Michael G. Smith

Thanks Bernice, if that is from Mr Mentesanas film. The picture I remember seeing was a close up of the rifle that was supposedly found on the roof of the TSBD. The police were checking it out on the ground, and the gun could be plainly seen. Definately no scope from what I remember. I just want to see if it can be identified, maybe a Mauser??? I assume that this is the one that was found. I just wish we couold get a better look at it. I wish I could remember where it was i saw his pictures before. It was quite a while ago, and never thought to save them. Thank you again, and to Robin also for the great photos.-smitty

From what I understand, from past readings, was that they stated the dent was "already there" from a previous "mishap" while working or servicing the limo. [i could be mistaken here] I tried to check all the photos I could from that day, from Love field to Dealey Plaza, and I havent found anything close up enough to see if it was there or not. Im sure, as most of you, that it was hit during the shooting. Maybe you have some good photos of the limo in your collection Robin? If so, please post them for us. I also agree with you as to the hit. It appears to be hit from the right side, low trajectory, in a slight upward strike. Just my opinion FWIW. thanks-smitty

Tomas, There is only room for one "completely closed" mind on this forum, and I long ago laid claim to it. Too bad that you did not shop around here, you just may have learned a few things which neither the WC nor the HSCA bothered to inform you of. Such as: 1. Some of the facts as relates to who & what LHO was and the games he was playing/being played. 2. Some of the facts about the third/last/final shot in the shooting sequence.(The Magic Bullet) 3. Some of the facts about the first shot in the shooting sequence. 4. That the WC was a complete misrepresentation of the facts of the assassination. 5. That the HSCA was also manipulated. My mistake! I would suppose that my mind IS NOT completely closed, since I am fully aware of almost all of Specter & Company's frequent and ever so slight/sleight-of-hand manipulations of the evidence, as well as the extremely high probability of a conspiracy to assassinate JFK. Tom P.S. I do believe that the old saying was "A Closed Mind Opens no Doors". Tomas, Thanks so much for your kind words about the "Forum", and Mr. Simpkins. You have done us all a big favor by not joining us here. I dont know John personally, but what I do know of him, he has done more than most people I can think of to further the education, and research, of many subjects, not just the JFK case. To put together a site such as his Forum, seems to me to be such an undertaking that Im sure most people wouldnt even begin to try to attempt, or even think of trying to do what he has done. We dont all agree with each other here, and never will. But that is what "forums" such as Johns are. Places to discuss OLD and NEW ideas and thoughts. You are surely entitled to your opinion, which you made perfectly clear. If this Forum, and John, bother you to such an extreme, why even bother posting anything here? Seems to me you have another agenda. You should just continue trolling other sites that you approve of, and spout off your expert solutions to those who will listen to you. Im sure most of us here wouldnt listen to anything you had to say, regardless of what it was. Again, thanks once more for your kind post.-smitty

Okay, Aston, You asked for it, and I didnt' even need a Superdooperchronology machine. - BK THE QUAKER CITY CONNECTIONS – CROSSROADS TO CONSPIRACY – By Bill Kelly PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA, after Dallas and New Orleans, is the one city, if not where more JFK assassination intrigues actually took place, where many of the primary players spent more of their quality time than anywhere else. Philly is the Crossroads of the Conspiracy. Home of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Liberty Bell, the Stars & Stripes, the U.S.S. Olympia of Spanish American War fame, and the 2000 Republican National Convention, Philadelphia was founded by First Quaker William Penn and is the hometown of Tom Paine, Ben Franklin, Arthur Young, Cummings Catherwood, James Bond, Frank Forini Sturgis, Angelo Bruno, Dr. De De Wynne DeMohrenschildt Sharples, Igor Vaganov, Steve Keenan, Robert Lipka, Amil Jamal and Ira Einhorn. Philadelphia is where you get a good cheesesteak, cream cheese, scrapple, Tastycake, water ice and a lawyer, when you really need one. Among the Philadelphia lawyers who became players in the JFK assassination drama are John J. McCloy, Arlen Specter, William Coleman, Vincent Salandria, Richard Schweiker and Richard Sprague. Philadelphia's Main Line is where Michael Paine and Priscilla Johnson (McMillan) matriculated at Quaker colleges, Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr, where Michael Paine met Ruth Hyde when she was teaching at a Quaker school, and where Michael's stepfather Arthur Young invented the original Bell 47A Helicopter. Philadelphia is also the home of Warren Commission critic Vincent Salandria [see: "False Mystery" an Anthology of Salandria's work] and the dateline of such journalists as Joe Goulden, the reporter who "made up" Oswald's FBI number, and investigative journalists Gaeton Fonzi and Mike Mallow, both of whom wrote numerous articles on the Kennedy assassination for Philadelphia Magazine. Philadelphia is where Lee Harvey Oswald told Ruth Paine he was going to relocate to and work shortly before he went to Mexico City, and there are four Philadelphia addresses in Oswald's notebook, each an interesting lead worth pursuing. Philadelphia is where President JFK visited on a political campaign stop on October 31, 1963, Halloween, at the time Diem was killed in Vietnam during a coup d'etat and when Castro was supposed to be shot by assassins in Cuba from the CIA ship the "Rex." If Diem, Castro and JFK were all killed by assassins on the same day, would anyone consider it a coincidence? Kennedy rode through Philadelphia in an open limo in a short motorcade witnessed by my cousin, who then worked for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. After seeing JFK drive past him, on his way to a Democratic fundraiser at Convention Hall, my cousin walked into the newsroom and said that he didn't think the President was going to live much longer. He expressed this thought, not because of any foreknowledge of a plot, but because of the total lack of security. [After becoming a Catholic priest, Father Steve "Skip" Haynes wrote a sermon about the effort to free the government files and the need for open records in an open society.] Another suspect in the Tippit murder, Igor Vaganov, was a East European who moved from Philadelphia to Oak Cliff with his girlfriend on the week before the assassination. He drove a red Ford, had a rifle, and was driving around Oak Cliff when Tippitt was murdered. The evening before, Vaganov's girlfriend called home to Philadelphia to say that she thought Vaganov was going to do something radical and was scared. Tippet's killer discarded a jacket that could have also originated in Philadelphia, at a department store that was one of the few outlets that sold that line of jackets at the time. The Warren Commission investigation, led by such Philadelphians lawyers like Arlen Spector and William Coleman, never got to the department store, the four addresses in Oswald's notebook or to Arthur Young, whose name appears, as far as I can tell, only once in the primary assassination literature. Gerald Ford, in his book on the assassination, notes quite innocently that Marina Oswald was asked by Ruth Hyde Paine to respond to her offer to move to Irving by writing in care of ARTHUR YOUNG, PAOLI, PENNSYLVANIA. Ruth Hyde Paine, on her summer vacation, drove her kids to the Paine family retreat off the coast of Massachusetts, then stopped to spend some time with Michael's mother and stepfather, Ruth Forbes Paine Young and Arthur, the inventor of the Bell Helicopter. Both espoused Quaker beliefs, and assisted Michael in obtaining the job at Bell Hell in Texas, to where they relocated after leaving Philadelphia. Marina wrote to Ruth c/o Arthur Young, Paoli, Pa., and the letter got through, since Ruth stopped in New Orleans on her way home and picked up Marina, the kids and the alleged assassination rifle and drove them to Texas while Oswald went to Mexico City. Arthur and Ruth Young and Michael and Ruth Paine professed Quaker beliefs, Ruth Paine taught at a Quaker school and they supported Cord Meyer's World Federalists movement for a world government and a strong United Nations. Another wealthy Main Line Quaker philanthropist, Dr. Dee Dee Sharples, now a Temple University Trustee, was married to George DeMohrenschildt, one of the accused assassin's best friends. The last person President Kennedy talked with on the telephone from his Ft. Worth hotel suite was the patron of the arts who decorated the hotel room walls with fine works of art, who happened to be from Philadelphia and friends with Ruth and Michael Paine. Besides home to the Paines, Youngs and Sharples, Paoli is also the small town home of Cuban exile, Enrique Menocal, Castro's childhood friend, who helped found the Cuban Aid Relief, which was sponsored by the CIA's Catherwood Fund. One stop down the Main Line train track from Paoli is the home of Cummins Catherwood, whose Catherwood Foundation served as a conduit for the funds earmarked for covert CIA operations, some of which included Latin American Spanish language news organizations, the international division of the Columbia University School of Journalism, the Cuban Aid Relief, Catholic Welfare and a multitude of operations in the Philippines, Cuba and Central America. [see articles: The Catherwood Foundation; The Cuban Aid Relief; and Julio Fernandez.]. Philadelphia was the primary dateline for such reporters as Joe Goulden, who "made up" Oswald's FBI undercover agent number, and investigative journalists Gaeton Fonzi and Mike Mallowe, who wrote numerous articles on the JFK assassination for Philadelphia Magazine. It was Fonzi's magazine articles that caught the attention of Sen. Richard Schweiker (R. Pa.) when he was named to the Schweiker-(Gary) Hart (JFK Assassination) subcommittee of the Church Intelligence Committee investigation into illegal intelligence agency activities. It was during his leg work for that sub-committee that Fonzi first interviewed Alpha 66 leader Antonio Vechina and his association with CIA case officer "Maurice Bishop." Both Hart and Schweiker were taken care of, Hart exposed for his "Monkey Business" with Donna Rice, while Ronald Regan prematurely named Schweiker his VP running mate, effectively taking him out of the game. The Church Committee Report however, did help spark the creation of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), which was given the task of investigating the assassinations of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King. The first chief counsel to the HSCA was Philadelphia attorney Richard Sprague, who had previously investigated the assassination of United Mine Workers Union President Tony Boyle and successfully prosecuted his rival Jock Yablonski for the murder. When asked about Oswald's motives, Sprague, the son of two psychologists, replied that he wasn't interested in whether Oswald was nursed at his mother's breast, "my approach to motive is more direct." Sprague began to conduct two simultaneous homicide investigations, with the intention of solving the crimes, and was directly removed from his office and replaced by G. Robert Blakey, a Cornell organized crime expert who redirected the investigation away from the intelligence connections towards the mob. When Sprague was the chief counsel, I hand delivered him a package that contained a copy of Jim Braden's 1948 Camden, N.J. arrest report, but Sprague never passed his files on to Blakey when he took over, and as far as I can tell, the Assassinations Records Review Board never obtained Sprague's files either. More recently, two active Philadelphia cases have a bearing on the JFK assassination, Ira Einhorn and Robert Steven Lipka. Hippie Guru Ira Einhorn was indicted, and later convicted in abstensia of killing his girlfriend, former Texas cheerleader Holly Maddux. Einhorn was a protégé of Arthur Young, the inventor, and blames the CIA and KGB for killing Holly. Einhorn took off when his attorney, Arlen Spector, got him out on bail, but he was recently recaptured in France, where he had been fighting extradition back to Philly to be retried. Eventually returned, he was convicted again. Robert Steven Lipka was a NSA clerk at Fort Meade, Md. whose job was to shred highly classified documents, but instead, beginning in September 1965, he began selling them to the KGB. Lipka sold enough docs to the Ruskies to retire and go back to school, earn a degree and teach school in Millersville, Pennsylvania. It appeared he got away with it until sometime after March, 1992, when KGB archivist Vasile Mitrokhin defected to the British MI5 and exposed Lipka as a means of establishing his bonafides. When the British passed on the information to the FBI, an undercover FBI agent slipped up to Lipka at a bar and began to rope him in before he was officially arrested in March, 1996. Although Mitrokhin was not mentioned as the source for the arrest, Lipka admitted his betrayal at a court hearing, during which he also said that from NSA records he learned the name of President Kennedy's assassin. When asked by a reporter what was the name of the assassin in the NSA reports, Lipka replied: "Luis Angel Castillo." Lipka was sentenced to prison, the Castillo file remained withheld at the Ford Library until earlier this year, while the NSA continues to insist that it has no records of evidentiary value concerning the assassination of President Kennedy. Then there's Steve Keenan, the man on the motorcycle, a college student from Philadelphia who frequented the Quaker Casa de Amegos hostel in Mexico City who reportedly gave Oswald a ride to the Cuban embassy on the back of his motorcycle. In the summer of 1963, at the same time Lee Harvey Oswald was handing out Fair Play for Cuba leaflets in New Orleans and getting arrested with members of the anti-Castro Cuban DRE, someone later identified as Oswald was seen handing out pro-Castro leaflets at Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia Philadelphia PA, the Crossroads of Conspiracy, and home of the Quakers, journalists, lawyers and spies and keys to the assassination of President Kennedy. Good posts. Another Philadelphia connection, concerning Philip J. Corso. "Along with General Charles Willoughby, security chief for oil billionaire H. L. Hunt at the time of the assassination, Corso was a member of a right wing fraternal organization known as "The Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem", more popularly known as the "Shickshinny Knights", because they were headquartered in Shickshinny, Pennsylvania. The group claimed to be the original Knights of Malta, a fraternal order that dated back to the Crusades." Shickshinny is not far from Philadelphia. This quote is from Michael Bensons book. Just thought I would toss that out there FWIW. thanks-smitty In addition to my last post: See Lee Formans "UFO Connections" thread, and read about Philip Corso. He elaborates about his connection, and many others involved in their secret "society" in depth. thanks-smitty Maybe a little outdated, and somewhat off base but, lets not forget the "Philadelphia Experiment". Some very weird tie ins there! -smitty

Okay, Aston, You asked for it, and I didnt' even need a Superdooperchronology machine. - BK THE QUAKER CITY CONNECTIONS – CROSSROADS TO CONSPIRACY – By Bill Kelly PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA, after Dallas and New Orleans, is the one city, if not where more JFK assassination intrigues actually took place, where many of the primary players spent more of their quality time than anywhere else. Philly is the Crossroads of the Conspiracy. Home of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Liberty Bell, the Stars & Stripes, the U.S.S. Olympia of Spanish American War fame, and the 2000 Republican National Convention, Philadelphia was founded by First Quaker William Penn and is the hometown of Tom Paine, Ben Franklin, Arthur Young, Cummings Catherwood, James Bond, Frank Forini Sturgis, Angelo Bruno, Dr. De De Wynne DeMohrenschildt Sharples, Igor Vaganov, Steve Keenan, Robert Lipka, Amil Jamal and Ira Einhorn. Philadelphia is where you get a good cheesesteak, cream cheese, scrapple, Tastycake, water ice and a lawyer, when you really need one. Among the Philadelphia lawyers who became players in the JFK assassination drama are John J. McCloy, Arlen Specter, William Coleman, Vincent Salandria, Richard Schweiker and Richard Sprague. Philadelphia's Main Line is where Michael Paine and Priscilla Johnson (McMillan) matriculated at Quaker colleges, Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr, where Michael Paine met Ruth Hyde when she was teaching at a Quaker school, and where Michael's stepfather Arthur Young invented the original Bell 47A Helicopter. Philadelphia is also the home of Warren Commission critic Vincent Salandria [see: "False Mystery" an Anthology of Salandria's work] and the dateline of such journalists as Joe Goulden, the reporter who "made up" Oswald's FBI number, and investigative journalists Gaeton Fonzi and Mike Mallow, both of whom wrote numerous articles on the Kennedy assassination for Philadelphia Magazine. Philadelphia is where Lee Harvey Oswald told Ruth Paine he was going to relocate to and work shortly before he went to Mexico City, and there are four Philadelphia addresses in Oswald's notebook, each an interesting lead worth pursuing. Philadelphia is where President JFK visited on a political campaign stop on October 31, 1963, Halloween, at the time Diem was killed in Vietnam during a coup d'etat and when Castro was supposed to be shot by assassins in Cuba from the CIA ship the "Rex." If Diem, Castro and JFK were all killed by assassins on the same day, would anyone consider it a coincidence? Kennedy rode through Philadelphia in an open limo in a short motorcade witnessed by my cousin, who then worked for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. After seeing JFK drive past him, on his way to a Democratic fundraiser at Convention Hall, my cousin walked into the newsroom and said that he didn't think the President was going to live much longer. He expressed this thought, not because of any foreknowledge of a plot, but because of the total lack of security. [After becoming a Catholic priest, Father Steve "Skip" Haynes wrote a sermon about the effort to free the government files and the need for open records in an open society.] Another suspect in the Tippit murder, Igor Vaganov, was a East European who moved from Philadelphia to Oak Cliff with his girlfriend on the week before the assassination. He drove a red Ford, had a rifle, and was driving around Oak Cliff when Tippitt was murdered. The evening before, Vaganov's girlfriend called home to Philadelphia to say that she thought Vaganov was going to do something radical and was scared. Tippet's killer discarded a jacket that could have also originated in Philadelphia, at a department store that was one of the few outlets that sold that line of jackets at the time. The Warren Commission investigation, led by such Philadelphians lawyers like Arlen Spector and William Coleman, never got to the department store, the four addresses in Oswald's notebook or to Arthur Young, whose name appears, as far as I can tell, only once in the primary assassination literature. Gerald Ford, in his book on the assassination, notes quite innocently that Marina Oswald was asked by Ruth Hyde Paine to respond to her offer to move to Irving by writing in care of ARTHUR YOUNG, PAOLI, PENNSYLVANIA. Ruth Hyde Paine, on her summer vacation, drove her kids to the Paine family retreat off the coast of Massachusetts, then stopped to spend some time with Michael's mother and stepfather, Ruth Forbes Paine Young and Arthur, the inventor of the Bell Helicopter. Both espoused Quaker beliefs, and assisted Michael in obtaining the job at Bell Hell in Texas, to where they relocated after leaving Philadelphia. Marina wrote to Ruth c/o Arthur Young, Paoli, Pa., and the letter got through, since Ruth stopped in New Orleans on her way home and picked up Marina, the kids and the alleged assassination rifle and drove them to Texas while Oswald went to Mexico City. Arthur and Ruth Young and Michael and Ruth Paine professed Quaker beliefs, Ruth Paine taught at a Quaker school and they supported Cord Meyer's World Federalists movement for a world government and a strong United Nations. Another wealthy Main Line Quaker philanthropist, Dr. Dee Dee Sharples, now a Temple University Trustee, was married to George DeMohrenschildt, one of the accused assassin's best friends. The last person President Kennedy talked with on the telephone from his Ft. Worth hotel suite was the patron of the arts who decorated the hotel room walls with fine works of art, who happened to be from Philadelphia and friends with Ruth and Michael Paine. Besides home to the Paines, Youngs and Sharples, Paoli is also the small town home of Cuban exile, Enrique Menocal, Castro's childhood friend, who helped found the Cuban Aid Relief, which was sponsored by the CIA's Catherwood Fund. One stop down the Main Line train track from Paoli is the home of Cummins Catherwood, whose Catherwood Foundation served as a conduit for the funds earmarked for covert CIA operations, some of which included Latin American Spanish language news organizations, the international division of the Columbia University School of Journalism, the Cuban Aid Relief, Catholic Welfare and a multitude of operations in the Philippines, Cuba and Central America. [see articles: The Catherwood Foundation; The Cuban Aid Relief; and Julio Fernandez.]. Philadelphia was the primary dateline for such reporters as Joe Goulden, who "made up" Oswald's FBI undercover agent number, and investigative journalists Gaeton Fonzi and Mike Mallowe, who wrote numerous articles on the JFK assassination for Philadelphia Magazine. It was Fonzi's magazine articles that caught the attention of Sen. Richard Schweiker (R. Pa.) when he was named to the Schweiker-(Gary) Hart (JFK Assassination) subcommittee of the Church Intelligence Committee investigation into illegal intelligence agency activities. It was during his leg work for that sub-committee that Fonzi first interviewed Alpha 66 leader Antonio Vechina and his association with CIA case officer "Maurice Bishop." Both Hart and Schweiker were taken care of, Hart exposed for his "Monkey Business" with Donna Rice, while Ronald Regan prematurely named Schweiker his VP running mate, effectively taking him out of the game. The Church Committee Report however, did help spark the creation of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), which was given the task of investigating the assassinations of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King. The first chief counsel to the HSCA was Philadelphia attorney Richard Sprague, who had previously investigated the assassination of United Mine Workers Union President Tony Boyle and successfully prosecuted his rival Jock Yablonski for the murder. When asked about Oswald's motives, Sprague, the son of two psychologists, replied that he wasn't interested in whether Oswald was nursed at his mother's breast, "my approach to motive is more direct." Sprague began to conduct two simultaneous homicide investigations, with the intention of solving the crimes, and was directly removed from his office and replaced by G. Robert Blakey, a Cornell organized crime expert who redirected the investigation away from the intelligence connections towards the mob. When Sprague was the chief counsel, I hand delivered him a package that contained a copy of Jim Braden's 1948 Camden, N.J. arrest report, but Sprague never passed his files on to Blakey when he took over, and as far as I can tell, the Assassinations Records Review Board never obtained Sprague's files either. More recently, two active Philadelphia cases have a bearing on the JFK assassination, Ira Einhorn and Robert Steven Lipka. Hippie Guru Ira Einhorn was indicted, and later convicted in abstensia of killing his girlfriend, former Texas cheerleader Holly Maddux. Einhorn was a protégé of Arthur Young, the inventor, and blames the CIA and KGB for killing Holly. Einhorn took off when his attorney, Arlen Spector, got him out on bail, but he was recently recaptured in France, where he had been fighting extradition back to Philly to be retried. Eventually returned, he was convicted again. Robert Steven Lipka was a NSA clerk at Fort Meade, Md. whose job was to shred highly classified documents, but instead, beginning in September 1965, he began selling them to the KGB. Lipka sold enough docs to the Ruskies to retire and go back to school, earn a degree and teach school in Millersville, Pennsylvania. It appeared he got away with it until sometime after March, 1992, when KGB archivist Vasile Mitrokhin defected to the British MI5 and exposed Lipka as a means of establishing his bonafides. When the British passed on the information to the FBI, an undercover FBI agent slipped up to Lipka at a bar and began to rope him in before he was officially arrested in March, 1996. Although Mitrokhin was not mentioned as the source for the arrest, Lipka admitted his betrayal at a court hearing, during which he also said that from NSA records he learned the name of President Kennedy's assassin. When asked by a reporter what was the name of the assassin in the NSA reports, Lipka replied: "Luis Angel Castillo." Lipka was sentenced to prison, the Castillo file remained withheld at the Ford Library until earlier this year, while the NSA continues to insist that it has no records of evidentiary value concerning the assassination of President Kennedy. Then there's Steve Keenan, the man on the motorcycle, a college student from Philadelphia who frequented the Quaker Casa de Amegos hostel in Mexico City who reportedly gave Oswald a ride to the Cuban embassy on the back of his motorcycle. In the summer of 1963, at the same time Lee Harvey Oswald was handing out Fair Play for Cuba leaflets in New Orleans and getting arrested with members of the anti-Castro Cuban DRE, someone later identified as Oswald was seen handing out pro-Castro leaflets at Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia Philadelphia PA, the Crossroads of Conspiracy, and home of the Quakers, journalists, lawyers and spies and keys to the assassination of President Kennedy. Good posts. Another Philadelphia connection, concerning Philip J. Corso. "Along with General Charles Willoughby, security chief for oil billionaire H. L. Hunt at the time of the assassination, Corso was a member of a right wing fraternal organization known as "The Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem", more popularly known as the "Shickshinny Knights", because they were headquartered in Shickshinny, Pennsylvania. The group claimed to be the original Knights of Malta, a fraternal order that dated back to the Crusades." Shickshinny is not far from Philadelphia. This quote is from Michael Bensons book. Just thought I would toss that out there FWIW. thanks-smitty In addition to my last post: See Lee Formans "UFO Connections" thread, and read about Philip Corso. He elaborates about his connection, and many others involved in their secret "society" in depth. thanks-smitty

Okay, Aston, You asked for it, and I didnt' even need a Superdooperchronology machine. - BK THE QUAKER CITY CONNECTIONS – CROSSROADS TO CONSPIRACY – By Bill Kelly PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA, after Dallas and New Orleans, is the one city, if not where more JFK assassination intrigues actually took place, where many of the primary players spent more of their quality time than anywhere else. Philly is the Crossroads of the Conspiracy. Home of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Liberty Bell, the Stars & Stripes, the U.S.S. Olympia of Spanish American War fame, and the 2000 Republican National Convention, Philadelphia was founded by First Quaker William Penn and is the hometown of Tom Paine, Ben Franklin, Arthur Young, Cummings Catherwood, James Bond, Frank Forini Sturgis, Angelo Bruno, Dr. De De Wynne DeMohrenschildt Sharples, Igor Vaganov, Steve Keenan, Robert Lipka, Amil Jamal and Ira Einhorn. Philadelphia is where you get a good cheesesteak, cream cheese, scrapple, Tastycake, water ice and a lawyer, when you really need one. Among the Philadelphia lawyers who became players in the JFK assassination drama are John J. McCloy, Arlen Specter, William Coleman, Vincent Salandria, Richard Schweiker and Richard Sprague. Philadelphia's Main Line is where Michael Paine and Priscilla Johnson (McMillan) matriculated at Quaker colleges, Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr, where Michael Paine met Ruth Hyde when she was teaching at a Quaker school, and where Michael's stepfather Arthur Young invented the original Bell 47A Helicopter. Philadelphia is also the home of Warren Commission critic Vincent Salandria [see: "False Mystery" an Anthology of Salandria's work] and the dateline of such journalists as Joe Goulden, the reporter who "made up" Oswald's FBI number, and investigative journalists Gaeton Fonzi and Mike Mallow, both of whom wrote numerous articles on the Kennedy assassination for Philadelphia Magazine. Philadelphia is where Lee Harvey Oswald told Ruth Paine he was going to relocate to and work shortly before he went to Mexico City, and there are four Philadelphia addresses in Oswald's notebook, each an interesting lead worth pursuing. Philadelphia is where President JFK visited on a political campaign stop on October 31, 1963, Halloween, at the time Diem was killed in Vietnam during a coup d'etat and when Castro was supposed to be shot by assassins in Cuba from the CIA ship the "Rex." If Diem, Castro and JFK were all killed by assassins on the same day, would anyone consider it a coincidence? Kennedy rode through Philadelphia in an open limo in a short motorcade witnessed by my cousin, who then worked for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. After seeing JFK drive past him, on his way to a Democratic fundraiser at Convention Hall, my cousin walked into the newsroom and said that he didn't think the President was going to live much longer. He expressed this thought, not because of any foreknowledge of a plot, but because of the total lack of security. [After becoming a Catholic priest, Father Steve "Skip" Haynes wrote a sermon about the effort to free the government files and the need for open records in an open society.] Another suspect in the Tippit murder, Igor Vaganov, was a East European who moved from Philadelphia to Oak Cliff with his girlfriend on the week before the assassination. He drove a red Ford, had a rifle, and was driving around Oak Cliff when Tippitt was murdered. The evening before, Vaganov's girlfriend called home to Philadelphia to say that she thought Vaganov was going to do something radical and was scared. Tippet's killer discarded a jacket that could have also originated in Philadelphia, at a department store that was one of the few outlets that sold that line of jackets at the time. The Warren Commission investigation, led by such Philadelphians lawyers like Arlen Spector and William Coleman, never got to the department store, the four addresses in Oswald's notebook or to Arthur Young, whose name appears, as far as I can tell, only once in the primary assassination literature. Gerald Ford, in his book on the assassination, notes quite innocently that Marina Oswald was asked by Ruth Hyde Paine to respond to her offer to move to Irving by writing in care of ARTHUR YOUNG, PAOLI, PENNSYLVANIA. Ruth Hyde Paine, on her summer vacation, drove her kids to the Paine family retreat off the coast of Massachusetts, then stopped to spend some time with Michael's mother and stepfather, Ruth Forbes Paine Young and Arthur, the inventor of the Bell Helicopter. Both espoused Quaker beliefs, and assisted Michael in obtaining the job at Bell Hell in Texas, to where they relocated after leaving Philadelphia. Marina wrote to Ruth c/o Arthur Young, Paoli, Pa., and the letter got through, since Ruth stopped in New Orleans on her way home and picked up Marina, the kids and the alleged assassination rifle and drove them to Texas while Oswald went to Mexico City. Arthur and Ruth Young and Michael and Ruth Paine professed Quaker beliefs, Ruth Paine taught at a Quaker school and they supported Cord Meyer's World Federalists movement for a world government and a strong United Nations. Another wealthy Main Line Quaker philanthropist, Dr. Dee Dee Sharples, now a Temple University Trustee, was married to George DeMohrenschildt, one of the accused assassin's best friends. The last person President Kennedy talked with on the telephone from his Ft. Worth hotel suite was the patron of the arts who decorated the hotel room walls with fine works of art, who happened to be from Philadelphia and friends with Ruth and Michael Paine. Besides home to the Paines, Youngs and Sharples, Paoli is also the small town home of Cuban exile, Enrique Menocal, Castro's childhood friend, who helped found the Cuban Aid Relief, which was sponsored by the CIA's Catherwood Fund. One stop down the Main Line train track from Paoli is the home of Cummins Catherwood, whose Catherwood Foundation served as a conduit for the funds earmarked for covert CIA operations, some of which included Latin American Spanish language news organizations, the international division of the Columbia University School of Journalism, the Cuban Aid Relief, Catholic Welfare and a multitude of operations in the Philippines, Cuba and Central America. [see articles: The Catherwood Foundation; The Cuban Aid Relief; and Julio Fernandez.]. Philadelphia was the primary dateline for such reporters as Joe Goulden, who "made up" Oswald's FBI undercover agent number, and investigative journalists Gaeton Fonzi and Mike Mallowe, who wrote numerous articles on the JFK assassination for Philadelphia Magazine. It was Fonzi's magazine articles that caught the attention of Sen. Richard Schweiker (R. Pa.) when he was named to the Schweiker-(Gary) Hart (JFK Assassination) subcommittee of the Church Intelligence Committee investigation into illegal intelligence agency activities. It was during his leg work for that sub-committee that Fonzi first interviewed Alpha 66 leader Antonio Vechina and his association with CIA case officer "Maurice Bishop." Both Hart and Schweiker were taken care of, Hart exposed for his "Monkey Business" with Donna Rice, while Ronald Regan prematurely named Schweiker his VP running mate, effectively taking him out of the game. The Church Committee Report however, did help spark the creation of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), which was given the task of investigating the assassinations of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King. The first chief counsel to the HSCA was Philadelphia attorney Richard Sprague, who had previously investigated the assassination of United Mine Workers Union President Tony Boyle and successfully prosecuted his rival Jock Yablonski for the murder. When asked about Oswald's motives, Sprague, the son of two psychologists, replied that he wasn't interested in whether Oswald was nursed at his mother's breast, "my approach to motive is more direct." Sprague began to conduct two simultaneous homicide investigations, with the intention of solving the crimes, and was directly removed from his office and replaced by G. Robert Blakey, a Cornell organized crime expert who redirected the investigation away from the intelligence connections towards the mob. When Sprague was the chief counsel, I hand delivered him a package that contained a copy of Jim Braden's 1948 Camden, N.J. arrest report, but Sprague never passed his files on to Blakey when he took over, and as far as I can tell, the Assassinations Records Review Board never obtained Sprague's files either. More recently, two active Philadelphia cases have a bearing on the JFK assassination, Ira Einhorn and Robert Steven Lipka. Hippie Guru Ira Einhorn was indicted, and later convicted in abstensia of killing his girlfriend, former Texas cheerleader Holly Maddux. Einhorn was a protégé of Arthur Young, the inventor, and blames the CIA and KGB for killing Holly. Einhorn took off when his attorney, Arlen Spector, got him out on bail, but he was recently recaptured in France, where he had been fighting extradition back to Philly to be retried. Eventually returned, he was convicted again. Robert Steven Lipka was a NSA clerk at Fort Meade, Md. whose job was to shred highly classified documents, but instead, beginning in September 1965, he began selling them to the KGB. Lipka sold enough docs to the Ruskies to retire and go back to school, earn a degree and teach school in Millersville, Pennsylvania. It appeared he got away with it until sometime after March, 1992, when KGB archivist Vasile Mitrokhin defected to the British MI5 and exposed Lipka as a means of establishing his bonafides. When the British passed on the information to the FBI, an undercover FBI agent slipped up to Lipka at a bar and began to rope him in before he was officially arrested in March, 1996. Although Mitrokhin was not mentioned as the source for the arrest, Lipka admitted his betrayal at a court hearing, during which he also said that from NSA records he learned the name of President Kennedy's assassin. When asked by a reporter what was the name of the assassin in the NSA reports, Lipka replied: "Luis Angel Castillo." Lipka was sentenced to prison, the Castillo file remained withheld at the Ford Library until earlier this year, while the NSA continues to insist that it has no records of evidentiary value concerning the assassination of President Kennedy. Then there's Steve Keenan, the man on the motorcycle, a college student from Philadelphia who frequented the Quaker Casa de Amegos hostel in Mexico City who reportedly gave Oswald a ride to the Cuban embassy on the back of his motorcycle. In the summer of 1963, at the same time Lee Harvey Oswald was handing out Fair Play for Cuba leaflets in New Orleans and getting arrested with members of the anti-Castro Cuban DRE, someone later identified as Oswald was seen handing out pro-Castro leaflets at Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia Philadelphia PA, the Crossroads of Conspiracy, and home of the Quakers, journalists, lawyers and spies and keys to the assassination of President Kennedy. Good posts. Another Philadelphia connection, concerning Philip J. Corso. "Along with General Charles Willoughby, security chief for oil billionaire H. L. Hunt at the time of the assassination, Corso was a member of a right wing fraternal organization known as "The Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem", more popularly known as the "Shickshinny Knights", because they were headquartered in Shickshinny, Pennsylvania. The group claimed to be the original Knights of Malta, a fraternal order that dated back to the Crusades." Shickshinny is not far from Philadelphia. This quote is from Michael Bensons book. Just thought I would toss that out there FWIW. thanks-smitty In addition to my last post: See Lee Formans "UFO Connections" thread, and read about Philip Corso. He elaborates about his connection, and many others involved in their secret "society" in depth. thanks-smitty

Okay, Aston, You asked for it, and I didnt' even need a Superdooperchronology machine. - BK THE QUAKER CITY CONNECTIONS – CROSSROADS TO CONSPIRACY – By Bill Kelly PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA, after Dallas and New Orleans, is the one city, if not where more JFK assassination intrigues actually took place, where many of the primary players spent more of their quality time than anywhere else. Philly is the Crossroads of the Conspiracy. Home of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Liberty Bell, the Stars & Stripes, the U.S.S. Olympia of Spanish American War fame, and the 2000 Republican National Convention, Philadelphia was founded by First Quaker William Penn and is the hometown of Tom Paine, Ben Franklin, Arthur Young, Cummings Catherwood, James Bond, Frank Forini Sturgis, Angelo Bruno, Dr. De De Wynne DeMohrenschildt Sharples, Igor Vaganov, Steve Keenan, Robert Lipka, Amil Jamal and Ira Einhorn. Philadelphia is where you get a good cheesesteak, cream cheese, scrapple, Tastycake, water ice and a lawyer, when you really need one. Among the Philadelphia lawyers who became players in the JFK assassination drama are John J. McCloy, Arlen Specter, William Coleman, Vincent Salandria, Richard Schweiker and Richard Sprague. Philadelphia's Main Line is where Michael Paine and Priscilla Johnson (McMillan) matriculated at Quaker colleges, Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr, where Michael Paine met Ruth Hyde when she was teaching at a Quaker school, and where Michael's stepfather Arthur Young invented the original Bell 47A Helicopter. Philadelphia is also the home of Warren Commission critic Vincent Salandria [see: "False Mystery" an Anthology of Salandria's work] and the dateline of such journalists as Joe Goulden, the reporter who "made up" Oswald's FBI number, and investigative journalists Gaeton Fonzi and Mike Mallow, both of whom wrote numerous articles on the Kennedy assassination for Philadelphia Magazine. Philadelphia is where Lee Harvey Oswald told Ruth Paine he was going to relocate to and work shortly before he went to Mexico City, and there are four Philadelphia addresses in Oswald's notebook, each an interesting lead worth pursuing. Philadelphia is where President JFK visited on a political campaign stop on October 31, 1963, Halloween, at the time Diem was killed in Vietnam during a coup d'etat and when Castro was supposed to be shot by assassins in Cuba from the CIA ship the "Rex." If Diem, Castro and JFK were all killed by assassins on the same day, would anyone consider it a coincidence? Kennedy rode through Philadelphia in an open limo in a short motorcade witnessed by my cousin, who then worked for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. After seeing JFK drive past him, on his way to a Democratic fundraiser at Convention Hall, my cousin walked into the newsroom and said that he didn't think the President was going to live much longer. He expressed this thought, not because of any foreknowledge of a plot, but because of the total lack of security. [After becoming a Catholic priest, Father Steve "Skip" Haynes wrote a sermon about the effort to free the government files and the need for open records in an open society.] Another suspect in the Tippit murder, Igor Vaganov, was a East European who moved from Philadelphia to Oak Cliff with his girlfriend on the week before the assassination. He drove a red Ford, had a rifle, and was driving around Oak Cliff when Tippitt was murdered. The evening before, Vaganov's girlfriend called home to Philadelphia to say that she thought Vaganov was going to do something radical and was scared. Tippet's killer discarded a jacket that could have also originated in Philadelphia, at a department store that was one of the few outlets that sold that line of jackets at the time. The Warren Commission investigation, led by such Philadelphians lawyers like Arlen Spector and William Coleman, never got to the department store, the four addresses in Oswald's notebook or to Arthur Young, whose name appears, as far as I can tell, only once in the primary assassination literature. Gerald Ford, in his book on the assassination, notes quite innocently that Marina Oswald was asked by Ruth Hyde Paine to respond to her offer to move to Irving by writing in care of ARTHUR YOUNG, PAOLI, PENNSYLVANIA. Ruth Hyde Paine, on her summer vacation, drove her kids to the Paine family retreat off the coast of Massachusetts, then stopped to spend some time with Michael's mother and stepfather, Ruth Forbes Paine Young and Arthur, the inventor of the Bell Helicopter. Both espoused Quaker beliefs, and assisted Michael in obtaining the job at Bell Hell in Texas, to where they relocated after leaving Philadelphia. Marina wrote to Ruth c/o Arthur Young, Paoli, Pa., and the letter got through, since Ruth stopped in New Orleans on her way home and picked up Marina, the kids and the alleged assassination rifle and drove them to Texas while Oswald went to Mexico City. Arthur and Ruth Young and Michael and Ruth Paine professed Quaker beliefs, Ruth Paine taught at a Quaker school and they supported Cord Meyer's World Federalists movement for a world government and a strong United Nations. Another wealthy Main Line Quaker philanthropist, Dr. Dee Dee Sharples, now a Temple University Trustee, was married to George DeMohrenschildt, one of the accused assassin's best friends. The last person President Kennedy talked with on the telephone from his Ft. Worth hotel suite was the patron of the arts who decorated the hotel room walls with fine works of art, who happened to be from Philadelphia and friends with Ruth and Michael Paine. Besides home to the Paines, Youngs and Sharples, Paoli is also the small town home of Cuban exile, Enrique Menocal, Castro's childhood friend, who helped found the Cuban Aid Relief, which was sponsored by the CIA's Catherwood Fund. One stop down the Main Line train track from Paoli is the home of Cummins Catherwood, whose Catherwood Foundation served as a conduit for the funds earmarked for covert CIA operations, some of which included Latin American Spanish language news organizations, the international division of the Columbia University School of Journalism, the Cuban Aid Relief, Catholic Welfare and a multitude of operations in the Philippines, Cuba and Central America. [see articles: The Catherwood Foundation; The Cuban Aid Relief; and Julio Fernandez.]. Philadelphia was the primary dateline for such reporters as Joe Goulden, who "made up" Oswald's FBI undercover agent number, and investigative journalists Gaeton Fonzi and Mike Mallowe, who wrote numerous articles on the JFK assassination for Philadelphia Magazine. It was Fonzi's magazine articles that caught the attention of Sen. Richard Schweiker (R. Pa.) when he was named to the Schweiker-(Gary) Hart (JFK Assassination) subcommittee of the Church Intelligence Committee investigation into illegal intelligence agency activities. It was during his leg work for that sub-committee that Fonzi first interviewed Alpha 66 leader Antonio Vechina and his association with CIA case officer "Maurice Bishop." Both Hart and Schweiker were taken care of, Hart exposed for his "Monkey Business" with Donna Rice, while Ronald Regan prematurely named Schweiker his VP running mate, effectively taking him out of the game. The Church Committee Report however, did help spark the creation of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), which was given the task of investigating the assassinations of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King. The first chief counsel to the HSCA was Philadelphia attorney Richard Sprague, who had previously investigated the assassination of United Mine Workers Union President Tony Boyle and successfully prosecuted his rival Jock Yablonski for the murder. When asked about Oswald's motives, Sprague, the son of two psychologists, replied that he wasn't interested in whether Oswald was nursed at his mother's breast, "my approach to motive is more direct." Sprague began to conduct two simultaneous homicide investigations, with the intention of solving the crimes, and was directly removed from his office and replaced by G. Robert Blakey, a Cornell organized crime expert who redirected the investigation away from the intelligence connections towards the mob. When Sprague was the chief counsel, I hand delivered him a package that contained a copy of Jim Braden's 1948 Camden, N.J. arrest report, but Sprague never passed his files on to Blakey when he took over, and as far as I can tell, the Assassinations Records Review Board never obtained Sprague's files either. More recently, two active Philadelphia cases have a bearing on the JFK assassination, Ira Einhorn and Robert Steven Lipka. Hippie Guru Ira Einhorn was indicted, and later convicted in abstensia of killing his girlfriend, former Texas cheerleader Holly Maddux. Einhorn was a protégé of Arthur Young, the inventor, and blames the CIA and KGB for killing Holly. Einhorn took off when his attorney, Arlen Spector, got him out on bail, but he was recently recaptured in France, where he had been fighting extradition back to Philly to be retried. Eventually returned, he was convicted again. Robert Steven Lipka was a NSA clerk at Fort Meade, Md. whose job was to shred highly classified documents, but instead, beginning in September 1965, he began selling them to the KGB. Lipka sold enough docs to the Ruskies to retire and go back to school, earn a degree and teach school in Millersville, Pennsylvania. It appeared he got away with it until sometime after March, 1992, when KGB archivist Vasile Mitrokhin defected to the British MI5 and exposed Lipka as a means of establishing his bonafides. When the British passed on the information to the FBI, an undercover FBI agent slipped up to Lipka at a bar and began to rope him in before he was officially arrested in March, 1996. Although Mitrokhin was not mentioned as the source for the arrest, Lipka admitted his betrayal at a court hearing, during which he also said that from NSA records he learned the name of President Kennedy's assassin. When asked by a reporter what was the name of the assassin in the NSA reports, Lipka replied: "Luis Angel Castillo." Lipka was sentenced to prison, the Castillo file remained withheld at the Ford Library until earlier this year, while the NSA continues to insist that it has no records of evidentiary value concerning the assassination of President Kennedy. Then there's Steve Keenan, the man on the motorcycle, a college student from Philadelphia who frequented the Quaker Casa de Amegos hostel in Mexico City who reportedly gave Oswald a ride to the Cuban embassy on the back of his motorcycle. In the summer of 1963, at the same time Lee Harvey Oswald was handing out Fair Play for Cuba leaflets in New Orleans and getting arrested with members of the anti-Castro Cuban DRE, someone later identified as Oswald was seen handing out pro-Castro leaflets at Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia Philadelphia PA, the Crossroads of Conspiracy, and home of the Quakers, journalists, lawyers and spies and keys to the assassination of President Kennedy. Good posts. Another Philadelphia connection, concerning Philip J. Corso. "Along with General Charles Willoughby, security chief for oil billionaire H. L. Hunt at the time of the assassination, Corso was a member of a right wing fraternal organization known as "The Sovereign Order of Saint John of Jerusalem", more popularly known as the "Shickshinny Knights", because they were headquartered in Shickshinny, Pennsylvania. The group claimed to be the original Knights of Malta, a fraternal order that dated back to the Crusades." Shickshinny is not far from Philadelphia. This quote is from Michael Bensons book. Just thought I would toss that out there FWIW. thanks-smitty

Russ, Nice to have you on board! Welcome to the forum! -smitty

Sterling, welcome aboard. Nice to have you join the forum! -smitty

Tanya, welcome aboard. Nice to have you with us! -smitty

Just a side bar, after reading Matthew Smiths "Conspiracy*The Plot to Stop the Kennedys", is very good reading leading up to the Chappaqiddick affair and how he was set up. {if you beleive that scenerio}. just my opinion FWIW thanks-smitty

Chomp chomp..... Gators make nice boots and belts, not to mention purses! lol!-smitty

Robin, Thanks for the pictures. They are always enjoyed. I was wondering if you had any pictures in your collection, [seems quite vast! lol] that showed the DPD or any other "group" at he TSBD examining any other weapons, specifically a rifle, on the 22nd. I am still trying to find film taken by a Mr. Ernie Mentasana of Dallas, who filmed the DPD [i believe] examining a rifle they found on the roof of the TSBD. I posted about this before here, and didnt really get anywhere. I figured it wouldnt hurt to check with you since you seem to have quite a collection of film from that time. Thanks for your help in anyway. -smitty

From what I understand, that type of mic was, and may still be in use today. Wheather it be a "cuff link" mic, or just a clip on, clipped in the sleeve of a jacket, they were used in security work for some time. I dont know how far back they go, or if they were used in 63'. Very trick idea. If you were brushing or straightening out your hair on the side, adjusting your glasses, or scratching your ear, you could use the mic without anyone really noticing you. If it was used in 63', it was pretty high tech for the time. Im not sure if it was "on" all the time, or if you could switch it on when needed [how I dont know either]. thanks-smitty thanks-smitty

Jaxie, nice to have you aboard! -smitty

Smitty..... Please go back and read this thread from the beginning and look at where the sniping and sarcasm began. Take a look at who was first to take the discussion away from the issues and attempt to turn things personal. Who was the first to denigrate the opinions of other Forum members? How come no one "attacked" you? The answers may reside in the comments below. Thanks Michael, I understand what you are saying. But I believe it was in responce to the theory being called "stupid". That can imply other things as well, and people tend to defend themselves when that happpens. Regardless, Im not going to dwell on this. I just wish people would get along here a little better than they do. It really isnt needed. Just my opinion FWIW thanks-smitty

Paul Rigby believes JFK was killed by William Greer. 'Nuf said. C'mon fellas, play nice! lol! Im not speaking for Paul, but this thread was started by Lee [where is he anyway?? lol!] and Paul and I started discussing how many of the events "COULD" have played into that particular scenario. I dont believe Paul ever said he was "positively sure" that this is what happened, and neither did I. I dont believe either of us flat out dismissed all theories, and proclaimed that the "Greer did it" theory was the final answer to this 40+ year quest. All that was said, I repeat, that there were many things that happened, and many posibilities, that could be related to that theory. I believe Paul is just defending his right to believe, as do I, what our opinions are. Being attacked for thinking about similarities in a theroy and what we think may have happened, is sad. No matter how ridiculous it may sound to others. As I said before about having an opinion, and putting it out there, is just that. Everyone is entitled to their own, and it doesnt mean that its our final say to anything. There ARE alot of things that could be attributed to that theory, if you think about it, including eyewitness testimony, no matter how you look at it. If you stay in one zone, think it ridiculous, well then you wont put any thought into it. I did the same before. Now I realized after Lee [anybody see him?? lol] brought this up, that I had closed my mind to such thinking years ago. But I see that thinking on things you think may be ridiculous at the time, may be very fruitful to a point later on. Not just this theory, but anything, theory or not, related here, needs consideration. Now where is that Forman??? lol! Just my opinion FWIW. thanks-smitty

Well, let's see...great minds think alike, do they? I'd love to know which other of William Cooper's theories you cozy up to? You know, seeing as how your mind is great and all. This from the man himself: "President Kennedy was killed by the driver of his car, his name was William Greer, he used a recoil-less, electrically operated, gas-powered assassination pistol that was specially built by the CIA to assassinate people at close range. It fired an explosive pellet which injected a large amount of shellfish poison into the brain, an that is why, in the documents, it stated that President Kennedy's brain was removed. If you've studied the case, you will find that indeed his brain disappeared. The reason for that is so that they would not find the particles of the exploding pellet or the shellfish poison in his brain which would have proved conclusively that Lee Harvey Oswald was NOT the assassin." He also believed that aliens lived in his pants or - whatever. Look, there was an overpass within yards of the limo, why not wait until the car was hidden from view to fire the killshot? Greer and everybody else in Texas could plainly see that many dozens of people were filming the motorcade. Do you truly believe someone with Secret Service training would believe he could sneak a shot in without being seen/photographed/filmed?? This theory was shattered the moment a more clear version of the Z film was available. It's the early, fuzzy versions that create the illusion of a Greer shot. Better versions make it obvious that no such shot was ever delivered. It's helpful to suspend disbelief a bit in this case, but the citizens of Planet Cooper have let their fingertips slip and are hurtling into the abyss. Yikes. Leeeeeettttttttttss geet rreaaddyyy too rrrummmmmbbblleeee!!!!!!!!! LOL folks! I thought the same thing years ago when I first heard of it, and moved on. No thought put into it. But since Lee posted this subject, I actually thought about it a bit. Alot of things really do fit that scenario, as I posted here before. Im not going to get into any p*****g contest with anybody here, and dont want to hear alot of flack about this post. After Lee posted this, I thought about it some more, and moved on. Then the postings continued. So I thought some more on it, and alot of things began to fit into what happened, and what was said years ago. I think Cooper is a few eggs short of a dozen, and he is just repeating what was said years ago by a few JFK assassination buffs. But.........the Newcomb/Adams book is, I believe, the first to realize that this was a possiblity. I did an AOL search and came up with a few hits for this theory. I dont have the www address for you right now, but just for kicks, do your own search [for "Dallas Revisited"], and see if you find "Way cool Larrys web TV home page" and check it out. [there are others also] Its out there too on some points, and even mentions the "Globe" magazine. [so you know where that goes!] But it does mention several good points that I couldnt begin to post here. One of the things that jumped at me was the testimony of several people who testified about "shootings/or related to shots being fired" in the car. I remembered reading those points years ago, and thought them to be crazy. But now, it doesnt sound too nutty. Like i said, Im just putting this out there, decide for yourself. Im not saying this is what happened. Im not trying to waste anybodys time, and Im not starting an arguement with anybody. I just wanted to post what I thought years ago, and what I think now. Cliff, I loved that math thing!! LOL!! Just my opinion FWIW. thanks-smitty

Could his throat have been cut accidentally, as the medical personnel scrambled to get his shirt and tie loosened for the tracheotomy? Most people would claim that he was hit in the throat from the front, solely because he raises his hands upward at around frame 224 of the Zapruder film. But lone gunman proponent Dr. John Lattimer pointed out an an automatic neuromuscular reaction to spinal trauma termed "Thorburns Position," in which the victim involuntarily raises his arms and shoulders upward in reaction to the spinal trauma. If you look closely at the Z film, Kennedy really doesn't seem to be clutching at his throat, but seems to have raised his balled fists up in a defensive posture. Could there be something to the "Thorburns Position" explanation after all? Going back to the "Express thing".......I dont know. Your right about the arms. The bullet wound in the back seemed a bit right for the coloum, though....who really knows were it really went??? Word is it only went in a few inches if that. Regardless, he was hit at some point behind the sign going by the film. What he was reacting to......???? In the one report, there is the reciept of a projectile being handed over. What the projectile is, again...who knows?? From their report, he was hit in the neck, by what appeared to be a frontal entrance wound. I would believe the Parkland report over anything else thereafter for it being closest to being the truth. We are speculating, and just giving opinions here. Just mine FWIW thanks-smitty

Hey Ashton, great images and theory. Considering they could have done a better job with a chainsaw, going by the pictures we have all seen, its obvious it was done to hide something. There was "something" there, wheather it be an entrance bullet hole, dart, "murder slice" or what have you. I understand your thought on the "hole". Personally I dont think the "nicks" on the tie and shirt, were from cutting. If you were going to get his tie off ASAP, I would think, from my point, would be to cut it on side, fast and easy. I wouldnt be fooling around with the knot, and then rip the shirt off. [why they even tried is beyond me, having him come in with half his head blown off. I dont know how they thought it would help, but then we werent there] Im not thinking on this too long either.[lol] I believe that the "nicks" probably were from a "shot" of some kind. The animation you present, is terrific. But we are guessing, as close as possible here. It could be off enough, I would guess, to have the "projectile" nick the top of the tie and shirt. I dont think we are talking a whole lot here, and from the Zfilm, we cant see what position he was really in when he was hit. [plus, can we trust the photos that were shown??] I dont think anyone there in the ER could have gotten away with "cutting his throat", with all of the people present. Thinking on it, they would have to do it ASAP, to make sure he didnt keep breathing, not later on after he was pronounced dead. I would think there would have been a whole room full of doctors present when he was brought in, nurses, and what have you. I cant see how they could all be in on cutting him. There just doesnt seem like there would have been the opportunity, without someone else seeing what was going on. I dont think it could have been done on the way to the hospital, or any time preceding their arrival at the ER. The wound we see in the autopsy photos show a large wound, considering all you need, from my understanding, is a clean slice to insert the tube or what have you. Im not a doctor, [and I didnt sleep at a Holiday Inn Express either. lol!] but that wound is excessive from my point, and alot of other peoples too I would assume. The "hack job" we see in the photos was done, on the plane or when they arrived back in MD, not in Dallas. [when whatever else was done to alter any wounds] Just my opinion buddy, FWIW. thanks-smitty

Smitty, I see the attractions of this line of thinking, and, in the absence of dispositive evidence, must continue to permit the possibility that Greer was indeed the executioner of last resort. But my problem is this: what if Greer had been hit inadvertently, perhaps, let us theorise, by a ricochet? The limo is stuck on Elm with a wounded President and a dead, or seriously impaired, driver. Numerous potential complications suggest themselves. Was such a risk - in fact, an abundance of risks - necessary or worth it? Now distraction noises or shots, aimed to create the illusion of ambush from distance, that's another matter. Paul I see your point Paul. There was alot of risk indeed. Its a wonder they all werent shot! LOL! [with that many bullets! Hell, even Tague caught one! lol!] I think that was the whole idea behind the theory. To have the diversions going on around the plaza with different shots, noises, and such, and then have the shot come from within the car. [if he wasnt the failsafe] He wouldnt have to worry about being hit, if they all knew he was in on the assassination. Hopefully, he wouldnt be hit. Just my opinion FWIW thanks-smitty

Bill, I almost spewed my coffee this morning when I heard him say that on NPR! lOl! What a joke, coming from someone who probably had personal interest in the killing at that time. -smitty

Are you saying that sworn testimony before the Warren Commission or the HSCA would not be admissable today? Granted that neither of these esteemed bodies saw fit to allow defense attorneys to cross-examine witnesses, but it seems to me that anyone defending Lee Oswald today would have no objection to any of the WC testimony or affidavits, and I can't imagine that the Government would object. If there are no objections, should'nt the testimony be admissable? Would it not be admissable in any case under the "Official Records" exception to the Hearsay Rule? If the argument that witnesses are dead means their testimony is inadmissable, then one could argue that the Zapruder film is inadmissable, since Abraham Zapruder is dead and cannot now authenticate his film. Great posts. Thinking some more on this, another point could be made for the Greer shot. At the point of his supposed shot, JFK hadnt been hit "fatally" yet. He had been hit, but not to the extreme that was designed to happen. Greer could very well have been the "last resort" shot, the "fail safe" to make sure the deed got done if all others failed. They had driven all the way down Elm, and were just about leaving the "shooting zone". Greer slowed down. Waited for the shot, and finally decided to take it upon himself to make sure he got the fatal shot. Many beleive that JFK was hit several times, maybe at the exact second. Greers could have been one of two or three that hit Kennedy. Many witnesses testified to the fact that the limo slowed to a crawl, if not stopping completely. Then veering over in the road. It seems to fit very well into the whole scenerio. Just my opinion FWIW thanks-smitty

What ever happened, happened. whatever holes were there, then they [powers that be] had to do what they had to do to make them match their scenerio. The first report of it being a "small" entrance hole, at Parkland, can, I beleive, be trusted. After removing the body, they performed the "hatchet job" on the wound to hide any evidence, or even remove the "projectile", and explain a rearward shot. I am no doctor, but I have heard of many stories of people having [trac's] done, and surviving completely, only with a small hole to sew up. Personally, my mother was on a resporator for months with a tube inserted in her neck to breath, and she came back fine. I dont believe many people would have had such massive looking wound for a trac insert. Can you imagine how many theories or explanations they tried to come up with before finally coming up with the "magic" show?? We can only believe that the rear back shot was "moved up" to coinside with the neck wound. We can only believe he was hit from the front, with a small caliber weapon. Any large caliber weapon would have done alot more damage, and Im sure, blown out the back. This is where the "umbrella" explanation came in, to explain the small entrance wound, with no exit hole to speak of, and the recovery of the suposed "projectile". Personally, I dont know were it came from, or what it was, but he was deffinately hit from one of several possible locations. Just my opinion FWIW thanks-smitty

Smitty, Isn't that just the genius of the entire scheme - the sheer, breathtaking effrontery of it? You're also quite right about the explanatory power of the Greer-did model: so much falls into place. If you wanted proof of its potency, watch the lies, smears and evasions to follow! Have a great New Year, Paul Cant wait! lol! Thanks, and the same to you and yours. -smitty