Don Jeffries

I'm shocked that knowledgeable researchers weren't aware of this document, which is not new. In fact, I quoted it in my book Hidden History. It does, of course, provide definitive proof that the mainstream media were willing participants in the cover up.

You are probably referring to Weitzman's niece. He had no children.

In a community full of huge egos and difficult personalities, Bernice Moore was a beacon of light. She was unfailingly helpful and polite. The research community will not be the same without her. My condolences to her family.

I recounted a very strange phone conversation I had with Weitzman's nephew in my book Hidden History. The fear was obvious in his voice as he kept saying, "I don't know nothing!" That's some conspiracy, that can still frighten the nephew of a police officer who was associated with an assassination some fifty years earlier. As both the HSCA report and Michael Canfield noted, Weitzman's mental illness, such as it was, was directly connected to the events on November 22, 1963. He was a crucial witness, and it's a real shame that he wasn't thoroughly interviewed by researchers, especially before his mental breakdown. I was unable to track down his niece, who seems to have been more interested in the case, and would probably have had a lot to say.

Cliff, you are indeed my old friend. Maybe you and the other good people who are supporting Hillary Clinton can change the Democrats into something that I could return to- something Dennis Kucinich-Cynthia McKinney-like. I've voted too many times for the McKinneys, Naders, Perots and Steins of the world. They probably don't even count any of the votes, but they sure aren't counting the Third Party votes honestly. I've never voted Republican before, but Trump isn't really a Republican- he just chose them because the super delegates couldn't screw him there, like they screwed Bernie. I don't think you have much to worry about- I really can't see them letting Trump get elected. If he does get elected, then I will probably instinctively think he must be a phony. We'll just have to agree to disagree here.

By the estimates of extreme "conspiracy theorists," whom I trust more than the court historians, America has been at war for virtually its entire existence- some 93% of the time. This figure may be a bit a of a stretch, but however you cut it, the United States has been at war far more often than it has been at peace. I was born in 1956, and other than a brief interlude after the Vietnam War, this country has been at war somewhere my entire life. The last time we had a constitutional war- one where it was declared by Congress- was World War II. Our leaders don't bother with such niceties, and the people don't seem to care. Even if Donald Trump was the Nazi-racist-misogynist beast portrayed nonstop by the mainstream media, he couldn't hope to be any more "dangerous" than the warmongering neocons and their candidate of choice, Hillary Clinton, who has never met a war she didn't like. We have lived in a brewing police state at least since 9/11. With "hate speech" and "free speech zones" and the odious Patriot Act, it is doubtful that Adolph Hitler, let alone Donald Trump, could do much more damage to what is left of our civil liberties than any of the presidents we've had in recent years. Remember, "liberal" Barack Obama brags about assassinating people, and Hillary relishes in it, too. The neocons most of us hate fear Trump, and support Clinton. That should tell you something. We are on the absolute verge of collapse in America. You can't have a First World nation when nearly half the people have zero wealth, and you continue to import even poorer immigrants into the mix, who simply make that half with zero wealth keep growing. There are few good jobs, and no industry left. The corrupt state thrives on globalism and war. As Smedley Butler put it in War is a Racket- "there are no real enemies, only opportunities for profit."

Very interesting. I had no idea that Rothbard was so knowledgeable about the assassination. Few people remember that Larry Flynt was JFK, Jr.'s guest for a soiree at the White House not long before he died. Or that he was associated with Ruth Carter Stapleton, the sister of President Carter and, like Flynt, quite the assassination "buff" herself. Thanks for sharing, Douglas!

John Armstrong’s “Harvey and Lee” From my blog at http://donaldjeffries.wordpress.com John Armstrong’s massive Harvey and Lee is an impressive work, and every JFK assassination researcher owes Armstrong a debt of gratitude for his countless hours of research, which included extensive travelling in order to personally interview witnesses, many of them never interviewed before. According to the late Jack White, John Armstrong sunk some $100,000 of his own money into the self-publication of his book. Despite the fact that Armstrong expended such time and resources on his investigation, he quickly became a divisive figure in the critical community, with many “respectable” researchers belittling and ridiculing his efforts. I still don’t buy wholeheartedly into Armstrong’s “theory,” which is that two look-a-likes, one of them Russian-born “Harvey” and the other good old southern boy “Lee,” were part of an intricate intelligence operation, which began when they both were youngsters. But the evidence Armstrong assembled regarding the discrepancies in the physical appearance and personal demeanor of Lee Harvey Oswald, not to mention the differing recollections regarding his mother Marguerite, are impossible to ignore. I took voluminous notes during the reading of Harvey and Lee, which I often do. What follows is some of the most important information I gleaned from this indispensable book. Palmer McBride claimed to have worked with Lee Harvey Oswald at Pfisterer Dental Laboratory in New Orleans, from October 1957 to May 1958. Marine Corps records show that Oswald was in Japan during this time period. FBI agents arrived at Pfisterer Dental Laboratory on the morning of November 23, 1963, and confiscated all of Oswald’s employment records, and they were subsequently destroyed. Palmer McBride recalled that Oswald was obsessed with politics, didn’t drink, always talked about communism and said he wanted to kill Eisenhower. They were close friends, and went on dates together. Armstrong spoke to many of Oswald’s fellow Marines, who remembered quite a different person, the “Lee” who was, according to Armstrong, involved in later setting up “Harvey” as the patsy for the Kennedy assassination. Zack Stout and others who served with Oswald at Atsugi, Japan, claimed they never saw him speak or study Russian. These Marines remembered “Lee” as a drinker, who never discussed politics and frequently engaged in fights.The Marines who served with “Harvey” recalled the constant political chatter from the tea-totaling Marxist who never fought. Basically, there were two sets of witnesses who remembered Lee Harvey Oswald. The ones who served with “Harvey,” the historical Oswald we know and love, were the ones questioned by the authorities. The ones who served with “Lee” were mostly ignored, and John Armstrong has included their collective testimony in his Harvey and Lee. It is simply impossible to accept that one individual could have been both a heavy drinker and a tea- totaler, a willing scrapper and someone who never engaged in fisticuffs, an out-spoken Marxist and someone who never discussed politics. The Warren Commission would conclude about the young Lee Harvey Oswald, “There were few children of his age in the neighborhood, and he appears to be by himself after school most of the time.” Classmates of Oswald’s at Ridglea West Elementary School remembered him very differently, however; as a robust, athletic “leader” who got into lots of fights and was “the tallest, the dominant member of our group in elementary school,” to quote Richard Garrett, who was in his fifth grade class. The young Oswald showed no signs of violent or disturbing behavior, according to numerous friends, neighbors and teachers that Armstrong interviewed. On the other hand, Lee’s brother Robert Oswald, wrote in his book Lee, that Oswald lived in a fantasy world, being especially obsessed by the t.v. show I Led Three Lives. While Robert wrote, “When I left home to join the Marines, he was still watching the reruns” of his favorite show, John Armstrong checked and found that I Led Three Lives didn’t premiere until September, 1953- over a year after Robert left for the Marines on July 15, 1952. Robert would also falsely claim that Lee’s favorite show as an adult was The Fugitive. Again Robert had problems with the historical timeline; he also told interviewers that he hadn’t seen or spoken to Lee since Thanksgiving Day, 1962. The Fugitive didn’t begin airing on television until September 17, 1963. Oswald’s original New York school records disappeared while in the custody of FBI agent John Malone. His original psychiatric records also disappeared while in FBI custody. New York PS #44 health records listed Oswald as being 5’4, while Dr. Milton Kurian described the boy he interviewed as very short, only about 4’6. Warren Commission records have Oswald attending both PS #44 in New York and Beauregard Junior High in New Orleans during the fall of 1953. The 1953 Bronx Zoo photo of a skinny, smaller Oswald is markedly different than the taller, husky Oswald that appeared in a 6th grade photo in Fort Worth the year before. Armstrong showed the zoo photo to Oswald’s Ridglea classmates, and they basically said, “Who’s that?” Oswald’s half-brother John Pic immediately identified Lee in the Fort Worth picture, but told the Warren Commission, after looking at the Bronx Zoo photo, “Sir from that photo I could not recognize that is Lee Harvey Oswald.” Robert Oswald, on the other hand, supported the official narrative at every turn, and while he supposedly took the zoo photo in 1953, oddly wrote “1952” on the back of the picture. John Armstrong contacted John Pic at his Florida home in 1995. When he asked about all the discrepancies in Lee’s appearance, which Pic himself had remarked upon to the Warren Commission, Pic replied, “I gave my testimony to the Warren Commission in 1964. I’ll stand by that testimony and have nothing further to say.” Going even deeper down this rabbit hole, photos taken of Marguerite Oswald as late as 1957 show a tall, slender, good-looking woman. This attractive lady is the mother of Oswald that many of those Armstrong talked to remembered. As early as 1954, a photo of Oswald’s alleged mother revealed the overweight, short, elderly looking woman presented to the world after the assassination. This is the woman Palmer McBride identified from that 1954 photo, whom he met in 1957. Marguerite and Lee lived with Myrtle and Julian Evans in New Orleans. They described young Lee as loud and demanding, with a “Foghorn” voice. On page 679 of the Warren Report, it is stated, “Lee is remembered by those who knew him in New Orleans as a quiet, solitary boy with few friends.” Beauregard teacher Myra DaRouse knew Oswald well as a student in her homeroom, and described him as very quiet and small. A year later, in 1955, Dolly Shoe owner Maury Goodman claimed that young employee Oswald spoke so softly that he had to put his ear close to him in order to hear what he was saying. The Evans’ knew the real Marguerite- the slender, good-looking one, for many years. Mrytle and Julian both described her as “beautiful.” Oswald’s best friend in New Orleans was Edward Voebel. Voebel took the famous photo of Oswald with a missing tooth, sitting in the back of a classroom, later published by Lifemagazine. Voebel told the Warren Commission that the woman he’d seen represented as Oswald’s mother in the media was far different than he recalled. “I didn’t recognize her. She was a lot thinner….” In May, 1971, Voebel suddenly became ill and was taken to the New Orleans Ochsner Clinic, allegedly because of “insecticide poisons.” After phoning his family to tell them he felt much better and was ready to go home, Voebel suddenly died of a “blood clot.” Dr. Alvin Ochsner was affiliated with the CIA’s Information Council of the Americas. Voebel’s death certificate inexplicably states that he died at Foundation Hospital in Metairie, Louisiana. In 1978, Voebel’s father told the HSCA that he felt his son had died under mysterious circumstances. Myrtle Evans told the Warren Commission, regarding her friend Marguerite Oswald: “she looked so old and haggard, and I said that couldn’t be Margie.” Myra DaRouse, who knew Oswald very well, claimed that this boy was not the Oswald she knew. Meanwhile, brother Robert had Lee attending Stripling Junior High School, something not in the official narrative. The principal of Stripling, Ricardo Galindo, told Armstrong that it was “common knowledge” that Oswald attended Stripling. There were no records found tying Oswald to Stripling. Former assistant principal of Stripling Frank Kudlaty volunteered to Armstrong that he’d given Oswald’s school records to the FBI, who came to the school and took them on the day after the assassination. Kudlaty also reported that when he looked at Oswald’s records, he found no copies or transcripts from previous schools, which he thought was very unusual. Marguerite Oswald was given a book of documents and a typewritten chronology before she testified before the Warren Commission, which she frequently (and oddly) referred to. This background information on the history of Lee Harvey Oswald was provided by New York Timesreporter Jack Longelt. Not only is it exceedingly strange for a mother to need notes to recite her own child’s history, but I could find absolutely no further information about the enigmatic reporter Jack Longelt. Leander D’Avy, doorman of the Court of Two Sisters restaurant in New Orleans, claimed that in June 1962, a young man came in and asked if Clay Bertrand worked at the restaurant. Night manager Gene Davis heard this, told D’Avy he wanted to talk to the young man. D’Avy subsequently overheard Davis tell a waitress that this man had been behind the Iron Curtain. D’Avy claimed this young man had lived in an apartment over the restaurant at the time, and later again in November 1963. At both times, Oswald was officially living in Dallas. Davis, interestingly enough, was an active FBI informant. D’Avy would also claim to have seen this “Oswald” in the same bar with Clay Bertrand/Shaw. Of all who knew him in Russia, only Marina would claim Lee spoke Russian. Oswald was close to the Ziger family in Russia, none of whom spoke English except for the father, Alejandro. In 1998, Armstrong traveled to Buenos Aires to interview his daughter Ana Evelina Ziger, who told him Oswald had no willingness to learn and speak Russian. Augusta, Georgia Dixie Cab driver Lynn Davis Curry claimed that he picked up a passenger in November 1962, who introduced himself as Lee Oswald. He revealed that he’d been in the Marines, had married a Russian girl, supported Fidel Castro and was traveling to New Orleans. As he left the cab, Oswald insisted that he write his name down and said he would be hearing more about him in the future. Armstrong demonstrates, better than I’ve seen anywhere else, just how absurd Marina Oswald’s wildly conflicting, ever-changing testimony was. Her comments regarding the backyard photos, and her allegations about Oswald shooting Walker, were especially ridiculous. The HSCA was so perturbed by Marina’s constant changes in testimony that they created a 29 page memo titled “Marina Oswald Porter’s Statements of a Contradictory Nature.” To cite just one example, while Marina claimed to have found and destroyed an additional backyard photo of Oswald, this one with the rifle raised over his head triumphantly, she told the HSCA that she didn’t remember such a photo.She would later tell researcher William Law that Oswald was holding “something else” when she took the backyard photos. Armstrong does a nice job documenting all of the problems with Ruth Paine as well. Ruth discovered many items incriminating Oswald, after the Dallas Police had thoroughly searched her home. One of them was a long note in Russian, purported to be detailed instructions from Lee to Marina on what to do after his shooting attempt at General Walker. Marina initially said she knew nothing about it, but changed her story the very next day. Armstrong also raises a very logical question: why didn’t alleged Kennedy fan Ruth Paine make plans to see him when he visited Forth Worth and Dallas? Then there was Ruth Paine’s curious greeting to Dallas officers who came to search her home after the assassination, that “we’ve been expecting you.” Detective Gus Rose certainly found Ruth’s “expectations” strange, and after witnessing Michael Paine arrive at the Paines after the police had, heard him say “something to the effect, ‘Ruth it’s me. Just as soon as I heard where it happened I knew you’d be needing some help.’” Rose pointed out, “At this time there still hadn’t been mention of Oswald on the television but, uh, I didn’t know how to take that.” I’ve read so many books on the JFK assassination that I stopped counting them long ago. I thought I knew almost everything about this case, but I discovered a lot of new information inHarvey and Lee. According to the flight plan filed by David Ferrie, for instance, an individual named “Hidell” was one of the passengers who flew with him from New Orleans to Garland, Texas on April 6, 1963. Armstrong details the case of Roy Frankhauser, who was an undercover agent scheduled to testify before the Warren Commission, until his appearance was quashed by the Executive Department on grounds of “national security.” Frankhauser had identified both Ruth and Michael Paine as fellow undercover agents and charged that Ruth Paine had been assigned the role of Oswald’s “baby sitter.” Laura Kittrell, of the Texas Employment Commission, on her own noticed differences between the Lee Harvey Oswald she’d interviewed earlier and the alleged Teamster who showed up at her office on about October 17, 1963, at a time when Oswald was working at the TSBD. Kittrell very astutely concluded that this was “A fellow who was pretending to be the man whose wife has just had a baby, and who has been coached upon how to answer certain questions….” Kittrell noted numerous differences in behavior and bearing between the two men. She was so moved by her encounters that she wrote a 90 page manuscript about them. Kittrell tried repeatedly to contact the authorities about her meetings with two different Oswalds, but there was no interest on their part. She sent two letters to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy about the subject as well. One anecdote I’d forgotten was the fact Oswald checked out the book The Shark and the Sardines by Juan Jose Arevalo, from the Dallas Public Library on November 6, 1963, and it was listed as overdue at the time of the assassination. Some anonymous soul returned this book to the library in 1964. Another was the fact Louisiana State Police Lt. Francis Fruge asked the HSCA in 1978 if they’d obtained the diagrams of the Dealey Plaza sewer system in Sergio Aracha’s apartment. Fruge stated that he thought it was Will Fritz who first told him about these diagrams. The HSCA never attempted to locate them. James Alfred Markham, Helen Markham’s 20 year old son, had several curiously under reported encounters with a fake Oswald. A few weeks before the assassination, he met someone named “Ozzie” while getting a ride with a friend. He saw “Ozzie” again a couple of days later while fishing, and chatted with him. A few days after that, while visiting his brother’s apartment, Markham encountered “Ozzie” again, who was sitting in a car with three other males. The next day, Markham saw “Ozzie” yet again, at the Texas Theater no less. This time, “Ozzie” left some truly incendiary remarks on the record, as he asked Markham if he would like to help him “stun the nation,” and discussed killing President Kennedy during his upcoming trip to Dallas. Markham laughed it off as a joke, but would later recognize the man accused of being JFK’s assassin as “Ozzie.” On each occasion Markham encountered “Ozzie,” Oswald was documented as working at the TSBD. On November 21, 1963, Helen McIntosh, friend of an SMU professor who lived in the apartment next to Jack Ruby, claimed that a man she later identified as Oswald knocked at their door and asked for Jack Ruby. At around 2:15 a.m. on November 22, 1963, B & B Restaurant head waitress Mary Lawrence reported that a man she identified as Oswald entered the restaurant and told her and the night cashier that he was waiting for Jack Ruby, whom Lawrence had known for nearly a decade. A short while later, Ruby entered the place and the two men talked for over half an hour. Lee Harvey Oswald, of course, was reportedly in bed with his wife at the Paines’ home at the time. On December 3, 1963, Mary Lawrence received one of those all too frequent threatening phone calls, and an unidentified man warned her, “If you don’t want to die, you better get out of town.” Lawrence bravely stuck by her story when she talked to the Dallas Police, and insisted she was certain it was Oswald and Ruby she’d seen together. On November 27, 1963, supposed non-driver Lee Harvey Oswald’s driver’s license appeared at the Texas Department of Public Safety in Austin, Texas. Aletha Frair claimed that she and numerous other employees had seen the license, which became the buzz around the workplace. She was certain that it was in the name of Lee Harvey Oswald. Fellow employee Lee Bozarth declared that she knew the license was there, as well as a file on Oswald, and that it was given to a federal agency in early December, 1963. In 1978, HSCA investigator Gary Sanders contacted the TDPS about Oswald’s license, and after a brief, curt conversation with a Mrs. Seay, concluded, “It is very obvious to me that if there are any records at the DPS pertaining to Lee Harvey Oswald they are not going to release them.” In another incident I’d never heard of, Ruby’s stripper “Jada,” aka Jeanette Conforto, struck pedestrian Charles Burnes with her Cadillac at approximately noon on November 22, 1963. Jada seemed to be in an inordinate rush, and oddly cursed hysterically at Burnes afterwards. When she was questioned shortly thereafter, Jada tellingly stated that the Carousel Club would not be open that evening, and that she was in a hurry to get to New Orleans. Mechanic T.E. White saw a man he later identified as Oswald in a red Ford Falcon, first speeding and then seemingly hiding out in a restaurant parking lot, during the time Oswald was being arrested at the Texas Theater. White wrote the license tag down, and it was traced to Carl Mather, who happened to be Officer J.D. Tippit’s best friend. Mather worked for Collins Radio, and one of his jobs was servicing the communications equipment aboard Air Force Two, LBJ’s plane. Another employee of Collins Radio, Kenneth Porter, quit his job and left his wife after the assassination, later marrying Marina Oswald. Before Mather agreed to be interviewed by the HSCA in 1978, he demanded a grant of immunity. His testimony is still classified. The FBI alone had amassed a file relating to Oswald which contained over one hundred reports, during the time period of 1960 leading up to the assassination. Why did FBI special agent Milton Kaack review Oswald’s birth records in New Orleans, on October 24, 1963? Hoover himself sent reports on Oswald to the CIA just two weeks before the assassination, informing them that they “may be of interest to you.” Richard Case Nagell walked into an El Paso, Texas bank on September 20, 1963, fired two shots into the ceiling, then went outside and waited in his car to be arrested. Nagell would claim to be a double agent who was trying to stop the assassination of JFK. He mentioned Oswald by name, and claimed to have sent a registered letter to J. Edgar Hoover warning him of the plot. The AARB sent a registered letter to Nagell on October 31, 1995, anxious to talk to him. He died of a heart attack the following day. Most tellingly, when Nagell was arrested by El Paso police, again two months before the assassination, he was carrying a DOD ID card on him, with Oswald’s name and photograph on it. What about the little noted 30 minute telephone call Oswald made at 8 p.m. on November 23? This was prior to his aborted attempted to contact the Raleigh, North Carolina number, to someone named John Hurt. During this 30 minute call to an unknown person, DPD officer J.L. Popplewell stood nearby, and two unidentified men were eavesdropping on the call in the next room, according to the DPD telephone operators. There are no telephone logs that recorded the number Oswald called. Who listened in to this call, which is highly significant in a historical sense? Why doesn’t anyone know who Oswald spoke to? Echoing the claims of so many other witnesses, Dallas Police Lt. Donald Archer told the HSCA that he noticed numerous discrepancies when he was asked by Captain Nichols to sign his Warren Commission deposition. He made corrections and it was returned to the Commission. When it was subsequently returned to him, Archer noted even more errors. He again corrected the “mistakes” and it was returned to the Commission. The third time, again there were discrepancies, but Archer was ordered to sign the deposition. When he started making the corrections again, in pen, he was instructed by a Warren Commission staffer to make them in pencil. Marina Oswald received $132,350 within a few months of signing a contract with Onajet Productions, also known as Tex-Italia Films and Cinema International Productions (which rented a small office with Samuel Goldwyn Studios, but never produced a single film), for worldwide movie and television rights to her story. This was shortly before Marina first testified before the Warren Commission. Commission staff member Fredda Scobey was concerned about Marina’s inconsistent testimony, writing to Senator Richard Russell that, “Marina directly lied on at least two occasions” and suggested she be cross-examined. Chief Justice Earl Warren refused to consider the matter, telling Chief Counsel J. Lee Rankin not to pursue it. Despite this, Rankin wrote in a lengthy memo that “Marina’s testimony is so full of confusion and contradiction that without the catalytic element of cross-examination it reads like a nightmare.” Marina would insist on being granted immunity before agreeing to testify to the HSCA. There is much more I could write, but I hope this gives readers a sense of the important information John Armstrong unearthed in his lengthy, detailed work. I know the book is expensive, and not in many libraries, but it is well worth every researcher’s time to read it, study it, and appreciate Harvey and Lee.

I echo what Vince and Douglas said. Those of us who aren't published by Simon and Schuster or Random House have a limited public platform. It's important for any author to deliver your message to the largest number of people you can. Even those of us who have publicists still have to do most of our own promotion. I've rarely turned down an offer for an interview, no matter who it is. I didn't accept one from an anarchist host, but that was only because he demanded I swear an oath to anarchism first. I've seen "Coast to Coast" criticized here, for instance. They get anywhere from 5-7 million listeners every night. Why would any author turn down a platform like that? Alex Jones and Infowars are nearly as big. Again, if there's a chance for millions of potential new readers to hear you, why turn that down? I'm sure Vince, Douglas, William Law and maybe some of the other speakers at this conference don't endorse everything Judyth says. They probably don't support some of the books Trine Day has published. But they have an opportunity to share their own work and perspectives, which I don't imagine Judyth will control. I'm certainly not a Judyth groupie, but if her book leads more people to question the official story, isn't that a good thing? If we have to endorse everything about a particular show, or its previous guests, or all the speakers at a particular conference, before we deign to participate, then we're not going to get much further than these kinds of forums.

Looks like they landed two more great people. Sounds like a very intriguing conference.

Larry, My point was that there could be something for people to quibble about in regards to the Lancer Conference as well, or most conferences that I can remember. I have no problem with the speakers at any conference. I was responding to criticism of the New Orleans conference, based upon some of the speakers. I suspect most of this is Judyth-based, of course. Or more specifically, I was trying to note that it featured William Law, whom I consider one of the most underappreciated of all researchers.

Pat, that's an excuse even I've never heard before; that we really can't blame the FBI for not pursuing leads, since they were distracted by "conspiracy theorists" and actual crazies. In every high profile crime, the authorities are accustomed to "crazies" confessing, or fingering their relatives. They really should be trained to recognize that for what it is. I don't think that had anything to do with them altering the testimony of witnesses, for instance. Hoover and the FBI orchestrated the cover up. Their performance was inexcusable. I could certainly question some of the upcoming speakers at the Lancer conference. Mark Shaw? A long time establishment journalist, who recently wrote the book, The Poison Patriarch: How the Betrayals of Joseph P. Kennedy Caused the Assassination of JFK? Jim DiEugenio ought to love that one. And Carmine Savastano? Judging by his past posts on this forum, I fail to see his relevance as a speaker.

I love William Law- he's perhaps the most underrated and underappreciated JFK assassination researcher. Some other good people, too, but Law alone makes it a worthwhile conference.

The mantra that "conspiracy theorists" simply can't accept that a great man could be taken down by a simple lone nut is almost as prevalent as the "someone would have talked" line; the "that many people couldn't keep a secret" came directly from the infamous 1967 CIA memo "Countering the Critics of the Warren Report." King's central thesis, which mirrors the central thesis of the corrupt leaders which continue to misrule us, is that Oswald wanted to "be somebody," in King's updated parlance- a "fame junkie." As Denny points out, this hypothesis is contradicted by his protestations of innocence. I tried to ask Dan Moldea this same question years ago; if Sirhan "wanted to be famous," why did he deny the crime? He never responded, and I suspect King wouldn't either. I don't believe for a second that King thinks Oswald acted alone. Neither does Tom Hanks. Certainly, neither needs more money, so there has to be some other motivation for them to willingly peddle such destructive fairy tales. I talk about King in my book- like so many "liberals," and despite the fact he is a native New Englander, he admits to never "being a fan" of Kennedy. We see this same curious dislike of the Kennedys on the part of many, many high profile "liberals." My guess is that, although he cavalierly dismisses all "conspiracy theorists," King swallows every one of Judith Campbell Exner's inconsistent allegations against JFK. In which, of course, he follows the lead of professional "journalists" and practically the entire "left" today. And I bet he reveres every other Democratic Party president of the modern era.

Thanks, Tom, for providing King's complete Afterword. The names he trusted leap out at the reader; Gary Mack, Posner, Bugliosi, Thomas Mallon, Mailer, Doris Kearns Goodwin, even William Manchester. King, like Bugliosi and every other lone-nutter who has researched this case, knows perfectly well that he is peddling disinformation. It is impossible to study the evidence and believe the Warren Report, to paraphrase Penn Jones. King's audience is huge and impressionable. I am proud not to have read anything by this schlock artist. Judging by the Afterword, he is hardly a master literary craftsman. The sheeple are sound asleep, and when popular figures like King, James Franco and Tom Hanks tout the official state lies, there is little we can do. Oliver Stone is a part of this business, and he faced it head on. He is a true profile in courage.

King fans may use the excuse that this is mere science fiction, but his incendiary comments about the case reveal just how committed he is to the official fairy tale. 98-99% certain that Oswald was guilty? King has called the long dead Oswald childish names in public, like the authoritarian social justice warrior he undoubtedly is. He even passed along some psychological nonsense about Marguerite examining young Oswald's genitals every night to see if he was developing normally. The little bit about the surviving JFK putting people in camps was just an extension of King's antipathy for the Kennedys. Like so many leftists, King has admitted to never liking them. Isn't that strange? A native New Englander, loyal "liberal," and he just never liked the most prominent political family to emerge from his neck of the country. I bet he loves FDR and even LBJ, though. James Franco made some predictable comments a few years back, in which he expressed his admiration for the Warren Report. Hollywood, like the rest of the mainstream media, is committed to these fairy tales. That's why, as time goes on, Oliver Stone looks even more like a true profile in courage.

Boy, it sure is hard to tell just who this "unbiased" journalist supports for president, isn't it? On the contrary, Dan- it is virtually impossible to find a positive personal anecdote about Hillary Clinton. She appears to have a Madonna-like diva personality, and to treat people with consistent disdain. Kind of like LBJ. You almost have to feel sorry for dying and decaying dinosaurs like Rather. The professional journalists and high-profile historians are never going to admit just how inaccurate their reporting and analysis was and is, on the JFK assassination. Walter Cronkite went down swinging, too- still lying and distorting the truth in his nineties. Well, he did have that yearly gig at Bohemian Grove, after all- where he served as the voice of the owl for decades. Rather's career took off with his reporting on the assassination. Small wonder that he feels so strongly about protecting his legacy. He's never had to explain his early description of the Zapruder film showing JFK's head moving forward. Dan Rather, like Walter Cronkite, Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw and countless others, epitomizes why Americans are so woefully uniformed about the most important issues, and have become all but historically illiterate. Every one of these wildly overpaid mouthpieces for the state should be castigated for their significant contributions to the mess we're in today. The only way one could have the least bit of admiration about a Dan Rather is to be totally ignorant of history.

Mark Lane was the individual who most inspired me to become involved in researching the JFK assassination. I joined his Citizens Committee of Inquiry as a teenager, and the afternoon I spent in his office in late 1976, which included a long conversation with him that revolved around one of the most popular entertainers of the time, young Freddie Prinze, is recounted in full in my book. Mark Lane was one of the last of the original band of critics. I think Vincent Salandria may well be the last surviving one. I'm sure he couldn't have been too happy with the state of the critical community in general. Needless to say, Mark Lane would never have become a neo-con. He was a purist, and one of the few remaining civil libertarians left in this country.

I don't have any problem registering as a member, as I said. But I don't understand not giving the public access to the material. Is there an extra cost involved in making the information visible to everyone?

For once, I completely agree with DVP. Limiting the reading of posts to members only will certainly shrink the audience. I guess I understand if the intent is to create a research database, but you indicated that there will also be a new forum. Was this Debra's decision? If not, whose idea was it? Lancer had a nice period there, with lots of solid contributions. I have no problem registering, but if the goal is to share knowledge and information, then the posts should be available to everyone.

For me, the curious thing about Baker is that he appears to have been the only law enforcement officer in Dealey Plaza whose attention was immediately drawn to the TSBD. Remember, a number of witnesses inside or directly outside the TSBD thought the shots were coming from the knoll area. The Baker story is odd, but much like the Zapruder film, it has been used for decades to buttress the critics' argument that Oswald could not have fired the shots, hidden the rifle, and appeared where Baker allegedly confronted him, calm and, at least as originally reported, with his trusty Coke in hand. As David noted, there was no logical reason for him to be suspicious of Oswald. David, did you ever interview Baker? I can't recall any of the early critics questioning him about his story.

This is the kind of discussion that makes these forums worthwhile. Thanks especially to Joseph McBride, for sharing from his impressive book, and to Paul Rigby for his typical out-of-the-box thinking. There are so many of these aspects to the assassination that have simply been attributed to faulty eyewitness perceptions. As David Lifton pointed out; way, way too many disparate witnesses, independently of one another, mentioned the limousine stopping or almost stopping. Were they all "mistaken" in an identical manner, just as all the Parkland medical personnel was "mistaken" identically about that huge blowout in the back of JFK's head, which isn't shown on the official photos and x-rays? There is far too much, for my taste at least, to the dead secret service agent story, to discard it because of more "mistaken" impressions that day. I would throw in the pool of blood that was reported near the pergola, including a witness who reported (rather oddly, in my view) that he'd tasted it to make sure it was blood. Here's a link to an earlier thread here discussing that: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=9768 When I spoke to the granddaughter of Henry Rybka for my book, the only thing relating to the assassination that she volunteered was the fact her family was terrified that Henry was the Secret Service agent who'd been killed. This story bears all the earmarks of initial reports in most important events of the past 50 years, which are tossed aside once the official narrative has been agreed upon.

The performance of CBS and the other mainstream media of the day foretold what is now common practice. There is no skepticism among professional "journalists," unless it's directed towards those who are skeptical of all these impossible official narratives. They have been trained to smear the whistleblower, instead of exposing the wrongdoers. Even when we examine much older history, such as the Lincoln assassination, or even the death of Meriweather Lewis, we find the same closed-mindedness, the same reluctance to abandon "official" history. These journalists have a great stake in all our fake history- after all, they bought the ridiculous lies of government officials and passed them along to the public as truth. Thus, even today, establishment historians and government officials fight tooth-and-nail to prevent the descendants of John Wilkes Booth from exhuming the body buried under his name. They don't want to admit their predecessors were wrong, or that they were misguided, to put it kindly, to trust so passionately in officialdom. The recent Stephen King miniseries, attempt by Tom Hanks to promulgate Bugliosi's magnus ridiculotus, and now the vicious anti-Kennedy opera, demonstrate just how much the establishment continues to hate JFK and his family. In time, we may come to look back upon the initial CBS disinformation pieces fondly in comparison.

This is just the latest in an ongoing campaign- a relentless onslaught against the characters of those, like JFK and RFK, who were threats to the corrupt oligarchy that started really taking control on November 22, 1963. The mainstream media treats no other president as disrespectfully as John F. Kennedy, not even Nixon. I've recognized this for years, from the beginning of the Judith Campbell Exner nonsense, and how it was so unquestioningly accepted by the same "journalists" who refused to investigate JFK's assassination. When Jim DiEugenio wrote "The Posthumous Assassination of JFK," he was going against establishment history and the "scholarly" consensus. I tried to build on that in "Hidden History." The more I research historical figures, the more impressed I am with JFK, RFK and the Kennedy family in general. Being slandered by today's mainstream media and decaying culture is like receiving a badge of honor.

This thread again exemplifies why the research community has become little more than a tiresome debating society. Martin Hay represents the most reasonable school of thought in very effectively critiquing David Von Pein's and Mel Ayton's predictably impossible Oswald-did-it book. David Lifton's curious, belated response relies on unwarranted faith in both Ruth Paine and Marina Oswald, the two witnesses who almost exclusively were responsible for painting a negative picture of Lee Harvey Oswald. David further maintains that Oswald DID carry a rifle into the TSBD that day. Is David now claiming Oswald fired shots? I thought his thesis was that all shots came from the front. What about Jack Dougherty, the only known witness to see Oswald arrive at work that day? He reported that Oswald was carrying no package. Oswald himself supposedly strongly denied carrying anything other than a lunch sack. Forgive me if I have any of this wrong: David Lifton believes that JFK's body was altered before the autopsy at Bethesda, to falsely leave evidence of shots from behind, when all shots actually came from in front. Other than this rather "extreme" theory, he generally accepts all aspects of the official story. Pat Speer believes that all shots came from the rear, and that the medical personnel at Parkland who claimed to have seen a large hole in the back of JFK's head were mistaken (actually, I think he maintains that we have all been misinterpreting their testimony). He therefore believes the autopsy photos and x-rays showing no such large defect are legitimate. Jim DiEugenio comes closest to my own perspective, and in my opinion represents one of the few present-day critics who haven't rejected much of the ground-breaking work of the original band of critics, who decades ago conclusively proved there was a conspiracy. The research community is basically divided on John Armstrong's Harvey and Lee theory. Note- I am presently reading this book, and am even more impressed than ever with the extent of Armstrong's research. A growing number of researchers, largely associated with Greg Parker's ROKC forum, are putting all their eggs in Sean Murphy's "Prayer Man" basket. Needless to say, if "Prayer Man" is Oswald, his innocence is conclusively proven, but both sides acknowledge that higher-quality images are imperative if a conclusive identification is to be established. This same group just as strongly opposes not only Armstrong's theory, but the general notion that there were people impersonating Oswald. From my first few JFK assassination classes, I can conclude that more people are simply accepting the official narrative that Oswald acted alone. I can only guess this is due to the favorable publicity the mainstream media gave Posner, Bugliosi, Hanks' Parkland and now Stephen King's monstrous piece of disinformation. I think recent polls are demonstrating this. In other words, our task has become harder. It's tough fighting Stephen King and Hollywood. My point, again, is that we hardly represent any kind of united front on this subject. The official story is impossible. Impossible. That is with or without Harvey and Lee, or body alteration, or Zapruder film alteration, or Prayer Man, or any other aspect of this case that has been hotly debated on this forum. This is what I tried to stress in my book, and what I have stressed during interviews. Unless we recognize this simple truth, the lone nutters will eventually win the day. Their version is already in all the conventional history books. As we all know, history is written by the victors. It should be an undisputed fact at this point that those who assassinated John F. Kennedy were the victors.