JFK Assassination Forum
JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion & Debate => JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion And Debate => Topic started by: Lance Payette on February 12, 2025, 11:12:54 PM
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You, of course, know all about Umbrella Man and Dark Complected Man (a/k/a Walkie Talkie Man). If you're a CTer, you don't know what Louie Steven Witt was all about but by God he wasn't Umbrella Man. If you're a Serious Researcher like Bill Simpich. you started a thread at the Ed Forum just a few months ago suggesting Dark Complected Man was Felipe Vidal Santiago (Vidal to his friends) and Umbrella Man was Roy Hargraves (who in the photos just happens to look more like Louie than Roy). The sinister speculation went on for 9 pages. This is a serious issue, I tell you!
https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/30497-do-photos-show-felipe-vidal-santiago-as-the-dark-complected-man-and-roy-hargraves-as-the-umbrella-man/#comments
Sure, why not?
Gunmen with assassination-quality rifles and scopes need spotters to tell them when to fire, don't they? The spotters should carry umbrellas and walkie-talkies and stand right at the curb, making hand signals and pumping umbrellas and whatnot, right? No one would notice that, surely?
If you're really into this stuff, it's highly possible the umbrella was actually a deadly weapon. While one of the two or three frontal gunmen pumped a high-tech, dissolving CIA ice bullet into JFK's throat, Umbrella Roy did the flechette thing (but missed so badly Jackie thought it was a hummingbird - oh, well, he tried).
Fortunately for CTers 60 years later, Vidal and Roy made no effort whatsoever to disguise their appearances - why do that, when all you're doing is assassinating a President? It's not like we're robbing a bank or anything. If we're clearly identifiable in a dozen post-assassination photos, what's the big deal? (Just in case you don't know, Vidal and Roy weren't exactly underground figures: https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKsantiago.htm.)
Their mission accomplished, our heros sat placidly on the curb while everyone else ran up the Grassy Knoll or screamed in hysterics. Clever way to blend right in, no?
Louie, who vaguely recollected DCM as a Negro, told the HSCA the DCM had repeated "They done shot them folks" two or three times - rather a clever fabrication by Louie, it seems to me, so he must've been in on the plot even if he wasn't Umbrella Man. (He apparently lived in a 1,020-square foot house built in 1953 at 7209 Embassy Street in Dallas from at least 1963 until his death, so he must not have been paid big bucks for his efforts. He lived to be 90, dying in 2014. Why were he and sinister CIA operatives like the Paines allowed to live into their advanced dotage when so many others were rubbed out because They Knew Too Much, inquiring minds would like to know?)
Well, anyway, I like to try to inject rationality into these f-a-s-c-i-n-a-t-i-n-g discussions. What if, it occurred to me, DCM actually was carrying a walkie-talkie? Was there anything inherently sinister about this?
As it turns out, railroads were in the very forefront of pioneering use of this technology. To quote from an article in the August 1960 issue of Electronics World entitled "Railroad Radio," "Train crews are often provided with 'walkie-talkies' which are extremely valuable in coordinating such tricky maneuvers. And the lucky flagman who has a walkie-talkie won't get left in the wilderness, which has often happened in the past." Indeed, "Today's modern railroad yard is a maze of electronic gear. The one-way loudspeaker paging system is still there but personnel now reply through tiny hand-carried portable radio transmitters called 'Dick Tracy' units by railroaders." And on it goes, extolling the ways railroad yard personnel could keep in touch in 1960.
Here, courtesy of eBay and Etsy, are two 1963-era walkie-talkies that are a far cry from the clumsy units of the 1940s and 50s: https://www.ebay.com/itm/295953697177 and https://www.etsy.com/listing/1420670445/two-1960s-ef-johnson-company-walkie.
I don't absolutely insist DCM was actually Railroad Worker Guy. However, put together Louie Steven Witt with the prevalence of walkie-talkies among railroad yard workers in that era, and I for one am not prepared to dive headfirst into Conspiracy World. Perhaps start by giving me one good reason why obscure Louie would have come forward in 1978, subjected himself to an embarrassing grilling by the HSCA, and disappeared back into anonymity if he weren't Umbrella Man. (To quote 6th Floor Museum curator Stephen Fagin after Louie's death, "I sent him a couple of letters trying to talk with him, but he, I don't think, really ever spoke to anyone after testifying before the House Select Committee in the '70s.")
But what do I know? If a CT priest like Simpich says Umbrella Man was Roy and not Louie, maybe he was. Wait a minute, maybe Roy was Louie (or Louie was Roy, as the case may be)? Hey, I think I'm starting to get the hang of thinking like a CTer!
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You, of course, know all about Umbrella Man and Dark Complected Man (a/k/a Walkie Talkie Man). If you're a CTer, you don't know what Louie Steven Witt was all about but by God he wasn't Umbrella Man. If you're a Serious Researcher like Bill Simpich. you started a thread at the Ed Forum just a few months ago suggesting Dark Complected Man was Felipe Vidal Santiago (Vidal to his friends) and Umbrella Man was Roy Hargraves (who in the photos just happens to look more like Louie than Roy). The sinister speculation went on for 9 pages. This is a serious issue, I tell you!
https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/30497-do-photos-show-felipe-vidal-santiago-as-the-dark-complected-man-and-roy-hargraves-as-the-umbrella-man/#comments
Sure, why not?
Gunmen with assassination-quality rifles and scopes need spotters to tell them when to fire, don't they? The spotters should carry umbrellas and walkie-talkies and stand right at the curb, making hand signals and pumping umbrellas and whatnot, right? No one would notice that, surely?
If you're really into this stuff, it's highly possible the umbrella was actually a deadly weapon. While one of the two or three frontal gunmen pumped a high-tech, dissolving CIA ice bullet into JFK's throat, Umbrella Roy did the flechette thing (but missed so badly Jackie thought it was a hummingbird - oh, well, he tried).
Fortunately for CTers 60 years later, Vidal and Roy made no effort whatsoever to disguise their appearances - why do that, when all you're doing is assassinating a President? It's not like we're robbing a bank or anything. If we're clearly identifiable in a dozen post-assassination photos, what's the big deal? (Just in case you don't know, Vidal and Roy weren't exactly underground figures: https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKsantiago.htm.)
Their mission accomplished, our heros sat placidly on the curb while everyone else ran up the Grassy Knoll or screamed in hysterics. Clever way to blend right in, no?
Louie, who vaguely recollected DCM as a Negro, told the HSCA the DCM had repeated "They done shot them folks" two or three times - rather a clever fabrication by Louie, it seems to me, so he must've been in on the plot even if he wasn't Umbrella Man. (He apparently lived in a 1,020-square foot house built in 1953 at 7209 Embassy Street in Dallas from at least 1963 until his death, so he must not have been paid big bucks for his efforts. He lived to be 90, dying in 2014. Why were he and sinister CIA operatives like the Paines allowed to live into their advanced dotage when so many others were rubbed out because They Knew Too Much, inquiring minds would like to know?)
Well, anyway, I like to try to inject rationality into these f-a-s-c-i-n-a-t-i-n-g discussions. What if, it occurred to me, DCM actually was carrying a walkie-talkie? Was there anything inherently sinister about this?
As it turns out, railroads were in the very forefront of pioneering use of this technology. To quote from an article in the August 1960 issue of Electronics World entitled "Railroad Radio," "Train crews are often provided with 'walkie-talkies' which are extremely valuable in coordinating such tricky maneuvers. And the lucky flagman who has a walkie-talkie won't get left in the wilderness, which has often happened in the past." Indeed, "Today's modern railroad yard is a maze of electronic gear. The one-way loudspeaker paging system is still there but personnel now reply through tiny hand-carried portable radio transmitters called 'Dick Tracy' units by railroaders." And on it goes, extolling the ways railroad yard personnel could keep in touch in 1960.
Here, courtesy of eBay and Etsy, are two 1963-era walkie-talkies that are a far cry from the clumsy units of the 1940s and 50s: https://www.ebay.com/itm/295953697177 and https://www.etsy.com/listing/1420670445/two-1960s-ef-johnson-company-walkie.
I don't absolutely insist DCM was actually Railroad Worker Guy. However, put together Louie Steven Witt with the prevalence of walkie-talkies among railroad yard workers in that era, and I for one am not prepared to dive headfirst into Conspiracy World. Perhaps start by giving me one good reason why obscure Louie would have come forward in 1978, subjected himself to an embarrassing grilling by the HSCA, and disappeared back into anonymity if he weren't Umbrella Man. (To quote 6th Floor Museum curator Stephen Fagin after Louie's death, "I sent him a couple of letters trying to talk with him, but he, I don't think, really ever spoke to anyone after testifying before the House Select Committee in the '70s.")
But what do I know? If a CT priest like Simpich says Umbrella Man was Roy and not Louie, maybe he was. Wait a minute, maybe Roy was Louie (or Louie was Roy, as the case may be)? Hey, I think I'm starting to get the hang of thinking like a CTer!
Devil's Advocate:
1) Does "They done shot them folks" sound like realistic dialog, or did Louie embellish it a bit because DCM was "a Negro"?
2) Was DCM dressed like a railroad worker?
3) In 1963, did Dallas railroad authorities give "Negro" railroad workers a radio?
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No Walkie Talkie, It's Camera Motion Blur ;)
(https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/streaks.jpg)
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Devil's Advocate:
1) Does "They done shot them folks" sound like realistic dialog, or did Louie embellish it a bit because DCM was "a Negro"?
2) Was DCM dressed like a railroad worker?
3) In 1963, did Dallas railroad authorities give "Negro" railroad workers a radio?
Louie was very low-key in his HSCA testimony and claimed only the vaguest recollections. I suppose it's possible the guy actually said "I say, my good man, did you notice that one or persons in this vicinity appear to have discharged weapons at the charming folks in that absolutely smashing black vehicle that just passed before us? What ho, eh?"
It's very hard for me to see Louie as anything other than what he claimed to be.
As to the attire, that did occur to me - but I really don't know. The TSBD certainly had Black workers, and I suppose the RR did as well.
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No Walkie Talkie, It's Camera Motion Blur ;)
(https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/streaks.jpg)
Well, THAT'S no fun!
I have to admit, there are photos where it looks pretty walkie-talkie-like even to me. I'm just amused at how even ostensibly serious researchers like Simpich just can't let the simplest things be what they obviously are. EVERYTHING has to be conspiracy-related.
I'm sure everyone has seen this, but I always enjoy it. (Just in case anyone doesn't know, in his previous incarnation Tink Thompson was a philosophy professor and wrote a scholarly biography of Soren Kierkegaard, another of my pet interests).
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Well, THAT'S no fun!
I have to admit, there are photos where it looks pretty walkie-talkie-like even to me. I'm just amused at how even ostensibly serious researchers like Simpich just can't let the simplest things be what they obviously are. EVERYTHING has to be conspiracy-related.
I'm sure everyone has seen this, but I always enjoy it. (Just in case anyone doesn't know, in his previous incarnation Tink Thompson was a philosophy professor and wrote a scholarly biography of Soren Kierkegaard, another of my pet interests).
No "railroad worker" wears a light colored shirt and/or a Beret. The shirt would be filthy within 5 minutes and the Beret would get him laughed off the Triple Underpass. And that is Not "Robert E" from "Dr Quinn Medicine Woman", either.
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No "railroad worker" wears a light colored shirt and/or a Beret. The shirt would be filthy within 5 minutes and the Beret would get him laughed off the Triple Underpass. And that is Not "Robert E" from "Dr Quinn Medicine Woman", either.
Hey, so he was a funky railroad worker!
I happen to live about 1/2 mile from one of the major railroad switching operations of the BNSF. There are administrative offices and all assortment of workers.
Probably he was Just A Guy.
However, given the choice between (1) funky railroad worker in immediate proximity to railroad yard with railroad-issue walkie-talkie and (2) assassination conspirator Felipe Vidal Santiago flapping his arms like a chicken so gunmen know when to shoot and communicating with other conspirators via walkie-talkie right on the curb of Elm Street, sanity and logic compel me to opt for #(1).
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Hey, so he was a funky railroad worker!
I happen to live about 1/2 mile from one of the major railroad switching operations of the BNSF. There are administrative offices and all assortment of workers.
Probably he was Just A Guy.
However, given the choice between (1) funky railroad worker in immediate proximity to railroad yard with railroad-issue walkie-talkie and (2) assassination conspirator Felipe Vidal Santiago flapping his arms like a chicken so gunmen know when to shoot and communicating with other conspirators via walkie-talkie right on the curb of Elm Street, sanity and logic compel me to opt for #(1).
Take a good look at the RR workers perched atop the Triple Underpass on 11/22/63. Those guys are "Roustabouts". They do Not wear lightly colored, long sleeve pressed shirts, with a Beret dipping down over 1 eye. They're Not Charlie Bronson. And for the record, before the PC Police started bullying people around, DCM was known as "The Cuban". For a very good reason.
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Take a good look at the RR workers perched atop the Triple Underpass on 11/22/63. Those guys are "Roustabouts". They do Not wear lightly colored, long sleeve pressed shirts, with a Beret dipping down over 1 eye. They're Not Charlie Bronson. And for the record, before the PC Police started bullying people around, DCM was known as "The Cuban". For a very good reason.
Yes, he was indeed referred to as the Cuban, which doesn't strike me as particularly non-PC. The fact is, Louie thought he looked like a Negro, but Louie said he really didn't pay much attention.
Here's a web page with all sorts of stuff, including graphics of DCM and Umbrella Man and even an article suggesting DCM was at both Love Field and Parkland Hospital (he is also rumored to have been in the autopsy room at Bethesda, but I have been unable to confirm this): https://merdist.com/wp/2021/11/21/umbrella-man-and-the-cuban/
In this version, DCM is "Cuban terrorist, virulent Kennedy-hater, one-time doctor, Orlando Bosch, who at the time of the assassination was in a frenzy trying to organize the removal of Fidel Castro from power in Cuba." Sure, why not?
Jack White, we are informed, has "nailed" - nailed, I tell you - Umbrella Man as "CIA operative Gordon Novel." Sure, why not?
Am I the only one who finds this stuff absolutely hysterical?
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Yes, he was indeed referred to as the Cuban, which doesn't strike me as particularly non-PC. The fact is, Louie thought he looked like a Negro, but Louie said he really didn't pay much attention.
Here's a web page with all sorts of stuff, including graphics of DCM and Umbrella Man and even an article suggesting DCM was at both Love Field and Parkland Hospital (he is also rumored to have been in the autopsy room at Bethesda, but I have been unable to confirm this): https://merdist.com/wp/2021/11/21/umbrella-man-and-the-cuban/
In this version, DCM is "Cuban terrorist, virulent Kennedy-hater, one-time doctor, Orlando Bosch, who at the time of the assassination was in a frenzy trying to organize the removal of Fidel Castro from power in Cuba." Sure, why not?
Jack White, we are informed, has "nailed" - nailed, I tell you - Umbrella Man as "CIA operative Gordon Novel." Sure, why not?
Am I the only one who finds this stuff absolutely hysterical?
Either Witt was a phony or the films showing the Umbrella Man have been altered. One or the other. There is No middle ground.
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Either Witt was a phony or the films showing the Umbrella Man have been altered. One or the other. There is No middle ground.
Why not both - Witt was a phony AND the films have been altered! C'mon, are you a real CTer or aren't you? You do realize the whole UM brouhaha started more than a decade after the assassination, so the film-alteration thing becomes a bit of a tough sell. The entire history of Louie's modest life up to his death at age 90 in 2014 makes the phony thing a bit of a tough sell as well. "Louie was the UM" is the middle ground to which I lean, otherwise known as sanity.
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Why not both - Witt was a phony AND the films have been altered! C'mon, are you a real CTer or aren't you? You do realize the whole UM brouhaha started more than a decade after the assassination, so the film-alteration thing becomes a bit of a tough sell. The entire history of Louie's modest life up to his death at age 90 in 2014 makes the phony thing a bit of a tough sell as well. "Louie was the UM" is the middle ground to which I lean, otherwise known as sanity.
His HSCA Testimony is nowhere close to what we see Umbrella Man doing on any of the Assassination Films. Witt claims he was walking Down the knoll toward Elm St trying to open his umbrella. In all of the assassination films he is standing stock still. If you VIEW his HSCA testimony, he repeatedly handles a heavy water pitcher with his (L) hand. The Umbrella Man on all the films is holding the umbrella in his (R) hand. Witt is Not the guy we see holding an umbrella near the Stemmons Sign.