Whistling by the Graveyard

[Michael Clark]

   On 7/14/2018 at 7:50 PM,  Evan Marshall said: 

 It's so easy and gratifying to make assumptions that confirm our core beliefs but without evidence we're simply whistling pass the grave yard

Edited July 16, 2018 by Michael Clark

[Michael Clark]

   23 hours ago,  Paul Brancato said: 

 Mysterious comment. 

 

Edited July 16, 2018 by Michael Clark

[Michael Clark]

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Posted 11 hours ago

Paul:

 

Robert Blair was an 18th Century Scottish poet who was educated in the Netherlands and Edinburgh .  He is most well known for his final poem titled The Grave written in 1743 on the subject of death and the graveyard.  Its popularity in Scotland gave rise to the so-called graveyard school of poetry.  Blair was man of the cloth who followed his father, one of the King’s chaplains, into the ministry. He only published three poems in his relatively short life time but one of these brought him a great deal of fame. It is a long piece of blank verse, numbering  767 lines, called The Grave. Later editions of this poem were illustrated by the artist William Blake who furnished a number of disturbing images to go with Blair’s words of great foreboding.  A portion of this poem mentions the idea of whistling past the graveyard: (e.g. The Skeleton Reanimated). This  

 

 

            Oft in the lone church yard at night I've seen,


 

            By glimpse of moonshine chequering thro' the trees,


 

            The school boy, with his satchel in his hand,


 

            Whistling aloud to bear his courage up,


 

            And lightly tripping o'er the long flat stones,


 

            (With nettles skirted, and with moss o'ergrown,)


 

            That tell in homely phrase who lie below.


 

 

There are two meanings for this idiom, both dependent on the same metaphoric setting and action; one is mostly positive, the other is not.  The first meaning connotes bravery, or at least nonchalance, in the face of danger or difficulties. The second meaning describes an individual who is genuinely confident and cheerful while in pursuit of a course of action, at the same time blithely oblivious to the real risks involved. This second meaning has the element of turning a blind eye to something you should be attending to – stop deluding one’s self and ignoring the obvious ... a pejorative element of burying one’s head in the sand rather than facing reality.  Another context is the foolish confidence of one who does not understand the real dangers or difficulties of the situation in question.  Linguists believe this expression will eventually pass from popular usage since today we are more suburban-born and automobile-dependent ... and few of us have the experience of walking past graveyards and cemeteries.

 

I think what Evan is trying to tell us is that much of the guessing about who the assassins were (QJ/WIN, et al) is speculation by those who don't have experience in this deadly craft.  And that we may be ignoring the obvious ... namely, a few trained shooters from JM/WAVE ranks and an imported military sniper from SE Asia.

 

Gene

 

Edited July 16, 2018 by Michael Clark

[Michael Clark]

 

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Posted 2 hours ago

Steve

I've been called a lot of things lately, and erudite - someone transformed from a roughened/uninformed state to a polished/knowledgeable one through a devotion to learning - is one of the nicest.  I still use this phrase (whistling past the graveyard) frequently, and most recipients look at me quizzically ...  might be showing my age now. The idiom has become a bit dated, and younger folks (like my kids) usually have no inkling of where I'm coming from.  When I read Evan's post, it struck me along the line of the following: thinking of assassins who killed the President is about as dark as it gets.  Your own government takes out a very popular leader, and then hides the truth for 50 years.  So, when we try to contemplate who would actually pull those triggers, its a bit scary and difficult to live with.  So, its the first meaning of the term (imho) where we are intimidated (i.e. spooked) and trying to keep our wits about us as we pass by the scary "graveyard" of possible/alleged assassins ... Corsicans, Cuban nationals like Manuel Orcarberrio, CIA-trained snipers, Mafia hitmen, nameless foreign nationals without a country (QJ/WIN), Malcolm Wallace, Roscoe White, Otto Skorzeny and fellow Nazis,  young Mexicans trained by Albert Osborne, et al.   

I therefore took Evan's caution along the lines of that we may be consoling ourselves (out of fear) by speculating upon all the possible candidates.  While I know many are more interested in who paid for the bullets, contemplating the actual killers is fundamentally unsettling.  I'm always impressed by folks who frequent the Forum and seem to know what they're talking about (e.g. Al Carrier, Lee Forman, Evan) when it comes to shooting and ambush tactics.  They have insider information and subject matter expertise, which I respect.  One thing is certain: someone pulled a few triggers (more than one person) in Dealey Plaza and it wasn't young Lee Harvey. The shots were expert, and designed just for JFK (and not Jacqueline, which is a feat unto itself).   They blew JFK's head off at high noon in a motorcade ... quite a statement.  I would suspect that the actual shooters were not allowed to stay on the planet too long, and will forever remain nameless.  

Gene

Edited July 16, 2018 by Michael Clark

[Michael Clark]

I thought that that these posts should be preserved in isolation from the thread in which they originated.

Edited July 16, 2018 by Michael Clark

[Kathleen Collins]

On 7/15/2018 at 8:06 PM, Michael Clark said:

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Posted 11 hours ago

Paul:

 

Robert Blair was an 18th Century Scottish poet who was educated in the Netherlands and Edinburgh .  He is most well known for his final poem titled The Grave written in 1743 on the subject of death and the graveyard.  Its popularity in Scotland gave rise to the so-called graveyard school of poetry.  Blair was man of the cloth who followed his father, one of the King’s chaplains, into the ministry. He only published three poems in his relatively short life time but one of these brought him a great deal of fame. It is a long piece of blank verse, numbering  767 lines, called The Grave. Later editions of this poem were illustrated by the artist William Blake who furnished a number of disturbing images to go with Blair’s words of great foreboding.  A portion of this poem mentions the idea of whistling past the graveyard: (e.g. The Skeleton Reanimated). This  

 

 

            Oft in the lone church yard at night I've seen,


 

            By glimpse of moonshine chequering thro' the trees,


 

            The school boy, with his satchel in his hand,


 

            Whistling aloud to bear his courage up,


 

            And lightly tripping o'er the long flat stones,


 

            (With nettles skirted, and with moss o'ergrown,)


 

            That tell in homely phrase who lie below.


 

 

There are two meanings for this idiom, both dependent on the same metaphoric setting and action; one is mostly positive, the other is not.  The first meaning connotes bravery, or at least nonchalance, in the face of danger or difficulties. The second meaning describes an individual who is genuinely confident and cheerful while in pursuit of a course of action, at the same time blithely oblivious to the real risks involved. This second meaning has the element of turning a blind eye to something you should be attending to – stop deluding one’s self and ignoring the obvious ... a pejorative element of burying one’s head in the sand rather than facing reality.  Another context is the foolish confidence of one who does not understand the real dangers or difficulties of the situation in question.  Linguists believe this expression will eventually pass from popular usage since today we are more suburban-born and automobile-dependent ... and few of us have the experience of walking past graveyards and cemeteries.

 

I think what Evan is trying to tell us is that much of the guessing about who the assassins were (QJ/WIN, et al) is speculation by those who don't have experience in this deadly craft.  And that we may be ignoring the obvious ... namely, a few trained shooters from JM/WAVE ranks and an imported military sniper from SE Asia.

 

Gene

 

 I have an English degree so I thank you.

Kathy C

 

[Gene Kelly]

I hope that I haven't stirred a hornets nest here (another idiom) but the term whistling past the graveyard is something I've been using for years (usually at work).  I'm not a liberal arts major (my degrees are in physics and engineering).   But when I read Evan's post, it struck me in a way that made sense.   It would be very satisfying (and a bit of a relief) to see a definitive identification of the JFK shooters, spotters, flankers, radio/communications individuals, breakdown mechanics, and security people.  

[B. A. Copeland]

On 7/17/2018 at 4:04 PM, Gene Kelly said:

I hope that I haven't stirred a hornets nest here (another idiom) but the term whistling past the graveyard is something I've been using for years (usually at work).  I'm not a liberal arts major (my degrees are in physics and engineering).   But when I read Evan's post, it struck me in a way that made sense.   It would be very satisfying (and a bit of a relief) to see a definitive identification of the JFK shooters, spotters, flankers, radio/communications individuals, breakdown mechanics, and security people.  

I absolutely love the term Gene and also find the ID of such individuals eternally fascinating. I’m comfortable knowing we *may* not ever learn who they were, certainly that discipline has its students and teachers for sure. 

You could certainly focus on Felipe Vidal Santiago and Roy Hargraves at the very least as far as potential suspects literally in Dealey Plaza. 

Edited July 20, 2018 by B. A. Copeland

[Gene Kelly]

BA

Thanks for the response.  Nothing is certain in this regard (shooters) and given the nature of the subject, I suspect we will never ever know with any certainty. 

Nestor Izquierdo as a spotter and Felipe Vidal Santiago as a shooter are names that makes some sense.  Roy Hargraves is also in the "Final Four" (I am a basketball guy), a man who (per Larry Hancock) was independently reported to the FBI as a suspect in the attack on the President, a man who volunteered to help Jim Garrison and along with Bernardo de Torres helped poison Garrison’s investigation of the Cuban exile community. A man who, in the presence of his lawyer, years later admitted going to Dallas and building a bomb which did not have to be used 9the backup plan under the Overpass).  He admitted to a great many other things as well, but cautiously... including the presence of his good friend Felipe Vidal Santiago in Dallas.

As Dick Russell would have it, Colonel William Bishop confirmed that he was aware of the plot which included people such as Tony Varona and Roland Masferrer.  Then there is Operation 40 ... specialists who are trained, participated in operations against Cuba: Antonio Veciana, Ricardo Morales Navarrete, Felipe Rivero, Juan Manuel Salvat, Antonio Cuesta, Eladio del Valle, Herminio Diaz, Pedro Luis Diaz Lanz, Rafael "Chichi" Quintero,  Paulino Sierra, Bernard Baker, and Eugenio Martinez, alias 'Musculito.' The team that organized all of this was: David Morales; David Phillips; Howard Hunt; Willian Harvey; John Rosselli ... and the one and only Porter Goss, a JM/WAVE subordinate of Phillips and Morales at the time. As Escalante described:

"Operation 40 is the grandmother and great-grandmother of all of the operations that are formed later'.

A short list of guys with a vendetta and axe to grind after the Bay of Pigs.  Guys who could be spun up and activated by their CIA handlers.  Guys who later die fighting for the cause.

Gene  

[Paul Brancato]

2 hours ago, Gene Kelly said:

BA

Thanks for the response.  Nothing is certain in this regard (shooters) and given the nature of the subject, I suspect we will never ever know with any certainty. 

Nestor Izquierdo as a spotter and Felipe Vidal Santiago as a shooter are names that makes some sense.  Roy Hargraves is also in the "Final Four" (I am a basketball guy), a man who (per Larry Hancock) was independently reported to the FBI as a suspect in the attack on the President, a man who volunteered to help Jim Garrison and along with Bernardo de Torres helped poison Garrison’s investigation of the Cuban exile community. A man who, in the presence of his lawyer, years later admitted going to Dallas and building a bomb which did not have to be used 9the backup plan under the Overpass).  He admitted to a great many other things as well, but cautiously... including the presence of his good friend Felipe Vidal Santiago in Dallas.

As Dick Russell would have it, Colonel William Bishop confirmed that he was aware of the plot which included people such as Tony Varona and Roland Masferrer.  Then there is Operation 40 ... specialists who are trained, participated in operations against Cuba: Antonio Veciana, Ricardo Morales Navarrete, Felipe Rivero, Juan Manuel Salvat, Antonio Cuesta, Eladio del Valle, Herminio Diaz, Pedro Luis Diaz Lanz, Rafael "Chichi" Quintero,  Paulino Sierra, Bernard Baker, and Eugenio Martinez, alias 'Musculito.' The team that organized all of this was: David Morales; David Phillips; Howard Hunt; Willian Harvey; John Rosselli ... and the one and only Porter Goss, a JM/WAVE subordinate of Phillips and Morales at the time. As Escalante described:

"Operation 40 is the grandmother and great-grandmother of all of the operations that are formed later'.

A short list of guys with a vendetta and axe to grind after the Bay of Pigs.  Guys who could be spun up and activated by their CIA handlers.  Guys who later die fighting for the cause.

Gene  

And I would add, were completely unsuccessful in their life mission to get rid of Castro one way or another. 

[David Boylan]

On 7/17/2018 at 8:37 PM, Gene Kelly said:

BA

Thanks for the response.  Nothing is certain in this regard (shooters) and given the nature of the subject, I suspect we will never ever know with any certainty. 

Nestor Izquierdo as a spotter and Felipe Vidal Santiago as a shooter are names that makes some sense.  Roy Hargraves is also in the "Final Four" (I am a basketball guy), a man who (per Larry Hancock) was independently reported to the FBI as a suspect in the attack on the President, a man who volunteered to help Jim Garrison and along with Bernardo de Torres helped poison Garrison’s investigation of the Cuban exile community. A man who, in the presence of his lawyer, years later admitted going to Dallas and building a bomb which did not have to be used 9the backup plan under the Overpass).  He admitted to a great many other things as well, but cautiously... including the presence of his good friend Felipe Vidal Santiago in Dallas.

As Dick Russell would have it, Colonel William Bishop confirmed that he was aware of the plot which included people such as Tony Varona and Roland Masferrer.  Then there is Operation 40 ... specialists who are trained, participated in operations against Cuba: Antonio Veciana, Ricardo Morales Navarrete, Felipe Rivero, Juan Manuel Salvat, Antonio Cuesta, Eladio del Valle, Herminio Diaz, Pedro Luis Diaz Lanz, Rafael "Chichi" Quintero,  Paulino Sierra, Bernard Baker, and Eugenio Martinez, alias 'Musculito.' The team that organized all of this was: David Morales; David Phillips; Howard Hunt; Willian Harvey; John Rosselli ... and the one and only Porter Goss, a JM/WAVE subordinate of Phillips and Morales at the time. As Escalante described:

"Operation 40 is the grandmother and great-grandmother of all of the operations that are formed later'.

A short list of guys with a vendetta and axe to grind after the Bay of Pigs.  Guys who could be spun up and activated by their CIA handlers.  Guys who later die fighting for the cause.

Gene  

 

Gene,

Great list. I would add Rip Robertson and his guys. One of whom was Nestor Izquierdo. Vidal was the radio guy. Hargraves was sitting next to him.

Dave

 

 

Edited July 21, 2018 by David Boylan

[Ron Bulman]

2 hours ago, David Boylan said:

 

Gene,

Great list. I would add Rip Robertson and his guys. One of whom was Nestor Izquierdo. Vidal was Umbrella Man. Hargraves was sitting next to him.

Dave

 

 

It would be great is someone with access to them and knowledge of how to could post pictures side by side of Vidal and Umbrella man in terms of convincing evidence.  As well as Hargraves and "radio man".  I remember the claims by Jim Hicks to be radioman without the radio, that after talking with Jim Garrison he was committed to a mental institution (like Nagell).  Then again at the end of the following thread Bart Kamp posts a newspaper article that says Hicks was a former Dallas bus driver - as opposed to a CIA op that told umbrella man to pump it up and down.

 

 

[B. A. Copeland]

19 hours ago, David Boylan said:

 

Gene,

Great list. I would add Rip Robertson and his guys. One of whom was Nestor Izquierdo. Vidal was Umbrella Man. Hargraves was sitting next to him.

Dave

 

 

Dave do you mean the tall dark completed man? (aka “radio man”)? I definitely suspect dark complected man is Santiago but it’s definitely (well....I’d like to think that it’s educated lol...) speculation based on bits and pieces of evidence.

[Gene Kelly]

Ron

There is some good information about Jim Hicks from Larry Hancock, in a March 2013 EF thread started about researcher Jones Harris. Hicks did spend some time in a mental institution called Fort Supply (a hospital named after a former cavalry post) for alcohol abuse.  After being released, he made calls to the FBI from bars.  When Jim Garrison brought him to New Orleans, Hicks apparently brought a couple of guys he met in a bar back to his hotel room and got beat up in an ensuing brawl (allegedly thrown through a plate glass window) which was construed (by Garrison) as harassment for his assassination knowledge and testimony.  Hicks claimed that he also received threatening calls, warning him not to talk.  The legend about having a radio in Dealey Plaza came from someone other than Hicks himself. His statements were made primarily to newspaper reporters and never to law enforcement per se.  It does not appear that - as legend has it - he was stashed away in a secret medical facility to prevent his testimony.  Larry believes that his claims are less about any assassination complicity, and more of a sad story about a man with a drinking problem.

Hicks was not one of the better leads generated by the Garrison investigation; when he went down to testify for the Grand Jury, he ended getting rolled and beat up. Later he talked to reporters and seemed to feel that Garrison would call him back as a major witness for the Shaw trial...which Garrison did not. Hicks did appear before the Orleans Parish Grand Jury on January 11, 1968, and was questioned in the presence of the grand jury.  He had gone to see the Presidential "parade" alone, as he stated he was not married then.  He told a tale about observing a car with two men in the Knoll parking lot, one kneeling in the trunk, with what looked like he had a “piece of pipe or broom handle”.  He described the car as a white 56 Pontiac, backed up against the fence, and that the two men appeared to be dark-complected and Spanish.  He testified to hearing several shots that came "overhead" (from two separate directions or locations) and that he heard the zing coming over his head. 

According to Larry Hancock, most everything you find in print about Hicks is urban legend information, except for the fact that he was in Dealey Plaza that day (supposedly because his wife was working in Dallas).  There's not much else out there written about Jim Hicks.

Gene

[James DiEugenio]

William Bishop is also a witness to seeing an exile training film with Oswald in it.

Gene, the guy I think you are referring to who get beat up to the point he could not testify is Clyde Johnson.  Not Hicks.

As per the radio addition I think that was done by Dick Sprague the photo analyst who found a pic that resembled Hicks from the rear and what did look like an electronic gadget in his back pocket.  Personally, I never knew what to make of this guy.

 

Edited July 21, 2018 by James DiEugenio