Bill Cheslock
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Posts posted by Bill Cheslock
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PHANTOM IDENTIFICATION OF THE MAGIC BULLET
Think CE-399's bone fides are intact?? Go here:
http://www.jfklancer.com/hunt/phantom.htm
John Hunt
John:
Your article validates the fact that there was more than one bullet
put into evidence; the infamous magic bullet that is in the Archives, and
a mysterious bullet that Elmer Todd initialed. The question also has to be
asked, "was there pre (official) autopsy surgery performed on JFK's body?
Your article brings up many questions that have to be answered before we
can call this, "case closed."
Bill C
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I thought it might be interesting to canvas members opinions on this subject.
Were the same people, (At least at the planning stage.) responsible for both assassinations. Or is it possible that two different groups carried them out for completely different reasons.A third option of course is that LHO, & Sirhan Sirhan are responsible. (Only joking)My own belief is that the same group were behind both murders,and that of MLK. over to the Forum.
Stephen: I believe there are links between the JFK and RFK assassinations. For example, one Eugene Hale Brading (aka Jim Braden), a member of organized crime in the 1960's, was actually arrested in Dealey Plaza and detained by the Dallas Police. This same Brading was in Los Angeles the night RFK was assassinated. SUS officer Manuel Gutierrez interviewed Brading at his home near San Diego after the assassination in the Ambassador Hotel, and Brading claimed to be at the Century Plaza Hotel at the time of the shooting, a fifteen minute drive from the Ambassador. ("Deadly Secrets" by Warren Hinckle and William Turner, p. 276). What are the chances of this man, a member of the Mob, being at two Kennedy assassinations five years apart?
I believe that RFK was going to continue his brother's policies, both domestic and foreign, had he been elected president in 1968. This was not what the power structure in the U.S. wanted. In my opinion, the powers that be got rid of a president that went against everything they stood for. Were they now going to permit his brother step in to the White House and continue with those policies that alienated them from JFK just a few years earlier? So the answer to your question is a firm yes from me.
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Bill Cheslock wrote:
So if I can't say "Happy Fourth of July" this year, please forgive me.
Bill
Well, Bill, let me suggest to you a couple of things you can be thankful for:
(1) That you were born in a country that from its inception has guaranteed to its citizens the right to make the kind of derogatory remarks you just made against the elected leaders of the country; and
(2) That you still have those rights because for the past 227 years the fine members of our military have been willing to, and often have, given their lives to protect that freedom and the other attendant freedoms.
It seems to me those are pretty important things for which all Americans, regardless of their political affiliation, can and should celebrate today!
Hi Tim:
Derogatory or not, they happen to be true, and as long as one tells the
truth, one can live with one's self. The true heroes in any war, whether or not
that war is fought due to a pack of lies told by the country's leaders, are
the soldiers who willingly go and put their lives on the line. Our fine military
personnel have done this once again in Iraq, although it's quite evident that the
drums of war were sounded by Bush with a "forked tongue." I find it strange that
we went to Iraq to fight the demon Osama Bin Laden, the one responsible for the
tragic 9/11 attacks. But at least Halliburton is making a ton of $$$.
Bill
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I just got home from a ride to the Kennedy Compound in Hyannisport
and was reflecting on what the commentator was saying on my car radio.
It was the usual rhetoric we receive at this time of year in early July; that is,
'Happy fourth," "We should be grateful for being Americans," etc. etc.
How happy am I on this 2005 Fourth of July weekend? Well, we're still
looking for the answers to the JFK assassination, and the answers seem to be
drifting off into the sunset, and further out of reach than ever before. We have
a president in office who seems to think that lying is part of the job, and it's OK
to do so, as long as his agenda is satisfied. Then we have a vice president who
swears that the lies of his president are in fact true, and watches his huge company, Halliburton, continue to rip off the American tax payer. Secretary Rice
has an oil tanker named after her by a huge oil company (Chevron, I believe), and Secretary Rumsfeld doesn't seem to care that our troops are being put in harm's way with the inferior equipment they are given to fight a war that is based on lies in the first place. These "big four" in Washington couldn't carry JFK's attache case. And the price of gas? Well...............
So if I can't say "Happy Fourth of July" this year, please forgive me.
Bill
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Perhaps I am misremembering, but I thought that years ago CIA director Robert Gates released what he claimed to be Oswald's CIA file. He made a big deal of it, though as I recall it amounted to nothing more than some newspaper clippings or what-not.
Gates said at the time of this file release that the CIA had nothing to do with the assassination, and as proof he told about how he cried when he heard about the assassination when he was a college student. He got kind of emotional as he talked about it. When he left the CIA he should have gone into acting.
Does anyone else remember this?
Ron
Yes Ron, I remember this episode very well. The crying part is what I
remember mostly, and the part where Gates said that he just can't believe
the polls show that so many Americans believe the CIA had something to do
with the assassination.
Bill
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The unpopular, but correct, approach would be to reinforce the troops already in Iraq and clean up the mess there...and then hand it back to the Iraqis. THEN if THEY want to have their own little civil war, let 'em have at it...killing one another, and NOT the sons and daughters of America and Britain.
I am not sure if this is possible. This is not a problem that can be solved by sending in more troops. The only solution is to hand the whole thing over to the UN (if they are willing to clear up the mess that has been created).
The US is currently losing on average two or three soldiers a day. In Vietnam it reached 10 a day before the government decided to pull out. Once it reaches that sort of level you will need to introduce conscription. When this process begins to hurt the middle classes, the pressure on Bush to withdraw will be impossible to resist.
The other significant factor concerns the possibility of victory. The US realized it had to pull out of Vietnam after the Tet Offensive (even though technically a defeat for the NLF). The point was that the US public realized that this was a war that cannot be won. It is just a case when this enters the consciousness of the American public. People like Tim will never be convinced and is willing to continue sacrificing the lives of American soldiers. However, we have to assume that kind of political illiteracy is not common in the US.
John:
I would hope that that kind of political illiteracy is not common in the U.S.,
although sometimes one has to wonder after the outcome of some of these national elections are finalized. However, according to a recent (June 16, 2005)
CBS News poll, President Bush's approval rating is the lowest ever for a second term president. His current approval rating is at 42%. I would suspect that with
the current unfortunate events taking place in Iraq, which is high on the list of priorities of those Americans who were polled, this low rating will tend to continue
on a downward spiral.
Bill
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Anyone who has read the transcripts of the LBJ tapes should certainly have the same question in mind as I:
Why was LBJ initially so adamant that there would be NO presidential commission, and NO congressional investigation into the JFK assassination, and then ABRUPTLY change course 180 degrees?
I can understand, from a political standpoint, LBJ's objections to a congressional investigation. As a career politician, LBJ understood that he had to get some legislation through Congress--and into the headlines--if he was to be elected in '64 [can't say "re-elected," because he wasn't elected president to begin with]. And if Congress was tied up with an assassination inquiry, Johnson wouldn't get the press he needed to be elected.
But his initial response--that, since there was no federal law broken, the "Great State of Texas" should conduct any investigation--was most likely the correct way to go. It was TEXAS laws that were broken, so that made it a TEXAS crime, and called for a TEXAS investigation. The plus to THAT scenario was that, while the investigation would still garner national headlines, it wouldn't push LBJ and his political agenda--and his hopes of winning in '64--off the front pages all across America.
So the question that comes to MY mind is STILL: WHO [person or group] got to LBJ and convinced him to change his mind? Johnson was initially ADAMANT that there would be no federally-led investigation; yet a few short days later, he was EQUALLY adamant that there MUST be a federal investigation.
LBJ's change of position would be analagous to Tim Gratz suddenly deciding that Castro WASN'T involved, and that the assassination was part of a coup led by C. Douglas Dillon...yet it apparently doesn't raise many "red flags" among other researchers.
My question is: WHY NOT?
Mark:
Johnson seemed to vascilate between a Texas inquiry and a federal one.
On November 25, after a "conference with the White House," Waggoner Carr announced that a court of inquiry would be held by the State of Texas. ("Inquest"
by Epstein, p. 20). Then Senator Dirksen, on November 26, proposed that the
Senate Judiciary Committee conduct a full investigation into the assassination.
However, on November 29, Johnson announced that a commission would be created "to avoid parallel investigations and to concentrate fact-finding in a body having the broadest national mandate." ("Inquest" p. 20)
According to LBJ in "The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency,
1963-1969," he got the idea of forming the Warren Commission from Walt Rostow's brother, Eugene Victor Debs Rostow. Walt Rostow's brother would then
go on to serve as Undersecretary of State for policital affairs in the Johnson Administration from 1966 to 1969. I really wonder how much influence Walt Rostow actually had in Johnson's decision to go with the WC?
Bill Cheslock
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What do you think of George W. Bush's speech last night? Will it satisfy the American public? The full text is here:
John:
A leader (and I use that word loosely in this case) cannot lie to the public in order to build a policy he or she wants to utilize while in power.
President Bush has done exactly that over the past five years.
1) Iraq and the 9/ll tragedy connection, a Bush lie.
2) WMD in Iraq, a Bush lie.
3) Iraq purchase of uranium from Africa, a Bush lie.
4) "Mission Accomplished".........not then, not now, a Bush lie.
And this list can go on, John. So why should I listen to, and believe what the man said last night? Count me out, and the old Vietnam phrase, "The credibility gap" is back in vogue.
Bill Cheslock
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Harry is making some very serious points in this thread that should NOT be overlooked. Great insight, Harry!
Oswald was [remember Oswald...the subject of this thread?] probably the PERFECT patsy. With his bio, he could be painted as the loser nutcase that the WC made him...OR he could have been positioned as the brave ex-Marine who went undercover, posing as a defector, at great personal risk, for his country. His story could have been played either way, depending upon the outcome of events in Dallas. A case could be made that Oswald held menial jobs so that he could respond to assignments at a moment's notice, and the sparse lifestyle he lived was consistent with the concept of keeping a relatively low profile...except within the areas in which he was SUPPOSED to draw attention, the Dallas Russian-exile community and the New Orleans Cuban-agitator communities. Can ANYONE paint a detailed picture of Oswald's daily life, outside of Marina's accounts? Co-workers knew little of him, as did neighbors. Friends were few, and none [that I've read of] were what I would call "close" friends.
So these facts allow Oswald to be a mere outline on an otherwise-blank canvas. And of the outline, it's truly difficult to determine what is the "real" Oswald and what is the "legend" one would need to create as an asset of an intelligence agency. He could be painted as either a patriot or a scoundrel, depending upon the needs of the hour. And it it THIS malleability of Oswald's image that renders him the TRUE enigma of the JFK assassination lore.
Hi Mark
Very interesting post.
You say, "[Oswald] could be painted as either a patriot or a scoundrel, depending upon the needs of the hour."
It is though hard for me to picture the circumstances in which Oswald might be portrayed as a hero, except perhaps if there were any evidence or any planned scenario in which he tried to stop the assassination. As it is, there seems to be no shred of evidence that he did try to stop the murder or that any such set-up was planned, quite the opposite.
I do find it intriguing that the timing of individuals' movements in the Book Depository might have been such that Oswald was actually in the lunch room at the time of the assassination.
Oswald's whole story as now known just seems very strange and bizarre, and seemingly at odds, in some ways, to the actual cold, hard facts of the assassination as we know them.
All my best
Chris
Chris:
Robert Sam Anson, who wrote "They've Killed The President," has a
very appropriate paragraph about Lee Harvey Oswald. He writes:
"Today, we know differently. And yet even now we can only guess: Who was
Lee Harvey Oswald? Maybe the problem with understanding Oswald is that we think we know him so well. So ignore his name and then consider the facts:
a man who works at a CIA base; has his records altered by the military; defects to Russia with no money; takes a plane when no planes are available; marries the niece of a high ranking Soviet official; slips across the iron curtain without leaving a trace; threatens espionage and is not arrested; lives in a community inflltrated
by intelligence agents; befriends a former spy; is seen in close contact with two intelligence agents; makes travel arrangements in the company of an employee of the CIA; uses an alias; keeps an office in a building with other agents; eludes detection by surveillance devices; gets a passport when one should be denied;
and is finally shot down in a room crowded with police by a former informer for the nation's chief investigative agency. Absorb these things, and then imagine that the man they happened to is named John Smith. Who do YOU think he is?
("They've Killed The President" pp 189-190)
It seems that LHO indeed could say, "I led three lives."
Bill Cheslock
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A possible ground for research would be to make new requests for documents previously classified or heavily redacted.
For instance, I find this reference in one of Weberman's nodules:
On November 27, 1963, Sam Papich telephonically provided the CIA information on Ruth Paine in response to a CIA teletype. The last line of the document that reviewed the information of Sam Papich read, "With respect to the station wagon in which she transported the OSWALDS, he advised (deleted - document ends)." [CIA 1534-1105 rel. 5.18.82]
What was deleted? Why?
I also understand that the HSCA testimony of William Seymour is still classified.
Why?
Can we use this thread to compile documents that are either still classified or redacted?
Tim:
A possible reason why JFK material is still classified is because whenever anything is declassified, it points to a conspiracy. For example the ARRB looked into the possibility of missing autopsy photographs taken on the night of November 22, 1963. According to the chief autopsy photographer, John Stringer, in his ARRB testimony, there are some views that were taken that are now missing. ( ARRB deposition of John Stringer, July 16, 1996, p. 133) However, Stringer signed an affidavit dated 11/22/63 which stated, "To my personal knowledge, this is the total amount of film exposed on this occasion." (ARRB Exhibit MD 78)
Jeremy Gunn of the ARRB, who was questioning Stringer( ARRB deposition of John Stringer, July 16, 1996, pp 136-137) about this sworn affidavit had the following exchange with him:
Gunn: "Do you see the phrase, next to last sentence, of the document---that I'll read to you: 'To my personal knowledge this is the total amount of film exposed on this occasion.' Do you see that?"
Stringer: "Yes."
Gunn: "Is it your understanding that that statement is incorrect?"
Stringer: "Well, yes."
Gunn: "When you signed this document, Exhibit 78, were you intending to either agree or disagree with the conclusion reached in the second to last - next to last sentence?"
Stringer: "I told him that I disagreed with him, but they said, 'Sign it.'"
Gunn: "And who is 'they' who said, 'Sign it.'?
Stringer: "Captain Stover."
Later in the interview:
Stringer: "You don't object to things."
Gunn: "Some people do."
Stringer: "But they don't last long." (Stringer ARRB testimony, p 155)
Assistant autopsy photographer, Floyd Riebe, also signed the false affidavit which was exposed by the ARRB. Here is what Riebe simply said"
Riebe: "We was shown this and told to sign it and that was it." (ARRB deposition of Floyd Riebe, May 7, 1997, p. 53) (He also added that the affidavit was incorrect, p. 54 of his deposition).
Now, couple this with HSCA Chief Counsel G. Robert Blakey admitting that the autopsy photographs have never been authenticated ( Memorandum for File written by Doug Horne for the JFK Review Board, titled, "Unanswered Questions Raised by the HSCA's Analysis and Conclusions Regarding the Camera Identified by the Navy and the Department of Defense as the Camera Used at President Kennedy's Autopsy, p. 4)
What Blakey said in the memorandum cited above was,
"Our photographic experts have determined that this camera, or at least the particular lens and shutter to it, could not have been used to take JFK's autopsy pictures."
Autopsy photographers threatened into signing an affidavit they knew was false, and the Chief Counsel of the HSCA admitting that his Committee could not authenticate the autopsy photos it had in its possesssion......... no wonder they don't want to declassify anything, Tim.
Bill Cheslock
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Well I quess The criminal justice system is no longer America. What with the O. J. trial and now the Michael jackson trial, all of you people that dont live in the United States can now see how thing operate in the the good old U.S.A. If you're black and rich you can get by with murder. Why, because God forbid we would accuse a Black man of committing a violent act in this country. I have worked in Law enforcement since 1985, And I will be the first to admit that I am embarrassed because of our criminal justice system. I don't want top sound like a racist, but I am sure if Al Carrier is reading this he will say the same thing I am saying. He may work in a city that is bigger that the one i work in, b ut I have worked in a ith that is bigger than Waterloo, Iowa. Al I know how big Waterloo is i was born and raised in Oelwein. But I've worked in Little Rock Ar. which is bigger than Waterloo and let me tell you things are different down South. But what has happened in California 2 times in the last 10 to 15 yearsd is ridicules, everybody and they're dog knew O.J. was guilty and the same holds true for Michael Jackson. The only thing that go0t Simpson off was his lawyer playing the RACE card. Just let a WHITE man try that. and the same holds true for Jackson. I am so sick of this that it almost makes me feel like turning my badge. After all what good does it do is the person you arrest for a crime, no matter how gui;ty the evidence shows them to be, if thjey walk at the end of the trial just because of WHO they are or WHAT they are......
I do want to apoligize to the forum for blasting off, but the frustration level is real high right now.
John move this subject wherever you see that it fits, I understand
Thanks for letting me vent!!!!!!!!!!
Mike
Mike:
Your frustration is coming through loud and strong. You mentioned the "American criminal justice system is no longer America." If we look at the system working in the opposite direction, as in how Lee Harvey Oswald was treated, we get a good idea as to how the "system" can be flexible enough to be biased in both ways.
In Oswald's case, the media played both judge and jury and found him guilty in the pages of its newspapers, and on the air waves of its television and radio programs. The Warren Commission appointed Walter E. Craig, president of the American Bar Association, to represent Oswald during the Commission hearings, three months after the formation of the Commission. Not once did Craig cross examine a witness.
And Craig was present to "protect" Oswald's rights for only eight testimonies before the Commission. So when you say that you "are embarrassed because of our criminal justice system," your statement could've been said during the WC hearings over forty years ago. Some things in this country do not change, Mike.
In my opinion, Mike, the American system has been corrupt for many years now. When is the last time a millionaire was sent to the death chamber??
Bill Cheslock
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It was thirty-seven years ago today.
Did Robert really think the powers that killed his brother would allow him to win the White House? Survivor's guilt?
And, do you think it was the same apparatus that murdered both brothers?
Stan:
On January 16, 1992, Robert Kennedy's press secretary, Frank
Mankiewicz, appeared on "Larry King Live." This exchange between King and
Mankiewicz was quite interesting"
King: "Did Bobby ever express an interest in opening up the files, looking into
it?" (The JFK assassination)
Mankiewicz: "He indicated a couple of times--once to me and I gather once to
Arthur Schlesinger and once to Richard Goodwin, at least---that he was concerned about the Warren Commission verdict; that he didn't quite believe it. He asked me to learn as much as I could. And then a week or two, as I recall, before he was killed in Los Angeles, at a political meeting, he was asked if he would open the files on the assassination of President Kennedy and he said yes---if he were elected President---and he said yes, he would." ("Larry King Live" television
program, CNN, January 16, 1992)
Bill Cheslock
Bill, but did Robert really think the power that murdered his brother -- and I think he had a real good idea what/who that power was -- would allow him to win the White House? It seems to me that when he announced his run for the presidency, he willingly signed his own death warrant. I wonder why.
Stan:
I believe that only the Kennedy family and its tight circle of friends really know what Robert was thinking when he made a run for the White House. I think
Senator Ted Kennedy knows an awful lot about both assassinations. The Kennedy family was a very powerful entity in Washington, and I find it hard to believe that
the secrets of the assassinations could be kept from them.
This is only speculation, but perhaps Robert felt that the powers that be
had killed one Kennedy, and wouldn't kill another without bringing the wrath of the country down on them, with a demand for a complete and thorough investigation.
RFK may have been counting on the powers to pull back and say, "we assassinated
one kennedy, we can't get away with assassinating another." If this was Robert's
thinking, and it's only speculation on my part, then he woefully underestimated his
adversaries.
Yet another theory I have thought of over the years has been the possible guilt that Robert carried with him after JFK's assassination. Some have written that
Robert's war against organized crime brought the wrath of the Mafia down on JFK
in Dallas, and Robert blamed himself for this for years after the guns of Dealey Plaza. Again, speculation brings me to theorize that perhaps Robert decided to go for broke, and make a run for the White House. I remember reading that he said
the road to the truth behind his brother's murder has to go through the oval office.
I wish I could remember where I read that, as I like to use references for quotes like that. I will look for the source. However, Robert may have felt that he had no choice but to go for broke, make a run for the White House, reopen his brother's assassination investigation like his press secretary said he would, and let the chips fall where they may. It may have been something similar to a death wish charge made by Robert Kennedy in 1968.
Bill Cheslock
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It was thirty-seven years ago today.
Did Robert really think the powers that killed his brother would allow him to win the White House? Survivor's guilt?
And, do you think it was the same apparatus that murdered both brothers?
Stan:
On January 16, 1992, Robert Kennedy's press secretary, Frank
Mankiewicz, appeared on "Larry King Live." This exchange between King and
Mankiewicz was quite interesting"
King: "Did Bobby ever express an interest in opening up the files, looking into
it?" (The JFK assassination)
Mankiewicz: "He indicated a couple of times--once to me and I gather once to
Arthur Schlesinger and once to Richard Goodwin, at least---that he was concerned about the Warren Commission verdict; that he didn't quite believe it. He asked me to learn as much as I could. And then a week or two, as I recall, before he was killed in Los Angeles, at a political meeting, he was asked if he would open the files on the assassination of President Kennedy and he said yes---if he were elected President---and he said yes, he would." ("Larry King Live" television
program, CNN, January 16, 1992)
Bill Cheslock
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Good Day.... http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washingt...vietnam/?page=1
<QUOTE>
Papers reveal JFK efforts on Vietnam
By Bryan Bender, Boston Globe Staff | June 6, 2005
WASHINGTON -- Newly uncovered documents from both American and Polish archives show that President John F. Kennedy and the Soviet Union secretly sought ways to find a diplomatic settlement to the war in Vietnam, starting three years before the United States sent combat troops.
Kennedy, relying on his ambassador to India, John Kenneth Galbraith, planned to reach out to the North Vietnamese in April 1962 through a senior Indian diplomat, according to a secret State Department cable that was never dispatched.
Back-channel discussions also were attempted in January 1963, this time through the Polish government, which relayed the overture to Soviet leaders. New Polish records indicate Moscow was much more open than previously thought to using its influence with North Vietnam to cool a Cold War flash point.
The attempts to use India and Poland as go-betweens ultimately fizzled, partly because of North Vietnamese resistance and partly because Kennedy faced pressure from advisers to expand American military involvement, according to the documents and interviews with scholars. Both India and Poland were members of the International Control Commission that monitored the 1954 agreement that divided North and South Vietnam.
The documents are seen by former Kennedy aides as new evidence of his true intentions in Vietnam. The question of whether Kennedy would have escalated the war or sought some diplomatic exit has been heatedly debated by historians and officials who served under both Kennedy and his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson.
When Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, there were 16,000 US military advisers in Vietnam. The number of troops grew to more than 500,000, and the war raged for another decade.
''I think the issue of how JFK would have acted differently than LBJ is something that will never be settled, but intrigues biographers," said Robert Dallek, author of noted biographies of Kennedy and Johnson.
''Historians partial to Kennedy see matters differently from those partial to LBJ," Dallek added. ''Vietnam has become a point of contention in defending and criticizing JFK."
But some Kennedy loyalists say the documents show he would have negotiated a settlement or withdrawn from Vietnam despite the objections of many top advisers, such as Kennedy and Johnson's defense secretary, Robert S. McNamara, who opposed Galbraith's diplomatic efforts at the time.
''The drafts are perfectly authentic," said Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., who was a White House aide to Kennedy. ''They show Kennedy felt we were over-committed in Vietnam and he was very uneasy. I think he would have withdrawn by 1965 before he took steps to Americanize the war."
McNamara said in an interview Wednesday that he had ''no recollection" of the Galbraith discussions, but ''I have no doubt that Kennedy would have been interested in it. He reached out to divergent views."
Others, however, are highly skeptical the new information signals what action Kennedy would have ultimately taken.
''It's unknowable what he would have done," said Carl Kaysen, who was Kennedy's deputy special assistant for national security.
Kaysen, who also judged the documents to be authentic, believes Kennedy was just as likely as his successors to misjudge the situation. ''The basic mistake the US made was to underestimate the determination of North Vietnam and the communist party in South Vietnam, the Viet Minh, and to overstate its own position," he said Thursday.
He also doubted that North Vietnam would have been willing to negotiate a deal acceptable to the United States. ''In hindsight, it would have been another futile effort," Kaysen said, because the North Vietnamese were determined to control the fate of South Vietnam.
But the documents, which came from the archives of then-Assistant Secretary of State W. Averell Harriman and the communist government in Warsaw, demonstrate that Kennedy and the Soviets were looking for common ground.
They also shed new light on Galbraith's role. The Harvard economist was on friendly terms with India's prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and a close confidant of Kennedy's. Galbraith sent numerous telegrams to the president warning about the risks of greater military intervention.
Galbraith told the Globe last week that he and Kennedy discussed the war in Vietnam at a farm in rural Virginia in early April 1962, where Galbraith handed the president a two-page plan to use India as an emissary for peace negotiations.
Records show that McNamara and the military brass quickly criticized the proposal. An April 14 Pentagon memo to Kennedy said that ''a reversal of US policy could have disastrous effects, not only upon our relationship with South Vietnam, but with the rest of our Asian and other allies as well."
Nevertheless, Kennedy later told Harriman to instruct Galbraith to pursue the channel through M. J. Desai, then India's foreign secretary. At the time, the United States had only 1,500 military advisers in South Vietnam.
''The president wants to have instructions sent to Ambassador Galbraith to talk to Desai telling him that if Hanoi takes steps to reduce guerrilla activity [in South Vietnam], we would correspond accordingly," Harriman states in an April 17, 1962, memo to his staff. ''If they stop the guerrilla activity entirely, we would withdraw to a normal basis."
A draft cable dated the same day instructed Galbraith to use Desai as a ''channel discreetly communicating to responsible leaders [in the] North Vietnamese regime . . . the president's position as he indicated it."
But a week later, Harriman met with Kennedy and apparently persuaded him to delay, according to other documents, and the overture was never revived.
Galbraith, 97, never received the official instructions but said last week that the documents are ''wholly in line" with his discussions with Kennedy and that he had expected Kennedy to pursue the Indian channel.
The draft of the unsent cable was discovered in Harriman's papers by scholar Gareth Porter and are outlined in a forthcoming book, ''Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam."
Meanwhile, the Polish archives from a year later revealed another back-channel attempt to find a possible settlement.
At the urging of Nehru, Galbraith met with the Polish foreign minister, Adam Rapacki, in New Delhi on Jan. 21, 1963, where Galbraith expressed Kennedy's likely interest in a Polish proposal for a cease-fire and new elections in South Vietnam. There is no evidence of further discussions between the two diplomats. Rapacki returned to Warsaw a day later. Galbraith wrote in his memoirs that it was not followed up.
But the newly released Polish documents, obtained by George Washington University researcher Malgorzata Gnoinska, show that Galbraith's message was sent to Moscow, where it was taken seriously.
A lengthy February memo from the Soviet politburo reported on the Galbraith-Rapacki discussions. It concluded that Kennedy and ''part of the administration . . . did not want Vietnam to turn into a second Korea" and appeared interested in a diplomatic settlement akin to one reached in 1962 about Laos, Vietnam's neighbor.
''It is apparent that Kennedy is not opposed to finding a compromise regarding South Vietnam," the memo said, according to Gnoinska's translation. ''It seems that the Americans have arrived at the conclusion that the continued intervention in Vietnam does not promise victory and have decided to somehow untangle themselves from the difficult situation they find themselves in over there."
It went on to say that ''neutralizing" the crises ''could untangle the dangerous knot of international tensions in Southeast Asia."
Definitive reasons both the Indian and Polish attempts were not pursued further are not known. In October 1963, the South Vietnamese government was overthrown, igniting political chaos. North Vietnam may have become more certain it would prevail. Neither the Indian or Vietnamese archives are available. The would-be Indian emissary, Desai, whom records indicate still lives in Bombay, could not be reached.
Kennedy had few options. Many believe North Vietnam would have swiftly prevailed over the South if the United States pulled out; that is what happened more than a decade later. It would have been extremely difficult to risk such an outcome at the height of the Cold War, fearing communism would spread to other countries under the so-called domino theory.
''There was no open debate in the Kennedy or Johnson administration about whether the domino theory was correct," McNamara said. It was simply gospel, he said.
Nonetheless, the new information sheds light on Kennedy's misgivings about getting further embroiled in the Vietnam War; up to his death he refused to do as most of his advisers urged and allow US ground troops to participate in the fighting, as Johnson did beginning in 1965. Galbraith said Kennedy ''harbored doubts, extending to measured resistance, on the Vietnam War." But it was ''countered by the fact that he had such articulate and committed warriors to contend with" in his administration, he said.
''It's another clear indication that my brother was very reluctant to accept the strong recommendations he was getting to send troops to Vietnam," Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, told the Globe on Friday after reviewing the cable to Galbraith. ''It's hard to believe that Jack would ever have allowed the tentative steps he took in those days to escalate into the huge military crisis that Vietnam became."
Of the cable, Theodore Sorensen, who was a special assistant to Kennedy, said: ''It is clearly consistent with what I have always thought and said about JFK's attitude toward Vietnam."
Daniel Ellsberg, a former Pentagon official and coauthor of the Pentagon Papers, the secret history of US policy toward Vietnam, added that the documents ''show a willingness to negotiate [a pullout] that LBJ didn't have in 1964-66." But, Ellsberg added, ''he might not have been able to do it."
Bryan Bender can be reached at Bender@globe.com
<END QUOTE>
Don Roberdeau
U.S.S. John F. Kennedy, CV-67, "Big John" Plank Walker
Sooner, or later, the Truth emerges Clearly
http://members.aol.com/DRoberdeau/JFK/DP.jpg
http://members.aol.com/DRoberdeau/JFK/ROSE...NOUNCEMENT.html
T ogether
E veryone
A chieves
M ore
"That’s when they encountered Oswald drinking a coke on the second floor."
"We had a similar case with another officer named McLain. We had a guy come to Dallas several years ago with a sound device listening to some noise on one of the police radios. He said that he counted seven shots. McLain told them it was his radio making the noise, so he was taken to Washington and questioned. Mac didn’t know what in the hell he was talking about. He was kind of a nit wit, and when he went up there, he made an ass out of our whole department. It was disgraceful! I think he just wanted a trip to Washington."
"After the assassination, the FBI did their investigative work on the curb where I had seen the shot and cut off the section to analyze. However, they cut off the wrong section. We later found the place where it hit. Sergeant Harkness knows. He was a three-wheel sergeant who worked traffic downtown."
----STAVIS "Steve" ELLIS, D.P.D. Sergeant/motorcyclist/presidential motorcade motorcyclist lead line Supervisor 11-22-63 to Larry Sneed, "No More Silence" (1988)
Don:
I have always been of the opinion that, had JFK lived, he would've withdrawn
from Vietnam like the documents now revealed reflect.
In the year 2000, a book was released by David Kaiser titled, "American Tragedy." Kaiser, uses complete documentation to make his argument that JFK
was not the Cold Warrior just itching for a fight with the Communists that many portray him to be. In fact, he makes the argument, using documentation from the
Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations, that Eisenhower was ready to
go to war in Vietnam, using nuclear weapons if need be.
When Kennedy was elected, according to Kaiser, this policy changed from one of aggression that was Eisenhower's policy, to one of diplomacy, that was to
be the rule under Kennedy for the three years he was President.
Kaiser explains in his book that when Johnson was elevated to the presidency after the assassination, Eisenhower's policies reemerged in the military intervention in Vietnam mounted by the Johnson administration.
David Kaiser gives numerous examples of how JFK used diplomacy,
much to the chagrin of his senior advisors and the JCS, rather than raw military
power to solve an international problem. For instance, Laos was an immediate
problem inherited by the Kennedy administration. JFK asked his Chiefs and other
leading officials to provide individual opinions on intervention into Laos by the next day, which was May 2, 1961. McNamara and Roswell Gilpatrick, his deputy, suggested intervention with troops. The JCS, specifically General Lemnitzer, Admiral Burke, and General Decker of the Army shared their view. Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay wanted to prepare for all-out war with China. Only Marine Corps Commandant General David Shoup opposed troop intervention.
(Kaiser, pp 51-52)
And what did JFK conclude? He never considered the majority recommendation of troop intervention. His policy was one of reaching a diplomatic agreement; that of a neutral government that the people of Laos could
accept. This was to be the theme of his administration for the three years he was
in the White House. Were the powers that be in this country unhappy with this policy of diplomacy over force? I believe they were.
Bill Cheslock
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Why bother writing seriously to such programs and such a channel? I think one necessary step to reality is accepting which media channels are completely bought to promote lies, and refuting the lie elsewhere. I noticed that EVERY one of the "Reviews" of this program by the "public" was cut from the same pattern: Oh-what-a-fine-program-this-is! Now-we-know-the-Warren-commission-was-right! I doubt the channel/program would accept any other type of comment.
Bugliosi and this program are admirably suited for ridicule, however!
Revenge is the best revenge!
Stephanie
I wanted to believe there were lone-nutters and TV producers actually concerned with the truth, who wouldn't immediately disregarrd someone's research just because they suspect a conspiracy. Iht seems I was wrong. A few months ago we had a lone nutter, Mel Layton, come to the Forum, and I begged him to read my seminar and tell me where I was wrong. Instead he disappeared.
Don't let the cronies get you down. I wrote Peter Jennings of ABC News after its
ridiculous documentary supporting the SBT, and pointed out to him every mistake,
alteration, lie, and misinterpretation of the facts that were shown. I never did hear from him.
In a December 6th, 1963 edition of "Life" magazine, writer Paul Mandel wrote that
JFK was hit in the throat by a bullet from the TSBD, even though the limousine was
fifty yards past the sixth floor window because an 8mm film clearly shows JFK
turned around and waving back at someone. This maneuver exposed his throat
back to the TSBD, thus, his throat was exposed to a bullet shot from the sixth floor.
Unfortunately for "Life" and Mandel, absolutely NO films show JFK doing such a thing. This is the kind of nonsense from the mainstream media we have
to endure. Oh, who was the Editor-In-Chief of "Life" at the time? None other than
Henry R. Luce, who was known to alter cables to reflect his own political views.
Bill Cheslock
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This recent post in the "who had the Football" thread is by far the most important single posting I have read in this forum in a long time.
It starts with a quote from Ron Ecker, but the key material is by member Bernice Moore. I would like all members to read it and comment with additional facts and opinions........
QUOTE(Ron Ecker @ Jun 3 2005, 04:56 AM)
According to Manchester, Gearhart had the football, and he was not left behind at Parkland. Johnson and his men paid no attention to him (I'm sure Johnson knew exactly what was going on and that the Russians had nothing to do with it), but Gearhart took it upon himself to sit on a policeman's lap from Parkland to Love Field.
Manchester says that eyeglasses seen reflecting light from the rear in the photo of Johnson being sworn in are Gearhart's glasses.
Ron
**********************
Hi Ron:
When Gearhart was separated from Johnson, it would not necessarily have been accidentally...It could have been deliberately arranged by the military personnal at the upper level of the plot..They may not have trusted Johnson with the steel
30lb.. suitcase that held the key to a retaliatory attack, perhaps it was imperative that for the first few hours following the transfer of power, that the planners have complete control of all aspects...foreign and domestic.
It is hard to believe the United States was off guard in anyway, within the Pentagon
where total control was concentrated, the high military officials were in command,
they were aware, and prepared for any situation that might arise from foreign or
a domestic source...
In Bishop's book, it contains another revealing incident: "Officials at the Pentagon were calling the White House switchboard at the Dallas-Sheraton Hotel asking who was now in command. An Officer grabbed the phone and assured the Pentagon that Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara and the Joint Chief of Staff ' are now the President".".......Perhaps because the assassination was on a need to know basis ,the party that called was a low echelon officer who was unaware of what was happening..It was interesting that the communication officer who took the phone to announce the transfer of power was a member of the Presidential party and was fully aware of what was taking place.....
Communications of all kinds seemed to have been deemed important by those who planned and carried out the assassination..Several strange incidents that involved communications in Dallas..Washington...and abroad occurred..that day...
They of course have been attributed to coincidence , but what are the odds.?
In Dallas the police radio was immobilized at 12.29 Channel One of the DP radio system was rendered inoperative when someone within the dept. keyed his radio microphone button for four minutes, making it impossible for any police communication from the kill zone during the critical moments...and immediately afterward.....Channel One was reserved that day for those officers in the security of the President..From 12.29 till 12.33 the only audible sound on the police audio tape is the rumbling of a motorcycle engine...In Dallas the press telephone within the motorcade was immobilized..At 12.34 the radiophone in the press car carrying the members of the wire services was rendered inoperative, also.....In fact a fight broke out between UPI's Merriman Smith and Jack Bell of the AP.Bell finally managed to grab it after Smith has issued the initial report that shots had been fired , but to Bell's dismay, the line inexplicably went dead..
In Washington there was a crucial breakdown of communications when the telephone system ,in the capital went out at approximately 12.33..pm..It was almost an hour before full telephone service resumed ..It was explained ,that it was due to overloaded phone lines, was the Pentagon affected by this shut down??
Abroad, a teletype machine aboard a military aircraft carrying the Cabinet members to Japan began chattering the first report that shots had been fired, there was a moment of panic ,fearing an international plot, and with codes and procedures for such and emergency,Sec. of State Dean Rusk and Press Sec. Pierre Salinger attempted to contact the White House for verification..The did reach the Situation Room but were prohibited from authenticating the data because the "official code book was missing"..from it's special place aboard the plane.
After a futile search the Sec of State was forced to break procedures with coded communications ,Rusk was forced to break the code and communicate with the WH in plain English..
This was not happenstance that the President, the Vice President and six members of the Cabinet were away from the centre of power on Nov.22/63.It seems as though it was by design that Sec. of State Dean Rusk, Treasury Sec. Douglas Dillon, Interior Sec. Stewart Udall, and Labor Sec.W.W.Wirtz, as well as other administration officials like Press Sec. Salinger, were trapped on an airplane over the Pacific at such a critical time..These men perhaps thought they represented the true power of the nation but by all authority that day it belonged to the powerful military chieftans deep within the Pentagon....
As an additive....
In Hawaii on Nov. 21/63 , the day before......shortly after lunch Honolulu time , U.S.Ambassador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge made a long distance call from the lobby of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel..Now this distinguished diplomat had acces to phones in privacy from his room or the military circuits at no cost....Yet he was seen, according to the Honolulu Star Bulletin, with a stack of quarters in his hand pitting coin after coin into a pay phone??
Mr.Lodge was in Honolulu for a nine hour summit conference on Nam with Sec. of Defence Robert McNamara ,Sec of State Dean Rusk, financial aid chief David E.Bell ,Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Maxwell D.Taylor, Admiral Harry D.Felt, and General Paul D.Harkins, then the Commander of U.S.Forces in Vietnam..
Lodge was the only person of the seven member policy-making body to stay at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.....the others stayed in the military quarters.
This group of high level political and military policymakers had just decided to step-up military operations against communist insurgents in Nam.
This desicion was in Direct Conflict with Presidentt Kennedy's announced intention
of Oct.63..to withdraw 1000 U.S.military personnel from Sth.Vietnam, reducing U.S.troop strength there to approximately 14.500..
Three days later Lodge met with the new President and was instructed by LBJ to return to Vietnam and inform the Saigon government of the new U.S policy pf strong military support for South Vietnam..
But from Washington......on the afternoon of Nov. 22/63......somewhere high over the United States, the new President Lyndon Baines Johnson and the passengers aboard AF 1....received the news that the assassination had been performed by one individual and no conspriacy existed.....The news came not from the scene of the crime,Dallas.....but from Washington D.C....specifically, it came from either McGeorge Bundy or Commander Oliver Hallet in the Situation Room of the White House Communications Agency...........manned by military personnel and receiving much of it's information from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in the Pentagon.....
and Last but not least there was in the air over the U.S a mobile military force able to be thrown into action anywhere in the U.S where needed.......if trouble developed..The largest peacetime airlift in history had taken place, Operation Big Lift....had moved an entire combat division from Texas to Germany for thirty days just one month previous.....On the day of President Kennedy was killed, the last third of the returning troops were in the air at the time of the shooting...estimated to be a brigade combat team armed with personal weapons, which could have been deployed anywhere into action, in the nation on a very short notice.....if perhaps needed.....
But this was of course all coincidence, if not then it was an indication of the careful planning undertaken by the Military ......That day in Dallas.....
From:
The Day Kennedy Was Shot....Jim Bishop
Dallas Radio Tapes..11/22/63
The Death of a President....William Manchester
Forgive My Grief IV...Penn Jones
The Making of the President...Theodore White
Cover-Up.........Gary Shaw
B (Bernice Moore)
Thanks again.
This is the critical material pertinent to an authorized
EXECUTIVE SANCTION
Bernice:
An excellent post, to say the least. As much information as you provide,
two events jump out at me, one I knew about one and questioned for years, and one you just infomred me about.
The first I knew about, and that's the secret code book that was suppose to be in the plane that was flying the cabinet members to Japan. I've read that the responsibility of maintaining that code book in the cabinet's plane was given to the CIA. I don't believe in coincidences with this assassination. In my opinion, someone took that code book deliberatley out so that the cabinet could not communicate with the White House situation room in code, and was thus taken out of the sensitive security loop. From what I have studied about this code book missing, no investigation was ever performed by any government agency to determine why the code book was missing from the cabinet plane.
The other fact you bring up is new to me. I didn't realize that U.S.
Ambassador to Vietnam, Henry Cabot Lodge, was making phone calls at a pay phone with quarters in his hand; something below an Ambassador of his stature.
This suggests something very clandestine, as he had access to telephones all over
military installations in Hawaii. The fact that it was reported by the Honolulu Star
Bulletin adds credence to the event. This is not unlike David Ferrie making phone calls at a pay phone at the ice skating rink in Houston on the day of the assassination. Both Lodge's and Ferrie's actions at the pay phones are very suspicious, to say the least.
Bill Cheslock
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There is a special on the Discovery Channel on the Magic Bullet on right now. It is from that Unsolved History show. I'm already skeptical about the program because they've already dragged out Dale Myer's animation.
Just saw the last segment and it made me sick. They lined up a couple of torsos and tried to replicate the wounds by firing a Mannlicher Carcano from a sixty foot tower. Although the wounds DID NOT line up (the bullet passed below the first torso's clavicle and out of the chest instead of out of the throat, hit the second torso four inches below the armpit, and failed to penetrate its thigh) and the bullet was bent into a "c" shape, they explained it all away by saying the bullet hit two ribs instead of one on the second torso and so therefore the single bullet theory was supported by their experiment. This is utter nonsense. I SCREAMED when I heard their conclusion. I nearly broke something. Obviously, they were too chicken-xxxx to say their test did not support the "magic bullet;" I'm wondering what executive made this decision. If the whole thing was a fraud they would have just faked their results.
To make matters worse, they allowed Vincent Bugliosi, who was also featured on a recent episode of Penn and Teller's TV show Bullxxxx! dismissing conspiracy theories, to have the last word, warning people that an obsession with the assassination can be "toxic" Clearly Vince is getting ready for his book release this fall. This whole turn of events really makes me angry. I wrote "Unsolved History" a letter last year offering to help them create a similar program, but one with some credibility, and received no response. Instead they feed us this crap. Well, at least they showed us the tests and that is on the record. I believe I'll be using their test in my upcoming presentation on the medical evidence.
The WC apologists have to use cartoons like Myers provides in order to
feed this nonsense to the public. The SBT was nothing more than a political
solution hatched in Washington by politicians to cover-up a huge medical problem
they had that could not be explained logically. Even some of the WC members
didn't buy Specter's theory (Russell, Boggs, Cooper, and later McCloy), and
Ford had to illegally tamper with evidence in a murder case by moving JFK's back wound six inches up to his neck to facilitate the ridiculous single bullet scenario. William Law's latest book, "In The Eye Of History," is filled with interviews of autopsy personnel who were in the morgue the night of JFK's autopsy, and not one of them support Specter's fantasy. I'll listen to the people who were there before the politicians who had a preconceived conclusion to work around.
Bill Cheslock
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A few things, I don't think Interpen as an organization was involved. I do believe however that some of the guys who were connected to Interpen at one point in time found themselves mixed up in what happened in Dallas.
I agree. I should have made that clearer. I was not suggesting that Gerry Hemming as leader of Interpen helped to arrange this. (Although I suspect he now knows who was involved in this operation). What I was trying to say that the people who were recruited were either members of Interpen or had worked with the organization against Castro.
Also regarding E. Howard Hunt, maybe he wasn't involved on the level Morales was. I think this is a study all on its own as it gets very complicated indeed. Hunt is a professional xxxx and an opportunist, not someone to initiate a competent plan and to be trusted with its execution.I agree about his competence but believe he had the imagination to develop such a plan. However, he was clearly subordinate to Morales. After studying Hunt for some time I have concluded that he overcomplicated things. He also did not know as much as he thought he knew. For example, one of the reasons I don’t believe any senior figures in the CIA were involved in the original conspiracy is that they would not have gone along with the “Castro did it” plan. Like LBJ, they would have known that JFK was involved in secret negotiations with Castro. They knew that he did not have a motive.
In time I think it is well worth starting up a thread on Hunt. However, in the meantime I would like to discuss him in relation to this particular theory. After all, he is still alive. He is also someone who has shown that he cares what his children think of him (that was the reason he gave for the libel action against Spotlight). Maybe he will like Gerry join us in this discussion. It will be interesting to know if he believes in the “lone gunman” theory.
Where does Cubela in Paris and RFK and his promises to his select Cubans fit in here?I think we have to separate the plots against Castro from the assassination of JFK. I do not think these two events are related. Although those involved in the cover-up tried to do this. There were several reasons for leaking information about the CIA/Mafia plots to kill Castro. One was to suggest a motive. For example, Castro seeking revenge (a theory much loved by Tim Gratz). This of course was completely undermined when it was revealed that JFK was having secret talks with Castro. JFK might have initially been in favour of having Castro assassinated, but clearly he did not hold this view in 1963.
The other main reason was to bring the Mafia into the frame. As I said earlier, the “Mob did it” theory became Plan B during the Garrison investigation. In reality, this is all part of the cover-up that attempts to confuse those who have not accepted the conclusions of the Warren Report.
I believe the historical record will indicate that "militarial-industrial" spending (including spending on the space program) increased dramatically in the JFK Administration. Some Forum members may be old enough to recall that JFK campaigned against Nixon by arguing that a dangerous "missile gap" had developed under Eisenhower-Nixon.Shouldn't JFK have been made an honorary member of Suite 8F for all of his contributions to the defense budget?
It is no doubt true that JFK presented himself as more of a Cold War warrior than Nixon in 1960. He even got his CIA friends to help him with this and severely embarrassed Nixon over Cuba during the presidential campaign. As Victor Marchetti has argued, JFK was the CIA candidate in the election. Suite 8F Group had no problems with JFK. He showed his goodwill to them by appointing Fred Korth as his Navy Secretary (a vitally important post to the Suite 8F Group). Nor did JFK attempt to deal with 8F’s main source of power (the chairmanships of the key Congressional committees).
My main point is that JFK changed policy as a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis. This is not surprising as the Cold War came very close to destroying the world. The problem for JFK was that he could not tell the American public this. He knew that he would be defeated in 1964 if he revealed his true thoughts about the Cold War. Therefore his speech in Dallas makes perfect sense. However, as he told his close aides, get me elected and I will pull out of Vietnam. I believe JFK’s second term would have been very different from the first one. The conspirators knew that and that is why he had to die.
John:
It 's interesting that, as you wrote above, JFK told his close aides, get me
elected and I will pull out of Vietnam. On the other extreme, we have Lyndon
Johnson, after the assassination and securely in the Oval Office, telling the JCS,
"get me elected and you can have your war (Vietnam)." (Source: "Vietnam: A History" by Stanley Karnow, p. 342)
Kennedy's NSAM 263 and Johnson's NSAM 273 seem to validate what each
President said. But that's for another post. Let's stay on topic with your excellent
discussion.
Bill Cheslock
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In thinking about the Oswald escape scenario, something has occurred to me. This has probably been covered somewhere in the CT literature but I'm just realizing it.
It would seem that it was not intended at all for Oswald to be killed at the scene, as some have theorized. The fact that his jacket was thrown away (i.e. planted) on his way to the theater, and the business of the two (or was it three?) Oswald wallets, meaning that one was planted at the scene of the Tippit murder, indicate that it was planned all along that he be framed for killing Tippit after and in addition to being framed for killing JFK.
Oswald was therefore supposed to get to the Texas Theater (to meet a contact there, so he thought), where cops then came swarming because someone went in possibly without buying a ticket. So the question becomes, was he supposed to be killed in the theater and somebody goofed, or was it planned all along for him to be killed in police custody? If the latter, then it was a lone nut scenario from the beginning (or two nut scenario, since some nut had to kill him in jail), and the theory that Oswald was being used secondarily to frame Castro and prompt an invasion of Cuba goes out the window.
Ron
John:
The fact that Oswald (real or impostor) had the opportunity to roam areas
unknown after the Tippit murder brings your thoughts to light. I think it was a matter of about 35 minutes that the alleged killer at the Tippit scene took to travel a mere eight blocks to the theater. Where was he hanging out for all that time, especially if he had the ability to travel from his rooming house to the Tippit murder scene, almost a mile, in about eight minutes? Your sentence, "Oswald was therefore supposed to get to the Texas Theater..." makes alot of sense.
If he was to be killed in the theater, there was ample opportunity for
the Dallas police to do so. "Oswald" was alleged to have drawn his pistol as he
was rushed by officers, and Officer MacDonald already had his gun drawn. Just the fact that "Oswald" drew his gun should've been enough motivation for any oficer to shoot him. The fact that he wasn't shot begs the question, did he really
reach for and draw his pistol on the officers? In my opinion, I don't believe the
Dallas police would've held the restraint needed if they saw a pistol being drawn on them.
Bill Cheslock
-
This possibility of Oswald either planning to leave the U.S. after the assassination,
or his handlers permitting him to believe this would be the case is discussed in
Mark North's book, "Act Of Treason."
North writes;
"Wayne January.....ran a plane rental business at Red Bird Airport (near Dallas)....
two days before the assassination he was approached by two men and a woman, who inquired about renting an aircraft on Friday, November 22, to go to Mexico. He did not like the look of them and did not rent them a plane. After the assassination, when he saw Oswald on television, he thought he strongly resembled one of the men who had been at the airport. He gave this information to the FBI. Could this be the real Oswald, being duped into thinking that as a result of his cooperation in the coming protest he will be given passage to Cuba or Mexico? Or is it the contract people simply arranging for the look-alike exit?"
(p. 369)
I tend to believe this was an impostor Oswald setting up the patsy with yet another siting which could be argued as the would be assassin planning his escape
after the assassination. My reason for believing this and not the real Oswald being at Red Bird is the thought that, would Oswald actually leave his wife and children in return for taking part in a protest in Dealey Plaza? It doesn't make
sense to me.
Bill Cheslock
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The following is my theory of the JFK assassination conspiracy. I am not an avid enough typist to go into great detail but I will outline my basic thoughts. In semi defense of my theory I would first like to state, that to the best of my knowledge, I am not certifiably insane, and I do realize that there are a "FEW" flaws!
After over some thirty years of looking pretty seriously into the evidence of this crime against all humanity, I have grown to believe, or as some might say, I have digressed to believe, a theory that is not particularly popular among most researchers. I very strongly believe that we, the people of the world, have allowed ourselves to be duped into believing that for such an act to have been commited against the bold and gallant knight who, not only was President of the United States, but the symbollic leader of the entire free world, it had to be the result of a conspiracy of enormous magnitude. Of such magnitude, that we have allowed ourselves to be buried, by those conspirators, in a sea of inky minutae in which we have for a long time been mired.
Many believe that this monstrous web of conspirators must at least include CIA, ONI, SS, FBI, NSA, Dallas Police, Cuba, Cuban exiles, USSR, Mafia, Corsican Mafia, the U.S. Army, Navy & Air Force, the DIA, OAS, the British Govt., the Govt. of Israel and possibly Miss Monica Lewinsky! Anything of this scale could not be solved. It also could not possibly have occured.
But please don't get me wrong. I definitely believe there was a conspiracy to murder and an on going conspiracy to cover and that LHO was `involved' in both. Involved yes, but as a pawn.
Despite the opinion of many, much more learned researchers than myself, I don't feel that the plan and the shooting went very well at all. Not military sharpshooters---- who would have set it up in a "no miss" scenario. Not Mafia thugs -- the Mafia couldn't absorb that type of exposure. Nor could Cuba, Cuban exiles nor the USSR.
Knowing the investigation would be handled only by the DPD and select Hoover Agency elements, the DPD and some of their criminal contacts could have been the shooters. With a little outside help with identity and escape it would never have been extremely high risk.
I believe that this conspiracy was Texas born, Texas bred, Texas fed and Texas executed! It was Texas born with the planning of the moneyed elite in the Texas oil business and the Texas defense industry. There were also other motives, but prime were both the issues regarding oil depletion allowance and defense contracts which of course would prosper with either conflict extension or war in general. We are talking about hundreds of billions of dollars!!
We are also talking about J.Edgar, who not only would remain for life as director of the investigating authority, but a J.Edgar who had ties to and was indebted to the mafia, but also had strong affiliations with the likes of Pawley, Martino, Angleton, William Harvey, Nixon, Hunt, both Dulles's, Secret Service heads,and the Texas "Big Boys". And standing there was the clincher. The man who would not only avoid disgrace and probably a jail sentence, but as icing on the cake, he would achieve his life long ambition and become arguably the most "POWERFUL" man in the world.
Who would oppose this plan? The CIA which Kennedy was already beginning to shred into a thousand pieces? The JCS who thought Kennedy too weak to pull the trigger? The Secret Service who knew much that they did not like? The State Dept. who was constantly being end sweeped?
It would be very easy to say that the Kennedy's had made few friends but some of the most powerful enemies in the country. Actually all of the most powerful enemies in the country. Enemies with Money, Motive, and endless power. I,try as I might, cannot elude the old principle of FOLLOW THE MONEY, BECAUSE THE MONEY IS THE POWER.
Regarding Jack Ruby. I strongly do not believe that the Mafia would have used Mr. Rubenstein for anything that required trust and for other obvious reasons, just as they would in no way have allowed individuals such as Nicolletti, Roselli or Files anywhere near the scene. If anything, they wanted absolutely low profile after the murder.
I do believe however that the DPD would have used Mr. Ruby. With the promise of mistrials, acquitals, possibly justifiable homicide, temp. insanity and a bushel of money from the bottomless pockets of the planners.
Now to Oswald and Tippit.
I, of course do not believe that LHO was a lone gunman and most probably not a gunman at all. But I do believe that he was in over his head in a situation that it was meant for him to not understand. It was not until JFK was shot in the head that he realized that he had been "patsied". His pre planned escape transport did not materialize and he at this time realized that he had been abandoned and set up for the kill. This is when panic must have set in. He realized that he had no money, no transportation, no self protection and not one friend! It had to be a near crazed LHO that tried to appear to be calmly making his way home. A very confused young man who in less than five minutes rushed into his house, changed clothes, armed himself with an old pistol and rushed out of the house, possibly responding to the beep of a police car horn that was perhaps a part of a contingency plan that he didn't know whether to trust or not.
At this point, one of two things happened. 1) He was confronted by officer Tippit and fearful for his life, shot him and then as Johnny Brewer reported, darted into the Texas Theatre in panic. 2) Had no confrontation with Tippit and very early was in the Texas Theatre, hoping that he was wrong about being patsied, and hoping to meet an ally according to a contingency plan. He would have had no idea that an LHO impersonator would lead the police to him. With either scenario, when confronted by police he had no option but to fight. He drew his pistol and entered the halls of infamy.
Thanks for indulging me.
Charlie Black
Charlie:
Alot of thought has been put into your post and it is appreciated. You've
managed to narrow down the number of suspects from your original number of
sixteen to a mere nine. It is indeed difficult to eliminate any number of suspects isn't it?
Your claim that he was in over his head has been solidly brought up before, and I think it's a valid argument. The fact that he was being "sheep dipped" in New Orleans, that an impostor was working his name in Mexico City,
and he was in two places at once in Dallas prior to the assassination leads me to believe that this man was indeed being set up for the patsy that he said he was.
I'm still not convinced that Oswald killed Officer Tippit. There are too many loose ends here to convict a man on. The timing factor between his rooming house and the murder scene is, in my opinion, too short a time for Oswald to arrive at the scene of the murder. If he left his rooming house at 1:03, and Tippit, from accounts was murdered as early as 1:10, I don't know how he could've arrived on the scene in seven minutes, traveling almost a mile on foot.
Yet, we are told that it took him about 35 minutes to travel a mere 8 blocks from the Tippit scene to the Texas Theater. Where was he for all that time?
One more thing, Charlie. The jacket that was found and was alleged to be Oswald's that he discarded after the Tippit killing was found by a phantom Dallas police officer. It was turned in as evidence found near a gas station, but the officer who found it cannot be identified to this day. Tainted evidence? Perhaps.
However, witnesses who saw the alleged murderer run from the scene could not identify that jacket as the one that was worn by him.
A conspiracy to set up Oswald as the "patsy?" It seems that way.
Bill Chelsock
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Mark Stapleton wrote: "My favorite was D.A. Henry Wade stating on November 24 that Jack Ruby should be awarded a medal for shooting LHO. This should have resulted in his immediate dismissal from office. "
Mark, I had not heard this before, so I googled it and discovered that this statement is attributed to Tom Howard, who became one of Ruby's lawyers. Incidentally Howard is described as a friend of Wade's.
Ray
"Do not block the way of inquiry" C.S. Peirce
Ray,
I just checked and you are 100% correct--it was Tom Howard, Ruby's lawyer. All that substance abuse much be catching up with me. It appears I've done Mr. Wade a disservice. Thanks for the correction.
Mark:
After what Henry Wade did to Oswald's rights over the weekend of the
assassination, I don't think you did him any disservice. It was Wade who made
the presumptious remark that Oswald is the killer of the President beyond a reasonable doubt.
However, Oswald was dead at the time Wade uttered these words, and
there was going to be no trial. So what was the problem Wade thought? His words only infuriated and built a bias by the American people and the world against the alleged assassin; a man who said he was a "patsy."
I don't believe you owe DA Wade any apologies, Mark.
Bill Cheslock
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From what I understand, both Lindy Boggs as well as their daughter, Cokie Roberts, deny that Hale had changed his mind about the WC conclusions. Both also still claim to believe the WC got it right.
Dixie
Dixie:
Cokie isn't about to swim against the official version of the
JFK assassination. As you probably know, she is a television political
analyst for ABC News. I strongly doubt she would be seen on ABC
News again if she publicly questioned the official findings of the Warren Commission. Just my opinion, though.
According to Harrison Livingstone in his book, "High Treason," Lindy
Boggs helped the HSCA to continue with its investigation during the debate
on the Floor by saying that her husband would have wanted it to go on. (p.320)
Her husband Hale Boggs had major problems with the credibility of the single
bullet theory.
Bill Cheslock
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Then again, had RN followed John Connally's advice, he would have burned the tapes, even before the Butterfield revelation, and the "smoking gun" conversation would never have surfaced.
__________________________
I think Nixon was way too arrogant to have burned the tapes. I think he thought he could use Execuative Priv. and have the courts back him on this and keep his damning words from the public. Think of the times he'd been caught in scandal and was albe to brush it under the rug. His famous "Checkers" speech comes to mind.
People should see Stone's brilliant film "Nixon" to reaquaint themselves with this sinister man. Hopkins is masterful as Nixon.
Sinister isn't the word, Dawn. For those members of the forum who haven't read H.R. Haldeman's book, "The Ends Of Power," I recommend it highly. It gives a powerful insight into the Nixon White House, and Haldeman also writes about a code that Nixon used when he wanted to talk about the Kennedy assassination.
Haldeman writes how he was ordered by Nixon to go and speak to CIA Director Richard Helms for his help when the Watergate crisis broke out. Nixon told Haldeman that if Helms becomes uncooperative, just mention that "this entire affair might be connected to the Bay of Pigs, and if it opens up, the Bay of Pigs may be blown."
Haldeman relates to the reader that Helms went wild after hearing this. He ranted on about how the Bay of Pigs had nothing to do with this. But, amazingly, Helms agreed to speak to FBI Director L. Patrick Gray about stopping the Watergate investigation. Nixon got what he wanted from the CIA. However, Haldeman was intrigued. What was the connection between the CIA and the Bay of Pigs that Nixon seemed to hold over Helms?
Haldeman writes, "It seems that in all those Nixon references to the Bay of Pigs. he was actually referring to the Kennedy assassination."
(Above source comes from pages 38-39 of Haldeman's book)
If what Haldeman writes is true, and Nixon used the code "Bay of Pigs" to refer to the Kennedy assassination to communicate with Helms, I find Helms' reaction most interesting. We have to ask what made Helms go wild and start to scream at Haldeman at hearing the words "Bay of Pigs?" And like a quiet lamb, Helms agreed almost immediately to go to the FBI and tried to persuade Gray to stop the Watergate investigation. Both Nixon and Helms knew something about the Kennedy assassination that was explosive, to say the least.
Bill Cheslock
Goldwater was Right
in JFK Assassination Debate
Posted
Pat:
When looking at the extension of the Vietnam War, we also have to look at the profits in
dollars the war machine in the U.S. was realizing. Brown and Root, a coporation that had ties
to Lyndon Johnson, made huge profits by being awarded dredging contracts along the coast.
By the way, Brown and Root is now a subsidary of Halliburton. The connections to then
and now are quite interesting.
Bill C