Alfred Douglas Hodge

I found this thread from four years ago at the webs forum started by Greg, and since I got my hands on more documentation I thought better start a thread. I use some of the info for my paper the interrogations of LHO, but there is other info that is relevant to others.

First Greg's post:

I don't know if this is going to go anywhere near helping the case along. But it may and if nothing else, it's an interesting story.


Hodge was the kind of businessman you could only find in Texas or the Northern Territory of Australia. He owned and operated the Buckhorn Bar right next door to the Buckhorn Trading Post which seems to have specialized in the sale of weapons and ammo. Hodge also owned and operated the Buckhorn Trading Post. Basically, you could get pissed and get into a fight in the bar, get tossed out as a result - go next door, buy a rifle or handgun - go back to the bar and extract some "justice". 


At 3:45pm on Nov 22, 1963 someone phoned the Southwestern Bell Telephone Co in Fort Smith, Arkensas and advised that the manager of the Buckmore Bar should be investigated as he had been talked to "about the killing".


AD Hodge was duly interviewed by the FBI the next day.Claimed no one had spoken to him about the assassination and knew no one in Fort Hood. Tried to suggest it could have been any number of disgruntled drunks kicked out of the bar - or a disgruntled ex-employee who had taken time off without permission on Nov 18 to have treatment at the Veteran's hospital for an old leg injury.  This unauthorized time off coincided with the disappearance of a .16 gauge shitgun.  The bar manager immediately fired the employee on his return to work.


Bar Manager Paul Montry was interviewed the same day. He also claimed no knowledge of who the caller might be and also denied knowing anyone in Fort Smith. Said the only people he'd talked to about the assassination in those few hours following the assassination were police who were in the Buckmore Trading Post in large numbers with Hodge. The shop stocked several hundred different types of guns. 


Hodge testified before the Commission on June 26, 1964. 


We already know from Paul Montry that the cops were all over The Buckmore Trading Post sometime after the discovery of the rifle on the 6th floor of the TSBD.


But what did Hodge say?


Nothing in his FBI interview of Nov 23. He had a second interview with the Bureau the following day. This became Hodge Ex 1. In this, he again fails to mention any police going to his Buckhorn Trading Post trying to trace the assassination rifle. He states instead that he was down at police HQ that evening - at the request of the police who wanted to check his records in relation to tracing Oswald's rifle.  


During his testinony however, Hodge backflips on who instigated his meeting with police:

Mr. HUBERT. I have previously today shown you a document which I have marked for identification in the right-hand margin as follows: "Dallas, Texas, June 26, 1964, Exhibit No. I of the Deposition of A. D. Hodge", and I have signed my name below that. That document purports to be the report of an interview of you by FBI Agents Anderton and Hardin on November 24, 1963, and I ask you if that report of the interview is substantially correct?

Mr. HODGE (read instrument referred to). Well, now--this the Dallas Police Department--

Mr. HUBERT. What line are you talking about?

Mr. HODGE. Right here "The Dallas Police Department wanted him to cheek all of his records concerning the sale of the assassinator's weapon"--I don't recall the Dallas Police did that. I did that on my own and I called the FBI and they came down and he kind of went over the books with me, you see.

Mr. HUBERT. I think you are speaking, Mr. Hodge, of the last three lines of the second paragraph of this document, right?

Mr. HODGE. Yes.

[size=16]Mr. HUBERT. Where it indicates that the Dallas Police asked you to do that, and the fact is, you said you made that investigation yourself and reported what you had found to the FBI and to the Dallas police?[/size]

Mr. HODGE. I might have reported it to the Dallas police---I do that.

On top of the backflip, Hodge also seems to have outed himself as a police informant...
Hubert perseveres and tries to get some sort of chronology worked up:

Mr. HUBERT. Suppose we do it this way: Let me question you and then we will talk a little while about Exhibit No. 1. What was your first contact with the entire matter of the assassination of President Kennedy?

Mr. HODGE. When it [size=16]came in over the radio that he had been killed with a 7-millimeter rifle, my wife and myself--we got our book and started checking to see who we had sold a 7-millimeter rifle to.[/size]

[size=16]Mr. HUBERT. Did you sell a 7-millimeter rifle?[/size]

Mr. HODGE. [size=16]Yes; several of them--yes.[/size]

Mr. HUBERT. When did you first hear this report?

Mr. HODGE. Oh, it must have been right after the---I don't even know what time it was it was right after dinner.

Mr. HUBERT. On the 22d of November, is that it?

Mr. HODGE. I guess so.

Mr. HUBERT. It was right after the President was shot, I take it--some time right after?

Mr. HODGE. That was the day he was shot.

Mr. HUBERT. [size=16]You heard over the radio that he had been shot with a 7-millimeter rifle?[/size]

Mr. HODGE [size=16]Yes.[/size]

Mr. HUBERT. [size=16]And you and your wife proceeded to check your records to see whether you had sold any such rifle to anyone?[/size]

[size=16]Mr. HODGE. And then I called the FBI and they came down. They sent an agent down and we showed him who we had sold them to, and I think later that afternoon another one came back and wanted to know who we sold the ammunition to, and I told him about three fellows that had uniforms on with a bread truck--uniforms, you know, and they took those descriptions and wasn't going to check into that.[/size]

So according to Hodge it was the FBI who came down to his shop - after he called them - not the cops. He says at one point, it was not until after dinner that even heard the radio report. 


And I have yet to find any FBI report of any visit on the afternoon of Nov 22. 


A bread truck was used in Dallas by some group or agency as cover while watching a minuteman meeting in 1964.


Back to the testimony...


Having said the statement he signed on the 24th was in error about the DPD asking him could they check his records, he goes on to clarify that arriving home, he received a cal from Captain Fritz at about 6pm. In explaining the phone call, Hodges is infuratingly imprecise:

Mr. HUBERT. What happened next?

Mr. HODGE. Well, that night I went home that afternoon at 6 o'clock and Capt. Will Fritz called me and asked me to come if I could come by or he would send a squad car out and pick me up.

Mr. HUBERT. Did you know Captain Fritz?

Mr. HODGE. Oh, I know them all well.

Mr. HUBERT. What time was it that he called you?

Mr. HODGE. It was approximately 11:30.

Mr. HUBERT. That night? That was 11:30 at night?

Mr. HODGE. Yes, sir.

 [size=16]Mr. HUBERT. What did he want you to do?[/size]

[size=16]Mr. HODGE . He wanted me to come down and look at the guns and see if I could identify them, or if I had ever seen them before.[/size]

We just never get to the bottom of that. Was he talking about the M-C and the pistol? Was he talking about multiple rifles found at the TSBD? Was he just talking shit?


Captain Fritz was interviewed by the FBI on July 14, 1964 in relation to matters raised in Hodge's testimony. At this point, I'd asked that we don't get side-tracked by the Ruby sighting. Ruby was almost certainly there, so it's a non-issue. 


Fritz shitz all over Hodge by claiming it was Hodge came to police HQ uninvited wanting to see the rifle found in the TSBD as he had sold one similar to the description given of the putative murder weapon and he thought he may be able to ID it, The report finishes by saying that Fritz advided little said by Hodges that night checked out.


That is as far I have gotten with it. Not sure how much more there is - though maybe some effort was expended in Fort Smith to find the ID f the caller...


Hodge is a totally unreliable witness based on his backflips. On the other hand Montry seemingly had little reason to lie about a lot of police being in the Buckhorn that afternoon. The question is, if he was lying (as he does appera to have been), what was he trying to hide?


As for the Fort Smith caller  -- it is tempting to say the wording used (he had been talked to "about the killing"). indicates he had simply been to talked to by the police (as he appears to have despite his reluctance to admit it). Yet if that is the reference, why would he need "investigating"? Surely it would be well understood that the police would be talking to lots of people, including gun sales licensees.


From the WCR
Description of Rifle
 
The bolt-action, clip-fed rifle found on the sixth floor of the Depository, described more fully in appendix X, is inscribed with various markings, including "MADE ITALY," "CAL. 6.5," "1940" and the number C2766.126 (See Commission Exhibit Nos. 1303, 541(2) and 541 (3), pp. 82-83.) These markings have been explained as follows: "MADE ITALY" refers to its origin; "CAL. 6.5" refers to the rifle's caliber; "1940" refers to the year of manufacture; and the number C2766 is the serial number. This rifle is the only one of its type bearing that serial number.127 After review of standard reference works and the markings on the rifle, it was identified by the FBI as a 6.5-millimeter model 91/38 Mannlicher-Carcano rifle.128 Experts from the FBI made an independent determination of the caliber by inserting a Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5-millimeter cartridge into the weapon for fit, and by making a sulfur cast of the inside of the weapon's barrel and measuring the cast with a micrometer.129 From outward appearance, the weapon would appear to be a 7.35-millimeter rifle, but its mechanism had been rebarreled with a 6.5-millimeter barrel.130 Constable Deputy Sheriff Weitzman, who only saw the rifle at a glance and did not handle it, thought the weapon looked like a 7.65 Mauser bolt-action rifle.131 (See chapter V, p. 235.)

Thanks to Linda Giovanna Zambanini for the pix.

Thanks to Malcolm Blunt.
In earlier statements Hodge had said he never saw Oswald.......

I worked for billy hodge for years. I enjoyed sitting and hearing all his life stories and his wife, Mrs Jackie, as well. His stories consisted of everything from keeping rattlesnakes in the gun displays to keep robbers away to all the famous people he knew , The JFK story being one of them how he knew jack ruby well. He kept like 20 copies of the Dallas times herald and gave them all to me.

Nonie wrote:I worked for billy hodge for years. I enjoyed sitting and hearing all his life stories and his wife, Mrs Jackie,  as well. His stories consisted of everything from keeping rattlesnakes in the gun displays to keep robbers away to all the famous people he knew , The JFK story being one of them how he knew jack ruby well. He kept like 20 copies of the Dallas times herald and gave them all to me.

Thanks for sharing that, Nonie.

Do you know if he spoke to the police and/or FBI on a regular. I am sure he would have been a good source of info for them.