Adele Edison in The Searchers

[Tom Scully]

I just got done watching the last disc of Randy Benson's set of 20, which composed much of the raw data on which he based his documentary The Searchers.

The last disc contained a two hour interview with Adele Edison. I had read one or her essays and I had also read Bill Kelly's two essays on her experience. But I had never heard her speak live or in front of a camera. She seemed credible to me. She went to the FBI on the 24th, she talked to Garrison, although a bit late in 1974, she wrote Frank Church, she wrote Cornwell, she talked to Fonzi, she filed FOIA's through a lawyer, she talked to the ARRB.

Her husband would be a good corroborating witness, I wonder if he is still around? What about her kids? She also kept some notes. Plus she underwent hypnosis which helped her recall certain details. Is that guy still around?

I only had one question mark about her interview. She said the house Oswald lived in on Magazine street in NO was owned by Bill McClaney. I had never heard that before form anyone. Is it true? Or did someone just give her some bad info? Which is a common ploy.

Jim,

I thought I might be able to assist Adele. Before I contacted her in late 2009 I learned everything I could about New Orleans Secret Service AIC John W Rice who she claimed she reported her contacts with Col. Jose Rivera to
on 24 November in the federal building in the presence of FBI's Oren Bartlett. She said she had additional telephone contact with Rice in the months after the assassination and that she talked to Bartlett long after he had
retired.

I was impressed enough with her sharpness of recall and her earnestness and sheer intelligence to repeat the five hours long telephone contact with her on a November Saturday afternoon in a second and equally long call
to her the following afternoon.

Her ex-husband died in 2011 or 2012 and I urged her in late 2009 to pursue an affidavit from him especially because I thought this history would increase the weight of his collaboration, especially because he also was
a psychiatrist.

http://www.leagle.com/decision/197076423....%20EDISEN

http://www.leagle.com/decision/197410842....%20EDISEN

I found no information about the custody case leading me to believe Dr. Clayton Edisen had introduced Adele's claims about Rivera as a means to discredit her in the long court case.
Adele emphasized she had shared in real time what had happened in 1963 with her then husband and sought his advice about if, when, and how to report Rivera to authorities.

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Tom Scully ‏@tjscully 17 Jul 2012 More

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Col. Jose A. Rivera accused in this letter, sent to the HSCA, in 1976. He was cleared, when?

I have always done what I could.... I questioned whether Adele did all she could have. Empathizing with her influenced me to attempt to put myself in her place. It would have gnawed at me to an unbearable
degree not to resolve the question of who Rivera was in league with and why Rice and Bartlett provided no on the record follow up. I gave her Rice's daughter's married name and the daughter and her husband's
contact info. I informed Adele that Rice's wife's birthday was 22 November and on that day he travelled to and from Barksdale AFB to meet with USAF security and that Rice's older and recently married daughter
lived at Ft. Polk, directly on the route from NOLA to Shreveport. My theory was that Rice dropped his wife off to celebrate her birthday with their older daughter and I expected there was enough personal memory
about that particular weekend that there was a possibility Rice's two daughters could confirm whether Rice and Bartlett did go to Dallas just after Adele's meeting with them on Sunday the 24th, and that Adele could
win the sisters over to possibly assist her in some way.

Adele was interested enough to discuss that research and ask questions but within a week told me she did not want to bother Rice's daughter. Bill Kelly later said he and Adele were pursuing strategies to corroborate her
claims. Unless Adele was suffering from a disorder that impaired her judgment, she seemed too intelligent and articulate to be promoting misleading claims.

I found out rather recently that the paths of Frank Carlucci and Rivera likely crossed in rural Pennsylvania between 1948 and 1963 and I know Adele read my posts about that without comment.

I found that Mike Wallace's secretary later promoted to a Don Hewitt, 60 Minutes producer, married Rivera's nephew about 1990 and is FB friend's with Rivera's daughter. I found that Rivera was married in DC in 1925
and had a daughter shortly after but has an obit with an age ten years younger than he actually was and I have read that his military file is 800 pages.