Don Jeffries

I can't agree with you that it was suspicious. I haven't actually read the Coroner's report but I do know it was ruled as a suicide. Perhaps a term we would use today is a murder / suicide? I'm unsure, but I have not read anything that suggested that his wife knew that this was going to happen. I'll see what I can find out on the circumstances. I know that some people claim that he was murdered by or on behalf of NASA or perhaps NAA. In that theory you'd have to ask why. His reports had already been presented to NASA and accepted as an exhibit before the House Sub-Committee, and he had already given testimony. Surely the damage had been done? Killing him would have simply drawn further attention to what he had said I'm not going to speculate as to him being murdered or not, but I think when you have an entire family die together like that, at the very least it's suspcious. If there was no evidence that he drugged his wife and child, or knocked them out, then they willingly died with him. I think that's totally bizarre, if not unprecedented. IMO, no, not really. The effort and technical challenge to fake the landings would have been as great - if not greater - than the landings themselves. The documentation, the science, the moon rocks... it all supports the verisimilitude of the Apollo programme. I can go into further detail on this if you like. That has been discussed extensively in this thread. The persons name is Bart Sibrel. I would certainly question whether the sound bite of the son is real or not; I would not put it past Mr Sibrel to 'create' material to help support his opinion. Mr Sibrel has stalked various astronauts, used false premises to gain interviews, made veiled threats to the astronauts families, claimed publicly available footage as being 'secret, unreleased' film, and IMO is generally not a very nice person. He lacks any credibility (IMO). His "fifteen minutes of fame" came when he lured Buzz Aldrin to a meeting at a hotel, claiming to be from a well-known Japanese educational network. When Buzz found out who it was, he turned and walked out, accompanied by his grand-daughter (? IIRC). Mr Sibrel, with his film crew, stalked him out of the building demanding that he swear on the Bible. Mr Sibrel then called him "...a coward, a xxxx, and a thief..." whereupon Buzz finally decided enough was enough and hit him. Mr Sibrel's actions would seem to have been directed towards this very response, because he immediately asked "Did you get that?". The footage of that incident can be seen here. Mr Sibrel tried to bring assault charges against Buzz, but the LA prosecutor decline to press charges saying that Buzz had been provoked by Mr Sibrel. (Edit: Removed reference to Mr Sibrel not showing astronauts who had sworn on the Bible) Thanks for refreshing my memory about his name. I did see the Aldrin footage, which is part of the video. Yes, you are correct- Sibrel was undoubtedly trying to provoke Aldrin and got what he was looking for. I don't really admire Sibrel's style or tactics, and frankly from what little I know of this issue, he could have concentrated on stronger indications of fakery than the window scene in the capsule. Also, trying to demand that each astronaut swear on the bible was tabloid-like and probably designed to capture the attention of young viewers with its sensationalism. I don't know that Sibrel did fake the audio with the astronaut's son, but it's certainly possible. You would have to acknowlege, however, that if the son actually said that, it provides fodder for some compelling speculation. I thought that the end of the video, which suddenly turns into some sort of attempted music video or something, where Sibrel is being chased by presumably some CIA agents, is a bit ridiculous and doesn't fit in with the rest of the video. All in all, I thought Sibrel did a pretty mediocre job with this subject, which was fascinating in nature (and that was what compelled me to watch it). You have to admire his courage, however, in confronting some powerful and still intimidating men with his charges of fraud. It reminded me of Stuttering John's interviews on the Howard Stern show.

John, The hospitals in the health care system I work for don't turn people away from the emergency room. This is true, curously enough, even for illegal immigrants, and is one of the many contentious issues in that debate. However, for non-emergencies like a knee replacement, you would have to be insured or somehow agree to pay for it yourself (which no one outside of the most wealthy citizens could ever hope to do). Cancer is something that would not be covered as an "emergency," and usually those without insurance would have to hope that Social Services or some other government agency would cover the expenses of treating them. I have heard varying estimates about the number of non-insured Americans. I believe that virtually all full-time workers have some form of health insurance. However, the problem is with those who are in the lowest paying jobs, like retail and the restaurant business. They often are given less than 40 hour work weeks, and thus do not qualify as full-time workers. Their insurance in those situations is weak and watered down, when they have it at all. The lowest paid workers in our society are often immigrants, many of them illegals, and they will often be uninsured. Since most private hospitals have a policy of treating any one who needs emergency services even if they don't have insurance, businesses know this and further exploit those immigrants (who are already being paid less than minimum wage in some cases) because they know that medical services will be there if they absolutely need it. It's a huge problem, because doctors make so much money under the present system, as do administrators and other health care executives, and thus they have no reason to want to see such dramatic changes. Nurses are paid very well, too, as are those with special skills like respiratory therapists, radiologists and orthopedic therapists. Factor in the absurd cost of precriptions, and you have a lot of powerful forces, who profit greatly from the present system, who would strongly resist any movement towards socialized medicine or any other kind of meaningful reform.

Vincent Salandria once wrote that he now believed that the plotters purposefully left obvious evidence of conspiracy in the record. Why would they do that? Well, maybe for nothing more than to amuse themselves. Certainly, they could have come up with a more believeable scenario than the single-bullet theory, and they obvously could have planted a bullet that was more damaged than CE399. Is this why the Warren Commission interviewed completely irrelevant witnesses like Viola Peterman, who hadn't seen Oswald since he was an infant? Is this why they included all those ridiculous exhibits in the record, which critics like Harold Weisberg, Mark Lane and Sylvia Meagher exposed so thoroughly? Is this why they didn't interview crucial witnesses like Admiral Burkley? Is this why they chose such an old, unreliable mannlicher carcano as the "official" murder weapon? Is this why they had the alleged assassin tied to anti-Castro groups, pro-Castro groups, the FBI and the CIA? Sophisticated and powerful people would not have conducted such a sloppy and transparent coverup. Personally, I think that those who misrule us just like to toy with us, and prove to themselves how stupid and gullible we are. For instance, a few years back, an obviously orchestrated media campaign to portray veteran hack Republican party Senator John McCain as a "maverick" and a "reformer" was instituted. When talking heads like Tim Russert say McCain's name, it is with a reverance reserved for few mortal figures. You couldn't find a politician in the Senate who was less maverick or reform-minded than McCain, who built his whole political career on being a POW, left his loyal first wife to marry a much younger beer heiress, and was a member of the Keating Five. I think that they picked him for his new role precisely because it was so obvious that he wasn't what they were claiming him to be, just as the conspirators who killed JFK have their apologists in the government and the media defending transparent lies and impossibilities. It could be their demented way of having fun.

I think you have to acknowledge that Baron's death was suspicious, to say the least. Husband and wife suicides are extremely rare, and I've never heard of a case where a child agreed to end his/her life as well in a family suicide. I'm an agnostic on the issue of whether or not the Apollo flights were a hoax. I certainly think that's it's possible they were. I would ask the debunkers here that question; do you believe it would be possible for moon flights to be faked? I'd also ask why they think that Gus Grissom's family believes he was murdered. There is an interesting video out there, called "Astronauts Gone Wild." This filmmaker (can't recall his name off the top of my head) went around and questioned a bunch of the Apollo astronauts, and his gimmick was to try and get them to swear on the bible that they had gone to the moon. The most interesting part, I thought, was the last astronaut he interviewed (sorry, don't remember his name). This guy kicked him (literally) out of his house and, not realizing the filmmaker had left his microphone on, his grown son was heard to say, "think I should call the CIA and have him whacked?" Seriously, that's exactly what the son said, and he talking only to his father, not trying to make the filmmaker paranoid. It was like something out of a bad movie script.

John, My sympathies to you and your wife. It must be a very difficult time for both of you. In America, we are often bombarded with propaganda about the socialized medical systems in Britain and Canada. The most frequent drawback in these socialized systems, we are told, is that patients have to "wait" for a very long time for procedures that don't require such a long wait in our wonderful capitalist medical system. Is there any truth to that? I work for a health care system, and the amount of money made by doctors, pharmaceutical companies and health care executives is unbelievable. Reforming such a powerful and entrenched bureaucracy is probably impossible at this point, much like it would be impossible for a true alternative form of energy to be permitted to eliminate the gigantic profits of the big oil companies.

Jack, As usual, you are not afraid to go against the grain. At least one other poster here is in your corner; imho, evolution is a complete fraud. The wonderful iconoclastic writer Charles Fort best summed up evolution in the following definition from his "The Book Of The Damned:" "The fittest survive. What is meant by the fittest? Not the strongest; not the cleverest-- Weakness and stupidity everywhere survive. There is no way of determining fitness except in that a thing does survive. "Fitness," then, is only another name for "survival." Darwinism: That survivors survive." (Damned, pp. 23-24) Most educated and successful people today respond to naysayers doubting the divinity of evolution in, ironically, much the same way that educated and successful people first reacted to the theory of evolution in the nineteenth century. Evolution is a totally incomplete theory, with a missing link that has never been found, but somehow doesn't matter. Modern science is as dogmatic and unyielding as organized religion; from time to time, we've all read reports of ancient batteries being discovered, or bullet holes found in the skulls of dinosaurs or cavemen, for instance. Science resolves these incongruities by ignoring them, which is what they've always done to data they can't explain. They also ignore the numerous accounts of phenomena like fish, blood, rocks, frogs and other nonsensical objects falling from the sky, which Fort documented in his writings. This is much the same way that organized religion first reacted to the discovery of dinosaur fossils. All the sciences, from medical science to astronomy, are dominated now by entrenched, dogmatic true believers, who will not brook any dissent and are just the kinds of people who persecuted Gallileo and Coopernicus. I would urge everyone here who is interested in this subject matter, or who just wants to read a superbly original, extremely witty writer, to go to their local library and check out "The Books of Charles Fort." At the very least, you will be entertained.

Peter, The Secret Service is key here. Without their complete lack of response that day, the assassination would not have happened. Period. I think that many present day researchers are reluctant the call the conspiracy what it was; a gigantic plot by some of the most powerful people in America to murder a sitting U.S. president. I guess the logic is that if we scale down the number of persons involved, or even the power of the forces they represented, then the conspiracy is somehow made more acceptable to those who regularly decry "conspiracy theories." It would take a very large conspiracy indeed to cause the mainstream media to still lie about it over 40 years later. Imho, Oliver Stone portrayed the conspiracy as it probably was in "JFK."

How can anyone take seriously a theory that has a group of conspirators assassinating a president because he is insufficiently anti-Castro, when he has okayed the future overthrow of Castro within days of his assassination? What, they couldn't wait nine days? Then, of course, the most ridiculous aspect of this theory; they followed up the assassination of JFK by doing nothing about Castro. The whole Cuban connection to the assassination is, imho, just another smokescreen to divert attention away from the very real, powerful forces who conspired to kill JFK.

The JFK assassination was the seminal event of my generation (the "Baby Boomers" who are now ruling, or misruling the world). A political crime of such magnitude, that is inadequately explained, will have ramifications forever afterwards. Certainly there were high crimes and conspiracies prior to November 22, 1963, and there have obviously been many since then, but that day in Dallas effected the American people, and their political system, like no other in modern times. Every election since then has been tainted by what happened in Dealey Plaza. Like a complicated math formula, where an early part of the equation is wrong, and thus the final answer can never be correct, the much needed reforms to our political system will never come until an honest accounting of what really happened to John F. Kennedy is conducted.

Correct. What you and Ashton Gray don't get is that the Kennedy assassination was a failure. The express purpose of the assassination was to pin the crime on Castro and establish a pre-text for an invasion of Cuba. Okay, I'm really missing something here. The latest theory has it that JFK had authorized a coup attempt against Castro for December 1, 1963. If they already had JFK's approval, why did they assassinate him? I understand that this may not be your belief, so forgive me if it's not. Oswald's capture deprived the plotters of the "irrevocable evidence" required to justify the invasion to the world. Other than Oswald's rather tenuous ties to communism, much of which was supplied by the suspect testimony of people like Kerry Thornley and George DeMohrenschildt, and that centered on his defection to Russia, not Cuba, what "irrevocable evidence" was there to tie the assassination to Castro? The "Fair Play For Cuba" pamphlets? And what did Oswald's death do to change anything? According to your theory, they were already planning to knock him off right after the assassination, but failed. So, they had to wait an extra two days, but were able to kill him then. Are you saying they canceled the overthrow attempt of Castro, which was the purpose of assassinating the president of the United States, because their patsy-already guilty in the eyes of the vast majority of Americans just by virtue of being arrested as the "alleged" assassin-was claiming he was innocent during his brief snippets of conversation in the halls of the police station? Unless I missed something, he never mentioned anything about a coup attempt of Castro, so what reason did they have to cancel it once they'd succeeded in silencing him via Jack Ruby? Tell that to the tens of thousands of Vietnamese slaughtered in Operation Phoenix.Tell that to Bobby Kennedy. Tell that to Salvador Allende. Tell it to all those heroin junkies and crack heads hooked on the product those "hard liners" helped import all those years. I think you made my point for me. Vietnam was the main motive behind the assassination. Allende was just another victim of the CIA. Don't know what his connection to Cuba would be. I guess I should have used another phrase instead of "vanished." Many of these fellows- people like Richard Helms and Angleton- continued on in their nefarious ways. Certainly many of the names associated with the JFK assassination were involved in Operation Phoenix, the assassination of RFK and the overthrow of Allende. However, they certainly seem to have given up on any idea of toppling Castro after JFK was assassinated. The plotters blew it -- Johnson didn't. They couldn't hold LBJ responsible for the failure to kill Oswald 11/22/63, could they? Again, I don't understand how the failure to kill Oswald on November 22, instead of November 24, would have stopped any plans to overthrow Castro. Killing JFK was a winner-take-all proposition, the success of which depended on Oswald's quick demise. They failed. And thus their dreams of invading Cuba died Firday afternoon when Oswald was captured. If the sole intent was to merely end JFK's life, there were many ways to do it quietly. The manner of JFK's execution speaks to its purpose. There was apparently no purpose to his death, according to this theory, because the conspirators gained nothing from it. You assume that the plotters were only anti-Castro Cubans?It wasn't a "rogue operation" -- you didn't get that idea from me. Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you invented the term "rogue elements." It's been a popular phrase amongst JFK assassination researchers for a long time. Sigh. I never said anything about "rogue elements." I'll argue that the origin of the plot was "rogue" in the sense that the operatives came up with the idea, which was then pitched to their betters, instead of the other way around. Wrong. The assassins didn't mange the cover-up.The plot was designed to look like a conspiracy. Oswald-as-lone-nut was a contingency plan. Johnson and Hoover had foreknolwedge that the assassination was going to occur -- they signed off on it. But they weren't the driving force behind the assassination -- they were the driving force behind the cover-up. Not the same operation. I understand this theory about the coverup being seperate from the conspiracy, which is popular among many researchers now. However, it makes little sense to me. The mainstream media has always been an essential part of the coverup; why would they do this, only to protect a group of hard-line anti-Castro operatives? The New York Times, The Washington Post and the major television networks were never overtly unfriendly in their coverage of Castro. They'd have absolutely no motive to lie repeatedly-which is what they have done for over 40 years now- about the assassination of JFK, if the only ones benefiting from it were anti-Castro zealots and their backers in the CIA. I hope you don't really mean that. Forums like this are for discussing divergent points of view. But, you're free to respond to whomever you want.

I agree with Ashton Gray's assessment that "Cuba" was not the motive behind the assassination of JFK. For all intents and purposes, Cuba died as an American political issue along with JFK. Not only was there no invasion of Cuba afterwards, the "hard-liners" who supposedly were so offended by our Cuban policy that they conspired to murder a sitting U.S. president, virtually vanished into the dark corners of our society, never to be heard from again. If Kennedy infuriated them, why weren't they incensed at Johnson, who did absolutely nothing to overthrow Castro? How about Nixon, who would have really been in their camp in regards to toppling the Castro regime? He did nothing as well. Those "rogue" elements stayed around for quite some time in the CIA; did they somehow lose their power after murdering JFK? While being powerless to actually overthrow Castro, after killing JFK, they somehow managed to orchestrate a coverup that has been so effective it is still in effect over 40 years later. A coverup so effective that Peter Jennings-certainly no friend of anti-Castro forces-was compelled to lie his sorry butt off on a ridiculous, anti-conspiracy ABC 40th anniversary special. But then again, there are others who claim that JFK had agreed to an overthrow attempt of Castro on December 1, 1963, but was assassinated anyway by the same "rogue" elements for being insufficiently anti-Castro. Hmm. To say this makes no sense is an understatement, especially when those "rogue" forces were compelled to kill JFK for not being hard enough on Castro (when he had supposedly agreed to a coup against him in little over a week from then), yet not motivated enough to then carry out the coup against Castro themselves. Imho, the many good researchers who continue to focus on "Cuba" and "anti-Castro forces," and the "Castro/Mob connection" to the JFK assassination, are looking at a smokescreen designed by the real conspirators to divert attention away from the primary motive for the assassination- which was our burgeoning war in Vietnam. We should be looking at the conspirators at the ground level, like Secret Service agents Emory Roberts, William Greer and Roy Kellerman. We can speculate about the motives of Angleton, Dulles, Helms, etc., all we want, but we have clear and obvious proof that Greer and Kellerman failed miserably on November 22, 1963, and were never punished for their complete lack of response, nor even questioned about the subject. As for Roberts, we have video proof that he called off an agent scheduled to run alongside the motorcade (Henry Rybka) and testimony that he called back agent Ready when he attempted to run towards the presidential limousine. They are all very suspect and should have been questioned rigorously by those "investigating" the assassination. We also know that presidential aide McGeorge Bundy told JFK's cabinet members, on the afternoon of the assassination, that there was "no conspiracy" and that the lone assassin had been apprehended. Bundy told them this from his position in Washington, D.C., only a few hours after Oswald was arrested, and when little about him was known (not to mention before any true investigation of the crime had been conducted). Bundy should have been confronted about this very suspicious behavior. Keep up the good work, Ashton. Your posts are thought prokoving and entertaining.

America's incompetent and corrupt leaders continue to amaze me. In the face of a disaster that threatens to dwarf even our Vietnam fiasco, Bush & co. now want to extend the carnage into yet another country that has done absolutely nothing to us. My sister lived in Iran for nearly 20 years, and she just shakes her head at the notion that this third-world nation is some kind of a threat to Israel, let alone the U.S. We are creating new terrorists every day, and causing more and more of the Arab world to despise us. What's truly sad is that our leaders don't seem to care about that. They'd rather wave the flag and jabber on about how they all "hate our freedom." Yet here at home we are constantly warned to "support our troops," even by the alleged anti-war activists. Support the homo-psycho torture in Abu Grahib? Support the killing of untold numbers of innocent Iraqi civilians? Support the show trial and extremely quick hanging of the former leader of Iraq, who appears to have served his people much more benevolently than we have, in our misrule there? Imho, Islamic followers all over the world have every reason to think we are indeed "the Great Satan." How dare we lecture others about having "weapons of mass destruction," when we have more than all the other nations combined? How dare we lecture "rogue" nations about using nuclear weapons when we are still the only nation to ever use them against others? There is little hope for change in our ridiculous "two party system" here, which is in reality two identical branches of the same rotten tree. Neither of the "leading" democrats (said to be "front runners" when no votes have been cast), Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, oppose the war or its odious offspring the Patriot Act. The American people's passion for war also helps our leaders continue these mad forays into the affairs of other nations. It's truly a bleak situation here in the land of the free.

Len, You refer to "non-authoritative sources," which is the usual way that non-governmental or non- mainstream media sources are referred to. Most of us "conspiracy theorists" believe that very powerful forces were behind the events of 9/11. Thus, we are not likely to trust any source that the establishment has decreed is "authoritative." I realize this puts the conspiracy theorist in the advantageous position of being able to deflect the views of various "experts" by claiming it's just another part of the coverup. You touch on this when you note that I'd likely not trust the results of a congressional investigation. You're probably right; while calling for a congressional investigation, most of us would be resigned to the fact that such an investigation would probably just rubber stamp the official version of events. I remember how disappointed I was in the House Assassinations Committee all those years ago. The Senate Select Committe on POW-MIAs was similarly disallusioning. On this side, we'll have to debate the issue as best we can with the sources we have. At least we can agree on the fact that our president is an idiot.

The 9/11 debate, like so many other issues, is determined in large measure by the faith of those who are debating. In the case of those who defend the government's official story of what happened, this faith is grounded in establishment bulwarks like the 9/11 Commission, the journalists at Popular Mechanics and other mainstream media debunkers, scientists cited as experts by the government, etc. In the case of conspiracy theorists like myself, we are predisposed to distrust those same establishment forces, and thus will usually place more credence in alternative sources like the internet. I freely admit to being predisposed towards conspiracy theories. What is just as obvious, however, is that those who passionately try to debunk these theories are just as predisposed to disbelieve them. It becomes a case of "I'll ignore your evidence, and you'll igonre mine." The case of WTC building 7 is critical here, I can't see how any large hole in the side of that building could make it collapse. The whole collapse theory is based on jet fuel melting the steel beams; there was no jet fuel in WTC 7, so why did it collapse? I'm sure you'll claim he was taken out of context, but the owner of the building was recorded as saying "we had to pull it," apparently meaning demolish it, in reference to WTC 7. I only heard the one interview with William Rodriguez (thank you for coming up with his name), and he certainly never mentioned those other interviews. If he never mentioned the explosion or the fact he rescued others, then his credibility is certainly greatly diminished. I'll have to research that more. As for the failure of our defense system to react to what an attack on our infrastructure, as an American, I am outraged by that alone. I don't know how many of you here are Americans, but for those that aren't, we boast early and often in our country about the incredible national security system we have, which is of course centered in the Pentagon. Really, it is just as unbelievable to me as the magic bullet theory to accept that this well guarded command center could stand idly by while a rogue plane was flying overhead for some 30 minutes or more. If that's the best they can do with my tax money, then I want a refund! We need to have an independent investigation of what happened that day; the 9/11 Commission, like the Warren Commission, was a whitewash designed, in its own words, "not to point fingers or assign blame." A real independent investigation would call all those witnesses-government officials and conspiracy theorists alike-and try to determine what really happened. Are any of the supposed hijackers really alive? That definitely needs to be answered, because if even one is, that alone destroys the muslims-gone-wild theory of 9/11. President Bush should be questioned about his curious actions on September 11, 2001. How did he learn about the planes flying into the WTC? Why did he continue to calmly read the goat story to the children? On 9/11, over 3000 Americans lost their lives. To date, the only "investigation" into why they lost their lives was conducted by the woefully inadequate, toothless 9/11 Commission. We deserve anwers, not riducule. If all these "theories" are "wacko," or just plain wrong, that could be easily demonstrated by an independent investigation. A bipartisan congressional committee would hopefully do a better job of ferreting out the truth than the 9/11 Commission. The strongest voice in Congress for such an investigation was Cynthia McKinney, but she was defeated in the November elections. Right now it looks like the debate will continue to be ignored by television networks and largely confined to internet forums.

"Loose Change" is more credible than the official account of what happened on 9/11, no matter how many alleged "mistakes" are in it. What is undeniable is the fact that our state-of-the-art defense system stood silent and didn't react at all for over an hour while hijacked planes were flying into the WTC and even directly over Washington, D.C. If our defense system isn't triggered to react when a known hijacked plane is flying directly towards the Pentagon-the heart of the our defense system-then the taxpayers certainly have a right to demand an accounting of where the trillions they've spent on all those magnificant missiles and fighter planes went. Remember, just a few years prior to 9/11, the plane that professional golfer Payne Stewart was flying in didn't respond to radio communication. Within 15 minutes, two fighter planes were riding abreast of Stewart's plane, to ensure it didn't crash in a populated area. If NORAD is designed to respond like that to a single plane that is not responding to radio communication, how can anyone believe they didn't respond at all on 9/11, especially after the second plane hit the WTC? This is a complex issue, much like the JFK assassination. Instead of discrediting people who are trying their best to bring out issues the mainstream press will never touch, we ought to focus on questions like; why did WTC building 7 collapse? Nothing hit it- so the jet fuel argument won't fly. Before 9/11, no high-rise building in the world had ever collapsed from fire. None have since. On 9/11, three did, and one of them was not hit by any plane. There are so many aspects of this case to investigate. For instance, there are witnesses who were in the basement of the World Trade Center North, who experienced what to them was an explosion IN THE BASEMENT at the time the first plane struck. The walls crumbled, there was a loss of power, and they were lucky to get out of there alive. One of them (sorry, would have to look up the name, but I believe he was hispanic) became a hero when he rescued several people from the crumbling basement, and was even interviewed locally in the immediate aftermath and lauded for his bravery. He later appeared on a radio show (probably Alex Jones or Black Ops- don't imagine anyone else would interview him) and expressed surprise at being ignored completely after that. Of course, the media had to ignore him, because even they couldn't explain how a plane hitting a building 80 stories above could cause significant damage to the basement. I don't see how anyone who has studied the JFK assassination, with all the lies, distortions and the massive coverup (which is still ongoing) can not see the parallels in the 9/11 "investigation." Those who conspired to murder JFK didn't suddenly become evil in November, 1963, and then suddenly go back to being good and non-conspiratorial afterwards. Those who rule us are seemingly always conspiring against us, to maintain their hold on power.

Gil, Good to see a name from the past. I hope you will start posting regularly again- I respect your views a great deal. Vincent Bugliosi is a truly odd character. His book on the O.J. case was really excellent, imho, but was marred by a final chapter devoted exclusively to his dogmatic atheism, which really had no connection at all to the book he was writing. To those who haven't read it, you should do so. It provides some insight into the workings of his mind. Bugliosi was once the darling of RFK assassination critics. He conducted some solid research into the RFK case during the '70s, and many of us were rooting for him to win his race as California Attorney General, as he'd promised to reopen the RFK investigation if elected. He didn't win that election, and drifted away from RFK assassination research. He next appeared as the "prosecutor" in Showtime's "The Trial Of Lee Harvey Oswald" in the late '80s, revealing himself to be a hard-line LNer. I don't really know what to make of this complex man, but agree completely with you that his book is certain to be worthless, seeing as how he is trying to defend an impossiblity. I also won't be buying it.

It is my opinion that Ted is not speaking out because of death threats against members of the Kennedy family. What do you think of the death of John Kennedy Jr? It's just pure evil against that family. I think Ted has done a great job for his constituents and the United States as Senator all these years. Kathy ____________________________ "What do you think of the death of John Kennedy Jr? It's just pure evil against that family." Hi Kathy. I agree with your premises. I would like to ask for any references, other than what has been provided on this thread so far, you can list regarding the JFK Jr. death in terms of links, articles, etc. I'm quite interested and I am sure others here would be, also. Kudos to Myra. Most have forgotten the airplane crash in Western Massachusetts in 1964 - less than a year after the JFK assassination - in which Ted nearly was killed. The pilot and one of Kennedy's aides were killed. Thank you. JohnG John, I've been independently looking into the JFK, Jr. death for the past few years. There isn't much out there on the internet (and nothing in any of the establishment press). You can find the stuff that is there by googling Newshawk, John Quinn, John DiNardo and Anthony Hilder, and at least some of the articles they wrote at the time of his death and in the immediate aftermath should still be out there. BTW, I emailed a couple of the local reporters from a t.v. station in New England (sorry, don't have the call letters in front of me) last year, and one of them actually brought up the fact that he'd always suspected something was "wrong" with the official story of JFK, Jr's plane crash. I emailed him some followup questions, and when he never replied, tried again last month, but he seems to be ignoring me now. The other reporter, who anchored their coverage, sent me a long reply which totally supported the official story.

My interest in this subject is personal. My now 17 year old son was diagnosed with a "nonspecific learning disability" during preschool, which was eventually classified as an extremely minor autism or aspergers's syndrome when he entered middle school. We still don't know exactly what kind of learning disability he has, but he just doesn't "get" much of the information he should. From the viewpoint of a parent, this is an extremely frustrating thing to deal with. We are always uncertain just how much better our son could do in school (and socially), as opposed to how much is related to his uncertain disorder that he is powerless to combat. At any rate, here in the United States, especially in the very wealthy county we live in, support for special needs students is quite strong. The issue of inclusion is a complex one, with no easy answers. I can certainly understand how frustrating it must be to the students who don't have any comprehension or learning problems, to deal with their peers who have severe or even relatively minor limitations. It definitely impacts on their ability to learn at a sufficient pace, and imho has fueled the growth of the "gifted and talented" programs, whereby very bright children are steered, at an early age, into classes where learning is accelerated and more challenging, and no special needs students can distract them. There are students in our county schools with downs syndrome and other serious disabilities, who almost certainly cannot follow a normal curriculum. However, as the parent of a child who has very minor limitations, and can easily follow a normal curriculum with reasonable accomodations, I understand parental opposition to placing their child into a "special" school and the pain of seeing them driven away in the "short bus" away from the school the other neighborhood children attend. BTW, here in the States, jokes about the "short bus" and the gratuitous use of the word "retard" are all the rage. It offends me deeply to hear middle-aged adults call someone "retarded." One of daughter's teachers even used the word in her class! Anyhow, I hope I'm not intruding on this discussion, because my only expertise in this area comes from the personal experiences I've had dealing with my son and the schools. I'm new here, and am very impressed by the range of topics at the Education Forum. If anyone would like me to share some of my personal experiences with special needs teachers, or the social issues that arise with a child who is "different," I'd be happy to do so.

John, Sorry for such a late reply to this post, but I've just re-registered and am trying to get caught up. I read Patricia Cornwell's book "Portrait Of A Killer" a while back and was thoroughly unimpressed by it. I will admit that my opinion is perhaps tainted by my personal impressions of the writer. In her televised remarks on a special about her upcoming book, and in the tone of the book itself, there is an unmistakable arrogance that really turns me off. Cornwell has a cock-sure attitude about her theory that is not in accord with the "facts" she has uncovered to back it up. In the first place, she should have rightfully credited Stephen Knight with connecting Walter Sickert to the Ripper murders, in his "Jack The Ripper: The Final Solution." She never mentions his name, and leaves the reader with the impression she has unearthed Sickert and his supposed significance from her own arduous research. Secondly, the "evidence" for Sickert being the Ripper is far less persuasive, to me at least, than the theory Knight wove about Sir William Gull and company murdering the prostitutes in a complicated freemasonic conspiracy. There is virtually no real data to support her assessment that Sickert suffered a sexually debilitating injury during childhood surgery, fueling his rage and eventually culminating in his maniacal desire to murder poverty stricken prostitutes. I admit to being somewhat smitten with the idea that the Royal family was somehow involved in the Ripper slayings. Imho, this is the only thing that adequately explains the botched investigation and the century long coverup that followed. Why cover up anything about the murder of prostitutes in the East End of London, unless someone or something important was connected to them? But then again, I acknowledge that I do believe in a lot of conspiracies...

I wrote the above comments about Marina and her lack of credibility. I think we should realize just how much of the official "legend" about Lee Harvey Oswald came from Marina. When she converted to a pro-conspiracy position in the mid-1980s, she did so without letting go of nonsense like the Walker shooting and the backyard photos, among other things. While she was certainly bullied into telling the authorities what they wanted to hear back in 1963/1964, she has nothing to fear now by telling the truth. I don't think she can be charged with perjury for her testimony before the Warren Commission, especially if she explained that it was coerced out of fear for her family's safety. I don't believe that she has ever been critically questioned about her relationship with Ruth Paine or the White Russian community in Dallas (especially DeMohrenschildt), or the obvious holes in her Warren Commission testimony. Has anyone ever shown her studies of the backyard photos, by Jack White and others, that reveal them to be rather obvious composites? I would love to talk to Marina, but I don't suspect she'd enjoy the questions I'd ask her. I think she holds some of the answers to the enigma that was Lee Harvey Oswald. Warehouse stock boys aren't befriended by worldly, aristocratic types like George DeMohrenschildt, and Marina had to have known that something was not natural about their close friendship. But then again, she should have questioned why her husband, who was cultured and intelligent enough to speak Russian fluently, was only able to get minimum wage-type jobs. At the very least, couldn't DeMohrenschildt have used his considerable influence to get his young friend a position more fitting for someone with his background and intelligence? There are all questions that arise naturally in my mind, when I think of Marina. I think we do history a disservice when we give her a free pass, refuse to question her critically and dismiss all the ridiculous things she told the Warren Commission.

Myra, I agree that this theory makes absolutely no sense, but the whole anti-Castro/mob thing never made sense to me, either. I think it's just another smokescreen. Why would anti-Castro forces assassinate someone who was planning on killing the object of their disdain (Castro)? So, the premise is that JFK was planning on having Castro killed on December 1, 1963? If the reason behind the conspiracy to kill JFK was the fact he was insufficiently anti-Castro, how come those who eliminated JFK didn't go on to eliminate Castro, on December 1, 1963 or anytime since then? Cuba as an issue effectively died with JFK, so if the motivation for assassinating him was to overthrow Castro, the plot certainly wasn't successful.

I've been researching the JFK assassination since the mid-1970s, when I was a student volunteer with Mark Lane's group The Citizens Commission of Inquiry. I corresponded with and met legendary critic Harold Weisberg (dinner at his home was a very memorable evening for me), and wrote a front page article for Penn Jones' "The Continuing Inquiry" in 1984. I believe research should focus on the inactions of the Secret Service and think that the Cuban/Mafia connection is a smokescreen designed to take our attention away from the clear governmental involvement in this case.

John, I was a young child when JFK was assassinated, but I remember clearly that nearly everyone in our large Catholic family suspected that LBJ was involved. His demeanor that day and evening, even the speech he gave at the airport, was just unconvincing. He really seemed to be acting, and not very well at that. We've all seen the infamous photo of LBJ turning around just after being sworn in on Air Force One with the corner of his mouth curled up in what appears to be a grin as Rep. Albert Thomas clearly winks at him. Lady Bird also seems pretty happy in this photo, standing next to LBJ. Many of those who worked for JFK were offended by LBJ's behavior after the assassination. The feud with RFK really went into overdrive on November 22, 1963. RFK became incensed when he was told the reason why LBJ wanted to be sworn in on Air Force One before leaving Dallas. LBJ claimed that Bobby insisted on this, during a phone conversation just after the assassination. RFK told aides that this was a lie, he had said no such thing. If you read "Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye," written by JFK aides Kenny O'Donnell and Dave Powers, you can sense a definite anti-LBJ bias and some only slightly veiled criticism of his actions on the day of the assassination. Penn Jones reported that JFK's secretary Evelyn Lincoln had been offended by the behavior of the entire Johnson contingent, and she supposedly told him that "Liz Carpenter and the others were really whooping it up" during the plane ride back to Washington. At any rate, we should all feel sorry for Jackie, who was forced to come out and witness the swearing-in by LBJ himself, in what truly looked like an act of cruelty. RFK also spoke on the record (in tapes released later and broadcast on the History Channel) about the distaste he felt at the way LBJ had JFK's possessions moved out the White House so quickly after the assassination. O'Donnell and Powers, and Lincoln as well, were also highly offended by this insensitive act. I don't think that LBJ was the mastermind behind the assassination, but I have little doubt that he knew about it in advance and approved of it.

I think you must be talking about Elizabeth Stride. Conventional wisdom has had it that the Ripper was interrupted just after he'd begun his grisly work, and thus didn't finish the job according to his usual standards. This murder was the only one with a reliable witness who reported seeing the victim in a suspicious interaction with someone (in this case, a physical altercation with two men) just prior to being killed. Of course, the fact that the witness reported seeing two men together has led some to speculate that this is evidence of more than one person being involved in the murders. Who knows? Thanks for posting all this good stuff.

I do feel that there was some kind of Royal involvement in the Ripper murders, though I am unsure about the exact nature of that involvement. I think that either the Duke of Clarence (Prince Eddy) himself may have been the Ripper (as postulated in "Prince Jack"), or he may have been connected via his tutor James Stephen, who was a strange and interestting character (his poetry was laced with really obscene and violent passages about females). I tend more towards the Stephen Knight thesis, however, which theorized that Freemasonry played a hand in the killings, and maintained there were a trio of killers, with Royal surgeon Sir William Gull the actual murderer. "Jack The Ripper:The Final Solution" is still my favorite work on the subject, although I know that most Ripperologists don't share my view, and have tended to dismiss any allegations about the Royal family. Of course, that only tends to make naturally suspicious guys like me believe it a little more strongly.