Inside the ARRB Vol 4

[Michael Hogan]

So when any person says that they are going to "write a book on the Kennedy assassination," I say, "beware." And remember what Liebeler said, and what Humes told me in November, 1966: "Lots a luck, is all I can tell ya. . it will take you the rest of your life."

He was right.

I know.

DSL

1/26/10, 5 PM

Written at a Starbucks

Los Angeles, CA

Mr. Lifton, are you planning to have another book published in the near future? A lot of people hope so.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Again, this is Humes responding to the fact that the body had ALREADY been altered, by the time he received it--and this was (and remains) my opinion (an area where I disagree with Doug, but not to be pursued right here)).

Yes David. you describe Humes as a "truth teller," while Doug Horne describes him as a xxxx.

Looking forward to your further thoughts on Doug's book.

[Jack White]

Again, this is Humes responding to the fact that the body had ALREADY been altered, by the time he received it--and this was (and remains) my opinion (an area where I disagree with Doug, but not to be pursued right here)).

Yes David. you describe Humes as a "truth teller," while Doug Horne describes him as a xxxx.

Looking forward to your further thoughts on Doug's book.

There WAS surgery of the head area post-Dallas and pre-autopsy.

Without taking sides and without the massive knowledge of either Lifton or Horne,

I have a very slight preference for the Horne view (maybe because it is freshest

in my mind).

But BOTH scenarios leave me feeling a little unfilled. The reason for that is the

same as the Zapruder alteration scenario...SO LITTLE TIME. Between leaving

Dallas and arrival in Washington, SOMEONE HAD TO DECIDE EXACTLY WHAT

NEEDED TO BE DONE TO THE BODY TO TELL WHAT STORY AND WHERE IT WOULD

BE DONE AND WHO WOULD BE CAPABLE OF DOING IT...all this in three or four

hours...AND it had to be pulled off on the fly...since such a thing could NOT have

been pre-planned.

The Horne scenario at least presents a plausible action with Humes ALONE doing

the alteration...which seems safest and plausible. The Lifton scenario, presents

NO person or group which performed the surgery of the head...although he does

describe all the activities admirably except for the actual covert operation. The

Lifton scenario has the advantage of much more TIME AVAILABLE. The Horne

scenario allows Humes less than an hour under unfavorable conditions.

I guess it is simpler to see Humes as part of the plot rather than an unknown person.

And Humes WAS military...and military fingerprints are all over the place on 11-22.

I hope that someday the truth will be known.

Jack

[Michael Crane]

I stand corrected David.

As the late Chick Hearn would say, "no harm,no foul,no blood,no ambulance."

Edited January 27, 2010 by Michael Crane

[Michael Crane]

David,

You have to remember this .....

Dr.Humes) ""Scientifically, sir, it is impossible for it to have been fired from other than behind. Or to have exited from other than behind."

Edited January 28, 2010 by Michael Crane

[William Kelly]

From Chapter 13 Vol. IV Doug Horne IARRB

Evidence of Crossfire in Dealey Plaza Was Overwhelming on the Day of the Assassination

Let us return now to the ‘big picture.’ Before I engage in speculation on how many wounds were really sustained by the President, and the nature of those wounds, I want the reader to get an overall sense of what had transpired in Dealey Plaza based upon eyewitness testimony, crime scene evidence, and photography. The goal of this section is to provide the reader with a representative and balanced sampling of the overwhelming and persuasive evidence that President Kennedy’s limousine drove into a well-conceived ambush in Dealey Plaza, and that four or more shots were fired at the occupants of the limousine from multiple directions.

Individual Eyewitness Testimony Provides Undeniable Evidence of Crossfire

The affidavits of several Dealey Plaza eyewitnesses—Jean Hill, William Newman, Emmett Hudson, S.M. Holland, Howard Brennan, and Hugh Betzner—executed on the day of the assassination for the Sheriff’s Department, are reproduced in Appendix 86 of this book. I will summarize the most noteworthy aspects of each affidavit below:

Jean Hill: Jean Hill is the lady wearing the red raincoat in the Zapruder film; she was standing with her friend Mary Moorman (who took the famous Polaroid picture at the moment of the head shot)in the grass on the south side of Elm Street during the assassination. Her affidavit indicates she heard two shots, then after a pause, heard three or four more shots (for a total of five or six shots). She thought she saw men in plainclothes shooting back. She ran across the street toward the grassy knoll after the shooting, because she saw a man running away in that area. [subsequent media interviews later that day revealed that Jean Hill had not seen anyone firing a rifle at the President, but thought she had heard shots come from the vicinity of the grassy knoll. The Jean Hill quote provided in Trask’s book on page 238 is “The shots came from the hill,” helping to explain why she ran across the street to the grassy knoll.]

William Newman: Bill Newman, his wife, and two little boys had already seen the Kennedys at Love Field, and had rushed over to Dealey Plaza so they could see them again as the motorcade went by.

Sadly, they saw much more than they had bargained for. The Newman family was standing on the north side of Elm Street and as they faced the limousine when the shooting was occurring, the grassy knoll was to their right and behind them. Bill Newman was perhaps the closest person to President Kennedy when he was shot in the head; the Newmans fell on top of their children to protect them during the assassination, because they realized they were in the line of fire. In his affidavit, Newman says the President was hit in the side of the head, and that he and his family fell down on the grass because they believed they were in the direct line of fire. He also wrote that he thought the [fatal] shot had come from the garden behind him, that was on an elevation. He wrote that he did not look toward the Texas School Book Depository, and that he did look back toward the garden.

The dramatic photographs of the Newman family’s ordeal are heart-rending, and the best images can be found in Trask on pages 39, 333, 376, 399, 401, 402, and 403. This event is depicted less successfully in Groden’s book on pages 37, 47, 50, and 207.

Emmett Hudson: Mr. Hudson was a Dallas City employee whose job it was to take care of the Dealey Plaza grounds west of Houston Street. At the time of the assassination he was standing on the grassy knoll, along with two other men, just below the picket fence, next to the concrete steps which lead down to Elm Street from between the small concrete retaining wall and the picket fence itself. In his affidavit he says that he definitely heard three shots, and that all of those 3 shots came from behind and above him.

S. M. Holland: “Skinny” Holland, a signal supervisor for the Union Terminal railroad, was standing on top of the triple overpass near where Elm and Main Streets merged underneath him. He wrote that he heard a total of four shots, and that after hearing the first one, he looked over toward the corner of the picket fence, and saw a puff of smoke come out from behind the fence [the “arcade”], through the trees on the knoll. [The trees, and the picket fence, were off to his immediate left at about a 45 degree angle.] Holland was later interviewed in 1966 by both Josiah Thompson (for his book) and by Mark Lane (for his film, “Rush to Judgment”). Holland told both Thompson and Lane that he ran around to the area of the parking lot behind the picket fence immediately after the shooting stopped, and at the exact spot where he had seen the smoke come out from behind the fence between the trees, he found numerous muddy footprints and cigarette butts next to the muddy bumper of the second automobile from the fence corner. This spot, about 14 feet from the corner of the picket fence on the knoll, is the precise spot where the HSCA later determined that a ‘fourth shot’ was fired at the President’s limousine, based on the acoustic evidence it analyzed from a police dictabelt tape, when compared with the ‘fingerprint’ obtained from a test firing on the grassy knoll.

Howard Brennan: Howard Brennan was a construction worker sitting on a cement wall at the corner of Elm and Houston, across the street from the Book Depository, when the motorcade went by. In his affidavit, he wrote that he observed a man in the 6th floor southeast window of the TSBD prior to the motorcade’s arrival, and that after the limousine turned the corner, he heard a shot and looked up at the window and saw the same man he had observed earlier taking aim with a rifle. He said he could see the entire barrel of the rifle in the 6th floor southeast corner window when he heard the last explosion. Brennan did not specify whether the sound came from the rifle in the window or not; he said he did not know whether the rifle had a scope on it or not.

Hugh Betzner: Hugh Betzner took one of the two famous photos of the so-called ‘black dog man’ on the grassy knoll [the other was taken by Phil Willis, and is seen in Willis slide # 5]. Both Betzner and Willis captured in the background of their photographs the shape of the upper part of a human figure, at the corner of the low cement retaining wall on the knoll, at just about the exact moment that President Kennedy was shot in the throat from the front; the human figure at the corner of the retaining wall (who may or may not have been a gunman) looks at first glance somewhat like the figure of a black dog sitting on the wall, hence the nickname. Betzner was running down the south side of Elm Street from the corner, following the motorcade as it moved down Elm, taking pictures and winding his camera in-between shots as he ran to follow the President’s limousine. In his affidavit, Betzner wrote that it looked like both cars (the limousine and the Secret Service followup car) had stopped on Elm Street; he heard at least two shots fired and saw what he thought was a firecracker going off in the President’s car; he also saw what looked to him like a nickel revolver in someone’s hand in the President’s car or somewhere immediately around his car; and observed many bystanders running up onto the grassy knoll after the assassination. He wrote that his assumption at that time was that the ‘shot’ had come from the knoll; observed people ‘digging in the dirt’ on Elm Street after the assassination; and discussed the assassination with numerous bystanders who told him they thought the shots had come from the knoll.

The Betzner ‘black dog man’ photo can be found on page 161 of Trask (with a blowup of the figure at the wall—the ‘black dog’—on page 174). [The Willis ‘black dog man’ photo can be found on page 171 of Trask’s book, and on both page 24, as well as on pages 190-191 of Groden’s The Killing of a President.]

In its final report, on page 85, the HSCA provided confirmation that the so-called ‘black dog man’ image in the Willis color slide, captured just prior to President Kennedy’s severe defensive reaction

1117

(seen in the Zapruder film) to receiving an entry wound in his throat, is indeed that of a human figure:

...A fleshtone comparison performed by analyzing measurements of color values on an object located behind the west end of the retaining wall confirmed that the image perceived was actually a human being. The panel did perceive a ‘a very distinct straightline feature’ near the region of this person’s hands, but it was unable to deblur the image sufficiently to reach any conclusion as to whether the feature was, in fact, a weapon.

Betzner’s photo of the ‘black dog man’ could not be used in the fleshtone study because he exposed black and white negatives; however, both he and Willis clearly photographed the same figure behind the corner of the retaining wall, at a time when JFK could not yet have been shot by anyone behind the picket fence. At this point in the limousine’s journey down Elm Street, no one behind the picket fence could sight in on President Kennedy’s throat because the view would have been obstructed by both the retaining wall, and by the Stemmons Freeway sign on the north side of Elm Street.

Intriguing evidence does exist, as well, that a shot may have been fired from behind the pergola that was situated approximately midway between the Book Depository and the picket fence on the knoll.

Abraham Zapruder: Mr. Zapruder, whose dress factory was in the Dal-Tex Building across the street from the Depository, filmed the motorcade from a concrete pedestal in front of the pergola. The curved pergola, with its multiple lattice-like openings, would have provided partial cover for a gunman, and any one of its multiple openings would have provided a natural spot for an assassin to support his weapon while he was aiming it. As noted on page 89 of the HSCA report, he testified to the Warren Commission that he thought a shot may have come from behind him, and further, stated that one shot caused reverberations all around him and was much more pronounced than the others. Excerpts from his Warren Commission testimony are provided below:

Zapruder: ...I remember the police were running behind me. There were police running right behind me...

Liebeler: As you were standing on this abutment facing Elm Street, you say the police ran over behind the concrete structure behind you and down the railroad track behind that, is that right?

Zapruder: Yes—after the shots—yes, some of them were motorcycle cops—I guess they left their motorcycles running and they were running right behind me, of course, in the line of the shooting. I guess they thought it came from right behind me.

Liebeler: Did you have any impression as to the direction from which these shots came?

Zapruder: No, I also thought it came from back of me...

Liebeler: All right, as you stood here on the abutment and looked dow

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Zapruder: Well, yes.

Liebeler: From the direction behind you?

Zapruder: Yes...

Stephen F. Wilson: In the Dillard wide angle photograph (page 442 of Trask) Mr. Wilson can be seen behind a closed window on the third floor of the TSBD, one window over from the southeast corner third floor window. Trask quotes Wilson on page 443 as saying: “Three shots were fired within a matter of less than 5 seconds. The shots sounded to me like rifle shots. At the time, it seemed shots came from the west end of the building or from the colonnade located on Elm Street across from the west end of our building. The shots really did not sound like they came from above me.”

The Hesters: Charles and Beatrice Hester were standing directly in front of the pergola during the assassination. As subsequent movie film shows, they “hit the deck” during the shooting, and then Charles jumped up and ran right over to the pergola and looked through the openings in the structure as if trying to see into the parking lot and railroad yards behind it. On page 73 of his book, Trask quotes Charles Hester’s affidavit executed that day as saying the shots “...sounded like they came [from] immediately behind us and over our heads.” NBC newsreel cameraman Dave Weigman jumped out of camera car # 1 immediately as the last shot was being fired and started running toward the pergola and the vicinity of the retaining wall. As he was running, he briefly captured the Hesters reacting to at least one shot from immediately behind them—from behind the pergola—on black and white 16 mm film. Weigman’s footage is only about 36 seconds long, and is jerky and blurred because he was running at the time, but is nevertheless a remarkable piece of film. Trask writes on page 372 that Malcolm Kilduff, Presidential Press Secretary for the Texas trip, said: “I remember seeing one cameraman off to the right running up the grassy slope to get some pictures of this couple huddled together at the top of the hill.” Then Trask quotes Weigman on page 373: “I saw these people lying on the ground, and I took them [meaning I took footage of them]. I saw a lady being pulled down to the ground...You could sense she just wanted to get away from there, and somebody pulled her down.” The Weigman footage showing the Hesters reacting to the shots can be seen in the television documentary “The Men Who Killed Kennedy.”

Two different eyewitnesses very close to the Presidential limousine, Dallas motorcycle patrolman Bobby W. Hargis, and Secret Service agent Paul E. Landis, both had an impression of shots originating from both in front of, and behind the limousine. They both received prominent mention in the HSCA final report. Hargis was the closest of the two motorcycle escorts behind the left rear wheels of the limousine, and Landis was standing on the outside running board of the followup car, the “Queen Mary.”

The HSCA published an excerpt from the Warren Commission testimony of Hargis of page 88:

Well, at the time it sounded like the shots were right next to me. There wasn’t any way in the world I could tell where they were coming from, but at the time there was something in my head that said that they probably could have been coming from the railroad overpass,

1119

because I thought since I had got splattered...I had a feeling that it might have been from the Texas School Book Depository, and these two places was (sic) the primary place that could have been shot from.

Blakey published an excerpt on page 89 from the written statement about the assassination prepared by Paul Landis on November 30, 1963. Landis indicated that the first shot “...sounded like the report of a high-powered rifle from behind me, over my right shoulder.” He indicated a different direction of origin for the second shot he heard:

I still was not certain from which direction the second shot came, but my reaction at this time was that the shot came from somewhere towards the front, right-hand side of the road.

Finally, Wayne and Edna Hartman observed physical crime scene evidence that undeniably pointed toward the grassy knoll.

The Hartmans: Wayne and Edna Hartman were in Dallas on 11/22/63 to perform jury duty. They ran over to Dealey Plaza as fast as they could after hearing shots fired, and discovered two furrows in the dirt on the south side of Elm Street that pointed toward the grassy knoll. In his book Crossfire, on pages 315-316, author Jim Marrs quotes Edna Hartman as follows:

There were not many people in this area at the time, but a policeman was there. He pointed to some bushes near the railroad tracks on the north side of the street and said that’s where the shots came from...Then I noticed these two parallel marks on the ground that looked like mounds made by a mole. I asked, ‘What are these, mole hills?’ and the policeman said, ‘Oh no, ma’am, that’s where the bullets struck the ground.

In the summer of 1964 the Hartmans notified the FBI about what they had seen, and were interviewed. They both told the FBI that the two marks in the ground did not match up with the Book Depository, but did match up with the grassy knoll. Mrs. Hartman told Jim Marrs:

I don’t see how what we saw down there could have come from those windows up there because they were not the right angle. So we have always felt that it came from across the street...that was the angle...across the street from where we stood...the Grassy Knoll, we’ve always felt it came from there...

Yet in an FBI report dated Jul 10, 1964, the following is written: [The Hartmans] said this gouged out hole was in line with the general area of the Texas School Book Depository Building.

I own a privately sold researcher videotape, produced by Mark Oakes, of interviews with various Dealey Plaza eyewitnesses, and on this VHS tape the Hartmans express serious disquiet about the fact that the FBI misquoted them in the official FBI report of their interview.

Altogether, per the authors of Cover-Up (Shaw and Harris), 51 Dealey Plaza eyewitnesses have cited knoll as the source of shots; the authors did not specify whether the evidence was visual or acoustic, but I assume that the figure of 51 represents a combination of both types of evidence.

[David Lifton]

From your post:

Well put, David. I wonder if anyone has counted the various casualties of this case... those people who got in and could never get out. It's always seemed to me that the saner course was to be constantly reminded that one is writing contemporary history and that the usual canons of historiography apply. But it is very easy to lose one's bearings and end up adrift in a mass of documents, photos, ideas, theories, arguments, etc.

Would you agree?

Tink

Hello Tink,

Regarding the question you posed: i.e., the issue of whether it is “the saner course” to be “constantly reminded” that one is writing “contemporary history” and so, therefore, “the usual canons of historiography apply”:

I wish had the perfect answer (I don’t) and that I could give a “short answer.” It would be nice to say (for example), “The ‘short answer’ is: ‘Yes, I would agree.’” After all, why shouldn’t “the usual canons of historiography apply”?

Well, those “canons” really are of limited use in this case, and (imho) here is why.

Normally, in investigating a crime (which is “the event” in this instance), one is NOT dealing with a situation in which--fundamental both to the architecture of the crime (as well as its operation in real time)—a strategic deception was employed which involved both (a) a plan to falsify the evidence and (b ) conceal the existence of that plan itself.

I think the phrase “strategic deception” is key, because that was at the heart of the plan to remove President Kennedy from office, and make it appear to be the result of happenstance, a quirk of fate.

So the approach most likely to succeed in this case is not the “normal” one, using procedures learned from historiography (and which would be “the saner course” as you say). Rather, what is required is an approach in which one thinks outside the box, and is willing to entertain the notion that this case is truly exceptional—i.e., literally, an exception to the rule—and therefore willing to approach the entire matter wearing the hat of a counter-intelligence officer, and not the hat of a normal “establishment historian.”

The ordinary historian is going to start with the sniper’s nest found at the TSBD, and then travel down a path which I believe to be demonstrably false. That’s what the Warren Commission did, but that’s not where the truth lies. The truth lies in identifying the fraud in the evidence. Because if the critical evidence in this case has been falsified, then the “sniper’s nest” is nothing but planted evidence designed to lead to a false “solution,” one meant to dupe the public (and possibly even many in the Dallas Police Department and even the FBI). Someone like a Vincent Bugliosi, for example, for whom Oswald apparenlty represents just a politicized version of Charles Manson, is a perfect candidate to be thoroughly taken in by all this.

In short, any attempt to “investigate” this “event” soon leads to an investigation regarding various hypotheses and schemes to falsify evidence—and not only an inquiry as to how such matters were conceived in advance (i.e., what the blueprint for the strategic deception looked like, when viewed “before the fact”), but, in addition, how such a plan was executed in real time (including many mistakes that were made).

At the very least, I think it can accurately be asserted that the existence of fraud in the evidence would certainly foul up any attempt to “solve the Kennedy assassination” by normal procedures—which, of course, is exactly what it was designed to do.

Well then, how can we find the truth? How different would be the procedures for pursuing a case in which there was such fraud? For starters, I think we should recognized that this is the difference between normal accounting and forensic accounting.

Bernard Madoff suckered numerous people into turning over their life’s savings because they wanted to believe he could bring them modestly higher returns than normal. That was “the story” he told, and of course he had “evidence” to prove it. Every month or quarter, clients were sent statements of transactions, documenting how their money was being invested. In fact, the transactions were totally bogus, but—partly out of desire to believe (and to disbelieve that someone of such stature could be involved in such fraud)—certain documents were accepted at face value, and people felt safe and secure that their funds were well invested.

The Kennedy assassination has a number of similarities. The official story (again, imho) is based on bogus evidence—and it has a following because of a willingness to believe. (Institutions like the Sixth Floor Museum profit from this willingness, and promote it further.)

The Madoff scheme eventually collapsed because it was a Ponzi scheme, and the money ran out. The Kennedy assassination is, in a way, a Ponzi scheme of the mind. Hindering the ultimate collapse of the false “official story” of the JFK case is the seemingly limitless number of people (especially people in high places in the media, e.g., Walter Pincus at the Washington Post, and other comparably important personalities) willing to believe this fairly tale, accept peculiar and seemingly impossible explanations supposedly explaining how the official version “really does work, after all,” and an unwillingness to challenge fundamental assumptions (and presumptions) about the integrity of some of the most critical evidence in this case—the film(s), the autopsy report (s!) etc.

Putting aside the forensic data—does anyone really want to believe that someone altered the wounds on Kennedy’s body, after death? I remember Professor Liebeler, in one argument with raised voice(s), saying in effect that “sure, it was all logical,” but that I was in effect proposing that someone “carved up” the President! (And I know one researcher who is quite analytical, but who told me that, ultimately, the reason it was not possible to accept what I was proposing was that it was impossible to believe something that “evil” could have occurred. Now what kind of “reasoning” is that?)

This brings me to a very dark joke I once told one night when a small group of people were assembled to discuss the JFK case. It was well after midnight, we were all gathered round, and someone asked, “Why do you think President Kennedy was shot?” Keeping a straight face, I said, “Well, Admiral Burkley couldn’t just come into the oval office, with a coffin on a dolly, and say, “Mr. President, we want you to stop work, and get inside.” “Why should I do that?” the President would have demanded to know. “Because,” Dr. Burkley would then say, “Your time is up. That decision has been made, so please, Mr. President, just get inside, so we can bury you at Arlington National Cemetery.” Then came my semblance at a punch line: “Now obviously, that would not work, So, therefore, President Kennedy had to be shot (first).” Well, OK, maybe you don’t find that very amusing; and yes, it represents a very dark view. . but that is one way of approaching the question: “Why was Kennedy shot?” and understanding the importance of “the story” and the relationship between “the story” and “the evidence.”

Oliver Stone was right when, just recently, he said that the official story represents a “national fairy tale.” It’s a “story” that “explains” an event. In many ways, that’s exactly what it is. (And its not that people necessarily love fairly tales; I think the problem, in this case, is that the alternative, is so awful. Remember what John McCloy said at the WC executive session in December, 1963: we don’t want the world to think this is a banana republic, where the government can be overthrown by conspiracy.

But returning now to your main question:

No, I am proposing that one should abandon all reason and just claim that everything is a fraud. Perhaps (if one is a newcomer to engaging in this line of analysis) one should start modestly, and just consider “fraud in the evidence” as a hypothesis. However, it is often the case that one fraud necessarily leads to another (these things to metastasize, because of various logical linkages) and ultimately, and taking a more global approach, the problem is how to deconstruct this event, identify just what is fraudulent in the evidence; and what is not; what is the reliable evidence, and what is not. In the movie The Hurt Locker, a solder approaches a ticking bomb, and has to figure out how the mechanism works, and how to pull out which wires, to stop the bomb from going off in his hands.

If one does not have the proper methodology, and the proper hypothesis, one will end up with a false view of the event, making false accusations, perhaps have a slew of lawsuits, and be wandering around in a “wilderness of mirrors.”

Or, as you put it: “It is very easy to lose one's bearings and end up adrift in a mass of documents, photos, ideas, theories, arguments, etc.”

Yes, I agree. An that's the value of having a proper working hypothesis in attempting to navigate through the maze. But that’s also what happens when one is in a rigged card game, and the problem is where are the jokers in the deck, who is at the table playing the game honestly (and who is not); and how can I prove there are really 4 “Aces of spades” in this peculiar deck, and who is sitting at the table who is the “inside man”?

Surely, then, there are ways of “deconstructing Dallas”—if in fact the official story is based on a foundation of fraud—and doing so in a credible manner. That is indeed a challenge. But, in the final analysis, I do not believe (as you put it) that the “usual canons of historiography” apply, even though—viewed through the lens of ordinary day to day experience—it may appear to provide “the saner course.”

So that is the problem, and that is the challenge—and some of the above are my thoughts on why the “usual cannons of historiography” will likely lead many astray, while providing “comfort food” for the mind.

DSL

1/28/10; 7:15 PM PST

Los Angeles, CA

[Jack White]

Masterful, David! Great analogies! Total agreement!

Jack

[Cliff Varnell]

Normally, in investigating a crime (which is “the event” in this instance), one is NOT dealing with a situation in which--fundamental both to the architecture of the crime (as well as its operation in real time)—a strategic deception was employed which involved both (a) a plan to falsify the evidence and (b ) conceal the existence of that plan itself.

I don't buy it.

The cover-up was certainly NOT "fundamental to the architecture of the crime."

There were two cover-ups in operation the afternoon and evening of 11/22/63:

1) Oswald the agent of a Castro/communist conspiracy, 2) the lone nut.

Please consult Hancock's Someone Would Have Talked.

The killers plumped for 1).

Yankee blue-bloods enforced 2).

Which is not to say that Yankee blue-bloods didn't have JFK's red blood on

their hands, as well, but the crime occurred in Dallas, after all.

Edited January 29, 2010 by Cliff Varnell

[Cliff Varnell]

The architecture of the crime?

It was designed to look like a conspiracy!

That's why the cover-up was slapdash.

(cue Joe Pesci)

Don't you get it?

[Cliff Varnell]

That's why the cover-up was slapdash.

This is a good time to thank Doug Horne and the ARRB for bringing us Janie Taylor and

the Elbert Israel story. (I don't have the link)

Israel was a black orderly at Bethesda said he was in the room when quick surgery

was done to JFK's head. Being black in 1963 meant being largely invisible.

Not hard evidence but then nothing about the head wound evidence is.

Edited January 29, 2010 by Cliff Varnell

[Bernice Moore]

That's why the cover-up was slapdash.

This is a good time to thank Doug Horne and the ARRB for bringing us Janie Taylor and

the Elbert Israel story. (I don't have the link)

Israel was a black orderly at Bethesda said he was in the room when quick surgery

was done to JFK's head. Being black in 1963 meant being largely invisible.

Not hard evidence but then nothing about the head wound evidence is.

Hi Cliff the clarence israel document has been known about and well batted about for several years on some forums..but now with doug's great books all have the opportunity to have so much of what is available we owe him our thanks ..and many are grateful..in case others have not seen it here is the israel DOCUMENT....B

Edited January 29, 2010 by Bernice Moore

[David Lifton]

From your post, quoting mine:

"Normally, in investigating a crime (which is “the event” in this instance), one is NOT dealing with a situation in which--fundamental both to the architecture of the crime (as well as its operation in real time)—a strategic deception was employed which involved both (a) a plan to falsify the evidence and (b ) conceal the existence of that plan itself.

"

Your response:

"I don't buy it.

"The cover-up was certainly NOT "fundamental to the architecture of the crime."

MY RESPONSE TO YOUR RESPONSE:

Well then, we disagree.

But let me point out something rather inescapable and fundamental: Oswald.

If Oswald was a pre-selected patsy, then this was a plot with a built-in coverup (i.e., a plan to make Oswald appear to be the assassin) and the proper execution of that "coverup" was fundamental to the architecture of the entire plan--i.e., the plan being that Oswald alone was to be held responsible for President Kennedy's assassination. (Moreover: if the plan was to blame Oswald "plus an accomplice" --that would not have made all that much of a difference. So, while leading to political complicatons--such a variation would have been just a relatively minor perturbation on the "official" story).

My point is: any plan built around "Oswald" (and his past) makes Oswald fundamental to the political architecture of the Kennedy assassination. And the time line as to who he was, and why he was so special, leads to certain ineluctable inferences about the time line of the genesis of the Kennedy assassination.

On the other hand, if Oswald was NOT a preselected patsy, then a host of questions can be posed about who Oswald was, how he came to be present at the locale of the crime and at the time of the crime, why he behaved as he did, etc etc--and if none of this was "pre-planned," then these questions can only be answered by resorting to "coincidence theory."

I subscribe to the former view as providing the only rational explanation for all the circumstances and the evidence in this case.

Also, please note: the fact that something that has the effect of falsifying the truth occurs "after the fact" --i.e., after JFK's murder--does not mean that act wasn't planned "before the fact." Not recognizing this can lead to much confusion. When actors show up for a 50 million dollar movie, they do what the script calls for AFTER the cameras start rolling (i.e., after the fact, when that phrase is viewed narrowly), but they really aren't acting "after the fact". To the contrary, they are behaving in accordance with a screenplay that was written well beforehand. The same general idea applies to the Kennedy assassination, when considering what was planned in advance, versus the exact time line along which events actually unfolded.

If films were altered, for example, they were not sent to Rite Aide or Savon, an if the body was altered, that was not some bright idea invented by someone AFTER Kennedy was shot, perhaps inspired by some past reading of an Agatha Christie murder mystery, or by someone who learned the centrality of the autopsy by reading some Perry Mason mysteries.

Remember what Oswald told his brother when they visited on Saturday, November 23: "Do not believe the so-called 'evidence.'"

Oswald understood it was "before the fact." Too bad he didn't live to be officially debriefed, so we could hear his full account.

DSL

1/29/10; 3 AM

Los Angeles, California

[Cliff Varnell]

MY RESPONSE TO YOUR RESPONSE:

Well then, we disagree.

But let me point out something rather inescapable and fundamental: Oswald.

If Oswald was a pre-selected patsy, then this was a plot with a built-in coverup (i.e., a plan to make Oswald appear to be the assassin) and the proper execution of that "coverup" was fundamental to the architecture of the entire plan--i.e., the plan being that Oswald alone was to be held responsible for President Kennedy's assassination.

Thank you for the reply, David.

We indeed must disagree. If the conspirators merely wanted to set up a

"lone nut" why would they pick a guy with a heavy political background and a CIA

201 file?

I think it's clear that Oswald was methodically sheep-dipped to appear as an

agent of Fidel Castro "in furtherance of an international communist conspiracy,"

as the Dallas Assistant D.A. William Alexander formally charged.

Larry Hancock, Someone Would Have Talked, pg. 13 (emphasis added):

(quote on)

Immediately following the assassination, FBI and CIA informant Richard Cain

(an associate of Sam Giancana and participant in the very early Roselli organized

attempts against Castro) began aggressively reporting that Lee Oswald had been

associated with a FPCC group in Chicago that had held secret meetings in the

spring of 1963 planning the assassination of President Kennedy...

Following the assassination, John Martino and Frank Fiorini/Sturgis of Miami, and

Carlos Bringuier of New Orleans, all began telling the same story about Oswald

visiting Cuba and being a personal tool of Fidel Castro. Strangely enough, on

the afternoon of November 22 after Oswald's arrest, J. Edgar Hoover also related

that the FBI had monitored Oswald on visits to Cuba.

Hoover wrote in a 4:01 PM EST on November 22: "Oswald...went to Cuba on

several occasions but would not tell us what he went to Cuba for." Hoover

repeated this information again an hour later in a memo of 5:15 PM EST.

(quote off)

David Talbot's Brothers, pg 10:

(quote on)

...(I)t's important to note that [bobby] Kennedy apparently never jumped to the conclusion

that afternoon that Fidel Castro -- the target of so much U.S. intrigue -- was behind his brother's

killing. It was the anti-Castro camp where Bobby's suspicions immediately flew, not pro-Castro

agents.

...Bobby came to this conclusion despite the energetic efforts of the CIA and the FBI, which

almost immediately after the assassination began trying to pin the blame on Castro's

government. Hoover himself phoned Kennedy again around four that afternoon to inform

him that Oswald had shuttled in and out of Cuba, which was untrue...[T]he FBI chief failed

to convince Bobby that the alleged assassin was a Castro agent.

(quote off)

William Kelly, the "Black Propaganda Ops" thread:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...c=11191&hl=

(quote on)

7) In Miami, shortly after the assassination, Dr. Jose Ignorzio, the chief of

clinical psychology for the Catholic Welfare Services, contacted the White

House to inform the new administration that Oswald had met directly with

Cuban ambassador Armas in Mexico.

8) In Mexico City, David Atlee Philips of the CIA debriefed a Nicaraguan

intelligence officer, code named "D," who claimed to have seen Oswald

take money from a Cuban at the Cuban embassy. [see: Alvarado Story]

9) In New Zealand, U.S.A.F. Col. Fletcher Prouty read complete biographies

of Oswald in the local papers hours after the assassination, indicating to him

that a bio of Oswald was pre-prepared.

10) Brothers Jerry and James Buchanan, CIA propaganda assets, began

promoting the Castro-did-it theme immediately. According to Donald Freed

and Jeff Cohen (in Liberation Magazine), the source of the Buchanan's tales

was the leader of the CIA supported International Anti-Communist Brigade (IAB).

"Back in Miami," they wrote, "a high powered propaganda machine was cranking

out stories that Oswald was a Cuban agent…" Sturgis is quoted in the Pampara

Beach Sun-Sentinel as saying that Oswald had talked with Cuban G-2 agents

and fracassed with IAB members in Miami in 1962.

(quote off)

The historical record clearly indicates a concerted effort on 11/22/63 to paint

Oswald as part of a Castro conspiracy. The Dallas police, the FBI and the CIA

were all reading from the same script.

Who had the power to over-ride that?

Vincent Salandria's "The Tale Told by Two Tapes":

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...art=#entry31073

(quote on)

In November of 1966, I read Theodore H. White's The Making of the President, 1964...

[O]n page 33 I read the following about the flight back to Washington, D.C. from Dallas:

"On the flight the party learned that there was no conspiracy, learned of the identity of

Oswald and his arrest; and the President's mind turned to the duties of consoling the

stricken and guiding the quick."

...* The Situation Room of the White House first fingered Oswald as the lone assassin when

an innocent government, with so much evidence in Dealey Plaza of conspiracy, would have

been keeping all options open. Therefore this premature birth of the single-assassin myth

points to the highest institutional structure of our warfare state as guilty of the crime of

killing Kennedy. Such a source does not take orders from the Mafia nor from renegade

elements. But such a source is routinely given to using the Mafia and supposedly out-of-control

renegade sources to do its bidding.

* McGeorge Bundy was in charge of the Situation Room and was spending that fateful

afternoon receiving phone calls from President Johnson, who was calling from Air Force

One when the lone-assassin myth was prematurely given birth. (Bishop, Jim, The Day

Kennedy Was Shot, New York & Funk Wagnalls, 1968), p. 154) McGeorge Bundy as the

quintessential WASP establishmentarian did not take his orders from the Mafia and/or

renegade elements.

(quote off)

Indeed. McGeorge Bundy, Skull & Bones '40.

The Big Enchilada was W. Averell Harriman, Skull & Bones '13...

Max Holland, The Kennedy Assassination Tapes, pg 57:

(quote on)

At 6:55 p.m. Johnson has a ten-minute meeting with Senator J. William Fulbright

(D-Arkansas) and diplomat W. Averell Harriman to discuss possible foreign

involvement in the assassination, especially in light of the two-and-a-half-year

Soviet sojourn of Lee Harvey Oswald...Harriman, a U.S. ambassador to Moscow

during World War II, is an experienced interpreter of Soviet machinations and

offers the president the unanimous view of the U.S. government's top Kremlinologists.

None of them believe the Soviets had a hand in the assassination, despite the Oswald

association.

(quote off)

LBJ had barely time to take off his coat when he first arrived at the

White House, and in comes Harriman forestalling any inquiries

into possible Soviet involvement.

I must say that in 1963 "the U.S. government's top Kremlinologists" were

one crack investigative outfit! Absolved the Soviets less than 6 hours after

the killing!

This astonishing power exhibited by Harriman -- absolving an obvious suspect

in a matter of hours and making it stick without question -- raises the obvious

suspicion that Harriman knew who actually killed JFK. Otherwise, how could

he responsibly rule out the Soviets so soon after the crime?

It's clear from the historical record that the Oswald-lone-nut scenario

was concocted and enforced by the bluest of Yankee blood.

But it was wholly improvised and very far from the original "architecture

of the crime."

(Moreover: if the plan was to blame Oswald "plus an accomplice" --that would not have made all that much of a difference. So, while leading to political complicatons--such a variation would have been just a relatively minor perturbation on the "official" story).

I think its fair to speculate that if Oswald had been gunned down around 2pm

11/22/63 instead of captured -- the "official lone nut story" would not have

passed the lips of a single person.

"Communist Kills Kennedy; Accomplices At Large; Castro Implicated"

would have been the headlines, or so I reasonably speculate.

Had Oswald been killed right after JFK there would have been no need for quick

surgery to the head, burned autopsy notes, faked and disappeared autopsy

photos, single bullet theorized, etc etc.

The decision to pin the blame on a lone gunman was made at the highest

levels of the American ruling elite. The record is clear that others wanted

the blame laid elsewhere, and it is among those "others" we find the killers.

My point is: any plan built around "Oswald" (and his past) makes Oswald fundamental to the political architecture of the Kennedy assassination. And the time line as to who he was, and why he was so special, leads to certain ineluctable inferences about the time line of the genesis of the Kennedy assassination.

Agreed! But Oswald-the-lone-nut was Plan B.

On the other hand, if Oswald was NOT a preselected patsy, then a host of questions can be posed about who Oswald was, how he came to be present at the locale of the crime and at the time of the crime, why he behaved as he did, etc etc--and if none of this was "pre-planned," then these questions can only be answered by resorting to "coincidence theory."

Oswald appears clearly sheep-dipped as a Communist operative, not

a lone nut. That part of the "official story" was hastily improvised.

I subscribe to the former view as providing the only rational explanation for all the

circumstances and the evidence in this case.

But you don't make a distinction between those who killed JFK and those

who covered it up.

That distinction is crucial to understanding the case, imo.

Also, please note: the fact that something that has the effect of falsifying the truth occurs "after the fact" --i.e., after JFK's murder--does not mean that act wasn't planned "before the fact."

Doesn't mean that it was certainly planned before the fact, either. In this

case the pre-planning fits a scenario far removed from the "official" one.

Not recognizing this can lead to much confusion. When actors show up for a 50 million dollar movie, they do what the script calls for AFTER the cameras start rolling (i.e., after the fact, when that phrase is viewed narrowly), but they really aren't acting "after the fact". To the contrary, they are behaving in accordance with a screenplay that was written well beforehand. The same general idea applies to the Kennedy assassination, when considering what was planned in advance, versus the exact time line along which events actually unfolded.

Here's where we disagree. The "screenplay" written for Oswald included

having the FBI produce "evidence" he'd been to Cuba, that Oswald had

met with Kostikov, etc etc.

That script was shredded when the star eluded death, and a hasty series of

improvs took over, including sending the new second lead into the Dallas PD

basement that Sunday.

If films were altered, for example, they were not sent to Rite Aide or Savon, an if the body was altered, that was not some bright idea invented by someone AFTER Kennedy was shot, perhaps inspired by some past reading of an Agatha Christie murder mystery, or by someone who learned the centrality of the autopsy by reading some Perry Mason mysteries.

This is a study of the cover-up, not the killing!

Remember what Oswald told his brother when they visited on Saturday, November 23: "Do not believe the so-called 'evidence.'"

Oswald understood it was "before the fact." Too bad he didn't live to be officially debriefed, so we could hear his full account.

DSL

1/29/10; 3 AM

Los Angeles, California

Or he could have been gunned down 11/22/63 and Mickey Mouse

would be the unofficial mayor of Havana and all of us would

have found other some other fascinating pursuit.

Edited March 19, 2010 by Cliff Varnell

[Cliff Varnell]

Thank you, Bernice!

James Richards did some follow-up research on the Israel brothers, Clarence and Elbert.

Both had played in the Negro Baseball League; it was Elbert was was the orderly at Bethesda.

This account, while obviously deficient as evidence, makes as much sense as anything else

concerning the head wounds, imo.