Tim Gratz

Pat, do you doubt that if the US had used its military might the Castro regime would not have been destroyed in less days than Israel defeated Egypt in 1967?

And JFK would not have set up a banana republic. I am sure you know that. (If anything it would have been cigar country!) Kidding aside, I believe that many of the leaders of the exile groups had fought with Castro against Batista because they really wanted to bring democracy to Cuba and with the guidance of the Kennedy regime that would have happened.

You are correct that I am correct that Dallas would probably not have happened, either because Castro was behind it to stop the US attempts to kill him or because anti-Castro Cubans were behind it because they objected to Kennedy's settlement of the CMC. So you can take your pick.

I do agree with you that the BOP was not a good plan in the first place except I think its chance of success would have been greatly increased had Castro been eliminated shortly before it happened. I believe the murder of Castro was part of Bissell's "secret plan". Would you agree with that? The problem is that when Castro was not murdered, then the BOP should either have been cancelled or there should have been a full-scale US invasion.

I do not think Kennedy canceled the second strike because he was chicken. He did it because he mistakenly listened to Rusk and Stevenson. By that time, of couse, US involvement in the operation was evident.

If nobody gets the answer in the next five or six hours I will post it.

Phil was VERY close by the way.

JFK's intelligence probably equalled that of the three brightest forum members combined.

Dr. Aguilar wrote:

And you need to understand my view is that John Kennedy got radicalized by the Bay of Pigs invasion, when he was promised that America's hand would not have to show in this, it was such a great idea,…..

How anybody as intelligent as Kennedy could believe the invasion could be carried off without everyone in the world at least suspecting US involvement baffles me. It was because he wanted to try to accomplish that objective that he scaled back the invasion and US air support, which of course was one reaon why it failed.

Castro betrayed all those who supported him amd he has denied the citizens of Cuba basic civil liberties for over 45 years. JFK should have just sent in the Marines in April of 1961 and ridded the hemisphere of that tyrant once and for all, and the Cuban people would have blessed him as their saviour and that is how history would recognize him.

And if Joseph Califano and many others with inside knowledge are correct, had Castro been removed in April of 1961, Dallas might never have happened.

Phil, you are VERY close.

Hilary was not the ONLY candidate on the Watergate staff.

So you are right she (and the other candidate) most likely met Hunt and Sturgis but whether either or both were conspirators is more debateable than the person I have in mind. This person by the way shared something special with JFK and JFK also most likely met him (as JFK also likely met Santo Trafficante, Jr.).

Well, Hilary is indeed a correct choice and she might very well have met Felix who might have been a conspirator.

Good work, Gary.

But she also most likely met someone else more widely recognized as a probable conspirator. And hint hint she was not the only candidate who most likely met this conspirator.

Well, not only was JFK the only man with a Boston accent in the back seat of the car, he was the only man in the back seat of the car!

The sad part is if he indeed said that, he must have known in a flash of a second that his death was imminent.

By the way, that would also mean, would it not, that the first bullet to hit him was neither a frontal shot to his throat (of a bullet or a projectile or anything) and that the bullet that hit him in the posterior did not exit his throat, Arlen Specter and Vincent Bugliosi not withstanding?

Stephen, I think #1 should be a tie to Larry, Pat Speer, Greg Parker, Steve Thomas and James Richards (and I am sure I inadvertently left someone out!).

Re #4, I agree, I even annoy myself!

Re #6, I agree it is indeed Ron hands down!

Re # 5, without question it must be Hammer Man!

Re #7, I will need to review the threads I started.

Re #10, clearly it is John Simkin.

Re #11, how can one suggest a single candidate when it seems that at least half the members are paranoid. Peter Lemkin might be a good choice, however. He thinks the US fascist regime is out to get him! LOL!

Re#13, clearly James with Robin in second place.

Re#14, I'd nominate Pat Speer.

Re#15, I'd call it a tie between Antti and Kathy.

As I judge would say, I am taking the other categories "under advisememt".

A trivia contest for you bright students of the case.

Identify one (or more?) of the current crop of Presidential candidates (are candidates like crops?) who might very well have met one of the conspirators in the JFK assassination (assuming you believe it was a conspiracy).

To win, you must:

(a) Identify the probable conspirator by name.

( Identify each presidential candidate by name and party identification.

© Identify the month and year the candidate may have met the conspirator and state the circumstances of the possible or probable meeting when thenow candidate confronted the conspirator.

As I am sure most know the FBI certainly went to herculean measures in its unsuccessful attempt to locate a dry cleaner who had cleaned the jacket discarded by Tippit's killer.

In his article on Larry Crafard, Peter Whitney suggests the witnesses might have mistaken Larry for Lee and that it might have been Larry's jacket left at the scene because he had spent some time in California.

Since the identification of the jacket's owner would have been fairly convincing proof of the identification of the killer, why didn't the FBI run full-page ads in Life, Look, the Saturday Evening Post, etc. with a photograph of the cleaner's id and requesting the cleaner contact his local FBI office?

If the cleaner who did come forward was in a neighborhood close to where Lee once lived, it could have helped the case against him.

The ad could also have requested ordinary citizens to come forward if they recognized the mark as one their cleaner used.

Considering what was at stake, it seems like this might have been a worthwhile effort that MIGHT have worked if the ad had sufficient national distribution,

By the way, if someone had wanted to frame Lee, to have someone who looked like him wear his jacket and discard it at the scene cetainly would have been incriminating.

It apparently took the CIA four years to discover that Iran halted its nuclear program in 2003. (Today's headlines.)

The CIA tried for years and years to kill Castro.

When it planned the Bay of Pigs, it failed to take into account the coral reef that surrounds the island.

If the CIA had in fact attempted to murder JFK, to the exclusion of any other conspirators, I suspect he would have celebrated his 90th birthday last May unless he had earlier died of natural causes.

I know this is repetive of a thread from a year or two ago but should (hope against hope) there should be a new investigation, who would be on your witness list?

Based on the interesting Peter Whitney article, "Creating A Patsy", I would certainly add Curtis Craford, f/k/a Larry Crafard, as well as Jean AAse.

And one of my "favorites", Sam Cagnina, who may have whacked Rosselli.

I am sure we can all agree on the Paines.

Interested in your additions to a hypothetical witness list.

Now I am getting paranoid.

Does Hammer Man look a little like Milteer?

It would seem that the FBI and/or the DPD should have checked whether he really was in an accident and whether he had received medical attention and whether his pills were by prescription only.

Like many possible leads, it's probably nothing but water over the darn now. But if Belknap's d/o/b was 1940, he is probably still alive.

Good but in my opinion the Aguiliar review of "Reclaiming History" is the best review I have read and I commend it to all readers of this Forum.

No one from the SS was involves in the assassination.

There was no security stripping in Dallas. That is demonstrable. Go to the Sixth Floor Museum and view its color movie of JFK's procession down Duval Street in Key West (where I live). The Secret Service protection in Key West was no more rigorous than it was in Dallas. Photographic evidence indicates the same thing re his other trips. Even in Tampa on Monday November the 18th where there was knowledge of a threat, JFK rode through the street STANDING up in an open convertible, past buildings as tall as the TSBD. He might have well have been wearing a "SHOOT ME" sign on his back.

Re the destruction of records, the logical explamation of that is simply a CYA manuever. One would have to be pretty gullible to assume that had there been SS involvement in the plot it was set out in SS documents and no one bothered to destroy them until the mid-nineties. Obviously, there would have been no documentation of plot participation in the first place but even assuming to the contrary it obviously would have been "sanitized" after the dead was done.

Just a reminder, folks: when you enter the realm of assassination research it is NOT necessary to first turn off that part of your brain that deals with logic and common sense.

Our member Don R has posted this re the witness June Dishong that I undersatand is the focus of Mr. Andersen's book:

http://hometown.aol.com/DRoberdeau/JFK/DIS...ions112263.html

Well he's not a suspected terrorist so I guess no one would waterboard him.

Considering what the informants against him said, it surprised me that Cagnina was not brought to trial on the Rosselli murder.

I just read in "Breach of Promise" about the HSCA staffer's interview with FBI agent Robert O'Neill. O'Neill told the HSCA interviewers that he had been questioned at length by WC associate counsel Arlen Specter--but of course he was not called to testify before the WC.

Presumably Specter must have taken some notes re his interview(s) with O'Neill. One would also think it likely he would have memorialized his interview.

Does anyone know if all of the WC internal staff memoranda and documents such as staff notes on interviews have now been released for public review? Has anyone seen either a memorandum or notes on Specter';s interview with O'Neill?

Great photo, James!

Sorry to show my ignorance, but who is Red Italiano? A Commie member of an Italian mob family (combining my two favorite suspects!)?

At the 1960 Democrat convention, former president Harry S Truam attempted to prevent the nomination of JFK.

There's the link!

On December 3, 1950, at the Little White House in Key West, Florida, President Truman issued an executive order creating a new Committee on Government Contract Compliance with the aim of reducing discrimination against employees because of race, color, creed or national origin.

In 1960 Sam Cagnina was a crooked cop in Key West and that story is told in a book called "True Crime" by Terry Schmida, a reporter for the Key West Citizen.

The book does not cover Cagnina's possible connection to the JFK case.

In the biography of Rosselli, Rappleye and Becker state that Cagnina was a suspect in the murder of Johnny Rosselli, and was (as I recall) fingered by two separate informants.

I recently ran across a memorandum from HSCA staffer Andy Purdy to Robert Tannenbaum. In it, Purdy cites a newspaper article as stating that Cagnina was a nephew of Santo Trafficante, Jr.

Of course many suspect that Trafficante was behind the Rosselli murder and that the murder may have been related to the JFK case.

It is my understanding that Cagnina is still alive and is incarcerated. If he indeed was Trafficante's nephew he probably has some interesting tales to tell but never will, of course.

Bill, I greatly enjoy it when we can agree on a point and IMO on this point you are probably correct.

Best of course if the witness can be deposed by an authorized prosecutor with the witness under oath under penalties of perjury and a stenographic record being kept.

Thank you, John for the information. I suspect both books may be good reads and I will try to see if they are available in any of the libraries to which I have access.

John, this might surprise you but if your friend was indeed simply an anti-communist Marxist who did not advocate the violent overthrow of the goverrnment, I certainly do not think he should have been denied entry to the United States.

What was (is) the name of his book?

Congratulations on the publication of an excellent article, Dr. Aguilar!

The on-line version has many more footnotes than the published version. The editors elected not to publish many of the secondary sources I cited and it elected not to give the page numbers in Bugliosi's book when I cited him.

The editors' decision is indeed unfortunate.