Brian LeCloux

In this scholarly article by Professor David R. Wrone (UW-Stevens Point), the story of the confrontation between Belin and the dean of the assassination critics, Harold Weisberg is told, and Wrone recounts Sylvia Meagher's research indicating that Belin, according to Dr. Wrone, suborned perjury for the Warren Commission with witness Charles Givens. http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/the_critics/wrone/Belin.html

See Weisberg's book, Oswald in New Orleans, particularly pp. 296-7. He eventually interviewed Castorr on May 5, 1967. Castorr wondered why the FBI and Commission had not interviewed him, but Weisberg said he denied knowing any of the people in the False Oswald story. Interestingly, Weisberg asserted that the political Cuban employed at Parkland Hospital may have planted CE 399, and left the job after the assassination, unidentified. www.maryferrell.org has the documents Weisberg used for his book, particularly the May 5, 1964 letter from SS Director Rowley to J. Lee Rankin with the Castorr and political Cuban at Parkland references.

Mr. Talbot, Would you care to comment on Professor David R. Wrone's favorable review of your book?

One of the top historians on the JFK case, David R. Wrone, Emeritus Professor of History, UW-Stevens Point, has just weighed in on David Talbot's new book: Great book reveals Kennedys' courage David R. Wrone Special to The Capital Times May 18, 2007 Based on wide-ranging interviews with associates of President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert, David Talbot, the founder of Salon.com, gives us a hitherto hidden picture of the years 1960-1968. His just-released book, "Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years," is a great work and beautifully written. Talbot reveals that even as JFK took office, he confronted military and CIA forces that moved to control policies and thrust America into nuclear war. This continued throughout his 1,000 days as he, with his brother, fought to block the right wing, CIA and military's drive for a nuclear war and control of national policies. According to Talbot, the military had a covert plan to use the Bay of Pigs invasion to pull JFK into a major war, which he courageously blocked by standing up to the generals and CIA. In Laos and later in Berlin, the military sought nuclear war, but he resisted. JFK learned the military had designs for a sneak attack on Russia and China with nuclear weapons, which he also scuttled. In the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, according to Talbot, JFK initially stood with only his brother Robert against the clamor of the Joint Chiefs, who wanted an invasion. Unbeknownst to the United States, the Soviet troops had scores of nuclear missiles on the island that, had Kennedy invaded, would have been fired at America and launched the world into a nuclear holocaust. Talbot says that the generals and admirals counted JFK's peaceful solution as the worst defeat in the nation's history and hated him with unbridled passion and that the CIA and FBI constantly surveilled him. In the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Attorney General Robert Kennedy confronted a racist, reactionary institution. Talbot tells how Robert Kennedy had to assemble his own team of agents from other departments' scraps to carry out his and the president's policies. His life was constantly threatened by criminal elements, requiring him at times to bring in trusted personal friends from the marshal's service to guard him and his family. One great unsung accomplishment, Talbot says, was to cripple organized crime's movement to take over government functions, because they had become a growing force threatening the nation itself. By November 1963, as JFK moved to disengage from Vietnam, abate Cuban tensions, restructure the CIA and establish detente, bullets cut him down. Not for a minute, Talbot stresses, did Robert Kennedy believe Lee Harvey Oswald killed his brother; within hours, he came to believe reactionary American forces assassinated him. If Oswald was involved at all, it was as a minor player. Talbot tells how immediately after the funeral Robert Kennedy dispatched a family friend to the Kremlin to inform the Soviets not to believe the story of what happened circulating in federal circles. He informed his closest friends that it would require the power of the presidency to find the culprits, and his search for the murderers never ceased. He went to surprising lengths to seek out information, including a secret meeting with Teamster Jimmy Hoffa. In a frightening point, Talbot convincingly shows how intelligence agencies have, since the death of the Kennedy brothers, insidiously fed untrue information about them to Congress and to happy conduit reporters like Seymour Hersh. What is so striking in this remarkable volume is what is not there. At the national level, Robert Kennedy stood almost alone in his fight to find his brother's killers, while the prominent academicians, the intellectuals, JFK's aides, and the Democratic Party of the nation (and Wisconsin) either stood to the side or clasped the whitewash of the Warren Report. It was left to the remnants of the old progressives and the youth of the '60s, to the housewives and bartenders, to struggle to show that two or more riflemen shot JFK -- and that neither of them was Oswald. Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years By David Talbot; Free Press, 478 pages, $28. David R. Wrone, a retired history professor from UW-Stevens Point, has studied, published, lectured and debated about the JFK assassination for the past 40 years. http://www.madison.com/tct/books/135016

Regarding Bugliosi quoting "Harold Weisberg, the author of eight conspiracy-themed books, admitting that after 35 years of research, 'much as it looks like Oswald was some kind of agent for somebody, I have not found a shred of evidence to support it.'": I interviewed Mr. Weisberg on March 10, 1986 and for one of my questions I asked him to give a 1986 perspective on Oswald's intelligence connections. His answer: "That would be complicated. Ah, I think the only way you can address that is to say that, ah, alot of fingers point to the possibility. It was, in fact, never investigated." He then referred me to page 62 of his book Whitewash IV: JFK Assassination Transcript. Allen Dulles is talking to J. Lee Rankin during the January 27, 1964 Warren Commission executive session meeting and he tells Rankin that if someone was asking if an individual was in the CIA he [Dulles] would lie unless the President asked him. If an employee of the CIA was running an agent and was asked about it, Dulles replied, "He ought not to tell it under oath." Never investigated, Mr. Bugliosi. How then, could Weisberg find this in government files----his essential mode of research---if it was never investigated?

I didn't get very far into the introduction before I started finding errors in this book. Be confident folks, this guy doesn't have much. (I would love to see David Wrone or Gerald McKnight debate Bugliosi.) 1. He says Oswald shot Tippit 45 minutes after he shot Kennedy. Fact: T.F. Bowley called in the shooting of Tippit. He looked at his watch it said 1:10 p.m. His affadavit is in Hearings volume 24, page 202 and is reprinted in Weisberg's Post Mortem, page 493. No wonder the Commission never called him as a witness. Fact: Time reconstructions by David Belin showed that LHO couldn't even get to the scene until 1:20. 2. Bugliosi says that those who saw Oswald go to work that morning said he was carrying a large bag. A "large bag"? How do people get this stuff published? Fact: Randle and Frazier described a package that was no more than 28 inches, but the disassemlbed M-C was 36 inches. I don't care how large the bag is, it doesn't fit. Neat little writing trick it is to use the phrase "large bag." Fact: Foreman Dougherty swore that Oswald entered the TSBD empty handed that morning. Really. No kidding. You can look it up. Volume 6 of the Hearings, p. 376-377. David Wrone cites this in his book The Zapruder Film, but it has noted by other critics as well (particularly Weisberg). As far as what kind of soda Oswald preferred who cares?! Dougherty was on the fifth floor by the stairwell and Styles and Adams were on the fourth floor IN the stairwell. They all stated that no one came down from the sixth floor. See David Wrones's The Zapruder Film for details, page 170. I like how he criticizes Howard Roffman. I can't wait to read how he challenges Roffman's superb alibi reconstruction in Presumed Guilty. Roffman takes every piece of official evidence and shows how Oswald cannot have been the sixth floor shooter. Especially revealing is how Baker and Truly described how they first encountered Oswald on the second floor. The only way they could have seen him in the vestible leading to the lunchroom with that door already closed is if Oswald was coming up from the first floor as he said, and not down from the third (the vestible door would still have been open). Read this chapter from Roffman's book. This book is so easy to knock down. Someone will have to set up a website with all the of the factual errors.

But I doubt Willis' views are based on a careful study of the official evidence. (Don't forget: the best evidence against the official Warren Commision theory is their own documentary record and files.) And, note that he says "the guy". The guy? There were shots from more than one direction and that alone, equals two shooters. Not one. When the public sees a celebrity talk off the cuff about such a complex historical event, it is easy to then couple our research based understanding with the Bruce Willises of the world and therefore dismiss the topic.

From The Assassinations, edited by DiEugenio and Pease (pp. 235-37): According to Sam Newman, Quiroga was Sergio Archacha Smith's right hand man and when he went to visit LHO, DiEugenio asserts he was delivering FPCC leaflets Oswald passed out. When Garrison gave Q a polygraph, DiEugenio found three answers significant: 1. When Q said he didn't know LHO's FPCC activities were a cover, he was deceptive. 2. When he said he didn't know if Arcacha Smith knew Oswald, he was deceptive. 3. When he was asked if he saw the guns used on 11/22/63 and said no, he was deceptive. And when Richard Case Nagell told a Garrison interviewer he had a tape with four people discussing the assasination, mostly in Spanish, he said one of them was "Arcacha" and another he identified as "Q". Where is that tape?

yeah, it seems from Weisberg's analysis of Phil Willis that the first shot was around or before Z 190, as I recall reading. So, this Holland theory is pretty off the mark. Why does The Nation, a magazine usually critical of official government theories, let him write for them? It seems like the last time they had a decent analysis in their pages was Fred J. Cook's attack on the Warren Report in the late 1960s.

It's hard to limit this list to three. But here are several pieces of evidence from the government: 1. Commission Counsel Melvin Eisenberg's 22 April 1964 memo recording the views of Warren Commission consultant, Dr. Joseph Dolce on the wounds of John Connally. Dolce, chairman of the U.S. Army Wounds Ballistic Board, was to be called in when any VIP was shot. The Commission wanted Dolce to tell them how CE 399 emerged undamaged after passing through JFK and JBC. But Dolce concluded that two bullets hit Connally. Harold Weisberg was the primary critic to highlight the significance of Dolce's expertise and the opinion he gave the WC staff. From Eisenberg's memo: "In a discussion after the conference Drs. Light and Dolce expressed themselves as being very strongly of the opinion that Connally had been hit by two different bullets,..." Later, Dolce told interviewer Chip Selby, he was given Oswald's M-C and 6.5 mm ammo and tested the theory. In every instance the bullets were "markedly deformed." Naturally, Dolce wasn't called to testify in front of the Warren Commission. 2. The many dust like fragments in the x rays of JFK's skull cannot be from jacketed bullets such as alleged to have been used by LHO. 3. The Marines report of Oswald's shooting capability, signed by Lt. Col. A. G. Folsum, Jr. by the direction of the Marine Commandant which indicated that as of May 6, 1959, Oswald's 191 score on the test indicated that he was "a rather poor 'shot'." Bonus: 4. FBI report filed by Richard E. Harrison on 26 Nov. 1963, of an interview with Carolyn Arnold together with the follow up done by Agents Robertson and Trettis on March 18, 1964. The gist: Arnold saw Oswald on the first floor of the TSBD "standing in the hallway between the front door and the double doors leading to the warehouse" as she was leaving the building at 12:25 p.m. Another words, just before the shooting, LHO wasn't up on the sixth floor setting up his assassin's lair. Rather he was milling about five floors below at a time by the way AFTER the scheduled appearance of the motorcade through the area.

One of my "tests" for the credibility of this book will be to open up the index and look for the name of Dr. Joseph Dolce. He was the wounds ballistics expert who took Oswald's rifle and 100 rounds of ammo and showed that the single bullet theory was false. He pointed this out to Specter as the absurd Single Bullet Theory was being created. Naturally, since he destroyed their cockamamie idea he wasn't called to testify in front of the Warren Commission since he would have blown apart the scheme. Later he tried to tell this to the House Select Commission but they ignored him. His views were recorded for the superb documentary Reasonable Doubt and he pointed out there that even at low velocity the bullets he tested were severely deformed. As he pointed out SBT is not credible and he proved it with experiments. So this is a government official often ignored by many writers on this case. If Bugliosi doesn't deal seriously with Dolce and the WC memorandum from April 64 recording his views, I need not read further. And that would be disappointing. Bugliosi seems to have some decent work trying to break open the RFK cover up in the civil trial with that strange man of the cloth hanging around with Sirhan Sirhan prior to the shooting of Kennedy.

Well, Harold Weisberg, the dean of the assassination critics, was assisting Garrison, he testified in front of the Grand Jury (you can read his testimony on the net), and Garrison wrote the intro to Weisberg's Oswald in New Orleans, but he broke with Garrison when he saw that he had no case against Clay Shaw. He praised his assistants, particularly Al Oser for cross examining Dr. Finck and bringing out the control the military exercised over JFK's autopsy. (Never Again, 1995, p. 322) But historian David R. Wrone, in commenting on his book, On The Trail of The Assassins, has been severely critical of Garrison's effort because of his "penchant for bizarre plots involving rogue CIA, errant military officers, and right wingers..." (The Zapruder Film, 2003, p. 205) Commenting on the movie JFK some 14 years ago for Wisconsin Public Radio, Professor Wrone asserted that Garrison ought to have been disbarred for his actions during those several years of investigation and trial of Clay Shaw. Both of these experts were concerned that in the public mind there was confusion sown because of all the theories and controversies. The public never attained a good grasp of the fact that official evidence disproves the official report. The mainstream media went with the sensationalism and framed the challenge to the official story on those terms. When some of the more bogus assertions were easily knocked down by more official investigations, it served to discredit the effort as a whole. Further, the not guilty verdict in the Shaw case served to set back momentum and discourage some key prominent critics from continuing with the investigation, Wrone asserts in his book analyzing the Zapruder film.

I would just add to what J. Raymond Carroll said in reference to the first generation of critics' opinion of Garrison's methods. Two assessments of Garrison from the period following the release of Oliver Stone's JFK are instructive. Assassination historian Dr. David R. Wrone asserted that Garrison ought to have been disbarred because of his methods. Harold Weisberg commented that Garrison couldn't find a pubic hair in a whorehouse.

What these critics failed to recognize was that there wasn't going to be a real investigation by the time of this conference. Harold Weisberg had told the first director, Richard Sprague that if he had actually tried to investigate the case---as he did with Robert K. Tanenbaum assisting---he'd be "cut off at the knees", which of course, he was by the corporate mainstream media, Congress and the CIA. That's why Tanenbaum wouldn't carry on after Sprague was terminated. There wasn't going to be a real murder investigation and there never has been an official one in all these years. And that's maybe why some of the "A Team" of critics: Weisberg, David R. Wrone, Howard Roffman, etc. wouldn't have anything to do with this committee and this meeting.

Yeah, I was glad to see that Wrone took on Hersh when this review came out. To his credit, Hersh has said recently on Air America that he doesn't always get it right. This was in relation to his recent story that the U.S. has secret teams in Iran now. Many on the left go overboard, I think, in praising Hersh too much for his investigative reporting. He doesn't seem to be the kind of reporter who painstaking pores over thousands of pages of documents like an I.F. Stone would do. My sense, and I may be wrong, is that some of his positioning on some stories is driven by "leakers" and they may or may not be accurate in what they are giving Hersh. I thought Hersh did a fine job in exposing the criminality of the Kissinger and Nixon gang, but his treatment of JFK lacked a solid grounding in the evidentiary base regarding the assassination and Oswald. Unfortunately, the media publicity system, not being democratic, but rather corporate, doesn't give prominence to the scholarly treatment of this subject done by the fine historian David Wrone. Instead, the sensationalistic treatment by a Hersh gets more play. We should oppose this.

Well, Wrone does a great job highlighting the significance of the the views of Dr. Joseph Dolce who told the Warren Commission lawyers in April of 64 that the single bullet theory was not valid. The Colonel pointed out on a documentary done years later by Chip Selby, that even at low velocity the M-C ammo could not have done what was attributed to it. 'We proved that with experiments,' Dolce told Selby. Now this is the kind of expert the critics should have put in the spot light and established it as part of the alternative story. But even HSCA ignored Dolce when he tried to testify for them. Could prominent critics have imposed on HSCA to listen to Dolce. Why didn't Tanenbaum or Sprague bring him in? Or didn't they know about this excellent government employee with superb credentials? Dolce, Wrone points out was the Army's top authority on bullet wounds and the critics should have put his views prominently into the public mind. Instead some of those who garnered the mainstream media attention were chasing mafia ghosts and unsupported CIA/military conspiracies, diverting the public from government evidence which disproved the government's Warren Commission fiction. Wrone also highlights Howard Roffman's excellent presentation of Oswald's alibi and one particular witness who would have been called had there been a trial: Carolyn Arnold. She saw LHO on the first floor just before the shooting. Oswald was seen in the vestible on second floor and Roffman makes clear that from the witness testimony he was coming from the first floor up to the second floor and not down from the sixth floor. In pages 131-137 Wrone pretty much anihilates David Lifton's arguments about Z film alteration and alteration of JFK's body. He demonstrably shows all of the time involved precluded anyone ever taking the film or body and changing them. Besides the Z film proves conspiracy. It shows JFK being hit from the front and the first shot coming before any shot was possible from the sixth floor. If you have any argument about this, take it up with Wrone, not me. Argue with the master, not a former student of his. Challenge him fact by fact. Good luck. In this book there is a Black Star photograph of a man putting up curtain rods in Oswald's apartment. Very revealing, huh? Maybe Oswald did need those curtain rods. Wrone is also critical of Garrison whose effort he calls "misguided" with the "debacle" killing public interest in the case and "disillusioning many critics." He points out that Stone's JFK film "perpetuated numerous misconceptions and factual errors about the assassination." For Wrone, the Stone film "further confused an already thoroughly confused public." In Chapters 15 and 16 Wrone summarizes all of the official documentary evidence that disprove the single bullet theory and put into question the validity of CE 399 as legitimate evidence. There is no "clearly defined chain of possession," and a "failure of every witness to the finding and delivery of the bullet to identify the bullet, and the failure to even try to establish that the rifle had been fired that day..." Wrone also highlights the dissenting Warren Commissioners a major theme of this story that is largely unknown by the public. Was it ever possible to get this point across in all these years of criticism? So, for example, by 1968 Harold Weisberg was communicating with Richard Russell, showing him, to Russell's agreement, many problems with the evidence and the workings of the Commission. Wrone says that had Russell "lived longer, he would have been the key supporter for a reexamination of the assassination and its investigation." Now wouldn't that have made for interesting headlines? Especially now in a time when, in the mainstream media headlines, you have key generals criticizing Rumsfeld, or a while back Richard Clarke criticizing Dubya, etc. Russell urged Weisberg to disprove the Warren Report "he had been tricked into signing." But he died shortly thereafter. John Sherman Cooper and Hale Boggs also had doubts. There's much more in this book, which I rank in my top ten of all time on this case. (The others being most of Weisberg's books, Sylvia Meagher's, Howard Roffman and Gerald McKnight.)

I have nothing to add but just wanted to thank Dixie Dea for listing the Roffman book. Does anyone have the book? I was wondering if there were two editions. It was either David R. Wrone or Harold Weisberg who mentioned that Roffman had the Black Star photograph of the woman putting up curtain rods in Oswald's apartment because...he didn't have any! Defenders of the official fiction have always been critical of the Oswald curtain story, asking why he would have them if he had already them up in his apartment. In fact, David Wrone, I believe has pointed out that this photograph is supports the contention that LHO actually didn't have any curtain rods up. In the copy of the edition I have, this photograpy is nowhere to be found.

One site I like to check on is The Assassination Archives and Research Center run by Jim Lesar. I first of Lesar's work on the JFK case when I saw a talk he gave at the University of Wisconsin- Stevens Point in November of 1976. As a young attorney he was bringing Freedom of Information Act lawsuits against various government agencies for the dean of the assassination critics, Harold Weisberg. By the way, also talking at this conference were historian David R. Wrone, a young attorney Howard Roffman, who wrote the superb dissection of the Warren Commission theory, Presumed Guilty, and Weisberg himself. At the time Congress was re opening the case and it was interesting to see commentary from these four top experts about the many stories and conspiracy ideas that were floating around in the mainstream media. These four scholarly critics acted as a kind of crap detector for that time, though few listened. The site is: AARC- Assassination Archives and Research Center Another site I like is History Matters-The JFK Assassination Of particular interest are the links to government reports so for example you can read HSCA interviews and unpublished testimony, listen to sound files, read media reports, articles by Peter Dale Scott, read the Clay Shaw transcripts and the Orleans Grand Jury testimony and much more. You really see how Garrison went awry by reading who testified in front of the Grand Jury. Another site with insightful analysis is Michael Griffith's site: JFK Assassination Web Page I was also glad to see Howard Roffman's superb devastation of the Warren theory, Presumed Guilty, available free on a web link, listed in a previous post. I have always been amazed by the powerful logic this young man used so long ago to completely blow away the official fiction. I remember seeing a picture of Roffman in People magazine and noticing how young he looked---in his teens when he undertook all his research and began his writing. Using only official government documentation Roffman provided a masterly analysis of what would have Oswald's "alibi": the fact that official evidence in time reconstructions and witness statements showed that there is no way he could have been both a sixth floor assassin and a second floor consumer of soda pop within the time alotted. His discussion of the ballistics evidence was top notch in showing that there must have been two shooters. Now, the question is this, was it possible that the primary points of discussion laid down by researchers such as Wrone, Weisberg, Lesar, Roffman, and I'll add Sylvia Meagher, could have been the basis for a national discussion and pursuit of the truth? Because it never was. The two major "stories" seem to have always been the official fiction, based on the government facts, and the nebulous "conspiracy" theory, seemingly based on ephemeral "evidence." The hard core documentation from the government vaults that overwhelmingly proves conspiracy, as it does, has really never been part of the national discourse. Could it have been possible to drive this information into the public mind?

What about the scholarship of Emeritus Professor of History David R. Wrone of the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point? Wrone co edited (with DeLloyd J. Guth) the massive and definitive (1980) The Assassination of John F. Kennedy: A Comprehensive Historical and Legal Bibliography, 1963-1979. In the preface he gives maybe the most powerful scholarly critique of the failings of the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigation. Wrone also edited The Freedom of Information Act and Political Assassinations: The Legal Proceedings of Harold Weisberg v. General Services Administration. (1978) Wrone's 2003 book The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination exemplifies what a historian can do on this case to bring sober, scholarly treatment to a subject matter rift with speculation. This book was endorsed on the back cover by Michael Kurtz and Douglas Brinkley. Wrone has written an excellent analysis, severly critical, of David Belin. Read it here: karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/the_critics/wrone/Belin.html Wrone has also lectured widely and appeared at JFK forums around the country for example at McKnight's event at Hood College, in Pittsburgh at Wecht's conference and on C Span with McKnight discussing the failings of the Warren Commission. For many years Professor Wrone taught classes on assassinations at UW-SP. In 1976 he hosted a dynamite forum at UW-SP with Harold Weisberg, James Lesar, and the excellent Howard Roffman whose own book on the case is a classic destruction of the official fiction that is the Warren Report. Finally Wrone has written many articles and book reviews about the case. So, for example, his devastating analysis of Gerald Posner's book is here: www.assassinationscience.com/wrone.html I've always considered Professor Wrone along with Professor McKnight as the top two professional historians on this case. No one else has their mastery of the evidentiary base. I wouldn't put the Canadian poet anywhere near in the same league with Wrone and McKnight. While I enjoy reading Peter Dale Scott, he makes unsupported connections and is prone to speculation.

Yeah, Dawn, the Costner movie was The Rock, which also starred Sean Connery who plays a secret agent giving Costner the location (in a small church) of the microfilm containing the secret of who killed Kennedy after Costner helps him escape from the government. And wasn't the X File program one in which "cancer" man's exploits manipulating world events was featured? Cancer man rigged the 1980 Olympics so that American wins, and other major events. Then when their in conference with his advisers he says, I don't want the Bills winning the Super Bowl. Saddam Hussein calls while they're talking and he tells the guy to put him on hold. Funny.

According to one of the top scholars on this case, historian Gerald D. McKnight, in his latest book, Breach of Trust, the bullet recovered from the Walker shooting didn't ballistically match the fragments found at the scene of the JFK killing. See pages 49 and 50 for his discussion of the Heilberger report conducted for the Warren Commission. Quoting directly from page 50: "Heilberger's report was persuasive evidence that the ammunition Oswald allegedly used to kill Kennedy could not have been invovled in the Walker shooting." And, oh, yeah---no surprise to anyone here---"Heilberger was never called as a Commission witness." On page 51 the excellent McKnight points out that there was "no persuasive physical evidence to tie Oswald to the Walker shooting." There's more in the next 8 pages of this chapter. There isn't much of a case on this one folks. Based on McKnight's dissection of the "evidence" against Oswald, I'd say on the night Walker was shot at, Oswald was no where near his residence.

I would just note that since I'm reading this book right now, I've noticed a lot of what David R. Wrone would call "forced connections" in this book. The phrases "would have" or "could have" and implications about people's actions and motives that are not known with certainty---just speculation on the authors' part---appear too often to close the JFK case.

As a long time reader of The Nation I can only say that this article by Holland was ridiculous. It hardly touched on any facts about the case and Gerald McKnight has commented on this site about his problems with Holland. I agree with Pat Speer about David Corn and would extend that to the magazine generally. They've laid out a case for Bush's impeachment, they publish the excellent Alexander Cockburn who regularly criticizes the CIA and wrote a book about how the mainstream media covered up the Contra CIA cocaine connections. The Nation is generally critical of government investigations highlighting problems with the Watergate, Iran Contra, and many, many other government cover ups. Just in this one instance do they support the official line. Why? One line of speculation would be that the official investigation was headed up by a Nation magazine hero, Earl Warren. But they did publish an early article on the case by Mark Lane, I believe. And Fred Cook, a long time Nation writer was very critical of the official lone gunman theory. The Nation is America's leading journal of opinion and is generally, as actor Paul Newman claims, the smartest magazine. Therefore, instead of boycotting, the views of many fine writers here should be passed on to them. Press the press. As an option write Corn and see what he thinks. Not every writer for the Nation believes in the single bullet theory. They're a pretty diverse group.

Yeah, I thought the piece by Holland in the The Nation was really a stretch. The whole concept of lumping all these lawyers together as a theme was ridiculous. Totally divorced from any discussion of the evidence. Notice how the Nation is, and rightly, usually critical of government cover ups? Only in this one instance do they defend the status quo attempt to restore faith. Why? Is Earl Warren's liberal ghost still dominant in the mind's of the Nation's editors? If so, this is their blind spot, for Holland's article was hardly scholarly or even logical. Notice how he doesn't factually take on the heavy weights at the JFK conference such as Professors David R. Wrone and Gerald W. McKnight. These two scholars know the evidence backwards and forwards and those who take them will be shown up as ignorant of basic fact in this case. One thing Wrone and McKnight highlight which is ignored even by many of the critics is the very essential discussion of Dr. Joseph Dolce. Dolce tangled with the Warren Commission lawyers, such as Arlen Specter, who were trying to craft the single bullet theory hoax. Dolce pointed out that it was impossible and he conducted experiments with bullets given to him by the Commission that proved the single bullet theory was not true. As he pointed out, even at low velocity this bullet couldn't do what the Commission claimed. Exactly because he conducted the tests and because of his expertise and his opinions he was not called as witness, merely interviewed for a memorandum. Well, do you think Holland would be conversant on this primary evidentiary information?

I think you misunderstand Dolce's significance, as did Weisberg. Dolce did not disprove the SBT. In the early discussions he merely voiced his disagreement that a bullet shattering a wrist could exit as undamaged as CE 399. Dr. Light, among others, agreed. Dolce was cut-out of the loop at that point. Dr. Olivier then had a gunner fire shots into ten severed arms, and sure enough, the exiting bullets were all far more damaged than CE 399. Dolce's theory had been proved. But this DID NOT disprove the SBT. To Olivier, and perhaps, more significantly, to Specter, this proved that the bullet shattering Connally's wrist had been traveling at a slower speed than the bullets fired in Olivier's tests. (The damage incurred by a bullet is directly related to the speed it is traveling when it hits bone.) What's significant is not that they disregarded Dolce's comments, but that they failed to test bullets traveling at a reduced speed to see at what speed a bullet striking a wrist might emerge and still look like CE 399. In other words, the tests were designed merely to add credence to Specter's theory, and not to establish fact. If they'd done the proper testing, they may very well have found that there was NO speed at which a bullet could shatter a wrist and emerge unscathed. But those tests have never been done, leaving the door open for the Posnerites and Lattimerites to spew their nonsense. (Both the CBS tests in 67 and the "Beyond the Magic Bullet" tests last year were flawed in their conception--and both failed to simulate a magic bullet.) I think you misunderstand Dolce's significance, as did Weisberg. Dolce did not disprove the SBT. In the early discussions he merely voiced his disagreement that a bullet shattering a wrist could exit as undamaged as CE 399. Dr. Light, among others, agreed. Dolce was cut-out of the loop at that point. Dr. Olivier then had a gunner fire shots into ten severed arms, and sure enough, the exiting bullets were all far more damaged than CE 399. Dolce's theory had been proved. But this DID NOT disprove the SBT. To Olivier, and perhaps, more significantly, to Specter, this proved that the bullet shattering Connally's wrist had been traveling at a slower speed than the bullets fired in Olivier's tests. (The damage incurred by a bullet is directly related to the speed it is traveling when it hits bone.) What's significant is not that they disregarded Dolce's comments, but that they failed to test bullets traveling at a reduced speed to see at what speed a bullet striking a wrist might emerge and still look like CE 399. In other words, the tests were designed merely to add credence to Specter's theory, and not to establish fact. If they'd done the proper testing, they may very well have found that there was NO speed at which a bullet could shatter a wrist and emerge unscathed. But those tests have never been done, leaving the door open for the Posnerites and Lattimerites to spew their nonsense. (Both the CBS tests in 67 and the "Beyond the Magic Bullet" tests last year were flawed in their conception--and both failed to simulate a magic bullet.) I think Weisberg had it right on the significance of Dr. Joseph Dolce and he was joined by Professors David R. Wrone and Gerald W. McKnight. In fact, Dolce indicated to documentary film maker Chip Selby for the excellent doc, Reasonbable Doubt, that he proved with experiments that the single bullet theory was not true and he added--and this is on the video---that his conclusions were shown with bullets "even at low velocity." Also, Dolce did the tests, as he pointed out. The report was written by someone else, but Dolce did the tests. Finally, in his new book, Breach of Trust, Gerald McKnight, tells readers that Gaeton Fonzi recommended the HSCA interview Dolce, but they never did.