Ashton Gray

Ashton, I dig the outside-the-box thinking but this one has a lot of problems.

Oh. Well, then, Cliff, why don't y'all trot back over to the TSBD and all the other places that have been kicked to death for over thirty years that don't "have a lot of problems."

Me, I think I'm just going to continue to loiter around the County Courts building for a while.

It's one thing to think that everybody in the Plaza MIGHT run toward a puff of smoke and totally ignore the direction of the sound of gun fire, but it is another thing to BET YOUR LIFE on such a nebulous occurrence.

Well, now, that's an interesting way to put it. Didn't know I was betting my life on it. Very kind of you to apprise me of the fact here in front of God and everybody.

And I think I'll just go on standing right where I am anyway. I'm kind of enjoying the view and counting the passersby who keep telling me I should move along.

IOW, if you think it a lock that everybody would run to a puff of smoke, I'd be happy to play poker with you anytime.

Read 'em and weep, pal:

Ashton Gray

As regards the Court House position I feel any shooter would have to be positioned well too the right and high up to avoid the obstruction of the trees.

Hi Eugene,

Beautiful images.

However, I think your trees in the north peristyle are much larger than they actually were on 22 November 1963. I don't have time right now to locate and post the images I've been using for reference but will as soon as I can. Hopefully some of the photo gurus here will beat me to it. It is a critical issue, and I may be wrong, but I don't believe those trees as they were then would have presented any obstruction at all to the majority of shooting locations from the County Courts building/complex windows that face Dealey.

Ashton

Ashton, there are also the windows (red) in the setback connecting structure between the records and courts building. Possibly that is a unique formation that can cause sound to bounce and ripple like 'fire crackers'.

Good point John. I'll get those put in (though I have no idea what's behind them in terms of rooms or floors, or the access to them).

In looking at that block of buildings I sometimes wonder if that's where the then-unaccounted-for J.D. Tippit might have been "having lunch." So to speak.

The "Tippit twosies" (threesies, with the alternate spelling "Tippet") have always held my attention more than just a bit, since the "twosies" trick is always, inevitably, invariably found wherever the CIA wants to create the most possible confusion.

Ashton

Are you familiar with the research of Jim Marrs on remote viewing?

I'm afraid I'm not very. I've heard the name. And not to suggest even slightly that he would be in such a category, since I'm not familiar with him and his research, I do have to comment that there is an ocean of disinformation on the subject. (There's a surprise, huh?)

Marrs' book:

http://www.amazon.com/PSI-Spies-Jim-Marrs/...TF8&s=books

Thanks, Michael.

I've invested a very limited amount of time researching to find what he's said on the subject of RV, and so far, in the paltry bits I found, I see not only the Official Agency Line and a complete avoidance of any mention of the Scientology roots of the program, but also an almost consistent oblique tie-in with the whole UFO cess pool.

<Sniff. Sniff.> What's that smell?

Ashton

If we have to have shooters hiding in nonexistent buildings, or buildings which are a pretty far distance from the plaza, best to incorporate the trees, the distance, and at a minimum, the location of Jackie's head, in any diagrams.

I don't know what "nonexistent buildings" you're referring to, Lee, but here is the reverse view of what I posted earlier in this thread, this looking over the back of the limo from Kennedy's approximate position at the time of the headshot, towards the very substantially existent County Courts building, with the approximate relationship of relevant trees as I have been able to determine them to have been circa November 1963:

That view shows me a very liberal slop factor for a shooter in that building, which is why at the moment I am not overthrowing the rest of my life to try to get everything down to micrometer calibrations.

As for trajectories, here is a 2D image of possible trajectory paths that I first scribed—which is what led to the 3D model precisely for the purpose of factoring in the very things you specify:

The three trajectory lines there are all exactly the same length. At the time, I was uncertain of the possible interference of the larger tree of the three in the peristyle, but the 3D model has disabused me of the idea that it would have encumbered a shot from the majority of the windows in the County Courts building.

I also don't believe that Jaquie's position at the time of the head shot in any way complicates such a shot. In fact, in the Z-film she had leaned decidedly forward just a moment before the head shot. (Of course this is an open invitation for another 186 forum pages arguing about the Z-film. Which is where I'll leave the discussion.)

Ashton

In the last few months, Ryan Crowe, Lee Forman and I teamed up to go after one of these operators (who would know some of the dark secrets behind Dealey Plaza and the Ambassador Hotel) but this turned out to be not such a good idea. I do not plan to take this research any further.

I feel, perhaps inappropriately (but when am I not?), that the Aussies may have just stolen the crown from the Brits in the noble and refined Art of Understatement.

Ashton

I was wondering what other people thought regarding who were the shooters, and where they were located.

Ashton

Ashton,

How does a head shot fired from behind in the County Courts building relate to the large wound of exit in the right rear of the head?

RJS

Hi Richard.

I wouldn't assay even to attempt to account for every wound, real or imagined, that has been claimed and counterclaimed and reclaimed and exclaimed about in and around the so-called "medical evidence." The one wound I personally consider to be a very high relative certainty is a large chunk of skull blown out of the right front of JFK's head.

The Parkland doctors didn't see a large chunk of skull blown out of the right front of JFK's head.

I'm sorry to hear that.

Neither did the Bethesda witnesses. Around 30 witnesses from Parkland and Bethesda, including Gawler mortician Thomas Robinson, however, did see a large rear of head wound.

So I'm told. This is what I refer to, perhaps less than sensitively, as the Incredible Resizable Movable Hole. I believe the testimony you provided has it contracting and expanding from larger than a baseball to about an inch wide in its retrograde state, and that only one person of the whole crowd even attempted to say where on "the back of the head" it was (other than the inscrutable "cowlick area").

Also note that Saundra Spencer, who developed autopsy photos at the NPC, saw a photo which included the rear head wound.

And I want you to know, and I mean this sincerely, that I consider it a great pity that I haven't.

I believe the wound to which you refer is the "flap" seen in the Z film, which Jackie held in place during the ride to Parkland. It was not seen as a "large blown out chunk", since it was still attached and pushed back into place.

Hmm. Well, it definitely was seen as a "large blown out chunk" by me, attached though it remained. And I'm extremely curious how it got "pushed back into place" if nobody in a position to do such pushing saw it.

Now I'm also answering your last post to me, since I can't post more than one response at a time in a given thread:

Meanwhile, this has been put forth, and from all I can tell at this point there is nothing to eliminate it from reasonable consideration.

Ashton

What eliminates it from reasonable consideration...

Richard, I do understand that it is eliminated from your reasonable consideration. It is not eliminated from mine. Nor do anecdotal descriptions of the presence or absence of any other hole, even an Incredible Resizable Movable Hole, eliminate it from my reasonable consideration.

Ashton

Ashton,

I'm not trying to be a jerk or a naysayer, but I do have one observation about this model...

JFK was listing notable to the left at the time of the headshot *and* was facing more to the left. This might change perspectives a bit on feasible vs. non-feasible shot locations. In the case of the postulated location, it might make a shot that strikes the crown of the head more feasible.

It is, however, quite useful to see different angles and locations other than the same-old, same-old.

Perfectly good points to consider, Frank. I did give a bit of consideration to this, and in placing the stock figure made some effort to approximate the conditions, but there are so many other possible variables, including the exact elevation and position of the limousine that what I did here could never be anything more than an approximation.

I don't know when I might be able to get it more "calibrated," though I would love to. Meanwhile, this has been put forth, and from all I can tell at this point there is nothing to eliminate it from reasonable consideration.

Ashton

Hi, Jack.

Ashton...I read your interesting long piece.

I noticed repeated references to Scientology and Remote Viewing

in relation to the CIA.

Will you please elaborate on these and their connection to the

topics under discussion?

As far as my knowledge goes, what you see in the above post and the other articles linked to in it is what I know. I see definite connections to the topics under discussion, since this was the most secretive activity that the CIA and its principals were engaged in at all times relevant to the so-called "Family Jewels" and the several years leading up to them.

In my view it's particularly germane to CIA "Propaganda, Disinformation and Corruption" given the complete hypocrisy of the Great CIA Confessions Purge, the entirety of which—all the way through the Rockefeller and the Church Committees—never revealed the slightest hint of this major black operation being run a stone's throw from where the Congresscritters sat and bloviated.

The fact that the complete track of the development of the remote viewing program exactly parallels in time both the Pentagon Papers op and the Watergate hoax, the question I would have is how could anybody theorize a complete disconnect between those and the CIA's number one black operation.

Add to that the fact that the world never knew the slightest thing about this CIA program until 1995, that it had run with unknown millions in funding for over 25 years in complete secrecy, and that an estimated 95% of it is still classified, it all adds up to a significant issue in my view.

Are you familiar with the research of

Jim Marrs on remote viewing?

I'm afraid I'm not very. I've heard the name. And not to suggest even slightly that he would be in such a category, since I'm not familiar with him and his research, I do have to comment that there is an ocean of disinformation on the subject. (There's a surprise, huh?)

In fact, the biggest CIA mouthpiece on it is Major Ed Dames, who has lied through his teeth publically claiming flatly that the three central originators were not highly-trained Scientologists. Major Ed Dames is a CIA xxxx (but I repeat myself).

Is Scientology some sort of secret CIA front?

Jack, I'm afraid you're going to have to ask somebody besides me.

From the little I've read about Hubbard's scathing disdain for government agencies, though I, um, tend to doubt it.

Ashton

But Colby's little "let's all go to the confessional booth" melodrama was begun as early as 7 May 1973. By then Colby was CIA's Director of Operations. It was then—with Nixon still in office, with the Watergate hearings raging, and almost precisely coordinated with Daniel Ellsberg's case being thrown out based on the CIA Liddy/Hunt/Fielding op Colby had helped in—that Colby wrote the very memo that was circulated to CIA personnel, inviting them to "come forward with anything the CIA might have done that exceeded the limits of the Agency's charter." The memo that Colby wrote, though, was not circulated over Colby's name, but over then-(briefly)-CIA Director Schlesinger's name.

I'm quoting myself here only because I inadvertently omitted an important point: Archbishop Colby's overwhelming divine inspiration for CIA confessionals came only, of course, after his cult-bretheren, Richard Helms and Sidney Gottlieb, had destroyed the evidence of all the sins they really wanted hidden, and then almost immediately had gone up in the Rapture. (Wait: no, Helms had been given a cushy ambassadorship on the other side of the world, and Gottlieb had "retired" with a fat pension right after they destroyed the CIA records at the end of 1972-beginning of 1973. Well, okay: they'd gone up in the Rapture.)

I can't think of any more propitious moment for a sudden inspiration of "let's all hold hands and confess."

"Kumbaya, my Lord. Kumbaya."

(Okay, put down the iron: I'll stop singing.)

Ashton

Once again, you're citing made-up facts to suit your own bizarre scenario.

We're about to find out who's making up "facts" and spreading them like the plague all over an educational research forum, son. You and me. Right here. Right now. Buckle up and hold tight; this might be a white-knuckler...

It fits into your own little world-view that Colby ordered the creation of the family jewels, so you state it as a fact, even though the admitted facts by ALL involved is that Schlesinger, a Nixon loyalist, ordered the creation of the family jewels...

If I recall correctly, the rule around here is that we're supposed to call bombastic assertions of utterly gross flat-out falsehoods something sweet, like "bouquets" or "potpourri" or "eau de toilette" or something, but instead of bothering to paste any phony labels at all on your packaged poison, I'll just put the antidote here:

No less a light than Thomas Powers had to admit, in "The Department of Dirty Tricks"—his CIA whitewash and paean to all the CIA Boy Scouts and choir boys—that it was Colby, not Schlesinger, who originated the entire idea of the CIA "confessions" that came to be known as "The Family Jewels," and that it was Colby, not Schlesinger, who authored the very directive that brought it into being.

If you had the integrity to research and write facts instead of poisoning minds with your CIA-apologist fiction, you'd have told readers that it was nothing but yet another CIA op that had been fully set up to hide, not expose, the CIA's most important secrets, and that it worked exactly as they had planned.

You also would have told them that it went off right on cue, immediately after the twin CIA-controlled Watergate operatives, Dean and Hunt, had "exposed" the Hunt-Liddy-Fielding-Ellsberg CIA op to the world. Well, they "exposed" it exactly the way the CIA wanted it "exposed." More on that in a minute. But first, here's what happened immediately after the CIA's lap-dogs, Dean and Hunt, howled a little two-part harmony in the Watergate investigation:

• Colby and Vernon Walters, the deputy DCI, had both assured Schlesinger that he knew everything there was to know about the CIA's involvement in Watergate. Now Schlesinger discovered that Hunt had committed a burglary with material aid from the CIA. [ASHTON NOTE: Yeah. Schlesinger "discovered" the CIA involvement in the Hunt-Liddy-Fielding-Ellsberg CIA op through John Dean and E. Howard Hunt testimony. Right. Don't touch that dial...]
  ...[Emphasis added]: Colby had a plan ready to deal with this problem. He [Colby] suggested that Schlesinger issue a directive to every CIA employee instructing him to come forward with anything the CIA might have done that exceeded the limits of the Agency's charter. Schlesinger thought this a good idea. Colby wrote the order, Schlesinger signed it, and copies were distributed within the CIA on May 9, 1973, the same day on which Nixon moved Schlesinger to the Department of Defense, and appointed Colby as the new director of central intelligence.
  

Some part of that you can't seem to grasp, Speer? If so, I guarantee you you're in the lower 10% of people who read. Not "read this forum." Read. Period. And I don't know about anybody else who reads this forum, but I personally don't think you're that door-knob dumb.

Despite Powers's endless fawning and pawing in his larger narrative over the co-conspiring CIA scumbags (but I repeat myself), and his relentless attribution of phony, CIA-concocted altruistic motives, the dates and authorship are verifiable and incontrovertible.

So just who are these "ALL involved" you're spreading your toxic fictions about, son? You and the voices in your head? I realize that the CIA approach to "historical accuracy" is to just keep pumping out obscene lies like sewage from ten thousand pipes to drown out the truth and everything in its path. So if you really aren't door-knob dumb, why do you keep pumping the exact same CIA-favorable disinformation into an educational forum?

Don't let me interrupt your CIA-fawning fable, though. Do, please, pump on:

Schlesinger, a Nixon loyalist, ordered the creation of the family jewels so that he (and Nixon, obviously) could know what the CIA had been up to during the Kennedy and Johnson years.

Listen up, and listen up good: For over a year and a half—until 22 December 1974—Colby never informed the White House of the Family Jewels at all—something he "later described as simple oversight." Dontcha' know. And neither did Schlesinger inform the White House, and neither did anybody else at CIA.

In case you don't have your reading glasses handy, let me make that a little more plain:

For over a year and a half—until 22 December 1974—Colby never informed the White House of the Family Jewels—something he "later described as simple oversight."

Just in case you really are having a little reading comprehension problem, let me dumb that down for you real good:

NIXON NEVER SAW THE CIA "CONFESSIONS" CALLED "THE FAMILY JEWELS" AT ALL.

Now, what was that you said again? Tell me one more time, as though it were carved on stone tablets brought down from wherever you collect your grocery money:

Schlesinger, a Nixon loyalist, ordered the creation of the family jewels so that he (and Nixon, obviously) could know what the CIA had been up to during the Kennedy and Johnson years.

Well, sure, sure, Pat. Right-o. Utterly brilliant analysis of the facts! I call for a standing ovation.

And now that you've told us all "just how it happened," now that you've completely poisoned the ground water with the sewage of "The Official CIA Story" of their "confessions," if you don't mind (well, to be perfectly candid, I don't give a flaming effluvium whether you mind or not), I'm going to set forth a few little facts that it seems you somehow missed concerning the genesis of these "Family Jewels" while you were so busy pounding the podium with your endless CIA apologies and endorsements and assertions of CIA Purity, Uprightness, Kindliness, and Ethics (PUKE).

Let's just refer to your having missed these salient and vitally important facts as "a simple oversight." Worked for Colby. Ought to work for you.

First a little background to what actually took place in those early months of 1973:

William Colby had been CIA Director of Covert Operations and CIA's Executive Director and Comptroller throughout 1972, the substantive period of the CIA's Watergate hoax. It and its set-up, the Pentagon Papers CIA op, served several of the CIA's perverse purposes, not the least of which was to act as a two-year-long running smoke screen to hide and justify the actions necessary to their number one covert domestic/international operation—which remained entirely hidden and secret throughout. That of course was their "remote viewing" program, the development of which ran completely parallel to, and covered by, the CIA's Pentagon Papers and Watergate ops.

The super-clandestine remote viewing program was put into place in 1972—while Watergate was completely dominating the headlines and methodically demoloshing the White House—by CIA's Richard Helms (Director CIA), Vernon Walters (Deputy Director CIA), Sidney Gottlieb (head of CIA's Technical Service Division [TSD] where the program was started), and William Colby (CIA Director of Covert Operations; CIA Executive Director and Comptroller). Their positions were such that the remote viewing program could not possibly have been created without their full knowledge and active participation as the major architects and engineers at all relevant times.

A good deal, but not all, of the details of this parallel black CIA operation have been set forth in the Watergate forum, specifically in the topics called A Concise CIA-Pentagon Papers-Watergate Timeline and R. Spencer Oliver. Other details are laid out in an external page, the Remote Viewing Timeline.

And so it stood in the last months of 1972, after the remote viewing program had been officially started with a secret 1 October 1972 CIA contract with two Scientology OTs: NSA's own Hal Puthoff and Ingo Swann. By January of 1973 Helms and Gottlieb (of course with the knowledge of Vernon Walters and William Colby) had erased all their tracks by destroying CIA records.

So everything was all set by Wednesday, 3 January 1973, for these same CIA scum to send their little messenger, Anthony Goldin, trotting over to the Watergate prosecutors to deliver CIA copies of photos of their snakes E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy identifiably posing in front the office door of their own Lewis J. Fielding, purportedly the "psychiatrist" of their boy, Daniel Ellsberg. Naturally, this is the same day that Ellsberg went on "trial." The fix was in. Helms knew it. Walters knew it. Colby knew it. And if anybody reading this is naive enough to think they didn't know it, I have absolutely nothing to offer you, so please stop reading here and and go find a good Dr. Seuss book to entertain you.

Because as the Watergate hearings then raged on, in parallel with Ellsberg's mock "trial" (for which the CIA fix was already in), Gottlieb conveniently "retired," Helms conveniently got "fired" and was handed a cushy ambassadorship on the other side of the world in Iran, and the "new squeaky clean" DCI, Schlesinger, promptly (and conveniently) fired every CIA agent in the place who knew more than they probably should know going into the next major domestic CIA op: "The Family Jewels."

And here's how that actually went down:

• Wednesday, 3 January 1973
  Daniel Ellsberg goes on trial, accused of theft and conspiracy in the disclosure of the Pentagon Papers. On the same day, the CIA's Anthony Goldin hand delivers to the Department of Justice Watergate prosecutors photocopies of 10 photos of E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy posing in front of the office of purported Ellsberg psychiatrist Lewis J. Fielding. Richard Helms is DCI, Vernon Walters is D/DCI, William Colby now is CIA Deputy Director of Operations—but is still CIA Executive Director and Comptroller.
  Thursday, 4 January 1973
  The day after CIA has planted the photos of Hunt and Liddy with Watergate prosecutors (which will not be revealed for several months), John "Jack" Caulfield delivers to John Dean a handwritten copy of a letter Caulfield has received from CIA's McCord. McCord's letter states, "If Helms goes and the Watergate operation is laid at CIA's feet, where it does not belong, every tree in the forest will fall... . Just pass the message that if they want it to blow, they are on exactly the right course."
  Thursday, 11 January 1973
  CIA's E. Howard Hunt pleads guilty on all counts of the indictment against him.
  Monday, 15 January 1973
  The remaining Watergate defendants, except for G. Gordon Liddy and James McCord, plead guilty to all counts against them.
  Thursday, 1 c. February 1973
  • Scientology OT VII Hal Puthoff, head of the CIA's secret remote viewing program, and his associate Russell Targ have meetings with “selected Agency [CIA] personnel” to review the results of their research contract with CIA. Several CIA Office of Research and Development (ORD) officers show interest in contributing their own “expertise and office funding” to the program. Prior to this, the contract has been with CIA’s Office of Technical Services (OTS—formerly Technical Services Division [TSD]).
  • At around the same time CIA psychiatrist Dr. Louis Jolyon "Jolly" West is attempting through J.M. Stubblebine to get a Nike missile base in the Santa Monica Mountains turned over to the Neuropsychiatric Institute as "a research facility." [NOTE: West's ostensible reason for such a "research facility" was stated as being "perhaps initially (emphasis added) as an adjunct to the new Center for the Prevention of Violence," itself a CIA front. The timing of West's efforts here is notable since West is known later to have been directly involved in the CIA's secret remote viewing program.]
  • At around the same time, payments of $25,000 and $35,000 in cash are paid to E. Howard Hunt's attorney, William O. Bittman.
  Friday, 2 February 1973
  Richard Helms is out as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), James R. Schlesinger is in as DCI. Vernon Walters is still Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (D/DCI). William Colby is CIA Deputy Director of Operations—but also is still CIA Executive Director and Comptroller. Sometime around Schlesinger's taking over as DCI, he appoints "Agency veteran" John McMahon as new head of CIA's Office of Technical Service (OTS), replacing Sidney Gottlieb. This puts McMahon over the CIA's secret remote viewing program using Scientology OTs. [NOTE: Although the CIA's own article describes McMahon as an "Agency veteran" at the time of this appointment, information about McMahon's earlier CIA career is extremely limited. What can be said with certainty is that when being made head of OTS, he was coming from CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology, which had been significantly involved in the 1971-1972 development of the remote viewing program.]
  Wednesday, 7 February 1973
  Just five days after leaving as Director of CIA, Richard Helms testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. During the testimony, he makes statements regarding CIA involvement with attempts at overthrowing the Allende regime in Chile for which Helms, years later, will be convicted of perjury. [NOTE: In one of the endless "coincidences" that seem to flood from Langley, the exact thing that Helms testifies falsely about is about to be "confessed to" in the infamous CIA "Family Jewels" scam—which "confession" won't be made known publically for almost two more years. When it finally is, it results in Helms, year later, being given a probation slap on the wrist for his "perjury" as a result of the great phony CIA "housecleaning."]
  Friday, 9 February 1973
  The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) serves an administrative summons for production of records on Henning Heldt of Scientology's Guardian's Office. Heldt also is Vice President and Director of the Church of Scientology of California, which, by blanket transfer, owns and controls all of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's copyrights and trademarks. [NOTE: Hubbard mysteriously had disappeared during Memorial Day weekend 1972—the same weekend that CIA's Hunt, Liddy, McCord, Baldwin et al. purportedly had been engaged in a "first break-in" at the Watergate complex. Subsequent research and investigation has revealed that there was no "first break-in" at all. See article,

There was no "first break-in" at the Watergate.]
Thursday, 15 c. February 1973
CIA’s Office of Research and Discovery (ORD) sends Project Officers to Stanford Research Institute (SRI) to report on the psi experiments of Scientology OTs Hal Puthoff and Ingo Swan, et al., as ORD is considering joining CIA’s Office of Technical Services, being run by John McMahon, in sponsoring the program on a joint basis.
Monday, 5 March 1973
John Dean tells federal Watergate investigator Henry Petersen about files "from Hunt's safe" that Dean purportedly had handed directly to Acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray in a sealed envelope or envelopes.
Saturdy, 17 March 1973
In a taped Oval Office converstion, John Dean springs on Nixon the existence of CIA photos of E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy that have been taken in front of the door of Lewis J. Fielding, purported psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg. [NOTE: Curiously, no explanation is offered of how John Dean is privy to this "evidence" that no one else has or knows of except the Watergate prosecutors and the CIA. Even more curiously, this CIA-created, CIA-supplied "evidence" will not be given to the Ellsberg court for almost two more months. See entry 11 May 1973. It's in this taped conversation that Dean makes sure to get in his later famous comment about Hunt and Liddy: "These fellows had to be some idiots." Well, of course they were, John-Boy.]
Wednesday, 21 March 1973
Another $75,000 cash is deliver to E. Howard Hunt's attorney, William O. Bittman.
Thursday, 5 April 1973
L. Patrick Gray withdraws his name from nomination proceedings for him to become confirmed as FBI Director.
Sunday, 15 April 1973
•According to "The Official Story," John Dean purportedly tells "the federal prosecutors about the burglary of Dr. Lewis Fielding's office in Los Angeles engineered by E. Howard Hunt, with the CIA's assistance." [NOTE: This is one of the most blatant and extraordiary screw-ups in the entire miserable CIA op. The sources who make this claim completely evade and avoid the fact that the "federal prosecutors" are the ones who had been in possession of the CIA photos of Hunt and Liddy since the very day Ellsberg's phony "trial" had started months earlier, on 3 January 1973.]
•Around this time a third Scientology OT named Pat Price becomes a key part of CIA's top-secret remote viewing program.
Monday, 16 April 1973
CIA's E. Howard Hunt "confirms what John Dean had told federal prosecutors" about the CIA Fielding office op—of course spinning it that it was completely a White House op. [NOTE: It is now that William Colby reportedly proposes to DCI Schlesinger the memorandum that will create "the Family Jewels."]
Tuesday, 17 April 1973
The day after the Dean-Hunt tag-team, L. Patrick Gray makes a phone call to Senator Lowell Weicker and says that "the lid is going to blow off."
Friday, 20 April 1973
CIA’s Office of Research and Development is to become involved in the CIA's secret remote viewing program at SRI, requesting an increase in the scope of the effort, and transferring funds for the program to CIA’s Office of Technical Services (OTS). Evidenced by a referenced memo of this date: “C/TSD; Memorandum for Assistant Deputy Director for Operations [William Colby]; Subject: Request for Approval of Contract; 20 April 1973 (SECRET).”
Monday, 23 April 1973
Three days after Colby gets the proposal for expansion of the secret remote viewing program, L. Patrick Gray meets secretly with Senator Lowell Weicker, and purportedly tells Weicker that he, Gray, has "burned papers given to him by John Dean that had been taken from the safe of E. Howard Hunt." Gray tells Weicker that he burned the papers in a trash can in his office at the FBI on 3 July 1972. [NOTE: This is just one of three conflicting stories told about what became of the puported papers from the White House safe of E. Howard Hunt.]
Tuesday, 24 April 1973
CIA Deputy Director of Operations (DDO) William Colby decides that the Office of Research and Development’s request for a contract for expansion of the CIA's Scientology-based remote viewing experiments should go to the CIA's Executive Management Committee for approval.
Wednesday, 25 April 1973
L. Patrick Gray has another private meeting with Senator Lowell Weicker.
Thursday, 26 April 1973
L. Patrick Gray has another private meeting with Senator Lowell Weicker.
Friday, 27 April 1973
L. Patrick Gray resigns as Acting Director of the FBI. [NOTE: According to a Time magazine story of 7 May 1973, Gray resigns "a few hours after the news reports of his destruction of the Hunt files." It is Senator Lowell Weicker who has given the story to news media, claiming that Gray had put the Hunt papers "in a burn bag" at his FBI office. This is only one of at least three different stories about what had become of the alleged papers. See forum topic The Diem Cables for full discussion.]
Friday, 4 May 1973
One week to the day after L. Patrick Gray's sensational resignation, CIA Deputy Director of Operations, Executive Director, and Comptroller William Colby prepares a memorandum addressed to Director of Central Intelligence James Schlesinger requesting approval of the CIA's Office of Research and Development (ORD) contract for expansion of the secret remote viewing program. Evidenced by by CIA memorandum: ”W.E. Colby; DDO; Memorandum for Director of Central Intelligence; Subject: Request for Approval of Contract; 4 May 1973 (SECRET).” [NOTE: This is smoking gun proof of Schlesinger's knowledge of the secret remote viewing program. It also should be noted that there is no evidence in any record of Richard Nixon ever having any knowledge of the CIA's secret remote viewing program even till the day he died, or any awareness of the involvement of highly-trained Scientologists as the CIA's key and central personnel in the program. This is evidence that Schlesinger's oft-cited statement upon taking the DCI position, "I'm here to make sure you don't screw Richard Nixon," was just one more CIA-scripted public lie. Some researchers have gone so far as to posit that Schlesinger had been "negotiated" into the position by CIA specifically so he could be fully briefed on the secret remote viewing program, then be further "negotiated," with the help of Henry Kissinger, into being Secretary of Defense—who would have to be informed of the program, it being developed for military intelligence purposes—and that this accounts for his almost ridiculously short tenure before being replaced by Colby, who had been a senior architect of the program with Helms, Gottlieb, and others.]
Wednesday, 9 May 1973
Just five days after the request is sent to DCI James Schlesinger to expand the secret remote viewing program, he is named as the new Secretary of Defense by Richard Nixon. He is to be replaced by CIA Deputy Director of Operations, Executive Director, and Comptroller William Colby. On the same day, a directive that has been written by Colby is signed by Schlesinger, and distributed within the CIA, instructing all CIA employees to come forward with anything the CIA might have done that "exceeded the limits of the Agency's charter."

There, Speer: spin that, Official Story Boy.

Ashton Gray

This was a double-post copy. Don't know why. Deleted it. See below.

I was wondering what other people thought regarding who were the shooters, and where they were located.

Ashton

Ashton,

How does a head shot fired from behind in the County Courts building relate to the large wound of exit in the right rear of the head?

RJS

Hi Richard.

I wouldn't assay even to attempt to account for every wound, real or imagined, that has been claimed and counterclaimed and reclaimed and exclaimed about in and around the so-called "medical evidence." The one wound I personally consider to be a very high relative certainty is a large chunk of skull blown out of the right front of JFK's head.

My evaluation of that wound—despite clamors to the contrary from any source—is that it is an exit wound, not an entry wound. Working back from that hypothesis, I merely created trajectories on a 2D plot that most likely would produce an exit wound in such a location, and lo and behold there I found myself with my face pressed against the windows of the one building in all of Dealey Plaza that for all practical purposes had been studiously, rigorously, utterly ignored from any and all consideration throughout decades of investigation. And lo and behold, I discovered that it just happened to be within the jurisdiction of Earl/Earle Cabell and his cronies at the relevant times.

Therefore, I made a 3D model so I could actually see what the views would be from various windows there.

I have no idea how many shooters there might have been in how many locations, or who they might have been.

By following my own hunch that led, for better or worse, away from the madding crowd, I personally have come to the conclusion that the fatal head shot I've described came from that building. If it ever should prove to be correct, then given how much the government has invested in putting Oswald in the TSBD, somebody's gon' have a lot of 'splainin' to do.

By the way, merely as an ancillary to the above, I've postulated that the infamous puff of smoke from the picket fence area was an effect created specifically to divert attention directly away from the angle of fire described above, and to send people running precisely in the opposite direction—where nothing and nobody would be found to be. At almost the same moment, the County Courts building was ordered to be emptied, the personnel from the building sent right into the general area behind where the smoke had been seen.

I dunno: to me it seems about as subtle as a Christmas parade.

Ashton

Finally, the Huston plan, as we now know, must be viewed as but one episode in a continuous effort by the intelligence agencies to secure the sanction of higher authority for expanded surveillance at home and abroad. As these hearings will reveal, the leaders of the CIA and individuals within the FBI continued to seek official blessing for the very wrongs envisaged in the Huston plan.

—Senator Frank Church, 23 September 1975

As for Caulfield (and Ulasewicz—like Tweedledee and Tweedledum), I have my own reasons—only some of which I've posted, and that mainly in the Watergate forum—for believing that both were in CIA's pocket at all relevant times, and that Ulasewicz set up the apartment in New York, ostensibly under the auspices of Operation Sandwedge, with a primary purpose of having a CIA safe-house and backstopped address in New York near the laboratory of CIA's Cleve Backster and for later use by Hunt and Liddy.

In fact, I cannot find a single record anywhere of any use, ever, by the Nixon administration (or any part thereof) of the Ulasewicz operation in New York City.

I doubt very seriously that you'll agree, but I'm not seeking agreement. I'm seeking the truth. And the truth is I don't see the slightest evidence anywhere of any "sorting out" by Nixon of CIA.

Ashton

Church was misinformed. Hoover and Helms rejected the 43-page "Huston Report". They never saw the "Huston Plan". This was a secret memo sent to Nixon. It was this that was implemented. See Len Colodny & Robert Gettlin's Silent Coup (pages 98-100) and Jim Hougan's Secret Agenda (page 99 note 12). Nixon wrote on 14th July, 1970, "I felt they (the illegal measures suggested by Huston) were necessary and justified by the violence we faced". This so-called violence was the anti-war demonstrations.

Thanks. I am not unaware of what you seem to be alluding to. Having said that:

1) None of this has anything that I can see to do with the original assertion that Nixon "attempted to sort out the agency [CIA] when he became president in 1968," which is what I took issue with, and still see no evidence of.

Since this whole "Huston Plan" issue has come up, though, and won't seem to go away:

2) The testimony and evidence of record is that Hoover and John Mitchell—not Richard Helms—prevailed upon Nixon to rescind his endorsement of the 43-page document, et seq., that you are calling the "Huston Report," which is known most broadly and commonly, even in Congressional testimony and records, as the "Huston Plan." If you know of some record of Helms "rejecting" the original plan, after not only having been instrumental in creating it, but having signed off on it on 25 June 1970, prior to its submission to Nixon, I'd be very interested in seeing any such evidence.

3) Could you post the "secret memo sent to Nixon" that you allude to?

4) The quote by Nixon of 14 July 1970 is at the date of Nixon's original endorsement of Huston's proposed options to "relax collection restraints" on the various agencies, pursuant to the recommendations in the 25 June 1970 committee-created plan, at least according to a memo from Haldeman to Huston of 14 July 1970.

5) Nine days after the comment of Nixon you post above, on 23 July 1970, Huston wrote memos to the relevant agency directors informing them that "certain restraints on intelligence collection were being removed," invoking the authority of the President.

6) Four days later, on 27 July 1970, is when the Huston plan and the pursuant memos sent to the intelligence directors were recalled by the White House "for reconsideration."

Therefore, I am having difficulty understanding the relevance of Nixon's 14 July 1970 comment you posted, since that is nine days before approval was granted, and thirteen days before approval was rescinded.

If you are going to respond, I suggest that it would be of great benefit to derive some kind of unique identifying language for different versions or "secret memos" or whatever you're going to refer to, and to draw very clear and unmistakable distinctions with dates and documents; the available literature already evidences enough confusion around this whole issue. To be designating as the "Huston Report" what most of the world knows as the "Huston Plan" can only create further confusion as I see it.

Ashton

Now, I do make an effort to reconcile such things with statements such as your earlier one that Nixon had tried "to sort out the agency" on taking office. I just can't. That's all.

On 5th June, 1970, Nixon held a meeting in the White House that was attended by J. Edgar Hoover, Richard Helms and the chiefs of the NSA and the DIA. Nixon spoke of his concern that the different agencies were not working well together. Soon afterwards Nixon had a meeting with Tom Charles Huston, a former FBI agent who now worked with John Dean. Huston was asked to write a report on reforming the intelligence agencies.

Huston's 43 page report on how the intelligence agencies could enhance cooperation was delivered to Nixon on 14th July. This was sent to and approved by all the agencies. However, this was not the full report. One section was kept secret from the other agencies. Known as the "Huston Plan" it suggested five activities, some of which were clearly illegal. The sixth suggestion was the creation of a new agency to deal with internal security that was to be under the control of the president.

As Nixon later recalled: "I felt they (the six points of Huston's Plan) were necessary and justified by the violence we faced." Soon afterwards Nixon appointed Jack Caulfield to take charge of this new "in-house" agency.

When John Dean was doing a deal with the prosecuting authorities in 1973 he sent a copy of this secret Huston Plan to Judge John Sirica. It now became public knowledge. However, it is possible that the FBI and the CIA had already discovered what was going on. As Jack Caulfield and Tony Ulasewicz were both to later point out, the Sam Ervin committee seemed uninterested in this secret "in-house" agency.

Thanks, John.

Of course the Huston Plan is an entire study in itself, one which I'm not going to belabor here. I will, however, point out that it did absolutely nothing at all "to sort out" the CIA—or DIA or NSA for that matter.

In fact, Senator Frank Church himself said very eloquently in his introductory remarks as Chairman of the Church Committee, when Tom Huston was about to be questioned:

• Five days after the President approved the plan, he revoked it at the insistence of the FBI Director and the Attorney General—to the dismay of those CIA, NSA, and FBI representatives who had helped Huston develop it. ...Our investigations have revealed that the Huston plan itself was only an episode in the lawlessness which preceded and followed its brief existence.
  First, we have discovered that unlawful mail openings were being conducted long before the President was asked to authorize them in June 1970. The President and Mr. Huston, it appears, were deceived by the intelligence officials.
  Second, even though the President revoked his approval of the Huston plan, the intelligence agencies paid no heed to the revocation. Instead, they continued the very practices for which they had sought presidential authority, expanding some of them and reinstating others which had been abolished years before. ...[T]he decision of the President seemed to matter little.
  Finally, the Huston plan, as we now know, must be viewed as but one episode in a continuous effort by the intelligence agencies to secure the sanction of higher authority for expanded surveillance at home and abroad. As these hearings will reveal, the leaders of the CIA and individuals within the FBI continued to seek official blessing for the very wrongs envisaged in the Huston plan.
  —Senator Frank Church, 23 September 1975
  

As for Caulfield (and Ulasewicz—like Tweedledee and Tweedledum), I have my own reasons—only some of which I've posted, and that mainly in the Watergate forum—for believing that both were in CIA's pocket at all relevant times, and that Ulasewicz set up the apartment in New York, ostensibly under the auspices of Operation Sandwedge, with a primary purpose of having a CIA safe-house and backstopped address in New York near the laboratory of CIA's Cleve Backster and for later use by Hunt and Liddy.

In fact, I cannot find a single record anywhere of any use, ever, by the Nixon administration (or any part thereof) of the Ulasewicz operation in New York City.

I doubt very seriously that you'll agree, but I'm not seeking agreement. I'm seeking the truth. And the truth is I don't see the slightest evidence anywhere of any "sorting out" by Nixon of CIA.

Ashton

"CIA overthrew Nixon because he was gonna blow the whistle on their scientology research." —Pat Speer

Is this an actual quote?

Ron, I wrote those words while trying to paraphrase what I interpret to be Ashton's theory on Watergate.

Doh! Imagine how silly I feel to find out you were only "trying to paraphrase" and to "interpret" me. And here I had thought you were maliciously misrepresenting me. Funny how it worked out, though, that you were maliciously misrepresenting me. So if I ever post a "help wanted" ad for a Paraphrasing and Interpreting position, don't apply. You clearly aren't qualified.

He now posts it as an exact quote by me and implies it is my own theory as a way of discrediting me.

Hmmmmm. Stroking me chin whiskers here and trying to think this through: Let's see, now. When you posted it and falsely attributed it to me, you put it into quotation marks, now, didn't you? Why, yes, you did. (A very, very odd way of "paraphrasing and interpreting," by the way.) So I dutifully recorded it as an "exact quote"—just the way you wrote it—and I've attributed it correctly to its own sole author—which is you—and that somehow is a way of discrediting you?

Well, now, Pat: surely you don't feel discredited by the "exact quote" you wrote and attempted falsely to attribute to me, do you? Because if you do, that's going to sort of smell like that is the very thing you were attempting to do to me in the first place. Nawwwwwwwww! Pat, you wouldn't stoop to such slimy tactics, would you?

Heh. Of course you wouldn't. Don't know how I even could have thought the thought.

Oh, well, the thing has just gotten too complicated for me to figure out now. But look: if you ever get the irrestistible compulsion to "paraphrase and interpret" me again, by all means go right ahead. There's plenty of room left in my sig space.

Ashton Gray

I was wondering what other people thought regarding who were the shooters, and where they were located.

Ashton

Hi Ashton,

That's an interesting POV, I'm aware that you posted a thread with pictures previously (red, blue yellow court or some such.)

To my point, have you factored in, during any of your CGI reconstructions, the crowds, heights, lines of sight in relation to this shooting position?

Many Thanks

Gary

Hi, Gary. The short answer is "no," at least to the crowds, and including the positions of the motorcycle policemen at the time of the head shot. It's just far, far more than I can do.

I had to play hooky from deadlines this morning for a little while just to set up that "shot." I've been sort of chipping away at getting a limo of sorts done, and I simply dropped in a stock seated figure, and picked one of the windows of the County Courts (County Records) building to point through. Yes, I have already posted some images, months ago, that I made looking through two other windows of that building—the one that was in the jurisdiction of Earl/Earle Cabell, brother of the very Charles P. Cabell that JFK had kicked out of the CIA. Not that this has any relevance, mind you—let me hasten to add. I'm just sayin'.

And yes, I believe that's the building that the head shot came from and that it blew out the right front part of Kennedy's skull on exit. Exactly as would be expected.

When or if I ever will have the time or opportunity to add spectators—which will have to be accurately sized to scale—I simply don't know. And it doesn't look promising for anytime in the near future.

This is one reason that I haven't abandoned trying to work out a way to get this 3D model broadly available, so others can populate it and play with it to their heart's content. I'm not trying to make it proprietary. It's just that the size of the file makes it costly to make available until I can figure out some way to do it. And I am working on it in my spare time. (That's usually about from 3:15 to 3:21 a.m.)

Ashton

"CIA overthrew Nixon because he was gonna blow the whistle on their scientology research." —Pat Speer

Is this an actual quote?

Absolutely. Speer made it and tried to attribute it to me, which was a complete bald-faced lie. I merely correctly attributed the quote to the sole author (Pat Speer) and added it to my sig. He can make it go away from my sig if he'll just answer the question I've asked him about 15 times in this thread in the Watergate forum: The Diem Cables. That's the thread where he made up the statement and tried to paint me with it.

He also ought to apologize publically for his cheap, underhanded trick, but I don't even require such a rightfully owed apology. He just should answer the question he's been evading. It's all in that thread. Seven pages of it.

Asthon

This is just the vestige of yet another forum timeout-induced double post.

Move along; nothing to see here...

One sign of disinformation is that the perpetrator devotes more time to research, writing and posting than there are hours in the day. There are at least three here who exhibit that trait.

Some might count you among them, Jack.

Some seem to have more information than they could have come up with alone, as if someone is feeding them a mass of research, facts, documents etc.

I wish you wouldn't be so coy, Jack, and would just come out and say who you think such disinformation agents are. I've made no bones about my own opinion on that count.

And speaking of "count," I have no idea whether you are counting me in that august number, but I am going to point out for the record here—again—that I have made a matter of record the rather extraordinary database of over 10,000 records that I've had the good fortune to have had made available to me. And I've made absolutely no secret of the fact that quite a few people have contributed over the course of many years bringing the thing into existence, some of whom continue to update and add to it constantly.

Not only have I made a record of this primary research tool that I use, I've actually posted a copy of the exact same database engine itself populated with a few JFK-related records, and urged, begged, pleaded with people to use it to timeline the JFK assassination data, in the topic I started: JFK Timeline Database and Hopeful Thoughts.

I've just used that very database (the full version, not the limited JFK-related version I posted) to extract the West Virginia-Pat Price-CIA-NSA timeline that I just posted in response to Myra. It took me all of ten minutes, maybe, to search on "Pat Price" and "West Virginia," sort the found records by date, export the found records as a tab-delimited text file, and format it for posting with a few words of introduction. Such is the power of the thing, which I've tried desperately to get others to understand, and to use the damn thing, which has been freely supplied in the topic linked to above with no strings for anyone who wants to pursue it and use it any way they see fit.

So far, the only person who has demonstrated any real interest is Bill Kelly, who, to his eternal credit, is trying to get the many random timelines all compiled and into such a useful form. I even was in touch briefly with the Mary Farrell Foundation, and offered to do anything I could to get her chronologies converted for import to that engine. I supplied all the technical information that could make it possible—and then that contact went dead as a hammer. Don't ask me why.

So my own "research methods" are about as secret as Toys'R'Us locations. And since I have spent much of my life developing a career in which I'm my own boss and make my own schedule, I'll invest as much of my time as I choose in any pursuit I choose, without apology or requests for permission (and also stir the soup on my way through the kitchen).

Ashton Gray

Yup, "Divide and Conquer." Works like a champ. Anyone ever see the movie "Matewan"? It's about West Virginia coal companies versus miners trying to form a union. The whole plot is about the company's divide and conquer tactics.

I can't say if they worked 'cause that would be a spoiler. I will say that the movie depicts a true historical episode accurately.

Good God. I possibly am the among the world's most adament proponents for keeping forum threads on-topic, and I am about to violate that right here, right now, in the most blatant and unforgivable way. I simply cannot allow what you just posted about to go unremarked, and if any forum admin would like to break this out into a separate thread, I would be completely amenable and appropriately chastised. But I simply feel that I have to get the following brief snippet of timeline posted and ask you if the event you're referring to with a "West Virginia coal company" possibly correlates with the following, which just happens to involve a West Virgiina location in June 1973 (at the height of the Watergate hearings), followed shortly by direct involvement with a "West Virginia coal company" from late October 1974 through about mid-1975, to wit:

• Sunday, 10 c. June 1973
  CIA's Richard Kennett takes his wife and children on a "drive into the coutryside" to check out Bill O'Donnell's accounting of the coordinates that Scientology OTs Pat Price and Ingo Swann had remotely viewed. [To make this little weekend trip, Kennett has to drive into the Blue Ridge Mountains in West Virginia—Ed.] Surprise, surprise: "a few miles from his friend's cabin," he discovers a dirt road with a government "No Trespassing" sign, and some satellite antennas in the background—"obviously some kind of secret installation." It seems to match many of the descriptions provided by Price and Swann.
  Monday, 11 c. June 1973
  CIA's Richard Kennett looks up "an official who he thought might know about" the strange secret base he and his wife and kids have "discovered" on their weekend drive to West Virginia, and gives the unnamed "official" Pat Price's and Ingo Swann's descriptions from their "coordinate remote viewing" sessions.
  Wednesday, 13 c. June 1973
  CIA's Richard Kennett finds himself at the center of an intense and hostile security investigation over the "coordinate remote viewing" descriptions of Pat Price and Ingo Swann of the secret installation in West Virginia. The investigation soon extends to Price, Swann, and Hal Puthoff at SRI. It seems that the facility, ostensibly a U.S. Navy communications base, was actually a highly sensitive NSA installation, manned by cryptographers and others, engaged in intercepting international telephone communications and the control of U.S. spy satellites.
  Friday, 9 November 1973
  CIA's K. Green issues a report on the 1 June 1973 (see) coordinate remote viewing experiment with Ingo Swann and Pat Price that had targetted a secret NSA installation in West Virginia. It is cited as: "K. Green; LSD/OSI; Memorandum for the Record; Subject: Verification of Remote Viewing Experiments at Stanford Research Institute; 9 November 1973. (SECRET)." Reportedly, the "new directors" of CIA's Office of Technical Services and Office of Research and Development are favorably impressed.
  Tuesday, 15 c. October 1974
  Pat Price departs SRI. He is going to work for a coal company in Huntington, West Virginia, telling Hal Puthoff that he intends to return in a year with a fortune earned from psychically locating coal deposits, and with which he intends to fund further psychic research with Puthoff. What he doesn't tell Puthoff is that he is also going to be working directly for CIA.
  Tuesday, 1 c. July 1975
  Pat Price has reportedly "finished his stint with the coal company in West Virginia." The referenced source makes the curious observation: "The job hadn't been a cover for his CIA work. He had actually worked for the enterprise." For some reason, though—unexplained—he charters a plane around this time and flies Ken Kress, Richard Kennett, and "some other CIA officials" out to the coal company, in Huntington, West Virginia. No reason is given why CIA officials would be flying out to meet Price at a coal company.
  Tuesday, 15 c. July 1975
  Pat Price leaves from Huntington, West Virginia an a several-week trip west. He first "stops off" in Washington, D.C. [reason unknown]. According to a reconstruction from other data (see chronology entry for 16 c. July 1975), Price has dinner in Washington, where "someone seems" to slip something into his coffee.
  Wednesday, 16 c. July 1975
  Pat Price continues his trip west. He goes on to Utah "for a brief visit with his son," and on from there to Las Vegas [reason ostensibly because he loves gambling]. Price is planning to go on from Vegas, after a few days, to SRI, then to Los Angeles to visit his wife. In Vegas, Price is accompanied by an old friend named Bill Alvarez and his wife, Judy. The three check into the Stardust Hotel, rest, and go into the restaurant for dinner.
  Price begins to complain that he doesn't feel good, and ostensibly tells the Alvarezes that someone "had seemed to slip something into his coffee" at dinner in Washington "the night before." He seems serious about it. Price soon feels so bad that he goes up to his room to lie down. He feels even worse, and calls the Alvarezes. They come to his room and find him on the bed in cardiac arrest. Bill Alvarez calls paramedics, who try without success to resuscitate Price with defibrillator paddles. Price is declared dead in the local hospital's emergency room.
  Reportedly, a mysterious "friend" of Price's turns up at the emergency room with "a briefcase full of his medical records," which, along with the statments of the emergency room's physician, apparently are enough to waive an autopsy—which would normally be performed on an out-of-towner who had died outside the hospital. [NOTE: CIA'S Richard Kennett allegedly later tried to "track down" the mystery man with the briefcase, but, reportedly, "never found out who he was, or whether he even existed."]
  

Anybody near Langley? Can someone check to see if actual cracks are starting to appear in the walls and foundation and if greenish stuff is starting to ooze out like putrifaction?

Ashton Gray

Posting the same response here as I did to the same thing posted in the Watergate forum:

Very interesting post, John, in which I see various streams of data beginning to merge into a far more cohesive channel flowing together instead of dispersing all over the landscape.

Still, I have to comment on a few bits of flotsam and jetsam that I feel continue to attempt to float upstream:

Nixon believed that the CIA leadership played a vital role in his defeat in 1960. He never forgave the CIA for this treachery and this is why he attempted to sort out the agency when he became president in 1968.

What actions do you see as an attempt by Nixon "to sort out the agency" while leaving Richard Helms in place as DCI?

The CIA fought back and set up Nixon over Watergate. When Richard Helms, refused to help him cover-up Watergate, he threatened Helms with exposing him for the role he played in the cover-up of the JFK assassination.

Cite? I have a vague feeling that you are referring here to the 23 June 1972 "whole Bay of Pigs thing" comment made by Nixon.

H. R. Haldeman, The Ends of Power (1978:

I was puzzled when he (Nixon) told me, 'Tell Ehrlichman this whole group of Cubans is tied to the Bay, of Pigs.'

After a pause I said, 'The Bay of Pigs? What does that have to do with this?'

But Nixon merely said, 'Ehrlichman will know what I mean,' and dropped the subject.

After our staff meeting the next morning I accompanied Ehrlichman to his office and gave him the President's message. Ehrlichman's eyebrows arched, and he smiled. `Our brothers from Langley? He's suggesting I twist or break a few arms?'

'I don't know. All he told me was "Tell Ehrlichman this whole group of Cubans is tied to the Bay of Pigs".'

Ehrlichman leaned back in his chair, tapping a pencil on the edge of his desk. 'All right,' he said, 'message accepted.'

'What are you going to do about it?'

'Zero,' said Ehrlichman. 'I want to stay out of this one.'

He was referring to an unspoken feud between C.I.A. Director Richard Helms and Nixon.. The two were polar opposites in background: Helms, the aloof, aristocratic, Eastern elitist; Nixon the poor boy (he never let you forget it) from a small California town. Ehrlichman had found, himself in the middle of this feud as far back as 1969, immediately after Nixon assumed office. Nixon had called Ehrlichman into his office and said he wanted all the facts and documents the CIA had on the Bay of Pigs, a complete report on the whole project.

About six months after that 1969 conversation, Ehrlichman had stopped in my office. 'Those bastards in Langley are holding back something. They just dig in their heels and say the President can't have it. Period. Imagine that! The Commander-in-Chief wants to see a document relating to a military operation, and the spooks say he can't have it.'

'What is it?'

'I don't know, but from the way they're protecting it, it must be pure dynamite.'

I was angry at the idea that Helms would tell the President he couldn't see something. I said, 'Well, you remind Helms who's President. He's not. In fact, Helms can damn well find himself out of a job in a hurry.'

That's what I thought! Helms was never fired, at least for four years. But then Ehrlichman had said, 'Rest assured. The point will be made. In fact, Helms is on his way over here right now. The President is going to give him a direct order to turn over that document to me.'

Helms did show up that afternoon and saw the President for a long secret conversation. When Helms left, Ehrlichman returned to the Oval Office. The next thing I knew Ehrlichman appeared in my office, dropped into a chair, and just stared at me. He was more furious than I had ever seen him; absolutely speechless, a rare phenomenon for our White House phrase-makers. I said, 'What happened?'

'This is what happened,' Ehrlichman said. 'The Mad Monk (Nixon) has just told me I am now to forget all about that CIA document. In fact, I am to cease and desist from trying to obtain it.'

When Senator Howard Baker of the Evrin Committee later looked into the Nixon-Helms relationship, he summed it up. 'Nixon and Helms have so much on each other, neither of them can breathe.'

Apparently Nixon knew more about the genesis of the Cuban invasion that led to the Bay of Pigs than almost anyone. Recently, the man who was President of Costa Rica at the time - dealing with Nixon while the invasion was being prepared - stated that Nixon was the man who originated the Cuban invasion. If this was true, Nixon never told it to me.

In 1972 I did know that Nixon disliked the CIA Allen Dulles, the CIA Director in 1960, had briefed Jack Kennedy about the forthcoming Cuban invasion before a Kennedy-Nixon debate. Kennedy used this top secret information in the debate, thereby placing Nixon on the spot. Nixon felt he had to lie and even deny such an invasion was in the works to protect the men who were training in secret. Dulles later denied briefing Kennedy. This betrayal, added to Nixon's long-held feeling that the agency was not adequately competent, led to his distrust and dislike.

And now that antipathy was to emerge again on June 23, 1972, when Nixon would once again confront and pressure the CIA

This time the CIA was ready. In fact, it was more than ready. It was ahead of the game by months. Nixon would walk into what I now believe was a trap.

Thank you for posting this excerpt, John. I have read it many times. Although I rarely leave complete exchanges quoted in full when attempting to respond to specific points, I'm leaving this fully intact so readers can have the full comparison to points I'm about to make concerning this.

I've said before, and I'll say eternally, that the deducement from any and all of this that Nixon somehow was "threatening Helms with exposure of CIA's cover-up of the Kennedy assassination" is what I consider to be in the class of reading tea-leaves and the entrails of birds. But I don't really give a tinker's dam. I don't care what people read into it in an effort to prop up some favorite precious "theory."

When they start proseletyzing me, though, to accept this article of faith, clung to with religious fever, it ain't going to happen.

And now, here's another "anecdotal account" that I really want people to read, and I've left Haldeman's little melodrama intact so that the quick and the bright can see that it is exactly the same CIA-written fiction with only the names and documents-at-issue change. The exact same fairy tale—none of which of course can be independently verified. (Now, there's a surprise.) But what I'm posting below appears to have been written by the same CIA fiction ghostwriter who wrote "Haldeman's" cute little anecdote. Who do you think might qualify? Anybody want to take a guess? Well, first, read the fiction, and compare to the above:

• Quoted from the source:
  ...In late January 1961, Bundy had been given an extraordinary briefing by Daniel Ellsberg, a twenty-nine-year-old analyst working for the RAND Corporation, a think tank that did classified studies for the federal government. A junior fellow at Harvard, and an expert in game theory, Ellsberg was one of only a handful of civilians who had seen the Joint Chiefs' operating war plans, known as the Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan (JSCP). What he saw sickened his stomach. The war plans called for the swift destruction of every city of any consequence in the Soviet Union, China and Eastern Europe.
  "It was just a trucking plan," Ellsberg said, "for moving thermonuclear explosives as fast as possible to every urban center in the Eastern bloc." Moscow alone was to receive 170 atomic and hydrogen bombs. There were no intermediate steps, no flexibility and no warnings. He called it a first-strike plan because it was the Joint Chiefs' planned response to any level of "armed conflict with the Soviet Union." The chiefs' planned response to a division-level Soviet attack on West Berlin, for instance, would be the annihilation of hundreds of millions of civilians. Ellsberg thought there were few safeguards against an accidental triggering of the JSCP. Worse, he had been told that Eisenhower had given individual commanders written authorization to use their nuclear weapons if in their best judgments they were under attack and out of communication with the White House. Ellsberg knew that the commander of the Seventh Fleet in the Pacific, for instance, was out of communications with Washington on average a few hours each day. So it was entirely possible that a nuclear war could be initiated by an isolated admiral without the president's knowledge.
  Ellsberg was worried. Within days of Kennedy's inauguration, he had convinced Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze that he ought to see the JSCP. Nitze authorized his deputy, Harry Rowen, and Ellsberg, working under him, to study the whole problem.
  Almost immediately, Ellsberg and Rowen were stymied; after requesting a copy of the war plan for Nitze's reading, Ellsberg was told by a two-star army general working for Nitze, "No, he can't see it. He has no need to know." Nitze was not the kind of man who liked to be told no, and when he learned of this rebuff, Rowen arranged for Ellsberg to see Mac Bundy in the White House. When Ellsberg arrived, he began by trying to explain how he had received access to a document as sensitive as the general war plan. Bundy interrupted and said coldly, "Is this a briefing or a confessional?"
  Ellsberg pulled himself together and replied, "There is a plan which no president has read, and which no secretary of defense has read, and it has the following characteristics." He then reeled off the bare facts of the plan, emphasizing how small of an armed conflict could initiate full-scale nuclear war. Within thirty seconds Bundy took out a pad of paper and began scribbling notes.
  A briefing that was scheduled to last ten minutes stretched to an hour and a half. Mac was particularly astonished by Ellsberg's assertion that Eisenhower had issued presidential authorization in writing that would allow individual commanders to launch nuclear weapons.
  Soon after Ellsberg left, Bundy picked up the phone and called the staff director of the Joint Chiefs. When he got a deputy, he said, "This is Mac Bundy; the president wants to see the JSCP." There was a long silence at the other end of the line until the general replied, "Oh, we never release that." Bundy responded, "No, I don't think you understand. I'm calling for the president and he wants to see the JSCP." Again the general said, "But we don't release that." Dumbfounded, Bundy shouted, "I don't think I'm making myself clear." At this point the general offered a compromise, "Well, we could give the president a briefing on the JSCP." Bundy snapped, "The president is a great reader; he wants to read the JSCP."
  Bundy never did see the full war plan, but he wrote a memo to Kennedy describing a summary of the plan he had been given by the Joint Chiefs. He called it "dangerously rigid and, if continued without amendment, may leave you with very little choice as to how you face the moment of thermonuclear truth."
  —excerpted from The Color of Truth by Kai Bird
  

(Now, of course, will come the not-quite-bright accusing me of accusing Kai Bird of... To them: oh, please do everybody a favor and just shut up before you start.)

For those with better sense, you'll see immediately that the author of the passage above has accepted an anecdotal story given to them by someone they believed and trusted, and has passed it along as historical "fact."

Just as you, John, have uncritically accepted an anecdotal and unverifiable story from someone that you trust and believe is telling the "truth."

And that is your right. And it is an unalienable right. And I would not deny anyone their heroes or gods.

But I don't have to accept them. And I do not.

Perhaps it is being a writer and editor that makes such re-packaged hack fiction glow almost radioactively when I read it. But: whatever gets you through the night.

Ashton

As you probably know, I also received this moniker from a "researcher of some repute" some time ago. It was said I was writing posts from a cubicle at Langley to disrupt forums and keep people from knowing what they claimed was the truth. Some of my fellow members at Lancer were asked by that person to vouch for me. That person then proceeded to "check me out", and actually posted personal information about me that he had discovered.

When you vociferously disagree with some pet theories, you run the risk of being called nearly anything. As you said, it makes no sense. I am one of the most vocal supporters I know of the case against the CIA, as you are. If I was CIA, I'd be agreeing with some of the more outlandish theories out there, trying to deflect attention away from the Company(of course then some moron might see that as a PSYOP, and cite it as "proof"!).

I accept your point about researchers who disagree with your theories spreading rumours about you being CIA. I therefore would not be surprised if people I have clashed with me in the past like Tim Gratz, Tim Carroll, Ashton Gray, Wim Danbaar, Tom Purvis, etc. put it around that I was CIA.

Well, it's always hearwarming to see one's name up in lights, even in a Rogues' Gallery.

And while I hate to have facts interfere with fiction, I am, after all, on the record with copious amounts of laudatory admiration for your dedication and devotion to research and to the open airing of many points of view, particularly your exposure of the crimes of CIA. So I'm very surprised to find that you "would not be surprised" to hear that I made any such patently asinine statement. If you ever do hear any such vicious lie, be very surprised indeed, and post the name of the xxxx who told you any such thing here. I'll take it from there.

Hell, I didn't even know we had "clashed." I guess one man's clash is another man's bumper cars.

As a result of their past history, they would probably not be believed.

While I find the very notion that you're somehow "CIA" to be laughably absurd, you do have the art of smear down pretty well. Of course, fishwives have, too, through the ages, so this is no refined or arcane art.

However, the person who has been named does not fall into this category. We never clash and I virtually agree with everything he says. I also do not believe he is himself CIA. He is also extremely intelligent. Therefore, he has obviously been told a very convincing story by someone he trusts. Maybe he will be willing to post this story.

I'm on the record calling for this person to do just that. And I'm on the record as saying loud and clear and unequivocally that however "intelligent" or "agreeable" someone is, if they are spreading rumors that you are CIA, their intent is not in the least benign.

One day, when we all grow up and get out of short pants, we may start to face the fact that there actually is evil afoot in the world, and that it does not wear the uniform or costume or face that we individually might assume evil to come in. It comes in every conceivable size, shape, and description. Intelligence and ability and "agreeability" have zero to do with intent.

In fact, even a moment's reflection will tell the astute that no covert or intelligence operation in the world ever got anywhere without inducing trust and deceiving. The most important weapon they use is inducing trust, then betraying it. They are masters of the con. That's why they are in the business at all. And they are a tiny minority, but they do the most egregious and gratuitous and infamous self-serving evil that the world ever knows.

But: you often would think you were talking to your best friend. That's why they get the big bucks.

I have also been told that Debra Conway is a CIA agent. Again, a ridiculous idea and probably another case of jealousy. Debra’s JFK Lancer website and forum is one of the most important sources of information for genuine researchers.

Although I haven't been subjected to the rumor that you are "a CIA agent" by anyone directly (and it's a damned good thing), I have been "warned" about Debra Conway and the Lancer site—which I promptly ignored, and have found in her work concise, accurate, unvarnished facts that I had previously had a great deal of trouble trying to track down. I completely agree about the value of her work, in which I have seen not the slightest spin or deceptive agenda.

I have not been told that she was "a CIA agent." So as not to create any mystery, I'll air what I was told: that her husband had been ONI, and that someone who tried "couldn't get any background on her." Like I give a damn.

These are exactly the kinds of rumors and personal smears that I uniformly ignore completely. I once told someone else who posts here that I never read any bios of the members. They were astounded. They just couldn't get it.

The only point is that the only sure antidote I've ever found for the institutional deception of the very agencies so often discussed in these forums is to pursue facts, not personalities, because their stock-in-trade—just as you state below—is the smearing and discrediting of individuals who start to expose them or get close to the truths they so desperately want hidden.

So whenever I begin to be smeared and attacked on a personal basis (a favorite indoor sport of a few people in this very forum), I just pour on the coals. It's the best indication I know of that the train is on the right track.

I recently had a conversation with my most important source of information on the JFK assassination. He has contacts from within the intelligence community. He told me the CIA is very concerned about my website and forum. He also warned me not to write about certain characters who had in the past been CIA assets. I asked him what would happen if I did write about these characters. Would I be in a danger? He laughed and said the CIA no longer kills people. What they would do is to discredit me. I thought it interesting that these are virtually the same words used by Gene Wheaton in the filmed interview where he named Carl E. Jenkins and Chi Chi Quintero as two of the men behind the assassination of JFK.

You posted this before, and I urged you then to expose this, because with the phrase "no longer kills people," you have implied strongly a connection to someone with unique percipient knowledge that the CIA has murdered people in the past with premeditation and malice aforethought. These are capital crimes being bandied about. With laughter.

I don't find it funny. Who does?

Ashton Gray

The CIA had been infiltrated by KGB officers.

Well, ayup. And vice-versa. Since the two agencies worked for the same international commercial interests, it wasn't terribly difficult to exchange personnel and information.

Ashton Gray

Ashton takes down his rifle, draws a bead, and scores a bullseye. As Ginsburg said.

"The CIA, and the KGB keep each others secrets."

"One mind, brute force, and full of money"

HADDA BEEN PLAYING ON A JUKEBOX...

Well this is new to me. Did the CIA and KGB merely cooperate or actually work together? Did they do foreign exchange student kinda swaps?

I guess I'm confused about the statement that "the two agencies worked for the same international commercial interests." Why would rich capitalists tolerate a communist form of gov't? Isn't that bad for business?

They always play both sides of the game.

You can put that in letters that would make the "HOLLYWOOD" sign look about the size of the print on the side-effects list from an Eli Lilly drug. And paint it bright red. And you wouldn't be overstating it.

Ashton

P.S. China is the second largest consumer of oil.

This page...

http://www.akha.org/news/2006/jan/rachelsainthistory.html

...has the following statement regarding McCloy and United Fruit:

• The Rockefellers' Chase National Bank, with his brother David in charge of Latin American operations, was already involved in Ecuador's banana plantations through its client, Standard Fruit Company. Chase also had an interest in United Fruit Company and was represented on United Fruit's board by Chase's chairman, John J. McCloy.
  

This is a page of "United Fruit Company's Friends":

http://www.politicalfriendster.com/showPer...d-Fruit-Company

Clicking on McCloy's entry there takes you here here:

http://www.politicalfriendster.com/showCon...38&id2=2865

Which says:

• McCloy was a lead attorney [of United Fruit] and helped promote their "foreign interests". Along with Dulles they led a CIA Coup in Guatemala creating a UFC "Banana Republic".  
  The capital of the United Fruit Company empire was in Guatemala, in the town of Bananera, where it made its headquarters. (...)
  The pressure mounted against UFCO and finally the company complained to the many friends it had within the U.S. government including President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, saying that Guatemala had turned communist.
  The U.S. State Department and United Fruit embarked on a major public relations campaign to convince the American people and the rest of the U.S. government that Guatemala was a Soviet "satellite".
  The campaign succeeded and in 1954 the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency orchestrated a coup, code-named "Operation PBSUCCESS". The invading force numbered only 150 men under the command of Castillo Armas but the CIA convinced the Guatemalan public and President Arbenz that a major invasion was underway.
  The CIA set up a clandestine radio station to carry propaganda, jammed all Guatemalan stations, and hired skilled American pilots to bomb strategic points in Guatemala City.
  The U.S. replaced the freely elected government of Guatemala with another right-wing dictatorship that would again bend to UFCO's will.
  www.mayaparadise.com/ufc1e.htm
  

I am particularly interested in the Guatemala factor, given how large a role it played in the Bay of Pigs, which I recently posted about, with George de Mohrenschildt happening to have arrived there just in time for that debacle, and Bringuier having passed through there on his way from Cuba -> Guatemala -> Argentina -> Miami -> New Orleans. They both had one hell of a travel agent.

I still would like to see actual documentation on McCloy's purported connection to United Fruit, but there certainly is quite a lot of smoke here for there to be no fire at all.

Ashton

I was wondering what other people thought regarding who were the shooters, and where they were located.

Ashton