Paul Rigby

George Polk’s brother replied in this morning’s edition. Below, his angry – and justly so – response. The important question of how such a transparent smear piece found its way into the pages of Britain’s “liberal” daily deserves an answer. Paul

Nathaniel, Not read the particular Gibson book you ask about, but I have got - and have read - another of Gibson's books, The Kennedy Assassination Cover-up (NY: Kroshka Books, 2000), which I unreservedly recommend (and did so in a review on Amazon). The first time I was provoked to question the conventional view of JFK's economic policies - you seem to me to characterise accurately the current mainstream consensus - was when I came across a brief Times (of London) piece on Kennedy's visit to Mexico. In the course of it, Kennedy was reported as accepting a significantly larger economic role for the state than is currently fashionable. If I can find it, I'll post in due course. Paul

Thanks and well done, John, for giving Seldes his own thread - no US journalist of the 20th century deserves it more. Interested readers can find a complete run of In Fact, his remarkable weekly, here: http://dewey.library.upenn.edu/sceti/AdvancedSearch.cfm We have the University of Pennsylvania’s Schoenberg Centre for Electronic Text and Image to thank for the riches therein. Paul

Sid, Don't believe Stone's Weekly/Bi-Weekly is available on-line, but you can buy reprints of whole and/or part volumes - there were 19 in total - by following this link: http://www.periodicals.com/html/ihp_e.html?ei03914 If I could afford it, I'd buy the lot, his shameful acquiescence in the Warren Report nonsense notwithstanding. Paul

The total of articles has been swelled by one, and a very curious addition at that. In Monday's Guardian, Media section, Polk was "swift-boated" by one by Richard B. Frank. To follow, the full, squalid ad hominem in full. The Guardian as Britain's leading Mockingbird asset? You bet: As a nineteenth century journalist, Ferdinand Desnoyers, once wrote, "Among the dead are those who still have to be killed" - Polk is thus in good and honourable company on a forum dedicated to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Paul

The total of articles has been swelled by one, and a very curious addition at that. In Monday's Guardian, Media section, Polk was "swift-boated" by one by Richard B. Frank. To follow, the full, squalid ad hominem in full. The Guardian as Britain's leading Mockingbird asset? You bet: As a nineteenth century journalist, Ferdinand Desnoyers, once wrote, "Among the dead are those who still have to be killed" - Polk is thus in good and honourable company on a forum dedicated to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Paul

Pure, unadulterated bathos! Len, What exactly is it that made you trust the BBC in the first place? Is it that MI5 vetting office which the grapevine has it still sits in Broadcasting House? Is it the rich history of careers destroyed, stymied, or merely re-routed harmlessly by the far-rightists who people British Intelligence, and who sit in unaccountable judgement on who gets to go where in, and make what for, this fine, thoroughly democratic institution? Is it the foreign correspondents who whitewash British and American crimes across the globe? And where is your commitment to freedom and choice? Do you think it right that the British people are compelled under threat of fine and/or imprisonment by the state to pay for a service a growing minority do not use, like or want? Paul

Charlie, If you're aware of the following, apologies, but if not, try these books on Luce and his empire. Both are informative places to start: W.A. Swanberg. Luce and His Empire (NY: Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1973); George Seldes. 1000 Americans: The Real Rulers of the U.S.A. (NY: Boni & Gaer, Inc., 1947). Luce was a committed pro-fascist until at least the late-30s, albeit one content to hide behind his minions, most notably Laird S. Goldsborough. His opposition to the Kennedy White House was unconcealed. That his empire controlled - ostensibly, at least - the film of Kennedy's murder is nothing short of extraordinary. Even more extraordinary is the blind-eye turned to this by apparent truth-seekers such as Weisberg and Garrison. Not a sign of it in the UK - things any better in the States? Paul

Last time I looked, Pat, even US courts were still relying on such irrelevances as eye-, and ear-witness testimony. If that weren't the case, we would be confronted with an awful lot of unemployed legal types. A not unattractive development, I concede, but hardly the present state of affairs. And as demonstrated above, Elm Street witnesses DID indicate shots emanated from within the presidential limousine. All you have told me so far is you don't like the fact. Nor were they alone: At least four Parkland doctors have expressed an opinion that the head wound was caused by a handgun. Three did so before the Warren Commission. As far back as 1975, Newcomb and Adams offered an eminently sensible explanation for why more witnesses did not offer same: "Self-censorship may exist most strongly when people are confronted with a force capable of killing a very important victim, in broad daylight, with impunity. The odds of their experiencing reprisal would dictate prudence. In short, witnesses' opinion of the political power of the killers would determine their amount of recall," Murder From Within, chapter 3, "Execution." It makes perfect sense if the event depicted on the Z-fraud never happened. Paul

Pat, Regardless of one's opinion of the precise degree of SS complicity, this simply isn't true. Here's four examples, and a boon, for starters: 1.Bobby Hargis (Police motorcycle outrider, left rear of limousine): Mr. Stern: Do you recall your impression at the time regarding the shots? Hargis: “Well, at the time it sounded like the shots were right next to me,” 6WCH294. 2. Austin Miller (railroad worker, on triple overpass): Mr. Belin: “Where did the shots sound like they came from?” Miller: “Well, the way it sounded like, it came from the, I would say right there in the car,” 6WCH225. 3. Charles Brehm (carpet salesman, south curb of Elm St.): The shots came from “in front of or beside” the President. Source: Dallas Times Herald, first post-assassination edition, November 22, 1963, cited by Joachim Joesten. Oswald: Assassin or Fall Guy? (London: Merlin Press, 1964), p.176. 4. Officer E. L. Boone was standing on the corner of Main and Houston Streets when the shots rang out:"I heard three shots coming from the vicinity of where the President's car was,” 19WCH508. 5. Hugh Betzner, Jr. in the Dallas County Sheriffs Office…"I saw what looked like a fire-cracker going off in the President's car and recall seeing what looked like a nickel revolver in someone's hand in or around the President's car," On the latter, what an outlandish proposition! It is, after all, self-evidently easier to shoot a man in car from 40ft to 150yds with a rifle than it is from under 10ft with a handgun. Still, on the plus side, at least you've offered a new definition of a "literalist" - a critic who reads and quotes the bits of testimony WC-ers and their bosom pals, the grassy knollers, won't. Nope, it ain't clear. Paul

And for the grand Anglo-American strategy underpinning the inter-war period - in summary, it explains why Fascism couldn't conceivably have triumphed in Washington or London, even though significant, if not preponderant, sections of both countries' elites devoutly desired such a development - try this: Guido Giacomo Preparata. Conjuring Hitler: How Britain and America made the Third Reich (London: Pluto Press, 2005). A remarkable book, which sheds just as much light on the present as the past. Paul Thank God I didn't - your "take" is admirable! Paul PS My point was to suggest a very different take on who approached Smedley Butler and why. I don't know the answer, but I do think the hypothesis should be explored that the Wall Streeters who sought out Butler may have had the opposite purpose to the ostensible.

Except, of course, the successful theft of successive elections. Monbiot miss this? Not bad for men and women "not capable of anything! Let me see if I have this straight: the really big problem is not the theft of elections, nor even domestic mass-murder used as a pretext for mass-murder abroad, but the sceptic's conviction that the neo-Cons have frightening power? Again, this is simply weird. Evidence for this? So when a sceptic or outright opponent of the official conspiracy theory writes to his/her political representative, joins a march, or posts an oppositional email etc., this doesn't count as political activity? Why? Who defined it as such? Arguing about, say, climate change is more threatening to the national security state than insisting 9/11 was an inside job? I've heard it all. Straight rip off of the Chomsky nonsense in Rethinking Camelot: If you don't believe the Warren Report, you're a Cargo Cultist, or somesuch. Piffle. And so unoriginal, a characteristic of both Monbiot pieces on the subject. Then there is the small matter of Monbiot's elitist contempt for those easily distracted defectors from campaigns of which he approves. One wonders a) what evidence for this Monbiot has; and how does this work? Anyone know someone who gave up campaigning on other subjects because of a bad attack of 9/11-itis? The idea is silly. The reverse is true: 9/11 scepticism has brought people into the realm of political activism. I have to say, John, I'm astonished, and not a little disappointed, to see you lined up with such a transparent establishment gate-keeper. Paul

And for the grand Anglo-American strategy underpinning the inter-war period - in summary, it explains why Fascism couldn't conceivably have triumphed in Washington or London, even though significant, if not preponderant, sections of both countries' elites devoutly desired such a development - try this: Guido Giacomo Preparata. Conjuring Hitler: How Britain and America made the Third Reich (London: Pluto Press, 2005). A remarkable book, which sheds just as much light on the present as the past. Paul

The most extraordinary non-sequitur I've yet seen on this website. They are capable of anything: They didn't do it. It's also unhistorical tripe. Were the men who staged the coup of November 22 less ruthless? Or the men who brought down Lincoln? Perhaps Monbiot could share with us the secret of his moral calculus. One sees Monbiot's problem, though. All that hyperbolic straining is unavoidable if he is to build credibility before rounding on the real villains of 9/11 - not those who perpetrated it, you understand, but those who sought to investigate it. Weird morality, George. Coincidence theory at its most childish and ludicrous. We are invited to believe that though they eagerly desired to invade Iraq, they failed to see any potential in the large plot under their noses. And yet Monbiot is far more scathing and passionate in his assault on 9/11 sceptics than he is about the man he insists is "responsible for the murder of many tens of thousands of Iraqis." Again, very curious morality, this. Really? Or just preplanning? Again, not very complicated: psywar was built into the planning. Ah, an old favourite, wearingly familiar since at least the days of Clay Shaw's trial; and yet more hyperbole. "Tens of thousands"!? And Monbiot has the cheek to label 9/11 sceptics "morons."

Jack, I'm more shocked by your revelation than I can, er, adequately feign. Paul

Sorry, Charlie, but it couldn't have been, Mack private email or no. The Muchmore film, assuming it was actually taken by her, couldn't have been transmitted from taker to purchaser, from Dallas to New York, viewed and then prepared for transmission, in time on 25 November. Note the time of the Tass despatch; and factor in the eight-hour difference between New York and Moscow. That dog don't hunt. Paul PS Here's a timeline for the Muchmore film on 25 November, as prepared by Larry Peters, a famously reliable authority on this matter, to whom I am happy to defer: The above appeared on this forum: I feel sure Mack would have intervened at once were it incorrect.

Charlie, I think it's more fundamental than the number of copies - it's everything from how many versions of the Z-fraud, the chain of possession, the political purpose(s) of the fake(s), you name it. At root are the inter-related questions of what happened in the motorcade, when, and by whom. In short, why go to all this trouble? The answer, I have no doubt, lies in the presidential limousine, the central focus of the deceptions. Paul

Sure, Charlie, with pleasure. Film of the actual shooting of JFK shown on Soviet TV on evening of 25 November 1963, as recorded in Foreign Office files: http://www.assassinationresearch.com/v1n2/worldreaction.html As noted in TASS despatch of same day: http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/history/wc_pe...lmson%20TV.html The appearance of the same film was also noted in contemporaneous State Department records, but I’ve lost/can’t find my notes for that. A distinctly Mockingbirdish attempt to muddy the waters of what exactly Soviet viewers saw is to be found in a brief AP despatch published in US newspapers on 26 November. Here is the version which appeared in The Dallas Morning News. Note how film of the actual shooting is transformed into the somehat more nebulous assassination “documentary”: It would seem logical, but by no means certain, that the film seen by Soviet TV viewers on the evening of 25 November also made an appearance on a few selected US TV stations the following day. It remains a curious fact that there is, as matters stand, more evidence for the Z-film being in distribution with US TV stations on 26 November than there is for the anti-alterationist claim that it was the Muchmore film which was shown on WNEW-TV, New York, on the afternoon of the same day. I have only been able to find only one such newspaper report – see below, the paragraph in bold – yet this is one more than I have so far been able to locate for the alleged debut of Muchmore: Paul

Me, too, particularly as early as 25 November 1963, which is when Soviet TV viewers got to see it! (Unless, and one must permit the possibility, we are dealing with a completely different film of the actual bullet impacts...) And if they permitted it, they wanted you to believe in a right-front shot. All the more reason to look elsewhere, surely! Paul

Didn't Brit intel plant assets in television studio audiences during the Wilson-called referendum on our continued membership of the EU? Also germane to recall that, with apologies to Fouche, there are essentially three types of conspiracy theorist: Those deployed by secret police bureaucracies to discredit the cause they ostensibly espouse; genuine nutters; and interested amateurs with something useful to contribute. Only the former pair are, as a rule, permitted to sully our mainstream media. Paul

Myra, Don't dissent, but am disinclined to reduce the deep politics of such events to one cause or motive. As a rule of thumb when examining the context of high-level political assassinations, we see something I can only describe as "confluence" - a group of causes and motives of differing levels of importance to the coalition that forms prior to the murder itself. The prime-mover(s) neither need nor desire participation, but they do need to be sure of tacit acquiescence. Paul

Bad news, Charlie – according to Otto Eisenschiml’s landmark, if somewhat mistitled, Why Was Lincoln Murdered? (London: Faber & Faber, 1937), there was photographic jiggery-pokery involved in the Lincoln case. In the chapter entitled “The Prisoners at the Bar,” Eisenschiml writes: “…the photograph of Booth used throughout the whole trial was not a picture of John Wilkes Booth at all, but one of his brother Edwin” (p.265). He goes on to make a compelling case that Booth’s pursuers were similarly armed with the wrong photograph; and demonstrates alteration of the stenographic record to conceal this photographic subterfuge. The point being, of course, that Booth was allowed to escape in order to blaze a trail to the Confederacy, thus concealing the real identities and locations of the plotters. Paul

Greg, I've finally found the Sat Eve Post profile, and here's the paragraph that stuck with me. I've just bought Mellen's book & look forward to seeing her treatment of Garrison's self-professed admiration for Rand. I must say, though no expert on Rand's followers, I have never heard of any who were of the political centre or left. Still, here it is: “He has a high regard for Ayn Rand, the high priestess of unfettered individualism, and says that her novel, The Fountainhead, had a profound effect on his thinking. ‘What she had to say about the importance of the individual, even if he must lose, is true,” Garrison says. ‘The statement is regularly made that the individual can do nothing. The answer is – only the individual can do anything,’” (“The Vice Man Cometh,” June 8, 1963, p.71). The author is every bit as interesting - James Phelan. Paul

Cliff, As you well know, the internal documentary record is not kind to Trento’s interpretation. On 26 August 1963, in the approach to the planned coup against Diem of 28/29 August, the then CIA chief of station in Saigon cabled Langley: “Situation here has reached point of no return. Saigon is armed camp. Current indications are that Ngo family have dug in for last ditch battle. It is our considered estimate that General officers…understand that they have no alternative but to go forward… Situation has changed drastically since 21 August. If the Ngo family wins now, they and Vietnam will stagger on to final defeat at the hands of their own people and the VC. Should a generals’ revolt occur and be put down, GVN will sharply reduce American presence in SVN… It is obviously preferable that the generals conduct this effort without apparent American assistance. Otherwise, for a long time in the future, they will be vulnerable to charges of being American puppets, which they are not in any sense…”* In short, when Lodge first demanded John H. Richardson’s dismissal in mid-September 1963, the latter was unquestionably pro-coup. *Francis X. Winters. The Year of the Hare: America in Vietnam, January 25, 1963 – February 15, 1964 (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1997), p.66. A better title for any intended book concerning Cuba and the murder of JFK? "Someone Should Have Invaded." Perhaps Ashton will do the necessary. Paul

John, Wasn't the old fraud Churchill booed as he toured the East End during the Blitz? Presumably British voters in 1945 hadn't forgotten his lavish pre-war praise of Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco. For documentation, see "Winston Churchill's Untold, Uncensored Story Reveals Him Pro-Hitler, Mussolini, Franco," In Fact, (No. 399, Vol XVII, No. 9), May 31, 1948, pp.1-4. In issue 395 (Vol XVII, No. 5) of In Fact, the lead story bore the title "Medical Lobby's Bribe Offer to Cartoonists Spotlights New Case of Press War Against US Health," May 3, 1948, pp.1-4. Plus ca change... Best to you and your wife, Paul