enforceable legal order governing the disposition of the associated assassination record.

    President Clinton appointed the ARRB in April 1994, and it ceased its operations in September 1998. In that 4-year period, and as confirmed by Judge John Tunheim in his testimony before Congress on May 20, 2025, the ARRB reviewed and voted on the disposition of over 27,000 assassination records and issued Final Determination Notifications for each record it reviewed and voted on. President Clinton did not issue one single written certification overriding any ARRB Final Determination.

    Records show that the ARRB issued tens of thousands of Final Determinations that:

    1. Released records in full;
    2. Postponed release of records in part to be reviewed or released on future specified dates;
    3. Postponed release records in full to be reviewed or released on future specified dates; and/or
    4. Ordered periodic review of assassination records on specified dates or occurrences.

    Again, once the ARRB issued a Final Determination order that was not overruled by the President, as provided in the Act, there was no further discretion or authority by any government office or agency on declassification. All that was left were ministerial duties of the Archivist and NARA to archive, publish and release assassination records as ordered by the ARRB. Part Two of this series will explore the key legal concept of ministerial duties and how the ARRB Final Determinations were required to be published and subsequently handled by the Archivist of the United States once they were issued, and finally, what happened to tens of thousands of these “binding and enforceable” legal orders once the Archivist of the United States and the National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”) assumed full legal responsibility under the JFK Records Act for the custody of the Assassination Records Collection and for the management and implementation of the ARRB Final Determinations.

    Ministerial Duties… Ignore them at Your Own Peril

    We won’t spend long delving into the deep foundations of legal history, however, a basic understanding of the importance of ministerial duties is fundamental to knowing how the JFK Records Act was meant to operate. This has never been fully understood by the general public or even by experienced JFK assassination researchers. However, it will become clear that if the Archivist had complied with the mandatory, non-discretionary ministerial duties in the JFK Records Act, many of the assassination records ordered released by the ARRB and President Clinton in the 1990’s would have been disclosed to the public BEFORE Presidents Trump or Biden had to take any action starting in 2017.

    Like most other former British colonies, the United States shares a rich history of legal concepts and doctrines that have their origins in ancient English law. The area of law generally called “administrative law” especially shares connections with its English common law cousins. Concepts such as mandamus, ministerial duties, and to a later extent, judicial review, all originated in England and were transported to and uniquely evolved in jurisdictions around the world. The vestiges of old English law still resonate throughout modern American law. A case in point is the concept of ministerial duties. Senior government officials in the United States are not called “ministers”, like they are in the United Kingdom, yet officials who run agencies and departments have administrative and decision-making powers and duties that are specified by statute. Many statutory powers and duties grant officials broad discretion in the implementation of policies and decision-making, while other of their duties are completely prescriptive and do not allow for any discretion to be exercised. These latter kinds of duties must be executed precisely in accordance with the legislation that grants the specific official with the power and duty to act. Those duties are termed “ministerial”.

    In practice, a ministerial duty is a very specific statutorily imposed duty or legal responsibility that is mandated on a specific official or specified agency, who must execute the duty or responsibility exactly as the law requires. Such duties are described as “mandatory”, “precise”, “non-discretionary”, “discrete”, and as “leaving no wiggle-room” for the official in the performance of the duty. Ministerial duties are an essential element in ensuring that the rule of law governs official actions and that the application of the law by officials is not arbitrary or capricious. Official actions can be challenged in court for non-compliance with ministerial duties for (a) incorrectly executing the ministerial duty; (b) for entirely failing to act; or (c) for delaying action with respect to a ministerial duty. In short, an agency charged with a ministerial duty has essentially no discretion and must follow the requirements of the very law that empowers that agency.

    Successfully pleading a complaint against an official who is not compliant with a ministerial duty requires a very particularized and detailed structure. Plaintiffs must set out the necessary elements, or risk their lawsuit being dismissed by the court. Above and beyond the typical requirements imposed on all lawsuits to properly plead issues such as jurisdiction, standing, and injury-in-fact, the critical elements of a claim for non-compliance with a ministerial duty must clearly state (a) the specific statutory provision (including the precise text of the statutory provision or provisions) that impose the ministerial duty; (b) the specific official or agency to which the statute mandated the duty; and (c) evidence to show exactly how the official failed to act; failed to comply with the mandatory and precise ministerial duty; or delayed performing the mandated action. Courts never like to tread on the authority of the executive or legislative branches of the government and will refuse to do so unless all of the necessary elements of a claim are properly pleaded.

    The importance of ministerial duties to successfully enforcing the most critical provisions of the JFK Records Act cannot be understated. What we have learned in Part I of this article and what is still to come in this Part II, should make it crystal clear that pursuant to section 9(c)(3)(B) of the Act, the ARRB itself had a mandatory and non-discretionary duty to transmit each of its Final Determination Notifications to the Archivist of the United States, and pursuant to section 5(g)(1) of the Act, the Archivist had a mandatory and non-discretionary duty to implement the ARRB Final Determinations, each of which was a binding and enforceable legal agency final order.

    The Hunt for Copies of ALL ARRB Final Determinations Begins!!!

    In drafting the JFK Records Act, Congress made clear that the overriding purpose of the statute was the complete and timely disclosure of all assassination records so that the American people could for themselves understand the true facts and history of the Kennedy assassination. The ARRB Final Determination Notifications were the pointy end of the legal spear created by Congress to ensure that the records would be released in a timely manner. As we will see below, Congress included provisions in the JFK Records Act that set in place mandated public disclosure of the ARRB’s decisions through the Federal Register and through several other forms of required reporting.

    Given the obvious legal importance of each and every ARRB Final Determination, a reasonable person could very easily be led to believe that Congress would not simply allow for these records to disappear and fall by the wayside…. but hold on….. these are JFK assassination records. Don’t get your hopes up! It will not be as easy as just requesting copies of the Final Determinations from the National Archives (which was the obvious and first step taken in a many months long effort to secure copies of these elusive agency final orders).

    Publication of ARRB Final Decisions

    In order to ensure that the JFK Records Act’s purpose and mandate to create a transparent, accountable and enforceable process for the review and ultimate disclosure of all assassination records was fulfilled, Congress legislated numerous provisions (sic ministerial duties) in the JFK Records Act that mandate precisely how the ARRB was to publish its agency final orders. What effectively amounts to notice provisions in the Act ensured that the Archivist, the originating agencies, the President, Congress, the National Archives, and the public were all to be given effective notice of every ARRB determination.

    In several sections in his Analysis of the JFK Records Act, ARRB Legal Counsel, Jeremy Gunn, correctly parsed out all of the reporting obligations of the ARRB [pp 5-6 and p. 16].

    The JFK Records Act mandated four specific methods through which the ARRB was required to report their decisions:

    1. Publishing notifications of Formal Determinations in the Federal Register;
    2. Issuing notices of Formal Determinations to originating agencies and other officials;
    3. Issuing full written detailed Final Determination orders showing the ARRB’s reasons for their final decisions under the standards of the Act where agencies sought postponement; and
    4. Annual Reporting.

    NOTE the correct distinction made by Dr. Gunn with respect to the separation of Executive Branch records and Legislative Branch records, which will be explained in further detail later in this article.

    1. Federal Registry Notices

    Section 9(c)(4)(A) of the JFK Records Act [below] required the ARRB to publish copies of each of their determinations in the Federal Register within 14 days of issuing the determination. A sample of a Federal Registry notification of Formal Determinations is attached here. As you can see, these are very streamlined and simple notices that only display the name or the agency that originated the record, RIF#s, number of postponements, and the date on which either Periodic Review or Release of the record was ordered by the ARRB. As explained in Part One, Formal Determinations are not Final Determinations, as they lack the detailed reasons for declassification decisions and the precise orders for periodic review or the release of records.

    During its four years of operations, the ARRB dutifully and regularly published notifications of its decisions in this summary format in the Federal Register after each of the Board’s meetings. The public can continue to easily search for these notices at https://www.federalregister.gov/agencies/assassination-records-review-board.

    2. Notice of Formal Determinations

    Section 9(c)(4)(B) [below] required the ARRB to give the President notice of determinations regarding decisions for executive branch records and notice to the respective oversight committee for non-executive (congressional) branch records originating from the House or the Senate. These reports became the ARRB Formal Determination notices.

    A copy of the June 20, 1995, letter to President Clinton giving notice of the very first ARRB Formal Determinations can be seen here, and a letter and notice to the CIA of some of the last ARRB Formal Determinations are attached here. By all accounts, the ARRB was compliant with the requirement to notify the President and Congress of its decisions in this summary fashion, thus providing all government offices and agencies with notice and due process for any appeals of ARRB declassification decisions as provided in the JFK Records Act.

    3. Final Determinations

    In his Analysis, [p. 16, excerpted below] Chief ARRB Legal Counsel Jeremy Gunn also recognized that while the JFK Records Act specified that certain information was to be contained in each of the different reports, for the sake of efficiency, the ARRB would provide the originating agencies and the National Archivist with a more detailed and comprehensive report which became the ARRB Final Determination Notification. This is crucial because only Final Determination Notifications provided the precise reasons under the standards of section 6 of the JFK Records Act for continued classification of a record or redaction, as requested by originating agencies and agreed to by the ARRB, and a final ordered date for periodic review or RELEASE of the record.

    As was discussed in Part One of this article, section 9(c)(3) of the JFK Records Act mandated that the ARRB “shall create and transmit to the Archivist” a detailed “Report” for each record that it postponed the release of a record or information within a record. Only the ARRB Final Determinations contain the detailed written reasons for the postponements, the actions of the Review Board, the originating agencies or government offices, and more importantly the explicit future dates or occurrences that should have triggered the Archivist to conduct the mandatory and non-discretionary periodic review or release of each record according to and consistent with the ARRB’s orders. In a nutshell, the issuance of these Final Determination Notifications established the legal framework for an accountable and enforceable periodic review process under the JFK Act.

    Also in Part One, we learned that it was a large project for the ARRB staff to physically print paper copies of all Final Determinations and attach those copies to each associated assassination record, before the assassination records were transmitted to the National Archives to be catalogued and included in the Collection. We know that this happened and that copies of the ARRB Final Determinations were transmitted with their associated assassination records to the National Archives. Later in this article, I will explain the very concerning current status of the ARRB Final Determinations at the National Archives.

    4. ARRB Annual Reporting

    In addition to the more timely reporting identified above pursuant to the subsections of 9(c), the ARRB was also required to report on its activities annually pursuant to section 9(f) of the Act [below]. Section 9(f) [below] provides that the ARRB shall issue an “Annual” Report regarding all of its activities every 12 months no later than by October 26 (the anniversary of the passage of the JFK Records Act) for each year of its operation.

    Section 9(f)(3)(G) [below] specifically required the ARRB to include in each Annual Report an appendix containing copies of all of the Final Determinations issued during the calendar year of the Report. This is important because the Annual Reports were intended to show the actual work of the ARRB annually on postponement requests made by government offices and agencies. These Reports were to be made fully available to the public.

    Section 9(f) contains a lot of mandatory and non-discretionary language, namely three (3) separate usages of the mandatory word “shall”. The first shall in section 9(f)(1) requires the ARRB to issue a Report regarding all of its activities and says exactly who is to receive a copy of the Report. The second shall in section 9(f)(2) specifies precisely when and how often the Report is to be issued by the ARRB. The third and final shall states exactly what information is required to be included in each Report. The repeated use of the word “shall” and the very precise command to perform discrete actions being placed specifically on the ARRB indicates that the ARRB was being ordered to perform ministerial duties, and that these were not merely suggestions on the part of Congress.

    On page 9 of its Final Report, the ARRB acknowledged its duty to issue an Annual Report, by stating, “Finally, the Act required the Review Board to submit, to the President and Congress, annual reports regarding its work.”

    IMPORTANT NOTE: The “reports” required to be sent to the Archivist under 9(c)(3) (as mentioned in section 9(f)(3)(G)) were the only notifications wherein the ARRB was required to include all of the detailed written reasons for each postponement, the activities of the ARRB and the ordered date or occurrence for the triggering of periodic review or release of the record. 9(c)(3) “Reports” are the ARRB Final Determinations and the ARRB had a mandatory and non-discretionary duty to issue a Report every year during its operations that included an Appendix containing copies of all Final Determinations that it had issued during the year of the Report. Copies of the Reports were to be sent to the leadership of the Congress, the Committee on Government Operations of the House of Representatives, the Committee on Governmental Affairs of the Senate, the President, the Archivist, and the head of any Government office whose records have been the subject of Review Board activity.

    As sections 9(c)(3) and 9(f) of the JFK Records Act clearly show, Congress made certain that copies of all of the ARRB Final Determinations would be sent to the Archivist and the National Archives to be included in the Records Collection and that copies of all ARRB Final Determinations would also be published annually in a separate appendix in the ARRB Annual Reports from 1995 to 1998. Also, as was noted in Part One, the ARRB’s Jeremy Gunn confirmed, the ARRB specifically created the Final Determinations to be public facing and to not contain any classified information, even for records that were ordered postponed from public disclosure. All of the 27,000+ Final Determination Notifications should therefore be available for review by the public, and the Archivist should have been using the ARRB’s software system to diarize the mandated periodic review and release of the records consistent with ARRB’s Final Determinations, right? ………. RIGHT??

    So What Happened?

    Given that section 9(c)(3) clearly imposed a non-discretionary mandatory ministerial duty on the ARRB to create and transmit to the Archivist each ARRB Final Determination for which the associated record was postponed from public disclosure, the first place to look for copies of the Final Determinations would obviously be at the National Archives and Records Administration. This is made all the more sensible because section 7(o)(3) [below] required that all ARRB records be transferred to NARA to be included in the Collection and that no ARRB record shall be destroyed and we know that on its final day of operations, on September 30, 1998, Chet Rhodes was responsible for packaging up and transferring all of the essential computer hardware, harddrives, servers, backup discs, and the Lotus Notes software needed to maintain the entire ARRB Review Track and Final Determination system.

    Internal ARRB records, including email between senior ARRB staff, show that the transmittal of the assassination records to the National Archives could only occur once the ARRB Final Determination Notifications had been physically attached to each assassination record and that this process was an extremely high priority for the ARRB.

    An October 31, 1997 email between ARRB staff members Eileen Sullivan, Joseph Freeman, Kevin Tiernan, Bob Skwirot, and Tom Samoluk shows that the National Archives was not simply a passive recipient of assassination records and ARRB Final Determinations, but was actively monitoring the transfer of records from the ARRB to ensure that each assassination record had an associated ARRB Final Determination Notification physically attached to it when records were transferred to NARA. Martha Murphy was a senior Archives employee, who for many years was deeply involved with the Kennedy Assassination Records Collection.

    Date: 10/31/1997

    From: Eileen Sullivan

    To: Joseph Freeman

    Cc: Kevin Tiernan; Bob Skwirot; Tom Samoluk

    Subject: 2 final determination forms

    Because we received a request after we issued an advisory, 2 HSCA documents were transferred to the Archives ahead of the pack. They are the HSCA deposition transcripts of Rowley and Kelley (180-10115-10111 and 180-10115-10112, respectively.). They were sent to NARA without final determination forms and Martha Murphy called to remind us to send them along. If someone can do this, I will make sure Martha gets them.Thanks!

    An interesting aside… neither RIF#s 180-10115-10111 nor 180-10115-10112 can presently be found on either the National Archives database or on the Mary Ferrell website, although both records were apparently “Released in Full” by the ARRB in July 1997.

    NARA and the Archivist have no excuse not to be fully aware of the ARRB Final Determination Notifications, because the Archivist himself had a non-discretionary mandatory ministerial duty pursuant to section 5(g)(1) of the JFK Records Act to conduct Periodic Review of the postponed assassination records “consistent with” the ARRB’s Final Determinations and pursuant to section 5(g)(2) had a further ministerial duty to publicly disclose such records that were ordered released by the ARRB. The concept of the periodic review process was a very key and prominent part of the JFK Records Act legislation, and the internal ARRB communications clearly show that both ARRB staffers and senior Archives employees knew exactly what they needed to do in order to comply with the periodic review and public disclosure requirements of the Act.

    The quest for the ARRB Final Determination Notifications commenced in early 2021, with basic searches on the internet through the webpages of the Black Vault, Mary Ferrell Foundation and the National Archives. While these resources produced a very small handful of random records, no wider collection of Final Determinations could be found. This led to direct communications with the National Archives in the fall of 2024 and an eventual visit to the Archives campus in College Park Maryland in mid-November 2024, along with fellow researchers Paul Bleau of Quebec City and Jeff Crudele of Florida.

    Andrew Iler, Jeff Crudele and Paul Bleau at the National Archives

    College Park, Maryland – November 20, 2024

    In the lead up to the three-day research trip to NARA in the third week of November 2024, numerous email communications were exchanged with Archives staff to ensure that it was clearly understood that it was the ARRB Final Determinations that were being sought. The Archives’ initial response was to deny the entire request, claiming that the timelines for making an “Advance Pull Request” had not been met. This was incorrect and the Archives staff person eventually capitulated and agreed to pull some (but not all) of the requested records. There was a total refusal to consider pulling any of the Final Determination Notifications for records that remained in the segregated/withheld part of the Collection. This was particularly concerning because ARRB Legal Counsel Jeremy Gunn had expressly advised that all ARRB Final Determinations should be publicly accessible regardless of the status of release of the assassination records themselves. The refusal of the Archives to consider releasing the Final Determinations for records that were postponed from release is also contrary to the entire purposes of the JFK Records Act, that mandate a transparent, accountable and enforceable process for the release of all assassination records.

    Upon arrival at the Archives in College Park, and after signing in and having credentials approved, an elevator took us to the second floor Textual Research Room where a heavy cart containing approximately sixteen grey boxes was wheeled out for me to be taken to a research table, where my high speed scanner and computer were set up. I immediately commenced digging through the contents of the grey boxes, starting from the first box on the top left of the cart and working my way through 6-7 boxes on the top shelf of the cart. As I sifted through the files, I became more and more concerned, as no sign of any ARRB Final Determination Notifications emerged from the musty boxes. By the time I had finished searching the entire second row of boxes, I had become fully disillusioned and more than concerned that I had wasted my time and money travelling to the National Archives.

    What was contained in most of the boxes on the top two shelves of the cart were the summary ARRB Formal Determination notices and Federal Register publications, not the ARRB FINAL Determinations.

    One of many NARA boxes of ARRB FORMAL Determinations.

    Fortunately, there were three boxes left to search on the bottom shelf of the cart and with only two boxes remaining, I quietly, but triumphantly declared “JACKPOT!!” to Paul and Jeff. A box full of ARRB Final Determinations opened like the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

    The only contents inside a grey box confusingly labelled “PRESS AND PUBLIC CONTACTS”, were 450 ARRB Final Determination Notifications, all of them issued by the ARRB in 1996. I immediately started scanning and saving all of the notifications. Mind you, there were supposed to be over 27,000 Final Determination Notifications available for our inspection.

    NARA Box Containing ARRB Final Determinations labelled “PRESS AND PUBLIC CONTACTS”

    Hope of the last boxes containing any of the remaining 26,500+ ARRB Final Determination Notifications turned to despair, as the final box on the cart only contained a dozen or so loose and disorganized Final Determination Notification forms.

    A senior JFK Archivist was questioned about the whereabouts of the rest of the collection of ARRB Final Determinations and about the confusing nature of the box label. He agreed that the label made no sense given the contents of the box. He was unable to provide any explanation or assistance in locating further physical copies of the records or the location of the rest of the ARRB Final Determinations. The Archivist was also questioned about the likelihood of there being an electronic collection of the Final Determinations, but this too led to no productive response. Requests made to other Archives staff also did not produce any additional records or leads.

    After requesting additional boxes of records, which seemed to have the potential to contain Final Determinations and making every effort to ask multiple Archives staff the “right questions in the correct manner”, it was clear that there was no interest on the part of the National Archives to assist in finding either physical or digital copies of the Final Determinations during our visit.

    The grand sum of three days spent at the National Archives was 450 ARRB Final Determinations. This amounts to 1.6667% of the total estimated number of Final Determinations known to be issued by the ARRB as required by JFK Records Act, and required to be properly archived and accessible at NARA. We will circle back to these 450 documents later in this article, as they provide a glimpse into the problems that will become unavoidably clear. The importance of the Final Determinations cannot be emphasized enough, as they reveal the most important work of the ARRB with respect to each assassination record that agencies fiercely sought to postpone the public disclosure through delay, obfuscation, suppression, and other methods.

    With the in-person visit to the National Archives only successful in obtaining 1.6667% of the 27,000 ARRB Final Determinations that are known to exist SOMEWHERE at NARA, and the Archive’s apparent refusal to facilitate access to these critical records, it was obvious that an alternative plan was needed to locate and access these records that by law were required to be made public as part of the JFK Records Act mandate to create a transparent, accountable and enforceable law to ultimately release all Kennedy assassination records.

    “PLAN B” – The Search for ARRB Annual Reports

    As discussed above in detail, under section 9(f) of the JFK Records Act, the ARRB was legally required to issue an Annual Report of its activities each year during its operations between 1994 and 1998. Strictly applied, this would suggest that there should be five ARRB Annual Reports, including reports for both years 1994 and 1998. Section 9(f)(3)(G) of the JFK Records Act added a further legal requirement that each Annual Report include an appendix that contained copies of all section 9(c)(3) “reports” (i.e. ARRB Final Determination Notifications) issued each year. Issuing an Annual Report containing all Final Determination Notifications was a mandatory, non-discretionary ministerial duty imposed on the ARRB by Congress in the JFK Records Act.

    Section 9(f) explicitly ordered the ARRB to send each of its Annual Reports to “the leadership of the Congress, the Committee on Government Operations of the House of Representatives, the Committee on Governmental Affairs of the Senate, the President, the Archivist, and the head of any Government office whose records have been the subject of Review Board activity”. With so many mandated recipients of the ARRB Annual Reports, it should not be a tremendously difficult task to find and obtain copies of all five of the Reports, including complete copies of the mandated appendices containing all of the ARRB Final Determinations. Guess again!!

    Complete copies of the final ARRB Annual Reports (including the full appendices) are extremely elusive documents. There are many draft versions of only the 1995 and 1996 ARRB Reports (without the required appendices) floating around the common repositories of assassination records.

    The first “port of call” to locate copies of the Annual Reports was obviously to the National Archives. Numerous email communications were exchanged with several different Archives staff, specifically requesting copies of the ARRB Annual Reports. While the Archives staff responded to the messages, no responsive Reports or appendices emerged from NARA.

    In an email dated Tuesday, February 18, 2025, an Archives staff person wrote,

    “I could not locate what looked like a complete set of the annual reports in my searches. Unfortunately, the agency did not provide a central index for these electronic records. The files are arranged in folders as created by the agency, and the names of the folders/files can sometimes be helpful for determining the contents of the files. You will likely need to download the files and unzip them in order to search them for records of interest.”

    No copies of Reports for 1994, 1997 or 1998 could be found anywhere. Extensive research for any draft or final Reports for these years turned up nothing. Email communications with the Archives also suggested that there was no evidence of any sign of ARRB Reports from 1994, 1997 or 1998. As a last-ditch effort to determine whether the ARRB issued reports for those three years, contact was made with ARRB Chair Judge John Tunheim and Jeremy Gunn, who both could not recollect whether reports were issued for those years.

    With strong indications that no ARRB Reports were issued for 1994, 1997, or 1998, focus was directed towards only the 1995 and 1996 Reports. The second “port of call” was the Library of Congress in an attempt to locate copies of the Reports mandated to be sent to the House and Senate committees. Searches through the Library’s database and lengthy phone calls with Library staff produced no results and no sign of the Reports existing in the Congressional Library system.

    After several weeks of searching, a tip arrived from Records Guru Joe Backes, and a faint trail eventually led to the Federal Depository Library system and the Law Library at the Pantalena Law Library at Quinnipiac University in New Haven Connecticut. Thanks to the efforts of an amazingly helpful reference librarian, it was determined that the law library had digital copies of the full final published versions of the ARRB Annual Reports for the years 1995 and 1996… including all appendices! The fact that copies of the ARRB Annual Reports for 1995 and 1996, along with their appendices were not made available during the November 2024 visit to NARA is of further concern.

    The 1995 ARRB Annual Report contained in Appendix 1, a full set of 301 ARRB Final Determinations and all Formal Determinations in a second separate appendix. A copy of the List of Appendices taken directly from the 1995 ARRB Report is shown below.

    As mentioned in Part One, the ARRB only commenced reviewing and voting on the release or postponement of assassination records in late June 1995. It appears from an analysis of the 301 Final Determination Notifications from the 1995 Report that the very large majority of the Determinations were regarding postponements or redactions of HSCA Staff Payroll information, which included Social Security Numbers, the disclosure of which would amount to an invasion of personal privacy. This information would also not provide any probative value to the assassination itself, so it appears that many, if not most of the postponements in 1995 were simply an exercise in establishing a policy on accepting the redaction of SSNs and making bulk postponements based on that policy.

    In regard to the ARRB Annual Report for Year 1996, all available draft versions of the 1996 Report include in the List of Appendices separate appendices for both 1. Final Determinations and 2. Formal Determinations, as shown in the example below.

    Strangely however, the final published ARRB Report for the year 1996 does not contain an appendix with all copies of the ARRB Final Determinations. This can be seen in a direct copy of the List of Appendices from the Final 1996 Report below.

    Subsequent to the efforts outlined above, in the late spring of 2025, a formal FOIA/JFK Records Act request specifically requesting all ARRB Final Determination Notifications issued by the Board during its operations between 1994 to 1998 was served on the National Archives and Records Administration. NARA has acknowledged receipt of the request, but has failed to provide an update or a substantive response to the request and has definitely not provided copies of the requested ARRB Final Determinations. Options are being weighed in respect to bringing a lawsuit to seek the court’s intervention to compel the National Archives to comply with the law and to release records that were made public almost thirty years ago, and by law were to be the basis of the Archivist of the United States’ ministerial duties to conduct periodic review of the ARRB Final Determinations and to release postponed assassination records in accordance with the final agency orders of the ARRB (which, again, were not overruled by President Clinton or any of his successors).

    In a recent email communication received from the National Archives dated June 13, 2025, an Archives staff person denied that the Archives had a set of copies of ARRB Final Determinations. This would appear to contradict the massive weight of documentary evidence that shows that the ARRB transferred both paper copies of all 27,000+ Final Determination Notifications to NARA when the records were transmitted to NARA and access to digital copies of the ARRB Final Determinations made available by the ARRB Press Officers and by the ARRB Computer Specialist Chet Rhodes, who confirmed that all ARRB data and records, and the entire ARRB computer system and harddrives (containing all ARRB Final Determination Notifications) were transferred to NARA when the ARRB wound up its operations on September 30, 1998.

    The trail of the ARRB Final Determinations ran completely cold with the locating and obtaining of the additional 301 Final Determinations from the 1995 ARRB Annual Report. This brought the total number of obtained copies of the Final Determinations to approximately 751, or 2.7815% of the 27,000 notifications issued by the ARRB.

    That leaves approximately 26,250 ARRB Final Determinations unaccounted for, and the National Archives is ignoring this serious problem without rational or legal justification.

    Back to the Big Picture

    At this stage, it might be worth taking a few steps back to put the big picture into some perspective. Even those with a mid-level knowledge of the assassination have known for a long time that the ARRB existed in the 1990s and reviewed and released thousands of assassination records. Most of this group of researchers also understand that the JFK Records Act required most, if not all of the assassination records to be publicly released by October 2017. Perhaps a slightly smaller number of researchers have heard of the periodic review process that was mandated by the JFK Records Act to ensure some kind of steady release after the ARRB wound up in 1998. What is surprising however, is how very few serious or expert researchers fully comprehended the legal framework created by the JFK Records Act that governed precisely how the mandated periodic review and release of records processes were actually legally required to happen between the cessation of the ARRB’s operations in September 1998 and the ultimate records release deadline on October 26, 2017. Do not feel (too) badly if you are in this later group of researchers. Without having access to, or being aware of the existence of the ARRB Final Determination Notifications or the legal basis for these absolutely critical agency final orders, there is nothing but a fuzzy notion that releases that were supposed to happen mysteriously just did not.

    When Congress enacted the JFK Records Act, it did not simply leave the periodic review and release of records to chance. Congress very clearly mandated that the ARRB would have the legal authority to issue binding and enforceable agency final orders. The Act also imposed a mandatory, non-discretionary ministerial duty on the Archivist of the United States to strictly comply with the ARRB’s agency final orders and to strictly implement the ordered periodic review and release of the assassination records “consistent with” the ARRB’s Final Determinations. As explained below from our findings in small samples of random Final Determinations that have been obtained, these duties were not complied with, resulting in mass confusion and years of delays without any legal justification.

    As of today’s date, the National Archives have produced only one box of 450 ARRB Final Determination Notifications (potentially by mistake). This box was labelled “PRESS AND PUBLIC CONTACTS” which rendered its contents virtually unsearchable in the Archives’ Catalog. The Archives have failed to respond to a legally served FOIA/JFK Records Act request for copies of the ARRB Final Determinations, and as late as Friday, June 13, 2025, the National Archives has claimed to have been unable to locate any set of ARRB Final Determinations. How is this all possible? Only the Archivist under oath can answer this question.

    What We Found In the Sample of 750 ARRB Final Determinations

    In the weeks following the in-person visit to the National Archives in November 2024, with researcher and author Paul Bleau, an interactive and shareable database was created, containing embedded copies of all of the obtained ARRB Final Determinations, along with the latest available copies of the associated assassination records and data from these records. Especially given the celebration in the media over various “releases” by Presidents Trump and Biden starting in 2018, we felt it particularly important to be able to view and compare the specific periodic review and release dates ordered in the ARRB Final Determinations directly side-by-side with the latest releases of the associated assassination records. This side-by-side analysis would easily show whether the ARRB’s orders had been implemented by the Archivist of the United States, who had a mandatory non-discretionary ministerial duty pursuant to section 5(g)(1) of the JFK Records Act to comply with each the 27,000+ ARRB agency final orders that have been hidden away for almost thirty (30) years at the National Archives.

    A detailed review of the 450 ARRB Final Determinations obtained at the National Archives in November 2024 shows that the ARRB issued a large number of Final Determinations in 1996, ordering records RELEASED IN FULL by January 2006. The associated assassination records clearly show that despite being ordered RELEASED IN FULL in January 2006, the records remained withheld from public disclosure beyond 2017, with a small number of records continuing to be withheld from public disclosure into 2025. The term “Release in Full” means exactly what it states in plain English – fully released to the public with no redactions.

    An unambiguous example of such unlawful withholding of the release of an assassination record is demonstrated by assassination record RIF# 104-10016-10021. This CIA SECRET record, dated December 1963 from Melbourne and addressed to the Director of Central Intelligence, was ordered to be fully released by January 2006 in the ARRB Final Determination dated April 18, 1996. Copies of the ARRB Final Determination and the assassination record are reproduced below, but can be seen in finer detail by clicking the hyperlinks above. This assassination record was only just released in March 2025, a delay of almost 19 years.

    ARRB Final Determination Notification RIF# 104-10016-10021

    ————————————————————————-

    Assassination Record RIF# 104-10016-10021

    A majority of the 450 ARRB Final Determination Notifications that ordered records to be released January 2006, appear to have been withheld 15-19 years beyond their mandated January 2006 release date, with no sign of periodic review having been conducted, with no record of written reasons justifying the delay of the releases, with no record of Presidential certification authorizing further postponement, and with no public notice of any actions taken to further postpone the releases, all of which are requirements under the JFK Records Act. The Archivist should be immediately questioned under oath by Congressional oversight committees on this inexplicable delay and disregard of the ARRB’s final orders for full release in 2006, which were not overruled by Presidential Certification by President Clinton, who was the only President with the time limited authority to override ARRB Final Determinations. In doing so, the same oversight committees could properly question the Archivist on the 26,500+ ARRB Final Determinations that exist but cannot be located at the National Archives by even the most diligent of researchers.

    CONCLUSION

    Serial Negligence… Or the Mechanics of Suppression?

    Part I of this article set out to detail the long ignored legal framework governing the handling of assassination records under the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act, 1992, including the mandate of the Assassination Records Review Board, which was the independent federal agency granted the authority to collect, review, and postpone the release or release assassination records under the strict standards of the Act.

    Readers were introduced to the surprisingly obscure, but critically important document called an “Assassination Records Review Board Final Determination Notification”, which by any and all standards meets the definition of a legal agency final order.

    We now fully understand for the first time that President Clinton approved a Memorandum of Understanding with the Assassination Records Review Board, that clearly agrees that the President would only issue written certifications to override ARRB Final Determinations, and that if no override certification was issued by the President within the 30-day time limit imposed by the Act, that each ARRB Final Determination would become the final, binding and enforceable legal order governing the disposition of the associated assassination record. The ARRB Final Report confirms that President Clinton did not issue any certifications overriding any ARRB Final Determination.

    There is conclusive evidence from internal ARRB memos, email, interviews, and other communications that tens of thousands of Final Determinations were created and issued by the ARRB between June 20, 1995 and September 30, 1998. And we know from the same sources that each ARRB Final Determination was physically attached in paper form to each assassination record before both both records were transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration facility in College Park Maryland, where the Archivist had the legal duty to catalog and index each record into the Assassination Records Collection.

    ARRB Chief Legal Counsel and Executive Director of the ARRB confirmed in writing that every ARRB Final Determination was created to be publicly released, regardless of whether the associated assassination record was postponed from release or not, and that all ARRB Final Determinations should be maintained by the National Archives and accessible to the public.

    We also now know through ARRB Computer Specialist, Chet Rhodes, that the entire ARRB computer system, harddrives, databases, and Lotus Notes software, along with written instructions on how to operate and maintain the system and data (including ARRB Final Determination Notifications) were carefully packaged up and delivered to the National Archives at the completion of the ARRB’s mandated period of operations on September 30, 1998.

    In this Part II, we have further expanded the understanding of the legal concept of ministerial duties and how they were applied throughout the JFK Records Act to ensure that the mandated transparency, accountability and enforceability processes were in place to guarantee the full and complete release of all assassination records.

    Part II also provides significant details regarding the crucial importance that Congress placed on the ARRB giving notice of each of its decisions to the President, Congress, originating agencies, and to the public. This included publishing copies of each ARRB Final Determination in a specific appendix to each Annual Report that the ARRB was mandated by law to issue each year of its operations. The notification process also extended to the ARRB’s mandatory, non-discretionary ministerial duty to provide the National Archivist with copies of all ARRB Final Determinations and to transfer to the National Archives all ARRB records (including Final Determinations) on the completion of the ARRB’s mandate on September 30, 1998.

    So much of the story of the assassination and the available public record from the multiple investigations revolves around inexplicable and unconvincing series of errors, omissions, mistakes and oversights. This is particularly true when it comes to the specific area of the assassination records and their full and timely disclosure, as mandated by the clear language of the JFK Records Act and the additional mandates contained in more than 27,000 ARRB Final Determinations.

    The fact that almost 98% of the approximately 27,000 Final Determination Notifications issued by the ARRB are still buried at the National Archives and have not seen the sunlight for almost thirty (30) years is a massive problem. The very apparent refusal by the National Archives to provide public access to these records or to even acknowledge their full existence is an affront to the public and should demand serious scrutiny by those committees of Congress that were mandated the authority to conduct oversight of the JFK Records Act and the review and release of all of the assassination records.

    The full scope of non-compliance with the ARRB Final Determinations, and the JFK Records Act in general, will not be unassessable so long as over 26,000 of the agency final orders remain withheld from the public. The fact is that the bulk of the ARRB Final Determinations were issued in 1997 and 1998, and to date, not one Final Determination from either of these years has been made publicly accessible.

    The JFK Records Act was unanimously passed by Congress as a result of the large-scale public outcry regarding the secrecy surrounding the assassination records and the withholding of millions of pages of records for decades after the event. Releasing the assassination records was a priority in the early 1990s, and with the passage of another 30 years, the excuses in 2025 are even more tenuous and unjustifiable in both law and in the spirit of democracy.

    How can the U.S. Government certify that full and timely disclosure has been met when the most important work of the ARRB has been buried and ignored at the National Archives? The diligent work by the ARRB, an independent agency, deals with the very records that the agencies have fought so hard to postpone. How have the agencies been permitted to continue holding back disclosure when Congress acted emphatically with the JFK Records Act in 1992, when the ARRB issued final orders on declassification, when the agencies have had due process and an opportunity to appeal ARRB agency final orders, and when the President has not issued ANY certification overruling the ARRB on any of its decisions?

    What remains unclear is whether either President Trump or President Biden were made aware that over 27,000 agency final orders on postponements were issued by the ARRB in the 1990s. Section 9(d)(1) of the JFK Records Act only permitted a 30-day period for the President to override ARRB Final Determinations. Once that 30-day period ended, the appeal period expired and the ARRB agency final orders became binding and enforceable. It would seem to be arbitrary and capricious for a president, thirty years later, to come along and apply lesser standards (or no standards at all) to override decisions that were made final decades ago. As Jeremy Gunn stated, the period has “long tolled”. Add to this that no adequate written reasons under the JFK Records Act were provided for any of President Trump or Biden’s postponements, that would allow for any appeal or judicial review.

    It would create a legal absurdity to interpret any section of the JFK Records Act to suggest that Congress could somehow impose lesser or no standards for postponement over sixty years after the assassination, when there were such high standards for postponement imposed in the 1990s. Congressional task forces and oversight committees should act now and investigate the status of the ARRB Final Determinations at the National Archives. There are living witnesses who can provide the facts and complete the record.

    The fact that the entire ARRB computer platform was transferred to the National Archives in September 1998, along with instructions on how to maintain the Review Track/Lotus Notes software and database of records, which included calendar notifications and the ARRB Final Determinations, but the National Archives apparently took no steps to maintain it, is very seriously problematic…. perhaps bordering on gross negligence.

    Since the ARRB Final Determination orders have not been publicly released or transparently catalogued by the National Archives, it has been virtually impossible for anyone to seek enforcement of the ARRB’s orders through judicial review, as the JFK Records Act expressly permits.

    Leading up to the statutory deadline of October 26, 2017, both the Archivist of the United States and the Office of Legal Counsel advised President Trump on aspects of the JFK Records Act and the status of the Kennedy Assassination Records Collection. It appears that none of the correspondence or memoranda furnished to President Trump identified the tens of thousands of detailed ARRB Final Determinations ordering the review and release of records that were issued 20 years earlier. Instead, it has become apparent that the ARRB Orders have been suppressed and by all appearances (until now) overlooked and ignored at the Archives.

    When President Biden took office in 2021, he inherited the omnibus postponement of records certified by President Trump. It appears that President Biden too was not advised that the ARRB had previously issued tens of thousands of detailed Final Determinations for each assassination record, that even President Clinton did not overrule, including specific detailed “plans” for the release or review of each record. Even worse, when President Biden issued his “final memoranda” regarding the JFK records in 2023, he put the control over the records back in the hands of the originating executive branch agencies, which is completely contrary to the intent and provisions of the JFK Records Act.

    The entire purpose of the JFK Records Act was to take the power to withhold the assassination records completely out of the hands of the originating agencies. Those agencies had due process and opportunities for appeal under the JFK Act. The only thing left to do is locate the ARRB’s Final Determinations and ensure that the Archivist follows those final agency orders. The agencies should have no role in that process whatsoever – not in 2025, and not under any provisions of the JFK Act or other applicable law when it comes to assassination records.

    The good news is that the Archivist can be held accountable today and to provide an explanation under oath for what happened to the ARRB Final Determinations and to account for the National Archives actions or inaction to implement the ARRB’s lawful and binding orders for the review and/or release of assassination records. Congress, which has oversight of the JFK Records Act, has the authority to command the compliance of the National Archivist regarding the JFK assassination records. With the assistance of Congresswoman Luna’s Task Force and support from President Trump himself, the mandate of the JFK Records Act can still be achieved.

    For almost 30 years, scholars, researchers, journalists, and politicians knew that there was a serious breakdown in the periodic review process and release of the postponed assassination records, but it was not understood precisely where this breakdown occurred. The discovery and analysis of the ARRB Final Determination Notifications provide a clear view of what happened to delay the release of assassination records, and ultimately, where responsibility lies.

    The extreme and unjustified delay in the public disclosure of these assassination records, already approved for release by the ARRB and the office of the President over the last 30 years, has prevented timely investigation of relevant leads in the case and has prevented the public from understanding the full nature of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Under the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act, 1992, Congress has statutorily mandated duties of oversight with respect to the Act and the release of the records. Congress has not conducted any meaningful oversight of the Archivist’s duties under the JFK Records Act, despite the very high level of continuing public interest in the case and particularly in the handling of the still secret trove of assassination files. This should be an obvious priority going forward for any congressional investigation.

    Click here to read part 1.

  • Unheard: The Silence of the MSM on the Luna Hearings

    Matt Douhit reports on the news that the MSM did not want to disperse to the public.  The second Luna hearing has some very important people, informing the public of many key things about the JFK case that they never heard before and were never told to Congress.

    Unheard: The Silence of the MSM on the Luna Hearings

    By Matt Douthit

     

    We’ve come to the point where 62 years after the crime of the century—finally, its most important testimony has been given to the highest inquest chamber in the land—only for two news outlets to pick it up. Ultimately, the New York Post and NewsNation are just reporting the news and have turned the page. But this JFK assassination hearing before the House Oversight Committee could be colossal in getting us to the final turn in the maze…a new honest investigation.

    Testifying via ZOOM, 90-year-old Abraham Bolden—the first black Secret Service agent, handpicked by JFK himself—gave his knowledge of a prior Chicago assassination attempt. Skeptics might say Bolden is “the only source” for this—but it’s supported by six other plots that failed. Skeptics have also gone ad hoc: “Now, of course, memories fade over time…Might Bolden have been conflating the Vallee story with [a 1963] rumor?” When basically all you have left is the old shibboleth, “memories are unreliable” excuse—then you have no case. Bolden was railroaded for trying to tell the truth, was imprisoned, the key witness against him later admitted they lied to get the conviction, and Bolden was subsequently pardoned by President Biden. And Jim Douglass corroborated the Chicago Plot story in his fine book, JFK and the Unspeakable.

    Also testifying was 88-year-old Dr. Don Curtis, one of the physicians who tried to save JFK’s life. He had the courage—to stand up—and say in public—under oath—in front of the world—what all the other Parkland doctors did not do: “The wounds I saw were not consistent with the government’s conclusion Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.” Dr. Charles Crenshaw came close with his 1992 book, Conspiracy of Silence, but Dr. Curtis finally did it. Curtis also revealed that neurosurgeon Dr. Kemp Clark told him he saw an entry wound in the temple. Skeptics might point out this detail is absent from the autopsy report—but it’s supported by 17 other eyewitnesses who saw it. In fact, as the late Don Thomas graphically pointed out via magnified photos one of the autopsy photos—the infamous “Stare of Death”–does indeed indicate this. A frontal shot, of course, disproves the official story.

    Another witness was Doug Horne, former Assassination Records Review Board staff member, who rang the bell on missing autopsy materials, from bullet fragments to photos and X-rays. Skeptics, of course, will be skeptical—but it’s supported by sworn witnesses, the authorized book The Day Kennedy Was Shot and the official inventory itself. The inventory tells us the National Archives once held 29 X-rays, 73 B&W photos, 55 color photos, blocks of tissue sections, 119 slides, and the brain. All that’s there now are 52 photos and 14 X-rays!

    Horne left us with these powerful, thought-provoking words: “You don’t change the autopsy conclusions four different times within 2 weeks after the President’s death if a lone nut killed the President.”

    Next to Horne sat Judge John Tunheim, former head of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB). He, along with Dan Hardway, former staff member on the House Select Committee on Assassinations(HSCA), laid out what they described as actions by the CIA to obstruct their investigations. In regards to the now infamous George Joannides file, skeptics have avowed: “But the ARRB looked at it and found nothing of relevance to the JFK assassination.” However, Judge Tunheim addressed this very point: “The CIA misled us…What we got was something very small…The staff was told that was all they had on Joannides, which is clearly incorrect.”

    Perhaps the biggest question garnered from the hearing is this: If the Joannides file “does not contain any material relevant to the JFK assassination,” as skeptics claim, then why is it suddenly missing and can’t be found?

    Another voice heard that day was presidential historian Alexis Coe, who made a dissenting declaration: “As far as the files—no hidden truths, no real disclosures, no shocking revelations.” This is a vastly different conclusion from what JFK historian Jefferson Morley had announced 2 months before: “There’s a bombshell in here. The National Archives released the declassified testimony of James Angleton—the counterintelligence chief—from 1975. And this document indicates that Angleton recruited Oswald as a CIA source or contact, that he monitored Oswald’s movements, political contacts and personal life for 4 years, that he had a 180-page file on Oswald on his desk when the President left for Dallas. So, this is a big breakthrough, there’s definitely a bombshell.” (Piers Morgan Uncensored, YouTube, 3/20/25)

    Ms. Coe did raise an important point: “There is so much concern about coverups with the CIA when it comes to Kennedy, and I don’t see that same concern being translated to Martin Luther King and to his records. It feels like Hoover 2.0.” But it was at this important moment that she was cut off. Will the King case be explored by the Luna Committee? Two good witnesses would be Judge Joe Brown and author John Avery Emison.

    Judge Tunheim left us with these words: “I’d like to see a time when everything has been released, unredacted. It’s 60-something years since the assassination. The assassination was closer to World War I than we are to the assassination. Let’s release the materials, and that’s my plea here, is just get everything out, let people decide what they want.”

    The truth hasn’t spoken its final word—another hearing is not optional; it’s essential.

    (The second hearing may be viewed here)

  • Oswald, Beckley and the Tippit Wallet, Part 2

    John Washburn concludes his essay on when the police arrived at 1026 Beckley, why they covered up the early time of arrival, and how they knew Oswald was there.

    Oswald, Beckley and the Wallet, Part 2

    By John Washburn

     

    Would Dallas Police make things up?

    There are no leaps of faith here if dishonesty – and worse – in the Dallas police in 1963 isn’t a presumption but a fact.

    As late as 1973, DPD Officer Darrell Lee Cain shot 12-year-old Santos Rodriguez while conducting live round Russian roulette on him and his 13-year-old brother in an attempt to force a confession from them.

    This piece from Warren Commission apologist David Von Pein assumes that all Dallas Police could be trusted.

    “But do people like Jim DiEugenio actually want to believe that the Dallas Police Department, after having found a wallet on 10th Street that some conspiracists think was planted there by either the DPD or somebody else, would have NOT SAID A WORD about finding Oswald’s wallet in any of their police reports?”

    Unfortunately, the answer to this question is yes.

    There’s a very good reason why a wallet planted prematurely might disappear and be hushed up, i.e., if it messed up the planting of evidence at 1026 N. Beckley by a small clique within the DPD, which had then caused regular officers to search 1026 N. Beckley and find nothing in Oswald’s actual room.

    Once the Katzenbach Memorandum was acted upon as a political objective, the DPD, FBI, and all other agencies had not merely carte blanche to cover up but a command to do so. Hence, the post-event pressure on Earlene Roberts. As a result of pressure on FBI agents and the rest of the investigatory establishment.

    The Von Pein position is lacking in political context as well as evidence.

    Anyone who reads the evidence in the Warren Commission report properly will find discrepancies in timings, obscured events, Freudian slips, over-embellishment of accounts, and stories that lack basic credibility.

    Belin, in particular, had a habit of interrupting at the very point someone was saying something that would now be described as “off-message”.

    I set out in my Death of Tippit articles at Kennedys and King to show how muddled and full of fancy were the accounts of Sgt. Gerry Hill, Captain William Westbrook, and Reserve Sgt. Croy, as to how they got to the Tippit murder scene, and then the Texas Theater. I show the placing of a strip over an evidence report, which masked that Captain Westbrook had found a ‘gray’ jacket after 1:30 pm, which police radio reported as found around 1:20 pm as a white jacket. Also, Westbrook’s exhibit in monochrome appears gray, but a color version shows tan.

    I also set out on K&K to show that the police tapes were altered, including a fake call at 12:45 pm, which covered up the fact that Tippit had been at the Gloco filling station.

    Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade stated this to the Commission, Volume V, regarding Captain Fritz, the head of homicide for the DPD.

    “I don’t know what the relations-the relations are better between Curry and Fritz than between Hanson and Fritz, who was his predecessor. But Fritz runs a kind of a one-man operation there where nobody else knows what he is doing. Even me, for instance, he is reluctant to tell me, either, but I don’t mean that disparagingly. I will say Captain Fritz is about as good a man at solving a crime as I ever saw, to find out who did it but he is poorest in the getting evidence that I know, and I am more interested in getting evidence, and there is where our major conflict comes in.”

    There’s another term for ‘solving’ crime without sufficient evidence. It’s called fitting people up. Particularly serious in a state with the death penalty.

    The searches, and full or not full

    Officers, at that stage, looking for someone on the run, having shot a police officer and discarding an Eisenhower jacket whilst running away would have information and incentive to search any room occupied by any young man who could fit that description, which is just what Arthur Johnson described (Vol. 10, p. 305).

    Mr. Belin. Well, let me backtrack a minute, now. How soon after you got home did the police come—approximately?

    Mr. Johnson. I’d say within 30 minutes.

    Mr. Belin. All right. 30 minutes after you got home, the police came. And what did the police say to you?

    Mr. Johnson. They asked if—uh—we had anyone by that name living there.

    Mr. Belin. By the name of Lee Harvey Oswald?

    Mr. Johnson. Yes.

    Mr. Belin. And what did you tell them?

    Mr. Johnson. We told them, “No.”

    Mr. Belin. All right. And then what did they say?

    Mr. Johnson. Well, they wanted to see the rooms. They had described his age, his build, and so forth, and we had two more boys rooming there. Uh—and my wife was going to let them see the rooms.

    Mr. Belin. Your wife was going to let them see the rooms that you had—and you had a total of 17 roomers, I believe you said?

    Mr. Johnson. Well, no. I don’t know just how many roomers we had. We have 17 bedrooms—but I don’t know just, at that time, how many roomers we had.

    But, anyway, we had a couple of boys around his age that had moved in just a few days before, and, so, she was going to let them see their rooms.

    There is clearly a sensitivity about his wife letting them see the rooms. Which I assume is provoked by the warrant issue. There was also another distraction and a leading question from Belin, stating, “You had 17 roomers”. That was misrepresenting what Arthur Johnson had earlier (page 302) stated: that they hadn’t been fully booked in the last six months.

    BELIN. About how many people do you have that room there?
    Mr. JOHNSON. Well, when it’s full, we have 17.
    Mr. BELIN. Has it been full within the past 6 months at all, or not?
    Mr. JOHNSON. No, no, it hasn’t
    Mr. BELIN. By the way, how long have you been married, Mr. Johnson?
    Mr. JOHNSON. Seventeen years.
    Mr. BELIN. You’ve been married 17 years    ?

    Gladys Johnson said it hadn’t been full in October 1964. Arthur did with the above, emphatically. “No, no. It hasn’t”. Belin changed the subject by asking inanely how long the Johnsons had been married, as if he were a chat show host.

    But Belin also made a logical error regarding the math. If the official line was correct, for the place to be full, if “Room 0” was taken, then there would have been 18 roomers. That isn’t merely full, it’s overfull. Oswald would then come back when one had moved out, making it overfull again. Neither of the Johnsons testified fully, let alone overfully.

    Having said what he said above, Arthur Johnson then indicated the searches had already progressed.

    Mr. Belin. All right. And then what happened?

    Mr. Johnson. Well, I saw his picture on television and I hollered at them and told them. They were out in the back, started around the house to the—uh—basement where these boys room. The bedrooms are all in the basement. And they were going back there.

    And—uh—I just called them and told them, I said, “Why, it’s this fellow that lives in here.”

    Mr. Belin. You told them that you had seen the picture of this man on television?

    If I am correct in my assumption that the lack of a warrant was used as a lever to make up a story, then this exchange is evidence of it. Johnson seems to be describing a search of the rear annex as well as the basement. If officers in hot pursuit arrived even as late as 2:00 pm, then police arriving at 3:00 pm after the arrest of Oswald wouldn’t have hampered the search, which started over an hour earlier.

    Note, Belin also made yet another inane interjection, repeating what Johnson had said, rather than challenging what Johnson was saying.

    Earlene Roberts, in this exchange, revealed more irregularities in several ways.

    Mr. BALL. After he left the house and at sometime later in the afternoon, these police officers came out, did they?

    Mrs. ROBERTS. Well, yes.

    Mr. BALL. And they asked you if there was a man named Lee Oswald there?

    Mrs. ROBERTS. Yes.

    Mr. BALL. And you told them “No”?

    Mrs. ROBERTS. Yes.

    Mr. BALL. Then what happened after that?

    Mrs. ROBERTS. Well, he was trying to make us understand that—I had two new men and they told me-Mrs. Johnson told me, “Go get your keys and let them see in” I had gone to the back and they still had the TV on, and they was broadcasting about Kennedy.

    Just as I unlocked the doors Fritz’ men, two of them had walked in and she come running in and said, “Oh, Roberts, come here quick. This is this fellow Lee in this little room next to yours,” and they flashed him on television, is how come us to know. Mr. BALL. Then you knew it was the man?

    Mrs. ROBERTS. Yes; and I come in there and she said, “Wait,” and then again they flashed him back on and I said, “Yes, that’s him-that’s O. H. Lee right here in this room.” And it was just a little wall there between him and I.

    Mr. BALL. That was the first you knew who it was?

    Mrs. ROBERTS. Yes, because he was registered as O. H. Lee.

    Mr. BALL. Did you ever know he had a gun in his room?

    Mrs. ROBERTS. No; I sure did not.

    The line “Go get your keys and let them see in.” with “as I unlocked the doors”, goes entirely against the line Room 0 was only of interest only after Fritz’s officers arrived at 3:00 pm and only accessed with a warrant after 4:30 pm.

    But she also revealed there were the officers who first arrived, asking for Lee Oswald, then ‘two new men’ with the unlocking of doors, and then the Fritz men, who were Potts and Senkel, arriving at 3:00 pm.

    But if the police did turn up looking for Lee Harvey Oswald and she really did have a current guest called Mr. OH Lee, and there was already a description of a young man who looked like him it wouldn’t take a TV appearance much later for “oh it’s O.H. Lee”, to trigger the connection with Room 0, the small room next to hers without a lock.

    But that is just what Potts described.

    Mr. POTTS. 1026 North Beckley.
    Mr. BALL. What happened when you got there?
    Mr. POTTS. We got there and we talked to this Mrs.–I believe her name was Johnson.
    Mr. BALL Mrs. A. C. Johnson?
    Mr. POTTS. Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Roberts.
    Mr. BALL. Earlene Roberts?
    Mr. POTTS. Yes; and they didn’t know a Lee Harvey Oswald or an Alex Hidell either one and they couldn’t–they just didn’t have any idea who we were talking about, so the television–it is a rooming house, and there was a television—-
    Mr. BALL. Did you check their registration books?
    Mr. POTTS. Yes, sir; we looked at the registration book–Senkel, I think, or Cunningham–well, we all looked through the registration book and there wasn’t anyone by that name, and the television was on in the living room. There’s an area there where the roomers sit, I guess it’s the living quarters–it flashed Oswald’s picture on there and one of the women, either Mrs. Roberts or Mrs. Johnson said, “That’s the man that lives here. That’s Mr. Lee—O.H. Lee.” She said, “His room is right here right off of the living room.”
    Senkel or Cunningham, one of them, called the office and they said that Turner was en route with a search warrant and we waited there until 4:30 or 5 that afternoon. We got out there about 3.
    Mr. BALL. You waited there in the home?
    Mr. POTTS. We waited there in the living quarters.
    Mr. BALL. You did not go into the small room that had been rented by Lee?
    Mr. POTTS. No; we didn’t–we didn’t search the room at all until we got the warrant.
    Mr. BALL. Who brought the warrant out?
    Mr. POTTS. Judge David Johnston.

    It’s one thing for one detective not to spot “Lee” if he was in the register, as OH Lee, or Lee Harvey Oswald, but for all three detectives to miss it as well? It doesn’t end there.

    Arthur Johnson testified he’d spotted Oswald on TV.  But Potts testified he was there when “one of the women” spotted Oswald on TV.  Roberts testified “she” (Mrs. Johnson) saw Oswald on TV whilst Roberts was “unlocking doors” with police officers. 

    There is a pattern of indicating doors were almost unlocked and almost opened. Any belief in the story that they were watching TV at 1026 N. Beckley for the “oh, it’s OH Lee” moment also has to contend with this memo from Hubert and Griffin of March 6, 1964, to Rankin. 

    “Her [Earlene Roberts’] failure to notify the police of Oswald’s residence at the N. Beckley address. (Mrs. Johnson apparently called the police from a different address immediately upon seeing Oswald’s picture on TV but Roberts who was watching TV at the N. Beckley address, did not).”

    With that, the TV part of the story collapses as well.

    When was the OH Lee name made up? If so, when?

    None of the attending parties on 22 November 1963, with the warrant at 4:30 pm, referred to OH Lee.

    The testimony of Fay Turner, Vol VII, taken at 2:30 pm on April 3, 1964, made no mention of OH Lee. He actually referred, as did Earlene Roberts in her 5 December 1963 affidavit, to Lee Oswald.

    Mr. TURNER. Well, Detective Moore was in the office. He and I got a car and drove down by the, back down to the sheriff’s office, and when we got there, Judge Johnston and one of the assistant district attorneys, Bill Alexander, was standing on the front steps waiting for us, because someone got ahold of him by phone and told them I was on the way.
    Mr. BELIN. Was that Detective H.M. Moore?
    Mr. TURNER. Yes, sir.
    Me r. BELIN. Then what did you do?
    Mr. TURNER. We went on over, the four of us–me, Detective Moore, Judge Johnston, and Mr. Alexander–went over to 1026 North Beckley where this Lee Oswald had a room in it.
    Mr. BELIN. You went over there on November 22?
    Mr. TURNER. Yes, sir.

    Turner not only failed to refer to OH Lee, but he also used the emphasis “this Lee Oswald”. By 3 April 1964, Oswald was known globally as Lee Harvey Oswald.

    Belin seems to have picked up on that slip and responded with yet another irrelevant change of the subject. It’s plainly obvious Turner is talking about the day of the assassination. Furthermore, Fay Turner was accompanied to 1026 by Officer Henry Moore; his testimony, Vol. VII, taken at 11:00 a.m. on April 3, 1964, again made no mention of OH Lee.

    The same goes for the Judge, David L Johnson, who arrived at 1026 with Turner, Moore and Deputy DA Bill Alexander. He made no mention of OH Lee when he testified on 26 June 1964, Volume XV. It would be a highly relevant point of law to search the room of someone registered under a different name from that on the warrant. Alexander did not testify.

    Earlene Roberts didn’t use the term OH Lee in her December 5, 1963, FBI affidavit. The comprehensive index of names which appear in FBI statements has hundreds of references, but the only reference to ‘OH’ Lee is for her statement. But in that affidavit, she said she took the reservation. In her Commission testimony, she had said Roberts did it. The affidavit makes no reference to any of the events at 1026 on 22 November.

    Arthur Johnson is listed in the Earlene Roberts file, in a memorandum from Norman Redlich as making an FBI report to Agent “Gamberling” (Gemberling) on 30 November 1963, which refers to OH Lee., But that record seems to be missing. The Redlich memorandum refers to Arthur Johnson telling the FBI on seeing Oswald on TV, which runs counter to Warren Commission testimonies and the reports of police officers Potts and Senkel–which omit the FBI–only referring to Johnson telling the police at 1026.

    So, by Monday, 25 November 1963, the name OH Lee had only appeared in the incident reports of Potts and Senkel and the FBI statement of Gladys Johnson.

    The Potts and Senkel statements are far from contemporaneous. They are undated, are typed as one document and refer to Ruby shooting Oswald. That dates them to late 24 November at the earliest.

    The Dallas Morning News made no mention of OH Lee on November 22, 23, or 24. Things stayed that way until April 1, 1964, when parties came to testify. By which time Roberts and Arthur Johnson had used it, and Gladys Johnson brought the slip but not the register, having changed her story about who had taken the booking.

    Was Oswald even using an alias at 1026?

    There are two possibilities. Oswald was registered at 1026 in his real name, or he was not.

    To me, the best indication that he did use his own name is the fact that the name in the planted wallet was Lee Harvey Oswald. Then there is what I have set out above, which includes the phone call to Gladys Johnson from her daughter as Oswald was being arrested.

    The only other evidence for an alias is Ruth Paine saying she called 1026 and asked for Lee Harvey Oswald, and they didn’t know who he was. But why give her the phone number if he was there under a false name? His daughter was born on 20 October 1963 whilst he was living there. A good reason to be contactable.

    Why would the name OH Lee be made up? That’s simple, it would create a cover story for why those officers who first attended had not looked in the right place the first time around.

    A benefit of pretending Oswald was using the name OH Lee is that it also creates smog, given that there was an unconnected Herbert Lee who had moved out. It seems to have confused Gladys Johnson when she testified. In short, there are no consistent accounts of who saw what and when, and who said what to whom. The only consistency is the irregularity.

    Why did Earlene Roberts leave overnight?

    The Warren Commission file makes clear that Griffin and Hubert not only didn’t believe Roberts but saw her as a potential conspirator. The result of the March 6, 1964, memorandum was that her testimony was delayed. It was meant to be April 1, 1964, the same day as the Johnsons.

    Roberts disappeared from her employment at 1026 in the middle of the night, according to the testimony of Gladys Johnson. She put that departure as Saturday, 6 March, which is interestingly the same day as the Griffin and Hubert meeting and memorandum. That delay seems to have been covered by a pretext – in Gladys Johnson’s testimony – that she didn’t reply to the Commission request to attend as the Johnsons didn’t know where to send it.

    To set Oswald up, with a visit by an imposter whilst he was already at or on the way to the Texas Theater by Rambler, and to enable evidence planting would need minor complicity from one person at 1026. Two extra keys. Is that what Earlene Roberts did for her sister, Bertha Cheek, as a favor for Jack Ruby? Neither woman would need to know what it was for.

    For all the pressure put on Earlene Roberts, one fact seems to relieve her of any guilt. She revealed, by 29 November 1963 (Friday), what appears in this DPD note: she saw car 207 and heard it toot at the time the man she thought was Oswald was in the house. She said she was certain, as she knew the officers who used car 170 and wanted to check whether it was them. She had been a PBX telephone operator, a job that requires fast acting and a facility with numbers.

    Who were the officers who first attended and searched Oswald’s room?

    By exclusion, from my prior articles, it couldn’t have been any of the parties at the Texas Theater for the arrest of Oswald. That rules out Hutson and Baggett, who I believe were clean, plus Hawkins, McDonald, CT Walker, Westbrook or Hill. It would rationally be officers at the Tippit murder scene.

    According to my prior articles, corrupted officers from the Tippit murder scene, bar Croy, are accounted for in the group at the Texas Theater, and corrupt officers would know that searching the room pre-emptively was a problem. Croy’s behavior cannot be explained from 12:30 pm to 2:00 pm. He said he drove one block from the Texas Theater at the time of Oswald’s arrest there. Was it his job to plant evidence in Oswald’s room, only to find that other police had already searched it?

    According to Bill Simpich, Croy got the wallet from an unknown person, gave it to Sgt. Owens, gave it to Westbrook, who showed it to Agent Barrett. After the wallet was videotaped, it went back to Westbrook’s custody.

    Officer Poe, who appears entirely regular in his behavior and statements, not least as he is relevant to the proof that Jerry Hill was lying (below), also said he was at the Texas Theater.

    That leaves Officer Jez, his partner. This article on K&K by Jack Myers states.

    “Before his death, Dallas Police Sergeant Leonard Jez was asked to comment on the presence of Oswald’s wallet at 10th & Patton. Jez had been one of several officers officially present at 10th & Patton, and whom Lt. Croy could not recall. Jez verified the existence of the wallet at the murder scene, he had seen it with his own eyes.

    “Don’t let anybody bamboozle you,” stated Jez flatly. “That was Oswald’s wallet.” “

    I note Warren Commission apologist Dale Myers has said he did not believe Jez. But I am more concerned with Myers not commenting that it is Sgt. Hill, Captain Westbrook and Sgt. Croy, who are not believable.

    By DPD patrol radio, Jez and Poe arrived first at the Tippit murder scene. Then, inside a minute of that, Officer Owens arrived, who said he carried Westbrook and Deputy DA Bill Alexander. But Jerry Hill said he arrived with Owens and was talking to witnesses when he saw Poe’s car pull up. An impossibility if Hill had arrived with Owens.

    I note Dale Myers was given access to particular DPD officers in his work to prove Oswald killed Tippit. But I find considerable overlap between those Officers with gross inconsistencies in their accounts and those he interviewed. Thus, Myers seems to dismiss other officers’ accounts, whilst not dealing with the many problems with those he was given access to.

    My personal conclusion is that Hill arrived in the same car 207 he’d left City Hall in to arrive at the Tippit murder scene, having delivered a decoy for the ambush of Tippit, via 1026 N Beckley. Thus, it was the decoy Roberts saw at 1:00 pm, not Oswald. Westbrook took car 207 back to the depository and then arrived again with Stringer and reporter Jim Ewell. Westbrook then made pointless patrol radio calls around 1:30 pm, which served to indicate he’d only then arrived. However that is betrayed by the fact – which he went to great lengths to cover up – that Westbrook discovered the fugitive’s jacket just before 1:20pm, called out on the radio by another officer.

    Further, this DPD record of June 1964 states “his records further indicated that Patrolman JM Valentine was the sole occupant of car Number 207 on November 22, 1963”. But that’s demonstrably false. By the account of reporter Jim Ewell, he arrived at the Depository building with Valentine and Hill. TV footage shows Hill getting out of that car with “207” on its door.

    A small clique of Officers, perhaps complicit in the impromptu murder of Tippit, would obviously have a position to protect. Officer Jez would not.

    Click here to read part 1.

  • Oswald, Beckley and the Tippit Wallet, Part 1

    John Washburn explores the evidence that the authorities knew who Oswald was and that he was at the Beckley Street rooming house way before the official story says they knew it. In addition, they were there much earlier also.

    Oswald, Beckley and the Tippit Wallet, Part 1

    By John Washburn

    Some researchers have suggested Lee Harvey Oswald did not live at 1026 N Beckley, the rooming house owned by Arthur and Gladys Johnson, with a live-in housekeeper, Earlene Roberts. Roberts is the sister of Bertha Cheek, a business associate of Jack Ruby.

    I have enumerated a quantity of false testimony and falsified documents in my prior articles for this site. And with no presentation to the Warren Commission of the guest register for 1026, I find that not an unreasonable position. The only paper evidence presented of his residing there is this slip of paper presented as an Exhibit with the name “OH Lee” and the words “OUT” and “Room 0”. However, I set out here why I believe Oswald was living at 1026 N Beckley, but not in Room 0.

    In doing that, I set out the necessity for a story being manufactured, whilst the components of that story do not match the facts. Something which recurs in the Kennedy and Tippit cases. All that is needed to establish that the official line was untrue is a careful read of Warren Commission testimonies and affidavits.

    “Room 0”

    Room 0 was a minuscule room off the TV room of 1026 N. Beckley. Designed to be a closet-library with sliding doors and no locks. It had a bed in it because the housekeeper used it for her grandchildren if they came to stay.

    The normal rooms at 1026, numbered 1-17, were located in an annex over a garage, two on the first floor by the living quarters, and the rest in a basement. The place is now a registered monument.

    The official line was that Oswald:

    • was staying in “Room 0” from 14 October 1963 until 22 November because the place had been full when he was looking for a room.
    • was using the name “OH Lee”

    And the police said they:

    • didn’t arrive at 1026 until 3:00 pm, 22 November, after Oswald was arrested and held at City Hall
    • needed a picture of Oswald to appear on TV after 3:00 pm for the connection with “OH Lee” to be made, and thence Room 0
    • didn’t search any rooms in 1026 other than Room 0

    The search is the only part of the account that is true. Room 0 wasn’t searched until after 4:30, as a warrant was obtained, which was attended by a judge, the deputy DA Bill Alexander, and Detectives Turner and Moore.

    The “OH Lee” paper slip – no register – and not full

    There was a guest register for 1026, as owner Gladys Johnson said so in testifying on 1 April 1964. Volume X.

    Mr. BALL. How many tenants did you have in October last year? 
    Mrs. JOHNSON. You know, I’m sorry I didn’t bring my register. I couldn’t tell you exactly; I imagine I had about 10 or 12. 
    Mr. BALL. Was it full? 
    Mrs. JOHNSON. No; I don’t–I most always have vacancies. 
    Mr. BALL. You do? 
    Mrs. JOHNSON. I have had more even since this happened.

    With that, she destroyed the line that Oswald had to take the room he took because all of the 17 normal rooms were taken.

    This is the exchange from the point she handed over the slip with OH Lee on it.

    Mr. Ball. We will make a picture of this and give it back to you.

    Mrs. Johnson. May I have something to erase this November 13, 15—I got that wrong, anyway. I was looking at the calendar and this, I was thinking it was November 13 that he left—he left my place on a Wednesday before this assassination on Friday.

    Mr. Ball. That was the last time you saw him?

    Mrs. Johnson. Yeah; the last time I saw him was on a Wednesday but my housekeeper seen him on a Friday morning right after this assassination, he came by the house hurriedly.

    Something else is amiss. She said, “he left – he left my place”, but Ball in his follow-up replaces the definite proposition that he’d checked out, with the possibility she merely didn’t see him.

    Gladys had another document with her, which she first offered to erase, and she then referred to dates that don’t appear anywhere on the O H Lee slip. Or anywhere else in her testimony.

    She appears to be backtracking, having let another cat out of the bag. She was referring to someone who checked out on Wednesday, 13 November 1963, not someone she last saw on Wednesday, 20 November. The only thing keeping her testimony on track is Ball helping it along.

    On the Education Forum, Bill Simpich has adduced evidence that there was a guest, Mr Herbert Leon Lee. That is supported by the FBI tracing calls made from the payphone at the gas station opposite 1026 to the Lee household in Shreveport. He appears to have been a genuine person (b 1941, d 2009). The FBI records show calls were made before Oswald moved in.

    Different room – searched too soon?

    I propose that Oswald did live at 1026 N Beckley, and Herbert Lee was an unconnected person who moved out on November 13, 1963. However, I propose that neither Oswald, Herbert Lee, nor anyone else was using Room 0.

    I conclude the story of Room 0 had to be made up because Oswald’s actual room had been searched by regular officers very soon after Officer Tippit was shot, but nothing was found in it. Because the evidence intended to be planted in Oswald’s room – communist literature and a gun holster – hadn’t been planted by then. If all guest rooms were already searched, there would only be one solution: to pretend he’d been in the only place not searched.

    That may seem a bizarre thing to say 60 years on. But no more bizarre than proposing that an ex-Marine, in his early 20’s was living in a minuscule room (1/3 of the size of the ones for rent), with sliding doors and no locks, opening into communal areas, with a connecting door to the bedroom of the 58 year old housekeeper Earlene Roberts. Now hidden by a curtain.

    As for Oswald: He was supposed to be of low intelligence on the one hand, whilst on the other had managed to learn fluent Russian from a Russian guide. It’s that account that is preposterous.

    That story gets worse with the additional excuse that when normal rooms did become available, he decided to stay in it regardless.

    timbush1 1

    In CE2830, Floyd DeGraffenreid – a resident at 1026 – said he only saw Oswald no more than 4-5 times and mainly in the TV room. But if Oswald was in that small room, he would be conspicuous every time he was in and out. The small room is little more than a closet of the TV room.

    The time problem – masking the first searches

    The official line was that the register was examined for the name Lee Harvey Oswald, but the room was not searched until after 4:30 pm. And only then because Oswald’s face had appeared on TV, because he was using the false name OH Lee. But OH Lee is merely the converse of LeeHO. It wouldn’t be difficult to make the connection with only 10 or so guests: Face on TV or no face on TV.

    Any police turning up with 1) a description of the person of interest running from the Tippit murder scene, and 2) the name Lee Harvey Oswald, would have at least two rooms of immediate interest, Oswald’s as well as recent guest Herbert Lee. But it is clear from various testimonies that the first round of police arrived much earlier than 3:00 pm, closer to 1:45 pm. That was before Oswald was arrested at the Texas Theater at 1:50 pm, arriving at City Hall after 2:00 pm.

    The earlier police came as a result of the shooting of Officer Tippit. This is from the testimony of Arthur Carl Johnson, Gladys Johnson’s husband, taken on 1 April 1964:

    Mr. BELIN. Could you describe how you came to find out that this man had another name other than O. H. Lee?
    Mr. JOHNSON. Well, it was when the officers came looking for him.
    Mr. BELIN. When was this?
    Mr. JOHNSON. Uh–after Tippit was shot, the police—-
    Mr. BELIN. This would have been on November 22, 1963.
    Mr. JOHNSON. Yes.

    Belin–with that interruption by stating the obvious–was changing the subject, stopping what else was going to come out.

    But the time of day does emerge from what followed. Note the CBS radio announcement at approximately 1:25 pm of Kennedy’s death was earlier than the television announcement of approximately 1:35 pm (CST). The earlier radio time can be verified because BBC TV London was ahead of US television, getting the news out live at 7:27 pm GMT (1:27 pm CST) as it monitored live radio transmissions globally.

    Mr. BELIN. He [a person Downtown] had heard over the radio that the President had been shot?
    Mr. JOHNSON. Yes.
    Mr. BELIN. And then, did you turn on your radio?
    Mr. JOHNSON. Yes. We don’t have one there in the place, so we went out in the car and sat there in the car and listened.
    Mr. BELIN. All right. And was it while you were sitting in the car that you heard that the President had died?
    Mr. JOHNSON. Yes; we didn’t leave until we–it was announced that he was dead.
    Mr. BELIN. How soon after that announcement did you leave?
    Mr. JOHNSON. I’d say 5 minutes.
    Mr. BELIN. All right. Then, how long did it take you to get to 1026 North Beckley?
    Mr. JOHNSON. It takes us about 5 minutes.
    Mr. BELIN. So that about 10 minutes after you heard on the radio that the President had been shot, you arrived with your wife at 1026 North Beckley?

    And Gladys Johnson said:

    “So I came from the restaurant, I guess 1 or 1:30, and these officers were there 1:30 or 2, something like that, anyway, it was after this assassination, and as I drove in, well, the officers were there and they told me that they was looking for this character and I told them I didn’t think I had anyone by that name there but we went through the register carefully two or three times and there was no Oswald there and I had two new tenants, rather new tenants, so we had carried them around the house to show them and we was going to start in the new tenants’ rooms and my husband was sitting in the living room and seen this picture flash on the television and he said, “Please go around that house and tell him it was this guy that lived in this room here” and it was O. H. Lee.

    Earlene Roberts, in her 5 December 1963 affidavit for the FBI, said this:

    “Oswald went out the front door. A moment later I looked out the window. I saw Lee Oswald standing on the curb at the bus stop just to the right, and on the same side of the street as our house. I just glanced out the window that once.

    “I don’t know how long Lee Oswald stood at the curb nor did I see which direction he went when he left there.

    “About thirty minutes later three Dallas policemen came to the house looking for Lee Harvey Oswald. We didn’t know who Lee Harvey Oswald was until sometime later his picture was flashed on television. I then let the Dallas policemen in the room occupied by Lee Oswald. While the Dallas police were searching the room two FBI agents came in.”

    By that, the Dallas police arrived around 1:35 pm, and were asking for Lee Harvey Oswald, a person she refers to as “Lee Oswald”. She made no mention of OH Lee. The room was searched, and the FBI was there too. There is no mention of the judge or the DA with the warrant (which occurred around three hours later), and warrants are not needed in cases of hot pursuit.

    There is then her Warren Commission testimony, Vol. VI.

    Mr. BALL. Can you tell me what time it was approximately that Oswald came in?
    Mrs. ROBERTS. Now, it must have been around 1 o’clock, or maybe a little after, because it was after President Kennedy had been shot-what time I wouldn’t want to say because…
    Mr. BALL. How long did he stay in the room?
    Mr. ROBERTS. Oh, maybe not over 3 or 4 minutes-just long enough, I guess, to go in there and get a jacket and put it on and he went out zipping it.
    Mr. BALL. You recall he went out zipping it-was he running or walking?
    Mrs. ROBERTS. He was walking fast-he was making tracks pretty fast.
    Mr. BALL. Did he say anything to you as he went out?
    Mrs. ROBERTS. No, sir.
    Mr. BALL. Did you say anything to him?
    Mrs. ROBERTS. Probably wouldn’t have gotten no answer.

    Johnson again:

    BELIN. Had this man, O. H. Lee, was he there when you got there?
    Mr. JOHNSON. No; he had been there–just–uh–before we got home.
    Mr. BELIN. Did Mrs. Roberts tell you that he had?
    Mr. JOHNSON. She told us that he come in and got a–uh–little coat or something and just walked in his room and right back out the door.

    All of that is a significant departure from the official line that the police arrived at 3:00 pm.

    The disappearing wallet at the Tippit murder scene

    The thing that needs to be factored in, which can explain these anomalies, is the discovery of a wallet that can be seen in WFAA footage of the Tippit murder scene. This footage, the “Reiland film”, shows the wallet being examined with Sgt. Croy and Captain Westbrook present.

    The Reiland footage was shot between 1:30 pm and 1:45 pm at the latest. In my Death of Tippit article, I put the coverage of the wallet as shown in the film as around 1:35 pm. Since it was before Westbrook headed to the Texas Theatre for the arrest of Oswald, but after the TV crew had been filming searches on East Jefferson just before 1:30 pm.

    The drive from the Tippit murder scene to 1026 would be around 3 minutes.

    If that wallet contained the 1026 Beckley address, and the name “Lee Harvey Oswald”, then conscientious officers could and should have headed there in less than 5 minutes of it being ‘found’.

    The police at the Tippit murder scene not only had the description of someone who looked like Oswald running from that scene, but a person similar to that had been seen by Earlene Roberts entering and leaving 1026 around 1:00 pm. Added to which, the person running from the Tippit murder scene ditched a jacket, and Roberts had seen the man she described as Lee Oswald putting one on.

    It wouldn’t need a photograph on television at some point after 3:00 pm to hone in on possible people of interest at 1026. There were 17 rooms and only 10 or so guests.

    The wallet disappeared from the police record and only reappeared publicly when people spotted it in the Reiland footage in the 1990s.

    What went wrong

    I believe the wallet is essential to understanding what really went on at 1026 in the afternoon of 22 November 1963.

    If that wallet was planted prematurely – meaning it was planted in an improvised rush to set Oswald up for the impromptu killing of Tippit at 410 E. 10th – then the disastrous consequences of that would then require unpicking.

    That disaster was a search of Oswald’s actual room, by regular police officers in hot pursuit from 410 E 10th, where nothing unusual was found. Likewise, other rooms.

    By that scenario, conspirators and complicit elements of the Dallas Police would be so far down the road of setting up Oswald as a patsy that they had to have him living there with the incriminating evidence.

    That would require a clean-up operation,

    • covering up that regular officers had been there,
    • the control of 1026 by ‘irregular’ officers so that items could appear in Room 0, the only room not searched,
    • creating a fictional reason why Oswald was in Room 0,
    • creating a reason why it took so long to identify Oswald being in Room 0 (the OH Lee false name invention),
    • delaying the search of Room 0 until it could be searched with something to find,
    • creating a story/pretext to coerce Earlene Roberts and the Johnsons into an alternative account.

    False lead

    Warren Commission Counsels Leon Hubert and Burt Griffin did not believe the Dallas Police sent by Captain Fritz (see incident reports of attending officers W.E. Potts and B. L. Senkel) could have arrived at 1026 at 3:00 pm, having been sent from City Hall at 2:40 pm, after Oswald’s arrest, without some form of prior knowledge.

    That was because the official story was that the lead to 1026 N Beckley did not come from Oswald. It occurred after the Dallas City police and Dallas County Sheriff (jurisdiction over the County of Dallas as well as the City of Dallas) had arrived at the Oswalds’ lodgings at Ruth Paine’s house in Irving after 3:30 pm. Ruth Paine said she only had a telephone number for Oswald.

    The police and sheriffs then used the telephone company to trace the address.

    Ruth Paine also made the odd statement, “I was expecting you,” when the police and sheriffs arrived. When asked why she expected them, she said that Lee Oswald had worked at the scene of the shooting. (Testimony of Officer Guy Rose (8 April 1964).

    But his name hadn’t been released, nor had a photograph. She had been watching TV. It is unlikely that Oswald’s face had appeared on her TV by then. What the Commission missed–and unfortunately, Hubert and Griffin did not interview Roberts and the Johnsons–is that the doubtful reason for Potts and Senkel arriving at 3:00 was not the only irregularity. And in fact, Gladys Johnson had told her daughter prior to 2:00 PM that the FBI and Dallas Police had already been at Beckley looking for Oswald. (Sara Peterson and K. W. Zachry, The Lone Star Speaks, p. 175)

    Warrants

    Oswald was still alive until Sunday, November 24th. From the perspective of the Johnsons and Roberts on late Friday, 22 November, he would face trial. And they all would believe Oswald did it.

    I propose that complicit police officers could use a technical argument to get those people to go along with the fiction that Oswald was in Room 0. Because it was the only one that hadn’t been searched without a warrant.

    Warrants are not required when police are in hot pursuit. Warrants are required for searches after a suspect is arrested. That distinction wouldn’t be known by many members of the public.

    This – invented by me – phrase might work as simple pressure with a bit of guilt, too.

    “We have a problem. Mrs Johnson and Mrs Roberts in giving access without a search warrant have prejudiced the evidence we did find in Mr.Oswald’s room. We therefore need to say we found it in the small room, which wasn’t searched, until after we had obtained a proper warrant. A minor technicality. We will also need to say we didn’t look in that room because he was using the name OH Lee. By the way we must not mention we searched any other rooms as we didn’t have a warrant.”

    There was clearly something wrong with what the Johnsons and Roberts were saying. They weren’t very good at lying. Understandable if they were being fed a story to tell without all of the reasoning behind it.

    Roberts was clearly getting pressure from all directions.

    Mr. BALL. Why to your sorrows?

    Mrs. ROBERTS. Well, he was registered as O. H. Lee and I come to find out he was Oswald and I wish I had never known it.

    Mr. BALL. Why?

    Mrs. ROBERTS. Well, they put me through the third degree.

    Mr. BALL. Who did?

    Mrs. ROBERTS. The FBI, Secret Service, Mr. Will Fritz’ men [Dallas Homicide] and Bill Decker’s [County Sheriff].

    As well as pressure on her from at least four agencies, her answer seems to have a Freudian slip.

    Wish she’d not known what? Everyone knew Kennedy and Tippit were killed. Worrying about what name Oswald used when he registered in the overall scheme of things is trivial.

    Surely the sorrow and hassle were from him being there for six weeks, having supposedly murdered the President and a police officer.

    Unless there wasn’t a false name, but she was pressured to go along with it as an invention.

    But in her 5 December 1963 affidavit for the FBI, she didn’t show any anxiety about the name OH Lee, as she didn’t even refer to it. She indicated she knew him as Lee Oswald, but refers to the police looking for Lee Harvey Oswald. Not using one’s middle name is not using a false name.

    Why was the guest register never presented as evidence? I suggest that it is obvious. Not only would it show that 1026 hadn’t been full. It would show Lee Oswald registered in his own name.

    From examination of testimonies, there are so many areas of sensitivity, time inconsistency, over-embellishment, non-sequiturs and Freudian slips in the testimonies of Roberts, Arthur and Gladys Johnson, that everything about the official story falls over.

    The “OH Lee” alias is now an established part of the Oswald as a lone shooter narrative. But the Dallas Morning News of 23, 24, and 25 November 1963 makes no mention of it.

    That suggests that the story didn’t need to exist publicly until after the Katzenbach Memorandum of 25 November 1963, which gave the covert objective of the Warren Commission as,

    “The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large; and that evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial.”

    The rest of this article examines, in the light of the above, just how badly the official line plays out in testimonies taken by Counsel Belin and Ball.

    A particular issue is whether rooms were opened or not with keys – relevant to the warrant matter. But alas, Room 0 doesn’t have a lock. The library it was designed to be didn’t need one.

    (Part 2 coming soon)

    Click here to read part 2.

  • The Second Luna Hearing

    Matt Douhit reports on the news that the MSM did not want to disperse to the public.  The second Luna hearing has some very important people, informing the public of many key things about the JFK case that they never heard before and were never told to Congress.

    Unheard: The Silence of the MSM on the Luna Hearings

    By Matt Douthit

     

    We’ve come to the point where 62 years after the crime of the century—finally, its most important testimony has been given to the highest inquest chamber in the land—only for two news outlets to pick it up. Ultimately, the New York Post and NewsNation are just reporting the news and have turned the page. But this JFK assassination hearing before the House Oversight Committee could be colossal in getting us to the final turn in the maze…a new honest investigation.

    Testifying via ZOOM, 90-year-old Abraham Bolden—the first black Secret Service agent, handpicked by JFK himself—gave his knowledge of a prior Chicago assassination attempt. Skeptics might say Bolden is “the only source” for this—but it’s supported by six other plots that failed. Skeptics have also gone ad hoc: “Now, of course, memories fade over time…Might Bolden have been conflating the Vallee story with [a 1963] rumor?” When basically all you have left is the old shibboleth, “memories are unreliable” excuse—then you have no case. Bolden was railroaded for trying to tell the truth, was imprisoned, the key witness against him later admitted they lied to get the conviction, and Bolden was subsequently pardoned by President Biden. And Jim Douglass corroborated the Chicago Plot story in his fine book, JFK and the Unspeakable.

    Also testifying was 88-year-old Dr. Don Curtis, one of the physicians who tried to save JFK’s life. He had the courage—to stand up—and say in public—under oath—in front of the world—what all the other Parkland doctors did not do: “The wounds I saw were not consistent with the government’s conclusion Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.” Dr. Charles Crenshaw came close with his 1992 book, Conspiracy of Silence, but Dr. Curtis finally did it. Curtis also revealed that neurosurgeon Dr. Kemp Clark told him he saw an entry wound in the temple. Skeptics might point out this detail is absent from the autopsy report—but it’s supported by 17 other eyewitnesses who saw it. In fact, as the late Don Thomas graphically pointed out via magnified photos one of the autopsy photos—the infamous “Stare of Death”–does indeed indicate this. A frontal shot, of course, disproves the official story.

    Another witness was Doug Horne, former Assassination Records Review Board staff member, who rang the bell on missing autopsy materials, from bullet fragments to photos and X-rays. Skeptics, of course, will be skeptical—but it’s supported by sworn witnesses, the authorized book The Day Kennedy Was Shot and the official inventory itself. The inventory tells us the National Archives once held 29 X-rays, 73 B&W photos, 55 color photos, blocks of tissue sections, 119 slides, and the brain. All that’s there now are 52 photos and 14 X-rays!

    Horne left us with these powerful, thought-provoking words: “You don’t change the autopsy conclusions four different times within 2 weeks after the President’s death if a lone nut killed the President.”

    Next to Horne sat Judge John Tunheim, former head of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB). He, along with Dan Hardway, former staff member on the House Select Committee on Assassinations(HSCA), laid out what they described as actions by the CIA to obstruct their investigations. In regards to the now infamous George Joannides file, skeptics have avowed: “But the ARRB looked at it and found nothing of relevance to the JFK assassination.” However, Judge Tunheim addressed this very point: “The CIA misled us…What we got was something very small…The staff was told that was all they had on Joannides, which is clearly incorrect.”

    Perhaps the biggest question garnered from the hearing is this: If the Joannides file “does not contain any material relevant to the JFK assassination,” as skeptics claim, then why is it suddenly missing and can’t be found?

    Another voice heard that day was presidential historian Alexis Coe, who made a dissenting declaration: “As far as the files—no hidden truths, no real disclosures, no shocking revelations.” This is a vastly different conclusion from what JFK historian Jefferson Morley had announced 2 months before: “There’s a bombshell in here. The National Archives released the declassified testimony of James Angleton—the counterintelligence chief—from 1975. And this document indicates that Angleton recruited Oswald as a CIA source or contact, that he monitored Oswald’s movements, political contacts and personal life for 4 years, that he had a 180-page file on Oswald on his desk when the President left for Dallas. So, this is a big breakthrough, there’s definitely a bombshell.” (Piers Morgan Uncensored, YouTube, 3/20/25)

    Ms. Coe did raise an important point: “There is so much concern about coverups with the CIA when it comes to Kennedy, and I don’t see that same concern being translated to Martin Luther King and to his records. It feels like Hoover 2.0.” But it was at this important moment that she was cut off. Will the King case be explored by the Luna Committee? Two good witnesses would be Judge Joe Brown and author John Avery Emison.

    Judge Tunheim left us with these words: “I’d like to see a time when everything has been released, unredacted. It’s 60-something years since the assassination. The assassination was closer to World War I than we are to the assassination. Let’s release the materials, and that’s my plea here, is just get everything out, let people decide what they want.”

    The truth hasn’t spoken its final word—another hearing is not optional; it’s essential.

    (The second hearing may be viewed here)