Crossfire

by Jim Marrs

  On May 15, 1975, Roger Craig, then only thirty-nine years old, was killed by a rifle bullet. His death was ruled a suicide.

  The Three Tramps

  Within an hour of the assassination, Dallas police sergeant D. V. Harkness had an encounter with three strange fellows, whom many researchers believe may have been involved in the shooting. It is one of the more convoluted of the assassination issues.

  Union Pacific Railroad dispatcher Lee Bowers saw three men sneak into an empty railroad car in the train yards just behind the Texas School Book Depository moments after the assassination. Bowers ordered the train stopped by radio and then summoned Dallas police. Several officers, including Harkness, rousted the trio from the railcar at gunpoint and marched them to the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office. Their route took them past the Depository and across the eastern portion of Dealey Plaza. At least three news photographers took pictures of the three men as they were marched through the plaza under guard. These photographs are the only proof that this incident occurred.

  In later years Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty, who as chief of special operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Kennedy acted as liaison with the CIA, stated his immediate superior, General Edward Lansdale, was photographed walking by the three tramps in Dealey Plaza and perhaps even passing them some sort of signal. As Kennedy’s assistant secretary of defense for special operations, Lansdale was the ranking member of Operation Mongoose, the secret war against Castro to include assassinations. Prouty’s identification of Lansdale was corroborated in a 1985 letter to Prouty from Marine Lieutenant General Victor H. Kurlak, the highly decorated special assistant for counterinsurgency activities of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Both Prouty and Kurlak had worked with Lansdale for a number of years.

  Once in the sheriff’s custody, the three tramps officially disappeared. Although reportedly transferred later to the Dallas police station, they reportedly were never booked and any names, information, or fingerprints taken were not seen before 1992. The House Subcommittee on Government Information and Individual Rights discovered in 1975 that Dallas police arrest records for November 22, 1963, compiled for the Warren Commission, were missing.

  Were “tramps” actually near the assassination site at the time of the shooting? In 1981, Kent Biffle, a reporter for the Dallas Morning News, wrote an article detailing his experience that day that pinpointed the tramp arrests as shortly after the assassination:

  Everyone was pointing toward a fence that connected with the Underpass. . . . I ran that way. Some teenagers followed. One of them darted ahead and hit the fence before I did. . . . Puffing, I followed him. The other side of the fence revealed no gunman. There was just a maze of railroad tracks and three dazed winos. “What happened?” I asked one. “What happened?” he asked me. People were still climbing over the fence. I ran east toward the Texas School Book Depository.

  Much like those of the “umbrella man” and the dark-complected man of Dealey Plaza, the identities of the three tramps were the object of speculation among assassination researchers. Although they were labeled “tramps,” photos show the men had recent haircuts, shined shoes, and old but unsoiled clothing. In the photographs they hardly appear to be genuine tramps or winos.

  In 1976 the three tramps drew national attention when comedian/social activist Dick Gregory and others claimed that two of the men were none other than CIA operatives and Watergate conspirators E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis. This allegation was repeated in the book Coup d’État in America. It was quickly, though not conclusively, dismissed. In the summer of 1985, E. Howard Hunt lost a libel court case based on a national article that claimed CIA documents indicated he was in Dallas the day of the assassination. After the 1980 arrest of convicted assassin Charles V. Harrelson, researchers took a fresh look at the tramps, particularly the youngest of the trio. Many researchers now believe Harrelson was the tall tramp. Other men with CIA connections also were named, such as Thomas Vallee, Fred Lee Chrisman, and Daniel Carswell.

  With the lack of records, other names were thrown into the mix. In 1991 Lois Gibson, a forensic facial recognition expert with the Houston Police Department, stated publicly that an investigation convinced her the three tramps were Harrelson; Charles Frederick Rogers, also known as Richard Montoya, who was wanted for the 1965 murder of his parents in Houston; and a man named Chauncey Holt.

  Holt, located in California, gave a convincing, if not provable, account of his role in the assassination. He claimed to have once been an accountant for mobster Meyer Lansky but had also forged documents for the CIA. Holt said he delivered phony Secret Service identification to Dallas before the assassination in the company of Harrelson. Like so many other instances in the assassination case, those named by Holt who might have vouched for his story were either dead or missing. Holt died of cancer in 1997.

  But just as the tramps story began to come together like the plot of a Mission: Impossible episode, it fell apart. As the public spotlight was once again focusing on the tramp issue, the Dallas City Council in 1992 decided to open their old police files, in which suddenly were found three arrest records naming the three tramps as a Harold Doyle, John Forester Gedney, and Gus W. Abrams. Abrams was dead but Doyle and Gedney were located in Oregon and Florida and both said they indeed were arrested in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

  The FBI looked into the matter and a report later in 1992 described how the three men had arrived by rail in Dallas early on the morning of the assassination. After showering and receiving fresh clothes and a meal from an Irving Street mission, the trio again boarded a gondola car where they were arrested by Dallas police. According to this report, the three were convicted of vagrancy and sentenced to six days in jail only to be released four days later due to overcrowding. But problems remained.

  Although by all accounts the trio were pulled out of the train cars only moments after the assassination, afternoon shadows and the lack of a crowd in the news photographs indicated the pictures were made later in the afternoon, long after the 12:30 p.m. shooting. The three arrest reports, all written and signed by the same Officer Chambers, gave an arrest time of 4 p.m. Other than the three reports, there were no jail records or court hearings concerning the trio.

  Plus, the story of the three railroad tramps left no room for Charles Voyde Harrelson, a convicted hit man with some independent evidence to support the idea that he was involved.

  Aside from being twice convicted of murder for hire, Harrelson—the father of actor Woody Harrelson—had a long history of involvement with Dallas underworld characters linked directly to Jack Ruby. This connection first came to the attention of JFK researchers when Harrelson was arrested near Van Horn, Texas, September 1, 1980. He had been identified as a suspect in the death of federal judge John Wood of San Antonio, who was shot in an ambush by a high-powered rifle.

  High on cocaine, which is well-known for loosening the inhibitions, and pointing a pistol to his own head, Harrelson held lawmen at bay for six hours. During this time, according to the arresting officers, he not only confessed to the Judge Wood killing, but also claimed he had participated in the Kennedy assassination. This statement, repeated in some Texas newspapers, sent assassination researchers to their files looking for confirmation.

  The late Fort Worth graphics expert Jack White, who testified before the House Select Committee on Assassinations, already had noticed the resemblance of Harrelson to the youngest tramp. Harrelson was forty-seven years old in 1985, making him twenty-five at the time of the assassination. This corresponds with the age of the youngest tramp, who was thought to have been between twenty-five and thirty years old.

  In June 1981, Harrelson was interviewed by Chuck Cook, then a reporter for the Dallas Morning News. In a telephone interview with this author, Cook recalled, “I asked about the Kennedy assassination and he got this sly grin on his face. Harrelson is very intelligent and has a way of not answering when it suits him.”

  Cook said at a later interview he again br
ought the subject up and that Harrelson became very serious. Cook quoted Harrelson as saying, “Listen, if and when I get out of here and feel free to talk, I will have something that will be the biggest story you ever had.” When Cook asked what that story might be, Harrelson would only reply, “November 22, 1963. You remember that!”

  Intrigued with the possibilities, Cook said he later showed photographs of the three tramps to Harrelson’s wife, Jo Ann Harrelson, who “was amazed at the similarities.” Cook added, “Then I gave the photos to one of Harrelson’s attorneys and he was supposed to show them to Harrelson. But that’s the last I heard of it. He didn’t want to talk about it because he felt his jail cell was bugged, and rightly so.”

  It was later revealed that Harrelson’s jail conversations were indeed being monitored.

  In an interview with Dallas TV newsman Quin Mathews, Harrelson offered further comments on the Kennedy assassination. “You said you’d killed President Kennedy?” commented Mathews. Harrelson replied:

  At the same time I said I killed the judge, I said I had killed Kennedy, which might give you an idea as to the state of my mind at the time. . . . It was an effort to elongate my life. . . . Well, do you believe Lee Harvey Oswald killed President Kennedy alone, without any aid from a rogue agency of the US Government or at least a portion of that agency? I believe you are very naïve if you do.

  White became convinced that Harrelson was the youngest of the three tramps. White told this author, “I have done various photographic comparison tests and everything matches . . . the hair, the nose, the ear, the profile. It’s Harrelson.”

  But over and above the comparisons of Harrelson’s photograph with that of the youngest tramp, further evidence indicates Harrelson very well may have played a role in the assassination. When arrested, Harrelson was carrying the business card of R. D. Matthews. In subsequent interviews, Harrelson admitted to being a close friend of Matthews. In fact, Harrelson said he looked up to Matthews as a father.

  Russell Douglas Matthews, a former Dallas underworld character, is mentioned in the Warren Report as a “passing acquaintance” of Jack Ruby’s and is obliquely connected with a Ruby-backed jeep sale to Cuba in 1959.

  The House Select Committee on Assassinations indicated Matthews’s relationship with Ruby was more than “passing” and described Matthews as a man “actively engaged in criminal activity since the 1940s.” The committee also documented Matthews’s connections to Dallas gamblers Lewis McWillie, that close friend to the Kirkwoods of Fort Worth, and local gambler Benny Binion—both closely acquainted with Ruby. The committee further developed evidence that Matthews was in contact with associates of Florida crime chieftain Santos Trafficante Jr. and was linked to Texas underworld characters, such as Hollis de Lois Green, Jettie Bass, Nick Cascio, and James Todd—all acquaintances of Harrelson’s.

  In a strange sidelight, Matthews was best man at the wedding of a Dallas underworld figure named George McGann to Beverly Oliver. A friend to Ruby as well as several of his employees, Oliver became known to researchers as the “babushka lady.”

  The former chief counsel of the House committee, G. Robert Blakey, in his book The Plot to Kill the President, reiterated the committee’s findings that Kennedy was assassinated as the result of a conspiracy involving organized crime and that more than one gunman was involved.

  If organized crime in Dallas was involved—and Ruby’s role would seem to justify that conclusion—then the entire spectrum of the Dallas underworld becomes suspect. And we come back to young Charles Harrelson.

  But there is evidence that Harrelson’s contacts went far beyond Dallas police characters. Indicted along with Harrelson in the plot to kill Judge Wood was the brother of reputed New Orleans crime boss Carlos Marcello, another of the organized-crime figures the House Select Committee on Assassinations named as possibly involved in the Kennedy assassination conspiracy. There was also Harrelson’s involvement with criminals connected to intelligence agencies and even the military.

  In April 1982, Florida law-enforcement officials identified Harrelson as being a member of a shadowy group of hired gunmen, mercenaries, and drug smugglers known as “The Company.”

  The Company, which according to lawmen took its nickname from the CIA, involved more than three hundred persons, many ex-police or ex-military men. Federal drug agents said the group imported billions of dollars’ worth of narcotics from Central and South America as well as conducting gunrunning and mercenary operations. During one criminal trial involving members of the group, federal prosecutors claimed The Company owned more than $30 million in assets such as planes, ships, and real estate.

  Florida lawmen investigating this group claimed Harrelson was a member and that Jimmy Chagra, the man who allegedly hired Harrelson to kill the judge, also once hired The Company for protection.

  Oddly enough, the very day that Harrelson was formally charged with the Judge Wood assassination—April 16, 1982—a Dallas news reporter and a JFK assassination researcher were scheduled to meet with Harrelson to discuss his role in the Kennedy murder. Although Harrelson had been jailed for more than a year and a half, when the formal charges were filed, all visits to him were canceled. JFK researcher and author J. Gary Shaw claimed, “I feel this was done at that particular time to prevent Harrelson from revealing what he knows.”

  During Harrelson’s trial, Joe Chagra, brother of Jimmy, testified that Harrelson got the Wood contract after telling his brother that he had participated in the JFK assassination. Researchers find it remarkable that a man reputed to be a high-ranking mobster by government agents should hire Harrelson on this claim rather than boot him out of his office—since everyone had been told the assassination was caused by only a lone nut.

  Harrelson, who died in prison in 2007 while serving a life sentence in the Wood assassination, was never interviewed thoroughly about his role in Dallas, though his son’s acting career prospered. Researchers are left only with his cryptic reminder: “November 22, 1963. You remember that!”

  Today, Warren Commission apologists are content to lay the three-tramps controversy aside as a dead issue. But many researchers believe that some sort of shenanigan was pulled to distract from the truth. One offered explanation was that Doyle, Abrams, and Gedney were indeed railroad bums arrested in Dallas that day but in a separate incident and were not the same men photographed being marched through Dealey Plaza. If nothing else, the tramp issue illustrates the gaps, omissions, and general lack of meaningful investigation in the Kennedy assassination.

  The “three tramps” were not the only persons arrested on the day of the assassination. More than a dozen people were taken into custody, and it will forever remain puzzling that few records were kept on any of them. It seems that once Oswald was captured, the authorities lost interest in anyone else.

  A Catholic priest told this author of observing the arrest of a young man wearing a three-piece suit and gloves who was then escorted from the Texas School Book Depository to the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office. He said he overheard the arresting officers say, “Well, we got one of them.” There is no record of such an arrest.

  Assassination witness Phil Willis told researchers that shortly after the shooting, police escorted a man in a black leather jacket and black gloves from the Dal-Tex Building—which lies directly east of the Depository and the building from which several researchers believe shots may have come. Again there is no record of such an arrest, though this man may have been Larry Florer, who was arrested in the Dal-Tex Building. In a statement to authorities, Florer said he tried to use a telephone in the Dal-Tex Building but found they were all busy. He was taken into custody as he tried to leave the building.

  Another man arrested in the Dal-Tex Building was a Mafia-connected police character with a record of more than thirty arrests and oblique connections to Jack Ruby.

  The Mafia Man in Dealey Plaza

  Moments after the assassination, an elevator operator in the Dal-Tex Building noticed a man he d
id not recognize. The operator summoned deputy sheriff C. L. “Lummie” Lewis, who arrested the man. He identified himself as Jim Braden.

  Taken to the sheriff’s office for questioning, Braden said he was visiting Dallas on oil business and was staying at the Cabana Motel, a motor inn on Stemmons Freeway built with Teamster money. He said he had entered the Dal-Tex Building to use the telephone when he was taken into custody.

  With no information to the contrary, authorities released Braden three hours later. It was an unfortunate decision. What is now known is that Braden had recently legally changed his name from Eugene Hale Brading. If the authorities had obtained that name on November 22, 1963, there perhaps would have been more interest in the man. Braden/Brading was a man with a police record stretching back to 1934 for such crimes as burglary, embezzlement, mail fraud, and conspiracy, including several arrests in Dallas.

  Braden’s story, which has been pieced together over the years by a variety of researchers and news reporters, indicated this man may have been more deeply involved in the assassination than was first suspected. On parole in California for mail fraud and interstate transportation of stolen property, Braden had informed his parole officer that he would be in Dallas from November 21 to 25, 1963. He said on November 21, 1963, he visited the offices of Texas oilman H. L. Hunt to meet with Hunt’s son, Lamar. Interestingly, Jack Ruby also was at the Hunt offices about that same time, ostensibly to help a young woman get a job. Both Braden and Ruby denied these visits, though they have been verified by more than one office worker.

  And Braden, along with ex-convict Morgan Brown, was staying at the Cabana Motel, the same motel Ruby visited the night of November 21.

  Furthermore, in the book Legacy of Doubt, CBS newsman Peter Noyes documented Braden’s connections to a number of underworld figures, including Meyer Lansky. Apparently Braden was known as a Mafia courier.