The Terrible Twins of Prescience

[Ashton Gray]

Such a mind-bending collection of similar but irreconcilable data has accumulated in one small but writhing corner of the timeline being put together that I am appealing to the collective reasoning capabilities of the research community to help in any way they can to isolate and tame this hideously shape-changing beast. Or first to pull apart and then isolate and tame these shape-changing beasts, as the case may be.

First, there is the case of Rose Cheramie (or Cherami):

Encapsulated from John Simkin's page on her: She was found unconsciousness by the side of the road at Eunice, Louisiana, on 20 November 1963 and taken by Lieutenant Francis Frugé of the Louisiana State Police to the state hospital (which is in Jackson, Louisiana—stay tuned). Cheramie told him and told the doctors and nurses at the Jackson mental facility that she had been thrown out of a car by two gangsters who worked for Jack Ruby. She claimed that the men were involved in a plot to kill John F. Kennedy.

Now compare the story of one Gladys Palmer:

According to Garrison office informant Tom Williams, Palmer was a resident of Jackson, Louisiana who supposedly had been employed by Jack Ruby in Dallas. On or about 8 November 1963 ("two weeks before the assassination), Palmer reportedly drove herself in a black Lincoln Continental to the state hospital in Jackson, purportedly for "treatment of alcoholism." Then two hours prior to the assassination, on 22 November 1963, Gladys Palmer reportedly said, "This is the day of the President's assassination."

The Palmer story is complicated enough by her having been the ex-wife of Henry Earl Palmer, who is one of the witnesses placing Oswald and others in and around Clinton and Jackson Louisiana (and who, uniquely, puts the date at around 1 August 1963, while other such witnesses put it at around 1 September 1963, a month later—all of which is an entirely separate issue that I don't want to get off into, but had to mention here).

And that isn't the end of this, either, because there is yet another Gladys Palmer whose name has crept into the mix, and this is where things get really strange. (I know, I know...)

Consider some information about this other Gladys Palmer:

Not a lot is known, except that she was very highly placed personnel within the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Now, immediately, this seems to make no sense even to mention. But please take just a moment to review, even briefly, The Alumni Network of the Wharton School.

After you do, let me tell you that one of the contemporaries working at and with the Wharton School with this Gladys Palmer was Eleanor Lansing Dulles—sister of Allen Dulles.

And then there is this arresting and vague statement concerning what became of this Gladys Palmer: "There was no successor for Palmer, who was incapacitated by illnesses prior to her retirement in 1965." It doesn't say anything about how long before her retirement this "incapacitation by illness" (a favorite euphemism) took Ms. Palmer out of the picture.

Maybe there is no connection at all between the two Gladys Palmers. Indeed, there seems to be a difference in middle names, one being "Fletcher," the other identified as having an "L." middle initial.

Then again, there is something compellingly odd indeed about this strange confluence of one set of nearly duplicate names, overlapping two apparently different, yet almost identical stories of prescience about the murder of John F. Kennedy.

Any illumination that can be brought to bear on this conundrum will be greatly appreciated.

Ashton Gray

Edited January 7, 2007 by Ashton Gray

[Brian Smith]

Such a mind-bending collection of similar but irreconcilable data has accumulated in one small but writhing corner of the timeline being put together that I am appealing to the collective reasoning capabilities of the research community to help in any way they can to isolate and tame this hideously shape-changing beast. Or first to pull apart and then isolate and tame these shape-changing beasts, as the case may be.

First, there is the case of Rose Cheramie (or Cherami):

Encapsulated from John Simkin's page on her: She was found unconsciousness by the side of the road at Eunice, Louisiana, on 20 November 1963 and taken by Lieutenant Francis Frugé of the Louisiana State Police to the state hospital (which is in Jackson, Louisiana—stay tuned). Cheramie told him and told the doctors and nurses at the Jackson mental facility that she had been thrown out of a car by two gangsters who worked for Jack Ruby. She claimed that the men were involved in a plot to kill John F. Kennedy.

Now compare the story of one Gladys Palmer:

According to Garrison office informant Tom Williams, Palmer was a resident of Jackson, Louisiana who supposedly had been employed by Jack Ruby in Dallas. On or about 8 November 1963 ("two weeks before the assassination), Palmer reportedly drove herself in a black Lincoln Continental to the state hospital in Jackson, purportedly for "treatment of alcoholism." Then two hours prior to the assassination, on 22 November 1963, Gladys Palmer reportedly said, "This is the day of the President's assassination."

The Palmer story is complicated enough by her having been the ex-wife of Henry Earl Palmer, who is one of the witnesses placing Oswald and others in and around Clinton and Jackson Louisiana (and who, uniquely, puts the date at around 1 August 1963, while other such witnesses put it at around 1 September 1963, a month later—all of which is an entirely separate issue that I don't want to get off into, but had to mention here).

And that isn't the end of this, either, because there is yet another Gladys Palmer whose name has crept into the mix, and this is where things get really strange. (I know, I know...)

Consider some information about this other Gladys Palmer:

Not a lot is known, except that she was very highly placed personnel within the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Now, immediately, this seems to make no sense even to mention. But please take just a moment to review, even briefly, The Alumni Network of the Wharton School.

After you do, let me tell you that one of the contemporaries working at and with the Wharton School with this Gladys Palmer was Eleanor Lansing Dulles—sister of Allen Dulles.

And then there is this arresting and vague statement concerning what became of this Gladys Palmer: "There was no successor for Palmer, who was incapacitated by illnesses prior to her retirement in 1965." It doesn't say anything about how long before her retirement this "incapacitation by illness" (a favorite euphemism) took Ms. Palmer out of the picture.

Maybe there is no connection at all between the two Gladys Palmers. Indeed, there seems to be a difference in middle names, one being "Fletcher," the other identified as having an "L." middle initial.

Then again, there is something compellingly odd indeed about this strange confluence of one set of nearly duplicate names, overlapping two apparently different, yet almost identical stories of prescience about the murder of John F. Kennedy.

Any illumination that can be brought to bear on this conundrum will be greatly appreciated.

Ashton Gray

Odd also that Oswald applied for a job at that same Jackson state hospital.

[Guest Gary Loughran]

At first glance, I must say, what an alumni list!!!

CEO Enron, CEO Haliburton, myriad banking institutes, GE etc. etc.

I appreciate that it is a business school and most likely prestigious at that; that still is an impressive resume.

As a matter of interest, are there any interesting benefactors for this place?

[Jack White]

I am reminded of several other "TWINS" in the case, including:

Donald P. Norton and Donald O. Norton

Marguerite Oswald and Margret Oswald

Clay Shaw and Clay Bertrand

Lee Harvey Oswald and Lee Henry Oswald

Jim Braden and Eugene Brading

...and others who were TWIN witnesses, like:

Garland Slack, saw LHO at rifle range

Garland Slack, was Houston Street witness to motorcade.

Hmmmm.

Jack

[Ashton Gray]

I've recently had the most astonishing exchange with a researcher involved in timelining the JFK assassination and related data.

I said in my first message in this thread (and I quote myself here, if I may be allowed the indulgence):

• ASHTON GRAY: Consider some information about this other Gladys Palmer:
  Not a lot is known, except that she was very highly placed personnel within the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Now, immediately, this seems to make no sense even to mention.
  

Have I ever been disabused of that naive notion in a hurry.

I can't relate at the moment everything that was told to me in rather a rush, but I've invested some time now looking into some of it on my own, and am writing this while still trying to recover from the series of electrifying arcs of connection that went off like high-tension transformers in an earthquake.

In the briefest possible memo to get some of these notes recorded for, I hope, further discussion and expansion:

• • Ruth Hyde Paine had taught at the Germantown Friends' School outside of Philadelphia—just a few miles from the Wharton School, where both Gladys Palmer and Allen Dulles's sister Ellen Lansing Dulles worked.
  • While at that school, Ruth Hyde Paine had met and married Michael Paine. They moved from there to Dallas.
  • On 14 March 1963, CIA's James McCord is based in New York City, but his wife is flying from Frankfurt, Germany—purportedly on a "family emergency"—to...Philadelphia? Yes, Philadelphia. There she is met, for reasons not explained, by CIA's Special Agent In Charge of the Manhattan Field Office. And from Philadelphia, she is taking a flight on 15 March 1963 to...Dallas, Texas? Yes, Dallas, Texas, where she then takes yet another flight to Lubbock, Texas on this "family emergency" of unspecified nature.
  • On 1 April 1963, the wife of CIA's James McCord arrives on American Airlines flight #20 in...Philadelphia? Yes: Philadelphia. There she again is met by CIA's Special Agent In Charge of the Manhattan Field Office and is set up in accomodations at the McGuire Hotel near or at McGuire AFB in New Jersey, 45 minutes from Philadelphia, 90 minutes from New York...and there the trail ends. Supposedly she was on "space available" status for a MATS flight to destination unknown, but there was no "space available," so— Well, the CIA document says that the CIA's Special Agent In Charge of the Manhattan Field Office was "advised that Headquarters could offer no further assistance" to James McCord's wife other than "accommodations permitted under her present orders." Whatever those were. (She may have sat there outside Philadelphia until she received the electronic equipment from Alfred Baldwin for all we know.)
  • On 19 April 1963, George De Mohrenschildt left Dallas on an unexplained trip first to New York, then to...Philadelphia? Yes, Philadelphia. And although some researchers have claimed that he came back to Dallas and left from there for Haiti on 1 May 1963, the record says that he arrived in Haiti on 2 June 1963, and didn't arrive in Dallas (from his New York/Philadelphia trip) until "two days" prior to leaving for Haiti. That wouldn't have been until around 30 May 1963. So at the moment it seems that De Mohrenschildt was gone for something like six weeks, at least some of which time he spent in New York (where James McCord was), and the rest in Philadelphia (where we last heard from James McCord's wife).
  • In September of 1963, Ruth Hyde Paine was in Philadelphia for some so-far undetermined amount of time with her in-laws Ruth Forbes Paine and Arthur Young. She left Philadelphia and drove straight to New Orleans, arriving 22 September 1963 and leaving the next day for Dallas with Marina, freeing Lee Harvey Oswald to go to Mexico.
  • In Mexico is where Lee Harvey Oswald is reported to have been in the company of a Quaker from Philadelphia named Steven Kennan.
  

Please forgive this sketchy outline and unorganized nature of this data, but there is much more surrounding all the above, and so much is unraveling so fast that I wanted to get these notes set forth here as quickly as possible.

Any contributions that might expand on the above will be greatly appreciated, particularly with dates.

If a certain Gladys Palmer of Philadelphia's Wharton School, an associate of Eleanor Lansing Dulles, had found out a little too much for her own good and had been spirited off to the loving care of CIA psychiatrists on the payroll at the Jackson, Louisiana State Hospital, and there had expressed just how much too much for her own good she had found out, it certainly would explain much about the "twosies" at issue: the Terrible Twins of Prescience. Much and much more.

Ashton Gray

Edited January 9, 2007 by Ashton Gray

[Ashton Gray]

Just can't get enough Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Anybody ever stop to notice where Arlen Specter hails from?

Why, he's Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

And where did Richard A. Sprague, that White Knight of Conspiracy Theorists, HSCA's Chief Counsel hail from—who oh-so-valiantly tilted at windmills for millions of tax dollars, mounted a big "fight" with CIA that accomplished a net of nothing, then went home?

Yes, he was from the City of Brotherly Love, the Birthplace of Our Nation: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

And it just tears at my heart strings to hear what the poor man said after the fact: If he had to do it all over again he would probe "Oswald's ties to the Central Intelligence Agency." Well, of course he would, bless his heart.

Of course he was then replaced by someone who told us all the Mafia did it. Well, of course they did.

Where else would CIA even think of establishing their headquarters for the murder of a president and an American coup but right where it all started? In fact, I would be very surprised if crucial exchanges weren't conducted right in public view on the grounds of Independence Hall.

I'd love to hear from Bill Kelly on this subject. Meanwhile, more keeps pouring out in a flood.

Ashton

Edited January 9, 2007 by Ashton Gray

[Dawn Meredith]

Just can't get enough Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Anybody ever stop to notice where Arlen Specter hails from?

Why, he's Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

And where did Richard A. Sprague, that White Knight of Conspiracy Theorists, HSCA's Chief Counsel hail from—who oh-so-valiantly tilted at windmills for millions of tax dollars, mounted a big "fight" with CIA that accomplished a net of nothing, then went home?

Yes, he was from the City of Brotherly Love, the Birthplace of Our Nation: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

And it just tears at my heart strings to hear what the poor man said after the fact: If he had to do it all over again he would probe "Oswald's ties to the Central Intelligence Agency." Well, of course he would, bless his heart.

Of course he was then replaced by someone who told us all the Mafia did it. Well, of course they did.

Where else would CIA even think of establishing their headquarters for the murder of a president and an American coup but right where it all started? In fact, I would be very surprised if crucial exchanges weren't conducted right in public view on the grounds of Independence Hall.

I'd love to hear from Bill Kelly on this subject. Meanwhile, more keeps pouring out in a flood.

Ashton

Ashton:

First of all Sprague was horribly attacked in a media smear campaign. Because he wanted to go after the CIA. You can refer to this all you want as a fake " fight"; I beg to differ.

And he did not just " go home". He was fired by Henry Gonzales. (Was that fake too?).

You're playing a bit fast and loose with the facts here.

So what if both he and darlin' arlin are from Pennsylvania? That's REALLY reaching!

I know you call 'em as you see 'em. As do I.

Dawn

[Ashton Gray]

Just can't get enough Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Anybody ever stop to notice where Arlen Specter hails from?

Why, he's Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

And where did Richard A. Sprague, that White Knight of Conspiracy Theorists, HSCA's Chief Counsel hail from—who oh-so-valiantly tilted at windmills for millions of tax dollars, mounted a big "fight" with CIA that accomplished a net of nothing, then went home?

Yes, he was from the City of Brotherly Love, the Birthplace of Our Nation: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

And it just tears at my heart strings to hear what the poor man said after the fact: If he had to do it all over again he would probe "Oswald's ties to the Central Intelligence Agency." Well, of course he would, bless his heart.

Of course he was then replaced by someone who told us all the Mafia did it. Well, of course they did.

Where else would CIA even think of establishing their headquarters for the murder of a president and an American coup but right where it all started? In fact, I would be very surprised if crucial exchanges weren't conducted right in public view on the grounds of Independence Hall.

I'd love to hear from Bill Kelly on this subject. Meanwhile, more keeps pouring out in a flood.

Ashton

Ashton:

First of all Sprague was horribly attacked in a media smear campaign. Because he wanted to go after the CIA. You can refer to this all you want as a fake " fight"; I beg to differ.

And he did not just " go home". He was fired by Henry Gonzales. (Was that fake too?).

You're playing a bit fast and loose with the facts here.

So what if both he and darlin' arlin are from Pennsylvania? That's REALLY reaching!

I know you call 'em as you see 'em. As do I.

Dawn

As you should. I enthusiastically welcome just such reasoned debate.

What I am saying categorically and unequivocally is that far too many absolutely critical vectors form a nexus at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, while all the "investigative committees" <SPIT!> pointed everybody's nose all over the globe to everywhere but Philadelphia. And in both seminal "investigative committees" <SPIT!> sending researchers running everywhere but Philadelphia, the point man with senior investigative powers was from Pennsylvania.

And what I'll say again categorically and unequivocally is that CIA always plays both sides of the game. I don't care how many times I have to repeat it.

And playing both sides of the game effectively always includes installing double-agent "allies" in martyrish garb who always are "of the people, by the people, and for the people." Dontcha' know.

Saint Daniel Ellsberg comes to mind. (And, boy, are we ever going to be hearing more about him.)

In fact, after his "firing," Sprague was reinstated, then Gonzalez resigned in protest, then Sprague was "persuaded" to resign. Poof! They're both off the stage. You're asking me if the Gonzalez/Sprague war a Punch'n'Judy show? You know it's a rhetorical question that can't be answered by me for you. You'll have to answer that one for yourself. The only way I ever approach such questions for myself only is to look at the outcome. YMMV.

Ashton

Edited January 10, 2007 by Ashton Gray

[Jack White]

And W.C. Fields requested that his tombstone epitath be:

ON THE WHOLE, I'D RATHER BE IN PHILADELPHIA.

Jack

[Ashton Gray]

And W.C. Fields requested that his tombstone epitath be:

ON THE WHOLE, I'D RATHER BE IN PHILADELPHIA.

Jack

On the whole, he may have preferred to be anywhere else at all if he'd read the article that follows below.

Ashton

[Ashton Gray]

An article of absorbing interest, to me at least, in light of continuing revelations concerning Pennsylvania, specifically Philadephia: 'Human guinea pigs' demand justice

Thursday, May 30, 2002

'Human guinea pigs' demand justice

Ex-cons who participated in government experiments continue fight

By H.P. Albarelli Jr.

© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com

Nearly 300 former inmates of Philadelphia's Holmesburg Prison are demanding that the Philadelphia City Council launch an investigation into secret medical experiments conducted on them decades ago.

The experiments, which included radioactive isotopes, LSD, BZ, infectious diseases and a variety of drug-company products, were conducted in the now-closed county prison beginning in 1951 and lasting to 1974.

Sponsoring the experiments were the U.S. Army, the CIA and at least two large private corporations, Dow Chemical Co. and Johnson & Johnson. Many of the experiments were overseen by Dr. Albert Kligman, a renowned researcher and dermatologist from the University of Pennsylvania. Numerous military and federal government physicians worked alongside Kligman.

In February 1968, Kligman said that when he first visited Holmesburg Prison he viewed its inmate population much "like a farmer seeing a fertile field for the first time." Kligman also said that he considered the facility as "an anthropoid colony" ideal for conducting medical experiments.

On May 7, former Holmesburg inmates appeared before the Philadelphia City Council's Committee on Law and Government and graphically told of the injuries they believe had been inflicted upon them by callous government researchers.

Former prisoner Edward Anthony said, "They (researchers at the prison) destroyed my life." Anthony maintains that Army doctors working in the prison injected him with a "chemical warfare substance" so potent that it left him "spaced out" for months. The former inmates want the committee to recommend that the full Philadelphia Council authorize an investigation into the facts behind the 25-year experiments conducted at Holmesburg.

In November 1998, former Holmesburg inmates held street demonstrations in downtown Philadelphia seeking to draw attention to their use in experiments that they claim left them in need of long-term medical attention. The demonstrators maintained that they had been "lied to" about the dangers posed by experiments and demanded that they be given free medical treatment for experiment-related problems and financial compensation for pain and suffering.

The demonstrations were triggered by publication of the book "Acres of Skin" by Allen M. Hornblum, a criminal justice expert and professor at Temple University in Philadelphia. Hornblum's book detailed the history of the Holmesburg experiments which, according to Hornblum, were conducted on hundreds of "human guinea pigs who sacrificed their health and comfort to experimental medicine."

In October 2000, former inmates filed a lawsuit against the city of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania, Dow Chemical, Johnson & Johnson and Kligman, alleging that they were falsely informed that the experiments were harmless to them. The suit, filed in Philadelphia's Common Pleas Court, seeks $50,000 in damages for each plaintiff and assurances that no-cost medical treatment will be made available to the former inmates.

Thomas M. Nocella, attorney for the inmates, said that many of the men were suffering from cancer, severe lung problems and other maladies.

"They received only a dollar or two a day to be used as subjects," said Nocella, "for drugs they knew nothing about." Nocella claimed there was no way the former prisoners could have given any reasoned informed consent for the tests when "many of the men couldn't read or comprehend the materials and forms placed in front of them."

After the lawsuit was filed, it was moved to federal court where a judge ruled the statute of limitations had expired 20 years prior. The suit is now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third District, which is expected to hear oral arguments in July.

The Holmesburg Prison experiments were first reported nationally in the mid-1970s as part of a series of sensational and shocking revelations emerging from congressional investigations into questionable and illegal activities conducted by federal agencies. Many of the exposed activities were initiated by the CIA and the Army's Chemical Corps at Edgewood Arsenal and Fort Detrick, both in Maryland.

Prior to these revelations, occasionally in the 1960s, newspapers in the Philadelphia area featured human interest stories about Holmesburg inmates participating in tests for private company drug products. One September 1960 story in the Philadelphia Sun Bulletin stated, "The tests have been going on for about 12 years, but got a big shot in the arm when the University of Pennsylvania Hospital's dermatology department became interested in the prison." The story said that the university's Kligman, on a diagnostic visit to the facility, "was struck by the advantages of a prison as a testing ground." Said Kligman, "We know where [the test subjects] are, what they're doing, what they're eating; and if they're given pills six times a day, we know they're taken."

Another brief October 1962 article noted what may have been one of the Army's first experiments at the facility when it reported, "About 100 inmates of Holmesburg Prison will be voluntary subjects over the next year for an Army study of the effects of heat and humidity on the human skin." Continued the article, "A special climate chamber is now being built in one of the prison cells. The prisoner volunteers will be subjected to various climatic conditions and their reactions noted." Dr. Donald M. Pillsbury of the University of Pennsylvania, who oversaw the experiment with Kligman, said, "The Army is interested in this subject because more men were incapacitated in the South Pacific during World War II because of skin diseases than injury."

Amazingly, by 1963, Kligman was directing approximately 50 human experiments at Holmesburg involving nearly 1,000 inmates. One of these experiments was another Army-funded study on "the effects of poisonous vapors on the skin." The study included machines "that create radioactive isotopes" and dropping "small amounts" of highly toxic substances "on a limited area of [the inmate's] skin." At the time, Kligman proclaimed, "This is a program for national defense ... for once such vapors get through the skin they can destroy the nerve system and the central function of the brain."

In a 1968 Bulletin article, Kligman was quoted as saying that after the prison's experimental program expanded beyond dermatology studies to other areas of research, "We had an ethical problem. How much right do you have to cause risk to a prisoner in medical tests from which he has no direct benefit." Explained Kligman, "The tradition has been, from ethical or moral considerations, to test only those people who could draw some direct benefit from the testing."

The expanded Holmesburg program, Kligman continued, changed that tradition. "All the prisoner taking part in a test has is money," Kligman said. "We pay him to lend us his body for some time. But we pre-decide whether a test is dangerous, and the prisoner has to depend on our judgment."

Incredibly, early media attention to the Holmesburg experiments failed to set off alarms about the issues of informed consent and dangers posed. Under the Nuremberg Code of 1947 – an international agreement that the United States helped author and signed on to as a result of the horrendous experiments conducted by the Nazi physicians during the 1940s – it is "absolutely essential" that "voluntary consent" be given free of "any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching or other ulterior force of constraint or coercion." Further, the code requires that any experiment be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury.

In years subsequent to the Holmesburg experiments, and through to today, debate has been heated about the morality and legality of physicians conducting human experiments given that they are sworn to the Oath of Hippocrates. The essence of that oath is primum non nocere – "first do no harm." The oath also requires: "I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect."

Following the congressional revelations of the mid-'70s, a number of Philadelphia newspapers reported that suspicions were strong that the CIA had been involved with testing drugs at Holmesburg Prison. Eventually, over a period of about three years, reporters were able to piece together scattered declassified documents that verified intelligence agency involvement concealed through a secret financial arrangement with the Army's Special Operations Division at Fork Detrick. That agreement was code named MK/NAOMI. While details of the MK/NAOMI project at Holmesburg remain sketchy because the CIA maintained a policy of "not keeping written records of these experiments," glimpses of the project can be obtained through other declassified Army Chemical Corps documents. These documents reveal that primary among the CIA-funded activities at Holmesburg were experiments with several "mind-control drugs" used to determine "a dosage known as MED-50." This was the "minimum effective dose needed to mentally disable" subjects. In all, it is believed that the CIA tested about eight mind-altering substances on prison inmates. These substances included LSD, BZ, a compound nearly "ten times more powerful than LSD," several mescaline derivatives and various compounds that included substances drawn from hallucinogenic mushrooms. One of the reasons the CIA was attracted to working with Dr. Kligman was his high level of knowledge about edible mushrooms.

Other declassified documents reveal that prior to its association with the University of Pennsylvania, the Army's Special Operations Division had been searching for a college or university "willing and able" to try out mind-control drugs on humans on a large scale. Earlier attempts at the University of Maryland had failed because of the reluctance of researchers there to expand their program without "liability waivers from the government." Central in the Army's search criteria was locating a university close to Fort Detrick and Edgewood Arsenal that "had easy access to prisoners or confined populations."

Documents also reveal that the Army had concerns about the CIA-sponsored experiments. One memorandum by E.G. Scott, an Army law division chief, questioned conducting tests aimed at producing "irrational or irresponsible behavior" among subjects. Other CIA documents reveal that its Holmesburg experiments, code-named Project Often, were closely linked to other tests conducted from about 1952 through 1968 at additional state and federal prisons. These experiments were aimed at "creating temporary psychotic states in subjects" for the purposes of "disturbing a person's psyche" and "inducing violent behavior."

In 1974, CIA Deputy Inspector General Scott D. Breckinridge, wrote that Project Often "dealt with the behavioral effects of chemical compounds (drugs) on humans" and that following extensive testing "something called the 'Boomer' was developed." Breckinridge also stated that CIA tests included efforts "to come up with a compound that could simulate a heart attack or a stroke in targeted individuals, or perhaps ... to cause the targeted individual to act bizarrely." In the same memo, Breckinridge noted that written test results were not available because the CIA had requested that Army researchers "only convey them verbally." Breckinridge, however, did note that the Army had retained the names of test subjects and the compounds used on them in a computerized database.

Other Army documents state that one of the drugs tested at Holmesburg, identified then only as "EA 3167" but now believed to be "Boomer," produced "delirium and other psychotic behavior lasting from three to four days with subsequent amnesia." One former Fort Detrick researcher, speaking under conditions of anonymity, said that "EA (experimental article) 3167 was a highly classified compound once considered for use domestically during the Watergate scandals." Added the researcher, "It was used widely and more effectively employed overseas where concerns about after-effects were not of any consequence."

The Philadelphia Council committee is expected to make a decision soon on the former inmate's request for a special investigation. Privately, some members of the City Council have stated that they think the request is only a ploy by the former prisoners to draw more attention to their lawsuit.

Ashton

[Ashton Gray]

How much attention has been given to this by the "investigative commissions"? <SPIT!>

Wonder who set this little trip up for him? Wonder who printed up the "We will Barry you" placards?

TIME

magazine, Friday,

8 November 1963

, page 22

THE PRESIDENCY

In 1960 Philadelphia gave John Kennedy a 331,500-vote plurality, more than enough to offset losses elsewhere in Pennsylvania and put the state into the Democratic column. Last week the President went to Philadelphia to repay that political debt. He was given a frosty reception.

Kennedy had come to campaign for Mayor James Tate, up for re-election this week and under heavy criticism from many whites for his acquiescence to demands of militant Negro organizations. As the Kennedy caravan moved the 13 miles from the Philadelphia airport, most streets were virtually deserted. There was little waving or cheering. Outside the Bellevue Stratford Hotel, where Kennedy appeared at a $250-a-head reception, pickets waved signs—"Kennedy, Why Compromise Equality?" Then on to Convention Hall. There the signs warned "We Will Barry You," and inside, the galleries were half empty even though some 10,000 free tickets had been distributed.

Kennedy laid his blessings on Tate, ticked off achievements of his Administration, and made a strong appeal for civil rights legislation. "That issue," he said, "is still very much with us, and it will continue to be with us until all Americans of every race can regard one another with the quality for which this city is noted—brotherly love."

Back in Washington, the President sent a bouquet and congratulations to his maternal grandmother, Mrs. John F. Fitzgerald, who marked her 98th birthday in Boston. Looking forward to next year's vacations, the White House announced that the First Family had leased Annandale Farm on Narragansett Bay at Newport, R.I., for the months of August and September. Annandale, the same estate that a group of Rhode Islanders wanted to buy and present to Kennedy as a permanent summer White House in 1962, will replace the First Family's summer home at Squaw Island in Hyannis Port. The new digs, for which the Kennedys reportedly will pay $2,000 a month, has 22 acres, a swimming pool, nearly a dozen bedrooms, and seclusion behind high brick walls. It adjoins the estate of Jacqueline Kennedy's mother and stepfather, Mr. and Mrs. Hugh D. Auchincloss, where Jackie played when she was a teenager.

Ashton

Edited January 10, 2007 by Ashton Gray

[William Kelly]

Just can't get enough Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Anybody ever stop to notice where Arlen Specter hails from?

Why, he's Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

And where did Richard A. Sprague, that White Knight of Conspiracy Theorists, HSCA's Chief Counsel hail from—who oh-so-valiantly tilted at windmills for millions of tax dollars, mounted a big "fight" with CIA that accomplished a net of nothing, then went home?

Yes, he was from the City of Brotherly Love, the Birthplace of Our Nation: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

And it just tears at my heart strings to hear what the poor man said after the fact: If he had to do it all over again he would probe "Oswald's ties to the Central Intelligence Agency." Well, of course he would, bless his heart.

Of course he was then replaced by someone who told us all the Mafia did it. Well, of course they did.Where else would CIA even think of establishing their headquarters for the murder of a president and an American coup but right where it all started? In fact, I would be very surprised if crucial exchanges weren't conducted right in public view on the grounds of Independence Hall.

I'd love to hear from Bill Kelly on this subject. Meanwhile, more keeps pouring out in a flood. Ashton

Okay, Aston, You asked for it, and I didnt' even need a Superdooperchronology machine. - BK

THE QUAKER CITY CONNECTIONS – CROSSROADS TO CONSPIRACY

– By Bill Kelly

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA, after Dallas and New Orleans, is the one city, if not where more JFK assassination intrigues actually took place, where many of the primary players spent more of their quality time than anywhere else. Philly is the Crossroads of the Conspiracy.

Home of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Liberty Bell, the Stars & Stripes, the U.S.S. Olympia of Spanish American War fame, and the 2000 Republican National Convention, Philadelphia was founded by First Quaker William Penn and is the hometown of Tom Paine, Ben Franklin, Arthur Young, Cummings Catherwood, James Bond, Frank Forini Sturgis, Angelo Bruno, Dr. De De Wynne DeMohrenschildt Sharples, Igor Vaganov, Steve Keenan, Robert Lipka, Amil Jamal and Ira Einhorn.

Philadelphia is where you get a good cheesesteak, cream cheese, scrapple, Tastycake, water ice and a lawyer, when you really need one. Among the Philadelphia lawyers who became players in the JFK assassination drama are John J. McCloy, Arlen Specter, William Coleman, Vincent Salandria, Richard Schweiker and Richard Sprague.

Philadelphia's Main Line is where Michael Paine and Priscilla Johnson (McMillan) matriculated at Quaker colleges, Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr, where Michael Paine met Ruth Hyde when she was teaching at a Quaker school, and where Michael's stepfather Arthur Young invented the original Bell 47A Helicopter.

Philadelphia is also the home of Warren Commission critic Vincent Salandria [see: "False Mystery" an Anthology of Salandria's work] and the dateline of such journalists as Joe Goulden, the reporter who "made up" Oswald's FBI number, and investigative journalists Gaeton Fonzi and Mike Mallow, both of whom wrote numerous articles on the Kennedy assassination for Philadelphia Magazine.

Philadelphia is where Lee Harvey Oswald told Ruth Paine he was going to relocate to and work shortly before he went to Mexico City, and there are four Philadelphia addresses in Oswald's notebook, each an interesting lead worth pursuing.

Philadelphia is where President JFK visited on a political campaign stop on October 31, 1963, Halloween, at the time Diem was killed in Vietnam during a coup d'etat and when Castro was supposed to be shot by assassins in Cuba from the CIA ship the "Rex." If Diem, Castro and JFK were all killed by assassins on the same day, would anyone consider it a coincidence?

Kennedy rode through Philadelphia in an open limo in a short motorcade witnessed by my cousin, who then worked for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. After seeing JFK drive past him, on his way to a Democratic fundraiser at Convention Hall, my cousin walked into the newsroom and said that he didn't think the President was going to live much longer. He expressed this thought, not because of any foreknowledge of a plot, but because of the total lack of security. [After becoming a Catholic priest, Father Steve "Skip" Haynes wrote a sermon about the effort to free the government files and the need for open records in an open society.]

Another suspect in the Tippit murder, Igor Vaganov, was a East European who moved from Philadelphia to Oak Cliff with his girlfriend on the week before the assassination. He drove a red Ford, had a rifle, and was driving around Oak Cliff when Tippitt was murdered. The evening before, Vaganov's girlfriend called home to Philadelphia to say that she thought Vaganov was going to do something radical and was scared.

Tippet's killer discarded a jacket that could have also originated in Philadelphia, at a department store that was one of the few outlets that sold that line of jackets at the time.

The Warren Commission investigation, led by such Philadelphians lawyers like Arlen Spector and William Coleman, never got to the department store, the four addresses in Oswald's notebook or to Arthur Young, whose name appears, as far as I can tell, only once in the primary assassination literature. Gerald Ford, in his book on the assassination, notes quite innocently that Marina Oswald was asked by Ruth Hyde Paine to respond to her offer to move to Irving by writing in care of ARTHUR YOUNG, PAOLI, PENNSYLVANIA.

Ruth Hyde Paine, on her summer vacation, drove her kids to the Paine family retreat off the coast of Massachusetts, then stopped to spend some time with Michael's mother and stepfather, Ruth Forbes Paine Young and Arthur, the inventor of the Bell Helicopter. Both espoused Quaker beliefs, and assisted Michael in obtaining the job at Bell Hell in Texas, to where they relocated after leaving Philadelphia.

Marina wrote to Ruth c/o Arthur Young, Paoli, Pa., and the letter got through, since Ruth stopped in New Orleans on her way home and picked up Marina, the kids and the alleged assassination rifle and drove them to Texas while Oswald went to Mexico City. Arthur and Ruth Young and Michael and Ruth Paine professed Quaker beliefs, Ruth Paine taught at a Quaker school and they supported Cord Meyer's World Federalists movement for a world government and a strong United Nations.

Another wealthy Main Line Quaker philanthropist, Dr. Dee Dee Sharples, now a Temple University Trustee, was married to George DeMohrenschildt, one of the accused assassin's best friends.

The last person President Kennedy talked with on the telephone from his Ft. Worth hotel suite was the patron of the arts who decorated the hotel room walls with fine works of art, who happened to be from Philadelphia and friends with Ruth and Michael Paine.

Besides home to the Paines, Youngs and Sharples, Paoli is also the small town home of Cuban exile, Enrique Menocal, Castro's childhood friend, who helped found the Cuban Aid Relief, which was sponsored by the CIA's Catherwood Fund. One stop down the Main Line train track from Paoli is the home of Cummins Catherwood, whose Catherwood Foundation served as a conduit for the funds earmarked for covert CIA operations, some of which included Latin American Spanish language news organizations, the international division of the Columbia University School of Journalism, the Cuban Aid Relief, Catholic Welfare and a multitude of operations in the Philippines, Cuba and Central America. [see articles: The Catherwood Foundation; The Cuban Aid Relief; and Julio Fernandez.].

Philadelphia was the primary dateline for such reporters as Joe Goulden, who "made up" Oswald's FBI undercover agent number, and investigative journalists Gaeton Fonzi and Mike Mallowe, who wrote numerous articles on the JFK assassination for Philadelphia Magazine.

It was Fonzi's magazine articles that caught the attention of Sen. Richard Schweiker (R. Pa.) when he was named to the Schweiker-(Gary) Hart (JFK Assassination) subcommittee of the Church Intelligence Committee investigation into illegal intelligence agency activities. It was during his leg work for that sub-committee that Fonzi first interviewed Alpha 66 leader Antonio Vechina and his association with CIA case officer "Maurice Bishop."

Both Hart and Schweiker were taken care of, Hart exposed for his "Monkey Business" with Donna Rice, while Ronald Regan prematurely named Schweiker his VP running mate, effectively taking him out of the game.

The Church Committee Report however, did help spark the creation of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), which was given the task of investigating the assassinations of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King. The first chief counsel to the HSCA was Philadelphia attorney Richard Sprague, who had previously investigated the assassination of United Mine Workers Union President Tony Boyle and successfully prosecuted his rival Jock Yablonski for the murder.

When asked about Oswald's motives, Sprague, the son of two psychologists, replied that he wasn't interested in whether Oswald was nursed at his mother's breast, "my approach to motive is more direct." Sprague began to conduct two simultaneous homicide investigations, with the intention of solving the crimes, and was directly removed from his office and replaced by G. Robert Blakey, a Cornell organized crime expert who redirected the investigation away from the intelligence connections towards the mob.

When Sprague was the chief counsel, I hand delivered him a package that contained a copy of Jim Braden's 1948 Camden, N.J. arrest report, but Sprague never passed his files on to Blakey when he took over, and as far as I can tell, the Assassinations Records Review Board never obtained Sprague's files either.

More recently, two active Philadelphia cases have a bearing on the JFK assassination, Ira Einhorn and Robert Steven Lipka.

Hippie Guru Ira Einhorn was indicted, and later convicted in abstensia of killing his girlfriend, former Texas cheerleader Holly Maddux. Einhorn was a protégé of Arthur Young, the inventor, and blames the CIA and KGB for killing Holly. Einhorn took off when his attorney, Arlen Spector, got him out on bail, but he was recently recaptured in France, where he had been fighting extradition back to Philly to be retried. Eventually returned, he was convicted again.

Robert Steven Lipka was a NSA clerk at Fort Meade, Md. whose job was to shred highly classified documents, but instead, beginning in September 1965, he began selling them to the KGB. Lipka sold enough docs to the Ruskies to retire and go back to school, earn a degree and teach school in Millersville, Pennsylvania.

It appeared he got away with it until sometime after March, 1992, when KGB archivist Vasile Mitrokhin defected to the British MI5 and exposed Lipka as a means of establishing his bonafides. When the British passed on the information to the FBI, an undercover FBI agent slipped up to Lipka at a bar and began to rope him in before he was officially arrested in March, 1996.

Although Mitrokhin was not mentioned as the source for the arrest, Lipka admitted his betrayal at a court hearing, during which he also said that from NSA records he learned the name of President Kennedy's assassin.

When asked by a reporter what was the name of the assassin in the NSA reports, Lipka replied: "Luis Angel Castillo."

Lipka was sentenced to prison, the Castillo file remained withheld at the Ford Library until earlier this year, while the NSA continues to insist that it has no records of evidentiary value concerning the assassination of President Kennedy.

Then there's Steve Keenan, the man on the motorcycle, a college student from Philadelphia who frequented the Quaker Casa de Amegos hostel in Mexico City who reportedly gave Oswald a ride to the Cuban embassy on the back of his motorcycle.

In the summer of 1963, at the same time Lee Harvey Oswald was handing out Fair Play for Cuba leaflets in New Orleans and getting arrested with members of the anti-Castro Cuban DRE, someone later identified as Oswald was seen handing out pro-Castro leaflets at Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia

Philadelphia PA, the Crossroads of Conspiracy, and home of the Quakers, journalists, lawyers and spies and keys to the assassination of President Kennedy.

Xxxyyyzzz

Edited January 10, 2007 by William Kelly

[Dawn Meredith]

[quote name='Ashton Gray' date='Jan 10 2007, 02:12 AM' post='88380']

Just can't get enough Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

As you should. I enthusiastically welcome just such reasoned debate.

What I am saying categorically and unequivocally is that far too many absolutely critical vectors form a nexus at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, while all the "investigative committees" <SPIT!> pointed everybody's nose all over the globe to everywhere but Philadelphia. And in both seminal "investigative committees" <SPIT!> sending researchers running everywhere but Philadelphia, the point man with senior investigative powers was from Pennsylvania.

And what I'll say again categorically and unequivocally is that CIA always plays both sides of the game. I don't care how many times I have to repeat it.

And playing both sides of the game effectively always includes installing double-agent "allies" in martyrish garb who always are "of the people, by the people, and for the people." Dontcha' know.

Saint Daniel Ellsberg comes to mind. (And, boy, are we ever going to be hearing more about him.)

In fact, after his "firing," Sprague was reinstated, then Gonzalez resigned in protest, then Sprague was "persuaded" to resign. Poof! They're both off the stage. You're asking me if the Gonzalez/Sprague war a Punch'n'Judy show? You know it's a rhetorical question that can't be answered by me for you. You'll have to answer that one for yourself. The only way I ever approach such questions for myself only is to look at the outcome. YMMV.

Ashton

I absolutely agree that the CIA always plays both sides of the game, and that the use of double- agents is sop. Once both Sprague and Gonzalez were out of the way, their boy Blakey was installed. The Company obtained its non-disclosure agreements , and all aveunes of inquiry into CIA involvement were shut down.

So, ultimately the HSCA was a failure. A re-run of the WC really, with the exception of a some important language: Their finding of "conspiracy" which was muted beyond recognition by the next words "probably Mafia".

I do not believe that our government will ever properly investigate itself.

Dawn

[Michael G. Smith]

Just can't get enough Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Anybody ever stop to notice where Arlen Specter hails from?

Why, he's Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

And where did Richard A. Sprague, that White Knight of Conspiracy Theorists, HSCA's Chief Counsel hail from—who oh-so-valiantly tilted at windmills for millions of tax dollars, mounted a big "fight" with CIA that accomplished a net of nothing, then went home?

Yes, he was from the City of Brotherly Love, the Birthplace of Our Nation: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

And it just tears at my heart strings to hear what the poor man said after the fact: If he had to do it all over again he would probe "Oswald's ties to the Central Intelligence Agency." Well, of course he would, bless his heart.

Of course he was then replaced by someone who told us all the Mafia did it. Well, of course they did.Where else would CIA even think of establishing their headquarters for the murder of a president and an American coup but right where it all started? In fact, I would be very surprised if crucial exchanges weren't conducted right in public view on the grounds of Independence Hall.

I'd love to hear from Bill Kelly on this subject. Meanwhile, more keeps pouring out in a flood. Ashton

Okay, Aston, You asked for it, and I didnt' even need a Superdooperchronology machine. - BK

THE QUAKER CITY CONNECTIONS – CROSSROADS TO CONSPIRACY

– By Bill Kelly

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA, after Dallas and New Orleans, is the one city, if not where more JFK assassination intrigues actually took place, where many of the primary players spent more of their quality time than anywhere else. Philly is the Crossroads of the Conspiracy.

Home of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Liberty Bell, the Stars & Stripes, the U.S.S. Olympia of Spanish American War fame, and the 2000 Republican National Convention, Philadelphia was founded by First Quaker William Penn and is the hometown of Tom Paine, Ben Franklin, Arthur Young, Cummings Catherwood, James Bond, Frank Forini Sturgis, Angelo Bruno, Dr. De De Wynne DeMohrenschildt Sharples, Igor Vaganov, Steve Keenan, Robert Lipka, Amil Jamal and Ira Einhorn.

Philadelphia is where you get a good cheesesteak, cream cheese, scrapple, Tastycake, water ice and a lawyer, when you really need one. Among the Philadelphia lawyers who became players in the JFK assassination drama are John J. McCloy, Arlen Specter, William Coleman, Vincent Salandria, Richard Schweiker and Richard Sprague.

Philadelphia's Main Line is where Michael Paine and Priscilla Johnson (McMillan) matriculated at Quaker colleges, Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr, where Michael Paine met Ruth Hyde when she was teaching at a Quaker school, and where Michael's stepfather Arthur Young invented the original Bell 47A Helicopter.

Philadelphia is also the home of Warren Commission critic Vincent Salandria [see: "False Mystery" an Anthology of Salandria's work] and the dateline of such journalists as Joe Goulden, the reporter who "made up" Oswald's FBI number, and investigative journalists Gaeton Fonzi and Mike Mallow, both of whom wrote numerous articles on the Kennedy assassination for Philadelphia Magazine.

Philadelphia is where Lee Harvey Oswald told Ruth Paine he was going to relocate to and work shortly before he went to Mexico City, and there are four Philadelphia addresses in Oswald's notebook, each an interesting lead worth pursuing.

Philadelphia is where President JFK visited on a political campaign stop on October 31, 1963, Halloween, at the time Diem was killed in Vietnam during a coup d'etat and when Castro was supposed to be shot by assassins in Cuba from the CIA ship the "Rex." If Diem, Castro and JFK were all killed by assassins on the same day, would anyone consider it a coincidence?

Kennedy rode through Philadelphia in an open limo in a short motorcade witnessed by my cousin, who then worked for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. After seeing JFK drive past him, on his way to a Democratic fundraiser at Convention Hall, my cousin walked into the newsroom and said that he didn't think the President was going to live much longer. He expressed this thought, not because of any foreknowledge of a plot, but because of the total lack of security. [After becoming a Catholic priest, Father Steve "Skip" Haynes wrote a sermon about the effort to free the government files and the need for open records in an open society.]

Another suspect in the Tippit murder, Igor Vaganov, was a East European who moved from Philadelphia to Oak Cliff with his girlfriend on the week before the assassination. He drove a red Ford, had a rifle, and was driving around Oak Cliff when Tippitt was murdered. The evening before, Vaganov's girlfriend called home to Philadelphia to say that she thought Vaganov was going to do something radical and was scared.

Tippet's killer discarded a jacket that could have also originated in Philadelphia, at a department store that was one of the few outlets that sold that line of jackets at the time.

The Warren Commission investigation, led by such Philadelphians lawyers like Arlen Spector and William Coleman, never got to the department store, the four addresses in Oswald's notebook or to Arthur Young, whose name appears, as far as I can tell, only once in the primary assassination literature. Gerald Ford, in his book on the assassination, notes quite innocently that Marina Oswald was asked by Ruth Hyde Paine to respond to her offer to move to Irving by writing in care of ARTHUR YOUNG, PAOLI, PENNSYLVANIA.

Ruth Hyde Paine, on her summer vacation, drove her kids to the Paine family retreat off the coast of Massachusetts, then stopped to spend some time with Michael's mother and stepfather, Ruth Forbes Paine Young and Arthur, the inventor of the Bell Helicopter. Both espoused Quaker beliefs, and assisted Michael in obtaining the job at Bell Hell in Texas, to where they relocated after leaving Philadelphia.

Marina wrote to Ruth c/o Arthur Young, Paoli, Pa., and the letter got through, since Ruth stopped in New Orleans on her way home and picked up Marina, the kids and the alleged assassination rifle and drove them to Texas while Oswald went to Mexico City. Arthur and Ruth Young and Michael and Ruth Paine professed Quaker beliefs, Ruth Paine taught at a Quaker school and they supported Cord Meyer's World Federalists movement for a world government and a strong United Nations.

Another wealthy Main Line Quaker philanthropist, Dr. Dee Dee Sharples, now a Temple University Trustee, was married to George DeMohrenschildt, one of the accused assassin's best friends.

The last person President Kennedy talked with on the telephone from his Ft. Worth hotel suite was the patron of the arts who decorated the hotel room walls with fine works of art, who happened to be from Philadelphia and friends with Ruth and Michael Paine.

Besides home to the Paines, Youngs and Sharples, Paoli is also the small town home of Cuban exile, Enrique Menocal, Castro's childhood friend, who helped found the Cuban Aid Relief, which was sponsored by the CIA's Catherwood Fund. One stop down the Main Line train track from Paoli is the home of Cummins Catherwood, whose Catherwood Foundation served as a conduit for the funds earmarked for covert CIA operations, some of which included Latin American Spanish language news organizations, the international division of the Columbia University School of Journalism, the Cuban Aid Relief, Catholic Welfare and a multitude of operations in the Philippines, Cuba and Central America. [see articles: The Catherwood Foundation; The Cuban Aid Relief; and Julio Fernandez.].

Philadelphia was the primary dateline for such reporters as Joe Goulden, who "made up" Oswald's FBI undercover agent number, and investigative journalists Gaeton Fonzi and Mike Mallowe, who wrote numerous articles on the JFK assassination for Philadelphia Magazine.

It was Fonzi's magazine articles that caught the attention of Sen. Richard Schweiker (R. Pa.) when he was named to the Schweiker-(Gary) Hart (JFK Assassination) subcommittee of the Church Intelligence Committee investigation into illegal intelligence agency activities. It was during his leg work for that sub-committee that Fonzi first interviewed Alpha 66 leader Antonio Vechina and his association with CIA case officer "Maurice Bishop."

Both Hart and Schweiker were taken care of, Hart exposed for his "Monkey Business" with Donna Rice, while Ronald Regan prematurely named Schweiker his VP running mate, effectively taking him out of the game.

The Church Committee Report however, did help spark the creation of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), which was given the task of investigating the assassinations of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King. The first chief counsel to the HSCA was Philadelphia attorney Richard Sprague, who had previously investigated the assassination of United Mine Workers Union President Tony Boyle and successfully prosecuted his rival Jock Yablonski for the murder.

When asked about Oswald's motives, Sprague, the son of two psychologists, replied that he wasn't interested in whether Oswald was nursed at his mother's breast, "my approach to motive is more direct." Sprague began to conduct two simultaneous homicide investigations, with the intention of solving the crimes, and was directly removed from his office and replaced by G. Robert Blakey, a Cornell organized crime expert who redirected the investigation away from the intelligence connections towards the mob.

When Sprague was the chief counsel, I hand delivered him a package that contained a copy of Jim Braden's 1948 Camden, N.J. arrest report, but Sprague never passed his files on to Blakey when he took over, and as far as I can tell, the Assassinations Records Review Board never obtained Sprague's files either.

More recently, two active Philadelphia cases have a bearing on the JFK assassination, Ira Einhorn and Robert Steven Lipka.

Hippie Guru Ira Einhorn was indicted, and later convicted in abstensia of killing his girlfriend, former Texas cheerleader Holly Maddux. Einhorn was a protégé of Arthur Young, the inventor, and blames the CIA and KGB for killing Holly. Einhorn took off when his attorney, Arlen Spector, got him out on bail, but he was recently recaptured in France, where he had been fighting extradition back to Philly to be retried. Eventually returned, he was convicted again.

Robert Steven Lipka was a NSA clerk at Fort Meade, Md. whose job was to shred highly classified documents, but instead, beginning in September 1965, he began selling them to the KGB. Lipka sold enough docs to the Ruskies to retire and go back to school, earn a degree and teach school in Millersville, Pennsylvania.

It appeared he got away with it until sometime after March, 1992, when KGB archivist Vasile Mitrokhin defected to the British MI5 and exposed Lipka as a means of establishing his bonafides. When the British passed on the information to the FBI, an undercover FBI agent slipped up to Lipka at a bar and began to rope him in before he was officially arrested in March, 1996.

Although Mitrokhin was not mentioned as the source for the arrest, Lipka admitted his betrayal at a court hearing, during which he also said that from NSA records he learned the name of President Kennedy's assassin.

When asked by a reporter what was the name of the assassin in the NSA reports, Lipka replied: "Luis Angel Castillo."

Lipka was sentenced to prison, the Castillo file remained withheld at the Ford Library until earlier this year, while the NSA continues to insist that it has no records of evidentiary value concerning the assassination of President Kennedy.

Then there's Steve Keenan, the man on the motorcycle, a college student from Philadelphia who frequented the Quaker Casa de Amegos hostel in Mexico City who reportedly gave Oswald a ride to the Cuban embassy on the back of his motorcycle.

In the summer of 1963, at the same time Lee Harvey Oswald was handing out Fair Play for Cuba leaflets in New Orleans and getting arrested with members of the anti-Castro Cuban DRE, someone later identified as Oswald was seen handing out pro-Castro leaflets at Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia

Philadelphia PA, the Crossroads of Conspiracy, and home of the Quakers, journalists, lawyers and spies and keys to the assassination of President Kennedy.

Good posts. Another Philadelphia connection, concerning Philip J. Corso. "Along with General Charles Willoughby, security chief for oil billionaire H. L. Hunt at the time of the assassination, Corso was a member of a right wing fraternal organization known as "The Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem", more popularly known as the "Shickshinny Knights", because they were headquartered in Shickshinny, Pennsylvania. The group claimed to be the original Knights of Malta, a fraternal order that dated back to the Crusades." Shickshinny is not far from Philadelphia. This quote is from Michael Bensons book. Just thought I would toss that out there FWIW.

thanks-smitty