Dawn Meredith

I think it's a great idea, however, under our current administration, I don't see anything coming from it. But it's worth a shot, to force this matter into the media's attention, however slight . There's gotta be a few people in government who are on our side. Even with this past election. Dawn

I don't know if Castro signed any such condolence book but he did have some very important words to say about the assassination of JFK. I first happened upon this 11/23/63 speech in 1974, in, I believe Paris Flammond's book on the Garrison investigation. It is reprinted in Dr. Marty Schotz' brilliant "History Will NOt Absolve US". Castro really was onto the truth from the start. Dawn

Dawn, this is one of the most important postings made on this forum. Hopefully, people will take note of what you are saying. I fear that will not be the case. I am fairly new to the investigation on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Although I have been interested in the case since it happened, I only began serious research about a year ago. This involved me joining two forums on the subject: JFK Lancer and JFKresearch. It did not take me long to be upset by the terrible in-fighting that took place on these forums. This is in no way a criticism of the two people who run these two forums: Debra Conway and Richard J. DellaRosa. In fact, they make sterling efforts to keep their members from insulting each other. But it is an impossible job when you have certain individuals who appear to be determined to abuse others. I believe forums have tremendous potential for carrying out effective academic research. As I have said elsewhere, forums allows you to link brains together. In this way it allows you to create what has been called “collective intelligence” or “community intelligence”. This is the reason why I established this forum. I thought I could bring together researchers with a wide variety of different information and expertise in order to work together to break this case. In many ways it has been a great success. We now have a fairly large group of researchers who are willing to share their information on the assassination. Although this group do not always agree, they respect each others opinions and never resort to personal abuse. However, we do have a small minority of members who are very quick to make attacks on people they disagree with. As I believe passionately in the idea of free speech I have so far only resorted to censorship on one occasion. Instead I emailed the offenders and told them to treat their opponents with respect. In some cases this has worked. In too many cases it has not. This has resulted in some members becoming disillusioned with this forum. Some have become less active in the debate, fearing that their comments might receive an abusive response. I now feel that we have got to the stage where I have to take action. My primary concern is to retain the membership of the important researchers. If this means I will have to lose the membership of those who appear to be playing a negative role on this forum, so be it. Therefore, if members continue to make abusive comments about other members, I will delete these posts and ban them from the forum. As most of you know, I am organizing an online conference on the JFK assassination during the week 21st November – 27th November. http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=1891 We have a very impressive collection of contributors. If we all get involved in the debates that take place, we shall produce a tremendous resource for future JFK researchers. As I don’t know of anything similar taking place on the web I think we might be making history. We might also be producing a model for people working in other fields. The contributors, like all academic researchers, have differing views of the topic. I expect all those posting in these threads to act like people do in a university seminar. Hopefully we will get healthy debate. But be warned. I will not tolerate abusive comments aimed at individuals. At all times you must concentrate on the evidence, not on the motivation or personality of the poster. If you do not abide by this rule, you will have your posts deleted and your membership suspended. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> John, Thank you, I too hope others will utilize this wonderful furum you have provided to advance the case. I see this happening in other threads and it is MOST exciting. For someone like myself who has read books on this case now my whole life, I LOVE this interactive approach: Seeing new avenues explored by various researchers, then added to by the next poster, actually LEADING somewhere, gives me a sense of new hope not felt since the early days of HSCA. This case has always brought out in peole the need to disagree, sometimes to the point where the fights become so deep people never speak again. I have been in the middle of such battles many times and it is literally like having two family members suddenly just stop speaking. I always try to reconcile these warring factions but usually have been unsuccessful. It never ceases to sadden me. In some cases the people fighting had been working togehter for years. The forums are different, lots of ego, where everyone wants their point to be number one, when it needs to be a collective sharing toward one goal: solving this case. Leaving a TRUE history for our children and grandchildren. They are not going to get it from the history texts or the media. I for one thank you for providing this forum and hope that it grows in your above-stated purpose. Advancing the truth about who killed JFK, and why, and who truly runs the current government of this country. Dawn

Dawn - I take it you have not followed many JFK assassination forums. What happens is there are a select few who never have any evidence to present in support of their opinions - they just make silly say-nothing-post because in their minds they think that makes up for what they don't know about the case. I mean ... who in their right mind would keep telling people to go buy a book that declares Zfilm alteration that they have already said how it didn't offer them anything that would prove the Zapruder film to be altered? How far would you get as an attorney if you only told the jury what you were going to show concerning someone's guilt or innocence, but actually never did it. I don't go back and forth with Healy as if to be arguing with him because he offers no evidence to argue about. I do it so to let people see the mindset of some so-called researchers who promote a conclusion when in reality they have little to no knowledge of the case and to show how far they'll go without ever really trying to learn the evidence surrounding Kennedy's murder. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Bill, I do not know if there was alteration to the Z film or not, when I tried to read about Assassination Science several years back I could not follow the long email I was reading. Then I attempted to read a friend's review of this book and I could not follow that either. As I recall it was just not very well written and went off on so many tangents and personal infighting stuff that it made comprehension of what the book was actually about almost impossible. I have not discussed it with this friend since. Perhaps at some point I will, but, as I told him then (94?) "if the Z film was altered why would they leave in the headshot"? So I just leave it there. No, this is my first forum and while I find it to be extremely interesting, again all the personal infighting is hard to follow.. You need a roadmap. And I am personally not interested in peoples' infighting. Having known members of the research community now since the early 70's I am VERY TIRED of all the infighting I have seen over these long years. I want to see progress on the case and unity in this small world of "critical research". But sadly there are some with a personal agenda, so one has to be most careful. That is one of the main reasons I have not ever gone on forums. With that said, I do believe that there is much valuable work being done on this forum. So I try to just skin thru the garbage. At some point I would be interested in hearing concise argument for and against film alteration. If such a thing can be done in a clear and concise manner. I have read Fetzer on other matters and he is very clear. Maybe I will just get the book. Dawn e

Tosh and Shanet, Thank you for these posts. I totally agree with your thinking and conclusions. This research is getting very exciting. Dawn

My political sympathies are with Pam, but I agree with Pat and John. For whatever reason this country has swung more to the right. I don't like this, but I want a candidate who can win. I was a big Dean supporter, but I knew the lying Republicans would do to him what they had done to George McGovern in 72 and Bush would trounce him. So I gladly supported Kerry, all the while worrying that he was a Massachusetts liberal that W would paint as a "leftist pinko". We need someone who can beat them at their own game. I hate to say it but remember JFK??? He was able to outdo Tricky Dick in the Cold War arena, only to become the president who would die trying to thaw this "war". We need someone like that. Clinton had that kind of passion and charisma and Jimmy Carter had real morality. We need to be VERY careful next time. No surprises. I for one did not know about the swift boat xxxx who has plagued Kerry since he entered politics. But Kerry did and that he did not properly address this following the convention was a political disaster. He also needed to have been stronger on the marriage issue. That his state would sanction gay marriage was terrible timing for him and he needed to take W on and perhaps offend gays. Hell, this is high stakes, and pragmastism was called for- (I cannot believe it is me saying this!)- but I am tired of seeing our side lose to the right wing. We have got to learn to beat them, we know the dirty tricks they always employ. It's time the Democratic party anticipates and prepares for this. Dawn

Denis, This is what I have always heard, that RFK intended to open up the investigation of his brother's murder once he was president. But obviously the powers that be could not have that, so they "invented" Sirhan Sirhan. I have always felt that this case would be, by far, the easiest to "solve" because there was a real autopsy by an honest coroner. I believe that Dr. Thomas Noguchi is even still alive. As is Sirhan. (Who does have an conspiracy-aware lawyer working on his case, against all odds). People saw a security guard immediately behind RFK with a gun drawn, exactly at the spot where Dr. Noguchi's autopsy said the killing shot had to have come from ( vs. several feet in front of RFK, where Sirhan was). Security guard, Thane Eugene Cesar was the name of this guard and he was in fact located in I blieve 1987 and interviewed. In this interview he admitted not only to being there but to HAVING HIS GUN DRAWN,. This was for a mag called "Ragaldies". I used to have a copy of it and probably sitill do someplace. This case can be solved!!! Dawn

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Mr Healy, If you want to convince anyone there was not film alteration (and I don't even get involved in that argument as I think the issue of WHO KILLED JFK is the one we are here for)- you truly would be more convincing if you used proper English. Why are you both using this forum for this stupid argument anyway? We can all read the book on this subject and decide for ourselves. This is what spreaders of disinformation always do: promote silly arguments to keep peoples' minds of the real issues. I don't know if this is the case with you and Bill, but it is really annoying, nonetheless. I am also finding Nancy's posts hard to read, Nancy you seem very intelligent, are you a foreign language speaker? I do not mean this to insult you, I just have to read your posts several times to understand them. thanks, Dawn

Wim and Richard: Could you two just stop this bickering on this post and do it in a PM fashion??? It is really boring to read this garbage, when most of us are here for honest updates in this case. I for one am looking very forward to Tosh's story. So far he sounds most credible. We thank you Tosh. I saw the Files video a few years back and was not impressed with it, but it's very hard to learn more just listening to you two (Wim and Richard) accuse each other of lies and what ever happened on Lnacer. Enough already. Dawn

John I totally agree with the above, but the Republicans play so dirty. They lie. So no matter who the Dems put up there will be a very expensive smear campaign filled with hate and lies. In this election they went after Kerry on the very issue where he was strong and Bush was weak: his war record. The swift boat lies dominated the cable news stations night after night, immediately after the Democratic convention. How do people fight against a machine so powerful that they can employ countless lies to be elected, while fooling the masses into believing that they are in fact the "moral" group? I really thought people would see through this. I am also receiving emails containing news stories about suspected fraud in Fla and Ohio. So, I wonder if we will ever know. Dawn

What do you mean by "lawyer records"? Trial transcripts are public documents. But they are very expensive to obtain. First you have to know the name and cause number of the case, where and when it occurred. From there you must find out who the court reporter was for that case. Then you contact said court reporter and order a copy of the trail transcript, which gets VERY expensive. General information on a trial, like the outcome of a case, can be obtained via the clerk of the court where the trial was held. Hope this helps. Dawn

Contrast those words with any speech given by Bush. It makes me weep. Dawn

I believe the point about exit polls and the way this election turned out bears some serious scrutiney. The numbers are too far off. How many places had electronic voting I wonder, with no paper trail? Didn't we all worry about votefraud when we saw these little computers replacing the paper ballot? If we can get a paper receipt when we use our ATM cards why not when we vote??? Why voting machines with no paper vote as back up? Call me a sore loser, but I have questions about the exit polls vs. the final (alleged) result. Dawn

It is an interesting question about the relationship between the Neo-Cons, the CIA and the JFK assassination. The link between the Neo-Cons and the CIA dates back to George H. W. Bush being appointed by Gerald Ford (a member of the Warren Commission) as head of the CIA. One of the first things that Bush did was to persuade Ford to establish a system where a team of “outside experts” would take an independent look at the highly classified data used by the intelligence community to assess Soviet strategic forces. This became known as the B Team (I assume the CIA were the A Team). The chairman of B Team was Richard Pipes, professor of history at Harvard. Members of the B team included several of those prominent in the Neo-Cons movement today. This included Paul Nitze, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. The group also got support from Donald Rumsfeld (Secretary of Defense) and Dick Cheney (Ford's White House Chief of Staff). The B Team came to the conclusion that the Soviet Union posed a far greater than the government realised. They argued that even though the intelligence community could not find hard evidence that the Soviets had a superior system of offensive weapons, this did not mean that they did not exist. All it meant was that they had discovered new ways of hiding this information. The B Team also came to the conclusion that the Soviets were behind all terrorist groups throughout the world. Something they desribed as the "Terrorist Network". Although they could not prove it, they believed it. For them it was an act of faith (a bit like WMD in Iraq). However, they did find some evidence of this in CIA classified documents. In 1981 William Casey became Director of the CIA. He was another Neo Con and worked very closely with the B Team. He demanded an immediate investigation into the claims made by the B Team that the Soviets were behind this “Terrorist Network”. The CIA reported back that they could not find any evidence that the Soviets were behind these acts of international terrorism. Casey then asked how they explained these classified documents suggested that there was a link between the two. The CIA officer replied that they were not genuine. When Casey asked how they knew, the CIA officer replied “because the agency created them as part of a black operation against the Soviets”. Casey was so determined to believe the B Team, that he rejected the CIA report and told Reagan that the Soviets were behind the terrorist network. Researchers have always stressed the political implications of the Neo Cons. This is a mistake. Their ideas are deeply influenced by economics. They are the driving force behind the Military Industrial Complex. The same group who funded the assassination of JFK. The most important implication of this story for JFK researchers concerns the manufacture of false documents. The CIA have not only been involved in destroying important documents, they have created false ones. Therefore, when Oswald’s CIA file is eventually released, should we really trust what it says. The general opinion will be that as the CIA have spent so much energy making sure the file is not published, it must be true. However, for cynics like me, I believe the file was tampered with soon after the assassination. I expect the same is also true of Oswald’s FBI file. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> John: Brilliant summation of how the JFK assassination is totally tied to the events happening now. Why solving this case not only still matters, we will have no legitimate government so long as this lie continues. We need another Jim Garrison to bring a grand jury investigation while there are still some living conspirators. Dawn

I concur 100% with the above three posts. John asks what the state of the US will be by 2008?. Great guestion. Under Republican "leadership" these last four years we have seen the Clinton legacy of a balanced budged trashed and the national debt is now at 9 trillion. Yet this was not even addressed during the election. Why? I am hearing that there is going to be a break in the Republican party over this issue. I can only hope this is true before this country is beyond saving due to this staggering debt. We know that Bush got out his "base" who are primarily concerned with preventing a woman from the right of choice. Born life is never a concern with these people. Especially those born into a life of poverty. I have also never met a "pro lifer" who was anti war. "Christian values" have instead become the politics of hate. Hardly what Jesus taught!!! What was even more alarming to me last night was hearing from an old Jewish who told me that he had encountered many other "highly educated Jews" who were spouting all this anti- gay anti- choice rhetoric, telling him that" if a person is moral they must vote for Bush". That was very surprising to me. Now that Bush and his neocons don't have to worry about a re-election it is terrifying to think what they will do next. Out and out nuclear war with N. Korea??? I don't see the Bush gang utilizing diplomacy to avoid a tough situation. The word is not even in his vocabulary. Scary times, these. Dawn (Meredith)

Opps, sorry Dixie I said "Dee", got your name backwards. Yes Tim is totally correct. (His memory is better than mine (But he probably also gets a lot more sleep too Dawn

Thanks Tim, (And Shanet, and Dee) You are correct, I was trying to remember exactly what Prouty said from something I read a couple of years ago. (I probably have it in a file someplace). Just remembered how certain he was that the guy from beind was Lansdale. (And Prouty would know). Black day for America yesterday. Up too late watching election returns, hoping for a miracle. Still stunned by this. Dawn

Prouty says somewhere- (don't remember where)- that one of the tramps was Lansdale. A different photo tho than the famous one where you can see their faces, he was id'ing Lanscale from behind. The Chancy Holt story can be found in a fascinating little book called "The Man on the Grassy Knoll" by John Craig and Philip Rogers. Dawn

Re Barr. He is totally convinced of his work and has indeed made great personal sacrifices to get his story told. He is also trustworthy, IMO. He has worked on this book a long time to find a publisher brave enough to take on this stroy. Look what happened to that portion of Nigel Turner's work: The History channel outright cancelled it. They have not ever done that before, they were the one brave network to feature Nigel's work all these years, til "The Guilty Men" portion, featuring Barr's work. What Barr needed to do was to write a book that told just this story, LBJ, Mac Wallace, the finger print evidence and LEAVE OUT his "faction" stuff. Last year he really took a hit from the "critical community" due to these chapters. Some people even branded him a disinformationist based on who his son works for. (W's press secty). That is not fair. I have had many discussions with Barr about these problems in his book. They happen to be his opinion (eg that LHO was also a shooter, along with Mac Wallace) because he just does not know these areas of the case very well. But he really knows his stuff on the LBJ background. And to finally get a true insider view is pretty remarkable. I know Barr's print expert well and you will not find a more credible person than Nathan Darby. I just hope that someone can pick up this work, but it's really hit a dead end. No one can get Mac Wallace's known print from Austin's Dept. of Public Safety any longer. Nathan told me yesterday that Barr can no longer even get it. This is, I am told, in part because of the way researcher Glen Sample -(Men on the Sixthe Floor) -obtained it. At first Sample did not concur with Darby's analysis of the print match, but he does now. This is an area that someone needs to do further work on. It would be really nice to see it happen in the lifetime of Nathan Darby, who is getting up in years. Dawn (Meredith)

Thanks John for the reminder. Lane deals with the firing of Sprague very well. Of course it was the CIA-press who forced Sprague's firing. Funny how we "remember" things, all I could remember was the big upheval between he and Gonzalez. Speaking of Lane's great book, there's an interesting interview with Hunt in the online mag. "Slate" where he is asked about the possibility of David Atlee Phillips being involved with the JFK assassination, to which Hunt responds: "(visibly uncomfortable) I have no comment". Then he's asked about the notion that he may have been in Dallas 11/22/63, and again replies, somewhat tellingly : "No comment". I guess that is as close to any admission that we will ever get as to what ever Hunt knows about "the whole Bay of pigs thing" (to use Tricky dick's Watergate recorded words for that event.) Dawn

On Oswald a better book than Epstein's, I believe, is Phil Melanson's "Spy Saga". "Best Evidence" is David Lifton's. It's a very long book to plow thru, someone needs to condense it to about 200 very relevent pages of evidence of foul play with the body and switched coffins. The WC never once asked the question of "who killed JFK? " Their mandate was to make the case for LHO. Garrison's "On the trail of the Assassins" may be useful to you, the parts where he writes about his own discoveries in the WC. As he said "the only way you can believe the WC is not to read it" (paraphrased). I am so thrilled to see historians taking this case on. May we see true history books one day in our lifetime. (Anyone read Dallek's "An Unfinished Life" ?. He gives the assassination about one LN paragraph. Very well written book tho.) Dawn (Meredith)

This is a security feature of the forum. A few months ago we were the victims of an attack by a nasty right-wing group who disliked some postings we made about Bush and Blair. Once you are directed to the home page a cookie will be placed into your browser. You should then be allowed to enter the forum on any page as you like (I know I am). If you are not, I assume it is because you have set your browser not to take cookies. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The security settings are exactly as John describes. I am sure that the inconvenience of one or maybe two more clicks on the mouse will be viewed by most members as a small price to pay for the additional security which keeps us online. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> John and Andy you're both right, it just took me a few extra minutes to figure this out, I posted before I realized that it is just merely a bit tricky. Dawn living in the middle of the right wing stuff, on the eve of this scary election, I agree, we can't have too much extra online security.

Blakey was brought in to counteract all the real efforts of Sprague, who truly wanted to get to the heart of the matter. I have a video from the early 80 or maybe even the 70's called simply "The Killing of President Kennedy". I have not watched it in many years, but remember how intense Sprague was in this great documentary. He wasn't going to be stopped by anyone, and he was very much interested in all the intelligence angles. I have never understood what really happened between him and Gonzales. Sprague being replaced by Blakey ended any real search for the truth and cover story no three being put in place. ("The Mob did it).(No. 2 being Castro did it because he was angry with Kennedy bros trying to kill him, the much turmpeted garbage of Jack Anderson). So I am not at all surprised Blakey would have no interest in being in a forum. His job was done, capped with his and Billings' little book. That said it was exciting to see the headline at the end of HSCA in the Boston Globe proclaim "JFK victim of conspiracy". The did take the case one step past the LN silliness. (Even tho the headline ended "probably mafia". I had it on my wall for a few years). Dawn Meredith ps Does anyone else have a problem getting onto this forum becasue the "page" where you can reply and not just read keeps flipping back to the "intro" page (the one that refers to the education forum. Frustrating.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Re Dorothy Hunt's purchase of $250,000 of insurance before her 1/8/72 plane crash, Carl Oglesby in "The Yankee and Cowboy War" refers to this purchace on p. 237. The first person to heavily cover the account of this palne crash is an American self described "muckraker" named Sherman Sklolnick, who also states that the Hunt's made this purchase. (His stuff is also online I bleieve). I remember the day that crash happned and just by seeing Nixon's three aids Butterfield, Krough and Chapin leave their White House posts, within days for positions at United Airlines and FAA it was so clear to me that this plane was sabataged. Just from reading the paper. This was before I had read a single JFK assination book. (But 73 would change all that!) Dawn Meredith

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Re Dorothy Hunt's purchase of $250,000 of insurance before her 1/8/72 plane crash, Carl Oglesby in "The Yankee and Cowboy War" refers to this purchace on p. 237. The first person to heavily cover the account of this palne crash is an American self described "muckraker" named Sherman Slolnick, who also states that the Hunt's made this purchase. (His stuff is also online I bleieve). I remember the day that crash happned and just by seeing Nixon's three aids Butterfield, Krough and Chapin leave their White House posts, within days for positions at United Airlines and FAA it was so clear to me that this plane was sabataged. Just from reading the paper. This was before I had read a single JFK assination book. (But 73 would change all that!) Dawn Meredith