Happy Fourth of July 🇺🇸

(You OK? Day 7)

July 4, 2025

It’s the fourth of July, and we’ve reached the end of our week-long journey. So what have we learned? We learned that I consistently wait until around 9 or 9:30 at night to get these bad boys out. We learned that I can’t help but get all wordy even when I say I’m going to keep things brief. On a personal level, I’ve learned that I should probably hold off on making promises that require a week-long effort, especially if it involves sitting in my sweats and writing a blog post on a morning when I really should be sleeping in or having breakfast in bed. (Happy birthday to me!) And, oh yes. We learned that Ron Tammen’s FBI documents have proven themselves to be seismic in their significance. 

Today I’m going to present several additional documents I’ve recently found to be interesting. Each will be accompanied by a few sentences of background info, which is more in line with how I wanted these posts to be when I started this series last Saturday. We won’t be coming to any big conclusions right now. Observations, maybe; conclusions, hardly. Here we go!

1. Hey look! It’s L’Allier

In my April 19, 2025, post, we learned all about Rolland L’Allier, the FBI’s French-speaking legal attaché in the 1950s who headed up the Domestic Intelligence Division’s Liaison Section in 1960-62. I raised the question of whether he may have scribbled on the first page of Ron’s FBI records based on his distinctive abbreviated L’_A. Here’s his full signature, written in regular pencil, on one of Carlos Marcello’s records.

2. Hey look! It’s that Ci notation from a while ago

When we first began discussing the numbers in the upper-righthand corner, I pointed out a notation on a visa application for Marina Oswald. The document originated with the State Department, but this was the FBI’s copy, because it has marks all over it that are distinctively FBI. In the box midway down, on the righthand side, the words “VISA SECURITY CASE” are typed, and above that are the letters Ci and the numbers 8-1. Recently, I found a couple more Ci’s, which are written in blue pencil on Carlos Marcello’s records. It might be a person, but I’m thinking it may also stand for Counterintelligence, which was part of the Domestic Intelligence Division.

Marina Oswald’s Ci

Carlos Marcello’s Ci’s

3. Someone has circled Carlos Marcello’s ST- and REC- numbers on a couple of his documents; also, the word “classifying” is written nearby in blue and underlined in green

I’m thinking that these two docs tell us that the FBI indeed views the ST- and REC- numbers as a unit or complementary pair, just like we’d surmised. For the most part, they belong together. Have I seen an REC- number by itself? I have. Have I seen two different REC-numbers on one record? Not gonna lie, I’ve seen that too. But I’ve never, ever seen an ST- number without an accompanying REC- number. Also, the fact that someone wrote “classifying” nearby indicates that the pair of circled ST- and REC- numbers has something to do with how the FBI’s Classifying Unit, which is in the Records Division, categorized the case. 

4. Like Ron, Carlos Marcello had a sealed enclosure too, but the word “Sealed” is handwritten.

I don’t see many FBI records with the word “Sealed” on them, which tells me that they’re especially secret. Here’s one for Carlos Marcello.

5. So far, I’ve found only two people who have the same “SEALED ENCL” stamp as Ron Tammen.

I believe that the sealing of an enclosure was considered a big deal for the FBI, and for someone to have the foresight to use the “SEALED ENCL” stamp means that it wasn’t just an afterthought. I think they meant to seal those contents from the get-go. Here are two people on which the FBI used the same stamp as Ron’s. One you met on Day 2 of this series. The other one was famously kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army on February 4, 1974.

Ron Tammen

Wayne B. Williams

Patty Hearst

OK, I think that covers it for today. Have a happy Fourth, everyone. Get your rest, stay hydrated, and let’s keep fighting the good fight for democracy.

Thanks to the Mary Ferrell Foundation for making these documents available.