Long-lost JFK-era items revealed Photo
property of JFK Lancer. All rights reserved.
07:05 PM CST on Monday, February 18, 2008
By BRAD WATSON / WFAA-TV
JFK discovery
DALLAS — On the day set aside to honor America's presidents, items
related to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy were unveiled
in Dallas.
Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins became the latest public
official to add intrigue to the story surrounding Kennedy's slaying.
He released a dozen boxes of papers and items related to the trial of Jack
Ruby, who murdered alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.
Watkins said he became aware of the items shortly after he took office
in 2006. They had all been locked in a safe for nearly two decades.
At a news conference Monday morning, Watkins showed off what he said were
Ruby's gun holster and the brass knuckles that he was carrying when booked
into jail after the nationally-televised murder of Oswald.
There's also a transcript of a purported conversation between Oswald and
Ruby about shooting the president, but historians strongly believe the conversation
never took place—and is probably fake.
Regardless, Watkins wanted everything released to add to the JFK debate.
"I am not lending my authority to this suspected conversation," he
said. "All I am doing is providing you the information that we found.
Now, I didn't say it was true; I didn't say it was false; I said that it
was in a file in a safe that needed to be looked at and needed to be opened
with everything else."
Watkins contends that previous district attorneys who followed Henry Wade
knew about the assassination-era items but didn't want it to get out. He
said his administration's policy of transparency led to Monday's public
release.
Watkins said all of the items are owned by the DA's office, and that he
will decide what to do with it. He said that could include donating some
of it to the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, or to other institutions
that could attest to the historical significance of this material—that
is, if it has any significance at all.
With the potential for assassination memorabilia to fetch tens of thousands
of dollars at auction, Watkins said one thing he won't do is to sell the
newly-released items.
What is the transcript?
Had DA Watkins asked most any JFK assassination researcher about the "Oswald-Ruby"
transcript, we wouldn't have had this new red herring all over the media.
However, I don't hold it against Watkins as he is releasing lost documents
on the Ruby trial that could prove to be most intriguing.
Most probably the transcript is from
a a long-discredited claim by Dallas lawyer, Carroll Jarnagin, (letter
to J. Edgar Hoover, December 5, 1963. (See a transcript of the letter
below.)
from
Who's Who in the JFK Assassination: An A-To-Z Encyclopedia
By Michael Benson
No record could be found of the call Jarnagin claims he made
to the Texas Dept of Public Safety before the assassination.
Researcher Dave Perry writes,
Photocopies of
report (lie detector test INT2965) released by the Dallas City Archive
on January 27, 1992, indicate that Jarnagin claimed Oswald was being
hired by Ruby to kill "the governor." The syndicate wanted
the governor out of the way because he wouldn't help the
Chicago mob infiltrate Texas to set up rackets similar to
those lost in Chicago and Cuba. Later Ruby tells Oswald the
mob would really like to assassinate the Texas Attorney
General instead. So loosely constructed is the plan, that at
one point in the conversation Oswald asks ". . . when will
the Governor be here?" Ruby replies "Oh, he'll be here plenty
of times during campaigns."
Additionally in 26H257 under Commission Exhibit 2821 we discover Jarnagin
was drunk at the time and said he overheard Ruby and Oswald
discussing the assassination of former Governor Shivers!
Since Jarnagin knew Shivers was no longer governor, he
decided he was mistaken as to what he heard, he finally
concluded they had to be talking about Connally and so
modified his story.
CE2821 includes
specifics of the "overheard" conversation and includes an
interview with Shirley Mauldin who was with Jarnagin that
evening. Mauldin reported to the FBI that Jarnagin was drunk
and his story a fabrication. (http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/bledsoe.txt)
Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade knew all about Jarnagin. Time magazine
wrote, "The commission relied on Texas prosecutor Henry Wade for evaluation
of the alleged conversation between Oswald and Ruby, overheard at Ruby's
Carousel Club by Dallas lawyer Carroll Jarnagin. Wade found Jarnagin
sincere in thinking he had heard Oswald offer to kill Connally so that
gangsters could open up the state for their rackets, but he told the
commission that the lawyer nonetheless had failed a lie-detector test
on the subject." (Time, June 21, 2007, "The Assassination: Did the Mob
Kill J.F.K.?" by ED MAGNUSON)
|
