JFK Assassination Hypothesis

[Jason Vermeer]

I can't get a better resolution Bill. Perhaps someone with more expertise on this may be of assistance. Good luck. Jason

Thanks Jason,

You mentioned its from a book on Art Collins? Is it a biography, or the history of the company?

BK

Bill...The book's name is "Arthur Collins: Radio Wizard". It's written by Ben Stearns and it's described as "outlining his career" and "..history of Collins Radio under his leadership". It has 26 picture pages and you can order it online if you want. Hope this helps. Jason

[William Kelly]

Bill...The book's name is "Arthur Collins: Radio Wizard". It's written by Ben Stearns and it's described as "outlining his career" and "..history of Collins Radio under his leadership". It has 26 picture pages and you can order it online if you want. Hope this helps. Jason

THANKS JASON, THAT'S A NEW ONE ON ME. I'LL HAVE TO GET IT.

HERE'S AN ARTICLE I DID BASED ON ONE OF MY COPA PRESENTATIONS ON THE COLLINS RADIO CONNECTIONS, JUST SO EVERYBODY KNOWS WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT.

BK

THE COLLINS RADIO CONNECTIONS to the Assassination of President Kennedy

By William E. Kelly – Revised from report originally published in Backchannels magazine and presented as an abstract at the national conference of the Coalition On Political Assassination (COPA), October 10, 1994.

If the assassination of President Kennedy was the result of not only a conspiracy, but a covert action and coup d’etat, as many people believe, there should be evidence of this from both the scene of the crime(s) as well as from the highest echelons of power among those who took over the government. This would be especially so if the assassination was not a foreign attack by Cuban or Soviet intelligence service sponsors, but an internal manipulation of policy and control, an inside job.

As Edward Luttwack describes in his “How-To” book Coup d’etat – A Practical Handbook (Alfred A. Knopf, 1968, p. 117), “Control over the flow of information emanating from the political center will be our most important weapon in establishing our authority after the coup. The seizure of the main means of mass communication will thus be a task of crucial importance.” Rather than the mass communications of televison, radio and newspapers, as would occur in a normal coup, the control of primary communications after the assassination depended on only the control of Air Force One radio communicaitons.

At the scene(s) of the crime, eyewitness testimony is always suspect. Homicide detectives prefer more solid leads that provide documented evidence that can be introduced in court, such as fingerprints, telephone and automobile license records.

There are a number of automobile license records of significance in regards to the assassination of President Kennedy, including the tampered photo among the possessions of Lee Harvey Oswald of the license on 1957 Chevy in General Walker’s driveway, plus the license numbers of cars seen in Dealey Plaza photos immediately before and after the assassination.

Most significant however, is the Texas plate PP4537, which was jotted down on a piece of paper by an elderly Oak Cliff mechanic T. F. White, who on November 22, 1963, shortly after the assassination, noticed a man acting suspiciously behind the wheel of a 1958 two tone Plymouth sedan. The car was parked behind a billboard in the parking lot of a Mexican restaurant, with the driver, like White, watching the flurry of Dallas police cars racing down the street with sirens blaring, called to the nearby scene of the shooting of Dallas policeman J.D. Tippit.

White walked across the street to get closer and exchanged glances with the man who quickly drove away. White wrote down the license tag PP4537 on a piece of paper and forgot about it until later that day when he saw Lee Harvey Oswald on television and recognized him as the man he saw acting suspiciously in the Plymouth earlier that afternoon.

A few weeks later, when Dallas radio reporter and later mayor of Dallas Wes Wise gave a talk at the Oak Cliff restaurant, the owner of the garage where Mr. White worked mentioned the suspicious Plymouth to Wise, who then met White, who reluctantly told his story. “Do you have the piece of paper with the license number on it?” Wise asked, and sure enough, White had it right there in his pocket. PP4537.

Wise later said that he had to use all of his reportorial persuasions to convince White to hand over the paper with the number on it to him, that it was the patriotic and right thing to do and promised White that he wouldn’t get in trouble with the law. White said nobody knew who or what was really behind the assassination of President Kennedy and he really didn’t want to get involved, but he handed over the paper to Wise, who passed it on to the police and FBI.

A quick check of the Texas plate #PP4537 indicated that it was assigned to Carl Mather, of Garland, Texas. When the FBI went out to the listed Garland address they found the two tone 1958 Plymouth right there in the driveway and knocked on the door. Mrs. Mather answered, acknowledged the car belonged to her husband, who was then away at work at Collins Radio. When asked where her husband and the car was on Friday, November 22, 1963, she said that the car was in the parking lot at Collins Radio until sometime in the afternoon when her husband returned home and picked up the family to go to the Tippit residence to pay their respects to the widow and family of their good friend who was murdered that day.

Instead of going out to Collins Radio to interview Mather however, the FBI go to Mr. White, who Wes Wise had promised wouldn’t be involved, and took additional statements from him, changing his story for the official reports and exchanging the two tone Plymouth to a red Ford Falcon. CBS News made a polite inquiry years later, leaving Carl Mather of the documentary program they aired but listing Mrs. Mather in the programs credits. The House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) briefly looked into the affair, granted Mather immunity from prosecution to testify and then failed to question him under oath, and published a short report they titled “The Wise Allegation,” when in fact Wes Wise made no allegations, and merely followed up on his reporter’s instincts. He came up with an automobile license plate number that was scene near the murder of a Dallas policeman that was traced to one of the victim’s best friends, Carl Mather, whose alibi is that he was at work at the time, at Collins Radio.

Documents later released under the JFK Act indicate that Mather was questioned by investigators and claimed that he worked on electronics at Collins, his specific job being the installation of the radio equipment aboard Air Force Two – the Vice President’s plane.

That this lead was not properly investigated, and remains uninvestigated today, is because such leads actually do lead to the heart of the plot to murder not only Dallas policeman J.D. Tippit, but as many believe, is tied directly to the assassination of President Kennedy, and the Tippit murder may be the “Rosetta Stone” that could explain the mysteries of both murders.

The significance of the Collins Radio connections becomes apparent with a quick review of the published record, and that :

1) On November 1, 1963 the New York Times published a photograph of the ship the Rex, which Fidel Castro identified as the boat that dropped off a team of assassins in Cuba a few nights previous. The Rex was docked at Palm Beach, Florida, near the JFK family compound, and the Rex’s Halloween eve mission was in clear violation of President Kennedy’s March 1963 edict that no para-military raids against Cuba were to originate from U.S. shores. According to the article in the NYTs, the Rex had been sold by the Somoza regime in Nicaragua to the Belcher Oil Company, its dock fees paid by the CIA front company Sea Ship Inc., with the ship then being leased to the Collins Radio Company of Richardson, Texas.

2) Founded by Arthur Collins, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Collins Radio first made news headlines when young Collins was an amateur radio buff with the only, home made radio receiver who could pick up the radio communications of Navy Commander Richard E. Byrd from his polar exploration expedition. [Richard Byrd is the cousin of the founder of the Civil Air Patrol and owner of the Texas School Book Depository building].

3) Collins Radio became a major defense contractor during World War II, and following the war, participated in Operation Paperclip, hiring Dr. Alex Lipisch, the former Nazi scientist who developed the Delta I glider and ME 163 Komet jet fighter. For Collins, Lipisch was assigned to the boat development program that worked with General Dynamics in attempting to build a sleek, swift speedboat that could be used for Cuban infiltration missions like the Rex mission.

4) David Ferrie’s telephone records reflect that in the weeks before the assassination he made frequent calls from the New Orleans law office of G. Ray Gill to the Belcher Oil Company of Dallas, Texas, the company that was the listed owner of the Rex.

5) In the week before the assassination, a reservation was made at Jack Ruby’s Carousel Club for a large party of Collins Radio employees.

6) The Dallas P.D. Intelligence Division maintained a paid informant who worked at Collins Radio and reported on fellow employees who appeared suspicious or subversive, including one who subscribed to the leftist I.F. Stone Weekly.

7) When Lee Harvey Oswald returned to Texas from Soviet Russia, George DeMohrenschildt introduced him to retired Navy Admiral Chester Bruton, an executive at Collins Radio, with the idea of Oswald getting a job there, as he had worked in a radio factory in Minsk, USSR.

8) At the time of the assassination Adml. Bruton was working on a top-secret nuclear submarine communications project, with the Navy’s nuclear sub radar and communications HQ being based at Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

9) In 1963 Collins Radio began receiving large military contracts including one for the construction of a microwave communications network in Southeast Asia, specifically Vietnam.

10) After Oswald was murdered while in Dallas police custody by Jack Ruby, his widow Marina P. Oswald married former Collins Radio employee Kenneth Porter.

11) In Miami, Florida, a Cuban exile, and former executive of Collins Radio, was murdered, assassinated in a still unsolved homicide.

12) Collins Radio supplied and maintained the equipment used by the Voice of America, all manned NASA space flights, the Strategic Air Command (SAC), as well as all equipment used for the CIA’s Guatemalan and Cuban operations. Most significantly, Collins Radio was responsible for installing and maintaining all radio equipment aboard Air Force One, Air Force Two and the Cabinet’s plane.

13) According to the Collins Radio Annual Report to stockholders for 1963-64, Collins Radio not only installed and maintained the radios aboard most military and executive branch planes, they also operated the station known as “Liberty” at their Cedar Rapids, Iowa headquarters, which served as a relay station for all radio communications between the White House, the Pentagon, Air Force One, Air Force Two, the Cabinet plane and Andrews AFB in Washington.

[This “Liberty” station is misidentified on most transcripts of the edited version of the radio transmissions from Air Force One on 11/22/63. “Air Force One, the Presidential airplane, was placed in service in 1962 using communications equipment developed and manufactured by Collins. The aircraft…was modified to meet special requirements…In 1962, the station many remember as “Liberty” was opened and operated from the new communications building…(in Cedar Rapids, Iowa)…Collins had a contract with the Air Force to serve as either the primary communications station or as a backup whenever Air Force One, the presidential aircraft, and other aircraft in the VIP fleet carried cabinet members or high ranking military officers. Over the airwaves the station’s call word was ‘Liberty.’” – From Collins Radio – the First 50 Years.]

In his book The Making of a President – 1964, Theodore H. White wrote: “There is a tape recording in the archives o the government which best recaptures the sound of the hours as it waited for leadership. It is a recording of all the conversations in the air, monitored by the Signal Corps Midwestern center ‘Liberty,’ between Air Force One in Dallas, the Cabinet plane over the Pacific, and the Joint Chiefs’ Communications Center in Washington….On the flight the party learned that there was no conspiracy, learned the identity of Oswald and his arrest; and the President’s mind turned to the duties of consoling the striken and guiding the quick.”

According to the analysis of E. Martin Schotz and Vincent Salandria (in History Will Not Absolve Us, 1996), “And yet the White House had informed President Johnson and the other occupants of Air Force One, all of them witnesses to the hail of bullets which had poured down on Dealey Plaza, that as of the afternoon of the assassination there was to be no conspiracy and that Oswald was to be the lone assassin. If White’s report were correct this would mean that federal officials in Washington were marrying the government to the cover-up of Oswald as the lone assassin virtually instantaneously. This could have occurred only if those federal authorities had had foreknowledge that the evidence would implicate Oswald and that he would have ‘no confederates.’ An innocent government could not have reacted in such a fashion internally.”

Unfortunately, there is no longer “a tape recording in the archives of the government,” as the original, unedited, multiple tape recordings of the AF1 radio transmissions cannot be located despite an Act of Congress, the request of the Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB) and numerous Freedom of Information Act requests. Our government seems to have simply lost the recordings, with no records being kept of their whereabouts or destruction, if in fact they were destroyed.

The Final Report of the ARRB (p. 116) notes:

“6. White House Communications Agency.

“WHCA was, and is, responsible for maintaining both secure (encrypted) and unsecured (open) telephone, radio and telex communications between the President and the government of the United States. Most of the personnel that constitute this elite agency are U.S. military communications specialists; many, in 1963, were from the Army Signal Corps. On November 22, 1963, WHCA was responsible for communications between and among Air Force One and Two, the White House Situation Room, the mobile White House, and with the Secret Service in the motorcade.”

“The Review Board sought to locate any audio recordings of voice communications to or from Air Force One on the day of the assassination, including communications between Air Force one and Andrews Air Force Base during the return flight from Dallas to Washington D.C. As many people are now aware of, in the 1970s, the LBJ Presidential Library released edited audio cassettes of the unsecured, or open voice conversations with Air Force One, Andrews AFB, the White House Situation Room, and the Cabinet Aircraft carrying the Secretary of State and other officials on November 22, 1`963. The LBJ Library version of these tapes consists of about 110 minutes of voice transmissions, but the tapes are edited and condensed, so the Review Board staff sought access to unedited, uncondensed versions. Since the edited versions of the tapes contain considerable talk about both the forthcoming autopsy on the President, as well as the reaction of a government in crisis, the tapes are of considerable interest to assassination researchers and historians.”

“Given that the LBJ Library released the tapes in the 1970s, the paper trail is now sketch and quite cold. The LBJ Library staff is fairly confident that the tapes originated with the White House Communications Agency (WHCA). The LBJ Library staff told the Review Board staff that it received the tapes from the White House as part of the original shipment of President Johnson’s papers in 1968 or 1969. According to the LBJ Library’s documentation, the accession card reads: “WHCA?” and is dated 1975. The Review Board staff could not locate any records indicating who performed the editing, or when, or where.”

“The Review Board’s repeated written and oral inquiries of the White House Communications Agency did not bear fruit. The WHCA could not produce any records that illuminated the provenance of the edited tapes.”

At the time I delivered my report on “The Collins Radio Connections” to the National COPA Conference in Washington in October, 1994, the Washington Post had just then exposed the true occupant of a new, mammoth, suburban Virginia building. It was not the headquarters for Collins Radio/Rockwell International as had been previously reported, but they had just been the cooperating cover company for the super secret National Recognisance Office (NRO), just as Collins Radio had served as a cover for the CIA in the operation of the Rex in Cuba in1963.

[Note: Former ARRB investigator Doug Horne, who led the effort to find the unedited AF1 tapes, discussed these issues at his presentation at the JFK LANCER confernce in Dallas.

Also, in the October, 1998 issue of John F. Kennedy, Jr.’s George Magazine, - David Wise reported on how the NRO had “lost” $6 billion in U.S. taxpayer’s money, and specifically mentioned the fiasco surrounding the construction of the HQ building, or which Collins/Rockwell served as a cover company. ]

William E. Kelly is a freelance journalist whose research into the assassination of President Kennedy is partially sponsored by the Fund For Constitutional Government Investigative Journalism Project.

[Tim Gratz]

Bill wrote:

David Ferrie’s telephone records reflect that in the weeks before the assassination he made frequent calls from the New Orleans law office of G. Ray Gill to the Belcher Oil Company of Dallas, Texas, the company that was the listed owner of the Rex.

Interesting, Bill. (I think you have Gill's middle name misspelled.) Do you remember the source for this information? Can you actually find dates of the calls? Do you know for a fact Ferrie was calling? Any idea who the recipient of the calls was?

Thanks!

[William Kelly]

Bill wrote:

David Ferrie’s telephone records reflect that in the weeks before the assassination he made frequent calls from the New Orleans law office of G. Ray Gill to the Belcher Oil Company of Dallas, Texas, the company that was the listed owner of the Rex.

Interesting, Bill. (I think you have Gill's middle name misspelled.) Do you remember the source for this information? Can you actually find dates of the calls? Do you know for a fact Ferrie was calling? Any idea who the recipient of the calls was?

Thanks!

Hi Tim, Yes, G. Wray Gill, Pierre Marquette office building in downtown New Orleans, 17th floor, just down the hall from oil geologist Vernon Main, Jr. , Jim Braden's buddy.

Garrison obtained some of the phone records, the most significant of which documented a September 24th, '63 phone call to the apartment building in Chicago that was home to Jean Asie (aka West), Larry Meyer's companion.

The list of Ferrie's calls that I obtained came from Peter Whitmey in Canada, who did a story published in Jerry Rose's Third/Fourth Decade magazine, which included phone calls to the Belcher Oil Company of Dallas, Texas.

Now I haven't been able to substantiate that the Dallas Belcher is the same as the Florida Belcher, a large, family owned company, still in existence, who supply fuel oil for ships - ocean liners, etc. , which was listed as one of the owners of the Rex, having purchased it from Somoza's of Nicaragua.

According to Chauncy Holt, he was pals with "Buddy" Belcher and Jim Braden, both of whom were in New Orleans in the summer of '63.

I never intimidated that Ferrie actually made any of the calls, Garrison does that in Heritage of Stone. I don't think it matters whether Ferrie made the calls or Gill or whoever, the fact that they were made establishes a documented record linking the Gill's office and Belcher Oil. A proper investigation would identify the callers.

Bill Kelly

[David G. Healy]

[...]

Sometimes you don't know if anybody is listening.

More to come,

B. Kelly

____________________

Bill Kelly...

Nice to see you here, Bill.

Will be back up and running by the 7th of December

Will drop you a note then....

Hope you having a nice set of holidays -- miss your muses re the Jersey shore....

David Healy

[William Kelly]

[...]

Sometimes you don't know if anybody is listening.

More to come,

B. Kelly

____________________

Bill Kelly...

Nice to see you here, Bill.

Will be back up and running by the 7th of December

Will drop you a note then....

Hope you having a nice set of holidays -- miss your muses re the Jersey shore....

David Healy

HELLO DAVID, GOOD TO HEAR FROM YOU. CURRENTLY HOLDED UP AT THE FAMILY LAKE HOUSE IN THE JERSEY PINES. OCCASSIONALLY (LIKE LAST NIGHT) GET DOWN THE SHORE. HERE'S SOMETHING TO MUSE OVER. BK

The 1929 Atlantic City Organized Crime Convention

By William Kelly

Atlantic City has been known as a convention town for a long time, especially since the opening of the Convention Hall in 1929, but the most significant convention the city has ever hosted didn’t meet at Convention Hall or even conventionally, and certainly didn’t abide by Roberts Rules of Order.

Before the new boardwalk hall was finished, in May 1929, organized crime bosses from around the country met in Atlantic City in what was probably the most significant conference ever held, not only because of it’s effect on the future development of the town, but because of the national impact the decisions made there had on society, not only then, but over time, up to and including today.

At the time Atlantic City was considered a “wide open” town, a place where gangsters could go to make private, if sometimes illegal investments and for sit-down mob meetings. There were a few other “wide open” cities - Miami, Las Vegas and Old Havana, but Atlantic City was special and convenient.

Atlantic City was run by one man - Enoch “Nuckey” Johnson , the local political boss who ran the town as his private domain. Like “Commodore” Lou Kinley had before him, Nuckey got a percentage of practically every business in Atlantic City, especially illegal businesses, and as the 1929 meeting took place during Prohibition, the most lucrative business at the time was the importation of smuggled liquor.

Lonnie Zwillman of North Jersey controlled most of the bootleg market, once the cases of booze from the Caribbean and Canada were transferred at sea from mother ship transports to small Chirs Craft speedboats. Once brought ashore the booze was put on waiting trucks to be transported throughout the rest of the country. It was later estimated, by the Kefauver Committee, that Zwillman’s outfit had a 65% market share of all illegal booze in North America.

But there were also illegal casinos in Atlantic City at the time, all operating openly and open to the public. And Big Time confidence men like Charlie Gondorff (of The Sting fame) were allowed to run Big Store Con games, as long as long as they only hit on transients and didn’t make marks of any local citizens. The cops were on the take, the booze flowed, gambling proliferated openly and Atlantic City was like Port Royale of the Pirate’s Caribbean. Booze, casino gambling, the boardwalk and beach, it didn’t even seem like there was a Depression going on.

Things appeared quite normal on May 12th, 1929 when newlyweds Meyer and Anna Citron Lansky checked into one of the city’s finer boardwalk hotels. They were assigned the Honeymoon Penthouse with it’s panoramic view of the ocean and boardwalk.

Which hotel they checked into is not recorded for history, but you can be sure it was one owned by Jewish businessmen, as all the first class hotels at the time were owned by Jews or Quakers, and each served a different clientele. That’s a fact that came into play the very next day when Alphonese “Scarface” Capone stepped off a train and took a cab to one of the city’s classier hotels. Although he entered town unnoticed, and he signed into the hotel under an assumed name, his cover would soon be blown, the city of Atlantic City would be shaken upside down and the nation would rattle with the aftereffects for decades.

Snickering to his lieutenants as he signed the fictitious name to the register, Capone got a smile from Frank Nitti, Murry Humphries, Jake Guzik and Frank Rioi, but the joke quickly turned sour when the somewhat naive and strictly formal desk clerk looked at the name and politely informed Capone that, “I’m sorry sir, but this hotel does not serve those of your persuasion. My I suggest you try the hotel just down the street.”

This was Atlantic City, New Jersey, probably the only place in America where “Scarface” Al Capone could mingle with the masses and go unrecognized. He did however, have a friend in his old pal Nuckey Johnson. Capone had been Johnson’s gracious host two years earlier when Nuckey went to Chicago and was supplied with ringside seats to the Jack Dempsy-Gene Tunney heavyweight fight – the famous battle of the “long count’ bout.

Now Capone was in Atlantic City to meet with Meyer Lansky and other mob bosses. They came to Atlantic City because Nuckey Johnson controlled the town and they were assured they wouldn’t be subjected to the police hassles the Sicilian Mafia guys were subjected to in Cleveland a few weeks earlier.

Although Nuckey Johnson couldn’t protect Capone from some ethnic embarrassment, he did have such tight control over all facets of the city’s operations that, unless they robbed a bank or made a scene, known gangsters from out of town didn’t have to worry about being picked up for questioning by the police. Capone made a scene.

Told by a hotel clerk that he couldn’t check in because he signed his name under a wrong ethnic persuasion, Capone’s famous temper flared, and after a burst of obscenities and the trashing of some lobby furniture, Nuckey Johnson quickly learned that Al Capone was in town. Moving quickly to meet him, Capone and his entourage were heading south on Pacific Avenue when they were intercepted by Johnson’s convoy of dull, black limos heading the other way. They met in the middle of the street, blocked traffic for a few minutes as Capone emerged from his cab, cigar in hand, and gave Nuckey an obscenity laced public verbal lashing, letting off steam from the hotel desk incident.

Once appeased by Johnson, always the gracious host, they hugged and patted each other on the back and adjourned to the back of Nuckey’s limo. After seeing that Capone and his people had proper accommodations at the right hotel, Johnson and Capone were later seen taking in the tourists sights together and strolling down the world famous boardwalk.

Johnson and Capone then had dinner in the Italian “Ducktown” neighborhood, not far from the recently completed Convention Hall - the new auditorium which was then the largest of its kind in the world, with the biggest stage and the largest pipe organ as well. While it established Atlantic City as a major convention town on the East Coast, it’s facilities were not to be used by the guys who started checking in behind Lansky and Capone.

From Cleveland came Al “the Owl” Polizzi, one of the Sicilians hassled by cops at the earlier regional sit-down a few weeks earlier. Also from Cleveland was Moe Dalitz of the Mayfield Road Gang and his bootleg companions, Morris Kleinman, Sam Tucker and Louis Rothkopft. Other gangsters who have been identified as having attended the Atlantic City meeting include Charles “King” Solomon from Boston, Joe Bernstein from Detroit, and Joe Lanza from Kansas City, all of whom came with their henchmen in tow.

From North Jersey there was Abner “Longie” Zwillman, who controlled most of the New Jersey bootleg shipments. Philadelphia was well represented by Harry “Nig Rosen” Stromberg, Max “Boo Boo” Huff, Sam Lezar and Charles Schwarts. By far, the biggest delegation came down from New York, and consisted of Frank Costello, Author “Dutch Schultz” Flegenheimer, Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, Joe Adonis, Salvadore “Lucky” Luciano and Meyer Lansky.

Anne Citron Lansky got angry the next morning when she read in the morning newspaper that Al Capone was in town, and knew that it had to more than just a coincidence. Her new husband couldn’t even go on his honeymoon without having business to take care of.

Born Maier Suchowljansky in Grodno, Poland in 1902, young Meyer came to the United States in 1911 with his mother, sister and younger, but bigger brother Jake. Like so many other arrivals, his birthdate was noted by immigration officials as July 4th, and he took quickly to the American dream.

Later telling Israeli journalists Uri Dan that he took to gambling early, relating an incident that occurred when he was a young boy walking down Delancy Street in Manhatten on an errand for his mother. Coming across a sidewalk craps game he quickly lost his mother’s nickel, an event that had a profound affect on his life. “What troubled me more than anything else,” Lansky said, “was that I had been a loser, and that night….I swore to myself that one day I would be a winner.”

Going back to the sidewalk craps game young Lansky watched and studied the gamblers intently, and learned when to place his bet with a sure winner. “Then I began to notice,” he said, “that the men who actually ran the dice games were only pawns…of other well dressed and prosperous men,” who he also noticed seemed to be all Italians who in turn were “servant” who were “collecting the money for somebody bigger. So it must be a very big business, gambling with nickels and dimes on the sidewalks of the Lower East Side.”

After graduating from Public School #34 in 1917, Lansky worked as an auto mechanic, and first came to the attention of the police when he was arrested for fighting with Charles Luciana and Benjamen Siegel. That was the first time he was known to have officially used the name Lansky, and after the judge listened to their story, he decided that the boys had “bugs in their heads,” which temporarily gave Lansky the nickname “Meyer the Bug,” but Siegel could never shake the name “Bugsy.”

The three boys became fast friends and developed business associations, while Luciana rose in the ranks of the Italian Mafia allied under Joe “the Boss” Masseria. They were perennially at war with another New York gang run by Salvatore Maranzano, whose henchmen picked up Luciano and took him for a ride to Statin Island where they shot him a number of times and left for dead. Luciano miraculously survived, earning him the nickname “Lucky” Luciano.

Lansky, Siegel and Luciano formed a life-long alliance with each other and established themselves on the Lower East Side as a competent and efficient guns-for-hire entrepreneurs that became known as “The Bugs and Meyer Mob,” which also included Joseph “Doc” Stacher, Joe Adonis, Abner “Longie” Zwillmen and Arthur “Dutch Schultz” Flegenheimer. They either escorted Zwillmen’s bootleg liquor or they hijacked any competitors who tried to muscle in on their rackets in their territory.

Philadelphia gangster “Waxy” Gordon was especially upset at the Bug and Meyer Mob for hijacking some of his truck shipments and, as with the Capone-Moran feud in Chicago, there was tension between gangs. Since Capone actually controlled only certain sections of Chicago, other Chicago gangsters also came in to the Atlantic City meeting, including Joe “Polock” Saltis and Frank “Machine Gun” McEarlane, complete with violin cases under their arms.

Other than Capone, these were mostly new names and faces in the underworld of 1929, but before long they would make their mark and become household names. The old-guard “Mustache Petes” who ran the big city rackets for the previous few decades, referred to these new, young gangsters as “The Young Turks,” but they in turn, were considered too old fashioned, narrow-minded and set in their ways to mingle with the gangsters of other nationalities and neighborhoods. The “Petes” were not even invited to this meeting.

To some, Luciano was thought to represent the New York capo de capi Guseppi “Joe the Boss” Masseria, but in retrospect, Luciano had Masseria murdered and replaced him after the protracted war that was wagged between Masseria and the other New York rackets boss Salvadore Maranzano. Masseria and Maranzano were from the Old Order and were on the way out, and The Young Turks knew it.

One member of the old school who was invited and did attend the Atlantic City conclave was John Torrio, who was born in Naples and was one of the first immigrants to leave the notorious “Five Points” section of Brooklyn to go to Chicago, where he ran his uncle’s whorehouse. After killing his uncle and setting up his own numbers racket, Torrio brought in Al Capone from the old neighborhood to be his enforcer.

Torrio, who didn’t drink or smoke, was Capone’s mentor and one of the oldest and wisest of the delegates at the Atlantic City convention. He would play a significant role by making key policy decisions concerning the promotion of other vices, most notably gambling.

While there would be other, more notorious meetings of mobsters – Havana, 1946, the 1957 Apalachin, New York meeting that was broken up by local police, a New York restaurant sit down that was also busted by the cops, the 1929 meeting in Atlantic City was most significant because it established a new policy of inter-city-gang cooperation on a nationwide basis.

It was not a question of who was at Atlantic City, but who was not there. Besides the Mustache Petes from the Old Order of things, Bugs Moran was the most notable big name absentee. He was left back in Chicago to lick his wounds and regroup his forces after the disastrous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

As the most blatant gangland mass murder in history, the massacre called attention to the mobsters and put pressure on them from the public, the press, politicians and the police. It became the most influential factor in persuading the factional mob leaders of the necessity for a meeting to hash things out. Rather than let the situation get completely out of hand and reach a level of violence that would force the authorities to take action, the gangsters decided to sit down at the same table for the first time, discuss their mutual problems and arrange for an agreeable solution like normal businessmen.

Although most of the published sources place the main gathering of gangsters at the President Hotel on the Boardwalk, the large number of delegates made it necessary for them to meet in smaller caucus to discuss the topics on the agenda. Pushed along the boardwalk in wicker-rolling chairs, they didn’t talk in front of the push cart operators, but at the end of the boardwalk, like other tourists in from the big city, they took off their shoes and socks, rolled up the cuffs of their pants and waded in the shallow surf like any normal day-tripper. With their conversations muffled by the sounds of the surf breaking, the mobsters plotted strategy and began the long term planning that would control organized crime activities for the next fifty years.

Since minutes of the meetings were not transcribed for posterity, legend has it that the order of business was basically two fold. For one, they had to agree on an amiable solution to the conflicts that erupted into mob warfare, primarily geographic turf battles. Secondly, since by then it was obvious that Prohibition would not last forever, they had to get involved in legitimate businesses as well as devise an alternative source of illegal income once Prohibition ended.

As for mob warfare, since such violence hurt everyone’s business, they decided to end such conflicts by adhering strictly to the territorial spheres of influence, with each gang controlling particular rackets in each area. They also agreed to work together in setting prices, sharing warehouse space and coordinating the wholesale distribution of liquor.

The Atlantic City accords were a radical departure from pervious mob practices because they also agreed to form an executive committee to oversee and arbitrate all disputes, denote the degree of punishment to all violators and to set policy for the governing of all future illegal operations.

The creation of the Board of Directors of the National Syndicate of Organized Crime was as big as the founding of the United Nations. Although it’s very existence would be kept hidden from the public for decades, and spy novelist Ian Fleming would ridicule them with his fictional Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion – SPECTRE, it would become generally known as “The Commission.”

As for the second item on the agenda, they decided to explore gambling as a replacement for the lucrative illegal liquor profits after prohibition. With the repeal of the Volstead Act in 1933, gambling became the main preoccupation of the local mobs until 1946, when, after the Havana meeting, the French Connection became the primary source of the drugs and narcotics that would become the Syndicate’s primary source of revenue other than gambling.

The Federal Bureau of Narcotics concluded, from information provided from undercover informants, that the Atlantic City convention established the basis for the Syndicate that carved the nation into specific territories, developed a system of kangaroo courts that provided the gangsters with their own quasi-judicial system, and protected the hierarchy of the local mafia families.

Arrangements were also made to invest in a multi-million dollar slush fund to bribe law enforcement officials, ensure the election of certain politicians, hire the best attorneys and pay for the educational development of promising young men who could serve their interests in the future.

The hallmark of the meeting in Atlantic City was the centralizing of particular powers with an executive committee, like the board of directors of a blue chip industry, an exceptional and extraordinary concept that was not immediately acceptable to many of the ethnic oriented gangsters like Massaria and Marrassano, who were dinosaurs that had to go the way of the buffalo.

The dissentions of the still primarily ethnically Italian gangsters was overcome in a power-play move when Lansky nominated the Mafia’s own Johnny Torrio as Chairman of the Board, a motion that quickly won the endorsement of most of the mobsters present. Torrio was also the only one who could take care of Capone, whose violent ways were causing problems for all of them.

With the Commission in charge, Torrio at the helm and business completed, the final item on the agenda was Capone, and what to do with him. While the Chicago rackets were combined, and Capone was the nominal boss, he had to take a vacation, or he was going to be thrown to the wolves. He was given the option of dieing right then, or taking a sabbatical from the business for a while. The newspapers had all reported that Capone was in town and one of the William Randolph Hurst newspapers even ran a faked composite photograph of Capone, Knucky Johnson and Meyer Lansky walking down the boardwalk, all of which had the pubic clamoring for Capone to be busted for something.

Although they put an APB - All Points Bulletin out for the man who was seen all over town – throwing chairs in a hotel lobby, screaming obscenities on Pacific Avenue, having dinner in Ducktown, riding in a wicker-walker and strolling down the boardwalk with Johnson, suddenly, Capone couldn’t be found anywhere.

According to local legend, when the heat was turned on, Capone slipped out of Atlantic City and retreated to a local private country club, either the Atlantic City Country Club in Northfield or Seaview in Absecon, where he played bad golf and good cards until the heat was off a few days later.

On May 16, 1929, a week after Lansky’s wedding, Capone showed up at the train station but missed the train by minutes. With a police motorcycle escort to the edge of town, Capone’s entourage drove to Philadelphia, where he again just missed a train to Chicago. Going to a movie on Market Street with his bodyguard Frank Rio, Capone emerged from the theater to be confronted by Philadelphia Police Detective James “Shooey” Malone.

Malone flashed his badge, they talked quietly for a moment and Capone calmly volunteered his .38 caliber revolver and was promptly arrested by Malone. Rio momentarily balked, but Capone smiled and urged him to surrender his weapon too.

Philadelphia’s Director of Public Safety Major Lemel B. Schoefield accepted praise for the arrest of the nation’s number one crime czar, though it later became apparent that Det. Malone had met Capone the year before at Hialeah racetrack in Florida, and Capone had arranged for his own arrest. Besides taking the heat off the rest of the Syndicate, in the secure hands of the law he also acquired sanctuary from a vengeful Bugs Moran.

In the custody of the Philadelphia authorities, Capone was forthcoming about the Atlantic City Sit Down, emphasizing the decision to end mob warfare. “I told them,” Capone said, reciting a line from one of Lansky’s lectures, “there is enough business to make us all rich, and it’s time to stop the killing and look on our own business as other men look on theirs.”

When asked about the purpose of the meeting, Capone said, “It is with the idea of making peace among the gangsters that I spent the week in Atlantic City and got the word of each leader that there will be no more shooting.”

But Capone also told them he, “…had to hide from the rest of the racketeers,” who weren’t at the meeting. They had a vendetta against him. It seems that there comes a point in every gangster’s career when, despite all the power and money they have accumulated, life is suddenly vulnerable to one professional contract killer. John Torrio thought that prison was the safest place, Sam Giancana, who would later take over the Chicago mob, fled to Mexico and South America, Joe Bonnano had himself kidnapped. Capone chose jail.

Philadelphia Criminal Court Judge John E. Wash sentenced Capone harshly for such a petty crime of being a suspicious person and carrying a concealed deadly weapon, the maximum of one year at Holmesburg Penitentiary. After a short stint there however, Capone was transferred to the more relaxed confines of Eastern Pen, where he served out the duration of his sentence under the lenient warden Herbert B. Smith, who furnished Capone’s cell with lamps, a library, radio console and lounge chair and gave him access to his private office telephone.

With Capone in jail, the Syndicate began the process of getting rid of the old Mustache Petes and preparing to engage in Big Time gambling activities on a very large scale.

In Hoboken, New Jersey, Lansky’s new father-in-law permitted him to use his Molaska Inc. as a front for a number of his illegal businesses, one of which was the largest distillery in the state. Molaska took its name from molasses chips, a necessary ingredient for the making of rum, which became more profitable than smuggling it.

Molaska rum business took Lansky to Cuba, where he met with Sgt. Fugencio Batista, the strong-arm coup leader who twice took over the reins of Cuba. The first time he was in power Lansky made a deal with Batista to allow him to open a legal casino in Cuba, much like the illegal casinos he operated in Florida, New York and New Jersey. In order for the Syndicate to control casinos in Havana, it was arranged for casinos to operate in hotels with 500 rooms or more, and since the Syndicate controlled Hotel National was the only hotel in Havana with 500 rooms, the Lansky mob owned the only casino in Cuba.

The second Havana hotel to qualify for a casino was owned by Santo Traficante, who hired Atlantic City native John Martino to run his electronics and security operations.

Two weeks before Castro came to power Lansky and the Syndicate sold the National Hotel-Casino to Mike McLaney and Carroll Rosenbloom, both of whom would loose their shirts in the deal. While Mike McLaney’s brother William owned the land near New Orleans where anti-Castro Cuban commandos trained – and reportedly the Magazine Street house where Lee Harvey Oswald lived, Lyndon Baines Johnson would be Rossenbloom’s houseguest in Atlantic City during the 1964 Democratic National Convention.

In 1976 New Jersey law allowed for legal casinos in Atlantic City hotels that had 500 rooms or more, - the Havana model, with only one hotel in the entire city that qualified – Resorts International, a Lansky-Syndicate controlled company. The second and third Atlantic City casinos – Bally and Caesars, were also Syndicate controlled companies, following the policies, delineating the strategies and continuing the traditions laid out at the 1929 Convention.

The federal government did not officially recognize the existence of the syndicate until May 1, 1951 when Estes Kefauver, Chairman of the Senate Crim Investigating Committee, visited Atlantic City, New Orleans, Chicago and New York before determining and reporting that, “a nationwide crime syndicate does exist in the United States,…and behind the local mobs which make up the national crime syndicate is a shadowy, international criminal organization known as the Mafia.”

Even after that, the FBI refused to place a priority on the Mafia or organized crime until years later, when local police broke up a major mob meeting in upstate New York.

The records of Kefauver’s investigation were then promptly and routinely locked away for 50 years as “Congressional Records,” which are exempt from Freedom of Information Act requests.

In 1998, the Assassination Records Review Board refused to release the records of the Kefauver Committee investigation by declaring them “assassination records” because they claimed they were not related to or considered relevant to the assassination of President Kennedy, even though the second chief counsel to the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) believes that the President may have been the victim of a mob hit.

The Kefauver Committee records were scheduled for release in 2001, but are being systematically released after being reviewed by request.

Xxxyyyzzz

[William Kelly]

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Since discussing conspiracy theories and research methodology I thought I'd bring this old thread back to life.

APPROACH – My approach is that of a regular, independent homicide investigator whose responsibility is to identify, locate and preserve evidence of crimes that can be presented in a court of law.

HYPOTHESIS : Fr. Gr. An unproven theory, proposition, etc., tentatively accepted to explain certain facts or (working hypothesis) to provide a basis for further investigation, argument, study, etc.; a tentative theory provisionally adopted to explain certain facts and to guide in the investigation of others – frequently called a working hypothesis; as, the nebular hypothesis. Something assumed or conceded merely for the purpose of argument or action; as start with this hypothesis – Syn. Postulate, assumption, supposition.

– I have developed a series of hypothesis that have focused my research and when followed, will lead to those responsible for the murder of JFK.

(H#1) – The assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the murders of J.D. Tippit and Lee Harvey Oswald were homicides, the prosecution of which is an indictable offense at any time, with no statute of limitations. Since homicide is considered the highest form of crime under our system of justice, the judicial system should respond accordingly if there is evidence of criminal conspiracy in their deaths.

(H2) The accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, whether he was a shooter, patsy or was in any way connected to the assassination of the President, had numerous associations with many different intelligence services, both foreign and domestic, and utilized standard intelligence operational procedures in many of his activities (i.e. military background, use of aliases, forged identity documents, trained in foreign language, electronics, interrogation techniques, use of codes and ciphers, etc.). Therefore, the motive for the assassination was elemination and the Modus Operandi (MO) was that of a covert intelligence operation, and it should be investigated as such.

(H3) Even if the assassination of JFK was the work of a covert intelligence operation, which is designed to insulate, protect and hide the actual sponsors, the murder can be solved using standard homicide investigation techniques and/or counter-intelligence procedures, although results of CI investigation cannot be used in court.

(H4) The individuals responsible for the covert operation that resulted in the death of the President were serial killers in the sense they had committed political assassinations before 11/22/63 and have done so since, using standard covert operational procedures as their MO.

(H5) The covert operation that resulted in the murder of President Kennedy included a Black Propaganda Operation (Black Prop Op), which began prior to 11/22/63 which was designed to attribute blame for the assassination on Fidel Castro of Cuba. Those individuals who orchestrate this campaign are part of the same network that sponsored the events that occurred at Dealey Plaza.

(H6) Covert operational procedures can be utilized by anyone trained in such techniques, and only individuals, and not governmental organizations and agencies can be indicted for murder and/conspiracy or crimes related to the assassination.

(H7) Those individuals who sponsored the covert operation that resulted in the death of the President were also involved in similar covert operations aimed at Fidel Castro, as well as other clandestine projects that included MK/ULTRA, U2, Operation Wringer, Project Paperclip and Mongoose/JM/WAVE.

(H8) The Dealey Plaza operation was directly related to two covert operational maritime missions that may have involved plans to kill Fidel Castro – the mission of the Flying Tiger II (aka Bayo-Pawley raid) Rex (See: NYT, Nov. 1, 1963).

(H9) Those who expressed foreknowledge of the assassination of JFK before it occurred were somehow associated with the sponsoring parties.

(H10) Because of the expressed foreknowledge, the let down in security at the time of the assassination, and the failure to properly investigate and prosecute those responsible, the assassination can be considered a coup d'etat, and those technicians who conducted the assassination operation were directly associated with those who took over the government and protected the responsible parties.

PLAN A – OBTAIN A NEW ROUND OF DEPOSED TESTIMONY UNDER OATH –

1) Congressional Hearing (– List Committees – ie. Government Operations)

2) Libel Trial - Posner, Lampert, et al - pick one -

3) Civil Suit – Ala MLK -

4) Grand Jury – Ala Medgar Evers – A D.C. Fed. Grand Jury, ala Dupont Circle, would immediately require a new, independent forensic autopsy of victims.

5) Homicide – On going related homicide investigations ( See: Related Unsolved Homicide List)

6) Other – List possibilities ?

PLAN B – FULL COURT PRESS - Focusing on FOIA & Civil Suit

(In tantum, run simultaneous with PLAN A -)

[Charles Drago]

Bill's hypotheses in black, my comments in red.

________________________

H#1) – The assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the murders of J.D. Tippit and Lee Harvey Oswald were homicides, the prosecution of which is an indictable offense at any time, with no statute of limitations. Since homicide is considered the highest form of crime under our system of justice, the judicial system should respond accordingly if there is evidence of criminal conspiracy in their deaths.

Of course it should be the non-prosecutions of these homicides that rise to the level of indictable offenses. That the judicial system has not responded supports indictments of those who control that system as accessories after the fact.

(H2) The accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, whether he was a shooter, patsy or was in any way connected to the assassination of the President, had numerous associations with many different intelligence services, both foreign and domestic, and utilized standard intelligence operational procedures in many of his activities (i.e. military background, use of aliases, forged identity documents, trained in foreign language, electronics, interrogation techniques, use of codes and ciphers, etc.). Therefore, the motive for the assassination was elemination and the Modus Operandi (MO) was that of a covert intelligence operation, and it should be investigated as such.

My intention is not to bog us down in arguments over semantics. But the eliminators of JFK were motivated by their shared, perceived need to remove the threats posed by JFK to their sources of profit and power. Your evaluation of the eliminators' MO is on target.

(H3) Even if the assassination of JFK was the work of a covert intelligence operation, which is designed to insulate, protect and hide the actual sponsors, the murder can be solved using standard homicide investigation techniques and/or counter-intelligence procedures, although results of CI investigation cannot be used in court.

I agree that application of the standard techniques of a homicide investigation to the JFK case is a sine qua non for the success of any such inquiry. But intelligence operations by definition are designed to defeat such methods and will do so absent the additional application of what you term "counter-intelligence procedures."

Case in point: A well-executed cover story, which is designed in essence to pacify the parsimonious with its simple, plausible, fictive narrative supported by "evidence" made out of whole cloth, turns Occam's razor into a blunt and ineffective instrument.

Absent sophisticated appreciations of how the killers operate, even the most gifted of investigators is doomed to failure.

(H4) The individuals responsible for the covert operation that resulted in the death of the President were serial killers in the sense they had committed political assassinations before 11/22/63 and have done so since, using standard covert operational procedures as their MO.

Absolutely.

(H5) The covert operation that resulted in the murder of President Kennedy included a Black Propaganda Operation (Black Prop Op), which began prior to 11/22/63 which was designed to attribute blame for the assassination on Fidel Castro of Cuba. Those individuals who orchestrate this campaign are part of the same network that sponsored the events that occurred at Dealey Plaza.

Absolutely.

(H6) Covert operational procedures can be utilized by anyone trained in such techniques, and only individuals, and not governmental organizations and agencies can be indicted for murder and/conspiracy or crimes related to the assassination.

Excellent point.

(H7) Those individuals who sponsored the covert operation that resulted in the death of the President were also involved in similar covert operations aimed at Fidel Castro, as well as other clandestine projects that included MK/ULTRA, U2, Operation Wringer, Project Paperclip and Mongoose/JM/WAVE.

On other threads I've presented my hypothesis regarding the plot's structure: Sponsors, Facilitators (in some instances AKA false sponsors), and Mechanics. If, in your H7, you are referring to the individuals who inhabit my mid-level, we are in agreement.

(H8) The Dealey Plaza operation was directly related to two covert operational maritime missions that may have involved plans to kill Fidel Castro – the mission of the Flying Tiger II (aka Bayo-Pawley raid) Rex (See: NYT, Nov. 1, 1963).

"Directly related" is rather imprecise. I would go so far as to acknowledge significant connective tissue.

(H9) Those who expressed foreknowledge of the assassination of JFK before it occurred were somehow associated with the sponsoring parties.

Based upon my hypothetical plot structure as noted above and elsewhere, I strongly disagree. How about substituting "the facilitating parties"?

(H10) Because of the expressed foreknowledge, the let down in security at the time of the assassination, and the failure to properly investigate and prosecute those responsible, the assassination can be considered a coup d'etat, and those technicians who conducted the assassination operation were directly associated with those who took over the government and protected the responsible parties.

Broadly speaking: yes. But again we encounter problems related to semantics, and I seek clarification. For me, "technicians" is a term appropriately used to describe the shooting teams. The Facilitators you reference were/are linked to the Sponsors of the assassination, although I'd argue your use of "directly."

Further, and more significantly, your use of the term "government" is highly problematic. It was JFK and RFK who hijacked the visible government and threatened the deep political hegemony of the assassination's "responsible parties."

The Kennedys were in the midst of conducting their own de facto coup d'etat against the deep political state -- a self-correcting system that did just that on 11/22/63.

We must have the courage to understand that the government was NOT overthrown when JFK was murdered.

The government was restored.

What we are about is is what JFK and RFK were about: its overthrow.

Respectfully,

Charles Drago

Edited August 16, 2007 by Charles Drago

[William Kelly]

Bill's hypotheses in black, my comments in red.

Charles, Many thanks for reading my hypothesis and consider your responses taken.

Ken Rhan is the one who asked me to form these hypothesis, though I don't think it came out the way he intended.

BK

________________________

H#1) – The assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the murders of J.D. Tippit and Lee Harvey Oswald were homicides, the prosecution of which is an indictable offense at any time, with no statute of limitations. Since homicide is considered the highest form of crime under our system of justice, the judicial system should respond accordingly if there is evidence of criminal conspiracy in their deaths.

Of course it should be the non-prosecutions of these homicides that rise to the level of indictable offenses. That the judicial system has not responded supports indictments of those who control that system as accessories after the fact.

(H2) The accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, whether he was a shooter, patsy or was in any way connected to the assassination of the President, had numerous associations with many different intelligence services, both foreign and domestic, and utilized standard intelligence operational procedures in many of his activities (i.e. military background, use of aliases, forged identity documents, trained in foreign language, electronics, interrogation techniques, use of codes and ciphers, etc.). Therefore, the motive for the assassination was elemination and the Modus Operandi (MO) was that of a covert intelligence operation, and it should be investigated as such.

My intention is not to bog us down in arguments over semantics. But the eliminators of JFK were motivated by their shared, perceived need to remove the threats posed by JFK to their sources of profit and power. Your evaluation of the eliminators' MO is on target.

(H3) Even if the assassination of JFK was the work of a covert intelligence operation, which is designed to insulate, protect and hide the actual sponsors, the murder can be solved using standard homicide investigation techniques and/or counter-intelligence procedures, although results of CI investigation cannot be used in court.

I agree that application of the standard techniques of a homicide investigation to the JFK case is a sine qua non for the success of any such inquiry. But intelligence operations by definition are designed to defeat such methods and will do so absent the additional application of what you term "counter-intelligence procedures."

Case in point: A well-executed cover story, which is designed in essence to pacify the parsimonious with its simple, plausible, fictive narrative supported by "evidence" made out of whole cloth, turns Occam's razor into a blunt and ineffective instrument.

Absent sophisticated appreciations of how the killers operate, even the most gifted of investigators is doomed to failure.

(H4) The individuals responsible for the covert operation that resulted in the death of the President were serial killers in the sense they had committed political assassinations before 11/22/63 and have done so since, using standard covert operational procedures as their MO.

Absolutely.

(H5) The covert operation that resulted in the murder of President Kennedy included a Black Propaganda Operation (Black Prop Op), which began prior to 11/22/63 which was designed to attribute blame for the assassination on Fidel Castro of Cuba. Those individuals who orchestrate this campaign are part of the same network that sponsored the events that occurred at Dealey Plaza.

Absolutely.

(H6) Covert operational procedures can be utilized by anyone trained in such techniques, and only individuals, and not governmental organizations and agencies can be indicted for murder and/conspiracy or crimes related to the assassination.

Excellent point.

(H7) Those individuals who sponsored the covert operation that resulted in the death of the President were also involved in similar covert operations aimed at Fidel Castro, as well as other clandestine projects that included MK/ULTRA, U2, Operation Wringer, Project Paperclip and Mongoose/JM/WAVE.

On other threads I've presented my hypothesis regarding the plot's structure: Sponsors, Facilitators (in some instances AKA false sponsors), and Mechanics. If, in your H7, you are referring to the individuals who inhabit my mid-level, we are in agreement.

(H8) The Dealey Plaza operation was directly related to two covert operational maritime missions that may have involved plans to kill Fidel Castro – the mission of the Flying Tiger II (aka Bayo-Pawley raid) Rex (See: NYT, Nov. 1, 1963).

"Directly related" is rather imprecise. I would go so far as to acknowledge significant connective tissue.

(H9) Those who expressed foreknowledge of the assassination of JFK before it occurred were somehow associated with the sponsoring parties.

Based upon my hypothetical plot structure as noted above and elsewhere, I strongly disagree. How about substituting "the facilitating parties"?

(H10) Because of the expressed foreknowledge, the let down in security at the time of the assassination, and the failure to properly investigate and prosecute those responsible, the assassination can be considered a coup d'etat, and those technicians who conducted the assassination operation were directly associated with those who took over the government and protected the responsible parties.

Broadly speaking: yes. But again we encounter problems related to semantics, and I seek clarification. For me, "technicians" is a term appropriately used to describe the shooting teams. The Facilitators you reference were/are linked to the Sponsors of the assassination, although I'd argue your use of "directly."

Further, and more significantly, your use of the term "government" is highly problematic. It was JFK and RFK who hijacked the visible government and threatened the deep political hegemony of the assassination's "responsible parties."

The Kennedys were in the midst of conducting their own de facto coup d'etat against the deep political state -- a self-correcting system that did just that on 11/22/63.

We must have the courage to understand that the government was NOT overthrown when JFK was murdered.

The government was restored.

What we are about is is what JFK and RFK were about: its overthrow.

Respectfully,

Charles Drago

[Charles Drago]

Bill,

I've had my own Ken Rahn experience. In my Constitutionally protected opinion, he is an intellectual fraud when it comes to his JFK work.

I do not trust him, and I do not know him to be an honorable man.

What is your opinion of Herr Rahn?

Charles

[William Kelly]

Bill,

I've had my own Ken Rahn experience. In my Constitutionally protected opinion, he is an intellectual fraud when it comes to his JFK work.

I do not trust him, and I do not know him to be an honorable man.

What is your opinion of Herr Rahn?

Charles

At first we exchanged some emails and he tried to interest me in his way of "critical thinking," something that Fetzer too was interested in doing.

When I met him at a DC conference a few years ago - he was all pumped up about his article in a peer-reviewed magazine on a scientific analysis of the bullet fragments.

Our discussion in DC lasted only a few minutes, as he made a strong case for Oswald being the assassin, and I didn't argue with him, but rather explained my thesis of Oswald fitting the criminal profile of an operative agent so whatever happened at DP was a covert op.

He did say however, that I "think like Charles Drago."

BK

[Charles Drago]

I knew that if I waited long enough, Rahn would compliment me.

While he was still teaching an assassination "critical thinking" course at the University of Rhode Island, Herr Doktor maintained that he had an open mind on the event. Keep this in mind.

In the late 1990s I took him up on an offer to co-host a JFK conference in Providence, and it was during the run-up and the event itself that I learned all I need to know about him.

Over a planning dinner at a since-demolished riverfront pub (J.G. Goff's, for the record), Rahn leaned across the table and in his best conspiratorial whisper asked, "Can I convince you [that the WC got it right], Charlie?"

Nope.

Soon it was showtime. As he introduced the presentation of his own paper at the conference, Rahn told all assembled that, when he was done, never again would anyone be able to argue rationally for more than three bullets having been fired at the Dallas motorcade.

Well, after Rahn concluded. it took less than five minutes for Stewart Galanor, using mathamatics and simple logic, to demolish Herr Doktor's "argument."

And how did Rahn respond? Nervously. Disingenuously. Disgustingly.

"Now, now, what I've shared tonight is just a work in progress."

"'Work in progress,' Doctor Rahn?" Stewart asked incredulously. "Didn't you just get through telling us that your paper was the final word on the subject?" (I'm paraphrasing -- tightly.)

Then Stewart asked to see Rahn's work product -- his bench notes, if you will. His proofs.

"They're in my other briefcase," Herr Doktor sheepishly replied.

Stewart immediately noted that this was the second conference at which Rahn had used the excuse.

(Personally, I would have gone for something along the lines of, "The guard dogs ate my homework.")

Through it all, the sweet little grandma who chaired URI's Political Science Department, which sponsored Rahn's JFK course, sat silent, a moron's empty smile carved into her aged visage.

In a classic Stockholm Syndrome moment, Rahn's hostages -- er, students -- were the first to rush to his defense. Alas, they did not possess the critical thinking skills necessary for the job at hand.

Rhode Islanders, gaze upon your tax dollars at work.

Charles

Edited August 18, 2007 by Charles Drago

[Cliff Varnell]

I've had my own Ken Rahn experience. In my Constitutionally protected opinion, he is an intellectual fraud when it comes to his JFK work.

About five years ago on Lancer I discussed Rahn's "Tague Frag Theory" with him.

When I pointed out to him that his 3g head-shot fragment had to maintain a straight

line trajectory into the teeth of a hard swirling wind, he simply denied that a 20mph

wind would have any significant impact on the fragment's velocity or trajectory over

a course of 85-yards.

And this guy teaches Atmospheric Chemistry?

Officer Marrion Baker testified that a strong wind from the north almost

knocked him over at the corner of Houston/Elm -- but at the moment of the

headshot the strong wind was blowing from the south-west.

A couple of times Rahn has pooh-poohed anything I had to say because I'm

a poker dealer and not an academic.

A fraud and a snob to boot!

[William Kelly]

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

APPROACH – My approach is that of a normal, independent homicide investigator whose responsibility is to identify, locate and preserve evidence of crimes that can be presented in a court of law.

HYPOTHESIS : Fr. Gr. An unproven theory, proposition, etc., tentatively accepted to explain certain facts or (working hypothesis) to provide a basis for further investigation, argument, study, etc.; a tentative theory provisionally adopted to explain certain facts and to guide in the investigation of others – frequently called a working hypothesis; as, the nebular hypothesis. Something assumed or conceded merely for the purpose of argument or action; as start with this hypothesis – Syn. Postulate, assumption, supposition.

– I have developed a series of hypothesis that have focused my research and when followed, will lead to those responsible for the murder of JFK.

(H#1) – The assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the murders of J.D. Tippit and Lee Harvey Oswald were homicides, the prosecution of which is an indictable offense at any time, with no statute of limitations. Since homicide is considered the highest form of crime under our system of justice, the judicial system should respond accordingly if there is evidence of criminal conspiracy in their deaths.

(H2) The accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, whether he was a shooter, patsy or was in any way connected to the assassination of the President, had numerous associations with many different intelligence services, both foreign and domestic, and utilized standard intelligence operational procedures in many of his activities (i.e. military background, use of aliases, forged identity documents, trained in foreign language, electronics, interrogation techniques, use of codes and ciphers, etc.). Therefore, his motive and the Modus Operandi (MO) of the assassination was that of a covert intelligence operation, and it should be investigated as such.

(H3) Even if the assassination of JFK was the work of a covert intelligence operation, which is designed to insulate, protect and hide the actual sponsors, the murder can be solved using standard homicide investigation techniques and/or counter-intelligence procedures, although results of CI investigation cannot be used in court.

(H4) The individuals responsible for the covert operation that resulted in the death of the President were serial killers in the sense they had committed political assassinations before 11/22/63 and have done so since, using standard covert operational procedures as their MO.

(H5) The covert operation that resulted in the murder of President Kennedy included a Black Propaganda Operation (Black Prop Op), which began prior to 11/22/63 which was designed to attribute blame for the assassination on Fidel Castro of Cuba. Those individuals who orchestrate this campaign are part of the same network that sponsored the events that occurred at Dealey Plaza.

(H6) Covert operational procedures can be utilized by anyone trained in such techniques, and only individuals, and not governmental organizations and agencies can be indicted for murder and/conspiracy or crimes related to the assassination.

(H7) Those individuals who sponsored the covert operation that resulted in the death of the President were also involved in similar covert operations aimed at Fidel Castro, as well as other clandestine projects that included MK/ULTRA, U2, Operation Wringer and Project Paperclip.

(H8) The Dealey Plaza operation was directly related to one covert operational mission to kill Fidel Castro – the mission of the Rex (See: NYT, Nov. 1, 1963).

(H9) Those who expressed foreknowledge of the assassination of JFK before it occurred were somehow associated with the sponsoring parties.

(H10) Because of the expressed foreknowledge, the let down in security at the time of the assassination, and the failure to properly investigate and prosecute those responsible, the assassination can be considered a coup d’etat, and those technicians who conducted the assassination operation were directly associated with those who took over the government and protected the responsible parties.

PLAN A – OBTAIN A NEW ROUND OF DEPOSED TESTIMONY UNDER OATH –

1) Congressional Hearing (– List Committees – ie. Government Operations)

2) Libel Trial - Posner, Lampert, et al - pick one -

3) Civil Suit – Ala MLK -

4) Grand Jury – Ala Medgar Evers – A D.C. Fed. Grand Jury, ala Dupont Circle, would immediately require a new, independent forensic autopsy of victims.

5) Homicide – On going related homicide investigations ( See: Related Unsolved Homicide List)

6) Other – List possibilities ?

PLAN B – FULL COURT PRESS - Focusing on FOIA & Civil Suit

(In tantum, run simultaneous with PLAN A -)