Nortons

Shortly after 2:00 PM, on 11/22/63, HARVEY Oswald was sitting in the Dallas jail. He would soon have both the CIA and FBI desperately trying to distance themselves from him, link him with Castro and/or Cuba, frame him for the assassination, hide his true identity, and create a legend that portrayed HARVEY Oswald as a "lone nut." LEE Oswald was not in jail, and shortly after HARVEY's arrest he was seen driving a two-tone blue 1957 Plymouth back and forth on Davis St., six blocks north of the Texas Theater. Oswald soon drove his car behind a large billboard and appeared to be hiding from the police who were patrolling the streets. T.F. White, a career mechanic who worked across the street at Mack Pate's Auto Service, was curious and walked toward the car. The man, sitting in the car with the engine running, was wearing a white t-shirt and looked directly at Mr. White. As White walked toward the car the driver quickly sped away throwing gravel with his rear tires. White wrote the make and model of the car and the license plate number (PP4537) in his notebook.

After seeing Oswald's photograph on television Mr. White contacted the FBI. He told FBI agent Charles Brown the man driving the car was (LEE) Oswald, and gave him the number of the license plate. The authorities soon determined the license plates were registered to a two-tone blue 1957 Plymouth that was owned by Tippit's best friend, Carl Mather, an employee of Collins Radio (a very important CIA contractor). So, LEE Oswald murdered Tippit and an hour later was driving a car owned by Tippit's best friend, Carl Mather. Wes Wise (later the Mayor of Dallas), accompanied by a CBS reporter, interviewed Carl and Barbara Mather over dinner. Barbara Mather was calm, but Carl Mather was so upset and agitated that he was unable to eat. Years later Carl Mather agreed to be interviewed by the HSCA, but not before insisting on a grant of immunity. Ken Porter, another employee of Collins Radio, quit his job after the assassination, divorced his wife, and married HARVEY Oswald's widow--Marina. In the FBI report relating to Mr. White's sighting of Oswald driving Carl Mather's car, the FBI changed the two-tone blue 1957 Plymouth to a red Ford Falcon. This allowed Carl Mather's wife, Barbara, to tell the FBI that they had never owned a red car.

The fate of HARVEY Oswald, in Dallas Police custody until he was killed by Jack Ruby, is well-known. But LEE Oswald's whereabouts following the assassination became increasingly difficult to follow. One intriguing account of his possible escape from the Dallas area comes from a decorated U.S. Air Force 20-year veteran named Robert Vinson. Vinson said that on the afternoon of November 22 he was a passenger on a nearly deserted C-54 cargo plane that departed from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland en route to Denver. Soon after the assassination the plane was diverted and landed on what appeared to be a road under construction near the Trinity River south of Dallas. There, Vinson said, a Jeep carrying two men and a driver pulled up to the plane and two passengers came aboard. Vinson said the taller man might have been Cuban, and, after he later saw televised pictures of Lee HARVEY Oswald, he felt the shorter man "looked an awful lot like Oswald." The flight continued to an Air Force Base in Roswell, New Mexico, where all the passengers deplaned. Vinson said he was told the entire base was on lockdown until later in the evening. The whereabouts of LEE Oswald after 11/22/63 are unknown.

The name Don Norton was unfamiliar to most JFK researchers, but in 1967 the name Donald Norton was very familiar to New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who was investigating Clay Shaw and CIA connections to the JFK assassination. Donald Philetus Norton had worked for the CIA since 1957 and had contacted Garrison with information concerning Shaw, David Ferrie, and his work for the CIA.

Four years later, in 1971, a man who looked very much like LEE Oswald appeared before JFK researchers John Judge and Mae Brussel at the University of Dayton. This man, who had been sending Mae Brussel money for use in her JFK research, introduced himself as Donald (Orestes) Norton.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the "Donald Norton" story is the fact there were two Donald Nortons--Donald Orestes Norton (Stowe, Ohio—DOB 9/13/48) and Donald Philetus Norton (Griffin, GA--DOB 1/23/32). Donald P. Norton was first contacted by the CIA at Ft. Benning, GA in 1957 (when Donald O. Norton was only 9 years old). In 1958 Donald P. Norton met a man at the Atlanta airport who he knew as “Hugh Pharris (David Ferrie). "Pharris" gave Norton a briefcase that contained $150,000 in cash and was told to deliver the case to his CIA contact in Havana, Cuba. In August, 1962, Donald P. Norton saw Clay Shaw in Albany, GA, and was given another briefcase that contained $50,000 in cash. Norton got into his 1956 Buick and drove to Monterrey, Mexico, where he checked into the Yamajel Hotel. Before he was able to go to his room Norton was met by “Harvey Lee” (it was most likely LEE Oswald who gave Norton the briefcase as HARVEY Oswald was working at Leslie Welding in Ft. Worth from July 17 thru early October, 1962). The money was supposed to be used for revolutionary activities against Fidel Castro. “Harvey Lee” then gave Norton numerous documents in a manila envelope which he delivered to his contact in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

John Judge's memory of meeting "Donald Norton," posted by John at the JFK Research forum on July 31, 2000.

Bill Kelly requested that I relate the meeting I had with a man using the name Don Norton at the University of Dayton in Ohio in the 1970's. I had helped to make arrangements for researcher Mae Brussell to speak on campus. Kelly was also going to school there at the time, and attended her talk. After the crowd broke, I headed home with Mae and two roommates at our off campus house. Coming out of the Student Union, I noticed a man handing back, but following us down the hallway, and into the elevator. Mae was surrounded by a small group, including Bill Kelly, who were asking her questions. The man held back while she stopped outside in the dark to finish talking to them. Then Mae, myself and my roommates began to head toward home and stepped into the light of street lamps at the edge of campus.

At this point, the man ran out of the shadows from behind us and came up to Mae, saying, "Mae, don't you know who I am?" Mae turned, looked at him for a moment and said, "You look like Lee Harvey Oswald." And to my amazement, he did. Add ten years to his life, some receding hairline, but the resemblance was clearly there. He looked at his feet and said, "A lot of people tell me that. I'm Don Norton." At this Mae became effusive. "Oh Don, I'm so glad you come. John, this is Don Norton. He wrote to me to say he was going to drive down from Columbus to hear the talk. He's the only researcher in the country who sends me money to do my work." Again, the man looked at his feet and said, "It's my conscience money." I was still flabbergasted at his resemblance to Oswald and intrigued about who he was, so I invited him to come down to the house and visit with Mae and have a cup of coffee. He followed us there.

Inside, the resemblance was even clearer to me. He looked like the round, cherubic faced Oswald who was in the Soviet Union photos and on the passport photo, but not like the Oswald killed in Dallas. I expected him to ask questions of Mae, but instead he began a long recitation about Marxism and communist ideology. Finally, Mae got up from knitting and said, "I'm going to bed." I offered to send my research writings to the man, and he told me to write to him at "General Delivery, Columbus, Ohio." He bid goodnight to my two roommates and myself and left.

The next day, on the way to visit a correspondent in a state prison in Ohio, Mae turned to me in the car and said, "Don't you think that was Oswald who visited us last night?" And I said, "Well, it sure looked like Oswald," Mae, but Oswald is dead."

"Not according to his mother," Mae responded, "she told me that the man shot in the basement of the Dallas jail was not her son." I was astounded. "Didn't you notice what he was doing last night?"

I said, "Well, I thought it strange that he didn't ask any questions or really talk to us."

"He was reciting verbatim the speech Oswald gave on the radio in New Orleans about communism and Marxism," she explained. I had never heard the text of the speech, so it had not run a bell for me.

"I'm going to go home and check his signature on his letters to me. I have a whole collection of Oswald signatures, and they re not all the same person." Mae said. She was clearly excited that she had met a living Oswald.

I have now repeated this story to many researchers. Jack White and others took a special interest in it and followed down leads on a Don Norton in Columbus, but the early photo they showed me of that man did not resemble the person I saw. Later, I saw a photo of a man that lived in Florida and used the name Don Norton, and it was clearly the same person. I am convinced that the man I met that night was either the Oswald who lived with Marina in the Soviet Union, or a dead ringer for him. I do not know if his real name was Don Norton, of course, that is just the name he gave us. District Attorney Jim Garrison believed that someone using that name was involved in the Kennedy assassination conspiracy.

I later was a custodian of Mae Brussell's library and correspondence files for a period. I never found the Norton letters, but they may still exist in her collection. Mae died in 1988. Bill Kelly and my old roommates sill recall the incident, but no additional details. Bill never saw the man calling himself Norton, he had parted from us before the man ran up to Mae. I, of course, will never forget the incident.

Lee Harvey Oswald had been a key in my work to understand who killed Kennedy and who set him up to take the blame. I realized early on that there was more than one Oswald, that a "double" operation was going on prior to the assassination. I believe the man I met was Marguritte's son, the real Oswald, back from the Soviet Union at some point. But until that night, Oswald had been a ghost to me, a name and a set of facts, not a person. Until the specials released about Oswald in the 1990s, I had never heard Oswald's voice, save in the few stressed moments he is interviewed in the Dallas jail, his voice is terse and angry. Finally, he is heard in one documentary on tapes preserved by an English speaking teacher in the Soviet Union who befriended Lee, laughing and dramatizing a reading, and his persona comes through in a completely different way. These two voices are not the same in my view.

I also relayed this story to the Cuban intelligence officers who COPA arranged for researchers to meet in the Bahamas a few years ago, and Felix Rodriguez (sic I think John means Cuba G2 officer Fabian Escalante - BK) was intrigued. He told me a story of his own, from the days when he was trained in the 1950s by the KGB in Moscow. He said their officers were behind a clothing store just off Red Square, and that you entered in the back room by way of a concealed elevator, Like Maxwell Smart," he joked. He said that his key KGB trainer had told him that Lee Harvey Oswald was still living in the Soviet Union, years after the Kennedy assassination had occurred. I wondered if this was the man I me so many years ago.

Did the "defector" Oswald stay in the Soviet Union and a double "Return" to the US? Is there still a living Oswald? Could he tell us anything about those who set him up as the patsy? Is Don Norton still alive? Others have done much more research than work on Norton than I have, and it's worth studying. I live with this small piece of history. Ever since I began my work on the JFK assassination, it has created a web of synchronicity and serendipity for me, chance meetings with key individuals who know a piece of the puzzle.

For my purposes, the case is solved, but not yet finally proven. I point the finger at the Joint Chiefs of Staff and at the Office of Naval Intelligence, who ran the young Marine "defector," Lee Harvey Oswald, and those were among the last forthcoming agencies approached by the Review Board for the JFK assassination files. In the e early 1990s, before Oliver Stone's film, Bill Kelly and I started the Committee for an Open Archives to press for the full release of the government files. We actually had found sponsors to introduce the bills and for a full and immediate release, among them Rep. Henry Gonzales, who had been in the motorcade that day. Stone's film created the groundswell of public outcry that led to the passage of the JFK Records Act of 1992. And the Committee for an Open Archives was one of the founding groups of the Coalition on Political Assassinations.

I quickly realized that in 1963--three years before graduating from high school--this young man would have been only 14-15 years old, and much too young to be involved with 24 year old LEE Oswald. I also realized that in 1971 the man pictured in the high school yearbook was 21-22 years old, and could not have been the 32-33 year old Don Norton who met up with Mae Brussel and John Judge. And I find it nearly impossible to believe that neither John Judge nor Mae Brussel would mistake a 21-22 year old young man for a 32-33 year old man (LEE Oswald's age in 1971). In other words, if John Judge and/or Mae Brussel thought the man they met in 1971 ("Donald O. Norton") was the real "LEE Harvey Oswald," then the man they met could not have been the young man pictured in the 1966 high school yearbook. I sent the photo of Donald O. Norton, taken from his 1966 high school yearbook, to John Judge. John said this was not the individual that he and Mae Brussel met and spoke with in 1971.

The thought then occurred to me that the man who introduced himself to John Judge and Mae Brussel in 1971 could have merely assumed the identity of Donald O. Norton from Stowe, Ohio. It would be interesting, and worthwhile, to speak with former high school students who had befriended and remembered Donald O. Norton. It would be of particular interest to know if Norton was in the military and, in particular, if he had served, and may have died, in Vietnam.

NOTE: My thoughts on the possibility that LEE Oswald assumed the identity of Donald O. Norton are pure speculation. However, the story of Donald O. Norton, Mae Brussel, and John Judge in the early 1970's, and my investigation of a very secretive and evasive Donald O. Norton in the 1980's and 1990's merits further investigation into the possibility that Norton may, or may not be, the biological LEE Oswald.

In the early 1990's I found a former address for "Donald Orestes Norton," and wife "Lexie Jean Norton," living at 3410 Charring Cross Road in Stowe, Ohio, a two hour drive north of Columbus. I then checked with the local library to see if there were other addresses listed for the Norton's, and was surprised to learn that Norton had checked out nearly 100 books during the last year that he lived in Stowe, Ohio.

I soon telephoned and spoke with the Norton's next door neighbor, Mrs. Seese, who knew Donald, Lexie, and their two children (Chris & Amy). Mrs. Seese knew Lexie well and saw her nearly every day for years, and both women belonged to the local garden club. The neighbor, however, never saw much of Donald. The neighbor said the Norton's sold their home a few years ago, moved, and left no forwarding address. Mrs. Seese said "one day movers arrived, packed up everything, and the Nortons were suddenly gone. Lexie never said good-bye, left a forwarding address, or anything... they just left." The neighbor said that a month later she saw Lexie at the grocery store, spoke with her, and got her new address on Seneca Street. The following week she drove to the address and learned the Nortons had moved a few days earlier and left no forwarding address. I wondered if the reason for the Norton's move had something to do with financial trouble, and I arranged for a credit report.

A credit report (public record) showed that Donald O. and Lexie Norton had filed for bankruptcy on March 21, 1988. I obtained a copy of their bankruptcy filing (public record) in the Northern District of Ohio (case # 88-00458) and learned the names and addresses of all creditors and the amounts owed (a total of 7 pages—69 creditors), including monies owed to automobile dealerships. I also learned the names of businesses that Norton had operated and the names of some of his employees. I contacted a few people and learned the name of a young man who had worked closely with Norton. I spoke with this young man, extensively, over a period of several months. I learned that during the time this young man worked for Norton, he (Donald O. Norton) lived in motels and constantly moved from motel to motel and would return home only once a month for a day or two. One of Norton's businesses was named "Antares" and was involved in selling advertising. The young man said that Norton had a younger brother named "Bill" (William), who was much shorter than the 5'11" Donald O. Norton. Wherever Donald went, "Bill" (William) always followed him.

I knew that selling a home/residence often takes a long time, sometimes several months to complete negotiations, financing, closing, and recording. I knew the Norton's had left Ohio rather quickly and wondered when and where Donald O. and Lexie had signed the deed to transfer title to their property. I contacted Lawyers Title and obtained a copy of the deed, which had been signed and notorized in the state of Florida. I then travelled to Jupiter, Florida and visited the Dept of Motor Vehicles/Drivers license section. At that time, anyone could pay a small fee and obtain driving records. I got the driving records for Donald O. Norton, which listed his home address as 10389 158^th St. North, Jupiter, FL. I then drove to his home and saw that it was listed for sale. I drove to the nearest pay telephone, which was close by, and this pay phone just happened to be at Burt Reynold's (the actor) ranch. As I telephoned the real estate company, Lonnie Anderson (Reynolds wife at the time) walked by with a few friends, was visibly upset, and drove off in a burgundy colored van (I later realized that she and Reynolds were recently separated). I spoke with the listing agent and made an appointment to look at/thru the small, modest home occupied by the Norton's.

While walking thru the home I looked everywhere for photos of the Norton's, but soon realized there were no photographs anywhere on the walls, tables, etc. I asked the sales agent the reason for the owners selling the property. The agent told me the owner worked for “(name withheld by author)" retirement company/village and the owner was being transferred. As I walked out of the home I noticed there were two vehicles in the driveway, both with Ohio license plates. I copied the license plate numbers and soon learned the vehicles were leased from a dealership in Ohio--the same dealership that Norton had listed on his bankruptcy filing a few years earlier. I thought it odd that an automobile dealership would lease vehicles to a man who had recently filed bankruptcy in order to discharge his debt. I also wondered how Norton could have obtained financing for a home in Florida after recently filing bankruptcy in Ohio. More reasons to wonder and question the true identity and background of Donald O. Norton.

The next day I drove to the retirement village where Donald Norton was employed and asked to speak with him. I was told that Norton was at another location (Jacksonville, FL) and I immediately drove to that location. The next day I learned that Donald Norton was not working in Jacksonville, but was told that he "may" be at another company location. I telephoned the location and was told that he might be at another company location in Tennessee. I gave up trying to find Norton, but I still wanted to know more about him.

I contacted Norton's neighbors across the street from Norton's home, identified myself as a potential buyer, and asked questions about Norton's house. The man who I spoke with met Norton only one time and said that he was "almost never home". When he was home, the neighbor said, he would spend hours fishing at the small pond in his front yard (perhaps 25 ft wide). As I was talking with the neighbor I saw the two Norton children (teenage boy and girl) get into a car and drive off.

I discussed Norton with a fellow researcher (Art Swanson, who worked for a few years with the CIA) who then located and met Norton face to face in Avon, FL. Art described Norton as about 5'10-11" tall, with blue/grey eyes, and red hair (very similar to Marine Corps records that recorded Oswald's height at 5’ 11” tall with blue/grey eyes.) Mr. Swanson asked Norton why he had dyed his hair red, instead of dark brown (natural color). Norton replied that he wanted to cover his grey hair. Art then asked Norton to smile so that he could see his teeth. Norton decline and said that all of his teeth had been removed and that he only had dentures. Norton then asked my researcher friend why he was interested in his red hair and teeth. The researcher told Norton that he thought he (Norton) might be the real LEE Harvey Oswald. Norton denied that he was LHO, but when asked by Swanson to provide a hair sample, Norton declined. Why ??

When Art Swanson met with Norton in Avon, FL., he obtained a recent photograph of Donald O. Norton (below) and sent a copy to John Judge. John, who had met Donald Norton and spoke with him for hours in 1971 said, "I saw a photo of a man that lived in Florida and used the name Don Norton, and it was clearly the same person."

Now, what are my thoughts about Donald Norton? There were two Donald Norton's (Donald P. Norton and Donald O. Norton). Donald O. Norton (photo above) sent money to Mae Brussel to help her conduct research into assassination of President Kennedy. This man, who Mae Brussel said looked very much like LHO, met and identified himself as Donald Norton to John Judge and Mae Brussel in 1971. Why?

Donald O. Norton started and owned many businesses, none successful, but always seems able to start new businesses and a new life. This man rarely visited his homes in Ohio and Florida, and when in residence remained only a few days. This man was able to file bankruptcy, but soon thereafter was able to lease vehicles, finance a home, and start new businesses.

Donald O. Norton has lived an exceedingly strange life, first in Ohio and then in Florida. This man, according to John Judge, was the same person who introduced himself to John and Mae Brussel in 1971. John said "add ten years to his [Lee Harvey Oswald's] life, a some receding hairline, but the resemblance was clearly there... he was a dead ringer" (for Oswald).

The man pictured above is not the young man pictured in the 1966 school yearbook. In 1971 the person in the high school year book would have been just 23 years old (born 1948), ten years younger than LEE Oswald (34 years old, born in 1939). I knew John Judge for many years and cannot imagine that neither he nor Mae Brussel, who both talked with this man for hours, would fooled by an age difference of 10 years (in 1971 Donald O. Norton was only 23 years old, while LEE Oswald was 34 years old). John Judge wrote, “Add ten years to his (LEE Oswald's) life, some receding hairline, but the resemblance was clearly there.” It is clear that John Judge and Mae Brussel met and described a man in his mid-30's year old man who identified himself as “Donald Norton,” and not the 23 year old Donald Norton that was pictured in the 1966 class yearbook.

NOTE: I speculate that the man who introduced himself as Donald Norton to John Judge and Mae Brussel was not the Donald Norton pictured in the 1966 class yearbook, but rather a person who assumed Norton's identity and was thought by John Judge and Mae Brussel to be the real LEE Harvey Oswald. I further speculate that if the man seen by John Judge and Mae Brussel was the real LEE Harvey Oswald, then William "Bill" Norton (biological brother of Donald O. Norton), constant companion of Donald Norton in the 1980's and 1990's, knows about the impersonation (same as Robert Oswald knowing that his brother, LEE Oswald, was impersonated by HARVEY Oswald).

There is something very strange about Donald O. Norton, his life, and his background. After all, why would someone send money to Mae Brussel for her research, appear to Mae and John to be nearly identical to Lee Harvey Oswald, talk for hours about Oswald's past life, and then all but disappear? Please understand that while there is good reason to believe that Donald O. Norton was/is the real LEE Oswald, there is no proof. Perhaps the only way to prove or disprove if Norton is LEE Oswald is with DNA testing.

Many people believe that LEE Oswald would not have been allowed to live long after the assassination of JFK. But in reality this was simply not possible. If the plotters killed LEE Oswald shortly after the JFK assassination, then members of Oswald's family, who knew about the CIA's Harvey and Lee project, would likely fear for their own lives and their reactions would be unpredictable. If any of these people—HARVEY Oswald's caretaker, LEE Oswald's mother, his brothers, the Murret family—talked with the press or with government officials about their knowledge of HARVEY and LEE, then CIA involvement with the two Oswald's and the assassination of President Kennedy would have been exposed. However, LEE Oswald was not eliminated. He was given a new identity and was most likely closely watched for the rest of his life.

All of my materials related to Donald O. Norton and Donald P. Norton are in the Baylor collection and available to anyone and everyone. I encourage people to learn more about Donald O. Norton, his wife Lexie, and his children. The 55th reunion of Norton's Stowe high school senior class is coming up in a few years (2021). It would be interesting to attend and ask 1966 classmates about Donald Norton--his height/eye color/hair color, if Norton entered the military after high school, if anyone saw him after high school, knew of his whereabouts, or if he ever attended any class reunion. Hopefully, someday, we may learn the truth about the man who introduced himself to John Judge and Mae Brussel as Donald Norton.