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Alan Kent

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  1. A short essay by Larry Hancock from "Dealey Plaza Echo" dissecting the Hunt "confession" and offering up numerous reasons for disbelieving it. I suspect that Hunt's final assassination story was a dying gift to his son - a way to make a buck or two. Hunt was, by most accounts, a crappy father and a poor husband, as well as being a venal tool of the worst within the US intelligence community. Hunt attempting to atone for neglecting his son. Or, perhaps, simply laughing from beyond the grave at one final disinformation ploy. http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?absPageId=1561908
  2. While Jim Braden certainly was not a shooter - any more than John Rosselli was crawling through storm drains in Dealey Plaza that day - there was suspicious activity afoot in that building. Larry Hancock, in "Someone Would Have Talked," relates a story told to him by Dallas police officer Roy Vaughn. Vaughn said he was directed by a security guard to a large, well-dressed fellow who had been in the Dal-Tex building soon after the shooting. Vaughn attempted to question the man, and he said...nothing. He produced an expensive wallet replete with a large selection of credit cards, and he simply smiled. Vaughn walked him to the Sherrif's office, where (this will come as a shock to students of the assassination) he simply disappeared from history. Dallas Uranium and Oil was a company that appeared to do little. It was a product of the efforts of three men, one of whom (Morty Freedman) ran one of the many textile businesses that resided in the Dal-Tex in '63. It is the only non-textile business listed in the directory of the Dal-Tex at the time. If one wanted to track the motorcade with the thought of getting off shots from the rear, the Dal-Tex would have had a quite direct line to the President, although a proposed shot from the lower floors (as posited by Groden, among others) might not have cleared the SS men to the rear of Kennedy. It probably means something - though God knows what - that J. Edgar Hoover apparently owned ONE lone share of stock in this dubious company.
  3. Generally, you can find a kind soul at a public library who will be willing to check some things out for you! I have had success by relying on the kindness of research librarian strangers!
  4. I yield to no one in my opposition to central banks and their activities (which largely benefit the "1%"), but the people who were involved in conspiring against Kennedy in '63 could have given a tinker's damn about the Fed. They were interested in Castro, not Hayek.
  5. Much of Burnham's post is solid. I would suggest, though, that Fetzer has done enough genuinely valuable work (OK, or he has PROMOTED enough valuable work!) that it is still well worth listening to what he has to say. Obviously, what anyone puts out there needs to be evaluated using a decent methodology. Condemning everything that a person says going forward because of past issues is no good. Read it, analyze it, and either integrate it into a useful perspective, or toss it in the trashcan. But don't immediately discount it because the name "Fetzer" precedes it.
  6. Several years ago, I was interested enough to track the percentage increases/decreases in prime defense contracts that were awarded prior to and after the assassination of JFK. Three of the most dramatic increases during the 1965-69 period were shown by Collins Radio, Ling-Temco-Vought, and Bell/Textron. All three of these (relatively) small companies had individuals connected with them who have been tied to the Kennedy assassination. Not in "6-degrees-of-seperation" party game theorizing, but serious, relevant connections, deserving of investigation. Two prime movers in these companies, Arthur Collins and D.H. Byrd, were long-time friends. Bill has noted the multiple Collins connections to the covert operations being carried out in contravention of Kennedy administration policy in '63. Byrd's extraordinarily prescient inside stock purchase in an industry which was, in '63, far from robust, has been commented on by Peter Scott, and others who have looked into the Mac Wallace business as well. At one or two times in his investigation of the assassination, Jim Garrison displayed a great deal of interest in the military/corporate/financial entities who may have been involved in some way in Kennedy's death. Unfortunately, he focused on some of the largest defense contractors, companies that were likely to do well regardless of the identity of the White House occupant. He should have looked further down the ranks, at companies whose fortunes were more directly tied up in Kennedy's demise and, of course, in the ascendance of the Texan vice-president. None of this is to suggest that Kennedy's death was a topic of discussion at any official corporate gathering; simply that a select few individuals who may have been connected to (and demonstrably profited by) Kennedy's demise should have been questioned in a thourough investigation. And that researchers today should continue to be interested in these individuals and possible ties to the assassination.
  7. And that many who are listed on "mysterious deaths" compilations led very dangerous lives in addition to any involvement they may have had in the Kennedy matter.
  8. Wadden was also the personal attorney of Fred Black, "lobbyist" extraordinaire, co-conspirator of Bobby Baker in Serv-U Corp.-related influence-peddling, neighbor of LBJ, and very close friend of Johnny Rosselli. As Black was being investigated in 1964, he was rumored to have threatened to reveal knowledge he had of the JFK assassination. Perhaps he had good sources...
  9. Johnson's V.P. military aide Howard Burris told Gus Russo that Johnson knew that he was going to be "thrown off the ticket" in '64, and that "that was going to be the end for him." Whether or not Johnson would actually have been dumped has always struck me as almost beside the point. Clearly he BELIEVED that he was to be tossed. And that his political career (which was, for Johnson, virtually his life) was over.
  10. While skepticism is certainly in order here, I am hesitant to simply toss Kurtz out as a (potentially) important witness. It is possible that he was simply well-placed/well-connected in New Orleans. Is it possible that he has inserted tall tales into otherwise serious work? Sure; stranger things have happened. I would want to see something of a contemporaneous nature corroborating his interview with Leake. Still, fabrication of evidence would be a pretty devastating charge against a professor of history! The followup question that comes to mind is: If Leake did tell Kurtz this stuff, what do we know about Leake's reliability. That he was CIA in New Orleans (and I believe that we have agency documentation to that effect, though I don't have it in front of me) would not, of course, rule out the possibility that he had an agenda that led him to spread mis/dis-information. Part of the problem we have in trying to evaluate witnesses from New Orleans (both pro and anti-Garrison) is that they ALL seem to have agendas! Let's see what we get from Kurtz through Lancer this year. Or, perhaps he would like to comment on these issues, if he follows our discussions!
  11. Kurtz is a very important witness for many reasons. His (and his friends') sightings of Oswald around New Orleans with Bannister and Ferrie are significant, if accurate. When Kurtz went on record with this information, he was firmly of the belief that Castro was behind the assassination, so he saw no great relevance to these associations. His claim that Bannister actually introduced Oswald to him while the two were debating civil rights at a local college strikes me as very important as well. It speaks to Bannister using Oswald to "sound out" local students, but not, IMO, to Bannister setting up Oswald as a potential patsy, as Garrison theorized. "This is Lee Oswald. Please remember that you saw him here with me after the assassination goes down..." Not plausible. I believe Larry Hancock is involved in putting together either an appearance or a video interview with Kurtz for this year's NID. Should be fascinating. I agree with your observation re: Helms, Tim. The thought that he would perjure himself is silly, and that implication clearly renders Leake's account absurd!!
  12. Here's my take on achieving the maximum amount of understanding of what Hemming has legitimately brought to the table: Read his HSCA deposition, then follow with Noel Twyman's Hemming section. Then stop. This will save the reader countless hours of wondering whether Nazis were rapelling down elevator shafts at the TSBD, or whether something Gerry told someone when he was drunk is important. Bottom line, IMO: Gerry knows or strongly suspects that Roy and Vidal were in Dealey Plaza that day, and was/is horrified by the implications. About 95% of the rest is moonshine.
  13. Occam's razor, put forth precisely as intended, is a very useful maxim for streamlining thought. Dictionary definition: "The maxim that assumptions introduced to explain a thing must not be multiplied beyond necessity." The key wording obviously is "beyond necessity," making a detailed knowledge of the subject matter mandatory before the principle can be properly applied. Using "Occam" to avoid confronting the real-life complexity of covert operations is not only a misuse, but often a confession of intellectual sloth or cowardice. IMO.
  14. Charles, Power was one of Lemay's proteges; one of the most fearless participants in Lemay's (and it really was largely Lemay's..) project: the terror bombing of Japanese cities from late 1944 through the end of WW2. He was, of course, Lemay's personal choice to take on the command of SAC upon Lemay's rise to power. In a fairly well-known quote from one of Lemay's many oral histories, he described Power as being "something of a sadist," possibly a clue that Lemay knew very well that Power was barely under control. Beyond that, what we know of their personal relationship is: not nearly enough. This is a particular problem in studying Lemay. We know a great deal about his military and political views, and relatively little about his private life and associations. His most serious biographer (Tom Coffey) wrote up a nice read, but a lot of it was boilerplate. The bulk of Lemay's personal papers are in the hands of his daughter in California. I was curtly informed by a spokesman for the Lemay Foundation that she "doesn't deal with researchers." Maybe we need Jim Marrs to visit her and join her in a bit of Scotch...
  15. 1.) Lemay was certainly NOT crazy, either in a clinical sense or in the sense that we often use the term. Many of his subordinates and peers in Air Force ranks were far more ideologically hard-core. That judgement is not necessarily a defense of Lemay, as much as it is an indictment of the over-the-top, "if one of us survives, we win" anti-communism that permeated Air Force/Air Force Intelligence circles throughout the cold war. 2.) THIS IS SPECULATION: IF Lemay was involved in any way in the assassination, I suspect that his role might have involved making use of foreknowledge to remove the chance SAC head Thomas Power might respond to the murder with a precipitate nuclear strike. Power (who really WAS about half-crazy) had the authority to do just that in an emergency situation. Lemay's role would have involved the removal of cryptographic code books from the lockers of SAC pilots who would have been in the air at the time of the murder. I haven't gone anywhere with this hypothesis because I haven't had access to SAC pilots who were active at the time. I may get some access this year. More to come... 3.)Yeah, Tim, Lemay did make the remark McNamara quoted. That statement (and much more about the mindset of airpower advocates) can be found in Michael Sherry's superb "The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon."
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