Lee Oswald and the Peace Movement

Oswald: Peace Activist in Pennsylvania?

By William Weston

Photo Courtesy of  Friends Journal

About two weeks after the assassination of President Kennedy, a 47-year-old minister named Irwin Tucker entered the police station in Scranton, Pennsylvania and spoke with Anthony Batsavage, the Superintendent of Police. Tucker had just returned from a three-week tour of missionary duty among the Indians in Ontario, Canada. He said that he had been staying at the home of a relative in New Liskeard, when he had heard about the shooting in Dallas. That same night he was watching the evening news for further details, when he saw a picture of the accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. Tucker immediately recognized that face. He was certain that he had seen this man about five months previously in downtown Scranton with a group of peace demonstrators. [1]

The demonstration was located on a street corner of Courthouse Square. Tucker had been listening to the demonstrators for a considerable period of time, because he was interested in hearing their views. Oswald was among this group passing out leaflets. He remembered him in particular, for he got into a heated discussion with him. As he would later put it, the young man kept "running down our country" and he was arguing that "President Kennedy was not doing right by Cuba." Tucker lost his patience with this unpatriotic tirade and told the young man that if liked Castro's Cuba so much, he ought to move over there.

When a Scranton reporter heard about this story, he went to Batsavage to ask for his opinion regarding the clergyman's credibility. The superintendent said that he had personally known Tucker for many years and that he regarded him as "a serious, reputable man."

The Scranton peace demonstrations that had taken place from July 22 through July 25, 1963 consisted mostly of young people, about forty in number. They carried signs, which bore the peace symbol - an upside-down broken cross within a circle - and messages such as "Your conscience demands it - REFUSE to serve in the ARMED FORCES." Other signs reflected a concern for the problem of Cuba: "Soviet Troops and U.S. Marines: Leave Cuba" and "Demand Freedom to Visit Cuba."

The rally on Monday evening began with folk singing and then proceeded into speeches. A crowd of about 200 to 300 people came out to listen to them. As the rally went on, hecklers in the audience became more hostile and disruptive. Some of the hecklers protested that the demonstrators were desecrating the memory of "our boys" who have died in Vietnam and if they don't love America they should leave it. The intensity of the hostility would have turned ugly had not the police moved in to break up the demonstration. [2] It was a scene that would become a familiar sight on television newscasts during the Johnson and Nixon Administrations.

The First Hippie

The peace demonstrators in Scranton were the forerunners of the "hippie" movement ©- a phenomenon that would later become a prominent feature of the American cultural landscape. It is interesting to note that Oswald's friend, George de Mohrenschildt, once made the statement that Oswald was ahead of his time and that if the course of events had been different, he would have been among the first hippies. [3] While the image of Oswald as a longhaired, pot-smoking flower child may seem incongruous, I believe de Mohrenschildt was right. Oswald would indeed have been among them, but not as a true believer. As his close ties to such right wing fanatics as Guy Banister and David Ferrie indicate, he would have been an informant or an agent provocateur. His leftist political activity was really a masquerade to subvert the cohesion and integrity of the organizations he claimed to be serving.

J.H.C.

The story of his presence at a peace rally in Scranton becomes even more interesting in light of another report that he was meeting with members of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) at another peace rally in Philadelphia. Someone who only identified himself as "J.H.C." had dropped off a postcard at radio station WPEN in Philadelphia shortly after the assassination and had addressed it to talk show host Red Benson. As indicated below, the hand-written message contained several errors in punctuation and spelling.

Why, has no one checked out this. Lee Oswald [underscored by the writer] was at our meeting this summer here at Rittenhouse Sq. Check this by Fairmont guards who know about out F.P.T.C meeting. They saw Lee J.H.C.

 

In an envelope postmarked "Philadelphia, November 26, 1963" and addressed to "Special Att. Dis. Atty HENRY WADE, Dallas, Tex." the following letter was enclosed:

Phila. Pa.
Mr. Wade:
Will this help you?
Read it:
This summer, we had a meeting of "Fair Play" at Rittenhouse sq. this city. (Check by the guards of Fairmont park. they will recall such.
Lee was, there with us. I have pictures of this meeting to prove such. Lee needed some money, and he got some from a night club party, called "Sparky in Dallas, and so help us, if Ruby says he did not know us, he lies.
A copy of this is being given Sec. Service, as we have photos to prove such Lee. was here this summer and I know Ruby enough to get [missing copy here] Mr Red Benson WPEN, can tell you about Fair play meeting, at park this summer.

Apparently this letter arrived anonymously, yet it must have been written by the same person who wrote the postcard to the Philadelphia radio station. To determine the identity of J.H.C., the FBI checked with the producer of the Red Benson Show. He said that neither he nor Benson knew who J.H.C. was. Of the documents that I could find, there is no mention of whether or not the FBI had been successful in locating J.H.C. Neither do these documents reveal whether or not Benson, the producer, or the Fairmont guards were questioned about what they knew concerning Oswald's presence at a pro-Castro meeting in Rittenhouse Square. One document however does record a statement by the inspector of the Fairmont guards who said that, according to their records,

"the only affair held in Rittenhouse Square that could in any way pertain to Cuba, the Cuban situation, or the Fair Play for Cuba Committee was a demonstration on August 15, 1963 put on by the Quebec-Washington-Guantanamo Walk for Peace." [4] 

This was the same group of peace demonstrators that was in Scranton a few weeks before.

From Canada to Cuba

Both rallies in Scranton and Philadelphia were part of a grand project of a pacifist organization called the Committee for Non-Violent Action (CNVA). The man in charge of CNVA was A.J. Muste, a renowned pacifist, whose ideals of non-violent civil disobedience profoundly influenced such civil rights leaders as Martin Luther King and CORE leader, Bayard Rustin. [5] 

A.J. Muste worked within the labor movement, infiltrated by agents provocateurs, since at least 1929.

 In 1928 a faction within the American Federation of Labor had put the kibosh on a British labor speaker invited by Muste, with approval from AFL president William Green, to address his students at Brookwood.  In March 1921 Muste had been executive secretary of the Amalgamated Textile Workers of America at the time he was selected to head the new college, set up by the labor movement:

"Katonah, N. Y.—Labor leaders and
educationalists who state they are for
a new social order met here today in
Brookwood school, behind closed
doors to plan the founding of the 'first
resident workers' college in America.

As the NEA Service reported on labor activities that summer with the rise of two new American labor movements which emerged during the summer: "One is the Conference for Progressive Labor Action and the other is the Trade Union Unity League." Just weeks prior to the stock market crash in  October, Dutcher opined in his syndicated article:

However, one may view the chances of success of any new labor movement led by Foster, the Communist, the work of the Conference for Progressive Labor Action has been attracting widespread and thoughtful interest. This group stands somewhere between labor's left wing and the right wing A. F. of L. Its chairman is A. J. Muste, head of the Brookwood Labor College, who has announced sweeping plans to fight the "new capitalism." The C.P.L.A. hopes that bold, energetic organization work will win over millions of workers to trade unionism and it looks forward to a new solidarity and idealism among the labor class. Speakers at its recent four-day session at Brookwood outlined their aims along with their plaint against the A. F. of L. It was charged that the southern textile field, the best testing place for militant labor action, had found the A. F. of L. completely unprepared to deal with its challenge. ...Muste sees a definite trend toward progressive action in the ranks of labor. "No progress has been made in organizing basic industries," he says. "In politics, due to failure to organize a Labor Party, the unions are without influence.

Intro by W.Z. Foster

Sees Labor Militant Again

"But we have reached a turning point. The post-war period marked by brutal attacks upon labor by open shoppers, subtle undermining of organized labor by company union and welfare schemes, and in the ranks of organised labor itself by internal conflict, stagnation, retreat and defeatism is being liquidated. A new period which will be marked by a revival of militant progressivism and courage has begun.

"Among the workers of America there is again evident a spirit of revolt and militancy, a dissatisfaction with the share of prosperity which they are getting, with the strain of speed-up systems, with the drawing of the deadline against workers at 40 years of age or earlier and the accompanying burning up of the youth of the nation in our mechanized industries, with lack of insurance against the risks of old age, unemployment and sickness—dissatisfaction which is beginning to express itself again in action and not mere grumbling under the breath."

William Z. Foster (a communist) had been secretary of the Trade Union Educational League, at 156 West Washington street in Chicago, and had called for a general labor strike in 1927.

To dramatize the need to end the Cold War by unilateral nuclear disarmament and also to reduce tensions with Cuba, the CNVA had conceived the idea of delivering its message via a transcontinental walking tour from Canada to Cuba. The Quebec-Washington-Guantanamo Walk for Peace was strictly a long-distance foot march, accompanied only by a pickup truck to carry sleeping bags, food, water and supplies. It would begin in the city of Quebec and was expected to reach Miami, Florida in seven months. From Miami, a boat would be taken to Havana, Cuba - either with or without the permission of the United States. From Havana they would walk 700 miles to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo, where they would hold their final demonstration, calling for the closure of the base. Covering an average of 15 miles a day, they would stop at various towns or cities along the way, where they would give speeches or pass out leaflets. Any local people sympathetic to their cause would be invited to join the walk for as far as they wanted. Any organizations, which had similar goals (such as the FPCC), were invited to participate. [6]

The project opened with a brief public meeting in a central plaza in historic Quebec City on May 26. By June 9 they were in Montreal, where they spent several days doing demonstrations. It was here that the walkers had Oswald among them for the first time. According to a lead provided to the FBI by an attorney in Windsor, Ontario, Oswald participated in a "ban-the-bomb" protest in Montreal. [7] Another citizen in Seattle said that Oswald was in Montreal with the head of the FPCC. [8] There is also a March 26, 1964 report of a letter from the senior customs representative in Montreal in which it was stated, "several persons had contacted his office and stated that Lee Oswald had been seen distributing pamphlets entitled `Fair Play for Cuba,' on St. Jacques and McGill Streets in Montreal during the summer of 1963." [9]

In an attempt to counter the customs official's letter regarding the Oswald sightings in Montreal, an April 8, 1964 letter was written to the Warren Commission from J. Edgar Hoover, which said: "For your information, the records of the William Reily and Company, Incorporated, New Orleans, Louisiana, reflect that Oswald was on the job Monday through Friday of the week June 3 through 7, 1963, and that he was also on the job all of the following week, June 10 through 14, 1963." As I have pointed out in another article last year, Oswald's attendance records at the coffee company were falsified to conceal the fact that he hardly ever came to work. [10] The job was really a cover to hide his wide-ranging political activities.

After the peace walkers left Montreal, they reached the border of the United States by the latter part of June. In the next two months they crossed the states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. By the end of August they were in Washington, D.C. where they participated in the massive civil rights demonstration led by Martin Luther King. This event marked a turning point for the peace walkers, for after their departure from the capitol, their focus shifted from issues of foreign policy to that of racial equality. As they advanced deeper into the southern states, their racially integrated ranks aroused an increasing antagonism among deeply committed segregationists. While passing through Georgia, their progress was interrupted in three towns, where they were put in jail for violating segregation laws. They were frequently insulted, harassed, or pelted with debris.

When they finally reached Miami, they spent several months besieging a State Department office in the city, trying to get permission to go to Cuba. When all legal avenues were finally exhausted, six of the remaining walkers got into a powerboat on October 27, 1964 and started for Havana. They were stopped by the U.S. Coast Guard, which seized their boat and kept it impounded. This defeat put an end to the peace walkers' efforts to get to Cuba.

From start to finish the Quebec to Guantanamo Walk for Peace was organized and led by CNVA coordinator, Bradford J. Lyttle. Two years earlier he had led an even more ambitious Walk for Peace that began in San Francisco on December 20, 1960 and finished up in Moscow on October 3, 1961. Strangely enough, it was while the peace walkers were going through Russia, that they might have been seen by Lee Harvey Oswald, who was living in Minsk at the time. It would therefore be relevant to go into some detail regarding the first Walk for Peace. [11]

In 1966 both Muste and Lyttle were present in Saigon at a protest rally against the war.

The First Walk for Peace

A group of about twenty walkers, more or less, began its walk south towards the city of Los Angeles. There they heard an address by Nobel Prize laureate Linus Pauling, who was also a leader in the peace movement. From Los Angeles, they walked through thirteen states, stopping at towns, cities or military bases to hold demonstrations. When they reached Washington, DC a delegation of the peace walkers was granted a 45-minute interview with White House political advisor, Arthur J. Schlesinger. From Washington, they went to New York City, where they took a plane flight to England. After joining with British peace organizations in a big nuclear disarmament rally in London's Trafalgar Square, they took a boat to Belgium (France having denied them entry).

Their march across the European continent advanced unchecked into the Iron Curtain countries. The effect of these peace walkers upon the Communist-controlled populace must have been electrifying. It marked the first time that anyone was allowed to carry placards and distribute leaflets urging young men to resist the draft or demanding that the Soviet Union stop the development of nuclear weapons. Whenever they stopped in a town to hold a rally, as many as 1000 to 1500 people would come out to welcome them.

On September 22, 1961 they arrived in the city of Minsk. In the center of the city they saw one of the few monuments to Josef Stalin remaining in the Soviet Union. The huge, 10-ton, bronze statue was a city landmark and it was near the Oswalds' apartment building. Marina used to pass by this statue while riding on a bus to work. One of the peace walkers later wrote down the following words regarding his impression of Minsk:

The streets were filled with serious, silent, humbly friendly, almost shy people . . . Most people reacted with noncommittal fascination and amazement. But there was, as in every other country, every other variety of reaction. Some people grasped our hands and shook them heartily, or beamed admiration. Others refused leaflets. . . . A few people walked along with us. Quite a few officials who were with us seemed apprehensive that the crowd might grow to unmanageable proportions, and they kept things circulating, according to reports. Nevertheless, there were large numbers all along our route through the broad streets and past the massive, classic buildings . . . [12]

That same evening, they held a meeting at the Friendship House. A Newsweek reporter from Moscow was also in attendance and the following is an excerpt from his report:

Jerry Lehman of Mokena, Ill., speaking through an interpreter, told an audience of boisterous Russians: "We hope you'll say to your leaders what we said to ours -- that no government which urges development of nuclear weapons and tests them is sane." This struck the Russians as funny and they roared with laughter. But after Lyttle had followed Lehman on the speaker's stand there was a different reaction. "I went to jail," Lyttle said, "because I refused to serve in the U.S. Army. I have protested against American rockets aimed at your cities and families. There are Soviet rockets aimed at my city and my family. Are you demonstrating against that?" There were murmurs in the crowd and a dark-haired girl shook her head. Obviously she had not heard anyone publicly ask that question in quite that way before. [13]

It is hard to believe that Lee and Marina were indifferent to this intrepid band of American pacifists, especially since America was so much on their minds at this time. Lee was making repeated visits to bureaucratic agencies in order to speed up the process of getting exit visas to return to the United States. His mother was sending copies of Time magazine, which he pored over eagerly. Yet despite the momentousness of the arrival of the peace walkers, they receive no mention in any of the Oswald sources. It is not as if this period of time is unrecorded. In a letter to the American Embassy dated October 4, 1961, Oswald said that his wife Marina had been hospitalized for a five-day period beginning September 22. This was the same day the peace walkers came into Minsk. In the letter, Oswald demanded that the Embassy launch an official inquiry, for he claimed that Marina's hospitalization was due to a nervous condition, resulting from intimidation by local authorities, who were trying to get her to withdraw her application for an exit visa.

The statements in the above mentioned letter were later contradicted by Marina when she denied to the Warren Commission that she had ever been hospitalized in 1961. This denial was reversed in Priscilla MacMillan's book, Marina and Lee, in which Marina said that she remembered going to the hospital "around September 20." It was not the result of intimidation, but rather she had been riding a bus to work and she had succumbed to the exhaust fumes. [14] These conflicting statements in combination with the complete silence regarding the peace walkers themselves raise questions marks about the importance of this episode in the lives of the Oswalds. The changing stories, especially in light of Priscilla McMillan's and the peace walkers presence, need to be explained.

After spending a few days in the vicinity of Minsk, the peace walkers resumed their march on Moscow. On October 3, they stumbled footsore and utterly exhausted into Red Square, where an enthusiastic crowd awaited them. It was an extraordinary triumph. 3900 miles across the United States and 1750 miles across the continent of Europe. In Russia alone, over 80,000 leaflets were distributed. It could hardly have been possible without the shuttle diplomacy efforts of A.J. Muste, who regularly performed miracles in shepherding the walkers past bureaucratic roadblocks.

In the ensuing years of the 1960's Muste continued to use his energy and talents in the cause of world peace. In February 1967, at the age of 82, he died a few days before he was to launch an anti-war campaign called the Spring Mobilization against the Vietnam War. This massive demonstration drew to the UN Plaza of New York over 300,000 people. On this occasion Martin Luther King gave an address denouncing American policy in Vietnam.

The official commemoration service of Muste's death was held at the Friends Meeting House in New York. Although Muste was technically a Presbyterian minister, his real spiritual home was among the Quakers. The Quakers were the most active supporters of Muste's CNVA. To those participating in the peace walks, they provided food, lodging, assistance, publicity, and meeting places. [15]

Ruth Paine

The Quaker Connections

Muste's ties to the Quaker church leads us to consider the Quaker connections of one of the most visible figures to emerge from the events surrounding the JFK assassination. Ruth Paine told the Warren Commission that she first became interested in the Society of Friends in 1947. In 1955 she was a chairman of the Young Friends of North America Committee, a student exchange program between the Soviet Union and the United States. [16]

What gives the connection even more weight is the fact that Wesley Liebeler asked Ruth's non-Quaker husband Michael a startling series of questions about the walk during the Warren Commission hearings. The queries reveal that Liebeler and the Commission knew and were interested in the march, its organizers, and the Quaker connection.

Mr. Liebeler: Are you acquainted with an organization known as the Friends Peace Committee?
Mr. Paine: It is a familiar name. I guess not, though. I don't think I have been to a meeting of theirs.
Mr. Liebeler: Do you know if it is connected in any way with the Young Friends Committee of North America?
Mr. Paine: I take it to be a Friend, you know, a Quaker committee, but I believe it is connected.
Mr. Liebeler: Do you know a gentleman by the name of Dennis Jamieson, who I believe is active in the Friends Peace Committee? Mr. Paine: I don't think so.
Mr. Liebeler: Or George Lakey.
Mr. Paine: For particle purposes, no. The names seem a little familiar but I can't place them.
Mr. Liebeler: Do you have any recollection of the connection in which it is familiar to you?
Mr. Paine: No.
Mr. Liebeler: Are you familiar with the Committee for Non-Violent Action?
Mr. Paine: Many of these things sound familiar. I don't - I really am saying no. [17]

In typical double-talk fashion, Michael Paine avoided giving straight yes or no answers to Liebeler's questions. Had Liebeler addressed these same questions to Ruth, he might have gotten more interesting responses. Yet as far as the public record is concerned, she was never asked.

Nevertheless, Michael's admission of a connection between the Young Friends of North America Committee and the Friends Peace Committee is sufficient ground for putting Ruth in association with those who were actively involved in the Walk for Peace. The George Lakey mentioned above was the executive secretary of the Friends Peace Committee and he served as the principal host for the peace walkers during their stay in Philadelphia. [18] The Dennis Jamieson mentioned above was the chairman of the Friends Peace Committee and he served as chief publicist for the march as it went through Pennsylvania. In a Scranton news photo of a group of peace walkers on the steps of the YMCA, he could be seen next to Bradford Lyttle, holding a sign that read "Quebec-Washington-Guantanamo Walk for Peace." [19]

It is quite possible that Ruth Paine had joined with her Quaker friends to give assistance to the peace walkers. During her cross-country summer vacation trip with her two children, her wide-ranging itinerary landed her near Philadelphia precisely two days before the peace walkers got there. [20] She was visiting Michael's mother and stepfather, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Young, who lived in Paoli, a town about 30 miles west of Philadelphia. During her month long stay in Paoli, she had visited with her Quaker friends in Philadelphia. Whether or not she got involved in Walk for Peace meetings during these visits, she did not say. [21]

A second instance of an opportunity to join in peace walk activities occurred in Washington, DC during the big civil rights demonstration. Ruth Paine had come to the capitol for a few days to visit her sister and also a family known as the Houghtons. According to the Houghtons, she had actually attended the demonstration during her stay in Washington. [22] Once again Ruth's itinerary had crossed paths with the peace walkers' route of march.

Since Ruth considered herself a pacifist, it would be natural to assume that she would be among those professing sympathy for the peace walkers. Certainly there would be no reason for her to reject an invitation to join them for the peace rally at Rittenhouse Square on August 15 or the Washington civil rights rally on August 28.

If Ruth Paine found reason enough to be attracted to the peace walkers because of their activism in promoting world peace, her friend Lee Harvey Oswald would have been drawn to them for the same reason. He was an advocate of peaceful coexistence between the United States and the Soviet Union and he fully approved of President Kennedy's efforts to bring peace to the world and to end the cold war. "If he succeeds," he once said to his friend George de Mohrenschildt, "he will be the greatest president in the history of this country." [23]

Another reason why he would have been interested in the Walk for Peace was its emphasis on improving relations between Cuba and the United States. He certainly would have approved of their positions regarding American policy toward Cuba. As stated in a Philadelphia newspaper, "The peace walkers ask the U.S. to give up an intention to support an invasion of Cuba, stop reconnaissance flights over the island, end travel and trade restrictions, guarantee economic and technical assistance to Cuba through the UN." It is quite probable that Oswald would not even have objected to the demands directed toward Cuba. "They ask Cuba for withdrawal of foreign military personnel and weapons, renounce all intention of military intervention in other nation's affairs, end restrictions on the political freedom of Cubans, encourage its people to visit the U.S." [24]

A third reason why he would have been sympathetic to the peace walkers is their strong stand against racial injustice. According to de Mohrenschildt, Oswald said "It hurts me that the blacks do not have the same privileges and rights as white Americans." He admired Kennedy's efforts to end segregation and he also "greatly admired Dr. Martin Luther King and agreed with his program . . . he frequently talked of Dr. King with a real reverence." [25]

Overshadowing these noble sentiments on world peace and racial equality is the reference to Jack Ruby in J.H.C.'s letter to Henry Wade. What is the true nature of the association between the salacious night club owner and the virtuous political activist? It is common knowledge that Ruby's friends in the criminal underworld hated Castro for closing down the Havana gambling casinos. It is also known that Ruby served as the paymaster for anti-Castro operations. Why then would Oswald solicit money from Ruby?

The letter from J.H.C. strips off the leftist masquerade and exposes Oswald's true intentions. The man who supposedly grieved over racial inequalities was the same one who continued to have a working association with such fanatical segregationists as Guy Banister. The man who professed sympathy for Castro was the same one who stamped on his leaflets the address of an anti-Castro center, 544 Camp Street. And finally, the man who said that he admired President Kennedy for his efforts to bring peace to the world and to end racial segregation was the same man who willingly served as the lynchpin in a conspiracy that ended the President's life.

If Oswald's professed ideology turned out to be a sham, what does that tell us about the professed piety of the Quaker woman who sheltered him and his family during the six critical weeks prior to the assassination? Was Ruth Paine really just a simple housewife, who had no inkling of the unsavory characters that Oswald had been spending a lot of his time with? Are there hidden motives behind the amiable Quaker facade? In a highly important article for Probe, authors Carol Hewett, Steve Jones, and Barbara LaMonica reveal how Ruth Paine has been suspected of being a government informant by her peers in the peace movement. [26] It is relevant to mention at this point that Sylvia Hoke, the sister whom she stayed with during the 1963 Washington civil rights demonstration, was an employee of the CIA - an agency that has no scruples in violating the civil rights of public and private citizens. It is also noteworthy to mention that the tax returns of Ruth and Michael Paine still remain closely guarded classified secrets.

The Quebec-Washington-Guantanamo Walk for Peace, as well as the predecessor that went to Moscow, are mostly forgotten in historical works dealing with the 1960's. They hardly rate even a footnote. Yet the power of this small band of peripatetic pacifists must have worried some major political interests enough to bring upon them the full encumbrance of such undercover heavyweights as Lee Oswald, Jack Ruby, and Ruth Paine.

ENDNOTES

1. The Scranton Times, December 11 and 12, 1963. The second newspaper article mentions a local resident named Gloria Glickman who said that she had been among the peace walkers and she was sure that Oswald was not among them. But since the peace walkers were in Scranton for several days and since they sometimes split up into teams to protest at different warmaking industries around the city, it is quite possible that Glickman was not at the right place and time to see Oswald.

2. The Scranton Times, July 22, 23, 24, 25, 1963.

3. Dick Russell, The Man Who Knew Too Much (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1992), p. 277.

4. FBI report dated 12/5/63 of letter to Henry Wade in Dallas by SA James Bookhout and SA George W.H. Carlson; FBI report dated 12/4/63 of an interview with Theodore Reinhart, producer of the Red Benson Show in Philadelphia by SA Mason P. Smith; FBI report dated 12/3/63 of an interview with Inspector Philip Cella, Fairmont Park Guard, Philadelphia by SA Edward A. Smith. There is a difference of only a single day between Oswald's appearance in Philadelphia on August 15 and his appearance in New Orleans on August 16, where he was seen passing out FPCC leaflets in front of the International Trade Mart. To travel the 1225 miles between the two cities in one day could only have been accomplished by airplane.

5. Jo Ann Robinson, Abraham Went Out: A Biography of A.J. Muste (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981), p. 117

6. Robinson, Abraham Went Out, pp. 125-128, 185-186.

7. CD 45, p. 3.

8. CD389, 349.

9. CD 729.

10. See "Budreau's Music and Appliance Store" in the July 1996 issue of The Fourth Decade.

11. The most detailed account of this march is Bradford J. Lyttle's book You Come with Naked Hands: The Story of the San Francisco to Moscow Walk for Peace (Raymond, New Hampshire: Greenleaf Books, 1966).

12. Lyttle, You Come with Naked Hands, p. 196.

13. Newsweek, October 8, 1963.

14. Priscilla MacMillan, Marina and Lee (New York: Harper and Row, 1977), pp. 155-157, 592.

15. Robinson, Abraham Went Out, pp. 220-223.

16. WC Vol. III, pp. 133-135.

17. WC Vol. II, p. 388.

18. The Philadelphia Daily News, August 13, 1963.

19. The Scranton Times, July 22, 1963.

20. WC Vol. XVI, p. 280.

21. WC Vol. III, p. 3.

22. Information provided by researcher Steve Jones in a presentation at the COPA Conference, October 21, 1995.

23. George de Mohrenschildt, I Am a Patsy! an unpublished manuscript in HSCA Vol. XII, pp. 133, 147.

24. Philadelphia Daily News, August 13, 1963.

25. George de Mohrenschildt, I Am a Patsy! pp. 127, 146, 198.

26. "Ruth Paine: Social Activist or Contra Support Networker" by Carol Hewett, Barbara LaMonica and Steve Jones in the July-August 1996 issue of Probe.

Cached on August 11, 2011 at http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PHElA9ITc0wJ:educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php%3Fshowtopic%3D6548%26st%3D45+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=encrypted.google.com

Harold Weisberg and Alonzo "Lonnie" Hudkins

GRAND JURY PROCEEDINGS - SPECIAL INVESTIGATION APRIL 28, 1967

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....

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 BIB AND TUCKER KEPT BUSY

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."

HUNT, HAROLDSON LAFAYETTE (1889-1974). 

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.

John Stuart Hunt

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.

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.