Reinhard Gehlen was a Wehrmacht Major General and head of intelligence for the Nazis on the eastern front. Before Nazi Germany fell, Gehlen moved fifty containers of intelligence files on the Soviet Union and then gave them to the Americans. After the war, Gehlen headed up an intelligence effort for the allies on Soviet bloc countries. On May 26, 1967, Bill Boxley, an investigator for Jim Garrison, called the office and his conversation was recorded so that Garrison could listen later. Boxley was in Dallas checking names in Clay Shaw's address book, and felt there might be ties between Shaw and the Gehlen intelligence apparatus. Here is the memo: This is all insane. On the second page, Boxley talks about Thomas Marion Cox, "Now there is no record of this young man ever having lived at 4017C Rawlins but I think it is noteworthy at least that this is three houses away from Eva Grant's where Jack Ruby registered his residence in the City Directory." Propinquity in action! And Cox's mother was evasive, "So there was no overt reasons for her to hide his whereabouts but she was apparently was [sic] because she said he was due there for dinner, but hadn't shown up." Boxley's search for Herman G. Wilhelm Bachelman is hilarious. His ex-wife remembered that "he read an awful lot, she said, about the Third Reich, and he was an admirer, she said, of the tactics of the S.S. elite corps." He arrived in the United States in New Orleans and Boxley speculates that "It sounds very much, in intelligence patterns, as if Shaw was a reception committee for Bachelman's arrival and he sent him on to Dallas..." There also seems to be a similarity between Cox and Bachelman - "Being in photography. Again he parallels the Cox boy. They're both 27 years of age. Cox had it as a hobby: Bachelman studied it, worked at it professionally. And both of them parallel Oswald, a typographer and photographer background. Now it looks very much to me as if this is an agent sent in here, about Oswald's age you will recall - this is an agent sent in here and they train it." And, of course, "there is some probably homosexuality involved here because Cox especially is a suspect of homosexuality. He worked for Glenn of Hollywood here in Dallas which has been described to me by my source as a nest of homosexuals." What a surprise! Clay Shaw has some homosexuals in his address book. On page ten, Martin asks Boxley if he can support his belief that Shaw was part of the Gehlen apparatus, and he replies, "Well, no more than we've got. But I think it is terrific support we've got already." I don't know what happened when Garrison listened to the tape, but a few short months later, Garrison wrote a letter to Bertrand Russell and he talked about the Gehlen intelligence apparatus. Ross Yockey [a reporter for the States-Item] wrote a letter to Michael Eddowes on June 20, 1967 and he mentions the Gehlen apparatus: Towards the end of 1968, there was a staff revolt against Bill Boxley. You can read about it in my book, On The Trail of Delusion - Jim Garrison: The Great Accuser. Harold Weisberg and Vincent Salandria came up with a plan to convince Garrison that Boxley was a CIA plant. He was not a plant - he just fed back Garrison's delusions, and he became his favorite investigator. Weisberg flew to New Orleans and he wrote a 16-page memo about Boxley's craziness. The telephone call to Martin was right up front. If you have trouble with Weisberg's prose, you're not alone. He was not the greatest writer, and no one was there to edit his work. But, the plan worked and Boxley was fired by Garrison in December of 1968, By the way, there is no mention of the Gehlen intelligence apparatus in Garrison's book.

James DiEugenio, in his book Destiny Betrayed, writes: (page 112) Former Banister investigator Vernon Gerdes later worked for attorney Stephen Plotkin. He told Plotkin that he had seen Oswald and Ferrie together with Banister. Plotkin later told one of Clay Shaw's lawyers he considered Gerdes a reliable witness." On the Education Forum yesterday, James DiEugenio also wrote the following: DiEugenio's post continues here. He again claims, in point #5, that "Vernon Gerdes, who used to work for Banister, said he had seen Oswald with Ferrie and Banister." Did Vernon Gerdes actually say that? Gerdes was interviewed by Garrison's investigators in 1967. Here is their memo: Gerdes is asked about Lee Harvey Oswald and says he never saw him, at least not in connection to Banister. He does mention that Oswald lived a few doors from his wife's grandmother. Now here is the interview with Stephen Plotkin; Plotkin says that "Gerdes reportedly saw Lee Harvey Oswald and David Ferrie together with Banister." He doesn't say that Gerdes told him that - and so this is hearsay. Gerdes was interview again in October 1968 by Andrew Sciambra: Once again, Gerdes said "he had never seen Lee Harvey Oswald in Banister's office or at 544 Camp." Vernon Gerdes was interviewed by the HSCA. Here is their report: Gerdes is quite definitive that he "did not see Lee Harvey Oswald at any time in New Orleans." I am not sure if James DiEugenio has seen all of this documentation. If he has, well, he certainly doesn't tell his readers that Gerdes denied three times he had seen Oswald. If he hasn't seen these documents, well, why not? By the way, the other points in his Education Forum posting, will be debunked in future blog posts. BONUS MEMO: Joan Mellen writes that Winkin, Plinkin [sic] & Nod are Lawrence Howard, Loran Eugene Hall, and William Seymour, and she might be right.

Interesting article that should part of your reading for the day. Here is an excerpt from this fine article by Chris Taylor at mashable.com. The starting gun for the second wave of conspiracy entertainment was fired by Oliver Stone in 1991. JFK, Stone's expansive three-hour take on the Kennedy assassination, is a cinematic masterpiece. The editing, the tense John Williams soundtrack, the rollicking plot that carpet-bombs you with every hint of something amiss on that dark day in Dallas: Together, they leave you powerless to resist. I'm not the only moviegoer who left the theater thinking "well, something in that must be true." You have to be something of an obsessive conspiracy theory researcher yourself to discover that much of the movie is fantasy. The real prosecution brought by Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) relied on a witness whom Garrison had drugged and hypnotized; this witness is conveniently replaced in the film by Kevin Bacon's fictional prostitute (one of a number of aspects that make JFK look troublingly homophobic 30 years later). The hits keep coming. David Ferrie (Joe Pesci) did not claim to be in the CIA and died of natural causes. The so-called "magic bullet" did not take the journey shown in the film, and more recent ballistics have come out in favor of its path. And worst of all, Colonel X, the whistleblower played by Donald Sutherland, was based on L. Fletcher Prouty — a professional conspiracy theorist, with ties to the far right, who advised Stone. Prouty published so many weird lies in his life that there are entire websites devoted to debunking "Proutyisms". Even Stone himself admitted prior to its release that JFK was "not a true story per se." So what was it, then? A hybrid of infotainment and propaganda; one that boded ill for the future. To quote Stephen Colbert's parody conservative talk show host, JFK had "truthiness." It feels right that we don't know the whole truth about November 22, 1963. There is, as Eisenhower warned, a "military industrial complex" that benefits from vast Pentagon budgets. Kennedy was wobbly on the military advisers he'd sent to Vietnam, and LBJ was prepared to lie to ramp up U.S. involvement in the war (See: Gulf of Tonkin incident). But none of that truthiness comes anywhere close to proving that LBJ headed up a vast shadow-state coup d'etat conspiracy — one that was simultaneously so efficient it erased all evidence of its existence, while also somehow relying on a bunch of colorful buffoons in New Orleans and Dallas. And if you're prepared, like Stone, to make that huge logical leap based on Proutyisms? Well then, you might also believe that a larger, wilder conspiracy of baby-eaters has been able to cover up its existence for decades, and that only one brave anonymous soul in Washington is blowing the whistle. Colonel X was, in many ways, the forerunner of Q.

Oliver Stone's so-called documentary series, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, claims that the initials of FBI agent Elmer Todd are not on CE 399. Researcher Steve Roe used the latest hi-res photographs to prove that his initials are indeed on the bullet. Screen shot from JF: Destiny Betrayed Here is an excerpt from a transcript: (44:09 in Episode 2) Oliver Stone: How important is chain of custody in a legal proceeding? Brian Edwards: Chain of custody basically refers to the integrity of evidence. If l, uh, pick up a piece of evidence and I transfer it to somebody else for holding or processing, my name is the first name on this list. [On screen: an FBI custody log] The second person who touches this and takes possession of it is next. And if you don't do that, there's no way to prove that the evidence you collected on Day One is the same one you get on Day 25 when you go to court. Oliver Stone: Can you walk us through the magic bullet's chain of custody, from the Parkland employees to the Secret Service to the FBI? Dr. David Mantik: Well, the magic bullet was supposedly found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital, and it went through several hands, uh, before it got to the Secret Service. Richard Johnsen was the first Secret Service agent to handle it, and he carried it back to Washington, DC. When he got back to Washington, DC, he gave it to the chief of the Secret Service, who was James Rowley. And at the White House, James Rowley gave it to Elmer Lee Todd and Todd then took it to the FBI lab and gave it to Robert Frazier. Dr. David Mantik: (voiceover) We have interesting information produced by John Hunt, a private citizen who went to the archives on four or five occasions to track down the story about the magic bullet, and what he found was truly astounding. Deborah Conway: He practically moved into the National Archives in Washington, DC. They allowed him to set up a desk with a computer and his own scanner. And he also did something different. He didn't interview policemen and FBI people, and he wasn't swayed by their excuses. He went straight to: This is what you told, and you signed your name. Whoopi Goldberg: Working with FBI and Warren Commission documents, John Hunt asked the most basic question: Was CE 399, in evidence, the same bullet that was found on the stretcher? Dr. David Mantik: At 7:30 at night, this is the day of the assassination, November 22nd, 1963, a bullet appears in the record, it's signed for by Robert Frazier, who is the main investigator at the FBI lab. And it's not just one document. There are multiple documents that indicate that Frazier signed for a bullet at 7:30 that night. Now, here's where things get interesting. Elmer Lee Todd received the bullet at the White House from chief of the Secret Service, James Rowley. And Todd documents, very clearly in writing, that he got this bullet at 8:50 PM. How is that possible? How can Robert Frazier receive the bullet in the lab at 7:30 from Elmer Lee Todd when Todd didn't get the bullet until 8:50? Deborah Conway: You would think that they would have handled it, you know, like it would've been gold going to the bank. There it is in the record. Someone is lying about when they got the bullet. Dr. David Mantik: It gets worse, though. Todd initialed that bullet. [CD 7 shown] The one that he got at 8:50, and everyone else who touched the bullet after that initialed it too, including Robert Frazier. I went to the archives to look at this bullet. And specifically what we want to know is do we see Todd's initials on this bullet? He said he initialed the bullet. It is not there. Todd’s initials are not on the magic bullet. Dr. Gary Aguilar: I was very interested in finding out what the Review Board would show us about this. So we began scouring their evidence, and we found out something very interesting. We found out that the Warren Report had, from the FBI, a report saying that the guys that found the bullet later identified that as the bullet they'd seen. The internal record didn't show that at all. The internal record said this bullet didn't look like that bullet at all. [The highlighted text on screen does not say that, just ‘could not identify’] But the FBI reported to the Warren Commission that it did, it lied. We then talked to the FBI agent that was supposed to have carried that bullet around. His name was Bardwell Odum. I got Bardwell Odum on the phone. I sent him the documents that said that he had done this. He said, "l never had that bullet. I never showed any bullet to anyone. If I'd had the bullet, there'd be a 302. I would have filed a report, particularly in that era, everybody was very uptight about getting everything right." So we scoured for 302 reports. His name appears nowhere in the record. This is just something that the FBI invented. Dr. David Mantik: In 1966, Josiah Thompson, who authored Six Seconds in Dallas, interviewed O.P. Wright, who was head of maintenance at Parkland Hospital, and who had handled the bullet. He showed him a photograph of the magic bullet, which has a rounded tip. And O.P. Wright said, "No, it wasn't like that." Dr. Gary Aguilar: Wright, who worked as a policeman, he knew bullets, and he said, "No, no, the bullet that we found at Parkland had a pointed tip." And he just pulled one out of his drawer that had a pointed tip and showed it. And it looks nothing like 399. Dr. David Mantik: It’s conceivable that some mysterious bullet showed up from who knows where. Todd did not initial it, and it ended up in the FBI lab as the magic bullet. But then we have the second bullet that arrives at 8:50. Is this possibly the pointed bullet that was seen by O.P. Wright in Dallas, and that then disappeared? We don’t have any idea where it is today. That scenario would fit the known facts. Dr. Gary Aguilar: So it appears that a different bullet was found on that stretcher than 399. 399 shows up after it’s been to the FBI lab. And one can only surmise that -- that somewhere in the FBI, they realized that they had to close the loop on Oswald’s guilt. And so they just switched it out, because none of the four people, either the guys at Parkland or the two Secret Service agents, could identify the bullet. The guy who is supposed to have gotten confirmation that they did identify the bullet [Odum] said he never did it. And the record supports that. So there is -- there’s good reason to be very suspicious about the magic bullet. Dr. Henry Lee: The chain of custody doesn’t start from the laboratory, it starts from the crime scene. Each piece of evidence should be photographed, documented, and preserved, properly. From the scene, evidence is collected, sent to the laboratory. We have to keep the chain of custody when they enter the lab. Who exam? [sic] Who did the further analysis? And each step have to maintain until submit to the court. If this chain broke, then my evidence become inadmissible. Here is a link to an earlier blog post I wrote about CE 399 and the alleged non-identification by Tomlinson and Wright. I also wrote about CE 399 in this essay: DiEugenio believes that supposed anomalies in the chain of possession of much of the underlying evidence (Oswald’s rifle, CE399, etc.) renders them not just inadmissible in a court of law, but also renders them inadmissible in an investigation. He has no interest in getting Oswald off on a technicality; he wants the judgment of history to declare Oswald innocent of killing JFK. There was a time when JFK researchers would argue about CE399’s so-called ‘pristine’ condition. Because it is now clear that its appearance is entirely consistent with the wounds it caused, conspiracy theorists have to take a new tack. James DiEugenio would have you believe that issues with its chain of possession can only mean that somewhere, between Dallas and Washington, the conspirators changed the bullet. But Kenneth Rahn noted that the “the window of opportunity [to plant items] came well before anyone knew what kind of fragments to plant and where.” How would conspirators know the nature of the wounds of Connally and Kennedy? How would they know what kinds of fragments or bullets to plant? What if they planted an extra bullet? The Mannlicher-Carcano rifle was found at about 1 PM on November 22nd. It was kept by the Dallas police until about 11:45 PM at which time it was released to the FBI. We know with certainty that CE399 was fired by Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. If the conspirators planted it at Parkland, they would have had to fire the bullet well before the assassination. Perhaps the conspirators switched out the bullet in Washington. But CE399 was in the possession of the FBI on the evening of November 22nd, well before they took possession of the rifle. Does DiEugenio believe the Dallas police fired the rifle and sent the bullet to Washington? Since DiEugenio believes that multiple gunmen wounded and killed JFK, the conspirators must have expected that a lot of fragments would have been recovered. How could they know that CE399 would not be a bullet too many? In 2015 -2016 the National Archives in association with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published hi-res images of CE 399 and other artifacts from the JFK assassination. Researcher Steve Roe examined these pictures and easily found the initials of Elmer Todd. Here is the an unedited picture of CE 399 that clearly shows Todd's initials: Now, a slightly improved image: Steve Roe writes: Stone and DiEugenio, who claim to stay abreast of all the latest assassination-related research, should have known about the landmark NARA/NIST effort and could have fact-checked Hunt’s and Mantik’s claims about missing initials. That they did not bother tells everyone all they need to know about their spurious documentary. I am hoping that Oliver Stone and James DiEugenio will now correct the record and rescind their allegations about CE 399, But I am not holding my breath. Don't miss the Viewer's Guide to JFK: Destiny Betrayed and JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass. Over the past several months, I have shown in multiple blog posts how Oliver Stone's documentary series, JFK Revisited and JFK: Destiny Betrayed, misleads viewers. In fact, despite months of work, there are still many more misleading segments that need to be addressed. It's no wonder that the fact checkers of Netflix nixed the airing of the films. There is a choice between four hours of tendentious nonsense (JFK: Destiny Betrayed) and two hours (JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass). As a handy guide for viewers, here are all those posts in order of their appearance in JFK: Destiny Betrayed and JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass, preceded by some general critiques

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the JFK assassination, the New Orleans Times-Picayune ran two articles on November 20, 1983 on the Garrison case. They spoke to a number of people who worked with Jim Garrison, and they were all pretty critical. Here are the two articles in their entirety. Here is the second article: There are some incredible tidbits in the above articles. Charles Ward, an Assistant District Attorney under Garrison said that "Most of the time you marshal the facts, then deduce your theories. But Garrison deduced a theory, then he marshaled the facts. And if the facts didn't fit, he'd say they had been altered by the CIA." Right after David Ferrie died, Garrison's top aides tried to convince him to drop the case against Shaw. "This is your chance, they told Garrison. You can drop the faltering investigation and save face. You can say you can't continue because your chief witness is dead. You can write a book about the assassination, and you can even fulfill your dream of running for governor." Garrison's reply - "Are you crazy? Don't you realize that we are on the verge of solving one of the crimes of the century?" There was no shortage of craziness. Andrew Sciambra, another Assistant District Attorney "recalls that he interviewed a witness over the telephone for several hours before he learned the man was calling from a mental institution." And, yes there was paranoia. Charles Ward said "As the investigation wore on, it wore on him. And he became more and more paranoid." Garrison commented that "I never was paranoid enough. I was warned that I should have been."

Here is an excerpt from a memo written by Aaron Kohn, head of the Metropolitan Crime Commission, dated August 10, 1967. He bumped into Ed Baldwin, lawyer for Walter Sheridan, and they had a chat: As an example, here is the first page of a Ross Yockey memo with Garrison notations: Here is a note I found in the Harold Weisberg Archive in the Hoke May section: Here is a short excerpt from a book review in the New Orleans Times-Picayune of George W. Healy, Jr's book, A Lifetime On Deadline. Finally, after Clay Shaw's acquittal, both New Orleans dailies called for Garrison's resignation. James Kirkwood attended a party with several members of the press: "Sunday afternoon Moe Waldron of the Times threw an open-house farewell for the press and victory celebration for the defendant at Mom's Good Eats. Terry and Leonard Flettich, Jeff and Nina Sulzer, Jerry Cohen, Hugh and Paula Aynesworth, Mike Parks, Jim Phelan, Bill Block and his young and pregnant wife, Judy, John Mourain, Rosemary and Jud James, Doc Queeg of the UP and perhaps twenty others were there, including some of the local newspaper fellows, who were indulging in a goodly share of drunken crowing over the local editorializing. It got a bit thick after a while and I could not help commenting that although the editorials were indeed called for and appropriate, it was surprising that the papers had been able to restrain themselves for a period of two years, since they now asserted, "We don't think that charges ever should have been preferred against Mr. Shaw . . ." and "We have had to bite our tongue in the face of injustice that unfolded before us." Certainly this was one of the great tongue-biting jobs in the history of journalism. And if the States-Item truly felt "constrained from comment on the case by the guidelines which Mr. Garrison himself has consistently ignored," why compound Mr. Garrison's violation of the guidelines by printing his many shocking and unfounded allegations, such as the Clay Shaw fingerprint card and other highly suspect "evidence'? To these questions, the newsmen pleaded innocent and reminded me that the policies of their papers rested with Ashton Phelps, president and publisher, and George Healy, Jr., executive editor at that time." UPDATE: The Richard Billings journal corroborates the Aaron Kohn memo about Hoke May and Ross Yockey working for Garrison: "Garrison points out now that he has been working with these two States-Item reporters named Hoke May and Ross Yockey. These reporters, Garrison says, plan to explode the CIA involvement in the States-Item; a first report has already appeared, one which dealt mainly with Gordon Novel's alleged involvement, stated involvement. Garrison reports that these young reporters have the Pulitzer Prize on their horizon, and that they have done their homework. It was to Hoke May that the lawyer, Plotkin, said he was being paid by the CIA."

Yesterday, I posted a small excerpt from the Los Angeles Times of March 26, 1967, with a ridiculous quote from Jim Garrison.: Here is the complete article from the Los Angeles Times, lest anybody claim I made up the Garrison quote:

The Second Oswald (1966) by Richard Popkin popularized the idea of an Oswald impersonator. Hat tip: JFK researcher Will Hart provided all of the research for this article. He kindly sent me primary documents and put together an excellent chronology of events. Will also sent me links to the various mentions of the Ralph Yates story in conspiracy books, articles and podcasts. Thank you very much, Will. When the twenty-six volumes of the Warren Report were released in 1964, researchers were able to find a treasure chest of conspiracy stories. The FBI had investigated all sorts of stories which made their way into the 1,550 Warren Commission documents. Some of these were then included in the twenty-six volumes. A good example is the story of Nancy Perrin Rich, who testified before the Warren Commission that she saw Jack Ruby at a meeting to discuss gun running into Cuba. Mark Lane gave her story an entire chapter in his book, Rush to Judgment. But if you actually read her testimony, you will be struck by her inability to answer questions - I actually started laughing when I read her testimony. Some Warren Commission critics would find stories they felt deserved further investigation, For instance, Gary Schoener spent a lot of time researching a story in Martinsburg, Pennsylvania. A woman claimed to have found a piece of trash from a neighbor with the names of Rubinstein and Lee Oswald. There was nothing to the story, but you will still find it in conspiracy books such as James DiEugenio's Destiny Betrayed. Another story was that of Lloyd John Wilson, a young man who claimed that, at a wrestling match in San Francisco, he paid Lee Harvey Oswald $1,000 to kill JFK. The FBI investigated this back in 1963-1964 and found it baseless. The story has since been resuscitated by Vince Palamara in his book The Plot to Kill President Kennedy in Chicago. The story of Ralph Yates is another story that has been resuscitated. It was not included in the twenty-six volumes, so the early critics missed the story. But once the critics started examining the Warren Commission documents, it was found, and Sylvia Meagher was the first to find it. She wrote about it in an unpublished essay in 1970 which was finally published in 1986: But as Meagher notes, Oswald was in the Texas School Book Depository on 10:00 AM on November 21st. So, the hitchhiker could not have been Oswald: So, what is really going on here? Let's have a look at the entire story and its evolution through the conspiracy literature. November 26, 1963: Yates appears at the FBI office in Dallas to tell his story about the hitchhiker: Yates identified the man as Lee Harvey Oswald. He told a co-worker about what had happened: The whole story, on its face, is preposterous. November 27, 1963: The FBI speaks with Dempsey Jones. Right off the bat, we have a clue. Jones tells the FBI that "YATES is a big talker who always talks about a lot of foolishness." So, "YATES did not discuss this man the day before the President was shot in any great detail." But there is another clue here -- " ... YATES said this man told him it was some window shades he was carrying for the company he (the man) had made." The Fort Worth Star-Telegram mentioned a man who drove Oswald to the TSBD and that Oswald told him his package contained window shades in a page one story on November 24, 1963: So, there are two conversations here. The first one took place before the assassination and was quite general, and then more specifics were added after the assassination. Here is a summary of their two conversations: First conversation: Yates picked up a boy hitchhiking who had a package. This man discussed that "one could be in a building and shoot the president." Yates offered few details about the man. Second conversation: After the assassination, Yates described the package as long and that it contained window shades. Now the man he had picked up was Lee Harvey Oswald. Of course, Jones' distinction between what Yates said "on the first date" and on the second is an unreliable recollection. November 27, 1963: The FBI interviews J. R. Gilpin, one of the partners in the company that Ralph Yates worked for. Gilpin said "that he knew of no reason that YATES might have had for being in Oak Cliff on that morning." December 6, 1963: Airtel from FBIHQ to the Dallas office. The FBIHQ reviewer did not think that Yates was being truthful and suggested obtaining a signed statement and a polygraph examination. December 10, 1963: The FBI obtained a signed statement from Ralph Yates. Now Yates talks about Jack Rubenstein. In his first interview, he did not remember the name of the man associated with the Carousel Club: Yates also said that he was watching television and reading newspapers after the assassination: Yates also told the FBI that he had been treated for a "nervous condition": December 10, 1963: Consent for a polygraph: January 2, 1964: Teletype to SAC Dallas from from Director Hoover's office: There was also a summary, on the next page, of the story to date: January 3, 1964: Interview of Ralph Yates: Yates tell the FBI that the reason he was at Charlie's Meat Market was to pick up a check. January 3, 1964: Interview of Thomas Ayres, an employee at Charlies Meat Market: Thomas Ayres tells the FBI that he does not recall giving a check to an employee of the Butcher company. January 3, 1964: Interview of Donald Mask, an employee at Charlie's Meat Market: Donald Mask tells the FBI that he not recall giving a check to an employee of the Butcher Company. January 4, 1964: Statement of Ralph Yates Besides changing his entire story, Yates now says that he had the same conversation with the hitchhiker that he had previously with Jones -- "that a man could be shot from a window or building top ..." January 8, 1964: Results of Polygraph Test The polygraph test was inconclusive. January 8, 1964: Yates telephones the FBI. January 9, 1964: Yates goes to the FBI. Yates says that "everything he previously reported seemed unreal to him, as if he had dreamed it ..." In addition, there is a history of mental illness in the Yates family. January 9, 1964: The FBI interviews Mrs. Yates: Mrs. Yates told the FBI that "he mentioned nothing about this to her, until after everything he told that indicated he had picked up Lee Harvey Oswald had appeared in the newspapers and television." She is also "concerned about his mental condition." January 15, 1964: Mr. and Mrs. Yates visit the FBI. Ralph Yates tells the FBI that "his doctors were trying to kill him." Here is his written account "American Boy": Well, what can you say? Yates was right be afraid that he was losing his mind. January 16, 1964: Call from Mrs. Yates to the FBI. The date in this report is wrong. She called on January 16th, but must be referring to her husband's visit on January 15th. January 22, 1964: Second FBI Gemberling Report, CD 329. That's the entire Ralph Yates story, and it's a sad one. You would think that conspiracy theorists wouldn't be interested in this story. It doesn't quite fit into any conceivable narrative, and it is pretty clear that Mr. Yates was a disturbed man. And yet Sylvia Meagher thought it worthwhile to write about, largely because she thought that there were some leads apparently worth pursuing in the unpublished Warren Commission documents. Regarding Yates, Meagher only mentioned two possibilities -- deliberate fraud and truthfulness. She did not have the follow-up material from CD 329 that would have led her to the conclusion that Yates was a disturbed man. Meagher also wondered if some of the information that Yates gave to the FBI was already in the public domain. The editor of The Third Decade wrote this note: In recent correspondence Meagher has pointed out that NBC news broadcasts of 11/23 and 11/24 refer to Oswald having brought the rifle to work in a package and of his having told a neighbor that the package contained "windows blinds." Whether the details of the "backyard photographs" corresponding to the photograph shown to Yates by "Oswald" were similarly matters of "public domain" knowledge is not too certain at this time. We have already shown that "window shades" was in the public domain (see above). In this November 1963 clip, Chief Curry describes the photographs: (5:26:11) Here is Meagher's conclusion to her article: Whether the story was true in essence, or whether Yates and Jones conspired in a falsification -- out of sheer malice and mischief? to bolster the case against Oswald at a moment when the evidence seemed dubious and was being sharply questioned? -- the matter raises questions of first importance. The shadow of a dual "Oswald" has not been dispelled. The Editor of The Third Decade, Professor Jerry Rose, attached a note to Meagher's article in which he thought that "Many other of the "Second Oswald" sightings might be examined from the same perspective of suspicion that they were post-assassination efforts, instigated by the FBI, to develop pre-assassination incriminations of Oswald." The possibility that Yates was just a disturbed young man who could not distinguish dream-like fantasies from reality was not considered for some reason. The next book to take up the Yates story was John Armstrong's 2003 book Harvey & Lee. Yet another indication that someone is impersonating Oswald and discussing the President's visit, only two days before the assassination. But Armstrong does not include the statements of J. R. Gilpin, Thomas Ayres, and Donald Mask, who all say that Yates had no reason to be in Oak Cliff. Armstrong says nothing about Yates' mental issues. James Douglass included the story in his 2008 book JFK and the Unspeakable. Douglass writes that "the FBI was not happy with the statement of Ralph Leon Yates," and that "they kept recalling him in order to discredit his story." But this is not true - Yates had seven total contacts with the FBI and he initiated four of them. Douglass spoke to Yates's wife, Dorothy: (page 354) In an interview forty-two years later, she told me what happened next to her husband. After he completed his (inconclusive) lie-detector test, she said, the FBI told him he needed to go immediately to Woodlawn Hospital, the Dallas hospital for the mentally ill. He drove there with Dorothy. He was admitted that evening as a psychiatric patient. From that point on, he spent the remaining eleven years of his life as a patient in and out of mental health hospitals. Douglass tries to convince his readers that the FBI was responsible for Yates's mental break and that they were the ones who insisted he go to the psychiatric hospital: (page 354) The wrenching but undeniable truth for Yates, that he helped a man he thought was the president's assassin deliver what could have been his weapon to the Book Depository, was what compelled him to contact the FBI in the first place. Now he was being told his experience was nothing but an illusion. The FBI said so. Because of Yates's unswerving, polygraphed conviction to the contrary, that he knew what really happened. J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI knew what they had to do. They told him to report at once to a psychiatric hospital. But Yates's wife told the FBI that she took her husband to Parkland Hospital, and after conferring with doctors there, he was accepted at Woodlawn Hospital. Her husband spiraled downward: (page 354 - 355) She does know that early one morning about a week later, Ralph broke out of Woodlawn. At 4:00 A.M. she opened the front door of their house to find Ralph standing barefoot on the steps in his white hospital clothes. Snow was swirling around him. Ralph told Dorothy he had escaped from the mental institution. He said he tied sheets together and climbed down from a window. He had then stolen a car and driven home. Ralph was tormented by fear in a way Dorothy would see repeated for years. He told his wife someone was trying to kill him and their children because of what he knew about Oswald. She quickly bundled up their five sleepy children, the oldest of which was six. Ralph drove his family away from their house in the stolen car. Within a few hours, Dorothy was more alarmed by her husband's frantic efforts to evade their murder at every turn than she was by any unidentified killers. She returned the car and reported his whereabouts to the Woodlawn Hospital authorities. Ralph was picked up and returned to Woodlawn. He was soon transferred to Terrell State Hospital, a psychiatric facility about thirty miles east of Dallas, where he lived for eight years. He was then transferred to the Veterans Hospital in Waco for a year and half, and finally to Rusk State Hospital for the final year and a half of his life. While a patient at all three hospitals, he spent intermittent periods of from one to three months at home with his wife and children. He was never able to work again. Interestingly, Douglass also spoke to some of Yates's relatives and friends. His uncle, J. O. Smith, told him that Yates's story "was all just imagination." His cousin said that the episode consumed him: (page 356) He wouldn't let it go. He believed it to be true. This consumed Ralph. His thinking didn't go beyond that afterwards. This just totally destroyed his life. Ralph blamed himself for Kennedy's assassination. He said, "I was the reason the President got killed." Rather than admit that Yates was disturbed, Douglass believes the essence of the story: (page 356) There were too many Oswalds in view, with too many smuggled rifles, retelling a familiar story to too many witnesses. At least one curtain rods story, and the disposable witness who heard it, had to go. The obvious person to be jettisoned was the hapless Ralph Yates. His stubborn insistence on what he knew he had seen and heard, from the man he had given a ride, had to be squelched. To Douglass, "Ralph Yates was a witness to the unspeakable." Of course, James DiEugenio devoted a lot of space to the Yates story in his review of JFK and the Unspeakable. Yates mental-health hospitalization 'was the price for disturbing the equilibrium of the official story.' Lately, the Ralph Yates story has come back to life. An episode of the Solving JFK podcast series featured Yates: The story then got picked up by Barstool Sports, where it made their list of the top unanswered questions about the JFK assassination. Ralph Lee Yates was a family man with a wife and five kids who had never been in trouble with the law. But he died in a mental institution where he was sent against his will. For the crime of passing lie detector tests ordered by Hoover. Because the Feds argued he must be insane to believe a thing they didn't think was true. Did all this happen to silence a man whose account might make people believe an Oswald lookalike was sent to Dallas to kill JFK and frame Oswald for it? No one can prove it. But it makes sense. And put this altogether and you've got the all the essential ingredients that makes a crazy theory a legitimate conspiracy. Ordinarily I wouldn't care about Barstool Sports but their X account has over six million followers. And not surprisingly, the book Chokeholds includes the Yates story in its chapter, "Oswald was Impersonated": After the January 4th interview, the FBI told Yates that he had passed the lie detector test because the test showed that Yates believed what he was saying was true. However, because the FBI said that they knew what Yates was saying could not be true, Yates was declared to be mentally insane and needed to immediately check in to a mental institution. Not exactly. The polygraph test was inconclusive. The next day, Yates visited the FBI and was emotional and cried through the meeting. Six days later, he came back and said he thought his doctors were trying to kill him. The FBI suggested he seek help at Parkland Hospital. His wife took him there and the doctors had him admitted to Woodlawn. Chokeholds then adds "when one reads the story of the FBI forcibly committing Yates ..." Forcibly? Chokeholds claims the Yates story is a "showstopper," and that "the Feds committed this man to a mental institution without due process all because the told what was apparently an inconvenient truth." Chokeholds concludes its section on Yates by noting that "Leading Warren Report defenders do not have a substantive counterpoint to the story of Ralph Yates." Really? We have now had over sixty years of experience in understanding JFK assassination witnesses. Some dissemble quite obviously like Judyth Vary Baker and Beverly Oliver. Others suffered from organic brain damage like Richard Case Nagell, or some mental illness like Raymond Broshears. We should be able to use our current experience to look back at witnesses like Ralph Yates. He was a disturbed man who confused real events with imaginary ones. You would think that this story would disappear over time. It's a sign of the ever-discouraging debate on the JFK assassination that the Ralph Yates story is actually gaining traction. Like Roger Craig, Ralph Yates let conspiracy fever drive him crazy. He died of congestive heart failure on September 3, 1975. He was only thirty-nine years old. An additional thank you to Paul Hoch who reviewed this article and made many important suggestions for improvement. Previous Relevant Blog Posts Chokeholds Uses a Fake Story A fictitious story about Larry Crafard found its way into the book. Paul Bleau Chokes, Part 18 Chokeholds leaves out a lot of information about Aloysius Habighorst. Paul Bleau Chokes, Part 17 Bleau doesn't tell his readers about Roger Craig's credibility problems. Paul Bleau Chokes, Part 16 Bleau believes the Rose Cherami story. Paul Bleau Chokes, Part 15 Bleau claims the Shaw jury believed there was a conspiracy in the JFK assassination. This is just not true. Paul Bleau Chokes, Part 14 Bleau doesn't tell you everything about Lyndon Johnson's feelings towards the Warren Report. Paul Bleau Chokes, Part 13 Bleau leaves out some important details about the beliefs of Burt Griffin. Paul Bleau Chokes, Part 12 Bleau leaves out an important paragraph from Alfredda Scobey's article on the Warren Commission. Paul Bleau Chokes, Part 11 Bleau misleads readers on the testimony of John Moss Whitten. Paul Bleau Chokes, Part 10 Bleau gets it all wrong on Dr. George Burkley. Paul Bleau Chokes, Part 9 Bleau doesn't tell the whole story about John Sherman Cooper. Paul Bleau Chokes, Part 8 Bleau claims that J. Lee Rankin questioned the findings of the Warren Report. This is just not true. Paul Bleau Chokes, Part 7 Bleau tries to make it appear that Dallas policeman James Leavelle had doubts that Oswald could be found guilty at a trial. Paul Bleau Chokes, Part 6 Bleau gets it all wrong on the FBI Summary Report. Paul Bleau Chokes, Part 5 Bleau discusses the conclusions of the HSCA but leaves out it most important finding. Paul Bleau Chokes, Part 4 Bleau leaves out some important details about a Warren Commission staffer. Paul Bleau Chokes, Part 3 Was Oswald a loner? Bleau says no, and then says yes. Paul Bleau Chokes, Part 2 Bleau leaves out some important details about Malcolm Kilduff. Paul Bleau Chokes An introduction to Paul Bleau's new book, Chokeholds.

Another interesting memo from the Garrison files: Did she get the collander back? It looks like she wanted help in getting back bonds that had been stolen. Perhaps the only way to get an appointment with Garrison was to say she had information on the assassination. I would have put the wallet in the lost & found department. Here is the letter that they found:

Burden Of Proof Media | 6/23/2023 The one where we scrutinize Oliver Stone’s documentary JFK Revisited and talk about Dealey Plaza, medical and forensic evidence, gay conservatives, and making conspiracist enemies, with JFK researcher, author, blogger, and conspiracy skeptic Fred Litwin. Brought to you by another tell-all biography of a disgruntled British Royal. Support the show Visit our website at www.paranoidplanet.ca The host of Paranoid Planet is Michel Gagné who is the author of Thinking Critically About the Kennedy Assassination: Debunking the Myths and Conspiracy Theories. I strongly recommend his excellent book.

Here is an outline of the discussion: SECTIONS 02:06 - I was a Teenage JFK Conspiracy Freak 05:44 - The Great American Myth of the 20th Century 08:22 - "Proofs" 08:42 - The parade route 10:21 - The magic bullet (CE 399/FBI 1) 13:14 - The truth is, these just aren't very bright guys 14:43 - The rifle 16:41 - The Zapruder Film & frame 313 21:56 - The Three Tramps 27:36 - The Babushka Lady 29:16 - Too many Oswalds 31:00 - Umbrella Man 32:21 - Oswald on the run 35:03 - Jack Ruby 37:39 - Oswald's possible motivations 40:25 - Jim Garrison: On the Trail of Delusion 44:03: - Echoes today, focus on the great center Excerpt at 48:27: Host: what can people do? Fred: I face insults every day on Facebook. You wouldn't believe the insults i get every day. Just as we speak, there's been like two or three insults posted about me. What I try to do is ... I'm not engaged with the insults and I try to realize that the people who are insulting me, I'll never find words to change their mind. So, if I act reasonably on these Facebook pages, the people in the middle, the people who are just watching -- not sure what to think about some of this stuff, if they see me acting reasonably that will help my case. And so I say this to everybody -- be reasonable, be considerate, and be kind. And that's the only way you should lead your life. It's the only way forward. You can open up a transcript by clicking on the three dots next to the save button on Youtube: