Charles Drago

And if we have the author's attention:

Did you run across references to Field Operations Intelligence in relation to treasure recovery/transfer?

Sometimes the simple version works best.

How better to hide Lee ... hide L ... hidel ... Hidel ... Hidell ...

Ah Jack, you old clothes horse, you.

Hard hats seemed to be THE fashion statement in Dealey Plaza that day.

Wasn't Badge Man's spotter so topped off?

Wasn't Lucien Conein spotted in similar gear?

Wasn't Robert Groden's Bush Man sporting a metal chapeau?

In retrospect, what with all those bullets flying around ... not a bad choice.

I have taken the liberty of enhancing and colourising an image kindly

posted by Robin Unger. Thanks to Robin for posting this image.

Here is an enhanced version of Altgens

photograph. JFK's suit, hair and flesh colours are taken

from the Jeffries' photograph posted by Bernice.

Connally's suit, hair and flesh tones were taken from

Lee's photograph.

Connally's suit colour appears to be blue - is this accurate?

I have used yellow for the woman's dress.

The rearview mirror cuts across

and obscures the middle of President Kennedy's face.

IMO only his forehead and mouth/chin area are visible.

IMO President Kennedy is not choking or gasping for air. His mouth is closed.

Surely this Altgens photo disproves the Single Bullet Theory?

President Kennedy has obviously been hit and

is reacting. Connally,IMO, has still not been hit.

Please feel free to download and use.

EBC

_________________________________

Great work, Eugene! I think you got it right. (Too bad Greer isn't in it.) Thanks!

--Thomas

_________________________________

Can you opine on the gray/uncolorized area between the president's knuckles at their highest elevation and the flesh-colored area that presumably is his chin?

It is truly amazing how we have the "bunched up" theory to explain the inconvenient location of bullet holes, the "magic bullet" theory to explain the total lack of damage on a missile that supposedly caused 7 wounds and the "neuromuscular jet effect" to explain the head shot's violation of the laws of physics. Yet the conspiracy theorists are the "wackos."

...

That is one of the best comments ever Don. I'd make it my sig line if President Kennedy wasn't so darn quotable.

Imagine ... In 1964, the official USG investigation of the assassination concludes that, based upon the available medical, eyewitness, earwitness, photographic, ballistic, and other forensic evidence, JFK was the victim of a conspiracy, likely domestic in origin.

Imagine ... At the same time, a small, vocal, impassioned group of self-styled "critics" appears and argues that one man -- LHO -- without assistance of any form or fashion, did it all. Their conclusion rests upon a theory that a single bullet caused seven separate wounds to the president and the Texas governor, a characterization of LHO as a "troubled loner" and "marksman" with "Communist leanings," and all the rest of the nutter nonsense.

How long would these critics' arguments have lasted in the public consciousness? How soon would they have been laughed off the planet?

It is the imprimatur of the parent state alone that preserves the lie.

And so our enemy is known.

I was deeply honored to co-produce, with Jerry Rose and George Michael Evica, The Third/Fourth Decade's second research conference, staged in Providence, Rhode Island.

My friend Jerry is the most humble of men, yet his journal remains, for many of us, by far the most professionally edited and hugely informative scholarly publication ever to focus on the assassination.

Damning by faint praise? Perhaps. But I would most favorably measure Jerry's work against any other publication of its kind -- the scholarly journal -- in any subject area.

Jerry never played favorites. His editorial standards were carved in stone, and even his closest friends could not expect their submissions to gain "automatic" approval for publication.

I'll not soon forget presenting papers at the first and second Rose conferences -- on assassination-related literary fiction and certain "problems" within the critical community respectively. And the day Jerry and I spent with Gerald Patrick Hemming in Dallas, culminating in JFK Lancer's much talked about Hemming Panel (Rose, John Newman, Gordon Winslow [moderator] and I trying, with little success but great enjoyment, to break down the master storyteller) was one for the books. Literally.

Our community has not overcome the loss of Jerry's journal. What I wouldn't give to have him back in the wars.

The blood patterns on the rear of the shirt and the rear of the suit jacket are quite different, with the former showing far greater spread and, one assumes, saturation.

Could this difference be attributed to limitations of photo reproductions? Had the jacket been laundered but the shirt kept in "original" condition?

I'm 99% sure the President's clothing was laundered by the secret service men who were too hungover to protect the living president but suddenly alert and busy cleaning up evidence after the murder. Gov Connelly's suit was cleaned...

I'll look for some confirmation about the shirt/suit scrubbing.

When we view photos of the shirt and jacket as held in the National Archives, we note the latter to be heavily stained, but the former relatively lightly impacted. Again, this disparity may be attributable to limitations related to photo reproduction.

Or perhaps the jacket was laundered (a polite way of saying rendered moot in terms of evidentiary value) and the shirt left alone?

And while technically the shirt stain does not fit the definition of blood "splatter," it surely must invite analysis of blood flow from the head and/or back wounds.

Some long-harbored questions regarding the back brace:

Are the braces depicted in the photo above those worn on 11/22/63?

If so, have they been laundered?

If no laundering, why no blood?

Did the brace ride high enough to cover the 3rd thoracic vertebra?

If so, might a round entering at that position have had its velocity radically slowed by brace materials, thus accounting for the shallow wound?

And a related query:

The blood patterns on the rear of the shirt and the rear of the suit jacket are quite different, with the former showing far greater spread and, one assumes, saturation.

Could this difference be attributed to limitations of photo reproductions? Had the jacket been laundered but the shirt kept in "original" condition?

Also posted in the Roosevelt Kennedy thread:

From the New York Post in 2000:

Writers William Corson and Joseph Trento have pulled a literary reverse. A year ago, they sold film rights to a nonfiction project called "The Last President"- about a real-life plot to overthrow Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 - to producer Arnold Copelson. Copelson has since gotten Oliver Stone and 20th Century Fox interested in the project.

Now, with Stone said to be well along in writing the script, the authors have turned around and sold the book proposal to Simon & Schuster's Free Press imprint for an estimated $200,000.

According to Free Press editor Chad Conway, the book will detail how some of the nation's leading capitalists - alarmed by the election of FDR and his plans to introduce radical reforms during the Great Depression - tried to engineer a military coup to overthrow the government. The plotters first talked to General Douglas MacArthur and then to General Smedley Darlington Butler, Conway says. "Butler eventually exposed the plot," he says.

FDR started public hearings but then quashed them. "He thought the nation was going through enough turmoil," Conway says. But, he adds, FDR used the information to keep the plotters in line for the rest of the New Deal. "FDR comes off looking even more Machiavellian and heroic than we thought," Conway says.

Corson is a writer and former FBI agent, and Trento works for the Public Education Center.

"Corson's father was one of the guys involved with investigating the original plot," Conway says.

The Free Press is planning a 100,000 print run for the book for fall 2002.

More on Oliver Stone's interest in the Smedley Butler affair, this time from the New York Post in 2000:

Writers William Corson and Joseph Trento have pulled a literary reverse. A year ago, they sold film rights to a nonfiction project called "The Last President"- about a real-life plot to overthrow Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 - to producer Arnold Copelson. Copelson has since gotten Oliver Stone and 20th Century Fox interested in the project.

Now, with Stone said to be well along in writing the script, the authors have turned around and sold the book proposal to Simon & Schuster's Free Press imprint for an estimated $200,000.

According to Free Press editor Chad Conway, the book will detail how some of the nation's leading capitalists - alarmed by the election of FDR and his plans to introduce radical reforms during the Great Depression - tried to engineer a military coup to overthrow the government. The plotters first talked to General Douglas MacArthur and then to General Smedley Darlington Butler, Conway says. "Butler eventually exposed the plot," he says.

FDR started public hearings but then quashed them. "He thought the nation was going through enough turmoil," Conway says. But, he adds, FDR used the information to keep the plotters in line for the rest of the New Deal. "FDR comes off looking even more Machiavellian and heroic than we thought," Conway says.

Corson is a writer and former FBI agent, and Trento works for the Public Education Center.

"Corson's father was one of the guys involved with investigating the original plot," Conway says.

The Free Press is planning a 100,000 print run for the book for fall 2002.

As I noted in the thread devoted to the Roosevelt/Kennedy connection, Joseph Trento, with William Corson noted as co-author, apparently wrote and then pulled back "The Last President," their take on the Smedley Butler affair previously and, to my knowledge, exclusively addressed in book length form by Jules Archer in his "The Plot to Seize the White House."

I direct your attention to the aforementioned thread for a fuller, if still unsatisfyingly incomplete, discussion of this most significant episode in American history.

Thanks, I had completely missed that thread. Just went back and read it.

Why did Trento not have his book published? And who is telling the authors of U.S. history books not to tell this story? And why in the world did Oliver Stone think that "Alexander" or whatever would make a better movie than this?

It's interesting that General Butler with his book "War Is A Racket" warned us of the military industrial complex not only before General Eisenhower did, but before the MIC even existed as such.

Perhaps Mr. Trento would care to respond.

Let's not forget Stone's dalliance with Joe Trento's aborted tome on the Roosevelt coup. What an interesting prequel to "JFK" it would have made -- "The Last President," that is.

I assume you're referring to the attempted coup in which American big shots tried to use General Smedley Butler to overthrow Roosevelt. That would certainly make a great movie. But I guess it's a story that the American people are not supposed to know about, since it could never happen here.

I would love to see a movie called "The Dark Complected Man." Who was he, what was he doing, and for whom? Starring Denzel Washington. Fictitious, of course, but smash hit written all over it.

Indeed I am.

As I noted in the thread devoted to the Roosevelt/Kennedy connection, Joseph Trento, with William Corson noted as co-author, apparently wrote and then pulled back "The Last President," their take on the Smedley Butler affair previously and, to my knowledge, exclusively addressed in book length form by Jules Archer in his "The Plot to Seize the White House."

I direct your attention to the aforementioned thread for a fuller, if still unsatisfyingly incomplete, discussion of this most significant episode in American history.

Let's not forget Stone's dalliance with Joe Trento's aborted tome on the Roosevelt coup. What an interesting prequel to "JFK" it would have made -- "The Last President," that is.

How odd that arguably the most cinematic of lives closely associated with the assassination -- David Ferrie -- remains so poorly explored on the screen.

"Brokeback Knoll" -- David Lynch, a lonely community casts its eyes to you.

Or if you prefer to be serious, the entire Mary Sherman story cries out for screen interpretation/investigation.

For Jack White, and others,

While I cannot at this point cite specifics, has not a capture from this film been used in numerous promotions?

Stop the action with a full face JFK view.

Familiar?

From simple "inside" jokes to fiendishly clever reimaginings of actual operations, Fleming's many subtexts, if you will, are worthy of book-length analyses.

Permit me to direct your attention of one of my favorites -- and arguably the most unsettling. James Bond's physical nemesis in "From Russia with Love" is the psychopath Red Grant, alias Krassno Granitski, alias Captain Norman Nash. While, as Kingsley Amis points out in his "The James Bond Dossier," Grant is not the true villain of the novel (a distinction reserved for the execrable Rosa Klebb), he nonetheless stands out in the canon for rather fascinating reasons.

In the aforementioned "'inside' joke" department: "Nash" is the transliteration of the Russian slang for "one of ours." Reference Richard Case Nagell's elaboration as proffered in "The Man Who Knew Too Much."

But it remains for Grant's homicidal pathology to utterly fascinate those of us for whom Peter Levenda's "Sinister Forces" trilogy stands as an essential guide for a tour of the darkest realms of political/intelligence intrigue.

You see, Grant is a lunar cycle serial killer. He is talent-scouted by SMERSH and defects to the Soviets, who somehow are able not only to manage his urges, but also direct them purposefully.

(And so we travel from Lektor to Lecter -- sorry, all this "inside" stuff is getting to me.)

How much did Fleming know about operations designed to control both "normal" and abnormal minds? Remember, we're talking 1957 here, a point in time long before MK/ULTRA, ARTICHOKE, et al had been raised to popular consciousness.

Idea for the next Hannibal Lecter novel: The good doctor allows himself to be recruited by an unnamed intelligence service for use in a conspiracy of world-historic proportions ... which of course he turns to his own ends. But perhaps ... just perhaps ... he has been their creation all along ...

At this point we might jump to consideration of Wesley S. Thurston's "The Trumpets of November" (published by Geiss, by the way -- who brought out "Six Seconds in Dallas").

But now I'm scared.

"It" matters in direct proportion to the efforts of the powers who know the truth to hide the truth.

I have personally never seen this done, but "in the old days", I have read of coins being placed on the deceased's eyelids for a period of time to insure that they would not re-open.

Charlie Black

The coins were payment for The Boatman -- a Roman (I believe) custom that survived to our time.

I thought I'd share portions of a public exchange I recently enjoyed with Mark Crispin Miller (whose investigations of the American presidential election thefts of 2000 and 2004 cannot be overestimated in terms of their accuracy and significance to the historical record) on the subject of "Ultimate Sacrifice," which he has formally and publicly endorsed as -- my interpretation of his position here -- the most complete and accurate explanation of the assassination as we're likey ever to have.

I began with this basic observation:

The authors' view of the hierarchical structure of the intelligence/organized crime nexus of the period under consideration is at best myopic (although in comparison to their appreciations of the levels of authority and areas of operation and influence of high-ranking CIA officers involved in the assassination conspiracy, it is relatively 20/20).

Later I responded to Professor Miller's direct question as reproduced below:

"Why is W/H's argument 'preposterous on its face'? [my previously expressed judgment] Those Mafiosi had every reason to whack Kennedy." -- Indeed they had, and I'd argue that there's little doubt that figures from OC were brought into the plot in the roles of facilitators and, later, false sponsors. What is preposterous is Lamar's argument that Marcello, Trafficante, and Rosselli enjoyed the means to play the roles of prime sponsors and planners.

I stipulate that when we implicitly differentiate between "organized crime," and "big business," and "intelligence agencies" in the contexts of the crime, and of what Peter Dale Scott has termed the "deep political" structure of the period, we are citing distinctions without true differences. John Rosselli -- "Colonel John Rawlston," big time player at JM/WAVE, the CIA's Miami operation, and trusted confidante of David Sanchez Morales, action officer there -- is THE prime example of the living, connective tissue between OC and CIA.

But when Lamar argues that David Atlee Phillips, head of the CIA's Western Hemisphere Division at the time and one of the knights (perhaps I should say bishops), if you will, of the agency, somehow could have been manipulated by the wise guys and, to use the appropriate if distasteful vernacular, otherwise become their bitch, he dismisses volumes of scholarship, supported by scores of cubic feet of documentary record, establishing precisely the inverse relationship.

On the mechanical level, the assassination could not have been executed in the manner that unfolded in Dealey Plaza had not security been stripped from the motorcade. And simply stated, none of the godfathers or their proprietary rogue intelligence officers had the jam to pull that off.

(Indeed, security stripping remains a sine qua non for successful attacks on targets well protected by, for the most part, incorruptible guards. It happened in advance of the JFK and MLK murders. And if you'll permit me a bit of latitude, it took place before the assassinations of the American electoral process in 2000 and 2004; the security afforded by conventional voting machines, paper trails, and hand counts was stripped, thus leaving the target all but defenseless.)

And this but scratches the surface of the problems with "Ultimate Sacrifice."

Myra,

You're preaching to the choir on Hersh, who is long overdue for revisionist examination of the sort currently underway with Chomsky.

Within the next day or so I'll create a new thread in which I propose that appreciations of the JFK assassination by scholars and journalists stand as valid litmus tests for the balance of their respective canons. This based, of course, on the position proffered in my first post: conspiracy as established, unambiguous, and eminently knowable historical fact.

As for MacArthur, his shade darkens the story told by the Seagraves in "Gold Warriors." I can accept his motivations for looting Yamaxxxxa's treasure as two-fold: personal enrichment and establishing a secret treasury for a secret government -- his secret government.

That JFK held the old bastard in esteem is quite likely -- for, among other reasons, the fact that MacArthur was his commanding (if not technically, then emotionally) officer in the Pacific. Further, and perhaps on a much deeper psychic level, the president desperately may have been seeking a flag officer -- a comrade in arms -- in whom he could place his trust and respect.

I'm most pleased to join this forum by sharing a point of information and an observation on the Butler/Roosevelt affair.

1. While Jules Archer's "The Plot to Seize the White House" remains the only book-length analysis of the coup attempt extant (albeit out of print), I'm told that Joseph Trento completed a volume on the same subject. Indeed, "The Last President," which he allegedly co-authored with William Corson, was coveted by Oliver Stone in 2000 as the basis for, as they say, a major motion picture.

Perhaps Mr. Trento will be moved to enlighten us on the status of the project. So too Mr. Stone.

2. I was morbidly gratified when I read in Dick Russell's extraordinary "The Man Who Knew Too Much" of how the author was tipped off to the probable involvement of Charles Willoughby and an unnamed American military hero in the Kennedy hit. The latter could only be the Old Fading Soldier himself.

For some time I had considered the possibility that Douglas MacArthur, having experienced first-hand the problematic nature of bloodless coups, subsequently made a "no more Mister Nice Guy" pledge to himself. So if he had been confronted in his retirment by serving flag officers bearing "evidence" of JFK's unsuitability for office, he would have given his blessing to executive action.

As a writer of fiction, I was intrigued by such a scenario -- one for which meaningful empirical evidence is all but absent. I bring it to the forum's attention only as an exercise in creative visualization. Sometimes -- not often -- intuition leads.

Charles Drago

General Smedley Butler named MacArthur in his statements about the coup attempt. And I wouldn't put anything past the Faded Soldier. My god, he attacked his own men, on American soil, when they merely assembled to demand the bonus they were promised. Killed some, injured many. General Faded was the lowest of the low.

However, President Kennedy reportedly met with him at least once, and supposedly was impressed with him. So he must have said something... human to so impress a decent President. Partly for that reason I don't suspect MacArthur in the President's murder right now. Of course that could change.

http://www.tarpley.net/bush8b.htm

"...

During the days after the Bay of Pigs debacle, Kennedy was deeply suspicious of the intelligence community and of proposals for military escalation in general, including in places like South Vietnam. Kennedy sought to procure an outside, expert opinion on military matters. For this he turned to the former commander in chief of the Southwest Pacific Theatre during World War II, General Douglas MacArthur. Almost ten years ago, a reliable source shared with one of the authors an account of a meeting between Kennedy and MacArthur in which the veteran general warned the young president that there were elements inside the US government who emphatically did not share his patriotic motives, and who were seeking to destroy his administration from within. MacArthur's warned that the forces bent on destroying Kennedy were centered in the Wall Street financial community and its various tentacles in the intelligence community.

It is a matter of public record that Kennedy met with MacArthur in the latter part of April, 1961, after the Bay of Pigs. According to Kennedy aide Theodore Sorenson, MacArthur told Kennedy, "The chickens are coming home to roost, and you happen to have just moved into the chicken house." 10 At the same meeting, according to Sorenson, MacArthur "warned [Kennedy] against the committment of American foot soldiers on the Asian mainland, and the President never forgot this advice." 11 This point is grudgingly confirmed by Arthur M. Schlesinger, a Kennedy aide who had a vested interest in vilifying MacArthur, who wrote that "MacArthur expressed his old view that anyone wanting to commit American ground forces to the mainland [of Asia] should have his head examined." 12 MacArthur restated this advice during a second meeting with Kennedy when the General returned from his last trip to the Far East in July, 1961.

Kennedy valued MacArthur's professional military opinion highly, and used it to keep at arms length those advisers who were arguing for escalation in Laos, Vietnam, and elsewhere. He repeatedly invited those who proposed to send land forces to Asia to convince MacArthur that this would as good idea. If they could convince MacArthur, then he, Kennedy, might also go along...."

__________________

Myra,

As I feel my way around this site I find myself counting on your posts to inform and stimulate. So thanks for your thoughts on this issue.

I was aware of the JFK/MacArthur encounters and of Kennedy's respect for the fading gerontocrat. But then again, the president was said to admire and perhaps even idealize "The Pear," "America's James Bond," aka William King Harvey, and I don't think that such positive executive evaluation is sufficient to remove Harvey from a valid short list of likely assassins.

As I noted in my original post, what I postulate in re Dastardly Douglas is the product of one giant leap from facts to informed speculation. So how do I reconcile your line of reasoning with the product of my imagination?

I do not consider MacArthur to have been a prime mover in the plot, but rather a facilitator in this sense, and for the sake of argument only:

Imagine ... Flag officers whose participation in the plot would be critical could not bring themselves to take the ultimate step. So other highest-level plotters 1) convince MacArthur that JFK is nothing less than a traitor, 2) further convince him that nothing short of executive action can remove him, and 3) direct him to the aforementioned reluctant rogues who in the end are moved to perfidy by the persuasions of their ultimate hero.

Fantastic? I'll so stipulate going in. But as you wisely note, the sick S.O.B. who "attacked his own men, on American soil, when they merely assembled to demand the bonus they were promised" surely would have been capable of such a deed as I imagine -- especially in his dotage.

Hence the lesson of Smedley Butler, the two-time recipient of the Medal of Honor, was not lost.

One last note on the Kennedy-as-traitor argument: It surfaces at interesting places throughout the story we investigate. Most recently Seymour Hersh, during his "Dark Side of Camelot" tour, was asked if he learned anything about JFK that was darker than the material included in the book.

Hersh responded, "Yeah, I heard some things I didn't want to believe," and left it at that. My guess is that the character assassins were trying to sell the treason argument again as part of the ever-functioning "he deserved to die" amelioration.

So it goes.

My recollections of Gus Russo at the "infamous" 1993 ASK conference may have some bearing on this discussion.

At the end of a full day of presentations, Russo and John Newman spread the word that they would be conducting an unscheduled but sanctioned workshop in one of the breakout rooms. A small audience was then treated to one of the most fascinating exercises in heavy breathing ever offered at a JFK assassination event.

Messrs. Russo and Newman spun the tantalyzing tale of their visit to the Florida penthouse apartment of the aging Delk Simpson -- although they declined to name him at the time, and instead described him only as one of Robert Morrow's US Air Force Colonels as described in his, well, problematic "First Hand Knowledge."

Breathlessly they spoke of how they and their unwitting target got pleasantly plastered on world-class Scotch ... how the lonely, widowed Simpson gave his game away to the pair of undercover gumshoes posing as simple, aw shucks history buffs, all but admitting to his role as (one of) the assassination's paymaster(s) and to his acquiescence in the murder of his own son (who had been speaking of his father's perfidy to anyone willing to listen).

At one point Newman even chastened an on-a-roll Russo to "be careful, man," the implication quite clear that Gussy was placing both of them in jeopardy.

(In jeopardy of being silenced by conspirators or loosing a publishing contract? I'm still not certain.)

They went on to describe an inebriated Simpson berating the Kennedys, whose Palm Beach compound could be seen from the terrace of the old man's luxurious digs.

Also offered was a name worthy of Ian Fleming: a certain "Joseph Silverthorne" was the international man of mystery who was the key assassination facilitator.

Or was that Silverthorne Stables, in or near Paris (France or Texas?)?

I harbor significant respect for Professor Newman and his JFK-related work. But he would be well advised to clarify this one-and-out episode with Russo, I think.

Mr. Seagrave,

It is difficult for me to overstate the importance of "Gold Warriors" to a meaningful understanding of the deep political structure -- its style and its substance.

Secret governments must have their secret treasuries, I suspect.

I'm currently at work on what by all indications should be a major television project -- a multi-episode drama in which the historical events related in "GW" play a central role. If all goes well I'm certain that we'll have much to discuss.

In the interim, and for the purpose of addressing the interests of this forum, I wonder if you might expand upon the so-called "Umbrella" organization. If you're not already aware of the fact, you should know that the symbol of an open umbrella is directly relevant to the investigation of the identities and motives of the Dealey Plaza conspirators.

Ascribe it to mere intuition and/or the creative process in full swing, but I can't help thinking that the designers of the assassination somehow signed their work.

With gratitude and respect,

Charles Drago

Jack,

I trust that I'm not stretching the rules of the forum by taking this opportunity to renew our acquaintance. If memory serves we last spoke at Jim Fetzer's Minnesota conference. I'll reiterate here what I hope I expressed back then: I harbor the deepest respect for your convictions and for the courage you demonstrate when you express and defend them.

Warm regards,

Charles

How much collegiality is too much collegiality?

How many tender mercies were on display in Dealey Plaza that day?

If, as I have argued from podiums and soap boxes, we are at war with the killers of John Kennedy, then for what reasons other than the cynically tactical should we honor these people by treating them with civility?

Permit me to offer again what I've published in other media:

Anyone with reasonable access to the evidence in this case who does not conclude that JFK was the victim of a criminal conspiracy is cognitively impaired and/or complicit in the crime.

Further, conspiracy in the murder of JFK is as verifiable an historical truth as is the Holocaust; and anyone in a position to know this truth who, in support of ulterior political and/or cultural agendas, chooses not to do so is spiritually akin to the Holocaust deniers.

As far as the "how" of the assassination is concerned, polite debate is as absurd as it is counterproductive to the pursuit of greater truth. The "who" and "why" questions remain on the table.

Bugliosi is to be pilloried by us. His JFK assassination-related opinions are deserving of not a scintilla of respect and must be treated as enemy propaganda. We must deny him and his ilk the illusion of a level playing field in the eyes of history, for he and his masters are targeting the historical record.

All they want is for history to dignify their lies. And if we cannot prevent this, how will history judge us?