James DiEugenio

BTW, let me add in relation to the whole Arizona lawyer Church of the Conspiracy slur. In my comments three frames above, I pointed out things that are simply a part of the evidentiary record. I did not discover these pieces of evidence. Others did. I was just repeating facts that have been out there for a very long time, at least 20 years. To anyone who reads the important literature and the important writers, they are not really possible to ignore. They are simply a part of the record: the disappearing particle trail, the 6.5 mm fragment, the failure of the HSCA to resolve the original camera dispute, and the densitometer readings. When you ignore those things, then you are relying not on fact, but on faith. That is belonging to a church. In a court of law, at least in California, you would call a 402 hearing, without the jury, on these artifacts. Maybe in Arpaio land you would not, but in CA you would. Now if I was the defense I am not sure if I would want to knock it out. For the simple matter that I would love to have the jury hear this stuff. Just as I would love them to hear Stringer deny he ever took the pics of the brain. I mean it would get to be Monty Pythonesque going through this ridiculous evidence trail. See, this is what is called fact based analysis, from people who do not want to cover things up. Its the other side that wants to do that because they are faith based. As Bill Alexander said about CE 399, its like the Virgin Birth, you either believe in the miracle or you do not. Well their side does.

Again, do you believe Von Pein? Above he says both the photos and x rays were authenticated. And he relies on the HSCA for that, even though we just showed him how the HSCA completely misrepresented their own evidence on this point. And then both Baden and Blakey said they did not recall seeing those witness statements. Now let us proceed to repeat something I already stated and that somehow the Von Pein, FC, TP crowd ignores. FC distorted it out of its actual meaning, par for the course with him. In the HSCA volumes it says that they could not find the original autopsy camera with which to do a comparison photo for authenticity purposes. (HSCA Vol 6, p 226 FN 1) As I noted above, the HSCA already misrepresented the evidence on the issue by saying the Bethesda witnesses saw something completely different than the Parkland witnesses. As Gary notes, they also misrepresented this camera evidence. Because they did find the camera. But Blakey sent it back saying it could not be the correct one. Because it could not match the pictures to this camera. Hmm. Now there is a way out of this and that is to claim the camera lens and shutter had changed. But we cannot determine that is the case since the HSCA deep sixed the actual notations on this experiment. (The Assassinations, edited by Jim DIEugenio and Lisa Pease, p. 280) Again, none of these people were aware of this? That book has been out there for 15 years. As per the x rays, I mean this is ludicrous. The 6.5 mm fragment did not show up on the original x rays. But it did show up for the Ramsey Clark panel. The particle trail in the rear of the skull rising upward was reported by Humes in his report. To his chagrin, before the ARRB, he had to admit its not there now. And these guys do their Lt Frank Drebin impersonation on this one. Plus there is the Mantik densitometer readings, which they also ignore. Drebin times two.

Rick, As a general rule I choose to believe witnesses' earlier statements over their later ones, because their later statements may have changed due to external influences . It sound like you are that way too. In contrast, Francois chooses to trust whatever statements support his beliefs. And that's the reason he believes what Dr. Perry said later on. There's no doubt in my mind about that. Its even worse than that. See, these guys always deny that a cover up took place. Because if you admit that happened then you have to ask: Why? In this case Elmer Moore of the Secret Service admitted that his function after the assassination was to inhabit Parkland Hospital and get the doctors to jump on board the official story, and he specifically talked about what he did to Perry to get him to change his story. (The JFK Assassination: The Evidence Today, pp. 166-69) Moore was so bad that he showed up for his fist interview for the Church Committee with his lawyer in tow. Now, what are we left with here: either DVP, FC, etc, never knew about Moore, which makes them rather incompetent and unknowledgeable since his name has been out there for over 20 years; or they did know about him but they don't want to bring him up since he really hurts their case. I would rather think its the former, but I tend to think its the latter since DVP has been on these boards for decades in lieu of, as he says, the life he does not have. And that is intellectual dishonesty defined. But the evidence that the WC was a huge cover up is all over the place. What the WC did not know or care to know could have filled up another 26 volumes. Except that info was all much more important and pertinent to a criminal inquiry. The Arizona lawyer called my rather brief recitation of it, "mind numbing". Which tells you all you need to know about who he is and what he is about. The FBI rigged Ruby's polygraph and the WC used that rigged test. David Phillips was running the CIA's anti FPCC campaign operations. Just what was TIppit doing from about 12:20 to the time he was shot? Try and find that in the WR. You will not. But its in Joe McBride's book, and its in my article "The TIppit Case in the New Millennium." And it helps explain why Tippit was not where he was supposed to be at the time he was shot. The Tippit case is extraordinarily important. I mean how the heck did the Oswald ID get there? Why did we have to wait thirty years to find that out? That point is so crucial that Bugliosi simply BS'd his way out of it. As I have always said, you do not have to pull the perfect crime. You just have to control the cover up.

IMO, as I noted in my PP presentation, I think McNamara began to show signs of stress and depression over this in late 1966 at a dinner he had with Schlesinger, Kaysen, Goodwin, and Galbraith. They noted that McNamara realized that Rolling Thunder was not working and America was actually losing the war. But Johnson was still intent on escalating. In Ellsberg's book Secrets, he continues this theme and actually has McNamara crying on his desk in 1967 and burying his face in a curtain. He probably got this from John McNaughton, DOD deputy until he died in the summer of 1967. I have talked to Newman about his discussions with McNamara in the eighties and nineties, and its really like McNamara had PTSD over what he had done. He even mumbled to John, "When did I know?" It was that mental state that caused him to commission the Pentagon Papers and to keep them a secret from LBJ, who he knew would terminate them. I think that was his way of expiating his guilt. But both he and Bundy got it on the record before they died that Kennedy was not going to commit to Vietnam.

Thanks Jim. Spread it around if you can. But you know although this captures a lot of the story, there is still more out there. John Newman told me that McNamara gave him access to top secret debriefs about Vietnam that almost no one had ever seen before. They are in his revised book JFK and Vietnam and also in a talk he did at UT which I have not seen yet. But I will write about them later. Isn't it incredible how all this was covered up for three decades? I remember when Garrison used to talk about this or write about it and I used to think, c'mon Jim, isn't that stretching it? Well, not at all. It was Hallin's Spheres at work. And it took Oliver Stone and Fletcher Prouty and Newman to expose it.

What this shows is just how bad Baden is on this case and its why Bugliosi used him. In Gary Aguilar's essay in MIDP, which evidently DVP has not read (no surprise), he says that he confronted both Blakey and Baden with the over 20 HSCA statements saying that these Bethesda witnesses saw such a wound in the back of Kennedy's skull. Both men replied that they did not recall seeing those statements. (p. 200) Now, you can believe that or not. Personally, I have a hard time buying it. But also recall, there were two nurses at Parkland who were assigned to clean off the body and prepare it for transport. They were Bowron and HInchliffe. To put it mildly they are not good witnesses for the WC official story. Therefore, this argument collapses when the full story is told. Because of the two nurses, and the idea that somehow the 20 Bethesda witnesses could be confused after the body was cleaned. PS Only DVP would use a witness who instructed Ida Dox to embellish the very photo under discussion. That is Three Stooges stuff.

To get back to the subject at hand: Something I did not include in the PP, but which I did talk about in SanFran is the role of Bobby Kennedy. After Galbraith stole the Rostow/Taylor report off of Rostow's desk, he took it back to his hotel room and read it in horror. He then called up JFK and said something like, "You are not really going to do this are you?" JFK said that no he did not want to and asked JKG to write him a memo on the subject to counter the people who did. As Galbraith did that, Kennedy postponed the showdown meeting on the subject until he showed the memo to Bobby Kennedy. At the meeting, RFK now became the attack dog. When Rusk would venture to ask for combat troops, Bobby would step forward and utter the memorable eight words: "There will be no combat troops in Vietnam." According to the Parker bio of Galbraith, he did this like three times. This is important information for historic purposes and it was not in Newman's book; it came from notes that were discovered later. See in John Bohrer's biography of RFK, he wrote that RFK was trying to tell LBJ in 1964 not to militarize Indochina. Now it becomes much more clear as to where that came from. Since RFK was in on that same policy from November of 1961.

Mr Payette: If you want to continue your ersatz debate with WN, please do it elsewhere. It is very easy to open a new thread here as I am sure you know. If you have nothing to contribute of any value to the subject at hand--and you do not--then do not clutter a valuable information PP with your snark and slurs about people like David Ray Griffin. If you do start a thread on such a subject, I will be glad to debate you there. So, with my blessings, please do.

I think both were there. Lehrer worked for a local newspaper and McNeil was on the press bus. As per PBS, they really began to go south during the Reagan years. There were so many attempts to cut their funding that they began to vigorously search out for other sources of revenue. But really, who would have thought they would have joined the JFK cover up like they did? On both the assassination and Vietnam. BTW, Newman, when he heard Burns was going to do this, challenged him to a debate. Kenny did not reply. Wonder why?

Thanks Ron. Please note all of this information that was not in the Burns/Novick 18 hour documentary on PBS. But yet, it was all out there at the time it was shown and in production. Recall, this is Public Broadcasting, which is supposed to offer an alternative to the networks. But when it came to Vietnam, PBS has gotten as bad on that as they are on the JFK case itself e.g. the 1993, Gus Russo/Dale Myers Who was Lee Harvey Oswald? and the 2013 Cold Case Nova. From my understanding, in the book accompanying their completely mediocre series, they did the same thing, discounting all of this information about JFK's intent to withdraw from Vietnam. So Jamie Galbraith got really upset and wrote a really neat article lambasting their mishandling of the evidence. If you always wondered why Jamie Galbraith was a strong advocate for Newman's book this is why. Its pretty obvious that his father told him all of this stuff. And that idiot Halberstam tries to say that Galbraith was really not a part of the debate on the issue. When in fact he was in Washington at the November debates and supplied the memo that JFK used to parry all the request for the entry of combat troops. This is one of the problems I have with journalists masquerading as historians. They build a false narrative because their work is based on interviews with people who end up having agendas. And believe me, in 1972, then it was now clear the war was a debacle, there were a lot of people with agendas trying to hide their tracks. Including David Halberstam. Who wanted everyone to forget what a hawk he had been and how opposed to JFK's policy of no combat troops.

BTW, it does not necessarily have to be a fake photo does it? Could it not be just his scalp pulled up over the crevice?

Thanks WN and David. And I am glad David has come back since I had not seen him in awhile. This PP essay contains the most current information on this whole issue of Kennedy, LBJ, RMN and Vietnam. I always thought that the best way to approach it was through a comparison of all four administrations, Ike through Nixon, in order to get, what is called in the historical trade, a comparative analysis. I think everyone can learn from reading it. Anyone who is open to new info should benefit from it. The only thing that I do not have in here is the most current info about Max Taylor. I might be able to add that in later. But this version has a lot of new info about John K. Galbraith who was very influential in Kennedy's thinking on Vietnam. The other reason I think its important is to show how Hallin's spheres were created on this issue. Specifically, that is the combination of LBJ inside the beltway and Halberstam in New York completely clouded what had really happened. Halberstam, Vann and Sheehan all wanted direct American involvement. They got it. It was a disaster. And then Halberstam tried to cover his tracks on his role in fomenting that disaster. A real profile in courage. And neither him nor Sheehan ever acknowledged that they were wrong and Kennedy was right. Even after Stone's film came out, Newman's book JFK and Vietnam was published, or the other books that built on Newman's thesis. Not a peep from Mr. MSM. This is the kind of political culture we have in this country. Governed by Hallin's spheres in the media, and the Overton Window politically. BTW, I hope everyone goes to the end to see Saigon/Ho Chi Minh city today and all the McDonald's franchises there. Some domino theory eh? Maybe it was all about Domino's Pizza?

Incredible, FC does not even know what I meant about the lens. And he quotes it in the contrary terms in which I used it. And he talks to us about critical thinking. Secondly, it is not matter of believing Aguilar or Humes. I mean did you even look at the list? Its people like McHugh, Stringer, Greer, Clint Hill, Tom Robinson, Rudnicki, Ebersole, LIpsey, I ran do you want me to name them all? Do you really want to call them all either wrong or liars?

On this site, we tend to get lost in the details. And at times we ignore what Prouty called The Big Picture. This is the talk I gave up in San Francisco this past weekend. It is a significantly revised and expanded version of a speech I gave in Virginia about 18 months ago. As David Josephs said after, how could anyone deny that Kennedy was leaving Vietnam after that? Well, maybe people who buy alien abductions? Anyway, read it and learn the facts about a central issue in history that was covered up by the likes of LBJ, David Halberstam, and many others. It took Oliver Stone, Fletcher Prouty and John Newman to drag it into the sunlight. And man the MSM did not like it. For good reasons. It proved they were full of BS. https://kennedysandking.com/images/pdf/vietnam-declassified-rev-2018.pdf

Steve: Were they trying to hide it with the wrong dates?

In his essay in The Assassinations, Gary writes, quoting the HSCA volumes, "In disagreement with the observations of the Parkland doctors are the 26 people present at the autopsy. All of those interviewed who attended the autopsy corroborated the general location of the wounds as depicted in the photographs, none had differing accounts...it appears more probable that the observations of the Parkland doctors are incorrect." He references this to HSCA Volume 7, p. 39

Blunt and Bagley were acquaintances for a number of years. Malcolm built up a good rapport with the guy. Bagley dedicated the last decades of his life trying to disprove the acceptance of Nosenko as being a genuine defector. Malcolm and John Newman were also interested in this idea. In fact, today, John agrees with Bagley on that topic. And that was the basis for the relationship. What is odd about that? Its a heck of a lot less odd than following alien abductions etc.and comparing them with a homicide case. Finally, Bagley answers a question from his new friend about a technical issue that he would understand. And Malcolm was sort of tight flipped about that. It was John who thought it was important enough to make public. What Malcolm himself thought important about it was the fact that it paralleled what Betsy Wolf had gone through as shown in the newly declassified documents from the HSCA. Documents he decided to send me. IMO, the important thing about the Wolf documents is that I do not recall this particular issue, about the obstructions put on the Oswald file, as being in the HSCA report. And second, I do not recall Wolf ever saying anything about her months long pursuit of this mystery, and all the paper she generated trying to solve it. Again, these are the dangers of secrecy and non disclosure agreements. The Betsy Wolf endeavor seems to me to be quite important overall. It is a troubling issue that what she did is only now just being made public after about 55 years. If you ask me, its a disgrace.

To my knowledge, which is not current, he may be coming out with another book. And if I am correct on this, and again I am not current, it will be specifically about the murders of his uncle and father.

HA HA HA HA The above is one of DVP's unintentional guffaws. JBC knew that the WC was so full of crap it stunk. Period. End of story. Be a man DVP.

Sandy if you read Gary's essay in The Assassinations, yes that is the case. The actual chart in which he names the witnesses and maps out their observations, that is in Murder in Dealey Plaza. p. 199. DVP knows all this and has for years. I have never been able to understand why, because he has no life, we have to be his caretakers. I am not trained in that field.

Lancie Boy used this against Joe Bauer? What a joke. I mean really, this guy was a lawyer? All I can say is he would have been right at home on the WC.

Davey is forgetting that the same amount of people saw it at Bethesda. Way to go Davey Boy!

OMG, Davey so you ignored everything I wrote correct? About the HSCA report giving the wrong info in their report what you and FC relied upon right? Then you ignore the stuff about the camera also and how the HSCA fudged that one. And now you bring up the Z film as the last bastion? I am not big on the Z film alteration that is true. But if you really listened to me, what I have said is that if there is such a case, the WIlkersons have made a pretty good argument for it being just about this issue: the rear skull wound was blacked out. Can we now drop this. Like Soupy Sales, you never get tired of the custard pie in the face do you?

Steve, That is what Lancie Boy is saying could be mistaken for a DPD car?

Davey cut out the other part of the quote. When the reporter asked him why he did not say anything about it he said that the country needed closure. (McBride, Into the Nightmare, p. 418) And he always insisted he was hit by a separate shot. And he told the same thing to Groden when he and his wife visited Dealey Plaza.