Elgin English Crull

Elgin English Crull (1908–1976), also known as Elgin and Elgin E. Crull, had been the longest serving city manager of Dallas, Texas (1952–1966) to date and held that position during the time of the PresidentJohn F. Kennedy assassination. As a person who is connected to Kennedy's death, Crull's name is difficult to find anywhere in the literature about the assassination until recently when Michael Collins Piper's The Final Judgment and more recently Vincent Bugliosi's Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy blamed him for the murder of Lee Harvey Ostwald.

Overview of Crull's City Managership and Dallas, Texas
For fourteen years (1952–1966), Crull was Dallas' city manager, holding the position during the administration of four mayors: J.B. Adove, Jr., R.L. Thornton, Earle Cabell, and Erik Jonsson. "This was a time when Dallas experienced its greatest growth under Crull's tight efficient government. He is credited with creating a series of capital improvement programs which resulted in extensive public works projects: The present city hall, Dallas Memorial Auditorium, Love Field Terminal and much of the city's major thoroughfares were among the projects completed while he was in office".

Early Life and Education
Crull was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1908. He briefly attended Ohio's Western Reserve Academy and Indiana's Culver Military Academy. For higher education, Crull first matriculated at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana for the 1926-27 academic year. Already before enrolling at Purdue, Crull had shown an interest in becoming a newspaper reporter and was familiar with the work that Walter Williams had done to promote journalism, including the founding of the Missouri School of Journalism. That interest prompted Crull to transfer to the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri in 1927 to enroll in the school that Williams had built. There he worked on the student newspaper and was an active member of Kappa Sigma fraternity.

Career
After the University of Missouri, Crull came to Dallas, Texas in 1931 to become a reporter for the Dallas Journal. He quickly rose to become a senior reporter and was in that capacity when the Dallas Journal merged with the Dallas Dispatch in 1938. Because he covered the city beat, Crull came to the attention of James W. Aston, Dallas's city manager at the time who hired him to become his assistant. From 1942 to 1946, Crull served as an U.S. Air Force officer with the rank of major and spent more than half of his time in the service with the management control staff of the Pentagon. He returned to Dallas to assume his old job. This time serving under Roderic B. Thomas. When Charles C. Ford became the city manager in 1951, Crull became the assistant city manager and thereafter city manager when Ford resigned. In 1966, he resigned to become both a vice-president of the Howard Corporation and the Republic National Bank(First Republic Bank Corporation), retiring from both positions in late 1974. Crull died in Dallas's Parkland Hospital in 1976 after a long illness. He was survived by his wife, Katherine Virginia Galbraith.

Professional Associations
Crull had been a past president of the Texas City Managers Association; a member and past vice-president of the International City Managers Association; a member of the Municipal Finance Officers Association and a Rotarian.

Crull and the JFK Conspiracy Theories
Much has been written and said about the Kennedy assassination. Was this the work of gangsters? the CIA? Castro? Israel and the Mossad? or a combination of the foregoing or more? All have been grist for the thousands of pages which compose the literary canon about the event and the possible conspiracies associated with it. One lingering question has been: "who set up Ostwald?" Until recently, Crull's name had never surfaced; and given his position, there were some who began wondering why over time. Michael Collins Piper and Vincent Bugliosi, even though their theories about Kennedy's death are so different, have been so bold to declare that Crull set Ostwald up as set forth in The Final Judgment and Reclaiming History....

As city manager of Dallas, Crull basically had a carte blanche to run the city: Certainly, he had the power to appoint; and the appointment of Dallas Police Chief Jesse E. Curry had been his. Curry had also been a friend. Piper, Bugliosi, and others have speculated as to why Crull ordered Chief Curry to transfer Lee Harvey Ostwald in the manner it was done. Obfuscation of Crull's role becomes more so with the knowledge that he had gone to Lake Texoma to be on his boat while Ostwald was being transferred and then shot by Jack Ruby.

That Crull's role in the matter may somehow have seemed sinister to some has also been fueled by innuendo. His years of service to Dallas and his newspaper career had brought him into intimate contact with the Who's Who in Texas politics, from Lyndon Baines Johnson to Sam Rayburn. Big oil's proponents, such as H.L. Hunt, Neil Mallon, John W. Mecom, Sr., and Clint Murchison to name a few, would have been among Crull's acquaintances and friends. The fact that his old mentor, James W. Aston, who was Chairman of the Board of Texas's largest bank, Republic National Bank, hired him to become an executive of that bank in 1966 only heightens the speculation because of that bank's connections and board of directors. For example, the Bruce Campbell Adamson books depict the bank and its building as being a beehive of CIA activity. Having served at the Pentagon also does not curb the innuendos about Crull for enough blogs have described him as not only having been a well-connected person but also as one having been a part of the American intelligence apparatus.

Looking at Crull through prisms of innuendo and speculation can paint him as possibly having been a heavy. This also occurs for Earle Cabell, Dallas's mayor at the time. His brother U.S. air Force General Charles P. Cabell had been Deputy Director of the CIA until Kennedy had forced him to resign in the wake of the Bay of Pigs Invasion fiasco. Conspiracy theorists have suggested that Earle Cabell, and even possibly Crull, had rerouted JFK's motorcade. Researchers, however, have debunked this theory; likewise, testimonies from varied sources have evinced that Crull did not set up Ostwald. The manner of moving Ostwald had been conducted to show the public that he had not been mistreated or subject to "gestapo" tactics. It was a procedural matter which Crull had delegated to the police department in his efficient manner which allowed him to make his weekend trip to his boat. Later, when Ostwald had been shot, and Ruby had been jailed, Waggoner Carr, the Texas Attorney General, and the local district attorney had wanted to open hearings on the JFK, Ostwald, and Ruby deaths. Crull realized that these might become circuses and that evidence might be compromised. It was by chance that he ran into his old friend FBI Special Agent Vincent Drain who suggested that all the evidence be turned over to the FBI and taken to Washington, D.C., so that it could be preserved. Given his efficient nature, Crull saw this as the solution to avoiding the potential problems that local hearings could create. Conspiracy theorists might say that Drain, too, may be suspect since his father-in-law had founded Ashland Oil.

Obviously, if one wants to beat a dog, sticks can always be found; so, too, with conspiracy theories and JFK's death. Since it is inhumane to beat a dog, it is...regarding the rehashing of the story (ies) of JFK's death. If the outcomes of the Warren Commission satisfied JFK's brother, Robert F. Kennedy, they, too, should have been satisfactory for everyone else.