Discussing The Mindset Of Conspiracy Theorists

[Cliff Varnell]

Hunt and the Watergate Cubans did not lead back to Castro.

P.S. Nixon no doubt thought they were involved in the assassination attempts on Castro. Hunt, as I recall, was involved in talks of killing Castro long before Kennedy was elected, and knew that Nixon had signed off on it. Nixon's probable concern was that HE was responsible for getting Kennedy killed, and that Hunt knew about this. Barker worked with Hunt. Barker ran Sturgis. Sturgis claimed he was asked to perform assassinations. Martinez was part of Mongoose, blah blah blah. It all led back to Castro.

Hunt and the Watergate Cubans were not employed by Castro. That was my point. "The fingerprints of intelligence"

points to US intel. And yet you characterize Schweiker's view as "Castro did it."

Please provide the money quote on that one!

CV:

Richard Helms was not a man to project "turmoil," as Haldeman put it.

And Haldeman directly questions the denial that Oswald was a CIA agent.

There is no "pure dynamite" in either the Mafia-plot or Castro-did-it stories.

I stand corrected on the last one. You make good points about the IG report, Pat. But here are the sections of

THE ENDS OF POWER you and Len Colby aren't taking in accurately.

Haldeman, emphasis added:

Interestingly, an investigation of the Kennedy assassination was a project I suggested when I first entered the White House. I had always been intrigued with the conflicting theories of the assassination. Now I felt we would be in a position to get all the facts. Nixon turned me down.

Pat, you and Colby insist on confining Haldeman's meaning to "Castro did it," even though the highly publicized Garrison investigation fingered the CIA.

On what basis do you dismiss Garrison's accusations from Haldeman's interest in "conflicting theories"?

You have no basis in fact to dismiss the view that Haldeman included the CIA as suspects. This is the other section you are determined to dismiss.

Haldeman:

In a chilling parallel to their cover-up at Watergate, the CIA literally erased any connection between Kennedy's assassination and the CIA. No mention of the Castro assassination attempt was made to the Warren Commission by CIA representatives. In fact, Counter-intelligence chief James Angleton of the CIA called Bill Sullivan of the FBI and rehearsed the questions and answers they would give to the Warren Commission investigators, such as these samples:

Q. Was Oswald an agent of the CIA?

A. No.

Q. Does the CIA have any evidence showing that a conspiracy existed to assassinate Kennedy?

A. No.

It appears that you and Len Colby want to shoe-horn Haldeman's thinking into some little Castro-did-it box, but the clear subtext to THE ENDS OF POWER is that Haldeman was intrigued by several theories of the assassination, including the then well-publicized theory that the CIA did it.

Edited March 10, 2011 by Cliff Varnell

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Well, in time it became obvious: he was hoping a new investigation would 1) lead back to Castro and/or the Soviets, and 2) be politically damaging to Johnson and make liberals look soft on communism. And he was not alone. A number of other conservatives were of the same mind, Ronald Reagan included. Here is Reagan pushing as much in the late 70's...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P_k2qGadFU

This is a rare find, and most interesting.

Thank you Patrick for posting this. Keep up the good work!

[William Kelly]

Well, in time it became obvious: he was hoping a new investigation would 1) lead back to Castro and/or the Soviets, and 2) be politically damaging to Johnson and make liberals look soft on communism. And he was not alone. A number of other conservatives were of the same mind, Ronald Reagan included. Here is Reagan pushing as much in the late 70's...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P_k2qGadFU

This is a rare find, and most interesting.

Thank you Patrick for posting this. Keep up the good work!

Is there a transcript of this recording, or a date of when it was recorded?

Yes, maybe someday, if there is a new investigation, it will go down that trail, the trail that purports to show that the lone-Patsy was a commie conspirator, but there's nothing keeping anybody from pursuing that trail on their own, as some have, and discovered that EVERY aspect of the case that appears to show that Oswald was a Cuban Commie can be traced back to the same people - those connected to David Atlee Phillips.

That Oswald was a Cuban-Commie was part of the original cover-story, and while it was not successful in getting the LBJ regime that took over to invade Cuba as intended, it was used by LBJ to keep the official investigations from investigating any aspect of conspiracy, which would have led, if properly pursued, to those within the US government itself.

BK

JFKcountercoup: Castro with sniper rifle 1957

More details:

http://jfkcountercoup.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/black-propaganda-the-jfk-assassination/

[Pat Speer]

Hunt and the Watergate Cubans did not lead back to Castro.

P.S. Nixon no doubt thought they were involved in the assassination attempts on Castro. Hunt, as I recall, was involved in talks of killing Castro long before Kennedy was elected, and knew that Nixon had signed off on it. Nixon's probable concern was that HE was responsible for getting Kennedy killed, and that Hunt knew about this. Barker worked with Hunt. Barker ran Sturgis. Sturgis claimed he was asked to perform assassinations. Martinez was part of Mongoose, blah blah blah. It all led back to Castro.

Hunt and the Watergate Cubans were not employed by Castro. That was my point. "The fingerprints of intelligence"

points to US intel. And yet you characterize Schweiker's view as "Castro did it."

Please provide the money quote on that one!

CV:

Richard Helms was not a man to project "turmoil," as Haldeman put it.

And Haldeman directly questions the denial that Oswald was a CIA agent.

There is no "pure dynamite" in either the Mafia-plot or Castro-did-it stories.

I stand corrected on the last one. You make good points about the IG report, Pat. But here are the sections of

THE ENDS OF POWER you and Len Colby aren't taking in accurately.

Haldeman, emphasis added:

Interestingly, an investigation of the Kennedy assassination was a project I suggested when I first entered the White House. I had always been intrigued with the conflicting theories of the assassination. Now I felt we would be in a position to get all the facts. Nixon turned me down.

Pat, you and Colby insist on confining Haldeman's meaning to "Castro did it," even though the highly publicized Garrison investigation fingered the CIA.

On what basis do you dismiss Garrison's accusations from Haldeman's interest in "conflicting theories"?

You have no basis in fact to dismiss the view that Haldeman included the CIA as suspects. This is the other section you are determined to dismiss.

Haldeman:

In a chilling parallel to their cover-up at Watergate, the CIA literally erased any connection between Kennedy's assassination and the CIA. No mention of the Castro assassination attempt was made to the Warren Commission by CIA representatives. In fact, Counter-intelligence chief James Angleton of the CIA called Bill Sullivan of the FBI and rehearsed the questions and answers they would give to the Warren Commission investigators, such as these samples:

Q. Was Oswald an agent of the CIA?

A. No.

Q. Does the CIA have any evidence showing that a conspiracy existed to assassinate Kennedy?

A. No.

It appears that you and Len Colby want to shoe-horn Haldeman's thinking into some little Castro-did-it box, but the clear subtext to THE ENDS OF POWER is that Haldeman was intrigued by several theories of the assassination, including the then well-publicized theory that the CIA did it.

Things are not as they appear.

We are mostly in agreement. I wouldn't be surprised if Haldeman suspected the CIA. I just doubt they were at the top of his list, and doubt that when he wrote that the Bay of Pigs thing was code for the Kennedy assassination he meant that it was more specifically code for the CIA's assassination of Kennedy.

[David Lifton]

Well, in time it became obvious: he was hoping a new investigation would 1) lead back to Castro and/or the Soviets, and 2) be politically damaging to Johnson and make liberals look soft on communism. And he was not alone. A number of other conservatives were of the same mind, Ronald Reagan included. Here is Reagan pushing as much in the late 70's...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P_k2qGadFU

This is a rare find, and most interesting.

Thank you Patrick for posting this. Keep up the good work!

FYI: I know from my own personal knowledge that Ronald Reagan was an "assassination buff" and had a pile of JFK assassination books on the night table near his bed. (At least, this is what I have been told by someone --not in politics--who knew him and had occasion to spend time with him at his home on several occasions.

DSL

3/11/11; 3:40 AM PST

Los Angeles, CA

[Micah Mileto]

On 3/6/2011 at 5:04 PM, David Lifton said:

DVP:

I have news for you. If Bugliosi had any real command of the facts in the medical area, he wouldn't have had to issue a written apology to Paul K. O'Connor (now deceased) the Bethesda medical technician who said that when the body arrived, the cranium was empty. (See Chapter 26, Best Evidence, "The Recollections of Paul K. O'Connor)" Mr. Bugliosi had to issue such a written retraction--right there at the bottom of a page of Reclaiming History, because he stupidly confused inaccurate statements that O'Connor made during the TV program, The Trial of Oswald (where Bugliosi plays the role of prosecutor) with the reality of what O'Connor actually witnessed on the night of November 22, 1963, at the Bethesda morgue, and as related not only to the local Florida newspapers, after the military gag order was rescinded, but to the HSCA as well. As O'Connor told the HSCA, circa 1977, after the military gag order was rescinded, the President's body arrived in a body bag, inside a shipping casket, and the cranium was empty. O'Connor then repeated the same thing to me on August 25, 1979, in a telephone interview; and then again in a filmed interview in October, 1980--which was broadcast repeatedly all over America during my various book tours for Best Evidence, after its publication in January, 1981. (And those clips are today on YouTube).

Furthermore, if you have any doubt that the body arrived with a largely empty cranium, just look at the handwritten notes of FBI Agent James Sibert, who was there, and who has written, in a file of papers turned over to the ARRB: ""Brain had been removed from head cavity." [see ARRB medical document MD-216] (And the late Francis O'Neill, Fr., said essentially the same thing, to his businessman friend Wayne Cooke: "Wayne, there was no brain. The cranium was empty." I personally arranged for that material to be sent to the ARRB, and it is now at the National Archives.)

Mr. Bugliosi repeatedly misrepresents the record on facts pertaining to the invalidity of the Kennedy autopsy, and hides ignorance behind an easily pierced shield of arrogance.

And again, sorry if these facts cause you bladder problems.

Autopsy fraud is at the heart of the false case against Oswald, and provides the key to the truth about what happened in Dealey Plaza; and what was done to Kennedy's body to conceal it.

DSL

3/6/11

In the 1992 VHS tape Witness Vs Research: Questioning the Facts by George Michael Evica, Wayne Cooke appeared on a panel discussion that included Francis X. O'Neill. His name is spelled C-O-O-K-E there.