ATF Agents

Did not see any thread about them, so will start w naming all the agents present inside the TSBD while it was being searched after the assassination.
This list was made up by Sorrels of the SS.
FBI-180-10089-10200






Ellsworth is particular of interest for various reasons, he claimed to be present during LHO interrogation(s) which by itself is interesting since he thought Oswald looked like John Thomas Maassen or John Thomas Masen, who according to him was a dead ringer for Oswald. He was investigating JTM and initially thought he had let him slip so he could assassinate the President. 

He has been interviewed by Dick Russel for his book The Man Who Knew Too Much
I will get back about this in due course like some of the other posts I have made recently and will add the info as it all comes through.

What I can tell you is that he was a FBI informant as well.

Love the part about not asking for a phone when they arrived!!!
Oswald must have given this as part of his alibi.
Being asked where the phone was and being in the entrance, thus the MacNeil / Allman theory by the FBI

Do we have photos of the 8 A&TT boys at the TSBD?

Carl Booth, thx to Dennis M.

From The Man Who Knew Too Much

Early in 1976, on a trip through Dallas, I arranged an interview with ATF agent Ellsworth. As we sat in his downtown office, he unfolded a remarkable tale that I first broke in The Village Voice that April.
Ellsworth told of having been called to the police interrogation room to question Oswald about the rifle found on the sixth floor of the book depository. When he walked in, Ellsworth was certain that he had made one of history's most tragic mistakes.

"Oswald was sitting in a chair about ten feet from the doorway,"Ellsworth remembered. "And all I could see was headlines that I'd just turned loose the man who'd killed the president." He hadn't. However, only a few days
before, Ellsworth had given a routine okay to release on bond a young man who was allied with the local Minuteman group and had been charged with a violation of the National Firearms Act. He was, said Ellsworth, "an absolute dead ringer for Oswald—identical build, weight, coloring, facial features, hair. They were like identical twins; they could've passed for each other."

Almost from the moment of Oswald's arrest, perfectly credible witnesses claimed to have seen him driving a car (though Oswald didn't drive). They had also seen him in a gun shop, at a rifle range, and
cashing a check in a grocery store. The problem was, especially in the month of November, wherever "Oswald" was supposed to have been, he was really somewhere else. Ellsworth broke a twelve-year
official silence to confirm a lookalike's existence. While refusing to divulge the look-alike's name and passing off the incident as "sheer coincidence," the ATF agent admitted that the man was still alive, well, and living in Dallas; that he had been interrogated by federal authorities shortly after the assassination and found to have been "nowhere near downtown Dallas"; and that several witnesses who believed they had seen Oswald (notably practicing at a Dallas rifle range) had actually seen his "twin." If not for several other Ellsworth revelations, the "twin's" existence might be dismissed as a curiosity of history. But while the real Oswald was purportedly a fanatic leftist and member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, his "double" was an equally fanatic right-winger and member of the Minutemen. Like Oswald, he traveled in and out of Mexico. Like Oswald, he associated with Cuban exiles.

I realized, but did not push Ellsworth to say so, that the lookalike was most probably John Thomas Masen.
"Quite a number of officials—state, federal, and local—were aware of this situation, because we talked
about it," Ellsworth continued. "We laid it to rest, and satisfied ourselves it was merely coincidence. I have a vague recollection that this man was questioned about the assassination, but not by me. Possibly nobody paid
much attention because we had Oswald in custody. We weren't looking for a fugitive. "I'd tracked this other fellow undercover through another man for several months before I actually met him. I think this began sometime in the summer of 1963. When I finally made contact with him, I led him to believe I was a crook. He claimed to have done some arms smuggling in and out of Mexico, but not when I was dealing with him. And yes, there were rumours that he had some connection with the family of H. L. Hunt. "I do remember two instances where Oswald was supposed to have been at someone's house in North Dallas, and I was able to
ascertain after the assassination that it was actually the look-alike. I wasn't keeping notes of where he was minute by minute, but these were instances where witnesses thought they saw Oswald in the company of several Minutemen.

One of these times did involve a group of Minutemen at a rifle range. The look-alike knew all those people. Several of their names came up in my conversations with him, and I'd noted at the time that he was out
shooting with them." The look-alike was eventually convicted on "one of the gun violations," but Ellsworth said he could not remember the sentence. Subsequently, the man gained his release, and Ellsworth remained in
occasional contact with him over the years. Despite considerable prodding, Ellsworth refused to name him, saying only that "he's straightened out and has a right to privacy." I did not bring up John Thomas Masen's name at our initial meeting. But after reviewing the three documents about gun shop owner Masen, the Minutemen, and the Cuban exiles, I went back to see Ellsworth again. When I mentioned the information he had provided the Warren Commission and Secret Service about Masen, Ellsworth did a double take. At first he issued a hesitant denial that Masen was the Oswald "twin." Then, at the end of our interview, suddenly the agent said: "Look, you've got me boxed in. You're trying to get me to tell you something I'm not at liberty to tell without grossly jeopardizing myself and my agency. But if you can find Masen, the answer to what you've
been trying to worm out of me will become immediately apparent." Masen's name was not listed in the Dallas phone book. But, I learned from a local assassination researcher, he did still work there—a gunsmith, apparently one of the best in town, operating in the back room of a sporting goods store in a North Dallas shopping center. Early one evening, I drove out and found Masen working alone. According to Ellsworth, the Oswald look-alike had put on about thirty pounds over the years. So, it seemed, had Masen. In 1976 he was
a stocky, brown-haired thirty-six year-old, about the same height as Oswald. The moment we shook hands, an uneasy feeling settled over me. If you looked closely, you could still see the resemblance. "If I saw a picture of Lee Harvey Oswald, I could probably pick it out," Masen said, carefully smoothing some oil along the sight
of a rifle. "But I can't really visualize his face." When I mentioned the name of Frank Ellsworth, Masen's eyes
flashed and his reply was acrid. "I got set up on that situation," he said. "There was an agent from New Mexico who represented himself as a buyer for the Cuban revolution against Castro. I sold him a couple automatic arms. They entrapped me into buying some parts. They finally dropped all charges except failure to keep proper records. I paid a $200 fine, but they took my firearms license away. And this has cost me an enormous amount of money, not being able to deal in firearms. I recently applied for a presidential pardon and was turned down." Had he ever associated with the Minutemen? I asked. "I'd been to a couple parties. I knew some of the group. I realized they were gonna try to help take Cuba back and I was very sympathetic to the cause."

Ellsworth had been in his office not far from Dealey Plaza when news of the shooting came over the radio. He recalled at our interview in 1976: "I immediately took off running, and got there the same time [Dallas police captain] Will Fritz did. He motioned me to follow him into the book depository. To my knowledge, I was the only federal officer in the building."  This has to be taken with a large grain of salt-BK

Ellsworth then aided in the authorities' search of the depository. "We didn't know what we were looking for, we picked up and tagged as evidence all sorts of stuff. I went up in the false ceilings, figuring whoever did the shooting might still be hiding in the building. We found a lot of whiskey bottles up there. Because of my assigned location, I happened to be the individual who found where Oswald had done the shooting. There were a number of boxes over by the sixth-floor window, which appeared to have been the sniper's nest. "We started at the top of the building and worked our way down," Ellsworth continued. "The gun was not found on the same
floor, but on a lower floor by a couple of city detectives. If I recollect right, there was an elevator shaft or stairwell back in the northwest corner. The gun was over near that, just south of it behind some boxes." Ellsworth recalled the weapon as being an Italian Mannlicher-Carcano.

In 1992 I asked Ellsworth, now retired from the ATF, about this matter again. He added: "I think the rifle was found on the fourth floor. I have a vague recollection that the position it was in, and where it was found, led to the conjecture that as Oswald came down the stairs, he probably pitched it over behind these books."
Ellsworth was never called to testify before the Warren Commission. "Which suited me fine," he added, "because I was just a spear-carrier; there were other people who were the lead players in the investigation." But while Ellsworth has never seen any reason to question the Warren Commission Report's findings, what he witnessed would have cast an entirely different light on the physical evidence. For one thing, it raises the possibility that not one but two rifles were actually found in the TSBD—a Mauser on the sixth floor (perhaps while Ellsworth himself was looking in the false ceilings), and a Mannlicher-Carcano on the fourth floor. But even if there was no second rifle in the TSBD, the fact that a rifle found on the fourth floor then "officially" ended up on the sixth floor is equally significant.


Lee Harvey Oswald was first booked by the police on suspicion of having shot and killed Dallas policeman J.D. Tippit in the Oak Cliff vicinity near the Texas Theater where he was captured. Oswald's initial interrogation, lasting from 2:15 to 4:05 p.m., was handled by Captain Will Fritz, who would later claim that he took rough notes, then and at his subsequent discussions with Oswald—but these were never turned over to government investigators. Fritz recalled Oswald frantically denying shooting policeman Tippit, or the president, and saying he would not take a polygraph examination without the advice of an attorney. However, ATF agent Frank Ellsworth, who was present for part of the interrogation, does not recall any panic in Oswald. "He appeared to be awfully pleased with himself," Ellsworth told me in 1992, "which struck me as incongruous for a man sitting there in police headquarters who had just assassinated one of the most popular presidents in American history.

One policeman described his behaviour on the ride to the station as akin to someone who had just been picked up for a speeding ticket, and Frank Ellsworth described to me his own mystification at Oswald's "cool" behaviour during his initial interrogation.



Here is a Village Voice article by Dick Russell on Ellsworth and Maassen. If you have trouble reading it it is also here
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/O%20Disk/Oswald%20Lee%20Harvey/False/In%20Dallas/Item%2005.pdf

Weisberg's archive

Memo from Burt Griffin to David Slawson. No one likes Hosty!

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/H%20Disk/Hosty%20James%20P%20Jr%20SA/Item%2087.pdf

Griffin's visit to Ellsworth

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/FBI%20Records%20Files/105-82555/105-82555%20Referrals%20146-200/105-82555%20Referral%20%20146-200.pdf (pgs 2/3/4 only)

Ellsworth, Masen (love this how the name is being spelled as Masen or Maassen........), Hosty, gun running and so on.

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/H%20Disk/Hoch%20Paul%201994/Item%2003.pdf

Oswald Talked has quite a few refs to Ellsworth.
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/S%20Disk/S%20Letter/Sobel%20M%2001.pdf

FBI loves phonetic spelling.
Gives us trouble finding the interviewee, but they seem to know exactly who is who and the correct spelling.
Great stuff on Ellsworth.
Cheers, Ed

Mark Bridger of DPUK wrote this more than a decade ago. There are two pix in there from the high school yearbook showing Maasen. I have not had real time to read it, but I am dropping the link in here for now. 


https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dealeyplazauk.org.uk%2FpdfArticles%2FJohn_Masen.pdf

barto wrote:Weisberg's archive

Memo from Burt Griffin to David Slawson. No one likes Hosty!

barto,

On May 8, 1964, FBI Agent D.J. Brennan wrote a memo to W.C. Sullivan.

In his memo, Brennan talks about cooperation with the Secret Service and points to an example of good cooperation. He recounts Dallas SS Agent William H. Patterson taking Burt Griffin of the Warren Commission to the home of Frank Ellsworth on April 17, 1964. There they discussed John Thomas Masen. 

You can see a copy of Brennan's memo to Sullivan in the FBI Warren Commission Liaison Files, Section 12 pp. 70 and 71 here:
http://www.maryferre...bsPageId=746342

Patterson also talks about Sylvia Odio in his memo.

According to Patterson, Griffin asked Ellsworth about Cuban activity in Dallas and gun running.

Griffin's memo to Slawson dated April 16th concerning this Ellsworth interview were among 23 internal Warren Commission memorandums in two file boxes that the Senate Select Committee were trying to obtain in 1975.


They were noted to be "of CIA interest" and were "security classified".

On April 24, 1964 SS Chief Rowley wrote a Memorandum to J. Lee Rankin of the Warren Commission. This memo is CD 853
http://www.maryferre...amp;relPageId=2

This memo was in response to a letter from Rankin to Rowley dated April 22, 1964. The topic was Manuel Rodriguez Orcarberro and the Cuban exile community. Some of the things in Rowley’s memo were:

1/16/64 Frank Ellsworth was interviewed about Orcarberro.
Ellsworth had been working undercover gathering evidence against John Thomas Masen.
Masen told Ellsworth that Orcarberro had been trying to buy guns and bazookas from Masen.
Masen told Ellsworth that Rodriguez and George F. Parrel were leaders of the local DRE and also members of Alpha-66
Masen told Ellsworth that George Parrel, an associate of Orcarberro, had also been trying to buy guns from him.
They had made purchases from him and that they presently have a large cache of arms located somewhere in Dallas, although he did not know the location.
Parrel was a student at Dallas City College.
Agent Ed Coyle was also contacted about Orcarberro.



Three times, Brennan's memo says that Patterson's memo is enclosed, but to date, I have not been able to locate Patterson's memo.


I've reached my search limit in the MFF site, but if you can get in and do a search for William H. Patterson and April 16, 1964, you might be able to pull it up.
If you do find a copy of Patterson's memo, could you let me know?


Thanks,


Steve Thomas

Ed,

Yeah, I keep seeing references to this Patterson memo, but darned if I can actually find it.

Steve Thomas

Ed,

See: FBI 62-109090 Warren Commission HQ File, Section 25 p. 183

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=62237#relPageId=183&tab=page

Steve Thomas

Ed,

I'm pretty sure that this back and forth between Griffin, Ellsworth, and the FBI had to do with the Miller/Whtter gun theft at the Terrell Armory that went south.

A question I've always had, is who were they stealing the guns for.
I think they were stealing them for Masen, who was going to sell them to Orcarberro and the Alpha-66 guys.

Steve Thomas

Yes Steve I see they have that pinned to Masen.
I find the bit by Ellsworth to be intriguing as he ...." got the most evasive answer "... when he asked what it had to do with JFK assassination.
Makes me question their sincerity to say the least.
Cheers, Ed

https://servimg.com/view/17602890/761

Ed. Ledoux wrote:Yes Steve I see they have that pinned to Masen.
I find the bit by Ellsworth to be intriguing as he ...." got the most evasive answer "... when he asked what it had to do with JFK assassination.
Makes me question their sincerity to say the least.
Cheers, Ed

Ed,

The memo you provided is part of a larger internal FBI memo from Rosen to Belmont. It starts on p. 178.
Go back to the previous page (p. 182). It looks like they were trying to dig up dirt on Burt Griffin. When Ellsworth asked Griffin what information about two FBI Agents had to do with Kennedy's assassination, Griffin got evasive.

A couple of years ago, I ran across some info about the Dallas Office being a dumping ground for FBI Agents who were in hot water with the Bureau - mostly for messing around with women. Kind of like being re-assigned to Nome, Alaska.
I remember there were two agents in particular (I think one of them came out of New Orleans, but I wouldn't swear to that). I wonder if they were the Agents that Burt Griffin was asking about.

I'm sorry I can't be more specific. This was just in passing to other research I was doing, so I didn't keep any notes.

Steve Thomas

I had read these long ago, still jumps out how Ellsworth gets told all sorts of baloney except how it ties to JFK.
Why would they need to skirt the issue if it did. Seems they needed to manage the affair and use Ellsworth as a backstop.
The end product is devoid of original content, so good luck finding the memos.

Bill died a few years ago and likely the truth with him.
https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/pensacolanewsjournal/obituary.aspx?n=william-patterson&pid=85938199&