Pat Speer

I had a stretch where I read quite a bit about Hollywood and its beginnings. One book that comes to mind is "A Kingdom of Their Own." It detailed the rise of the Hollywood movie studios from the penny arcade business in New York and New Jersey, with a particular focus on the fact the moguls were mostly Jews living in constant fear of a backlash against their Jewishness. As a consequence, they were reluctant to make films about anti-Semitism--until Darryl F. Zanuck, one of the few non-Jews running a studio, broke the seal. There is another great book I read whose title escapes me. It was about the Hays Code--an actual code put in place to control Hollywood productions--that put restrictions on subject matter and what could be shown on the screen. As I recall, this was largely put in place to appease the Catholic Church, which was most upset by what those darned "Jews" in Hollywood were showing the country. In any event, the book detailed a number of films where the producers and directors fought the code, and helped erode its harshness. I particularly remember the chapter on A Streetcar Named Desire.. The code would not allow Stanley to rape Blanche--so they were forced to make it seem like maybe he only beat her up. But the director and actors made sure the audience knew what happened anyhow. I remember also that the code forbade Stanley's receiving no come-uppance for the rape. So they were forced to pretend his wife Stella, Blanche's sister, left him. Only Kim Hunter, the actress playing Stella, played the last scene in a way where the audience could tell she was still in love with him, and would probably return to that sexy beast, played by Marlon Brando. I also read another book or two on the pro-Russian propaganda films put out by Hollywood at the onset of WWII. These were created at the request of the U.S. Government, which wanted the public to accept our partnership with Uncle Joe and his Commie Army. Many of those working on these films were socialists, and sympathetic to Russia. Their work on these films would come back to haunt them, as their work for the U.S. Government would come to bite them in the ass after the war when the Government decided Russia was the new enemy, and they were no longer trusted. Hoover, McCarthy, et al, pressured the studio heads--ever-fearful of an outcry against their Jewishness--to create a blacklist, and disallow those insufficiently anti-commie from working. If I recall, one young actress, Nancy Davis, was concerned she would be roped into this nonsense, and kissed up to the head of the Screen Actors Guild, who had decided to side with the studios against his fellow actors. She soon thereafter married this man and became Mrs. Ronald Reagan. (I could be wrong about the timing of this, but I think that's correct.) History is made of such things. If Edison didn't claim a patent on films made in New York, the early film companies may not have moved to Hollywood. If they didn't have to move to Hollywood, they may not have been run by recent immigrants with no long-time roots in New York, which is to say, they may not have been run by Jews. If they hadn't been run by Jews, well, they may not have put up with the Hays Code, or gone along with the blacklist, and maybe Ronnie and Nancy wouldn't have become an item, and he wouldn't have run for President, and he wouldn't have spent a gazillion on his Star Wars scheme, and bankrupt the Soviet Union. So, heck, if it weren't for Edison's greed, the Soviet Union might still be around, and Putin could have stayed in the KGB, hunting down Ukrainians who wanted to defect, and disrupting western democracies. . It's all one big circle, ain't it?

I think the CIA long ago realized the propaganda value of films and has helped with the production of a number of them. As I recall, Zero Dark Thirty was created with the CIA's assistance. There is a problem with assuming all propaganda of this type is a lie, of course, just as there is a problem with assuming everything that is spun by the White House or a spokesperson for big tobacco or big oil is a lie. But it should make one think twice, IMO. As a one-time member of the Writers Guild, I can assure you that the stereotype for writers--leftists, progressives, etc, is mostly true. A lot of people get interested in writing and story-telling because they want to change attitudes and change the world--that's just a fact. In my lifetime, I've seen a lot of movement as far as race relations, along with a much more tolerant attitude towards gays. Gay marriage would have been unthinkable in 1965, or 1975, or even 1985. But the straight public's exposure to people such as Elton John, Ellen DeGeneres, and Neil Patrick Harris led to a softening of this stance, and a realization that gay people deserve a chance to be married and raise children. As far as myself, I was raised in white suburbia, in the 1960's. I didn't know any black people, outside of one or two kids at school. But I remember seeing MLK on TV, and he seemed pretty smart, and I watched TV and sports and appreciated the talent and/or warmth and humanity of people like Leslie Uggams, Diahann Carroll, Bill Cosby, Wiilie Mays, Maury Wills, Willie Davis, Gale Sayers and Elgin Baylor. I couldn't imagine a world in which they would be forbidden from being my neighbor, or where their kids would be prohibited from attending my school. So media exposure makes a difference. It changes minds and changes the world.

Oh boy. My point was that the negative characterizations were not invented from whole cloth. I suppose you are equally upset that so many movies have depicted Middle East terrorists as Muslim, and New York mob figures as Italian. And God forbid anyone should depict an Irish-American as a heavy drinker, or a white southerner as a redneck. Most cliches are based on reality. The problem, of course, is that if the only thing people see is the cliche, then they develop a prejudice. That is why alternative depictions are needed. in the case of evil Russians...I just watched the films Red and Red 2 with my son. The bag guys were pretty much all white members of the CIA. The Russians were much more likable. Not to lecture but it should also be pointed out that much of the improvement around the world has come from Hollywood, and its depictions of various people as humans, and not as stereotypes. That is why it's so dangerous, and is why totalitarian states like China and Russia are constantly on the lookout for positive depictions of gay people in the movies. Disney, as an example, has lost billons of dollars in business in countries who fear its influence, and are afraid its positive depictions of certain types might influence the masses, and lessen the government's ability to villainize these people.

If you lived in Southern California, you would understand why Russians continue to be presented as the bad guys in numerous filmed productions. After the fall of the wall, thousands of Russians fled to the good ole USA for increased opportunity. Not to come here and work hard and live the American dream, like most other immigrants. But to spread organized crime throughout the southland. It was a mobster invasion. I remember going to the Glendale mall with my Ukrainian friend, who'd just moved back from Ukraine, after spending time in Moscow. He would look across the mall, and spot a group of people a hundred yards away, and say "Those are Russian gangsters." We''d then walk past the group and sure enough, they'd be speaking Russian, or English with a thick Russian accent. We must have spotted fifty of them. After awhile, I could spot them too. They wore brown leather jackets, and almost always had a blonde on their arms. It was like going to the Bada Bing. Mobsters were everywhere.

I'm drawing a blank as to when Marina saw Lee leave. My recollection is that she said she woke up when he got up but then went back to sleep. Can you point us to where she said she saw him with a bag?

I go through the head wound witnesses in chapters 18c and 18d on my website. From doing so, I came to realize that the blow-out wound low on the back of the head purported by numerous CTs is nonsense, Recently, some have taken to claiming my argument is a straw-man argument, and that the BOH wound purported by the CT community was not low on the back of the head. But that's incorrect. If you read the chapters you will see that many of the most prominent CTs and best-selling authors have claimed the "actual" location of the large head wound was at a location at odds with where the witnesses have claimed to see the wound, and that numerous deceptions were employed to "sell" this lower location.

This doesn't surprise me in the least. Oswald was a weirdo. His wife was living with Ruth Paine. Ruth had undoubtedly told her things about Oswald--about his trip to Russia and possibly even that he beat Marina. And there he is walking up to he house with a package in his hand. Of course she watched him. Keep in mind that Oswald had only received a few rides from Frazier, and that, if memory serves, he normally got picked up outside the Paine's. This may have been the first time Linnie got a good look at Oswald, the brooding young man that her baby brother seemed so taken with...and the subject of so much gossip.

Her statements about seeing him put the package in the car are pretty much beside the point. She said she saw him walking towards the house with it, and described the way he held it. She was then asked by the freakin' FBI to approximate the length of this package in comparison to the replacement bag. And she said it was much smaller. Months later, she was once again asked about this, and pressured by Joe Ball into saying the bag she saw was the size of the bag put into evidence. She once again claimed it was much too small. She got nothing out of this. Never tried to make money off it. Nothing. She was an honest camper, an extremely loyal sister, or both. I suspect both.

Geez. Holmes' report is almost worthless. He wrote it what? two weeks after the shooting, apparently from memory. Oswald said he didn't go the week before because of the birthday and Holmes thought he meant that he wasn't gonna go there on Friday because of the birthday. Obviously. Let's recall that this is the same guy who claimed that Oswald said he was upstairs at the time of the shooting. Bad memory or a bad xxxx. You take your pick.

I talked to Frazier about this. The outer wall was slats. You could see movement on the other side. If I recall she saw Oswald through a window and then followed his movements around the side by opening the door to the garage. She then saw him approach Frazier's car and heard the car door open. There's nothing mysterious about this.

Since echoes keep echoing back... From patspeer.com Chapter 9: When one reads a rarely-cited HSCA analysis of the way gunshots are heard in Dealey Plaza, one can see for oneself that it is indeed fairly easy to distinguish shots from echoes in Dealey Plaza. The writer of this report, Harvard Psychoacoustics Professor David Green, makes a point of stating that although his hearing was impaired in his left ear, and he was unable to hear the echoes with the clarity of the trained observers, he was nonetheless able to localize the shots based on their initial blast with a similar degree of accuracy as the experts. In the report, the trained observers state that there is a strong echo from the Post Office Annex on the south side of the plaza that comes a second after a shot fired from the TSBD. They said it was readily distinguishable as an echo, but that someone on the knoll hearing this echo might misinterpret the original source of the sound as coming from an area directly behind himself. OK, so that could be an explanation as to why the witnesses on the knoll were incorrect, but what about those in front of the TSBD? Well, the report goes on to say that it would be difficult for someone standing in front of the TSBD to immediately localize a sound high overhead, and that some of the witnesses may have localized on a subsequent echo coming 8/10 of a second later from the area of the overpass “especially if the rifle had been fired from well within the TSBD.” This disclaimer indicates that Dr. Green didn’t really believe his offered explanation, as he knew or should have known that the rifle in the TSBD was seen sticking out the window and that the window was not open sufficiently high enough for someone to fire from back inside the building. Similarly, since the theoretical ability of a lone sniper to shoot accurately from this window is based upon his use of the boxes stacked in front of the window for support, this statement argues against a lone gunman’s ability to shoot 3 accurate shots from the sniper’s nest without his giving away his position to a far greater degree than actually occurred. This disclaimer, therefore, can be taken as yet another argument for shots or sounds coming from more than one location, as a lone sniper shooting from the sixth floor window should have been more readily identifiable. Indeed, in his 9-11-78 appearance before the committee, Green made this point abundantly clear. Early in his testimony, he offered: "when you are situated immediately under the Texas School Book Depository, which was our general location for the second sequence of shots, two things are rather confusing. First of all, the N wave comes right over your head so you tend to localize the source directly over your head or on occasion you directly localize the source in whatever direction you were facing. You could, for example, move your head into different directions. I once looked down Elm Street in this direction fairly well convinced that the sound came from this direction, and the other observers did likewise, pointed their heads in different directions and said that that influenced their judgments. Also when you are in this location the sound sweeps down the building and the apparent source of the sound is rather large, probably because it scattered off the regular surface of the building. That was caused by the blast wave." He was then asked if this confusion caused his observers to incorrectly identify the source of any of the shots, and responded "They certainly made some inaccurate responses. I would say in the order of 10 percent." Well, this suggests it really wasn't that confusing. And sure enough, Dr. Green summed up his tests as follows: “there are certain locations that are best for observing certain shots and in the general region of the book depository, right on the street beneath it, in our opinion it was extremely easy to tell it came from the book. There was a massive sound to the right and rear that sort of crawled down the building, presumably due to scatter on the regular surface of the building and it was quite evident.” Unstated but implied in Green’s report is his knowledge that 11 of the 14 witnesses in this “general region” in front of the depository, including those on its front steps, nevertheless believed the shots came from somewhere else, with 9 pointing west, the direction of the railroad yards and the knoll. Green’s attempts to account for this anomaly by suggesting that the rifle was fired from well within the building, as opposed to the more logical possibility that the bullets were undercharged in order to create less noise—which was believed to have been beyond the “lone nut” Oswald’s capabilities-- or that the witnesses were simply responding to the last sound they heard, which came from the west, is nevertheless informative, as it indicates a second rifle firing from well within either the Dal-Tex or County Records buildings would not necessarily have been interpreted as coming from those locations, even if the weapon were not equipped with a silencer. But that is not all the report has to offer. Although, strangely, no rapid fire sequences with shots alternating between the grassy knoll and the TSBD were attempted for the study, the witnesses were able to distinguish isolated shots between the locations with relative ease, with over 85% accuracy, including pistol shots from the knoll and rifle shots from well within the TSBD. When one looks only at the results of the rifle shots fired from the window and any shot fired from the knoll, one sees that the observers correctly identified the source 73 out of 80 times, no matter where they stood in Dealey Plaza. When one looks only at the results gleaned from the observers while they stood near the knoll, one sees they correctly identified the source of the shots 26 out of 26 times, claiming that the un-silenced shots fired were readily identifiable as coming from the stockade fence, which argues against a shot coming from that location, as most the witnesses nearby, including Abraham Zapruder, believed the shots came from somewhere further back. (Why they failed to perform tests using silenced weapons is never explained.) When one looks only at the results gleaned from the observers while they stood on the street in front of the Depository, in addition, it reveals they correctly identified the source 18 of 20 times. These actual results reveal that the report’s musings about people being confused by echoes on the knoll and shock waves in front of the TSBD was so much hooey, offered most likely so that the HSCA would have the option of defending the Warren Commission’s conclusions. Instead, the results reveal it’s fairly easy to identify the source of a shot fired in Dealey Plaza under normal circumstances. And yet the single-assassin theorists maintain that the 7 out of 9 witnesses between the knoll and the limousine who heard shots from behind them were wrong, in a location where the observers were right 26 out of 26 times, and also that the 5 out of 6 witnesses on the North side of Elm who said shots came from the west, were wrong, in a location where the observers were right 18 of 20 times. These results indicate that it is the single-assassin theorists who are wrong, yet again.

As important as the wording is the date. This is September 1964, 10 months after the shooting and 9 months after the beginning of the WC's investigation. The Warren Report, including the section on the curtain rods, has already been written and approved by the commissioners. There was no way in hell that they were gonna go back to square one and ask around about the curtain rods. So, much as they did with the barrel print--where they asked Hoover to verify it had been on the rifle, but took no sworn testimony on this point--they asked the FBI to give them some cover on this and get Truly to say no curtains rods were recovered. This is transparent smoke. Sure, Truly was in charge of the depository, but there were a number of outside companies within the building. Why weren't the employees of these companies, which used the same lunch room as the TSBD workers, asked about the curtain rods? And why, for crying out loud, did someone change the dates on the DPD report on some curtain rods, to make it appear these rods were tested after they'd been recovered from Ruth Paine's garage, when the original report proves they were tested before being recovered from Ruth Paine--and were most probably a different set altogether? .

Here are the curtain rods, as published by the WC. I'm not sure what that dark shape you see is, but if I recall they said there were roll-up blinds on that shelf as well.

I'm not sure why you think I missed the ends of the curtain rods in my chapter. I am fairly certain I was the first to notice them. From chapter 4h at patspeer.com:

If we're gonna go down that road, Mark, we have to accept the possibility that 1) Brennan lied about seeing Oswald out of fear the real killer would hunt him down if he didn't, 2) Jack Ruby lied about his reasons for killing Oswald out of fear the plotters in JFK's death would gun him down, and 3) the FBI and DPD crime lab people all lied out of fear of getting in trouble should they not properly pin the tale on the Oswald. It's a slippery slope. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If you're gonna say Frazier lied to save his butt you have to accept that LBJ and Warren ran a whitewash to save their own butts. The problem is, of course, that Frazier has more credibility than those other upstanding citizens.

You are correct in that the results of the polygraph were not published. But it can not be doubted that Frazier was asked about the bag and that he passed, seeing as the DPD officers involved deferred to his insistence the bag shown him was not the bag he saw earlier that day in Oswald's possession. .

Nope. The FBi's paper analysis traced the sack paper to a particular roll that was in use on the 22nd, and for but a few days before and after. The only day he visited Irving in this period was the 21st.

From patspeer.com, Chapter 9... And now the moment we’ve been waiting for (at least the moment I’ve been waiting for)…the results of our eyewitness analysis. With 70 witnesses out of the plaza or to the south of Elm Street, 70 witnesses in the motorcade, and 154 assorted witnesses on bridges, along Elm Street, or in the School Book Depository, we’ve looked at the words of 294 witnesses to see if they add up to something. Of this 294, 89 failed to tell us much that would indicate when and how the shots were fired. Of the remaining 205, 102 made statements suggesting there were three shots fired, with the first shot being heard between Z-190 and Z-224 and the last 2 shots being heard in rapid succession after a short pause. Another 57 made statements suggesting that the first shot was heard between Z-190 and Z-224, but made no statements indicating the last two shots were bunched together. Another 13 heard the last two shots fired closely together, and yet another could only swear to hearing two shots, but thought there may have been a third, which was wholly consistent with the last two being fired closely together. This means that 173 of the 205 witnesses described the shots in a relatively consistent manner. Of the remaining 32, 18 heard four or more shots, and another 3 made statements indicating there was a shot after the head shot. This leaves just 11 witnesses whose statements can reasonably be seen as supporting the shooting scenario theorized by John Lattimer, Gerald Posner and Dale Myers. And 8 of these 11, once their words are compared to the various photographs and films, can be used to argue for a different scenario. This leaves just 3 witnesses who can be used to support the LPM scenario over other scenarios—J.M. Head, Mrs. Robert Reid and Geneva Hine. Well, Head told us nothing about the timing of the shots, other than that there was a bigger gap before the last shot. (I mean, he may have thought the first two shots were bang-bang with a two second gap before the last shot--we don't know). And Reid testified in a manner supporting that the first shot was fired after frame 160. Now that leaves Hine, who didn't even see the impact of the shots. She merely described the shooting in a manner more consistent with a first shot at frame 160 than at 190. That’s it. The TV simulations depicting a first shot miss and a five second gap between the second and third shots are therefore incredibly at odds with the available evidence. No matter how many shooters fired on the motorcade, no matter who fired the fatal bullet, the statements of the eyewitnesses indicate THE SHOOTING DID NOT HAPPEN AS PURPORTED BY LATTIMER, POSNER, MYERS, AND BUGLIOSI.

I'm sure the FBI was putting the best spin possible on what Frazier told them. We know they were fudging, moreover, because that report failed to acknowledge that Frazier had been shown the original sack, in its original color, while attached to a lie detector on the night of the shooting, and not only refused to ID the sack, but convinced the DPD the sack he saw was another sack. He was a kid. The fact is the FBI put the replica sack in the back seat and Frazier said the sack he saw was half that size--half that size, not even close. As far as your pockets theory, oh my. The paper comprising the paper bag was roughly 3 1/2 feet by 2 feet...of shipping paper, which is thicker than writing paper. It crinkles when you fold it. I have worked in a warehouse where such paper was used. When I spoke to Frazier about this, I prefaced my question by explaining that I'd worked with this paper, and couldn't believe Oswald "smuggled" such a large piece of paper out to Irving on the 21st without his--Frazier's--noticing. I then explained that the FBI and WC had tested the various paper rolls and had concluded that that roll was in use on the 21st, and maybe a few days before, and that the 21st was the only time Oswald could have smuggled the paper out to Irving. I then asked him if it was possible Oswald had the paper stuffed down his shirt or some such thing on the ride out to Irving. It was as if I'd asked him if his mom could be an alien. He looked me in the eye and said, with the stern voice of a school principal: "THAT... DID... NOT... HAPPEN." P.S. We didn't talk about Walker or Tippit, but I suspect he hasn't spent much time thinking about them, because...because...he knows what he knows, and he knows the bag was not large enough to hold that rifle.

Pure smoke. Circular reasoning. "I refuse to believe something, so it mustn't be true." I have talked with Frazier on several occasions. He knows the evidence against Oswald. He also knows what he knows. And what he knows--for a fact, in his mind--is that the Oswald he knew was an unlikely assassin, and that the bag he saw in Oswald's possession was much smaller than the bag later put into evidence. He knows this for a fact. He has no doubt. He has also stated--as a fact--that Oswald did not have the bag in his possession on the 21st. He knows this for a fact. So put aside the grandstanding stuff, David. Let's say you ran into Johnny Bench on the street as he came outside a grocery store. Let's say he excused himself to take a pee and went into a local biker bar. And then all hell broke loose. Sirens came roaring down the street right up to the bar. An APB is then put out on Bench. He gets arrested. You're horrified. He killed three people in a bar? Johnny Bench? And then he gets killed in police custody. You're blown away. Now imagine that over the next few days an "official" story emerges as to what happened. There are no witnesses to the brawl itself. Nevertheless, the authorities claim Bench brought a Louisville Slugger into the bar inside a long paper bag, and just teed off on the bartender. Now, you know this is bs. You saw the bag in his possession and it was a grocery bag. So what do you do? Do you say "Well, the authorities are never wrong, and never lie, so I must be mistaken--Johnny Bench must be a cold-blooded killer?" Or do you say "Yikes! I don't know what happened, but I know what didn't happen, and Johnny Bench did not go into that bar with a Louisville slugger in a bag and just start braining a bartender!" I know what I'd do.

No one forced Putin's hand. This is entirely his doing. His dream has been to reconstitute the Soviet Union, and there is no Soviet Union without Ukraine. I am shocked that so many are willing to Monday-morning quarterback this, and wring their hands over what so and so should have done to prevent this. But that's just me. I'm biased. I grew up with Ukrainians. My best friend devoted his life to helping Ukraine prepare itself for the invasion he knew was coming. He'd lived in Kyiv and Moscow and knew it was just a matter of time before the bear decided to eat the salmon.

McClelland was one of the doctors and he said he never felt pressured. What many fail to realize is that emergency room doctors are frequently proven wrong and/or over-ruled by pathologists. A man on his last breath is brought in to the ER. A doctor tries to revive him, but it's too late. The doctor's impressions of the cause of death could very well be wrong. He thought it was a heart attack but it was an OD on heart medicine or some such thing.

Oswald would want an attorney who would give him a fair shake, and not hold his background as a commie symp/leper against him. This makes perfect sense. if I was a leper, I would want a doctor who'd had experience dealing with lepers, and not one who thought they were icky. Wouldn't you? As far as the rifle, it's clear to me that whoever removed it from the garage wanted it to look like it was still in the blanket. Would Oswald have done as much on the morning of the shooting? It's possible. It's possible he was worried Marina would notice it missing. But would she alert the authorities if she did? I don't see that as a real concern. It's more likely by far that someone had taken it before the evening of the 21st, and was hoping Oswald wouldn't notice its absence. The Paines, after all, were purportedly unaware of the rifle's existence. So their noticing the blanket was empty would probably just bring a shrug. These were Quakers, after all, who never locked their garage, or, presumably, their house.

My position is not secret. I suspect Oswald was innocent of killing Kennedy, and was set up. But I think he was involved in something--perhaps he was told someone was gonna roll a protest banner down from the window, or something equally innocuous. But he was involved in something. I think he realized he'd been set up, and fled. I suspect as well that he killed Tippit while in flight, and that he may have had good reason to do so, as Tippit may not have been as innocent as we would like to believe. I think/know the WC was a whitewash.

Day said he went downstairs and tore off a piece of paper as a sample, yes? So when did this happen? By all scenarios, he was upstairs (at a time no one had seen the bag) and then left the building with the rifle. So when did he go downstairs to check the paper? Did he put the rifle down somewhere when he messed with the paper? Was the bag with him at this time? And, if so, why is there no corroborative testimony from Truly or anyone working at the TSBD..."Yeah, I saw Lt. Day come down with the bag and compare it to our paper, and then take a sample." We have Day's word he did this--but not when--and we have Studebaker, his assistant, saying he was there as well, but Day concealed Studebaker's involvement when first asked about this. Why? The "official" story has so many holes you can't count 'em, and its because Specter/Ball/Belin refused to get to the bottom of this stuff. So let's say Day left the bag and paper sample at the depository when he left with the rifle. Why, then, was it another hour or so before Montgomery and Johnson left with the bag? And why didn't they take the paper sample with them? And why was the bag never photographed by the DPD until AFTER it had been sent to the FBI, and AFTER Oswald's prints had supposedly been found on it? Was the DPD that incompetent/reluctant to photograph evidence? Really? If you can't smell a rat here then I strongly suggest you buy a rat terrier. They're nice dogs and they're quite good at sniffing out rats.