Stuart Wexler

Hi Amaury:

Quick question... we have recent pictures of your father and some of us are wondering if you could post any circa-1963 pictures of your father. That would be much appreciated.

-Stu

Hi John,

Your work on photography has impressed me, including your work with Greg Parker on the writing in Pic's notebook. I wanted to see if you could look into some work Bill Miller has done in the past. He did some work with the Weigman film and concluded you can see moving smoke at the knoll region. Some have claimed that this is an optical illusion and that it is really leaves. But Bill has an animation which he says shows this smoke as moving. Can you look into it?

-Stu

Awwright, already, no need to shout.

Sure, Stuart, I'm doing other things too but I like to try to help as much as possible. Any more info, links?

John,

Here is a place to start:

http://www.jfklancerforum.com/dc/dcboard.p...ing_type=search

http://www.jfklancerforum.com/dc/dcboard.p...id=&page=#13709

-Stu

Hi John,

Your work on photography has impressed me, including your work with Greg Parker on the writing in Pic's notebook. I wanted to see if you could look into some work Bill Miller has done in the past. He did some work with the Weigman film and concluded you can see moving smoke at the knoll region. Some have claimed that this is an optical illusion and that it is really leaves. But Bill has an animation which he says shows this smoke as moving. Can you look into it?

-Stu

Hi Prof. McKnight,

For someone like myself who has little time between work to devote to the many JFK books on the market, I'm always interested in the new vs. the old. For many people, what Weisberg had is still important and relevant, but for those of us for have really read and reread Weisberg, we are always looking for material that adds to what he has. The one thing that has captured my attention in the advertisting for your book, for instance, is the Dallas FBI special index. How much of your book is material that adds new dimensions to what we already know about the Warren Commission and the investigation of the case (for instance, the special index), and how much is reminding us old-hats about the material others have already covered? Perhaps John S. can help here as someone who has read the book.

Regards,

Stu

Just like to say how much I have enjoyed reading Breach of Trust. I think one of the problems in the past is that so many of the people who have written about the JFK assassination were journalists rather than historians. This has enabled Warren Report supporters to dismiss a lot of this work as “speculative journalism”. However, your book has been written in a style that is acceptable to the academic community.

(1) What do you think is the most important discovery you made while writing “Breach of Trust”?

(2) On page 6 you point out that after analysizing the Zapruder film for the CIA, the National Photographic Intelligence Center (NPIC) concluded: “First, the first shot at the motorcade had not come from the sixth-floor “sniper’s nest” where Oswald had allegedly secreted himself. Second, there had been at least two gunman in Dealey Plaza shooting at the motorcade”. You add: “The results of NPIC’s analysis of the Zapruder film were suppressed.”

Did you discover who was involved in suppressing this evidence? Did the House Select Committee on Assassinations see this report? Did G. Robert Blakey include it in his report? What do you think of Dale K. Myers’ work on the Zapruder film. Supporters of the Warren Report seem to be now very reliant on Myers’ research.

(3) On page 305 you state that: “The ONI files devoted more attention to the activities of a Gerald Patrick Hemming, an ex-marine and soldier of fortune who was training anti-Castro Cubans in New Orleans, than to Oswald.” I assume you are suggesting that some of Oswald’s file has been destroyed. Or are you also suggesting that the ONI had good reason to have a large file on Hemming?

(4) On page 145 you point out that on 12th March, 1964, Richard Helms had a meeting with J. Lee Rankin and senior members of the Warren Commission staff. The general purpose of the meeting was to discuss how the CIA could assist the WC. How helpful was Helms? If he did play an important role in the cover-up, what was his motive?

(5) On page 323 you argue that William C. Sullivan (head of the FBI’s Domestic Intelligence Division) and James J. Angleton (the CIA counterintelligence chief) worked closely together in providing information to the Warren Commission. It would seem Sullivan and Angleton probably knew more about the JFK assassination than any other investigator.

In his book, “The Bureau”, Sullivan has little to say about his work with the WC. He claims that “we never found out what went on between Oswald and the Cubans in Mexico”. However, he adds that he did not believe that “Oswald was a Russian or a Cuban agent”. He goes onto say “If I had to guess I’d say that Oswald acted alone, but I was puzzled by the accuracy of his shooting.” I assume that Sullivan knew more than this. It has to be remembered that the manuscript was edited after he was killed by Robert Daniels during the HSCA investigations. Do you think it is significant that Richard Nixon employed Sullivan after he was sacked by Hoover?

Angleton seems to have come to a different conclusion. According to a CIA document, “Of Moles and Molehunters”, Cleveland C. Cram (Chief of Station in Europe and the Western Hemisphere), Angleton told journalists, Edward Epstein and Joe Trento, that Oswald was a KGB agent. Cram claims that Angleton was lying. Do you agree? If so, why did Angleton do this?

Robert:

Could you perhaps give us a bullet point list of some of the highlights from the audio. I know Joan and I don't think I even have time to listen to the whole thing!

-Stu

Joan Mellen has agreed to discuss her new book, A Farewell to Justice, on the Forum (due to be published on 16th November).

This is what Joan's website says about the book:

From the new evidence in the National Archives' JFK Assassination Records Collection and interviews with over one thousand people, author Joan Mellen in her comprehensive new book A FAREWELL TO JUSTICE demonstrates how the cover-up began in Louisiana months before President Kennedy was shot in Dallas.

Biographer Joan Mellen met New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison in 1969. His relentless search for the truth about what happened to President Kennedy made a deep impression upon her. In 1997, Mellen started to work on the story of Garrison's life.

Her biography turned into the story of Garrison's investigation and then into a new investigation of the assassination itself.

Working with thousands of previously unreleased documents and drawing on more than one thousand interviews, with many witnesses speaking out for the first time, Joan Mellen revisits the investigation of New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison, the only public official to have indicted, in 1969, a suspect in President John F. Kennedy’s murder.

Garrison began by exposing the contradictions in the Warren Report, which concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was an unstable pro-Castro Marxist who acted alone in killing President Kennedy. A FAREWELL TO JUSTICE reveals that Oswald was no Marxist and was in fact working with both the FBI and the CIA, as well as with U.S. Customs, and that the attempts to sabotage Garrison’s investigation reached the highest levels of the U.S. government.

Garrison interviewed various individuals involved in the assassination, ranging from Clay Shaw and CIA contract employee David Ferrie to a Marine cohort of Oswald named Kerry Thornley, who was also a Defense Intelligence asset. Garrison’s suspects included CIA-sponsored soldiers of fortune enlisted in assassination attempts against Fidel Castro, an anti-Castro Cuban asset, and a young runner for the conspirators, who speaks openly here for the first time.

Building upon Garrison’s effort, Mellen uncovers decisive new evidence and clearly establishes the intelligence agencies’ roles in both a president’s assassination and its cover-up, set in motion well before the actual events of November 22, 1963.

This book will become a landmark. As Mellen explains in the Preface, on the 40th Anniversary of President Kennedy's death in 2003, a Gallup Poll verified that twice as many people believed that the CIA was responsible for the assassination as believed that Oswald, a man without a motive, acted alone.

New Evidence

Robert Kennedy was aware of Oswald and his connection to the FBI before the assassination. RFK put Oswald under surveillance and had his Cuban associates tracking Oswald's movements during the summer of 1963.

Lee Oswald was not a loner but a government agent who worked not only for the New Orleans FBI office, but for U.S. Customs. Oswald was closely connected to CIA-sponsored anti-Castro figures in New Orleans at the International Trade Mart, that included Clay Shaw, David Ferrie and a Cuban associate of Shaw's named Juan Valdes.

Government documents reveal that the FBI and CIA actively worked with a number of journalists who “covered” the Garrison investigation, including reporters with Newsweek and The Saturday Evening Post, as well as a government operative ostensibly employed by NBC television. An FBI document reveals J. Edgar Hoover directing his field offices to “Give Garrison nothing!”

The massive cover-up began north of Baton Rouge when Oswald, in the company of Shaw and Ferrie, applied for a job at the mental hospital in Jackson, LA. Mellen has the only known interview with the director of the hospital at that time, Dr. Frank Silva.

Please post your questions and comments on the thread below (not this thread).

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5015

Joan Mellen was interviewed on WBAI Radio - A PBS Affiliate for a lengthy interview concerning her about to be released book "Farewell to Justice." Those wishing to hear this interview can click on the click provided below, taken from joanmellen.net

http://www.radio4houston.org/takingaim/hom...dio.html#051011 - From there the interview is at the top of the page.

I have listened to this and it is unlike anything you could ever imagine.

Hi all,

First let me say that I believe we have a lot to learn, and that while I'm rather well convinced in my own mind of what happened, I'd be hard pressed to prove it or convince someone else. So here goes:

I believe that John Kennedy was killed as a result of a conspiracy involving exiles (the primary movers), the mafia and some rogue CIA guys (most notably Morales). I believe that the plot to kill Castro was turned against Kennedy starting in early October of 1963, after the plotters failed to insert Oswald into Cuba (at which point they would have attempted to frame him for the murder of Castro.) I believe that Oswald had actually tripped over several intelligence "wires" including an RFK attempt to kill Castro. I believe that much of what we see prior to September of 1963 was Oswald being manipulated into an RFK-sponsored *Castro* plot. I believe that Larry Hancock has come the closest I have seen to reflecting my views of the case. The ultimate goal of the plot was to incite an invasion of Cuba. The plot failed largely because it was too convincing: higher ups were convinced that Castro was behind the plot, and engineered a massive cover-up. Others covered up for selfish reasons; the FBI because Oswald was an informant; the Secret Service because they bungled advanced warning reports; the CIA as an institution because Oswald had been manipulated by them before; RFK because he now was confronted with the idea of blowback.

-Stu

And Steve somehow got into the web-site.  Quite a document!  A lot to ponder!

Out of time to read it all now but it certainly looks interesting!  I'm sure none of us will agree with all of it; some of it is fairly deep into Bible prophecy and astrology.  But certainly a lot to absord and think about.

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Can somebody please send me this picture? If this is indeed the Martens letter, it would be very interesting. Recall that Martens said that his original letter was stolen. If this is the actual letter of marquee, and not the reproduction that Martens made, it would be VERY interesting.

Let me suggest a different reason for posing as JURE members. It may not be popular with the group, because it assumes that, at least to outsiders, Oswald was viewed as a leftist. I believe, that in his own mind, Oswald may genuinely have been a leftist; but that playing spy games trumped ideology. That is neither here nor there. If as, I suggest, outsiders suspected Oswald was truly a leftist, AND, they wanted to manipulate Oswald into a plot-- either a Castro plot (I think that was the first order of business) or a JFK plot (the contingency plan)-- then the way to do it would be to do what Martino suggested... pose as pro-Castroites.

JURE was, as Robert Charles-Dunne pointed out, a leftist organization. Indeed, if one reads the documentation, they were very much like Castroism without Castro.

So from that perspective, they may have been in a better position to manipulate Oswald into action. I'm not saying Oswald would have gone along with any murder plot *internally*; but to an outside who cannot read his intentions, this might seem the best opportunity to manipulate him.

-Stu

Re Robert's post, the theory that Oswald was taken to Odio's door so that when he was blamed for the assassination blame would fall on the Manola Ray group makes no sense to me whatsover.  Why would the Manola Ray group want to kill Kennedy, for heaven's sake?  If Robert's analysis is correct about the politics of the group, the Kennedys were favorable to the Manola Ray operation while the CIA would not.  Why would ANYONE think that a group friendly to JFK had killed him?  And for that matter, why would anyone think that Oswald was associated with that group merely because he had once appeared at Silvia Odio's doostep?  (There is no evidence that Oswald ever tried to infiltrate the Manola Ray organization as he had, for instance, tried to infiltrate Interpen in December of 1962.)

It also makes little sense to argue that it was the plan of the conspirators to blame the assassination both on Castro AND on the Manola ray group.

Robert asks if the plan (as I speculate) was for Oswald to talk about killing Kennedy to draw out violently anti-Kennedy Cubans, why would Oswald not make such remarks to Odio herself (rather than having Leopoldo repeat them to her)?

Well, Robert notes that the Manola Ray group was noted for being anti-violent (even though it was involved in one of the early efforts to kill Castro).  Perhaps Oswald made that remark to Leopoldo precisely because he was concerned about the people with whom Leopoldo and Murgado were associated (perhaps he was concerned about Leopoldo himself).  It was not necessarily Oswald's intention to have the remark repeated to Odio (if in fact Oswald's handlers were not concerned about the members of Odio's group).

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I find it hard to believe that RFK did not know what "Plausible Deniability" was when he was personally overseeing certain CIA groups and operations.

Nor do I find it convincing that because the CIA used the mafia without authorizing it with Bobby, that they would not have authorized any of it with him. There are many ways to skin a cat, and as someone who, as a teacher, has had students have radical interpretations of what I assigned them, without them having consulted with me first, I don't find it difficult to fathom.

Finally, it's a major taboo for career CIA officials to ever implicate the White House in a public forum such as the Church Committee. They would fall on their swords first, whether they like the President or not. It's out of loyalty to their institutional creed, not out of loyalty to the President.

I think that people often view RFK and JFK and the CIA's activities through an ideological prism. Simple question: how many people here who are more than happy to believe that RFK and JFK were simply ignorant of the CIA-Castro plots are nonetheless convinced that Bush/Cheney pressured the CIA into misrepresenting Iraq WMD leads? I happen to be on the "executive influence" side on both accounts; and I happen to think that there is probably even more evidence of the former than of the latter.

-Stu

I think Allen Dulles as Kennedy Hater is a myth. Yes he was fired after the Bay of Pigs, but JFK also awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom later on. Russo argues that Dulles was actually a close friend of the Kennedy family. It may make a lot of sense that RFK wanted Dulles on the WC, especially if RFK was concerned about the exposure of covert activities that RFK sponsored.

Gerry;

The Carcano which LHO reportedly ordered from Kleins, not unlike all of the remainder of that shipment, had a "NEW" control#/serial# engraved on the frame.

Unfortunately, C2766 does not have such a number.

A slight oversight on the part of someone.

Tom

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Tom...

Not to distract too much from Hemming's posts here, but can you please explain what you mean by the above and point out how someone can go about confirming what you say?

-Stu

Not that I'd expect an answer to this one, but I'm curious how Paine would react to the following report from Dick Billing's journal on the Jim Garrison case:

"[Larry] Schiller says he's heard Oswald was gay, so was Michael Paine, and they did it together . . ."

-Stu

Tim.

I've been meaning to comment on this thread for some time. Let me first say that I think the Castro-did-it theory gets a bum rap. Those who say Castro did not have a motive are fooling themselves: he probably had more at stake-- his life and his regime-- than any of the usual suspects we name. But motive is not evidence--- people with lesser motives can commit crimes. Those who point out that Castro had a great disincentive-- the potential toppling of his regime from retaliation-- ignore the fact that Castro had nothing to lose if the American government was plotting his downfall (and there is good reason to believe that Castro knew this.) But to take it even one step farther-- Castro was bold; during the Missile Crisis he was the only one of the three major leaders pushing hard for the kind of actions that would plunge the world in WWIII. I think the political leanings of this board DO get in the way of an objective analysis of Castro's potential involvement; even though I agree with many of those leanings.

That said, the major problem I have with the Castro-did-it-theory has nothing to do with motive or with political rationale. It has to do with unnecessary risks. Yes, Castro faced possible elimination if he let Kennedy live, leaving himself in a position where he had nothing to lose. But why would Castro make the stupid mistake of using someone who so clearly tied to his regime? Of all the people Castro chose to employ, he would have chosen someone who was openly pro-Castro, who had visited his consulate, etc. Given the amount of infiltration he had of the exile movement, he could have easily engineered something that implicated his enemies. Instead, he did something stupid. Why?

-Stu

Carrie,

Have you ever asked her about Thornley? And have you asked her if she maintains the statements re: Oswald home every night? Both are very important questions.

-Stu

Suggest your questions, please.

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Here are several possibilities:

1) Does she still stand by her statements to the effect that, when she was with Oswald in 1963, he was home virtually every night?

2) Did she know or does she know Kerry Thornley?

3) Follow up to #2. How does she react to the handful of witnesses who put Marina in the company of Thornley, one going so far as to say that she thought Thornley was Marina's husband based on the number of times she saw them together?

4) What was her reaction to Oswald's arrest in August of 1963? Does she have any specific recollection as to how he got of jail on the 10th?

5) Does she have any recollection of Oswald visiting Baton Rouge?

6) According to Ruth Kloepfer, Oswald openly hit on Ruth with a pregnant Marina watching (right before their return to Dallas). Does Marina recall this? How did she react?

7) Gus Russo reported that Oswald's rooming house "mates" recall that he was driven to and from the rooming house consistently. This, according to Russo, is an unidentified person not Frazier. Does Marina have any idea about this? Did Oswald ever talk about this?

8) Did Oswald talk about returning to the Soviet Union in Aug-September of 63 or anytime after?

9) A very bizarre question: did Lee ever shave his pubic hair? I ask only because his autopsy report describes shaven pubic hair.

10) Did she ever suspect that Oswald may have been bisexual?

--- Hopefully Greg Parker will chime in with a couple of questions regarding Jon Pic. I don't want to scoop him ---

-Stu

John,

I think the work you are doing is very interesting. I have some questions for you though:

1) What maps are you using to base your reconstruction upon? Almost every map has something wrong with it. I can refer you to people who have done extensive mapping who can give you more accurate maps.

2) What sources are you using for the dimensions on the limo?

3) What pictures are you using to place the men within the limo?

4) What assumptions are you making about strike points? I think the best analysis would be one that assumes multiple possible locations on the Z-film for strikes.

5) What are you using to locate the wounds? There is MUCH dispute about wound location. I would consider flexible wound locations, especially if you are checking the rear head wound, but also the back wound.

6) How are you determining a margin of error?

I ask these questions because, for whatever weight we place on them, several different groups have modelled the event and most have concluded that SBT trajectories are possible.

-Stu

I almost forgot the title of the book: "Farewell to Justice". I believe one can preorder on Amazon.

-Stu

X Reveal, for the first time, the mysterious figure of Juan Valdes and his role in the Mary Sherman crime and the Kennedy assassination.

I only know of Juan Valdes from the coffee commercials...

...so you must be referring to another Juan.

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I have read some items on Amazon.com and elsewhere about Joan Mellen's book due out in November and I have a strong feeling it is going to have quite an impact at least as far as the JFK research community is concerned, as for the public at large to a great degree it will obviously depend on if it get's the silent treatment or not. She did over 1,000 interviews for the book, thats not too shabby.

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At least Lt. Al hesitates to make "accusations' of murder that might affect the surviving family members of these men, much less destroy their reputations by innuendo and gross fantasizing.  Let us get real, and take a little time to first learn some of the "tradecraft"; and then one might go for the "15-seconds-of-fame" Sherlock Holmes/Dickless Tracy routine.

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Once again you are speaking without understanding the content or the researcher. I possess a copy of the file on our "Major Lopez" and have tracked down the family the deceased man. I also hold three photos of him at various times in his career. I keep quiet about his identity and do not release the file info out of respect to his family and consideration that he acted out of duty and in reality likely had no choice.

You can ramble on about your supposed escapades all you want and demean others who you know nothing of, but if you would look into my background, you will find that I am not a dupe SOF or wanna-be, but have lived it and have an understanding of how mechanics are inserted, and eventually eliminated.

I have a trail of Conein to Siragusa to eventually Fernandez and Hull that intertwines with our topic and me in a roundabout way. That is my motivation and you can spout all you want about your supposed past.

The ball is in your court!

Al

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Hi Al,

Out of curiosity: how did you obtain the file?

-Stu

Hi,

I communicate frequently with Joan Mellen and, hearing that her book will now be available as early as October, and is currently available for advanced purchase, I convinced her to let me throw some teasers out at you, beyond her blurb... Joan promises to:

X Reveal the actual identities of Angel and Leopoldo

X Officially tie, with government documents, Kerry Thornley, Thomas Beckham, Jack Martin and others to the CIA.

X Reveal, for the first time, the mysterious figure of Juan Valdes and his role in the Mary Sherman crime and the Kennedy assassination.

X Fully explain RFK's motives in deep-sixing the Garrison investigation

X Prove the CIA was spying on RFK (with official documents)

X Reveal important new information from Beckham, Dr. Frank Silva, Corrie Collins.

X Reveal first-hand, first-time witnesses to the Clinton episode.

X Tell the *full* Anne Dischler story

-Stu

Peter,

If and when you design this game, please report it to the forum. If it is a game that can work in one to two class periods, I would love to use it in my Humanities class for when I cover the Middle Ages. I have only a brief time to cover the Middle Ages and then I have to jump to the Renaissance!

-Stu

You will find all these details on my website. The best starting place is:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Yalding.htm

Then explore:

Lesson Commentary: The Medieval Village

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/YALDmedievalC.htm

Resources: The Medieval Village

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/YALDmedievalRS.htm

Manor Records

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/YaldingManorR.htm

If you cannot find what you want, post again and I will help you find it.

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John,

I had originally found that page, which was what led me to this forum.

The problem was that there is a broken link on the following page:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/YALDmedievalC.htm

Under Lesson 1:

Lesson 1: For this lesson the pupils will also need the Family Information Chart, Village of Yalding, Kent in the 14th Century, Map of Yalding in 1336, Artist Impression of Yalding, Medieval Names and the Yalding Manor Records. One way of using the material is to give each pupil the name of an individual that lived in the village in the 14th century. In this way the pupils can explore the possible impact of different events on one particular family. This has been a very successful aspect of the course but I am aware that some teachers might feel uncomfortable about this approach. Although I will provide the information needed for this strategy, the materials do not have to be used in this way.

The link to "Yalding Manor Records" is laid out as YALDManorR.htm when in fact it should be YALDINGManorR.htm. This led me to believe that the page didnt exist. It's only when you pointed me to the main page, that I discovered that the Manor Records page did in fact exist.

This is an enormous boon for me! Thanks for your help.

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One of the best examples of peer group assessment was at Richard Jones-Nerzic’s school in Toulouse. It involved students assessing teaching materials produced by older students. Maybe, Richard will post details of how this worked.

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Not my idea but taken from the Christine Counsell series of British textbooks: 'Think Through History'. The idea is to take a complex event like the Reformation and invite students to produce a clear explanation for younger students. Because we have a Primary section in the school the older student accounts are actually assessed by the younger pupils. We have annual presentation where we bring both sets of students together, here with Mr Simkin making the presentations in 2001!

http://www.intst.net/humanities/y8/term2/r...l_of_honour.htm

What I would add to this discussion is how far ICT has made peer assessment so much easier to set up (and not just peer assessment of written work). I routinely ask students to evaluate each other's work once it has been placed on the school server.

On a related point, a very high percentage of my website is student work. I try to give a good example for each assignment so that students know what they are aiming for something before they start. And much of the work is what the class have selected themselves (by secret ballot). This is particularly true of PowerPoints, websites and videos such as in this most recent example:http://www.intst.net/humanities/y8/term3/a.../2004/index.htm

This always leads to discussion about why one piece is better than another, which , I suppose is the whole point of peer evaluation.

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I'm only a entering my second year of teaching, so take this for what it's worth, but one application for self-assessment that I found useful was self-assessing classroom participation. I started to do it in the midde of my school year and it worked much better than I expected. In 99% of the evaluations, students were absolutely honest about things like their level of engagement and their behavior, etc. In fact, there were times when I felt as if I had to adjust their assessments upwards. I had them use a basic rubric to do this and I think it worked well.

-Stu

I don’t know of a website or book that provides this sort of background information. I would have thought it would have been better to have used real people for this proposed simulation. For example, there are 258 biographies on my website on the Civil War:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAcivilwarC.htm

You will also find similar numbers for any simulations on the two wars.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWW.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WW.htm

I cannot help you with the Renaissance or the French Revolution but I am sure there are websites out there that will provide you with the necessary biographies.

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Hi John,

I appreciate your suggestion and, in fact, this is a part of the concept. I did what we call a "meeting of the minds" that involved taking actual figures and having them interact, answer questions, etc. That would be a factor here too, but I want to keep to the overall demographic idea for a few reasons:

1) One thing I want to stress to my students is that everyday people contribute to history. I was surprised when I did a project on social history with my US I kids how many students felt that history should ONLY be G. Washington, Robert E. Lee, etc.

2) I think that the demography provides a frame-of-reference which is very helpful at the beginning of the lesson; especially if you build on the activity and have students research housing, living conditions, etc.

3) I think the demography allows for a more easily manageable roleplaying day; I think it would be a case of too many "sheriffs in town" if I took the "key figures" beyond 5.

I have and will make use of your site; it is one of the most helpful on the web. That is part of the reason why I'm here asking the question. I'm hoping someone can help me find books or web sites or textbook references that help give a general profile of the given time periods.

Thanks again,.

Stu

I teach AP Government and World Studies on the high school level in NJ, I was a web programmer. I have an interest in teaching, history and the Kennedy Assassination. I have presented at numerous JFK assassination conventions, including the Wecht conference.

I've seen something you have proposed that resembles something I want to do with my classes. This will be my second year of teaching World Studies. We go from the Renaissance to WWI. In my U.S. I class last year, at the end of the year, I started to assign my class demographic profiles based on statistics on, for instance, the U.S. Civil War. I would proportionally divide the class up, for example, into North and South, age, occupation, etc. I want to expand this into a full-blown simulation similar to some of the ideas I've seen proposed on your forum. Namely, I want to do something like take demographic information on Germany during the early 16th century, and divide the class up proportionally. I would do the same thing for other events, like France during the French Revolution. I would then not only have the class draw general impressions on the populations of the time, but then develop a series of lessons that use role play based on those demographics. That being said, I need to know if and how and where I could find even semi-reliable statistical information covering a whole range of time periods, events, etc.

I teach AP Government and World Studies on the high school level in NJ, I was a web programmer. I have an interest in teaching, history and the Kennedy Assassination. I have presented at numerous JFK assassination conventions, including the Wecht conference.

I've seen something you have proposed that resembles something I want to do with my classes. This will be my second year of teaching World Studies. We go from the Renaissance to WWI. In my U.S. I class last year, at the end of the year, I started to assign my class demographic profiles based on statistics on, for instance, the U.S. Civil War. I would proportionally divide the class up, for example, into North and South, age, occupation, etc. I want to expand this into a full-blown simulation similar to some of the ideas I've seen proposed on your forum. Namely, I want to do something like take demographic information on Germany during the early 16th century, and divide the class up proportionally. I would do the same thing for other events, like France during the French Revolution. I would then not only have the class draw general impressions on the populations of the time, but then develop a series of lessons that use role play based on those demographics. That being said, I need to know if and how and where I could find even semi-reliable statistical information covering a whole range of time periods, events, etc.

I teach AP Government and World Studies on the high school level in NJ, I was a web programmer. I have an interest in teaching, history and the Kennedy Assassination. I have presented at numerous JFK assassination conventions, including the Wecht conference.

I've seen something you have proposed that resembles something I want to do with my classes. This will be my second year of teaching World Studies. We go from the Renaissance to WWI. In my U.S. I class last year, at the end of the year, I started to assign my class demographic profiles based on statistics on, for instance, the U.S. Civil War. I would proportionally divide the class up, for example, into North and South, age, occupation, etc. I want to expand this into a full-blown simulation similar to some of the ideas I've seen proposed on your forum. Namely, I want to do something like take demographic information on Germany during the early 16th century, and divide the class up proportionally. I would do the same thing for other events, like France during the French Revolution. I would then not only have the class draw general impressions on the populations of the time, but then develop a series of lessons that use role play based on those demographics. That being said, I need to know if and how and where I could find even semi-reliable statistical information covering a whole range of time periods, events, etc.