Testimony of Martin Shackelford


Dallas, Texas -- November 18, 1994 Hearing
NOTE: The name of Filip Coppens was misspelled in the ARRB transcript, and has been corrected here.
MR. MARWELL: Martin Shackelford.

CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Good afternoon, Mr. Shackelford.

MR. SHACKELFORD: Good afternoon. My name is Martin Shackelford, that is S-h-a-c-k-e-l-f-o-r-d. I am a delinquency social worker in Michigan with a Bachelor's Degree in History from the University of Michigan. I have studied the JFK case for 20 years with a primary focus on the photographic evidence, and I also try to keep up with the literature on the case.

Mr. Hall has been asking the question about agent identities, my own feeling is that if an employee of the U.S. Government has concealed information on this case, has covered up the facts in the case, the American public has the right to know who that person is. So in that type of situation, I would have no qualms about revealing the name.

I gave a list of materials, sources of materials to the Board prior to the in Washington, D.C., hearing. A couple of things have come to my attention in the last few days. One was in an article in the Fourth Decade by Filip Coppens, a Belgian journalist that I have been in correspondence with. He reports on an article written by two Dutch journalists about Lee Harvey Oswald's stay in Holland, and one of the things that came out of that is that there is an American Express file on Lee Harvey Oswald in the Rotterdam Branch Office of American Express. That might give some of the expenditures of the Oswalds while they were in Holland, it might give a little more information on an aspect of his return from the Soviet Union that we really don't have very much information on at this point.

The American Express Office told the journalists that as far as they knew there was nothing of particular interest in the file and, therefore, they weren't going to show it to them. But apparently there is such a file there. If Oswald had American Express, there may be other American Express files with information about him as well.

The other matter which has come up was most recently mentioned in Anthony Sommers article in Vanity Fair is the CIA project called QK/Enchant. Apparently Clay Shaw had a clearance for that project, apparently also the Director of the San Francisco Trade Mart, who was Mr. Shaw's witness to say that he was in San Francisco at the time of the assassination also had a clearance for that project.

Right now there is nothing in the public record as far as I know about that project, what it was, what it was supposed to be doing, and I think it is important to clear that up and get some information out as to what the QK/Enchant was. I am sure something could be released on that that would satisfy the public interest.

Thanks very much.

CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Thank you.

Any questions?

[No response.]

CHAIRMAN TUNHEIM: Thank you, Mr. Shackelford. We appreciate your assistance.


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