Erasing the Past to Protect a Fairytale

462 One full fingerprint examiner report



Related:
102 Life LBJ/Baker research files
114 RFK's Marcello-Halfen-Johnson file
461 The Estes tapes

                'If you ask my opinion, I would say that Darby believed
        that the two sets of prints matched. They do not.'

A Texas-based assassination research group has identified a man believed to have left a previously unidentified fingerprint on a box making up the alleged "sniper's nest" on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, from which President Kennedy was allegedly assassinated in 1963 Researcher Walt Brown, speaking on behalf of the Texas group, said at a May 29 press conference in Dallas that the fingerprints belong to Malcolm E. "Mac" Wallace, a convicted killer with ties to Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Brown presented data showing a 14-point match between Wallace's fingerprint card, obtained from the Texas Department of Public Safety, and the previously unidentified print, a copy of which was kept in the National Archives. The match was made by A. Nathan Darby, an expert with certification by the International Association of Identifiers.


1951 Bond hearing for Malcolm E. "Mac" Wallace. He was accused of murdering golf pro Douglas Kinser at the Lamar Pitch n Putt.

According to members of the research group, this new evidence has been in the hands of the Dallas Police Department since May 12. The DPD passed it on to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Malcolm Wallace, convicted in a 1951 murder and suspected in others, was reportedly killed in an automobile accident in 1971. He has been linked to the death of Texas Agriculture Department investigator Henry Marshall, said to be close to uncovering felonious behavior by Billy Sol Estes and Lyndon Johnson. The fact of Wallace's fingerprint in the so-called "sniper's nest" does not, of course, mean he pulled a trigger that day. Brown cited FBI fingerprint expert Sebastion Latona's testimony to the Warren Commission, in which Latona stated that fingerprints can only be taken from a surface like cardboard within 24 hours of its origin. Furthermore, "Wallace's print at the crime scene is hard evidence that corroborates the circumstantial evidence of Loy Factor's eyewitness account of Wallace's presence," said Texas researcher Richard Bartholomew. Loy Factor has claimed that he, Wallace, Lee Oswald, and a woman identified as "Ruth Ann" were present on the TSBD sixth floor as part of an assassination team. According to Bartholomew, the same question was raised by the Dallas police on May 12. "The FBI's own textbook on fingerprint science teaches the basic concept of fingerprint evidence used in criminal investigation," he said. "Those who have an innocent reason to have handled the objects in question are eliminated from suspicion if their latent prints are present. Did Wallace have an innocent reason? No."

(John Kelin, JFK Breakthrough?, Fair Play Magazine, 1998)


Dear Mr. McClellan:

Thank you for sending your "Petition Submitting New Evidence and Suggesting
Further Investigation." In order to evaluate your recommendation fully, we would like
to request additional information from you. Would you please submit the full report of
your fingerprint examiner with respect to his or her comparison of the "known"
fingerprint of Mr. Wallace with the fingerprint found on the boxes located in the Texas
School Book Depository building. This report should include the identity of the
fingerprint examiner, as well as his or her qualifications. In addition, please submit Mr.
Wallace's fingerprint card.

Thank you for your interest in the work of the Review Board.

Yours sincerely,

Kim A. Herd
Senior Attorney
Assassination Records Review Board

Notation by Malcolm Dome at bottom of Herd-letter copy


Blood, Money & Power: How LBJ Killed JFK, my book on the assassination, centers on 68 exhibits showing a lifetime conspiracy between Lyndon B. Johnson and Ed Clark (the "secret boss of Texas)," a 1961 murder case with LBJ an unindicted co-conspirator, and the fingerprint match for Mac Wallace, one of three assassins.

(Barr McLellan, Facts about JFK, 2004)


The FBI did two security investigations on Mac Wallace. One was when he was leading demonstrations protesting the trustees’ firing of University of Texas president, Homer Rainey. The other was when Mac was hired by the Department of Agriculture and, like every other federal employee, was subjected to a security investigation. Both times the Bureau concluded that Mac Wallace was not a Communist. Charles Wise noticed that Mac Wallace omitted from his annual personnel security questionnaire his arrests for drunken driving and public intoxication. This was unfortunate but it did not make him a security risk. (Mac Wallace was a functioning but serious alcoholic for most of his life). (…)

John Fraser Harrison decided to pursue the issue of whether the one unidentified fingerprint in the hands of the Warren Commission belonged to Mac Wallace. That Mac Wallace had committed one murder in cold blood –that of John Douglas Kinser-made him vulnerable to such an accusation. That he had been a beneficiary of Lyndon Johnson’s largesse, that he had, indeed, done jobs for Johnson, I didn’t say murders, I said jobs, compounded the presumed felony.

And so J devoted himself to the fingerprint identification. It wasn’t easy for him to obtain the Austin police fingerprints for Mac Wallace; you had to wait 25 years after the death of the person to have access to the prints and even then there was some question about whether you had “standing” to be granted the prints. J was unrelenting, and he obtained a copy of the original fingerprint card that was created when Mac Wallace was arrested for the murder of John Douglas Kinser. It turned out to be a very sloppy print because the Austin police had a habit of not cleaning the apparatus carefully when moving from one suspect to another. It was blurry. J then obtained a copy of the print in the hands of the National Archives, the unidentified print taken on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. Then he looked for a certified latent print examiner, and found a seasoned examiner, someone well known to the Austin authorities. His name was Nathan Darby, and he had been doing print identifications since World War II.


After working on the identifications, Darby pronounced that he had a match. I think by the time he was done, he had 34 points of match. J then decided to get a second opinion, and found a print examiner named Harold Hofmeister, who verified Darby’s identification. Shortly thereafter, Hofmeister called back and returned the check for $500, which had been issued to him by Barr McClellan. Hofmeister had changed his mind. He didn’t like the fact that he was using Xeroxes. He repudiated his own statement and said that he could not verify that it was a match.

No matter, the Darby identification, accompanied by an affidavit readily available on the internet, was announced as a fait accompli. The Austin police sent this material to the FBI, and after, I believe 18 months, the FBI lab replied that it was not a match. But who believes THEM, right?

The FBI didn’t provide any supporting material and that was pronounced disrespectful to Nathan Darby since it was a protocol of the trade when you go against an expert’s conclusions to present evidence for your decision.

So when McClellan’s book came out, when Phil Nelson’s book came out, the fingerprint identification was treated as gospel. I decided to reinvestigate the fingerprint id. (…)

With the affidavits of Nathan Darby and Harold Hofmeister in hand, along with Darby’s research files that were in the custody of J Harrison, I found a certified latent print examiner, who had also been a law enforcement officer specializing in crime scene work. Most certified latent print examiners work for police departments, and so are not available to individuals. I was fortunate, and I was doubly fortunate –I went to the best –because this man had been an officer in the organization that certified these examiners. I turned over to him J Harrison’s Nathan Darby files that contained his research, his charts, and charts made over a period of two years. There were tracings. There were charts in red, green and blue. The matches were spelled out.

The first thing the examiner did was to say that something was missing. He wanted a new photograph of the unidentified print, one made by the FBI. This photograph exists in the National Archives and anyone can obtain one. When the FBI’s photograph came, it was of a very high quality, according to the examiner. He compared that photograph with two other sets of Mac Wallace’s prints. Those two sets matched each other, but neither matched the print that had been lifted at the Texas School Book Depository at the time of the Kennedy assassination.

One day the latent print examiner called me with some other information. He had contacts at the headquarters of the organization that certified examiners and they went into the file of Nathan Darby. They discovered a note in the file. Not only was Nathan Darby not certified when he swore on that affidavit that he was, but there was a note in his file stating that should he request re-certification, that certification would be denied.

In fairness to Nathan Darby, allow me to add that the computer technology of fingerprint identifications has advanced since the late 1990’s when he worked on these prints. If you ask my opinion, I would say that Darby believed that the two sets of prints matched. They do not. Hoffmeister was dubious about those Austin prints and believed that they were poor Xeroxes and he preferred to take back his original identification. In retrospect, his caution turns out to have been well-advised.

If you don’t have the fingerprint, you can’t place Mac Wallace at Dealey Plaza, and if you can’t place Mac Wallace at the scene of the assassination, your best piece of evidence that Lyndon Johnson was behind the assassination disappears.

(Joan Mellen, The Canterbury Lectures — Lecture Two: Lyndon Johnson and Mac Wallace, 2014)

465  Recordings and files supporting Judith Exner's claims


            "The government wants me to talk again.
        So everything will be released."

[Judith] Exner now said that she was seeing Sam Giancana at Kennedy's bidding. She even helped arrange meetings between JFK and Giancana and JFK and Roselli. Some of the meetings took place at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Why would Kennedy need personal consultation with gangsters like Sam and John? To cinch elections on his ruthless way to the White House and later to arrange the liquidation of Castro. Kelley adds that the latter meetings were done for operation MONGOOSE. But Exner's time sequence does not jibe with the lifespan of that operation and, as the record shows, Castro's assassination was not on the MONGOOSE agenda. In spite of that explicit record, Kelley adds that historians have never been able to pinpoint Kennedy's role in those plots, thereby ignoring the abundant evidence unearthed by the Church Committee which says he had none. Nevertheless, Kelley and Exner will now exhume the hidden history of those times for People. Let's examine their excavation.


Exner in Vanity Fair, 1997

Exner says that Kennedy needed help in West Virginia in the 1960 primary. So her first secret assignment for Kennedy was to arrange a meeting with "Sam Flood" for JFK. (By a coincidence, Kennedy also knew Giancana by the very same alias that Exner did, even though he had fifteen others.) After the meeting, with Exner waiting outside, Kennedy emerged beaming. He was so exuberant he wanted to pay for a mink coat for his girl. And of course, he won the election. On the heels of this success. Exner arranged another meeting between Kennedy and Giancana. (In an insider aside, Exner assures us that Giancana called the president "Jack"). In the ensuing exchanges of sealed envelopes between the two. Exner didn't open any of them. (…)

There is one revelation in the [1997 Vanity Fair] article that does not come off tongue-in-cheek. After talking to Smith's pal Hersh, Exner calls Smith back. She states that the Kennedy-Giancana talks could be released under the JFK Act. She then adds: "I hope they will. The government wants me to talk again." [Emphasis added] No surprise, Smith didn't ask Exner what she meant by that last comment, which sent the following flurry of questions bursting through my brain: Who in the government wants her to talk? Since she had just talked to Hersh, was it him who relayed this to her? And what on earth does that stunning adverb "again" signify? Does this mean the government
pushed her in 1977? In 1988? On both occasions?

(Jim DiEugenio, The Posthumous Assassination of John F. Kennedy, Probe, 1997)



"Some of the meetings took place at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."

Later she would add, "I hated being followed by the F.B.I. and sneaking around. But none of it bothered Jack. He always wanted me to do more dangerous, daring things, like ride on Air Force One. He was so arrogant. He felt there was one law for him and another for others. As far as carrying the money and messages for him to Sam Giancana ... I was 26 and in love. Was I supposed to have better sense and more judgment than the president of the United States?"

This will always haunt me, like my stupid book haunts me. But all those years, I was so scared of being killed. I still sleep with a gun under my pillow after all this time. But Sam Giancana's conversations may be released under the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act. They may actually confirm what I'm going to tell you! I hope they will. The government wants me to talk again. So everything will be released. I must now give up my very last secret. So much is going to come out anyway. Liz, they have so much in Jack's own handwriting. You just wouldn't believe it."

(...)

In 1988, Exner came to another watershed of fear, worry, and need. She'd heard that J.F.K. had taped conversations in the Oval Office and that the F.B.I. might release wiretaps on Giancana. She knew that they had tapped her phones for years, "but then, I never had anything interesting to say after Jack died—not even before."

(Liz Smith, The Exner Files, Vanity Fair, 1997)


Exner received national media attention when she testified in 1975 before
the Church Committee investigating CIA assassination attempts on Fidel
Castro. In 1977, Exner published Judith Exner: My Story. In her memoir,
she said that her relationship with Kennedy was entirely personal. In a 1988
interview with Kitty Kelley of People magazine, Exner told a very different
story about Giancana and Kennedy. In 1997, Exner alleged more details.
(Wiki 12-24-20)

Judith Campbell Exner claims to have been a link between President Kennedy and Mafia members Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli. Introduced to John Kennedy by Frank Sinatra during Kennedy’s 1960 presidential primary campaign, she claimed to have had a relationship with John Kennedy that lasted from the winter of 1960 until March of 1962. In 1975, Ms. Exner gained national media attention when she testified before the Church Committee in its investigation of the CIA plots to assassinate Fidel Castro . Between 1976 and 1997, Ms. Exner filed numerous lawsuits against the FBI seeking access to all information the FBI held on her. The Review Board requested access to all FBI Headquarters and field office main files on Judith Campbell Exner. The FBI produced several small field office files containing press clippings the FBI collected on Ms. Exner, as well as several files which reflect Ms. Exner’s efforts to gain access to her information in the FBI’s files. The FBI also produced several files with references to women with names similar to Judith Campbell Exner. The Review Board designated as assassination records all main files on Ms. Exner, as well as all records that made reference to Ms. Exner. The Review Board also designated the entire FBI file on the murder of Johnny Roselli which the FBI produced in response to this request.

(ARRB Final report)

467  Oswald's original NY Court records


Continued from
466   (All of) Oswald's original NY School records

Judge Florence Kelley, Administrative Judge of the Family Court of the State of New York, has informed me that after conferring with Presiding Justice Bernard Botein of the Appellate Division, First Department, she turned over all of the records in the possession of the Family Court, the sμccessor to the Domestic Relations Court, dealing with the case of Lee Harvey Oswald to John F. Malone, Assistant Director in Charge of the New York City office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mr. Malone's office has advised me that these records were delivered to the President' s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.

(February 4, 1964 letter from NY mayor Wagner to J. Lee Rankin, CE 1384)


Justice Bernard Botein

When I visited the National Archives in Adelphi, Maryland, I learned, as did the
Assassination Records Review Board in 1995, that there were no original school records
whatsoever-only copies of records. When original records disappear, and only copies remain,
there is a distinct possibility that the original records were altered and then destroyed.
I decided to see if I could determine what happened to Oswald's original New
York school records.(...)



As I began sorting through New York school and court records, I realized that
the Warren Commission may also have been aware of conflicting records. They asked
the FBI to obtain Oswald's original school and court records, but the Bureau did not
comply. The Commission then wrote to New York Mayor Robert Wagner and asked his
office for help in obtaining Oswald's original school records.

Mayor Wagner's office responded to the Commission's request by enclosing
copies of Oswald's New York school records and advising that the original court records
had been turned over to SA John Malone personally by Judge Florence Kelley. It
appeared the original records disappeared while in SA Malone's custody, so I decided
to place all available documentation and correspondence in chronological order to see
if my thoughts were correct.

(Armstrong, Harvey & Lee, P.62)



In the seventies, Malone would rise to the top of the FBI

On December 2, 1963 Judge Kelley personally gave the Oswald file to Malone
with the condition that it be transmitted immediately to the Warren Commission. Three
days later, on December 5, 1963, FBI SA Michael O'Rourke advised the Secret Service
the file had been sent to the Warren Commission. On December 10, eight days after Judge
Kelley turned her court file over to the FBI, an internal FBI memo relating to the Files
of Domestic Relations Court states, "rec'd by Assist Dir. John Malone 11/27-12/2." From
this memo and Judge Kelley's statement, it is clear that Judge Kelley gave the original
court file to SAIC Malone.(...)

There is no evidence or documentation whatsoever that
Malone turned the original court file over to the Warren Commission.
On February 7, at 3:37 pm, FBI Inspector J. R. Malley telephoned the FBI's
New York office and spoke to the Assistant Special Agent in Charge, W. M. Alexander,
about the original court records. Malley advised that FBI headquarters in Washington
had no information that indicated the original documents had been received from New
York and he asked Alexander to check further.

At 3:45 pm Alexander telephoned Malley and advised that SAIC Malone. his
supervisor. had photographed the entire file and that copies of the file had been sent to
FBI headquarters in Washington. Alexander said there was no record that photographs
were sent to FBI headquarters, but that additional photographs of the file were available.
Malley then asked that two copies of the photographs be sent immediately to his attention
at FBI Headquarters in Washington.

There is no indication that Inspector Malley made any additional inquiries into
the fate of the original court files, which were last seen by Judge Kelley when she personally
handed them to SAIC John Malone.

(Armstrong, Harvey & Lee, P.63)

469 Compiled Louisiana Information on Oswald


See also:
192  Guy Banister's Files
203  New Orleans FBI security file on Oswald
369  FBI interview of William Gaudet
466 Oswald's original NY School records





Item #365, was a report entitled, "Compiled Information on Lee Harvey Oswald," from
the State of Louisiana, which was also missing.

(Amstrong, Harvey & Lee, p. 960)