13-10-2015, 07:29 AM
Tracy Riddle Wrote:Welcome to the forum, Brian. Interesting research - I've never even heard of Boise Smith.
Hi Tracy, thank you for your welcome, it's nice to be here.
There must be a civil defense angle to this case. Two hours after the assassination it was public knowledge that the president had been shot, and the news was carrying reports that the Coast Guard was tracking an unidentified submarine off the coast in the Gulf of Mexico. Half the president's cabinet was in a plane midway over the Pacific, and Dean Rusk the Secretary of State at the time, who was on that plane, is quoted as saying, "Where's the government now?" No one knew. If ever there was reason for a Civil Defense (including disaster and continuity of government) event, this was it.
Meanwhile, only one theater commander (CINCPAC) raised the alert status by one notch. The generals it seems, weren't worried about any of this.
The interesting thing about Mr. Crichton, is his people would have been called to provide support for the president's visit, specifically in the area of communications. The president traveled with a "mobile white house" that consisted usually of two PBX's, and on that day there was so much traffic that they had to install additional switching capability, and the act of installing it took down the phone system for over an hour. There are rumors that the Emergency Operations Center was in use and active that day, however I've been unable to track down the source of these rumors.
The other way Crichton fits into the JFK case though, is that a lot of members of his 488th have important roles in what appears to be some kind of framing and cover-up around Oswald. Captain William Westbrook was a member of Crichton's 488th, and as the DPD's Chief of Personnel he was a desk jockey, he almost never participated in field investigations. And yet he turns up at every single one of the critical events related to Oswald, he's at the TSBD, he's at the Tippit scene (twice), and he's at the Texas Theater. Sgt Gerald Hill had been temporarily assigned to Westbrook's staff just weeks earlier, after returning from a month-long recruiting tour at the local colleges. Westbrook is the guy who's filmed by WFAA newsman Ron Reiland, at the scene of the Tippit shooting, handling the mysterious "other wallet", which supposedly someone handed to reserve officer Kenneth Croy, who then handed it to Sgt. Owens who then handed it to Westbrook, who then (according to Barrett) yells over to FBI Agent Bob Barrett, "Have you ever heard of a Lee Harvey Oswald? How about an Alec Hidell?"
Westbrook is also the guy who parks at the back of the Texas Theater, and so when the white-shirted Oswald double is escorted out the back of the theater (as witnessed by Butch Burroughs from inside the theater, and Bernard Haire from outside of the theater), Westbrook is logically one of the officers who would have left the back way.
But it's not just Westbrook. Revill was a member of the 488th Reserve too, and he's the one who perjured himself regarding the testimony of Charles Givens. (Not that that's anything unusual, it seems half the DPD perjured itself to the Warren Commission...) There seems to be some kind of pattern around the activities of these 488th guys.
Another interesting thing - is that Jack Crichton says he left the Adolphus Hotel and "walked down to Elm St" to observe the motorcade. He says he was close enough to the motorcade to see Jackie "resplendent in her pill box hat". Well, if you look at the map, a walk from the Adolphus Hotel to "Elm St" would put Crichton directly on the corner of Houston and Elm. He had to be practically standing right in front of the TSBD, or at the very most catty-corner, and yet he claims that after the motorcade passed by he went directly back to the Adolphus and resumed his luncheon, and didn't hear the shots, and didn't see the pigeons fluttering off the roof of the TSBD, and didn't notice the sirens or the noise from the crowd which he was supposedly paying attention to.
So... the temporary interruption in local Secret Service telephone communications can be explained by the upgrade of the PBX's, however the temporary disruption in radio communication can not. There was a temporary disruption in the radio traffic between the Secret Service and AF-1, and AF-1's radios were working just fine, so the problem must have been on the Dallas side. Well, the path taken by that radio traffic depends on whether or not the Emergency Operations Center was active. If it did become active, one can easily envision the snafu it might have caused in terms of conflicting protocols during a time that was already an emergency and already had vital existing channels. Some of the reported symptoms around the radio traffic are just what we might expect in such a situation.
Apparently the military intelligence people were quite concerned that Oswald might be a communist, and there seems to have been a sub-plot of some kind to blame the assassination on Castro and use it as an excuse for an invasion of Cuba. There are cables out of the 112th MIG in San Antonio to this effect, one at least which is still classified, another which apparently went to MacDill AFB in Florida, all warning of (or at least hinting at) the possibility of a communist plot. Some of the source information allegedly came from DPD officer Stringfellow, who allegedly got it from the Texas Department of Public Safety. However Col Robert E Jones of the 112th indicated to the HSCA in testimony that Army Intelligence had its own files on Oswald, which included the Hidell alias.
Sgt Gerald Hill flew to San Antonio the Sunday after the assassination, supposedly to attend a conference, however he may have visited Col Jones over at the 112th MIG, because Col Jones admits to having men in the DPD and assets on the ground at Dealey Plaza that day. Gerald Hill is vitally important to this case, especially his commandeering of Bobby Valentine's squad car. If that's the one that ended up in front of Earlene Roberts' place it sure would help explain a lot of things. That car may even have given the real Oswald (the brown-shirted one) a ride over to the Texas Theater, ... maybe even given Oswald a pistol and a few extra rounds - considering that Earlene Roberts searched her roomers' rooms every day (for alcohol) and never found a pistol, never found a holster, never found any ammo...
This sure is an interesting case.
