Gary Wean’s Preposterous Life – Part 2

Gary’s inside information on the JFK assassination

There is nobody in the USA today like Audie Murphy.  He is representative of a bygone era.  Born into poverty, he lied about his age when he was 16 (and an orphan) to enlist in the military, he performed all of his feats on the battlefield before he was 20, and he became the most decorated American soldier ever.  There is nobody in the USA today who would receive the kind of instant respect, even reverence, from men of his generation that Murphy had.  Murphy was raised near Dallas and after the war he became friends with Bill Decker, a famous lawman who helped end Bonnie and Clyde’s crime spree.  Decker became the sheriff of Dallas County, and when Murphy married a Hollywood actress, Decker presided over the wedding. 

Their World War II experiences were surely relevant to the friendship that Murphy developed with Gary Wean.  As I previously noted, Gary moonlighted as Murphy’s bodyguard.  The below comes from the chapter in Gary’s book on the issue.  When Decker came to town on business periodically, Gary reserved a table at the L.A. Police Academy, and Murphy and Decker would have lunch with Gary.  Lee Harvey Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby while being transferred to Decker’s custody.  In December 1963, only a couple of weeks after JFK was murdered, Decker came to LA.  Decker, Murphy, Gary, and his investigative partner at the district attorney’s office had lunch at the Police Academy.

There was only one topic of conversation at their lunch: there was no way that Oswald could have put two bullets in JFK from that book depository window with that cheap Italian rifle.  They were all proficient with firearms, and Murphy and Decker were rifle experts.  Their unanimous conclusion was that Oswald could not have done it.  Decker then told them that he knew that Oswald did not do it, he had a friend in Dallas who knew that Oswald did not do it, and but he was afraid to approach any officials.  Decker said that he might meet with Murphy, and they ended their lunch.  A few days later, Gary got a call from Murphy, who asked if Gary wanted to meet with Decker’s friend.  In mid-December, 1963, Murphy flew Gary and his investigative partner to Ruidoso, New Mexico, in his private plane, to meet with Decker’s friend.  They met Decker at the airport and went to a diner to meet with Decker’s friend, who got right down to business. 

In the original 1987 edition of his book, Gary disguised his identity, but in his 1996 edition, because he was dead by then, Gary identified Decker’s friend as John Tower, the Senator from Texas whom George H.W. Bush nominated to be the Secretary of Defense, but who was shot down in the confirmation hearings.  Tower died two years later in a plane crash, 20 years after Murphy was killed in a plane crash, and Gary doubted that they were random deaths. 

According to Tower, Oswald was a military-intelligence operative whose “communist” fascination and affiliation were part of his career path, to create fake communist credentials so that he could infiltrate communist organizations.  Oswald’s “defection” to the Soviet Union (and his threat to reveal national-security secrets) was likely part of a naval program of fake defectors.  Oswald’s defection was the greatest Marine defection during the entire Cold War.  Less than three years later, Oswald returned to the USA with his Russian bride, and instead of facing the firing squad, Oswald was welcomed back, which was an oddity that Fidel Castro remarked on the day after JFK was killed.  Imagine if Edward Snowden came back to the USA for a hero’s welcome several years ago.  Oswald’s reception was even more preposterous, coming at the height of the Cold War. 

Tower said that when Oswald returned, he was soon recruited by E. Howard Hunt to get involved in a seemingly insane CIA operation: stage a fake assassination attempt on JFK and frame Castro for it, to justify an American invasion of Cuba.  Oswald was very leery about such a plan, until he met with high-ranking officials who supported the plan.  JFK was not apprised of the plan, for one of the many out-of-the-loop moments of his presidency, and it would be JFK’s last one.  Oswald was supposed to fire his rifle into the air and go into hiding, and the CIA made a fake trail to Cuba.  When the dust cleared from the invasion, after mopping up Castro and his revolutionaries, Oswald would come home to a hero’s welcome. 

That was the plan, until somehow a fake assassination attempt turned into a real one.  Tower did not know who interposed the operation, and neither did the CIA, FBI, and Pentagon officials who were part of Hunt’s plan.  At the end of his mind-blowing tale, Tower gave Gary a sealed envelope that he said contained documents to prove his story.  The meeting ended and they flew back to LA while Decker and Tower returned to Dallas.  On the way back to LA, they knew that it was too big for them to get involved with, and a few days later, Murphy heard from Decker, who said that those documents were given by Tower in a moment of panic, and to return them immediately or face dire consequences.  Murphy thought fast and said that they threw them out of the airplane on the way back to LA. 

They then watched the ensuing Warren Commission’s cover-up and knew that if they volunteered Tower’s information, they were doomed.  I read Gary’s story in 1989, and during my years of study, I read a great deal of JFK-assassination literature.  I never saw a credible piece of JFK-assassination evidence that contradicted Gary’s story.  Many documents that have been declassified since Gary published his book bolstered his story, and maybe none more than the Operation Northwoods document.  Northwoods seemed like the Pentagon’s version of Hunt’s plan, as the Joint Chiefs of Staff planned to stage fake terrorist incidents, frame Castro for them, and justify an American invasion of Cuba.  The Northwoods document was not declassified until 1997, ten years after Gary published his book.  It was declassified as part of the effort that Oliver Stone’s JFK movie stirred up. 

To this day, I have yet to see the mainstream media deal in any way with the Northwoods revelations and Gary’s story, as the media plans to defend the Warren Commission to the end of time.  I’ll write more about this in my next post.