oswald paine and the aclu

Over at the Ed Forum, Jeff Carter posted

Do you have any thoughts regarding Oswald’s links to ACLU he established a few weeks earlier?

Michael Paine takes him to ACLU meeting Oct 25. Oswald reports this to Communist Party USA newspaper in a letter several days later. He then rents a new PO Box and affiliates both FPCC and ACLU on the postal form. He then sends membership application to ACLU and requests information  on local groups, even as he already knows the answers through Michael Paine.

Michael Paine tells Warren Commission on October 25: “I took him in my car, he and I alone, and on the way, which takes about 35 minutes, described the ACLU to him, and he didn’t know about it, and described its purpose.” (WCH II, p. 407). Is it credible that Oswald would be unaware of the ACLU prior to that evening?   

Bart wisely referred him to his Anatomy of Lee Oswald's Interrogations paper, specifically the Greg Olds pages (161-167) as he had not looked at the meeting itself.

I did look into this some time ago.

FBI report, Dec 4, 1963, on  Barry Cohen

Cohen appeared voluntarily at the Dallas FBI office. He was a member of the ACLU, at that time, attending the University of Texas working on his Master's Degree in Russian Studies. Cohen advised the FBI he had been very active in the ACLU and had discussed Oswald's attempt to join the ACLU with Dallas President of the ACLU, Greg Olds.

The 2nd para reads:

"Approximately one month prior to the President's assassination, Oswald attended a meeting of the ACLU, but Cohen was not at this meeting. Cohen started an investigation to determine why Oswald attended this meeting and found that a Mrs Paine with whom Oswald's wife had been residing, invited Oswald as her guest to this meeting."


So by Dec 4, Olds - who was at the meeting, but failed to see Oswald, was advised by Cohen - who was not at the meeting, that he (Cohen) had determined Oswald was there with Ruth Paine.

Yet on Dec 19, when Olds was finally interviewed by the FBI about it, he was on board with the official story. He told the FBI that although he was at the meeting, he did not see or hear Oswald all night, but had been advised by someone unrecalled, that Oswald had attended with Mike Paine, did make some comments, and may have spoken to Rev. Byrd Helligas.

Olds was interviewed by the WC on April 8, 1964 and was not asked a single question about this meeting, what Cohen found, or what he was told by others.

]Byrd Helligas was interviewed by the FBI the same day as Olds - Dec 19. Helligas claimed he did recognize Oswald as being there after seeing him under arrest, but stated that the only conversation they had was about the workings of the projector which Helligas had been operating. He did not hear Oswald make any other comments and, crucially he could not confirm who Oswald had come to the meeting with. 

So what are we left with? The only people claiming Oswald attended the meeting with Mike Paine were Mike Paine, his wife Ruth Paine and Mike's friend Frank Krystinik.

That fact, together with Olds not recalling Oswald at all, the possibility that Helligas simply mistook someone else for Oswald, the additional possibility that Cohen was reporting the end result of Chinese Whispers, and the apparent lack of interest by the WC in questioning Olds about who gave him his information, and it amounts to a cover-up of a lie placing Oswald at that meeting.

Just how many people were at the meeting anyway? Why couldn't others be interviewed to find more corroboration?

We also know that the ACLU HQ failed to find any sign of an application form when first advised Oswld was allegedly claiming to be a member. It suddenly appeared a couple of days later in a pile of unprocessed forms - a place that, given the date of the meeting - would surely have been searched in the first instance. The FBI almost certainly had someone in HQ who of course, could easily plant an application into that pile. 

Just think -- we are expected to believe that Oswald knew nothing about the ACLU, but knew all about John Abt.

I say it was the other way around and the name John  Abt was given to him late Friday night or Saturday morning by Law Prof Chuck Webster who sat in on some interrogations and possibly at least one arraignment. Webster was ostensibly there all day to advise the DPD of any federal legal issues that came up. Webster was associated with FBI communist stooge William Lowery who sat on a committee in support of the 1960 election Webster was contesting. 

The name Abt would have been given to stop Oswald making his repeated public requests for someone to come forward and give assistance - it would also help paint him as a commie.

As Marguerite testified, Lee told her "everything is fine. I know my rights, and I will have an attorney. I have already requested to get in touch with Attorney Abt, I think is the name."

If Abt was someone he knew about before his arrest, he would not have had any uncertainty about what his name was.

Every screw that could be turned on Oswald was being tightened. 

Fuck em all. They all lied at every turn once Oswald was dead.