Mr. Horan.....I must admit that like most folks, my only real "knowledge" in this case relies heavily on the information perpetuated by Graysmith. When I saw your podcast on YouTube I was very skeptical, but I must say, it's very clear that Graysmith wasn't entirely "honest" with the evidence.
I certainly haven't devoted a lot of time into researching this case so I don't know all the extra players, but this Snook person is very interesting. If his background is as you have stated it to be, it's obvious he would have had the skill set and nessecary abilities to carry those out, including the diagram of the bomb.
My question to you is, would you attribute the Map with Mt.Diablo and the X's marking off the "Radian's" to him as well?
The gentleman who discovered this connection said that the term Radian wasn't in the vocabulary of about 99% of the population at the time. Do you think Snook would have had the intelligence to be in that 1%? What are your thoughts on that?
Thank you,
Will
Will:
Please excuse the lateness of this reply, but I've been stalling until . . . ta-da! I have recently been able to more or less confirm just what Snook did during the Korean War (although I'm still looking forward to one or two more witnesses.) And it's right up the alley of your Mt Diablo question.
To recap a bit: Snook was in the 12th Infantry Division in the Pacific in WWII, training and fighting alongside native guerillas against the Japanese in New Guinea and Mindanao. Many of these fighters were members of "Tad-Tad" death cults: "The _______ I have killed will become my slaves in paradise." Among other things, Snook taught then to build roadside bombs using ammonium nitrate fertilizer and kerosene, and they all used various forms of basic cryptography. After WWII, he obtained his bachelor's degree in Journalism from San Jose State U, no less, and ran two small town newspapers in Northern California. For perfectly understandable reasons, the little papers went broke. Again. So, he re-upped as an intelligence officer in the new Air Force in 1950. At Lowery AFB in Denver, Snook was trained in operating and repairing radar and cryptographic equipment, among other intelligence skills. He was then sent to Japan 1952-54.
There are various "clews" sprinkled throughout the letters and cryptograms suggesting that the 340 was encrypted using one of the SIGABA series devices. These were similar to, but more complex than, the Nazi Enigma. (That's why the Nazis were never able to break OUR codes.) Well, son of a gun, guess what Snook was trained to use/repair? SIGABA based equipment, including an encrypted teletype machine. That used rotors veeeerrrrrry similar to the one in the bus bomb diagram.
And that ain't all. Ever wonder how radar operators and their computers calculate and sync coordinates of moving targets? Why, they use math, of course. Analytic geometry. But not the x, y, z . . . Cartesian coordinates we all flunked in high school. No, they use what are called polar coordinates. You know—radians, and units along the radians.
One more thing. As a junior officer in the 6400th Maintenance Bn within the Far East Asia Material Command, stationed at Tachikawa AFB, Snook's CO was none other than Lt Colonel Robert G Smith, Sr. Father of renowned horse's ass Robert G Smith, Jr. Who changed his name to Robert Graysmith. And that ain't the only way they're connected, but that's as much as I can prove so far.
Is Mt Diablo part of that connection? It appears so. But I'm still digging for more confirmation on that. If that turns out to be as correct as the hunch that Snook was stationed at Tachikawa, it may turn out to be even creepier than mass murder. And it might just explain the real motive for the murders. IF it's true.
Sorry it took so long to reply, but I just received this confirmation a few days ago. Thanks for your question! Keep em coming!
PS Again, if anyone can find ANY information about Snook's involvement (or not) with the Boy Scouts or Explorer Scouts, that would be a BIG help. It's no wonder his Korean War service was such a "mystery." I'm afraid to find out why his possible involvement with Scouting is such a mystery, too.