James DiEugenio

BTW, that line of questioning about why Stringer did not follow his own method, that would open up a whole Pandora's Box. Because the other questions would then follow: about how the heck does any experienced autopsy photographer take a picture like the mystery photo? IMO, from what I have read, Stringer would then blame Humes. Which would lead to the question of: why on earth would Stringer allow Humes to direct him about his profession, that he himself taught in the opposite manner? You start going down that path and you literally have the rats jumping ship.

Further: Stringer's testimony about the brain photos would be quite compelling. Secondly, the ARRB had testimony that Stringer did not follow his regular routine when taking the other pictures. His routine, which he actually taught, was three pictures of each impacted area: close up, medium shot and distant shot. Why did he not do that in this case?

Johnny just pinned the tail on the donkey. See, before any trial you have what is called in California a 402 hearing. At that hearing the defense gets to challenge the prosecutor's evidence for issues of chain of custody and admissibility. Can you imagine trying to get those pictures in with the witnesses above? I mean Sibert and ONeill would be utterly humiliating. But then, there is the issue of dissection. Tanenbaum: Dr. Humes, what was the cause of death in this case? Humes: A bullet wound to the head. Tanenbaum: Well, if such was the case, why did you not section the brain for a dissection? Humes: In the interests of preserving the specimen. Tanenbaum: Preserving it for whom? Did you plan on putting it on display in a museum?

I agree, nice one Paul. BTW, as per Harriman, I don't think he had much to do with the formation of the Warren Commission. At least I do not recall him from Don Gibson's definitive essay. But Jim Douglass does mention him as secretly sandbagging a neutralist solution suggested by Galbraith through India about Vietnam. (pp. 119-21)

To Ben: In 1964, Johnson attempted to keep secret his plan to escalate in Vietnam. This included the fact that he had also planned for a casus belli event for which he would go to congress for a resolution. That, of course, was the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which he lied about as to where the ships were and that they were not just like patrols as we had all over the Pacific Ocean. It was not until later that Fulbright realized that he had been duped by the White House, not just on Vietnam but also on Juan Bosch and the invasion of the Dominican Republic, which was also a reversal of Kennedy's policy. It was when Fulbright began to call for his senate hearings that the Democratic Party began to reconsider what LBJ was doing. But by then, 1966, it was a bit late. And the plea was we could not abandon the effort in midstream with hundreds of thousands of men still there. It was Fulbright who finally began to turn the tide against LBJ. But the country had by now been polarized as hawks vs doves to such an extent that the facts did not really matter. You were either for the war, thus a patriot, or against the war, a sell out. And I should add, that polarization was magnified by Nixon to the point that it has never left the country. I should add, back then you had liberal and moderate Republicans, like Jacob Javits and John Sherman Cooper. They were both on that committee. They were so critical about what LBJ had done that Johnson called CBS and asked Paley to censor the hearings. Fred Friendly resigned over that request when CBS showed a rerun of I Love Lucy instead.

Here is another one with Monika on Apple. Nice that she is getting around, her book is quite valuable. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/special-guest-episode-monika-wiesak-author-of/id1721730634?i=1000661392705

Harriman did say that there were forces working against a neutralization plan.

Vietnam was at the start a CIA war. Lansdale was the main cog in South Vietnam, rigging elections for Diem and forging the whole Catholic exodus south to prop up a backing for Diem. As we know Lansdale was ostensibly an Air Force officer but was really CIA, and very friendly with Dulles. In fact Lansdale wanted to be the ambassador to Saigon. So yes, I would say that Dulles was strongly involved with all this. Laos was a little different, in that the Pentagon was really pushing for Kennedy to enter into that theater. At first there was not even a CIA station there. Arleigh Burke wanted a 60,000 man contingent to go into the country. Kennedy dismantled that with some tough questioning and arranged a neutralist solution. But as Mike Swanson pointed out in his book Why Vietnam? this caused a retargeting to Vietnam.

Ron: Truman and Acheson did something that FDR likely would not have done. They recognized Bao Dai as the leader in the south. This enraged Ho Chi Minh. Because it meant to him that America was going to back the French in their effort to retake the area after the war.. This is what FDR told Cordell Hull that he did not want France to do. Ho Chi Minh was correct and Truman did give aid to France when the war started. But as most commentators say, once Eisenhower took over, the aid greatly increased by a large factor. But still the French could not gain a decisive advantage. And Americans on the scene, like reporter Seymour Topping and diplomat Edmund Gullion, thought this was hopeless; and if America took over, it would be the same. So when Kennedy visited in 1951, both men said this to him: that France could not win the war. In fact, Topping's declaration might have been even stronger than Gullion's. When Kennedy returned home, he made some speeches about imperialism vs nationalism in the Third World. A little later he wrote a letter to Foster Dulles, asking him what America's strategy was in Indochina. About a year after that, it became clear that both Nixon and Foster Dulles advocated the use of American ground troops if necessary. In fact Nixon mentioned this in a speech. But then during the siege of Dien Bien Phu, Foster Dulles planned Operation Vulture, which Fletcher Prouty was one of the first to write about, and John Prados wrote a whole book about. This was a truly nutty plan to send a huge air armada over the site, accompanied by 135 fighter planes if China intervened. The mission was to drop 3 atomic bombs over the site. This was approved by Foster Dulles and Admiral Radford, but Ike turned it down when the British could not go along with it. But, Dulles then went to the French privately, no one knows if Ike approved this, and offered them the nukes. They declined. Nixon was the point man in congress for this wacky idea. Kennedy railed against it. When DIen Bien Phu fell, we found out why Dulles never replied to Kennedy's letter. Because against the advice of Topping and Gullion, America was now going to replace France as the imperial power there. As Ike later confessed, if they stuck to the Geneva agreement for free unification elections, Ho Chi Minh would win in a landslide. So they broke the agreement, split the country in half, and the CIA propped up this Catholic, English speaking, suit and tie attired dictator, Ngo DInh DIem, who was being run by Ed Lansdale. It was this choice that led to an epic tragedy. There were others who would have been much better. But, in retrospect, the wisest choice was to have just enacted the Accords. And avoided 20 more years of war and 5.8 million deaths in Indochina.

According to John Newman, that is correct. It was Eisenhower who first suggested that Lumumba should be eliminated. Then Allen Dulles put it into action.

Talbot's Go Fund Me page reached 100 K today. He deserves it. And nice job to everyone who helped.

Interesting point Ron. Kuznick and Stone argue that Eisenhower should take much more blame for what happened, instead of just dumping everything on Foster Dulles. Which is what many people have done. A good revisionist history of Ike is Blanche Wiesen Cook's The Declassified Eisenhower.

Well, try Paul, if you have to pay them!

Here is the video version: https://sdgacademylibrary.mediaspace.kaltura.com/media/Conversation+with+Monika+Wiesak%2C+America's+Last+President/1_ugumvrpl

BTW, one of the reasons I brought up the UN action approved by Kennedy and the Secretary General is one of the articles I am working on right now for Substack. See, Kennedy greatly admired Dag Hammarskjold. When he died Kennedy brought in a Swedish diplomat from the embassy. He told him that Dag was the greatest statesman of the 20th century. He could never hope to equal him in stature. This is why I think that when Gullion sent the cable saying it was no accident what happened to Dag, that Kennedy decided to take an active part in the operation. This included two visits to the UN, invoking Dag's name. But the distinction I want to point out is that Kennedy used the UN to settle the dispute. When HRC, Rice and Power wanted to get rid of Gaddafi, they used NATO to bomb Libya. This is something I am going to specifically bring up in my two parter.

Because as Lovett said to JFK: Foster Dulles had his brother's back. But Lovett now said Kennedy had the perfect opportunity to get rid of him.

Grand Slam was made up of Swedish, Indian, Ghanian and Ethiopian troops under Major General Chand of India. It was approved by U Thant and Kennedy. If i recall, it only had something like 11 casualties on the UN side. To me it was an example of what the UN could do for a just cause when necessary. But without Kennedy, the UN pulled out. In less than a year after Kennedy's murder, everything went downhill. Until Indonesia, Katanga was known as one of the richest mineral deposits there was. And since the Belgians had sacked the treasury, Lumumba knew he had to keep hold of it for the country to have an economic future.

To say as some are implying that somehow Kennedy did not figure prominently in the defeat of the Katanga secession is simply not accurate. And to also imply that American policy did not drastically change after his death, this is also not accurate. As Jonathan K notes in Endless Enemies, the White House and the CIA now tried to blame the Simba Rebellion--some of the last of Lumumba's followers--on influence from China! Just recall, for the disaster that took place ultimately in Congo, three men had to perish: Lumumba Dag Hammarskjold Kennedy. IMO, without those murders, and that is what they were, Belgium would not have retaken control and neither would have Union Miniere. This is why Lumumba became a hero in Africa, and why so many streets, buildings, parks and even children were named after Kennedy.

Here is the link some of you asked for on this, Jeff is a good guy one of the few in academia on the JFK case. And if you have not read Monika's book, what are you waiting for. It is excellent. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/season-3-episode-9-monika-wiesak-americas-last-president/id1555300202?i=1000660869324

Jadotville was part of the UN mission. Hammarskjold had appointed Conor Cruise O'Brien to run that mission. O'Brien got decidedly mixed reviews for his performance. But when Dag was killed, and the UN was faltering, it was Kennedy who went to the UN, not once, but twice to convince them to stay in the battle as a way of honoring Dag. We excerpted Kennedy's speech in which he mentions this in JFK Revisited. And it was Kennedy who approved Operation Grand Slam which ended the Katanga secession. Everyone knows that the Belgians, and to a lesser extent the British and French backed Union Miniere and Katanga and Tshombe. Is that supposed to be news? And yes mercenaries were hired to back Tshombe, reportedly one was Skorzeny in the employ of CIA. Everything went south after Kennedy's murder. Kennedy wanted to bring in British special forces expert Michel Greene to control the Simba Rebellion tactically. This did not occur and once Adoula retired, and Mobutu became a favorite at Fort Benington, LBJ moved the USA from center to the right. Without Kennedy, the UN withdrew in the summer of 1964. Now, the US and Belgium "intervened with arms, airplanes and military advisors. Mobutu brought Tshombe home from exile to replace Adoula as premier." To put down the Simba Rebellion, the USA and Belgium formed a mercenary force which included men from South Africa and reportedly Cuban exiles. To stop the rebellion in Stanleyville the US Air Force used C-130's to drop Belgian paratroopers on the city. As many have said this was a military success and a political disaster. Eighteen African states accused the USA and Belgium of violation of the UN Charter. As UN ambassador Stevenson said: a year before we were hailed as champions of a free Africa, now we were as reviled as the Belgians. (Richard Mahoney, JFK: Ordeal in Africa, pp 229-231)

And the thing is Cyril really did not slow down until about his last year. He was active with many people on the case right up until he was about 91. For instance he would call Tanenbaum almost every weekend. He would email Oliver Stone frequently about getting letters in the papers. He would gladly talk to me about certain forensic issues from his house at night. And no one should ever underestimate those Duquesne Conferences run by him and Ben. As I recall, at the 2003 one, he had about a thousand people there. Anyway, he and Gary teamed up to give Griffin a swift kick in the butt. Really kind of surprised at Griffin, as he was one of the less extreme Commission zealots compared to say Belin.

Correct Ben. I virtually attended the celebration of life for Wecht on Sunday. Very nice proceeding conducted by his family, I imagine Ben had a large role in it. Cyril never had much time for these Warren Commission zealots. Griffin has to know about those phone calls and he has to know that Ruby did not walk down the Main Street ramp.

Gary Aguilar and the late Cyril Wecht, in his last effort, do a nice job to take apart the latest apologia by one of the Warren Commission counsels. First, we had Belin, then Willens. This time its Burt Griffin. The thing is Griffin was their alleged Ruby expert, but wait until you see what he left out. These guys are (literally) shameless. Good job and nice exit by Cyril. https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/warren-commission-counsels-burt-griffin-and-howard-willens-attempt-the-impossible-shoring-up-the-tottering-credibility-of-earl-warren-s-investigation

Who is Eugenio? Do you mean me?

When I went to look up Howard Hunt there I got a generic message that the site was for sale. Has that been cut off for whatever reason?