From: abw@natchez.bu.edu (Al Wesolowsky)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk
Subject: The Umbrella Man (longish) (was How many Stairwells)
Date: 24 Jul 92 23:28:29 GMT
Followup-To: alt.conspiracy.jfk
Organization: Boston University

"Robert E Daniels"  <REDANLS@unc.bitnet>
robert.daniels@lambada.oit.unc.edu

asked me to post the following for him.

      In reply to David A. Galehouse's recent posting stating that

              The "Umbrella Man" was actually a Dallas life
              insurance salesman by the name of Louie Steven
              Witt. After being identified through a blowup of a
              Zapruder still, Witt testified before the House
              Assainations Committee in 1978.

      Here is an excerpt from THE TAKING OF AMERICA, 1-2-3, by Richard E.
      Sprague which was posted by David Ratcliffe (dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com)
      to alt.conspiracy.jfk in June, 1992.  The following passage is from
      Part 10 (of 11):

      ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

                             The Umbrella Man

         One last example illustrates the way the CIA and Blakey worked
      together to cancel-out any evidence linking the CIA people and/or
      techniques used in the JFK assassination.  For may years, various
      researchers, including Josiah Thompson[5] and the author, had
      speculated about the role of a man appearing in the photographs in
      Dealey Plaza with an open umbrella.  He became known as "The
      Umbrella Man," or TUM for short.  Thompson speculated that TUM had
      been giving the various shooters in Dealey Plaza visual signals
      with the umbrella, and the author agreed this could have been true.
         In *1976*, the Church committee took the public testimony of
      Charles Senseney, a CIA contract weapons employee at the Army
      Chemical Center in Ft. Detrick, MD.  Senseney described a system
      used by the CIA in Vietnam and elsewhere, for killing or paralyzing
      people with poisons carried in self-propelled Flechette darts.  The
      darts were self-propelled like solid fuel rockets and launched
      silently and unobtrusively from a number of devices, including an
      umbrella.  A CIA catalog of available secret weapons shows a
      photograph of the umbrella launching device and photos of the
      Flechettes which were self-propelled from one of the hollow spokes
      of the umbrella.  They could even be launched through soda straws.
         Researcher Robert Cutler, former Air Force Liason officer, L.
      Fletcher Prouty, and the author did some additional research on the
      photographic evidence and the weapon system, especially research on
      the movements of JFK in the Zapruder film and various photos of TUM
      and a friend he had with him in Dealey Plaza.  The friend had a
      two-way radio device.  As a result of this research, an article was
      published in "Gallery" magazine in June, 1978.  The article
      presented the hypothesis that TUM launched, from his umbrella, a
      poison Flechette at JFK, which struck him in the throat at Zapruder
      frame 189, causing complete paralysis of his upper body, hands,
      arms, shoulders and head, in less than two seconds.  The photos
      show this paralysis and the timing matches the testimony given by
      Senseney about how fast the CIA poison works and what its
      paralyzing effects look like.
         Whether one agrees with this hypothesis or not is incidental to
      what Blakey and the HSCA did in reaction to it.  Until the summer
      of 1977, official investigators for the HSCA, or any of its
      predecessors, had shown no more than passing curious interest in
      TUM.  They just paid no attention and did not take the researcher's
      ideas seriously.  On August 8, 1977, the author informed Robert
      Blakey, in a letter of that date, about the TUM hypothesis.  The
      letter concerned a discussion the author and Blakey had on July 21,
      1977, two days after the nondisclosure agreement had been signed.
      Blakey had said that if there was a conspiracy it would not have
      involved a very large number of people.  He was probably already
      laying the foundation for a small, Mafia type, conspiracy involving
      Oswald and a Mafia friend, backed by a few Mafia Dons.
         The August 8th letter maintained that the CIA had been involved
      and that it had been a massive intelligence operation, rather than
      a conspiracy in the sense Blakey was using the term.  The CIA
      Flechette, umbrella launching weapons system, if indeed it had been
      used by TUM, the letter pointed out, would be solid proof of high
      level CIA involvement, since that system would not have been
      available to lower level agents or contract people.
         Blakey did not respond right away to this letter and the author
      decided to make the TUM hypothesis public by publishing it with
      Cutler as co-author, in the spring of 1978, in "Gallery" magazine.
      Contact was also made with Senator Richard Schweiker who had been
      the member of the Church Committee responsible for interrogating
      Charles Senseney.  Schweiker agreed to try and find out from
      Senseney what had happened to the umbrella launchers he had
      constructed for the CIA;  that is, who in the CIA had had access to
      a launcher.
         The information to be published in "Gallery" had been generated
      by Bob Cutler and the author independently of any information
      obtained from the HSCA, but the safest approach seemed to be an
      application to them for permission to print the article under the
      terms of the nondisclosure agreement.  So, on January 9, 1978, the
      author submitted a draft of the "Gallery" article to Blakey and, on
      January 16, 1978, he wrote back stating that publishing the article
      would not violate the terms of the nondisclosure agreement, "Exhibit
      K."  The article was published in the June 1978 issue of "Gallery"
      which actually appeared in May 1978.  Blakey knew in advance when
      it would appear.
         On August 3, 1978, the author wrote to Blakey stating that
      photographic evidence showed a high probability that TUM was
      actually Gordon Novel, the CIA contract agent from New Orleans, who
      had been hired to ruin the Garrison investigation, "Exhibit L."
      The reason that some new photo evidence was just then coming to
      light was that the committee had discovered a never-before seen
      film of TUM and had released a frame from this film to the press in
      July 1978.  Shortly after the TUM photo was released by the HSCA,
      with an appeal to him to come forward, an unknown caller contacted
      Penn Jones in Texas to tell him he knew who TUM was.  Penn visited
      Louis Witt, having been given his address, and upon seeing him,
      jumped to the conclusion that he *was* TUM.  This led to Mr. Witt
      appearing before the committee in their televised hearings and
      making the claim he was TUM.  He showed the umbrella on TV that he
      claimed he used.
         It was immediately obvious to Bob Cutler and the author that
      Witt was not TUM.  He displayed the umbrella he said he had used in
      Dealey Plaza and *it contained the wrong number of spokes*.  His
      height, weight and facial appearance did not match TUM's, and his
      description of his actions did not match at all the actions TUM
      took, as shown in the photos.  On November 24, 1978, the author
      wrote to Stokes telling him he had been fooled by a CIA plant, or
      by his own staff, planting Mr. Witt, and that he should call Gordon
      Novel as a witness because it was likely that Novel was TUM.  HSCA
      never did call Novel as a witness.  Novel had visited the HSCA
      during the days Richard A. Sprague was still there, but he had not
      mentioned being in Dealey Plaza or that the CIA had hired him to
      ruin Garrison.  Blakey and Stokes avoided contacting Novel.
         Now, the important thing to focus on, in this example, is the
      sequence of events.  The HSCA had done nothing about TUM until they
      were faced with the possibility of a public article linking TUM to
      the CIA through a CIA weapons system and through Gordon Novel.
      They also found out that Senator Schweiker was looking into the CIA
      end of it.  At about the time the "Gallery" article was being
      widely read, the HSCA suddenly released to the press a photo of TUM
      and asked that people identify him or that he come forward.  The
      photo did not show his umbrella or where he was sitting in Dealey
      Plaza, nor did the release mention the umbrella or the theories
      about it.  Just his photo.  An earlier photo used by Cutler and the
      author to identify Novel as TUM was not released.
         In a surprisingly short time after the photo appeared, an
      unknown person calls a well-known researcher and leads him to Louis
      Witt.  Witt in turn lies about who he was and where he was, by
      claiming to be TUM.  Blakey and the committee put Witt on center
      stage as though it was a play, and eliminate the TUM problem by
      pulling off a charade.  The fine hand of the CIA can be seen in
      this whole series of linked events.  Blakey had to have known what
      was going on, and he knows today that Witt was not TUM and the high
      probability that TUM was Gordon Novel, CIA agent.
         The extreme lengths that the CIA and Blakey went to in this
      charade, made one believe that the umbrella probably *was* the
      Charles Senseney weapon.  Otherwise, why bother with TUM?

      //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////



-- 
Al B. Wesolowsky         abw@bucrsb.bu.edu      Chresmology
Boston University      arc9arn@buacca.bu.edu   (cheap rates)