Gary Mack has passed away

[Mark Knight]

Gary Mack was helpful to me when I was seeking certain recordings [which I never was able to obtain] from 11/22/63. He could be a great asset to investigation, when he chose to be.

[Martin Hay]

I can't believe Gary Mack is dead. What I liked about him was when he'd

send me an email with information he wanted posted to the forum. And I

always obliged. He discovered Badge Man, yet for some reason, he turned

away from conspiracy and, I guess, believed Lee Harvey Oswald shot

President Kennedy from the 6th floor of the TSBD.

I never once heard Gary say that he believed Oswald acted alone. As far as I'm aware he always maintained, both privately and publicly, that he personally believed there had to be more to the story.

A few years ago he told me that he believed all of the shots that hit came from the sixth floor but that there was probably a missed shot from the knoll. Which is basically the HSCA scenario.

I also recall him saying that if there were two shooters he couldn't see how Oswald could have been either one of them.

[Glenn Nall]

I can't believe Gary Mack is dead. What I liked about him was when he'd

send me an email with information he wanted posted to the forum. And I

always obliged. He discovered Badge Man, yet for some reason, he turned

away from conspiracy and, I guess, believed Lee Harvey Oswald shot

President Kennedy from the 6th floor of the TSBD.

this is what always confounded me about him, but i never wanted to ask out of intimidation, i guess - he had done so much in support of CT, credit for badgeman, etc - how he could 'revert' after seeing so much evidence (DVP, this is NOT an invitation for rebuttal)... enigmatic. he had a good heart, welcomed me right off when i got active in here.

[Peter McGuire]

This is very sad news.

I talked to Gary a few times on the phone, and received a lot of emails from him as well.

As Pat Speer said, I intended to meet him someday at the museum as well - he said on the phone one time that he would play a clear film of Love Field, where the Agents allegedly were called off their usual positions.

I will miss Mr. Mack very much.

Edited July 16, 2015 by Peter McGuire

[Pat Speer]

Like a lot of researchers, Gary stood by things he uncovered himself (Badgeman, the dictabelt recording) while pooh-poohing virtually everyone else's discoveries. While I wasn't active in the research community at the time, it is my understanding that Gary's rift with the research community came around the 30th, when other CTs were pushing Ricky White, Gordon Arnold, and Beverly Oliver's stories, and Jean Hill's latest story, as important parts of the solution to the crime.

In retrospect, I suspect Gary was correct to reject these stories as important and credible.

The other cause of the rift, however, is not as easy to forgive, IMO. While Gary used his position at the Sixth Floor Museum to improve the museum's visibility, it cannot go unstated that there was a tremendous bias demonstrated in what the museum chose to cover in its exhibits, and in what it chose to carry in its bookstore. While it is not true that there was an outright ban on CT materials, as purported by some, it is indeed true that there was a great imbalance, with LN books by the likes of Savage, Myers, Bugliosi, and Willens, outnumbering what few CT books made it into the bookstore by a ratio of 10 to 1.

There was also a bias demonstrated in the selection of those asked to speak at the museum. While Bugliosi was asked to speak there, and while Max Holland was asked to speak there--to present his wacky theory about the first shot, no less--no writer (as opposed to a witness) believing more than one shooter fired on Kennedy was ever allowed to present their reasons for believing as much at the museum. That's my impression, anyhow. If anyone is aware of a prominent CT--Lane, Thompson, Groden, Wecht, Stone, even Blakey--being asked to speak at the museum, please set me straight.

None of this proves Gary was behind this, of course. It could very well be that his hands were tied, and that he had little input into what books were carried and what speakers were invited to speak at the museum.

May he rest in peace.

Edited July 15, 2015 by Pat Speer

[Martin Hay]

None of this proves Gary was behind this, of course. It could very well be that his hands were tied, and that he had little input into what books were carried and what speakers were invited to speak at the museum.

Actually, Pat, Gary told me himself that he had the responsibility of deciding which books were carried by the store.

I seem to recall he and I had this conversation when I asked him if the museum would be carrying Don Thomas's book. Despite the fact that he and Don were friends, and Gary obviously was a believer in the acoustics, I don't think they ever did stock it.

[Steven Gaal]

Like a lot of researchers, Gary stood by things he uncovered himself (Badgeman, the dictabelt recording) while pooh-poohing virtually everyone else's discoveries. While I wasn't active in the research community at the time, it is my understanding that Gary's rift with the research community came around the 30th, when other CTs were pushing Ricky White, Gordon Arnold, and Beverly Oliver's stories, and Jean Hill's latest story, as important parts of the solution to the crime.

In retrospect, I suspect Gary was correct to reject these stories as important and credible.

The other cause of the rift, however, is not as easy to forgive, IMO. While Gary used his position at the Sixth Floor Museum to improve the museum's visibility, it cannot go unstated that there was a tremendous bias demonstrated in what the museum chose to cover in its exhibits, and in what it chose to carry in its bookstore. While it is not true that there was an outright ban on CT materials, as purported by some, it is indeed true that there was a great imbalance, with LN books by the likes of Savage, Myers, Bugliosi, and Willens, outnumbering what few CT books made it into the bookstore by a ratio of 10 to 1.

There was also a bias demonstrated in the selection of those asked to speak at the museum. While Bugliosi was asked to speak there, and while Max Holland was asked to speak there--to present his wacky theory about the first shot, no less--no writer (as opposed to a witness) believing more than one shooter fired on Kennedy was ever allowed to present their reasons for believing as much at the museum. That's my impression, anyhow. If anyone is aware of a prominent CT--Lane, Thompson, Groden, Wecht, Stone, even Blakey--being asked to speak at the museum, please set me straight.

None of this proves Gary was behind this, of course. It could very well be that his hands were tied, and that he had little input into what books were carried and what speakers were invited to speak at the museum.

May he rest in peace.

What CT books were/are sold at the museum ?? ,gaal

Edited July 15, 2015 by Steven Gaal

[Robert Howard]

I've been to the 6th Floor Museum once or twice, and had exchanged emails with him more than a couple of times, but I never ran into him

there. I feel sad. Requiem aeternum. As for the CT/LN debate, one doesn't understand how the world works to expect a curator of the 6th floor museum, to constantly be quotedas saying "LHO didn't do it," and still be in that position for more than a day. That is just the way things are, like it or not. I certainly believe he was a good man, and the museum will be hard pressed to find anyone who can even come close to replacing him.

Edited July 15, 2015 by Robert Howard

[Jon G. Tidd]

As a poster at this forum, I received maybe four emails from Gary Mack. The gist of each email, as I recall, was to assure me that some point made by another poster was wrong. I'm not an email person and never responded.

I gathered many here respected Gary's knowledge of the case.

As for Gary's change of colors, my guess was that it had to do with money. My guess was that Gary was allowed to remain intellectually honest, according to his own lights.

[Pat Speer]

What CT books were/are sold at the museum ?? ,gaal

I reported on this several times over the years. While I'm pretty sure there were others, the two CT books I recall seeing there were Real Answers by Gary Cornwell, in which he wrote about the HSCA's investigation and the probability there was more than one shooter, and JFK: the Book on the Film, which includes the script to JFK, complete with hundreds of footnotes proving Stone hadn't made this stuff up, in addition to a couple of dozen reviews and articles about the movie and the assassination. I wanna say I saw Crossfire there as well, but I don't feel nearly as sure about that one.

Edited July 15, 2015 by Pat Speer

[Roger DeLaria]

I'm sorry to hear this. I received some pm's from Gary a few months back regarding a topic I posted, and he was very helpful and forthcoming with info. May he be at peace now.

[Kenneth Drew]

None of this proves Gary was behind this, of course. It could very well be that his hands were tied, and that he had little input into what books were carried and what speakers were invited to speak at the museum.

Actually, Pat, Gary told me himself that he had the responsibility of deciding which books were carried by the store.

I seem to recall he and I had this conversation when I asked him if the museum would be carrying Don Thomas's book. Despite the fact that he and Don were friends, and Gary obviously was a believer in the acoustics, I don't think they ever did stock it.

Actually, Pat, Gary told me himself that he had the responsibility of deciding which books were carried by the store. And what would you expect him to say? I think, from what I've read and heard that Gary started out to believe there was a conspiracy but went along with the 'owners' of the 6th Floor museum in their story that the Warren Commission was the 'true story'. I see nothing wrong with that. I don't really see what difference it makes which books the museum carry. That can't be much of a market for Assassination books. I've certainly never bought one there, and would guess not many readers of this comment ever did either.

[Vince Palamara]

It is a true measure of what the man meant to so many just by seeing the quantity and quality of responses to his sad passing, especially in relation to Harry Livingstone (total crickets, even with my circulating his virtues and history far and wide [passed away February 2015]) and even Vince Bugliosi (passed away 6/6/15)], at least in the online JFK research community, where the ratio seemed to be 10 to 1 in the "good riddance, bug man" category. With regard to Gary, I would say the ratio is 10 to 1 in respect of the man and his value to the community, no matter what side of the case you were on.

In fact (and I made this analogy on Facebook), Gary reminds me of the character in the Chuck Norris movie Missing in Action II that APPEARED to be a traitor yet, the whole time or, at least, near the end, actually was on "our side" (pro-conspiracy) after all. Yes, he definitely was the spokesman for the LN side in all those pro-LHO-did-it-alone television specials, worked for the Sixth Floor Museum, and seemed to have a hand in the overall bias of the books and views coming out of that place, but he also always seemed to give hints, both covert and overt, that his heart was in the pro-conspiracy camp (the "agent" of unknown repute in the plaza, Badge Man, the right rear of JFK's head being gone, etc.). I vividly remember his scathing review of Gerald Posner's book "Case Closed" in either late 1993 or early 1994 in the late Jerry Rose's journal The Third Decade wherein he said (and I remember this part word for word) that Posner "has given history a sham of a book", hardly the words of a "lone-nutter."

And yet the reputation lingered.

I think it was also because Gary was tired of all the silly nonsense stories and theories out there and sought (with Dave Perry) to eliminate them.

Gary was always nice to me and I have fond memories of his mailing me a free, unsolicited copy of "JFK: The Dallas Tapes" on VHS back in 1999 and never failing to politely answer my messages. I saw him briefly in Dallas on 11/22/97 and he was very gracious.

RIP, Gary

(and I am sorry for ripping off your fantastic line about a certain "suspect"---"James I-am-not-in-any-Files"; brilliant!)

Edited July 16, 2015 by Vince Palamara

[David Von Pein]

Horrible news. I'm stunned by this. Gary was one of the most helpful persons I've ever corresponded with. He will be greatly missed.

[Pat Speer]

None of this proves Gary was behind this, of course. It could very well be that his hands were tied, and that he had little input into what books were carried and what speakers were invited to speak at the museum.

Actually, Pat, Gary told me himself that he had the responsibility of deciding which books were carried by the store.

I seem to recall he and I had this conversation when I asked him if the museum would be carrying Don Thomas's book. Despite the fact that he and Don were friends, and Gary obviously was a believer in the acoustics, I don't think they ever did stock it.

Actually, Pat, Gary told me himself that he had the responsibility of deciding which books were carried by the store. And what would you expect him to say? I think, from what I've read and heard that Gary started out to believe there was a conspiracy but went along with the 'owners' of the 6th Floor museum in their story that the Warren Commission was the 'true story'. I see nothing wrong with that. I don't really see what difference it makes which books the museum carry. That can't be much of a market for Assassination books. I've certainly never bought one there, and would guess not many readers of this comment ever did either.

Thanks, Kenneth, for reminding me. Gary emailed me at one point to explain that books at the Museum bookstore needed to be pushed into the bookstore by the publisher, and to have passed his own smell test. He said that only a handful of CT books had ever been offered the bookstore, and that he would have approved a lot more if they had.

As far as the importance of the bookstore, I think you missed the point. Buffs and book collectors buy online, or shop at small used shops. But tourists and people just getting interested in the assassination buy thousands upon thousands of books a year from the sixth floor museum gift shop. It is in this way a gate-keeper. One can only guess the number, but it is incredibly clear that hundreds of thousands of tourists with an interest in the assassination have walked through its doors in search of something more concrete than they found in the museum itself...and have walked out either empty-handed or holding a shallow and/or deceptive Oswald-did-it book.