Robert E. Cox

The U.S. Congress has received a new request to pay attention, once again, to a law passed more than a quarter-century ago, requiring release of all government documents relating to the assassination of JFK, and authorizing continued oversight on whether the law was/is being followed. The request comes from attorney Lawrence Schnapf, long an advocate for opening of the records. He notes in his letter and background to U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney that: "Despite the fact that thousands of assassination records continue to be withheld for alleged national security reasons and the agencies requesting postponement have failed to identify the specific harm posed by each postponed record or how these harms outweigh the public interest in disclosure, the Committee has not conducted any hearings or conducted any investigation to determine if the continued withholding of records complies with the JFK Act..." He asks Maloney to begin action without delay, given that the next deadline for release of ALL records (with exceptions only for those few cases allowed under terms of the Act) is next October, and the requirement that any agency still wishing to request continued secrecy must do so no later than April 26, 2021. His full presentation to Maloney is included in this document: Request to Maloney - Schnapf.docx For those interested, it is an excellent background and current status of the long struggle to hold the U.S. Administration to its responsibilities under the law, and to remind Congress of its responsibilities to make sure the law is followed. Other posts regarding the request: JFK Facts » Will Rep. Maloney Hold Oversight Hearings on JFK Files? Letter to House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform – The Future of Freedom Foundation (fff.org)

John et. al.: Many thanks for your service to this cause, now and in the past. I'm sure that the thousands of us -- all who have tried in so many ways, for so many decades, to impress the importance of these matters on members of Congress, the media and the general public -- are hoping the best for this effort. I will be especially interested in learning the extent and quality of public discussion that follows in the wake of your announcement. Again, thanks. And good luck to all of us.

Long time since I've visited...happy to see this discussion underway. A bullet lodged behind the President's ear, eh? Hmmm. Wondering if anybody's found any reference to Jeff Morley's and Jim Lesar's long-sought records relating to George Joannides. I'd think they ought to show up somewhere in these dumps. If not, Mr. J. must have been really something... Thanks, everybody, for helping me get up to date.

somebody who obviously has zero knowledge of the JFK assassination apparently was on the desk when this pictureof Jackie, JFK, John & Nellie Connolly was posted as part of UPI's 48th anniversary report. How can there ever be an intelligent discussion of what may or may not have happened on that day when history continues to be twisted, twisted, twisted by the years and supposed keepers of the historical record?

Raymond: You are no doubt correct. However, I do believe that something needs to be done to bring an end to the sloppy, and even government-biased journalism that too often pops up in self-styled "newspapers of record" when they purport to revisit facts of the Kennedy assassination. I certainly do not want Public Editor Hoyt to believe that it is only Raymond Carroll who takes issue with such displays of journalistic irresponsibility. Although a flurry may be overkill, a few complaints may be of benefit in the long run.

Thanks, Raymond, for your response. I've added my support to your request with the following email to Clark Hoyt at the Times, whose address, btw, is public@nytimes.com. I'm sure a few more letters to Hoyt from members of this forum wouldn't hurt. --rec Mr. Hoyt: I add my support to the request of J. Raymond Carroll for a correction in the New York Times obituary of Dr. Malcolm Perry, relating to Perry's comments regarding the throat wound of President John Kennedy. Mr. Carroll's request is based on solid fact, and to allow the Times's report to stand without correction is a disservice to the historical record. Thank you for your consideration. Robert E. Cox Abiquiu, N.M.

"They're going to get us all. It's a plot. It's a plot. It's going to get us all.'" According to the General, Johnson "was hysterical, sitting down on the john there alone in this thing." I'd nominate this excerpt as being one of the more important revelations of Gillon's book. Here we have LBJ, only minutes after the crime has been committed, so certain that it was a plot -- dare we say "conspiracy"? -- that he's holed up (so to speak) in the most private, secure place of the most secure airplane in the world, driven to tears by his fears. Shouldn't historians, like Mr. Gillon, for instance, be wondering just what it could have given the vice president of the united states, so soon after the murder, such certainty that it was a plot? And shouldn't historians be wondering what could have happened in the subsequent few hours -- even before an "investigation" had begun -- that caused LBJ to reverse direction and decide that the crime must be shown to be the work of one man? --rec

I beg your pardon. My attempted sarcasm regarding Posner's comment has apparently gone awry. Perhaps I should have added a smiley face, or written "Posner agrees with you" instead. I find it exceedingly ironic that the individual who so hampered the cause of legitimate JFK assassination research with his "Case Closed" proclamation now sides with us in our distrust of the C.I.A. and other government agencies. Rest assured, Mark, that should "CIA" come up in a word-association game, the word "integrity" would not pop into my mind.

Well, Mark, you agree with Posner, my favorite government apologist, who is quoted at the conclusion of the current Times story: “Most conspiracy theorists don’t understand this... But if there really were a C.I.A. plot, no documents would exist.” I'm not sure how Posner actually knows this, but he certainly sounds authoritative, doesn't he?

A coup for Jeff Morley and Jim Lesar, who have been pounding on this case for years. It should not go unnoticed, however, that the New York Times and other supposed watchdogs of the American democracy should have reported this story FIVE years ago. It should also be noted that the first two words of the second paragraph of the Times' story, assuring us that the CIA "probably not" is covering up "some dark secret" about the JFK assassination, are not supported in any way in the subsequent story. In other words, the Gray Lady has admitted, finally, that there is a very serious question about the CIA's continuing secrecy about the JFK assassination, but takes its first opportunity to assure us, without any supporting evidence at all, that it's "probably not" a very important question. Sheesh.

I didn't see CBS, but ABC and NBC both made quick passing references to it on last night's broadcasts. On MSNBC's "Countdown," guest host Lawrence O'Donnell totally missed the point, saying Khadafi "proceeded to attack the USA for ...the JFK assassination." Not true, according to the Christian Science Monitor (http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/09/23/qaddafi-un-speech-six-highlights-or-lowlights/), which reported: “Why did this Israeli kill the killer of Jack Kennedy?” Qaddafi asked, after noting that Jack Ruby, “an Israeli,” killed Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. “The whole world should know that Kennedy wanted to investigate the nuclear reactor of the Israeli demon,” Qaddafi said. It appears that this stems from the allegations of Mordechai Vanunu, the nuke technician who the Israelis locked up for 18 years and released a few years ago. I've seen no reference in current reporting to Vanunu's allegation -- that Israel was behind the assassination because JFK was exerting pressure on Israel to shed light on the Dimona nuclear plant. Sounds like Khadafi has taken the Vanunu tale and deduced/decided/fantasized that Ruby, because he was a jew, was working for the Israelis.

According to AFP (found on a site called "The Raw Story" -- http://bit.ly/19N3Dn), there isn't much agreement: GADDAFI? QADDAFI? KADHAFY? Gaddafi's appearance at the UN has stirred a long-running debate in the corridors of America's newsrooms: How do you spell the man's name? "Library of Congress recognizes 112 different spellings of the name of the Libyan leader," ABC's Jake Tapper Tweeted Wednesday. "ABC News just ruled: Moammar Gadhafi." That spelling agrees with the Associated Press spelling, but differs from the New York Times and Bloomberg news service -- "Qaddafi" -- and AFP, which spells it "Khadafi." RAW STORY has settled on "Gaddafi," for the simple reason that it gets the most hits in Web searches. -- Daniel Tencer, with AFP

I haven't been listening to the entire speech, but I just heard Khaddafi, in the midst of his lengthy State-of-the-World tirade at the UN, refer to assassination of JFK. Seems he revisited the allegation that Israel, concerned that JFK was mucking about the issue of Israel's development of nuclear weapons, had a hand in the assassination, and also in the killing of Oswald by Ruby. Whether he was claiming any new knowledge, I couldn't tell. Perhaps somebody can get a quickie transcript of that section of his remarks. It will be interesting to see if America's mainstream media pays any attention to the allegations, and whether the this old chestnut gets thrown back in the fire.

From the Fort Worth, Texas Star-Telegram: By ANDREW CHAVEZ Special to the Star-Telegram DENTON — Alvin Preston McGraw was a master news reporter of the mid-20th century who loved to find an unusual tale to tell. But his personal involvement in one of the biggest stories in North Texas history will be an "aha!" moment for many of today’s readers: In November 1963, Mr. McGraw, already a veteran reporter for Unit- ed Press International, was one of the reporters who was drafted to be a pallbearer for JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. Mr. McGraw died May 26 at a Denton nursing home of kidney failure. He was 94. "He was a really great writer but an excellent reporter," said Mike Cochran, a retired Star-Telegram reporter who competed against Mr. McGraw as a reporter for The Associated Press. "Many’s the time we’d clash on stories. We’d go out and do everything we could to wipe the other one off the face of the earth," Cochran said. "And afterward we’d go out and have a beer or two." Mr. McGraw was born April 9, 1915, in Centreville, Miss., to Howard Senton McGraw and Rubye Newman McGraw. After he attended Louisiana State University, Mr. McGraw’s career took him to Kansas City and New York City at the start of World War II. Growing up, he was called by his initials, A.P., but a UPI editor once told him that it wouldn’t be acceptable to have the rival news service’s initials in a UPI byline. So he became Preston McGraw. During the war, he worked for the Army News Service and the Stars and Stripes newspaper. Afterward, he was assigned to New Orleans and eventually to Dallas, where he settled in 1952 with his wife, Marjorie. Burying Oswald That’s where he was based on Thursday, Nov. 22, 1963. Mr. McGraw had covered President John F. Kennedy’s arrival in Fort Worth and was waiting for him to get to the Dallas Trade Mart when he heard about the assassination. "I remember as I left the Trade Mart to go to the hospital, I said to myself — I said it aloud, too — 'It’ll be 10 years before I hear the last of this,’ " Mr. McGraw told an oral history interviewer for The Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas. On the Sunday after, Oswald was fatally shot in the basement of the Dallas police headquarters as officers moved him to the county jail. His burial was hastily and quietly arranged for the next day at Fort Worth’s Rose Hill Cemetery. Kennedy’s funeral was the same day in Washington, and few people showed up at Rose Hill — only five of Oswald’s relatives, funeral home employees, some police officers and several reporters and photographers. Needing to get Oswald’s casket from the hearse to the grave, a funeral director drafted reporters as pallbearers. The funeral director "told us that you’re not going to get any supper tonight if we don’t go on and get him buried," Mr. McGraw said during the oral history interview. So Mr. McGraw stepped forward, and others, including Cochran, followed. Mr. McGraw confessed later that he had a motive. "Frankly, what I had in mind was to get up close to the family so I could ask Oswald’s wife a couple of questions," he said. He didn’t get that opportunity. Mr. McGraw’s colleagues remember his interest in the news of the weird. "Humorous items, offbeat stuff — that was Preston’s specialty," former colleague Bill Ryan said. "Anyplace in the world where he could find anything offbeat or strange or weird, he would find it and write it up. And newspaper editors just ate that up." "I think he was just born to the news business," said his daughter, Susan McGraw. "He just loved it. He said nobody could’ve had as good of a career as his." Other survivors include son John McGraw and three granddaughters. Mr. McGraw was buried in Dallas during a private service.

The Magic Bullet's path is another question that might be raised when this thing airs. In one of the clips shown by NBC of this reportedly "exact" re-creation of the limo and where its occupants were seated, it appeared to be clear that JFK was seated much closer to the center of the vehicle than was Connally, and that the imaginary line from the 6th Floor window to Connally's rib cage was anything but straight. I could be wrong because of my brief exposure to the clip, but that's the way it appeared. -REC

For the record, NBC Nightly News tonight plugged the planned Discovery Channel airing, with reporter Pete Williams describing new set of tests that chose four locations from which JFK could have been shot. Two of them were ruled out because the shot would have been impossible given the location of the limousine, the other two being the Grassy Knoll and the Depository building. The conclusion, said Williams, was that the shot had to come from the Depository. I think he said they based the conclusion on the nature of the wounds suffered by JFK. No further explanation or detail was offered. I wasn't taking notes, but Gary Mack was shown in brief clip, seeming to agree with the conclusions.

Kathy: The theory that Karyn was offed by the mob to cool the investigative ardor of her father is one I hadn't heard before. I'm wondering about your sources for the info regarding the visits to Palm Springs (concurrent, I assume, but not connected) by Kupcinet and Dorfman , and also regarding the info about the Dorfman-Irv Kupcinet conversation. Could you supply those sources? Thanks. Bob Cox

Many thanks to Bill Kelly for that review of the HSCA dipping a tentative toe into the mysterious deaths subtext of the Kennedy assassination. Kelly’s comment regarding the lack of any evidence that there was a “great investigative effort,” as Ms. Hess put it, into the death of George deM, reminded me that the HSCA report also does NOT include details of its investigation into the death of Dorothy Kilgallen, even though Kilgallen’s name was on the list of those investigated. When you come to Kilgallen’s name in the body of the report, you will find: “Death #11 Name: Dorothy Kilgallen. This report was forwarded, with attachments, under separate cover at an earlier date.” I recall writing the National Archives back in 2002, inquiring about the separate report of the HSCA committee regarding the death of Kilgallen, and never received a satisfactory answer. Perhaps somebody on this forum may know where that separate report on Kilgallen can be found. Or, is this, like the deMohrenschildt report, still missing? Kelly also mentions “There is a report on the death of Rose Cheramie, which gets special consideration and an acknowledgment that her death was ‘in some manner, either direct or peripheral, caused by the assassination of President Kennedy.’" Is this an HSCA report on Cheramie, separate from the Hess investigation? If so, I’d appreciate knowing where I can find a copy of that report. I’d like to add that the HSCA team –- who, as Bill Kelly noted, did no original research and relied solely on government documents and published reports – included a recommendation regarding further research regarding some of the deaths. Some of those recommendations were to not waste any further time. But in six of those cases – the deaths of Guy Albert Bogard, Bill Hunter, Hank Killam, Jim Koethe, Teresa Norton/Karen Carlin, and Harold Russell, the researchers said the committee “may wish to consider further investigation,” or words to that effect. In other words, the researchers seemed to be saying, we didn’t have the time or staff to conduct field investigations, and in some of these cases, at least, further, original, research might be fruitful. I don’t think the committee ever followed up on any of those recommendations. Bob Cox

Jack and Tim: Thanks for the discussion, but my question, as quoted above, has to do with HOW Oswald was placed at the TSBD, and, more specifically, how Linnie Mae Randall fit in that chain of events. I apparently wasn't clear in forming my question. I'll try again, because without an answer it is very difficult to support Jack's statement that "LHO was placed in a job in the TSBD..." Even though it's an unpleasant thing to admit, I've had to crack open Jerry Posner's "Case Closed" to find the Nutters' explanation of the string of events leading to Oswald's employment at the TSBD. Allow me to hold my nose and quote from page 200: "On Monday, October 14 [1963]...while having coffee...Ruth, Marina, Dorothy Roberts and Linnie Mae Randle were discussing Lee's difficulty in obtaining work. ... Linnie Mae Randall recalled that Wesley Buell Frazier, her younger brother...had finally found a job at the Texas School Book Depository... [Quoting Randall:] 'We said he might try over there. There might be work...'" Posner then tells us that, as a result of that suggestion by Linnie Mae, Marina urged Paine to call Truly, Paine then called Truly, and Truly said, "I told Mrs. Paine to send him down...we could possibly use him for a brief time.' This rendition of events was, Posner says, constructed from direct testimony of Paine, Truly and Randall to the Warren Commission. For purposes of this discussion, let's assume Paine was lying. Let's assume Roy Truly was lying. Let's even assume there were two Lee-Lee Harvey-Harvey Oswald-Oswalds. Let's assume that Marina was not forthcoming. Let's even assume Lee and Ruth are shacked up under a palm tree, sipping iced Metamucil and laughing at us. My question remains: Was it Linnie Mae Randall's suggestion that started the string of events leading to the employment of Oswald at the TSBD? If so, how does that casual remark by an Irving housewife fit into a plan to place Oswald in a job in the precise location that allowed him to become the patsy? Was Linnie Mae part of the conspiracy, too? If so, how'd she fit in? Or was she also lying to the Warren Commission? If so, why? Or is there another explanation? Without another part to the equation, I can't see that Linnie Mae's casual remark, based on her brother's new job, squares with a plot to get Lee-Lee Harvey-Harvey a job in the TSBD. What am I missing? Bob

Jack: This is perhaps a subject for a separate thread -- and opens another can of worms -- but I'll raise it here anyway. (BTW, I strongly agree with everyone who's commented on the qualilty of several recent threads -- this one is among them.) I would appreciate having your theory of HOW "LHO was placed in a job in the TSBD." As I remember, the Posner posse argues that Oswald got his lead for the job at the TSBD as the result of a casual conversation among four housewives in Irving -- Linnie Mae Randle, Ruth Paine, Marina Oswald and another one named Roberts. They argue that it was Randle -- Wesley Buell Frazier's sister -- who first raised the possibility of a job opening at the book depository, and that her idea was followed up by Paine, who called Roy Truly, the TSBD superintendent who ultimately hired Oswald. If this rendition is true, Linnie Mae was part of a conspiracy to place LHO in the book depository, which, I think, we'd all agree is a shaky proposition. What's the counter argument to that tale of innocence from the Irving Housewives? I think Paine confirmed that version, and Truly confirmed that Paine called him. Were they both lying? Did Linnie Mae ever confirm it? How about Roberts? And if so, how do we hook them up with the conspiracy to get LHO in the shooter's nest? Can you lead me, and perhaps some others, out of that thicket? Thanks. Bob

Tim: Great idea. Also to be wished for, I think, is a discussion about what to do with all this research. What's the purpose? How do we move forward with what has been uncovered in the four decades since the murder and cause some meaningful investigation to seek reasonable answers? On that topic, I posted an essay last November, entitled "Just Where Do We Go From Here?" It was prompted, among other things, by questions that had been asked by a young American, Alana Collins, and an interesting proposal she had made to Cyril Wecht. Here's a snippet from that essay: "There are many of us for whom Alana Collins has spoken: We believe that something needs to result from all this research. We believe the conspiracy research community needs to end the childish squabbling and get its act together. We believe we should move as one force to get something done." I won't post the full essay here. The complete version will be found at http://www.grassyknollgazette.com/wherenow.dwt. I hope that it might add something to this discussion. Happy New Year, all. Bob

John: A bit off topic, but that's what happens at parties, no? Orbison: If you haven't got it, I heartily recommend Orbison's "Black and White Night" CD -- better yet, get the video of the concert from which the CD is made. It's a marvelous session, reprising most of his hits, with a back-up crowd of such up-and-comers as Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, k.d. lang and others...An absolute necessity for an Orbison fan. Beatles: When the boys made their first American concert tour (1964 was it?), I was a reporter for United Press International, and assigned to follow them for a while when they invaded mid-America. At Red Rocks, a natural amphitheater in the foothills west of Denver, we in the press were told to stand at stage right, not 30 feet from Ringo's drums, under a gigantic speaker. The set was embarrassingly short (I'm not sure they performed more than seven or eight songs), but, by that time, the lads definitely had their act together, and the girls did nothing BUT scream. My primary memory of the moment was not the music; it was the fear that would surge through my system each time the Beatles would hit one of those famous licks, or take a step forward, or two steps back: We on the stage could literally feel the crowd on the verge of moving toward us, ready to break free and engulf the stage. At those moments, a line of cops, kneeling shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the stage, would rise to their feet and quell the impending surge. Nothing, not even the cops, could have stopped the audience from visiting us on stage had it chosen to do so, and there were fleeting moments of definite concern for our physical well-being. I would guess that this was a common occurence at many of those Beatles concerts in those days, and I've often wondered if the boys in the band didn't occasionally experience the same moments of fear... Bob

Little did we know that old Leo da Vinci, when writing long ago in his "Notebook on Polemics and Speculation," would explain the future phenomena of authors of the stripe of Gerald Posner: "Many have made a trade of delusions and false miracles, deceiving the stupid multitudes."

Well, at least you're getting down to the nitty gritty, John. I'd think that with all the country-lovin' Brits on this wire, somebody would have come up with my nominee -- at least in the Dylan class -- and that would be Rhodes Scholar Kris Kristofferson. I could start a list of his great stuff, but that would use up the bandwidth. I'd also nominate Gary P. Nunn, who wrote, in "London Homesick Blues" that he could "substantiate the rumor/ that the English sense of humor/ is drier than the Texas sand", but I'd probably be run off this forum in a flash. Happy holidays to all, Bob Cox (next door to Texis in the New Mexico sand...)

Highly recommended reading for all: David Talbot, Salon’s editor-in-chief, finally lays out a major (internet) media piece on the case for a conspiracy, as seen through the eyes of governmental insiders. You’ll find it here: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/15/warren/ On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Warren Report, Talbot has not only turned attention on the major media’s failure to cover this story responsibly, but also on the deep distrust and criticism of the Warren Report by many of America’s best-informed governmental leaders. Any of us who are unshakable in our conviction that conspirators killed John Kennedy need to read this to revitalize our dedication to pushing for the truth and demanding justice. Those who continue to keep their heads in the sand – Peter Jennings and his ilk chief among them – need to read this to understand the magnitude of their recent self-inflicted embarrassments. Regards, Bob