Josiah Thompson

Thanks, Len, for the link. It's quite amazing what happens when the Fetzer-Costella hogwash is looked at by anyone knowledgeable. Nice going!

Professor Fetzer, this is really embarassing. As Len Colby points out, your quotes are from the "the tinfoil hat /UFO nut/ silver-lined boxer shorts/ hollow earth crowd". Then Len Colby proved his point by showing how nutty your sources were. If this is the best you can do, then serious people can only turn away shaking their heads. Like Attorney Welch told Senator Joseph McCarthy, "Have you no shame, sir?

After looking at your bio. it makes perfect sense to me. Didn't they promoted you twice after the 1st ed. of "6 Seconds." How clever of you to notice that, Len! If you want to see another example of "your nemesis" making a fool of himself check out the link that Craig provided. Fetzer had a bit of a conniption fit. In the thread an aerospace engineer takes Cotella's EMP chapter to pieces and Jimmy didn't take it well. Thanks. I'm sure you're extremely jealous of Fetzer, teaching at UM-Duluth is close to the pinnacle of academic achievement. You sure got that right, Len. A real "pinnacle of academic achievement" (as you put it) on the not often placid shores of Lake Superior. On the other hand, they've got this really tough policy on sexual harassment. If they catch you... even if you're a full professor... they suspend your ass without pay. It's tough living up there with no pay... stimulates you to do something else.... say write a book on the Wellstone crash and cash in on the controversy created. Tink After looking at your bio. it makes perfect sense to me. Didn't they promoted you twice after the 1st ed. of "6 Seconds". If you want to see another example of "your nemesis" making a fool of himself check out the link that Craig provided. Fetzer had a bit of a conniption fit. In the thread an aerospace engineer takes Cotella's EMP chapter to pieces and Jimmy didn't take it well. I'm sure you're extremely jealous of Fetzer, teaching at UM-Duluth is close to the pinnacle of academic achievement. <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

"I fail to see much difference in Fetzer's leaving the Marines to become an academic and Thompson's leaving academia to become a P.I. Both were respectable career choices. People are allowed to make changes in their life to better their station in life and/or increase their happiness, last that I checked." Nice point, Pat. You're right. But now wouldn't we all like to hear how going for a hop in a jet piloted by someone else qualifies someone to claim: "I piloted a jet." At least that has something to do with the Wellstone plane crash. Would it be possible for the Great Man himself to admit that saying that was just a stupid mistake? Good lord, even people with "Ph.D." always plastered after their name sometimes make mistakes. Perhaps the Professor might lead us back to the center of the argument by explaining precisely what factors show that his explanation of the crash trumps the exhaustive investigation of the NTSB. It's just not enough to say (and not attempt to show) that the NTSB was part of the coverup. So have a go, Professor. Quit fetzering, assume that the rest of us might just be as intelligent as you and Four Arrows, and lay out your case. I'm waiting and listening.

Wow! The Professor has outfetzered himself. A bravura performance of fetzering!!! Instead of dealing with the point at issue — whether being taken up in a training plane by a Navy pilot forty years ago and touching the controls constitutes “piloting a jet”?! — Fetzer sprays his usual bile and then loads up the site with irrelevant quotes. I’ll ignore the irrelevant quotes and comment on what Fetzer took the time to write himself. Fetzer wrote: “Incidentally, I hope no one is being taken in by the sleazy practice of misquoting me and distorting my position to make cheap points, which are the only points that some of these critics are capable of making. Thompson's latest is a nice example.” Okay Professor. How are you being misquoted? I said, “Neither [Fetzer nor Four Arrows] has ever piloted an aircraft and their analysis shows that they know butkus about aviation.” You replied: “I piloted a jet as a midshipman while I was in college.” I pointed out that this was hilarious, that you never “piloted” anything as a midshipman. You replied that I had put words in your mouth: “I said I had piloted a jet; I did not claim to be a ‘jet pilot.’” The text shows clearly that this is false, that I quoted you correctly in pointing out what you said: “I had piloted a jet.” Your own words hang you and then you try to get out of it. Typical fetzering. Fetzer wrote: “Read it carefully and compare it with the post he would like you to think he is quoting. Sometimes the deception can be as subtle as changing a period into a comma. The man has a Ph.D. in philosophy from Yale and must know what he is doing. He is playing the members of this forum for saps, insulting their intelligence.” What on earth are you talking about? “Changing a period into a comma..” Huh? Fetzer wrote: “Surely my four years with the USMC are at least equal to his two in the UDT! Anyone with military experience should be able to see through his distortions, which are in line with his long string of abuses of logic and language in attacks upon me, which appear to be motivated from a combination of envy regarding my academic accomplishments compared to his and supporting research that has revealed the Zapruder film was recreated to provide a phony account of the death of JFK, which means his book was based on the study of a fake film.” Huh? You are the only one comparing military experience between the two of us. Unlike you, I don’t talk about mine. The rest of this quote is just the usual fetzering bloviation. We’ve all heard it before and it doesn’t connect with anything. Fetzer wrote: “Notice how he deflects attention from his departure from Haverford, which, I strongly suspect, was related to his acknowledged theft of film from Time/Life.)” When he can’t win an argument on its merits (the Professor’s flight as a midshipman), he begins throwing the vitriol. Now he means to claim that my quitting a tenured professorship at Haverford in 1978 has something to do with making a copy of the Zapruder film in the TIME/LIFE building twelve years before in 1966. Of course since he has no evidence, he insinuates this. He says: “I strongly suspect.” This is classic fetzering. If you have no evidence, try to destroy your opponent’s character with innuendo and false charges. First off, I left Haverford because I was bored. It had nothing to do with the Kennedy assassination. That leaving is fully described in a book I published in 1988 called Gumshoe. Secondly, I’m rather proud of making that copy of the Zapruder film in the TIME/LIFE building in November of 1966. I’m happy to take credit for it and have done it again and again. I testified before the ARRB about it. I offered an oral history about it for the Sixth Floor Museum’s oral history. Finally, I published an account of it in Richard Trask’s new book on the Zapruder film. If there was anything about it that reflected badly on me, I probably would have shut up. Right Professor? But I didn’t. What does that tell you? The reader can make up his/her mind because below is a full description of what happened as drawn from Trask’s new book: “Early November 1966 I flew to Dallas and met Kern and Billings and Patsy Swank there. [swank was a LIFE stringer who had originally let magazine personnel know about the existence of the Zapruder film.] Using 4" by 5" transparencies, we interviewed Dr. Charles Gregory who in 1963 had treated the wounded Governor John Connally. We returned to the hotel leaving the transparencies with Henry Suydam, LIFE’s Miami bureau chief. We returned from dinner to the hotel room. I said I’d like to study the transparencies and take them to my room. Before leaving the room, I inventoried the stack of transparencies and found that four (in the 230s) were missing. They were present there when we showed the transparencies to Dr. Gregory. I left the stack in the room. I learned subsequently that the next morning Ed Kern distracted Henry Suydam while Billings searched Suydam’s room. The missing transparencies were not found.” “Mid-November 1966 I didn’t know what was going on. I suspected that there was some power struggle at LIFE in motion, but I had not a clue what it was about and who was on what side. I decided that it would be an extremely good idea for a good copy of the relevant frames to exist outside the Time-Life Building. I put a 35 mm camera with a copying stand and 15 or so rolls of film in my brief case and went up to New York on the Thursday or Friday before the issue entitled “A Matter of Reasonable Doubt” closed. Kern and Billings left by about 5:00 PM. I stayed. I set up my copying stand over the light table in Kern’s office and started copying the 4" by 5" transparencies. Kern came back and said, “What’re you doing, Tink?” I replied, “I’m copying some frames from the goddam film. I need to study them down in Philadelphia.” Kern said nothing and then left. I spent the next two hours or so copying the remaining frames until my film was exhausted. We learned in the lawsuit [later filed by Time Inc.] that the following Monday Kern told the editor of LIFE, George Hunt, that he had come back and found me copying the film. Hunt later signed a consultancy contract with me which legally gave me permission to have a copy for my own research use. “ National Nightmare on Six Feet of Film by Richard B. Trask (Danvers, Massachusettes: Yeoman Press, 2005), pages 364-365.

For those of us who have been arguing this topic, it might be useful to put together a collection of "Fetzer's Follies." I have in mind the various claims he's made about Wellstone's crash and how they turned out to be not credible. For example, Fetzer has claimed that "communication with the plane was suddenly lost." Of course, this is false since the plane made all its usual and standard communication transmissions. Or recently, Fetzer claimed that there was something sinister in the fact that the propellers were not providing much thrust at the time of the crash. Investigation showed that the propeller's thrust was appropriate for where the plane was in its landing approach; what Fetzer saw as sinister was quite normal and proper. This list could be endlessly extended. I offer this because it seems likely that the Professor is not going to defend his spin in a T-33 in the early 1960s (with a Navy pilot at the controls) as grounding his vast knowledge of aviation. Too bad. I was looking forward to that. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Na Tink...a deranged pilot is just not as sexy as some death ray. Just think, the sound bites on Air America and Black Op radio would just not have the same impact. Not to mention the presser at the National Press Club. Nope death rays sell way more books. <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

A swell idea, Evan. Since the plane just got ahead of the flight crew, one could claim that it was a conspiracy and not just a series of cascading mistakes that crashed the plane. The only problem in claiming they crashed it deliberately is that they were on it! We have to assume they were suicide pilots who believed Bush when he promised them 37 Texas virgins in the afterlife! Don't hold your breath but the Great Wind might buy it and abandon his present theory which is pretty much in tatters.

Thank you, Professor, for a scintillating example of “fetzering.” You duck and cover like no one else. This all began with me reviewing your latest book on Amazon. I wrote in a review: “The two co-authors parade their Ph.D.s in philosophy and education to make you believe they are serious analysts. They aren't. Neither has ever piloted an aircraft and their analysis shows that they know butkus about aviation.” You reply: “I piloted a jet as a midshipman while I was in college. There is ample evidence of knowledge of aviation and expert contributions distributed throughout our research.” No, there isn’t any of that “ample evidence.” If anyone cares to look at what you and Four Arrows put out, they’ll grasp immediately that both of you know zilch about aviation. Then you make your big claim:“I piloted a jet as a midshipman while I was in college.” This is hilarious! You no more piloted a jet than I just flew to the moon and back. During your summer NROTC camp, a real pilot took you up for a spin in a T-33. While in the air, the pilot let little Jimmy touch the controls. When you say, “I piloted a jet...” that’s what really happened. Right? Of course, you can’t admit the silliness of your claim. You might say, “Hey, you’re right. I was just a tourist during that spin in a T-33. But it doesn’t matter because Four Arrows and I are professors. We have Ph.D.s and that means we’re really smart.... much smarter than you dummies on this board.” That’s what you’d really like to say but you know you can’t say that. So what do you do, you fetzer! You don’t deny that your “piloting a jet” was just as described. [“Here young midshipman Jimmy. Put your hand on the stick and see how it feels. That’s fine. Now keep your hands off everything while I land this mother.”] Instead, you change the subject. That evil guy Thompson, you claim, has put words in your mouth: “I said I had piloted a jet; I did not claim to be a ‘jet pilot.’” Sorry, Professor, but fetzering can’t get you out of this. I said (see above) that neither you nor Four Arrows “has ever piloted an aircraft.” So I guess you’re going to have to show us that touching the controls while someone else flew the plane is really “piloting a jet.” Go on, have a go at it. It’ll be a lot of fun watching. And as for “skedaddling”... You write: “Before I was ‘skeddaddling’ away from a tour in Vietnam, I had served four years. It was time to pursue my professional career objectives.” You served four years because you had to. Then you neither resigned from the Marine Corps on principle nor stayed in out of loyalty to the Corps. Nope. In 1966, just when the Marine Corps desperately needed lieutenants and captains in Vietnam, you elected “to pursue my professional career opportunities.” My point exactly! Sic semper blowhards!

Tsk, tsk Professor. You really are so attractive when you huff and puff and rant and rave. You wrote: "I did not make it into a big deal because it wasn't a big deal, but I briefly piloted a T-33 during that phase of my training. There were other aspects to it, of course, but what he was asserting was literally false." A T-33 was a two-place training plane. The real pilot took off and landed the plane. For a few seconds while you and the pilot were aloft, he let little Jimmy put his hands on the stick. That's what you are trying to bootstrap into "I piloted a T-33 during that phase of my training." And it's that vast experience in a T-33.... isn't it?.... that you earlier claimed qualified you to understand what happened in the Wellstone crash. The rest is the usual Fetzerian rant. But thank you for confirming that you sat on your ass in Okinawa and went to a recruit depot before skedaddling from the Marine Corps in June 1966 when the Vietnam War was heating up and the Marine Corps needed lieutenants and captains. As for your claim concerning the Zapruder film... the full story of this is being told in the just published scholarly book by Richard B. Trask, National Nightmare on Six Feet of Film (Danvers Mass.:Yeoman Press, 2005). As in David Wrone's earlier scholarly work on the Zapruder film, The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination(Lawrence, Kansas: The University of Kansas Press, 2003) your tabloid style of research provides only comedic interest for both authors. Why is it, Professor, that real scholars take your work to be silly? Now back to the Wellstone crash and that "bluish smoke."

I have to disagree with you about a detail, Len. You wrote: "Obviously that assertion with regards to Tink is absurd. While he was writing one of the first books to challenge the Warren Report, you were a Vietnam era volunteer [?] Marine officer." Actually, Fetzer skedaddled out of the Marine Corps as soon as Vietnam heated up and headed off to graduate school in 1966. He had been NROTC at Princeton. Remember his claim to have "piloted a jet?" Remember how he magically transformed being taken up in a jet by a real pilot ("Here Jimmy, you can put your hands on the stick for a few seconds.") during NROTC summer camp into being a jet pilot and familiar with aviation? Fetzer was obliged to go into the Marine Corps and did so, spending his first several years sitting on his ass in Okinawa and his last year or so minding statistics at a recruit base in San Diego which sent kids off to fight and die in Vietnam. So he wasn't a "volunteer." Nor was he a "Vietnam era Marine officer" because he ducked it. Fetzer's claim that his time in the Marine Corps makes him an experienced warrior is about as bogus as his claim that touching the control stick for a few seconds makes him a "jet pilot."

"With this post, Evan Burton proves that he has no serious commitment to the truth in the Wellstone case, since we devote more than a chapter to laying out the evidence that the White House wanted to get rid of him. I am appalled at the level of ignorance displayed by some members of this forum, which does not seem to inhibit them from making assertions that are not only false but even provably false. I suggest Burton exercise just a modicum of effort to ascertain whether or not his suggestion is even remotely reasonable, which it is not. Egad! This guy really doesn't know even the basics about this case." Fetzer is so maddeningly predictable. Evan Burton is a pilot who, like Colonel Rees, knows more about aviation than Fetzer will ever know (all this in spite of Fetzer's earlier claim that he "piloted a jet"). Immediately, Fetzer's response is to malign Burton's motives ("he has no serious commitment to the truth in the Wellstone case") and claim falsely that "this guy really doesn't know even the basics about this case." It is this pomposity and eagerness to insult and attack the character of those with whom he disagrees that makes Fetzer such a desirable target. I don't know about Craig or Len but I find difficult to ignore a blowhard who keeps pompously claiming indisputable results based upon nothing more than his own mistaken opinions. Long ago, Fetzer embarrassed himself with the assassination research community and moved on to the next "conspiracy du jour." He could move on again. He could take a shot at the idea that George and Laura Bush personally dynamited the levees in New Orleans. How about it, Professor?

How nice of you to join this thread, Mr. Burton. When Professor Fetzer first started replying on the Yahoo Forum, Colonel Rees joined the Yahoo Forum and quickly deflated the Professor. At that time, Professor Fetzer was making various claims about "the Eveleth tower." Colonel Rees pointed out that "Eveleth didn't have a tower." Now you perform a similar function. The Professor makes various claims having to do with a GPS approach. You then point out that the evidence indicates that the Wellstone plane was making a VOR approach. As soon as anyone with any real aviation knowledge and experience looks at Fetzer's claims, they crash and burn. The Professor, of course, has vast experience in the aviation field. Recall that he told us that "I piloted a jet." Well, it turns out that this was a bit of an exaggeration on his part. By "piloting a jet," what he really meant was that a Navy jet pilot took him up for a short spin while Fetzer was at NROTC summer camp during college some forty years ago! Fetzer may have even... for a few seconds... have actually put his hand on the stick! He presents such a huge target that many would just give the old blowhard a free pass. But then he starts his vitriol in which anyone who disagrees with him is labeled "an agent of disinformation" or "cognitively impaired" or "massively ignorant." That inspires folks like Len or me or Craig to give him a full blast. Thanks for coming aboard! I can't wait to see how Fetzer will label you.

Len, you and Hobo, have done such a brilliant job of exposing the "Fetzering" of the Great Wind from the North, I regret that it can't be just moved over to this board. No, I believe you. I hold the copyright to "Six Seconds" and the rights to publish the Zapruder film deriving from Judge Wyatt's decision back in 1968. I'm sort of old-fashioned and would like a new edition to published like a regular book by a kind of standard publisher. I would write an update section. I think the project is viable. I just haven't found a publisher yet who would want to take it on. But I'm still trying. I wish Hobo could be persuaded to move over and join us.

Fetzer is sort of like the guy who starts a fight in a bar and then crawls out between all the fighters' legs. He left an earlier site because his attempted defense of his latest tabloid journalism effort was in the toilet. Len, Craig Lamson and Hobo had sent him skedaddling. He usually only appears on sites where he can be protected by his cronies like the moderator of JFKresearch.com, Rich Dellarosa. He won't reply to anything on Lancer. Usually, one can only coax him out by saying something about his books. So Len might well have sought if he made a reference to Posner Fetzer might show up. Alas, it looks like Fetzer has skedaddled for good! Tabloid journalism in the form of faux scholarship is left undefended. And maybe that's the way it ought to end up.

Thank you for your reply. The following link doesn't work for me: http://homepage.mac.com/bkohley/Menu5.html. You mentioned that you were going to put your presentation online in a more finished mode. Let me know when you do that so that I can see it. Thanks.

Dear Mr. Speer, Thank you for your questions and also for your reply to Professor Fetzer. I’ve been hiking in Wyoming for the last ten days and I just saw your post with its questions. I don’t know exactly what happened in Dealey Plaza but I do know one thing: The claim that any single person (whether LHO or someone else) fired all the shots that day in Dealey Plaza is nonsense. That clearly did not happen. What exactly did happen is something we can approximate but not clearly know at this point. I guess both you and I are in the process of trying to narrow down that approximation. Are there things in “Six Seconds” that I no longer back or believe in? Of course. Let me offer you an important example. In “Six Seconds,” I claimed that JFK was hit in the head first from the rear and then from the front within two Zapruder frames (Z312-Z314) or one ninth of the a second. This claim was based on the autopsy data and the fact that JFK’s head moved about two inches forward between Z312 and Z313. Several years ago, Art Snyder of the Stanford Linear Accelerator demonstrated to me that my measurement was of the smear in Z313 and not of any movement of the head between these two frames. Within the last two years, David Wimp has demonstrated that JFK’s head begins moving forward about Z308 in concert with the forward movement of everyone else in the limousine. At Z314, JFK’s head and body begin moving backward at a high rate of speed while everyone else continues moving forward. Winp suggests that Greer’s foot may have touched the brake pedal when he turned around at Z302ff and that shifted everyone forward. In summary, I am now convinced that there is no evidence of a double impact on JFK’s head at Z312-314 of the Zapruder film. What we see there is a shot impacting from the right front and only a shot impacting from the right front. If he was shot in the head from the rear, that probably came later at Z327/328. The kind of meticulous examination of the Zapruder film carried out by Snyder, Wimp and others shows what additional information responsible science (not assassinated science) can provide in figuring out what happened. That brings me to your suggestion that I should not have reviewed Professor Fetzer’s books as I did and thus discouraged others from reading them. You wrote in another thread, “As far as his going on to Amazon and trashing all of Dr. Fetzer's books, in an attempt to discourage people from even reading them, I do think that's a bit low... Mr. Thompson should apologize for publicly trashing Dr. Fetzer's books, while Dr. Fetzer should apologize for suggesting that Mr. Thompson, who put in a lot of work on the case in the 60's and was considered by many THE most convincing voice in argument for a conspiracy, was a disinformation agent on behalf of the CIA.... “ By his actions over the last decade, Professor Fetzer has shown himself to be a self-aggrandizing blowhard. You will be giving a talk at Lancer this November. I imagine that you will be talking about your reconstruction of what happened in Dealey Plaza. Am I right? For my part, on the same weekend I’ll be giving a talk at the ARRC conference in Washington. I’ll be pointing where we can find bedrock evidence in the Kennedy case. You and I have been invited to talk because, presumably, the sponsors of these conferences are convinced we may have something useful to say. Fetzer, because of his bilious style of attacking the character of those with whom he disagrees, will be appearing nowhere. Why? Because the critical community has gotten his number. As far as I can discern, he has made himself persona non grata. I first tangled with him in 1998 when I expressed disagreement with his alteration claims and was told that I “was not qualified to have an opinion in these matters.” Later, we tangled at a Lancer Conference in that year which ended with the sponsor turning off the juice to Fetzer’s microphone. Since that time, he has proved incapable of answering any of the objections to his increasingly obsessive claims about the inauthenticity of the Zapruder film and has stooped to calling those like me who disagree with him “disinformation agents.” His socalled “assassination science” has turned out to be quackery. His use of private remarks from Vincent Salandria fall in the same category. Vincent Salandria is one of the true heroes of the critical community concerned with the Kennedy assassination. His early articles in “The Minority of One” and “Liberation” still deserve respect as the first attempts to show that the evidence in the case failed to support the conclusions of the Warren Reportt. However, as you point out, his claim that the powers that be left a confused skein of evidence to bother us is just nonsense. It shows, again as you point out, that Salandria (like the rest of us) hasn’t been able to figure it out. Fetzer’s various books have been refuted again and again. His style is that of the tabloid press and his conclusions no more probative than conclusions you or I would find in the “National Enquirer.” Claiming that untutored people are experts and that photos show what they clearly do not show is part and parcel of the Fetzer shtick. My reviews of his books are pungent but true. When I last checked Amazon re the Zapruder “Hoax” book, some nine or ten of the latest reviews from his readers were negative and much more scathing than mine. One of his readers said, “Buy the book only for its entertainment value...” Another wrote, “On some pages it is like reading a weekend car ad... don’t waste money on it.” Another called it “pure nonsense.” Another said, “Fetzer’s theories are nutty and not worthwhile. It [the book] goes in the fiction section of the library together with the WARREN REPORT, CASE CLOSED and CONSPIRACY OF ONE.” Finally, one guy went so far as to say, “The fact that anyone, anyone at all (besides Jim Fetzer’s mother, found this book credible is evidence of the fact there are people out there who will believe ANYTHING. Fetzer in all his books, has yet to add anything of real historical value. Within the conspiracy world Fetzer is a god. [Nope! I don’t think so.] Within the legitimate academic circles of real historians, he is a carnival con man. This will eat at him forever.” Why shouldn’t I warn others of the unreliable nature of these books? Isn’t that exactly what reviews are supposed to do? I pointed out what was wrong with his arguments. If they’re wrong this should be pointed out. If you want to save the Professor from criticism, you should persuade him not to publish such nonsense and then try to defend it so evasively with noxious bile. However, it matters not to him. He has moved on to publishing even sillier claims about the plane crash which killed Senator Wellstone. If that doesn’t keep him in enough of a spotlight, I imagine he will turn his attention to claiming that Bush and his flunky Brown actually dynamited the levees in New Orleans!!! That’s all fine as long as he leaves those of us concerned with the Kennedy assassination immune to his tirades. All Fetzer’s tirades do is make it more difficult for the rest of us to get out the real truth concerning this incompetent national administration. Please let me know if you have additional questions. I have not yet been able to figure out how to read your reconstruction of the event, something I would be very keen to do. Josiah Thompson

Even the most casual reader can discern who is awash in vitriol... Fetzer or me. When Fetzer cannot win an argument on the merits, he attacks the motives and character of those who disagree with him. The bare facts are that after ten years of trying to impugn the authenticity of the Zapruder film and other films taken in Dealey Plaza, Fetzer has failed. Having failed he has to impugn my character by publishing faded speculation by Vince Salandria from 40 years ago. All this is no more believable now than it was 40 years ago. When he cannot handle the scrupulous dismembering of his actual arguments, he claims that I have illegitimate motives in defending the authenticity of the film.... that I based my forty-year-old book on it and therefore defend the film now. My old book was based upon a review of all the evidence then available including much photo evidence from Dealey Plaza which I discovered in the Archives. I defend the authenticity of the Zapruder film not to defend my old book but because the film is authentic and Fetzer's arguments to impugn its authenticity become sillier the longer he keeps at it. It's simply a question of intellectual integrity, a quality one would think a professor of philosophy would value. In discussing the Wellstone crash above in this thread, Fetzer says that while a midshipman he "piloted a jet" aircraft and hence has a knowledge of aviation. The reality is that a real pilot took him up in a jet for an exhibition flight while Fetzer was in college. Fetzer never "piloted a jet" and his claim that he did shows how truly looney-tunes he has become. He fled another site set up to discuss the Wellstone crash and here, as usual, he means to substitute vitriol and an attempt at character assassination for argument. I'm going on vacation. Professor Fetzer can remain stewing in his juices!!

Hello Mr. Carroll, No, I wasn't aware of this. I used the link you were kind enough to provide and looked at the GIF. The location indicated by the arrow is considerably south of the location where the odd shape appears in the Moorman photo. Alas, I'm leaving tomorrow on vacation so I won't have a chance to look into this more exactly. Thanks very much for calling my attention to it.

Hi Len, My daughter, Lis Thompson, was born in July 1964 and graduated from Oberlin after four years there. You must have been there at the same time? Did you know each other? Tink

Thanks so much for the welcome, Tim. Why nothing since "Gumshoe"? Two reasons: (1) I didn't have anything to say. (2) I've been working too hard making a living. I'm off for a couple of weeks hiking in Wyoming. After that's done I look forward to joining in some of the discussions which I've already sampled. They're really excellent. Thanks again.

Since Professor Fetzer has been kind enough to bring to your attention my review of his latest book I will let the reader determine to what the phrase "intellectual rubbish" should apply. My replies to Professor Fetzer are in caps. Intellectual rubbish about AMERICAN ASSASSINATION posted on amazon.com. Compare what he says here with the contents of the book and with information that can be found at the sources cited above or at assassinationscience.com. My comments appear here [between the brackets]. This is a good example of a hatchet job whose misguided author has no respect for logic or for evidence by authoring a review that trades upon the ignorance and gullibility of readers. Josiah Thompson (Bolinas, California USA) American Assassination: The Strange Death Of Senator Paul Wellstone by Four Arrows and Jim Fetzer Edition: Paperback Price: $11.20 Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours 15 used from $9.05 2 of 13 people found the following review helpful: More tabloid nonsense from Fetzer and friend.., August 5, 2005 The two co-authors parade their Ph.D.s in philosophy and education to make you believe they are serious analysts. They aren't. Neither has ever piloted an aircraft and their analysis shows that they know butkus about aviation. [Four Arrows holds both a Ph.D. and an Ed.D. and has authored about a dozen more books that Josiah Thompson, who is making a career of trashing books that I have edited. (See his other reviews on amazon.com.) I piloted a jet as a midshipman while I was in college. [FETZER NEVER "PILOTED A JET" IN HIS LIFE. THIS IS HILARIOUS! DURING NROTC SUMMER CAMP, HE WAS TAKEN UP IN A JET BY A REAL PILOT. FORTY YEARS LATER HE ATTEMPTS TO USE THIS SPUN FACT TO PERSUADE US THAT HE KNOWS SOMETHING ABOUT AVIATION. HE DOESN'T AND HIS BOOK DEMONSTRATES THIS.] There is ample evidence of knowledge of aviation and expert contributions distributed throughout our research. This is an example of the genetic fallacy. Would an author have to have committed murder to write about it? Read the book and you will see the distortion in this passage.] [iF YOU ARE WRITING A BOOK ON THE CHERNOBYL DISASTER IT MIGHT BE USEFUL TO KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT HOW NUCLEAR REACTORS ARE BUILT AND IN PARTICULAR HOW THE CHERNOBYL REACTOR WAS BUILT. NO??] ITEM: Fetzer claims it is a sinister fact that communication with the Wellstone plane was suddenly lost. It wasn't. During its approach, the Wellstone plane made all its expected communications checks. There never was any interruption in communication with the plane. [There was no distress call, even though the plane--whose passengers included a US Senator, his wife and daughter, and three aides--was going down in a remote, swampy area where the rapid arrival of first responders might make the difference between life and death. There were two pilots. He is committing a fallacy of equivocation by playing with words. That the copilot, who had handled most of the communications, did not send a distress call suggests he sent no call because communications were disabled and he was unable to send out a call.] [COMMUNICATION WAS NOT "SUDDENLY INTERRUPTED" BECAUSE NO COMMUNICATION WITH THE AIRCRAFT WAS IN PROGRESS OR EXPECTED. THE FACT THAT NO DISTRESS CALL WAS SENT OUT DOES NOT MEAN THAT COMMUNICATIONS WERE "DISABLED" OR THAT THE PILOTS WERE "UNABLE" TO SEND OUT A CALL. HAVING COME OUT OF THE OVERCAST LOW AND SLOW, THE PILOTS WERE TOO BUSY TRYING TO SAVE THEIR LIVES TO SEND OUT A DISTRESS CALL. IF FETZER KNEW ANYTHING ABOUT STATISTICS REGARDING SMALL PLANE CRASHES, HE WOULD KNOW THAT NO DISTRESS CALLS ARE MADE IN 70% OF THE CASES. BUT HE DOESN'T, SO HE MAKES UP HIS OWN INTERPRETATIONS.] ITEM: Fetzer claims it is a sinister fact that the plane's propellers were found to be not giving much thrust to the aircraft at the time of the crash. He's right about the propellers not providing much thrust but wrong about this fact being in any way sinister. The NTSB studied the propellers and found they were in the "flight idle position" at the time of the crash. This setting would not provide much thrust since the pilots in their approach were reducing their airspeed in advance of landing. It was the proper and normal setting for propellers in an approach. [This is a nice example of "spinning" by trying to turn vice into virtue. Since the plane was in distress, the pilots would be expected to "power up" and get out of trouble, which is exactly what happened during the NTSB's own simulations. They were unable to bring the plane down, even when it was flown abnormally slowly. They were not landing. The field was miles to the north from where they were. This remark displays either massive ignorance or deliberate deception.] [THE PLANE WAS IN ITS APPROACH PATTERN TO LAND AT EVELETH. IT WAS LANDING! FETZER CAN SAY ANYTHING HE WANTS BUT FACTS ARE FACTS.] ITEM: Fetzer claims that FBI agents from Minneapolis got to the crash site too early and hence must have had foreknowledge of the impending accident. The agents weren't from Minneapolis. They were field agents from the area ordered into the crash site by radio when it happened. [Rick Wahlberg, the Sheriff of St. Louis County, reported that he had arrived at the airport at 1:30 PM and saw agents he knew personally from the St. Paul FBI "rapid response team". Gary Ulman, the airport assistant manager, confirmed to me that they had been there at least since 1 PM. Paul McCable, the spokesman for the FBI, said they had not arrived before 3:30 PM, contradicting both Wahlberg and Ulman. These agents were not in the area at the time, as Christopher Bollyn of amercianfreepress.com confirmed at the time. Thompson is making all this up.][FETZER IS NOT MAKING THIS UP. HE IS SIMPLY PUTTING TOGETHER CONFUSING EYE WITNESS TESTIMONY WITH MISTAKEN REPORTS FROM THE ALTERNATIVE MEDIA. THE TRUTH IS THAT TWO FIELD AGENTS FROM THE EVELETH-BEMIDJI REGION WERE CONTACTED BY RADIO AND DIRECTED TO THE CRASH SITE. THEY ARRIVED FIRST. ONLY MUCH LATER DID AGENTS FROM MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL GET THERE. FACTS ARE JUST FACTS AND FETZER CANNOT CHANGE THEM.] ITEM: Fetzer claims that a secret electromagnetic pulse weapon downed the plane. He claims to know this because a cell phone in the area malfunctioned at about the time of the crash! First, no such weapon is known to exist. Second, the guy whose cell phone malfunctioned was named John Ongaro. Back in June 2003, Kevin Diaz, a reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, found Ongaro and talked to him. Diaz wrote on 6/3/03: "Ongaro, who was near the airport when Wellstone's plane went down, has dismissed the significance of his experience, in which he said his cell phone made 'strange sounds and then disconnected. It's not unusual for cell phones, especially in northern Minnesota,' he said." [There are lots of reports about RF, EM, and HERF weaponry, so Thomson has to be "pulling our leg". Truly disgusting. Just go onto google and you can find lots of information about them. [bY THE SAME TOKEN, YOU CAN FIND MUCH THE SAME SORT OF THING BY ENTERING GOOGLE WITH "LOCH NESS MONSTER." FETZER CANNOT CITE EVEN ONE ARTICLE ANYWHERE WHICH DEMONSTRATES THE ACTUAL EXISTENCE OF THE KIND OF WEAPON HE'S TALKING ABOUT.] An expert on EM, who holds a Ph.D. in physics with a specialty in electromagnetism, contributed a section about them to the book. [THIS IS FETZER PAL AND AUSTRALIAN HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, JOHN COSTELLA. TWO YEARS AGO, COSTELLA MISTOOK THE RAIN SENSORS WHICH CONTROL THE SPRINKLERS IN DEALEY PLAZA FOR "LISTENING DEVICES" PLACED THERE BY INTELLIGENCE SERVICES. ENOUGH SAID?!] Apparently Thompson thinks he possesses more knowledge than experts in the field. They can take out all computerized components, including stall warning systems, the course deviation indicator and communications, as well as disabling electrical components, such as the electrical switches that control the pitch of the props. The fire burned bluish-white rather than sooty-black, which indicates that it was electrical in origin. The fire department could not put it out, but the NTSB says nothing to explain it. The use of a weapon of this kind would explain the loss of communications and the loss of control, the smoke and the fire, and a number of other oddities about the crash, including the odd cell phone anomaly that John Ongaro experienced en route to the funeral that was bringing Wellstone into the area. While Ongaro did later seek to minimize the significance of his experience, he was quite alarmed about it at the time and strongly believed it could be connected to the crash. We all know witnesses can be pressured into changing their mind. Read the book for the emails he sent to me at the time, here his words contradict Thompson's account. This guy is counting on a naive audience to simply accept his review and not compare it to the book's contents.] [sO ONGARO IS PRESSURED INTO CHANGING HIS STORY? THE MALFUNCTION OF A CELL PHONE PROVES NOTHING ANYWAY. ALL THE REST OF THESE CLAIMS HAVE BEEN DISPROVEN BUT FETZER, LIKE THE ENERGIZER BUNNY, KEEPS MAKING THEM.] The list of factual mistakes could be virtually infinitely expanded. These two show about as much care in their research as a pair of reporters for the National Enquirer writing about three-headed twins! They take advantage of the fact that no one is going to take the trouble to look at the carefully researched and documented NTSB report on the crash. That report shows in exquisite detail that the crash was caused by the airplane getting ahead of two flaky pilots. As another reviewer of this book has mentioned, the radar track of the plane shows that it dropped out of the overcast low and slow and slightly off course. In trying to remedy these problems, the air crew got behind on what was happening and the plane stalled out at too low an altitude to recover. No sinister elements in all of this. Just ineptitude. [The plane was exceptional, the weather was fine, and the pilots were well- qualified. Richard Conry, the primary pilot, had 5,200 hours of experience and an Air Transport Pilot's rating, the highest commercial rating. PLUS he had passed his FAA flight check just two days before the fatal flight. By the government's own standards, he was highly qualified to fly this plane. Even the NTSB's own simulation evidence contradicted its own findings. A member of the NTSB team, Richard Healing, who signed the report, admitted that they had no idea what had happened and were merely "speculating". The NTSB is not permitted to investigate a crash scene as a "crime scene" unless the US Attorney General declares it to be the scene of a crime. That was not done in this case. Anyone who wants to know the skinny about Wellstone has to go beyond hatchet-job reviews by hack writers to the serious and informed studies of the case, including the book but also more recent work that may be found at http://www.assassinationscience.com and links given above.] [JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING IN THIS PARAGRAPH HAS ALREADY BEEN PROVEN FALSE IN EXTENDED DEBATE WITH FETZER ON A YAHOO BOARD CALLED "FETZERclaimsDEBUNK" WHOSE URL IS: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FETZERclaimsDEBUNK/messages>. MY FINAL COMMENT: "THE LIST OF FACTUAL MISTAKES COULD BE VIRTUALLY INFINITELY EXPANDED. THESE TWO SHOW ABOUT AS MUCH CARE IN THEIR RESEARCH AS A PAIR OF REPORTERS FOR THE NATIONAL ENQUIRER WRITING ABOUT THREE-HEADED TWINS! THEY TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE FACT THAT NO ONE IS GOINT TO TAKE THE TROUBLE TO LOOK AT THE CAREFULLY RESEARCHED AND DOCUMENTED NTSB REPORT ON THE CRASH"

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I graduated from Yale in 1957, served in Underwater Demolition Team 21 and then returned to Yale for graduate work in philosophy. I got my MA in 1962 and Ph.D. in 1964 and then was hired by the Philosophy Department. I moved on to Haverford College where I went from Assistant Professor of Philosophy to Associate Professor to Professor of Philosophy during the years 1965 through 1976. During this period, I wrote two books on the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard ["The Lonely Labyrinth" (1967: Southern Illinois University Press) and "Kierkegaard" (1973: Alfred Knopf)] and one on the Kennedy assassination ["Six Seconds in Dallas" (1967: Bernard Geis Associates/Random House)]. In 1978, I quit my job at Haverford as Professor of Philosophy and became a licensed private investigator in San Francisco. This change was described in a final book, "Gumshoe" (1988: Little, Brown & Co.).