Pat Speer

OK, Vince, you know I like you, but I don't think you can just write people off for being swayed by the same WC/Bugliosi arguments you quite publicly embraced, if only for a brief period. Unfortunately, I think the CT/LNT divide is mostly tribal, where many LNTs will continue to believe Oswald acted alone (no matter what the evidence) and many CTs will continue to believe JFK was killed by a widespread conspiracy (no matter what the evidence). I mean. let's face it, IF a noted mobster produced a file showing that he had contracted with Giancana or Trafficante or whomever, to kill JFK, and he had a contemporaneous diary and receipts proving his presence in Dallas, and even had photos of his hit team preparing for the assassination, and photos of them afterwards smiling while holding up a newspaper proclaiming Kennedy had been killed on a Dallas street, and could point out several members of this hit team in photos taken in the aftermath of the shooting, and even had a print matching the one incorrectly ID'ed as belonging to Malcolm Wallace, well, you know and I know that a large segment of the CT population would immediately conclude this was all part of a plan to let the CIA off the hook--"a limited hangout". It reminds me of that old joke. Upon entry into heaven a long-time CT asks God who killed JFK. God then looks him straight in the eye and says it was Oswald acting alone. The CT then says to himself "Huh, the conspiracy goes higher than I thought!"

My understanding is no. When I contacted the archives they told me I would have to use an authorized company to make copies of audio or video materials. And they were quite pricey. Written materials and (non-medical) photographic materials are available for copy. My understanding is that most of the materials on the Mary Ferrell site were scanned on site. The John Hunt materials were also complied via his scanner, which he was allowed to bring into the facility on multiple occasions. I'm not sure if they're so agreeable today.

Joseph, you seem better-equipped to track something down that I've had floating around in my brain for quite some time. I'm almost certain that I read that a character we both know well--Hank Quinlan, the character played by Orson Welles in Touch of Evil--was based on Fritz. Like Fritz, Quinlan was a bachelor who had no life outside of police work. Like Fritz, Quinlan was known for following his instincts and co-ercing confessions out of men he felt were guilty. Now, Quinlan was, of course, not above planting or faking evidence once he (thought) he had his man. When I looked into this before I found that the authors of Badge of Evil (1956) were from the San Diego area, so I couldn't convince myself they would know about Fritz. But goshdarnit, I'm almost certain I read an interview with one of Fritz's detectives or someone else in the know claiming Hank Quinlan was based upon Fritz.

I think the evidence you've laid out suggests another scenario as well. It seems likely Oswald knew he was in deep and was going on the run. Perhaps he put on a blue jacket at the rooming house, with the gray jacket on top. He then dumped the gray jacket after shooting Tippit. He then took off the blue jacket at the theater. When this second jacket was discovered, and IDed by Marina, the police were totally perplexed. One of them told Whaley they'd thought maybe Oswald had been wearing two jackets. Whaley later regurgitated this, even though Oswald had not put on the second jacket until he'd visited the rooming house. In any event, the police, perhaps in league with the SS, then arranged for this second jacket, the blue jacket, to be found at the TSBD. For this possibility to hold true, of course, one would have to have been able to put the gray jacket on over the blue jacket. Has anyone done a size comparison? Was one jacket slightly larger than the other?

It sounds like we are in agreement that the spies who work for a front company either engage in lots of travel, or don't actually do the work they are purported to do (a la Maxwell Smart at his greeting card company). Bill Shelley and Roy Truly were hands-on guys working at a book warehouse. I've worked at warehouses. It makes no sense to me that the TSBD would be a CIA front (a fact for which you have no evidence, btw) when the nature of their work would restrict their travel and give them little or no access to subjects of interest to the CIA. Now, as I said, I worked at a warehouse. There were rumors, to which I was privy, that the owner of this warehouse sometimes used it as a cover to ship drugs. I came to believe these rumors were true. So I'm open-minded to the possibility the TSBD--which shipped orders all over the country--was used to ship drugs or guns across state lines etc. If so, well, then, Truly and Shelley would be in on it. Crazier things have happened. But the thought these warehousemen were really top secret agents is just silly, IMO. And unnecessary. I mean, if one is to assume they were somehow "in on it" then one need only assume they were compromised in some way. Paid-off. Blackmailed. That is how the world works. Putting CIA agents into cover companies that do work without access to foreign governments? And then keep them there for decades? That's not how it works.

I contacted the archives about its videotapes of the HSCA testimony some time ago. I mentioned this earlier but they told me the only way they would provide copies of these tapes (or any tapes in their possession) was if I were to pay an authorized company to do so. This would have been something like 50 bucks per tape as I recall. I then shopped around and found Jack White's VHS copies at the Poage Library. They made me copies of two of the videos for I think it was 10 bucks apiece. As far as Lifton, I believe he thought he was being transparent in providing his tapes to the archives. Like a lot of us, he's moved around, and he didn't want to lose his copies over time. But the reality is that in sending his materials to the archives, he placed them behind a very expensive and for the most part prohibitive paywall. He is not alone in this. Warren Commission attorney Howard Willens put a ton of internal WC documents online to help promote his 2013 book on the Warren Commission. Many of these were not in the archives. I combed through this stuff and found some juicy tidbits questioning the "official" story Willens was defending. One of these was reported on Jeff Morley's site. Willens then removed these documents from the internet, and claimed he'd sent the original copies to the archives. The problem was that this once again put these documents behind a very expensive paywall. And it's worse than that. A few years after Willens "disappeared" these documents, I asked Malcolm Blunt if they had in fact been sent to the archives. He said they had been and that he'd seen them. As I recall he saw some boxes waiting to be processed and asked what they were when someone told him they were the Willens documents. As I recall this was something he'd noticed only recently. IOW, the Willens documents were not only "disappeared" by Willens, the archives was taking its sweet time making them available to the public. (It wouldn't surprise me, moreover, if there had been an agreement they would drag their feet on this until after Willens had passed. Stranger things have happened. In fact, one of the tidbits I'd uncovered while browsing Willens' website was that Warren had asked the archives to withhold the release of troublesome documents for a period after the end of the WC, so that the WC's story could become accepted before any questions could arise.)

You are correct, Mark, in that people take their oaths very seriously. My Step-dad worked in the shop at Skunkworks--where Lockheed created the Stealth Fighter and other top secret planes. And my ex-girlfriend's dad was one of the top engineers at Lockheed, who'd help develop stealth technology. I had many a meal with these men. They never talked about their work. What you got instead were vague comments like "See that model plane of a Stealth Fighter? I know for a fact that it doesn't look anything like that!"

I've read a lot about assassinations, and had a good friend in the military who planned out Ops, and I think you have it backwards. IF there was a plot to frame Oswald (which I suspect there was) the plotters would assess Oswald's situation--where he worked, where he lived, how he got to work, etc--and base their plan around the facts of his life. I seriously doubt the location came first, and Oswald's employment at that location came second. I mean, this idea that a book distributor in the heart of Texas was a CIA front--and that the agents working there would work there for years before and years afterwards--is seriously scrambled, IMO. When one reads about the lives of agents one realizes that these people move around a lot, and if they don't it's because they've infiltrated an important organization (like the mafia, a union or a bank). The TSBD had no strategic value. Having trusted agents work there for years before and years after an op makes no sense, no sense at all.

Didn't Truly work there for like 25 years? If I recall, he even owned a piece of the company.

This goes back to an earlier post. How do you know it was the "right place"? There may have been dozens of other locations as suited or more suited than the TSBD for the planners' needs. As far as the "right time"? Don't you think that was by design and not a coincidence? Assuming Oswald had a handler who was in on the plot...the handler may have told him to find a job downtown. That's it. The rest could be altered as needed. As stated, the number of political assassinations performed with a rifle is minuscule. It could very well have been that the initial plan was to have someone shoot JFK with a handgun at close range, and that the rifle was added into it only after Oswald got a job at the TSBD and reported back that the upper floors were largely empty and the back door was unlocked.

I've had a lot of these within my own life, and write about them, here: https://www.patspeer.com/patspeerscoincidenceblog Admittedly, most of the ones on your list were more surprising than the ones on my own. But there's one tale involving a friend that is pretty freaking remarkable. He was a huge fan of U2, and had recently seen U2 at Dodger Stadium. At one point in the concert, Bono had moved to the edge of the stage, and my friend had rushed the stage to shake his hand. He told myself and others about this and what a great thrill it had been for him. Well, about a month later, he was in a suburban record store, and heard a customer telling an employee about his recent experience seeing U2 at Dodger Stadium. This store was a good 25 miles and 1.5 million people away from Dodger Stadium. And he heard this customer say he'd taken numerous photos, including an incredibly dramatic photo in which a fan rushed the stage and shook Bono's hand. At this, my friend's ears perked up, and he asked if he could see the photo. The customer had it on his phone, and showed it to my friend. Yessirree, it was him. The customer sent the photo to my friend, and he blew it up to poster size, framed it, and put it on his living room wall.

Working for the OSS and then the CIA in the aftermath of WWII doesn't mean much as much as it might seem. People like Moe Berg and Julia Child worked for the OSS during the war. How long did Shelley work at the TSBD before and after the assassination? I seem to recall he'd been working there for like 10 years, and continued working there for another 10 or more. That's not exactly the behavior of a CIA asset. I mean, it's not as if the TSBD was a hotbed for international business or anything. I would agree that the man in that photo bears a resemblance to Shelley. But it could be that we're overly influenced by the haircut. That haircut was popular among hipsters back in the day and returned to style with the swing resurgence in the 90's. ii

I think it is a mistake to assume the assassin had to fire from the TSBD. There were other buildings along the route that may have been just as well suited, or perhaps even better suited, for an assassination attempt. Of course, even that is operating under the assumption the assassin had to fire a rifle. The vast majority of political assassinations have not involved a rifle. It may have been that the original plan was for someone to shoot JFK from the crowd along Main. If one assumes Oswald was always supposed to be the patsy, moreover, it could be that his handler was supposed to get him there, and perhaps even have him hold up a pro-Castro sign or something, And that after the shooting someone would yell "He did it!" and then a bunch of people would jump on him, etc. I've mentioned this before, so pardon me if you find it redundant. But I had a close friend with whom I grew up who eventually rose up to be a Lt. Col. in U.S. Special Forces. Among his "skill set" was recon beyond enemy lines, and hostage rescue. And he always told me that in any plan you have to PACE yourself, with PACE being an acronym for having four plans: a Primary plan, an Alternative plan, a Contingency plan, and an Emergency plan. It seems clear not all went as planned, as the killing of Oswald by Ruby was at best an emergency plan. Well, it follows that the shooting of JFK may very well have been an alternate plan, after Oswald was unable to find work where he was supposed to find work, or where he simply "lucked" into a job at a location the planners thought would suit their needs.

I did a massive amount of research leading up to the 50th anniversary of the Warren Report (when I was the only one to speak on the SBT at the Bethesda conference). And I found that Baden and other members of the HSCA pathology panel had been seduced by Dr. John Lattimer, who'd recognized that the length of the wound described by Shaw matched the length of the M/C bullet and had concluded--voila!--that the wound was ovoid and the bullet must have been tumbling. This factoid then became part of the single-assassin religion. The problem as you pointed out was that Shaw said this was the measurement after the debridement of surrounding skin, and that the holes on the clothing were not elongated. IOW, it was total bs. And that is what keeps me writing about this stuff. I'm skeptical we will ever solve the whodunnit spy-vs-spy aspect of the assassination. But there are so many flat out freakin' lies about the medical evidence within the official story that I gotta believe it's only a matter of time before the medical establishment and the MSM admit as much. The interpretations of the medical evidence pushed by first the WC and then the HSCA were Flat Earth Society stuff--at odds with the dozens of textbooks and hundreds of articles I've read. And yet they still remain the accepted conclusions to the MSM because doctors by and large are gutless creatures and journalists by and large are reluctant to write anything questioning people with letters after their name. It's truly shocking. I can say with some appreciation that the few doctors on the CT side of the JFK argument are a bit more open-minded, and that I have had meetings and discussions on the medical evidence with men with numerous letters after their name, and that they have listened to what I've had to say, and have even cited my work in presentations. So there is hope that some of the stuff I've uncovered--such as Baden being totally full of beans on numerous issues--will eventually become accepted facts. But it sure is slow going...

Let me explain what I mean by a "good Christian" woman, Denny. I mean that she tries to live that way, and sees herself that way. But does she fall short? Of course. The vast majority of "good Christian" women fall short. Let's not forget that the vast majority of "good Christian women" voted for Trump in 2016. It should be noted, moreover, that you're kinda demonstrating my point. People hate Ruth because they see her as a phony who failed to live up to her Christian ideals. They just hate her. And this hate fuels their fervent belief she is not what she would appear to be, and is really some sort of spook. I have come to believe this is incorrect. As pointed out in earlier posts, if her "job" was to implicate Oswald in the murder of Kennedy she sure did a lousy job of it. I mean, she failed to see the gun, failed to see Oswald go into or come out of the garage, failed to notice the curtain rods in the garage when she was told Oswald had taken them, etc. If I was Oswald's defense attorney, and she wasn't called by the prosecution, I would have called her to the stand.

Absolutely. Not remotely surprising. She was trying to help Marina, and Marina was married to Lee. She would not have come right out and said "I won't help Lee because I'm secretly hoping Marina will dump him and the two of us can live happily ever after." That wasn't the way she was built.

I believe that's the point. Her dislike/hatred was personal. IF she was part of a plot to set up Oswald it would not have been so personal. She would also have buried him a hundred times over where she did not.

Here's another example of Ruth's overt disgust for Lee. When asked whether or not Lee could have taken curtain rods from the garage on the morning of the 22nd, she repeatedly said "He never asked me if he could take curtain rods" or some such thing. She was outraged by the thought he might help himself to some unused curtain rods in her garage, and thereby rejected it. When the reality was that there may have been some curtain rods missing from the garage... The thought occurs, moreover, that Greg should start a list of opportunities given Ruth to bury Lee, where she refused to comply. I'll start the list. 1. While the commission desperately sought evidence linking Lee to the rifle found in the depository, they could not establish that this rifle had been at the Paine's house let alone in Oswald's possession for weeks and weeks prior to the assassination. Ruth could have said "Yeah, I tripped over the blanket in the garage the night before the shooting, and there was definitely something solid in it" but she did not. In fact, she gave the commission no evidence supporting that the rifle had ever been at her house. 2. While the commission desperately sought evidence Lee was in the garage on the night of the 21st or morning of the 22nd, Ruth admitted she did not see him go in there and that she had deduced he'd been in there by a light's being on. That's it. Well, someone else could have turned on the light, and then left it on, perhaps even Ruth herself. 3. While the commission desperately sought evidence no curtain rods had been removed from the Paine's garage on the 22nd, Ruth admitted that she did not check her garage to see if curtain rods were missing prior to doing so with Albert Jenner, months and months later.

My point was that what she said about the curtain rods, contrary to popular belief, did not suggest Oswald was lying. She said she did not check to see if any curtain rods were missing from the garage--that Michael did. Michael, moreover, thought the curtain rods were in a package and said he saw a package in the garage. IOW, no one verified the existence of curtain rods in their garage prior to Ruth's doing so with Jenner months and months later. This makes it darn near impossible to prove Oswald did not take curtain rods to work--a la what he supposedly told Frazier. If Ruth was the boogie man out to get po' Lee she could have said she saw the curtain rods when she first heard about Frazier's story. But she didn't. It also seems a heckuva coincidence that the rooming house replaced the curtain rods in Oswald's room the next day. They claimed the DPD had damaged the curtain rods while searching the room. But huh...who is to say the curtain rods weren't damaged before the arrival of the DPD, and that Oswald did in fact carry curtain rods to work that day. Kinda makes you wonder... Or ought to...

To my knowledge virtually none are. There was a time when things were so heated on this forum that we needed three to four moderators to keep everyone in line. Some of the problem people had to be put on "moderation." This meant that their posts had to be approved before appearing. After awhile the main problem people left and the ones who remained were far more civil, so, outside of Kathy having to step in and handle the occasional dispute, no moderation has been required. At this time, moreover, I don't think there are any active members who are on "moderation." I can pretty much guarantee that the disappearance of Jim's post was due to a glitch. But I haven't read it. I suppose it's possible it was insulting to others and was removed by Kathy or someone else for that reason. But that doesn't make much sense. As stated, most offensive posts are still visible to moderators and former moderators, so appropriate action can be taken. And besides, Jim isn't the type who fills his post with insulting all caps insults or who threatens to sue his fellow members or even the forum itself. The one topic which was banned from the forum for better or worse is discussion of a Jewish conspiracy to kill Kennedy or others. While I believe in freedom of speech, this topic almost always ended up ugly ugly ugly. It also led to cyber-attacks by pro-Israel groups. So I backed the former administrators of this forum when they banned that topic.

Max showed the film to a few of us at a conference a few years back. I found it quite interesting. While the film showed some bias against Mrs. Paine, it really told two stories: one in which a Quaker woman with a somewhat mysterious past detailed her personal connection to a political assassination, and one in which an old woman was hounded by people convinced she was a knowing part of the murder of President Kennedy. It was very much a Rorschach test. After it was over, a number of people said things like "Wow, he nailed her, that evil witch (or something rhyming with witch)!" But my takeaway was different and came as a surprise to me. I came away feeling sorry for her. I have known some "good Christian" women in my life, and Ruth Paine is definitely one of those, warts and all. I suspect it is those warts, moreover, that leads some to hate her with a burning passion. They don't trust "good Christian" women and assume they are basically phonies. I see Ruth as a complex person. I have a strong suspicion her feelings towards Marina extended beyond friendship, and that she may have been in love with her. I have a similarly strong suspicion that this helped fuel her dislike of Lee, and her eagerness in helping the officials pin the tale on the Oswald. As a consequence, it wouldn't surprise me if she went along with a few lies about the evidence against Oswald. But the thought she was a knowing participant in the assassination, and deliberately set Lee up as a patsy, etc... is, to me, unthinkable. Years ago I came across a book that claimed Jackie killed JFK herself because she was tired of his affairs and that Onassis organized the cover-up. I put the idea Ruth helped kill Kennedy by setting up Oswald in the same stinky garbage bin. P.S. I think one of the steps in my evolution in thinking about Ruth came a few years back when I re-read her testimony regarding the curtain rods. If she was part of a frame-up, all she had to do was say "See those curtain rods! Those are the only curtain rods I've ever had in my garage. And Michael came out and checked on them right after we heard Lee said he'd brought curtain rods to work, and they were there!" Bim Bam Boom. But no, she said Michael came out and looked at a package that he thought were curtain rods (but could very well have been blinds) and that she herself had never double-checked to see if he was correct. She offered evidence helping Oswald's (largely non-existent) defense even when the frame-up would have been far better served by her telling a white lie. And I think that's because she is someone who largely tells the truth...as she sees it.

Although I am far from active as a moderator, I can still see posts that have been hidden due to violations such as insults or anti-semitism, and no posts on that thread have been hidden. According to the thread, your last post was yesterday morning.

I think Martin pretty much nailed it. Wecht has long seemed reluctant to dig through the weeds. His earlier writings on the assassination revealed a number of mistakes. His more recent writings on the assassination have been primarily written by Aguilar or Kaufman. I assume: 1) he's just too busy to really get into it, and 2) he doesn't want to embarrass his friend Michael Baden, who, to my mind, engaged in a willful cover-up of the medical evidence. When I've asked him about Baden, and others, Wecht has long maintained that he doesn't think these guys lied, that it was just that they interpreted the evidence through their bias. Think about it. Wecht has devoted his life to promoting the field of Forensic Science. Science. When he knows the reality is that the conclusions of the top "scientists" in many of the most controversial cases have been at odds with each other, and that some of his good friends have made small fortunes off using this "science" to defend rich (and often guilty) defendants. To really get into it would be to admit this science as applied by many of its scientists is seriously flawed, and often a scam.

Yes, Marina said Ruth was "sympathizing with CIA." How was that a problem for the Secret Service? Or for Marina--who was desperate to prove her sympathy with the CIA and FBI etc... else she be accused of being a spy and/or sent back to Russia? It's clear she was thinking of the ACLU (or some other leftist organization.) Let me add to the list of things said in testimony that were obviously wrong. Marguerite said Lee was left-handed. It's obvious she was thinking of Robert. And, oh yeah, there's Hoover telling Johnson the gun was found on the fifth floor, that the bullet striking Kennedy in the head went on to wound Connally, etc... And then there's the early reporting of most of the media that an SS agent was shot, when it was a DPD officer who'd been shot, etc... People have brain farts... All the time... And this needs to be recognized before one can get anywhere near the truth...

It was in Greg's initial post. When discussing the Secret Service's warning about Ruth Paine she asked the lawyer Marina: "What is CIA?" She then tried to explain what she thought the CIA was... Marina: "I had the impression ... American Civil Liberties Union, I don't know" It seems clear from this she thought CIA was an acronym for the American Civil Liberties Union. But even if one fights that logical conclusion one is stuck with the ridiculous idea that the Secret Service would warn the wife of a presumed presidential assassin that she shouldn't hang out with her friends because they might be working for an American intelligence agency. Hubba...wha??? That doesn't pass a smell test. At least not for anyone with a nose... And yes, people make ridiculous mistakes. This forum is filled with nonsense where someone takes one statement from one person and blows it up to be a window into "what really happened." As pointed out in an earlier post...Humes repeatedly told the HSCA in televised testimony he performed the autopsy on the 23rd... This was then changed to the 22nd in the transcript of his testimony. Hmmm... What were they hiding? That the autopsy took place on the 23rd? Or that Humes had a brain fart? He had a brain fart.