24-03-2009, 04:19 AM
Fred Lee Crisman
Fred Lee Crisman is another guy we need to know more about. If we could get to the bottom of who he was and who he was working for and for what purposes, many nagging questions of the last century might start coming into focus. I (like many others I hope) got interested in him from a reading of Joan Mellen’s book A Farewell to Justice.
Below is a bare-bones biographical sketch of Crisman that I posted, along with a lot of other information, on the JFK Research Forum (http://www.jfkresearch.com) last year. Also attached is a time-line that contains many more details.
Ron Williams
++++++++++
Biographical Sketch of Fred Lee Crisman
Fred Lee Crisman, the son of Fred L. Crisman and Eva Louise Joshlin, was born July 22, 1919, in Tacoma, Washington. He moved with his family to Vale, Oregon, in 1933 where his father was the proprietor of a hotel. He graduated from Vale Union High School in 1939 and attended Eastern Oregon College in LaGrande, Oregon, for a short time during the 1939-1940 school year before leaving to go to work for the Union Pacific Railroad as a brakeman. He was with the railroad until joining the military in 1942.
Crisman married Filomena Veristain in 1941. They had a son, Fred, Jr., and a daughter, Chris. His daughter was killed in a car accident in 1964.
He served in World War II and the Korean conflict as a fighter pilot, attaining the rank of Captain. Between the years of his service in the two wars he worked for the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs in Seattle in 1946 and 1947.
In 1947 he became well known as a protagonist, along with his friend and sometime business partner, Harold Dahl, in the famous Maury Island UFO incident near Tacoma, Washington. This was written about in the 1999 Kenn Thomas book, Maury Island UFO: The Crisman Conspiracy.
He later was a teacher and school administrator in a number of high schools in Washington and Oregon, and he worked for the Boeing Aircraft Company in Seattle for two years in the early 1960s.
For years he was a freelance writer, especially writing books, speeches, and campaign materials for many political figures, including state governors and members of the U.S. Congress.
In the late 1960s he moved back to his native Tacoma, Washington, and became involved in a highly charged political struggle in which he and friends and colleagues sought to end the City-Management form of government. As part of this struggle Crisman became well known and controversial as the host of a radio talk show using the pseudonym “Jon Gold,” and he wrote a book about the period called Murder of a City…Tacoma that was published in 1970.
In November of 1968 he was subpoenaed by New Orleans District Attorney, Jim Garrison, to appear before a grand jury that was part of the Garrison investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Early in 1975 he married Mary Frances Borden, whom he had met when he was a member of the Tacoma Library Board of Trustees. He had been appointed to the board in 1970 by the outgoing mayor of Tacoma, A.L. “Slim” Rasmussen, a compatriot in the local political wars.
Fred Lee Crisman died at the age of fifty-six of kidney failure in the Seattle Veterans Hospital on December 10, 1975.
Fred Lee Crisman is another guy we need to know more about. If we could get to the bottom of who he was and who he was working for and for what purposes, many nagging questions of the last century might start coming into focus. I (like many others I hope) got interested in him from a reading of Joan Mellen’s book A Farewell to Justice.
Below is a bare-bones biographical sketch of Crisman that I posted, along with a lot of other information, on the JFK Research Forum (http://www.jfkresearch.com) last year. Also attached is a time-line that contains many more details.
Ron Williams
++++++++++
Biographical Sketch of Fred Lee Crisman
Fred Lee Crisman, the son of Fred L. Crisman and Eva Louise Joshlin, was born July 22, 1919, in Tacoma, Washington. He moved with his family to Vale, Oregon, in 1933 where his father was the proprietor of a hotel. He graduated from Vale Union High School in 1939 and attended Eastern Oregon College in LaGrande, Oregon, for a short time during the 1939-1940 school year before leaving to go to work for the Union Pacific Railroad as a brakeman. He was with the railroad until joining the military in 1942.
Crisman married Filomena Veristain in 1941. They had a son, Fred, Jr., and a daughter, Chris. His daughter was killed in a car accident in 1964.
He served in World War II and the Korean conflict as a fighter pilot, attaining the rank of Captain. Between the years of his service in the two wars he worked for the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs in Seattle in 1946 and 1947.
In 1947 he became well known as a protagonist, along with his friend and sometime business partner, Harold Dahl, in the famous Maury Island UFO incident near Tacoma, Washington. This was written about in the 1999 Kenn Thomas book, Maury Island UFO: The Crisman Conspiracy.
He later was a teacher and school administrator in a number of high schools in Washington and Oregon, and he worked for the Boeing Aircraft Company in Seattle for two years in the early 1960s.
For years he was a freelance writer, especially writing books, speeches, and campaign materials for many political figures, including state governors and members of the U.S. Congress.
In the late 1960s he moved back to his native Tacoma, Washington, and became involved in a highly charged political struggle in which he and friends and colleagues sought to end the City-Management form of government. As part of this struggle Crisman became well known and controversial as the host of a radio talk show using the pseudonym “Jon Gold,” and he wrote a book about the period called Murder of a City…Tacoma that was published in 1970.
In November of 1968 he was subpoenaed by New Orleans District Attorney, Jim Garrison, to appear before a grand jury that was part of the Garrison investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Early in 1975 he married Mary Frances Borden, whom he had met when he was a member of the Tacoma Library Board of Trustees. He had been appointed to the board in 1970 by the outgoing mayor of Tacoma, A.L. “Slim” Rasmussen, a compatriot in the local political wars.
Fred Lee Crisman died at the age of fifty-six of kidney failure in the Seattle Veterans Hospital on December 10, 1975.