Pat Speer

Well then cite the words of the law you think he has broken... There was a lone-nutter type who complained about my pointing out his mistake/deception on my website, and who suggested I'd broken a law. So I looked it up. Here is a description of the Fair Use Doctrine... Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. § 106 and 17 U.S.C. § 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include: the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; the nature of the copyrighted work; the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. So...are the words on this website copyrighted? I honestly don't know. And if they are, by whom? So...is David making money off his website? If so, well, then that can be problem. I have been offered tens of thousands of dollars over the years to monetize my website, but I have turned it down because I didn't want Dale Myers or CBS or whomever to come after me. But look more closely... Are the quotes David is citing a "substantial" portion of the words on this website, and has his using these quotes had an effect on the potential value of this, a free website? It's hard to see how. Anyone on the web can read them on this website, and anyone on the web can read them on his website. In the words of Chick Hearn. No harm no foul. P.S. I am sensitive to this copyright issue. I worked in the record industry and saw it smashed to bits by the wanton disregard to copyright. I have also had people take videos I'd created and add their own narration and call it their own work. And that's not even to mention that there are numerous "mirror" sites of my website around the world. (Of which I am, to be clear, ambivalent... When I was in the hospital, and the odds were against me, google scrambled my website, and it felt like someone or something was trying to take it down the way the Lancer site and other sites have been taken down. And I took some solace in knowing that much of my website was still available in Sri Lanka, or China, or somewhere, anywhere...)

Good find. Was this on the evening of the 22nd, or on the 23rd? In either case, he says he pulled out his pad...so this was a pad he kept on his person, So he could have worked on it at the station, or later on at home.

If you read Hosty's testimony he mentions that he doesn't write in sentences when taking notes. In point of fact, almost no one does. So it follows that this was a draft, and not notes. He published his notes, moreover, in his book, and it was as you would expect...words and fragments.

What??? The Hosty "notes" are not notes taken down during the interview, as originally claimed, but an outline for a report he never wrote, was never submitted, or was submitted but then rejected. As his name was thrown on the Bookhout report, it seems possible, even, that he wrote the report, but that it was rejected after Bookhout or someone else said "Wait a sec! That makes it sound like Oswald said he was outside" or some such thing. As no one else at the interview said anything about Oswald's claiming he was outside, and as Oswald was given plenty of opportunity but never told his family or the press he'd been outside, it seems likely moreover that this report's failure to appear or disappearance was more of a housecleaning job, as opposed to a cover-up job. Or maybe Hosty just never got a round to finishing it and Bookhout said "Just put your name on this one." We'll never know. As far as the timing, as the outline appears to have been written as an outline for a report, it seems likely it was created within a day or two of the shooting. Maybe Hosty started it the next day, and then scrapped it after Oswald's murder. We'll never know.

Because there was no upside in killing JFK if Johnson was gonna continue his policies, but more importantly you don't get quid if you don't give quo. Johnson had to know who he was indebted to. While the HSCA was flawed in many ways, one thing Blakey got right, IMO, was his his comparing the number of mafia investigations under LBJ vs. JFK. They fell off the table. As the war in Vietnam became a hot one for the U.S. after the 64 election, moreover, it appears JFK's refusal to send ground troops to Vietnam similarly fell off the table. When it came out in the 70's that the mafia had been working with the CIA, well, that sent many of those pooh-poohing the assassination as the work of lil' old Oswald into wondering if this nexus of killers had teamed up to enact regime change. Tellingly, this investigation only got rolling after LBJ's death. Well, here we are, 50 years later, and the most viable theories still have at their core a group of rogue CIA agents and anti-Castro Cubans with ties to the mafia. P.S. One of the doors I walked through when I first began researching this mess was Robert Maheu. And this led me to an incredible realization. That sucker was kind of a genius. He was approached by the CIA to see if he could get the mob to kill Castro. He was supposed to do this as a cutout, so the CIA had plausible deniability. He was, after all, a front man for Howard Hughes and had done similar work for other billionaires in the past. But he turned around instead and told the mob exactly who he was working for, which gave both he and them a get-out-of-jail free card, that both he and Giancana and Rosselli took advantage of. In any event, the Church Committee testimony is all over the place, and it seemed likely to me that Maheu was playing both sides--he had the CIA thinking he was working for them while working with the mob, and he had the mob thinking he was working for them while working with the CIA. When in fact he may have been working for Hughes or some other billionaire, and getting the mob and CIA to do his bidding.

Yes, I watched it.

While we should credit Turner for turning a spotlight on the Kennedy assassination and the research community, he was denounced even at the time by many within the community as a sensationalist more interested in scandal and attention than accuracy. I think history has confirmed this assessment. I think his legacy might benefit by someone's going through and cutting out the weakest stuff, and editing it down to a 2 hour movie. Not that that will happen.

If I had to guess I'd say someone or some thing had talk with LBJ early in his vice-presidency (or even before) and told him that whenever he was ready to take over from the lily-livered party boy, he should let them know. I think he held them off for awhile but when the Bobby Baker scandal surfaced, he thought "No way am I gonna let them send me back to Texas in disgrace! No way!" And he said the word. Ironically, his closest adviser was Abe Fortas. Well, is it a coincidence that he put Fortas on the supreme court, and wanted him to replace Warren, and that Nixon forced Fortas off the court entirely as soon as he took office? I suspect not. I suspect instead that Fortas was the middle man between Johnson and those behind the assassination, and Nixon knew it, and wanted his own hatchet man on the court. Two little-discussed points of intrigue inform these suspicions. 1. Connally was Lyndon's campaign manager in 1960, and he reportedly told LBJ's biggest supporters that LBJ took the VP slot because he believed Kennedy wouldn't live past the first term. 2. While much has been made of Jack Ruby's begging Warren to get him to Washington, which can be found in the official transcript of his testimony, few have made note of what Ruby said off the record, that was not recorded. According to Arlen Specter, who presumably failed to understand the possible significance of what he was admitting, Ruby begged him as a fellow Jew to talk to Abe Fortas, and ask Fortas (another fellow Jew) to intervene on his behalf.

FWIW, I created a database of witness statements on my website, which included not just what they told the DPD, FBI, and Warren Commission, but what they said in the years afterward. And most every witness' story changed over time. This is actually pretty normal. While people like to believe our memories (which form our reality) are written in stone, it's more like scribbled in mud, whereby it changes with the weather and the passage of time, especially when trampled upon.

There were several office people who never came back from lunch, as I recall. But they were not of much interest, as the DPD was focusing on someone else. Charles Givens. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe they put an APB out on Givens well before Oswald's arrest. I mean, he was black and had a criminal record, and had not returned from lunch. That's a prime suspect pretty much anywhere, but especially in Dallas.

What do you mean by "wholesale"? Because the quoting of a few paragraphs is most certainly allowed, if it is presented to present a response or make a point. You can't just present the pdf to a whole book and call it fair use, to my understanding (no matter what some CTs believe), but quoting an exchange of ideas on a forum available to the public is allowed. I mean, when's the last time you took a look at Buzzfeed? You will find dozens of posts taken from Reddit or other public forums, and published in articles with obnoxious titles such as the "20 of the stupidest things Americans believe" or some such thing. Now, it's true these articles blank out the names of those involved, but they don't edit the content or ask anyone's permission to repeat what these people have said...publicly. So...if you dislike what David has written you can ask him to remove it, or ask he black out your name. But you shouldn't fool yourself into thinking he's broken any laws, because he has not.

I seem to remember a discussion on this forum about whether or not David could quote this forum on his site, and I believe he agreed to remove any quotes from a poster who requested he do so. P.S. Under the fair use doctrine, no one needs to request permission to quote a forum viewable by the public. The exception, I believe, would be if that person were selling what they quoted, but even that is unclear. What is clear, however, is that David is a member of this forum, and his membership can be contingent on his not quoting fellow members out of context on his website, should that be the case. So... since I'm pretty sure David has previously agreed to remove quotes from fellow members should they ask him to do so...those upset by his quoting them need to ask him to remove the quotes, and they will vanish. Is that right, David?

Now, those defending Johnson, like Valenti, claim he needed to fly back with the widow and the body to project the continuity of government and strength. But I think the unstated part is that he wanted to project his innocence in the matter. "Like, look, if I was behind this, or had anything to do with this, would I have the balls to walk off Air Force One with my arms around the widow?" It's clear Bobby was on to this, moreover. He raced onto Air Force One, right past LBJ, and pulled Jackie off the back of the plane with the casket. LBJ was enraged by this. As discussed in Chapter 21, The Rorschach Test, LBJ and RFK were in a private war, of sorts, that had started in the 1960 campaign, when Bobby tried to get LBJ to leave the ticket. The full extent of this story, I believe, has yet to be told. Hopefully, Robert Caro will get into this in his final volume on LBJ. But I suspect even he will avoid it, as it's just too ugly. To be clear, it seems likely RFK was behind or at least supportive of the Life Magazine series on Bobby Baker that hit the stands the week the assassination. This series was on Texas corruption and was accompanied by a Senate investigation into payoffs received by LBJ. Well, golly. Intriguingly, Both the magazine series and the investigation got pushed to the back burner after the assassination. Another flare-up occurred after the assassination when articles popped up claiming RFK told LBJ he needed to be sworn in in Dallas. This wasn't true, and Bobby saw this, correctly, as LBJ's trying to justify his own power lust--he wanted to get sworn in asap before anyone could take it away from him. Similar articles popped up claiming Kenny O'Donnell or the Secret Service told LBJ he needed to fly back on JFK's plane, which were equally untrue. These were all designed to get LBJ off the hook for his naked power grab. This came to a head with Manchester's book, which the Kennedys prevented from release in its initial form due to its insinuation of Johnson's involvement in the assassination. LBJ, nonetheless, believed the whole thing was a conspiracy against him with Bobby at the wheel. He even told Fortas he believed ALL the conspiracy books and articles were somehow sponsored by Bobby. But, even if true, Bobby was not the only one pushing conspiracies. The day after Bobby broke ranks and came out against the Vietnam war, a Jack Anderson/Drew Pearson article was published claiming Bobby was behind the CIA's attempts on Castro, which back-fired and led to JFK's death. The article revealed who was behind this claim, moreover, as it nonsensically claimed LBJ was sitting on this information to protect Bobby. (And yes, the records reveal that Pearson did indeed meet with LBJ to discuss this matter.) There are tons of other ugly coincidences yet to be fully explored, IMO, such as the fact Ramsey Clark told LBJ Garrison thought LBJ was involved in the assassination, and was looking to build his case around David Ferrie, and that within the week POOF Ferrie was found dead. Now ain't that the coincidence? In any event, when working on his memoirs, LBJ performed some interviews in which he intimated that if Bobby had had his way, LBJ would have been arrested for JFK's. murder, and said further that he'd have met this fate if not for Earl Warren. The ramblings of a paranoid? Or a guilty conscience?

Heck, no one mentioned our very own Barb Junkkarinen. Barb was a long-time moderator of this forum, and wrote a number of excellent articles 20 years ago or so. She was into sharing her research and materials with others. A great role model. Miss ya, Barb.

The Hosty report was in fact a draft of a report that was never submitted to the FBI or Warren Commission. As Oswald had never claimed he was outside, of course, there was no alibi for the Warren Commission to suppress. I would agree, however, that the WC would have found a way to suppress such an alibi if one should have surfaced. By their own admission, Oswald told his interrogators that he saw Jarman and Norman when he was in the break room, and sure enough, Jarman and Norman confirmed that they entered the back of the building and walked right past the entrance to the break room shortly before the shooting. This was not proof of Oswald's innocence, but was clear evidence Oswald did in fact come down for lunch. And yet the WC pretended Oswald never came down for lunch and spent his lunch time on the sixth floor preparing to shoot the President.

What do you mean about the Katzenbach solution starting on the day of the shooting? I hope you realize Bart conflated two memos, one from the 22nd and one from the 24th, which made it appear Katzenbach was orchestrating a cover-up from day one. P.S. My original post made it sound like Bart's mistake was by design, so I corrected it to reflect my actual feelings--that I believe it was a mistake.

I believe the SS and the Kennedy entourage were anxious to just get out of there, but agree that LBJ may have had an ulterior motive when he decided to hold off his departure until he got Jackie and the body on HIS plane. From chapter 21 (about what happened on the plane): In his 1975 defense of Johnson, A Very Human President, former Johnson aide Jack Valenti offered up a fascinating insight into Johnson's actions on 11-22-63. Valenti sat with Johnson on the plane while waiting for Mrs. Kennedy, and was intimately aware of Johnson's thoughts during this period. He wrote of Johnson's decision to be sworn-into office as soon as possible--which, while unnecessary, was nevertheless politically desirable. He then added "before Air Force One departed for Washington, Johnson had also made his first command decision, on his own, to wait for the body of the dead president to be brought aboard before he gave an order to be airborne. This was an intuitive decision and a good one." So... Johnson, a man famous for seeking advice, had decided not to leave without the body, and had come to this decision entirely on his own, after reaching Air Force One. Hmmm...

While I have my own suspicions about LBJ, the reasons you list are not among them. 1. The partial scrubbing of the limo was performed by Sam Kinney, whose statements to the WC and Palamara indicate was not exactly a supporter of the Oswald did it conclusion. He was responsible for putting the roof back on the limo outside Parkland, and can be seen carrying a bucket back into the building in the films. Now, was this part of a plot, or the actions of an emotionally upset bodyguard, who was trying to hide the blood from looky-loos and the press, and may even have been thinking the limo was gonna be used to transport Jackie (or even JFK?) when they left the building? I lean towards this being just a screw-up. 2. The confiscation of JFK's corpse was also probably innocent. The thinking of most everyone in JFK's entourage, including the SS, was that Texas had something to do with the killing. So they were anxious to get out of there. Well, since Jackie (and LBJ, for that matter) refused to leave without the body, it became clear they needed to take the body from the hospital. For national security purposes. But also a bit of "Screw Texas!" 3. I am fairly certain no "faux secret service agent" confiscated any cameras. I think this started with Hill, or was it Oliver? In any event, Hill claimed all sorts of stuff towards the end that was nonsense. If I recall, a newspaperman, Jim Featherstone, bullied Moorman and Hill around a bit in an attempt to get access to Moorman's photo. Hill later claimed he'd said he was with the Secret Service, but Moorman denied this. In any event, no one swiped her camera, and she retained ownership of the photo for decades. Heck, she may even still own it. (I know she tried to auction it off but I think no one would pay the starting bid.) 4. I agree that Hoover was probably not involved in the assassination, beyond helping to cover it up at the bidding of his buddy, and supporter, LBJ. Hoover, famously, refused to go along with the single-bullet theory until LBJ pressured him to do so. From chapter 10 at patspeer.com Making Hoover Suck it Up and "Clear the Air" An October 6, 1966 phone call between President Johnson and his most trusted adviser Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas has Johnson instructing Fortas to have a talk with FBI Assistant Director Cartha "Deke" DeLoach, whom Fortas claims is a "very close friend" to Johnson, and enlist him in their campaign to prop up the Warren Commission's conclusions. It seems Johnson wanted Hoover to write a book on the subject. And no, I'm not kidding. Here's an internal FBI memo freed from the archives by researcher Harold Weisberg, which eventually became the subject of a 4-1-85 column by Jack Anderson. (Images shown on website) Now, that's quite a brain-bomb, yes? A Supreme Court Justice, acting on behalf of the President of the United States, has pressured the Director of the FBI to write a book or issue a statement to help clear the President's name, and the Director of the FBI has responded by telling him he should instead ask the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court! One line in the memo is of particular interest--(Fortas) "had argued with the president that it was not logical for the director to prepare this book inasmuch as the director in doing so would necessarily have to substantiate the investigative efforts of many other agencies." An internal FBI memo dated 11-22-66 (Rosen to DeLoach, 11/22/1966, FBI HQ JFK Assassination File, 62-109060-4267), for that matter, specified just what it was that Hoover was so reluctant to "substantiate." At the bottom of this memo Director Hoover added “We don’t agree with the Commission as it says one shot missed entirely & we contend all three shots hit.” And that wasn't the last time Hoover showed his true feelings on the matter. Within the FBI's files is a copy of the New York Times' 11-23-63 article on Governor Connally's press conference in which he backed away from his appearance in the current issue of Life Magazine. Well, in the margin of this article, next to its reporting "In the (Life Magazine) article, the Governor repeated that he disagreed with the Warren Commission's finding that he and President Kennedy were both hit by one of three shots fired down on the open limousine..." and that, conversely, "The Governor said today that his sole disagreement with the Warren Commission's findings centered on which bullet struck him," Hoover added:"Connally certainly shifts positions faster than the Dallas Cowboys football team can." Now, that can hardly be considered a testimonial to Connally's character. And yet, Hoover was about to make this same shift. An 11-25-66 memo from Assistant FBI Director DeLoach to Assistant FBI Director Tolson recounts that DeLoach had called Chief Justice Earl Warren on 11-23-66 on an apparently unrelated matter, but that Warren had brought up some of the recent problems surrounding the commission during the phone call. According to DeLoach, Warren complained about former commission counsel Wesley Liebeler, and noted that Liebeler was a '"beatnik' type of individual who had proved to be very unethical." According to DeLoach, Warren was displeased that Liebeler had kept detailed notes on his disagreements with the commission, and that Liebeler's notes had formed the "basis" of Epstein's book. In closing, however, DeLoach revealed more about himself than about Warren and his obvious dislike of Liebeler. He wrote: "I informed the Chief Justice... that the Director, in the near future, planned to issue a statement defending the FBI's phase of the assassination investigation. The Chief Justice said he was glad to hear this and that the Director's name and prestige would be a great help in clearing the air." Now, let's connect the dots. DeLoach told Warren on the 23rd--the day after Hoover claimed the FBI did not agree with the commission, and the very day that Hoover mocked Connally for changing his public position regarding the single-bullet theory--that Hoover was about to issue a statement defending the FBI's phase of the assassination investigation. And Warren was pleased with this and felt this statement would help "clear the air." Well, seeing as a statement from Hoover defending the FBI in which he voiced his disagreement with the single-bullet theory would not be good news to Warren, it seems fairly obvious DeLoach knew Hoover was about to offer his support for the single-bullet theory... And then it happened. On 11-26-66, Hoover issued a statement claiming "There is no conflict" between the FBI's position and that of the commission. He then explained the confusion, attributing it to the fact that the FBI agents at the autopsy had been told no exit wound could be associated with the entrance wound on the back, but that, unknown to these agents, "the physicians eventually were able to trace the path of the bullet through the body." (This, of course, never happened.) He then related "Meanwhile, the clothing worn by the President when he was shot was examined in the FBI Laboratory. This examination revealed a small hole in the back of his coat and shirt and a slit characteristic of an exit hole for a projectile in the front of the shirt one inch below the collar button. A nick on the left side of the tie knot, possibly caused by the same projectile which passed through the shirt, also was noted. These findings clearly indicated the examining physician's early observation that the bullet penetrated only a short distance into the president's back probably was in error." (Except this wasn't true! While the FBI lab did make note of the wound on Kennedy's throat in its 1-13-64 report, and describe this wound as an exit, it suggested this wound was caused by a fragment from the head wound. It did not connect the throat wound to the back wound at that time, nor for months after. To wit, the FBI continued to tell newsmen that the bullet striking Kennedy in the back fell out onto his gurney for months and months after the shooting.) Hoover's statement then sunk knee-deep in some bullshit. It offered an explanation for the FBI's months-long delay in accurately reporting the medical evidence, that couldn't pass even the most forgiving of smell tests. Here it comes: "Since this observation" (that the bullet creating the back wound had only penetrated a short distance) "had been included in the FBI Report of December 9, 1963, another reference was made to it in the report of January 13, 1964, in conjunction with the laboratory findings to point up this probability." Well, what the heck does that mean? Was it routine for the FBI to repeat inaccurate information? And, if so, how would accurate information ever come to replace it? More to the point, was the recitation of conclusions at odds with the autopsy report three weeks after the FBI received a copy of the autopsy report a mistake, or not? And, if so, why wouldn't they admit as much? But, wait, it gets worse. Hoover's statement continued: "The FBI and the Warren Commission each received a copy of the official autopsy report on December 23, 1963, from Secret Service following a specific request for this document. Since the FBI knew the Commission had a copy of the official autopsy, its contents were not repeated in an FBI report." Wait... WHAT? This suggests that the FBI KNEW their 1-13-64 report was in error when they wrote it, but didn't want to bring it in line with the official autopsy report because...because...they were respecting the Kennedy family's privacy, and not wanting to have the contents of an official autopsy report (a public document) reported in an FBI report (a secret document). I mean, really. Are we to assume that within the FBI's files on murder after murder after murder there are FBI reports on what their agents were told about autopsy after autopsy after autopsy--that deliberately exclude information gathered from the official autopsy reports on the victims because, y'know, there might be something in these reports that might prove embarrassing to someone? OF COURSE NOT!!! That would be stupid beyond belief. Well, this is mighty suspicious, wouldn't you say? On 11-22-66, Hoover noted that the FBI and Warren Commission were in disagreement on the single-bullet theory. Four days later, a press release was issued in which it was claimed Hoover had received a letter from an unnamed newsman asking about this disagreement on the 21st, and that he had responded to this letter on the 23rd, and that his letter had explained that there was NO disagreement between the FBI and Warren Commission on the single-bullet theory. Well, heck, why couldn't Hoover have told this to the press in a press conference? Why issue a written statement? And why hide the identity of the newsman? And, oh yeah, while we're asking, does it make any sense whatsoever that Hoover would change his mind about this extremely important issue...overnight? I think not. It's just speculation, but it seems likely DeLoach and his men prepared "Hoover's" statement at Johnson's urging, and arranged for one of the FBI's contacts in the media to ask Hoover for a statement, so that Hoover could make a public statement supporting the Warren Commission without acknowledging he was doing so at Johnson's urging, or having to say the words himself. No, scratch that. It's not just speculation. In his book Post Mortem (published 1975), Harold Weisberg recounts how he asked the FBI for a copy of the 11-26-66 statement Hoover provided the press, and how it took them nine years, and a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, to comply. He also presents the full statement sent the press. But the story doesn't end there. Through his efforts, Weisberg was able to round up numerous FBI internal documents regarding Hoover's 11-26 press release, (including the 10-10-66 document shown above, which he provided Jack Anderson). These documents prove that the FBI worked on "Hoover's" statement for weeks before approaching Washington Star editor Sid Epstein and asking him to sign off on an FBI-penned request for information... to which Hoover then "responded." Here are two of the FBI's memos on this transaction. (Images shown on website) Well, this is another brain-bomb, right? Not only did the FBI compose the supposedly journalist-written letter to which Hoover responded, the letter and response had been "cleared" by Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, acting as the eyes and ears of President Johnson. I mean, this was such a total crock...they even lied about the date! On 11-23-66, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover responded to a letter from Washington Star editor Sid Epstein dated 11-21-66, which was not actually transposed onto Washington Star stationery and signed by Epstein until that afternoon, AFTER Epstein had received Hoover's response. And that's not even to mention that, oh yeah, the documents received by Weisberg prove Hoover's "11-23" response to Epstein's "11-21" letter was originally drafted on 10-20. Now... Note also that the author of the 11-23 memo to DeLoach, R.E. Wick, (one of DeLoach's underlings), used the same words as DeLoach's 11-25 memo to Tolson--that is, that a statement from Hoover supporting the Warren Commission would be of great help in "clearing the air." Let's think about this... President Johnson has pressured the FBI into creating a fake news story with a fake paper trail in order to hide his involvement in a public statement issued by the Director of the FBI, and those involved or benefiting from this action have justified it under the belief it will help "clear the air." Of what, exactly? Certainly not the stench of cover-up! Now, it should be noted that Weisberg wasn't the only one to blow the whistle on this dirty smelly affair. Here's Jack Anderson, in his 4-1-85 column, on DeLoach's 10-10-66 memo on Johnson and Fortas: "Johnson had a fallback positlion, which Fortas then presented. He asked that Hoover at least issue a statement on one point the critics had raised: the discrepancies between FBI reports and the Warren Commission concerning the Kennedy autopsy. DeLoach told Fortas he "felt certain" Hoover would agree to this modest proposal and immediately set to work drafting such a statement...DeLoach, now retired, told my associate Les Whitten that the matter was resolved by issuing a Hoover-approved statement in response to an inquiry from the Washington Star..." (Note: one can take from this that Whitten had spoken to DeLoach about the memo, and that this had led him to believe it was Johnson's preference that Hoover write a book defending the Warren Commission. As Hoover had written, or at least put his name on, several best-selling books on communism while serving as FBI Director--and as these books had actually been written by FBI employees--and as Hoover had pocketed the profits from these books, this was, in effect, an attempt at a bribe... er, not so much a bribe as an "I know you don't want to do this, but if you do it, and feel you need to make some money off it, at the expense of the American taxpayer even, don't worry, I won't mind." Oh, for crying out loud, let's call a spade a spade...a bribe...) So, yeah, by 1985, DeLoach was willing to acknowledge the 1966 pressure campaign on Hoover. And that wasn't the first time he talked about it. When testifying before the Church Committee, on 11-25-75, DeLoach was asked if he could recall any conversations he may have had with President Johnson regarding the Kennedy assassination, beyond one in which President Johnson asked him to investigate the critics of the Warren Commission. Here is his response: "To the best of my recollection, Mr. Seidel, and I previously testified to this just a minute ago, the only other conversations I recall was when President Johnson called either Mr. Hoover or me, or it was Mr. Watson (Johnson's assistant) who called Mr. Hoover or me, and indicated that he wanted the FBI to issue a statement reflecting the findings of the FBI and the Warren Commission that it was Oswald and Oswald alone that committed the assassination. I think the Bureau files would reflect not only the call from the White House to either Mr. Hoover or me and will also reflect that a press release was written under Mr. Hoover's instruction and issued shortly thereafter in this connection." While DeLoach insisted he couldn't recall the date of his or Hoover's conversation with Johnson or Watson, the 11-26-66 press release on Hoover's 11-23 letter to Epstein is the only press release in which FBI Director Hoover defended the findings of the Warren Commission. DeLoach had thereby revealed that this press release was written at President Johnson's request...er, command. And that Hoover was displeased by this... As questioning continued, DeLoach revealed further that "I distinctly recall that Mr. Hoover, as he often did, was unhappy about the fact that the President of the United States was calling on the FBI to issue such a release. And while he had disagreements with the request, he buckled under and issued such a release." When then asked how he knew this, DeLoach replied "either Mr. Hoover told me this or Mr. Clyde Tolson, the Associate Director, who was my superior, told me this." He then continued "as I seem to recall, Mr. Hoover or Mr. Tolson or someone felt that we were being used and we had already submitted our findings and the FBI should not be used as a public sounding board in issuing such a release." He then clarified "The FBI had no dissatisfaction ...with the findings that Oswald and Oswald alone committed the assassination. But at the same time, our findings had been submitted some years previously and we felt that it was wrong for us to be used as a public relations sounding board at that time." So...there it is. The Johnson Administration pressured J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI into publicly supporting the Warren Commission.

A number of people were missing. And Truly saw Oswald in the building acting oblivious to the shooting. As a result, Oswald did not become a prime suspect in the assassination until he was arrested for shooting Tippit. In fact, they didn't decide to even look for him until Fritz returned to the station, at which time he was told "Oswald, yeah, we got him, that's the guy we just brought in on the Tippit shooting." So, that's roughly 2:00. Around that same time, back at the TSBD, they were letting employees leave, Frazier among them. There's no evidence, moreover, that anyone at the TSBD or elsewhere told the DPD that Frazier sometimes gave Oswald a ride, until Linnie volunteered that info to the cops out in Irving in the hour after that. So Frazier was below the radar until around 3:00. They then went out hunting. Now, there is some confusion as to when they picked him up. He has told myself and others it was in the afternoon--I think he said around 3:00. But the police claimed they picked him up around 5:00, if I recall. Well, I noticed a long time ago that the DPD reports, which were actually written by Fritz's assistants, and for which no signed originals were retained (if in fact they ever existed) are unreliable as to their timing. While it's not something I've looked into it wouldn't surprise me if they lied about the time they picked Frazier up to cover up that they'd arrested him outside their jurisdiction or some such thing. P.S. In retrospect, I think there is a method to the madness. I realized years ago that the DPD's claim they waited for an hour outside the Paine house before going in was to conceal that they knew about the bag before it was "discovered." Well, seeing as they only searched for Frazier after speaking to Randle outside the Paine house, after their search had begun, they would need to delay the time that they picked him up as well. So that might explain why they made out they'd picked him up hours after he says he was picked up.

Fritz was asked about it. Elsewhere in the chapter... On 12-1-63 we read yet another report about the paper bag roadblock. The FBI still can't figure out how Oswald, or anyone, got the rifle used to kill Kennedy into the building. On 11-29, agent Vincent Drain followed up on agent Anderton's interview of Buell Frazier, in which Frazier mentioned that, oh yeah, he'd taken a lie detector test regarding his refusal to ID the bag. Drain talked to Dallas Police Captain Will Fritz, who confirmed that Frazier had told him on the day of the shooting that the bag he saw was "about two feet in length, and of brown paper." (CD7, p290). Drain then talked to Dallas Detective R.D. Lewis, who confirmed that Frazier, while being given a polygraph test, "was shown what appeared to be a homemade brown heavy paper gun case." Lewis stated further that "Frazier said that it was possible this was the case, but he did not think it resembled it. He stated that the crinkly brown paper sack that Oswald had when he rode to work with him that morning was about two feet long." Detective Lewis also told Drain "that if this was not identical to the sack that was turned over to the Bureau, it is possible that Oswald may have thrown it away." (CD7, p291). Apparently, Lewis believed Frazier.

Your doubt about this is unwarranted. They were told Frazier drove Oswald to work and that he had a rifle. It's only natural he would then become a suspect. As far as the polygraph, if you'd read what I posted you'd realize it wasn't just the polygraph that disappeared, but the FBI report on the polygraph in which it was noted that Frazier didn't just say he wasn't sure about the bag shown to him, but outright rejected it. By making these things disappear, this gave the FBI the opportunity to apply further pressure, in hopes Frazier would say "yeah, I guess it could be" or "I think it was". This technique, after all, worked on Brennan. "Yeah, we know he said no, but if we keep trying and pushing maybe we can get him to say yes."

What?? Frazier remained in the building for some time after the shooting. He was not listed as missing when they did the "roll call". It's astonishing to think you believe he drove Oswald away from Dealey Plaza. He was a 19 year-old kid, for crying out loud. Not some secret agent or militia type.

Sure...but even that isn't as clear as we'd like it to be. From what we know of the behavior of the police, the district attorney, the mayor, etc, we have no reason to believe an autopsy performed in Dallas would have been any better than the one performed at Bethesda. It's sad, but true. While many top CT's have claimed Earl Rose was above reproach and would have done a bang-up job, moreover, I think the evidence is against this. The Secret Service hijacked the body for two reasons: 1) Johnson wouldn't leave without the body and 2) everyone in the Kennedy entourage wanted to get the heck out of Dallas, as they felt, understandably, that the powers that be in Texas were yahoos, corrupt, or both. Earl Rose had a chance, of course, to prove himself, and show the world that he would stand up to bs and tell the public the truth about what happened. Instead, he signed off on the HSCA's Pathology Panel Report, and declared till the end that a lone gunman killed JFK.

First of all, none of the doctors took notes. Their statements were written an hour or more after they last saw the body. Second of all, we know how Clark would testify because he testified for the Warren Commission. And he essentially said he was fine and dandy with whatever the autopsists concluded. The recollections of emergency room doctors are rarely if ever introduced in court to contradict the conclusions of an autopsy. And they most certainly wouldn't be introduced if the doctor was alive and had disavowed his initial report. I know people have trouble grasping this after reading so much of the same old stuff, but Clark was on Team Lattimer, not Team Lifton.

Ok, all is well. I was beginning to wonder if Frazier had pulled a massive switcheroo and no one noticed.