Pat Speer

The Larouche stuff is a mixed-bag and they are probably a little careless in their conclusions. On the other hand, their carelessness can be helpful while trying to connect the dots in conspiracy-land. Their book on George Bush I was way ahead of the pack. A lot of the books that have come out in the last year or two about the Bush family have presented as new the very evidence the LaRouchies uncovered in the early nineties e.g. the Bush family ties to Nazi Germany and the eugenics movement.

I believe Sturgis was reporting to both Barker and a Sanjenis. Same guy? Remember, Sturgis told the Church Committee he'd been approached by the CIA to commit assassinations on U.S. soil. I'd assumed this was Barker. Maybe there's something to this Sanjenis...

The report is online on the history-matters website. If you're not familiar with the website you should spend a night browsing around. Rex has done a great job. As I remember it, the test basically used two earwitnesses along with the report's author, a professor from Harvard. They fired shots, rifle and pistol, from the knoll and the TSBD, and the blindfolded witnesses had to guess the locations and describe the echoes. The author claimed to have moderate hearing damage himself but still claimed that the location of the shots, no matter where you stood, was readily identifiable the vast majority of the time. He volunteers as well that if the sniper fired from INSIDE the window, it would have helped disguise the shot. This is interesting because eyewitnesses all saw the rifle in the TSBD sticking out of the window. This makes one wonder whether or not people ascribed shots fired from the Dal-Tex or elsewhere to a rifle that wasn't actively firing.

Well, save me the effort and tell me what these bad boys have been doing. I saw Zimmerman on TV one day demonstrating how a skinny man wearing a loose fitting coat could have his coat bunch up so that an entrance higher than his throat could be 6 inches below his collar. While I found this demonstration sneaky and deceptive, it was actually par for the course and not much different than Myers' cartoon or Lattimer's rocking skulls, which are equally misleading.

John, I don't know if there's an official view on the rings. It just appears to me that the large ring changes hands between the first and second photo. Since the right hand is blurred in the first photo, I thought that maybe there was originally a ring there--a ring that wasn't supposed to be there. Like a body double's wedding ring. Pure conjecture. As far as the rifle, I believe Jack White has done some good work with that, and has shown that the M/C rifle in the photo has its strap attached differently than the rifle in the archives. Since there is no record of Oswald changing the strap, this raises some questions. Also regarding the rifle, I believe you have to be careful which version of the photo you look at, as Life Magazine, among others. did some airbrushing to better show the detail of the rifle against Oswald's body, and distorted its shape. You need to be sure your photos match those in the HSCA Report, which shows the originals.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> I actually purchased Murder In Dealey Plaza last night. As you said, my readings on the medical evidence are incomplete without it. That Dr. Mantik has demonstrated the so-called magic bullet would have had to pass through Kennedy's cervical vertebrae was news to me; this was something I'd uncovered in my own research, usng cross-sections of human torsos and the HSCA trajectory analysis. It's gratifying to know that Dr. Mantik and I agree on this point. As far as alteration, I hope to finish my analysis on what the evidence shows, before making any firm decisions regarding the vaildity of the evidence. This may seem non-sensical to you, but, as I said, I'm hoping to construct (In my last post I said "concoct," but I believe "construct" is more accurate) an argument based purely on the government's own tests and exhibits. I'm hoping this argument will gain the support from others in the research community, even if they disagree with me on my specific conclusions. As a newbie, it's greatly discouraging to find that you and Thompson seem to hate each other, and that Lifton and Livingstone hate Groden, etc. I'd like to think we can agree to disagree, and set our collective sights on getting the major networks and newspapers to finally acknowledge JFK was killed by more than one shooter, and that we're not all Mark Lane's inbred children set loose upon an unsuspecting world. I'd like for all the researchers who've put in time to be able to stand by each other and smile when Posner and Bugliosi, and Peter F###in Jennings finally admit they're wrong.

John, upon reading this story a few years ago I got the itch to figure out if it was true, and voila! here I am trying to figure out our recent history. While I've read some online reviews of Summers' book in which the reviewer scoffs at this story as a Summers invention, the story actually adds up. LBJ, Dean Rusk, and Clark Clifford all mention it in their memoirs; Nixon mentions it as well, albeit only in the context that that evil LBJ was bugging him--which is LAUGHABLE. I mean, if a President isn't justified wire-tapping a political candidate on the grounds that the candidate is conducting treason and subverting peace talks for political gain, I'm not sure what the term "national security" could possibly mean. Nixon, who claimed "national security" as a defense more than anyone else, should DEFEND LBJ on this. Instead, Nixon tried to use this bugging to muddy the waters when his own efforts at bugging were exposed. Victor Lasky takes his cue in It Didn't Start With Wartergate." BTW, If LBJ used Nixon's treachery to blackmail him it was to blackmail him to cover up something else (can you spell a-s-s-a-s-s-i-n-a-t-i-o-n?). Nixon had been elected as a "peace with honor" president. If he didn't at least pay lip service to negotiations he would have lost face with his constituency.

I need to throw my two cents in. Cent number one is that the HSCA tested how sounds were heard in Dealey and concluded that earwitnesses could easily tell the difference between a shot taken nearby and a shot taken from the opposite side of the plaza. They theorized it was possible someone on the knoll could be mistaken and think an echo from the pergola represented a shot from behind, but no one involved with these tests was ever fooled by this. As a result, I agree with Lee that a sound or a shot came from west of the TSBD and east of the stockade fence, as that is where a number of earwitnesses believed the shots came from. It may be worth inspecting the area of the west shipping dock of the TSBD, as this area was open and was apparently ignored by the DPD for some time after the shots. Cent number two is on Harry Holmes. He did not disappear into thin air; he was interviewed by Larry Sneed and his story is included in No More Silence. I don't think there's anything fishy about the guy. In fact, in his interview with Sneed, he says some things about the Oswald interrogation that could be helpful in demonstrating Oswald's innocence. For example, he tells Sneed that Oswald told Fritz the curtain rods were not for himself, but for one of his co-workers. In that the Paines had a number of curtain rods in their garage, Oswald may have helped himself to some to give to one of his co-workers. For this statement, among others, I don't consider Holmes a suspect.

I suppose this is an attempt to get Pat on your side. I think it will need more than praise to achieve this objective. By the way Pat, I also think you are a talented writer. Maybe you should write a book entitled: "Disinformation Agents and American Politics: 1960-1974". <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Wow, thanks for the good words, guys. And John, I am working on a book, taken from posts on this forum: "The World According to J. Timothy Gratz." It will be sort of a peek into the shadows of recent U.S. history, personnified by a man who watched too many episodes of "Death Valley Days." (Sorry, Tim. I couldn't help myself!!)

Dr. Fetzer, I'd known you were not an M.D., but needed a reminder. I recently watched a video of the 1993 conference/debate on the medical evidence, and saw doctor after doctor present his views, and found the lack of consensus and intelligent debate somewhat alarming. What particularly annoyed me was Dr. Lundberg's reliance upon the word of others... "I'd trust Dr. Humes with my life, etc.." From this, it became apparent that the AMA is quite the "gentleman's club," with an unwritten code that you do not second-guess your colleagues. Unless you hate his guts--as seems to be the case with Wecht and Lattimer. Wecht allowing Baden his nonsense and even protecting Baden against Artwohl seems to be more the norm. Anyhow, I'm sorry I took out my annoyance on you. I think I've read where your friend Mantik has left the AMA due to its lack of credibility on this issue. Anyhow, I'm a relative newbie to the so-called research community. I developed the bug in early 03 and have been hard at it ever since. One of the first books I purchased was Assassination Science. After reading High Treason I and II, The Killing of the President, Assassination Science, and Best Evidence, I was fairly convinced that some sort of alteration occurred. Around that time someone loaned me the Great Zapruder Film Hoax. This left me in a quandary. While all these books proposed the government tampered with the key evidence, the books were contradictory as to which evidence was reliable and which was bogus. Groden swore by the Z film but doubted the photos, Lifton trusted the photos but believed the body was altered, etc. I decided the only way to resolve these issues was to wash my mind of what I was told the autopsy photos and x-rays revealed, and what the Z-film demonstrated, and try to figure out what they really demonstrated. And after hundreds of hours of reading of forensic journals and radiology textbooks, as well as the testimony of the many doctors involved with the case, I came to the conclusion the evidence points convincingly to conspiracy. Last fall, I prepared an online seminar for this website which depicted some of my ideas. For whatever reason, it's been getting a lot of hits lately. I also spoke briefly on the presentation at last year's Lancer conference. Larry's invited me back this year, and I hope to present. I'm currently working on an update of my seminar--a few corrected measurements, a few new insights, and roughly five times the scope. I make no bones that my goal is to construct a convincing argument for conspiracy that the Peter Jennings and John McAdams of the world will be forced to acknowledge. I'd like to see that obnoxious phrase "there's not one scintilla of evidence"'--first used by Hoover, I believe--forever erased from discussion of the assassination. Lofty goals, I admit.

Dr. Fetzer, I respectfully disagree. I believe there are a number of people, many of them prominent historians and journalists, who will never be convinced of alteration or falsification of the medical evidence or assassinations films. In an effort to see things as they do, and better understand the lone-nut position, I decided about two years ago to temporarily ignore the claims of alteration and falsification, and attempt to study the evidence under the assumption it was legit. And what I found shocked me to my core. I found that the evidence clearly pointed to conspiracy. Unfortunately, I also found that virtually every expert called by the government, from the original autopsists to the FPP, was either incompetent, corrupt, or just in over his head. I mean, how hard is it to figure out if a photo shows the back of someone's head or his forehead??? How hard is it to tell the entrance of a military rifle bullet from a red mark? How hard is it to look at a photograph and estimate at what angle the subject is looking away from you? And yet the top forensic patologists in the country, including Dr. Wecht, all got it wrong? And a rocket scientist from NASA, got it wrong? And a nuclear physicist can't even understand his own test results? Surprisingly, yes. As a result, I've come to believe there is something VERY wrong with the AMA. At this point in time, I think that is the REAL story of the assassination. How could so many AMA members make so many blatant mistakes and how come so few doctors are willing to talk about it? As one of the doctors who is willing to talk about it, your comments are very much appreciated. I'm especially interested in your own experiences. Have you uncovered any bias against doctors who acknowledge a conspiracy?

I'm not sure if the 1972 Teddy scare was over by May, but I was wondering if this might have been the same guy, who was simply transferred from Kennedy to Wallace, or even better, was just working behind the scenes with Wallace As for my "wanna-be" status, until I show my girlfriend I can get paid to write, I'm afraid it shall remain.

On the morning of the assassination, Oswald took off his wedding ring and wore his Marine Corps ring. His wedding ring was a plain gold band, near as I can figure. Even if there's nothing fishy with the ring in these photos, the fact that he wore his Marine Corps ring in the photos, and not his wedding ring, could be significant, as it debunks the theory that prior to November 22nd he'd never taken his ring off, and was thus not planning on seeing Marina again. BTW, several of Oswald's co-workers have already popped this myth a little, by swearing to researchers that they NEVER saw him wear his wedding ring.

John, while I suspect Sprague's mention of Tim was just sloppy journalism, which my reading of conspiracy literature confirms is widespread, I do have something to add in regards to possible Secret Service involvement. I came across this just the other day. Nixon: an Oral History of his Presidency by Gerald and Deborah Strober. Page 263 (paperback Edition) "Alexander Butterfield I was privy to something that has never come out: that there was a guy on the White House staff--a sort of catch-all guy; a former Secret Service agent who had been on Nixon's detail when Nixon was vice-president. They used him when Teddy Kennedy started getting some popularity, and Nixon was worried. They put him back on duty, on Teddy's detail. Of course, they thought Teddy was fooling around; they were going to get some information on him; he must have had a lady someplace. So he made weekly reports to Haldeman. I was aware of that. It's abuse of power, technically, and I imagine LBJ did worse things." I think you'll agree this raises all sorts of questions. Who was this man? Could it be Bob King, Maheu's former partner, who'd been with Nixon during his vice-presidency? Watergate records indicate Nixon talked to King the day Hoover died. Just a coincidence? While King was never with the Secret Service as far as I know, he had been former FBI. If not King, then who? If he had indeed been with the Secret Service, could this man have been someone who'd been on JFK's detail as well? I think we need to figure out who this man was. Does anyone have a list of Nixon's detail? Teddy's brief detail in 72? I believe this could be important. I think it's also important to determine what Butterfield meant by "catch-all" guy. What does a former Secret Serviceman, now "catch-all" guy, do? Could this man have been working in co-ordination with Ulasewicz and Caulfield? Butterfield's statements, as with his statements regarding the White House tapes, could lead to the discovery of much much mischief. -------------------- Pat Speer, wanna-be writer

Thanks, John. Could you also do the left hand? I think I'd speculated the ring was switched to the left hand for the third photo. Something with the ring just seems wrong.

Mark, while I, too, have been annoyed by much of Tim's behavior, I interpreted his bad "black and white" joke as an attempt to make nice. I don't see how it qualifies as a smear.

John, could you do a comparison of Kennedy's right hand in the three photos? Based upon reproductions I"ve seen in books, I've speculated that he was wearing the wrong ring in the first photo, and that's why the photo disappeared for so long. I speculated that his hand was smeared because it wasn't wearing the Marine Corps rings apparent in the other photos, but was wearing the wedding ring of the body double. A good comparison by someone with your skills will hopefully prove this wrong.

John, while I suspect Sprague's mention of Tim was just sloppy journalism, which my reading of conspiracy literature confirms is widespread, I do have something to add in regards to possible Secret Service involvement. I came across this just the other day. Nixon: an Oral History of his Presidency by Gerald and Deborah Strober. Page 263 (paperback Edition) "Alexander Butterfield I was privy to something that has never come out: that there was a guy on the White House staff--a sort of catch-all guy; a former Secret Service agent who had been on Nixon's detail when Nixon was vice-president. They used him when Teddy Kennedy started getting some popularity, and Nixon was worried. They put him back on duty, on Teddy's detail. Of course, they thought Teddy was fooling around; they were going to get some information on him; he must have had a lady someplace. So he made weekly reports to Haldeman. I was aware of that. It's abuse of power, technically, and I imagine LBJ did worse things." I think you'll agree this raises all sorts of questions. Who was this man? Could it be Bob King, Maheu's former partner, who'd been with Nixon during his vice-presidency? Watergate records indicate Nixon talked to King the day Hoover died. Just a coincidence? While King was never with the Secret Service as far as I know, he had been former FBI. If not King, then who? Could this man have been someone who'd been on JFK's detail as well? I think we need to figure out who this man was. Does anyone have a list of Nixon's detail? Teddy's brief detail in 72? I believe this could be important. I think it's also important to determine what Butterfield meant by "catch-all" guy. What does a former Secret Serviceman, now "catch-all" guy, do? Could this man have been working in co-ordination with Ulasewicz and Caulfield? Butterfield's statements, as with his statements regarding the White House tapes, could lead to the discovery of much mischief.

Upon looking back through the book, I found I over-stated Shackley's statements about drug-runners among the Cuban infiltration teams. He claims no awareness that this occurred, argues that he fought against it happening, but acknowledges that it still might have happened. He also confirms the names of a few of his JMWAVE employees. While these names might be common knowledge, his confirmation is envaluable. On page 51, for example, he says that both Dave Morales and Tony Sforza warned him about the hazard of mafia influence on the exiles, particularly the influence of Santos Trafficante. Elsewhere I've read that Sforza dropped dead around the same time as Morales. Should he be considered another mysterious death? On this same page he says that the original station chief was Al Cox and his assistant was Bob Moore, and that Morales' PM assistant was Tom Clines. Shackley also refers to William Harvey as his mentor and says that Harvey's creation of Task Force W was a sardonic reference to William Walker, the American adventurer who tried to capture Honduras in 1860. At another point he mentions our favorite Dealey plaza witness, Rip Robertson, and notes that Robertson worked with a team including Grayston Lynch and Mickey Kappes. (Does anyone know what became of Kappes?) He also notes that Robertson's team leaders were surviving vets from the BOP. Does this fit in with our theory that Julio Garcia was his team leader? Was Garcia a BOP vet? Shackley also mentions that Cuban agents called Morales "El Gordo," the Fat One.

Yes, John, the HSCA photographic analysts concluded the phhotos were taken in the order of 133 C (right hand newspaper at side), 133 B (left hand newspaper) , and then 133 A (right hand newspaper at chin). So you are correct.

As someone who was raised Republican--my dad threw a fund-raiser for Barry Goldwater Jr. in 1970--I was indoctrinated into hating the commies and defending the Vietnam war as necessary to stop the spread of evil. Unlike Tim, however, I grew out of it and now see how wrong wrong can be. That said, I think you're being a little unfair to Tim here, John. It seemed to me that his interest in the Mattei killing was an olive branch of sorts; he was letting us know that he remained open to the possibility some non-communist force was behind the assassination. I considered that progress. I don't consider Republicans any more guilty of covering up the Kennedy assassination than Democrats. Just as there were Republicans whose interest lagged whenever the focus of the investigation was other than communist, there have been a lot of high-ranking Democrats whose interest in the Kennedy assassination has lagged whenever the focus has shifted to LBJ. The problem with believing in a conspiracy is that someone had to be in the conspiracy. And neither right nor left is willing to admit their own people might be responsible. Even you, in some of your writings about LBJ, have sought to paint him as far more conservative regarding civil rights then he really was. I think people, and history, are far more complicated than most people want to acknowledge.

Well, not everything is black and white, Tim. That same joke from Ron Ecker may have got a few chuckles. It's just your roller-coaster behavior (I'm gonna SUE you--here's a joke-No, but really, I'm gonna SUE YOU...BIG TIME...hahaha just kidding...NOT) has made it hard for some to appreciate your humor.

Dr. Fetzer, I took a look at Bugliosi's book on Amazon the other day and it already has 9 reviews! Even though no one has read it! I think it was 5 raves and 4 disses. Either way, it's clear that certain people use Amazon to attack books or praise books based upon their personal agenda. I assume this is part of the reason your books have been rated fairly low. A quick look at your negative reviews would almost certainly reveal that many of those quoted are devotees of Posner and McAdams et al. I find your books and the articles therein fascinating even when I disagree with them. In Dr. Mantik's article on this Forum he mentions the Harper fragment. He agrees with Dr. Angel that it could be parietal, but that if this were so it would place the lead bullet wipe signifying an in-shoot near the temple, near the outshoot visible on the Zapruder Film. And he insists that this is unthinkable and that no one has conjectured such a thing. Except me. In my studies of the photos and x-rays, I am 99% convinced there were two shots from behind that hit Kennedy in the head. The EOP entrance is readily visible on the photos but is inconsistent with the damage done to the brain if the exit was the large one by the ear. I suppose from this that this bullet exited from the throat. Which leaves the large defect as a tangential wound a la Dr. Clark's testimony. Furthermore, the x-rays establish that the large defect occurred before the transverse fractures which supposedly lead back to the cowlick entrance. It is from this I deduce that the fractures near the cowlick came as a result of the exploding bullet, and that the so-called slice of bullet is indeed just that, only a slice from the bullet that entered above the ear. Not coincidentally, this exploding slice of bullet explains the outward beveling apparent on the back of the skull when one properly reads the open cranium autopsy photo. Also not coincidental is the fact that when one reads of bullet slices, one finds that the bullets sliced upon tangential entry will often leave keyhole entries, and that when one looks at the Harper Fragment one can see that it mirrors the upper margin of a keyhole entry, with both inward and outward beveling. Thus, virtually every supposed anomaly of the medical evidence can be explained once one accepts the large exit was a tangential wound. . I'm sorry if you think my holding these views means I'm behind the times or unscholarly. I assure you I've read thousands of pages of medical testimony, and dozens of articles on forensic medicine and ballistics. And the more I read the more I'm convinced I'm right. So I guess what I'm saying is that while most arguments for alteration and falsification are based upon the premise that the autopsy photos, x-rays, and Zapruder film support the lone-nut theory, I reject that premise. If they were faked, which I'm acknowledging could be possible, they were faked stupidly and poorly, so that the evidence still points towards a conspiracy. It is to the shame of the AMA that these issues weren't resolved a long time ago.

While Tom might be over-stating the case, it is indisputable that the New Orleans docks were regarded as the birthplace of the American mob. While other cities like Chicago and New York had dueling families and ambitious politicians fighting for position throughout the twentieth century, New Orleans' political and social life was completely saturated with olive oil and tomato juice. For most of the century, the local DA and the local FBI just pretended it didn't exist. That said, I find no evidence in Oswald's statements or behavior that he had even the slightest concern for his family or his heritage, beyond his Russian wife and their two daughters..