JFK & the Unspeakable: Why He Died & Why It Matters (127 page)

[
476
]. Wise interview, October 31, 2005.

[
477
]. HSCA Memorandum from Purdy to Tanenbaum, February 19, 1977, p. 3.

[
478
]. In a May 31, 1978, letter to the HSCA chief counsel G. Robert Blakey, the U.S. Attorney General’s Office extended a grant of immunity to Carl Amos Mather. Reproduced in CD-ROM for
Harvey & Lee
, Tippit-33.

[
479
]. Mather interview, p. 3.

[
480
]. “Wise Allegation,” pp. 37-41. Given T. F. White’s identification of the license plate and his and Mack Pate’s identification of the red Falcon driven by the Oswald double, a question arises concerning the government’s “counter evidence.” The disassociation of license plate PP 4537 and the Falcon arose from the FBI’s and the Dallas County Tax Office’s “official verification” that PP 4537 was issued instead for a 1957 Plymouth owned by Carl Mather. However, we have reached a point in this story where the FBI, and other official sources subject to FBI pressures (such as a county tax office), cannot simply be assumed to be telling the truth in anything relating to President Kennedy’s assassination. As we shall soon see, the FBI lied and even destroyed vital evidence, when it came to Oswald’s note to FBI agent James Hosty. Given the FBI’s consistent record in covering up, falsifying, and destroying evidence that might incriminate the government in the assassination, it is reasonable to ask if that may be going on again here. After the Oswald double’s quick release following his Texas Theater arrest by the Dallas Police, he may have been given a Mather car to use that had a state-of-the-art Collins Radio for effective communications. The Oswald double keeping a low profile in the El Chico parking lot was apparently waiting to receive an order. Thanks to T. F. White’s jotting down the license plate that was on the double’s car, the government then had to disassociate that license as much as possible from Mather. But fortunately it was done clumsily, and White’s documentation of the license plate provided a trail that led back to the CIA.

[
481
]. Huffaker, Mercer, Phenix, and Wise,
When the News Went Live,
pp. 129-30.

[
482
]. Wise interview, October 31, 2005.

[
483
]. Wise interview, November 15, 2005. Wes Wise showed the House Select Committee on Assassinations his luncheon invitation bearing his original notes, which the HSCA copied for its records. JFK Record Number 180-10108-10261.

[
484
]. Wise interview, November 15, 2005.

[
485
]. Retired Air Force sergeant Robert G. Vinson has told his story in a book co-authored by his lawyer, James P. Johnston, a fifty-two-page affidavit by Vinson to Johnston, a one-hour-and-fifteen-minute video, and a television interview whose substance was adapted into a chapter in a book: (1) James P. Johnston and Jon Roe,
Flight from Dallas: New Evidence of CIA Involvement in the Murder of President John F. Kennedy
(Bloomington, Ind.: 1stBooks, 2003). (2) Affidavit of Robert Griel Vinson to James P. Johnston, September 28, 1994. (3) Videotaped Statement of Robert G. Vinson (DVD-R), November 2, 1996. (4) Larry Hatteberg’s interview of Robert Vinson, KAKE-TV Channel 10 News, November 23, 1993. (5) Larry Hatteberg, Suzanne Perez Tobias, and Vada Snider, “The Kennedy Connection,” in
More
Larry
Hatteberg’s Kansas People
(Wichita, Kans.: Wichita Eagle and Beacon Publishing Company, 1994), pp. 134-35. I am grateful to Robert Vinson for answering further questions during our phone conversations of November 26, 2005, and January 10, 2006.

[
486
]. Johnston and Roe,
Flight from Dallas
, p. 19; Vinson videotape, Nov. 2, 1996.

[
487
]. Johnston and Roe,
Flight from Dallas
, p. 19.

[
488
]. Vinson affidavit, p. 14.

[
489
]. Ibid.

[
490
]. Ibid., p. 17.

[
491
]. Ibid., p. 18. Johnston and Roe,
Flight from Dallas
, p. 23.

[
492
]. Johnston and Roe,
Flight from Dallas
, p. 24. Vinson affidavit, pp. 19-20.

[
493
]. Johnston and Roe,
Flight from Dallas
, p. 24. Vinson affidavit, pp. 21-22.

[
494
]. Johnston and Roe,
Flight from Dallas
, pp. 25, 28.

[
495
]. Ibid., p. 26.

[
496
]. Vinson affidavit, pp. 22-28, 44. Johnston and Roe,
Flight from Dallas
, pp. 25-26, 29.

[
497
].
More Larry Hatteberg’s Kansas People
, p. 134.

[
498
]. Johnston and Roe,
Flight from Dallas
, p. 27. Roswell Army Air Field, New Mexico, was redesignated Walker Air Force Base on January 13, 1948. Until the base was closed in 1967, it apparently was referred to commonly as “Roswell Air Force Base,” although its official designation was Walker AFB. Topographic maps obtained by James P. Johnston, Robert Vinson’s former attorney, show that Walker Air Force Base was located five to eight miles south of Roswell, New Mexico. Author’s interview of James P. Johnston, February 4, 2008.
Joe McCusker’s List of Air Force Bases.
See http://www.airforcebase .net/usaf/joeslist.html.

[
499
]. Ibid., pp. 27-28.

[
500
]. Ibid., p. 29.

[
501
]. Ibid., pp. 32-33.

[
502
]. Orders from Major Blake A. Smith, USAF, to R. G. Vinson, November 25, 1964: “For interview at Hq USAF in conjunction with a Special Project.” Document reproduced in Johnston and Roe,
Flight from Dallas,
p. 52.

[
503
]. Ibid., pp. 33-36. Vinson affidavit, pp. 33-39.

[
504
]. Vinson affidavit, pp. 39, 41-43. Johnston and Roe,
Flight from Dallas
, pp. 37, 66-67.

[
505
].
Area 51: The Real Story,
Discovery Channel. Cited in ibid., p. 68.

[
506
]. Johnston and Roe,
Flight from Dallas
, pp. 67-68.

[
507
]. Vinson affidavit, pp. 42-43.

[
508
]. Johnston and Roe,
Flight from Dallas
, p. 69.

[
509
]. Ibid., p. 68. Vinson affidavit, p. 43.

[
510
]. Technical Sergeant R. G. Vinson Air Force Retirement Order, June 1, 1966; effective October 1, 1966.

[
511
]. Johnston and Roe,
Flight from Dallas
, p. 69.

[
512
]. Ibid., p. 71.

[
513
]. Ibid., pp. 73-74.

[
514
]. Larry Hatteberg to the author; December 20, 2005, phone conversation.

[
515
]. Johnston and Roe,
Flight from Dallas
, p. 90.

[
516
]. Ibid., p. 91.

[
517
]. Ibid., p. 92.

[
518
]. Craig,
When They Kill a President
, p. 9.

[
519
]. Vinson Affidavit, p. 26.
Flight from Dallas
, p. 26.

[
520
]. Johnston and Roe,
Flight from Dallas
, p. 106.

[
521
]. I interviewed Malcolm Kilduff by phone on March 7, 2002. He died on March 3, 2003, at the age of seventy-five.

[
522
]. Author’s interview of Malcolm Kilduff, March 7, 2002. Also Harrison Edward Livingstone’s interview of Malcolm Kilduff, April 17, 1991; cited in Livingstone’s
High Treason 2: The Great Cover-Up: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
(New York: Carroll & Graf, 1992), p. 503.

[
523
]. Livingstone’s interview of Kilduff.

[
524
]. Martin,
Hero for Our Time
, p. 465.

[
525
]. Tom Wicker,
JFK and LBJ: The Influence of Personality upon Politics
(New York: William Morrow, 1968), p. 194.

[
526
]. Author’s interview of Mrs. Zola Shoup, September 9, 1999.

[
527
]. Wayne Morse interview by David Nyhan, “We’ve Been a Police State a Long Time,”
Boston Globe
(June 24, 1973), pp. A 1-2.