Several times in the past, critics have complained that Lee Harvey Oswald and Judyth Vary Baker would not be able to find 'a fine hotel' in the area of Cancun, because in 1963, no such place existed.
But Cancun was once spelled Kankun, and on a remote beach in this part of the Yucatan, Judyth was to be brought by plane on Sept. 26-27, 1963, as described in the book Me and Lee. From there, they planned a long hike to Chichen Itza, following maps from a book published in 1963. They saw it as the adventure of a lifetime, planning to marry in Merida afterwards.
(The critics came from two groups: affiliates of the now-disgraced John McAdams, who had dogged Judyth for years, and a group on Education Forum, many of whom believed the the 'Harvey and Lee' theory.)
DR. JAMES FETZER POSTED ON THE EDUCATION FORUM FOR JUDYTH.
INTRODUCTION: "In
1963 Cancun did not exist as any sort of settlement, town, village..." they intoned. Therefore, said McAdams' newsgroup watchdogs, "Judyth Vary Baker lied when she said she was going to meet Oswald there, and that there was a fine hotel in the area."
The accusation has been refuted for years, but recently, has emerged again as if it had never been answered. This dishonest revival of an old issue as if it was unresolved will be addressed (again) for those unaware of the truth.
Dr. Fetzer posted for Judyth
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Trip Advisor tells the tourist: "
Although the ruins scattered throughout the area tell of an ancient Mayan civilization across the region, Cancun itself was only developed as a resort island in the 1960s from what was once a sliver of sand off the coast of the Yucatan peninsula. Recognizing a rising outburst of tourism from the US, the Mexican Government carved Cancun out of the deep jungle of the Quintana Roo region, building causeways to connect the island to the mainland and constructing an international airport... it was opened to tourism in 1974. Advertised as a tropical paradise, Cancun soon attracted tourists from Canada, the US and Europe."
Right away, the reader can see that (1) there were ruins of "an ancient Maya civilization" "scattered throughout the area" and (2) it was basically "a sliver of sand." It was not a resort filled with hotels until "...opened to tourism in 1974."
When my first agent asked me 'where in the Yucatan' Lee and I had planned to meet, I pointed to what was once, indeed, nothing but hard, sandy beaches in the area he immediately told me was "Cancun." {Please note that "Kankun" and "Cankun" are pronounced exactly the same way.
I SAW NOTHING WRONG WITH USING THE CURRENT SPELLING ('CANCUN') SO THAT EVERYONE WOULD UNDERSTAND WHERE LEE AND I PLANNED TO MEET.
It turned out that because 'Cancun' didn't exist in 1963, that this was to be used to try to destroy my credibility. Earlier, I had asked my co-author of the book Deadly Alliance (a short, incomplete draft based on emails) to spell "Cancun" "Kankun" so there would be no confusion, but in the end, he didn't do it, and the name remained "Cancun" because he couldn't find "Kankun" on any maps. McAdams' newsgroup then gloated that Cancun (the resort) didn't exist in 1963 and therefore we would not have been able to use a "fine hotel" in the area in 1963.
Having never done any research into that, of course, merely stating what we had planned, all I could say was that "Kankun" did exist and Lee indeed had said there was a fine hotel that we would be staying at in the area, just prior to our visiting Chichen Itza. Little did I know that a fine hotel indeed existed, right next to Chichen Itza! What a surprise it would have been for me, had Lee and i been able to escape, meet at the beach site in the Yucatan as planned, then travel down to that ancient site -- where the hotel, as well, was located.
But Lee was captured, shot and killed, and I never knew if what he'd described as a "fine hotel" was a joke or not, for Lee told many jokes.
KANKUN AND CANCUN
Today, many hotels located in Cancun use the spelling "Kankun"
instead. One bus tour says: "This beautiful island mentioned on some
maps as "Kankun", which in Mayan means "pot of snakes" or "snake pit"
then changed to Cancun; from an almost deserted and unexplored place,
today it is renowned worldwide, so much so that it annually receives over
two million visitors; and you could be one thanks to Wayak’s bus from
Cancun to Chichen Itza." The "Mile-by-Mile" tourist guide says:
"The city of Cancun in the state of Qintana Roo Mexico receives its name from the Maya word
Kan Kun, that means place of snakes. This city is one of the most important world-renowned tourist resort and development for Mexico where only 30 years ago was mostly an virgin area...Attractions in and around Cancun MX. - Museo de Antropologia e Historia. The Museum features Maya History showing exhibits of Mayan artifacts. The museum is located on Boulevard Kukulcan, in the Hotel Zone."
USA Today makes it clear that Cancun was once KANKUN:
"On old maps of the region, the small fishing village on the northeast coast of the Yucatan Peninsula was called Kankun. In the local Mayan dialect that meant “nest of snakes”--but the name Cancun, as the major resort area has come to be known, now symbolizes successful tourism development on a grand scale."
It should seem pretty silly NOW to declare that Cancun/Kankun did not exist in 1963 and that therefore i was "making it up." I wasn't.
Chichen Itza was a famed pyramid in the news in 1963, as new excavations were being conducted. Both Lee and I wished very much to climb Chichen-Itza, which I described from the beginning as our destination before going on to the city of Merida, where we planned to get married.
Here is a card dated 1963 of Chichen Itza:
From a tourist site:
"For centuries, the white sands of Cancun bore few footprints. In the 1960s, the population in the area was estimated at approximately 1,000 residents, most of them Mayan fishermen and their families."
THE 'DISCUSSION'
THE DISCUSSION WAS EXHUMED AGAIN BY MCADAMS' PEOPLE, PLUS JACK WHITE [WHO PROMOTED THE 'HARVEY AND LEE' THEORY] IN 2010:
J
ames H. Fetzer, on Mar 28 2010, 08:30 PM, said:
"Another claim that she made that he [Lifton] could not believe was the story of them meeting for a rendevous at a hotel in the middle
of the jungle in Mexico in the resort of Cancun, which he found
incredible, especially since Cancun did not exist at the time. ...Lifton made a mistake over the phone, because they [CANCUN AND KANKUN: jvb]are both pronounced the same."
(I wrote, THROUGH FETZER) "HE ONLY TELLS YOU TO FOCUS ON "CANCUN" AS HE HEARD IT OVER THE PHONE. I WAS CRUCIFIED OVER THAT ISSUE UNTIL DEB BERT AND OTHERS NOTED THAT MAYALAND WAS BUILT RIGHT THERE AT CHICHEN-IZA, WHERE I SAID LEE AND I WOULD MEET (sic: we actually planned to meet on the beach and travel on TO Chichen-Itza). ... THE OLD MAPS WE LOOKED AT SAID "KANKUN", THE NEW ONES SAY THE CITY "CANCUN".
DR. FETZER ADDED:
And she's right!
Barb Junkkarenin replied: "Just a little geographic orientation
regarding Cancun ...kan-kun ... and the Mayaland hotel. The above
reads as if the Mayaland is in close proximity to Quintana Roo where
Cancun is located. It is not. Chichen Itza and the Mayaland hotel are not i
n Cancun, or Kan-kun ... nowhere near. Chichen Itza and the Mayaland
Hotel are located in the middle of the jungle in the state of Yucatan.
Cancun is located in the state of Quintana Roo. Quintana Roo did not
become a state until 1974, but it was an officially named territory as of
1902. Who cares about Quintana Roo? Judyth, who wrote:
I began to fantasize about my hoped-for escape to Quintana Roo.
In my dreams, I climbed Mayan pyramids with hinds´ feet in high places,
Lee laughing by my side, the wind blowing our hair awry, and colorful
birds flying in great processioned wheels around us, their cries of joy
mingled with ours. I would feel Lee´s touch, that certain way he had of
tracing just so across my hip, and I would wake smiling -- to a void.
Barb J. went on to say:
"It is an 111 mile, 2-1/2 to 3 hr drive from Cancun to Chitzen
Itza/Mayaland *today* on the highway. There were no roads in 1963 as
noted in the cite above. People going to the Mayaland Hotel used to be
taken from where they got off their ship in the little port of Progress,
through the jungle, to the Mayaland..."
But wait. Barb J knew nothing about an abandoned railroad line we
expected to follow straight to Chichen Itza. Chichen Itza was closer than
Barb J realized. That old rail line was mentioned in the book we
intended to use as a guide: The Lost World of Quintana Roo (see below).
If the rail route proved inaccessible, we intended to take a boat that we
were told showed up once or twice a week to take us to around to Port
Progress. From there, we would have gone to Chichen Itza with tourists.
Barb J, a good writer, sounds quite convincing as she continues her objections:
"When the Cancun thing became an issue, and the "kan-kun" explanation
did not fly, [FOR BARB!] their intended destination became, Tulum,
[nope, that was just a possible side trip because of the ruins there]
Merida, Chichen Itza....and somewhere down the
line, [in Barb's version] even Cozumel and the Cayman Islands (where
Judyth said Oswald had sent money ahead for them) ... they all became,,
in turn, the correct place."
NOTE TO READERS: None of Barb J's statements, above, are
supported with citations. She describes what she perceives as an
evolution of final destinations instead of understanding the TRIP ITSELF,
had various destinations, which trip was to begin with Lee meeting me at
the sandy beach area close to the village/area called Kankun on our map.
From there, we planned to walk along an abandoned railway, just
as described in the book, that would take us to Chichen-Itza, which we
wanted to climb. Sometime at this point in the journey, Lee had
said we would stay a few nights in a "fine hotel." I didn't know if this
was a joke or not.
It turned out that indeed there was a "fine hotel" at Chichen
Itza's site! However, as late as Dec.. 2003 I didn't know that. It was
pointed out by a reader, Deb Bert, who described it to the McAdams
newsgroup critics. They then commented that it was 'too far' from
'Cancun' to walk there. Wrong! Lee and I wanted to do just that.
(see the information from George de Mohrenschildt, below)
From Chichen-Itza, we planned to take an old highway up to Merida.
In the end, when Lee's position became precarious, we decided we
wouldn't stay in Merida long, but after getting married there by a corrupt
priest (that is, a priest who would be willing to accept a bribe to "hurry
up" the marriage date --avoiding weeks of 'banns' that were usually
posted prior to a marriage -- we would then go on to the Cayman Islands,
where Lee had sent funds ahead to purchase a small cottage.
We planned to get a "quickie divorce" of course, which at that time were
easy to obtain in Mexico. As for being married by a priest, that was to
avoid having records easily available as would occur in a civil ceremony.
To expedite pour getting married by a priest, Lee had created a paper or
two to "prove" he was Catholic (I had papers showing I was Catholic),
and some hints of Lee's efforts to show he was a "Catholic" -- which was
not true --still remain even in the official record.
THE MEXICAN TOURIST VISA APPLICATION
THAT SAYS "CATHOLIC"
AS FOR THE MAYALAND HOTEL, IT IS LOCATED RIGHT AT CHICHEN-ITZA. Here's a view from the lobby of Chichen Itza:
IT WAS BUILT THERE IN THE 1930'S AND WAS WELL-KNOWN TO THE CIA.
THE POSH MAYALAND HOTEL AT CHICHEN-ITZA WAS BUILT AFTER THE
"Mayaland was the first Hotel built at Chichen Itza (in 1923), and, with its superb location amidst the temples, the first within an ancient site in the world. In a way, it's as much a landmark as the pyramids that tower above it.
Mayaland is a creation of Old Yucatan, built and operated by its original owners and their descendants in a style reminiscent of the hacienda nobility of a century ago.
Its air of genteel hospitality and old-fashioned charm is a legacy enhanced by the addition of every amenity. The grounds are alive with birdsong and butterflies, and all the exotic fruits and flowers of tropical Yucatan.
Over 100 acres of gardens surround the main house and its outlying Mayan bungalows, offering your choice of accommodations. The main building was designed by Sylvanus G. Morley, the head of the Carnegie expedition that rebuilt Chichén Itzá in the 1920s.
Its Hacienda-style main corridor offers views of the ancient Mayan Observatory. The Mayaland Hotel is an experience in itself; one that will enrich your stay at Chichén Itzá"
A ROOM AT MAYALAND HOTEL
Built in 1923 by the Barbachano family, who own and operate it to this day.
You may choose to stay in the main house with breathtaking views of the Mayan temples or in our Mayan bungalows located amidst tropical flowering trees.
The main house is beautifully proportioned, and embellished with the trappings of a bygone era. The staircase sweeps from an open mezzanine down into an entrance hall filled with antiques, polished tile potted plants and sunlight.
The 55 rooms and five suites of the main house have the gardens before them, and the Observatory of Chichen Itza to the west. The spacious air-conditioned rooms come with ceiling fans, satellite TV, mini bars, bathrooms hand-tiled in ceramic, marble and stone tubs, and breezy private balconies. Suites offer Jacuzzis.
BUT HOW TO GET TO IT? BARB J'S OBJECTION WAS THAT IT WAS
TOO FAR FROM KANKUN/CANCUN.
That's quite silly. The whole purpose of our trip was to make a long journey by foot. George de Mohrenschildt, Lee's handler in Dallas before Lee moved to New Orleans, related to us Lee's deep desire to go on a long trip by foot, for thousands of miles, just as George and his wife, Jeanne had recently done. Wrote de Mohrenschildt, concerning their long trek into Central America from Mexico, which he showed Lee and his wife, Marina on film:
"All in all the showing of our picture was a success, beautiful scenery, waterfalls, volcanoes in eruption, outcrops of brilliantly hued deposits showed up well - and scientists, being adventurers at heart, loved wild- erness. Marina could not care less, she was not an outdoor woman, but being polite, she did not express her dislike and kept on chatting amicably with Ruth Payne.
Lee, on the other hand, commented excitedly how much he liked the film and that he envied us for having lived for a year close to nature, an ascetic life of complete freedom. "You have walked almost 4,000 miles to get away from people, comforts, stupid gadgets and conventions. It would be my dream also . I envy you. I have never been completely free."
"Yes it was a great privilege," I told Lee, "but it was tough, believe me. We wore out twenty two pairs of shoes and guaraches each."
The subject of our film filled most of our last conversations with Lee. I advised him to try the same."
Ref: http://jfkassassination.net/russ/jfkinfo4/jfk12/hscapatsy.htm
George also said some things in his book that were untrue about Lee, especially about the 'shot' he claimed lee took at General Walker --something George could not dent, because he told this liue to the Warren Commission. Of his statements to the Commission, George wrote sadly:
"I didn't defend Lee vigorously and passionately enough, which I am sure he would have done if he had to defend me in a similar situation. I was cleverly led by the Warren committee counsel, Albert Jenner, into saying some things I had not really want to say, to admit certain defaults in Lee, which I wasn't sure were his', in other words I consider myself a coward and a slob who did not stand up to defend proudly a dead friend, whatever odds were against him."
Just before his book was to be published, and only hoursbefore he was supposed to be interviewed by the astute and honorable Gaeton Fonzi for the HSCA investigation, George de Mohrenschildt supposedly killed himself, though researcher Mark Lane heard a tape rexording made at the time of decease, where the security alarm was going off, and where footsteps could be heard just prior to the shooting. De Mohrenschildt was wearing only socks, his shoes nowhere in sight, and the shotgun was found lying across his feet, with no fingerprints on it.
Bill O'Reilly called Gaeton Fonzi to learn about George's death. he LIED to the world later, saying he heard the shotgun's blast, when he actually was still in another state. Mark Lane attended the inquest, where the security alarm could be heard on the tape. It was ignored by the coroner.
In 2015, CIA contract agent
Tosh Plumlee agreed with me that there was access to Chichen-Itza and the Mayaland Hotel via a rail line used to transport sugar cane and other commodities. The rail line, mentioned in the book
The Lost World of Quintana Roo, would be easy to follow.
This book, filled with maps and photos, was published in 1963 and the book was available to us at Tulane's big library on Mexico.
In 1999 I mentioned this (then-unavailable) book to researchers as our guide to the area. The book is now described on Amazon.
Reviews of the book reveal important information that I've placed in bold print:
"I had heard of the desolate past of the Riviera Maya, that it was so barren that Castro trained his troops for the Cuban takeover [there] and no one knew. This book fills in the picture of how barren a piece of land this close to heavily populated areas could be. ...the author, Michel Peissel, hears about the Mayan culture and with prodding from a partner agrees to explore approximately 250 miles of coast from Puerto Juarez (now Cancun) to Belize. The partner never shows making this a solo adventure. . Starting from Mexico City he makes his way to the unofficial capital of the Yucatan Peninsula, Merida and then travels by bus on a very poor road to the coast of what is now Cancun. Hard to imagine that in 1960 you stand on a desolate beach that is now so overbuilt while waiting for a boat to take you to Isla Mujeres..."
Lee and I, of course, had read all about this from the same book.Another
review of the book at the Amazon site contained these observations:
"I live part time in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico and it was recommended by a friend who'd obtained it on loan from the Merida English Library. Mr. Peissel so impressed me with not only his courage and determination, but his ability to convey his experiences in words. The book also contains black and white photographs and hand drawn maps..."
We had made copies of these maps from the book.
LINDA MINOR AND A PLANE RIDE TO THE YUCATAN FOR LEE
Recently, researcher Linda Minor made it clear that Lee, indeed, had tried to arrange for a plane flight to the Yucatan (of all places! But of course, this is just as I have been saying every since 1999):
In her blog QUIXOTIC JOUST, posted March 8, 2015, Linda Minor revealed hitherto little-known facts about Lee's desire to reach the Yucatan. At this time, i was in Florida. Lee had given me $400 (equivalent today to about $3,800) so I'd have plenty of funds to reach him.
(Updated with added material, highlighted below.) [jvb: SOME
PORTIONS ARE IN BOLD FACE FOR
THE ME AND LEE BLOG ENTRY]
INTRODUCTION:
A Facebook friend (Alan Kent) recently messaged me to ask whether I
had researched entities mentioned by Wayne January to author Matthew
Smith in his book, Conspiracy: The Plot To Stop The Kennedys, pp.
141-45. The name did not ring a bell, so I had to refresh my memory on
the computer.
Here is a
Summary of what I learned:
On November 21, 1963, Wayne January is working side by side with a Cuban born pilot who is to fly a newly purchased DC -3 out of The Redbird Airfield tomorrow.
Since early that morning, January has been helping the pilot complete a preflight inspection in order for the plane. The pilot becomes uneasy and finally turns to January and says: ‘they are going to kill your president.
January will eventually tell researcher Matthew Smith that
the Cuban pilots goes on to say: ‘I was a mercenary pilot,
hired by the CIA’. The pilot continues: ‘they are not only
going to kill the President. They are going to kill Robert
Kennedy and any other Kennedy that gets in their position.
When January expresses his skepticism, the pilot replies
‘you will see’.
The conversation is dropped for a while, then the pilot breaks
the silence: ‘they want Robert Kennedy real bad. ‘When
January asks why, the pilot replies ‘never mind. You don’t need
to know. Let’s get this job done, time is running out. My boss
wants to return to Florida; he thought we would be through
today.
(Conspiracy)Matthew Smith believes this DC-3 flew the group of assassins out of Dallas the next day.
Inquiries indicate that the plane was not logged out of The Redbird Airfield. Smith says this is an indication that the plane and its flight plan are under the auspices of the CIA.
When Smith asks the FAA for details on the aircraft, he is told that no such plane existed.
Later, the FAA does confirm the number of the plane (N-17888) originally belonged to a Douglas DC-3, having later been transferred to another aircraft.
Smith eventually learns that the aircraft had been purchased by the Houston Air Center. A former [alleged] CIA agent tells Smith that the Houston Air Center was a front for the CIA.
Here is another person's take on the book's story:
One company Wayne January was a partner in was said to be Royal Air Service Inc., which was wrapping up the selling off of large aircraft--supposedly part of a top-secret government program that was interested in developing radar mapping for low-level flying by such planes as the F-111 fighter-bomber. At the time of our story they only had one DC3 left to sell off to finish the contract. This final plane was sold in mid-November by January’s partner and the owner showed up on November 18 to sign for it. January told [author Matthew Smith] he was a very well-dressed gentleman. January said “he was about six feet tall, fair complexioned, brown hair, and late thirties to early forties. His haircut was short, military type, and wore slacks and a sport shirt.”
January also said, “he had no particular accent.” January said later on he found out he was an Air Force Colonel who specialized in the type of plane being specialized….
Matthew Smith believes this DC3 flew out of Red Bird that day with the complete team that had murdered JFK. He surmised it went from Dallas to Houston, and he also believes David Ferrie’s “ice skating” trip to Houston was really to fly this plane from Houston to its ultimate destination.
Smith tried to trace this plane and did learn that the number (N-17888) had been tied to a DC3 after initially being told a different type plane had that number and the DC3 never “existed.”
He also found out that the plane had been purchased by the Houston Air Center. Mr. Smith then contacted a former CIA Agent out of Houston and asked him if he would check this out for him. The former CIA Agent said the Houston Air Center was a “CIA front.”
The best explanation of the incident was written by
Larry Hancock (whose book proved, incidentally--once I located it on its backshelf, covered in dust--that I had actually read of the episode years ago and even underlined parts of it, before depositing it into an unmemory hole). The following is from Hancock's article appearing at CTKA.net:
The plane had come to Red Bird in January 1963 and was owned by two different companies there during that year. Wayne January was a partner in both companies. At some point that year, the aircraft had been heavily modified, all the seats had been removed from the plane and it had been reclassified with the FAA as a research and development aircraft. We also know that it had been sold to individuals of the Houston Air Center, but paperwork was not actually completed until it was eventually resold outside the U.S. to a company named Aerovias del Sur. The records place that company’s headquarters in Mexico City, however, defunct companies of that name can be found in Cuba, Mexico and Columbia. Further tracing seems virtually impossible.
Another tack in evaluating January’s overall story of the incident is to look at where such aircraft were indeed being used covertly during the timespan of 1964-1965. Records reveal that the Cuban exile autonomous group initiative supported by Robert Kennedy in 1963 was in the process of buying and leasing a broad variety of equipment, both boats and planes. That effort was led by Manual Artime and records demonstrate that extensive “cut outs” were used to shield its financial activities — and the fact that the U.S. was funding the project. Available records confirm that Artime did lease a similar Douglas transport aircraft until his project was closed down in 1965. Artime’s personnel were all Cuban exiles and his funding, purchasing and leasing were all carried out by CIA staff in a highly covert project designated as AMWORLD.
Another covert operation involving aircraft and Cuban exile personnel would have been the highly secret dispatch of aircraft and Cuban exile pilots to the Congo, which began in 1963. A joint effort of the American military assistance mission and the CIA, the effort focused primarily on providing B-26 fighter-bombers and Cuban exile pilots. However a number of transport aircraft and technicians were also sent into the Congo in 1964.[10]
A third option, and one especially interesting in regard to the modifications and R&D recertification of the Red Bird aircraft, is the fact that a variety of covert air assets were being prepared to go into Laos in this period. In addition, the Air Force was developing the class of modified C-47 gunships eventually known as “Spooky”. The craft were totally stripped internally to allow the mounting of heavy machine guns and cannon.[11] Development of these gunships was underway in 1964 and the first aircraft were deployed into Vietnam in 1964. Therefore, the aspect of January’s story about the pilot being familiar with certain veterans of the Bay of Pigs is supportable.
January indicated to Smith that it was his understanding that the series of aircraft being purchased through companies at Red Bird and Houston Air Center were being processed through a series of cut out sales for eventual use in secret government projects. Investigation confirms that such projects and cut out sales were most definitely occurring at that time. It also confirms that Cuban exiles were very much involved in some of them. Of course, if January had gone to the FBI with such an incident at the time, it obviously would have had security implications as well as a negative impact on his own business. Beyond that, it would have likely done little good, as we have a number of examples from both Texas and Miami that show the FBI was not at all interested in following up on Cuban exile assassination leads; even when they had specific names in hand.[12]
After 50 years it is virtually impossible to carry Wayne January’s most significant lead to a final resolution. Still, with what has been learned about both January himself, as well as the aircraft sale, it seems rather foolish to write it all off as some sort of fiction. Especially since Wayne January never told anyone but Smith and then only with the promise of total anonymity. If true, it could offer a major insight into the President’s assassination.
Excerpt from The Second Plot
After doing the above research, the book I ordered by Matthew Smith
the assassination plots from the evidence he had gathered:
So the two plots were meticulously put into operation. The team
of marksmen were recruited and drilled. Weapons were
prepared, heights and distances calculated in relation to motion;
this was to be a once only event and it must succeed first
time.... But for all its precision and careful planning, the first plot
by itself added up to little more than a bunch of hi-tech bandits
lying in wait to spring an ambush on the President. All the real
sophistication lay in the planning and execution of
the second plot. Without the second plot the shooters would
have been picked up at once and those who had sent them
would have been exposed....
It was probably only a few days before the President's visit that
Lee Oswald was given his instructions. He was told that a
decision had been made to fly him into [probably] Cuba in a
light aircraft. He would make the trip on the afternoon of Friday,
22 November, the day the President was to visit Dallas.
Advantage would be taken of the
commotion the visit would create for him to slip quietly away.
A pilot would be provided and pretense made that they
were flying to Yucatan [blogger's italics]....
On the morning of Wednesday, 20 November, he was driven
out to Red Bird airfield by [most likely] two agents. They sought
to hire a small aircraft there, perhaps a Cessna or a Piper Cub
or something of that kind, for the trip....One operator they called
upon was Wayne January,who recounted Oswald's visit to
this author in detail. He told how one man waited in the car
whilst the others in the party came to speak
to him:
There was a man and woman and they asking intricate
questions concerning a certain type of aircraft which
was capable of delivering them to their destination,
and the way they were dressed and the way the
conversation went I was sensitive to the fact that why
would they want to know that many technical questions
to take a vacation trip . . . (They continued) talking to
me asking me the fuel consumption, the amount of
hours in the air, the total distance and would it be
capable of going on to another location under certain
wind conditions and things like that . . . People don't
ask those kind of questions to charter an airplane.
January decided not to accept the charter, being suspicious that
they were going to hijack the plane and go on to Cuba. His
reasons, he said, were:
. . . because of the way they were dressed, I sensed
something not right. Their dress was not anybody who
could afford to hire that kind of aeroplane to make that
kind of trip, and the car was an older car. It was a
black 1947 model which I recognised because I had
had the very same model. I carried my tools in it and I
knew it . . . and I was questioning, well, where are they
going to get all this money? Y'know it was an
expensive trip they were talking about....
He then told his prospective clients:
I think you need to go somewhere else to get this done.
As they left, January had a look at the man who had been
sitting in the car during the discussion which had taken place.
He said he was curious to see whether he was dressed like the
others and he wondered why he hadn't come out to talk with
him. Watching television and reading newspaper reports of the
assassination two days later he saw pictures of the man who
had been sitting in the car. It was Lee Harvey Oswald...
After reading what Judyth Vary Baker has told us about the fact that
she and Lee hoped to meet up in Mexico, travel to the Yucatan and
explore the Mayan ruins at Chichen-Itza, we find ourselves
wondering whether Lee took off work on Wednesday, November 20,
the day preceding the evening when he had his last conversation
with Judyth.
At the time Lee had gone to Mexico in late September,
Lee's CIA associate Alex Rorke went missing. Alex had already
agreed to help Judyth get to Mexico in the event Lee was
successful during his time in Mexico in getting a visa to Cuba. The
plan was by those working on the bioweapon, for Lee to deliver it to
a contact in Cuba to inject the cancer cells into Fidel Castro. But
the window of time was short, and Lee failed to obtain the
necessary visa, and he returned to the U.S. Otherwise, he would
have met Judyth in Mexico, where she was to have been delivered
to him by his pilot friend, Alex Rorke.
Excerpt from Me and Lee by Judyth Vary Baker
Under the heading September 25, 1963, beginning on page 498:
Today, we know that Alex Rorke's plane crashed on the day
Lee left for Mexico City after leaving Cozumel, where I
believe Alex and his co-pilot, Geoffrey Sullivan, flew to
check out where I could safely be dropped off. Then the
plane took off on another mission, apparently near or over
Cuba, where it was shot down. On Oct. 6, eleven days later,
Gerry Hemming took Interpen members and hunted for the
downed plane and bodies. I find the timing of both the Alex
Rorke rumor and his subsequent disappearance troubling.
Once his business in Dallas was finished, Lee boarded the
Dove again and flew to Houston, landing at Hull Field in
Sugarland, on the west side of Houston. There, he was handed
a second blue zippered "lunch bag" and told that it contained
fresh cancer cells which would give the Product two extra days
of shelf life. Then Lee swapped the lunch bags and took a long
bus ride to Laredo. To the outside world, he seemed to have
traveled by bus all the way from New Orleans....
Finally, the phone rang. It was Lee calling from Houston.
He began by telling me that Alex Rorke was missing. I could
hear the stress in his voice. Lee said he was planning to meet
Alex Rorke in Mexico City to discuss the best places to drop me
off in the Yucatan. He would try to find out more about Alex's
situation.In the meantime, I should be ready to go to Eglin AFB
[in Florida]. He would try to find another pilot. If not, I could
take a commercial flight out of Tampa or Miami.
Linda asks:
"Did Lee, after fearing the worst about Alex, attempt to rent an
aircraft in Dallas to get Judyth to the Yucatan, and, if so, who would
have taken him to Red Bird on Wednesday, a day he should have
been at work?
The rest of Linda's essay is below, for those interested in reading
all of it. It also becomes clear from what she writes that January
knew Jack Ruby.
When Barb J. and the McAdams newsgroup criticized the trip to
the Yucatan as unbelievable, they didn't know about the January
story and how the date he had seen Lee Oswald (when an inquiry
was made about chartering a plane) had been changed from
November to July by the FBI. Nor did they know about "the second
plot" where Lee might have been lured onto a plane [had he been
able to escape arrest] that they told him would be heading to the
Yucatan.
Another objection arose concerning "quickie divorces."
It's a known fact that the FBI looked into rumors that Lee Oswald
had been inquiring about "quickie divorces" near border towns
close to Laredo. There are also disputes about whether Lee
returned from Mexico City by bus, plane or car. Our plans to meet
in the Yucatan were dashed after Lee was ordered back to Dallas,
which wasn't the original plan.
As can be seen on p. 462-463 in the CIA-approved "official
version" of Marina's life with Lee in the book Marina and Lee by
Priscilla McMillan Johnson, Lee told MARINA, his wife, that she
would probably never see him again because he was "going to
Cuba."
Lee was actually going to stay in Mexico, where we planned
to get quickie divorces, then marry. Originally, Lee thought the CIA
would allow us to be informants for them in Mexico. Later, we
amended plans to remain in Mexico, after Lee became embroiled in
penetrating the assassination plots against Kennedy, to going for a
year of hiding to the Cayman Islands after marrying in Merida.
So we could marry in a Catholic church (avoiding civil records)Lee
had some documents created to show he was "Catholic" even
though he was raised Lutheran and was actually an agnostic. He
even wrote "Catholic" on his Mexican Tourist Visa application.
Lee did this despite the fact that identifying oneself as "Catholic"
in communist Cuba was not a good idea for any "pro-Castro"
immigrant to Cuba to place into the record. Hence, the Mexican
tourist visa document supports what I've said about Lee's actual
plan, which was to remain in Mexico. Lee would have obtained an
extension to the tourist visa, which was only good for two weeks.
But long before it expired, Lee was ordered back to Dallas. The
hand-off of the cancer bioweapon to the medical contact never
happened. Lee, not a stupid man, realized he'd been set up. Today
we know that imposters pretending to be Lee took advantage of his
presence in Mexico City to create false links to the USSR and Cuba
to help frame him.
Only by continuing to play the "stupid" card did Lee hope to
escape alive out of the trap being set for him
"Florence Martin Accountant subcontracting to CIA related to the Barry
Seal case. Dead of three gunshot wounds to the head. Dead in 1994 in
Mabell, Texas, the victim of three gunshot wounds to the head. Ms.
Martin had the documents and paperwork, including the PIN number for
an account that had been set up in the name of Barry Seal for $1.5
million at the Fuji Bank in the Cayman Islands. Oddly enough, following
her death, the money was transferred to the Guaranty Bank in the
Cayman Islands and then to another bank in the Virgin Islands. Jim
Wilhite, associate of Mack McClarty's former firm. Many remember the
sleezy McClarty from Clinton's first administration."
THE REST OF LINDA MINOR'S POST ABOUT THE "YUCATAN" PLANE:
Tail number N-17888
What follows is the research I did in answer to the question of a curious reader, Alan Kent, who thought my interest about people in Texas might reveal a deeper part of the story.
Everything I know about tail numbers I learned from my friend Daniel Hopsicker. In fact, I picked up almost as much knowledge about this subject from him as he learned about the Texas Railroad Commission from me. Virtually zero. So...here goes.
A google search of the tail number showed the plane had been part of Braniff’s fleet used during August, 1952 through May 1960. How does one find out to whom Braniff sold it? Alan Kent snail-mailed me documents he had acquired, which set out the history of the plane's ownership. On November 28, 1944 the Army Air Force declared this airplane to be surplus property of the government, with title transferred to the Surplus War Aircraft Division of Jesse Jones' financial empire within President Franklin Roosevelt's administration. A month later it was registered to the Defense Plant Corporation for disposal, eventually going with several other aircraft to Mid-Continent Airlines, Inc. of Kansas City, Missouri. Title of the specific airplane, as part of a 69-airplane fleet, was transferred to Braniff in 1952 when the two corporations merged.
Apparently, that was where Wayne January's companies came in. Wiki tells us all we need to know about Braniff. From Wiki we learn that things began to change dramatically at Braniff only two years after it acquired this airplane:
 |
| Braniff and Edgar Tobin, among others, died in crash. |
On January 10, 1954 Braniff founder Thomas Elmer Braniff died when a flying boat owned by United Gas crash-landed on the shore of Wallace Lake, 15 miles outside of Shreveport, Louisiana due to icing. According to information from Captain George A. Stevens: "Mr Braniff was on a hunting expedition with a group of important citizens of Louisiana. They were departing from a small duck hunting lake out of Shreveport in a Grumman Mallard aircraft with no deicing system. The wings iced up and they attempted to land. One of the wings hit cypress stumps and the plane crashed against the shore. It caught fire and all 12 lives aboard were lost." [1]
Braniff Executive Vice President Charles Edmund Beard became the first non-Braniff family member to assume the role of President of the airline after Tom Braniff's untimely death. Mr. Beard gathered Braniff employees to announce that the airline would move forward and assured the public that the airline would continue.
Paul R. Braniff died later that year of cancer.[6] Tom Braniff's wife, Bess Braniff, also died in 1954. Tom's son Thurman Braniff was killed in a training plane crash at Oklahoma City in 1938, and his daughter Jeanne Braniff Terrell died in 1948 from complications of childbirth.[1]
That must have been one unlucky airplane for the Braniff family! I decided the
book by John J. Nance, footnoted in the Wiki citation, was a must-read and placed
already done some research into the alleged buyer of this airplane, my interest
would not have been piqued by some of the facts surrounding the death of the
Braniffs, who were all dead by 1954!
Background Title on N-1788
Documents detailing the history of the title to Tail Number N-17888, sent to be by Alan Kent, revealed:
- On July 9, 1960, Braniff tranferred the title to Navion Aircraft Corporation (NAC) of Galveston (Division of Tusco Corportion). Leo T. Childs was then vice president and J. L. McCann was president. Childs grew up in Center, Texas, where the first aircraft manufacturing in Texas began in 1933. When Navion borrowed money and placed a lien on this DC-3 airplane in October 1961, it was then situated at Hou-Port Aviation Agency, Inc. in LaPorte, Texas. The lien also included another DC-3 (#N-151A) situated at Redbird in Dallas, though, according to the mortgage, "both of said Douglas DC-3 airplanes [were] permanently home-based at International Airport, Galveston." The promissory note amount of $92,925.00 was payable to Tennessee Bank and Trust Company of Houston in monthly installments amortized for one year.
- NAC sold the plane in January 1963 to Executive Aircraft Service, Inc. of Dallas, and it was registered for the corporation on January 17 by V.E. Morgan.
- One month later L.V. Emery, President of Executive Aircraft transferred the plane's title to Jack Birdwell, Harvey M. Phillips and Wayne January, partners of American Aviation (101 Terminal Bldg. at Redbird).
- After being repaired and refitted, it was transferred effective March 1of that year to Royal Air Service, Inc., with paperwork signed on May 10.
- Effective as of May 9 all three partners transferred it back to Executive Aircraft, Inc. (signed on August 9).
- On May 1, 1963 (Royal Air Service, Inc. (Harvey M. Phillips, president; Jack Birdwell, vice president; and Wayne January, secretary-treasurer) borrowed $32,400 from an unnamed lender. A Dallas insurance agent named Jesse Ambler, signed on the back of the document in the space designated for the person notarizing the signatures made on behalf of the borrower, Royal Air Service, Inc.. Below Ambler's signature someone named Evelyn B. Bedinger in Berrien County, Michigan, notarized the signature of the non-existent seller-mortgagee, which also failed to assign the chattel mortgage to the entity which printed the form document, i.e. Appliance Buyers Credit Corporation (ABCC), a Delaware corporation with a Michigan address. This document was recorded by the FAA in October 1963, but apparently returned as not acceptable. Two years later it was attached to another document which indicates ABCC was the original lender in the amount of $20,0000, the lien amount being transferred to Walter E. Heller & Company of California on July 16, 1965. Wayne January indicated that this was the standard procedure for the business.
- On October 9, 1965 the three men in the same capacities signed a bill of sale to Houston Air Center, Inc. of 7700 Airport Blvd. in Houston. A lien was retained to secure a $40,000 note to North Side State Bank in Houston. This document was recorded by the FAA on October 27.
- On October 18, 1965 Houston Air Center, Inc. executed a chattel mortgage on the plane in favor of the North Side State Bank, indicating it was then at Houston Int. Airport (Hobby). E. Mitchell Smith, Jr. signed as president of Houston Air Center, Inc.
- A new certificate was issued by the FAA to Houston Air Center, Inc. on October 28, 1965. On the back of this certificate is a transfer to Aerovias del Sur, Mexico City D.F., signed by Clarence E. Wigley. It was stamped in Oklahoma City on December 20, 1965.
- It was removed from American registry records on January 5, 1966.
Red Bird Airport
Red Bird Airport was located at 4800 S. Hampton Road in Dallas. The 1960 phone directory shows the only company listed there that year wasTexair, Inc., 4837 S. Hampton Road, Dallas [click link to see map]. This is the servicing company mentioned by the Garrison investigation in 1967. Today that site is the location of Dallas Executive Airport.
Red Bird was then about 3.7 miles from the Januarys' 1960 home -- 931 S. Montreal, while Braniff was based at Love Field in Dallas. Before construction of the interstate highway, the two air fields were 13 miles apart via Hampton Road routing through Oak Cliff and passing Sunset High School, from which Wayne January graduated, according to information we have gleaned from various sources.
Wayne January was born in Coryell County, Texas in 1931 to Mr. and Mrs. Charles Hasten January. He attended Sunset High Schoolon the southwest side of Dallas, where in 1947 he played in the orchestra. He graduated in 1951, the same year his father died. His father's obituary reads:
News Circulation Employee, Charles H. January, 65, Dies - Charles Haston January, 65, a district manager of the Dallas News' circulation department, died of a heart attack at his desk Wednesday. He had been with The News for eight years, and was in charge of twenty-eight carriers of the West Dallas district.
He lived at 824 North Edgefield [mere blocks from the high school].
Before coming to The News, January was captain of the Highland Park fire department for twenty years, and before that was a member of the Dallas fire department for seven years.
January was born in Shelby County in 1886. As a young man, he joined with others in setting up an oil refinery in De Leon, Comanche County. In 1909 he sold his interest in the refinery and moved to Dallas.
He was a member of the Round Table, Dallas News employee organization.
Surviving are his wife, the former Miss Vadah Baldwin of Dallas, whom he married in June, 1918; five sons, W. Spencer January and Wayne January, both of Dallas, Farold January of Waco, C. H. January, in service in Korea, and Lawrence E. January, at an Air Force base in Alabama; two daughters, Mrs. Ruth Landers and Mrs. Shirley Hurley, both of Dallas; one sister, Mrs. Blanche Morrison of Center; and four brothers, Dillon January and Luther January, both of Dallas, Walter January of San Antonio, and Hugh January of Houston; and seven grandchildren. Funeral arrangements had not been completed Wednesday night.
- Dallas Morning News, November 15, 1951
Wayne’s older brother, C.H. Jr., enlisted in the Army in 1942 and served the military for 20 years as a veteran of WWII and the Korean War, and was also assigned to the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, NM. He died in 2011 in Denton.
In 1966 Wayne married Sylvia Gwynn Landrum, though we see from directories in 1960 and before that his wife was Delores; Wayne died in 2002 in Ellis County.
The Mary Ferrell website contains a document placed in Oswald’s 201 fileconcerning the interview of Wayne January, who had called his local FBI office on November 27, 1963 and spoke to Special Agent John V. Almon. It took Almon and Agent Kenneth B. Jackson two days to make it out to conduct a personal interview with January on the 29th at Red Bird Airport terminal building in Room 101. The interview began with a discussion about Jack Ruby's Carousel Club, which January admitted to frequenting between February and April of 1963, beginning a month or so after the airplane and others arrived at January's company at Red Bird. There was mention by Larry Hancock that the plane arrived from Woburn Aircraft, though the documents provided by Alan Kent do not bear this out. It was during this same time frame that FBI reports indicated he reported receiving calls about chartering an airplane, though January was adamant that the visit by Oswald actually occurred on November 20.
I found online a text version of the document, apparently posted by John Watters at alt.assassination.jfk in July 2002 and reposted by Peter Fokes. including these prefatory remarks:
From my reading of the FBI memo below there seems to be an implied connection between January's frequenting of the Carousel Club between February and April 1963 and the two anonymous phone calls in February and March 1963. The Feebs did not ask if there was any connection with the Carousel, whether he recognized the voice(s) or whether the men had given any indication why they had chosen him particularly.
They did not ask him why he would surmise that the trip to Laredo involved narcotics. What made him jump to this conclusion, the person asking the favour (in which case, did he know them?) or thedestination itself (was Laredo synonymous with narcotics?).
The Feebs do not seem to have raised an eyebrow at the call re $12 million of gold dust - $12 MILLION ??!! Wow, if this kind of caper was connected to the Carousel and Ruby, Jack could hardly be dismissed as just a nightclub owner and small-time hoodlum.
I confess I don't understand the significance of the comments re plain clothes officers in the Carousel but I guess the Feebs must have had their reasons for including this in their report.
The report includes January's views on Ruby - not something you would expect from someone who had just gone to the guy's nightclub for a while. The Feebs don't appear to have asked January how often he had spoken to Ruby, how long he had known him, how well he knew him etc etc.
And finally, on to LHO - the Feebs played down January's identification of LHO, changed the date of the incident from 20 November to late July [blogger's italics] and emphasized that the man asking the questions had not been LHO. (No-one had ever claimed that the man asking the questions was LHO - January clearly stated that LHO had stayed in the car).
Is there an implied connection between the flights January was asked to make in February/March and the LHO incident in November?
Matthew Smith's "JFK: The Second Plot" contains the following FBI memo which Harold Weisberg obtained under the FOIA:
"The following interview was conducted by SA's KENNETH B. JACKSON and JOHN V. ALMON on November 29, 1963:
AT DALLAS,TEXAS
WAYNE JANUARY, owner, American Aviation Company, Room 101, Terminal Building, Red Bird Airport, Dallas, Texas, advised that from February through April, 1963, he, together with several friends, on occasion frequented the Carousel Club, Dallas, Texas, which he understands is owned by one JACK RUBY.
JANUARY stated that during February, 1963, he received an anonymous telephone call from a man who offered him the sum of $5,000.00 to fly to Laredo, Texas, and back with no questions asked. JANUARY said that he surmised that this individual planned to transport narcotics to Dallas and for this reason he declined the offer. JANUARY further stated that during March, 1963, he received a second anonymous telephone call from a man who wanted him to fly $12,000,000.00 worth of gold dust to Mexico City where he was to pick up the currency and return with it to Dallas. He stated that this individual offered him $400,000.00 to make this flight which he also declined.
JANUARY stated that during the latter part of July, 1963, a man and a woman whom he had never seen before contacted him at his office at which time they inquired about chartering a plane for a trip to "Old Mexico". JANUARY stated that when he asked this man questions essential to such a flight he was definitely evasive in his answers. JANUARY explained that this individual did not appear to know exactly where he desired to go in Mexico but said something about the West Coast. Furthermore, he did not appear to know when he desired to return or or exactly how many passengers could be expected on the flight. JANUARY said that this man, after stating that he did not wish to make the flight for a couple of months, stated that he would consider the information which JANUARY had given him and let him know at a later date. He said that when the couple left he observed a third man who had been waiting in their automobile during the entire conversation, and after observing a photograph of LEE HARVEY OSWALD on television it now seems to him that this man somewhat resembled OSWALD although he was not definitely sure in this respect. JANUARY was unable to offer any additional information which might be of assistance in identifying the man and woman who inquired about the flight to Mexico. He said that they did not appear to him to be persons of sufficient financial means to charter a trip such as the one discussed.
JANUARY reiterated the fact that the man, accompanied by the unidentified woman, who made inquiries concerning a chartered flight to Mexico, was not LEE HARVEY OSWALD and said that he has no records or any other method of identifying the persons who contacted him during the latter part of July, 1963.
JANUARY further commented that he never visited the Carousel Club when he did not observe several plainclothes officers, and when a friend of his attempted to date one of the performers, KATHY KAY, she informed this friend that she had to go with another man, whom she identified as a plainclothes officer.
JANUARY concluded with the opinion that JACK RUBY was not the type of individual who would have killed, or attempted to kill, anyone charged with the assassination of the President. He said that he does not think that RUBY would care that much, even about his own mother."
We are told by Smith that:
Wayne January had never seen this memo until Matthew Smith showed it to him and, according to one of Smith's books, "was amazed when this author told him the FBI stated he had said his visitors, including Oswald, had called several MONTHS before the assassination, instead of two days before." January said, "How would I have been able to remember the face to compare with the pictures of Oswald I saw on television for that long? It was the Wednesday before the assassination."
Smith also says, "As opposed to the uncertain identification stated in the report, January told this author his identification of Oswald was so strong he would give it nine out of ten."
We pick up in our next post with research into exactly who owned the Houston Air Center and find out what it was about United Gas that intrigued me so.
Here is a map that shows where all of these places are:
http://www.mayaland.com/History.php
This is the map the Mayaland Hotel has on its site. One can also read their history on this site as well.
Posted by Greg on January 25, 2015 at 1:10 AM... 
