Pat Speer

Joe, California history tells me that this is not that unusual. Up until recent times, California would regularly swing back and forth between the Repubs and the Dems. Back when the state was voting for Republican icons Nixon and Reagan, it would simultaneously vote for Democratic Sen. Alan Cranston. Why? At the time, I was told Cranston was pro-defense industry and that this had endeared him to many in the business world, who would otherwise favor a Republican. That Cranston was a high-ranking member of the Senate was also a factor, in that the veteran Senators get to run the more important committees, and that they use this influence to get Government contracts for their constituents. I suspect Collins is in the same boat, in that many of her constituents fear her departure will cost the state $$$

My understanding is that the room she was about to enter was the house chamber and that there were dozens of reps still in the room at the time. I think some of those in the Capitol were drunk on the idea they'd reclaimed the house from the "deep state" and were just running around having fun, not realizing how their actions looked to the outside world. I mean, what was she gonna do once she got in the room? Have a quiet conversation with some elected officials? Whatever she was doing, it wasn't protest.

It may not be as bad as you think. One of the things that gives your website credibility, if I recall, is the number of links from other websites. So...when you and your readers promote your website on forums like this, it adds to your google credibility score, or whatever they call it. Every now and then I get an email from some company telling me that that for such and such amount, they would go through my website and add all sorts of links etc and thereby increase the visibility of my website on google, and, cha-thing, sales. They don't seem to get that I'm not trying to sell anything, and that I can't really justify spending hundreds of dollars so that my website comes up before McAdams', or Myers', etc.

When I first created my website, it would show up on the first page of most google searches related to the assassination. Then one day--roughly 10 years ago--John Simkin warned me that everything was about to change, and that google was going to start arbitrarily assigning "credibility" ratings to every website, which would serve to handicap websites from lone-wolves like.myself. I soon saw that he was right, and that a google search for "Kennedy autopsy" or some such thing would go to McAdams' website etc pages and pages before it would go to mine. I then spotted a loophole: that this was only true for text searches. Yes, strangely enough, there are google image searches where images from my website will show up over and over again and actually dominate the search results, while a text search for the same word or phrase will fail to show my website until the fifth or sixth page. So, for my website, google is a mixed bag. If someone is looking for something vague like "JFK assassination" then they'll probably never find my website, but if they're looking for something more specific like images of "James Humes" or "Russell Fisher" it might come up right away.

Thanks, Vince. I'm assuming the the 3-9-63 is a typo and that the author meant 3-9-78. I mean, that only makes sense. About that author...can anyone read that signature? Zilier Dinneer? Was this an assistant to Blakey?

Hey, Vince. Can you post an image of the full contact sheet on Moore? I'm curious as to the date, and who he called. I'm also curious as to who wrote the snarky comment about boxing gloves. That's classic. Thanks again.

Great stuff, Vince. Thanks.

Thanks, David. I was able to find the report in the FBI's files. Intriguingly, it was not in the files where you would expect it--near the beginning, along with CD1 and other materials prepared in November and December 1963. It was in their files with materials prepared in June. Apparently, Ambassador Mann told the WC's staff he'd received a "dossier" on Oswald from the FBI a few days after the assassination, and Rankin wrote the FBI in April asking them what this was, and why it had never been shown the WC. This, then led to the FBI's coughing up the report, with the explanation that it was only a "working paper" and that "working papers" were not normally forwarded outside the bureau. Well, this is interesting, at least to me. It means that IF the FBI had initially concluded Oswald had help, or that Howard Brennan was a xxxx, etc, that this conclusion would not have been reflected in ANY document put into the permanent file provided to the archives and WC. There's also this. My renewed interest in this report sprung from my realization it had originally included photo exhibits, and that these exhibits would have preceded the exhibits put into CD1 by 10 days or so, and may have actually been different exhibits. Well, these exhibits are not re-produced in the Mexico City file, or the FBI HQ files in which the text of the report was repeated. This seems suspicious. I mean, I can't recall any other FBI report culminating in a list of supporting photo exhibits in which these exhibits--or at least bad photocopies of these exhibits--were not included. Could it be, then, that one or more of these exhibits was swapped out before the publishing of similar exhibits in CD1? And that that is why this report/dossier was not provided the archives with its exhibits intact?

Thanks, Doug Cason was the journalist with whom I communicated, and Gallegly was my congressman. Rogge lived maybe 15 minutes away. As stated, I was looking for Rogge's report within the FBI's JFK files, or within any files ever provided the Warren Commission. I could have sworn I found it within those files years ago. But I haven't been able to find it in those files recently. I did find it, or a version of it, however, within the FBI's Mexico City files, now available on the Mary Ferrell site. Evidently the report was provided Ambassador Mann on the 27th, and he left it behind when he was transferred, which then led to the FBI's re-taking possession of the report and putting it in their Mexico City files. This version is missing the exhibits (primarily evidence photos), however. This could nevertheless be significant. IF, as I now suspect, this report is not in the FBI's files in Washington, and is only to be found in the FBI's Mexico City files, it suggests 1) that the original report was pulled from the HQ files and destroyed (which should lead one to wonder what other reports and/or interviews have been destroyed), and 2) that some of these destroyed files may be found in the files of outside offices, such as Mexico City.

Years ago, I wrote a letter to a writer at my local paper asking if she would be interested in material related to the Kennedy assassination. She said no, that she'd had many talks with the FBI agent who wrote the FBI's first report on the JFK assassination evidence, Richard Rogge, and that he'd convinced her it was Oswald all by his lonesome. She even offered to put me in touch with Rogge, which I failed to follow up on, seeing as he was really old at the time, and I generally shy from arguing with people of my mother's generation or older. In any event, I remember searching the Mary Ferrell site for Rogge's report, which preceded the FBI report of 12-9-63, Warren Commission Document 1. As I recall, I found it. I've been looking for it again over the past few days, however, and can't seem to find it. Does anyone know where it is? I'm particularly interested to know if the photo exhibits in Rogge's report were the same photos used in CD1. If so, no biggie. If not, well, there could be a whole bunch of evidence photos most of us have never studied.

I stand corrected, Joe. Greer was with Kellerman the whole time. I thought he was brought in later, like Hill. In any event, there is nothing surprising about this. The FBI had two men at the autopsy and there was no way the SS was gonna let there be more FBI men at the autopsy than SS men.

They weren't there for the whole autopsy, Joe. As a representative of the Secret Service, Kellerman was shown the body. He then asked Greer and Hill to view it as well, so they could confirm what he saw to their superiors and to the family. This only made sense. Kellerman had a close working relationship with Greer, and Hill was close with the family. Believe it or not, an autopsy is not considered a private affair. College students are invited to view them all the time. My brother works in Bio-med--maintaining and fixing medical equipment--and he's witnessed a number of autopsies over the years.

Hey, Vince I added a hundred or more photos and gifs to my website over the summer, and continue to add some each week. In any event, one of the things I stumbled on surprised the heck out of me. While looking at some obscure European news footage of RFK's 1964 trip to Poland, I spotted something which is even more ironic than McIntyre riding in the back-up car for Ford. It was that RFK rode on a Lincoln through the streets of communist Poland. And not just any Lincoln, mind you. But the same year (I believe) as the Lincoln in which his brother had been riding. And when I say on a Lincoln, I mean ON a Lincoln. As if to say, I'm not afraid, I know my brother wasn't killed by a communist, RFK and Ethel rode on the ROOF of the limo as it rolled through the streets of cheering Poles. Here's a screen grab.

I think I saw that somewhere before, but no, I didn't have it. So thanks, Doug. That's actually quite helpful, as it strongly suggests Barrett arrived at the crime scene about a half hour after the shooting.

I've been trying to put together a timeline of the activities of FBI agent Robert Barrett on 11-22-63. Can anyone point me to a published timeline of his activities? I see that Barrett was interviewed by the Church Committee, and that he also provided an oral history to the sixth floor museum. Of course, neither of these is available online. Has anyone read them? Does anyone know what's in them?

Has anyone uncovered a photo of Powell in Dealey Plaza?

Re: Dylan... My understanding is that the 300 million cited in the press is much lower than the actual price. Although he may not have sold as many records as say Michael Jackson, or The Eagles, Dylan's catalogue will in the long run be worth far more. His style of writing and the quality of his lyrics and the sheer volume of material will lead to cover after cover after cover for the next 100 years or more, in numerous styles--reggae, blues, folk etc. What may not be clear to those looking from the outside is that once a major publisher commits to spending the big bucks on a catalogue, they don't just sit back and collect royalties...they make the royalties happen. Let's take, for example, a new James Bond movie. Well, the producer will want a big name for the songs over the opening and closing credits. Now, to get the artist they want, they may have to agree to include two songs on the soundtrack by two brand new artists on that artist's label, and the publishing side of the company may insist, for that matter, that those songs be Dylan covers. Or, let's say, someone wants Like a Rolling Stone for an ad campaign. Well, the publisher may insist that this company use Knocking on Heaven's Door for a related campaign. Having a new publisher almost always increases exposure... Over the last 25 years there have been waves of old songs by The Who, The Kinks, and The Stones, in movies, TV, and TV commercials. Heck, even someone like Lou Reed--who sold bupkus in his early years--found gold towards the end with Perfect Day. Ditto Iggy Pop--who made a small fortune from Lust for Life's being featured in a Carnival Cruise commercial. The Dylan catalogue is a gold mine, and his songs will be everywhere for a long long time.

It might be worth re-checking the testimonies of Jarman, Norman, and Williams. I know they were flown out to Washington together, and that they all testified on the same day. They may very well have been present during each other's testimony. The same may be true of Greer and Kellerman.

A lot of people completely miss what Obama was and is--a reasonable moderate. His real motto was and is "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good". What he meant by that was that in his take on history, those who aim too high often get nowhere, while those who aim a bit lower often get somewhere, and that if you add up all the somewheres you can get where you need to be. Baby steps. It's kinda like John Nash's big idea in "A Beautiful Mind." If all the dudes try to hit on the hot chick, most everyone goes away disappointed, and the bulk of the chicks feel like afterthoughts. The successful strategy, then, is for the bulk of the dudes to modify their ambition, and shoot a bit lower. That way more successful sales take place, with more satisfied customers. Obama--a man who grew up half-black in a mostly white world--knew that this strategy worked. And so we got Obamacare, instead of Medicare for All. If he'd have shot for the moon, he'd have ended up in the dirt. That's undoubtedly what he believed. And I believe he was right. Now, some might say, Obama's very election proved he could push the envelope when he put his mind to it. I mean, a black guy named Barrack Hussein Obama? Got elected President of the United States? But that was just a name. I suspect Obama knew that if his mom had been black as well as his dad, and he'd been dark-skinned, he would never have been elected. I suspect Obama knew as well that if he'd been from the South, and spoke like someone from the South, and had been a direct descendant from slaves, he would never have been elected. You can only scrape the surface of America so deep before the Civil War seeps out.

I think Jim's point was that the paranoid distrust of government preceded the JFK Assassination, and has been the "base" of the Republican party since the 50's. In reviewing the "Trump" threads on this and other forums, moreover, it's clear to me that very few earnest CT's buy into the false equivalency holding that the same people who were out to destroy Kennedy are out to destroy Trump. Trump (with a not-so-subtle push from Roger Stone) has been trying to paint himself as the new JFK, with the same enemies as JFK, for years, in hopes of luring JFK aficionados and Bernie Bro.s over to his side, which is to say the dark side. He's failed, IMO. While many of Trump's supporters would describe themselves as CT's, and say JFK was killed by a conspiracy, they are, in my experience, not educated enough about the case to have an opinion worth considering. In short, they are Birchers-in-disguise, ready to believe evil forces conspired against Kennedy not because that's where the evidence leads, but because it fits their worldview--the same worldview in which Trump is a friend to the working man.

Yes, by all means, investigate this. Perhaps Trump thinks the election was stolen from him via Dominion, because his plans to steal it for himself via Dominion didn't pan out. Or maybe it was just a brain fart.

I'm glad you wrote this. I was equally outraged by Gillon's column blaming the JFK research community for Trump, and Q. I was gonna write a comment on the Post's website but discovered that my subscription had lapsed, and decided it wasn't worth renewing just to shoot down Gillon. Around the 50th, I added a chapter to my website on LBJ's swearing-in on 11-22-63, and the numerous lies that were told afterwards. Towards the end of this chapter, I discussed how this event--and the RFK/LBJ feud to follow--was presented in various history books and articles. Here's my section on Gillon. The Rorschach Blot As Seen By Steve Gillon Steve Gillon, the History Channel's resident historian, and the author of The Kennedy Assassination, 24 Hours After, published 2009, is nearly as hard on Johnson as I. He spots many of the contradictions in Johnson's statements, and sees Johnson's lack of honesty regarding what took place on the plane as a major factor in his subsequent rift with the Kennedy's, his loss of credibility with the public, and ultimate downfall. He concludes: "LBJ's fear that the nation would not accept him as the legitimate heir to the presidency convinced him that he needed someone close to the slain president, either Kenneth O'Donnell or RFK, to endorse every decision he made on that fateful day. He proved himself willing to manipulate both men in order to obtain the political cover he desired--or he simply lied and manufactured their compliance. He claimed that O'Donnell specifically ordered him to board Air Force One, when that decision was most likely made by the Secret Service. He insisted that O'Donnell was the first person to tell him that JFK was dead, when the evidence shows that Emory Roberts delivered the news. Later, he manipulated a grieving RFK into agreeing that he should take the oath in Dallas. After getting RFK to endorse his decision to take the oath in Dallas, he told everyone on the plane that the swearing-in was the attorney general's idea. The pattern of deception so evident in the early hours of LBJ's administration would eventually erode the moral authority of his presidency. Johnson's penchant for bending the facts to suit his purposes raised doubts about his integrity and created a credibility gap that eventually undermined public trust in his administration...Johnson told so many small lies, and some big ones, that many people started to question everything he said." And yet Gillon was far too charitable... As Gillon accepted John McCone's claim RFK had agreed to Johnson's being sworn-in on the plane, and failed to note that Ed Guthman had told William Manchester the opposite was true, it seems likely he had a built-in bias to trust Johnson's claims--as long as he had a witness. He fails to accept that some of these witnesses could have been lying. His willingness to provide Johnson--a man he concludes was an habitual xxxx--the benefit of the doubt, moreover, also seems apparent. I mean, why else provide Johnson an alibi for his systematic lies--that he was afraid he would not be accepted? Johnson himself never offered such an alibi. And we shouldn't believe him if he did. Yes, as hard as he was on Johnson, Gillon was still far too defensive of the man. In an 11-20-10 blog on the Huffington Post, he claimed "Kennedy loyalists viewed Johnson's decision to fly Air Force One back to Washington as part of the larger narrative of the day -- an example of LBJ's insensitivity and his megalomania. They would later claim that LBJ was so desperate to surround himself with the trappings of presidential power that he hijacked the Kennedy plane. The charge is bogus. Johnson never requested to use the Kennedy plane. The secret service made that call for him. (LBJ and JFK flew to Dallas on separate but identical planes. The Kennedy plane was designated Air Force 26000. Any plane carrying the president is automatically designated Air Force One, so in that sense it did not matter which plane Johnson chose.) But it did matter to the secret service. Agent Emory Roberts never questioned that LBJ would be returning to Washington on Air Force 26000. In his mind, Air Force 26000 was the president's plane. Kennedy was dead and Lyndon Johnson was now president. It was now his plane. It may have been unsentimental, but it was appropriate. And Roberts never asked Johnson what plane he wanted to use." When one reads through Gillon's book, moreover, one finds the source for his contention the decision to fly back on Air Force One had been made by Roberts. It was Roberts himself, in his 12-4-64 interview with William Manchester. Here is how the book discusses the matter: "Roberts, typically, was unsentimental about the issue of which airplane to take. When Manchester asked Roberts why the sense of 'urgency' to take Air Force One when the Johnson plane was available, Roberts said, 'Yes, we knew there were two planes there but I was thinking only of the presidential plane...I was thinking only of Air Force One.'" Should you fail to be blown away by this, well, join the club. Gillon's position on this issue is almost as nonsensical as Bugliosi's position on, well, many issues. The plane on which the President flies is Air Force One. Period. If Johnson flew back to Washington on the plane formally called Air Force Two, it would have been Air Force One. Period. Roberts' Secret Service report reflects that Johnson sent him down the hall to get O'Donnell's permission to fly back on Air Force One. Even if O'Donnell told Roberts "Yes" and didn't just nod his head, as later claimed by Manchester, and even if he fully understood that by Air Force One Roberts meant Kennedy's plane, it follows from this that Johnson was not forced to fly back on Kennedy's plane by Roberts. It was Johnson's decision. He may have been influenced by Roberts when making this decision. He may have thought O'Donnell had agreed to this decision. But it was his decision. Not O'Donnell's. Not Roberts'. Period. I mean, this couldn't be any clearer. Roberts suggested they fly back on Kennedy's plane, and Johnson made the decision that they do so. Johnson could have flown back on the plane that flew him out there--the plane that still held his luggage. No one told him he could not. In fact, it seems obvious from reading the statements of Roberts and Youngblood that they would much rather have had Johnson leave immediately on that plane--even if it was in some way inferior to Kennedy's plane--than sit around for an hour in Kennedy's plane. This circles back to another point--one unexamined By Gillon. In 1964 Johnson and his defenders were putting the word out that Kenneth O'Donnell had told Johnson to fly back on Air Force One, due to its superior communications equipment. This was disputed by O'Donnell in his testimony before the Warren Commission. This dispute was discussed in William Manchester's book, The Death of a President. In late 1966 and early 1967, then, Johnson's defenders started claiming the Secret Service had told Johnson to fly back on Air Force One, due to its superior communications equipment. What they failed to realize, however, was that the agent in charge of Johnson's detail when it raced off for the airport, Emory Roberts, was interviewed in 1964, and asked why they'd raced back to Kennedy's plane...and had responded in a manner suggesting the decision had had NOTHING to do with the plane's communications equipment, and everything to do with Roberts', and apparently Johnson's, perception that the plane represented something more than just a means of transportation, and was, in fact, something akin to a throne. The dead king no longer sits upon the throne. It was the new king's to sit upon, so sit upon it he must. The real weight of the evidence, then, is that Johnson and his defenders had told a series of lies designed to conceal that Johnson had made the decision to wait around in Dallas, and that he had done so against the wishes of the Secret Service, and that he had done so without any input from Mrs. Kennedy. It's clear, moreover, that he didn't really care what Mrs. Kennedy wanted on November 22, 1963--and that she was, in fact, a hostage to his political orchestrations. He had, after all, moved into the plane in which she was accustomed to traveling and made it clear that she was flying back with him...NO MATTER what she wanted...This fact, however, has proved too hard for many to digest.

Thanks, Vince. I hadn't seen that program before. I watched it last night. At one point, I would have considered it brave and cutting edge. With some distance on the case, however, I now find it misleading, and fairly embarrassing. I mean, I hope I'm not the only CT who thought it was mostly crap. P.S. What's up with those "shots" found on the dictabelt that were added onto the Z-film? I'm fairly certain they didn't match up with the shots claimed by the HSCA acoustics experts. So where did they come from? Was this something Mack, Ferrell, and Groden were pushing in the 80's? If so, shame on them.

If you're gonna be thorough on the Parkland witnesses to make reference to a left head wound than you might want to include Father Oscar Huber.

Thanks, Micah. This should prove interesting.