Edward Browder
Re: Edward Browder
Mysterious Mr. BrowderMysterious Mr. BrowderBut T-2's account revealed possibly a contact of Ruby's even more interesting than Prio. T-2 stated that the man he recognized as Ruby but knew formerly as Rubenstein was smuggling arms to Cuba with one Donald Edward Browder. T-2 went on to name three people who he said could corroborate his story: Joe Marrs of Marrs Aircraft whom Ruby contracted to make flights to Cuba; former Chief of Police in Hialeah, Florida Leslie Lewis, who would know of Ruby's gunrunning and smuggling operations; and Clifton T. Bowes, Jr., formerly captain of National Airlines, Miami, for further corroboration. Joe Marrs worked for Eastern Airlines. He claimed he never flew for hire or transported goods. He knew Browder, but claimed he avoided Browder as he saw him as a shady promoter who was all talk about air transport plans but no money (an amusing revelation from a man who just a few words earlier had said he didn't fly for hire.) 22 Les Lewis, the former Chief of Police, denied knowing Jack Ruby and claimed to have "no knowledge whatsoever of persons flying weapons to Cuba." A Hialeah Police Chief having no knowledge of persons flying weapons to Cuba in the fifties is a bit hard to believe. And of course, Lewis completely denied ever knowing a Donald Edward Browder. 23 Clifton T. Bowes was sure he never knew a Jack Rubenstein and said he first heard of Ruby watching him on television. He did not know a Donald Edward Browder but did claim to know Blaney Mack Johnson, saying he understood Johnson was ill and had been hospitalized, was "highly imaginative" 24, the usual FBI line for an unwelcome witness. When the FBI collected these denials, they returned to Johnson. Johnson stuck tightly by his story and insisted all the information he had provided had been true and accurate. He also said he understood why Lewis, Marrs and Bowes would have lied to conceal their knowledge of and/or involvement in Ruby's activities. And of course, Johnson replied he had never been hospitalized. Enter Eddie Browder. Eddie Browder testified before the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the 70s. 25 He was a former Lockheed test pilot who was serving a 25-year prison sentence for "security violations." He told the committee he worked for the CIA. One time he had leased a B-25 bomber under the name of a non-existent company and flown it to Haiti a year after the Kennedy assassination. He cashed a check signed by George DeMohrenschildt's Haitian business associate Clemard Charles, in the amount of $24,000. What's interesting is that the HSCA used Browder's testimony in the DeMohrenschildt section, not the Jack Ruby section. Is there a tie there linking DeMohrenschildt to Jack Ruby? Only three small "innocuous" reports of the more than 1000 pages the FBI has on Browder were released to the Warren Commission. 26 It's time the remaining documents on Browder, including the full text of his executive session testimony before the HSCA, were released. Any Browder who used the Don Eduardo alias 27, worked with DeMohrenschildt, and ran guns with Ruby to Cuba is worthy of further study.