Ku Klux Klan

[Paul Trejo]

Pretty low standards for "high". Of course I know who some of the White Knights were back then. They may have been clandestine to northerners, but when you live around them, go to school with their kids, worship with them in church, shop with them at the store, sit next to them on a bus, and listen to them spout off wherever they go, it does not take a rocket scientist. Besides many White Knights were in my family; I never liked nor joined the KKK. Besides, what good would it do to tell you who they were? You'd do nothing about it....

Terri, your eye-witness account conforms to common sense. It amazes me that you continue to receive so much flack about it.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited April 7, 2013 by Paul Trejo

[Terri Williams]

After reading your PM and this response, Ms. Williams, I would say that part of the problem is some confusion on your part, which hard though it may be to believe I really don't mean negatively. It seems that you've taken the long article by John Drabble that I posted as if it covers everything that could possibly be covered on the subject of Klan activities in Mississippi, and so you find it "most odd that NOTHING was ever investigated" in Terry, Mississippi. We would have no idea what was or was not investigated by the FBI (or anyone else) in your hometown except by researching the issue further; just because it's not mentioned in Drabble's article doesn't mean things weren't investigated there, and likewise even if things weren't investigated it doesn't mean a lot of things didn't happen there (as you say that they did). It just means that Drabble (for instance) didn't find or include anything about Terry, Mississippi in his article. As for no one apparently being arrested or convicted ...... well, that's another issue in itself.

It's also apparent to me that you think the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi were "the Klan" as such, that any Klan members were "White Knights." But the White Knights weren't any run-of-the-mill, garden-variety Klan organization, where Klan members get their best robes and hoods and run off to a Saturday night rally, listen to speeches about miscegenation and Communism, fire up the ol' cross and sing about Jesus and how much he loves white folks while eating potato salad.

That was my point: it would be extremely unusual for you or anyone else to "know" who these White Knights were unless you were a committed fanatic involved in (for instance) one of their bombing missions.

Thank you for sharing the information in the PM. I will look into some of it if I ever get the chance. But I'm afraid you're arguing in circles to some extent, since naming such people would be one way to expose them for what they were, to get them investigated, to get these activities in your hometown explored. And if that were done, you wouldn't have to wonder why there were no investigations, arrests, convictions in Terry, Mississippi.

Also, you have no reason to allege that I would do nothing about such information if you were to tell me (us) who they were. For all you know, I could be close personal friends with prominent researchers who think so highly of me they remember who I am.

NO one was ever busted in Terry for the many lynchings and the church bombing in 1958 or 9. At least not that I know of. See I don't know everything!

The men that I know killed my friend Junior Ransom were never arrested. The men who blew up the church on 1958 or 9 never got arrested, even though the organist and her daughter were killed in the blast.

They are mostly dead now anyway. Only one or two of them still lives. It would be nice if some justice was brought to Junior and his family. Is there a way to message you privately?

Another reason someone might know about the goings on of the Klan, is that they had Klan in their family, although they themselves were not a member of the organization.

Imagine if you can, what it must have been like growing up in Terry being surrounded by White Knights. One who was not a member, would think that was the only kind of Klan there was. It isn't as if the fact was all that hidden. When visiting relatives and friends, I noticed the Klan garb in their closets. They were White Knights Klan. Anyone who was not a member in Terry back then would have thought the White Knights were the Klan. There were not many people who had not heard of the White Knights in Terry in the 1960's. I never heard of any other kind of Klan, so of course I thought the White Knights were the Klan. The White Knights were a pack of bullies and their kids, too.

Of course, once ordered to leave and not come back, I did just that, left and NEVER went back to their house, let alone the road they lived on. I would have had to be quite stupid to not notice who the Klan were. Come on. My grandmother, a genealogist and Magna Charta Dame, helped them get their Knight titles.

I was made the successor of my grandmother's title, but that doesn't mean I joined the Klan.

Hope you understand.

PS - I was a 10 years old when JFK was killed. It is unlikely that I participated in the attack, let alone Klan activities.

Edited April 7, 2013 by Terri Williams

[Terri Williams]

Pretty low standards for "high". Of course I know who some of the White Knights were back then. They may have been clandestine to northerners, but when you live around them, go to school with their kids, worship with them in church, shop with them at the store, sit next to them on a bus, and listen to them spout off wherever they go, it does not take a rocket scientist. Besides many White Knights were in my family; I never liked nor joined the KKK. Besides, what good would it do to tell you who they were? You'd do nothing about it....

Terri, your eye-witness account conforms to common sense. It amazes me that you continue to receive so much flack about it.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Thanks Paul. I think it is a widely popular club! It's okay, I'm use to it. Thank you for the support. I do appreciate it, as it is rare to NOT catch flack.

Also I would like to add that the reason I trudge forth, is that I DO feel COMPELLED to tell what I know at my late age. The truth is worth it I feel. No one else will tell you. So I do. I am not the only one who knows these facts are true, but I am the only fool who feels compelled to say something.

Edited April 7, 2013 by Terri Williams

[Paul Trejo]

...Sorry to see you took Mr. Trejo's advice and warned/threatened Professor Farley with legal action -- that's how we lost Tim Gratz and a wealth of knowledge.

I assume what I've written here hasn't contained too much "flak" for anyone to handle.

Daniel, anybody who is so cruel and insulting as to repeatedly call another member mentally unstable in a public Forum should be sued -- that's only common justice. I hope justice is swiftly done in this case, as I never want to read such cruelty on this Forum again. At the very least the culprit owes a public apology.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

P.S. I read your study of the biblical figure of John the Baptist, and IMHO you give far too much weight to Dominic Crossan and Burton Mack -- two of the most rutted sources out there.

[Terri Williams]

I assume so, since you already sent me a PM (on 1 April, as I recall) about the church bombing and the lynching of your friend Junior Ransom. I too would like to see justice done in these and many other cases. But I continue to be confused about statements going in circles: nothing was done about these crimes, people got away with murder, you're outraged; but the perpetrators are practically all dead now, so why bring up their names, I'd do nothing about it anyway --

Okay, have it your way. I have no interest in continuing to try to explain things like the unlikelihood of members of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan of Mississippi casually having "Klan garb in their closets."

Okay, sorry to have bothered you. I thought maybe you COULD do something about the crimes, after your comment...

"Thank you for sharing the information in the PM. I will look into some of it if I ever get the chance. But I'm afraid you're arguing in circles to some extent, since naming such people would be one way to expose them for what they were, to get them investigated, to get these activities in your hometown explored. And if that were done, you wouldn't have to wonder why there were no investigations, arrests, convictions in Terry, Mississippi.

"Also, you have no reason to allege that I would do nothing about such information if you were to tell me (us) who they were. For all you know, I could be close personal friends with prominent researchers who think so highly of me they remember who I am."

My misunderstanding.

It is clear you don't know the Klan very well at all. Maybe you have some Hollywood version of them in mind. To think White Knights didn't hang their robes in their closets. Some actually hung their robes on the back of their bedroom doors.

Too bad the FBI didn't do anything when they SHOULD have. Some of them ARE still alive, but, even though you suggest I should have said something about the crimes back then, it just shows me you do not understand the Klan. They WERE the officials I would have had to make a report to. I even told the FBI, who laughed me off. So I don't know of anyway that I could have done anything else. The ball was in the FBI's court, not mine. I did what I was supposed to do, reported the crimes. They ignored it and LAUGHED at me. Not a respectable bunch if you ask me.

A guy I went to school with, Steve, was a heavy Klan member, his whole family was. This guy, after high school, got a job at the Mississippi State highway Patrol, doing communications. He was such a bigot though, he took advantage of his state trooper car and pulled over a black man for something stupid to harass the guy. The black guy shot his face off. This was in the early 80's. The black guy was never caught. There is some justice. Steve had done some atrocious things to black people while in high school, as did his brother, who still lives.

Edited April 8, 2013 by Terri Williams

[Paul Trejo]

...It is clear you don't know the Klan very well at all. Maybe you have some Hollywood version of them in mind. To think White Knights didn't hang their robes in their closets. Some actually hung their robes on the back of their bedroom doors.

Too bad the FBI didn't do anything when they SHOULD have. Some of them ARE still alive, but, even though you suggest I should have said something about the crimes back then, it just shows me you do not understand the Klan. They WERE the officials I would have had to make a report to. I even told the FBI, who laughed me off. So I don't know of anyway that I could have done anything else. The ball was in the FBI's court, not mine. I did what I was supposed to do, reported the crimes...

I believe you, Terri. I also want to applaud John Dolva for consistently guiding JFK researchers toward the KKK and the USA white-supremacist movement as highly suspicious suspects over several years on this Forum.

The KKK should have been suspects early on -- but they weren't. What can we say about this? We should also bear in mind that you offered the FBI information about lynchings and so on in your home town -- and the FBI did nothing.

We should step back and look at American History in general here -- for example, President Woodrow Wilson was openly tolerant of the KKK. Also, when President Calvin Coolidge tried to pass anti-lynching laws through Congress, Congress shut him down!

My assessment is this -- nobody wants to fight the Civil War all over again. Americans live in hope that the KKK will simply fade away. We prefer to live in a dream-world that the KKK doesn't exist anymore. What a self-deceit.

The FBI does not want to fight the KKK -- simply because there are not enough G-men in the USA to take on the entire KKK all at once. I think that should be clear. People who speak about the KKK being only a back-woods phenomenon don't know its real history -- how much power it exerted over Presidential candidates George Wallace and even Barry Goldwater in the South.

The FBI is frustrated by the futility; you can't prosecute a crime where you can't find two witnesses -- that's the ancient rule. Thus, regarding the KKK, the FBI's hands are regularly tied.

One can try to make the case that the FBI prevented the KKK from growing even bigger than it is -- and perhaps that's true. Yet it is a far cry from that point to claim that the KKK no longer exists, or that the KKK no longer dominates various counties in the South -- counties in which the average Yankee even today is smart enough to stay out.

You won't find me researching the KKK in Mississippi.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited April 9, 2013 by Paul Trejo

[Terri Williams]

Frankly, the actions, or lack thereof, of the FBI back then, leads me to think they were involved in Kennedy's assassination. I know, I have no proof, still when you say FBI "infiltrated" the Klan, to me it was more like they JOINED the Klan and WERE racists. The FBI has given me serious reason to doubt their loyalties, multiple times.

That would also be the reason they never 'found' the Zodiac Killer. That's the only thing that makes sense to me. They didn't want THAT man to talk. So they just let him do his thing.

He did have cop friends. A SFPD officer named Wayne or Dwayne in 1970.

Edited April 9, 2013 by Terri Williams

[Paul Trejo]

Frankly, the actions, or lack thereof, of the FBI back then, leads me to think they were involved in Kennedy's assassination. I know, I have no proof, still when you say FBI "infiltrated" the Klan, to me it was more like they JOINED the Klan and WERE racists. The FBI has given me serious reason to doubt their loyalties, multiple times.

That would also be the reason they never 'found' the Zodiac Killer. That's the only thing that makes sense to me. They didn't want THAT man to talk. So they just let him do his thing.

He did have cop friends. A SFPD officer named Wayne or Dwayne in 1970.

I can empathize with that, Terri -- it must seem as though justice was more than twarted -- it must seem betrayed.

Perhaps I'm an incurable optimist, but I prefer to put a slightly more hopeful spin on these events -- it's slowly getting better, I like to say.

Of course, I can accept that there were plenty of racists inside the FBI, but actually those racists could not come out in the open. Like gay people in the 1960's, they had to stay in the closet.

That's the big difference between racists before the Civil War and racists after World War Two -- racists today are usually too shy to come out in the open -- even David Duke will pull his punches if cameras are rolling. Racists today tend to be bold only when among their closest friends. Things were quite different in the early days of General Robert E. Lee.

By the way -- to express the honor of General Robert E. Lee, after the Civil War, at an Episcopal service on Sunday, there was one Black believer in the Church who stepped up to take Communion. Many of the parishoners were stunned -- but General Robert E. Lee walked up and knelt beside him, and took Communion next to that Black believer. That's true nobility, IMHO. (That story is courtesy Bishop Duncan Gray, the man who to this day says that ex-General Edwin Walker lied to the Mississippi Grand Jury when Walker told them he was at Ole Miss to calm the violence.)

Anyway -- getting back to the JFK assassination, my positive spin is that J. Edgar Hoover evaded the prosecution of the KKK not because he was a member, but because he knew it would lead to a revival of the Civil War -- and during the Cold War, that would have been fatal to the USA. So, in the interest of National Security, Hoover covered up the truth.

Yet notice that this perspective still validates part of your claim, Terri -- it recognizes that racism is still a major force in the USA, and is not to be trifled with. White-supremacy is still large (i.e. even 10% of the USA is still about 40 million people -- which is as large as some nations.) White supremacy is still dangerous. It cannot come out in the open because most Americans won't put up with it -- but it still has a home in various counties throughout the USA.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

<edit typos>

Edited April 10, 2013 by Paul Trejo

[Terri Williams]

Frankly, the actions, or lack thereof, of the FBI back then, leads me to think they were involved in Kennedy's assassination. I know, I have no proof, still when you say FBI "infiltrated" the Klan, to me it was more like they JOINED the Klan and WERE racists. The FBI has given me serious reason to doubt their loyalties, multiple times.

That would also be the reason they never 'found' the Zodiac Killer. That's the only thing that makes sense to me. They didn't want THAT man to talk. So they just let him do his thing.

He did have cop friends. A SFPD officer named Wayne or Dwayne in 1970.

I can empathize with that, Terri -- it must seem as though justice was more than twarted -- it must seem betrayed.

Perhaps I'm an incurable optimist, but I prefer to put a slightly more hopeful spin on these events -- it's slowly getting better, I like to say.

Of course, I can accept that there were plenty of racists inside the FBI, but actually those racists could not come out in the open. Like gay people in the 1960's, they had to stay in the closet.

That's the big difference between racists before the Civil War and racists after World War Two -- racists today are usually too shy to come out in the open -- even David Duke will pull his punches if cameras are rolling. Racists today tend to be bold only when among their closest friends. Things were quite different in the early days of General Robert E. Lee.

By the way -- to express the honor of General Robert E. Lee, after the Civil War, at an Episcopal service on Sunday, there was one Black believer in the Church who stepped up to take Communion. Many of the parishoners were stunned -- but General Robert E. Lee walked up and knelt beside him, and took Communion next to that Black believer. That's true nobility, IMHO. (That story is courtesy Bishop Duncan Gray, the man who to this day says that ex-General Edwin Walker lied to the Mississippi Grand Jury when Walker told them he was at Ole Miss to calm the violence.)

Anyway -- getting back to the JFK assassination, my positive spin is that J. Edgar Hoover evaded the prosecution of the KKK not because he was a member, but because he knew it would lead to a revival of the Civil War -- and during the Cold War, that would have been fatal to the USA. So, in the interest of National Security, Hoover covered up the truth.

Yet notice that this perspective still validates part of your claim, Terri -- it recognizes that racism is still a major force in the USA, and is not to be trifled with. White-supremacy is still large (i.e. even 10% of the USA is still about 40 million people -- which is as large as some nations.) White supremacy is still dangerous. It cannot come out in the open because most Americans won't put up with it -- but it still has a home in various counties throughout the USA.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

<edit typos>

Thank you for that. I wanted to add to my accounts, that back in Terry in 1963, in the fall after school had started, the Klan kids said that if Kennedy went to Dallas, "they" would make sure he did not have his "bubble dome". That's what I told him in the letter, that if he went to use the "bubble dome", which is what we called the bullet proof glass to cover the president. Those kids knew so much before it happened. I can't think of any other way they would have known that the president would have no "bubble dome", than if their dads were close to, or working for the CIA or FBI or military or something, someone else who made SURE there was no "bubble dome". It seems as if the secret service, or whoever was responsible for protecting the president, was in on the act. How else could they have known so much well beforehand?

Also I forgot to say that I think that the edition of the Clarion Ledger in which something about Terry (or Bryram) would have been mentioned, might have been the local one, since Terry is not that far from Jackson. But I could be wrong. Jerry Mitchell would know, if he still works for the paper. He assisted in a documentary/movie about the 3 civil rights workers, I believe, a couple of years ago. He was picked as he knows much about the Klan activity in Mississippi.

I will also try to check old edition from August of 63 to see what I can find. Maybe someting about the green truck was also mentioned in the paper.

It might have been in the Terry Headlight, which is what the Terry News was called back then when the Grand Dragon's wife ran it. I will ask my friend who lives in Terry if he knows anything about the truck or if it was written up. He or his mother might know. She edits the Terry News and has lived there all her life.

I hope you are right about things changing for the better. And you are right about justice being thwarted, especially in Mississippi. I'm sure there are decent people in the state who have not gone along with the Klan, I know some of them. They are real decent people. But so many were not back then. The decent people usually just kept quiet and didn't want to stand out too much. They just did THEIR own thing, which was to not be racist, but kind. They had to be sneaky or they would have gotten what happened to my mother. The unspoken rules HAD to be followed by everyone, even the decent people. (no sitting in the back of the bus, no letting black people through the front door, or front seat of a car, no drinking from a colored water fountain, or going into the colored section anywhere, absolutely no race mixing, things like that, which everyone knew)

Things had changed somewhat by 1970. In the late fifties, Mom sat in the back of the bus and it landed her in a mental facility with shock treatment for twelve weeks.

In 1964, Mom worked at Redstone, in Hunstville for Brown Engineering. We, my younger brother and I, had gone to spend the summer with her. We lived in a farm house on Slaughter Road, countryside back then. Sometimes Mom had to go to Florida for think tanks. She would be gone for a week or so. Instead of having Emma, the woman who cleaned Mom's house, come stay with us and take care of us at our house, we stayed with Emma, which only made sense since she had children too. The white people across the road were upset about it. They didn't do anything to her, then, because no one messed with the NASA crowd. But in 1970, they, the Alabama police, finally got her. She only had to go to jail, not shock treatment. So I guess that's progress.

It is a little better now, but one must be very wary still of which neck of the woods one is in. Hinds County would be one of those places to be wary of. Still.

Edited April 10, 2013 by Terri Williams

[Paul Trejo]

...I wanted to add to my accounts, that back in Terry in 1963, in the fall after school had started, the Klan kids said that if Kennedy went to Dallas, "they" would make sure he did not have his "bubble dome". That's what I told him in the letter, that if he went to use the "bubble dome", which is what we called the bullet proof glass to cover the president. Those kids knew so much before it happened. I can't think of any other way they would have known that the president would have no "bubble dome", than if their dads were close to, or working for the CIA or FBI or military or something, someone else who made SURE there was no "bubble dome". It seems as if the secret service, or whoever was responsible for protecting the president, was in on the act. How else could they have known so much well beforehand?

Terri, this is pretty important -- it is akin to material evidence. Insofar as Guy Banister was so plugged in to the racist movement in the South, through the massive resistance to the Supreme Court Brown decision, as a continual player inside the White Citizens' Council, the Louisiana Un-American Activities Committee, the Lousiana State Sovereignty Commission, the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, the John Birch Society, the Louisiana Minutemen, the Anticommunist League of the Caribbean, and supported countless Cuban Exile groups -- we must expect to find him around the KKK.

When the White Citizens' Councils were first formed, they started with the idea of Mississippi Senator James Eastland that the NAACP was Communist. They tried to capitalize on the Red Scare of Joe McCarthy to pound down the Civil Rights movement. It worked well. Trouble is, for the South, you really couldn't tell if a person was really Anticommunist, or only pretending to be an Anticommunist as a way to keep the Blacks down.

It didn't matter for Guy Banister -- he wanted to run for public office on the race segregation platform -- by his own admission. He lived in Louisiana, but he enjoyed getting support from Mississippi, too. So, it makes sense that he would circulate among the KKK in Mississippi -- and it also makes sense that he would circulate in Hinds County, where the KKK had a major foothold.

All of this makes sense -- and now historians should confirm or deny it. Insofar as it is true, then the next step becomes vital -- the plausibility of your claim that Guy Banister spoke freely at those KKK rallies in Terry and Byram in 1963, and proposed or developed the idea that JFK's "bubble dome" would be removed for his trip through Dallas.

Here is where I come to value your input, Terri. The KKK was so prevalent in your home town that when you went to high school, the kids at school were open and free about discussing the results of the KKK rally as they heard it from their parents' home conversation. You heard that the "bubble dome" would be removed from JFK's limo, and that's exactly what happened.

That cannot be a coincidence or an accident, IMHO. It is virtual proof that the JFK assassination was discussed (and at least partially planned) at that KKK rally.

Now, you speculate that the only way to ensure that this plan was carried out in Dallas would be for those KKK fathers to be members of "the CIA or FBI or military or something," perhaps the Secret Service, to control the placement of the "bubble dome".

There are plenty of JFK researchers today who are willing to name the Secret Service as complicit in the JFK assassination -- but you are the only one, to the best my knowledge, who suggests that the FBI, CIA, military or Secret Service conspired with the KKK.

There is a temptation to make that leap -- but I think a link is still missing.

In my opinion, any members of the KKK (which remains a secret society) could never disclose their membership to the FBI, CIA or Secret Service, which are Federal institutions that follow specific guidelines. So, while the possibility remains that rogue elements of these institutions might have been secret members of the KKK, we must discount the conclusion that the KKK was more or less openly active inside these public institutions.

Yet there is another alternative. There was one official, public institution that was wide open to the KKK -- they were not a Federal institution, they were a city institution -- I speak of the Dallas Police Department (DPD). According to William Turner (1973), it was impossible to become a police officer in the DPD in 1963 without being a member of the KKK, the Minutemen or the John Birch Society -- and preferably all three.

Now -- here is the place to take hold. The KKK would have had a major voice in the back rooms of the DPD -- and if there were any secret members of the KKK inside the FBI, CIA or Secret Service, they would have followed the directions of their leaders in the DPD. This stands to reason, IMHO, because the DPD was involved in every aspect of the JFK assassination -- and especially in bungling the evidence and the witnesses and in the protection of the lone suspect.

Yet was Guy Banister a major leader in Dallas? Or would Banister hand that task over to ex-General Edwin Walker?

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

<edit typos>

Edited April 10, 2013 by Paul Trejo

[Lindsay Anderson]

Here is where I come to value your input, Terri. The KKK was so prevalent in your home town that when you went to high school, the kids at school were open and free about discussing the results of the KKK rally as they heard it from their parents' home conversation. You heard that the "bubble dome" would be removed from JFK's limo, and that's exactly what happened.

That cannot be a coincidence or an accident, IMHO. It is virtual proof that the JFK assassination was discussed (and at least partially planned) at that KKK rally.

Paul

I think this is a massive jump and almost belongs on another thread -

I have not studied the material related to Secret Service Complicity in any detail but - from the things I have seen, (mostly from James Fetzer), there is the stuff that happened after the first shots were fired (such a a limo stop) and the stuff before, such as the dog leg turn, stand-down, bubble dome removal etc. The stuff after the bullet can be argued to be down to (being kind) insufficient resources, equipment and training resulting in them getting it so wrong when under fire.

The stuff before the bullet though - what evidence is there that the failings were unusual. Maybe standards slipped so low that those mistakes were being made regularly - did security take a marked dive when Kennedy became president or had it gotten lax well before then. When did security start to fail. Someone must have looked at this challenge as it seem a fairly obvious one and I would suspect there would be records; Manhole covers - check, windows - check, that kind of thing. Security was no doubt improved after the assassination, but that proves nothing.

[Paul Trejo]

Here is where I come to value your input, Terri. The KKK was so prevalent in your home town that when you went to high school, the kids at school were open and free about discussing the results of the KKK rally as they heard it from their parents' home conversation. You heard that the "bubble dome" would be removed from JFK's limo, and that's exactly what happened.

That cannot be a coincidence or an accident, IMHO. It is virtual proof that the JFK assassination was discussed (and at least partially planned) at that KKK rally.

Paul

I think this is a massive jump and almost belongs on another thread -

I have not studied the material related to Secret Service Complicity in any detail but - from the things I have seen, (mostly from James Fetzer), there is the stuff that happened after the first shots were fired (such a a limo stop) and the stuff before, such as the dog leg turn, stand-down, bubble dome removal etc. The stuff after the bullet can be argued to be down to (being kind) insufficient resources, equipment and training resulting in them getting it so wrong when under fire.

The stuff before the bullet though - what evidence is there that the failings were unusual. Maybe standards slipped so low that those mistakes were being made regularly - did security take a marked dive when Kennedy became president or had it gotten lax well before then. When did security start to fail. Someone must have looked at this challenge as it seem a fairly obvious one and I would suspect there would be records; Manhole covers - check, windows - check, that kind of thing. Security was no doubt improved after the assassination, but that proves nothing.

Lindsay, it's not a massive jump -- and after all, this is the KKK thread. If standards slipped so low for standard Presidential protection, then I feel confident in suspecting a conspiracy. Not necessarily a conspiracy involving everybody on the team, but a few key individuals in key places -- that would be the minimum required.

Some say security started to fall when JFK began asking the Secret Service to procure girls for him. Others dispute that. But Presidential security isn't a new field of research -- the minimum standards were not upheld in Dallas.

The crime evidence was shabbily handled in Dallas. The questioning of witnesses was shabbily handled. The protection of the key suspect was shabbily handled. The DPD had its hands in all of this.

Furthermore, the DPD was responsible for sealing off the parking lot adjacent to the TSBD building. According to railroad man Lee Bowers, that was shabbily handled.

Also, the DPD was notorious for its KKK connections. If there were secret KKK members in the FBI, CIA or Secret Service, then we have the requisite connections for a theory.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited April 12, 2013 by Paul Trejo

[John Dolva]

I don't think it M3 (diitto Evers, Till) was 'fully rooted out' nor successfully prosecuted nor the various body parts found during the search fully explored.

re cointelpro

COINTELPRO.jpg

[Paul Trejo]

I don't think it M3 (diitto Evers, Till) was 'fully rooted out' nor successfully prosecuted nor the various body parts found during the search fully explored.

re cointelpro

COINTELPRO.jpg

John, we do agree that Hoover spent more of his time chasing Communists than he spent chasing down Nazis.

Well, to be balanced about it, the Nazi Party was utterly destroyed in Germany, and only the oddest crackpots in the USA dared to admit to Nazi views. The Communists, however, were among the victors of World War Two, and the USSR was extremely powerful in 1963 (while Germany was still digging itself out of rubble).

So, it sort of makes sense for a Centrist agency like the FBI to spend more time chasing Communists than Nazis. It certainly does not mean that Hoover sympathized with Nazis, or the KKK or the JBS. We have documented proof of his opposition to these groups. It only means that he perceived a bigger threat from Communism in the 1960's.

As for the FBI failure to keep the KKK from atrocious crimes, that sad fact has plagued the USA since the days of President Teddy Roosevelt. President Calvin Coolidge himself failed to pass anti-lynching laws.

It is one of the features of USA society that we have a sizable percentage of white supremacists in our midst. Those numbers were extremely high during the Civil War, as one can plainly see, and they dropped sharply after the North won that War. The numbers rose again in the 1890's, but fell again in the 1910's. Those number rose again in the 1920's, but fell again in the 1930's. It is mainly in the Deep South that white supremacy still rages on.

Current estimates from the Southern Poverty Law Center are that as much as 7% of the USA supports some order of white supremacy organization -- up from 5.5% before Obama became President. It is a sad feature of life in the USA that this is real -- but it is real.

Still, it is not a pressing problem as it was during the Civil War when upwards of 50% of the USA bought into the white supremacy mythology.

So, the reason that Hoover didn't battle the White Hate groups as much as the Communists, is because there was a smaller population of White Haters in the USA, compared to the Communist sympathizers in the 1960's. It stands to reason.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

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Edited May 1, 2013 by Paul Trejo

[John Dolva]

No, we don't. What do you have to show that Hoover spent any time chasing down Nazis?