Top Twenty Twilight Language Theorists

Top Twenty Twilight Language Theorists


The Living


Who are the top theorists presently doing "twilight language" research? Here is my list. They are given alphabetically by their first names, so as not to show any preference or ranking.

(1) Adam Gorightly, author of 2003's The Prankster and the Conspiracy: The Story of Kerry Thornley and How He Met Oswald and Inspired the Counterculture, and 2008's James Shelby Downard's Mystical War.

(2) Adam Parfrey, publisher at Amok Press & Feral House; editor/author of numerous works, including 1988's The Manson File, 1990's Apocalypse Culture, 1995's Cult Rapture, 2000's Apocalypse Culture II; and coauthor of 2012's Ritual America.


(3) Andrew W. Griffin, creator of Red Dirt Report.


(4) Christopher Knowles, creator of The Secret Sun.


(5) Craig Heimbichner, author of 2005's Blood on the Altar, coauthor of 2012's Ritual America.

(6) Greg Bishop, author of 2000's Wake Up Down There! Excluded Middle Anthology, 2005's Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth, and other works.


(7) Henrik Palmgren, creator of Red Ice Radio. 

(8) Jim Brandon, author of 1978's Weird America and 1983's The Rebirth of Pan: Hidden Faces of the American Earth Spirit.

(9) Kenn Thomas, publisher of Steamshovel Press; coauthor of 1996's The Octopus: Secret Government and the Death of Danny Casolaro and 1999's Inside the Gemstone File; author of 1996's NASA, Nazis & JFK, 1997's Mind Control, Oswald & JFK, 1999's Maury Island UFO: The Crisman Conspiracy, and many other books.

(10) Loren Coleman, author of 1987's Suicide Clusters and 2004's The Copycat Effect, and the creator of this Twilight Language blog. (To exclude myself seemed beyond modesty.)

(11) Michael Anthony Hoffman II, author of 2001's Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare; and editor of various works by James Shelby Downard.

(12) Robert Schneck, author of 2005's The President's Vampire.

(13) SMiles Lewis, creator of Anomaly Archives and Anomaly Television.

(14) Theo Paijmans, author of 2004's Free Energy Pioneer and 2008's The VRIL Society.


(15) Tim Binnall, creator of Binnall of America.


(16) Todd Campbell, creator of Through the Looking Glass.


The Departed


Some significant theorists have passed away, so with a historical ranking by death date, here they are:


(17) James Shelby Downard (March 13, 1913 – March 16, 1998), author of 2006's The Carnivals of Life and Death, and essays, including “King-Kill/33: Masonic Symbolism in the Assassination of John F. Kennedy” and “Sorcery, Sex, Assassination."

(18) Jim Keith (September 21, 1949 – September 7, 1999), author of 1992's Gemstone File, 1993's Secret and Suppressed, 1994's Black Helicopters over America, 1995's Saucers of the Illuminati, 1996's The Octopus, 1996's Okbomb! Conspiracy and Coverup, and other works.


(19) Robert Anton Wilson (January 18, 1932 – January 11, 2007), coauthor of 1975's The Illuminatus! Trilogy; author of 1973's The Sex Magicians, 1979-1981's Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy, 1977-1995's Cosmic Trigger Trilogy, and other works.

 

(20) John A. Keel (March 25, 1930 – July 3, 2009), author of 1957's Jadoo, 1970's UFOs: Operation Trojan Horse, 1971's Our Haunted Planet, 1975's The Mothman Prophecies, 1975's The Eighth Tower, and other works.

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Special note: Some theorists and researchers shall remain unnamed and invisible from this list due to the low profile they wish to keep.  My sincere thanks to them and all those above who have freely exchanged intellectual ideas and data in this field.

F35 Into CBC Building

"Journal de Montréal editorial cartoonist Marc Beaudet is not afraid to stir up some controversy. And today’s cartoon is sure to spark some discussion." --Project Democracy.


The building shown is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation building, called the Maison Radio-Canada in Quebec.


Thanks to Errol Bruce-Knapp.

The Watts/Watkins Name Game

The Watts/Watkins name game appears again and again. Today, I'll examine a specific recent event tied to this name, and detail what Jim Brandon and I have written about this moniker.

On early Friday, April 6, 2012, during a seven-hour period, at least one white suspect fired on five victims, all African-Americans, as they walked in the streets of Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

Three fatalities resulted and they were identified as 49-year-old Dannaer Fields, 54-year-old Bobby Clark and 31-year-old William Allen. The two surviving victims have not been identified.

Fields was found mortally wounded in a neighborhood yard about 1 a.m. Friday, Clark's body was found in a street about an hour later, and Allen's body was discovered in the yard of a funeral home about 8:30 a.m., the Associated Press reported.

Sites of the Friday's shootings in Tulsa.

Minutes after Fields was found, police found two men with gunshot wounds in another yard two blocks away. They were taken to hospitals in critical condition but were expected to survive, police said. One of those male victims described the shooter as being white.

The white suspect had been described as driving up in an old white pickup to pedestrians and asking for directions. Then as the victim walks away, this person opens fire.

Dr. Warren Blakney, who heads the local chapter of the NAACP, believes the shooter did group his prey together.

"We feel like he's targeting African Americans in this part of town. And I think some parts of law enforcement feel the same way," Blakney said Saturday.

Tulsa detectives speculated the shootings were the work of a "lone wolf" gunman and the FBI and U.S. Marshals Service were drafted into the investigation on a task force entitled "Operation Random Shooter."

Alvin Watts, from his Facebook profile page.

But then, on Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012, at 1:47 am local time, two Caucasian men were arrested in connection with these Tulsa shootings, KOKI reported. The suspects have been identified by the Tulsa Police Department as 19-year-old Jake England and 32-year-old Alvin Watts. They were were arrested at a house just north of Tulsa.


Fox23 searched Facebook records, and discovered that last Thursday around 3pm, England posted, "Today is two years that my dad has been gone shot by a f****** n***** it's hard not to go off between that and s---- I'm gone in the head.
RIP
. Dad and s____ I
. Love and miss u
I think about both of u every second of the day"

A check of FOX23 archives shows a Carl England was shot and killed in April of 2010 at Comanche Park apartments. A person of interest was Pernell Jefferson, later arrested in connection with England's death.

Jake England, left, and Alvin Watts. Photos Tulsa Police Department

A statement from the Tulsa Police Department said, "Within 24 hours of its formation, the task force 'Operation Random Shooter' has completed its mission. Our sympathy goes out to the families of the victims and we hope that our efforts can bring some resolution and closure to these heinous acts.We would like to thank everyone that assisted and more information will be forthcoming in a Sunday afternoon press conference."


According to The Tulsa World Crime Tracker, before these shootings, Tulsa had had 11 homicides since the beginning of the year.

Mayor Dewey F. Bartlett Jr. said the shootings were unlike anything the city had seen, “certainly in modern history.”

Not surprisingly, Andrew Griffin's Oklahoma-based Red Dirt Report has been all over this news, and the other recent spree event in the Tulsa area.

It will be recalled that one month ago, on March 7, 2012, Tulsa was in the news with shootings at the courthouse. In that case, the suspect was arrested at the scene (above).

Historically, Tulsa is an intriguing city. In the early 20th century, Tulsa was home to the "Black Wall Street," one of the most prosperous African American communities in the United States at the time. Located in the Greenwood neighborhood, it was the site of the Tulsa Race Riot, one of the nation's costliest acts of racial violence and civil disorder. Sixteen hours of rioting on May 31 and June 1, 1921, resulted in over 800 people admitted to local hospitals with injuries, an estimated 10,000 left homeless, 35 city blocks composed of 1,256 residences destroyed by fire, and $1.8 million in property damage. An official report claimed that 23 black and 16 white citizens were reported killed, but other estimates suggest as many as 300, mostly blacks, died. Efforts to obtain reparations for survivors of the violence have been unsuccessful.

Tulsa is part of the Fortean "number game" too. In 1925, Tulsa businessman Cyrus Avery, known as the "Father of Route 66," began his campaign to create a road linking Chicago to California by establishing the U.S. Highway 66 Association in Tulsa, earning the city the nickname the "Birthplace of Route 66". Once completed, U.S. Route 66 took an important role in Tulsa's development as the city served as a popular rest stop for travelers, who were greeted by Route 66 icons such as the Meadow Gold Sign and the Blue Whale of Catoosa (pictured below).

Route 66 is one of those Fortean sites that I have noted are special, in time and space, which I discuss in various books, such as Mysterious America. Tulsa needs to be watched.

In this weekend's case, our awareness is especially keyed to the name "Watts." In earlier Fortean Times columns and then in my 1983 book, Mysterious America, after discussing the special weirdness surrounding the name "Watkins," I wrote: "Cryptologic or coincidence? Jim Brandon should be credited with calling attention to the name Watts/Watkins/Watson, and its entanglement with inexplicable things. Some other names involved in mysterious events pinpointed by Brandon are Bell, Mason, Parsons, Pike, Vernon, and Warren. The influence of such names as Mason, Pike, Warren, and Lafayette, for example, issues, in some cryptopolitical and occult way, from their ties to the Masonic tradition."

Those familiar with my writings know of my musings on "The Fayette Factor," which have been highlighted by Jeff Rense's site and Todd Campbell's site, Through the Looking Glass, as well as several others.

Back to Watts (the moniker of the Tulsa man arrested today), the tie-in here to the discoverer in England (the name of the other shooter suspect) of the "ley lines" being Alfred Watkins may be mildly significant as this case unfolds. These arrested men may have some kind of revenge-driven, racist insights that only they are aware of, just as Watkins saw on the landscape hidden clues to a deeper awareness. Racism and murder cannot be justified, please note, but the "name game" sometimes seems to go beyond coincidence when it is touched by tragedies and disasters.

Jim Brandon penned the following thoughts in his 1983 book, The Rebirth of Pan: Hidden Faces of the American Earth Spirit: "If there are certain numbers entangled with certain phenomena, the same would have to be said of certain words. Likewise, these words tend to be involved in events of, at best, a sort of Puckish drollery and at worst, tragedy. I have not yet found a name, or number, that seems to be favorable. Possibly this is because journalism and the other anecdotal reportage we must rely on in this barely respectable compiling of ours concentrate on the formidable, the uncanny, rather than on the mundane fortunate. Sometime, one should do a study on, say, winners of sweepstakes and Nobel Prizes.

"I'm not talking here of such spooky tongue-twisters as H.P. Lovecraft's Yog-Sothoth or Arthur Machen's Ishakshar, but of quite ordinary names like Bell, Beall and variants, Crowley, Francis, Grafton, Grubb, Magee/McGee, Mason, McKinney, Montpelier, Parsons, Pike, Shelby, Vernon, Watson/Watt, Williams/Williamson. I have others on file, but these are the ones which I have accumulated the most instances."

Brandon goes on to tell the reader that his "candidate is the name Fayette and its variants Lafayette and Fayetteville," but the point is well-made for the harmonic, non-randomness of certain other names frequently turning up.

I was not surprised, therefore, to read about this Tulsa Terror today concluding with arrests, and to find there was a "Watts" in the mix.

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Temporal Note: On Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012, Bubba Watson won the 2012 Masters Tournament at the Augusta Golf Course in a two hole playoff against South African Louis Oosthuizen. Gerry "Bubba" Watson (born November 5, 1978 in Bagdad, Florida) is an American professional golfer, and one of the few left-handed golfers on tour.  

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For more on the Bell/Beall name game, click here.

Seven Dead in Oikos Shooting + Five Hurt in Mississippi Shooting

A gunman opened fire at a Christian university in California Monday, killing at least seven people and wounding three more, authorities said. Police say they have a suspect in custody. The university has identified the alleged shooter as a former nursing student at the school. 

Late in the day, he was specifically named as One L. Goh, 43 (shown above, being arrested).  He reportedly had pulled a gun, lined up 5 students, and shot them. He then tried to repeat the action with another set of 5 students, but killed two and wounded the other three. Most of the students killed were women.

Authorities earlier described the gunman as a heavyset Korean man in his 40s wearing khaki clothing. "I can confirm that we do have one person who has been detained that we believe is possibly responsible for this shooting," Watson said.

Police said a suspect had been arrested at Alameda's South Shore Center, outside the Safeway store, where he apparently asked store employees to be arrested.

Lisa Resler, 41, said she was leaving the Alameda store with her daughter when she saw a young Asian man with a beanie being confronted by store security. She described him as being "very sedated" as he was handcuffed and taken away.

Two Safeway employees who did not give their names said the suspect had told a customer service staffers that he had shot people and needed to be arrested.

KTVU-TV reported that the shooter was a student and opened fire in a classroom.

First reports told of police responding on Monday April 2, 2012, to reports of at least five people hurt in a shooting at a Christian university in east Oakland, California. The school is located at 7850 Edgewater Road. The shooting happened at Oikos University. 

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, at least five ambulances were called and SWAT teams were taking position. It was unclear at first if anyone of the victims were fatally shot.

Television news footage showed wounded people have been brought out of the building, and more gurneys were being brought in. Officers surrounded the building, and it was unclear if the suspect was still on scene.

Pastor Jong Kim, who founded the school about 10 years ago, told the Oakland Tribune that he heard about 30 gunshots in the building. "I stayed in my office," he said.

Oakland police did not immediately return calls.

According of its website, Oikos University offers studies in theology, music, nursing and Asian medicine. 

According to its website, Oikos is a Christian university that "was established specifically to serve the community of Northern California in general and San Francisco and Oakland areas in particular. Oikos University was launched to provide highest standard education with Christian value and inspiration."

"Oikos University has a very specific goal and mission to offer education programs in the area of religious studies, music, and vocational nursing in that we motivate, educate and equip students in such a way that they will be able to live enriched life by fulfilling their goals in life and serve the community with their learned professions and skills," the website said.

An oikos (ancient Greek: οἶκος, plural: οἶκοι) is the ancient Greek equivalent of a household, house, or family.

In Ancient Greek literature, the nature of the oikos was prevalent, and indeed, the cornerstone of this ancient society. However, in the 5th century B.C., ancient Greek writers orientated the nature of the oikos with the polis (the city state); the conflict between these two was addressed in Greek Tragic theatre. The conflicting interests with both the oikos and polislead to the structural decay of the society.

An oikos was the basic unit of society in most Greek city-states, and included the head of the oikos (usually the oldest male), his extended family (wife and children), and slaves living together in one domestic setting. Large oikoi also had farms that were usually tended by the slaves, which were also the basic agricultural unit of the ancient economy.

The Greek oikos differed significantly from the Roman domus in architectural layout, although Greece became part of the Roman Empire for a long time. It was built around paved peristyles and had very distinct male and female spaces.

The first part of the house consisted of a "gynaeconite" (γυναικωνίτης, "women's gallery"), or peristyle (περιστύλιον), with the oikos proper, the center of domestic activity, beyond. This latter area consisted of bedrooms and dining rooms. The second part of the house, the "andronites" (ἀνδρωνίτης, pl. ἀνδρωνίται), was the locus of male activity. There one could find more dining rooms, guest suites, and libraries.
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There also was another shooting on Monday, in Mississippi.

Five people were shot also on April 2, 2012, on Monday afternoon when a man walked into Hattiesburg, Mississippi's Cucos Mexican Cafe and Cantina off U.S. 49 and opened fire at random.

Hattiesburg police received the call at 3:31 p.m. and responded to the scene. All five victims were immediately transported to Forrest General Hospital. Forrest County coroner Butch Benedict said no fatalities had been reported from the shooting as of Monday night.

Scott Tyner (above), a 44-year-old Hattiesburg resident, has been charged with five counts of aggravated assault in the shooting.

“It seems to be random,” Hattiesburg police Lt. EricProulx said Monday afternoon. “He walked in and started shooting. There was no exchange of words.”

The restaurant has been owned by couple Ricardo and Trish Mussiett for five years, and Trish was in the dining area when the shooting took place.

“It was so loud,” Trish Mussiett said. “I fell to the floor and prayed he didn’t see or shoot me. It was just a lot of chaos, and I thought to myself that it couldn’t be real.”

Mussiett said when the shooter entered the restaurant, he immediately shot a patron at the bar before moving into the dining area and shooting three patrons in a booth and a waitress.

“I just got on the ground and tried to make it back to the office area,” Mussiett said.

Mussiett said the shooter appeared to have a handgun, but Hattiesburg police declined comment on the type of gun used in the shooting. She added that he was not wearing any type of mask, just a hat.

Mussiett said the shooter fled through a door in the back of the restaurant, and a bartender followed him and kept him in sight until Hattiesburg police arrived.

Ricardo Mussiett said six employees and an unknown number of patrons were in the restaurant at the time of the shooting.

JFK: Cinema Kills

Films have a strange way to foreshadow events. Or at least, the human mind thinks this may be so. No one knows how or why, but the visual component of having a permanent record of a fictional incident collides across time and space, infrequently, with the reality of an unforgettable disaster, tragedy, or assassination.

Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) in the sniper's nest.

In the case of the death of John F. Kennedy, chroniclers, researchers, and theorists have often pointed to the intriguing timing and plot of one specific motion picture, The Manchurian Candidate. The 1962 film directed by John Frankenheimer, stars Frank Sinatra (a close friend of JFK), Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh and Angela Lansbury. The central plot of the film is that the son of a prominent, right-wing political family has been brainwashed to be an unwitting assassin for an international Communist conspiracy. 

The Manchurian Candidate was nationally released on Wednesday, October 24, 1962, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. It thus appeared thirteen months before JFK was killed in Dallas on November 22, 1963. 

There is a bit of the name game in the film. The actor Laurence Harvey played the assassin, which was "played" in the 1963 Dallas event by Lee Harvey Oswald. (Two names also used by Lee Harvey Oswald, allegedly, were O. H. Lee and Alek J. Hidell.) 

In another name game in The Manchurian Candidate, director Frankenheimer acknowledged the climax's connection with Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934 and 1956) by naming the Presidential candidate "Benjamin Arthur." Arthur Benjamin was the composer of the cantata "Storm Clouds" used in both versions of Hitchcock's film.

But have other films been overlooked?

One assassination researcher, Bruce Campbell Adamson, points out two other movies that need to be examined more closely than they have been in the past. Adamson writes that one is a Howard Hughes film, His Kind of Woman, that has a "story plot, which sounds like Oswald being set up in Mexico 'as a patsy.'"


His Kind of Woman is a black-and-white 1951 film noir starring Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell. The film features supporting roles by Vincent Price, Raymond Burr, and Charles McGraw. The movie was directed officially by John Farrow and based on the unpublished story Star Sapphie by Gerald Drayson. (John Farrow, a filmmaker who was introduced to the craft by Robert Flaherty of Nanook of the North fame, went on in 1938, to marry Maureen O'Sullivan ~ who played Jane in several Tarzan films, including in Farrow's 1936 Tarzan Escapes. Farrow and O'Sullivan had seven children together, including Mia Farrow of Rosemary's Baby infamy.)

Post-production on His Kind of Woman was rife with problems and Howard Hughes was dissatisfied with John Farrow's work, and a number of scenes were cut, added, and re-shot by the uncredited Richard Fleischer. Hughes also organized a screenwriting team which extensively rewrote the film and added many pages to the first script. Despite the turmoil surrounding the film's production, the film was commercially successful and has developed a cult following, despite its lack of widespread distribution in the decades since its release.

The plot focuses on the down-on-his-luck, professional gambler Dan Milner (Robert Mitchum) who accepts a mysterious job for $50,000. He is told to take a charter flight to Morro's Lodge, an isolated Mexican resort, where he will receive further instructions. Milner is attracted to the only other passenger, Lenore Brent (Jane Russell).

When he arrives, Milner finds that several guests at the luxurious Baja California resort have hidden agendas. He is disappointed to find that Lenore is the girlfriend of famous movie actor Mark Cardigan (Vincent Price). Milner overhears two guests, self-proclaimed author Martin Krafft (John Mylong) and a man named Thompson (Charles McGraw), planning something which he suspects involves him. When Milner confronts them, he is given $10,000 and told that someone is on his way to Baja to see him.

Seemingly drunk Bill Lusk (Tim Holt) flies in, despite warnings of very dangerous storm conditions. Milner thinks he must be the contact, but when the two are alone, Lusk claims to be an undercover agent for the Immigration and Naturalization Service. He tells Milner that the U.S. government suspects that underworld boss Nick Ferraro (Raymond Burr), deported to Italy four years earlier, is scheming to get back into the country posing as Milner. The two men are a close physical match and Milner is a loner, so no one is likely to miss him. Krafft turns out to be a plastic surgeon.

Meanwhile, Cardigan's wife Helen (Marjorie Reynolds) and his personal manager Gerald Hobson (Carleton G. Young) show up. She had gone to Reno to get a divorce, not really intending to go through with it, as she is still fond of her husband. Hobson also thinks it is a poor idea because Cardigan's film contract is expiring and the bad publicity would make it hard to get a new one. With her own plans ruined, Lenore confesses to Milner that she is really just a singer looking to hook a wealthy spouse. Milner shows his softer side when he helps unhappy newlywed Jennie Stone (Leslie Banning) by cheating at poker to win back her husband's gambling losses from investment broker Myron Winton (Jim Backus).


Lusk sneaks into Thompson's room, but is caught and killed. Milner and Lenore stumble upon his body dumped on the beach. Milner is convinced that the dead man must have been telling the truth. That night, Thompson and his men take Milner to a newly arrived yacht. Milner is able to pass along a veiled plea for help to Lenore. She persuades Cardigan, who is tired of just pretending to be a hero, to help out. While the actor keeps the pursuing mobsters pinned down with his hunting rifle, Milner sneaks back onto the boat, knowing that the only way out of his mess is to deal with Ferraro once and for all. He is caught and brought to the crime lord. After killing two of the thugs and wounding and capturing Thompson, Cardigan mounts a rescue with the reluctant assistance of the Mexican police and a couple of the more adventurous guests. A gunfight breaks out aboard the boat, followed by a melee. Milner manages to break free and shoot Ferraro dead.


The film has weird twists and turns that remind many of David Ferrie's involvement in the JFK conspiracy theories and his alleged links to Lee Harvey Oswald.  The House Select Committee on Assassinations stated that "An unconfirmed Border Patrol report of February 1962 alleges that Ferrie was the pilot who flew Carlos Marcello back into the United States from Guatemala after he had been deported in April 1961 as part of the U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy's crackdown on organized crime."

Another Robert Mitchum film has a very real link to the chain of personalities involved with the JFK assassination: The Wrath of God.

The Wrath of God is an offbeat Western genre film released in 1972. It starred Robert Mitchum (as Father Oliver Van Horne), Frank Langella (as Tomas de la Plata), Rita Hayworth (as Senora de la Plata), Ken Hutchison (as Emmet Keogh), Paula Pritchett (as Native woman), and Victor Buono (as Jennings) and was directed by Ralph Nelson.

(1) Paula Pritchett with director Ralph Nelson on location in Mexico.

(2) Pritchett sharing a laugh with (l to r) Rita Hayworth, Robert Mitchum, and Ken Hutchinson.

(3) Pritchett plays Chela, a mute indian girl who is about to raped by a gang of soldiers. However, she is saved by Hutchinson and Mitchum.

Irish adventurer Emmett Keogh finds himself partnered with a hard-drinking priest named Van Horne in 1922 revolutionary Central America. Tricked into delivering guns by smuggler/con man Jennings, the three end up joining forces against despot Tomas de la Plata, who treats his subjects ruthlessly and who has a special hatred for priests. Van Horne, who seems to be a priest in costume only, decides to stand up to de la Plata and lead a revolt against him. 

The film marks the final screen appearance by Rita Hayworth, whose health worsened as Alzheimer's disease took hold.

Adamson noted, "In 1972, Robert Mitchum was in a film with George de Mohrenschildt's daughter Alexandria in The Wrath of God. Mitchum was great in this film and Alexandra was an extra. Looking as good as Paula Pritchett, if not better." 

Alexandra de Mohrenschildt

"G. H. W. Bush and de Mohrenschildt were all friends of Howard Hughes," wrote Adamson. "De Mohrenschildt claimed to be friends with Howard Hughes since 1938. Hughes was also from Houston and a Texas oilman and tied to George H.W. Bush."


Tom Slick's name was in George de Mohrenschildt's address book, the same one that interested the Warren Commission so much, which also contained "George Poppy Bush."

Alexandra's father, George de Mohrenschildt (April 17, 1911 – March 29, 1977) was a petroleum geologist and professor who befriended Lee Harvey Oswald in the summer of 1962 and maintained that friendship until Oswald's death two days after the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. He had personal acquaintance with the Bush family, including George H. W. Bush, with whose nephew, Edward G. Hooker, he had been roommates at Phillips Academy at Andover, Massachusetts. He also had personal acquaintance with the Bouvier family, including Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, the president's wife, when she was still a child. His testimony before the Warren Commission investigating the assassination was one of the longest of any witness.

Dresser Industries was a multinational corporation headquartered in Dallas, Texas, United States, which provided a wide range of technology, products, and services used for developing energy and natural resources. In 1928 the Wall Street investment-banking firm of W. A. Harriman and Company, Inc., converted the firm into a public company by issuing 300,000 shares of stock. H. Neil Mallon was selected as president and chief executive officer; holding that position until his retirement in 1962.

George H. W. Bush got his start in the Texas oil business through his father's friend Henry Neil Mallon, the president of Dresser Industries. Mallon offered George his first job at Dresser subsidiary International Derrick and Equipment Company (Ideco), in Odessa, Texas. Brown Brothers Harriman had underwritten Dresser’s transition from a private company to a publicly traded one. Years later, George named a son after Mallon (Neil Mallon Bush).

In 1953, Bush got money from Brown Brothers Harriman and, with partners Hugh and Bill Liedtke, formed Zapata Petroleum. By the late 1950s they were millionaires. Bush bought subsidiary Zapata Off-Shore from his partners and went into business on his own in 1954. By 1958, the new company was drilling on the Cay Sal Bank in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico. These islands had been leased to Nixon supporter and CIA contractor Howard Hughes the previous year and were later used as a base for CIA raids on Cuba. Tom Slick and Howard Hughes became such close friends that they had adjoining cottages at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Slick was Director on the Board for Dresser, until his death on October 6, 1962.

In 1998, Halliburton merged with Dresser Industries, which included Kellogg. Prescott Bush and Tom Slick were directors of Dresser Industries, which is now part of Halliburton.