Erasing the Past to Protect a Fairytale

328   Oval Office tapes from October 9 – November 21, 1963


See also:
Thread: About Robert White, Chris Fulton & The Inheritance

As a young schoolboy, [Robert] White had written to President Kennedy early in his administration asking for an autographed photo of the President, which Mrs. Lincoln sent him, beginning a correspondence that continued until she died. As an avid collector of Kennedy memorabilia, White legally inherited whatever Mrs. Lincoln had when she died, which included most of what was in the Oval Office – the cigar box, a rocking chair, top secret documents, photos from the walls, and most significantly the Oval Office dictabelt and recordings, even though the items were the personal property of the Kennedy family and didn't belong to Mrs. Lincoln.

(...)

When White needed money, he began to sell of certain items, including the wrist watch JFK was wearing when he was killed and six cassette tapes, copies of the dictabelt recordings made by White and sold to one Christopher Fulton, a building contractor.


When White died at a relatively early age, his collection was put up for auction in New York City, where many items were successfully contested by the Kennedy family. Meanwhile Fulton was arrested for bank fraud, and served time in prison.

When he was released he wrote a book that falsely intimidated that he was imprisoned because of his ownership of the JFK watch, that he met with agent Bouck and sold the watch to JFK, Jr. In his book Fulton quotes some of the Oval Office tapes that clearly indicate their value to historians.

When I asked Fulton and his publisher what became of the six cassettes of copies of the Oval Office tapes, they refused to answer me (...).

From the National Archives in Washington and the JFK Library in Boston I learned that they had a protracted legal battle with Robert White and the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) attempts to retrieve sensitive documents and the tapes, the result of which is still a mystery to me.

I did learn that the JFK Library collection of Oval Office tapes available to the public on line end on October 8, 1963, so the recording made from then until the day JFK left for Texas are missing.

(Bill Kelly, JFK Countercoup, Friday, March 20, 2020)

330  Contemporary FBI investigation of "Chicago group"



See also:
2     Protection survey reports for President Kennedy’s trips in the fall of 1963
62   FBI Agent John L. Quigley's interrogation notes
90   ATF Files on Masen/Nonte case
201  Over half of the Doyle film
203  New Orleans FBI security file on Oswald

On November 21, 1963, a government informant named Thomas Mosley was negotiating the sale of machine guns to a Cuban exile named Echevarria. In the course of the transaction, Echevarria said that "we now have plenty of money - our new backers are Jews" and would close the arms deal "as soon as we [or they] take care of Kennedy." The next day, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.

Mosley, an ATF informant, reported his conversation to the Secret Service, and that agency quickly began investigating what it termed "a group in the Chicago area who may have a connection with the JFK assassination." Echevarria was a member of the 30th November group, associated with the DRE with whom Oswald had dealings the previous summer. Mosley said the arms deal was being financed through Paulino Sierra Martinez and his J.G.C.E.--Sierra interestingly was connected to Bobby Kennedy's effort to unite various exile groups, through Harry Ruiz Williams.

The Secret Service investigation was soon taken over by the FBI. The FBI quickly dropped the case, leaving this explosive statement unresolved. The Warren Commission received the Secret Service reports but did not direct the FBI to take any action in the matter.

Worth noting is that in 1995, the Secret Service destroyed presidential protection survey reports for some of Kennedy's trips during the fall of 1963, including the cancelled Chicago trip planned for the beginning of November.

(Mary Ferrell Foundation)


Homerio Echevarria (32) was a bus driver in Chicago in 1963

Homer S. Echevarria - For the most part the committee found that the anti-Castro Cuban leaders were more vociferous than potentially
violent in their tirades against the President. Nevertheless, it was unable to conclude with certainty that all of the threats were benign.
For example, one that the committee found particularly disturbing -especially so, since it was not thoroughly looked into in the 1963-
64 investigation- came to the attention of the Secret Service within days of the President's death, prompting the Acting Special Agent-in-
Charge of the Chicago field office to write an urgent memorandum indicating he had received reliable information of "a group in the
Chicago area who [sic] may have a connection with the J. F. K. assassination." The memorandum was based on a tip from an informant
who reported a conversation on November 21, 1963, with a Cuban activist named Homer S. Echevarria. They were discussing an
illegal arms sale, and Echevarria was quoted as saying his group now had "plenty of money" and that his backers would proceed "as soon as
we take care of Kennedy."

Following the initial memorandum, the Secret Service instructed its informant to continue his association with Echevarria and notified
the Chicago FBI field office. It learned that Echevarria might have been a member of the 30th of November anti-Castro organization,
that he was associated with Juan Francisco Blanco-Fernandez, military director of the DRE, and that the arms deal was being financed
through one Paulino Sierra Martinez by hoodlum elements in Chicago and elsewhere.

Although the Secret Service recommended further investigation, the FBI Initially took the position that the Echevarria case "was primarily
a protection matter and that the continued investigation would be left to the U.S. Secret Service," and that the Cuban group in
question was probably not involved in illegal activities. The Secret Service initially was reluctant to accept this position, since it had
developed evidence that illegal acts were, in fact, involved. Then, on November 29, 1963, President Johnson created the Warren Commission
and gave the FBI primary investigative responsibility in the assassination. Based on its initial understanding that the President's
order meant primary, not exclusive, investigative responsibility,the Secret Service continued its efforts; but when the FBI made
clear that it wanted the Secret Service to terminate its investigation, it did so, turning over its files to the FBI. The FBI, in
turn, did not pursue the Echevarria case.

While it was unable to substantiate the content of the informant's alleged conversations with Echevarria or any connection to the events,
in Dallas, the committee did establish that the original judgment of the Secret Service was correct, that the Echevarria case did warrant a
thorough investigation. It found, for example, that the 30th of November group was backed financially by the Junta del Gobierno en de
Cuba el Exllio (JGCE), a Chicago-based organization run by Paulino Sierra Martinez. JGCE was a coalition of many of the more
active anti-Castro groups that had been founded in April 1963 ; it was dissolved  soon after the assassination." Its purpose was to back
the activities of the more militant groups, including Alpha 66 and the Student Directorate, or DRE, both of which had reportedly been in
contact with Lee Harvey Oswald. Much of JGCE's financial support, moreover,  allegedly came from individuals connected to organized crime.

(HSCA Final Report 1C Conspiracy, p. 133-4)

332 Report of Sandra Styles FBI-interview


Related:
331 Six page 22-11-1963 longhand letter containing testimony of Victoria Adams

[Sandra] Styles was not interviewed by the Warren Commission and her November FBI-interview disappeared and she never testified.

(Richard Gillbride, Matrix for assassination, p. 235)


Sandra Styles, 1962

Victoria Adams, the notable "girl on the stairs." She was an employee who worked in the same building as one Lee Harvey Oswald. The problem caused by her presence is very simple and easily summarized. Adams, along with her friend Sandra Styles, stood on the fourth floor of the Texas School Book Depository at the moment of the murder. She testified to hearing three shots, which from her vantage point appeared to be coming from the right of the building (i.e., from the grassy knoll). She and Styles then ran to the stairs to head down. This was the only set of stairs that went all the way to the top of the building. Both she and her friend took them down to the ground floor. She did not see or hear Oswald. Yet, she should have if he were on the sixth floor traveling downwards. Which is what the Commission said he did after he shot Kennedy. (...)


Styles and Adams as portrayed in JFK (1991)

Beginning to master the Internet, Barry [Ernest] then finds Sandra Styles. (p. 217) She confirms Adams. She says the two left the window when Secret Service agent Clint Hill jumped on the back of the car. (p. 218) And she said she neither saw nor heard anyone on the stairs on the way down. And she did not recall Lovelady or Shelley on the ground floor when they got there either. (p. 219) Styles said the only interview she gave was to the FBI and it was not in depth or probing.

(Joseph Green, review of The Girl on the Stairs, KennedysandKing)

334  Examination of JFK's scalp


Related:
286 Supplemental autopsy photographs of Kennedy's brain

Dr. Milton Helpern has stated that, if permitted to see the Kennedy autopsy X-rays, he would look
for traces of metal indicating the presence of another head wound. Although he is not particularly
sanguine about the possibility of finding such traces, he does not rule out the possibility that the
Bethesda pathologists may have overlooked another entrance wound:

    "Often, quite often, wounds of entrance in the
    head are completely overlooked because they
    are covered naturally by the hair. The wound
    may barely bleed at all. If you don't take a
    comb and go over the entire scalp inch by
    inch, separating the hair carefully and meticulously,
    it's easy to miss a head wound entirely.
    There is no evidence that this type of
    examination was made."

(Josiah Thompson, Six Seconds in Dallas, p. 108-9, 1967)


Milton Helpern (1902-1977), the greatest medical detective of his time