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Does Lifton's Best Evidence indicate that the coverup and the crime were committed by the same people?


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More of PT nonsense.

The idea that the Dulles/Ruth Forbes Paine Young connection was a Probe Magazine original  shows just how poorly informed he is.

As Lifton notes, the Bancroft book was published in 1983.  It was sitting at the AARC Library at least as far back as in the early nineties. A frequenter of the AARC first told me about the info in it related above at that time.  To anyone interested in the case, it would be interesting, since 1.) Dulles was the most active member of the Warren Commission by a significant degree, and 2.) Ruth Paine was the single most questioned witness before the Commission.  Even more than Marina Oswald.

I mean, duh.

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On 4/19/2017 at 0:20 PM, Sandy Larsen said:


David,

Thanks for spending the time commenting on some of the things I've written.

I want to say, for the record, that I don't believe Ruth Paine was (or is) an evil person. But I do believe she was working for the CIA and did what she was told.

I'm curious to see what you write in Final Charade that explains how Oswald just happened to get the right job at the right time, so that he could play the part of patsy. Of course, you could spare us the suspense and let us know right now. Hey, you might even win over some converts from the "Ruth Paine is CIA" camp. ;)

 

Sandy, (and also to Ron Ecker, the first post on Web page #31):

Thanks for your post.

I've written quite a bit on this thread because I'm in the process of assembling the Final Charade manuscript and its very helpful to put certain ideas "out there" if only to see the response.  (In a way, its an intellectual form of "market research").  Rest assured that I have learned from some of my experiences on the Internet, and my experiences on this thread have been no exception.  Some of my closest friends are teachers, and--as I know all too well from them, and as you probably are aware--teachers will often say that while students learn, in a classroom experience, the reverse is also true.  Teachers will tell you that  they often "learn from the students."  That applies to this thread, too.

FYI: With the exception of a few scattered months here and there on other projects, I have spent full time on the Kennedy case since the initial publication of Best Evidence in January 1981.  I have done a considerable amount of traveling and  interviewing, have made a number of very significant discoveries, and have done some very significant filmed interviews. So, in fact, I have more than just Final Charade in the pipeline.  I have two other manuscripts: one concerns the Secret Service; the other, the Zapruder film.

FILMING WITNESSES

The filmed interviews I have spanned a sufficient time period  that they represent three (3) separate periods of technology, and three entirely different kinds of film equipment used, as the technology changed.   My Best Evidence filmed interviews were done in October 1980, and constituted my first "film making" experience.  At that time,   the medium (for professional filming) was 16mm color film, and required a cameraman and a soundman (and, often, a separate producer).  The costs were about $3500 - $5000 / per shoot, and then came the costs of film processing at the famous "Duart" in New York City, and then the renting of a full editing facility.   That was October 1980, and you have seen the result in the Best Evidence Research Video (which sold about 50,000 copies, when it was originally marketed as a VHS cassette, by Rhino, and then Warner, for about $29, and is now available (free) on YouTube). Then came a period where the modality of choice was "hi 8". The result:  I have a small library of "hi 8" work --and that period was, roughly, 1989 and for some years afterwards.  Then came the period we are in now,  everything is now "digital," and some interviews can be done by remote, (i.e., via Skype).

FWIW: I did not start out to be a filmmaker, but I felt a strong responsibility to put, on camera, accounts  which are of particular historical significance.

One disadvantage from the long period of "investigation and research" is that there are certain advances I have made that I don't believe can--or should--be released until that can be done in the context of the finished work. That is why I have said, for example, that I have important evidence bearing on the question of whether it was planned, in advance, to alter President Kennedy's body as part of the crime, and I have stated that yes, I believe that to be true, but that the full revelation of that proposition (or "thesis", if you will) will have to await its presentation in Final Charade.

NOW RETURNING TO YOUR POST. and the question you have raised. . .

This is a somewhat long-winded way of returning to your post, and addressing the point you have raised. 

To restate the major part of your question: "I'm curious to see what you write in Final Charade that explains how Oswald just happened to get the right job at the right time, so that he could play the part of patsy."  Let's modify the last few words, because there's a difference between a "patsy" and a "fall guy." So I would modify your question:  ". . so that he could be the unwitting fall guy in the Kennedy assassination."

Yes, I believe I have the answer to that question;  that I can answer the "how-Oswald-got-the-job" puzzle piece and why a proper analysis absolves Ruth Paine from being on "the dark side" of that issue.  Final Charade will present  what I believe will be seen as solid and persuasive evidence of just how this (Texas) plot was structured and why it is reasonable to maintain that Oswald's employment on the Kennedy parade route was not a coincidence; and yet--at the same time--will explain how it is that  Ruth Paine was (a)  not part of any conspiracy and (b) had no foreknowledge whatsoever of Kennedy's impending demise.  Unfortunately, my   analysis  in this area-cannot be published (until it can be published in the full context provided by Final Charade).  As in the case of whether body alteration was part of the crime, etc. this matter, too, really cannot be addressed"out of context" of the full book. 

But that's OK; because, as I am reminded by a businessman I know, and who is aware of the exigencies of business: when a client starts pressuring him, he responds: "Do you want it right? OR do you want it "right now"?

THE CONSEQUENCE OF NOT HAVING A READILY AVAILABLE EXPLANATION

Meanwhile, this  delay gives certain people "free reign" to run around emoting righteously on the Internet, and  casting the Paines in a false light, mainly because they (certain researchers) never solved this aspect of the puzzle.  They  don't know the answer, and so they are just as mystified by the situation today--in 2017--as Gerald Ford was  over  50 years ago. Remember what Ford said in Portrait of the Assassin?   Oswald's job on the parade route had to be a quirk of fate, said Ford, because he had interviewed the key persons involved, and it was all the result of a coffee klatch and coincidence.

Presently, certain researchers can recycle that, and can  smugly hold forth with a piece of circumstantial evidence, and subscribe to the "other side" of the Gerald Ford coin:  that the Paines ought to have been prosecuted, or ought to be in prison, etc etc.  Another may join in (carefully measuring his words to avoid getting dragged into a lawsuit): "I think we must be careful; we must have a proper accounting  because there may have been a coup in this country in November 1963.”  So there the seed is planted that the Paines may have been knowingly involved in an American coup d'etat.  (And, of course, back when Oliver Stone made JFK [released in December 1991], he, too, didn't want a lawsuit, but on the other hand, he wanted to make the point that the Paines seemed to have some unusual friends, and so to deal with that issue, he renamed Ruth Paine as a fictional character named "Janet Williams." )

Let me be candid about this: If the Paines were younger, and cared to engage in appropriate legal counsel and someone attempted to write a book or make a movie implicating them (either in Kennedy's murder, specifically, or in a coup d'etat, in general), and presented their project in a misleading fashion to gain their permission to "go on camera," I think they could initiate significant legal action against anyone who behaved in that fashion; and specifically, anyone who attempted  to blacken their name in history based on the kind of superficial analysis I have seen promoted over at the website formerly named CTKA. And, who knows, maybe some day it will come to that. (Recently, the website Gawker was put out of business because what the founder thought was "news" crossed over the line. Way over the line.)

So, IMHO, those who are itching to put the Paines in prison (or link them to a 1963 coup) ought to be careful.  Very careful.  The fact that someone has not figured out the proper answer to this or that aspect of the JFK assassination puzzle---which, as I said, in some ways is akin to a Rubik's Cube--does not give them license to smear of libel another person or damage another person's reputation, or blacken their name in history.  No one has a license to conduct a witch hunt--on camera--and call that "investigative journalism."

We all have read accounts of bullying in middle school and high school---which gets so out of hand that the victim finally cannot take it anymore and takes his (or her) own life.

The Paine's have had it pretty rough. They were hosts to an individual who, unknown to them, was the predesignated fall guy in an upcoming presidential assassination.

This business of "blaming the Paines" offers a seriously mistaken (but superficially attractive) "conspiracy hypothesis" for those who are intellectually lazy, and whose problem is that they never got to the bottom of this particular aspect of the JFK puzzle, and I'm concerned that it may get worse before it gets better.  Unsolved crimes offer fertile ground for rumor mongering and demagoguery.  Especially for those who are basically cowards, but have a secret desire to present themselves as a man on a white horse.

To return now to the quote previously cited,  because that provides  a good example of someone with one eye on his retirement account (because he wants to appear to have exercised “due diligence”); but with the other  focused on the accusation he so dearly wishes to level against the Paines; so finally he works up his courage, throws caution to the winds, takes the plunge, and this is the way it comes out: "I think we must be careful; we must have a proper accounting  because there may have been a coup in this country in November 1963.”

As in: "I've got a lot of money (oh so much money!);  but I've consulted with my attorney, and I think its safe for me to say it that way."

Yeah, OK. . if you insist.  You're not actually Patrick Henry, but that'll do.

Stay tuned.

DSL

4/20/2017 - 6:15 a.m. PDT

Los Angeles, California

 

 

Edited by David Lifton
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40 minutes ago, Ron Ecker said:

You are also saying that it was a coincidence that Ruth Paine and Allen Dulles indirectly crossed paths, so to speak, through the mistress. It either means something or it was a coincidence.

I personally hate coincidences in cases like Dallas and 9/11 and so forth, which doesn't mean it wasn't a coincidence.

Ron,

Please look at that again -- you are saying that Ruth Paine and Allen Dulles "crossed paths" because Ruth Paine's mother-in-law had a childhood friend who later became a mistress of Allen Dulles?

Use your logic, sir!  How can her mother-in-law's childhood friend form ANY connection with Allen Dulles and the CIA?   Use your logic!

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

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38 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

...I mean, duh.

James DiEugenio, IMHO, is one of the least informed, and most dogmatic writers of the JFK CT literature. David Lifton is correct to pinpoint the weakness of James' arguments. 

James is so desperate to salvage his latest book, Reclaiming Parkland (2013), that he resorts to insults.  Goodbye to argument.  Hello stand-up comedy.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

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On 4/19/2017 at 6:27 PM, Micah Mileto said:

Didn't Michael Paine lie on that TV special and say that Oswald personally showed him the backyard photos?

Yes, he told me that too (when I spent time with him at his home in Boxnboro, Mass., circa 1995); and I do not believe he was lying.  We went over (and over) that point carefully.

If there was any lying on his part--and without returning to the original Paine FBI interviews, and his multiple depositions I can't be sure at this writing--the problem was that he never volunteered that to the Warren Commission. I'm writing from memory here, so please don't take this as fact without verification: but the significance of Oswald having an "enlarged" picture of the backyard photograph, in his Neely Street apartment, was that he most likely made the item himself, using the enlarger at Jaggars.  This fit with what Larry Schiller told me back around 1967--that it was his (very informal) opinion that if the backyard photos were forgeries, then Oswald made them himself.

DSL

4/20/2017 - 6:55 a.m PDT

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20 minutes ago, Paul Trejo said:

Ron,

Please look at that again -- you are saying that Ruth Paine and Allen Dulles "crossed paths" because Ruth Paine's mother-in-law had a childhood friend who later became a mistress of Allen Dulles?

Use your logic, sir!  How can her mother-in-law's childhood friend form ANY connection with Allen Dulles and the CIA?   Use your logic!

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

I said they "indirectly crossed paths, so to speak," didn't I? I didn't say they bumped into each other.

And you can attack my logic all you want. IMHO anyone who has had any connection in their life with Allen Dulles, no matter how indirect and inconsequential, needs to go take a shower. And to repeat, I hate coincidences, but I have no evidence that Ruth Paine was involved in anything other than fascinating coincidences. That's why I'm very interested in reading David's long-awaited book in this regard.

    

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10 hours ago, Chris Newton said:

David,

The Ruth Paine story about how and why she acquired the original "Kostikov" letter and made a copy baffles the mind. It simply does not add up.

Hi Chris,

I don't (necessarily) see what the problem is.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but--now relying on recollection--Oswald left a handwritten copy of the letter he had mailed out there in full view on some surface. She picked it up out of sheer curiosity, read it, and got somewhat alarmed. And she decided she would give it to Agent Hosty.  That's my recollection of the sequence. Why is that baffling?

Please explain, and if time permits, I'll try to reply further.

DSL

4/20/2017 - 7:10 a.m. PDT

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Please note what PT left out of his reply to me that I mentioned in my original post:

1.  Dulles was by far the single  most active member of the Warren Commission, and according to David Talbot, the single member who actually lobbied to get on that body.

2.  Ruth Paine was the witness who was on the stand the longest in terms of actual questioning.  More than even Marina.  

If he does not want to note those facts, then fine.  But if you leave it out, then you can say as he does, I am not resorting to facts.  But if you read Walt Brown's The Warren Omission, you will see the data to back those statements up.

 

 

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2 hours ago, David Lifton said:

Unfortunately, my analysis in this area [regarding how Oswald just happened to get a job where he could be made a scapegoat] -- cannot be published.


David,

I sure hope that what you meant by that is that your analysis cannot be published till when it can be understood in the context given by Final Charade. In other words, that you will reveal your analysis when Final Charade is published.

P.S. I want to thank you personally for making your filmed interviews freely available.

 

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1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Please note what PT left out of his reply to me that I mentioned in my original post:

1.  Dulles was by far the single  most active member of the Warren Commission, and according to David Talbot, the single member who actually lobbied to get on that body.

2.  Ruth Paine was the witness who was on the stand the longest in terms of actual questioning.  More than even Marina.  

If he does not want to note those facts, then fine.  But if you leave it out, then you can say as he does, I am not resorting to facts.  But if you read Walt Brown's The Warren Omission, you will see the data to back those statements up.

Again, James, you try to make a cloak-and-dagger scenario out of everything.

The reason Ruth Paine was questioned far more than any other WC witness -- including Marina Oswald -- was because she was so close to Marina Oswald, and furthermore, unlike Marina, Ruth Paine is an expert in the English language, and provided tons of information in easy-to-understand sentences.

What the WC got out of Ruth Paine after more than five thousand questions was -- Ruth was an accidental observer of US History unfolding before her eyes.

Ruth Paine got involved with Marina Oswald because she genuinely liked Marina Oswald -- her personality, her Russian eloquence, her motherhood, her common sense, and her polite manners.   Further Marina Oswald was eight months pregnant near the end of September 1963, and Marina had no health insurance, no money, nor had even seen a doctor in her pregnancy, because Lee Harvey Oswald was a miser, and was also out of work for the third time in a year. 

It was obvious poverty.  And Ruth Paine wanted to help Marina Oswald -- with Lee's permission.  Of course Lee accepted her charity, because he was flat broke and his family was almost as poor as he was, and Ruth Paine was rich.  So, he accepted.

Ruth didn't like Lee Oswald very well.  Marina complained about him, and Lee was a poverty-stricken Marine with an attitude.  Ruth took in Marina -- not Lee.

But Lee came around anyway on the weekends -- and ate food for free, never contributing anything.  Then the FBI came snooping around.  Ruth liked the FBI, because she was and remains a patriotic US citizen, so she cooperated with James Hosty fully.  Then Lee left that "Soviet Embassy Letter" on her desk, and she made a hand-written copy to give to James Hosty when he returned.  Too late -- JFK was killed in a few days.

So -- Ruth Paine was questioned day after day.  Was she a Communist?  Was she involved in the plot to kill JFK?  What did she know about Lee Harvey Oswald?

Not much -- it turns out.  Lee was a miser, a freeloader and a big mouth Marxist who never joined a Communist Party.  Ruth just felt sorry for Marina.  Then all this.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

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2 hours ago, David Lifton said:

Hi Chris,

I don't (necessarily) see what the problem is.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but--now relying on recollection--Oswald left a handwritten copy of the letter he had mailed out there in full view on some surface. She picked it up out of sheer curiosity, read it, and got somewhat alarmed. And she decided she would give it to Agent Hosty.  That's my recollection of the sequence. Why is that baffling?

Please explain, and if time permits, I'll try to reply further.

DSL

4/20/2017 - 7:10 a.m. PDT

David,

We investigated Ruth's stories about the letter in two threads here last year. I'll make a summary and post it here this weekend.

 

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12 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

BTW, to get back to the original point of the thread, which somehow got lost, I think the conspiracy and cover up were enacted by the same upper level of the plotters.

I think Lifton and I disagree on who that level was, at least back in his Best Evidence days. Back then, his friend Wallace Milam told me that Lifton thought the top level was LBJ and the JCS.

I don't think that was the controlling level.  But I do think the topmost level planned both the conspiracy and the cover up.

Glad to see that you are keeping up to date on whom I have swapped ideas with, but I haven't spoken to Wallace Milam in over 25 years. (But yes, he was someone I knew and who provided a valuable news tip, and his name --properly credited--appears  on the second page of Chapter 25 of B.E.)   As for LBJ, I think if Shakespeare were alive today, and researching the Kennedy assassination, he'd likely consider LBJ a "person of interest." (See his play, Mac something-or-other).   As for the JCS, I've grown more or less agnostic.  If this was really a body-centric plot, as I stressed in my November 2013 talk at Bismarck State College (Google David Lifton Bismark to view it on YouTube) one really does not need the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Air Force.  And you couldn't send an aircraft carrier to the Dallas area, even if you wished to do so, because there's no nearby body of water sufficiently large enough accommodate such naval hardware. (Although it might be helpful if the Navy would provide "command and control" at one of the nation's naval hospitals). Anyway, send Wallace my regards.

DSL

4/20/2017 0 19L35 a.m. PDT

Los Angeles, California

Edited by David Lifton
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46 minutes ago, David Lifton said:

As for the JCS, I've grown more or less agnostic.

David,

I remain intrigued by the fact that Maxwell Taylor, according to his son John M. Taylor (in his book An American Soldier), cried on two occasions when the subject of the JFK assassination came up. That doesn't strike me as the kind of reaction one would expect from an Army general who simply may have been fond of the late president.

 

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To Mr. Lifton: Thanks for the negative clarification.

As per Trejo, sometimes your attempts at rationalization are simply so wildly obtuse it really makes me wonder about you.

To say that the reason the Paines were the most questioned witnesses  is  simply due to the proximity? I mean they only met the Oswalds in late spring.  The Oswalds then went to New Orleans, and on the return, they were associated for about seven weeks. 

Your conclusion about the sum total of that weeks long relationship deserves to be quoted: Lee was a miser, a freeloader and a big mouth Marxist who never joined a Communist Party.  Ruth just felt sorry for Marina.  Then all this.

In addition to that utterly false portrait, I think you leave out an important aspect.

The possessions in Ruth's infamous garage that, like the Nixon archives in Yorba Linda, turned out to be  the gift that kept on giving. Day after day, week after week, month after month that place kept on being the well spring for the case against Oswald.  You name it, we got it:

 Need a rifle, it was here!

Need photos, we got those!  Which ones do you need?

Need a note that looks like somehow Oswald was going to shoot someone, hey look inside these books!

Need a letter to the Russians, hey I got it here too!

Wrong camera for those BYP's, come and get the right one!

Need evidence of Mexico City, good ole Ruthie will get that for you!

It got so bad that the Secret Service started returning stuff to her since they suspected she was manufacturing evidence.  And after they detained Marina, they told her, no more Ruth Paine.  Its obvious she is CIA.

But, what did they know?  Right on PT.

 

 

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