Passing of Former HSCA Chief Counsel G. Robert Blakey

[Michael T. Griffith]

This nonsense is further proof that you have no business discussing the JFK case. Using your logic, one could certainly call David Ferrie an "erratic loon," yet we know that David Ferrie worked for Carlos Marcello--indeed, he was one of Marcello's personal pilots, among other things--but he was not a formal Mafia member.

The Mafia sometimes used disreputable people who had Mafia connections but who were not Mafia members, precisely to establish technically plausible denial.

The HSCA polygraph experts found indications in Ruby's polygraph results that he was lying when he denied being involved in a JFK assassination conspiracy.

Just to follow up on this, two of the documents that Blakey's staff preserved for future disclosure were released in 2017 and reveal that Ruby had advance knowledge of the assassination and was in Dealey Plaza during the shooting. I discuss this in my book A Comforting Lie, from which I quote:

Two documents released in 2017 reveal that Ruby had advance knowledge of the assassination and that he was in Dealey Plaza during the shooting. The documents reveal that shortly before the shooting, Ruby invited a man named Bob Vanderslice to watch JFK’s motorcade with him and to “watch the fireworks.” Ruby met Vanderslice at the Postal Annex Building in Dealey Plaza before JFK’s motorcade entered the plaza. The two men then watched the shooting (10).

Ruby did not know that Bob Vanderslice was an informant for the Intelligence Division of the Dallas office of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). When Vanderslice saw news reports in early 1977 that the HSCA was going to reinvestigate the JFK assassination, he decided he should tell his IRS contact about the incident, and he did so in February.

The following month, March 1977, the chief of the Dallas IRS Intelligence Division sent a memo about Vanderslice’s account to the Dallas FBI office because he thought the information “might be helpful in the investigation of the Kennedy assassination.” An FBI agent from the Dallas FBI office interviewed the IRS agent who had spoken with Vanderslice. The Dallas FBI office then sent a detailed report on the matter to FBI HQ. Here is part of the Dallas FBI report on the incident:

Vanderslice told him [Vanderslice’s Intelligence Division contact] that on the morning of the assassination, Jack Ruby called him on the telephone and asked him if he would like to go to the Presidential Parade with him, and if he would like to “watch the fireworks.” Vanderslice said that he was with Jack Ruby and standing at the corner of the Postal Annex Building facing the Texas School Book Depository building at the time of the shooting. Immediately after the shooting, Ruby left and headed toward the area of the Dallas Morning News building, without saying anything to him. (10:5)

The Dallas FBI report noted that the IRS agent said Vanderslice was a reliable informant. The report also noted that Vanderslice’s undercover work involved gathering information on the “criminal element” in Dallas, and that he had known one of Jack Ruby’s nightclub strippers. (A Comforting Lie: The Myth That a Lone Gunman Killed President Kennedy, KDP, 2023, pp. 28-29)

[Jarrett Smith]

When MTG tells you your posts are "nonsense," you need to have that framed and put on the wall. It's sort of a Rationality Merit Badge.

Not just by my logic but by any logic one could call Ferrie an erratic loon. Unlike Ruby, however, Ferrie - who did indeed serve as Marcello's pilot - has no demonstrable connection to the JFKA. Because you live in Conspiracy Ozone, the equation is simply "Ferrie knew Marcello = Ferrie had a role in a JFKA conspiracy."

To establish technically plausible denial, one would not start with an erratic loon with underworld connections who made suspicious underworld-type calls in the immediate lead-up to the JFKA and then assign said erratic loon the absolutely critical role of silencing Mr. Patsy - a role that said erratic loon failed to accomplish before Mr. Patsy had been interrogated up one side and down the other. Makes no sense at all except in Conspiracy Ozone.

If the Mafia wanted Oswald dead, he would have been dead within 15 minutes - tops - of the JFKA. If he was a patsy for the purpose of pointing the finger at Castro, the only patsy role that makes sense, he would have been more useful to the Mafia alive than dead so long as he had no clue the Mafia was pulling the strings. If the Mafia wanted Oswald dead, the task would have been assigned to a pro who would have done the deed and vanished like mist, and that's all there is to it.

Because you live in Conspiracy Ozone where everything has to be as complicated as it can be made, regardless of rationality or plausibility, you simply cannot stand the thought that "obvious" characters like Ferrie and Ruby were not involved. Their obviousness - especially in the case of Ruby - is precisely why they weren't involved. You can't stand the thought that the murder of Oswald does not have to be, and almost surely wasn't, for the purpose of "silencing the patsy" (after he had already been interrogated up one side and down the other).

Simply MAKES NO SENSE ... except in Conspiracy Ozone. Having grown up in what was then a relatively small town controlled by Joe Bananas, I have a little more regard for the Mafia than to think they would allow Ferrie or Ruby to have any meaningful role in a Presidential assassination. This wasn't Louie the Knife and the Detroit Goon Squad - this was Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante.

Nobody knows for sure if they wanted Oswald dead, but once arrested he was a dead man. Ruby was bound by the Omerta no way he was going to rat anybody out. He stalked his target until the right time. Ruby and Ferrie were both intelligent men, not stooges as you suggest.

[Lance Payette]

Nobody knows for sure if they wanted Oswald dead, but once arrested he was a dead man. Ruby was bound by the Omerta no way he was going to rat anybody out. He stalked his target until the right time. Ruby and Ferrie were both intelligent men, not stooges as you suggest.

Ferrie was highly intelligent, Ruby not so much. Does omerta apply to Jews (Ruby) and guys from Cleveland (Ferrie), I wonder? Ruby was (1) an erratic little clown whom bad guys far less sophisticated than the Mafia would not have entrusted with anything resembling an assignment, and (2) in his small-time way, too much of a "Mafia red flag" to send to whack Oswald - on national TV in a garage crawling with police, no less. Sorry - I know it's almost irresistable, but it just doesn't work.

[Lance Payette]

Just to follow up on this, two of the documents that Blakey's staff preserved for future disclosure were released in 2017 and reveal that Ruby had advance knowledge of the assassination and was in Dealey Plaza during the shooting. I discuss this in my book A Comforting Lie, from which I quote:

Two documents released in 2017 reveal that Ruby had advance knowledge of the assassination and that he was in Dealey Plaza during the shooting. The documents reveal that shortly before the shooting, Ruby invited a man named Bob Vanderslice to watch JFK’s motorcade with him and to “watch the fireworks.” Ruby met Vanderslice at the Postal Annex Building in Dealey Plaza before JFK’s motorcade entered the plaza. The two men then watched the shooting (10).

Ruby did not know that Bob Vanderslice was an informant for the Intelligence Division of the Dallas office of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). When Vanderslice saw news reports in early 1977 that the HSCA was going to reinvestigate the JFK assassination, he decided he should tell his IRS contact about the incident, and he did so in February.

The following month, March 1977, the chief of the Dallas IRS Intelligence Division sent a memo about Vanderslice’s account to the Dallas FBI office because he thought the information “might be helpful in the investigation of the Kennedy assassination.” An FBI agent from the Dallas FBI office interviewed the IRS agent who had spoken with Vanderslice. The Dallas FBI office then sent a detailed report on the matter to FBI HQ. Here is part of the Dallas FBI report on the incident:

Vanderslice told him [Vanderslice’s Intelligence Division contact] that on the morning of the assassination, Jack Ruby called him on the telephone and asked him if he would like to go to the Presidential Parade with him, and if he would like to “watch the fireworks.” Vanderslice said that he was with Jack Ruby and standing at the corner of the Postal Annex Building facing the Texas School Book Depository building at the time of the shooting. Immediately after the shooting, Ruby left and headed toward the area of the Dallas Morning News building, without saying anything to him. (10:5)

The Dallas FBI report noted that the IRS agent said Vanderslice was a reliable informant. The report also noted that Vanderslice’s undercover work involved gathering information on the “criminal element” in Dallas, and that he had known one of Jack Ruby’s nightclub strippers. (A Comforting Lie: The Myth That a Lone Gunman Killed President Kennedy, KDP, 2023, pp. 28-29)

Quoting myself - the sincerest form of flattery - re the Vanderslice nonsense:

Let’s examine this “Ruby foreknowledge” CT bombshell:

1. Our hero was Robert Murray Vanderslice, born in 1926 and died (in Dallas) in 1979.

2. He was an IRS tax informant, focusing on bookies, from 7/23/76 to 2/18/77 (six months). He was paid $135 for his services and $2.89 for expenses.

3. His last contact with the IRS was on 1/24/77. The IRS special agent to whom he was assigned, Lawrence Sandri, said he had never mentioned Ruby or anything about the JFKA.

4. At a restaurant lunch with the IRS local Intelligence Division Manager, Arlen Fuhlendorf, early in 1977 (some 14 years after the JFKA), he started talking about stripper Candy Barr (who did have a non-romantic, non-employment relationship with Jack Ruby a decade before the JFKA).

5. This somehow led to a discussion of Ruby. Vanderslice told Fuhlendorf that on the morning of the JFKA, Ruby had contacted him to watch the motorcade and had asked if he’d like to “watch the fireworks.” In CT world, this remark can have no meaning other than Ruby’s foreknowledge of the JFKA.

6. They watched the motorcade together from a corner near the Postal Annex. Following the JFKA, Ruby left, without comment, for the Dallas Morning News.

7. At the same lunch, Vanderslice divulged that he had been arrested and incarcerated at the Dallas County Jail at the same time Ruby was there. As a jail trustee, he said, he got to know Ruby better – but he said nothing further about the supposed foreknowledge or motorcade incident.

8.  Fuhlendorf told the FBI that “as far as he knew” Vanderslice had been a reliable tax informant, but he did not know if he was truthful about Ruby. He initially reported the lunch conversation in a memorandum to the IRS national office for transmission to the HSCA, but the IRS returned the memo and told him to contact the Dallas office of the FBI. (The memorandum never surfaced.)

9. Vanderslice went to astounding lengths to avoid repeated efforts by both the FBI and IRS to contact him about his Ruby tale. Fuhlendorf thought he might have “been untruthful” or perhaps had “second thoughts” and had gotten “cold feet” after being told he might have to testify before the HSCA.

10. Because Vanderslice’s tale was inconsistent with Ruby’s WC testimony and that of a Dallas Morning News advertising department employee concerning Ruby’s activities on 11-22-63, and because Vanderslice was clearly avoiding both the FBI and IRS, the FBI abandoned further efforts to contact him.

11. On the last attempted contact, his wife said he was in Wichita Falls, “trying to make a buck here and there.”

Ho-hum, such is the stuff of which conspiratorial bombshells are made in MTG’s goofy end of the CT spectrum.

“Foreknowledge of the assassination.” BWAHAHA. 

Not exactly a major exercise in factoid-busting, I’ll concede, but an interesting 30 minutes of mental exercise for your intrepid Factoid Buster.

Minor addendum: When the Vanderslice tale surfaced with the 2017 document release, it was of course of considerable news interest. THE VAST MAJORITY of news outlets, including major MSM, described Vanderslice - in headlines, no less - as an "FBI informant." Sexier than "small-time IRS tax informant," I guess. More like "FBI non-informant," as it turned out.

Amusing as he is, it is ironic that Conspiracy Ozone characters like MTG are oblivious to how much damage they do to rational, intelligent discussion of the JFKA.

[Benjamin Cole]

LP--

Actually, I am not in the "Mafia did it" camp, preferring my narrative that the JFKA was a small conspiracy of LHO with two disaffected G-2'ers or Alpha-66'ers.

But, accepting the premise the Mafia did it (a view held by Blakey, no slouch), then having Ruby snuff LHO is plausible.

In this narrative, the Mafia somehow convinced LHO to participate in the JFKA, planning to wax LHO post-JFKA.

But LHO went AWOL post-JFKA.

OK, now what?

The Mafia had resources, but not infinite resources, and not enough to compromise the DPD i this matter. And limited time. How long until LHO spilled the beans? 

So, who could enter the DPD building and not arouse suspicion, and who was willing to wax LHO?

The number of candidates might have been very limited. Pretty much Jack Ruby.

Ruby had living relatives in Dallas, so...he had to be careful post-LHO waxing. 

[Lance Payette]

My threshold question is always, "Does that make any real-world sense?"

Hearkening back to the UFO video I watched yesterday, which was full of "crash retrievals," I have to ask about Roswell and all the rest: Does it make any real-world sense that exotic craft travel here from Zeta Reticuli or another dimension or the future and then crash like Piper Cubs in New Mexico thunderstorms and Norwegian fjords and whatnot?"

No, it does not.

With Ruby:

1. First, we have to believe the Mafia would have wanted Oswald dead. They would not, unless he had some inkling of what he was involved in. If he thought he was involved in a pro-Castro operation, anything he said could only be helpful in pointing away from the Mafia.

2. Next, we would have to believe that the Mafia - the Mafia - completely dropped the ball. They failed to whack him right there in the TSBD. Big Louie, who was supposed to give him the proverbial ride to nowhere, had car trouble and failed in his mission. They completely lost track of him between the TSBD and the Texas Theater. Or, alternatively, they wanted him dead but had no plan whatsoever - the Mafia?

3. Or their plan was Ruby from the get-go, which would be supported by the calls Ruby supposedly made before the JFKA. Everyone who knew Ruby said he was an erratic, impulsive little character. His only conceivable positive would be that he was known to the police. If being known to the police was his big positive, that would suggest he wasn't recruited until Oswald was in custody. I simply can't think of any plausible reason the Mafia - the Mafia - would recruit a loose cannon like Ruby unless they were in a state of absolute desperation because Oswald was in custody and knew something he might reveal.

4. But wait, Ruby didn't get the job done until Oswald had been in custody and under intense interrogation for hours and hours. If Ruby had shot Oswald on Friday night, when he had an opportunity, we might at least have something to talk about. But he didn't.

5. No, he didn't, and now we have to bring the DPD into the conspiracy to account for the fantastically unlikely split-second timing of the supposed hit on Oswald. If the Mafia had someone on the inside of the DPD, they didn't need Ruby to whack Oswald. Just the DPD guy to say, "He tried to grab my gun and I shot him. Sorry." Anyway, Ruby does absolutely nothing until minutes before the shooting that looks anything like a guy planning to shoot Oswald. Nevertheless, with split-second timing he is allowed into the garage, which is crawling with police and reporters, and semi-miraculously manages to get off one shot. At least while he remains in his right mind, he never says anything suggesting he was on a mission.The entire scenario is just fantastically unlikely and un-Mafia like - indeed un-any-conspiracy-like.

Even if there was a conspiracy, I think Ruby was an outlier who did what he said he did and what the LN narrative said he did.

Because he was kind of a Mafia wannabe, and because he actually did manage to whack Oswald, everyone is entranced by those two bookends and determined to fit him into their conspiracy. But it just doesn't work out here in the real world. It ... just ... makes ... no ... sense. IMO, Ruby is a red herring and just a distraction. He's the "crash retrieval" of the JFKA! 

[Michael T. Griffith]

For those who may be new to the JFK case and know little or nothing about G. Robert Blakey, I would recommend that you listen to his extensive 1980 interview with Milt Rosenberg:

(part 1)

(part 2)

In this interview, you'll hear Blakey roundly, strongly reject the single-assassin scenario.

I also recommend that you watch Blakey's 1981 debate with former WC attorney David Belin and his 2018 debate with former WC attorney Howard Willens:

Debate with Belin

Debate with Willens