1 Roberts & Armstrong, The Dead Witnesses, 126.
2 Tosh Plumlee, email to author, 7 Nov. 2012.
3 Check-Six.com, “The Francis Gary Powers Helo Crash,” accessed 7 Nov. 2012: http://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/Powers-N4TV.htm
The official explanation also sounds very weak. They had to address the point of how a pilot as experienced as Powers—a guy who was shot down at 70,000 feet over enemy territory and survived to talk about it—could run out of fuel on a simple little news sortie. Here’s how they addressed it:
Many have wondered or speculated on how an experienced pilot such as Powers could have allowed the aircraft to run out of fuel. Powers had reported a fuel gauge error to the mechanics. When the plane’s fuel gauge indicator displayed “Empty,” he actually had enough fuel for thirty more minutes of flight time. Apparently, the aviation mechanic fixed the fuel gauge in the KNBC helicopter, but did not tell Powers of the correction.1
Now please read the above statement again and ask yourself this: A mechanic isn’t going to tell a news celebrity and war hero like Gary Powers about something as important as changing his fuel gauge before letting him go airborne over Los Angeles with a fuel gauge that has been altered? You gotta be kidding.
The official version also makes it sound as though Powers was desperately searching around for a safe place to land, where there were no children who might have been harmed by his crash landing. Here are some representative statements of that perceived quandary, as far as where, in a huge recreational area, to put it down:
Popular with locals as a spot to exercise, play, or simply be outdoors, the park features numerous facilities, including several baseball diamonds.2
1 GaryPowers.org, “The 1962 Spy Exchange of Powers for Abel,” accessed 7 Nov. 2012: http://garypowers.org/1962-spy-exchange-of-powers-for-abel/
2 Check-Six.com, “The Francis Gary Powers Helo Crash,” accessed 7 Nov. 2012: http://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/Powers-N4TV.htm
But, if one believes the official version, our heroic combat veteran pilot who never cowered under pressure just couldn’t find a place to put it down, not even on one of the “several baseball diamonds.”1
At 12:35 p.m., Powers had the park in sight, and flew the helicopter downwards in an effort to crash-land the helicopter without injuring anyone. However, at the last moment, he saw several teenagers playing baseball on the diamonds below. . . . Powers intentionally banked to avoid children on the fields and ultimately crashed the helicopter into an adjacent agricultural field, resulting in the aircraft rolling and the occupants’ deaths.2
NEWS FLASH, FOLKS: Gary Powers was a highly skilled pilot; he could have put that bird down just about anywhere, and he would’ve known that if there were any kids around, they’d have gotten out of the damn way.
Here’s how our covert intel vet described how the sabotaged craft actually crashed:
I see another possibility which I have not found mentioned in any of the accident safety reports and that is called “main rotor stall”; equals “flat pitch,” collective forward—blades in flat pitch. BUT must maintain forward movement and glide speed (45-65kts preferred) 10-15 degree slope . . . normal autorotation with collective forward, down. All would be normal like a falling leaf, UNLESS something else happens that would impede your forward speed, such as tail rotor failure (TRF). At this point, the torque of the main rotors would take over the loss of the counteracting tail rotor and cause the aircraft to suddenly spin and lose forward airspeed. Pulling up on the collective would not help because the rotor blades had stalled in flat pitch and, not having enough forward speed to maintain blade lift, the blades had nothing to bite into, like airflow over blade surfaces. The aircraft would drop like a rock spinning into the ground with high G force (objects flying out of chopper—perhaps due to spinning G forces as witnesses described). The pictures I’ve seen indicated high impact—twisted, mangled, wreckage—something not usually seen after a failed autorotation attempt.3
Plumlee also describes how he sees the “big picture” of the event:
I think Powers knew of Oswald’s role in going to Russia. We wanted to see what the range in altitude and radar capabilities of the Soviets were at the time. We Americans sent Oswald into Russia to give the Russians the secret codes and other necessary information that would cause the Russians to be able to shoot down our U-2. It was to test their capabilities to reach the altitude of our U-2’s , to see if they could reach and destroy the target at that high altitude. Powers was set up to be the fall guy for this experiment. At the time, we did not expect the Soviets to be able reach the Powers U-2’s altitude, let alone blow it out of the sky. And if they did
1 Ibid.
2 Ibid.
3 Tosh Plumlee, email to author, 7 Nov. 2012.
shoot it down, then the pilot would have been expected to be killed, not captured. Powers proved them wrong and proved to be an embarrassment. However, we did find out that the Soviets did have the capabilities to reach the altitude and the pay load of explosives to knock the U-2 out of the air. What did Powers know and when did he know it? If I remember right, I think he accused the government of covering up something in reference to his shoot down over Russia. Powers paid the price for this knowledge in 1977 in a helicopter crash in L.A.1
Conclusions Based On Evidentiary Indications
• First off, it is extremely unlikely that a pilot as good as Gary Powers would reach “Fuel-Critical” in a news helicopter;
• Secondly, even if he had run out of fuel, he was fully capable of putting a Bell 206 Jet Ranger safely down on the ground with zero fuel;
• The conclusion of sabotage reached by the two helicopter experts (above) meshes with the eyewitness report that he heard a popping noise, looked up, and “saw the back prop fall off.”
Conclusion
Probable sabotage, though not specifically linked to JFK assassination.
1 Tosh Plumlee, email to author, 7 Nov. 2012, emphasis in original.
Victim
Country singing legend, Jim Reeves, was an international star, known to millions of his fans as simply, “Gentleman Jim.”
Cause of Death
Plane Crash
Official Verdict
Pilot Error
Actual Circumstances
Possible Sabotage
Inconsistencies
Numerous (see text below)
49
Jim Reeves,
July 31, 1964
Photo Courtesy of Larry Jordan
Famous singing artist, “Gentleman Jim” Reeves has never been included on the various lists of suspicious deaths over the years (as far as we know). He was used to making an entirely different type of “hit list,” but we have learned important information indicating that he should be. He apparently did have a link to the JFK assassination, which—from the standpoint of mathematical probability calculations alone—should place him on the list.
Jim’s connection to the JFK assassination was established by his biographer, Larry Jordan, author of the excellent biography, Jim Reeves: His Untold Story, which details how Reeves knew both Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald.1 When in Dallas, Reeves and his band would perform at The Longhorn Ballroom, which was owned by Dewey Groom.2 Jack Ruby knew both Dewey Groom and Jim Reeves, and Reeves frequently saw Jack Ruby—as well as Lee Harvey Oswald—around the Dallas nightclub scene.
Reeves—as is well-documented—had an amazing photographic memory. It was of the type that people were stunned by his uncanny memory tricks, and suspected that it must be a magic “trick” of some type. It wasn’t. It was simply that Jim Reeves actually had a real and true photographic memory. For example, a casual autograph-seeker would come up to Jim and ask him for his autograph. Jim would ask her where she was from and her name, and would then write her a line or two on that along with his autograph on a record that she had brought. Years later, if Jim saw the person again, he would recall the information, walk by them and say something to the ef
fect of “Well hi there, Doris from Wichita.”3 The person would be absolutely stunned—and who wouldn’t?
Now, back to the JFK assassination . . . but keep note of his photographic memory. Jim and his band performed at a big nightclub in Dallas the night before the assassination of President Kennedy. The band traveled on to Amarillo the next morning, but, for some reason that was never satisfactorily explained, Jim “got hung up in Dallas” that next day and did not travel with his band. So he was still in Dallas when the assassination took place, and it’s not completely clear how he eventually caught up with the band. But after the President was shot and Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested, the second that Oswald’s face was flashed on television, Jim immediately told the group of friends he was with that he knew Oswald and had seen him often. That point is quite noteworthy: Reeves registered immediate recognition, instantly telling his friends who were watching television with him that he was very familiar with the man and had, in fact, just seen him recently.4
It also became apparent that Jim was apparently acting as a high-level courier of some type, possibly in an intelligence capacity. Though that may seem odd, it is not unprecedented—international stars can move in circles that others cannot and it would not have been the first time that one was used as an “intel” courier. Jim was also closely “hooked up” with some military brass. As Larry Jordan notes:
He made various tours for the U.S. Military and also had the uncanny knack of being able to get some of his band members furloughed for
1 Larry Jordan, Jim Reeves: His Untold Story (Page Turner Books International: 2011).
2 Larry Jordan, emails to author, 28 November 2012.
3 Larry Jordan, telephone interview with author, 29 Nov. 2012.
4 Ibid.
unscheduled leave whenever it suited his fancy. Who has that kind of clout?1
Jim was able to land at military airports (and often did so) as a general aviation (private) pilot, which was unheard of. Jim also always insisted that his plane be watched 24/7, even at rural airports. At one of the small airports, it is established that they had to hire a special guard just to watch his plane. What was Jim so concerned about this for?2
That aspect links up to Jim’s death and, possibly, to the JFK assassination:
• Reeves was a very good pilot in an excellent aircraft—a Beechcraft Debonair—but he flew into bad weather, a fact that, in a small craft, can bring any pilot down.
• However, the thing about Jim Reeves’s death that is suspicious from an investigatory standpoint is not so much the plane crash itself—even expert pilots can be brought down when flying into serious weather—and it’s not even a witness report that lends itself to the possibility of sabotage having brought down the plane. What is so suspicious in this particular case is what transpired after the crash. In some very strange developments, it was all too apparent that, for some reason, the official search was diverted to an area entirely different from where the control tower had pinpointed the crash site; apparently to allow some “independent” searchers first access to the crash site. And, in a seemingly related aspect, that a great emphasis was placed on finding the briefcase that was known to be on that plane.
The Nashville Tennessean reported in Sunday’s edition that more than 2,000 persons were in the search effort, still without success. Included were 300 Civil Defense units, metropolitan police, Williamson County sheriff’s officers, members of the Donelson Citizens Band Radio Service, forty National Guardsmen, and sixty airmen from Sewart Air Force base. Red Cross rescue units served coffee and donuts. Jeeps, wagons, and private cars were used in the search, along with twelve airplanes and two military helicopters. They combed a 20-square-mile area, checking out a multitude of false leads. On Sunday, day three of the search, Mary Reeves recalled thinking, “This is ridiculous. They can’t have just vanished.”3
The crash happened at 4:52 p.m., just off a main thoroughfare that was busy with rush-hour traffic. While it was still daylight, a search team assembled at the corner of Franklin Road (a main thoroughfare running north and south) and Baxter Lane, which intersected it. This team was organized by the Civil Defense and included a member of Black Ops in Southeast Asia (Bob Newton, who ultimately is credited with finding the plane). Ironically, this spot was within sight of the woods into which Reeves crashed. It strains credulity that nobody looked in that woods.
1 Larry Jordan, email to author, 29 November 2012.
2 Sara Jordan, email to author, 14 January, 2012.
3 Jordan, Jim Reeves, 628.
In fact, one of the participants in the search—a well-known piano player, Bill Pursell—recalled having suggested the team look in the woods, but was told by a law enforcement official that the plane was reported down over toward Radnor Lake, well northwest of that location!1
• It was established that Jim definitely took a briefcase onto the small plane in which he flew. Multiple witnesses verified that Reeves’ briefcase was indeed taken onto that airplane; and never “officially” located in the wreckage, or, for that matter, anywhere else.
• It was established that it was an extremely high priority of the search team to locate that briefcase.
This misinformation continued to be given out. Moments after the Reeves plane disappeared from radar, Bill Larson got airborne and was vectored by tower controller John Hetish—the last to speak to Reeves by radio—who vectored Bill to the exact location. However, since the plane penetrated the tree canopy at a steep angle, it was not visible from the air. Later that night, when Bill was asked by Highway Patrolman Truman Clark to accompany him on a helicopter sweep of the area, both men were puzzled to see searchers on the opposite side of Franklin Road. Truman radioed headquarters and was told the search should be concentrated in that area and not over the woods.2
Eyewitness Wiley Tombs dismissed the assertion that searchers didn’t find the wreckage until Sunday. Interviewed in his home, Wiley gestured and said, “Down this road to [Baxter Lane], and down Hill Road, it was full of cars. And [people] were . . . jumping out of them and running . . . over to talk to me. . . . Somebody’s got it down that they didn’t find the plane until [Sunday] but hell, they found it that evening.’” Was the wreckage actually discovered Friday night? Did authorities want a chance to get to the crash site first in order to find what they were looking for—a suitcase full of money or perhaps something more sensitive in nature?3
• It was established that the official search was intentionally diverted to a known false location, so that authorities could get to the crash site first.
It remains a mystery as to why, when airport authorities precisely pinpointed the crash location as being on the east side of Franklin and just south of some high voltage power towers (based on the last radar sighting of Jim’s plane), searchers were misdirected to the west side of the road.4
• When the search was eventually “re-targeted” to the actual known coordinates of the crash (days later), the briefcase was already gone. Puryear Mims,
1 Larry Jordan, email to author, 14 January, 2012.
2 Ibid.
3 Jordan, Jim Reeves, 636-637 emphasis in original.
4 Ibid, 623.
• a U.S. intelligence veteran, knew the plane was down because he actually heard it crash. But he did not report any of this to authorities for two days, until he finally reported it to Bob Newton, another “black ops” guy.
Bob Newton, who was a veteran of “black ops” (covert operations) in southeast Asia for two years—having been in Laos and Cambodia before the Vietnam conflict exploded—was credited with finding it. Thus he became the second important figure in the Jim Reeves plane crash saga to have worked for military intelligence (the other being Puryear Mims).1
• Therefore, what the crash instigated as far as priorities was a frantic search for that briefcase. It seemed that too much emphasis was placed on finding Jim’s briefcase. The top priority should have been looking for survivors—and instead, it was apparently the briefcase.<
br />
The crash site was not properly secured by the FAA and although there were police lines up, over 100 people assembled, moving wreckage before the investigation had even been concluded.2
Tower supervisor Halmond Adkins was asked to go to the scene to identify the plane from its N number. “The highway patrol come and escorted me out there. It was exactly the same spot we had been vectoring everybody.”3
• In the days and weeks just prior to the crash, Jim had been involved in some “land deals” of a suspicious nature. For example, he was going off to a remote location to look at property supposedly being sold for development. But the deal was with some very shady people, which was out-of-character for Jim, who was a very straight-forward guy—and the so-called “properties” were investments no one in their right mind would seriously be interested in—which was very out of character for him. It raises questions. Why would a busy international star fly off to a different state to supposedly look at property that was not the least bit enticing and was being touted by a suspected criminal?4 The man was out on bail and was being prosecuted for having shot a husband and wife in cold blood, and then attempting to burn their remains.
It strains credulity that rescue workers—who assembled Friday night within sight of the woods—never searched them. Or did they? Strangely, there is also a dearth of documentation in federal agency files regarding this accident, even though paperwork on crashes far longer ago than Jim’s is still available. It’s as if the files regarding the Reeves mishap have been sanitized. Retired police officials in Nashville speculate the reason
Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation Into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination Page 33