Josiah Thompson

Two down.... With all due respect, Professor Fetzer, do you really want to argue here in front of all these people that Mary Moorman took her famous photo from the street and not from the position she is shown to be in in the Zapruder film? Are you willing to argue this? Or are you just blow-harding around as usual? If you are serious in wanting to argue this point, all you have to do is give your reasons. Why do you think Mary Moorman was standing in the street and not on the grass when she took her famous photo? If you are not serious about this, then spare us the irrelevant correspondence with David Mantik, M.D., Ph.D. which proves exactly nothing.

I think any answer to this sort of question has to be speculative and my speculations are no better than yours. I was working fairly closely with Steve Rivele for several years on what became the Marseille mafia story. He could not confirm the location of the alleged shooters on November 22nd and the whole theory crashed and burned with the French government's announcement that one was in jail and the other on a French warship on November 22nd. So I guess we can believe whatever we want to believe. It's all speculative.

Thanks for this extremely acute post. The point just cannot be made with greater precision and power. I was watching the Magic Bullet show with interest. I enjoyed what seemed sincere attempts replicate the magic bullet's seven wounds through comparable tissue and emergence in a "pristine" state. Nevermind that the target was stationary. The graphic re-creations, the same ones used in Peter Jennings's special, were/are still maddenly disingenuous. With a nod to subjectivity I will strongly assert that Kennedy and Connally were not first hit by the same bullet. Even if the magic bullet did everything the program strived to prove, there was still the throat wound or some other impact on Kennedy to which Jackie can be seen reacting prior to JFK emerging from behind the Stemmons sign on the Zapruder film and Connally being hit. Now back to the topic of this thread. I have been accused of many things on JFK forums, particularly including being a disinfo agent. I have been privately questioned about why I am supportive of Tim Gratz's expression of his Castro-done-it position. I have been informed that Josiah Thompson is a disinfo agent, that Mary Ferrell was actually CIA, and I have read High Treason II, in which Livingston goes on at length pathetically accusing his own co-author, Bob Groden, of the previous High Treason book to be deliberately promoting misunderstanding of the assassination. It's like a dysfunctional family having a bad turkey dinner on a drunken Thanksgiving. As of this moment, there is not a single forum participant I have ever seen on any site whom I consider to be a professional intelligence agent governmentally paid to interfere with forum discussion. Ironically, disinformation may be one of the last potentially fruitful areas of investigation. As with Watergate, it's the cover-up that provides evidence to perpetrators. The provision of false autopsy photos, if proven and traced, is an example of such deliberate misinformation. The false reports out of Mexico City from an associate of David Phillips are significant evidence that it was not a Castro plot, but rather that it was an anti-Castro plot intended to look pro-Castro. The behavior of Joannides during the HSCA period, including the unusual fact that his background should have precluded that job in the first place, is indicative (a current issue unifying such diverse people as Blakey and Posner) of deliberate cover-up. Disinfo is an important area of investigation, but when applied as a forum name-calling tactic, comes off like the small-minded red-baiting of the McCarthy era. Tim

I am aware of Frazier's testimony in which he states that the bullet has his "mark". Other than that, little has been presented as regards chain of custody markings by others who reportedly may have had possession of this bullet. Among those marking which would appear to be missing would be that of FBI Agent Gallagher who also supposedly had access to this bullet for the original NAA work. Gallagher personally informed me some years ago that the copper jacket base portion of CE399 was no different than any other WCC 6.5mm Carcano bullet when he examined it. From this, I would have to deduce that Gallagher had full access to the bullet. Perhaps the bullet was in the custody of Frazier who also went to Oak Ridge during the NAA work??? Tom I agree heartily. Surely, Elmer Todd is an important transfer agent here. He got the bullet from Rowley (head of the secret service) and took it to the FBI Lab where, supposedly, both he and Robert Frazier marked it. Then in June 1964, Todd took the bullet back to Rowley who told him he could not identify it.

Thanks for your question, Mr. Purvis. I haven't examined or held CE 399 in my hands since 1966. At that time, I wasn't looking for initials. Hence, from my own examination I can't tell you anything. From testimony, we would expect that Elmer Lee Todd's and Robert Frazier's initials should be on the bullet. If memory serves, Frazier even identified his mark on the bullet during testimony before the Warren Commission. David Mantik was kind enough to send me a photocopy of the notes he took while examinint CE 399 at the Archives in 1995. He found the letter "Q" but could not discern whether it read "Q1." He also found the initials "RF" (for Robert Frazier) and "CK" (for Chuck Killion). Mantik associates a third odd mark with Elmer Lee Todd. This mark is composed of an upright capital "J" joined to a vertica slash on its left by a horizontal mark midway up the "J." I have no idea why Mantik believes this is the mark of Elmer Lee Todd. However, he may be familiar with Todd's mark from other contexts. I know of no photo or photos of sufficiently high resolution of CE 399 to resolve the question of the marks. Do you? If none exist, someone might be able to resolve this by going to the Archives.

My replies are in bold-face. What did you make of Dick Billings? As you probably know, he appears several times in this story. When I worked with Billings in 1966 and 1967, he has chief of investigative reporting for LIFE. He struck me as a very smart and aggressive journalist... a real pro. He took part in Operation Tilt in June 1963 with William Pawley, John Martino, Eddie Bayo, David Morales, Rip Robertson and Terry Spencer. In November, 1963, Billings was a member of the Life Magazine team in Dallas that purchased the Zapruder Film. I rather doubt this. It thought the team that purchased the Zapruder film was Dick Stolley, Tommy Thompson and Patsy Swank. I didn't know that Billings was in Dallas on the 22nd. In November 1966 Billings and Life offered to help Jim Garrison with his investigation. According to Garrison "The magazine would be able to provide me with technical assistance, and we could develop a mutual exchange of information". Actually, I told Billings about the Garrison investigation. I had heard of it on the grapevine and passed along the information not in November but in December 1966 or January 1967. Garrison agreed to this deal and Billings was introduced to staff member, Tom Bethal. In his diary Bethal reported: "In general, I feel that Billings and I share a similar position about the Warren Report. He does not believe that there was a conspiracy on the part of the government, the Warren Commission or the FBI to conceal the truth, but that a probability exists that they simply did not uncover the whole truth." Given what I know of Billings' views, this does not surprise me. Billings managed to persuade Bethal that Clay Shaw was innocent. Later it was revealed by W. Penn Jones that "Bethal made the entire trial plan, a complete list of State's witnesses and their expected testimony and other materials available to the Shaw defense team." In September, 1967, Billings told Jim Garrison that Life Magazine was no longer willing to work with him in the investigation. Billings claimed that this was because he had come to the conclusion that he had links to organized crime. Soon afterwards, Life began a smear campaign against Garrison. It was reported that Garrison had been given money by an unnamed "New Orleans mobster". The House Select Committee on Assassinations was established in September 1976. Billings was recruited by G. Robert Blakey, chief counsel, as editorial director. Later Billings and Blakey were the co-authors of The Plot to Kill the President (1981). In the book Billings and Blakey argue that there was a conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy. Billings claims that Lee Harvey Oswald was involved but believes that there was at least one gunman firing from the Grassy Knoll. Billings comes to the conclusion that the Mafia boss, Carlos Marcello, organized the assassination. It seems to me that Billings was working for the CIA during these events. That's all very nice. But where does this sort of discussion go? I say, 'No, it doesn't seem to me he was working for the CIA during these events.' You say the opposite. Do we then continue to gossip back and forth? I just don't think these sort of discussions are productive. Do you think that was the case with your investigation. No. Did he seem very interested in blaming the assassination on Oswald and the Mafia? No. Circa 1966/67 the Mafia never came up in our discussions. He was certainly not an exponent of Oswald the lone nut. Most of our talks were quite specific in terms of how to interpret particular pieces of evidence and how to take our investigation further. Why did Life try to get you from publishing Six Seconds in Dallas? Did it have anything to do with Billings? LIFE was very unhappy about our use of the Zapruder film. They believed we were infringing their copyright on the film. That's why they sued us all. That unhappiness had nothing to do with the assassination in general or with Billings in particular.

Interesting questions. Thank you. My replies are in bold-face. No. LIFE tried to stop it and, for several hours, persuaded Random House not to distribute it. Dick Salant of CBS News contacted the President of Haverford, John Coleman, in an attempt to soften what I said about CBS News. We have documents obtained from the FBI under FOIA which showed how closely Hoover was tracking the reception of the book but I have no direct evidence that the FBI carried out any efforts to discourage the reception of the book. Prior to the assassination, the CIA tried to hire me in Europe because of my knowledge of beach reconnaissance. But this had to do with my earlier training and service in Underwater Demolition Team 21. If the CIA was working to trash the book, I probably would never have learned of it anyway.

"Mr Fetzer, I challenge you to put your hypothesis to any recognised organisation of professional pilots and publish their unedited reply here." This keeps happening again and again to the Professor. Two years ago on the "debunk Fetzer" board a retired Air Force Colonel named Bill Rees somehow found his way to it. Rather quickly he cleaned Fetzer's clock. I remember with a smile only one part of it. Fetzer had been maintaining that the Wellstone plane had been in communication with "the Eveleth tower." Rees pointed out that Eveleth had no tower! This slowed down the Great Wind for only a short time. Now you show up here and do pretty much the same thing. Since all evidence indicates the Wellstone plane was on a normal VOR approach, Fetzer's dim claims about GPS fiddling become immediately irrelevant. Since "flight idle" is a normal setting in an approach, the Professor's arm waving about "lack of thrust" is also exposed. Apparently, the best Fetzer can do in the way of aviation knowledge is to cite the hop he took in a military aircraft during college with a real pilot at the controls. I'm surprised he didn't cite the time when he was eleven and the Eastern Airlines pilot gave him a pair of tin wings for flying Eastern from LA to New York! Neither Fetzer, nor Four Arrows nor the high school teacher from Australia know anything about aviation, so they continue to make the errors you point out. Fetzer then waves a wand and makes them "experts." It's sort of like that tabloid sheet, the Globe, which waves a wand and makes some dufus with a degree in divinity an expert in molecular biology. All of us who have watched the Professor's conceptual acrobatics in the past cannot help but enjoy what happens when knowledgeable people like yourself arrive to debate him. Thanks for coming.

Thanks Pat. I've enjoyed our exchange. It takes me back to things I haven't thought about for years. Unfortunately, I've got to go out-of-town on a case later this morning.... back the middle of next week.

I don't know if you remember but the Media FBI office was broken into on the evening of March 21, 1971 and all their files stolen by persons unknown. These files were then copied and released selectively to the press over the next six or eight months. The documents obtained and then released to the press contained the first clear, indisputable evidence of the existence of the COINTELPRO program. They also showed that many members of the Swarthmore College administration were reporting regularly to the FBI on the political activities of students and faculty. Ditto for the athletic trainer at Haverford College. I believe some of these documents evidenced a continuing interest in me and "Six Seconds" by the FBI and Hoover. I have been sent various FBI documents obtained under Freedom of Information Act requests which evidence an intense interest on the part of Hoover and the FBI concerning me and "Six Seconds." These largely come from the late 1960s and show the FBI closely following the reception the book received and how it fared under the onslaught from Time Incorporated. Back then did I believe that any other critics were agents? No. Some I judged to be thoughtful and careful. Others I judged to be harebrained. But I never thought any were agents. Maybe some were. I never thought much about it. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Good answer. Your 1 million is in the mail. Keep your fingers-crossed that that pesky ghost of Angleton doesn't get it. Seriously. Do you have any inside knowledge of the Media break-in? Here the FBI was totally exposed, totally humiliated, and yet not one person was arrested. This is astounding. Since the White House was trying to get rid of Hoover at this very same moment in time, and since Colson was hiring Hunt at this very same time, I'd harbored a suspicion that this was an early adventure of the "plumbers". A few months back, however, I can't remember where, I was reading a book on sixties radicals, and one of the journalists interviewed, who'd been one of the recipients of the stolen files, claimed he knew the members of the "Committee to Investigate the FBI" or whatever they called themselves, and said they were local radicals? Do you know whether they were, in fact, members of the left? Did you know them? I think the statute of limitations is up. Were you one of them? Maybe if you "out" yourself, Salandria can be swayed on your bona fides. On the other hand, everyone knows the spooks hate the feebies... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Federal prosecutors are very adept at finding ways around any statute of limitations... for example, a continuing conspiracy to aid and abet the first conspiracy, various overt acts on behalf of keeping the first conspiracy secret. In terms of answering your questions, the best I can do is quote from a book I published in 1988 called Gumshoe. It is non-fiction, a kind of memoir describing the change from being a college professor to being a PI: At the outset everything had gone on in an atmosphere of earnest respectability. Nancy and I had come early to the antiwar movement, organizing marches and vigils in 1965 and 1966. I'd been arrested in the usual well-mannered ways in Philadelphia and Washington. Consistently polite to the authorities, we'd even permitted members of the Philadelphia police civil-disobedience squad to attend our premarch meetings. There'd been little violence; it had all been a battle of words. When had things changed? It was probably in 1970. We'd spent that academic year in Denmark, where I'd read the Danish papers for news of Cambodia and Kent State. We'd returned to Haverford in the late summer and you didn't have to be an Eric Sevareid to recognize that the balance had shifted. Resistance had replaced dissent; criminal conspiracy had taken the place of political organizing. On the one hand, there were draft-board raids and sabotage missions: in March 1971 the files of the Media FBI office were elegantly stolen and selectively released to the press. On the other hand, there was the ever-present danger of government phone taps and penetration by informers. For a brief moment, respectably middle-class citizens could function as criminals, backed not only by moral purpose but by the vocal enthusiasm of the intellectual community. The wheeling columns of uniform-clad young men performing their maneuvers "for God, for Country and for Yale" had receded into the past. The society was no longer integral or obviously worthwhile. Our attention turned to the "good Germans," the Circle of the Rose, or, alternatively, to Camus and Sartre and their compatriots in the French resistance. My Navy training in commando and demolition raids could be used to advantage. It was a time of secret meetings and secret plans, of coded phone messages and watching one's rear-view mirror. When Haverford's president announced he might honor the FBI's request to examine the college's Xerox machines, I helped shift the offending roll to the president's personal machine. When Hoover's short-haired undercover operatives appeared in Powelton Village, a neighborhood warning system of hand-held sirens alerted the troops. It was David against Goliath. We were the best of our generation, we told ourselves, ready to take risks and do things others only thought about. Had I been happy? Yes. It was an engrossing "story." Gumshoe: Reflections in a Private Eye (New York: Little, Brown & Company, 1988) pages 72-73. The line above about us thinking "we were the best of our generation" just caught my eye as I typed it. What incredible hubris! None of us had ever seen the inside of a federal prison. In some sense, we may have believed we were untouchable. After all, we were intellectuals of various stripes. The government wouldn't dare touch us.... Or would it? It was.... to use Sartre's own concept... a time of incredible "bad faith," a time of massive self-delusion, of wading deep into the stream of ideology. And now... unbelievably... one pops one's head up and recognizes it was all over thirty years ago.

So, Josiah, the 1 million dollar question... Since you were there darned near the beginning, asking questions that really unnerved the people in power (I've read where Dr. Russell Fisher of the Clark Panel admitted the Panel was formed to refute your book), at a time when questioning those in power about the assassination may actually have been dangerous, did YOU ever suspect someone in the research community of being an agent of some kind? Was there anyone digging through your trash? Trying to encourage you to tone down your theories? Spreading lies about you to discredit you in the community? Did the FBI have a COINTEL-PRO for the research community? Did anyone besides Salandria start thinking other researchers were spooks? How widespread was paranoia at a time when it may have actually been justified? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I don't know if you remember but the Media FBI office was broken into on the evening of March 21, 1971 and all their files stolen by persons unknown. These files were then copied and released selectively to the press over the next six or eight months. The documents obtained and then released to the press contained the first clear, indisputable evidence of the existence of the COINTELPRO program. They also showed that many members of the Swarthmore College administration were reporting regularly to the FBI on the political activities of students and faculty. Ditto for the athletic trainer at Haverford College. I believe some of these documents evidenced a continuing interest in me and "Six Seconds" by the FBI and Hoover. I have been sent various FBI documents obtained under Freedom of Information Act requests which evidence an intense interest on the part of Hoover and the FBI concerning me and "Six Seconds." These largely come from the late 1960s and show the FBI closely following the reception the book received and how it fared under the onslaught from Time Incorporated. Back then did I believe that any other critics were agents? No. Some I judged to be thoughtful and careful. Others I judged to be harebrained. But I never thought any were agents. Maybe some were. I never thought much about it.

Here's the most I can remember about this, Pat. In the summer of 1966, Salandria may have been working on a book himself. I'm not sure. John Kelin sent me a copy of my own letter to Salandria dated July 9, 1966. In that letter, I ask him in a handwritten PS: "Do you have a publisher for your book on the assassination? I know a senior editor at Lippincott who might be of some assistance." It's important that I refer to "your book" not "our book." In spite of what Salandria says, there never was any "our book. Vince and I were not working on a book. We were simply working together on a joint article to publish in some national circulation journal like the Atlantic, Harper's or the New Yorker. I liked to write but Salandria didn't. It was summertime and I wasn't teaching. There never was any question of our doing a book together as I'd have to return to teaching in the fall. The only project between us was this article. Over some time that summer, we had more and more instances of disagreement. What a surprise! Finally, it was just simpler for me to proceed on my own and I did. As to what control Salandria would have had over the article. I presume he would control it as he had already written on the assassination, was a lawyer for the Philadelphia School Board, significantly older than I was and someone of consequence in Philadelphia. I was nobody. A young guy with a wife and kid trying to make it as a college professor. I was never offering Salandria "mass exposure for his ideas." I was going to be simply a gofur who could write and was smart enough to analyze the material in front of him. When our ideas no longer matched up in terms of the interpretation of evidence I moved to finish up what I had already written. If recollection serves, he never wrote anything with regard to our joint article. However, clearly the way the article interpreted the case grew out of our work together. By the way, I never did find out why he was claiming I was a CIA agent. I still don't have a clue. I suspect it still has to do with differences in the way we interpret evidence in the case. Over the years, I never have criticized Vince Salandria. I think many of his ideas are indeed pretty loopy. But I've never attacked back because of his paranoid claims. Even though we're both in our seventies now, I still see him as one of the true heroes of the critical examination of the Warren Report. He may be wrong but he's not venal or self-aggrandizing like Fetzer. Most importantly, his early research was really good!

Professor Fetzer has been waving the Salandria correspondence around the internet for some time now. The use of such smear material is characteristic of Fetzer. I am delighted to be able to reply to it finally. Disagreements over evidence have been endemic in the community of Kennedy assassination researchers since the beginning. Now and then it spills over into charges that “X is an agent of the CIA” or that “Y is a disinformation agent.” Fetzer published a whole template of disinformation with a place for each person on his enemies list. Sadly, Vince Salandria started along a similar course in the winter of 1967-68. From the correspondence used by Fetzer as part of his smear, it would appear that Salandria is still at it in his seventies. What Fetzer does not tell you is that Salandria’s correspondence shows that he thinks Paul Hoch, John Newman, Bill Turner, the Nation magazine and the Philadelphia branch of ACLU all may have been functioning as intelligence agency assets at one or another time. I guess I should be proud to be linked with that group. Let me tell you exactly what happened. Back in February or March 1966, I was teaching at Haverford College as an Assistant Professor of Philosophy. Years before I’d commanded the UDT-21 detachment that did the combat reconnaissances of Blue and Yellow Beaches north of Beirut during the U.S landings there in July 1958. This experience turned me around politically and by 1965 I had become part of a vociferous Vietnam anti-war movement first in New Haven and then in Philadelphia. The sheriff of Media, Pennsylvania over near Swarthmore had announced publicly, “If any of them damn peaceniks come into my district, I’m gonna bust them.” A young physics professor named Bill Davidon and I heard of this, gathered up some innocuous leaflets from the American Friends Service Committee, and went over to Media on a Saturday morning. The cops watched us for awhile and then arrested us for “littering.” This was illegal because we had never let a leaflet hit the ground. But no matter. We were hauled off in squad cars to the Delaware County jail. Bill and I were held there for a few hours while the jailers made unpleasant remarks: “We better delouse those cells after we get those peacenik fags out of there.” Bill and I had no real idea how we were going to get out. I guess we figured that either his wife, Ann, or my wife, Nancy, would show up in awhile with some cash to bail us out. We were surprised when a lawyer in a necktie showed up to get us out. He was from the local branch of the ACLU and his name was Vince Salandria. At that time, I was pretty naive concerning law enforcement procedures but I knew enough to know that the lawyer had pulled off a primo job of bluffing. After we were brought out into the squad room, Salandria started talking to us in the presence of the cops gathered around. In substance, he said: “The ACLU has been in touch with Attorney General Katzenbach. Now when the FBI agents arrive in a few minutes (looking at his watch)... I want you to tell them that not only have your civil rights been violated but that you are suing for false arrest Captain so-and-so, Lieutenant so-and-so, Sergeant so-and-so and Patrolman so-and-so.” We were out of there in less than five minutes with no charges lodged. Either that day or days later I asked Salandria about it and he admitted that no one had ever called Attorney General Katzenbach. Salandria’s memory fails him on this. There was no “group of peace people” to be gotten out of jail... just Bill Davidon and me. Davidon and I had no idea that the ACLU would attempt to get us out of jail although we were delighted that they had... and had managed it with no charges filed. Neither of us knew that Vince Salandria had anything to do with the ACLU. I had read Salandria’s articles in Liberation magazine and The Minority of One in 1965. They were excellent. I told him that I liked them and we talked further about the assassination. This led to us traveling together to Washington in the summer of 1966 to do research at the National Archives. Together, we began work on a long joint article on the case. Salandria says we were working on a book. This is just untrue. It was to be a long article that might run in a national magazine. That was the plan. At a certain point in July or August, I think, we began to disagree over the interpretation of evidence. Salandria says it had to do with the nature of the throat wound. It may have been. I just don’t remember. I continued on my own and in September went up to New York to meet with Willie Morris at Harper’s. When he couldn’t see me for five or six hours, I decided to kill the time by visiting with a friend of a friend at Bernard Geis Associates. That’s how Six Seconds came to be. In the winter of 1966-67, I heard rumors that Vince Salandria and Ray Marcus were claiming I was a CIA agent. I didn’t pay much attention to them but ultimately they got to Sylvia Meagher and M.S. Arnoni, the publisher of Salandria’s articles in The Minority of One. John Kelin was kind enough to make available to me correspondence from this time. On December 18 and 20, 1967, Arnoni sent a letter to both Salandria and Marcus which contains the following excerpts: I am, of course, referring to the idea, conveyed to me by Vince in your and his own name, of Thompson being a CIA agent. I have listened to Vince carefully, and, for the first time ever, taken precise notes of our conversation to be able to refer back to them upon rethinking the matter. In my considered judgment, the whole structure of the “evidence” involved is classically psychological, bespeaking Thompson’s pursuits in no way whatsoever, but rather reflecting the frame of mind of whomever begot the suspicion and proceeded to add “convincing” details and deductions. I wish to urge you to make a special effort to see through the fallacy involved. I urge you to do this out of respect for both your intellect and integrity. Because I have such respect, it hurts me to consider that the quality of your thinking may deteriorate more than passingly. I shall not go into Vince’s deductions, all of which – to my mind – have absolutely nothing to do with objective and external evidence, but are such reflections of his own psychology as are related to its past manifestations – true to his personality, but untrue to subject matter. But it would be sad if his catalytic psychological needs were allowed to feed such bitterness in you as may have accumulated against Thompson. However injured you may consider yourself to be, and whatever the degree of justification in your feeling so, not one thread is thereby spun between Thompson and the CIA. For her part, Sylvia Meagher wrote on January 11, 1968: But I cannot take seriously the suggestion that Tink is a CIA plant... Whatever their shortcomings and errors, both Epstein and Thompson have made a solid, significant, and probably historic impact against the fraudulent Warren Report. It is my belief that the imperfections in each case subside into relative insignificance, in comparison with the positive achievement. Yet both have been the subject of bitter, dogmatic, and even vicious attack other critics. By the spring of 1968, I had dropped out of contact with Vince Salandria. I never bothered to renew that contact because I thought his claims were both hurtful and indefensible. I saw him once at the COPA conference in Dallas in 1998 and argued against the positions taken by him and Marty Schotz. I do have to agree with one thing in the Salandria correspondence. Salandria said he met me at a party and took me to task for a comment in Six Seconds. At the close of a final chapter entitled “Answered and Unanswered Questions,” the last section is entitled, “Did Lee Harvey Oswald shoot the President?” and runs for fifteen pages introducing new reports and photos appearing to show two people near the Sixth Floor sniper’s next. The section ends with a question, “What does this collection of new evidence prove? It does not prove that the assassination was a conspiracy and that two men were together on the sixth floor of the Depository at the time the shots were fired. Nor does it prove Oswald’s innocence..” Salandria says that my reply when confronted with this comment was, “An error in exposition, Vince. An error in exposition.” I don’t remember his question or my reply right now but it all sounds right. What I should have said, however, was: “You’re right, Vince. That comment was really stupid. I spend a whole book proving that the murder was a conspiracy with shots from many directions and then say, at the end of a section, ‘It doesn’t prove a conspiracy.’ It beats me how it got through the editorial process but it obviously did. I wish it hadn’t.” Since Fetzer has been flashing Salandria’s “charges” around the internet for months, I have said nothing. I’ve now taken the time to reply in detail. If anyone has any questions about this ancient history, I’ll be glad to answer them. Except for Fetzer’s bile, this whole sad history could have been left to molder away in the past of forty years ago.

Professor Fetzer's advertisement for himself continues. The only fly in the ointment is that I'm not selling anything. Six Seconds in Dallas has been out-of-print for thirty-five years or so. I just think Professor Fetzer does really bad work and have said so... again and again. Let's take a look at a couple of things he says in his latest love note. Fetzer says: "Anyone who read the review by the writer for the Milwaukee paper would notice that he does not even explain the book's principal findings--about the alteration of the autopsy X-rays and the substitution of a brain--but instead trivializes the book's contents in ways that Thompson has endlessly repeated. But, as anyone who has actually read the book (or at least its Preface and Prologue) is aware, I spell out--actually emphasize!--those key findings from the start, which means that he can only have missed them on purpose! There is no other explanation. And I am sure Pat can confirm what I am saying here." When a reporter reviewed Fetzer's book in the Milwaukee paper, he dumped on it and said Fetzer's family would be about the only readers interested in it. Fetzer immediately charged that the reporter was doing a "hit piece" presumably for some shadowy intelligence agency. His explanation now. The reporter "on purpose" must have neglected to read the "key findings" in the book. This is obviously sinister. Well, wait a minute. How about the more likely chance that the reporter read the book, and, like many others, thought the whole thing was stupid? I pointed out that my own review of his latest book on Amazon.com was not nearly as harsh as what some other readers said. Fetzer replies: "I have no doubt that Josiah recruits his friends and buddies to put up trash posts on amazon.com. They are so similar I even suspect that they were all written by the same person: Tink himself! So for him to cite them is simply more of the same." Why would anyone bother? Do I have to deny this latest paranoid fantasy of Fetzer's? Okay, I will. I don't have a clue who any of these folks are who panned his latest book but I admire their discernment. Just for added good measure, I had nothing to do with the three latest books on the Zapruder film which also refer to Fetzer's work pretty much as a joke. The authors are Richard Trask. David R. Wrone and Harrison Livingstone. References to the pages where they dump on Fetzer can be provided on request. Now a very personal word to Professor Fetzer: Why can't you get used to the fact that the trouble with your work is the work itself and not some evil genius like me conspiring behind the scenes against you? If you'd do a better job, critical people could applaud your work instead of knocking it. I imagine you won't do that. I imagine you'll continue trying to salve your wounded ego with the same old, tired complaints to the ultimate boredom of everyone concerned. It is more than a little revealing that you choose to fling insults here instead to dealing with some very acute criticisms of your Wellstone book on the Education Forum's site for your book. Over there, several people (including an Australian Navy guy with aviation experience) is handing you your hat! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> <{POST_SNAPBACK}> <{POST_SNAPBACK}> <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You are right, Mr. Dunne, Berney Geis was a "maverick" and didn't give a damn what other people thought of him. The book was never "shopped around" because I never had in mind writing a book. I started out writing a long article on the case with Vince Salandria. When we disagreed about a particular point of evidence, I went ahead and worked on my own. I was trying to meet with Willie Morris of Harper's when I met Geis. The full story is as follows... again from Richard Trask's new book: July 1966 I visited the National Archives often with Philadelphia lawyer and early critic of the Warren Commission, Vincent Salandria. We viewed the Warren Commission copy of the Zapruder film. We also set up two slide projectors and confirmed there is a small forward movement of JFK’s head between Z312 and Z313. (This turned out to be a illusion caused by the smearing of Z313. There is in reality no measurable forward movement.) September 1966 I got the book contract for “Six Seconds in Dallas” completely by accident. I had written (first with Vince Salandria and then alone) a long article on the Kennedy assassination. A mutual friend got me an appointment with Willie Morris, the editor of Harper’s magazine. I went up to New York but Morris could not see me for five or six hours. This left me with that amount of time to kill. I killed it by dropping by to see a friend of a friend, Don Preston, the Executive Editor of Bernard Geis Associates. Don and I chatted for forty minutes about what I had written in the article and he introduced me to Berney Geis. The three of us had lunch together, and, at the end of the lunch, Berney said to Don, “Write up a contract for Thompson. He’s going to write a book for us.” I was flabbergasted because I had no intention of writing a book; I was working full-time at Haverford College. But they agreed to pay expenses to send me to Dallas and give me a $500 advance. At that time I had no idea what assassination-related were available. Many were dug up during the subsequent LIFE investigation or obtained from the National Archives. The idea to use photos of evidence and of the scene to make arguments came almost a year later during the run-up to book production. National Nightmare on Six Feet of Film (Danvers, Mass.: Yeoman Press, 2005), pages 363-364. <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sure, there are minor mistakes. I think I got the Z frame number of Willis 5 wrong. The research Gary Aguilar has done on the medical evidence adds a lot of material to that area. I could go on and on in this vein. A new edition of "Six Seconds" with an update section would permit me to remedy not just these mistakes but bring things up-to-date. I'm trying to figure out how to do that now. Thanks for the inquiry. Interesting comments. Did you make any other mistakes? If you were writing another book on the Kennedy Assassination today, what areas would you focus on? What characters need more research? In other words, who do you think organized, carried out and paid for the assassination of JFK. <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Just about everything Fetzer posts, turns into an advertisement for himself and his books. With respect to Amazon.com, I don't think my own reader's comments are in any way out-of-place or unusual. The last time I looked 9 out of the 10 most recent reviews knocked Fetzer's latest book badly. One writer wrote: "Fetzer, in all of his books, has yet to add anything of real historical value. Within the conspiracy world, Fetzer is a god. Within legitimate academic circles of real historians, he is a carnival con artist. This will eat at him forever." I don't think Fetzer's work qualifies to be that of "a carnival con man." Such a description is stronger than anything I've ever written about him. I do think that he pretends that people are "experts" when they're not, that he publishes non-facts as if they were facts and provides a kind of tabloid quality research to an area which, as Pat points out, is desperately looking for the real thing. Apparently, if the comments on Amazon.com are any indication, a lot of other readers have Fetzer's number. He'll have to come up with a new conspiracy to explain why these folks knock his products. Fetzer claims I want to return things to their 1967 basis. This, of course, is nonsense. Let me rebut it by pointing out a major mistake I made in "Six Seconds." I measured there that JFK's head moved forward about two inches between Z312 and Z313. This forward movement followed by the obvious left, backward snap suggested to me that he had been hit in the head from the rear and then, almost instantaneously, from the right front. Within the last few years, Art Snyder of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Laboratory, was able to show me how this involved a serious mistake in measurement. As you all know, Z312 is quite clear while Z313 is smeared from movement of the camera. Using fairly complicated math, Snyder was able to demonstrate to me that I was measuring the smear on frame Z313 and not the movement of Kennedy's head. That socalled "two-inch movement" was an illusion; it came from the smear. David Wimp and Joe Durnavich came to much the same conclusion. Wimp, however, has gone futher. He has shown that JFK's head begins moving forward about Z308 and that everyone else in the limousine... Kellerman, Greer, Jackie, Mrs. Connally, John Connally... also begin a moderate movement forward at that time. After Z314, JFK flips backward and to the left while all the rest continue moving forward. The explanation: When Greer turned to look in the back seat at circa Z302 his foot tapped the brake, decelerating the limousine and throwing forward all the limousine's occupants. There is no longer any clear evidence in the Zapruder film of Kennedy being hit in the back of the head. (I say "clear" because there may be some evidence of a hit from the rear at Z327/328) The Z312-Z317 sequence... the bowling over of JFK to the left rear.... is the unambiguous result of a shot from the right front. This is wonderful progress by careful research. Because of it, I am delighted to admit... even proclaim... that I made a mistake in 1967. This kind of research requires more than the National Enquirer method of research espoused by Professor Fetzer. In fact, such research would never have have been undertaken had anyone paid any attention to Fetzer's now bankrupt obsession with proving the Zapruder film a hoax. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

"As long as the research community is associated in the minds of those in power, i.e. the government and mainstream media, with UFO's. fake moon landings, and rampant paranoia, then JFK research will be treated as such by those in power, i.e. our letters and articles will be inserted into the circular filing cabinet." I couldn't agree more with you, Pat. From the very beginning, real research into this case has been hamstrung by the lunatic fringe. Precisely to the extent that "assassination science" replaces real science and honest research, precisely to that extent will research on the case be relegated to jokes for late night comics. I also liked your nuanced account of the media's response to the case. Painting the media in broad strokes, really misses what is going on. If the media was so controlled by the military industrial elite, then how come LIFE and the SATURDAY EVENING POST became locked in such a pissing contest in the fall of 1967? A full account of the media's response to this case would take hundreds if not thousands of pages in order to account for the nuances of competitive journalism. It's much easier to make some general statement and get a cheering section to back it.

I can't be of much use in explaining the various versions of this caption. I was working for LIFE at the time of the Salandria letter. In fact, I think I got Vince's letter to Ed Kern. Kern was a feature writer for LIFE, and, prior to September 1966 had had nothing to do with the JFK shooting. He was not the guy to ask about various versions of a caption and told Vince what he knew. If memory serves, Dick Stolley was asked the same question and gave pretty much the same answer as Ed Kern gave. It is a fact that there were several versions of this caption. Apparently, you are inclined to believe that the various captions were part of a plan on LIFE's part to keep the facts of the Zapruder film from the American public. I really don't have an opinion on the question because I haven't looked into it. If I said anything about an editor being confused or their being confusion at the magazine about what was on the Zapruder film, you would claim I am some sort of apologist for LIFE or a fellow traveler for intelligence agencies. I worked for LIFE as a consultant for about four months. They sued me and made certain that all the earnings of "Six Seconds" would be used up in lawyer's bills. So I have no particular love for LIFE or any reason to defend them. All I can tell you is that I worked with group of very highly motivated journalists and we weren't restricted in what we did by higher authority at the magazine. As for Vince Salandria... he is one of the real heros of the critical community. His early work in "Liberation" and "The Minority of One" laid out the path that we would all follow later on. Without Vince, I would not have gotten involved in the case. On the other hand, his later theorizing that Bill Turner, John Newman, the ACLU and I are all being directed by some intelligence agency is looney-tunes. <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

"Good to be reminded also that, inspite of his "6 Seconds In Dalls" Dr. Thompson has a rather inconsistant past." Ms. Meredith, perhaps you would be so kind as to tell me what you have in mind with the phrase "a rather inconsistent past." <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Robert: Please don't stay gone so long. This forum needs your imput to keep its members honest. (Even when they are not). Good to be reminded also that, inspite of his "6 Seconds In Dalls" Dr. Thompson has a rather inconsistant past. Dawn <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Robert: Please don't stay gone so long. This forum needs your imput to keep its members honest. (Even when they are not). Good to be reminded also that, inspite of his "6 Seconds In Dalls" Dr. Thompson has a rather inconsistant past. Dawn <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

All I can do is tell you what I recall about those days working at LIFE. A fuller account can be found in Richard Trask’s very excellent new book, National Nightmare on Six Feet of Film (Danvers, Mass.: Yeoman Press, 2005) pages 363-366. In October 1966, I met with Loudon Wainwright, Dick Billings and Ed Kern in the Time/Life Building. I never saw Wainwright again but Kern, Billings and I were very closely over the next couple of months. In Dallas, we were helped by Patsy Swank, LIFE’s Dallas stringer. On November 25, 1966, an issue of LIFE carried a black cover with Zapruder frame 230 centered on it. The cover asked in type that got progressively larger: “Amid controversy over the Warren Report Governor Connally examines for LIFE the Kennedy assassination film frame by frame... Did Oswald Act Alone? A MATTER OF REASONABLE DOUBT.” As far as I know, this article was the first break in a virtual chorus of support from the establishment media for the Warren Report. In the months I worked with Kern and Billings on the Kennedy case, I never got a whiff of any attempt to look the other way or not pursue the investigation aggressively. When I wanted to talk with Dr. Boswell or Dr. Gregory, this was quickly worked out. Look at CE 399 and other evidence in the Archives? Sure. Interview witnesses like Bill and Gayle Newman or Marilyn Sitzman? You bet. Spend some time with S.M. “Skinny” Holland? Sure thing. At this time, there was blood in the water on this story. Any journalist would have given his right arm to break open the Kennedy case. Both in Dallas and New York we heard rumors that the New York Times had a ten or twelve investigator team in the field. I think we all felt that this case was about to break open and we wanted to be the people who did it. There was absolutely no attempt on the part of the management of LIFE to influence or restrict what we did. On the other hand, I thought we had a stronger case than the one that got published on November 25th. However, I don’t see this as an effect of senior management at LIFE trying to water down the story. At that time, the practice of what has been called “committee journalism” at LIFE and TIME meant that something like a dozen people had to sign off on our article. Institutionally, that sort of requirement leads necessarily to a watering down of the product. “My God, what if we’re wrong about this?” I can hear some middle-level editor asking. The article could have been longer and it could have been more hard-hitting. But neither of these effects resulted from management trying to cover up the truth. If they had wanted to do that, they wouldn’t have shown Connally the Zapruder film in the first place. They wouldn’t have had him pick out the frame when he was hit after Kennedy had been hit and thus kayo the single-bullet theory. The following June, Berney Geis and I attempted to get permission to use frames from the film in Six Seconds. At the same time CBS News wanted to use it in their four-part documentary. We offered Time Inc. all commercial interest in the book.... that is, all author’s royalties and all publisher’s profits. The Time Inc. Board of Directors turned down both CBS and us. Geis and I consulted Doug Hamilton, a law professor at Columbia who recommended that we use artist’s renderings and not the frames themselves. That’s what we did. To this day, I think the turndown from the Time Inc. board flowed from the complexity of their business interest in the film and not from any attempt to suppress it. With regard to the other incidents and claims Mr. Dunne makes, I wasn’t at LIFE at the time so I have no inside knowledge at all. Mr. Dunne also mentions “a Z-film copy pilfered [from LIFE] by its own contractee, Josiah Thompson.” This is rather mild. James Fetzer, Ph.D., is claiming right now on another thread on this site (the one devoted to his silly book on the Wellstone crash) that my “stealing”the Zapruder film had something to do with me leaving Haverford twelve years later. Actually, I’m rather proud of making 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 should have shut up. But I didn’t. In any case, the reader can judge for himself/herself whether there was anything morally demeaning in what I did. Here’s 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. <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well put, Tim. It would seem that a "disinformation agent" is someone in the pay of an intelligence agency who knowingly disseminates false information. Would that agree with your definition.

I think you're very close to hitting the nail on the head, Gary. Sometime ago on another board, Bill Kelly quoted a technical definition of "disinformation agent." If memory serves, Kelly said it is a term specifically developed to cover false information disseminated by the KGB. He cited a particular word in Russian which was used by the KGB for this sort of thing --- "dezinformaya" --- or something like that. Consequently, it has made the jump to English and means misinformation of some sort disseminated by an intelligence agency. The bogus Lee Harvey Oswald letter to Mr. Hunt, earlier mentioned in this thread, would be a perfect example of this. In Kennedy assassination circles, it is used by James Fetzer, Ph.D., to smear those who disagree with him. He had a whole bogus scholarly template put together with varying levels of "disinformation" and then topped it off with some quotes about CIA use of journalists and others to spread "disinformation." I think Fetzer even claimed that some benighted journalist for a Milwaukee paper who said only Fetzer's relatives would be interested in Fetzer's book was carrying out some sort of "hit piece" for an intelligence agency. I am proud to be named among those opponents of Fetzer who were called "disinformaiton agents." It's probably libelous because it means an agent of an intelligence agency who under orders of the agency spreads misinformation. But given Fetzer's identity, who cares. I'm trying to remember if Jack White has ever referred to me or others as "disinformation agents." I believe Mr. White's favorite term for those who disagree with him is "provocateur." There ARE disinformation agents. They fall into these categories: 1. WITTING a. paid agents who are employed to spread false information or propaganda b. political agents whose actions are based on party loyalty (Swiftboat Veterans) c. persons with personal or pecuniary agendas (right/left wingers and authors) d. contrarians, who just like obstructionism 2. UNWITTING a. persons with mistaken but sincere beliefs, like space enthusiasts b. persons employed by groups with an agenda, like NASA or the CIA, etc. c. persons employed by certain media d. persons who have not examined the evidence e. persons who believe what they see on TV or read in the media It is far more complex than this. Each case must be considered on its evidence...for instance James Files or Judyth Baker, and the people promoting such stories. Jack I think your definition of disinformation agent is too broad. It would cover just about anyone--or at least anyone one disagrees with. "People with mistaken but sincere beliefs?" I would put you in that category, regarding your Apollo Hoax ideas, as I suppose you would me. But I would not call that disinformation. There is a difference between disinformation and misinformation. Here is a definition of disinformation I grabbed off the internet: 1.Deliberately misleading information announced publicly or leaked by a government or especially by an intelligence agency in order to influence public opinion or the government in another nation: "He would be the unconscious channel for a piece of disinformation aimed at another country's intelligence service" (Ken Follett). 2.Dissemination of such misleading information. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> <{POST_SNAPBACK}>