Thursday, February 28, 2013

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: CIA-Linked Judge Swore In LBJ

Coincidentally, according to The Espionage Establishment by David Wise and Thomas Ross, "Sarah T. Hughes, the federal judge who administered the oath of office" in Dallas to Lyndon Johnson a few hours after JFK was ambushed on November 22, 1963, "was a trustee of the Hoblitzelle Foundation, which handled CIA money." The Espionage Establishment also noted that the CIA's Hoblitzelle Foundation "was a major financial angel for the Congress for Cultural Freedom, which in turn backed Encounter, an intellectual political journal published in London."

(Downtown 6/10/62)

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Hidden History of Texas: 1940-1953--Part 13

(This article was originally posted on The Rag Blog on February 18,  2013)

As Texas’s manufacturing industry expanded to produce more weapons and supplies for U.S. government needs during World War II, the need for factory workers in Texas increased; and more people in Texas moved from rural areas into cities and towns between 1940 and 1953.

By 1950, over 7.7 million people now lived in Texas and around 60 percent of all people in Texas now lived in urban areas. By 1950, for example, 596,163 people lived in Houston, 434,462 in Dallas, 408,407 in San Antonio, and 278,728 in Fort Worth; however, Austin's population was still only 132,459 in 1950.

According to Alwyn Barr’s Black Texans, “World War II almost doubled the number of black industrial workers” in Texas -- from 159,000 to a peak of 295,000 in 1943. But during World War II “the Consolidated Vultee plant” still “segregated its assembly line; and Baytown oil refineries paid blacks less than whites for the same work,” according to Randolph Campbell’s Going To Texas.

Many Texas-born African-Americans continued to leave white supremacist Texas society between 1940 and 1953 for states in the Northeast, Midwest, or West in which racial segregation was not legalized and where they had often been able to find factory jobs during World War II. But in Houston -- where the total population had grown from 384,514 to 596,163 between 1940 and 1950 -- the “black population increased from 86,302 to 125,400” during the 1940s, according to Merline Pitre’s In Struggle Against Jim Crow.

And -- despite an anti-black riot by white racist Texans that occurred on June 15, 1943, in Houston -- African-American civil rights activists in Houston and elsewhere in Texas between 1940 and 1953 began to win a few victories in their campaigns for an end to legalized racial discrimination, white supremacy, institutional racism, and interpersonal racism in Texas society and daily life.

In 1943, for example, a Houston NAACP “boycott against Winegarten Store [Sic: Correct spelling is "Weingarten's"] led to the dismissal of one of the store’s security guards, who had struck a black customer” and “an NAACP-led demonstration made it possible for blacks to attend a production of Porgy and Bess at the Houston Music Hall and be seated on the same floor levels as whites,” according to In Struggle Against Jim Crow.

In addition, “on Apr. 6, 1943... representatives of the Negro Committee of the Houston Teachers Association presented the school board with a petition for pay equalization” and “on Apr. 13, 1943, rather than take a chance on a... lawsuit, the Houston school board agreed to make the salaries of black teachers and principals equal to those of their white counterparts who possessed the same credentials and performed the same duties,” according to the same book.

Then in 1944, the U.S. Supreme Court declared Texas’s white Democratic primary law to be illegal in its Smith v. Allwright decision in a legal case that African-American civil rights groups in Texas had initiated. And in 1946 -- when 5,000 new members were recruited into the Houston chapter of the NAACP -- African-American civil rights activists in Texas began to challenge the racist admissions policy of the University of Texas in Austin.

As In Struggle Against Jim Crow recalled:

"Lulu B. White... executive secretary of the NAACP’s Houston branch, and the NAACP’s state director... led fight...to integrate the University of Texas... Urged on by the NAACP and accompanied by Lulu White and other supporters, Herman Sweatt attempted to register at UT in Austin on Feb. 26, 1946. After a discussion with [then-University of Texas] President Theophilus Painter and other university officials, Sweatt left his application at the campus and returned to Houston... Sweatt sued university officials on May 16, 1946 for denying him admission...

"In April 1949, Joseph J. Rhoades, president of Bishop College, organized a mass registration attempt sending 35 black college seniors from across the state to apply to various professional programs at UT... When they arrived at the registrar’s office seeking admission, they were told that they could apply at TSUN [Texas State University for Negroes; later renamed Texas Southern University]. These students then decided to stage a demonstration, marching from the university to the State Capitol. They carried placards... One sign read, `Texas Can’t Afford a Dual System of Graduate and Professional Education' Another proclaimed, `Separate and Equal Education Is a Mockery.'...

"The Supreme Court announced its findings in Sweatt v. Painter on June 5, 1950. In a unanimous decision the Court ordered Sweatt admitted to UT."

Also, “during the summer of 1946... the death of a black man gave rise to the largest mass protest demonstration that the city of Houston had ever witnessed” and “the NAACP... converted the funeral for Berry Branch, killed by a white bus driver, into a rally” in which “all labor unions in the city were represented,” according to the same book.

Yet despite the legal victories, there was still a poll tax in Texas that was utilized to block many African-Americans from being able to vote and the “only civil service positions” African-American residents were allowed to hold in Houston before 1945 “were in the post office,” according to In Struggle Against Jim Crow.

In addition, in 1948 only 15 of Houston’s 503 police officers were African-Americans and the “custom” of “the most blatant among the Houston companies” in its discriminatory policies between 1940 and 1953 -- Hughes Tool -- was still “to hire whites at 60 cents an hour and blacks at 50 cents an hour, although they were performing the same tasks,” according to the same book.

And, “Austin in 1951 changed its city council representatives from geographical districts to an at-large basis which guaranteed control of all seats by the white majority,” according to Black Texans.

The number of African-Americans who lived in Texas only increased from 924,391 to 977,458 between 1940 and 1950, as many African-Americans left Texas for the West Coast, Midwest, or Northeast; and as late as 1945 there were still only about 45,000 people of Jewish religious background who lived in Texas.

But by 1950, the number of Latinos of Mexican descent living in Texas -- 1 million -- now exceeded the number of African-Americans who lived in the state.



Tuesday, February 26, 2013

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Did Mossad Film Conclude Oswald Was Innocent?

The Israeli government's intelligence agency--The Mossad--apparently produced "a movie called A President On The Crosshairs, a detailed study of the November 22, 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy," which it screened during its training course for newly hired Mossad agents, according to former Mossad Case Officer Victor Ostrovsky's book, By Way of Deception. Ostrovsky worked for the Israeli intelligence agency for four years before concluding that it was engaged in immoral activities, resigning and moving to Canada. According to By Way Of Deception:

"The Mossad believed that the official version of the assassination was pure, unadulterated hokum. To test their theory, they did a simulation exercise of the presidential cavalcade to see if expert marksmen with far better equipment than Oswald could hit a moving target from the recorded distance of 88 years. They couldn't...

"The Mossad had every film taken of the Dallas assassination, pictures of the area, the topography, aerial photographs, everything. Using mannequins, they duplicated the presidential cavalcade over and over again...

"It was just an exercise. But it showed that it was impossible to do what Oswald was supposed to have done...The official versiion just isn't believable..."

It's not too likely, however, that the U.S. Establishment's CBS, NBC, ABC, Murdoch-Fox Television, CNN or PBS plans to televise The Mossad's A President On The Crosshairs movie for an audience of U.S. citizens on the 50th anniversary of the JFK Assassination, since the film's conclusion conflicts with the Warren Commission's conclusion.

(Downtown 6/10/92)

Monday, February 25, 2013

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Why Was A CIA Agent In Dallas's Parkland Hospital On Nov. 22, 1963?

In Warren Commission Exhibit 1024 is contained a Nov. 30, 1963 statement from U.S. Secret Service Special Agent Andrew Berger. According to Special Agent Berger, after he heard JFK had been shot on November 22, 1963,  he went to Parkland Hospital and "assumed a post in the entrance of the emergency room" prior to going "to the outside of the hospital" to bring two Catholic priests to the emergency room to administer the Last Rites. Berger then resumed his post at the emergency room entrance and then the following happened:

"Shortly thereafter FBI agent Vincent E. Drain, commission book No. 5067, Dallas Office arrived at the room entrance. He showed me his credentials and said he had received a telephone call from Director Hoover telling him to make himself available to us...When I inquired of Agent Drain who the unidentified male was who accompanied him, he replied that he was a doctor friend of his. The agent and unidentified male then proceeded to the end of the hall. Approximately five minutes subsequent to the visit of Agent Drain, a unidentified CIA agent, after showing his credentials said that he would be available."

(Downtown 3/20/92)

Sunday, February 24, 2013

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Former CIA Deputy Director Cabell Wrote Autobiography

In his 1979 book, Bay of Pigs: The Untold Story, Peter Wyden noted that the brother of the mayor of Dallas on November 22, 1963--former CIA Deputy Director Charles Cabell--wrote an autobiography prior to his death in 1971. And in its September 16, 1973 issue, the Washington Post reported that "New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, as late as March 1971, was preparing to accuse former Dallas Mayor Cabell's brother of `conspiring to assassinate President John F. Kennedy.'"

In a 1992 telephone interview, Bay of Pigs author Wyden told Downtown that he was only shown by Cabell's sons the portion of Cabell's then-unpublished autobiography which dealt with the Bay of Pigs events and he did not know why Cabell's autobiography was not published as of 1979. He also stated in 1992 that there is a possibility that Cabell's autobiography was published in the 1980s.

Wyden did not recall anything in the tone or content of the portion of Cabell's autobiography which he read, however, which indicated that Cabell felt any special rage towards JFK after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Wyden thought that although Cabell was a "great conservative guy" in his politics, he was too "routine-minded" to be capable of being involved in some kind of plot to assassinate JFK. In Wyden's view, Cabell was "the kind of guy who could only follow S.O.P.--standard operating procedure."

Wyden noted that he had neither attempted to investigate the JFK assassination, himself, or read any recent books about the JFK assassination, but his impression is that Oliver Stone's JFK film was "a propaganda hoax" which was wrong to "glorify" New Orleans D.A. Garrison. Wyden felt that Stone's film was "an effort to capitalize on this conspiracy paranoia," and he "was offended" by Stone's JFK movie. One possible explanation for the popoularity of recently published books on the JFK assassination, in Wyden's view, was that this mass sentiment still represents "part of the mourning" process for JFK.

When he wrote in the late 1970s about Charles Cabell in Bay of Pigs, Wyden was not aware that Cabell's brother, Earle Cabell, was the Mayor of Dallas on the day JFK was assassinated. But he felt that this fact was of "peripheral" importance to the subject of his Bay of Pigs book.

(Downtown 5/20/92)

Saturday, February 23, 2013

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Who Authorized George De Mohrenschildt and George Bouhe To Help The Oswalds?

Prior to the JFK ambush, Oswald and his wife had received some financial assistance fom George De Mohrenschildt. In his April 23, 1964 testimony before Warren Commission Assistant Counsel Albert Jenner Jr., De Mohrenschildt noted that he and George Bouhe had checked with their FBI or CIA contacts prior to helping the Oswalds survive between Sept. 1962 and November 22, 1963:

Mr. DE MOHRENSCHILDT: May I say a few things here that I remember. As I told you before, we met the Oswalds through Bouhe, and then we talked about them to Max Clark, and again to Bouhe. And I asked Mr. Bouhe `Do you think it is safe for us to help Oswald?...'

MR. JENNER:...Why did you raise that question?

MR. DE MOHRENSCHILDT: I raised the question because he had been to Soviet Russia. He could be anything, you see. And he could be right there watched day and night by the FBI. I did not want to get involved, you see. And I distinctly remember, No. 1, that George Bouhe said that he had checked with the FBI...I have the impression to have talked--to have asked about Lee Oswald also Mr. Moore, Walter Moore.

MR. JENNER: Who is Walter Moore?

MR. DE MOHRENSCHILDT: Walter Moore is the man who interviewed me on behalf of the Government after I came back from Yugoslavia--G. Walter Moore. He is a Government man--either FBI or Central Intelligence...Many people consider him head of FBI in Dallas...We became quite friendly..."

(Downtown 4/29/92)

Friday, February 22, 2013

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Colonel J.D. Wilmeth's Pre-JFK Assassination Visit To Paine-Oswald Residence

Coincidentally, just three days before JFK was ambushed on November 22, 1963, Colonel J.D. Wilmeth just happened to visit the house in which the wife of Texas School Book Depository temp worker Lee Oswald lived with Mrs. Ruth Paine, as revealed in Ruth Paine's testimony before the Warren Commission.

During Ruth Paine's March 21, 1964 testimony before Warren Commission Assistant Counsel Albert Jenner Jr., the following exchange took place:

MR. JENNER: Do you recall an incident in which there was a telephone call by Col. J.D. Wilmeth to your home, in which he spoke with Marina?

MRS. PAINE: Yes; I do...I would say this was a week or less before the assassination. He called and asked--he called from Arlington, Tex., which is between Fort Worth and Dallas, and asked if he could come over some time...To talk with Marina, that he had heard she was living at my house...My best judgement is that he actually came then on the 19th of November.

MR. JENNER: All right. And how long did he stay?

MRS. PAINE: Oh, perhaps an hour..."

(Downtown 4/29/92)

Thursday, February 21, 2013

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: FBI Director Hoover's LBJ Connection

Some peoople claim that former FBI Director Hoover met with Richard Nixon at Clint Murchison's house in Dallas on the night before JFK was ambushed there and Nixon has admitted telephoning Hoover less than two hours after JFK was eliminated.

Coincidentally, former FBI Director Hoover was also a close friend of Lyndon Johnson at the time JFK was ambushed. In a March 6, 1964 memo to Hoover, former Assistant FBI Director Cartha De Loach reminded Hoover that the newly installed President Johnson "for 19 years was an across-the-street neighbor of yours, had had you down to his ranch in Texas, and had been a close personal friend."

The FBI's Nov. 5, 1963 Visit To The Paine-Oswald Residence

In addition to, coincidentally, informing an FBI agent of Oswald's place of temporary employment at the Texas School Book Depository when the FBI agent visited the Paine-Oswald residence on November 1, 1963, Ruth Paine also evidently spoke with FBI agents again on November 5, 1963, according to her March 23, 1964 testimony before Warren Commission Assistant Counsel Albert Jenner Jr. When Jenner asked Mrs. Paine "On the 5th day of November did an agent of the FBI come for a second time to interview you?," Mrs. Paine replied: "I didn't recall the day, but I have been told it was that day--yes."

(Downtown 4/29/92)

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Hidden History of Texas: 1940-1953--Part 12


(This article was originally posted on The Rag Blog on February 11,  2013)

Between 1939 and 1953 the percentage of non-agricultural workers in Texas who were members of labor unions increased from 10.3 to 16.8 percent; and 375,000 workers in Texas were labor union members by 1953. Between 1941 and 1945, CIO-affiliated labor unions “gained nearly 40,000 members in 4 years,” according to F. Ray Marshall’s Labor in the South. The same book also recalled:

"Membership expansion occurred in petroleum refining, and in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where, in 1945, the CIO claimed 25,000 new members in one year. Important victories there included the organization of the huge North American Aviation Company to the UAW, the Armour plant by the packinghouse workers, Conroe Manufacturing by the ACWA, and several steel fabricators by the steelworkers. PWOC Local 54 and storehandlers’ Local 59 acquired bargaining rights under a master agreement with Armour. During the war [World War II], the packinghouse workers’ strength in Texas was confined largely to this plant.
"The CIO had 115 locals in Texas in March 1944, the most numerous of which were: autoworkers, 8 locals; oil workers, 30 locals; and steelworkers, with 12 locals. The textile workers had only two locals in Texas in 1944...

"By the 1942 convention, the oil workers’ organization committee had achieved significant results. The most important victory was the Texas Company at Port Arthur... In March 1942, the OWIU won an election at the Southport refinery in Texas City... It also signed up 84 percent of the workers at Standard of New Jersey’s Humble refinery at Baytown, Texas...

"The UCAPAWA (Canning, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers)’s strongest base in Texas was in Houston, where it had 5 contracts covering over 600 Negro and Mexican-American workers, organized by March 1942. UCAPAWA contracts in Houston covered about 150 employees at the Houston Millinery Company and 400 Negro and Spanish-speaking workers in 4 cotton companies, three of which were owned by the Anderson Clayton company... In addition, UCAPAWA had locals among pecan workers at San Antonio, spinach workers at Mathis, and cannery workers at Sugarland…UCAPAWA…organized fruit and vegetable workers in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, where its contracts covered 1,000 employees during peak seasons."

As Randolph Campbell’s Gone To Texas observed, “under the auspices of the National War Labor Board,” Texas labor movement “organizers unionized more of the state’s industries by 1945...” And during World War II, “workers at Shell in Pasadena, Texas” even “struck spontaneously” in June 1943 “to secure the reinstatement of a discharged union member,” according to Labor in the South; and there was also a strike by workers at a B.F. Goodrich plant in Texas in February 1944.

The white corporate power structure in Texas (and its ultra-conservative, white supremacist Texas political establishment in Austin) apparently then began to feel that this growing militancy and level of unionization of workers in Texas threatened both its class interests and its ability to continue to economically exploit and politically dominate most people who lived in Texas.

So after the CIO organized plant after plant across Texas in 1946-47,” the Texas “legislature responded in early 1947 by passing a right-to-work law that prohibited requiring union membership as a condition of employment,” according to Gone To Texas, and “the legislature also passed other anti-union laws, including one that prohibited pickets at strikes from being within 50 feet of each other or the entrance of the plant being picketed.”

Public employees in Texas were also denied the right to bargain collectively in 1947. And following a 1953 CIO-led strike in Port Arthur, the then-Democratic Texas Governor Allan Shivers even “called a special session of the legislature in the spring of 1954, which passed a bill making membership in the Communist Party a felony punishable by a fine of $20,000 and 20 years in the penitentiary,” according to the same book.

Coincidentally, according to Ronnie Dugger’s The Politician: The Life and Times of Lyndon Johnson, in Texas “the program of lobbying against labor was carried forward and financed largely by allies of Lyndon Johnson.” As The Politician recalled:

"The public did not know about an even more significant business convert to Johnson, anti-union contractor Herman Brown who, with his brother George, ran the contracting and engineering firm of Brown and Root... A stream of gifts from the Browns to the Johnsons can be traced through the decade starting in 1940... Lyndon was Brown and Root's kept politician...

"By 1947 Brown and Root was so powerful in Texas it led a many-aspected campaign against unions which made Texas one of the most anti-union states in the Union and the only major industrial state that had a law prohibiting workers from voting to be all-union... The Brown brothers were largely responsible for the enactment from 1947 on, of the state’s anti-union laws."

War Department or Department of Defense contractors like Brown and Root apparently made a lot of money during World War II and the Korean War of the early 1950s from the U.S. government contracts that were thrown their way. But at the same time, “22,022 Texans died or suffered fatal wounds in battle” during World War II and “the Texas Division suffered one of the highest casualty rates of any in the Army -- 3,717 killed, 12,685 wounded, and 3,064 missing in action,” according to Going To Texas.

In addition, “the 19th Division, a Texas unit... suffered nearly 18,500 casualties, including 2,963 killed, many of the deaths coming in close fighting in the hedgerow country of Normandy,” according to the same book. And around 1,800 people from Texas were also killed in action after the Democratic Truman Administration decided to intervene militarily on the side of the right-wing Syngman Rhee dictatorship during the civil war in Korea .

Of the 750,000 people from Texas who served in the U.S. military during World War II, about 88,000 were African-Americans from Texas and about 12,000 were women from Texas; and “Texas, which had 5 percent of the nation’s population, provided 7 percent of those who served,” with most Texans serving in the army and air force and “about one-quarter” serving in the navy, marines and coast guard, according to Going To Texas.



Tuesday, February 19, 2013

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: The FBI's Pre-JFK Assassination Contact With The Texas School Book Depository

According to the Warren Commission Exhibit 832, Texas School Book Deposistory employee Lee Oswald "claimed to be on the first floor when President John F. Kennedy passed" the building and "frantically denied shooting Dallas police officer Tippett or shooting President John F. Kennedy."

But the FBI had made a special point of learning where Oswald worked only a few weeks before JFK was ambushed. According to Warren Commission Exhibit 837, an April 6, 1964 memorandum from J. Edgar Hoover to the Warren Commission, after the roommate of Oswald's wife, Mrs. Ruth Paine, "advised on Nov. 1, 1963, of Oswald's employment at the Texas School Book Depository, a pretext telephone call was made to the Texas School Book Depository to determine Oswald's residence address" and "advice was received that Oswald was working at Texas School Book Depository..."

Coincidentally, after JFK was ambushed near the Texas School Book Depository on Nov. 22, 1963, the FBI blamed the assassination on the Texas School Book Depository employee who had been under its surveillance.

(Downtown 4/15/92)

Monday, February 18, 2013

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Did Oswald Really Kill Tippit On November 22, 1963?

Although the U.S. Establishment's mass media usually claim that Lee Oswald killed Dallas Police Officer Tippit on Nov. 22, 1963, former New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison denied that this was a possibility. According to Garrison's book, On The Trail Of The Assassins, Earlene Roberts, Oswald's housekeeper, observed Oswald:

"...standing by the northbound Beckley Avenue bus at 1:04. The area where Tippit was killed was in the opposite direction--a mile to the south...It was virtually impossible for him to have arrived at the scene before the shooting of the police officer."

(Downtown 4/8/92)

Sunday, February 17, 2013

50 Years After JFK Assassination Retrospective: Mass Media Coverage Of JFK Assassination Probe-Related Deaths

The U.S. Establishment's mass media hasn't been too eager to do much investigative reporting in relation to the strange death of Sam Giancana in 1975. Yet according to The Kennedys: Dynasty and Disaster--1848-1983 by John Davis:

"Staff members of the Senate Committee on Intelligence arrived in Chicago on July 19, 1975, to arrange for Giancana to appear before the committee in Washington five days later. He was to testify about his role in the CIA-Mafia-Castro assassination plots. That same evening, around 10 p.m., Giancana was in the basement den of his Chicago home cooking sausage, escarole, and beans when the person who he was with shot him seven times...Giancana's daughter, Antoinette, was sure her father had been killed by `the same people responsible for killing the Kennedys,' who, she believed, was the CIA."

Another person involved in the JFK Assassination Case whose strange death the U.S. Establishment's mass media doesn't like to talk about too much was one of Lee Oswald's closest acquaintances in Dallas--George de Mohrenschildt. According to The Kennedys: Dynasty and Disaster, prior to his mysterious death in 1977, de Mohrenschildt wrote an unpublished book manuscript about Lee Oswald and the JFK Assassination, entitled I Am A Patsy! I Am A Patsy, which contained the following passage:

"He was a patsy, a patsy not involved in any revenge arising out of JFK's biggest and costliest mistake--the Bay of Pigs...The assassination was a devilishly clever act of revenge caused by the Bay of Pigs disaster."

Coincidentally, de Mohrenschildt's "apparent suicide occurred on the very day a member of the House Select Committee on Assassinations was going to question him about the Kennedy murder," according to The Kennedys: Dynasty and Disaster. In the same book, John Davis also raised the question "Did de Mohrenschildt really commit suicide?" and concluded that "the evidence that he did was purely circumstantial."

(Downtown 4/1/92)

Saturday, February 16, 2013

50 Years After JFK Assassination Retrospective: How Did Jack Ruby Enter The Dallas Police Station Basement?

A number of people have claimed that prior to his silencing of Oswald on Nov. 24, 1963, Jack Ruby was escorted into the Dallas Police Station basement in Dallas' City Hall by Dallas Assistant Chief of Police Charles Batchelor, via the elevator. Coincidentally, during the March 31, 1964 testimony of Dallas Police Lt. Jack Revill before Warren Commission Assistant Counsel Leon Hubert Jr., the following exchange took place:

Lt. REVILL: "Prior to the shooting...he arrived at city hall at 9:30. This preacher's name is Ray Rushing...He came to the city hall and went to the third floor, and--by the way, he rode up on the elevator with Jack Ruby, now...Rode to the third floor...This preacher was one of the people that we located and he related this story to me, that he rode up on the elevator with Jack Ruby on the morning of Nov. 24 [1963]..."

Mr. HUBERT: "In other words, Rushing says that he rode up with Ruby on the morning of the 24th, prior to the shooting?"

Lt. REVILL: "Yes, sir..."

Mr. HUBERT: "Did he say whether he had any conversation with him?"

Lt. REVILL: "He talked about the weather. I asked him."

Mr. HUBERT: "Did he say whether he was--whether he saw Ruby there afterwards?"

Lt. REVILL: "He said he [Ruby] turned to the right and--went up to the third floor and after arriving on the third floor, he [Ruby] turned to the right and went to the administrative office and talked to Chief Assistant Batchelor."

(Downtown 4/1/92)

Friday, February 15, 2013

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Who Conspired To Silence Oswald?

Both Lee Oswald's mother and the witness who stated that she had seen Jack Ruby dropping off a man with a rifle near the grassy knoll one hour before JFK was ambushed claimed that an FBI agent showed them a photograph of Ruby on the day befor Ruby silenced Oswald.

In his book Who Was Jack Ruby?, journalist Seth Kantor noted that Ruby's roommate, George Senator, "could not account for about six hours of his time on the day before Ruby shot Oswald" and "Ruby could not account for large chunks of time that day, too." Kantor also recalled in his book that:

"At the moment Oswald was shot, Senator was having coffee in the nearby Eatwell Cafe. The moment a waitress at the Eatwell excitedly said there was a news report about Oswald getting shot, Senator went right to a phone and called Jim Martin, a Dalla lawyer who knew Ruby and would become one of Ruby's first lawyers, along with Tom Howard, after the shooting. The only strange thing about what Senator did is that he telephoned Martin five minutes before there was any public announcement that Ruby was the person who had shot Oswald."

(Downtown 3/25/92)

Thursday, February 14, 2013

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Dallas Assistant Police Chief Batchelor And Jack Ruby

On November 24, 1963, Jack Ruby conveniently silenced Lee Oswald in the Dallas Police Station basement. Coincidentally, according to High Treason: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy--What Really Happened? by Robert Groden and Harrison Livingston:

"...As Gary Shaw writes in Cover-Up: `...No less than the Assistant Chief of Police was recruited to personally escort Jack Ruby into the Dallas Police Station basement to kill Oswald'...Attorney...James Nell...claims that Ruby...entered the police station with Assistant Chief of Police Charles Batchelor, who later became the Chief of Police.

"Batchelor was in charge of security precautions for both the motorcade of November 22 [1963], and the transfer of Oswald on November 24 [1963]. He lost both his charges, and was promoted to Chief when [Dallas Chief of Police] Curry retired.

"The original source of the Batchelor story was apparently Red Davis of the Dallasa Police...who stated...that Batchelor took Ruby inside via the elevator."

Coincidentally, according to Coincidence or Conspiracy? by the Committee to Investigate Assassinations, after Ruby killed Oswald, Long Beach Independent Press Telegram reporter Bill Hunter, "accompanied by Ruby's rommmate, lawyer, and another reporter, went to Ruby's apartment to inspect the premises" and "on April 23, 1964, as Bill Hunter was conducting an interview at the Long Beach Police Station in his home city he was shot in the head and killed instantly."

Coincidentally, the same book also notes:

"Jim Koethe, a reporter for the Dallas Times Herald was the other reporter who visited Ruby's apartment on the night of November 24, 1963.

"On September 21, 1964, 3 days before the Warren Commission Report was issued, Jim Koethe was killed by a karate chop to the throat, while stepping from the shower in his own Dallas apartment."

(Downtown 3/25/92)

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Hidden History of Texas: 1930-1940--Part 11

(This article was originally posted on The Rag Blog on February 6, 2013)

Although “throughout the 1930s, the Communist Party in Texas (Houston included) remained small and ineffectual, with no more than 200 members at any given time,” according to Merline Pitre’s In Struggle Against Jim Crow, “by the fall of 1935, the Texas Communist Party was firmly established in Houston, and literature bearing its logo was passed out everywhere along the Gulf Coast, especially where strikes occurred.”

And, coincidentally, 111,000 workers in Texas -- or about 10.3 percent of all non-agricultural workers in Texas -- were now organized and were members of labor unions in Texas by 1939. As F. Ray Marshall’s Labor in the South recalled:


"Editorial writers at Austin had formed the first Texas American Newspaper Guild by January 1934. In May [1934] it was reported that the first contract had been negotiated with the Austin American-Statesman and `the three Austin newspapers report 100 percent membership.'...

"The ILGWU organized Petrillo and Company in Dallas peacefully, but three other firms there had signed agreements only after bitter strikes following the ILGWU’s campaign in the fall of 1936. The Ladies’ Garment Workers had about 3,100 southern members in 1939, 2,100 of whom were in Texas... The Sinclair [oil workers union] local in Houston, Texas had 1,157 members in 1939 -- the largest local in the South. The local was the main base for organization on the Gulf Coast, and Sinclair was the only major refinery to sign a national agreement with the oil workers.

"The first major oil workers’ local in the Gulf Coast area was Local 227 at Sinclair in Houston... The Pasadena local had an average membership of 677 during 1939. The oil workers established Local 1229 for Negroes and Local 243 for whites at the Magnolia refinery at Beaumont, Texas, in 1933, but they did not win bargaining rights... Local 23 at Port Arthur, Texas, was reorganized in 1933 and attempted to win contracts from Gulf and Texaco, but the oil workers’ activities in Port Arthur were impeded by conflicts between craft and industrial unions within the refineries... The oil workers did not succeed in winning an election at the important Texas Company and Gulf refineries until 1942..."

Members of the International Longshoremen’s Union [ILA] also held a strike on October 10, 1935; and “in 1938, some 12,000 pecan shellers went on strike, creating the largest labor stoppage in Texas history” and won pay increases as a result of this strike, according to Randolph Campbell’s Gone To Texas. The www.labordallas.org website described what provoked the 1938 Pecan Shellers Strike in San Antonio, Texas and what happened during the strike before a settlement was reached:

"Julius Seligman hired 12,000 low-wage Mexican-Americans who labored 60 or more hours a week for an average of $2.50 per week, or about 4 cents an hour. On Feb. 1, 1938, Seligman ordered a 20 percent wage cut. The workers organized and went on strike... Police tear gassed and clubbed peaceful picketers. They invaded homes and threatened to gas people if they did not return to work."

The same Texas Labor History web site also recalled that “Emma Tenayuca of San Antonio... was the most prominent public leader of the pecan shellers’ strike that was called the most important labor action in the Southwest up to that time;” and that, coincidentally, “Tenayuca was a member of the Communist Party (CPUSA).”

In response to protests by farmers, street demonstrations of unemployed workers, and the labor movement activism of the early 1930s around the United States, the Democratic Roosevelt Administration also created federal public programs between 1933 and 1940 like the Works Progress Administration [WPA] -- which provided jobs for “some 600,000... Texans without regard to gender or race” between 1935 and 1943, according to Gone To Texas.

Also, in Austin, the Public Works Administration [PWA] “pumped millions of dollars into Austin’s sagging economy and generated thousands of jobs,” according to David Humphrey’s Austin: An Illustrated History. The same book also noted that “by 1936 the PWA would provide at least $6 million in grants and loans for Austin, more than for any other Texas city during the same period;” and “the University of Texas also wangled several million dollars out of the PWA, including money for dormitories and a 27-story tower.”

And another reason Lyndon Johnson was able to first get elected to Congress in 1937 may have been that he had previously gained some local popularity with Austin voters -- by helping to provide some federally-funded work opportunities for young people in his appointed position in the New Deal’s National Youth Administration.



Monday, February 11, 2013

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Mayor Earle Cabell and The Dallas Civil Liberties Uniion On Nov. 22, 1963

According to The Death Of A President by William Manchester, "Mayor Earle Cabell's first reaction to the arrest" of Lee Harvey Oswald "was sanguine" and "that Friday he expressed confidence that the assassination `would not hurt Dallas as a city.'"

According to The Day Kennedy Was Shot by Jim Bishop, "Oswald had told the [Dallas police] officers that if he could not locate [Emergency Civil Liberties Lawyer] Abt, he would consult the American Civil Liberties Union" and "he had also declared that he was a member of the ACLU."

When Dallas Civil Liberties Union President Olds and other local ACLU officials met in Dallas's Plaza Hotel in the late evening of Nov. 22, 1963--after Dallas Police Captain Will Fritz had refused Olds' telephone request to be allowed to meet with Oswald--"someone suggested `Call the Mayor,'" according to The Day Kennedy Was Shot.

Coincidentally, when Dallas Civil Liberties Union President "Olds got on the phone again and asked for Mayor Earle Cabell" and "gave his name and rank," he "was told that the mayor was busy" and he "wondered what could keep a mayor busy after 11 p.m.," according to The Day Kennedy Was Shot.

Dallas Mayor Cabell's Nov. 24, 1963 Call To Dallas Police Chief Curry

At the very moment Lee Oswald was silenced by Jack Ruby, "Chief Curry, ludicrously, was upstairs in his office, responding to a phone call from Dallas mayor Earle Cabell, and had not checked for himself to see if orders were being carried out properly in the basement," according to Who Was Jack Ruby? by Seth Kantor.

And according to High Treason by Robert J. Groden and Harrison Livingstone, "Jesse Curry, the Chief of Police, was about to go down to the basement of the police station to supervise the transfer of Oswald to the County Jail when his phone rang, and the mayor, Earle Cabell, kept him on the line until Oswald had been shot by Ruby."

Yet according to Cabell Exhibit No.1 of the Warren Commission, "Copy of an FBI Report of an interview with Mayor Earle Cabell dated Dec. 12, 1963," former CIA Deputy Director Cabell's brother originally told the FBI Special Agent that after Ruby shot Oswald:

"He received a telephone call from a friend of his, whom he did not name, that Oswald had been shot and to turn his television set on, which he did. He then received a call from Chief Curry advising that Oswald had been shot. Mayor Cabell relates that he then told Chief Curry that he was watching television regarding the incident at that moment.."

And when he testified before the Warren Commission on July 13, 1964, former CIA Deputy Director Cabell's brother again claimed that Dallas Police Chief Curry telephoned him at the very moment Oswald was being transferred:

Mr. CABELL: "He called me...I was in the den where I was sitting and taking these telephone calls and then just as I get it turned on, they still had not removed Oswald at the time because this was just a matter of a minute or two from the actual shooting. Then Chief Curry called and said, `They have just shot Oswald.' And I said, `Yes, I have it on tv now'..."

Why do you think Dallas Mayor Cabell apparently didn't want to admit that just prior to Oswald's silencing, he just apparently happened to telephone Dallas Police Chief Curry?

(Downtown 3/11/92)

Sunday, February 10, 2013

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: CIA Deputy Director Charles Cabell's Clay Shaw Connection

Coincidentally, the person who was unsuccessfully prosecuted for conspiring to assassinate JFK, Clay Shaw, "was asked to introduce the deputy director of the CIA, General Charles P. Cabell, who was in New Orleans to address the Foreign Policy Association," in May 1961, according to Reasonable Doubt: An Investigation Into The Assassination of John F. Kennedy by Henry Hurt.

According to the same book, "Shaw was program chairman" of the New Orleans Foreign Policy Association group and "General Cabell's speech in New Orleans came les than one month after he had personally supervised the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion."

Reasonable Doubt also observed in 1985 that "Today it is known that Cabell and his associates were vehement in their rage toward what they perceived as President Kennedy's `desertion' on the morning of the invasion--the President's refusal to send in military force sufficient to ensure victory."

CIA Deputy Director Cabell's 4 A.M. Bay of Pigs Appeal To JFK

In their book, The Invisible Government, David Wise and Thomas Ross described how CIA Deputy Director Cabell unsuccessfully begged JFK in the early morning hours of April 17, 1961 to approve a second U.S. air strike on Castro's air bases:

"...At 4 a.m. Cabell could stand it no longer. He decided to appeal again to [then Secretary of State Dean] Rusk.

"Cabell drove through the darkened capital to Rusk's hotel...In Rusk's apartment he again expressed his fears over the cancellation of the air strike. Despite the hour the Secretary of State called the President once more in Middleburg. This time Cabell did speak directly to him. In answer to the CIA official's pleadings the President's reply was still negative."

More On `Old Tige' Cabell

Coincidentally, former CIA Deputy Director Charles Cabell and former Dallas Mayor Earle Cabell's grandfather--William `Old Tige' Cabell--helped design the Confederate battle flag while serving on the staff of Confederate General J.E. Johnston. As a Confederate General during the Civil War, the Cabell brothers' grandfather also led a raid into Missouri in October 1864. At the time of his death in 1911, "Old Tige" Cabell was the honorary commander-in-chief of the United Confederate Veterans organization. Between 1893 and 1907, former Confederate General William Cabell was also one of the supervisors of the Louisiana State Lottery and its successor, the Honduras National Lottery.

(Downtown 3/11/92)

Saturday, February 9, 2013

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Jack Ruby's Nov. 22, 1963 Movements

According to former New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison's book, On The Trail Of The Assassins, "approximately an hour before the arrival of Kennedy's motorcade, Jack Ruby...was observed alongside the grassy knoll, unloading a man carrying a rifle in a case" and "the statement of Julia Ann Mercer, the witness to that event, was altered by the F.B.I. to make it appear that she had been unable to identify Ruby as the man."

According to Who Was Jack Ruby? by Seth Kantor, at the very moment JFK was shot, Ruby was "five blocks away" on the second floor of the Dallas Morning News building, complaining about the anti-JFK advertisements which, the newpaper had published that morning. According to the same book:

"...Some 10 minutes after the shooting, advertising salesman Richard L. Saunders encountered Ruby, standing numbly amid the confusion, uncharacteristically subdued and pale. It was Ruby's quietness that startled Saunders. He had known Ruby several years and always had found him to be an excessive talker, but Ruby was no more than barely responding to comments everyone else seemed to be making about how terrible the situation was."

Kantor also noted that "An hour after the shooting of President Kennedy I encountered Jack Ruby at Parkland Hospital" but "the Warren Report declared that `Kantor probably did not see Ruby at Parkland Hospital'" around the time JFK's death was confirmed.

(Downtown 3/4/92)

Friday, February 8, 2013

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover's Nov. 21, 1963 Dallas Meeting

According to High Treason: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy--What Really Happened? by Robert J. Groden and Harrison Edward Livingston, "Penn Jones, Jr. claims that Hoover and Nixon were at" multi-millionaire Clint "Murchison's house" in Dallas on "the night before the assassination" for "a meeting."

And according to The Day Kennedy Was Shot by Jim Bishop, during the afternoon of November 22, 1963, "Richard Nixon reached his home in New York and dialed J. Edgar Hoover," a few hours before Lyndon Johnson got around to telephoning J.Edgar Hoover.

(Downtown, 3/4/92)

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Hidden History of Texas: 1930-1940--Part 10

(This article was originally posted on The Rag Blog on January 28, 2013)

In his 2009 book, The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes, Vanity Fair magazine correspondent Bryan Burrough indicated how ultra-rich Texas folks like Clint Murchison, H.L. Hunt, Sid Richardson, and former Austin American and Austin Statesman (they merged into the American-Statesman) owner Charles Marsh were, despite the Great Depression, apparently still able to make big money from Texas’s oil industry between 1930 and 1940:

"Though he knew nothing about pipelines, Murchison decided to try to build one... Murchison was amazed how simple the business was; once a pipeline was built, all he did was sit back and collect checks... The pipe alone cost 3 million dollars, all of which Murchison got on credit... He coaxed every last dollar he could out of the Dallas banks, then pushed back repayment... By 1932 his debt had grown to more than $4 million dollars, far more than his net worth...

"[H.L.] Hunt used most of his inheritance to buy a 960-acre farm... Negroes worked his land, allowing Hunt to spend much of his time playing cards... By that...summer of 1930 he still hadn’t found a drop of oil in Texas. Then, on Sept. 5 [1930], Hunt took a call... Despite Hunt’s later denials, court documents would show he cut a secret deal with the Deep Rock driller to supply his men with inside information in return for $20,000 in cash...

"Charles E. Marsh, co-owner of several Texas newspapers, including the politically influential Austin-American...was using his spare cash to bankroll several Texas wildcatters... It is a measure of how totally Sid Richardson cloaked his business in secrecy that the name of Charles Marsh, the man whose backing made Richardson’s fortune possible, remained unknown to Richardson’s family...

"Marsh...had begun negotiating a complicated deal involving First National Bank of Dallas... It appears that Marsh agreed to guarantee Richardson’s debt to the bank. In return, the bank agreed to loan Richardson an additional $210,000, followed by another $150,000... By the summer of 1935 Richardson had used most of Charles Marsh’s investment to buy land all around Gulf’s drill sites...

"In 1938, Marsh encountered a sudden...financial reversal... From a single mention in a letter to Richardson -- contained in Marsh’s papers at the Johnson Presidential Library -- it appears that the Internal Revenue Service served Marsh with a request for $1.2 million in overdue taxes... Marsh was forced to repay much of the money. To raise it, he ended up selling all his Texas newspapers.”

Coincidentally, like Sid Richardson, former U.S. President Lyndon Johnson also apparently was backed by former Austin-American and Austin-Statesman newspaper owner Charles Marsh during the 1930s, when LBJ (also using $10,000 that was given to him by the father of First Lady Claudia “Ladybird” Johnson) decided in 1937 that he wanted to get himself elected as Austin’s representative in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1938. As Ronnie Dugger observed in his 1982 book The Politician: The Life and Times of Lyndon Johnson:

"Johnson had a special advantage: the partisanship of the Austin newspapers. Charles Marsh... was owner and publisher of the Austin American-Statesman as well as the dailies in 4 or 5 other Texas cities, and he was for Lyndon from the first. Marsh...had been in oil deals...since as early as 1934... Marsh was also... a director and president of Richardson Oils, Inc., which gave Johnson a direct connection to oilman Sid Richardson...

"Although the Austin dailies did not formally endorse anyone, Marsh turned them into Lyndon’s harmonicas. "These papers went all-out for him" said Edmonds Travis, one of their earliest editors... From the time the Johnsons arrived in Washington they frequented "Longlea," the plantation home of their friend, publisher Charles Marsh, in Culpeper, Virginia...The publisher also flew Johnson about in his private plane."

And, according to The Big Rich, LBJ also “used Texas Oil’s cash to start his march to... power.”

Besides helping to put Lyndon Johnson into Congress between 1930 and 1940 (and into the U.S. Senate and the White House, eventually, after 1940), Texas “oil money helped bankroll the birth of the religious right;” and “in a very real sense, the influence of Texas conservatives in America today -- in fact, the entire `Texanization’ of right-wing politics that brought George W. Bush and Tom DeLay to national prominence -- can be traced to forces set into motion by restive Texas oilmen during the 1930s,” according to The Big Rich. As the same book also noted:

"By 1935...the Kirby Building in downtown Houston was home to...shadowy, interconnected ultra-conservative groups... The Kirby groups were little more than the Ku Klux Klan in pinstripes, a kind of corporate Klan... One of [former National Association of Manufacturers President John Henry] Kirby’s most active allies was Maco Stewart of Galveston, an attorney who...had seen his wealth mushroom when Humble found oil on land he owned south of Houston... The most extreme of Kirby’s circle was George W. Armstrong, a Fort Worth oilman who owned Texas Steel, which made oil field supplies as well as concrete supports for Texas highways...

"In his definitive study of Texas conservatives, The Establishment in Texas Politics, George Norris Green pinpoints 1938 as the year oil-backed ultra-conservatives took control of the state’s political structure... Pappy O’Daniel’s victory [in 1938] initiated two decades of ultra-conservative rule in Texas. As governor, O’Daniel became Texas Oil’s reliable partner, freezing wellhead taxes and backing oil industry lobbyists’ takeover of the Railroad Commission. His administration was dominated by ultra-conservatives, many of them oilmen, including his key financial backer, Maco Stewart...

"Another ultra-conservative initiative was led by...Texas congressman...Martin Dies, who in 1937 co-sponsored formation of the House Un-American Activities Committee [HUAC]... John Henry Kirby and Maco Stewart were friends and longtime financial supporters of Dies, who was widely viewed as a tool of business and oil interests in the Beaumont area... Dies’s papers indicate he corresponded regularly with Kirby and Stewart."

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: The FBI's Pre-JFK Assassination Telex

According to On The Trail Of The Assassins by Jim Garrison, "five days before the assassination the New Orleans F.B.I. office received a telexed warning that an attempt would be made to assasinate the President in Dallas at the end of the week" [in November 1963] and "shortly after the assassination the telex message was removed from the file drawer of the New Orleans office of the Bureau."

(Downtown 3/4/92)

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Oswald's Temp Job

Lee Harvey Oswald did not find his temp job at the Texas School Book Depository in October 1963 on his own. Prior to the 24-year-old Oswald applying for the temp job position, his wife's roommate, Mrs. Ruth Paine, "called about the job," to make sure that Oswald would be hired, according to the November 29, 1963 issue of the New York Times.

(Downtown, March 4, 1992)

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Ford Foundation Gave $500,000 "Charitable Grant" To ADL Lobbying Group In 2012

Billionaire Ford Foundation Founder Henry Ford Gets Medal From German Nazi Official in 1938s
In 2012, the tax-exempt, "non-profit" Ford Foundation gave a $500,000 "charitable grant" to the Anti-Defamation League [ADL] group, that often acts as a domestic political pressure group within the United States on behalf of the militaristic Israeli establishment. As ADL National Director Abraham Foxman noted in a May 15, 2012 press release: "We are so very proud to count the Ford Foundation among our closest partners in our vital work..."

Another group that often acts as a domestic political pressure group within the United States on behalf  of the militaristic Israeli establishment, the American Jewish Committee, was also given a $500,000 "charitable grant" by the Ford Foundation, according to the Ford Foundation website's grant data base.

Coincidentally, a Goldman Sachs Group Senior Director named Robert Kaplan--who also sits on the board of the State Street Corporation and Google Inc.'s Investment Advisory Committee--is a member of the Ford Foundation board of trustees.

According to its Form 990 financial filing for 2011, the "non-profit" and tax-exempt Anti-Defamation League collected over $53.7 million in 2011 and had operating expenses of only about $49.6 million during that same year; or, to be more exact, the "non-profit" ADL's 2011 total earnings exceeded its total expenses by $4,192,327 in 2011. In addition, the national director of the "non-profit" ADL, Abraham Foxman, apparently receives an annual compensation of $370,000; and the regional director of the ADL's Los Angeles office, Amanda Susskind, apparently receives an annual compensation of $207,000.

Another tax-exempt "non-profit" organization that's affiliated to the ADL, the ADL Foundation, described its "charitable" activity in the following way on its most recent Form 990 financial filing:

"Helps promote the mission of ADL...Specific grants totalling $13,603,358 was made to ADL...Supports ADL through ownership and administration of a building in Los Angeles, California. The building houses ADL's Pacific Southwest regional office in Los Angeles."

The tax-exempt "non-profit" ADL Foundation's most recent Form 990 financial filing also indicated that the value of its "investments in Central America and Caribbean" exceeds $49.6 million; and the total value of all of the ADL Foundation's investments is around $74 million.

Friday, February 1, 2013

Black Worker `Not Seasonally Adjusted' Unemployment Rate Increases To 14.3 Percent In January 2013

The official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all Black workers in the United States increased from 13.7 to 14.3 percent between December 2012 and January 2013; while the total number of unemployed Black workers increased by 128,000 (from 2,518,000 to 2,656,000) during the same period, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ “not seasonally adjusted” data.

The official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Black male workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 13.8 to 14.4 percent between December 2012 and January 2013; while the “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Black female workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 12.1 to 12.5 percent during the same period.

The number of unemployed Black male workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 60,000 (from 1,150,000 to 1,210,000) between December 2012 and January 2013, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data; while the number of jobless Black female workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 49,000 (from 1,140,000 to 1,189,000) during the same period. In addition, the number of unemployed Black youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age increased by 30,000 (from 228,000 to 258,000) between December 2012 and January 2013; while the official jobless rate for Black youths increased from 38 to 39.6 percent during the same period, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data.

The official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for white youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age also increased from 19.6 to 21.5 percent between December 2012 and January 2013; while the number of unemployed white youths increased by 81,000 (from 853,000 to 934,000) during the same period, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data. In addition, the “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for white male workers over 20 years-of-age jumped from 6.4 to 7.6 percent between December 2012 and January 2013; while the “not seasonally adjusted” number of jobless white male workers over 20 years-of-age jumped by 771,000 (from 4,148,000 to 4,919,000) during the same period.

For white female workers over 20 years-of age, the official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate increased from 5.9 to 6.6 percent between December 2012 and January 2013; while the number of unemployed white female workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 371,000 (from 3,191,000 to 3,562,000) during the same period, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data. In addition, the official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all white workers in the United States (male, female and youth) jumped from 6.6 to 7.6 percent between December 2012 and January 2013; while the total number of jobless white workers in the United States jumped by over 1.2 million (from 8,191,000 to 9,415,000) during the same period, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” statistics.

According to the “not seasonally adjusted” data, the unemployment rate for Latino male workers over 20 years-of-age jumped from 8.4 to 9.7 percent between December 2012 and January 2013; while the number of jobless Latino male workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 175,000 (from 1,134,000 to 1,309,000) during the same period. The “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Latina female workers over 20 years-of-age also increased from 9.4 to 9.9 percent between December 2012 and January 2013; while the “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Latino youth between 16 and 19 years-of-age was still 26.5 percent in January 2013.

According to the “not seasonally adjusted” data, the official jobless rate for all Latino workers in the United States (male, female and youth) jumped from 9.6 to 10.5 percent between December 2012 and January 2013; while the total number of unemployed Latino workers in the United States (male, female and youth) increased by 228,000 (from 2,350,000 to 2,578,000) between December 2012 and January 2013, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” statistics. In addition, 548,000 Asian-American workers were still unemployed in January 2013, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data; and the jobless rate for Asian-American workers was still 6.5 percent during that same month.

The official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all female workers in the United States over 16 years-of-age increased from 7.3 to 7.9 percent between December 2012 and January 2013; while the total number of unemployed female workers over 16 years-of-age increased by 414,000 (from 5,341,000 to 5,755,000) during the same period, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data. In addition, the “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for female workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 6.9 to 7.4 percent between December 2012 and January 2013; while the number of jobless female workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 361,000 (from 4,828,000 to 5,189,000) during the same period, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data.

The official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age in the United States increased from 22 to 24.2 percent between December 2012 and January 2013; while the “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all male workers in the United States over 16 years-of-age increased from 7.9 to 9 percent during that same period.

Between December 2012 and January 2013, the total number of unemployed U.S. workers jumped by 1,337,000 (from 11,844,000 to 13,181,000) according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data, while the official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all U.S. workers jumped from 7.6 to 8.5 during that same period.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ February 1, 2013 press release:

“In January, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was about unchanged at 4.7 million and accounted for 38.1 percent of the unemployed…

"The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons, at 8.0 million, changed little in January. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.

“In January, 2.4 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force…These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.

“Among the marginally attached, there were 804,000 discouraged workers in January… Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them…

“…In January…[there was] a loss of 8,000 jobs in nursing and residential care facilities…Employment edged down in transportation and warehousing in January (-14,000). Couriers and messengers lost 19,000 jobs over the month…Air transportation employment decreased by 5,000 in January…Manufacturing employment was essentially unchanged in January…Employment in…financial activities, professional and businesses services, leisure and hospitality, and government, showed little change over the month…”