Lee Harvey Oswald did not have Aspergers: Correcting an Armchair Diagnosis

Lee Harvey Oswald did not have Aspergers: Correcting an Armchair Diagnosis    

 

Lee Harvey Oswald in Minsk with fellow factory workers

    Greg Parker, an Australian blogger with a long interest in the Kennedy assassination, conducted an armchair diagnosis on Lee Harvey Oswald.  He decided that Oswald had Aspergers, a neurobiological disorder linked to autism. He's wrong.​

    Some common symptoms include the inability to show feelings for others (empathize), finding comfort in doing repetitive things, having trouble recognizing common social signals such as a frown or a hint to 'go away', and being unable to form meaningful relationships outside a range of narrow, often obsessive interests that can create expertise in a particular scientific field, such as mathematics or chemistry. 

    To begin with, as for Lee's not having the ability to empathize, let me explain that Marina Oswald, in Patricia McMillan's book Marina and Lee, which is CIA-approved, revealed that Lee (who was devoted to JFK) cried when baby Patrick,born premature to John and Jackie Kenedy, died of hyaline lung disease.

  It's also on record that Lee also cried when he got the small birthday cake Ruth Paine made for his 24th birthday (Marina and Lee, p. 474). Lee told me he cried because "That was the last birthday cake I'll ever have." Now, slips such as Lee's crying over his birthday cake shows that he could feel deep emotions, though he was a courageous man who exhibited considerable self-control when under arrest for Kennedy's murder. 

Other symptoms of Aspergers:

• Inability to listen to others

• Inflexible thinking [Parker misuses this important diagnostic benchmark]

• Repetitive routines provides feelings of security [Parker misuses this important diagnostic benchmark]

• Stress when their routine suddenly changes [Parker wrote: "Adherence to routines and schedules, and stress if expected routine is disrupted (Oswald was a prolific writer of “to do” lists)."  Fact: While there are a few 'to do" lists in Lee's busy life, try and find them.

• Inability to think in abstract ways (Parker says: "some evidence that this applied to Oswald" without citations. Lee had no problem whatsoever to think in abstract ways. For example, Lee wrote in his Historic Diary, "7.00 P.M. I decide to end it. Soak wrist in cold water to numb the pain. Than slash my left wrist. Than plaun wrist into bathtub of hot water. I think "when Rimma comes at 8. to find me dead it wil be a great shock. Somewhere a violin plays as I watch my life whirl away. I think to myself. "how easy to die" and "a sweet death, (to violins) about 8.00 Rimma finds me unconcious (bathtub water a rich red color)[spelling mostly not corrected to display his dyslexia]

• Specialised fields of interest [But this is true of many people who aren't Aspies]

http://psychcentral.com/lib/symptoms-of-aspergers-disorder/000877

  Many photos of Lee were taken by friends -- more than usual for the era.  Note how many of them show Lee smiling, or with his arms around a woman, or goofing off in the center of a batch of men, such as the famous photo of Lee in sunglasses, taken outside the factory at Minsk.

   Lee had a number of affairs and conquests before marrying Marina.  That he made a number of friends in the Marines, one of whom recently (Botelho, Santa Ana) contacted a friend of mine and who stated, for the record, that Lee was friendly, intelligent and prone to joking, who handled himself well, though he was being picked on by one of the officers unfairly. Botelho said that a lot of his testimony was cut out from what he told the Warren Commission and never got published.  However, another Marine (Felde) said Lee "kept to himself" and read "quality books" a lot.  Kerry Thornley was in between, describing Lee as friendly, but then suddenly breaking off contact with him. We need to look beyond statements made by the Marines because Lee was only a 17-year-old teen when he joined the Marines, barely of legal age. He had a lot of adjusting to do. Felde was only with Lee in Boot Camp.

  As a young adult, upon his return from the USSR to the USA, Lee had the burden of keeping Marina sufficiently isolated so she could not be accused of being a spy. Lee's CIA-connected 'best friend' in Dallas, George de Mohrenschildt, said he didn't defend Lee as he should have to the Warren Commission in his book I AM A PATSY! (HSCA), and added that Lee would not have betrayed him as he had betrayed Lee, commenting that Lee would have been a fearless and loyal friend, whereas he, de Mohrenschildt, was in comparison a craven coward.

   Lee did have dyslexia, which is common to many people, but found among males of above-average intelligence. 

   Because "Aspies" can have real problems learning how to read, some people think those with dyslexia instead have Aspergers, which is one of the errors Greg Parker makes in his blog.

   Lee had dyslexia. The reason he could often spell better was because he used a dictionary (and for some FPCC letters I was there, and he consulted me on spelling some words). 

   Note that Lee had no developmental delays, and was always a bright and cheerful child until his mother moved them to New York, where he lost his entire family support system after going to the defense of his obstrusive and rude mother, who was, according to Lee, being yelled at by John Pic's wife (Pic was out on duty at the time, I believe... Marguerite had moved herself and lee into the tiny apartment Pic and his wife shared with her parent(s) who were temporarily away. After weeks there, it was obvious Marguerite was there to stay. Lee drew apenknife on Pic's wife when, he told me, she threatened to hit his mother. At any rate, he was quite defensive of his mother and they got kicked out. It was a hard and lonely time for Lee. So, what did he do? Curl up in a corner? No. He took to riding the subways and trains, spending time in libraries, and avoiding school. He loved animals.  It's not surprising, therefore, that Lee's favorite haunt was the Bronx Zoo, where he was arrested for truancy.

  In New York, Lee avoided school, had some emotional problems in his isolation, wore the wrong (Southern style) clothes and was mocked and got into fights due to being the new kid and having a New Orleans accent, which Lee quickly erased. Unlike most Aspies, Lee had a terrific facility for learning a language --as evidenced by his ability to pick up Russian, a very difficult language, so fast that at the end of about a year and a half practicing and learning Russian, when Marina met him at a dance, she thought Lee was a Belarus native (she was new in town from Leningrad and had moved in with her uncle's family, very small and crowded apartment, so they were anxious to get her married off). The Belarus variety of Russian was not as elegant as proper Russian and Belarus-born George DeMohrenschildt said Marina chided Lee for his occasional 'errors'--which irritated George, who declared Lee had the best command of Russian he had ever known in a foreigner--and he taught Russian to college students in classes for college credit.

  So--Lee was very good at language, had some psychological issues when he was uprooted and thrust into a new world in New York, where he ended up briefly in an institution for juveniledelinquents, where, lee told me, staff and the bigger kids regularly abused newcomers, including him.

    So young Lee had some emotional problems at that key time in his life--age 11-13--when he was entering puberty--a rough time for all adolescents.

    I think he did very well, with the poor parent he had to live with.

   Here are the primary factors to consider with Aspergers.

 

   Asperger's syndrome, also called Asperger's disorder, is a type of pervasive developmental disorder (PDD). PDDs are a group of conditions that involve delays in the development of many basic skills, most notably the ability to socialize with others, to communicate, and to use imagination.

http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/mental-health-aspergers-syndrome

  Greg Parker claimed that Lee "avoided eye contact' and that was evidence that he had Aspergers.  [Parker wrote: Oswald could not make eye contact with Ruanne Kloepfer on her visit to the Oswald residence in Sept, 1963.]  But Parker should have looked at Hugh Murray's report -- in his book review of Me & Lee--a little more closely, where he described this singular event.  Murray says Kloepfer also said Lee made a pass at her in the kitchen, which is why he wouldn't make eye contact with her when they returned to the living room, where her sister, mother and Marina were.  Her statement that Ruth Paine drove up in the station wagon, fresh from her trip East, just as they were leaving, cannot be true if Ruth Paine is telling the truth, because Paine testified to the Warren Commission that  "I was impressed with the role that Lee took of the general host, talking with them, looking over some slides that one of the daughters had brought of her trip, recent trip to Russia, showing sights that they recognized, I guess, in Moscow.
Mr. JENNER - That the girls recognized?
Mrs. PAINE - No; that Lee and Marina recognized of Moscow, or Lee did, at least. And he was very outgoing and warm and friendly..."

Parker says: "Hampered conversational ability (some evidence that this applied to Oswald)..."  and "Inability to manage appropriate social conduct (some evidence that this applied to Oswald)..."   Parker also says, "Even affected people who are high achieving and academically or vocationally successful have trouble negotiating the ‘hidden rules’ of courtship. Inappropriate sexual behaviour can result. (despite not being able to make eye contact with Ruanne Kleopfer, she nevertheless felt he was flirting with her – despite Marina being home at the time)..."  Parker takes the flawed statement of Ruanne Kloepfer as fact, even though her sister said that Ruanne never left the room and the event did not occur:

   "Because Marina was pregnant, Ruanne went to help Lee.  That is when Lee came on to Ruanne.  That is when she became furious.  They return to the living room.  In her email, Karol [Ruanne's mother]denies that that occurred.  She asserts that they were all in the living room for the full hour of the visit...[however] according to Karol, [Ruanne] continually berated Lee for preparing to leave his pregnant wife and child." [ http://hughmurray.blogspot.com/2013/09/lee-harvey-oswald-guilty-of-adultery.html -- his uncomplimentary assessment of me, here, contains numerous misinterpretations of my statements and my book, but that's for another time. ].

   Ruth Paine mentions nothing negative whatsoever in her description of how Lee was treated or how he behaved with the Kloepfers--a rare occurrence indeed. It's my opinion that Paine would have mentioned anything negative that happened if she could, for she doesn't seem to fail to mention anyone criticizing Lee elsewhere. But Parker takes the claims of Ruanne to support not one but two of his claims:

  (1)   "...a person with Asperger's syndrome aged in their 20s typically has the sexual codes of conduct befitting a teenager...[they] have trouble negotiating the ‘hidden rules’ of courtship. Inappropriate sexual behaviour can result...(2)  (despite not being able to make eye contact with Ruanne Kleopfer, she nevertheless felt he was flirting with her – despite Marina being home at the time).."

   Parker ignores Ruth Paine's WC statement that Lee Oswald was "very outgoing and warm and friendly" to the Kloepfers and that she was "impressed with the role Lee took of the general host."  He conveniently forgets that Lee was able to get Marina's promise to marry in two weeks, ignores de Mohrenschildt's description of Lee impressing the socks off a beautiful cultured Japanese musician at George's party, where  Marina was the one acting like a child, and of course denies that I ever met Lee, though I remain devoted to him.

     In an affront I cannot stomach, Parker says  "Problems with controlling feelings such as anger, depression and anxiety (some evidence that this applied to Oswald)..." as "evidence" of Aspergers, when in every instance, we find Lee's worst behavior is almost always associated with his inability to get along with Marina. Considering how common this problem is between couples from different cultures, and how opposite their personalities were, Parker should have looked elsewhere before applying this criterion, considering the fact that Lee, under considerable stress, being yelled at by reporters when under arrest, not only makes eye contact with everyone he can, but under interrogation, he remained in control of his emotions. Said Dallas Police Investigator Jim Leavelle, the man who brought Lee out double-handcuffed when Lee was shot by Jack Ruby: “He was very polite, calm and collected,” Leavelle said...“I said later that I wouldn’t want to be that cool and calm after shooting two people.”  Leavelle said he was struck by one thing that came from Oswald’s mouth: “I didn’t shoot anybody.”  [ http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/jfk-assassin-article-1.1514569]

   So, let's review:

   "...a person with Asperger’s may engage in long-winded, one-sided conversations without noticing or caring about the listener’s interest. They also often lack usual nonverbal communication skills, such as engaging in eye contact with others they’re talking to, or failing to react and empathize with other people’s stories and conversation... They may have a hard time “reading” other people or understanding humor."

http://psychcentral.com/lib/symptoms-of-aspergers-disorder/000877

    As for understanding humor, George de Mohrenschildt introduces us to Lee as a man who loved to tell jokes (they were usually wry jokes).  He recounts back-and-forth jokes between them, especially about life in the Soviet Union.  Lee had a great sense of humor and liked to tease me, as can easily be seen in Me & Lee where he wouldn't tell me the ending of the science fiction story about 'The Last Male."

    Let me stress that high intelligence and the ability to concentrate on something are attributes of many Aspies. But that's also true of many other people who are utterly normal.   http://www.asperger-advice.com/asperger-symptoms-in-adults.html 

   Nevertheless, Parker faults Lee for achieving excellence in spoken Russian, writing, "When a person with Asperger’s Syndrome learns a foreign language, there can be a remarkable ability to pronounce the words as spoken by a native speaker." Well, guess what. There are thousands of people who can do the same thing who do not suffer from Asperger's.  The US Military has designed a test that identifies the best learners of language as relying on "working memory, associative memory and implicit learning" -- these abilities are found in second language learners across the spectrum.

    Lee told me his responsibility was to erase his accents, to protect his identity as working for the CIA, so he could not be traced as coming from a particular area. I've had doctoral level training in linguistics and can assure you that Lee had a natural ear for learning Russian. However, he had a harder time with Spanish and was much slower acquiring any real proficiency in it. Why? Lee wasn't motivated to learn it ahead of time because we originally planned to be living in Latin American countries for a long time. Motivation turns out to be important in attaining a new language. Hence, Lee's hard-gained fluency in Russian was not due to an Asperger's-driven compulsion, but was because he was preparing to be a dedicated Cold War operative, penetrated the Soviet Union, and there perfected, by dint of hard work, his command of the language.

   John Armstrong [Harvey and Lee, p. 11, 247, 339,etc.] erroneously says Lee spoke Russian fluently from childhood because he was born into a Hungarian family, and did not dare speak it in the USSR. He says the Russians had no record of Lee speaking Russian even though Lee's friend in Minsk, ErnstTitovets, tells us that Lee had a Russian tutor assigned to him to help him earn Russian.

Lee, to left, in Minsk. Hardly anti-social.

    This mess of a "Russian speaking Harvey" from childhood is due to Armstrong's making much ado about an anonymous phone call describing his uncle and father as communist Hungarians... apparently in Armstrong's world, all Hungarians living in the USA spoke Russian fluently, though nobody in my extensive Hungarian family did.  In 2013 and 2014, Ernst Titovets, the no-nonsense scientist that he is, stated vehemently to listeners at the JFK AssassinationConference in Arlington, Tx --and elsewhere -- that Armstrong misquoted him and numerous others in Minsk when he claimed Lee spoke no Russian while in Minsk (because he feared to reveal his fluency). Titovets got red in the face with anger and disgust as he denied that Lee "never" spoke Russian. It was a marvel to behold.

   And it weakens Parker's insistence that Lee was so fluent in Russian because "some" Aspies can learn languages easily and well without an accent.

   Lee's fluency in Russian came from study and long practice: so important were his flash cards in Russian, Spanish and English --that was to help him overcome his dyslexia--that all three boxes were found in his tiny room on Beckley Avenue. Lee used to hold a Russian flash card up so I could see what was on the back, and I would correct him if he pronounced the word incorrectly. Once Lee and I met at Tulane's music listening rooms, where he had accessed a Russian language record, which we played in one of the small private rooms. This record had the "classic" highly-cultivated kind of Russian accent that Lee preferred to the one he had learned in Minsk. By no means did Lee do this in ay obsessive manner. For example, we kissed in the relative privacy of the music listening room! )  

    As Lee entered training to become a spy and a fake defector, he had to change his ways. He stopped drinking and smoking, though he continued his sexual activities with pretty Japanese women at clubs in Tokyo, his forays there apparently subsidized by the CIA/ONI, since he was dating very expensive consorts. Lee had to get 'dirtied up' because as a "happy" Marine he had no basis for defecting. And if he had defected with a good record, including improving his shooting score as other Marines usually did, Lee could have been executed as a danger to the nation. Hence, we see Lee thrown into the brig after pouring beer over his Sergeant's head (there's that sense of humor--he had to get in trouble, so why not be silly about it?) after having previously shot himself in order to get in trouble for having an unauthorized firearm (a Derringer).

   Maybe Lee was just showing off to me about shooting himself on purpose, in a way to make it look like an accident.  

   Only weeks before he would have been discharged, Lee suddenly was basically discharged (remained in the reserves) so he could go home on a hardship basis and 'take care' of his mother, who had sustained a nose injury weeks earlier from a box of candy falling on her face at the store where she worked (Marguerite successfully sued). Lee spent no more than three days with his mother and a day or so with Robert, his brother, before going to New Orleans --the first leg of his journey as a (fake) defector. He, supposedly 'dissatisfied' with the USA (after a year of studying Russian) entered the USSR via routes known fully only to Intelligence sources (see http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=125x298715 ) after which, when his Visa wasn't renewed, this intrepid young fellow sliced his left wrist and just about killed himself (because his Soviet tour guide, Rimma, was, he told me, "about half an hour late." In his "Historic Diary" Lee says, of course, that Rimma was right on time.)

   I was surprised that Parker didn't mention the high suicide rate of Aspies as part of his thesis.  While Aspies have a high suicide rate, this necessary severing of a vein (5 stitches required, but the scar, noted in Lee's autopsy, was slight) was never intended to kill. Never again in the rest of his life did Lee ever exhibit suicidal tendencies. His ploy worked. He was soon released from the hospitals' mental ward as no threat, and it was decided it would look very bad to deport Lee Oswald after such a dramatic gesture.

   Not content with misrepresenting Lee's patriotism as some kind of obsession (ignoring the fact that Lee adulated Herbert Philbrick, of I Led Three Lives Fame, who pretended to be a communist for the FBI) Parker also says that Lee, as an Aspie, cultivated "Specialised fields of interest or hobbies. (Oswald memorised the Marine Manual at age 15 (sic) and had an ongoing special interest in political movements and learning languages)..." which he called "persistent preoccupation with parts of objects" to make it qualify as an obsession, thereby placing Lee as an Aspie [however lightly afflicted] with narrow interests and obsessive-compulsive behavior.

[Apparently Parker was cognizant of http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/asperger/detail_asperger.htm]

   Half the readers of this article, assumed intelligent, have probably "...had an ongoing special interest in political movements and learning languages..." -- "symptoms" Parker grabs to label Lee Oswald. Though "memorizing the Marine Manual" may seem obsessive to some, this was his mother's statement, not Lee's, and constitutes hearsay. (Marguerite said: "Lee, at age sixteen, read his brother Robert's Marine Manual back and forth. He knew it by heart.")

    Upon such 'evidence' Parker builds his case.

    Probably one of the outstanding things I've noticed, in one of my grandchildren who has Aspergers, is that he makes straight A's in school but is trapped in a world where repetition is important. Now, there's a difference between habit and repetition. Lee had a habit of bathing every day, which in 1963 was somewhat unusual. Repetition is another matter. My teenage grandson will play the same video game over and over. He won't stop to even eat, unless ordered to quit. He never picks up his clothes: disorder follows wherever he goes. He is a genius in engineering, but his handwriting is all but unreadable, in large letters forcefully written, sometimes making the pen go right through the paper. He loves his computer--though he is likely to step on it and ruin it because he never picks up anything.  He doesn't like to travel and avoids new things.

   Parker used the "repetition" card like this: "It was reported by the likes of Mike Paine and others that Oswald was inflexible in discussions on politics and when cornered would simply repeat the same arguments."   Oh, dear. How "Aspie" of him!

    In fact, Lee was known for his political knowledge, his lack of patience with rote thinking, and his wide range of interests, from classical music and chess to politics and travel. George de Mohrenschildt wrote that Lee savored the idea of making a long trek into the wilderness of Latin America, just asGeorge and his wife Jeanne had done.

    Since the "Aspie" fear of change or travel doesn't fit Lee that well, we will look next at Parker's charge that Lee's handwriting was "messy" in his attempt to convince us that Lee was an undiagnosed Aspie.   However, in almost every case, where there's enough writing to judge, Lee's cursive writing is largely legible and flowing, as seen in his V.T. Lee FPCC letters: 

 

  Lee Oswald's handwriting (left)compared to a typical sample from an Aspie (below) who

writes better than my teenaged grandson.

    

While we agree that Lee was a "unconcerned about neatness" in the Marines. His rifle was almost never well cleaned (so much for his so-called obsession with cleaning and dry-firing the Carcano in New Orleans, according to Marina, which nary a neighbor ever saw, though she said Lee did this on their screened porch at 4905 Magazine St., day after day, which porch faced a road heavy with traffic). That doesn't mean he had Aspergers.

    On the contrary, after leaving the Marines, in both the USSR and in the USA to follow, Lee was consistently described as  "clean cut" , neatly dressed, and well groomed.   In the anti-Oswald book Marina and Lee, on p. 480, Lee's landlady "...describes him as spotless. He never kept anything cluttered."

   Parker isn't finished, though. He wrote that Lee was an Aspie, since "...When the partner expresses frustration or becomes upset that they’re given no help of any kind, the person with Asperger's syndrome is typically baffled. Tension in the relationship often makes their symptoms worse. (Marina often complained he did not help enough)..."
   I'd like to know when. It was Marina who often did very little housework (People change: I do not mean to imply that Marina is like that now). Testimonies show that when Marina stayed at friends' homes in dallas/Fort Worth, because of their mutually violent relationship, where she got the worst of it, Marina neglected her baby, failed to clean up after herself, slept until noon and was "slovenly." She was a young mother and got pregnant again, so we must give her leeway, but there's no doubt that Lee helped out a great deal. He cooked meals often, washed clothes, even ironed diapers (here he is, ironing diapers):

 I was astonished to see one more accusation: that Lee was no good at just about anything having to do with being a sociable person.  We should never confuse Lee's reluctance to make friends when he returned to the US with the need for him to keep nosy people from discovering his covert tasks.  I am a living witness to the fact that Lee forged strong friendships with Dr. Mary Sherman and David Ferrie in New Orleans. See my books Me & Lee (608 pages, incl. photos and documents) and David Ferrie: Mafia Pilot (over 500 pages, the first biography ever published on Ferrie).

       But the number one way to prove that Lee did not have Aspergers is the fact that he tenderly loved little Junie and baby Rachel and was a good father. This was obvious to all. De Mohrenschildt said Lee would gaze lovingly at his little daughter and would get upset if Marina spanked her.

   Aspies usually want to learn how to get along in better in the world, but don't know how without guidance.  They often will try to improve their social skills if they understand their condition. They usually want people to like them and don't want to hurt other people's feelings, which they can do on a regular basis (One Aspie I know, when angry, would spit --without even thinking-- in other people's faces. It's not the way to win friends and influence people). Many Aspies have milder symptoms. If you think you might have Aspergers because of having difficulty understanding others, or because you recognize some of the problems discussed here, consider taking this test:  http://aspergersquiz.com/

   One of the problems women married to Aspies have is their inability to remember to interact meaningfully with their children, though when aware of the problem, they will make efforts to do so because Aspies are capable of love. Stated one Aspie's wife:  "He does love us. He didn’t want the family to fall apart. [After he learned that he had Aspergers] He went right out and found a therapist who works with adults with Aspergers. He’s far from perfect but he’s honestly trying. He’s even apologized to the kids for not being more involved while they were growing up. I can’t ask for more than that.”

http://psychcentral.com/lib/adult-aspergers-the-relief-of-a-diagnosis/0006706

   Lee was so closely involved with his children that one of the last things he asked Marina to do, when she was talking to him in jail by phone and they looked at each other through glass walls, was to remember to get new shoes for Junie.

    That's not Aspergers.

    Greg Parker has done a disservice to the research community by propagating his ill-researched theory.

'CANCUN'- 'KANKUN' PART TWO: PROOF THAT CANCUN EXISTED IN 1843

'CANCUN'-'KANKUN' PART TWO: PROOF THAT CANCUN EXISTED IN 1843

    THE BIG ACCUSATION WAS THAT CANCUN DID NOT EXIST IN 1963.
    THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO 'PROVE' I DID NOT TELL THE TRUTH.
   

The Catherwood Map, 1843

     In 1963, a map was printed -- dating from 1843--- in a book that was available to me and Lee, about the Yucatan.  Look carefully at the map and you can clearly see why Lee and I considered Cozumel as a drop-off point for me, since our goal was to hike to Chichen-Itza, and after that, to go on to .Merida However, there was supposed to be an old railroad we could walk along all the way, starting from the Cancun/Kankun area, so we wouldn't get easily lost. Our final decision was to have me dropped off on a hard, sandy beach near the village of "Kankun" (spelled that way on the first map we saw). It was also spelled "Cancun" on other maps.

  According to the trolls who follow me around  and who write articles based on each other's versions of what I actually have said, Cancun supposedly did not exist until the 1970's.
   On this 1843 map, "Cancun" can be seen above the 21 degree line.
 

    Note that two trips by boat were made to the village (see dotted lines). The map was drawn no later than 1843 and was published in 1963 in the book Incidents of Travel in the Yucatan by John L. Stevens, through Dover Pub. Inc, NY.  A friend kindly sent this book, for which I'd been searching for years.
    Also note "CHICHEN" -- to the left.  It is underlined, indicating ruins were observed at that site.  One of the dotted lines shows the route that tourists took all the way back in 1843 from the coastline to reach Chichen Itza. The map below this one is a larger part of the same map.  It shows that from Chichen Itza, you can trek on to Merida. That was our plan, and Lee and I studied such maps to plan our jungle adventure. 

     Read George de Mohrenschildt's account of how Lee desired to make a long jungle trek just as George and his wife had done.  I had been fishing since age 3 and loved the outdoors.  To us, it was the perfect way to escape the problems we had encountered.  The dotted lines show the various routes of treks taken by Stephens, Catherwood and Cabot in the early 1840's. Catherwood drew the map. You can't miss the village of Cancun.  The outcry that Lee and I were going to meet at a village that did not exist will no doubt be replaced with another outcry based on some other groundless objection. Please copy this material: the Internet may not be free or uncensored in the future. (Thank you)






NOTE: I NEVER said Lee and I planned to meet in a fine hotel in Cancun, and then get married. I have repeatedly corrected such mis-statements for years now.  The Cancun matter was an insertion by my literary agent that was missed by Dr.Platzman, who was writing a book (Deadly Alliance) using my emails and phone calls. Originally, I'd only said "Mexico" until the agent insisted on my being more specific. He then inserted "Cancun" in Dr. Platzman's manuscript, who took the blame for allowing it to remain in the manuscript. But it was my fault, too. A section of dialogue that I later wrote, and take responsibility for, includes several phrases indicating that we would meet in Cancun.   I wrote it that way to make sure people could find the area on the map.  Certainly Lee and I did not plan to even spend the night in that area. We would have set off immediately for the abandoned railroad we'd read about. God forgive me if that wasn't made clear enough. The comment Lee made about a "fine hotel" meant, to me, that it could be located "anywhere" -- most logically, on our way to Chichen-Itza.  For HOW does one describe a general area on a present-day map, near Cancun, without mentioning Cancun?  My suitcase was packed with survival equipment! I described the area where I was going as a place I'd be afraid to go to, except I knew Lee would be there. Does that sound like a pleasure resort?
    Since Lee often made wry jokes, I had no way of knowing if he was serious or not about our staying in a 'fine hotel.' It made absolutely no difference to me. Was it 'definitely' a joke? I don't know and never did.

    Lee never mentioned Merida as a meeting place. He spoke of Merida in other contexts. I decided this must have been the 'city' in the Yucatan where we hoped to marry - on my own, as he mentioned we would be flying from the city where we would marry on from there to the Cayman islands. When, later, I learned that flights from Merida to the Cayman Islands were known to occur, I then assumed the city was Merida.

One statement made was that "Judyth and Oswald actually planned to meet in Belize, Mexico - 350 miles from present-day Cancun. (Note: There was no Belize in 1963; it was called British Honduras until years later.)" In actuality, we planned at one time to meet in BELIZE CITY, Honduras.  
At one point in our plans, we planned to meet near present-day Belize. [THAT IS, BELIZE CITY]I have no idea how to describe the location without using the word Belize. Do you? I have no idea what the location was called in 1963. It was the first place we were interested in while making our plans. We had guessed that this was the secret site where the film NIGHT OF THE IGUANA had been made, and thought there might be some vestige of civilization remaining behind after the film had been shot. The place had been described in the newspapers as spectacularly romantic. Later, we changed the meeting place nearer to where the ruins of Chichen Itza were located. Later, a statement was made that

"Judyth and Oswald actually planned to meet in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - well over a thousand miles from present-day Cancun."

In fact, as we explored various possibilities, Lee and I changed our proposed meeting place several times as the situation developed. For example, the murder of Alexander Rorke, a pilot Lee trusted, changed the proposed meeting place. Our plans were not set in stone.

This whopper was also published: "Judyth and Oswald actually planned to marry in the Cayman Islands of the Caribbean; Cancun was just a stopover."

    In actuality, Lee and I planned to both divorce and then marry - in Mexico. Exploration of ancient Mayan ruins and a visit to a large city in the Yucatan were additional possible plans. After marriage, final destination was probably going to be the Cayman Islands after things became more dangerous.

     There are other false accusations: here are a few of them: "On November 22, 1963, Judyth and a number of her co-workers set up chairs and watched the assassination of John F. Kennedy on television."   On November 22,  I observed my boss, Mr. Mays, and several others bring in stools to watch the TV at noon. They exhibited what in my mind was undue interest, keeping the TV on past lunchtime, which was an hour ahead of Dallas time. Several chairs already in the lab were also used. I didn't help set up anything. What we did watch, of course, was the constant news that was on TV from about 2:00 PM our time, onwards.   The assassination itself was never televised. The events of the day of the assassination were observed on TV at PenChem.

Hewre's another: "Oswald's friend George De Mohrenschildt knew about the assassination ahead of time, and had agreed to help take care of Oswald's wife and children afterwards." In actuality, George DeMohrenschildt was asked by Lee to help Marina and his children in case something happened to him long before any of the events transpired in Dallas. I never said George had anything to do with the assassination itself.  I have only guessed at the extent of George's knowledge, since Lee said he had confided in him; I was asked my opinion and gave it.  It was almost immediately misinterpreted.

How about this one? "Judyth has proof that Oswald was innocent of John F. Kennedy's assassination; she presented it to filmmaker Nigel Turner and he filmed it for his documentary, The Men Who Killed Kennedy: The Love Affair." In fact, it is I, myself, who stands as a witness that Lee Oswald was innocent of John F. Kennedy's assassination, since he expressed to me his potent grief and anger over the plot. I presented proof of having known Lee Oswald well enough that it was reasonable to assume that he might have confided these matters to me. In fact, he did so.

The next accusation was that "Beyond her word, Judyth has no evidence regarding anything related to John F. Kennedy's assassination." What I do present, of course, is my knowledge of Lee and my relationship to him up to 37 1/2 hours before the assassination.  Read the book Me and Lee and decide for yourself if I have enough evidence. Talk to me, while I'm still alive. See with your own eyes what materials I saved--and I do not own that many things, but kept these. Above all, if I wanted to 'make money' or wanted attention, all I had to do was to say Lee DID kill JFK. All my witnesses and evidence would be VERY popular with the press. Movies would be made.  I'd be praised for 'proving' a Lone Nut killed JFK. But it's not true. I cannot be influenced. I live in exile and have to continually correct [usually deliberate] misrepresentations of what I've actually said, done and lived. My life is not easy, but I am at peace. let the "critics" keep throwing stones. It is not I who lives in a glass house.

         

CANCUN, KANKUN and CHICHEN-ITZA: LEE OSWALD'S and JUDYTH BAKER'S ESCAPE PLANS

        The Cancun Issue and Our Escape Plans: Part One
   "In 1963 Cancun did not exist as any sort of settlement, town, village," McAdams' newsgroup followers announced, "but Judyth Baker said she was going to meet Oswald there, and they'd go to a "fine hotel" in the area."   Refuted years ago, it seems necessary to once again provide facts because a dishonest revival of this old issue has been circulating. In Part Two, I'll go step-by-step through the misquotes that McAdams and others have published about "Cancun.' 

It should be remembered, throughout, that this matter began with Dave Reitzes, who received some emails from me after he promised full confidentiality. Without going  into the matter that this man altered the emails he published, the very fact that he broke his word and  published them -- after I refused to show him and McAdams the REAL book manuscript I had written (I'd put a teaser book out to test the waters and see if I'd get sued--and who would attack me)-- the very fact that Reitzes broke his word and published these emails marked 'confidential' reveals that he LIED. This is the man McAdams and his followers want you to believe.  Blaming Lee Oswald for Kennedy's death seems to be their official reason for existence: they stalk, call names. misquote, alter emails and do whatever else is necessary to muddy the waters.

Those who want justice for John F. Kennedy will never see it happen until these Warren Commission theorists are fully exposed. We're part-way there, since McAdams was fired for unethical practices and banned from even stepping foot again on the campus at Marquette University. But his websites, using Marquette University's server, are still online.  The one attacking me is filled with disinformation and libel.

PART ONE OF THIS BLOG ESTABLISHES THAT CANCUN EXISTED (ALSO AS 'KANKUN' -- A NAME THAT STUCK WITH ME EVER SINCE STUDYING MAPS WITH LEE OSWALD AT TULANE UNIVERSITY'S LIBRARY). NEAR THIS AREA, LEE AND I PLANNED TO MEET ON THE HARD BEACH THERE WHERE BUSH PLANES COULD SAFELY LAND. PART TWO WILL SHOW HOW, BY MANIPULATING MY WORDS AND MISQUOTING ME, DAVE REITZES, McADAMS' MINION, DENIGRATED ME AND CAUSED PEOPLE TO QUESTION MY CREDIBILITY. REITZES IS BEST KNOWN TODAY FOR ATTACKING JIM GARRISON AND THE MOVIE 'JFK.'  BY PRETENDING THAT OLIVER STONE'S BLOCKBUSTER MOVIE WAS A 'DOCUMENTARY' REITZES DOES HIS BEST TO DISCREDIT THE SPLENDID JOB STONE DID IN BRINGING FORTH THE BIG QUESTIONS ABOUT THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION IN A WAY THAT THE PIUBLIC COULD UNDERSTAND. BECAUSE OF THE FILM 'JFK' MILLIONS OF CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS EVENTUALLY WERE RELEASED (MANY OF THEM CENSORED). IT SEEMS THE FILM AND THE GARRISON INVESTIGATION ARE TWO SUBJECTS THAT McADAMS AND HIS FRIENDS ARE DESPERATE TO DIRTY UP. SINCE I'M ANOTHER WITNESS AS TO WHAT HAPPENED IN NEW ORLEANS, INEVITABLY, I, TOO, CAME UNDER FIRE.

SO--LET'S LOOK AT WHETHER 'CANCUN' OR 'KANKUN' EVER EXISTED BACK IN 1963:

  Trip Advisor tells the tourist: "Although the ruins scattered throughout the area tell of an ancient Mayan civilization across the region, Cancun itself was only developed as a resort island in the 1960s from what was once a sliver of sand off the coast of the Yucatan peninsula.  Recognizing a rising outburst of tourism from the US, the Mexican Government carved Cancun out of the deep jungle of the Quintana Roo region, building causeways to connect the island to the mainland and constructing an international airport... it was opened to tourism in 1974. Advertised as a tropical paradise, Cancun soon attracted tourists from Canada, the US and Europe."

   Right away, the reader can see that (1) there were ruins of "an ancient Maya civilization"  "scattered throughout the area" and (2) it was basically "a sliver of sand." It was not a resort with hotels until  "...opened to tourism in 1974."  This seems to support McAdams, Reitzes and David Lifton that there was "nothing" there. (BUT THERE WAS ALWAYS A 'CANCUN' OR 'KANKUN'--KEEP ON  READING!)
   When my first agent asked me 'where in the Yucatan' did Lee and I plan to meet, I pointed to what was once, indeed, nothing but hard, sandy beaches in the area. He immediately told me this was was "Cancun." [Please note that "Kankun" and "Cankun" are pronounced exactly the same way.  But there was more than just 'a sandy beach' there. There was a VILLAGE. Lee and I remarked that a BOAT came there every two weeks or so. it could be our escape route back to civilization, if necessary.
     I think in a very literal way. Scientifically speaking, the area where Lee and I planned to meet today is called 'Cancun' and at that time, according to an old map we found, the region was called "Kankun." No problem. Just a minor linguistic variation.  There was also the village "Kankun' or "Cancun" near the beach where a plane could land.
    But not for the nit-pickers.  Since the modern 'Cancun' didn't exist in 1963, this was used to question my credibility.   Earlier, I had asked my co-author of the book we originally intended for publishers to look at how we should spell "Cancun" (the book was "Deadly Alliance" --never the official version, as it was never finished or approved). My co-author, Dr. Platzman, saw no problem in retaining the current spelling, but I would have edited it to "Kankun" had the book gone to galley stage. 

Later, Dutch thieves sent a partial, stolen copy of "Deadly Alliance" to McAdams' newsgroup, which  published portions of his bootlegged manuscript, which they claimed was never altered and was even a 'finished product.' The thieves sent emails threatening to do just that if I did not sign over film rights to my book.  

 Many people copied these pages stolen from a manuscript Dr. Platzman wrote from emails I sent to him, until we threatened a lawsuit against McAdams--at which time they vanished, but are still being quoted to this day by the same people.
   
So it was that McAdams' newsgroup demanded me to "prove" there was a "fine hotel" in the area in 1963.  AlI I could say was that "Kankun" did exist --and Lee indeed had said there was a fine hotel we'd be staying at in the area.  We were young and strong. Remember that: we did not intend to stay where the plane dropped me off. That was just the starting spot. We intended to begin hiking at once. Lee said we'd be staying in a 'fine hotel" and I expected we'd find a hut or something at the end of our first leg of hike to Chichen-Itza. I thought Lee was probably joking about a 'fine hotel.'  He had a terrific sense of humor.

Little did I know that a fine hotel indeed existed in the area, right next to Chichen Itza! What a surprise it would have been, had Lee and I been able to escape as hoped, to meet at the beach near ancient Cancun/Kancun as planned, then travel down to that ancient site -- where the hotel, as well, was located.

But Lee was captured, shot and killed, and I never knew if what he'd described as a "fine hotel" was a joke or not, for Lee told many jokes. 

KANKUN AND CANCUN

  Today, many hotels with the name "Kankun" exist in Cancun. One bus tour says: "This beautiful island mentioned on some maps as "Kankun", which in Mayan means "pot of snakes" or "snake pit" then changed to Cancun, from an almost deserted and unexplored place, today it is renowned worldwide, so much so that it annually receives over 
two million visitors; and you could be one thanks to Wayak’s bus from  Cancun to Chichen Itza."  The "Mile-by-Mile" tourist guide says: 

"The city of Cancun in the state of Qintana Roo Mexico receives its name from the Maya word Kan Kun, that means place of snakes. This city is one of the most important world-renowned tourist resort and development for Mexico where only 30 years ago was mostly an virgin area...Attractions in and around Cancun MX. - Museo de Antropologia e Historia. The Museum features Maya History showing exhibits of Mayan artifacts. The museum is located on Boulevard Kukulcan, in the Hotel Zone."
    
USA Today makes it clear that Cancun was once KANKUN:

"On old maps of the region, the small fishing village on the northeast coast of the Yucatan Peninsula was called Kankun. In the local Mayan dialect that meant “nest of snakes”--but the name Cancun, as the major resort area has come to be known, now symbolizes successful tourism development on a grand scale."

Cancun/Kankun did exist in 1963.  Chichen Itza was a famed pyramid in the news in 1963, as new excavations were being conducted.  Both Lee and I wished very much to climb Chichen-Itza, which I described from the beginning as our destination before going on to the city of Merida, where we planned to get married.

Here is a card, dated 1963, showing Chichen Itza:

From a tourist site:

"For centuries, the white sands of Cancun bore few footprints. In the 1960s, the population in the area was estimated at approximately 1,000 residents, most of them Mayan fishermen and their families."

THE 'DISCUSSION' WAS EXHUMED AGAIN A FEW YEARS LATER BY MCADAMS' PEOPLE, PLUS JACK WHITE [WHO PROMOTED THE 'HARVEY AND LEE' THEORY] IN 2010 when they quoted an objection by David Lifton, who stated I said "Cancun" on the telephone to him. . Dr. James tzer, after assessing everything, realized that it was a tempest in a teapot.

James H. Fetzer, on Mar 28 2010, 08:30 PM, said:

"Another claim that she made that he [Lifton] could not believe was the story of them meeting for a rendevous at a hotel in the middle of the jungle in Mexico in the resort of Cancun, which he found incredible, especially since Cancun did not exist at the time. ... Lifton made a mistake over the phone, because they [CANCUN AND KANKUN: jvb]are both pronounced the same."

(I wrote to this group)"HE ONLY TELLS YOU TO FOCUS ON "CANCUN" AS HE HEARD IT OVER THE PHONE...(but) DEB BERT AND OTHERS NOTED THAT MAYALAND WAS BUILT RIGHT THERE AT CHICHEN-IZA, WHERE I SAID LEE AND I WOULD MEET (sic: we actually planned to meet on the beach and travel on TO Chichen-Itza). ... THE OLD MAPS WE LOOKED AT SAID "KANKUN", THE NEW ONES SAY THE CITY "CANCUN".

DR. FETZER WROTE:  And she's right!

to which McaDAMS' token "CT", Barb J, objected,writing: "Just a little geographic orientation regarding Cancun ...kan-kun ... and the Mayaland hotel. The above 
reads as if the Mayaland is in close proximity to Quintana Roo where Cancun is located. It is not. Chichen Itza and the Mayaland hotel are not in Cancun, or Kan-kun ... nowhere near.  Chichen Itza and the Mayaland Hotel are located in the middle of the jungle in the state of Yucatan. Cancun is located in the state of Quintana Roo. Quintana Roo did not become a state until 1974, but it was an officially named territory as of 1902.  Who cares about Quintana Roo? Judyth, who wrote:

I began to fantasize about my hoped-for escape to Quintana Roo. In my dreams, I climbed Mayan pyramids with hinds´ feet in high places,Lee laughing by my side, the wind blowing our hair awry, and colorful birds flying in great processioned wheels around us, their cries of joy mingled with ours. I would feel Lee´s touch, that certain way he had of tracing just so across my hip, and I would wake smiling -- to a void. 

Barb J. went on to say: "It is an 111 mile, 2-1/2 to 3 hr drive from Cancun to Chitzen
Itza/Mayaland *today* on the highway. There were no roads in 1963 as noted in the cite above. People going to the Mayaland Hotel used to be taken from where they got off their ship in the little port of Progress, through the jungle, to the Mayaland..."
  
   But wait. Barb J knew nothing about an abandoned railroad line we 
expected to follow straight to Chichen Itza.  Chichen Itza was closer than Barb J realized. That old rail line was mentioned in the book we intended to use as a guide, which was full of maps: The Lost World of  Quintana Roo (see below).  If the rail route proved  inaccessible, we intended to take a boat that we were told showed up once or twice a week to take us to around to Port Progress. From there, we would have gone on down to Chichen Itza with tourists.

Barb, a good writer, sounds quite convincing as she continues her objections: "When the Cancun thing became an issue, and the "kan-kun" explanation did not fly, [FOR BARB!] their intended destination became, Tulum, [nope, that was just a possible side trip because of the ruins there] Merida, Chichen Itza....and somewhere down the line, [in Barb's version] even Cozumel and the Cayman Islands (where Judyth said Oswald had sent money ahead for them) ... they all became,, in turn, the correct place."

FACT: None of Barb J's statements, above, are supported with citations. She describes what she perceives as an evolution of final destinations instead of understanding the TRIP ITSELF, which was amorphous and had various destinations -- which trip was to begin with Lee meeting me at the sandy beach area close to the village/area we called Kankun.   
  The whole idea was to have an adventure, WALKING. Just as Lee's close friend, George DeMohrenschildts and his wife, Jeanne, had done. We'd spent hours planning our life in the wilds of the jungle, wanting to test our survival skills. Ask any of my children if i could survive in such a situation, even today. I think they'd all agree I'd do just fine. I taught my children various survival techniques, taught Cub Scouts, took my children camping.
     From our landing point, Lee and I planned to walk along an abandoned railway leading to Chichen-Itza, which we were determined   to climb.  Sometime at this point in the journey, Lee had said we would   stay a few nights in a "fine hotel." As I've already said, I didn't know if this was a joke or not. It turned out that indeed there was a "fine hotel" at Chichen
Itza's site, but as late as 2003 I was unaware of its existence. I reported what we'd planned faithfully. Then a reader, Deb Bert, described the Long-standing Mayaland Hotel to the McAdams newsgroup critics.     From Chichen-Itza, we planned to take an old highway up to Merida.  
    In the end, when Lee's position became precarious, and i had been banned to Florida, we decided we wouldn't stay in Merida long, but after getting married there by a corrupt 
priest (that is, a priest who would be willing to accept a bribe to "hurry up" the marriage date --avoiding weeks of 'banns' that were usually posted prior to a marriage -- we would then go on to the Cayman Islands, where Lee had sent funds ahead to purchase a small cottage.  We planned to get a "quickie divorce" of course, which at that time was easy to obtain in Mexico.  As for being married by a priest, that was to avoid having civil records easily available as would occur in a non-religious ceremony. 

To expedite our getting married by a priest, Lee had created a paper or two to "prove" he was Catholic  (I had papers showing I was Catholic), and some hints of Lee's efforts to show he was a "Catholic"  -- which was not true --still remain even in the official record.

THE MEXICAN TOURIST VISA APPLICATION THAT SAYS "CATHOLIC"   

   Another photo of THE MAYALAND HOTEL, LOCATED RIGHT AT CHICHEN-ITZA. Here's a view of Chichen Itza from the lobby:

BUILT THERE IN THE 1930'S.

    THE OBJECTION WAS THAT IT WAS TOO FAR FROM KANKUN/CANCUN. 

   That's quite silly if you've read what George DeMohrenschildt, Lee's handler in Dallas before Lee moved to New Orleans, had to say. he relates Lee's deep desire to go on a long trip by foot, for thousands of miles, just as George and his wife, Jeanne had recently done. Wrote de Mohrenschildt, concerning their long trek into Central America from Mexico, which he showed Lee and his wife, Marina on film:

    "All in all the showing of our picture was a success, beautiful scenery, waterfalls, volcanoes in eruption, outcrops of brilliantly hued deposits showed up well - and scientists, being adventurers at heart, loved wild- erness. Marina could not care less, she was not an outdoor woman, but being polite, she did not express her dislike and kept on chatting amicably with Ruth Payne.

    Lee, on the other hand, commented excitedly how much he liked the film and that he envied us for having lived for a year close to nature, an ascetic life of complete freedom. "You have walked almost 4,000 miles to get away from people, comforts, stupid gadgets and conventions. It would be my dream also . I envy you. I have never been completely free."

"Yes it was a great privilege," I told Lee, "but it was tough, believe me. We wore out twenty two pairs of shoes and guaraches each."

The subject of our film filled most of our last conversations with Lee. I advised him to try the same."

Ref: http://jfkassassination.net/russ/jfkinfo4/jfk12/hscapatsy.htm

  

  Even so, George said some things in his book that were untrue about Lee, though he did write:

"I didn't defend Lee vigorously and passionately enough, which I am sure he would have done if he had to defend me in a similar situation. I was cleverly led by the Warren committee counsel, Albert Jenner, into saying some things I had not really want to say, to admit certain defaults in Lee, which I wasn't sure were his, in other words I consider myself a coward and a slob who did not stand up to defend proudly a dead friend, whatever odds were against him."

In 2015, CIA contract agent Tosh Plumlee agreed with me that there was access to Chichen-Itza and the Mayaland Hotel via a rail line used to transport sugar cane and other commodities.  The rail line, mentioned in the book The Lost World of Quintana Roo, would be easy to follow. This book, filled with maps and photos, was published in 1963 and was available to us at Tulane's big library on Mexico.
   In 1999 I mentioned this (then-unavailable) book to researchers as our guide to the area.  The book is now described on Amazon.  Reviews of the book reveal important information that I've placed in bold print:

     "I had heard of the desolate past of the Riviera Maya, that it was so barren that Castro trained his troops for the Cuban takeover [there] and no one knew. This book fills in the picture of how barren a piece of land this close to heavily populated areas could be. ...the author, Michel Peissel, hears about the Mayan culture and with prodding from a partner agrees to explore approximately 250 miles of coast from Puerto Juarez (now Cancun) to Belize. The partner never shows making this a solo adventure. . Starting from Mexico City he makes his way to the unofficial capital of the Yucatan Peninsula, Merida and then travels by bus on a very poor road to the coast of what is now Cancun.  Hard to imagine that in 1960 you stand on a desolate beach that is now so overbuilt while waiting for a boat to take you to Isla Mujeres..."

   Lee and I, of course, had read all about this  from the same book.Another review of the book at the Amazon site contained these observations:

 

"I live part time in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico and it was recommended by a friend who'd obtained it on loan from the Merida English Library. Mr. Peissel so impressed me with not only his courage and determination, but his ability to convey his experiences in words. The book also contains black and white photographs and hand drawn maps..."

 

 We had made copies of these maps from the book.

LINDA MINOR AND A PLANE RIDE TO THE YUCATAN FOR LEE

Recently, researcher Linda Minor made it clear that Lee, indeed, had tried to arrange for a plane flight to the Yucatan. But of course, this is just as I have been saying ever since 1999

In her blog QUIXOTIC JOUST, posted March 8, 2015, Linda Minor revealed hitherto little-known facts about Lee's desire to reach the Yucatan. At this time, i was in Florida. Lee had given me $400 (equivalent today to about $3,800) so I'd have plenty of funds to reach him.  

 

Wayne January's Tale about a Tail Number (Part I)

 

(Updated with added material, highlighted below.) [jvb: SOME PORTIONS ARE IN BOLD FACE FOR THE ME AND LEE BLOG ENTRY]

INTRODUCTION:

A Facebook friend (Alan Kent) recently messaged me to ask whether I 

had researched entities mentioned by Wayne January to author Matthew 

Smith in his book, Conspiracy: The Plot To Stop The Kennedys, pp. 

141-45. The name did not ring a bell, so I had to refresh my memory on 

the computer.

Here is a Summary of what I learned:

On November 21, 1963, Wayne January is working side by side with a Cuban born pilot who is to fly a newly purchased DC -3 out of The Redbird Airfield tomorrow. 

Since early that morning, January has been helping the pilot complete a preflight inspection in order for the plane. The pilot becomes uneasy and finally turns to January and says: ‘they are going to kill your president. 

January will eventually tell researcher Matthew Smith that the Cuban pilots goes on to say: ‘I was a mercenary pilot, hired by the CIA’. The pilot continues: ‘they are not only going to kill the President. They are going to kill Robert Kennedy and any other Kennedy that gets in their position. When January expresses his skepticism, the pilot replies ‘you will see’. 

The conversation is dropped for a while, then the pilot breaks the silence: ‘they want Robert Kennedy real bad. ‘When January asks why, the pilot replies ‘never mind. You don’t need to know. Let’s get this job done, time is running out. My boss wants to return to Florida; he thought we would be through today.  (Conspiracy) Matthew Smith believes this DC-3 flew the group of assassins out of Dallas the next day.   

Inquiries indicate that the plane was not logged out of The Redbird Airfield. Smith says this is an indication that the plane and its flight plan are under the auspices of the CIA. When Smith asks the FAA for details on the aircraft, he is told that no such plane existed. 

Later, the FAA does confirm the number of the plane (N-17888) originally belonged to a Douglas DC-3, having later been transferred to another aircraft. 

Smith eventually learns that the aircraft had been purchased by the Houston Air Center. A former [alleged] CIA agent tells Smith that the Houston Air Center was a front for the CIA.

Here is another person's take on the book's story:

One company Wayne January was a partner in was said to be Royal Air Service Inc., which was wrapping up the selling off of large aircraft--supposedly part of a top-secret government program that was interested in developing radar mapping for low-level flying by such planes as the F-111 fighter-bomber. At the time of our story they only had one DC3 left to sell off to finish the contract. This final plane was sold in mid-November by January’s partner and the owner showed up on November 18 to sign for it. January told [author Matthew Smith] he was a very well-dressed gentleman. January said “he was about six feet tall, fair complexioned, brown hair, and late thirties to early forties. His haircut was short, military type, and wore slacks and a sport shirt.” 

January also said, “he had no particular accent.” January said later on he found out he was an Air Force Colonel who specialized in the type of plane being specialized….  

Matthew Smith believes this DC3 flew out of Red Bird that day with the complete team that had murdered JFK. He surmised it went from Dallas to Houston, and he also believes David Ferrie’s “ice skating” trip to Houston was really to fly this plane from Houston to its ultimate destination.

Smith tried to trace this plane and did learn that the number (N-17888) had been tied to a DC3 after initially being told a different type plane had that number and the DC3 never “existed.”

He also found out that the plane had been purchased by the Houston Air Center. Mr. Smith then contacted a former CIA Agent out of Houston and asked him if he would check this out for him. The former CIA Agent said the Houston Air Center was a “CIA front.”

The best explanation of the incident was written by Larry Hancock (whose book proved, incidentally--once I located it on its backshelf, covered in dust--that I had actually read of the episode years ago and even underlined parts of it, before depositing it into an unmemory hole). The following is from Hancock's article appearing at CTKA.net:

The plane had come to Red Bird in January 1963 and was owned by two different companies there during that year. Wayne January was a partner in both companies. At some point that year, the aircraft had been heavily modified, all the seats had been removed from the plane and it had been reclassified with the FAA as a research and development aircraft. We also know that it had been sold to individuals of the Houston Air Center, but paperwork was not actually completed until it was eventually resold outside the U.S. to a company named Aerovias del Sur. The records place that company’s headquarters in Mexico City, however, defunct companies of that name can be found in Cuba, Mexico and Columbia. Further tracing seems virtually impossible.

Another tack in evaluating January’s overall story of the incident is to look at where such aircraft were indeed being used covertly during the timespan of 1964-1965. Records reveal that the Cuban exile autonomous group initiative supported by Robert Kennedy in 1963 was in the process of buying and leasing a broad variety of equipment, both boats and planes. That effort was led by Manual Artime and records demonstrate that extensive “cut outs” were used to shield its financial activities — and the fact that the U.S. was funding the project. Available records confirm that Artime did lease a similar Douglas transport aircraft until his project was closed down in 1965. Artime’s personnel were all Cuban exiles and his funding, purchasing and leasing were all carried out by CIA staff in a highly covert project designated as AMWORLD.

Another covert operation involving aircraft and Cuban exile personnel would have been the highly secret dispatch of aircraft and Cuban exile pilots to the Congo, which began in 1963. A joint effort of the American military assistance mission and the CIA, the effort focused primarily on providing B-26 fighter-bombers and Cuban exile pilots. However a number of transport aircraft and technicians were also sent into the Congo in 1964.[10]

A third option, and one especially interesting in regard to the modifications and R&D recertification of the Red Bird aircraft, is the fact that a variety of covert air assets were being prepared to go into Laos in this period. In addition, the Air Force was developing the class of modified C-47 gunships eventually known as “Spooky”. The craft were totally stripped internally to allow the mounting of heavy machine guns and cannon.[11] Development of these gunships was underway in 1964 and the first aircraft were deployed into Vietnam in 1964. Therefore, the aspect of January’s story about the pilot being familiar with certain veterans of the Bay of Pigs is supportable.

January indicated to Smith that it was his understanding that the series of aircraft being purchased through companies at Red Bird and Houston Air Center were being processed through a series of cut out sales for eventual use in secret government projects. Investigation confirms that such projects and cut out sales were most definitely occurring at that time. It also confirms that Cuban exiles were very much involved in some of them. Of course, if January had gone to the FBI with such an incident at the time, it obviously would have had security implications as well as a negative impact on his own business. Beyond that, it would have likely done little good, as we have a number of examples from both Texas and Miami that show the FBI was not at all interested in following up on Cuban exile assassination leads; even when they had specific names in hand.[12]

After 50 years it is virtually impossible to carry Wayne January’s most significant lead to a final resolution. Still, with what has been learned about both January himself, as well as the aircraft sale, it seems rather foolish to write it all off as some sort of fiction. Especially since Wayne January never told anyone but Smith and then only with the promise of total anonymity. If true, it could offer a major insight into the President’s assassination.

Excerpt from The Second Plot

After doing the above research, the book I ordered by Matthew Smith 

(JFK: The Second Plot) arrived. Here Smith sets out his interpretation of 

the assassination plots from the evidence he had gathered:

So the two plots were meticulously put into operation. The team of marksmen were recruited and drilled. Weapons were prepared, heights and distances calculated in relation to motion;this was to be a once only event and it must succeed first time.... But for all its precision and careful planning, the first plot by itself added up to little more than a  bunch of hi-tech bandits lying in wait to spring an ambush on the President. All the real sophistication lay in the planning and execution of the second plot. Without the second plot the shooters would have been picked up at once and those who had sent them would have been exposed... It was probably only a few days before the President's visit that Lee Oswald was given his instructions. He was told that a decision had been made to fly him into [probably] Cuba in a light aircraft. He would make the trip on the afternoon of Friday, 22 November, the day the President was to visit Dallas. Advantage would be taken of thecommotion the visit would create for him to slip quietly away. A pilot would be provided and pretense made that they were flying to Yucatan  [blogger's italics].... 

On the morning of Wednesday, 20 November, he was driven out to Red Bird airfield by [most likely] two agents. They sought to hire a small aircraft there, perhaps a Cessna or a Piper Cub or something of that kind, for the trip....One operator they called upon was Wayne January,who recounted Oswald's visit to this author in detail. He told how one man waited in the car whilst the others in the party came to speak to  him:

There was a man and woman and they asking intricate questions concerning a certain type of aircraft which was capable of delivering them to their destination, and the way they were dressed and the way the conversation went I was sensitive to the fact that why would they want to know that many technical questions to take a vacation trip . . . (They continued) talking to me asking me the fuel consumption, the amount of hours in the air, the total distance and would it be capable of going on to another location under certain wind conditions and things like that . . . People don't ask those kind of questions to charter an airplane.

January decided not to accept the charter, being suspicious that they were going to hijack the plane and go on to Cuba. His reasons, he said, were:

. . . because of the way they were dressed, I sensed something not right. Their dress was not anybody who could afford to hire that kind of aeroplane to make that kind of trip, and the car was an older car. It was a black 1947 model which I recognised because I had had the very same model. I carried my tools in it and I knew it . . . and I was questioning, well, where are they going to get all this money? Y'know it was an expensive trip they were talking about....

He then told his prospective clients:

I think you need to go somewhere else to get this done.As they left, January had a look at the man who had been sitting in the car during the discussion which had taken place. He said he was curious to see whether he was dressed like the others and he wondered why he hadn't come out to talk with him. Watching television and reading newspaper reports of the assassination two days later he saw pictures of the man who had been sitting in the car. It was Lee Harvey Oswald...

After reading what Judyth Vary Baker has told us about the fact that 

she and Lee hoped to meet up in Mexico, travel to the Yucatan and 

explore the Mayan ruins at Chichen-Itza, we find ourselves wondering whether Lee took off work on Wednesday, November 20, the day preceding the evening when he had his last conversation with Judyth. 

   At the time Lee had gone to Mexico in late September, Lee's CIA associate Alex Rorke went missing. Alex had already agreed to help Judyth get to Mexico in the event Lee was successful during his time in Mexico in getting a visa to Cuba.[SIC: The original plan was to conduct a successful hand-off to a Cuban medical contact: Lee planned to stay in Mexico and then meet me at the Yucatan site.]...the plan was by those working on the bioweapon, for Lee to deliver it to a contact in Cuba to inject the cancer cells into Fidel Castro. But  the window of time was short, and Lee failed to obtain the necessary visa, and he returned to the U.S. Otherwise, he would have met Judyth in Mexico, where she was to have been delivered to him by his pilot friend, Alex Rorke.

 

Excerpt from Me and Lee by Judyth Vary Baker

Under the heading September 25, 1963, beginning on page 498:

Today, we know that Alex Rorke's plane crashed on the day Lee left for Mexico City after leaving Cozumel, where I believe Alex and his co-pilot, Geoffrey Sullivan, flew to check out where I could safely be dropped off. Then the plane took off on another mission, apparently near or over Cuba, where it was shot down. On Oct. 6, eleven days later, Gerry Hemming took Interpen members and hunted for the downed plane and bodies. I find the timing of both the Alex Rorke rumor and his subsequent disappearance troubling.

Once his business in Dallas was finished, Lee boarded the Dove again and flew to Houston, landing at Hull Field in Sugarland, on the west side of Houston. There, he was handed a second blue zippered "lunch bag" and told that it contained fresh cancer cells which would give the Product  two extra days of shelf life. Then Lee swapped the lunch bags and took a long bus ride to Laredo. To the outside world, he seemed to have traveled by bus all the way from New Orleans....

Finally, the phone rang. It was Lee calling from Houston. He began by telling me that Alex Rorke was missing. I could hear the stress in his voice. Lee said he was planning to meet Alex Rorke in Mexico City to discuss the best places to drop me off in the Yucatan. He would try to find out more about Alex's situation.In the meantime, I should be ready to go to Eglin AFB [in Florida]. He would try to find another pilot. If not, I could take a commercial flight out of Tampa or Miami.

Alexander Rorke was last seen at Cozumel? Read entire document in pdf.

Linda asks: 

"Did Lee, after fearing the worst about Alex, attempt to rent an aircraft in Dallas to get Judyth to the Yucatan, and, if so, who would have taken him to Red Bird on Wednesday, a day he should have been at work?

 

The rest of Linda's essay is below, for those interested in reading 

all of it. It also becomes clear from what she writes that January 

knew Jack Ruby.  When Barb J. and the McAdams newsgroup criticized the trip to 

the Yucatan as unbelievable, they didn't know about the January story and how the date he had seen Lee Oswald (when an inquiry was made about chartering a plane)  had been changed from November to July by the FBI.  Nor did they know about "the second plot" where Lee might have been lured onto a plane [had he been able to escape arrest] that they told him would be heading to the 

Yucatan.

   Another objection arose concerning "quickie divorces."It's a known fact that the FBI looked into rumors that Lee Oswald had been inquiring about "quickie divorces" near border towns close to Laredo.  There are also disputes about whether Lee 

returned from Mexico City by bus, plane or car.  Our plans to meet in the Yucatan were dashed after Lee was ordered back to Dallas,which wasn't the original plan.

      As can be seen on p. 462-463 in the CIA-approved "official version" of Marina's life with Lee in the book Marina and Lee by Priscilla Johnson McMillan, Lee told MARINA, his wife, that she would probably never see him again because he was "going to Cuba." Lee was actually going to stay in Mexico, where we planned to get quickie divorces, then marry.  Originally, Lee thought the CIA would allow us to be informants for them in Mexico. Later, we amended plans: instead of remaining in Mexico, after Lee became embroiled in penetrating the assassination plots against Kennedy, we decided to spend a year or two hiding in the Cayman Islands after marrying in Merida.

MORE ABOUT THE MAYALAND HOTEL

 

THE POSH MAYALAND HOTEL AT CHICHEN-ITZA WAS BUILT AFTER THE 

OWNERS BEGAN BRINGING TOURISTS TO THE SITE IN 1921.

THE MAYALAND HOTEL 

"Mayaland was the first Hotel built at Chichen Itza (in 1923), and, with its superb location amidst the temples, the first within an ancient site in the world. In a way, it's as much a landmark as the pyramids that tower above it.

Mayaland is a creation of Old Yucatan, built and operated by its original owners and their descendants in a style reminiscent of the hacienda nobility of a century ago.

Its air of genteel hospitality and old-fashioned charm is a legacy enhanced by the addition of every amenity. The grounds are alive with birdsong and butterflies, and all the exotic fruits and flowers of tropical Yucatan.

Over 100 acres of gardens surround the main house and its outlying Mayan bungalows, offering your choice of accommodations. The main building was designed by Sylvanus G. Morley, the head of the Carnegie expedition that rebuilt Chichén Itzá in the 1920s.

Its Hacienda-style main corridor offers views of the ancient Mayan Observatory. The Mayaland Hotel is an experience in itself; one that will enrich your stay at Chichén Itzá" 

  A ROOM AT MAYALAND HOTEL

HERE'S ANOTHER DESCRIPTION ON THEIR SITE:

Built in 1923 by the Barbachano family, who own and operate it to this day.
You may choose to stay in the main house with breathtaking views of the Mayan temples or in our Mayan bungalows located amidst tropical flowering trees.
The main house is beautifully proportioned, and embellished with the trappings of a bygone era. The staircase sweeps from an open mezzanine down into an entrance hall filled with antiques, polished tile potted plants and sunlight.
The 55 rooms and five suites of the main house have the gardens before them, and the Observatory of Chichen Itza to the west. The spacious air-conditioned rooms come with ceiling fans, satellite TV, mini bars, bathrooms hand-tiled in ceramic, marble and stone tubs, and breezy private balconies. Suites offer Jacuzzis

THE CAYMAN ISLANDS: AN INTERESTING CAYMAN CONNECTION TO BARRY SEAL:

"Florence Martin Accountant subcontracting to CIA related to the Barry 

Seal case. Dead of three gunshot wounds to the head.   Dead in 1994 in 

Mabell, Texas, the victim of three gunshot wounds to the head. Ms. 

Martin had the documents and paperwork, including the PIN number for 

an account that had been set up in the name of Barry Seal for $1.5 

million at the Fuji Bank in the Cayman Islands. Oddly enough, following 

her death, the money was transferred to the Guaranty Bank in the 

Cayman Islands and then to another bank in the Virgin Islands. Jim 

Wilhite, associate of Mack McClarty's former firm. Many remember the 

sleezy McClarty from Clinton's first administration."

 

THE REST OF LINDA MINOR'S POST ABOUT THE "YUCATAN" PLANE:

Tail number N-17888

What follows is the research I did in answer to the question of a curious reader, Alan Kent, who thought my interest about people in Texas might reveal a deeper part of the story.

Everything I know about tail numbers I learned from my friend Daniel Hopsicker. In fact, I picked up almost as much knowledge about this subject from him as he learned about the Texas Railroad Commission from me. Virtually zero. So...here goes.

A google search of the tail number showed the plane had been part of Braniff’s fleet used during August, 1952 through May 1960. How does one find out to whom Braniff sold it? Alan Kent snail-mailed me documents he had acquired, which set out the history of the plane's ownership. On November 28, 1944 the Army Air Force declared this airplane to be surplus property of the government, with title transferred to the Surplus War Aircraft Division of Jesse Jones' financial empire within President Franklin Roosevelt's administration. A month later it was registered to the Defense Plant Corporation for disposal, eventually going with several other aircraft to Mid-Continent Airlines, Inc. of Kansas City, Missouri. Title of the specific airplane, as part of a 69-airplane fleet, was transferred to Braniff in 1952 when the two corporations merged. 

Apparently, that was where Wayne January's companies came in. Wiki tells us all we need to know about Braniff. From Wiki we learn that things began to change dramatically at Braniff only two years after it acquired this airplane:

Braniff and Edgar Tobin, among others, died in crash.

On January 10, 1954 Braniff founder Thomas Elmer Braniff died when a flying boat owned by United Gas crash-landed on the shore of Wallace Lake, 15 miles outside of Shreveport, Louisiana due to icing. According to information from Captain George A. Stevens: "Mr Braniff was on a hunting expedition with a group of important citizens of Louisiana. They were departing from a small duck hunting lake out of Shreveport in a Grumman Mallard aircraft with no deicing system. The wings iced up and they attempted to land. One of the wings hit cypress stumps and the plane crashed against the shore. It caught fire and all 12 lives aboard were lost." ^[1]

Braniff Executive Vice President Charles Edmund Beard became the first non-Braniff family member to assume the role of President of the airline after Tom Braniff's untimely death. Mr. Beard gathered Braniff employees to announce that the airline would move forward and assured the public that the airline would continue.

Paul R. Braniff died later that year of cancer.^[6] Tom Braniff's wife, Bess Braniff, also died in 1954. Tom's son Thurman Braniff was killed in a training plane crash at Oklahoma City in 1938, and his daughter Jeanne Braniff Terrell died in 1948 from complications of childbirth.^[1]

That must have been one unlucky airplane for the Braniff family! I decided the 

book by John J. Nance, footnoted in the Wiki citation, was a must-read and placed 

an order: Splash of Colors: The Self-Destruction of Braniff International. Had I not 

already done some research into the alleged buyer of this airplane, my interest 

would not have been piqued by some of the facts surrounding the death of the 
Braniffs, who were all dead by 1954!
 

Background Title on N-1788

Documents detailing the history of the title to Tail Number N-17888, sent to be by Alan Kent, revealed:

• On July 9, 1960, Braniff tranferred the title to Navion Aircraft Corporation (NAC) of Galveston (Division of Tusco Corportion). Leo T. Childs was then vice president and J. L. McCann was president. Childs grew up in Center, Texas, where the first aircraft manufacturing in Texas began in 1933. When Navion borrowed money and placed a lien on this DC-3 airplane in October 1961, it was then situated at Hou-Port Aviation Agency, Inc. in LaPorte, Texas. The lien also included another DC-3 (#N-151A) situated at Redbird in Dallas, though, according to the mortgage, "both of said Douglas DC-3 airplanes [were] permanently home-based at International Airport, Galveston." The promissory note amount of $92,925.00 was payable to Tennessee Bank and Trust Company of Houston in monthly installments amortized for one year.
• NAC sold the plane in January 1963 to Executive Aircraft Service, Inc. of Dallas, and it was registered for the corporation on January 17 by V.E. Morgan. 
• One month later L.V. Emery, President of Executive Aircraft transferred the plane's title to Jack Birdwell, Harvey M. Phillips and Wayne January, partners of  American Aviation (101 Terminal Bldg. at Redbird). 
• After being repaired and refitted, it was transferred effective March 1of that year to Royal Air Service, Inc., with paperwork signed on May 10.
• Effective as of May 9 all three partners transferred it back to Executive Aircraft, Inc. (signed on August 9).
• On May 1, 1963 (Royal Air Service, Inc. (Harvey M. Phillips, president; Jack Birdwell, vice president; and Wayne January, secretary-treasurer) borrowed $32,400 from an unnamed lender. A Dallas insurance agent named Jesse Ambler, signed on the back of the document in the space designated for the person notarizing the signatures made on behalf of the borrower, Royal Air Service, Inc.. Below Ambler's signature someone named Evelyn B. Bedinger in Berrien County, Michigan, notarized the signature of the non-existent seller-mortgagee, which also failed to assign the chattel mortgage to the entity which printed the form document, i.e. Appliance Buyers Credit Corporation (ABCC), a Delaware corporation with a Michigan address. This document was recorded by the FAA in October 1963, but apparently returned as not acceptable. Two years later it was attached to another document which indicates ABCC was the original lender in the amount of $20,0000, the lien amount being transferred to Walter E. Heller & Company of California on July 16, 1965. Wayne January indicated that this was the standard procedure for the business.
• On October 9, 1965 the three men in the same capacities signed a bill of sale to Houston Air Center, Inc. of 7700 Airport Blvd. in Houston. A lien was retained to secure a $40,000 note to North Side State Bank in Houston. This document was recorded by the FAA on October 27.
• On October 18, 1965 Houston Air Center, Inc. executed a chattel mortgage on the plane in favor of the North Side State Bank, indicating it was then at Houston Int. Airport (Hobby). E. Mitchell Smith, Jr. signed as president of Houston Air Center, Inc. 
• A new certificate was issued by the FAA to Houston Air Center, Inc. on October 28, 1965. On the back of this certificate is a transfer to Aerovias del Sur, Mexico City D.F., signed by Clarence E. Wigley. It was stamped in Oklahoma City on December 20, 1965.
• It was removed from American registry records on January 5, 1966.

Red Bird Airport

Red Bird Airport was located at 4800 S. Hampton Road in Dallas. The 1960 phone directory shows the only company listed there that year wasTexair, Inc., 4837 S. Hampton Road, Dallas [click link to see map]. This is the servicing company mentioned by the Garrison investigation in 1967. Today that site is the location of Dallas Executive Airport.

Red Bird was then about 3.7 miles from the Januarys' 1960 home -- 931 S. Montreal, while Braniff was based at Love Field in Dallas. Before construction of the interstate highway, the two air fields were 13 miles apart via Hampton Road routing through Oak Cliff and passing Sunset High School, from which Wayne January graduated, according to information we have gleaned from various sources. 

 

Wayne January was born in Coryell County, Texas in 1931 to Mr. and Mrs. Charles Hasten January. He attended Sunset High Schoolon the southwest side of Dallas, where in 1947 he played in the orchestra. He graduated in 1951, the same year his father died. His father's obituary reads:

News Circulation Employee, Charles H. January, 65, Dies - Charles Haston January, 65, a district manager of the Dallas News' circulation department, died of a heart attack at his desk Wednesday. He had been with The News for eight years, and was in charge of twenty-eight carriers of the West Dallas district.

He lived at 824 North Edgefield [mere blocks from the high school].
 

Before coming to The News, January was captain of the Highland Park fire department for twenty years, and before that was a member of the Dallas fire department for seven years.

January was born in Shelby County in 1886. As a young man, he joined with others in setting up an oil refinery in De Leon, Comanche County. In 1909 he sold his interest in the refinery and moved to Dallas.

He was a member of the Round Table, Dallas News employee organization.

Surviving are his wife, the former Miss Vadah Baldwin of Dallas, whom he married in June, 1918; five sons, W. Spencer January and Wayne January, both of Dallas, Farold January of Waco, C. H. January, in service in Korea, and Lawrence E. January, at an Air Force base in Alabama; two daughters, Mrs. Ruth Landers and Mrs. Shirley Hurley, both of Dallas; one sister, Mrs. Blanche Morrison of Center; and four brothers, Dillon January and Luther January, both of Dallas, Walter January of San Antonio, and Hugh January of Houston; and seven grandchildren. Funeral arrangements had not been completed Wednesday night.

- Dallas Morning News, November 15, 1951

Wayne’s older brother, C.H. Jr., enlisted in the Army in 1942 and served the military for 20 years as a veteran of WWII and the Korean War, and was also assigned to the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, NM. He died in 2011 in Denton.

In 1966 Wayne married Sylvia Gwynn Landrum, though we see from directories in 1960 and before that his wife was Delores; Wayne died in 2002 in Ellis County.

The Mary Ferrell website contains a document placed in Oswald’s 201 fileconcerning the interview of Wayne January, who had called his local FBI office on November 27, 1963 and spoke to Special Agent John V. Almon. It took Almon and Agent Kenneth B. Jackson two days to make it out to conduct a personal interview with January on the 29^th at Red Bird Airport terminal building in Room 101.  The interview began with a discussion about Jack Ruby's Carousel Club, which January admitted to frequenting between February and April of 1963, beginning a month or so after the airplane and others arrived at January's company at Red Bird. There was mention by Larry Hancock that the plane arrived from Woburn Aircraft, though the documents provided by Alan Kent do not bear this out. It was during this same time frame that FBI reports indicated he reported receiving calls about chartering an airplane, though January was adamant that the visit by Oswald actually occurred on November 20.

I found online a text version of the document, apparently posted by John Watters at alt.assassination.jfk in July 2002 and reposted by Peter Fokes. including these prefatory remarks:

From my reading of the FBI memo below there seems to be an implied connection between January's frequenting of the Carousel Club between February and April 1963 and the two anonymous phone calls in February and March 1963. The Feebs did not ask if there was any connection with the Carousel, whether he recognized the voice(s) or whether the men had given any indication why they had chosen him particularly.

They did not ask him why he would surmise that the trip to Laredo involved narcotics. What made him jump to this conclusion, the person asking the favour (in which case, did he know them?) or thedestination itself (was Laredo synonymous with narcotics?).

The Feebs do not seem to have raised an eyebrow at the call re $12 million of gold dust - $12 MILLION ??!! Wow, if this kind of caper was connected to the Carousel and Ruby, Jack could hardly be dismissed as just a nightclub owner and small-time hoodlum.

I confess I don't understand the significance of the comments re plain clothes officers in the Carousel but I guess the Feebs must have had their reasons for including this in their report.

The report includes January's views on Ruby - not something you would expect from someone who had just gone to the guy's nightclub for a while. The Feebs don't appear to have asked January how often he had spoken to Ruby, how long he had known him, how well he knew him etc etc.
And finally, on to LHO - the Feebs played down January's identification of LHO, changed the date of the incident from 20 November to late July [blogger's italics] and emphasized that the man asking the questions had not been LHO. (No-one had ever claimed that the man asking the questions was LHO - January clearly stated that LHO had stayed in the car).

Is there an implied connection between the flights January was asked to make in February/March and the LHO incident in November?

Matthew Smith's "JFK: The Second Plot" contains the following FBI memo which Harold Weisberg obtained under the FOIA:

"The following interview was conducted by SA's KENNETH B. JACKSON and JOHN V. ALMON on November 29, 1963:

AT DALLAS,TEXAS

WAYNE JANUARY, owner, American Aviation Company, Room 101, Terminal Building, Red Bird Airport, Dallas, Texas, advised that from February through April, 1963, he, together with several friends, on occasion frequented the Carousel Club, Dallas, Texas, which he understands is owned by one JACK RUBY.

JANUARY stated that during February, 1963, he received an anonymous telephone call from a  man who offered him the sum of $5,000.00 to fly to Laredo, Texas, and back with no questions asked. JANUARY said that he surmised that this individual planned to transport narcotics to Dallas and for this reason he declined the offer. JANUARY further stated that during March, 1963, he received a second anonymous telephone call from a man who wanted him to fly $12,000,000.00 worth of gold dust to Mexico City where he was to pick up the currency and return with it to Dallas. He stated that this individual offered him $400,000.00 to make this flight which he also declined.

JANUARY stated that during the latter part of July, 1963, a man and a woman whom he had never seen before contacted him at his office at which time they inquired about chartering a plane for a trip to "Old Mexico". JANUARY stated that when he asked this man questions essential to such a flight he was definitely evasive in his answers. JANUARY explained that this individual did not appear to know exactly where he desired to go in Mexico but said something about the West Coast. Furthermore, he did not appear to know when he desired to return or or exactly how many passengers could be expected on the flight. JANUARY said that this man, after stating that he did not wish to make the flight for a couple of months, stated that he would consider the information which JANUARY had given him and let him know at a later date. He said that when the couple left he observed a third man who had been waiting in their automobile during the entire conversation, and after observing a photograph of LEE HARVEY OSWALD on television it now seems to him that this man somewhat resembled OSWALD although he was not definitely sure in this respect. JANUARY was unable to offer any additional information which might be of assistance in identifying the man and woman who inquired about the flight to Mexico. He said that they did not appear to him to be persons of sufficient financial means to charter a trip such as the one discussed.

JANUARY reiterated the fact that the man, accompanied by the unidentified woman, who made inquiries concerning a chartered flight to Mexico, was not LEE HARVEY OSWALD and said that he has no records or any other method of identifying the persons who contacted him during the latter part of July, 1963.

JANUARY further commented that he never visited the Carousel Club when he did not observe several plainclothes officers, and when a friend of his attempted to date one of the performers, KATHY KAY, she informed this friend that she had to go with another man, whom she identified as a plainclothes officer.

JANUARY concluded with the opinion that JACK RUBY was not the type of individual who would have killed, or attempted to kill, anyone charged with the assassination of the President. He said that he does not think that RUBY would care that much, even about his own mother."

We are told by Smith that:

Wayne January had never seen this memo until Matthew Smith showed it to him and, according to one of Smith's books, "was amazed when this author told him the FBI stated he had said his visitors, including Oswald, had called several MONTHS before the assassination, instead of two days before." January said, "How would I have been able to remember the face to compare with the pictures of Oswald I saw on television for that long? It was the Wednesday before the assassination."

Smith also says, "As opposed to the uncertain identification stated in the report, January told this author his identification of Oswald was so strong he would give it nine out of ten."

We pick up in our next post with research into exactly who owned the Houston Air Center and find out what it was about United Gas that intrigued me so.

Here is a map that shows where all of these places are:

http://www.mayaland.com/History.php

This is the map the Mayaland Hotel has on its site. One can also read their history on this site as well.