Post by Rob Caprio on Feb 2, 2020 21:27:23 GMT -5
All portions are ©️ Robert Caprio 2006-2024
s.hdnux.com/photos/03/73/31/1029712/7/920x920.jpg
The Warren Commission (WC) said Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) shot and killed President John F. Kennedy (JFK) on November 22, 1963, all by himself with a 40” Mannlicher-Carcano (M-C) that he allegedly ordered from Klein’s Sporting Goods (KSG) in Chicago, IL.
They also claimed that he shot and killed Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit (JDT) all by himself with a .38 Smith & Wesson Special revolver that he allegedly ordered from Seaport Traders in Los Angeles, CA.
Both of these claims have caused researchers to ask several questions for years. Firstly, why did LHO not simply purchase his weapons (if he did at all) from local gun stores in Dallas or Irving, Texas? This would have possibly left no paper trail back to him (although one was really never tied to him anyway as the weapons were allegedly ordered by a “Alek Hidell” and this alias was never shown to have been used by LHO) like a mail-order system would. Secondly, why did he use a fake name, “Alek Hidell”, when his P.O. Box was in the name of his own—LHO? This defeats the whole purpose of using an alias, doesn’t it? Furthermore, as we have seen numerous times in this series there is NO evidence showing LHO ever used the alias “A. Hidell”, meanwhile, there is evidence showing someone else did (LHO’s statement—Richard Case Nagell’s admission).
Finally, why did both of these mail-order houses show up in Senator Thomas Dodd’s investigation into gun purchases in this manner? Was this just another in a seemingly endless list of claimed coincidences in this case? This post will look into this aspect of the case.
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All of the background in this post comes from And We Are Still All Mortal--Thomas Dodd and Lee Harvey Oswald by George Michael Evica (from "Agent LHO," a chapter in a work in progress, The Iron Sights). He was the leader in this area of the case and is still recognized as the one that brought this topic to the forefront of our research.
It should be noted at the outset that Senator Thomas Dodd was an ex-FBI agent as this is important in the terms of context. He was hired by J. Edgar Hoover (JEH) in 1933 and assigned to the St. Paul, Minnesota region of the country. (Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson, The Case Against Congress (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968) 34-35.)
Despite him remaining a FBI agent for only a year (he resigned) he would be immensely loyal to JEH the rest of his life and political career. This is important in the context of the JFK assassination since JEH had such a strong hand in deciding what really happened that day.
While Dodd worked in the Justice Department (JD) later on he would also become mired in the word of intelligence in the area of counterespionage during the time leading up to World War II (WW II). Sadly for us not much is known about this time and what he actually did do, but he would go on to be a part of the Nuremberg team after the war that prosecuted Nazi war criminals. He would be considered the most important person on the American team and would rise to international fame for his role in the trial. (Ibid., pp. 35-36.)
Dodd would be elected to the U.S. Senate in 1958 and join the congress in January 1959 representing the state of Connecticut. He was known as a strong anti-Communist during his years in the senate. Dodd would become the chair for the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SICC) which brought him into contact with parts of the intelligence apparatus. Dodd also chaired the Senate Juvenile Delinquency Subcommittee (SJDS) and this is the area of interest to us in regards to the JFK assassination.
In July of 1963 Dodd’s SICC was investigating the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) and called it, “…the chief public relations instrument of the Castro network in the United States." (Ibid., p. 54.) Needless to say, LHO was a member of the FPCC so this would have brought him into this world in some fashion. Was he working for the people trying to uncover more about this “public relations instrument” for Castro’s Cuba?
There were news reports while LHO was still alive in regards to the FPCC that said the following: "...the [FPCC were a] subject of a series of investigations by Congressional committees [including those of Senator Thomas Dodd] and the Justice Department over the last three years [1961-1963]." (Dodd, in I.F. Stone, The Haunted Fifties (New York: Random House, 1963) 348. See also Scott 8, and I.F. Stone's Weekly, February 8th, 1960, June 27th, 1960, and April 24th, 1961.) Did Dodd and others ever come across the name Oswald during these investigations? We will never know for sure as this has not been shown to us via evidence, but one has to assume since LHO was a “chapter president” his name had to be seen at one time or another during these long investigations.
LHO was involved in three areas that Dodd committee investigated over the course of these years.
1. the Fair Play for Cuba Committee;
2. the (anti- Communist) Socialist Workers' Party, and
3. the (anti-Socialist Workers) Communist Party.
Is this just another coincidence? Here is what Mr. Evica wrote about this issue.
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Oswald could not have set up a more consistent pattern had he been working (whether directly or indirectly) for Dodd's Senate Internal Security subcommittee. (FPCC subject of inquiries, in Hartford Times, November 23rd, 1963. See also 26 H (CE 3081-3085) 689-693.) Why was Lee Harvey Oswald, dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Marines as a known defector to the Soviet Union, reading rifle magazines at Alba's Garage in New Orleans? And why was he collecting coupons for mail-order weapons? (See Martha Moyer, "The Rifle," The Assassination Chronicles, Volume II, Issue 1, March 1996; cited hereafter as Moyer.)
The Dodd connection was the answer.
Senator Thomas Dodd commanded the Senate's Juvenile Delinquency subcommittee and its interest in "gun control," specifically mail-order weapons control. Beginning in January, 1963, Dodd held committee hearings on the unrestricted delivery of weapons through the U.S. mails. One of the companies Dodd was interested in was Klein's of Chicago, and one of the weapons about whose unregulated traffic the Senate in 1963 was agitated was the Italian Mannlicher Carcano. "Hidell," of course, allegedly ordered a Mannlicher Carcano from Klein's of Chicago, reportedly found in the Texas School Book Depository on November 22nd, 1963, becoming a major part of the FBI/Warren Commission lone-assassin theory in the JFK killing. (See, for example, Washington Post January 27th, 1963; see also Washington Post, November 26th, 1963, in 24 H (CE 2180) 852. See also Congressional Record-Senate, August 2nd, 1963, p.13945, and November 27th, 1963, pp. 22868-22869. For Congressional interest in the Mannlicher Carcano, see Henry S. Bloomgarden, The Gun (New York: Bantam, 1976 [reprint of 1975 edition]) 66-67.)
Seaport Traders of California was still another mail-order weapons' distributor the Dodd Committee was examining, the very company from which "Hidell" ordered the revolver reported to have been used in the Tippet [sic] murder on November 22nd, 1963.( Seaport Traders, in R 174.)
A "Communist," pro-Castro, Fair Play for Cuba Committee member with ties to both the Communist and Social Workers parties had been able to order at least two lethal weapons (both of great concern to the U.S. Congress) apparently under a fake name ("Hidell") through the United States mail. Was someone associated with the Dodd Committee trying to connect a mortal threat to the president with the committee's anti-weapons work? (And We Are Still All Mortal--Thomas Dodd and Lee Harvey Oswald by George Michael Evica)
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Is it just a coincidence that LHO was involved in three groups this committee was investigating (FPCC, SWP and Communist Party)? Or that he allegedly ordered weapons from two of the mail-order houses the committee was investigating? By the way, a lot of this investigating stemmed from the request of Colt and other small firearms producers in Connecticut who complained of unregulated foreign imports taking away some of their business and NOT just the concern for safety as is mentioned many times.
Mr. Evica would say the following regarding the timing of the purchase of the M-C.
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Whether that rifle was ordered before November 22nd, 1963,...a left-wing former Marine defector buying mail-order weapons to support concretely Senator Dodd's gun control position or ordered immediately after the JFK assassination to make the same point (but even more chillingly), the same post-assassination effect was apparently achieved. (Evica, George M.; Marsh, Anthony, and Moyers, Martha. The Assassination Chronicles, "A Rifle Symposium," v.2, n. 1, March, 1996, p. 22.)
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This is the root of it all in regards to this issue. I personally believe the “order” was done following the assassination and that is why there was NO tie to “A. Hidell” until the afternoon of Saturday, November 23, 1963. I would think if the rifle had been ordered before the assassination as claimed the FBI would have “found” this order much quicker than this.
The key to all of this was Dodd’s close ties to the FBI and the intelligence community at large due to his membership on the Judiciary Committee which came with a passkey to the JD’s materials and agents. As I said earlier Dodd was a staunch defender of JEH’s too, and it was said, "...the FBI...made itself so much at home in Dodd's [Senate] office that staff members joked about assigning the Bureau a desk." (Anderson & Pearson, p.94)
Of course the intelligence community also had access to Dodd’s staff and materials as well and this would include the mail-order investigation. Mr. Evica shows us how as early as Monday, November 25, 1963, Dodd was reaffirming the claim the FBI and the WC would make later on in the WC Report.
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On Monday, November 25, 1963, Senator Dodd made an interesting error, if, indeed, it was an error. The Connecticut senator stated that Oswald acquired the alleged assassination rifle for $12.78. (24H (CE 2180) 852) But $12.78 was the price of a 40-inch Carcano, minus the scope, in November, 1963. "Hidell" (Oswald using an alias, according to the Warren Commission) purchased a Carcano (40.2 inches, again, according to the Commission) for $19.95, with scope, months earlier. But, of course, the rifle that was actually ordered, at least according to the mail-order coupon allegedly used, was a 36-inch "carbine" with scope. (And We Are Still All Mortal--Thomas Dodd and Lee Harvey Oswald by George Michael Evica)
Commission Exhibit (CE) 2180: www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh24/pages/WH_Vol24_0435b.jpg
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If we look at CE 773, we do see an order for a 36” Carbine being placed by someone who has been said to be LHO.
CE 773: historymatters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/pages/WH_Vol17_0331a.jpg
So why were the authorities claiming LHO would have ordered a 40” M-C then? Was it due to error by someone on Dodd’s committee in placing the wrong catalog number on the order form? The catalog number seen on CE 773 (and department number) clearly point to a 36” Carbine and NOT a 40” short rifle as claimed. Carbines were also the ONLY rifles KSG mounted scopes on at that time too, so if you believe the official version then please explain where LHO had the scope added to the rifle since the WC NEVER told us this. Ditto the clip and ammunition.
Or, was all of this created by the intelligence groups that would have had access to all of this information? To me, the fact the rifle order information is so incorrect at every phase tells me this was done in a hurry and NOT planned out well ahead of time. What do you think?
What is interesting is that the scope was traced to a California gun shop by the man who would play a pivotal role in the murder of another Kennedy—Robert. It should be noted that Lieutenant Pena left the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) to work for the Agency of International Development (AID), which is a known CIA front group, only to come back in time to derail (IMO) the RFK investigation. Just another coincidence?
Lieutenant Manuel Pena would tell the Secret Service (SS) this in an interview.
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www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh22/pages/WH_Vol22_0279b.gif
November 23, 1963, SA Horn interviewed Lt. Manuel Pena, Robbery Division, Los Angeles Police Department, Serial No. 3226, and his partner, Sgt. Jess Gonzales, Serial No. 3834. Through their INFORMANT it was determined that a Martin R. Retting, owner of the Retting Gun Shop, 11029 Washington Blvd., Culver City, dealt in telescopic gun sights and that he would be the logical person to whom to speak. It was known that Retting obtained his sights from a Japanese company and that these scopes were used in great amounts on HUNTING guns.
That date, Lt. Pena, Sgt. Gonzales and SA Horn went to Retting’s Gun Shop…and interviewed Mr. Retting. He stated that he is the sole importer of the gun sights that bear the inscriptions of “4x18 Coated, Ordnance Optics Inc., Hollywood, California, 010 Japan with a cloverleaf with the initials enclosed of OSC.” He advised that he had telephoned the FBI, Los Angeles, on November 22 and advised them of this fact after he had seen a picture of the assassination weapon on television. Mr. Retting stated that he has been selling these sights for the last three or four years, MAINLY to Kleins’s Sporting Goods, a mail order house at 4540 West Madison, Chicago 24, Illinois.
Retting said that the weapon used was a MODIFIED MODEL of an Italian Carbine…Records of Mr. Retting were checked for the years 1962-63 but NO records of Lee H. Oswald or Willie Randall were found. (CE 1331, p. 528) (Emphasis added)
www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh22/html/WH_Vol22_0279b.htm
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Quite a few things jump out at us when we read this interview. First of all, notice how he said scopes were used in “great amounts on hunting guns” when the M-C was NOT a hunting rifle. When we add in the fact that KSG up to that point did NOT add scopes to 40” models (something they did NOT have in stock in February/March 1963 anyway) this is all a moot point.
Secondly, why were they checking for scopes sold to a "Willie Randall" anyway? Wasn't he the husband of Linne Mae Randall who was the sister of Wes Frazier?
Finally, notice how he said he sold the majority of his scopes to KSG, but as I just said KSG did not mount scopes on the 40" model according to employees of that company at the time when LHO would have ordered his rifle as claimed.
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The Klein's employee who originated the idea of mounting a scope on the rifle was Mitchell Westra. He told the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) that Klein's only mounted the scope on the 36 inch MC. (HSCA interview of Westra 2/20/78.) The man who actually mounted the scopes for Klein's was Bill Sharp, their in-house gunsmith. He confirmed what Westra testified to: the package deal with the scope and MC rifle was used by Klein's to market the 36 inch MC. (HSCA interview of Sharp, 2/21/78.) Again, if this is so, where did the Warren Commission's rifle -- a 40 inch MC with scope -- come from?
www.ctka.net/2008/von_pein.html
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So if KSG had NO 40” M-Cs in stock during the time the WC said LHO allegedly ordered his rifle and KSG did NOT mount scopes on 40” models anyway, what was the worth of all of this? Not much from what I can tell.
Finally, notice the reference to a “modified model” of a Carbine by Mr. Retting supposedly. This is incorrect and as an owner of gun shop you would think he would know this. The model LHO allegedly owned, per the WC, was a 40” model and would have been a MODIFIED VERSION OF THE LONG RIFLE and NOT the Carbine. Thus, it was called a SHORT RIFLE while the Carbine was 36” long. Again, we see the SS and others using confusing and incorrect language to try and show LHO would have ordered the alleged murder weapon when this is not true based on the evidence given to us.
I found this linkage of Dodd to many people years ago (sorry, I don’t have the link anymore) and suffice it to say if even half this list is correct he had a lot of connections to people who did NOT like JFK.
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Dodd's long tenure in the U.S.Government brought him into direct contact with, or within one degree of separation from, a statistically significant number of suspected conspirators and suspicious groups linked to the JFK assassination: the FPCC's Richard Gibson; Guy Banister, who, like Dodd, had been a member of the FBI's elite team pursuing John Dillinger; Ed Butler and his Information Council of the Americas; certain organized crime figures and labor racketeers; the United Fruit Company; the State Department's Office of Security; the Castillo Armas junta of Guatemala; Allen Dulles and associates, including Nazi assassination plotter Hans Bernd Gisevius and Ruth Forbes Paine's close friend Mary Bancroft; Richard Helms; the Rockefeller family and associates; the Lyndon Baines Johnson family and associates; Dutch journalist Willem Oltmans and associates, eventually including George DeMohrenschildt; the Citizens' Committee for a Free Cuba, including Clare Boothe Luce and other secret warriors against Cuba; Cord Meyer and his United World Federalists, including again, Ruth Forbes Paine; Nazi War Criminals like Alfreds Berzins; William F. Buckley, Jr. and associates, including E. Howard Hunt; expert Clay Shaw-defense witness J. Appel, Jr.; and Dodd's own son, Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut.
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One would imagine a man who served in so many governmental positions for so long would have a lot of connections and Dodd was NO JFK fan either as he was heard to say it would take a long time to fix the mess JFK made in just three years. Whether Dodd was directly involved in the ordering of the M-C or not is really not the issue as we have seen intelligence groups and others had access to the material they needed to do this for his committee.
The bottom line is again that the WC did NOT bother to investigate any of this to see if it had merit or not, but instead stuck to their monotone claims of LHO acting alone and shooting from behind on November 22, 1963. If they were searching for the truth and were a true “fact-finding committee” as they claimed, why did they ignore this and countless other examples like this in their “search for the truth?”
The fact they relied heavily on two groups they themselves said were suspect (the FBI and CIA) for their information only makes their conclusion doubtful. When we add in IGNORED leads like this one that they did NOT bother to check out it shows their conclusion is TOTALLY WRONG and sunk.
s.hdnux.com/photos/03/73/31/1029712/7/920x920.jpg
The Warren Commission (WC) said Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) shot and killed President John F. Kennedy (JFK) on November 22, 1963, all by himself with a 40” Mannlicher-Carcano (M-C) that he allegedly ordered from Klein’s Sporting Goods (KSG) in Chicago, IL.
They also claimed that he shot and killed Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit (JDT) all by himself with a .38 Smith & Wesson Special revolver that he allegedly ordered from Seaport Traders in Los Angeles, CA.
Both of these claims have caused researchers to ask several questions for years. Firstly, why did LHO not simply purchase his weapons (if he did at all) from local gun stores in Dallas or Irving, Texas? This would have possibly left no paper trail back to him (although one was really never tied to him anyway as the weapons were allegedly ordered by a “Alek Hidell” and this alias was never shown to have been used by LHO) like a mail-order system would. Secondly, why did he use a fake name, “Alek Hidell”, when his P.O. Box was in the name of his own—LHO? This defeats the whole purpose of using an alias, doesn’t it? Furthermore, as we have seen numerous times in this series there is NO evidence showing LHO ever used the alias “A. Hidell”, meanwhile, there is evidence showing someone else did (LHO’s statement—Richard Case Nagell’s admission).
Finally, why did both of these mail-order houses show up in Senator Thomas Dodd’s investigation into gun purchases in this manner? Was this just another in a seemingly endless list of claimed coincidences in this case? This post will look into this aspect of the case.
************************************************
All of the background in this post comes from And We Are Still All Mortal--Thomas Dodd and Lee Harvey Oswald by George Michael Evica (from "Agent LHO," a chapter in a work in progress, The Iron Sights). He was the leader in this area of the case and is still recognized as the one that brought this topic to the forefront of our research.
It should be noted at the outset that Senator Thomas Dodd was an ex-FBI agent as this is important in the terms of context. He was hired by J. Edgar Hoover (JEH) in 1933 and assigned to the St. Paul, Minnesota region of the country. (Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson, The Case Against Congress (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968) 34-35.)
Despite him remaining a FBI agent for only a year (he resigned) he would be immensely loyal to JEH the rest of his life and political career. This is important in the context of the JFK assassination since JEH had such a strong hand in deciding what really happened that day.
While Dodd worked in the Justice Department (JD) later on he would also become mired in the word of intelligence in the area of counterespionage during the time leading up to World War II (WW II). Sadly for us not much is known about this time and what he actually did do, but he would go on to be a part of the Nuremberg team after the war that prosecuted Nazi war criminals. He would be considered the most important person on the American team and would rise to international fame for his role in the trial. (Ibid., pp. 35-36.)
Dodd would be elected to the U.S. Senate in 1958 and join the congress in January 1959 representing the state of Connecticut. He was known as a strong anti-Communist during his years in the senate. Dodd would become the chair for the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SICC) which brought him into contact with parts of the intelligence apparatus. Dodd also chaired the Senate Juvenile Delinquency Subcommittee (SJDS) and this is the area of interest to us in regards to the JFK assassination.
In July of 1963 Dodd’s SICC was investigating the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) and called it, “…the chief public relations instrument of the Castro network in the United States." (Ibid., p. 54.) Needless to say, LHO was a member of the FPCC so this would have brought him into this world in some fashion. Was he working for the people trying to uncover more about this “public relations instrument” for Castro’s Cuba?
There were news reports while LHO was still alive in regards to the FPCC that said the following: "...the [FPCC were a] subject of a series of investigations by Congressional committees [including those of Senator Thomas Dodd] and the Justice Department over the last three years [1961-1963]." (Dodd, in I.F. Stone, The Haunted Fifties (New York: Random House, 1963) 348. See also Scott 8, and I.F. Stone's Weekly, February 8th, 1960, June 27th, 1960, and April 24th, 1961.) Did Dodd and others ever come across the name Oswald during these investigations? We will never know for sure as this has not been shown to us via evidence, but one has to assume since LHO was a “chapter president” his name had to be seen at one time or another during these long investigations.
LHO was involved in three areas that Dodd committee investigated over the course of these years.
1. the Fair Play for Cuba Committee;
2. the (anti- Communist) Socialist Workers' Party, and
3. the (anti-Socialist Workers) Communist Party.
Is this just another coincidence? Here is what Mr. Evica wrote about this issue.
Quote on
Oswald could not have set up a more consistent pattern had he been working (whether directly or indirectly) for Dodd's Senate Internal Security subcommittee. (FPCC subject of inquiries, in Hartford Times, November 23rd, 1963. See also 26 H (CE 3081-3085) 689-693.) Why was Lee Harvey Oswald, dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Marines as a known defector to the Soviet Union, reading rifle magazines at Alba's Garage in New Orleans? And why was he collecting coupons for mail-order weapons? (See Martha Moyer, "The Rifle," The Assassination Chronicles, Volume II, Issue 1, March 1996; cited hereafter as Moyer.)
The Dodd connection was the answer.
Senator Thomas Dodd commanded the Senate's Juvenile Delinquency subcommittee and its interest in "gun control," specifically mail-order weapons control. Beginning in January, 1963, Dodd held committee hearings on the unrestricted delivery of weapons through the U.S. mails. One of the companies Dodd was interested in was Klein's of Chicago, and one of the weapons about whose unregulated traffic the Senate in 1963 was agitated was the Italian Mannlicher Carcano. "Hidell," of course, allegedly ordered a Mannlicher Carcano from Klein's of Chicago, reportedly found in the Texas School Book Depository on November 22nd, 1963, becoming a major part of the FBI/Warren Commission lone-assassin theory in the JFK killing. (See, for example, Washington Post January 27th, 1963; see also Washington Post, November 26th, 1963, in 24 H (CE 2180) 852. See also Congressional Record-Senate, August 2nd, 1963, p.13945, and November 27th, 1963, pp. 22868-22869. For Congressional interest in the Mannlicher Carcano, see Henry S. Bloomgarden, The Gun (New York: Bantam, 1976 [reprint of 1975 edition]) 66-67.)
Seaport Traders of California was still another mail-order weapons' distributor the Dodd Committee was examining, the very company from which "Hidell" ordered the revolver reported to have been used in the Tippet [sic] murder on November 22nd, 1963.( Seaport Traders, in R 174.)
A "Communist," pro-Castro, Fair Play for Cuba Committee member with ties to both the Communist and Social Workers parties had been able to order at least two lethal weapons (both of great concern to the U.S. Congress) apparently under a fake name ("Hidell") through the United States mail. Was someone associated with the Dodd Committee trying to connect a mortal threat to the president with the committee's anti-weapons work? (And We Are Still All Mortal--Thomas Dodd and Lee Harvey Oswald by George Michael Evica)
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Is it just a coincidence that LHO was involved in three groups this committee was investigating (FPCC, SWP and Communist Party)? Or that he allegedly ordered weapons from two of the mail-order houses the committee was investigating? By the way, a lot of this investigating stemmed from the request of Colt and other small firearms producers in Connecticut who complained of unregulated foreign imports taking away some of their business and NOT just the concern for safety as is mentioned many times.
Mr. Evica would say the following regarding the timing of the purchase of the M-C.
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Whether that rifle was ordered before November 22nd, 1963,...a left-wing former Marine defector buying mail-order weapons to support concretely Senator Dodd's gun control position or ordered immediately after the JFK assassination to make the same point (but even more chillingly), the same post-assassination effect was apparently achieved. (Evica, George M.; Marsh, Anthony, and Moyers, Martha. The Assassination Chronicles, "A Rifle Symposium," v.2, n. 1, March, 1996, p. 22.)
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This is the root of it all in regards to this issue. I personally believe the “order” was done following the assassination and that is why there was NO tie to “A. Hidell” until the afternoon of Saturday, November 23, 1963. I would think if the rifle had been ordered before the assassination as claimed the FBI would have “found” this order much quicker than this.
The key to all of this was Dodd’s close ties to the FBI and the intelligence community at large due to his membership on the Judiciary Committee which came with a passkey to the JD’s materials and agents. As I said earlier Dodd was a staunch defender of JEH’s too, and it was said, "...the FBI...made itself so much at home in Dodd's [Senate] office that staff members joked about assigning the Bureau a desk." (Anderson & Pearson, p.94)
Of course the intelligence community also had access to Dodd’s staff and materials as well and this would include the mail-order investigation. Mr. Evica shows us how as early as Monday, November 25, 1963, Dodd was reaffirming the claim the FBI and the WC would make later on in the WC Report.
Quote on
On Monday, November 25, 1963, Senator Dodd made an interesting error, if, indeed, it was an error. The Connecticut senator stated that Oswald acquired the alleged assassination rifle for $12.78. (24H (CE 2180) 852) But $12.78 was the price of a 40-inch Carcano, minus the scope, in November, 1963. "Hidell" (Oswald using an alias, according to the Warren Commission) purchased a Carcano (40.2 inches, again, according to the Commission) for $19.95, with scope, months earlier. But, of course, the rifle that was actually ordered, at least according to the mail-order coupon allegedly used, was a 36-inch "carbine" with scope. (And We Are Still All Mortal--Thomas Dodd and Lee Harvey Oswald by George Michael Evica)
Commission Exhibit (CE) 2180: www.historymatters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh24/pages/WH_Vol24_0435b.jpg
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If we look at CE 773, we do see an order for a 36” Carbine being placed by someone who has been said to be LHO.
CE 773: historymatters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/pages/WH_Vol17_0331a.jpg
So why were the authorities claiming LHO would have ordered a 40” M-C then? Was it due to error by someone on Dodd’s committee in placing the wrong catalog number on the order form? The catalog number seen on CE 773 (and department number) clearly point to a 36” Carbine and NOT a 40” short rifle as claimed. Carbines were also the ONLY rifles KSG mounted scopes on at that time too, so if you believe the official version then please explain where LHO had the scope added to the rifle since the WC NEVER told us this. Ditto the clip and ammunition.
Or, was all of this created by the intelligence groups that would have had access to all of this information? To me, the fact the rifle order information is so incorrect at every phase tells me this was done in a hurry and NOT planned out well ahead of time. What do you think?
What is interesting is that the scope was traced to a California gun shop by the man who would play a pivotal role in the murder of another Kennedy—Robert. It should be noted that Lieutenant Pena left the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) to work for the Agency of International Development (AID), which is a known CIA front group, only to come back in time to derail (IMO) the RFK investigation. Just another coincidence?
Lieutenant Manuel Pena would tell the Secret Service (SS) this in an interview.
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www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh22/pages/WH_Vol22_0279b.gif
November 23, 1963, SA Horn interviewed Lt. Manuel Pena, Robbery Division, Los Angeles Police Department, Serial No. 3226, and his partner, Sgt. Jess Gonzales, Serial No. 3834. Through their INFORMANT it was determined that a Martin R. Retting, owner of the Retting Gun Shop, 11029 Washington Blvd., Culver City, dealt in telescopic gun sights and that he would be the logical person to whom to speak. It was known that Retting obtained his sights from a Japanese company and that these scopes were used in great amounts on HUNTING guns.
That date, Lt. Pena, Sgt. Gonzales and SA Horn went to Retting’s Gun Shop…and interviewed Mr. Retting. He stated that he is the sole importer of the gun sights that bear the inscriptions of “4x18 Coated, Ordnance Optics Inc., Hollywood, California, 010 Japan with a cloverleaf with the initials enclosed of OSC.” He advised that he had telephoned the FBI, Los Angeles, on November 22 and advised them of this fact after he had seen a picture of the assassination weapon on television. Mr. Retting stated that he has been selling these sights for the last three or four years, MAINLY to Kleins’s Sporting Goods, a mail order house at 4540 West Madison, Chicago 24, Illinois.
Retting said that the weapon used was a MODIFIED MODEL of an Italian Carbine…Records of Mr. Retting were checked for the years 1962-63 but NO records of Lee H. Oswald or Willie Randall were found. (CE 1331, p. 528) (Emphasis added)
www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh22/html/WH_Vol22_0279b.htm
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Quite a few things jump out at us when we read this interview. First of all, notice how he said scopes were used in “great amounts on hunting guns” when the M-C was NOT a hunting rifle. When we add in the fact that KSG up to that point did NOT add scopes to 40” models (something they did NOT have in stock in February/March 1963 anyway) this is all a moot point.
Secondly, why were they checking for scopes sold to a "Willie Randall" anyway? Wasn't he the husband of Linne Mae Randall who was the sister of Wes Frazier?
Finally, notice how he said he sold the majority of his scopes to KSG, but as I just said KSG did not mount scopes on the 40" model according to employees of that company at the time when LHO would have ordered his rifle as claimed.
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The Klein's employee who originated the idea of mounting a scope on the rifle was Mitchell Westra. He told the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) that Klein's only mounted the scope on the 36 inch MC. (HSCA interview of Westra 2/20/78.) The man who actually mounted the scopes for Klein's was Bill Sharp, their in-house gunsmith. He confirmed what Westra testified to: the package deal with the scope and MC rifle was used by Klein's to market the 36 inch MC. (HSCA interview of Sharp, 2/21/78.) Again, if this is so, where did the Warren Commission's rifle -- a 40 inch MC with scope -- come from?
www.ctka.net/2008/von_pein.html
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So if KSG had NO 40” M-Cs in stock during the time the WC said LHO allegedly ordered his rifle and KSG did NOT mount scopes on 40” models anyway, what was the worth of all of this? Not much from what I can tell.
Finally, notice the reference to a “modified model” of a Carbine by Mr. Retting supposedly. This is incorrect and as an owner of gun shop you would think he would know this. The model LHO allegedly owned, per the WC, was a 40” model and would have been a MODIFIED VERSION OF THE LONG RIFLE and NOT the Carbine. Thus, it was called a SHORT RIFLE while the Carbine was 36” long. Again, we see the SS and others using confusing and incorrect language to try and show LHO would have ordered the alleged murder weapon when this is not true based on the evidence given to us.
I found this linkage of Dodd to many people years ago (sorry, I don’t have the link anymore) and suffice it to say if even half this list is correct he had a lot of connections to people who did NOT like JFK.
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Dodd's long tenure in the U.S.Government brought him into direct contact with, or within one degree of separation from, a statistically significant number of suspected conspirators and suspicious groups linked to the JFK assassination: the FPCC's Richard Gibson; Guy Banister, who, like Dodd, had been a member of the FBI's elite team pursuing John Dillinger; Ed Butler and his Information Council of the Americas; certain organized crime figures and labor racketeers; the United Fruit Company; the State Department's Office of Security; the Castillo Armas junta of Guatemala; Allen Dulles and associates, including Nazi assassination plotter Hans Bernd Gisevius and Ruth Forbes Paine's close friend Mary Bancroft; Richard Helms; the Rockefeller family and associates; the Lyndon Baines Johnson family and associates; Dutch journalist Willem Oltmans and associates, eventually including George DeMohrenschildt; the Citizens' Committee for a Free Cuba, including Clare Boothe Luce and other secret warriors against Cuba; Cord Meyer and his United World Federalists, including again, Ruth Forbes Paine; Nazi War Criminals like Alfreds Berzins; William F. Buckley, Jr. and associates, including E. Howard Hunt; expert Clay Shaw-defense witness J. Appel, Jr.; and Dodd's own son, Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut.
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One would imagine a man who served in so many governmental positions for so long would have a lot of connections and Dodd was NO JFK fan either as he was heard to say it would take a long time to fix the mess JFK made in just three years. Whether Dodd was directly involved in the ordering of the M-C or not is really not the issue as we have seen intelligence groups and others had access to the material they needed to do this for his committee.
The bottom line is again that the WC did NOT bother to investigate any of this to see if it had merit or not, but instead stuck to their monotone claims of LHO acting alone and shooting from behind on November 22, 1963. If they were searching for the truth and were a true “fact-finding committee” as they claimed, why did they ignore this and countless other examples like this in their “search for the truth?”
The fact they relied heavily on two groups they themselves said were suspect (the FBI and CIA) for their information only makes their conclusion doubtful. When we add in IGNORED leads like this one that they did NOT bother to check out it shows their conclusion is TOTALLY WRONG and sunk.