Anthony Thorne

I haven't read it yet but I'm curious if any of his latest book, AMERICAN WAR MACHINE, refers back to the JFK assassination. I gather it continues his research into 'deep events', 9/11, and the drug trade in Afghanistan. I did find the lengthy piece at the end of his WAR CONSPIRACY reprint - comparing events from the days of 9/11 and Nov 22nd, 1963 - to be well argued. Jim DiEugenio's observation about "What does PDS actually mean?" did make me laugh though, along with a more recent PDS piece (can't remember which one) in which Scott describes his thesis that the 'deep political State' killed Kennedy to be one "for which I have been much criticized". (Maybe this was in the article William has posted here).

Recent (a few days ago) MP3 interviews with Ventura and Russell are front page on the Alex Jones Prison Planet site right now. You'll probably have to scroll through the 4hr show to find them, but his highlighted interviews are usually fairly long and if you hear the voice you're after you can usually scroll back to the beginning of the respective talk very quickly. I haven't listened to either just yet.

Forum members here may or may not be interested in Ventura/Russell's book, but as I type it's currently ranked at #9 of all books on Amazon. Ventura's appearance on THE VIEW (where he spoke about 9/11 and JFK) and the removal of his 9/11 article from the Huffington Post have probably spiked sales.

Though I shouldn't get my hopes up, with any luck the Tom Hanks / Bugliosi miniseries will be laughed offscreen when it finally airs.

I'm surprised, as some one with some video and photo experience but a lay person regarding restoration, I doubted hand retouching films would still be done at a major studio. Is this done commonly, doing such work digitally seems so much easier. How much of an overlap do you think there is between retouching for restoration and painting negs for special effects?

Do you agree its imperative that we see the images Price and the others based their judgments on because what they interpreted as alteration could in fact be generational degradation artifacts?

In between writing my post about Ned Price, and now, I was email contacted by a Melbourne cinematographer who briefly noted that he agreed with my summary of the process. He's not anonymous and will come on the forum (possibly through posts under my handle) after I return to Melbourne next weekend (I'm writing these on holiday interstate). In a nutshell though he noted that large areas of the post-production process for film have remained the same for decades given that film cameras mechanically (and internally) haven't changed that much barring a few new details. Major studios, particularly those like Warner, may have different teams overseeing different areas of the process, or depending on requirements might have those high up in the chain doing surprisingly menial work because they either like it, trust their own eye, or are working within a restricted budget and want to stretch the capabilities of the restoration department as much as possible. Digital is certainly easier when digital is applicable, but there's a continual interplay between the new methods and old, and I know some restorationists are more cautious than others when using software. Some digital techniques used for earlier restorations were problematic, 'erasing' imagery (like rain falling across a background window) as the software thought it was noise or grain. Also, some old films have deteriorated to the extent that there's a long and careful engagement with the physical footage before they even think of going near a computer or a telecine scanner. (Up until very recently, some restorations also focused more on physical/chemical restoration than digital simply as they wanted a theatrical reissue for promotional reasons and weren't going to master the final 35mm or 70mm film prints from an expensive, sometimes problematic digital source. A few recent high-profile restorations have indeed gone from film, to digital 4K or 8K, then back to film for the final cinema release, but I'll stress they are recent and up to a few years ago a digital intermediate stage for old/classic films seeking a cinema re-release wasn't a given). Re the overlap between retouching for restoration and painting negs for F/X, I'd suggest you may easily have the same technicians doing both in the same room with much the same equipment (I'm aware of the engagement of software with the latter but still suggest that the same teams would be conscious of and sometimes utilise the older methods - remembering too that some post-production specialists here and there are in their 50's or even 60's, have 30 or 40 years experience under their belt and moved to digital techniques after a long period of professional use with the older methods). I'll get my cinematographer friend to elaborate in a week or more (he already has to an extent in private correspondence but I'll post his lengthy comments when they're ready). He has a few decades experience with film post-production and - like myself - is currently agnostic on the topic of the Zapruder footage being tampered with (though he's already outlined to me the logical way of how it could be done, absent issues of the timeframe available and the chain of custody). He also noted that he has some comments to make regarding technical issues in the other current threads on this subject. I'm not expecting his observations to make either side of this debate say "Ha, gotcha!" to the other, but they might be of use to keep things accurate.

I haven't read all the commentary regarding the footage that Horne evidently screened but I agree that the issue of what was shown, and whether it accurately reflects what was originally shot, is an important one. I haven't paid the required attention to what's been said or written about that, here or elsewhere, so I'm currently not drawing any conclusions over whether the Zapruder film was, or wasn't, manipulated in the methods some have outlined. Like I've said though I'll be reading Horne's essay on the matter - book 4 - at some point.

Just to keep things clear, I know that I've mentioned earlier that the work done by restorationists at Warner would ultimately lead to remastering the films for Blu-Ray and DVD. The final mastering of the film to disc (HD or otherwise) is a fairly uncomplicated process and can well be done by a couple of guys in a room with a machine, a small period of time and the digital master tape (or hard drive) that they've been presented with. Getting the film ready for that final process though, (ready for the telecine, mastering, authoring etc) is more convoluted and is where the various low-tech/chemical/analog/historical film manipulation methods may come into play. I'd suggest that Ned Price's job description entails oversight of that more complicated procedure (among other things) and they might have up to a few years work wrestling with physical film materials, using every trick in the book, before they can take the final master to the authoring folk and say "Here, it's done". (Robert Harris, who I believe does similar work, has been wrestling with damaged, faded and incomplete materials related to IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD and THE ALAMO for decades). Therefore, it's probably misleading to characterise 'restoration' as simply 'mastering for DVD' (though I may well be the source of that phrase in this thread, the mastering comes right at the end). In general, the older the film, the more preparatory work that may be required to bring it up to acceptable standards for HD mastering. Some of Price's earlier noted projects are for films that are decades old and I know the KING KONG restoration, for one, took a good deal of work over some years before Warner was happy with it.

I just find it remarkable that after hearing news of this latest book, I've browsed the entries for every single one of his books on Amazon and can't find a single reference as to whether he's pro or anti conspiracy. I'm assuming from the titles the latter, but finding a single detailed review of his books, interview with the author or decent information as to whether any of them are worth reading has remained a mystery. Ah well.

Just in response to Len's comment re Ned Price - and I'm not getting into the validity or other of the Zapruder alteration argument as I haven't read Horne's book yet and am still right on the fence about it -

Mastering of films, as I understand it, is converting them to electronic formats like videotape and various disk formats. Though part of the process involves restoration he joined Warner in 1990 and thus is unlikely to have used such low tech methods as painting on films, at best he might have been exposed to this method at film school (Syracuse). He also seem to be focused (in part at least) on audio restoration.

I follow the film restoration scene fairly closely and if Price is supervising the work they do at Warner, he'd be among the very top people to have a knowledge about film restoration/film formats/grain/chemical restoration and retouching, period. The Warner restoration team does deep, comprehensive work that involves the broadest spectrum of film and chemical restoration and analysis before they even get to the mastering stage, simply as there isn't a 'one size fits all' method for the varied restorations they tackle - films shot in different gauges, with different film stocks, from the 1920's onwards, and each existing at different levels of deterioration and generation-from-the-neg printing - and each project has its own issues and restoration requirements, all of which usually involve going through the movie frame by frame and seeing which low tech to high tech methods they need to apply. A number of the HD transfers involve scrutiny of the photochemical opticals - transitions, mattes, special effects and titles, etc - and they frequently need to break these down to reassess if any need to be redone or retouched pre the digital transfer or left alone. Dig into any of the George Feltenstein interviews over at The Digital Bits and you'll see the work they do is pretty much industry defining in its comprehensiveness and not restricted to the final scanning and transferring to disc, which is the last 2% of the puzzle with some of the restorations they've overseen. They use plenty of low tech methods before they reach the scanning stage and frequently have to spend long, extended periods working with all the various low tech methods before the final product is ready for remastering. Again, this isn't attributing anything to Price's comment on the Zapruder film as I can think of a couple of scenarios where he might be off target, but based on the reading I've done on the subject over the past 13 years, I'd be wary of attributing a lack of relevant technical knowhow to Price at Warner. I've seen long interviews with DVD company heads who get their hands dirty in the same sort of work - Don May Jr. at Synapse, the various Criterion Collection restoration gurus - and all of them admit they're eclipsed by the Warner team, with Price noted as being involved in some of the most arduous restoration projects noted in those aforementioned interviews over at Digital Bits. I view the Cinema Audio Society award given to Price's involvement with the audio on the Kubrick films as being indicative of their specific focus and interest in audio work, not his, and haven't seen anything to indicate that his work is restricted to the non-visual. If pressed I could offer a number of reasons suggesting how Price might have been mislead / misguided / goaded along with a crowd / falling for an optical illusion / whatever in respect to the validity or otherwise of his pronouncement on the Zapruder film, but I've endured enough long, microscopically detailed Warner specific threads over at Home Theater Forum (frequently moderated by Hitchcock/Lean restoration guru Robert Harris) to know that the Warner restoration professionals are about as knowledgeable as you can get. I woudn't be arguing that various pre or post-production film processes are beyond their ken due to a before or after filmschool timeframe simply as the varied and often ad hoc work they do to achieve the final products results in them needing to keep all the historical methods of film treatment and manipulation in play, not abandoning older ones for newer digital work, as they'll frequently encounter issues on new projects that require revisiting older methods that the current restoration software wasn't designed for. I can't speak for Price's knowledge of what he was screened, where it came from, how far it was from the source, or any other criticisms that I've yet to read Horne's comments about (or even the rebuttals of Horne's work in other threads here) but suggesting that Price might be technically illiterate concerning photochemical film manipulation, restoration and or adjustment - after seeing him spearhead the most comprehensive restoration program of any of the major studios, for the company with the broadest archival holdings by far of the bunch, and watching them delay numerous titles for years because they need continuous, intensive work to bring them up to standard pre the final mastering - would get a big laugh on the film forums I visit that discuss these issues 24/7.

I can't speak for the veracity or claims of Zapruder alteration noted by Doug Horne (I've ordered the final volume of his books, and will get the others in due course - the Zapruder material, I think, is in volume 4), but just from reading interviews with Doug, the identity of one of the 'Hollywood 7' has been already noted. At the following link...

http://justiceforkennedy.blogspot.com/2010...n-black-op.html

there's a transcript of Doug's lengthy interview with Black Op Radio. Doug notes:

"One of these men is the head of restoration at a major motion picture studio..."

And then:

"In fact, I’ll give you the quote, the actual quote, from Ned Price was “Oh my god, that’s horrible, that’s terrible. I can’t believe it’s such a bad fake.”

Google Ned Price restoration and you can quickly dig up the following:

"Ned Price is currently Vice President, Mastering, Warner Bros. Technical Operations, responsible for overseeing the audio and visual restoration and preservation of the more than 6,500 films and tens of thousands of television programming in the Warner Bros. library using the latest in restoration technology, including many techniques that have been developed by Warner Bros. Technical Operations.

Among the 1,600 films that Price has worked on for the Studio are "King Kong," "Citizen Kane," " Casablanca," "The Adventures of Robin Hood," "Gone with the Wind," "The Wizard of Oz," "The Searchers," "A Clockwork Orange," "2001" and "Bonnie and Clyde." Price was awarded the Cinema Audio Society's President's Award in 2004 in recognition of his work on the preservation and restoration of the soundtracks of Stanley Kubrick's films."

Appropriately enough, if Ned is in charge of restoration and Blu-Ray mastering over at Warner, one of the films he would have recently overseen the remastering of is Oliver Stone's JFK.

I disagree with Doug's dismissal of the likelihood of a 9/11 conspiracy but this doesn't affect my interest in his work. The contents as outlined by Bill (thanks Bill) look great. I can only afford to get these volumes one or two at a time, especially as the Amazon price has jumped back up. I'm considering grabbing the first, and the last, and going from there. I hope these sell well and get the recognition they evidently deserve.

Did Doug really start writing this series of books in 2006? That's the impression I received from the Afterword posted by Bill. It's an impressive achievement if he managed that amount of text in just a few years. Bugliosi was chugging away on his heavy brick of nonsense for longer than that - to match the amount of writing and detail in a notably shorter amount of time is a notable achievement.

It'd be worthwhile as I gather the book delves into a lot of JFK related stuff, but - as with Doug Horne's work - I haven't had the cash over recent months to pick up the books in question and read them. If Hank wanted to break the ice with some comments here about why his book might be interesting to the folks on this board, it'd be fine with me and might set the ground up for more questions later.

Ventura has noted that he'd be happy to cover the JFK assassination in a future season if he gets renewed, pending the number of viewers they can attract for this first season. On that note, TruTV put out a press release a few days ago stating that the first episode of Ventura's show were the highest rating in the history of the network (1.2 million viewers or similar) and they were very happy with it.

It's worth noting that right now, all five volumes are heavily discounted at Amazon.com, down to $16.87 each from the initial $25 price. As many are probably aware, Amazon (those cheeky buggers) go back and forth with their discounts and can pull the rug out from under you if you're not careful, so I'd recommend anyone cashed up in these trying weeks before Christmas treat themselves to as many volumes as they can get. I have to wait till Jan/Feb, doggone it, but I'm looking forward to eventually getting all of these. It may be worth waiting a few extra weeks for forum members to dig into the books before Doug pops up here to answer questions.

As an aside, FAMILY OF SECRETS is now cheaper in paperback on Amazon as well.

Trine Day have a few interesting books out. Alongside A TERRIBLE MISTAKE, Douglas Valentine's STRENGTH OF THE PACK covers links between the DEA, FBI and drug trading in the US and has a blurb of praise from Peter Dale Scott, and on their website they mention ME AND LEE (Judyth Vary Baker's book), a reprint of George Michael Evica's A CERTAIN ARROGANCE, and next year, Peter Janney's MARY'S MOSAIC: MARY PINCHOT MEYER & JOHN F. KENNEDY AND THEIR VISION FOR WORLD PEACE.

Peter Dale Scott has also made some comments about this. I was amused by his observations concering the differing headlines and page placement of the article on different coasts.

..........................

The JFK Assassination: New York Times Acknowledges CIA Deceptions

by Peter Dale Scott

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?con...a&aid=15752

The New York Times, on October 17, published a page-one story by Scott Shane about the CIA’s defiance of a court order to release documents pertaining to the John F. Kennedy assassination, in its so-called Joannides file. George Joannides was the CIA case officer for a Cuban exile group that made headlines in 1963 by its public engagements with Lee Harvey Oswald, just a few weeks before Oswald allegedly killed Kennedy. For over six years a former Washington Post reporter, Jefferson Morley, has been suing the CIA for the release of these documents. [1]

Sometimes the way that a news item is reported can be more newsworthy than the item itself. A notorious example was the 1971 publication of the Pentagon Papers (documents far too detailed for most people to read) on the front page of the New York Times.

The October 17 Times story was another such example. It revealed, perhaps for the first time in any major U.S. newspaper, that the CIA has been deceiving the public about its own relationship to the JFK assassination.

On the Kennedy assassination, the deceptions began in 1964 with the Warren Commission. The C.I.A. hid its schemes to kill Fidel Castro and its ties to the anti-Castro Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil, or Cuban Student Directorate, which received $50,000 a month in C.I.A. support during 1963.

In August 1963, Oswald visited a New Orleans shop owned by a directorate official, feigning sympathy with the group’s goal of ousting Mr. Castro. A few days later, directorate members found Oswald handing out pro-Castro pamphlets and got into a brawl with him. Later that month, he debated the anti-Castro Cubans on a local radio station.

That the October 17 story was published at all is astonishing. According to Lexis Nexis, there have only been two earlier references to the CIA Joannides documents controversy in any major U.S. newspaper: a brief squib in the New York Daily News in 2003 announcing the launching of the case, and a letter to the New York Times in 2007 (of which the lead author was Jeff Morley) complaining about the Times’ rave review of a book claiming that Oswald was a lone assassin.

(The review had said inter alia that “''Conspiracy theorists'' should be ''ridiculed, even shunned... marginalized the way we've marginalized smokers.'' The letter pointed out in response that those suspecting conspiracy included Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Robert Kennedy, and J. Edgar Hoover.)

The New York Times has systematically regulated the release of any facts about the Kennedy assassination, ever since November 25, 1963, when it first declared Oswald, the day after his death, to have been the “assassin” of JFK. A notorious example was the deletion, between the early and the final edition of a Times issue, of a paragraph in a review of a book about the JFK assassination, making the obvious point that “MYSTERIES PERSIST.” [2]

Apparently there was similar jockeying over the positioning of the Scott Shane story. In some east coast editions it ran on page eleven, with a trivializing introductory squib, "Food for Conspiracy Theorists." In the California edition, headlined “C.I.A. Is Still Cagey About Oswald Mystery,” it was on page one above the fold.

One can assume that the Times decision to run the story was a momentous one not made casually. The same can probably be said of another recent remarkable editorial decision, to publish Tom Friedman’s op-ed on September 29 about the “very dangerous” climate now in America, “the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination.”

Friedman did not mention JFK at all, and his most specific reference was to a recent poll on Facebook asking respondents, “Should Obama be killed?” [3] Four days later the Wall Street Journal expressed similar concern, adding to the “poll on Facebook asking whether the president should be assassinated, a column on a conservative Web site suggesting a military coup is in the works.” [4]

Friedman’s column broke a code of silence about the threats to Obama that had been in place ever since two redneck white supremacists (Shawn Adolf and Tharin Gartrell) were arrested in August 2008 for a plot to assassinate Obama with scoped bolt-action rifles. Andrew Gumbel’s story about them ran in the London Independent on November 16, 2008; of the fifteen related news stories in Lexis Nexis, only one, a brief one, is from a U.S. paper.

It is possible to take at face value the concern expressed by Friedman in his column. The Boston Globe, a New York Times affiliate, reported on October 18 that “The unprecedented number of death threats against President Obama, a rise in racist hate groups, and a new wave of antigovernment fervor threaten to overwhelm the US Secret Service.” [5]

But there may have been a higher level of concern in the normally pro-war Wall Street Journal’s reference to a military coup. Such talk on a conservative web site is hardly newsworthy. More alarming is the report by Robert Dreyfuss in the October 29 Rolling Stone that Obama is currently facing an ultimatum from the Pentagon and Joint Chiefs: either provide General McChrystal with the 40,000 additional troops he has publicly demanded, or “face a full-scale mutiny by his generals...The president, it seems, is battling two insurgencies: one in Afghanistan and one cooked up by his own generals.” [6]

One can only guess at what led the New York Times to publish a story about CIA obstinacy over documents about the JFK assassination. One explanation would be the similarities between the painful choices that Obama now faces in Afghanistan – to escalate, maintain a losing status quo, or begin to withdraw – and the same equally painful choices that Kennedy in 1963 faced in Vietnam. [7] More and more books in recent years have asked if some disgruntled hawks in the CIA and Pentagon did not participate in the assassination which led to a wider Vietnam War. [8]

Six weeks before Kennedy’s murder, the Washington News published an extraordinary attack on the CIA’s “bureaucratic arrogance” and obstinate disregard of orders... “If the United States ever experiences a `Seven Days in May’ it will come from the CIA...” one U.S. official commented caustically. (“Seven Days in May” is a fictional account of an attempted military coup to take over the U.S. Government.) [9]

The story was actually a misleading one, but it was a symptom of the high-level rifts and infighting that were becoming explosive over Vietnam inside the Kennedy administration. The New York Times story about the CIA on October 17 can also be seen as a symptom of rifts and infighting. One must hope that the country has matured enough since 1963 to avoid a similarly bloody denouement.

Notes

1. “C.I.A. Is Cagey About '63 Files Tied to Oswald,” New York Times, October 17, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/17/us/17inquire.html.

2. Jerry Policoff, The Media and the Murder of John Kennedy,” in Peter Dale Scott, Paul L. Hoch, and Russell Stetler, The Assassinations: Dallas and Beyond (New York: Random House/Vintage, 1976), 268.

3. Friedman, in decrying attacks on presidential legitimacy, recalled that “The right impeached Bill Clinton and hounded him from Day 1 with the bogus Whitewater “scandal.” It is worth recalling also that the public outcry about Whitewater was encouraged initially by a series of stories by Jeff Gerth, since largely discredited, in the New York Times. See Gene Lyons, “Fool for Scandal: How the New York Times Got Whitewater Wrong,” Harper’s, October 1994.

4. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125452861657560895.html.

5. Bryan Bender, “Secret Service strained as leaders face more threats Report questions its role in financial investigations,” Boston Globe, October 18, 2009,

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washingt...e_more_threats/.

6. Robert Dreyfuss, “The Generals’ Revolt: As Obama rethinks America’s failed strategy in Afghanistan, he faces two insurgencies: the Taliban and the Pentagon.” Rolling Stone, October 29, 41. Several other articles entitled “The Generals’ Revolt” have been published since 2003, including at least two earlier this year and a number in 2006, when retired generals’ pushed successfully for the removal of Rumsfeld over his handling of the Vietnam War.

7. Gareth Porter, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005), 266.

8. See for example James Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died & Why It Matters (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2008).

9. Washington Daily News, October 2, 1963; discussed in Peter Dale Scott, The War Conspiracy: JFK, 9/11, and the Deep Politics of War (Ipswich, MA: Mary Ferrell Foundation Press, 2008)

Ray McGovern, the ex-CIA intelligence analyst responsible for delivering the PDB’s to Reagan and Bush Sr. back in the 80’s, was on the Alex Jones show a week ago to discuss Afghanistan and Iran. Right at the beginning of the show, the conversation began with talk of JFK AND THE UNSPEAKABLE, and McGovern took the chance to elaborate on his earlier comments about the book. Nothing earth-shattering was said, but it’s a nice quick discussion and I’ve transcribed it here for anyone interested. The book seems to still be selling extremely well on Amazon.

THE ALEX JONES SHOW - September 30th, 2009.

Ray McGovern interview.

AJ: Ray McGovern is one of President Ronald Reagan’s intelligence briefers, from 81 to 85, he was in charge of preparing the daily security briefings for Reagan and Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush... (full intro snipped). Ray, from memory, don’t you have a new book out too?

RM: Well, I don’t write books because then I’d lose my wife. (laughs)

AJ: Somebody’s saying they heard you on Dallas radio about a book or something. Maybe you were talking about somebody else’s book…

RM: I was, yeah. I was talking about JFK AND THE UNSPEAKABLE, which is a book that people really should read. It’s by James Douglass, and it goes over the most recently released data on the situation there in Dallas and elsewhere when John Kennedy was assassinated. It’s very, very interesting.

AJ: You know, I had dinner with Martin Sheen about a month ago, and he said it was the best JFK book he had read, and was raving about it, and I forgot to get a copy of it, he was going to give me a copy of it but I forgot to get it. Why is everybody saying this book is so powerful? I mean, you’re a former top CIA analyst, you know, reading it yourself – I want to get into Iran, but that’s another subject I want to raise with you, is JFK. Why are you so impressed with this book?

RM: Well Alex, I have to confess that someone sent me that book about a year and a half ago, and as soon as I heard that it had this theory there was the CIA, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and people who had been suborned in the Secret Service that planned and executed the assassination of John Kennedy… As soon as I heard that I said, well, this is pretty far out, I got lots of articles to write, so I put it on my back shelf. But recently I’ve been reading it, I’ve almost finished, and I share the view of those who have read it before and told me that it’s the most painstakingly researched piece of work, and that it includes the very latest data that’s been released from FOIAs or from other things. He conducted incredible interviews with people on the spot, and the evidence that he adduces – and you know, I’m an intelligence analyst, so I know a little bit about this kind of thing – is very, very persuasive. The reason that it has such current attention and applicability, is because the very forces Jim Douglass claims did JFK in are still very much around, are still very much intimidating a new President whose name happens to be Barack Obama, and if you just run down the line of things… It was Cuba, mostly, because JFK would not save the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. The CIA and the Joint Chiefs got very mad about that. When JFK wouldn’t launch a nuclear war on the Soviet Union during the missile crisis in ’62, that got the Joint Chiefs really mad because they knew they had the advantage and they told him “Look, Mr President, it would only mean about 20 million of us killed, but we’d kill all the Russians..”. That kind of logic.

AJ: That was L.L. Lemnitzer and Curtis LeMay wasn’t it?

RM: Yeah. Yeah, it was… …yeah, it was that crowd. That crowd was described by George Ball, the Deputy Secretary of State, as a cesspool. They’re the ones that planned things like Northwoods, and other things. So, the primary… ..it’s hard to put yourself back into those years, but there was such an incredible, visceral, kneejerk anti-communism, that again, the Joint Chiefs thought it would be just fine if we did in all the Soviet Union, in return to just, maybe 20 million casualties here. John Kennedy faced into that, and not only that, but he started talking with Castro independently, and secretly he thought, though the CIA knew about it, and he had a private correspondence with Nikita Khrushchev. He made a big speech at American University saying we ought to get along with the Soviet Union, and what do you know, about three months later the limited test ban treaty is signed. The JCS, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was cut out of those negotiations, so you can understand how they felt about that. And last, but not least, was Vietnam, where John Kennedy was convinced it was a fool’s errand, and he could not convince the Joint Chiefs, nor his immediate advisors like McNamara and Rusk, and so he had to sort of surreptitiously move toward removing all our troops, and before he died he ordered that the first thousand troops be brought home before the end of the year ’63.

AJ: And he started issuing US greenbacks, was beginning to phase out the Federal Reserve, and giving anti Federal Reserve speeches…

RM: Yeah, he was running into lots of problems, and you know, when Dwight Eisenhower warned of the military industrial complex, well, already what he was seeing was a military, industrial, congressional, media complex, which we have in full swing right now. And so he was really up against it, and so I admire him even more than I used to in facing right into that, and it’s not at all difficult for me to believe anymore that the people who both felt personally threatened, and also felt that this fellow was selling out to the communists, took it upon themselves to plan this thing, carry it off, then appoint people to ‘investigate it’, in quotes, who would come out with the right conclusion, the politically correct conclusion that this Lee Harvey Oswald did it all alone. No-one believes that anymore. So, yeah, the applicability of this thing… Here’s Barack Obama, his big be-ribboned and be-medalled general officers are telling him “Oh, we’re going to suffer defeat in Afghanistan, if you don’t give us 40 - 45’000 more troops”. That’s exactly the same situation that JFK faced.

Saw this in a bookstore today, and browsed through to the page covering November 22nd. He accepted the official story, told RFK to do the same, is aware of 'conspiracy theorists' but sees no reason to doubt the Warren Commission etc etc. Not sure if I expected anything different but next time I'll check out the prologue as mentioned above. I bet the conversations he and RFK had with their intimates regarding the death of JFK may have been somewhat different.

Oliver Stone has posted an article on the book at the high profile Huffington Post blog:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/oliver-stone...e_b_243924.html

Some Posner fans are venting steam in the comments immediately beneath his article, but this is a good thing and should give the book a little more publicity.

...................................................................

The murder of President Kennedy was a seminal event for me and for millions of Americans. It changed the course of history. It was a crushing blow to our country and to millions of people around the world. It put an abrupt end to a period of a misunderstood idealism, akin to the spirit of 1989 when the Soviet bloc to began to thaw and 2008, when our new American President was fairly elected.

Today, more than 45 years later, profound doubts persist about how President Kennedy was killed and why. My film JFK was a metaphor for all those doubts, suspicions and unanswered questions. Now an extraordinary new book offers the best account I have read of this tragedy and its significance. That book is James Douglass's JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. It is a book that deserves the attention of all Americans; it is one of those rare books that, by helping us understand our history, has the power to change it.

The subtitle sums up Douglass's purpose: Why He Died and Why it Matters. In his beautifully written and exhaustively researched treatment, Douglass lays out the "motive" for Kennedy's assassination. Simply, he traces a process of steady conversion by Kennedy from his origins as a traditional Cold Warrior to his determination to pull the world back from the edge of destruction.

Many of these steps are well known, such as Kennedy's disillusionment with the CIA after the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion, and his refusal to follow the reckless recommendations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis. (This in itself was truly JFK's shining moment in the sun. It is likely that any other president from LBJ on would have followed the path to a general nuclear war.) Then there was the Test Ban Treaty and JFK's remarkable American University Speech where he spoke with empathy and compassion about the Soviet people, recognizing our common humanity, the fact that we all "inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures. And we are all mortal."

But many of his steps remain unfamiliar: Kennedy's back-channel dialogue with Khrushchev and their shared pursuit of common ground; his secret opening to dialogue with Fidel Castro (ongoing the very week of his assassination); and his determination to pull out of Vietnam after his probable re-election in 1964.

All of these steps caused him to be regarded as a virtual traitor by elements of the military-intelligence community. These were the forces that planned and carried out his assassination. Kennedy himself said, in 1962, after he read Seven Days in May, which is about a military coup in the United States, that if he had another Bay of Pigs, the same thing could happen to him. Well, he did have another "Bay of Pigs"; he had several. And I think Kennedy prophesied his own death with those words.

Why does it matter? The death of JFK remains a critical turning point in our history. Those who caused his death were targeting not just a man but a vision -- a vision of peace. There is no calculating the consequences of his death for this country and for the world. Those consequences endure. To a large extent, the fate of our country and the future of the planet continue to be controlled by the shadowy forces of what Douglass calls "the Unspeakable." Only by unmasking these forces and confronting the truth about our history can we restore the promise of democracy and lay claim to Kennedy's vision of peace.

But don't take my word for it. Read this extraordinary book and reach your own conclusions.

I think these are all available at www.911tv.org - apparently with the tacit approval of Adam Curtis himself. I've seen NIGHTMARES but haven't caught the others yet.

I just felt the gorge rise in my stomach when I saw the footage of Cronkite - Wrongkite - discussing Oswald with a snarl: "Oswald was a xxxx!". Oh well. I don't doubt his achievements in other areas of discussion but on the matter of the most important crime of the 20th Century he wasn't a particularly great help.

I like Jim's articles at his site and would enjoy seeing him pop up here.

With my home net temporarily restricted to dial-up speeds I've only been able to watch a minute or so of this, but it's of interest. The next documentary by Alex Jones is on the JFK assassination and he's put some (YouTube format) preview clips up here. In his recent interview with Jesse Ventura he alluded to some new footage (via Howard Hunt's relatives?) that he has obtained, but his comment was vague so obviously it's best to wait and see. Nonetheless, this is strongly pro-conspiracy and should have a positive effect as long as Jones reins in his crankier tendencies.

http://infowars.net/articles/april2008/110408JFK.htm

David Kaiser, author of the well regarded AMERICAN TRAGEDY: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of the Vietnam War, has a new assassination book coming out shortly of some interest – THE ROAD TO DALLAS. At 536 pages, it should be a substantial read. The synopsis below is pro-conspiracy, which is something, but unless I’m mistaken, the details seem – potentially - to suggest Oswald did it, egged on by the mob. (I don’t buy either of those assertions). It’ll be interesting to read the book when it comes out and see eventual responses to it. The synopsis is below, followed by what seems to be the first review (via the authors blog, from Publisher’s Weekly), and then finally the Amazon link for purchase, for anyone keen.

THE ROAD TO DALLAS: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy

Neither a random event nor the act of a lone madman—the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was an appalling and grisly conspiracy. This is the unvarnished story.

With deft investigative skill, David Kaiser shows that the events of November 22, 1963, cannot be understood without fully grasping the two larger stories of which they were a part: the U.S. government’s campaign against organized crime, which began in the late 1950s and accelerated dramatically under Robert Kennedy; and the furtive quest of two administrations—along with a cadre of private interest groups—to eliminate Fidel Castro.

The seeds of conspiracy go back to the Eisenhower administration, which recruited top mobsters in a series of plots to assassinate the Cuban leader. The CIA created a secretive environment in which illicit networks were allowed to expand in dangerous directions. The agency’s links with the Mafia continued in the Kennedy administration, although the President and his closest advisors—engaged in their own efforts to overthrow Castro—thought this skullduggery had ended. Meanwhile, Cuban exiles, right-wing businessmen, and hard-line anti-Communists established ties with virtually anyone deemed capable of taking out the Cuban premier. Inevitably those ties included the mob.

The conspiracy to kill JFK took shape in response to Robert Kennedy’s relentless attacks on organized crime—legal vendettas that often went well beyond the normal practices of law enforcement. Pushed to the wall, mob leaders merely had to look to the networks already in place for a solution. They found it in Lee Harvey Oswald—the ideal character to enact their desperate revenge against the Kennedys.

Comprehensive, detailed, and informed by original sources, The Road to Dallas adds surprising new material to every aspect of the case. It brings to light the complete, frequently shocking, story of the JFK assassination and its aftermath.

………………

Review from Publisher’s Weekly:

While plenty of authors have argued that the Mafia and anti-Castro Cubans were behind the assassination of President Kennedy, few have done so as convincingly as Naval War College history professor Kaiser (American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of the Vietnam War). Kaiser bills this as “the first [Kennedy assassination book] written by a professional historian who has researched the available archives,” and his attention to detail and use of recently released FBI and CIA files put this analysis ahead of many of its fellows. Kaiser focuses on the tantalizing testimony of Cuban exile Silvia Odio, who claimed to have met Lee Harvey Oswald in the company of Cuban activists, and on the U.S. government’s efforts to kill Castro and Robert Kennedy’s crusade against organized crime. By taking Oswald’s guilt as a given and focusing on the people he crossed paths with and their motives and connections, Kaiser mostly succeeds in avoiding complex and narrative-derailing forensic discussions. This is a deeply disturbing look at a national tragedy, and Kaiser’s sober tone and reasoned analysis may well convince some in the Oswald-was-a-lone-nut camp.

http://www.amazon.com/Road-Dallas-Assassin...y/dp/0674027663

Just watched the YouTube trailer and the documentary looks powerful and well made. Happily, Amazon also have it listed for pre-order and shipping this Tuesday. I'm impressed and inspired with Shane's efforts as both a 'conspiracy theorist' (i.e someone who hopes to understand the world as it currently actually works) and an aspiring filmmaker. A couple of friends of mine here in Melbourne are keen to see this doco too. Good work Shane and I look forward to watching the doco.

I did this review for Amazon in an attempt to encourage more readers of the book. It might be helping a little as there's only a few reviews so far and the book is selling reasonably well. Board member William Kelly was also helpful in giving my review a proofread. I hope some folk here find this useful.

Peter Dale Scott's THE ROAD TO 9/11 -

A deep, convincing analysis of the road to conspiracy and disaster.

Peter Dale Scott's long-in-the-works THE ROAD TO 9/11 is outstanding, powerful, sad, in a way, and quietly gripping. (It's also notable for the fact that the University of California Press only reportedly published it after they'd spent the better part of a year scrupulously fact checking and cautiously vetting it for accuracy). Glib summaries aren't likely to do it justice. There have been several books published so far that address the official story offered about 9/11 with a critical eye, all of which basically allege that the White House and US intelligence agencies have covered up their own, complicated roles in the terror attacks of 2001. Scott's new book makes some reference to and generally builds upon a number of those works, but simultaneously encompasses a far broader sweep, wields (conversely) a simpler, more direct argument, and provides a new level of hard-to-argue-with credibility to the process of naming specific names.

The first lengthy section of the book features Scott's run through of recent events in US history, with an emphasis on various 'shadow government' elements of the US political system, and how these elements have moved into the foreground in recent years. (Scott uses the term `shadow government' to encompass the various avenues used by governments - not just in the US - to undertake certain activities off the books, under the radar, or illegally). Scott notes the disintegration of the Nixon presidency as being a starting-point for slowly building incidents and trends related to an active `shadow government' that have re-emerged in the disaster of 9/11 and the subsequent, seemingly comprehensive cover-up. Little known government plans from the Nixon era for militarily suppressing public dissent (via the secretive, innocuously titled `Operation Garden Plot') are discussed here. Then, following the post-Nixon rise to prominence of Cheney and Rumsfeld during the Ford presidency, Scott notes how these martial-law ambitions eventually reappeared in a different form during the Iran-Contra events via the newly politicized FEMA and Lt. Col. Oliver North's `REX 84' plan. REX 84 evoked (in the event of an unspecified future `national emergency') the widespread surveillance (and possible detention) of political dissenters, the suspension of the U.S. constitution, and the activation of a secretive, parallel government set up to run things away from the pesky oversight of Senate and Congress. It's carefully noted early on that these aims were strongly desired by both Cheney and Rumsfeld, with the two of them conducting much of the highest level planning at the time for all the above, and the accompanying process given the title of `Continuity of Government', or `COG'. (Scott jokes darkly that in the light of the sweeping measures it would, and eventually did, enable post 9/11, `Change of Government' is a much more accurate description). Cheney pushed hard to enable and lay the groundwork for COG through FEMA in the 80's - groundwork which would institute a parallel government in the event of a national crisis - and Scott eventually notes what he dryly calls an `arresting coincidence'. Once Cheney and FEMA are reunited in May 2001, the same COG planning team from the Iran-Contra era in the 1980's was put forth by George W. Bush as a terrorism task force, and then a major terrorist attack on the United States allowed those same folks to implement COG. (Though Scott finished the bulk of THE ROAD TO 9/11 in 2006, he also makes use here at one point of information just revealed in Andrew Cockburn's 2007 biography RUMSFELD: HIS RISE, FALL AND CATASTROPHIC LEGACY. Cockburn's book notes how Rumsfeld and other hard-line Republican hawks with an eye on the future had privately kept the COG / parallel government exercises alive during the 90's in training exercise / bull sessions where they would "..castigate the Clinton administration in the most extreme way", and where the prior evoked COG threat of choice, the Soviets, had been replaced by a new designated foe thought of as likely able to provoke a useful national emergency - terrorists).

Dramatically, Scott (a veteran chronicler and researcher of another painful, much debated event from American political history) holds firm in refusing to water down his conclusions. During the eventual terrorist attacks of September 2001, COG boosters Cheney and Rumsfeld both described themselves (along with other members of the Bush administration) as being `out of the loop' during key moments of the crisis that could have affected the events of the day. Scott begs to differ. THE ROAD TO 9/11 can be seen as one long build-up to the most careful, detailed examination possible of just what the official record, supporting documents, pertinent testimony, and reports from the day actually suggest Cheney and Rumsfeld were up to during a specific period of time that morning. Clearly, testimony from Richard Clarke, Norman Mineta and others openly contradicts what Cheney and the 9/11 Commission Report would have us believe happened. In a gripping, methodically documented chapter, Scott breaks the relevant testimony down thoroughly, statement by statement, to examine what he believes really occurred at the Pentagon that morning. Would it be too much to ask for the mainstream media to do their job and examine why the specific pieces of evidence and testimony Scott outlines in this book were given the widest possible berth by the 9/11 Commission Report authors?

Elsewhere in THE ROAD TO 9/11, the October Surprise Iran hostage scandal prior to Reagan's election is carefully dissected. Scott notes how select elements of the upper Republican Party, alongside elements of the intelligence agency community sympathetic to their aims, showed (from the available evidence) a probable willingness to commit treason and endanger American lives for the pursuit of various goals. Scott also carefully links the October Surprise scandal, and Bush Senior's documented involvement with Saudi arms-dealing, to the eventual assistance provided by Bush Jr's administration in flying various Bin Laden family members and Saudis out of the US shortly after the 9/11 attacks. Scott describes the event succinctly, noting: "People who have once collaborated secretly in an impeachable if not treasonable offence cannot dispense lightly with their co-conspirators".

Midway through the book, Scott provides a very long, detailed recounting of al Qaeda's use by various covert arms of government as a tool to, among other things, acquire and use illegal drug trade funds. He follows the FBI and CIA's involvement with terrorist double agents, noting how a lack of congressional oversight has historically led to greater and greater excesses. The infamous `out of control' BCCI money-laundering operation is examined, along with the mainstream media's efforts to avoid studying the particular relationship the BCCI (and various Bush/CIA related spook groups) seemingly had in funding and utilising al Qaeda. One comment made here by Scott seems pertinent, and by itself sums up much of the content of his book. "America's out-of-control entanglements with jihadi Islamists, and particularly with the ISI, underlie the still misunderstood events of 9/11, and the ongoing instability of the U.S. bureacracy and media to report honestly either on what happened that day, or on what these events reveal about the deep structure of U.S global politics."

As noted before, Scott's final chapters dissect the public record and various 'official' accounts of the events of the day, with an eye to examining Rumsfeld and, in particular, Cheney's activities. Over and over in this section, Scott convincingly shows that the public record itself, when analyzed carefully, marks Cheney as a key element of a likely cover-up, and deserving of being questioned under oath in regards to his behavior on the day. It's evident that, repeatedly, the 9/11 Commission Report really worked overtime to heave the spotlight away from dwelling on just exactly what Cheney and Rumsfeld were up to during a key period of time that morning. Scott's final chapter puts things in perspective, and offers suggestions and words of encouragement for the future

There's much more featured, as I have just cherry picked some central points, but Scott's powerful, involving analysis of US covert policy and its relationship to the events of 9/11 is a tour-de-force. I'll also note that, though the book is heavily footnoted and carries a lengthy bibliography, I found it to be more readable and emotionally engaging than some of his earlier works. (There are some thoughtful and appropriate personal touches). It's worth finally mentioning that Scott cleverly begins each new section of the book with highly appropriate quotes pertaining to the chapter that follows. After reading this book, and thinking quietly for a while about the detailed, disquieting picture it reveals, the most resonant to me was the all-too-relevant comment from onetime US intelligence-linked al Qaeda trainer Ali Mohamed: "Americans see what they want to see, and hear what they want to hear."

Peter's book has been released a month early and is now available. It's in stock and shipping from Amazon at the link below.

http://www.amazon.com/Road-11-Wealth-Empir...0767&sr=1-1

Alex Jones did an article on Wikipedia censorship for his site a couple of weeks back, which I've linked below. It seems that there is a commited team of Wiki censors who openly target any and all conspiracy related material for immediate deletion, and (in many instances) general leftwing material critical of the Bush administration is removed as well. Even fully backed up, non-speculative, factual recounting of information that differs from their viewpoint is removed. The Jones piece is worth reading as it provides a link to the main page of the key offenders, all of whom openly brag in detail of their efforts and who post 'zany' insult pictures of themselves standing around wearing tinfoil hats - no joke - to ridicule anyone who attempts to address conspiracy related material in an openminded manner on Wikipedia. For what it's worth, Jones posted his article below and announced a campaign to get members to attack, defend, repair and rebut the damage done by the goons in question, and then had his own site hit by a major hack attack a day or so later. Spooky stuff! For my own part the article and links provided by Jones' piece just made me angry. I've engaged in Wiki comments discussions there defending conspiracy related material on 9/11 - the majority of key books on 9/11 conspiracy material have all had their individual pages removed - but the general tone is very hostile and it takes a lot of time and energy.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2...07fightback.htm

Very worthwhile reading here. James DiEugenio has reviewed Gerard McKnight's BREACH OF TRUST and joins the other positive reviewers of the book with a thoughtful and intelligent discussion of the issues the book raises. I feel that BREACH OF TRUST is yet to get the attention it deserves outside of the assassination research community, but am hopeful that more people will be led to it in the future. It's a classic book and I agree with pretty much everything DiEugenio says here. At the bottom of this lengthy review I've linked James DiEugenio's other recent review from his Probe site for Ed Haslam's DR MARY'S MONKEY.

........................................

Review: Breach of Trust

By James DiEugenio

I was rather predisposed against reading Gerald McKnight's Breach of Trust. Most of the recent books on the JFK case had been disappointing. Not just the horrible and ridiculous Ultimate Sacrifice, but others like the efforts of Jaime Escalante and Michael Kurtz. In addition, McKnight's book was on the Warren Commission. So I thought, quite naturally: Who needs another book on that subject in this day and age? But then I saw that writers like David Talbot and Jim Douglass recommended it. So I reconsidered and decided to pick it up. I am glad I did.

This is an extraordinarily worthwhile effort. What the author has done is not repetitive. He has collated the most up to date information, much of it released by the Assassination Records Review Board, and taken us deeper into the inner workings of the Commission than any other writer I know. Previously, writers like Mark Lane and Sylvia Meagher showed us some of the rather odd conclusions the Warren Commission came to in light of the evidence before it. What Breach of Trust does is not just show us how wrong the Commission was, but why and how they did what they did. In this regard, I cannot imagine a future author going much further.

I

One of the things Breach of Trust does that is singular in the field is to demonstrate just how J. Lee Rankin was put in place as Chief Counsel, and how influential he really was. Previous authors have noted how Earl Warren had tried to insert his friend and colleague Warren Olney III as Chief Counsel, how certain commissioners thwarted this, and how Rankin was then substituted. But no author has explained at this length and depth just why Olney was so objectionable, how and why he was shot down, and why Rankin was the replacement choice. This part of the book begins on page 41 with a description of the Warren Commission's first executive session of December 5, 1963. McKnight briefly describes Warren's professional relationship with Olney from his days in California, showing just how effective and collegial they were in pursuing some of Warren's progressive goals. In the next paragraph, McKnight provides the transition to the opposition with three pungent sentences:

As head of Justice's Criminal Division Olney also had a shared history with FBI Director Hoover that was altogether different. Hoover despised Olney. As one FBI agent remarked, "Olney was the only guy who had balls enough to stand up to Hoover." (p. 41)

Among Olney's sins on Hoover's scorecard were his public pronouncements about the presence and influence of the Mafia. Second was the fact that he was a liberal on the civil rights issue. It turns out that both Hoover and Nicholas Katzenbach from Justice were determined to strike preemptively so Olney would not take office. Their source for Warren's plans for chief counsel was the FBI informant on the Warren Commission: Congressman Gerald Ford. (Another achievement of the book is the demonstration of just how big an informant Ford was for Hoover. It is more than what was hinted at before which, in turn, shows how brazenly Ford lied about this in televised interviews.)

Katzenbach wanted Olney out because he perceived him as a maverick who he would not be able to control. And since he already had written his famous memorandum about convincing the public as to Oswald's role as lone gunman, he did not want Olney straying off the range on this issue. In fact, as the author notes, Katzenbach was so worried about this possibility that he installed his man from the Justice Department, Howard Willens, on the Commission to keep an eye out if Olney did become counsel. (p. 42)

It was overkill. Hoover and Katzenbach unleashed a lobbying campaign on the Commission to head off Olney. The point man for Hoover on this was Cartha DeLoach. DeLoach's prime inside asset for the "Dump Olney" program was Ford. (McKnight does a nice job penciling in the long "give and take" relationship between Hoover and Ford that made them such amiable chums.) Considering what was at stake, there is little doubt as to why this troika went into overdrive to accomplish their mission. For as McKnight states, "Had Olney served as Chief Counsel it is very likely that the Warren Commission Report would have been an entirely different historical document." (p. 44)

When Warren tried to push Olney through at the second executive session, it was Ford and John McCloy who joined forces to obstruct him. And McCloy just happened to have a short list of alternative choices on hand, one of which was J. Lee Rankin. An impromptu sub-committee was formed consisting of Ford, McCloy, Allen Dulles, and Warren. In a matter of hours, Rankin became the consensus choice. Warren really had no option in the matter since, as Ford told DeLoach, both he and Dulles threatened to resign if Olney was chosen. (p. 45)

II

Why was Rankin an easy choice? In addition to being a friend and colleague of McCloy, he was the opposite of the anti-Christ Olney in one central regard: he was almost as cozy with Hoover as Ford was. As McKnight describes it: "The choice of J. Lee Rankin, a conservative Republican, was greeted at FBI headquarters with elation." (Ibid) As Solicitor General, Rankin had defended the FBI in court. He was on a first name basis with Hoover. To quote the author again, "Rankin was a supremely cautious bureaucrat, a consummate insider, not a boat-rocker like Olney." (Ibid) The choice of Rankin was crucial for the FBI and Katzenbach since it greatly improved their chances of having both the initial FBI report on the assassination and Katzenbach's premature memo validated with little friction or confrontation.

As general counsel his management style was rigidly centralized. One former assistant counsel complained that staff contact with the Commission members "was all done through Rankin." All staff contact and communication with the FBI had to be approved or was channeled directly through Rankin's office... Rankin proved resourceful at every turn...successfully guiding the whole enterprise toward the predetermined destination laid down in the November 25 Katzenbach memo. The heading that Rankin followed for nine months...was lifted right off Hoover's chart, and it pointed to Oswald...as the assassin. (Ibid)

As McKnight states, as an evidentiary brief, the FBI report is an embarrassment in and of itself. He writes, "The report was largely a vilification of Oswald." (p. 27) Since it was done so quickly (submitted to the White House on December 5th), and so haphazardly it can only be called a Rush to Judgment, in the worst sense of that term. For instance, even though it ended up being five volumes long with almost nine hundred pages, it did not describe all of Kennedy's wounds, list the cause of death, did not mention Governor John Connally's wounds, and did not account for all the known shots. Incredibly, it devoted all of 10 words to the JFK shooting and only 42 words to his wounds. This was done because the FBI did not have the official autopsy report. The Bureau rejected an offer by the Secret Service to lend it the autopsy protocol, the X rays, and the photos.

In spite of all these failures, Katzenbach called the FBI report "spectacular". (p. 27) He then distributed it to high officials of agencies of government. Why? Because it vilified Oswald's character, named him as the assassin, and stated that he had no cohorts. This had been preordained of course. Orders had been given not to investigate a conspiracy, and evidence of Oswald's innocence -- like the Bronson film -- was discarded. (Pgs. 16-18) By November 26th, just two days after Ruby shot Oswald, the FBI had reached its main conclusions. Yet, this was the event that provoked many people to consider thoughts of a conspiracy. McKnight writes that one of the reasons for the headlong hurry was to stamp out "conspiracy allegations" from Mexico City. (p. 25) Hoover sent an agent there to get Ambassador Mann and CIA Station Chief Win Scott "on message, to alert them to the 'facts' of the case: that the White House and the FBI were convinced of Oswald's guilt and that there had been no conspiracy." (Ibid)

In a revealing November 29th conversation with President Johnson, Hoover showed that he knew little of what actually happened even a week after the fact. He told LBJ that one bullet rolled out of Kennedy's head. That CE 399 was found on Kennedy's stretcher after heart massage. That the alleged weapon could fire three shots in three seconds. (p. 28) These statements were all grossly mistaken. But that did not matter to Hoover or the fate of the Bureau's report. The FBI began to leak its conclusions to the media anyway. And by doing this before the Warren Commission held its first executive session meeting, the Bureau began to entrap the Commission in its own faulty conclusions.

But the FBI report differs in some crucial regards from the Warren Report. For example, although the Bureau was aware of the hit on James Tague, it ignored this and said that all three shots struck either Kennedy or Connally. The Bureau also had the shot entering Kennedy's back at a much steeper angle. At this angle, it would be impossible for the bullet to exit at the throat level. For these and other reasons, the Commission ended up not publishing the FBI report (CD 1) in the 26 volumes. As the author notes, "That the Commission, given its own deplorable record...felt compelled to suppress the FBI report...was a resounding rebuke indeed." (p. 144) Yet the Commission had to do this or they would be admitting that the government came to two different versions of the same crime within ten months. And the two versions were incompatible with each other. But because the FBI report was not published or released yet, this fact was not evident.

Actually, it's even worse than that. Why? Because the Secret Service also agreed with the Bureau's shooting sequence. (p. 3) Further, in 1966, when the discrepancy between the FBI and the Commission became public, Hoover insisted that his version was correct. (p. 4) But, there was still a third government version of the crime that was not known. Within days of the assassination, the CIA had the Secret Service copy of the Zapruder film. The Agency's analysis of the film concluded that the first shot did not come from the sixth floor. Second, more than one gunman was involved. (p. 6) In reality, there were three official versions of the crime within ten months. But the public was unaware of any except the Commission's.

III

This was the precarious position that the Commission found itself in essentially from the start. With no independent investigative staff, they were largely at the mercy of the FBI, Secret Service, and CIA for their information. But mostly the Bureau, and the Bureau had already come to their verdict. For instance, to further incriminate Oswald and to show he had a sociopathic predisposition toward violence, the FBI report asserted that Oswald had tried to shoot General Edwin Walker on the evening of April 10, 1963. (When I talked to FBI agent Warren DeBrueys in New Orleans, he told me this was based on the testimony of Marina Oswald and the fact the assailant in both cases aimed at the victims' head.) But there were serious problems with this second case against Oswald:

1. The Dallas Police never considered him as a suspect in over seven months.

2. The evidence indicated more than one man was involved.

3. The ammunition was steel-jacketed, not copper-jacketed as in the Kennedy case.

4. Walker was a rightwing extremist who Kennedy had removed from his command for distribution of Birchite propaganda. So the political calculus behind the shootings was confused.

5. The conspirators had access to a car which, officially, Oswald did not.

6. The police deduced the weapon was a high-powered rifle, which the Mannlicher-Carcano was not.

7. Walker and his private investigators suspected a former employee, William M. Duff, as the sniper. (pgs. 48-50)

But as McKnight shows, the capper in this regard is CE 573, the mutilated remainder of the bullet recovered from Walker's home. When assistant counsel Wesley Liebeler deposed Walker for two hours in April of 1964, he never mentioned it. This seemed odd since Walker held the bullet in his hands afterwards. Fifteen years later Walker was watching a televised hearing of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Chief Counsel Robert Blakey held up CE 573 for the camera while discussing the firearms evidence in the JFK case. As McKnight notes:

Walker, a thirty-year career army officer with extensive combat experience in World War II, and with more than a passing familiarity with military weaponry, was stunned. According to Walker, what Blakey represented as the bullet fired into his home bore no resemblance to the piece of lead the police had recovered, which he had held in his own hand and closely examined. (p. 52)

So there was no real ballistics evidence to connect Oswald to the Walker shooting. This left a mysterious note that Oswald, according to Marina, had left her that night. Even though Marina said she placed the note in a Russian book, it did not show up in the two day DPD search through Oswald's room or the Paines' household, where Marian was staying. It was not until November 30th that Ruth Paine sent the book to Marina through the Irving County police. After the police turned over the book to the Secret Service, the note was finally discovered on December 2nd. It was not signed or dated. When FBI fingerprint specialist Sebastian Latona was questioned by the Commission, he was not asked about the "Walker note". Perhaps because staff attorney Melvin Eisenberg had learned that Latona had found neither Lee nor Marina's fingerprints on the note.

McKnight finalizes this section by doing what he usually does. He takes us behind the scenes and shows us what was happening at the Commission and in the field. By doing this he cracks open the superficial front presented by both reports and shows us that in reality, the authorities themselves knew that there were serious problems with what they presented to the public and the media. On May 20, 1964 Rankin had written Hoover complaining that Marina's testimony on the Walker case "was riddled with contradictions". (p. 57) FBI agent Gordon Shanklin then assigned two agents to Marina because he agreed that "her statements just don't jibe." (Ibid)

In fact, the report that Shanklin commissioned to resolve Marina's "contradictions" did nothing but deepen them. The agents, Ivan Lee and Robert Barrett, interviewed two witnesses who both confirmed there were two suspects, that neither resembled Oswald, and they had access to a Ford. Their main witness, Walter Kirk Coleman, never testified before the Commission. What was left in the case against Oswald was the photo found in his possessions of the back of Walker's home. In light of the above, this now became as suspect as the infamous backyard photographs.

Yet despite all of the above, the Warren Report states that the Walker episode demonstrated Oswald's "disposition to take human life" and it "was considered of probative value in this investigation." (pgs. 56, 58) McKnight explores the Walker case at length and it is one of the best discussions of the incident that I have read. He concludes that it has value not just in and of itself, but that it "was just a microcosm of what was to follow in the government's investigation into the Kennedy assassination." (p. 58) He is correct.

IV

Three of the most important chapters in the book (Chapters 7-9), deal with the medical and ballistics evidence. The Bethesda pathologists -- James Humes, Thornton Boswell, and Pierre Finck -- did not see the clothes or photos in preparation for their post-mortem report. Further, as the author details, the autopsy of the century lasted approximately from 8-11 PM. Yet, according to Dr. Michael Baden, it should have gone at least twice that long. And perhaps as long as 8-10 hours. (p. 155)

One of the arresting aspects of the book is McKnight's characterization of Humes. Whereas many Warren Commission critics have treated him, and the other two, with a modicum of respect -- perhaps in the misguided hope that they would eventually see the light -- McKnight is anything but kind. (Since Humes has now passed away, the author may feel that he can take the gloves off.) He exposes as a canard the idea that Humes burned his original autopsy draft and "bloodstained" notes out of respect for the dead president. McKnight writes that this could not have been the case since this draft was prepared in the unbloodied comfort of the doctor's own home. (p. 165) When interviewed by the ARRB's Jeremy Gunn on this point, Humes became flustered and angry. He said it "might have been errors in spelling, or I don't know what was the matter with it, or whether I even ever did that." (Ibid) Later he added, "I absolutely can't recall, and I apologize for that." (Ibid) McKnight suggests that assistant counsel Arlen Specter recognized this problem at an early date and met with the doctors approximately 8-10 times prior to their testimony in March. Subsequently, when Specter elicited the rather startling revelation about burning the first draft, no one batted an eyelash. As the author puts it: "Not a single commissioner was moved to ask Humes what right he had to destroy these papers or even why he felt compelled on his own initiative to consign them to archival oblivion." (p. 158)

But with this established, Specter and Humes moved on to a second deception. Namely that Commission Exhibit 397 was the documentary record upon which the official autopsy report was based. This exhibit consisted of a set of notes, and the handwritten revision of the incinerated draft of the autopsy report. One of the note pages was the autopsy "face sheet" (body diagram with wounds marked), and the others were notes of Humes' talk with Dr. Malcolm Perry of Parkland Hospital about the tracheotomy he had performed on President Kennedy in Dallas. But this cannot be the entire record since the final, single-spaced, 6-page autopsy report contains many facts that are not contained in these documents. After a thorough analysis, McKnight concludes:

There are, give or take, about eighty-eight autopsy "facts" in the official prosectors' report. About sixty-four of these "facts" or pieces of medicolegal information (almost 75%) cannot be found in either the published notes or CE 397. Some fifteen of these pieces of information involve measurements and numbers that are not found in the published record. (p. 162)

So where did these other "facts" come from? The author makes the argument that, contrary to the Humes-Specter fabrication about the burning of the original autopsy draft, this report actually survived. He believes it was around until about November 26th. That it began to be revised and altered in the office of Admiral C. B. Galloway on Sunday afternoon after Jack Ruby killed Oswald. (I should add here that McKnight is not appreciative of the efforts of Jeremy Gunn in what turned out to be the last examination of Humes. He feels Gunn did not press him hard enough.)

The chapter on the autopsy concludes with a quite interesting discussion of the cipher of Dr. George Burkley, Kennedy's personal physician. As others have noted, Burkley was in the presidential motorcade, in the Parkland emergency room, with the body on Air Force One, in the Bethesda morgue, and in the ambulance returning the body back to the White House. He was the one physician who was with the body the entire time after the shooting. Hopefully, this would have put him in position to resolve some of the conflicts over the medical evidence, or at least explain how they came about. Realizing his importance, what did the Commission do with him?

Incredibly, JFK's personal physician was never called to testify. Commission assistant counsel Specter never interviewed Burkley or asked him to prepare a statement on his observations of the president's wounds or any information he might have relating to the assassination. The FBI and the Secret Service never mentioned him before or after they submitted their respective reports...to the Warren Commission. (p. 177) One of the reasons that may have given Specter pause before deposing Burkley was the fact that he had signed President Kennedy's death certificate. This document placed the back wound at the level of the third thoracic vertebra. Which is much lower than where the Gerald Ford-revised Warren Report placed it: at the base of back of the neck. And at this level, a bullet headed downward would not be able to exit the throat. Since Specter's main function was to enthrone the single bullet theory, the last thing he wanted was to place in the record a debate over this document. What makes the document even more interesting is the point of reference used for the wound placement. It is more accurate than what the pathologists used. Dr. Finck located the point in an odd way. He measured from the mastoid process to the acromin, or tip of the right shoulder. These are not fixed body landmarks. In his ARRB interview, Finck stated that "JFK's spine, a fixed landmark, was the correct and only point of reference to determine the accurate location of this posterior wound." (p. 179) Like Burkley did. As the author notes, one has to wonder if Finck's measuring points were deliberately chosen in order to disguise just where the posterior entrance was. If so, then Burkley was not in on this obfuscatory design. Which made him a most valuable witness. Further, Burkley's placement is corroborated by much more evidence than the Warren Report's, e.g. the holes in Kennedy's shirt and jacket, observations by both FBI and Secret Service agents, the autopsy face sheet, and, as we shall see, the FBI reenactment in Dallas. Ultimately, what the death certificate does is not just call into question the magic bullet theory, but also the number of shots, and whether the back wound exited at all. In sum, it had the potential to scuttle the Warren Report. Which is probably why it does not appear in either the report or the 26 volumes of evidence. McKnight ends his discussion of Burkley by noting that when author Henry Hurt called the doctor to arrange an interview he replied that he felt the Kennedy case was a conspiracy. When the writer tried to follow up this conversation with a full-length interview, Burkley promptly refused.

McKnight's two chapters on the ballistics evidence are equally compelling. For months of its existence, the Commission tried to ignore the ricochet hit to bystander James Tague off the curb. Even though they were aware of it, as late as June of 1964, Specter was trying to discount its importance. (p. 185) Tague was not deposed until July 23, 1964. This only occurred because Dallas reporter Tom Dillard asked the U.S. attorney for north Texas a question about Tague during a public appearance. The attorney then sent a registered letter, including a photo, to Rankin. So now, in July, the drafts of the report finally included the curb strike. And now, since he was down to two bullets for Kennedy and Connally, Specter had the unenviable task of stitching together the single bullet theory. As with the medical evidence and Burkley, Specter ignored his best witness.

Dr. Joseph Dolce had spent three years as a battlefield surgeon in the Pacific Theater during World War II. He retired as a full Colonel. In 1964 he was chairman of the army's Wounds Ballistic Board. As McKnight describes his stature in the field:

When the Commission asked the army for its top ballistics man, it sent Dolce. He was regarded so highly as an expert on wounds from high-velocity weapons...that in the event of a serious injury to any VIP in Congress or in the administration, he was to "be called to go over the case." (p. 186)

The problem for Specter was that Dolce concluded Connally was hit by two shots. He also stated that the magic bullet, CE 399, could not have shattered the governor's wrist and remained pristine. Dolce later recalled a meeting with several experts and Commission staff. He said it was Specter who battled hardest for the viability of CE 399.

Dolce then participated in experiments conducted at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland. These were done with Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano, a hundred 6.5 mm bullets, and ten cadaver wrists. Dolce told film-maker Chip Selby that in each and every instance the bullet was "markedly deformed" after firing. (p. 187) Dolce was never called as a Commission witness. And Specter never questioned any of the ballistics experts about the above experiment. (p. 189) Specter then requested a reenactment in Dealey Plaza. Yet on the FBI stand-in for President Kennedy, the chalk mark signifying the back wound is at the point where Burkley described it: the third thoracic vertebra. And this appears in Chapter 8 of the report, photograph 12. (p. 192)

In his draft report, Specter ignored all of the above. He wrote that "all medical findings established" that a single bullet caused Connally's wounds. Dolce's name did not appear in his June 10th report. In fact, the actual report on the Edgewood firing experiments did not appear in the Warren Report or in any of the 26 volumes. It was not declassified until 1972. (p. 197)

Dolce was upset by what the Commission had done with these experiments. Years later, he wanted to talk to the House Select Committee on Assassinations. He wished to testify that the actual report on the experiment had been altered before it was submitted to the Commission. He wanted to share the original report with the new investigating body. He conveyed this wish to his senator Lawton Chiles, who passed it on to a congressional representative on the committee. Yet Dolce was never called as a witness by the HSCA. Dolce has been mentioned before in the literature on the case. But as with other matters outlined above, McKnight goes further in both length and depth about this crucial witness than anyone before him.

V

Another major aspect of Breach of Trust are McKnight's sections dealing with Oswald's activities that intersected with the CIA and FBI. The author rightly discounts the remarkably feeble Warren Commission report on Oswald in Mexico City. This rather brief essay by David Slawson and William Coleman shrivels like a crushed grape in comparison to the volume prepared by Dan Hardway and Ed Lopez for the House Select Committee. As McKnight notes, the Warren Commission's given itinerary for Oswald -- Mexico City to Cuba to Russia -- made little sense. Prior to this, "He had shown no interest in returning to Russia, and by all indications the Soviet state had no interest in allowing the anti-Soviet Oswald back into the country. (p. 61)

Oswald's attention and activities had now turned from Russia to Cuba, and he now actually denigrated the Soviet system when asked about it. Also, Oswald had no funds to stay in Cuba for any extended period of time, let alone go on to Russia. He had been out of work for nearly two months prior to going south of the border. As the author notes, the Slawson-Coleman report was based almost exclusively on information originating with the CIA. (p. 63) Because of this reliance, all the intelligence tradecraft in Mexico City -- later revealed in the Hardway-Lopez Report -- went unnoticed in its predecessor: the false phone calls attributed to Oswald, the missing photos and audiotape recordings, the survey of the infallible surveillance system the CIA had in place, the human sources inside the Cuban consulate, the key but questionable roles played by David Phillips and Ann Goodpasture. And, above all, the question of an imposter posing as Oswald. In relation to all this, the author writes of the Slawson-Coleman Report:

The Commission must be credited, at least, for correctly reporting that Oswald was in Mexico City from September 27 to October 2, 1963. Much of the rest of the Warren Report's treatment of Oswald in Mexico City cannot be safely assumed to be an accurate account. (p. 64)

From here, the book goes on to note all the inconsistencies and oddities in the documentary record that should have indicated to any honest inquiry that something was wrong with the CIA's story. A story which on 11/23 the CIA was pushing on President Johnson, particularly, "his alleged contact with the Soviet consular official Valery V. Kostikov" who the CIA reported "was a sabotage and assassination expert." (p. 66)

At this point the author shrewdly and forcefully points out that there was one person in Washington who had reservations about this tale as early as the 23rd. He was J. Edgar Hoover. McKnight summarizes a phone conversation the president had with the director on that day about Oswald in Mexico City:

...Hoover admitted that the evidence so far was "not very strong." Hoover then related some news that must have captured the president's attention -- there was evidence that someone in Mexico City had been impersonating Lee Harvey Oswald, the charged assassin of President Kennedy. (p. 67)

The Commission's main investigating arm was on the verge of uncovering an ersatz trail, with all the ramifications that unmasking could entail, including who Oswald was and what his purpose in Mexico really concerned. (Hoover's doubts about this part of the story grew as time went on. He later scribbled in his famous marginalia that the CIA had handed them a "snowjob" about Oswald in Mexico City.) The CIA now realized it was on thin ice about this aspect and it began to forcefully crowd out the Bureau with the Commission on Mexico City. Director of Plans Richard Helms actually wrote the Bureau and the Commission letters making this clear. And when the Bureau discovered that other CIA reports trying to blame Castro for the murder, e.g. the Gilberto Alvarado tale, were also diaphanous, the Agency now switched its story:

Eventually the CIA would drop the pretense of any Oswald-Kostikov connection when the White House unmistakably signaled that it was not interested in any "Red plot", real or manufactured. In July...Richard Helms...disclosed to Rankin that...Oswald met with Pavel A. Yatskov not Kostikov. (p. 70)

President Johnson was so against the "Oswald as a Red agent" line that he removed a diplomat who was pushing it from office, Thomas Mann, the American ambassador to Mexico. Needless to say, none of this extraordinarily relevant and compelling information made it into the Warren Report.

The intelligence strand between Oswald and the FBI that gets lengthy treatment here is the infamous Hosty note. This is a written communication left by Oswald in the Dallas FBI office for James Hosty who was attempting to interview Marina Oswald. Reportedly a violent threat, the note was kept by the Bureau and then destroyed after the assassination by Hosty on orders from office chief Gordon Shanklin. The Commission had heard of this note through the testimony of Ruth Paine. (p. 260) Again, this incident should have raised the investigatory antennae of the Commission a few feet in the air. If it was a threat of a violent nature, the FBI should have reported it to the Secret Service. Oswald would then have been passed on to the Protective Research Section (PRS) headed by Robert Bouck. They would have found out he worked along the motorcade route and he likely would have been surveilled or detained that day.

Yet, as noted here, before 11/22/63, "Oswald's name was not known to the PRS." (p. 250) What makes this even more curious is that Hosty was handling the Oswald file in Dallas. (Ibid) Hosty had information about Oswald's trip to Mexico and his visits to the two communist embassies. Finally, as Hosty revealed later, he believed that Marina was some kind of KGB-planted "sleeper agent" (p. 254) In November, when he attempted to interview Marina, it was about Oswald's calls to the Soviet Embassy. It was this visit to the Paine household in search of Marina that prompted Oswald to deliver the note to the FBI office. So the Bureau had 2-3 weeks to convey this important information to the Secret Service. They did not. Further, Oswald had written a letter to the Soviet Embassy in Washington in which he mentioned Hosty and the FBI. (p. 258)

Finally, Hosty had found out himself that Oswald worked at the Texas School Book Depository on the motorcade route. When the man running the Oswald inquiry at the Bureau, Alan Belmont, learned all this he realized what a blow the note and Hosty's inaction would be to the Bureau's image. He relayed his displeasure to Shanklin and Shanklin told Hosty to ditch the note, which he did by flushing it down the toilet. When Hosty was questioned, the Commission did not mention the note or its fate, nor did Hosty volunteer any information about it. Hosty's testimony, excerpted by Knight, borders on the comical. When asked if he even thought about Oswald in relation to Kennedy's upcoming visit or the motorcade route, Hosty replied with a simple "No." (p. 261)

The author's discussion of this episode is thorough, detailed, and provocative. In passing, he mentions some clear questions it all poses:

1. Would someone contemplating killing the president leave a threatening note in the office of the local FBI?

2. If Hosty suspected either of the Oswalds as communist sleeper agents, why did he not alert the Dallas Police beforehand?

3. Why did the Commission go along with Hoover's decision to strike a citation to Hosty in Oswald's address book?

4. Was Oswald some kind of informant to the Bureau, and did this explain Hosty's negligence?

The author ends this chapter on Hosty by showing how accommodating Rankin was to Hoover. Rankin told the Bureau that the Secret Service was angry with them about this clear lapse. The Bureau went to the top level of the Secret Service and got them to rein in the testimony of Robert Bouck before the Commission. Bouck never mentioned Hosty. (p. 280) The FBI was pleased with Rankin's efforts. As assistant director Alex Rosen wrote, the Commission seemed satisfied with Hosty's presentation. (p. 281)

VI

The real achievement of Breach of Trust is this: as much of it as I have described, there is still as much that I have left out. To write at length about all of it would make this review much too long. But to briefly mention some samples:

1. It was Rankin's idea to classify the executive sessions Top Secret. (p. 89)

2. The Sibert-O'Neill report on the autopsy was so disturbing that neither of the agents was called to testify. (pgs 91-92)

3. Hoover and James Angleton discouraged any move toward an independent staff. (p. 93)

4. McKnight presents the best case for Oswald not being on the sixth floor that I have seen, with corroborating witnesses that I did not recall. (pgs. 115-116)

5. There is no evidence that the FBI did a cotton swab test to see if the Mannlicher- Carcano was fired that day. (p. 121)

6. The Commission conspired with the FBI to keep the exculpatory results of the spectrographic tests out of the record. (p.125)

7. The Commission was so sensitive to the rumors of Oswald's government agent status that Rankin tried to falsify the record of the January 22, 1964 meeting. (pgs 128-135)

8. Rankin covered up the information the Commission had that Oswald may have been given a CIA source number. (pgs. 137-140)

9. According to the FBI analysis of the Zapruder film, the first shot came at frame 170, when the limousine was hidden by the branches of an oak tree. (pgs. 150-153)

10. Rankin plotted in advance to avoid an accurate stenographic record of the 9/18/64 executive session in order to disguise Sen. Russell's dissent about the single bullet theory. Thereby falsely presenting it as a unanimous decision. (pgs. 294-95)

And even this still does not do complete justice to this extraordinary, magisterial book. One that should serve as a model for what can be achieved in the field with the new declassifications by the ARRB. What McKnight has done has deepened our understanding of just how badly the Warren Commission served the public. But by explaining also how and why it happened, he gives us a new version, one in stereo and high definition. At the end of Rush to Judgment, Mark Lane wrote that the Warren Report dishonored " those who wrote it little more than those who praise it." This book makes you feel the sting of that dishonor more than any other book that I know. But, as with the best work in the field, it helps us transcend that shame with the beauty and power of pure understanding. And with that achievement, this volume joins my list of the top ten ever written in the field.

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JAMES DIEUGENIO REVIEWS 'DR MARY'S MONKEY'

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