Gene Kelly

Mark Knight:

Good tip on Axios ... this last bullet in their article sums it up

Worth noting: Morley told Axios that the final 16,000 documents yet to be released are among the most sensitive about JFK's death.

"These are the documents that they are the most reluctant to release," he said. "Obviously, they've been keeping them secret for 60 years."

And to all (Larry, Larry Schnapf, Bill Simpich, Larry Hancock, et al) ... great work!  Very promising. 

Gene

Jim

This is the first that I've ever heard of the Jimmy Carter attempt. 

On May 5th, 1979, ten minutes before President Carter was due to speak at the civic center mall in Los Angeles, one Raymond Lee Harvey was arrested carrying a pistol. He later told the Police that he and another man (Oswaldo Ortiz) were hired to create a diversion, so that Mexican hitmen armed with rifles could kill Carter.

Police were led to the shabby Alan Hotel, which overlooked the mall where Carter was due to speak. Investigators found an empty rifle case, and three rounds of live ammo, in a room rented under the name, Umberto Camacho, who had checked out on the day of Carters visit … no further trace of the hitmen could be found.

A one-time story on May 21st, 1979, in Newsweek, confirmed that the suspect was arrested by secret service agents, he was carrying a .22 caliber eight-shot revolver, and 70 rounds of blank ammo. The suspect implicated a second man, a 21-year-old Hispanic who was arrested on bail of $100,000. The second man admitted that they had test fired the pistol, using blank rounds the night before Carter was due to speak. He said they had been hired by two Mexican hitmen to create a diversion, whilst they assassinated Carter using high powered rifles.

The Newsweek article stated that Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Etra (a close friend of G. H. Bush and fellow Yale graduate) was expected to make a decision on the case, stating ‘Unless it’s clear that the defendant (Harvey) has committed the crime with which he is charged (conspiring to kill the president), we’re not going to present the case to a grand jury. No further news stories appeared, no charges were filed, and the case against the two publicly disappeared. James Richards (in a 2005 EF thread) speculated that there was ‘talk amongst the Cubans’ that Raymond Lee might have been one Eduardo Ochoa. a militant anti-Castro Brigade 2506 individual.  Carter - who had been rumored to be on the verge of making 'major policy changes' - never subsequently announced any changes and remained largely low-key throughout the Re-election campaign. 

Apparently, someone was sending the President a "message" ... 

Gene

Michael

You ask the crucial question.  I like Joe McBride's quote from Indira Gandhi. Some (like Doug Horne and James Douglass) have characterized JFK’s actions as being at war with his own National Security Establishment. And who could argue with Jim DiEugenio's point about JFK's foreign policy? 

It is instructive to recall Charles de Gaulle's reaction. When de Gaulle moved to end the French war in Algeria, he induced a strong reaction from his military and far-right circles, including several assassination attempts and a coup. De Gaulle was convinced that the French military coup attempts against him in spring 1961 were instigated by the CIA. President Kennedy told the French ambassador that he (JFK) was not in full control of his own intelligence agency. And when JFK was assassinated in Dallas, President de Gaulle confided that Kennedy was the victim of the same national security forces that had targeted him. David Talbot addresses this in "The Devil's Chessboard" and quotes the French President:

“What happened to Kennedy is what nearly happened to me ... His story is the same as mine ... It looks like a cowboy story, but it’s only an OAS story. The security forces were in cahoots with the extremists.”

Talbot also highlights the similarities of JFK's murder with the plot to bring down Charles De Gaulle - the people involved (retired French generals, rightwing French, poopoo sympathizers, and White Russians), the role of Allen Dulles, the motive behind it (Algerian independence and fear of Communist stronghold in strategic, oil-rich North Africa) - all bear an eerie similarity to the circumstances surrounding the assassination of JFK.  His summary quote about Dulles is right on the money ... Dulles’s job was to hijack the US government to benefit the wealthy. 

What has always struck me personally is the brutality of the killing ... blowing off the President's head in broad daylight, while sitting next to his wife, at noon, in a motorcade.  The assassination could've been accomplished many other ways, in a less dramatic and public fashion. But this was not just a murder, it was a statement.  And I can't help feeling that it had the angry overtones of revenge (i.e., Bay of Pigs betrayal). 

Gene 

Jim

This reminds me of the intriguing fact that only two years after the assassination, in 1965, Sam Newman (the owner of the 544 Camp Street property) sold the building for 58,000 dollars. On the same day, it was resold for a much lesser price of 34,800 dollars.  Just eight years later, in 1973 - as the local attorney's office is trying hard to get rid of Garrison - Gerald Gallinghouse, the man who was running the prosecution against Garrison, filed a motion for Washington (i.e., the government) to buy the building ... a generous offer well above the last sales price of $141, 162.50. Clearly, something odd was transpiring, and the coverup was eliminating any/all remnants of the investigation (and 544 Camp Street) left in New Orleans ... the files, the building, and the DA himself.  As you pointed out in a June 2020 EF thread about Kerry Thornley, if Jim Garrison didn't have anything, why were they so eager to completely erase any memory of 544 Camp Street? 

Gene

Paul's synopsis of the insights from the Garrison files is excellent.  It provides more depth and perspective to the plot and plotters.  Paul makes it clear that Garrison was up against strong forces, and he was so maliciously slandered by the press, that no one would bother to look at what was in his files. No wonder that Harry Connick tried to burn all of the records. There can be no question that Clem and Clay Bertrand were Clay Shaw aliases.  But Garrison wasn't just on the trail of the plotters, he had much more that remains to be uncovered by closer examination of the extant files.  There's quite a lot of food for thought here:

1. Oswald was assigned at least one Cuban escort (the forthcoming name will likely be very telling)
2. David Ferrie admitted his part in the plot to a roommate, and was a source of young males for Shaw
3. Clay Shaw was a paid CIA asset, circumstantially linked to Allen Dulles, and a 3rd Oswald babysitter (along with Ruth Paine and George DeMorenschildt)
4. Comparing the original ITM board directors with INCA members and operatives
5. ARRB evidence that CIA and FBI had counter-intelligence campaigns against FPCC; but Oswald was the only member of the New Orleans contingent, and he stamped Banister’s Camp St. address on his leaflets. Plus, Banister helped Oswald settle into his Camp Street locale.
6. Jesse Core - who notified WDSU TV about Oswald’s leafleting event outside the ITM - also noted the flyer which had Banister’s office listed on it, suggesting that both he and Shaw knew this was a problem for the FBI. 
7. Oswald's provocateur activity in New Orleans, one of the major anti-communist blocs in North America 
8. Shaw, Ferrie, Banister and Oswald’s multiple connections to a network of anti-Castro Cuban exiles, right-wing extremists and intelligence actors was not coincidental
9. Another person of interest: Emilio Rodriguez, a CIA asset based in Mexico City (and a stay-behind agent in Cuba) who worked for the Berlitz School at the ITM. His brother Arnesto would later run the school and attempt to teach Oswald Spanish. Daid Morales exfiltrated Rodriguez and Tony Sforza from Cuba in June 1961. 
10. Integrating some well-known "handlers": FPCC and DRE were monitored by David Phillips (CIA) as well as Warren DeBrueys (FBI) and George Joannides (CIA). The CRC was under Howard Hunt’s watchful eye.
11. Another potential patsy to the list of other candidates - Richard Case Nagell, Oswald, Policarpo Lopez, Vaughn Marlowe, Harry Dean, John Glenn, Santiago Garriga - all 'coincidently' linked to the FPCC
12. Jerry and Jim Buchanan ... part of the large number of Oswald frame-up artists 
13. The people who frequented 544 Camp Street and Carlos Quiroga (who lied and knew a lot more than he let on)
14. The author(s) of the fake letter to the Russian Embassy designed to link Oswald with Russia in the assassination

Gene

And don't forget that Lee's 'buddy', Kerry Thornley, was the person who picked up the pamphlets ... 

Would the muscular Cuban also be a person seen with Leon Oswald in New Orleans (e.g., by Perry Russo), and one of the individuals who visited Silvia Odio with Leon in late September? 

I am guessing one of the ex-patriots associated with JMWAVE Station (and the AMOT's) ... either Carlos Quiroga, Celso Hernandez or perhaps Miguel Aguado Cruz?

Reading Part 3 of Paul Bleu's work, he ends by mentioning one member of this network that has not been discussed yet ...  a muscular Latino who was often seen accompanying Oswald, or perhaps an Oswald double. He was considered so suspicious that the whole Garrison team was on the look-out for him. He was never identified. He was seen so often and described in corroborative terms that can leave no doubt that Oswald, the supposed lone-nut drifter, had at least one escort.

Why the suspense ... who was this person?

Bob

I think there remains doubt about the VENONA transcripts, and their outing of Hiss.  A good reference/read is Peter Dale Scott's "The Dulles Brothers, Harry Dexter White, Alger Hiss, and the Fate of the Private Pre-War International Banking System" The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 12, Issue 16, No. 3, April 21, 2014.  Here are some excerpts:

VENONA evidence also was used to raise suspicions about two other suspects, senior Treasury official Harry Dexter White and Alger Hiss. However, the VENONA evidence against these two men is still fiercely debated. And the campaign against both men was not powered by security concerns alone. In part at least also it was a by-product of a deeper conflict over the future of America - between Wall Street (represented by the Dulles brothers) and the remnants of the New Deal (represented by White, a principal architect of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.)  Hiss or Chambers was apparently guilty of perjury ... Truman’s Justice Department was in the process of preparing a perjury indictment against Chambers, a key witness against White.  Matters would change five days later: on August 16, three days after his HUAC testimony, White died, after suffering two swift heart attacks. It was then that Hiss became by default HUAC’s principal target (and the key to Dewey’s presidential ambitions in the same year).

Nixon and his fellow HUAC members knew that their case against White was weak. Earlier in the year, the former Treasury official had already made a successful appearance before a federal grand jury in New York ... the same body would later bring charges against Hiss but found insufficient evidence to indict White. Foster Dulles moved quickly to distance himself from Hiss, pressuring him behind the scenes to resign his Carnegie Endowment post, while Allen Dulles fed incriminating intelligence to Nixon to bolster his case. Some of this confidential information about Hiss likely came from the Army intelligence program that had been set up in 1943 to decrypt messages sent by Soviet spy agencies. The VENONA project was so top secret that it was kept hidden from President Truman, but the deeply wired Dulles enjoyed access.

A secret weapon used by the Dulles brothers and Nixon against White and Hiss was a tendentious interpretation of material which existed about White and Hiss in the then secret VENONA transcripts of deciphered Soviet cable traffic… an unresolved question is whether Nixon’s secret sources (Hoover, Allen Dulles, or other OSS/CIA contacts) were aware by 1948 of the deciphered VENONA messages - and of the ALES cable in particular (of March 30, 1945) - that seem to point to Hiss’s guilt.  The HUAC investigation could have been “acutely embarrassing” to Foster, Nixon later noted. But instead, with Nixon’s help, they turned the Hiss case to their advantage, with Dewey fulminating against the laxity of the Roosevelt and Truman administrations that had allowed Communists to penetrate the government. The VENONA transcripts (3,000 translations) would be only made public 50 years later, in 1995.  

To what extent the various individuals referred to in the messages were involved with Soviet intelligence is a topic of historical dispute. While a number of historians assert that most of the individuals mentioned in the VENONA decrypts were most likely either clandestine assets and/or contacts of Soviet intelligence agents, others argue that many of those people probably had no malicious intentions and committed no crimes (e.g., Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer).   Many academics and archivists consider the VENONA evidence on Hiss to be inconclusive

Gene

Chessboard is one of those books that speaks for itself, without having to 'prove' anything.  I had several copies, and would give one to friends who ask, "who really did it" ... or "if I could read just one book about the assassination, which one should it be?".   It becomes clear that Dulles was a sociopath and behind the plot to kill John Kennedy.  If you study his career and body of work, he specialized in government overthrows (including assassination's) to benefit the power elite.  His arrogant tactics and pathological fingerprints are all over the JFK murder plot. When I consider the infamous "little god" quote, it is both revealing and provides perspective ... I believe it was meant to convey that JFK felt he was above the power elite ... rich Wall Street power brokers that controlled the world economy, and whom Dulles law firm represented (and served).  Those are real 'gods', in Dulles' world view.  Chessboard is also a good history lesson. Here are ten key points that Chessboard highlighted for me - and really opened my eyes - about the true allegiances that Allen Dulles maintained:

1. Sullivan & Cromwell (S&C) earned its reputation as the firm of choice for generations of ambitious lawyers and clients seeking fortune and power around the world.  The World Wars provided the political and financial opportunity which S&C rode to global influence.  Two partners, brothers, led the firm from War One until they left to marshal the Cold War.   While America fought two wars with Germany, John Foster and Allen Dulles proved the best friends, and the best lawyers, that German industry and banks ever had.  Talbot notes: “Dulles was more in step with many poopoo leaders than he was with President Roosevelt.”
2. Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, who as a young lawyer served with Allen in the OSS, later declared that both brothers were "guilty of treason” as regards their role in the wartime blackmail of the U.S. and their continued advancement of German interests including the protection of General Reinhard Gehlen. The Dulles brothers had control over U.S. foreign policy.  S&C clients included United Fruit, whose vast holdings controlled Latin America (Guatemala, CIA coup, 1954).   Standard Oil of New Jersey was a long-time Cromwell client (Iran, CIA coup, 1953).   Another major client, International Nickel, was closely tied to Cuba.  
3. While the Dulles's publicly maintained some distance on the Senate side from Joseph McCarthy, they found a willing but useful unknown Congressman from California. Allen leaked confidential CIA files on Hiss to Richard Nixon, with the help of his cloak and dagger friends.  Nixon claimed he had a "cherished relationship" with Dulles, and his destruction of the reputation of Alger Hiss before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in the late 1940s served as an unmistakable warning to Congressional committee members about the cost of too vigorous unmasking of the large, U.S.-based multinationals that the Dulles brothers represented for S&C.
4. Foster Dulles’ nuclear brinksmanship was the order of the day. And his younger brother was left free to pursue his own course at the CIA, free from scrutiny or moral scruples. In many ways, the two were the most powerful men in America. Talbot sums up the case in stark terms: “In the name of defending the free world from Communist tyranny, they would impose an American reign on the world enforced by nuclear terror and cloak-and-dagger brutality.”
5. Dulles had a lifetime of experience in arranging assassinations; under Dulles’ leadership in April 1961, the CIA colluded with right-wing French officers in a plot to assassinate Charles de Gaulle. The plot had been organized by the OAS, the secret paramilitary organization that attempted to prevent Algeria’s independence from France. As Talbot notes, “Allen Dulles was once again making his own [foreign] policy, this time in France.” The plot was thwarted only after President Kennedy personally warned de Gaulle’s ambassador to the U.S. that the CIA might be involved. Kennedy ordered U.S. base commanders in France to disguise the landing strips where the OAS might land its planes from Algeria, and de Gaulle mobilized the French citizenry to oppose the conspirators through strikes and other actions.
6. The lurid story of how Jesus de Galindez, a lecturer at Columbia University, was kidnapped in Manhattan by U.S. government cutouts and delivered to Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo. Trujillo then had Galindez, whose exposés of corruption Trujillo feared, boiled alive and fed to sharks, and ordered the murder of the American pilot who’d flown Galindez there. All under the beneficent gaze of CIA Director Allen Dulles.
7. The insular existence of the CIA under Dulles’ direction began to unravel following the election of JFK and came to a head with the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion. As Talbot reveals, the truth about the cause of the invasion's failure is far different from the popular belief that JFK refused to provide air cover. The CIA's own Inspector General brought many of the facts to light, although many years after the classified report had been released.  “It is now clear that the CIA’s Bay of Pigs expedition was not simply doomed to fail, it was meant to fail. And its failure was designed to trigger the real action — an all-out, U.S. military invasion of the island.”
8. After JFK fired Dulles, most of the agency’s leadership in place. Dulles’ acolytes, Richard Helms and James Jesus Angleton, continued to dominate the CIA. Operations continued in secret, outside the oversight of the White House. As Talbot makes clear, “it was a mood of hatred and rage.” In this explosive atmosphere, Kennedy’s decision to lower the tension over Cuba following the Cuban Missile Crisis proved fatal. “This marked the fateful turning point when the rabid, CIA-sponsored activity that had been aimed at Castro shifted its focus to Kennedy.”
9. Talbot details how it was not only enemies who had reason to fear Dulles, but his own friends and family, as well. The hideous “mind control program” developed by the CIA during Dulles’ reign as director - that dosed unsuspecting people with LSD and engaged in other deeply unethical experiments - was exposed thanks to lawsuits and investigative reporting, but Talbot sheds light on how Dulles subjected his own son and attempted to “enroll” his wife in these hideous “therapies.”
10. Allen and John Foster Dulles manipulated of religious groups (e.g., Quakers, Unitarians) to achieve U.S. elitist goals, and further U.S. psychological warfare operations. Allen Dulles (while based in Switzerland) abused Protestant individuals and institutions for U.S. intelligence through two World Wars and the subsequent "Cold War."   The use of Michael and Ruth Paine in this regard becomes transparent. 

As one writer stated, our darkest suspicions about how the world operates are likely an underestimate. There exists an amorphous group of unelected corporate lawyers, bankers, and intelligence and military officials who form an American “deep state,” setting real limits on the rare politicians who ever try to get out of line. Talbot points out that the surveillance state Snowden and others have exposed is very much a legacy of the Dulles past ... and he would have been delighted by how technology and other developments have allowed the American security state to go much further than he went.  As a staff member of the 1970s congressional investigation of Kennedy’s murder said in an interview with Talbot:

“One CIA official told me, ‘So you’re from Congress — what the hell is that to us? You’ll be packed up and gone in a couple of years, and we’ll still be here.’” 

Gene

15 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

You are correct Gene.

Garrison was interested in Ochsner and Butler.

A rumor began, never verified, that JG was going to indict the doctor.  And this is why Butler fled with files to LA.

In looking through what is left of JG's files I never saw anything to that effect.

But Garrison was interested in Butler and Bringuier

With all due respect to Jerry, he and his publication were never really good on New Orleans.

Thanks Jim ... I suspected as much but given your deep understanding of what Garrison was doing, your input is valuable.  

I agree with Tom that T&C appears to have been an infiltration mechanism (why would they be any different than all the rest of the interlopers surrounding Garrison?). Its notable that T&C arose after Ferrie died in late Feb '63 and began to finance Garrison - a good way to to obtain information, gain access, and exert control over the investigation. 

It's a wonder that Jim Garrison retained his sanity, and still ended up where he did ... on the right side of the truth, never compromising, and later advising Oliver Stone.  Asd other have previously stated, we have a lot to thank him for, as far as what we know today.  He truly was on the trail ... 

Gene

NBC News ran a story in 2017 that stated: 

Most Americans doubt they know the real story of what happened on November 22, 1963. More than 60 percent believe gunman Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone – and they’ve been skeptical from the beginning.

Gallup has tracked the Kennedy conspiracy question since the day of the shooting.  A poll taken immediately after the murder found that 52 percent of Americans believed “others were involved in a conspiracy” while 29 percent thought Oswald acted alone. But by December of 1976, the conspiracy number jumped to 81 percent in the Gallup data. There are likely a few reasons for that spike. The film of the assassination taken by Abraham Zapruder became public in 1975 and that helped lead to the 1976 creation of the House Select Committee on Assassination, which investigated the deaths of John Kennedy and Martin Luther King.  The conspiracy figure stayed relatively high in the Gallup data, not dropping below 74% for decades. The latest numbers from Gallup, from a 2013 survey taken to mark the 50th anniversary of the event, showed 61% of Americans believed the assassination was a conspiracy, while 30% believed Oswald acted alone.

And a new survey from FiveThirtyEight released this week finds that’s right about where the public is today: 61% believe others were involved in JFK’s assassination, while 33% believe one man acted alone. But the most interesting finding in the recent poll is the breadth of the nation’s JFK conspiracy beliefs. More than 50 percent of most every demographic group believes “others were involved” in the assassination: Men and women, whites, blacks and Hispanics, registered voters and non-registered, all age groups.  The one demographic group that believes Oswald acted alone, according to the poll, is college educated white people – and the numbers are very close with 48 percent saying one man killed JFK and 46 percent saying others were involved.

Thanks Tom

When I read the Jerry Rose article, it seemed to imply that Garrison was knowingly compromised and intentionally avoided implicating INCA.  Particularly since Eberhard Deutsch had been Jim Garrison's former law partner and political mentor.  Other indicators for me are that we know very little today about the mysterious T&C group (other than they "sponsored" the investigation) ... plus, if T&C were truly adversarial (and legitimately interested in the "truth"), you'd think that Sheridan and the CIA would've went after them to discredit/disrupt, as they did with Garrison's staff.  It seems that T&C was really there to help Shaw's attorneys in his defense, and to limit the damage. 

Another fascinating dimension to the complex Garrison story. 

Gene 

Vince

Interesting point about time not being a friend.  When I reflect back to how I first became interested, and then educated myself, it's quite the journey (and I'm still travelling).  First it was certain prominent books (not all of which were accurate or enlightening).  Next were conferences and talks given by certain experts and television specials (which in retrospect weren't reliable sources of valid information). More recently, it's been the computer and websites like the Education Forum, with a focus on whom I personally consider to be the most knowledgeable individuals. The difficult part is wading through a veritable mountain of information - and filtering well-disguised disinformation - to arrive at a coherent story, one that rings true.  It takes great patience and persistence. 

When I think of the current generation (and my own children), they generally don't have the patience to read books, or perform the necessary due diligence.  They want instant news and learn from Tweets (i.e., sound bites).  And with so much out there now - including valid differing points of view - it's an almost impossible task to discern the Truth. As far as the older generation, when I forward information about JFK Revisited to my friends and family, some have taken the time to watch it and were impressed (so that's reassuring).  However, given that the story is now more than 50 years old, I fear that many (young and old) just don't much care, nor does history interest them. 

Last, one thing I've learned in my JFK journey is to respect the many different perspectives and individual views ... that's its healthy to disagree (because that is how we learn). Nor do I like simplistic labels like LN's or CT's; we are all too sophisticated to be simply labelled as such.  The reality is that there's a lot more to the JFK story than simply one guy taking three shots from the 6th floor (all on his lonesome).  Where we all differ is in the details, and who was behind it (and why) ... nonetheless, I believe that the majority (70% or more) still don't buy that simple story. 

Gene

On 8/17/2022 at 4:44 PM, Tom Gram said:

John Mmahat's presence on T&C is more than a little suspicious. He was actually one of Harry Connick's attorneys when Garrison challenged the '73 election for DA that Connick won by just over 2000 votes. Mmahat also wrote a newspaper article smearing Garrison over the bogus pinball bribe allegations during the campaign, without disclosing that it was basically a political ad for Connick:

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/G Disk/Garrison Jim/Garrison Jim Criminal Trial 1973/Item 116.pdf

That's without even getting into Mmahat's involvement with and almost certain financial interest in the detective firm that was working for Clay Shaw's lawyers. 

I wasn't exaggerating either when I said he was a criminal. Mmahat was sentenced to decades in prison in the early 90s on several counts of fraud, conspiracy, etc. in a scheme involving shell companies.

Tom

This is excellent research you are doing on INCA ... what do you make of the T&C group?  Were they actually out to help Garrison (which is the commonly held view) or rather to monitor and control the investigation?  With such a suspicious collection of individuals - particularly Mmahat - it sure seems the latter.   And did the DA know, or was he duped?

Gene

I did not know that INCA may've tried to compromise the Garrison investigation, nor was I aware of the suspicious composition of the New Orleans "citizens" who, in early 1967, formed a group called Truth and Consequences (T&C) which provided private funding for Garrison in his investigation.  That two of the three leaders of T&C - Willard Robertson and Cecil Shilstone - were founding members of INCA, is interesting. And the founder of T&C, oil tycoon Joseph Rault, Jr., had ties to INCA, and was close to Dr. Alan Ochsner. Jerry Rose's 1997 article raises some intriguing questions ... addressing the formation of T&C, and naming Eberhard Deutsch, John Mmahat, Edmond G. Miranne, Harold Cook and Lawrence Merrigan.  Deutsch was an attorney whose name appeared on the letterhead of the Directors of INCA and was the General Counsel of Standard Fruit and as "Jim Garrison's former law partner and political mentor."  Not sure what to make of this just yet ... was it just one more infiltration of Garrison's investigation, or was it designed to keep INCA out of the spotlight? 

The Harvard essays characterize as follows:

Rhetorically, sealioning fuses persistent questioning — often about basic information, information on easily found elsewhere, or unrelated or tangential points — with a loudly-insisted-upon commitment to reasonable debate. It disguises itself as a sincere attempt to learn and communicate. Sealioning thus works both to exhaust a target’s patience, attention, and communicative effort, and to portray the target as unreasonable. While the questions of the “sea lion” may seem innocent, they’re intended maliciously and have harmful consequences.

Disruptive threads often use a tactic called "sealioning" to derail discussions of important but contentious issues, with the intent of provoking emotional responses or manipulating others’ perception. The term originated in an online comic by cartoonist David Malki, where a sea lion acrimoniously follows someone around - asking for sources, evidence and explanations for their opinion - all while loudly demanding a reasonable discussion. The sealioner makes relentless demands for answers and evidence.  For more about this tactic, see the essays in the collection "Perspectives on Harmful Speech Online", published by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard.

JP

Maybe this is a subtle point (or maybe not) ... but this conclusion characterizes the revolver in question as "smoking-gun physical evidence ... the murder weapon of Tippit".  Such an assertion is a giant leap of faith.  The story is surely interesting - although disposing of such a controversial weapon on that particular night is an odd way to dispose of incriminating evidence - but the conclusion stated is speculative.  The gun in the bag smacks of a throw-down (like the questionable ballistics and wallet) which further muddies the evidentiary waters.   

Gene  

This is very good digging Sandy ... 

Sandy/Gil

Regarding your question of what happened to the ambulance - and the patrol car following the ambulance with Barden and Davenport - I find it quite strange there are no dispatch records/times enroute to the hospital, arriving at the hospital, or even being cleared from the hospital.  This was, after all, a cop killing.

When this unfortunately happens in our area, the entire department responds (including the Police Commissioner).  To have no record of these fundamental and important details is inexplicable ... save for the fact that the records were doctored.  

Gene

Richard Price

For more on Thomas Dodd, see the article written by Lisa Pease in 1996 for Probe magazine, "Thomas J. Dodd & Son: Corruption of Blood?"  Lisa highlighted the following comment by author George Michael Evica, who in an issue of The Assassination Chronicles, alleged that:

Strong circumstantial evidence supports the conclusion that Senator Thomas Dodd (or someone close to Dodd with access to his committee files) ordered weapons in the name of either Oswald or Hidell …

Lisa's article goes on to state that this is beyond speculation, as Evica had “two unimpeachable sources" who confirm the above. Unfortunately, Evica did not share his sources on this. Dodd was interested in the places from which both of the Oswald weapons (rifle and revolver) came. Dodd's committee spent a good deal of time on Seaport Traders of Los Angeles. In the article "The Gun That Didn't Smoke" (1997) by Graf and Bartholomew, they point out that Dodd was also investigating the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) in which Oswald may have been an infiltrator. They also reference the work of P. D. Scott and other sources in developing additional intriguing links:

In a curious development to those who follow the Robert Kennedy assassination, Manny Pena, in charge of the RFK investigation for the LAPD, was a witness to Dodd’s committee on Seaport’s activities. It was Pena who traced Oswald's telescopic sight to a California gun shop. One of the primary culprits, robbing domestic manufacturers of profits, was the Mannlicher-Carcano. After the assassination, Dodd helped the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee publish a story that Oswald bad been trained at a KGB assassination school in Minsk. Dodd was on the payroll of the American Security Council; an organization advocating removal of Castro from Cuba and escalation of the war in Vietnam.

In 1967, the U.S. Senate took up the motion that would lead to the formal censure of second-term Connecticut Senator Thomas J. Dodd for financial improprieties. The motion to censure stemmed from accusations that Dodd had used funds from his reelection campaign for personal use. Dodd became one of only eight people ever formally censured by the U. S. Senate, and the first since Joseph McCarthy in 1954.

Gene

Jean Paul:

The Drittal witness name is on the mail order coupon, not the shipping invoice ... sorry for the confusion. Whomever filled this coupon out ordered a pistol, holster and ammunition, but then scratched out the last two items.  This coupon would not be mailed for another six weeks.

Peeling back the timeline and provenance of the revolver open up additional lines of inquiry. On January 3, 1963, George Rose and Co. of Los Angeles received a shipment of 99 handguns (including serial #V510210, the revolver of interest) from Empire Wholesale Sporting Goods in Montreal, Canada.

We also see one of the first conflicts in the revolver’s provenance: The order received was for “.38 ST. W. 2” Bbl” for $29.95 while the pistol sent is described as “S & W .38 Special 2” Commando” ... but the item ordered, and the item shipped, are not one and the same. The use and whereabouts of this pistol - a weapon which supposedly Oswald spent more on than the rifle (and without ammunition) - remained invisible until November 22nd.

Several folks have pointed out that ordering guns by interstate mail is a strange way for a potential assassin to purchase his murder weapons; conversely, if one is investigating firms known to sell weapons illegally through the mail, a paper trail is precisely what is needed.  This throws a shadow of suspicion on the Dodd subcommittee, and some have speculated that Oswald was working for the subcommittee in some fashion.  Furthermore, in Texas anyone in 1963 could go to a gun shop and purchase a weapon untraceably over the counter. Only in interstate purchases did the law require identification, yet Oswald was ostensibly interested only in interstate purchases.

For a more comprehensive treatment of Oswald's erstwhile revolver, here are some valuable references to chase the story down:

1. David Josephs' October 2015 article: "The Rifle, The Backyard Photos & The Pistol" Part 3: in Kennedys and King
2. "Oswald Did NOT Purchase a Pistol from Seaport Traders" by John Armstrong
3. Jefferson Morley’s January 2013 article “Oswald thinks about buying a gun” in JFK Facts 
4. George Bailey's November 2009 blog Oswald's Mother and “Who Bought the Guns?”
5. May 2006 EF thread begun by Scott G. Edwards "The J.D. Tippit Shooting Evidence"
6. April 2018 EF thread by James DiEugenio "The Tippit Case in the New Millenium" 

Gene

Jim

Oswald as a cop killer - the misleading title of this thread (which employs the Illusory Truth Effect) - is absurd on its face.  But the idea of constructing a police officer’s murder - as a diversionary tactic and emotional event - is a masterful addition to a plot. And then having it point to the patsy is almost too good to be true.  Couple that with the use of police officers as evidence planters, witness intimidators and crime scene cleaners (e.g., Croy, Hill and Westbrook) who have almost total control of the crime scene, with perfect cover and plausible deniability.  

Oswald allegedly showed an interest in the Smith and Wesson .38 revolver from Seaport Traders of Los Angeles just two days before Thomas Dodd's Juvenile Delinquency Subcommittee began hearings on the interstate shipment of firearms. Jeff Morley points out that when the mail order coupon (CE 135) is filled out on January 27, 1963, this is the first time we see evidence of the Hidell alias being used.  Coincidentally, a corresponding purchase in Texas from Seaport Traders was duly noted in the Dodd Subcommittee's sample statistics (see P.D. Scott). 

An 'investigator' looking into interstate firearms sales at this time was Manuel Pena, the LAPD lieutenant who was later instrumental in Robert Kennedy's post-assassination coverup. I find it more than coincidental that it was Pena who traced Oswald's telescopic sight to a California gun shop. William Turner's research confirmed that Pena performed special assignments for the CIA, where he was affiliated with the mercenaries and cut-outs used by JMWave operatives in various operations (Saigon, El Salvador, Uruguay, Phoenix) employed by cover with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

George Rose & Company was the parent company of the mail-order business “Seaport Trading” overseen by a mail-order management company, Merchanteers, Inc. Seaport was one of the weapons houses which the Dodd subcommittee was investigating at the time, and also traded in Mannlicher-Carcano rifles. Prior to making the weapons available to the public from Seaport as inventory, some of the pistols were converted by a gunsmith in California to make the barrels shorter than the standard 5 inches ... the S&W .38 Special with 2¼” barrel was the preferred weapon of police departments across the country in the early 60’s

The only documentary evidence that Oswald received the pistol is one invoice (#70638) saying the gun was shipped COD via REA to A. J. Hidell ... a copy (not the original) signed by an unknown/unidentified individual named "Paxton" with a witness signature signed 'D.F. Drittal'. Greg Parker has pointed out that, whoever did order this revolver from Seaport was playing an inside joke by claiming the name of the person who could vouch for the buyer was Drittal ... similar to the German phrase Dienst Fur Drittel - "on behalf of a third party."  Coincidentally, the NSA linguist John Hurt - possibly the person Oswald tried to call while in custody - married a Russian immigrant named Ana Drittel (a performing NY cellist).

David Josephs is right when he asserts that the evidence is the conspiracy. If one connects all of these dots, it tells us where that revolver came from ...

Gene  

Vinny Gambini: Is it possible the two defendants entered the store, picked 22 specific items off of the shelves, had the clerk take money, make change, then leave. Then two different men drive up in a similar - Don't shake your head, I'm not done yet. Wait till you hear the whole thing, so you can understand this, now. Two different men drive up in a similar-looking car, go in, shoot the clerk, rob him, and then leave?

Mr. Tipton: No. They didn't have enough time.

Vinny Gambini: Well, how much time was they in the store? Mr. Tipton: Five minutes.

Vinny Gambini: Five minutes? Are you sure? Did you look at your watch?  Mr. Tipton: No.

Vinny Gambini: Oh, oh, oh, I'm sorry. You testified earlier that the boys went into the store, and you had just begun to make breakfast. You were just ready to eat, and you heard a gunshot. That's right, I'm sorry. So, obviously, it takes you five minutes to make breakfast. Mr. Tipton: That's right.

Vinny Gambini: Right, so you knew that. Uh, do you remember what you had?  Mr. Tipton: Eggs and grits.

Vinny Gambini: Eggs and grits. I like grits, too. How do you cook your grits? Do you like them regular, creamy or al dente? Mr. Tipton: Just regular, I guess. Vinny Gambini: Regular. Instant grits? Mr. Tipton: No self-respectin' Southerner uses instant grits. I take pride in my grits.

Vinny Gambini: So, Mr. Tipton, how could it take you five minutes to cook your grits, when it takes the entire grit-eating world twenty minutes?  Mr. Tipton: [a bit panicky] I don't know. I'm a fast cook, I guess.

Vinny Gambini: I'm sorry, I was all the way over here. I couldn't hear you. Did you say you were a fast cook? That's it?  Are we to believe that boiling water soaks into a grit faster in your kitchen than on any place on the face of the earth?

Mr. Tipton: I don't know.

Vinny Gambini: Well, perhaps the laws of physics cease to exist on your stove. Were these magic grits? I mean, did you buy them from the same guy who sold Jack his beanstalk beans?