In the process of moving prior JFK Assassination Research articles from original site, http://www.jfk.education Comments are invited and appreciated and will be approved promptly, at the discretion of the site admin.
Mary Bledsoe and RD Matthews have the same first cousin, Jewell Ralston Germany, Jr. because Matthews’s mother’s sister Adelaide married Mary Bledsoe’s uncle, Jewell Ralston Germany, Sr. in 1919.:
Matthews, RD (Russell D.) 92, A WWII, 2nd Marine Division, veteran, who was awarded The Navy Cross and The Purple Heart. RD will be missed by his wife of 40 years, Linda, daughter, Peggy and grandsons.
Misdemeanor charges were expected to be filed today against an 80-year-old man who allegedly assaulted gambling figure Bob Stupak at an upscale restaurant in August.
Chief Deputy District Attorney David Barker said R.D. Matthews will be charged with battery, a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
According to police reports, Stupak, 58, was dining at Piero’s on Convention Center Drive Aug. 25 when Matthews grabbed Stupak by the arm and said he wanted to talk to him outside.
At the same time, Benny Binion Behnen, son of Horseshoe hotel-casino owner Becky Behnen, and an unnamed man reportedly began slapping Stupak about the head and face……
……Consider R.D. Matthews, who died recently at age 92, one of the most formidable apparitions from our gambling past. He was a ranking and respected member of what journalists once called the sporting crowd, which was a playful euphemism for the gamblers, hustlers, party girls and killers who lived by night on the edge of polite society.
Russell Douglas Matthews passed away in near anonymity — just a two-line obituary in a Dallas newspaper. It might have been the way he wanted it, but that quiet exit doesn’t do justice to the mystery that accompanied his long and reputedly violent life as a trusted friend of the late downtown casino legend Benny Binion. The fact you’ve never read much about Matthews in the local press makes a statement in itself.
He was born in Aspermont, Texas, on July 26, 1920. Matthews enlisted in the Marines after Pearl Harbor and was awarded a Navy Cross and Purple Heart. He is said to have inflicted more than his share of wounds in underworld wars after returning home. A member of the notorious Hollis de Lois Green gang of Texas, he was a Dallas bookmaker, nightclub manager and was known on the street as a stealthy enforcer.
Matthews was so well- acquainted with the inside players associated with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy that he rated mention in the Warren Commission Report and was interviewed at length in 1978 by the House Select Committee on Assassinations. (His attorney was Binion friend and future U.S. District Judge Harry Claiborne.)
Matthews intrigued investigators because of his intimate familiarity with the gambling underworld in Dallas, Las Vegas and Cuba, where he had lived for a time after the war. He also had a long friendship with Jack Ruby. But, then, Matthews knew most of the players in the Oswald-Ruby matrix.
Back in October 1963, Ruby placed a call to the Matthews home. A day later, according to one account, Ruby was in touch with Oswald. The connection has intrigued officials and fascinated assassination theorists for decades.
Not long after returning from the war, Matthews reacquainted himself with the Dallas underworld, where being an expert with a firearm guaranteed employment and respect. New Orleans prosecutor Jim Garrison once described Matthews as “a longtime heavy in the Southwest, having been linked with Benny “Cowboy” Binion, the Dallas racketeer now in Las Vegas.”
Officially, Matthews worked for Binion starting in the late 1970s, but multiple sources confirm they knew each other well decades earlier in Dallas, where Cowboy Benny was known as a rackets king and Matthews’ reputation for getting things done was well- established. Matthews, who wore an eye patch but never seemed to miss much around the Horseshoe, was considered a dear friend and protector of the Binion family.
………..
His street reputation was so well-known to the Las Vegas sporting crowd that a single slap from the then 80-year-old Matthews sent maverick casino man Bob Stupak into a panic. The incident occurred in August 2000 at Piero’s restaurant at a time Stupak was at odds with the new ownership of the Horseshoe led by Becky Binion Behnen.
No stranger to controversy during his extremely colorful career as the owner of Vegas World and big-idea man behind the Stratosphere tower, Stupak was so unnerved by the encounter with Matthews that he only stammered at my question and quickly declined comment.
R.D. Matthews was a ghost of Las Vegas past, but even as an octogenarian he was capable of stepping from the shadows and haunting the present.
……… A recently deceased friend, Dallas Attorney Spider Bynum lived across the street from R.D. Matthews’ mother and more or less took care of her in her late years and kept in touch with R.D. , always by telephone. He flew into Dallas on a private airplane at 2:10 a.m. the following day after his mother’s death, met
with the funeral director at Love Field, completed his business and flew back to Las Vegas a few hours later.
Spider tried on many occasions to ascertain what R.D. was so frightened of in Dallas, but he refused to talk about it. I do know Spider, who did a lot of legal work for the Campisi family and offered to accompany Joe ( Joseph) Campisi to Washington when he was called to test ify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations . Joe told him it was not necessary, but if R.D. Matthews was called, he sure might need him and may never see Dallas again.
Spider swore to the day he died, R.D. Matthews was somehow involved in Kennedy’s assassination, I guess we will never know now. Funny how evil people live so damn long—————- “
http://jfkfacts.org/search-new-jfk-files-2/
The Mary Ferrell Foundation does what the U.S. media organizations and the U.S. government
apparently cannot: creates a searchable database of 58 new JFK files that have never been made public before. (h/t Rex)
Source: Formerly withheld-in-full documents released on October 26, 2017
Troth Is Announced Of Miss Williams, Henry C. Hurt Jr. Mr. and Mrs. George … Margaret Nolting, to Henry Charles Hurt Jr., of Kennebunkport, Maine, son of Mr…..
In 1977, Henry Hurt, son in law of brother of Freeport Sulphur chairman, Langbourne M. Williams Jr…… informs Billy Joe Lord that Jim Beamiss, actually fitting the description of Fitzgerald Bemiss, is exerting pressure to result in Lord granting an interview to Henry Hurt and Readers Digest. https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=65388323
……..
Priscilla Johnson fully inserted herself into Marina’s life by late July, 1964, as Katya and Declan Ford did the hand off to Priscilla. Priscilla’s CIA handler was Garrison Garry Coit. Coit and Thomas Devine and 15 other Sigma Chi frat brothers cohabited in their frat house on MIT campus from fall, 1944. Coit went to Naval radio school in late Sept., Devine followed two weeks later.
Devine had nine contacts with DeMohrenschildt from late April, 1963 through late May. Devine and his close friend Joseph F Dryer, Jr. met separately with DeMohrenschildt and Clemard Charles on 25 April, 1963.
In late Sept., 1964, Priscilla put herself and Marina under the domicile and hospitality of her first cousin David C. Davenport, later described by Sam Ballen as a former CIA man. Davenport’s obit refers to his intelligence work.
In December, 1964, news and FBI reports describe Marina and Priscilla residing in a Sedona, AZ apartment, transported and escorted by Jerome Hastings, close friend of Davenport, driving Davenport’s Corvair with Alaska plates. In July, 1965, Davenport and Hastings are sued in New Mexico by Hasting’s step-daughter, JoAnn McAdams,
first cousin of presidential assistant Clark Clifford. The suit describes Hastings as then second husband of Clifford’s aunt, Marguerite Bowman McAdams Hasty. In 1966, Jerome Hasty legally changed his name in New Mexico to Hastings.
At this link, I have documented that in 1978 HSCA counsel asked Priscilla Johnson Macmillan why her book, “Marina and Lee” was delayed at least a dozen years. See http://archive.is/esTuB One excuse Priscilla offered was that she had experienced a bad period in which her father was a concealed suicide.
The last person reported to see Priscilla’s father Stuart alive and who reported him as missing to Locust Valley, LI police was James A. Thomas, a cousin of Allen Dulles whose sister Eleanor Lansing Thomas was maid of honor in Clover Dulles’s wedding.
Louise Wolcott Hooker Dodge – First cousin of Senator Jay (John D IV) Rockefeller’s grandfather Elon Huntington Hooker, and grandmother of Thomas J. Devine.
Students Don Ear Muffs to Shut Out Band Music
Daily Boston Globe – Aug 14, 1947
… rhumba music yesterday asked the Boston Licensing Board to shut down
the Hotel … one of 16 Tech students livings in the adjoining Sigma Chi
fraternity house … Other student were Thomas Devine of Rochester who
told of taking refuge in ..
Jul 31, 1992 – … opposing the bridge are Mr. Becker, a retired aviation lawyer; L. Garry and Barbara M. Coit, two former Central Intelligence Agency officials; .
Priscilla is asked by HSCA counsel in Feb., 1978, about her Harper editor’s (Bus Wyeth) reaction to the 12 year delay of her book…. (Marion “Buzz” Wyeth worked for Harper & Row since 1956) https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=95330#relPageId=43Next Page:
The China Diary of George H. W. Bush: The Making of a Global President https://www.google.com/#safe=off&tbm=bks&q=george+bush+bemis+devine&spf=1500536624714 Jeffrey A. Engel – 2011 – Preview – More editions The Making of a Global President Jeffrey A. Engel. “I brought home a picture … Bemis, Lias and Devine had a meeting regarding my political future—very thoughtful of them.5 All I know now is to do the best job one can here. There is no credit in …”
The class of ’44 were only ten, the other ten had gone off to larger schools but were not forgotten.
The Class Will, signed by the ten graduating members of Allendale-Columbia School, class of 1944….The original 20 were classmates as long as grades K-9. Peter Dryer departed for Choate and Hawley Ward for St. Paul’s …..
Meanwhile, in Concord, NH, Priscilla and Marina’s future book editor gained a classmate and evidently Buz Wyeth and Hawley Ward became friends!
Wyeth was a member of St. Paul’s class of ’44 and Hawley Ward joined Wyeth’s class, transferring from Allendale-Columbia school…https://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/1183 Title: FRANK HAWLEY WARD FAMILY PAPERS …………… Her first son, Hawley Werner Ward, known to the family as Mike, was born in 1927, after which she spent the period of February to April in Bermuda. Her second son, Addison Werner Ward, was born in 1930. Hawley Ward’s daughter Elizabeth married John Adams in 1933. They had two daughters. The two Ward boys attended Allendale School in Rochester, and then were sent to St. Paul’s School in Concord, N.H. Hawley began in the Fall of 1941, and Addison began in the Fall of 1942. Hawley Werner Ward entered the U.S. Navy in the Summer of 1944, and served two years. He was trained in radio electronics, and was eventually sent to the Pacific after the declaration of peace. Both Hawley and Addison attended Princeton University, Hawley entering in the Fall of 1946, and Addison in the Fall of 1947.Meet the esteemed editor of the Allendale-Columbia School, class of 1944 Yearbook.. Nineteen years later and within two weeks of the final time he looked into Oswald’s eyes, DeMohrenschildt was looking into these eyes. Devine interrupted a long hiatus from CIA to meet George DeM. and Clemard Charles and Devine reported 8 additional contacts with DeMohrenschildt through the following month.
Devine went on to attend M.I.T. and, just a few months later was residing in the Sigma Chi fraternity house with Garry Coit and fifteen other fraternity mates.
Peter Dryer, another of the not forgotten ten on Devine’s list in the yearbook, was the brother of Joseph F. Dryer, Jr., who met DeMohrenschildt in separate NYC meeting, but on the very same day as Devine, on 25 April, 1963 !
Peter Dryer partnered with brother Joseph in Cuba and then in Guatemala and was also a member of Wyeth’s 1948 Princeton class.
In January, 1964, Garry Coit happened to become the CIA contact of Priscilla Johnson….
Marion Sims “Buz” Wyeth had become by 1949, close enough to Devine’s former classmate to invite Hawley Ward to be an usher in his wedding party.:
1977….Billy Joe Lord writes to Pres. Carter that he works for Jim Allison in Midland
and Henry Hurt told Lord that he asked a friend, a Mr. Beamiss, head of republican party
in state of VA and owner of string of hotels, how to pressure Lord….FBI response was to
add Jim as first name of Bemiss and then actually not investigate. Bush close friend Fitzgerald,
Gerry Bemiss had meeting with Tom Devine in 1975 to determine Bush political future, per
Bush’s own book, published much later. Bemiss headed Ford election campaign finance in 1976
and owned hotels on Blue Ridge Pkwy. via his family, Virginia Skyline Corp.
Pretty obvious everything Billy Joe Lord related in his Feb., 1977 letter to Pres. Carter was
true. It is possible the letter was intended to distance Jay Epstein from CIA, IOW Lord was
actually cooperating with Hurt and Epstein in a hangout, but that is not our concern.
Bush said trust Ford that Oswald acted alone. Okay, fine….explain DeMohrenschildt, Devine,
Garry Coit, Joseph Dryer, Priscilla editor Wyeth, Lord’s 1977 letter, and connections of Bush
to Ed Hooker, Hooker and S Willetts Meyer, Wyeth connections to Devine’s schoolmate, Hawley Ward who transferred to St. Paul’s in Concord, NH into Wyeth’s class of 1944, to the Meyer boys, and neighbors DeMohrenschildt in-laws, the Sharpies, and Wyeth’s 12 years’ patience with Priscilla.
What did Priscilla intend in HSCA testimony about her father being accidental suicide? Why
did Priscilla use her CIA cousin, David Davenport as a safehouse for Marina and his friend, Jerome Hastings, who was Clark Clifford’s uncle as Marina chauffeur and body guard?
Our Man in Haiti: George de Mohrenschildt and the CIA in the Nightmare Republic – Joan Mellen
….In March 1963, the powerful 902nd Military Intelligence Group referred to George de Moherenschildt as “a business associate of Vice-President Lyndon Johnson.”
[b] On April, 19, the de Mohrenschildts left for New York.[/b]
When he found his way to Washington, D.C., de Mohrenschilst met, not with Lyndon Johnson, but with Johnson’s assistant for National Security Affairs, Air Force Colonel Howard Burris. A native Texan, Burris was an intelligence officer who had been involved in CIA’s 1953 coup against Iranian president Mohammed Mossadegh. He was an intimate of Richard Helms and of General Charles Cabell, right hand man of Allen Dulles, and brother of Dallas mayor Earle Cabell, who was in office at the time of the assassination of President Kennedy later in the year. An oilman by profession, Burris had created the Cuban-Venezuelan Oil Voting Trust Company, only to have his Cuban oil properties to be confiscated by Fidel Castro.
Clemard Joseph Charles departed from Haiti for Newy York on April 23. Upon his arrival, he was interviewed by a CIA informant who is identified in the CIA document describing their meeting only as a “former journalist.” Whith no fear that his words would get back to Papa Doc, Charles confided to the informant that heas in a strong position to become head of a provisional government once Duvalier was removed. Duvalier was likely to unleash a reign of terror and had to be stopped before he liquidated his opposition, Charles volunteered.
Speaking as if he were aware that this “journalist” was a direct pipeline to CIA, and that CIA was motivated by fear that Haiti might become a second Cuba, Charles added that Duvalier was about to accept aid from the Soviet bloc. In contrast, he would establish a democratic Haiti, one “friendly toward the Unites States, and save the country from a Castro-type Communist takeover.”
Charles then boasted of his “wide range of support among the peasantry, anti-Duvalier army officers, intellectuals, journalists and businessmen.” Should he not be appointed provisional president, Charles said, he might accept the post of Secretary of Finance and Economic Affairs.
In New York, Chalres me with kenaf partner, Joe Dryer. Charles had sent a limousine to the hotel to pick up Dryer and his partner, Clark Cassidy. Dryer recounts that he and Cassidy both were fond of Charles. Charles had a secretary wwith him, a woman who, as Dryer knew through his own intellligence connections, had been planted on Charles by CIA.
In the late 1970’s, Dryer told the House Select Committee on Assassinations that Charles had “many connections” with the Central Intelligence Agency. He added that George de Mohrenschildt had “some intelligence connection,” although he professed not to know with which country. It seems clear that CIA held both Clemard Joseph Charles and George de Mohrenschildt within its radar, destined for some role in Haiti’s political future….
….To Dryer now, in 1963, Charles described George de Mohrenschildt as his “business associate,” adding that de Mohrenschildt had an appointment with Vice President Johnson.
A generous man, Dryer supplied Clemard Joseph Charles with some useful letters of introduction, testaments to his character. ….to Senator Kenneth Keating….. to Democratic Congressman Paul Rogers of Florida…..
Dryer had his own bank conduct a credit check on George de Mohrenschildt, with the understanding that the name of the client initiating the inquiry “remain confidential.” The bank official however, reported to Special Agent William W. Hamilton of the New York FBI field office. He described the person checking on de Mohrenschildt only as “a firm dealing in the import and export of fibers.”
Dryer denies that he arranged for a credit check de Mohrenschildt, but given his concern for Charles, and his doubts about de Mohrenschildt, it seem that it could only have been he, a businessman “dealing in the import and export of fibers.”
The ensuing credit report, issuing from the Republic National Bank in Dallas, arrived on June 14. It was “favorable concerning de Mohresnschildt’s credit.” The evidence suggests that, along the way, Dryer had confided what he knew about Clemard Joseph Charles and George de Mohrenschildt to Army intelligence. Dryer’s views, as outlined above, appear almost verbatim, in the released files of 90 Deuce.
It is April 25, 1963 at the Knickerbocker Club[/b] at 2 East 62 Street, immediately east of Fifth Avenue in New York City. Two CIA operatives are conferring in the club’s library: C. Frank Stone, III, who is responsible for CIA’s WUBRINY operations, and Thomas J. Devine, CIA’s principal asset on the project. Devine had been a CIA staff employee, who ostensibly “resigned” in 1953 to “go into private business.”…..Devine’s partner, John Train, a long-time CIA asset, was a founder of the CIA-sponsored Paris Review. …
After I discovered Tom Devine’s “Gone but not forgotten,” list in his yearbook and saw Peter Dryer’s name, I contacted Joan Mellen…..
At long last, do we even know what questions to ask? How do we know to even ask that question or what the correct answer is? How many Russians entwined in the official story of a lone nut, a magic bullet, and a reluctant, accidental Russian immigrant home movie maker are too many?
All net proceeds from the sale of the books shall revert to and be at the disposal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia and the Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Rußland in Germany for the purpose of heritage and cultural research. The contributors have, in this manner, accomplished two worthwhile objectives. 1. They have made possible the publication of the book. 2. They have indirectly given their support to the cultural research activities. HONORARY CONTRIBUTORS LIST $ 28.00-$ 40.00 John Alles, SanGabriel, California Capt. N. C. Altenhof, Moosejaw, Saskatchewan, Mr. & Mrs. Carl Amen, Loveland, Colorado Miss Ruth M. Amen, Lincoln, Nebraska B. A. Anheliger, Holdfast, Saskatchewan, Canada Myron E. Anderson, Greeley, Colorado Assumption Abbey, Richardton, North Dakota John Baab, Berrien Springs, Michigan Dean C. Batt, Marion, Kansas Mr. & Mrs. Edwin A. Beisel, Saginaw,Michigan Mr. & Mrs. Howard O. Berg, Devils Lake, N. D. Robert H. Billigmeier, Santa Barbara, California Dr. Sc Mrs. Norman Bitter, Fresno, California Bill & Elsa (Silbernagel) Burley, Denver, Colo. Beverly J. Burres, Fresno, California George …
Background on William M Burley, III’s wife, Elsa Silbernagel :
It is not possible to determine if the routine complaint Tippit and Hankins responded to at Club 80 was a disturbance by extremely drunk Leonard Garland or something else that actually brought the officers into the Club. (From maryferrell link, below.)
In a post on the “OswaldsMother” blog, George observed that the shooting of Leonard Garland was not investigated by the DPD.
(Death Certificate, no autopsy )
I can add that no autopsy was performed before Garland’s body was shipped to Clarksville, Arkanasas on 6 Sept., 1956.
The Dallas authorities recorded his birth year as 1923 but birth records indicate it was 1922
Garland was from a large family and the brother closest in age to him is buried here.: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=99604866 (Exploring the “man exacts revenge for the death of his kid brother,” angle, as no one else has done it.)
There were at least one even older and two much younger brothers.
