Once more there has been discussion about the identity of the "Mexico City man", a.k.a. Saul, a.k.a. Phillip Jordan. The whole episode appears to have roots in the Roscoe White fable.

On Sunday, September 26, 2004 Bob Vernon posted the following on the JFK Lancer board:

"The 'Mexico City LHO' ('Saul') image as you call it was identified in 1992 by my late friend and associate Joe West, a Certified Legal Investigator. He met with this man in Paris, Texas. The man's name is Phillip Jordan."

The reality is Joe West was not responsible for the naming of Phillip Jordan as the "Mexico City Man" or "Saul". That identification was the sole provenance of a man named Andy Austin Burke. Long before West became involved in the case, Ricky White, his friend Andy Burke, White's mother Geneva, and brother Roscoe Anthony White, Jr. had entered into a contract with a west Texas company named Matsu. Their written agreement with Matsu stated the group was put together "for the express purpose of creating a story centering around and about the life of Roscoe Anthony White."

As an aside I often pondered the use of the words "creating a story" instead of providing evidence.

The Matsu Corporation was a type of joint venture developed by several Midland, Texas area oil entrepreneurs. Part of the agreement outlined the handling of book, movie, magazine article, TV appearances and anything else that "generated income." It was important to do so as a book was already in the works. The book was being written by a former Dallas police captain named Richard Abshire. Abshire, using the pen name Dick Anderson, had published four mystery novels with the principle character being a detective named Jack Kyle.

Long before West's entry into the case, Abshire had already completed a 28-chapter synopsis of the "story." The outline of Chapter 15 entitled The Spook synopsizes Andy Burke's discovery that by "Comparing (a newspaper) clipping and the CIA (Mexico City man) photo, he realized they were the same man - - the man he and Ricky call 'John Doe.'"

In comparing Abshire's Chapter 15 synopsis to his Attachment B entitled "Places to go and names of people to interview at this time" one could conclude that John Doe was someone who Abshire identified as "Phillip Jordan - Friend of Roscoe [and] ex-CIA agent."

Although we could not prove it some of us involved in Kennedy assassination research believed this was another piece of an elaborate hoax. We thought it was put together to sell to Oliver Stone.* By early 1990 Stone was in the development phase of a movie about the assassination.

So how do you connect Phillip Jordan, the Mexico City man, and Saul and just who is Phillip Jordan anyway?

I have already explained Andy Burke's fingering of Jordan as the Mexico City man. The Saul connection came about quite simply because those responsible didn't do their homework. There was a Ricky White press conference held at the JFK Assassination Information Center's headquarters located in Dallas' West End Marketplace on August 6, 1990. During the conference Ricky discussed John Doe adding that a diary indicated Doe was a possible accomplice listed as a hit man known as Saul. During a meeting a few days later with the Center's Co-Director J. Gary Shaw, I expressed my doubts about the Saul story. Shaw indicated that I was in error as the Saul connection had been confirmed by author Hugh McDonald. Shaw felt the Saul association only served to bolster the authenticity of Ricky's claim.

The JFK Center had an extensive library of Kennedy assassination literature and included a copy of McDonald's 1975 Appointment in Dallas: the Final Solution to the Assassination of JFK. I showed Mr. Shaw what was written on page 58:

"Who was the man in the picture? [The Mexico City photograph] It was at this point that McDonald gave his mystery man a name. He called him Saul. To this day he can't remember why, unless it was the Bible: 'And Saul caused Uriah, the Hittite to be placed in the forefront of the battle . . .'"

I told Mr. Shaw there was a problem with Ricky White's version of events. Ricky "found" references to a Saul in documents of questionable origin and he claimed Saul was potentially another shooter along with his father Roscoe White who, Ricky claimed, used the code name Mandarin. The truth was Saul was a name invented by conspiracy author Hugh McDonald back in 1975. And as shown above, McDonald clearly detailed in his book how and why he decided to concoct the name.

Another thing adding to the confusion was the fact that was there was another Philip Jordan. That Jordan had a real understanding of the world of covert operations. He was a Federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) official who sometimes appeared in local Dallas news reports. One obvious difference between the two individuals was the DEA Jordan spelled his first name with one L instead of two.

Throughout the early 1990s I was a dues paying member of the Assassination Archives and Research Center located in Washington, D.C. The Co-Director Jim Lesar knew I was investigating the Roscoe White story for Roscoe's mother and stepsister. Jim indicated he had some concerns about the direction West's investigation had taken and as a result sent a private investigator named Kevin Walsh to interview Ricky White's Phillip Jordan. I spoke to Walsh and discovered he interviewed Jordan and his wife Twyla at their home at 220 2nd Street, SW, Paris, TX. on July 24, 1990. This was a few weeks prior to the "press conference." Jordan told Walsh that Ricky White:

"is likeable and crazy, obsessed with proving his father killed J.F.K."

When Walsh met Jordan he concluded:

"He is obviously not the man in the Mexico City photograph."

Walsh went so far as to interview a Texas Highway Patrol Trooper named John W. Williams about Jordan's purported "criminal past." Williams had known Jordan most of his adult life. As to Jordan's claims that he was mob connected Williams responded:

"nonsense from a blowhard driving a Harley."

Jordan was nothing more than a self employed auto upholsterer who worked from his house.

At various times some "investigators" including Joe West described Jordan's house as a "fortified compound." The fortified compound turned out to be a small yard with a chain link fence topped with barbed wire to keep as Jordan put it "the people from the soup kitchen down the block" from breaking into the cars he was working on.

I concluded that, by the time of the press conference, J. Gary Shaw had copies of both Walsh's letter to Lesar along with the investigative report and a newspaper clipping about Jordan saving the life of an infant on October 25, 1962. Jordan was in the Navy stationed in Lemoore, CA. at the time. This to me was proof that Jordan had routine service in the Navy and was not some sort of CIA operative. I modified my opinion of J. Gary Shaw as a competent Kennedy assassination researcher when, among other things, I surmised he refused to divulge this damaging information to the public or the media. I later obtained copies of a contract wherein Shaw, fellow Co-Director Larry Howard, and Research Director Larry Ray Harris were working with Oliver Stone on yet another version of the assassination to be called "Camelot."

The conclusion:

Joe West had absolutely nothing to do with the identification of Phillip Jordan as "the Mexico City man" or "Saul."

Incidentally I provided Bob Vernon with all the above information including excerpts from the Walsh investigation on August 8, 2004

Dave Perry

September 26, 2004

* Months later I found out that Ricky, Larry Howard, and their wives visited Oliver Stone at his home in California. The purpose of the trip was to sell the movie rights to the Roscoe White story for a sum in the neighborhood of $750,000. Stone did not purchase the rights deciding it was a "publicity seeking hoax."