26-04-2014, 03:11 PM
Tracy Riddle Wrote:A good comment from Bill Simpich on the JFKFacts.org site:
A related issue to the wallet is how all of the contemporaneous reports on 11/22/63 are silent on the name of "Hidell".
Only on the 23rd did the "Hidell" name emerge in public, and it was only after the FBI allegedly discovered in the early morning hours of the 23rd that Hidell had mail-ordered the Mannlicher-Carcano and had the rifle delivered to Oswald's post office box address.
From the 23rd on, most of the witnesses who wrote reports on the 22nd gradually remembered that Hidell's ID was in Oswald's wallet.
Cops are trained to include all relevant data in their reports. It's hard to think of anything more relevant than the Hidell ID.
To my mind, either all these witnesses were given a secret order to not mention the Hidell name (unlikely) or the Hidell ID was only mentioned by Westbrook at the Tippit murder scene and then covered up until the right moment (more likely).
The Hidell story should be a follow-up article to the wallet story. Robert Charles-Dunne did a good round-up on this years ago at the Education Forum. Here it is:
So what did Bentley's report of the arrest say about the suspect's ID? "On the way to the city hall I removed the suspect's wallet and obtained the name…. I turned his identification over to Lt. Baker. I then went to Captain Westbrook's office to make a report of the arrest." The date of the report was December 3, or two weeks after the event, itself a rather disquieting delay in filing a report that itself stipulates he went to Westbrook's office to file a report immediately after the arrest. Perhaps he did write another report on 11/22/63 and nobody has been able to locate it in the past 42 years. Perhaps you will suggest that his memory was far sharper after 35 years than it was after 14 days? [I will attempt to upload the 2nd page of this report, which deals with the post-arrest trip downtown, so you can comb it for any mention of "Hidell" ID and let me know what you find.]
So, OK: Bentley failed to mention finding ID in Oswald's alias. But other officers did. Gerald Hill told the WC that Bentley had found the ID while en route to DPD HQ, but was uncertain about the name, recalling only that it was the same name that had been used to order the rifle. However, on the very day of the "Hidell" ID's discovery upon the suspect, mere hours after it occurred, here's what Gerry Hill told NBC TV:
HILL: The only way we found out what his name was was to remove his billforld and check it ourself; he wouldn't even tell us what his name was….
Q: What was the name on the billfold?
HILL: Lee H. Oswald. O-S-W-A-L-D.
Bentley's failure to remember the "Hidell" incident must have been contagious. Hill caught it fast, though he recovered in time for his testimony. CT Walker, as noted earlier, failed to hear anything about Hidell while sitting right beside Oswald when the ID was allegedly found in Oswald's wallet. Nevertheless, he told the WC that when they got to the DPD HQ, Oswald "was handcuffed with his hands behind him. I sat down there, and I had his pistol, and he had a card in there with a picture of him and the name A.J. Hidell on it."
Please avail yourself of the reports filed by Walker, and K.E. Lyons, and Bob Carroll and let me know if any of the five arresting officers mention anything about finding "Hidell" ID on the day of the event. Perhaps you can also suggest why all five had instant amnesia. You might also explain how it came to be that having had his wallet removed by Bentley, who reported that he gave it to Lt. Baker, Oswald seems to have had his wallet returned to him, even though he was still hand-cuffed with his hands behind his back.
Richard Stovall testified that he and Gus Rose were talking with Oswald prior to Captain Fritz commencing the interrogation. Stovall said that he asked Oswald his name, and Oswald told him "Oswald." Stovall noted that the suspect had his billfold and it included "Hidell" ID. At that point, Fritz entered and sent Stovall and Rose out to Irving to check the Paine home.
Five days after Stovall testified to these facts, Rose was called and asked about this series of events. Rose said that when he and Stovall asked the suspect his name, he replied "Hidell." Rose claimed that he found ID in the billfold in both names. Needless to say, the WC didn't trouble itself to reconcile the diametrically opposed testimonies of Stovall and Rose regarding what the suspect told them. But then, the same WC staff didn't seem to question the absolute absence in the DPD reports of any indication that the word "Hidell" was ever uttered on that day.
Helpful, but problematic corroboration came from another detective, Walter Potts, who told the Commission that soon after 2 pm he was dispatched to "go out to Oswald's or Hidell's or Oswald's room…. On his person he must have had he did have identification with the name Alex Hidell and Oswald." Potts claimed that when he got to the Beckley boarding house, he and and his fellow officers which included Justice of the Peace David Johnston , who would preside over LHO's arraingments were told by housekeeper Earlene Roberts and the Johnsons, who owned the house, that none of them knew "a Lee Harvey Oswald or an Alex Hidell either one." When questioned, Roberts and the Johnsons admitted having been asked about an "Oswald" but made no mention of "Hidell."
Interestingly, JP David Johnston was involved with police all day long, and in his own report referred to an Oswald alias O.H. Lee under which he'd rented his boarding house room. Despite having been present when Potts, et al, asked after Oswald or Hidell, Johnston too suffered from the contagious amnesia regarding that name.
Thanks for this Tracy. Oh how I wish that the always brilliant and insightful Robert Charles-Dunne (RCD) posted here. The Hidell alias did not become "important" until the DPD learned that it was this name used to "purchase" the infamous rifle. I suspect there were more reports that were disappeared until needed. Just as I have never believed that no notes were taken of Harvey's interrogation. They were simply not released to anyone as such information would have made it far more difficult to frame the patsy.
Dawn