Mark Mathes: What I Learned about my Journalism Colleague in the JFK Document Dump

My professor Dr. Michael Kurtz was one of the leading academic authorities on the JFK assassination. Later, I edited Dallas Forever Changed in 2015.

SFW president Mark Mathes: What I learned from the JFK assassination document dump about my journalism colleague in Biloxi-Gulfport. Bill suggested he was the agent who trailed Lee Harvey Oswald from New Orleans to Mexico City in the early 1960s when Oswald was trying to enter Cuba.

Over 15 years after the JFK assassination, Bill was a freelancer for the South Mississippi Sun in coastal Bay St. Louis around 1978.

Our scene opens at a Christmas party Bill hosted for the AM newspaper staff at his home. Drinks flowed and stories poured out. Bill suggested to the mostly under-30 journalists that he was part of the team who tracked Oswald. Reporters tried their damnedest to pry details from Bill. They were met with an oath of silence.

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Some of us never stopped thinking about it.

Earlier in the 1970s, my history professor, Dr. Michael Kurtz, was nationally known for his research into the JFK assassination. Kurtz has written two books on the assassination of Kennedy. Crime of the Century was published in 1982 by University of Tennessee Press and The JFK Assassination Debate: Lone Gunman versus Conspiracy was published in 1996 by University Press of Kansas.

Ten years after its release, Crime of the Century was still described as the only book on the assassination written by an academic historian. Dr. Kurtz died March 1, 2025 at age 83. He was professor emeritus at Southeastern Louisiana University.

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Fast forward to the massive document dump by the US National Archives in late March. Could this unsorted pile of redacted documents reveal any answers?

Here’s what I found out about Bill.

Some of his stories were true.

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In 2015, I edited the nonfiction Dallas Forever Changed: The Legacy of November 1963 as editor at Pelican Publishing Company in my hometown New Orleans. The same short time home of Lee Harvey Oswald, District Attorney bully Jim Garrison, patsy Clay Shaw and many other actors and conspirators. Author Dan Helpingstine had written widely about the assassination. He focused on how Dallas had changed.

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From our Pelican Publishing cover flap copy: Shots rang out, and a city changed forever. Despite the hostility shown in the weeks leading up to President   John F. Kennedy’s visit, the city of Dallas reeled in the aftermath of his death. The public perception of the region and its residents suffered a heavy blow, due in part to the media coverage of the community’s reaction. This insightful portrait of one town struggling with its legacy details the transformation from the “city of hate” to the inspiration for the TV show Dallas and home of "America’s team,” the Dallas Cowboys. Tracing the profile of the city up through the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s death, this highly readable volume draws from extensive interviews with Dallasites and researchers.

About the author: Dan Helpingstine is a former freelance journalist and employment counselor for the visually impaired. He earned a bachelor of arts in political science and a bachelor of general studies with a concentration in labor studies from Indiana University. Helpingstine has published several articles on the assassination of John F. Kennedy for the Gary (IN) Post-Tribune. He lives with his family in Highland, Indiana.