10
John Abt representing Lee Oswald
In my paper Anatomy Of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Interrogations the name John Abt pops up quite a few times. Some people, like Will Fritz, said Oswald wanted Abt to represent him on Friday. This was rubbish as I already shown in that paper that the record stated Oswald made his very first two phone calls in the early afternoon of the 23rd (pages 225 & 226 from the PDF linked to above), almost 24 hours after being dragged in after his arrest in the Texas Theatre. One of those calls was an attempt to call New York. That by itself is a good indicator that Oswald wanted to contact Abt on the 23rd.
In the pages below (thanks to Malcolm Blunt) Abt tells of a CBS reporter contacting him on Saturday morning that Oswald wanted Abt to represent him and unless Oswald himself would make that request not much was going to happen.
Click the images to enlarge them.
Then there is a video segment (starting at 5:25, on the third floor of Dallas City Hall, it shows Oswald being escorted through the corridor on his way from Fritz’s office to the jail elevator.
It is shot on Nov 23rd after Oswald’s first interrogation roughly at 11:30, he is in his white t-shirt only and then stops just before entering the door to the jail elevator and being pulled in by the D.P.D. detectives. But Oswald manages to talk to one of the reporters be it for a few seconds. The audio is sadly missing as the microphone was not plugged in. Denis Morissette and I were discussing this segment since this part was ‘new’ to me and he had brought it to my attention.
Later on in the same video segment we can see A.B.C.’s Bob Clark as the man whose microphone Oswald was talking in to and eventually there is a different microphone pushed forward to catch Clark’s voice.
This is the moment where Oswald asked to get in touch with John Abt. Clark talks about this moment in this PBS video (at 46:00) from 2003. Oswald stated into Clark’s dead microphone “I want to contact Mr. Abt of New York City, to serve as my attorney”.
Saturday Nov 23rd at about 11:30 Oswald made the very first statement that he wanted John Abt to represent him and not any earlier. This by itself is supported by the reports from Saturday morning by Will Fritz himself, James Bookhout and Thomas Kelley made up on the 10:30 interrogation.
Add on Dec 13 2021.
Then there is a document which I found at the Harold Weisberg archive by Peggy Simpson which seems to have been sent before midday on the 23rd and makes mention of Oswald’s request for John Abt during the above mentioned happening in the corridor.
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.
24
Oswald being charged with the murder of JFK as part of a communist conspiracy.
Updated Dec 14th 2019.
While putting together my up and coming paper Anatomy Of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Interrogations I came across documents that could not be used inside that paper. But the quality of these documents meant that it would not be wise to ignore them.
Bill Alexander is about to charge Lee Oswald with murder of The President with malice and forethought and as part of a communist conspiracy. This latter part sets off alarm bells not just in Washington, and the higher echelon of the Texas legislature, but also the F.B.I. who make mention of this in a memo from Nov. 22nd by Kyle G. Clark.
Ronald Duggar, editor of the Texas Observer, has done an interview with Bill Alexander in Sept. 1973 and notes that Alexander said that he put out the story that Oswald was a communist to offset any talk of Oswald being a right-winger.
In an interview from Nov 3rd 1975 Alexander gets more specific, how he got about spreading the message and how it got back to him.
Earl Golz documents Michael Eddowes Nov 22 book and brings up Alexander’s communist conspiracy part.
In William Manchester’s notes of the interviews for his book “Death Of A President” Barefoot Sanders gives his version of what Bill Alexander is about to pull off.
Justice of the Peace David Johnston, seen inside room 317 gets his piece of the ‘conspiracy’ pie as well. As shown below the photos, in Earl Golz’s handwritten notes from Nov. 1975 of his interview with Johnston. In that interview Johnston even includes James K. Allen as one of the originators of the commie conspiracy yak yak (his words) besides Bill Alexander. James Allen is a rather secretive figure. He was a great friend of Will Fritz and in close vicinity to Room 317.
Johnston was very close to what was going on that day. He also was very close when Henry Wade gave his press conference after Oswald’s.
Then there is Waggoner Carr, and he puts a slight different spin on the story, but he had no idea what Barefoot Sanders was doing at the same time.
Then finally off course the Dallas D.A. Henry Wade, who while being interviewed by Melissa Johnson in Jan 1993. Confirms he was called by Cliff Carter
Update Dec 14th 2019.
Henry Wade who did an interview with the Dallas Morning News in 1993.
I got a call from Cliff Carter at the White House, Cliff Carter was a friend of mine who worked with President Johnson. It had apparently come over television that Oswald was going to be charged as part of a conspiracy with the Russians in killing President John F. Kennedy. He said the president was afraid that would hurt international relations quite a bit with Russia. I told him that everything you allege in an indictment you’ve got to prove, and if you allege a conspiracy, you’re going to have to prove it. This appears to be more a conspiracy, if with any foreign country, with Cuba, because he (Oswald) had loads and loads of propaganda from the committee to support (Fidel) Castro. . . . Cliff Carter was an aide to Johnson. I knew him personally and I knew Johnson personally. I worked in his (Lyndon Johnson’s) campaign in 1937 in Austin when I was in college, and he got elected to Congress.
Q: Did you, at that point, take a different attitude toward the assassination picture? You knew this was one of his top aides.
A: The only thing he was afraid of was that we would file he was part of a Russian conspiracy to kill President Kennedy. I told him that wouldn’t be done. Then I got a second call, that the president wants you to go down and make sure this conspiracy count is not in the indictment, because the press has already said it’s in there. I went down to the homicide division of the Dallas police. I guess there were 300 or 400 members of the press down there with cameras, and it was a madhouse down there.
With thanks to Malcolm Blunt for the documents.
09
Dallas Police & Sheriff H.S.C.A. statements
This year I have spent countless hours on gathering, scanning and organising many thousands of pages of documents from a few archives. This H.S.C.A. material of thirteen D.P.D. personnel comes from the Malcolm Blunt archives and there are a few bits that provide some little interesting bits of information with regards the assassination, the aftermath, the searches and the happenings inside City Hall.
See for yourself.
With thanks to Malcolm Blunt.
Woodrow Wiggins in charge of the jail on Sunday Nov 24th.
Fay M. Turner
Bobby Joe Dale
Luke Mooney
Gus Rose
Henry M. Moore
James Gilmore
Pat Gannaway
Paul Bentley
There was another Paul Bentley HSCA report released through NARA.
Paul McCaghren
Richard Stovall (one page missing) Page 3 is here.
Stavis Ellis
Updates:
Aug 11 2019.:
March 14th 2020:
May 3rd 2020:
Feb 21th 2021:
Paul Bentley HSCA report added.
June 11th 2021:
June 27 2021:
Sept 13th 2021:
17
Almost 4 years ago, March 2015 to be precise, Carmine Savastano had a go at trying to bring Prayer Man down on his blog named after his book Two Princes and a King. Neither me or any other ROKCer was aware of this post. The article was updated last in Dec 2017.
Carmine departed from ROKC shortly before he wrote this, or was kicked off the forum, whoever you wish to believe. The core members had enough of his constant arguing about evidence. I was not really there when all this happened, I did not seriously partake until Jan. 2015 myself.
Now having read Savastano’s blog post just now I can honestly say that his work or better yet his understanding of Prayer Man is not very good, as a matter of fact I rate it as high as Doyle’s comprehension of the case. The difference is that whenever Doyle is in a tight spot he uses Harvey and Lee to get himself out of it. How convenient it is to use Oswald’s ‘double’ when it becomes impossible to clear yourself out of the hole you have dug for yourself. But that is a different story. Let’s stick with the subject matter which is this blog post by him.
I will quote some from the article written by Carmine Savastano and write my comments down below in bold. Just wish to add that this is by no means a personal attack, it is a rebuttal to some of the arguments that are not only used by him, but by others as well who seem to lack to see the big picture and only use some of the evidence that is around.
1/The “Prayer Man” is similar to many other supposed “breakthroughs” coined by various people in the time since President Kennedy’s death. These include the Doorway Man, the Badge Man, the Black Dog Man, the Red Bandana Man, and the Black Hole Man, among many others.
I do not even know of the last two individuals, but to compare Prayer Man with Badge Man and Doorway Man is already a huge mistake.
Doorway Man was already cleared up the same evening, as the F.B.I. went to Billy Lovelady and he picked himself out from the table sized enlargement of the Altgens 6 Photograph. And Badge Man is not supported by anything but a colouring in, you could colour in a a pink elephant and try and make people believe that this is what is standing behind the picket fence. Looking at a very large b&w scan of the Moorman Polaroid does not show anything of a human outline at all.
Prayer Man is supported by evidence, be it circumstantial, but it is not something that should be disregarded. All this can be found in the interrogations reports and testimonies from Will Fritz, Jim Hosty and Harry Dean Holmes. Something Savastano doesn’t even touch nor makes mention of.
2/No witness testimony in the immediate area supports Oswald’s presence and not a single witness identifies him in the area during the shots.
Almost correct (Carolyn Arnold’s statement), but what Savastano omits from his writings is:
The primary statements by Shelley and Lovelady i/e do not contain a word about Oswald at all, as they were taken before Oswald was taken in. Once they witnessed Oswald’s arrival at City Hall, he was brought in as a cop killer, not as the shooter of J.F.K. Now who in their right mind would associate themselves with a cop killer?
Nor did anyone mention the negro on the bottom of the steps, Carl Edward Jones or Joe Molina who stood next to Shelley and above Otis Williams. Only one person mentioned Joe Molina, and that was Victoria Adams, and that was after her descent from the 4th floor and being directed back to the T.S.B.D. by a police man.
At the same time not one witness standing on those steps during the shooting says who that Caucasian male actually is. That is troubling no?
And why should they, in those days anyone of non Caucasian build in Tx. was expected to shut up and not volunteer information (Carl Jones, Roy Lewis and Joe Molina).
The women? Same!
Frazier? He was 19 and got the scare of his life by being shoved a statement, for being a co-conspirator, in front of him to sign by ‘old reliable’ Will Fritz.
Lovelady? Got bailed out by Ochus Campbell (the vice-president of the T.S.B.D.) for a weapons charge he was going to be re-arrested for.
Shelley? Oswald’s foreman, why should he side with a commie sympathiser? A cop killer to boot. No thank you……
Plus why should they state were Oswald was at that time, they barely knew him and he was dead by the time quite a few of the T.S.B.D. workers were interviewed, and who would want the weight of local and national law enforcement agencies on their back for a dead commie sympathiser who had also killed a cop!
3/ This person could be from a number of businesses in the vicinity, a passerby, a tourist, any number of people besides Lee Harvey Oswald.
This is about the biggest mistake Savastano can make, not only by disregarding this person as anyone but Oswald and also avoiding using his common sense, but also for the fact that it is no stranger either as was documented in March of 1964, as per CE 1381. If you want evidence Carmine, the stranger scenario is killed off with that document.
4/ While a conspiracy is eminently feasible and supported by substantial evidence, that does not justify the “Prayer Man” claim.
A very strange claim to make, especially when Savastano fails to submit such evidence himself, pot kettle…..
5/ Additional feasibly contending evidence includes the verbal statement of Lee Harvey Oswald himself.Some suggest we cannot trust any of the evidence, which is ridiculous, for how else can we prove anything? If most evidence available indicates something, it is more than likely to have occurred. Consider the amount of work and people required to suppress this idea. It would be a large undertaking of little value, since the matter still proves nothing of substance. It is not a smoking gun in my view, but smoke and mirrors.
Here Savastano makes another whopper of a faux pas. Not only does he ascribe to some of Oswald’s public statements in a video by Len Osanic, which are not timed in any way btw, but will be by me soon enough in my next paper “Anatomy Of Oswald’s Interrogations”.
But he also produces a very incomplete body of work. What Carmine should have done for starters is introduce the statements made by Fritz, Hosty, Bookhout and Holmes and also their notes and testimony as to Oswald’s whereabouts and more importantly about he destruction of Oswald’s alibi. Something I did in my first paper “Anatomy of The Second Floor Lunch Room Encounter” From thereon he could have concluded that the lunch room encounter was an utter fake event and from thereon investigate where Oswald actually was during that period, of shooting J.F.K.
27
Greg Parker posted this on FB recently, he pretty much IDed Baker in footage from the evening of the 23rd (about 30 hours after the assassination) of Baker seeing Oswald while he is about to be escorted through the hall and ducks away.
Now let me be very cynical for a change, but if I didn’t know any better then Baker looks at the guy who is being railroaded for the murder of The President, and after what has been going on about the second floor lunch room encounter that had only been public knowledge earlier that day and he cannot bear to look at him any longer after clocking him. That’s what the cynic inside tells me after looking at the man’s body language. I look too much at this stuff, but it’s one of those tells. Like Oswald’s face when he hears “You have been charged for murdering The President”. One of those moments were a picture starts to speak a thousand words.
There has to be more footage of this, as I have never seen this transfer of Oswald on the eve of Nov. 23rd before. It was from a documentary that I only had in a low resolution so never bothered to properly check it myself. Thanks to Greg Parker we all can see Baker on the 23rd no less. Closer inspection also reveals that this encounter is coincidental as Baker just tries to make his way past when the door has just opened with Oswald coming out.
I shall post some screen shots of this footage Greg pointed at. A very short snippet of The Lost JFK Tapes docu.
The video below will play the clip once in real time, and once in a crude slow motion.
Go to the Marrion Baker page to see more pictures.
Before people will bring J.W. Courson into the picture. Well his face shows something of a likeness, but it is not him..