Erasing the Past to Protect a Fairytale

247  One 30.06 rifle investigated by the FBI


Related:
9    The steel-jacketed 30.06 bullet retrieved from Edward Walker's house
226 The DePugh sabot

    The files reveal that the FBI took a strong
interest in the history and ownership of this rifle within hours of the shooting.

Other documents released by the ARRB discuss a Johnson semi-automatic 30.06 rifle that was apparently
suspected of having been used in the assassination. One can infer from the documents that the rifle
might have even been found in Dealey Plaza, although the documents never actually say where the
weapon was located on the day of the shooting.



a Johnson semi-automatic 30.06, 1941 version

The documents strongly link this rifle to two men who have long been suspected of being involved in the
assassination plot, Loran Hall and Jerry Patrick Hemming. The files also reveal that the FBI took a strong
interest in the history and ownership of this rifle within hours of the shooting. A man named Richard
Hathcock, who lived in California at the time, had kept the rifle in his office for a while. The day after the
assassination, an FBI agent questioned him about the weapon. Among other things, the agent wanted to
know if Hathcock had an employee named Roy Payne, who apparently knew a great deal about the rifle.
In one of the released files, we read that Hathcock said the following:

It's my opinion that the reason he [the FBI agent] wanted to see Mr. Payne was because Payne's
fingerprints undoubtedly were all over that rifle from his having handled it many times. It's also my opinion
that unless that particular rifle had been found [near the scene of the crime] or in some way involved in
this whole thing [the assassination], that the FBI would have no interest in it. (HSCA 180-10107-10443)

This rifle had quite a history. It was used in CIA-connected anti-Castro raids in Cuba. Roy Payne said the
weapon could "put a hole in a dime at 500 yards" (HSCA 180-10107-10440). Loran Hall and an unidentified
Hispanic man took the weapon from Payne about a week before the assassination. Hall's associate, Jerry
Hemming, is known to have been in Dallas on the day of the shooting, and Hall himself told Hathcock five
days prior to the assassination that he had to catch a flight to Dallas (HSCA 180-10107-10440).

(Michael T. Griffith, Extra bullets and missed shots, Second Edition Revised on 4/28/2001)


Loran Hall 1930-1995

The Commission—celebrated in a hundred different ways for
leaving no stone unturned in its search for all the facts—tells us that the rifle
probably was sold without a clip. Why should this information be indefinite?

Mr. Waldman and Mr. Scibor of Klein's Sporting Goods testified well after
Frazier. They should have been asked whether or not an ammunition clip had
accompanied the mail-order rifle. If the answer was no, an attempt should have
been made to trace the clip and to determine by whom, and to whom, it was sold.

As will be seen in a moment, the clip was not a common size or style. That might
have facilitated tracing. However, no attempt was made to determine the manufacturer,
the meaning of the markings, or the retail purchase of the clip— information which might
well have had relevance to the nature of the crime and the identity of the assassin.

That the clip ostensibly found in the rifle is not a standard one is seen in Frazier's reply to
an enigmatic question.

    Eisenberg: Is there any reason that you can think of why someone might
     call that a five-shot clip?

    Frazier: No, sir, unless they were unfamiliar with it. There is an area of
      confusion in that a different type of rifle shooting larger ammunition, such
      as a 30.06 or a German Mauser rifle, uses five-shot clips, and the five-shot
      clip is the common style or size of clip, whereas this one actually holds six.
      (3H 398)

Eisenberg's question surely was not academic. Someone must have described
the clip as a five-shot clip, although nothing found in the testimony or exhibits
provides a basis for his question. It is another coincidence, one supposes, that
someone has mistaken a six-shot clip for a clip suitable to a Mauser, just as the
Carcano rifle was mistaken for a Mauser.

(Sylvia Meagher, Accessories after the fact, p. 118/119)


The Walker incident is familiar from press stories after the assassination.
On the night of April 10, 1963, as Walker sat in his study, an unknown assailant
fired one shot from a rifle, missing him narrowly. Two nights before, two men
had been observed lurking about the Walker house and had fled in an unmarked
car. This had been reported to the Dallas police before the shot at Walker on
April 10. When the shot was heard, a young neighbor saw two men leave the
scene in cars. The bullet was recovered by the Dallas police. An Associated
Press story in The New York Times on April 12, 1963 said that the bullet was
a 30.06.

(Sylvia Meagher, Accessories after the fact, p. 283)

249 Admiral Burkley's information offered to the HSCA in 1977


Related:
19 The Pitzer Film
40 The original autopsy notes by Commander James J. Humes
98  Recordings of Malcolm Perry press conference

From: Richard Sprague
To: File
March 18, 1977

William F. Illig, an attorney from Erie, Pa., contacted me in Philadelphia this date, advising me that he
represents Dr. George G. Burkley, Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy retired, who had been the personal physician
for presidents Kennedy and Johnson.

Mr. Illig stated that he had a luncheon meeting with his client, Dr. Burkley, this date to take up some
tax matters. Dr. Burkley advised him that although he, Burkley, had signed the death certificate of
President Kennedy in Dallas, he had never been interviewed and that he has information in the Kennedy
assassination indicating that others besides Oswald must have participated.

Illig advised me that his client is a very quiet, unassuming person, not wanting any publicity whatsoever,
but he, Illig, was calling me with his client’s consent and that his client would talk to me in Washington.

(Richard A. Sprague: HSCA Memo re: Dr George Burkley, Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy, March 18, 1977.)


No evidence has been found that the HSCA responded to the offer.

(ARRB, Final report, 1998)


Rear Admiral Dr Burkley and his predecessor, dr. Janet Travell

One of the central figures in the assassination of President Kennedy was Dr George Burkley, Kennedy’s
personal doctor. Burkley was the only medically qualified witness to possess first–hand knowledge of
every aspect of JFK’s wounds and treatment:

Burkley had been in the motorcade in Dallas;

He had treated the dying president in the emergency room at Parkland Hospital;
and he had attended the autopsy at Bethesda, Maryland.

Dr Burkley’s insight into the JFK assassination medical evidence was, however, overlooked by the official
investigative agencies. He was not called to testify before the Warren Commission.

(22november1963.org.uk)



When Dr. Burkley arrived, the president was already in the emergency room. Dr. Burkley immediately
evaluated the situation as hopeless as soon as he saw the gaping, bloody macerated huge wound and
defect in the right posterior occipital area. He went outside to talk to Mrs. Kennedy and brought her inside
for a few moments for her to view the scene. She stayed for a few moments, [and] then went outside.

The two priests arrived and the Last Sacrament was given to a presumably dead man.

(What Price A Rose? A Navy Physician Remembers Nov. 22, 1963)

251  Papers compiled by crypto-code operator Eugene Dinkin foretelling a military plot against JFK


Compare:
  86 Army intelligence records on Fort Hood arms theft
116 Gary Underhill's JFK Assassination notes
212 The identity of the mystery Oxnard area caller

"Dinkin stated that upon his release from custody, he discovered that
        all of his notes were missing."

Regular Army Private First Class Dinkin was serving in Metz, France in the 599th Ordinance Group. He held
a secret security clearance for his job in the crypto-section of his unit. His duties at Metz would have
included deciphering cable traffic from the European Commands, NATO and so forth.


Eugene Dinkin, late fifties

On September, 1963, Dinkin noticed material in the Army newspaper, Stars and Stripes, and other print
publications, that was negative toward the president and his policies and implied that he was a weak
president in dealing with the Russians. The examples that he found became more negative, the suggestion
being that if he were removed as president it would be a good thing. By mid-October Dinkin had found
enough information—some of it subliminal—that he was convinced that a plot was in the works.
One driven by some high-ranking members of the military, some right-wing economic groups, and with
support by some national media outlets…

Dinkin’s studies forced him to conclude that the plot would happen around November 28, 1963, and that
the assassination would be blamed on “a Communist or a Negro”. He then sent a registered letter to
Attorney General Robert Kennedy. When he got no reply, he decided on other options.

In late October, 1963, Dinkin gathered up the material that he found that had psychological sets, which
Dinkin would be sensitive to because of his college studies. Psychological sets are a batch of information
that is used to induce a particular state of mind in an individual being exposed to the sets. The sets can
be a series of pictures, events, written statements or combinations of the aforementioned examples that
are used by advertisers and others to implant ideas into the mind of the people being exposed to them.
In advertising, of course, the goal would be to get you, the target audience, to be interested enough in
the product or service that you would buy it.

In the case of the psychological sets being used against President Kennedy, the goal was to get American
citizens to believe that President Kennedy was a weak, Communist-sympathizer, whose murder would not
be a bad thing. Additionally, Dinkin concluded that sets were placed in print media to implant into citizens’
consciousness the recognition of Oswald, Ruby and various other assassination artifacts.


US Embassy Luxembourg

On October 25, 1963, Dinkin left Metz and went to the United States Embassy in Luxembourg, where he
tried to see Mr. Cunningham, Chargé d’Affaires at the embassy. He sent word to Mr. Cunningham that he
had information concerning a plot to assassinate the president, and at one point he was able to speak to
Mr. Cunningham by phone. Mr. Cunningham refused to see him or to review the newspapers and other data
that he had collected that would advance his assertions. While he was at the Luxembourg Embassy, Dinkin
spoke to an unnamed Marine Corps guard about his research. Not being successful in his attempt to get
authorities to pass on his warning, he went back to his unit at the Army Depot.

After he returned from Luxembourg, his superiors informed him that he was to undergo a psychological
evaluation on November 5, 1963. Due to this impending development, Dinkin went absent without official
leave from his unit and travelled to Geneva, Switzerland to try to present his information to some higher
authority.

In Switzerland, he went to the newspaper Geneva Diplomat and tried to speak to the editor. Dinkin also
tried to talk to a Mr. DeWhirst, a Newsweek reporter, but he would not listen to the information. Dinkin
then went to Time-Life publications and was able to speak to the secretary who was located in Zurich.

On November 6, 1963, Dinkin went to the press room of the United Nations office in Geneva. There he told
reporters about the plot. One reporter, Alex des Fontaines, a stringer for Time-Life and Radio Canada, later
told authorities that he and a female reporter both recalled Dinkin talking about his assassination information,
which prompted Des Fontaines to file the story on November 26, 1963.




Portion of OUT Teletype No. 85770, dated 29 November 1963, filed at 1556 hours to the White House, State
Department and FBI, with copy to the Secret Service.

An FBI Airtel from the Paris Legation to FBI Director Hoover of February 27, 1964 gives additional
information about the FBI’s knowledge of Dinkin’s activities in Geneva in early November 1963. The Airtel
noted that on November 8, 1963—over two weeks before Kennedy’s assassination—a Bern Airtel
contained references to Dinkin’s activities and stated that since his statements
and actions apparently received considerable publicity, his case might have already come to the Bureau’s
attention. If that had not already occurred, it certainly would now be that the FBI was onto it. From these
intelligence documents, and his attempts to meet embassy personnel, we know that a significant number of
people, some of them officials of the United States government, either met Dinkin and/or heard Dinkin’s
information. They all failed to investigate it thoroughly, report it to the Secret Service, or report it to the
White House.

(...)

Agency cables of November 12 and 18 to CIA Director McCone should have made him interested in getting
more knowledge about Dinkin or, at the minimum, alerting the Secret Service about Dinkin’s information.
Neither Director McCone nor anyone from the CIA passed this knowledge on to the President or the Secret
Service in time to foil the plot. The CIA and the FBI had at least 2 weeks, from November 8 to 22, to warn
the Secret Service and the President. They did not do so. On November 13, 1963, after he had returned to
base in Metz, Dinkin was confined to the “Psych Ward” where, on the evening of November 22nd, he was
questioned by a Secret Service agent and asked if the plot was from the left or right. Dinkin said that it
was “from the right”.

On December 5, 1963, Dinkin was sent to Walter Reed Hospital. There he underwent numerous psychiatric
tests. He told the FBI that he was aware that the Army psychiatrist had declared him to be “psychotic” and
“paranoiac”. Dinkin was at Walter Reed for 4 months.

The FBI interviewed Dinkin in Chicago on April 1, 1964. He told them that he had been discharged from the
Army. He then related the details about his pre-knowledge of the assassination. He told the agents that he
first became aware of the plot to assassinate President Kennedy in September, 1963. At that point Dinkin
felt that he did not have enough facts to support his view, but by October he believed he had enough
information to substantiate his theory.

Dinkin stated that upon his release from custody, he discovered that all of his notes were missing. He
presumed that the individual mentioned previously had taken them. Dinkin never received a receipt for his
papers. Dinkin reasserted to the FBI agents that he believed that there had been a plot perpetrated by a
“military group,” and abetted by newspaper personnel working with the group that plotted to assassinate
President Kennedy.

(Ronald Redman, Eugene Dinkin: The Saga of an Unsung Hero)

253  The identity of Dinkin’s Defense Department visitor at the CID detention center

            
        "The FBI could have easily identified him"

After Dinkin returned from his leave to Switzerland and Germany on November 8, he was placed in
detention until November 13. While there, Dinkin was contacted by a white male who identified himself
verbally as a representative of the Defense Department. This individual asked Dinkin for the location of the
material that he had compiled as proof of his prediction of the assassination of President Kennedy. He
added that he desired to obtain these proofs and furnish Dinkin a receipt for the papers. Eugene told the
FBI agents that he instructed the man where the papers were located at the base, at which time the man
left. This was prior to the assassination.

Dinkin stated that upon his release from custody, he discovered that all of his notes were missing. He
presumed that the individual mentioned previously had taken them. Dinkin never received a receipt for his
papers. Dinkin reasserted to the FBI agents that he believed that there had been a plot perpetrated by a
“military group,” and abetted by newspaper personnel working with the group that plotted to assassinate
President Kennedy.



Hospital building Landstuhl in 1950s


After November 13, 1963, Dinkin was taken to Landstuhl Hospital in Germany for a psychological evaluation,
and was subsequently transferred to Walter Reed Naval Hospital, where he remained for four months until
he was discharged. At this point in April, 1964, Dinkin had given the FBI agents enough information for
them to verify his story. They could have interviewed the individuals with whom Eugene had consulted
about his assassination information. Additionally, the FBI could have interviewed the white male from the
Defense Department. The FBI could have easily identified him because the CID detention center at Metz
would have kept a visitor log and no one would have been able to visit a prisoner without signing in and
showing identification.

(Ronald Redman, Eugene Dinkin: The Saga of an Unsung Hero)