[PHOTO: courtesy of Mark Bridger]. In my opinion, Robert Alan Surrey was one of the most important figures in US History. The Warren Commission (WC) exposed Dallas resident Surrey as the publisher of the mugshot “WANTED FOR TREASON: JFK” handbill that circulated in Dallas on November 22, 1963 (the day of the assassination of JFK in Dallas). The WC overlooked another fact -- that this same handbill circulated in Dallas on October 24, 1963 (the day of the humiliation of Adlai Stevenson in Dallas).
Despite this important fact, Robert Alan Surrey (1925-1987) remains one of the least researched people in JFK research. I will review his WC testimony to shine a light directly on the man. But first, I will offer a brief overview.
It all started in 1960, when Robert Alan Surrey joined the John Birch Society (JBS) -- barely one year old. In those days, the JBS slogan, “Impeach Earl Warren” was a direct reference to the US Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren and his 1954 Brown Decision to racially integrate all US Public Schools. Southerners generally held a warm affection to the JBS.
Everything escalated in November 1961, when General Edwin Walker -- a well-known JBS figure -- resigned from the US Army (the only US General to resign in the 20th century). He moved to Dallas. Robert Alan Surrey, seeking political influence, earnestly attended all of Ex-General Walker’s public appearances. After the 52-year old Walker gave several speeches in Dallas that were critical of JFK and Earl Warren’s “Brown Decision,” the 38-year old Surrey introduced himself.
In February 1962, when Walker decided to run for Governor of Texas, Robert Alan Surrey rushed to spearhead Walker’s campaign. Walker now made his living from political speeches, and Surrey offered to publish Walker’s speeches and sell them by using mail-order. Thus, they began a partnership known as “The American Eagle Publishing Company.”
Surrey drew no salary (as he already had a full-time job with Johnson Printing Company in Dallas). Surrey strove for political connections through Walker and set up his office inside Walker’s two-story home (evidently subsidized by H.L. Hunt -- a radical right winger, an oil billionaire, and possibly the key socialite in Dallas).
Long story short, Ex-General Walker lost his campaign to the Democratic candidate John Connally, and he returned to his craft of giving political speeches. Then, in September 1962, as JFK was arguing with Fidel Castro over Cuba, a Black American and US Air Force Veteran from Mississippi, namely, James Meredith, applied to attend Ole Miss University in his home town. Yet by old tradition, Ole Miss was racially segregated.
Governor of Mississippi, Ross Barnett, vowed to oppose James Meredith with everything that he had. Ex-General Walker, spurred on by Robert Alan Surrey, also vowed to support Governor Barnett with everything that he had.
In response, JFK said that if Ross Barnett used Mississippi police to oppose the registration of James Meredith at Ole Miss, then JFK would Federalize the Mississippi National Guard to protect James Meredith. Barnett would not back down. JFK then mobilized his Federal troops.
On 26 September 1962, Ex-General Walker published an “open letter” to JFK, accusing him of secretly supporting Castro in Cuba, and of sending Federal troops to Mississippi as a ploy to divert attention from his Communist plot with Cuba to take over the world.
On 27 September 1962, Ex-General Walker appeared on radio and TV with this message: <paraphrase> “I will be in Oxford, Mississippi with Ross Barnett, fighting for the State Rights of Mississippi to keep a segregated university. Join me there -- 10,000 strong from every state in the union. Bring your tents, your flags and your skillets!”
On 29 September 1962, Walker flew to Jackson, Mississippi with Robert Allen Surrey at his side. The result would be a bloody riot on the evening of 30 September 1962, in which two were killed and hundreds were wounded.
On 1 October 1962 (thanks, Effren), at 9 AM, Federal marshals arrested Walker on the orders of JFK and RFK, who had remanded Walker to a military insane asylum at Springfield, Illinois for a 90-day psychiatric examination. (JFK had lost his patience with Walker, since the US conflict with Cuba was escalating.)
Instantly, Robert Alan Surrey organized a Radical Right protest across America about using psychiatry in politics. In a bizarre surprise, the ACLU joined Surrey! Then, the famous psychiatrist, Thomas Szasz, joined Surrey! The JFK White House gawked in astonishment as leftists and rightists joined hands to demand the immediate release of Ex-General Edwin Walker from that insane asylum!
Five days later, on 6 October 1963, RFK authorized the release of Ex-General Walker, who flew home to Dallas a free man – pending his Grand Jury trial in Oxford, Mississippi in a month or so. When his airplane arrived at Love Field in Dallas, a crowd of supporters greeted him, cheering, waving Confederate flags and carrying placards that read, “Walker for President in ‘64’!”
During October 1962, Walker rested. In November, Walker returned to Oxford to face a Grand Jury. The trials lasted two months. Long story short, in late January 1963 Walker was acquitted of all charges. By early February 1963, Walker and Surrey had planned a national tour with segregationist preacher, Reverend Billy Hargis.
Their intent was to prove that JFK was a Communist. They called it, “The Midnight Ride.” Robert Alan Surrey helped Ex-General Walker plan the basic message of “The Midnight Ride” as follows:
1. JFK was preparing to hand the USA over to the UN.
2. Only the UN Flag would fly over the White House.
3. The UN would first take over all US Churches.
4. The UN would secondly take over the US Military.
5. UN currency would replace US currency.
6. All US State Governors would be appointed by the UN.
7. All US State National Guards and Militias would report to the UN.
8. All Circuit and District courts would report to the UN.
9. Local police would report to the UN.
10. American protesters would be arrested and tried under UN law.
11. The UN would eliminate property rights.
12. The migrant labor force would mushroom.
13. The UN would rule the world from Havana, Cuba.
14. The UN would permit every man to have up to five wives.
15. The UN would permit every man to purchase a wife.
Robert Surrey remained at the Turtle Creek home during “The Midnight Ride,” from late February to early April. The night before Walker returned to Dallas from his “Midnight Ride,” Surrey filed a complaint with the Dallas police department – two men had been prowling around Walker’s home that night.
The next night, on April 10, 1963 – according to his eldest son, David Surrey, then 13 years old, the Surrey family, including five children, were visiting the home of Ex-General Walker, in the living room toward the back of the house. Suddenly, a rifle bullet exploded through the back window, and his father yelled, “Hit the dirt!” Everybody fell to the floor, and luckily nobody was hurt. The bullet barely missed Walker’s head. They heard a car screeching away.
Robert Surrey ordered David to drive with him, and they scoured the neighborhood seeking the shooter or shooters in a getaway car. They found nobody. Walker had called the police and except for the police report, that was the end of that evening. A next-door neighbor boy, 14-years old, told police that he saw two men rush into a car and speed away.
Ex-General Walker was convinced that RFK had sent two shooters to kill him. (He believed this for the rest of his life.)
After this crucial moment, Walker and Surrey became more radical. They went underground with right-wing forces in Mississippi, New Orleans and Texas. They worked with Cuba raiders like Gerry Patrick Hemming, Loran Hall and Frank Sturgis. They worked with segregationist anti-Communists like Guy Banister, David Ferrie, Clay Shaw and Joseph Milteer. They worked with rogues from the government like James Hosty, Forrest Sorrels, David Morales and E. Howard Hunt.
Their plot was to target the "number one Communist in the USA," namely, JFK, and remove him from power by any means possible.
As told by Dick Russell (The Man Who Knew Too Much, 1992), the FBI heard from Natasha Voshinin only four days after the shooting, that Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) had been one of those two shooters at Ex-General Walker. (As Ex-General Walker would report several times until the end of his life, he had learned from a secret authority “within days” of the shooting, that LHO had been one of his shooters. Walker’s continual repetition of this claim matches the research of Dick Russell like a hand in a glove.
The likely FBI recipient of Voshinin’s message was James Hosty. Yet Hosty did not relay that message to the Dallas police – or to FBI Headquarters – instead, Hosty took this message to Ex=General Walker and to his long-time Bridge partner, Robert Alan Surrey.
At this time, Walker and Surrey began coordinating with Guy Banister and David Ferrie in New Orleans, to cast a network around LHO, promising him everything so that he would play along with their plan to make him the widely publicized “head” of their fake FPCC in New Orleans.
All this began only two weeks after the Walker shooting (April 24, 1963) and continued throughout the summer, culminating by the final week of September 1963, when LHO traveled to Mexico by car with two companions (according to WC witness, Silvia Odio and Mexican Immigration records). At the Mexico City Embassy compound, LHO made a fool of himself demanding an instant visa to Cuba, just because he was an officer of the FPCC in New Orleans! He was laughed out of the compound, despite several tries and antics.
In any case, aside from his ample resume of newspaper clippings extolling his leadership in the FPCC, somebody (likely a Mole, says Bill Simpich, 2014) impersonated LHO over the telephone from the Cuba desk to the USSR desk – the most wiretapped phone in the world at that time. The impersonator labored to join the names of LHO and a wanted KGB agent in the same wire-tapped message. This would be further proof that LHO was a Communist – working closely with the USSR.
Robert Alan Surrey was a key plotter in this framing of LHO, as well as the probable framing of Gerry Patrick Hemming, Loran Hall, Larry Howard, William Seymour, Harry Dean and several others, to serve as patsies as the situation presented itself as JFK toured the USA, city to city.
The best opportunities were coming to Dallas. In mid-October 1963, the Ambassador to the United Nations (UN), Adlai Stevenson, planned a trip to Dallas for a speaking event that he would call, “UN Day.” This made Ex-General Walker and Robert Allen Surrey furious, because in their JBS ideology, everybody in the UN was a Communist, and Adlai Stevenson was the leader of them all. So, they decided to humiliate Adlai in Dallas when he came to Dallas on October 24, 1963, for “UN Day” at the Dallas Memorial Auditorium (about a mile from Dealey Plaza).
In response, Walker and Surrey designed their own event, named, “US Day,” which they scheduled to occur on October 23, 1963, one day before “UN Day.” They rented the same venue, the Dallas Memorial Auditorium.
According to scholar Chris Cravens (1993) Walker and Surrey organized a massive meeting of Radical Right members to come to this auditorium to follow Walker’s instructions. According to JBS rules, “no Communist can be allowed to complete a speech in any city dominated by the JBS.” Therefore, said Walker, this UN Communist, Adlai Stevenson, must be prevented from completing his speech.
The assembly was to buy tickets for the Stevenson event, and bring as many noisemakers as possible. They were to hiss, boo and jeer, catcall loudly from the aisles, and stand up in their seats to make speeches. They hung a massive banner from the ceiling, then rolled it up and tied it with a string, so that once the string was pulled it would unfold with the message: “UN out of US!” and on the other side, “US out of UN!” These were two well-known JBS bumper stickers.
Robert Allan Surrey also helped his friend, Larrie Schmidt, organize college students to protest outside the auditorium on the night of Adlai’s speech. The auditorium was now booby-trapped for Adlai Stevenson. The plan worked. Adlai was indeed prevented from completing his speech, and he was booed out of town. (One lady hit Adlai with her placard, and one student spit on Adlai. They were arrested.)
But the most important contribution of Robert Alan Surrey to UN Day was his mugshot “WANTED FOR TREASON: JFK” handbill. He distributed it all over Dallas on October 24, 1963, and many Dallas news reporters and others knew that fact, according to Chris Cravens (1993) although the WC never presented that.
This scurrilous handbill was therefore known in Dallas for a solid month before JFK arrived. The author was Robert Alan Surrey (as the WC clearly revealed). Surrey had been the Bridge partner of FBI agent James Hosty for years (wrote Penn Jones, Jr. in 1964). No capable FBI agent – assigned by FBI Headquarters to monitor Ex-General Walker and Robert Alan Surrey – could be ignorant of the fact.
In any case – one month later, on November 22, 1963, JFK came to Dallas and Surrey’s same scurrilous handbill circulated through Dallas again, and that was basically Surrey’s role in the JFK Assassination, in my opinion. Then, in my opinion, somebody in the Dallas Radical Right assassinated JFK, and that was that.
Since David Surrey, the eldest son of Robert Alan Surrey has himself suggested that his father was directly involved in the JFK Assassination, I believe that I’m in safe territory with this novel opinion in US History. I regard Robert Alan Surrey as one of the most important figures in US History – at least as important as Lee Harvey Oswald.
Best regards,
--Paul Trejo