Roy Truly - Fred Korth connection

Roy Truly
 
·         Born August 9, 1907.


·        Began work for the Texas Book Depository in 1934 as head of the Miscellaneous Dept. – the same job Bill Shelley was filling in 1963

·         Became superintendent in 1944 and at some stage was made a co-director of the company

·        During WW II he held a second job at night at the North American Aviation Plant in Arlington by cutting down his hours at the depository

·        Defense plants during the war were protected from subversives and saboteurs by a network of informants on the floor. Although I cannot prove it, I believe Truly had such a role. Bill Shelley also worked in a defense plants during the war before starting with the TSBD in October 1945. He did not name the defense plants, but North American Aviation in Arlington with Truly seems like a safe assumption as one. At some point later in life, he told a journalist he was with the CIA after the war. That’s seems unlikely, but this may have been a misunderstanding by the interviewer or an exaggeration by Shelley. I think it is more than possible he too was a security informant inside those defense plants.
·         But who was Roy Truly? The answer came to me when I was reading about the alleged suicide of Fred Korth’s daughter and I noticed that she and Truly shared the same unusual middle name – Sansom. That to me, indicated they had both inherited the surname of a common ancestor.

·        Based on this hunch, I got in touch with a correspondent who I knew to have exceptional ability with genealogy

·        His report back was that I was wrong – Truly and Fred Korth were not related by blood – but by marriage.  Truly was in fact a cousin to Fred’s wife.   The inter-relationships traced below are based on this genealogical work

·        The respective grandfathers were 2nd cousins and without any doubt, knew each other because they lived in the same district in the same county - and Truly's grandfather was a Church minister so it's likely all the Sansom's in the area attended his church. He was also a druggist...

·        Truly's mother Josephine and Korth's mother-in-law, Nina were 14 years apart in age, but very likely knew each other - especially after 1897 when Marion Sansom moved his family back to Johnson County from Austin - before moving again this time to Forth Worth in 1902. Josephine married George Truly in 1900 and moved to the neighboring Hill County.

·        After 1912, Korth's future bride lived at her Grandfather's ranch for many years so she was close to her grandfather, grandmother and mother, all of whom were very likely to have known Roy Truly's mother - and therefore, possibly Roy as well. They all lived close enough to each other that they could have remained close and been frequent visitors. Thus, it is at least possible that Vera and Roy were acquainted as well -- and therefore maybe Fred and Roy, too.
 
My own thoughts: I already had Korth pegged as being involved in selecting Oswald for his Russian trip, so stumbling onto this connection to Truly was pretty mind-boggling to me. It seems possible that Roy was close enough to reach out to - and distant enough that no one would suspect a connection.
So – distant cousins – yes – but raised in small Texas communities were everyone knew each other, and especially so for those who were related. I can personally relate because my childhood was exactly like that – small rural communities where you knew everyone and were related to most of them.
But again – that’s not all. Based on my interest in the Truly – Korth connection, my correspondent did some checking on Truly’s wife Mildred. What he found was her father’s 1962 obituary from the Dallas Morning News reproduced below. The story confirmed that William Chenault was a cousin to Claire Chenault and listed among William’s surviving children was Mildred Truly. Unless there were 2 Mildred Truly’s living In Dallas, this was Roy’s wife, and she was a second cousin to the General. 

     

Roy Truly, as discussed earlier in this series, gave permission to Oswald to leave and cleared him with an officer stationed at the entrance, before then informing Captain Fritz that Oswald was “missing”. Truly was the “inside man”.

Fred Korth was related by marriage to Truly, and was under a cloud of suspicion over various activities and conflicts of interest. He was familiar with the Oswald family, and mixed in the same milieu as the Raggios and others. He was the instigator of assassination plans, or a facilitator of same.