Duke Lane

... The location you drew in, if you were correct, must have been for convenience because then billboard was also an issue and the LOS you have given Ed would not have been effected by the billboard at all. In fact, in Ed's story he was standing along the road, not sitting. I also know he said the limo passed below him on the on-ramp, thus it is these types of things that made me suspicious that you wewre only assuming things that may not have been exactly right. Isn't it so that he'd told the Feebs at one point that he was "a few feet" from the railroad overpass over Stemmons? If so, then Miles' position is clearly in error. My recollection from walking with him to his alleged position on Stemmons is that he was much closer to where the on-ramp merges with the highway proper, but not all the way to that point. Wasn't he also supposedly standing there for thirty minutes on the side of the highway (assuming that, at the time, there was a shoulder there for him to have parked on, as there is NOT today) that was about to be closed down to traffic until the presidential motorcade had passed before the parade actually arrived? I'll have to swing by there some time and take a picture to post here, let y'all judge for yourselves what he could or couldn't have seen, billboard or no. Does anyone have a particular preference for camera settings and lenses to make it as realistic as possible? I believe you are incorrect once again. Gary Mack is well aware of that location and he has said that Ed could have seen down in the car from that elevated location. The point I am raising is that the location you have attributed to Ed does not allow him to look down and see the President directly below him as the limo comes out from under the freeway and it does not align with the billboard which has always been understood to be a factor with critics who thought it would have blocked Ed's view. The critics, of course were proven in error on that point because the billboard was not high enough on the day of the assassination to have prevented Ed from seeing into the RR yard. ... of which there is a photographic record, is that correct? From that spot or reasonably nearby? ... I took the time and expense to research this matter and discovered that there was a place in Chicago that had the means to give a lie detector to a deaf mute. Ed was happy to hear this and was anxious to go forth and prove to people once and for all that he told the truth. The test was said to have to be done in Chicago and the cost to get Ed there and to do the test was around $5000.00. I volunteered to pay the money to make it happen. At the eleventh hour (so to speak) the examiner discovered that Ed took a certain medication for his heart and said that it could effect the test and make it unreliable. I never found a way to get around that obstacle because Ed needed that medicine to survive. Am I following this right, that Ed changed his story at least a couple of times during the first dozen or so years, his own family didn't believe him (at least until he gained notoriety over this, and maybe a few bills paid to boot?), and the proof of it all is in a polygraph test that he can't take because of medication? Bill, people that I know think that you're a competent researcher and finder of facts. I can maybe understand how you can swallow this story, but I'm not sure how you're able to keep it down. This fits right there with Roscoe White being a shooter because his wife and kid wouldn't lie about such a thing, not even for all the money on Matsu.

Good stuff, don't think I've seen this before. The tip of the iceberg, you say? Duke, you're completely right! Speaking of bullxxxx, notice a powerful signature barnyard odor in the Hoffman docs cited below? (This is just the tip of the iceberg. Thought I'd save you from death by stench asphyxiation.) Okay, let's see if we can trace this according to these documents: Here, Hoffman is parked "near the railroad tracks on Stemmons Freeway and Elm Street," which seems to suggest that he is parked on the side of the freeway closest to the tracks, i.e., the east side nearest TSBD. This differs from his physical description - that is, the one he took us to physically! - as being on the side nearest the entrance ramp, from which he claimed (as I remember it) to see not only men in DP, but also the limo as it sped by on its way to Parkland. (I seem to remember him relating the story of SA Hickey and the AR-15, too, and how scared of being shot he'd been!) It is confusing exactly where he's claiming to have parked since there's no place that can be called "Stemmons Freeway and Elm Street" that can be sited in conjunction with "the railroad tracks on Stemmons Freeway." The former would place him on the bridge over the northernmost portion of the road that comes west out from the Triple Underpass (i.e., "Stemmons Freeway and Elm Street"), but there are no railroad tracks "on Stemmons Freeway" until one goes north on Stemmons from Elm some 350-375 feet (ahem! 365.76 feet by Google Earth!). So basically he could have been anywhere at all within about a 500 foot area, according to this report. Most notably, however, he says that "he sbserved two white males ... running from the rear of the Texas School Book Depository building." This is very clearly a different place than "behind the picket fence." Oops: he couldn't see what he'd told them he saw! Omigosh! Well, might as well give up a detailed description of "suit man" and "railroad worker man" and their several actions, but because those Feebies aren't among the brightest graduates of law school, best to keep it simple: one had on a white shirt. This leaves plenty of wiggle room given that men in suits often wear white shirts, and there's no description of "railroad worker man" at all, meaning he simply didn't describe him at the time, nothing more or less. Probably because the feds didn't ask. Oh, that sibling rivalry ... and a jealous dad, too! Haven't they ever seen that look of wide-eyed sincerity Hoffman exhibits on the knoll these days? How could they have doubted him? No mention here about needing to fear for his life or any such thing (which the Feebs would have gladly recorded to show what a "kook" these folks were!), just that he "has in the past distorted facts of events observed by him," and that young Ed's own depictions to them included that "he saw numerous men running" after the shooting, and that Dad "did not believe that his son had seen anything of value" and "doubted he had observed any men running from the Texas School Book Depository" at all! Ah, the difference a few years can make! Hoffman has now moved from the side of the highway "near the railroad tracks on Stemmons Freeway and Elm Street ... standing a few feet south of the railroad on Stemmons Freeway" to the west side of the highway, that is, all the way across seven lanes of traffic! Doesn't this seem a strange thing to do when one has a half-hour to wait before the Presidential motorcade even entered Dealey Plaza (Hoffman had originally said he "parked his automobile ... [at] about 12:00 noon on November 22, 1963")? With all that time, why even park on the highway when he could have driving all through downtown and gone directly into DP in plenty of time to see JFK up close and personal? Remembering also that police stopped traffic prior to the motorcade's expected arrival for security purposes, it strains credulity to imagine that not a one of them approached Hoffman, whichever side of the highway he was on, and told him to get his ass away from the path of the motorcade! That they may have, but decided to let him remain, is unlikely based upon the fact that Hoffman could neither hear the officers to be able to respond to their queries, nor speak to them to tell them that he was "okay" and that he was just watching for the President to come along in half an hour or so. Half an hour! Hardly spur-of-the-moment, eh? Note also that "railroad worker man" was also "wearing a tie" with his "striped overalls!" Must've been one of those "working executive" types, huh? But at least we now know that he parked "on the west shoulder of Stemmons Freeway at the northbound lane near the Texas and Pacific Railroad overpass that crosses Stemmons Freeway" and waited 30 minutes to see the President speed by when he could've walked over to TSBD and seen him go by at "parade speed!" Buddy, there ain't NO line of sight from there into the railroad yards, some 200 yards away! He has at least surmounted the problem of not being able to see two six-foot-tall men running from the back of the TSBD behind a six-foot fence - that he'd admitted that he couldn't see past - by simply putting them on the side of the fence nearer to him! One wonders if brother Fred or any of the others with whom ol' Ed shared his fabri— his experiences with is still around, and what they thing of young Virgil's sudden and lasting notoriety ....

I am curious ... nothing you said in this post hinted as to why you didn't believe Ed Hoffman ... why? Who was there to assist in the interpreting? You are correct. Did you know that Arnold moved away from everyone at that interview and broke down a cried. Like Ed, Gordon is another one who told of his experience immediately following the assassination and because people didn't hear about Gordon's story until 15 years later ... some of them choose not to believe what he had to say. Call it what you will; I like the term "bullxxxx factor." Hoffman's story reeks with it, Arnold's doesn't. There's another guy who hangs out on the Knoll on "JFK Day" each year, a retired DPD cop. There's no question at all that he's that much. The story that he tells people is that he was an undercover narc in 1963, complete with long hair (what constituted "long" in 1963's Dallas, I have no idea) and grubby clothes. He is, he says, one of the officers who subdued Oswald and hustled him outside, apparently quite clearly recognized by the beat cops who were in the theater. All you need to do is hear him tell the story and you know it's loaded with the "bullxxxx factor," even without the knowledge that there's no such individual pictured in any of the extant photos of the arrest, or consideration of how beat cops would recognize an undercover operative, or why they'd let some grubber get involved with their collar without proof of his identity. Is anyone going to suggest that undercover narcs, then or now, carry their badge with them? While Ed Hoffman cannot speak, with or without fanciful intonations, everything about his delivery has the same "feel" as the cop's (of course, I have a slightly different idea about why he actually injects himself into all of this). I seem to recall that, on the occasion I'm thinking of - it was only the first time I'd seen him - there was a young woman interpreting for him, but that's no matter. I walked with him and the crowd over to the Stemmons entry and looked across toward TSBD. First I noticed that it was a pretty good distance to be able to see much detail, at least given my relatively poor, but corrected, eyesight (while I do agree that someone without eyesight typically tends to have acute hearing, I don't necessarily buy into the theory that someone who cannot speak or hear has compensatory eyesight. Why would they need to develop that?). Second was the stand of trees east of the tracks: you simply couldn't see through or over them. Of course, as I've said, it is possible that they had grown over the intervening 30-40 years, but the question would be how much. I'm trying to locate the photo of the limo speeding onto the Stemmons entrance on the west side of the TU ... it strikes me that not only does it not show Tom Tilson's black sedan parked where he'd said he'd seen it, but that it may also show part of the park immediately west of the tracks and east of the highway. It's the only thing I can think of that might show the contemporaneous height of those trees. Still, they would've needed to have been barely more than shoots (no pun intended) to be seen through or over then. The pantomime of the rifle break-down also threw me for a loop, as someone also noted above: why would someone break down a rifle within just a few feet of people who might very well have seen him do so? Even with a "sea of cars," this activity would have been observable by almost anyone on top of the bridge, including two cops (which last point, of course, proves nothing!). Frankly, just about anyone who hangs out on the knoll on JFK Day with a grand story to tell - with very few provable exceptions, such as Bill Newman ... and there's nothing "grand" about his story except that it doesn't jibe with the "sniper's nest" theory - automatically has a credibility issue. When they return year after year and often times in between simply underscores the "bullxxxx factor." IMHO, of course. As an aside to all of this, it's often been my contention that all anyone shooting from the parking lot area had to do was either blend into the crowd somehow (which a "cop" in uniform or someone with USSS creds might be able to do), or simply duck into one of the cars' trunks, rifle in hand, keep quiet, and wait to be driven away. That would, in any case, be a better way to hide and get rid of the weapon(s) than running it through open railroad yards in relatively plain sight. As for Gordon Arnold, nobody short of a professional, trained and seasoned Hollywood or Broadway actor could pull of the shattering realization that he did on film without it being real. He also mentioned that he'd never told anyone until that morning, and then only as an offhand remark, about the "railroad man" he'd seen later. The man was shaking and quite obviously stricken. Hollywood, he wasn't. (In reading further the McAdams-site post on Hoffman, it's clear that he had some issues right from the git-go with what he could see and couldn't see, not far at all from my own uninformed opinions about the trees, etc.)

I've read a few places that Tippit was a "marksman." http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKtippet.htm Well, that's really only one place, but who's counting? Also on that page is this interesting tidbit, that got it right(!) but didn't carry it far enough: The reason for Officer Tippit's murder is simply this: It was necessary for them to get rid of the decoy in the case - Lee Oswald. Now, in order to get rid of him - so that he would not later describe the people involved in this, they had what I think is a rather clever plan. It's well known that police officers react violently to the murder of a police officer. All they did was arrange for an officer to be sent out to Tenth Street, and when Officer Tippit arrived there he was murdered, with no other reason than that.

I was hanging out on the knoll one day when Ed started telling his story. I can certainly say that it's hard as hell to argue with a deaf-mute! I recall the story slightly differently than the clip shows it, walking up the entrance ramp to Stemmons Freeway, and perhaps it's my recollection of doing that that's making me think that that's what Ed said he'd done. I don't recall how long the traffic had been stopped on Stemmons, only that it was, and it was before (south of) the RR bridge. I do recall, however, that there IS a shoulder that a car can park on along the left side of the freeway, nearest the ramp. I remember that because I remember there being about a dozen of us who took that walk with Ed and actually looked across the highway where he said he'd been standing. I don't remember that we were standing in traffic!! Of course, in 43 years, lots of little highway details can change, like getting rid of a shoulder to accomodate more traffic. How recent is the photo here? While I'm sure there are photos of DP in the Volumes, I can't recall if any show as far west as the freeway. If so, maybe they'll show for certain. So, Ed's story is within the realm of possibility, however vague, at least that far. I don't, however, believe a word of it. Meanwhile, thanks for that clip. The interview with Gordon Arnold is absolutely unnerving, always has been. His realization that, if the things he was seeing in the colorized Moorman photo, including himself, were really all there, then he realized that he may have been the only person to have seen, up close and personal, a grassy knoll gunman. Frightening. After having seen that, I've never had a single doubt that the story he tells is 100% truthful.

Well, thanks for these two, Robin. It is interesting to see that, while it appears that "Oswald/Lovelady" is standing with his right shoulder to the wall in Altgens, a change of perspective in Weigman shows that he was actually standing a few feet from that wall, more toward the center of the doorway. What Billy Lovelady had to say about where he was standing is that he was "standing as you are going down the steps, I was standing on the right," just as it shows in Altgens. "Right there at the entrance of the building standing on the the step ... It would be your top level," he said, and Joe Ball asked him to clarify: "The top step you were standing there?" "Right," said Billy. So Billy said he was on the top step "on the right," yet we can see in Weigman that he - if he is the man in the photo - was not standing "on the right," but more in the center. He was only "on the right" when viewed from Altgens' perspective farther down the street. We also know that he said that he was wearing a red-and-white striped shirt "buttoned near the neck," and this the FBI took photos of him wearing in late February 1964. Yet it was not the shirt that he was wearing that Friday afternoon, as evidenced not only by the other photos we've seen in this thread, but also by his wife's attempt(s) to sell it. Years after the event, he knew he was wearing a "striped" shirt that was almost plaid, yet just three months after the shooting - probably the most significant single day of his relatively short life - he didn't know he was wearing that shirt, but thought that it was a completely different shirt? What's up with that? Did he have a cased of belated recall - did he think "wow, now that I'm looking at this here shirt, this is the one I was wearing that day, not that red-and-white deal! Wow! Boy, I'm sure glad I recalled, now I can go tell the FBI," maybe? I don't care if he thought he had no buttons undone, or two, or forgot that he'd actually had four undone, what's even more amazing is that he didn't even know what shirt he had on early in the investigation, in February, but did know what he was wearing then so many years later! Just something doesn't ring true. ... And Robin, since you've probably got as clear and large a copy of the Weigman frame as anyone, tell me: does it appear that there is someone farther back in the corner, behind the black fella and to Lovelady's right? For curiosity, do you also know if The Sixth Floor has either the original Altgens, or at least an early copy?

Some comments .... First, 0.02 yards is .72 inches. If anyone had a big belly, large nose, wide-brimmed hat, or breathed in or out, this "exact" measurement is already off. Who has ever said that anyone was anywhere with such exactitude, not off by even an inch? This 267.02 yards is so exact I'm not sure I can believe it's real! The highway may have been seven lanes wide, but "at the time in question" it was not being "busily traveled by cars & eighteen wheelers, etc.," because the traffic was stopped and being held by DPD in anticipation of the motorcade's entering the highway. As I recall, it was south of the railroad bridge crossing the highway (toward the bottom of the photo). It was not released until after JFK's limo and at least the next couple of vehicles entered the highway. Unfortunately, there are no photos that I can think of, of the traffic stopped or exactly what it was comprised of (e.g., 18-wheelers, etc.), at least not from Hoffman's purported position (which may be off by as much as .03 yards anyway! ). Of course, if there were a batch of 18-wheelers stopped for the first several positions back, it would make the line of sight even more difficult if not utterly impossible. The point is, simply, that the traffic wasn't moving, and you certainly don't know what was there if you didn't even know it was stopped. There is also the issue of the trees to the west of the RR tracks: how high were they? Would they have impeded Hoffman's view 43 years ago like they do today? Does anyone know? Are there photos? I'm tending to doubt it. Finally, please notice the configuration of that entrance ramp: the only way onto it is from Elm Street unless a driver did what everyone says the limo couldn't have done: jumped the curb to get on the highway from Main Street. Otherwise, this would mean that Hoffman (and his dad, was it?) had to have been among the very last cars permitted down Elm past Houston and onto the ramp before the motorcade had gotten near there. As I recall "watching" Hoffman's story, didn't he allude to if not actually say that he (or they) had decided to stop at the last moment as they saw the motorcade in the plaza on the other side of the highway? If so, that would almost suggest that Hoffman was driving somewhere between the pilot police car and Curry's lead car! Plausible? Actually, I'd suggest that Hoffman's car was the one that Tom Tilson saw as the limo sped by. You know, the one that wasn't there? So was Hoffman's.

As an aside to the discussion about suspicious vehicles, one "Bob Apple" is claimed to have been in Oak Cliff about a half-hour later, on 10th Street, leaning against his car and talking with Sgt G.L. Hill after Hill went into(?) the Abundant Life Temple to get a .38 revolver. Er, um, I mean, to see if any suspicious persons had entered.

Great minds think alike. I've been re-reading Harold Weisberg's Whitewash series, and he calls attention to what he dubs "The Lovelady Caper" (Whitewash II, pp 185-94); he also reproduced (inside back cover) the February 29, 1964, photos taken of Lovelady by the FBI and sent to the WC by Hoover on March 9, which are not included in those you've posted above. These show Lovelady in the "red and white vertical striped shirt" that he told the FBI he'd been wearing on November 22, which he also described in May 1964 to Jones Harris of the New York Herald-Tribune as being "a red-and-white striped sport shirt buttoned near the neck" (WWII, p 190). Interestingly, the photo you provided of Lovelady at DPD(?) on November 22 shows him wearing a shirt completely dissimilar to the one he described and was photographed by the FBI wearing. While much ado can be made over the distinctions between the shirt on the doorway figure and the February 29 Lovelady shirt, there is much less distinction between the shirt he was wearing in the photo at DPD and that of the doorway figure. Indeed, the same pattern can be discerned in the Altgens photo once you've seen it, and it bears as much or more resemblance to the Lovelady DPD photo as to Oswald's shirt: the latter definitely looks more like the doorway shirt than the February 29 shirt does, but the distinction definitely breaks down when compared with the Lovelady DPD shirt. As to the comparison you'd made of the shirts in Altgens and your photo "G" in the Lovelady set, one point that's noteworthy is that manufacturers of decent-quality patterned shirts typically make the pockets blend into the body of the shirt so that when there's nothing in the pocket and it's lying flat against the shirt, it is almost indiscernable. While the "G" shirt does not seem to have a pocket, I can't tell from the size of the photo if there are any lines - either stitching or breaks between the top of the pocket and the shirt above it - that show - or don't - on a larger, clear copy. It almost appears as if the top of the pocket can be seen in a break in the narrow white stripe second to Billy's left from the buttons, and a seam possibly in the second blue stripe to the right of the first buttoned button and the first narrow white stripe to his left from the buttons. If you have a larger, clearer copy of the image and can send it to me by email, I'd appreciate it. Ditto any others you can send. As to you noting that, at DPD, Lovelady seemed to have something white in the pocket, but that the doorway figure does not, consider that in that era, many people - a much higher percentage than today - smoked, and most men did (and still do) carry their smokes in the breast pocket of their shirts. It's my guess - which I'll see if I can't verify - that Billy smoked and that's what was in his pocket at DPD. That he didn't have them in his pocket at work suggests not necessarily that he's not the man in the doorway, but only that he didn't need to have the cigs with him at work when they were only maybe a few hundred feed away, versus being at DPD where he couldn't just duck aside and grab one from his pack. Finally, regarding a difference in how the shirt(s) hang on the bodies wearing them, remember that the Groden photo was taken 13 years after Altgens'. In 1963, he was 26 years old; in '76, he was approaching 40. People's physiques tend to change, sometimes pretty significantly, as they get older. In sum, machts nichts. What I find to be particularly interesting in all of this, however, is that Billy was photographed by the FBI on 2/29/64 wearing the shirt he was supposedly wearing on 11/22/63, just a little over 3 months earlier, which matches his "red-and-white striped" description. Yet, in the set above, it appears that he knew he was wearing a shirt different than the striped one that the FBI photographed him in, and that the former appears to be the same or similar to the one in the DPD photo, what he was (unequivocally?) wearing on 11/22/63. If he knew otherwise, why did he pose in a different shirt for the FBI? Weisberg wasn't convinced that the figure was Lovelady or that it wasn't Oswald. Neither was I until seeing the DPD photo, and will only say now that it sure looks like it might've been Billy.

Since New York in June doesn't suit the Dukester, I have arranged two free tickets for Duke and a guest to watch the Australian premiere of Oswald's Ghost at the Perth International film festival in July. http://www.revelationfilmfest.org/index.cf...809B0FDEF313ED9 The tickets can be collected at the box office. Cheers, Matie. It's not that NYC doesn't suit (I'm originally from that general area), it's that air fares and gas prices don't, especially this late in the game. Even bereavement fares (over the death of conspiracy theories?) don't help to make it worthwhile. Australia next month however ...? Hmmm ....

Check the link to someonewouldhavetalked.com, Larry Hancock's website. It seems to have been hijacked(?) by php.net maybe?

... and promises not to append his signature with "'Ultimate Sacrifice' is the best JFK book ... buy it!" ???

Well, I guess if nobody asks for them - the "email line" hasn't been overly long! - I guess they won't get used. I'm just plain ol' not flying to NYC for this, period, end of text!

I have access to two free tickets to the following event. If anyone lives nearby and would like to attend, please send me email and I will send you instructions to redeem them. The Museum of Television & Radio is hosting a special advanced screening of a new documentary about the legacy of the JFK assassination, called "PBS American Experience: Oswald's Ghost." There will be a special advance screening and discussion on Thursday, June 14; 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Acclaimed director Robert Stone (Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst) offers an unprecedented deconstruction of the myths and controversy surrounding the most debated murder mystery of all time-the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Stone uses a wealth of archival material-and interviews with Gary Hart, Tom Hayden, Mark Lane, and others-to chronicle America's forty-year obsession with the defining event of a generation, while creating provocative parallels to 9/11 and its aftermath. In Person: Robert Stone, Director, Producer, Writer Edward Jay Epstein, Author Todd Gitlin, Professor of Journalism and Sociology, Columbia University Cost: $25, $15 MTR members

This second of two reviews (that I'm aware of) by the editors/authors of Assassination Science, et al., compels me to make a couple of observations that may be unwelcome, but nevertheless (IMO) bear discussion. First and foremost is a question of the need for or, indeed, the wisdom of such reviews. Am I the only person who's noticed that, whenever a "popular" book is published that essentially re-writes the Warren Report, analyses by disbelievers in the original fairly abound, attempting to refute the regurgitated insipid pabulum in intricate detail nearly ad nauseum, largely read and circulated by those whose views are in accord ... while, whenever a "conspiracy book" is published (and is "popular" only in the sense that Grateful Dead LPs were ever "best-sellers"), nary a sound is heard above that of a pin dropping from those who subscribe to the WC mythology? Have we not yet learned that the time and effort we put into - once again - attempting to eviscerate the theses of these WC hangers-on is all for naught, fodder only for the choir? Is it a great surprise that what the Report got (or made) wrong or overlooked (or avoided) or simply misrepresented, is equally wrong, overlooked or misrepresented when presented in fresh prose by a Gerald Posner or Vincent Bugliosi? Is it a revelation to consider that we don't need to rehash the arguments against them again? When is enough attention simply enough?!? When has a "mainstream" reviewer ever done more than simply shrug off a new "conspiracy theory?" Was there ever a page-by-page analysis of the errors, real or imagined, in, say, David Lifton's Best Evidence or Mark Lane's Plausible Denial ... or even Drs. Fetzer and Mantik's works? At another end of the spectrum(?), there has never been such an effort to "debunk" any of Harold Weisberg's analyses, no defense of any of the charges he made in millions of self-published and (IMO) highly efficient and effective words: at best, the only criticism I have read of Weisberg addressed his writing style ("inundating" and "shrill") and background ("chicken farmer," but one of his many endeavors in life), but never, ever what he said, line-by-line, page-by-page or otherwise. Had such things occurred, the public might have gone off in search of such books, if only out of curiosity over what the ado is all about. Don't we create the same environment by our endless, in-depth analyses? And when the public buys and reads those things we so vehemently and vociferously disagree with, haven't they become familiar with - some might say "indoctrinated to" - those things we would that they not believe, not trust as fact, not swallow whole? Today, dozens of "WC critics" are penning thousands of words critical of Reclaiming History just as they did some 14 years ago in response to Case Closed. The result is, in part, more copies of each being circulated and read and accepted, for it is a simple fact that no ten-page essay can possibly refute hundreds of pages of seemingly sensible palaver, and what portion it may have achieved is greatly overshadowed by the sheer volume of additional argument. Is it any wonder that the Warren Report has sold and continues to sell more copies than most if not all "conspiracy books" combined? We help to create our own uphill battles. Secondly, I note with chagrin that both doctors in their reviews choose to denigrate the law profession as being all but superfluous, a motley assortment of half-truths, smoke and mirrors designed to arrive at nothing more than the truth of the moment as defined by the more persuasive purveyor of perception before a short-lived jury of disinterested dimwits? This is, to me, as grave an error as an attorney faced with open-heart surgery deriding medicos as being no more than "experimenters" who, while certainly advances have been made, have no more reached a pinnacle of knowledge than the man in the moon: after all, what was "state-of-the-art" in 1982 when Dr. Robert Jarvik and Barney Clark first met, is today passe and antiquated ... and so will today's "cutting edge" be dull twenty-five years hence. Will the heart surgeon - even absent the advance that have yet to be made - not still save the life of the derisive attorney? And is not the attorney of considerable importance to these good doctor-researchers, for unless their goal is simply proof without accountability or punishment, publication and peer review in JAMA will do little to bring the perpetrators of the assassination and its attendant myth to justice. After all, when has any of us ever heard the phrase "convicted in a court of medicine" or "sentenced to 10 years at hard surgery" or "confinement in a maximum security hospital?" It is all well and good to conclusively demonstrate by densinometric determination within .001 inch that one's science is well-founded and accurate, but if that's all that one hopes to achieve, why bother? To what end: posterity? A "theory of assassination relativity" that withstands disproof for a hundred years or more? Meanwhile, the question of "who shot John?" remains unanswered (except by Bugliosi and Posner!) and relegated to the dust heap. It will take one or more of those practitioners in the black art of law to bring the matter to a final close - perhaps based upon truths advanced by scientists or perhaps not - just as it took so many of them to bring the witchery of the Report into "our" general acceptance in the first place. Knowing that the xrays were undeniably and irrefutably faked does not tell us whose finger was on the trigger or why. Narrow interests and studies, while useful and instructive, are seldom panacea. Finally - and briefly - with regard to alterations of the Z and Muchmore films and/or other photogaphs: if none can be relied upon, no conclusion other than the inability to reach conclusions can be reached.

I love graphs so I conducted some jiggle analysis recently while sitting in an outdoor cafe on Rodeo Drive watching the girls go by. Jiggle analysis works fairly well in Beverly Hills, but results in other locations have been disappointing. Still, the subject holds endless fascination, and further research is eagerly awaited. Raymond, it is a great consolation to us that yours will not be among the many so-called "mysterious deaths" as a result of your research into this area: clearly, it will be by non-Viagra induced heart attack! Is there any wonder there? You'll know the time when it comes: the "jiggles" will become "blurs!"

NO and NO. BK Ah, the lawyer's usual propensity toward burying us in verbiage and evidence is strangely non-evident! Is this the result of a 12-step program, Bill?

FYI, below I've posted all(?) of the entries about Roger Craig to be found in, I guess, most places, from Walt Brown's Global Index to the JFK Assassination. Other citations were also found to other people relative to "station wagon," also below). Some general observations about all of this: first, that there seem to be enough "independent" observations of a station wagon or a car that a man was (or men were) seen getting into almost immediately after the shooting that lends credence to the possibility since if there were shooters in the plaza area - including LHO or not - they had to get away from the area somehow, or else they had to blend into the crowd fairly effectively (Mooney's "plainclothes officers like me" being a case in point). I quote "independent" because you sometimes have to wonder how many people - especially those cited by authors - actually saw something, vice how many "remembered" it later after having read about it elsewhere ... not to mention how many people may have made up the story they told! If there were time for DCM to have gone into the parking lot and later driven a car out to pick up a man or men depends upon how long after the shooting the cars/men were seen (e.g., where was DCM at the time of the photo of the Rambler wagon at least partially obscured by the bus?). I've never traced his movements, so have no idea. More to the point is the testimony of James Romack (6H277-84), who came to the WC's attention at about the time James Worrell was leaving (with Robert Jackson, Amos Euins and someone else whose name I've momentarily forgotten) to go to DC to testify. It seems that Romack had been working at a freight terminal behind the TSBD - along with George "Pop" Rackley, Virgie's father (6H273-77)- and had "stationed" himself in a position where he could see the back of the building "at all times." He testified that he was watching the back and side of the building and saw nobody running from it at any time. A couple of caveats to that testimony, however, are that he did, at one point, move from his "station" to remove the barricade on Houston St to allow Sam Pate to get his KBOX radio car out of the road construction zone back there, that being a point in time where his attention was directed away from the TSBD (Sam parked behind the TSBD, and on alighting did see someone running across Houston St from the direction of the SE corner/east side of the TSBD); and also that he was not asked - nor did he volunteer - anything about any vehicles in the area. It is noted that Romack's entire testimony was intended - by his own admission - to discredit the "xxxx" that he thought Worrell was, and so focused mainly if not solely upon someone running from the side entrance. Neither his nor Rackley's testimony, to the best of my offhand recollection, had any discussion about other vehicles or persons in the area. Other citations: For "station wagon" see: James Pennington (p.189 in Kurtz, Crime of the Century) who it is said corroborated Craig's claim of LHO getting into a station wagon, as well as Marvin Robinson (driver on Elm Street who witnessed a man run from the Depository and enter a late model Rambler station wagon (32 in Anson, They've Killed the President; 73-74 in DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed; 119-120 in Hurt, Reasonable Doubt; 132 in Kurtz, Crime of the Century; 110 in Moscovit, Did Castro Kill Kennedy?; 14 in Shaw and Harris, Cover-Up; 242 in Thompson, Six Seconds in Dallas) and Richard Robinson (motorist who witnessed a man run from the Depository and enter a late model Rambler station wagon; may be the same person as Marvin Robinson, cited above), 387 in North, Act of Treason), Helen Forrest (saw a man run from the rear of the TSBD, down the incline, and get into a Rambler; if not Oswald, his twin, according to Mrs. James Forrest: 132, 135, 221, 225 in Kurtz, Crime of the Century; 110 in Moscovit, Did Castro Kill Kennedy?), Glenn Smith (accountant privy to an "Oswald" gun transaction, had actually driven a Russian-speaking woman three times to 2515 W 5th St, Irving after servicing her station wagon: 352 in Brown, Warren Omission; 357-358 in Meagher, Accessories After the Fact; Warren Commission 26 Volumes: noting that vehicle involved was a 1953 or 1954 Plymouth or Chevrolet station wagon, X, 403; TESTIMONY OF, X, 399-405; House Select Committee 12 Volumes: XII, 286-287). Also(?), Richard Randolph Carr (Dealey Plaza eyewitness, had commanding vantage point in building under construction south of Elm Street: 32 in Anson, They've Killed the President; 395-399 in Brown, People v. Lee Harvey Oswald; 61, 67 in Crenshaw, Conspiracy of Silence; 412 in Davis, Mafia Kingfish; 43, 177-180, 235n, 243n in Garrison, Heritage of Stone; 95-96, 238-239, 281 in Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins; 121 in Groden and Livingstone, High Treason; 62, 143 in Groden, The Killing of a President; 119-120 in Hurt, Reasonable Doubt; 64, 86, 88 in Jones, Forgive My Grief III; 351-353, 458 in Kirkwood, American Grotesque; 131-132 in Kurtz, Crime of the Century; 21, 318-319 in Marrs, Crossfire; 23 in Menninger, Mortal Error; 387 in North, Act of Treason; 37, 185 in Sample, Men on the Sixth Floor; 12-14, 64, 182 in Shaw and Harris, Cover-Up; 88, 90 in Smith, Second Plot; 241-242, 244, 256 in Thompson, Six Seconds in Dallas; House Select Committee 12 Volumes: XII, 8-9, 22). Craig, Roger, (Sheriff's Deputy standing on Main Street when the shots were fired at JFK's limousine; Craig's place in the narrative is unique, and the authors cited only begin to flesh out his story; as is true in too many cases, this seminal figure in the JFK tragedy died, oddly, very young), 77n, 217 in 179, Anson, They've Killed the President; 495-498, 571, 577 in Brown, People v. Lee Harvey Oswald; 35, 130, 145, 149, 160, 243, 300 in Brown, Treachery in Dallas; 142, 206, 280, 308-309 in Brown, Warren Omission; 189 in Davis, Mafia Kingfish; 74 in DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed; 95 in Epstein, Inquest; 440-443 in Fensterwald, Coincidence or Conspiracy? 94-96, 98, 194, 202, 204- 205, 239, 273-274, 281, 326-327 in Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins; 114, 121, 123-124, 161-162 in Groden and Livingstone, High Treason; 62, 64 in Groden, The Killing of a President; 118, 160, 245 in Groden, Search for Lee Harvey Oswald; 348 in Hepburn, Farewell America; 102, 120-121, 123, 125, 400, 413 in Hurt, Reasonable Doubt; 25, 29-31, 33-35, 67, 74 in Jones, Forgive My Grief, I; 15, 29-31, 33-37, 64, 79-80, 86-88, 90, 93 in Jones, Forgive My Grief III; 31, 33, 148-149 in Jones, Forgive My Grief IV; 325-326, 458 in Kirkwood, American Grotesque; 9, 19, 122, 127, 130-133, 195 in Kurtz, Crime of the Century; 18, 96, 98, 173-174, 384 in Lane, Rush to Judgment; 20, 328- 333 in Marrs, Crossfire; xxxvi, 59 in Meagher, Accessories After the Fact; 110-111 in Melanson, Spy Saga; 279-281 in Model and Groden, JFK: Case For Conspiracy; 110, 119, 211, 213 in Moscovit, Did Castro Kill Kennedy? 12, 20 in Palamara, Third Alternative; 90-91, 95, 105, 171, 173 in Popkin, The Second Oswald; 259, 446 in Posner, Case Closed; 212 in Roffman, Presumed Guilty; 347, 351 in Sauvage, Oswald Affair; 37-38, 156 in Scheim, Contract on America; 201 in Scott, ed., Assassinations; Dallas and Beyond; 9, 14-15, 26-29, 70, 88, 99, 144, 161 in Shaw and Harris, Cover-Up; 105, 183 in Sloan, JFK: Last Dissenting Witness; 41, 43-44, 137-138, 158-159, 161, 163, 236, 291 in Smith, Second Plot; 243-244, 256 in Thompson, Six Seconds in Dallas; 498-499 in Trask, Pictures of the Pain; 110, 136-137, 139 in Weisberg, Whitewash II; 168 in Weisberg, Photographic Whitewash; Warren Commission 26 Volumes: IV, 245; XIX, 524; XXIII, 817; XXIV, 23; on Nash Rambler, VI, 266-267; seeing sixth floor cartridges a foot away from the window, VI, 268; Lee Oswald's comment regarding station wagon, VI, 270; on not being remembered on November 22, 1963 by Will Fritz, VII, 404; TESTIMONY OF, VI, 260-273; Warren Commission Report: 160-161, 251-253; House Select Committee 12 Volumes: XII, 6, 17-18.

Except that by calling it that - a cenotaph - one explicitly denies the possibility: cen·o·taph [sen-uh-taf, -tahf] –noun : a sepulchral monument erected in memory of a deceased person whose body is buried elsewhere. Sorry, couldn't help it!

HISTORIANS. ... Except that historians, like journalists, consider themselves to be a breed apart and not just a little better than most other people, especially when viewing something that happened longer than, say, a moment ago. They would take umbrage at unwashed masses as ourselves laying claim to such a high calling! (Journalists, incidentally, are qualified to cover everything equally in depth, with or without expertise, using simple words the rest of us can understand. A journalist's writing can most easily be recognized by their ability to keep people informed throughout their work, such as noting in an article about the Department of Homeland Security that "the agency was formed in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001, when two airliners flew into the World Trade Center buildings." Otherwise, how would we know when or why DHS came into existance, or what happened on September 11?)

I think it's a mistake to presume that the "get out of line" - or, more fully, "get out of line, we are hit" - quote is an exact quote of what he said, verbatim, at the very moment. Most adults are prone to saying what they meant, or what they thought they said, whenever they recount it. It could, of course, be argued that he remembered exactly what he'd said in that rarefied moment, in much the same way that people old enough to remember much of anything at all at the time can tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing when they'd heard the news 40-plus years ago. If that's so, then we've got to account for his testimony (twice on 2H74 and again at 2H75): That is when I completely turned to my right and grabbed for the mike in the same motion, sideways telling the driver, "Let's get out of here; we are hit." "Let's get out of here," not "Get out of line." He also testified - and affirmed in his testimony - that he'd heard Kennedy say "My God, I am hit!" ... which is fine, other than the facts that /a/ Mrs Kennedy testified that her husband never said a word, and /b/ he apparently had a hole through his throat at the time, not entirely conducive to saying anything in an audible voice. Yet, he said, "Why I am so positive, gentlemen, that it was his voice there is only one man in that back seat that was from Boston, and the accents carried very clearly." So, you decide.

Since this is all just fun speculation, my thinking is that, first, once a single shot rang out, commitment was made: it was an all-or-none scenario. Once it began, the only option was success. Still, "the best laid plans" and all that, however slight the possibility may have been, failure had to be considered and planned for. In the immediate aftermath of the attempt, what would have changed? Even if a red halo hadn't appeared around JFK's head, if Clint Hill had gotten to the limo faster as he's always wished he had, or if Kellerman had leaped the roll bar and taken the bullet for his boss, or if the last shooter on the way out had hit Jackie instead ... what would have changed? Nada. Nobody knew - absolutely - that JFK was dead and unrevivable when the motorcade left the plaza. Whatever plans went into play started immediately, and would have had to even if JFK's heart was still beating, his head still intact. Tippit would have been shot just as he was, the cops would have left DP in droves and rushed after the cop killer just as they did, and he in turn would have died in the Texas Theater just — well, as I said, "the best laid plans..." — and a 'Plan B' devised, just as it was. All of these things took place irrespective of JFK's health or lack thereof, and had to. The sole difference - up to this point, anyway - is that they'd have had to wait longer to get a definitive answer on JFK's condition if he'd survived. I submit that nothing else would have changed up to this point. In the end, however, instead of a dead President and LBJ in office, they might instead have had a very angry wounded President and an Attorney General ready, willing and able to do something about it. If JFK had survived the attack, there'd have been no Warren Commission, no Hoover-led and -fed FBI "investigation" (and maybe no Hoover!), no sham investigation to prove the patsy a "Communist," no "final and definitive answer" less than a year later, no wholesale acceptance of fiction as fact, no purchase of the "Communist conspiracy" diversion pandered by Dallas, and no retaliation against Castro and Cuba because, above all, Kennedy would have known about Ted Szalc's quiet little visit to an island in the Carribean on his behalf. Would there have been more attempts? Here, I have to agree with Charles: there are only so many bets that can be covered completely. The shooters were not the planners, and the shooters weren't going to be found — just as they haven't — or betray their generals, who today are probably all dead.

In another videotaped interview with Jim Marrs, several persons detailed the abduction and subsequent physiological revision of their selves into others' by presences that did not feel human, but which did not reveal their phyiscal attributes ... if in fact, they had any. Myra is now Duke, Duke is now Lee, and Lee is Myra (tho' not quite as good-looking anymore - sigh). Sorry, couldn't help myself. But it's true.

I agree with you as well as with Charles (despite his often heavy sarcasm), especially his point about General George Custer (one wonders how he ever became a general without having some of these rudimentary tactical procedures taught to him!). As another "armchair" (meaning "not trained in the subject") observer, let me make a few observations: 1) Greer was driving essentially into a box canyon: tho' the underpass did provide an exit "through the mountain," so to speak, and even protection from attackers on the ground above, there was absolutely no guarantee that there would not have been additional attackers either within the "tunnel" of the underpass, or somehow positioned at the exit. Had there been, and Greer had driving full-speed into them, his charge would be just as dead (and so might he be) and we'd be vilifying him for a different bad judgement call today. I think Shanet's "accelerate ... period" does not always apply ... which might have something to do with why security drivers are taught how to use a "bootlegger's turn" to escape backward! 2) Appearing to drive into an ambush, one can drive farther into it or attempt to retreat from it. In this case, retreat would have been particularly difficult if not entirely impossible given the parade of cars behind the limo. Turning around would have been a huge time delay, again if even possible given the curbs (the given reason why the parade couldn't go over from Main St ... tho' why temporary ramps couldn't have been improvised is beyond me) and the weight of the vehicle (the other reason for the same). The Queen Mary was right behind him, so the aforementioned bootlegger's turn probably had no applicability. 3) The agents described the shooting as a "fusillade" of shots; WC apologists like to cite the "echo patterns" of the plaza to refute the so-called acoustic evidence. Point being: where are the shots coming from? Supposedly, they were all coming from behind ... tho' witnesses (including all the DCSO folks who ran to the knoll ... despite Jerry Hill's recent denial that "any trained law enforcement people" thought shots originated from there!) were of the opinion they came from the railroad yards. So, was Greer driving away from the attacker(s), or toward him or them? And of course, were there more in the dark tunnel ahead? 4) The idea of Kellerman lunging to cover JFK while Greer accelerated is ludicrous. First, there is the "roll bar" that was immediately behind him, which he'd first have to either scale or climb through. If the latter, he'd then have to crawl across the Connallys' laps to get to his boss, covering him first from below; if the former, the effect of his backward rush over a taller structure coupled with the loss of "ground" beneath his feet as Greer "gunned" it (no pun intended) coupled with Kennedy now coming toward him even faster than before could well have transformed Kellerman into the "assassination weapon:" imagine a 200-lb man falling toward you from above as you rushed into him, your back pressed against the unyielding seat of an accelerating, heavy limousine ... that is, if he didn't take off Connally's head first, or just crash into him and be stopped before, once again, getting to his boss! "The operation was a success; unfortunately, the patient died." 5) Someone here had once posited - I forget who and what their experience had been, if any - and it made much sense to me that USSS (or any) security drivers are taught to position their right foot on the gas and their left foot over the brake so that either can be used with as little delay as possible as the situation requires. Thus, when Greer heard something over his shoulder - "oh, no, no," "they're going to kill us all," or whatever - and turned around to his right, the effect was to put his foot on the brake. Maybe, maybe not, but it at least sounds sensible. I might be able to find out for certain, but it's a long shot. 6) On-the-ground security was not - and generally is not - the responsibility of USSS personnel in any motorcade (i.e., when POTUS/VP or other charge is vehicular; when they alight to go, for instance, into a building, it becomes theirs), and in this case was explicitly that of DPD. Security details do not leave their charge, for once they do, the charge has no more security. The detail is not a "posse" out to "get the bad guy," but exactly what they're called: security. They would not "disperse armed personnel" in any case, even though those in QM were, in fact, armed. If that were to have been the case - if they should have hunted down the assassins - they could have and would have done so when the limo sped off (they heard the shots, too, after all!) instead of staying with POTUS. QED. If one wants to find fault with the ambush having been able to succeed, put it where it belongs: DPD. While they had two and three cops posted at every intersection along the parade route - one on motorcycle, and one or two on foot - they had a total of only six in all of Dealey Plaza: two (on foot) at Main & Houston; two (also on foot) at Elm & Houston; and two on the bridge (on foot and inaccessible to the roadway), one facing east into the plaza, the other assigned to watch westward, away from it. None of them could have gotten to any trouble spot very quickly at street level once the motorcade had made its last turn, and none did ... and, in fact, none tried. These are observations that make me happy - elated and euphoric, even! - and thus not subject to derision for not sharing in the same ideals as others.