Robert Charles-Dunne

Also found among Ruby's effects by DPD were phone numbers for Xavier Cugat, Trini Lopez and Delbert McClinton. Somewhere, I have a white label test pressing of an album called "The Very Best of Early Delbert McClinton & The Rondels," graciously provided to me by label owner Major Bill Smith of Ft. Worth, TX. Featured are two songs recorded "live" at a local club called "Jack's Place." One wonders....

Further to my post above, the site below has a comprehensive breakdown of voting patterns in each district, delineated by hand-counted ballots versus optical scanner-counted ballots. No prizes awarded to those who can spot the pattern that emerges by comparing the two. http://checkthevotes.com/index.php?party=DEMOCRATS

Calgary, Alberta - long the right[wing] armpit of Canada, but now awash in oil revenue and positioning itself as the centre of all that is grand in Canada - is currently all abuzz with the news that Tony Blair is on his way to deliver a speech on the topic of "Building Global Relations." One cannot wait for George Bush's speech to Calgarians on the topic of "The Importance of Diplomacy in Avoiding War." http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=...ce-3fb4e1c35fdf

"A logical response?" Oh, dear boy, there you go again..... There are multiple indices for determining poverty amongst the general population, poverty among children, etc. None of these indices determine poverty based upon possession of TV sets [plasma flat screens or 1956 Zeniths?] or radios [sirius and XM or Radio Shack transistors?]. For clearcut examples of how the US fares among "developed" nations, one could look at either of these two sites [though there are many, many others] and realize that poverty in the US outstrips all other "developed" nations, certainly Australia. http://www.epinet.org/books/swa2004/news/s...ternational.pdf http://waysandmeans.house.gov/hearings.asp...iew&id=6062 However, it is far easier to simply make up xxxxe as one goes along, which is Tim's stock in trade. Little wonder, then, that as John Simkin so accurately pointed out: "It clearly is impossible to have a logical debate with this man." Or as Tim claimed about another, more respected member's posts, yet seems unaware is far more true of his own posts, "His posts are either ridiculous or risible, and usually both."

You'll give us a day or two and then write to Ayers??? Oh. I see. Your failure to contact Ayers prior to calling him a xxxx three weeks ago is now somehow our fault? Because we haven't responded to something you posted yesterday? Presumably one of our dogs ate your homework? And travelled backward in time to eat it? Have you no self-awareness? Or just no shame?

For the sake of brevity, I am responding to several of Tim’s posts with this single reply.

We have here someone who masquerades as a JFK researcher, yet refuses to expend the requisite effort needed to conduct actual research, even when doing so might help to underscore the points he tries to make here. Tim Gratz has made much of the Pearl story, and how its lack of sourcing in Brad Ayers' book should undermine the veracity of all that the book contains. Yet, beyond simply name calling the author [a "xxxx"] and producing a single witness of questionable credibility herself, Tim hasn't bothered to do the slightest research on this topic. The following may illustrate just how egregiously lacking are Tim's research skills and his own credibility on this topic. Tim first denounced Brad Ayers as a "xxxx" on October 11, based solely upon Ms. Eisenhower's word, in a post that also contained the following: "Mrs. Eisenhower was the long time chief of staff to BG, including during the period in question." There are only two assertions contained in that sentence, offered no doubt to bolster his witness' unique position to determine what was and wasn't true. Yet these two assertions are both wrong. First, one will encounter a variety of descriptors for Ms. Eisenhower's relationship with Goldwater. Among the most common are "secretary," "aide" and "administrative assistant." One can labour long and hard without finding a reference to her as Goldwater's "Chief of Staff," because she never was that. [There can be little doubt that she was a formidable and trusted asset to Goldwater, but the fact remains that Tim's characterization of her role is, simply put, wrong.] Second, so too is the other assertion made in Tim's introduction, that Ms. Eisenhower served Goldwater in that capacity in 1963. It is hard to locate details of Ms. Eisenhower's tenure with the Senator, but not impossible. An obscure little journal dedicated to archivists and their concerns stated that Ms. Eisenhower had served as Goldwater's right hand for 32 years. Given that he died in 1998, simple math would suggest that she didn't join Goldwater's staff until 1966, or three years after the incident related by Pearl. These two points may not demolish what Ms. Eisenhower has to say, but they are indicative of the sloppy, agenda-driven contributions of our faux-researcher. One can argue any given set of facts any number of ways, but if one can never trust the "facts" as presented to be accurate, it says much about the one who presents them. "Sloppy" is the most charitable characterization, not the least. In his usual tone of high mockery, Tim has badgered Bill Kelly and me repeatedly regarding the Pearl story. Most recently, he has semi-astutely observed something, yet refrained from expending the slightest effort in determining whether it is true: Sadly for Tim, there is just such an obituary, which Ayers presumably did research, but which Tim demonstrably did not. The news on this is not good for Tim, particularly given his unquestioning life-long slavishness to the Republican Party. For you see, this candidate for Pearl's "daddy" was a life-long power broker within the Party, and for reasons that will soon become all too clear, examining his background reveals that he might have been precisely the man to whom Ayers alluded. [All of which Tim could have discovered for himself were he more inclined to conduct actual research than merely lob drive-by smears at those who do.] Here is the man's resume: Dec. 20, 1927 - Born, Enid, Oklahoma 1946-48 - U.S. Army 1948-53 - University of Arizona (L.L.B.) 1953-54 - Assistant Attorney General of Arizona 1955-59 - Administrative Assistant to U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater 1959-69 - Member, Law Firm of Dunseath, Stubb and Burch of Tucson, Arizona 1963-64 - Deputy Director, Goldwater for President Campaign 1964-65 - Chairman, Republican National Committee 1968 - Manager, Goldwater for Senate Campaign 1969-70 - Member, Arizona Board of Regents 1969-74 - Chairman, Federal Communications Commission Feb.-Dec. 1974 - Counsellor to Presidents Nixon and Ford 1975-present - Member, Law Firm of Pierson, Ball and Dowd, Washington, D.C. 1980 - Chief of Staff, George Bush Vice Presidential Campaign and Senior Advisor to the Reagan-Bush Committee Our candidate's name was Dean Burch. While I have found nothing to indicate that he specialized in any type of outreach to the Mexican-American community on Goldwater's behalf, his papers do contain a subject folder marked "Latinos." The holdings of his papers are stored at the Gerald Ford library, and can be viewed here: http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/g...20-%20Files.htm Just as one might expect, Dean Burch did die in 1991, and he left behind three children, including two daughters. His obituary, as it ran in the New York Times, can be located here: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...75BC0A967958260 Dean Burch, Presidential Adviser And F.C.C. Chairman, Dies at 63 By ERIC PACE Published: August 5, 1991 Dean Burch, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission from 1969 to 1974 and of the Republican National Committee in 1964 and 1965, died yesterday at his home in Potomac, Md. He was 63 years old. Mr. Burch died of bladder cancer, said his son, Dean A. Burch. In April Mr. Burch, already ailing, was visited at his home by President Bush, on whose 1980 vice presidential campaign he had served as chief of staff. From 1987 until his death, Mr. Burch was director general of Intelsat, the global satellite consortium that runs a communications network in which 121 nations participate. In the preceding decades, he was a telecommunications lawyer, political adviser and lobbyist. White House Counselor Mr. Burch was the White House political counselor in the last months of the Nixon Administration in 1974, and during the early months of the Ford Administration. Earlier, he was an aide to Senator Barry Goldwater, Republican of Arizona, and helped run his unsuccessful campaign for the Presidency in 1964. Mr. Burch was named chairman of the F.C.C. by President Richard M. Nixon and while there was influential in improving television programming for children. As John J. O'Connor, the television critic for The New York Times, wrote later, Mr. Burch, "closely associated with Senator Goldwater's conservative wing, began making tough public speeches on the need for more and better programs for young audiences." "The networks inevitably took note," Mr. O'Connor said, "and one of the first results was a supplementation of the 'kid-vid' schedule on Saturday morning." Under Mr. Burch, the F.C.C. also carried out an influential study of whether one company should be allowed to own a daily newspaper and a television station in the same city. Based on the study's findings, the agency in 1975, after Mr. Burch had stepped down as chairman, unanimously prohibited the formation of new combinations of newspapers and broadcasting stations. Mr. Burch was handpicked to become Republican National Chairman by Senator Goldwater. But Mr. Goldwater's influence in the party waned after his defeat by Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1964 election, in which other Republican candidates also did poorly. Mr. Burch was eventually replaced as chairman after party moderates insisted that the party needed a "new look." Roy Dean Burch was born Dec. 20, 1927, in Enid, Okla., to Bert A. Burch and the former Leola Atkisson. He earned a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Arizona in 1953, was legislative and administrative assistant to Senator Goldwater from 1955 to 1959 and managed Mr. Goldwater's successful 1968 campaign to return to the Senate after giving up his seat to run for President. He was a partner in the law firm of Dunseath, Stubbs & Burch in Tucson, Ariz., from 1959 to 1963 and from 1965 to 1969, and a partner in the law firm of Pierson, Ball & Dowd in Washington from 1975 to 1987. Mr. Burch is survived by his wife, the former Patricia Meeks, whom he married in 1961; two daughters, Shelly Burch Bennett of Orlando, Fla., and Dianne Ruth Burch Butterfield of Arlington, Va.; his son, a sports marketing executive with a Washington radio station, and a grandson. Tim has repeatedly mocked the assertion Ayers attributed to Pearl, that her father was an honourable man. Yet these are precisely the words employed by Burch's daughter, Shelly Burch Bennett, in describing her late father, as located here: http://www.talkinbroadway.com/regional/seattle/se270.html "I was born in Tucson, where I also grew up. My Dad, Dean Burch was a protégé of Goldwater's, so we were very Republican. He was Chairman of the Republican Party in 1964, and he actually ran Goldwater's campaign. We lived in Washington, D.C. for that year. The party, I think - and he would have said - has changed quite a bit since then; my father was the most honorable man alive, just full of so much integrity and honesty." Thus far, Dean Burch meets all the criteria in our hunt for "Pearl's father." But, of course, in order to demonstrate that Burch was at any nexus that included moving Mob/CIA money around, it would be helpful to demonstrate that Burch was surrounded by members of either group, to the extent that they are actually distinguishable from each other, which I've long thought redundant. Tim has alleged that Goldwater was a "straight arrow" uncontaminated by any Mob affiliations. I have already posted evidence to the contrary, without any comment from Tim, which should not cause anyone here great surprise. Just to re-affirm those connections, the following can be found at: http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2006-10-19/...ater-uncut/full "Another omission in the HBO documentary is Senator Goldwater's connections to various mobsters, and those who had dealings with them. Many of these associations have been well-documented before, first in 1963 in Ed Reid and Ovid Demaris' classic account of mob influence in Vegas, The Green Felt Jungle, and later in the now-famous Arizona Project, a series of articles by members of the Investigative Reporters and Editors organization detailing the influence of organized crime here. The latter was brought on by the execution of Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles in 1976, and it raised the ethics bar for all politicians when it came to dealing with their shadier constituents. "Many of the facts were undisputed by Goldwater himself, though he definitely disputed the suggestion that he was "tied" to organized crime. Goldwater was friendly with mobster Gus Greenbaum, who took over the management of Las Vegas' Flamingo Hotel after the 1947 assassination of Bugsy Siegel in Beverly Hills. Greenbaum took the Flamingo out of the red into the black, and later went on to successfully manage the Riviera. But when Greenbaum, a lieutenant of Meyer Lansky's, began skimming more than his allotted share, his days were numbered. On December 3, 1958, both he and his wife's corpses were discovered in their Phoenix home, their throats slashed with a butcher knife from their own kitchen. "Goldwater attended Greenbaum's funeral, a gesture that boggles the mind almost 50 years later. Can you imagine, for instance, Senator John McCain attending the funeral of Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano (even if he knew Gravano), whenever that occurs? This was Goldwater's rationalization in his '88 memoir: "Greenbaum had operated a Phoenix grocery store before taking over a Las Vegas casino. We'd met him at various civic functions. He was, after all, a local resident." "It's true that Goldwater didn't need the mob. He was by then an icon in Arizona. But he was not above giving or taking favors, monetary or otherwise, from his underworld amigos. For instance, he was Greenbaum's guest in Vegas, where he was known as "a real swinger," according to the Reid/Demaris book. And Greenbaum donated lots of money to Harry Rosenzweig, in support of the 1949 Charter Government ticket, of which Goldwater was a part. Interestingly, the Valley National Bank, of which Goldwater's brother Bob was a director, helped finance the Flamingo's construction. "The senator was also acquainted with "Fat Willie" Bioff, who lived in Phoenix under the name William Nelson, though people knew who he really was: a mobster from L.A. who busted unions for the Hollywood studios, testified against members of the Capone gang, then relocated to Arizona, eventually going to work for Gus Greenbaum at the Flamingo. Goldwater gave Bioff and his wife a ride back to Phoenix from Las Vegas in the senator's private plane once. And Bioff, a Goldwater admirer, donated $5,000 to Goldwater's first Senate campaign through Harry Rosenzweig, and also lent Rosenzweig 10 grand at one point before six sticks of dynamite exploded beneath Bioff's new pickup truck with him in it in 1955 - a little present from those Bioff ratted out, perhaps. Here, too, Goldwater attended the funeral, oblivious to any negative assumptions. "I don't think it was abnormal for Senator Goldwater, or his senior colleague Senator [Carl] Hayden, to have come in contact with so-called nefarious characters," asserts Jack August, director of the Arizona Historical Foundation and author of Vision in the Desert: Carl Hayden and Hydropolitics in the American Southwest. "Was money good money or bad money - who really knows? Campaign finance laws were so much looser then." "August warns against applying the standards of today to a half-century ago. These contacts did cause Goldwater some grief, especially after the publication of The Green Felt Jungle, but it was really the Arizona Project that changed the way the mob was viewed in Arizona. "Goldwater was concerned enough by the Arizona Project to keep an extensive file of news clippings and notes on its activities, and he commissioned at least one poll on the subject, which concluded that his base of support in the state had not been eroded by the IRE's linking him to a rogues' gallery of hoods. "He was associated with other underworld figures besides Greenbaum and Bioff. In 1971, Goldwater signed a letter written on his official stationery endorsing a land-fraud scheme concocted by wheeler-dealer Ned "the Godfather" Warren, though Goldwater later denied any knowledge of Warren or the scheme. There was the revelation that Goldwater had interceded on behalf of convicted gambling boss Clarence Newman, who also happened to be an old Goldwater pal, to help him secure better prison digs. And Goldwater's best friend, jeweler and Arizona GOP Chairman Rosenzweig, was linked to prostitution and gambling. "Unsavory charges also surfaced concerning Goldwater's brother Bob, and the stake he held in the Arrowhead Ranch citrus groves, though this wasn't really an organized crime connection. IRE reporters discovered that illegal aliens were used as labor, paid substandard wages and kept in primitive conditions. Border Patrol raids on the groves regularly netted illegals working there. When a United Farm Workers member confronted Senator Goldwater about the aliens used on his brother's farm, Goldwater's response was stinging. "My brother is over 21, and he knows what he's doing," Goldwater's quoted as saying in a 1977 New West article. "If you people [Mexican-Americans] would get off your butts and go to work, he wouldn't have to hire [Mexican] nationals." "There's no reason to believe that Goldwater was in any way connected to the murder of Don Bolles, but Bolles' killer, John Adamson, lured Bolles to the Clarendon Hotel on the fateful day of June 2, 1976, with a bogus tale regarding Goldwater corruption. And speculation concerning Goldwater's involvement was so intense following the slaying that the senator was forced to issue a statement on June 15 denying any link to Bolles' murder or to the mob in general. "However, Goldwater did know Phoenix attorney Neal Roberts, a pal of John Adamson's, who met with Adamson immediately before and shortly after the bomb beneath Bolles' car exploded and fatally wounded the reporter in the Clarendon parking lot. Roberts' ex-wife alleged that she overheard a telephone conversation between Roberts and Goldwater, with Goldwater stating, "What the hell's going on, how far is this going to go, and how much is it going to cost to shut people up?" Phoenix police questioned Goldwater about this phone confab, and Goldwater said it was bullxxxx. End of story? "This was one of the topics tackled by New Times staff writer Paul Rubin in a 10-year anniversary opus on the Bolles killing that ran in 1986. Rubin's reporting uncovered the fact that the Phoenix Police Department conveniently buried a file on Goldwater that might have explained the connection between Roberts and Goldwater. The implication was not that Goldwater had something to do with Bolles' demise, but that he and Roberts were involved in other activities that they didn't want divulged." As for a CIA component within the Goldwater camp, one needn't look too far to find precisely such a person. Oddly enough, it is a man who actually both confessed and denied that he had been the "Deep Throat" who fed stories to the Washington Post during Watergate. Meet Charles M. Lichenstein. http://www.managementwisdom.com/waco30yelayh.html A graduate of Yale, either '48 or '49, Lichenstein joined CIA in '52, serving as a training officer, and then in '55 and '56 served as the first chief editor for CIA's in-house Studies in Intelligence. In '57 and '58, Lichenstein returned to teach at Yale, and then spent a year at Notre Dame. From 1959 to 1963, Lichenstein served as a staffer for two Richard Nixon campaigns, the '60 Presidential run and the '62 California gubernatorial run. In '63, Lichenstein was recruited to join the nascent Barry Goldwater campaign by none other than [former OSS man and future CIA boss] William Casey. Thereafter, he was director of research for the Goldwater campaign and the Republican National Committee from l963 to 1965. In later years, Lichenstein would repeatedly serve as Dean Burch's assistant in a variety of positions as they both worked their way up the food chain to serve under Nixon, Ford, and Reagan/Bush. His obituary contains few of the details itemized above, so one must undertake research to learn what I've synopsized here. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...75BC0A9649C8B63 Charles M. Lichenstein, 75, American Envoy at the U.N. By PAUL LEWIS Published: August 31, 2002 Charles M. Lichenstein, who as America's No. 2 envoy at the United Nations 20 years ago offered to wave ''a fond farewell'' to the world body if its members chose to leave the United States, died on Thursday in Washington. He was 75. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative research organization where he worked, said Mr. Lichenstein had died of complications during heart surgery. His provocative remarks came on Sept. 19, 1983, at a meeting of the United Nations committee overseeing relations with its host country. On Sept. 1, Soviet fighter jets shot down a Korean airliner that had strayed over Soviet territory, killing all 269 on board, including an American congressman. In response, the legislatures of New York and New Jersey voted to ban Soviet aircraft from landing in their states. The United States, which opposed the legislation, offered the Soviet Union landing rights at a military base so its foreign minister, Andrei A. Gromyko, could fly in for the General Assembly meeting. But the Soviets refused. When the United Nations committee met to review the situation, the Soviet delegate, Igor I. Yakovlev, said the ban on landing ''raises the question of whether the United Nations should be in the United States.'' A furious Mr. Lichensteinreplied that if member states felt ''they are not being treated with the hostly consideration that is their due,'' they should consider ''removing themselves and this organization from the soil of the United States.'' ''We will put no impediment in your way,'' he continued, ''The members of the U.S. mission to the United Nations will be down at the dockside waving you a fond farewell as you sail off into the sunset.'' His remarks produced a flurry of speculation -- immediately denied -- that the Reagan administration might want the United Nations to move out of the United States. Mr. Gromyko boycotted the fall meeting. Later the White House said that Mr. Lichenstein, who was alternate representative at the United Nations from 1981 to 1984, when Jeane J. Kirkpatrick was the ambassador, had sought unsuccessfully to resign from his post two weeks earlier in frustration at the United Nations' bureaucracy. Charles Mark Lichenstein was born Sept. 20, 1926, in Albany. He graduated from Yale University and later helped establish the Chubb Fellowship, which encourages students to pursue careers in public service. He worked for Richard M. Nixon's 1960 presidential campaign and 1962 gubernatorial campaign in California and for Senator Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign in 1964. In 1964 and 1965 he was research director for the Republican National Committee. He served in the administrations of Presidents Nixon and Ford in public information, policy development and congressional and political liaison. From 1975 to 1979 he was senior vice president of the Public Broadcasting Service in Washington, the national program distributor for United States public television. He is survived by three nephews. It is now three weeks since Tim Gratz declared Brad Ayers a "xxxx." It is also well over two weeks since Tim Gratz made the first of many promises to contact Ayers and seek his input on this topic. Had Tim actually contacted Ayers, he would already have whatever answers Ayers felt free to provide. Rather than contacting Ayers, or conducting any research in the interim, Tim has instead decided he need do nothing more than sit on his duff and mock those who attempt to make actual contributions to discovering the circumstances surrounding Kennedy's execution, and to assail an author who is among them. Tim has done this solely upon the possibly self-serving testimony of a single witness who, it turns out, was neither of the things Tim Gratz insisted she was when he introduced her as a witness. She did not work for Goldwater in the pertinent time frame, and consequently her value as a witness is rather diminished. In the matter of Gratz vs. Ayers, there can be little further doubt as to which party has attempted to further our cause here, and which one has attempted to do the opposite. We now have a candidate who seems to meet the criteria for “Pearl’s father,” and some additional details that might suggest how the Mob/CIA nexus within Goldwater’s camp did precisely what Pearl contended. [This doesn’t conclusively demonstrate that Pearl’s story is true; only that there are now far more grounds to consider it possible.] I managed to obtain all of the above within a few hours of trolling the Internet, something Tim might have been able to cobble together himself, were he actually sincere in his purported quest. But then, finding and confronting this information only works against Tim’s central premise, so it is little wonder that he’s expended little effort to locate what he wishes not to find. I’ve known for some time that Tim Gratz is not sincere about such matters, for reasons that should now be plain to all who’ve bothered to read the above. Caveat lector, indeed.

One’s head literally spins from all the errors, omissions, distortions, self-serving misinterpretations, misstatements of fact, and unsupportable inferences drawn by Tim Gratz in his quest to discredit Brad Ayers. With all due respect to Mark Howell, Tim Gratz’s co-author of a number of spurious articles written with the intent of pinning the Kennedy assassination on Castro, Howell’s confirmation of the Gratz/Eisenhower e-mail exchange, while quite telling in some ways, is not what Tim originally promised when he posted: Oct 23 2007, 09:45 PM “To satisfy you, I will provide someone on the Forum with my e-mail exchange with Mrs. Eisenhower.” Mark is neither a Forum member nor an impartial and disinterested party, but a colleague in Tim’s past attempts to blame the assassination on Castro. Moreover, while the e-mail address provided may be his, it is demonstrable that anybody, using any name, can concoct a yahoo e-mail address. Hence, it is likely more prudent to contact him at the e-mail address we know for certain he uses professionally: mhowell@keysnews.com Mark then asserts, no doubt in good faith, that “TIM THEN SAID THAT AT LEAST ONE PERSON ON THIS FORUM HAD ACCUSED HIM OF LYING ABOUT HIS CONTACT WITH MRS, EISENHOWER.” I took this to be a reference to something Bill Kelly may have said, but Tim posited otherwise: Yesterday, 05:48 PM “Biil, I think it was RCD who said or implied I might be lying about what Mrs Eisenhower told and wrote me.” Those who do not share Tim’s haphazard reading problems or his elastic recall may be as surprised by this as I was, for here is precisely what I have written on this to date: Oct 24 2007, 01:04 AM “I have little doubt that you spoke with Ms. Eisenhower, and that she told you what you have claimed here. Where is the confirmation for Ms. Eisenhower from a second source that you think is required of others? Apparently you think different rules apply to you. They do not.” On the same date, I noted: “Tim, this is less about what transpired between you and Ms. Eisenhower – though I’m sure it would make an interesting read – than the lack of a second confirming source that you would require of Ayers, Kelly, me, et al, but – seemingly – not yourself.” On the same date, I noted: “The totality of your purported correspondence with Ms. Eisenhower, in original unedited form, would help to establish that, perhaps. Though I don’t think it necessary, feel free to make good on your offer to provide it to another impartial Forum member for posting here, if it’ll make you feel better.” Mark Howell then notes the contents of the e-mail from Tim Gratz to Ms. Eisenhower, yet it was only sent to her a full ten days after Tim had already branded Brad Ayers a “xxxx,” no doubt based upon Tim’s phone call with her. Yet, his e-mail is in stark contradiction to what he has posted elsewhere herein, to wit: Oct 23 2007, 07:14 AM “I have no "motive" here but to discover the truth.” How does this square with the motive Tim Gratz provided to Ms. Eisenhower? “Thank you for any assistance you can provide so I can definitively "debunk" this lie.” Simple quest for truth, or deliberate intent to “debunk” what he has already concluded is a lie? Even the most literacy-challenged should have little trouble discerning which is more likely the case. On a similar note regarding Tim’s professed lack of “motive here but to discover the truth,” it is no great challenge to pop that pompous balloon, because Tim has already alerted us repeatedly to his actual motive and intent, in his own words: Oct 12 2007, 07:49 AM “But of course Bill if in fact he simply made up the story about Pearl's father and Goldwater, how do you know he ever even went on a mission on the Rex?” Oct 23 2007, 10:03 AM “If Ayers made up the Pearl story, BK, how can we believe a word he says about anything or anybody?” Oct 24 2007, 05:07 AM “But if he lied about the Pearl story, we obviously cannot believe anything he says.” Yesterday, 05:48 PM “[but Bill his first-hand accounts cannot be believed absent independent verification if it turns out who made up the Pearl story. If he did, who knows what else he made up? He can only be considered a "reliable source" if he did NOT manufacture the Pearl story.]” So, it seems that Tim is quite anxious for the world at large to discount the contents of Ayers’ book, based upon his self-declared demonstration – absent definitive proof – that Ayers is a “xxxx.” Little wonder, for Tim is greatly unnerved when anyone dares claim CIA involvement in the crime of the previous century. Not content with simply impeaching Ayers’ credibility, Tim has also threatened to take action should Ayers ever be called to testify, solely based – again – on his own reading of the “Pearl” story, to wit: Oct 23 2007, 04:53 AM “I can assure you, BK, that if you every try to get Ayers to testify in a grand jury, I will do everything in my power to ensure the prosecutors asks him about this story, and if he lies about it under oath, to throw his sorry derriere into the appropriate slammer.” Oct 23 2007, 04:53 AM “Well, I can assure you, Mr. Kelly, that my advising the prosecutor that it appears that Ayers may have filed a deliberately false statement about the assassination does not by any stretch of the imagination constitute “tampering with a witness” as defined in 18 U.S.C. sec. 1512. In fact, I believe I would have a duty to so advise any prosecutor.” It is ironic that Tim has drafted his cohort Mark Howell to serve as his witness. Mark Howell, Tim informs us, has won a number of journalism prizes for his literary work. Mark consequently knows something about the necessity for a second source prior to accepting as truth – and publishing - the contentions of a first source. It is the demand Tim has made of Brad Ayers regarding Pearl, and of Bill Kelly regarding Brady Ayers. Yet Tim feels no obligation to abide by the very thing he insists upon from others. This is precisely the bone I’ve continued to pick with Tim throughout this thread, that he hasn’t bothered to supply a second confirming source for whatever he may have been told by Ms. Eisenhower. Sure, Tim has made allusions to perhaps getting around to that, to wit: Oct 15 2007, 03:06 AM “I have asked Mrs. Eisenhower who was BG's liason to the Mexican-American community. I guess from there I could try to see if that man (I assume he must have had such a liason) had children.” Oct 15 2007, 03:06 AM “I am also contacting another man who worked very closely with BG in that period.” Oct 23 2007, 06:51 AM “What if I have another BG staff member around during that period of time who refutes the existence of anyone meeting the description of Pearl's father?” Oct 24 2007, 05:07 AM “So when I provide information from a second source who worked for BG during the period in question, and who verifies that no such person worked for BG, are you then willing to apologize to me, dear boy?” But, so far at least, Tim has not made good on this fundamental obligation, which rightly should have been undertaken and completed prior to labeling Ayers a “xxxx,” which he did on Oct. 11. If Tim’s “sense of decency,” to which he repeatedly alludes, were in fact real, he might also have troubled himself to do what he insists that Bill Kelly and others are required to do, which is to contact Ayers himself for clarification. But since that would demand more effort of Tim than a mere Google search or quick phone call, Tim dispensed with that fundamental necessity and simply branded Ayers a “xxxx,” and only then promised to contact him, to wit: Oct 13 2007, 03:50 PM “Accepting your challenge, I will be GLAD to provide an opportunity to let Ayers respond to the questions I have. I will promise to quote his replies verbatim on the forum.” Oct 13 2007, 08:49 PM “And I stated I am going to write to Ayers to see if he can substantiate a word he wrote about that story. But again, dear readers, don't hold your breath waiting for his reply.” Oct 15 2007, 04:42 AM “Thank you, Bill. I will write to him.” Oct 22 2007, 03:59 AM “I do intend to write him to ask for his explanation. The fact that he never attempted to verify the story that alleged Pearl told him suggests to me there never was a Pearl. But we shall see what he says.” In essence: now that Tim has already convicted Ayers before his self-staffed court of one, he will now allow a trial and might even seek out a defense. This is the Alice in Wonderland methodology applied to a potentially important witness to key historical events. One understands why Tim continues to insist that this is all a matter of his own credibility being questioned, including falsely asserting that I am the one who questioned it in regard to Ms. Eisenhower’s e-mail [see above]. It deflects attention from far more consequential issues that he would rather continue ignoring, as he has persisted in doing. For instance, I posted this: Oct 25 2007, 05:47 PM “You seem to argue that even if Pearl existed and her story was true, Ms. Eisenhower would blithely admit this to some total stranger. She may well have her own reasons for wishing the Ayers story to die a quiet death. If you’ve done the slightest homework on her role within Goldwater’s operations, you know that she ruled the roost and the only people who got to see him or even speak with him on the phone were those she allowed access to the Senator. This being the case, if the Pearl story is true, it is highly unlikely she didn’t know of the circumstances. Which means that she would have aided and abetted a criminal conspiracy. Yet you, in your capacity as an Inspector Clouseau impersonator, would actually expect her to admit this to a complete stranger. You seem to have declared “somebody I don’t know, or know anything about, told me what I wanted to hear and that’s good enough for me.” Well it’s not good enough, Tim. You grow less clever by the day.” Tim’s response? Total silence. Which is understandable, given that my posted comments demolish the foolhardy and witless approach he took with Ms. Eisenhower. Tim would rather rail at those questioning his credibility than confront the very serious and real possibility that Ms. Eisenhower may have her own self-serving reasons for providing the answer she did. Tim seems to have never considered this, and is no doubt unhappy to see it brought up again. And yet, hypocritically and disingenuously, Tim nevertheless insists: Oct 12 2007, 09:01 AM “You simply cannot honestly write about the assassination without investigating the reliability of your sources.” Tim has also repeatedly referred to Goldwater as a “straight-arrow” and mocked any possible connections to Mob types. When I posted sourced and researched data that Goldwater’s associations to unsavoury Mob types, directly and through family, were at least career-long, and possibly life-long, what was Tim’s response. Total silence. Which is understandable, given that Tim asserts it is ridiculous for CIA or Mob types to use the staff and good offices of a sitting US senator just to move some money around. And it might be, were it not for the demonstrably real nexus at which both Goldwater and various ruthless Mob types were simultaneously located. Those wishing proof for a similar scenario might benefit from reading what can be found here: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...75BC0A961948260 Tim has repeatedly insisted that Mob types need not rely upon solid citizens, for they have enough of their own flunkies, and that solid citizens cannot be dragooned into providing that service to the Mob in any case. This is fatuous nonsense. Mobsters love using solid citizens, for the patina of respectability they convey to the broader world minimizes the chance of getting caught, and provides the Mobsters with plausible deniability in the event that they are caught. “Solid citizens” need only be liable to coercion or corruption. Tim also attempts to impeach the totality of what Ayers writes, assuming the “Pearl” story is sufficient leverage to do so, by invoking a legal theorem, to wit: Oct 13 2007, 05:23 PM “I am smart enough to figure out that in accordance with the standard "falsus in uno" jury instruction if he made up the story of Pearl's father I sure aint't going to spend my hard-earned cash to purchase a book that is probably replete with lies.” Unfortunately, Tim is not “smart enough” to realize that the very same theorem - which cannot yet be used against Ayers - does apply to him, which is why his own prior misdeeds are considered germane. [it is also telling that Tim refuses to read Ayers book because he’s already prejudged it and found it “is probably replete with lies.” There’s a civics class model of due process, in Tim Gratz’s world.] Equally hypocritical and disingenuous is another of his assertions: Oct 23 2007, 06:22 AM “But I assert it is a very serious matter if someone deliberately publishes false information about the assassination, an as-of-yet unsolved crime.” Which is precisely why I harangue Tim every time one of his demands of others is unmatched by his own behaviour here. Unless and until Tim Gratz can demonstrate that Brad Ayers has a past track record of dissembling or other fraudulent bad acts, as Tim himself can boast, or that Ayers has demonstrably lied in his book, Ayers is entitled to the presumption of innocence. Or did they not teach you that part prior to taking your Bar exam, Tim? What I’ve seen here to date doesn’t constitute proof that Brad Ayers lied in his book, only that malicious prosecution [not to say persecution] isn’t confined to the courtroom. Worst of all, of course, is the chill such behaviour would have upon anyone who thought they had relevant information about the assassination. Such baseless attacks can only dissuade such persons from coming forward with what they know. As I have already pointed out: Oct 24 2007, 01:04 AM "Worse by far, your vilification of a potentially crucial witness may disincline him from making any further effort to place his knowledge in the public record. He may very well simply throw his hands in the air and wonder why he even bothers to try. Should he be contacted by Bill Kelly’s hypothetical grand jury, will he still be willing to testify knowing that presumptuous slander will likely be his only reward? Rather than you mounting an attempt to determine the truth, as you claim, your one-man campaign to vilify may serve only to silence one of the few remaining witnesses we have to events that have thus far remained largely unplumbed. Is that your intent? Because that’s the way it looks." Those already well familiar with Tim’s track record here will be unsurprised at the suggestion that this is his modus operandi, in furtherance of a protect-CIA agenda. Those newbies and lurkers who are not familiar with Tim’s track record here are now better able to judge for themselves. It would also be helpful if Tim would trouble himself to reply to Miles Scull's still-unanswered question: "Other than that, is there anything at all which might cause you or a thinking person to doubt Ayers' Pearl story?" Am I the only one to wonder why Miles would distinguish between "you" [Tim Gratz] and "a thinking person?" Has the Mod Squad been alerted to this?

Assuming, arguendo, that LHO did take that cab: Yes, it is particularly strange that a reputed penny-pincher like LHO would instruct his cabbie to drive him well past his destination. However, when we consider that the putative assassin apparently decided it was suddenly a good time to go retrieve his handgun - ["I really should have brought it with me to the assassination; my how forgetful I'm becoming"] - I suggest it's reasonable to infer that LHO suddenly thought himself vulnerable to something, enough to arm himself, and wished to ensure he wasn't followed in the process. Getting out of the cab blocks past his rooming house and walking back would allow him to eyeball on-coming traffic to spot anyone who might have been tailing him. But if one is being followed, how does one know which car to watch for, the make and model of the car being driven? The remarkably timed appearance of a DPD squad car in front of the rooming house just after his arrival there, and it's reported honking of the car horn, may help to ultimately explain who LHO suddenly feared enough to arm himself, who he anticipated would follow him, and why he did not respond to the car honking its horn outside his rooming house.