Miscellanea, Errata, Et Cetera

JFK/DPQ is edited by Jan Stevens and Walt Brown. Mr. Stevens maintains the web site; he says, "The JFK/DPQ site is being totally updated and revamped." The site's latest incarnation was online as of late July.

Eyewitness to History (Texian Press) does not veer far from the official story. We get the lone nut, and the second lone nut; we get the noble and wise President's Commission sifting countless facts in search of the awful truth. All of that was to be expected. We also get weird punctuation and repeated misspellings ("Dealy" Plaza and J.D. "Tippett") which were not expected and could almost be overlooked --- except that this is such a dishonest book.

Brennan: Ol' Four Eyes

Let me lay all my cards on the table: I see very little value in Eyewitness to History. Brennan states at several points that he has long declined all opportunities to tell his story. But with the guidance of his minister (who just happens to be the book's co-author) he decided to "set the record straight for history." Didn't he do that with the Warren Commission?

Maybe not. The only thing Eyewitness to History has to offer that might be important is an observation Brennan said he kept from the Warren Commission and to himself for many years. Shortly before the assassination, Brennan writes, he observed a car parked on Houston Street next to the TSBD --- a spot supposedly closed to all vehicles by Dallas Police. It was a 1955 to '57 Oldsmobile with a lone, white middle-aged male at the wheel. As Brennan watched, a cop walked over to this car and began chatting amiably with its driver.

Just after the motorcade passed and the shots were fired, Brennan grabbed a second cop and told him, "The man you want is in the building!" Then,

I glanced back towards the street to the side of the building. The car I had seen PARKED there before the motorcade passed WAS GONE. Although only a few moments had elapsed and all exits were blocked except one, the car had disappeared. The policeman who had been talking to the driver was gone, but I assumed he was looking for the gunman [emphasis in original].

Although Brennan says that "I have always felt that he was somehow involved in the assassination," he didn't tell the cops about this possible getaway car that day. And when he had the chance during his WC testimony, he claims he hesitated just long enough for David Belin to impatiently continue his questioning --- and this vignette stayed untold.

When the first shots were fired at the Presidential motorcade, Brennan states in Eyewitness to History, "I remember thinking, 'Oh my God,! He's going to kill them all!'" This, of course, parallels what Governor Connally remembered crying out. Brennan had already noticed Oswald in the alleged sniper's nest, he writes. After the third shot, he hit the ground, and

my first instinct was to look back up to that man on the sixth floor. "Was he going to fire again?" I wondered. By now the motorcade was beginning to speed up and in only a couple of seconds the President's car had disappeared under the triple underpass. To my amazement the man still stood there in the window! He didn't appear to be rushed. There was no particular emotion visible on his face except for a slight smirk. It was a look of satisfaction, as if he had accomplished what he had set out to do. He seemed pleased that no one had realized where the shots were coming from. Then he did something that puzzled me. Very slowly and deliberatley he set the rifle on its butt and just stayed there for a moment to savor what he had done, like a hunter who had "bagged his buck." Then, with no sense of haste, he simply moved slowly away from the window until he disappeared from my line of vision.

Mr. Belin. Would you describe just exactly what you saw when you saw him [the sixth floor gunman] this last time?
Mr. Brennan. Well, as it appeared to me he was standing up and resting against the left window sill, with gun shouldered to his right shoulder, holding the gun with his left hand and taking positive aim and fired his last shot. As I calculate a couple of seconds. He drew the gun back from the window as though he was drawing it back to his side and maybe paused for another second as though to assure himself that he hit his mark, and then he disappeared.

Well, I smell a rat. (Not that there are many who take Brennan seriously.) In Eyewitness to History, it appears Brennan is giving this lone nut some additional time to "savor what he had done." Perhaps he felt the need to emphasize the nut portion of "lone nut." Couldn't do that with the mere "another second" he originally testified to. But slowing down Oswald's supposed departure from the window only further strains the already thin story of Oswald dashing from the sixth floor to the lunchroom where he was seen about ninety seconds later.

Elsewhere in the book (p. 6), Brennan goes to great pains to tell us his vision is "unusually good; I am one of a select few who, for some reason, are gifted with extraordinary eyesight." How convenient. How else could we have been assured Oswald wore "a slight smirk" after he blew Kennedy's head off? --- to say nothing of his identification?

Of course, Brennan also admitted to the Warren Commission that before he was taken to a police lineup he had twice seen Oswald on TV as a suspect, and that, moreover, "I told them I could not make a positive identification." He explains this away by saying he believed the assassination was "a communist activity," and he and his family would be in danger if he made his positive ID right off the bat.

Readers of Eyewitness to History would do well to remember what Jim Marrs wrote in Crossfire. Mr. Marrs quotes Brennan's former boss, Sandy Speaker, from an interview he conducted: "They took [Brennan] off for about three weeks. I don't know if they were Secret Service or FBI, but they were federal people. He came back a nervous wreck and within a year his hair had turned snow white. He wouldn't talk about [the assassination] after that. He was scared to death. They made him say what they wanted him to say."

Eyewitness to History was published in 1987, four years after Brennan's death. It is worth noting that among those listed in this book's acknowledgements are Forrest Sorrels of the Secret Service, Earl Warren, Gerald Ford, and "Mrs. Mohammad Bob Threlkeld, sister of the late Shah of Iran ... my best wishes to her."

"Coincidence" becomes a mocking, leering clown's mask that keeps popping in front of us to haunt our research. --- WERE WE CONTROLLED?, by Lincoln Lawrence

George De Mohrenschildt is one of the most unusual and puzzling individuals of the entire investigation. We print this chapter of strange coincidences as a preface to the next chapters on De Mohrenschildt. These wild coincidences may be just that, but after twenty-four strange deaths, we have just about had a belly full of so-called wild coincidences.

Coincidence: Peter Gregory of 3513 Dorothy Lane in Fort Worth is well known in the Russian Fort Worth-Dallas community. Although he testified he is not sure just how he learned the Oswalds were in Fort Worth, Gregory made contact with the Oswalds in the middle of June in 1962. Among other things, Gregory made arrangements for his son Paul to take Russian lessons from Marina Oswald.

Gregory, a consulting petroleum engineer, lives only one house removed from the home of Richard Lloyd Adams of 3521 Dorothy Lane in Fort Worth. Adams, now retired, was president of Plastelite Co. of Fort Worth. Plastelite makes machined plastic pipe and fittings for the oil industry and for corrosive chemical materials such as gas production with acetic properties. Not only are Gregory and Adams in related industries, they are almost next-door neighbors. Gregory told me they had known each other "for a long number of years." Both have lived at their present addresses since before 1950.

The odd coincidence is that Adams was the manufacturer of the famous twist board promoted by Jack Ruby. Ruby gave a demonstration of one of the boards in the Times Herald composing room at 2:00 a.m. on the morning of November 23, 1963. The twist boards never sold and are still stacked in the Plastelite Co.

Coincidence: Jack Ruby visited in Fort Worth with Lloyd Adams and left the Adams' home phone number with Ruby's flunky, Larry Crafard. He told Crafard to "give this number to Mike Shore, only." Mike Shore of Los Angeles, California, is the man who helped bring Melvin Belli into the Ruby trial.

Shore also assisted Lawrence Schiller is selling the Jack Ruby story.

Coincidence: For a number of years Jack Ruby lived at 4727 Homer Street in Dallas. George Bouhe, the biggest benefactor of the Oswalds in Dallas, lived across the street from Ruby at 4740 Homer Street. Both apartment houses, at the time Ruby lived at 4727 Homer, used a joint swimming pool. Bouhe denied knowing Ruby; however the two men were seen at the swimming pool at the same time on more than one occasion.

Coincidence: Mrs. Ruth Paine, the great and good friend of Marina Oswald, with only one telephone call obtained the job for Oswald at the Texas School Book Depository.

Coincidence: According to Texas Employment Agency records, Oswald was offered a much higher paying job at a factory at the same time he took the work at the Book Depository. The testimony of Texas Employment Agency employees indicates that the records were so altered by erasures as to make it impossible to determine exactly what transpired regarding the higher paying possibility for Oswald. The agency cannot determine if Oswald failed to be hired by the factory, or whether he did not bother to appear at the factory for an interview.

Coincidence: We have previously printed the incident of Jack Ruby's correcting District Attorney Henry Wade at a press conference. Wade referred to leaflets found in Oswald's possessions as "Free Cuba" leaflets. Ruby shouted to Wade in the crowded room that they were not "Free Cuba" leaflets, but were "Fair Play for Cuba" leaflets.

The difference is that the "Free Cuba" group was supported by the right wing. "Fair Play For Cuba" was a left wing organization.

In Vol. VII of the twenty-six volumes, Attorney Wesley Liebeler just seemed to hear the testimony wrong in this exchange:

MR. WALTHER: ... We were just --- and not actually knowing what we were looking for, just searching, and we went into the garage there and found this --- I believe it was one of these things iike soap comes in, a big pasteboad barrel and it had a lot of these little leaflets in it, "Freedom for Cuba" and they were gold color with black printing on them, and we found these and we also found a gray blanket with some red trim on it that had a string tied at one end that you could see the imprint of a gun, I mean where it had been wrapped in it.

Some testimony omitted here.

MR. LIEBELER. As I was sitting here listening to your story, I could see where that story might have come from --- you mentioned the "Fair Play for Cuba" leaflets that were in a barrel.

Coincidence: Deputy Sheriff Buddy Walthers thought Mrs. Ruth Paine's first words to him were strange as the testimony indicates.

... at this address in Irving and when we went to the door, what turned out to be Mrs. Paine --- just as soon as we stepped on the porch, she said, "Come on in, we've been expecting you," and we didn't have any trouble at all --- we just went right on in and started asking her --- at that time it didn't appear that her or Mrs. Oswald, or Marina, who came up carrying one of the babies in the living room --- it didn't appear that they knew that Oswald had been arrested at all --- the way they talked.

LIEBELER. How do you account for the fact that Mrs. Paine said, "Come on in, we've been expecting you?"
WALTHERS. I don't know --- to this day, I don't know.
LIEBELER. Are you sure that's what she said?
WALTHERS. I know that's what she said.
LIEBELER. Mrs. Paine said that?
WALTHERS. Yes, sir: she said: "Come on in, we've been expecting you."

Coincidence: During the lunch hour at the Bell Helicopter plant in Fort Worth, Michael Paine, the then estranged husband of Ruth Paine, was discussing assassins with a fellow employee Raymond Krystinik, when a waitress came up and announced that the President had been shot. Krystinik testified as to what Michael Paine said at the time Oswald was captured:

... And it wasn't but just a little while later that we heard that Officer Tippit had been shot, and it wasn't very long after that it came through that the Oswald fellow had been captured, had had a pistol with him, and Michael used some expression, I have forgotten exactly what the expression was, and then he said, "The Stupid," something, I have forgotten. It wasn't a complimentary thing. He said, "He is not even supposed to have a gun."

And that I can quote, "He is not even supposed to have a gun.'' Or, "Not even supposed to own a gun." I have forgotten.

After the coincidence of the talk of assassins and the remark about Oswald not supposed to have a gun, Paine created another cincidence by then heading straight for the home of his estranged wife. He arrived there before Walthers and his crew had completed the search of the Paine home.

There is a strong indication that Oswald was closely watched from the time he left the School Book Depository Building. In FORGIVE MY GRIEF, VOL. I, we told of the activities of Dallas Policeman Harry N. Olsen on the day of the assassination. During his testimony, Olsen was very forgetful, but on that tragic day Olsen was located at a spot in Oak Cliff which gave him visual observation of any of five streets which Oswald might have used in moving to his destination in the Texas Theater.

Coincidence: Dallas TV personality, Wes Wise, learned of the unusual activities of an automobile shortly after the assassination. A witness at Zangs and Davis streets in Oak Cliff watched a car racing back and forth across the streets. Zangs and Davis is the approximate location Oswald is supposed to have left the taxi to walk to his rooming house. The car was described as a red 1957 4-door Plymouth with license number PP 4537. The car could possibly have been on a mission so as to permit the driver to observe Oswald's progress.

When the FBI checked the ownership of the car to a couple in Garland, Texas, the owner said it could not have been his car. He said he was in his other car, a station wagon, and he and his wife were visiting with Mrs. J.D. Tippit shortly after the shooting of Officer Tippit.

Coincidence: The location of Mrs. Helen Markham does seem unusual. She was a waitress at the Eatwell Cafe which ws prominent in FORGIVE MY GRIEF, VOL. I. Tippit ate at the Eatwell and he and Mrs. Markham were unusually good friends. Mrs. Markham was on the street at Tenth and Patton in Oak Cliff and saw the killing of her friend.

Coincidence: August 1967 issues of ESQUlRE has a 12,000 word account on Igor "Turk" Vaganov. The article details how Mr. Vaganov, a credit manager in a branch of General Electric Corporation outside Philadelphia, requested a transfer to Dallas near the end of September, 1963. The magazine says "He asked again and was turned down again. During the month of October, Vaganov's entreaties to Joe Hart (his boss) became more frequent, more insistent, more obsessive."

When finally refused, Vaganov went to Dallas anyway arriving November 12, 1963.

While in Dallas Vaganov worked for two and one half days. The two days work was done for Texas Consumer Finance Corporation which was located on the first floor of 1310 Commerce Street in Dallas. The magazine innocently adds: "One of the researchers thought it significant, it might be added, that the office where Vaganov went to apply for the job is at 1310 Commerce Street, a few doors down from Jack Ruby's nightclub, The Carousel."

The magazine could not tell the entire truth. The Consumer Finance Company was on the first floor while the Carousel Club was on the second floor of the two story building.

This writer has information that Jack Ruby "hung out" in the office of the Texas Consumers Finance Company, below his club, and quite frequently took their male empIoyees upstairs for coffee. The same informant also notified us that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for Texas Consumers Finance for "several weeks."

Although Vaganov left Dallas the next day after the assassination to return to Philadelphia, the magazine nevertheless concludes that it was nothing more than a strange set of coinidences.

Coincidence: The Warren Commission Report states: "In September 1959, Ruby traveled to Havana as a guest of a close friend and known gambler, Lewis J. McWillie. Both Ruby and McWillie state the trip was purely social."

In Vol. XXII, page 859 there are two Commission Exhibits numbered 1442 and 1443. Sidney A. Davis, Assistant Chief, Records Administration and Information Section, Immigration and Naturalization Service, 20 West Broadway New York City, advised Special Agent William F. Martin on December 3, 1963, that their records reflect that one Jack Ruby, 4727 Homer, Dallas, Texas, departed Miami, Florida, on September 12, 1959, aboard Pan American Airlines Flight 415 bound for Havana, Cuba.

Ruby came back the next day, September 13, 1959, on Delta flight No. 750. This must be some sort of a record for short "social" trips.

Coincidence: With the death of Guy Bogard, salesman for the Downtown Lincoln Mercury, we think it is imporant to relate the coincidences regarding the actions and activities of Jack Lawrence of South Charleston West Virginia who was also a salesman for Dovntown Lincoln Mercury on the day of the assassinction. Lawrence, who had been with the firm only a few weeks, had previously made arrangements to leave Dallas on either the 22 or 23 of November 1963.

On the day of the assassination, Lawrence said he did not feel well and left in a company car. In a deposition, Lawrence said he went to his room at the YMCA for a rest. Shortly after the assassination Lawrence walked back to the place of his employment and said the car was parked due to heavy traffic. Another employee then took Lawrence to get the car which was found parked behind the picket fence at the assassination site.

Later that day Lawrence was picked up and questioned overnight by Dallas Police on the possibility he might in some way be involved. He was released November 23, and left his employment and left Dallas. The story that Lawrence gave in his deposition was that he was angry for his incarceration and on the 23rd had notified the FBI of the Bogard incident. His report to the FBI angered other employees of the firm and hastened Lawrence's departure from the firm and from Dallas.

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