James DiEugenio

Yawn. See my reply above. Greg wasn't even a gleam in his father's eye in 1964.

"Lane never questioned the veracity of the second floor lunch encounter" No kidding Greg. And this examination never happened either, did it? It was a thought experiment based on certain facts that went unexposed. Can you name another attorney I should have inserted for Lane in 1964? As per this owing to your work, are you serious? Way back in 1965, Harold Weisberg had Baker's original affidavit and compared it to the WC version. He discusses this issue at length in Whitewash 2. Which was published in 1966. I have had that book for about 15 years in my library. Which is before I ever heard of you. When I first started my Bugliosi series, about eight years ago, that it what I used to begin that part of the argument. I then got the actual first day affidavit online. Most of the rest of my material about Baker was from the WC volumes. I never asked for or was offered anything you had written on the subject. I never even knew you had done anything about Baker at that time. The only thing I ever recall using from you in that entire long series was some material about Ruby and Karen and Bruce Carlin. For which you are properly credited in Reclaiming Parkland. (p. 201) As anyone who knows me understands, I always try and properly credit people for things they discover and I use. But most of the time I work alone. I then issue academic sources in my work, which I do plentifully.

You can't find these eh? How hard did you look? NY Times Dec 23, 1997 by Tim Weiner.

I cannot help but add one last thing about McCloy and Carter in the 1979 hostage crisis. From an upcoming article of mine: "Before leaving the subject, its interesting to speculate on another possible aspect of the pressure campaign brought to bear on Carter to let the Shah into the United States. Everyone knows that John McCloy served on the Warren Commission. In May of 1979, Carter was visiting Los Angeles to make a speech at the Civic Center. He had still not allowed the Shah into the country. The police apprehended a man with a starter’s pistol in the crowd. When they questioned the suspect, he told the authorities he was part of a four man assassination team. His function was to fire a diversionary shot into the ground while the other members shot at Carter from a nearby hotel. Although the police were skeptical, they later found that a room at the hotel was rented by a man the suspect had named as part of the plot. In that room was a shotgun case and three spent rounds of ammunition. Further, the occupants had checked out the day of the assassination attempt. The apprehended suspect’s name was Raymond Lee Harvey. One of the men he named as a co-conspirator was Oswaldo Espinoza Ortiz. (Time, 5/21/79) About four months later, Carter admitted the Shah." Coincidence?

By the way, it is because of all this new information about Vietnam, which I think cinches the case, that I turned to these other areas. Since, as I stated in the power point, I thought that the critical community was too focused on Vietnam and Cuba. Kennedy's foreign policy was much wider and more sophisticated than that. And it was, I think, a pretty Gestalt concept. And it was formed by 1960. Which is a dispute I have with JFK and the Unspeakable. But my main point is, Kennedy's foreign policy reforms were more or less all overturned by LBJ and the CIA. And then hammered into the ground by Nixon and Kissinger. Which is why the late Jonathan Kwitny wrote his excellent book Endless Enemies. The fact that this was so systematic and rigorous I believe is evidence of a high level plot. Since that fits the description of a coup d'etat. One more point about Vietnam: in the book Virtual JFK, it is revealed that LBJ understood he was breaking with Kennedy on Vietnam. And he then tried to cover up that fact! And its on tape. I mean, really, how much more do you need?

Which McNamara did in May of 1963 at the Sec Def conference in Hawaii. The record of this meeting was finally declassified by the ARRB in 1997. It was a bombshell. So much so that it convinced the NY Times and Philadelphia Inquirer that Kennedy was planning to get out of Vietnam. I read the document closely and made it a front page story in Probe. ​On every page of the series McNamara and everyone else is clear that Kennedy wants to get out of Vietnam and turn the war over to the ARVN--sooner rather than later! (Destiny Betrayed, Second Edition, pgs. 366-67, I will return to the sooner rather than later part) That fall, JFK decided to activate the plan; but he did not trust his subordinates to carry it out as he wished. So before Taylor and McNamara got back from Saigon, he had Krulak rewrite their report with himself editing it. (Ibid, p. 367. Since Prouty worked with Krulak, this is how he found out about it.) He then attached it to NSAM 263. He then rode herd on his cabinet to get on board this order, and for McNamara to announce it to the press. But as McNamara left to tell the media, Kennedy leaned out a window and said, "And tell them that means all of the helicopter pilots too." (Newman, p. 407) ​Now, as I said, I wish to return to the irritation McNamara showed in Hawali, when some commanders asked for more time in getting Americans out. As Newman points out, Kennedy used the false intel reports to ballast his withdrawal, knowing they were BS. (ibid, p. 410) What he was really worried about was that South Vietnam would fall too soon. In other words even before the withdrawal was completed. What would he do then? ​Well, just declassified last year at NARA was, I think, the last piece of proof one needs in this regard; and why we had to wait to the 21st century for it shows how the other side used secrecy to their advantage. Kennedy, in November of 1963, ordered an all inclusive evacuation plan for American personnel from South Vietnam. Why would he do that if he was staying? Kennedy had made his choice: He was getting out, no matter what.

After two weeks of debate, Kennedy was the only guy in the room refusing to commit combat troops.(Newman, JFK and Vietnam, p. 138) He would only up the advisors, to see if this would really help. But he secretly sent Galbraith to Saigon to prepare a report for withdrawal in case the advisors did not work, which he suspected they would not. When Galbraith returned, JFK gave that report to McNamara. (ibid, pgs. 236-37) He then watched and waited as two things occurred. He got access to the true intel reports and then came the Battle of Ap Bac. In early 1963, for the first time, the Viet Cong decided to take on the ARVN in a pitched battle in daylight, in large regiment sized numbers. Further, the ARVN was well suported with several American advisors, including the legendary Jean Paul Vann. Along with air support. With all that in their favor, the ARVN was routed. It was so bad that the American Commander in theater, Harkins, lied about it. (See Newman, pgs. 302-04) It is incredible to me how this event is so ignored in our community. It indicates to me how few people have read Newman's masterly book. Three things happened as a result of this humiliation: 1.) It convinced the State Department that Diem could not win the war. 2.) It convinced Vann that Saigon would fall without direct American intervention. 3.) It convinced Kennedy that the hawks had had their day. It was time to give the order to McNamara to implement Galbraith's plan, namely withdraw. ​

Jon Tidd: JFK may have believed John Foster Dulles world view was flawed, but I'd bet there were countries as to which Dulles and JFK were in agreement to a degree. One of these countries was South Viet Nam. I could not disagree more. And its not a matter of supposition, or what I think, its a matter of the adduced record. JFK's view of the world was much more sympathetic to Third World areas coming out of Colonialism like Cuba and Indochina. So much so that he was willing to sustain a humiliating defeat at Bay of Pigs rather send in the Navy. He then fired the top level of the CIA for lying to him about the episode. After this, in the November arguments over combat troops into South Vietnam, he often asked three things: ​1. Why should we go into Vietnam which is so far away, when we did not go into Cuba which is so close? 2. How would we fare better than the French who were there for eight years and then lost? ​3. How can you make the public understand something like this, since it was not like Korea?

Let me add this as a bookend about McCloy. Many of us feel that McCloy and Dulles were the real centers of power on the WC. I have already indicated what McCloy did with Rockefeller and the CIA and Brazil in April of 1964. Well, guess what? Allen Dulles did something just as compromising in that same month. He decided to visit Harry Truman in Missouri. Why? He did not like that anti CIA column Truman published in December. Where Truman recommended the CIA's operational arm be severed and it revert to intelligence gathering only. In fact, Dulles actually wanted Truman to retract the essay. Truman would not. So Dulles wrote a memo to CIA trying to get other people who had influence with the former president to convince him to do so. It turns out that although Truman's anti CIA column was published a month after the JFK assassination, through his papers, we learn that the rough draft was completed on December 11th. But it was started on, get this, December 1st! Considering the fact that Truman had to have thought about it before committing anything to paper, this brings the provenance of the essay to about one week after JFK was killed. As I said, the meeting ended unsuccessfully for Dulles, since Truman was not going to retreat. Dulles now walked to the door and praised the new CIA director John McCone. But he had not mentioned Kennedy yet. He now did, in a truly startling way. He now mentioned the "false attacks" on CIA in relation to Vietnam and how Kennedy had repudiated these attacks! What could Dulles be talking about here? And why bring this up with Truman? He has to be speaking about the columns published in October of 1963 by Arthur Krock and Richard Starnes. They both spoke about the rising power of the CIA, especially in relation to Vietnam policy. Krock's source called the CIA influence in Vietnam a "malignancy". One which the WH could not control. Both articles spoke about an inevitable Seven Days in May scenario, except the coup of the American president would originate with the CIA, not the Pentagon. Now, contravening Dulles, I know of no source that says Kennedy disowned the columns. But I do know of some who say that, not only did he not object, he was an off the record source. After all, Krock was a close friend of his father's. Therefore, Dulles was trying to dupe Truman by deceiving him. But if these are the columns he was referring to, then his actions are even more revealing. Especially because it was he who brought up Kennedy's name personally in regards to them. Dulles' comments and actions--his personal visit, the bid for retraction, the bringing up of Kennedy while investigating his murder--all of these imply that Dulles thought Truman wrote the column due to the former president's suspicions about the CIA, Kennedy's murder and the Vietnam War, which LBJ was now in the process of escalating. What makes this even more interesting is this. If one looks at the first wave of essays and books on the JFK case, which will begin in 1965, no one connected those dots: Vietnam, the Krock/Starnes columns, Kennedy's murder, at that time. Dulles was doing at least ten years before anyone else did. By trying to get Truman to retract, was Dulles making sure no one else would connect the dots that early? If so, as prosecutors like Bugliosi say, this displays "consciousness of guilt". (Destiny Betrayed, Second Edition pgs. 380-81)

Thanks Paul. I am looking forward to that one also. Talbot is the kind of guy who can get on TV to get his message out. With Bugliosi gone, I wonder who they will recruit to be his antagonist.

BTW, I have to point out another great irony. As I noted, in the Algeria speech, Kennedy warned about the possible explosion of Moslem fundamentalism in that area. Therefore he worked with men who he thought were more secular and progressive. And against monarchs like King Saud and the Shah. Well, who was it who was responsible for the eventual explosion of Moslem fundamentalism there that Kennedy so feared? JOHN MCCLOY! It was McCloy, being paid by David Rockefeller, who lobbied Carter's advisors to convince the president to do something he did not want to do: let the Shah into America for medical treatment. But before Carter caved, he asked the meeting, "Alright, but I wonder what you guys are going to advise me to do when they invade our embassy and take our employees hostage?" You couldn't make this stuff up if you tried! That's how bad McCloy was. He helped bring us Reagan. BTW, Nixon was also for bringing the Shah into the USA. Finally, McCloy did a parallel thing while he was on the WC. In 1963, David Rockefeller wanted to meet with JFK about overthrowing the government of Brazil. Kennedy refused to meet. After his death, LBJ took the meeting. The next year, the CIA arranged a coup in Brazil. Who was their point man? John McCloy. While he was sitting on the Warren Commission! Does that not define a conflict of interest?

THANKS SO MUCH PETER. When I gave the first talk in 2013 at the Wecht Conference, I got a long standing ovation. People had never seen this information before. But I cannot really take credit for it. Its really the authors I read who did the hard work. At the Wecht Conference, before i talked about the Algeria speech I actually said that although Jim Douglass highlights the American University speech, I think the Algeria speech is even better. I still think so today. And boy did it get Nixon and Dulles mad. But the important thing I stressed is this: We concentrate too much on Vietnam and Cuba. And we forsake everything else JFK was doing. After all the reading, I came to the conclusion that Vietnam and Cuba were simply reflections of an already formed, gestalt foreign policy, rather than specific instances. And this policy was deliberately designed to overturn what Foster Dulles had done. That isn't me talking, its Rakove and Muehlenbeck. And guys like Nasser. Who went into a month long depression after Kennedy was killed. He then ordered his funeral shown four times on national TV.

In a previous thread centering on if Baker actually did see Oswald in the TSBD, I mentioned the fact that Rich Gilbride had written that Truly was a southern cracker who had racist attitudes towards his employees and despised the Kennedys. DVP, predictably, pooh poohed this. I have little doubt he will continue that discounting on his own web site when he adapts that exchange over there for his own purposes. Most Krazy Kid Oswald advocates do the same: they downplay just how divergent the Kennedy administration was from Eisenhower/Nixon/Dulles. They also downplay how LBJ, in many ways, then reversed Kennedy's policies on multiple fronts. In essence, restoring the foreign policy status quo. John McAdams is the nonpareil on this issue. Even after several books of new and sterling scholarship contain new evidence and documentation, McAdams still tries to say JFK was not withdrawing from Vietnam. I will never forget during our debate, after I said Kennedy was the most liberal president since FDR, he actually said that Truman and LBJ were more liberal than Kennedy! If you know anything about history, this is a preposterous statement. This whole issue, of course, is one of politics not history. Because if you say that Kennedy was not withdrawing from Vietnam and was simply a more handsome and telegenic Cold Warrior, then you eliminate a major reason for a high level plot and cover up against him. The problem is simple, the newest research--done by historians who have no stake in the assassination debate--does not support this. In fact, it shows that Kennedy was even more progressive than many of us thought. The problem is, as it usually is, very few people have read these books. But it turns out that Kennedy consciously and deliberately set out to reverse John Foster Dulles' view of the world, especially the Third World. And that LBJ and the CIA, in a matter of 18 months after his murder, deliberately went back to Dulles/Eisenhower/Nixon. I don't think many people here have seen these presentations, except Pat Speer. If you have not, much of the material in this powerpoint is based on two books, one by Stanford professor Robert Rakove, and one by Georgetown professor Phil Muelhenbeck. My favorite part of this is Rakove's research on the Middle East. Which makes Kennedy's foreign policy there very relevant today, since it was overthrown by Johnson, and then especially Nixon and Kissinger. Anyway, I think most of you will enjoy this, its new and enlightening. And it shows how Kennedy was upsetting the apple cart of many power groups. http://www.ctka.net/2014/JFKForeignPolicy.html

Jack Duffy does have the entire video of On Trial. Someone needs to approach him and ask him what format he has it in. And if he can duplicate it.

Wasn't TMWKK before he began working at the museum? Yes it was.

Something that Pat should have added. Baden was desperate to sell this cowlick entry wound to the public. So he told Ida Dox to draw her illustrations to make it look more like a bullet wound. She did not do well the first time. So he wrote her a note saying, "You can do better", and attached to the note was a picture of a skin laceration. Dr. Randy R found this notation at NARA and confronted Baden with it at the Wecht Conference in 2003. Gary Aguilar immediately chimed in and said, "The pictures in the archives do not have those raised ridges. It looks flat." As LBJ once said about an advisor who was proved wrong, Baden "looked like he had just been struck in the face with a sack of manure." Except it was his own BS.

I have to agree with that Jon. To me there are three ways to look at MC: 1.) The WC version, i.e. the Slawson/ Coleman report. Which is: Oswald went and did what they said he did. This can only be credible if you do not read the Lopez Report. Since I did read the Lopez Report (actually twice), and I interviewed Eddie Lopez before I wrote these two essays, I do not think Slawson/Coleman deserves any respect at all. In fact, today I think its almost risible. 2.) The declassified HSCA version : Oswald did go to Mexico, but he did not do the things that Slawson and Coleman said he did. Eddie and Danny base this on the total lack of evidence for what the CIA says happened at the Cuban and Russian consulates. Further, upon the demonstrable perjury by Phillips and Goodpasture. And finally, upon Phillips' attempts to implicate LHO in a plot of communist design. Attempts that were later discredited. 3.) The most current version. In the Lopez Report, Danny and Eddie accept the Slawson Coleman/ FBI version of how Oswald arrived in MC. Through the work of Armstrong, Dave Josephs and Jerry Kroth, this has been slowly but surely chipped away at. And today, for reasons I state in the first essay, Mumford is not a credible witness. And the weight of the evidence says Joe Ball knew this. Yet, she is overwhelmingly the person who the WC used to certify Oswald's voyage down. Now, with Mumford neutralized, the voyage down is highly suspect. But, IMO, the voyage back is even worse. But as Dave points out, the problem was simple: The FBI had to put LHO on a bus. Whether or not he was on one did not matter. Why? Because if they put him in a car by himself, then that compromises them saying he did not drive. If they put him in a car with someone else, that means he had accomplices. This is the dilemma the CIA left for the FBI. Which is why Hoover later wrote that the CIA had dumped a tall tale on them about LHO in Mexico City. As I have said before, and I say even more strongly now, MC is the key to the plot.

Nice one Dave. The FBI had a devil of a time putting MC together after the CIA dumped it on them.

If one recalls, Davey did not think that Hoover lying about Hall, Seymour and Howard being at Odio's door was a big deal. Well, in regards to the large frame of Mexico City it sure is. Just put the time frame together for Oswald and you will see what I mean. Therefore, I am inserting two essays on the subject. The first stresses the whole MC vs Odio aspect. And why the WC had to come up with the Hall, Seymour, Howard stuff. The second is more strategic, as to how the MC scheme worked overall. http://www.ctka.net/2015/JimDMexicoCity/Introduction.html No conspiracy? There definitely was.

Nothing more to say? Really. Go back and look at Inside the Target Car and see how Gary says that a shot from the fence was not possible since it would have hit Jackie Kennedy. This was not true. It was made possible by the choreography on the set. Which Groden told them AT THE TIME was wrong. Keep it up Duncan.

DM: The Video tells the truth, get over it! ​Martin already blew this up, but really Duncan, do I now have to list all the incredibly one sided, pro WC shows Gary served on as either main talking head,or chief consultant? In respecting the recently passed I did not want to do it. But keep on pushing me and I will. Gary went through a significant mid life crisis. How else does one explain him serving as one of two talking heads on TMWKK and then doing something like Inside the Target Car?

Well, that is true. There has never been a transcript released. Although Vince did have one. Boy and Spence did not even know about one? I guess we know who the producers favored. Hard to believe Tony Summers was in on that one.

LOL good one Bob. BTW I am still waiting for an apology for this: DVP: It's fun just making up total crap out of whole cloth, isn't it Jimmy? I made up nothing. I never have and never will. But Davey has his hands full with that affidavit now. And BTW, that newspaper front page is hilarious. It says nothing about a second floor encounter or lunch room encounter. So how it is relevant? But recall, the night of the 22nd, the DPD began to change Baker's first day affidavit.

Waited two days for an answer? I guess he did not. So, he did not read either of my books. He did not read Newman's book. How does he know what is going on with genuine research then? I mean, no 201 file, but he is on the Watch List? And no one can explain it?

The problem I had with Gary was this: Gary first was a researcher who was actually in TMWKK the first time around with Groden. Which was anti Warren Commission, pro conspiracy. He then, around the time of the Roscoe White hoax, 30th anniversary, changed sides. Now, many people, like Jesse Ventura, said Gary had private doubts about the official story. But none of these showed up in any of the many documentaries he helped put on TV. And when I say many, I mean MANY. After 1993, no one was involved with more WC stuff that got broadcast than Gary. No one,. So here is what puzzles me: Why on one hand did he do one thing in public, yet in private tell several people he was not really sure about it?