Pat Speer

Shanet, not to be a pest, but you sound like a reasonable person. A "bircher" would have said that it was God's will we fight communism by employing murderous dictators to do our dirty work. Have you ever read "The Politician" by Robert Welch, the founder of the Birch society? He believed Eisenhower was a commie sympathizer. Goldwater even said this went too far. And, not to nitpick, but I think you meant United Fruit, which was owned and run mostly by the Cabot family, as in Henry Cabot Lodge, our ambassador to the UN when we threw a coup in Guatemala and reclaimed for UF most of the land Arbenz nationalized (He paid United Fruit for the land at the price per acre they declared on their taxes, to which they cried "but the land is worth ten times that amount!" apparently without irony.) Secretary of State Dulles and Director of Central Intelligence Dulles were on the board of United Fruit. Ironically, Michael Paine was able to be so generous to the Oswalds only because he inherited a large sum of money from his maternal grandmother, Elise Cabot Forbes. I see the assassination in the context of history, and not as an isolated event. The chickens had truly come home to roost on America.

I've read bits and pieces of Wean's and Evica's work, but don't remember reading their views on a simulated assassination. The main simulation theory I've come across is McDonald's, and it''s absolute b.s. I suspect McDonald was told the real purpose of the simulation ws to incite an attack on Cuba, but told the "Secret Service wants to scare the President into being more cautious" story because at heart he was a cold warrior and didn't want to spill the beans on our nation's darkest secrets.

The thought that Oswald was an agent/provacateur has run through my head many times. Even in jail, he seemed overly anxious to tie the ACLU into his actions, when he'd only been to one meeting, and that was with Michael Paine. His dragging the FPCC into his New Orleans actions, when he'd never met a single FPCC representative face to face, is perhaps the best example. And then, of course, there are the backyard photographs (which may or may not be faked--I still can't decide) which tie in two opposing groups of American communists. An often overlooked dangle I believe is Oswald's late night phone call to Mrs. Horace Twiford, while on his way to Mexico. To me this is an obvious attempt to tie Twiford, a member of the Socialist Labor Party, into Oswald's Mexican excursion, and thus the assassination attempt. Mrs. Twiford said Oswald asked if he could come by and talk to her husband, and she said no because her husband was out of town. The WC went to great pains to show that Oswald could have made this call from a bus stop on his way into Houston. But Mrs. Twiford was under the impression it was a local call. If it was a local call, however, that would mean that Oswald had arrived in Houston by means other than Continental Trailways, which would imply he had an accomplice, which would make his appearance in Dallas at the Odios possible. Well, if there's anything that people who knew Oswald could agree on, it's that he was very polite with strangers, even aloof. And I just don't see him trying to stop by Twiford's house late at night unless he was asked to do so. A second trait of Oswald's on which people seem to agree is that he was cheap, and I don't see him paying for a 6 mile cab ride (each way) to Twiford's just to talk to a man he's never met and never plans to see again for a few hours in the middle of the night. The WC went to great lengths to show how Oswald could have saved up just enough to pay for his trip to Mexico, but they never mentioned his setting aside money for a cab ride. In fact, they made great hay over Oswald taking a cab on the day of the assassination, to show how desperate he was to escape. I seem to remember they even insisted it was the first cab ride of his life. And Oswald couldn't have expected the Twifords to pick him up and drop him off so late at night, his never having met them, could he? That doesn't sound reasonable at all. Besides, Mrs. Twiford's recollection was that he said he wanted to stop by. Oswald was with someone else in Houston, probably Angel and Leopoldo. They either drove there or were flown, perhaps by David Ferrie. Mrs. Twiford, intriguingly, stated that Oswald said he was flying to Mexico. If Oswald was hoping the Twifords would pick him up he would have had to explain why he wanted to be picked up and dropped off at the bus station when he was flying out. The Houston Trailways station and airport were miles apart. I conclude therefore that it's probable Oswald's phone call to Twiford was an attempt to drag yet another leftist into the assassination web, the web in which Oswald himself was entangled.

Thanks for the tip on the book. We were busy-bodies in Grenada as well, although that may have been simply Reagan wagging the dog after terrorists slaughtered a bunch of unlucky marines in Lebanon. Nevertheless, it's interesting that we didn't lift a pinky when right-wingers rose up to overthrow the left wing administration of Maurice Bishop (Does that name sound familiar?) and only intervened when the people rose up in the streets to throw the right-wingers out. We then told the world we invaded to prevent a Cuban-backed revolution! Speaking of America's good neighbor policy, I came across a book the other day that had the most ironic ending ever. The book, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, came out in 1972 and concluded with these lines: "There is today the beginning of a social movement that could change America in a radical way...Chile has demonstrated the possibility of choosing that course in a democratic election. Perhaps we Americans, whose votes have mattered increasingly less in recent decades, can restore the integrity of our own franchise through a similar display of self-determination." If the writer only knew what Mr. Nixon and Mr. Phillips had in store for Mr. Allende.

I went back and read about the Trujillo years in one of my old college textbooks, Hubert Herring's A History of Latin America (1968), and found the following (pp. 451-452): "President Eisenhower insisted that the United States put teeth into its condemnation of Trujillo by cutting off the Dominican share in the United States sugar allotment, and by refusing to increase it out of the share formerly allotted Cuba. . . . But Eisenhower's prudent suggestion was blocked by ardent admirers of the Dominican dictator in the American Senate; typical of these was Senator Allen J. Ellender of Louisiana, who said: 'I wish there were a Trujillo in every country of South and Central America.' He and others carried the day by not only refusing to cut the Dominican allotment, but by increasing it by 332,000 tons. This odd largess reminded critics that the United States had supported that shabby tyrant for three decades." Ron <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I think I figured out the source of our confusion. According to From Imperialism to Transnationalism by G. Pope Atkins, Allender and Eastland prevented Ike from cutting the Dominican quota. However, he went ahead and added a two cent fee onto each pound of imported Dominican sugar, which was within his authority, thereby raising the price of Dominican sugar over that purchased from other countries. It goes on to say: "In 1960.. Trujillo threatened to align with the communist world in response to the U.S. and Latin American rejection of his regime...Later that year Trujillo offered detente with Fidel Castro...Ih June, the same month Trujillo attempted to kill the President of Venezuela, the Dominican Communist Party was legalized...Trujillo also attempted to establish contacts and relations with the Soviet bloc...Sympathetic gestures were made toward Premier Nikita Khruschev, and Dominican emissaries were sent to Moscow. Trujillo was ignored, however..." So I was correct in that Ike's actions pushed the Domiinican and the Soviets closer together, although there still was a ways to go. Nevertheless, it's easy to see how the Dominican could be seen as out of control and potentially drifting towards communism.

After Trujillo tried to kill Betancourt of Venezuela, the OAS ostracized the Dominican Republic and looked to the U.S. to set an example. After all, we were angling for OAS support for the overthrow of Castro, since he was purportedly exporting terrorism, and a right wing exporter should deserve no less. And so the U.S. cut the Dominican's sugar quota and basically cut off ties, which had the same effect it had on Castro--it drove Trujillo closer to the Soviets. I can't remember where but I've seen several sources that assert Trujillo, the strongest and craziest anti-Communist in the hemisphere, was playing footsie with the Soviets by early 61, thereby writing his own death warrant.

While I find the tapes fascinating I always take into account that LBJ controlled the taping himself, and deliberately avoided taping some of the conversations a historian would be most curious to hear. Consequently, we can't be sure some of the tapes were not mini-dramas scripted and recorded for posterity. What I find most interesting on the tapes is Hoover's absolute lack of ability--the man seems utterly lacking in the instincts and insight one might expect from "America's top cop."

Trujillo had an extremely bad reputation, apparently well-earned. In the 1941 edition of John Gunther's Inside Latin America, ostensibly a travelogue, he relates Trujillo's slaughter by machete of thousands of Haitians. In John Gerassi's 1963 book The Great Fear, the number has increased to 25,000. Gerassi also recounts the experiences of Look magazine editor Laura Bergquist, who went to Haiti to uncover Trujillo's atrocities, and uncovered the existence of "Snowball, a dwarf--now jailed--whose specialty was biting off men's genitals." Nasty stuff for a family magazine. Nasty stuff anywhere.

One of the aspects which inspired this theory was LBJ's lack of response to the signs pointing towards Castro. If killing Kennedy had been the plan all along, and setting up Castro, what changed LBJ's mind? The thought occurred that maybe he hadn't been in on it. I recently read Red Friday by Carlos Bringuier. (The copy I found was actually signed by him in 1971.) Before the assassination the DRE was writing stories that Kennedy and Khruschev were about to cut a deal regarding Cuba and that Castro was about to be sold out by the Soviets. To me this an obvious effort to separate Castro from Khruschev, so that Castro would be seen as acting alone when the assassination (or merely assassination attempt) took place. John Martino, who serves as the jumping off point in Larry Hancock's Someone Would Have Talked, repeated this line shortly after the assassination. He also had ties to the DRE through the Bayo/Pawley raid etc. Since these stories seem now to have been made up out of thin air, and since the reality seems to be that Kennedy was at least thinking of making nice with Castro, I believe these stories should be seen as disinfo related to the assassination. One wonders about Joannides' and Phillips' proximity to these stories. As to who may have turned the assassination around, it's intriguing that two men potentially involved in helping Oswald create his left-wing credentials in New Orleans, David Ferrie and Guy Banister, were working for Marcello during the months leading up to the assassination. Had they figured out what was up and told Marcello? It may be important here to remember that Marcello's bagman Jack Halfen, in 1955!!!! testified to business dealings with LBJ cronies Congressman Albert Thomas and Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark (Ramsey Clark's father) and that he subsequently admitted to a U.S. Marshal that he'd had many dealings with LBJ and Sam Rayburn as well, so much so that LBJ had written a letter on Halfen's behalf to the Parole Board. I've read of rumors that RFK was trying to reach Halfen when he was killed. Outside of Pay-off by Michael Dorman, are there any other sources which cover the Halfen story and its implications? Is anyone aware of an interview of the man? Has anyone here read the transcripts of his trial? Is there any other evidence of LBJ having mob ties, specifically with Marcello?

To clarify the record: the HSCA originally determined that the back wound was below the neck wound. In order to make the single-bullet theory possible, however, Kennedy would have to have been leaning forward at the time of the first hit. The medical panel and the trajectory analyst, Thomas Canning, then got together and moved the wounds around a little bit, deciding that the neck wound was a little bit lower and the back wound was a little bit higher. This made the wound channel roughly straight across. To account for the downward trajectory of a bullet coming from the TSBD, they went ahead and decided that Kennedy must have been leaning forward when first hit, even though the Zapruder film reveals no such thing. What's worse, in order to make the head shot at frame 313 point back towards the TSBD, they decided to lift Kennedy's head to a point higher than that in the Zapruder film. Thus, the HSCA, in order to sell the American people that Oswald fired the fatal shots, determined that Kennedy was leaning forward, was shot in the back, then straightened up a little bit, only to be shot in the head. THIS IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF WHAT IS EASILY VISIBLE ON THE ZAPRUDER FILM. It seems everyone knows he slumped over AFTER being shot except the government's medical panel and the trajectory analyst from NASA. I'm currently updating my online seminar on the autopsy evidence. I will go into greater detail there.

Having read a number of books on the CIA, and American foreign policy, along with large amounts of Church Committe testimony, I'm beginning to understand how a clandestine operator thinks. As a result I can easily discern a CIA role in the assassination. 1. You have a goal: stamping out communism in the western hemisphere. 2. You have an obstacle: Cuba, which seeks to spread communism. 3. You have a second obstacle: your President, who seems reluctant to fight communism head-on, and has made a deal not to attack Cuba. 3. You have a third obstacle: the Soviet Government has guaranteed Cuba it will provide it with protection. Nuclear war with the Soviets is not an option. 4. You need a plan whereby you can force your reluctant president to act against Cuba, while simultaneously forcing the Soviets to back off from helping Cuba. You need a provocation by Cuba so severe that the Soviets will not support Cuba, for fear of international disapproval. (Ironically, the Soviets had shown they could be bullied during the Missile Crisis.) An assassination attempt on the President performed by a supporter of Cuba, on behalf of Cuba, is exactly what the doctor ordered. With this, the President will get riled up, the Soviets will back down, especially when they learn this agent for Castro also spent some time in their country, and had met with their top assassination expert in Mexico, and the world will approve of American action. The OAS' rejection of Trujillo after he tried to kill Betancourt demonstrates that they won't support Cuba. If you can find the right assassin, who'll scare the Soviets into adopting a defensive stance, you can actually pull this off, one of the great black ops of all time. And you have that assassin: Oswald. To make sure the President doesn't replace Fidel with some socialist Fidel imitator you arrange for Oswald to be seen with men pretending to be members of JURE. This will keep JURE out of any coalition ruling a post-Fidel Castro. ONLY something goes wrong and someone actually kills the President. This messes things up as the new President is so determined to calm the people down that he refuses to act on the evidence pointing towards Cuba and/or Russia. You go into defense mode, trying to cover your tracks as best you can. You go along with the FBI's conclusion Oswald was the shooter. When Oswald is killed, however, you suspect someone in the operation turned it all around and fired additional shots. You go into a long period of denial. You're not sure but you suspect one of the agents working with the Cubans convinced them they would be better off killing Kennedy than hoping he would act on a provocation. But you never say anything because you suspect he may have done this on behalf of someone else, someone who wasn't supposed to even know about the operation, perhaps Marcello, perhaps Hoover, perhaps LBJ, perhaps all three. You don't know. But you do know the names of many of those involved in the Cuban operation... and you suspect they're being silenced by someone in the know. And so you keep quiet. For years and years. Towards the end of your life, however, you admit to friends and family that you suspect someone in American intelligence was behind the assassination. You're buried at Arlingrton. Your name is David Atlee Phillips.

I have grave doubts about this theory but if it is true, Ron's reasons make sense. If LBJ or the Suite 8F Group were involved in the assassination (as I believe they were) then Connally would have been one of the few who knew where all the bodies were buried. He would have been very unhappy that he had been sitting next to JFK when it happened. We know, for example, that he did not go along completely with the Warren Commission view of events. If a German was involved I would suggest researchers take a look at Gerry Droller (not his real name). He was born in Germany in about 1905. Not a great deal is known about his early life but during the Second World War he worked closely with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the Marquis in France. After the war Droller was recruited into the Central Intelligence Agency and for a while was a desk officer in Switzerland. According to one report, Droller "was responsible for the reorganization of West Germany and the consequent strengthening of German-American relations". Later he was transferred to Formosa where he helped Chiang Kai-Shek "organize his government and army". In 1954 Droller took part in the successful CIA operation to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala. Others involved in this project included Frank Wisner, Richard Bissell, Tracy Barnes, E. Howard Hunt, David Atlee Phillips, David Morales, Jake Esterline, Rip Robertson and William Pawley. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKdroller.htm <{POST_SNAPBACK}> In my research on Guatemala, I don't remember reading anything about Droller's role. I do remember reading about Henry Heckscher, a CIA agent from the Berlin station, who went undercover in Guatemala posing as a German businessman, and convinced members of Arbenz's military to defect. Heckscher went on to head the station in Laos and then Chile during the overthrow of Allende. The argument could be made then that he was an expert in volatile situations.

The FBI report is indeed interesting, in that, according to the IG report, the pills were not passed to Maheu and Rosselli until early the next year. This makes me believe that the Sturgis/Lorenz attempt on Castro was done on behalf of Lansky, in an attempt to cash in on the reported 1 million dollar bounty on Castro's head. I believe the Maheu/Rosselli attempts were designed to cash in on the same bounty, but with CIA funding. In Maheu's book he brags about how he got Nixon and the CIA to pay for an operation he'd already started on behalf of a client, Stavros Niarchos. The mission: disrupt and squelch an oil deal between Ari Onassis and the Saudi Government. It makes sense that Rosselli, whose business card said "strategist," convinced his friends Momo, Carlos and Santos, that he could not only whack Castro, but get the ÇIA to pay for it. His friendship with Maheu, courtesy Edward bennett Williams, may have convinced him he could pull this off. By the way, no one seems to remember who first raised the idea of using the mob; it could certainly be that Maheu put the idea into O'Connell's ear and O'Connell put the idea in Edwards' ear; it certainly didn't start with Bissell. This is all conjecture of course, but conjecture that takes into account the weight of the evidence and the personalities of those involved. I believe your statement that the CIA paid for the bugging is misleading in that Maheu paid for it out of expense money previously given to him by the CIA for the assassination. There was no approval of the bugging by the CIA before the bugging took place--the only one to ever say so was Maheu and he changed his story multiple times, sometimes he said that the bugging was necessary in order to keep Sam in Florida (which is nonsense because Giancana did almost nothing) and sometimes he said that it was necessary because Phyllis may have been talking. I urge you to read Maheu's Church Committee testimony and compare it to his book; you should also read O'Connell's, Morgan's, Rosselli's, and Edwards' collective testimony and statements. If you do you'll see that Maheu is the least credible of all. I suspect he's pathological.

I'm not aware of the book, Tim. My belief in Maheu's involvement is mostly circumstantial, of course. But if you're imagining an assassination involving the mob and the CIA, by someone with insight and influence within the FBI, then Maheu was your man. He was in a unique position. As a CIA cut-out he could plan all sorts of criminal activity and use his CIA ties to avoid prosecution. I believe the wire-tapping case is a key to understanding the assassination. Maheu claimed the wire-tapping of Phyllis McGuire was done on behalf of the CIA or with the CIA's permission, depending on who he was telling the story to, when everyone else involved was certain that Maheu wire-tapped her as a favor to Giancana, and then pressured the CIA to cover-up his act. Thus, he was able to turn his involvement in the hits into a get-out-of-jail-free card. Whether or not they were involved, this incident would undoubtedly have sent the message to Giancana that with Maheu's contacts he could kill the President and get away with it. While people like Morales had the contacts within the Cuban community to kill Kennedy, I believe it would have taken someone like Maheu to pull the whole thing off.

I recently read "A Piece Of Tape," McCord's account of Watergate, and lost all doubts about the man. He was a true believer in the CIA, was disgusted that Nixon was using the plumbers for political operations, was even more disgusted that Nixon, the FBI, and the Justice Department orchestrated a cover-up and tried to blame the CIA, and took perverse delight in blowing the whistle and watching the house of cards collapse. He hired Bernard Fensterwald, one of the most tireless of JFK assassination researchers (read Coincidence or Conspiracy if you can find it) as his lawyer, and went on a speaking tour supporting his book and speaking out against the Nixon White House. IMHO, the man was for real. In his book he explains a lot of the mistakes that were made. What really sold me on his account was his frank confession that he had planned to talk to Sirica all along, and that the heavy sentence handed down by Sirica had no impact on his actions. He says he waited till after the trial to talk because he wanted to see how the whole thing played out and wanted to see how co-operative the federal prosecutors would be with the White House--he wanted to see how far the corruption went before talking because he wanted to blow the whole dirty house down. I don't see an operative for the CIA being that adversarial, for fear his actions would come back to hurt the agency. Remember, McCord was an electronics man; he was never an undercover man.

I consider the Trujillo connection a possibility. The Guatemala CIA documents released in 97 revealed that Trujillo had given funds to Castillo-Armas to kill Dominican dissidents living in Guatemala. The documents also revealed that some of the assassinations were to be performed by CIA cut-outs. A few years later a Dominican dissident named Galindez was kidnapped right off the streets of New York and murdered, and Maheu (a CIA cut-out) was tied to the plane used to fly him to Florida, and was seen in the company of Dominican intelligence officer Espailat. A few years after that Maheu was the CIA's first choice to kill Castro. Around this same time, Trujillo tried to kill Betancourt of Venezuela and was written off as a madman by the CIA and the U.S. Government. His attempts at invading Cuba had come to nothing, and his repression in the Dominican were creating a possible communist backlash so he no longer served their purpose. After taking office, JFK turned off the Eisenhower-backed assassination of Trujillo, only Tracey Barnes of the CIA went behind the back of the State Department and kept it on track. After the Bay of Pigs, JFK wanted to make sure the assass attempt was totally turned off, but the assassins were determined to go through with it anyhow. So when Trujillo was killed, we washed our hands of the situation and allowed his son to enact horrible deaths on the assassins we'd encouraged. We then cut a deal with Ramfis that he could keep all his loot and move to Europe if he left peacefully and allowed us to install a Democracy. I believe it's possible he wanted even more revenge, and found it by having JFK killed and Castro framed for his murder. He knew that the CIA would cover its own ass and involvement and that no real investigation would occur. The man hired to orchestrate the killing: Robert Maheu...with the help of course of his ole pal Johnny Rosselli. Another interesting tidbit is that the Domican Republic's publicist in Washington was I. Irving Davidson, who also repped Carlos Marcello and Clint Murchison. In 1967 Davidson was to go to Clyde Tolson to let him (and Hoover) know that Hugh McDonald was asking people about George De Mohrenschildt. This was obviously a way of warning LBJ. Between these characters something certainly could have taken place.

Anyone who still holds the view that the Kennedys were serious about the civil rights issues I would suggest you read “Robert Kennedy: In His Own Words” (1988). Another book well worth reading on this subject is Harris Wofford’s "Of Kennedys and Kings" (1980). <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I believe the Kennedys were completely serious about civil rights. They were, however, realists, and were determined not to let their commitment to civil rights destroy Jack's chances at re-election. Bill Clinton had much the same attitude to health care reform and gay rights. Towards the end of his life Robert Kennedy became great friends with Mexican-American labor leader Cesar Chavez, and it was only then he gained the level of conviction where he could sacrifice his career for a principle.

Williams was the hottest courtroom lawyer in Washington for twenty years. Evan Thomas, who wrote the Best Men, where he was given unprecedented access to CIA files, preceded that book with a book on Williams, The Man To See, where he was given access to many of Williams' papers. As noted in the Maheu thread, Williams and Maheu and the mafia and the CIA were in bed together from the late fifties at the latest. Williams was a college pal of Maheu's and introduced him to Rosselli. Williams was an amazing character. He owned the Washington Redskins along with media mogul Jack Kent Cooke. He represented numerous mob figures. And yet he somehow stayed in good graces with everybody who was anybody, so much so he was on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board for years, where he was so impressive that Gerald Ford offered him Colby's position as head of the CIA, even though he was a Democrat and had represented the Democratic Party in their watergate-related lawsuits against Nixon and CREEP! His intellect and sneakiness were so respected in fact that as I recall it both Rumsfeld and Cheney preferred him over their fellow-Republican George HW Bush. Of course he'd repped Dick Helms and John Connally. Bobby Baker and Jimmy Hoffa, and was on friendly terms with Giancana. Still, it was the Aldo Icardi case that put him on the map; he represented an OSS officer convicted in an Italian court of murdering his superior officer during WW2, and with Maheu's help, convinced the U.S. government that Icardi was innocent. Williams wrote about this in his book One Man's Freedom. Since the man Maheu got to confess to the killing was a communist (what else?) I suspect Icardi was guilty but that the CIA hired Williams and Maheu to clear Icardi and blame it on a commie, for the purpose of damaging the cause of communism in Italy. Maheu was admittedly on CIA retainer at this time, reporting to Jim O'Connell, the same agent in the Office of Security who would ask him to kill Castro.

Until recently, Burke Marshall was the Kennedy family attorney responsible for approving or dis-approving requests to see the autopsy material. As per the Kennedy family's wishes, he limited access to government commissions and respected doctors. I'm not aware of abuse on his part. He allowed the HSCA to release the drawings and close-ups of the photos, and gave access to a number of professed doubters of the Warren Report, including Cyril Wecht.

It was Kleindienst.

I have an angle that maybe you can pursue, using your interest in journalism. In the March 2, 1964 edition of Newsweek, it recounts that someone involved with the Dallas PD was selling copies of the backyard photos, which linked Oswald to the gun. It says that these photos were purchased by Gene Roberts of the Detroit Free Press, and that there was subsequently a lawsuit between the Free Press and Life Magazine, which had recently purchased the rights to the photos from Marina Oswald. Sure enough, vol. 22 of the Warren Report reflects that the Detroit Free Press published a backyard photo on Feb 17, beating Life to the streets by 4 days. The New york Times admitted as well that they received their photo from the Free Press, and not from anyone at Life. So my angle is to contact Gene Roberts, who went on to become Managing Editor of the New York Times, and find out if he'll talk about the circumstances of his purchase of the photos. I'm almost positive he's still alive, as he only recently retired. Since the negative for this photo, called CE 133a, was never turned over to the Warren Commission, along with the negative of CE133c, it is quite possible that the person who sold the photos to Roberts had them as well. These negatives should be located and analyzed. A secondary question involving Roberts is if he or the Free Press were ever contacted by the HSCA, which presumably investigated the disappearance of the negatives, and should have determined whether or not the Free Press copy of the photo was a first generation copy. Anybody interested in making the phone calls and writing an article can e-mail me for more background.

[ In the past I have suggested that LBJ might have been blackmailed into passing the 1965 Civil Rights Act. If so, maybe it was Clark who was doing this. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> John, I think you're way-off in your appraisal of LBJ. While I agree with you that he is a likely conspirator in Kennedy's death, I disagree with your assumption that he was some kind of Bircher in disguise. LBJ was a political animal making all kinds of alliances and all kinds of deals in order to pass legislation and reward his constituents with fat government contracts. He played ball with the racists and the good ole boys. But, on another level, he idolized FDR and wanted to help the poor. I think it's quite possible he knew Bobby Kennedy was gonna exploit the Bobby Baker situation in order to push him out as VP, and effectively end his career. I also think it's possible he cut a deal with Marcello (and/or Hoover) to kill JFK. But I also believe the involvement in such a thing would force LBJ to try to redeem himself and bring about some higher good, that it would push him to try and accomplish something that JFK could never have accomplished. This would allow his conscience to rationalize his involvement. I believe it's possible The Great Society was LBJ's attempt to eradicate his guilt and establish himself as a great man in history. Vietnam was a failed attempt to accomplish the same goal. Connally's other buddy Nixon was quite similar to LBJ, in this essential drive towards greatness. His overture to China was his attempt; one would guess this would help him rationalize his secret deal with Thieu to extend the Vietnam War, in order to sabotage Humphrey and capture the Presidency.

As someone who followed Mr. Lennon's career closely, and remembers the times, I will say that there was absolutely no reason for any right wing group to kill John Lennon in 1980. His Double Fantasy album was being marketed as an embrace of family values, and as a retreat from political activism. Many left-wingers saw it as a sell-out, including Mark Chapman, according to the early evidence. (Has he somehow disputed this impression?) If you've ever heard Chapman's music, it should be obvious to you he idolized Lennon and would be hurt by his "selling out." While the death of Lennon aroused a lot of fear, which played into the hands of Reagan's America, it also led to cries for gun control, and the actions of John Hinckley, which didn't. The huddled masses of liberals lighting candles in Central Park didn't exactly help the cause of Reagan's America either, as it reminded the crippled left that they could gather in public places and protest...

Someone on another thread posted some of the startling statements included in Newsweek's first article on the assassination. Today, I read this article at a library, along with the first articles written by two of America's other news magazines, Time and U.S. News. I found that all of these articles were filled with mistakes, some of them shocking, considering they were written after Oswald's death on the 24th. Newsweek, for example, had an account from their correspondent in the motorcade which stated that Connally was sitting beside Mrs. Kennedy. When one takes into account the bad information flowing from Hoover, and the mis-information coming from LBJ himself, it becomes clear that nobody knew what was going on and was repeating rumors and conjecture as fact. In this light, LBJ's creation of the Warren Commission makes sense.