Stringfellow cable

There have been references on several threads about a cable sent on the evening of 11/22 from Fort Sam Houston to Strike Command, McDill AFB in Florida. In the cable, reference was made, to information obtained by Detective Don Stringfellow of the Dallas Police Department. I managed to locate a copy of the cable, which you can find here:
https://archive.org/details/nsia-ArmyIntelligenceJFK
I think this is in the Weisberg collection.
 
If you can't pull it up, let me know.
 
Before I leave this, I'm sort of thunderstruck by the possibility that the police were looking for the wrong guy - or least a different guy!
 
1) Note the reference in the cable to Harvey Lee Oswald
2) Earlene Roberts told the WC that when the police came to 1026 N. Beckley, they were trying to find a guy named Harvey Lee Oswald
3) The list of TSBD employees prepared for Gannaway by Westphal and Parks thru Revill on Friday afternoon listed Harvey Lee Oswald at 305 Elsbeth
3) In the cable referenced above, Harvey Lee Oswald was described as 5'10" tall, 165 lbs, with blue eyes
4) The initial description broadcast over the DPD radio was for a suspect 5"10" tall weighing 165 lbs and nobody knows where that description came from
5) I once posed the question, "How did the police first learn of the 1026 N. Beckley address?". Fritz told the WC that some officer (whose name he couldn't remember) stopped him out in the hall before he went in to talk to LHO for the first time, and told him that Oswald lived on Beckley. My conclusion then, was the information came from source in military intelligence.
 
Others have come to the same conclusion.
http://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php?topic=8636.0;wap2
 
I don't know what this all means. What I am thinking right now is that members of the U.S. Army Reserves (in some capacity, whether it was Crichton's mythical 488th or not) had put together a dossier of a blue-eyed, 5'10" 165 lb Harvey Lee Oswald that they handed over to the Dallas Police Department, They told the police, "This is the guy you're looking for. He lives over on Beckley"
 
Steve Thomas

Steve, you mention at the Ed Forum about Truly advising of hair color as "light brown" - the problem being he claimed to get that from the job application, though that information is not on it at all. Good pick up.

I think the WC picked up on it too.

Mr. BELIN. I hand you what has been marked Commission Exhibit No. 496, which appears to be a photostatic copy of a document, and I ask you to state if you know what that is.

(The document referred to was marked Commission Exhibit No. 496 for identification.)

Mr. TRULY. This is a copy of the application blank that Oswald filled out. I am not familiar with his handwriting, because he didn't do anything that we have records of. All the work that he ever did was put his number or something. 
Mr. BELIN. Well, my first question is this: Is this particular form a form of your company? 
Mr. TRULY. That is one form; yes. We changed it a little bit, and this might have been just one that I pulled out. I can't recall whether it is the one we use now or the one we did use. 
Mr. BELIN. Well, was this a form that you were using at about the time he came for employment? 
Mr. TRULY. Yes.

(At this point, Representative Ford entered the hearing room.)

Mr. BELIN. Did you see him fill this out? Was it in your office or not? 
Mr. TRULY. Yes. He was sitting opposite me, and he filled it out on my desk. 
Mr. BELIN. He filled this Exhibit 496 out on your desk? 
Mr. TRULY. Yes. 
Mr. BELIN. At this time we offer in evidence Exhibit 496.

-----------------------
Was there hanky-panky going on with application forms?

------------------------
The hair color issue is really in the eye of the beholder. This could be the real source Truly had: the FBI report from the August arrest:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1134&search=1653230#relPageId=788&tab=page

On 11/22, a different agent (Clements) describes it as "medium brown"
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1140&search=%22identification_card%22#relPageId=40&tab=page

greg parker wrote:Steve, you mention at the Ed Forum about Truly advising of hair color as "light brown" -

Greg,

What do you think of the whole 5'10" 165 lb guy?

I haven't really researched the following question, but didn't Sylvia Duran down in Mexico City talk about interviewing a blond headed guy down there? Did she describe his height and weight?

I'm wondering if it wasn't the Harvey Lee Oswald she met.

Steve Thomas

Steve Thomas wrote:

greg parker wrote:Steve, you mention at the Ed Forum about Truly advising of hair color as "light brown" -

Greg,

What do you think of the whole 5'10" 165 lb guy?

I haven't really researched the following question, but didn't Sylvia Duran down in Mexico City talk about interviewing a blond headed guy down there? Did she describe his height and weight?

I'm wondering if it wasn't the Harvey Lee Oswald she met.

Steve Thomas

"Why did Duran refer to Oswald in her interrogations as "blonde and short," an identification subsequently omitted from accounts of the interrogation? Was she describing Oswald or an imposter? It should be noted here that Duran told the HSCA she believed that she dealt with the same man who was arrested in Dallas, though her colleague Eusebio Azcue told the HSCA he believed otherwise."
https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Sylvia_Durans_Interrogation.html



Steve, I think the 5' 10" 165 lb description came from Fain's report on his interview with Marguerite. Unlike others, I don't think Fain inserted that or altered Marguerite's description to that. The idea that Fain was part of some sort of CIA mole hunt is silly on its face. The sane, simple, ordinary answer is that Marguerite was horrible at giving height and weight descriptions. The only puzzle is the age description of 30.  That may indicate, as claimed by Bill Simpich, that Marguerite's description of Lee got blended with Webster's (who indeed was 30-ish at the time of the assassination his defection) for CI purposes.

Steve Thomas wrote:There have been references on several threads about a cable sent on the evening of 11/22 from Fort Sam Houston to Strike Command, McDill AFB in Florida. In the cable, reference was made, to information obtained by Detective Don Stringfellow of the Dallas Police Department. I managed to locate a copy of the cable, which you can find here:
https://archive.org/details/nsia-ArmyIntelligenceJFK 

Dallas Morning News March 19, 1978. This si also from Weisberg's Collection
"Army Apparently Didn't Tell Commission of Oswald's Alias"
 
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/A%20Disk/Army%20Intelligence%20Domestic%20Spying%20Part%201/Item%2070.pdf
 
Officer Bill Biggio was directing police intelligence communications at the Fair Grounds office the day of the assassination. 
He was working alongside Stringfellow that day.
Col. Roy Pate, in command of the 112th in Dallas said the information in the cable quoting Stringfellow "did not originate in Dallas".

Interesting.

Steve Thomas

Steve,

quoting from the article:

Dallas Police Lt. Gerald Hill. one of the
officers who arrested Oswald in the Texas
Theater, said he understood the Texas
Department of Public Safety's intelligence
unit in Austin "had a file on Oswald" before
the assassination

"And in all probability Army intelligence
got their information from DPS who
had it probably 10 minutes after we got
back here (to the Dallas Police Department)
with him," Hill said.

DALLAS POLICE. however. had no way
of knowing that Oswald had the Hidell alias
when distributing pro-Castro literature in
New Orleans because Oswald refused to
acknowledge be used the name during
three days of questioning by Dallas police.
A DPS spokesman said his agency's intelligence
unit in Austin had a file on Oswald
before the assassination with "a considerable
number of newspaper clippings ...
But there really wasn't much hard intelligence
in there. as I recall."
-------------------------
This is a bunch of hooey. Jones tried the same thing with the HSCA claiming all they had was a bunch of news clippings. Unless I'm sadly mistaken, none of the news clips mention anything about any "Hidell".

AS far as I know, Hasan is the only person to go into any sort of depth regarding fair park, although some have looked into bits here and there.

To me, it's looking more and more like a potential search area akin to pinpointing a location for missing bodies in a serial killer case.

Let's look at it -

Special Services
Jack Ruby
Larry Crafard
Civil Defense
Army Intel hanging around almost daily (according to the Weisberg doc)

Anything or anyone else?

greg parker wrote:Steve,

quoting from the article:

Dallas Police Lt. Gerald Hill. one of the
officers who arrested Oswald in the Texas
Theater, said he understood the Texas
Department of Public Safety's intelligence
unit in Austin "had a file on Oswald" before
the assassination

"And in all probability Army intelligence
got their information from DPS who
had it probably 10 minutes after we got
back here (to the Dallas Police Department)
with him," Hill said.

DALLAS POLICE. however. had no way
of knowing that Oswald had the Hidell alias
when distributing pro-Castro literature in
New Orleans because Oswald refused to
acknowledge be used the name during
three days of questioning by Dallas police.

AS far as I know, Hasan is the only person to go into any sort of depth regarding fair park, although some have looked into bits here and there.


Let's look at it -

Special Services
Jack Ruby
Larry Crafard
Civil Defense
Army Intel hanging around almost daily (according to the Weisberg doc)

Anything or anyone else?

Greg,

I've never researched the Department of Public Safety, so I don't know if any of their files are online.

If you read the Interrogation notes of Fritz, Bookhout and Kelley, amd Fritz's interrogation notes, Oswald admitted to having the Hidell card, but either refused or denied to admit that the signature was his. Larry Hancock and I went round and round about this a while back. There was something about the signature itself that raised flags to me.

Peter Dale Scott and Bill Kelley have looked into the Fairgrounds some. I'll have to look at the Fairgrounds itself and study its layout to see if anybody else had some kind of permanant home there.

In the book, Brandy, Our Man in Acapulco: The Life and Times of Colonel Frank M. Brandstetter. A Biography by Rodney P. Carlisle and Dominic J. Monetta. University of North Texas Press, 1999.
https://books.google.com/books?id=QLdqgDsVio4C&pg=PA122&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false


p. 120. "Brandy wrote to Colonel J.P. Kaylor of the Fourth Army's G-2 section and “...suggested monthly or semi-monthly briefings in a private area “where classified material could be read and secured,” meetings with Civilian Defense Authorities for liaison in case of emergencies, and correspondence courses.”"

I think that this "private area" was the Civil Defense Center at the Fairgrounds.

Steve Thomas

Steve Thomas wrote:

greg parker wrote:Steve,

quoting from the article:

Dallas Police Lt. Gerald Hill. one of the
officers who arrested Oswald in the Texas
Theater, said he understood the Texas
Department of Public Safety's intelligence
unit in Austin "had a file on Oswald" before
the assassination

"And in all probability Army intelligence
got their information from DPS who
had it probably 10 minutes after we got
back here (to the Dallas Police Department)
with him," Hill said.

DALLAS POLICE. however. had no way
of knowing that Oswald had the Hidell alias
when distributing pro-Castro literature in
New Orleans because Oswald refused to
acknowledge be used the name during
three days of questioning by Dallas police.

AS far as I know, Hasan is the only person to go into any sort of depth regarding fair park, although some have looked into bits here and there.


Let's look at it -

Special Services
Jack Ruby
Larry Crafard
Civil Defense
Army Intel hanging around almost daily (according to the Weisberg doc)

Anything or anyone else?

Greg,

I've never researched the Department of Public Safety, so I don't know if any of their files are online.

If you read the Interrogation notes of Fritz, Bookhout and Kelley, amd Fritz's interrogation notes, Oswald admitted to having the Hidell card, but either refused or denied to admit that the signature was his. Larry Hancock and I went round and round about this a while back. There was something about the signature itself that raised flags to me.

Peter Dale Scott and Bill Kelley have looked into the Fairgrounds some. I'll have to look at the Fairgrounds itself and study its layout to see if anybody else had some kind of permanant home there.

In the book, Brandy, Our Man in Acapulco: The Life and Times of Colonel Frank M. Brandstetter. A Biography by Rodney P. Carlisle and Dominic J. Monetta. University of North Texas Press, 1999.
https://books.google.com/books?id=QLdqgDsVio4C&pg=PA122&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false


p. 120. "Brandy wrote to Colonel J.P. Kaylor of the Fourth Army's G-2 section and “...suggested monthly or semi-monthly briefings in a private area “where classified material could be read and secured,” meetings with Civilian Defense Authorities for liaison in case of emergencies, and correspondence courses.”"

I think that this "private area" was the Civil Defense Center at the Fairgrounds.

Steve Thomas

Thanks Steve. I'll just note here that CAP worked closely with Civil Defense.

greg parker wrote:
Thanks Steve. I'll just note here that CAP worked closely with Civil Defense.

Greg,

Lately, I've been reading about the Cloverleaf, or Command Post Exercises that were held in the 1950's and 60's. To put it simply, these were annual war games held at the command level, rather than field level exercises. They were planning how to deal with a nuclear war. Part of that planning involved how to deal with civil unrest.

On page 121 of that Our Man in Mexico book, the authors wrote:
p. 121. “While at the Presidio, Brandy had prepared a draft of a Domestic Emergency Plan, which he revised and submitted in 1954 as part of the Cloverleaf I exercise, to G-2 of the Fourth Army Command in Dallas, Colonel M.H. Truly.”



From “Our Man in Acapulco”, pp. 127+ “after leaving Jamaica in early 1957, Brandy served as assistant troop commander and provost marshal of the Fourth U.S. Army Area Intelligence School for two weeks in August, 1957.


“These intelligence school sessions reviewed procedures and studies in a wide variety of areas for reserve intelligence officers including a review of a Central Index of Investigative and Domestic Subversive files.”


I would submit that this, "private area“ where classified material could be read and secured" would be an ideal place to review this Central Index of Investigative and Domestic Subversive files, and somebody who'd been picking an aircraft carrier, been arrested for street fights and passing out pro-communist literature, I'd bet a dollar to a hole in a doughnut that Oswald was in it.



Steve Thomas

Steve, my general sense of this is that it may fit in with where evidence was leading me. But even if it doesn't, it is extremely important to solving this case. Wish I could be more specific, but most of the good stuff starts with just triggering no more than a gut feeling...

The Colonels are indeed revolting!

Steve Thomas wrote:There have been references on several threads about a cable sent on the evening of 11/22 from Fort Sam Houston to Strike Command, McDill AFB in Florida. In the cable, reference was made, to information obtained by Detective Don Stringfellow of the Dallas Police Department. I managed to locate a copy of the cable, which you can find here:
https://archive.org/details/nsia-ArmyIntelligenceJFK 

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/A Disk/Army Intelligence 112th INTC San Antonio/Item

1. INTC, Region II, Dallas, Texas
   
   
2. Spot Report No. 417
   
   
3. Subject: Lee Harvey Oswald
   
   
4. Reference to Previous Reports: Spot Report No. 415
   
   
5. Time, Date, and Place: 17:15 hrs., 22 Nov, 1963, Dallas
   
   
6. Personnel, Organization, or Installation Involved: SUBJECT and Dallas Police
   
   
7. Summary:
   
   

[list=10]
[*]
[/list]

Haven't seen it, Steve. This is the first I've heard of it. Also the first I've seen of any alleged confession. I doubt that the confession was falsely relayed to Stringfellow. I have to conclude Stringfellow was fully expecting Oswald would not live long enough to prove it wrong. 

A bit more from Hoch, apparently via Weisberg.
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=48725&relPageId=10&search=%22spot_report%22

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=L-8dFyAEbDQC&lpg=PT96&ots=vKXgjIWAcH&dq=INTC%2C%20Region%20II%2C%20Dallas%2C%20Texas&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q=INTC,%20Region%20II,%20Dallas,%20Texas&f=false

greg parker wrote:Haven't seen it, Steve. This is the first I've heard of it. Also the first I've seen of any alleged confession. I doubt that the confession was falsely relayed to Stringfellow. I have to conclude Stringfellow was fully expecting Oswald would not live long enough to prove it wrong. 

A bit more from Hoch, apparently via Weisberg.
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=48725&relPageId=10&search=%22spot_report%22

Greg,

Thank you for the referrals.

I've been thinking about these cables.

Since the information in them is so obviously wrong, I have to wonder if they were not deliberately placed in the files after the fact.
The cables have Stringfellow's and Lumpkin's ranks' wrong. They spell Tippit's name wrong (In the cable it's spelled Tibbets).
The Spot Reports are given a number (417, 415, etc.). The other INTC Spot Reports you referenced in your later post are not numbered.
(3 1/2 hours later, Stringfellow would know to spell Tippit).

So, are these Spot Reports a deliberate attempt by the 112th at Dallas to incriminate Oswald at the time, or were they planted later on by somebody else? I'm reminded of Hunt's placing false Diem cables in a safe somewhere.

Steve Thomas

Tibbets?

I remember a fellow years ago named L. Ramon "Ray" Tibbets who was a former intelligence officer and Rosicrucian. He wrote a small book called "The Book of the Scroll" about codes and ciphers. My copy disappeared forty years ago.

Perhaps Tibbets was not a misspelling??

Just wondering.

greg parker wrote:

Steve Thomas wrote:

greg parker wrote:Steve,

quoting from the article:

Dallas Police Lt. Gerald Hill. one of the
officers who arrested Oswald in the Texas
Theater, said he understood the Texas
Department of Public Safety's intelligence
unit in Austin "had a file on Oswald" before
the assassination

"And in all probability Army intelligence
got their information from DPS who
had it probably 10 minutes after we got
back here (to the Dallas Police Department)
with him," Hill said.

DALLAS POLICE. however. had no way
of knowing that Oswald had the Hidell alias
when distributing pro-Castro literature in
New Orleans because Oswald refused to
acknowledge be used the name during
three days of questioning by Dallas police.

AS far as I know, Hasan is the only person to go into any sort of depth regarding fair park, although some have looked into bits here and there.


Let's look at it -

Special Services
Jack Ruby
Larry Crafard
Civil Defense
Army Intel hanging around almost daily (according to the Weisberg doc)

Anything or anyone else?

Greg,

I've never researched the Department of Public Safety, so I don't know if any of their files are online.

If you read the Interrogation notes of Fritz, Bookhout and Kelley, amd Fritz's interrogation notes, Oswald admitted to having the Hidell card, but either refused or denied to admit that the signature was his. Larry Hancock and I went round and round about this a while back. There was something about the signature itself that raised flags to me.

Peter Dale Scott and Bill Kelley have looked into the Fairgrounds some. I'll have to look at the Fairgrounds itself and study its layout to see if anybody else had some kind of permanant home there.

In the book, Brandy, Our Man in Acapulco: The Life and Times of Colonel Frank M. Brandstetter. A Biography by Rodney P. Carlisle and Dominic J. Monetta. University of North Texas Press, 1999.
https://books.google.com/books?id=QLdqgDsVio4C&pg=PA122&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false


p. 120. "Brandy wrote to Colonel J.P. Kaylor of the Fourth Army's G-2 section and “...suggested monthly or semi-monthly briefings in a private area “where classified material could be read and secured,” meetings with Civilian Defense Authorities for liaison in case of emergencies, and correspondence courses.”"

I think that this "private area" was the Civil Defense Center at the Fairgrounds.

Steve Thomas

Thanks Steve. I'll just note here that CAP worked closely with Civil Defense.

This ones for Bart.
Get well mate!



Three Shots Fired at President Kennedy’s Motorcade...
With this news flash transmitted over wire by United Press International (UPI) from Dallas on November 22, 1963, Texas and the nation entered a defining moment in American history. This exhibit tells a story of what followed. It provides a look at how the State of Texas responded to this national tragedy through rigorous investigations by the Texas Attorney General and Texas Department of Public Safety.
In 1963 Texas was a key Democratic stronghold. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson and Governor John B. Connally had planned President John F. Kennedy’s late November trip to mend political fences between liberal and conservative factions of the Texas Democratic Party and to raise money for the re-election campaign. Those plans ended abruptly and tragically near Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas.  
The assassination of President Kennedy and subsequent murder of his accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, resulted in investigations by the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy (known unofficially as the Warren Commission), Texas Attorney General Waggoner Carr, the Texas Department of Public Safety, among others.
This exhibit focuses on materials that state criminal investigative agencies and courts gathered and created, now part of the Texas State Archives. Among these is the suit of clothing worn by Texas Governor Connally while riding in the motorcade with President Kennedy.
https://www.tsl.texas.gov/lobbyexhibits/jfk

Cheers and Happy 4th of July!
Ed