Duke Lane

The memorandum is the same document that Monk's been referring to: Foreign Relations of the United States 1961-1963, Volume IV, Section 4, Document 321, pp608 et seq. It's online at MFF and History-Matters.com, as well in PDF on a State Department site I found somewhere. I think MFF & H-M have PDFs there too. I don't have a hard copy either. I think you'd pointed that out in an earlier post, and/or that John Newman hadn't found any notes, or anyone who remembered anyone taking notes. (I don't have his book, btw.) To be frank, that's not (so far) a great concern for a number of reasons, many of which I think you'll agree with (and not to suggest you think it is a great concern): First, while "we can't know" that the memorandum reflects the actual events of the conference, apparently nobody who was there says that they're not reflective of the actual events, so if they're undisputed, there's no reason to think that they're not. Second, even if there were minutes or notes, there's no guarantee that they would be accurate either, nor absent active dispute, any reason to think they'd be inaccurate. For that matter, even if they were accurate, it doesn't mean there wouldn't be a dispute (real or simply provocative). Third, FBI agents (in particular Hosty, Silbert and O'Neill) have testified that, once they'd reduced their handwritten notes to "writing" (i.e., a typed report), they destroyed them. When I first read this, I checked with some local and federal law enforcement types I know, and they agree that's a common practice even still. If it's good enough for law enforcement purposes (i.e., for production in a court of law), then the practice of doing the same thing for a conference - which may or may not have been as important absent JFK's murder - does not strike me as critical. (Are there notes extant of the SecDef Honolulu conference in July? All of the rest of them? State Dept conferences? I'm asking....) Fourth, there were apparently quite a few people at the November 20 conference, most of whom probably weren't known personally by most people there. While participants contacted by Newman, et al., didn't remember (40 years later) anyone taking notes, it may have been someone they didn't know, and I'm not certain that anyone out of a large crowd who was taking notes would have stood out: mightn't lots of people have been? Weren't they probably? Would it have been apparent if nobody was taking any notes? (This memo came from CINCPAC Felt: would an "orderly" - an aide, adjutant, secretary, etc. - from his staff recording the proceedings on paper or on tape even been noticed?) Fifth, from the sound of it, the "conference" was more of a series of presentations than an actual discussion or exchange of ideas. There are a couple of notations about this from both before and after the conference, quoting Forrestal and Bundy's memos. There are probably a couple others that I was thinking of, but remembering five of them is okay for now.

Indulge me a little preamble: A researcher friend of mine told me about 20 years ago or so that "the difference between a buff and a researcher is that a buff raises questions and a researcher finds answers." I won't go so far as to say I've learned at his feet, but certainly he gave me good insight into the kinds of criticisms from the "research community" and how best to avoid it. He says "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs," which I've taken to mean "if you state a fact, be prepared to back it up" (or as those who consider me verbose have found, I'm generally not just prepared to, but generally just do it). If you can't state something is a fact and back it up, then it should be qualified as a deduction, an opinion, a consensus, or whatever else it may be if it's not a provable fact. A minor (some might say extreme) example is when I wrote "The Cowtown Connection" back in '92, when I said that David Atlee Phillips was deceased - fairly common knowledge at the time - I gave a citation to his obituary. Likewise, I felt extremely chagrined and embarrassed when I just plain ol' couldn't remember Paul Groody's name in time for a deadline and I decided that he'd "remain nameless to protect the inane" or some such thing. (Oddly, nobody ever called me on that one!) My point to this is that, from what little I've gathered, you've got a good reputation as a researcher, and not as a buff. (Buffs often call themselves researchers because they appear frequently on TV and radio (or simply because they're interested in the topic and find things they consider "strange" every so often), so I'm not counting those as "researcher credentials.") So that's why I asked this question. That's what I expect a researcher to have done for me rather than merely raise a question or state an opinion, and then tell me to go get the answer if I really want to know (and I'm not saying that you're saying that, only that you've given me the words to make this example). The problem with that is that sometimes someone can research the answer and find that it differs with what the first guy (or girl) said. They, naturally, doesn't want to hear about how their unresearched opinion is wrong and continues to state their opinion as fact, and sometimes get their a$$ kicked (so to speak) when the real deal comes out. (Let me blow my own trumpet and suggest that nobody says that David Atlee Phillips was under arrest in Fort Worth Texas on November 22 1963 "and here's a picture to prove it." Or even say "wow, it's pretty strange that someone who looks just like David Atlee Phillips was under arrest in Fort Worth, what do you make of that!?!" anymore. OTOH, people do still think (however erroneously!) that Richard Carr, Dickie Worrell and Ed Hoffman were actual witnesses that day, so it just goes to show you that not everybody believes hard fact over tantalizing fiction.) And that brings us to the heart of the matter. When you look at the McNamara-Taylor report, which is Item #167 in FRUS IV, it appears on page 336 and ends at page 346, a total of 11 pages. This is a 52-page document in its original form. At the top of page 340, it reads: [Here follows Sections II, "Military Situations and Trends," III, "Economic Situation and Trends," IV, "Political Situation and Trends," and V, "Effect on Political Tension."] These sections do not appear in the text of FRUS IV, but it clearly doesn't mean that they don't exist, or weren't included in the M-T report, or that this is exactly what was written in the report (I've included that below just for the sake of showing how much was omitted in FRUS). The notation, in brackets (usually connoting an editorial comment, not a verbatim inclusion), "[Here follows ...]" appears a lot in FRUS, which is an edited compilation of documents, in such contexts as "[Here follows discussion unrelated to Vietnam]" which thinking person realizes doesn't mean that someone put those words in the minutes of a meeting or whatever: "here follows" means that "in this place would be" (whatever) if the editor of FRUS (generally Leslie Belb) had decided to edit it out. That's how a 52-page document fits on 11 pages. So when the memorandum of the Honolulu conference (Item #321 starting on page 608) notes on page 624, "[Here follows discussion of Item C 1, "Revision of Military Comprehensive Plan;" Item C 2, "Status Report on FY 64 MAP;" Item D, "Outline in terms of forces, timing and numbers involved, the projected program for reduction U.S. military forces by end FY65;" and Item E, "Country Team suggestions for revision of current reports to develop a consolidated country team reporting system."]," it does not mean that this is all that was said about it, it means that it was edited out. I'm sure you know that, don't you? What was it edited out of? According to the first footnoted annotation of this document (bottom of page 608) we're told that the cited document is "RG 334, MAC/V Files: FRC 69 A 702, 204-58 Policy and Precedent Files (1963), [then classified as] Secret," found at the Washington National Records Center, which is now in Suiteland, MD. This document will contain the full text of everything that's in this memorandum, including the stuff that "here follows" on page 624. But you say (as you did at about 1:03:48 on BOR) that "there was no further discussion! That's as far as it went. It just stops there," that there were (after 1:01:50) "16 pages [in FRUS] on the Honolulu conference, but only three small pagagraphs about what they were supposed to be doing at the conference!" (your emphasis), when that is true only in FRUS, an edited compendium. Later (1:04:50) you said, "Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the information is somewhere else and I'm just a lousy researcher and I haven't uncovered it yet. I'm not sure, maybe it's someplace," yet you've said here that you've only looked in FRUS IV, which even told you where to look for the original document. The annotation I quoted above also tells you a little further on (still at the bottom of page 324) that "Another copy of this memorandum is ibid., RG 84, Saigon Embassy Files: FRC 67 A 677, 350, Honolulu Conference." So how is it you "haven't uncovered it yet?" Are you suggesting that your reputation is undeserved? Here is what "[Here follows ...]" from the McNamara-Taylor report that enabled it, in part, to be condensed in FRUS from its original 52 pages to just 11: Did you read any more of FRUS IV? Did you get to the part (Document 305, dated November 7, a memo from Michael Forrestal to McGeorge Bundy, at FRUS IV page 581) where it's said that "we have added a gloss to the [McNamara-Taylor] formula and implied (in the NSC statement of last month) that we would also withdraw the bulk of our personnel as soon as the South Vietnamese were able to cope for themselves. Secretary McNamara and General Taylor," Forrestal wrote, "estimated that this might occur in 1965." Gloss. Freaking gloss added by an NSC staffer to the NSAM that he wrote at Bundy's order to "issue an appropriate NSAM" to "have something more official" than the New York Times article of November 3 for government agencies to have as a record! "Gloss" is how the NSC staffer who issued "an appropriate NSAM" to inform the military of the content of the M-T report (and who signed his name just "Mike" in his memorandum to Bundy) described JFK's "firm," "unambigous" "policy." "We have added gloss to the formula." It was editorial bullspit by an assistant to an aide. EDIT: I don't know what's up with all those lines in the long quote: I couldn't get rid of them, or maybe I'm the only one who sees them.

It was an interesting and insightful discussion. One item that I thought might bear some further discussion or clarification is your point about the "three small paragraphs" relating to the issues to have been discussed at the Honolulu conference, particularly those identified as C 1 and C 2 in the State/Defense cable setting forth the proposed agenda for the conference. You said (somewhere around 1:01:50) that it seemed as if the author of the after-action memo had "almost cut and pasted" the verbiage from the cable to the memo. What you said is actually contained in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963, Volume IV (or FRUS IV) is a notation about "here follows discussion about" these items, which is indeed quite so. Paraphrasing somewhat, you go on to note that there is no further discussion! That's how far it went. It just stops there. They didn't keep notes. The State Department didn't write down what was said. ... Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the information is somewhere else and I'm just a lousy researcher [slapping noise in background] and I haven't uncovered it yet. I'm not sure. Maybe it's someplace. I've looked where it purportedly is and it's extremely inadequate. I'm not clear from this whether the information was somewhere else or not. Did they "not keep notes" of the discussion, or does it exist and it's just "extremely inadequate?"

I didn't think you were. It's interesting, tho', how nobody's glommed onto what I described over the years, and how few responses there have ever been to it. Is it some sort of stumper or something?

If I find myself with a bit of time the next time I'm in Dallas, I'll see if I can't track some of this information down through the Sheriff's Department and/or County Records. It may also be possible to determine which JP court was Judge Richburg's, and it's possible that the arresting deputies are still around (have you looked into that? I'm imagining so). A preliminary step that you can take - if you haven't already - is to try to determine some of that information through the County Records Department's general phone number 214-653-7011, which should at least be able to steer you in an appropriate direction and give you some direct-dial numbers. I'm imagining, perhaps incorrectly, that Dallas County will have the same sort of records available as the Fort Worth Police Department does and did when I looked into the "David Atlee Phillips under arrest in Fort Worth 11/22/63" thing back in '91 or '92, many of them possibly online now. (It never hurts to dress nicely and flash an award-winning smile either!) December 4 was a Monday, I'm presuming (also possibly erroneously) that the "1 a.m." is that time on the same Monday morning since the article didn't mention a different day, so the Tuesday in question would either be the 5th or the 12th. What have you done so I don't needlessly duplicate your efforts?

... This leaves three shots from the sixth floor, one of which may have hit JFK in the back of the head at Z-327 (I'm not convinced), one that hit Connally at Z-224 and the one that missed and hit the street behind the limo at Z-175. With two, possibly all three of his shots missing their intended target, it seems to me that the sixth floor shooter was the only poor marksman. Which curiously enough fits with what we know about Oswald's abilities. It doesn't matter how bad the shots from a particular location were, or how much we might be able to equate them with an individual's abilities, you still have to put that individual in the place where the shots were fired from. I'll submit to y'all for your consideration the following: After Bill Shelley let the flooring crew break early for lunch, the boys had an "elevator race" and went to the lavatory to wash up. Bonnie Ray Williams was among them, but oddly enough, by the time he'd emerged from "washing up," everybody had already gone outside to watch the parade. This entailed a significant number of people having eaten their lunches including Shelley, Junior Jarman, Hank Norman and Billy Lovelady, among others. They're the ones I'm recalling off the top of my head; there may have been others as well (Danny Arce, Bill Shelley, et al.). Each of them described their actions prior to going outside, encompassing several minutes. When Bonnie Ray came out of the wash room, they were already done and outside, meaning that he was "occupied" there long enough for everyone else to have their lunch. Since none of them were around when he got out and they'd discussed earlier going upstairs to watch the parade, he figured they'd gone upstairs, so up he went. As we know, he didn't find any of the guys he'd expected to on the fifth floor, went up to the sixth - likewise vacant - and ate his lunch there. Later, he went downstairs and met up with Hank and Junior on the fifth floor where they all watched the parade and the shooting. Here's where it gets interesting. Both Junior and Hank said that they'd gone upstairs after they'd heard that the motorcade was on Main Street. The first mention on police radios of the motorcade being on Main Street was at 12:26. They walked around the building, went in the back door, and rode the freight elevator up to the fifth floor, then went to the window. According to two out of three of them (Hank said he wasn't sure), Bonnie Ray came to the fifth floor and the window after the other two had already gotten there. This means that Bonnie Ray was on the sixth floor as late as 12:28. If he was there, he was within 20 unobstructed feet of the "sniper's nest" window (unobstructed, that is, from where he'd said he was sitting, where the hand truck was "parked": in police photos of the scene, you can see all the way along the wall from the southwest to the southeast corners, and the hand truck was almost right next to the wall). He claimed he heard and saw nobody, yet he was within ear- and eye-shot of where Oswald supposedly was. Likewise, Jack Dougherty was supposedly working on both the fifth and sixth floors during this part of the lunch break, "getting stock" to fill orders, (one would think) a fairly noisy operation, yet none of these three men saw or heard him at any time. Bonnie Ray said it was deadly silent, and testimony would suggest that it was so if, in fact, the three men could hear the sound of empty cartidges hitting the floor above them. (They also did not hear the sound of "Oswald running" or stowing the rifle despite the silence and his supposedly being directly above them.) At the time of the shooting, Jack said that he was ten feet from the west elevator when he thought he heard a "backfire." This put him directly in the path of a fleeing Oswald, yet Jack neither saw nor heard anything of the sort. He was apparently still there when Roy Truly looked up the elevator shaft and saw the bottoms of both elevators at the fifth floor (Bonnie Ray had ridden the east elevator up to six and down to five, and it couldn't be moved except by someone inside the cab) as he and Marrion Baker were beginning their trek up to the top floors. But the west elevator was gone by the time they arrived at the fifth floor. They didn't see Jack or any of the three black men while they were on the fifth floor and walked across the elevator area to the east elevator, which they rode past six and up to seven. Truly actually conceded that the elevator "might have been" used by Jack as he and Baker were going upward, but any further questions that might have reasonably arisen were left unasked and unexplored. So why didn't Bonnie Ray just come out and say that he'd been on the sixth floor until Oswald got there, and why didn't Jack mention seeing or at least hearing Oswald on his flight back down?

There's no doubt in my mind that the cross-bar would've been an obstruction at an acute angle - i.e., while the vehicle was farther away and the angle low to the target - but the closer it got, the less of an obstruction it became as the angle to the target increased, i.e., became more of an "overhead" view. This seems like something of a "throwaway" answer, Jim; something that sounds sensible but doesn't mean a thing. You been reading Posner lately? (grin)

Oh. Okay. I'm finally catching on. These guys will believe what they want to believe, decide what is "evidence" and what isn't, tout the things that support their beliefs and dismiss those that don't, and deride those who don't agree with their special insights. There really are monsters under the bed, whether anyone else can see them or not, cuz they've seen 'em themselves. QED. The line "if it weren't a violation of forum policy" takes the cake, too. Wow. Pretty slick how Monk did that, violated it without violating it, eh? Gosh, I wish I had that kind of audacity! First we've got Monk telling us that "there is nothing ambiguous" about 263, that it's "JFK's firm policy," and that Bundy is clearly a traitor for drafting something that's so antithetical to it while JFK was still alive, showing that he somehow "knew" there would be another president in office by the time anyone read his draft. The plot was unfolding right there in the Oval Office! Then when something earlier and just as antithetical is brought to the fore, it's dismissed out of hand like it doesn't exist because "JFK was against unilateral American involvement in Indochina from before the days of the French defeat," and "there is no evidence that his personal position on the matter changed once he became president." There are even a couple of quotes to support it. So how does this square with the idea of NSAMs being so incredibly important, "clear indicators" of "presidential policy" that it's supposedly a "serious crime" to circumvent or subvert, that NSAM-111 - very clearly antithetical to NSAM-263 - is somehow NOT as clear an indicator of presidential policy? Oh, they're important alright. Just not NSAM-111. It wasn't. It's not "evidence that his personal position on the matter changed once he became president" precisely because it is evidence that he changed his personal position on the matter once he became president. But, really, that's because "he was politically astute enough to realize the difference between his 'public position' and his actual position," the former apparently being elucidated in a **TOP SECRET** NSAM and in all of his public utterances, and the latter being shared, sotto voce, with his closest compatriots (excluding, of course, his brother Bobby, who was his closest confidant in everything except this, the one thing so important it "got him killed;" on that, JFK misled his brother, didn't tell him what was really on his mind so that Bobby believed, after JFK's death, that Jack wasn't going to pull out, despite there being "no evidence" that he'd changed his mind from the '50s and clearly "always intended" to). A wily one, that Jack! So, NSAM-111 not being "evidence that his personal position on the matter changed," what was it if not the same "unambiguous" statement of policy that Monk tells us NSAM-263 was, and all NSAMs are? "A 'National Security Action Memorandum' has 2 key concepts in it," he pointed out to me on the Education Forum. "The first is National Security, which TRUMPS all other considerations. The second is ACTION. It is not like 'passing a note' in class. Not only might it delineate policy, it is a directive intended to implement that policy: ACTION." OK. I got it. I've been instructed. I pulled a bunch of NSAMs off of the JFK Library site and pointed out a few that were literally nothing more than reminders, things that are almost "like 'passing a note' in class," or at the very least, not something we'd consider in the stratum of something that "TRUMPS all other considerations" as anything to do with "national security" surely does. Along with that came the four-page NSAM-111 that apparently doesn't fit that bill and isn't, apparently, what a NSAM "is," isn't "policy" even despite its clear and detailed language and instuctions. More like a long note passed in class. We know that because "there is no evidence that (JFK's) personal position on the matter changed," and if this is and does, then, well, it's not and didn't. There's not an important distinction here, folks, so just move along, move along, there's nothing more to see. JFK's "personal position" is actually addressed in NSAM-263, which was an "order" because, as I'd pointed out, it was written at the "suggestion" of the JCS chair, relayed via JFK's military aide, to have "something more official" on which to base government activities than the New York Times article that appeared on October 3 "announcing" the withdrawal to take place and the media's inevitable questions that might be asked - but weren't - at a forthcoming news conference that nobody on the NSC staff even knew about. Bundy told his aide Michael Forrestal to "gather together recent materials on Vietnam" and to "issue an appropriate NSAM" to support a "general line" that "was considered reeasonable by everyone at the table." Wow, that's pretty official. JFK's "unambiguous policy." Sort of restores one's faith in government "policy," doesn't it? And has anyone even noticed that NSAM-263 excluded approval of the items covered in the McNamara-Taylor report sections I B (4) and (5), discussion about which former was deferred for "three days" at the October 2 meeting, was discussed and approved at the October 5 meeting that NSAM-263 explicitly references and bases its "orders" on? Forrestal, who was present at the October 5 "off the record" meeting and authored the "Memorandum for the Files" of it, who was at the staff meeting on OCtober 7, must've forgotten about all about that in the interim of authoring that "appropriate NSAM" on October 11. (In Forrestal's Memorandum of the October 5 meeting, all of the political provisions of subsection (4), actions "to impress upon Diem our disapproval of his political program," are discussed at length, yet in the end, Forrestal notes that subsection (5) - "At this time, no initiative should be taken to encourage actively a change in government. Our policy should be to seek urgently to identify and build contacts with an alternative leadership if and when it appears" - is what he writes were "approved and that appropriate instructions implementing the recommendation in this section be transmitted via CAS channels.") That JFK: he really was some sort of genius, wasn't he, in clarifying his "unambiguous policy?" Wow. I wonder when he was going to clarify his October 5 approval of subsection (4) - and maybe (5) - if not in NSAM-263 on October 11, his "unambiguous policy" on Vietnam that's just so filled with ambiguity? OK, I'm confusing the issue here. It's not about any of that stuff. "The only issue, or bone of contention, which should concern us," Richard Gilbride jumps in to say, "is whether 263 and 273 are similar such ACTION instructions and policy outlines." Y'know, golly gee, he's right: it is an important question! Did NSAM-263 reflect JFK's real policy in one page, countermanding his "other" policy that was in the same sort of National-Security-that-TRUMPS-every-other-consideration ACTION-meaning-directive-intended-to-implement-my-policy-action Memorandum that's not "evidence that he changed his personal position" but rather something that those in government would have been "politically astute enough" to realize "the difference between his 'public position' and his actual position" that somebody took enough time to delineate in four detailed pages of a National Security ACTION Memorandum. So are they? Yes or no? Richard? "NSAMs 55 and 57, and 271, which are the other NSAMs I'm personally familiar with," he declares, "are presidential ACTION instructions and policy outlines." Oh. OK. That clears that up. And? No other shoe falls. That's it. There's nothing more. NSAMs 55, 57 and 271 are "presidential ACTION instructions and policy outlines," three out of 271 (actually 272). Does that mean 263 must be an ACTION memo? No response. There is nothing at all behind that curtain, folks, so move along now .... BUT WAIT! WAIT! He's not done! Gather 'round, folks, something really important is about to happen here! Shhh ...! Monk's "nay-sayers are ignoring an additional piece of contextual evidence," the speaker intones. "Nothing," he says, "nothing has been posted by them in regard to Daniel Patrick Moynihan's memo 'It's Over' published in his recent memoirs and also on-line at Vanity Fair!" Nothing! How can they ignore this recent evidence? Unreal! (A voice is heard from the crowd: Phil Dragoo yells "I referenced that powerful Moynihan memo, too! Back on November 4th!" Wow, those nay-sayers really are ignorant, aren't they! TELL US! TELL US!! What did Moynihan say?!?) "In Vanity Fair! Wherein he recounts (on the night of November 22nd, he whispers) that:" (Pregnant pause.) "Quote: he says, 'We went directly to the President's office which was torn apart with new carpets being put down in his office and the cabinet room... McGEORGE BUNDY appeared. ICY...'" The room is silent. Icy! "Is this not consistent with the demeanor of a guilty man - a participant in the coup d'etat- shunning inquisitive intruders?" Oh. My. Gawd. Could it be? The smoking gun? In the stunned silence hanging over the audience like a thick fog rolling in from the sea, a small voice comes over the PA. "He left out the part about Bundy then calling Secretary McNamara." Oh my. "And Moynihan's impression that the new carpet made it seem 'as if a new President were to take office.'" Even more intriguing and indicative! The crowd hangs on tautly, awaiting more. They're not disappointed: "And that Chuck Daly was there, too! And Ralph Dungan came in, smoking a pipe, 'quizzical.'" A pause. "Moynihan says 'As if ... unconcerned! And then Sorenson, too! And the troika called Secretary McNamara!" Is there no end to the treachery?!? Do we need more proof than JFK's own personal friend telling us this? And right after that sly dog Bundy wrote that draft! At last! EVIDENCE! But wait, there's still more. And one really wonders how they missed it. Cuz, yup, in the same book, if they'd looked just a little farther, just before the passage above (in which we also learn that Moynihan retired and watched tv with the pipe-smoking, "quizzical" and "unconcerned" Ralph Dungan!), we find that Moynihan had also penned his resignation. It read: He was very clearly writing to LBJ, not to his just-departed dear friend Jack Kennedy. The letter was dated ... November 21, 1963. Moynihan was part of the plot, too. JFK's own very dear friend. Oh. My. Gawd. How did they miss that? (Oh. The publisher said it was an "incorrect" date, that's how! Not having been part of the plot themselves - a rarity for publishers in those days! - they clearly didn't recognize the evidence even as it stared them in the face! It was "a mistake!" It slipped by our sleuths because it wasn't in Vanity Fair.) So let's forget about all this mumbo-jumbo, all this "double-think and double-speak," about what NSAMs were, what they meant, what JFK's "true" intentions were or weren't, who wrote what, why, and all of that meaningless talk about stuff that's not evidence of anything anyway (except about how artful JFK really was?), and let's move on to the critical thinking, the really profound examination of "the demeanor of a guilty man - a participant in the coup d'etat - shunning inquisitive intruders." That's where the meat is, that's where the answers will be found, not lollygaggin' around 'mid the muck and the mire of those meaningless NSAMS that "TRUMP all other considerations" except, of course, what we should've been looking at all along. Uh, at least since November, that is. In a book. That'll be out soon. Excerpts on Vanity Fair, film at eleven. (Gosh, I'm still amazed that I'd missed it! But at least I can save on the cost of the October 5 tape now that it's been shown to me!) Like Tony had said in order to elicit that "waste of my time" "critical thinking" response, I'm done with this "debate" as well, at least there, tho' not, as Monk would have it, by "using precisely the same strategy as JFK was using ... declaring victory (when clearly none was in sight) prior to withdrawing," but rather by recognizing what Nixon ultimately did: there's nothing to be gained from fighting an enemy who "owns" the ground and doesn't want to let it go even in the face of superior armament. The NVN at least had a defensible point there.

An earthquake in Texas.

Why not? I do it all the time. But then, everyone knows I just like to listen to myself talk (read myself write?)....

Oh, sorry, I lied, but only briefly: Probably more propaganda, but here we go: The "hairs" are "as a result of the Honolulu discussions," and "purpose" rather than "object." Oh: and also not penned by JFK. I've got a date; gotta go. This time I mean it.

You'll forgive me, I hope, if I'm having difficulty reconciling things like ... with other things like: ... which suggests to me a predisposition toward only discussing things with people whose ideas generally agree with your own. I have no idea what position, if any, McAdams or any of his "ilk" (sort of reminds me of the difference between "aroma" and "odor" when applied to one's wife's cooking, doesn't it you?) has on this question and I really don't care, but I certainly don't think that anyone's "politics" in this matter has anything to do with the validity or veracity of their arguments: you're not "right" about this topic just because I happen to think there was a conspiracy to kill JFK, and they're not wrong just because they think Oswald did it. In point of fact, I don't know whether I ultimately agree with you or not about this "smoking gun" business, but based on what I've seen so far, I'm inclined to think that your argument's not quite as strong as it seems at face value. For example, regarding NSAM-263: The emphasis upon NSAM-263 being JFK's hard-and-fast, unequivocal and resolute "policy" rings a little hollow when one finds that it was "an appropriate NSAM" that was "drawn together" from "recent materials on Vietnam" in response to a "suggestion" that there would be "something more official" to support a "general line" that was "considered reasonable by everyone around the table" to use to respond to reporters' questions at an upcoming press conference that nobody at that table even knew about. (The "Wednesday" referred to was Wednesday, October 9, 1963, two days before the issuance of NSAM-263 on October 11: it seems Forrestal was a tad behind the eight-ball getting that done.) I'm not making this stuff up, I haven't been holding it in abeyance, and nobody's been "feeding" it to me: other than what I've attributed to the book Running the World, all the stuff I've posted on this thread I'd found only in the past few days. While I grant that it's all probably "only the stuff 'they' want us to know," and certainly not "all there is to know," it fairly well demolishes the notion that these NSAMs were things that fully and accurately record exactly what JFK had firmly decided upon as if he'd spent his nights penning them himself, laboring over each word and nuance so history and his generals would get it absolutely right ... or that NSAM-273 was penned by fiendishly clever conspirators with "foreknowledge" of the impending assassination, waiting with bated breath to spring their little subterfuge of a lengthy war on an unsuspecting (or collaborating, depending on one's point of view) new president and the nation before Kennedy had even pushed up his first daisy. That's all I've got time for right now. I'm about ready to put this on the "sensational" shelf along with the famous "there's no earthquakes in Texas" commentary from Infamous Grave Sites, but just not quite yet I don't think. I know. I was thinking the same thing. (Yeah: thanks for thinking!) Edit: time of WH staff meeting

Now please stop? (grin) My main point can be summed up in the notion that foreknowledge of the signatories to NSAM-273 (in draft or adopted form) is not the ONLY conclusion one can reach, and is indeed the one least supported by the available evidence, which includes the on-going opposition to Kennedy's "policy" of withdrawal by almost all "senior" NSC officials (Bundy, McNamara, Rusk, et al.) and the then-Vice President LBJ. It is every bit as likely - and probably more likely - that these men took advantage of Kennedy's "absence" and Johnson's new (and sole) authority to enact a policy that all of them had been advocating all along. They were no longer compelled to support the deceased president's inclinations, and very clearly did not. There is nothing "absurd" about questioning Fletch Prouty's bona fides since the only evidence of them is his own assertions. That is not to say that he lied about what he did, but merely to say that "why would I lie" is about the only "proof" that he ever offered that they were factual. The fact that a "mere" colonel - almost a non-entity at the Pentagon level, much less the national security level - is not mentioned on the official record is not proof of his veracity or, to be more generous, his accuracy. There are no sacred cows, are there? (Silly me: of course there are! Isn't "Oswald did it alone and unaided" one of them to some people? It's just not right to question what we want to believe!) It's my experience that it's generally fairly easy to find evidence to support a notion, or rather, easy to ignore evidence that doesn't when you've found enough that does. Most of us have this tendency, I think, and some of us don't act against it. Peter, for example, notes that "it is of course possible that NSAM 273 had already been censored before it was submitted to some or all of the authors of the Pentagon Papers," yet he doesn't seem to consider the possibility that the draft NSAM-273 that was made on November 21 was likewise "censored" (read: "destroyed"), and in any event superceded by the version which was presented to LBJ on November 24 and ratified by him? Why in the world would we think that we have the one-and-only true and uncensored version of the "draft" that was actually made on November 21, when those at the Pentagon who made a study for and on behalf of Robert McNamara might not have had it? Your emphasis on the concept of "ACTION" seems a little misplaced, especially in light of the Honolulu Conference's objectives. You make it sound as if what Kennedy had been contemplating and hinting at was a "directive" that everyone in government had to take immediate steps to implement: "everybody get on board and DO THESE THINGS ... NOW!" If that is indeed the case, why - again in Peter Dale Scott's own words - would Kennedy demand "a 'full-scale review' of U.S. Policy in Southeast Asia" to be made in "an extraordinary all-agency Honolulu Conference of some 45 to 60 senior Administration officials" when he'd already made up his mind?? When POTUS has "made up his mind," then that seems to be the time for a "directive" for "ACTION," and not the time to "demand" a "full-scale review," wouldn't you think? This even despite the claim that "on November 20, two days before the assassination, the Honolulu Conference secretly 'agreed that the Accelerated Plan (speed-up of force withdrawal by six months directed by McNamara in October) should be maintained.'" If that is so - it was done "secretly," after all - if everyone agreed that JFK's "planned withdrawal" was the right course for the country, then how in the world did Mac Bundy get away with drafting something so at odds with such a determination and nobody said a word about those changes, or raised a furor in the press, or even mentioned it in a footnote years later in their memoirs? Shoot, if these guys had "foreknowledge" of the assassination, why did they bother to "secretly agree" to anything at all? And after having reached that "secret agreement," yet drafting a memorandum in direct contravention of it, what the heck were they gonna do if Kennedy had survived the weekend unscathed? It would seem at least that they'd have drafted a memo more in keeping with the "policies" "decided upon" by JFK in NSAM-263 in case they'd need it, wouldn't you? Even the best laid plans and all that, y'know? Or were they also somehow prescient of the coup's success as well? And FWIW, a command to "action" is only to "do certain things" in support of an objective; it does not imply full-scale mobilization to implement all phases of it. Likewise - and I could be mistaken here, I'm only 52 - I don't think that "national security" became the mantra, the "be-all and end-all" that it is today that "TRUMPS all other considerations," until the Nixon era. I guess that what I'm ultimately saying is that, as long as we stick to the facts that are presented, it's easy to draw a conclusion of foreknowledge and a coup. But if we try (without making an intense and in-depth study of it) to reconcile it with other evidence, it's not quite as convincing a conclusion, and clearly isn't the only one that there is.

The pine casket was sold to an unnamed buyer (who "might speak to the public today," Friday) on Thursday evening in Los Angeles for US$87,469. It was sold by Allen Baumgardner of Baumgardner Funeral Home of Fort Worth, who is cited as the mortician who "supervised the exhumation of Oswald's body from his grave in Rose Hill Cemetery [now Shannon Rose Hill Memorial Park] in 1981." Baumgardner was apparently present during the exhumation (see Tracy Parnell's "The Exhumation of Lee Harvey Oswald and the Norton Report: Part II - Paul Groody") in what might be described as a "supervisory role" inasmuch as the original mortician, if available, is required to legally "supervise" an exhumation in Texas, which only really means that he was there as an observer, especially inasmuch as Groody was the mortician "of record" and Baumgardner apparently his assistant. (In 1963, the two were employees of Miller Funeral Home, the owner of which may actually have been the legally-defined mortician of record, rather than technicians employed under his license.) Neither Baumgardner nor Groody are mentioned by name in the exhumation-autopsy pathology report; the only reference to either of them in the report is that "the mortician who closed Mr. Oswald's casket remained in the room until the casket was reopened," that is, "mortician," singular (Groody?). Parnell's piece is pretty straightforward, and includes a link to the first article I'd written on the entire assassination mess ... which also includes my first big brain fart as well: in something of a hurry to meet print deadlines, I couldn't think of Groody's name (as I said, it wasn't mentioned in the Norton report) and decided on the spur of the moment to leave him nameless "to protect the innocent," so to speak. (I've always felt pretty dumb about that, but nobody's ever commented on in in nearly 20 years!) Let's see what, if any, the buyer has to say, whoever s/he is.

I think one of the points being missed is that the introductory language of this draft is NOT intended as an account of what had occurred up to the point of writing it, but what was expected to have occurred up to the point of its being signed. A draft is, by definition, a "preliminary form of any writing, subject to revision." It is no different than a "model order" that attorneys present to a judge, which they write before they've even made their argument, in the hope or expectation that the judge will concur. This is, in other words, a preliminary version of what the writers hoped or expected would be what was finally issued. There is nothing either unusual or suspicious about that. As unpopular a notion as it may be, I think it is incorrect to consider the contents of NSAM-263 to have been "policy" (that NSAM-273 "reversed") for several reasons. As Greg noted in his introductions, ... Consider the simplicity of NSAM 263 -- JFK, after reviewing the McNamara-Taylor Report, approved only the recommendation to WITHDRAW. Done deal. Are we really to believe that just over a month later, the central object of the US would shift from total withdrawal to total commitment? Yet, Bundy's NSAM 273 draft directs that the central object of assisting the South Vietnamese so that they will "win their contest against...the Communist conspiracy" be given precedence over all other considerations! There's only one looming problem with this scenario. No such "central object" as described by Bundy existed on November 21, 1963 as such a plan was in direct opposition to the then Commander-in-Chief's (JFK) standing order to his military to withdraw. Once again, relying on the official record serves to confirm these conclusions. There was no such "standing order ... to withdraw," and that conclusion can only be construed if one wishes to incorrectly consider the National Security Council to be the policy arm of the president. It is not; it is merely an advisory body, and no president is under any compulsion to follow its "lead." All that it can direct are things which the president might need to reach his own decisions, which are not necessarily those recommended by the NSC. The NSC is also not the president's "mouthpiece" for enacting or announcing his policies. That JFK did not "order" any such "withdrawal" is implicit in NSAM-263's directive to not announce such a "decision." Underscoring the perception that a National Security Action Memorandum is not a policy statement is the fact that there are also National Security Study Memoranda (NSSM) and National Security Decision Memoranda (NSDM). One might reasonably expect that before a "decision" memorandum is generated, there might be "study" memoranda circulated - "look at these things and get back to us" - as well as "action" memoranda - "do these things in furtherance of the things we're doing or considering." An "action" is not a "decision" any more than a "study" is; nothing emanating from the National Security Council - once again, an advisory body - should be construed as "policy," such statements coming directly from the White House or "the Office of the President," and not from a "committee," however lofty. (Some might consider that splitting hairs, but it is no more so than criticizing the opening paragraph of NSAM-273 as being "deceptive" about having disussed issues with the president in advance of there having even been an opportunity to have done that.) In support of that perception (of a committee "ordering" anything), consider the Nixon-era NSDM-242, a document that redefined the then-US policy of mutually assured destruction to a more "selective and flexible" set of targeting instructions known as "strategic sufficiency." NSDM-242 - a "decision" memorandum - was prepared by the NSC in the fall of 1973, but was not put into practice until the newly-appointed SecDef James Schlesinger announced in January 1974 that he was implementing a "change in targeting strategy" to "develop alternatives to initiating a suicidal strike against the cities of the other side." Nixon only signed NSDM-242 a week after Schlesinger's public announcement. Only when it was signed by the president did it become "policy." NSAMs-263 and -273 were not signed by the president (and by definition, needn't have been to take the "actions" contemplated by them), were not "decision" documents, and thus can only be considered policies that the president was then considering. NSAM-273 is also not "suspect" inasmuch as there is more than sufficient record to show that, despite the directions Kennedy had indicated he wished to take, his advisors continued to argue against them, as well they might since that was effectively their job: to provide their advice to the president, even that counter to his intentions, at least up to the point when he had made a firm decision. Peter Dale Scott noted that Secretary of State Dean Rusk, SecDef McNamara and national security advisor McGeorge Bundy were strong proponents of escalation, a position they had taken vociferously during an August meeting of the NSC that did not in that instance include the president, but did include VP Johnson (it is not unusual, btw, for the president not to attend meetings of his advisors: Ike attended very few on the notion that his presence when "decisions" were made might constrain his subsequent actions). In that meeting, Johnson strongly sided with the Rusk-Bundy-McNamara axis. (See - The Kennedy Assassination and the Vietnam War at History Matters.) It should be no surprise, then, given the lack of presidential signature or any form of "decision" document, these men drafted - drafted - a document that contravened an earlier "action" memo which was not, after all, a "decision" memo, no was it signed as final by the president. Nor, for that matter, was NSAM-273, although LBJ - also not surprisingly - took and continued to take steps that complied with and went well beyond that which NSAM-273 envisioned. As a matter of fact, it was "adopted" during a 45-minute briefing to the new president in the days immediately following the assassination that was not even an official meeting of the NSC. According to PDS, citing Chester Cooper (a White House aide to Bundy), Lyndon Johnson's first National Security Council meeting was not convened until Thursday, December 5. If this is so, Scott writes, then "references to a National Security Council meeting of November 26 are wrong, naive deductions from NSAM-273's misleading title" (ibid). If my interpretations are correct (based as they are on my own relative naivete, however gleaned from writings unrelated to the JFK assassination), then these national security memoranda are far from "policy statements" but rather are directives by the NSC from or in support of the president, who is looking to the NSC for advice on matters he is considering, not as "orders to comply" with decisions he has already made. (The draft) NSAM-273 is just as likely yet another of many attempts by Bundy, Rusk, McNamara, et al., to sway JFK to following their long-advocated counsel rather than his own, based ostensibly on "new information" or "further concurrence" obtained at Honolulu, which JFK may have rejected out of hand (and hence it would not be NSAM-anything). Instead, it was "rushed through" by its advocates taking advantage of a new and sympathetic president during a 45-minute briefing (could they even have agreed on the final changes to this document in that time, much less covered anything else?) just 48 hours after he had so suddenly attained office. It was (it should be noted) outside the normal venue of a formal NSC meeting wherein some opposition and reminder of "JFK's wishes" (as if they really mattered any more than Bush's did when Obama took office) might well be expectd ... and since that was the public "face" LBJ put on his administration, those arguments might well have dissuaded LBJ, at least temporarily, from doing other than "steering the course" "set" (or at least preferred) by his predecessor. It is just as likely, that is, that the draft (or its timing) indicate foreknowledge of JFK's assassination ... and perhaps equally baseless. Maybe.

Thanks for all of that: you're right, I often tend to somehow meld the "stopover in Honolulu" and the Honolulu conference together! The first was on the way back from VN, and weren't there cabinet officials on the way TO VN after the other? (One can only juggle so many facts, I suppose!) Another researcher and I met with Fletch a number of years ago in northern Virginia. As I recall, our general impression was that it was tough to nail him down, essentially leaving him as a "second-hand" source. He was, of course, "only" a colonel, which amid a ship-pot full of generals doesn't amount to a lot. Consequently, since he wasn't among the "brass," per se, it's tough to find anything that would cite his presence other than a blanket reference to "various aides," all unnamed, at a meeting, and thus ultimately impossible to independently corroborate what he was actually a part of. Wiki, of course, is also a problem since it's user-driven. What does it say about Oswald, or James Files, or any other controversial person or event other than what some individual contributes? Surfing for more or different perspectives and/or accounts of the events leading up to NSAM-273, it is interesting to note in an essay by Peter Dale Scott on History Matters an account of a meeting at the State Department on August 31, 1963, including minutes taken by General Krulak: Mr. Kattenburg stated…it was the belief of Ambassador Lodge that, if we undertake to live with this repressive regime… we are going to be thrown out of the country in six months. He stated that at this juncture it would be better for us to make a decision to get out honorably… Secretary Rusk commented that Kattenburg's recital was largely speculative; that it would be far better for us to start on the firm basis of two things—that we will not pull out of Vietnam until the war is won, and that we will not run a coup. Mr. McNamara expressed agreement with this view. Mr. Rusk…then asked the Vice President if he had any contribution to make. The Vice President stated that he agreed with Secretary Rusk's conclusions completely; that he had great reservations himself with respect to a coup, particularly so because he had never really seen a genuine alternative to Diem. He stated that from both a practical and a political viewpoint, it would be a disaster to pull out; that we should stop playing cops and robbers and…once again go about winning the war. [Cite: Pentagon Papers (NYT/Bantam), pp. 204-205; USG ed., V.B.4. pp. 541-543; Gravel ed., II:742-743, emphasis added.] At this meeting (which the President did not attend) the only opposition to this powerful Rusk-McNamara-Johnson consensus was expressed by two more junior State Department officials with OSS and CIA backgrounds: Paul Kattenburg (whom Rusk interrupted at one heated point) and Roger Hilsman. [emphasis added] If this is so, then LBJ was already of a mind about what to do with regard to Vietnam, and the changes from NSAM-263 to -273, while significant, can be attributed to the already-established opinion of the man even before he became president, and his reversal of Kennedy's earlier policy (and plans for a "political" rather than "military" solution), while counter to the stance he took publicly toward "continuing" JFK's policies, did not carry through to his "TOP SECRET" decisions that would not be for public consumption. One president changing, even reversing, the policies of his predecessor is not unheard of and well within the purview of the new president, especially when this one - LBJ - was already on record as disagreeing with his boss, albeit privately and not publicly. I'm just not sure that these changes mean as much as they're sometimes construed to make, especially when gleaned from secondary sources.

What it was and what it did may be two completely different things, but the WC was only chartered to "gather and report on the facts" of the assassination. Whether it did so or not, does not affect what it was.

A bit more from Running the World (pp. 99-105) about "groupthink," LBJ's use of the NSC, and his (and JFK's) chief advisers. It is a glimpse into the modus operandi of those who drove NSAM-273: Johnson liked informality, a trait he carried to extremes by continuing discussions with key aides while he was in the bathroom - or, in one instance with Moyers, while he was actually having an enema. The most important difference between him and Kennedy managing his team, though, had to do with his introduction of a habit he had developed in the Senate, which was to host Tuesday lunches for his core team. According to Harold Saunders, NSC old hand and former assistant to the secretary for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs: Lyndon Johnson wanted an NSC system that would force the bureaucratic elements out there, before recommendations came to the White House, to sort out their differences. I picture him as saying to Bob McNamara and Dean Rusk, Look you guys are smart. I know your departments have differences. But I'd like you two guys to sit down and you figure out and recommend to me what you would do if you were in my shoes. And then come on over to lunch on Tuesday and we'll sit down and each of you can say why you disagreed. And so, we'll take it apart there, but I want the bureaucracies' energies going into making up something that we can realistically do, not exacerbating the fights among them. These lunches - private, small, attended only by those Johnson really wanted to work with - in effect largely supplanted the NSC process although, of course, it [the NSC] continued to operate the president and play its formal role. These Tuesday sessions regularly included McNamara, who had become a primus inter pares [first among equals] in the cabinet. In the words of his successor, Clark Clifford, "In my years in Washington, only a handful of people below the presidential level have dominated the scene: George Marshall, Dean Acheson and Henry Kissinger all come to mind. But no one ever held the capital in greater sway than Robert S. McNamara did from 1961 until the end of 1967." ... [Throughout that period] he was the leader of the inner circle. Indeed, his leadership is what gave him, in the eyes of the public, the disproportionate share of the blame for the fiasco that was to become Vietnam. Influential in this dynamic was the fact that dealing with military leaders never came as easily to Johnson as it had to Eisenhower. Military men such as General Goodpaster, who served during the Johnson years in a senior capacity in Vietnam, naturally saw that as a weakness. Goodlpaster commented on how uncomfortable he was with the Johnson would snap at the brass - his own service chiefs - and that he would never invite them to the Tuesday lunches that were where the real war planning was taking place. McNamara drove the groupthink, both in the Tuesday lunches and via his frequent, often extraordinary conversations with the president (many of which are now available in transcript form). His counterpart at the top of the pyramid in the government was Secretary of State Rusk, an always thoughtful yet forceful and sometimes hawkish southerner whom Johnson also came to rely on. Indeed, for Johnson, dealing one-on-one with these two men was far preferable to big staff meetings, and later in his term he would actually cede power from the NSC back to State, through the institution of the Senior Interdepartmental Group (SIG), chaired by the under secretary of state. However, in the era of Lyndon Johnson, larger than any institutional reforms, larger than the collective power and personalities and his team, larger than even the personality of his predecessor or his own great ambitions for himself and his country, would loom Vietnam. How it was dealt with was illustrated well by the events that triggered the ultimate escalation of the conflict to levels that even Kennedy, who had commented to those around him that he had anticipated escalation in his second term, wouldn't have imagined. In 1964 ... American military strength had doubled again from the end of 1962 and had reached over 22,000 troops. A series of war games in Washington, simulations conducted by the military but involving senior officials from the NSC and the administarations's foeign policy leadership, produced some very disconcerting results: it would, it turned out, be rather hard to win in Vietnam. Nonethless, there was no will to back down. Indeed, the president and his core advisors were looking for a way to mbilize public support for more aggressive efforts in Indochina.... Shortly after 4:00 a.m. on August 2, 1964, cables arriving at the Pentagon's National Military CommunicationsCenter from the Saigon station provided the trigger they were seeking: The destgroyer USS Maddox reported being approached by North Vietnamese attack boats and responding. Just over seven hours later Johnson met with Secretary Rusk, Under Secretary of State [George] Ball, Deputy Defense Secretary Cyrus Vance, and General Earle Wheeler. They were uncertain who authorized the attack on the Maddox, and so they decided to send a protest to Hanoi and expand the patrols in which the Maddox was engaged. General Maxwell Taylor, writing from the embassy in Saigon, protested that this response would be too timid and likely to embolden the North. Consequently, Johnson made a stronger statement, but within two days another attack was reporte on the Maddox. The reaction to the alleged attack was heightened in the context of intelligence warnings of hostile activities had been received earlier. Later, the veracity of the attack reports, which were initially alleged to consist of between nine and twenty-six torpedoes fired at the Maddox and another destroyer, the C. Turner Joy, came into question. [All emphases added.] The account continues to describe actions taken by McNamara, who was by then only certain that something had happened, to keep the NSC up to date with what little he really knew. After advising the NSC to recommend a retailiatory air strike to the president, he, Risk, Bundy, Vance and DCI John McCone retired to lunch with Johnson at the White House, where the surviving record indicates that targets for the bombing were decided upon. Later that evening, at a second NSC meeting, McNamara continued to stress that attacks had occurred and were continuing to occur, relying in large part on a NSA intercept warning that was later found to refer to the earlier incident. Half an hour later, Johson, Rusk and Wheeler met with congressional leaders and proposed what would become the Tonkin Gulf Resolution authorizing retailiation. Congessional leaders immediately supported the draft resolution, which had itself been drafted many weeks before the incidents it was itself repraising., according to Rothkopf. Ostensibly, the decision-making error was over few participants responding to the weight of developments given to "separate and not necessarily reliable intelligence flows." More to the point, "given that Johnson's team was looking for an incident to put the aready drafted resolution before Congress when one seemed to have occurred, a reasonable effort to nail down the facts as might have been done in other circumstances likely seemed counterproductive." "In short," he concludes, "groupthink can become powerful enough to drive leaders to twist events and intelligence to support conclusions they have already reached." To what extent might groupthink have motivated those same advisors to take advantage of the assassination of JFK to drive forward their agenda with a new president who almost certainly did not just begin to show the characteristics described on Air Force One at Love Field. Did the "whiz kids," seeing their opening, swoop in and press their advantage even though they had no foreknowledge of the events that would lead to this "coup?"

Well done, Greg. You're a relaxed speaker with a comfortable grasp of your subject matter, witty where applicable (great ending, btw!), and unflappable ("oh, you already knew the answer to that question!"). Either that or you were nervous as hell and hid it like a pro!! I've shown NSAM 263/273 to several people skeptical of any sort of "conspiracy" in JFK's murder, and they almost universally do at least a 90-degree turn, if not 180. But as convincing as it may seem, is it really a smoking gun? Are its apparent oddities as singularly striking as they seem to be, or is there more to it than meets the eye? I'll play devil's advocate here with some alternatives that aren't, I don't think, terribly far-fetched at all. First, the question of printing. Much is made over a leather-bound volume being prepared of the final(?) report on which NSAM 273 is purportedly based. I've never seen the original of this, and don't recall having read any lengthy account about what, exactly, this "leather-bound volume" contained. Can you possibly expound upon that? Are we looking at multiple copies of a thick tome, or one-to-a-dozen bindings, permanent or otherwise, of a less-than-100-page report prepared specifically for the president and his advisors (NSC, 5412, etc.)? The practice of preparing a leather-bound copy of official reports does not seem extraordinary, and we'll recall that LBJ was presented with a similar version of the Warren Report, as were a fairly large number of elected and other officials, possibly including the 26 volumes of testimony and evidence as well, at a presumably significant cost. From what I've read about different things in other contexts, this is a fairly common practice. (Sure, it's expensive, but it's not their money.) Likewise, depending upon the depth or scope of a report, it doesn't seem as if it's unusual within governmental operations for reports or assessments or what-have-you to be prepared in advance of its presentation. I think it's fair to say that none of us really expect any of the participants of the Honolulu conference to be the people who actually wrote the report, typing it up on the plane as they flew over the Pacific, nor do I think we really envision lower-level functionaries with enough rank to justify being on such a trip doing this either. More than likely, these being government activities (no such thing as an expense too large), advocates of different actions and policies prepared lengthy "position papers" in advance using information already at hand from favored sources, with the intention that their document be the one eventually accepted by the president or whatever authority it's intended for. So it's not necessarily unlikely that they left Washington with different versions of the "final report" already prepared for presentation, or that more than one "final report" would actually be presented as alternatives to the president. In Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power (New York: PublicAffairs, 2004), author David Rothkopf recounts meetings of the NSC during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations - which, according to Rothkopf, were conducted very differently between those and other administrations from Truman to Bush II - during which opposing viewpoints were presented as alternatives to the presidents they served. While he quotes only brief passages from those position papers, it's clear that the quotations are but excerpts, and not the complete report made to the group or to the president. That he quotes from reports that were not adopted as policy strongly suggests that those defeated motions survive in some form. Are there any such papers surviving from LBJ's early meetings, whether of the NSC as a formal whole or any informal subset or even individual advisors on an ad hoc basis, that suggest the process by which NSAM 273 came into being? Does any record exist beyond the final product, and if so, what does it reflect? Is there an extant position paper/report that more closely resembles NSAM 263's apparent objectives, possibly also prepared in advance and bound in leather for the president's consideration? If any of this is so, it doesn't particularly strike me as odd that the introductory language includes that "the President has reviewed the discussions of South Vietnam which occurred in Honolulu, and has discussed the matter further with Ambassador Lodge," written in the past tense about an event that would presumably occur in the future. This is akin to a "model order" often prepared by an attorney for a judge's signature, presuming that the judge will endorse exactly the position advocated by the writer that only needs to be signed to be put into effect. Interestingly, Rothkopf (pages 82-83, early in this 500-plus page book which does not concentrate by any means on that era) also recounts a meeting in the waning days of the Eisenhower administration during which the Cuba situation was discussed, and options for some form of action against Castro's regime, provided to him (Rothkopf) by General William Odom of the National Security Agency under Reagan and Zbigniew Brzezinski's military aide, worth reproducing at length here. As prelude, Rothkopf discusses that portion of JFK's debates with Nixon over confronting Castro's communism, with Kennedy calling for action that he knew from briefings to be under consideration, and Nixon constrained from discussing them due to his office and part in the planning. "It is one thing to call for action as a candidate," Rothkopf writes, "but quite another to be responsible for carrying it out as president." As a political corollary to the old adage of "be careful what you wish for, you just might get it," he quotes "be careful of what you call for — as you may actually have to end up doing it." Related Odom during a 2004 interview with the author: I once asked [General Andrew] Goodpaster [Eisenhower's principal aide covering foreign policy and national security matters and NSC staff secretary, who occupied the office next to the president's] if Eisenhower had still been in office in the spring of 1961, would we still have had the Bay of Pigs. He said, "Interesting you should bring that up...." [CIA Deputy Director of Plans] Richard Bissell initiated the planning, I guess in '59, and the idea, according to Goodpaster, was to create a Cuban military unit that could, after Fidel had been overthrown, enter Cuba and become the cored of a post-Fidel Cuban army. The objective for the plan was not to overthrow Fidel. Eisenhower approved this limited concept only for the contingency that Castro's regime collapsed or was overthrown by Cubans in Cuba [emphasis added]. The CIA-created force was not to invade Cuba. No invasion, no provocations. Eisenhower was briefed on it in the summer of '60. General Goodpaster, as Eisenhower's staff secretary, took the notes of the meeting with Bissell and his assistants. After they met, Goodpaster turned to Ike and said, "Mr. President, if you don't watch it, that plan will take legs of its own." Eisenhower snapped back, "Not wile I am president!" Goodpaster responded, "Yes, Mr. President. That's the problem. You won't be president much longer." Rothkopf, as I've noted, earlier related instances where opposing position papers were prepared for adoption by the president, and here he is describing a position advocated by the CIA that was in direct contravention to the policy intended by then-President Eisenhower which could "take legs of its own" if Eisenhower wasn't careful. We all know the substance of how that intended policy changed under Kennedy who, having called for action in his campaign, now ended up having to do it: the CIA's plan "took legs" and turned into disaster. The point being this: whatever Kennedy intended during his lifetime was not incumbent upon Johnson, as the new president, to act upon. What record there is, if any, of Johnson's position during Kennedy's NSC meetings, if any (the legal definition of what cabinet officers, etc., who made up the NSC has apparently evolved under each president, its legally-defined members having more or less of a role and influence as deemed necessary by successive presidents), I don't know; perhaps again, you can shed some light on that. Did Johnson actually participate in NSC proceedings during JFK's administration? Was he more "hawkish," leaning more toward direct intervention even while Kennedy was alive? Either way, is it a great surprise that any president, however he came to office, took his own counsel and made his own decisions irrespective of his predecessor's intentions, desires or policies? In sum, is the "reversal" of Kennedy's "policy" regarding Vietnam - presumably subject to change, even as the CIA sought to influence Ike in the summer of 1960 as his presidency drew to a close and after he'd apparently made "policy" regarding Cuba - any more noteworthy or, more to the point, indicative of high-level conspiracy than if Nixon had won the election and made a full-scale invasion of Cuba in opposition to Ike's policy and beyond JFK's ultimate, more limited action? The decisions of a president are his own, right or wrong, and not necessarily reflective of his pedecessor: was NSAM-273 merely the manifestation of LBJ's long-held position, or a complete turn-around for him as well? For the sake of saying so, the only National Security Action Memorandum that Rothkopf discusses in his book is NSAM-52, which also related to Vietnam's conflict and so is worth noting here as well. Rothkopf points out that, when Kennedy took office, there were fewer than 700 military advisors in Vietnam, and the focus of US policy up to that time had been to provide low-key assistance to the Diem government in Saigon. NSAM-52 initiated several "cautious moves" to increase the commitment of advisors to over 1000 and expand the aid available to Siagon. JFK "next," according to Rothkopf, "dispatched the deputy national security advisor Walt Rostow and General Maxwell Taylor to Vietnam on a fact-finding mission. While their assessments of the deteriorating situation on the ground may have been correct, their assessments regarding the consequences of what they considered to be appropriate US responses were stunningly wrong. Taylor estimated that the United States would need to deploy no more than 8000 troops to Vietnam to assure the position of our allies in the South and stated flatly: "The risks of backing into a major Asian war by way of (South Vietnam) are present but are not impressive." In retrospect, of course, it is easy to wonder just what "impressive risks" might have been.... The output from the Taylor-Rostow mission contemplated expanding collaboration with the government in the South and expanding US operations in the region from covert intrusions into neighboring states or the Nort to bombing missions. The president's key advisors, Rusk, McNamara, and Bundy [emphasis added], largely embraced the mission's findings. Here began one of the most pernicious illnesses afflicting the policy process: groupthink. Although there were divisions within the group, momentum toward concensus started to build, and the collective agreement of the principles created more momentum, and so on. Kennedy's brillian young technocrats were especially vulnerable to the persuasive power of their own elegant logic. It made it hard to admit the possibility, let alone the desirability, of alternatives. Instead their youthful arrogance reinforced itself. I this, we find that McGeorge Bundy, the signatory to the draft NSAM-273, had apparently and ostensibly been opposed to the directions Kennedy was taking with regard to Vietnam even going back to the early days of JFK's administration, along with fellow influencers (and continued Johnson appointees, reflecting the "continuity" between administrations) Dean Rusk and Robert McNamara, among potential others. Was the draft NSAM simply one of their many on-going and as-yet-unsuccessful attempts to dissuade JFK from what they perceived as a "wrong" course of action, a "model order" for him to sign if and when they were successful, and one which they succeeded in having adopted by the new president either as a reflection of his own long-standing opinions, or as a product of a fortuitous circumstance whereby they could say that "Jack would have signed this" and got the new president to heed their long-opposed counsel that Kennedy was too strong- (and "wrong-") minded to accede to? So part of the equation necessary to show intent and foreknowledge - to show that NSAM-263/273 is, in fact, a "smoking gun" of a coup d'etat - would seem to be the absence of any other "draft" memoranda also prepared for the president's (JFK's) signature, even though ultimately not signed by LBJ. Are there any such documents, or is draft -273 the only one ever prepared? Is there any record extant that provides further insight into the discussions taking place before the Honolulu conference, Vietnam jag, and JFK's assassination and the positions taken by JFK's - subsequently LBJ's - advisors? If not, is this the only instance where the earlier "working papers" of JFK's "inner circle" (whether sitting as the NSC or something else, formally or informally) no longer exist, or is the record of other and earlier discussions also barren? In and of itself, the disparity between the JFK-approved NSAM-263 and the Johnson-approved -273 does suggest foreknowledge of an impending change in the presidency and therefore a conspiracy to eliminate JFK as an "obstacle to foreign policy," and it is in such isolation that I can recall this ever being discussed in the research community. But has there been a tendency toward the "path of least resistence" to present these circumstances in isolation simply because it does suggest (if not actually "prove") conspiracy, and the whole record might not be so conducive to such an easy conclusion, or alternately, provide one that is counter to what may be just "popular mythology?" Sometimes it seems that we tend to think of Kennedy's "whiz kids" to be stolid "Kennedy loyalists" who were 100% "behind" JFK, who thought exactly the same way, and who sought only to ensure that Jack's great ideas and plans were implemented according to his wishes, when in fact they were men with their own ideas and ideologies, not necessarily diametrically opposed to JFK's, but certainly not always in complete accord with them. As we saw in the summer of 1960 example of the meeting between Eisenhower and Bissell, various factions - and we might well consider everyone part of "factions" that ebb and swell according to the occasion and discussions at hand - will continue to press their own agenda at every turn, even if only because situations change and the solutions they called for yesterday are not necessarily the solutions that will work next week. There is, as far as I can see at the moment (but can certainly be convinced otherwise), no reason to think that Kennedy's advisors were any different. Is there?

Mark sort of makes a good point, but misses others. In point of fact, if you've got the things he lists (and a few more to boot), there's a prosecutable and potentially winnable case, one which can fulfill the legal tests of sufficiency to convict and uphold a charge up to and including murder. There is enough there, in other words, to ensure a "true bill" against a suspect and turn him into a defendant, and possibly enough to turn him into a convict, maybe even enough to deny an appeal. One of the points he fails to consider (or lend any credence to?) is that in any criminal matter, there is also a defense which is entitled not only to challenge/raise questions about the prosecution's evidence, but to offer other evidence in mitigation or rebuttal. I don't believe anyone here will have any trouble conceding that the evidence amassed against Oswald was sufficient to bring him to trial. Whether that evidence was enough to convict him, none of us can say since we don't know what an active, effective defense might have presented. Walt Brown did a good job of portraying how a decent - not to say even very good - defense counsel may have conducted the case, and Walt's not even a lawyer. (John Grisham or David Baldacci might've done a better job, and given us a better-prepared prosecutor, but no guarantees how it would've turned out, if any differently.) Independent researchers over the years have amassed enough direct and indirect evidence to effectively call the WC's "verdict" into question. Others, unfortunately, have raised some truly zany and ludicrous theories, and the fact that they can be disproved leads to the unsupportable conclusion that all theories other than the government's must be equally zany and ludicrous. The WC, of course, wasn't an open-ended judicial proceeding where facts from both perspectives compete, but a "fact-finding panel" that was not wholly unlike a grand jury except that the "true bill" found by it was not subject to further contest. In effect, Mark (and others of similar mind) are saying that an indictment is the same as a finding of guilt, and that it is ridiculous to bring it to trial: anyone who doesn't accept what the prosecutor convinced the grand jury with is clearly a fool, and the adversarial process is a stupid farce. They are the same people who were convinced by the evidence that the OJ jury was not, and who consider Simpson guilty as sin, no matter that the jury found otherwise. That LAPD hasn't found an alternative suspect against whom there is sufficient evidence to convict means not that LAPD didn't look for one, but only that there could be none. The OJ jury was made up of stupid idiots who were swayed by the "tricks" of the defense, the proof of that being that, if they hadn't been, the jurors would have agreed them and convicted him. This kind of thinking holds that a jury is right when they convict someone based upon the evidence that was presented to them, and to that extent I can't disagree. However, it would also seemingly hold that, once convicted, a person (or any of his posthumous advocates) should not be able to develop or bring forth new evidence that might reverse that conviction. It holds that The Innocence Project should just let us hang those convicted killers: there'd be a greater respect for the law if the 164 convicts who actually were innocent were executed on schedule. Enough already of these ridiculous appeals! And if they don't advocate that position, then why on earth do they have a problem with anyone disagreeing with the "obvious" evidence and attempting to unearth more? Do they feel that the entire appeals process is irresponsible and should not be pursued by any other than paid professionals (whose motivations, at least, can be readily discerned)? Give them enough facts to support a point of view and they will be convinced. In Copernicus' time, they would have been among those supported the Church that branded him a heretic for thinking that the earth revolved around the sun: there was and is plenty of apparent evidence to support the geo-centric perspective; you can't see the earth move, but the sun does "travel" across the sky! And the Church knows of what it speaks. Those who continued to explore Copernicus' theory would have been fools, just as would have been those who persisted in the notion that you could actually sail around an obviously flat earth. As we now know, those who thought they could all fell off the edge. It can't possibly be any different with Oswald. The conventional wisdom is always right. Right?

Bump for someone (Jim DiEugenio) looking for this post some time ago on "59 witnesses said the limousine stopped" (click here if that doesn't work). Jack White's response was erudite and enlightened as well. Rare seems to be the occasion where we trade compliments!

Where to find the writing? Speakers on this machine blew, have to wait to hear the speaking ...!

Bump. David, control of your thread is now returned to you!

That's inference; where's the evidence? Is this how Americans perceive their justice system? "He wouldn't ever have been arrested if he hadn't done it!" 1) He yelled at his wife and didn't like her parents. 2) There were knives in the kitchen drawer, and he knew it (he even bought them!). 3) He lived in the house where she was killed. 4) It was dark when he got home that day. 5) She came home on a Friday, when she wouldn't be missed at work the next day. 6) Another small factor: nobody thought his car in the driveway was suspicious. Because nobody said they saw another person enter the house and there were no fingerprints identified with someone else (there were some we couldn't identify and some not right next to the bed, which we're sure had nothing at all to do with this crime), the only possible conclusion, the obvious solution to the crime is that the husband did it. Since anything the defense might offer this court is only bound to be wishful thinking and speculation, sprinkled liberally with baseless paranoia, your honor, I move we dispense with the trial and appeals and execute the perpetrator right here and now. And lest the court feel that justice would not be served, your honor, I have affidavits here from 11 other prosecutors who all agree with me, obviating the need for a jury. It works in other parts of the world; I can't imagine why it wouldn't work here.

Most of this general discussion is moot: people argue minutiae without any basis other than arguing against evidence that hasn't been given any foundation. Why discuss the question of whether Oswald could have run down four double-flights of stairs and into the lunchroom before Baker & Truly got there if it hasn't been proven that he was ever four flights up to run down from in the first place? It's as ridiculous as arguing about Oswald's movements after having shot Officer Tippit after establishing that Oswald couldn't have run 9/10 of a mile in four or five minutes to shoot Tippit in the first place: if he wasn't there, then what is the point of arguing how he left?!? First, someone needs to actually put Oswald up there, and nobody has ever done that. So what's all this talk about his leaving?!? The evidence and testimony that we're aware of leans much more toward him not being than than being there. The latter consists of "his" gun being there, and nobody else having seen him, apparently, during the crucial moments when he's alleged to have been shooting JFK; the last time he'd been seen on those upper floors was a full 35 minutes before, by which time he could have been anywhere else in or even out of Dallas. In the meantime, he was also seen downstairs at lunch time by at least one other TSBD worker, and himself saw two other co-workers exactly where they themselves had said they were. Oh, and there's a fingerprint on a box of books. And one on a bag that's questionable at best, and probably legally inadmissible at trial at worst. And another "hidden" on a rifle that's otherwise devoid of any prints, anywhere. So, other than enough circumstantial evidence to suggest that he was there as the shooter, all there is left to convict him is the incredulous question, "well, who else could it have been?!?" Lacking an answer to that, the "obvious" answer is that it "must" have been none other than Lee Harvey Oswald. The evidence and testimony that exculpates him is much lengthier, and every bit as hard to refute as the question of "who else" could've done it. Among the most difficult is the question of why the four other men who were unquestionably on the fifth and sixth floors during the lead-in time to the assassination, including one within 20 feet for up until within five minutes or less of the shooting, and one who could only have been sent sprawling in the aftermath, did not see nor hear the assassin even despite a complete and utter lack of fear for identifying him. After all, Lee Oswald was dead by the time their Warren Commission testimony was given; he wasn't about to rise from the grave to exact his revenge on them for their throwing him under the bus. And given the fact that Oswald was dead by then, why didn't they just say that they'd seen and/or heard him? Much of this discussion wouldn't even be taking place if they had. But they didn't. I submit that the reason that they didn't is because, whether they actually liked Oswald or not, they knew beyond any doubt he didn't do it and weren't going to lie about a man who couldn't defend himself; but on the other hand, the actual shooter(s) not being dead, they weren't about to volunteer any information that might cause them or theirs any difficulties down the road. As equally valid a scenario as the presumed Oswald-did-it theory - it is NOT an established fact - is that either Bonnie Ray Williams stumbled upon the shooter(s) or they stumbled upon him (I tend toward the latter) while he was having his "checken-on-the-bone sandwich" and drinking his Dr Pepper; when Junior Jarman and Hank Norman arrived on the fifth floor and making noise, they effectively saved Bonnie Ray's life (one dead body by an escaping assassin is credible; three much less so), who was instead herded downstairs on the east elevator and told them about the shooter(s) upstairs, said "herding" of Williams and preventing any of them from leaving by standing in the stairwell by the elevators (where he should have heard or seen if not actually been run over by the supposedly-escaping Oswald) accomplished by the "great big husky fellow" who helped the shooter(s) into the building and upstairs, as well as down and out, Jack Dougherty. That scenario can be constructed every bit as solidly as the Oswald-did-it scenario using the exact same reasoning and a bit more evidence, save only fingerprints (maybe), as can the escape from the upper floors, apparently undetected (apparently, but maybe not actually). Such a scenario will undoubtedly earn the scorn of the LN crowd, no more or less than is heaped upon their favorite theory, even if a bit more derisively, since only their theory bears the imprimatur of a government "investigation" and an official conclusion. Which all rests on "well, who else could it have been?" and supported by the fact that the government always gets it right. How and when Oswald got into the second floor lunchroom? Unless it can be proved that he came down from the sixth floor, it doesn't really much matter, does it.