Who Is Robert Easterling? What Role In JFK Murder

[Barney]

I have been scan reading Henry Hurt's book, "Reasonable Doubt" and it keeps mentioning a Robert Easterling and his contacts withultra rich New Orleans and Dallas oilmen, handling payoff money in used suitcases, and meetings with Cubans and Oswald to getOswald out from under severe FBI surveillance esp. during the Mexico trip from Houston to Mexico City. He also mentions an Oswald lookalike named Carlo who he met in Houston that looked almost exactloy like LHO who spoke Spanish and Russian butseemed to struggle with English of all things. Anybody got the real scoop on this guy Easterling???" Barney

[Barney]

Back to Robert Easterling, he alleges that this ultra rich oilman from a town across the Miss.River from downtown NO, once ordered him to buy a used suitcase and gave him $50 to get it. He went to something like a Salvation Army used item store inNO and got one that was a used Samsonite double suit case, that had been slightly burned on one end for $25 and he kept thechange for his troubles. Later on, his benefactor, this rich oilman near NO, told him that he had been hired by various La. andTx. oilmen to gather up $100,000 in used $100 bills to make a delivery. His benefactor seemed real nervous and wanted somebody to talk to. He told Easterling, I have been helping out some of my rich oil well folks I do regular business with. I think they want this money to finance a murder job on Pres. Kennedy, they are rabid haters of the entire Kennedy family bigtime., and they were not the kind of people you fuck around with, you know what I mean Robert. I over- billed these people's companies and then take the excess charges to a localbanker who exchanges the excess for circulated $100 bills. A few weeks later, this guy called Easterling and said come to my office on Sat. its time for the delivery. He went to this man's office, and after a short time, four men drove up to the officewith two exiting the car and coming in and two staying back in the car. After a bit of chat, the two men got the suitcase from hisfriend, counted the money very carefully, and then asked to use the phone. The man making the called went by the name ,JackRuby, and he did not identify the other man. After a brief call to someone, Ruby handed the phone to the other man, who muchlater he thinks he recognized as either Clay Shaw or Guy Bannister from newspaper photos. His friend asked Ruby, can i trust you with this money, can you protect it to the intended party, and Ruby pulled back his suitcoat and showed his friend a pistol in a holster and said," yeah, I can handle that amount of money, I carry a heater with me." Easterling, stated that after they left, his friend sayswell, I just earned $10,000 from that deal and didnt have to do much legwork at all. He then gave $1500 to Easterling and told him to go home until he was called, and to keep his mouth shut or else you will regret the day you were born. Easterling got scared and took off for Ohio where he took a construction company job to make ends meet.

[Barney]

Memo: #3Easterling was living in a trailer park and told that cubans were shooting rifles in the open space away from this trailer parkuntil people complained to the authorities about the noise and dangers. Soon the cubans began to make threats to burn up anybodys trailer who complained again to the police about their shooting and target practice sessions. After Easterling began to run scared, he left for Ohio, but did call his wife to rent an apartment and to sell their trailer,and get the hell out of there and leave no forwarding address for either of them. He did not hear from his friend for about a monthwhen he called to see if there was any easy money work for him available in NO. The friend says yeah, come on back here, I havesome people you need to meet and a job to do, its easy money. He returned to NO from Ohio in his fast car, a 1963 Ford XL with a big muscle car engine, painted yellow and black, that could really haul ass. He also met some Cuban types in NO at the Habana Bar, one going by the name, Manuel Rivera, a pseudonym, real name unknown, and a group of real hardass Cuban types, who were very violence and hard drinking oriented persons. Most of their boisterous talking and drinking took place at a bar known as the Habana Bar.There he also met an American by the name of LHO, who would drink lemonade, prob. the first time the owner or bartender evermade such a drin k at this hard liquor bar. One time LHO got sick to his stomach and puked on the table and then left after theCubans and the owner threatened to beat the shit outta him for puking in the bar.Later on, he transports Rivera, Oswald, and another Cuban from New Orleans to Houston, so that Oswald can go to Mexico City while escaping the surveillance and detection of the everpresent FBI tailers. This is where LHO went into a bus station and a few minutes later emerged with this LHO look-alike, but who seemed to be a Cuban-American in the mannerism and the way he talked.He seemed to understand Russian and Spanish but had trouble with some English words. Easterling was paid some money and told to leave imnediatly for Monterey, Mexico by Rivera thus, he does not know who rode the bus to Mexico City.s

[Dealey Joe]

If you have not already looked, Mary Ferrell Foundation has some info on this.

[Barney]

I SUSPECT THAT THE MAN EASTERLING KNEW AS MANUEL RIVERA WAS ACTUALLY CIA ASSET AND CUBAN ANTI-CASTROAGENT, TURNED SUSPECT DOUBLE AGENT, KENNEDY HATER, MANUEL ARTIME, CODENAME-B-1,A FORMER CUBAN GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL BEFORE THE OVERTHROWOF THE BASTISTA REGIME BY CASTRO WITH THE HELP OF THE MAFIA. PLAYING BOTH ENDS AGAINST THE MIDDLE, AND THECIA, ENRAGED BECAUSE CASTRO WAS NATIONALIZING THE ASSETS OWNED BY AMERICANS IN CUBA SUCH AS SUGAR PLANTATIONS,REFINERIES, FRANCHISES, AND OTHER RESOURCES OF VALUE. IF IT WAS B-1, ARTIME, AS A DOUBLE AGENT, AS A SPY, THEN HIS CIA NAME WAS KNOWN AS (B-1) WITH CUBELA CODENAMED (AM/LASH),FURTHER READING FINDS THAT ARTIME RETURNED TO CUBA AFTER JFK WAS MURDERED. THE DAY JFK WAS SHOT, AM/LASH, WAS MEETINGWITH DES FITZGERALD IN PARIS, TO DISCUSS THE MURDER BUT ONLY IF THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF US GOVT. BACKED THE ASSASSINATION OF CASTRO. AM/LASH PROB. WAS WORKING MORESO FOR CASTRO BROTHERS TO SEE WHO HIS REAL ENEMIES WERE IN THE US GOVT.- LENDING CREDENCE TO THE IDEA ARTIME WAS A DOUBLE AGENT. FIDEL CASTRO GOVT.INTEL AGENTS ARRESTED AM/LASH FOR TREASON AND CONVICTED HIM OF TREASON, AND CONSPIRACY TO MURDER THE CASTRO BROTHERS. FIDEL SAVED CUBELA(AM/LASH) FROM A FIRING SQUAD, REDUCING HIS DEATH SENTENCE TO 25 YEARS IN PRISON. LITTLE IS KNOWN ABOUT ARTIME (B-1)FOLLOWING THE JFK MURDER. HE MAY HAVE MOVED TO HONDURAS OR MEXICO OR RETURNED TO CUBA.EASTERLING STATED HIS FINAL JOB FOR THE CUBANS WHO WERE ANTI-CASTRO ALLEGEDLY, WAS TO DRIVE FROMBATON ROUGE ,LA.TO DALLAS TO MEET UP WITH LHO AT THE BUS STATION NEAR THE TSBD, AND HELP LHO ESCAPE TO MEXICO CITY AND THEN PERHAPS BACKTO CUBA. GROWING INCREASING AFRAID FOR HIS LIFE, EASTERLING BURGLARIZED A GIBSON STORE INSTEAD, WASCAUGHT BY A SECURITY GUARD BUT FLED IN HIS CAR UNTIL HE WRECKED IT IN HOT PURSUIT BY BR POLICE. HEHID AND FLED TO MISS. THEN TO MARYLAND WHERE HE BROKE INTO A CHEVY DEALERSHIP SAFE AND GOT SOMETRAVELING MONEY AND DISAPPEARED FOR A WHILE TO ESCAPE THE DEATH AWAITING HIM FROM THE EXILED CUBANS OPERATING MAINLY OUT OF MIAMI AND NEW ORLEANS AND HOUSTON. WHEN TRAVELING TO MEXICO CITY NA D THEN ON TO HONDURAS, EASTERLING MET UP W ITH MANUEL'S BROTHER FERNANDO, WHO TRIED TO ENTRAP HIM BY OFFERING HIM A JET RIDE BACK TO HOUSTON, TX. BUT HE ESCAPED BY COMM. AIRLINER.

[Barney]

Easterling states that his Cuban contact Manuel Rivera, a fake name, kept and gave his brother Fernando, a wallet size photo album. Insidewere pictures of all the conspirators, those with a small x on their foreheads were deceased, others with a ? mark were being pursued. Easterlingsaid brother Fernando stated, " these pictures and the Czech weapon used to kill Kennedy,they now hang on the back den wall in Raul Castro's villa in Cuba to this day."