This post is a result of attempting to verify the details posted on the Ed Forum of a John T Martin,
born November 9, 1943 in California, who was old enough to have served in Germany in the 24th I.D. under Gen. Walker's command. I tracked down that John T Martin via his father's 2004 and his older sister's 2018 obits.
He resides in Minnesota, under the name Tim, graduated high school in 1962 and served in the US Navy until 1966, including in the naval blockade of Cuba in late October, and is very patriotic. A newsletter of his neighborhood provided enough detail about him to eliminate him, resulting in further searching
revealing the correct Martin, elusive since Gary drove him to his home in 1968, borrowed his film, and made at least one copy which he could not locate in 2012. This new, radicalized younger fellow, was last accounted for no later than 2013 in a list of alumni donors of his (militarized) high school graduating year.
I've spent some time searching and I found no mention on this forum of the intriguing coincidence of a young man from St. Paul, MN, a 17 year old Minuteman
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=89629&relPageId=60&search=%221752_iglehart%22 ("Chess" is also mentioned in the new Martin's profile)
in summer, 1963, journeying to Gen. Edwin Walker's leased Turtle Creek home, filming a bullet hole through a interior wall, apparently with Gen. Walker's approval or encouragement, travelling to New Orleans shortly thereafter, and managing to also capture Oswald distributing leaflets on the same film reel on August 9, 1963.
There is no way to confirm the Sixth Floor Museum presents the entire film. Martin suspected it was altered, in reaction to re-viewing the original and then only reel after the FBI returned it to him in late January, 1964, after borrowing it in response to his offer to the FBI for a review. NOLA FBI claimed it was not found to be useful.
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=60411&relPageId=104&search=%221752_iglehart%22https://emuseum.jfk.org/objects/36908/john-t-martin-filmhttps://jfkassassinationfiles.wordpress.com/2017/01/13/the-oswald-films-an-outline/
2a. The Jack Martin film (August 9, 1963)
...Watch from 0:40 through 1:09 for the General Walker footage, and 2:39 through 2:53 for the Oswald New Orleans footage. ...
In the third week of January, 1963, federal charges resulting from the Sept., 1962 Mississippi race riots against Gen. Walker were dropped but the DOJ retained the option of reinstating the charges until Sept., 1968.
https://www.nytimes.com/1963/01/22/archives/riot-charges-against-walker-and-6-others-dropped-by-us-walker.html?searchResultPosition=2I have discovered that this young Minnesota film maker, John T Martin, called for the abolition of the U.S. Supreme Court in early 1963. He seems the most proudly radical political extremist I've noticed in a high school setting.
Was his filming, especially in New Orleans on August 9, simply random "luck"? What evidence remains to support that he actually captured on film what I described above? Had he met or been in communication with Gen. Walker, pre-dating making arrangements to visit him? It is unlikely a boy of his age could have performed active duty coinciding with Gen. Walker's pre-retirement.
If John T. Martin (Gary had met him in 1968) had told Gary he served under Gen. Walker in Germany, and consider Gary was recalling, cold, a 40 year old conversation, and Martin's age when Gen. Walker resigned made serving under him unlikely, how likely was his claim of pivoting from right oriented extremist to demilitarized "pacifist"?
Gary was a mid-20s friend of Harold Weisberg and said in 2012 their interest was only about the New Orleans faces on the film, not were yet aware of the Walker visit and bullet hole filming.
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/4738-jack-s-martin-sr/page/3/?tab=comments#comment-244473
.....
From: Gary Schoener
Sent: Saturday, January 21, 2012 7:17 AM
To: Paul Trejo
Subject: Re: Seeking the 1968 companion of Harold Weisberg...
Yes, the person is me. I was a longtime friend and co-worker with Harold. The comment about John Martin being a "student" makes me wonder whether my memory is correct. I remember him as late 20's or early 30's, but that was a long time ago. My memory was that we encountered him when he phone a radio station, not at a talk -- he called into a radio show that Harold and I did together. (I had arranged for Harold to speak a the U. of Minnesota, but believe that the radio show which followed was where we heard from him).
Ironically, on that same show a photography professional whose last name was Patsy called in and he ended up taking the Martin film and printing it out. That's how we discovered that LHO appeared to be paying attention and possibly even gesturing to someone else walking parallel to him. One figure in the film was very fat and Harold immediately remarked it looked like Dean Andrews, although there are a ton of fat people in NO and there was no way that you could see his face.
The only things I recall were that John was formerly a right-winger who was a member of the John Birch Society and the Minutemen, but somehow serving under Gen. Edwin Walker in Germany caused him to become a pacifist and have to be dischrged from the army.
The film was taken on a family trip and the other segment on it showed the zoo in NO.
We did go to his home, but I have no idea where that was. I don't even know if it was in Mpls. or St. Paul.
He took it to the FBI who copied it, but did not realize until we examined it that the FBI had returned a copy, not the original. He believed that what they gave back to him was edited but was not 100% sure. He thought some footage was missing.
Gary Schoener
