Cliff Varnell
-
Posts
8,627 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Store
Posts posted by Cliff Varnell
-
-
* * *
"I believe the CIA directed and controlled the assassination of John Kennedy."
* * *
"Morales may have worked for the mob."
* * *
I don't buy any of this.
Morales/Phillips/Lansdale didn't work for an ENTITY -- "the mob," "the Agency."
etc.
They worked for a specific United States government POLICY: the military
overthrow of the Castro government in response to the Castro-ordered murder
of President John F. Kennedy.
The carefully sheep-dipped patsy survived to be captured alive, and thus the
operation of Eleven Twenty-Two failed in it's primary objective.
The invade-Cuba policy had much sympathy in the CIA, organized crime,
the Joint Chiefs, the Texas oil industry, the Dallas Police Dept., the FBI,
the office of the Vice President, the Secret Service, and others. How this
sympathy congealed into material support for the conspirators is a matter
of speculation.
But not one of those entities directed and controlled the assassinations, imo.
Morales, Phillips & Lansdale -- coup makers extraordinaire -- likely directed and
controlled the JFK assassination, with Morales likely responsible for arranging
Bobby's murder.
The assassination of Robert Kennedy had the (successful) primary objective
of PREVENTING a USG policy under a potential RFK Presidency -- the rigorous
investigation of his brother's murder.
Morales wasn't in the Ambassador Hotel as a hired hand -- he was there to
keep his own treasonous neck out of a noose.
-
Gaeton Fonzi and James Bamford broke the JFK case years ago.
If there had been more men like Gaeton Fonzi on the HSCA, the case might have been solved....Oh, pardon me, did I interrupt some poetic pining for the truth?'scuse...
No pining for the truth here, is there?
Understand this, also: The action that brought about the death of President Kennedy is directly related to where we have gone as a nation since then. It is particularly important to what is happening today. That single event prefaced the disintegration of our solid faith in government, fathering the now pervasive and enervating assumption that we no longer have control over our economic or political destiny. Its residue lies in the ashes of the Sixties--in burned out countries and burned out cities and burned out people--and in the debilitating social disparities and continuing civil conflicts of the last thirty years. The assassination and its aftermath bred rampant distrust and disrespect for all established institutions, and that outlook festers yet.And now, we hardly give a damn when our own Government violates or ignores its own laws, as it has done with distressing regularity over the last two decades. An enormous public apathy greeted the Iran/Contra scandals; we were hardly stirred by the fact that hidden layers of government had pursued a secret foreign policy agenda, circumventing the law of the land, the Congress and the Constituion itself.And still, it seems incredible that we're not angry. The fact is, we know an effective democracy demands a populace ready, willing and able to get riled enough to pressure its elected officials into doing their duty in spite of themselves. Where is that anger now?The Government has failed us. It is outrageous that in a democratic society, after two official investigations, our Government still tells us it doesn't know what happened,I hope this book makes you angry about that. Very angry. If it doesn't, we might as well let slip the grip on our individual freedom. It will be gone soon enough.Gaeton Fonzi 1993The Last InvestigationThis was the book that inspired my research.
My advice to any newbies to the subject -- read the Last Investigation, &
the chapter on Operation Northwoods in James Bamford's Body of Secrets,
Gerald D. McKnight's Breach of Trust, & anything by Rex Bradford.
MEXI is the key. Sheep dipping the patsy as a Castro agent, Phillips head of
anti-Castro activities in MC.
Maurice Bishop...Ed Lansdale...bad guys.
Key government docs (among others) -- Op Northwoods (see Bamford) and this:
http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/the_critics/g..._CIA_Agent.html
This case is solved to my satisfaction and I don't need the NY Times to ratify my conclusion.
-
Gaeton Fonzi and James Bamford broke the JFK case years ago.
It is a "false mystery," as Vincent Salandria would say (Oliver Stone
should have made JFK about Salandria, not Garrison.)
JFK was murdered to provide a pre-text to invade Cuba.
David Atlee Phillips was fingered by his own family.
David Sanchez Morales was fingered by very close family friends.
Ed Lansdale -- the inspiration for the Operation Northwoods false
flag plots to establish a pre-text to invade Cuba -- was fingered
by two close colleagues as being in one of the tramp photos.
It isn't too obvious now, is it?
...Oh, pardon me, did I interrupt some poetic pining for the truth?
'scuse...
-
John, the Tague fragment is not nearly the mystery it seems to be, once one realizes that it was a fragment from the head shot and not a sepaqate bullet strike. Sturdivan and Rahn have a whole section on this on Rahn's website. Sturdivan maintains that fragments exit skulls at hundreds of feet per second and that a large enough fragment--more than a third of the head shot bullet was never found--would have enough energy to travel to Tague and damage the curb. He performs a series of calculations demonstrating this. It made sense to me at the time. If you take a look and find something wrong with their thinking on this point please let me know.
A 3g frag can't maintain a near-straight-line trajectory into the teeth of a hard,
swirling wind over the course of 85 yards.
Rahn didn't accurately calculate the rise and run of his Tague Frag, as our friend
John Hunt proved back in 2002. Rahn acknowledged that the curb-impact velocity
would thus be reduced 30%. He promised to change the figures on his website,
but since he is a propagandist and not an educator he lacks the sufficient intellectual
honesty to maintain accuracy.
Rahn and Sturdivan are crackpots, Pat -- havent you figured that out?
-
Ok, I'm looking at it. I wonder if Tom could post the elevation above sea level for the curb strike position? I think one should be able to do a calculation ackwards from there tosee what velocity a fragment would have had to have to rise from Kennedys head over obstacles and descend to the curb at that point. I imagine it would be possible to be quite precise about that. Maybe not? If so one can then speculate about if that would be sufficiet to tangentially strike concrete, cause the damage it did and chips break skin 20 feet away.
John, while you're at it, take a look at this frame of the Muchmore film...
[scroll down a bit]
http://spot.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_...ue/beverly.html
Note the position of the bottom of Mary Moorman's and Jean Hill's coats.
There was a stiff breeze blowing from the southwest at the moment of the head shot.
Meanwhile, up on the corner of Houston and Elm, motorcycle cop Marrion Baker was
almost knocked over by a stiff wind from the north.
James Tague stood 90 yards southwest of the limo at the moment of the head shot.
There was a hard, swirling wind blowing in Dealey Plaza, and yet we are to buy the
notion that a 3g bullet fragment could maintain a near-straight-line trajectory into
the teeth of this hard, swirling wind over the course of some 85 yards?
The notion is absurd on its face, no?
-
There is evidence of a sound-suppressed shot from the right front circa Z199.
Here's JFK at Z186 in Betzner #3.
[hit enlarge]
http://www.geocities.com/quaneeri4/Betzner_Large.jpg
He sat bolt upright, head turned to the right, right arm waving.
He was last in this posture at Z198.
[hit enlarge]
http://www.assassinationresearch.com/zfilm/z198.jpg
Phil Willis stated that he took his fifth photo in a startle response to a gun shot.
Thanks to John Hunt's correction of Willis #5 to the horizon line, we can
see that JFK was leaning noticably to his left at Z202.
The HSCA made the following analysis:
(quote on)
By Zapruder frame 207, when President Kennedy is seen going behind a sign
that obstructed Zapruder’s view, he appears to be reacting to a severe external
stimulus. This reaction is first indicated in the vicinity of frame 200 of the Zapruder
film. The President’s right hand freezes in the midst of a waving motion, followed
by a rapid leftward movement of his head. There is, therefore, photographic evidence
of a shot striking the President by this time.(HSCA Report and Vol. 6:17)
(quote off)
How does a mere 3 Z-frames (1/6th of a second) allow enough time for
both Phil Willis' startle response and the mechanical operation of the camera?
I'd argue that the shot that startled Phil Willis and made him take his fifth photo was
NOT the same shot that struck JFK in the throat from the right front circa Z199.
The throat shot was sound suppressed.
-
The "40 million dead" scenario was a con job from beginning to end.
From James Bamford's BODY OF SECRETS (pg 84)
(quote on)
On February 20, 1962, [John] Glenn was to lift off from Cape Canaveral, Florida,
on his historic journey. The flight was to carry the banner of America's virtues
of truth, freedom, and democracy into orbit high over the planet. But [Chairman
of the JCS] Lemnitzer and his Chiefs had a different idea. They proposed to
[Operation Mongoose chief] Lansdale that, should the rocket explode and kill
Glenn, "the objective is to provide irrevocable proof that...the fault lies with the
Communists et al Cuba [sic]." This would be accomplished, Lemnitzer continued,
"by manufacturing various pieces of evidence which would prove electronic interference
on the part of the Cubans." Thus, as NASA prepared to send the first American into
space, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were preparing to use John Glenn's possible death as
a pre-text to launch a war.
(quote off)
BODY OF SECRETS (pg 87): Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Lyman
Lemnitzer wrote in a memorandum to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara,
April 10, 1962...
(quote on, emphasis added)
The Joint Chiefs of Staff believe that the Cuban problem must be solved in the near
future...Further, they see no prospect of early success in overthrowing the present
communist regime either as a result of internal uprising or external political, economic
or psychological pressures. Accordingly they believe that military intervention by the
United States will be required to overthrow the present communist regime...The Joint
Chiefs of Staff believe that the United States can undertake military intervention in Cuba
WITHOUT RISK OF GENERAL WAR. They also believe that the intervention can be
accomplished rapidly enough to minimize communist opportunities for solicitation of
U.N. action.
(quote off)
In order to successfully establish a pre-text to invade Cuba, "the objective is to
provide irrevocable proof" that anti-American acts were ordered by Castro, and
that such proof would allow the US to invade Cuba "without risk of general war."
Such was the thinking at the top of American military circles in 1962, and, I'd
speculate, on 11/22/63.
Such was the thinking of at least one Cuban journalist on Eleven Twenty-Two,
according to this:
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2303/sto...24001605500.htm
(quote on)
On November 22, 1963, I was in the picturesque La Percherie restaurant in the port of
Algiers, anticipating the house's excellent snails with Helen Klein, the United States
press chief of President Ahmed Ben Bella. We suddenly received the terrible news.
"President Kennedy has been assassinated!" Now they are going to blame Cuba," I
immediately told her.
"Don't exaggerate," she said.
We quickly went to the Prensa Latina agency on 26, Rue Claude Debussy, where I was
working as a correspondent. There I learned how the radio stations were repeating that
the Cuban government was responsible for the assassination. Surprised, Helen asked me
how I had guessed it.
"I'm not a fortune-teller," I explained, "but for the United States, Cuba is the cause of all
evil. A little bit of it because of hysteria and another little bit because they are looking for
a pretext to try and crush us."
However, a few hours later, the accusation vanished into the air with the same speed that
it had entered...
A Washington-based journalist with close links to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
told me in confidence that the version originally came from the CIA, which distributed a
note stating that Lee Harvey Oswald had committed the murder on behalf of the Cuban government. He added that the FBI forced the media to withdraw the accusation.
When I asked the veteran journalist why the FBI had taken the trouble to do so, he
explained that they considered the initiative an irresponsibility that could have unleashed incalculable consequences, such as a third world war.
(quote off)
Plan A of the assassination plot, to murder JFK in a manner that could be blamed on
a Castro conspiracy, became Plan B in the cover-up: when the lone assassin scenario
(Cover-up Plan A) falls apart, blame Castro and conjur the vision of "40 million dead."
Clearly, the bar that the super-hawks established for a fruitful pretext for invasion had
not been cleared when Oswald was captured alive. Civilian hawks like McGeorge Bundy
understood this, even if the CIA did not. According to Vincent Salandria, Bundy first
transmitted the "news" that Oswald was a lone nut to LBJ before the new President
even landed in DC.
From Salandria's article, "The Tale Told by Two Tapes,"
(quote on)
The Situation Room of the White House first fingered Oswald as the lone assassin...
McGeorge Bundy was in charge of the Situation Room and was spending that fateful
afternoon receiving phone calls from President Johnson, who was calling from Air Force
One when the lone-assassin myth was prematurely given birth...
(quote off)
According to Max Holland's THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION TAPES, Bundy,
Sec/Def Robert McNamara, and George Ball discussed the "overseas implications of
the assassination" on the helicopter ride from Andrews AFB to the White House (pg 57).
LBJ wasn't in the White House more than a few minutes before another major figure
popped in to tell the new Prez what's what...
THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION TAPES, pg 57:
(quote on)
At 6:55 p.m.Johnson has a ten-minute meeting with Senator J. William Fulbright
(D-Arkansas) and diplomat W. Averell Harriman to discuss possible foreign involvement
in the assassination, especially in light of the two-and-a-half year Soviet sojourn of Lee
Harvey Oswald, a twenty-four-year-old man apprehended by Dallas police who is now
considered the chief suspect. Harriman, a U.S. ambassador to Moscow during
World War II, is an experienced interpreter of Soviet machinations and offers the
President the unanimous view of the U.S. government's top Kremlinologists. None
of them believe the Soviets have a hand in the assassination.
(quote off)
I'd speculate that Harriman and Bundy -- rocks of the Eastern Establishment -- would
have signed off on a Cuban invasion if Oswald had been gunned down on Eleven Twenty-Two.
A dead patsy would have enabled the "rapid intervention" required to avoid "general war."
That the patsy was captured alive muddled the picture, so Harriman and Bundy killed the
Castro-did-it scenario.
The man caught in the middle of all this was J. Edgar Hoover. Sympathetic with the
super-hawks, Hoover was given the job of proving that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone
without any foreign involvement.
It was not a job that Hoover relished, I'd speculate, which is why he expressed his
"confusion" during the 11/23 call from LBJ:
http://www.history-matters.com/essays/fram...enMinuteGap.htm
I find this passage from Gerald McKnight's BREACH OF TRUST most telling:
(quote on)
Cartha D. "Deke" DeLoach, the assistant director in charge of the Crime Records Division,
the bureau's well-oiled and effective public relations machine, leaves us with the image of
"the Director" as a natural leader abled to rise to the occasion and surmount any crisis.
DeLoach's Hoover faced national traumas with "a cold and analytical eye," transforming
himself into a high performance machine, spitting out orders...measuring his words with
the precision of a jeweler." Nevertheless, on the day of the assassination DeLoach's
unerring, machinelike director unaccountably broke down. Before that shattering day was
over, virtually every fact he reported to high government officers was wrong. He had shots
coming from the fourth and fifth floors of the book depository building and a Winchester
rifle as the murder rather than the now familiar Mannlicher-Carcano allegedly owned by
Oswald. He had Oswald shuttling back and forth to Castro's Cuba, when in fact Oswald's
one effort to get to Cuba from Mexico in the fall of 1963 had proven futile. There is no
FBI or other government record made public that documents Oswald ever being in Cuba...
Before the day was over, Hoover, despite his record of factual error, hade envisioned the
solution to the crime -- Oswald, "a nut of the extreme pro-Castro crowd," was the lone
assassin.
(quote off)
So, was Hoover a senile old man venting his delusions, or was there a method to
his madness?
The following suggests the latter:
BREACH OF TRUST pg 16:
(quote on)
As the result of stellar investigative techniques or an informant, the FBI had traced
Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano...to Klein's [sporting Goods Company] the day of
the assassination.
(quote off)
So Hoover had his boys hot on the trail of the MC while Hoover spouted out about
a Winchester, as well as multiple shooting locations and a lone assassin.
I'd speculate that Hoover was keeping both scenarios open -- Castro Conspiracy and
Lone Nut -- in order to accomodate both the Harriman/Bundy crowd (Yankees) and the
Generals "L" -- LeMay, Lemnitzer and Lansdale (Cowboys). Hoover wanted to push for
Castro Conspiracy, but the Yankees held sway over the new President.
This ambiguity extended to the way in which the evidence was handled as it came in
to the FBI Lab on 11/22 and the morning of 11/23.
This document, unearthed by Anthony Marsh, is the contemporaneous notes of
FBI lead examiner Robert Frazier.
http://home.comcast.net/~the-puzzle-palace/436461A.gif
Note the two references to "Q1" and the listing of the limo frags initially as "#1 #2 #3".
Those frags were later designated "Q11 Q12 Q13" (according to John Hunt) and still later
designated together as "Q14."
http://home.comcast.net/~the-puzzle-palace/436461A.gif
This document, unearthed by John Hunt, is Frazier's "evidence roadmap," which
he prepared for his WC testimony. Note the reference to the distribution of
master evidence lists with "the Q & K #s blanked out." (#5)...
http://history-matters.com/essays/frameup/...aks/Figure3.jpg
At 10:01am on 11/23/63 LBJ called Hoover and told him to squelch all talk
of conspiracy. The Northwoods option had failed, and Hoover was stuck
with the job of turning an obvious conspiracy into the work of one man.
-
...right on cue the thread descends into chaos...
It's time for me to don the CT jacket, step up to the line in the great Parlor Game...
tho I can't cut through the din perhaps I can spark the discussion away from spats over
that great black hole -- photo alteration...
The case of John F. Kennedy's murder was solved in 2001 with the publication of
James Bamford's BODY OF SECRETS, with its revelations about Operation Northwoods.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/northwoods.html
Gen. Lansdale inspired Operation Northwoods and colleagues ID him in one of
the tramp photos.
http://www.ratical.org///ratville/JFK/USO/appD.html
Dovetails nicely with what Gaeton Fonzi dug up on David Atlee Phillips and David
Sanchez Morales in THE LAST INVESTIGATION.
http://cuban-exile.com/doc_001-025/doc0006.html
A document uncovered in 1998 links Lansdale with an intelligence operative
who fit the description of Maurice Bishop...
http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/the_critics/g..._CIA_Agent.html
JFK was murdered in a manner designed to look like a conspiracy -- a Castro
conspiracy. Powerful segments of the military/intelligence community wanted
a pre-text to invade Cuba, and wield a more free hand in Vietnam.
Oswald was obviously sheep-dipped to fit the bill of a Castro agent.
I'd speculate that if a Dallas policeman had gunned down Oswald on
Eleven Twenty-Two, the US Air Force would have, in the words of
Richard Helms, "bombed Cuba back into the middle ages."
-
Hi Ashton,
Killer post.
You hit on some things I've been rolling around in my cabeza for a while...our
agreements are as sharp as our disagreement(s).
The only thing in your post I wholeheartedly disagree with is the insinuation
that Pat Speer et al are "disinformation agents."
I don't buy it. I think the cover-up took on a life of its own decades ago, and
you eloquently describe its current function otherwise. That's a point of
agreement I'll get to shortly.
When "CTs" argue major LNer talking points, I dismiss them as ego-heads whose
need to be *right* overpowers any intellectually honest urge to know the truth.
I give 'em the "Vichy CT" needle if they ask for it, but otherwise I give them
the benefit of the doubt.
Don't get me wrong, it certainly is *possible* that some think tank is funding
these clowns -- but I don't go there because when you get right down to it,
anybody who disagrees with me about anything is potentially suspect...
...Pat, you again refuse to discuss any of the evidence I put forth and apparently want to make this a battle of conclusions.
...That's why you snip out my arguments, rather than stand and rebut them point by point.
...You regularly accuse me of hindering progress in the case!
...How does embracing an obvious lie *win* any argument?
...Unfortunately you have an ugly habit of attributing arguments to people they never made.
Hi, Cliff.
I've taken the liberty of excerpting the quotes above from several of your messages, not to comment on the evidence at issue—since I believe the "medical evidence" is almost exclusively the game of the disinformationists for reasons set forth herein—but to comment on the games played on their selected playing fields.
Bingo! There are many such black hole discussions in this case, the location of the
head wounds most especially. You say dis-info, I say mis-info, but otherwise, yes,
these discussions have an obfuscationary function.
Anything that makes the case needlessly complex serves an obfuscationary function,
imho, and this is often the collatoral damage of good research, as much as the
intellectually dishonest product of the ego-head mis-infos.
Other black holes I rarely descend:
NAA of bullet fragments
the police dictabelt/acoustic evidence
the Garrison investigation
photo alteration (outside of Fox 5 autopsy photo -- clearly altered)
J. Baker/J. Files
This thread may be the only discussion of the head wounds I've engaged in since 1997.
Near total waste of time, that one.
The nature of the throat wound is not a waste of time. It's characteristics may
point to the perps.
And the location of the back wound is prima facie proof of conspiracy.
The boundaries of their playing fields are always marked by the edges of the mists of ambiguity. Hardly any greater ambiguity exists than the provenance and validity of the "medical evidence." It is a Klein bottle of "evidence," existing inside and outside itself with no entrance and no exit (and that can be taken in any way anyone wishes, literally or figuratively).Their playing fields are governed, in terms of time, only by infinity, and, in terms of goals, only by conflict: time never expires, conflicts are never resolved, scores cannot be made, arguments can be neither won nor lost. But the game can be won infinitely by the playing field owners, since the only goal anywhere on the field is the continuance of the conflict through any means, any tactic, without the slightest regard for any rules of engagement, debate, or decency. Anyone reckless enough to play their game on their own fields of ambiguity with the hope of any other possible outcome is doomed by stepping on the field.
The Parlor Game.
When I realized that I could play the Parlor Game into infinity, always commanding
the lead but always running in place, I found fun in the idea of taking hostages.
I have two -- John Hunt and Chad Zimmerman. My critiques of their intellectually
indefensible SBT-works are scathing to the nth degree, but mostly I hold my fire.
When the Parlor Game gets real sick, reputations are hunted for sport.
Their overriding and ruling rule is chaos, not order. Even if one should be clever or observant enough to make inroads of clarity on their foggy fields of ambiguity, the amorphous boundaries—like the time that governs play—are infinitely movable and infinitely expandable through the infinite accusation of fictional "arguments" never argued or proposed, just as you bemoan above. If you should be so astute as actually to take one tiny piece of their ground, 20,000 more acres of mist are created from nothing in an instant and added to the field stretched out before you....Damn! Now that is some writin', bro-slam!
Yep, I got me my little piece o' original JFK research, my one (1) contibution to the case:
Jacket up on Main St, jacket normal in Fort Worth...
http://www.jfklancer.com/photos/sbt/tkoap.jpg
Jacket normal at Z186 (visible shirt collar, vertical/diagonal fold)
http://www.geocities.com/quaneeri4/Betzner_Large.jpg
Back 1997 I started posting research on the internet, arguing for the primacy
of the clothing evidence.
At that time 5% of all JFK researchers regarded the clothing holes as definitive
evidence of conspiracy.
After 9 years posting 2 million words of brilliant research and rhetoric on usenet,
I find that today, in 2006, about 4% of JFK researchers regard the clothing evidence
as definitive.
And what does it matter, anyway, once one has accepted and donned the hideous uniform/costume/frightmask they created for the "Conspiracy Theorist," a non-existent and entirely generalized "persona" that the disinformationists have so thoroughly discredited that to wear the garment is to lose the game.Bingo! You may call me naive but I refuse to have the CT jacket on my back, not
when I'm on my little unambiguous piece of the JFK case.
I speak of no "theory."
These are hard facts...Three guys were struck in Dealey on Eleven-Twenty-Two,
9 wounds suffered between them.
The holes in JFK's clothes are 4 inches below the collar, well below his throat
wound -- rendering it impossible for only 3 shots to have created those 9 wounds.
Hard fact.
There are no assumptions in my analysis, no "theory."
As long as they can make the game one of "CTs" versus them—in their own endless conspiracy of disinformation, a delicious irony—they have assured for themselves infinite conflict on their own fields of infinite ambiguity, and that is the only game they will play.Ashton Gray
Screw 'em. My "debate" with Pat Speer is on the order of a child picking wings off flies...
-
Pat wrote:
> Cliff, you clearly don't spend much time reading other people's work.
When I read your limp re-write of "Coat Check," I felt discouraged from
entertaining any further regard for your work.
> I updated my presentation in January and gave props to you for your collar
> suggestion.
Thank you. I only wish my pointing out JFK's jacket drop had made
a similar impression.
Well, you've certainly made no effort to rebut the fact that JFK's jacket
dropped an inch in Dealey Plaza.
Of course, no one has...It's a fact that couldn't be more obvious.
But to acknowledge that fact would require you to let go of your pet,
LN-friendly T1-back-wound theory -- and we can't have that, can we, Pat?
> I also argued against Hunt's claim that the collar was bunched enough to support
> the SBT.
I'm curious -- what was your methodology for determing the amount of
elevated jacket fabric in Croft?
> I used images from his presentation and everything.
Total waste of time. It doesn't take a "presentation" to debunk the SBT -- the
T3 back wound is prima facie physical evidence of multiple shooters in Dealey.
Can we move on?
There is no need to drag the fact of conspiracy down these black holes of complex
"presentations."
Arguing against the SBT on more complex points does not move the case forward.
That Humes/Specter could con CTs into accepting a T1 back wound is a measure
of the success of the cover-up.
> As far as the top of the head photo....you can not see the back of the head or the
> top of the back of the head in that photo. You see blood and brain encrusted hair.
There are 3 strands of "brain encrusted hair" in this photo...
The shorter strand on the right is clearly extruding from a location behind
the right ear, which must be above the white horizontal line of the table.
That fact contradicts what is seen in Fox 5:
I'm not a photo-alterationist, Pat, nor am I given to calling witnesses liars.
But even the HSCA disputed the authenticity of Fox 5.
It wasn't even a good alteration, Fox 5: how do you explain an abrasion
collar consistent with a bullet that entered on an upward trajectory, Pat?
-
Pat Speer wrote:
>Cliff I honestly can't follow the logic in your arguments.
No, my arguments are easy to follow. What you're struggling with is your
lack of a single fact to support your case.
That's why you snip out my arguments, rather than stand and rebut them
point by point.
> I AGREE with you that the holes in the jacket are too low for the SBT to make
> sense.
I'm having a similar debate right now with a guy over on aajfk. Like you, this guy
claims that the Fox 5 photo is 100% definitive, the irrefutable evidence of a wound
at C7/T1.
He says C7/T1, you say T1.
His name is John McAdams.
It appears that you AGREE with John McAdams about the location of the back
wound (give or take a fraction of an inch), and the PRIMACY of the evidence
upon which this hard conclusion was based.
In that sense, you and the LNers are on the same page.
The problem is -- that page is full of lies. The evidence of the T3 wound is so
overwhelming that even J Edgar Hoover didn't attempt to contradict it.
Getting the back wound to reconcile with the lone shooter scenario was the
WC's biggest challenge.
So Humes, a military man acting under orders, posited THREE different wound
locations above T3.
First, he fudged the location just a little. The actual wound was just below the
upper margin of the scapula, so Humes first moved it to just ABOVE the upper
margin of the scapula -- a location consistent with T2.
(Please note, Pat, that the upper margin of the scapula is visible in Fox 5
and the wound IS NOT "just above" it.)
Then Humes concocted another location, "14c below the mastoid process,"
which, as you have confirmed, is consistent with T1 (or C7/T1 according to
the LN).
Finally, Humes directed the creation of the Rydberg drawing, which put the
wound in the back of the neck above C7.
Humes, Specter & Co. couldn't be sure exactly which wound location best fit the
Single Bullet Theory (which is why they were hot for a "reenactment") so they
threw a bunch of xxxx on the wall hoping something would stick.
As I say, it's understandable that LNers would buy into this egregious dishonesty,
but it boggles my mind that any CT -- or at least one who has spent any time at
all studying the evidence -- would swallow it.
> I AGREE with you that this fact alone indicates the likelihood of conspiracy.
I said nothing about "likelihood."
It is a hard FACT that JFK's jacket dropped an inch in Dealey Plaza, to lay in a
normal position on his torso in the Elm St. killing zone.
This is a certainty based on the motorcade photos, not a "likelihood."
It's real simple, even a four year old could follow...
Visible shirt collar at the nape of JFK's neck at Z186 = no significant elevation
of the clothing fabric.
The jacket collar could not occupy the same physical space at the base
of JFK's neck -- at the same time -- as 4" of bunched up clothing.
Disparate, solid objects do not occupy the same physical space at the same
time, Pat, that's why we have car crashes...
> And yet you consider me some sort of trader (a vichy CT)
You regularly accuse me of hindering progress in the case!
Don't dish that xxxx out if you can't take it.
> simply because I believe
> Kennedy's elbow was raised around frame 190, and that this could indicate that his
> jacket was SLIGHTLY raised in comparison to his back.
No, Pat, you posit a 2-inch elevation of the shirt and jacket IN TANDEM,
a physical impossiblity for a tucked-in, custom-made dress shirt.
Don't you grasp the extent of your claim?
Stick to hard facts and you can't go wrong:
The bullet defect in the shirt is 4 inches below the bottom of the collar.
The hole in the jacket is 4 & 1/8 inches below the bottom of the collar.
The two garments had to elevate two inches TOGETHER. even though
JFK's shirt was tucked in and custom-made dress shirts only require
3/4 inch of slack for a man to look good and move comfortably.
Did JFK sit down in the limo with his shirt tail out?
JFK's jacket had padded shoulders -- his shirt didn't. And yet you posit
the two garments moved as one.
Ludicrous...in the extreme.
Besides, JFK's elbow was elevated as soon as he sat down in the limo.
He spent virtually the entire motorcade with his right elbow elevated.
As this photo shows, even while seated with his elbow up, the top of his
shirt collar was an inch below his hairline, same as when standing.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/MCade.htm
> Whatever, dude.
I suspect you re-wrote your article "Coat Check" in order to suck up to
John Hunt.
Not long ago you endorsed -- on this very Forum -- the entire body of
John Hunt's work.
Perhaps you should look before you leap.
John Hunt is an interesting researcher, indeed -- capable of brilliant work...
"The Mystery of the 7:30 Bullet"
http://www.jfklancer.com/hunt/mystery.html
Adjusting Willis 5 to Horizon Line:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ngarchive/Willis.jpg
... and John Hunt is sadly capable of work of egregious dishonesty...
"The Case for a Bunched Jacket"
"Frazier Speaks"
A fact is a fact no matter who cites it -- a lie is a lie no matter who
passes it.
I have no problem citing the work of John Hunt in one breath, and
debunking his other work in the next.
Pat, care to debate the merits of either "Frazier Speaks" or "Bunched Jacket"...?
> Attitude's like yours will prevent the truth of your statements--the SBT IS a
> joke--from being recognized by many.
Yes, Pat, you've accused me of setting the case back several times now.
The feeling is mutual, but I note my rhetorical needle may sink a bit deeper
than yours.
You might want to think twice before we continue down this road.
> And. by the way, I fail to see the back of the head in the top of the head photo...
> The large skull defect in that photo is in front of the ear, as is the large defect
> seen in the other photos.
I said "the top of the back of the head," not "the back of the head."
The top of the back of the head in this photo is consistent with the wounds
described at Parkland...
Fox 5 does not show the damage described at Parkland nor does it show
the damage to the TOP OF THE BACK of the head as seen in the above.
-
Pat, you again refuse to discuss any of the evidence I put forth and
apparently want to make this a battle of conclusions.
I'll try to underscore the points you cannot address...
I wrote:
>> Pat, you expect the CT community to embrace one photo -- Fox 5 -- that
>> was singled out by the HSCA (for crissakes!) as obviously deficient as
>> scientific evidence?
>> What indefensible nonsense.
>> I think the CT community needs to read BREACH OF TRUST and grasp how
>> the murder of JFK was covered-up.
> Cliff, my analysis of the back wound photo and my comparison to the other autopsy
> photos is available online in the presentation at the link below.
Your analyses don't inspire me rebut any more than what you present
here on the Forum.
> You post above that the photograph showing the top of Kennedy's head is incompatible with the
> back wound photo. This is preposterous. The two photos show different parts of Kennedy's head,
> so how can they be in conflict?
Are you denying that both photos show the top-back of JFK's head?
> From my perspective it is your refusal to look at the evidence that is indefensible.
And your perspective is unsullied by any attempt to rebut the clear photographic
evidence that the jacket dropped an inch in Dealey Plaza.
This is a typical LNer/Vichy-CT rhetorical tactic on this issue -- cut out the argument
I present and act as if no argument was presented.
> I think Kennedy was first hit at frame 190.
I put it at Z199 but I won't quibble.
> Yes, the Betzner photo was closer to that time. But the point is that if we accept the
> Croft photo as indicative of Kennedy's position a la the HSCA, a la the LN community,
> then we WIN the argument.
How does embracing an obvious lie *win* any argument?
And I'm not a part of your *we* -- I have more respect for LNers than Vichy CTs.
> Unfortunately, it seems clear you're happy with the status quo of the last 20 years...
> "everything is fake" and "they lied."
Unfortunately you have an ugly habit of attributing arguments to people
they never made. I cited ONE photo -- Fox 5 -- and from that you attribute
to me the argument that "everything is fake" and "they lied"?
What about the dozen plus people who stated to the T3 back wound -- all
liars, Pat? Do you want me to attribute that argument to you?
Or did all of the following people suffer the same mass hallucination?
1) FBI SA James Sibert
2) FBI SA Francis O'Neill
3) SS SA Glen Bennett
4) SS SA Clint Hill
5) SS SA Roy Kellerman
6) SS SA Will Greer
7) Autopsy Doctor John Ebersole
8) Autopsy witness Chester Boyers
9) Autopsy witness Floyd Reibe
10) Autopsy witness Jan Gail Rudnicki
11)) Autopsy witness James Curtis Jenkins
12) Autopsy witness Edward Reed
13) Parkland nurse Diana Bowron
14) Dr. George Burkley, JFK's personal physician
The evidence clearly proves a T3 back wound...
http://www.jfklancer.com/docs.maps/back_diagram.gif
http://www.jfklancer.com/photos/Evidence/jfkjacket.GIF
http://www.jfklancer.com/photos/Evidence/jfkshirt.GIF
http://www.jfklancer.com/photos/Ford-Rankin/FBIreenact.GIF
http://www.jfklancer.com/docs.maps/autopdescript1.gif
Dr. John Ebersole attended the autopsy and told Dr. David Mantik
in a 1992 interview that the back wound was at T-4. (Harrison
Livingstone's KILLING THE TRUTH pg 721)
Nurse Diana Bowron washed JFK's body at Parkland, and she
told Livingstone the wound was "lower down on the back" than
shown in the autopsy photos (KTT pg 188.)
Autopsy photographer Floyd Reibe also claimed that the lower
marking on the autopsy photo showed the back wound (KTT pg 721).
Bethesda lab assisstant Jan Gail Rudnicki told Livingstone
that he saw "what appeared to be an entry wound several inches
down on the back." (HIGH TREASON 2, pg 206)
Bethesda x-ray tech Edward Reed reported seeing a back
wound "right between the scapula and the thoracic column."
(KTT pg 720)
James Curtis Jenkins, a lab tech who attended the autopsy,
graphically described the low, non-transiting bullet track to
author David Lifton.
BEST EVIDENCE pg 713:
(quote on)
I remember looking inside the chest cavity and I could see the
probe...through the pleura [the lining of the chest cavity]...You
could actually see where it was making an indentation...where
it was pushing the skin up...There was no entry into the chest
cavity...it would have been no way that that could have exited
in the front because it was then low in the chest cavity...
somewhere around the junction of the descending aorta [the
main artery carrying blood from the heart] or the bronchus in
the lungs.
(quote off)
Chester H. Boyers was the chief Petty Officer in charge of the
Pathology Department at Bethesda in November 1963. This is
from Boyers signed affidavit:
(quote on)
Another wound was located near the right shoulder blade, more specifically
just under the scapula and next to it.
(quote off)
That's consistent with T3 or lower.
Secret Service Agent Glen Bennett reported, "I saw a shot hit the
Boss about four inches down from the right shoulder."
It should be noted that the bullet holes in JFK's clothing are 4" below the collars
Secret Service Agent Clint Hill testified before the Warren Commission:
(quote on)
Yes, sir; I saw an opening in the back, about 6 inches below the neckline to the
right-hand side of the spinal column.
(quote off)
Here are the wound diagrams pepared by FBI SAs Francis O'Neill and James Sibert:
http://www.jfklancer.com/pub/md/sibert1.gif
http://www.jfklancer.com/pub/md/oneill1.gif
> To my mind, this has done nothing but discredit the CT community with journalists,
> historians and scholars.
Spare me the strawman...I made no such contentions.
> Since the evidence reveals the likelihood of more than one shooter, WHY should we fight the
> evidence? It just makes no sense to me.
You make up bullxxxx about clothes bunching that you can't back up to save your life,
and you need a dozen plus people to have all been wrong even though their accounts
are consistent -- another doozy of a claim.
And you accuse ME of "fighting the evidence"?
-
I wrote:
Conclusion: JFK's jacket dropped at least an inch between Main St. and the killing zone.
Pat, your's and John Hunt's "two-inch Croft bunch" concoction is intellectually indefensible,
to be polite.
Pat Speer ignored my argument to proffer his conclusions:
> Cliff, the right shoulder tip of the jacket in the motorcade photo is clearly elevated.
So?
JFK shot was shot less than 2" right of midline, not in the shoulder tip.
JFK was shot after he changed his posture around Z175 -- Croft was taken at Z161.
How does Croft trump Betzner, taken after JFK changed his posture?
> In Z-161 we see this same elevation.
Please share your methodology for determining the amount of upward
displacement seen in the Croft photo.
Please explain why Croft is more relevent than Betzner, even though JFK changed
his posture after Croft.
> Hunt made a mistake and believed the clothing sticking out from the back in the Croft
> photo stuck straight out.
No, John Hunt claimed that Croft shows 2.25" of upwardly displaced jacket and shirt
fabric.
That's a whopping 4.5" of clothing fabric elevated entirely above C7/T1 at the base
of JFK's neck -- but obviously below the bottom of the jacket collar, at the base of JFK's
neck, a flat-out physical impossiblity.
It's right here in his essay.
John Hunt claims that the following photo shows a "distinctly arched shape" at the right
base of JFK's neck. An "arch" is a convex curve.
As anyone with two eyes in their head can see, the curvature at the right
base of JFK's neck in this photo was concave...
The contention that there was a distinctly convex curvature to the right base of
JFK's neck in the above photo is the height of intellectual dishonesty.
> He felt this meant the jacket was "bunched up" enough to support the SBT. The
> color Croft makes clear, however, that the clothing appearing to stick straight out is
> the shoulder tip, seen at an angle. In my presentation, which I know you've visited
> (You actually gave me a good tip once), I make clear my belief that there is not
> enough bunching visible in the photos to support the SBT.
Please share your methodology for making the determination that there was ANY
elevation of fabric more than 1/8 of an inch in Betzner #3.
Pat, if you elevate fabric even a small fraction of an inch it creates a HORIZONTAL
fold. Betzner shows a VERTICAL fold.
Why do you ignore this?
> The wound in the autopsy photo
HSCA dismissed the Fox 5 as "difficult or impossible" to use to accurately locate the
back wound.
And yet you claim Fox 5 as the definitive evidence in the case...Intellectually
indefensible, Pat, which is why you recite your conclusions but never cite a
single fact to support them.
All you enter into evidence is your own subjective analysis of an improperly
produced autopsy photo of poor quality and highly suspect authenticity.
Not much of an argument.
> --which does not support the SBT, no matter how much smoke is blown by the
> HSCA and those on alt.assassination.JFK--IS in line with the holes on the clothes,
> if you accept that there was a small amount of bunching of the clothing, as confirmed
> by the Croft photo.
And are you saying JFK was shot in the back at Z161?
Or, was JFK shot AFTER he turned his head to the right and started to wave his right
hand -- circa Z175?
If you acknowledge that JFK changed his posture after Croft, then Betzner and its'
vertical/diagonal fold trumps Croft and its' over-hyped "bunch," doesn't it?
And by the way, if you should actually bring yourself to research clothing movement,
you will find that the 1+" fabric movement is defined by clothing designers as a "gross"
fabric fold -- less than an inch is considered a "normal" fabric fold. "Gross" and "normal"
are terms of art in clothing design, fyi.
> While you once single-mindedly (AND CORRECTLY) sought to show that the holes
> on the clothing demonstrated that the SBT was unlikely, you have now embarked
> on an effort to use the clothing holes and motorcade photos to show tha the
> autopsy photos of the back wound are fake.
Are you saying it is *impossible* to fake an autopsy photo?
And what an autopsy photo it is! Shows an intact back of the head, an abrasion
collar consistent with a bullet that entered on an upward trajectory (truly absurd),
and a back wound where no one described it, not even in the autopsy report.
You have no chain of possession for that photo; other autopsy photos contradict
it (see below); you have no one who will claim to have taken that photo; the HSCA
concluded it likely prima facie inadmissable in court.
That's a nice piece of evidence you hitch your wagon to, Pat.
> I'm sorry I can't support that.
Don't apologize for supporting it, apologize for reciting your conclusions
without citing a single fact to back them up.
You posit a mythical 1+" clothing bunch in Betzner #3, a fabric fold that by definition
is 1/2" on the upside, the exact same amount of visible shirt fabric seen in that photo.
And yet there is no visible horizontal fold at all in Betzner #3, much less one
the same size as the exposed shirt collar -- quite the contrary, Betzner #3
shows a fold more vertical.
> After studying the autopsy photos for years I am firmly of the belief the autopsy
> photos and x-rays indicate conspiracy. I am also 100% convinced that only through
> the acceptance of these photos by the CT community will this issue come to any kind of resolve.
This photo shows a massive wound in the back of the head...
How can Fox 5 (above), with its intact back of the head, be authentic if the above with
its massive back head wound is authentic?
Pat, you expect the CT community to embrace one photo -- Fox 5 -- that was singled
out by the HSCA (for crissakes!) as obviously deficient as scientific evidence?
What indefensible nonsense.
I think the CT community needs to read BREACH OF TRUST and grasp how
the murder of JFK was covered-up.
-
Pat Speer Posted Yesterday, 01:28 PM
QUOTE(Antti Hynonen @ Aug 7 2006, 08:18 AM)
Why is there a bulge in the back of Kennedy's neck? The position of the coat does not look natural.
Antti, there is no huge bulge on the back of Kennedy's neck. That's an LN myth. The coat you see is Kennedy's right shoulder. Take a look at Zapruder frame 161 and you'll see what I mean.
Thanks Pat,
didn't know it was a LN myth, just at a quick glance it didn't seem quite right...
A number of people have used the Croft photo to "demonstrate" that Kennedy's jacket "bunched up" a number of inches when he raised his right arm. While the back of the jacket was undoubtedly lifted an inch or two as a result of Kennedy's elbow being on the side of the car, it was not lifted enough to bring the holes in the clothes in line with a trajectory connecting the sniper's nest and the wound in Kennedy's throat.
The back of the jacket was "undoubtedly" elevated an inch or two?
That's not what the motorcade photos show, Pat.
Quite the opposite -- the jacket dropped between an inch to an inch and a half
between Main St. and the Elm St. killing zone.
The photo on the left below is JFK on Main St.
Note his posture, head turned to the right, right hand up and waving -- just
like in the Betzner #3 photo at Z186. (below)
Compare the Main St. photo to the photo on the right, taken that morning in
Fort Worth, and note the 1/2" exposed shirt collar visible in the Fort Worth
photo.
(hit enlarge)
http://www.jfklancer.com/photos/sbt/tkoap.jpg
Here's JFK at Z186:
(hit enlarge)
http://www.geocities.com/quaneeri4/Betzner_Large.jpg
Note the same exposed shirt collar at Z186 as in Forth Worth.
Note the vertical/diagonal fold in JFK's jacket at Z186 and compare that to
the diagonal fold in his jacket on Main St.
Same posture, similar jacket fold, although the Elm St. fold was more vertical.
It shouldn't be necessary to point out that a vertical fabric fold proves the fabric
was bunched SIDEWAYS.
Conclusion: JFK's jacket dropped at least an inch between Main St. and the killing zone.
Pat, your's and John Hunt's "two-inch Croft bunch" concoction is intellectually indefensible,
to be polite.
-
As for the rest of your post, I disagree fundamentally. Before doing so, however, I owe you the basic courtesy of scrutinizing and digesting your work. There is, perhaps, much I could learn from it. I'll do that tomorrow night when I have regained the feeling in my outer extremities, fingers in particular.
Best wishes,
Paul
Paul,
Let me back up and regroup. I do not think the articles on the CIA were necessarily false. Most of it was right on -- what I was trying to say was that Lodge wasn't exposing the CIA's behavior and practices because he had a golden heart and mind, it was because he coveted what Richardson had -- his own little kingdom.
I've added many of my source files here: http://www.jfklancer.com/dallas05/ppt/conway/
Please feel free to check them out.
Best,
Debra
Debra, the original Washington Daily News headlines are much appreciated,
along with everything else!
I agree with you that the Diem coup was directed from State.
Like many things American, there's a Prom Queen analogy...
Both CIA and the State Dept wanted to date the Prom Queen (overthrow of Diem).
Richardson (CIA) struck out in the summer of '63.
So State took the Prom Queen out and CIA had to drive the limo...
-
Debra & Cliff,
Apologies for bundling my replies together, but it seemed a sensible measure given the length and nature of the post to follow.
First to Debra: I’ve skimmed the links you posted and found much that was new to me, for which many thanks. I won’t comment on the unfamiliar material therein in any detail as I haven’t yet had the time to do it justice. One brief, relatively minor, observation, however.
While it was nice to see the cover of Dick’s noirish mystery – And When She Was Bad She Was Murdered (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1950), one of three he dashed off in the period to pay the bills – much the most apposite of his books in this context is his classic 1967 assault on the CIA and liberal illusion, Requiem In Utopia (NY: Trident Press). It’s one of the outstanding spy novels of the decade and I commend it to all.
Cliff, second but not least: Later than intended, I at least deal with the question of the bowdlerisation of the Times of Vietnam’s edition of 2 September 1963, as promised in my previous post to you.
I begin with a book published in 2005. A picture of its cover features in Debra’s presentation, and she makes reference to its author in the post above. Written by the son of the CIA station chief Starnes named in ‘Arrogant’ CIA Disobeys Orders In Vietnam, My Father The Spy: An Investigative Memoir (NY: HarperCollins) represented a return to an old and mendacious line of Agency attack on the Scripps-Howard man. Here is John H. Richardson fils on the Times of Vietnam’s detailed expose of the thwarted CIA coup of 28/29 August, as posted earlier in this thread. It is to Richardson fils’ credit that he reproduces his father’s acknowledgement of its accuracy. There, honesty ends:
“I have a copy of that newspaper, its angry headline spanning the entire front page: CIA FINANCING PLANNED COUP D’ETAT. Although it didn’t actually use my father’s name…” (p.187).
Stop right there. It did, as well shall shortly see. The trouble is, the version to be found today in both the Chicago-based Centre for Research Libraries, and the British Newspaper Library at Colindale, is not the original. What became of that? Two veteran China Lobby propagandists, Stephen Pan and the Jesuit Daniel Lyons, explained its fate in 1966: “All of the copies of the paper disappeared from the newstands within a few hours…and when 6,000 more copies were reprinted on September 9, they, too, disappeared almost immediately…That night the presses were smashed by unknown forces.” (Vietnam Crisis (NY: Twin Circle Books, second edition, July 1967), p.121).
I offer four very different sources, spread across three decades, for my claim that Richardson’s name did appear in the CIA-suppressed original. To begin in the 1970s, with Polish diplomat, and International Control Commission member, Mieczyslaw Maneli: “In the first version of this article, as I learned later, there was even a mention of the high CIA officials who engineered this conspiracy. According to the information I gathered in Saigon, it mentioned the name of Mr. Richardson, allegedly chief of the CIA in South Vietnam, who masterminded the abortive coup. It was allegedly Mme. Nhu who ordered them to drop this name from the article. I had the opportunity in Saigon to read one of the first versions of this article...” (Mieczyslaw Maneli. War of the Vanquished (NY: Harper & Row, 1971), p. 143.)
John Prados offered confirmation in his 2001 study of William Colby: “The station chief’s name [Richardson’s] appeared, first in the Times of Vietnam, then in articles in the United States” (Lost Crusader: The Secret Wars of CIA Director William Colby (Oxford UP, March 2003), p.122).
We can do even better. Here is Diem-critic Stanley Karnow writing within a month of 'Arrogant' CIA's publication: “All this might have remained secret had not Nhu, learning of the attempt against Diem’s regime, publicized the ‘plot’ by foreign elements.’ Vietnamese newspapers named Richardson as the leader of the operation, and Washington recalled him.” (“U.S. Still Divided On Viet-Nam Aims,” Washington Post, 31 October 1963, p.A20).
My final witness is Dick Starnes. In late February 1964, he despatched a Scripps-Howard researcher to the State Department in successful pursuit of copy. There it was, Richardson’s name. He was moved to seek confirmation of its presence as a consequence of the following attack, launched by our old friend Dodd of Connecticut on the Senate floor: “The propaganda campaign against the CIA reached a crescendo during the recent Vietnamese crisis. Last October 4, an article by a correspondent for an American newspaper chain charged that the CIA had been subverting State Department policy in Viet Nam, and that John Richardson, the CIA man in Saigon, had openly refused to carry out instructions from Ambassador Lodge.
The correspondent who wrote this article was guilty of openly identifying a CIA representative abroad, thus reducing his potential usefulness forever. Visiting Congressmen and members of the press may sometimes know the identity of the CIA representative but it has been take for granted that they do not reveal his identity to the public.
To the best of my knowledge, this was the first instance in which an American correspondent has been guilty of this flagrant breach of the ethics of security.”
Starnes responded to Dodd’s farrago with this tour de force:
The Washington Daily News, March 4, 1964, p.35
Over to You, Senator
A spirited – if maundering and contradictory – defense of the Central Intelligence Agency’s role in Viet Nam has been uttered by Sen. Thomas J. Dodd (D., Conn.).
Altho he prudently avoided using my name, Sen. Dodd’s speech unmistakably was an attack upon me for reporting the truth about the CIA’s headlong wilfulness in Viet Nam. The speech was long-winded and tedious, which is par for the course, and it was also essentially untrue. It betrayed a man who either is disingenuous or whose memory has played him false.
He complained to the Senate that “baiting the CIA almost seems to have achieved the stature of a popular national pastime.” He cited my dispatches from Saigon last October, and he alluded to two subsequent broadsides against the CIA levelled by “distinguished members of Congress.” He neglected to include in his indictment a well-reasoned attack on the CIA made recently by former President Harry Truman, who repeated and enlarged upon my well-founded charges that the huge espionage apparatus had strayed into operational and policy-making areas where it did not belong. Sen. Dodd’s motives in slighting Mr. Truman is unknown to me, and may well be nothing more than additional evidence of eclectic memory.
In his speech, the Senator and erstwhile FBI agent warned that these attacks upon the CIA are “highly dangerous,” and added: “Whether the critics realize it or not, these charges also constitute an attack on the wisdom and integrity of both President Eisenhower and President Kennedy. It is tantamount to accusing them of passively allowing an executive agency to function without control or supervision; and to make foreign policy – in other words, to usurp the President’s own authority. This is patently ridiculous. Neither President would have ever permitted such a thing.”
Here regard for historical truth impels one to remind the Senator that he himself repeated strikingly similar charges, “patently ridiculous” or not, less than four years ago.
I quote now from a press release issued by the Senate Internal Security Sub-committee for use Sunday, Sept. 11, 1960:
“’Cuba was handed to Castro and the communists by a combination of Americans in the same way that China was handed to the communists,’” Senators James O. Eastland (D., Miss.) and Thomas J. Dodd (D., Conn.) said today in releasing the testimony of two former United States Ambassadors.”
The two envoys were Earl T. Smith, who was US Ambassador to Havana when Castro rose to power, and Arthur Gardner, his immediate predecessor. Again the press release:
“The Senators drew particular attention to this statement of Ambassador Smith.
“’We helped overthrow the Batista dictatorship which was pro-American, only to install the Castro dictatorship, which is pro-Russian.
According to former Ambassador Smith, the agencies of the United States Government which ‘had a hand in bringing pressure to overthrow the Batista government’ were ‘certain influential people, influential sources in the State Department, lower down echelons in the CIA…”
These charges, of course, were not ridiculous.
Ambassador Smith is a distinguished financier and public official. He levelled his charges against the CIA in sworn testimony before the Internal Security sub-committee, on Aug. 30, 1960, Sen. Dodd, among others, present. Ambassador Smith enlarged upon his charges in a book (previously quoted here at some length) entitled “The Fourth Floor,” which was published by Random House two years ago. Both his testimony, which was accepted at face value and broadcast by Sen. Dodd, and his book made it plain that the CIA, indeed, had run contrary to American interests, had helped boost Castro into power, had made policy, or attempted to, and, in one instance, had been openly rebellious and insulting toward Ambassador Smith.
So much for Sen. Dodd’s own excursion into what I am afraid he would now deride as dangerous CIA baiting.
In his speech two weeks ago, Sen. Dodd laid two charges against me. Both are false and dastardly, both are of a piece with the CIA’s record for crude intimidation of reporters who undertake its lunatic growth and hunger for power.
CHARGE: A dispatch of mine identified and thus destroyed the usefulness of one John Richardson, the CIA’s then “station chief” in Saigon.
TRUTH: Mr. Richardson’s identity and role in Saigon were secrets from no one – except American newspaper readers. He was widely known as the CIA’s chief resident spook in Saigon. It is inconceivable that in a few days digging, I could discover information not long known to Ho Chi Minh’s espionage network.
CHARGE: My dispatches violated a gentleman’s agreement to protect the identity of CIA agents.
TRUTH: I am party to no agreement to hide facts from American taxpayers and parents when I am sure the enemy knows them.
CHARGE: Striking at the CIA is like hitting a man ‘who has his hands tied behind his back…the agency cannot confirm or deny published reports, true or false, favourable or unfavourable. It cannot alibi. It cannot explain. It cannot answer…
TRUTH: Baloney. Ask any reporter who has hung one on the CIA’s solid Spode chin. Few editors with guts enough to hire honest reporters have not had plaintive and/or outraged phone calls from CIA Director John McCone and his predecessors. And, indeed, Sen. Dodd’s own apologia disproves him. The voice is Sen. Dodd’s, but I’ve got a powerful hunch the words are Mr. McCone’s.
John H. Richardson fils used the CIA’s suppression of the original edition of the Times of Vietnam’s CIA Financing Planned Coup D’Etat to fashion a lie: Starnes’ identification of his father a month later came as a “bombshell” (p.197) that “stunned and dismayed” (p.198) the veteran CIA man who had, of course, as we have seen, been named a mere month earlier by the Times of Vietnam.
The revival of this ancient anti-Starnes canard had a distinctly contemporary – and distinctly Mockingbirdish –purpose. Richardson fils parleyed the lie into a piece for the NYT in which he solemnly averred that the fiendish outing of Valerie Plame Wilson had precedent, and that precedent was Starnes’ outing of Richardson’s father way back in 1963 (“The Spy Left Out In The Cold,” NYT, 7 August 2005). “The past telescopes into the future,” one of Richardson pere’s patrons, James Angleton, is famously reported to have observed. The process manifestly runs both ways.
As ever, the NYT printed the CIA-serving lie.
P.S. Was John H. Richardson really Nhu’s bosom pal, as so many claim? Not according to those aforementioned veteran China lobbyists, Stephen Pan & Daniel Lyons, SJ: "From 1957 to 1960, Diem's brother…co-operated very closely with the representatives of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Saigon…Nhu had good friends with the CIA in Saigon, but the CIA replaced them with men who were unfriendly to him..." (Vietnam Crisis (NY: Twin Circle Publishing Co. Inc, July1966; this edition March 1967), p. 105).
Here's Richardson the younger's NY Times article:
Here's Richardson the elder's cable making the case for a coup August 28, 1963.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pentagon2/doc129.htm
Young Richardson refers to Starnes as "obscure" -- interesting way to describe
a guy who won the Ernie Pyle Award for excellence in military/foreign-affairs
journalism in 1962...
-
Paul,
According to these documents, Harriman was not only pro-coup as
of 8/28/63, but he was lined up against the anti-coup US military, the
CIA, and Bobby Kennedy -- Harriman still got his way.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB101/vn07.pdf
Cliff,Again, many thanks for the apposite links.On the matter of Harriman’s attitude to Diem’s government.I would be more persuaded by a detailed account, preferably buttressed by contemporaneous sources, explaining the alleged transformation of Harriman’s view in the course of the summer of 1963. As matters stand, we find utterly conflicting evidence and, to the best of my limited knowledge, no remotely adequate account of why the man who negotiated peace for Laos suddenly turned hawk over Vietnam.Moreover, it is only on Vietnam, and Vietnam alone, we are invited to believe, that Harriman found himself allied to the CIA, an organisation that loathed his long-since modified views on Russia, his work on the test ban treaty, and his support for an opening to mainland China; and, let us not forget, had actively sought to sabotage the Geneva settlement on Laos. You see the full oddity of what we are routinely invited to believe.Note, too, the distribution and type of sources for the two conflicting accounts of Harriman’s attitude to Diem. The contemporaneous public record, certainly up to March 1963, finds Harriman determinedly resisting pressure to dump Diem. The official, governmental record, by contrast, released many years later and with the new orthodoxy firmly in place, offers a complete reversal, a reversal which purportedly takes place a matter of months after. This aforementioned orthodoxy, portraying Harriman as Vietnam hawk, is characterised by a number of striking omissions.First and most revealingly, it invites us to forget the inconvenient fact that attempts to assassinate President Diem began no later than 1957, the year in which Time magazine – yes, that old Agency harridan yet again – denounced Diem as a pinko neutralist with a distinctly under-developed zeal for zapping his fellow-countrymen in the service of Cold War anti-communism. In November 1960, well before Harriman had regained influence or power in White House counsels, the CIA tried to oust Diem in a smaller version of the military putsch that succeeded three years later. The bombing of the presidential palace in 1962 occurred well before Harriman’s alleged switch to pro-coup, anti-Diemism.However, let us permit for one moment that Harriman was indeed a hawkish opponent of Diem. In that case, and further assuming that Harriman or proxy was the administration insider-source for Starnes’ ‘Arrogant’ CIA, we are faced with the absurd position of Harriman seeking not merely to quieten anti-Diem reporters in this period, but leaking savagely to discredit a Saigon CIA chief, John H. Richardson, who, as the record shows, was entirely in favour of overthrowing Diem no later than August 28/29, 1963.Paul,
For what it's worth:
An old girl friend of mine is the daughter of a Diem secret police officer.
She was 13 at the time of the coup. She's Buddhist, and insists that the
Buddhist uprising against Diem in '63 was manufactured by the CIA. She
talked about how the little kids would sneak into the temples even when
they were surrounded. She told me that Diem was negotiating with
Ho Chi Minh to kick the Americans out.
I haven't seen anything concrete in the historical record to confirm this,
other than fleeting references to un-explained "anti-American" activities
by Diem.
Paul, have you come across anything in your research to indicate that
Diem was secretly negotiating with Ho, and might that have played a
part in Harriman coming around to the coup?
-
Paul,
According to these documents, Harriman was not only pro-coup as
of 8/28/63, but he was lined up against the anti-coup US military, the
CIA, and Bobby Kennedy -- Harriman still got his way.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB101/vn07.pdf
-
I realise it looks like that, Cliff, but I wonder.
If you look at the image J.William posted you get an idea of the curvature in this area.
Take that into account, plus the head being tilted back in the autopsy photo which shortens the look of the neck.
Then consider the shirt layed on to follow this outline and not flat as in the shirt photo, it's possible that there is actually not such a great separation.
There's no need to guess about any of this.
Here's JFK standing with his head tilted slightly forward and turned to the right.
Note the shoulder-blades. Note the top of the shoulder blade was about three
inches below the bottom of the collar -- the jacket collar being 1.25 inches.
A wound 4 inches below the bottom of the collar would be just below the
upper border of the shoulder blade -- right where the eyewitnesses
and the contemporaneous documents put it.
In your analysis above you mention factors such as the tilt of JFK's
head and the curvature of the spine. As the photo I cited shows,
these factors would account for differences measured in millimeters,
not inches.
That photo cannot be in Fort Worth. JFK made no speech in front
of F.W.Woolworth, which was at Fourth and Houston. His only outdoor
speech was at Eighth and Main.
Jack
Jack, I didn't cite that photo as being in Forth Worth. I cited this photo as
being in Fort Worth:
http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/images/c/c...9-525-16-63.jpg
-
Whether intended or not, your reply had the useful effect of making me take a
closer look at any potential Starnes-Harriman link.
Paul,
This is proving to be a fruitful line of inquiry...Starnes gives all appearance
of fierce independence, which made him a dangerous journalist, indeed.
Setting aside the possibility of Starnes being a Harriman shill leaves
us with a far more speculative position, at least as far as divining the
fine hand of Harriman behind the "Arrogant CIA" leaks.
Starnes frames the issue as a matter of Saigon-based military brass and top
non-CIA diplomatic "officials" venting their frustrations over the CIA's pursuit
of a rogue agenda.
The SEVEN DAYS IN MAY reference posits a covert domestic coup-maker in
the uniform of an American general. Edward Lansdale seems the obvious
first candidate.
The reference to the Saigon CIA man in a colonel's uniform -- Lucien Conein,
obviously.
It's a bit hard for me to believe that the anonymous State Dept "officials"
would implicate CIA men in military brass without a go ahead from the
(true) top guy at State, Under Secretary for Political Affairs, Averell Harriman.
A cursory look at the career of Averell Harriman indicates he had a lot of pull
when it came to "regime change."
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0501i.asp
(quote on)
[u.S. presidential envoy Averell] Harriman paid a call on the Shah before leaving
Tehran, and during their meeting he made a discreet suggestion. Since Mossadegh
was making it impossible to resolve the [Anglo-American Oil Company] crisis on a
basis acceptable to the West, he said, Mossadegh might have to be removed.
Harriman knew the Shah had no way of removing Mossadegh at that moment.
By bringing up the subject, however, he foreshadowed American involvement in
the coup two years later.
(quote off)
Foreshadowed? That's one way of putting it...
And Harriman certainly had a lot of weight when it came to "regime change"
in Vietnam.
Here's Kennedy describing the Diem over-throw three days after it occured:
http://www.whitehousetapes.org/clips/1963_...nam_memoir.html
(quote on)
President Kennedy: Opposed to the coup was General [Maxwell] Taylor, the
Attorney General [Robert Kennedy], Secretary [Robert] McNamara to a somewhat
lesser degree, John McCone, partly based on an old hostility to [Henry Cabot] Lodge
[Jr.] which causes him to lack confidence in Lodge's judgement, partly as a result
of a new hostility because Lodge shifted his [CIA] station chief; in favor of the
coup was State, led by Averell Harriman, George Ball, Roger Hilsman, supported
by Mike Forrestal at the White House.
(quote off)
How much misery would the world have been spared had Averell Harriman NOT
facilitated "regime change" in Tehran and Saigon?
-
I realise it looks like that, Cliff, but I wonder.
If you look at the image J.William posted you get an idea of the curvature in this area.
Take that into account, plus the head being tilted back in the autopsy photo which shortens the look of the neck.
Then consider the shirt layed on to follow this outline and not flat as in the shirt photo, it's possible that there is actually not such a great separation.
You *say* it's possible but don't you think it'd be a good idea not
to make that assumption?
Occam's Razor, John, strip away the assumptions.
You should be all over this first, before you run some "home tests."
"Home tests" don't trump actual photos of Kennedy.
So, is it possible to make a 2 to 3 inch difference because of "the curvature
in the area," and "the tilt of the head?"
2 to 3 inches? Or a difference of 2 to 3 millimeters?
Here's JFK in Fort Worth 11/22/63 (hit the enlarge):
http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/images/c/c...9-525-16-63.jpg
Notice the folds in his neck? His head was tilted up slightly, and folds
formed in his neck.
Here's a photo of JFK that debunks the assumptions you and Mr. Purvis
make.
Note the top of JFK's shoulder blades. According to you there is an
extreme curvature between the shoulder blades and the bottom of
the collar.
According to Mr. Purvis the base of JFK's neck was just above
those shoulder blades...an egregious absurdity.
And it is noted that neither you, nor Mr. Purvis, care to address
the fact that JFK's jacket dropped an inch in Dealey Plaza.
But the Parlor Game must go on -- hey, I'm playing -- so continue...
-
Cliff,
I follow your train of reasoning regarding the identity of Starnes' major source, and can't fault its logic. I do, however, rather prefer Harriman or a member of his circle. I have no evidence for that conclusion other than the Laotian precedent, to which I'll return at a later date.
Many moons ago, when I first contacted Dick, I asked the obvious, inevitable question about the identity of his high-ranking source. His reply was polite, and to the point. I paraphrase: I promised not to, and I won't, ever. Had I been a better researcher, I might - should - have revisited the issue. But I wasn't, and I've so enjoyed the resultant friendship that I leave that task to others.
I will certainly contact him for you and let you know the upshot.
Paul, you are a GREAT researcher!
There is no need to ask Mr. Starnes a question he cannot answer -- I think
all the answers are in his article.
For years I have speculated that the "very high American official...who has
spent much of his life in the service of democracy" HAD to be CJCS Taylor.
I was wrong. Ah, the hubris of unfounded certainty.
Now I'm 100% sure it was the Boston-born Harkins.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_D._Harkins
Reading Mr. Starnes original article is relevatory. HUGE.
I agree with you that W. Averill Harriman was behind this leak, and I will
so speculate along those lines.
I posit the Boston-born Henry Cabot Lodge was one of Starnes MANY
anonymous sources, along with Gen. Harkins. I think Lodge and all the
other anonymous "officials" and "officers" were using the same playbook
sent in by Harriman to Lodge by way of Boston-born McGeorge Bundy.
The Yankees were cutting the Cowboys off at the pass.
More discussion to follow. Much more.
Please send my regards to Mr. Starnes -- any chance he'd join the Forum?
Cliff,
I wish could offer certainty on the subject of who told what to whom and when. I know precious little about Harkins, other than that he a) is much maligned; and
seems to have taken the US constitution seriously. (You know, those trivial bits about the status of the Presidency and treason.) I find it impossible not to speculate that a) is a direct consequence of . The history of the period has, after all, been written by the winners.If you have anything on Harkins that might shed light on the matter, please enlighten me.
As I mentioned earlier, Harriman has long seemed to me the obvious candidate because of his work on the Laos settlement in 1962. Seemingly alone of JFK's senior people, here was a hard-nosed political and bureaucratic infighter who was not afraid to take on the Agency, hitting it hard and repeatedly. In class-obsessed elite America, he had the money, social status and connections to pull rank and not fear the consequences: Angleton never made Skull and Bones, and had to rest content with smearing Harriman as a Sov agent.
Did Starnes know Harriman? Highly likely, as H. was Governor of New York for a large part of the period that Starnes was managing editor of the New York World-Telegram & Sun. I've looked at six years-worth of Starnes' journalistic output, but all of the years fall outside of Harriman's tenure as Governor. Perhaps a study of the years 1955-1958 would yield clues. There are none that I've observed in the period 1960-1965, save one.
Paul, certainty is indeed elusive in this case, but I couldn't resist poking a little
fun at myself by saying I was "100% certain" about Harkins, after spending 7
years being "certain" it was Taylor.
Turns out a great deal of my excitement was due to a misreading of Krock's
article. The most explosive quote, concerning a military coup coming from the
CIA and not the Pentagon, which seems to directly implicate Lansdale and Conein
in the plotting of Kennedy's downfall, was attributed by Starnes simply to "one US
official."
Here's how Krock put the most explosive quotes:
(quote on)
Among the views attributed to United States officials on the scene, including one
described as a "very high American official ... who has spent much of his life in
the service of democracy ... are the following:
The C.I.A.'s growth was "likened to a malignancy" which the "very high official was
not sure even the White House could control ... any longer." "If the United States ever
experiences [an attempt at a coup to overthrow the Government] it will come from
the C.I.A. and not the Pentagon." The agency "represents a tremendous power and
total unaccountability to anyone."
(quote off)
These are all different quotes by different guys, and the *money shot*
quote doesn't appear to have been from the "very high American...who
has spent much of his life in the service of his country," which I'd argue
described a military man.
It's a moot point to me, however.
Suffice to say we both feel that Averell Harriman was behind the incredible leaks
contained in Mr. Starnes 10/2/63 article.
No matter who said what, the reference to SEVEN DAYS IN MAY fingers CIA
men in military uniform...
-
Cliff:
How many inches below the wound as depicted in the "autopsy" photo of Kennedy's back, do you say the actual back wound was?
Why do you think the Rydberg drawings were drawn to show the wound in the neck, when the autopsy photo shows it 2 inches lower, and the clothing supports yet a third location? Why the excess confusion, and not just one altered location?
Antti
Excellent questions, Annti.
There have been FOUR official wound locations -- first it was at T3 as per the
death certificate/autopsy face sheet/FBI autopsy report.
Then in Humes initial hand-written autopsy report he fudged too little and put the
wound "just above the upper border of the scapula" -- a location consistent with T2.
http://www.jfklancer.com/docs.maps/back_diagram.gif
The third location appeared in pen on the autopsy face sheet -- 14cm below the
mastoid process. Recording a measurement in pen is a violation of autopsy
protocol, whereas the valid, verified, contemporaneous marking on the body
diagram in pencil put the back wound at just below T3.
The 14cm-below-mastoid location is consistent with C7/T1, as Wecht discovered
for the HSCA.
The final autopsy report as published in the WCR lists both the just-above-scapula
and the 14-cm-below-mastoid measurements.
And then there is the Humes-directed Rydberg drawing, which puts the wound
above C7.
Why 4 different locations? Because without an actual re-enactment Humes
and Specter had no idea what location would actually work, short of a
re-enactment.
That's why Specter was so hot to stage a re-enactment in Dallas, they had
3 different options for the SBT (T3 clearly didn't work, and is prima facie
evidence of conspiracy) and couldn't be sure which one was the best sell.
Fox 5 shows a "wound" about the level of C7/T1, and there is another artifact in the
photo a bit more than two inches lower (to answer your
first question), and to the left.
The lower artifact is between the top of the shoulder blade and the
spine -- right where the clothing holes, the autopsy face sheet, the
death certificate, and the witness testimony put it.
The high wound purportedly shows an abrasion collar consistent
with a bullet that entered on an upward trajectory.
That should send up some red flags -- was JFK shot in the back
from someone hiding in the trunk? Of course not.
Also note the intact back of JFK's head in Fox 5. Isn't that inconsistent
with the condition of the back of the head in the autopsy photo below?
Every piece of "official" evidence has two wound locations depicted,
as has been discussed earlier.
Why, you ask, didn't they just settle on one location?
They couldn't be sure which trajectory would work!
That's why Specter was hot to have the Dealey Plaza reenactment in
May of '64. But the FBI marked the "wound" in the jacket consistent
with the actual T3 backwound, thumbing its (Hoover's) nose at the WC
and everyone else -- while Specter looked like an idiot replicating
the Rydberg location.
A majority of the American people have never bought this.
-
the concept of number of matching points is helpful.
With this scaling and orientation there are a number of matches.
One can see by looking at the ruler that it is fairly flat (what I mean is that the both ends of the ruler are similarly sized), and as it is lying on the body without noticable significant depression one can infer that the body here in the area around the wound is also flattish, so the dimensions are not much distorted by perspective changes. So the matches in this area can be taken seriously (IMO).
The matches that are illustrated here are by no means all in that area.
for checking this suggested orientation and scaling, a big version is here:
http://files.photojerk.com/yanndee/2.png
One can print out and cut out and check on a light box, or with software, cut paste layering with transparency.
then the upper outline of a spread-out shirt is as indicated in the center image.
http://www.jfklancer.com/photos/Autopsy_photos/BE1_HI.JPG
http://www.jfklancer.com/photos/Autopsy_photos/zeroang.jpg
John;
The wrinkle lines of the neck in relationship to other anotomical features and items, when compared with the back wound photo, provide considerable insight into where the location of the back wound actually was.
And the Dealey Plaza photos showing JFK's jacket dropping an inch PROVES the back
wound was at T3.
You and John can try to re-invent the wheel all you want by super-imposing
the photo of a bloody shirt on a photo of a corpse, but the photos of the
actual John F. Kennedy in Dealey Plaza trump this exercise.
Millimeters are not inches, gentlemen.
Two photos for those who accept "Magic Bullet" theory
in JFK Assassination Debate
Posted
Pat, that would require both the shirt and the jacket to have elevated 2"
in tandem entirely above your alleged T1 inshoot, at the base of JFK's
neck.
But Altgens #5 shows a smooth jacket back and a jacket collar
only elevated about an inch.
The jacket collar rode ABOVE the top of the shirt collar but BELOW the
hairline.
His shirt collar was not visible in Altgens, but visible in the Elm St. photos:
ergo, the jacket dropped right before JFK was shot.
The Towner film clearly shows JFK's shirt collar at the back of his neck,
the jacket collar riding in a normal position toward the base of his neck.
http://www.jfk-online.com/Towner.mpg
JFK's jacket dropped in Dealey Plaza. The bullet holes in the clothes
align with T3, where the contemporaneous documents and witness
testimony place it.
Your bunch theory is nonsense, Pat, as is your insistence that more than a
dozen witnesses to the T3 back wound suffered a mass hallucination.
Anyone who claims that JFK's back wound was above T3 does not understand
the nature of this crime, nor the nature of it's cover-up.