Here is a brief sketch of three people involved with some aspect of the JFK assassination who aren’t depicted in the Stone docudrama, even in fictionalized form.
What’s he got to do with anything? As Arnold stood on the embankment, a man in a light colored suit flashed a Secret Service badge, and shooed him a few feet away. As the President’s motorcade passed, Arnold heard shots ring out directly behind him. Per his combat training, he hit the turf, while his camera continued to roll. Immediately after the shots ended, a man dressed as a Dallas police officer confiscated his camera at gunpoint.
Abraham Bolden (c.1934- )
Who the hell is he? A Secret Service Agent
What’s his story? A former Illinois State trooper, Bolden joined the Secret Service in 1959. He was ordered to secure, of all things, the, um, privy during Kennedy’s visit to the Windy City in 1961. The two met when the call of nature led the President to his station. Kennedy asked him if he had ever been on the presidential detail. When Bolden informed him that no African American had served in that capacity, Kennedy vowed to fix that. Sure enough, Abraham found himself in the Oval Office one month later.
Kennedy probably didn’t arrange Bolden’s transfer because of tokenism, but out of a very pragmatic concern. The President felt animosity from the very agents assigned to protect him, and wanted someone around whom he felt he could trust. Bolden found massive evidence to justify Kennedy’s fears. Among other things, he discovered that a substantial number of agents were ultraconservative (bordering on extremist) southerners who openly expressed their hatred of Kennedy behind the President’s back. There were also alcoholic agents who couldn’t even stay sober on the job. Quite a few agents, drunk or sober, declared in front of Bolden that they wouldn’t risk their own lives to save this President, whom they regarded as either a communist, or a communist sympathizer.
Bolden, per regulations, tried to address these matters through a hostile chain of command, but to no avail. After three months on the Presidential detail, his superiors transferred him back to Chicago, despite Kennedy’s wishes.
What’s he got to do with anything? In addition to exposing the lackadaisical attitudes the Secret Service had toward protecting Kennedy (which became more important when Secret Service personnel were caught at an after-hours joint drinking past three in the morning on the day of the assassination), Bolden, along with everyone else in his field office, saw an FBI teletype warning of a plot to kill Kennedy during the President’s scheduled visit to Chicago during the first week of November 1963. As a result of the warning, Kennedy cancelled his trip to Illinois.
When Bolden discovered that the Warren Commission didn’t have a copy of the teletype, he tried to give them one. Someone on the committee tersely told him, “Keep your mouth shut.” So he flew to Washington to contact Warren Commission counsel Lee Rankin, whereupon he was immediately arrested, flown back to Chicago, and charged with discussing bribery with alleged counterfeiters. On the word of mobster Sam DeStefano, Bolden was convicted, and served a six-year sentence.
Silvia Duran (1937- )
Who the hell is she? A bureaucrat.
What’s her story? An openly leftist Mexican citizen, Duran took a job at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City. She immediately aroused the CIA’s suspicion when the Agency discovered her clandestine affair with Cuban Ambassador Carlos Lechuga.
On 27 September 1963, a little over a month after she got the embassy gig, Duran processed paperwork for a man identifying himself as Lee Harvey Oswald, who wanted a visa to travel to Cuba, and then to the Soviet Union. Something about him just didn’t seem right. When she informed him that he needed four photographs to process his information, he came back not just with photographs but with his “Fair Play for Cuba” paraphernalia, a newspaper clipping about his arrest in New Orleans for distributing communist literature, and other stuff to establish his communist bona fides.
To Duran, and her supervisor, Eusebio Azcue, the guy calling himself Oswald had all the earmarks of what spies call a “dangle,” or in other words a false defector trying to penetrate Soviet and Cuban intelligence by posing as a jaded American spy willing to betray the US. She sent the man to the Soviet embassy. The Russians told him he would have to wait for a few weeks in order to process the paperwork. “Oswald” then went back to the Cuban embassy and told them that the USSR had given him special permission to get the visa right away. When Duran called the Soviets to check, she found that the man had lied to her. This led him to cause a scene, whereupon Azcue told him to vacate the premises.
What’s she got to do with anything? Moments after receiving word of the JFK assassination, Winston Scott, a CIA case officer working in Mexico, ordered local authorities friendly to the Agency to take Duran into custody, over the objections of Assistant Deputy Director of Ops Tom Karamessines in Langley. Luis Echeverría Álvarez, a political party hack who would one day become the President of Mexico, arranged the arrest of Duran, her husband and five others. Echeverria later reported that Duran identified the real Lee Harvey Oswald as the man who walked into her office back in September.
That’s the official story. And the CIA’s sticking to it.
The problem is that Duran supposedly took awhile to make up her mind as to whether or not the man in question was Oswald. Despite the fact that the man caused a scene in her office only a couple of months earlier, and generally made a nuisance of himself, it took her several days to identify Oswald, and she emerged from police custody bearing marks of physical torture. Not stopping there, the CIA attempted to implicate her in the assassination attempt by circulating rumors that Duran and Oswald were lovers. The gossip apparently came from Duran’s in-laws, who probably never liked her after her affair with Ambassador Lechuga. Publicly she has denied the rumor, although “friends” have said she spoke of the affair with them privately.
What’s most important is that Duran has repeatedly stated that the man who visited her office on 27 September 1963 was not Oswald. The CIA had cameras trained at the Cuban embassy to catch American citizens who’d prefer to apply for visas there instead of in the US. Despite the fact that Oswald would have had to pass these cameras at least six times that day, the only pictures the CIA could produce looked nothing like him.
Figure 4. The Fat, Balding, Older Oswald
Shortly before his death, then-CIA Deputy Director of Ops (DDO) Richard Helms admitted that the above pictures were not that of Oswald, although the Agency insisted for years that it was. Yet, the former DCI insisted that Oswald did make the trip to Mexico City. Duran, on the other hand, said that the visitor looked nothing like Oswald, or the guy in the above photo. She and Azcue described the Oswald imposter as being very short (about 5’3”), with blond hair and blue eyes, while Oswald himself had brown hair, brown eyes and stood at 5’9.5”.*
Moreover, a very important witness placed Oswald in Dallas on 25 September 1963, while Oswald was supposedly on the bus ride to Mexico City. Sylvia Odio, a Cuban ex-patriot, received a visit from three men that morning. Two of the men introduced themselves as Leopoldo and Angelo, members of the Junta Revolucionaria, a leftist exile group. They introduced the silent, white man with them as Leon Oswald. The following day, Leopoldo phoned Odio to tell her that Oswald was an expert shot who wanted to kill Kennedy. After the assassination, she recognized Oswald as the man who visited her apartment on that day, as did her sister, Anne.
The Warren Commission was apparently reluctant to brand Odio a liar, and instead simply dismissed her testimony as mistaken. The House Select Committee on Assassinations, however, sincerely believed that Odio was neither lying nor wrong when she said that Oswald visited her when he was supposedly traveling south of the border. Later, researchers identified (per Odio’s description) Leopoldo as Bernardo De Torres, an extremely right-wing anti-Castro Cuban exile who served as an intelligence officer during the CIA’s ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion. Angelo was identified as Edwin Collins, a US Marine with ties to the KKK, the John Birch Society, and the CIA.
This tale of the two Silvias (or Sylvias) strongly suggests that elements within the CIA had a plan to finger Oswald as early as September 1963, and then link him with the Cuban government. One could thus see Duran’s immediate arrest as Win Scott executing that phase of the plan. Karamessines’ rejection suggests that CIA elements connected to the assassination decided not to push the Cuba connection narrative, opting instead for the lone-nut hypothesis. They subsequently attempted to establish a (false) romantic connection between Duran and Oswald in case it might come in handy in provoking war against Cuba later on.
Arnold Gordon (1941-1997)
Who the hell is he? An army soldier.
What‘s his story? On leave, Gordon returned to his hometown of Dallas to visit friends and family. Upon hearing of the president’s visit, Gordon took his movie camera with him to the Grassy Knoll.
What’s he got to do with anything? As Arnold stood on the embankment, a man in a light colored suit flashed a Secret Service badge, and shooed him a few feet away. As the President’s motorcade passed, Arnold heard shots ring out directly behind him. Per his combat training, he hit the turf, while his camera continued to roll. Immediately after the shots ended, a man dressed as a Dallas police officer confiscated his camera at gunpoint.
Abraham Bolden (c.1934- )
Who the hell is he? A Secret Service AgentWhat’s his story? A former Illinois State trooper, Bolden joined the Secret Service in 1959. He was ordered to secure, of all things, the, um, privy during Kennedy’s visit to the Windy City in 1961. The two met when the call of nature led the President to his station. Kennedy asked him if he had ever been on the presidential detail. When Bolden informed him that no African American had served in that capacity, Kennedy vowed to fix that. Sure enough, Abraham found himself in the Oval Office one month later.
Kennedy probably didn’t arrange Bolden’s transfer because of tokenism, but out of a very pragmatic concern. The President felt animosity from the very agents assigned to protect him, and wanted someone around whom he felt he could trust. Bolden found massive evidence to justify Kennedy’s fears. Among other things, he discovered that a substantial number of agents were ultraconservative (bordering on extremist) southerners who openly expressed their hatred of Kennedy behind the President’s back. There were also alcoholic agents who couldn’t even stay sober on the job. Quite a few agents, drunk or sober, declared in front of Bolden that they wouldn’t risk their own lives to save this President, whom they regarded as either a communist, or a communist sympathizer.
Bolden, per regulations, tried to address these matters through a hostile chain of command, but to no avail. After three months on the Presidential detail, his superiors transferred him back to Chicago, despite Kennedy’s wishes.
What’s he got to do with anything? In addition to exposing the lackadaisical attitudes the Secret Service had toward protecting Kennedy (which became more important when Secret Service personnel were caught at an after-hours joint drinking past three in the morning on the day of the assassination), Bolden, along with everyone else in his field office, saw an FBI teletype warning of a plot to kill Kennedy during the President’s scheduled visit to Chicago during the first week of November 1963. As a result of the warning, Kennedy cancelled his trip to Illinois.
When Bolden discovered that the Warren Commission didn’t have a copy of the teletype, he tried to give them one. Someone on the committee tersely told him, “Keep your mouth shut.” So he flew to Washington to contact Warren Commission counsel Lee Rankin, whereupon he was immediately arrested, flown back to Chicago, and charged with discussing bribery with alleged counterfeiters. On the word of mobster Sam DeStefano, Bolden was convicted, and served a six-year sentence.
Silvia Duran (1937- )
Who the hell is she? A bureaucrat.On 27 September 1963, a little over a month after she got the embassy gig, Duran processed paperwork for a man identifying himself as Lee Harvey Oswald, who wanted a visa to travel to Cuba, and then to the Soviet Union. Something about him just didn’t seem right. When she informed him that he needed four photographs to process his information, he came back not just with photographs but with his “Fair Play for Cuba” paraphernalia, a newspaper clipping about his arrest in New Orleans for distributing communist literature, and other stuff to establish his communist bona fides.
To Duran, and her supervisor, Eusebio Azcue, the guy calling himself Oswald had all the earmarks of what spies call a “dangle,” or in other words a false defector trying to penetrate Soviet and Cuban intelligence by posing as a jaded American spy willing to betray the US. She sent the man to the Soviet embassy. The Russians told him he would have to wait for a few weeks in order to process the paperwork. “Oswald” then went back to the Cuban embassy and told them that the USSR had given him special permission to get the visa right away. When Duran called the Soviets to check, she found that the man had lied to her. This led him to cause a scene, whereupon Azcue told him to vacate the premises.
What’s she got to do with anything? Moments after receiving word of the JFK assassination, Winston Scott, a CIA case officer working in Mexico, ordered local authorities friendly to the Agency to take Duran into custody, over the objections of Assistant Deputy Director of Ops Tom Karamessines in Langley. Luis Echeverría Álvarez, a political party hack who would one day become the President of Mexico, arranged the arrest of Duran, her husband and five others. Echeverria later reported that Duran identified the real Lee Harvey Oswald as the man who walked into her office back in September.
That’s the official story. And the CIA’s sticking to it.
The problem is that Duran supposedly took awhile to make up her mind as to whether or not the man in question was Oswald. Despite the fact that the man caused a scene in her office only a couple of months earlier, and generally made a nuisance of himself, it took her several days to identify Oswald, and she emerged from police custody bearing marks of physical torture. Not stopping there, the CIA attempted to implicate her in the assassination attempt by circulating rumors that Duran and Oswald were lovers. The gossip apparently came from Duran’s in-laws, who probably never liked her after her affair with Ambassador Lechuga. Publicly she has denied the rumor, although “friends” have said she spoke of the affair with them privately.
What’s most important is that Duran has repeatedly stated that the man who visited her office on 27 September 1963 was not Oswald. The CIA had cameras trained at the Cuban embassy to catch American citizens who’d prefer to apply for visas there instead of in the US. Despite the fact that Oswald would have had to pass these cameras at least six times that day, the only pictures the CIA could produce looked nothing like him.
Figure 4. The Fat, Balding, Older Oswald
Shortly before his death, then-CIA Deputy Director of Ops (DDO) Richard Helms admitted that the above pictures were not that of Oswald, although the Agency insisted for years that it was. Yet, the former DCI insisted that Oswald did make the trip to Mexico City. Duran, on the other hand, said that the visitor looked nothing like Oswald, or the guy in the above photo. She and Azcue described the Oswald imposter as being very short (about 5’3”), with blond hair and blue eyes, while Oswald himself had brown hair, brown eyes and stood at 5’9.5”.*
Moreover, a very important witness placed Oswald in Dallas on 25 September 1963, while Oswald was supposedly on the bus ride to Mexico City. Sylvia Odio, a Cuban ex-patriot, received a visit from three men that morning. Two of the men introduced themselves as Leopoldo and Angelo, members of the Junta Revolucionaria, a leftist exile group. They introduced the silent, white man with them as Leon Oswald. The following day, Leopoldo phoned Odio to tell her that Oswald was an expert shot who wanted to kill Kennedy. After the assassination, she recognized Oswald as the man who visited her apartment on that day, as did her sister, Anne.
The Warren Commission was apparently reluctant to brand Odio a liar, and instead simply dismissed her testimony as mistaken. The House Select Committee on Assassinations, however, sincerely believed that Odio was neither lying nor wrong when she said that Oswald visited her when he was supposedly traveling south of the border. Later, researchers identified (per Odio’s description) Leopoldo as Bernardo De Torres, an extremely right-wing anti-Castro Cuban exile who served as an intelligence officer during the CIA’s ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion. Angelo was identified as Edwin Collins, a US Marine with ties to the KKK, the John Birch Society, and the CIA.
This tale of the two Silvias (or Sylvias) strongly suggests that elements within the CIA had a plan to finger Oswald as early as September 1963, and then link him with the Cuban government. One could thus see Duran’s immediate arrest as Win Scott executing that phase of the plan. Karamessines’ rejection suggests that CIA elements connected to the assassination decided not to push the Cuba connection narrative, opting instead for the lone-nut hypothesis. They subsequently attempted to establish a (false) romantic connection between Duran and Oswald in case it might come in handy in provoking war against Cuba later on.
it like they all have a whole lot to do with it!
ReplyDeletefoam
True, Foam. Of course, because of the time and budget constraits of movies, a filmmaker cannot mention everyone, or go into any depth about them.
ReplyDeleteWow...that was an amazing set of portraits. The one about Duran was especially compelling.
ReplyDeleteCandy, Duran remains one of many witnesses who could severely dent the credibility of the Warren Commission's findings.
ReplyDelete