Ashton Gray

This ain't the Islamofascism forum, Slithery. It is when— No, it isn't, ever. How far do I have to dumb this down to get it where you can find it? Ashton Gray

I've uploaded to RapidShare a FileMaker Pro 7 database that is a finely-tuned time machine. I do not have it in any other database program format, and have no way to convert it to any other database format. For those who have FileMaker and would like to download it, here is the link, but I hope you will read the rest of this message if you plan to use it: JFK Timeline Database in FileMaker Pro 7 format To download it, you have to scroll to the bottom of the page and click the "Free" button, then scroll to the bottom of the next page you're taken to and enter an on-screen short code, then click the download button. However modest it might appear cosmetically, it is a simple, sleek, elegant, and frighteningly powerful tool that chews through mountains of data that's fed to it, shreds irrelevant twit-fodder into dust, and leaves actual answers glowing like neon. I was fortunate enough to have been given a copy of it that the Watergate data had been run through. I've seen what it can do when properly used. The fruits of much of that effort are in the Watergate forum right now, with more to come. The copy I've uploaded only has a few JFK-related records that I entered from information in the Who Instigated the Dallas Trip, and When? thread, plus a few other sources, just to kickstart the thing for here. I'm posting this in the somewhat wan hope that someone who has a lot of JFK Assassination knowledge and has FileMaker Pro will pick it up and start filling it in with relevant data. I believe it can work research and analysis miracles. I also don't believe that any satisfactory answers on the assassination ever will be realized without just the kind of timeline this machine is capable of producing. Why it works Unlike the creation of any pure text timeline (although the database can export one), the database "forces" information into proper relationship, into proper sequence, and into proper time slots as discrete events that must be assigned a specific date—even if that date first has to be estimated because the only available source is vague about it, and even if the first-estimated date is wrong. Why "even if it's wrong"? Because as more data is entered, eventually the database will nudge an event away from a wrong date and closer to a correct date. Important events will be reported by different sources. As the database grows, an event with a date that previously had to be estimated (and was off) will suddenly be supplied with a correct date, the date gets changed, the database gets sorted by time, and everything looks different. Or other events dictate that the previously believed estimated date absolutely has to have been two weeks earlier, so the date gets changed to reflect that, and suddenly all kinds of things click into line. That can be repeated infinitely until a certainty about previously vague dates obtains. This never happens with plain text timelines. People putting them together will say something happened in "1961," or maybe as localized as "October 1961," and leave it at that, when the precise date is absolutely crucial to any hope of actual understanding how it relates to other events. That's why this database format is such a merciless time machine: it is self-correcting as it grows, and it refuses to take any vague broad-stroke generalities about time. Things happen at specific points in time. There are relationships between events that often remain completely occluded and invisible until the correct sequences of events and their time relationships are identified. Abusing the Machine I put the word "forces" in italics earlier when I said the database "forces" information into proper relationship. It actually isn't designed with the option to require dates, but to "use" it without entering them for every event entered is the same as dumping the same data into your garbage disposal. It will have the same value: zero. If you do download the database and start using it that way, you will waste every keystroke you devote to it. Another way to abuse it is to "improve" it. I said earlier that it is simple. It's incredibly simple. It's a simple flatfile database. There are only a few calculation fields at all, and those only to combine the individual elements of entered dates—day, month, and year—into separate formatted fields with the full date, one in text format for display, one in full date format for sorting the database on. Other than that it has a text field for "Event" and one for "Source." That's it. But its simplicity is its power. That cannot possibly be overstated or said enough or driven home hard enough. Trying to trick it out or make it a "relational database" or add a bunch of "new, improved" fields or any other bells, whistles, or bric-a-brac is a damned good way to make it useless, so why bother to download it at all? Why not just make whatever you want to make, and go for it? The point of all that rant being that if you assay to use this machine, please use it as intended so you can realize its full power to clear out nonsense and bring vitally important relationships into view. How to use it The database as it exists contains 10 entries. The first one is just a "dummy" entry that shows how the day and month fields can contain a "c." (circa) notice to indicate dates that haven't been firmed up yet, and that also gives a brief rundown of where the gas tank is and how to beep the horn and the other very basic essentials of cranking 'er up and letting 'er rip. That "dummy" entry has a date of the first day of 1930, so it's likely to remain the first entry in any time-sorted version that has data just on the JFK assassination. You also can make a copy of the database and delete that record after you get the feel of the thing. The other nine entries are some actual JFK-related incidents that I input to give some practical examples. One or two of those, of necessity, have "circa" day indications because no absolutely certain date is known. Those may need to be changed at some point, but the database will let you know when and if it does—not by red flashing lights and a monotone gender-neutral mechanical voice, but because you'll get better information, or the sequence will suddenly be impossible, and you'll at least know which direction that event has to be moved. The Power of Searching and Sorting Until you see how powerful it is to do a search on "Connally" in the "Event" field, plus "1962" on the year field, and suddenly have every relevant event you've entered in which John Connally was involved that year appear in isolation, and then do a "Sort" and have every one of those events in chronological order in an instant, it's difficult even to conceive. To then stack search commands, e.g. with "Connally" and "Dulles" and whoever or whatever else you want to see in sequential relationship, you have a damned near frightening amount of research power at your instant command. The Downside Data input is extremely time consuming and tedious. It is that way everywhere, under any conditions. It's work. It takes wanting to do it and the perseverance to make it happen. Copy-and-paste and drag-and-drop make things somewhat easier, but not a lot. The good news is that rewards are frequent and often very surprising. One hope is that people could put together a massive JFK timeline as a cooperative effort, with somebody extracting events from one book, another inputting events from some set of testimony, etc., then combining and pruning as necessary. Importing Records? In almost direct contravention to my caveats above about "improving" the database design, one improvement that I think might be of considerable use would be a way to import records from existing sources. I think (though haven't put it to any real test) that the date calculation fields, the way they are set up, make that difficult to do. If some workaround or refinement could be done that would facilitate import from other sources without compromising the inherent functionality of the machine, I think that could be a great boon. Closing Thoughts Of course this timeline database machine is offered only as an aid to anyone who wants to avail themselves of it and who thinks it might have some value. I think it's literally invaluable, and indespensable, or I wouldn't be bothering to write this and upload it. I wish I had the time available to me to launch into its use for the JFK assassination, because I would. But I simply don't have the time available to me, and won't for the foreseeable future. This copy of the database as it stands with these few JFK entries is put into the public domain. It is hoped that if and as it grows, no one will try to make it proprietary, but will make the knowledge broadly available. Thanks for taking the time to read all this, and for your interest. I hope this helps. Ashton Gray

This ain't the Islamofascism forum, Slithery. Before you start trying to give anybody else directions, it might be a prudent idea to figure out where you are first. Ashton Gray

Thanks very much, Michael. Unfortunately, despite a brief flurry of hit-and-miss forays into this forum, I'm going to continue to concentrate the little time I have on the Watergate work, at least until the series of articles I'm working on there is completed. I definitely intend to get to the book you cited as soon as I can, but I'm far behind the curve on the JFK assassination, and have too many other obligations to have time to do what I think needs to be done on it. I am, though, about to post one more post in this forum (in a new topic) going directly to the subject of timelines and the importance I think should be placed on getting a thorough one done on the JFK assassination. That isn't even to suggest that the book you recommend is somehow wanting, because I simply don't know, not having read it. It sounds like it would be an invaluable resource. (But I do have to add that I have a gut feeling that if it had fully done the job of a timeline, we wouldn't all be here right now. That also could be dead wrong.) In any case, if I can figure out how and it's kosher, I'm going to add an attachment of a timeline database template to the message in new topic I'm going to start, in the hopes that somebody will pick it up and do something useful with it. I've made just a few entries from the information in this very thread to get it rolling, but for some time I'm simply not going to be able to approach it further. Thanks again very much for the reference. I look forward to finally carving out time to read it. Ashton

Welcome to Buff Land, where a coincidence is never a coincidence. The problem with you "coincidence" jockies is that you never seem to notice when you're suddenly caught trying to ride six related "coincidences" at once. You're already stretched so thin on this one concatenation of events that you're see-through. Well, Brendan, if Mrs. Paine thinks she can prevail on a claim that "dials a little ringy-dingy" is defamation, I'd say she should file it in the state of hysteria. No matter where she might file, discovery would be a fiesta. Ashton Gray

Thanks, Dawn. I saw the information you posted in the related thread in the Watergate forum, too. Thanks for that, too. I hope you'll get an opportunity to post it in this thread. The phrase "talks held in 1962 and again in 1963" is the exact kind of very intentional inexactness that so blurred the Watergate landscape for decades that nothing could be brought into focus until the key events were tracked down hard and very accurately timelined. The same thing applies to the Kennedy assassination, but cubed. The amount of dispersal on all of it is an amazing thing to watch. It's going to go right on flying outward in thousands of different direction at once, too, until somebody gets deadly serious about timelining it. It would take a lot of work, but probably fewer man hours than are expended in this one forum alone in a month or two on wholly irrelevant and wholly unresolvable minutiae. It is to weep. Ashton

I think, Jack, that the photo that this thread was started about actually might show the black headscarf, and that very fact has been complicating the issue. I got the large tiffs, and they were better to work with, but still only 72 dpi, which is a limitation no matter how you slice it. I used a program that will increase the resolution and compute everything 40 ways from Sunday to give the best representation, but even then it's sort of a mess. However: after running quite a few filters and enhancements on the unprocessed image you sent, an impression emerged that is damn near impossible to represent by using any one filter. It was the cumulative effect of seeing several applied sequentially that seemed to "pull" what I now believe to be the image of Sitzman out of the confusion, and I don't think it's much like any of the previous interpretations. Again I've created an anim to show you, but this is just an "on/off" anim of an overlay I created by lifting the area that appeared to be "her" and running several enhancements on it to subtly bring out some details. I think she's somewhat in 3/4 view, with a bag slung on her left shoulder, holding onto Zapruder—who is in sort of a hunched shooting stance, with left arm pulled into his body—trying to keep him from falling and breaking his neck. If that is the case, the black headscarf is plainly visible in semi-profile. Here's the image I've come up with, which cycles the before/after on and off: It seems to make sense looking at this: I'm afraid that given the condition those pedastal images are in, I've gone about as far as I can with it. There's a point, given that little information, where too much guesswork takes over. But after processing it in lots of ways, that anim above is a rough estimation of my best perception of Sitzman in that shot—headscarf and all. Hope that helps. Now I've got to get back to all the things I used this fun as an excuse to shirk. Ashton

Ashton...I have worn out 3 Macs and still use 2. I have used Macs exclusively since 1992 (self-taught) Ohhhhh, man. Is my face red! How can I ever make up for accusing a Mac user of doing Windows? And worse still: how can I atone for taking this thread so off-topic? Well, see my next post here. Hopefully it will be a start, and I'll go get out my hair shirt to wear... Ashton

Govt-hating wackos bring out the worst in me, Ashton. So far, it seems to the be best in you, too. Maybe I have a limited data set. But you and I ought to get along fine, because I don't hate government: I just want government to clean out the lying, criminal, murdering scum who use the power and shields and funds of government to get away with things for which they'd be fried, juiced, or put away for life otherwise. You don't support them, do you? False. You think it's hard to prove that Jack is incompetent or Groden is a panhandling publicity hound? As I said: "Zero relevant contribution to forum or thread topic." Common sense? No. But thanks for playing. Not yet. Ashton Gray

Get a Mac. Okay, okay: just kidding. (Sort of.) Hell, Jack, Windows is like Richard Helms: it will say anything that suits it. I've e-mailed you on possible causes. I send and receive large files frequently, so I think we can debug it, but let's keep it in e-mail so it's not cluttering things up here. Ashton

Brendan, trust me: you aren't in any danger of that. So far, the only common denominators I can find to your posts are: 1. Snide, supercilious, carping criticism of work somebody else is doing. 2. Zero relevant contribution to forum or thread topic. Have I left anything out? Ashton

Well, Bill, I see Jack in there pitching. I see him being willing to take risks and to look for angles and details somebody else might have missed. And I see him constantly bringing interest and life and a questioning spirit to things lots are willing to take at face value. You don't object to any of that, do you? Working with images of different sizes, both at 72 dpi, there was only so much aligning feasible without a hell of a lot more work than I was willing to devote to it. But yes, it was a quick practical alignment that showed what I was looking for. Still, I'm interested in seeing the higher res versions of both images, without JPEG artifacts. Could be. As I've already said directly to Jack, I personally tend to think the datum, either way, isn't of great relative importance. Having said that, I always find Jack's work to be creative and of interest—of far more interest and relevance than the sideline cawings of some of the birds on a wire here. Ashton

There's no interpretation necessary. It's like saying "the car has four tires touching the road." It's what is. What's to interpret? The flesh tones aren't in the unprocessed lower right image. I blew the saturation as far as it would go, and there were only blues and magentas in the image. I honestly have no idea how he went about introducing the color into the image he was working with, and I totally assume good faith on his part. But I think that if you even ask him, he'll have to agree that color artifacts can creep into any processed image. That's why when doing advanced image processing, usually only certain areas or channels are processed at a time, to keep from creating unexpected, unintended, and unwanted "accidents." Great. I'll PM my email address to you, and you can email them to me. I'll make every good faith effort to see what I can do with them here, and send you the results. I'm not trying to skew this in any direction. I frankly don't think it's ultimately of major importance, but I certainly could be wrong, and right now it happens to be an interesting diversion. Ashton

Oh, for the love of Buddha, Jack: I didn't say he did. Go back and actually read what I wrote. I know damned well what generally pumping saturation of color unselectively into any image can do to various areas of an image, especially one that is washed out to start with. I deal with it all the time. I'm not accusing the man of willfully manipulating it to "introduce fleshtones" in an area that is now being used as the "new, lower face." Whatever you're interpreting as "fleshtones" in that area possibly was nothing more than an ARTIFACT introduced when the overall SATURATION was pumped up and the image was made to be more "colorized." That's all. And the other possibility is that what is now "flesh tones" always was the face, and what previously was thought to be the "face" is some other highlight in the image being formed by the foliage in the background. That's equally likely. The fundamental problem is that you are dealing with images in which there is too little information to begin with to make any certain evaluation. And the only point that I was making, which I stand by, is that the two unprocessed images exhibit no signs of retouching to create a "shorter" woman. Beating it to death further isn't going to change my view of it, because I've looked at it highly magnified here with my own eyes, utilizing my own image processing and enhancement software, and I don't see it. Ashton

Jack, I find much of what you do of great interest, and as you must know by now, I'm no fan of the Langley Crud Factory, but I also have to call 'em as I see 'em, and in this case it looks to me like the enhancement done of the more recent image unfortunately lost the Sitzman head and mistook the top of two diagonal highlights for the new "head." I took the lower (bluer, unprocessed) of the two images on the right and overlayed it on the original yellower image on the left, and they seem to match pretty much exactly. I've circled both heads in red based on the original (left) image of what you posted and left the circles in place as an overlay during the transition: Happy to hear what you think having seen this. Ashton Thanks for the animation, Ashton. But look closely at the added flesh tones which shorten Sitzman. Mmmm. Well, "flesh tones" only appear in your friend's enhancement, and in an area that already was in part of the top diagonal highlight that starts about shoulder area. Your friend's enhancement procedures obviously are not only increasing color saturation, but are adding color into the image. Having done image compositing and retouching since before Photoshop existed, and having a pretty good arsenal of image processing software, I know all too painfully that certain kinds of "enhancement" over an entire image can absolutely wreak havoc on certain areas. Okay. There wasn't to me, which is why I went to the trouble of overlaying the unenhanced images in the first place, to see if I could find any monkeying. It ain't there. If it were, overlaying them would have made it stick out like 3D. The lights/darks all align. So we have a difference of opinion on this set of images. Ashton

Jack, I find much of what you do of great interest, and as you must know by now, I'm no fan of the Langley Crud Factory, but I also have to call 'em as I see 'em, and in this case it looks to me like the enhancement done of the more recent image unfortunately lost the Sitzman head and mistook the top of two diagonal highlights for the new "head." I took the lower (bluer, unprocessed) of the two images on the right and overlayed it on the original yellower image on the left, and they seem to match pretty much exactly. I've circled both heads in red based on the original (left) image of what you posted and left the circles in place as an overlay during the transition: Happy to hear what you think having seen this. Ashton

Outstanding, Ron. Thanks very much. Any indication in the record at all of which of the three originated the idea, and why? The "in September" broad stroke is entirely consistent with a constantly repeating pattern when following CIA spoor where crucial dates are made as vague as is possible. So is the generality "the White House." The White House doesn't do anything but stand there and attract tourists. So now I'll put these questions to the room: who at the White House made or influenced this critical decision, and when "in September"? It's guaranteed to lock like the teeth of a gear into other factors. And I'll bet the farm again that it dovetails with approximately when Buell Wesley Frazier got hired at the TSBD. Well, this is perfect. Exactly ten days later, Buell's sister Linnie Mae has a coffee klatch with her neighbors, Ruth Hyde Paine dials a little ringy-dingy, and the next day Oswald is hired at the TSBD. The "lone assassin theory" nutcases don't even have any toys to pick up before they go home. They just need to report in to their handlers now for a different assignment. Ashton

I raised this question in a related thread in the Watergate forum, being posed now as a few related questions: Who first planted the idea of a trip to Dallas and when was it put on the agenda? Where and when did it actually originate? Please note that this is not a question about any "route change." This has to go back earlier, even earlier than any "route" being planned at all. This is the genesis of the idea for Kennedy to go to Dallas that I'm asking about, and nothing else. The following is just grabbed from a reply I recently posted to Peter Lemkin in the thread in the Watergate forum, and is included with the caveat that I haven't done any in-depth looking, and am hoping somebody might have, or be able to find, an answer: The one question of whether Kennedy had been set up to go to Dallas prior to 14 October 1963 or not is absolutely crucial. Central. Pivotal. That's the tea party with Ruth Hyde Paine and Marina and Linnie Mae Frazier after which Paine does the set-up for Oswald being hired at the TSBD. If plans for Kennedy to go to Dallas were made prior to 14 October 1963, that's the end of all "lone assassin" theories. Their dust can be put into an urn and scattered at sea, and the JFK Assassination forum will be entirely deloused of that whole faction of disinformation scum. There also would be some relevance and point of reference to the "route change" that would then fit into a whole. We'd also then know that the Paine track will connect with the instigators for the Dallas trip somewhere, somehow, and you're on the hot trail. It might even run into Southwestern as yet another CIA front. Yet I go to look for that one absolutely crucial piece of information about when and by whom the decision to go to Dallas was made or planted, and can't find it anywhere. It's this giant, yawning, gaping Grand Canyon where an eight-lane highway of crucial information should be. But by God there's 40 million man-hours of arguing over crap that can never possibly have any resolution, specifically because it was set up just that way. It's Bedlam, just like Watergate was before somebody did an actual timeline of it—only exponentially worse in the JFK assassination case. I'm willing to bet the farm that the answer to my question can be found in the available literature somewhere, but I'll also predict that the date has been heavily obfuscated, since this is another primary psy-op tool... . I hope I am very wrong about this and that somebody here does have the answer or a place to look to find it. Ashton Gray

Prouty spake sooth. If you never get the overview, the details have no form to adhere to, so will stick to anything. With insufficient major pieces, somebody assembles the little pieces to make a gryphon and somebody else assembles the pieces to make a giant rat-like creature with hooves, and somebody else assembles the pieces to make Marilyn Monroe. (In all cases, though, pieces are left out, or non-pieces are postulated in.) The one question of whether Kennedy had been set up to go to Dallas prior to 14 October 1963 or not is absolutely crucial. Central. Pivotal. That's the tea party with Ruth Hyde Paine and Marina and Linnie Mae Frazier after which Paine does the set-up for Oswald being hired at the TSBD. If plans for Kennedy to go to Dallas were made prior to 14 October 1963, that's the end of all "lone assassin" theories. Their dust can be put into an urn and scattered at sea, and the JFK Assassination forum will be entirely deloused of that whole faction of disinformation scum. There also would be some relevance and point of reference to the "route change" that would then fit into a whole. We'd also then know that the Paine track will connect with the instigators for the Dallas trip somewhere, somehow, and you're on the hot trail. It might even run into Southwestern as yet another CIA front. Yet I go to look for that one absolutely crucial piece of information about when and by whom the decision to go to Dallas was made or planted, and can't find it anywhere. It's this giant, yawning, gaping Grand Canyon where an eight-lane highway of crucial information should be. But by God there's 40 million man-hours of arguing over crap that can never possibly have any resolution, specifically because it was set up just that way. It's Bedlam, just like Watergate was before somebody did an actual timeline of it—only exponentially worse in the JFK assassination case. I'm willing to bet the farm that the answer to my question can be found in the available literature somewhere, but I'll also predict that the date has been heavily obfuscated, since this is another primary psy-op tool (which I can't believe I left out of the article I did on those techniques, and which I am going to correct). For any worthwhile timeline to be done where CIA has been involved, it always is necessary to compute important dates that they want hidden, and the computation inevitably can be done from clues that inevitably are in the record, but it takes one hell of a lot of work. That's because it's almost always in terms of "several months earlier" or "in early 1962" or some other vague, obscure time reference. That's why multiple sources are vitally important, because by putting multiple accounts of the same event into one timeline, however imprecisely to begin with, they ultimately nudge each other into line, and—when placed against known time-located events—ultimately can be clicked into place, even when there's been a lot of effort expended to keep the dates as hazy as possible. I touched on this in the CIA Psy-Ops article when I said that timelines are "the single most neglected and misused tool of investigative research." The entire subject really could have a whole book devoted to it, but I'll just say here that from my observation one of the biggest failures people make is to fail to compute omitted or vague dates as accurately as possible, and then to use multiple sources to continue to narrow the dates (and in some cases even time of day) of those events down as precisely as possible. Ayup. If anything I've said has seemed to be any kind of gratuitous criticism of the many fine people and the enormous and admirable industry that has been honorably and selflessly devoted to unraveling the great mystery of Dealey Plaza, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa. I'm simply focusing my efforts and attention elsewhere at the moment, and am not ready to launch into the JFK assassination. The JFK forum is invaluable. So are all the other sites and forums carrying all that data. Every bit of it is important. As with any body of data, though, when it all is equally important, then it's a land fill. That's the definition of "land fill": everything in it has the same importance. A prime example is the exchange I've had with John Simkin in this very thread about this "the whole Bay of Pigs thing" quote from Nixon. It's achieved blimp-sized stature in the annals of Watergate, while the fact that the "first break-in" was nothing but a massive CIA hoax gets completly missed for 34 years. Every Watergate researcher without exception has tripped over the inconsistencies in this "first break-in" hoax and fallen flat on his face, then gotten back up and gone on chasing colorful blimps without bothering to see what he tripped over. And from my evaluation, Nixon's blimp-sized comment is nothing but hot air. It wouldn't have mattered if he'd been referring to a secret NASA mission to Uranus. Once it's timelined it becomes glaringly obvious that it was so far into the whole CIA operation that no matter what he'd been referring to, it was the equivalent of putting a penny on the tracks trying to stop a freight train. To switch analogies, by the time Nixon uttered that banality, the gallows had been built long since by CIA, and Nixon was standing on the trap door with his neck in the noose and the hood over his head, and he didn't even know it. All that remained was for CIA to do was pull the lever. Then haul him back up, reset the trap door, and pull the lever again. Then haul him back up, reset the trap door, and pull the lever again. Which they did, repeatedly. John Dean was Lord High Executioner, and L. Patrick Gray his assistant. Hunt was the obligatory witness-to-execution, having built the gallows. The point to this harrangue is simply that no matter how large an ocean of data is available, it doesn't, and can't, assume its rightful value until that data has been carefully organized and evaluated and sorted for proper sequence and importance. Getting it into proper sequence is a primary step, and that, alone, usually sorts out at least the paramount importances. The others sift down into line then. I told John Simkin weeks ago my very strong opinion that no new analysis ever would emerge from the Kennedy assassination evidence until it has been meticulously timelined, as Watergate has been. If and when it is, just such grossly misplaced and misaligned importances will right themselves. Also, glaring vital omissions and undetermined or incorrect sequences like the "Dallas trip planned vs. Oswald hiring at TSBD" will light up like a winning Vegas dollar slot. I never heard anything back. I stand by that opinion. And now I've used up my entire week's posting quota. Sorry for the unsolicited essay, but all these things go to the very heart of the matter from my view. Ashton

A very short story: Miracle Over Morocco The Watergate Assassination Within an "Assassination Attempt" to Cover an Assassination It is Wednesday, 16 August 1972. The Watergate grand jury is going about its business in Washington, D.C., as is the FBI under the direction of CIA's Richard Helms through his hand puppets John Dean and L. Patrick Gray. Far across the Atlantic, as King Hassan II of Morocco is returning from Paris, his plane is strafed by Moroccan Air Force Phantom jets, but he and his plane miraculously survive unharmed. It is announced as an attempted coup. The next day, Thursday, 17 August 1972, it is announced that Hassan's Defense Minister, Muhammad Oufkir, has committed suicide. And the day after that, Friday, 18 August 1972, it is announced that Oufkir has been implicated in the plot to assassinate King Hassan II. Peace reigns again as the desert sun sets over picturesque Morocco. The End CLASS DISCUSSION First, don't mind that smell: that's just how it smells everywhere CIA goes. And just what does this have to do with Watergate? Well, some people who were "in the vicinity" (Big shout out to the G-Man and Eduardo! Yo, dudes!) have suggested rather strongly that Muhammad Oufkir had been up to his turban in a very dirty little operation that the CIA had run several months earlier in Morocco, over a few special days in 1972 that the Americans call "Memorial Day weekend": 26, 27, and 28 May 1972. If that has a familiar ring to it, that's the weekend of the purported "first break-in" at the Watergate and several purported "failed attempts" at a break-in. Only problem is, there was no "first break-in" at the Watergate at all that weekend, nor were there any "failed attempts." There was, however, a very dirty little CIA operation during that same time period over Morocco way, and Oufkir was in on it. First point of discussion: So where were the Watergate boys—Liddy, Hunt, McCord, Baldwin, etc.—that Memorial Day weekend if they weren't busy trying to break into the Watergate, as they claimed? (Feel free to organize into discussion groups and talk amongst yourselves.) Then there's Oufkir's suicide. As in all things Moroccan, it, too, was picturesque. Here is a description of it from an eyewitness: Oufkir's brother led me to the body of my chief which was covered with a blanket. I lifted the blanket and looked carefully at the body riddled with bullets. The chest, the stomach, and a portion of the face had been blown off. The bullets had been shot from behind. So the next point of discussion is: Has there ever been a lower form of life than CIA on planet Earth? The answer is no. End of that discussion. Moving on: Finally, we get to the title of the story, and discussion of the "Miracle Over Morocco." How in the world did King Hassan II manage such a miracle in a non-combat plane as to survive an attack by Phantom jets of his own Air Force? When CIA is involved, there's nothing to it: a certain Commander Kouira had equipped the machine guns in the fighter jets with blank training bullets instead of using explosive bullets. And now you know how CIA covered its tracks in Morocco for what it had done over Memorial Day weekend 1972, while at the same time it was having Douglas Caddy, Alfred Baldwin, John Dean, and L. Patrick Gray cover its tracks in the U.S. for that dirty little Memorial Day weekend 1972 Mission to Morocco. Class discussion is over. You may go turn on your favorite cable news provider and wonder why the Islamic world is exploding. Ashton Gray P.S. Don't bother looking in the Church Committee or the Rockefeller CIA whitewash for any of this. Somehow it got overlooked.

Then again, they're wonton murders, they're pathological liars, and they hide what they do in a crawl space of "national security." Of course, they don't wear clown suits. (Well, actually, sometimes they do.) Ashton

I think the opposite is true. It was because Richard Nixon knew about the role the CIA played in the assassination of JFK, that he was removed from office. His attempts at blackmail failed because the CIA had more on him than he had on them. That is the same reason why J. Edgar Hoover was never sacked by Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. Well, of course it could be, John, but to me it's one of the biggest, fluffiest, pinkest pieces of cotton candy in all of Watergate—and that's a mouthful. (Pun intended. Unfortunately.) What foundation is there for it? What evidence is there for it? What connections did Nixon have after he lost the election to Kennedy that would have put him in the loop enough to know who did the JFK murder op and any details of it, even if he might have suspected? On the Bay of Pigs, per se, he unquestionably was in on the ground floor, and knew the whole Intel Cult command structure while he was V.P., so would have certainly had enough information on that to have known where the bodies were buried. But when it comes to his means of knowing on the JFK assassination, foundation is just flatline as far as I can see. It's a whole Rube Goldberg contraption of theory built in the air, and even the air it's built on was the breath spent on an off-hand opinion opined by Haldeman, which, as far as I can tell, he pulled out of his nose. Or out of somewhere. If there's some actual foundation—any foundation—I'm completely open to it. Till then, it seems just an added level of complication to me that, really, goes nowhere. It doesn't resolve anything. It doesn't fit into the picture in any way that makes any sense. In fact, the exact time where it occurs, 23 June 1972, happens to be one of the days that the current article I'm working on in the "CIA Watergate Bait-and-Switch" series covers, and the fact of this being brought up by Haldeman in the meeting with Helms and Walters and Cushman has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on what already had been completely set up by the time the meeting happened. It doesn't change anything. It has no effect, except Helms gets to exhibit some of his haughty, arrogant righteous indignation. I hope you'll read the article when I get it posted (hopefully by the end of this weekend), and see if you can tell me how it had any bearing whatsoever in the ensuing events. I can't. The events had already been set up with the traceable $100 bills linking back to Ogarrio and Dahlberg, plus the planted electronic "evidence," plus the "loaded safe," and the planted links to Hunt and Liddy. Every single one of those traps of the operation was cocked and ready to spring by the time "the whole Bay of Pigs" phrase was mentioned, and it didn't have the slightest influence on the outcome. All that said, I sure would love to see any evidence or foundation for believing that Nixon had some inside skinny on the Kennedy assassination, or any evidence or foundation for deducing that when he said "goddamn" he meant "bless your heart." I think he meant "goddamn." And I think when he said "Bay of Pigs," he meant "Bay of Pigs." Ashton

Thanks, kiddo. All my pleasure. Now help me get it circulated, will you? Send copies to every media person you can find. Put them on notice, too. I am. I'll be posting a list of where I've sent it soon, but it's impossible to send it out too many times to too many places. It can't be overdone. While it may be true that much of our media is controlled, all of it isn't. There are people starving for the truth. We've got to start demanding that we get it, and that nothing short of it will answer. Ashton

And a magnificent, astute, and prophetic quote it is. Just a brief visit to the JFK forum is grounds for a nap. With the open admission that I've taken only the most cursory look, I see very little about how Kennedy got located in Dealey Plaza and by whom. I've seen some research analyses of when and how the itenerary and route might have been known and by whom—as in pursuit of a "target of opportunity" approach—but have not seen that string pulled all the way back to the influences that put him there in the first place. If anyone has any pointers to what exists on that, I'd be grateful. Ashton

Yes. The Lone Assassin Theory is sort of like belling the cat, and is its own reward. Ashton