Not in Your Lifetime: The Defining Book on the J.F.K. Assassination

by Anthony Summers

  Overnight movements: Report, p. 344.

  Senior officers: Kantor, op. cit., p. 53.

  Ruby asked: Report, p. 346.

  Ruby at 4.00 p.m.: Meagher, op. cit., chapter 25; Kantor, op. cit., p. 54–.

  Call sequence starting 10:44 p.m.: HSCA IX.1115; CD 1138.3; XIII.247; XIV.620; XXV.251; CD 75.227, 290; CD 301.86; XXV.251; XXV.252; CD 360.132; CD 1252.12; XIV.605; XIV.620; CD 223.82–; CD 1253.6; XXV.251; Report, p. 350; (and Paul) HSCA IX.780.

  413Note 15: Evidence gathered by the Assassinations Committee raised questions about Ralph Paul aside from his activities during the assassination weekend. They concerned Officer Tippit. Paul had long been associated with Austin’s Bar-B-Cue, where Tippit worked as a security guard for three years. He was working there in November 1963, and had been having a protracted affair with a female Bar-B-Cue employee. Like Paul, Tippit lived near the Bar-B-Cue. In view of all this, it is probable that they knew each other. Paul died in 1974. (HSCA XII.36-42, Texas Attorney General’s files, 9.)

  Ruby on November 24: Report, p. 353; XIII.231–.

  Note 16: Senator was to behave like a man “overwhelmed with fear” for days after the shooting of Oswald, according to an associate, refused to sleep at home, and soon left Dallas altogether. (Kantor, op. cit., p. 217; XXIV.164–330; XXVI.569–.)

  TV technicians: Meagher, op. cit., p. 449.

  Minister: XII.75, 294.

  Stripper call: Report, p. 353.

  414 Ruby cash/gun: Kantor, op. cit., p. 64–; Texas Monthly, November 1975.

  Western Union transaction: Report, p. 219 & HSCA IV.587.

  Howard: XXIV.135.

  Combest: Doubleday edition of Warren Commission Report, New York, 1964 (caption to picture of Oswald shooting).

  415 “intended”: Kantor, p. 113.

  Howard: Kantor, p. 76.

  Ruby note: Newsweek, March 27, 1967; HSCA Report, p. 158; int. Joe Tonahill by Scott Malone, 1978.

  Ruby means of entry findings: (police report) HSCA IV.578; (Warren Commission Report) Report, p. 216; Ramp witnesses: (Vaughn) XII.359; (policemen) XII.340; CE 5073; XII.287; (Flusche) Dallas Morning News, March 25, 1979; HSCA IV.595–; (cab driver) Tasker, XXIV.488; (journalist) McGarry, XXIV.465; HSCA Report, p. 156 & see HSCA IX.132; Meagher, op. cit., Chapter 24.

  416Sorrels: HSCA IX.137; and Kantor, op. cit., p. 70.

  Hall: XV.64–67, HSCA IX.137.

  Ruby clammed up: HSCA IX.137–; HSCA Report, p. 157n7; HSCA IV.589.

  Dean report: XII.432, 439. (The report was filed on November 26, but in his Warren Commission testimony Dean said he had actually dictated that report on the preceding day.)

  Note 17: The three other officers were Detective T. D. McMillon and—a week later—Detectives Barnard Clardy and Don Archer. Dean, Clardy and McMillon had known Jack Ruby for years. (XX.564; XII.412; XII.403; Archer exhibits analyzed in Meagher, op. cit., p. 407–)

  Griffin: Kantor, op. cit., p. 144; (“damned liar”) XII.329; (sure Dean lied) ints, Griffin and Dean, 1978; Warren Commission memo for files, March 30 & 31, 1964; Dallas Times-Herald, April 5, 1964.

  417 Dean on test: HSCA Report, p. 158, and Dallas Morning News, March 25, 1979.

  “You have to suspect”: Kantor, op. cit., p. 154.

  Ruby and police: Meagher, op. cit., p. 422–; HSCA IX.128; Kantor, op. cit., pp. 148, 56; (Dean) Tyler, Courier-Times Telegraph undated, 1977; Dallas Morning News, March 25, 1979; (“hysteria”) Kantor, op. cit., p. 216, quoting Dallas police report of December 4, 1963.

  9:00 a.m. orders: Kantor, op. cit., p. 60–.

  418 Harrison: (Ruby sheltering) Kantor, op. cit., pp. 60, 71, 145–; XXII.81; (Miller) Kantor, op. cit., p. 146–.

  Note 18: Kantor said the result of Harrison’s lie-detector test was “not conclusive.” A supervisor in police Criminal Intelligence, Lieutenant Jack Revill appeared to say he did pass the test. Perhaps—this was in passing in testimony—Revill meant that Harrison passed the test on the specific point of whether Harrison noticed Ruby behind him just before the shooting. (He said he did not.) Whatever about the test, Revill told the Warren Commission he had “never been satisfied” that Harrison was innocent. (“not conclusive”: Kantor, op. cit., p. 61; Revill: HSCA IV.589)

  Butler: Meagher, op. cit., p. 423–.

  Note 19: In 1946, Butler had been closely involved in the probe into the Mob attempt to bribe the district attorney and sheriff of the day, referred to earlier in this chapter.

  419 Dean: (and Civello) Dallas Morning News, March 25, 1979; HSCA Report, p. 171; CD 84.91–; (dinner) Dallas Morning News, March 25, 1979.

  Note 20: The House Assassinations Committee, rejecting the old theory that Ruby got into the police station via the Main Street ramp, believed he could have got in through an alleyway door that opened onto the ground floor. Sergeant Dean, it turned out, had vacillated as to whether the door could be opened from the outside, claiming eventually that a maintenance man had assured him the door was secure. Two maintenance men and a porter said the opposite—that it could be opened, and without a key.

  Dean refused to answer a Committee questionnaire, and it proved impossible to arrange a date for his deposition. The Committee found it improbable that “Ruby entered the police basement without assistance, even though the assistance may have been provided with no knowledge of Ruby’s intentions.” Dean, who said in retirement that he feared he was being “set up,” maintained that his association with mafioso Civello had been in the line of duty. (HSCA on ramp/door: HSCA Report, p. 157; HSCA IX.139, 143–; HSCA IV.590; Dean re door: HSCA IX.144; HSCA and “assistance”: HSCA Report, p. 157; HSCA IX.146; Dean “set up”: HSCA IV.590).

  Commission request to CIA re Ruby: XXVI.467–; CD 1493 re Karamessines to Rankin, September 15, 1964; CD 1054 re Helms to Rankin, June 10, 1964 & see HSCA XI.286, 456.

  CIA/FBI not tell re Ruby-Trafficante allegation: HSCA Report, p. 153.

  “When Oswald”: Washington Post, September 7, 1976.

  420 Ruby statements: (“used for purpose”) Kantor, op. cit., p. 209; (“framed”/ knew) “Examination of Jack Ruby,” reported by Werner Tuteur, M.D.

  “The only thing”: KTVT, Fort Worth, Texas, September 9, 1965 (taped in Dallas County Courthouse).

  24. Hints and Deceptions

  421 “Three may keep”: adopted by Benjamin Franklin in Poor Richard’s Almanac, July 1735—New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello is said to have displayed the maxim on his office door. (John Davis, op. cit., p. 65).

  Trafficante testimony: (1977) HSCA Executive Testimony, March 16, 1977, NARA 180-10110-10237; (immunity) HSCA immunized testimony November 14, 1977, NARA 180-10118-10137; (1978) HSCA V.375, 373, 371.

  422 Audiotape: HSCA source who heard tape in int. with author, May 1989.

  Note 1: The author discounts, as explained in Note 7 to Chapter 14, a claim by one of Trafficante’s lawyers, Frank Ragano, that Trafficante confessed before he died that he, Carlos Marcello and Jimmy Hoffa had orchestrated the President’s assassination.

  Hoffa’s probable murder: New York Times, December 6, 1975; Clandestine American, II.1, p. 9, Spring 1979, Sheridan, op. cit., pp. 300, 356, 408.

  Giancana: Chicago Daily News, Chicago Tribune, June 20 1975, Washington Star, December 29, 1975, int. Joseph Shimon.

  Roselli: Washington Post, August 5, 8, 22 & September 12, 1976.

  Trafficante suspect: HSCA V.366, New York Times, February 25, 1977, Schlesinger, Robert F. Kennedy, op. cit., p. 549.

  “said he believed”: Washington Post, August 22 & September 7, 1976 (Jack Anderson), March 24, 1977.

  423 “means, motive”: HSCA IX.61.

  Marcello: (tomato salesman) HSCA IX.65; (testimony to Cttee.) transcript January 11, 1978, NARA 180-10131-10312; (recordings obtained) Assas
sinations Records Review Board, Transcripts of Brilab Conversations, supplied to author July 17, 1998.

  424Note 2: Reported by author John Davis, citing a 1988 interview with former Assassinations Committee Chief Counsel Robert Blakey. Blakey has said he was told of the episode by an Assistant Director of the FBI. The information cited does not, however, appear in a folder of surveillance material sent to this author by the Assassination Records Review Board in 1998. (visitor/Marcello: John Davis, op. cit., pp. 477–, 523; Blakey told: Bugliosi, op. cit., Endnotes, p. 657; not appear: Jeremy Gunn letter to author, July 17, 1998)

  Record shows: Davis, op. cit., p. 309.

  Hauser: Davis, op. cit., pp. 522–, 434, Washington Post, November 7, 1993.

  Saia: See Chapter 17, supra.

  425 Van Laningham: ints. Jack Van Laningham, Thomas K. Kimmel, Jr., Raymond Hult, Ronald Sievert, Van Laningham to Carl Podsiadly, letter attached to SAC San Francisco to Director, July 15, 1988, NARA 124-10193-10468, & see NARA documents 124-10356-10199, 124-10356-10198, 124-10356-10197, 124-10193-10471, 124-10193-10470, 124-10193-10465, 124-10193-10466, 124-10193-10469, 124-10193-10476, 124-10193-10475, 124-10356-10201, 124-10356-10200, Waldron & Hartmann, Legacy of Secrecy, op. cit., pp. 46-, 750-, 862.

  Note 3: The FBI document was first reported by authors Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann in their 2009 book Legacy of Secrecy, and the National Archives has provided it and its explanatory cover sheet to the author. The version obtained from the National Archives names Van Laningham as the source of the information. It shows, too, that Van Laningham gave his account to agents following his transfer to a prison at Seagoville, Texas.

  Van Laningham, who claimed that he had been promised early release in exchange for his cooperation over Marcello, then wrote a series of heated letters to the FBI repeating his account of what the Mob boss had told him and—among other things—naming the other inmate who had been present as “Don Wardell.” The U.S. Bureau of Prisons told the author it had no record of anyone by that name having been imprisoned at Texarkana or anywhere in the federal prison system. Interviewed in 2013, Van Laningham nevertheless maintained that the other inmate’s name was Wardell, and that he had disappeared from the prison soon after Van Laningham named him to his FBI handlers as a witness to Marcello’s supposed confession.

  Movie rights to the confession story were purchased, with a view to a Warner Brothers movie on the assassination that would reportedly star Leonardo DiCaprio. (first reported: Waldron & Hartmann, Legacy of Secrecy, op. cit., p. 754–; report: available at www.maryferrell.org; Archives version: NARA 124-10193-10465, first partially published in Waldron & Hartmann, Legacy of Secrecy, op. cit., p. 835-; letters/“Wardell”: NARA 124-10356-10197, 10198 & 10199, 124 -10193-10466, ints. Chris Burke (BOP), Jack Van Laningham; movie: www.legacyofsecrecy.com)

  428Note 4: What the prison doctor called Marcello’s “senility,” or mental deterioration, had certainly taken hold by 1989. Jack Van Laningham has claimed that, contrary to the recollections of FBI agents Kimmel and Hult and prosecutor Sievert, the mobster had still been mentally “sharp” in 1985, when Marcello allegedly said he had had Kennedy killed.

  There are other discrepancies between the version of events as told by Van Laningham and by the FBI agents involved. Kimmel’s memory was the bug in the Texarkana operation against Marcello functioned for three thirty-day periods (the periods covered by three separate court authorizations for electronic surveillance). Van Laningham said the operation lasted for more than a year. Agent Kimmel said the operation was terminated once agents concluded that Marcello was not running his criminal empire from jail and, moreover, that his mental state was such that a court would have deemed anything he said unreliable. Van Laningham claimed Marcello did indeed run his crime network from inside the prison. Attempts by the author to reach a third FBI agent involved, who went by the name “Tom Kirk” during contacts with Van Laningham, established that name was a pseudonym, The agent in question, who is retired, declined to be interviewed. (“That Kennedy”: Kaiser, op. cit., p. 411, Waldron and Hartmann, Legacy of Secrecy, op. cit., p. 761, Noel Twyman, Bloody Treason, Rancho Santa Fe, CA: Laurel, 1997, p. 298, citing FBI, Minneapolis to Director & Dallas, 3/3/89; “senility”: Bugliosi, op. cit., Endnotes, p. 658-, citing multiple FBI reports available at NARA, op. cit; “sharp” in 1985: Waldron & Hartmann, Legacy of Secrecy, op. cit., pp. 761, 899, citing Van Laningham letter to FBI agent Carl Podsiadly, 6-88 (more accurately identified as NARA 124-10193-10468); discrepancies: ints. Thomas Kimmel, Jr., Raymond Hult, Ronald Sievert, Jack Van Laningham.

  429 Martino: ints. Florence Martino, Edward Martino, 1994.

  Martino background: ints. ibid. & Stephanie Martino, Bill Kelly int. Frances Martino, 1994; HSCA X.161; Scott, Deep Politics, op. cit., p. 115–.; Kaiser, op. cit., refs.; (imprisoned) Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, December 16, 18 & 19, 1959; October 8, 1962; January 23, 1963; July 10, 1963.

  Note 5: Martino became well known as a speaker, and published a 1963 book about his incarceration. One of his public appearances, at an anti-Castro meeting in September 1963 in Dallas—one of two visits he made to the city that month—has especially interested researchers. He mentioned during his address that he knew Amador Odio, the father of Silvia Odio—whose encounter with a man identified as “Oswald” is thought by man to be evidence of an attempt to frame the alleged assassin. (Dallas visits: Kaiser, op. cit., pp. 3, 341, 348; re Amador Odio: XI.380, XXVI.738; book: John Martino with Nathaniel Wehl, I Was Castro’s Prisoner, New York: Devin-Adair, 1963)

  430“close friend”: FBI document July 31, 1959, file no. 64-44828; Miami Herald, July 9, 1959.

  Roselli/plots: HSCA notes of tapes of Loran Hall, 1977; Village Voice, October 3, 1977; Human Events (Martino article), December 1, 1963.

  Robertson: int. Florence Martino, David Corn, Blond Ghost, Boston: Little, Brown, 1994, p. 75; Warren Hinckle and William Turner, Deadly Secrets, New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1992), pp. 67–, 84–, 107, 193.

  Note 6: The operation, which became known as the Bayo-Pawley Affair, aimed to “prove” a claim that the Soviet Union still had missiles in Cuba. The raiders put ashore supposedly had the mission of bringing out two Soviet officers who had supposedly been captured by anti-Castro insurgents. A study by the historian David Kaiser, however, suggests that the operation was in fact, rather, another Castro assassination attempt. The fighters put ashore never returned, and were presumed killed. The party had motored to the Cuban coast aboard a launch owned by William Pawley, an American millionaire, who was much involved with the CIA and had previously owned the Havana bus system and an airline. He was himself on board during the ill-fated raid. For fuller coverage of the operation, see the 1998 edition of this book and the sources that follow this note. (Bayo-Pawley: Soldier of Fortune, Spring 1976; The Continuing Inquiry, June 22, 1977; (Dulles) HSCA X.83; ints. John Cummings, Ed Martino, and see Hinckle and Turner, op. cit., p. 193; CIA memo for the record, May 22, 1963, released 1993—there was CIA involvement, and the CIA name for the mission was Operation TILT; see also refs. in Corn, op. cit., and UPI on Bayo-Pawley, January 8, 1976; Kaiser, op. cit., p. 163–).

  Martino prime source: CD 1020, Secret Service Report CO234030; FBI document 105-82555-2704; CD 691.2.

  Flown secretly: Branigan to Sullivan, February 27, 1964, attached to Director to SAC, New York, February 26, 1964, FBI 1-64-44828 (Martino).

  Ortiz: FBI memo, “Lee Harvey Oswald, Internal

  Security Cuba,” June 1, 1964, NARA 1993.06.12.10:35:57:500000.

  Cummings: ints. Cummings & Martino tapes in Cummings collection.

  431Note 7: As reported in the previous edition of this book, O’Connor said in an interview with the author that, though Martino’s name “rang a bell,” he never met Oswald at any time. The author Vincent Bugliosi, however, located a CIA document showing that Martino indeed talked with O’Connor—saying that
Oswald had pro-Castro leaflets printed in Miami, and had telephoned Cuban Intelligence in Cuba. (int. James J. O’Connor by Robbyn Swan, 1994; CIA document 104-10004-10145, June 4, 1964, cited in Bugliosi, op. cit., Endnotes, p. 748fn.)

  Note 8: Claasen made contact with the House Assassinations Committee in 1977, stating that Martino’s widow was knowledgeable (as she turned out to be when contacted by the author). Claasen at first offered his information only anonymously, but eventually spoke openly with both Dallas Morning News reporter Earl Golz, whose report is cited here, and with this author. (Claasen int.by Earl Golz of Dallas Morning News, 1978; int. Claasen, 1994; HSCA memo, Fonzi to Fenton, October 4, 1977; original draft of article by Earl Golz, 1978; HSCA memo, Lawson to Klein, August 28, 1977; & see Fonzi, op. cit., p. 324).

  432Note 9: In her interview with the author, Mrs. Martino recalled that a young Cuban had visited their house some two months before the assassination. He had been accompanied, she said, by a tall, well-dressed man who—she thought—had been some sort of official. Reminding her of the visit after the assassination, she continued, her husband told her the Cuban had been “one of them”—meaning one of those involved in the assassination.

  As of the writing of the previous edition of this book, several pages referring to Martino had been withdrawn from the National Archives at the insistence of the CIA and the FBI. As recently as 2008, according to the historian David Kaiser, the CIA had released no 201 file on Martino. (withdrawn: information supplied by attorney Daniel Alcorn; no 201: Kaiser, op. cit., p. 404).

  432 Martínez: (ints.) September 4, October 27 (with Robert Blakey) & October 28, 2007.

  433Note 10: The murdered former police chief was Rogelio Hernández Vega. The Costa Rican leader was José Figuéres. (Vega: Daniels to Walker, U.S. Dept. of State, August 6, 1948, attaching AP, July 30, 1948; Figuéres: Kaiser, op. cit., p. 301 )

  Díaz: (CIA records) NARA 104-10169-10006 & see NARA 104-10215-10321, NARA 1993.07.31.08:55:58:710059. NARA 104-10308-10164, 104-10169-10090, 104-10102-10087 & see e.g. NARA 124-10291-10330, NARA 124-90094-10088, et al.; (Ruby at Trescornia) re Ruby at camp, see Chapter 23, supra; (press coverage) Miami News, Granma [Cuba], May 31, 1966.