Fred Crisman

Crisman was born on July 22, 1919, the only child of Fred Crisman and Eva Pitchers, both of Iowa. In 1933, he and his family moved to Vale, Oregon; His father ran a hotel there. In 1939, Crisman graduated from Vale Union High School.[2] After briefly attending Eastern Oregon College for a time during 1939–40, Crisman left to work as a brakeman for the Union Pacific Railroad.[2]

On May 26, 1942, Crisman enlisted in the army, serving as a fighter pilot in the Pacific theater. Crisman reportedly flew 211 combat missions. He was wounded twice, and he was shot down on two occasions. Crisman left the Army Air Force on February 19, 1946.[2]

Crisman's claims of firsthand knowledge of the Shaver Mystery were published in June 1946.

In 1946–47, pulp magazine Amazing Stories was an outlet for fantasy, science-fiction, and fringe claims. The May 1946 issue, for example, included purportedly-true fringe adventures by Richard Sharpe Shaver, the fiction of Dorothy & John de Courcy written in the style of Shaver, a defense of the religions of Tibet by Millen Cooke, the fiction of Robert Moore Williams, an allegedly-true eyewitness account of unidentified objects in the skies by Dirk Wylie, and other genre-blurring texts.[3][4]

In Fall 1947, Crisman participated in college community theater in La Grande.[8] In April 1949, Crisman was listed as acting public relations officer of Oregon's first chapter of AMVETS.[9] In summer 1949, Crisman gave talk on "The Far East" to a Kiwanis Club.[10] In February 1950, a letter by Crisman was entered into the congressional record. Crisman "China has fallen to the Reds [...] Indo-china is on the verge and will go soon." Crisman continued "It makes me md to see it all go, while people I though were in the 'know' grovel and back up before a gang of international brigands whose only difference from the Nazis is the cut of their uniforms. I no longer think the people guiding our state department know just what they are doing...".[11]

In September 1950, Crisman was a Willamette university student.[12] In October 1950, he wrote a letter to the editor complaining about the inability of local barbers of giving a military trim.[13] In 1951, while studying at Willamette University, Crisman received a teaching assignment at Salem High.[14]

Amid the Korean war, in April 1951, it was reported that Crisman had been ordered to Active Duty.[15] That conflict ended in July 1953.

In 1953, he returned to teaching in Elgin, Oregon.[2] He worked as a teacher and administrator in high schools in Washington and Oregon.[2]

In December 1953, Crisman served as director of the high school drama club.[16] In 1955, Crisman accepted a job as superintendent at Huntington.[17]

In 1964, Crisman began teaching in the Turner school district, and it was reported his book on "Industrial Recruiting" had been accepted for publication.[18] In April 1965, his post was listed as journalism teacher.[19] On February 21, 1966, Crisman was suspended and later dismissed from his teaching position at Cascade High on a charge of insubordination and "creating a secret society".[20] The board added that "the organization is of such a nature that should not be condoned or authorized to exist in this district."[21] District officials said the society had been limited to five student, and officials declined to disclose the nature of the organization.[22]

In 1966, an FBI informant claimed that Crisman had transported $100,000 in cash to California, was doing business as a psychologist, and was suspected of operating a diploma mill.[23]

On October 31, 1968, a grand jury in New Orleans issued a subpoena for Fred Lee Crisman in connection with the investigation into the John F. Kennedy assassination. District attorney Jim Garrison issued a press release writing:

Mr. Crisman has been engaged in undercover activity for a part of the industrial warfare complex for years. His cover is that of a "preacher" and a person "engaged in work to help gypsies."

Our information indicates that since the early 1960's he has made many trips to the New Orleans and Dallas areas in connection with his undercover work for that part of the warfare industry engaged in the manufacture of what is termed, in military language, a "hardware"—meaning those weapons sold to the U.S. government which are uniquely large and expensive.

Mr. Crisman is a "former" employee of the Boeing Aircraft Company in the sense that one defendant in the case is a "former" employee of Lockheed Aircraft Company in Los Angeles. In intelligence terminology this ordinarily means that the connection still exists but that the "former employee" has moved into an underground operation. More often than not a "bad record"or evidence indicating that he has been "fired" is prepared for the parent company to increase the disassociation between the two.[24][25]

Crisman was deposed in the case against Clay Shaw.[1] A photocopied document later circulated among Kennedy assassination buffs claimed that Crisman was one of the "three tramps" allegedly employed by a secret government agency.[26]

In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations reported that forensic anthropologists had analyzed and compared the photographs of the "three tramps" with those of Crisman, as well as with photographs of Watergate figures E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis, and two other men.[27] According to the Committee, only Crisman resembled any of the tramps; but the same Committee determined that he was not in Dealey Plaza on the day of the assassination.[27]

Controversial district attorney Jim Garrison claimed that Crisman was one of the "Three Tramps" arrested by Dallas police as well as being a Bishop of the Universal Life Church. Garrison theorized:

"I suggest the only reasonable conclusion is that he [Crisman] was (and probably is, if still around), an operative at a deep cover level in a long-range, clandestine, intelligence mission directly (in terms of our national intelligence paranoia) related to maintaining national security… Crisman emerges as an operative at a supervisory level … acquired by the apparatus to carry out the menial jobs that are needed to push a current mission forward, a middle man—in the final analysis—between the mechanics who eliminate, and the handy men, who otherwise support a termination mission, on one hand, and the distant, far removed, deep submerged command level on the other."[28]

Starting on August 1, 1968, Crisman hosted a radio talk show under the pseudonym "Jon Gold" on station KAYE.[29] Crisman authored a book, The Murder of a City, Tacoma published in 1970 through Transistor Publishing Company. The book was described by reviewer Michael Sullivan as a "weird, politically slanted rant" that manages to "tie corruption in Tacoma to everything from communist infiltrators to the Kennedy assassination".[30]

At his death, it was noted that Crisman was a graduate of Williamette University with degrees in political science, history, and education and psychology.[2]

In 1970, Crisman was elected Vice-President of the Tacoma library board.[31]

In 1973, Crisman resigned from the Tacoma Library Board of Directors.[32] Crisman unsuccessfully ran for a seat on the Tacoma city council.In September 1974, Crisman was hospitalized for kidney failure. On Apr 12, 1975, Crisman married Mary Frances Borden.

In May 1975, it was reported that True Magazine had published a photo of Crisman, speculating he was one of the "three hobos" of JFK conspiracy lore.[33] The November 1975 issue of Crawdaddy Magazine repeated this claim and further claimed, without evidence, that "Olympia police suspected [Crisman] of narcotics activity in connection with a group called "Servants of Awareness".[34]

Fred Crisman died on December 10, 1975.[29]

• Crisman's Grand Jury Testimony in the Shaw JFK assassination case.