Peter Fokes

Ken Rahn, one of the leading proponents of this apparently flawed NAA bullet analysis, made the following comments about this new study on alt.assassination.jfk: <quote on> To All, I will wait until all the back-patting quiets down, and then try to offer some reasoned analysis of this latest attempt to disparage Guinn and his NAA analyses/conclusions. In the meantime, I remind everyone that doubts are not proof. It is easy to doubt and hard to demonstrate. Ken Rahn <quote off> So scientists come to a different conclusion based on "reasoned analysis", and Rahn equates such research as simply "the latest attempt to disparage Guinn and his NAA analyses/conclusions." An unbiased scientist would not jump to the conclusion that the goal of this new analysis was to "disparage" anyone BEFORE offering his own "reasoned analysis" and informed critique of this new study. Seems to me Rahn is putting his cart ahead of the horse. PF

Oh sorry Peter. I was focusing too much on the "credit" comment and totally missed your point. Ayton clearly had an agenda and did not let reality intrude. It was a shameless piece of... writing. Myra, Did you take a look at the image of the man? Looks like Sirhan Sirhan to me. Pitfalls are very deep when claiming so-and-so is so-and-so in pictures. Years ago I thought I spotted Helms in film footage at the Ambassador Hotel. That's why Shane's theory piqued my interest recently. Just received David Talbot's book, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years .... I understand he makes some comments about Shane's theory. PF

In my humble opinion, I believe that is Sirhan Sirhan in the bottom photo. Could you post some more of your pictures? Kathy Allo Kathy, Isn't it an uncanny resemblance? Of course simply finding another image of Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel that night is not earthshaking .... we KNOW he was there. I am by no means an expert in capturing images from video, but I did spend some time rewinding and replaying a small segment of video from the California Archives. Have you ever heard of Pat Paulsen, the comedian who ran for President? The video shows Pat Paulsen making his way through the crowds at the Ambassador Hotel. Not sure of Pat's ultimate destination but he is shown speaking to Milton Berle at one point (this film footage has no sound btw). If enough people agree with me (and you, apparently) that this fellow does indeed resemble Sirhan Sirhan, then I'll try to upload a few more images to my website and provide the links in this thread. PF

Do you actually want "credit" from this guy? His piece struck me as propaganda. Why would you want to be associated with it? Good day, Myra. I had no idea my name was going to appear in this article. Mel posted a number of times on alt.assassination.jfk, and then disappeared. Do we "associate" anyone mentioned in an author's article as being a supporter of that author's research? Of course not. I'm more interested in whether folks think the fellow in the other image looks like Sirhan Sirhan. Chow for now PF

New article by Mel Ayton published on History News Network. http://hnn.us/articles/38496.html Ayton correctly gives me credit for discovering the image of a woman in a green polka dot dress in the pantry area. However Ayton ignored another set of pictures I sent him that show another lady in a black dress with white spots. She is standing next to a man who looks identical to Sirhan Sirhan, and who does not look like the man identified by Mel as resembling Sirhan Sirhan. I published two of these photos on my website last year and posted the urls to this alt.assassination.jfk, a newsgroup I moderate with John McAdams. http://www.toronto.hm/rfk2.html The upper photo shows this unidentified woman with a pug-like nose and wearing a black dress with white spots. The lower photo shows the man who bears an uncanny resemblance to Sirhan Sirhan just above the left shoulder of a man in a striped red suit jacket. In the lower photo, just the top of the head and hair of the unidentified woman are shown. I have additional images of this man and woman taken a few seconds before and after these photos which do reveal the unidentified woman with the pug nose and black hair is standing next to the Sirhan Sirhan look-alike. I'm not sure why Mel Ayton decided to ignore these other photos, but he does note that a witness did see Sirhan Sirhan standing next to a woman with a pug nose. <quote on> Pantry eyewitness Vincent DiPierro said he saw, “…one girl [during the night] ... that was in there [the pantry] that night with a 'pug-nose'….. and dark hair.” DiPierro said she had been standing in the area near Kennedy when the shooting occurred and that she had also been standing near the tray stacker where Sirhan crouched before he began shooting. “There was so much confusion that night,” DiPierro said. At Sirhan's trial DiPierro testified as to what he observed. Defense lawyer Grant Cooper asked him what caused him to notice Sirhan. DiPierro replied, “There was a girl standing in the area [of the pantry]” and this caused him to notice Sirhan. He said the girl was pretty and when shown a photograph of Kennedy campaign worker Valerie Schulte confirmed this was the girl in question. It became obvious that in the chaos that followed the shooting - with the added distractions of camera flashes and television lighting that filled the pantry - that DiPierro had been led to mistake the color of Schulte's hair (blonde) and clothes; Schulte's dress was actually green with yellow polka dots. The same mischaracterization of the dress was probably made by Darnell Johnson who claimed to see the woman in the pantry with a man and also in the Embassy Room both before and after RFK was shot. Johnson's description of the girl is not in contradiction to the positioning of Valerie Schulte who had been standing in the pantry with a man when the shots were fired. <quote off> Did DiPierro mistakenly confirm that Valerie Schulte was the woman he saw? In his original description, he described the woman as having a "pug nose" and "black hair". The unidentified woman in the photo I published on my website last year matches DiPierro's original description. Ayton claims it is "obvious" that DiPierro was confused by the "chaos" and "lights" and misidentified the color of her hair and her dress. He also claims that another witness named Darnell Johnson "probably" made the same misidentification as DiPierro. Johnson saw the woman in the pantry and the Embassy Room. The unidentified woman standing next to Sirhan Sirhan as shown in images I captured from film footage does indeed have black hair and a pug nose. Again, I have no idea why Mel Ayton ignored these images. Instead he makes the claim that DiPierro and Johnson were simply confused and misidentified Valerie Schulte. It is also clear that the woman with the pug nose and dark hair is not the unidentified "pretty girl" that Ayton discusses in his article. Peter Fokes

So ol' George was doing an "oil deal" with Papa Doc? He spent 14 years in Haiti on this "oil deal"? Just one little problem with this scenario -- if there's oil in Haiti no one has ever bothered to drill for it. How does one spend 14 years on an "oil deal" that never drilled for oil? Cliff, The idea was to build an oil refinery in Haiti. In 1964, Mohammed Fayed visited Haiti and handed out a business card "that associated him with a Kuwait oil company. ... Fayed recieved exclusive contracts which gave him control of the oil industry, shipping and the port. He agreed to invest $1 million within two years in an oil refinery and $5 million within four years on a variety of harbor-improvement programs. In addition to his oil concession he was named sole shipping agent for 12 steamship companies serving Haiti. Besides these agent fees he collected wharfage fees that previously went to the government, and he quickly increased these fees. Among his other accomplishments, he became a Haitian citizen in a matter of months although normally a ten-year residency is required. To improve the harbor, Fayed set out buoy markers, hired a British harbor master, and put lights on the pier. He ran into opposition from the West India Trans-Atlantic Conference and the United States-Gulf-Haitian conference of shippers, who protested to Duvalier. At a meeting of the conference Fayed did not show up and Duvalier said he was searching world capitals for Fayed and acknowledged that a large sum of money had left Haiti with him. Fayed's bank accounts were frozen too late. The local manager of a bank where he did business was ousted from the country on the excuse that he had expressed antigovernment views. The arrival of Fayed and other foreign investors in Haiti prompted Richard Elder of The New York Times to write: 'Both business and dilomatic circles have been paying close attention to the arrival over the past year of a series of visitors who let it be known that they plan to invest large amounts of money here. These visitors have in common a lack of much conventionally traceable business background and close connections with one [Haitian] overnment official or another.' Fayed's connection was Clemard Charles, Duvalier's banker. Charles received a government concession on automobile insurance and Fayed assisted him with it..... Fayed's oil concession went to him only after an American company, the Valentine Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, had its representative expelled from the country and its contract to build a refinery canceled. Valentine had an investment guarantee from the U.S. Agency for International Development, and tried to sue the United States to collect $817,000 in damages. (The president of the company said that the United States offered him a settlement 'so small it's ridiculous.' " From Papa Doc: Haiti and Its Dictator. Bernard Diederich and Al Bart, The Bodley Head, 1969, pp. 383-385 Peter Fokes

Hi James, I wonder if this speech on October 28th was similar to the speech Dulles gave after the assassination at Harvard Law School Forum on December 18th, 1963. The 56-minute speech is online at Black Op. The program opens with a short introduction by a moderator: Date: December 13, 1963 Title: "The Role of Intelligence in Policy Making" Speaker: Allen W. Dulles - Former Director, CIA Panel: Thomas Schelling - Professor of Economics, Harvard Milton Katz - Director of International Legal Studies, Harvard Law School Here is the RealPlayer URL provided by Black Op Radio http://www.blackopradio.com/black252b.ram Dulles had just recently published "The Craft of Intelligence. Peter Fokes _________________________________________ Peter, Was Dulles' speech at Harvard given on the 13th or on the 18th of December, 1963? Thanks, --Thomas _________________________________________ I've just had a chance to check the date of the speech (see link to Harvard Law School Forum - Audio Archive below). Excuse my error. The speech was given on December 13th, 1963, just three weeks after the assassination. http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/forum/audio.html Peter Fokes http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/forum/audio.html

Perhaps you are recalling a footnote in Gaeton Fonzi's book, The Last Investigation (p. 313): "Quite recently, into this intertwining connection of characters came someone whom I had not previously associated with de Mohrenschildt or anyone directly linked to Oswald. He was discovered by one of the most diligent of private researchers, Peggy Adler Robohm, who in checking Clemard Charles' numerous corporate fronts, discovered the St. Charles Pacific Peace Organization, incorporated in 1988 as a non-profit entity with the power to raise money to do all kinds of profit making activities -- as long as it included "elevating the standards of health" -- without having to pay taxes. The Treasurer of the Corporation was listed as Frank Sturgis." Peter Fokes

Hi James, I wonder if this speech on October 28th was similar to the speech Dulles gave after the assassination at Harvard Law School Forum on December 18th, 1963. The 56-minute speech is online at Black Op. The program opens with a short introduction by a moderator: Date: December 13, 1963 Title: "The Role of Intelligence in Policy Making" Speaker: Allen W. Dulles - Former Director, CIA Panel: Thomas Schelling - Professor of Economics, Harvard Milton Katz - Director of International Legal Studies, Harvard Law School Here is the RealPlayer URL provided by Black Op Radio http://www.blackopradio.com/black252b.ram Dulles had just recently published "The Craft of Intelligence. Peter Fokes

Shanet, What is the source of the photo of the "walking men" photo? Thanks in advance. Peter

Hi John, Just happened to have Weyden's book on my desk. There is a photo of Lynch with a group of men. The caption reads: "En route to Cuba aboard the command ship Blagar, Alonso and his team posed with CIA agent Grayston Lynch, whom they knew only as 'Gray' .... Gray commanded the first group ashore and gave the OK for the brigade to land." There are additional page references to Lynch besides the 83-86 and 301 noted in your original message (131-132, 134-138, 160n, 191, 216-221, 225n, 229-232, 267, 275, 276-282, 284-285, 287-288, 295-297, 300-302, 309). Here's a brief snippet from p. 83: "Unconventional warfare was Grayston Lynch's profession. An oil driller's son from the tiny town of Victoria in South Texas, 'Gray' had enlisted in the Army at fifteen by lying about his age ..... When he retired as captain in 1960, to join the CIA with a six-month contract at ten thousand a year, the transition was 'practically no change at all'; he had just returned from Laos where he had operated in unfriendly territory wearing civilian clothes." Plenty of details about his activities during the invasion are provided in the book. Lynch, along with the other survivors, were deeply distraught and angry at the failure of the mission. "In Guatemala City, Bob Davis, the CIA station chief, was frantic not only about the project's outcome but about the state of the Americans who had trained the Brigade... They locked themselves in their rooms in a CIA safe house and refused to come out. Davis thought onje or more might kill themselves, they were in such despair. Some disappeared and couldn't be found for days. Their fury at the politicians in Washington was limitless. Davis thought they were unsettled enough to kill people: 'If someone had gotten close to Kennedy, he'd have killed him. Oh, they hated him!'" (p. 300)

Hello David, Thanks for your welcome. I've uploaded a photo, and will take some time to read the existing threads on the JFK Assassination before adding my own comments and observations. Peter Fokes

I live in Toronto, Canada, and have been the CT moderator for John McAdams moderated newsgroup, alt.assassination.jfk for about 6 years. I graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa, and attended University of Toronto for graduate studies in English Literature. I have worked as a business journalist/editor, media communications specialist, financial consultant and other jobs. My interest in the JFK assassination began on the day of the assassination, and has continued ever since. I do have a website at http://www.toronto.hm/ (From Toronto With Love) but it is about Toronto and not the assassination. As moderator of the JFK assassination newsgroup for the past six years, I have become very familiar with the arguments of most of the active researchers and authors on the assassination, and regularly submit posts to the newsgroup.