Charles Drago

I knew that if I waited long enough, Rahn would compliment me.

While he was still teaching an assassination "critical thinking" course at the University of Rhode Island, Herr Doktor maintained that he had an open mind on the event. Keep this in mind.

In the late 1990s I took him up on an offer to co-host a JFK conference in Providence, and it was during the run-up and the event itself that I learned all I need to know about him.

Over a planning dinner at a since-demolished riverfront pub (J.G. Goff's, for the record), Rahn leaned across the table and in his best conspiratorial whisper asked, "Can I convince you [that the WC got it right], Charlie?"

Nope.

Soon it was showtime. As he introduced the presentation of his own paper at the conference, Rahn told all assembled that, when he was done, never again would anyone be able to argue rationally for more than three bullets having been fired at the Dallas motorcade.

Well, after Rahn concluded. it took less than five minutes for Stewart Galanor, using mathamatics and simple logic, to demolish Herr Doktor's "argument."

And how did Rahn respond? Nervously. Disingenuously. Disgustingly.

"Now, now, what I've shared tonight is just a work in progress."

"'Work in progress,' Doctor Rahn?" Stewart asked incredulously. "Didn't you just get through telling us that your paper was the final word on the subject?" (I'm paraphrasing -- tightly.)

Then Stewart asked to see Rahn's work product -- his bench notes, if you will. His proofs.

"They're in my other briefcase," Herr Doktor sheepishly replied.

Stewart immediately noted that this was the second conference at which Rahn had used the excuse.

(Personally, I would have gone for something along the lines of, "The guard dogs ate my homework.")

Through it all, the sweet little grandma who chaired URI's Political Science Department, which sponsored Rahn's JFK course, sat silent, a moron's empty smile carved into her aged visage.

In a classic Stockholm Syndrome moment, Rahn's hostages -- er, students -- were the first to rush to his defense. Alas, they did not possess the critical thinking skills necessary for the job at hand.

Rhode Islanders, gaze upon your tax dollars at work.

Charles

Bill,

I've had my own Ken Rahn experience. In my Constitutionally protected opinion, he is an intellectual fraud when it comes to his JFK work.

I do not trust him, and I do not know him to be an honorable man.

What is your opinion of Herr Rahn?

Charles

Charles, I'm being serious when I say the best thing that could happen to our planet would be contact and proof of other intelligent life.....if they did come why are they being so covert.....they'd  have much to teach we need desperately to know and I don't mean technological...any civilization that lived long enough to develop interstellar travel would long ago likely have developed an end to war-like activilties or never made it that 'far' [as we are likely not to] and wouldn't come so far and not sign the guest book.....star trek Prime Directive doesn't convince me....but your beliefs don't change my great respect for you on other issues. We agree to disagree....maybe. Try convincing me.

My Friend,

I wouldn't presume to attempt to convince you or anyone else to share my acceptance of a portion of the UFO phenomenon as alien visitations.

As a point of information, I am influenced by the work of Jacques Vallee and similarly inclined researchers and thinkers to the degree that I suspect other than interplanetary origins for most of the so-called visitors. But I hesitate to go on about this subject because I'm not even remotely as well-read in it as I am in more prosaic deep political subject matters.

In short, I am, at this point in life, an unsophisticated observer of UFOs. I bring no authority whatsoever to the discussion, and all I can offer are mere beliefs.

And a suggestion: Read Vallee.

Respectfully,

Charles

Am I all about semantics, or is there meat to my motion?

The overworld, to use Professor Scott's apt terminology, governs. Albeit from the shadows.

Legitimacy is a sop.

The Kennedys never got it. Until they got it.

Charles

Following the procedure in the constitution and bill of rights is legitimate.

The overworld is outside of that scope.

Just because they're a reality doesn't mean they're legitimate.

Myra, we are in total agreement on your ultimate point.

Charles

I'd venture to say that Sheehan was shown bogus UFO files to get him on public record endorsing the reality of the phenomenon. Thus he opened himself to ridicule, and all of his work could be tainted.

Peter, I agree that a significant number of UFO sightings and even recoveries can be attributed to exclusively earth-bound psyops.

But here we may part company: Some visitations, I have reason to suspect, are quite real.

Charles

Myra -- Thanks for seeing the value of this discussion and opening a dedicated thread. One of the goals of the false plot gambit, I think, was to get uncorrupted Secret Service agents to acquiesce to "uniquely insecure" conditions in Dallas because of both the crying wolf phenomenon and the wholly manufactured evidence that their colleagues had had the easiest of times dealing with whatever "real" threats had been out there in the past.

Even the president was taken in.

Cliff -- In order for the latter scenario to be effected, the fictive non-plots had to be convincing -- hence the identifications of living, prospective shooters who could be linked plausibly to such actions Further, the ruses had post-assassination functions: the maintenance of cognitive dissonance among honest investigators, and the mollification of distraught SS agents who could assuage their "survivors' guilt" by referencing false and/or successfully thwarted pre-Dallas events.

Peter -- Your point on the doppelganger phenomenon is very well taken. Multiple everything equals congnitive dissonance of the highest, most effective order.

Charles

Am I all about semantics, or is there meat to my motion?

The overworld, to use Professor Scott's apt terminology, governs. Albeit from the shadows.

Legitimacy is a sop.

The Kennedys never got it. Until they got it.

Charles

Myra,

You -- and so many others -- reference "[supposed] plots in Miami and Chicago".

I'm of the opinion that these rumors were designed to flood the security system with false plots. To cry wolf, if you will.

The purposes: To minimize the impact of any leaks about the real hit in Dallas, and to reassure the president that, as he said all so tragically, "the Secret Service has taken care of everything." Or words to that direct effect.

One plot. One location.

Charles

Ron,

You write, "I don't think the Kennedys were attempting to overthrow the shadow government."

Neither do I. But such was the anticipated -- by the deep political power structure -- consequence of the deeper political (my term; refers to the spiritual underpinnings of society) changes JFK would have wrought -- knowingly or not.

You write, "But JFK's big mistake in general was acting like he was in charge of things[.]"

Absolutely. But he may be excused his ignorance. What was it that RFK said with hard-earned, post-Dallas wisdom (I paraphrase): "I used to think I knew how the world operated."

Finally, you write, "I'm still bumfuzzled by the CIA letting Bush and the Congress demote it in favor of a national intelligence director ... I thought that the spooks had more control over presidents and other politicians than that[.]"

Presidents and politicians, like spooks, do not call the shots. Rather, they were and are instruments -- as opposed to originators -- of deep political power.

Roles change. Power remains constant.

Charles

Peter,

I'm moderately well-read on UFOs in general and the UFO ruse in particular.

There is more to the story than all that you correctly reference.

Charles

Peter,

In 1977, while General Counsel to the United States Jesuit Office of Social Ministry in Washington, DC., Sheehan served as a Special Consultant to the United States Library of Congress Congressional Research Office Project on Extraterrestrial Intelligence mandated by President Carter. He states that he was given access not only to the classified portions of the United States Air Force's “Project Blue Book” files but to the confidential report prepared for the Science & Technology Committee of the United States Congress by the Library of Congress Congressional Research Office pursuant to this Presidential assignment.

In essence, Sheehan claims to have viewed still and moving images of alien spacecraft and to have read official USG affirmations of their existence.

See:

http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc836.htm

Your references to liberation theology are appreciated, and your embrace of same shared.

Charles

Peter,

I hope the following can be appreciated for its relevance to the JFK forum.

As a friend of Sheehan, how do you assess his claim that he was given privileged access to government UFO materials that substantiated claims of an alien presence on and above this planet?

Charles

Cliff,

Your comments regarding the T3 wound are on the money.

I have heard those who claim to be utilizing Occam "argue" that the "simplest" version of the location of the back wound that takes into account "all the evidence" is that offered by the prosector who used non-stationary anatomical positions to locate it in a position consistent with the SBT.

According to these fools, anyone who chooses to seek an alternative explanation is violating the parsimony principle.

Your Cuba construction, alas, leaves much to be desired.

QED.

CD

Alan,

You write, "Using 'Occam' to avoid confronting the real-life complexity of covert operations is not only a misuse, but often a confession of intellectual sloth or cowardice."

I'll add "complicity" to your list of possible motives.

Old Bill's shaving instrument is waved with abandon by Rahn, McAdam, and their ilk when they attempt to wrap the cloak of scientific rigor around their hideously ill-clad LN "arguments."

As you correctly note, "detailed knowledge of the subject matter" is indeed a mandatory prerequisite to the proper use of the principle of parsimony. And it is precisely such detail that the prevaricators must obscure if they are to carry the day.

Charles

A well-executed cover story, which is designed in essence to pacify the parsimonious with its simple, initially plausible, fictive narrative supported by "evidence" made out of whole cloth, turns Occam's razor into a blunt and ineffective instrument for the dissection of intelligence operations.

Charles Drago

Bill Kelly, in one of his typically thought-provoking recent posts (on the "JFK Assassination Hypothesis, Research Methodology" thread), elicited from me the following propositions:

It was JFK and RFK who hijacked the visible government and threatened the deep political hegemony of the assassination's "responsible parties."

The Kennedys were in the midst of conducting their own de facto coup d'etat against the deep political state -- a self-correcting system that did just that on 11/22/63.

We must have the courage to understand that the government was NOT overthrown when JFK was murdered.

The government was restored.

What we [should be] about is what JFK and RFK were about: its overthrow.

Agreed? How do you define "government" and "coup d'etat" within the context of JFK's murder?

Charles Drago

Bill's hypotheses in black, my comments in red.

________________________

H#1) – The assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the murders of J.D. Tippit and Lee Harvey Oswald were homicides, the prosecution of which is an indictable offense at any time, with no statute of limitations. Since homicide is considered the highest form of crime under our system of justice, the judicial system should respond accordingly if there is evidence of criminal conspiracy in their deaths.

Of course it should be the non-prosecutions of these homicides that rise to the level of indictable offenses. That the judicial system has not responded supports indictments of those who control that system as accessories after the fact.

(H2) The accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, whether he was a shooter, patsy or was in any way connected to the assassination of the President, had numerous associations with many different intelligence services, both foreign and domestic, and utilized standard intelligence operational procedures in many of his activities (i.e. military background, use of aliases, forged identity documents, trained in foreign language, electronics, interrogation techniques, use of codes and ciphers, etc.). Therefore, the motive for the assassination was elemination and the Modus Operandi (MO) was that of a covert intelligence operation, and it should be investigated as such.

My intention is not to bog us down in arguments over semantics. But the eliminators of JFK were motivated by their shared, perceived need to remove the threats posed by JFK to their sources of profit and power. Your evaluation of the eliminators' MO is on target.

(H3) Even if the assassination of JFK was the work of a covert intelligence operation, which is designed to insulate, protect and hide the actual sponsors, the murder can be solved using standard homicide investigation techniques and/or counter-intelligence procedures, although results of CI investigation cannot be used in court.

I agree that application of the standard techniques of a homicide investigation to the JFK case is a sine qua non for the success of any such inquiry. But intelligence operations by definition are designed to defeat such methods and will do so absent the additional application of what you term "counter-intelligence procedures."

Case in point: A well-executed cover story, which is designed in essence to pacify the parsimonious with its simple, plausible, fictive narrative supported by "evidence" made out of whole cloth, turns Occam's razor into a blunt and ineffective instrument.

Absent sophisticated appreciations of how the killers operate, even the most gifted of investigators is doomed to failure.

(H4) The individuals responsible for the covert operation that resulted in the death of the President were serial killers in the sense they had committed political assassinations before 11/22/63 and have done so since, using standard covert operational procedures as their MO.

Absolutely.

(H5) The covert operation that resulted in the murder of President Kennedy included a Black Propaganda Operation (Black Prop Op), which began prior to 11/22/63 which was designed to attribute blame for the assassination on Fidel Castro of Cuba. Those individuals who orchestrate this campaign are part of the same network that sponsored the events that occurred at Dealey Plaza.

Absolutely.

(H6) Covert operational procedures can be utilized by anyone trained in such techniques, and only individuals, and not governmental organizations and agencies can be indicted for murder and/conspiracy or crimes related to the assassination.

Excellent point.

(H7) Those individuals who sponsored the covert operation that resulted in the death of the President were also involved in similar covert operations aimed at Fidel Castro, as well as other clandestine projects that included MK/ULTRA, U2, Operation Wringer, Project Paperclip and Mongoose/JM/WAVE.

On other threads I've presented my hypothesis regarding the plot's structure: Sponsors, Facilitators (in some instances AKA false sponsors), and Mechanics. If, in your H7, you are referring to the individuals who inhabit my mid-level, we are in agreement.

(H8) The Dealey Plaza operation was directly related to two covert operational maritime missions that may have involved plans to kill Fidel Castro – the mission of the Flying Tiger II (aka Bayo-Pawley raid) Rex (See: NYT, Nov. 1, 1963).

"Directly related" is rather imprecise. I would go so far as to acknowledge significant connective tissue.

(H9) Those who expressed foreknowledge of the assassination of JFK before it occurred were somehow associated with the sponsoring parties.

Based upon my hypothetical plot structure as noted above and elsewhere, I strongly disagree. How about substituting "the facilitating parties"?

(H10) Because of the expressed foreknowledge, the let down in security at the time of the assassination, and the failure to properly investigate and prosecute those responsible, the assassination can be considered a coup d'etat, and those technicians who conducted the assassination operation were directly associated with those who took over the government and protected the responsible parties.

Broadly speaking: yes. But again we encounter problems related to semantics, and I seek clarification. For me, "technicians" is a term appropriately used to describe the shooting teams. The Facilitators you reference were/are linked to the Sponsors of the assassination, although I'd argue your use of "directly."

Further, and more significantly, your use of the term "government" is highly problematic. It was JFK and RFK who hijacked the visible government and threatened the deep political hegemony of the assassination's "responsible parties."

The Kennedys were in the midst of conducting their own de facto coup d'etat against the deep political state -- a self-correcting system that did just that on 11/22/63.

We must have the courage to understand that the government was NOT overthrown when JFK was murdered.

The government was restored.

What we are about is is what JFK and RFK were about: its overthrow.

Respectfully,

Charles Drago

Paul,

I haven't the slightest problem with anything you postulate.

Nor do I have any reason to question the accuracy of your recollection vis a vis the car on its roof -- even though I did not see such footage, and on that holiday weekend I spent too many hours watching television and reading print coverage of the crash.

Your memory and the testimony of the eyewitnesses you cite are good enough for me -- at least at this stage of the game. If any of our correspondents can locate a photo of the wreck so inverted, we'd all be grateful.

Just two months after the incident, I took part in JFK Lancer's "November in Dallas" annual event. I recall eagerly seeking out Ian Griggs to solicit his view of the crash circumstances. George Michael Evica and I joined Ian before the morning's first presentation, and we didn't have to wait long for his statement.

"It was a simple auto accident," he confidently proclaimed.

To refute the opinion of a former copper and confirmed champion of the JFK truth was then and is now a daunting task. I haven't spoken to Brother Griggs about Diana's demise since, and I'm keen to learn his current thoughts on the issue. That being said, if he is of the same mind, I'm sure I can give him a run for his money.

As, Paul, can you.

Henri Paul, in my informed opinion, did not have control of the MB within the tunnel because control was denied to him.

Charles

Sahl is alive, though all but fully retired.

You might consider, Bill, including in the program filmed performances by Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks doing assassination-related material.

May I also suggest a working title for the show: Stand-Up Tragedy.

(Take my life. Please.)

Charles

I am fully aware that Truman was a Democrat. When will you grasp the point that I do not look at the past with the eyes of a party activist? I have my own political ideology that has very little to do with any existing political parties in the UK, US or anywhere else for that matter. It was one of the first things that I learnt at university when studying history. The party hack is always a very poor historian.

In this thread I am more concerned about LeMay's views about Cuba and the use of nuclear weapons in the 1960s. I am also interested in connecting it to the views of LBJ. After the assassination of JFK he told political friends that he wanted the FBI/Warren Commission to come up with the view that Oswald was the lone-gunman because he did not want to invade Cuba in case it caused a nuclear war. As I have said, given the sphere of influence policy adopted by the super-powers during the Cold War, this would not have happened. Yet, LBJ was willing to bomb and send troops to Vietnam that was on the borders of China. This was a far more reckless decision than invading Cuba. Why?

John succinctly has summarized my own approach to historical analysis. I might add that the religious hack is an equally inept and untrustworthy "historian."

Why was LBJ "willing to [attack] Vietnam that was on the borders of China"? I won't reprint any of my recent enlightening (for me, at least) exchanges with Robert Charles-Dunne in which the ultimate purpose(s) of sheepdipping LHO as a Castro agent are debated and, as it happens, some of the points herein raised by John are addressed. You may find them to be provocative and relevant.

Rather, I offer by way of response the following:

During the period of the Vietnam conflict, China did not pose a credible nuclear threat to the U.S. or its European allies.

The threat of conventional Chinese intervention was deemed to be low absent a U.S. invasion of North Vietnam -- which never occured, despite pressure from ostensibly powerful Right Wing elements.

Surrogate warfare was the most direct form of conflict acceptable to the superpowers.

Both China and, to a greater degree, the Soviet Union had much to gain from the military, political, and cultural destruction of America hastened by the latter's actions in Vietnam.

The threats to profit and power posed by Communist control of Golden Triangle drug trade resources in particular and all of political Southeast Asia in general were sufficient, in the eyes of powerful criminal interests inside and outside what is conventionally termed "government." to justify the risks attendant to America's Vietnam/Cambodian adventure.

So too were the direct profits derived from extended land war in Asia to the military-industrial complex -- the war machine.

Charles

Alan,

Most interesting deep analysis of LeMay's role.

Does the record tell us anything of the official and personal Power/LeMay relationships pre- and post-assassination?

I continue to argue that the true stories of conspirators' roles, knowledge, and desires are vastly more complex than the Hallmark Hall of Fame scripts we write for them.

Charles

Paul,

When you ask, "Was the white Fiat introduced into the tale as a 'grassy knoll' piece of mis-direction from the Merc itself?" you are precisely on target.

The operation to blur the perceptions -- of witnesses and post-event investigators -- is an all-important component in an illegal public execution.

Uno/MB contact supports a plausible hypothesis of "accident" and simultaneously sends suspicious types like us speeding down our own dark tunnels.

If one were to undertake what I guess would be called a time-motion study of the MB from the Ritz to the crash scene, one would come across conflicting eyewitness testimony as to the configuration, speed, and route of what amounted to at least one motorcade. Why?

Let's stipulate that witness reports can be unreliable. Of course this is not to say that ALL witness reports are unreliable ALL THE TIME.

That being established, let's game the assassination. Given all we've learned about the overworld's underworld, how would we have done it?

Apres vous.

Charles

Bill,

You are correct: "This leaflet appears to be an intentional propaganda program."

I suspect it was designed as a component of the operation to make false sponsors of the anti-Castro community (in Little Havana and elsewhere).

Seen from an even greater distance, this provocation helped keep post-hit eyes on Cuba -- which is to say, off the prize.

Charles

Alas, the Belz is all too willing to believe that the wool that has been pulled over his eyes is just a new sweater, in transit, knitted by Waldron and Hartman.

Wait 'til he tries to inhale.

Charles

Peter,

A quick answer: simplify.

Back to my "how, not who or why" mantra.

The two latter issues are dealt with only after the first is settled and its consequences and implications made dramatically clear.

On the "Political Conspiracies" forum I recently experienced the problem within a thread devoted to study of the death of Diana. My question, "How did Diana die?" was answered by one of our better minds with the statement, "Nobody wanted her dead."

There is insufficient energy in the Big Bang itself to set such mass into motion.

Charles