Historians, Journalists and Political Conspiracies

[John Simkin]

Granted Ragano's story about what Trafficante confessed to him constitutes hearsay but assuming Ragano was testifying in court (and assuming that what Trafficante told him was not protected by the attorney-client privilege) it would have been admissible in evidence as a "statement against interest". Since Ragano's story would have been admissible in evidence as a hearsay exception, I think John's criticism of Kaiser on this point is not well-founded. I do agree that it is astounding that Kaiser can propose Hall and Howard as Odio's visitors when both Silvia and her sister said they were not.

Your use of Frank Ragano's heresay evidence to support your Mafia theory put forward in the "Road to Dallas" is also open to criticism.

Tim Gratz was disbarred only once, so we can forgive him. Frank Ragano was disbarred twice, which puts him in very select company indeed.

Ragano, by his own admission, came up with his assassination story only AFTER publishers rejected his first book proposal. The problem with Ragano is not that his story is hearsay, it is that he is a CERTIFIED lying sack of s--t.

Any historian who relies on him will not be taken seriously, and any lawyer who would ask a jury (grand or petty) to believe him deserves to be laughed out of town.

I cannot see how any historian can use Ragano's testimony as evidence. Nor is it acceptable to use a misinterpretation of the first FBI interview with Hall to support his theory. Especially when Hall changes his mind after seeing the photograph of Odio. He also uses Oswald's family connections with Charles Murret to support this "Mafia" theory. He then casually dismisses the evidence available to claim the CIA was not involved while at the same time using the John Martino and Irving Davidson connections with the Mafia to support his theory. Yet Martino and Davidson are just as closely associated with CIA covert operations as they were with the Mafia. There is also more evidence to suggest that Loran Hall was carrying out tasks for the CIA than he was for the Mafia.

The use of evidence against Davidson is especially interesting. He completely ignores the fact that Gene Wheaton's testimony provides evidence that Davidson was the bagman in the Jenkins/Quintero assassination plot against JFK.

[William Kelly]

I thought I'd revive this interesting thread in light of the publication of David Kaiser's Road to Dallas.

There were three, maybe four histoirans appointed to the Assassination Records Review Board, though none of them have utilized their unique position there to write anything worthwhile about the assassination.

Although many institutions have failed us in regards to the assassination, including Congress, the Judiciary, Presidents, the Fourth estate and the academic community, historians, for the most part, have not even bothered to enter the fray.

BK

Although the other distinguished historians on the ARRB have not bothered to write about the JFK Assassination, Anna Kasten Nielson, Professor of History at American University, has written about the need to declassify government records.

She also contributed a chapter to "A Culture of Secrecy," but gets a few things wrong, and shows why such things should be peer reviewed, not necessarily to stirr disagreement, but to correct things that are obviously wrong.

"A Culture of Secrecy – The Government Versus the People's Right to Know," Anthology edited by Athan G. Theoharis (University Press of Kansas, 1998), with contribution by Matthew M. Aid, Jon Wiener, Anna Kasten Nielson, et al.

Chapter 10

The John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board. By Anna Kasten Nelson.

"I've never seen any information released that ever did anyone any good." – Agency representative, ARRB briefing.

Anna Kasten Nelson:

"The John F. Kennedy Assassinations Records Collection Act of 1992 marked an important milestone in the ongoing conflict between the public's need to know and the culture of secrecy that evolved during the fifty years of the cold war. The act was designed to strip away theories that implicated federal agencies in a conspiracy to murder the young president. Its unintended consequence has been to crack open the door to the inner sanctums of the CIA, FBI, and other intelligence agencies."

[bK: As Doug Horne notes in his response to this statement, the act was NOT designed to strip away theories, but to release records and let the people decide for themselves what to believe.]

"…The Warren Commission Report concluded that President Kennedy had been killed by bullets fired by only one assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, from the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository. Three shots had been fired; one hit the president but did not kill him, one went astray, and the third killed Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally of Texas, who shared the president's limousine as it slowly moved through downtown Dallas. The commission further concluded that, while Oswald was influenced by Marxist ideology and was sympathetic to Fidel Castro's government in Cuba, his decision to kill the president came from internal demons, not an external conspiracy…"

[bK: Of course it was the first shot that hit the president but did not kill him and ostensibly went on to wound Connally, and not the third shot, that killed Kennedy].

"The most thorough and direct study of President Kennedy's assassination was conducted in 1978-79 by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), which examined all three of the assassinations that had rocked the country during the 1960s – those of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy…the HSCA questioned the 'single-bullet theory,' the conclusion that a single bullet killed the president and wounded Governor Connally…"

[bK: The HSCA investigated the JFK and MLK cases, but not RFK. The MLK HSCA investigation files remain sealed; apparently until Oliver Stone makes a movie about that assassination.]

"…How do five individuals deliberately chosen for their unfamiliarity with Kennedy assassination documents, arguments and theories, carry out their legal mandate?…"

[bK:The Review Board was to be composed of five individuals who had no prior experience working FOR the GOVERNMENT, not deliberately chosen for their "unfamiliarity with the Kennedy assassination documents." They were supposed to be familiar with the documents as historians and librarians and scholars.]

"…On one memorable occasion, a board member asked an agency official why his agency always withheld a particular piece of information that appeared to be completely harmless. The official thought for a few minutes before replying that he could not remember the reason, but since the information had never been released he was sure there was a good reason."

xxxyyyzzz