Chauncey Marvin Holt

Chauncey Marvin Holt (October 23, 1921—June 28, 1997) was an American adventurer who became known as a painter of celebrity portraits, but who also worked as a pilot, an accountant and a mafia associate as well as claiming to have been a contract operative for the Central Intelligence Agency. He served organized crime figures Meyer Lansky and Peter Licavoli (of the Licavoli Crime Family), and, in 1953, was employed by Lansky as an accountant for the International Rescue Committee which, according to Holt, was a proprietary interest of the CIA. In 1955 he was involved as a covert operative in the CIA-staged coup that overthrew the government of communist-leaning President of Guatemala Jacobo Arbenz. In his career as an artist, he painted numerous portraits, including those of Lansky and Licavoli, as well as of numerous entertainment industry personalities, such as Clint Eastwood. He is a renowned provaricator whose stories have never been proven.

Career overview

During the 1960s and 1970s, Chauncey Holt's association with the CIA placed him in the midst of covert operations in Brazil, Chile and Laos. At the same time he had a close friendship and business interests with Peter Licavoli, which continued until the mobster's death in 1984. Holt was also deeply involved with attorney Frank Belcher Sr. with whom he maintained, at the Bank of America office in Burbank, a special account through which many of Holt's CIA contract agent "projects" were funded and funneled.

In 1975, the CIA began to purge rogue contract agents, known as "cowboys", from its employ. Some were forced into retirement, while others such as Chauncey Holt ended up in prison. On January 2, 1976, Holt wrote a letter to his old CIA ally, William King Harvey, describing his own recent indictment by a federal grand jury. Harvey responded that he could only offer "token assistance", including sending copies of pertinent CIA documents which were on the verge of declassification. Those records confirmed that Holt's services were utilized by the Clandestine Operations Division of the Central Intelligence Agency.

In 1977, Holt was convicted of mail fraud and sent to the federal prison on Terminal Island. Prior to sentencing, he refused an offer from the Organized Crime Task Force of a place in the Witness Protection Program and early release from prison in exchange for testimony against Lansky and Licavoli. Representatives of the CIA did promise him preferential treatment in prison and a "payoff" if he agreed to keep silent about his activities on behalf of the Agency. He kept his word, until the principals died.

A native of Kentucky, Chauncey Holt died of cancer at the age of 75, eight days after completing final scenes for a documentary about his life, Spooks, Hoods and the Hidden Elite.^[1]

Claims of involvement in JFK assassination

Holt is best known for his confession of involvement in the JFK assassination. He testified that he drove with mob hitmen Charles Nicoletti and Leo Moceri to Dallas from the Grace Ranch in Arizona. The ranch was owned by Peter Licavoli and allegedly served as a base for CIA operations, drugs and gun smuggling. ^[2] Holt was also carrying forged secret service badges and lapel pins to Dallas, on orders of his CIA contact Philip Twombly. Holt delivered the lapel pins and badges to anti-Castro Cuban exile Homer Echevarria. He also delivered handguns and ID's to Charles Harrelson on the parking lot of Dealey Plaza behind the grassy knoll. Harrelson, the father of actor Woody Harrelson, was a convicted hitman, who died in 2007 while serving a prison sentence for the 1979 murder of federal judge John H. Wood, Jr..

After the assassination, Holt, Harrelson and Rogers were apprehended from a boxcar in the railroad yard and detained by the Dallas Police. They were released the same afternoon. While they were escorted over Dealey Plaza, seven pictures were taken by press photographers. These pictures became known in history as "the three tramps". Holt related that during the Warren Commission, he and other CIA operatives involved in the Kennedy assassination, stayed in a luxurious CIA safehouse in Acapulco, owned by attorneys Frank Belcher and Joseph Ball. Joseph Ball served as senior counsel on the Warren Commission.

1991 interview with Chauncey Holt

Chauncey Holt first came forward with his story in 1991 and, on October 19, was interviewed for Newsweek by JFK researchers John Craig, Phillip Rogers and Gary Shaw. The article was published in the December 23, 1991 issue.^[3] Also, a number of local news channels in San Diego and Dallas did reports on Holt's story. ^[4] The 3 hour interview itself was never published at the time, however, a transcript of the interview was later published on the website of Dutch JFK assassination researcher Wim Dankbaar. ^[5] Chauncey Holt himself submitted to the San Diego Union Tribune a critical reaction on their review of the book Case Closed by Gerald Posner, who advocates that Lee Harvey Oswald killed President Kennedy. Holt predicted that his comments would not be published by the newspaper as, in his view, it was always firmly defending the Warren Commission's conclusion. He wrote:

I would not be responding to you personally if I felt that there was the slightest possibility that the San Diego Union Tribune would print any excerpts of my response. The paper has always demonstrated a definite bias in favor of those who opposed the conspiracy theory. Recently, it printed a lengthy column by our old friend, David Belin. Not one letter from readers, who disagreed with Belin, was printed in the "Readers Write” section. I wrote what I felt was a persuasive letter in opposition but it was never printed. In my original review of Posner's book, I failed to address the statements that Mr. Posner made about me. This was done deliberately because I wanted my critique to be free of personal bias and as objective as possible. However, criticisms have been received from some individuals who considered this failure, on my part, to be prima facie evidence of the truth of Posner's statements. Nothing could be farther from the truth and, in this addendum, I will address those statements.
On page 273 Posner made the following statement regarding me in regard to the "tramps", which he claimed were arrested on 22 November 1963:
Some self proclaimed adventurers, like Chauncey Holt, have confessed to being one of the tramps and spun long tales about their purported roles in the assassination. But in February 1992, researchers discovered that the Dallas police files released in 1989 showed that three tramps had indeed been booked on November 22, 1963. The records identified the suspects as Harold Doyle, Gus Abrams and John Gedney. Two of the men, Gedney and Doyle, were still alive, and it turned out they were real tramps who had been to the local rescue mission the night before the assassination and were sleeping in the railroad car when the police arrested them. The men had no connection to the events at Dealey, and the conspiracy press suddenly and quietly abandoned the issue.
Mr. Posner's allegations, couched in the same demeaning, sarcastic language he resorted to throughout the book, is replete with misstatements of fact. Mr. Posner alludes to me as a "self proclaimed adventurer". To proclaim is to announce officially and publicly. I have no need to do this. I have knife and bullet wound scars and broken bones to establish my bona fides.
As far as I know I am the only person who has come forward and admitted to being one of the tramps or "spun a long tale" about his role in this matter. The "police records" were not released in 1989, but only after Newsweek printed a lengthy story about me in the December 1991 issue. There were also articles appearing in other newspapers, and my account of that fateful Friday was aired on television in Houston, Dallas, and San Diego. It is interesting to note that the Dallas television reporters asked me if I would be willing to confront Marvin Wise, one of the police officers in the now famous photograph of the "tramps". I readily agreed to this confrontation, but Marvin Wise, who is now a rent-a-cop, refused to appear with me.
I provided numerous photos of myself, taken in the sixties, which Lois Gibson, a nationally recognized forensic artist with the Houston Police Department, used to compare with photographs taken in Dealey Plaza on Friday, 22 November 1963. To the best of my knowledge, no photographs of Abrams, Gedney, or Doyle, taken in the sixties, have been furnished to researchers or the police.
Furthermore, the statements of Gedney (Florida Today, 7 March 1992) and Doyle (A Current Affair, 25 February 1992) differ from those of Posner in his book, demonstrating again that Posner is very reckless in his claims as to what he was told by various witnesses.
Doyle and Gedney told essentially the same story. This is what Gedney said: He and two drifters had gotten cleaned up at a homeless shelter in Houston. The train stopped in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. They were returning to the railroad yards from another soup kitchen near Dealey Plaza when the sirens began howl ing. Somebody said the president had been shot. Suddenly a police dragnet was sweeping the streets for suspicious characters. Gedney says more than 100 people were hauled in for interrogation, but only he, Harold Doyle and Gus Abrams got caught by a photographer. We were taken away, put in jail for three or four days and found not guilty of anything but vagrancy.
Does this sound like three tramps sleeping in a boxcar? The records released by the Dallas Police Department after almost thirty years indicated that Abrams, Doyle, and Gedney were charged with burglary and remained in jail for four days, but, incredibly, have provided no fingerprints or mug shots of these three derelicts. I realize that the Dallas Police Department in 1963 was appallingly inept, but does this really make sense?

(full letter here)

Indeed, the letter was never published by the San Diego Tribune, but assassination researcher James Fetzer recently made it available on his website. ^[6]

Controversy over Holt's story

Holt's story was undermined in 1992 when the Dallas Police Department alleged that the three tramps were Gus Abrams, John F. Gedney and Harold Doyle. Ray and Mary LaFontaine carried out their own research into this claim. They traced Doyle and Gedney who confirmed they were two of the tramps. Gus Abrams was dead but his sister identified him as the third tramp in the photograph. Assassination researcher and Warren Commission apologist John McAdams reported the findings of this research on his website. ^[7] Other researchers like James Fetzer, Lois Gibson and Wim Dankbaar point to the inconsistencies in this research and even suggest it was a deliberate attempt to discredit the story of Holt. Wim Dankbaar stated:

Chauncey's revelations were largely ignored by the mainstream media. The few media that did report on it, left it with a conclusion that cast doubts on his story. I could believe that Doyle, Gedney and Abrams were picked up from a train and taken into custody. So in that regard they may well have been telling the truth. I just don't believe they are the men in the tramp photographs. As Chauncey said, several individuals were picked up that day from the railroad yard.
The shadows in the photographs indicate a time around 2:30 PM or later. The shadows have moved two hours compared with the time of the shooting. This is consistent with Holt, who said they were hiding in the boxcar for 2 hours before they were found. It is not consistent with what Doyle and Gedney were telling. In the photographs you can also see that the crowds of people are gone, which is also indicating a time well after the assassination. All the documents and statements (also from the arresting officers) say that the arrests occurred very shortly after the assassination, within an hour, well before 1:30 PM. Read the interviews with the arresting officers. ^[8]

The sun and shadows don't lie. It's just the law of the earth's rotation.

Also, Doyle and the others said that they were picked up from an open flatbed coal car, known as a gondola, not a boxcar. This is in their FBI statements. ^[9]

The man that is supposedly Harold Doyle looks to be much older than 32. This is also more consistent with what Holt is telling. Charles Rogers, aka Richard Montoya was 43 at the time. Two good acquaintances of Rogers identified him immediately from those photographs. One was an ex girlfriend that he dated, the other was Charles Rolland, manager of the Houston ice-skating rink where Rogers frequently used the pay-phone.

Forensic expert Lois Gibson

Lois Gibson works for the Houston Police Department and is one the most respected forensic facial experts in the world^{[citation needed]}. She was recently awarded with a notation in the Guinness Book of World Records for the highest crime solving rate based on composite sketches^{[citation needed]}. Lois Gibson has made a comparison study of the "three tramps", photographed in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963. She concluded that the three men were Chauncey Holt, Charles Harrelson and Charles Rogers. The video presentation of her analysis can be found on the Internet.

Notes

1. ^ Source: Epilogue of Spooks, Hoods & The Hidden Elite
2. ^ Note from Licavoli to Holt to stop by the Grace Ranch to pick up Charles Nicoletti and Leo "Lips" Moceri
3. ^ Video fragment of 1991 interview with Chauncey Holt
4. ^ News report on Holt's story
5. ^ Partial transcript of 1991 interview
6. ^ Chauncey Holt's letter to the San Diego Tribune
7. ^ Article on the three tramps by John Mcadams
8. ^ FBI Document on arresting officer
9. ^ FBI interview with Harold Doyle

References

• Video fragment of 1991 interview
• Partial transcript of 1991 interview
• "Spooks, Hoods & The Hidden Elite" on Google video
• Texas Fox News Channel 4 report on Chauncey Holt
• Texas Fox News Channel 4 report on the "three tramps"
• Presentation of Lois Gibson on Google video
• Transcript and slides of Lois Gibson presentation
• Chauncey Holt's letter to the San Diego Tribune
• Biography of Chauncey Holt
• Newsweek article on Chauncey Holt
• Article by John Mcadams, disputing Holt's confession
• A web page with documents about the Three Tramps

Persondata
Name	Holt, Chauncey Marvin
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1921
Place of birth
Date of death	1997
Place of death