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Monday, June 27, 2011

Harold Weisberg and Alonzo "Lonnie" Hudkins

PRESENT: MR, JIM GARRISON, District Attorney
MESSRS. ALVIN OSER, RICHARD BURNES, JAMES ALCOCK _
and ANDREW SCIAMBRA, Assistant District Attorneys
MEMBERS OF THE ORLEANS PARISH GRAND JURY
HAROLD WISEBERG [sic]
* * * * *
MR. JIM GARRISON:
Gentlemen, Mr, Weisberg, as you probably know, is the author of "Whitewash I" and "Whitewash II"- have you completed "Whitewash III" - or are you working on it?

A. No, I completed a book called "Oswald in New Orleans, CIA Whitewash", and have about a month's work yet on a  book I call "Manchester Machiavelli - The Unintended, Unofficial Whitewash". I am sorry I did not know I was going to speak to you and I‘would have brought more documents from "Whitewash III", which is going to be largely documents. I have been ransacking the Archives every time I could get down to Washington and I have a few of these things with me that I wilI be glad to show you.

MR. GARRISON:
May I suggest that there are two other areas which I think you will be very helpful to us since you are one of the leading experts on one, which would be the assassination scene
and some of the indications that the Warren Commission missed the boat, for example, that there were shots from the front, etc, And secondly, since you have written something about
the CIA in our group, and very much off the record, there seems to be some CIA involvement here in the New Orleans phase. So I think these gentlemen would be real interested in what you have to say about that. ***

Q. When the FBI came to talk to him this interview with all the others were all together. When he came to talk to Oswald he took them separately.

A. Even Bringuier complained about that. And what does the FBI agent testify - oh, he says 'everybody does it. This is Hosty part of the course, everybody does it. And he/burned his notes after the assassination by a month, of the questioning of Ruth Payne [sic] and Marina. That's in their sworn testimony. Some of these items are very strange, some are not identifiable and this is a very mysterious thing, would you care to pass that around and if you like I can give you an actual size copy of it, in Lt. Martello's handwriting. One of the things I found that looked like the word pouch in his notebook within a page of that was microducts . . .

Q. Microducts was in the notebook and also fingerprints?

A. Yes. Now this is only one of the things. I presume that you know that Alonzo Hudkins was never called before the Commission. He was a Texas reporter . . . He was the man who was told by the Chief Criminal Deputy in Dallas, Allan Sweat, [possibly Allan Sweatt] that Oswald was an FBI employee with a known number getting $200.00 a month and the way he proved this was not so was not to call Sweat before the Commission nor Hudkins, he just asked Mr. Hoover and Mr. Hoover said it didn't happen. They didn't call Thayer Waldo, who was a reporter, and from whom I have a letter. He was told by the same officials, who doesn't say who but he says officials, exactly the same story, they don't call him, but if you will turn to page 50 in Whitewash II you will find the facsimile of part of the document that I got in the Commission's files, Wesley Leibeler again - he knew all of this - is the man who introduced all of the photographic evidence incompetently and too late. And not one case did he ask the witness what camera were you using, what kind of lens, what kind of film, here is a chart mark yourself on the chart....

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Connection between Robert G. Storey, Jr., Dal-Tex Bldg. and H.L. Hunt

 When John Stuart Hunt married in 1946, the rehearsal dinner was hosted by Mr. and Mrs. H.L. Hunt in their home on Lawther Drive. A bridesmaid was the daughter-in-law of Robert G. Storey, who was the former
Elizabeth Anne Toline (daughter of Basil Irving Toline). Toline, incredibly enough was from Moline (Rock Island) Illinois and was assistant sales manager for the farm implement company (John Deere) in 1930. Elizabeth had been born in Moline, IL in 1921. Once they moved to Dallas, B.I. Toline, as he was called, became president of the Dallas Agricultural Club.

501 Elm Street built in 1902
Originally ~ The John Deere Plow Company 

Dallas Textile ("Dal-Tex") Building (Kingman-Texas Building)
(John Deere Plow Company Building^)
501 Elm Street

Taken from "The Dallas Morning News" Friday, June 7, 1946
Best bonnets and prettiest dresses are being worked overtime this week going to parties for brides-to-be.
A rehearsal dinner will be given Friday evening by Mr. and Mrs. H. L. Hunt, Mr. and Mrs. Al Hill and Mr. and Mrs. Loyd Sands at the Hunt home on Lawther Drive in honor of Miss Jeanne Gannon and John Stuart Hunt, who will be married Saturday evening. Complimenting Miss Mary Hillman, bride-elect of Robert Heidrick, Miss Susan Diggie will entertain with a kitchen shower Friday at her home, 5101 Swiss Avenue. Miss Hillman has announced that her bridal attendants will be Miss Margaret Nell Carlisle, maid of honor; Mrs. Vernon Coe, sister of the bride-elect, matron of honor; Mrs. R. G. Storey, Jr., Mrs. Charles F. Heidrick Jr., of Beaumont, Miss Lenora Rose and Miss Houston Tripp, bridesmaids. Mr. Heidrick's best man will be his brother, Charles F. Heidrick Jr. Ushers will be Vernon Coe, Thomas Hanlon of Scarsdale, N.Y., James Tollison of Amarillo, Harry Underwood of Lubbock and Ronnie B. Cousin Jr. of Austin.  

Madison, Wisconsin THE CAPITAL TIMES, Thursday, April 19,1962
Ex-Chairman of
ABA Is Dead
DALLAS (UPI) — Robert G. Storey Jr., 50, past chairman of the American Bar Association, died Wednesday. Storey, a prominent attorney, was the son of Robert G. Storey Sr., president of the Southwestern Legal Foundation and a former dean of Southern "Methodist University law school.




John Stuart Hunt, whose father was Sherman Hunt, graduated from the University of Texas in 1943, a member of the same fraternity and class as James McQueen Moroney, Jr., who with his father worked with the Dealeys at the Dallas Morning News. Sherman Hunt was an elder brother of Harold Lafayette Hunt, the Dallas oil millionaire. Both were sons of Haraldson Lafayette Hunt, a South Carolinian who had relocated to Illinois before 1880 and reared his family there. Sherman had moved to Montana, where he established a family before moving them to Dallas in the 1930s after his brother H.L. discovered oil in East Texas. However, Sherman had previously traveled on business to Mexico, as shown by his passport application below:


Official Contends Gas
Company Defied Order
By United Press 
EL PASO HERALD-POST - Jan. 23, 1947
NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 23.—Joseph J. McHugh, Louisana conservation commissioner, charged today that natural gas was being piped to coal-producing regions outside the state through the Little Inch line in defiance of an order canceling a previously-granted permit. McKugh said that wells owned by H. L. Hunt, Texas millionaire" oil and gas man were running "full blast." The gas removal permit had been issued to the Tennessee Gas and Transmission Co., to transfer 50,000,000 cubic feet of gas daily to northern coal fields.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Stevens Point (Wis.) Daily Journal - Thursday, March 3, 1977
FBI has letter Oswald wrote
to H.L. Hunt 
DALLAS (AP) — The FBI acknowledges that it has obtained a letter which Lee Harvey Oswald reportedly wrote to a Dallas millionaire, two weeks before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy,
asking about Oswald's "position"' before any "steps" were taken.
A spokesman for the FBI said here that the letter was "being investigated" and declined to comment on any findings since it was received. He indicated the letter was obtained only recently.
The FBI spokesman said Wednesday that the letter apparently came from a former aide to H. L. Hunt, a late Dallas millionaire who was a strong financial supporter of conservative causes. The brief letter, dated Nov. 8, 1963, said:
"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. Thank you." 
A comparison of the handwritten note with samples of Oswald's handwriting led investigators to conclude that it was written by Oswald or someone who could imitate his handwriting. Oswald, according to the Warren Commission which investigated the assassination, fired the shots that killed Kennedy. Earlier this week published reports said a copy of the letter had been sent to a retired Texas newspaper editor, Penn Jones, at Midlothian. Tex., by an unidentified source in Mexico City. Jones said the source sent an accompanying letter explaining that he had given a copy of the letter to FBI director Clarence Kelly in 1977, but had received no response. Jones quoted the source as saying that because he had received no answer he was afraid something bad "might happen to me" and had decided to leave the country temporarily. Jones said he wrote to the address in Mexico City, but never heard from the man again. Oswald's widow, Marina, testified in 1964 before the Warren Commission that about two weeks before the assassination Oswald had mentioned he had found a job opening that would provide "more interesting work."


H. L. Hunt, oil tycoon, the youngest of eight children of Haroldson Lafayette and Ella Rose (Myers) Hunt, was born in Carson Township, Fayette County, Illinois, on February 17, 1889. He was educated at home. In 1905 he traveled through Colorado, California, and Texas. By 1912 he had settled in Arkansas, where he ran a cotton plantation that was flooded out by 1917. In 1921 he joined the oil boom in El Dorado, Arkansas, where he became a lease broker and promoted his first well, Hunt-Pickering No. 1. He claimed to have attained a "fortune of $600,000" by 1925, the year he bought a whole block in El Dorado and built a three-story house for his family. His El Dorado investments and a venture called Smackover taught Hunt lessons about the cost of wasteful practices and excessive drilling. Both fields were depleted rapidly. He also lost money on the Florida land boom, and by the time he got interested in the East Texas oilfield(qv) in 1930, he seems to have been broke again.

Hunt is in the famous photograph that immortalizes the drill test for Daisy Bradford No. 3 and the opening of the East Texas oilfield. On November 26, 1930, he made a deal with Columbus M. "Dad" Joinerqv that made him owner of the well and all Joiner's surrounding leases. Hunt used $30,000 that belonged to P. G. Lake, a clothier from El Dorado, and planned to make subsequent payments from revenue to buy out Joiner. He knew Joiner was beset by problems of oversold interests in the well. By December 1, 1930, Hunt had his own pipeline, the Panola Pipe Line, to run oil from the East Texas field. By 1932 the Hunt Production Company had 900 wells in East Texas.

In 1935 H. L. Hunt, Incorporated, was superseded by Placid Oil Company, and the shares were divided into trusts for Hunt's six children. In late 1936 Hunt acquired the Excelsior Refining Company in Rusk County and changed the name to Parade Refining Company. It was residue gas from this company's lines that caused the New London Explosion on March 18, 1937. Most of the people involved in that catastrophe were employees of H. L. Hunt. In 1937 or 1938 the family moved to Dallas. On April 5, 1948, Fortune printed a story on Hunt that labeled him the richest man in the United States. It estimated the value of his oil properties at $263 million and the daily production of crude from his wells at 65,000 barrels.



A Final Tribute to Stuart Hunt

John Stuart Hunt was born on July 6, 1921, and passed away on March 18, 2011. He was born in Miles City, Mont., to "Tot" and Sherman Hunt Sr. He arrived in Tyler at the age of 9. His brother, Sherman Jr., drove the entire distance from Montana to Texas at the age of 14 to meet with their father at the beginning of the East Texas Oil Boom. The family moved to Dallas in 1939.

He attended Washington and Lee University for two years before returning to Texas to be close to home at the outbreak of World War II, and graduated from The University of Texas in 1942. He was a proud member of the United States Marine Air Corps. Upon his return to Dallas after active duty, he married Jeanne Gannon in 1946. He remarked that he would marry the love of his life after seeing her enter the ballroom of the Dallas Country Club, before he ever knew her name.

His lengthy and colorful career ran the gamut of endeavors. He started in the oil industry, purchasing leases at the age of 18 after convincing a judge to remove his status as a minor. Stuart participated in the prosperity and growth of Dallas after World War II. He owned, operated or served on the boards of numerous corporations and businesses in banking, to insurance, ranching and real estate development.

In looking over his 70 years as a businessman, his greatest personal achievement was the founding of Preston Trails Golf Club. He was the visionary behind the concept and the driving force to see it through to fruition. Preston Trails was opened in 1965 and is continually regarded as one of the most respected private golf clubs in the United States. Mr. Hunt's crowning recognition came about last year on the first tee box, upon the reopening of the golf course. He was honored as the last living founder of Preston Trails. A man of few words, he expressed humble appreciation for the spirit and camaraderie that has existed throughout the life of the club. He further stated that this "brotherhood" had exceeded his wildest dreams, and for this he was most grateful.

He is survived by his three children, John Ward Hunt, Elizabeth Hara Hunt, Hilre Lucille Hunt; six grandchildren, Elizabeth Gannon Hunt, John Ward Hunt Jr., Andrew Stuart Hunt, Margaret Camille Hunt, William Kent Hunt, Henry William Frost V; one great-grandchild, Beau Turner Jr.; two nephews, Clay McLean Hunt and Todd McLean Hunt, sons of the late Mary and [his brother] Sherman Hunt Jr.

Ted Dealey Steps Up to Dallas 
News Board Chairman
MARCH 17, 1960  
DALLAS (AP) — E. M. (Ted) Dealey has stepped up to become chairman of the board and publisher of the Dallas Morning News. Joseph M. Dealey succeeded his father as president of The News and its associated enterprises, WFAA television and radio. The announcement Tuesday by the board of directors of A. H. Belo Corp., formal name of the company, also said that Managing Editor Jack Krueger, formerly of The Associated Press, had been named one of three new directors.
The board elevated James M. Moroney Sr. from senior vice president to vice chairman of the board; elected Ben H. Decherd Jr. and James M. Moroney Jr. to vice presidents, and elevated Joe Lubben from vice president to senior vice president. Other than Krueger, the new directors named include A. Earl Cullum Jr., prominent in radio and television engineering; D. Gordon Rupe, a leader in investment banking and civic affairs, and Sol M. Katz, circulation manager of The News.

 The man whose wedding rehearsal dinner would be hosted by his uncle, oil millionaire H.L. Hunt, lived in the same fraternity house at the University of Texas with James M. Moroney, Jr., whose father had long worked with the Dealey family at the Dallas Morning News.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Bedford Wynne's Connections to Dallas Lawyers and Military Intelligence

Bedford Wynne's In-Laws
In 1944 Bedford Shelmire Wynne married Juanita Jean Love, the daughter of T. Stafford Love, a medical doctor. Her grandfather (Thomas Bell Love) had been an attorney, insurance executive and a Democratic politician and bureaucrat in Dallas until his death in 1948, with an office (in the 1940s) at 1922 Republic Bank Building while residing in the Argyle Apartments at 3212 Oak Lawn. Dr. Love's office was in the Medical Arts Building and at 4239 Prescott Ave., while living at the south side of Cochran Chapel Road at Midway, a short distance east of Dallas' Love Field. The marriage between Bedford and Nita lasted until 1971, when they divorced. She was a member of Highland Park United Methodist Church in Dallas when she died in 2006.
Paternal Grandfather of Juanita Jean Love (Mrs. Bedford S. Wynne, 1943)
Thomas Bell Love (1870-1948), lawyer and Democratic politician, the son of Thomas Calvin and Sarah Jane (Rodgers) Love, was born in Webster County, Missouri, on June 23, 1870. He graduated with a B.S. degree from Drury College in Springfield, Missouri, in 1891. He was married to Mattie Roberta Goode on June 11, 1892, and they had three children. Before moving to Dallas in 1899, he was city attorney of Springfield, Missouri (1892-94), a member of the board of managers of Missouri State Hospital, and secretary of the Democratic State Central Committee of Missouri (1896-98).
Love was a prominent figure in Texas political life for the first three decades of the twentieth century. He was elected to the Texas House of Representatives from Dallas County in 1902, 1904, and 1906; the last term he served as speaker of the House of Representatives. He was an expert on taxes, insurance, and banking and had an important role in the passage of the reform legislation of 1905 and 1907 related to these issues. At the conclusion of the 1907 legislative session, Governor Thomas Mitchell Campbell appointed him commissioner of the newly formed Department of Insurance and Banking. Love resigned from the office in 1910 to resume law practice in Dallas and to become associated with Southwestern Life Insurance Company and Western Indemnity Company.
He did not retire from politics, however, for he was a leading spokesman for the prohibition forces in the 1911 submission campaign, and he was an early supporter of Woodrow Wilson for the Democratic nomination in 1912. In 1917 President Wilson appointed him assistant secretary of the Treasury Department and placed him in charge of the Bureau of War Risk Insurance. Returning to Texas in 1919, Love was elected national Democratic committeeman from Texas in 1920, and he served in that capacity until 1924. He was a leader of the anti-Ferguson forces in the gubernatorial campaign of that year. In 1928 he opposed the nomination of Alfred E. Smith and bolted the party during the election to help organize the Hoover-Democrat clubs that went into the Republican column that year. The last elected office he held was that of state senator (1927-31). Love died in Dallas on September 17, 1948.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Norman D. Brown, Hood, Bonnet, and Little Brown Jug: Texas Politics, 1921-1928 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1984). Lewis L. Gould, Progressives and Prohibitionists: Texas Democrats in the Wilson Era (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1973; rpt., Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1992).
As we reported in a previous blog post, Bedford had attended in 1938 a very small private school in Dallas, the Texas Country Day School, which had been founded with only 10 students in 1934. One of the best recruiting devices for the school was the hiring as its football coach then-famous Heisman-Trophy winner and All-America football star from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Davey O'Brien, who had graduated from Dallas' Woodrow Wilson High School in 1932. As Barr McClellan mentions in his book, Blood, Money & Power, among Davey's fellow students during the 1930s were Congressman Jim Collins and Malcolm (Mac) Wallace.

Davey grew up with his divorced mother, Ella May O'Brien in the home of her parents Robert P. Keith and his wife Ola Poole Keith from Tennessee. Ella was born in Cleburne, Texas in 1890, where the family lived until they moved to Dallas after 1900, and Robert changed from selling insurance in Cleburne to working as a salesman for a wholesale produce company. By 1920 the entire family was still living together--Ella's brother, Boyd M. Keith, bringing his wife to live with the family for a decade before buying a house next door. Ella herself had married and divorced while Davey was still a young toddler; Davey had an older brother named Boyd O'Brien. Ella May taught at a private school by then, and her brother had a florist shop. Their closest neighbors on Tokalon Drive were the family of Robert G. Storey, a lawyer, who had two sons a few years younger than Davey.


Lt. Col. Robert G. Storey

Robert Gerald Storey (1893-1981) was a Colonel in the U.S. Air Force during World War II and was Executive Trial Counsel for the United States at the Nuremberg Trial of major Axis War Criminals. He personally interrogated Rudoph Hess, Hitler's Deputy and Nazi Party Leader.
In 1947, Mr Storey founded the Southwestern Legal Foundation, serving as President (without compensation) from 1947 to 1972. He served as Dean of SMU School of Law from 1947 to 1959, President of the American Bar Association 1952-1953, President of the Inter-American Bar Association 1954-1956, Member of the Commission to Reorganize Executive Branch of U.S. Government (Hoover Commission) 1953-1955, Member and Chairman, Board of Foreign Scholarships (Fulbright Commission) 1956-1962, and Vice Chairman, United States Civil Rights Commission 1957-1963.
He served and received awards from numerous local, state, national and international organizations. In 1969 the World Peace Through Law Center presented him its World Lawyer Award in Bagkok, Thailand. 

 It is very possible Bedford Wynne's father Angus G. Wynne, who was the first president of the State Bar of Texas (1939-40) knew Storey, who served in that same capacity (1948-49). Robert, Jr. died in 1962 at the tender age of 41. In 1964, however, the elder Robert G. Storey appeared with colleague Leon Jaworski and others to hear testimony of Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade concerning whether or not there was any evidence that Lee Oswald had been an informant.

ROBERT GERALD STOREY AND LEON JAWORSKI
Herbert J. Miller helped choose Leon Jaworski to head the Texas Commission of Inquiry into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The Commission consisted of Jaworski, Texas State Attorney General Waggoner Carr, and Attorney Robert Gerald Storey. Robert Gerald Storey was Assistant Attorney [General?] of Texas for Criminal Appeals from 1921 to 1923. From 1945 to 1946, he was an Executive Trial Counsel for the United States, Nuremberg, Trial of Major Axis War Criminals, 1945 - 1946. From 1953 to 1955, he was a member of the Commission to Reorganize the Executive Branch of United States Government (Hoover Commission). Storey was an advisor to the Korean Government on the judicial and legal profession in 1954. In 1959 he worked at the Korean Legal Center. From 1954 to 1955 Storey was State Department representative in the Far East and the Middle East to assist legal profession of friendly free nations. From 1958 to 1962 Storey was the Chairman of the Board of Foreign Scholarships (International Education Exchange).
Waggoner Carr stated that the purpose of the Commission of Inquiry was to have several lawyers who were independent of the Government, monitor the investigation of the Kennedy assassination.
Leon Jaworksi was a former prosecutor at Nazi war crimes trials in Hadamar and Darmstardt. In 1962 Jaworski was appointed Special Prosecutor in the contempt case against Segregationist Governor, Ross Barnett. Leon Jaworski was an associate of John DeMenil. Leon Jaworski was a trustee of the M.D. Anderson Foundation. Congressional Representative Wright Patman's (Dem.-TX.) Subcommittee on Foundations revealed the M.D Anderson acted as a conduit for CIA funds. It granted the American Fund for Free Jurists a half million dollars to further its work. Leon Jaworski refused to comment about his CIA connections. Jaworski was also a Director of the Republic National Bank. [Washington Post 2.18.67]
The Warren Commission took testimony from 550 witnesses, but Leon Jaworski was present at the interrogation of only nine. [Dallas Morning News 1.5.64 p14 sec. 4] Journalist Dorothy Kilgallen reported that Jaworski was present at the interrogation of JACK RUBY, who asked to be transported to Washington, D.C., so he could talk directly with the President. As a representative of the Attorney General of the State of Texas Jaworski had the power to allow RUBY to do this. He said nothing. Jaworski told the FBI he was not present during the interrogation of Ruby, however, his associate, Robert Storey, was. [FBI Inter. W/Jaworski 8.24.64 Houston, Texas] On August 24, 1964, the New York Times reported that Jaworski was being considered for the position of Attorney General of the United States should Robert Kennedy decide to run for the United States Senate in New York State.


At the wedding of Mary Margaret Ferris, and David Cochran Neale in May 1950 in Corsicana: Bedford S. Wynne was best man while the groomsmen were Thomas Moroney, James Moroney, Clint W. Murchison, Jr., Frank W. Campbell, Kenneth A. Swanson, Robert S. Watson, and Dick Reynolds. Seating guests were Royal A. Ferris, Tom Norsworthy and Manson Harris. Dallas Country Club was the
setting for a reception where string music entertained the guests.



Letters to Editor - Bennington Banner, Saturday, May 25, 1974
Propaganda from the right
It is strange that with all the upset about "what must not be read," the MAUHS Curriculum Committee has not come up with at least one suggestion as to what might be good reading. I have a candidate: "Rush to
Judgment" by Mark Lane, published by Holt, Rhinehart, & Winston.
There are no "dirty" words in this book, it has social concern, literary merit, and seeks to answer one of the most vital questions in America today — what forces conspired in the assassination of a very beloved American leader, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The reader cannot fail to sense that this book is responsible for some of the conviction on many peoples' part that the Warren Commission report was the rawest whitewash that has occurred in recent years. Recently a California attorney attempted to secure release of the testimony for scholarly research of the commission's findings, and appealed as high as the Supreme Court. The Court ruled that the records must be held sealed for the originally stipulated period of 75 years.
Lane is the attorney who was to have defended Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin. His presentation is one of documented evidence that Oswald was killed to prevent a trial which would have exposed the plot as a product of ultraconservative forces in this country.
There appears to be a strong connection between Jack Ruby, Oswald's killer, Larrie Schmidt, executive secretary of the John Birch Society, and Joseph Grinnan, a regional coordinator of the John Birch Society.
Why I am linking this book to the school is that I suspect that a member of the John Birch Society, is on the Curriculum Committee and the society has a long "banned-book" list of political subjects that might pollute young minds (but not with dirty words). I expect the list will shortly include insidious "Marxist" subversive
literature such as the Steinbeck novels and, such a dangerous, divisive piece of literature as the little gem entitled "Rush to Judgment."
One might ask how I would identify a member of the Curriculum Committee as a John Birchist. Simple! Where I work, in North Adams, we have a John Birch district coordinator who receives canned propaganda, and within a week after a subject is issued, our trusty local redneck puts in a letter to the editor on the same subject in the same language. It has happened three times in two years.
Censorship will rush us headlong toward the day of a local "Beer Hall Putsch." The putsch in Germany was a
takeover of the local schools and administrative units of government in Munich by a group of 
  1.  German rednecks who were not taken seriously
  2. Beer hall patrons who were only sporadically employed, and who found time to plot and get fat at society's expense
  3. who were school dropouts, mostly unskilled, and hated college-trained intellectuals.
  4. who were against the corrupting Influence of liberal Jews.
As It appears now, our society is too benevolent, and we are too well off to take this seriously. The story may be different if we have another depression caused by a conservative administration. Our local clods
might well be issued clubs and the authority to "come down hard" on dissenters. At any rate I will be a marked man for all this, and it would be better "to be dead than so led."
FRANKLIN FRANTZ
Woodford.

WINNIPEG FREE PRESS, MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1963
By RONNIE DUGGER
Oswald Seen At Two Rallies
DALLAS (Special - TPNS) —Ironies continue to multiply in the wake of the assassination here. It now appears that Lee H. Oswald, the accused assassin, attended not only a rally addressed by Gen. Edwin Walker Oct. 23, but also one addressed by UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson Oct. 24.
A Dallas woman, who was seated close to Oswald at the Oct. 25 meeting of the Dallas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), says here that when the Stevenson meeting of the night before was being discussed, Oswald nodded his head and said, "I was there." Oswald said this in an aside to Michael Paine, who had brought him to the meeting, the woman clearly recalled. Oswald's wife and children lived with Mr. Paine's estranged wife in Irving.
Larrie Schmidt — a conservative Dallas insurance salesman, now identified with Bernard Weissman of Mount Vernon, New York, who placed a full-page anti - Kennedy advertisement in the Dallas News the morning of the assassination — was also in attendance at the Stevenson meeting — leading a group of picketers against Mr: Stevenson. Mr. Schmidt refused to comment Sunday on anything having to do with his part in the placement of the ad that was signed Mr. Weissman. (In a New York newspaper interview Saturday, Mr. Weissman named Mr. Schmidt as the man who had telephoned him, after the Stevenson scene, and asked him to come to Dallas to help.him out in the aftermath). But Mr. Schmidt does acknowledge that in advance of the Oct. 24 Stevenson speech, he telephoned  "a friend of mine in a local university" and asked if the friend could help him find people to demonstrate against the UN.
The friend came up with 14 young picketers, and a "peaceful picketing" was organized, Mr. Schmidt said.
The persons who spat on Mr. Stevenson and struck him with a picket sign had nothing to do with his well-dressed and orderly group, Mr. Schmidt said Sunday. "We deplore and certainly do not condone the actions of those people," Mr. Schmidt says.
Mrs. Cora Richardson, the woman who held the picket sign that struck Mr. Stevenson, contends somebody "flipped" her elbow. She said. Sunday that another group were out front of the auditorium, picketing for the United Nations; she said she is convinced that the widely-publicized scene was a frame-up of some kind. As the Washington Post reported Saturday, Oswald rose during the open discussion at the ACLU  meeting and remarked  that he had attended the Walker speech two nights before and had observed anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic symptoms there. A man who attended the ACLU meeting as a guest and who sat directly beside Oswald, has been located and corroborates other recollections about Oswald's remarks at the ACLU meeting, but does not want to be identified. Mr. Paine introduced Oswald to him as "Lee Harvey Oswald." 
"Oswald stood up," the man sitting beside him said, "and said, 'well, we know about this guy Gen. Walker, he's not only anti-Semitic, he's also anti-Catholic, judging from his comments on the Pope.' "
What Oswald Said
This is exactly what Oswald said, at least in substance; and he said a few other things along this line, the man sitting beside him, said. "This source confirms his wife's recollection that Oswald said in the aside that he had attended the Stevenson rally, too. Therefore, even though they, too, refuse to be named, statements by two Dallas women that they thought they saw Oswald at the Stevenson rally become more interesting.
A Dallas businesswoman said: "In my opinion, I did see him (at the scene of the Stevenson speech). I didn't see him anywhere else, but in the lobby. He was picketing."
She had arrived early and first saw a group of well-dressed, neat youths; she remembered a sign, "Wanted For Treason," among them. Then a second group came into the lobby.
"This boy (the one she believes was Oswald) was ahead of this second line. These were different type of people. Some were young, some were old. There were five to seven of them and they were seedy looking. He was clean, but he was very shabbily dressed. I remember thinking how pathetic he was," the businesswoman said. "He was the only one who did a military-type turn. This called my attention to him," she said. Also, he had "a real, different type neck -- he walked like a soldier, did an about-face. He had a very pleased expression with himself, but not a smile."
This woman said that she became "absolutely certain" that it was Oswald she had seen, at the Stevenson scene when she saw a picture of Oswald on TV before he had been, bruised during his arrest after the assassination. She believed Oswald's group picketed and left before the disturbance broke out against Stevenson. A second Dallas, woman, a housewife, said: "I believe, he was there and he was carrying a picket sign in the lobby." Her description of  what he wore matched  the business woman's -- black leather gloves, a suit jacket with unmatching pants. She, too, mentioned his unusual neck and his military gait.




Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Bedford Wynne at Texas Country Day School of Dallas

One of Many Illustrious Alumni

Bedford Shelmire Wynne received early lessons in elitism while attending the Texas Country Day School of Dallas (since merged into St. Mark's) as a child. Judging from its illustrious alumni, it was no ordinary school. His name was mentioned in the Galveston newspaper in 1938 as a member of a basketball team that lost to Tabor Academy of Massachusetts, playing in Galveston at the time. The school's headmaster, Kenneth Bouve, had come to Dallas from Tabor and often arranged the games with former associates of his old school.

Davey O'Brien was the football coach during the time Bedford Wynne was a student at the Texas Country Day School.

 Robert David O'Brien (June 22, 1917 – November 18, 1977) was an American football quarterback in the National Football League for the Philadelphia Eagles. He played college football at Texas Christian University and was drafted in the first round (fourth overall) of the 1939 NFL Draft. In 1938, O'Brien won the Heisman Trophy, Maxwell Award, and the Walter Camp Award. The Davey O'Brien Award, given annually to the best quarterback in collegiate football, is named for him....
 
After two seasons with the Eagles, O'Brien retired from football to become an agent in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), where he worked for ten years. After completing his training, he was assigned to the bureau’s field office in Springfield, Missouri. He was a firearms instructor at Quantico, Virginia, and spent the last five years of his FBI career in Dallas. He resigned from the bureau in 1950 and went to work for H. L. Hunt in land development. He later entered the oil business working for Dresser Atlas Industries of Dallas. O'Brien also served as president of the TCU Alumni Association, a YMCA board member, a chair of the Tarrant County Democratic Party, a supporter of Golden Gloves youth boxing programs, and a deacon of University Christian Church.

He was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1955 and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1956. From 1960–1964 he served as a color commentator for Dallas Cowboys television broadcasts. 
In 1971, O'Brien was diagnosed with cancer and underwent surgery to remove a kidney and part of his right lung. He died from cancer on November 18, 1977. O'Brien's 1938 Heisman Trophy combined with Tim Brown's 1987 Heisman Trophy gave Woodrow Wilson High School in Dallas the distinction of being the first high school to produce two Heisman Trophy winners. In 1989, O'Brien and Brown were inducted together into Woodrow Wilson High School's Hall of Fame when it was created in celebration of the school's 60th Anniversary.

Most of these high-school age boys would end up in the war as they approached manhood in the early 1940's. Much would be expected of them as the world began to change before their very eyes. Some of his classmates would even help change that world. Bedford certainly contributed to those changes in his own inimitable way.

The Texas Country Day School was originally located on Preston Road at its intersection with Walnut Hill Lane. Now the school is situated in an area between Royal Lane to the north, Walnut Hill Lane to the south, and between Preston Road on the west and Hillcrest Road on the east, St. Marks School in Dallas is surrounded by some of the wealthiest families in Texas. 

Dallas' "most-established establishment"

Its history in brief: "St. Mark's was founded as a merger of the nonsectarian Texas Country Day School and the Episcopally-associated The Cathedral School. To solve the religious question, St. Mark's was founded as a nonsectarian school with the agreement that Chapel services would be Episcopalian, led by an ordained Episcopal minister. The school officially opened as St. Mark's School of Texas in 1953."

Another website states:
St. Mark’s School of Texas
10600 Preston Rd.

For years, St. Mark’s has been the place to send your son if you’re looking for an all-male, private school. And it’s no wonder, with a dynamite board of trustees, and a cluster of well-appointed buildings, including, would you believe, a planetarium.

St. Mark’s has the pedigree, dating back to 1933 when some of Dallas’ finest founded The Texas Country Day School, an ancestor of St. Mark’s.

Nowadays, an all-male student body isn’t particularly important to the school, because St. Mark’s graduates tend to flock to UT-Austin. Way back when, the prep school atmosphere was thought to be instrumental in preparing Dallas boys for places like Harvard and Yale.

During the 1960’s, St. Mark’s built a reputation on math and science, but now is trying to stress the arts too. The math emphasis still lingers and seniors score high on the college entrance exam math tests, but closer to average on verbal sections. Last spring produced a bumper crop of National Merit semi-finalists, 10, while usually the number is somewhat lower.

St. Mark’s each year accepts 25 first graders, 17 second graders and later adds 25 boys at the fifth grade and 50 more at the seventh. Thereafter only about one or two are admitted to each class every year.

St. Mark’s wants to see the boy grow into the man. Teachers have plenty of time to coach them at one thing or another -- football, photography, etc. Physical activity is important and sports abound. If you can’t handle football or basketball, there’s always inter scholastic water polo.
Another page of that website states:


THERE ARE some prep schools where the headmaster embodies the institution’s traditions and goals. St. Mark’s is not one of them. St. Mark’s has its roots in its board of directors, which in turn is rooted in the city’s most-established establishment - oil, high technology and, in the old days, cotton.
St. Mark’s predecessor, the Texas Country Day School, opened in the fall of 1933. Chief among its founders was Wirt Davis, an oilman with a young son who he thought should get a first-rate education without having to take a five-day train ride to the East. Davis got his friend Eugene McDermott of Geophysical Services Co. (now Texas Instruments) interested in the school as early as 1937. McDermott and his wife, Margaret, then got their friends Cecil and Ida Green interested in the school. Though they were childless themselves, Ralph Rogers, a former board president, recalls, the Greens "always felt that the country’s future depended on leadership... and that leadership depended on education."

Yet another states:
When it opened with ten students and four faculty members in September 1933, Texas Country Day School was located two miles north of the Dallas city limits. With the post-World War II economic boom, this area became an affluent suburban neighborhood, and many of its youth attended Texas Country Day School.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
San Antonio Express -JUNE 24, 1934
New Incorporations:
Texas Country Day School for Boys, Dallas. capital stock $10,000; education. Incorporators: Mrs. R.R. Penn, Wirt Davis, Arthur L. Kramer.
~~~~~~~~~~~



1938 Texas Country Day School of Dallas basketball team

On April 6, 1938 Bedford Wynne's name appeared in newspapers as a representative of a Texas Country Day School of Dallas basketball team. Players of the Dallas team were Gilbert and John Allen, Robert Giles Jr., Edwin Hopkins Jr., Latham Jones, Brown McGaughey, Robert Mead, Philip [O.] Montgomery Jr., John Shelton, Bedford Wynne, and Robert Raney. L.W. Hall was coach of the team. John Blade Jr., William Bullington, Cedric Burgher Jr., Everett DeGolyer Jr., Charles Dexter Jr., Henry Doscher, William Hoyes, Jon Hulsey, and Eugene Mead accompanied the team to Galveston, where they played Tabor Academy basketball team of Marion, Mass. Dallas lost the game.

[Names in the above excerpt from Galveston News have been researched and results are color-coded in articles below]:

The Dallas Morning News - August 15, 2009
Robert Byron Giles Jr.: Passion for research fueled his work in physics, medicine
Dr. Robert Byron Giles Jr. maintained his passion for research throughout his 40 years as a Dallas internist. His research background included working on the Manhattan Project during World War II and being one of the first Western doctors to explore the mysteries of the hantavirus as an Army medical officer during the Korean War. Dr. Giles, 87, died Dec. 16 of natural causes at the C.C. Young retirement community in Dallas. Services were Saturday in Dallas.
"He liked the challenging cases, where he really had to use his mind," said his daughter, Caroline Banks of Minneapolis. "The researcher in him was so strong. He liked the challenge and the pleasure of diagnosing something accurately in time to be of help."
Dr. Giles also liked people and often told his family about interesting patients, his daughter said.
Dr. Giles had a subspecialty in rheumatoid arthritis and saw patients from Central and South America. Some of those patients were accompanied by their extended families.
"The whole office would shut down, because he had not only the spouse, but aunts and uncles and children of these people from out of the country," Dr. Banks said.
Dr. Giles was born in Dallas, where he attended Texas Country Day School, now St. Mark's School of Texas.
Dr. Giles became a researcher after graduating from Dartmouth College.
"He was at the nuclear physics department at MIT," his daughter said. "He didn't know it at the time, but he was involved with the Manhattan Project."
Not knowing he was helping the Army develop the first atomic bomb, Dr. Giles repeatedly tried to enlist to serve in World War II. He had twin uncles who were generals in the Army Air Forces, his daughter said.
"He kept wanting to enlist, but he was told, 'No, your work here is too important,' " his daughter said.
In 1943, Dr. Giles married Patricia Wellington. Mrs. Giles died in 1992.
After the war, Dr. Giles attended medical school, graduating from a two-year program at Dartmouth and completing his medical degree at Harvard University. Dr. Giles completed his internship and began his residency and a fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. His studies, however, were interrupted when he was recruited as an Army medical officer for service during the Korean War. He was chief medical officer with the 8228th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in Korea. Dr. Giles soon found himself doing research in the war zone. Some Korean soldiers and civilians brought to his hospital had a disease unknown to Western medicine, his daughter said.
"He was one of the first Westerners to identify and research hemorrhagic fever," Dr. Banks said. "Because of his previous interest in research at MIT, he was very curious about the nature of this virus. He didn't want to just treat patients; he wanted to understand what it was."
The hantavirus was originally known as Korean hemorrhagic fever, and gets its name from the Hantaan River in Korea.
In 1953, Dr. Giles received an Army commendation for meritorious war-zone research, treatment and training in Korea.
After his military service, Dr. Giles completed his residency in Boston.
In the late 1950s, Dr. Giles returned to Dallas, where he was an assistant professor of medicine in charge of a research laboratory at what is now UT Southwestern Medical Center.
In the early 1960s, Dr. Giles entered private practice with his father, Robert B. Giles Sr., at the Medical Arts Building in downtown Dallas. When his father retired, Dr. Giles moved his practice to Presbyterian Hospital, where he became chief of the medical staff, his daughter said.
Dr. Giles was an accomplished and avid golfer. He also enjoyed sailing and watercolor painting.
In addition to his daughter, Dr. Giles is survived by his wife, Ann Baker Giles of Dallas; another daughter, Phoebe Giles of Dallas; two sons, Ben Giles of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and Richard Giles of Great Barrington, Mass.; three sisters, Frederica Reily of Baton Rouge, La., Ann Kimbrough of Dallas and Marie Louise Baldwin of Dallas; five grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
Memorials may be made to the Patricia and Robert Giles Jr. DMS 1945 Scholarship Fund at Dartmouth Medical School; in honor of Patricia Wellington Giles at Wellesley College; the Patricia Giles Endowed Memorial at Southern Methodist University; or to a charity of choice.


The Herald Banner, Greenville, TX June 17, 2009
Brown McGaughey
WICHITA FALLS — R. Brown McGaughey Sr., 88, of Wichita Falls, died the night of June 14, 2009, at Hospice of Wichita Falls. Services are at 11 a.m. today at University United Methodist Church with military honors, officiated by Pastor Bryan Payne, Pastor Travis McGaughey and Reverend Dean Libby. Interment will be at 11 a.m. Thursday at East Mount Cemetery in Greenville. Hampton Vaughan Funeral Home of Wichita Falls is in charge of arrangements.
Brown was born July 15, 1920, in Greenville to Winnie (Brown) and Wycliff P. McGaughey, DDS. He married Rowena McKinley on June 4, 1945, in Hamilton. He attended University of the South in Swanee, Tenn., for two years and then joined the Army Air Corps and graduated from Fort Stockton, Calif., with the class of 41-G. He served overseas in North Africa flying a C-47 with the 62nd Troop Carrier, pulling gliders and dropping paratroopers. Among his many heroic deeds was his participation in the invasion of Sicily. Brown McGaughey retired heavily decorated from the Air Force Reserves as a lieutenant colonel.
Following the war he returned to college and graduated from Texas A&M; with a degree in animal husbandry. He was employed as an assistant county agent of Denton County and then became a full-time farmer in Lavon. Mr. MGaughey was employed by the General Adjustment Bureau in 1954 and retired with GAB in 1985. He moved to Wichita Falls in 1993 and became a full-time rancher.
Mr. McGaughey was a member of the Shriners, and was an active member of University United Methodist Church and joined friends of his Sunday school class in worship and anticipated his weekly Thursday morning Men's Bible Study.
Mr. McGaughey was preceded in death by his brother, Wycliff McGaughey.
He is survived by his wife of 64 years; three children, Shannon Baade and husband Duane of Lewisville, Elizabeth Payne of Montgomery, Texas, and Robert McGaughey Jr. and wife Sheila of Wichita Falls; six grandchildren, April Lyle, Wendy Tinney, Bryan Payne, Travis McGaughey, Jayson McGaughey, Doug Wimberley; and six great-grandchildren with two more on the way.
Honorary pallbearers are grandsons Travis McGaughey, Jayson McGaughey, Bryan Payne, and great-grandsons Matthew Lyle, Scott Lyle, and Todd Lyle. The family requests memorial contributions be made to University United Methodist Church or Hospice of Wichita Falls.

Several oil millionaires have supported mainly the fine arts and literature: Everette Lee DeGolyer of Dallas was active in petroleum exploration and production and in technological development, largely through Amerada, Texas Instruments and Texas Eastern Transmission. He and his wife supported the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and other Dallas-area musical groups. DeGolyer was also a collector of rare books; he donated 89,000 volumes of his personal collection to university libraries. He was one of the main financial backers of Texas Country Day School in Dallas, which became St. Mark's School of Texas. In 1942, DeGolyer rescued the Saturday Review, the greatly respected national literary magazine, from a serious financial crisis. DeGolyer had become friends with Norman Cousins, who was named editor at the height of the crisis. DeGolyer became publisher and subsidized the magazine until it regained its economic feet. 

  J. Henry Doscher, 50 year member of Sons of the Republic of Texas
Subchaser in the South Pacific: A Saga of the USS SC-761 During World War II
Jurgen Henry Doscher, Jr., was commissioned an ensign in the navy in 1942 and assigned as executive officer aboard the USS SC-761 in January 1943. Soon after arriving in the Solomon Islands, he became the commanding officer of the subchaser and led it through the tough campaigns in the southwest Pacific. Following the war he became a successful lawyer and retired in 1985.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Jack Ruby's Money Man

 If you believe, as I do, that all research is really about following the money, it seems quite significant that behind most of Jack Ruby's business enterprises in Dallas was another man whose family were Russian Jewish emigrants who arrived in New York in about 1912. Ralph Paul, son of a fruit peddler in New York City, arrived in Dallas in about 1947 and was always there with money whenever Jack needed it.

Jack Ruby's Personal Lender, Ralph Paul

RALPH PAUL, also known as Raphael Paul, which he advised is his true name, was a white male, said be was born at Kiev,  Russia, December 17, 1899. He attended Public School #109, New York City. Owner, Bull Pen, Arlington, Texas, being sole owner since 1/1/63, and president of the Texas Corp., which owns this drive-in restaurant.

He [Ralph Paul] was a former partner with CHRIS SEYOS [sic] in the Miramar Drive-In, located 1922 Ft. Worth Avenue, Dallas, from April, 1954 to February, 1956, at which time be sold out to CHRIS SEMOS for $15,000 and on which transaction SEMOS still owes him $3,500. Prior to the above business connection, he had owned the Blue Bonnet Bar, located in the Blue Bonnet Hotel, Dallas, being so engaged from November, 1948 to September, 1953, at which time he sold this business to JOE BONDS for $3,000, which amount was never paid by BONDS. They had a verbal agreement. Prior to that, PAUL was part-owner of the Sky Club, located on West Commerce Street, Dallas, being so employed between January 1948 until May l948.
RALPH PAUL said he had come to Dallas on December 27, 1947 from New York City, at which place he was owner of Ralph's Fruit Exchange, 161st Street, between Walton and Girard Streets, Bronx, New York . He was there twenty years. From 1919 to 1927, he was in partnership with his father in Paul's Fruit Exchange, 159th Street, off Amsterdam Avenue in New York City. Prior to 1919, he had worked for his father, SAMUEL PAUL in the retail fruit business in New York City at the above address ....

His father, SAMUEL PAUL, died in 1945. His mother, TILLIE [Loby?] PAUL, resides at 2265 Sedgwick, New York City, telephone Cy 5-1623. His brothers are DAVID PAUL, address unknown but living in the Bronx and operating a parking lot on Brook or Brooking Avenue, and LOUIS PAUL, whose address is unknown but who is employed as a salesman of women's belts. LOUIS formerly operated the Pleasant Finance Co., Inc., 25 Main Street, Lodi, New Jersey, New Jersey license 857. His sister is LEE BERRY, 2565 Sedgwick; her husband is deceased . His aunts are "BUNNY" (LNU) and ETI L. PAUL, widow of RAFAEL PAUL, a paternal uncle. He has a cousin, MACK PAUL, address unknown, employed as a clerk in a grocery store in the Bronx, New York .

Ralph Paul and Chris Semos
The Bull Pen Drive-In Restaurant located at 1936 East Abram, Arlington, Texas, was mentioned in Contract on America: The Mafia Murder of President John F. Kennedy by David E. Scheim. Chris Tom Semos operated a restaurant at 605 Fort Worth Avenue in Dallas, and was mentioned by Dallas MCA (Music Corp. of America) official Howard McElroy, who was contacted by the FBI a week following Kennedy's assassination. Since the Dallas MCA office closed in 1962, the FBI located McElmore (address given as 9033 Wilshire Boulevard Beverly Hills Calif.) in Las Vegas at the Desert Inn. He told them Ralph Paul could be reach through Chris Semos.

Tom Semos & Co. owned the Semos Coffee Shop & Cafe in the Jefferson Hotel (built by Carl Mangold, the "Man Who Visioned Oak Cliff") at 312 S. Houston between Jackson and Wood Streets, just a block or so from Dealey Plaza in which his father Victor H. Semos was a partner. Victor also sold coffee wholesale at 555 W. Commerce. Tom had returned from Europe in 1928 with his Greek bride, Catina, who a year later gave birth to a son, Chris Tom, the man named in the Warren Commission records, whose father, Tom Semos, died in May 1963, leaving Chris Tom the coffee shop and a drive-in restaurant on Fort Worth Avenue. He would later own a Greek restaurant as well.

He had grown up in an exclusive neighborhood at 3114 Cornell Ave. and went to Highland Park High School, so it's easy to see why he would not have wanted people to know he was in any way associated with the likes of Jack Ruby. At the time the FBI interviewed Semos, his address was another exclusive area of Dallas at 1630 Cedar Hill  (north Oak Cliff), and he owned a restaurant at 605 Fort Worth Avenue. He s
aid he knew Jack Ruby through the Sky Club, which was near his restaurant.
OAK CLIFF WILL SEEK LIQUOR SALE
DALLAS — (AP) Oak Cliff wets voted last night to seek a vote during the November general elections on the sale of alcoholic beverages in the dry Oak Cliff section of Dallas. The area went dry in 1956 prohibition vote. Attorney. Art Clifton told about 130 persons at the Sky Club that Oak Cliff was losing $200,000 a month in sales to residents who cross the Trinity River to Dallas to buy alcoholic beverages and other merchandise. The group named restaurant operator Chris Semos to head a committee to raise the $20,000 to $30,000 Clifton said was needed to put over the campaign. More than 9,500 signatures would be needed on petitions for the Dallas County commissioners court to call the election. (August 1960 ).
Semos had very low regard for Ruby, as he revealed to the FBI in this excerpt from a somewhat disingenuous 1964 interrogation:



A card showing he [Ralph Paul] was a member of the Estacado Investment Association, Dallas, which he claimed was a group of about 25 persons who were banded together for the purpose of making investments in the stock market. He was unable to furnish any definite address or names of any of the members except that of a Mr. Smith, who be said was employed as a salesman by the Lone Star Wholesale Grocery, Dallas.

In the billfold was found a duplicate copy showing the issuance of cashiers check #61186 dated February 13, 1963, by First National Bank in Arlington, Arlington, Texas, showing purchaser to be RALPH PAUL, the check being payable to S&R, Inc., in amount 2,200. PAUL identified S&R, Inc. as the Carousel Club, 1312-1/2 Commerce Street, Dallas. He stated that in addition to the above amount loaned to S&R, Inc., he has invested approximately $3,000, owning 50 percent of the stock in the Carousel Club, which is operated by S&R, Inc., a Texas corporation in which JACK RUBY gave to him 50 percent of the club stock in exchange for the approximately $8,200 which PAUL has invested. He declined any knowledge of names of incorporators of S&R, Inc....

RALPH PAUL stated he first became acquainted with JACK RUBY, also known to him as JACK RUBENSTEIN, in 1948 at Dallas, Texas and recounted the following manner in which they first became acquainted. RUBY had introduced himself to PAUL at the Mercantile National Bank, where he, PAUL, was then doing business. This he said was a chance meeting, at which time RUBY asked "Are you connected with the Sky Club" and when PAUL told him he was, RUBY asked if he could come out to see the show and PAUL extended the invitation. RUBY accepted this invitation, saw the show at the Sky Club, and then RUBY invited PAUL to see his show at the Silver Spur night club which was being operated by RUBY.
PAUL accepted this invitation.

Their relationship afterwards continued on a personal basis, each seeing the other often. RUBY sold the Silver Spur in 1956 and continued to operate the Vegas Club, Dallas, and is still owner of that night spot. About 1959 or 1960, JACK RUBY opened the Carousel Club, being a partner with JOE SLATON, a bar business owner in Dallas. SLATON and RUBY had been friends, however in the operation of the Carousel Club business they had disagreed and following this falling out, RUBY came to him (PAUL) and requested a loan of $1,000 with which to carry on the business of the Carousel Club. This was about 1960 or 1961. Since that time, RUBY has continued to ask for loans which were granted by PAUL without security, no note or any evidence of this indebtedness to him, except cancelled checks reflecting the amount of loans made. JACK RUBY has never repaid any money loaned to him and/or the Carousel Club.

PAUL stated he believes JACK RUBY transacts his business with the Bank of Commerce, Dallas, Texas [it was located at Elm and Poydras, not far from Ben Gold's Nardis of Dallas]. RALPH PAUL considers himself as the closest friend of JACK RUBY. Any acquaintances or friends of JACK RUBY he could not recall, advising the man had no close associates or friends except possibly the two following persons who have worked for RUBY: WALLY SYESTON and EARL NORMAN, both comics....

Ralph Paul, Bert Bowman and Austin Cook
Census records show that, before he came to Dallas, the Paul family lived on East 100th Street in Manhattan, and his father peddled his fruit out of a wagon. When he died in 1975, Paul's residence was 2614 Plaza Street in Arlington, but at the time of the JFK assassination in 1963, he was living in the basement of the home of the Bert Bowman family on Copeland Road in Dallas. Bowman and Austin Cook had originally started the Bull Pen drive-in on W. Illinois in 1950 and ran it under that name until 1958. When Bowman dissolved the partnership, he acquired the name as one of the assets of the business and moved it to 1936 East Abram, Arlington, Texas, located a few blocks south of the baseball stadium where George W. Bush's Texas Rangers team later played. Some eight to ten years before the Warren Commission hearings, Bowman had sold this drive-in to Ralph Paul, according to Mrs. Bowman's statement cited at page 42 in HSCA Report, Volume XII.

Strangely enough, the original Bull Pen location at 2321 West Illinois in Dallas (name changed to Austin's Barbecue  in 1958) employed J.D. Tippit two nights a week as a security guard up until his murder in November 1963. Tippit reputedly worked many security jobs. It's difficult to know when he had time to sleep or visit his family.  

 J.D. Tippit's Security Work and the Top 10 Record Shop
According to Bill Drenas' article "J.D. Tippit and the Top Ten Record Shop" in the Dealey Plaza Echo (Part I) Officer Tippit often came into the record shop at 338 W. Jefferson Blvd. while he was on duty to use the telephone. A Tip Top employee said Tippit made a call from there less than ten minutes before he was killed on November 22, 1963, but got no answer after dialing. He then rushed outside to his car and sped away across Jefferson going north on Bishop, shortly before the shooting occurred at about 1:106 p.m. Besides his work at Austin Cook's drive-in restaurant, Tippit also had a security/bouncer job at Ship's Grill at 2100 Fort Worth Avenue and another at the Theater Lounge (a strip joint owned by Barney Weinstein) at 1326 Jackson Street.

In Part II, Drenas states that Tippit had been a policeman for 11 years, patrolling various districts in the Oak Cliff area, and he changes the address of Ship's Grill (a private club) to 2138 Fort Worth Avenue, and he says "on Sunday afternoons J D Tippit worked security as a deterrent to trouble at the Stevens Park Theater, located at the next block at 2007 Fort Worth Avenue." In attempting to confirm earlier reports, Drenas associate, Earl Golz interviewed Bill Anglin, a Tippit colleague, whom he quoted to the effect that Tippit could not have worked at the Theater Lounge because the police code of conduct forbade officers to work off-duty at any location where alcohol was served; in addition he considered himself to be a good enough friend to Tippit to have bee told by him if he worked there. This story was also confirmed by Detective Morris Brumley. Nevertheless, these two sources were contradicted by the Top Ten employee, Cortinas and another unnamed source.

As for Austin's Barbecue, Tippit's employment there was corroborated by numerous sources, none of whom indicated whether or not alcohol was served there, and a person named W.R. 'Dub' Stark who thought Tippit was having an affair with an employee at the barbecue restaurant. Stark, who was owner of the Top Ten Record Shop also said he had seen Lee Oswald with Marina and the children shopping there, and he thought that Oswald and Tippit knew each other. Stark sold the record shop in 1965.


In Part III of the series on the Top Ten Record Shop, Drenas related his discussion with Dub Stark's niece, Wanda Barnard, who told him Stark had bought the shop in the early 50's. When he sold it in 1965, he opened the W. R. Stark Garden Center next door at 336 W. Jefferson. Eventually, he took the record shop back and resold it in the early 1980's. Wanda then relating various stories she had heard from Stark, in order to substantiate what information Stark had relayed to Drenas and Golz.