Bruce Willis: Conspiracy Theorist (But New Hunt Tape Does Suggest JFK Assassination Inside Job)

TMZ ^ | May 5th 2007 | staff

[Oztrich Boy]

When Watergate whistleblower John Dean opened Hunt’s private safe, he found bogus telegrams that falsely linked JFK with the assassination of South Vietnam’s corrupt dictator Ngo Dinh Diem

"Bogus" or "genuine kept by Huny as insurance"?

[fight_truth_decay]

I saw that and wondered why anyone would hide “bogus” information in one’s private safe. The desperation to break into Hunt’s safe..the risk...as well. Hunt appeared to be no dummy..he could have been always one step ahead. Being he was said by his son to be still lucid when he died; therefore, am guessing his mind was always at work!

[HawaiianGecko]

The Evidence

Conspiracy researchers have a history of "seeing" things in photos that cooler-headed analysts can't see, and can even prove to be impossible. The same is true of the "identifications" of the tramps. The House Select Committee on Assassinations commissioned forensic anthropologists to examine the photos of the tramps, and the photos of the (then) top five "suspects."

Forensic anthropologists have the skills to go beyond merely eyeballing photos. They compare the metric and morphological characteristics of people in photos to see which match, and which don't. These are the same scientists used by the House Select Committee to confirm that the person in the Bethesda autopsy photos was in fact John Kennedy, and to debunk the notion that there are "two Oswalds" in extant photos purporting to be Lee Harvey Oswald.

The Committee's experts showed that Hunt, Sturgis, Carswell, and Vallee could not have been tramps. They could not preclude Fred Chrisman being a tramp, noting that he "strongly resembles" the third tramp. However, Committee investigators found that Chrisman had an iron-clad alibi for the day of the assassination. He was teaching high school in Oregon in 1963, and three of his fellow teachers testified that he was in school on the day of the assassination (HSCA Report, p. 92).

Other conspiracy factoids were debunked by the HSCA. For example, the notion that the tramps were "suspiciously well-dressed." The HSCA noted:

(675) All three men are shabbily dressed, befitting their apparent status as vagrants. Tramp A, however, is the better attired, wearing well-fitting jeans and a tweed-like sports jacket, although this, judged by 1963 styles, was several years out of date. Tramp B is wearing ill-fitting slacks and a double-breasted suit coat. Tramp C, from his battered fedora to his won-out shoes, has managed to achieve a sartorial effect similar to what one would expect had he been fired from a cannon through a Salvation Army thrift shop.

(676) While such clothing might be a disguise, their footwear seems consistent with their classification as vagrants. All three men are shod in worn, low-cut oxfords that appear to be leather-soled. Tramp C's shoes seem to be several sizes too large for him.

The conspiracists were batting zero for five.

But of course, they not only ignored the HSCA findings excluding the previously "identified" tramps, they continued to add to the roster of "suspects." Further "identifications" included:

1. Charles Harrelson, convicted murderer in prison in Texas, and father of actor Woody Harrelson, "identified" as the tall tramp.
2. Chauncey Holt, a man who "confessed" to being the oldest of the tramps (the last in line).
3. Charles Frederick Rogers, a man who was wanted in Texas for killing his own parents, and who was "identified" as "Frenchy," the first tramp in line.

See Michael Benson, Who's Who in the JFK Assassination, 1993.

The next big break in the case came when the Dallas City Council voted to release all city records having to do with the assassination. Journalist Mary La Fontaine, who was looking through the recently released records, happened to look at a list of records released earlier in 1989. There she found the arrest records that showed the tramps to be:

Harold Doyle

View his arrest record.
Download high resolution version for printing.

John Forester Gedney

View his arrest record.
Download high resolution version for printing.

Gus W. Abrams

View his arrest record.
Download high resolution version for printing.

Were these fellows in fact em>the three tramps?  YouTube video from 1991.  A MUST VIEW!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a3Eh0c126Y&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fmcadams%2Eposc%2Emu%2Eedu%2F3tramps%2Ehtm

Ray and Mary LaFontaine, working for the tabloid TV program "A Current Affair," set out to find Harold Doyle, whose address was listed on the arrest record as Red Jacket, West Virginia. The trail led from West Virginia to Amarillo, Texas, where the LaFontaines found one of Doyle's former neighbors who remembered him talking about his arrest in Dallas. Doyle was finally located in Klamath Falls, Oregon. He told his story on camera (embedded video), and was also questioned by the FBI.

The FBI and private researchers sought the other two tramps. Gedney was located in Melbourne, Florida, serving as a municipal officer, a respected member of the community who had not spoken about former life as a vagabond until interviewed by researcher Billy Cox, and by the FBI. Both Doyle and Gedney told the same story of spending the night before the assassination at a rescue mission. According to Oliver Revell of the Dallas FBI office:

Both commented that they had gotten fresh clothes, showered, shaved and had a meal. They headed back to the railroad yard when they heard all the commotion and sirens and everything, and they asked what happened. They were told the president had been shot.

See The Washington Post, March 4, 1992, and Dateline Dallas,, Winter, 1993.

Harold Doyle/center>

Abrams, the oldest of the tramps, was deceased. But researcher Kenneth Formet interviewed his sister, with whom he had lived the last 15 years of his life. She remembered his vagabond days, saying "he was always on the go hopping trains and drinking wine." When shown a picture of the Dealey Plaza tramps she responded "Yep, that's my Bill!" (Dateline Dallas, Winter, 1993)

Thus one of the greatest of assassination mysteries sprang from one of the most mundane Dealey Plaza realities. Three hobos swept up in the dragnet produced by the assassination were arrested and released. Suspicious of authority and fearful of being blamed, they remained quiet about their identities until the surviving two were tracked down almost 30 years later. Never objectively "mysterious" they only seemed that way because the absence of information left room for wild speculation. Thus the tramps are a metaphor for all the broader "mysteries" of the JFK murder case.

---

You may wish to see:

• The article in the Houston Post identifying the tramps as Doyle, Gedney, and Abrams.
• A web page with a good collection of documents about the Three Tramps.
• Wacky "photo analysis" from conspiracy-oriented researchers.

[xJones]

One person I would have thought would have dug the deepest into the assassinaton of JFK was Senator Ted Kennedy.

It's particularly strange that Robert Kennedy, head of the U.S. Justice department, displayed a marked lack of interest, and had little to do with the Warren Commission investigations.

He's been the closest one to his older brother, and had always been devoted to him. By all accounts Bobby was heartbroken by his brother's murder, but he did very little to uncover the truth himself, although you might have thought that with all his resources he would have done everything possible to uncover the whole truth of the assassination. Bobby was a pugnacious, fierce little SOB and it doesn't sound like him not to have done so.

[Rockpile]

OK, so where WERE Harrelson, Hunt and Sturgis on the day of the murder? Surely someone must have looked into that.

[Rockpile]

Oh yes, and where was that fine upstanding citizen Charles Rogers during the same time frame?

[fight_truth_decay]

Forensic anthropologists have the skills to go beyond merely eyeballing photos

Many did (American Academy of Forensic Sciences) see.. post #119, #103 and set up a debate with Spector on just that

The Committee's experts

That alone was suspect.

[Rockpile]

Something I don't understand about the hit. Let's say we have an actual lone assassin at the sixth floor SBD window; when I've been there it seemed perfectly obvious that the killer should strike when the car turned right onto that stretch of Houston Street and was coming straight at him with no angular deflection for the shot and with no trees in the way. Plus he could have set back farther into the room and been less exposed to observation.

Since Oswald was such a god-like super marksman it would have been easy pickins' for him.

[fight_truth_decay]

Hunt also said that his mother’s death in a December 8, 1972 plane crash in Chicago was suspicious and that there was evidence of a White House cover-up surrounding the circumstances of the alleged accident.

Investigators discovered $10,000 dollars in her luggage and Hunt alleged that his mother traveled around the country using Nixon campaign money to payoff the families of the Watergate burglars to keep them quiet about the involvement of the Nixon White House in the Watergate break-in and cover-up.

Hunt cited numerous coincidences surrounding the aftermath of the crash, including Nixon’s appointment of his henchman, Egil Krough, to the National Transportation Safety Board which investigates plane crashes, the very day after the incident.

Eyewitnesses reported that the plane exploded above treetop level before it had even hit the runway.

Hunt said that “at least 20-25 FBI members,” as well as numerous DIA agents were at the scene of the crash within minutes before rescue personnel had even arrived, and that this fact was attested to in a letter sent by the head of the Chicago FBI to investigator Sherman Skolnick.

Hunt said that his safety was guaranteed by the dissemination of the tape and that he had several copies and had mailed others to addresses both abroad and in the U.S.

“Once this information is out there’s really no point in anyone trying to do me in or do me wrong - someone may try to discredit me but I have no skeletons in my closet,” said Hunt.

As we have previously reported, the night before the Kennedy assassination, Lyndon Baines Johnson met with Dallas tycoons, FBI moguls and organized crime kingpins - emerging from the conference to tell his mistress Madeleine Duncan Brown that “those SOB’s” would never embarrass him again.

Though Brown first went public on her 21-year relationship with Johnson in the early 80’s, to this day her shocking revelations about how he had told her the Kennedy’s “would never embarrass me again” the night before the assassination are often ignored by the media who prefer to keep the debate focused on issues which can’t definitively be proven either way (or at least can be spun and whitewashed).

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2007/300407deathbedconfession.htm

[Plutarch]

I think that LBJ settled on Meyer as an opportunist, parent—like himself a parent—and a man who had very little left to him in life ever since JFK had taken Cord’s wife as one of his mistresses.

Things did not turn out well for Mrs. Meyer.

[fight_truth_decay]

Some Magic Bullet.

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

[Popocatapetl]

This is why the movie “Bigger Than Life” is so important. James Mason really chewed the scenery as a man driven mad by cortisone. It came out only 6 years before Kennedy was killed, so the false idea that cortisone would make you insane was still in the public consciousness. The AMA had not decided otherwise, yet, so doctors would also believe that.

Normally tertiary syphilis with its associated insanity doesn’t appear until old age. But there was the young James Mason going violently bonkers in that movie, in what an Imdb reviewer calls a “terrifying” movie.

I suppose a similar situation would be if several of our top US Senators discovered that George W. Bush was both sniffing glue and smoking large amounts of methamphetamine. They would not wait nor hesitate, but would contact Dick Cheney immediately with the prospect of removing him from office.

Remember also that the US was in a nuclear standoff with Russia right then, and things were a LOT more tense, and that the public would be easy to stampede if someone had suggested that JFK be impeached because he was taking a dangerous drug that would make him insane.

I still think *someone* would have asked him to resign. But I can find no hint that anyone did so.

It really would have been LBJ’s call, since he would be in charge afterwards, and nobody would want him to question what had been decided. He would have to guarantee that the investigation was directed away from the truth.

Importantly, LBJ kept the entire JFK cabinet after the assassination, even though he had great animosity to several of them. Highly unusual, but would make sense if he had to do that as a bargaining chip—keep continuity with the Kennedy machine still in power. It is noteworthy that the JFK cabinet were very disloyal to LBJ, who they hated.

[Bigun]

Let's say we have an actual lone assassin at the sixth floor SBD window; when I've been there it seemed perfectly obvious that the killer should strike when the car turned right onto that stretch of Houston Street and was coming straight at him with no angular deflection for the shot and with no trees in the way. Plus he could have set back farther into the room and been less exposed to observation.

I have been asking for 40 years why a lone assassin in that particular room would have passed up the shot(s) you described and waited until his intended target was moving away at a declining angle to shoot. It makes absolutely NO sense unless he HAD to wait until the target was within the pre designated "kill zone".

[fight_truth_decay]

We can really make a stretch here...........

Barack is close to TEDDY KENNEDY. The sec OBAMA wins, TEDDY will work thru Obama, close in on what’s left of the JFK HIT TEAM. If any are alive still. No wonder OBAMA has this incredible level of security! He fears a BOBBY hit

Writes one guy over on.. http://www.rollingstone.com/nationalaffairs/?p=972

After all authorites have said Barack Hussein Obama has not revealed any attempted threats on his life.

Conspiracy theory unadulterated. ;)

[fight_truth_decay]

There were two sets of boxcar arrests that day....

http://www.rollingstone.com/nationalaffairs/?p=972

[SaxxonWoods]

“Taped testimony can’t prove anything.
Try telling that to Richard Nixon”

Sorry, can’t agree. The Nixon tapes weren’t testimony, they were tapes of actual conversations, involving multiple people, and supported by other evidence and other testimony. There is a huge difference.

What we have here is one person making claims on tape. The claims, nor the fact that the claims are taped proves anything.

I could tape some claims about Michael.S.F., but they wouldn’t prove anything either, even if I had known and worked with you personally for years.

[Rockpile]

I know that some folks think that Umbrella Man was the one giving the "Go" signal for a team of killers. If that is so then Sixth Floor Guy would have had to wait. Otherwise why the heck would one pass up the easy shot where the victim is coming right at you?

BTW, I heard what was supposed to be the recording from the motorcycle cop's "open mike" and there were four bangs on that recording.

Also, have you ever seen the photo of the Lincoln's windshield with a bullet hole in the top window frame?

[southland]

bttt

[fight_truth_decay]

FBI INTERVIEWS (1992)
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/5439/Documents.html

FBI 180-10112-10154 BASS INTERVIEW: Three men [Hunt/Sturgis/Carswell] ran down and got into a grain car. ... [Officer Ray]
Vaughn climbed up the ladder on one of the cars and saw three men huddled in corner of the freight [grain] car. ... Vaughn
ordered the men out and they cussed at him. Vaughn then jacked a shell into his shotgun and ordered them out. H/S/C had no
money when arrested. Everyone in the LaFontains’ book refers to Doyle as being kind, gentle, quaint, sweet natured, i.e., would
not curse the cops. The hobos had money because Doyle was getting a check (see below).

FBI 124-10179-10312 CHAMBERS INTERVIEW: Capt. Jones assigned Chambers to watch three hobos [H/S/C] he described as
“dirty.” Jones asked Chambers to take them into his office to “find out which one shot the President.” Since they were all
together, he chose to only elicit general information. Their answers were confusing and not consistent. Their stories as to where
they were and where they were headed differed. Grinell came into the office and discussed the possibility of conducting a
gunpowder test on the hands of the hobos. Later, Jones advised Chambers thay arrested the individual who shot officer Tippit
and that he was the one who had also shot the President. Chambers then advised the three individuals, “you’re free to go.”

FBI 124-10151-10221 DOYLE INTERVIEW: Arrived from Houston (took one day to get from Houston to Dallas) on 11/22/63. Went
to Irving Street Mission, showered, cleaned up and received noon meal. After leaving Mission, someone told them JFK was shot.
They asked railroad employees if this was true, they said yes. Got into a gondola (coal car) and were headed to Fort Worth when
train stopped and they were arrested.

FBI 124-10273-10380 is basically the same interview but adds this conflicting information: after getting out of jail they went back
to Houston and then split up.

FBI 10151-10214 GEDNEY INTERVIEW: Says arrived Nov. 21, spent night at Salvation Army, had breakfast and lunch there on
Nov 22 and after hearing of the shooting, went to railroad yard where they got on a flatbed car with large sheets of steel and
were arrested by swarms of cops. After getting out of jail they traveled to Fort Worth, Arizona and Los Angeles and then split up.

FBI #10151-10224: Downing, a Dallas cop, said: Doyle told him they were in railroad yard waiting to catch out, heard sirens and
did not know Kennedy was shot until the Dallas police took him in for questioning.

FBI 124-10151-10224 GEDNEY INTERVIEW: Gedney said he and Doyle went all over the southwest and worked in labor camps
and slept in hobo camps. In November they ended up in Houston. Doyle was getting unemployment checks from California.
After getting a check, they went to Dallas. Arrived Nov. 21, went to Salvation Army, spent night, went to catch freight going north.
(Fort Worth is west of Dallas.) [H/S/C had no money.]

FBI 10273-10381: Gedney said he did not remember any of the arresting officers having any rifles or shotguns. Said they were
clean, had socks and did not appear dirty. [How could you not remember cops “jacking a shotgun shell”?]
SUMMARY OF FBI INTERVIEWS: If you read all the reports (even the ones I didn’t cite, above) and what the LaFontaines wrote in
their book, you would see many contradictions. Such as: if they were given new clothes then why did the H/S/C “stink”? Hunt was
a master of disguise. I wouldn’t doubt that he doused himself with wine. Hunt was carrying a new pocketknife in a paper sack.
The cop thought that was suspicious — that he stole it. Why would he carry it in a paper bag? If the bag got wet, he would lose
the knife. Bums always carry a jug of water and blankets.
The cops seriously thought H/S/C shot JFK, they were about to give them gunpowder tests when they were told Oswald was
arrested and then let them go. I don’t think the cops would believe winos/bums like Gedney et. al. were capable of shooting.
When Hunt and Sturgis were arrested in a “freight car”, the reports say they cursed the cops so one of the cops “jacked a shell
into the shotgun....” Gedney at. al. were arrested in another type of railroad car (flatcar with sheets of steel). One report says
Hunt’s bag had a shirt, towel/rag, can of Spam, bar of soap, knife... the bag in the photo doesn’t look that large.
You have to remember, some of these reports were written long after the fact so the reports could have been compromised. So
there you can see that the La Fontaine tramps are not the same ones arrested and photographed in Dealy Plaza.
SOURCES:Oswald Talked, La Fontaine
FBI interviews see:

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/5439/Documents.html

— You encountered Harrelson and Montoya there, who you knew ?

Holt: Harrelson came up and actually introduced himself to me as though we had just had a business meeting. He said to
me, in his typical Texas accent, “I’m Harrelson.” And we shook hands. But at the time this happened (the assassination),
I hadn’t seen him. He had been there for awhile I didn’t see him at that particular...(moment).

When I encountered him was when I had went back and scooted to the railroad car. I thought probably I would be the
only one there. Then I see Harrelson and the individual I knew as “Montoya”, that I had seen three or four times over a
three or four year period.

I met Montoya the first time in 1959. When we were trying to elicit funds from Orlando Peatra, who was Batista’s
paymaster. He lived on Pine Tree drive in Miami. And when I went over there, there were a number of individuals,
bodyguards and such. And this individual introduced himself as “Richard Montoya”, although I must admit he didn’t look
like the rest of the Cubans.

He looked like he might be Latin. He was dark, but he didn’t look like....He was a cut away from the other Cubans,
although he spoke excellent Spanish.

At the time of the shooting, the moment the shots were fired, we (I) knew something went awry. We didn’t know why, but
from the screaming and carrying on we knew that there had been one hell of a bad incident. At the time, what went
through our minds was, “Hey, we had gotten ourselves into something that is way over our heads.” So I scooted under
the train, went under to the other side, encountered Harrelson and Montoya, we searched out the car, which was not too
far from the engine, climbed in it, closed the door and sat there in silence, while I monitored the radio and listened to
what was going on.

We were in the railroad car by 12:31-12:32, almost immediately,...as soon as the shooting started, and there was
pandemonium and people were running all over the place. When actually, we look back on it, we could of easily have
lost ourselves in all of this stuff. We could have gotten right up to the grassy knoll and thrown ourselves on the ground,
like everybody else was, and started screaming, and that would have been the end of it.

We were in the box car a long time. Actually we heard a lot of transmissions. I estimated that it was almost 2 O’clock,
although my watch was still on Arizona time. I had a bad habit of not changing my watch. So I think we stayed in there till
practically 2 O’clock. We were still in there during the time when we heard the transmissions involving Tippit and back
and forth. We heard a lot of other communications. We heard the call that an officer had been dying. I am told and I
believe it was somewhere around 1:15 when we heard about the incident at the Texas theater, although we didn’t know
what happened.

So I thought it was possibly 2 O’clock before the train actually started to move. We started to move, backing down the
tracks a little ways. We thought it was going to move. I thought they were going to switch us onto another track.

Then suddenly the thing stopped. They opened the door and there was a whole bunch of police officers with shotguns
and everything else. We saw, the box car was not a fully loaded box car, but in this box car was ammunition, unusual
ammunition. Defcord?, crates that looked like they were possibly claymore mines, drums marked : MUD, which seemed
like drilling mud, which was unusual to be with the rest of this material. Which I assumed to be C-4 or some plastic
explosives.

The officers took us out, we tried to identify ourselves. We said, “Hey, we’re federal agents working on this thing,” and
they said, “Come with us.” So we strolled along and actually we went back, we came out of the yard, we went by the
Texas Depository building, across the street. I would say Harrelson and I were sort of dragging along, but Montoya, he
was really digging out. He was actually right up behind the lead officer. He turned us over to two officers, the officer in
charge, we later learned was Harkness.

In the photos, the individual in front is the individual I knew as Richard Montoya. The individual behind him I knew as
Charles Harrelson. I had reason to believe that’s who he actually was, even though I didn’t know him that well. I ‘m
confident that’s who it was. And I’m the gentleman in the back, carrying the bag with the radio in it. [An arresting
officer said there was a shirt, pocketknife, spam, a towel/rag in the bag.]

We were not placed under arrest. We were taken across, and someone interviewed us momentarily, and turned us over
to someone else. A person I later learned was Captain Fritz, he said not two or three words to us. He said he was turning
us over to the FBI. His name was Gordon Shanklin.

Chauncey Holt “confesses (below) to be the E. Howard Hunt “Tramp.” Chauncey
probably knew E. Howard Hunt because they both were involved in forging
documents and anti-Castro, anti-Trujillo activities in Miami, Hunt’s home base.
http://www.666ismoney.com/JFKWEB.html

[Bigun]

Also, have you ever seen the photo of the Lincoln's windshield with a bullet hole in the top window frame?

I have seen and read just about everything ever published, including the Warren Commission Report and the Zapruder film early on, about this event.

I was in high school when this occured. Three years later I was half way around the world learning all about "kill zones" and, at times, working closely with agents of a certian agency of the federal government.

I have also visited the site (Dealy Plaza) several times and have yet to come up with any answer to the question you posed other than what I have already said.