Erasing the Past to Protect a Fairytale

419 Farmer's Branch Kennedy threat tape


Compare:
201  Over half of the Doyle film
295   What captain Martin knew
Discussions: the mysterious Jack Martin film


Yet another curious event was alleged to have occured on the night of October 1, 1963, though the source is suspect. At a study group in [Dallas suburb] Farmer's Branch, a man was reported to have said something in a taped conversation about the Cubans “taking care” of Kennedy when he came into town. The story was told to Weisberg by the Castorrs and, as they explained, was being promoted by Nelson Bunker Hunt, Dallas Police lieutenant George Butler, and Gen. Edward Walker, all ultra-right-wingers who themselves had questions to answer about the assassination. The alleged taped statement has the appearance of a red herring.

(Oswald talked, p. 272)


Mr. Castorr: We were called one evening to witness this film in Lakerock at someone's home and Lt. Butler and his wife were there.
Mrs. Castorr No. No. Honey. This was not a film. This was the recording that was played by a man in Irving from the Farmers Branch meeting. We were just listening to what the man said. These Cubans -- it takes so long to say anything and the film runs for several hours. The tapes... The tapes.

Weisberg: When did you listen to the tapes. Sometime after the meeting...

Mr. C: It was quite a while after that...
Mrs. C: I think it was a year after the assastination.


A photograph showing the Colonel and his wife visiting Buckingham Palace,
according to Gregg Parker who found it.

W: Whose tape was it? I'm trying to think of the individuals...

Mrs. C: [crossed out] and he was the coordinator of the John birch Society in Dallas at the time... W: Oh. I know which one and I'm trying to think of it now...
Mrs. C: George Butler was listening to that tape.
Mr. C: Was Walker there too?

W: Was this to learn someting about the assassination? I heard that tape kind of stirs you a little bit. threatening -- What was the reaction at this meeting -- the victriol from this Cuban when he spoke about (?)

Mrs. C: The amazing thing was that living in Dallas, people were not too excited about things that were happening.
Mrx. C: That's right. Joseph Brennan.

W: He arranged the money for the ad?

Mr. C: Yes he did and that's how I got Buffer to contribute. That's how H.L.gets into the act.

W: Did anybody at that meeting or anybody you know or yourself have any suspicions about these Cubans and the assassination. Their possible involvement.

Mr. C: None other than the two birds who came to that Farmers Branch meeting that night and who said that they were going to get rid of Kennedy one way or another.. That came in on the tape. They were of the opinion that evening...this was a reflection on their part as to how Kennedy had let them down in Miami at that speech at the stadium, you know, about the Bay of Pigs deal...

W: He made another speech in Miami later before the assassination.

W: Do you remember which of these two men it was who said he had a Brown Belt in Carate., and that one way or another he would get that tape?

Mr. C: Yeah. I can picture him. He's a big chunky and black-haired. I don't know whether he had a mustache or not (...)
Mrs C: there were two Cuban men -- maybe there were three.

W: Were you both at the Farmers Branch.

Mrs. C: No. No. My husband was in Europe. I was on the stage
Mr. C: You were with Johnnie Martino that night.

W: That's right. Explain that. How would they know who was threatening if they heard it later

Mrs.C: The as names of those people I did not know.
W: Nester Castrolonis (?) was the main speaker A man named Haynes was also introduced. Also, another man -- Cubans accused
Yeah, he said -- do

Mr. C: He was the Brown dove?

W: Well, I don't know about the brown dove -- I just heard that today

Mrs. C: Yes. He's the one that made the threat. He was all finished speaking when he found out there had been a tape made.
Mr. C: Roderfer made the tape?
Mrs. C: I don't know, dear.
Mr. C: And the other funny guy who was always there made a tape. Three tapes.
Mrs. C; On that particular meeting, I don't think that Roderfer was there. It was a man from Irving who made that tape.

W: This was in a bank or a home?

Mrs. C: A bank -- Farmers Branch. You see, they had this little study club would have an outstanding speaker, I believe they met once a month..

W: Do you remember their name?

Mrs. C: The name of the organization? I think it was the Farmers Branch Study Club.

(Transcript of taped interview with Colonel Castorr and his wife Trudy, by Harold Weisberg, 1-30-68)



Farmer's Branch, 1962, impression. From: Farmers Branch, Texas: A History in Pictures.

Father Walter J. McChann, who was active in a Cuban Catholic committee concerned with the welfare and relief of Cuban refugees in Dallas, told the Secret Service about a Colonel Caster who was associated with the committee. Father McChann said that Colonel Caster was a retired Army officer who seemed to be "playing the role of an intelligence officer in his contacts with the Cubans" and that he seemed to be "more interested in their political beliefs than in their economic plight or their social problems in the new country." (CE 2943)

Mrs. C. L. Connell, a volunteer worker in the committee, also mentioned the Colonel. She told the FBI on November 29, 1963 that "General Walker and Colonel (FNU) Caster, a close acquaintance of Walker, have been trying to arouse the feelings of the Cuban refugees in Dallas against the Kennedy administration" in speeches before Cuban groups in the Dallas area "in recent months." (CE 3108) (Neither the FBI nor the Warren Commission found that news of sufficient interest to warrant an interview with the Colonel.)

(Meagher, Accessories after the fact, p. 385)

421  Mary Hall's 1963 statement to the Dallas Police



Mary Hall worked for E. Willis Fashion Co. on the fifth floor of the Dal Tex Building.
Her sewing machine was near a window facing Houston St., between her building and TSBD.
Before going on to tell what she saw that day, she told the HSCA, the day before, some men had spoken to her boss.
She overheard one of them say, "words to the effect that they were determining the route of the motorcade"

In 1977, she testified that on the morning of the 22nd, sometime between 9:30a and 10:30a,
she saw an old type station wagon park on Houston St. next to TSBD. It had the words "Honest Joe" on the side.
A young man got out and took a package about 5 feet long, 5-8 inches wide into a side door of the building.
Her boss told her to make a statement to the police. She said she did. There is no 1963 record of her statement.

(For more, see: Michael Capasse, Honest Joe On the Side)


"Mary Frances Hall Davis (R) with her younger sister Yvonne (L) - from my research. Both deceased, unfortunately.
She was the 1/2 sister of Irma Jean Davis Vanzan and was with Irma in DP on 11/22/63. She was 28yo at the time.",
writes Linda Giovanna Zambanini, who was so kind to send in this picture. Thank you Linda!

423  At least dozens of FBI docs concerning threats to the President


Related:
6    The Oswald Letter a.k.a the Hosty Note
36  Withheld Regis Kennedy files 
62  FBI Agent John L. Quigley's interrogation notes
77  File cabinet containing records that appeared to be names and activities of Cuban sympathizers
149 One FBI 17-11-1963 Teletype
168  Six boxes of FBI files on the Fair Play for Cuba Committee
203  New Orleans FBI security file on Oswald
244  FBI record of Cheramie's prognostication of the assassination
252  FBI follow-up on names mentioned by Eugene Dinkin
312 New Orleans FBI informant file on Oswald
315  DeBrueys' 25 October 1963 report on Oswald and the FPCC
330  Contemporary FBI investigation of Chicago group threat
420  One possibly very very revealing FBI informant file


Curt Gentry told Mary [La Fontaine] in the fall of 1994 that William Sullivan had revealed to him that he knew something about Oswald being an informant. Though Gentry continued to press him for more information on the assassination, Sullivan was still putting him off when he died in a hunting accident. (…) The former FBI man was cooperating with Gentry on what would be his widely admired J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets (1992). Among the book's revelations: the bureau “destroyed in the hours after Kennedy was assassinated” some dozens, perhaps even over a hundred” documents concerning threats on the life of the President, “which the FBI had failed to report to either the Secret Service or the Kennedys – and certainly would never mention to the Warren Commission.”

(Ray and Mary La Fontaine, Oswald talked, p. 433)


On November 9, 1977, days before he was to testify to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, twenty minutes
before sunrise, sixty-five-year-old Sullivan was walking through the woods near his retirement home in Sugar Hill, New
Hampshire, on the way to meet hunting companions. Another hunter, Robert Daniels, Jr., a twenty-two-year-old son of
a state policeman, using telescopic sight on a .30 caliber rifle, said he mistook Sullivan for a deer, shot him in the neck,
and killed him instantly.
Sullivan directed Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) domestic intelligence operations from  1961–1971. Sullivan was
forced out at the FBI at the end of September 1971 due to disagreements with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.
(Wikipedia, retrieved 10-2-20)

Nor were these the only documents destroyed in the hours after Kennedy was assassinated. Estimates vary from a few to dozens, perhaps even a hundred. Estimated vary from a few to dozens, perhaps even over a hundred. It is possible, even probable, that included among them were the Jose Aleman interview reports, in whch the Cuban exile told the special agents Davos and Scranton that the Mafia boss Santos Trafficante, Jr. had predicted, “No Jose, he is going to be hit.” If so, they were just one of a number of threats the FBI had failed to report to either the Secret Service or the Kennedys – and certainly would never mention to the Warren Commission.

(Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets, p. 547)

425  The source of “Oswald's” $189 check


Compare
65   Repair ticket 18374
266 Records of Ruth Paine wiretap
296 Records of an 21-11-63 Irving Robbery


    If it was the real Oswald, who was the source of the check for $189?


Obviously the Commission has inferred (but not established) that Oswald was aware of the exact route early enough for premeditation, as manifested by his return to Irving. It does appear that Oswald's visit on Thursday evening without notice or invitation was unusual. But it is not clear that it was unprecedented. An FBI report dealing with quite another matter—Oswald's income and expenditures—strongly suggests that Oswald had cashed a check in a grocery store in Irving on Thursday evening, October 31, 1963 (CE 1165, p. 6); the Warren Commission decided arbitrarily that the transaction took place on Friday, November 1. (WR 331) Neither Oswald's wife nor Mrs. Ruth Paine, both of whom were questioned closely about the dates and times of Oswald's visits to Irving during October and November, suggested that he had ever come there —with or without prior notice—on a Thursday. It is possible, though implausible, that Oswald came to Irving on Thursday, October 31, 1963, solely to cash a check and then returned to Dallas without contacting his wife or visiting the Paine residence. More likely, Marina and Mrs. Paine forgot that visit or, for reasons of their own, preferred not to mention it. Either way, it is clear that Oswald's visit to Irving on Thursday night, November 21, may not have been unprecedented.

(Sylvia Meagher, Accessories after the fact, p. 37)


2333 West Shady Grove, Irving, the location of Hutch's Supermarket

The Grocer
Leonard Hutchison, proprietor of a supermarket in Irving, Texas, testified that Oswald had made purchases in his store from time to time early on weekday mornings: once he had come on a Wednesday evening, accompanied by a woman believed to be Marina Oswald and a second, elderly woman, and during the first week of November 1963, Oswald had tried to cash a personal check made out to him for $189. (WR 331-332)

Having considered this testimony, the Commission concluded that there were "strong reasons for doubting the correctness of Hutchison's testimony." Oswald was not known to have received a check for $189 from any source; he was actually in Dallas at the times Hutchison claimed he was in his store at Irving; both Marina and Marguerite Oswald denied ever having been in Hutchison's market.

The reasoning appears to be valid and to justify the assumption that Hutchison had confused a different customer with Oswald. But one difficulty is that the customer stopped coming into the store after the assassination and has not reappeared to this day or come forward to assert his identity. Another difficulty is that Hutchison's story received corroboration from a man who did not rate mention in the Warren Report: Clifton Shasteen. Shasteen is the proprietor of a barber shop in Irving, situated not far from Hutchison's supermarket. Shasteen testified that Oswald had come to the barber shop several times to have his hair cut. On some occasions he had been accompanied by a boy about fourteen years of age. One time the boy had criticized American policy, voicing pacifist and socialist views. As for Oswald, Shasteen testified:

The only time I remember seeing him, you know, other than just going in the grocery store across the street, Mr. Hutchison's food market, and I was down at thedrugstore one night, down at Williamsburg's and he was in there. . . . And, why I remembered seeing him in there, I knew I couldn't understand his wife, and that was before—I believe it was before she had her baby. The best I remember she was pregnant. . . .That's the only time I had ever saw her, that I remember. You know, she may have come to the grocery store with him but I didn't pay any attention. Sometimes there were two women with him. ... (10H 311)

No wonder Shasteen is not mentioned in the Report. Not only did he corroborate Oswald's visits to Hutchison's store but he also volunteered that "some times there were two women with him," just as Hutchison had testified. Shasteen recognized Oswald as his customer as soon as he saw him on television on November 22; he had cut the man's hair and acquired more than casual familiarity with his face. Moreover, on one occasion Shasteen had admired his customer's lounging slippers, and the customer had volunteered that he bought them for $1.50 in Mexico (10H 311)—a further point of identity with Oswald, who had visited Mexico City at the end of September that year. Was it the real Oswald who was seen by Shasteen and Hutchison, once together with a pregnant wife whom they believed to be Marina Oswald? Or was it a different man with a different wife, both of whom resembled their Oswald counterparts? Or was it a man impersonating Oswald, accompanied by a woman impersonating Marina? If it was the real Oswald, who was the source of the check for $189?

(Sylvia Meagher, Accessories after the fact, p. 364-5)