Pat Speer

Tim, you're so wrong on so many levels. PLEASE go back and read some of the books I've begged you to read before you EVER post on Vietnam again. The Pentagon Papers includes documents revealing that the Pentagon knew that the more we killed the more joined up, the more we bombed the greater the resistance became. McNamara thought there was a point at which this would reverse itself, and kept upping the ante. He misunderstood the NV resolve to win. Around the point where we had a HALF A MILLION in country, he realized it was a black hole. Johnson, however, felt he was stuck politically (You can't admit a mistake in this country and expect to be re-elected...not with Nixon and Goldwater and BOBBY taking every cheap shot against you...). Since you're into movies, watch the The Path to War--THE definitive picture of the Johnson White House and Vietnam, as far as I'm concerned. Your theory that Goldwater could have won the war by nuking the NV, and that China and Russia would have stood quietly by is INSANE. Just because Ho Chi Minh was no fan of Brezhnev and Mao's doesn't mean he didn't have agreements with them. If they didn't move to his defense they may very well have moved on Korea or Berlin while over a HALF MILLION of our soldiers were tied down in Nam. As stated, we had a HALF MIL in country, and could barely hold on to the South. It may have taken another MILLION before we could have taken the North without the use of nukes, and then they would have had to stay there to keep the peace, basically making us the moral equivalent of the Nazis in Africa, and just as vulnerable. The use of nukes, even without a Russian or Chinese response would almost certainly have been disastrous for our foreign policy, particularly in Asia, where our decision to nuke would have been viewed as racist. No way would Nixon have been able to go to China if we'd nuked Nam. It may very well have driven Indonesia towards communism. And your comparing a land war in Vietnam to missile defense strategy under Reagan is like comparing apples and oranges. If Reagan had applied his commitment to win policy to a land war in Russia, he would have followed Napoleon and Hitler into infamy as fool number three. Having a commitment to win and a lot of expensive toys isn't enough to win, as is being proved in Iraq--it takes the good will of the people.

Bernice, while I don't claim to be an expert on the history of the Zapruder film, I do know that the window of opportunity for any kind of alteration was very brief. There is the original film, which was purchased by Life, which had a few frames removed, most likely by accident. And then there is the Secret Service version, which is a copy made from the original before the frames were lost. The film is identical, except for the extra frames. Since the frames of the shot sequence of the Zapruder film were included in the Warren Report's 26 volumes, this means they had less than a year to fake the film. And then there's the fact that the frames printed in Life Magazine within a week of the assassination are all in the current film and all appear consistent with the current film. So, if it was faked, when was it faked, how was it faked, who faked it, and why was if faked? I don't know if this can be answered satisfactorily. As to your other questions, I'll try to better explain myself. The vast majority of so-called "medical evidence" you will find on the assassination is not medical evidence at all, but eyewitness evidence. Arguing about who saw what and when and going back and interviewing people forty years after the fact is interesting, but not all that productive, IMO. I decided to read articles on forensic pathology, and to find out what x-rays of gun shot wounds actually looked like, etc. And I found a lot of things that should have been found years ago, but were not, due in large part IMO, to so many people spending their energy looking into alteration. One example of this is Gary Aguilar's focus on eyewitness testimony but complete disregard for the absolute deception employed by Baden et al regarding the so-called "mystery photo". Another example of this is David Mantik's concession to the lone-nut crowd that the physical evidence if it has not been altered is a slam-dunk case against Oswald. (I hope that he doesn't really believe this.) And then there's Harrison Livingstone's contention of the missing face in the x-rays, which he would have known is complete bunk if he'd spent one day looking through radiology texts. Ultimately, I believe all these men were seduced by the concept of "alteration", and their desire to catch the government pulling a fast one... When you read my presentation, I think you'll see what I mean. Thanks for being open-minded enough to take a look. Pat

Dr. Fetzer, if you read this post, you will see that I did not accuse anyone of being a disinfo agent. I believe you and the many who share your views are completely sincere. If you want to argue semantics, I will agree with you that my use of the term "red herring" implied deliberation (which is why I added the line that followed). Your response was nevertheless enlightening. If I understand you correctly, you accused me of judging your books without ever having read them. The thing is, I HAVE read them. While I am skeptical of alteration, I have not decided one way or the other. I wonder, however, whether anyone in the alterationist camp will read my work. What bothers me is that because so many believe the evidence was altered, very few have spent any real time researching what the evidence shows. I just spent two years of my life doing this, basically full time. It may well turn out to be a foolish waste of time, energy, and money. But my research showed that, with or without alteration, there is compelling evidence for more than one shooter. Since the government and mainstream media etc. all agree that there was NO alteration, I fail to understand why the research community has looked the other way. Why not use the evidence they accept and use that to destroy their case? Why continue stomping our feet on a point that may never be conceded, when we can use SCIENCE to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy? If you wish to stick by what Costella, White, Mantik, or Healy say, rather than continuing your education, then you have more in common with Specter and Belin than I could possibly have imagined. Any researcher who develops a "company line" and then sticks to it is unworthy of being called a "researcher". I fully expect I've made some mistakes and am anxious to learn from them. I'm not willing to argue with you or anyone else about Z-film alteration. Since I believe the accepted evidence points to a conspiracy, it is just not as important to me as it is to you. Do you, on the other hand, believe the evidence points to a lone-Oswald in the sniper's nest? Do you think it's even worth looking at what the evidence (when taken at face value) reveals? Is my work of two years meaningless in light of your fervent belief the evidence was altered?

John, I'm actually on Stewart's side on this one. While it's tempting to conclude that the journalists who helped out the CIA on occasion were under its control, I don't believe this to be the truth. To people as powerful as the Luces, the Grahams, the Alsops, Arthur Krock, Ben Bradlee, Bob Woodward, etc., their contact with the CIA was similar to Drew Pearson's contact with Johnson. To their minds, THEY were the ones gaining access and control over the CIA through the contact. Ultimately, there is just as much reason to believe Bradlee "controlled" Wisner as Wisner "controlled" Bradlee. I say this because Washington is a bureaucracy. Outside of Angleton, very few men in the CIA stuck around long enough to have the political power of the long-time columnists, and the long-time Senators, and Angleton was a hermit, a shadow. The only man who had the politcal clout to control the top journalists was Hoover, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if many of them had discovered ways of controlling him as well (such as writing stories about his homosexuality, and then never publishing them). I think your writings on such matters would be easier for men like Stew 2 to take if you changed the word "control" into "develop a relationship with" or something equally nebulous. It is also probably closer to the truth.

This is both the best of Gerry and the worst of Gerry within one post. He tells us something credible: that while he's aware of several Cubans who've claimed the CIA dood it, he isn't aware of one who's admitted his own involvement, even though there might be some money to be made. This is within the realm of Gerry's experience and is certainly believable. Unfortunately, before that, he told us that Gene Wheaton was paid off by Daniel Sheehan, and that Martha Honey and Tony Avirgan were on his payroll as well, and that all of this was somehow "Soviet-inspired". This info should set off everyone's BS detector. If we're to believe, as Tim, that it's ridiculous for Jenkins to admit his involvement to Wheaton, why should we believe that Sheehan or Wheaton would admit that Wheaton was paid for the story, or that the Avirgans--career journalists who come to PUBLICLY DISAVOW Sheehan and his secret team theory--would admit how much he paid them as well... Unless Gerry has something to back up how he came up with these numbers, I'll be forced to conclude he just made it up... His motivation to make things up is certainly clearer than Wheaton's. As stated previously, I spent a few hours with Martha Honey when she was trying to raise awareness of her case. Her main topic of discussion, as I remember it, was John Hull and his mysterious landing strip in Costa Rica. (Do you know anything about this, Gerry?) She told me something else which maybe someone can confirm (or maybe it's already been researched). She said that ABC News blamed the Sandinistas for the La Penca bombing within a few minutes after the attack, even though the assassin posing as a journalist (no, it wasn't Jack Ruby) was using a European passport, and appeared to be European. She told me that this is what made her suspicious there was something more to the bombing. She couldn't figure out how ABC would know who dood it, seeing as there was no one from ABC even at the press conference. She concluded that they were force-fed this info by the CIA (she may very well have been right). Of course, we're now supposed to believe that it was the Sandinistas after all. And this could very well be. be. But the point is that Martha Honey had legitimate reasons to doubt the official story, and legitimate reasons to get involved with a lawsuit against the government for almost killing her husband and then lying about it. I don't believe for a second she was interested in money or in providing disinformation about her native land. So where do you get this stuff, Gerry? She had only the nicest things to say about you...

No, I haven't read much on flim alteration, outside of a few articles online, Jack White's article on the Z-film hoax in Murder in Dealey Plaza, and most of Fetzer's book. I decided I didn't want to get sucked into that discussion. What's important to me is that I get as many people as possible to agree that the z-film, x-rays, and autopsy photos are firm evidence for multiple shooters, irregardless if they have been altered. What bugs me the most about the arguments for alteration is that they send a clear signal to a newbie or a newsman, for that matter, that the research community agrees with the mainstream media and the lone-nut community that the evidence taken at face value suggests only one shooter. In my presentation I attempted to demonstrate that this simply isn't true! I still have hopes that Fetzer, Healey, Mantik, White, Groden, Livingstone and others will come to agree. Len, the Fox photos are the black and white autopsy photos available on the internet. They were given to a researcher named Mark Crouch by a former photographer for the Secret Service, James Fox. Fox made copies a few days after the assassination and made a set for himself. The color photos on the internet came from Robert Groden, who'd been an unpaid photo analyst for the HSCA, and who'd made a few copies while no one was looking... Since Blakey has to my knowledge never denounced Groden for his sneakiness, I suspect that on some level Blakey approved, and wanted the photos to be seen by the public, which is yet another reason I defened Blakey when people imply he was part of some plot.

Dawn, it's also important to note that, like Garrison, Sheehan himself became the story, and that this lessened the merits of his claims in the eyes of a cynical public. As a lawyer, you should understand the significance of the fact that Tony Avirgan and Martha Honey, who were only Sheehan's clients in the biggest case of his life, tried to have him DISBARRED after his actions and sloppy lawyering led to their case being thrown-out. Secret team or no, his handling of the case was questionable. And not just to Tim Gratz.

John, since you seem to want to work this out on your own, I'll give you suggestions without being too specific. Hint: one of the the things I exposed in my presentation was that the mysterious "slice" on the back of the head was not on the back of the head at all. It was right where Dr. Humes said it was...

While I've always tried to stay open-minded on this subject, the more time I spend around actual photographers and film-makers, the more I'm convinced the technology, albeit in an infant stage, existed in 1964 to so cleverly fake a film, but that the technical skills did not. As Len suggests, there were no pre-1964 films with inserts and mattes as seamless as the Z-film. As a Valley kid growing up in the sixties, I would make a yearly trek down to Universal Studios, our local amusement park. While most kids were fascinated by The Munsters set or the Western stunt show, my favorite part as I remember was a demonstration on how Hitchcock filmed The Birds. This was state-of-the-art stuff; nevertheless, to today's critical eye, much of the action looks fake. As most of you know by now, I spent two years analyzing the autopsy photos, x-rays, and z-film (for content, not so much for authenticity). I found that they are consistent and demonstrate the same wounds. I found that, furthermore, the timing of these wounds on the Z-film suggests (no, more than suggests--darn near PROVES) there was more than one shooter firing from behind. From this, I have come to the uncomfortable (and largely unpopular) opinion that all this study of photo alteration, x-ray alteration, and z-film alteration has been a HUGE RED HERRING. (No, I'm not accusing anyone of being a disinfo agent...) It's just that the Fox photos have been available to the research community for almost 20 years now, and most everyone has spent so much time trying to prove they are wrong (because they don't show what people want them to show) that little time has been spent on figuring out what they actually reveal. I'd like to think I've reversed that trend.

Tim, you know I believe that almost everyone who's written about the medical evidence has made serious mistakes. Well, my instinct tells me I'll feel the same way about Mellen's book, once I get around to reading it. Most of the mistakes made in this case have come from people trying to make the facts fit their scenario. People come up with a scenario, which fits a few facts, and then they distort the rest of the facts to FIT their scenario. Even worse, memory researchers have established that once the scenario has been developed, the memory of the scenario supercedes the memories of the specific facts, and the truth is lost. In other words, it has been established that the human mind is not a tape recorder and that it is normal everyday behavior for us to LIE to ourselves. Boswell convinced himself a wound he KNEW was on the back was somehow on the neck, etc. It seems likely to me that Professor Mellen couldn't figure out why Bobby was antagonistic towards her hero Garrison, and came to believe that Bobby was hiding something. That Bobby was personally trying to kill Castro, a la the Pearson lies told to appease LBJ, is such a something. To me, it's far more likely that Bobby, who never read the Warren Report, relied upon his friends to check out Garrison, and that these men came to believe Garrison was a fraud. People who make broad statements--"I've solved the case"--without having all their facts in order are frequently denounced as frauds by men who've spent their lives working as lawyers. I think Bobby shut out Garrison because he believed Garrison was an attention-seeker... a man trying to win friends and influence the electorate by dancing a jig on JFK's grave. I'm not aware of Bobby trying to shut down Lane or Weisberg or any of the other men looking into the case. I'm not aware of Teddy attempting to influence the Church Committee in any way. I don't think there's a thing to the "bloodthirsty Bobby" crap. When Bobby said things like "we need to get Castro", the CIA DELIBERATELY interpreted it as "GO KILL CASTRO NO MATTER WHAT IT TAKES EVEN IF IT MEANS USING PEOPLE THAT WILL TURN AROUND AND BLACKMAIL US" , because that is what they wanted to hear. At least, this is what fits MY scenario...

The Jenkins passsport appears to be from 83. Rip's "friend" appears to be too old to have been Jenkins in 63, IMO.

That is a really disturbing story. I'm not sure I believe it. Isn't it more likely that the housekeeper was in on it? Does anyone know if Larry had any family?

On the thread about his "Secret History" I asked Trento if Air America really shipped drugs in Southeast Asia and he deferred to a book that said they certainly did. I don't believe he believed in a "Secret Team" as interpreted by Sheehan, though. Maybe John can ask him and he can chime in on this.

People were attracted to The Secret Team scenario because it wrapped a lot of our recent history into a nice neat package. The problem was that when this package was eventually opened, Steven Seagal jumped out! The popularity of Seagal's debut film, Above The Law, was due in large part to its supposedly accurate depiction of The Secret Team. Seagal, himself, appeared to have had some sort of mysterious background, which led many to believe the screenplay was based on real events. I think it was a con. As with the movie JFK, the Secret Team scenario is an effective "counter-myth". The problem is that, as far as I can tell, very little of it has been documented. For instance, what evidence is there that Ted Shackley received one penny from Vang Pao, or any other opium lord? What evidence is there that Shackley led this "team" at all? If one reads Shackley's memoirs, one might be surprised to find that Shackley comes across as quite credible. Not so for Sheehan, whose own clients have tried to have him disbarred. Ultimately, I'm on the fence with this. What appears from a distance to be shady and malevolent could be business as usual within the CIA/international arms trade world. While it's absolutely clear the "Team's" activities were questionable, if not disreputable, I don't remember seeing any real evidence that they in fact were operating as a team, and were in fact the recipients of drug profits. Hopefully, someone will follow up on this research and find more than Sheehan's speculation. I'll dig out my Christic Institute comic book and see if I can find anything to add to this thread.

Another person whom maybe John can contact, assuming he's still alive, is Robin Moore. Robin Moore wrote the Green Berets, where he was embedded with Special Forces in Vietnam before the War got BIG. He also wrote The French Connection, where he investigated the Corsican Mob. But, most importantly, he co-wrote the book LBJ and the Kennedy Assassination with Hugh McDonald, and interviewed Davidson about his relationship with de Mohrenschildt. Moore's thoughts would undoubtedly be interesting. The premise of that book was that LBJ made a deal with the KGB to kill Kennedy, and that de Mohrenschildt and Albert Osborne were Oswald's handlers. While I don't buy it, it would be interesting to see if Moore just went along with McDonald or whether he believed this himself. If so, it would be interesting to see if he still believes it.

Aw shucks, Tim. You're too sweet. But not sweet enough for me to consider Castro a prime suspect. But seriously, I think the only way we can get at the truth is by taking what others have written and learn from them. I don't consider the research of others to be in error if their research leads me or John Dolva or Larry Hancock into a discovery. I learned quite a bit from reading Dr. Mantik's writings. A number of his observations proved most helpful. I'm hoping that he or John Hunt or Dolva or whomever will take what I've done, and build upon it, until we nail all the evidence down. One of my fears has been that my presentation is too abrasive and that it will lead people to respond the way they responded to Posner's work. My other main fear has been that my two years of hard work will be ignored and amount to nothing. By putting it out there, I took a leap of faith.

As I remember, Wheaton had these conversations with Jenkins and Quintero in the mid 80's and waited ten years before he told the ARRB. As John has shown, Wheaton told some of the story to Daniel Sheehan before this time. You should read John's thread on Wheaton and Jenkins. They're quite informative and fill in a lot of the details. As Stu Wexler pointed out in one of the other threads, it's not entirely clear if Jenkins and Quintero were actually part of the assassination team or whether they merely knew who was. A lot of the info is vague. My personal suspicion is that Jenkins and Quintero were pulling Wheaton's leg. This information is still interesting though because it reveals that Jenkins was part of the whole scene and that he and his old pals considered the Kennedy assassination something to joke about. I suspect there's a few other "Dagger-In-My-Heart" die-hards out there who feel the same way and are glad Kennedy was whacked. I suspect more than a few of them know who pulled the trigger. Maybe some of them are your neighbors.

Back to Davidson. I've mentioned this before, but now that he has his own thread, it bears repeating. During the Dominican Crisis, LBJ and Abe Fortas had a discussion about secret negotiations with prospective leaders. This discussion is on tape and is included in one of Michael Beschloss' books. Well, in this discussion, LBJ and Fortas refer to the man making the negotiations as DAVIDSON, and Beschloss explains that this was a code-name for FORTAS! Even more incredibly, he explains that they spoke about Fortas in code in order to deceived LADY BIRD, who was in and out of the room! This sounds to me like a complete CROCK!! When you put this incident together with the Hugh McDonald incident, whereby Hugh McDonald questioned Davidson about George de Mohrenschildt, and Davidson ran straight to Clyde Tolson and told him to get word to Hoover, then one should be even more suspicious! Since Mafia Kingfish firmly establishes that Davidson was Marcello's man in DC, as well as Trujillo's, and that Marcello had major investments in the Dominican and Haiti, I don't think it's all that big a stretch to assume that LBJ brought Davidson into the crisis in order to make sure the new leaders of the Dominican would play ball with Marcello. If the LBJ/Hoover/Davidson relationship is more than conjecture, furthermore, one can certainly stretch this into being the possible core of the conspiracy to kill JFK as well. Here's to hoping that someone fully investigates Davidson. Along with Robert Maheu and Sidney Korshak, he is one of the great shadow boxers of recent history. No one really knows what these men did, but you can bet that if the full details of their lives were revealed, history would need to be re-written.

I'm not sure if there's any record of the ARRB passing on any "leads" to any of those agencies. They didn't consider themselves an investigatory agency. They put the "leads" into their files, where researchers might someday find them. Kinda like the WC and the HSCA.

Tim, I'm also skeptical of Wheaton's story. But if you'd been following this you'd know that the ARRB basically had no idea what to do with his story, and simply ignored it, and was in no position to pass judgement on it one way or the other. And yes, Wheaton did ID the assassins--Jenkins and Quintero--or have you been deliberately ignoring all of John's threads since he got back from Dallas? The people who've been working on this...now including John, have been able to show that Jenkins was indeed a player in the anti-Castro Cuban crowd, and that Quintero and others were all part of the Mongoose/JMWAVE world. Jenkins was also purported to have had connections with Marcello. To me, it's all a bit too neat of a fit, and I'm not sure that Wheaton didn't see the fit and exaggerated what he'd actually been told. But it's undoubtedly of interest. And yes, killers do talk. Why wouldn't they, when they know that people like you won't believe people like Wheaton no matter what he says?

Shanet, in my presentation I explored Dr. Mantik's theory that the "white spot" was retouched, and discovered something which should have been obvious to all. The "white spot" is where the "wing" of bone overlaps solid bone behind the ear, thereby creating three levels of bone as compared to the area where the "wing" of bone was sprung, which only has one. The x-ray techs didn't take this extra thickness into account and as a result the lateral x-ray has a much larger relative density than a normal x-ray. One of the other things I uncovered was that the skull in the lateral x-ray was tilted 10 degrees forward in the x-ray. Joe Durnavich on the McAdams site says the lateral matches the A-P x-ray when tilted 23 degrees. I found it matched better at 24. John says he found a match at 22. They're all in the same ballpark. Since the skull was 10 degrees forward in the lateral, however, this 24 degree turn means the skull in the A-P x-ray was tilted 14 degrees away from the beam. This is in line with a skull sitting flat on the film. I matched up the bullet fragments in the forehead and eye socket to correctly orient the x-rays. It was only when I realized that the large "slice" supposedly on the back of the head was really in the eye socket, where Humes and Boswell always said it was, that the x-rays began to make sense.

While I don't have the dates in front of me, I'm almost certain that there is no overlap between Aldrich Ames' spy career and Angleton's reign as Spyhunter. We are unable therefore to blame Angleton for not catching Ames; we are equally unable to say that Ames' existence proved Angleton right. Perhaps the most we can say is that those who followed Angleton should have been more paranoid than they were. It is an absolute historical FACT, at this point, however, that Angleton was more paranoid (paranoider?) than he should have been, as he is reported, by those who worked most closely with him and those who saw him up close, including Petty, Colby, and Shackley, to have been a mysterious tragic figure, and to have needlessly destroyed many careers. There is the outside chance, of course, that, without Angleton's destructive paranoia and fear of the BIG BAD RUSSKIE INTELLIGENCE SERVICE that had already caught him with his pants down (Philby), a number of agents would have slipped through the cracks and caused irreparable damage to the U.S. For this reason and this reason alone his contribution to his country will be open to conjecture. My understanding is that at this point most former KGB officers think Angleton was a joke, and that most former CIA agents agree.

Quayle was considered to be an asset because he was young, from the midwest, and had tremendous appeal to the far right. Bush, as incredible as it may seem, was not popular with the far right. There were the Pats--Robertson and Buchanan--out there with their concerns about Bush's pro-choice slant and his "voodoo economics" comments. Quayle was Bush's concession to the corn and Bible belt. His role as veep was to kiss up to the moral majority and constantly assault the left for their secular humanism. He fulfilled that role, but was so stupid and abrasive he hurt more than he helped. He was Bush I's Spiro Agnew.

Gerry, you certainly are in a better position to understand Castro than most. While on the surface it would seem your comparing him to Hitler is a gross overstatement, I'm sure you have reasons for feeling this way. I'd be interested if you care to tell how you first came to know of Castro, what attracted you to him, and how you came to doubt his true intentions. I believe you've said his killing William Morgan was the last straw. Was there a progressive degeneration in Castro's personality? Or do you think he always was what he became? What about Guevara? Is it possible Guevara was gonna betray Fidel, as some have suggested?

Thanks, Tim, for posting this important article and confirming that you are sane. If this story doesn't disturb someone then they have serious problems. I'm wondering if Bush was ever informed that the DIA doubted this man's story, or that the information was obtained by Egyptian intelligence under coercion. I would guess not. A recurrent theme in our recent history seems to be the desire of sycophants to make our president a king. Reagan, Bush's role model, luxuriated in being king and took little interest in being President. It is Bush' JOB to know the facts surrounding this information, just as it was Kennedy's job to know the facts surrounding the Bay of Pigs. And yet, repeatedly, throughout our history, mistakes have been made because the POLITICAL operatives swarming around the President have protected them from doing their jobs. "Just tell the President what he wants to hear and get out. He needs to get plenty of rest before his Press Conference tomorrow " Will you at least agree that Bush has made a mistake in letting this culture thrive? Kennedy learned from the BOP. I'd like to think Bush is on a similar learning curve. He was caught looking the other way on September 11 in large part due to the questionable competence of Rice, among others. He got tough for a bit and took an interest in his job. But did he have the smarts and the guts to question what he was told by Chalabi/Cheney or Tenet? Or was his papa's faith in Intelligence detrimental to the use of his own intelligence? I'd like to say Bush has learned from his mistakes but I just don't see it.