50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Dan Rather And The CIA

Former CBS Evening News Anchor Dan Rather and former CBS News producer Les Midgeley apparently secretly met with CIA Director William Colby in 1975 "to discuss a forthcoming documentary on assassinations," according to Southeastern Massachusetts University Professor of Political Science Philip Melanson's 1990 book, Spy Saga: Lee Harvey Oswald and U.S. Intelligence. The same book also noted:

"According to a September 6, 1975 `Memorandum of Conversation' authored by Colby (obtained by the author from the Agency's Kennedy assassination file), the meeting covered `a variety of matters,' but the topic of Oswald's possible connection to the CIA seems clearly to have been the central concern...The memo concludes on a hopeful note but refuses to leave things to chance.

"`The two gentlemen expressed appreciation for our discussion...From their attitude, I believe there is a chance that the program will indicate that there is no CIA connection with Oswald beyond that noted above...We must, however, insure that Mr. Rather does not learn anything which would cause the slightest doubt on the above account before he produces the program in November.'"

(Downtown 6/9/93)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Ruth Paine's Oswald Interest

In Chapter VI of its report, entitled "Investigation Of Possible Conspiracy," the Warren Commission stated that "Ruth Paine speaks Russian...and for this reaason was invited to a party in February of 1963 at which she became acquainted with the Oswalds." Yet, according to Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba and the Garrison Case by James DiEugenio, "...Although she testified that she met Oswald in 1963, Researcher Michael Levy has unearthed a Navy Department document which reports that Ruth Paine was requesting information about the family of Lee Harvey Oswald in 1957."

And as the Warren Commission noted in its Appendix XIII, "Biography of Lee Harvey Oswald," on the day before Oswald was hired to do temp work at the Texas School Book Depository, coincidentally, "Mrs. Paine called Roy S. Truly, superintendent of the Depository, who indicated that he would talk to Oswald if he would apply in person."

(Downtown 5/26/93)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Oswald's `Intelligence Role'

In its Appendix XII, "Speculations And Rumours," the Warren Commission Report stated the following:

"Rumors and speculations that Oswald was in some way associated with or used by agencies of the U.S. government grew out of his Russian period and his investigation by the FBI after his return to the United States. Insinuations were made that Oswald had been a CIA agent or had some relationship with the CIA and that this explained the supposed ease with which he received passports and visas...The Commission has concluded on the basis of its own investigations of the files of Federal agencies that Oswald was not and had never ben an agent of any agency of the U.S. Government (aside from his service in the Marines) and was not and had never been used by any U.S. Government agency for any purpose..."

Yet in his book Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba and the Garrison Case, James DiEugenio wrote the following:

"Colorado Democrat Gary Hart and Pennsylvania Republican Richard Schweiker had access to many classified intelligence files...In 1978, Schweiker...stated that the Warren Commission had collapsed. It was set up to numb the public in order for a huge coverup to be enacted. He then focused on Oswald's role in that charade:

"'Oswald was playing out an intelligence role...All the fingerprints I found during my 10 months on the Senate Select Committee point to Oswald being a product of, and interacting with, the intelligence community...'"

(Downtown 5/26/93)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: `Times' Coverage Of JFK Assassination

Although the Sulzberger Dynasty's New York Times claims to be interested in printing "all the news that's fit to print," the Times has apparently felt that news which contradicts the Warren Commission's official version of how JFK was actually eliminated in Dallas isn't fit to print. As Destiny Betrayed by James DiEugenio recalled:

"A summary of the Times' early devotion to the Warren Report includes: Tom Wicker's unprofessional failure in November 1963 to follow up diligently on the Parkland doctor's statement that JFK suffered wounds of entry into his throat; Arthur Krock's appraisal of the Report as `the definitive history of the tragedy'; Wicker's unqualified testimonial in the preface for Warren Commission counsel David Belin's book, Harrison Salisbury's endorsement of the Times' abridged version of the Report; the Times' shamelessly doctored and biased selection of testimony in The Witnesses..; its flagrant headline November 24, 1963, when Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby; the systematic violation of the pledge, taken after Oswald's death by then-managing editor Turner Catledge, to refer to Oswald as `the alleged assassin'; the removal on December 1, 1970, of searching pro-conspiracy questions in John Leonard's book review of Jim Garrison's Heritage of Stone from all but the early, bulldog edition..."

(Downtown 5/12/93)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Big Media Coverage Of JFK Assassination

Big Media institutions like the New York Times, CBS and the Washington Post have not appeared too eager to finally let people in the U.S. know who really was responsible for the elimination of JFK in Dallas. As Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba and The Garrison Case by James DiEugenio noted:

"The Kennedy assassination and the Garrison investigation highlighted the shortcomings of the American print and electronic media. Their lack of vigor in seriously investigating the assassination and their gullibility in accepting the Warren Commission Report was staggering...Then with the exposure of the Garrison inquiry in February of 1967, we saw the other side of this eager embrace of the Report: a vicious smear campaign against those who expressed reservations about it...

"Some publications like the New York Times had then and still have a vested interest in seeing the official story prevail. Likewise, the Washington Post for years after the assassination ahd a policy of not reviewing books critical of the Warren Report...Many journalists just completely missed the story the first time around and do not like to admit that fact..."

(Downtown 5/12/93)

Did Jackie Kennedy Realize JFK's Body Was Stolen?

A number of writers have asserted that the body in the casket that was buried at JFK's gravesite in Arlington National Cemetery was actually not the slain body of JFK. In his 1968 book, The Day Kennedy Was Shot, Jim Bishop described Jackie Kennedy's strange reaction in the White House when she first observed the body that was contained in the coffin that was supposed to contain the body of her slain husband, in the early hours of November 23, 1963:

"The Secret Service man lifted the lid high...She stood looking in, still wearing his dried blood on her strawberry dress and on her stockings. She stared at the image and asked for scissors...She reached in and snipped a lock of hair. Robert Kennedy glanced...and turned his glance down. Mrs. Kennedy held the snip of hair and the scissors. Then she turned away. `It isn't Jack,' she said."

(Downtown 3/17/93)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: CIA Countered Critics Of Warren Report

In his introduction to Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba and the Garrison Case by James DiEugenio, Zachary Sklar noted that "Although we still do not know the full extent of the disinformation campaign against Garrison, some evidence of it surfaced in a CIA memo dated April 1, 1967, and released in 1977 under the Freedom of Information Act."

The CIA's April 1, 1967 memo, entitled "Countering Criticism of the Warren Report," was apparently sent to "Chiefs, Certain Stations and Bases," and it included the following recommendations:

"Conspiracy theories have frequently thrown suspicion on our organization, for example by falsely alleging that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for us...

"...We do not recommend that discussion of the assassination question be initiated where it is not already taking place. Where discussion is active, however, addressees are requested:

"a. To discuss the publicity problem with liaison and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors)...Urge them to use their influence...

"b. To employ propaganda assets...Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for the purpose..."

(Downtown 5/12/93)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: LBJ's Hoover Commission

Although former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was apparently not too fond of JFK, he was apparently quite fond of LBJ. As Alien Ink: The FBI's War On Freedom Of Expression recalled:

"On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas...A Hoover friend of over 20 years was sworn in as President...Johnson was the only American President whose autographed photograph hung on the living-room wall of J. Edgar Hoover's home. The Director also kept a bust of Johnson in his dining room.

In his 1970 book, Hoover's FBI: The Men And The Myth, former FBI Agent William Turner described the nature of LBJ's relationship to former FBI Director Hoover:

"One of Lyndon Johnson's first requests upon ensconcing himself in the White House was for 1,200 dossiers on his political adversaries from the FBI's supposedly confidential files, plus the Bobby Baker volume [of LBJ's former aide]. Hoover, whose time for mandatory retirement was looming (only the president could extend it), was happy to oblige...

"Popular fable has it that the Hoover-Johnson friendship stemmed from nothing more than the fact they were neighbors when Johnson was in the Senate...

"But it was much deeper than that. In a very real sense, Hoover was part of the Texan's political family. [LBJ aide] Walter Jenkins' brother had long been an FBI agent in Amarillo, and one of LBJ's shirttail relatives moved from Texas state politics to the FBI (despite the fact that he was slightly under the height minimum), where his rise through the ranks was mercurial. And then there was old Clint Murchison, Hoover's bosom pal, who was one of Johnson's earliest political benefactors...

"The assassination of President Kennedy brought out the Hoover-Johnson team at its precision best. As Congress cranked up to investigate the momentous crime, Johnson took over with the announcement that he was forming his own blue-ribbon commission of inquiry and had asked the FBI to investigate. Less than three weeks after the assassination, far too little time to cover all the ground, Hoover handed the president a confidential summary report that concluded there was `no conspiracy.' Simultaneously...he leaked the report's contents to the press. Thus was the public inculcated with the `no consnpiracy' theory, and the Warren Commission was handed it as a fait accompli..."

(Downtown 4/14/93)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Did LBJ Tell Mistress CIA Eliminated JFK?

Although the Warren Commission Report blamed the assassination of JFK in 1963 on Lee Oswald, U.S. President Johnson apparently told his mistress, Madeline Brown, that the CIA was responsible for the elimination of JFK on November 22, 1963. In his 1992 book, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Dick Russell wrote the following:

"As I was completing the manuscript of this book, it was suggested that I get in touch with Madeline Brown. Between 1948 and 1969, Brown maintains that she was a mistress of Lyndon B. Johnson. LBJ's handwriting on numerous letters to Brown has been verified by analysts, and today it is generally accepted that her son Steven, who died of cancer in 1990, was a son of the former president.

"Brown, today 67 [in 1992], came from a wealthy Dallas family, the Duncans, which made its money in real estate and ranching. She decided to go public with what Johnson once imparted to her about the Kennedy assassination...

"Before the assassination, according to Brown, `Lyndon Johnson told me that the Kennedys would never embarrass him again. It was not a threat, but a promise.' Then, as 1963 passed into history, they were together at a New Year's Eve party. `I said to Lyndon, I've got to have my mind put at ease,' Brown remembers. `People are saying you are responsible for the assassination, and I've got to know.' Well, he had a terrible temper tantrum, as he often did. Then he told me: IT WAS THE OIL PEOPLE AND THE CIA.'"

(Downtown 4/14/93)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Moscow And The `Oswald Case'

According to Chapter VI of the Warren Commission Report, entitled "Investigation of Possible Conspiracy," then-CIA Director John McCone and then-CIA Deputy Director Richard Helms "testified before the Commission that no one connected with the CIA had ever interviewed Oswald or communicated with him in anyway."

Yet, according to a 1990s-published book, the U.S. diplomat who interviewed Oswald prior to his "defection" to Russia in 1959--Richard Snyder--was apparently connected to the CIA. As Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba and The Garrison Case by James DiEugenio noted:

"Oswald's defection and entry into the U.S.S.R. and his departure were both handled by U.S. Moscow Embassy Consul Richard E. Snyder. Snyder was, in his own words, `the sole officer handling the Oswald case.' Snyder sent Oswald his passport, months before his return, and processed Oswald and Marina's exit from the Soviet Union as well. CIA document #609-786 says that Snyder joined the CIA in 1949...Julius Mader's 1968 Who's Who In CIA...lists Snyder as still in the Agency."

In the same book, author James DiEugenio also stated the following in reference to the November 22, 1963 elimination of JFK:

"I have come to believe that there was, in fact, high-up Agency involvement, with `plausible denial' shielding the sanctioning of the assassination. This, plus `need to know' limitations on the parceling out of pieces of information helped make the conspiracy difficult to detect. I also believe the Agency was aided by top military brass in the coordination of the operation and in the deliberate sabotage of the autoopsy."

(Downtown 3/12/93)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Oswald's CIA Connection

According to Chapater VI of the Warren Commission Report, entitled "Investigation of Possible Conspiracy," former CIA Director John McCone and former CIA Deputy Director Richard Helms "testified before the commission that no one connected with the CIA had ever interviewed Oswald or communicated with him in any way." Yet according to a 1990s published book, a friend of Oswald prior to November 22, 1963--the late baron George de Mohrenschildt--was connected to the CIA. As The Man Who Knew Too Much by Dick Russell noted:

"The CIA is on record as having itself been utilizing de Mohrenschildt's services...Only a few hours before he died on March 29, 1977, the baron told the story to journalist Edward Jay Epstein. De Mohrenschildt related that, late in 1961, J. Walton Moore, in charge of the CIA's Domestic Contact Service [DCS] in Dallas, had taken him to lunch. Moore described an ex-Marine working at an electronics factory in Minsk, who was soon to return to the United States and in whom the CIA had `interest.'

"...In the Summer of 1962, de Mohrenschildt maintained that an `associate' of J. Walton Moore provided him Oswald's address in Fort Worth, suggesting the baron might want to meet him. De Mohrenschildt called Moore, noting that in exchange for his services with Oswald, the State Department might assist him with an oil exploration deal he was trying to make in Haiti.

"Moore, de Mohrenschildt said, then `encouraged' him to pursue an Oswald relationship..."

The Warren Commission Report also observed that former CIA Director McCone "stated unequivocally that Oswald was not an agent, employee or informant of the CIA." Yet, according to The Man Who Knew Too Much, de Mohrenschildt's wife, Jeanne de Mohrenschildt "said she knew that Oswald had been sent to the Soviet Union by the CIA."

According to Appendix XIII of the Warren Commission Report, entitled "Biography of Lee Harvey Oswald," after "Oswald first came into the office of the Texas employment commission" on October 9 [1962], he "was referred to Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall Col." on Oct. 11, 1962 "in response to a call from John Graef, head of the photographic department of the company, who had told the employment commission that he needed a photoprint trainee" and who "picked" Oswald "over several other applicants."

What the Warren Commission Report failed to mention, however, in its Biography Of Lee Harvey Oswald" appendix, according to The Man Who Knew Too Much, was that "By October 1962" the apparently CIA-connected de Mohrenschildt "also landed Oswald his job at JCS [Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall photo-lithograph firm]." In the same book, author Dick Russell also recalled that when he visited the de Mohrenschildts in Dallas in July 1976 and talked with Jeanne de Mohrenschildt about what actually happened on November 22, 1963, Jeanne de Mohrenschildt replied: "Of course the truth has not come out. We know it was a vast conspiracy and Oswald did not shoot the president."

(Downtown 4/28/93)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Oswald Impersonated In Mexico City?

Although the U.S. Establishment's Warren Commission Report claimed that Lee Oswald visited Mexico City a few months before JFK was eliminated, in the forward to The Man Who Knew Too Much by Dick Russell, Carl Oglesby wrote that "a secret 280-page report prepared in 1978 by the staff of the House Select Committee on Assassinations," which was still classified [in the early 1990s], "reported the discovery of solid CIA evidence that Oswald was actually impersonated in the famous confrontations at the Soviet embassy and the Cuban consulate in Mexico City a month-and-a-half before" the JFK assassination on November 22, 1963. Oglesby also noted that "in May 1992, [then-] CIA director Robert Gates told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the CIA could not release certain elements of its large secret file on accused JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald."

(Downtown 4/28/93)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Changing JFK's Motorcade Route

In Appendix XII of the Report of the President's Commission On The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, entitled "Speculations And Rumors", the Warren Commission asserted that "The motorcade route was decided upon November 18 [1963] and published in the Dallas newspapers on November 19 [1963]. It was not changed in any way thereafter. The route called for the motorcade to turn off Main Street at Houston, go up to elm, and then turn left on Elm Street."

Yet according to Warren Commission Exhibit No. 2709, "On March 21, 1964, a confidential source advised" the FBI "that Joachim Joesten had been interviewed on that date at the American Consulate General in Hamburg, Germany" and stated the following:

"He arrived in Dallas, TX, on December 6, or 7, 1963, and stayed for four days. He concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald is innocent of the murder of President Kennedy which can be readily seen by a review of published information...

"The most important factor is that the actual route which the president took differed from the published sketch. The sketch in The Dallas Morning News showed that the president would travel straight down Main Street in Dallas to proceed under the `triple underpass.' However, the president's car turned to the right on Houston from Main and then turned left on Elm Street which took the car past the book depository..."

Coincidentally, in her book JFK: The Last Dissenting Witness, Jean Hill recalled that the following conversation took place between her and J.B. Marshall--one of the Dallas motorcycle cops who had been assigned on November 22, 1963 to escort JFK's car down the motorcade route:

"DALLAS MOTORCYCLE COP MARSHALL: "Well, while Kennedy was busy shaking hands with all the wellwishers at the airport, Johnson's Secret Service people came over to the motorcycle cops and gave us a bunch of instructions. The damnedest thing was, they told us the parade route through Dealey Plaza was being changed."

JEAN HILL: "Changed? How?"

MARSHALL: "It was originally supposed to go straight down Main Street, but they said for us to disregard that. Instead, we were told to make the little jog on Houston and cut over to Elm.

"They also ordered us into the damnedest escort formation I've ever seen. Ordinarily, you bracket the car with four motorcycles, one on each fender. But this time, they told the four of us assigned to the president's car there'd be no forward escorts. We were to stay well to the back and not let ourselves get ahead of the car's rear wheels under any circumstances. I'd never heard of a formation like that, much less ridden in one, but they said they wanted to let the crowds have an unrestricted view of the president. Well, I guess somebody got an `unrestricted view' of him, all right."

(Downtown 2/3/93)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Who Ordered Press Photographers Away From JFK's Car?

Although "the press car was loaded with photographers and journalists and was supposed to follow directly behind the car carrying the President's bodyguards, which followed the Presidential limousine," according to The Texas Connection by Craig Zirbel, on November 22, 1963 in Dallas "shortly before the start of the motorcade" the press car "was deliberately bumped to a rear position for no stated reason." The same book also noted that "this resulting strange line-up change prevented professional journalists and photographers from witnessing and photographing the slaying" of President Kennedy.

(Downtown 2/3/93)

Columbia University Journalism School's Washington Post-CIA-FBI-New America Foundation Connection

Before being named by Washington Post Company board member Lee Bollinger to be the new Dean of Columbia University’s “Washington Post Journalism School," former Washington Post managing editor Steve Coll spent 5 years as the president of the financially secretive New America Foundation [whose board chairman is Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt].

Coincidentally, when Columbia University School of Journalism Dean-Designate Coll was the New America Foundation president, the New America Foundation apparently hired former CIA Counterterrorist Center Deputy Director and former FBI Senior Intelligence Adviser Philip Mudd as a New America Foundation “Senior Research Fellow, Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative.” As the New America Foundation’s own website notes:

“…Philip Mudd studies issues of counterterrorism…with the Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative.

“Mr. Mudd joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1985 as an analyst specializing in South Asia and then the Middle East. He began work in the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center in 1992 and then served on the National Intelligence Council as the Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia (1995-98). After a tour as an executive assistant in the front office of the Agency’s analytic arm, Mr. Mudd went on to manage Iraq analysis at the CIA (1999-2001).

“He began a policy assignment at the White House in early 2001, detailed from CIA to serve as the Director for Gulf Affairs on the White House National Security Council. He left after...September 11...for a short assignment as the CIA member of the small diplomatic team that helped piece together a new government for Afghanistan, and he returned to CIA in early 2002 to become second-in-charge of counterterrorism analysis in the Counterterrorist Center. He was promoted to the position of Deputy Director of the Center in 2003 and served there until 2005.

“At the establishment of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Security Branch in 2005, FBI Director Robert Mueller appointed Mr. Mudd to serve as the Branch’s first-ever deputy director. He received a Presidential nomination to become Undersecretary of Intelligence and Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security in early 2009 but later withdrew his nomination, returning to the FBI as its Senior Intelligence Adviser. Mr. Mudd resigned from government service in March 2010.

“Mr. Mudd is the recipient of numerous CIA awards and commendations, including the Director’s Award; the George H.W. Bush Award for excellence in counterterrorism; [and] the CIA’s Distinguished Intelligence Medal…”

So don’t expect the new Dean of Columbia University’s School of Journalism to encourage journalism students at Columbia University to write many muckraking articles about either the Washington Post Company’s historic relationship with the CIA or the way that the CIA, the FBI, the New American Foundation and the Washington Post Company board of directors attempt to use the U.S. mainstream corporate media to manipulate public opinion at home and abroad in the 21st-century.

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Oswald's Hunt Connection

A number of U.S. writers have asserted that former CIA operative and convicted Watergate Affair participant E. Howard "Eduardo" Hunt was also involved in a conspiracy that eliminated JFK in Dallas. Coincidentally, in his 1991 book The Texas Connection: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy, Craig Zirbel stated the following:

"A handwritten note, proven by experts to be clearly in Oswald's handwriting, has recently surfaced. The note was dated November 8, 1963 and was directed to `Mr. Hunt.'...Just two weeks before the murder Oswald wrote to Mr. Hunt:

"`Dear Mr. Hunt:

"`I would like information concerning my position.

"`I am asking only for information.

"`I am suggesting that we discuss the matter fully before any steps are taken by me or anyone else.

"`Lee Harvey Oswald.'"

(Downtown 2/3/93)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Did LBJ Know JFK Was To Be Eliminated?

In his book The Texas Connection, Craig Zirbel asserted that according to former President Johnson's "girlfriend of over 20 years, Madeline Brown, Lyndon Baines Johnson told her prior to President Kennedy's assassination that Kennedy was going to be killed in Dallas" and LBJ "knew in advance but did nothing." Zirbel also wrote that "according to Johnson's motorcade seatmate, Democratic Senator Ralph Yarborough (who smelled gunpowder near the grassy knoll), at the exact time of the assassination Johnson had his ear up against a small walkie-talkie held over the back seat listening to the device which was `turned down real low.'"

Coincidentally, in her book JFK: The Last Dissenting Witness, Jean Hill also recalled that a Dallas motorcycle cop who escorted President Kennedy's car on November 22, 1963--J.B. Marshall--told her the following, after President Johnson was inaugurated:

"According to the guys who were escorting his car in the motorcade, our new president is either one jumpy sonofabitch or he knows something he's not telling about the Kennedy thing...

"They say he started ducking down in the car a good 30 or 40 seconds before the first shots were fired...I'd say that's just a little peculiar, wouldn't you?...

"One of them told McGuire he saw Johnson duck down even before the car turned onto Houston Street...

"...This guy said it sure looked like he was expecting bullets to be flying."

(Downtown 2/3/93)

Multi-Millionaire Stephen Mindich Shuts Down Boston Phoenix: 40 Employees Laid-Off

At least 40 members of the Boston Phoenix staff apparently lost their jobs yesterday because the owner of the Boston Phoenix magazine/newspaper, an elderly rich hip capitalist named Stephen Mindich, decided that Boston Phoenix readers should no longer be able to pick up that publication for free on the streets of Boston. Yet owning an "alternative" newspaper which was Democratic Party-oriented in its political slant, like the Boston Phoenix, was apparently a quite lucrative way of making money until the 21st-century for Mindich--whose personal wealth was estimated at over $70 million about 10 years ago. As a December 25, 1996 column item in the now-defunct Downtown/Aquarian Weekly article noted in 1996:

"Since he bought his `alternative' newspaper in 1970 from his hip capitalist business partner, for example, Boston Phoenix owner Stephen Mindich has amassed a personal fortune that exceeds $25 million, according to New Fortunes 1994: Biographical Profiles of 650 America's Emerging Wealth Holders.

Founded by Jim Lewis in 1966, the Phoenix was originally called Boston After Dark until Mindich purchased a competing newspaper, The Cambridge Phoenix, in 1975; and renamed the merged publication The Boston Phoenix. Prior to 1969, Boston After Dark had been distributed for free [as the Boston Phoenix has been in most of its post-1996 history] In 1982, the Phoenix owner also used his surplus wealth to purchase Boston radio station WFNX; and in the 1990s, Mindich also owned the Mass Web Printing Col, in addition to taking in over $10 million a year from Phoenix ad sales [in the late 20th-century]."

In the early 21st-century, Mindich also apparently owned some valuable real estate property in the neighborhood around the Boston Red Sox's Fenway Park baseball stadium.

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: General McHugh And JFK

In his book High Treason 2: The Great Cover-Up, Harrison Edward Livingstone noted that a member of JFK's White House staff on November 22, 1963 named General Godfrey McHugh "was from a wealthy family and had close ties with some of the rich Texas oilmen" and "In fact, the night before Kennedy's assassination, General McHugh was at the home of two brothers, Robert N. and E.J. McCurdy, both oilmen in Fort Worth" who "both intensely disliked Kennedy." High Treason 2 also asserted that "McHugh just happened to be with JFK when he was shot, and on Air Force 1, where the body was" and "Godfrey McHugh was listed in Who's Who In The CIA, a book confirmed in the Pentagon Papers as being accurate." High Treason 2 also argued that "if the body was stolen from Air Force 1 in Dallas, the time it was done was during LBJ's swearing-in, when only General McHugh was on guard."

General McHugh also was apparently close to JFK's alleged body around the time a controversial autopsy was performed on it. According to Warren Commission Exhibit 1024, on November 30, 1963 Secret Service Special Agent Clinton Hill stated that after JFK's body was flown back to Washington and taken by ambulance to the U.S. Naval Hospital, "Mrs. Kennedy, the Attorney General [Bobby Kennedy], Special Agent Landis and I went immediately inside and via elevator to the 17th floor of the hospital, the location of the Presidential suite" while "The president's body was taken to the morgue..." Later, according to Secret Service Agent Hill "at approximately 2:45 a.m., November 23 [1963], I was requested by ASAIC Kellerman to come to the morgue to once again view the body" and "When I arrived the autopsy had been completed and ASAIC Kellerman, SA Greer, General McHugh and I viewed the wounds."

Coincidentally, a brigadier general who identified himself as "the president's air force aide" appeared to get extremely uptight at a November 22, 1963 Texas Hotel breakfast in Fort Worth just a few hours before JFK was to be shot, when his right of entry was challenged by Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce Sports Committee member Donald Bubar. According to Warren Commission Exhibit 1020, on December 3, 1963 Bubar wrote the following in a letter to U.S. Secret Service Chief James Rowley:

"I was one of 30 men chosen from the Chamber of Commerce Sports Committee in Fort Worth to assist the Secret Service at the Texas Hotel [on November 22, 1963]...The only untoward incident which I was involved in that morning was in the Ballroom when a Brigadier General walked in without either a ticket to the breakfast or any other credentials except his uniform and decorations...The woman taking the tickets told me that a general had walked in without any identification and walked over toward the next door...I was then told that someone in an officer's uniform had walked out the other door into the foyer.

"Shortly after that, the general came back in the door where I was stationed, and the woman taking the tickets turned to me to report that this was the general who had come in earlier unidentified. I told him to wait a moment; that I would get a member of the Secret Service to identify him, since he had no ticket and no badge which we were instructed to acknowledge. He was quite incensed that he should be stopped and told me that he was the President's Air Force Aide...

"The General...seemed to feel that he had been humiliated in some respect, and told me that in his three years' experience...no one had ever before challenged his right of entry...

"The General continued to press the point, telling me that it was strange that he would have to come back to his hometown to be treated in any such fashion. I reminded him that I could walk down to the Army store and buy a uniform, stars, and all the decorations he wore, and could very easily masquerade as a brigadier general. I was quite astonished that anyone in his position should have felt that he was above all security regulations."

(Downtown 1/20/93)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Why Did LBJ Take Oath In Dallas?

Although most U.S. Establishment presidents have been sworn-in as president in Washington, D.C., former President Lyndon B. Johnson was first sworn in by a CIA-linked Hoblitzelle Foundation trustee named Sara Hughes in Dallas, Texas a few hours after JFK was ambushed on November 22, 1963. According to High Treason 2: The Great Cover-Up by Harrison Edward Livingstone:

"The conspiracy that killed President Kennedy was at least to some extent hatched and operated out of Dallas/Fort Worth. The plotters controlled the police and the city government there. Numerous of their relatives and connections were in the military and in the CIA...Some of those, like General Charles Cabell of Dallas, had been fired by Kennedy. The Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division, David Atlee Phillips, and numerous others from the CIA were from Dallas or Fort Worth...

"General Edward Lansdale and Lucien Conein wore military uniforms but were CIA...There was long a rumor in the Washington area that the Far Eastern section of the CIA killed President Kennedy, along with propaganda specialists and Bay of Pigs operatives from the Western Hemisphere division. They were also connected to Richard Nixon...

"Lansdale and Lucien Conein were prominent in the Far Eastern Section, along with Desmond Fitzgerald."

(Downtown 1/20/93)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: PBS'sLehrer And JFK Assassination News Coverage

PBS's  longtime evening news show anchorman Jim Lehrer (who--like Lee Harvey Oswald--was an ex-Marine) just happened to be in Dallas on November 22, 1963. But unlike former CBS Evening News Anchor Dan Rather (who just happened to be stationed near the grassy knoll in Dallas on November 22, 1963) and Lehrer's former PBS evening news show co-anchorman Robert MacNeil (who just happened to bump into Lee Harvey Oswald by the Texas School Book Depository a few moments after JFK was shot), Lehrer, evidently, was not stationed near the ambush site.

But in his early 1990s book A Bus Of My Own, Lehrer admitted that at the Dallas airport shortly before JFK's plane arrived from Fort Worth on November 22, 1963, the following happened:

"...I put the phone down and walked over to a small ramp where the motorcade limousines were being held in waiting. I spotted Forres Sorrels, the agent in charge of the Dallas Secret Service office. I knew Mr. Sorrels fairly well, because I was then the regular federal beat reporter. After he had found out that I had been a Marine, he had even tried to recruit me as a Secret Service agent...

"I looked down the ramp. The bubble top was on the president's car.

"`Rewrite wants to know if the bubble top's going to stay on,' I said to Mr. Sorrels...

"Mr. Sorrels yelled back at the agents standing by the car: `Take off the bubble top!'"

Coincidentally, former Dallas Times-Herald reporter Lehrer evidently felt very threatened psychologically by Oliver Stone's early 1990s JFK movie. In his early 1990s book, for example, ex-Marine Lehrer wrote the following in reference to the JFK movie:

"It was only the elitist labeling of a whole class of Americans, my own class, by the Stone fiction that brought real heat and red to my face and soul. That movie, directly or indirectly, alleges that hundreds, thousands of working CIA, FBI and other federal agents; police officers, deputy sheriffs, Warren Commission staffers and congressional investigators; and reporters from news organizations of all sizes, persuasions and recourse were not interested in finding out who killed Kennedy, or worse, were either involved in the assassination and/or cover-up or manipulated by evil higher-ups who were. It is an absurdity beyond all honest imagination to claim people of such independent minds and spirits could be so involved or so used in killing a president of the United States...Only in a never-never land of the ignorant and the careless would such an idiotic conspiracy idea be taken seriously. It is a blood libel to repeat it in public, particularly in a large-screen $40 million movie..."

Mysteriously, Lehrer failed to mention in his early 1990s book's discussion of his involvement in the November 1963 events in Dallas that, three days before JFK was eliminated in that city, an article written by him appeared in the Dallas Times-Herald that apparently first revealed the previously-classified proposed Dallas motorcade route.

Coincidentally, in his fiction writing, PBS's Lehrer NewsHour anchor Lehrer has written about CIA agents who overthrow governments and CIA agents "who shared a special secret assignment after John F. Kennedy's assassination and now have a conflict about revealing their secret many years later," according to Lehrer's A Bus Of My Own book. In the same book, Lehrer also revealed that during the late 1950s he served in the Third Marine Division of Okinawa "as an S-1, adjutant and personnel officer with additional responsibility for classified documents and morale" who "was supposed to keep the classified documents locked up..."

(Downtown 11/18/92)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Who Eliminated JFK?

Former CIA contract agent Robert Morrow's book about RFK's elimination, The Senator Must Die, also stated the following:

"Bobby Kennedy suspected that a conspiracy involving CIA/Mafia-related people killed his brother.

"...On August 19, 1977, I would seemingly have some confirmation of the Company's involvement in the President's [JFK's] assassination. I received a mysterious phone call to meet with the son of a former high-ranking member of the intelligence community.

"We met the following day for lunch. In our initial conversation, the young man claimed his father, an ex-Air Force colonel, and others working for the Central Intelligence Agency had prior knowledge that President Kennedy was going to be assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963...

"He also claimed that through his father, he learned that the CIA hierarchy had done everything in their power to thwart the Warren Commission investigation, including the suppression and destruction of evidence--evidence that could prove that a conspiracy existed.

"The intelligence officer's son...asserted that his father had been tied into organized crime and had been a bagman for at least one of the payoffs relating to the presidential assassination [of JFK], transporting a large sum of money to Haiti for payoff purposes during the Summer of 1963..."

Former CIA contract agent Morrow also included in his book an affidavit signed by former Reagan White House staff member Diane [Didi] Hess in September 1977 in which Hess stated that she submitted to a taped interview with Morrow on September 27, 1977 in order "to describe the circumstances surrounding the admissions" of a former Air Force Colonel to her "of his personal participation in the assassination conspiracy of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963" and "to state the desire" of this Air Force intelligence officer "to convey this information directly to the proper authorities upon being granted immunity from prosecution."

According to Morrow, Hess "had lived with the intelligence officer's son over an extended period of time" and "she also told her story to the House Selected Committee On Assassinations [HSCA]" during the late 1970s.

(Downtown 7/22/92)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Who Eliminated JFK's Mistress?

On October 13, 1964 the ex-wife of former CIA Covert Action Head Cord Meyer--Mary Pinchot-Meyer--"was shot twice, once in the head and once in the chest with no apparent motive" and she and President Kennedy had been "involved at the time of the president's assassination" on November 22, 1963, acording to The Encyclopedia of American Scandal by George Kohn.

In his book The Senator Must Die, former CIA contract agent Robert Morrow stated that shortly before Mary Pinchot-Meyer was eliminated, he met with a former Deputy Comptroller of the U.S. Treasury, Marshall Diggs, at Paul Young's Restaurant in Washington, D.C. According to Morrow, Diggs told him that Mary Pinchot-Meyer "claimed to my friend that she positively knew that company-affiliated Cuban exiles and the Mafia were responsible for killing John Kennedy." After speaking with Diggs, Morrow "drove to New York and met with [Cuban Exile Leader] Kohly" and "after I told him the story of Mary Meyer, he looked very concerned."

According to Morrow, Kohly then said "Just tell Diggs I'll take care of the matter" and "Then he told me to stay away from him and not tell anyone I had seen him or where he could be found." A week after Morrow's meeting with Kohly in New York, Mary Pinchot-Meyer was, coincidentally, eliminated.

Also, coincidentally, in his 1980 book, Conspiracy, Anthony Summers wrote:

"In 1978 I interviewed the son of the late Mario Kohly...The younger Kohly recalled opening a bottle of champagne at the news of President Kennedy's death and then calling his father. According to Kohly, `My father seemed elated and quite relieved; he seemed more pleased, I would say, than surprised. I am sure he had knowledge of what really happened in Dealey Plaza. But, if you recall, everyone that has had knowledge ended up dead.'"

The same book also observed that Kohly's son quoted the deceased Cuban Exile Leader as saying "John Kennedy was a traitor...He was a Communist."

(Downtown 7/22/92)

Black Female Worker Unemployment Rate Increases To 12.5 Percent In February 2013

The official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Black female workers over 20 years-of-age in the United States increased from 12.3 to 12.5 percent between January and February 2013; while the number of unemployed Black female workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 11,000 (from 1,178,000 to 1,189,000) during the same period, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ data. In addition, the number of Black female workers over 20 years-of-age who still have jobs decreased by 65,000 (from 8,367,000 to 8,302,000) between January and February 2013; and the number of Black female workers over 20 years-of-age still in the U.S. labor force decreased by 54,000 (from 9,545,000 to 9,491,000) during the same period.

The official unemployment rate for Black youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age jumped from 37.8 to 43.1 percent between January and February 2013; while the number of unemployed Black youths increased by 37,000 (from 270,000 to 307,000) during the same period. In addition, the number of Black youths who still have jobs decreased by 40,000 (from 444,000 to 404,000) between January and February 2013; while the official jobless rate for Black male workers over 20 years-of-age was still 12.9 percent in February 2013.

The official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for all Black workers (youth, female and male) in the United States in February 2013 was still 13.8 percent in February 2013; while the total number of unemployed Black workers increased by 12,000 (from 2,568,000 to 2,580,000) between January and February 2013. In addition, the total number of Black workers who still had jobs decreased by 14,000 (from 16,073,000 to 16,059,000) between January and February 2013; while the number of Black workers not in the U.S. labor force increased by 34,000 (from 11,549,000 to 11,583,000) during the same period.

The official jobless rate for white youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age increased from 20.8 to 22.1 percent between January and February 2013; while the number of unemployed white youths increased by 54,000 (from 983,000 to 1,037,000) during the same period. In addition, the number of white youths who still have jobs decreased by 101,000 (from 3,746,000 to 3,645,000) between January and February 2013.

The official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Latino youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age jumped from 26.5 to 29.1 percent between January and February 2013; while the number of unemployed Latino youths increased by 6,000 (from 288,000 to 294,000) during the same period, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data. In addition, the number of Latino youths who still have jobs decreased by 82,000 (from 798,000 to 716,000) between January and February 2013; and the number of Latino youths still in the U.S. labor force decreased by 76,000 (from 1,086,000 to 1,010,000) during the same period.

The official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Latino female workers over 20 years-of-age also increased from 9.9 to 10 percent between January and February 2013; while the number of unemployed Latino female workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 14,000 (from 981,000 to 995,000) according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data. In addition, the “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Latino male workers over 20 years-of-age was still 9.1 percent in February 2013.

According to the “seasonally adjusted” data, the number of Latino workers not in the U.S. labor force increased by 84,000 (from 12,522,000 to 12,606,000); while the size of the Latino labor force in the United States decreased by 9,000 (from 24,572,000 to 24,563,000). And the “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all Latino workers (youth, male and female) was still 9.6 percent in February 2013.

The total number of white workers in the United States who still had jobs decreased by 16,000 (from 115,266,000 to 115,250,000) between January and February 2013, according to the “seasonally adjusted” data; while the number of white workers in the U.S. labor force decreased by 345,000 (from 123,971,000 to 123,626,000) during the same period. And the unemployment rate for all white workers (youth, male and female) was still 6.8 percent in February 2013.

The number of white male workers over 20 years-of-age in the U.S. labor force decreased by 204,000 (from 64,924,000 to 64,720,000) between January and February 2013; while the official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for white male workers over 20 years-of-age was still 6.3 percent in February 2013. In addition, the number of white female workers over 20 years-of-age in the U.S. labor force decreased by 94,000 (from 54,318,000 to 54,224,000) between January and February 2013; while the unemployment rate for white female workers over 20 years-of-age was still 6 percent in February 2013.

According to the “not seasonally adjusted” data, the number of Asian-American workers not in the U.S. labor force increased by 16,000 (from 4,603,000 to 4,619,000); while the unemployment rate for Asian-American workers was still 6.1 percent in February 2013.

The official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for all youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age in the United States increased from 23.4 to 25.1 percent between January and February 2013; while the unemployment rate for all male workers in the United States over 16 years-of-age was still 7.8 percent in February 2013. In addition, the official jobless rate for all female workers in the United States over 16 years-of-age was still 7.7 percent in February 2013; while the unemployment rate for all female workers over 20 years-of-age was still 7 percent in that same month.

The jobless rate for all male workers over 20 years-of-age was also still 7.1 percent in February 2013; and 12,022,000 workers in the United States were still officially unemployed in that same month.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ March 8, 2013 press release:

“…The unemployment rate…has shown little movement…since September 2012…The rates for adult men (7.1 percent), adult women (7.0 percent), teenagers (25.1 percent), blacks (13.8 percent), and Hispanics (9.6 percent) showed little or no change. The jobless rate for Asians was 6.1 percent (not seasonally adjusted), little changed from a year earlier.

“In February, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was about unchanged at 4.8 million. These individuals accounted for 40.2 percent of the unemployed...The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons, at 8.0 million, was essentially unchanged in February. 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 February, 2.6 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 885,000 discouragaed workers in February...Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them..." 

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Cabell's Nixon Connection

The mayor of Dallas on November 22, 1963, Earle Cabell, was the brother of former CIA Deputy Director Charles Cabell. After being fired by President Kennedy following the failure of the CIA's 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, Dallas Mayor Cabell's brother was hired by both Billionaire Howard Hughes and NASA as "a consultant." He also was introduced by Clay Shaw at a Foreign Police Association meeting in New Orleans which he addressed in May 1961. And prior to former CIA Deputy Director Cabell's 1971 death, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison was preparing to accuse him of conspiring to assassinate President Kennedy.

Around three years before President Kennedy was eliminated, Cabell was one of the CIA officials who "briefed Vice President Nixon about the plans to assassinate Fidel Castro" and "In October [1960], just a few weeks before the national elections, Nixon and CIA Deputy Director Cabell meet secretly with [Cuban Exile Leader Mario Garcia] Kohly on the golf links of the Burning Tree Club in suburban Washington consummating a deal," according to former CIA contract agent Robert Morrow's The Senator Must Die book. (Morrow was hired by the CIA to work as Cuban Exile Leader Kohly's technical advisor and consultant in the early 1960s). According to Morrow, at the secret October 1960 meeting between Cabell, Nixon and Kohly, Nixon "had agreed that Kohly could eliminate all of the prominent Cuban leftist leaders after a successful invasion" and "the plot would assure Kohly of being the new president of Cuba."

The Senator Must Die also revealed in 1988 that:

"In a Warren Commission document (WCD 279, still classified), Marion Cooper, a former CIA operative, disclosed that on January 1, 1955, he attended a meeting in Honduras with Vice President Richard Nixon, at which the planned assassination of President Jose Antonio Remon of Panama was discussed in detail. Among those present: the hit team hired to kill the Panamanian leader.

"The following day, Remon was machine-gunned to death at a racetrack outside Panama City."

(Downtown 7.22/92)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Who Stationed Dan Rather At JFK Ambush Site?

Around three weeks before President Kennedy was ambushed, CBS News' then Bureau Chief in New Orleans, Dan Rather, was apparently told by then-CBS News Editor Ralph Paskman to set up extensive coverage of President Kennedy's November 22, 1963 motorcade through Dallas. And, coincidentally, at the very moment President Kennedy was ambushed, Rather was "on the other side of the railroad tracks, beyond the triple underpass, thirty yards from a grassy knoll," according to Rather's 1977 book, The Camera Never Blinks.

Although Rather claims he heard no shots on November 22, 1963, after President Kennedy's limousine rushed past him Rather apparently ran as fast as he could to the TV station of CBS's local affiliate, telephoned Parkland Hospital and was the first U.S. journalist to be informed by an unidentified hospital doctor that President Kennedy was dead.

After the JFK ambush, according to Rather, "We ran our leads through the FBI and the Dallas Police" and "Finally, we had a name: Abraham Zapruder." Rather claimed that:

"When we reached him, Zapruder did not know what he had...We helped arrange for Eastman Kodak to process the film. This job had to be done by the best equipment. It had to be done fast. And it had to be kept confidential."

But after he viewed the Zapruder film of President Kennedy's elimination, CBS's "Man in Dallas," coincidentally, apparently described its contents to television viewers in an erroneous way that implied that President Kennedy was not killed by shots from the grassy knoll. As BBC investigative reporter Anthony Summers wrote in his 1980 book, Conspiracy:

"If the only comprehensive visual record of the Kennedy assassination had been shown on November 22, 1963, most people in the United States would have gone to bed that night certain that their President [JFK] had been shot from the front and only perhaps--by an earlier shot--from behind. Americans were of course not shown the full Zapruder film until more than a decade later. They were, within days, given a verbal description of the footage on CBS television. Dan Rather, a television correspondent who had been permitted to view the film, was the narrator. Rather said that at the fatal head shot the President [JFK] `fell forward with considerable violence.' He omitted to say what in fact is mercilessly obvious from any alert viewing of the film. It is manifestly clear that the President [JFK] jerked backward at the moment of the shot that visibly exploded his head."

(Downtown 7/22/92)

Remembering Hugo Chavez: Revolution Will Not Be Televised Trailer

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Bush I And The JFK Assassination

Coincidentally, a few days after JFK was ambushed on November 22, 1963, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sent a memorandum to the U.S. State Department regarding the JFK assassination. According to an article, "`George Bush' C.I.A. Operative" by Joseph McBride, which appeared in the July 16/23, 1988 issue of The Nation magazine, this November 29, 1963 FBI memorandum was "subject headed `Assassination of President John F. Kennedy Nov. 22, 1963" and "In it, Hoover reports that the bureau had briefed `Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency' shortly after the assassination..."

The same Nation article also revealed that "a source with close connections to the intelligence community confirms that Bush started working for the agency in 1960 or 1961, using his oil business as a cover for clandestine activities." The Nation's intelligence community source had "worked with the agency in the late 1950s and through the 1960s" and he stated that Bush "was involved in the Caribbean" and "I know he was involved in the suppression of things after the Kennedy assassination.'"

Plausible Denial: Was The CIA Involved In The Assassination of JFK? by Mark Lane also noted that:

"There is evidence suggesting that [George] de Mohrenschildt served as a CIA control officer who directed Oswald's actions. De Mohrenschildt died from a gun shot just as he was about to be questioned by the House Select Committee on Assassinations. After his death, his personal telephone book was located. It contained this entry: `Bush, George H.W. (Poppy) 1412 W. Ohio also Zapata Petroleum Midland.'"

(Downtown 6/17/92)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Who Eliminated JFK In Dallas?

In his best-selling book, Plausible Denial: Was The CIA Involved In The Assassination Of JFK?, Mark Lane noted that after the failure of the CIA's Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, Marita Lorenz was apparently recruited to be a decoy for an operation in Dallas by a CIA operative named Frank Sturgis, who was later convicted for his role in the Watergate Affair. According to Lane, "Marita Lorenz spent hours talking with me" and "she told me in some detail of her knowledge of the plan to assassinate President Kennedy and of the role played by Sturgis and [E. Howard `Eduardo'] Hunt," another CIA operative who was later convicted for his role in the Watergate Affair.

Evidently, according to Lorenz, sometime in November 1963 prior to the JFK ambush, a caravan of two cars brought weapons from Miami to Dallas. Then, in the early evening of the day before JFK was ambushed, according to Lorenz, she witnessed Hunt giving Sturgis an envelope of cash in a Dallas motel room. Forty-five minutes after Hunt left this Dallas motel room, according to Lorenz, she witnessed Jack Ruby arriving in the motel room and being given money by Sturgis. About two hours after Ruby left the motel room, according to Lorenz, she and Sturgis flew back to Miami, where she and Sturgis separated.

According to Plausible Denial, in response to a question from Hunt's lawyer during Hunt's lawsuit against Spotlight magazine, Lorenz stated that--after JFK was eliminated--when "Sturgis sought to recruit her for yet another CIA project he told her that she had missed `the really big one' in Dallas" and he stated to her:

"We killed the president that day. You could have been a part of it--you know, part of history. You should have stayed. Everything was covered up in advance. No arrests, no real newspaper investigation. It was all covered, very professional."

In response to further questioning by Hunt's attorney during Hunt's lawsuit, Lorenz apparently also named others who were part of the caravan that carried weapons to Dallas prior to November 22, 1963 and also indicated that she had told government authorities in New York what she had witnessed on November 21, 1963 in Dallas.

Coincidentally, at least one published book on JFK's death asserted that "According to an internal CIA memorandum allegedly written in 1966 by Tom Karamessines, an assistant to Richard Helms, E. Howard Hunt...was in Dallas" on November 22, 1963.

(Downtown 6/10/92)

50 Years Since JFK Assassination Retrospective: Oswald's FBI Monitor Met With Army Intelligence Agent Prior To JFK Assassination

Coincidentally, the same Dallas FBI agent who visited the Paine-Oswald residence twice and made a pretext call to the personnel department of the Texas School Book Depository inquiring about Oswald a few weeks before JFK was ambushed, met with an Army intelligence agent just prior to JFK's assassination on November 22, 1963.

During FBI agent James Hosty's May 5, 1964 testimony before the Warren Commission, the following exchange took place between Warren Commission Assistant Counsel Samuel Stern and FBI agent Hosty:

MR. STERN: "What next occurred on the 22nd, Mr. Hosty?"

MR. HOSTY: "After the conference that lasted until about 9 a.m. I then left the office and joined an Army Intelligence agent...We had a conference...This conference lasted most of the morning until about 11:45. At 11:45 the Army Intelligence agent and myself left, and walked over towards Main Street. The motorcade was scheduled to pass down Main Street near our office at approximately noon..."

(Downtown 6/10/92)