A PUBLIC APPEAL TO WALT BROWN: Release Jay Harrison's Archive

[Dawn Meredith]

Walt

Here's the archive collection Philip Melanson spoke to the German researcher about in the 1994 interview I found yesterday. Although Dr. Melanson died in 2006, the collection remains secure and accessible:


The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination Archives Collection
http://www.lib.umassd.edu/archives/rfkaa.html

The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination Archives Collection is the world's largest, most complete compilation of materials relating to this event. Established in 1984, the archives contains thousands of copies of government documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act public disclosure process as well as manuscripts, photographs, audiotape interviews, video tapes, news clippings and research notes complied by journalists and other private citizens who have investigated discrepancies in the case.

The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination Archives, a collection within the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Archives and Special Collections, is open to the public. No material is restricted, however, we cannot supply copies of all items because of copyright law. Please consult the fee schedule for duplication of materials.
No appointment is necessary, but, it is advisable to call ahead if you are travelling from a distance. Please contact the Archivist Judy Farrar by e-mail with questions or comments.


Contact information is supplied at the link to the home page above along with hours and a guide to the collection.

Phil

Now there was one serious legit researcher. Phil was an amazing man. We became friends in the 80's back in the day of snail mail. These cases were his life, a life cut way too short by cancer in 2006.
As for J's files...I expect we've heard the last of them. As to why they were shared with Joan, I have my personal feelings which will remain private, not for publication.
RIP dear friend. I miss you every day.

Dawn

[Dawn Meredith]

There is a person on this forum [and two off] who have explained to me in detail how your main point is WRONG and that Walt's obtaining of Harrison's papers may have been more an 'op' than the 'will' of Harrison. Others have also voiced their opinion on this, sensing this may well have been so. Would that person on the Forum care to publicly put some of the details they have privately told me here? Many find fishy, Harrison leaving his things to Brown.....and with good reason. There is much more to that story than meets the innocent/unknowing eye! It is FAR from CLEAR that Mr. Harrison had any intention of giving the things to Brown, except at the very end [and in fact did he?] and certainly NOT clear that he meant for them to be sat upon. They were NOT good friends until the end, when Brown fawned all over Harrison, apparently in order to get the archives - and may have deceived Harrison in many ways - if in fact he did even will them to him. These others I hint at, who have told me their version and thoughts, had been long term friends of Harrison - and to a person were very surprised at what happened and HOW it happened - and the other things that happened along with it.

Why was I and many others denied access to them - in my case, after being promised access?! There are SPECIFIC reasons to doubt the story of the accession, as told by Brown. There is a long and sad history of persons getting ahold of important research in this matter, in order for them to no longer see the light of day...... We certainly do NOT see a book or summary; nor is anyone getting access to those important papers!!!! The proof is in the pudding...and in the stories I've been told by several persons - which match one another - about the events near the end of Harrison's life.

I would urge the persons I hint about [they know who they are] to publicly speak to this issue. It is time....IMHO.

Agreed Peter. This person is dead wrong. Jay died in the belief that his work would be carried on by Walt. He trusted Walt with his life's work. A few months' before he died Jay wrote his own obit and sent it to two people only. Walt and me. It somehow got accidently deleted from my computer so I emailed Walt to see if he would send me a copy as J's former wife had contacted me and wanted a copy. He replied that he did not have it. Was that a lie? Or does it speak volumes about his friendship?
Dawn

[Peter Lemkin]

Just to note for those not up on the 'Harrison files' - to my knowledge, the ONLY person ever allowed to have access to the files by Brown has been Joan Mellen, who lives not far away from where Brown keeps them stored. Joan told me she had unfettered access to the files, and brought groups of them to her home, returning these when she picked up the next set. She verified that the complete set was enormous, and more than she could ever look through.

There are not even many researchers who know about Harrison or his importance in the research world, because of his penchant for secrecy. Plumlee knew Harrison very well - knew him even before the assassination [!] and throughout his years of investigative work they were in contact and close.

Because of this, and because I was once contracted with Tosh to write the biography of his life [with an emphasis on his involvement in Dallas, if any], I requested of Walt Brown to see that portion of Harrison's files that related to Plumlee and those who brought Plumlee into the world of intelligence and covert operations. If one looks back at the early parts of this thread, one will find out what happened to my request.

At first, I was promised all related to Plumlee - the only caveat being that I paid for copying, etc., to which I agreed. However, in the end, I never saw a single page.

[Magda Hassan]

It is a real shame that Jay's wishes have not been fulfilled. Having information locked away does no one any good. The information wants to be free. It should be in a public repository like a library accessible for all. Even better if that library has their archives online. The fact that they are all in boxes in a private residence or secure storage facility with selective access at the discretion of one person is heart breaking. And too much responsibility for one person as well. Surely Jay would have wanted his research safe but accessible and available?

[Peter Lemkin]

It is a real shame that Jay's wishes have not been fulfilled. Having information locked away does no one any good. The information wants to be free. It should be in a public repository like a library accessible for all. Even better if that library has their archives online. The fact that they are all in boxes in a private residence or secure storage facility with selective access at the discretion of one person is heart breaking. And too much responsibility for one person as well. Surely Jay would have wanted his research safe but accessible and available?

As Harrison had once been in the DPD, had before that been in MI, and knew, personally, several of the possible 'players' in this drama - or would have had easy access to them (without their knowing he was a 'researcher') through his past MI, DPD and personal contacts, some have speculated that some of the more important things ever investigated privately may lie in Harrison's files. Yes, it is a shame that they are not available, apparently. They have been made available, to my knowledge, to only on researcher, as I mentioned, and even she had to limit herself to only parts of it, as the total is variously said to be between one and two million pages! That's a lot of work!!!!...from someone in a very unique position to do research on this matter!

[Dawn Meredith]

It is a real shame that Jay's wishes have not been fulfilled. Having information locked away does no one any good. The information wants to be free. It should be in a public repository like a library accessible for all. Even better if that library has their archives online. The fact that they are all in boxes in a private residence or secure storage facility with selective access at the discretion of one person is heart breaking. And too much responsibility for one person as well. Surely Jay would have wanted his research safe but accessible and available?

As Harrison had once been in the DPD, had before that been in MI, and knew, personally, several of the possible 'players' in this drama - or would have had easy access to them (without their knowing he was a 'researcher') through his past MI, DPD and personal contacts, some have speculated that some of the more important things ever investigated privately may lie in Harrison's files. Yes, it is a shame that they are not available, apparently. They have been made available, to my knowledge, to only on researcher, as I mentioned, and even she had to limit herself to only parts of it, as the total is variously said to be between one and two million pages! That's a lot of work!!!!...from someone in a very unique position to do research on this matter!

Not much I can add. Jay expected Walt to carry out his work and makes his files available, via University or some such vehicle. Yes he required secrecy. That was his rule. The day we met-11/21/97- he told me to never reveal his name. A promise I kept til 5/25/05 when he passed. I wanted to run an obit in the local Austin American Statesman but Walt said NO. His reason was that "people would show up and loot J's home". I should have run it anyway. During the boom days J was a successful real estate agent and had lots of friends in that world. He died and no one even knew. He wanted the obit he wrote run. And his work to continue. Last I heard- from Walt's mag- he is selling all his JFK stuff. So ....think what you will about J's files.
Dawn

[Tom Bowden]

I met Jay in 1994 and over the years utilized his files and his talent on three occasions. He was paid money each time and we had a decent and friendly relationship. I have also known Walt Brown for the same time period and we sold his books and his newsletter in the Conspiracy Museum. I doubt most of you realize that Jay used a genealogy based computer system to store his information. I have done considerable genealogy work and understand the problems this creates. In addition, Jay was using an outdated package without software support. I have a paper printout of his files on Malcolm Wallace, Lyndon Johnson and Billie Sol Estes. 95% of the information on a single page is of little value. In addition, most of the information is repeated on each individual listed on say Malcolm's sheet. If you multiply the number of persons jay had information on you come to a horrendous number of paper sheets. Jay himself told me that no one could really run his computer system other than him. Jay used the genealogy system to make notes and there is value in the notes. So Walt has all these sheets of paper. To fulfill an information request, it is not a simple matter of picking up a file and making copies. I am not defending Walt. I am just saying accessing a name is not easy. I sincerely doubt Baylor for instance would even be interested in it because of this problem. I also sincerely doubt any of you would want to spend time searching the files once you understood the task.

[Magda Hassan]

I met Jay in 1994 and over the years utilized his files and his talent on three occasions. He was paid money each time and we had a decent and friendly relationship. I have also known Walt Brown for the same time period and we sold his books and his newsletter in the Conspiracy Museum. I doubt most of you realize that Jay used a genealogy based computer system to store his information. I have done considerable genealogy work and understand the problems this creates. In addition, Jay was using an outdated package without software support. I have a paper printout of his files on Malcolm Wallace, Lyndon Johnson and Billie Sol Estes. 95% of the information on a single page is of little value. In addition, most of the information is repeated on each individual listed on say Malcolm's sheet. If you multiply the number of persons jay had information on you come to a horrendous number of paper sheets. Jay himself told me that no one could really run his computer system other than him. Jay used the genealogy system to make notes and there is value in the notes. So Walt has all these sheets of paper. To fulfill an information request, it is not a simple matter of picking up a file and making copies. I am not defending Walt. I am just saying accessing a name is not easy. I sincerely doubt Baylor for instance would even be interested in it because of this problem. I also sincerely doubt any of you would want to spend time searching the files once you understood the task.

I have heard similar observations from others too. Not a simple fix by the sound of it.

[Anthony Thorne]

I have no dog in this fight and haven't followed the issue close enough other than to know that various DPF members have been unhappy enough about the situation to begin and continue the current thread. That said, did folks here read Walt's response to Charles Drago (who is obviously ex-DPF) in Walt's autobio? I recall there is another reference to the controversy in his book too, but the following was the one I returned to and found at short notice. This is from somewhere within the final quarter of WALT'S JOURNEY - Appendix IV of his big Chronology. There are several other pages elsewhere in that volume that go into Joan Mellen's dealings with Walt and his with her.

.....

"In late February, 2012, when I was recovering on one hand from semi-serious surgery but making breakthroughs as noted above, I received forwarded e mails from two collegial researchers regarding some things that were being said about me.

But not TO me.

Someone named Charles Drago, whoever the hell he is, put a lengthy post on a DiEugenioPease website calling for a "people's archive," whose first two collections of JFK material should include Jay Harrison's Archive and the Mary Ferrell Collection, purchased some years back to "Ollie Curme," a corporate mogul.

Curme laid out $1.6 million to acquire everything of Mary Ferrell'sliterally every scrap of paper in her home, including her children's report cards and Boy Scout awards, according to her son Jim, who told me the story over dinner in Dallas.

I do not know where this "people's archive" is, except perhaps in the mind of Charles Drago, and if that is the case, it's clearly too small for either Jay's documents or Mary Ferrell's.

Personally, I find it in extremely bad taste to speak about someoneme, for instancein this manner without the courtesy of speaking TO me about it.

Beyond that, I'd be curious to know if he has any awareness whatsoever that this project was begun with the underpinning of Jay's archives, and that work on this project will continue for a year and a half after his website posting.

I'd also be curious to know if he has any awareness of how much it cost me to ship Jay's materials to New Jersey, and then keep them out of harm's way from June, 2005 until April 25, 2011, when I rented a U-Haul truck to move the materials to higher ground because I'd paid almost $13,000 for that storage locker.

And I would really be curious to know what he has been smoking to make him think that Ollie Curme, whom I've also never met and have no desire to, will just willingly donate, to the "people's archive," that which he paid $1.6 million for.

The prevailing story is that the Mary Ferrell Archive was purchased to be digitized and made available to everyonecertainly a laudable ideabut considering that the Ferrell collection was purchased when Mary was very much alive but that she's been dead for more than eight years (d. February 20, 2004), it strains the imagination to wonder how long it will take Rex Bradford, a diligent researcher, to do this work, because only a small fraction is now available.

An allegation was made that I have never made Jay's materials available to anyone, and that is extremely wide of the truth. In fact, nobody who has ever called and visited was ever turned away from those materials, so I don't know where Drago gets his information.

But it's wrong to the point of being accusatory. In my brief marriage to someone of Russian extraction, I returned from the post-ceremony trip on September 28 to find a call from Joan Mellen, who has written widely on the Garrison events.

She made me aware that she was going to do a book about "famous Texans," and asked if I had anything that would be of use. As it happened, Jay Harrison had a lot of material on Texans who seemingly had no connection with events of 1963, as they'd been born in 1851 and died in 1907, or something similar to that, and I had brought home a few large boxes of such files.

I had planned to skim through them and if of no use, toss them out. But Joan's cry for help was answered, and the following day, September 29, 2008, she drove up from her residence near Princeton, New Jersey, and after we caught up on each other's work, I filledby myself, as she was unableher SUV to the ceiling with the "Texans" materials that I had handy, and several additional boxes of Jay's materials that I was temporarily at least, done with.

I also made sure she had all of Jay's back-up hard drives, which also filled a box, so, in essence, she had everything. She told me it would take her some time to go through what was there, and I understood that, as it had taken me a great deal of time.

In early 2011, I contacted Joan as I needed the non-Texan material back, and although she was in pain from either a recent injury or recent surgery, she understood my urgency and paid a couple of presumably her college students to box up all the stuff and send it back to me.

So much for not ever letting anyone see the materials.

Drago made the further statement that I had been an FBI agent, a charge repeatedly made by Ms. Pease, who seems to believe that I continued to work for the FBI for the 26 years while I was teaching elementary school (19742000).

I was never an FBI agent. I worked, as book jackets have stated, as a special agent for the Department of Justice. I carried a badge, a commission bookletone of those neat little engraved folders that will open every doorand a gun.

But I did not work for the FBI and I was only in the FBI headquartersthe old buildingin liaison capacities from where I was employed.

Years after I leftJuly 11,1970, sine die, the Bureau that I worked for was subsumed by the FBI, but I was long gone, except in the mind of those who believe I was keeping an eye on the lunches of fourth graders, lest the Soviets slip micro-film inside the peanut butter.

The final bit of ugliness that was contained in this tirade was truly the product of nothing less than a truly sick imagination, and frankly, I don't think Drago came up with it all by himself.

The accusation was made that Jay Harrison's Archive was takenvery clever use of the passive voice, as it avoids naming who took itbut Jay Harrison's Archive was taken to Washington after it came into my possession, in order to be reviewed, in its totality, by someone characterized as a 1960s era politician, whose duty was to sanitize it, with my permission and understanding.

Nowhere is it explained what I did during the months, if not years that would have been necessary for anyone, particularly an older fellow who had been a 60s era politician, to review the matter.

Was I sitting outside some safe house with the motor running on a U-Haul for eighteen months?

Drago, you need some serious therapy if you think 1) that I would dishonor the memory of Jay Harrison in that way; 2) that I have the kind of time to do such a thing; and 3) that I would allow government censorship of anything I do.

Accordingly, I will, when my temper comes under control, be sending an electronic message to Mr. Drago, since I have no idea what specific rock he lives under, cordially inviting him to Hillsdale, New Jersey, to prepare the Jay Harrison Archive for "the people's archive."

My suggestion will be that he rent a motel room nearby, but rent a copying machine here at my address, so I can keep an eye on him, because someone who goes behind my back with that kind of nonsense has certainly not earned trust.

I will make Drago aware that if he is conscientious, and can make 1,500 copies each day (and at $.10 per copy, that will cost $150 daily, plus the cost of the machine), he will have to stay at it, 365 days a year, for a little over seven-and-one-half YEARS.

Ah, but won't the "people's archive," wherever that is, be a thing of sheer beauty as well as a researcher's paradise. And we'll have Charles Drago to thank.

And I'll personally put in a word for Drago to receive a lifetime achievement award from COPA, because at $150 a day, this work will cost him $416,100.

Still cheap by Ollie Curme's costs, right?

Until that day arrives, however, my suggestion to Mr. Drano will be that he make every attempt to have a self-inflicted sexual experience.

God knows, he's deserving…."

[Peter Lemkin]

I met Jay in 1994 and over the years utilized his files and his talent on three occasions. He was paid money each time and we had a decent and friendly relationship. I have also known Walt Brown for the same time period and we sold his books and his newsletter in the Conspiracy Museum. I doubt most of you realize that Jay used a genealogy based computer system to store his information. I have done considerable genealogy work and understand the problems this creates. In addition, Jay was using an outdated package without software support. I have a paper printout of his files on Malcolm Wallace, Lyndon Johnson and Billie Sol Estes. 95% of the information on a single page is of little value. In addition, most of the information is repeated on each individual listed on say Malcolm's sheet. If you multiply the number of persons jay had information on you come to a horrendous number of paper sheets. Jay himself told me that no one could really run his computer system other than him. Jay used the genealogy system to make notes and there is value in the notes. So Walt has all these sheets of paper. To fulfill an information request, it is not a simple matter of picking up a file and making copies. I am not defending Walt. I am just saying accessing a name is not easy. I sincerely doubt Baylor for instance would even be interested in it because of this problem. I also sincerely doubt any of you would want to spend time searching the files once you understood the task.

Thanks for that. It sounds logical until one realizes that Joan Mellen was quite able to find very important new information within what was there. She repeated this to me on several occasions, at several points in her work with these files/materials. Yes, she also said they were not easy to use. It seems counter-intuitive to use a genealogy system - but this can not be changed. I'm aware of many side stories and side aspects of J's research which I have been asked not to be made public - so I can not. But from what I know and what Joan reported [and others I can't name] there still resides much important information - even if in a very difficult format.