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.