Adele Edisen is not a name commonly found in Kennedy assassination histories, but her story is fascinating nonetheless, she being a proleptic witness to the murder of John Kennedy in Dallas' Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963.
Like Rose Cheramie, Edisen received pre-assassination warnings when she had an encounter with an enigmatic figure named Jose Albert Rivera who made cryptic predictions about Kennedy's murder, and all too accurate predictions about Lee HARVEY Oswald and Edward Grant Stockdale.
Before plunging into the story, we should address some of the objections or apprehensions many have registered about her tale, the common one being that she does not have smoking gun evidence of her encounters with Rivera. Defenders note that her mind was sharp and lucid during interviews, and that files have since surfaced corroborating parts of her story.
Our view is that she is telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. No one has found evidence to rebut or falsify her story - merely potential objections without substance. William Perry, one of her chroniclers, satisfied himself through independent corroboration that her account is trustworthy, based in part on other researchers' independent verifications of the story's details.
The following summary of her experience is condensed from William Perry's article which we reference below, and to which we add our own commentary. In many ways Adele's revelations are explosive.
Edisen held a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness in 1963 in New Orleans, the very place where Kennedy murder conspirator Alton Ochsner worked at Tulane University, and the very city where CIA contract employee Lee HARVERY Oswald was stationed in 1963.
Rivera had ties to New Orleans as well, having been a faculty member of the Loyola University biochemistry department. He subsequently lived in Washington, DC. But his career included much more than academics, for he joined the US Army in 1948, retiring in 1965. His obituary claims that he joined in 1942, but we favor the former date for reasons to develop elsewhere.
His birth date is a bit of a mystery, with different dates provided depending upon the government file consulted. However, one researcher, Tom Scully, found his birth certificate which records his birth in 1898 in Lima, Peru. But why all of the birth dates which typically have him born anywhere from 1905-11? And why the discrepancies on his military service?
Edisen and Rivera met at a professional convention in Atlantic City in April 1963 from which a social relationship of brief duration ensued. During one visit, the subject of Dallas came up at which point Rivera encouraged her to visit the Carousel Club managed by soon-to-be famous Jack Ruby. Rivera also asked if she knew Lee Oswald whom he encouraged her to meet. He knew all about his wife, child, and move to New Orleans even if Oswald himself did not know about it. Later, when urging Edisen to call Oswald, he told her to tell him to "kill the chief."
During the visit, Edisen also found out that Rivera was a colonel in the army doing work for the State Department. While driving around Washington on a site seeing tour, Rivera asked what Jackie would do when Jack dies, a question which startled Edisen. He also knew about her pregnancy although Edisen did not, indicating that neither did the general public know. Rivera also asked his guest if she had seen Caroline on her pony. In general, Rivera expressed negative or hostile attitudes towards Kennedy.
During another dinner, Rivera asked Edisen if she knew John Abt, chief counsel for the Communist Party USA. Abt would be the lawyer whom Oswald would attempt to reach when jailed falsely for the murders of President Kennedy and JD Tippit. Abt himself is almost a footnote in the JFK drama, but Rivera was plugged into him and his future role at an early date, telling Edisen that Oswald would call him for defense.
Following his preview of John Abt, Rivera proceeded to inform his dinner companion that Grant Stockdale, the one-time ambassador to Ireland, and some-time fundraiser for Kennedy, would kill himself due to inconsolable grief. Rivera showed extraordinary powers of clairvoyance to say the very least.
When Adele returned to New Orleans, she called Oswald thinking that he was a research colleague of Rivera's. The first time she called, the man answering the phone said that she must have the wrong number. A week later, the same man said to wait a moment - he was just arriving. In Oswald's absence, she spoke with his wife Marina whom she described as having a Slavic-Russian accent, and who understood the conversation, then told her she was welcome to call back later when her husband was present. The most interesting fact of this conversation is that Marina could speak and understand English, a point we have made before which contradicts many of the popular and CIA based stories lying about Oswald's wife's inability to speak English.
Even more interesting than confirmation that Marina was rather fluent in English is the fact that Rivera had given Edisen Oswald's phone number before he had moved to New Orleans or had even found a place to live. We will return to this item in our conclusion.
One interesting item we learn from Perry's recounting is that Oswald used Sgt Robert Hidell as a reference on his application to CIA front company William B Reilly. This last name would show up again in connection with his post office box, and with identification found in his planted wallet at the Tippit scene with the name Alek Hidell.
Edisen saw Rivera one more time when he was on business at Louisiana State University. The encounter was by chance - at least from Edisen's point of view. There was nothing but a clumsy passing interaction between the two near an elevator. Rivera allegedly retired from the military in 1965, and allegedly died August 15, 1989 at Bethesda Naval Hospital.
One month prior to encountering Rivera at LSU, Adele received an unmarked envelope containing a drawing similar to one Rivera drew for her while they dined together in Washington. Rivera was in a near frenetic state at the time but made the point that there will be men on the 5th floor of the building he drew on the napkin, and that Oswald is not what he seems, and other incoherent thoughts. The 5th floor is actually where the shots from the Texas School Book Depository were fired, or where significant command and control operations occurred.
To conclude the recitation of events, we will note that Edisen contacted the Secret Service about these strange events and encounters - twice before the assassination, and once after. In no case did the Secret Service take any actions to follow-up on her reports, or to protect the president. Indeed, the Secret Service was involved in the assassination.
Edisen's story is extraordinary in several ways. One of the more curious aspects is that Rivera bothered to share specific details with Edisen. They were dangerous to reveal if for no other reason than exposing the plan to assassinate the president could have brought a lot of unpleasant publicity for the conspirators. Unfortunately, at the time, Rivera's babblings sounded senseless. And why would one of the conspirators reveal the plans to a stranger?
The only explanation which makes sense to me is that CIA was conducting a systems check to make sure that there were no leaks in the formal bureaucracies which might compromise their plans. In other words, they had to be sure that there were no inter-agency cooperations in following up assassination tips and that all information was dutifully scrubbed from the records so that the murder cover-up would succeed.
The common belief, expressed in his CIA-Wikipedia article, is that Grant Stockdale committed suicide. This vignette with Rivera tells us clearly that he was murdered when the assassins pushed him out of the window of his hotel room. Rivera's foreknowledge of this event and its public explanation is the smoking gun that he was murdered.
We also learn that Oswald was indeed the patsy. His movements were so controlled that Rivera could state where he would be before Oswald could. We also see the co-conspiracy of the vile Ruth Hyde Paine who was an important handler of Oswald.
The fact that Oswald's telephone number was being answered by the apartment owner shows the collusion between him and the conspirators.
Perhaps the most enlightening disclosure in this affair is the complete, total, and minute control CIA had over the entire operation, including the creepy observations by Rivera of Jackie's baby and Caroline's pony.
Anyone who has managed large organizations or projects knows that goals and work do not happen by accident. The amount of managerial and logistical support required to murder a president of the United States was epically enormous. It involved a massive apparatus from several countries, the most important of which were the United Kingdom, Israel and International Jewry, and the United States.
One final point regarding Oswald - he may have been mind controlled. Edisen raises the suggestion that Rivera may have tried to poison her with LSD, and this would be entirely unsurprising given CIA's deep investment in MK Ultra.
While Adele Edisen's story is generally a detail in the vast knowledge we now have about the murder of Kennedy, it is our opinion that it may rise to the top as one of the most important because it reveals the scope and breadth of the planning which attended the assassination long before its execution. The only question now is, how long before April 1963 was the assassination planned?
Reference
William Perry, A New Oswald Witness Goes Public, JFKCountercoup, December 30, 2009, source( JFKcountercoup: A New Oswald Witness Goes Public, accessed 4/11/2021)
Tom Scully, Adele Edisen in the Searchers, Deep Politics Forum (website forum), January 22, 2017, source( Adele Edison in The Searchers (deeppoliticsforum.com), accessed 4/11/2021)
