D.H. Byrd was a very close friend of Lyndon Johnson and Clint Murchison, Sr. & Curtis LeMay. Malcolm Wallace, who was LBJ's alleged personal hit man worked for D. H. Byrd at Ling Temco Vaught

Excellent Linda Minor article on D.H. Byrd (April 29, 2019)

https://quixoticjoust.blogspot.com/2019/04/d-harold-byrd.html

Internet Wayback Machine: Quixotic Joust: D. Harold Byrd (archive.org)

List of notable Friars at the University of Texas:

· Arno Nowotny, fall 1925

· Cecil Bernard Smith, spring 1927

· Allan Shivers, spring 1931*

· Joe R. Greenhill, spring 1936

· Jake Pickle, spring 1937

· John B. Connally, spring 1938 *

· Dolph Briscoe, Jr., spring 1942*

· Jack B. Brooks, spring 1943

· Malcolm (Mac) Wallace, spring 1944

· Horace Busby, spring 1945

· Theodore Strauss, spring 1945

· Ronnie Dugger, fall 1950

· Lloyd Hand, spring 1951

· Barr McClellan, fall 1960

· Fred Hofheinz, spring 1960

D.H. Byrd could fly his airplane to LBJ’s ranch anytime he wanted to, even if President LBJ told him not to land - Darrell Royal story from his son Mack Royal

Mack Royal is the son of legendary University of Texas football coach Darrell Royal (UT head coach 1957-1976; 2 national championships). Darrell Royal was personal friends with Lyndon Johnson, Clint Murchison, D.H. Byrd and a slew of other upper crust Texas power elite who were in the Lyndon Johnson inner circle.

His son Mack Royal knew the children of the power elite of Texas. In fact he knew them and their families quite well.

Mack Royal also used to work at the LBJ Library and he has a sharp interest in the JFK assassination. Mack Royal also told me he was there when the LBJ Library was taking steps to "slow Robert Caro down." They literally had meetings about this and that late Robert Hardesty was one of the ringleaders in this effort to subvert Caro and other researchers into LBJ: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/us/politics/robert-l-hardesty-speechwriter-for-johnson-dies-at-82.html?_r=0

Coach Royal and his wife were at the LBJ one time when Johnson was president. They remember D.H. Byrd flying his plane to the LBJ Ranch; LBJ telling them not to land because he was busy and had company, and D.H. Byrd over-riding the president of the USA and landing his plane anyhow.

I guess that one little anecdote tells you a lot about the relationship of Lyndon Johnson and D.H. Byrd.

Here are some excerpts from Mack Royal's book, which is a fascinating collection of his emails to friends.

MACK ROYAL:

I knew D. Harold Byrd..flew on his DC3 (orange and white with a snorting "Bevo" on the tail) and heard this story about him during that time.. My parents were at the LBJ ranch with Lyndon when D. Harold Byrd radioed the ranch and said he was landing. Lyndon told him NOT to land and Byrd replied, "I'm landing." which he did.

Royal, Mack (2010-06-08). Fourteen Years on Fnord-L (Kindle Locations 8906-8911). Bozo Texino Press. Kindle Edition.

This link tells about D. Harold Byrd owning the Texas School Book Depository Building. I knew old D. Harold Byrd. I ate supper at his house and flew on his plane. Later I met partners of Murchison. One of them became my "uncle" Bedford. Later I met the Murchisons. Coke-Anne Murchison is totally gorgeous, by the way. These folks were thick with LBJ. These folks are my folks. I met LBJ too, and drove his car, swam in his pool, visited the White House and got a tour of the FBI. I have a nodding acquaintance with Admiral Inman. So do you suppose I picked up a thing or two along the way? Duh.

Royal, Mack (2010-06-08). Fourteen Years on Fnord-L (Kindle Locations 9120-9130). Bozo Texino Press. Kindle Edition.

More about D. Harold Byrd. His cousins were Senator Harry Flood Byrd and Admiral Byrd of Antarctica fame. He started a company called Tempco which later became part of Ling Temco Vaught, which got a juicy contract out of the Viet Nam war. (TFX fighter plane) He was a conservative Dallas oil man who helped start the Civil Air Patrol. He took the "sniper's window" out of his building (Texas School Book Depository) after the assassination and hung it in his house! One of the panes had been replaced. By the way, Mac Wallace's prints were all over that room called the sniper's nest on the sixth floor. Billy Sol Estes said some stuff about Mac Wallace if you wanna look it up.

Royal, Mack (2010-06-08). Fourteen Years on Fnord-L (Kindle Locations 9153-9165). Bozo Texino Press. Kindle Edition.

D.H. Byrd, James Ling - heavy insider buying into LTV just before the JFK assassination

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2010/11/peter-dale-scott-dallas-copa-2010.html

Go to footnote #49

49. In early November 1963, Byrd and his investment partner, James Ling, made a significant insider purchase of stock in their defense industry investment, LTV. Although required by SEC rules to report this insider purchase, they delayed doing so until well after Kennedy’s assassination. Then in January LTV received the first major LBJ defense contract from the Pentagon – for a fighter plane designed for Vietnam. Cf. Joan Mellen, “The Kennedy Assassination and the Current Political Moment,” Part II, http://www.joanmellen.net/truth-2.html.

DH Byrd was so close to LBJ they might as well have been Siamese twins. And he is Col. DH Byrd Air Force friends with Gen Curtis Lemay who called the Kennedys' "cockroaches" in his LBJ oral history. Air Force Gen. Edward Lansdale running the show at Dealey Plaza - joint CIA/military intelligence operation.

The heavy insider buying was based on DEAD KENNEDY coming up soon with LBJ INSIDE WHITE HOUSE.

And who did LBJ tell Madeleine who did it? The fat cats in Dallas and renegade intelligence bastards.

Anyone who tells you the JFK assassination is not solved stick this in their face.

LBJ-DALLAS OIL/MILITARY CONTRACTORS/CIA/MILITARY INTELLIGENCE murdered JFK.

I should note that DH Byrd employed LBJ's alleged personal hit man Malcolm Wallace and the DH Byrd owned the Texas School Book Depository. And that DH Byrd could land his plane on LBJ's ranch anytime he wanted to.

Why was D.H. Byrd making huge insider buys into LTV stock before the JFK assassination at a time Newsweek and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara were telling everyone that huge defense cuts were coming?

Fletcher Prouty vs Edward Epstein (kennedysandking.com)

Jim DiEugenio:

QUOTE

Fletcher Prouty also wrote about the transformation that took place after Kennedy’s death. For instance, concerning the war in Indochina and how that fed the war machine. And conversely how that would not have happened if JFK had lived. Reader James Finn has clipped two valuable stories from the MSM that illustrate the point Fletcher was making, namely that Kennedy’s withdrawal plan was already impacting the war economy. And the second story shows how his death turned that deceleration around in a hurry. Predictably, it appears that Epstein was wrong about that and Colonel Prouty was correct. One more posthumous feather in Fletcher’s cap. And thanks to Mr. Finn.

UNQUOTE

Jim Garrison fingers “Military-Industrial Complex” and it’s “Aerospace Wing” that were behind the JFK assassination.

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/jimloon1.htm

Jim Garrison to Ramparts’ Warren Hinckle on November 5, 1968,

The caller was in no mood to inquire about the weather. "This is urgent," Jim Garrison said. "Can you take this in your mailroom? They'd never think to tap the mailroom extension."

. . . Garrison began talking when I picked up the mailroom extension: "This is risky, but I have little choice. It is imperative that I get this information to you now. Important new evidence has surfaced. Those Texas oilmen do not appear to be involved in President Kennedy's murder in the way we first thought. It was the Military-Industrial Complex that put up the money for the assassination -- but as far as we can tell, the conspiracy was limited to the aerospace wing. I've got the names of three companies and their employees who were involved in setting up the President's murder. Do you have a pencil?"

I wrote down the names of the three defense contractors -- Garrison identified them as Lockheed, Boeing, and General Dynamics -- and the names of those executives in their employ whom the District Attorney said had been instrumental in the murder of Jack Kennedy. I also logged a good deal of information about a mysterious minister who was supposed to have crossed the border into Mexico with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the assassination; the man wasn't a minister at all, Garrison said, but an executive with a major defense supplier, in clerical disguise. I knew little about ministers crossing the Rio Grande with Oswald -- but after several years of fielding the dizzying details of the Kennedy assassination, I had learned to leave closed Pandora's boxes lie; I didn't ask.

I said that I had everything down, and Garrison said a hurried goodbye: "It's poor security procedure to use the phone, but the situation warrants the risk. Get this information to Bill Turner. He'll know what to do about the minister. I wanted you to have this, in case something happens . . . ." (Hinckle, If You Have a Lemon, Make Lemonade, 198-9)

John Simkin on the MICC (Military Industrial Congressional Complex) and the JFK assassination

Some politicians believed that the end of the war would result in a decline in government spending on armaments. The same feeling existed at the end of the Korean War. This was openly admitted by the president of Standard Oil of California, who declared in 1953: "Two kinds of peace can be envisaged. One would enable the United States to continue its rearmament and to maintain important military forces in the Far East; it would have very little effect on industry, since the maintenance of a peace-time army requires almost as much oil as in time of war. But if there should be a great improvement in the relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, and in particular a disarmament agreement, the blow to the oil industry and the rest of the economy would be terrific."
It was therefore important to the Military Industrial Congressional Complex (MICC) that the fear of communism remained intense. This strategy was highly successful and the 1950s saw a dramatic increase in defence spending. “In 1950 the military budget was $13 billion; by 1961, this had risen to $47 billion.” (11) The MICC was more important than ever.

The easiest people to identify as members of the MICC are those businessmen who ran and owned the large corporations that owed their wealth to lucrative government contracts. A study of these contracts issued between 1940 and 1960 enables the identification of such people as John McCone, Henry J. Kaiser, Herman Brown, George R. Brown, Frank Pace, Steve Bechtel, Lawrence Bell and Howard Hughes.

The 1960 military budget included $21 billion for the purchase of goods. Over 75% of these contracts went to a small group of large corporations. Eighty-six percent of these defense contracts were not awarded on bids.

These large corporations relied heavily on a small group of lobbyists (sometimes called contact-men). These men provided the link between these businessmen and the politicians with the power to grant and approve government contracts. Important lobbyists working in this field included Tommy Corcoran, Irving Davidson, Alan Wirtz, William Pawley, Clark Clifford, Bobby Baker and Fred Black.

In his speech, Dwight Eisenhower talked about this “conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry”. (12) He clearly has in mind those leading military figures who were campaigning for higher levels of defence spending.” However, as William Proxmire pointed out in a speech in 1969, retired military officers played an important role in the MICC. (13) He discovered that 2,072 retired military officers were employed by the 100 contractors who replied to his survey. This was an average of almost 22 per company. However, when he considered the ten most successful contracting companies, this increased to an average of 106. This included Lockheed Aircraft Corporation (210), Boeing Corporation (169), McDonnell Douglas Corporation (141), General Dynamics (113), North American Rockwell Corporation (104), General Electrics Company (89), Ling Temco Vought Incorporated (69), Westinghouse Electric Corporation (59), TRW Incorporated (56) and Hughes Aircraft Company (55).

William Proxmire also attempted to identify the politicians who were members of the MICC. In his book, “Report from Wasteland: America’s Military-Industrial Complex”, Proxmire, identified the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Richard Brevard Russell from Georgia, as a key figure in the MICC. He had previously been chairman of Senate Armed Services Committee. According to Proxmire it was while Russell held this position “that the huge C-5A contract went to Lockheed’s Marietta, Georgia, plant.” The Air Force Contract Selection Board originally selected Boeing that was located in the states of Washington and Kansas. However, Proxmire claimed that Russell was able to persuade the board to change its mind and give the C-5A contract to Lockhead.

Proxmire quotes Howard Atherton, the mayor of Marietta, as saying that “Russell was key to landing the contract”. Atherton added that Russell believed that Robert McNamara was going ahead with the C-5A in order to “give the plane to Boeing because Boeing got left out on the TFX fighter.” According to Atherton, Russell got the contract after talking to Lyndon Johnson. Atherton added, “without Russell, we wouldn’t have gotten the contract”. (14)

Lyndon Johnson was indeed the most important member of the MICC in Congress during Dwight Eisenhower’s presidency. As Majority Party leader, Johnson decided the membership of the various Congressional committees. Johnson was therefore the key figure in the MICC. As Atherton pointed out, Boeing was expected to get the TFX contract. Instead it went to General Dynamics, a company based in Texas, Johnson’s home state.

A study of the TFX contract reveals the way that the MICC worked. In the 1950s General Dynamics was America’s leading military contractors. For example, in 1958 it obtained $2,239,000,000 worth of government business. This was a higher figure than those obtained by its competitors, such as Lockheed, Boeing, McDonnell and North American. (15) More than 80 percent of the firm’s business came from the government. (16) However, the company lost $27 million in 1960 and $143 million in 1961. According to an article by Richard Austin Smith in Fortune Magazine, General Dynamics was close to bankruptcy. Smith claimed that “unless it gets the contract for the joint Navy-Air Force fighter (TFX)… the company was down the road to receivership”. (17)

General Dynamics was in a good position to get the TFX (F-111) contract. The president of the company was Frank Pace, the Secretary of the Army (April, 1950-January, 1953). The Deputy Secretary of Defense in 1962 was Roswell Gilpatric, who before he took up the post, was chief counsel for General Dynamics. The Secretary of the Navy in 1962 was Fred Korth. He had been appointed by John F. Kennedy after strong lobbying by his vice president, Lyndon Johnson. Korth from Fort Worth, Texas, was the former president of the Continental Bank, which had loaned General Dynamics considerable sums of money during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Korth told the McClellan committee that investigated the granting of the TFX contract to General Dynamics “that because of his peculiar position he had deliberately refrained from taking a directing hand in this decision (within the Navy) until the last possible moment.” (18).

As I. F. Stone pointed out, it was “the last possible moment” which counted. “Three times the Pentagon’s Source Selection Board found that Boeing’s bid was better and cheaper than that of General Dynamics and three times the bids were sent back for fresh submissions by the two bidders and fresh reviews. On the fourth round, the military still held that Boeing was better but found at last that the General Dynamics bid was also acceptable.” (19)

Stone goes on to argue: “The only document the McClellan committee investigators were able to find in the Pentagon in favour of that award, according to their testimony, was a five-page memorandum signed by McNamara, Korth, and Eugene Zuckert, then Secretary of the Air Force.”

Later, McNamara justified his support for General Dynamics because “Boeing had from the very beginning consistently chosen more technically risky tradeoffs in an effort to achieve operational features which exceeded the required performance characteristics.” (20)

During the McClellan committee hearings, Senator Sam Ervin asked Robert McNamara “whether or not there was any connection whatever between your selection of General Dynamics, and the fact that the Vice President of the United States happens to be a resident of the state in which that company has one of its principal, if not its principal office.”

Several journalists speculated that Johnson played a key role in obtaining the TFX contract for General Dynamics. (21) This was confirmed when Don B. Reynolds testified in a secret session of the Senate Rules Committee. As Victor Lasky pointed out, Reynolds “spoke of the time Bobby Baker opened a satchel full of paper money which he said was a $100,000 payoff for Johnson for pushing through a $7billion TFX plane contract.” (22)

Burkett Van Kirk, chief counsel for the Republican minority on the Senate Rules Committee later told Seymour Hersh that Senator John Williams of Delaware was being fed information by Robert Kennedy about the involvement of Lyndon Johnson and Bobby Baker in a series of scandals. Williams, the Senate’s leading investigator of corruption, passed this information to the three Republicans (John Sherman Cooper, Hugh Scott and Carl Curtis) on the ten-member Rules Committee. However, outnumbered, they were unable to carry out a full investigation into Johnson and Baker. Van Kirk claimed that Kennedy supplied this information because he wanted “to get rid of Johnson.” (23)

In his autobiography, Forty Years Against the Tide, Carl Curtis gives an insider view of the attempted investigation into the activities of Bobby Baker, Walter Jenkins and Fred Black. According to Curtis, Lyndon Johnson managed to persuade the seven Democrats to vote against hearing the testimony of important witnesses. This included Margaret Broome, who served as Bobby Baker’s secretary before the position was taken by Carole Tyler, who later became his mistress. Tyler did testify but refused to answer questions on the ground that she might incriminate herself. Tyler was later to die in an airplane crash on the beach near the Carousel Motel, owned by Bobby Baker.

In his autobiography, Curtis described Baker, Jenkins and Black as “contact men”. He added: “Contact-men existed primarily to obtain for their clients and themselves some share of the vast pool of riches in the possession of swollen centralized political bureaucracies. The more impressive a contact-man’s political connections, the better he and his clients would fare.” (24)

Johnson now launched a smear campaign against John Williams. He arranged for the IRS to carry out an investigation into his tax returns. According to Victor Lasky: “This meant the senator had to leave Washington and submit to a line-by-line audit by an IRS agent. It also meant that Williams had to curtail his personal investigation into Baker’s tangled affairs.” (25)

An official working for Johnson told Williams that his mail was being intercepted and read before it was delivered. Williams went to the press with this story but despite an editorial in the Washington Star that stated: “The Senate should be totally outraged. Obviously someone high in the Executive Branch issued the instructions for this monitoring.” The press ignored the story and the full story was not published for several years. (26)

Johnson also ordered his aides, Walter Jenkins (27) and Bill Moyers (28) to obtain information that they could use to blackmail Reynolds into silence. When this failed, this information was then leaked to Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson. As a result, The Washington Post reported that Reynolds had in the past “brought reckless charges in the past against people who crossed him, accusing them of being communists and sex deviates”. (29)

The treatment of Reynolds in the press had an impact on other potential witnesses. One important businessman, who previously had promised Williams he would provide evidence, told him: “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Senator. I never talked to you before in my life. I’m sorry, but I’m sure you understand.” (30)

The investigation into the role Johnson and Baker played in obtaining the TFX contract therefore came to an end. The original contract was for 1,700 planes at a total cost of $5.8 billion, or about $3 million per plane. By the time they were delivered they cost over $9.5 million per plane. General Dynamics had been saved from bankruptcy by the TFX contract. Frank Pace had every reason to thank the Military Industrial Congressional Complex. (31)

Notes

11. Jim Marrs, Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy, 1989 (page 302)

12. Dwight Eisenhower, Farewell Address to the Nation (17th January, 1961)

13. William Proxmire, speech in the Senate, 24th March, 1969

14. William Proxmire, Report from Wasteland: America’s Military-Industrial Complex, 1970 (pages 100- 102)

15. William Proxmire, speech in the Senate, 24th March, 1969

16. I. F. Stone, The New York Review of Books, 1st January, 1969

17. Richard Austin Smith, Fortune Magazine, February, 1962

18. Robert J. Art, The TFX Decision, 1968 (page 5)

19. I. F. Stone, The New York Review of Books, 1st January, 1969

20. Quoted by Frederic M. Scherer, The Weapons Acquisition Process: Economic Incentives, 1964 (page 37)

21. See “Missiles and Rockets” (11th February, 1963) and Aviation Week & Space Technology (25th February, 1963)

22. Victor Lasky, It Didn’t Start With Watergate, 1977 (page 144)

23. Seymour Hersh, The Dark Side of Camelot, 1997 (page 407)

24. Carl T. Curtis, Forty Years Against the Tide, 1986 (page 248)

25. Victor Lasky, It Didn’t Start With Watergate, 1977 (page 146)

26. John Barron, The Case of Bobby Baker and the Courageous Senator, Reader’s Digest (September, 1965)

27. Walter Jenkins, telephone call to Lyndon B. Johnson (7.30 p.m. 27th January, 1964)

28. Bill Moyers, telephone call to Lyndon B. Johnson (6.28 p.m. 3rd February, 1964)

29. The Washington Post (5th February, 1964)

30. Victor Lasky, It Didn’t Start With Watergate, 1977 (page 149)

Bob Collins email to Robert Morrow 4/17/14 re:DH Byrd, Curtis LeMay, George DeMohrenshildt

You should remember that DH Byrd was the money behind the founding of Collins Radio. He was very tight with Art Collins the owner of Collins. DH Byrd was tight with Curtis LeMay. DH Byrd founded the Civil Air Patrol and funded many chapters. DH Byrd owned the TSBD. DH Byrd was a member ot the Dallas Petroleum Club. Byrd was friends with George DeMorenschildt. Did you know that DeMorenschildt was at UT in 1945 with Mac Wallace, that they were quite likely friends? Collins Radio was one of the developers of early radio systems for the CIA. Many of their electrical engineers had security clearances and worked closely with the SIGINT section of the "Outfit". Oswald worked SIGINT for the Marines at Atsugi AFB.

Oswald met the Paines at a party at Bruton's house, he was invited by DeMorenschildt….

Such an interesting web….

Henry C. Bruton (Admiral)

Henry Chester Bruton (15 February 1905 - 15 August 1992^[1]) was a Rear Admiral in the United States Navy, becoming Director of Naval Communications in the 1950s. For actions during World War II he was awarded the Navy Cross three times and the Legion of Merit twice. He received the Legion of Merit twice more for contributions to the US Cold War effort in the 1950s, retiring in 1960.

Contents

· 1 Background and education

· 2 Career

· 3 Awards

· 4 References

Background and education

Bruton was born in Belleville, Arkansas in 1905.^[2] He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1926,^[3] and in the 1930s studied electrical engineering at the Naval Postgraduate School and the University of California, Berkeley, receiving a master's degree from the latter.^[2] He later also graduated in law from the George Washington University Law School, becoming a member of the Order of the Coif.^[2]

Career

Bruton's first assignments were aboard the USS California (BB-44) and USS Mississippi (BB-41).

During World War II, he first commanded the USS Greenling (SS-213). While in this command, Bruton was three times awarded the Navy Cross for his command of the Greenling in four wartime patrols, in which it sank 75,000 tons of shipping, including a destroyer attacking it.^[2] The Greenling was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation, and Bruton was named a submarine division commander in 1943.^[2]

Later, Bruton was named Chief of Staff of the Submarine Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet and Director of the Legislative Division of the Judge Advocate General's Corps.

During the Korean War, Bruton held command of the USS Wisconsin (BB-64); in early 1952, the vessel carried out shore bombardments.^[2] After the Korean War he became Director of Naval Communications, and from 1958 until his retirement in 1960 he was communications-electronics director of the Joint Staff of the Commander-in-Chief of the European Command.^[2] After his retirement he worked for Collins Radio in Dallas, TX until 1964, before becoming secretary-treasurer of the Armed Forces Relief and Benefit Association, and from 1966 a consultant to the Military Benefit Association.^[2]

D.H. Byrd - essay - total LBJ insider and in my point of view, completely involved in the JFK assassination

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.assassination.jfk.uncensored/T3t7SdZ9cys

Byrds, Planes, and an Automobile

One of the men with whom the truth may lie, concerning the JFK
assassination's links to the University of Texas, was one of UT's most
ardent supporters who happened to own the building that has become
synonymous with the assassination. His ties to UT are well known. His
numerous ties to the assassination are lesser known. One of his least
known ties, it appears, is to the UT Rambler.

Somewhat like the plot to assassinate Trotsky and most unlike the
failed assassination conspiracy against Hitler in which Allen Dulles
and Mary Bancroft participated, the plot to assassinate President
Kennedy seems to have been sophisticated, intricate, and meticulously
planned. It can be presumed therefore that, as researcher William
Weston has written, "One of the most critical elements of this plot
was the Texas School Book Depository." In addition to both the
circumstances of Oswald's employment at the TSBD, and the routing of
the motorcade by the building, Weston points out that there would have
been a need for a team of plotters to make detailed plans inside the
building well in advance of November 22, including firing angles,
planting of false evidence, and getaway plans. This could have been
done, Weston says, by six TSBD employees assigned to lay new flooring
on the fifth and sixth floors from late October until November 22.298
It is a plausible argument, which brings up the concern that any long-
term improvement to the property such as a flooring project would have
to have been of interest to, if not directly initiated and contracted
by, the building's owner.

Roy Truly, the "superintendent" who hired Oswald was "a building
manager."299 In a story published the day after the assassination,
Dallas Morning News reporter Kent Biffle referred to Roy Truly as
"Superintendent of the textbook building...."300 The floor crew was
supervised directly by William Shelly, "the assistant manager who was
in charge of the floor laying project."301 These titles imply that
they were building managers more closely associated with the landlord
than with the private textbook brokerage firm which leased the
building.302 The employment of these individuals would seem to be a
relatively easy fact for researchers verify.

Weston writes, "The electrical power for the whole building and even
the telephone stopped working about five minutes prior to the
assassination.303 How two such entirely different systems as the
electricity and the phones could go out simultaneously is beyond
explanation, unless one can assume that the interruption was
deliberate."304 Although this claim is currently in dispute, it cannot
be denied that the conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy would
have involved intimate knowledge of the TSBD building. Truly and
Shelly were possibly employed to some extent by the building's
landlord, David Harold Byrd.

Dallas oilman David Harold Byrd, born April 24, 1900, was the cousin
of Admiral Richard E. Byrd and his brother, Senator Harry F. Byrd,
"the leader of conservative opinion in the United States."305 D.H.
Byrd owned the Texas School Book Depository building from the 1930s to
the 1970s. In May 1964, he had the "Oswald window" removed and kept it
as part of his estate.306 In 1972, after Byrd sold the building to Mr.
Aubrey Mayhew, an arsonist set it on fire. It was saved, however.
Shortly thereafter Mayhew defaulted on his payments to Republic
National Bank of Dallas307 and the property reverted to the Byrd
family.308 In 1975 Byrd sold it again.309

Byrd had a close relationship with both Lyndon Johnson and John
Connally. Evidently not satisfied with being the cousin of a powerful
and respected U.S. senator,310 for D.H. Byrd, "Another goal was to
reach a rapport with the politicians who ran things, especially at the
seat of state government in Austin....Sam Rayburn, Morrie Sheppard,
John Connally, and Lyndon Johnson on the national scene were to become
men I could go to any time that I wanted action, and so were a
succession of Texas governors. Among the ablest was John
Connally...who says he's in my debt for pleading his cause...
with...Ida Nell (Nellie) Brill, Sweetheart of The University of Texas
in 1940...."311

Byrd probably also knew George de Mohrenschildt, David Atlee Phillips
and George Bush through the Dallas Petroleum Club.312 In 1945, future
club member de Mohrenschildt obtained a masters degree in petroleum
engineering after eighteen months at the University of Texas at Austin.
313 During that year he was investigated by the FBI and ONI.

That same year he worked under Warren W. Smith, president of Pantipec
Oil, owned by the parents of William F. Buckley, Jr. Smith and de
Mohrenschildt soon quit and formed the Cuban-Venezuelan Oil Voting
Trust Company. When Castro took over, this company forfeited oil
leases covering about half of Cuba. Jack Crichton of Army Intelligence
Reserve Service, mentioned earlier, had also worked under Warren Smith
at Pantipec, which sells to Sun Oil.314 By 1957, George de
Mohrenschildt had established himself in oil ventures ranging from
wildcat drilling to aerial surveillance and had begun working for the
CIA.315

It is probable that Byrd knew David Ferrie and he definitely knew the
very top Air Force brass through Civil Air Patrol (CAP). CAP Captain
David Ferrie was CAP cadet Lee Harvey Oswald's trainer.316

Byrd was a co-founder of Civil Air Patrol. Displayed in his office, at
1110 Tower Petroleum Building in Dallas, were many pictures of himself
in uniform with aviation dignitaries and Air Force Generals.317 He was
an aviation buff but could not become a fighter pilot because his
eyesight was bad.318 He co-founded CAP six days before Pearl Harbor.
319 After World War II he spearheaded the establishment of the Cadet
Program in CAP and contributed many scholarships to its cadets.320 In
Dallas on May 24, 1963, the U.S. Air Force presented to Byrd its
Scroll of Appreciation, which reads:

For rendering meritorious service to the United States Air Force from
Dec. 1941 to April, 1960. Motivated by a strong sense of patriotism,
Mr. Byrd played a major part in the successful operation of the Texas
Wing, Civil Air Patrol, throughout World War II. After the war he
assisted in the incorporation of the Civil Air Patrol and its
designation as an Auxiliary of the Air Force. Mr. Byrd helped initiate
the International Air Cadet Exchange and worked closely with the Air
Cadet League of Canada. The many scholarships established or supported
by Mr. Byrd have aided countless cadets in the attainment of
additional training and higher education. His contributions of
material and personal aircraft to the use of Civil Air Patrol
materially aided in the performance of its mission.. The distinctive
accomplishments of Mr. Byrd have earned for him the sincere gratitude
of the United States Air Force.

(Signed) - Curtis E. Le May
Chief of Staff
(Signed) - Eugene M. Zuckert
Secretary of the Air Force321

D.H. Byrd counted among his close friends one of the most famous
aviators, General Jimmy Doolittle.322 Byrd and Doolittle were hunting
buddies. Of Doolittle he wrote, "Having a fondness for being Number
One in all my undertakings, it doesn't come naturally for me to
confess that Doolittle is the one man whom I would gladly serve in any
venture as Number Two."323 On one intriguing trip without Doolittle,
Byrd went hunting in central Africa in November and December 1963. It
was his first such trip of five during his lifetime outside of the
U.S., Mexico, and Canada.324

Byrd prepared well for the trip: Temco, Inc. was an aircraft company
founded by D.H. Byrd and which later merged with his friend James
Ling's electronics company (1960), and aircraft manufacturer Chance
Vought Corporation (1961) to form Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV). Byrd became
a director325 of LTV and bought, along with Ling, 132,000 shares of
LTV in November 1963.326 Byrd then left the country to go on his two-
month safari in central Africa. He returned in January to find his
good friend Lyndon Johnson president of the United States, his
building famous, and a large defense contract awarded to LTV to build
fighter planes -- to be paid for out of the 1965 budget which had not
yet been approved by Congress.327

Mac Wallace, who received a five-year suspended sentence in the
shooting death of John Douglas Kiner in Austin on October 22, 1951,
went to work for Temco, Inc. of Garland, Texas five months after his
trial. He remained in that position until February 1961, four months
before Henry Marshall's mysterious death on June 3, 1961, when he
transferred to the Anaheim, California offices of LTV.328

The transfer required a background check by the Navy. "The most
intriguing part of the Wallace case was how a convicted murderer was
able to get a job with defense contractors. Better yet, how was he
able to get a security clearance? Clinton Peoples [the Texas Ranger
Captain who investigated the Marshall and Kiner murders]329 reported
that when the original security clearance was granted, he asked the
Naval intelligence officer handling the case how such a person could
get the clearance. `Politics,' the man replied. When Peoples asked who
would have that much power, the simple answer was, `the vice
president,' who at the time was Lyndon Johnson. Years later, after the
story broke [of Billie Sol Estes' March 20, 1984 testimony that
implicated Lyndon Johnson, Malcom Wallace, and Clifton Carter in the
death of Henry Marshall], that investigator could not recall the
conversation with Peoples but he did say no one forced him to write a
favorable report. He also added that he wasn't the one that made the
decision to grant the clearance. The whole matter might have been
solved with a peek at that original report but unfortunately, when the
files were checked, that particular report was suspiciously missing.
It has never been seen since."330

Wallace was transferred and given clearance in February 1961. "In
January 1961, the very month Johnson was sworn in as vice president,
and the month Henry Marshall was in Dallas discussing how to combat
Estes-like scams, Billie Sol Estes learned through his contacts that
the USDA was investigating the allotment scheme and that Henry
Marshall might end up testifying. The situation was supposedly
discussed by Estes, Johnson, and Carter in the backyard of LBJ's
Washington home. Johnson was, according to Estes, alarmed that if
Marshall started talking it might result in an investigation that
would implicate the vice president. At first it was decided to have
Marshall transferred to Washington, but when told Marshall had already
refused such a relocation, LBJ, according to Estes, said simply, `Then
we'll have to get rid of him.'"331

According to Craig Zirbel, author of The Texas Connection, in May
1962, "...Johnson flew to Dallas aboard a military jet to privately
meet with Estes and his lawyers on a plane parked away from the
terminal....This incident would probably have remained secret except
that LBJ's plane suffered a mishap in landing at Dallas. When
investigative reporters attempted to obtain the tower records for the
flight mishap the records were "sealed by government order."332

Still more LTV intrigues were revealed by Peter Dale Scott: "A fellow-
director of [Jack Alston] Crichton's333 firm of Dorchester Gas
Producing was D.H. Byrd, an oil associate of Sid Richardson and Clint
Murchison, and the LTV director who teamed up with James Ling to buy
132,000 shares of LTV in November 1963. While waiting to be sworn in
as President in Dallas on November 22, Johnson spoke by telephone with
J.W. Bullion, a member of the Dallas law firm (Thompson, Wright,
Knight, and Simmons) which had the legal account for Dorchester Gas
Producing and was represented on its board. The senior partner of the
law firm, Dwight L. Simmons, had until 1960 sat on the board of Chance
Vought Aircraft, a predecessor of Ling-Temco-Vought. One week after
the assassination, Johnson named Bullion, who has been described as
his `business friend and lawyer,' to be one of the two trustees
handling the affairs of the former LBJ Co. while its owner was
President."334

Another appreciative friend of Byrd's was Arthur Andrew Collins, the
founder of the Collins Radio Company. Byrd, along with John D.
Rockefeller, Jr., was a financier of his cousin Admiral Richard E.
Byrd's polar expeditions by air. A mountain range at the South Pole is
named the Harold Byrd Mountains in his honor.335 Some of that money
went for the purchase of radio equipment and technical support from
Arthur Collins. The 1933 expedition was the first big break for the
young Collins Radio Company of Cedar Rapids Iowa.336

In May 1951 Collins began an expansion program to build a one-million
dollar plant near the Dallas suburb of Richardson. A hanger was leased
at nearby Red Bird Airport to install and repair airborne equipment.
The move was due to a decentralization plan urged by the Defense
Department for security reasons.337

According to Dick Russell, "At about 1:OO p.m. on the afternoon of
November 22, half an hour after the president was shot, neighbors who
lived along the road that runs by the little Redbird [sic] private
airport began calling police. A twin-engine plane, they reported, was
out there behaving very peculiarly. For an hour it had been revving
its engines, not on the runway but parked at the end of the airstrip
on a grassy area next to the fence. The noise prevented nearby
residents from hearing their TVs, as news came over about the terrible
events in downtown Dallas. But the police were too busy to check it
out, and shortly thereafter the plane took off....

"Louis Gaudin, the government's air traffic control specialist at
Redbird [sic] airport...recalled observing three men in business suits
board a Comanche-type aircraft at about 2:00 p.m. on November 22, head
north, then return with only two occupants, where they were met by a
Dallas policeman named Haake."338

In August 1978, former Dallas Assistant District Attorney Bill
Alexander and author Anthony Summers were retracing Oswald's
movements. According to Summers, Alexander told him that the spot
where Tippit was killed was near R.L. Thornton Freeway, the route to
Red Bird airport. Alexander speculated that Oswald may have expected
to be picked up and taken to the airport.339

In 1963, Wayne January rented planes at Red Bird Airport. He told
researcher Jones Harris in 1966 and Summers in 1978 that before the
assassination he was approached by two men and a woman, who inquired
about renting an aircraft on November 22, to go to Mexico. After the
assassination he thought that Oswald strongly resembled one of the men
he had encountered.340

On November 24, 1963, FBI Special Agent Norman W. Propst was in
Witchita Falls, Texas inquiring whether a South Texas pilot named
Chuck Rogers or anyone from South Texas had been in contact with
anyone at an aircraft plant in Olney, Texas or the crop dusting
industry in North Texas in recent months.341 In 1991, Houston Police
Department Forensic Artist Lois Gibson concluded, after photographic
studies, that one of the Dealey Plaza tramps was either Charles
Frederick Rogers, the CIA pilot and CAP member from Houston, "or a
dead ringer close enough to be an identical twin."342

Rogers joined CAP in the early 1950s to learn to fly. "During his
spare time, he participated in various CAP activities, including
searches for downed pilots, which brought him into contact with other
CAP leaders and cadets in the Texas-Louisiana region."343

Raymond Broshears, the former roommate of Oswald's Louisiana CAP unit
captain, David Ferrie, told Dick Russell in 1975, that the purpose of
Ferrie's sudden trip to Houston on the night of November 22, 1963,
"was to meet a plane. He was going to fly these people on to Mexico,
and eventually to South Africa, which did not have an extradition
treaty with the United States. They had left from some little airfield
between Dallas and Fort Worth, and David had a twin-engine plane ready
for them, and that was the purpose of his mad dash through a driving
rainstorm from New Orleans."344 Ferrie told New Orleans D.A. Jim
Garrison that the purpose of his "mad dash" was to go goose hunting.
Perhaps D.H. Byrd also had reasons other than hunting for his first
trip to Africa in November 1963.

A vice president at Collins Radio in Richardson knew George de
Mohrenschildt and Oswald. Throughout the summer of 1962, de
Mohrenschildt and his wife, Jean, made almost daily visits to the home
of Admiral Henry C. Bruton. De Mohrenschildt introduced the Brutons to
Lee and Marina and solicited the Brutons' help in his attempts to
arrange and rearrange the Oswalds' lives.345

De Mohrenschildt was not only friends with Bruton, a former director
of top secret Naval communications, he was also a friend of Colonel
David L. Schurger, a Czech-born engineer who had served in Air Force
intelligence. De Mohrenschildt was a frequent guest at this same house
when it was owned by Schurger from 1954 to 1958.346

Carl Mather of Garland, Texas, a twenty-one year employee of Collins
radio at the time of the assassination, had security clearance for
electronics work and had done work on Johnson's airplane, Air Force
Two. At about 2:00 p.m. on the day of the assassination a mechanic saw
a man who looked like Oswald sitting in a red 1957 Plymouth in the
parking lot of El Chico restaurant. The license number of the car
(Texas PP 4537) was the same number issued to Mather's blue 1957
Plymouth. Mather was a close friend of J.D. Tippit's.347

Within the first year after the assassination, Kenneth Porter quit his
job at Collins Radio. Soon thereafter articles began to appear in the
Dallas papers about his dating Marina Oswald. J.H. "Bart" Bartholomew,
an employee at Collins' Richardson plant since 1955, reported that
after Porter had been working there for a while he quit "all of a
sudden." Fellow workers wondered why he quit so suddenly. According to
Bartholomew, Porter got along with everyone at the plant. No one knew
any reason why he would quit. Then the news media reported that
Kenneth and Marina were engaged. He had divorced his wife just prior
to the engagement announcement. Porter also had children and had not
mentioned any domestic problems. When news of the engagement broke,
rumors began at Collins that he was marrying Marina for her money.
Bartholomew said the talk around the plant was that the quitting,
divorce and engagement all happened very quickly in that order within
a year of the assassination.348

Bartholomew's job at Collins was inspecting work done on two-man
communications "Huts" used in Korea and Vietnam. Collins also equipped
military aircraft and ships with sophisticated top secret electronic
gear. In March 1963, Collins was awarded a two-million-dollar-plus
contract from the CIA connected United States Information Agency
(USIA) to build nine short-wave transmitters to be used in Southeast
Asia. Two weeks later, however, the work had to be postponed when
President Kennedy requested a cut in USIA funds. By October, it
appears, the contract had turned into a scandal. Assistant Secretary
of Defense BeLieu was charged with giving false data to the House
Human Resources subcommittee on a "sole source" contract awarded to
Collins. Despite his denials, subcommittee members urged that BeLieu
be dismissed if he did not give a satisfactory explanation. One week
later, however, this heated debate would be eclipsed by a bigger
scandal involving Collins Radio and the CIA.349 It also involved a
ship with sophisticated electronics -- installed while Ken BeLieu was
Assistant Navy Secretary for Installations and Logistics under Navy
Secretary John Connally.350

On Halloween night 1963, Castro's soldiers captured four CIA agents
attempting to infiltrate Cuba from a 174-foot ship called the Rex that
was based in the Port of Palm Beach, flew a Nicaraguan flag and was
being leased to the Collins Radio Company of Dallas by J.A. Belcher, a
Miami oilman. The four agents confessed on Cuban television. One of
those captured, Montero Carranzana, said he had "once landed twelve
infiltrators on the north coast of Matazzas Province from a yacht that
had a crew of American CIA agents." The U.S. government did not deny
Castro's charges. The Rex mission was not the first time Collins had
provided cover for CIA operations. Two weeks after Kennedy's death,
the Rex and another mystery ship called Leda, again left their Florida
ports.351 This paper will further explore several apparent connections
between the Rex and the UT Rambler.

Byrd was able to give Arthur Collins his "big break" in 1933 because
he had made his fortune by 1931. When he mapped out his goals he
decided, "High on my list was the University of Texas. Despite my
enforced drop-out after two years, I have nursed an abiding affection
for the "Forty Acres" and its fortunes, especially on the football
field...."352 D. Harold Byrd, as he is known on campus, donated large
sums of money to the University of Texas and its Longhorn Marching
Band. Among the things this money helped purchase was "Big Bertha,"
the largest bass drum in the world, and the construction of the Music
Building East, in which a lounge is named the "Byrd Room" in his
honor. Each year three band members receive the "Harold Byrd Awards"
for leadership.353

As mentioned earlier, D.H. Byrd knew Barbara J. Burris, a mutual close
friend and supporter of pianist Van Cliburn. "I wanted to be a welcome
member of Dallas Society." Byrd wrote, "I was an early booster and
close friend of pianists Van Cliburn and Jose Iturbi...."354 Barbara
J. is the wife of Air Force intelligence Colonel Howard L. Burris,
Vice President Johnson's military representative, discussed earlier in
this paper. Her father, Texas Governor Beauford Jester was a "dear
friend" of D.H. Byrd's.355

Thus the story of Byrds and planes comes full circle to our mysterious
automobile. Through his enthusiastic patronage of The University of
Texas, as well as through their mutual political and Air Force
friends, and mutual contacts at DeGolyer and MacNaughton Byrd knew
Harry Huntt Ransom. Ransom and UT are the key to Byrd's association
with Cecil Bernard Smith, who had sold the mysterious UT Rambler to
George Gordon Wing two years earlier. D.H. Byrd and C.B. Smith became
founding members, in 1965, of UT's Chancellor's Council created by
Harry Ransom.356

Señor Wing, su Camioneta, y el "Red Ripper"

The interrelationships previously discussed and yet to be discussed in
this paper were not the result of unaided insights on the part of this
paper's author or researchers. They were ascertained by studying what
at first appeared to be a professor's eccentric collection of old
magazines carried in his old car, and random mutilations of books on
the JFK assassination and one rather obscure reference book in the UT
libraries. Upon closer examination, however, patterns began to emerge.
For reasons to be discussed, the mutilations are believed to have been
done by a single individual whom this paper's researchers have dubbed
the "Red Ripper." This section will deal with an apparent combined
purpose behind the eccentricities of George Wing and the mutilations
of the Red Ripper.

To be explored, in this and later sections, are the probable
identification of Wing's Rambler by an eyewitness who seems to
corroborate Wing's background in Florida as predicted by a significant
detail of the mutilations; the probable identity of the Red Ripper;
and possible interpretations of the magazines and books as evidence.

In September 1988, this author began a daily reading program on the
JFK assassination in preparation for the inevitable misinformation
that would dominate media coverage of the twenty-fifth anniversary of
that event. Despite having sporadically kept up with the subject over
the years, large gaps in personal knowledge of the findings of
researchers over the previous ten years was quickly realized. The
reading continued past the anniversary and a learning curve began,
resulting in a progressively greater understanding of the facts and
history of the assassination.

By May 1989, this author was familiar enough with the Roger Craig
story and its implications to take more than a passing glance at
George Wing's old Rambler parked among the late model Honda's and
Toyota's.

Another direct result of the reading program was the attention given,
in the summer of 1989, to the mutilations of Anthony Summers' 1980
edition of Conspiracy. The annoyance of this led to a determined
effort to find what was written on those missing pages.

As mentioned at the beginning of this paper, the missing "John
Martino" pages in Anthony Summers' book were only a minor curiosity
even in 1990 after the discovery of Martino's pre-assassination visit
to Austin. This book was the 1980 edition, which was UT's only copy
prior to the release of the 1989 edition. It was still missing the
pages dealing with Martino in May 1991, despite the fact that these
pages were reported missing in April 1990 and new pages had been "on
order" since May, 9 1990.

When the second mutilation was found (Anson's 1975 book, They've
Killed the President) it was still only a bothersome inconvenience. UT
card catalog records showed a second copy in the Flawn Academic
Center, UT's undergraduate library. That copy of the book was missing,
however, and according to the librarian, had never been checked out.
That indicated it was probably stolen just after being purchased.

It was only with the discovery of a third mutilation, the testimony of
Santos Trafficante in a volume of hearings of the House Select
Committee on Assassinations, that a pattern began to emerge.

The HSCA pages were removed in a way that left marks from a red ball
point pen. The pen had been repeatedly stroked along the gutter of the
book until the page could be easily ripped out. This was the same
technique used in Anson's book and, in blue ink, in the fourth book
discovered: an obscure biographical reference work called The
Directory of American Scholars.

The only reason this book was consulted was because of attempts to
find biographical information about Professor Wing. Wing's name was
not listed, but near where his name would have been was a rectangular
hole in the page that had been cut out using a blue ball point pen.

After consulting an older edition of this same directory it was
suspected that the biography removed from this page (p. 672, sixth
ed., 1974) was that of Nathaniel Weyl, the former OSS operative who
helped expose Alger Hiss.357 Weyl was friends with John Martino358
(subject of the Summers missing pages and a "close friend" of Santos
Trafficante),359 Frank Meyer360 (friend of William F. Buckley, Jr. and
subject of Warren Commission Document 662), and William Pawley,361
who, aside from being a missing pages subject himself, wrote a letter
to the editor of Esquire defending the planners of the Bay of Pigs
invasion.362

That letter was published in George Wing's most prominently displayed
back seat magazine. After receiving an intact copy of the sixth
edition of the directory through an interlibrary loan, the suspicion
that Weyl's biography was the one removed was confirmed.

The next book found was Peter Dale Scott's Crime and Cover-Up. Prior
to discovery of The Fish is Red, Scott's was the most mutilated book.
Once again a red ball point pen had been used.

The sixth book is perhaps the most unusual. It is the only known
foreign language book to be mutilated, Wim J.F. Meiners' De
Moordfabriek: Tussen Dallas En Watergate. Little is known about this
book due to lack of access to Dutch translation services. It was
determined much later that its missing pages included a photo section.
No major significance between the photos and other aspects of the UT
mysteries has been found. However, there are portraits of the
Watergate burglars, who seem to have been of special interest to the
Red Ripper. But still, this book may not be related to the others
since there was no red ink. And the book was poorly bound which could
have easily resulted in the loss of pages. There is one fact that
makes it worth considering. The Dutch journalist, Willem Oltmans, who
is referred to on one of this book's missing pages, had not only
visited de Mohrenschildt just prior to his death, but was also talking
to Manuel Artime and William Pawley at the time of their deaths.
Artime and Pawley are prime subjects of other missing pages.363

Missing pages from The Fish is Red, again with traces of red ink along
the gutter, also included the photo section. Since it was not known at
this time that De Moordfabriek had a photo section, this was
considered the first photo section removed. It was predicted,
therefore, that there might be a significant photograph removed from
this book. A second, intact, copy of this book was soon obtained from
UT's Benson Latin American Collection. A quick perusal of the photos
revealed no obvious connection to UT, or to George Wing and his
station wagon.

A closer look, however, revealed what may be the most significant link
of all between Wing and the JFK assassination: a 1961 photo of a man
wearing a turtle-neck shirt, in Little Havana, Miami who looks like a
young George Gordon Wing. He is pictured with a group of men being
recruited by E. Howard Hunt for the Bay of Pigs invasion. Attempts
were made to obtain an enlarged print of this photograph from its
photographer, Andrew St. George. He has not responded to this author's
request to purchase his photographs.

With the chilling discoveries of the Weyl biography and possible Wing
photo mutilations, an effort began not only to analyze the known
missing pages but to search the campus libraries for others. This led
to the first indications of patterns in the contents of the various
books as well as the discovery of the remaining books.

The study and analysis of the missing pages has proven to be a lengthy
and time-consuming project. The findings concerning them are beyond
the scope this paper. A thorough analysis of the missing pages would
require another paper of considerable length. For researchers who
would like to attempt their own analysis and critique, however, a
complete list of the books, their missing pages and their discovery
dates, as well as the back seat magazines, can be found in this
paper's appendix. This paper will deal with some significant aspects
of the missing pages that led to a greater understanding of the
interrelationships previously discussed and yet to be discussed.

One of the initial themes to emerge in the missing pages subsequently
took on greater importance. It was the first section missing from
Anson (197-98). According to the index, it was about Loran Eugene
Hall. On these pages Anson tells a story derived from Warren
Commission Documents 1563 and 1179.

On September 18, 1963, Hall, "Frank" [possibly Sturgis], Celio Castro
and Gerry Patrick Hemming (Oswald's Marine buddy) arrived in Los
Angeles from Miami where Hall retrieved a rifle that he had pawned a
year before to private eye Richard Hathcock.

After picking up a trailer of arms they all headed back to Miami with
a stop in Dallas. "Frank" did not make the return trip with them.
Frank Sturgis turned up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on September 24 to
orchestrate the mysterious Beech Travel-Air flight of September 25 by
Alex Rorke, Geoffery Sullivan and a mystery passenger.

According to Sid Marks, a witness to the retrieval in Hathcock's
office, the rifle was identical to the one shown on television on Nov.
23, 1963 as being used in the assassination. The FBI ended this
investigation on Hathcock's word that it was not the same rifle.

This activity took place just prior to Oswald's Austin visit
(September 25), the "Odio incident" (September 26) and Martino's
Austin visit (October 1). The FBI later got Hall to confess to being
one of Odio's mysterious visitors -- a story that satisfied the Warren
Commission and proved to be a complete fabrication after the Warren
Commission Report went to press.

As we will see, this Loran Eugene Hall story in Anson's book is a
major link between the missing pages and the story of Miami Rambler
eyewitness Michael Kensington. Kensington's story also has intriguing
links to George Wing's Rambler.

The other missing pages from Anson provide a good introduction to the
similarities in content of the missing pages in all of the mutilated
books. The next set of missing pages (255-58) are in Anson's chapter
nine, "The Cuban Connection." The source notes for chapter nine (notes
1-123), are also missing. These pages discuss Gilberto Alvarado ("D"),
Jack Anderson (also missing from Scott's Crime and Cover-Up), Manuel
Artime (Artime and "D" are also subjects of missing pages from the
other books), Carlos Bringuier, Rolando Cubela (a.k.a. AM/LASH,
another prime target of the Red Ripper), Allen Dulles, Peter Edelman,
Richard Helms, E. Howard Hunt, James McCord, Sixto Mesa (also missing
from Scott, Crime and Cover-Up, p. 52, n. 20), and the Nicaragua
intelligence Service.

The missing pages after these (267-68) are also in chapter nine. They
deal with the CIA raider ship, Rex, discussed earlier in this paper.
The story of the Rex is also missing from Crime and Cover-Up. These
missing pages led this paper's author to the interrelationships
discussed earlier concerning D.H. Byrd and Collins Radio.

The next missing pages (275-76) are the first two of chapter ten, "The
Gentlemen from Langley." These pages refer to the Rockefeller
Commission Report pages 254-57, and a story from the New York Daily
News of April 23, 1975, concerning E. Howard Hunt's possible presence
in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963. According to Marita Lorenz, the
group who drove from a Miami safehouse in a station wagon "to kill
Kennedy" rendezvoused with Hunt in Dallas.364

Chapter eleven, "The Organization Men," contains missing pages 307-14.
They concern links between Trafficante, Meyer Lansky, Carlos Marcello,
Jack Ruby and the Mannarino brothers of Pittsburgh, (Philadelphia was
the hometown of Frank Sturgis and George Wing.) Missing page 331 is
the last of this chapter and contains only one footnote (147) which
refers to the Warren Commission Report (Bantam, 1964), page 707, and
its vague reference to "gambling acquaintances" which eluded the
Commission's attention at every turn.

Chapter twelve, "Toward a New Investigation" contains missing pages
332-34 concerning omissions by the Rockefeller Commission. Of
particular note on page 334 is "data on Sylvia Odio's father (he had
been imprisoned by Castro because he harbored two fugitives in an
assassination plot; moreover, Manuel Rodriguez, the Oswald look-alike
and Dallas Alpha 66 leader [C.D. 23.4], belonged to the same group as
Odio's father), and the Agency's apparent lie to the FBI the day of
the assassination that it had no CIA-originated material in its file
on Oswald."

Due to skepticism and perhaps some denial on the part of this paper's
researchers, the back seat magazines which were known about since
1989, were first examined closely in 1993. Once again their content
proved to be more than mildly intriguing.

A study of microfilm of the most prominent Rambler-back seat magazine
(Esquire, August 1963, Vol. LX, No.2, whole No. 357) revealed an
obvious connection to the missing pages.

The first letter to the editor on page twelve is from William D.
Pawley, Miami Florida. Pawley, Eisenhower's ambassador to Brazil and
Peru, and co-founder of the Flying Tigers, was a friend of both John
Martino and Nathaniel Weyl (subjects of missing pages). Weyl ghost
wrote autobiographies for both men. He wrote the very book John
Martino was plugging during his October 1, 1963 speech to the Austin
Anti-Communist League. Pawley himself is a subject of missing pages
from The Fish Is Red. The letter is entitled "The Cuban Story."

In the letter Pawley disputes the facts of a story about the Bay of
Pigs which appeared in the June issue: "How I Signed Up at $250 a
Month for the Big Parade Through Havana Bla-Bla-Bla" by Terry
Southern. Pawley calls it a "beatnik story" and blames the failure at
the Bay of Pigs on the Kennedy Administration's "terrible mistake of
judgement in cancelling the bomber strike on the Havana airport...",
and defends those who prepared the plans for the invasion.

He calls the publicity given the article by Esquire "a great tragedy."
He enclosed a copy of an ad "that appeared in the Miami Herald a few
days ago." He accuses Esquire of inserting it. Southern's article is
an interview of Boris Grgurevich concerning events he experienced
prior to the invasion. Pawley's letter is the longest of four in this
issue.

On the cover of the June 1963 Esquire is a photograph satirizing James
Montgomery Flagg's "I want you for U.S. Army" poster from World War I.
The satirical caption reads "The CIA wants you. Join up for the march
through Havana."

On page sixteen of the August issue is the regular column by Norman
Mailer called "The Big Bite." Continuing on page eighteen, Mailer
writes, "Given his [JFK's] virtues, suffering his huge vice, his
emptiness, his human emptiness, we have moved as a nation under his
regime, deeper into totalitarianism, far deeper than his predecessors
could have dreamed, and have been granted (by the cavalier style of
his personal life and the wistfulness of his appreciation for the
arts) the possible beginnings of a resistance to the American
totalitarianism."

A study of microfilm of the second most prominent Rambler-back-seat
magazine (Esquire January 1964, Vol. LXI, No.1, whole No. 362)
revealed no obvious connections to the Rambler or the missing pages.
However the cover is devoted to Esquire's annual "Dubious Achievement
Awards."

One photograph has become an icon in this annual humorous look at the
previous year due to its repeated appearances. This feature, which
began in 1962, has traditionally used a photograph of Richard Nixon
with his mouth wide open in laughter and the caption, "Why is this man
laughing?" This photo with this caption was displayed by George Wing
as part of a photo montage assembled on the door of his office. Also
displayed on Wing's door were four items arranged in a vertical group
in the following sequence: An old newspaper advertisement, written in
Portuguese, with the headline, "Cursos De Detetive", for a detective
school in Sao Paulo, Brazil (Academia Paulista de Investigacoes).

A handwritten notation on the ad reads "Podares Psiodicos," which is
Portuguese for "crazy powerful people." Below the ad was a cut-out
newspaper headline which read, "A four-letter word: work." Below it
was the word "Pain," cut from another source, in bold white letters on
a red background. Directly below that was a bumper sticker bearing the
AAA logo of the American Automobile Association.

Since many former Nazis reportedly settled in Sao Paulo after the war
and were involved in U.S. intelligence activities in Latin America;
and since Oswald's "work" in the School Book Depository was obtained
with the help of Ruth Paine (Pain) who, allegedly, had an automobile
(AAA) which fit the description of George Wing's Rambler; and since
Wing's Rambler carried on its back seat, one of the first publications
of the Nixon "Why is this man laughing?" photographs, associations can
be made between Wing's photo montage, his car, Ruth Paine, Richard
Nixon, and Allen Dulles. Of course, the fact that such an
interpretation of this photo montage in UT's ...

Some good web links on D.H. Byrd who was involved in the JFK assassination with Lyndon Johnson

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Harold_Byrd

2) https://spartacus-educational.com/MDbyrdDH.htm

QUOTE

In February, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson, granted a large defense contract to LTV to build the A-7 Corsair II. According to Peter Dale Scott, (The Dallas Conspiracy) this was paid for out of the 1965 budget which had not yet been approved by Congress.

Byrd was a member of the Dallas Petroleum Club. It has been argued that it was here that he met George de Mohrenschildt, David Atlee Phillips and George H. W. Bush. Richard Bartholomew suggested in Byrds, Planes, and an Automobile that Byrd knew David Ferrie via the Civil Air Patrol.

UNQUOTE

3) https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/byrd-david-harold

4) https://wikispooks.com/wiki/David_Harold_Byrd

5) NYT refers to him as a "philanthropist" https://www.nytimes.com/1986/09/16/obituaries/d-harold-byrd-is-dead-a-texas-philanthropist.html

6) His book: https://www.amazon.com/Im-endangered-species-autobiography-enterpriser/dp/0884152588

7) His son died in 2021 https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/dallas-tx/d-byrd-10026191

8) Education Forum threat on D.H. Byrd https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/8715-david-harold-byrd/

9) Grave of D.H. Byrd https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/20434/david-harold-byrd

10) Early lawsuit Byrd was involved in https://casetext.com/case/burress-v-byrd

11) Carruth Byrd obituary https://obits.dallasnews.com/obituaries/dallasmorningnews/obituary.aspx?n=caruth-byrd&pid=147739657

12) D.H. Byrd given an Award for founding the Civil Air Patrol by GENERAL CURTIS LEMAY! http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2020/01/dh-byrd-and-general-lemay.html

13) TSBD marker https://atlas.thc.state.tx.us/Details/5113006895/print

14) https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/stained-glass-6402278

QUOTE

Col. D. Harold Byrd kept it in his University Park home as a souvenir, a tragic keepsake he ordered removed from the building on Elm and Houston streets that he owned and leased to the Texas School Book Depository. Byrd kept it there until his death in 1986, at which time it fell into the hands of his son Caruth--who, the story goes, kept the window out of public view for almost a decade.

Caruth Byrd wanted to keep the window buried, forgotten about. He rejected enormous financial offers from those who collect such morbid artifacts, and refused the requests from those who wanted to place the window in a Dallas museum commemorating the assassination--fearing the museum would be an embarrassment to the city. He preferred to keep hidden this reminder of Dallas' shame...until one day, in 1994, he had a change of heart and turned the window over to the Sixth Floor Museum.

On February 21, 1995--President's Day--more than 100 elected officials, members of the Dallas County Historical Foundation, and assassination eyewitnesses gathered at the Sixth Floor Museum for the window's dramatic unveiling.

UNQUOTE

QUOTE

Until the end of the 1960s, the Texas School Book Depository Company remained in the building, which was owned by Col. D. Harold Byrd. Byrd was an oil millionaire and husband of Mattie Caruth, whose family once owned most of the land from downtown Dallas to Park Lane. The Caruth family, after whom Caruth Haven Road is named, donated all the land for Southern Methodist University and leased the land for NorthPark Mall.

Afraid that curiosity seekers would carve off pieces of the sniper's-nest window, Byrd instructed his employee, Buddy McCool, to remove the window six weeks after the assassination, according to interviews with McCool and Byrd filmed in the early 1970s.

Whether McCool removed the right window is the question at the heart of this mystery.

The location of the sixth-floor sniper's perch is among the most infamous points of interest in the whole world. Yet it's conceivable that six weeks after the assassination, Byrd's lackey could have been confused about its exact location. There is no one alive who can verify which window McCool took out that day.

Byrd obviously took it on face value that he had the right one. He decorated the bottom half of the window with newspaper clippings of the assassination and postcard pictures of Kennedy, Dealey Plaza, and the book depository; then he had the whole thing framed.

He hung it in the banquet room of his Vassar Street mansion--later bought by oilman T. Boone Pickens--next to photos and mementos of his long, colorful career, which included co-founding the Civil Air Patrol, drilling numerous wildcat oil wells in East Texas, and funding the Antarctic explorations of his cousin, Admiral Richard E. Byrd, who named an Antarctic mountain range after the Texas colonel.

Byrd held onto the former book depository building until 1970, when he auctioned it off to a Nashville music producer named Aubrey Mayhew. Mayhew was a Kennedy memorabilia collector who planned to turn the structure into a commercial museum commemorating Kennedy's life. Still reeling from the fallout of the assassination that branded Dallas as "The City of Hate" and placed the blame for Kennedy's murder on Dallas' hostile environment, local city fathers recoiled at the idea of a museum that would consecrate the town's darkest hour. They also found Mayhew's intention to profit off the tragedy distasteful.

Mayhew tried several times to get city permits to start building his museum, but he was repeatedly turned down. A group called Dallas Onward, formed to protest turning the building into a national Kennedy landmark, helped thwart Mayhew's efforts.

By 1973, Mayhew defaulted on his loan, and Byrd repurchased the building after the bank foreclosed on it. He immediately put it back up for sale, this time asking $1.2 million for it. At the time, he said, he hoped whoever purchased the site "would use the building in a way that would not be a slam on Dallas...that would not blame Dallas for having the right environment for causing Kennedy's death," according to a filmed interview with Byrd.

The city passed an ordinance preventing the building from being torn down. Several city leaders, including real-estate developer Ray Nasher, were conducting their own campaign to create a private, nonprofit museum and monument to Kennedy on the site.

In 1977, Dallas citizens voted to use bond money to purchase the building from Byrd. The first five floors were refurbished for Dallas County administrative offices.

But little did anyone know that before Aubrey Mayhew vacated the premises, he hired two carpenters to remove two windows from the southeast corner of the sixth floor and replace them with windows from the north side of the building. He says he sneaked off with the sniper's-perch window--"the ultimate piece of Kennedy memorabilia"--while no one noticed.

UNQUOTE

15) D.H. Byrd took out the wrong window for a trophy of the JFK assassination! http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/WindowAuthenticity001.pdf

1992 Letter from O.V. Campbell stating that in the early 1970’s D.H. Byrd removed the WRONG sniper’s nest window from the TSBD

DAL Comm 2 Way communications

O.V. Campbell

President NORTH DALLAS BANK TOWER

12900 PRESTON AT L.B.J. SUITE 542

DALLAS, TEXAS 75230

June 18, 1992

TO WHO IT MAY CONCERN

My name is O.V. Campbell. I was associated with the Texas School Book Depository from 1928 until I sold the business in 1981. I was the co-owner of the business with Jack Cason.

The purpose of this letter is to attest to the facts and to clear up the questions and doubt surrounding the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository building at 411 Elm Street, Dallas, Texas, from where Lee Harvey Oswald shot President John F. Kennedy.

In the early 1970’s D.H. Byrd, the owner of the TSBD, his attorney Warner Lewis and a carpenter came to the building to remove a window from the sixth floor. I instructed Mr. R.S. Truly, the building manager, to accompany these men.

After they removed a window Mr. Truly returned to my office and stated that the men took the wrong window, that they removed the last window from the west side of the building which was not the window Oswald shot from.

Mr. Aubrey Mayhew of Nashville, Tennessee who bought the building from Mr. D.H. Byrd removed the original, actual sixth floor window fomr where Oswald shot the President. He removed the entire casing and windows which had not been touched, repaired or replaced during my entire tenure with the book depository.

Mr. Mayhew replaced the original window with a window from the rear, North side of the depository building.

To the best of my knowledge Mr. Mayhew still has the actual sixth floor window.

There is no question in my mind that D.H. Byrd took out the wrong window, and that Mr. Mayhew did take out the window from where Oswald shot the President.

O.V. Campbell

Former owner of the Texas School Book Depository

16) D.H. Byrd’s E-Systems Company was a CIA contractor!

https://aarclibrary.org/news-aarc-seeking-documents-relating-to-d-h-byrd-werner-von-alvensleben-jr-and-the-doolittle-report/

7. On July 4, 2020, AARC and Mr. Lesar sent a FOIA request to the CIA
seeking documents relating to David Harold Byrd, Werner von Alvensleben, Jr.
and the Doolittle Report. Letter from Daniel S. Alcorn, Esq. to CIA, FOIA
Request (July 4, 2020) (attached as Exhibit 1). Specifically, AARC requested:

1. Search for and release all records or information in any format related to
David Harold Byrd (deceased) of Dallas, Texas. Mr. Byrd died on
September 14, 1986 (see attached obituary from the Dallas Times-Herald).
Mr. Byrd owned the Texas School Book Depository Building at the time of
the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, and reportedly removed the
“sniper’s window” from the building after the assassination and displayed it
in his mansion. Mr. Byrd was an owner and financier of government
contracting companies including Texas Engineering Manufacturing
Company (TEMCO), E-Systems, and Ling-TEMCO-Vaught (LTV).
E-Systems was well known as a CIA contractor, so much so that in 1975
CIA solicited E-Systems to purchase its proprietary airline, Air America.
David Harold Byrd was also active in the oil business and varied other
business enterprises. David Harold Byrd co-founded the Civil Air Patrol
(CAP) in 1941 and served in command capacities in CAP until the early
1960’s. Civil Air Patrol is the official auxilary of the US Air Force. In the
1950’s Mr. Byrd served with Cord Meyer, Sr. on the national executive
board of CAP (Cord Meyer, Jr. was a ranking CIA executive).
2. Search for and release all records and information in any format related to
Werner von Alvensleben, Jr. (died 1998), of Mozambique (formerly
Portuguese East Africa). Mr. Alvensleben owned and operated the big
game hunting company named Safarilandia in Portuguese East Africa, later
Mozambique. According to released Office of Strategic Services (OSS)
records, Mr. Alvensleben served as a valued double agent for OSS during
World War II in Portuguese East Africa. OSS records state that Mr.
Alvensleben was a member of the Bavarian Military Police in 1933, headed
by Heinrich Himmler (the Bavarian Military Police became the Nazi SS,
according to OSS records). In 1933 Mr. Alvensleben was sent to Austria to
participate in the assassination of an Austrian official. Mr. Alvensleben was
arrested by the Austrians and imprisoned for this activity. According to
reports in the Dallas Morning News, Mr. Alvensleben was in Dallas, Texas
as a guest of David Harold Byrd in late 1963. Further, David Harold Byrd
was reported to be present at Mr. Alvensleben’s Safarilandia on November
22, 1963, the day of President Kennedy’s murder. Due to Mr.
Alvensleben’s service as a valued double agent for OSS in World War II, it
is likely that Mr. Alvensleben served as an asset of the CIA after the war, or
had contact with the CIA.
3. Search for and release all records and information in any format related to
the Doolittle Report of 1954 and its appendices A-D. The Doolittle Report
was the result of a commission established by President Eisenhower to study
the activities of the CIA and headed by General James Doolittle. The
Doolittle Report called for more aggressive CIA covert activities that had
previously been believed to be repugnant and contrary to American values.
Requesters seek full release of the requested materials. As shown in the
attached obituary of David Harold Byrd, General Doolittle and Mr. Byrd
were substantial friends who shared an interest in aviation from the early
years. Mr. Byrd and General Doolittle were Safari hunting partners on
several occasions.

Nov. 24, 1945 photo of D.H. Byrd and his wife watching the TCU-Rice football game with Major General Ralph Royce, the former head of the United States Army Air Forces

https://library.uta.edu/digitalgallery/img/20027199

D.H. Byrd

Title: Texas Christian University vs. Rice University

Description:

Major General Ralph Royce, left, of Marquette, Michigan, former commanding general of the United States Army Air Forces (AAF) Personnel Distribution Command, Louisville, Kentucky, and presently unassigned, watches the Frog-Owl football game with, left to right, Mrs. Royce and Colonel and Mrs. D. H. Byrd, of Dallas. Right of Mrs. Byrd is an unidentified man wearing a military uniform, and, beside him, a child standing. Major General Royce is wearing his military uniform. Mrs. Royce is wearing a coat and a hat. Colonel Byrd is wearing a suit, eyeglasses and a hat. Mrs. Byrd is wearing a fur coat and hat. They are sitting in the bleachers.

Date Created:

1945-11-24

Ralph Royce Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Royce

In the May 1942 organization of South West Pacific Area, Royce became senior air staff officer, Allied Air Forces. He was promoted to major general in June 1942. Royce returned to the United States in September 1942 and assumed command of the South Eastern Training Center at Maxwell Field in Montgomery, Alabama. He commanded the First Air Force from April to September 1943.^[1]

From September 1943 to March 1944, he was commander of U.S. Army Forces in the Middle East. On March 1944, Royce returned to the United Kingdom as Deputy Commander of the Ninth Air Force to Lieutenant General Lewis H. Brereton and later Major General Hoyt Vandenberg. He commanded the 1st Tactical Air Force (Provisional) from October 1944 to January 1945, operating in support of the Sixth United States Army Group. He then commanded the Personnel Distribution Command at Louisville, Kentucky until August 1945.^[1] Royce was married again in Detroit in February 1945, this time to Agnes Berges an ex-Manhattan hotel executive and overseas Red Cross worker.^[11]

Ralph Royce bio at U.S. Air Force web page https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Biographies/Display/Article/2143098/major-general-ralph-royce/

Ralph Royce – military valor - https://valor.militarytimes.com/hero/6192

Another excellent bio on Ralph Royce http://3rdstories.yolasite.com/ralph-royce.php

Ralph Royce https://www.ozatwar.com/people/royce.htm

Ralph Royce – another bio https://generals.dk/general/Royce/Ralph/USA.html

Ralph Royce Find a Grave https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/59716052/ralph-royce

William Kelly (1-5-20) blog post on D.H. Byrd:

UNDAY, JANUARY 5, 2020

D.H. Byrd and General LeMay

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay

(2) Curtis E. Le May, Scroll of Appreciation, presented to David Harold Byrd (24th May, 1963)

For rendering meritorious service to the United States Air Force from Dec. 1941 to April, 1960. Motivated by a strong sense of patriotism, Mr. Byrd played a major part in the successful operation of the Texas Wing, Civil Air Patrol, throughout World War II. After the war he assisted in the incorporation of the Civil Air Patrol and its designation as an Auxiliary of the Air Force. Mr. Byrd helped initiate the International Air Cadet Exchange and worked closely with the Air Cadet League of Canada. The many scholarships established or supported by Mr. Byrd have aided countless cadets in the attainment of additional training and higher education. His contributions of material and personal aircraft to the use of Civil Air Patrol materially aided in the performance of its mission.. The distinctive accomplishments of Mr. Byrd have earned for him the sincere gratitude of the United States Air Force.

Heavy insider buying in LTV stock by LBJ insiders DH Byrd and James Ling in Nov. 1963 in the weeks before the JFK assassination. Major defense contract awarded to LTV in January, 1964, paid for out of the nonexisting 1965 budget

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2010/11/peter-dale-scott-dallas-copa-2010.html

Go to footnote #49

[Internet Wayback machine for Joan Mellen talk from January 28, 2007:

Farewell to Justice - THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION AND THE CURRENT POLITICAL MOMENT (archive.org)

D.H. Byrd was so close to LBJ they might as well have been Siamese twins. And he is Col. D.H. Byrd Air Force, friends with Gen Curtis Lemay who called the Kennedys' "cockroaches" in his LBJ oral history. Air Force Gen. Edward Lansdale running the show at Dealey Plaza - joint CIA/military intelligence operation.

The heavy insider buying was based on DEAD KENNEDY coming up soon, with LBJ INSIDE WHITE HOUSE.

And who did LBJ tell Madeleine [Brown] who did it? The fat cats in Dallas and renegade intelligence bastards.

Anyone who tells you the JFK assassination is not solved, stick this in their face.

LBJ-DALLAS OIL/MILITARY CONTRACTORS/CIA/MILITARY INTELLIGENCE murdered JFK.

I should note that D.H. Byrd 1) employed LBJ's personal hit man Malcolm Wallace 2) owned the Texas School Book Depository and 3) could land his plane on LBJ's ranch anytime he wanted to even when LBJ was president.

https://tekgnosis.typepad.com/tekgnosis/2015/02/john-f-kennedy-assassination-heavy-insider-buying-in-ltv-stock-by-lbj-insiders-dh-byrd-and-james-lin.html

Byrds, Planes, and an Automobile by Richard Batholomew

http://www.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_issues/17th_Issue/rambler3.html

It is probable that Byrd knew David Ferrie and he definitely knew the very top Air Force brass through Civil Air Patrol (CAP). CAP Captain David Ferrie was CAP cadet Lee Harvey Oswald's trainer.316

Byrd was a co-founder of Civil Air Patrol. Displayed in his office, at 1110 Tower Petroleum Building in Dallas, were many pictures of himself in uniform with aviation dignitaries and Air Force Generals.317 He was an aviation buff but could not become a fighter pilot because his eyesight was bad.318 He co-founded CAP six days before Pearl Harbor.319 After World War II he spearheaded the establishment of the Cadet Program in CAP and contributed many scholarships to its cadets.320 In Dallas on May 24, 1963, the U.S. Air Force presented to Byrd its Scroll of Appreciation, which reads:

For rendering meritorious service to the United States Air Force from Dec. 1941 to April, 1960. Motivated by a strong sense of patriotism, Mr. Byrd played a major part in the successful operation of the Texas Wing, Civil Air Patrol, throughout World War II. After the war he assisted in the incorporation of the Civil Air Patrol and its designation as an Auxiliary of the Air Force. Mr. Byrd helped initiate the International Air Cadet Exchange and worked closely with the Air Cadet League of Canada. The many scholarships established or supported by Mr. Byrd have aided countless cadets in the attainment of additional training and higher education. His contributions of material and personal aircraft to the use of Civil Air Patrol materially aided in the performance of its mission.. The distinctive accomplishments of Mr. Byrd have earned for him the sincere gratitude of the United States Air Force.

(Signed) - Curtis E. Le May
Chief of Staff
(Signed) - Eugene M. Zuckert
Secretary of the Air Force321

D.H. Byrd counted among his close friends one of the most famous aviators, General Jimmy Doolittle.322 Byrd and Doolittle were hunting buddies. Of Doolittle he wrote, "Having a fondness for being Number One in all my undertakings, it doesn't come naturally for me to confess that Doolittle is the one man whom I would gladly serve in any venture as Number Two."323 On one intriguing trip without Doolittle, Byrd went hunting in central Africa in November and December 1963. It was his first such trip of five during his lifetime outside of the U.S., Mexico, and Canada.324

Byrd prepared well for the trip: Temco, Inc. was an aircraft company founded by D.H. Byrd and which later merged with his friend James Ling's electronics company (1960), and aircraft manufacturer Chance Vought Corporation (1961) to form Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV). Byrd became a director325 of LTV and bought, along with Ling, 132,000 shares of LTV in November 1963.326 Byrd then left the country to go on his two-month safari in central Africa. He returned in January to find his good friend Lyndon Johnson president of the United States, his building famous, and a large defense contract awarded to LTV to build fighter planes -- to be paid for out of the 1965 budget which had not yet been approved by Congress.327

Mac Wallace, who received a five-year suspended sentence in the shooting death of John Douglas Kinser in Austin on October 22, 1951, went to work for Temco, Inc. of Garland, Texas five months after his trial. He remained in that position until February 1961, four months before Henry Marshall's mysterious death on June 3, 1961, when he transferred to the Anaheim, California offices of LTV.328

The transfer required a background check by the Navy. "The most intriguing part of the Wallace case was how a convicted murderer was able to get a job with defense contractors. Better yet, how was he able to get a security clearance? Clinton Peoples [the Texas Ranger Captain who investigated the Marshall and Kinser murders]329 reported that when the original security clearance was granted, he asked the Naval intelligence officer handling the case how such a person could get the clearance. `Politics,' the man replied. When Peoples asked who would have that much power, the simple answer was, `the vice president,' who at the time was Lyndon Johnson. Years later, after the story broke [of Billie Sol Estes' March 20, 1984 testimony that implicated Lyndon Johnson, Malcom Wallace, and Clifton Carter in the death of Henry Marshall], that investigator could not recall the conversation with Peoples but he did say no one forced him to write a favorable report. He also added that he wasn't the one that made the decision to grant the clearance. The whole matter might have been solved with a peek at that original report but unfortunately, when the files were checked, that particular report was suspiciously missing. It has never been seen since."330

Wallace was transferred and given clearance in February 1961. "In January 1961, the very month Johnson was sworn in as vice president, and the month Henry Marshall was in Dallas discussing how to combat Estes-like scams, Billie Sol Estes learned through his contacts that the USDA was investigating the allotment scheme and that Henry Marshall might end up testifying. The situation was supposedly discussed by Estes, Johnson, and Carter in the backyard of LBJ's Washington home. Johnson was, according to Estes, alarmed that if Marshall started talking it might result in an investigation that would implicate the vice president. At first it was decided to have Marshall transferred to Washington, but when told Marshall had already refused such a relocation, LBJ, according to Estes, said simply, `Then we'll have to get rid of him.'"331

According to Craig Zirbel, author of The Texas Connection, in May 1962, "...Johnson flew to Dallas aboard a military jet to privately meet with Estes and his lawyers on a plane parked away from the terminal....This incident would probably have remained secret except that LBJ's plane suffered a mishap in landing at Dallas. When investigative reporters attempted to obtain the tower records for the flight mishap the records were "sealed by government order."332

Still more LTV intrigues were revealed by Peter Dale Scott: "A fellow-director of [Jack Alston]

Crichton's333 firm of Dorchester Gas Producing was D.H. Byrd, an oil associate of Sid Richardson and Clint Murchison, and the LTV director who teamed up with James Ling to buy 132,000 shares of LTV in November 1963. While waiting to be sworn in as President in Dallas on November 22, Johnson spoke by telephone with J.W. Bullion, a member of the Dallas law firm (Thompson, Wright, Knight, and Simmons) which had the legal account for Dorchester Gas Producing and was represented on its board. The senior partner of the law firm, Dwight L. Simmons, had until 1960 sat on the board of Chance Vought Aircraft, a predecessor of Ling-Temco-Vought. One week after the assassination, Johnson named Bullion, who has been described as his `business friend and lawyer,' to be one of the two trustees handling the affairs of the former LBJ Co. while its owner was President."334

Another appreciative friend of Byrd's was Arthur Andrew Collins, the founder of the Collins Radio Company. Byrd, along with John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was a financier of his cousin Admiral Richard E. Byrd's polar expeditions by air. A mountain range at the South Pole is named the Harold Byrd Mountains in his honor.335 Some of that money went for the purchase of radio equipment and technical support from Arthur Collins. The 1933 expedition was the first big break for the young Collins Radio Company of Cedar Rapids Iowa.336

In May 1951 Collins began an expansion program to build a one-million dollar plant near the Dallas suburb of Richardson. A hanger was leased at nearby Red Bird Airport to install and repair airborne equipment. The move was due to a decentralization plan urged by the Defense Department for security reasons.

BK NOTES: I can confirm that the Defense Department had a decentralization plan for security reasons, as Arthur Young, the inventor of the Bell Helicopter told me was the reason why the Bell Helicopter plant was built in Texas instead of upstate New York where the main HQ of Bell Aircraft was located. As Young explained it to me, the idea was that if one spy infiltrated one plant, they couldn’t steal all the secrets if the manufacturing plants were spread out – and the Dallas – Fort Worth area was selected. That’s why you have so many major defense contractors in one small area of North Texas – Bell Helicopter, Collins Radio, General Dynamics, LTV, Haliburton, et al.

And it was Arthur Young who arranged for his son-in-law Michael Paine to work as a helicopter “designer” at Bell Helicopter in Texas, and why Michael and Ruth Paine moved there from suburban Philadelphia – the Quaker City – as Ruth Paine would know it.

Robert Morrow Political Research Blog

Friday, February 17, 2023

D.H. Byrd - a close personal friend of Lyndon Johnson, owned the Texas School Book Depository and was deeply involved in the JFK assassination

UNDAY, JANUARY 5, 2020

D.H. Byrd and General LeMay

(2) Curtis E. Le May, Scroll of Appreciation, presented to David Harold Byrd (24th May, 1963)

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