Excerpt from Manuscript by Richard Bartholomew

Possible Discovery of an Automobile Used In the JFK Conspiracy

Copyright © 1993 by Richard Bartholomew 

Institute of Latin American Resources

 ...According to assassination researcher Dick Russell:

In 1966-67, from residences in Haiti and Dallas, [George] de Mohrenschildt would correspond regularly with the Johnson White House. On file at the LBJ Memorial Library in Austin, Texas, the letters show high level interest in the baron's proposal for establishing an "Institute of Latin American Resources." Replied presidential assistant Arthur C. Perry: "I feel that the President will be interested in having your views in this regard and I shall be pleased to bring them to his attention at the earliest opportunity." ... A State Department memorandum of January 14, 1967, from executive secretary Benjamin H. Read to Walt W. Rostow notes: "The Department's reply to Mr. de Mohrenschildt should be considered a de minimus⁶² response to his letter of December 27 to the President. A lengthy file in the Office of Special Consular Services clearly indicates that de Mohrenschildt is an unstable and unreliable individual who would not hesitate to misuse or misrepresent even the slightest expression of interest."⁶³

Russell does not tell us what "The Department's reply to Mr. de Mohrenschildt" was. It was dated the day before the memo to Rostow, January 13, 1967, from State Department Deputy Assistant Administrator Milton Barall to de Mohrenschildt: "...the United States Agency for International Development would not have an interest in supporting the creation of such an institute in Texas."

Apart from the fact that the proposal was forwarded to the CIA-backed Agency for International Development, why would Rostow be bothered with a memo about this? Despite the first expression of interest, the reply had already been sent and was final in its rejection of de Mohrenschildt's proposal. It is as if Rostow or someone else was contemplating a continued interest in the proposal and had to be warned of potential consequences.

What is also of concern here is that de Mohrenschildt's letter of December 27 proposed placing the institute at Southwest Texas State College, Lyndon Johnson's alma mater. ILAS is just such an institute that was later created at the University of Texas at Austin, in the same complex as the LBJ library and across a breezeway from Harry Ransom's posh new office. And again, the belief that CIA personnel and programs exist there was voiced to [Dallas reporter] Earl Golz by John Stockwell in 1991. It is also worth noting that the golden age of collecting for UT's Latin American collection was during the reign of Harry Ransom. According to UT librarian and former Spanish student John Wheat, the Latin American collection was Ransom's favorite. Nettie Lee Benson, the collection's long-time head librarian, received major funding from and had direct access to Ransom at any time. And ILAS, as we have seen, very likely had financial support from C.B. Smith.

The close proximity to, and involvement in the creation and activities of ILAS of Rostow, de Mohrenschildt, Dulles, and Ransom, who were in just as close proximity to the CIA, is of further concern considering that the CIA had once been greatly angered by the head of Stanford's Institute of Hispanic American and Luso-Brazilian Studies. This institute was one of the first programs of inter-American studies in the U.S. It was started in 1944 by Professor Ronald Hilton, "a tough-minded liberal scholar."⁶⁴

In October 1960, Dr. Hilton, editor of his institute's prestigious journal, the Hispanic American Report, learned of the CIA's plans to invade Cuba from Guatemala's leading newspaper, La Hora. He published a report that the purpose of the CIA's Retalhuleu training camp was "common knowledge". Hilton's report inspired a November 19 article in The Nation calling the invasion plans a "dangerous and hare-brained project" urging "all U.S. news media" to check the story out. The Nation made it as easy as possible by sending information about the CIA's plans to AP, UPI, and all major news media in New York, including virtually flooding the Times with copies of the reports. On November 20, more than a week after receiving the advance notice, the Times buried a story on page 32 essentially calling these reports "a lot of lies." In their Sunday edition, after the U.S. broke off relations with Cuba in January 1961, the New York Times reported that the final straw was Castro's propaganda offensive about an imminent invasion of Cuba. That same month, after the Los Angeles Times and the St. Louis Post Dispatch confirmed American funding of the base, Time magazine, apparently hedging its bets, reported that a "Mr. B." of the CIA was in charge of the whole operation.⁶⁵

Despite this whisper of vindication, Dr. Hilton was not popular in Washington or among Stanford's trustees who represented international corporations. After Stanford received a sizable grant from the Ford Foundation, Hilton was pressured not to offend the university's powerful fund raisers -- even if it was just an opinion expressed in an editorial. In 1962, after the CIA's top Cuban invasion planners had been fired and Cuba had become a major problem for the U.S., Ford gave a grant to a Stanford committee formed to plan an international studies program. Heading the committee was Dean Carl Spaeth, former assistant to Nelson Rockefeller in the State Department, and former director of the Ford Foundation's Division of Overseas Activities. After a year of "studies," without explanation to or input from Dr. Hilton, the Hispanic Institute was gutted and assigned mundane responsibilities. When asked how they could do such a thing, Stanford's administration told him: "The administration can do anything it pleases." Hilton resigned, his journal was suspended, and two weeks later the Ford Foundation gave Stanford $550,000 for Latin American studies to those who did not protest what had happened to Hilton and his independent, intellectually respected institute. 

According to Ramparts magazine, "This largesse was repeated on every campus where significant efforts on Latin America were taking place."⁶⁶ Interestingly, these Hilton controversies were taking place while George Wing was a teaching assistant and earning his PhD. in Spanish at the University of California at Berkeley.⁶⁷ 

Was de Mohrenschildt's proposal the genesis of UT's institute? Was C.B. Smith involved with de Mohrenschildt in this first proposal? The last of the de Mohrenschildt-to-LBJ letters, dated June 13, 1969, adds fuel to such speculation. It reads, "You possibly remember me and we do have a lot of mutual friends, Barbara and Howard Burris, George Brown and the late Herman Brown....This summer I am not teaching at U.T.A. [The University of Texas at Arlington] and we could drive any time to visit with you." Eighteen months earlier, C.B. Smith had been named a distinguished alumnus of U.T.A.68

The 1969 letter is of further interest with regard to JFK assassination connections to UT. Not only was de Mohrenschildt teaching at a school which was part of the "system" that Harry Ransom oversaw, and one which had given C.B. Smith one of its highest honors, he also shared two particularly interesting mutual friends with Lyndon Johnson: Barbara and Howard Burris. Howard Burris was Vice President Johnson's military representative and an Air Force intelligence officer. His connections to UT and the assassination will be discussed further in this paper.

Edward G. Lansdale

By 1961 Rostow was also working closely with Edward G. Lansdale. Lansdale was an Air Force Major General at the time of his retirement on November 1, 1963. He had an advertising background and extensive counter-insurgency experience in Southeast Asia. Lansdale is credited in many circles with coming up with the idea, single handed, that destroyed the Huk rebellion in the early fifties in the Philippines. The Huk were very superstitious. They believed in vampires. Lansdale got a few dead Huk bodies, put holes in their necks and hung them upside down.⁶⁹

Like Rostow, Lansdale was a veteran of the OSS. He had served in Vietnam during the Eisenhower administration and had become a close personal friend of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem.⁷⁰

His advertising background blended well with his expertise: psychological warfare; or psy-ops. There are now manuals on psy-ops and Lansdale is considered the father of that type of warfare.

He was the model for the imperialistic "Colonel Hillandale" in the William Lederer/Eugene Burdick novel The Ugly American; the most celebrated American dark spy.⁷¹

During January through April of 1961, Lansdale's overriding motive was to be Ambassador to South Vietnam. Lansdale, by that time, was probably the only American advisor Diem trusted. Diem was very isolated by then. After his first White House meeting with Lansdale on Vietnam, Kennedy had decided to fire Ambassador Elbridge Durbrow. Kennedy would change his mind about this in a month or two.⁷²

Following the firing of Durbrow, Kennedy appointed Frederick E. Nolting. So Lansdale sought to capture the apparatus to formulate, approve and implement Vietnam policy and be the key player in all three stages until a U.S. victory was achieved in Vietnam. It almost worked. The reason it did not, as far as military historian John Newman can tell, is because Dean Rusk threatened to resign if Lansdale got his way. Lansdale's letters from 1964 show that he found out from some of his contacts that Rusk had laid his job on the line.⁷³

As the author of the book JFK and Vietnam, John M. Newman, explained: "Lansdale's a loose cannon on deck. Kennedy liked him, at least initially for a while, but he had big problems. No doubt about it. In the Pentagon, the Pentagon brass didn't like him. Secretary of State Rusk did not like him. However he did have a big patron in Kennedy's inner circle....Walt Rostow! Walt Rostow, the Vietnam guy. And I was able to track this fairly successfully I think. If it weren't for Walt Rostow, Lansdale wouldn't have had a prayer with this crazy plan of his to try and capture this emerging Vietnam policy apparatus."⁷⁴

So in the first four months of the Kennedy Administration Lansdale sought the ambassadorship and then control of the emerging policy apparatus of Vietnam and failed at both. The only evidence of Rusk's motive is a document released in 1991 by the State Department. It is a document in which Rusk wrote about not trusting Lansdale. He was unsure of Lansdale's loyalties.⁷⁵

Although he cannot document it, Newman is certain that Lansdale worked for the CIA while wearing an Air Force uniform. One indication of this in Lansdale's private letters and memoranda is that General Curtis Le May, the Air Chief of Staff, seemed to be unable to promote him. Allen Dulles had to be involved in getting Lansdale promoted from colonel to general. And a number of other patterns are apparent such as social events with Charles Cabell. Edward Lansdale and Charles Cabell were very close.⁷⁶

The end result of these first few months, in essence, is that Lansdale was fired from any position on Vietnam policy. For Edward Lansdale that was a traumatic experience. Vietnam was his primary concern. South Vietnam was his creation. In his book, Newman stopped writing about Lansdale at that point although there was a lot more to him. It involved Cuba and Operation Mongoose and other matters that were not the focus of his book.⁷⁷

Lansdale had lost something that mattered a great deal to him. In his letters he wrote about going through the experience of being relieved of these responsibilities in Vietnam. Newman describes him as a man whose heart was broken "because he could not play any more in his favorite sandbox." By the end of 1961 Kennedy had put him in charge of Operation Mongoose. He was in charge of an enormous apparatus with tremendous resources, weapons and personnel. Newman, having read the NSC meeting minutes where Kennedy announced Lansdale was now going to be in charge of Mongoose, believes that Kennedy did not appreciate the way Lansdale related to being involved in Vietnam policy.⁷⁸

With such extreme feelings about his predicament in 1961, Lansdale might have gone any number of ways to rectify his situation. What was he thinking? In what direction and how far would he go? Newman summarized the portion of his book in which he dealt with that question:

Lansdale was not a combat troops man, yet the very first piece of paper ever in the history of the Vietnam war where an American officer recommends a U.S. troop commitment to Vietnam, Lansdale was the one who authors it. It's right in that critical time frame right after the failure at the Bay of Pigs; right before the crucial decision Kennedy has to make on going into Laos. His Vietnam Task Force paper is coming in through the door. The night, the very night that the Joint Chiefs figure out that Kennedy is going to say no on Laos, Lansdale, late at night in the Pentagon, slips in this combat troop proposal in the Vietnam Task Force report. It's not like him. The way I interpret that -- and I may be in error -- the way I interpret that is he understands that the star rising on the horizon is U.S. intervention in Vietnam. And he understands that he has lost his position in the Kennedy administration which has a decidedly different approach. So he switches forces and he joins forces with those planning for intervention. And it was a good decision on his part, was it not? He was there when they arrived. He was on the team.⁷⁹

The Mongoose files of the Senate Church Committee reveal that they wanted to know when and who authorized assassination. The Kennedy Administration had supposedly gotten away from that. It was clear to the committee, however, that they had not. There were plans and resources being devoted to assassinate Castro. So the purpose of the questioning was to find out who, and when it was authorized.⁸⁰

Lansdale testified that he did it all alone. When asked why, his answer was that during the missile crisis the Russians had changed the terms of reference by putting missiles in Cuba. So Lansdale decided all on his own that he was going to change things and get rid of Castro.

Lansdale: I did it my way.

After reading a pre-galley copy of JFK and Vietnam, Daniel Ellsberg called Newman one night very excitedly. Ellsberg had worked with Lansdale and knew him extremely well. He said, "This is the first time I've ever thought that Lansdale might have been involved in the assassination." Ellsberg based this on Lansdale being removed from Vietnam planning and moved to Operation Mongoose.⁸¹

By February 1963 Lansdale had no position in Cuban policy and was focusing on Latin America. He was traveling to countries like Bolivia and elsewhere. The U.S. had a lot of personnel in South America under Kennedy. And a lot of them ended up going to Vietnam. According to Newman there is a blind spot as to exactly what they were doing and how many people the U.S. had in Latin America.⁸²

"I can tell you," Newman said, "that in the collateral research that I did, names that I came across, I found a correlation between -- I don't say this is definitive but I got a lot of hits -- the same names of the guys that were running around in Latin America, particularly in Cuban policy, end up in the Far East Division. Very strange coincidence. There were three -- it wasn't just one -- there were several. A neat nexus between the Southeast Asian guys and Cuban guys."⁸³

Lansdale was also spending a lot of time at air bases and other areas in the southern United States; in Florida and in Alabama. Newman recalled from Lansdale's travel records that one of these other areas was some sort of a Cuban-exile camp. The record for that trip included a cover note to the person coordinating it telling him to keep quiet. Lansdale apparently wanted to make sure that no one knew that he was going there.⁸⁴

There was also an honorary graduation certificate from the sniping school that the U.S. had in Panama. He went there, Newman recalled, in May or April 1963. He was made an honorary graduate there. Lansdale was going to various clandestine and special forces places in the spring and summer of 1963.⁸⁵

One more event that Newman remembered from the spring 1963 period was that Lansdale was due to retire. And he was extended by Le May, arbitrarily, for another six months or so to November 1, 1963; with no job; no real responsibilities. Fletcher Prouty claims Lansdale was just at a desk by himself.⁸⁶

In the summer of 1963 there were two interesting events concerning Vietnam. The U.S. had a problem with Diem. The regime would not compromise at all. It went in the opposite direction. Buddhists were killed. They began immolating themselves. The regime still would not relent. The political bottom completely fell out in Saigon.⁸⁷

Newman said he came across an intriguing article in a local, small magazine from this period. It had a picture of Lansdale and a typical title like, "America's Most Celebrated Spy." It was about a Lansdale trip to Saigon. His travel records, however, indicate that he was not supposed to be in Saigon. This was around July-August 1963.⁸⁸

The article reported an assassination attempt on Lansdale. The assassins missed and somebody killed the alleged assassin. Then he went to a meeting with Ambassador Lodge. According to Newman, "This is clearly impossible from the record because Lansdale has no authority or position to be involved in Vietnam policy. It would make sense in terms of going back and pleading with Diem and getting Lansdale to do it. Maybe Diem would listen to Lansdale. But I did find a record. He might have been in Saigon." Newman found evidence of a six- or seven-day break in Lansdale's normal activities.⁸⁹

Among Lansdale's contacts in the last three to four months of Kennedy's life, Newman found "a lot of Spanish names. I found names that were reminiscent of CIA type folks."⁹⁰

In 1963, Lansdale was Fletcher Prouty's boss. Prouty insists that he was sent to the South Pole by Lansdale to get him out of the way so that he would not witness the events of November 22, 1963. Presumably this was done because if Prouty had been there he would have figured out what was going on. Prouty has claimed that in the photograph of the three tramps walking across Dealey Plaza, the man in a suit with what looks like a wire coming out of his ear and going into his suit coat is Edward Lansdale -- that he recognized the back of his head and his gate. Among Lansdale's letters, John Newman and David Lifton found a slip of paper that has "The Texas Hotel" on it and a phone number in Denton. Lansdale's letters also reveal that he was headed in the direction of Dallas in November 1963.⁹¹

Lansdale?

Lansdale wrote to a number of friends and associates beginning in September 1963, of his intention to go to Texas in November. There are as many as ten letters, according to Newman, where he described this upcoming trip to two people. One was his son. The other one was General "Hangin' Sam" Williams, an old buddy and McGarr's predecessor in Vietnam. He lived in San Antonio.⁹²

The last piece of paper that Newman found placing Lansdale physically in Washington is dated November 14, 1963. It concerns running errands for his wife. After that there is no record of his whereabouts except for a box of incidentals, which had this piece of paper in it. It has on it "Texas Hotel" and "Denton" and a name and phone number. As Newman said, "That might be from 1949 or it might be 1968 and again it might be November 1963. Because the Texas Hotel is where Kennedy stayed the night before he died, and Denton, Texas is just north here of Dallas, it all fits in. But it certainly is not conclusive."⁹³

Lansdale dropped out of sight at this point. He resurfaced back in Washington in the Food for Peace Program and was soon given a job by Johnson back in Vietnam. He had contacts who got him interviews in the White House. In fact he would be on the ground in Vietnam when U.S. combat troops arrived.⁹⁴

Walt Rostow

Lansdale was not the only one whose fortunes were changing now that Kennedy was dead. One of Lansdale's contacts in the White House, no doubt, was his sponsor and "big patron," Walt Rostow, who later resurfaced in a big way himself. According to Newman, "Kennedy got rid of him out of the White House after the first year; sent him packing over to the State Department."⁹⁵ Back in the White House under Kennedy's successor, Rostow moved to solidify his position. As things heated up in Vietnam, 

Johnson protected himself from contrary arguments and discussions by dismissing the doubters from his staff. First McGeorge Bundy left. Then George Ball. Then Bill Moyers. The emphasis shifted to Walt Rostow, who believed that Johnson was doing the right thing in Vietnam; soon Rostow became the man who screened what the President heard and saw. 

Under Rostow's regime, the most optimistic news was packaged and sent to the President with covering notes which said such things as, "This will give confirmation to the statement which the President so wisely made to the Congressional leadership yesterday."⁹⁶

It was, most likely, only because Johnson had selected the man "who screened what the President heard and saw" that Johnson referred to Rostow as having "the most important job in the White House, aside from the President." Johnson gave credit for one crucial decision to Walt's brother, however. Eugene Victor Debs Rostow gave Johnson the idea for the Warren Commission the day Oswald died.⁹⁷ 

Howard Lay Burris

George de Mohrenschildt's mutual friends with Lyndon Johnson, Barbara and Howard Burris, represent such significant ties between the political, economic, cultural and academic elites in Texas and the assassination of President Kennedy that they tax one's ability to call it a coincidence. The implications of their ties as they relate to the UT Rambler can be especially appreciated in their full context.

As previously mentioned, Howard Burris was Vice President Johnson's military representative and an Air Force intelligence officer. He is also much more.⁹⁸

John Newman first learned of Howard Burris in the course of researching his book, JFK and Vietnam. Newman connected Burris with a pattern of gross deceptions involving battlefield statistics that took place in 1962. Kennedy and McNamara were being lied to while Johnson was being given the truth through a secret back-channel. The end point of that secret back-channel was Howard Burris. Burris would write the final memoranda that Johnson received concerning combat intelligence. Newman had discovered a foreign policy situation where the President and the Vice President were getting briefed in opposite terms. It is comparable to a hypothetical situation in which, during Operation Desert Storm, George Bush is lied to and Dan Quayle gets the truth about the status of the U.S. led coalition forces in the Persian Gulf.⁹⁹

"I often get asked," Newman said, "about what was the exact back-channel. How did it function? How did it get there? And the best I can determine from ground zero in Vietnam all the way back to the Vice President's desk is a chain of Air Force intelligence officers all the way to Burris."¹⁰⁰

In May 1961, during the Johnson trip to Vietnam, Burris was being rehearsed on how to control LBJ in the context of that trip. He was told what he could say or could not say to the vice president; which is amazing because ostensibly he works for the vice president. No one should be able to tell an Air Force colonel what he can and cannot tell to a vice president. The question is: 

Who is telling him? The answer is the boys in the woodwork.

 There is another time period in Newman's book which deals with the back-channel to LBJ. Newman had long discussions with Burris about where he got this. 

And the answer was the boys in the woodwork. And the question was: Who are the boys in the woodwork? And the answer was: "Well I'd rather not really say and bring all of that up. You, I know, you're one of them." Alright, I'm military, I also have an intelligence background. Peter Dale Scott and I have been working very closely on a number of issues. He's writing a book as a matter of fact. He was assuming for a while that it was military. And I said, "Peter, it may not be that. It may be Langley."

He said, "Why do you say that?" Well there's one more piece. Burris told me that later on, "McCone put a stop to what I was getting from him." This was relating to the combat intelligence. McCone was directing CIA. And all of the clues I got out of this fellow on who his contacts were -- my own interpretation was that they were in fact CIA. I don't know that for sure.¹⁰¹

Information about Burris originally began to surface with the book The Senator Must Die by Robert Morrow. Morrow wrote about two colonels whom he did not name. In 1977 a young man was hitchhiking in Baltimore who had a story he wanted to tell about his father's involvement in the Kennedy assassination. Robert Morrow happened to pick him up.¹⁰²

The young man learned that Morrow had investigated aspects of the JFK assassination. He told Morrow a story about his father, a former Air Force intelligence officer, who was involved in the Kennedy assassination. The young man had witnessed his father, who was very close to Lyndon Johnson, taking money to Haiti during 1963. Not only did he see the money he heard the telephone conversations as well.¹⁰³

Not really believing him, Morrow put the story out of his mind -- until the Colonel, the young man's father, went to his son's girlfriend and confessed. He said, "Everything my son told you (to the girlfriend and to Morrow) is true. Can you get me immunity from the House Select Committee?" This conversation took place in 1977.¹⁰⁴

The Colonel admitted it. And this offer to testify if given immunity was given to Committee Chairman Louis Stokes in 1978. Assassination researcher Gus Russo reportedly saw the affidavit and spoke to the people involved. But when Robert Morrow gave the affidavit to the HSCA it ended there. The HSCA did not want to deal with it.¹⁰⁵

The names of these colonels aren't given in the book. Morrow gives them the code names "Intellfirst" and "SIO" (First Intelligence Officer and Second Intelligence Officer). There are a few clues given in the book. He gives a couple of Air Force assignment clues in Europe; what they had done in the forties and fifties. They are at the top of the military intelligence ladder. They are connected to the CIA.¹⁰⁶

Following Morrow's clues, Russo discovered their identities. He then located one of the colonels -- the one who wanted to go to the HSCA, "Intellfirst." Russo and Jim Marrs and another researcher went to meet "Intellfirst" at his home in Florida. He is eighty years old. They said they were researching the Johnson Administration and that they knew he was on Johnson's Inaugural Committee.¹⁰⁷

"Intellfirst" bought their story and invited them in. They got his whole biography from him and his military record. Russo and Marrs did not bring up the subject of Kennedy but "Intellfirst" did and he talked about how he hates the Kennedys. He gave them his whole background.¹⁰⁸

The first thing he wanted to talk about was his good friend Howard Burris. They were on the Inauguration Committee together. They worked for Air Force intelligence and the CIA. He said they were CIA all the time. They ran around the world. They were friends with Charles Cabell.¹⁰⁹

"Intellfirst" was air attache in Hong Kong. He was in Rumania. He was in France. He retired from the military and worked for Martin Marietta in the early sixties selling defense contracts to his former Air Force superiors. And all the while his closest buddy was Howard Burris. That is the first name he mentioned to Russo and Marrs.¹¹⁰

When he worked for Martin Marietta he was the liaison to NATO. This was during the late fifties and early sixties when they bought the Jupiter missiles to put in Turkey. Kennedy had wanted the missiles removed from Turkey. The very people who defied Kennedy's orders were this colonel's NATO clients -- the ones to whom he was selling the missiles. They were the ones who did not listen to Kennedy when he ordered them to keep these missiles out. They were all against Kennedy.¹¹¹

When he was selling the missiles for Martin Marietta after he retired he had another buddy, a Colonel Anderson, who was with NATO in Europe. "Intellfirst" admitted that they were drinking champagne in Paris on the day Kennedy was assassinated. They were toasting Kennedy's death. He admitted all of this to Russo and Marrs. The girlfriend of the son of "Intellfirst" went to the HSCA with this story and it died there.¹¹²

Armed with this information Russo went back home to verify the colonel's history. Marrs did the same and they learned more about him. Russo then started reading about Howard Burris. He discovered Burris was Air Force intelligence. He is very close friends with Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms. He is from Texas and has oil money. Russo also learned that Howard Burris is in George de Mohrenschildt's address book four times. Next to one of the entries there is a slash. It says, "Howard Burris / Haiti."¹¹³

"Intellfirst" is so high up in intelligence that reporters refer to him for special sound bites and for blurbs for articles on occasion. His name is not commonly known but people in the business have reason to have heard of him.¹¹⁴

The critical thing for Gus Russo was that "Intellfirst" admitted what his son said was true and offered to talk to Congress. And there are other coincidences like de Mohrenschildt's phone book. Not only was de Mohrenschildt writing to LBJ in the spring of 1963 and for years after, so was "Intellfirst." According to Russo there are many of his letters at the LBJ Library. They all knew each other. And they were all tied to this NATO network who was defying Kennedy.¹¹⁵

Russo went back to Florida to do more research into this and to look for the son. What he found instead was that the son had possibly been murdered. He was found on the streets of Florida City naked and curled up in the embryo position as if he had been tossed aside. The official medical report said his blood alcohol level was one-point-one which is not high enough to kill a man who is six-foot-four; or even enough to cause him to pass out. It was speculated that he choked on his own vomit although there was no evidence of that. At age thirty-eight he apparently just died. He was cremated two days later by his father, "Intellfirst." Although they have a family plot in Virginia he cremated his only son who was telling everybody his father killed Kennedy.¹¹⁶

Colonel Howard Burris retired in 1964 and has remained in private business and civilian life. Some personal information was learned from his resume (obtained by researcher Larry Haapanen from the LBJ Library), and a record from researcher Mary Ferrell's files. Burris was born near San Antonio on April 26, 1918 (Ferrell indicates April 18, 1926). He graduated from West Point in 1942. During World War II he commanded bomber units in England and France during two combat tours from 1943 to 1945. Ferrell lists him as "Deputy Commanding Officer" of the 386th Bombardment Bomber Group Ninth Air Force. From 1945 to 1949, Burris was Headquarters Commandant for the Continental Air Command; was assigned to staff support at the United Nations; and was involved in a "Special Mission to Government of Mexico." From 1950 to 1952 he was aide to Air Force Secretary Finletter, and became the executive officer to Air Force Secretary Talbott in 1953. From 1954 to 1957 he was attache to the U.S. Embassy in Switzerland. From 1957 to 1960 he served as International Liaison Officer, Department of the Air Force and was assigned to a special mission to Hungary, Poland, and the Soviet Union (1959). In 1961 he became Vice President Johnson's assistant for national security affairs. His foreign decorations were the Croix de Guerre (with Silver Star) from France; the Royal Order of the Sword from Sweden; and the Medal of Merit from Brazil.¹¹⁷ According to the record from Mary Ferrell's files:

Colonel Burris was supposedly original case officer for Nosenko. When Nosenko defected, Burris was called back to Switzerland. He was intelligence officer who ran Nosenko in Switzerland in Jan. 1964.¹¹⁸

Other sources indicate that Burris was in business with Nosenko's case officer. 

In an article written in 1991, Robert Morrow referred to an Air Force colonel who sounds like Intellfirst and to his "counterpart" who is also a colonel. This counterpart, after retiring, set up a firm in Paris, France as a cover for intelligence operations. In this firm, Morrow writes, "The colonel's counterpart had a partner who just so happened to be the case officer of Yuri Noshenko [sic], the famous Russian defector who, in 1964, made overtures to our embassy in Geneva, Switzerland about Lee Harvey Oswald working for the Russians." 

Larry Haapanen, in a letter to this author, wrote, "As far as I know, the only person who would be so described as Nosenko's case officer would be Tenant Bagley, [sic] who is mentioned in various published accounts of the Nosenko affair."¹¹⁹ 

[Tennent Harrington "Pete" Bagley] See also Molehunt; Encyclopedia of the CIA: 

His father was Admiral David Worth Bagley, and his mother, Mary Louise Harrington Bagley,was a niece of Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy. Both of Harrington’s brothers also attained the rank of admiral. Bagley joined the Marines in 1943 and was honorably discharged at the rank of first lieutenant in 1946. The following year, he attended the University of Southern California. He then studied political science at the University of Geneva (Switzerland), earning a bachelor’s degree in 1948 and a Ph.D. in 1951. After completing his studies, Bagley joined the CIA.He held a number of posts in the Agency, including service as a political officer at the U.S. embassies in Vienna, Austria (1951–52) and Bern, Switzerland (1958–61). He also held the posts of deputy chief of the Soviet Bloc Division in the Agency’s CLANDESTINE SERVICE.

For the purposes of this paper, any involvement Burris may have had with Yuri Nosenko will sufficiently speak for itself. What will be emphasized here is the possible significance of Burris' involvement with European Theater bombing, the Office of Secretary of the Air Force, and his time spent in Switzerland as it pertains to the Kennedy assassination and UT.

Enemy Objectives Unit

Walt Rostow's primary duty, as an economist in the London-based economic subdivision within the prestigious Research and Analysis Branch of the OSS, was target selection for the massive strategic bombing campaign against Germany. These economists, who called themselves the Enemy Objectives Unit (EOU), spawned a renegade group that included Rostow. They differed greatly with the others in the EOU and with their commanders over targeting strategy. Known as the "oily boys" because of their preference for petroleum, oil and lubricant (POL) targets over rail system targets, they planned and launched a covert psychological war known as "Operation Octopus" against their own commanders to force the acceptance of POL targeting.¹²⁰ The operation was a success and began a pattern of renegade behavior throughout Rostow's career as well as a long friendship between Rostow and fellow oily boy, future Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, Charles P. Cabell, Jr.¹²¹

As with Burris, Switzerland was a very special place for Walt Rostow. In 1947 he married Elspeth Vaughn Davies, a Barnard College girl he met in pre-war Geneva.¹²² That same year he became assistant to the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), a U.N. agency located in Geneva Switzerland. In 1949 he left the ECE and was replaced there by his brother Eugene. It was Eugene Victor Debs Rostow to whom President Johnson credited the idea of appointing the Warren Commission.¹²³

Switzerland was also a special place for Allen Dulles. From December 1942 until the end of the war he was head of U.S. intelligence in Switzerland. That same month he began a long love affair and professional relationship with Mary Bancroft, who was a life-long friend of Michael Paine's parents.¹²⁴ Michael's wife is Ruth Paine, to whom Lee Oswald and Roger Craig said the Dealey Plaza Rambler belonged. This paper will further explore the Bancroft-Paine-Dulles relationship in the context of the Dealey Plaza Rambler and the UT Rambler.

As we have already seen, Harry Ransom had a special relationship with Air Force intelligence and the European Theater¹²⁵ and with the Office of Secretary of the Air Force. It is quite probable that Ransom not only knew Rostow at Yale but, during the war, provided him with editorial intelligence reports on the results of POL bombing missions undertaken by Howard Burris.

Currently Burris owns several corporations, one of which has to do with high-speed rail technology.¹²⁶ He has oil leases on two continents including leases in Iran.¹²⁷

His son, Howard Lay Burris, Jr. [called Briton, Havard Baris] was married for a while to Princess Shahrazad Pahlbod, the niece of the late Shah of Iran -- attesting to the closeness of his father's relationship with former CIA director and former ambassador to Iran Richard Helms, who himself was a life-long friend of the late Shah. When they divorced in 1982 it was reported that "Everybody's still pally, in the Royal Manner."¹²⁸

The Shah of Iran, Muhammad Reza Pahlevi, took Iran's government back from the Iranian Nationalist Movement led by Muhammad Mussadegh in a CIA coup called Operation Ajax. "The operation was essentially formulated by the Dulles brothers, working together, on June 25, 1953, at a meeting in John Foster Dulles' office in the State Department." It was done by arranging the disappearance of Mussadegh's powerful political supporters and hiring paid demonstrators to march against Mussadegh; orchestrated by Richard Helms.¹²⁹ Chosen by the CIA to run the country for the Shah was General Fazlollah Zahedi, a suspected pro-Nazi. Mussadegh's main threat was to the profits of U.S. and British oil companies in Iran.¹³⁰

According to Robert Morrow, 

The business of putting the Shah back in power and the oil wells back into the hands of the western powers was handed over to the CIA and Kermit "Kim" Roosevelt, who headed its Middle East section. Roosevelt was to be Richard Helm's original case officer.

Helms' career advanced rapidly. He was brought into the CIA fold to take over the Office of Strategic Operations (OSO). In those days the OSO was the group responsible for perfecting the Agency's direct espionage and other esoteric activities such as assassination. One of OSO's first assignments was to overthrow Mohammed Mossadeq....

After Mossadeq fell from grace, Roosevelt made an enemy of OSO chief Helms. He started to feel sorry for the deposed leader after he had done a three-year stint in prison. Roosevelt arranged for Mossadeq's release with a comfortable pension! However, Mossadeq died soon afterward, a death engineered by Helms.¹³¹

Howard Burris, Jr. currently presides over long-held family business interests in Austin. Howard Burris, Sr. purchased "property from Governor Beauford Jester, who died in office in 1949. The governor had planned to build a homesite on the ranch." This land is now owned by Jester Land Management (JLM) and has become the exclusive Jester residential development in northwest Austin. Howard Burris, Jr., president of Burris and Company, bought the assets of JLM in February 1988 from his father's firm, Jester Development Company.¹³²

Colonel Burris' wife, Barbara J. Burris, is the daughter of Governor Jester.¹³³ In a news story that appeared the day after Kennedy was assassinated Texans were reminded of the late Governor's posthumous link to the assassination: Under the headline, "Gov. Connally Keeps Power" it explained, "No similar circumstance has occurred in Texas history. The only time a lieutenant governor succeeded to the governorship was on the death of Gov. Beauford A. [sic] Jester July 11, 1949. Allan Shivers, then lieutenant governor, automatically moved up to the governor's office."¹³⁴ Carl J. Eckhardt adds, "Governor Jester was the first Texas governor to die in office. He died on July 11, 1949 [at age fifty-six] while aboard a train bound for Galveston. He was interred in Oakwood Cemetery in Corsicana, Texas."¹³⁵ Few families can claim to have been as close to the deaths of two U.S. chief executives as the Burris family. And since, as John Newman and Gus Russo have shown, they possibly benefited from the death of President Kennedy, two questions are raised: How did Alan Shivers come to be lieutenant governor? And how did Governor Jester die? These questions become more important given the fact, as John Newman has reported, Burris revealed, "Johnson knew -- was sure [in 1963] -- he was going to be dropped from the ticket."¹³⁶

In the February 9, 1993 PBS Frontline broadcast, "The Secret File on J. Edgar Hoover", eyewitness Evelyn Lincoln revealed for the first time the reason Kennedy put LBJ on the ticket at the 1960 convention: J. Edgar Hoover and Lyndon Johnson blackmailed Kennedy into doing it by threatening to reveal his sexual activities.

During the Dallas filming of the movie JFK, an aeronautical engineer named Ron Ellison came to the Assassination Information Center and said he had known LBJ's nephew Sam Johnson, Jr. Ellison claimed that during a meeting with Sam at a Houston hotel in October 1962, he (Ellison) criticized LBJ's political savvy for becoming vice president. Sam's response was that the reason LBJ did it was because JFK will die in office.¹³⁷

Having been forced to take LBJ as vice president, the only recourse Kennedy may have had in removing him from the 1964 ticket, was to expose Johnson's dirty dealings with the likes of Bobby Baker and Billy Sol Estes.¹³⁸ Such exposure would prevent Johnson from assuming power even by force -- the probability of which Kennedy was well aware considering he wanted the movie Seven Days in May made "as a warning to the nation."¹³⁹

A closer look at Governor Jester's daughter sheds more light on these questions. A Nexus search for the name Barbara Burris¹⁴⁰ revealed a Barbara J. Burris who was press secretary to Representative Dante Fascell (D, FL) of Miami. She is also a fund raiser and supporter of the Cuban American National Foundation run by Jose S. Sorzano. The chairman of the foundation is Jorge L. Mas Canosa.¹⁴¹ There is also a Barbara J. Burris who was a childhood friend of famed concert pianist Van Cliburn and very involved in the Van Cliburn competition in Ft. Worth. Another "early booster and close friend" of Van Cliburn's was wealthy Dallas oil man David Harold Byrd,¹⁴² the owner of the Texas School Book Depository Building.¹⁴³ The significance of this to UT and the JFK assassination will be explored further in this paper.

Beyond this paper, however, another matter begs to be investigated. Given the relationship between Barbara J. Burris and Brigade 2506 veteran Jorge Mas Canosa, the question arises anew concerning the origin of the name Barbara J. for the infamous Bay of Pigs troopship. As with the Burris name, perhaps the Jester name is also well known in clandestine histories.

Notes:
...
62. Part of a Latin phrase meaning "unconcerned with this trivial matter."
63. "De Mohrenschildt -- LBJ White House letters: December 27, 1966, and January 6, 1967" respectively, cited in Russell, The Man Who Knew Too Much, pp. 271, 759.
64. Warren Hinckle with William Turner, The Fish is Red, (NY: Harper & Row, 1981), pp. 67-69; republished as Deadly Secrets, Thunder's Mouth Press, 1992; David Horowitz, Ramparts magazine, Oct. 1969, pp. 39-40.
65. Hinckle with Turner, The Fish is Red, pp. 67-69.
66. David Horowitz, Ramparts, Oct. 1969, pp. 39-40.
67. George Gordon Wing, Octavio Paz: Poetry, Politics, and the Myth of the Mexican, doctoral dissertation, University of California at Berkeley, Mar. 3, 1961, p. 3; Biographical information obtained from UT's Spanish and Portuguese Department.
68. The University of Texas at Arlington, "C.B. Smith, Sr., October 24, 1967."
69. Unpublished Transcript: John M. Newman with Gus Russo, "Unscheduled Workshop on Major General Edward G. Lansdale, Colonel Howard L. Burris and Air Force Intelligence Connections to the Kennedy Assassination," Second Annual Assassination Symposium on John F. Kennedy, Hyatt Regency Hotel at Reunion Square, Dallas, Tx., Oct. 24, 1992, p. 1.
70. John M. Newman, JFK and Vietnam, (NY: Warner Books, 1992), p. 3.
71. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 1.
72. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 3.
73. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 3.
74. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 14.
75. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 3.
76. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, pp. 3-4.
77. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 4.
78. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 4.
79. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, pp. 13-14.
80. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 5.
81. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, pp. 4-5.
82. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 5.
83. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 27.
84. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 8.
85. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 8.
86. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 8.
87. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 8.
88. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 9.
89. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, pp. 9-10.
90. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 10.
91. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 2; Stone, JFK: The Book of the Film, pp. 182-183.
92. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 11; Stone, JFK: The Book of the Film, p. 183.
93. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, pp. 11-12.
94. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 12.
95. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 32; David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest, (NY: Penguin, 1972), pp. 159-99; Edward B. Claflin, ed., JFK Wants to Know: Memos from the President's Office, 1961-1963, (NY: William Morrow, 1991), p. 58; Cecil B. Currey, Edward Lansdale: The Unquiet American, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988), p. 395, 14n.
96. Doris Kearns, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, (NY: Harper & Row, 1976), p. 320.
97. "Scholar Who's No. 2 at the White House," Business Week, Feb. 25, 1967, cited in Gill, The Ordeal of Otto Otepka, p. 21; Lyndon Baines Johnson, The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963-1969, (NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1971), p. 26.
98. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, pp. 1, 14.
99. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 15.
100. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 26.
101. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, pp. 24-25.
102. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, pp. 15-16.
103. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 16.
104. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 16.
105. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 16.
106. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, pp. 16-17
107. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 17.
108. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, pp. 17-19.
109. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, pp. 17-19.
110. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, pp. 17-19.
111. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, pp. 17-19.
112. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, pp. 17-19.
113. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 19.
114. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 21.
115. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 21.
116. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, pp. 21-22.
117. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, pp. 32-33; Biographic Data, Howard Lay Burris, LBJ Library; Mary Ferrell Database record, "Howard Lay Burris," obtained by this author from Gordon Winslow.
118. Mary Ferrell Database record, "Howard Lay Burris,".
119. Robert Morrow, "The Kennedy Cover Up Continued," EastSide Weekend newsmagazine, Apr. 25-May 1, 1991, pp. 1-3; Larry Haapanen, Letter to Richard Bartholomew, Jul. 27, 1993.
120. Barry M. Katz, Foreign Intelligence, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1989), p. 97-115, 120.
121. Walt W. Rostow, Pre-invasion Bombing Strategy: General Eisenhower's Decision of March 25, 1944, (Austin, TX: The University of Texas Press, 1981), pp. 32, 45.
122. Gill, p. 92.
123. Gill, pp. 92-98; Johnson, The Vantage Point, p. 26.
124. Mary Bancroft, Autobiography of a Spy, (NY: William Morrow, 1983), pp. 54, 128-31.
125. Harry Huntt Ransom, "Notes for an Epitaph: Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe" (Air Force Reprint, 32 pp.), cited in "Bibliography of Harry Huntt Ransom," p. 1.
126. A Texas grassroots organization called DERAIL is currently fighting powerful interests which has included John Connally and Ben Barnes. These special interests would use the idea of high-speed rail to create a boondoggle to enrich themselves at taxpayers' expense.
127. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 33.
128. Style section, The Washington Post, Mar. 17, 1982; Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, Faces in a Mirror, (NY: Prentice Hall, 1989), cited in Robert Morrow, The Senator Must Die, (Santa Monica, CA: Roundtable, 1988), p. 11n.
129. Morrow, The Senator Must Die, p. 10.
130. Ranelagh, The Agency, p. 261-62.
131. Morrow, The Senator Must Die, p. 10.
132. John MacDougall, "Not Jester Estates", Austin Business Journal, Jun. 26, 1989.
133. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 33.
134. San Antonio Express News, Nov. 23, 1963, p. 16A, col. 4.
135. Eckhardt, One Hundred Faithful..., p. 51.
136. Unpublished Transcript: Newman with Russo, p. 33.
137. Interview: Sept. 20, 1991. Daryl Howard, Assassination Information Center.
138. Kirk Wilson, Texas Unsolved Mysteries, (NY: Carroll & Graf, 1990), p. 99.
139. Arthur Schlesinger, The Imperial Presidency, pp. 198, 417, cited in Robert Sam Anson, They've Killed the President, (NY: Bantam, 1975), p. 280.
140. In January 1993, while going through old notes, this paper's author noticed a coincidence involving an incident that meant nothing at the time it occurred. A resume that came to UT Publications on April 16, 1991, long before this author had ever heard of the name Burris, included the reference, "Barbara Burris/de la Burdé Partnerships-Strategic Land Investments. Roger de la Burdé, Investor/Collector, Windsor, Powhatan, VA 23139. (804) 379-3674." A quick search of Nexis led to the belief that this Barbara Burris was either the wife or a daughter of Colonel Howard Burris. Nexis also revealed that Roger de la Burdé was murdered in March 1992. Charged with the crime was his girlfriend, Beverly Ann Monroe. The resume was that of a woman in her early thirties who had relatives in Austin and was checking the job market there. No notation of her name was made by this author, however.
141. "Jorge Mas still says that the man he hates most after Fidel Castro is John F. Kennedy." For more on Mas Canosa, his links to Operation 40 veterans Felix Rodriguez and Luis Posada, and his relationship with Dante Fascell, see "Who is Jorge Mas Canosa?", Esquire, Jan. 1993, pp. 86-89, 119-122. Its author is former HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi. Operation 40 was under the CIA's ZR/RIFLE assassination project umbrella.
142. David Harold Byrd, I'm an Endangered Species, (Houston, TX: Pacesetter, 1978), p. 39.

See also  "Roger and Me" by Richard Bartholomew.

O'WIGHTON DELK SIMPSON
~~~~~~~~~
San Antonio Express and News -July 16, 1967
Former White House assistant, Col. Howard Burris, now a Washington businessman, related at columnist Bill White's party the other day how a group of American businessmen had been given the A-l treatment by Nasser just three weeks before the outbreak of hostilities with Israel. The Egyptian president invited the group at his expense all the way from the United Slates to Egypt, took care of all expenses portal to portal, plush hotel suites, cars, chauffeurs, charming polished hostesses, all in the interest of  getting them to invest in Egypt. He charmed them with his frankness in explaining the needs of his people and his economic problems and explained that Americans didn't understand that there were times when he had to take positive action to maintain his position as a leader.Since he was bound to know that his closing of the Gulf of Aqaba was certain to stir up anti-Egyptian repercussions in America, Howard thinks it unlikely that Nasser had any notion of what was ahead then. He left them with the impression just the opposite of that of a man about lo launch an international crisis; so the entire group remains mystified about it all.
The Whites' party was for retiring Greek Ambassador and Mrs. Alexander Matsas who are leaving the post because of his ill health. Said Ambassador Matsas, who is en route to Switzerland for two months of rest, This is a good year to go to Greece—not many tourists and no strikes.
American Ambassador to Greece and Mrs. Phillips Talbot were there and he said that tourism is down due to the recent crisis in Greece and the Middle East. It's probably a bargain year for charter yachts !f you want to tour the Greek isles. Secretary of the Treasury Joe Fowler revealed that if nothing unforeseen prevents it he will leave this week for that famed stag summer institution in California known as the Bohemian Grove.
"You don't get a rest," said Joe, who turned down an invitation to speak there this lime, "but each time I go I
ache afterwards from laughing." If you ask me, if there is one fellow who needs laughter it is the one in
charge of trying to balance the budget.

In Search of Sam Houston Burris

According to the Torbitt Document, two men from Mexico--Sapet and Alfredo Cervantes--had, eleven years prior to the assassination of President Kennedy:

Texas sought extradition from Mexico

positioned themselves in a field adjacent to the rear of [anti-George Parr attorney, Jake] Floyd's house and when Buddy Floyd, Jake's 19 [sic] year old son who resembled his father, started out of the house to the garage, Cervantes mistakenly shot Buddy through the head, killing him. Cervantes, Sapet and Nago Alaniz, George Parr's personal lawyer, were indicted for the assassination and for conspiracy to murder. Sapet was caught before he could cross the Mexican border and was given a 99 year sentence.

Division Five's various names

Cervantes crossed back into Mexico where he found his Division Five assassination group and although Mexican authorities arrested him, political pressure was brought to bear and Alfredo has remained a free man in Mexico despite sixteen years of constant effort to extradite him by Sam Burris, the Alice District Attorney. Burris and Bill Allcorn, Special Assistant Attorney General of Texas, were unable to convict Nago Alaniz, but one of the conspirators gave Bill Allcorn pertinent information.

The accomplice told Allcorn that there were twenty-five to thirty professional assassins kept in Mexico by the espionage section of the U. S. Federal Bureau of Investigation; that these men were used to commit political assassinations all over North, South and Central America, the East European countries and in Russia; that these men were the absolute world's most accurate riflemen; they they sometimes took private contracts to kill in the United States; that the contact man for employment of the riflemen was a man named Bowen posing as an American Council of Christian Churches' missionary in Mexico; that you could reach Bowen through the owner of the St. Anthony's Hotel in Laredo, Texas.

Buddy Floyd's Killing

The shooting occurred on Monday night, September 8, 1952, shortly after Buddy left the house to work on his car in the garage behind the home, and the body was discovered by his mother half an hour later. Buddy was a 22-year-old student at the University of Texas law school in Austin.

Jacob S. "Jake" Floyd, Sr. was an avowed enemy of George Parr's political and criminal empire in south Texas, who was working on behalf of the write-in campaign for District Judge Sam Reams, a losing opponent of the Parr machine in the July Democratic primary election.

Nago Lucio Alaniz

In addition to extraditing Cervantez from Mexico, officials also tried to make a case against Audenago "Nago" Lucio Alaniz, the law partner of Raeburn Norris, the man who had won the primary election for district attorney.

Nago was born in Berclair, Goliad County, Texas in 1913 or 1914 (records exist for him in Ancestry for the same day of both years). His name first appeared in newspapers in early June of 1934 while he was living at 2102 Guadalupe St. in Austin, Texas--an address, which was directly opposite the Newman Center, a Catholic service group for college students, of which he was a member.

Nago and a female passenger, Gail Sperry of Hubbard, Texas, had been kidnapped in his rented car in Austin and forced to drive to San Antonio. The alleged abductor, Aaron Burleson, was tried and convicted the following September after both victims testified.

A few months after that trial, Nago's photo appeared in the 1936 yearbook of Lebanon law school at Cumberland University in Tennessee:

In 1871 Cumberland University took the revolutionary step of instituting a one-year law course. The Bachelor of Laws degree was awarded after two semesters of study, examination, Moot court, and debate. Students were taught one subject at a time for the entire three-hour class period. Cumberland University followed this very successful method until 1938-39, when the school returned to a two-year course.

He married Leila Saenz, from a local family in Beeville. Eventually he moved to Benavides in Duval County, about halfway between Alice and Hebbronville. He had enlisted in the Army 22 Apr 1943 and was discharged 6 Aug 1943.

By 1947 he had formed a criminal defense partnership with Raeburn L. Norris in Alice, Texas. Norris had already by that time lost at least two elections for county and district attorney.

In December 1952 Alaniz was released from jail on bond, awaiting trial alongside Mario Sapet, a tavern keeper from San Antonio, for the murder.

Burris Family Background

Young attorney, Sam Burris, arrived in Jim Wells County only the year before, and was destined to spend 16 years in an attempt to have Alfredo Cervantes extradited from Mexico to stand trial for the murder of Buddy Floyd. Mexico rejected the extradition for two main reasons: First, disputing that Cervantes had become a U.S. citizen while in Texas and second, refusing to extradite him because he would face the death penalty not available in Mexico. Who was Sam Burris, and what can be learned about him?

Sam Houston Burris graduated, first, from Texas A and I in Kingsville and then obtained a law degree from the University of Texas in 1951; he then returned home to Alice, Texas located in Jim Wells County near the famous King Ranch. He wasted no time in becoming county attorney and ran for district attorney in 1954. Once he took office as D.A., he wrote a letter to conservative John Ben Shepperd, the Texas Attorney General, appointed by Governor Allan Shivers, concerning certain actions of George Parr's political cronies, which he suspected were violations of Texas law.

According to his 2008 obituary, Sam Burris was born in Pleasanton, Texas (about 40 miles or so south of San Antonio) to Jean Holland (sometimes called John H.) and Anna Ruth Burris.  A Texas birth record indicates a son younger than Sam, named Jean Howard Burris, was born in Bexar County to Jean H. and his wife, Ruth La Reaux (or LaRoe?) in 1934; later public records indicate that this John H Burris, lived in Alice, Texas in the early 1990's. (Possibly he changed the spelling of his first name from the French spelling "Jean" to John, as members of her family spelled their names as LaRoe, rather than the "La Reaux" spelling shown on the birth record.) 

Further evidence of the family's history is presented in a January 1938 notice in the Laredo Times: Mrs. J. H. Burris (Sam's mother) was in attendance at the celebration of her grandparents' 65th wedding anniversary--Aaron L. and Hettie J. (Wilson) Hale. The Hales had two daughters married to men named A.E. LaRoe and Daniel Reid LaRoe, both of San Antonio. The notice reported that Mrs. Burris (actually the daughter of Dan R. and Mary E. Hale Laroe) had three children named "Connie Jean, Sammy and John Burris," of Alice, Texas. There were two other Hale daughters named in the society item, living near the Hales, in Laredo--Mrs. J.B. [Emma Hale] DaCamara and Mrs. Ross Swisher. 

The LaRoe family seemed to congregate around the Atascosa County arena, where Mrs. Burris' uncle, James Laroe, had tragically killed himself and a son in 1937. 

After this horrendous event, however, Mrs. Burris may have been more amenable to leaving Pleasanton. It was at about that time that Sam's family had moved from Atascosa County to Alice, where he attended grade school and had graduated from high school. 

Census records reveal that his father, Jean Burris, and a brother named Carlos were engaged in farming in Atascosa County in 1920. It would have been during that farming venture that he had met and married Ruth La Reaux/LaRoe. For a time they lived in San Antonio with their first two children--Sam, or Sammy as he was called, and Connie Jean, before the subsequent birth of John Holland Burris, Jr. in 1934. Sammy's maternal grandfather, Dan LaRoe was a railroad engineer and had taken his young family to Mexico after young Ruth (Mrs. Burris) was born around 1897. Undoubtedly Ruth had learned to speak fluent Spanish living in the foreign country during her youth. Her younger siblings, Dan Jr. and John H. LaRoe, were actually born in Mexico in 1920 and 1922, but the family returned to Texas before the youngest child, Emma Lou, was born in 1925 and later married John Victor Huntress, Jr. of San Antonio.

Ruth LaRoe's grandparents, the Hales, lived in Lockhart (Caldwell County), Texas before 1900 and later moved to Laredo. Ruth's aunt, Emma Hale, had married J.B. (Bernie) DaCamara in Laredo.  The Laredo Times reported in 1931 that they owned a cottage in Corpus Christi named "J. B. Emma," located close to the "Breakers Hotel on North Beach, and is a mecca for friends to visit. For many years, Mr. and Mrs. DaCamara have entertained groups of intimate friends for a week at a time throughout the vacation months."

Emma Hale's mother-in-law, Laura Gravis DaCamara, had been born in Corpus Christi, Texas in 1848 to John Allen Freeman (and Irenah Hall) Gravis. Seemingly an official in the Republic of Texas, he was born in Germany in 1810, though some of the family genealogists locate his family in Pennsylvania rather than Germany; perhaps he was a traveling diplomat. 
He was, however, a hotel proprietor according to this Corpus Christi Caller's website entry:

J.A.F. Gravis, a [Battle of] San Jacinto veteran, opened the California House in 1849, a hotel for Gold Rush prospectors coming through. His hotel was at Chaparral and William. Gravis, a bricklayer, and his partner H.W. Berry built many of the early shellcrete structures. After Gravis died of yellow fever, his widow Irenah married Berry and they turned the hotel into a boarding house. Mrs. Berry’s sons would ring a bell to summon boarders when meals were ready.

Irenah had married Henry W. Berry by the time of the 1870 census. In the interim between 1870 and 1880, Laura Gravis had married Jose Bernardino DaCamara, a dentist, had two children--Harrison and Marie (also called Harry and Mamie in some records)--and moved to Brownsville, Texas. Five years later, the Florida census recorded Laura residing in Volusia County (without her husband), in a household with her three children and a 75-year-old woman named E.A. DaCamara, presumably her mother-in-law. By 1900 she had returned to Texas, where she reared the children with help from her spinster sister, Hettie, in Corpus Christi. In 1898 Harry Da Camara was reported to be a member of the Texas Treasury department.

The following item appeared in the December 19, 1909 edition of the Laredo Times:

Mrs A. L. Haile [sic], mother of Mrs. J. B. DaCamara who with her daughter Miss Jessie [Hale], have been on a several weeks visit to Mr. J. B. DaCamara and family, left yesterday for their home in Monterrey.

Bernie's father had been born in Massachusetts in 1837, his own father having emigrated to America from the Portuguese archipelago of Madeira and married a young Baltimore girl named Eliza Wheeler. Born in Maryland in 1882 before his parents headed west for Texas, Bernie's father was one of many DaCamara men who bore the name of Jose Bernardino. In fact, one J.B. DaCamara was even reflected in the 1860 census in Texas. DaCamara, like Gravis, was a very old family in Texas.


Sam Burris' Mother's First Cousins

Bernie DaCamara's older brother, Harrison Gravis DaCamara, worked as a railroad agent in Laredo (the International & Great Northern), and the wedding announcement in 1930 for his son, Randolph Lawrence DaCamara, revealed that the newlyweds planned to live in Mexico City, where the groom ran a Dodge Brothers car dealership. Harry's eldest son (Randolph's brother) had the unfortunate first name of Shirley--given to him by his mother, the former Martha Shirley, whose father, Richard J. Shirley, had arrived in Texas from the Isle of Man in 1859. Mrs. DaCamara's brother was also a businessman in Mexico, proprietor of the Shirley Courts, as revealed in this news item from 1936:

James Shirley Of
Mexico City Here

Laredo Times

MARCH 13, 1936

"In 90 days I predict you will be able to leave Mexico City at five o'clock in the morning and be in Laredo by ten that night'', was the prediction of James G. Shirley, Mexico City business man who is here with Mrs. Shirley visiting her sister Mrs. H. G. DaCamara. Shirley is the owner of Shirley Courts, one of the finest tourist accommodation spots in Mexico City. He and Mrs. Shirley will leave here for visits in Detroit and Rochester, Minn. Shirley drove from Mexico City to Laredo and reported the finishing touches being put on the highway.

Other sources reveal that the Shirley Courts had a catering contract with Pan American Airlines and that it was the favored spot for Americans to stay in Mexico City. Mr. Shirley died in December 1945--with a short obituary appearing in the Laredo newspaper--but 30 years later the courts were seemingly still being operated by his heirs:

James G. Shirley, 57, operator of the Shirley Courts in Mexico City and one of the best known members of the American colony there, a brother of Mrs. Harry G. DaCamara of Laredo, died in Mexico City Friday, according to a dispatch from Mexico City to The Times Saturday night. He was a native of Corpus Christi, son of the late R J. Shirley. He established the Shirley Courts in Mexico City a number of years ago and among his many patrons were many acquaintances from Laredo, where he frequently visited as a guest of his sister.

The sister's son, unfortunately named Shirley DaCamara, was a teacher and coach of the Laredo High school until 1928, when he moved to Mexico City to work for with the Dodge Motor company where he was employed at the time of his marriage to Florence McGregor in April 1930. After their first daughter, Patricia, was born in Laredo later that year, the family moved back to Texas. They had another daughter named Priscilla.

Patricia studied at the University of Texas at Austin and joined the Alpha Chi Omega Sorority, and, after graduation in 1952, Patricia worked briefly for the United States Department of State in Washington, D.C. Marrying Lieutenant Austin R. Bryan, USAF, she would travel with her husband on assignments across the United States and around the world. With her education degree, she was able to teach Spanish, French, and ESL in the United States and abroad. She taught in Department of Defense Schools in Europe, in Hanau and Ramstein Germany; in International Schools in Athens, Greece, and Dhahran and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; and in public schools in Laredo and San Antonio, Texas.  Her husband in 1971 was a lieutenant colonel--in charge of the "entire aircraft maintenance effort at Webb [AFB] and control of 728 military men and 198 civilians," according to news reports in Big Spring, Texas.

Patricia, based on the important role her ancestors played in the history of Texas, was also a member of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. Because an ancestor, J.A.F. Gravis, fought in the Battle of San Jacinto, her male ancestors and siblings in that lineage would have also qualified to be members of the Sons of the Republic of Texas and be chosen as Knights of San Jacinto, a secret order on a par with Skull and Bones.

That is not to say, however, that the only Texas heroes that existed in Sam Burris' lineage could be found in the parentage of his mother's kin. There were equally impressive members of his father's side of the gene pool, even though he may not have socialized with them to the same extent. That, however, must be reserved for a later day.

What Was Double-Chek Corporation?

Newspapers in 1961, shortly after the failed Bay of Pigs operation in Cuba, were full of reports of four pilots from Alabama's Air National Guard, who had been killed in two B-26's.  Recruited by the CIA in view of her experience of these devices, the men were Thomas Willard Ray, Leo Francis Baker, Riley W. Shamburger, Wade C. Gray--all from Birmingham --part of the hundred members of Brigade 2506 who died. 

A family history of Shamburger appears at Ancestry.com:

 

Riley W. Shamburger, Jr., the oldest of the four fliers, was born in Birmingham on November 17, 1924. He married Marion Jane Graves, his childhood sweetheart. They had dated for twelve years before their marriage, through grammar school and Woodlawn High. After Pearl Harbor, Shamburger quit high school to join the Air Force. (When the war ended he returned and got his diploma.) A combat pilot in World War II and Korea, Shamburger was a big breezy extrovert who loved to fly.

He was a 209-pounder, six feet tall, with 15,000 hours in the air and eighteen years of flying experience by 1961. A test pilot at Hayes, he was also a major in the Alabama Air National Guard, and was its operations officer at the Birmingham airfield. He was also a good friend of General [George Reid] Doster [commander of the 117th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing at Birmingham Municipal Airport in Alabama]. Shamburger did well; he owned a substantial home in East Lake.

The Shamburgers were part of a beer-and-barbecue, happy-go-lucky crowd of Air Guardsmen and their wives who frequently socialized together. Aside from flying, Riley liked nothing better than to sit in front of the TV set with a case of beer, eating his favorite food, "parched" (roasted) peanuts. And he liked to barbecue pork chops.

Early in 1961 Riley told his wife: "I'm going to be away at school for three months." He did not say where he was going, but about once a week he returned to Birmingham. He and Doster would fly in together.

Sometimes they would bring news of other Birmingham acquaintances -- such as Colonel Joe Shannon -- who were part of the mysterious operation. Once, when Riley returned for a visit, he told how the boys had rigged up a beer joint in Central America named after their favorite bar in Birmingham. Over the makeshift saloon a pair of red panties flew in the breeze as a cocktail flag.

Shortly before the invasion, Marion sent Riley a present -- a whole cigar box full of parched peanuts.

This, then, is the background of Riley and of how he came to be in Happy Valley on Wednesday, April 19, 1961. On that day four Alabama Pilots volunteered to fly B-26s over the beaches to relieve the exhausted Cuban pilots.

What happened has already been described: Shortly before they took off, the four CIA fliers were told they would receive air support from the carrier-based Navy jets. (The word had been flashed to Happy Valley by Richard Bissell after the President authorized the unmarked Navy jets to fly for one hour at dawn.) Because of the mix-up over time zones, the B-26s got to the Bay of Pigs after the Navy jets had already gone.

Exactly how the two planes were shot down is a subject of varying accounts, but most versions agree that Shamburger and Gray crashed at sea and that Ray and Baker crashed inland.

Part of what happened was told by James Storie, written by Allan T. Duffin, in "Above and Beyond--Mission: Cuba. Status: Top secret," Air & Space Magazine, May 01, 2011. He said that the major recruiter for the mission was Gen. Doster and that the personnel interviewed were from the Hayes Aircraft Corporation in Birmingham, or else active Guardsmen.

We used first names only. I was given a picture of a woman and two kids to go in my billfold—I had no idea who they were—along with other documents that would create a fake identity.
At first we were given just a few vague details about our mission. At each step, a candidate remained only if he continued to sign more secrecy documents. I became pretty sure that we were dealing with the CIA, but this was never acknowledged. We were told how we would be paid and that we could tell no one—not a soul—or we would be prosecuted for revealing classified information.

Finally I learned the truth, and why the Guard needed aircraft technicians: We would be training Cuban exiles to fly B-26s for an invasion of Cuba, with the goal of triggering a revolution to overthrow communist dictator Fidel Castro. Since Castro had B-26s in his air force, the theory went, the Cuban population would think that their own military was revolting against Castro and would join the uprising.

After a week of briefings and paperwork, we reported to Eglin Air Force Base near Pensacola, Florida. We left Eglin at midnight in a Douglas C-54 with blacked-out windows, flying 50 feet above the water for a very long time. We still did not know where we were going.

The next morning we landed on a dusty airstrip. This was our base. There was nothing there except the runway. It turned out to be Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua. I was told that the ground troops for the invasion were being trained in Guatemala while we trained B-26 crews here....
The pilots and crew volunteers were people I had worked with at Hayes Aircraft, except for Joe Shannon. In earlier days I had flown with two of them: Riley Shamburger and Pete Ray, whom I considered a friend.

On April 19, we launched six B-26s, four of them piloted by U.S. crews. Wade Gray was flying with Shamburger and was the first American to go down, in the water. The B-26 piloted by Pete Ray and Leo Baker was the second, going down on land. Both airmen survived but were shot by Castro’s soldiers. Only Shannon returned in one piece. The Cuban exiles were unable to sustain the beachhead at the Bay of Pigs and surrendered to Castro’s forces....
We returned to Florida in much the same manner we arrived, on a C-54. But the transport’s windows weren’t blacked out and it flew at a much higher altitude. We were reminded that the operation and our involvement in it were still top secret. We were to use the cover stories originally given us and had the name of a person with the Air Guard to contact in case we thought we were being watched or noticed something unusual. Otherwise, we were told to keep quiet and go on with our regular routines. Widows of four of the pilots killed reported they were receiving bi-weekly checks from a corporation called Double-Chek, headed by a man named Alex E. Carlson. Two years later it was revealed that the pilots had been in the Central Intelligence Agency, and that anti-Castro donors had set up a trust fund for volunteers who participated in the attempted coup to get rid of Castro.

Carlson had been born to a Swedish emigrant named Alex Gottfried Carlson who arrived in the United States at the Juarez border-crossing in El Paso, Texas in 1911 with his father, Henrik Leopold Carlson, and a brother. By 1930 Alex G. was married to a fellow Swede Olga Josefina Johansson and lived in Coronado, San Diego County, California, working as a horse trainer. Their Cuban-born son (Alex E., the eventual Double-Chek executive), was five years old in 1930, with two older sisters (Olga and Florence) who had been born in New York in the early 1920's. 

The family moved to Marquette, Michigan after 1930, where Alex E. met his wife, Katherine "Kay" Hornbogen, daughter of Dr. Daniel P. Hornbogen; but they were divorced in Miami in 1954. He died in 2005 in the Miami area. 

It seems unquestionable that Carlson was working for the Central Intelligence Agency as paymaster of the operation, since Air America and Civil Air Transport were also involved:

It is known that most of the pilots who flew the B-26s in the Bay of Pigs operation against Cuba in April 1961 were Cuban exiles who had been engaged by the Double-Check [sic] Corporation. It is also known that the Cuban exile pilots were trained for the Bay of Pigs operation at Retalhuleu, Guatemala (“Rayo Base”) between July 60 and April 61, using at least 6 of the 8 B-26s delivered to the Fuerza Aérea Guatemalteca in the summer of 1960 (Source: Hagedorn / Hellström, Foreign Invaders, pp.89-91, for details and for the identities of those B-26s; a Cuban pilot, whose log book is in the possession of Leif Hellström, notes FAG 400, 404, 408, 412, 420, and 424 as training aircraft: e-mail dated 22 February 2004, kindly sent to the author by Leif Hellström).

Other documents equally published by the CIA, however, reveal that CAT/Air America pilots Connie Seigrist, William Beale, and Douglas R. Price also flew B-26 missions. While William Beale seems to have flown the B-26 only on training flights out of Retalhuleu, Guatemala (“Rayo Base”) on 14 and 15 November 1960, Connie Seigrist flew B-26 training missions out of Retalhuleu on 14 and 15 November 1960 as well as attack missions during the Bay of Pigs invasion, that is on 18 and 19 April 1961, and Doug Price also flew combat missions on 18 and 19 April 61.

 Bem Price and Theodore A. Ediger, Associated Press Writers, on April 16, 1963, described the "Flop at the Bay of Pigs" as follows:

After a series of diplomatic humiliations in which the movements of U.S. ambassador to Cuba, Philip Bonsal, were restricted to a small area of Havana and all but 11 U.S. Embassy employes ordered to leave, former President Dwight D. Eisenhower severed relations with Cuba Jan. 4, 1961 [less than three weeks before JFK's inauguration]. Now reports of military activities began flowing out of the gossipy refugee colony in Miami with the persistence of truth. These reports—later confirmed—said anti-Castro refugees were training in Guatemala; paratroopers and pilots at the 5,000-foot-long airstrip at Retalhuleu; infantry at Trax, La Finquita and Garrapatinango.

During January 1961, unmarked planes began making frequent night flights from long unused airfields at Clewiston and Opa-Locka, Fla. As it turned out, they were carrying volunteers to Guatemala. It was in January that four members of the Alabama National Guard, all former pilots of the World War II light bomber, the B26, were recruited. These men were paid $2,250 a month each, plus $200 monthly for expenses, so their survivors reported.

In all, apparently, about 21 pilots were hired to train Cubans. Gov. Orval E. Faubus of Arkansas disclosed just this year that most came out of his state's Air National Guard. The Alabama fliers were hired by a man who identified himself as Alex E. Carlson of the Double Chek Corp., of 1045 Curtis Parkway, Miami Springs, Fla. [near the Miami Springs airport and where the country club is today. The street was named for "Glenn H. Curtiss [who] thought the area desirable for starting a flying school in 1916 with his partner, James Bright. Together they purchased 17,000 acres of scrub and pasture land that years later would become Miami Springs, Hialeah, and Opa-Locka."]. Double Chek was formed May 12, 1959, by Carlson with a capital of $500 to engage in a wide variety of business activities. After the invasion Carlson said he was simply acting as an employment agency for an unidentified Latin-American concern. 

When we review a map of the area around Miami Springs, it is impossible not to notice that, just as Curtiss Parkway bisects the Miami Springs Country Club, which is situated directly north, almost abutting, the Miami International Airport, a short distance to the west of the country club is a divided boulevard designated north and south Melrose Drive--leading us to wonder whether that name may have been derived from Paul Helliwell's law partner at Helliwell, Melrose and DeWolfe--Mary Jane Melrose. The two partners are mentioned in numerous books about the CIA's real estate activities in Florida:

• Masters of Paradise by Alan A. Block; 
• Nemesis: The True Story of Aristotle Onassis, Jackie O, and the Love Triangle That Brought Down the Kennedys by Peter Evans;
• In Banks We Trust by Penny Lernoux;
• Married to the Mouse by Richard E. Fogelsong; and
• American War Machine: Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection, and the Road to Afghanistan by Peter Dale Scott.

The Double-Chek Corporation would be accused of being the paymaster for the the assassination of President Kennedy by a man who long used the alias of William Torbitt to cover his true identity. In the next post, his identity will be examined.

News Traveled Fast on Nov. 22, 1963

 

Click photo for enlarged version.

Notice the date of publication. November 22 (Third Edition). California would have been two hours behind Texas, making the time of the assassination 10:30 instead of half past noon. But still, to have these quotes from Dallas Police and a photo of Lee by the end of the day is quite amazing. Did the information Gannaway furnished the press come from the FBI or from some other source?

On April 24, 1964, the Dallas Morning News had contained an article concerning a "five-paragraph memo" prepared by Lieutenant Jack Revill, which had been passed along to Chief of Police Jesse Curry. Curry, who had testified before the Warren Commission (WC) during the third week of April, gave the Commission a copy of the memo. Following up on Curry's testimony, the Dallas Morning News quoted "a source close to the Warren Commission" about the evidence presented to the WC, including Revill's memo. The Associated Press called Lt. Revill at a convention in Sacramento, California, and were told that another Dallas policeman could confirm that FBI Agent James (Joe) Hosty had told the local police: 

"We knew he [Oswald] was capable of assassinating the president..."

Jack Revill had first appeared before the Warren Commission on March 31, three weeks before his Chief, but had been questioned only in regard to the shooting of Lee Oswald by Jack Ruby. Apparently the WC questioners were unaware of the Friday afternoon headlines which zeroed in on Oswald and quoted Revill's immediate superior, W. Pat Gannaway, saying that Oswald had been to the Soviet Union and had a Russian wife, even obtaining a 1959 photo of Oswald when he left Fort Worth, later ending up in Moscow.

While the AP contacted Revill in California, the rival paper of the Morning News, the Dallas Times Herald, contacted FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. He furnished them a most amazing statement:

"This is absolutely false. The agent made no such statement and the FBI did not have such knowledge."

The only thing absolute in this flap was that somebody was lying. Was it a member of the local Dallas police, or was it a member of the FBI?

To discover the truth, Lt. Revill was called back to the WC on May 13 to testify about his conversation with Agent Hosty in the DPD. Revill said he had previously conducted a "systematic search" of the Texas School Book Depository offices (located at 411 Elm) along with numerous other detectives from his office. He went directly from that location to the basement of DPD, where he got out of his car and allowed it to be parked by a staff member. Before he could enter the headquarters building, he testified, Agent Hosty had run up to him, saying:

"Jack, a Communist killed President Kennedy....Lee Oswald killed President Kennedy....He is in our Communist file. We knew he was here in Dallas." 

 Both Gannaway and Revill have been discussed previously at this blog in connection with the framing of Candy Barr for narcotics possession. As undercover narcotics policemen in Dallas, they also knew George W. Owen, a man once married to Maurine Biner, the woman John Dean eventually married shortly after the Watergate break-in in Washington, D.C. Owen was said to have been present at the Murchison home on November 21, 1963, along with LBJ's girlfriend, Madeleine Duncan Brown, and others who overheard LBJ threaten that after the following day Johnson would not have to put up with Kennedy any more. Is it possible Owen's police friends heard about the plan from him and were prepared to release the background on Oswald quickly? Also according to Brown, George Owen had driven to Redbird Airport in Dallas the night of the 21st to meet J. Edgar Hoover's plane and deliver him to the Murchison party. She said Owen was ready to talk when he suddenly dropped dead. Read more on this story at the March 26, 2011 posting, "

George W. Owen, a Friend of LBJ's Mistress."

Olean Times Herald - Sept. 14, 1949

Turkey Field Day Planned Near Titusville

TITUSVILLE. Pa — Turkey growers of northwestern Pennsylvania will have a field day starting at 1:30 p m on Thursday, September 22 at Bob Lowers' Valley View Turkey Farm. Lowers' place is located four miles south of Titusville just off Route B. Turkey growers and scientists have learned to surmount many obstacles. One of their latest is to stimulate turkeys to put on more flesh and fat by a biological chemical process. This is one by injecting two small white pellets under the loose skin of the turkey's head. These pellets are smaller than kernels of wheat and chemically are known as diethylstilbesterol.When Injected into toms 19-21 weeks of age they stimulate the birds to put on more flesh and fat. This fine finish allows early hatched  toms to be marketed earlier.

 THE GETTYSBURG TIMES, JULY 2, 1988

By ROBERT C. PARK, M.D., President, 

The American College of Obstetricians And Gynecologists

For the past several years, there have been different opinions on how frequently you should have a Pap smear. In January, several national medical organizations formulated one set of guidelines for you and your physician to follow. The American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute, the American Medical Association and The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologist were among the groups that agreed to the new guidelines. Those guidelines state that all women who are 

• at least 18 years old, or 
• who are sexually active before age 18, 

should have a Pap smear once a year. If three consecutive annual smears are negative, and you are not at high risk for any of the conditions that could lead to cervical cancer, then your doctor can decide if you need to continue having the test every year, or if you can have it on a less frequent basis. 

Many women should continue to have the exam every year, even if three consecutive smears are negative.

These women are considered to be at high risk for cellular changes on their cervix. They are 

• women who have had more than one sexual partner, or 
• whose partner has had more than one partner, 
• those who were sexually active before age 18, 
• those with a history of human papillomavirus or other vaginal infections, and 
• those women whose mothers took diethylstilbesterol (DBS) during their pregnancies.

If a woman is in one of these high-risk groups, an annual Pap test will provide an early warning system to protect her health and her life. If an abnormal condition exists on your cervix, the Pap smear can detect it in the beginning stages when it can be treated and cured. If you are not sure whether you fall into a highrisk
category, it is a good idea to continue to have a Pap smear every year.

THE OGDEN (UTAH) STANDARD-EXAMINER - DECEMBER 5, 1954

NEW YORK (AP)—Daily doses of a sex hormone, diethylstilbesterol, look promising for preventing sex gland complications in men attacked by mumps, Lts. William T. Hall and Raymond N. F. Killeen, U. S. Naval Hospital here, write in the U.S. Armed Forces Medical Journal.

The hormone is given before there are any signs of involvement of the sex glands by the mumps virus. Only nine out of 63 men getting the hormone developed the complication, compared with one-third of 34 men not getting the hormone treatment.

THE DAILY GLOBE, Ironwood, Mi. - Friday, March 2, 1984

Wart-causing virus linked to cervical cancer 

DETROIT (AP) — Researchers say they have linked a sexually transmitted virus that causes genital warts to cervical and other cancers. Further studies could could lead scientists to a vaccine for human cancer, a gynecologist at Detroit's Sinai Hospital said Thursday. 

"The exciting thing about this is that it's likely, before the end of the decade, to build a vaccine for this virus and introduce a program for the prevention of a primary human cancer," said Dr. Richard Reid.

The "human papillomavirus" has been linked to cervical and other cancers in studies conducted in Detroit and at the German Cancer Institute in West Germany, Reid said. In samples of vaginal skin, 95 percent of the cancers and 88 percent of "precancers" showed the virus, compared with only 12 percent in normal specimens, Reid said. The virus causes visible genital warts around the penis or anus of men, but in women, "the lesion can't be seen with the naked eye," he said. 

In a separate study conducted by German virologist Harald Zurhausen, the DNA in 89 percent of the 55 cancerous specimens tested reacted positively to the virus, indicating that the virus was present, Reid said.

"At this time, it's true to say the number of deaths from cervical cancer has been falling," he said. "The death rate in young women is actually increasing rather than decreasing, and the number of people with this virus has also increased.

"If not for the pap smear program, we'd have a tragic epidemic of cervical cancer." 

Other factors contributing to cervical cancer include smoking, herpes infection and a person's immune system!

Women are at high risk if they were under 20 years old when they had their first sexual experience, had more than three sexual partners or had intercourse with a man who had had multiple partners, according to the American Cancer Society.

"Another factor that is important is that there are at least five of these viruses that are sexually transmitted,"
Reid said.

"For both males and females, this is a persistent virus, and getting this virus often means a lifelong infection,"
he said. "Or some people are lifelong carriers, and so they can have no awareness, themselves, of the disease and yet infect other people, or ... slowly have a malignancy grow in this area of chronic infection."

The virus may also be involved in other squamous cancers, or cancers involving the skin or epidermal cells, said Reid. "It is suspected also in cancers of the mouth, throat, larnyx, and bronchus."