Sep
03
Summer 2021 Update
Autopsy / CIA / Cuba / Dallas Police Department / FBI / HSCA / Jack Ruby / JFK Assassination / LBJ / Lee Harvey Oswald / Parkland Hospital / Photography & Film / Prayer Man / Secret Service / TSBD / Warren Commission / Washington
Summer 2021 Update
Ok so this year I did a lot of scanning of Malcolm Blunt’s materials for a soon to be fully accessible archive in Nov 2021. There is a lot of material to plough through if you are a student of certain facets of the JFK Assassination. Law Enforcement Agencies, Committees and various individuals all connected in this case are all well represented in this archive. If you have read a decent amount of books on this matter then this archive can help you gain more additional knowledge.
The work done and still ahead…. Click pic to enlarge. Photo: Bartolomy
By the time of its primary release I think I have about 150.000 pages over about 17,000 PDFs ready to be shared. The work will continue for at least another year with regular updates.
I am going to slow down on scanning for the next few months so I can tidy some bits up in the archives and also put the focus back on my own work and this website. I will put the finishing touches to my forthcoming releases of the four(!) Anatomy papers for starters. They have been dormant for most of this year and some of 2020 as well. I hope to have all this done before the anniversary or it will be a X-Mas release read instead.
In November there will be an article written and photographed by me and published in Garrison Magazine, the article will have exclusive pictures I have made of Malcolm and his archive these past three years.
Malcolm Blunt – Tetbury Apr 2019. Click pic to enlarge. Photo: Bartolomy
I am also creating a set of videos in which Malcolm and I are having a chat about his materials. So far two have been posted and I hope to do a few more over the next few months.
Then there are also some talks scheduled such as JFK Lancer, DPUK and Project JFK in November where I will speak in great depth about the above mentioned project and its vast content.
I have some more articles in the pipeline, such as the Minox camera and Oswald’s fingerprints and once I get my papers finished then I shall be developing those articles as well.
And last but not least the movies, which I hope to make a begin with early next year.
Plenty to get on with.
Best regards.
Bart.
Jan
10
The Malcolm Blunt Archives Update
CIA / Cuba / Dallas Police Department / FBI / HSCA / Jack Ruby / JFK Assassination / LBJ / Lee Harvey Oswald / Photography & Film / Prayer Man / Secret Service / Warren Commission / Washington
The Malcolm Blunt Archives Update.
Greetings and happy new year. Hope you have had, under these difficult circumstances, a somewhat decent X-Mas break. I know I have not posted that much and the reason for that is that the Malcolm Blunt Archives have kept me occupied for quite some time now. And especially the second half of 2020 has been a very busy period scanning tens of thousands of pages in. I have been working on this project for more than two years now.
Harry Livingstone’s Files April 2019. Click pic to enlarge.
Starting with Harry Livingstone’s material which then slowly transcended into scanning Malcolm’s files, little did I know how much there was, yet at the same time has proven to be an absolute goldmine filled with rare and never before published documents, audio & video recordings.
Documents, tapes and videos. Click pic to enlarge.
Early Dec 2020, while there was a gap in Covid 19 travel restrictions, Peter Antill and I made our way to Malcolm to see what we could get our hands on to take back with us. Peter and I offloaded the 14 bags we had brought with us, yet I managed to bring ten bags back with me and that was only with 90 minutes left to do so. Two bags fill a drawer of a filing cabinet and contain anything between 2-3,000 pages. If you are wondering what type of content there is, well…..almost anything.
This is by far one of the best document collections when it comes to the JFK Assassination, but also for Dallas matters, anti-Castro, CIA, New Orleans, the ARRB, HSCA and a handful of other commissions investigating. At this point I have created roughly 10,000 PDFs. Scanning will continue for most part of this year trying to complete the digitisation of Malcolm Blunt’s entire archive.
For the first time in 18 months I managed to get access to the files I had worked on in the first half of 2019 while in Tetbury. These files have been kept at a storage site and I was very happy being able to regain access to them. The files in here are much more within my remit.
Click to enlarge.
The coloured boxes are of course Harry Livingstone’s files. Malcolm’s materials in here refer a lot to Dallas Police and FBI. Due to some finds of great documents I am preparing a handful of articles which I will start working on more this month when I am taking a break from scanning.
Click to enlarge.
While the Covid 19 restrictions are in place I will not be able to regain access until some time in March this year. But I have plenty to get on with for now and I reckon I will be working on this archive for the rest of the year. Expect a few cool articles to come in the next six months. And of course The Papers I have been working on these past few years and which are being crammed full with not before seen material, so plenty to look out for.
Jan
03
There were ten women on the fourth floor when it went down.
From my up and coming paper Anatomy of the T.S.B.D.
Updated with a new title, a little text and some pictures on Jan 5th.
I knew that Victoria Adams’ descent down the back stairs of the T.S.B.D. was key to the assassination puzzle especially when Oswald was supposedly to go down those same steps “escaping” from the building at about the same time. The ladies had watched among other fourth floor employees the motorcade turn the corner in front of the building on to Elm St. Then they heard the shots fired at the limousine. Adams and Styles almost immediately left the window to go down the back stairs, make their way towards the railroad yard, and upon arrival they were told to go back where they came from, which they did thru the front doors of the T.S.B.D.
The first one who drew my attention to this was Oliver Stone, who brought this segment up during the Garrison trial in the movie.
Victoria Adams’ and Sandra Styles’ descent re-enactment for the film J.F.K. Click to enlarge.
If there is anyone who researched Victoria Adams’ and Sandra Styles’ descent from the fourth floor to the railroad yard and back into the front of the T.S.B.D. better than anyone else it is Barry Earnest. His book The Girl On The Stairs: The Search for a Missing Witness to the JFK Assassination led me to focus more on the T.S.B.D. and its employees. I read it in 2011 and it has remained one of my favourite books on the assassination.
From his research we know that.
- Victoria Adams did go through her W.C. statement and applied corrections even though the document ends with her stating she waivers her signature. The ‘corrected’ statement is being held much longer under lock and key than the first version without any corrections.
- She accused the W.C. of inserting the Lovelady & Shelley encounter in her testimony. She described the person she encountered after arriving on the first floor as a tall black man. This was independently corroborated by Sandra Styles who knew Shelley and Lovelady and was sure it wasn’t them who they met. The so called Adams & Styles – Lovelady & Shelley encounter on the first floor is a fugezi to undermine the timing of the ladies’ descent. It shows Jim “I don’t recall” Leavelle of the D.P.D. the maker of this report as a fabricator, who placed the misleading statement inside that report from Feb 1964. Obviously Leavelle is responsible but the decision to do this comes from higher up obviously.
- The Martha J. Stroud document Ernest found at the archives in Washington in 1999 confirms Adams’ corrections to her statement, and also states that Dorothy Garner saw the girls leave before the police officer came up to the fourth floor. Garner’s real statement or anything besides the Stroud letter leading to it has disappeared.
- The W.C. discredited Adams’ story. by disbelieving her, nor did it really investigate further. But the W.C. did more to discredit Victoria Adams and it did that by minimising any attention towards the fourth floor.
While reading up about the other T.S.B.D. employees present on the fourth and fifth floors something else becomes apparent. The fourth floor was filled with ladies looking out through the south side windows.
Victoria Adams. Source: Barry Ernest.
Sandra Styles-Baylor Uni, Waco-1962
Elsie Dorman. Source: Life Magazine.
Thanks to Linda Giovanna Zambanini.
Judyth Louise McCully.
Avery Davis. Source E-Yearbook.com.
Mary Hollies. Source: E-Yearbook.com. Thanks to Linda Giovanna Zambanini.
Ruth Nelson. Source Ancestry Family Tree. Thanks to Linda Giovanna Zambanini.
Yola Hopson 1945. Source E-Yearbook.com. Thanks to Linda Giovanna Zambanini.
Betty Alice Foster. Source E-Yearbook.com. Thanks to Linda Giovanna Zambanini.
Think about it. Ten people on the fourth floor when it all went down. Some of them could have easily confirmed when Adams and Styles left. But that is something the Warren Commission, D.P.D., F.B.I. and the Secret Service completely reneged on.
Weaver Polaroid. Click to enlarge.
Even though Avery Davis claimed to be on the front steps, she is not recognised in either the Wiegman and Darnell films nor did any other person name her. Davis named Judyth McCully as the person she was on the steps with. McCully’s initial F.B.I. statement states that she was on the fourth floor while it all went down which then got changed to the front steps. Judyth McCully’s daughter told me that this was done at the behest of the F.B.I.
So if I do not know any better then efforts were made to look the fourth floor as a non event as much as possible with moving some witnesses away so original witness statements could not be corroborated.
Think about it, there were 10 people on the fourth floor. Some of them stood a few meters away from each other. Adams’ and Styles descent was the kryptonite to the Oswald ‘escape’.
Then there are the men from the 5th floor and especially Jarman, Norman and Williams. I have made a spreadsheet with all three workers’ answers from every statement they have given and that are available. Download it from HERE.
From left to right: James Earl Jarman, Bonnie Ray Williams and Harold Norman in the Tom Dillard photo.. Click to enlarge.
The fourth floor stop is in some statements not to be found, but in the W.C. testimony from Bonnie Ray Williams he states: They paused for one minute on the 4th floor as there were all these women looking out. Then there is James Jarman who during his W.C. testimony disowns the fourth floor stop even after asked about it by John J McCloy by saying I believe we went all the way.
The fourth floor was a direct threat to Oswald’s so called escape, so they thought. Until of course the Prayer Man surfaced and it has transpired Oswald was nowhere near the 6th floor when the shots were fired…
Dec
05
Roger Craig inside Robbery & Homicide on Nov 22.
Roger Craig 1969
Roger Craig of the Dallas sheriff department is one of the guys who did not cooperate with everyone else in law enforcement about the happenings of investigating the J.F.K. assassination and ended up becoming an outcast who ultimately paid the highest price for it.
My personal research into Roger Craig has been limited to the assassination weekend, especially his observation of seeing Oswald leaving the T.S.B.D. and after that his visit to room 317 of Robbery & Homicide and pointing Oswald out as the person he saw running down the grass and getting into a Nash Rambler. Room 317 was Will Fritz’s fiefdom. I have been writing about this before in my Anatomy Of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Interrogations paper (pages 96-102).
During the 56th anniversary of the assassination there were two conferences in Dallas happening, one was CAPA, the other was Judyth Vary Baker’s shindig.
Judyth Vary Baker Conference 2019 program cover. Spellcheck anyone? Photo: Vince Palamara.
I was watching some of the live feed on YouTube, to me about the only positive thing of that conference and I thought the panel talk of Steve Cameron, who had a new book on Craig to push, could be interesting.
Besides Steve Cameron there was Roger Craig Jr., Gary Shaw and Robert Groden (no idea why someone who is economical with the truth is still given access to a platform like this ).
Roger Craig panel talk. From l to r: Gary Shaw, Robert Groden, Steve Cameron and Roger Craig Jr. Photo: Vince Palamara.
Roger Craig Jr. kicked things off claiming his dad was murdered in a rather emotional manner and I wasn’t too sure that this was a wise way of opening the panel talk like that, but it is what it is. Then he claimed that his dad was inside room 317 and that the photograph from Jesse Curry’s book was the proof.
Now I am not disputing his presence at Dallas P.D., but the photograph is not proof of Roger Craig’s visit. Here is the photograph in question.
The issue is that there is a tiny likeness, however after seeing other photos of this very same individual inside Room 317 of Robbery & Homicide of the Dallas Police Department below it is definitely not Roger Craig.
In the centre in front of the set of drawers. Pic. Jim Murray. ROKC scan from the Sprague archives at NARA. Click image to enlarge.
Speaking to Det. Richard Sims in front of the file cabinets. In front and on the right are detective Johnny Hicks on the phone and sergeant William ‘Pete’ Barnes with Oswald’s palm print on display and . ROKC scan from the Sprague archives at NARA. Click image to enlarge.
Pic.: Ft Worth Star Telegram. Click image to enlarge.
There is a small chance that the person noticed in these photos is Secret Service agent Charles Kunkel. But Vince Palamara said that cannot be since Kunkel was not in Dallas on Nov 22nd and these photos by Jim Murray and the Fort Worth Star Telegram were taken around 6 PM that day. At this point I would say nothing further than this man is a government agent, but it is not Roger Craig.
There is however other great evidence showing that Craig arrived inside Room 317. Like this James Bookhout report from Nov. 23rd.
James Bookhout report Nov 23 1963 on Roger Craig’s presence at Robbery & Homicide. Thanks to Malcolm Blunt. Click picture to view larger version.
Furthermore there is Jesse Curry talking to the press in the corridor of the 3rd floor of City Hall. where the D.P.D. resided. He does not quote Craig by name, but he does relay Craig’s story.
Craig was there, but it is not the man seen in the photograph from Jesse Curry’s book. Just wanted to set that record straight once and for all.
Nov
08
Howard Roffman to Richard Bernabei 1970
Howard Roffman wrote extensively with Harold Weisberg, but also with Richard Bernabei. I have managed to gotten hold of quite a bit of material myself after contacting his archive in Kingston and I also know that Denis Morissette went there and he sent me quite a few pages as well. I still have to go through all this. While browsing through the folder I came across this letter from 1970 that I gotten hold off in 2016.
It basically discusses the Couch film and Marrion Baker. Roffman did extensive research in the relation between the Couch film and Marrion Baker’s run almost 50 years ago. He also brings Gloria Calvery, Joe Molina and other T.S.B.D. employees’ statements in the fold and uses his common sense as most of his observations still stand today. Cool read.
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- Howard Roffman to Richard Bernabei – 1
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- Howard Roffman to Richard Bernabei – 2
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- Howard Roffman to Richard Bernabei – 3
Sep
29
Pauline Sanders and Sarah Stanton on the steps of the T.S.B.D.
There are a couple of things that I recently came across and am pretty sure the riddle of Sanders and Stanton step positions is solved. But first the statements by Pauline Sanders.
F.B.I. statement by Pauline Sanders, Nov 24th 1963. Click to enlarge.
Is it not odd that she states in her Nov 24th statement that she did not see Oswald in the lobby that to me is as significant as Sean Murphy’s find of Roy Truly saying in his Nov 22nd F.B.I. statement “They saw no one there” once allegedly arriving with Baker in the vestibule/lobby, when at the same time we can see in Darnell several people preceding them going up those stairs. The only reason for putting this in their statements is trying to refute Prayer Man’s or better yet Oswald’s presence, near the front door. Take Carolyn Arnold’s first F.B.I. statement, the one that got deep sixed, into consideration as well!
CE 1381. F.B.I. statement by Pauline Sanders March 18th 1964. Click to enlarge.
According to Sanders’ statements on Nov 24th 1963 and March 18th 1964 she said that she stood nearest the door and on the top step, but that is only partially true.
The top landing would have been way to cramped with Shelley and Molina occupying that eastern side already. Plus we know Frazier and Lewis stood inside the doorway. And I doubt she would stand behind Shelley and Molina, same goes for Sarah Stanton. The width of the eastern or the western side of the steps would allow for two people to stand next to each other and not more. There was no reason to cram next to each other as there was plenty of room to spread out. Here is a picture from the W.C. and two drawings taken by the F.B.I. shortly after the assassination for comparison.
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- Front steps T.S.B.D. Click to enlarge. Source: Mary Ferrell
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- T.S.B.D. front steps drawing 1963. Thanks to Gary Murr. Click to enlarge.
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- T.S.B.D. building and front steps drawing. Dec. 1963. Thanks to Gary Murr. Click to elnarge
Let’s move on to the Wiegman and Darnell films, we know who said that they stood on the steps. The following women were there: Maddie Reese, Ruth Dean, Pauline Sanders and Sarah Stanton. Dean and Reese have been identified.
I have also pointed out before that several other women joined them on those steps, be it at the bottom. They are not there in Wiegman but can be seen in Darnell, they are trying to get themselves a somewhat elevated view to see what is happening but also be close to safety. Although one could question that when there supposedly was a gunman in the building. But that aside.
Five women have joined the steps in the Jimmy Darnell film. Click to enlarge.
We find Pauline Sanders in Wiegman she stands on the 3rd or 4th step. I posted this shot at the Education forum in August 2018.
Pauline Sanders in the Dave Wiegman film. Click to enlarge. Thanks to John Woods.
Careful study of the Wiegman frame shows that next to Sanders is someone with blond hair and a white (or any other light coloured) outfit, you can barely see her but she cuts into Sanders on her left side, so for us that is on the right side. She is partially hidden by the east end of the wall and due to the angle Wiegman is filming from, he is not filming the steps dead on.
Pauline Sanders and Sarah Stanton in the Dave Wiegman film (Kamp/Ledoux version). Click to enlarge.
Pauline Sanders also said in her statements she stood next to Sarah Stanton, she made no mention of anyone else. That gives us an even better idea who to look for in these pix.
In the time period between Wiegman and Darnell (10-15 seconds) Sarah Stanton moved slightly more inwards and Pauline Sanders has moved up to the landing. This is because of Lovelady and Shelley leaving the steps right after the final shot. Otis Williams went inside and Joe Molina moving more centre on the landing therefor creating a gap on the east end of the steps/landing. Sanders could have wanted to get a better view down Elm St. after the shooting and going up a few steps would have helped a bit.
Also consider Buell Frazier who only appears in Darnell and cannot be seen at all in Wiegman, and even Roy Lewis who is starting to appear behind Frazier, again no sign of him in Wiegman.
In Darnell, 10-15 seconds after the shooting she is seen on the landing. Andrej Stancak found her.
The women on the steps in the Wiegman and Darnell films are now all accounted for.
Jul
30
Jimmy Darnell Footage
Updated:
Sept. 13 2019.
March 13 2021.
Denis Morissette pointed out on FB these two videos of Jimmy Darnell being interviewed and filmed while in the basement of KXAS. The videos have been recently released via the UNT site and are from the WBAP later to become KXAS and these days known as NBC5.
In the first clip you can see Darnell looking at a strip of 16MM film on a reel, this strip is of the front of the T.S.B.D. segment. Now this may not even be his film, but Dave Wiegman’s instead. I am simply amazed that he is looking at this film, which supposedly disappeared into NBC’s archives in N.Y. Yet here we are looking at an original or a very good copy of it.
This is the film no one knows where it is, by the looks of it from this segment and the next the copy they have digitised for these videos looks of great quality. Question is at what resolution did they digitise the film? And where is it now?
Click to enlarge.
In the second clip (skip to 01:05) Darnell is doing narration of him running ‘this is where I bail’, but the Wiegman film is on the monitor and more importantly Dave Wiegman ran on the pavement on the right side of Elm St. whereas Jimmy Darnell ran on the grassy left side of Elm where he eventually filmed as the press buss passed in front of him.
Jimmy Darnell, on the far left, after he got out of Camera Car 3.
Jimmy Darnell in Wilma Bond 5 filming while the press bus passes in front of him. Click to enlarge.
There is also a third clip.
Take a good look at this video compilation of Darnell footage by Denis Morissette and you will see that he is on the left side of Elm.
Wiegman was in Cam Car 1, whereas Darnell was in Cam Car 3. His footage is roughly 10-15 seconds after Wiegman shot his segment of the front of the T.S.B.D.
Both these two segments are odd as NBC5 used the Wiegman film assuming it was Darnell’s. But more importantly NBC5 had a 16MM copy of the Wiegman film!
The same Wiegman segment is used in a remembrance news feature after Jimmy Darnell’s passing.
Jul
25
Anatomy Of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Interrogations Vol II
Photo by Shel Hershorn
In Dec. 2016 I started to work on the second paper, Anatomy Of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Interrogations, after I had released the first Volume of Anatomy Of The Second Floor Lunch Room Encounter a few months prior. I can now safely say that I have finally finished this beast of a paper. As that is how it felt, I have given it way more time than I intended to and at certain points in the last year I just had to put it aside as it just kept going on and on. Especially when I was granted access to Malcolm Blunt’s archive where I found some key documents that cemented this thing just a wee bit more. In the end this instalment (Vol. 2) is better than I could have hoped for due to the subterfuge of evidence I managed to get my hands on and which are pasted inside the paper and linked to it.
Oswald facing the press guarded by M.G. Hall, R.M Sims, E. Boyd and T.L. Baker
The two hour talk I did in April 2018 at Canterbury Christchurch University was a summarisation of what was going to be released a short while after. But then I decided to change the whole thing. Since its original release the paper had accumulated an extra 150 pages and it had become too cluttered with info that had no real bearing on the actual period while Oswald was incarcerated.
The other self critique I had was that it was nowhere close to the quality of the Anatomy Of The Second Floor Lunch Room Encounter paper. The info was there but it was just a huge swamp. So decided to try the idea of putting it in a rough time line setting instead.
This was easier said than done and it has taken me a year just to do this. Quite a few reports and interviews summarised that weekend and it was quite a job to peel the material layer by layer and get it in the right time period and setting. No doubt things will get more material added on at a later date, but for now this will have to do.
The only other person that made an attempt on timing the happenings around Oswald that weekend was Mae Brussell. She managed to kick things off with the limited material available at that time.
I hope you enjoy reading this pretty long read, which is filled with documents, pictures and videos. And quite a lot of external links to boot.
Going to end with especially thanking Malcolm Blunt, Ed Ledoux and Alan Dale for proof reading this paper.
View the Anatomy of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Interrogations Paper. Opens new tab. 331 Pages – 32MB.
