JFK Assassination Forum

Those Banquet pot pies, with cheese melted on top, with pepper...not half bad.

Ambassador Thomas Clifton Mann served as the United States Ambassador to Mexico from May 1961 to December 1963, during the John F. Kennedy and early Lyndon B. Johnson administrations.

Mann told the HSCA he was warned off looking at LHO-Cuba ties. In fact, by 1964 Mann's career was over.




https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2018/180-10142-10016.pdf

---30---

Then we have the sad tale of Charles Thomas, a State Department'er with a great record, who was then run off the reservation for wanting to follow LHO-Cuba leads.

From The Guardian:


Charles Thomas was a rising star at the state department in the early 1960s, a career diplomat who had served across Latin America and Africa. His colleagues were convinced he would earn the rank of ambassador. They agreed that the tall, jut-jawed, preppy, handsome Thomas – described by colleagues as “the diplomat from central casting” – adored his wife Cynthia and two young daughters.

But then something went horribly wrong. In 1971, at the age of 48, Thomas killed himself.

The death certificate showed that on Monday 12 April, at about 4pm and in the second-floor bathroom of his family’s rented home on the banks of the Potomac river in Washington, Thomas lifted a gun to his head. Cynthia, downstairs, thought the boiler had exploded.

The reasons for the suicide were not a complete mystery. Thomas had been despondent after he had been denied a promotion two years earlier and forced out of the state department. In the 1960s, the department had an up-or-out policy – diplomats were either promoted or they were “selected out”, to use the department’s Orwellian term.

For Cynthia and the rest of the family, the nightmare was compounded months later by a terrible discovery – Thomas had been “selected out” in error. A clerical mistake had apparently cost him his cherished 18-year career.

According to the department, Thomas was denied a promotion because part of his personnel records, including a glowing job evaluation from the embassy in Mexico, had been accidentally misfiled. The family received a formal written apology, signed by Gerald Ford. Congressional outrage led the state department to overhaul its promotion system.

But now, four decades later, Thomas’s widow and others say they are convinced they are still being denied the full truth about what put Thomas on a path to killing himself. In that cause, they are pleading with Donald Trump to release classified documents from the National Archives.

The documents are long-secret government files about – of all things – the assassination of John F Kennedy.

‘True nature of the Kennedy assassination’

The Thomas family acknowledges that theirs is a bizarre and complicated story. But they are convinced – with good reason, given what they have discovered – that if Thomas’s personnel records were misfiled it was intentional, and that it was never the real reason for his firing.

They are certain that Thomas lost his career – and ultimately his will to live – because senior officials were determined to shut down his persistent, unwelcome and ultimately fruitless effort to reopen an investigation of JFK’s murder.

There is a long paper trail. Documents released to the public show that during a posting in Mexico in the mid-1960s, Thomas came across evidence that showed Lee Harvey Oswald – who visited Mexico City in September 1963, weeks before killing Kennedy – had been in contact there with Cuban diplomats and spies who wanted JFK dead and might have offered help and encouragement.

In internal memos not made public until years after his death, Thomas told supervisors such information from Mexico could undermine the findings of the presidential panel that determined in 1964 that Oswald acted alone. In one memo, Thomas warned that the Mexico information “threatened to reopen the debate about the true nature of the Kennedy assassination and damage the credibility of the Warren report”.

For historians, Oswald’s trip to Mexico has never been adequately explained. Available records shows that the CIA and FBI knew much more about it – and the threat Oswald posed – than they ever shared with the Warren commission. The agencies appear to have withheld evidence out of fear they might be blamed for bungling intelligence that could have saved Kennedy’s life.

Oswald, a Marine Corps veteran and self-declared Marxist who had once tried to defect to the Soviet Union, met in Mexico with Cuban and Soviet diplomats and spies and, according to a long-secret FBI report, talked openly about his plan to kill Kennedy.

Given Trump’s deadline next week – a deadline he set himself – to release thousands of still-classified documents related to the assassination held by the National Archives, the Thomas family says questions about their family tragedy are urgent once again.

Many of those documents are known to have come out of the files of the CIA station in Mexico at about the time of Oswald’s visit, which suggests they could bolster Thomas’s suspicions about what happened there.

In an interview, Thomas’s youngest daughter, Zelda Thomas-Curti, a Minneapolis business consultant who was born in Mexico, described her father as “one of America’s most important – if mostly unrecognized – 20th-century government whistleblowers”.

On behalf of her family, including her own three children, Thomas-Curti said she had written to Trump, to ask him to do justice to her father’s memory by releasing all remaining JFK files.

“Washington overpowered my father like a steam shovel, tossing him into a heap like discarded dirt,” she wrote. “But he was a hero who was out there fighting for the truth.” She told Trump that she wanted “my three children to know that their grandfather was a real-life hero”.

Thomas’s widow, Cynthia, who went on to her own career in the state department and now lives in Minnesota, said the family deserved to see all the JFK documents. “My grandchildren are entitled to know the truth about Charles,” she said.

‘As much access as possible’

In 1992, Congress passed the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act. Lawmakers hoped it would damp down raging conspiracy theories created by the release of Oliver Stone’s conspiracy-laden film, JFK, the year before.

Kennedy Assassination: Kennedy in Car
Prior to the assassination, President John F. Kennedy, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, and Texas Governor John Connally ride through the streets of Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. Included as an exhibit for the Warren Commission. (Photo by © CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
Files will shed light on a JFK shooting conspiracy – but not the one you think
Read more
The law called for release of all assassination-related documents. As a result, millions of pages were made public in the 1990s. Several thousand other documents, initially held back because of national security concerns, were supposed to have been released last October, the 25th anniversary of the law’s passage.

But Trump delayed the release for another six months, citing security concerns raised by the CIA and FBI. The new deadline is 26 April.

The White House has given no clue about whether the president will now allow the full library of documents to be made public. But Trump, who is no stranger to conspiracy theories, including about the Kennedy assassination, has vowed transparency. “The American public expects – and deserves – its government to provide as much access as possible” to the JFK records, he said last year.

The exact number of assassination-related documents still held is in question, since there is no definitive public inventory. A research group, the Mary Ferrell Foundation, said last month its tally showed more than 21,890 documents were still being withheld in full or in part.

The National Archives has produced a bare-bones index, which shows that many of the documents are drawn from the CIA station in Mexico City. For Thomas’s family, as well as for many JFK historians, that suggests those documents may refer to surveillance of Oswald and his contacts in Mexico.

Previously declassified files show that CIA officers in Mexico conducted close surveillance of Oswald as he apparently sought a visa to defect to Havana. The files show that he visited both the Cuban and Soviet embassies and that he may have had a brief affair with a Mexican woman who worked in the Cuban consulate.

In a once-classified 2013 internal CIA report, the agency’s chief historian concluded that the CIA had conducted a “benign cover-up” to withhold “incendiary” information. The cover-up, the report said, was intended to keep the commission focused on “what the Agency believed at the time was the ‘best truth’ – that Lee Harvey Oswald, for as yet undetermined motives, had acted alone in killing John Kennedy”.

Previously declassified records referring to Thomas show that he was repeatedly rebuffed when trying to reopen an investigation of Oswald’s Mexico trip.

In a memo written in 1969, in his final days at the department, Thomas made a last plea that someone go back to Mexico. Though he made no allegation that Fidel Castro had any personal role in any plot to kill Kennedy, Thomas wanted the US to investigate whether the Warren commission had missed evidence of a conspiracy in JFK’s death between Oswald and Cubans loyal to the Castro regime.

“Since I was the embassy officer who acquired this intelligence information,” Thomas wrote, “I feel a responsibility for seeing it through to its final evaluation.”

The memo outlined a story that Thomas first heard in 1965 from a friend – Elena Garro de Paz, a prominent Mexican writer whose husband, Octavio Paz, later won the Nobel prize for literature. Garro said she had encountered Oswald at a family dance party in Mexico City in the fall of 1963 that was attended by Cuban diplomats and Mexican leftists who supported the Castro revolution. According to Garro, people at the party had spoken openly of their hope that Kennedy would be killed.

According to Garro, who died in 1998, Oswald was invited to the party by her cousin Silvia Duran, a vivacious young woman who worked at the Cuban consulate. Garro told Thomas she was certain Oswald and Duran had a brief affair.

In the years since Thomas’s paperwork was made public, Duran, who is still alive, has insisted that she did not have an affair with Oswald and only met him inside the Cuban consulate. But other Mexicans, including members of Duran’s extended family, have disputed her account. A Mexican journalist recalled seeing Oswald at a separate reception, at the Cuban embassy.

---30---

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/22/jfk-documents-could-show-the-truth-about-a-diplomats-death-47-years-ago

It is safe to say, government employees did not pursue LHO-Cuba leads in 1964.

Given LHO's association with G2 and KGB elements through much of 1963, the directive to the WC, to avoid leads into Cuba and Russia...well, not my my idea of how an investigation should proceed.

While the WC allowed for the possibility of only two shots, it seems pretty far fetched to me. JBC said he heard a shot before the one that hit him in the back. The clear consensus of witnesses is there 3 shots. Most compelling, three spent shell casings in the snipers nest. That dog won't hunt.

Norman was correct there were 3 shots from the TSBD, but also one from the GK. For whatever reason many did not hear the first, but Connally did.

BREHM said when the President's automobile was very close to him and he could see the President's face very well, the President was seated but was leaning forward when he stiffened perceptibly at the same instant what appeared to be a rifle shot sounded. According to BREHM, the President seemed to stiffen and come to a pause when another shot sounded, and the President appeared to be badly hit in the head. BREHM said when the President was hit by the second shot, he could notice the President's hair fly up, and then roll over to his side, as Mrs. KENNEDY was apparently pulling him in that direction. BREHM said that a third shot followed and that all three shots were relatively close together. BREHM stated that he was in military service and he has had experience with bolt-action rifles, and he expressed the opinion that the three shots were fired just about as quickly as an individual can maneuver a bolt-action rifle, take aim, and fire three shots.

Brehm missed hearing the first shot that missed, but heard three shots with the first being Z-223. See how frustrating this case is.

Harold Norman
"He stated that about the time the car in which the president was riding turned on to Elm Street, he heard a shot. He said he thought the shot had been fired from the floor directly above him. He further stated at that time he stuck his head from the window and looked upward toward the roof but could see nothing because small particles of dirt were falling from above him. He stated two additional shots were fired after he had pulled his head back in from the window.”………..
“Just after the President passed by I heard a shot and several seconds later, I heard two more shots.  I knew that the shots had come from directly above me, and I could hear the expended cartridges fall to the floor. I could also hear the bolt action of the rifle………..
………..“About the time that he got past the window where I was, well, it seems as though he was, I mean you know, brushing his hair. Maybe he was looking at the public…I can’t remember what the exact time was but I know I heard a shot, and then after I heard a shot, well, it seems as though the President, you know, slumped or something, and then another shot and I believe Jarman or someone told me, he said “I believe someone is shooting at the President,” and I think I made a statement “it is someone shooting at the President, and I believe it came from up above us. Well, I couldn’t see at all during the time but I know I heard a third shot fired, and I could also hear something sounded like the shell hulls hitting the floor and the ejecting of the rifle.” ……..
And I said “I know I’m right” because I could hear something sound as though the shells were hitting the floor and I could hear the ejection of the rifle, clicks like that, you know.”………
…..(Later in the same broadcast) “Well, I was looking out the window and the first shot was fired. Well, y'know, I didn't think much of it, because it, shook the building a little bit. Really, it was just that powerful. Then after the second shot was fired, well, I saw the people. They were all falling on the ground. And I told one of the fellows. I say, “That shot came from this building.” And then by that time I heard the third shot. And one of the guys told me, he said, “I believe you’re right.” And I say “I know it did." And then I could, you know, also hear the hulls, empty hulls, the cartridges, hitting the floor, and I could hear the ejection of the rifle, whatever it was……..
………….."When the President came around, he was waving, seemed to be happy. About that time I heard a shot, and one of the guys said "Somebody's shooting at the President." ……
…………..And I could even now hear the empty cartridge hit the floor I mean after the shots had been fired. …..
…………(When asked how many shots he heard) “Three. I’d say just about like this BOOM…click click…BOOM…click clickBOOM. Something similar to that.”
…………..(On the shooting) "just as the motorcade came around...3 shots was fired...Boom, clack-clack, boom, clack-clack, boom. One at a time……….
………..(When asked if heard any cartridges fall) "I heard three." …….
…………."Well, I heard a shot when the motorcade came by. The first shot, it made the President slump. Then I heard two more shots." (When asked if he heard a total of three shots) "Yes, sir." (When asked how he could tell the shots came from above) "Yes, sir...Because I could hear the empty hulls--that's what I call them--hit the floor and I could hear the bolt action of the rifle being pushed back and forward." (When asked how many hulls he heard hit the floor) "Three." (When asked by the defense to describe the rhythm of the sounds) "As I recall, the rhythm of the sounds of the shots was Boom! Click, click. Boom! Click, click. Boom! Click, click."
(1-19-92 interview with Gerald Posner, reported in Case Closed, 1993) "When the first shot came, I heard boom, then click-click, boom, click-click, boom. I could hear the sound of the click. I could hear the sound of the shells hitting the floor. I could hear everything. Three shots. No doubt in my mind."
………..The shots came from above and there was a gun and the shots were sounding, "Boom! Click, click. Boom! Click, click. Boom! Click, click." So there was three shots fired right up over us when we were sitting on the fifth floor.”……….
………..  And all of a sudden, we hear something. 'Boom, ack, ack, boom, ack, ack, boom.' …………
……….And that was three of the shells I heard on the floor. And when the police officer asked about it, we told them about it and they went up there and that is what they found up there on the sixth floor. Three empty cartridge shells up there."
………..He laughed and walked away.' A few minutes later, Norman said, he heard three shots fired from the sixth floor window directly above the one he was using to view the parade."
Edited April 14, 2012 by Pat Speer.
Norman in places supports an early shot.
Brennan's statements support that Oswald stood up & back from the window  before the headshot.

If Norman heard Oswald eject a casing 3 times in fairly quick succession then that suggests that Oswald ejected the first casing at about the same time as the jfklimo started to turn from Houston into Elm.
We know that Oswald's shot-1 was at latest at pseudo Z113 -- this was when the jfklimo had passed by his window & had just passed the overhead signals -- shot-1 ricocheted offa the overhead signal arm.
I have always wondered whether Oswald pulled the trigger when the jfklimo was starting its turn into Elm -- ie a dry fire -- koz he forgot to eject the old empty casing.
If he hadnt forgotten to eject the old casing then he would have ejected it well before the jfklimo came into view in Houston.
Anyhow, now i come to what i really wanted to mention -- Oswald might not have known what the jfklimo looked like -- did he know that it might have the plastic bubble rain cover on -- did he know that the bubble was not bullet proof -- did he know that there was a divider/roll'bar that partly hid jfk from the SN until the limo was almost starting its turn into Elm -- did he know that jfk would be in the rear right seat.
If he fired a dry shot early on then he would have been flustered & likely to forget about or misjudge the problem of the overhead signal arm blocking a shot hence the ricochet at Z113.
Then in any case he fired shot-2 ok at Z216, hitting jfk & Connally at Z218-219.
Then he stood up & stepped back & saw Hickey blow jfk's brain out at Z313 -- anyhow i wonder why didnt Oswald fire his shot-3, albeit a long shot.