Charles Drago

PS

For me, the basic ground rule for the encounter would be a clear definition of the area of discussion: HOW was JFK killed?

Strict adherence to this rule eliminates the need for expertise in the backgrounds of suspects.

All we want out of this is to bludgeon Bugliosi with the demonstrable facts of conspiracy.

If he is denied access to a conflation of "how" and "who and why," he's deader than Hogan's you-know-whats.

Not that he's alive under any circumstances.

For the purposes of this encounter, it doesn't matter if the GD Martians did it!

It ends with two questions:

Now that we have demonstrated that conspiracy in the death of JFK is historical fact ...

Are we prepared to use what we know about the "how," reverse-engineer it, so to speak, and begin to eliminate suspects?

How can we describe ourselves as a moral and just people if we choose not to utilize our knowledge of the truth to define and effect justice?

CD

No one -- repeat, NO ONE -- should ever "debate" Bugliosi or any accessory after the fact to the murder of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

"Debate" implies that there are respectable, defensible, and in most cases (other than in what might best be termed laboratory situations) honestly held yet conflicting points of view to be argued.

Make no mistake: All that Bugliosi's masters want from him and Posner and lesser known accessories is support of the illusion that the lie is in fact and at least an intellectually valid and honest explanation of the assassination.

And Bugliosi brings ZERO respect to those who oppose his views.

Who, then, among those most expert in the facts of this case possesses a combination of command of those facts, erudition, grace under fire, wit, righteousness, the warrior spirit, and the willingness to denounce, degrade, and to the best of his or her ability shame Bugliosi by exposing his obeisance to the forces that murdered JFK?

Most significantly, who understands the significance of differentiating between the "how" and "who and why" of the killing?

Dr. David Mantik brings many of those desired qualities to the table. So does Gaeton Fonzi. I may be prejudiced, but my dear friend George Michael Evica also has what it takes to get the job done.

In my opinion, others mentioned in this thread either are not well known to me or are sufficiently challenged in one or more of the areas listed above to remove them from consideration.

Charles Drago

Yes, Greg.

For the upteenth time let me HIGHLY recommend Peter Levenda's Sinister Forces trilogy as the most encompassing, daring, and provocative investigation of these and related matters.

I'm with you, Mark.

Once the USG and the media made their blood oath commitments to the lie -- which is to say, once the lie became institutionalized -- reversal ceased to be an option.

Some have argued, in abject naïveté , that America could not survive the truth about JFK's murder. This point of view, of course, precisely reflects the conclusion that the liars wanted and needed and manipulated their surviving victims to reach.

In point of fact, it now may be argued that America did not survive the lie.

America always was the xxxx's enemy.

America, Inc. is the xxxx's greatest invention.

Charles

I could not be in stronger agreement with the notion that comedy is a most powerful tool for the shaping of political consciousness.

Once "they" and their formerly respected pronouncements are being ridiculed, the game is over.

Did anyone see the clip of Karl Rove recently becoming the target of his audience's derisive laughter as he attempted to explain why Rumsfeld et al cancelled, at the last minute, an operation to take out al Queda leaders in Pakistan? "We have to respect a sovereign state's borders," he said solemnly. (I'm paraphrasing.) At which point the chortling began.

Rove immediately tried to recover. "Unless we're talking about Iraq," he added, smiling.

Too late.

Then there was the JFK Lancer conference at which I moderated a panel comprised of three speakers, including Doug Horne.

Doug had brought props: human skulls on which conflicting JFK wound descriptions had been inked.

After his presentation, I placed the skulls on a table in front of the podium -- ear to ear and facing the audience.

As I brought the program to an end, I gestured to the empty cranial vaults and thanked Messrs. Posner, Specter, and Rahn for their kind attention.

Bugliosi's barely controlled behaviors and ludicrous positions are ripe for similar ridicule.

Charles

Ron,

I think I understand your difficulty with accepting a lot of this insofar as it mirrors my own -- at least as I experienced it early on in my thinking.

It had to be abundantly clear to the prime movers and facilitators that their deed would be recognized as being conspiratorial in nature even before the echoes of gunfire in Dealey Plaza had a chance to fade.

Yes, conspiracy was indeed "advertised," as you write, because no other strategy could hope to protect the highest level plotters for any meaningful length of time.

The hit was attributed to multiple patsies simultaneously and immediately for the purposes of confusing, mollifying, and/or intimidating those groups as well as a variety of post-assassination investigators.

Blame it on rogue elements of Cuban and Soviet intelligence to stimulate among honorable investigators the "if we tell the truth, 40 million will die" terror. Result: official USG endorsement of the LN story.

Link it to the CIA and FBI to enlist into the coverup previously uninvolved officers who would stop at nothing to conceal KUBARK's and the Bureau's links to the putative assassin and the above-top-secret operations to which he could be traced. Result: support of the LN story by the great foreign intel and domestic law enforcement agencies that continues to this day.

Implicate OC and anti-Castro Cubans and "big oil" to blackmail and control these factions. Result: many decades of mutually profitable business dealings.

Plant outrageous stories pointing to motives relating to everything from protection of UFO secrets to a homosexual thrill killing to allow for a general lampooning of other, serious arguments. Result: "the grassy knoll" has become synonymous with Cloud Cuckoo Land as a description of where the lunatic fringe may be found.

Once we travel beyond the simple, elegant, irrefutable proof of conspiracy to be found in the medical, photographic, ballistic, audio, eyewitness, and earwitness evidence, we move into the wilderness.

The United States House of Representatives concluded that conspiracy is "probable," but would not follow us into the unknown territory where answers to "who" and "why" await discovery.

How do we account for such a decision?

Charles

And the magic words for Dealey Plaza ...

Abra Cadaver!

Seriously. I commend to the attention of this Forum's correspondents Eros, Magic, and the Murder of Professor Culianu, by Ted Anton, published by the Northwestern University Press in 1996.

It is simultaneously an accessible primer for a challenging area of scholastic inquiry and an investigation into what the author makes a convincing argument for being the first political assassination of a professor on American soil.

Contemporary science (social and otherwise) dismisses "magic" as fantasy or stage trickery. Culianu and his mentor, the legendary Comparitive Religions scholar Mircea Eliade, understood the word in its accepted Renaissance definition: what we today term "behavior modification," but based on the identified and manipulated erotic motivations of subjects.

They referred to the "art" of memory as the primary tool used to manipulate intellects, imaginations, and ultimately free wills.

The "magician" of the past, Culianu would argue, is the publicist, advertising executive, and psychologist/psychoanalyst of today.

And the magic words for all the contemporary world ...

Artichoke. Ultra. Mockingbird ...

Charles

Thanks, Jack.

I'm aware of the literary abilities -- and pretensions -- of Messrs. Hunt and Phillips, and I've read of Conein's flair for the tasks of the scenarist.

One could go on at some length to draw comparisons between the JFK dramaturgy and, for instance, characters from Shakespeare and their dramatic functions.

Ruby as Falstaff.

Angel and Leopoldo as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Playwright Barbara Garson went TOO far, I'm afraid, with MacBird -- but nonetheless, that satire did have its moments.

Back to the matter at hand: Dual identities, or aliases, or war names, are but distant cousins to the vastly more sophisticated and ravaging (to the psyche) doppelganger game as I try to understand and explain it.

An operation like the JFK murder by definition and before tampering -- as a product and representation of creative human consciousness -- contains all of the elements critical to the classic story form (main and supporting characters, rising and falling action and denouement, sub structures [or acts], irony etc. etc. etc.).

As such, it is subject/vulnerable to deconstruction and other analytical approaches not unlike those brought to bear on more traditional literary and dramatic forms.

The best way to defeat the analysts of the literal tale is to create what is called -- and not by accident -- a cover story -- one with more compelling, confusing, contradictory, and seductive elements than that of the original.

Peter, I agree that LHO's doubles were numerous; any argument would be of a semantic nature. For me, all the "others" equal one other -- the Non-Oswald.

Pick just one "doubled" element of the JFK story -- for the sake of argument, let's stipulate the two-casket gambit. Show me how exposure and analyses of this element of the plot (again, in both senses) have done anything but serve the purposes of the plotters.

Permit me to conclude by returning to a point I've made repeatedly in the past: This line of inquiry is designed to answer the "who" question -- not the HOW.

How = conspiracy.

Masterful uses of the arts of the storyteller, fabulist, dramatist, novelist, and even, if we look far enough back into time, the magician (in the Giordano Bruno sense; the murder of Ioan Culianu is of enduring relevance to our inquiries) were beyond the overwhelming majority of JFK assassination suspects.

Who were the conjurers of these dark arts? On whose behalf were they conjured?

The answers will lead to the tops of the "facilitators" and "sponsors" ranks, respectively.

Charles

Lee,

With the thought that this "doubling" notion is worthy of a dedicated discussion, I've taken the liberty of opening a new thread titled "Two for the Price of One." Thanks again for inspiring those thoughts.

Lets not confuse operational redundancy with the sort of doppelganger effect to which I'm referring.

Most of us agree, I'd say, that once the shooting started, JFK would not be allowed to live. So my guess -- and it's only that -- is that any sort of deep fallback car bombing would have been initiated had spotters confirmed that the president was either unharmed or non-fatally wounded.

Had the triangulated DP shooting been aborted -- which is to say, if there were no attempt to be noticed -- then I don't believe that explosives would have come into play.

Why? First, because I don't believe that a Dallas op was either the first or the last to be planned. If the abort signal had been issued, there likely were other scenarios in place.

Second, because less is more. An elegantly simple matter of a bullet to the brain is neater, more controllable, and more malleable than bombs bursting in air.

However ... I'll second-guess myself by allowing for the fact that, due to circumstances we cannot yet know, Dallas did indeed represent a last chance opportunity.

But at this point we're speculating wildly.

To reiterate my educated guess: In terms of the actual hit, simple trumped complex.

FWIW,

Charles

[NOTE: The following originally appeared in slightly different form on the "Op Dallas" thread by Lee Forman, whose insight and question as quoted below prompted what I hope in turn will stimulate some interesting exchanges.

And the full, hideously long-winded sub-title of this thread: "Dramatic Construct and the Role of the Doppelganger -- or Double -- in the Assassination of JFK"

-- CD]

"Further - to continue on this bit - it would appear that the operation also made use of doubles - precedent with the doubling of Oswald -- Haven't been able to work that all out yet - but lookalikes may have been used for the purpose of both obfuscation as well as the protection of the identity of the operatives. Ever hear anything like that?"

- Lee Forman

_______________________________________

The use of doubles for the purposes you cite is an absolutely key insight into the identities of the prime facilitators not only of the JFK assassination, but of other deep political operations across a broad swath of history.

From Richard Popkin through John Armstrong and beyond, the doppelganger gambit at play in the JFK conspiracy is well documented.

If the operation to kill the president is best understood as drama (or, if you prefer, a dramatic construct; Evica's original theory, one that I wholeheartedly endorse), then you would be well advised to find and read in full a copy of The Double in Literature, by Robert Rogers (Wayne State University Press, 1970).

Rogers, on "the functions of doubling," offers this:

"If a character is not what he seems to be in the sense of being a fragment rather than a whole, it may be asked if he is real ... [R]econsider [Angus] Fletcher's assumptions when he states that the allegorical hero 'is not so much a real person' as he is a 'generator' of secondary personalities, partial aspects of himself." (emphasis in original)

Later, discussing what he terms "doubling for dramatic conflict," Rogers notes, "In essence, doubling of characters does not simply make the representation of intrapsychic conflict possible; it allows for the potential development of that conflict in the most dramatic way possible ... a dynamic opposition of psychic forces permeates practically all modes of literature. Shaw's dictum, 'No conflict, no drama,' goes right to the heart of the matter for the genre he was most interested in. It is impossible to think of any play deserving the name drama which is without sharp conflict. What obviously holds for the drama might not seem to obtain for so-called nondramatic literature; but to say so is to mistake conventional label for literal fact."

I would argue that the primary (but by no means exclusive) function of the double in an intelligence operation such as the JFK assassination is to create cognitive dissonance -- or conflict, if you will -- in the minds of investigators and witnesses.

(As an aside: To the degree that John Armstrong buttresses the "two Oswalds" perceptions, he simultaneously exposes and abets the agenda of the author(s) of the LHO doppelganger play-within-a-play.)

Two Oswalds. Two Zapruder Films. Two brains. Two brain exams. Two sets of autopsy notes. Two sets of X-rays. Two sets of autopsy photos.

And the granddaddy of them all: TWO conflicting conclusions by official United States government panels investigating the assassination.

Another common element of the doppelganger phenomenon is termed bi-locality -- a character impossibly being in two places at the same time.

Thus the "impossibility" of LHO being in Mexico and the U.S. simultaneously, for one of many examples, fits the doppelganger gambit's design and serves its ends quite neatly.

Further, I would suggest that this and related condundra, far from revealing flaws in the assassination plot (in both senses of the word), rather are well-designed, intentionally executed, critically significant elements of that plot.

So we are prompted to ask: Was LHO in Mexico or elsewhere?

We are prompted to choose A or B. (And as a consequence of so doing, we remain mired in an "endless" mystery that in fact was solved a long time ago.)

In fact, it is the NULL A, NULL B option -- or the third alternative -- that leads us to the truth.

Was LHO in Mexico or elsewhere?

The answer is YES, if the persona in question is the dramatic character LHO.

Pre-Oswald? Take a look at the case of Gordon Lonsdale.

As far as JFK is concerned: Who had the literary background to create such a drama? Who were the writers among the suspects?

Charles Drago

Another common element of the doppelganger phenomenon is termed bi-locality -- a character impossibly being in two places at the same time.

Thus the "impossibility" of LHO being in Mexico and the U.S. simultaneously, for one of many examples, fits the pattern.

Further, I would suggest that this and related condundra, far from revealing flaws in the assassination plot (in both senses of the word), rather are well-designed, intentionally executed, critically significant elements of that plot.

So we are prompted to ask: Was LHO in Mexico or elsewhere?

We are prompted to choose A OR B. (And as a consequence of so doing, we remain mired in an "endless" mystery that in fact was solved a long time ago.)

When in fact the NULL A, NULL B option -- or a third alternative -- reveals the truth.

Was LHO in Mexico or elsewhere?

The answer is YES, if the subject of the question is the dramatic character LHO.

Charles

And how can I leave out ...

TWO conflicting conclusions by official United States government panels investigating the assassination.

Charles

Further - to continue on this bit - it would appear that the operation also made use of doubles - precedent with the doubling of Oswald -- Haven't been able to work that all out yet - but lookalikes may have been used for the purpose of both obfuscation as well as the protection of the identity of the operatives. Ever hear anything like that?

- lee

The use of doubles for the purposes you cite is an absolutely key insight into the identities of the prime facilitators not only of the JFK assassination, but of other deep political operations across a broad swath of history.

From Richard Popkin through John Armstrong and beyond, the doppelganger at play in the JFK conspiracy is well documented.

If the operation to kill the president is best understood as drama (or, if you prefer, a dramatic construct; Evica's original theory, one that I wholeheartedly endorse), then you would be well advised to find a copy of The Double in Literature, by Robert Rogers (Wayne State University Press, 1970).

Rogers, on "the functions of doubling," offers this:

"If a character is not what he seems to be in the sense of being a fragment rather than a whole, it may be asked if he is real ... [R]econsider [Angus] Fletcher's assumptions when he states that the allegorical hero 'is not so much a real person' as he is a 'generator' of secondary personalities, partial aspects of himself." (emphasis in original)

Later, discussing what he terms "doubling for dramatic conflict," Rogers notes, "In essence, doubling of characters does not simply make the representation of intrapsychic conflict possible; it allows for the potential development of that conflict in the most dramatic way possible ... a dynamic opposition of psychic forces permeates practically all modes of literature. Shaw's dictum, 'No conflict, no drama,' goes right to the heart of the matter for the genre he was most interested in. It is impossible to think of any play deserving the name drama which is without sharp conflict. What obviously holds for the drama might not seem to obtain for so-called nondramatic literature; but to say so is to mistake conventional label for literal fact."

I would argue that the primary function of the double in an intelligence operation such as the JFK assassination is to create cognitive dissonance -- conflict -- in the minds of investigators and witnesses.

To the degree that John Armstrong buttresses the "two Oswalds" perceptions, he simultaneously exposes and abets the agenda of the author(s) of the LHO doppelganger play-within-a-play.

Two Oswalds. Two Zapruder Films. Two sets of autopsy notes. Two sets of X-rays. Two sets of autopsy photos.

Pre-Oswald? Take a look at the case of Gordon Lonsdale.

As far as JFK is concerned: Who had the literary background to create such a drama? Who were the writers among the suspects?

Charles Drago

...

How do we support such a hypothesis? For now, we've got to hold most of those cards close to the vest.

...

I don't really see how it's possible to critique your theory when you decline to share supporting evidence.

However, as I was reading Ultimate Sacrifice it was clear to me that it was propaganda.

Obviously that means the authors were either disinformation agents or incredibly gullible and illogical.

Myra,

I understand and sympathize with your sense of the ... well ... unfairness of my premise on this thread. So let me come clean: My intentions are to stimulate precisely the sort of response that you have offered while at the same time to be careful not to lead the witnesses, so to speak.

I share your evaluation of Ultimate Sacrifice as propaganda, and based on nothing more than gut feeling derived from personal experience, I've concluded that, in the case of Waldron, at least, gullibility and illogic are valid charges, but being a witting accessory after the fact is not.

I remain eager to hear from correspondents who've developed expertise in Huntology. Is the man's scent to be discerned within the pages of Ultimate Sacrifice?

And of course I'd be most pleased to hear from Lamar and/or Mr. Hartmann. Did Hunt and/or interlocutors directly contribute to your research? If so, to what degree(s)?

Charles

Over the past year I've had many in-depth discussions regarding Ultimate Sacrifice with an associate (who must remain anonymous on this Forum) who enjoys meaningful connections to principals in the JFK case. This person also is widely read not only on the political assassinations of the 1960s, but also on the fullest possible range of historical and contemporary deep political phenomena.

To cut to the chase: We share an educated guess -- and it's only a guess -- that the ultimate source for Lamar Waldron's and Thom Hartmann's underlying premise in Ultimate Sacrifice may have been E. Howard Hunt.

Assuming that we're correct, it yet remains difficult to determine if Hunt worked on the authors directly or through one or more cut-outs.

How do we support such a hypothesis? For now, we've got to hold most of those cards close to the vest. But in general, and based upon commonly held appreciations of "Eduardo's" 1950s and 1960s areas of operation and his gifts as a storyteller, we are continuing to try to build a case that Ultimate Sacrifice is Hunt's last great masterpiece of disinformation.

I've had the pleasure of meeting Lamar Waldron, and I respect his honesty, integrity, and work ethic.

Further, my co-conspirator and I are fully prepared to accept compelling evidence to the contrary of the Hunt hypothesis and be done with it. But make no mistake: Even if we're shown to be off-base, the Mafia-as-prime-mover of the assassination theory doesn't pass the laugh test.

We decided to bring our thoughts to the attention of this Forum's correspondents with the hope that strong arguments -- pro and con -- will be stimulated.

Charles Drago

In re Robert Oswald:

I'm not familiar with any credible, in-depth studies of ROs whereabouts on those occasions when LHO doubles are alleged to have been in play.

Could there have been a better doppelganger for Lee than brother Robert?

Compare the folds in his chin as he walks down the steps with the overhead, full-face view of "Lee" in his casket.

For Jack White: Did John Armstrong give serious consideration to a series, through the years, of R-as-L substitutions?

Charles

Funny, you don't look Jewish.

Well said, Cliff.

Expanding upon your theme:

IHNBCAR for all who would continue ad infinitum the "howdunit" aspect of this case by, among other means, treating with collegiality those who, like Bugliosi, Posner, and their ilk deny the truth.

Conspiracy in the murder of JFK is as knowable and provable an historical truth as is the Holocaust. Those in a position to know the truth and who choose to deny it are morally, intellectually, and spiritually akin to Holocaust deniers.

Charles Drago

For thinking folk, perhaps.

That would be me, the little old stewmaker.

Anyone with reasonable access to the evidence in the case of the murder of John Fitzgerald Kennedy who does not conclude that the act was the result of a criminal conspiracy is cognitively impaired and/or complicit in the crime.

Read it.

Think about it.

"Vitriol" my pocked, olive derrière!

You just carry on with an "I'm OK, you're OK" dialogue with the killers' surrogates, you just continue to concede that the liars just might not be liars.

I stand in defense of all personal expression.

Even that of the Lone Nut fools and criminals.

But to dignify it is to capitulate.

Charles Drago

A question, then, for contributors to this Forum who have had access to the "historic" Carcano held by the National Archives:

Is the scope on that weapon so positioned as to increase the time of bolt operation consistent with what was observed in Italy?

To my knowledge, the literature identifies the problem posed by the "Oswald" scope to the LN fiction as its misalignment only. And so the iron sights became the LN fallback position.

Has the problem cited in the Italian study appeared elsewhere?

Charles

I've taken the liberty of copying below my earlier post to the "Bugliosi Conspiracy Leads" thread.

I preface my hypothesis by noting that it goes far toward explaining why so many "serious" hit attempts against Castro seemed to have been blown from the inside.

_________

To the prime movers of the JFK murder, Castro is vastly more valuable alive and in power than dead and gone.

My choice of tense in the previous sentence is correct.

Even today.

As a justification for Cold War excesses, a cash and recruiting magnet for conservative political interests and the secret war's sapper squads, and a false sponsor/patsy-in-waiting for any number of atrocities originating closer to home and around the globe, nothing in this hemisphere surpasses the Bearded Bogey-Man just 90 miles from Collins Avenue.

And "The Understudy" (interesting title for a bio, don't you think) Hugo Chavez is waiting in the wings.

Yes, what I'm suggesting is that the previously referenced "prime movers" manipulated their underlings -- up to and including certain flag rank military officers and civilian powerhouses -- with a promise to patsy and remove Fidel that in fact they never had the slightest intention to keep.

War = profits = power.

Destroy the enemies and the war is over.

Who the hell wants that?

Relax, Osama. Your understudy Iran is still in make-up.

Charles

To the prime movers of the JFK murder, Castro is vastly more valuable alive and in power than dead and gone.

My choice of tense in the previous sentence is correct.

Even today.

As a justification for Cold War excesses, a cash and recruiting magnet for conservative political interests and the secret war's sapper squads, and a false sponsor/patsy-in-waiting for any number of atrocities originating closer to home and around the globe, nothing in this hemisphere surpasses the Bearded Bogey-Man just 90 miles from Collins Avenue.

And "The Understudy" (interesting title for a bio, don't you think) Hugo Chavez is waiting in the wings.

Yes, what I'm suggesting is that the previously referenced "prime movers" manipulated their underlings -- up to and including certain flag rank military officers and civilian powerhouses -- with a promise to patsy and remove Fidel that in fact they never had the slightest intention to keep.

War = profits = power.

Destroy the enemies and the war is over.

Who the hell wants that?

Relax, Osama. Your understudy Iran is still in make-up.

Charles

Thank you, Lee. I too have the book.

The last report I had on Culligan's whereabouts: Florida.

But this was a few years back; he's quite old now, and if I remember correctly his wife was ill.

I do know that Harold Weisberg had a large Culligan file.

Thanks again,

Charles

In re Roland "Bud" Culligan:

It is my understanding that he was incarcerated for a time in Rhode Island's Adult Correctional Institution (ACI). I also was told that he had business with a Christian fundamentalist minister, notorious during the 1970s in northern RI, named Cugini.

The ACI's pastoral counselor of the period, himself an extremely conservative Christian, was "befriended' by Culligan (or so he claimied at a much later date), who allegedly delivered his "license to kill" spiel and spoke of his involvement in the JFK murder.

Can you shed any light on Culligan's sojourn through RI and how/why he ended up serving time in what I am told is more than one state prison?

Also, do you know anything about a Culligan/Delk Simpson relationship, and about the name/term Silverstone?

Thanks.

Charles