Business as usual or meet the lone gunman(UA-66627984-1)

Will Fritz DPD

Lee Harvey Oswald – Alek James Hidell

Lee Harvey Oswald – Alek James Hidell

 

While working on my forthcoming paper Anatomy of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Interrogations Vol. 3, which I hope to release in the Autumn of 2021 (more like June 2022!), I came across some documents that made me take a closer look into the find of the Hidell ID and realised something was amiss. This then got me to investigate and trying to figure out how the Alek James Hidell ID came forward during the time that Oswald was incarcerated and interrogated by the DPD until his death. The ‘discovery’ of the Hidell ID on Nov 22 and the significant developments on the 23rd and 24th are this article’s primary focus. And things are not as they are meant to appear at all.

Before I get into the details I suggest you check out Accessories After The Fact by Sylvia Meagher, which to this day, after more than 50 years remains one of the best generic books on the JFK Assassination. In chapter 6 simply titled “Hidell” this matter is already addressed in very good detail. I suggest you read this as it shows how soon after the assassination Sylvia Meagher was close to pointing the many discrepancies on the Hidell matter out. Another good read has been created by Paul Hoch for the Third Decade Magazine who brings in the all important important military intelligence angle, this material was kept far afield from the Warren Commission at that time and only surfaced during the HSCA and also the ARRB investigations. And then there is The Assassination Tapes by George O’Toole. He managed to interview two individuals who were involved with the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald at the Texas Theatre.

Oswald gets arrested at about 13:50 and is searched while inside the car transporting him towards City Call, where they arrive at about 14:00 or just after. During that journey they radio the DPD dispatch starting at 13:51. A full transcript is on pages 107-110 HERE.

 Sergeant Gerald Hill: Suspect of shooting of police officer is apprehended and en route to station.

Dispatch (Hulse and MacDaniel): 10-4. At the Texas Theatre?

Sergeant Gerald Hill: Caught him on the lower floor of the Texas Theatre after a fight.

A little later.

Sergeant Gerald Hill: Patrolman CT walker is in the car with us. Have someone pick up his car at the rear of the Texas Theatre and take it to station. It’s got the keys in it.

Dispatch (Hulse and MacDaniel): 10-4.

And after that another transmission from Gerald Hill to report they were in a special service unit car and giving their location.

Captain C.E. Talbert: You do have the suspect arrested in the Texas Theatre?

Sergeant Gerald Hill: Yes, sir, him and the gun.

This is what is available from the transcript between the car containing Lee Harvey Oswald, a group of 5 DPD officers and detectives and dispatch. I don’t know whether there is anything missing from that transcript but that is all there is. Now then let’s have a closer look at these 5 lawmen and their statements and interviews during that weekend and thereafter.

  • Paul Bentley, the DPD detective who sprains his ankle during the scuffle to arrest Oswald inside the Texas Theater speaks to gathered press on the third floor corridor. There is no mention of any Hidell ID.

On the 23rd Bentley is interviewed on WFAA TV and asked about the identification cards he pulled from Oswald’s wallet while they are on their way to City Hall. At 08:39 Paul Bentley explains all this in good detail. Is there any mention of the Hidell ID? Nope.

On Dec 3rd 1963 Paul Bentley writes up his report, rather late if I may add, but even then there is not one mention of a Hidell ID. And that makes it even stranger since the Hidell ID has already come into play by then.

During the first half of the 1970’s, George O’Toole in his book The Assassination Tapes (chapter 9 page 160), manages to interview Paul Bentley, who by that time has moved on from the DPD to work for the First National Bank in Dallas.

Bentley: We had no information hat he was the man who had actually committed the assassination of the president until we radioed in that we had a prisoner and gave the names. And I say names, this was taken from his wallet. he used several different names, as you know. But we gave the names. This was when they told us that he was a suspect in the assassination of the president. So we were instructed to bring him directly to Captain Fritz, who was in the homicide and robbery bureau.

O’Toole: He had the names of both Oswald and Hidell?

Bentley: Right, right.

O’Toole: Both of those identifications?

Bentley: Seems to me like he was using another name, also I can’t remember. I’ve got all this stuff at home. I’m not sure. There were several names that he was using on various cards and then we gave the names to the dispatcher who was instructed to bring them to Captain Fritz.


In a second interview by phone  he again asks about the Oswald-Hidell identification (page 163).

O’Toole: Now the identification that he had, though, he had both Hidell and Oswald?

Bentley: Yes, and if I am not mistaken, he had some identification by the other names on him, but I can’t remember offhand what the names were. Seems to me like there were three or four different names that he had in there.

In his first HSCA interview (May 4 1978) Bentley only mentions ‘numerous identifications’

But during a second HSCA interview on June 15 1978 he recalls that he had pulled 5-6 ID cards out of Oswald’s wallet with different names. No mention of Hidell or any other details as to what names they were. A first by Bentley to mention this almost 15 years after the fact!

But it gets better during his  Living History talk with the Sixth Floor Museum at 18:08 he even has the nerve to state that Oswald had several aliases. So Mr. Bentley how would you know which name to pick and inform dispatch about this while en route to City hall? There are a few other statements by him during that interview, not context related to this post, that are highly questionable from a truth perspective.

  • Kenneth E. Lyon, another Dallas Police Department detective who was part of the arrest team has his report made up on the 3rd of Dec 1963. Again no mention of any Hidell ID.

Kenneth E. Lyon, on the very right, arriving out of the elevator on the 3rd floor with Oswald just behind him. Still grab of CBS footage. Click image to enlarge. Thanks to Denis Morissette for the ID.

Kenneth E Lyon report Dec 4 1963. From History Matters. Click pic to enlarge.

Mr. BELIN. Was he ever asked his name?
Mr. CARROLL. Yes, sir; he was asked his name.
Mr. BELIN. Did he give his name?
Mr. CARROLL. He gave, the best I recall, I wasn’t able to look closely, but the best I recall, he gave two names, I think. I don’t recall what the other one was.
Mr. BELIN. Did he give two names? Or did someone in the car read from the identification?
Mr. CARROLL. Someone in the car may have read from the identification. I know two names, the best I recall, were mentioned.

  • Another one of the arresting DPD officers is sergeant Gerald Hill. He spoke to the press shortly after as Bentley did and supplied incriminating details, yet not once mentioned the Alek HIdell ID. In a radio interview that same afternoon

Gerald Hill being interviewed inside City Hall. Screen B.K. Click pic to enlarge.

Now Gerald Hill could have forgotten to mention this during that interview, but when he is interviewed for a second time as mentioned In the supplementary volumes of the Warren Report, Hill states to the newsmen, “The only way we found out what his name was, was to remove his billfold and check it ourselves; he wouldn’t even tell us what his name was.” Later in the interview a reporter asks, “What was the name on the billfold?” Hill replies, “Lee H. Oswald, 0-S-W-A-L-D.” No mention at all of the name Hidell.  In another filmed interview (at 02:55) Hill makes no mention of the billfold at all. This video is rather poorly edited and looks incomplete.

And then four months later Gerald Hill is being interviewed by the Warren Commission, and by a miracle the Hidell ID appears.

Mr. BELIN. Now after, from the time you started in motion until the time you called in, do you remember anyone saying anything at all in the car?
Mr. HILL The suspect was asked what his name was.
Mr. BELIN. What did he say?
Mr. HILL. He never did answer. He just sat there.
Mr. BELIN. Was he asked where he lived?
Mr. HILL. That was the second question that was asked the suspect, and he didn’t answer it, either.
About the time I got through with the radio transmission, I asked Paul Bentley, “Why don’t you see if he has any identification.”
Paul was sitting sort of sideways in the seat, and with his right hand he reached down and felt of the suspect’s left hip pocket and said, “Yes, he has a billfold,” and took it out.
I never did have the billfold in my possession, but the name Lee Oswald was called out by Bentley from the back seat, and said this identification, I believe, was on the library card.
And he also made the statement that there was some more identification in this other name which I don’t remember, but it was the same name that later came in the paper that he bought the gun under.
Mr. BELIN. Would the name Hidell mean anything? Alek Hidell?
Mr. HILL. That would be similar. I couldn’t say specifically that is what it was, because this was a conversation and I never did see it written down, but that sounds like the name that I heard.
Mr. BELIN. Was this the first time you learned of the name?
Mr. HILL. Yes; it was.

He repeats this years later in an interview with George O’Toole in his book The Assassination Tapes chapter 9, page 157. “As I say, in the car on the way downtown he was belligerent, he was surly, he wouldn’t tell us who he was. We took his billfold out of his pocket, we found the ID in both names, Oswald and Hidell, that he later was proved to have ordered the gun under. He had library cards and drafty cards in one name, and he had identification  cards from various organizations in the other name.” 

  • Charles Truman Walker was present as well during Oswald’s arrest. His official report, from Dec 2 1963, regarding the Oswald arrest does not mention anything about inside the unmarked squad car during the ride towards City Hall. Then it becomes interesting, during Charles Truman Walker’s HSCA interview (page 5) he takes credit for taking the bill fold out of Oswald’s pants pocket, after dropping him off at City Hall. Something Paul Bentley did in the car already! And he makes mention of the Hidell ID and also mentions that he searched Oswald again.
  • Gus Rose and Richard Stovall ‘deal’ with Oswald next. They arrive at City Hall just before Oswald is brought in and talk with him for about 10-15 minutes after which Will Fritz arrives and sends them to go to Irving. In the joint report by Richard Stovall, Gus Rose and John Adamcik there is only the briefest mention of this ‘interrogation’. Not a word in that statement on an ID carrying the name Hidell. You’d think something like that would be reported no?

Months later on April 8 1964 Richard Stovall’s W.C. testimony mentions the following before he is sent out by Fritz.

Mr. BALL. Do you remember what was said to him and what he said to you?
Mr. STOVALL. I don’t recall exactly–I went in and asked him for his identification, asked him who he was and he said his name was Lee Oswald, as well as I remember. Rose and I were both in there at the time. He had his billfold and in it he had the identification of “A. Hidell,” which was on a selective service card, as well as I remember.

Mr. BALL. That’s [spelling] H-i-d-e-l-l, isn’t it?.
Mr. STOVALL. I’m not positive on that–I believe it was [spelling] H-i-d-e-l-l, I’m not sure. And he also had identification of Lee Harvey Oswald, and I believe that was on a Social Security card and at that time Captain Fritz opened the door to the office there and sent Rose and I to go out to this address in Irving at 2515 West Fifth Street in Irving.

And later during the same testimony.

Mr. BALL. Now, did you do anything else on this investigation?
Mr. STOVALL. No, sir; that’s all I can recall that I did on the investigation. I might add, there was–well, you have that on the list–some property.
Mr. BALL. What is that?
Mr. STOVALL. When we took this identification off of Lee Oswald that had this selective service card, the name Hidell, and he also had his own identification–at the time we were in the garage we found some negatives out there that appeared that he had make a snapshot of a selective service card, and on the back of the negatives it was where the name would have been typed in–there was some stuff on the back of the negatives to block out the name when it was reprinted, and there were some selective service cards that he had printed himself out there from a negative that were blank and which appeared to be the same that he had on him at the time, on the 22nd of November, that had the name of “A. Hidell” typed in on it.

From the handwritten list (made by two individuals) of the evidence taken from Ruth Paine’s house, and unless these negatives were inside the brown box, 13th entry on the first page, then there is no direct link to these so called negatives at all. Again I will apply the benefit of doubt on this one.

A closer look at the University of Texas JFK Collection which stores the DPD evidence on Lee Harvey Oswald has five pictures with negatives on display. It has hard to look at the details, but Negatives, Photographs #2 seems to display a Selective Services card. The issue is that the resolution is too low to actually see anything to be able to ID and conclude what Stovall is attesting to. Nor is there a photograph of the backside of that negative to see the masking of said negative. I tried to enhance and invert the #2 image. But I have not become any the wiser.

Negatives #2 from UNT. Enhancement by B.K. Click pic to enlarge.

Gus Rose behind Buell Wesley Frazier late on Nov 22 1963. Photo: Jim Murray – Blackstar. Scan by Terry Martin at NARA. Click pic to enlarge.

Mr. ROSE. There were some people in the office from the Book Depository and we talked to a few of them and then in just a few minutes they brought in Lee Oswald and I talked to him for a few minutes?
Mr. BALL. What did you say to him or did he say to you?
Mr. ROSE. Well, the first thing I asked him was what his name was and he told me it was Hidell.
Mr. BALL. Did he tell you it was Hidell?
Mr. ROSE. Yes; he did.
Mr. BALL. He didn’t tell you it was Oswald?
Mr. ROSE. No; he didn’t, not right then–he did later. In a minute–I found two cards–I found a card that said “A. Hidell.” And I found another card that said “Lee Oswald” on it, and I asked him which of the two was his correct name. He wouldn’t tell me at the time, he just said, “You find out.” And then in just a few minutes Captain Fritz came in and he told me to get two men and go to Irving and search his house.
Mr. BALL. Now, when he first came in there–you said that he said his name was “Hidell”?
Mr. ROSE. Yes.
Mr. BALL. Was that before you saw the two cards?
Mr. ROSE. Yes; it was.
Mr. BALL. Did he give you his first name?
Mr. ROSE. He just said “Hidell”; I remember he just gave me the last name of “Hidell”.
Mr. BALL. And then you found two or three cards on him?
Mr. ROSE. Yes; we did.
Mr. BALL. Did you search him?
Mr. ROSE. He had already been searched and someone had his billfold. I don’t know whether it was the patrolman who brought him in that had it or not.
Mr. BALL. And the contents of the billfold supposedly were before you?
Mr. ROSE. Yes.

And from this short interview session with Oswald on the 22nd in their Warren Commission testimonies it becomes apparent that Rose and Stovall contradict each other about Lee Harvey Oswald telling them what his name was.. Yet they were inside the same room. They make mention of the Selective Service Car found on Oswald only during their W.C. testimony.

In 1998 in an article from DMagazine Gus Rose mentions the card again. On the table lay the two identification cards. Rose looked down at them. One read “Alec Hiddel.” The other: “Lee Oswald.”

In which case it would be easy to spot for the people involved with interrogating Lee Harvey Oswald shortly after, no?

  • Will Fritz starts to interrogate Oswald, first by himself, backed up by Elmer Boyd and Richard Sims, starting at about 14:30 inside room 317 of Robbery & Homicide. Gus Rose and Richard Stovall could have mentioned the Hidell ID, but they failed telling him. Fritz does not mention anything about the ID during this first interrogation lasting an hour and a half until 16:00..
  • James P Hosty and James W Bookhout join Fritz about 45 minutes later at about 15:15. In those 90 minutes again the Hidell ID is not brought up once by either FBI agent at any time during this first interrogation. It is not found in Fritz’s interrogation notes and his subsequent report, Hosty’s handwritten interrogation notes and the joint Bookhout and Hosty FBI report. And yet they do bring up the O.H. Lee name which is the name accredited to Oswald using it at his North Beckley residence. Which from a timing p.o.v. and compared to the Hidell name is remarkable.

James W Bookhout (in a light colored suit wearing glasses and smoking a pipe) inside Robbery & Homicide. Photo by Jim Murray. Scan by: Terry Martin at NARA. Click pic to enlarge.

During James Bookhout’s W.C. testimony the Hidell name gets brief mentions, but only in the vaguest terms.

Mr. STERN – What sort of question would he refuse to answer? Was there any pattern to his refusing?
Mr. BOOKHOUT – Well, now, I am not certain whether this would apply then to this particular interview, the first interview or not, in answering this, but I recall specifically one of the interviews asking him about the Selective Service card which he had in the name of Hidell, and he admitted that he was carrying the card, but that he would not admit that he wrote the signature of Hidell on the card, and at that point stated that he refused to discuss the matter further. I think generally you might say anytime that you asked a question that would be pertinent to the investigation, that would be the type of question he would refuse to discuss.

And later during the same testimony  when they do discuss the first interrogation of the 23rd.

Mr. STERN – Did you ask any questions in the course of this interview?
Mr. BOOKHOUT – Yes.
Mr. STERN – What were they, and what were the responses, if you recall?
Mr. BOOKHOUT – One specific question was with regard to the selective service card in the possession of Oswald bearing a photograph of Oswald and the name Alek James Hidell. Oswald admitted he carried this selective service card, but declined to state that he wrote the signature of Alek J. Hidell appearing on same. Further declined to state the purpose of carrying same, and—or any use he made of same.

  • Robert E Jones of the 112th INTC contacts the DOJ at 15:15 while Oswald is being interrogated by Will Fritz and in this document Oswald is already marked as the guilty man for the Tippit murder.  Jones provides of plenty information on Lee Harvey Oswald and his previous endeavors in Russia and New Orleans, the majority coming from newspaper clippings. The timing and the sharing of this is most interesting when Oswald is still being interrogated and Hosty and Bookhout have only just walked in. But the hammer of course is that Jones already knows that Oswald was carrying a Selective Service Card bearing the name of A.J. Hidell. This is quite remarkable as well when not one of the arresting officers attested to having found this card that day. Not until months later! Following this report we get a report by the Secret Service on Dec 5 1963 which tries to clarify that the Ana J Hidell is a typo. As much as I want to believe that correction I also know that the Secret Service messed around a lot in their reporting with TSBD workers i/e in early Dec of 1963. But let’s give ’em the benefit of doubt in this instance.

The HSCA investigates and interviews Jones on 3 occasions over the period of a year.

The first time on April 4 1977. The following document is Robert Jones’ HSCA interview from April 20 1978. This session is filled with some good details. In a nutshell Jones got his information from someone inside the D.P.D. at about 13:30-14:00 and that poses quite an issue, since no DPD officer is on record at that time about the Hidell ID or name at that time. Better yet Oswald was arrested at 13:50 after the vaguest description possible was sent through DPD dispatch. Compare that to the one sent out for Charles Douglas Givens just before the DPD entered the Texas Theater.

  • Forrest Sorrells gets about ten minutes to talk to Oswald before he is taken down for his first line-up with Helen Markham. Not a word about Hidell.
  • Then at 16:25 the San Antonio bureau of the FBI sends a report to its director and to the Dallas office. Again Oswald is declared the guilty man for murdering Tippit. Which is remarkable as well since the timing of the cable is ten minutes before Oswald’s first line-up with the hysterical Helen Markham.

 

FBI Report 16:25 Nov 22 1963. Click to enlarge

  • Jim Hosty, later that day and not allowed to be present during the interrogations anymore hangs about Robbery & Homicide Bureau and takes notes of the so called Oswald evidence which is laid out on a table.

James P Hosty (newspaper to his side) speaking to Bill Alexander inside Robbery & Homicide. Photo by Jim Murray. Scan by: Terry Martin at NARA. Click pic to enlarge.

In the photograph above you can see the office with the blinds on the right which is where Oswald was interrogated. The glass window on the left behind Bill Alexander was Walter Potts office where the evidence was laid out.

In Assignment Oswald Hosty states “I decided nonetheless that I would remain at the police station. Just because I couldn’t talk to the police didn’t mean I couldn’t learn things from them. I headed back to Fritz’s office, where I knew the police were keeping Oswald’s personal belongings. Nothing there, but in the second inner office, which belonged to Lieutenant Walter Potts, I spotted Oswald’s things, which had been removed from his person and from his apartment at the Oak Cliff rooming house.” Hosty then starts mentioning Oswald’s address book and the entry of his name in it. Anything about Hidell then? Ehm……no! Keep this in mind when it is Manning Clements’ turn to go through the same evidence not much later.

Then there is the Church Committee testimony that Hosty gave on Dec 13th 1975. On page 138 he mentions the same as above that he goes into the adjoining office and goes through the evidence. And again the direction moves immediately towards the address book. No mention of a Hidell ID. Hosty would have mentioned that if there was one.

  • Manning Clements arrives in the evening of Nov 22nd and sees James Bookhout, and asks him if anyone has, to his knowledge, taken a detailed physical description and background information from Lee Harvey Oswald. Bookhout tells him that such description and background data had not been obtained, and suggests that Clements do it. In his Warren Commission testimony Clements says that he questioned Oswald at about 10 PM, but this is wrong. Thanks to a report by M.G. Hall, who is very precise with his timings. he makes mention of Clements’ arrival at 19:40. Which is very close to the “I’m just a patsy” scene in the corridor. Clements talks with Oswald over a period of just about half an hour, and his questioning the suspect gets interrupted during which time Oswald is taken out for a line-up, which would be the one with the Davis Sisters. While Oswald is gone Clements has a look at the evidence and he, allegedly, sees the Selective Services card with the Alek James Hidell name on it.  In his report made the next day on the 23rd he is the first person that makes an actual mention of seeing the Hidell Selective Services card the day before yet he does not make no mention of any other item from Oswald’s wallet. What boggles the mind even more is that he makes no mention of this ‘fact’ to James Bookhout or Will Fritz who start their third interrogation at 19:55!
  • This FBI report from its director is made up at 10:21 PM on the 22nd of Nov. and it deals predominately about the Hidell link to the FPCC.

FBI report 10:21 PM Nov 22 1963. Click pic to enlarge.

 

  • On Nov 23rd, near the end of the first interrogation just before 11:30 Will Fritz mentions in his notes that FBI agent James Bookhout asks him about the Hidell ID. This handwritten note is the first trace of anyone of the D.P.D. actually asking Oswald about this. James Bookhout and Thomas J Kelley mention this at the end of their reports as well. This is after the mail order for the rifle has been discovered in Chicago earlier that morning. Come on…this is just ‘sheer coincidence’.
  • On the morning of the 24th Harry Dean Holmes has joined Will Fritz, Jim Leavelle, Forrest Sorrels for a last interrogation before Oswald is to be transported to the Dallas jail. Holmes writes in a report in which he stated that Fritz asked Oswald about the Hidell I.D. card, and Oswald “flared up and stated ‘I’ve told you all I’m going to about that card. “You took notes, just read them for yourself, if you want to refresh your memory” Oswald could have been referring to anyone in that room.

In Harry Dean Holmes’ W.C. testimony he states:

Mr. HOLMES. In his billfold the police had found a draft registration card in the name of A. J. Hidell on his person at the time of his arrest, and I had seen it.

And later on during the same testimony session Harry Dean Holmes brings up the ID again..

“Well, who is A. J. Hidell?” I asked him.
And he said, “I don’t know any such person.”
I showed him the box rental application for the post office box in New Orleans and I read from it. I said, “Here this shows as being able to receive, being entitled to receive mail is Marina Oswald.” And he said, “Well, that is my wife, so what?”
And I said also it says “A. J. Hidell.”
“Well, I don’t know anything about that.”
That is all he would say about it.
Then Captain Fritz interrupted and said, “Well, what about this card we got out of your billfold? This draft registration card, he called it, where it showed A. J. Hidell.”
“Well, that is the only time that I recall he kind of flared up and he said, “Now, I have told you all I am going to tell you about that card in my billfold.” He said, “You have the card yourself, and you know as much about it as I do.” And he showed a little anger. Really the only time that he flared up.

  • Walter E Potts’ report states that he had gone to the Beckley address on the 22nd and claims that they checked for the Oswald and Hidell names and then find out that Oswald was registered under the name O. H Lee. The issue with this report is that it is made after the 25th.
  • In Will Fritz interrogation report of which there are half a dozen different versions available and which he wanted amended before it was sent of to the Warren Commission, he makes a brief entry about the Hidell ID.

 

Will Fritz – Interrogation of Lee Harvey Oswald. From: UNT. Click pic to enlarge.

So let’s recap!

There is no report from the DPD on the 22nd of Nov that points to the Hidell name and ID at all. Anyone from that group interviewed by the press makes no mention of this either.

Robert Jones of the 112th INTC was informed by someone of the DPD, name not remembered during his HSCA testimony, early that afternoon of the 22nd about Oswald and the Hidell ID

The FBI claims that Jones rang them and gave them the news after which they shared this with other bureaus.

The Hidell name is not brought up by anyone at all on Nov 22nd even though some law enforcement officers claim they saw the ID, yet when they had the opportunity to question Oswald about this ID it did not happen. This includes Will Fritz, James Bookhout, James Hosty and Manning Clements.

The first real evidence that Oswald was asked about the Hidell name is at the end of the first interrogation close to 11:30 on Nov 23rd 1963. This is confirmed by reports of Will Fritz, James W Bookhout and Thomas J Kelley.

Shortly before, in Chicago, an order for the alleged murder weapon, a Mannlicher-Carcano in the name of Alek J Hidell is found and reported to the FBI.

On Nov 23 1963 Richard Sims of the DPD submits the wallet contents to the Identification Bureau and requests 4 copies of photographs of each item. The description of them is very generic.

On Nov 29 1963 the FBI creates a report of the wallet contents sent from the DPD to the FBI, is there a mention of the Hidell Selective Service Card? Nope. On top of that according the Feds it appears the DPD had failed to photograph this content and requests the FBI to do so…….

In a document dated Dec 19th 1963 the FBI states that it had received Oswald’s wallet and that it did not contain the US Marines Certificate of Service and the Selective Service Card in the name of  Hidell. And that these were subsequently sent as such at a later date. And that the SSC was a complete forgery.

This FBI document from Nov 23 1963 is also not online anywhere else. I have highlighted the Hidell related matters. This document provides a good insight that the Hidell name and rifle order came not in play until Saturday morning the 23rd.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

With thanks to:

Malcolm Blunt for a lot of documents.

Harold Weisberg Archive at Hood College.

UNT.

The Sixth Floor Museum.

Ⓒ Bart Kamp

Nicholas Katzenbach Was Working Hard On Crucifying Lee Oswald

Nicholas Katzenbach Was Working Hard On Crucifying Lee Oswald.

Upda 

Updated Jan 25 2021.

Nicholas Katzenbach. Photo: Boston Globe.

Nicholas Katzenbach was a Deputy Attorney General appointed by President John F. Kennedy in 1962 and worked directly under Robert Kennedy. After the assassination of President Kennedy Katzenbach continued to serve with the Johnson administration until February 11th, 1965.

The first time I came across his name was in the documentary Beyond ‘JFK’: The Question of Conspiracy in which a document from Nov 25th 1963 was brought up.  This document states: “The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large; and that the evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial. Discussions followed on  forums and newsgroups. How could Katzenbach do this at such short notice, and doesn’t this show how biased he was? Eh…..yeah!

Katzenbach Memo Nov 25 1964. Click to enlarge.

When the first batch of previously withheld documents were released in 2017 I found this document, that must have been an ‘inspiration’ for Katzenbach’s document. I just went through the released FBI files and noticed that the sentence used on page 3 was very similar to the Nov 25th doc. I had to dig out that document to make sure that I was not mixing things up. The document below is from Nov 24th. Compare both docs and you see that Hoover and Katzenbach were in cahoots on this matter of issuing something that would convince the public of Oswald’s guilt.

Hoover document Nov 24 1963. Click to enlarge.

 

With that find back then I thought ‘cool I found a link between the two documents.

But there is more. Never thought I would come across this piece while going through the Malcolm Blunt Archives  Two pages which are a shocking read from a timing perspective. Bear in mind that Oswald was arrested at about 13:50 hrs and Katzenbach wants to nail Oswald to the cross by 18:15 Dallas time. Lee Harvey Oswald at that time is being interrogated for the second time. and is less than one hour away from being charged for the Tippit murder.

This all puts the whole Dallas investigation into perspective as in who is calling the shots and wants ‘this thing’ over and done with.

Nicholas Katzenbach. Crick to enlarge.

Nicholas Katzenbach Click to enlarge.

Important to Hold That Man by Jerry D. Rose May 1986

Important to Hold That Man by Jerry D. Rose May 1986

 

Once in a blue moon you come across a great article. From The Third Decade; a magazine that has published some of the finest articles in JFK Assassination research. This article below by publisher Jerry D. Rose is no exception. And the reason for me to bring this up is because it falls nicely inside my remit but it is also a great way to compare it with my own work. And Rose does a terrific job. The parts where Truly had stated to the WC he had not seen Oswald after the assassination which of course makes no sense when the second floor lunch room encounter allegedly happened within 90 seconds after the shots had been fired. Rose’s remarks following up on Bill Shelley stating to Roy Truly that he did not see Lee Oswald are simply priceless.

Fritz’s movements and actions from the T.S.B.D. and to the D.P.D. are thoroughly questioned, but his pit stop at Bill Decker’s office is sadly missing from those paragraphs. All this makes Will Fritz look even more suspicious

Oswald being paraded past his fellow employees had more of an effect than Rose describes. He notes discrepancies from a procedural p.o.v. But add on that those fellow employees were told that Oswald had killed a cop at that time which of course meant that these people were distancing themselves from Oswald as much as they possibly could.

A perfect example of someone being too close is Buell Frazier who got it in the neck from early evening onwards from the D.P.D. that day. Joe Molina a worthy second.

The yellow marker (grey on these pages) and pen annotations are from Harry Livingstone whose archive I have been digitising this past year and a bit.

Do read!

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The James Hosty notes

The James Hosty Notes.

 

A small part of this material has already been released through my second paper Anatomy Of Lee Harvey Oswald’s Interrogations.

Recently a post by Rob Clark at the Education Forum asked “Best of the Year 2019″. In a nutshell the thread was about what were the best finds in 2019 from an evidentiary/research p.o.v. Cliff Varnell mentioned two instances of which one was the discovery of the handwritten note by James Hosty which I found in Malcolm Blunt’s archive in Feb. 2019 and I posted this straight after finding it. This document caused a few ripples within the scene and led to a doubling in my website traffic that same month and a 1.5 x increase the month after. A good indicator of people being curious about this find. The document in question is below.

Pat Speer had the nerve to call it and I quote:  The Hosty notes are not notes perse, but are a first draft of a report. Well he has got that right. And then This draft is important but not for the reason most believe. He mentions in this draft that he confronted Oswald about contacting the Soviet Embassy.  

So a phrase on Oswald’s letter to the Soviet embassy is more important than Hosty recording that Oswald got a coke for his lunch and then went out to watch the P. parade.

Has everyone else stopped rolling around laughing yet? It’s posts like Speer’s that cause nothing but acrimony between researchers. The stuff he writes about in that post Airtel and Ruth Paine has nothing to do with the thread’s subject. What he puts forward is old news and filled with speculative innuendo as well..

But having said that it got me thinking and looking into Hosty’s paper work. Below the document in question, which I found in Feb. 2019.

Handwritten note by James P. Hosty. Click page to enlarge.

It was F.B.I. procedure to destroy handwritten notes once a typed up version was created, Hosty made mention of this during his Schweiker Committee testimony. In Hosty’s book Assignment Oswald two notebook pages appear on one page related to the interrogations of Lee Oswald. These were miraculously found in a pile of papers at his home. What Hosty did not do was post all the other pages I found or even make mention of them.

The world had no idea that these notes existed at all. That was until Feb. 2019 when I visited Malcolm Blunt’s archives and found a folder entitled “Hosty”. This folder at Malcolm Blunt’s archives was filled with more than 200 pages. I only published the one page as it had the most revealing sentence regarding to Oswald’s actions just before the motorcade passed by the T.S.B.D. “Then went outside to watch the P. parade“. That passage reconciles with the handwritten Fritz notes phrase “Out with Bill Shelley, in front”.

The note by itself was a good find in Malcolm’s archives. He himself had no idea that he had this very important document. Nevertheless it was a great addition as evidence to my paper.

*****

The page, showing two notebook pages is part of a set of 3. I shall post the third page below, there is nothing suspicious about the missing page as it makes mention of matters that are happening after the first and only interrogation Hosty was present at. There were more pages in that notebook, but they do not relate to the interrogation. I will get back to these extra pages in a moment.

 

 

Hosty was there along with James Bookhout and three D.P.D. officers (Will Fritz, Richard Sims and Elmer Boyd). On that third page you can see Hosty making mention of the first line-up and even the Sorrell’s talk which got him in hot water due to Secret Service agent William Patterson reporting on this.

If I take the very first notebook page and compare it to the page on D.P.D. affidavit paper I found it becomes clear that the notebook page was written during the interrogations and that the actual page served as the source for the draft report on the right. The result is that the “1st floor entrance office” is the third handwritten source for Oswald’s location when the motorcade passed by the building.

James Hosty handwritten notes. Click to enlarge.

In Hosty’s book Assignment Oswald he described how he kept on taking notes even after the interrogation.

I decided nonetheless that I would remain at the police station. Just because I couldn’t talk to the police didn’t mean I couldn’t learn things from them. I headed back to Fritz’s office, where I knew the police were keeping Oswald’s personal belongings. Nothing there, but in the second inner office, which belonged to Lieutenant Walter Potts, I spotted Oswald’s things, which had been removed from his person and from his apartment at the Oak Cliff rooming house. Among the items on Potts’s desk was Oswald’s black address book. I pulled out my pad of blank police affidavit forms and started transcribing the entries in his book, thinking I might find some interesting leads or even some possible co-conspirators. A little way into my transcribing, I came across a line that made my heart crawl. There, scrawled in Oswald’s handwriting, was the entry:
Nov. 1 James P. Hasty, RI1-
1211, MV8605,
1114 Commerce, Dallas.

I do not share Hosty’s opinion that the name says Hasty. The way it was written down could be interpreted both ways. Oswald’s way of writing an “a” or an “o” appear to be fairly similar. See for yourself in the image which comes from Hosty’s book.

Hosty’s details in Oswald’s notebook. Click to enlarge.

Hosty mentions in his book that he used a pad of blank police affidavit forms. The document at the very top is part of that bloc. The rest which I am posting below show the details of Oswald’s address book. Now whether the draft document from the top was created before or after him taking down the details of that address book will remain a mystery. But all these pages come from D.P.D. affidavit papers.

Then there are more pages from his notebook, and they appear to show a deeper investigation into Oswald’s past. There is a mention of Mrs Cunningham who worked for the Texas Employment Bureau and also Pauline V. Bates. I have no idea what the actual sequence should be, these were stuck together in twos on one page.

 

In Hosty’s book he ‘remembers’ how the conversation went and again mentions Oswald’s location being on the first floor, although he has changed the landing of the T.S.B.D. for the Domino Room.

Okay now, Lee, you work at the Texas School Book Depository, isn’t that right?
Yeah, that’s right.
When did you start working there?
About October fifteenth
What did you do down there?
I was just a common laborer.
Now, did you have access to all floors of the building?
Of course.
Tell me what was on each of those floors.
The first and second floors have offices. The third and fourth floor are storage. So are the fifth and sixth.
And you were working there today, is that right?
Yep.
Were you there when the president’s motorcade went by?
Yeah.
Where were you when the president went by the book depository?
I was eating my lunch in the first floor lunchroom.
What time was that?
About noon.
Were you ever on the second floor around the time the president was shot?
Well, yeah. I went up there to get a bottle of Coca-Cola from the machine for my lunch.
But where were you when the president actually passed your building?
On the first floor in the lunchroom.
And you left the depository, isn’t that right?
Yeah.
When did you leave?
Well, I figured with all the confusion there wouldn’t be any more work to do that day.

It will be an enigma how these papers ended up at the archives. Perhaps Hosty wanted to show the world what was really happening and slipped these notes inside the batch. And the A.R.R.B. completely overlooked this.

Special thanks go to Malcolm Blunt for the documentation.

Roger Craig inside Robbery & Homicide on Nov 22

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.

The Alleged Raleigh Call

The Alleged Raleigh Call

 

This is a rewritten and updated version from the original post published on Feb. 26 2019.

Updated with text and links added on Dec 30 2022, Jan 20 & 27 2023.

*****

Thanks to Malcolm Blunt for some of the A.R.R.B., H.S.C.A. and F.B.I. documents. And thanks to Jessica Shores for some assistance by providing me some newspaper articles and info on Henry Hurt. I also would like to thank Grover Proctor for acknowledging my work at his 2019 presentation in Dallas. This article main findings will be included with my book from 2023, in a much more abbreviated version. This web article contains every item of evidence in my possession here or linked to.

While working on the Oswald interrogations I kept thinking of including The Raleigh Call research by Grover Proctor and others into my first release in Sep. 2017. But I decided against it, as something did not feel right. That all important niggle, yet not knowing where that niggle came from at that time or what it entailed so I kept it on the back burner for 18 months, until I had decided to change the entire paper over in a timeline setting and decided to look deeper into it.

So what is it about the Raleigh Call?

The history of the Raleigh Call is written up by Randy Benson quite recently at Indyweek. I’ll quote from it: “It was through the work of independent researcher Michael Canfield that a copy(!) of the Raleigh Call slip first became public. He secured a copy of the slip, which became available as the result of a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by a civil rights activist Chicago researcher Sherman H. Skolnick, while conducting research for the 1975 book Coup d’Etat in America. The book, co-authored with Alan Weberman, was the first major work to deal with the Raleigh Call, and the slip was reprinted in the appendix.”  Anthony Summers’ 1980 book release Conspiracy made a brief mention about the call as well. But it was dropped when an updated version was released. Summers confided to G Robert Blakey of the HSCA that he doubted the call ever happened at all. From thereon Grover Proctor picked up on it and did his research for years to come. His site is filled with a lot of documentation to study for those interested in this subject.

The Raleigh call, allegedly, happens late in the evening of Saturday the 23rd of Nov. between 22:15 – 22:45. That actual evening of the 23rd after 21:00 hrs of Oswald’s detention is not very well documented with anything happening at all. I know this as I decided to put Oswald’s incarceration that weekend in a timeline manner together for my paper and now for my book.

I do not believe that Oswald made a call to Raleigh, nor spoke with John David Hurt. There is simply too much wrong with it. By just going through the batch of statements on Proctor’s page there are already quite a few inconsistencies and memory lapses to be noted. In this updated and revised article I can safely say that the alleged Raleigh call is just a horrible conspiracy theory that deserves to die a death as it has been kept alive for far too long.

One of the first things I did was to investigate if there were any records in the Dallas Police Department archives at the University of Texas. There are reports made from the three earlier phone calls Oswald made that day. The first phone call by Lee Oswald on Nov 23rd is recorded by the jailer Arthur E Eaves and is at about 13:40 which is just short of 24 hours after his arrest!  Oswald has been returned to his cell after another interrogation by Will Fritz in the morning and sees Marina shortly after this session and is then brought back to his jail cell from where he uses the phone. This looks like Oswald’s very first attempt to call John Abt. Oswald then makes a call to Ruth Paine, at 16:00, trying to get hold of Marina. See the affidavit below of J.E. Popplewell & second affidavit. I go into depth about this specific call to Ruth Paine in my interrogations paper. Then he also makes a 30 minute call at 20:00 in Thurber T. Lord‘s statement. Oswald was making these calls unhindered. Compare these reports with the subject matter at hand then other than an alleged slip, which is a rather poor photocopy, there is not much physically present to support this Raleigh Call coming from Oswald claim.

Will Fritz, in an Outside Contact Report for the HSCA on Apr 20 1978, believes it did not happen since. But he believes the jail records would show who Oswald called and at what time. And these jail records do not reflect a call from Oswald to Raleigh while being incarcerated at the DPD.

The first time the Raleigh Call story was brought up, was in 1965 when Winston Smith, who during his H.S.C.A. interview on Dec 4th 1978, states that he had heard the story after moving the Treons out of Dallas to Springfield that year. He doesn’t remember when exactly, only during a dinner, he was told the story. And during that conversation Alveeta Treon produced the call slip.

The next trace is an unsigned affidavit, from 1968, of Alveeta Treon, which probably was taken during the Garrison investigation. I suggest you click that link to Proctor’s site to see the full story behind this. During the HSCA, on Aug 4 1977, Jim Kostman writes to Donovan Gay and brings up the Raleigh call. This is largely in relation to Alveeta Treon’s first, unsigned, affidavit and Winston Smith, who did assist the Garrison investigation around the time of the making of that affidavit in 1968.

In her HSCA interview of Nov 7th 1978 Alveeta Treon says: Mrs. Treon said that it has concerned her from conversations with Committee investigator Harold Rose that we might not have completely correct information. She said the sequence at the switchboard was that when Oswald came on, both she and Louise Swinney got on the line to take the call. She said, however, it was clear that Mrs. Swinney intended to handle it, as though she had instructions, so Mrs. Treon let her handle it, but Mrs. Treon stayed on the line. She said she was therefore able to hear everything Oswald said and she is sure he asked for the name John Hurt and gave the two numbers. She said that as she listened she wrote the information down on a regular telephone call slip. However, since Mrs. Swinney actually handled the call, Mrs. Treon signed her name to the slip she intended to keep as a souvenir. She said the notations on the slip of “DA” and “CA” stand for did not answer and cancelled, because the call was never actually put through. Mrs. Treon said she never retrieved any paper from the wastebasket on which Mrs. Swinney supposedly entered the information.

Mrs. Treon said her lasting impression of the events that night is that Mrs. Swinney had been instructed by someone to not put the call through to Oswald. She said her belief was strengthened by the fact that Mrs. Swinney did not leave work as soon as Mrs. Treon came on that night as she usually did. Instead she remained as though she had been assigned to handle the call. In that same interview Mrs. Treon said she also intended to tell Harold Rose of the HSCA that her daughter Sharon thought she recognized one of the men who came into the telephone room when Oswald tried to make his call. She said Sharon thought the man might have been one of the officers who was with Oswald just before he was shot in the basement; she thought it was the one who was handcuffed to him. Which can only be Jim Leavelle or L.C. Graves.

Louise Swinney in her interview with the HSCA on  Feb 6th 1978 remembers that Oswald tried to make two calls. One to “Lawyer Apt.” [sic.] in New York and she doesn’t remember who the other call was to. The name John Hunt [sic.] is not familiar to her. She is forewarned, at about 19:00 hrs, that if Oswald was going to make any calls that two DPD detectives would drop by and tap in on the line. There is just one small thing that doesn’t sit right with this scenario, and that is that she is being told about this one hour before Oswald made a call at 20:00 (see the Thurber T. Lord report above) and this call went through for 30 minutes without a glitch!

She stated that she did not put either call through for Oswald. Why not?  And who ordered her to do this? The detectives left after they got the numbers. She states that she wrote the numbers on a blue piece of paper and she believes she may still have it at home. She will try to find it for the HSCA, but a follow-up on this does not materialise. She remembers Alveeta Treon well, but does not recall if they worked together on the night of 11/23/63.

Then on April 20th in an HSCA outside contact report (see below) things get better when the slip gets into play: I showed Louise Swinney, a Xerox copy of the slip containing information on a phone call placed by Lee Harvey Oswald to John Hurt, Raleigh, N.C. on November 23, 1963 and bearing her signature. She stated that it was definitely [ sic. ] not her signature. She was upset that someone had signed her name. She stated that she never handled a call from Oswald to John Hurt. She stated that she only handled a call from Oswald to Lawyer Apt [ sic. ] and another one that she cannot remember, but it was not to John Hurt. Mrs. Swinney insisted on giving me samples of her handwriting and told me that she would have no reason to lie. She stated that only someone working in the switchboard room could have made that out and Alveeta Treon [ sic. ] was the only other person working that night.

The statements by these two women by itself should have been enough to question the truthfulness of this story right there and then. But let’s get Alveeta Treon’s daughter involved to turn this whole thing in an even bigger mess!  Sharon Kovac, contradicts matters compared with Louise Swinney and her mom Alveeta Treon in her HSCA statement from Dec. 6 1978 even more: Ms. Kovac said she cannot recall anyone else being present in the switchboard room that night besides herself and her mother. She said she knows Louise Swinney, her mother’s supervisor, but she does not recall Mrs. Swinney being present at the time. She said when Oswald called in, it is her recollection that her mother handled the call and she remembers seeing her mother open her key on the switchboard at the time of the call.

With regards to IDing the two detectives who were there to prohibit the call from going through.  In the Dec. 6 1978 statement by Sharon Kovac: She said that on Sunday, November 24, 1963 when Oswald was shot in the Dallas Police Department basement, Lt. Leavelle, the man to whom Oswald was hand cuffed at the time of the shooting “resembled” one of the men who had come into the switchboard room on November 23, but she does not believe it was Lt. Leavelle. Which in all honesty doesn’t give us anything as to who these two detectives actually were. Nor is there any follow up investigation regarding this, no pictures shown, nothing.

So Alveeta Treon has one version of the story, her daughter contradicts this, and Louise Swinney her supervisor contradicts both their stories.

The DOJ answers to the HSCA on Nov 1978 that there is no other documentation available.

Our main character John David Hurt.

John David Hurt and his wife Billie Greer Hurt.

John David Hurt’s HSCA interview, the so called intelligence connection, he denies the whole thing and then some.

There are a few newspaper reports on John Hurt and the alleged Raleigh Call on July 17 1980 as well.

If we then look at the FBI report from Feb. 3 1964 that lists the phone numbers Oswald had written down on a piece of paper and that was found on him after he was shot. You can conclude that there is no Raleigh phone number indicating the call to John Hurt, the note does contain phone numbers of John Abt and Ruth Paine. This is again confirmed three days later on Feb 6 1964.

Henry Hurt (no relation) speaks to John David Hurt’s wife after he has passed away in 1981. In his book Reasonable Doubt he states: a few months later, his wife told the author that Hurt had admitted the truth before he died. Terribly upset on the day of the assassination, he got extremely drunk—a habitual problem with him—and telephoned the Dallas jail and asked to speak to Oswald. When denied access, he left his name and number. Mrs. Hurt said her husband told her he never had any earlier contact with Oswald and had been too embarrassed to admit that he got drunk and placed the call.

The ARRB discusses the Hurt matter as well. In an email from Jan 7 1997, Christopher Barger indicates that they will not be able to determine anything further because Hurt is dead and that the HSCA files seem to be of very little value. That last part is very strange since a simple comparison of the HSCA statements of John Hurt, Alveeta Treon, Louise Swinney and Sharon Kovac add a lot of doubt to any validity of the alleged phone call. And yet this email states that there is no dispute that Oswald attempted to call that number.

I have taken all the key bits from the available documents and transferred these into a spread sheet of which I post a screen shot below.

Click pic to enlarge.

So what do I think?

  • Louise Swinney, Alveeta Treon and Sharon Kovac contradict each other to such an extend that there are very few areas of agreement of the Raleigh call actually happening.
  • Louise Swinney is forewarned at 19:00 about two detectives who would want to listen in to any call of Oswald she would handle. When she does handle the call between 22:30 – 23:00 she does not connect the call and states to Oswald she cannot get an answer on the other end of the line. Yet Oswald makes a call at 20:00, which must have been during Swinney’s shift for about 30 minutes unhindered.
  • All other calls by Oswald were reported by the jailers, there is no such report present when Oswald allegedly made that call.
  • There is not a single trace of the original calling card.
  • Louise Swinney denies it is her signature on the calling card.
  • Sharon Kovac was not there, at the time of the so called call, she heard it from Alveeta Treon at a later time.
  • On the piece of paper found on Oswald, after he has been murdered by Jack Ruby, were several numbers, yet not one refers to John Hurt let alone anyone in Raleigh.
  • John Hurt was not called, it is possible he did try to call the DPD while being intoxicated, and if he did then his call would have been tossed into the “crazies wastepaper basket” along with several others and that slip happened to be fished out of the waste paper basket.
  • Some conspiracy theorists have made a mess as there is no connection between John David Hurt and Lee Harvey Oswald.