Pat Speer

In Jack's defense, this is a two-way street. If you go to some of the other forums, where Lone-nut theorists have the upper-hand, you will see this condescension all-day long. "Tsk, tsk, you poor poor conspiracy theorist, if only you'd go to the McAdams site or read Posner's book, you'd realize just how big a xxxx Ollie Stone and Jim Garrison are....you'd realize that there's not one SCINTILLA of evidence suggesting anyone but Lee Harvey Oswald pulled the trigger. Pity you're just not intelligent enough to understand the mountain of empirical evidence compiled by the various investigations. If you weren't mentally deficient you'd see the error of your ways." On alt.assassination.JFK Dr. Kenneth Rahn made one comment on my presentation--"read Larry Sturdivan's book; it'll answer all your questions"--failing to grasp that I had read Larry Sturdivan's book, and that it had only raised more questions, and that I had mentioned these questions in my presentation. While I would agree that many CTs are overly obsessed with questioning everything that's official, but frequently deficient in questioning the conspiracy myths created by their heroes and/or friends, it should not be doubted that the LNTs are deficient in questioning just about everything. You won't find more than a small minority that will seriously question the single-bullet theory, and yet you won't find one in a hundred who will tell you where the bullet entered Kennedy and how it made its way to his throat, for example. They just accept that it made its way through without striking bone, as an article of blind faith. Now how is that "scientific," or empirically-based? How is accepting the vague theory of one subset of doctors and experts being rational, but accepting the actual words of textbooks written by another subset of doctors and experts not being rational?

Yep. The body language says it all..."You've got to be kidding!" While there is no real reason to think Rybka's presence in the motorcade would have made any difference, to think that he was just pulling a little joke is really silly. It seems clear there was a mis-communication. I wouldn't be surprised if such things occur all the time.

If I remember Mr. Parry's articles accurately, the main force in flushing the October Surprise story was none other than Henry Hyde. Hyde was one of the Republican attack dogs trying to take a bite out of Clinton for his sexual misbehavior until porn-king Larry Flynt exposed him as a phenomenal hypocrite. At one point, when reading about Hyde, I discovered that there was a legendary figure in the OSS named Henry Hyde. I always wondered if they were related and if the OSS Hyde was close to Casey. Mr. Parry, are you aware of any connections between the two Hydes and Casey?

Of all the stories in the post-Watergate era to disappear due to lack of interest, the one I thought deserved a much better fate was the October Surprise. It was treated by the mainstream media as a wacky conspiracy theory, when it seemed to me there was real evidence supporting that Casey attended some secret meetings. If I remember correctly, when Clinton got elected, the Dems let the whole thing drop. I remember reading a number of articles by you on this issue. What's your current feeling on it? Do you still believe the Reagan campaign engaged in such treason? A friend of mine, a fairly mainstream guy, came up to me the other day and said that he'd been reading Kevin Phillips' book on the Bush family, and was surprised to see that even Phillips now believes Casey was guilty. Do you see more mainstream journalists heading this way? Is there anything more to the story? Any unidentified sources who can now be identified?

Without studying the story to the extent necessary to come to any conclusions, I nevertheless find that this possible "conspiracy" does not pass my smell test. Having been a news hound back when these atrociites were taking place, I read many an article and watched many a news report on the Balkan problem. Are you aware that the right-wing in this country fought Clinton on this issue, and tried to keep the U.S. out of the Balkans, insisting that Europe's problems were the problems of the European union? Does it make sense for the NATO-loving backers of Bush I to challenge presidential authority on this issue, if it was part of the New World Order Plan of their beloved leader? Meanwhile, day after day, another atrocity was on the news. Half the country thought Clinton was an anti-Muslim coward for doing nothing and the other half thought a war-protester like Clinton had no business sending our boys into harm's way. If some of the atrocities were manufactured, it was done to either fool Clinton into commiting U.S. forces, or to give Clinton something he could show to the American people to justify our involvement. If this is true. however, the perpetrators of this fraud didn't exactly have a sure thing. The U.S. was more than happy to stand by and let countries like Rwanda and Cambodia collapse into murderous chaos. Why should the Balkans have been any different? As with the German people after WWII, and the South after the Civil War, and too many Americans after Vietnam, it must be hard for the Serbs to accept that their cause was neither noble, or just, and that they deserved to LOSE. I suspect there are many Serbians going through this right now--looking for reasons for their loss--trying to figure out how they were CHEATED out of victory. Don't let yourself get taken in by them. I have a friend who lived in Israel for a few years; after 1 year she was shocked to find that so many Arabs believed that Jews were innately evil; after 2 years she was convinced that all Arabs hated Jews more than they valued their own lives; after 3 years she was calling for a pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran, as she was 100% convinced Iran would use nuclear weapons on Israel as soon as they were functional, even if it would guarantee their own destruction. Fear of one's neighbor has a strange effect on some people.

Mr. Lifton, welcome to the Forum. We've exchanged a few e-mails in the past, and I found your responses to be direct and honest. There is much talk about your book on Oswald. Do you have a date for its release? As for Best Evidence, do you currently believe the body was altered en route to Washington? If so, which wounds, specifically, were altered? If I'm not mistaken, you've also come to the conclusion the Zapruder film was altered. To what degree was it altered, in your opinion? If I'm mistaken on this point, please correct me. And finally, your work has been considered quite controversial. How has this cost you? Upon watching some of the HSCA hearings on videotape, I was surprised to see you working as a commentator. I can't imagine that happening today. Not because you didn't perform nicely--you did--but because I doubt PBS or any other news organization would allow itself to be affiliated in any way with your theories. These days, Gerald Posner and Dale Myers are regularly cited as experts on Oswald and the Single- Bullet Theory. Am I imagining a "closing of the media mind" when it comes to the assassination? Do you anticipate extensive and fair-minded coverage of your book on Oswald when it's finally released? Or should we CTs consider fair-minded coverage a pipedream?

Because their unnecessary presence in the car compromised the President's safety. The QM should have been staffed by security personnel only. That's hardly a radical opinion. Nothing against the men personally, but if you've ever read Seymour Hersh's "Camelot" or "Power and Grace," you'd know that Dave Powers was a first-class scumbag whose sole job was to get JFK laid. Not alive to remember JFK; too young to vote for Reagan. Why the query? Was the Kennedy Admin some paragon of virtue or something? Do you really believe our innocence was "lost," or that Vietnam never would have happened? Oswald did it and there's been great progess in cementing that original conclusion. Wrong. You've got nothing. "Wishing" for something doesn't make it so. Panel after panel of independent experts have verified the authenticity of the photos and x-rays. On your side is Robert "OJ" Groden and Jack "Photogrammetry" White. LOL. So what? What the hell is sinister about mopping up blood and brain matter? For all they knew that car would have to be used to ferry people back to Love Field. You're right: nobody had the presence of mind to treat the car as a crime scene, but light mopping doesn't erase the Zap film, eyewitnesses, ballistics, forensics, and autopsy pix--all of which point to one person and one location. Well gee, your kind has been digging deeper for far longer. Result? Zilch. Posner was right: case closed. Ouch. Whenever I start to admire your spunk, you have to say something really really dumb. Posner was a jerk who could have written a great book exposing the many flaws of the CT community, but instead cut corners and told outright lies to try and prove Oswald's sole guilt. He's also a coward, as he refuses to engage in meaningful debate about his claims. Your rejection of my work without reading it is also insulting. Here I spend two years of my life working on something so that people like you can have informed opinions, and you choose to insult me because I disagree with Posner and Hersh and others who have made great bank insisting that John F. Kennedy was killed for no reason, and should not be mourned even if he was killed for a reason. Your putdown of Powers because he helped his buddy get laid is also interesting...WHAT ARE BUDDIES FOR, IF NOT TO HELP YOU GET LAID? I suspect you're showing your true colors here, Brendan. If so, not only are you a witch-burner, you're a Puritan. And, by the way, Mr. Slattery, my presentation is built on the thesis that the autopsy evidence is UNALTERED, and LEGITIMATE, and that it still proves more than one-shooter was involved. Your speculation that I'm an alterationist is incredibly off-target.

Mr. Slattery, I welcome your input, as long as it's input. You could very well be right about Rybka. But why make such hostile comments about Powers and O'Donnell? Is this reflective of your over-all hostility to the mythical "Camelot" still mourned by so many? It really makes me wonder when people denigrate the Kennedy Administration and those who venerate its legacy, and then hold up the rockin' eighties of the Reagan Administration as the good old days. You're not one of those, are you? You say the case was solved 42 years ago. Do you mean this in general terms, as in Oswald did it, or do you literally mean that there has been no progress in our understanding of this event since the time of the Warren Commission? If so, I've created a presentation on the medical evidence, with the link below, which PROVES you wrong. The Warren Commission, and Warren in particular, were willfully ignorant about the medical evidence. They also ignored a number of extre mely important issues, including the clean-up of the limousine by the Secret Service at Parkland. Do you honestly believe this was all just a coincidence? Doesn't it seem more likely that Warren, a former prosecutor, knew he could convict Oswald in the public eye as long as he didn't dig too deep, and that this prevented him from digging too deep?

Brendan, how did you come to know so much about the SS aspect of the assassination? I've heard that Palamara's book has upset many former agents. Have you read it? Do they have reason to be upset?

As someone whose website has been repeatedly attacked by various groups, and was even brought down for several days a year or so ago, I suspect Andy knows all about conspiracies and is just having a little fun.

John, you're absolutely right. In wound ballistics, the word "missile" is used quite frequently in place of "fragment" or "projectile." As far as Belmont saying the bullet was behind the ear, I did a lot of thinking on this issue a few years back and came to the decision it was just typical FBI sloppiness. The large fragment seen on the x-rays and recovered at the autopsy was behind Kennedy's EYE, not EAR. In the heat of the investigation, many mistakes were made. Read any FBI memo of the first few weeks and one will find a number of mistakes. A WEEK after the assassination Hoover told LBJ that if Connally hadn't turned he wouldn't have been hit, implying the second shot came from the front and was intended for Kennedy. There were simply too many facts for the Feebies to absorb all at once. Consequently, they got a lot wrong. As far as the KGB, the KGB Assassination Files DVD demonstrates that the KGB thought Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy. They simply didn't think Oswald was capable of pulling it off on his own.

That's not totally untrue. Of course, it compares to Republican claims that ROSS PEROT, and NOT Bill Clinton, actually defeated George H. W. Bush in 1992. Now, before Mr. Slattery roars back claiming that I must be a Clinton supporter--which, by the way I'm not--had the voters actually been LISTENING to what the candidates said in 1992, Mr. Perot would've occupied the White House, and NOT Mr. Clinton. Despite the success of Operation Desert Storm, Mr. Bush had a serious credibility problem, beginning with "Read my lips--NO NEW TAXES." In other words, Ross Perot did to Mr. Bush in 1992 what Nixon feared that George Wallace would do to him in 1972...which, of course, explains the shooting of Wallace. I just don't understand how the Republicans let that happen, and THEN decided in 1996 that Perot was a 'fruitcake,' four years after the damage had been done. Of course, in light of what happened to Wallace, I'm surprised Perot remained healthy until the 1992 election. But the fact that he did, and the resulting defeat of Bush in 1992, only serve to further convince me that the Wallace shooting was a bit CREEP-y. Actually, Mark, Bush I's approval ratings had dropped to record lows before the election and not just because of Perot and Bush's breaking his pledge about taxes. A number of articles and books had come out revealing how he admittedly had no VISION (the "vision-thing") for the nation, and felt his job was simply to plug leaks. Equally as damaging, perhaps, was the revelation that Bush I's one claim to fame, his "victory" in the Gulf War, was tainted by the fact that he PERSONALLY pushed for billions of dollars in aid to Saddam Hussein, despite warnings from underlings that the money was going to be used for a military build-up. In short, Mark, I think the majority of Perot voters were voting AGAINST Bush, and would have voted for Clinton or almost anyone else.

Somewhere in time I read a detailed analysis of the 1960 election, which raised the possibility that Nixon didn't bitch too much about Illinois and Texas because 1) it would make him look unmanly and hurt his chances for future office, and 2) a detailed investigation into election fraud in ALL states, not just Illinois and Texas, would have revealed that his man Chotiner had been as successful at stealing votes in California, where Nixon emerged victorious by .5 percent, as the Kennedy ticket had been elsewhere. Such a revelation in Nixon's home state would have damaged his chances for future office. As it was, he ran for California Governor and LOST big time, setting the stage for the rise of Ronald Reagan.

Mr. Cormier is a new member and apparently unfamiliar with certain facts that the rest of us have known for some time. If Mr. Cormier would care to search the forum, he will find that his ridiculous theory that the mob helped JFK win in Illinois has been thoroughly debunked. I have posted about Mr. Slattery on another thread. The nicest thing I can say about him is that his contributions so far reveal him to be an idiot. He is like a poor man's version of Tim Gratz, who was kicked off this forum for wasting everybody's time. It is obvious that, Like Tim Gratz, Mr. Slattery has not the slightest interest in seeking the truth about the JFK assassination. Time to loosen the tinfoil hat, Ray. Sorry to spoil your pro-conspiracy echo chamber, but I'm here to stay. The Education Indoctrination Forum is a cesspool of left-wing, agit-prop nonsense that badly requires some disinfectant. When I see multiple threads on the preceived sins of Joseph McCarthy, but nary a thread on Soviet communism--the most murderous system ever devised by man--I can safely say that I'm in nutsville. Nothing on the Khmer Rouge, but plenty on HUAC. Nothing on Islamofascism (you do realize we're at war?), but plenty on Watergate. Nothing on Chinese or Arab suppression of human rights and civil liberties, but plenty on Gitmo, MLK, and the NSA. In short, you're little more than America-hating vermin. Scratch a buff, find a lefty. Same as it ever was. Brandon, these words are not remotely helpful to anyone. If you read through the Forum carefully you will see that John Simkin, among others, has written extensively on the atrocities of the Soviet Union and the ongoing atrocities of former Soviet states, many of them now valued Western allies. While I agree with you that there are many outrageous opinions and pseudo-facts tossed about on this forum, your assumption that this means the people on this forum hate America is incorrect. The desire to discover hidden truths about the history of the United States does not require hatred, merely curiousity. The desire to go to a forum where others discuss things you find repulsive, and attempt to disrupt these discussions with insults, now that's HATRED. Rather than insult people here with your temper tantrums, why don't YOU create a thread on Islamo-fascism, and fill it chock full of facts, so that people can learn from your presumably vast knowledge on this subject? You might be surprised to find that most everyone here considers it a real problem that must be dealt with in an intelligent manner. Perhaps you can persuade a few of us just what methods will best accomplish this task. As to why people write about things like Watergate, and Gitmo, and NSA, but not Chinese human rights violations? Well, maybe it's because we know a lot more about these things, and care a lot more about these things, because they have had and continue to have a direct influence on our lives. The atrocities of China and other nations are taken for granted...you will find few here who will debate these things. Your contention that our desire to carefully examine the mysteries and tragedies of American history amounts to overlooking the flaws of other countries is juvenile. The America I know and love welcomes self-examination and is in a constant state of trying to become the country it was meant to be. If you live in a different America, one which is satisfied with being nicer than China, one that makes excuses for its crimes and atrocities by crying "But Bluto, we're still better than the commies," then may I suggest you go back to your fall-out shelter and put on your army fatigues, because, brother, we're at war.

Didn't Gerry Hemming claim to know Conein? What about it, Gerry? Any chance Coneine was involved?

I would disagree with the word "control," and replace it with "exerts an inordinate amount of influence on." Similarly, big business "exerts an inordinate amount of influence on" the CIA and U.S. government. Similarly, men with mountains of liquid cash--quite often criminals of one kind or another--"exert an inordinate amount of influence on" big business. It's an unjust world, for sure. Those who have the marbles call the shots. The few rays of light that make it into the closet of American consciousness come most frequently from the alternative press and the internet. It's getting harder and harder for the powers that be to shut down a story completely. So they seek to "exert inordinate influence on" the major media, and the major TV networks, to prevent anything controversial from becoming "mainstream." This, in turn, forces those seeking more information to go to alternative sources. In the case of the current administration, their efforts are in the process of exploding in their face, as the "mainstream" media, disturbed by their own reduced ratings and emboldened by Bush's reduced ratings, are beginning to report news they would have deliberately overlooked two years ago. The Daily Show, on Comedy Central, owned by Viacom, who also owns CBS, has created a cartoon segment on President Bush called "The Decider," in which they portray Bush nuking Iran in order to show everyone how decisive he is. It would be called vicious satire if it weren't a possibility. Anyhow, I point this out to demonstrate that while the media plays ball with the government they are really whores who will stab the government in the back should the story appear juicy enough and the pay-offs...Pulitzer prizes, movie deals... be high enough. The number of anti-Bush books published by mainstream publishers in the last few years probably outnumbers the number of anti-LBJ and anti-Nixon books combined.

QUOTE(William Turner @ Jun 2 2006, 06:25 AM) * "Writing on controversial topics surely has harmed my career. It limits the potential print-media market. My FBI file, obtained in 1978 under FOIA, consists of 17 volumes of 200 pages each. It reveals that the Bureau waged a relentless back-door campaign to dissuade publishers from books and articles, cut me off from electronic media interviews, blacklist me in the industry, and plant rebuttal articles with media collaborators." And that is to your eternal credit, William. As you know, you were one of the first, if not THE first, ex-agent to take on St. John of Hoover, and throw darts at his over-inflated and dangerously delusional self-image. I'm sure you caused more concern among the Hoovers, De Loaches and Felts than a whole army of outside agitators. Outside agitators could easily be marginalized, called un-American. All they could do with you was call you disgruntled. Thus, the need to silence you and find the dirt necessary to force you into submission. You took them on and came out victorious. Congratulations, and thank you!

Robert, if I remember correctly--I'm not in the company of my books just now--the photos taken by the burglars were given to the CIA to develop, and would never have made their way to Nixon under any circumstances, as Nixon did not even know there'd been a break-in. He'd told Colson to get some dirt...Colson told Magruder and Hunt, etc.--yet there's no evidence Nixon knew of the break-in. Which, I believe, is one of the reasons he held onto the tapes. He thought that as long as he hadn't ordered the actual break-in, he would be in the clear. Anyhow, the photos got left at the CIA when Hunt went into hiding... If I'm not mistaken, the CIA turned them over to the Justice Department. I assume they are still in the Archives somehwere. Anyhow, there's no evidence the CIA had any interest in the photos, outside of trying to figure out what Hunt was up to, which was a legitimate concern. As far as Bradlee and the Meyer case, when I first read about it a few years ago, I immediately dug out Bradlee's memoirs and confirmed the story. I told a few friends. All of them EXTREMELY well-informed on politics and current affairs. None of them had ever heard of the story, and ONLY belived it because it was in Bradlee's memoirs. I assure you that NO ONE in America takes the National Enquirer seriously and that most Americans and historians placed Truitt's story in the same category as the moon being made of cheese. If I remember correctly, when the Truitt story broke, Bradlee was asked about it by some journalists at his paper, and that he decided to give them an interview--a scoop on the story--at that point, long before 1995. And that he largely confirmed Truitt's story. As I remember Bradlee said the diary made mention of a man, but did not name names. I don't believe he ever said there was nothing in the diary but sketches. As you said, if that's all there was, then what was the point of all the intrigue? As far as Bradlee's motivation in keeping the story secret for so many years, let's get real: it was a story about a possible relationship between his murdered sister-in-law and a man he considered a good friend, the murdered president of the United States. I don't think one in a thousand journalists would break such a story and bring more pain to the people they know and love. What Op Mock devotees miss when it comes to Bradlee is that the Washington Post under his and Katherine Graham's tutelage was for many years one of only two or three papers in the entire nation that would regularly take on the U.S. Government and win. The other papers were the New York Times, and for awhile, The Los Angeles Times. The Washington Post and its ability to expose Governmental corruption and deception so intimidated the Reagan Regime (a regime which saw the CIA back to its old tricks, by the way) that Reagan boosters sought to de-stablilize The Post by propping up a conservative paper. This paper lost money, year-in and year-out, until eventually gaining favor with the neo-cons. This paper is The Washington Times, and is owned by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, and is used by Moon and his neocon flunkeys to push a hard right, neocon agenda. It is the Fox News of journalism. So, to an American who remembers the seventies and eighties, an era of "what is The Post exposing now?" implying or stating that Ben Bradlee is a CIA schill makes about as much sense as saying that Michael Moore is a CIA schill. William Turner talked about his enormous FBI file. I'd venture to say that Bradlee's file is almost as large.

Robert, while it may seem logical to conclude that the CIA was behind the Watergate break-in, and that they deliberately muffed it up to bring Nixon down, there were clearly much easier ways for them to have accomplished this task. Drop dime to Jack Anderson about the activities of the Plumbers, for starters... No, I'm afraid the screw-ups during the break-in were just that--screw-ups. What is it about McCord, Hunt, Liddy that leads you to believe they weren't capable of screwing things up? Where one should rightly be suspicious of CIA involvement is instead in the post-break-in period, where McCord admittedly told Sirica of the cover-up in part because he'd become aware that Nixon was seeking to blame the break-in on the CIA. Was McCord counseled by the agency before making his decision? While he said "no." Alfred Baldwin alluded in his appearances here that McCord still had some secrets. Perhaps this was one of them. As far as Bradlee, in his memoirs he writes about the death of his sister-in-law, Mary Meyer. He says that he and his wife, Toni, were informed by one of her friends that Mary had a diary, and that they should find this before the authorities found it. He says they then went to her studio. And CAUGHT JAMES ANGLETON there trying to break-in. Angleton explained that his wife, one of Mary's good friends, had received a similar call, and that she'd asked him to go get the diary. Bradlee says that when they found the diary they gave it to Angleton to destroy. As such a story could only lead to suspicion of CIA involvement in Meyer's death, I don't see Bradlee including it in his memoirs if it weren't true, and if he weren't trying to set the record straight. While some might say "Oh, but the story had already leaked out in the tabloid press long before Bradlee wrote his memoirs." Well, that's exactly the point. The story had been written about in a number of places, but it had never been confirmed in a well-publicized and credible book, until Bradlee wrote about it. His account, which can only lead to suspicion about Angleton, will be the one studied by historians in the decades to come.

And that is to your eternal credit, William. As you know, you were one of the first, if not THE first, ex-agent to take on St. John of Hoover, and throw darts at his over-inflated and dangerously delusional self-image. I'm sure you caused more concern among the Hoovers, De Loaches and Felts than a whole army of outside agitators. They could easily be marginalized, called un-American. All they could do with you was call you disgruntled. Thus, the need to silence you and find the dirt necessary to force you into submission. You took them on and came out victorious. Congratulations, and thank you!

If I remember correctly those photos were first published in Gus Russo's book. It seems like someone came along afterwards and raised grave doubts that the box contained JFK's brain, but I don't remember who did this or where I read about.

John, while I do believe there was, and remains, a sort-of good ole boy network connecting the intelligence community with many prominent journalists, I think your assumption that the CIA calls the shots in this relationship is sort-sighted. They use each other. If Bradlee was working for the CIA, would he have exposed Howard Hunt's role in the Watergate break-in? If Bradlee had been as pro-CIA as you seem to believe, would he have written about Angleton's suspicious behavior after the death of Mary Meyer? Jeff Morley's piece is revealing in many ways. One is that by intermingling with the journalistic community, sophisticated men like Helms were able to convince the educated and primarily white journalistic world that the CIA was not a bunch of monsters, but the good guys, who could be trusted. Meanwhile, there have been pushy Jewish-types like Mark Lane and loose cannon media sponges like Jim Garrison and Oliver Stone representing the conspiracy community. The mainstream media naturally trust the people they assume to be more like themselves over these characters, and still do. This choosing of sides is due in part to self-interest. If you choose to pal around with Mark Lane over Richard Helms, how much access will that buy you in the years to come? This CYA attitude of the mainstream media, this protect-your-left-one attitude, prevents many an important story from ever seeing the light of day, and not just stories related to the CIA or the Kennedy assassination. It also affords many journalists the access necessary to break other stories. We have no idea how many important stories have come forth as a result of these trade-offs. (Maybe we should call Bob Woodward or Sy Hersh and ask.) As I said, the intelligence community and the journalistic community use each other. As the prominent journalists, by and large, make more money and have longer careers than the CIA officers they use as sources, perhaps what you believe to be the tail is just as often the dog. The Bush Administration's interest in Jack Anderson's papers is reflective that this is the case. I find your conjecture that the CIA wanted the Pentagon Papers released as a way of getting at Nixon particularly off-target. The Pentagon Papers revealed the dishonesty of pre-Nixon administrations and dumped the bulk of the blame on the Johnson Administration. While Nixon was angered by their release, it was because it put the pressure on him to end the war, something he'd promised to do but was taking his sweet time about arranging. Nixon, never one to pass up the chance to make lemonade, nevertheless took advantage of the opportunity to blame it all on Johnson, and arranged for the official release of many documents relating to the war. It was in this period that he and Colson cooked up the idea of inserting documents into the record connecting Diem's death directly to Kennedy. They tasked Hunt with providing these fake documents. It was only because Hunt's fake docs didn't pass the smell test of an executive at Life--I don't remember which executive it was--that these documents failed to enter the public record. Was this executive under orders from the CIA to do this? I suspect that if you told Neil Sheehan and Daniel Ellsberg that their release of the Pentagon Papers was part of a CIA plot to get Nixon, they would punch you in the nose. These men were AGAINST the war, and took great risks to expose the truth about the war. Such men do exist and are currently fighting President Bush from the journalistic trenches. Assuming that all the damaging news that's fit to print is approved by or even orchestrated by the CIA is an insult to these men and their legacy.

Well its about time someone stuck up for the Warren Commission on this forum. Your government should be proud of you. I don't remember where I read it (maybe the Warren Report itself) but I once read a thoughtful explanation of the Nixon "incident." The thoughtful conclusion was that Marina wasn't making the story up, but was confused about which Vice-President Oswald was talking about shooting. It was LBJ, who visited Texas earlier in 63 (or was it late 62?) and it was LBj that Oswald talked about killing. This brings up the interesting question: if the story is true and Oswald wanted to kill Johnson, why would he turn around and kill Kennedy, whom he liked, knowing that it would make Johnson president?

When I was there a year and a half ago, I remember looking through Pictures of the Pain, JFK First Day Evidence (or whatever it's called), and With Malice, Dale Myers' book on the Tippit slaying. I also believe the Warren Report was there. I don't remember seeing any conspiracy books. Hopefully that will be rectified with Larry Hancock's new edition.

Man, all this talk about Gary... Gary is a very knowledgeable guy who just so happens to be a curator for a mainstream museum. He gets PAID for the information he's absorbed, unlike the vast majority of us. This makes him a source of envy; in a way, he's like the teacher's pet. But that doesn't mean he's part of any conspiracy. Nor does it mean he knows everything or is always right. I've received several e-mails over the last few years from Gary, some correcting me on something I wrote, some seeking out more information regarding something I wrote. The man is still trying to learn about the case. He recently expressed interest in Ian Griggs' and Larry Hancock's books. If, for some reason, he is solicited on these books but refuses to stock them, then maybe there's a case to be made against the museum. I, for one, was surprised by his response last month when he said he'd carry Summers' and Groden's books if they were in print. By Groden's standing out there on the knoll selling his OOP books himself, and telling everyone that the Sixth Floor Museum is trying to have him kicked off the site, one would think there was bad blood between the two. Evidently, Gary is not as petty as many seem to believe.