Don Jeffries

Stephen, The vast majority of Americans are beyond apathetic. As long as they have their satellite/cable tv, internet, gas guzzling cars and the other creature comforts they desire, they couldn't care less what their political leaders are doing. I've tried to speak about the inequities of wealth in our country, to my own family members, and can't even get most of them to agree that there is a problem, let alone do anything about it. I now believe that the only way American males would be driven to action regarding the corruption of their leaders is if professional sports were all banned and the sale of beer prohibited. As for American women, the only way you'd ever get a large number of them motivated to act would be to close all the shopping malls, or perhaps disband all network television programming.

I've never understood the almost total refusal of any of JFK's political allies (not to mention his silent family members) to look into the true circumstances of his death. From the very beginning, they appeared to blindly accept the official story, and have never seemed to have an interest in all those best-selling books exposing the fact that it was impossible for it to have happened that way. Leftists as a whole have never been sympathetic to the conspiracy viewpoint regarding the JFK assassination. Bertrand Russell is about the only well-known figure on the left who ever publicly expressed his doubts about the Oswald-did-it nonsense. Even when this issue was a hot topic on college campuses, both in 1966-67 and again in 1975-76, no Democratic party candidate ever made it an issue. Why? Even if for nothing else than to capitalize on the political coattails of the dead Kennedys, you'd think some candidate would have spoken out publicly about the flaws in the official story. As John mentioned, many leftists appear to decry all "conspiracy theories" due to their popularity amongst the far right. It would be nice if they'd have the intellectual honesty to individually evaluate the evidence in the assassination of JFK, without connecting it to any other "conspiracy theories," and simply report factually that Oswald couldn't have done it, but apparently none of them have the courage to do that.

Kathy, I understand that you may not feel Gary Mack has sold out, but those of us familiar with his work a few decades ago certainly can't help but feel that way. Along with Jack White and Gary Shaw, Gary Mack was one of the key contributors to Penn Jones' delightful little newsletter "The Continuing Inquiry," which was published from about 1976-1984. I just simply cannot accept that the man who wrote those articles could possibly believe the stuff he is saying now. I do agree that Gary is helpful to everyone, and unfailingly polite, but he is serving the coverup, whether intentionally or not, in his present position.

Myra, Back in the late 1990s, in a galaxy far away, on another JFK assssination forum, Gary Mack was a very prolific poster. He was already working for the Sixth Floor Museum then, so I don't know how his position there would impede his ability to post on forums now. I asked him several times on different threads, in response to one of his typical defenses of the official story, what it was that had turned him from being a strong believer in conspiracy into what certainly appears to be an LNer. He was never able to give me an answer, and still claims to be a conspiracy proponent.

John Dolva- great points about the massive disparity of wealth in the U.S. The "trickle down" theory lives on in the minds of our rulers. Evidently, the Va. Tech killer suffered from a strong sense of economic envy. There also seemed to be the typical "outsider" sense of alienation and a sensitivity to being "picked on" by his peers that all of these psychotic school shooters share. I really think that this is much more about the twisted social system that all middle and high schools (at least in the U.S.) feature, and the devastating impact it has upon a tiny group of students, than it is about access to guns. I have never owned a gun, in fact I've never even shot one, but I am very suspicious of any attempts to limit private gun owernship. We have scores of gun laws on the books in the U.S., but like our drug laws, they don't stop them from getting into the hands of those who want them. No one talks about the common demoninator in all these incidents; the shooter felt uncontrollably angry at his fellow students, for what he construed as their mistreatment of him. Charlie asked a pertinent question about the shooter's high school acquaintances. I also would like to know what his high school experiences were, because I suspect that this is where his future propensity for violence was nurtured. Here in America, they say that many people never get over high school. We really ought to examine why that is, and perhaps look at reforming our middle and high schools. The high school social system mirrors the way wealth is distributed among the adults- simply put, a very few special individuals receive all the best stuff. To the small group of most popular kids in each school, high school is truly heaven on earth. They are literal celebrities to their peers, and the adults bolster their egos by heaping even more attention on them. At the other end of the spectrum, to the "nerds," "geeks," and "trench coat mafia"-types, high school is a living hell. It's a crime that any child has to endure what so many of these kids endure every day at schools all across the country, again enabled by a clueless and uncaring adult "supervision." The vast majority of kids in high school aren't popular or picked on; they provide the audience for the dramas that take place daily, disinterested background players who are putting in their time until graduation. No one has ever really examined how this curious social system effects everyone who goes through it. Such an analysis is long overdue, imho, and would provide more clues on how to solve this horrific problem than another tired gun control debate.

I find the official story of this event to be filled with the same kind of holes that seemingly all official stories are filled with. Just a few of my questions: - How does this stereotypical "loner" (and yes, Francesa, I agree with you about the curiously liberal use of that term) have such a good-looking girlfriend? It just doesn't add up socially that someone who was so withdrawn and uncommunicative that he didn't even respond to simple greetings, could attract someone as attractive as the first victim was (assuming the reports about her being his girlfriend are correct). - What were the app. 300 law enforcement officers doing cowering behind trees, in their protective gear, while this lone gunman fired off over 100 rounds in their midst? How could they have failed to storn the building where all the shots were coming from? This is on a par with JFK's Secret Service detail not reacting at all to the sound of gunfire in Dealey Plaza, only these officers had a lot more time to respond. - Where did the lone gunman go during the over two hours between the shooting incidents? If he was wearing any of his shooter outfit as he walked across the campus, it is especially perplexing how none of the law enforcement personnel noticed him. - Why didn't the university use the loudspeaker system, which was installed across the campus for just such a purpose, to notify students that a shooting had taken place, and the shooter had not been apprehended? How could the university president make the ridiculous claim that they initially thought this was a domestic dispute, and even a possible murder-suicide? How do you have a suicide without a murder weapon at the scene? These are only a few of the questions that spring immediately to my mind. I am confident, however, that no mainstream journalist will ask them. This tragic incident will be exploited for political purposes, and boil down to yet another tired debate on gun control. For the record, I've never shot a gun, but there are scores of gun laws on the books, and one thing we should have learned by now is the simple fact that those who are willing to commit violent crimes are not likely to respect any gun laws. Washington, D.C. has some of the toughest gun laws in the land, and their crime rate is among the highest in the country. In this case, Va. Tech had a law against bringing guns on to the campus. Obviously, this demented fellow didn't obey it. Whatever happens, we'll probably get more "secure" campuses, and as a result, continue to lose more of our dwindling civil liberties.

Alexander Cockburn is all too typical of leftists who, while exhibiting a healthy distrust of government officials, absolutely refuse to question the lone nut explanation to all our political assassinations. As for Vincent Bugliosi, I agree totally with Charles Drago; he isn't stupid, and has studied the subject in depth. He definitely knows that what he is selling is impossible. Why he continues to sell it is a question I can't answer, either. Bugliosi was once a respected researcher into the RFK assassination, who produced some great work back in the mid-late 1970s. How he morphed from that into the JFK assassination lone-nutter we first saw publicly in the Showtime network disinfo piece "The Trial Of Lee Harvey Oswald" in 1988, is anyone's guess. Another great example of a leftist who seems to distrust everything the government says except that the official explanation of JFK's assassination is former attorney general Ramsey Clark. Clark was very vocal about the government's actions at Waco and at Ruby Ridge, and went so far to help defend Saddam Hussein. Sometimes I think that you have to sign an oath to publicly support the Warren Commission before you can achieve fame of any kind.

There is no real safety net to protect the pensions of American workers, and we still hear about people who've worked for a company for decades losing everything due to the criminal misappropriation of funds by corrupt management. This is an issue that should be raised by the Democrats, who claim to be the party of "the people," and supposedly represent the interests of the working class. Other than someone like Dennis Kucinich, most prominent "liberals" just aren't interested in these kinds of classic David vs. Goliath issues any more. Most of us here have the majority of our net worth tied up in the volatile housing market, where homeowners have been fortunate enough to make hundreds of thousands of dollars in extremely fragile equity over the last decade, and at this point the market appears to have run out of buyers, and uncertainty lies ahead. Combined with the mathematical nightmare that will occur in the next decade or so, when all those baby boomers retire and will have to be paid their Social Security, we can all certainly be even more nervous than ever about our corporate leaders predilection for inserting their hands in the pension cookie jars.

According to the old Spotlight newspaper, in some articles published in the early 1990s (I think, not sure about the exact date), when the KGB archives began to be opened and released publicly, it was discovered that Gus Hall had been paid millions of dollars over the decades directly by the Soviet government. The Spotlight, published by Liberty Lobby, certainly had its own agenda, and has been branded as anti-semitic by many, but if this story is accurate, it certainly should cause us to view all supposed "radical" leaders in a different light. Much like the rumors that feminist leader Gloria Steinem was actually an employee of the CIA, or the reports that many of the radical leaders of the 1960s were financed by the huge foundations, this is perhaps is another indication that we should pause and be a bit more skeptical of any "outsider" or "reformer" that suddenly bursts onto the scene.

The situation in America isn't any better. We all worry about losing our pensions, and with good reason. Those who run the big corporations are just as heartless and ruthless as they've always been. Sooner or later, some Democrat will echo Huey Long's old "share the wealth" issue, and point out the obvious; the rich ARE getting richer and the poor ARE getting poorer. I read a story today about the CEO for Ford making 37 million for 4 months "work." Like so many of these sinfully overpaid plutocrats, he certainly did a bang-up job during his tenure; Ford lost 12.7 billion last year. I don't believe in communism, but there is no way that any rational marketplace should pay someone 100s of times more than anyone else.

I'll weigh in with my two cents on the Kennedy family and the supposed skeletons in their closets. First of all, to anyone truly interested in the reality behind so much of the anti-Kennedy propaganda spewed out by the press that was supposedly so friendly to them, I'd suggest reading Jim DiEugenio's excellent article "The Posthumous Assassination of JFK," which I think can still be found in either the Fair Play or Probe magazine archives online. I believe it was Victor Hugo who wrote that "behind every great fortune there lies a great crime." In that sense, I don't believe papa Joe Kennedy was a choir boy. However, when held up against the likes of the founders of other (and far wealthier) capitalist families like the Rockefellers or the Rothschilds, for example, he compares pretty favorably. Joe Kennedy has been unfairly criticized for many things over the years. On the subject of his daughter Rosemary, for instance, in which he has been castigated as some sort of monster who purposefully destroyed her without telling his wife, the reality is quite different. Rosemary was, in the parlance of the day, a bit "slow" mentally, and generally unable to keep up with her gifted and fun-loving siblings. At that time, a frontal lobotomy was considered a daring but untested new procedure that could possibly cure mentally "slow" persons like Rosemary. As a loving and concerned father, Joe used his considerable finanacial resources to have her flown to the best specialist in this fledgling field, and he didn't tell his wife because he wanted to surprise her with the "new and improved" Rosemary. Tragically, the procedure failed miserably, and Rosemary was left with the mental ablilities of a toddler. Although it backfired in his face, and destroyed his daughter's life in the process, Joe can hardly be accused of anything other than perhaps being too risk-taking (a trait we've all heard associated with the Kennedys many times) in trying to help his beloved daughter. To his children, Joe Kennedy was a dedicated, involved father who wanted nothing but the best for them. Was he ruthless? Well, what evidence is there that he hurt anyone, or engaged in any real corruption, or commited any crime, over the course of his life? The rumors of his "buying" the election for Jack were initially circulated by some of the many right-wing enemies of the Kennedys. In later years, when Judith Exner came out of the woodwork and was instantly accepted as credible by the mainstream media that ignored (and still ignores) all "conspiracy theorists," the legend about the "buying" of votes, or the "fixing" of votes, usually in conjunction with mafia figures like Sam Giancana (who, in true doublethink fashion, is also often postulated as being involved in the assassination of JFK), became acceptable in polite society, promulgated by "leftist" journalists like Seymour Hersh. I wish that more people would stick up for the Kennedys. Compared to the kind of politicians this country has almost always been saddled with, the Kennedys were pure gold. Listen to some of JFK's speeches as president; the American University speech, the scintilating speech about the importance of free-flowing, uncensored information and the arguments against secret societies. No president before or since has ever said such things. JFK said the treatment of the American Indian was a national disgrace. Has any other president even commented on the plight of the American Indian? John F. Kennedy was the first, and only, president to refuse a salary. Bobby and Teddy never accepted salaries as public servants, either (not sure about Joe III or Patrick, but my guess is they have followed this family tradition). JFK galvanized a generation of young people with his speeches about treating all Americans as we want to be treated, the Peace Corps, his challenge to send men to the moon and so many other idealistic bits of rhetoric that still resonate to this day. JFK was a good man. RFK was a good man. Teddy was a good man (imho, he has been bought and sold over the years). Old Joe Kennedy was remarkably non-corrupt for a man of his wealth. Consider that this man had to suffer the deaths of his oldest son and his oldest daughter in seperate plane crashes and the murder of two other sons in seperate incidents. Even the Greeks would have had a hard time in constructing anything more tragic than that. Since then, this family has suffered more unnatural deaths than any family should ever have to suffer. The reason why it is so popular to criticize old Joe, JFK and RFK, imho, is because the same parasites in the mass media who ridicule "conspiracy theories" have a vested interest in making them out to be unworthy of our adulation, and in some instances have basically insinuated that they deserved to die. JFK didn't deserve to die, neither did RFK, and they tried to accomplish some good, which is more than can be said for the vast majority of elected officials.

Mark Valenti wrote: Don't forget - one key eyewitness said she saw a dog in the limo next to JFK. So not all eyewitnesses are credible. This bit of misinformation is still being trotted out to discredit Jean Hill. Jackie was given a small stuffed animal, which was next to her in the limousine, and could easily have been mistaken for a small dog. I was once one of those who used this against Jean Hill, but I later found about the stuffed animal. It does not affect her credibility.

Sounds like an interesting book. I predict that Len Colby and other disbelievers in the moon hoax theory will not find it convincing. I also predict that Jack White and other believers in the moon hoax theory will find it convincing. As I've said, I'm "on the fence" on this issue. I would like to know, however, if it is true that the lunar lander was never tested on earth. If so, I find that amazing. Would NASA actually take a gamble like that on something that had never been tested before? I'd love comments on that, please.

This will be a test as to wheter or not Kucinich is a real populist reformer or just another "liberal" who is indistinguishable from his Republican "opponents." I emailed his wife over a month ago, asking her for his positions on 9/11 and the JFK assassination. I'd heard she was good about responding to voter inquiries, but she never replied. Hey, maybe my email gave him the idea to expose the whole conspiracy....

As has been pointed out before over the years, JFK and Walker were political enemies and thus it is very unlikely that the same assassin would try to kill them both. It astonishes me that any JFK assassination researcher places the least bit of credibility in the ridiculous testimony of Marina Oswald. Didn't she claim that Lee had thrown the rifle in some bushes, to avoid being seen walking back home with it? Okay....he must have had to retrieve the rifle at some point, so wasn't he worried about carrying it in public then? Why didn't he just disassemble it and do his famous curtain rods bit? But then again, we must accept that the mannicher carcano did indeed belong to Oswald in order to begin to believe this story. I don't think it has been proven at all that the rifle did belong to Oswald, and I certainly don't place any credence in the fanciful and forced testimony of his understandably frightened wife.

Chuck, I think it's quite possible that you are correct; the pool of blood and the dead secret service agent might very well be connected. Vince Palamara touched on the history of the reports about a secret service agent being shot in his excellent book "Survivor's Guilt." Imho, we should all pay a lot more attention to the actions (and inactions) of the Secret Service.

I'm not one of those who think that the conspiracy couldn't have been big, or someone would have broken their silence about it. Powerful people have conspired to commit crimes since the beginning of time, and most of those conspiracies were successful. If you control the apparatus whereby the public at large gets their information, then your crimes will never be exposed. Our mainstream media has been controlled by the forces who killed JFK for the past 43+ years, and unless the internet becomes the primary source of information for the vast majority of people, the coverup will never be broken because of this. Personally, I think that the individuals most obviously involved in the conspiracy at the ground level were Emory Roberts, Bill Greer and Roy Kellerman, at the very least, among the Secret Service agents in Dallas, presidential advisor McGeorge Bundy, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, vice president Lyndon Johnson, and CIA veterans like James Angleton and Richard Helms. Those involved in setting Oswald up as the patsy would probably have included Ruth and Michael Paine, Jack Ruby, Clay Shaw, David Ferrie and possibly George Demohrenschildt and James Hosty. It is hard to imagine that CIA director John McCone didn't know about the conspiracy at least after the fact. Certainly Allen Dulles must have known, and I'm certain Earl Warren must have figured it out. Assistant attorney general Nicholas Katzenbach must at least have been guilty of being an accesory after the fact, for writing his infamous "the public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin" memo almost as soon as Oswald was pronounced dead on 11/24/63. The list of conspirators, imho, is very long. This was a true coup d'tat, and involved the most powerful forces in our society.

I don't really understand the need to post a picture of one's self, but I'll oblige by the rules and try to find one. I must agree with Jack about the ease of posting a picture of someone else, and claiming it as your own. I would also support Kathy or anyone else who expressed any hesitation, for whatever reason, about posting a picture. With all the strange deaths that have been connected to this case over the years, we all have a right to be a little paranoid.

Charles, I definitely think you know much more about this case than Tom Purvis ever will, although I suspect his bizarre, contradictory ramblings take a bit of time and dedication to craft. You are exactly right to bring up Marina Oswald; without her completely uncredible testimony, the authorities would never had tried to tie LHO to the attempt on Walker. But then again, perhaps Mr. Purvis has conducted experiments that indicate that someone of Oswald's size could indeed be kept inside a bathroom by someone Marina's size holding onto a doorknob. Maybe he has also demonstrated that firing at leaves in a park while walking a baby is actually a superior form of target practice. Anybody who can postulate that the official story about the assassination is correct, and that Oswald was the lone shooter, but that same record is also completely bogus, down to even an altered Zapruder film, can postulate anything, I suppose. Really, I don't understand how any good researcher can respect his doublethink-type of theory; where are Bill Miller and company, who jump all over Jack White for his alteration views, yet apparently are okay with someone who thinks the Zapruder film is altered AND that Oswald was the lone assassin? You are also correct, imho, to distrust anything that emanated from the Dallas Police, whose incompetence that weekend was mind-boggling. Even with all the success the conspirators enjoyed on November 22, 1963, we probably wouldn't be here discussing all this if the Dallas Police had managed to keep Oswald from getting shot with the 70 some officers detailed on Sunday morning to "protect" him. But then, maybe Tom has a theory about that, too. Perhaps I don't know anything about the assassination, either, and should consider that it is actually difficult to stop one man from shooting another if you only have 70 officers at your disposal. Maybe it would not be rational to completely surround the guy you're protecting, so that his front isn't left wide open. But then again, I'm the guy who takes the word of the Marine corps. when they rated Oswald a "rather poor shot," when Tom Purvis has somehow established that he was actually a great shot, even though his Marine scores indicate otherwise, fellow marines remembered otherwise, the fact there is no evidence that he ever practiced with that rifle or any other weapon indicate otherwise and the fact that the best shooters in the country couldn't duplicate his feat, under more favorable circumstances, indicate otherwise.

Charles, Right on! I think you spoke the thoughts of many here with your post.

Gary Mack has emailed me several times in the past, in response to various comments I'd made on another JFK forum. Since our last email exchange, he has apparently given up trying to assuage me with his sugar-coated endorsements of the official story. Imho, Gary's present view of this case is similar to Blakey's; while accepting all the totally impossible stuff (single bullet theory, wandering back wound, head snap not reacting in equal and opposite fashion, as dicated by the laws of physics, etc.), he still clings to the "Badgeman" identification and the acoustics evidence. Again, imho, I feel that these are two of the weaker arguments for conspiracy. Gary used to write lots of interesting articles for "The Continuing Inquiry," back in the late 70s-mid 80s, the feisty little newsletter produced by Penn Jones. He clearly knows that much of what he's saying is nonsense. He's well-versed in the evidence, and how he says some of the stuff he does now with a straight face is beyond me. I've asked him more than once to explain to me how his views on the JFK assassination had changed so dramatically since those days. He always dances around this issue (as does every other ex-conspiracy believer who has been mysteriously converted to lone nutism, like Todd Vaughn, Dave Reitzes, and many more), and the only specific thing he ever cites is the Roscoe White story. While he claims to still be a CTer, everything he utters publicly (especially on television specials, where he has become a real fixture) supports the official fairy tale. I will say that he is always civil in his email exchanges, but I'd caution anyone to weigh and consider everything he says carefully.

Sid, I believe you are referring to an unknown (at least to me) reporter who shouted out "You have been charged with that," in response to Oswald's claim that "I have not been charged with that" (the assassination of JFK). Oswald's shrug and nonresponse to this is one of the most frustrating video clips from this case, imho. You can tell that he is visibly disturbed by the fact that he has been publicly identified as someone charged with the assassination, and his expression appears to be something like "wtf- this is the first I've heard about this." Still, he kind of lets the matter drop and is quickly escorted away (why- were they afaid of what he would say next?) I would love to know what was really discussed in all those unrecorded interrogation sessions.

Those clips are from Mark Lane's film "Rush To Judgment." Though dated, it is still a fascinating piece of important research.

Len, You argue your points well and are obviously an intelligent guy. However, I don't really think Mr. Rodriquez's educational level or job title is relevant to the discussion. You may have shown that he greatly embellished his story over time; if so, he'd hardly be the first person caught up on the outskirts of a big story who did so. Human beings like to imagine themselves as being more important than they really are. On the other hand, his comments might very well have been edited out by whatever networks he was interviewed by. I know for a fact that the mainstream media is capable of this, and denying it afterwards. A few years ago, a fellow researcher sent me some unedited local Massachusetts television coverage, videotaped live during the search for John F. Kennedy Jr.'s missing plane in July, 1999. Throughout this coverage (which goes on for some four hours), it is reported numerous times that JFK, Jr. communicated with the FAA at 9:39 p.m., or just seconds before plunging into the water. They even interviewed a spokesman from the Coast Guard, specifically about this 9:39 p.m. communication. Later, the FAA would deny that such a communication ever took place. When researchers obtained videotape of the local television coverage of this event in the years afterward, all the references to the 9:39 p.m. communication had been edited out (although everything else was left in). So, it is entirely possible, in my view, for CNN, Fox News, CBS or any other media organ to later edit out comments that would strongly contradict the official version of events. For what it's worth, reading his email that you quoted indicates a possible less than stellar command of the English language. Perhaps this is another reason why Rodriguez might not have been able to make himself clearly understood at first. I don't want to belabor our differences on this whole 9/11 issue; I've made my feelings about that clear. I just mainly wanted to point out that questioning a man's credibility because of his alleged lack of a college degree (even if he exaggerated things there- and he may not have to- I have known Koreans who had PHDs from their country who worked in food service here), or because he "couldn't get a better job" than a janitor is really beneath you.