Tag Archives: Texas School Book Depository

1963, Articles, History, JFK, Kennedy Assassination

Remembering the day JFK left us..

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The day is stuck fresh in the mind of those that had to live through it, and it has become fresh in the mind that visit Dealey Plaza even today. The day, November 22nd, 1963 has had much meaning for those that were alive during the year 1963, and for those not quite old enough to have been around for this event. If you have never been to this spot, it is not as big as it might look on television, and it is a very high traffic area. On my recent visit to Dallas, I took my own children to visit this historic place. My children were ready to learn about everything that I have been studying since I was 8 years old. As we approached the plaza, there was hundreds of people who were taking pictures of the old Texas School Book Depository, pictures of the grassy knoll and selfies in front of just about anything they thought had meaning. As I was standing there explaining things to my children, I could not help but look out in the distance and find, families having picnics, people playing football, and others who seemed liked they were just dragged there by their significant other. Were these people disrespecting the site I thought? Were they not appreciating the history that was right in front of their face? Regardless, they were there, and with that, the history and the mystery surrounding the Kennedy assassination will live on.

I have been to Washington D.C a few times, and each time I have walked past Ford’s Theater where Lincoln was killed. The book store across the street, and the adjoining building in which Lincoln lost his life, were right there in front of me to visit. My interest in history started with JFK, and here I was in front of where Lincoln was shot, much like I was, when I was in Dealey Plaza. Not many people were in the book store, and from the times that I was there, the visitor entrance for the theater was never crowded. Sure, people have paid money to go inside of the theater to see the spot of his assassination, but it was not like Dealey Plaza. Had time let people forget about this special place? Were they not interested in this spot some 100 years after his assassination? These questions were in my head at that time when I visited Dallas, I wondered when people would stop caring. Here we are 53 years later, and on any given day, you will find people taking pictures, going to the museum, and standing in the spot where history changed. But when will that change, just as people not visiting Ford’s Theater as much

The Saturday I visited Dealey Plaza, the place was full of families, individuals, and others who were in town for a football game the next day. Regardless of why they were in Dallas, they were there. My fear is that this next generation may not have the same feeling that my generation, and the ones before me have had about the Kennedy assassination. I firmly believe that I have taught my kids enough about history, and how it must never be forgotten. It is with history that we are to learn from our mistakes, and can create a better life, from what has happened in the past. Do the kids playing football, or the ones having a picnic, not care about the spot where they are, and will their kids stop passing the history down? We must never forget the events in history that changed our world, and the Kennedy assassination was one of those events.

The difference between the two places in history is that with Dealey Plaza, it is there in the open for anyone to visit for free. It is a major part of Dallas, and the entrance and exit away from downtown. The painted white “X” on the spot where the fatal shot took place, is a constant reminder for those that drive over it each day. You can feel a sense of history from that spot, as you cross the very same area in which the 35th President of the United States lost his life. The assassination will live on for many years and for many generations to come, and how people remember both the event, and the man whose life was cut short that day will live on through them. Whether they are there for that picnic, football game, or even that group selfie, they know that history forever changed at that spot and on this day 53 years ago. If you were alive during this time, tell us what you were doing at the time of the president’s assassination, and if you were not alive at this time, tell us why you think people will always remember this day.

 

dscn0246Dallas 2013 089

Articles, Book Reviews, Jack ruby, JFK, Kennedy Assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, Oswald, Uncategorized

What he Saw; The Version of Events from Police Chief Curry

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Recently I purchased a book written by Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry titled “JFK Assassination File”. This book was written in 1969, some 6 years after the assassination of President Kennedy and with conspiracy theories mounting around this time, this book would be an ideal way to get some monetary gain from the events in Dallas. Throughout this post I will highlight some of the parts of the book that stand out, and others that seem to be at odds of what he had said 6 years prior. This book was not on the bestseller list by no means, but it does give a viewpoint from the man that not only help set up the security surrounding the President of the United States visit, but also the security of the alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.
Throughout the beginning of the book Chief Curry explains the tension that was around Dallas at the time and the divide the city was having when it came to politics. The shooting of General Edwin Walker on April, 10th 1963 was brought up in the beginning pages of the book, and the Chief points the finger to Oswald as the shooter, although this realization comes a month after the assassination of President Kennedy. The shooting of General Walker and the treatment of Ambassador Adlai Stevenson just a month before the Presidential visit prompted Chief Curry to use an unprecedented amount of the police force for the visit of President Kennedy.

In chapter two of his book, Chief Curry squarely puts the blame of the protection of the President on the Secret Service. As he mentions, “The Secret Service was entirely in charge of arranging the route and the press announcement was to be made by the host committee comprised of leading Dallas citizens”. Not known to Chief Curry at this time, one of the leading men on that committee would be the head of the Acme Building Maintenance Company Frank C. Jones, and it was his company that had access to the TSBD the night before the assassination. To Chief Curry, the Secret Service did not do enough prep work for the motorcade route and that areas of the route were not looked at closely. Instead, the area in which the President would be giving his speech, would be heavily guarded by Dallas Policemen. The Police Chief states, “The Secret Service were much more concerned about the security problems of the Trade Mart than any other single element of the President’s stay in Dallas”. Again, the Police Chief refuses to put any of the blame of the assassination onto his police force, and puts the entire blame onto the Secret Service. Many times in the book, Police Chief Curry highlights the things that the Secret Service did wrong, and we know that they did. But at the same time, he highlights things that his department did right. It is hard to think that anything went right during this trip with a President headed back in a casket. It should be noted that Police Chief Curry was aboard Air Force One while Lyndon Johnson was taking the oath of office. Instead of getting to the scene of the crime, he was instead trying to be a part of history that he didn’t need to be at.
Another aspect of the book that is intriguing, is the treatment of Oswald within police custody and the security that was in place for the accused assassin. According to Chief Curry the Dallas police department tried very hard not to let the suspect feel harassed in any way, and he says, “We were trying to be very certain that Oswald was not being coerced or harassed in any way”. Considering that it was the department that allowed the media to see the suspect inside of police headquarters shows that Chief Curry wanted to show that it was his department that captured the assassin of the President of the United States. In the interrogation of Oswald, Curry felt that the government agencies interfered too much and that his men could have gotten Oswald to talk more. As mentioned in the book, “Because of the constant pressure from other investigative agencies, Captain Fritz was never allowed to carry out an orderly private interview with Lee Harvey Oswald”. With the years of experience that Captain Fritz had, Curry believed that information could have come out with just a one on one talk. Again, the Police Chief puts the fault at the hands of the government and does not include any wrong doing that his department had in this process. Although Chief Curry states in his book that the interrogation process was corrupt, his Warren Commission statement seems to show otherwise,

Mr. Hubert.
It’s fair to say, then, that the interrogation of Oswald with respect to either the death of Tippit or of President Kennedy was in accordance with the normal procedures of the department ?
Mr. Curry.
That’s correct.

It would appear that Chief Curry thought the interrogation of Oswald was within standard procedure, but 6 years later he changed his mind.
The protection of Lee Oswald was something that did fall squarely into the hands of the Dallas Police Department and Police Chief Curry. The transfer of Oswald from Police Headquarters to the County Jail is something that will be looked at for a long time. How could the prime suspect in the murder of the President of the United States be killed while being transferred? The protection of Oswald has been questioned for years and Curry points out many times that he wanted to give Oswald space and rest so that he would be more willing to talk. During the planning process for the transfer it was determined that an armored truck would be taking Oswald to the county jail and that the media would be able to film the transfer. In actuality the armored truck was going to be used as a decoy and Oswald would be in a squad car. It would appear in the reading that the scope of the moment in history may have gotten to Curry because he felt the need to showcase this suspect. Not having been in a situation like this, and feeling the pressure of the national media, Curry decided to let the media into the basement for the transfer of Oswald. In true form as to the rest of this book, Curry states that his department is fully prepared for this event and says, “The security plans for the basement were entirely adequate”. History would prove otherwise to this statement, and Curry refuses to believe that his men let Ruby into the basement. If the security was well placed, then no one other than those from the national media would have been in that basement.
In the book, Curry states that the media was designated an area within the basement away from where Oswald was to be. An area that the media could set up and film the transfer without them seeing the police use the decoy vehicle. As Oswald came out from the elevator and headed into the basement, the media seemed to be right on top of him. This so-called designated area was so close to Oswald that each of them could reach out and touch him. It is Curry that states that he believed that the media made a mad rush to Oswald as he came out of the elevator and this enabled Ruby to get as close as he did within the commotion, he states, “In the enthusiasm of the moment, newsmen spilled across the drive toward the police elevator”. In all of the television broadcasts, it is apparent that all of them were able to set up their cameras in the locations that they were filming from and that they did not move. In the coverage from NBC, the camera is stationary and did not move. This book is a good informative inside look at the details that surrounded the security plans for the President’s visit to Dallas and the aftermath. The details in this book come from a Police Chief that believed his police force did everything they could to protect the President of the United States, and when it did not, he put the blame on others involved. Although the Secret Service was in charge of protecting the President, it was Curry’s police department that was in charge of protecting the truth and it failed when Oswald was killed inside of police headquarters. I recommend this book to those that have followed the assassination so that they can get a look from the view of Jesse Curry.

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1963, Articles, Assassination, Conspiracy, educational, History, JFK, Kennedy Assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, Uncategorized, Witnesses

The truth remains out there!!

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As the anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy approaches, we are reminded of the day that changed the United States in so many ways. Ever since that day in Dallas, we have a tendency to speak of the “what if” aspect of the Kennedy administration and the policies that would have followed had he survived that day in Dallas. As researchers of the Kennedy assassination we follow that “what if” term as if it is our rallying cry as to finding out the truth. So many “what ifs” exists today about the presidency of John F. Kennedy, that it can be sometimes overwhelming as to the landscape of this country had he lived. The term “what if” will continue on, until the actual truth is revealed and as researchers we are committed to finding out the truth. Each of us has taken on a particular segment of the assassination that interests us, and by coming together with our research, we will one day find that ultimate truth.

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My research has been focused on an organization called the Acme Building Maintenance Company. This company provided the overnight cleaning of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD), and they were present the night before the assassination of the President. Like I mentioned in previous posts about this company, there were two employee each night that had keys to the TSBD, so that they could gain access to the building once of the employees of the building had left for the day. In other words, these an all access to the building the night before the assassination, and could set up a potential snipers nest, or a staged snipers nest for that matter. In digging deeper about this company, the Warren Commission decided very early on that this company did not matter and throughout the entire report, there is not one mention about this company. Only in a report about TSBS supervisor Roy Truly, is the Acme Building Maintenance Company mentioned, and it is one line, on his report. So who really was this company that no one decided to look further into?
The owner of the company was a man named Frank C. Jones, a prominent Dallas businessman, who over the previous 40 years had built up Acme Maintenance into one of Dallas’s largest maintenance companies. Throughout the city and especially the high rise buildings of downtown, Acme Maintenance was there, with the keys in hand. So what role could this company have played in the assassination of President Kennedy? For one, the luncheon at the Dallas Trade Mart was put together by the Dallas Citizens Council. This council consisted of the leading businessmen inside of Dallas, and to this day remains a force within the Dallas community. So, here we have the leading business people inside of Dallas putting together the event for the President and his wife, and yet it would seem that none of them truly expected him to arrive or at least one of them knew he wouldn’t arrive. When inquiring about Frank C. Jones with the Dallas Citizens Council, they acknowledged to me that the name was in their registry of people who have been part of the organization, but were unwilling to provide with me any documents that I may use. This is an organization that is made up today of some of the leading companies in the United States and to protect themselves, they would not let me know any more then I needed to know.
Everything about the Acme Building Maintenance Company is sketchy at best. Through documents obtained through the Secretary of State of Texas, the company was sold to ARA Building Services in early 1964 and was quickly blended in with this organization. The listing for Acme Building Maintenance went to an individual by the name of Edwin Hudson who formed a new Acme Building Maintenance in the summer of 1963, and once the merger between Acme and ARA went through, he applied for an incorporation listing through the Secretary of State. However, this new Acme Building Maintenance Company was never truly a real company, as the address that was listed as the headquarters of this company was and still is, in a residential area of Austin, Texas. It is my belief that the Dallas Citizens Council used Frank C. Jones and his real Acme Building Maintenance as a means to find the best possible shooting angle for the eventual assassination. Once the job was finished, they already had in place a company to buy him out, and hide his company for good. Although I am still in the early stages of research with this company, I believe that there many people in the Dallas Trade Mart at the time of the assassination, knew that the President would never be arriving at his destination that day.
We must continue to research the JFK assassination until the truth is finally told to us, whether it be 5 years from now, or 50 years from now. Our country changed that day in Dallas, and it left us with too many “what ifs” about a man who had the vision of what he wanted to accomplish with his time in office.

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1963, Articles, Assassination, Conspiracy, educational, History, JFK, Kennedy Assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, Oswald, Uncategorized, Witnesses

Digging Deeper into the JFK Assassination.

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Well, it has been a while since my last posting because of a much needed job promotion and now that I am finally settled in, its time to get back to the research. In the last post I wrote, I mentioned a company by the name of Acme Building Maintenance. This company was a janitorial company that specialized in cleaning the high rises of downtown Dallas. The company was well known in the city, and over 200 companies in downtown Dallas used them as their primary cleaning service. The company the was founded in 1920 by Frank C. Jones was also the  cleaning service provider of The Texas School Book Depository.

In early Secret Service reports, the company is mentioned a few times. In his statement Roy Truly mentions that a cleaning service comes in after everyone has left the building and they have keys to the building for that reason. Seems odd that I was only able to find this company mentioned only a few times and none of which seems to be investigated really well. I have spent a few months looking into this company and learning more about their history and how they simply just disappeared.

The founder of the company Frank C. Jones wanted to start a company that would be able to not only clean buildings but also the streets of downtown Dallas. A resident himself of the city, the company followed his vision of a cleaner Dallas throughout the next several decades. In articles published in the Dallas Morning News, the company is featured several times about how they go about their business and how they are able to maintain low costs. The names of the top executives are mentioned which include Milt Thomas, Paul Clark, Robert Whitener, and Buck Butler. The company was located at 1901 Laws Street, Dallas Texas ( It has since been demolished).

What has troubled me while doing research on this company, is the fact that it simply disappeared. A company that had been around for 40 years suddenly went away, and any files on the company seemed to have gone with them. During my research, the Secretary of State of Texas, informed me that it seems that this company never existed because they had no information on it. I had sent several letters to the secretary of state, and they thought I had the name wrong. I emailed pictures of news articles that I had, and they told me to contact different organizations. The next step to finding out more about the company would be the Historical Society of both the State of Texas and the Dallas County Historical Society. Nothing to be found was what I was told. Again, I showed them the articles and they had nothing in their files.  The company was featured in a Dallas Chamber of Commerce pamphlet in the early 1960’s and yet when I tried to get information about the company, they had nothing.

Since these organizations claim that this company did not exist, I just kept digging away. I found an article from Sept 1969 that showed the company was bought out by CT (Chemtech) Corporation of Dallas. I keep finding articles about this company, but when I want to get more information about them, I am stopped dead in my tracks. When I was able to get a phone number of the business ( RI 2-7660), I went back to the Chamber of Commerce to see if that would help with providing me more information. Nothing. Trying to find out information about Frank C. Jones is just as hard as to finding out how much money is kept at Fort Knox. No one wants to tell you, but there are people that know something. A company that existed and was successful as the Acme Building Maintenance Company would leave behind some sort of trail, and yet this company seems to have been taken off the grid.

The keys to the Texas School Book Depository were in the hands of the employees of the Acme Building Maintenance Company and yet not one employee was interviewed by either the Dallas Police, or the Warren Commission. The company is only mentioned in a few reports that seem to show just how easy it was to get into the building before the assassination. As I mentioned before, I believe that employees of this company were able to get into the building the night before the assassination and set up the snipers perch. We do know that workers on the sixth floor were installing new flooring, but yet no of them mention about moving those boxes by the southeast corner window. There was no need, these boxes were set up the night before with Oswald’s gun tucked away, awaiting for the police to find it.

Photo Courtesy of:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/83163966@N06/10903412695/in/photolist-hBuQJ4-hBNBPQ-8GJnEZ-dodZ5o-8UWMxv-aomQMs-bsBQo2-7YY2Lz-7YXZPn-8E3FtT-dUjfgG-dkTTLF-aoj5F4-csnGRy-csnHZ3-bEfew8-hJNTcT-7YMpE3-hL7u5r-hKSrk6-dVLFcn-aoiWXP-aoiXnt-aoiW1n-7PVesr-dkTXiU-7PVed4-dm8fKi-j6KaK4-j6HJVP-9Km81d-dm8fPK-8HYBqs-951cUY-dm8fLv-9E7JjW-7PSXKk-hRLgFq-iXjNw1-9bWUoo-bFG5Mz-d65zAd-hJQ2H6-9bTQjK-9SERAM-ba3qWx-cAJg9E-hK7e2h

1963, Articles, Assassination, Conspiracy, History, JFK, Kennedy Assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald, Oswald, Uncategorized, Witnesses

Who Had Keys to The Texas School Book Depository..

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For many JFK assassination researchers, the daunting task of going through the many files that are available to them can be very challenging  at times. However, their comes a time when you find that one thing in the files that makes you just go “all in” on it. I came across that file about two months ago, and over the course of the next few posts I will go more in depth with it. The file that I found was only in a couple of reports that I have seen in the many hours of looking through them. It involved a company named the Acme Building & Maintenance Company. Not familiar with it? Neither was I, and in the report I found some key things that should have been investigated further by the Warren Commission.

The report which was in the file of Roy Truly ( TSBD Supervisor), showed in one of the paragraphs about a cleaning company that would come in each and every night and work inside of The Texas School Book Depository. The cleaning company which is named in the file as Acme Building & Maintenance would have 2 employees come into the building after hours and work inside of the building alone until about 12:00 in the morning.  The most alarming part about the paragraph was that the Acme Building & Maintenance Company had two employees who had a key to the Texas School Book Depository.

Acme Building and Maintenance Roy TrulyAcme Building and Maintenance

So here we have a company that has access to the TSBD after every employee of the warehouse is gone for the day. In looking through various files I can not find anywhere that the Warren Commission looked into this matter. We know that the Warren Commission refused to look at anything other than what would benefit their own version of what happened that day. The company which was located at 1901 Laws Street in Dallas, was one of the leading cleaning companies in the city. The Texas School Book Depository was a fairly new account and to be able to have access to the building at this time would benefit any potential assassin. The names of the employees who has keys are not listed in the report, and this should have been of some concern to law enforcement looking into the assassination. At no time did any of the officials look  into this matter.

At any time during the night someone could have planted the gun that was found on the sixth floor. This would have given the conspirators plenty of time to set up the boxes without the worry about anyone seeing them up there. At no time does anyone see Oswald stacking boxes on the sixth floor near the southeast corner. Some of the fingerprints found on the cartons of boxes did not match those that were employees of the Texas School Book Depository. The employees who would have had access to those particular cartons were not found anywhere on them. The fingerprints that were found were not matched up to anyone who may have worked for the Acme Building & Maintenance Company during this time.

What I found in this file about the Acme Building & Maintenance Company may not be new to some, but for me it was something that I was not aware of. It sparked a new interest as to who else might have had keys and who were the ones handing out the keys to the building. A simple paragraph that seems to have been forgotten about in the many pages of the JFK assassination files. In the coming weeks I will be posting about the owner of the Acme Building & Maintenance Company and how the company completely went away and the location of the company is now a parking lot.

Sources:

Roy truly. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://research.archives.gov/description/7461227

1963, Assassination, Conspiracy, educational, History, JFK, Kennedy Assassination, Oswald, Uncategorized

Warren Commission likes to leave out witnesses..

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It has become an almost everyday occurrence to find witnesses that the Warren Commission wanted to ignore. There are many individuals who were in Dealey Plaza on November 22nd, 1963, yet they choose to pick the ones that made their story fit. From the start, the Commission had to find a way to put Oswald in the building and at that window at the time of the assassination.  So they needed to place Oswald in the building at the time, and find a way for him to leave the building. When someone told a different story then the one they had predetermined, they would deem this individual as being mistaken. Today, I want to bring about the statements given by Roger Craig.

In the early afternoon of November 22nd, 1963, Dallas Deputy Roger Craig was standing on Main Street close to Dealey Plaza. As the shots rang out, Craig followed the crowd that was heading up the grassy knoll. He had seen an officer heading into that direction and decided to follow suit. When they arrived they searched the area and were unable to find anything up there. As he was walking  back he encountered Arnold Rowland who was a witness that claimed he saw a man with a rifle on the sixth floor. Not only did he see a man with a rifle at the southwest corner ( Oswald was supposedly at the southeast), he saw another man on the sixth floor as well. Mr. Rowland pointed this out to his wife, and he constantly looked in that direction before the motorcade arrived in Dealey Plaza.. More on the Rowland story in another post, because there is much more to that story then I can fit.

So Officer Craig, listens to the man give his account of the scene and directs him to other officers that are in the area.  About 15 minutes after the shooting, Craig hears someone whistle. At this time he sees a man, that is slender in build, looks to be in his early 20’s running towards a station wagon. Officer Craig gets a good look at this man that is running down the grassy knoll and tries to get the license plate number of the vehicle. His initial reaction at the time was that,why would anyone be running away, when it seemed everyone was running towards the situation. As the scene is unfolding in Dealey Plaza, Officer Craig is told to head into the Texas School Book Depository.  While on the sixth floor, it was him and another officer named Seymour Weitzman along with another officer that find the alleged rifle that was used in the shooting. When the weapon was found, they were told to leave it alone until the identification team could have a look at it. Upon looking at the weapon Weitzman described the weapon as a 7.65 Mauser rifle, and Officer Craig thought the same thing at the time. It wasn’t until pressure from the Warren Commission that Weitzman changed his story. His initial statement to Dallas investigators was that it was a Mauser and he knew weapons from being in the Sporting Goods business.

It was not until later in the evening of November 22nd, that Officer Craig is able to figure out who that man was running down the grassy knoll. He identified him as Lee Harvey Oswald. According to Craig, he went into Police Headquarters to talk to Captain Fritz about what he saw in Dealey Plaza. When told, Fritz and Craig went into the room where Oswald was staying and Fritz asked Oswald about the station wagon. Oswald was quoted as saying ” leave Mrs. Paine out of this, she had nothing to do with it”. A little side note, Ruth Paine was the woman who Oswald’s wife was staying with, and where his rifle was located. At the time, she drove a light green station wagon like the one Officer Craig had seen that day.

So here we have an Officer who sees a man he believes his Oswald about 15 minutes after the shooting, get into a car and take off. The final determination by the Warren Commission was that Oswald left the Texas School Book Depository after the shooting, got on a bus, but when the bus got caught in traffic he took a cab into Oak Cliff. When Oswald was arrested, he had on him a transfer ticket from the bus he was supposedly on. Before November 22nd, 1963, Officer Roger Dean Craig was an outstanding and decorated police officer for the city of Dallas. He was awarded the Man of the year award in 1960 for his work in a jewelry thief arrest. But once word gets out about his talk of Oswald being on the grassy knoll after the shooting, he is quickly ridiculed by his fellow officers. They simple do not believe his story, and he is eventually forced out of the police department by 1967. There were many threats made against his life in the following years, and following being shot at and injured, and driven off the road in an automobile accident, Mr. Craig decided to end his life in 1975. Until the moment of his passing, he believed that the man he saw that day was Oswald.

I am not going to say whether or not I believe this story, but it would be hard pressed not to believe a decorated police officer, who from day one stated he saw Oswald after the shooting. His observations and that of other witnesses fell on deaf ears to the Warren Commission and although he was called in as a witness, Officer Craig’s statements never made it to the final report. The final report will never be final in the eyes of many, and it is stories like this and witness statements from that day which keep this flame burning. I along with everyone else just want to know everything that transpired that day.

Sources:

John F. Kennedy assassination homepage. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.jfk-assassination.de/warren/wch/vol6/page260.php

Simkin, J. (1997, 09). Roger dean craig. Retrieved from http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKcraigR.htm

1963, Assassination, Conspiracy, History, JFK, Kennedy Assassination, Oswald, Uncategorized

Another person claims Curtain Rods!!!

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I know I may be a little late to this discussion about someone else claiming curtain rods, but I feel the need to share it with everyone who is not familiar. As I was looking through some of the FBI files on the case I found another person that claims he was told by Oswald that he had curtain rods. My journey to this discovery came as I was looking through old telephone records of the home of Michael Paine. In the notes that the FBI had, was a memo that stated a man named Robert Yates voluntarily came into the office on November 26th, 1963. In his statement he claimed that he picked up a hitchhiker in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas on Beckley Street on either November 20th or 21st (Note that Oswald’s rooming house was located on Beckley Street). The man according to the witness had a package with him as he was standing on the side of the road. When Mr. Yates offered him a ride in his pickup truck, he told the man that he could put the package in the bed of the truck. The man stated that he wanted to hold on to him, because they were “curtain rods”.

The witness stated that once he saw the television coverage of the assassination he immediately recognized the man as Lee Harvey Oswald. How could Oswald be in two places at the same time? As the statements given by employees of the Texas School Book Depository mentioned, Oswald was at work on these two days leading up to the assassination. The witness said that he picked this Oswald up at around 10:30am and he was certain it was the Oswald on the television. The witness went on to further say that during the ride, that Oswald was asking him questions about  “if someone could shoot the president”, “ever been to the carousel club”, “you think this rifle in this picture can kill him”. Even questions about the motorcade route of the president were talked about in this less then 15 minute drive into Dallas. The hitchhiker wanted to be dropped off at the intersection of Houston and Elm ( Texas School Book Depository) These kinds of questions raised some suspicion in the witness because when he arrived back to work that day, he mentioned his encounter with the hitchhiker to another co-worker. This witness was never brought before the Warren Commission and was completely left out of the final report. The FBI did not find that Mr. Robert Yates to be telling a lie, because they interviewed the other co-workers who claimed that he did mention to them about the hitchhiker story when he came back to work that day.

So how can there be two Oswald’s doing things at the same time on November 20th or 21st. My guess is that this witness Mr. Yates did not know Lee Harvey Oswald at the time, and that he did not want any fame from this. In the FBI memo, it states that the witness does not want publicity from it. The Warren Commission found this to go against the things they had already thought happened, and they did not want any part of it as well. We know from witness testimony at the Texas School Book Depository ( TSBD), that many of them take lunch at 12:00 but that they do not punch out for their break. Could Oswald have left the building unnoticed and caught a ride to his rooming house to retrieve a different gun to be used in the assassination? Then caught a ride back into the city before his lunch break would be over. Remember, it is only a 15 minute ride to the rooming house. We also know that someone has already brought a rifle into the building a few days before and that everyone was glancing over it. If Oswald was to bring a package in then, nobody would notice.

The real question should be, if he was able to get a gun into the building on either the 20th or 21st, why would he need to bring another package on the 22nd. The story that Buell Frazier mentions is the one that the Warren Commission is so readily wanting to accept instead of Mr. Yates’s story. Could it be that Frazier’s link to getting Oswald the job, and the every Monday car rides seemed so much better. Or are they trying to hide the fact that there was two rifles found that day, and the gun they wanted to find was right where they thought it would be and the other rifle used went missing. I’m not saying that Oswald pulled the trigger, but I do believe that there was involvement on his part, and to figure out what it was is another mystery to uncover. Two Dallas Police Officers make a mention about finding another rifle and not the one that had been shown to the world. They have made statements about finding this other gun but yet again, this gets overlooked. But that discussion will be for another day and time to examine.

Sources:

F.B.I, (1963).  (DL 44-1639). Retrieved from  website: http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/FBI%20Records%20Files/105-82555/105-82555%20Section%20071/71c.pdf

1963, Assassination, History, Jack ruby, JFK, Kennedy Assassination, Oswald

Questions Still Linger On…

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As the research into the Kennedy assassination continues into its 26th year for me, it is still easy to find things that are hard to understand. Like most of the assassination, there are things still left to be answered and yet many levels of the government and police agencies have refused to answer. I was recently looking through the Dallas Police files of the assassination and found the statement given by Victoria Adams. In her statement that she gave to Dallas Police detective  James Leavelle, she states that she remembers seeing Jack Ruby outside of the Texas School Book Depository. The statement does not start off as bold as the ending as she mentions that she was with three other employees who were anxiously awaiting the arrival of the presidential motorcade. One of the women that was with her at the time was Elsie Dorman. This is the same Elise Dorman that filmed the motorcade as is came up Houston and turned onto Elm street. The Dorman film would not be seen by the public for more than 40 years. After she hears the first shot, she thinks it is nothing more than a firecracker. Then after the second shot, she see the secret service agent run towards the limousine and she knows something is wrong. As she is running towards the elevator she hears the third and final shot.

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By the time the third shot goes off, they had reached the elevator which is not working. They then use the stairway to get down to the bottom floors. This would be the same set of stairs that the Warren Commission claims that Oswald is using at this exact time to get down to the lunch room where he is found by Officer Baker. The problem is that Vickie Adams and her friends do not hear anyone else on the stairs with them. Once they reached the front of the building they encounter the chaos that has become of Dealey Plaza. She then heads towards the railroad tracks where she is met by a police officer who tells her to go back to where she came from. As she is walking back to the building she notices two men in plain clothes stopping people and asking them questions. One of these men is waving down people and trying to get information from them. One of the men that was asking questions she recognizes on the television a few days later. His name was Jack Ruby. Why would Ruby be at the scene of the crime? Could he have been there to make sure that the job was done and that everyone needed to think that the shots came from the building and not the grassy knoll? This question was not followed up by neither the Dallas Police or the F.B.I and they did not include the testimony of Vickie Adams in there final report. The relationship between Oswald and Ruby seems to be a working relationship and that they both had the job, but they were working on opposite ends of it. It seems the people that Ruby is working for wants everyone to think the shots came from above, and from the window that Oswald was supposed to be at. There are lots of twists and turns in the Kennedy Assassination, and it is hard to think that it could have all been done by one man. These kind of witness statements are the keys to the truth in this investigation.

Sources:

Leavelle, J. R.. [Report concerning interview with Vickie Adams, by J. R. Leavelle], Legal Document, n.d.; digital images, (http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth340453/ : accessed November 30, 2013), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, http://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Dallas Municipal Archives , Dallas, Texas.

1963, Assassination, History, JFK

“Curtain Rods” pt. 2

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As we look more into just who Buell Wesley Frazier was and his involvement in the assassination, it is important to look at some of the facts. These facts include the many different statements that Mr. Frazier has made throughout the years. The story he gave Dallas police on the afternoon of November 22nd, 1963 says that Lee Oswald was waiting outside of Mr. Frazier’s house. In a more recent interview he claims that he went and picked Oswald up from the boarding house Oswald was staying in.

Over the years stories change, and this is natural based on not just our fading memory but also what others have lead us to believe what happened. In a April 2013 with Mr. Frazier claims that the Warren Commission kept trying to get him to change his story. But after 49 years since the Warren Commission issued their conclusion, it seems that Mr. Frazier is still changing his story. What we can’t figure out is the whereabouts of Mr. Frazier during the time before and during the assassination. We do know from his statements that he was on the front steps of the depository and that he went back and ate his lunch right after the shots were fired. He may have been the only one that wanted to eat a lunch after seeing the President get his head blown off.

1963, Assassination, History, JFK

“Curtain Rods”

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This week I begin my quest into what I believe is something that has been getting overlooked for many years. Just who is Buell Wesley Frazier? To many researchers he is the man who brought Lee Harvey Oswald to work the day of the assassination, and claimed that Oswald had brought curtain rods to work that day. This story of the curtain rods fueled the Warren Commissions theory of just how the rifle was brought into the Texas School Book Depository. But what we don’t know is the relationship between Oswald and Frazier. It was not until recent that Mr. Frazier has appeared and speaking about that day, but his story has changed somewhat. We have seen his story featured in movies like “JFK” and most recent “The Kennedy’s, but yet the story between him and Oswald is something that has not been answered. This week and in the coming weeks I am going to divulge into what I think happened and find out who actually brought the curtain rods into the depository.