Christopher T. George

Hi Everyone First, Tim, many thanks for that nod. Yes, I do think we need to be responsible and careful in examining problems of history, and to not float wild and irresponsible theories. While I have little regard for Nixon because of the trauma he put the country through in Watergate and his penchant for "dirty tricks," I think we do have to be careful to examine the facts and likelihood that he could have been behind the assassination of JFK. Somehow I think it is unlikely given that he was beaten by JFK in the 1960 election and was probably viewed as washed-up and an also ran by the majority of the U.S. population. What forces that could have pulled off an assassination would have realistically rallied to his cause in 1962-1963? Even if he pulled off the assassination, what chance would he have of taking power, given that he was not next in line, and would have to win a national election to gain the presidency? So all in all, to me, Nixon being behind the Kennedy assassination seems very much a long shot. Best regards Chris George

Hi John But what would be the advantage of convincing "the American public that they faced a real communist threat"? I would say that the American public in 1963 were utterly convinced they faced a communist threat, having lived through the McCarthy era, the A Bomb threat, the U2 incident, and the Cuban missile crisis. I would think that in 1963 you would be hard put to find an American who did not think they were faced with a Communist threat. Was there any danger that JFK would suddenly end the Cold War? Of course not. That being so, what would be the need to assassinate JFK on the basis that you are positing? Isn't it probable that the Mafia had more of a grudge against the Kennedys than the CIA with the Kennedys being active in fighting organized crime? Last, what would be the advantage of any, as you theorize, forged documents once more claiming a lone gunman? You yourself say that the lone gunman scenario has few followers. If there are forged documents ready to produce wouldn't they be more likely to show a multi-gunman conspiracy consistent with the thinking on this forum and the prevalent public view that there was more than one gunman and a conspiracy, contrary to the findings of the discredited Warren Commission report? Wouldn't documents that show all that to be the case be more likely to find ready acceptance? Just some thoughts from a bystander who was alive in 1963 but who does not claim to be an expert on the Kennedy assassination. Best regards Chris George

Stan It certainly is damned suspicious now isn't it? Whatever had been gained by the murder would pretty much be lost if the younger brother returned to the White House. And if John Kennedy could be painted as "red" "pink" or some kind of security clearance incapacity case, then so could Bobby. Whatever the pretext for one fit the other, you understand........ They certainly look related, historically. The Robert Kennedy murder takes us much deeper into Shakespearean type historical tragedy, and show that universal urge to hunt the clan you are jealous of, like the CENTURIONS knifing the second century emperors, that is what the ROBERT KENNEDY ASSASSINATION brings forward in my reading of that time in history, a Roman Empire type political upheaval. Force, violence ........ I see illegitimacy usurping power by force and violence. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Hi all I have heard that there are suspicious circumstances in the Robert Kennedy assassination just as there are in the JFK assassination, if it was not the complex imbroglio that the Dallas affair was -- the murder of a political candidate versus the murder of the President of the United States, in and of themselves different orders of magnitude with differing implications and ramifications, even if the murders were Kennedy and Kennedy. I have not read extensively enough about the RFK murder to really comment. However, what about the copycat scenario wherein Sirhan Sirhan just wanted his bit of fame. Did Lee Harvey Oswald begat Sirhan Sirhan begat Walter Bremer begat Mark David Chapman begat John Hinkley? Are we to see conspiracies in all those events as well? Or does it make it different that Kennedys were involved? Best regards Chris George

Hi Steve I certainly will look forward to your posting of the second part of the case against George Chapman (Severin Klosowski). I do think he is a very interesting suspect. I don't think though that the evidence against him is particularly strong, despite him being in the area at the time, being a known murderer, and him having had some medical training. Chapman was undoubtedly a cruel and callous man, but therein lies the problem, that his crimes of murder by poisoning were cold and calculated acts against three common-law wives. The Ripper crimes were quite different, murders done using a knife, leaving the victims in the open street. The poisonings were surreptitious crimes done for gain while the Ripper murders apparently were lust murders done for the enjoyment of despatching a human being and engaging in postmortem mutilation to remove organs. Nothing that we know of Chapman seems to make him fit the latter category unless we bend the facts as R. Michael Gordon does in his books, e.g., Chapman was not residing at the White Hart Inn in George Yard at the time of the 7 August 1888 murder of Martha Tabram. He lived there later on, after the Autumn of Terror. Also there was no real series of American murders while Chapman was in the United States, notwithstanding the fact that he may have threatened Lucy Baderski with a knife while they were in the US. The April 23, 1891 New York murder of Carrie Brown, it seems, was carried out by a sailor and was not the work of Chapman. Best regards Chris

Hi Norman and Steve There is at this moment an ongoing lively discussion of the exact spelling of that word, be it "Juwes", "Juives", or "Jewes" at http://casebook.org/forum/messages/4923/5373.html I do agree with the poster who stated that the controversy over the exact spelling of that word as well as the meaning and significance of the inscription overall likely will never be resolved! All my best Chris

Hi Steve Well, taking out a subscription to Ripperologist goes without saying. Thanks for the plug! Steve, I wonder if you are going to attend the Brighton Jack the Ripper convention upcoming this October? If so, I look forward to meeting you. One other thing, I have tried several times to enable a picture but have yet to get it to "take" -- both pics I was trying to post are apparently not too large. I have been able to enable them in other forums but not this one so far. All my best Chris

Hi Steve If I might do so, let me recommend several books on the case that take a more objective view so that newcomers don't fall into the trap of getting caught up in the theory for a particular suspect. I believe everyone in the field has high regard for Philip Sugden's The Complete History of Jack the Ripper in which Sugden, a careful and thorough historian, takes a detailed look at the case. Paul Begg's Jack the Ripper: The Facts is also excellent, as is Don Rumbelow's The Complete Jack the Ripper. Don's book, originally published in the 1970's, was one of the first to take an objective look at the case and to cast aside the myth and misinformation that bedevils consideration of the Whitechapel murders. Both Don and Forum member Stewart Evans are former policemen, Don having been a City of London constable, and Stewart a uniformed constable with the Suffolk Police. Rumbelow and Evans therefore bring hands-on knowledge of police procedures and protocol to the case. A book that Stewart Evans has written with another leading Ripperologist, Keith Skinner, The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Companion, aka, in the US, The Ultimate Jack the Ripper Sourcebook collects together all of the major documents in the case with informed commentary. Also useful as a handy reference guide and encyclopedia is The Jack the Ripper A to Z by Paul Begg, Martin Fido, and Keith Skinner. The Daily Telegraph was one of the better newspapers of the day, and a book that collects the press reports on the case that appeared in that newspaper is The News from Whitechapel: Jack the Ripper in the "Daily Telegraph" by Alexander Chisholm, Christopher-Michael DiGrazia, and Dave Yost. Steve, I hope this guide to some of the major sources on the Whitechapel murders proves useful to visitors new to the case. Best regards Chris George

Hi Steve and Norman I don't mean to appear dismissive of the Masonic/Royal theory about the meaning of "Juwes" in the inscription either. However, in weighing what is known about the murders the Masonic angle or any Royal coverup seems unlikely, as much as it continues to fascinate Hollywood (vide the 2001 movie "From Hell" with Johnny Depp). It just seems from the shreds of evidence, such as they are, that Jack more likely was a loner and a sole operator, a serial killer who killed to satisfy his lusts, rather than he was part of a conspiracy, or that a conspiracy occurred in covering up the evidence. All my best Chris

Hi everyone By profession I am a medical editor but I am also a military historian, Ripperologist and freelance writer based in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. I am North American editor for Ripperologist magazine published in England and have had an active interest in Jack the Ripper for a dozen years. Ironically, what got me going in terms of looking closely into the Whitechapel murders is the so-called "Maybrick Diary" which constitutes an alleged confession to the murders supposedly written by Liverpool cotton merchant James Maybrick but which seems to be a rather crude hoax. I come originally from Liverpool, where James and Florence Maybrick lived at Battlecrease House in Riversdale Road, a mile or so from where I lived in Mossley Hill. Thus, the controversial Maybrick Diary, for better or worse, is the thing got me "hooked" on Jack! I am also an authority on the War of 1812, editor of the newsletter Journal of the War of 1812 and author of the book, Terror on the Chesapeake: The War of 1812 on the Bay, as well as being a published poet and editor of the on-line poetry site Desert Moon Review, a songwriter (lyricist), and a blogger. My involvement in these forums over the last several days has already convinced me that there is much I can learn and contribute on the matter of controversies of history and other matters. Best regards Chris George

Hi Norman and Steve Certainly the graffito is curious and a number of modern Ripperologists discount it as the killer's work, so its presence near the apron could have been coincidence. Yes, Steve, the question does indeed arise, why leave a message if it is not readily understandable. All the best Chris

Hi Steve Sorry, I am not sure what you are asking. Are you saying the scenario is hard to swallow because you don't think the murder conformed to Masonic ritual, or that it's hard to swallow because you think it's unlikely he would have taken the care to write the inscription in the aftermath of the murder? Could you clarify your point? Thanks. All the best Chris

Hi Norman The theory of the meaning of "Juwes" you give is consistent with the theories expounded by Stephen Knight and other proponents of the Royal Conspiracy theory in the 1970's. Repeated enquiries by Ripperologists, however, have failed to support the notion that the name "Juwes" was used in Masonic ritual either in the nineteenth century or today. Once again, given that the chalked inscription was in an entranceway to a tenement inhabited by Jews, it would seem that the explanation given by Commissioner Warren, that he erased the inscription in order to prevent a public disturbance against the Jews, is the most likely reason why the writing was ordered to be erased. The conspiracy theory might hold more water if the content of the inscription was kept from the public, but it was not. The wording was openly discussed at the inquest of Catherine Eddowes and the meaning of "Juwes" was discussed in the press with Commissioner Warren and Chief Rabbi Adler having input on the meaning of the word as it related to the Jewish community. In all probability, whomever wrote the wording, whether it was the killer or not, and this is not certain, they were a bad speller, or else since the chalk was written on painted brickwork, it was hard to write the word properly. The wording incidentally was only three-quarters of an inch high, something that is not always realised. Per City detective Halse, "There were three lines of writing in a good schoolboy's round hand. The size of the capital letters would be about 3/4 in, and the other letters were in proportion." Best regards Chris George

Hi Stewart Many thanks for that clarification. As you say, Macnaghten's inernal memoranda of 23 February 1894, in response to the articles in the Sun alleging that Thomas Cutbush could have been Jack the Ripper, named the 'Polish Jew' suspect as 'Kosminski' with no first name given. As you say, later researchers have concluded that it 'must' be Aaron Kosminski as the personal details about the barber Kosminski seem to conform with what is known of 'Kosminski' the suspect. It is also worth noting that Thomas Cutbush appears to have been a relative of Superintendent Charles Cutbush of Scotland Yard, who committed suicide, and the question arises how much the memoranda were meant to deflect interest from the police official's supposed kinsman. AP Wolf and others have recently been conducting research into Cutbush family history and have so far failed to confirm that Supt. Cutbush was Thomas Cutbush's uncle as previously thought. The actual newspaper articles that Macnaghten was responding were recently acquired by Natalie Severn and transcriptions were posted by Chris Scott on the Casebook Jack the Ripper Message Boards under "Newspaper Reports 1894 naming Thomas Hayne Cutbush as Jack the Ripper." All my best Chris

Hi Steve I agree that the apparent frenzied nature of the attack on Tabram makes it seem similar to the attack on Emma Smith. I will look forward to reading what you have to say about the Stride murder. All my best Chris

Hi Mark It is notable that as quoted Buckley himself was skeptical that Jack Anderson was under threat of murder, and notice too that the contention is that it was one of the "plumbers" who was implicated and not Nixon or others... although you will rightly say that the plumbers were working for Nixon and you could be correct too that "word came down" could imply the go-ahead from Nixon or one of his immediate underlings. I just think that the jury is out on Nixon's role in any domestic assassination. I do though thank you for your reply, Mark. All my best Chris

Hi Stewart and Steve I tend to put less faith in Anderson than does Paul Begg, who puts great weight on Anderson's assessment, although as you point out, Steve, the Macnaghten memorandum does list Aaron Kosminsky, a poor Polish Jew as a leading suspect, and Donald Swanson's annotations of his copy of Anderson's book do clarify that Kosminsky was the suspect Anderson meant. So Anderson's contention cannot be dismissed lightly. On the question of the graffito or inscription on the wall, the writing could have been on the wall before the killer dropped the piece of Eddowes' apron in the doorway. The graffito is curious and does fit in with the idea that the killer left messages -- vide the hundreds of "Ripper" letters, although most of those are discounted as pranks by the majority of students of the case. Patricia Cornwell is probably the major exception to that rule and she has actually said that she thinks her suspect, painter Walter Sickert, wrote 90% of those letters, a contention that defies belief in that the letters were written in many different handwriting styles on different stationery and mailed from all over the British Isles. Best regards Chris

Hi Steve Good question, Steve, and Tabram does make for an interesting case occurring earlier in the month of August 1888 than the first "canonical" murder of Mary (Polly) Ann Nichols. Researchers are divided on whether she was one of Jack's victims. I think there is a good case to be made that Martha Tabram aka Martha Turner was a Ripper victim, although the nature of her wounds, 39 stabs rather than the "ripping" and throat cut seen in the other canonical Whitechapel murders make it seem materially different. The attending doctor, Dr. T. R. Killeen also thought that the wounds were caused by "some kind of dagger" rather than the long surgical knife apparently used in the other murders. See "Inquest: Martha Tabram" on Stephen Ryder's excellent Casebook: Jack the Ripper site. There is also the thought that she could have been stabbed with a bayonet, and she was last seen alive with a soldier. It could be though that the Tabram murder was a tryout for the murderer who later went on to murder Nichols, Chapman, Stride, Eddowes, and Kelly. Interestingly, at Ripperologist we are publishing a two-part speculative essay by American researcher Joe Chetcuti on "Tumblety in London: Trailing an Infiltrator" which might imply Dr. Francis Tumblety was involved in the Tabram murder. A member of Parliament, Col. Sir Francis Charles Hughes-Hallett, is quoted in the Reno Evening Gazette of 8 October 1888, in a story filed from New York City, as saying he trailed a man who could have been the American quack doctor Tumblety soon after the 7 August murder: "New York, October 6th. Colonel Hughes-Hallett of London, formerly of the Royal Artillery and a Member of Parliament, is in this city. He investigated the Whitechapel case just after the Martha Turner [ie, Martha Tabram] murder. He said today: ‘I have made up my mind, and I have seen no reason to change it, that the perpetrator of the atrocities is a West End man, a gentleman, a person of wealth and culture perhaps, but certainly of intellectual qualities, finesse, and keen discrimination. I was convinced that my man left his club as I was then doing, and disguised himself for his nocturnal revel. My theory is that the Whitechapel murderer is an Army Doctor, or a medical student, or a gentleman, and a man of leisure. Or perhaps a retired Army Surgeon.’ " We do know that Tumblety, though not qualified as an army doctor, posed as a Union Army surgeon at the time of the Civil War, and researcher Chetcuti believes the quack may have finagled his way into membership in a London military club on the basis of his phony qualifications and have been the very man whom Hughes-Hallett was trailing. All the best Chris

Hi all I agree with Tim Gratz that it is irresponsible for Mark Knight without evidence, quoting Tim, "to connect Nixon to the murder of RFK and the attempted murder of George Wallace merely because he was the political beneficiary of the death of RFK (yes, I suspect RFK probably would have beaten Nixon in the election) and George Wallace without any evidence whatsoever to connect him to those murders." I did think it interesting though, that as I reported on Tuesday on my blog that William F. Buckley wrote-- "On January 5, 1973, Howard Hunt, an old friend and my sometime boss in the CIA, came to see me, accompanied by one of his daughters (my goddaughter, as it happened). He told me the appalling, inside story of Watergate, including the riveting news that one of the plumbers was ready and disposed to kill Jack Anderson, the journalist-commentator, if word came down to proceed to that lurid extreme. "I took what I thought appropriate measures. I do not believe Jack Anderson's life was actually imperiled, but meanwhile, in an adjacent theater, Mark Felt, posing as an incorruptible agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was advancing his own drama. And now he wants some money for it." See "Foul Felt. Now he wants some money for it." by William F. Buckley I am prepared to accept that Mark Felt was indeed "Deep Throat" since Bob Woodward has confirmed that he was. I do think it is in doubt how "with it" Felt is any longer at his advanced age and debilitated shape and whether he really did want the news that he was Woodward's informant released in his lifetime. Best regards Chris George

In 1910, Sir Robert Anderson, retired Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, claimed that it was a 'definitely ascertained fact' that the Whitechapel murderer was a poor Polish Jew, and he indicated that his family had protected him from the police. Although some former police officials vehemently disagreed that 'Jack the Ripper' had been identified, and the claim remains controversial today among writers on the Ripper case, a number of Ripperologists have tended to believe Sir Robert Anderson, that this might be the answer to the mystery that has persisted for over a century. Forum member Stewart Evans has told me that he believes it is possible that different police officials held differing views on the case, and I believe he doubts that Anderson held the key to the case. Indeed, Anderson was not a hands on detective but a bureaucrat and he was out of the country during part of the Autumn of Terror. Nonetheless the Jewish connections in the case are tantalizing, whether the Ripper was a Jew or if the murderer was trying to implicate the Jews, or whether the members of the Jewish community were merely witnesses and bystanders to the crimes. Particularly on the night of the so-called 'Double Event', the murders of the third and fourth canonical victims, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes, early on the morning of 30 September 1888, aspects of the case appear to have converged to create a series of Jewish links to the murders. Do these links to the crimes indicate a real connection between the crimes and the Jewish community of the East End or are they instead only a series of coincidental links that remain intriguing even if they tell us nothing about the reason for the murders? The first victim, Elizabeth Stride, a known prostitute born in Sweden who could speak Yiddish was found murdered around 12:35 am in Dutfield's Yard at the side of a Jewish socialist club in Berner Street. It is possible that Diemschutz, a member of the club arriving with a horse and cart, disturbed the murderer before he could perform his customary abdominal mutilations on the victim. At around the same time, a man possibly involved in the crime, if not the actual murderer, shouted out "Lipsky" -- the name of a recently executed Jewish murderer -- at Israel Schwartz, a Hungarian Jew who was passing by. The murder of Catherine Eddowes took place in Mitre Square around 2:10 am next to the Great Synagogue in Duke's Place, Aldgate, and she was possibly last seen by three men coming out from the Imperial Club, a Jewish social club. One of the three men, Joseph Lawende, is thought by many experts on the case to have been the only witness to get a good view of the murderer--if the man he saw with Eddowes was indeed the killer. After the two murders, at around 2:55 am, a chalk inscription was found in a doorway in Goulston Street by Metropolitan Police Constable Alfred Long 254A. The inscription was on the painted brickwork in the inside a doorway leading to Wentworth Model Dwellings, a tenement known to be home to immigrant Jews. Although we cannot know for sure that the chalk inscription was left by the murderer, a bloody piece of apron that had belonged to victim Kate Eddowes was found below the writing, and this strongly suggests to many that it could have been the killer's writing. Nonetheless, the writing remains one of the most controversial and exasperating parts of the puzzle known as the Whitechapel murders. The wording was also ambiguously worded and could be interpreted as saying the murders were directed against the Jews. Was the killer, as the writing seems to suggest, somehow blaming the Jews for the murders? Unfortunately the writing was erased before it could be photographed so today there exist two versions of the inscription: The Juwes are the men That Will not be Blamed for nothing .... version agreed by the Metropolitan Police and Home Office except that P.C. Long was unsure of the spelling 'Juwes' The Juwes are not The men That Will be Blamed for nothing .....version agreed by the City Police as noted by Detective Constable Daniel Halse In the days following the erasure of the 'graffito', as it is usually referred to, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Charles Warren would claim he ordered the inscription washed from the wall because he was afraid news of the reference to the Jews might cause a riot against the Jews. This may well be true, particularly when we realize that Warren, a career soldier, had a reputation as the 'law and order man' responsible for the Trafalgar Square riots of November 1887. At that time, the Metropolitan Police were ordered by Warren to deal with severely with unruly demonstrators when hungry East Enders marched on the West End. Possibly Warren was anxious to avoid another riot like that 14 months earlier. What are the true facts? Is it possible that a Jew could have been the murderer? Or was it a Gentile trying to implicate the Jews, or a man saying the Jews had driven him to do the murders. If the Jew was the murderer, did his family try protect him? At the least, we know that East End Jews were suspects taken in for questioning, and that a number of Jews were witnesses at the inquests into the murder victims. Could the man who so cruelly despatched those women, poor prostitutes or 'unfortunates' of the East End, the man known for all time as Jack the Ripper, have been a Jew? Christopher T. George

Hi Stewart I hope you are keeping well. It has been too long since we have been in communication. All my best Chris

Thanks a lot, Steve. It's great to be here. All the best Chris

Author and historian Christopher T. George was born in Liverpool, England in 1948. He now lives in Baltimore, Maryland, near Johns Hopkins University. By profession, he is a medical editor and freelance writer. He is North American Editor of Ripperologist magazine: http://www.ripperologist.info/ He is also the lyricist for Jack - The Musical, written with French composer Erik Sitbon: http://www.jack-themusical.com/ Jack - The Musical will be performed this autumn in Charlotte, North Carolina, as part of a special Jack the Ripper weekend. See The Drama of Jack the Ripper Weekend, Charlotte, NC, September 16-18, 2005 In addition to his interest in Jack the Ripper, Chris George is an acknowledged expert on the War of 1812 and author of "Terror on the Chesapeake: The War of 1812 on the Bay" (White Mane Books, 2000)