Gene Kelly

Ron and Jim I read your July article about Gladio in Kennedy's and King and it is excellent. This article connects quite a few "dots" ... Gladio and Permindex, the Aldo Moro murder and the attempts against DeGaulle. Shaw and PERMINDEX (and CMC). Italy becomes Ground Zero for Angleton and Harvey's activities, and the sociopathy of Allen Dulles ... and how NATO was structured and used. The subversive work of Gladio operatives, Aginer Press, and who the real Puppet-Masters are. How secret warfare is approached, stay-behind networks, false-flag operations and the use of patsies. I often wondered why Charles de Gaulle removed France from NATO in 1966 and kicked them out of Paris. Unfortunately, we are not particularly well-informed about issues in Europe, and especially Italian politics. I have also speculated about who/what was behind the Red Brigade, FBI COINTELPRO, antiwar movements of the 70's and other fronts. Your article and the work of Daniel Ganser really shines a light on those tumultuous years. Most important for this Forum, it provides context for and perspective on JFK's murder. It pulls many deep state concepts together in a more coherent picture, and shows that Jim Garrison was truly on the trail of the assassins. And can there be any doubt that JFK's foreign policy is what got him killed? Or that Dulles, Angleton and Harvey had a hand in it? Who pulled the triggers becomes academic and moot. The end of the article was poetic; I did not know much about Elisabeth Frank's bronze sculpture of an eagle at the Dallas Trade Mart , an ironic location (and end point) for a great President that never happened ... and where the conspirator Clay Shaw's office front was located. The quote from William Blake's "Marriage of heaven and Hell" inspires. Well done Gene

That interview is shocking to watch and listen to ... I was a fan of Carson (as was everyone) in those days, but he really showed his true colors. I would assume many folks in those days (me included) had no idea how well-informed (or who) Jim Garrison was, and how close he was to a more truthful account of JFK's murder. That fact was effectively suppressed from the public for many years. The interview occurred at the end of the chaotic 60's when I was a senior in high school; Bobby would be killed that coming June, race riots were erupting all over, and we would all soon find out about the evil of Richard Nixon. The Vietnam War subsequently polarized the country, and we started to acknowledge the unthinkable (at the time) ... namely, that our government would deceive us. Trust in government and politicians became lost. The night of my college graduation was the Watergate break-in, and it all went downhill for the next 5 years. There was some hope when the limited hangout known as the HSCA was formed from 1976-78 ... and that was thought to appease the public skepticism for a time. Garrison had been effectively silenced, and remained out of the public eye for the next decade, content to author books on the subject. Zachary Sklar, a professor of journalism at Columbia, altered that quiet ignorance in 1988 with publication of On the Trail of the Assassins. Oliver Stone obtained a copy of the book and bought the film rights with $250,000 of his own money, to prevent talk going around the studios about projects he might be developing. The rest as they say, is history. The media reaction to Stone was as vicious as that given Garrison himself. A few weeks after Stone began shooting in May 1991, the Chicago tribune wrote that JFK was "an insult to the intelligence." Five days later, the Washington Post followed suit with a scathing article by George Lardner titled, "On the Set: Dallas in Wonderland" that used the first draft of the JFK screenplay to blast it for "the absurdities and palpable untruths in Garrison's book and Stone's rendition of it." The article pointed out that Garrison lost his case against Clay Shaw and that he inflated his case by trying to use Shaw's homosexual relationships to prove guilt by association. Other critical articles soon followed. Anthony Lewis in the NYT stated that the film "tells us that our government cannot be trusted to give an honest account of a Presidential assassination." Washington Post columnist George Will called Stone "a man of technical skill, scant education and negligible conscience." Jack Valenti, then president and chief executive of the Motion Picture Association denounced Stone's film in a seven-page statement: "In much the same way, young German boys and girls in 1941 were mesmerized by Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will", in which Adolf Hitler was depicted as a newborn God. Both JFK and Triumph of the Will are equally a propaganda masterpiece and equally a hoax. Mr. Stone and Leni Riefenstahl have another genetic linkage: neither of them carried a disclaimer on their film that its contents were mostly pure fiction." TIME magazine ranked it in "Top 10 Historically Misleading Films." Historian David Wrone stated that "80 percent of the film is in factual error" and rejected the premise of a conspiracy involving the CIA and the military-industrial complex as "irrational." Warren Commission attorney David Belin called the film "a big lie that would make Adolf Hitler proud". Strange praise, given that Stone's movie helped prompt the JFK Records Act and the AARB ... as we continued to kick the can forward. Its no surprise that you've focused on the Garrison story in Destiny Betrayed ... and as Joan Mellen posits, you can tell which side people are on by how they react to the name Jim Garrison. Even today, there are many good people that I know who have a very difficult time digesting all of this, and the government's behavior in 1963.

On January 31, 1968, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison appeared on the Tonight Show to discuss his investigation into government involvement in the assassination. Carson devoted more than half of his then 90-minute program to the DA from Orleans Parish. In those days, the show was still broadcast live from New York, making it edgier, less predictable and, sometimes, dare it be said, thought-provoking. Mort Sahl, a political satirist and occasional Tonight guest, paved the way for Garrison's appearance. Sahl had begun eschewing comedy for political lectures after the assassination, and was one of Garrison's many "volunteer investigators," who put themselves at the disposal of the DA. Sahl had previously appeared on the Carson show, discussed the assassination, and asked the audience if they would like to hear from Garrsion directly. The response was so affirmative that it left Carson and the network with no alternative, and a telegram requesting his appearance arrived a few days later. Sahl persuaded Carson that, if Tonight was to give Garrison the venue to explain his evidence, everything would become transparent. When Garrison showed up at the NBC studio the afternoon of his scheduled appearance, he later wrote that "three or four well-dressed men," apparently NBC lawyers, entered the room and started grilling him for several hours. Carson himself, "stiff and ill at ease," popped in for some small chat and then just as quickly disappeared. A few hours later, Garrison was back for the taping. Carson's "small humorless eyes, like a pair of tiny dark marbles, were fixed on me," writes Garrison. The talk show host fired off questions from a list prepared for him by the NBC lawyers. Garrison refused to play along with the pre-arranged script. Carson out of frustration finally asked why the government would still be concealing evidence. In a response that evoked a palpable response from the studio audience, Garrison responded: “Don't ask me, John … ask Lyndon Johnson. You know he has to have the answer." A January 2005 article written by freelance journalist Larry Chin describes the interview. Over the course of 90 minutes, the smiles and laughs went silent. Carson, America’s nighttime friend, was the assassin. He badgered, belittled, and mocked Garrison, repeatedly interrupting Garrison as he made an impassioned plea to the audience to question the official story. Garrison handled himself quite well during the broadcast and didn’t lose his cool, even though Carson interrupted him on numerous occasions, as it became evident that Johnny wasn't buying into the story. When Garrison attempted to show the photograph of the “Three Tramps”, Carson made sure America would not see it. He yanked Garrison’s arm aside and cut the cameras. What happened in the next few seconds was unsettling. As Garrison held the pictures in front of the camera, Carson "lunged at my arm like a cobra, pulling it down violently so that the pictures were out of the camera's view. 'Photographs like this don't show up on television,' he said sharply." Garrison later mused: “Why had I been debriefed in advance so that Carson could be apprised of my likely answers? Why had Carson pulled my arm away so that the photographs were out of camera range? And why had the director and the control room switched the camera so that the photographs could not be seen? The only reasonable, realistic explanation, I found myself concluding, was control. Some long-cherished illusions of mine about the great free press in our country underwent a painful reappraisal during this period. The restraint and respect for justice one might expect from the press did not exist”. One series of questions and answers was particularly prophetic: Garrison: "I am trying to tell you that there is no question as a result of our investigation that an element of the Central Intelligence Agency of our country killed John Kennedy, and that the present administration is concealing the facts. There is no question about it at all." Carson: "That is your opinion." Garrison: "No, it is not. I know it, and if you will just wait you will see that history will support this as fact." One critic wrote that the “unholy alliance between the media and the government,” in covering up government crimes, was evident that night. By 9:00 am the next morning, Garrison had received more than 2,000 telegrams from district attorneys across America, who felt that Carson’s “nervous antagonism,” was a sign that Garrison was onto something. Feeling the need to apologize for Carson’s demeanor, NBC sent out thousands of form letters saying, “The Johnny seen on TV that night was not the Johnny we all know and love. He had to play the devil’s advocate, because that makes for a better program.” Carson was furious about NBC’s letter, and promised never to allow Garrison on his program again. Mort Sahl was never invited back to the Tonight Show. Steve Allen, the original host of the Tonight Show, had another talk show at this time and invited both Garrison and Sahl on, but also invited critic Bob Dornan on that same panel, who effectively derailed the interview (and Mort Sahl's career in the process). Sahl presciently summarized the assassination plot as follows: “The scenario points toward a coalition of anti-Castro, Cuban exiles, oil rich psychotics, according to the district attorney in Texas, retired militarists, various voices of the right. That is at an operational level of the conspiracy and at the planning level. The Cubans were a good setup up because they were disenchanted with the Kennedy administration and also, they were lawless. You've got to remember that these informants who worked for the CIA along the way, if you have government by hoodlum, what are you spawning? The CIA keeps them on staff for 20 years and gives them a watch at the end of their service. This undercover thing of doing what you want to, and countermanding orders of the President, and writing blank checks, and not being checked by the Congress, spawns a government by hoodlums.” Carson played the role of "Devil's advocate" but he played the role too well which "surprised" viewers by the thousands, who complained to NBC the next day, that Johnny was a very rude host. Carson challenged Garrison at every point and turn, to point of being uncomfortable when you hear how Carson is all over him. Garrison, to his credit, stays very cool, wins the audience over, and frustrates Carson. A broadcast media blog wrote that "Garrison in contrast is wonderful, and the exchange between the two is amazing". Today, we think of Johnny Carson as charming, epitomizing the goodness of middle America. His Garrison interview - the one glaring moment that exposed Carson (as Jim Marrs states) as a servant of larger forces - continues to be studiously avoided. Carson had the power to change the world on that night in 1968, but he chose to use that power to destroy a courageous whistleblower, kill truth, and keep America naïve and stupid. Near the end of the awkward, occasionally tense, 48-minute segment, Carson aptly stated that Garrison's grand conspiracy was "a much larger fairy tale than to accept the findings of the Warren Report." Jim Garrison concluded the Tonight interview with this statement. "Am I asking the people of America to believe all this? I'm doing more than that! I am trying to tell the people of America that the honor of this country is at stake. And if we don't do something about this fraud. We will not survive. And there is no way to survive if we don't bring out the truth about the how our President was killed four years ago. And the investigation by the Warren Commission wasn't even close. Walter Sheridan, who authored the Frank McGee "white paper" entitled “The Case against Jim Garrison” discredited and defamed Garrison publicly. NBC was not going to allow a rebuttal of their white paper on national TV, and prepared Carson in advance; in other words, it wasn't an interview. But by the end of the show, the audience became sympathetic to Garrison, and Carson was humiliated.

Jim It seems that Garrison was way too close to the truth, given the extraordinary resistance his investigation received. His investigation was undermined by scores of "researchers" and "authors" spreading disinformation and using pseudonyms with questionable curriculum vitae (Patricia Lambert/Patsy Ruth, Steven Roy/David Blackburst , Lynne Foster, Gus Russo) and a score of hostile media too many to mention. On the same day that Ferrie was being taken out, Eladio del Valle was murdered ... right about the time that Garrison's inquiry had been coincidentally infiltrated by Bernardo de Torres, a principal character of interest. Garrison countered almost everything that the Warren Commission concluded: he more correctly characterized Oswald as a decoy, patsy and victim (not the loner as he is historically portrayed) ... exposing him as a person working in intelligence circles. Garrison shed light on what was being orchestrated with Oswald in New Orleans, and further dramatized in Mexico City. Garrison's work makes it clear that the HSCA should have indicted Anne Goodpasture and David Phillips. No less than John Rosselli (with the help of Edward P. Morgan and Jack Anderson) began a sophisticated cover story about a Castro retaliation plot - classic disinformation - as a false lead to throw the Garrison investigators off the trail of the assassins. Rosselli (likely with the help of the CIA Clandestine Services) constructed a perfect cover for Trafficante and the Cubans, should they be exposed. I therefore understand why you would concentrate on Garrison, because it illuminates the details of the plot and leads to the identities of the plotters. This is similar to what Vincent Salandria said about the Michael and Ruth Paine's actions branding them as "clear beacons leading to the killers". I also like the analogy used by Joan Mellen in "Farewell to Justice" where one can use a barometer for who was working for CIA (or sympathetic to a hostile agency) by how they felt about Jim Garrison. I used to enjoy and respect Johnny Carson, but when you see his hostile reception and treatment of Garrison on the Tonight Show, it is troubling. So, here is my question: in your work with Destiny Betrayed, did you find evidence of the opposite nature? People who believed Garrison was on the right path, and tried to right the wrongs and publish the truth? People of conscience who saw through all of the subterfuge and disinformation. Or was the deck simply too well stacked? Gene

Snipers call this a "command fire" tactic.

While we tend to vilify these individuals, I'd put forward (assuming it wont be popular) that James Mc Cord was a patriot, and did many things for the country and CIA that deserve a measure of respect. It seems that - with Watergate unfolding and Richard Helms out of the loop and no longer able to protect these guys - McCord did what he had to do. It's not clear who "they" are ... but its a dangerous game they were playing ... William Colby experienced a suspicious end in 1996, 20 years after Watergate and the Rockefeller Commission. Mc Cord succumbed to pancreatic cancer and had a notable record. An Army Air Force bombardier in WWII, FBI special agent, MS in International Relations from George Washington University. More than 20 years with CIA in very sensitive roles (with a Distinguished Service Award). We may not like his politics or roles, but he was a warrior, and deserves respect.

Interesting that McCord died in Douglasville PA. I live and work about 8 miles away. This is a rural town, outside of King of Prussia and on the way to Reading and Pottstown. Lots of farms and Mennonite communities. Only about 45 minutes from Philadelphia. Living to 93 (in a quiet and low key manner) after all he did is quite an accomplishment. Imagine the stories that he could relate ... Gene PS. Jim, I hope you're taking care of yourself, and feeling better.

Jim The August 2012 Martin Hay critique (in Kennedys and King) of Paul Chambers' book is not that flattering or conclusive: In my view, Chambers' handling of the medical evidence is by far the most disappointing aspect of this book. I found myself shaking my head in several places, and I think my jaw actually dropped at one point. He makes a number of bold statements without backing them up or even mentioning the evidence to the contrary. He pushes an outdated and incredible theory involving the handling of Kennedy's body. And he makes one particular claim that many may find beyond belief. Taking what some readers may feel is too long a digression in what is a fairly slim book ostensibly about the Kennedy assassination, Chambers attempts to explain “How Science Arrives At the Truth.” Therefore the reader must make a choice between Chambers' reconstruction of the head shot—which is based on a dismissal of both the hard evidence of the X-rays and the soft evidence of the Dallas doctors' testimonies—and his acceptance of the dictabelt which the author previously told us has only a 1 in 11 billion chance of not being an authentic recording of the shots. The two are not compatible. In the end I believe this contradiction sums up Chambers' work. Despite telling us that “Consistency with other evidence is very important to scientists” he appears to have studied each point in isolation and then cherry-picked the details that fit his own thesis. The one point it can really be said that Dr. G. Paul Chambers Ph. D. both makes and proves in his book is that credentials and a good reputation are no proof against being wrong. Gene

Rick I was just reacting to Ron's comment last Saturday: I do remember something about there being a cause for any effect, this having something to do with logic. There is no "rule" in logic or science that states there must be a cause for every effect. I am over clubbing (as they say in golf) but pointing out that cause and effect are not always what they seem. The analogy is to conclude that smoking 'causes' lung cancer, which isn't universally or absolutely true. It's correlated (as they say in statistics) and a contributing cause (nicotine is carcinogenic) but not the cause. My overstated point is that there are many causes of most events (rather than a single cause). Most are not guaranteed (by themselves) to trigger the event ... they only add to the likelihood of it happening. Statisticians like to say that "correlation does not imply causation". In my line of work (I'm a nuclear engineer doing probabilistic risk assessment), we perform root cause investigations when something fails or an event occurs. There are several techniques used to arrive at a cause - and I have performed hundreds of these investigations in my career - and you're taught to "go down the why staircase" (i.e. keep asking why ... don't stop at the most apparent or superficial driver). So, I don't dispute the temple logic or backwards head movement ... but the cause (or causes) appears to be indeterminant. Back to Dealey Plaza: everything that I've read suggests a shot from the front (probably the South Knoll) ... multiple shooters with a simultaneity from several directions. I've come to believe that Zapruder (and his Film) are distractions and meant to confuse. The throat injury was a wound of entry ... too many anomalies and rationalizations (or intimidations) suggest otherwise. I also believe the President was hit initially, prior to the Stemmons sign ... and I don't trust the Z Film or photographs to tell us the full story. I also believe that there are other facts that we are not privy to -and will not ever know - that explain the head wounds and JFK's apparent head movement. What I am convinced of is, the people who did this knew what they were doing ... and they inserted a lot of distractions, false information, head fakes and magic tricks which make establishing cause and effect almost impossible. Gene

Sorry Ron ... I teach physics, and so I couldn't resist pontificating a bit. But I think the discussion has merit for what this thread tackles (i.e. the shot to JFK's temple). Here's a bit more: One of the people who helped elevate cause and effect to its exalted heights was David Hume (1711 -1776). He was a leading philosopher of his day and known as one of the British empiricists (in contradistinction to the continental rationalists). Hume was one of the first to realize that the developing sciences had undermined Aristotle’s ideas on cause and effect. But Hume’s definitions were flawed. Consider the analogy of night and day; day invariably follows night and the two are thought of together ... but night does not cause day in any sense of the word. Rather, both day and night are caused by the rotation of the earth (i.e. a geocentric frame, by the sun circling the earth). The true cause has no aspect of one thing following another, or one causing thought of the other. And the cause does not have to any way resemble the effect. So, cause and effect is much more complicated than Hume thought, but not nonexistent as it detractors (like Bertrand Russell) maintain. In the words of the statistician: correlation does not imply causation ... however, it can give a strong hint. Cause and effect went out of favor as a cornerstone of science about the time quantum mechanics was developed. Quantum mechanics is non-deterministic with events occurring randomly. Much of physics, as Russell observed, does not explicitly use cause and effect. The equations work equally well forwards or backwards, deriving the past from present as much as the future from the past. Nonetheless, the idea of cause and effect is still useful, and its meaning is “in the model”. Cause and effect is not something that can be immediately deduced from observation, as Hume implies, but it is not a meaningless concept as Russell said or the quantum physics discussion might seem to imply. Rather, when we develop our models for a particular situation the idea of causation comes out of that model, is part and parcel of the model. The idea that the earth’s rotation causes day and night comes out of our model for light, vision and the solar system. So, I think we need to be careful about our “model” for the shots to JFK's head, particularly as derived from the Zapruder Film frames, Parkland/autopsy observations, even eyewitness accounts. Gene

Ron You have hit upon a question that has plagued philosophers for many years (i.e. must there be a cause for every effect?). Philosophers will argue that there is no way to answer the question unless we have a context to judge what is to count as a "cause" ... events that are judged to have no cause in one context, might be judged to have one in another. Causality is therefore an abstraction that indicates how the world progresses, so basic a concept that it is more apt as an explanation of other concepts of progression than as something to be explained by others more basic. They analyze 'cause and effect' as both a linguistic and metaphysical phenomenon, and there are deep questions as to whether or not we can know about the metaphysical one (if it exists). And what we mean by cause, since there seems to be two different kinds of things called 'cause': the first is a motive thing that somehow forces another thing to exist (e.g. a boxer's punch causes/forces their opponent to become disoriented) and a "grounding relation" (i.e. it's necessary that there be oxygen if there's a fire, but the presence of oxygen along doesn't cause the existence of fire). Not to get too deep, but Philosopher Emmanuel Kant stated that the principle of causality is one that is inserted within our mind … as differentiated from what really exists. Kant famously attempted to “answer” what he took to be Hume’s skeptical view of causality, put forward in 1783. Causality is one of the most fundamental and essential notions of physics but one has to be careful about notions of causality. In Quantum Mechanics, physicist Max Born distinguished determination from causality in 1949. For him, determination meant that actual events are so linked by laws of nature that certainly reliable predictions and retrodictions can be made from sufficient present data about them. Physicists of the past century have entertained a variety of theories positing backward causation, including the Wheeler-Feynman theory of radiation, Feynman's tachyon theory and his theory of positrons as electrons moving backwards in time. In mathematics, one must beware of logical fallacies: Just because the cause came before the effect does not mean that it caused the effect, otherwise known as Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc. There are often hidden causes, some of them that precede causes, for certain effects (so be sure that you can say that your cause came before your effect). if you want to make your brain hurt, read the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on the Principle of Causation. Gene

Thanks John ... when I read the inference that third-party cutouts are routinely used in big money real estate deals, I immediately thought of the Disney story. What I had forgotten is that one Paul Helliwell ( a CIA name that figures in the JFK story) was the project manager. If I'm not mistaken, Larry Hancock mentions him as a person of interest. Then there are the ironic actions of Walt Disney on the same day as JFK is being ambushed. Last, the mysterious note left by Walt which mentions a child actor named Mobley and a potential CIA production story (perhaps Phoenix?). You just can't make this stuff up ... truth is stranger than fiction. In retrospect , who's better at setting up false fronts, dummy companies and untraceable proprietaries than the CIA? Here is a bit more on the Disney venture: Disney's use of Compass East Corporation, created in Delaware in 1964, is an example of a dummy corporation established in order to purchase land. On September 30, 1966, Latin-American Development and Management Corporation; Ayefour Corporation (a play on words for Interstate 4); Tomahawk Properties, Incorporated; Reedy Creek Ranch, Incorporated; and Bay Lake Properties, Incorporated; all Florida corporations, were merged into Compass East Corporation. These corporations collectively purchased large masses of land in central Florida that would eventually become the Disney Resort. The dummy corporations were established in order to prevent "unknowing landowners" from increasing prices of the land by disguising the true plans and owner of the purchased acres. While Disney's use of dummy corporations are within the confines of the law, the debate of whether the land was fairly obtained is still argued. Disney was also criticized for persuading the Florida government to waive municipal jurisdiction over the acquired land, allowing Disney to create anything on the land with little legal restriction. Today, that entity is known as the Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID).

When I think of someone who worked for both FBI and CIA, William Harvey comes immediately to mind.

John and Robert Mysterious shareholder behavior in a large real estate purchase is how Walt Disney purchased the Florida land for his Orlando theme park. He created fake companies (e.g. M. T. Lot Real Estate) to buy the land in Orlando, in order to avoid suspicion and maintain prices low. As the story goes, the store names on Disneyland Main Street shop windows are the many names of those original (fake) companies. A December 2013 article by Derek Potter in "Theme Park Insider" describes a five-year search for a site, secret land dealings, questionable business tactics, controversial political deals, a large engineering project feat, and during it all the death of Walt himself. Ironically, Disney considered many sites (e.g. New Jersey) to attract more Eastern visitors, and was close to choosing St. Louis as the site in November 1963 but he was allegedly insulted by August Busch Jr. over the policy of no alcohol in the park. The article goes on to describe how Walt Disney later flew over Orlando in 1963 on the fateful day of November 23rd in a borrowed plane, and decided upon Orlando based on two factors: acres of empty land away from the oceans, and a capable highway system to feed the large amount of visitors. His so-called "Project X" was managed by an intelligence figure (not unknown to JFK researchers) named Paul Helliwell. The park was announced in late 1965, and the Magic Kingdom doors were opened six years later. Walt died in 1966, but left behind a mysterious note that contained a list of "TV projects in production - possible for escalation" including the following notation (for the conspiracist in all of us): "CIA - Mobley". Roger Mobley was a child actor for Disney films who later served in Vietnam as a Green Beret and with Special Forces. Here is an excerpt from the article: Walt and his associates carefully selected a team within the company, and went so far as to set up secret phone relays, delay the official hiring of top level officials (keeping them as "unofficial consultants"), and also to number the internal memos so they could be tracked. They very carefully selected Paul Helliwell, an ex military intelligence officer turned lawyer, and Florida realtor Roy Hawkins to be their eyes and ears in Orlando. The Disney officials who conferred with them used fake names. Everyone was kept in the dark, right up to the Florida state government. Several dummy corporations, all of which are immortalized on the windows of Main St. were set up to make land purchases. Some were official sounding enough (Latin American Development and Management, Bay Lake Properties, Tomahawk Properties), others were a bit of an inside joke. Retlaw (Walter spelled backwards), the Ayefour Corp. and M.T. Lott Real Estate were also used. Using these corporations and Helliwell's firm as a third party, they began the long process of buying land. The first tracts were bought for $80 per acre…an astonishingly low price from today's perspective. By the time the front-page headline was printed, Disney had purchased over 27,000 acres of rural Florida swampland stretched across two counties, almost tripling their initial goal of 10,000. The average cost…$200 per acre. By the end of the land grab the cat was out of the bag, and the price had ballooned to $80,000 per acre. Disney's reasons for the vast land grab were many-fold. One was the ability to shield his park from the outside elements that had strangled Disneyland. The other reasons had less to do with theme parks and more to do with availability, politics, and the "city of tomorrow" project that Walt was planning. Gene

Thanks Rick ... excellent pictures. of all the possible locations, this one seems to be ideal for ingress/egress. And that would be a priority for any sniper or shooter team.

Ron I think the ability to escape is an essential consideration ... and the South Knoll shot origin and terminal Annex parking lot are ideal in that regard. We've discussed the pros/cons of this South Knoll location before, in an October 2018 Umbrella Man EF thread. Various knowledgeable posters have previously suggested that the emphasis on Zapruder, the Grassy Knoll fence and the Bookstore Depository are red herrings. The main sniper was forward and to the left .... and escaped unnoticed. The South Knoll location invokes controversies such as the hole in the windshield, the throat wound, and Tosh Plumlee's story. It also strongly implies that the Zapruder filming is somehow a staged part of the entire scenario. A South Knoll shooter explains how they avoid collateral damage with Nellie and Jackie (all part of the plan) although hitting Governor Connally was not apparently part of the plan (David Lifton discusses why this threw a monkey wrench into the plot (and if they wanted to hit Connally, they could easily have done so). Al Carrier discusses the possibility of an excellent marksman, who fired through the windshield and hit the President ... or given the elevations involved, could have gone over the windshield (or through a small space in the frame). It was only 60+ yards away, with an excellent frontal vantage that didn't change as the Limo slowly advanced towards/into the kill zone. Here's an excerpt from Carrier's November 2004 EF thread entitled "South Knoll; Ballistics, Shot Trajectories": Making the shot is only half the objective, the other is escaping either undetected or without being molested. The military found a practice to overcome this obstacle and it has been termed “Canyon Shoot”. This practice utilizes multiple snipers from locations suited to draw attention to those origins where they cannot be accessed, or by allowing the terrain to confuse the shot origin to the enemy present. By utilizing startle reaction to cue simultaneous fire from three locations, three shots could easily sound like one. This also explains why the decoy TSBD shooter - initially been facing the President from the sixth floor when the presidential limousine rounded the corner - waited, and took the more difficult shot from behind. That delay and more difficult shot from the rear was part of a triangulated ambush, with shooters on the Knolls able to use the overpass railroad tracks for escape routes. Such a positioning of the limousine for the kill shot would appear to be associated with Zapruder's camera POV, as well the expected echo distortion. This is why I'm so focused on the sniper/shooter priority of egress and to escape unnoticed. The Terminal Annex building's parking lot (an excellent sniper location with favorable ingress/egress). The DCM or signal man is facing towards those locations. This location affords an ideal pan angle on the limousine as it proceeded down Elm, with the greatest elevation over the limo's obstructions. The brightness of the noonday sun above the South Knoll renders anyone looking in that direction (from the street or limousine) essentially blind to the whole area ... which is also a classic sniper tactic. By utilizing startle reaction to cue simultaneous fire from three locations, three shots could easily sound like one. The south end of the overpass is where James Tague was standing (just below) and as Ron Ecker pointed out, Tague possibly encountered the shooter, a "patrolman" who turned up by Tague and asked him what happened (Tague's original account before he changed his story.) The there's the two Dallas police officers (White and Foster) ostensibly in charge of keeping persons off of the overpass during the motorcade ... both happened to submit a written report on December 4, 1963 in which both used the exact same phrase to describe their instructions: “As I recall, he instructed me to keep all persons off the overpass at this location during the parade. It was my understanding that I was to keep all unauthorized persons away from the location…” For me, it all comes together when the South Knoll is added to the mix. Gene

Yes ... but there's some speculation that one shot may've been distant. Range/wind and other variables aside, the main point I was struck by in researching sniper tactics is that the site is chosen with egress in mind ... the shooters want to escape, and they don't go it alone. They scout or plan the shot (in advance), use well-camouflaged Plan B fallback positions, and they must know somehow that the target is on the way. I think these considerations provide clues as to where the Dealey shots originated from, and how the shooter teams were organized.

Rick I had friends in Dealey Plaza two weekends ago and took similar pictures. The overall smallness of the site, and the close proximity (to the limousine in the street) with all the potential/proposed shooter locations is a strong and lasting first impression. Up high, on that 6th TSBD floor, is the least likely location. All that I've ever read - from experts/knowledgeable snipers - convinces me of that. The spotter is the unsung hero of the sniper pair. While the shooter sets elevation and windage on the gun and fires good shots, the spotter’s job is far more involved. Typically, they’re using much better optics than the shooter and are responsible for identifying the target and telling the shooter when to pull the trigger. Once the shot’s fired, the spotter looks for whether the bullet hit the target; if not, the spotter quickly tells the shooter how to adjust, and another shot is fired. Because of the nature of their missions, snipers travel with very little gear, patiently moving under the cover of brush or night (but they never travel alone). Snipers teams often have to stay completely still for hours or days at a time, to avoid detection, waiting for the right moment to take the shot. The sniper team uses maps or photographs to determine the best route to the objective, and (reading about tactics) they: walk or "stalk" from the drop-off point to the objective set up a position, and verify that the position is well camouflaged establish an escape route and a second, well-camouflaged fallback position locate target (or know it's on its way), get into position; taking a spot on the ground that offers best field of fire ... and the spotter lies on the ground behind the sniper work together to range the target, read the wind, and angle and adjust for other variables that may affect the shot. And then they wait for the target just take the shot and get out of there In modern day, scout sniper teams typically consist of 4-8-man teams consisting of shooter, spotter, radioman, and additional personnel to provide security. Its hard to imagine that Dealey Plaza was any different. Gene

Recall that Carl McNabb (former CIA JM/WAVE) stated that McCord had the nickname “Zap Man” and that he had allegedly killed Hoover. There exists a released JM/WAVE file with the notation "Zap Man" ... when asked what that meant, McNabb said that an officer told him this was the term given to Richard Helm's private assassin. Annville is a pretty little rural Pennsylvania town (population 5,000) in Mennonite farm country, not far from Hershey and Harrisburg, and is home to Lebanon Valley College. The NCAA Division III school is affiliated with the United Methodist Church, is nicknamed "the Flying Dutchmen" and has a unique "four year graduation guarantee" (i.e. free tuition/books to finish). The school is known for athletic training/physical therapy and speech-language pathology programs. Annville PA is certainly well off the beaten track, and a good place to lie low and live anonymously.

Jim/Andrew I think there are links to Harold Meltzer (Cohen's enforcer) and drug running in Mexico and Cuba. I'm no expert on the mob, but it seems those connections have been established. There is a September EF thread about Ruby in which Chris Newton offers the following opinion: I think Jack "Sparky" Rubenstein was Mickey Cohen's guy in Dallas. That may be partially born out by his interest in Mickey Cohen's girl, Candy Barr. In 1963 Mickey was just starting his 2nd year at Alcatraz and Candy had just gotten out on parole. Mickey had previously worked for Capone in Chicago and in the 50's-60's was affiliated with Bugsy Siegal in LA and Las Vegas. Also, in Douglas Valentine's "Strength of the Wolf", he mentions Bugsy Siegel and his associate Virginia Hill, and their role in importing heroin from Mexico and Cuba ... from her bar in Nuevo Laredo (Mexico) to Happy Meltzer who was living in Laredo Texas. Gene

Candy Barr was an exotic dancer whose hardscrabble life became Texas legend as she befriended Jack Ruby, dated a mobster, shot her husband went to prison for drug possession, and starred - unwillingly, she insisted - in a famous stag film. Abe Weinstein's Colony Club in downtown Dallas, a few blocks from City Hall, was the scene of Miss Barr's nightly triumphs. Outfitted in her trademark Texas costume -- 10-gallon hat and cowboy boots, pasties and "scanty panties" -- and waving cap-gun six-shooters, she gave them a show they wouldn't soon forget. She became a Texas folk hero. A friend of Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby and romantically linked to Las Vegas gangster Mickey Cohen, she had a distinct skill for making front-page news. When she was arrested after shooting her estranged second husband, Troy Phillips, in 1956, she told newspaper photographers jostling for a good photo, "Make it sexy, boys." She shot her second of four husbands in the stomach in January 1956 after he came home drunk and threatened her. He said that he deserved it, and a grand jury dismissed charges. For students of the Kennedy assassination, it is her friendship with Mr. Ruby, a nightclub owner, that is most provocative. They were friends over the years, and seven months before the assassination, he visited Miss Barr after her release from prison and gave her two dachshund puppies (he thought she should breed them). Briefly involved in a turbulent romance with mobster Cohen, she lost her job at El Rancho nightclub in Las Vegas because of her "detrimental effect" on the community's morals. She was replaced by Nelson Eddy. Back in Texas in 1960, she served three years and 91 days in prison. "I always wanted a brick house of my own, and it looks like I am going to have one." In 1957, she was arrested for possession of marijuana in a case that drew wide attention because of Texas's tough new drug laws and questions about the legality of wiretapping by the Dallas police. During her appeal, she made $2,000 a week stripping in Las Vegas and Los Angeles to music specially composed for her. Around this time, she dated Mickey Cohen, an infamous mobster in the West. Awaiting appeal, Ms. Barr was hired to perform in Las Vegas's El Rancho Vegas Hotel and Los Angeles's Club Largo on Sunset Boulevard, drawing the $2,000 fees. It was during this period that she met and dated Cohen for two months. They publicly said they were engaged, but neither the romance nor the appeal could go on forever. Two years later, Ms. Barr revealed Cohen's other solution to her drug sentence when she was returned to Los Angeles to testify against him in his trial for income tax invasion, in which he was convicted and sentenced to 11 years in prison. Ms. Barr testified that although Cohen paid her lawyers $15,000, he also gave her cash and phony identification documents, had her dye her hair, and arranged for her to flee to Mexico. She said she got bored and returned to the United States. After the Texas Supreme Court upheld her conviction, she served three years of a 15-year sentence. She wrote a poetry book in prison and emerged in a somber black outfit, quoting Bible verses. Jack Ruby came to see her two months before the assassination; so did federal agents after Ruby shot Oswald. She always insisted she knew nothing about any conspiracy involving Ruby. In 1968, she received a pardon from then-Gov. John Connally. Jack Ruby first long-distance call was to a contact man, Jack Gruber in Hollywood, Mickey Cohen’s associate. They laid out the reason he was to give for killing him, Ruby was to claim that, “He had become so mentally distraught over this lousy commie shooting the President and the thought of his poor wife and children suffering that he had become temporarily insane.” Ruby would then become a ‘hero’ for having killed this traitor and be back on the street in only a few days. Strangely, the ‘hero’ bit was the same words Cohen used when he conned Sammy LoCigno into taking the blame for the Jack O’Hara murder. Around 1970, Candy largely disappeared from public view, with the notable exception of a nude pictorial feature in Oui Magazine when she was 41. She was paroled on condition that she live within 36 miles of her small South Texas home town and never work again as a stripper or at an establishment that served alcohol.

Not sure how accurate the comment is about jack Ruby ... but its in "Hollywood's Celebrity Gangster" by Brad Lewis. Ruby is under-researched and deserving of a serious study. The subjects of Nixon and Maheu surface regularly, when you dig into Bobby Kennedy's murder. I'm of a mind (and generation) that Richard Nixon burns in a special place in Hell

John I thought that was where I read it, but when I went back I couldn't find reference to it. This makes sense, since the Ambassador was a hangout for the iconic mobster Mickey Cohen in the late 1940's and 1950's, who infamously ran a gambling operation (a high-stakes crap game) in the hotel. The Ambassador was owned by Myer Schine, an associate of Cohen, who also owned the Gulf Stream Hotel on Miami Beach where Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson spent their annual Christmas holiday ... on the house (see attached picture). Schine's grandson - James Schine Crown - was President of defense contractor General Dynamics. His legal counsel was none other than Albert E. Jenner, a Warren Commission senior attorney who led the inquiry into Oswald's background ... and a Nixon-approved minority counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate impeachment. Jenner sat on General Dynamics' Board of Directors in 1970 with his billionaire client Henry Crown. And of course, Harold 'Happy' Meltzer was Cohen's enforcer and right-hand man. Cohen had succeeded "Bugsy" Siegel as the face of post-war Los Angeles rackets. The colorful Cohen was Brooklyn-born, a prizefighter, and loved fancy suits ... he had a menswear boutique called "Michael's Exclusive Haberdashery" on the Sunset Strip stocked with suits that only fit him. A 2007 book "Hollywood's Celebrity Gangster" by Brad Lewis describes Cohen - the West Coast leader of the Jewish Mob for Meyer Lansky - as instrumental in backing Ricard Nixon's early political career (in 1945 and 1950). Helped by his longtime attorney, Murray Chotiner - who leveraged the mobsters that he had defended in court - a young Richard Nixon was the recipient of fundraisers held by Cohen. Columnist Drew Pearson called the Nixon efforts "one of the most cut-throat campaigns ever seen ... a dirty anti-Semitic, anti-communist smear campaign, using mob money". Cohen and Meyer Lansky provided support for Israel's Menachem Begin, who had fled Palestine in 1949 and was living in exile in LA. Cohen was convicted of tax evasion (by Attorney General Bobby Kennedy) in 1961 and served a 15-year sentence in Alcatraz before being freed in 1972 ... while in prison, when Nixon defeated Humphrey in 1968, he stated: "... let's hope he isn't the same guy I knew as a rough hustler ... I never had no idea that this guy could go anywhere" Among some the book's revelations are that Cohen: made sex tapes of Marilyn Monroe (and other stars) for extortion introduced Monroe to JFK thru Sinatra and Peter Lawford had links to Carlos Marcello, David Ferrie and Jim Braden the Jewish mob had had concerns about JFK's Israeli politics was threatened by RFK while naked in a prison shower owned the Santa Anita racetrack (a gambling center) where Sirhan worked was idolized by Jack Ruby, who dated his girlfriend Candy Barr Lots of dots to connect here. Gene

Jim Much of what I learn about the case derives from your reviews. The casual reader might otherwise be fooled by the amount of spin and disinformation that exists with the JFK story. Much of it its written in a devious and skillful manner, so as to have the ring of authenticity ... particularly the work of critics like Gus Russo, Phillip Shenon and Max Holland, and mainstream authors like Edward Epstein and Anthony Summers. Then there are the more blatant sources like Dave Perry, Dale Meyers, Patricia Lambert and Gerald Posner. Although I'm inclined to like and believe in certain authors like Harrison Livingstone and Joan Mellen, you keep us all honest with your reviews and insights. Navigating this sea of written material is daunting and hazardous ... your reviews provide a beacon to keep us on course and better informed ... because of your critical reviews, I better understand the complexity of the assassination story - who to belive and who to trust but verify. Your reviews have also stimulated the related subjects of the mainstream media's reluctance (if not resistance) to finding the truth, the active pattern and strategy of disinformation, and the historical backdrop of JFK's actual political legacy ... topics that are as interesting as who pulled the triggers and orchestrated the plot. Gene Kelly

Ron Somewhere (can't find it now) I read that Harold Meltzer had an office in and worked out of the Ambassador Hotel at one time. His involvement in LA organized crime is legendary, and goes back to the 1940's and 1950's, as Mickey Cohen's enforcer (see picture below). He was involved in importing heroin from Mexico and Cuba (see D. Valentine's "Strength of the Wolf") and was mentioned as a 'CIA assassin' in December 1960 (see FBN book "The Mafia"). He also was involved with Johnny Rosselli, and some of the gangsters who ultimately betrayed Rosselli by fingering him as an illegal alien. Johnny was born 'Filippo Sacco' in Esperia, Italy and first took the name John Morgan in Boston and Chicago. He later chose to name himself after Cosimo Rosselli, who finished the Sistine Chapel after Michelangelo. Connecting the dots (to Robert Maheu and others), Rosselli was instrumental in arranging for Howard Hughes to move to Las Vegas and for getting him the top floor of the Desert Inn Hotel. One also cannot ignore the allegations of Charles Siragusa, and his connection to James Angleton, William Harvey and the CIA's use of Federal Bureau of Narcotics cover personnel as a "magic button". Here is what the recently released documents say about "Happy" Meltzer, Hanna Yazbeck, and their Lebanese assassins: Included under tab M is a dossier of one Harold Meltzer, a resident of Los Angeles, with a long criminal record. This is the first instance in which I have noted a U.S. citizen under consideration for any recruitment with respect to the ZRRIFLE project. Under tab T, information on Orlando Portale, an Italian citizen residing in Detroit, is included. At tab Y is a page of information on one Hanna Yazbeck. The report states, "He often heads up a hatchet squad when disputes arise between the Moslem and Christian underworld factions in Beirut." The second paragraph of this page reads as follows: "During the period I was in Europe (1950-1958), his chief bodyguard as a convicted murderer who owed his release from 'prison to Yazbeck's power. This bodyguard has since been murdered, but Yazbeck has an available pool of assassins.'' Gene ·.