Tim Gratz

With all due respect to Pat, of course Hunt is not to be believed.

In "American Spy" his posthumously published memoirs Hunt states that Sturgis was too dumb for anyone to involve him in a complicated conspiracy. Hunt writes that Sturgis' IQ was at room temperature level. Hemming had the same impression of Sturgis except he expressed it in more colorful, shall we say, language.

Hunt also wrote in his memoirs that it would make no sense for a high level CIA operative like Cord Meyer to go directly to a man as low on the totem pole as Sturgis. He suggests Meyer may never have had occasion to even encounter Sturgis.

IMO what Hunt writes in his memoirs sounds a lot more believeable than the story he allegedly told his son.

In his memoirs Hunt admits lying under oath in congressional hearings and lying in his first autobiography. Nothing Hunt says can be considered significant. The most reasonable conclusion about anything Hunt writes is that it is probably a lie.

Responding to Mr. Plumlee's post, Gerry Hemming was NOT a convicted felon in 1963. If I recall, his conviction was in the late seventies or early eighties.

Granted Ragano's story about what Trafficante confessed to him constitutes hearsay but assuming Ragano was testifying in court (and assuming that what Trafficante told him was not protected by the attorney-client privilege) it would have been admissible in evidence as a "statement against interest". Since Ragano's story would have been admissible in evidence as a hearsay exception, I think John's criticism of Kaiser on this point is not well-founded. I do agree that it is astounding that Kaiser can propose Hall and Howard as Odio's visitors when both Silvia and her sister said they were not.

There is no doubt in my mind the conspiracy was a combination of Jesuits and Jews. It was a Jesuit shooting from the TSBD and a Jew from the grassy knoll.

I am glad to see the humor here following my post.

In his book, Bugliosi mentioned making that comment that no one had yet linked the Fish and Wildlife Service to the crime. He goes on to say that an assassination researcher replied (obviously with self-deprectaing humor): "Well, give us time."

In his book, Bugliosi, who prides himself on being a logician, attempts to discredit the entire assassination research community by listing all of the crackpot theories that have been advanced from time to time, Of course, there is no logic to this and the fact that there are people like (well, I won't name names here) in no way diminishes the work and contributions of people like Larry Hancock and Jefferson Morley (again, I use them only as illustrations and of course there are dozens of others I could name, including members of this forum who are not published authors.

David, thanks for the quick reply.

I assume most are fam,iliar with the story of the Johnson 30.06 rifle that Hemming had left in LA with a man named Hathcock. Hall picked it up, without hemming's permission, before he returned to Miami via Dallas.

The curious thing is that the day after the assassination the FBI was at Hathcock's door in LA asking about that rifle. Why the FBI was on to that rifle so soon after the assassination has not been established. The only alternatives I can imagine is that the FBI found it in Dallas or that someone tipped them off about its existence. I think the latter alternative is the more likely.

I once started a thread as satire claiming Catholic hierarchy did it.

I should have known that sooner or later someone would seriously argue that.

As Bugliosi werites in his book, just about every organization in existence at that time has been accused of plotting the assassination with the exception of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Re Mr. Boylan's post, it is very interesting.

David, I am not sure of the basis for your first point and your last. Could you elaborate on those please.

Also, is your point that he was in Dallas on the day of the assassination based on any other infoermation than Hemming's claims to that effect? I think Hall claimed he was in LA on November 22nd.

Those who think JFK had become a peacenik would do well to read the speech he was to deliver at the Trade Mart.

Kennedy was killed by his own government because he embraced world peace, Douglass said. The assassination was coordinated by the CIA, Douglass added.

What a ridiculous statement. As I have posted before, it is intellectual sloppiness at best to state the JFK was killed by "the government". The U.S. government consists of three branches: the executive; the legislative and the judicial. Presumably Douglass does not claim that Congress secretly voted to engage someone to kill the President, or even that high-ranking members of Congress were involved. Re the judicial branch, I suspect Douglass never argues that Earl Warren orchestrated a cover-up to shield his own role as a conspirator. The CIA is part of the executive branch of government. There is of course not a scintilla of evidence that the CIA as an institution killed JFK. But even if one wanted to enter fantasy land and argue that John McCone and Richard Helms together plotted the murder, one cannot state that means our "government" did it.

It is one thing to argue, even in the absence of any evidence, that certain high-ranking members of the US government were involved in a conspiracy but it violates all principles of clarity (and honesty) to claim as Douglass apparently does that "the U.S. goverrnment" did it.

I would also add that it is a strange sense of Christian ethics for Douglass to charge someone with murder based on a paucity of evidence.

I think the members of divinty schools who endorse the Douglass book are as wrong-headed as the mystery writers who so enthusiastically endorsed the Bugliosi book.

Kaiser writes: "The most direct evidence points to Santo Trafficante, because of his connections to John Martino, who had advance knowledge of the plot, and to Loran Hall, who was evidently with Oswald at Sivia Odio's house and who spoke of protecting Trafficante in 1976-1977."

Wow! The evidence connecting Trafficante to the assassination is simply that he had connections to Martino? IMO that is no evidence at all. One might as well state that Marina Oswald or Buell Frazier was involved because they had connections to Oswald. It is difficult to believe that logic comes from a professor at the Naval War College.

Later, Kaiser notes Trafficante's confession of his involvement to Ragano. Now if the confession indeed happened, that is certainly the most direct evidence of Trafficante's involvement.

But to get to John's point about the possible involvement of Loran Hall. Why does Kaiser think Hall was involved? Again, it is guilt by association: Kaiser's assertion that Hall was with Oswald at Odio's. Now I guess if Summer was right that the Odio incident was an effort to link a left-wing exile organization with the assassination, then the men who accompanied Oswald to Odio's were indeed involved with the plot. But the problem is that there is no evidence to support Summer' s speculation, which moreover makes little sense. Was there to be an effort to link both castro and one of his enemies, albeit socialist-oriented, to the assassination? That seems totally nonsensical. And it is worse than that. There is no evidence whatsoever that it was Hall at Odio's. As most know Odio was shown a picture of Hall and she said it was not him.

So Kaiser's logic baffles me.

All that being said, Hemming told me that Hall was in Dallas on November 22nd.

Once more it is necessary to question Peter's logic.

How likely is it that if there had been a plot at the highest level to assassinate JFK, it would have been put in writing by the conspirators, and then left around sitting in the files available for someone to chance upon, until the files were destroyed some ten or fifteen years later? Not too likely, I submit. Frankly, the SBT is easier to accept than THAT scenario, and of course you know what I think of the SBT.

A far more likely scenario is that LHO was in fact working for one or more agencies of US intelligence and that is why it was necessary to destroy the files lest the official line that Oswald was not working for any agency of the US be proved to be a lie.

The crime was indeed monstrous, but the US government was certainly not involved.

Moreover, how can one say the US government was involved? Prior to his death, JFK controlled the Executive Branch. So far as I know there was never any act of Congress authorizing the assassination, nor was there an order issued by the Supreme Court directing that JFK be killed. The US consists of those three branches of government.

I don't think Helms did it, but even if he did and worked with E Howard Hunt to accomplish it, that does not translate into the Government's complicity in the monstrous crime.

My theory is this is political payback. Remember one of the Senators in PA is none other than Arlen Spector and doesn't exactly see bullet to bullet with Wecht on some things....if you catch my drift. Others also don't like Wecht's work on JFK and other high-profile cases. This Administration is just a Mafia of corruption, illegality, immorality, hate, war, greed, avarice, unConstitutionality and insanity.....

And let's not forget that President George W. Bush, otherwise known as Bush 43, is the the son of President George H. W. Bush, otherwise known as Bush 41. George H. W. Bush was up to his eyeballs in the JFK assassination, especially with his ties to George DeMohrenschildt.

Let's not forget that Jackie and her mother were up to their eyebrows in the JFK assassination, especially with their ties to George deMohrenschildt.

The notion that documents exist within the CIA that could "unravel the whole JFK enigma" is IMO crazy.

Someone has suggested that any relevant CIA documents re LHO were destroyed years and years ago--that's what Hunter Leake apparently told Michael Kurtz--and that the problem of the current CIA administration is that there may be some paper trail that discloses that those documents once existed. So how does the CIA explain that relevant documents once existed but were destroyed? Remember that the current officers of the CIA were probably like most of us only teenagers at the time of the assassination.

Re Dick Clark, are you aware that he was in Dallas on November 22 to do a show Friday night with a bunch of big name stars but the show was cancelled for obvious reasons? An interesting story that may shed some light on his interest in the assassination story.

If any one wants a new copy of the VB opus, flawed as it is, but probably important for a complete library, I can get a limited number of people a copy for $15 plus actual postage cost, presumably limited to members in the United States.

If you want one, send me an e-mail or PM.

Thanks.

To Greg:

Appreciated your humour about golf but kidding aside the existence of Satan is demonstrated by:

1) the assassination of JFK, RFK and Martin Luther King, Jr.

2) the Holocaust

3) spouses who kill their wives

and of course the list of evils can go on and on.

To Bill:

It just should have been obvious to you, my friend, that if your neighbor asked you to drive him to his bank so he could cash a check, and while in the bank he attempted a robbery and in the process killed a guard, if there was no proof you had knowledge of his criminal intent, there is no way the law could hold you responsible for either the attempted robbery or the murder. That would of course offend all concepts of justice.

Now if the supposed comment made over the telephone to RP by MP ("we all know who is responsible") is correctly reported, to me that implies that the Paines knew that someone was directing their actions toward Oswald but they had no foreknowledge that it involved the murder of the president. By the way, when that call occured and how it was heard merits additional investigation.

I certainly do believe that the Paines even today have knowledge that would advance the investigation and it is of course inexplicable that neither were (apparently) even interviewed before the HSCA.

I think you MAY be correct that in an interrogation a police officer can threaten the interviewee with criminal prosecution even if law enforcement knows there is insufficient evidence to charge the person.

But I assume you are a civil libertarian. I think there are numerous examples where such harsh interrogation methods have produced confessions that turned out to be false.

Back to the Paines, if there ever should be a new investigation, I think they should be very high on the list and I think a threat of a perjury indictment if they did not tell the truth would be in order; as well as interviewing both simultaneously in separate rooms.

To Thomas:

I agree that we owe a debt of gratitude to GPH for revealing who Odio's visitors were. I am proud (but know I shouldn't be) that Mark and I were the first to name them in print in "Solares Hill". I also agree with you that the fact that Oswald was already at Odio's (at least per Murgado) has significant implications not yet fully explored.

To Chris:

As I recall AV pretty much implied that DAP was MB but would never expressly confirm it.

Now re Veciana's story, it is possible of course that he just made it up, a possibility that some conspiracy theorists would consider rank heresy. But it is clear from his story that he had had a dispute with MB, and the story he told could have been "payback time".

But whether the story is true or not, IMO there is no way he would have told it if he had been recruited into the assassination plot by the man he knew as MB.

You state that "either AV was lying or EHH was lying". I say to the contrary, that whether AV was lying or not, EHH clearly was. Because if EHH story is true, AV was part of the plot, recruited by the man he knew was MB. If that is true, no way AV would have told the story about seeing MB with LHO, whether it was a true story or simply his fiction. There is no way AV would have wanted to have investigators focus on the man who recruited him into the plot. So since there is NO QUESTION that AV told that story to Gaeton Fonzi, regardless of whether it was true or made up by AV for whatever reasons he may have had, no way AV was part of the plot. So the conclusion follows as surely as night follows the day that EEH lied about that.

John we are in total agreement here and what you say re Prof McAdams is at least equally true re VB who has repeatedly asserted there is no evidence of a conspiracy when what he really means is that there is no evidence he is willing to credit, a proposition that is far different. And of course some evidence he completely ignores, even though it is cited in books he claims to have read.

Without commenting on the review at length, at one point Prof McAdams writes that there is "no evidence" that Oswald visited Odio.

Has McAdams read neither "A Farewell to Justice" nor "Brothers", both of which discuss the Angelo Murgado story? Murgado claims Oswald was at Odio's. That IS evidence. Now one can discount Murgado's story if one chooses to do so (just as another can decide to accept it). But in light of Murgado's story, it is certainly disingenuous to assert that "no evidence" supports Odio's story.

Moreover Odio's sister also states she saw Oswald and recognized him as the accused assassin after he was shown on television.

What bothers me about Kaiser's book is that he claims Loran Hall was one of Odio's visitors when Odio, after being shown Hall's photograph, stated that Hall was NOT one of her visitors. How can Kaiser say it was Hall when Odio herself says it was not Hall?

Perhaps the best reason for discounting Hunt's deathbed "confession" is that he involves Antonio Veciana in the plot. He claims Veciana was recruited in to the plot by that villain to all CIA-haters, David Atlee Phillips.

It of course is impossible to believe that Veciana would have told Fonzi about seeing MB with LHO (and at least implying that MB was really DAP) potentially drawing investigative scrutiny on to DAP. If the plot had unraveled because of that disclosure, Veciana potentially faced the possibility of having his internal organs fried in the Texas electric chair. If Veciana was part of the plot, he clearly would not have told his story (true or not I am not sure) to Fonzi. Since he did tell the story, he could not be part of the plot. Since he was not involved but EHH claims he was, EHH is a demonstrable xxxx. I believe EHH is spending eternity in a place that no snowball would last for more than a few seconds, and has probably been rightly assigned to one of the warmer pits.

By the way, in one of the first chapters of "American Spy" EHH brags about committing adultery with another man's wife. Of course that could just be another of his lies.

Ron, in one sense you have a point. But in "American Spy" Hunt admits he committed perjury testifying to the Watergate Committee and he also expressly contradicts what he supposedly told his son in his "deathbed confession". For instance, in "American Spy" he states that no one intelligent enough to plan such an operation would have employed Sturgis whose IQ, Hunt says, was at "room-temperature levels". (And before he died Hemming offered me the same opinion of Sturgis.) Moreover, in his "confession" Hunt added Veciana and Phillips as conspirators. If Veciana was a conspirator, why on earth would he relay the Bishop story to Fonzi? That makes no sense at all.

In "American Spy" Hunt also states, correctly, I believe, that a high-level CIA officer like Meyer would never have gone straight to Sturgis. This has the ring of truth to it. Had Meyer been involved, he would have recruited Hunt directly and left it to Hunt to recruit Sturgis.

By the way, in "American Spy" Hunt also admits that a lot of what he wrote in his 1970s vintage memoir, "Undercover" was false. He also admits, contrary to his Watergate Committee testimony, that he and Liddy plotted the murder of Jack Ansderson. (Liddy told the truth about that.)

I can consider that Hunt might have been involved in a plot to kill JFK, as a rogue agent. But the man is such an admitted xxxx and perjurer, and there are so many logical lapses in his so-called confession to his son, that I don't think it can be reasonably considered "evidence" of anyone's involvement.

By the way, if it is true, Hunt is a scoundrel for being a benchwarmer and doing nothing to stop it--and he has JFK's blood on his hands. If it is not true, I think Hunt is equally worthy of damnation for smearing innocent people.

Is there a "non-conspiratorial" explanation for the FBI conduct?

It depends upon what you mean by "non-conspiratorial".

If you mean that the FBI's intimidation of e.g. Powers means the FBI was part of the conspiracy to kill JFK, the answer of course is no. If you mean was the FBI engaging in a scheme to cover up and conceal the true facts the answer of course is yes.

The reasons for the cover-up were different than the reasons for the assassination, and different people who participated had different reasons. I am convinced a major reason for the cover up was to conceal discovery of the fact that our government had plotted the murders of foreign heads of state.

IMO the chances are about as great as a snowball surviving an hour in hades that Powers and O'Donnell did not tell RFK that they thought shots came from the front. And per "Brothers" Walter Sheridan had discovered evidence of a Hoffa payout to Ruby which he reported to RFK. Yet RFK wrote, as we all know, a letter to the WC stating he was aware of no facts suggesting a conspiracy. RFK clearly feared damage to his brother's reputation if the CIA-Mafia plots came out, or if his brother's relationship to Judith Campbell came out. You will remember that the Church Committee attempted to shield the president's reputation by not disclosing JC's gender, but its revelation that JFK shared "a friend" with the head of the Chicago Mafia was damaging even absent the sex part.

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=24067

It was slightly more than 45 years ago, on April 18, 1963, that JFK issued his proclamation proclaiming May 1, 1963 as Loyalty Day in the United States.

I hope that all American members will renew their commitment to America next Thursday, in honor of the sprit of JFK.

I can only assume that when the Kennedys. all loyal patriotic Americans who tragically lost several family members who fought for this country, including of course two who paid the ultimate sacrifice in WW II, endorsed Mr Obama they had no idea that he was close to and sat for over twenty years in the church of a minister who proclaimed "G** d*** America."