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Who killed JFK?


John Simkin

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Over the last few months several members have emailed me and asked why JFK was assassinated and who carried out this deed. On another thread Evan Burton has asked me to summarize the different theories on who killed JFK. I have attempted to do that on my website:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKindex.htm

However, although I have tried to be objective, there is no doubt that my own view of the assassination might have got in the way of my interpretation of events. Therefore I thought it might be a good idea if all active members of the JFK Forum posted a brief summary of their theory of the assassination. It will be interesting to see how much agreement there is about the assassination. I will start the ball rolling and hopefully others will join in.

Who Killed JFK?

I believe that the decision to kill JFK took place at the beginning of 1963. The key event was the Cuban Missile Crisis. The public perception of this event was that JFK had stood up to the Soviet Union and won. The truth was very different. JFK was forced to do a deal that involved removing nuclear missiles from Italy and Turkey and a promise not to invade Cuba. This information was kept from the American public and JFK was portrayed in the media as a victorious Cold War warrior.

JFK was riding high in the polls and his “tough” stance on Cuba had neutralized the right-wing campaign of Barry Goldwater. JFK’s only concern was that George Romney would become the 1964 Republican presidential candidate. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK would get the support of many conservatives and Goldwater would only attract the votes of the far right. Even some of these were in doubt because earlier in his campaign, Goldwater and Buckley decided to distance themselves from Robert Welch and the John Birch Society (for information on this see Rick Perlstein’s book, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus).

However, by 1963, JFK was in reality, no longer a Cold War warrior. The Cuban Missile Crisis had changed his political ideology. He had been deeply shocked by the urgings of his military advisers to use nuclear weapons during the conflict with the Soviet Union over Cuba. Only JFK realized just how close the world had come to a full-scale nuclear war. JFK was determined that this situation must never happen again. Therefore, he decided to negotiate an end to the Cold War. This involved reducing the sources of conflict between the USA and the Soviet Union. This included withdrawing from Vietnam and accepting co-existence with left-wing governments in countries like Cuba.

JFK knew that if he announced this new policy in 1963 he would be defeated by Goldwater in 1964. Therefore it was vitally important that this policy should remain a secret from the American people. In fact, the administration even leaked information suggesting it was involved in covert operations against Castro. This I think explains why RFK became involved with anti-Castro Cubans in 1963.

JFK made a terrible mistake. He did not wait until he was elected for a second-term before implementing this new policy. Instead, he used people like Lisa Howard, William Attwood and Jean Daniel to begin negotiations with Castro. It was not too difficult for the CIA to discover what was going on. For example, they had the UN building bugged, the place where some of these negotiations were taking place.

I believe that right-wingers within the CIA such as David Morales, David Phillips, E. Howard Hunt and Rip Robertson arranged for this information to be passed to figures such as Haroldson L. Hunt, Clint Murchison, William Buckley, William Pawley, Henry Luce, George Brown, Robert Anderson and Glenn McCarthy. One, or a combination of these people decided to make sure that JFK did not serve a second term. They provided the money and someone, probably David Morales, was put in charge of the operation.

The initial strategy was to expose JFK’s record as a successful Cold War warrior. I believe this was what Operation Tilt (Bayo-Pawley Mission) was all about. This ended in failure.

It was probably in June 1963 that these plotters began considering the unthinkable, the assassination of JFK. But could they get away with it? I think it was other events taking place at that time that convinced them that this was achievable. The Bobby Baker scandal. People like George Brown and Robert Anderson knew that during the summer of 1963 there was a good possibility that Lyndon Johnson would be forced from office as a result of the TFX contract that had gone to General Dynamics. Fred Korth, the Secretary of the Navy was under investigation (he was forced to resign on the 1st November). We now know that Robert Kennedy was leaking information to John J. Williams and Carl T. Curtis, the two Republican senators leading the investigation into this scandal. They had been put in touch with Don B. Reynolds who had agreed to testify against Johnson (in fact he appeared in secret session of the Senate Rules Committee on the day that JFK was assassinated). This would not only be the end of LBJ, this would fully expose what Dwight Eisenhower had called the Military Industrial Congressional Complex (Eisenhower had been persuaded at the last moment to drop the word “Congressional” from his last speech as president). This included the Suite 8F Group that was at the centre of this network of corruption.

This does not mean that LBJ was involved in the planning of the assassination. However, the conspirators knew that LBJ would be fairly easy to manipulate in order to organize the cover-up that would be needed following the assassination.

The conspirators also knew that if they could arrange for Castro to be identified as the person behind the assassination, then the new president would order an invasion of Cuba. LBJ would also escalate the Vietnam War and his buddies in the Suite 8F Group would make billions via the contracts handed out by the government (as they did).

Morales therefore needed a couple of characters with links to Castro. It did not take them long to identify one such figure: Lee Harvey Oswald. He was perfect for this for several reasons. In the past he had worked for the CIA and currently he was working as an undercover agent for the FBI. This would insure that the CIA and FBI would help with the cover-up. After all, these agencies could not afford for one of their agents to be identified as the killer of JFK. Especially when it was known that JFK had been in conflict with these two organizations.

However, Oswald was not the perfect “patsy”. As a CIA agent he had posed as a Marxist who later became disillusioned with life in the Soviet Union. The CIA had been sloppy when they brought him back to America. He was treated as a double agent rather than the man who was willing to provide U2 information to the Soviets.

His role as a FBI undercover agent in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee had also been badly handled. Any investigation of Oswald’s career would suggest that he was not quite the man he seemed. This aspect of the cover up was always going to be difficult to deal with and would test Operation Mockingbird to the limits.

Morales turned to his friends at Interpen and Alpha 66 to carry out the assassination. Another important role these people played was in setting Oswald up. I believe they also planted evidence that linked LBJ to the assassination (the Mac Wallace fingerprint) in order to get his full cooperation after the assassination.

The conspiracy did not go completely to plan. Oswald was not killed (this was probably the role of J. D. Tippit) immediately after the assassination.

LBJ also did not act as was expected. He decided to undermine the Castro did it conspiracy. Officially, he did this to avoid a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. This is of course a lot of nonsense as this would not have been the consequence of an invasion of Cuba.

The real reason was that LBJ thought that any attempt to blame Castro for the assassination would have led to a world-wide investigation into the case. This would not only have led to the exposure of the CIA and FBI, it would have eventually have revealed full details of the workings of the Military Industrial Congressional Complex. Therefore, LBJ decided to pressurize Hoover and then the Warren Commission to argue that JFK had been killed by a “lone nut”. This would enable LBJ to close off the investigation. The only problems with this is that there was a lot of evidence suggesting that JFK had been killed by more than one man. There was also enough manufactured evidence around that suggested that Oswald had been part of a pro-Castro conspiracy. That is why, despite the best efforts of Operation Mockingbird, the investigation continues.

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John, although you name certain people you believe may have been involved in the assassination, your post omits the only person we can all be quite confident was involved in the conspiracy: Jack Ruby. Your post does not even state (although obviously we all know it) that Ruby executed Oswald on November 24, 1963. It was Ruby's murder of Oswald more than any other issue that first convinced most Americans that there was a conspiracy.

Ruby's connections were, of course, to organized crime. It therefore appears clear from Ruby's involvement alone that organized crime was involved in the assassination, and probably in its planning.

Is there evidence other than Ruby's involvement that organized crime helped plan the assassination? Assuredly there is.

In his book "Mob Lawyer" Frank Ragano who represented both Santo Trafficante, Jr. and Carlos Marcello states that Trafficante had "confessed" to Ragano that he (Trafficante) and Marcello were involved in the assassination. Trafficante told Rogano that they made a mistake and should have killed Robert Kennedy. Also, an FBI wiretap caught Trafficante stating, after ther murder of Johnny Rosselli, Jr., "Now there are only two people who know who really killed JFK." (Words to that effect.) As early as 1962, Trafficante had told Jose Aleman that JFK would not live to see the 1964 election.

Marcello had also made a specific threat against JFK before the assassination. Years after the assassination, when Marcello was in jail, he became sick and was hospitalized but he was watched by FBI agents. One night when he was under sedation, he talked of killing that "m.....f..... Kennedy" when he got to Dallas.

Ruby's ties were to the Marcello organization. It was reportedly organized crime that retained and paid for Ruby's flashy lawyer. Presumably, when Ruby was ordered to kill Oswald he was promised the best representation.

If Ferrie was involved in the assassination, as some suspect, he was associated with Marcello as well. Reportedly it was Ferrie who had flown Marcello back into the United States after representatives of Bobby Kennedy had essentially kidnapped him and left him in a Central American country, certainly giving Marcello adequate reason to want to kill Kennedy.

In Joan Mellen's new book she states that a man named Thomas Beckham passed a polygraph examination administered by the HSCA. He stated that he had been in a meeting in the office of Carlos Marcello's attorney the week before the assassination. In that meeting he was given a packet of documents including maps and photographs and instructed to fly them to Dallas. Marcello's attorney gave him cash for the job. After Kennedy was assassinated, the man feared for his life and fled New Orleans. While I have difficulty believing that the conspirators would entrust the assassination plans to a young, poorly educated man like Beckham (he was only about twenty at the time and had only a third grade education) a HSCA staffer who was an experienced police officer believed him and he did pass a polygraph examination. So if Beckham's story is correct, that is further evidence lconclusively inking Marcello to the assassination.

Researcher Steven Rivele spent years developing evidence that the actual assassins may have been French Corsican mafioso engaged by Trafficante to kill Kennedy. I think there may be truth to what Rivele uncovered.

Back to Ragano: Ragano stated that he had delivered a message in the late spring of 1963 (as I recall) from Jimmy Hoffa that Hoffa wanted them to kill Kennedy for them.

There is also evidence that Trafficante may have been acting on Castro's behalf and that Cuban intelligence agents may have been involved in the assassination. Several were reported seen in Dallas. (I know this will generate a response from my debating partner Mr. Charles-Dunne!) Other evidence suggesting Cuban involvement would include Trafficante's reported links to Castro and specifically to Rolando Cubela. Fabian Escalante reported that Cubela had helped arrange for Trafficante's release from Trescornia Detention Center in Cuba yet, curiously, Trafficante testified to the HSCA that he hardly knew Cubela.

It is interesting that delValle had started to give information about Trafficante's links to Cubela only a few days before delValle was murdered.

Who planned the assassination? The mafia members I think smart enough to plan the assassination were Trafficante and/or Rosselli.

I am aware of scant evidence to connect "rogue" CIA agents to the assassination, other than the Robertson look alike in DP and the statements attributed to Morales. Since Rosselli was a drinking buddy of both and knew that they hated Kennedy, it is possible that Rosselli, brilliantly, manuevered there involvement in the assassination, thereby assuring a cover-up. If this possibility is true, the CIA agents may in turn have solicited the involvement of anti-Castro Cubans.

Reportedly Marcello's associate Jack Halfen had been corrupting many Democrat Congressman with bribes and pay-offs, including LBJ when he was Senate Majority Leader. I think the Mafia had sufficient "goods" on LBJ to ensure his compliance with the cover-up.

I also believe that Oswald had been working for US intelligence (the FBI, CIA or both) as an agent provocateur and he was selected as the patsy in part because of those ties. I also think LBJ was handed the script of a "fear of war" scenario to sell the cover-up to people such as Earl Warren.

My view on the players in the assassination is very consistent with the views of Michael Kurtz, the only graduate-level professional historian to have researched the assassination.

I am also intrigued by the scenario set forth in Joseph Trento's "The Secret History of the CIA" that there may have been involvement in the assassination by the same clique within the Soviet politburo that only months later deposed Khrushchev.

In summary, I think it is clear that the best evidence indicates the involvement of organized crime in the assassination. The question is what other elements may have been involved.

Edited by Tim Gratz
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John, I fail to understand your last post.  Did not my post state (clearly, I hope) my theory of the assassination?  Or, as you put it:

Who Killed JFK?

No. It was just a collection of isolated facts about the assassination. What I wanted is a clearly stated theory of motive and operation. For example, where do your claims about Castro and the KGB fit into your theory? The reasons I ask you this is that you wriggle around like a bag of worms planting information in various threads suggesting at different times that it was a Mafia, KGB or Castro operation. Just for once I would like to read a clear explanation of your views.

Please don't post another defence of your behaviour on this Forum. Instead keep to the original intention of the thread.

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John, as you probably know, Kurtz involves Castro, the Mafia and the CIA (he says William Harvey).

Let me quote one of my favorite presidents, Richard M. Nixon (HEY!! WHOA!! JUST KIDDING!!) let me make this perfectly clear:

I think there was definitely involvement by organized crime. And possibly by organized crime alone. I think you and I agree about LBJ's role in the cover-up. I think many people contributed to the cover-up, for reasons of their own (e.g. RFK). The brilliance of the conspirators may have been exhibited in their "persuading" LBJ to cover-up.

That organized crime may have involved, on a compartmentalized basis, some elements that were otherwise antagonistic may sound far-fetched but Trafficante was in a unique position that he could have accomplished JUST that. Through Roselli he could have reached out to rogue CIA agents and anti-Castro Cubans. But he could also, without Rosselli's knowledge, also have been working with Castro (even if there were no Castro agents involved).

If both Hoffa and Castro communicate to Trafficante that they want JFK dead,

and Trafficante arranges the assassination for no other reason but lining up "favors" with them, who was it who really sponsored the assassination? In the words of the title to a famous book it is like "A Wilderness of Mirrors".

And the possible involvement of disparite groups helps explain why so many of the "clues" seem to point to different groups.

Edited by Tim Gratz
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The assassination was a coup d’etat, perpetrated by the MIC, virtually all elements of which had means, motive, and opportunity. A sham autopsy including use of two brains and other evidence tampering is clear evidence of the military’s involvement. There is also Maxwell Taylor’s emotional reactions to discussion of the assassination years after the fact, evidence of guilt and remorse. There is even photographic evidence that Taylor was in Dealey Plaza, possibly using a stopover meeting in Dallas or at Fort Bliss with Israeli visitor Yitzhak Rabin as cover for his presence (Taylor being on his way home from the Honolulu Conference). This would make the meeting of the JCS with German visitors at the Pentagon that day a false cover story, as indicated by the fact that Curtis LeMay was on vacation in Michigan.

Evidence of CIA involvement includes the manipulation of (former?) intelligence agent Oswald and the presence of CIA agents Rip Robertson, Lucien Conein, and Pakse Base Man together in Dealey Plaza, it being a statistically impossible coincidence that the photos are of other people who just happened to be on the same street corner in Dallas that day and who looked just like these operatives but weren’t. Plus there is the Hunt lookalike crossing Elm Street after the shooting, with Rip and some other spook and Lucien not far behind.

Evidence of FBI involvement is to be found in the manner in which it “investigated” the crime from start to finish. There is even a taped phone conversation in which Hoover and Johnson talk about a shot from the front hitting Connally, before they get back to the subject at hand, which was blaming it all on Oswald.

Evidence of complicity within the Secret Service is manifest in the obvious stripping of security, specifically removing the DPD-planned, usual motorcycle arrangement around the limo, under the false pretense that JFK didn’t want such protection.

Mafia resources were utilized (most obviously Jack Ruby in the silencing of Oswald) , the Mafia allowed to participate in the plot in case it needed to be fingered later as the culprit, exactly as the HSCA’s Blakey fingered it when unexpected evidence arose of a second gunman. Anti-Castro Cubans were also used on the ground possibly for the same reason or as a distracting false lead if nothing else.

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John, as you probably know, Kurtz involves Castro, the Mafia and the CIA (he says William Harvey).

Let me quote one of my favorite presidents, Richard M. Nixon (HEY!! WHOA!! JUST KIDDING!!) let me make this perfectly clear:

I think there was definitely involvement by organized crime.  And possibly by organized crime alone.  I think you and I agree about LBJ's role in the cover-up.  I think many people contributed to the cover-up, for reasons of their own (e.g. RFK).  The brilliance of the conspirators may have been exhibited in their "persuading" LBJ to cover-up.

That organized crime may have involved, on a compartmentalized basis, some elements that were otherwise antagonistic may sound far-fetched but Trafficante was in a unique position that he could have accomplished JUST that.  Through Roselli he could have reached out to rogue CIA agents and anti-Castro Cubans.  But he could also, without Rosselli's knowledge, also have been working with Castro (even if there were no Castro agents involved).

If both Hoffa and Castro communicate to Trafficante that they want JFK dead, 

and Trafficante arranges the assassination for no other reason but lining up "favors" with them, who was it who really sponsored the assassination?  In the words of the title to a famous book  it is like "A Wilderness of Mirrors".

And the possible involvement of disparite groups helps explain why so many of thye "clues" seem to point in different directions!

I have my own ideas about "who killed JFK" just like everybody else. While I do have definitive ideas, in this type of format, I would use the term "structural hypothesis" for elaborating viewpoints. The reason being is that I believe the main error people make in researching the JFK assassination is having a concrete idea or belief about the who, what, how and why and "tailoring their exposition of facts to 'fit' that scenario." My main structural hypothesis is that there was a one-time "overlapping" of different groups that all wanted Kennedy dead, not in the manner presented by Oliver Stone's JFK but something similar.

Three Dimensional Chess is a pursuit of very cerebral individuals, and I like that analogy for analyzing the assassination. On one level is organized crime; I think the books Contract on America by David Scheim and The Kennedy Contract: The Mafia Plot to Assassinate the President by John Davis prove conclusively that there is extensive evidence that points to involvement by organized crime, the former even providing records of telephone calls by Jack Ruby to the home of Eliz. Matthews ex-wife of Russell Matthews, an associate of Santos Trafficante, and calls to Marcello Lt. Nofio Pecora, Irwin Weiner, Lenny Patrick and Dusty Miller a Teamsters Union Rep.; visits to Johnny Roselli (twice, two mos. before 11-22-63), as well as a visit to Frank Caracci, a Carlos Marcello associate.

On the second level are the intelligence agencies and the Pentagon, CIA, FBI, Secret Service and individual members such as then Vice-President LBJ and even John Connally. I personally suspect involvement or, at least knowledge aforethought by Dean Rusk, Allen Dulles, E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis, Charles and Earle Cabell, George H.W. Bush, McGeorge Bundy, David Atlee Phillips and Ruth and Michael Paine. I do not have factual evidence in naming these individuals, and do not pretend to possess same. This is the most problematic area in solving the case, due to the intransigence of the US Govt. in the name of "National Security." Note I am not implying a massive interlocking assassination conspiracy by all of the above just the potential involvement which circumstantial evidence at least hints at.

On the third level are those pesky anti-Castro Cubans, they hang out at Hickory Hill with RFK, they are cavorting with Oswald and preparing for a post Bay of Pig's invasion that never took place. (I do believe that Angel and Leopoldo were an integral part of the process of setting up Oswald and that they were "posing" as Cuban intelligence agents when in reality they were bona-fide anti-Castro Cuban's probably affiliated with either the DRE and/or Alpha 66 whether the "Leon Oswald" at Sylvia Odio's was the REAL LHO or not.)

If I were to name names on strictly a conjectural basis as being 'part of the plot to assassinate JFK' the names would be Rolando Masferrer, Angel and Leopodo, Jack Ruby, David Ferrie, Clay Shaw, Allen Dulles and some other individuals. I do not feel comfortable mentioning outright. I also believe that research has proven that the CIA was penetrated big-time by Soviet intelligence and that the government "cover-up" may have as much to do with 'embarrassing facts about intelligence-related ineptness as hiding the truth about who killed JFK. Just some food for thought. Naming the shooters is also problematic and the plethora of names speculated indicates such; to me identifying the shooters is secondary to convictions for those who plotted the murder. I have no interest in wasting my time re; the Gerald Posner "faction" and do not care how that makes anyone feel. Last time I looked it was still a free country, but I wouldn't stake my life on it.

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My theory is still 'in the making' ...

Motive : money, power, money

Capitalism is a system that depends on imbalance in the form of diverse markets. It also depends on room to grow. Where this room to grow contracts it seeks new fields and failing that takes steps to creatre them. This takes the form of wars of commercial and military nature. Whole populations and industries are wiped out, rebuilt and reorganised. War is also an impetus for technology creation. Unequal markets and instability is important. (one can say that 'Japan and Germany won WWII'. Simlarly, perhaps, in time one may be able to say 'Russia won the cold war')

The socialist revolutions of the 20th century, and the division of markets after WWII, were severely contracting the capitalist world. As such, winning the cold war was a must.

Along came Kennedy. His voice of reason and peace was perhaps the greatest enemy of rampant capitalism. (I think it was a failure to recognise that he had an agressive anti-communist stance, just not a militaristic one, rather a war for hearts and minds by example, education and judicious funding.) Kennedys approach was a radical shift. He had been warned by Eisenhower and he set about to create alternative structures to turn the US away from the confrontations that may have resulted in the destruction of the entire world. Nuclear weapons was the new factor. Contrary to Reagan's and others statements, there are no friendly atomic bombs. However to people whom I would class as sociopaths, Kennedy was an obstruction in the quest for 'divide and rule'. Kennedy was into 'unite and live'. Hence he was prepared to seriously tackle issues such as civil rights. In this environment in southern of USA, these sociopaths found ready elements of fanatics to do their bidding.

Means : hate, bigotry, strife

These right wing elements in the south, the racist bigots, could easily be manipulated as their interests and those of the 'Bankers' coincided. Someone like Walker would have been well placed as the bridge to the actual assassins. Separate but allied in common purpose were agency and gocvernment elements prepared to participate in a coverup.

Opportunity : a presidential visit to The heart of Texas, Dallas. The heart of Dallas, Dealey Plaza.

Here conflict was right up front, thus the first layer of concealment already in place. Fertile ground for conspiracy to take any of a number of directions, just not in the right one. Capital.

The population of Dallas in tight control of its Citizens Council and law enforcement. People, black and white, knew what it meant to step out of line. An area whos interests coincided with those of the 'Bankers' of the assassination. In a way here Oswald is unimportant. If it hadn't been him it would have been someone else. Similarly, Ruby was peripheral to this closed society, his non-local status combined with his Jewishness put him on the outer. He despearately wanted in. He was used and discarded.

Others that in this way were manipulated were elements of agencies, (CIA, FBI and DPD) and anti Castro activists. I don't subscrire to the Mob scenario except insofar as individuals stood to gain finacially (itsa just business), perhaps elements of rightwing union structures, but then only where membership overlapped.

The actual assassins were drawn from connections within the Dallas ruling bodies. These were likely KKK, fanatical white supremacists who had a warped view of black people, communists, catholics and Jews. they also had a secret society where members were very aware of the consequences of breaking ranks.

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Over the last few months several members have emailed me and asked why JFK was assassinated and who carried out this deed. On another thread Evan Burton has asked me to summarize the different theories on who killed JFK. I have attempted to do that on my website:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKindex.htm

However, although I have tried to be objective, there is no doubt that my own view of the assassination might have got in the way of my interpretation of events. Therefore I thought it might be a good idea if all active members of the JFK Forum posted a brief summary of their theory of the assassination. It will be interesting to see how much agreement there is about the assassination. I will start the ball rolling and hopefully others will join in.

Who Killed JFK?

I believe that the decision to kill JFK took place at the beginning of 1963. The key event was the Cuban Missile Crisis. The public perception of this event was that JFK had stood up to the Soviet Union and won. The truth was very different. JFK was forced to do a deal that involved removing nuclear missiles from Italy and Turkey and a promise not to invade Cuba. This information was kept from the American public and JFK was portrayed in the media as a victorious Cold War warrior.

JFK was riding high in the polls and his “tough” stance on Cuba had neutralized the right-wing campaign of Barry Goldwater. JFK’s only concern was that George Romney would become the 1964 Republican presidential candidate. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK would get the support of many conservatives and Goldwater would only attract the votes of the far right. Even some of these were in doubt because earlier in his campaign, Goldwater and Buckley decided to distance themselves from Robert Welch and the John Birch Society (for information on this see Rick Perlstein’s book, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus).

However, by 1963, JFK was in reality, no longer a Cold War warrior. The Cuban Missile Crisis had changed his political ideology. He had been deeply shocked by the urgings of his military advisers to use nuclear weapons during the conflict with the Soviet Union over Cuba. Only JFK realized just how close the world had come to a full-scale nuclear war. JFK was determined that this situation must never happen again. Therefore, he decided to negotiate an end to the Cold War. This involved reducing the sources of conflict between the USA and the Soviet Union. This included withdrawing from Vietnam and accepting co-existence with left-wing governments in countries like Cuba.

JFK knew that if he announced this new policy in 1963 he would be defeated by Goldwater in 1964. Therefore it was vitally important that this policy should remain a secret from the American people. In fact, the administration even leaked information suggesting it was involved in covert operations against Castro. This I think explains why RFK became involved with anti-Castro Cubans in 1963.

JFK made a terrible mistake. He did not wait until he was elected for a second-term before implementing this new policy. Instead, he used people like Lisa Howard, William Attwood and Jean Daniel to begin negotiations with Castro. It was not too difficult for the CIA to discover what was going on. For example, they had the UN building bugged, the place where some of these negotiations were taking place. 

I believe that right-wingers within the CIA such as David Morales, David Phillips, E. Howard Hunt and Rip Robertson arranged for this information to be passed to figures such as Haroldson L. Hunt, Clint Murchison, William Buckley, William Pawley, Henry Luce, George Brown, Robert Anderson and Glenn McCarthy. One, or a combination of these people decided to make sure that JFK did not serve a second term. They provided the money and someone, probably David Morales, was put in charge of the operation.

The initial strategy was to expose JFK’s record as a successful Cold War warrior. I believe this was what Operation Tilt (Bayo-Pawley Mission) was all about. This ended in failure.

It was probably in June 1963 that these plotters began considering the unthinkable, the assassination of JFK. But could they get away with it? I think it was other events taking place at that time that convinced them that this was achievable. The Bobby Baker scandal. People like George Brown and Robert Anderson knew that during the summer of 1963 there was a good possibility that Lyndon Johnson would be forced from office as a result of the TFX contract that had gone to General Dynamics. Fred Korth, the Secretary of the Navy was under investigation (he was forced to resign on the 1st November). We now know that Robert Kennedy was leaking information to John J. Williams and Carl T. Curtis, the two Republican senators leading the investigation into this scandal. They had been put in touch with Don B. Reynolds who had agreed to testify against Johnson (in fact he appeared in secret session of the Senate Rules Committee on the day that JFK was assassinated). This would not only be the end of LBJ, this would fully expose what Dwight Eisenhower had called the Military Industrial Congressional Complex (Eisenhower had been persuaded at the last moment to drop the word “Congressional” from his last speech as president). This included the Suite 8F Group that was at the centre of this network of corruption.

This does not mean that LBJ was involved in the planning of the assassination. However, the conspirators knew that LBJ would be fairly easy to manipulate in order to organize the cover-up that would be needed following the assassination.

The conspirators also knew that if they could arrange for Castro to be identified as the person behind the assassination, then the new president would order an invasion of Cuba. LBJ would also escalate the Vietnam War and his buddies in the Suite 8F Group would make billions via the contracts handed out by the government (as they did).

Morales therefore needed a couple of characters with links to Castro. It did not take them long to identify one such figure: Lee Harvey Oswald. He was perfect for this for several reasons. In the past he had worked for the CIA and currently he was working as an undercover agent for the FBI. This would insure that the CIA and FBI would help with the cover-up. After all, these agencies could not afford for one of their agents to be identified as the killer of JFK. Especially when it was known that JFK had been in conflict with these two organizations.

However, Oswald was not the perfect “patsy”. As a CIA agent he had posed as a Marxist who later became disillusioned with life in the Soviet Union. The CIA had been sloppy when they brought him back to America. He was treated as a double agent rather than the man who was willing to provide U2 information to the Soviets.

His role as a FBI undercover agent in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee had also been badly handled. Any investigation of Oswald’s career would suggest that he was not quite the man he seemed. This aspect of the cover up was always going to be difficult to deal with and would test Operation Mockingbird to the limits.

Morales turned to his friends at Interpen and Alpha 66 to carry out the assassination. Another important role these people played was in setting Oswald up. I believe they also planted evidence that linked LBJ to the assassination (the Mac Wallace fingerprint) in order to get his full cooperation after the assassination.

The conspiracy did not go completely to plan. Oswald was not killed (this was probably the role of J. D. Tippit) immediately after the assassination.

LBJ also did not act as was expected. He decided to undermine the Castro did it conspiracy. Officially, he did this to avoid a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. This is of course a lot of nonsense as this would not have been the consequence of an invasion of Cuba.

The real reason was that LBJ thought that any attempt to blame Castro for the assassination would have led to a world-wide investigation into the case. This would not only have led to the exposure of the CIA and FBI, it would have eventually have revealed full details of the workings of the  Military Industrial Congressional Complex. Therefore, LBJ decided to pressurize Hoover and then the Warren Commission to argue that JFK had been killed by a “lone nut”. This would enable LBJ to close off the investigation. The only problems with this is that there was a lot of evidence suggesting that JFK had been killed by more than one man. There was also enough manufactured evidence around that suggested that Oswald had been part of a pro-Castro conspiracy. That is why, despite the best efforts of Operation Mockingbird, the investigation continues.

********************************************************************

Well, I hate to keep sounding like a broken record amongst all the other theories that have been drilled into the collective consciousness here, but below is my idea of the true and highest of eschelon, who had the resources at their immediate access with which to pull off this national, as well as, international crime of the century, 20th, that is:

Letter of the month Re: Executive Order 11110

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Col. Prouty,

Could JFK's decision to curtail the power of the fed have anything to do with his assassination.

$6 trillion seems a good enough reason. The following article may be of interest to you. The original EO was no.10289.

Neil Turner.

-------------

The following article appeared in "The Final Call", Vol 15, No.6, on January 17, 1996 (USA)

President Kennedy, the Federal Reserve and Executive Order 11110 by Cedric X

On June 4, 1963, a little known attempt was made to strip the Federal Reserve Bank of its power to loan money to the government at interest. On that day President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order No. 11110 that returned to the U.S. government the power to issue currency, without going through the Federal Reserve. Mr. Kennedy's order gave the Treasury the power "to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury." This meant that for every ounce of silver in the U.S. Treasury's vault, the government could introduce new money into circulation. In all, Kennedy brought nearly $4.3 billion in U.S. notes into circulation. The ramifications of this bill are enormous.

With the stroke of a pen, Mr. Kennedy was on his way to putting the Federal Reserve Bank of New York out of business. If enough of these silver certificats were to come into circulation they would have eliminated the demand for Federal Reserve notes. This is because the silver certificates are backed by silver and the Federal Reserve notes are not backed by anything.

Executive Order 11110 could have prevented the national debt from reaching its current level, because it would have given the gevernment the ability to repay its debt without going to the Federal Reserve and being charged interest in order to create the new money. Executive Order 11110 gave the U.S. the ability to create its own money backed by silver.

After Mr. Kennedy was assassinated just five months later, no more silver certificates were issued. has learned that the Executive Order was never repealed by any U.S. President through an Executive Order and is still valid. Why then has no president utilized it?

Virtually all of the nearly $6 trillion in debt has been created since 1963, and if a U.S. president had utilized Executive Order 11110 the debt would be nowhere near the current level. Perhaps the assassination of JFK was a warning to future presidents who would think to eliminate the U.S. debt by eliminating the Federal Reserve's control over the creation of money.

Mr. Kennedy challenged the government of money by challenging the two most successful vehicles that have ever been used to drive up debt - war and the creation of money by a privately-owned central bank. His efforts to have all troops out of Vietnam by 1965 and Executive Order 11110 would have severely cut into the profits and control of the New York banking establishment.

As America's debt reaches unbearable levels and a conflict emerges in Bosnia that will further increase America's debt, one is force to ask, will President Clinton have the courage to consider utilizing Executive Order 11110 and, if so, is he willing to pay the ultimate price for doing so?

(All Readers are urged to obtain a copy of Executive Order 11110 by contacting their Congressional representative, it is dated June 4, 1963.)

------------------------------------------------------------------- Reply From Col. Prouty to Neil Turner

Thanks for your good question Neil,

Your comment about "The power of the Fed" as a factor in the over-all decision to assassinate JFK is correct. Do you recall the line at the beginning of the conversation of Garrison and Man X in Washington in Stone's movie "JFK"?

Jim Garrison asks, "How do you think it all started?"

Man X (Prouty) responds, " I think it startedi n the wind. Money -- arms, big oil, Pentagon people, contractors, bankers, politicians like L.B.J. were committed to a war in Southeast Asia. As early as '61 they knew Kennedy was going to change things... He was not going to war in Southeast Asia. Who knows? Probably some boardroom or luncheon somewhere - Houston, New York -- hell, maybe Bonn, Germany... who knows, it's international now."

You're correct, and the above is what I wrote for Oliver Stone. It is what I believe from my experience. And, you are correct to go back to Exec. Order no. 11110. That money JFK putinto circulation was an enormous challenge to the business world.

I am a graduate of the American Bankers Assn "Graduate School of Banking" at the University of Wisconsin and I have heard some of the top bankers, such as Arthur Burns lecture. That was in the late Sixties; but you could still feel the stress of those JFK years in what they had to say.

JFK was serious about getting "all Americans" out of Vietnam by the end of 1965. That was NSAM 263 and my boss General Victor Krulak, with the JCS, had worked on that document. Even the Pentagon Papers made an attempt to conceal NSAM #263.

In addition to the references you have cited, may I suggest that you get the "Foreign Relations of the united States. 1961-1963, Volume IV, VIETNAM, August-December 1963" from the US Gov't Printing Office and see what it was all about in those days.

-----------

2) Len: You have made a good comment about the use of the "$220 to $570 billion: potential of the war in Vietnam. It's a good point that requires an understanding of the inside talk in a place like the Pentagon.

For example: No less than "4,865 U.S. helicopters were lost in the war." Source: "The World Almanac of the VIETNAM WAR" 1985. At a cost of "250,000 each" that is some $1,316,250,000. In addition 3720 conventional aircraft were lost at much greater cost. That's basic usually sucjh losses are replaced more than doubling the cost.

In the military we always figure that in the "life of type" of military equipment about ten times as much money is spent to keep it in operation and to support it as it cost initially. Use that kind of perfectly valid thinking and the numbers grow fast.

I recall at the end of 1963 we had a few more than 16,000 military personnel in Vietnam. Of that number no more than 1,500 were actually combat tuype men. The others were just expensive support such as maintenance men, supply depot men, hospitals, etc. Recalll that later that number grew to 550,000 in Vietnam. More than 10,000,000 military personnel were flown to Saigon by commercial aircraft during the thirty years of our involvement.

I have a Report that was made to Congress that reveals that no less than $51 billion were stolen one way or another during the Vietnam war.

So when some budget worker gives a figure he cites what he has on the books as the "initial spending" for the cost of the war. Meanwhile the over-all books easily multiply that. So in some testimony before the Congress the figure might be $220 billion, while in another context an over-all figure of $550 billion will be used. Both are correct for different reasons.

How much did your car cost you? How much have you spent on it, or will you have spent on it during its life cycle?

L. Fletcher Prouty

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Guest James H. Fetzer

John has a great idea, to which I want to respond in stages. Here is information

about MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA (2000), where our basic findings about the

death of JFK are presented and justified on the basis of medical, physical, docu-

entary and witness testimony. In a subsequent post, I will outline what I have

come to conclude about the assassination, including who, how, and why. In the

meanwhile, I would like everyone to consider our findings about this case, with

particular emphasis not on the commentary but on specific (*-ed) discoveries.

____________________

From Publishers Weekly

A compendium of recent thought and discovery about the Kennedy assassination, this volume makes a case for official malfeasance and against the "lone gunman" explanation. Fetzer (Assassination Science), a professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, sets the tone for an in-depth revisionist history in his prologue, in which he makes note of what he views as 16 "smoking guns" in the Warren Report and questions the veracity of the JFK autopsy photographs and tissue samples, and even the Zapruder film. Most contributors explore these topics in detail, aided by Ira Wood's precisely detailed "November 22, 1963: A Chronology." In provocative essays, Douglas Weldon explores tangled vehicle-related evidence that he concludes indicates that JFK was shot through the throat from in front of the car rather than from behind; Vincent Palamara names several Secret Service agents who he believes may have been compromised; and Fetzer discusses the little-seen "Assassination File" of former Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry. Also included is Bertrand Russell's acid 1964 assessment of what he viewed as a nascent coverup. With much discussion of alleged manipulation of forensic and photographic evidence, the book's overall focus is primarily technical, on what the contributors see as the wealth of evidence of a multiple-shooter assassination, with likely complicity of the Secret Service and other government agencies. This coolly angry dismantling of the theories of the Warren commission and lone-gunman supporters like Gerald Posner will be fodder for conspiracy theorists.

Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book Description

In its publisher's words, on the basis of the findings presented in MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA, "it is possible to say with moral certainty and with considerable scientific authority that the murder of President Kennedy was committed by a meticulously executed conspiracy which was then obscured by an extensive cover-up." The progress we have made in sorting out what happened to this country on 22 November 1963 has resulted from the application of scientific, technical, and scholarly expertise in a systematic effort to take rumor and speculation out and place the study of the assassination on an objective and scientific foundation. This work extends previous studies pubished in ASSASSINATION SCIENCE, especially by taking into account more than 60,000 documents and records recently released by the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB). The results of these efforts have been remarkable.

The contributors whose work has been brought together in this volume include the leading authority on the Secret Service (Vincent Palamara); the most knowledgeable student of the Presidential limousine (Douglas Weldon, J.D.); a leading expert on the medical evidence at Parkland and at Bethesda (Gary Aguilar, M.D.); the single most highly qualified person to ever study this case (David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D.); the Senior Analyst for Military Records for the ARRB (Douglas Horne); a legendary photoanalyst who advised the House Select Committee during its reinvestigation (Jack White); a world-famous philosopher who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950 (Bertrand Russell); a prize-winning director and playwright, who has produced a brilliant chronology (Ira David Wood III); and a philosopher of science who has published more than 20 books and 100 articles in his fields of expertise (James H. Fetzer, Ph.D.).

____________________

The evidence presented in this volume demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt:

* that JFK was hit at least four times (once in the back from behind; once in the throat from in front; and twice in the head, once from behind and once from in front);

* that the wound to his throat was caused by a shot that penetrated the limousine windshield, which was subsequently destroyed and replaced by a substitute windshield;

* that the shot to the back was well below the collar, entered only about as far as the second knuckle on your little finger, and evinced no point of exit from the body;

* that no bullet transited the President's neck without hitting any bony structures and exited at the level of his tie, a trajectory that in fact turns out to be anatomically impossible;

* that, as a consequence, no bullet passed through the President and hit the Governor, who was hit by at least one and perhaps as many as two or even three separate shots;

* that, including the shot that missed and injured James Tague, an absolute minimum of six shots had to have been fired during the assassination, where the total was more likely eight, nine, or even ten;

* that at least 59 witnesses reported that the limousine slowed dramatically or came to a complete halt after bullets began to be fired, which supports the conclusion that it slowed dramatically as it came to a complete halt;

* that the first shot to the head was fired from behind and entered in the vicinity of the external occipital protuberance at the back of the head;

* that the second shot to the head was fired from in front and entered in the vicinity of the right temple;

* that the second shot was fired with a frangible or "exploding" bullet that transmitted shockwaves through the brain;

* that the impact of this bullet combined with the weakening of the skull by the first shot to the head caused 1/3 to 1/2 of his brains to be blown out in Dealey Plaza at the time;

* that the massive blow-out to the back of the head was concealed by imposing a "patch" to the right lateral cranial X-ray (of the skull taken from the right side);

* that the brain had to be reconsititued since, once the defect to the skull had been "patched", there was no place for that brain matter to have gone;

* that the brain shown in diagrams and photographs in the National Archives cannot be the brain of John Fitzgerald Kennedy;

* that two brain examinations were conducted, the first of which was with the President's brain, the second with a substitute;

* that the autopsy report was prepared without the benefit of the autopsy photographs, which were removed by the Secret Service;

* that the photographs were subsequently altered and reshot in various ways to conceal evidence of the cause of death;

* that the Zapruder film of the assassination was in the hands of the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) run by the CIA already the weekend of the assassination;

* that the extant "Zapruder film" has been massively edited to remove evidence of the actual cause of death, including the limousine having been brought to a halt in order to insure that the target would be killed.

____________________

The evidence that substantiates these conclusions is abundant and compelling. None of the findings presented here has the status of rumor or speculation. If the American government had wanted the American people to know the truth about the death of their 35th President, it would have been easy to have shown them. Because of its intransigence, fabrication, and manipulation of evidence--which appears to continue to this day--however, the American government has denied, concealed, or ignored evidence of all the kinds that we have discovered. And it is not alone in wanting to keep the truth about the death of JFK from the American people. There are many individuals who, for reasons of their own, do not want you to read this book and to learn the truth. Some may be motivated by vanity, because their own theories have been proven to be wrong; some may be motivated by ignorance, because their own preconceptions blind them to the truth; and some may be motived by money, because they work as operatives for shadowy government agencies. Their attempts to conceal the truth are separate from their motives.

Even a forum of such as this, which might be presumed to be dedicated to open and public discussion or even debate of published work, can be subject to abuse by those who want to deny your access to the truth about the death of JFK by one means or another, typically by making false, distorted, and misleading claims about the content and the quality of books. MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA, however, satisfies exceptional standards of scholarly research. The conclusions enumerated above are fully substantiated in the chapters of this book. These authors were selected for their expertise with respect to the subjects they addressed. The authors of reader's reviews are not. So when you see a trash review suggesting that nine contributors have nothing of value to say, consider its implausbility and judge for yourself. Read the excerpts and prepublication reviews provided here. You have the right to know the truth about your nation's history. No one should deprive you of that.

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John has a great idea, to which I want to respond in stages.  Here is information

about MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA (2000), where our basic findings about the

death of JFK are presented and justified on the basis of medical, physical, docu-

entary and witness testimony.  In a subsequent post, I will outline what I have

come to conclude about the assassination, including who, how, and why.  In the

meanwhile, I would like everyone to consider our findings about this case, with

particular emphasis not on the commentary but on specific (*-ed) discoveries.

____________________

From Publishers Weekly

A compendium of recent thought and discovery about the Kennedy assassination, this volume makes a case for official malfeasance and against the "lone gunman" explanation. Fetzer (Assassination Science), a professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, sets the tone for an in-depth revisionist history in his prologue, in which he makes note of what he views as 16 "smoking guns" in the Warren Report and questions the veracity of the JFK autopsy photographs and tissue samples, and even the Zapruder film. Most contributors explore these topics in detail, aided by Ira Wood's precisely detailed "November 22, 1963: A Chronology." In provocative essays, Douglas Weldon explores tangled vehicle-related evidence that he concludes indicates that JFK was shot through the throat from in front of the car rather than from behind; Vincent Palamara names several Secret Service agents who he believes may have been compromised; and Fetzer discusses the little-seen "Assassination File" of former Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry. Also included is Bertrand Russell's acid 1964 assessment of what he viewed as a nascent coverup. With much discussion of alleged manipulation of forensic and photographic evidence, the book's overall focus is primarily technical, on what the contributors see as the wealth of evidence of a multiple-shooter assassination, with likely complicity of the Secret Service and other government agencies. This coolly angry dismantling of the theories of the Warren commission and lone-gunman supporters like Gerald Posner will be fodder for conspiracy theorists.

Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book Description

In its publisher's words, on the basis of the findings presented in MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA, "it is possible to say with moral certainty and with considerable scientific authority that the murder of President Kennedy was committed by a meticulously executed conspiracy which was then obscured by an extensive cover-up." The progress we have made in sorting out what happened to this country on 22 November 1963 has resulted from the application of scientific, technical, and scholarly expertise in a systematic effort to take rumor and speculation out and place the study of the assassination on an objective and scientific foundation. This work extends previous studies pubished in ASSASSINATION SCIENCE, especially by taking into account more than 60,000 documents and records recently released by the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB). The results of these efforts have been remarkable.

The contributors whose work has been brought together in this volume include the leading authority on the Secret Service (Vincent Palamara); the most knowledgeable student of the Presidential limousine (Douglas Weldon, J.D.); a leading expert on the medical evidence at Parkland and at Bethesda (Gary Aguilar, M.D.); the single most highly qualified person to ever study this case (David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D.); the Senior Analyst for Military Records for the ARRB (Douglas Horne); a legendary photoanalyst who advised the House Select Committee during its reinvestigation (Jack White); a world-famous philosopher who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950 (Bertrand Russell); a prize-winning director and playwright, who has produced a brilliant chronology (Ira David Wood III); and a philosopher of science who has published more than 20 books and 100 articles in his fields of expertise (James H. Fetzer, Ph.D.).

____________________

The evidence presented in this volume demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt:

* that JFK was hit at least four times (once in the back from behind; once in the throat from in front; and twice in the head, once from behind and once from in front);

* that the wound to his throat was caused by a shot that penetrated the limousine windshield, which was subsequently destroyed and replaced by a substitute windshield;

* that the shot to the back was well below the collar, entered only about as far as the second knuckle on your little finger, and evinced no point of exit from the body;

* that no bullet transited the President's neck without hitting any bony structures and exited at the level of his tie, a trajectory that in fact turns out to be anatomically impossible;

* that, as a consequence, no bullet passed through the President and hit the Governor, who was hit by at least one and perhaps as many as two or even three separate shots;

* that, including the shot that missed and injured James Tague, an absolute minimum of six shots had to have been fired during the assassination, where the total was more likely eight, nine, or even ten;

* that at least 59 witnesses reported that the limousine slowed dramatically or came to a complete halt after bullets began to be fired, which supports the conclusion that it slowed dramatically as it came to a complete halt;

* that the first shot to the head was fired from behind and entered in the vicinity of the external occipital protuberance at the back of the head;

* that the second shot to the head was fired from in front and entered in the vicinity of the right temple;

* that the second shot was fired with a frangible or "exploding" bullet that transmitted shockwaves through the brain;

* that the impact of this bullet combined with the weakening of the skull by the first shot to the head caused 1/3 to 1/2 of his brains to be blown out in Dealey Plaza at the time;

* that the massive blow-out to the back of the head was concealed by imposing a "patch" to the right lateral cranial X-ray (of the skull taken from the right side);

* that the brain had to be reconsititued since, once the defect to the skull had been "patched", there was no place for that brain matter to have gone;

* that the brain shown in diagrams and photographs in the National Archives cannot be the brain of John Fitzgerald Kennedy;

* that two brain examinations were conducted, the first of which was with the President's brain, the second with a substitute;

* that the autopsy report was prepared without the benefit of the autopsy photographs, which were removed by the Secret Service;

* that the photographs were subsequently altered and reshot in various ways to conceal evidence of the cause of death;

* that the Zapruder film of the assassination was in the hands of the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) run by the CIA already the weekend of the assassination;

* that the extant "Zapruder film" has been massively edited to remove evidence of the actual cause of death, including the limousine having been brought to a halt in order to insure that the target would be killed.

____________________

The evidence that substantiates these conclusions is abundant and compelling. None of the findings presented here has the status of rumor or speculation. If the American government had wanted the American people to know the truth about the death of their 35th President, it would have been easy to have shown them. Because of its intransigence, fabrication, and manipulation of evidence--which appears to continue to this day--however, the American government has denied, concealed, or ignored evidence of all the kinds that we have discovered. And it is not alone in wanting to keep the truth about the death of JFK from the American people. There are many individuals who, for reasons of their own, do not want you to read this book and to learn the truth. Some may be motivated by vanity, because their own theories have been proven to be wrong; some may be motivated by ignorance, because their own preconceptions blind them to the truth; and some may be motived by money, because they work as operatives for shadowy government agencies. Their attempts to conceal the truth are separate from their motives.

Even a forum of such as this, which might be presumed to be dedicated to open and public discussion or even debate of published work, can be subject to abuse by those who want to deny your access to the truth about the death of JFK by one means or another, typically by making false, distorted, and misleading claims about the content and the quality of books. MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA, however, satisfies exceptional standards of scholarly research. The conclusions enumerated above are fully substantiated in the chapters of this book. These authors were selected for their expertise with respect to the subjects they addressed. The authors of reader's reviews are not. So when you see a trash review suggesting that nine contributors have nothing of value to say, consider its implausbility and judge for yourself. Read the excerpts and prepublication reviews provided here. You have the right to know the truth about your nation's history. No one should deprive you of that.

---------------------

Y'all:

LIFE Magazine's first edition after November 22nd '63 was immediately recalled, this was upon the insistence of "Dame" Hoover; and was done because of the following:

[1] An artist's color renderings of Gov. Conally being hit in the right-front upper torso by multiple projectiles.

[2] These frames were later altered or deleted.

While working with Oliver Stone on the movie, he grew furious with Costner & Jay Sanders, who were "blowing-their-lines" and causing us to "lose daylight".

Critically important to Oliver was the scene where my character would be glanced at by "Garrison/Costner" during 6th floor remeniscing of the motorcade events. Costner was to glance to the left and see LHO [Gary Oldman], but in a blink the figure would change to a [Cuban?] shooter, and then upon glancing to the right, would see my character shooting Conally with a silenced/suppressed "Broom-Handle Mauser M1898" [w/ artillery barrel & wooden shoulder-stock/holster].

However, and because we ran out of light, my character is shown ONLY as the radio director on the 6th floor of the TSBD, using the then extant Motorola HT200 models, which we bought from our buddies at Microwave Corp. near the Miami Int'l Airport during the filming.

Stone also decided against filming the alleged "Master Controller" [code-name "Lord"] at the Adolphus Hotel site. Moreover, and upon my recommendation, he opted not to style the TSBD "Director" as "God"; despite its currency in use by military snipers of that era. "...Don't want the Bible-Belt folks getting mad at us..huh, big guy ??!!"

Cheers,

GPH

---------------

"What, me worry" - Alfred E. Neumann, 1953.

______________________________

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Who killed JFK? Solving the JFK assassination is trying to put together a puzzle with a million pieces and there is no picture on the box. On top of that a lot of the pieces are missing but to make up for that there are pieces that actually do not belong --pieces to other puzzles put into the mix both accidentally and deliberately.

I belive that there was a high-level conpiracy and cover-up, although not everyone involved in the cover-up was involved in the assassination. Recently, I read Billie Sol Estes' book, and he presents strong testimony that LBJ was involved. One point that was interesting, however, is that he says that final approval for the assassination was given not in the White House, but at a poker game in Texas. This would indicate powerful people on the level of HL Hunt.

Once a decision was made the matter would have been turned over to people like Morales and Phillips. People who had previously involved with the Mafia and the anti-Castro Cubans in a plot to kill another head of state--Fidel Castro.

There is a trail of evidence linking the assassination to Castro and even to the KGB. However, this evidence seems to me to have been left as a false trail. Not only Castro but Ruby was linked to he Communists.

Although the assassination was a fairly well-planned covert operation there were leaks and rumors, both before and the assassination, by people like Milteer.

The assassination may have been set up to provoke an invasion of Cuba but LBJ did not go along. (And he was President now--a position of considerable power). Perhaps it was a case of "cooler heads" prevailing but all evidence of conspiracy--even leading to Castro--ws suppressed. I believe that the autopsy evidence was altered at the at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (to conceal the evidence of a shot from the front). This indicates a cover-up ordered at the highest level.

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I don't have a "theory" of Kennedy's assassination. The formulation of, and debate about such theories, while always enjoyable to us afficionados, is also ahistoric and counterproductive. Or to put it more precisely, I have a couple of theories about the assassination but I only discuss them late at night on weekends in noisy taverns with people who are willing to pick up the resulting bar bill.

As for debating JFK theories in print and public, I say its a mug's game that I refuse to play. It relieves the government of its still-unfulfilled legal responsibility to complete the historical record. It undermines the journalistic and scientific standards that should govern public discussion of such an important issue. I just don't see the point.

If the point is to convince the public that there was a conspiracy, theres is no need. A poll taken by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago within a week of the assassination found that two thirds of respondents thought more than one person was involved. Less than a quarter of the respondents thought Oswald had acted alone. The release of the Warren Commission in October 1964 inspired a burst of confidence in the official lone gunman finding but that sentiment soon faded. The belief in conspiracy has commanded a solid majority of public opinion ever since, with one 1993 Newsweek poll finding nearly half of respondents saying the CIA was responsible.

I don't share the goal of trying to convince the public that there was a JFK conspiracy. But if I did, I would say that goal was accomplished by the evident facts of November 22, 1963, the work of early Warren Commission skeptics, the congressional investigations of the 1970s, and Oliver Stone's movie.

If the goal is to convince mainstream journalists and scholars that there was a conspiracy (another goal I do not share), I would say the discourse of JFK theories is not only unpersuasive, it is positively counterproductive.

The well-informed entries in this debate make a plausible case that the political context of the Kennedy's murder was favorable to his antagonists, that various political factions had reason to end his presidency, that these factions were capable of mounting covert violence and that the subsequent investigations were flawed, if not compromised.

All of this interesting but none of it amounts to "proof" of the scenarios offered. Rather the sheer proliferation of named suspects--some plausible, most not-- in these entries is proof that the authors don't really know who was responsible for the crime of Dealy Plaza ie that their theories are unsubstantiated. In my view, honesty and humility requires us to say that the intellectual authors of the crime, there were any besides Oswald, remain unidentified.

Theorizing about an ambigous and compromised body of evidence strikes me as counterproductive at least in the way it is being done here. I say this with no disrespect to the very knowlegeable contributors who are participating. (I have questions for several of them.) I say this because this kind of theorizing strikes me as different than what scientists do when they theorize about evolution or the origins of the universe. They formulate such theories AND THEN SEEK TO TEST THEM. Theorizing without testing is counterproductive because the arbiters of public discourse and the historical record won't respect it. Nor should they.

By saying this I don't intend to let the journalist profession or the academic historians off the hook. The performance of American journalism on the JFK's death is astonishingly mediocre. The JFK Assassination Records Review Board oversaw the release 800,000 previously secret records related to Kennedy's death between 1994 and 1998.

Among this new material were at least five newsworthy developments: 1) the so-called Operation Northwoods records about Pentagon efforts to provoke a U.S. invasion of Cuba in 1962-63; 2) the complete "Lopez Report" on CIA surveillance of Oswald's visit to Mexico City; 3) the deposition of John Whitten, the chief of the Mexico desk in the CIA clandestine service, virtually the only senior CIA official to testify in good faith to the HSCA; 4) the personnel records of George Joannides, the undercover CIA officer who both ran the Cuban exile student group whose members had pre-assassination contact with Oswald and, 15 years later, stonewalled the HSCA; and 5) the sworn testimony of medical personnel who said they took photos at JFK's autopsy that have been removed from the public record. Only the first of these received any news coverage, and that was remarkably superficial.

Even more importantly, no newspaper of record saw fit to review the ARRB records as a group and attempt to educate the public about what the collectively told us about the assassination story. That major newspapers (my employer, the Washington Post included) would avoid new information about a subject of obvious public interest at a time of flat or declining circulation is bizarre testament to the self-destructive powers of denial and the deep politicization of the subject. (To their credit ABC News and PBS Frontline did serious reviews of the story in the early 1990s--but that was before the bulk of the ARRB material was released. )

This lack of curiousity about new evidence related to Kennedy's murder is unprofessional and unworthy of the profession. Journalistic indifference has been repaid with public repudiation of the anti-conspiratorial consensus that rules elite media discussion of the subject. This benefits neither the public nor the profession. To the contrary, it has sustained doubt and confusion in the public mind.

But debating conspiracy theories at this late date doesn't much help either. Rather, I think it detracts from the less pleasurable but more demanding task of summarizing what the public record of JFK's assassination does show and what we might do to clarify it. The public, the journalistic profession and academia obviously need help in this endeavor. To offer them "theories" is to invite rejection. What they need--what America needs--is not another list of (im)plausible suspects but a coherent self-authenticating body of evidence that supports a testable interpretation of the crime.

To that end I would say this:

The historic record, as enhanced by the ARRB's revelations, shows that a still-unexplained CIA intelligence failure contributed to the breakdown of presidential security in Dealey Plaza.

This intelligence failure was the responsibility of a handful of CIA officials in Washington who, upon learning that pro-Castro activist Lee Harvey Oswald had met with Cuban and Soviet diplomats in Mexico City in September and October 1963, deliberately chose not to inform Mexico City station chief Win Scott about what they knew about Oswald.

Specifically, they chose not to tell Scott about Oswald's recent pro-Castro activities, his attempt to infiltrate a CIA-funded group in New Orleans, his arrest in August 1963 and subsequent interview with the FBI, demands from a CIA-funded anti-Castro group for investigation of his one-man chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) or his vocal support for Castro. As a result, Scott attached far less importance to Oswald's contacts to Cuban and Soviet officials than he would have otherwise, leaving the FBI and domestic law enforcement officials in the dark as the presidential motorcade approached Oswald's place of employment.

It is tempting but premature, if not pointless, to ask if this intelligence failure was related to an assassination conspiracy. More to the point is a simpler question that can be answered in 2005: Was this intelligence failure related to an authorized CIA counterespionage operation involving Lee Harvey Oswald and the Fair Play for Cuba Committee?

The answer to that question is found in two bodies of records that the CIA still retains in violation of the spirit and letter of the JFK Records Act.

The first are records related to the Agency's 16 September 1963 memo notifiying the FBI that it was considering an operation to "countering the activities of the FPCC in foreign countries." The Agency has never revealed in which countries it was contemplating action against the FPCC.

The second are records related to the operational activities of undercover officer George Joannides who guided and monitored the anti-Castro Cuban organization that paid the closest attention to Oswald's FPCC activities in 1963.

I don't want to cast aspersions on anyone who accepts that there was a conspiracy behind Kennedy's death. If people as knowlegeable in the workings of American power as Lyndon Johnson, Bobby Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy, Fidel Castro, J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Daley thought there was a conspiracy, then clearly it is plausible interpretation of November 22. I don't want to cast aspersions on people who believe there is no proof that any named person besides Oswald was involved in the crime. They are correct.

The task, at this late date, is not to speculate or theorize but the contrary, to specify, to test, to clarify, to document and, above all, to eliminate suspects. When we obtain the records cited above,--and I believe we will--then we will have a clearer understanding of who was and was not responsible for Kennedy's death.

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There is already a wide variety of theories being put forward. This is no surprise! OK, I am no expert but will pitch my views as follows:

The conspiracy was hatched as far back as 62. The origins of the plot stem from Lyndon Johnson and his 'superlawyer' Ed Clark. When I have said in previous posts LBJ was behind it, I don't actually think he knew any more than the bare essentials. I think Clark set the whole thing up. Whenever LBJ got into trouble in the past (the Coke Stevenson rigged election, the Estes scandal) Clark was there with his mechanism of lawyers, bent judges, hitmen to sort things out.

The motive: Johnson was to be dropped as Vice-President in 64, he would be exposed in the Bobby Baker scandal and the Estes debacle. In Texas things were already catching up with him and there was a good chance he would end up in jail. Add to this the death of Henry Marshall. Also oil plays a key factor as LBJ was a broker in Washington for Texas Oil. The 'Oil Men' H.L.Hunt, Clint Murchison needed their case heard in Washington and LBJ was the man they could count on. JFK was set to go against their interests (I don't understand the complexities of the oil business), so there were outside factors for Clark to act on. In short, LBJ stood to go from Master of the Senate to prisoner in the space of 4 years. And if he did so, his Texas power base went with it. This means Clark, Oil, anyone who had benifited from LBJ.

I believe Texas was chosen as a location for this very reason. The cover-up would be easier to control. At first LBJ wanted a Texan investigation he knew would be controlled by Clark, but he was forced to change his mind.

I believe elements of the CIA, anti-Castro Cubans and Maifa were brought in. Partly to compromise them in the aftermath, partly because their skills would be needed-nothing was left to chance.

I'm not sure where Oswald fits in, except that he was set up very well. I think he was CIA and an FBI informant. Quite where he was earmarked as a patsy is hard to say, as all these organisations overlap. Again he could have been picked to compromise these authorities and therefore aid the cover-up.

I'm also unsure how he came to leave the TSBD alive. One thing I am sure of however is that he was meant to be killed before he was arrested. Perhaps Tippit was supposed to do that.

Jack Ruby is also hard to place as he too had links to many groups that overlap. I believe that Clark would have known of him and that he was easy to manipulate. Ruby was said to be relieved when he heard in jail that Oswald was dead-I'm sure he was put up to it.

I still think Mac Wallace was a gunman, or was at least on the 6th floor-perhaps as a spotter. Madeline Brown certainly thought so. I don't believe the fingerprint was planted as this was too dangerous. He may not have been a clinical hitman but he was Clark's boy, ever since the murder of Kinsner only netted him a suspended jail term! What it did bring was a life sentance under Clark.

The Estes document is easy to discredit, but at least it is documented and in the public record. It stands slightly above mere speculation.

I think Ruby summed it up best during his court appearances. In one of the most tantilising pieces of film(and one rarely seen), he says 'If Adlai Stevenson was vice-president this would never have happened (sic)'. When pressed into who was behind the killing he says 'The Man in office'. Ruby also fingers Johnson in letters he wrote from jail, saying the man is like a Nazi and urges his recipient to read 'A Texan Looks at Lyndon'. This book covers a lot of the LBJ scandals, but could not find a publisher outside Texas.

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