Pat Speer

I never said Garrison was a fraud, only that I can see how Sheridan and Bobby, and many many others, could have concluded as much. As far as Kirkwood, he was the writer of P.S. Your Cat is Dead and A Chorus Line, and was gay. Garrison's early statements, in which he discussed Ferrie's and Shaw's homosexuality and theorized about a gay thrill kill cult (Oswald and Ruby were also rumored to be gay) attracted a lot of attention, and caused quite a backlash. I believe Kirkwood personified this backlash. As far as Garrison blabbing that LBJ was involved and Boggs' getting word back to LBJ, this is mentioned in a 2-20-67 phone call between Ramsey Clark and Johnson. Clark says he doesn't believe Boggs. Johnson then asks Clark who Boggs told this to, and he says Johnson's aid Marvin Watson. Johnson then asks Watson and Watson confirms the conversation. Johnson then complains to Clark that "They just think this stuff's for them." Ferrie was found dead two days later. As far as Garrison being naive, of course he was. If he honestly believed there'd been a conspiracy to kill Kennedy, and that Johnson was involved, and that Johnson had used the presidency to cover up his crime via the Warren Commission, how could he not anticipate that Johnson would use everything within his power--the entire Federal apparatus--to impede his investigation? He could have been visiting the Governors of other states to insure their cooperation instead of hanging out in Vegas and giving interviews to Playboy. While this is 20/20 hindsight, there were many sharing this sight at the time. Garrison alienated many of the research community with his actions, but it wasn't all his fault. People wanted one man to lead the research community to the promised land, and were upset when their golden boy turned out to be human. They should have seen him for what he was, a grandstanding politician with a giant ego who was not afraid to peek behind the curtain.

I agree, William, that the book is important. David Talbot has done a good job of clarifying one key piece of the puzzle--why didn't RFK do something? Brothers makes it clear that RFK felt helpless to do something, but was planning to do something once he reached higher office. Talbot's work in this area should cause "Warren solved it and RFK agreed" historians to take a closer look, and see the Warren Commission for the whitewash it was. His book might even counter-balance Bugliosi's doorstop, and win more converts in the mainstream media. That said, readers should know that the book is not a conspiracy book. It merely reports RFK's suspicions, and passes no judgment on whether or not they were accurate. This allows the media to look at the case without a finger being pointed in their face. I suspect a number of those currently on the fence will be won over.

I've consistently read that Phil Donohue's show was canceled prior to the Iraq invasion because it gave viewers an alternative to propaganda. http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0227-04.htm Donahue talked about this a few weeks back on Bill Moyers' program. He said that he was told by MSNBC that he could not have someone opposed to Bush' policies on his show unless he also had someone supporting Bush' policies. He was told as well that he COULD have someone on the program supporting Bush' policies without representing the other side. To their thinking, he (Donahue) counted as a liberal, and should not be allowed to stack the deck against the administration. They then canceled his show even though its ratings were good. A few weeks later, we invaded Iraq. At the time he was fired, Donahue's nightly viewership was 446,000, while O'Reilly's was 2,700,000 and Connie Chung's was 985,000. Those numbers are meaningless, Christopher, without an exact comparison of time slot and overall viewership of the network. Do you have the numbers for whatever show replaced Donahue, and the relative costs? Those numbers would have more meaning. That said, you could be right in your implication that Donahue was fired for legitimate reasons. I was basically repeating what Donahue told Moyers. He wouldn't be the first fired employee to think it was unfair. I don't think that MSNBC found Donohue's viewership numbers meaningless, and I respectfully disagree that viewership numbers are meaningless. To the contrary, I think that they mean quite a lot to the networks. MSNBC has historically, and I believe currently, lagged way behind Fox News and, to a lesser extent, CNN. I think that MSNBC replaced Donohue with either Chris Matthews or Keith Olberman, both of whom continue to do poorly against the competition. I obviously don't know MSNBC's production costs. I remember some discussion floating around the blogosphere about a year ago relating to MSNBC's seriously considering going dark, which I hope doesn't happen. What I was trying to say was that, in TV terms, raw numbers of viewers watching a program is a nearly meaningless statistic, when it comes to the decision-making progress. Say you have Cheers on at 8 and Seinfeld on at 9. The show between them will almost certainly win its time slot and have huge ratings. But will there be a drop-off? If so, how much of it is the show's fault and how much of it is from another network's having a good show for that slot? These considerations are the determining factors in the show's life span, not the ratings. There have been shows with good ratings within their slot, that have been canceled anyhow, due to the demographics of their viewers. That's what killed the original Star Trek. There have been shows with good ratings within their slot, AND desirable demographics, that have been canceled anyhow, due to political reasons. That's what killed The Smothers Brothers Show. Donahue would like to add his show to that list. Since MSNBC has trailed CNN and Fox News forever, saying that Donahue's show didn't stack up doesn't really tell us much. What does tell us something is that shortly after the war began, CNN felt its hold slipping over to Fox and became more pro-American and more like a tabloid, and that shortly after that MSNBC, via Olberman, began railing against the war, and that their viewership has since picked up tremendously, at the expense of both Fox and CNN (or so I've read). This gives one reason to suspect that Donahue's ratings would have picked up in time. He certainly seems to think so.

Thanks, Larry. It's intriguing to me that less than two years ago, when Joan Mellen's book came out, I was one of Garrison's defenders. Now, by pointing out some of his excesses, and reasons why RFK could have doubted his sincerity, people think I'm attacking him. Clearly, the demographics of the Forum have changed. (Those failing to understand the backlash against Garrison and assuming the backlash was all part of some plot should read James Kirkwood's American Grotesque, an anti-Garrison book that focuses on his behavior without passing judgment on the merits of his case, beyond that Clay Shaw was innocent.) For the record, I consider Jim Garrison a hero. He stood up to the powers that be and shook things up. And his shaking brought results. But he was a flawed hero. In early 67 LBJ found out, via Hale Boggs, that Garrison was telling people that LBJ was involved in the assassination. A few days later Garrison's star witness, David Ferrie, was found dead. Now I, for one, have a hard time believing this was a coincidence. I also have a hard time excusing Garrison for blabbing to others that a SITTING president of the United States was a murderer, and not preparing for a backlash. If Garrison believed his own allegations, Ferrie should have had round the clock protection. If Garrison believed his own allegations, he should have known that other states would refuse to extradite witnesses, and help him in his case. I believe he was just naive. There are others, however, who believe Garrison knew he had no case, and deliberately sabotaged it, allowing outsiders to look at his files, putting wackos on the stand, etc. That way he could claim he lost the case due to unforeseen circumstances and government interference. I suspect this goes too far. I think that Garrison was just in over his head.

Pat! Is it possible that a compassionate guy like you really can't see that speaking out would have been the end of Dr Crenshaw's young career and possibly life? He was very clear about this fear in his book, which I think you read. And in fact when he did speak out he was viciously attacked by his peers in JAMA and he successfully sued them over it. This guy, who has some kind of website on the assassination, describes it well: "Dr. Charles Crenshaw saw President Kennedy at Parkland Hospital. In 1992 he wrote a book, JFK: Conspiracy of Silence, which related his memories of November 22, 1963, and his theories on the assassination. After its publication, he was nearly crucified. Articles were printed in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggesting he was a xxxx—that he’d never even seen Kennedy—and so on. After winning a lawsuit against JAMA, he corrected some minor errors in his book, and updated his story to include a section on the lawsuit." http://www.patspeer.com/chapter20:conclusionsandconfusions: And I find it very unlikely that the civilian Parkland doctors could have been disoriented so they all described the head wound in the wrong place. Whereas nothing at Bethesda was credible, largely 'cause the Drs were military and followed orders. I guess it's obvious what the orders were. To be clear, I don't believe Dr. Crenshaw lied. In sorting through the statements of witnesses, one needs to assess how likely they would be to have a clear memory of the event described. One needs to take into account how long they were exposed to the images they describe and how long after the event it had been when their recollections were recorded. Dr. Crenshaw's first book was written with the help of conspiracy theorists many years after the events described. By his own admission he only saw Kennedy for a moment. As a result, his recollections are not very credible. Beverly Oliver, even if she is who she says she is, is not very credible as well. In order to establish a reasonable scenario, IMO, one can't simply pick some latter-day statements that fit one's theory. One has to find statements as close to the event as possible, with as little input from the outside world as possible. Back of the head theorists most always say they're going by the earliest descriptions of Kennedy's wounds, but they most always ignore Newman and Zapruder. Quite often they misrepresent Burkley and use Kilduff's statement to insinuate Burkley saw the small entrance wound of their desires. They ignore the more logical conclusion that Burkley saw only one head wound at Parkland and that this was by the temple. As far as the doctors screwing up the wound location, that is most probably what happened. Only a few of them got a good look at it. The rest all took their cue based on what they'd heard afterwards. When one considers that Kennedy's feet were up in the air and that the top of his head was where the back of his head would most normally be located, it's easy to see how a mistake could be made. My mother, sister, brother, and sister-in-law are all long-time medical professionals, with over a hundred years combined experience. When I tell them that people scoff when I tell them that the doctors most logically screwed up, they LAUGH. It seems that some people are as reluctant to believe an emergency team that doesn't take notes could make a mistake regarding a wound's location as others are to believe that the government would lie. Even though their scenario--where the doctors didn't make a mistake--entails that they made an even BIGGER mistake by not noticing an exploding bullet's entrance wound on Kennedy's forehead or right temple. Go figure.

We agree that F8 is of the back of Kennedy's head. I don't think one can say for sure one way or the other if the tear in the scalp at the front of the head represents an entrance or not. I don't think it is an entrance. As far as Crenshaw, he saw Kennedy for but a second and failed to write about his experiences for many years. He is only slightly more credible than Grossman. As stated, my conviction that the Parkland doctors were wrong as to the EXACT location of Kennedy's wound came from close examination of their statements. It's clear they are describing the large wound seen in the autopsy photos, but slightly further to the back. Some of them placed it in a part of the skull they never even saw. If they'd seen a small entrance on the forehead or temple and a large exit on the back of the head, I would believe there'd been a shot from the front. But they failed to see this purported entrance, even though it was right in front of their face. As a consequence, one should rightly conclude it didn't exist. IMO, the mainstream media and the powers that be would like nothing better than conspiracy theorists to go around all day saying everything's a lie and everyone's a xxxx. That makes it easy to dismiss you. In my new video, I attempt to show how specific lies were perpetrated. In order to show this, one must first accept that something is true. Once one accepts that the back wound really was 14 cm from tip of the right mastoid process, as measured at autopsy, for example, one can PROVE that the Rydberg drawings were bogus from the beginning, and that the Justice Department helped perpetuate this fraud. If one holds that everything was a lie, however, one can't see when the lies began and put them in their proper historical context. The effect is to cloud what could otherwise be clear.

Part 3 of my video series is up and running at www.patspeer.com. It will be up on Youtube within a couple of days. In this segment we look at the changed descriptions of the autopsy photos between 1966 and 1967. We also look at the likelihood these changes were sponsored by the Justice Department. I think it takes a step forward. Here's the link: patspeer.com

Myra, I've met Ed a couple of times. He knows more about Johnson--and his possible involvement--than just about anybody. He is a bit over the top, however. He really hates Johnson. I mean REALLY hates Johnson. As far as Johnson bribing his way onto the ticket, that's doubtful. The more likely story is one you'll find in the history books. These indicate that JFK offered the second position to Johnson with the expectation Johnson would refuse. Johnson was, after all, the Senate's majority leader, an extremely powerful position. If JFK hadn't offered the position to LBJ it could have made for a difficult presidency. So he made the offer, and was shocked when LBJ said yes. Reportedly, LBJ was talked into saying yes by some of the leading lights of the party--"it's best for the party, etc,." There are some reports that RFK visited LBJ the next day to try and get him to change his mind, but that LBJ refused, and that this was a factor in their mutual contempt, but that's neither here nor there. What is clear is that, with the vice-presidency, LBJ was given a few extra perks. Kennedy allowed Johnson a measure of control over all Federal business in Texas, and over the Navy. Two consecutive secretaries of the Navy were Johnson cronies with ties to the oil industry--Connally and Korth. Both would eventually be exposed in corruption scandals. It is LBJ's close connection to Navy, along with Oswald's connection to the Marines (a division of the Navy) that leads some to wonder if Oswald wasn't working for the Office of Naval Intelligence (basically the CIA of the Navy). Unfortunately, the Pentagon's files on Oswald were "routinely destroyed" or some such nonsense. so we' may never know.

I've consistently read that Phil Donohue's show was canceled prior to the Iraq invasion because it gave viewers an alternative to propaganda. http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0227-04.htm Donahue talked about this a few weeks back on Bill Moyers' program. He said that he was told by MSNBC that he could not have someone opposed to Bush' policies on his show unless he also had someone supporting Bush' policies. He was told as well that he COULD have someone on the program supporting Bush' policies without representing the other side. To their thinking, he (Donahue) counted as a liberal, and should not be allowed to stack the deck against the administration. They then canceled his show even though its ratings were good. A few weeks later, we invaded Iraq. At the time he was fired, Donahue's nightly viewership was 446,000, while O'Reilly's was 2,700,000 and Connie Chung's was 985,000. Those numbers are meaningless, Christopher, without an exact comparison of time slot and overall viewership of the network. Do you have the numbers for whatever show replaced Donahue, and the relative costs? Those numbers would have more meaning. That said, you could be right in your implication that Donahue was fired for legitimate reasons. I was basically repeating what Donahue told Moyers. He wouldn't be the first fired employee to think it was unfair.

I guess I'm very confused about the status of any remaining brain tissue. If I'm remembering correctly: -Supposedly about 1/3 of the brain was missing at Parkland, blown out by the bullet(s). -Supposedly 100% of the brain was missing at the Bethesda autopsy. They describe the skull as an empty cracked egg shell. So, even though I know the autopsy photos are fakes, I still don't understand the presence of the brain tissue visible in the photo. -Then supposedly the brain disappeared from the national archives, reportedly taken by RFK. Where did the brain tissue come from to put in the national archives if it was gone at the autopsy? Much of the confusion about the head wounds comes from people taking the statements of one or two witnesses and repeating them out of context or as fact. When one reads all the statements and records re the autopsy it's clear the mystery photo F8 is NOT a photo of a large exit on the back of Kennedy's head, but is instead a photo of Kennedy's skull AFTER his scalp had been peeled back and his brain removed. The amount of missing skull in this photo is far larger than the size of the skull fragments found outside the skull. Accordingly, it would seem some of this skull was removed at autopsy in order to remove the brain. VOILA! Dr. Humes repeatedly testified that skull fell to the table as he peeled back the scalp. He also admitted breaking some shattered skull off in order to pull out the brain. Well where is this shattered skull on the x-rays? At the back of the head. There is no photographic or x-ray evidence for a large exit at the back of the head. It is a myth...like the single bullet theory and the Easter Bunny. As far as the missing brain at autopsy... that is also a myth. Years afterwards people were asked about the autopsy as if it had happened the day before. Their descriptions of the autopsy are at odds with each other. Some said there was NO brain, some said there was some brain, one said there was some brain but that it had been severed and placed back in the cranium. As the brain in the photographs is inconsistent with the bullet trajectories described by the WC and HSCA I believe it is the brain removed at autopsy. I mean, why fake evidence that contradicts your convenient conclusions?

Don, if I remember correctly, the family took items from those they killed and dropped them in what they believed were black neighborhoods. Unfortunately, they got off the wrong exit and dropped a wallet in Sylmar--a mixed neighborhood--instead of Pacoima--a black neighborhood. I know these "hoods" very well and drive by Spahn Ranch almost every day. P.S. if you don't get that the "White Album" was a call for revolution than you just haven't listened to it properly.

To clarify my earlier post, I don't believe Garrison to be a fraud. I do, however, understand why Sheridan and others would think so. Here, Garrison was spouting to the press that he'd "solved" the case. At first he was leaning toward Cubans, then a gay thrill-kill cult, then the CIA, then the CIA with LBJ, blah blah blah. It kept getting bigger and bigger. And YET, the one group Garrison avoided implicating, LIKE THE PLAGUE, was the mafia. Garrison's case was strongest against Ferrie and Banister, BOTH working for Marcello in November 1963. Oswald's uncle had also worked for Marcello. That Garrison avoided Marcello, while visiting Vegas and pointing in most every direction, is indeed suspicious. Someone predisposed to suspect the mob, such as RFK and Sheridan, would have a hard time watching Garrison's high-wire act without wanting to puke. Indeed, many CTs were later to conclude that Jimbo's road show did a lot more to hurt the chances of a new investigation, than help. Garrison did regain some measure of respectability when the HSCA looked into some of his leads, and found them credible, but that was almost a decade later.

I found this letter from Rob Anderson interesting: A magazine called The Spotlight - what we'd now call an alternative newsweekly - published in 1964 an interview with an anonymous female "operative" who had one hell of a story to tell. Her claim was the she, two other men and E. Howard Hunt arrived in Dallas early on the morning of November 22, 1963. On the way Hunt had told them they were one of three "shooter teams" who were going to "take down someone very important." When the team arrived at their hotel in Dallas to prepare, Hunt dropped the bomb: It was going to be the President. The woman freaked but showed no outward sign, lest she be killed. Not long afterwards she used her covert skills to slip away and into hiding. Hunt sued the magazine for libel and defamation of character. And he LOST, on both counts. Why this - absolute, incontrovertible proof of the conspiracy, in a court of law no less, three years before Garrison - has never been widely reported is simply mind-blowing. And the cheap shot at Garrison was silly. Much of what Bobby Kennedy suspected Garrison later proved in court. So how was he a fraud? This guy is mixed-up. This is a reference to Marita Lorenz and the lawsuit described in Plausible Denial. This lawsuit didn't heat up till many years after the shooting. The line about Garrison is also not quite right. Most everyone concluded Garrison was a bit of a fraud. He kept spouting about solving the crime and yet his description of the culprits kept changing. If Garrison was in the midst of the first investigation into the murder of the President and gradually learning that the entire gov't was conspiring to destroy him and his case then I think it would be more accurate to say that his list of suspects was evolving and expanding, rather than to dismiss him as a fraud. If you insist on labeling him a fraud then perhaps you could be specific about your charges. What did he say that was fraudulent? Well said Nathaniel. Unless I've missed something major, use of the term 'fraud' to describe Garrison is wholly inappropriate. He was a very brave man indeed, IMO - operating in the most difficult of circumstances. Regarding The Spotlight, it was first published in the mid 70s, and yes, the writer must have been referring to the Plausible Denial saga, also covered in Final Judgment (Michael Collins Piper worked for The Spotlight). Victor Marchetti's Spotlight article that prompted Hunt to sue was published in 1978. Interestingly, although Piper believes Hunt was probably in Dallas at the time of the JFK assassination, he doesn't believe Hunt was one of the killers of JFK. This discussion would be well served, IMO, by consideration of Chapter 16 of Final Judgment. _______________________ On a related but separate matter, I read the short article by David Talbot in Salon.com. Thanks to whoever provided the link. It concludes thus: Frank Mankiewicz is also cited as a source earlier in Talbot's article.There are grounds for thinking Mankiewicz, fomerly a PR man for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B’nai B’rith, who in later years became Vice-Chair of the PR company that sold the first Gulf War to the world on the basis of a pack of lies, is not a trustworthy source. Indeed, some believe he had a hand in the assassination of RFK - see THIS previous discussion on the forum. Sid, this is gar-bage. As detailed in Talbot's book, Mankiewicz was devoted to RFK, and pushed RFK to re-investigate JFK's death. He was the one Kennedy aide to work with Oliver Stone on JFK, and damaged his relationship to the family in doing so. Any speculation that he was some sort of Israeli intelligence disinfo agent planted among the Kennedys and Stone to disguise Israeli involvement in the assassination is pure fantasy. Please find some evidence to back it up, beyond that he was Jewish and involved in pro-Israel activities.

Gil, any discussion of the head wounds that does not explain that the Parkland doctors saw ONE wound, and Newman and Zapruder described this ONE wound in a slightly different location, is misleading. The evidence suggests that Dr. Burkley only saw ONE wound at Parkland as well, and yet Kilduff described this wound as being in the same location as Newman and Zapruder...in the SAME location depicted in the autopsy photos and Zapruder film. This film implies that the entrance described by Kilduff was a small entrance leading to a large exit on the back of the head, and is therefore deceptive. 1) There is no mention of a large exit by Kilduff. 2) There is no mention of a small entrance by ANY of the Parkland witnesses, who are supposedly so reliable. For these reasons, I concluded that the Parkland doctors were indeed mistaken as to the exact location of the large head wound. During his treatment, Kennedy's feet were elevated above his head. This placed the top of his head at the location normally occupied by the back of his head. When viewing upside down items, people receive visual information, and then rotate it in their minds before identifying the spacial relationships. We are really bad at this, and rotation errors are common.

Myra, the same guys who backed the Greek coup backed Nixon. The CIA was pumping money into Greece to insure the country didn't go socialist. This money ended up in the hands of right-wing generals, the leader of whom had been on the CIA's payroll for years. Then..coincidence???...Nixon re-emerged on the political scene with the financial backing of a wealthy Greek-American, Thomas Pappas. In order to please his Greek-American backers, Nixon put the most prominent Greek-American, Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew, on the ticket. This is pretty much accepted history. What isn't as well known or established is that the money funding Nixon's campaign originally came from the CIA. I'm not sure if there's sufficient proof of this. While looking through a book on Greece from the early 70's, however, I did come across a reference to a large public works project--I think it was a dam--that was being built by Greek-American Thomas Pappas. As we now all know, public works projects are quite over-priced, and a lot of the money gets kicked back to corrupt politicians. The thought occurred that the U.S. was funding the Greek government, the government was paying Pappas, and Pappas was kicking the money back to Nixon, who'd arranged the funding for the Greeks. A big circle jerk, at the expense of democracy. Dick Cheney learned by the older Dick's side. Well that sure is interesting Pat, and frankly I didn't know any of it. Do you think it is related to Watergate? I don't think these events led to Watergate, but they had an impact on the timing. When the Dems started looking into Watergate, they knew from the beginning it could lead to Nixon's resignation. This would have led to Agnew becoming president, something even Nixon wanted to avoid. Many believe that the leading Dems, including Ted Kennedy, worked out a deal. They told Nixon they'd lay off the investigation as long as Nixon dumped Agnew and replaced him with someone palatable. This would explain why, according to Agnew, Nixon himself was the major factor in his resignation. Agnew kept looking for a vote of confidence from Nixon, or some public statement of support, during his corruption investigation, with none forthcoming. He concluded the Justice Department was being guided by Nixon (Nixon secretly guided much of the early Watergate investigation.) Anyhow, they offered Agnew a deal--go quietly and there will be no jail--and he took the offer. Nixon replaced him with Gerry Ford, a loyal Republican but also a longtime congressman with friends on both sides of the aisle. Everyone involved agreed that Ford was not necessarily the best choice but that he was the most palatable choice.

I've consistently read that Phil Donohue's show was canceled prior to the Iraq invasion because it gave viewers an alternative to propaganda. http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0227-04.htm Donahue talked about this a few weeks back on Bill Moyers' program. He said that he was told by MSNBC that he could not have someone opposed to Bush' policies on his show unless he also had someone supporting Bush' policies. He was told as well that he COULD have someone on the program supporting Bush' policies without representing the other side. To their thinking, he (Donahue) counted as a liberal, and should not be allowed to stack the deck against the administration. They then canceled his show even though its ratings were good. A few weeks later, we invaded Iraq.

Yeah that sorta leaped out, when he said "guy." But if a giant celeb is willing to stand up and state the basic truth, even if it's not perfect, I'll take it. The media is more likely to publish something a celeb says. Bruce is right, what he says doesn't mean jack ****. The 911 'Truthers' think Charlie Sheen is the bees knees because he advocates their position, big wow. It isn't celebrities that we need on our side, but rather intellectuals and historians. John It isn't mutually exclusive. We can actually have historians AND celebs speaking the truth and the more the better. What we need is critical mass; the more the better. The fact is when Bruce Willis says something it gets space in a newspaper. I'll bet few people here can get the same result when they speak out. Absolutely. Historians and the media have largely, in recent years, dismissed conspiracy theorists as kooks. It's important that people see that people they trust, whether a celebrity or an historian, also suspect that something was amiss in the Big D. A few years back I picked up a book in which a couple of hundred people, including celebrities and politicians, expressed their recollections of November 22nd 1963. Most just said how sad it was. The one celebrity who stood out, and said that she was never satisfied with the Warren Report and that Oswald acted alone, was Florence Henderson. It made me see "Mrs. Brady" in a different light.

I'm pretty sure these books are the same ones that came out in the nineties and have been around for years. This is merely a new marketing ploy to sell them off. The book was put together by an employee of the Johnson Library. That's a bit suspicious right there. I recently spent some time looking round the JFK Library site, by the way. They had an interview with Ford in which he yapped about the integrity of the Warren Commission. People say these things for so many years they believe them. Ford's pardoning of Nixon, even when seen in the best light, is still a bit bothersome. He sacrificed his presidency to protect THE presidency. The unchecked power of THE presidency is what led LBJ to think he could get away with a cover-up, and the build-up in Vietnam. It's led us to the current mess in Iraq. While I thought Ford did the right thing for many years I now think Nixon should have been dragged through the mud. So that the American people would be forced to grow up...and see that president's are not kings.

I found this letter from Rob Anderson interesting: A magazine called The Spotlight - what we'd now call an alternative newsweekly - published in 1964 an interview with an anonymous female "operative" who had one hell of a story to tell. Her claim was the she, two other men and E. Howard Hunt arrived in Dallas early on the morning of November 22, 1963. On the way Hunt had told them they were one of three "shooter teams" who were going to "take down someone very important." When the team arrived at their hotel in Dallas to prepare, Hunt dropped the bomb: It was going to be the President. The woman freaked but showed no outward sign, lest she be killed. Not long afterwards she used her covert skills to slip away and into hiding. Hunt sued the magazine for libel and defamation of character. And he LOST, on both counts. Why this - absolute, incontrovertible proof of the conspiracy, in a court of law no less, three years before Garrison - has never been widely reported is simply mind-blowing. And the cheap shot at Garrison was silly. Much of what Bobby Kennedy suspected Garrison later proved in court. So how was he a fraud? This guy is mixed-up. This is a reference to Marita Lorenz and the lawsuit described in Plausible Denial. This lawsuit didn't heat up till many years after the shooting. The line about Garrison is also not quite right. Most everyone concluded Garrison was a bit of a fraud. He kept spouting about solving the crime and yet his description of the culprits kept changing.

I don't think that a military sniper in this or a similar case would be told who the target is. He wouldn't even know what city he's in. He wouldn't know who the target is until he's in the crosshairs (assuming he could recognize him). Then what do you do, with all that you've been trained for and maybe a split second to decide to disobey the order that brung you? The people behind the killings needed plausible deniability. I don't see them using U.S. serviceman, or members of the mafia. No way. They'd outsource it to professional killers. If someone like SARTI got caught, what was he gonna say? Who would believe him? If Sgt. Hatchcock got caught, there'd be records of his travels, etc.

For those not in the know, Double-Chek Corporation was a CIA front run by Tracy Barnes. It continued on after the BOP, if only to continue making payments to the families of the Alabama Guardsmen killed in Cuba. This is intriguing because Barnes was no longer Assistant Director of Plans, but had been shipped out by Helms to run the Domestic Operations Division. His director of covert ops was....Howard Hunt. It's certainly possible that Barnes and Hunt, through Double-Chek, funded the Kennedy assassination. As mentioned in the Church hearings, there was little oversight on this kind of stuff. If anyone knows where one can find the financial records of Double-Chek, of course, I'd be more than a little interested.

Does anyone know if transcripts exist for Josiah Thompson's 1-11-67 interview with Dr. Boswell? Unbeknownst to them, CBS and former WCer John McCloy were arranging for Boswell to re-inspect the autopsy photos and x-rays on this very same day. 15 days later, Boswell signed an inspection report stating that the "mystery photo" showed a beveled exit near Kennedy's forehead. As discussed in Part 1 of my video series, prior to this report, both Humes and Finck had specifically denied there being such an exit. Now I look back through Six Seconds in Dallas and see that Boswell, on 1-11-67, also denied there was an exit on the intact skull. He told Thompson that they could only determine the large defect was an exit by beveling on the large fragment recovered by the SS. This suggests that all three doctors KNEW the supposed exit in the mystery photo was NOT near the forehead, and that therefore they'd deliberately misrepresented the mystery photo in their 1-26 Report, a report, BTW, written by the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT. Anyhow, my email address for Tink is no good. Does anyone know if he has tapes and transcripts available for this interview? I'm anxious to read what else Boswell said on 1-1-67, only to contradict himself two weeks later while under the thumb of the "Justice" Department.

Bill wrote: "Then there's what Mallon appropriately calls "The Limbo Hour," between the time of the assassination and the apprehension of Oswald, shortly after which Michael Paine is overheard talking on the telephone with either his father or his wife, and someone says that they know Oswald didn't do it and know who is REALLY responsible, but we are left in the dark as to who that responsible party is." Bill, I don't remember if it was in Mallon's book or elsewhere, but somewhere I've seen that comment explained. They didn't mean that Oswald didn't do it, but that Marina had driven him to it. De Mohrenschildt's book takes a similar approach. IF Lee did it...it's because his bitchy wife drove him to it. This is unfair to Marina, no doubt, but it's interesting that the men closest to the situation immediately blamed her. She was apparently a bit of a shrew.

So you've had two possible conspirators as clients? Care to print a complete list so we can check out the backgrounds of your other clients? P.S. You still have a ways to go before you catch Edward Bennett Williams.

Pat, I agree with Don. I think you and John D are being too kind to Katzenbach. It's hard to misinterpret point 1., the public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates at large; and that the evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial I can only see this as an urgent call for a coverup. How did he know there were no confederates of Oswald still at large? And he's basically calling for Oswald to be framed. Isn't that a bizarre thing for the Deputy AG to say? He's not calling for an open investigation with full public disclosure of the facts. I can't see how it could be interpreted that way. I also think he's writing like someone who knows at lot more than the public knows. The aftermath of the assassination would have been interesting times to witness and I envy those who did. Maybe some of those on the Forum who were around could gives their thoughts on this. Was the atmosphere so chaotic that Katzenbach's memo could be interpreted as a valiant attempt to restore calm? My view is that the people were more stunned than anything else but I could be wrong. Mark, I don't think it was a valiant effort. What many miss is that ONCE Oswald was captured, and the evidence against him started piling up, the great fear was that right-wing groups such as the JBS would seize upon the assassination as a battle cry for WWIII. The missile crisis was but a year earlier. Katzenbach's statements such as "speculation should be cut off etc." are short for "speculation (that Oswald was working for the Russians or Cubans)" should be cut off. The great unspoken, of course, was that "speculation (that Johnson or some right-wing group supporting Johnson killed Kennedy)" should be cut off as well. If you read Katzenbach's HSCA testimony you'll see that he had to explain this document, and he told them he wrote the memo in response to pressure from the State Department, who were trying to build up Johnson's stature overseas. The concern was that questions about Johnson's involvement would impede his ability to conduct foreign policy and weaken the U.S.' stature in the cold war. As a result, the whole of the government got in line and cleared Johnson, by refusing to question Hoover's case against Oswald. Now was this right? Absolutely not. I find it revolting. But if I'd been there at the time, and thought I'd known Kennedy, and thought I'd known Johnson, and had found it ridiculous to think Johnson was behind the assassination, maybe I would have played ball. What's important about this is that those, such as Warren, who claim that believing in conspiracy entails believing a widespread conspiracy and deliberate cover-up, are blowing smoke. If someone asks you to make a case supporting what you think is PROBABLY true, and you play along for the "greater good" etc., that's not the same as covering up. Did the American media "cover-up" that there were no WMDS in Iraq? No way. They were sold a bill of goods by the White House and "helped" the White House make its case, presumably for the "greater good." Now, realizing they were played, they are exacting their revenge. The same thing happened to LBJ. The media gave him the benefit of the doubt and helped sell the public that Oswald acted alone. Years later, they went after him big time, helping to end his presidency, and printing the Pentagon Papers to help destroy his legacy.