Christopher T. George

-- Although I did see a promo for the soccer Confederations Cup in Germany that showed a map with Frankfurt, Germany, as spelled "Frankfort." Someone needs to sort out the Frankforters from the Frankfurters. Chris

Hi Tim I am sorry if I came across as harsh yesterday. Yes, of course, the promotion of democracy is a noble pursuit and the ideal of democracy is to be cherished. However, as I stated in my last post, can the United States realistically achieve democracy for Iraq? You and I both know it is up to the Iraqis ultimately to do it for themselves. And the URL you posted, "Untold Iraq" eloquently tells of the hopes of Iraqis. We both know as well that the United States cannot be forever committed to shoring up the present Iraqi government. Unfortunately I don't think past historical precedents look hopeful. I am thinking of Russia with the weak provisional government after the fall of the Tsar and the Weimar republic after WWI, and how both gave way to a strong man. Iraq looks to either be on that path or on the way, perhaps, to breaking up into sectarian territories perhaps after a civil war... and where then will Mr Bush's noble experiment be after the U.S. lives and resources have been squandered in getting this nation into a situation that leveler heads than Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld might have predicted would deteriorate as it has? And again, Tim, I think we need to look at what Iraq has done to this nation not just at Iraq. We will be paying for this neo-Con adventure for years to come. Best regards Chris

Hi Tim Well that is all very noble isn't it? Although born in Great Britain, I am now a United States citizen and a concerned voter. I think, Tim, you need to consider the effects of the Iraq war on this nation, and not just consider the long-shot that democracy might be able to be established in Iraq, an eventuality that must, after all, be left to the Iraqis. Look at the current situation. The United States is stuck in a quagmire in Iraq. American forces are stretched, at the breaking point, not in a position to protect this country or to prevent violence in Iraq and elsewhere in the world. The toll of dead and wounded among American and coalition ground forces in Iraq continues to grow, as it does at a much higher rate among Iraqi civilians. The insurgency is evil but the US is not able to prevent it, in fact US presence in Iraq is just fueling the insurgency by drawing in foreign fighters and financial support under the pretence of jihad -- if the US withdrew that impetus likely would be weakened. Meanwhile, the cost of the Iraq venture is $230 billion and climbing. No wonder even Republican senators and representatives are now calling for withdrawal. Best regards Chris George

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

Hi Ron Thanks for making these points. I do find Oswald to be somewhat of a curiosity. On the one hand, a seeming loser who would apparently lack the wherewithal to be able to carry out the assassination alone, even if he could manipulate the rifle and get off the rounds in the time frame the Warren Commission dubiously claims, but at the same time a man so compromised by being a defector with a shady and complex history of contacts with the Russians and CIA. He seems an odd sort to be chosen for a patsy but then as you say, perhaps, absolutely perfect for that role. Hmmm... All the best Chris

Hi Steve Thank you very much for your comprehensive posting of the information surrounding the murder of Elizabeth "Long Liz" Stride. I don't find the contention about the murder having been committed by her boyfriend, Michael Kidney, to be especially convincing, and I hold the traditional view that the murder was done by the Ripper but that he lost his nerve before he mutilated her, either because he heard Louis Diemschutz approaching with the horse and cart or just the fact that the assault and murder took place in a busy location, albeit in a side yard, but at the side of a noisy social club. He might have suddenly realised he was in an exposed location, and that he better retreat. There is always the question about whether he was high on alcohol or drugs and was driven to murder by his condition but then backed off. In regard to Schwartz's testimony, the cry of "Lipsky!" is certainly intriguing and the whole of Schwartz's statement appears to raise more questions than it answers. There is the school of thought that the assault that Schwartz witnessed was entirely separate to her murder although that kind of stretches belief that she could have been assaulted twice in a matter of minutes. Steve, you wrote: "There is also the strange claim made by Schwartz, that upon being thrown to the ground, Stride screamed three times, but not very loudly, NOT VERY LOUDLY!! Your being attacked at the hight of the ripper scare,yet you do not wish to alarm anyone?This sounds more like a scream of protest, against someone already known to the victim." I suppose my question about Schwartz is how well what he was saying, as a Hungarian Jew, was understood by the police. Presumably he was speaking in Yiddish, through an interpreter, so when he said that upon being thrown to the ground, Stride screamed three times, but not very loudly, do we take this literally or is there some misunderstanding in the translation when he said she screamed "but not very loudly" which you are correct is a very odd thing to say. My hunch is that there might have been somewhat of a language problem in the way what he actually meant was interpreted. Steve, I hope this helps -- a few thoughts from my perspective on your interesting post. Have a good weekend, Steve, and everyone. Best regards Chris George

Hi James, Tim, Steve, et al. Thank you all for your answers. I think James has a point that the cover-up and the murder could have been orchestrated by different organizations. I do think that following the murder of the President, there could have been very good reasons for entities in the government, CIA, and military, to not want certain things known about the assassination, either to protect the Kennedys or to hide information on how Oswald worked for the CIA, etc. These efforts could have been quite apart from the initial plot which might or might not have involved elements of the government. I am learning more than I ever wanted to know about the assassination here. Thanks! Best regards Chris George

Hi Tim Isn't that easier than going out on a limb and saying there was a conspiracy? In any case, I should doubt if many serious historians are going to come out and say there was a conspiracy if they did not have the proof to make such a statement. Therefore it is easier to accept the "official" line, isn't it? The other point is that most such historians lack the forensic skills or temperament to pursue the conspiracy angle. All my best Chris

Hi all Yes I agree that we are talking here more about California celebrity justice rather than OJ and Jackson walking because they are black, er, if Michael is black that is (On my blog I have a poem called "Sequined Glove" -- comments welcome). There are also the mitigating circumstances in the Robert Blake and Michael Jackson cases that the prosecution case in both was very weak-- no gun in the Blake case and no witnesses to him actually shooting Bonnie Lee Bakely, and in the Jackson case, overreliance on a mother and son who changed their stories and who seemed to be out to milk Jackson for money. In the OJ trial, I believe it is accepted that the prosecution botched their case against him, combined with the questions about Fuhrman and the LAPD. It will be interesting to see if Phil Spector also gets off in his upcoming trial. . . Apart from the weakness of the prosecution cases (and maybe prosecutors just as newshounds are apt to go after celebrities), the major operating factors in these trials I think are probably the fact that celebrities can afford better defense lawyers and that, perhaps, juries are reluctant to convict celebrities. . . than that the race aspect got OJ and Jackson off. It will be interesting to see if Michael Jackson can resurrect his career. I somehow think he will be able to, and thus I might have to modify my poem... This is in contrast to, for example, the case of Fatty Arbuckle, the 1920's silent movie comedian, who was ruined by the scandal over the charges of rape and murder of actress Virginia Rappe, even though he was acquitted of the charges against him. Best regards Chris George

Hi all It has been my thought that the Mafia rather than the CIA were behind the JFK assassination because of the Kennedys efforts to fight organized crime. However, given Lee Harvey Oswald's ties to the U.S. government, to Russia, and to anti-Cuba activities, does the Mafia scenario makes sense? Was Lee Harvey Oswald the type of patsy that the Mafia would have used, or does Oswald's strange background imply more that the assassination conspiracy mostly involved government agents? Thoughts anyone? Best regards Chris George

Hi all The Felt family have a publishing and movie deal and Felt might end up being played by Tom Hanks whose company have optioned Felt's life story. Where does this leave a possible movie deal for Woodward's upcoming book? Or will the Tom Hanks film be mostly about Felt's life, as implied in the following Washington Post story, leaving the way open for a movie based on Woodward's book focusing on Deep Throat and Watergate? Deep Throat Family Cuts Publishing, Film Pacts Tom Hanks to Develop Movie About Secret Watergate Source By Bob Thompson Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, June 16, 2005; Page C01 Deep Throat has a book deal and a movie deal, and he could end up being played by Tom Hanks. The family of 91-year-old W. Mark Felt, who revealed his role as The Washington Post's key Watergate source two weeks ago, has chosen PublicAffairs Books to publish a combination of autobiography and biography, publisher and CEO Peter Osnos said last night. Osnos said that Universal Pictures has optioned Felt's life story and the book for a movie to be developed by Hanks's production company, Playtone. He said the book will blend Felt's own writing about his life, including his out-of-print 1979 memoir, "The FBI Pyramid: From the Inside," and some unpublished material, with contributions from Felt's family and from lawyer John D. O'Connor, who has been advising the Felts. O'Connor wrote the Vanity Fair article that named Felt as Deep Throat after the secret had been kept for 33 years. The additional material from Felt, Osnos said, includes discussion of how he decided to provide guidance to Post reporter Bob Woodward, and why. The book is to be published next spring. Its working title is "A G-Man's Life: The FBI, Being 'Deep Throat' and the Struggle for Honor in Washington." David Kuhn, the New York-based agent who has been representing the family in conjunction with Beverly Hills-based Creative Artists Agency, said last night that "Hanks's company was interested in the rights to the story within a day or two" of the revelation of Deep Throat's identity. He said the movie deal was concluded Tuesday night. Kuhn would not comment on the sums paid in either the book or the movie deal, except to say that the family's decision on the book "was not based on money" but rather on the vision for its publication put forth by Osnos, a former Washington Post reporter and editor who helped cover the Senate Watergate hearings. PublicAffairs generally doesn't pay advances of more than $75,000. Neither Felt's daughter, Joan, nor his son, Mark Jr., returned phone calls last night. Kuhn said they would be "interviewed for the book and would participate in the storytelling." During the two weeks the Felt project was being shopped, it met with considerable skepticism from publishers. The two reasons usually cited were the health of the elderly Felt, whose physical and mental deterioration appeared to preclude new contributions from him, and the presence of a competing book from Woodward, who had already written his own version of the Deep Throat story. Woodward's "The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat" is being rushed into print. His publisher, Simon & Schuster, has set a publication date of July 6. Warner Books publisher Jamie Raab said last week that she had heard the Felt pitch and decided not to bid. "The book is not a Watergate book per se," Raab said. "It's not going to answer some of the lingering questions. . . . They're sort of writing around Mark Felt's life." Little, Brown editor Geoff Shandler expressed skepticism as well, but he didn't rule out the success of a Felt book. "Traveling in Woodward's wake could be a profitable place to be, depending on what you pay and when you publish," Shandler said. "There is an equation that would work." But publishing executives agreed that the real money was on the Hollywood end.

Hi John Isn't this a vicious circle? We have the same type of situation in Ripperology, in that most of the people who write about the Jack the Ripper case are not historians but journalists, crime writers, and former policemen. The one major exception would be Philip Sugden whose Complete History of Jack the Ripper is acknowledged to be one of the best books on the case. In the main though isn't it probably true that study of the JFK assassination, as with that of the Ripper case and the Lincoln assassination, is viewed by serious historians as the domain of faddists and buffs? A view that certainly keeps many such historians away. Best regards Chris George

Hi Zhenia You have received some good answers which give you the historical background. However, since most of the people who frequent this forum are Westerners who live in democracies, I don't think you are going to get a clear answer. Few Westerners who live in a democracy would endorse life in a totalitarian state. So we may not be the best people to ask. You in fact might be in a better position to answer the question of how good the quality of life was before the Soviet Union was dissolved. From what I hear it could have been better than it is now, is that so? So in fact, you may have lived in a dictatorship but perhaps in some ways, life was good, is that right? I was a bit surprised at Derek McMillan's statement: 'On one hand Stalinism did provide a kind of "scarecrow" used against anyone who sought social progress in the West. We were traditionally told to "Get back to Russia!" This was applied indiscriminately to anyone whose ideas were not traditional and led to absurd excesses, when the Beatles were told to get back to Russia and responded with "Back in the USSR."' I may be wrong, but I don't believe the Beatles' song "Back in the USSR" had anything to do with being told to go back to the USSR. Isn't the song actually a satirical poke at the Beachboys (their great rival in the Sixties) and their "Back in the USA" also getting in a reference to "Georgia on My Mind" and other musical references along the way in the White Album -- just as "Why Don't We Do It in the Road" was a poke at the Rolling Stones" Here's a quote from Paul McCartney during his tour of Russia when he met Putin-- Asked about The Beatles' hit "Back in the USSR", McCartney said he did not know a lot about the former Soviet Union when he co-wrote the song with John Lennon. "It was always a mystical land," he told reporters. "It's nice to see the reality. I always suspected that people had big hearts. Now I know that's true." The Macca Report 4 Best regards Chris George

Hi John Thank you for this interesting and important post. This certainly is an important point in the U.S. Senate's history... not of course as the lynching survivor of age 91, Mr James Cameron said, that it would bring the victims back. But just the fact that the Federal government has acknowledged the wrongs done. In this age of hate crimes it will be important to make lynching a federal crime, and it is not clear, I think, from the news story, whether that will now happen. The other aspect that I found very interesting is the mention that the sponsors of the bill to ask the U.S. Senate to apologize, Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana and Senator George Allen, from Virginia, decided to work together to introduce the resolution calling for the Senate apology after they read a pictorial history of racist violence: Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America. It is nice to see that the historians who put that book together, Hilton Als, Jon Lewis, Leon F. Litwack, James Allen (Editors), did not see their work go in vain. I had also heard recently that the case of the racially motivated murder and mutilation of Emmett Till in August 1955 in Money, Mississippi is being reopened. See http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/ and http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/01/civil.rights.killing.ap/ for more on that case. Best regards Chris George

Hi Steve My time is rather tight right now for the next several weeks as I work on private and work projects but I will bear the seminar paper in mind. Meanwhile, I think I would be better off reacting to things as they are posted. All my best Chris

Hi Steve Fair enough about the fifteen minutes. I did misunderstand your point. As you say, you are looking at fifteen minutes between the incident with the witness Schwartz in which the epithet "Lipsky!" referencing a recently executed Jewish murderer, Israel Lipsky, and the arrival of Louis Diemschutz on the murder scene in Dutfield's Yard. I do though have a caveat to that possible fifteen minutes, in that all times in the case involving witnesses are, as you may know, approximate, because most of the working class people would not have had watches and most told their time approximately by the neighborhood clocks. Thus, the gap in time might not have been as long as fifteen minutes. Was Schwartz correct that the incident took place at 12:45 pm? And was Diemschutz correct that he arrived at exactly 1:00 am as he testified at the inquest on Elizabeth Stride? The scenario of Schwartz's witness statement is described on "Casebook: Jack the Ripper" which shows a good schematic of the murder location. Best regards Chris George

Hi Nancy MONEY? Well, maybe. Surely, Bob Woodward is rich from his earlier books without having to make more money, although a bit more wouldn't hurt I suppose. My point though is that he does not have to publish the book -- I don't believe he is hurting financially. Sure he will make money, but what truly is the intent of the book? Woodward either wants to 1) make a clean breast of Deep Throat, if DT was Felt, i.e., a way of clearing the record, 2) present his "authorized" version of Deep Throat, if DT was not just Felt but was more than one person. . . or if there really was no DT. Take your pick. Best regards Chris

Hi all Not fully related to the Ripper case but with some information that might amuse and inform is an essay I wrote about Irish-American writer Lafcadio Hearn (1850–1904) and the Japanese Tsunami which chronicles Hearn's relationship with Sir Arthur Diosy who had a black magic theory about the case. Go to "Lafcadio Hearn and the Japanese Tsunami: A Historical Essay" Best regards Chris George

Hi Greg Not perhaps what you were looking for exactly but sobering nonetheless, the following is the official order of procession for a dead U.S. head of state or other dignitary as laid down by military rules. All the best Chris George As quoted in "The Last Salute: Civil and Military Funerals 1921-1969" present at the funeral of President Kennedy were: ". . . a special honor guard composed of the joint Chiefs of Staff and led by General Maxwell D. Taylor. The White House military aides, Maj. Gen. Chester V. Clifton of the Army, Capt. Tazewell Shepard of the Navy, and Brig. Gen. Godfrey T. McHugh of the Air Force, followed them. Behind these officers was the national color de­tail, two men from the Army and one each from the Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard. . ." (see Chapter XXIII. President John F. Kennedy State Funeral, 22-25 November 1963. Best regards Chris George

Hi Mark Certainly the Zapruder film is a sobering and disturbing piece of footage whether you think there was a conspiracy or not. And if a film were to be shown, hypothetically, why wouldn't the film be Oliver Stone's "JFK" which puts the widely held case that JFK's assassination was part of a large conspiracy? Although of course I realize you are saying the Zapruder film would be shown to the new President so it would be a warning to him not to dig too deeply into the assassination. Certainly, pause for thought, whether your imagined scenario is true or not. Chris

Hi John For me, possibly the most important points you make are points 8 and 9, the making of "All the President's Men" and Woodward's new book deal, to which I have responded on another thread. It does sound like a salient point that Deep Throat did not appear in earlier versions of the manuscript of "All the President's Men" or in the Washington Post stories -- though that might be explained if Woodward was trying to protect Deep Throat (Felt). If Felt was not Deep Throat, why did Woodward meet with him in 1999? The point about Felt having given up smoking in 1943, if true, is a good one, since Woodward makes a major point about Deep Throat being a heavy smoker. In regard to Felt leaving the FBI in June 1973, and the most important meetings, about the gap in the Nixon tapes, having taken place the first week of November 1973 -- another excellent point, although it might be argued that an FBI man might still have his sources even after resigning. All interesting and intriguing stuff, John! All my best Chris

Hi John Interesting information. Thanks for this. Chris

Hi Steve Yes I appreciate the fact that you are playing Devil's advocate with Chapman and don't believe he was the murderer. Thanks for laying out the case against Chapman nonetheless! As you yourself state, there are a number of problems about Abberline's ponderings on Chapman and some misinformation which appeared as well in Hargrave Adam's introduction to The Trial of George Chapman (1930) in the Great British Trials series -- misinformation that unfortunately has been used as well by R. Michael Gordon who has tried to make a case for Chapman being the Ripper, the Thames Torso murderer, as well as being, as he undoubtedly was, the Borough Poisoner. Abberline was by then (1903) a retired Scotland Yard officer, having worked for Pinkerton's Detective Agency in Monte Carlo for some years. When approached by the Gazette reporter with a likely East End murderer and with the faulty information to hand, it might not be surprising that Abberline stated that Chapman could have been the murderer and that perhaps the Ripper murders were solved at last. Abberline did not, it seems, actually investigate Chapman in 1888, despite claims by Donald McCormick that he did do so, and thus he was relying on secondhand information. So in other words I would not put that much store in his 1903 assessment. If we had proof that he thought in 1888 that Chapman or any other suspect was possibly the Ripper it would be a different matter. We might also note that the idea of Chapman as Ripper also is contradicted by the anecdotal evidence of Nigel Moreland, later the editor of Criminologist to whom Abberline stated, when interrupted by Moreland in his garden years after the Gazette interview and before the former Chief Inspector's death in 1929, ‘You’d have to look for [the Ripper] not at the bottom of London society at the time but a long way up.’ Chapman had no standing in London society so such a description would not have fitted him. Best regards Chris George

Hi Steve and Mark First, Steve, I am not sure where you get fifteen minutes for the killer to be alone with Liz Stride on the morning of 30 September 1888 around 12:45 am in order for him to slit her throat and not mutilate her. As you point out, Dutfield's Yard was a better lit and more frequented location than some of the other murder scenes. Fifteen minutes is a considerable amount of time, and if the killer had been alone bending over her all that time, I should say he surely would have been seen in the act... which he was not. Second, in regard to the sighting by Sergeant Stephen White, while he is reported to have been the only Metropolitan Police officer to get a sight of the killer, there are a number of questions about his description and the circumstances in which the supposed sighting took place. Generally, Ripperologists prefer the description given by Joseph Lawende, one of the three Jewish men who around 1:35 am on 30 September 1888 left the Imperial Club at 16-17 Duke Street near to Mitre Square, Aldgate, where Catherine Eddowes was murdered. The description of the man that Lawende saw with Eddowes was aged 30, 5'7", fair complexion, brown moustache, salt-and-pepper coat, red neckerchief, grey peaked cloth cap, and sailor-like. There is an interesting essay on Stephen White and the problems with his story at "Shrouded in Mystery : Stephen White, Amos Simpson and "Catharine Eddowes' Shawl" by Andrew Morrison. Best regards Chris George

Hi John Looking at this objectively, there might be simple explantions. In regard to Webster Hubell, it would have been a high profile and attention-grabbing statement on the part of Hubell at the time of his appointment as Attorney General to say he would reopen the JFK assassination investigation but got involved with other matters such as his indictment before he could do so if he ever intended to pursue it. As for Blumenthal, his 1976 book Government by Gunplay was, as you say, a collection of essays on the assassinations of JFK, RFK and MFK, edited along with Harvey Yazijian, so it could be that he viewed his 1980 book The Permanent Campaign: Inside the World of Elite Political Operatives authored by himself alone as his first "real" book. John, you might be right to see more in the fact that Clinton's people did not pursue the JFK investigation as they might have, although these simpler explanations might hold true as well. Best regards Chris