The Three Barons

by J. W Lateer

  Chapter 34

  Senator Dodd’s Juvenile Delinquency Committee

  and Oswald’s Weapons

  It seems almost beyond belief that the assassination of a U.S. President could have been planned at least six months in advance, yet kept secret from the press, not to mention being kept secret from the President himself. Yet this is apparently what happened. We know that Lee Harvey Oswald was seen in possession of a gun in his apartment in April, 1963 and the alleged shooting incident involving General Edwin Walker also occurred at that time.

  In studying the investigation of mail-order firearms by the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, it seems apparent that Dodd’s committee was in on the pre-planning of the assassination as early as January 1963. It should be noted that Senator Dodd represented Connecticut in which there were several firearms manufacturers including Colt Industries and Sturm and Ruger of Southport, Connecticut.

  Senator Dodd chaired the Juvenile Delinquency Subcommittee. In the first half of 1963, there were multiple hearings and dozens of witnesses dealing with the issue of the interstate sale of firearms. There were two officials of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms who testified. One was attorney Thurmond Shaw and another was John W. Coggins, Chief of the Technical Branch of the ATTU. (In places, your author has taken license to call the ATTU the ATF since that is the name which it took on very soon after the assassination and most Americans recognize that name for the agency, but not the name ATTU).

  One organization which was represented in the course of the hearings was the National Shooting Sports foundation. This organization included 20 manufacturers and importers of guns including Klein’s Sporting Goods of Chicago where Oswald allegedly purchased his Mannlicher-Carcano rifle.

  For the Senate Juvenile Delinquency Subcommittee, the list of staff included the following:

  Carl Perian, staff director

  George Gildea, job description unknown

  Al Morano, job description unknown

  Information supporting the following facts can be found at James Ostrowski, jfkassassinationforum.com. This article by Ostrowski summarizes the relevant facts regarding the hearings on weapons.

  The two particular gun mail-order houses Dodd’s subcommittee were investigating just happened to be the ones from which Oswald allegedly ordered his two weapons. First, Oswald’s Smith and Wesson .38 revolver was ordered from Seaport Traders of Los Angeles and second, his Mannlicher-Carcano carbine was ordered from Klein’s of Chicago. The order form for Oswald’s pistol was filled out just two days before Dodd’s subcommittee began hearings on the matter on January 29, 1963. Such subcommittees used data and statistics in order to determine violations of law. In the case of Seaport Traders in Los Angeles, the Committee was provided with statistics which showed a purchase in Texas made from Seaport Traders. It just so happened that one of the groups being investigated for purchasing firearms illegally was listed in Oswald’s address book, which was the American Nazi Party.

  By a strange coincidence, one of the investigators looking into these interstate firearms sales was Manuel Pena. Pena was a Los Angeles police Lieutenant who was later to be one of the important police officers tasked with investigating Robert Kennedy’s assassination. Pena was able to trace the telescopic sight on Oswald’s rifle to a California gun shop. Oswald’s rifle was referred to as a Mannlicher-Carcano carbine. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, this rifle was in heavy competition with the products of the old-line weapons manufacturers in the State of Connecticut such as Colt Industries. As Senator from Connecticut, Dodd was the representative of the arms industry in his State in the U.S. Congress.

  This connection made by Ostrowski between the purchase of weapons, the American Nazi party and Oswald’s address book is significant. Many researchers, including Peter Dale Scott, have stated their belief that the ATTU and weapons purchases were the pretext or cover issue used to disguise the assassination plot as something besides an assassination. Since we have discussed the connection between the American Nazi Party, Dan Burros and Roy Frankhouser, it is possible to speculate that Roy Frankhouser (working for the National Security Council) instructed Dan Burros to contact Oswald and tell him to order a weapon in order to show that a member of the American Nazi Party could legally purchase a gun through the mail. That could explain why Oswald had Burros’ name in his address book. Burros, Frankhouser and Oswald could all three have been working as informants at the same time while involved in such a weapons sting.

  The hearings on the mail-order weapons in Dodd’s committee began within two days of when Oswald filled out the order form for his revolver (although he did not mail the form until about two months later).

  In the interest of accuracy, the reference in the hearings to the American Nazi Party was fairly insignificant. It read as follows:

  Exhibit No. 13

  How To Acquire A Machine gun Legally

  Federal laws covering disposal of surplus and “war trophy” machine guns and other automatic weapons have uncomfortable loopholes.

  At a recent trial here, Federal Judge Harry C. Westover noted that the “choppers” can be easily obtained by the most irresponsible elements in our society.

  The trial involved a former officer of the American Nazi Party, a completely crackpot outfit of homegrown storm troopers who specialize in racial and religious bigotry.

  U.S. Treasury agents found a fully operative submachine gun in the local gauleiter’s home.

  Investigation showed a gun dealer had complied with the law in deactivating the weapon by spot welding the barrel closed before he sold it.

  However, the barrel is demountable, and it was a simple matter of the neo-SS type to obtain an operable barrel. Any juvenile gang member with a little imagination and an itch for a big rumble could have done the same thing.

  This exhibit was just one of many and there does not seem to be any emphasis on the American Nazi Party per se. The only other reference to the word Nazi was another paragraph which was discussing the importation of Nazi military trophies captured from the Germans during World War II. The emphasis in respect to Nazi’s was the suspicion that Nazi’s could obtain machine guns or bazookas and not weapons of the type purchased by Oswald.

  A very significant exchange occurred in the January 29 hearing. Sergeant K.T. Carpenter, an investigator for the Board of Police Commissioners for the Los Angeles Police Department was giving his testimony.

  Senator Dodd: My understanding is that the box of ammunition was shipped [by Seaport Trading of Los Angeles] with it as well [in reference to the pistol that killed a 14-year-old in Fairfax, Virginia].

  Sergeant Carpenter: Yes Sir. The box which – this is hearsay on my part, but I was told that one little blank shell you see in there [in an exhibit] was the shot that snuffed out the life of a 14-year-old youth.

  Senator Keating: Who got that? Was it another boy?

  Sergeant Carpenter: The gun was ordered by a 17-year-old from this company in Los Angeles [Seaport]. The ammunition – I don’t know where they got this, probably bought it locally.

  Senator Keating: So the ammunition you don’t think came from the mail-order house?

  Sergeant Carpenter: I doubt that. I don’t know.

  There doesn’t seem to be any information available as to where Lee Harvey Oswald obtained his ammunition. We know that Lee Harvey Oswald was only in possession of four bullets for his rifle. No other bullets were found at the book depository nor at his rooming house, nor at the Paine residence where he was keeping his rifle, according to all the research with which your author is familiar.

  Again, no boxes of ammo belonging to Oswald for either gun were ever found anywhere. The four shells found at the scene of the murder of J.D Tipitt were from two different manufacturers. So were the bullets that killed Tipitt. In his questioning of Sergeant Carpenter, Dodd seems to be trying to solve this problem in advance. Dodd tries to put words in the mouth of Carpenter on this issue. He tries to suggest to Carp
enter that he should testify that Seaport Traders ships ammunition with the pistols they sell through the mail.

  Interestingly, Senator Kenneth Keating steps in and clarifies the issue. Since there has never been any information as to where Oswald bought his ammunition, it looks like this action by Keating signals that he already knew about the pending frame-up of Oswald as of January 29, 1963. We have also seen that it was the absence of Keating from a hearing that caused James O. Eastland a problem with subpoenas in his New Orleans raid on the SCEC carried out in October, 1963. All of this may mean that Keating was the lone dissenter on SISS regarding the approval of JFK’s assassination.

  In a further exchange:

  Senator Dodd: One of these guns by Seaport Traders is the one used by the boy who was killed here?

  Sergeant Carpenter: It was from this company on November 17, 1962,…and sent to Fairfax, Virginia and I believe it was 3 days later the 14-year-old boy was killed.

  Senator Dodd: I think it is important that it is in the record. Here is the gun that actually was shipped from California? To this boy in Fairfax, Virginia?

  Sergeant Carpenter: Yes, Sir.

  Senator Dodd: To this boy in Fairfax, Virginia?

  Sergeant Carpenter: Yes, Sir.

  Senator Dodd: And they shipped the ammo, too?

  Sergeant Carpenter: The ammo was bought locally.

  Dodd just doesn’t want to give up on this issue of shipping ammunition through the mail. Throughout all the hearings from January to May, 1963, there was not one instance where ammunition was shipped through the mail with the mail-order guns, despite the efforts shown here by Senator Dodd to create such an example. The police were firm on this issue. And it is easy to see why. Shipping ammunition through the mail would be very dangerous should there be a fire at the post office or should a postal truck be involved in a fire or collision. This should be obvious. Dodd, as the leading expert in the Congress on these matters should have known this.

  Carl Perian, the investigator for the Senate Juvenile Delinquency Subcommittee, had worked in that job for eleven years. He had served under five chairmen. He was an expert investigator, having investigated among other issues, the trafficking in firearms. Carl Perian had participated in many stings, including some relating to illegal narcotics coming from Mexico. Perian had agreed with Dodd’s mutinous staffer, James Boyd, in providing support to the cause of investigating Dodd.

  There was a very important connection between the Senate Juvenile Delinquency Subcommittee (a/k/a JDS) and Lee Harvey Oswald’s weapons. In that connection, Carl Perian, investigator for the Delinquency Subcommittee, would have been directly in the middle of an apparent weapons sting which framed Oswald. James Boyd stated that when off-microphone, Carl cultivated people who would be called “beatniks,” presumably non-conformists. Some of the issues which Perian had investigated would include:

  1. narcotics

  2. firearms

  3. TV portrayals of crime, violence and depravity

  4. drug pushing in Aspen, Colorado

  5. inadequacy of the Border Patrol

  6. corrupt Mexican officials

  7. in January, 1964, the motion picture industry portrayal of crime and violence

  During the period of January 29, 1963 to May 2, 1963, the JDS conducted a running series of hearings about mail-order weapons as they related to both juveniles and the general public. This testimony came, in part, from the Chief Counsel to the Bureau of Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Division of the U.S. Department of the Treasury (ATTU), John W. Coggins. Another official who testified was Thurmond Shaw, attorney for the ATTU. The record makes reference to other officials of the ATTU who had provided information in the past and had testified before the committee.

  To begin a hearing in May 1963, Senator Dodd made an opening statement. In that statement, he said that police in the District of Columbia reported that one mail-order gun surpasses all others and that is a .22 caliber revolver from Seaport Traders in Los Angeles. Seaport Traders is the firm from which Lee Harvey Oswald purchased his handgun.

  We will continue to emphasize this close connection between Dodd’s committees and the ATTU. The ATTU, now called the ATF, was a bureau within Treasury as was the Secret Service. Both agencies reported up the chain of command with C. Douglas Dillon, the Treasury Secretary, at the top. This partnership in the mail-order weapons probe would accomplish two things for possible assassination conspirators at Treasury and SISS.

  First, it would enable both agencies to cooperate in the setting up of Oswald’s alleged murder weapons. Some even suggest that Oswald could have been run as an informant for either SISS and/or the ATTU and Treasury. Second, it would provide a cover for both agencies meeting together discreetly. This is something that might otherwise have stood out. Third, it would explain the apparent evidence of complicity in the assassination of the ATTU and Secret Service field agents, but total lack of evidence of complicity of other agencies such as the FBI and State Department.

  The testimony in these hearings centered on the use of mail-order weapons in the commission of crimes by juveniles. Just citing one statistic reported by Chief John B Layton of the D.C. police, out of 3000 juvenile arrests in 1962, only 23 involved handgun offenses. When one reads the testimony at the hearings, it is obvious that there were very few juveniles obtaining mail-order weapons, surely not enough to justify months and months of hearings. There were systems in place to prevent this. These systems for identification and proof of age were apparently functioning quite well. And the recommendations from the hearings suggested few if any changes to mail-order firearms laws and procedures would be necessary.

  The actual weapons venders who were being investigated crossed the entire gamut of mail-order vendors. The weapons vendors allegedly used by Lee Harvey Oswald were not necessarily singled out in the statistics, but the name “Seaport Traders” was the only one actually emphasized by the Senators in their questioning. Seaport Traders was where Oswald got his pistol. Also, in his questioning, Dodd tried to insinuate that ammunition was sold through the mail to accompany the weapons. This suggestion was strongly denied by the witnesses. As stated previously, apparently Dodd wanted to create a false narrative which would explain how Oswald obtained his ammunition, a fact which has never been made clear ever since the assassination.

  In the summer of 1963, JDS investigated “cherry bomb” firecrackers and also “M-80’s” and [ Dodd then] called Carl Perian and told him to stop investigating illegal fireworks manufacturers. Apparently, Thomas Dodd would begin to investigate a problem industry such as, say, firearms, fireworks or TV violence. He would then accept payoffs from those industries to quell any further investigation.

  The investigator for the Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency was Carl Perian. He was the investigator for this Subcommittee at the time when the weapons of Lee Harvey Oswald were purchased, and they were possibly purchased either by Oswald, Perian or someone else in connection to an investigation of this Juvenile Delinquency Committee. It is absolutely necessary to the understanding of what would have transpired regarding the Oswald weapons to realize that Perian was constantly involved in sting operations on behalf of Dodd. The methods and experience of the team of Dodd and Perian can shed some light on the sources of information and the types of investigations and stings which they used in their pursuit of better legislation.

  In Timothy Leary: A Biography, by Robert Greenfield, the author details the actual conflict between then-Senator Robert Kennedy of New York and Dodd centering around this LSD issue. Robert Kennedy chaired the Subcommittee on the Executive Reorganization of the Senate Committee on Government Operations. Dodd was still chairman of his Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. Leary’s testimony before Dodd’s Subcommittee was arranged by Dodd’s long-time investigator Carl Perian. Perian then told Leary that Senator Edward Kennedy would be flying to Washington for the hearings. Edward Kennedy in fact appeared and got into an intense discussion with Leary about the positives an
d negatives of LSD.

  In Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist by Hunter S. Thompson, there is a reference to Carl Perian as an advocate of issues in the gun possession debate in 1969. In discussing a possible gun debate the author says “Carl Perian would be better: the truth is not in him; he’s so crooked that he has to screw his pants on in the morning.” His number one assistant was Gene Gleason, “the old World-Telegram crime-buster.” The author also mentions Senator Joseph Tydings of Maryland as also interested in this controversy.

  In the magazine Boating Jan-June 1976, the following information appeared:

  “Rep. John M. Murphy (D. N.Y) a member of the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee and its Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Navigation, became interested in these reports [on particular boats] and sent congressional investigator Carl Perian to work. Perian’s sleuthing uncovered several possibly drug-related incidents, enough to convince Rep. Murphy that a real problem existed. Perian turned up 611 missing pleasure boats, probably used in the drug trade.”

  In The Snail Darter and the Dam: How Pork-Barrell Politics Endangered a Little Fish and Killed a River, by Zygmunt Jan Broel Platter, the author stated “Murphy’s Chief Aide, Carl Perian … when I’d asked about signing onto a GAO request [said] “what’s in it for Murphy?” he asked. “He typically gets something when he does people favors.” Representative John D. Murphy (D, NY) was widely rumored to be taking bribes.” As this quote shows, Carl Perian in 1978 was still actively involved in Congressional investigating.

  Notes:

  The record of the hearings were published in part as: Report from the Subcommittee To Investigate Juvenile Delinquency of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Eighty-Eighth Congress, First Session, Part 14, “Interstate Traffic in Mail-Order Firearms, January 29 and 30; March 7, and May 1 and 2, 1963, Washington DD.”