It's quite amazing that all of the physical evidence that could corroborate the Clinton/Jackson witnesses has vanished.
Did Oswald Sign the Voter Registration Book?
Anne Dischler told Patricia Lambert that Oswald actually registered to vote in Clinton. Here is an excerpt from her interview on February 1, 1994 with Dischler:
Here is another excerpt of her interview:
Anne Dischler said much the same thing to Joan Mellen. (page 217 - 218 in the Kindle edition of A Farewell to Justice)
And Dischler appeared at the Lancer conference in December 2006.
Here is an excerpt from a transcript: (4:50 in the Lancer video)
Anne Dischler: What happened when we went there [Clinton], with no cameras or anything, because we were used to filming what we worked with as much as we could, Well, we had no camera with us so, we looked at the registrar of voters book. And there was Oswald's name, Lee Harvey Oswald, where he had registered and you could see that it had been erased. I saw that, that it had been erased and written over, but it was very plain, the "L" and the "O," they were very, very plain. And that was written over. And we went back the next morning to film. No book. Disappeared.
Palmer: His ID card didn't identify his living in the Parish of East Feliciana, so I told him, asked him if he knew the business manager at the hospital in Jackson or if he knew the Mayor of the Town of Jackson or if he knew the Representative of the Parish. He couldn't give my any proof that he was living in the Parish long enough, but I told him he did not have to be a registered voter to get a job at the Jackson Hospital. He thanked me and left.
2. Did Oswald Apply for a Job at the East Louisiana State Hospital?
Maxine Kemp was a secretary in the personnel office of the East Louisiana State Hospital in 1964. She testified that, in September of 1964, she came across an employment application from a "Harvey Oswald." She said she looked at the file and put it back. She has not been able to find the application since.
Mr. Sciambra: What did you do with the application after you looked at it?
Mrs. Kemp: Put it back in the file.
She didn't show it to anybody. She just put it back.
In January 1969, there was a meeting of Clay Shaw's defense team and reporters Hugh Aynesworth and Kent Biffle. It appears that someone talked to Mrs. Kemp:
The HSCA spoke to Maxine Kemp (now Drane):
Now the application form is "Oswald, Lee." She also cannot remember the month or the year that she checked the file.
The HSCA spoke to Mrs. Hudson who was the personnel officer at ELSH:
Hudson says that "she remembers Mrs. Kemp Drane stating that she saw the file, and on the same day Mrs. Hudson asked her why she hadn't shown it to someone else or mentioned it to personnel employees. Mrs. Hudson stated that Mrs. Kemp Drane did not have an answer."
Back in 1968, Guy Broyles, the Personnel Manager at ELSH, said that Maxine Kemp told him that both she and Aline Woodside had seen the application -- this time it was in the name of L. Harvey Oswald:
Tom Bethell's June 27. 1968 memo on the trial witnesses listed Mrs. Aline Woodside as a witness who would corroborate Mrs. Kemp's story:
Mrs. Woodside did not testify in the Clay Shaw trial, but she did speak to the HSCA:
Woodside says that "the search [for an application from Oswald} started after Lt. Frank Fruge and Officer Anne Dischler of the Louisiana State Police came to the hospital and asked questions about Oswald." Contrast that with Mrs. Kemp Drane who said that "she had heard rumors that Oswald had applied for a job at the hospital."
Woodside also said that "she thought she remembered a file with the name Oswald on it." But then "she couldn't swear that she had seen a file on LHO and she wouldn't swear that she hadn't seen one."
Patricia Lambert spoke to Woodside and she said "Maxine did [see the file] but I don't know how she saw it when none of the rest of us did." They searched a lot of folders but weren't able to find the supposed application. She told Lambert, "When we didn't find it, we assumed it hadn't been there." She then said, "we didn't think she saw it."
I believe that had Ms. Kemp actually found a file for Lee Harvey Oswald that she would have raised the roof and told everybody. Instead she just put the file back. No one in the personnel office remembered seeing Oswald or giving him an application form, or interviewing him.
Of course, Garrison gets this all wrong in his book, On the Trail of the Assassins: (page 139 - 140 of the Kindle edition)
As they gathered around the long table in the conference room, it occurred to me that for the first time since we had stumbled into this affair, we had what might be called “a team.” We listened and asked questions while Andrew Sciambra reviewed his weeks in Clinton. Alcock wanted to know what conceivable objective could have been accomplished by getting Lee Oswald a job in the state mental hospital in Jackson—if indeed that had been the objective of Shaw and Ferrie. Sciambra replied that he had wondered the same thing. Remembering Oswald’s surprise when the town barber informed him that the place was a mental institution, Sciambra had gone to Jackson to see whether or not Oswald had ever filed a job application there.
“And did he?” I asked.
Sciambra nodded. “Yes. I found the lady in personnel who interviewed him. But when she went to the files to get a copy of his application—which she remembers him filling out—it was gone.”
No one ever claimed to have interviewed Oswald.
3. Where is the Physical Evidence?
The Clinton/Jackson witnesses indicate that Lee Harvey Oswald, David Ferrie, and Clay Shaw were in Clinton for three days and two nights:
Oswald gets a haircut in Jackson sometime in the evening.
He then visits Reeves Morgan at his house.
The next day, Oswald goes to Clinton with Clay Shaw and David Ferrie and tries to register. He is there most of the day.
The next day, Oswald goes back to Jackson and applies for a job at ELSH.
It was about a 2 1/2 hour drive to Clinton from New Orleans. Even longer from Jackson. It looks like Oswald and others were in the area for at least two nights and three days.
So, where did they stay overnight? I see no evidence that Garrison's investigators checked the hotels and motels in the area. So, where is the evidence that any of them were in the area?
The New Orleans D.A.'s office thoroughly went through the contents of David Ferrie's apartment and Clay Shaw's house. They didn't find any hotel receipts, maps, matchbooks, gas receipts, anything that would indicate they were there. There was nothing in Oswald's possessions that indicated he was there.
None of the friends or relatives of Clay Shaw, David Ferrie, or Lee Harvey Oswald knew anything about a trip to Jackson/Clinton.
4. Confirmation from the Jackson Police
Here is an excerpt from JFK Revisited by James DiEugenio: (page 494 in the Kindle edition)
DiEugenio: After you testified for Jim Garrison at the Clay Shaw trial, can you describe the experience you had when you got back home?
McGehee: When I got back home from the trial in New Orleans, it was either that night or the next night, I got a call from the police station in town and he said would you come down here to see if you can identify this guy? I said OK. I went down there and I said what guy you talking about? Said we’ve got him locked up back there. So I went back there and he grabbed a hold of the bars and he was shaking ’em and he said are you the bagman? Are you the bagman? And I said no, I’m not the bagman. I didn’t even know what a bagman was. So I walked back in and I sat back over the corner. About that time a car drives up, door opens up, young man comes in. He said, ‘Is my buddy in here?’ He said, “Well, if he’s the one selling magazines he’s locked up back there. We got him.’ He said, ‘What is his bond?’ He says ‘Seventy-five dollars.’ He said, ‘Well, can I make a phone call?’ Said yeah. I can’t remember how he, whether he dialed collect or what. I can’t remember that. I remember saying International Trade Mart building, International Trade Mart. And that guy when, he told him what he wanted, he blasted him out. He, woo, he was screaming and hollering. ‘Don’t ever call here again! Don’t you ever call here again!’ That was it.
DiEugenio: So in other words this is supposed to be a prowler who was selling magazines?
McGehee: Right. Right. It was supposed to been. It was, it was illegal to sell magazines door-to-door in Jackson. We had an ordinance.
Why didn't anybody get a copy of the identification of this person from the police? What about the phone records? If this really happened, this would have been a very important matter for Jim Garrison.
5. Manchester's Missing Note Pad
Here is John Manchester's outside contact report with the HSCA:
The report notes that "Mr. Manchester wrote the names down on a note pad. The names he wrote were Lee Oswald, Clay Shaw and David Ferrie. He believes he asked Oswald and Ferrie their name but did not check their identification. He kept the pad for some time, then threw it away."
If this pad did exist then Manchester probably would not have thrown it away after the assassination. Buras and Daly and should have asked a few more questions.
There is not one piece of physical evidence to corroborate the testimony of the Clinton/Jackson witnesses. The same conspiracy theorists who deny the physical evidence in the JFK assassination have no problem accepting the uncorroborated testimony of the Clinton/Jackson witnesses -- years after the events.
The Series on the Clinton/Jackson Witnesses
Part One: The witnesses testify at the trial of Clay Shaw.
Part Two: A response to the allegations made by the Clinton/Jackson witnesses.
Part Three: A look at racism and the politics of the early 1960s.
Part Four: Many of the witnesses were either members of the KKK or sympathizers.
Part Five: None of the Clinton/Jackson witnesses came forward in 1963-1964.
Part Six: Just where did the Clinton/Jackson witnesses come from?
Part Seven: Dischler was an investigator for Garrison who was teamed up with Lt. Francis Fruge of the Louisiana State Police.
Part Eight: The evidence that David Ferrie was in Clinton is poor.
Part Nine: Lee McGehee, the barber in Jackson, claimed that the racist newspaper The Councilor wrote about the Clinton/Jackson witnesses in 1966. No one has been able to find the article.
Part Ten: Corrie Collins continually changed his story about what happened in Clinton.
Part Eleven: Reeves Morgan claimed he called the FBI right after the JFK assassination. But did he really?
Part Twelve: Henry Earl Palmer told a ridiculous story about Oswald claiming he was living with a doctor in Jackson.
Previous Relevant Blog Posts on the Clinton/Jackson Witnesses
Three case studies on how Garrison was less than inquisitive, including the possible check of the Cadillac in Clinton.
Why didn't Garrison check out whether the Trade Mart in New Orleans had leased a Cadillac?
An interview with Weisberg in which he discusses the Clinton witnesses.
Two of the Clinton witnesses claimed they were intimidated. But were they really?
Some background material on Clinton.
William Dunn initially said that Thomas Beckham was with Shaw and Oswald.
Andrew Dunn said Jack Ruby was in Clinton.
None of Garrison's witnesses, including the witnesses from Clinton/Jackson, came forward in 1963 -1964.