Christopher Hall

Bill-

The road block occurred after Kane and his son shot 2 Arkansas cops with an AK-47 like they were rabid dogs.

The dash camera in the cruiser which pulled them over tells a vastly different story than the 16 year old perp's mother.

They were shot up at the Walmart parking lot after they had left 2 law enforcement officers dead on the pavement. These were needless killings.

I followed this incident in real time online (via the Memphis Commercial Appeal) as it unfolded.

After the slaying of the 2 polices officers (including the son of the West Memphis Police Chief), every law enforcement officer in the State of Arkansas was looking for these 2 guys.

An Arkansas Wildlife Agency officer bravely slammed into their vehicle in the Walmart parking lot after they had killed the 2 cops.

This didn't look like a Waco or Ruby Ridge incident by any means.

On the other topic, I cannot confirm or attest to the efficacy and reliability of the Russian intelligence report.

This slant is typcial of a lot of journalistic documentaires.

I had the same thoughts.

We certainly have a rich tradition of wimps in the White House.

"CHRIS: Nice try, Len. It was plainly obvious that I was referring to the 1961 birth certificate - not the 2008 COLB.

Which AFAIK the state does release and may not even have."

Len - The State has Barack's original 1961 birth certificate, but, as I remembered, stated that it couldn't release it to anyone who didn't have a material interest in it.

Hawaii State Health Director stated in 2008 that:

“There have been numerous requests for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama’s official birth certificate. State law (Hawaii Revised Statutes §338-18) prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record.

“Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawaii, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawaii State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.

“No state official, including Governor Linda Lingle, has ever instructed that this vital record be handled in a manner different from any other vital record in the possession of the State of Hawaii.”

"I have a challenge for Greg, Jack, Craig, you and any other birthers or doubters out there. Obtain a photographic copy of your ORIGINAL birth certificate issued by the state of your birth."

Len - I was born in 1957 and had no trouble whatsoever in getting a copy of the original birth certificate that was then certified by the State of Illinois as being a copy of my birth certificate.

So, at this point, the President of the United States could obtain a copy of his original birth certificate but apparently chooses to not do so.

If Obama could reveal the birthers to be utter fools by making a simple phone call to the Hawaii Health Department and asking it to send a local newspaper a copy of his original birth certificate, why hasn't he done so?

I am largely agnostic on this issue; however, when the government or someone in a very high position of power declines to provides readily available proof which will not jeopardize national security, I get suspicious.

3 documents are relevant to this discusion.

1) The original 1961 birth certificate issued to Obama's parents, it seems to have been lost, not surprising considering all the times he and his family moved.

2) The 1961 copy held by the state health department,

3) The 2008 copy issued by the state health department, there is little doubt it is authentic

The state's Republican health commisioner has alreay said Obama's 2008 birth certificate is authentic and matches the 1961 copy held by her office. Why would she cover for him if this were untrue?

Why wouldn't he release it if it is true?

Release what? A copy of the item you refer to as 2, above.

And I remember when the issue was first raised that he visited Hawaii to see his grandmother and that that trip was immediately followed by a statement from the governor's office (I think to the effect that a copy of a birth certificate can only be made public with the consent of the individual).

They released it to Obama he put a scan online and made it available for examination. Nice try, Len. It was plainly obvious that I was referring to the 1961 birth certificate - not the 2008 COLB.

And I don't accept the fact that the Republican governor must be trusted because she is a Republican and Barack is a Democrat.

Republicans have shown themselves to be plenty capable of being bribed.

Then you can’t be satisfied. If you entertain the notion that a Republican governor who campaigned for Bush,McCain and Palin as well as two of her appointees were bribed to protect an inelligible Democratic presidential candidate/president then I doubt any documents they issued would quell your doubts You are correct, Len, that I cannot be satisfied that a politician can't be bought.

I don't know where he was born, but I question why someone would not release something that he could do with a phone call if doing so would make a controversy go away and his detractors look foolish.

COLBs are only released to family members who fill out and mail in a form with $ 10. Obama`s was released - But, for reasons I don't understand, not a copy of the 1961 birth certificate (your item no. 2, above.).

If Obama could reveal the birthers to be utter fools by making a simple phone call to the Hawaii Health Department and asking it to send a local newspaper a copy of his original birth certificate, why hasn't he done so?

I am largely agnostic on this issue; however, when the government or someone in a very high position of power declines to provides readily available proof which will not jeopardize national security, I get suspicious.

3 documents are relevant to this discusion.

1) The original 1961 birth certificate issued to Obama's parents, it seems to have been lost, not surprising considering all the times he and his family moved.

2) The 1961 copy held by the state health department,

3) The 2008 copy issued by the state health department, there is little doubt it is authentic

The state's Republican health commisioner has alreay said Obama's 2008 birth certificate is authentic and matches the 1961 copy held by her office. Why would she cover for him if this were untrue?

Why wouldn't he release it if it is true?

And I remember when the issue was first raised that he visited Hawaii to see his grandmother and that that trip was immediately followed by a statement from the governor's office (I think to the effect that a copy of a birth certificate can only be made public with the consent of the individual).

And I don't accept the fact that the Republican governor must be trusted because she is a Republican and Barack is a Democrat.

Republicans have shown themselves to be plenty capable of being bribed.

I don't know where he was born, but I question why someone would not release something that he could do with a phone call if doing so would make a controversy go away and his detractors look foolish.

As a non-American, I must admit to being slightly mystified by all the fuss about whether Obama was born in the US or not.

I have no opinion either way on the veracity of his place of birth. I just can't see why it matters. Granted, I'm making the assumption that the US Constitution says that a president must have been born in America. If so, it smacks of constitutionalized racism to me (I'm not referring to the colour of his skin here, just the issue of whether he was born in America). Does it really matter? I care little about where my Prime Minister was born. I do care about what he can do to drag my country out of the seemingly endless mire we're in. To be frank, if the person capable of rescuing my country was a Little-Green-Man from Mars, then sign me up to the Little-Green-Men party. Maybe it's something to do with being English, which by definition means mixed race. The puzzling thing is, I thought you Yanks (sic) were of more mixed race than we Brits? So why the xenophobia when it comes to the nationality of your leader? If a foreigner is good enough to be governor of California, why not president? (Please don't get side-tracked into whether the Governator himself is suitable president material!)

Puzzled!

Hi Dave,

I appreciate your comments. IMO: the central issue here is two-fold. The first is technical, but could have huge consequences. The second is ethical.

First, because the Constitution requires that an individual who would be POTUS be born in the USA, then anyone occupying that office who does not comply with same is usurping the authority granted to the office by the Constitution because they are ineligible to legitimately lay a claim thereto. If it were to be proven that a sitting president was ineligible, even if only for a technicality, the United States would face a Constitutional Crisis. This is no small matter. If Obama was not born here, I would have preferred to find out BEFORE he was elected. He still may have been our best choice (or not) but it can completely unwind the effectiveness of his administration. If, for instance, JFK had not been born here, and it became known to his political rivals while he was in office, he could have been removed or rendered impotent without assassination.

Second, if Obama was not born here (an easy thing to disprove, if false) and became POTUS without disclosing the true location of his birth, then he is in violation of several well established practices, some of which include ethical considerations. Moreover, his having been an expert in Constitutional Law underscores the potential egregiousness of the offense.

Now, perhaps he was born in Hawaii. If so, no problem. But, why not produce the absolute PROOF if that's the case? It is SO damn easy to do!

"If so, no problem. But, why not produce the absolute PROOF if that's the case? It is SO damn easy to do!"

This point makes the whole issue suspect.

If Obama could reveal the birthers to be utter fools by making a simple phone call to the Hawaii Health Department and asking it to send a local newspaper a copy of his original birth certificate, why hasn't he done so?

I am largely agnostic on this issue; however, when the government or someone in a very high position of power declines to provides readily available proof which will not jeopardize national security, I get suspicious.

I applaud people like Jefferson Morley who spend untold time and money pursuing documentation which may shed light on the JFK assassination from a stubborn and recalcitrant government.

The fact that the government goes to such lengths and expense to resist his (and others') efforts mkaes me think it has something to hide.

I am waiting for the great document release of 2017, which I fully expect to be delayed by an emergency request for an extension to Congress and the President; but, the whole notion that the government has withheld this (very possibly relavant) information for 46 years makes me think it is hiding something.

This year's meeting starts this weekend at a resort in Spain.

The topic appears to be the Euro and its mortality.

This article describes what's on tap for this year's meeting:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worl...icle7142478.ece

Schadenfreude:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10139/1059193-176.stm

Mary Beth Buchanan, former US Attorney and prosecutor in the bogus case against Cyril Wecht, was trounced by a 2 to 1 margin in the GOP primary race for Pa's 4th Congressional District.

I just bought this book and I plan to start it this week.

I haven't read any books about the MLK assassination, but I sure remember it well because I lived in Memphis at the time.

I am sure I will also pick up and read the Hancock and Wexler book that Bill refers to in his post.

I have a hard time believing that Ray pulled off the MLK hit on his own, but my supposition is largely uneducated at this point.

This is encouraging.

Perhaps the LAPD can follow suit by releasing its file on the 1947 Black Dahlia murder.

The EMK docs should make for interesting reading and commentary.

Remember the Maine.

This is quite touching.

I guess Posner needs a high quality First Amendment attorney and Mark Lane needs the money.

As a lawyer, I don't begrudge attorneys for the quality or integrity of their clients - except in the case of frivilous litigation and bogus lawsuits (i.e. only about 40% of the cases filed), so I don't get stressed about lawyers I like who represent people I don't like.

It goes with the territory.

The real issue is not whether Arlen will not be a US Senator in January, 2011, but whether he will lose to Sestak or to Toomey.

I believe that John Bevilaqua has a good bit of personal knowledge of some aspects of the matters that EHH refers to in his interview.

Bill Clinton was undoubtedly complicit in the Federal government's raid on the Branch Davidian compound at Waco and the resulting mass immolation of innocent victims.

Janet Reno "accepted responsibility" for the incident, but it entailed the novel concept of responsiibility with no consequences (i.e. she continued on as AG for 7 more years).

The investigation of the Waco raid was obstructed by the FBI and its destruction of evidence (at about the same time its lab became unreliable as a result of shoddy manabement).

If my memory is correct, the FBI "lost" the front door of the Waco compound (which would have determined whether the fire from the first day was incoming our outgoing).

During the investigation, then Congressman Chuck Schumer shilled and ran interference for the FBI and the ATF.

I similarly believe that the investigation of the Oklahoma City Murrah Building bombing was inadequate and that key leads regarding Terry Nichols were not adequately investigated.

I have a higher degree of respect for the FBI than many people, but the Waco incident was clearly a low point in its history.

Thank you for joining the forum, Mark.

I read and thoroghly enjoyed Plausible Denial.

I would be interested to hear your input with respect to the alleged "deathbed confession" of EHH, particularly since you did such a fine job of eviscerating him at his deposition.

I believe that he was an essential player in the assassination and you certainly outed him during the Liberty Lobby litigation.

Michael,

Thanks. I have Comcast here in Florida, but nothing called TruTV on it. I guess I don't have the right package, and I'm not going to pay the thieves more than I'm already paying.

Ron, I'm sure you have checked carefully, but it might be worth a second look. I also have Comcast in Florida and I get TruTV. I think the shows are available on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifUT9A6Pmkw

TRU TV used to be known as Court TV. I watched the first season of Ventura's show and found it hugely disappointing. Each episode followed a similar pattern. His investigators would lay out something kinda wacky and mysterious, like the Bilderbergers secretly running the world, and he would say "Hmm, let's get to the bottom of this" and storm off to do just that. He then shows up somewhere unannounced and uninvited, and finds the refusal of the security guards wherever he shows up to let him in "suspicious." He seems to think being a former Navy Seal and Governor gives him an "all-access pass" to both government-owned and privately-owned facilities. At the end of the show, he ultimately pronounces that "we are not being told the truth about (fill in the blank)."

Sadly, the show is more about him than the topics being investigated. His performance, the music, even the camera angles all convey that he is a super-hero or super-warrior for the truth, kinda like Kolchak on steroids (if you remember the old Darren McGavin TV show), only investigating conspiracies instead of monsters.

I suspect Dick's book will be better. If not, well, I suspect Ventura's bringing some of these possible conspiracies some attention won't hurt too much, seeing as "conspiracy theorist" is already a bad word in most quarters.

I couldn't agree more, Pat.

His schtick gets quite dull.

But, if it helps expose the current government suppression of information relating to the JFK assassination, I wish him plenty of exposure.

First Doris Kearns Goodwyn, then Coumbia University Bancroft Prise winner Micheal Bellesiles, and now Gerald Posner.

JFK HAD THE GUTS OBAMA DOESN'T HAVE TO TAKE ON WALL STREET

Jan. 24 (LPAC)--Liberal columnist Frank Rich warns, in the New York Times, Jan. 24, that Obama does not have the guts or the brains of John F. Kennedy, and because of that, there will be many more ``Massachusetts,'' if the White House ``fails to reboot,'' and does not rid itself of Larry Summers and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. ``The White House clearly knows this duo is a political albatross,'' Rich says, and nobody will find this ``Harvard-trained lawyer [Obama] credible when slinging populist rhetoric at fat-cat bankers.''

Frank Rich doesn't have a clue about the mass strike phenomenon and the Massachusetts election, but he does know how to twist the knife in comparing Obama to JFK and FDR.

Summers is a symbol of the "deregulatory orgy that helped fuel the bubble," says Rich, and things are so bad that in Massachusetts, the Republican Senate Campaign Committee successfully pinned the "bailout" label on the Democrats.

Rich blows a massive hole in the White House fairy tale that they had been planning a "Volcker rule" attack on the big banks since October, saying that only after Massachusetts did the White House call Volcker "out of exile" to put on a new face.

They have to do much, much more. For one, he should study the JFK of April, 1962, and emulate JFK's attack on US Steel, as he {did not} emulate JFK's stand on Vietnam (when JFK did not send Marines into Southeast Asia).

"Kennedy was no radical...," writes Rich, "yet he, like that other Harvard patrician, F.D.R., had no hang-ups about battling his own class...."

"Kennedy didn't settle for the generic populist rhetoric of Obama's latest threats to fight unspecified bankers some indeterminate day," Rich concludes, and US Steel collapsed in about two days, after JFK threatened to turn his brother's Justice Department on them.

"Can anyone picture Obama exerting such take-no-prisoners leadership to challenge those who threaten our own economic recovery and stability at a time of deep recession and war? That we can't is a powerful indicator of why what happened in Massachusetts will not stay in Massachusetts...."

I find it notable that Obama has Larry Summers as his chief economic advisor.

Consider Summers' track record at Harvard where he caused its operating account to invest heavily in the stock market:

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009...ard-18-billion/

It would have been worse if the Board of Regents hadn't throttled back Summers' desire, which was to invest 100% of its operating cash in the market, to a mere 80%.

Good thing Harvard only lost $1.8 billion.

And Summers is an economist!?

I guess that makes a meth dealer a pharmacist.

If Marina was working for the KGB then why in the hell was she allowed to leave Russia with LHO and then proceed to live in the USA for the rest of her life?

Thats one hell of an assignment, one that lasts the rest of your life, im sure the KGB told her after LHO died to just stay in the USA

Lee let me lay it out for you

A. Marina was not KGB

B. Marina was not involved in the assassination

C. You are deluded

Dean, I'm not suggesting she was involved in the assassination - so you can take out part B of your "laying it out for me".

I'm suggesting the evidence supports the fact she was working for the KGB when she arrived in the U.S. I would assume that's why George DeMohrenschildt was so VERY interested in her. This is an interesting possibility. I would also assume that's why Ruth Paine was so VERY interested in her. Please explain. Post assassination I would assume that's why Priscilla Johnson was so VERY interested in her. Please explain.

I'm guessing in your head Dean, she was able to get out of the USSR in the first place through Moscow oversight and administration errors?

Don't dismiss the evidence through your own series of WHY questions? It doesn't change the FACTS Dean. Those types of questions are akin to Warren Commission defenders asking "Why did LHO leave the TSBD if he was innocent".

Some Soviet Agent's and U.S. Agent's assignments DID last their whole lives or are you oblivious to how the spying game worked 1939-1991? Are you not aware of the Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt and Donald Campbell story? Was JJ Angleton's life not just one big assignment?

For an individual, any individual, with a knowledge of the JFK case in 2010 to frame Marina Oswald as simply a victim of history has to be one three things:

a. Deluded

b. A denier of evidence

c. A believer in so many coincidences that they stretch credulity to the point past fracture

If a person then adds to their opinion of Marina's total innocence post assassination an opinion that Ruth Hyde Paine is innocent then they are, by my own definition, TAKING THE PISS!!

I for one am not going to sit here and let someone who is writing this garbage TAKE THE PISS out of me or future generations of people researching this case. This needs to be called out for what it is and I'm surprised it wasn't done in no uncertain terms when it was first posted in 2006. UTTER UNADULTERATED NONSENSE.

Richard Russell, John Cooper and Hale Boggs KNEW, and I mean KNEW, what Marina Oswald was and you get a good feel for what they KNEW by reading her Sunday September 6th 1964 testimony where she was grilled and almost came apart.

We are expected to believe that:

Marina Prusakova is visiting her friend in a Leningrad apartment block where Robert Webster happens to be living before she meets another U.S. defector? Please!

Marina Prusakova is allowed to court a U.S. defector in the Soviet Union without a reason? Yeah right, tell me another one.

Marina Prusakova takes an American Defector back to her Uncle's house, who happens to be a MVD colonel? Another, give me another...

Marina Prusakova is allowed to marry an American Defector and then within a six week period applies for and is granted exit during the height of the Cold War? Utter bollocks!

The U.S. allow her into the country out of the goodness of their heart with her traitorous husband? I'm sorry you lost me on point one!

An article from Stratfor in 2003: I don't agree with it all but they seem to have Marina nailed.

The Mystery of Marina Oswald

November 24, 2003

Summary

With the passing of the 40th anniversary of the JFK assassination, STRATFOR pauses to consider one of the less-examined aspects of the case: Marina Oswald. Her connections to the Soviet intelligence apparatus and odd marriage to Lee Harvey Oswald are seldom factored into any theories surrounding the assassination. However, the facts of the case make it clear that the Soviet government wanted Marina Prusakova and Oswald together in the United States.

Analysis

The 40th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination has prompted the usual round of articles and TV programs examining the assassination and theories of what actually happened. The speculation is endless — not because people are searching for meaning in a meaningless world, as one TV program suggested. Rather, the speculation is endless because the official explanation offered by the Warren Commission is difficult to believe. That may have been the way it happened, but it is not a genuinely satisfactory explanation.

We don’t have problems with the idea that Lee Harvey Oswald was a shooter, but we do have problems with the idea that he was the lone gunman. There are four crucial points that, for us at least, make it extremely unlikely that Oswald was operating alone:

1. Oswald had a beautiful, unobstructed shot from the Texas Schoolbook Depository building in Dallas as the presidential motorcade approached. He passed on a perfect shot, choosing instead to allow the motorcade to turn left and proceed below his window, and then took a much more difficult shot with his view partially obscured by a tree. Why would he have done that if he were acting alone?

2. The idea that he took three shots with his bolt-action Italian rifle in the elapsed time (a few seconds) — taking out Kennedy with the head shot — is just outside the box of credibility. No matter how we strain, we can’t get there.

3. The trajectory of the bullet that was supposed to have hit the president and Texas Gov. John Connolly similarly strains credibility.

4. The idea that Jack Ruby, a strip club owner and connected guy, went to the Dallas police station on an impulse and was so overwhelmed by uncontrollable rage at the death of his president that he shot Lee Harvey Oswald strains our credulity beyond its limits. Ruby was a lot of things, but sentimental was not one of them. Ruby looked out for Ruby. Whatever brought him to the station and to kill Oswald was not uncontrolled emotion.

There are lots of other things, but for us, these four issues — taken together — make it very difficult to buy the Warren report. We can probably explain away any one of these aspects, but the four things taken together with other anomalous facts create a critical mass of doubt.

The only strength of the Warren Commission report is the weakness of the alternative explanations:

1. Kennedy was killed by the American Mafia because Bobby Kennedy came after them, despite the fact that Joseph Kennedy had cut a deal with Sam Giancana over the West Virginia primary and the graveyard vote in Illinois. This is a reasonable explanation, except for the fact that it leaves no explanation for Oswald’s role in the president’s killing.

2. Kennedy was killed by Cuban Intelligence because the Kennedys tried to kill Fidel Castro. This is an interesting theory, except that it doesn’t explain where Jack Ruby fits in.

3. Kennedy was killed by the CIA because he wanted to pull out of Vietnam. This one suffers from the fact that the evidence that Kennedy wanted to pull out of Vietnam is pretty skimpy and the greater fact that, in 1963, Vietnam was one of a dozen foreign policy issues out there. The idea that the agency was so passionate about Vietnam that operatives would kill the president over it is just silly.

4. Cuban exiles killed Kennedy over the Bay of Pigs and the pledge not to invade after the Cuban missile crisis. The problem, again, is Oswald.

5. Hybrids of more than one of these theories. These make for interesting reading, but the problem is that all of the hybrids wind up involving dozens of people from multiple groups, none with any reason to trust each other. How do you keep a hybrid from leaking?

The only way some of these theories work is if Lee Harvey Oswald was not involved or somehow was, in his words, made into a “patsy.” For any of the conspiracy theories to work, Oswald would either have had to be an innocent victim, had someone else masquerading as him or been part of a conspiracy that his own background didn’t easily bring him into. It really all comes down to who Lee Harvey Oswald was — a subject that has garnered endless speculation.

Far less speculation has gone into what is, in our view, a significantly neglected aspect of this story: Marina Oswald. From STRATFOR’s standpoint, she is at least one of the keys to whatever happened on Nov. 22, 1963. Our image of Marina Oswald, dating back to the days following the assassination, is that of a simple, frightened young woman, stunned by what had happened and in way over her head. That image of a more or less innocent bystander has remained intact for 40 years, even though the facts have consistently pointed to her being a much more important figure in the story.

Marina Oswald — born Marina Prusakova — met Lee Harvey Oswald in Minsk, where he worked in an electronics factory after having defected to the Soviet Union in 1959. She was then 19 years old. Her father had been killed in the war; she lived with her stepfather in Archangel, in the far north of Russia, before moving to Moldova as a small child and then to Leningrad at age 12. In 1955, she entered the Pharmacy Technikum for what the Warren Report called “special training.” She received a diploma in pharmacology in June 1959 and then was assigned to a job in a warehouse, which she quit after a day.

Two months later, she moved to live with her uncle in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. Her uncle was a colonel in the MVD — the Russian Interior Ministry security service. At that time, the agency — which was a mixture of a national police force and the FBI — carried out several functions, from running large parts of the Gulag to serving as an internal security force. According to the Warren Commission, Col. Prusakov was head of the local lumber industry, which would have certainly made him part of the Gulag apparatus and therefore part of the security structure. With a rank of colonel, he clearly had substantial responsibilities. According to the Warren Commission, Prusakov “… had one of the best apartments in a building reserved for MVD employees.”

In Minsk, Marina finally got a job in the pharmacy of a hospital. At the same time, she joined Komsomol, the Communist youth organization — a fairly common thing to do and something that her uncle, given his standing in the government apparatus, certainly would have expected her to do. She had a good many friends when, seven months after moving to Minsk, she was introduced to Lee Harvey Oswald. They had one date — at a dance. Immediately after the dance, Oswald was taken ill and checked into a hospital, though not the one where Marina worked. Marina visited him often in the hospital, although they had met only twice prior to his hospitalization. She was able to visit him outside of regular visiting hours, according to the Warren Commission, because of her uniform. Oswald was hospitalized from March 30 until April 11. It is not clear what illness kept him hospitalized for almost two weeks, but he was cared for at an ear, nose and throat clinic: He apparently had the mother of all sinus headaches.

According to Marina’s testimony to the Warren Commission, Oswald visited her regularly at her uncle’s apartment after his release. The Commission makes a point of saying that “they were apparently not disturbed by the fact that he was an American and did not disapprove of her seeing him” This is an important point. Oswald was an American defector, clearly regarded with suspicion by Soviet Intelligence. Marina’s uncle was a colonel in the MVD. Having American defectors visit his apartment in 1961 should have concerned him a lot. He would certainly report it to his superior. An American FBI official entertaining his niece’s Soviet defector boyfriend in 1961 would certainly be cautious about its effect on his pension; however, Prusakov apparently was not concerned.

Now it gets interesting. On April 20, a little more than a month since their first meeting, Oswald proposes to Marina. She accepts and they are married on April 30. Let’s pause here. Marina Oswald is an attractive young woman. She holds a diploma in pharmacology from a first-rate technical school in Leningrad. Her uncle is a senior official in the MVD. Lee Harvey Oswald is a foreign defector, without any real future and — we are handicapped here by our glandular bias — not a great looker or sharp dresser. But he must have been a hell of a dancer, because they were married about six weeks after they met with much of the courtship having taken place in a hospital.

OK — it may have been uncontrollable love at first sight. Stranger things have happened, we suppose. The problem was that in order for Marina to marry Oswald, they needed to get special permission from the state, because he was a foreigner. That would have been true if he were the head of the Polish Communist Party. But Oswald wasn’t just a foreigner, he was an American defector. Given the Soviet bureaucracy, someone in Moscow was going to have to sign off on this one — and it had to have kicked off one heck of a security review in her uncle’s office, but permission nevertheless was granted in 10 days.

If that is hard to believe, try the next one. After about a month of marriage, Oswald tells Marina that he’s tired of the Soviet Union and wants to go home. She apparently says “whatever” and they start making arrangements to leave the Soviet Union. At this point, she told the Warren Commission, her aunt and uncle became upset and stopped speaking to her. A great deal has been made of the U.S. Embassy’s willingness to allow Oswald to return to the United States, but not nearly enough has been made of the fact that the Soviets permitted not only Oswald, but also Marina, to leave the country.

In October, while this was going on, Marina decided to take her annual vacation. According to the commission, Oswald and Marina agreed that she needed “a change of scenery.” Having been married less than six months, she took a three-week vacation by herself to visit an aunt in Kharkov. Kharkov in October is not the greatest place to visit, but off she went.

When she returned, she pursued her exit visa. She met with an MVD colonel, Nicolay Aksenov, who had to approve the exit permit. Marina thought that the interview might have been granted because her uncle was also an MVD colonel, but that makes little sense if her uncle opposed her departure. On Dec. 25, 1961, about six weeks after applying, she received her exit visa from the Soviet Union, as did Oswald. Marina told the Commission that she was surprised to receive permission. That is an understatement — what happened was unheard-of. Although the Warren Commission tried to argue that these things were not that uncommon, they just were.

Let’s recap here:

1. Marina, part of the Soviet upper-middle class, reasonably educated and an attractive young woman, meets Lee Harvey Oswald and is so smitten by him that she agrees to marry him in a little over a month — two weeks of which he spent courting her from a hospital bed.

2. The Soviet government grants Marina permission to marry him in the span of 10 days, despite the fact that this is an MVD colonel’s niece marrying a U.S. defector.

3. Oswald immediately decides to head back to the United States, and in spite of her uncle’s supposed objections — and Prusakov could have stopped this dead in its tracks if he wanted — she is granted permission to leave the Soviet Union in the company of an American defector. The time between her formal request and receiving permission is a matter of weeks.

If the Warren Commission has the facts right — and we think they do — then this is clear: the Soviet government wanted Marina and Oswald to marry and they wanted them to go together to the United States. That is crystal clear. Now, we take a leap, but a reasonable one: The only agency in the Soviet Union with the ability and interest to get this done was the KGB. If Marina wasn’t KGB, she did one hell of an imitation.

Endless questions flow from this, ranging from what the mission was to why the U.S. embassy permitted Marina into the country. This now enters into the realm of speculation. However, one thing is clear to us: Any theory as to what happened on Nov. 22, 1963, that does not take into careful account the role of Marina Oswald is inherently flawed. This includes the Warren Commission’s own findings. If Lee Harvey Oswald killed John F. Kennedy, there has been no adequate explanation of Marina Oswald’s role in this.

The only way to dismiss the Marina question is to make the following three assertions:

1. You have to believe that Marina, the attractive MVD princess, took one look at Oswald and said, “I’ve got to have that man.”

2. You have to argue that obtaining permission in 10 days for an MVD colonel’s live-in niece to marry an American defector was no big deal.

3. You have to argue that getting an exit permit from the Soviet Union for Marina in the space of six weeks in 1961 was no big deal.

If ever there was a cooked-up marriage, this was it. Now, how this fits into the assassination story is too speculative to bother with — but that no explanation is possible without building this into the story is obvious.

There has been tremendous focus on Oswald’s stay in the Soviet Union and speculation that his defection might have been part of a CIA plot. That is not inconceivable, although the purpose of the plot is opaque. There has been focus on Washington’s decision to readmit Oswald, even though he had renounced his U.S. citizenship. All of this has focused attention on the CIA, but there has not been equal attention paid to the extraordinary story of Marina Prusakova’s marriage to Oswald and her exit from the Soviet Union.

This does not necessarily clear things up, but in our mind, it sets an additional hurdle that any theory must pass over. The eagerness of the Warren Commission to pass over the strange marriage of these two is one of the reasons we have little confidence in the analysis it contains. The fact of the marriage raises questions of whether Oswald was, simply in the context of his marriage, involved in a conspiracy. If he was the only gunman — which we doubt — he still was not alone.

THIS REPORT IS REPUBLISHED WITH PERMISSION OF STRATFOR http://www.stratfor.com/

Lee,

You make some astute observations, particularly the seeming incongruity of Marina's getting an exit visa in 6 weeks at a time when departure from the USSR was tightly regulate and the following:

"4. The idea that Jack Ruby, a strip club owner and connected guy, went to the Dallas police station on an impulse and was so overwhelmed by uncontrollable rage at the death of his president that he shot Lee Harvey Oswald strains our credulity beyond its limits. Ruby was a lot of things, but sentimental was not one of them. Ruby looked out for Ruby. Whatever brought him to the station and to kill Oswald was not uncontrolled emotion."

This is one of the truly inadequately explained hurdles that the LN crowd has yet to overcome.

Someone needs to clue us in on this one.

engaged in an obfuscationary practice

Kaiser Sose said the greatest trick the devil ever played was make the world

think he didn't exist.

"Maybe Varnell is Disinfo..."

Nah. I got street cred bona fides none of youse can match...

http://originalsevenseconds.com/

I think I got you beat, Cliff. I was the indie buyer for a large music wholesaler with a 30 store chain of its own and had hundreds of meets, greets, and meals with members of N.W.A., Black Flag, Bad Religion, The Replacements, The Beastie Boys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, etc... not to mention folks like David Cassidy... Roadrunner Records considered me so helpful in breaking Slipknot they sent me a gold record plaque.

But I was so much older then I'm younger than that now.

That's the kind of job which will keep you young, Pat.

To what does the "breaking Slipknot" comment relate?

My fellow Starnes enthusiast Paul Rigby would call me "fatuous" for saying this, but

I don't believe in Government Disinfo Agent bogeymen. Not in this day and age.

What about the guy who works the Nutter desk at Langley -- or on the Carlyle Corp

floors of the TransAmerica Pyramid -- and whose job it is to manage a team of think

tank types who post on JFK newsgroups and forums?

That guy on the Nutter desk believes that Oswald acted alone.

The think tank types like John McAdams believe Oswald acted alone.

It's like a religious faith to these people. Facts make no impression.

Same with the Grandstanders, people afflicted with what I call Young Researcher Syndrome.

These otherwise fine people are motivated by the desire to be seen doing "great work" in the

field of JFK assassination research. They seek to garner sterling reputations for being

Very Serious, and usually concentrate on issues relating to the head wound(s).

The problem ambitious, grandstanding Young Researchers have is that there are two

prima facie cases for conspiracy -- the low back wound and the throat entrance wound.

The low back wound demolishes the SBT and establishes 4+ shots; the throat entrance

wound obviously establishes a shot from the front and thus conspiracy.

Those with Young Researcher Syndrome will never -- I repeat, never -- acknowledge

the low back wound/front throat wound.

Why?

Because to acknowledge those facts forecloses opportunity to do "great work" in the JFK

Assassination parlor game I call -- "Answer the Question of Conspiracy."

How can an ambitious researcher "Answer the Question of Conspiracy" if it's already been

answered?

How can all those hours and days and years studying the head wound

evidence be meaningful and significant if the study is moot?

So Grandstanders always pooh-pooh either the low back wound, the throat

entrance wound, or both. Always.

I recently read over the parts in Praise From A Future Generation concerning

the Vince Salandria - Tink Thompson feud, and it clearly struck me that Tink suffers

(even today!) from Young Researcher Syndrome.

When Tink sat down with Vince in the summer of '66 to work on a magazine article

that would eventually turn into Six Seconds in Dallas, Vince had the case cold:

the clothing defects were powerful corroboration of the T3 back wound; the Parkland

staff almost uniformly described the throat wound as an entrance; the WC testimony

of Nellie Connally, Clint Hill and Linda Willis established the fact that JFK was responding

to throat truma well before the head shot.

At some point in his work with Salandria, I think Tink came to the sense (it may not have

even been a conscious sense!) that all he was going to get out of this collaboration was a

reputation for being Vincent Salandria's "caddy," in a sense.

Tink didn't want to be anyone's caddy; he wanted to play the game -- "Answer the Question

of Conspiracy."

So Tink did what every Grandstander does -- he pooh-poohed the prima facie case for

conspiracy, and went on to glory with his own analyses. A fragment from the head shot

exited the throat? That's about as ridiculous an argument as could possibly be made!

Does this mean that Tink was (is) being intellectually dishonest about the throat entrance?

You bet! But being intellectually dishonest is the most human of failings, and it especially

rears its head when it comes to employment opportunities (or romantic ones!)

But a "government disinformation agent"?

I don't buy it.

I've been dealing with Grandstanders for over a decade. John Hunt, Barb Junkkarinen,

Pat Speer, Anthony Marsh are some of the leading Grandstanders. All of them

pooh-pooh the obvious, prima facie cases of conspiracy and all of them are "expert"

in other areas.

I don't think this makes them bad people, just bad researchers when it comes to

making the case for conspiracy. It doesn't mean they don't do great research in other

areas of the case.

And it definitely doesn't make them "government disinformation agents."

It does mean, however, that they are selling out "the Cause" for their own self-aggrandizement.

Which is exctly what Tink Thompson did back in '66, in my opinion.

No, I think the psyop guys at the CIA realized fairly early on that the John F. Kennedy

Assassination Critical Research Community tended to schism, and the most incriminating,

consistent facts would be lost in all the poo throwing.

Which is exactly what has happened.

Cliff, I have a couple of questions for you re the throat frontal wound.

1. Do you also believe that their was a right frontal head wound?

2. If so, do you believe that it originated from the same weapon as the throat wound?

I believe that their was clearly a right frontal head wound which immediately followed a rear head wound. Hence, the rearward tissue and skull splatter.

I am agnostic as to whether the front head wound shot was made with a frangible round or with a traditional rifle round.

But, I have a hard time believing that a throat shot, made with the same high-powered weapon which was the source of the right frontal head wound, would not exit the neck.

I can easily see a throat shot made with a 38 special, for example, not exiting the throat, but not so with a rifle round or with a frangible round.