Phil Nelson

. . . . . . . . . .

From the perspective of a JFK Assassination researcher, I don't know Terri Price, but just from reading these records, she's now a hero of mine.

And I want to know more, especially what became of her after she wasrailroaded by the military brass for doing her job?

She should get a medal for what she did.

From a review of the documents, it is clear that Pike was removed from her post, reprimanded, demoted, and wrongly disciplined under trumped up charges. Her career was effectively ended because she took the initiative to retrieve and catalogue ONI records pursuant to the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Act.

Another researcher who read the documents independently concluded, "She was disciplined and (probably) kicked out of the Navy solely because she traveled to ONI document storage holding locations and retrieved records, rather thanjust rely on records at her location in DC. She seems to be a genuine American hero, trying to do the right thing and getting guillotined for it. This is a shocking case that exhibits the level of abuse that can occur in ONI when that office wants to stonewall and hide records. It is also instructive to see the massive quantities of records that were destroyed prematurely and improperly, according to the records."

David Lifton wrote:

This whole situation is outrageous.

First of all, these records (which Terri Pike was apparently on the brink of locating/retrieving), ought to be located and made part of the JFKCollection.

Second: Terri Pike ought to be given all manner of legal help to rectify the situation, restore her honor, etc.

I think the people who railroaded her on these obviously trumped up charges should be exposed.

Her story deserves the widest possible publicity.

I am simply astounded that anyone would flout the spirit, much less the actual provisions, of the JFK Records Act in this manner.

DSL

-----------------------------------------------------

I agree with both Bill and David regarding this travesty. It really does need to be publicized because it proves to the "Doubting Thomas's. . . et. al." out there (if any more evidence was needed) that the cover-up actively continued through the end of the the 19th Century, and, by extension since nothing has really changed, is still on-going nearly one half a century after JFK's murder. That it took two years to even begin responding to the ARRB, and then having the plug pulled for such specious reasons once someone noticed how effectively LCDR Pike was working, should prove to one and all that there are still orders out there to protect certain secrets irrespective of any laws passed by Congress. It evokes the words of James J. Angleton, that "it is inconceivable to me that a secret intelligence arm of the government has to comply with all the overt orders of the government."

Which is to say, "some of us really are above the law. . .deal with it". Evidently, that quote still represents the views of many people within the intelligence agencies at least and probably many more than we could even imagine (e.g. the inaptly named "Justice Department" and such agencies as the FBI and Secret Service, as thoroughly documented in many other cases not dissimilar to this one involving LCDR Pike.

Have you considered pursuing this with any empathetic congressmen/women or senators (assuming there are any left)? Perhaps if someone consolidated this one with some other "unresolved issues" -- e.g. Jefferson Morley's continuing FOIA request for info on Joannides and the wanton destruction of pertinent Secret Service files described by Doug Horne -- it could force a lot of unwanted attention to the actions of government officials. Maybe even someone in the media who might show some continued interest: Paradoxically, the only one I can think of right off is Bill O'Reilly, who seemed to show a lot of interest in this a decade or two ago. But it might be worth a shot.

I'll anxiously await more info from you on this as you get the opportunity.

Phil Nelson

* A few citations from Judyth Baker's book were also added, to "fill-in" certain (otherwise mysterious) parts of Oswald's journeys, such as the Clinton LA trip and his journey through Texas and appearances in San Antonio and at Sylvia Odio's home, on his way to Mexico.

I am not sure that was a good idea.

John, I concede your point. And I struggled with it awhile but felt ultimately that she made a very persuasive case in "Me and Lee" which made me a believer, irrespective of whatever changes have been made in her story over the years. She had ample reason to fear becoming involved in disclosing her story for at least the first three decades, and I know I would have some difficulty in writing about the details of what I had done that long ago, so I gave her some latitude with respect to previous inconsistencies. I was impressed by all the old photos too I guess, even though it sure would have helped to have one with her beside Lee somewhere there. Regardless, those citations are not really critical to my book and I believe the details she has provided in each case make sense; I have also couched citations to her book thusly: "Judyth Vary Baker, who persuasively claims to have been Oswald's lover during the summer of 1963 in New Orleans, stated . . . " I felt that this avoided a grant of 100% credibility to her story, considering that it is highly controversial, yet allowed me to include some more details of those specific areas, both of which have appeared to be a big void in any other accounts, including the WCR.

Again, as I stated in the last edition as well as the new one, as I take away Johnson's cloak of "the benefit of the doubt" that has been liberally given to him for over five decades, I extend to all of the witnesses who have been subjected to ridicule and abuse (you know all the names, like Jean Hill, Roger Craig, et.al. ad infinitum) a bit more credibility just to even the scales.

Time will tell whose stories will eventually be vindicated. I believe mine (the overarching one) will eventually be, regardless of these two citations.

Announcing the Second Edition of "LBJ: The Mastermind of JFK's Assassination"

The first edition was withdrawn from the new book market, as of May 15, 2011. The manuscript for the book has been professionally re-edited and substantially revised and updated with new material which makes the case against Johnson even more compelling than was true of the earlier edition. Despite all the new material, some of it noted below, the overall size of the book has been reduced by about 10%; it is a much "easier read" than the first edition, much more focused as a result of the deletion of the extraneous material.

The following summary explains some of the more significant revisions:

* The Preface and Introduction were combined and reduced in size and the Epilogue cut substantially. The material on Viet Nam, the essays on how Johnson treated his subordinates, the stuff about "gift giving" and Doris Kearns and so forth have been eliminated.

* The new material will include a piece on newspaper reporter Connie Kritzberg, whose lead story in the Dallas Herald Tribune the day of the assassination was pre-empted by the FBI within hours and changed without her permission;

* A piece was added on the disappearance of Madeleine Brown's son's nanny, Dale Turner, who had the misfortune of witnessing the intimacy of LBJ and Madeleine;

* The "shot sequence" has been completely revised and expanded into a more comprehensive description, with the help of Jim Fetzer, and based upon a consensus of several other authors who have studied this very extensively: at least eight shots, possibly ten or more altogether were part of the "flurry" of shots into the limo;

* The presence of many CIA operatives in Dallas that day is detailed.

* More references to material from Richard Goodwin's book "Remembering America," which helps to document Johnson's mental condition after he became president, were added.

* A few citations from Judyth Baker's book were also added, to "fill-in" certain (otherwise mysterious) parts of Oswald's journeys, such as the Clinton LA trip and his journey through Texas and appearances in San Antonio and at Sylvia Odio's home, on his way to Mexico.

The new website for the book is here: http://www.lbjmastermind.com/

The new edition of the book will be introduced in November, 2011 by the new publisher, Skyhorse Publications. The book is available for pre-orders at Amazon at this listing:

amazon.com/LBJ-Mastermind-Assassination-Phillip-Nelson/dp/1616083778

Hi Martin,

I won't speak for anyone else, but I believe Abe Bolden is one of the most important and reliable witnesses in the assassination,

I don't know whether it is true about agents saying that if an assassination attempt came up they would allow it to happen, but it is an undeniable fact that JFK was indeed assassinated, and the Secret Service, responsible for protecting him, allowed it to happen, and a micro-analysis of how it came about tells us how and why that happened.

Bolden was the first black SS agent on the Presidential detail, at the President's request, and when reassigned to Chicago, provided details of the conspiracy to assassinate JFK there in early November, 1963, details later confirmed by release of records under the JFK Act and testimony of other agents who were at the time.

Those who claim the Chicago plot and what happened in Dallas are connected can refer to Bolden's records and reports and later testimony, and other records that independently support this contention.

If there are four people in the room when something is discussed, then there should be three other former agents to confirm or refute this statement, but since there has never been any Congressional Oversight of the JFK Act, nobody has been bothered to testify under oath about these things, so they'll be happy if the official record remains cloudy.

I consider Abe Bolden a genuine American hero, early Whistleblower and victim of the same organizational administrators who killed JFK, and my God Bless him.

Bill Kelly

JFKCountercoup.blogsplot.com

Abraham Bolden was the first black Secret Service agent on the White House detail.

In this trailer for Mark Lane's new film, Bolden says that he heard a group of four agents discussing that if an assassination attempt was made, they would let it happen.

This seems an incredible claim to make. I have never heard this before.

Now, Bolden was convicted of accepting a bribe and served six years in prison. There is a possibility that he was set up because he was trying to tell the WC about an assassination plot and misconduct of his colleagues in Chicago three weeks before the Dallas trip.

How is Bolden perceived by the research community?

I couldn't agree with that more, Bill Kelly.

I would take it a step further, to say that I predict that one hundred years from now, Abraham Bolden's name will be one of the most prominent heros of this whole sorry episode. I just hope that there is a "life hereafter" that will put him on that pinnacle of courageous (ie. "real") American heroes who were subject to horrors worse than Rosemary Parks and all the others endured, who had to put their lives on the line for a semblance of justice. In Mr. Bolden's case, it caused him to have to serve time in prison for a fabricated "crime" which he had nothing to do with. He had the balls to stay true to his principles and confront those who were charged with "lynching" him, and he did it with panache and dignity. In my book, he is amongst the first tier of patriots. I hope to see that kind of recognition of his legacy within my lifetime; but it will probably occur after that unfortunate moment. Regardless, I commit here and now to see that his name lives on in perpetuity as one of America's greatest citizens.

I did a search, but did not find a dedicated thread on Robert Vinson. Why, I do not know, as he makes the case for CIA involvement like no other.

"In a colossal CIA blunder, Robert Vinson's providential presence on the second Oswald's flight from Dallas has enabled us to see the planning for the Oak Cliff follow-up to the assassination."

JFK and the UNSPEAKABLE Washington and Dallas

On November 22, 1963, U. S. Air Force sergeant Robert G. Vinson of the North American Defense Command ( NORAD) saw the second Oswald escaping on the same C-54 cargo plane he was hitching a ride home on. Vinson also got off the plane at the same CIA base as Oswald's double did, a few minutes after him.

On November 23, 1993, Robert Vinson told the story of his flight from Dallas to news anchor Larry Hatteberg on Wichita's KAKE-TV Channel 10 News.

In 2003 James Johnston and journalist Jon Roe co-authored their book FLIGHT FROM DALLAS, describing Robert Vinson's experience in detail.

Peter,

I haven't seen that tape, or read his story in a couple of years, but my impression is that the reason Vinson's story is not the "slam dunk" that you believe it should be was due to three questions:

1. That he waited 30 years to tell it (I realize he explained the reason for that that and it makes a certain amount of sense, but nonetheless. . .)

2. That he had no supporting witnesses to the general story about the airplane ride; it would seem that someone back at Andrews could have helped, though it is understandable why no one at Groom Lake (Area 51) would come forward.

3. That a military version of what was a DC-6, four engine turboprop airliner landed somewhere on the shores of the Trinity River south of Dallas, in the mid-afternoon of November 22, 1963 and then took off again, evidently unnoticed by anyone on the ground.

And thus, Vinson's story is stuck, probably headed into the bottomless dustbin of JFK lore, never to be proven right or wrong. Unfortunately, it was only one of many such stories, many of them possibly true, but all virtually unprovable.

In my opinion the key to the JFK assassination was the close ties/relationships of Lyndon Johnson and Texas oil barons Clint Murchison to the PEAK of post WWII US intelligence: Allen Dulles, Nelson Rockefeller, David Rockefeller, John J. McCloy and George Herbert Walker Bush (then age 39) who got escalated up the power ladder due to close family ties with Allen Dulles. Think of Allen Dulles as "Uncle Allen" to GHW Bush. Henry Kissinger, then age 40, a peer of Bushes, may also have been involved. GHW Bush and Kissinger were running the elite Pegasus assassination squads in the 1980's (google Chip Tatun Pegasus).

I don't see how anyone can credibly speak on the JFK assassination and leave Vice President Lyndon Johnson out of the planning of it. CIA/military/mafia did the killing. LBJ and his close friend and neighbor of 19 years J. Edgar Hoover did the cover up along with Allen Dulles really running the Warren Commission farce.

The JFK assassination was a full blown coup d'etat.

I do not always agree with Morrow, but I find no fault with his above posting.

Jack

And I do too, Jack, all of those named individuals and specific organizations were involved, just as Robert laid it out.

Egad, Phil! I can't believe that any serious scholar would include a paragraph

like this in a study of the assassination of JFK I am completely dumbfounded.

Jim, I don't think my previous comment is in any way at odds with anything else I've ever said about the assassination, and in many ways, IMHO, it is also consistent with what you have said. For example, when you posted something to the effect that the guilt ultimately goes back to the specific individuals who were party to it, not just the "invisible government" which certainly had a role in the background (I remember you used the term "disembody", as in "you can't disembody the acts from the individuals" (paraphrased). But that "invisible government" was/is itself the creation of a number of specific individuals, first and foremost was Allen Dulles, one and the same actual human who had so much to do with pre and post assassination acts. Did I say anywhere that certain people who were members of any of these groups (e.g. U.S. military, ONI, CIA, or Permindex, etc. were not involved? No. All I'm saying here (and again, I reserve "final thoughts" on this book pending my actually reading it in its entirety) is that Farrell has gone just a tad further than that in blaming capitalism, the Masons, the Occult, UFO watchers et. al. for the murder, and the rest of us for our so called "original sin" for allowing it to happen. Stretching the blame that far is just a bit "over the top" for my tastes, because, Dammit, I had nothing to do with it and I think no one else here (hopefully) did either, yet that seems to be his argument. If I am misinterpreting it due to my "fast read" I will retract any/all of this that I have misstated.

My point was that he seems to be wanting to divvy up the blame amongst a lot of other people, organizations and phenomena ("alchemy" and the "Occult"? not to mention "Original Sin" and "capitalism"!) Well, I say "baloney" to all of that, because all it does is ensure that the blame for the crime of the century is never assessed to the specific individuals who had anything to do with executing it. Which, now that I think of it, is exactly what some folks over at DPF seem to prefer.

I know you won't mince words with your analysis of my interpretation; that's fine, I'll respect your opinion just the same as before, whether or not we agree on the basics.

First, let me state for the record that I have only made a fast and cursory review of this book; when time permits, I will read it more thoroughly. But my first take on it is as follows:

While Mr. Farrell seems to come to a quasi-conclusion that Johnson was behind the assassination, he then waters that down by including him as only one of the many other groups that have been implicated, in ". . .his essential role at the center of it all". (p. 4). Again, at p. 294, he says "Lyndon Johnson is tied to all of them and only Johnson would have had the authority both before and after the assassination to order the Secret Service and other Federal agencies to lift normal security protocols and to tamper with the evidence, as he clearly did." So far, so good.

But it might be helpful if you went to the following link, making sure your speakers are on, before going any further. . .

In addition to the list of all the "Usual Suspects" we now add such phenomena as alchemy, UFO people, the Occult, Freemasons (Hoover, James Webb and others) and, through that group, many former Nazis some of whom (Werner Von Braun) were now employed by that very suspicious bunch of engineers at NASA. Oh yes, let us not forget capitalism itself, which permitted, according to Mr. Farrell, ". . . one individual, acting in the capacity of the corporate person and at the pinnacles of corporate power, can damn the whole. We know the doctrine well, for it is the doctrine at the core of western Christendom: original sin, and Adam is in that doctrine the original corporate person. . . It is this doctrine that is the basis of all occult and magical working of the ritual sacrifice in general, and in particular the alchemical transformation of the American consciousness that played itself out that day in Dealey Plaza, involving all in American's "original sin" by the act of consent. Such power cannot be had nor exercised without the presupposition of the corporate person who stands, as one, for all."

Well, excuse me, Mr. Farrell, but having given your book admittedly only a "quick read" I must admit that it leaves me cold. The conclusion of your book was not Lyndon Baines Johnson, acting as the key provocateur, who caused the assassination of John F. Kennedy to happen, but that all these other "otherworldly" phenomena, based upon "deep parapolitical powers that planned and executed the Kennedy assassination" and the "original sin" of the American people--and using as a springboard the capitalist system of the Western world, were the real cause.

I expect that this book will be lauded by the folks at "Deep Politics Forum" (except for the fact that LBJ's name in the title will no doubt be one strike against it). Meanwhile, it is now placed at the bottom of my reading list so I do not expect to comment further on it for awhile.

Because, he said, there is no way that Bobby Kennedy would have not pursued the real killers to "the ends of the earth", The article, in the January 12, 1968 edition of TIME, was entitled: "The Assassination: Inconceivable Connivance"

Here we have a great example of how LBJ's house "Intellectual" (he believed in having a specialist who could focus exclusively on one issue or mission assigned to certain things-ref. Mac Wallace and Cliff Carter, for example) rationalized that situation perhaps too early, "jumped the gun, so to speak". And that prognostication was probably something that earned him his entire salary that year.

Ironically, this article was published in Time magazine about four months before Bobby attended his victory celebration about having just won the California primary, on his way to (IMHO) a certain victory in his quest to become president. It has been written, by others besides myself, that the only reason that he did not pursue it more vigorously after the assassination (besides the fact that he had been "cut off" in his position of A.G. from above by Johnson and below by Hoover) was that he knew that the only possible way to find out the truth was to become president. Hmmm....Go Figure.

If Glen sees this thread, hopefully he will elaborate, but in the meantime, in the electronic version of his book (at 82% point) where he is describing the filming of "The Guilty Men", right after quoting Barr McClellan's lead-in, he states:

"Then followed the steady building of McClellan's case, with interviews, photographs, first person accounts, fingerprint identification, all pointing to LBJ as the mastermind in the Kennedy assassination.

"I too was interviewed by Turner, who incorporated much of our research of Malcolm Wallace and the murder of Doug Kinser in the film. I contributed the newspaper clippings from my extensive research collection, and also told of the account that Kinser's own daughter reported to me, that LBJ closely monitored the 10 day trial of Wallace, sending runners from his hotel to the courthouse to keep him informed."

Obviously, this piece would have only been in the later versions of the book (post 2003) but it clearly states where that piece of information came from.

I have been a close observer of both the JFK assassination facts and its researchers for over 40 years.

Many researchers know every detail of important aspects of the case that most interests them, such

as David Lifton on medical evidence and John Armstrong on Lee Harvey Oswald. DiEugenio is

strong on Garrison; Groden is expert on the official provenance of photos.

However, I know only two researchers who have an encyclopedic knowledge of every aspect of the

assassination. They are Jim Fetzer and Jim Marrs. They both know the case inside out. Of course,

neither is perfect (Marrs thinks Files and Baker are truthful; Fetzer thinks Holt and Baker are truthful).

But on most facts of the case the total knowledge of Fetzer and Marrs stands unchallenged. Both

have amazing memories for all information previously encountered, and are good at synthesizing

and organizing and then presenting the information in a cogent manner.

Yet rather than benefit from this storehouse of knowledge, certain people here who fancy themselves

masters of information choose to disregard and dismiss Dr. Fetzer's grasp of facts, and when they

cannot refute his facts they turn to ridicule and ad hominem attacks (the last tactic of a loser).

I have studied the case since 1963, and during that time I have studied every bit of information

possible, and have learned to separate the wheat from the chaff. I know what facts are true and

which ones are not; I know which theories are true and which ones are not. But I do not have the

public persona of Marrs or Fetzer, so my views are not as well known as theirs. But I can say that

my views on the assassination are most often expressed by Fetzer and Marrs, except when they

wander into the swampland of Files, Holt and Baker (none of whose stories has any significant

bearing on the case).

Fetzer bashing has become fashionable here. In my view it shows the desperation of losers who

do not know the facts, or provocateurs who are assigned to oppose people who know too much.

This also is true in the case of 911, where Fetzer has the best grasp of the situation of any

extant researcher.

KUTGW, Jim.

Jack

I AGREE!

In the last few months, I've been befriended by Jim on many occasions. He was the first notable author / researcher to contact me within a month after the book was published. He conducted a radio interview with me and subsequently wrote a tremendous review of my book, which he posted on Amazon.

During this time, I feel like I've come to "know" Jim, way more than I had before that. I must admit that I was a bit intimidated by him; yes he can be brusk and impatient with people, which seems to be a common malady of people of higher intellects. He acknowledges all of that, admitting that he "doesn't suffer fools gladly."

I have the same feelings as expressed by Jack, but I'm not one to engage in the high level "debating" that goes on around here. I don't "hang out" here much as a result, and only saw this thread because of my posting a reply to the CTKA review of my book.

In any event, I believe that even Jim's "enemies" would admit that you have to admire his intellect and wit and the passion he brings to the table.

JMHO

Phil

The only part that I'm unsure about still is that "horizontal" line across the top of the seat back: I stated earlier that it could be Youngblood's arm stretched across there just before he turns around to commence his orders to all three to "get down." OR, it might be Lyndon Johnson's back as he begins to "duck" behind the seat.

No matter how one looks at it or how long - the left ear and hairline seen just to our left of the Agent who is twisting to his right to turn around and appears waist high to the women standing along the street is LBJ.

LBJ was right against the door panel with his arm over it as they neared the corner (see VP in the Nix film heading down Houston Street). The Agent in Altgens6 appears to me to be turning to his right and to do so to get up and turned around it makes sense that he has leaned slightly towards the driver so to complete the action. Isn't that what everyone does when trying to turn all the way around in their seat.

It's interesting about the amount of time one takes in studying something and how that applies to accomplishing something for I am reminded how some kids finished high school in three years and some took five ... I guess the question is if the five year student took two years longer than the three year student to finish a 4 year tenure ... does that mean the five year student learned more?

I am also reminded of another example where the class was once handed an blot-image to look at and they were to write down on a piece of paper what they thought they could see and pass it on. This one kid named Tommy couldn't figure it out and didn't make anything out of the picture, but when the picture was handed back to him and he was told to rotate it 180 degrees ... he got it!

The moral of the story wasn't about amount of time spent doing something, but rather the way one went about assessing the information they had before them.

Bill

Bill, before I posted this I had three more close looks at the "high quality" photograph. I can honestly say I see nothing resembling LBJ's ear, hairline or anything else resembling a human head. All I see in the figure which you speculate was LBJ is an irregularly shaped whitish blob, the darker portion of which is below the lighter upper part. I believe this is too far to the left to be even inside the car; in fact, it appears to be a portion of the coat of one of the bystanders behind the lady’s coat as I noted in my first post and which Martin also labeled as such in post #22.

As I stated originally, “Looking at it objectively, one can simply not make a convincing case that he is visible at all, given the lack of any definitive facial features (If I'm missing them, please furnish the proof). It is only through subjective interpretation that some are able to satisfy themselves that Johnson is there somewhere. . .” Again, I see nothing that can be said to be of a definitive feature of Johnson: no nose, no ear, no hairline, no nothing. I realize that I was never the “brightest bulb on the tree” and all, but I was able to keep up with the class sufficiently to have graduated high school in four years and college as well, despite having to simultaneously work my way through.

You also stated that Youngblood was sitting at a point putting him almost in the middle of the seat as he begins to turn to his right, though my inspection of the highest quality digital image indicates the depth of that field is not consistent with anyone in the front seat (yes, despite the effects of Altgen’s zoom lens which produces “depth of field” anomalies). But, given that he had also been sitting previously at the far right edge of the seat, it would seem to me that a more natural way to turn around in his seat would be to swing around to his left, especially if he had expected to jump into the back seat. I’m not aware of any photograph that shows which of these maneuvers was actually done however, so both of the scenarios are admittedly speculative.

From the way one reads Phil's post one could assume he thinks LBJ is really not there...

This is not what I was asserting in starting the thread... he is of course there. I assume he meant that the photo may have been altered... on that I prefer not to comment.

Are you implying that Rufus claims he did these things at the urging of LBJ??? Even though he'd know the record and witnesses would not support the story? That too makes little sense... Rufus was very specific about what he says he did.

I heard an explosion--I was not sure whether it was a firecracker, bomb, bullet, or other explosion. I looked at whatever I could quickly survey, and could not see anything which would indicate the origin of this noise. I noticed that the movements in the Presidential car were very abnormal and, at practically the same time, the movements in the Presidential follow-up car were abnormal. I turned in my seat and with my left arm grasped and shoved the Vice President, at his right shoulder, down and toward Mrs. Johnson and Senator Yarborough. At the same time, I shouted

"get down!" I believe I said this more than once and directed it to the Vice President and the other occupants of the rear seat. They all responded very rapidly.

I quickly looked all around again and could see nothing to shoot at, so I stepped over into the back seat and sat on top of the Vice President. I sat in a crouched position and issued orders to the driver. During this time, I heard two more explosion noises and observed SA Hickey in the Presidential follow-up car poised on the car with the AR-15 rifle looking toward the buildings. The second and third explosions made the same type of sound that the first one did as far as I could tell, but by this time I was of the belief that they definitely were shots--not bombs or firecrackers. I am not sure that I was on top of the Vice President before the second shot--he says I was. All of the above related events, from the beginning at the sound of the first shot to the sound of the third shot, happened within a few seconds.

As far as other SS agents reacting already, that has not been demonstrated either:....

And the SS agents in the Queen Mary (in between JFK's and LBJ's car) are doing nothing other than what they did throughout the motorcade - looking all around them, front, behind, sides, just as they always do. The fact that some are looking backwards in that photo does not indicate that they are reacting to anything.

I have to disagree with you here Phil. A Zfilm shows the 2 agents nearest the TSBD slightly scan the area but do not react as they are photographed in Alt6, turning their heads completely around, nor do the others "not" react differently than simply scanning the crowd.

There is most definitely a reaction recorded by z255 that is outside the ordinary. The zfilm frame is 200, the last with the agents visible.

And I maintain that some of the timing/BDM/GA issues can begin to resolve themselves. If Yarborough remembers a man hitting the dirt at the first shot HE hears, and he hears 2 more shots.... GA, if the man he refers to as Bill asserts, must already be on the ground by Moorman. If this was a different person referred to, then GA has one less supporter for his story. Either way, the mystery of BDM and GA and the black couple and the coke remains intact.... for now.

DJ

btw Phil... just receieved your book along with Douglass' and Manchester's.... quite an interesting threesome of perspectives.

Now I just need the time to read...

David, thanks for buying my book; I don't think you'll find a great divergence of opinion between them, but different perspectives to be sure. Johnson was a master manipulator of other men and I believe he used his skills to portray Youngblood's actions much more gloriously than perhaps was the actual case. Doing so, calling him a "hero" and then awarding him a medal at a Rose Garden ceremony a week or two later was entirely consistent with how he manipulated others. He knew their strengths and weaknesses and how to get them to do his bidding. I realize how outlandish such a statement sounds and one probably needs to read the book to understand just how much of a conniver he really was. One of the clues to this was found in Youngblood's testimony to the Warren Commission: He “was not positive that he was in the rear seat before the second shot, but thought it probable because of President Johnson’s statement to that effect . . .” In other words, he was giving Johnson "due deference" and respect that people normally give to their "superiors", giving them a little more latitude and biting their tongue, so to speak.

As I noted in the book, "Senator Yarborough insisted that Youngblood never even left the front seat; he maintained that the agent merely turned around and talked to Johnson in an undertone and that there was no room for him to have come into the backseat in any case: “It just didn’t happen . . . It was a small car (relative to the Presidential Lincoln). Johnson was a big man, tall. His knees were up against his chin as it was. There was no room for that to happen."

After you've read the book, you'll understand why I became so jaded about Johnson and anything he might ever say; his own staff knew of his duplicitous character and how he "lied about everything, even when he didn't have to." I'm sorry, but those assertions are straight out of their mouths (several of them) not to mention JFK, RFK and many others. You'll get a good taste of this in Chapter 1, but it tracks throughout the rest of the book. Compared to the narcissism and untrustworthiness of Johnson, Sen. Yarborough was a Saint.

So, in answer to your point: "From the way one reads Phil's post one could assume he thinks LBJ is really not there..." I hope this and the other response to Bill Miller will answer that: Obviously, Johnson is still somewhere in the car, he just can't be seen - at least not clearly, definitively and conclusively seen - by anyone without a "benefit of a doubt" and a need for a high degree of subjective interpretation of a vary ambiguous, unclear portion of an otherwise very clear photograph.

Given the statement of patrolman B. J. Martin, "According to the guys who were escorting his car . . . he started ducking down in the car a good 30 or 40 seconds before the first shots were fired . . ." I think it is abundantly clear where Johnson was and why he can't be seen in that photograph.

Why so many refuse to believe people like Yarborough and Martin and instead continue extending the "benefit of the doubt" to Johnson, a certifiable, pathological xxxx, is something that continues to elude me.

Despite all of the commentary to the contrary, I don't see anything nearly resembling Johnson in any of the photos, except for the first one Duncan posted which appears to have been "enhanced" by someone having a good working knowledge of Photoshop. In the one subsequently posted by Robert Harris, it is clear that the dark "blob" that magically showed Lyndon's "ear" does not appear anywhere in the unaltered version of the photo; it was after this was called to his attention that he then bought into Bill Miller's theory.

Johnson's seating height to Lady Bird in Altgens6 where I pointed out his ear and hairline is just as it can be seen in the beginning of the Nix film that shows the VP riding down the street. In a good clear print one should be better able to see what I have pointed out. The man in the front seat seen in profile is Rufus Youngblood and what is hiding the face of LBJ is the sun visor. I can however understand some peoples confusion when looking at lesser quality prints and it being a hindrance for them. The same sort of thing happened years ago over the grainy appearance of the shirt worn by the man in the doorway which was reported to be Billy Lovelady. Some thought that Billy was wearing a different shirt in Altgens6 than the one he is seen wearing at the police station. That all ended when I took a crop from Josiah Thompson's Altgens6 print and laid the more visible plaid design on the shirt seen on Josiah's print against the police station photo of Billy in the same plaid shirt.

In the end, the lesser quality images have shown that they can make for lengthy unnecessary debate that doesn't usually come when studying the better print. The UPI photo print of Moorman's photo Vs. the Drum Scan that so many use to try and claim there is no human figures seen on the knoll.

Bill

I don't mean to be argumentative about this, Bill, and with all due respect, I've probably looked at that photo as much as any other person alive and the annotated photo above, as described separately, is what I have seen all along.

In buying the rather expensive license to enable me to include this photo in the book (multiple times) I bought the highest quality digital photograph available (which of course would be impossible to put on here). Though the image is sharper, I don't seen anything materially different in that compared to the copy above (naturally, there is degradation in all of them as the image is cropped and magnified).

The only part that I'm unsure about still is that "horizontal" line across the top of the seat back: I stated earlier that it could be Youngblood's arm stretched across there just before he turns around to commence his orders to all three to "get down." OR, it might be Lyndon Johnson's back as he begins to "duck" behind the seat.

So we are back to when I first pointed out which person was LBJ. The Agent is turned to his right which cases him to shift his body towards the driver and is probably in the process of getting up and back to the VP. I say this because I recall seeing someone up in the VP car as it enters the underpass in one of the films. In as much as it would make a good story - Johnson was obviously not ducking down before the shooting as someone proclaimed.

Bill

Despite all of the commentary to the contrary, I don't see anything nearly resembling Johnson in any of the photos, except for the first one Duncan posted which appears to have been "enhanced" by someone having a good working knowledge of Photoshop. In the one subsequently posted by Robert Harris, it is clear that the dark "blob" that magically showed Lyndon's "ear" does not appear anywhere in the unaltered version of the photo; it was after this was called to his attention that he then bought into Bill Miller's theory.

If there is one thing we should be able to agree on, nothing about that part of the car is clear enough for anyone to effectively declare that LBJ's placement there has now "been resolved." Looking at it objectively, one can simply not make a convincing case that he is visible at all, given the lack of any definitive facial features (If I'm missing them, please furnish the proof). It is only through subjective interpretation that some are able to satisfy themselves that Johnson is there somewhere; this is pretty much what I conceded in the book: that some people can be expected to use a sliver of anything as the basis of "finding Lyndon." At the very least, some acknowledgment of this subjectivity would be expected, rather than the unqualified declarations of resolution.

If anything, this colloquy has only generated more questions - and a lot of speculation - about who is where. My own humble opinion is that Johnson is nowhere in the photograph, and I've taken the liberty to note on the photo Harris posted what I think I see: The symmetrical lines in the background appear to be a lady's coat who is standing in the background; The bodies appear disconnected from the heads (above the windshield) due to the curvature of the windshield glass, through which the bodies (but not the heads) are visible. I do think that Youngblood's arm might be stretched out, resting on the top of the seat-backs, as noted. But if that is the case, his head would clearly not be the spot indicated by Bill Miller; it would still be behind the motorcycle's windshield and he is therefore not visible.

As far as disbelieving anything Yarborough said, I think he was the only one being entirely truthful (as explained in my book). . .Johnson was known to be a pathological xxxx, so why anyone would believe him over anyone else is debatable, to say the least. And lastly, the stoic expressions on Lady Bird's and Yarborough's faces belie the notion that Youngblood has reacted significantly. If he had already, or was in the process of, jumping into the back seat (something that Yarborough denied ever happening) don't you think they would have a more perplexed look on their faces? As far as other SS agents reacting already, that has not been demonstrated either: There are other pictures of the open door on the white car following Johnson's all through downtown where it was propped open. And the SS agents in the Queen Mary (in between JFK's and LBJ's car) are doing nothing other than what they did throughout the motorcade - looking all around them, front, behind, sides, just as they always do. The fact that some are looking backwards in that photo does not indicate that they are reacting to anything.

I don't think the solution to this issue has been advanced whatsoever by this thread (other than getting a number of theories postulated and on the record). Some of the conclusions being expressed do seem to be a bit more "final" than is justified by the arguments being made, given that the "resolution" is as far from being proven as it was from the start.

The interview can now be found via this link:

http://revereradio.net/

Go to the right column menu titled "Revere Radio Archives"

then select "The Real Deal with Jim Fetzer"

The Last Days of the President

LBJ in retirement

by Leo Janos

.....

On the night before Christmas, 1971, Blah, Blah, Blah. . .

Blah, Blah, Blah. . .

The flagship of Johnson's business empire had been the Austin television station, KTBC, which Lady Bird had launched in 1952, nine years after she bought radio station KTBC. In September, 1972, LBJ engineered the station's sale to the Los Angeles Times-Mirror Corporation for nine million dollars, a premium price which impressed several of Texas' shrewdest horse traders.

. . . Blah, Blah, Blah.

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/73jul/janos.htm

I'm sorry, Bernice, that was a little more of the blather of one of his former aides than I could take (though I did quote him once in the book, regarding the Johnson canard about JFK's assassination being a retaliation from Castro for the attempts on his life).

As to the KTBC business as being operated by Lady Bird, that has been thoroughly demonstrated to be false by a number of authors, including Robert Caro and Robert Dallek. As for my own take on this:

"He (Johnson) was also thinking in terms of acquiring businesses that he could claim were run by his wife, even though it was none other than himself who would have actual control. The broadcasting business—specifically radio station KTBC, which was near bankruptcy largely because of Johnson’s influence with the FCC as discussed elsewhere when he bought it at a discount—matched his requirements for securing the financial wherewithal he needed; it miraculously turned around immediately when he bought it, becoming extremely profitable. Having “Johnson men” throughout the government bureaucracy, including the FCC in getting approvals for expanding its license multiple times over the years, would pay huge dividends to Johnson during his tenure.

. . .

In his book Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times 1908-1960, Robert Dallek chronicled the path he followed in growing this initial investment into a multi-million-dollar family corporation by the 1950s. It was done through his use of his position to obtain special favors with numerous contacts at the FCC to obtain licenses, to acquire additional radio and VHF television stations, to get approvals for increasing the station’s broadcasting power and generally expanding their operation without regulatory interference. All during this

time, Lyndon was the acknowledged power behind the ascendancy of the radio and television broadcasting businesses even though he consistently denied it and tried to pass off the lie that it was solely Lady Bird’s interest.

Likewise, he always insisted, and his minions at the FCC complied, that no records of his involvement or influence ever be found in any of the agency’s files. His repeated denials of having any direct involvement in the operation

of their radio and television business were categorically debunked by Robert Caro in “Means of Ascent.”148

The original journalists and biographers (e.g. Janos, Kearns, Miller, et. al.) were firmly in Johnson's control and he began feeding them little bits of information to get them beholden to him so that he could start feeding them baseless lies about himself and anything else he might dream up to put his actions in the best light possible. In order to understand how perverted and evil Johnson was, one must first accept the axiom that anything (and, at times, everything) Johnson said was a lie. He would often say that something was truthful that he really knew to be a lie, but he came to think that if he said it, it must be true. Before his takeover of the U.S. government, here is what the Kennedy's thought of his veracity:

"JFK once said “that Lyndon was a chronic xxxx; that he had been making all sorts of assurances to me for years and has lived up to none of them.”12 Robert Kennedy’s description of Johnson, which can be heard on the referenced Web site, was that he was “mean, bitter, vicious, an animal, in many ways; I think he’s got this other side to him that makes his relationships with other human beings very difficult, unless you want to kiss his be-hind all the time."

------------

. . . "Bobby later complained that Johnson ‘lies all the time. I’m telling you, he just lies continuously, about everything. In every conversation I have with him, he lies. As I’ve said, he lies even when he doesn’t have to.’”195 (emphasis added) JFK agreed on this point, telling Jackie on the evening of November 21, 1963 that Lyndon Johnson was “incapable of telling the truth.”196 Similar statements had been made by people who knew him when he was younger: classmates who routinely called him “Bull” (for “Bullxxxx”) Johnson because he lied so much that he was considered “the biggest xxxx on campus;” but beyond that, there was no difference to him in truth or falsehood, the facts were whatever he deemed them to be; he was, in one classmate’s words, “a man who just could not tell the truth.”197 Most men would be embarrassed to be caught in a lie, but not Johnson: men who knew him in Texas agreed that even when caught in a lie, he wouldn’t flinch; he would resume lying again about the same thing, almost immediately.198 Caro points out that this was not just a nickname used behind his back; it was used by other students to his face: “Howya doin’, Bull?”

--------------

Robert Caro spent several years interviewing people who knew him during those years and concluded: “By the time the researcher completes his work on Lyndon Johnson’s college years, he knows that one alumnus had not been exaggerating when he said, “A lot of people at San Marcos didn’t just dislike Lyndon Johnson; they despised Lyndon Johnson.

There are many books, such as Janos', which embody the Johnson lies he planted, beginning almost fifty years ago, knowing that those words would outlast him and would help to create a legacy based upon those lies. Unfortunately, it has worked. When even his two most notable biographers, Caro and Dallek, attempt to correct the record in those (relatively small) ways--and fail to reach everyone with the truth--you can imagine what I'm up against! :-(

David, I did use some of McClellan's insights about certain things, but with appropriate caveats about the "faction", etc. I believe his conversations with Don Thomas related his honest attempts to describe Johnson's last days directly from "the horse's mouth" by the only other man who was there. All of that was in the last chapter, the Epilogue, and so was only marginally significant to the development of the entire story.

In earlier chapters, I did use more of his insights into what went on with some of the earlier murders, including Henry Marshall and Johnson's sister Josefa, and the incident in Feb. 1961 when Johnson ordered the pilots to bring the airplane to the ranch, where they crashed it as they tried to land in virtually zero visibility, as there is little else available about some of that.

While I understand your point about his book, I believe his story was not a dishonest attempt to cover the story; it was, rather, too limited in the the scope of the conspiracy, which he made appear to be run entirely by Ed Clark. I don't doubt that Clark was involved, but he certainly was not the "mastermind" or even the key player that McClellan described.

Hey Phil,

At least you recognize your mistakes and corect them, when many authors are too sturborn to acknowledge mistakes and try to defend them.

I look forward to reading your book.

BK

Thanks, Bill. And I know that I can trust you to let me know of any other errors that you may run across. ;-)

Two issues have recently surfaced regarding my erroneous interpretations of material referenced in the book:

First, I must acknowledge an error which I had been warned about by Larry Hancock during his review of a copy of the manuscript several months ago. The misunderstanding was completely my own and was due to my assumption of the veracity of Robert D. Morrow’s account of reading a document which he alleged Johnson had hand-written to Gen. Charles Cabell shortly after the Bay of Pigs incident, warning of Kennedy’s pending plan to break-up the CIA (at p. 125). Larry had flagged the issue of Morrow’s general credibility at that time, and I did delete other material from the book which I thought he had embellished (or simply made up), such as the purported flight with David Ferrie into, and then from, Cuba in the middle of the Bay of Pigs invasion.

I clearly deluded myself with the notion that his prevarications related only to the numerous instances of his self-aggrandizing stories, not the more general material such as LBJ’s alleged letter.

Evidently, the publisher and author took certain liberties with categorizing the book as “non-fiction.”

.....................

Larry furnished the following comments which explain a little of Morrow’s background:

"The basic scoop on Morrow is that he heard some rumors that convinced him there was a conspiracy - the rumors involved both an associate of Bobby Baker (Mickey Weiner) and a couple of intelligence officers (INTEL 1 and INTEL 2), one of whom was a personal military aide to Lyndon Johnson in 1963 (Howard Burris). Morrow decided to press his conspiracy views during the Church committee hearings, approaching at least one congressman and persuading him that there should be an investigation. It is fair to say that Morrow’s effort did help stimulate some early interest in what became the HSCA. The problem was that, at the time, Morrow had no direct information or evidence about a conspiracy and while he had certainly worked for Kohley on a Cuban counterfeiting scheme, there was no evidence that it was a CIA sponsored project (Details of that are available in the testimony offered in the counterfeiting trial).

"It appears that Morrow, possibly in frustration, decided to start writing books to focus attention on a conspiracy, and the more books he wrote the wilder his stories got. He admitted privately that he was making things up to gain attention since that would help bring pressure for an investigation. At the core of things he believed there was a conspiracy but since he could not crack it, anything was fair game. There are a couple of true and important things in his books: Weiner and his Baker connections, Intell 1 (Burris), both are key pieces of gossip. But beyond that, there is simply no evidence to support any contact between Morrow and high level CIA officers or his involvement in CIA Cuban operations."

.............

As was the case with the other “disinformation” I fell for (regarding the McCone-Rowley memorandum noted previously) the reference was redundant to other material making the same point. Both were clearly attempts to reach a bit too far to reinforce points already made; in this case, that Lyndon Johnson had created his own “back channel” network to both the military and intelligence communities, in addition to the FBI, at the highest levels.

Unfortunately, the error was repeated on pages 177-178. In the context of the narrative on those pages, some of the same information was corroborated by Evelyn Lincoln, Kenneth O”Donnell and Horace Busby (p. 89), though not the issue of Johnson’s Secret Service mole within the White House. That is open to debate since there is no other credible reference to support such an assertion.

Mea Culpa.

----------------------------------------

I have also been told by Douglas Caddy, the attorney for Billie Sol Estes in 1984, that this sentence (p. 296) is incorrect: “The Department of Justice responded with a letter which took on a very adversarial tone, essentially threatening to take aggressive action toward Mr. Estes if he didn’t drop the case for good.” I should have inserted the qualifier “in my opinion” because it was the way I might have read that letter if I were in the position of possibly putting myself in legal jeopardy for any errors or mistakes I might make versus the alternative of walking away and just keeping my mouth shut. Mr. Caddy advised me of the following:

“Edward Miller, a former top official with the FBI, at my request arranged for me, along with Miller, to visit with Stephen Trott about Billie Sol Estes' desire to tell what he knew. Trott could not have been more cooperative in laying the legal groundwork for Estes' to make full disclosure. Trott's letter was a standard U.S. Department of Justice communication used under such circumstances. Miller and I met twice with Trott. On the latter occasion he arranged for three FBI agents, who had been assigned to read the FBI files on Estes and on the Kennedy assassination, to fly the next day to Abilene to interview Estes. At that meeting, attended by Estes, his daughter, Pam, and myself, Estes suddenly declared he would not talk -- period. The FBI agents, who had remained in their hotel rooms awaiting a call from me to join the meeting with Estes, then flew back to Washington the same day.

"I put many months of work into this matter at Estes' request in preparation of his obtaining a grant from the Moody Foundation whose trustee, Shearn Moody, had agreed to fund after Estes' approached him while Estes was still in prison. The proposed historical grant was for Estes' to tell what he knew. At that time I was administering several grants from the Moody Foundation in which Shearn Moody was specifically interested. When Estes' backed down at the Abilene meeting, the prospect of a grant from the Moody Foundation ended.

"Why Estes' backed out has remained a mystery. U.S. Marshal Clint Peoples told me afterwards that he thought Estes' backed out because one of his family members might have ended up being implicated in the dealings with LBJ had the disclosure project proceeded."

Regardless of his mysterious reasons for “clamming up” at that late juncture, he did shut up for over two decades. At that time, he lent his support to the work of a French investigative reporter, William Reymond, who eventually produced both a book and a video presenting the Johnson/Carter/Wallace conspiracy story in considerable detail, with corroboration from individuals (including Kyle Brown, a former associate of both Carter and Estes) who had heard Carter describing the conspiracy on tape as well as in person. Unfortunately, this long awaited confirmation was undermined by the later release of a book under Estes’ own name which presented a much larger conspiracy scenario and recanted on some points which he had related to Caddy, the Justice Department and Reymond. As Larry Hancock noted to me, the Estes book and the material in it left many researchers, who had been deeply involved investigating the Johnson/Carter/Wallace conspiracy very much “up in the air”. Despite contacts with Estes himself, no resolution was ever obtained with the issues created by the appearance of his book.

The reason for Estes’s sudden recantation of his 1984 testimony—and the story he authorized in Reymond’s book and video—is open for speculation, but threats from someone against himself (then 82 years old) or one of his family members is but one possibility.

The bottom line, with respect to the sentence I referenced above, should have at the very least carried a qualifier, or better yet, a statement that to a trained lawyer (which I am obviously not) the letter appears to be a standardized, boilerplate governmental communication, rather than the arguably inflammatory language I chose.

Mea Culpa.

Agreed. Lyndon Johnson did not resign. He simply chose not to run for re-election. And that was because he was an extremely unpopular guy for many reasons. Of course, LBJ was hoping to be begged to be nominated at the 1968 Demo convention, just so he could turn it down. Which just shows you what a whacked out guy Lyndon Johnson was. But of course, with you being an RFK guy, you knew it at the time.

Robert Kennedy's entry into the Presidential race in 1968 was electric. And after winning California, RFK had major momentum on his side and probably would have won at the 1968 Demo convention. There were lots of unpledged delegates back then and many were poised to go with RFK.

And Johnson was very, very concerned about the prospects of a RFK presidency, especially in relation to the JFK assassination. That is why LBJ was so ardent for NELSON ROCKEFELLER, a deep CIA guy who he knew would keep the cover up going... Just look at the "Rockefeller Commission" a few years later.

I was there too. . . one of the "McCarthy Kids" marching around Wisconsin, just before that very important primary event. As I recall, Johnson bowed out after his stand-in candidate (?) lost in the New Hampshire primary. Anyway, Humphrey didn't quite manage to lose Johnson's attachment to Viet Nam (oh, how I remember that spelling) and after the calamity of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and all the demonstrations going on practically everywhere, there was no way that Humphrey could have beat Nixon. The truth about Vietnam and what we were doing there had begun emerging from the deceit created by, or on his behalf, Lyndon B. Johnson. (I've devoted much of Chapter 2 to the Vietnam build-up period 1961-63, up to the point of JFK's assassination. And the rest, lamentably, is all in the Epilogue, along with other revelations about the 36th president.

Another primary (perhaps "the" primary) reason Johnson decided not to run was because he was having severe mental breakdowns throughout his presidency and these, combined with his natural paranoic state, rendered him unable to deal with even the prospect of losing. He suffered recurrent episodes so severe that he was locked away in a room forbidden by all but his cloest aides and wife. In fact, all during his political climb, whenever he ran for a new elective office (congress and senate)he worked himself into a frenzy and became physically ill. It also explains why he didn't even try to run a campaign for the presidency in 1960, until he announced his candidacy five days before the convention. That was clearly "too little, too late" and the foremost political genius of his day knew that all along: his psyche could not stand a loss, because it would mean he would never have another chance to gain the office he considered his birthright. He had to get into the Oval Office by the "back door," and I believe I have written the complete story of how he did it, all laid out in the first five chapters of my ten chapter book.

That document is certainly a case of professional disinformation - just like the Bledsoe document and the Spirgilio document.

Gilbride also makes the same mistake in assuming they are for real.

While I almost always agree with Larry Hancock, one of the most astute reasearchs around, I must disagree with him in that it's impossible to track its origin. I think its origins are know - that it was among the so called "Crowley Records" that were fed to Gregory Douglas and first published in his book and refered to as the "Zipper Documents."

If there is another source, predating that one, I'd like to hear about it.

BK

I've taken the liberty of communicating this point to Larry; the following was his response, posted on JFK Lancer:

Actually I don't frequent the Ed forum, mostly because I kept

having computer problems after spending time there and at the

moment can't risk that.

My question would be - has someone actually identified that

document among the "Zipper documents"? As I recall most

of those documents were very specifically planning memos

relating to a highly structured and "official" inter agency

large scale conspiracy (one in which a formal paper record

was kept of a project to kill the President...duh, like that

was going to happen). From that perspective this document

seems inconsistent with the Zipper theme but I have to admit

that the premise was so bogus (I recall discussing it with Peter

Dale Scott a month or so after it came into view) that I never

read the book or did more than scan a small sampling of the purported documents.

Another point would be the timing, the Zipper documents showed

up within the last decade or so if I recall...and I thought

this document had been around longer...somebody could certainly

check that out though.

So...if someone has some evidence that it was one of the

forged "Crowley documents" and if the timing matches I'd surely

like to know it so I can take this off my mystery items list.

I would say that it certainly would not be the first "good forgery"

used to make money supporting a book...

-- Larry

Date Chapter, Page Description

8/12/2010 6 390-391

I have just determined that a reference to a purported CIA memo from DCI John McCone to James J. Rowley refers to a document that is not genuine. This is an error that slipped through the final editing process, an item which I had intended to verify but neglected to do so; I had misgivings about its authenticity and intended to do a check on it before publishing the book. Larry Hancock, who has been so helpful to me in many other instances, offered the following comments regarding the investigation into the memo’s origin:

“Phil, that document is totally bogus, several of us have spent considerable money and time establishing that, working directly at the archives in DC. Perhaps the most interesting thing about it though is that whoever did it was very astute, the number sequence and file designations are right on the money and somebody took great effort to plant this thing in the middle of a legitimate agency document series - that really had us going at first.

But then it also contains a couple of big errors that anyone with that degree of knowledge should not make. All in all it looks like a real professional job of disinformation,impossible to track its origin but I'm guessing during the HSCA period. I've often speculated that it might have been modeled on a real document, specifically intended to muddy the trail on something that might have existed at one time. On the other hand I really don't see the CIA sharing anything about their relationship with Oswald under any circumstances . . . what fooled us in the beginning is that if you search the number series of the document, its real. Beyond that it’s topically consistent with such a memo. So we put somebody on an airplane and he rushes to DC and out to NARA but lo and behold, no such document. So somebody manufactured the thing from scratch and leaked it into the research community on purpose.”

The thing that causes the biggest pain is that inclusion of this document wasn’t really necessary to make the point that it was merely intended to reinforce: Oswald had extensive associations with the ONI, the CIA and the FBI, as demonstrated on the previous four and one half pages (pp. 386-390).

Mea Culpa!

July 30, 2010 Preface 14

Index 713

First, James DiEugenio’s name was inadvertently omitted in the list of some of the most significant books on the subject on page 14. Given the number of references to his books and blogs, this was obviously an oversight.

Neither was it included in the Index. Both of these oversights are very embarrassing, given the number of people who are indebted to him for his previous works.

Mea Culpa!

I previously posted this on JFK Lancer, so if you saw it there, don't bother reading the rest. . .

It is not possible to write a readable book on this subject (and probably any other) citing only 100% veritable facts and statistics. As long as the trips "into the weeds" are based upon reasoned interpretations and not unsubstantiated leaps of logic with no connection to reality, then doing so simply serves to enhance the end product. No matter what examples I decide to use to illustrate how I have "connected the dots" if you have already determined that you prefer to evaluate only the cold and sterile facts and refuse to consider reasonable interpretations of them--no matter how compelling the arguments have been presented--then I would suggest to you that the crime of the century may one day become the crime of the second millennium.

Again, the story is not so much about the previously reported "incidents" of LBJ's selling his influence, his criminal associations, his purported involvement in previous murders (though all of that is certainly there) as it is in connecting them into the story of Johnson's life; this book puts all of that into context with what he was doing, from his childhood through his time as VP and President, even into retirement. In doing so, they become more "real" and understood by the reader, within the context of what was going on at the time.

The following excerpt illustrates this. It is about the time that Johnson ordered his pilots to land his (essentially stolen) airplane at the ranch so that he could fly up to Pecos and forcefully remind Billie Sol Estes to keep his mouth shut. That was the only issue in his mind and he needed the airplane to come to the ranch, he could not be bothered to drive to Austin to meet it, regardless of the pilot's warning that there was inadequate visibility there for them to land the airplane. Until now, this has been treated in a rather ho-hum way by most biographers (who stick to cold, hard statistics and don't connect Event A with Scandal .

______________________________________________

Only a few weeks into the new administration, in early February 1961, it became apparent that the initial meeting between Mac Wallace and Henry Marshall had not been successful—evidently, Marshall was too honest and incapable of accepting either bribes or threats—and the situation continued to spiral out of control. Johnson’s actions at this point can only be described as hysterical. Estes was insisting on another meeting, and Ed Clark pressed Johnson to fly to Pecos to meet with him again to come up with a plan to contain the potential calamity if Marshall was not immediately stopped from his ongoing “persecution” of Billie Sol.

So, on a day in which Johnson was apparently having a particularly serious manic/irritability attack, only one month after the newly minted Kennedy-Johnson administration took office, he would lose any remaining rationality in a screaming fit that he had by telephone to his pilots, who had stayed over in Austin and who had the audacity to attempt to talk Lyndon out of a flight that day—Friday, February 17, 1961—because of “below minimum” weather conditions. In a hysterical blind rage, on a cold, foggy, and overcast evening in south Texas, after hearing Ed Clark tell him he had to meet again with Estes, Johnson called for his airplane to pick him up and expected immediate obedience. He had trained all his other minions to obey his every command—who were these men to think they did not have the same duty to pay proper homage to him, the vice president of the United States? Of all the accounts noted within these pages of Lyndon Johnson’s narcissism, arrogance, and condescension toward the people who worked for him, this incident was clearly the most egregious. His reckless disregard for the safety of the pilots, when their caution impinged on his need to pursue his own criminal conduct, illustrates his abject arrogance better than any words could possibly convey.

Pilot Harold Teague was advised by the Austin airport against making the flight. When Teague complained and tried to refuse to make the flight because of the extremely dangerous weather conditions and the lack of ground control instruments at the landing strip, “Johnson is said to have exploded, venting his profanity upon the pilot, demanding to know ‘what do you think I’m paying you for?’ and again ordering him to ‘get that plane’ to the ranch.” Yet Lyndon B. Johnson would not—could not—let some yokel trying to observe standard minimum visibility aircraft safety rules override him, the vice president of the United States. Johnson had never seen a rule that couldn’t be bent or broken at his whim; we can be sure that he told the pilots something like, “To Hell with those rules, who do you work for, the Austin airport manager or me? Get that God Damn airplane over here now!” This kind of reaction can be surmised, not only from everything we know already about the real Lyndon Johnson, but from the actual results in the official records, as reported through newspaper accounts of the time, describing the tragic aftermath, which are briefly summarized in the following paragraph.

Johnson ordered the pilots into the air to pick him up under threat of losing their jobs. Teague finally agreed and nervously called his wife to tell her they had been ordered to make the flight, before whispering to her that he loved her and asked her to remember that. Minutes later, as “Johnson’s Convair roared into the murky night, flying above the hilly terrain . . . hopelessly groping down for lights they could not see, had at last flown into a cedar-covered hill.” As the pilots searched for the runway through the fog, having no radio beams with which to locate it, they kept flying lower and lower trying to find the runway until finally they flew too low and the plane crashed into a rocky hillside near the boss’s ranch. The two pilots were killed instantly, paying the ultimate cost of disobeying flight rules—not because they decided to do that but because Lyndon B. Johnson insisted on it—as a result of extremely high-risk maneuvers. It was not the first, nor would it be the last, time that men paid with their lives to satisfy the whims of Lyndon B. Johnson; the irony would be that, had he been on board the aircraft, those same flight rules would have remained inviolate. This single incident speaks volumes about the numerous flaws—apparent from his earliest years, based upon his grandmother’s prescient comments noted earlier—in the character of Lyndon B. Johnson.

___________________________________________

The book is filled with proofs of Johnson's reckless disregard for anyone or anything that might impede his rise up the political ladder while simultaneously taking in millions as a result of his collaboration with the likes of Estes and Bobby Baker and many others. How else might one explain how he started out virtually broke and wound up with an estate of at least $20 million? On a congressman's then senator's salary, even before becoming vice president and then president? It certainly wasn't due to Lady Bird's business acumen.

The following paragraphs come from the last pages of the Introduction; they establish the book's premise that Johnson's motive was stronger than anyone else's:

Of all the possible candidates mentioned variously in hundreds of books and in all the unpublished theories, the logical starting point might be this: Who was the single likeliest person who made the final decision to take “executive action” and brazenly assassinate the thirty-fifth president of the United States? Specifically, who, among the many enemies of JFK, met all of the following criteria:

a. Who had the most to gain?

b. Who had the least to lose?

c. Who had the means to do it?

d. Who had the apparatus in place to subsequently cover it up?

e. Who had the kind of narcissistic/sociopathic personality capable of rationalizing the action as acceptable and necessary, together with the resolve and determination to see it through?

There is really only one person who matches the above criteria so completely: Lyndon Baines Johnson, the thirty-sixth president of the United States, who succeeded his predecessor by the most unique method possible. A defect in the Constitution allows for politicians having craven and criminal character flaws and a sociopathic/egomaniacal personality disorder to rise to positions of enormous power and position themselves to be installed into the office of vice president of the United States. This office has never been one to which an otherwise successful politician has aspired; it had always been there only as second place for an “also ran” candidate, who might aspire to the presidency in a future term. But Johnson knew that at his age, he didn’t have any future terms to wait out, and when he came to the realization that he could not win the presidential nomination in 1960, he aggressively campaigned—even blackmailed JFK, who had already picked Senator Stuart Symington for the position—for the vice presidency.

Johnson was uniquely matched to all the criteria noted above, as the most likely person behind JFK’s assassination. In the first few chapters, it will become clear that he met each criterion set forth in subparts a, b, c, and d below. By the last section of the this book, it will also be clear that subpart “e” also applies, just as clearly and certainly as do the first four:

a. The most to gain.

His lifelong dream—obsession, actually—was to become president of the United States. His resolve to achieve this dream only increased each time he repeated it, and he repeated it often to others; one can only speculate how many more times he repeated it to himself, but it probably became a mantra repeated daily.

b. The least to lose.

Consider the impending indictments, possible prison time, and the permanent loss of his presidential aspirations—which he viewed as his divine and inevitable destiny, as will be seen—in the absence of taking this action. He was facing an enormous choice: either proceed with the plan and go to the White House, or drop the plan and go to prison, running the risk of still more of his previous crimes coming to the attention of the public.

c. The means to do it.

There was no absence of enemies of JFK who would eagerly participate in the objective in their own limited way. Johnson had been a friend to many of them, and their common wish was bound to surface during their social affairs. The conversations he had with his good friend and neighbor of nearly twenty years, J. Edgar Hoover, might have even centered on this plan since the point at which he enlisted Hoover to help force Kennedy to accept him as the vice presidential nominee. His many “back channels” to the highest officials of the Pentagon and the CIA—many of whom were increasingly desirous of replacing JFK as quickly as possible—would provide him access to the key tools he would need to execute the plan and its immediate cover-up.

d. The apparatus in place to cover it up.

Once he was sworn in as president, the entire federal government would be his to run, and all other governmental entities would also be under his control through the basic and natural deference people treat the president of the United States, including individual local officeholders, such as Dallas Police Captain Will Fritz and Henry Wade, the district attorney.

e. The kind of narcissistic/psychotic/sociopathic/mendacious personality capable of rationalizing the action as acceptable and necessary, as a means to the ultimate end, as well as the resolve and determination to see it through.

Only someone whose conduct was unconstrained by his conscience could possibly be implicated in such a heinous act as the murder of the president. Lyndon B. Johnson was such a person. As this book will show, he had engaged in numerous crimes during his political career, including stealing his elections from his college days and even in the inconsequential “Little Congress” through his initial election to the Senate in 1948. Subsequently, we will show that he became involved with mobsters and was paid off by them for protecting their illegal activities; furthermore, his involvement with convicted con man Billie Sol Estes, who implicated Johnson in several murders, will be shown, including the fact that he had his own “hit man,” Malcolm “Mac” Wallace. Johnson had even managed to corrupt the Texas judicial system such that Wallace was given, incredibly, a five-year suspended sentence after being found guilty of first-degree murder. We will also show that two of his aides in the White House, Bill Moyers and Richard Goodwin, became so concerned about his behavior that they independently consulted psychiatrists to discuss those concerns; both of them would resign in due course. Barr McClellan, who knew him and worked for him as an attorney, called him “psychopathic” and said, “He was willing to kill. And he did.” Moreover, he also stated that “his criminal career was capped with the assassination of President Kennedy.”

This book will describe numerous other events and actions involving Johnson throughout his career, from his younger years through his congressional years, then as majority leader of the Senate and vice president and later as president. It will show his dark side as it has never been shown before; his visage will become clearer as a truly loathsome, arrogant, and criminally ruthless man who would stop at nothing to reach his goals. Every time LBJ was slighted by the “best and brightest”—the younger, Ivy League people who called him “Colonel Cornpone” and worse—his resolve to make good on his promise increased. After all his years climbing his way up the ranks of Congress, after all his work to get to where he was as “second in command,” and after having forfeited his treasured, powerful position as the Senate majority leader, the derision of so many people in the administration rankled him beyond words. Notwithstanding the fact that he “detested every minute” as vice president, he was horrified at the prospect of losing it, knowing what was in store for him was the prediction of his own grandmother, who had said since he was a child that he would one day wind up in a penitentiary.

George Reedy was an INTIMATE Johnson aide since 1951. Especially read his second quote below. Lyndon Johnson was a very mentally sick man, not just a "master manipulator" but a cunning sociopath and serial murderer along the lines of Ted Bundy (charming ... then he kills you).

George Reedy, former press secretary for Lyndon Johnson: http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/George_Reedy

George Reedy on Lyndon Johnson:

• "He may have been a son of a bitch, but he was a colossal son of a bitch."

• "Not only did Johnson get somewhat separated from reality, he had a fantastic faculty for disorienting everybody around him as to what reality was."

• "What was it that would send him into those fantastic rages where he could be one of the nastiest, most insufferable, sadistic SOBs that ever lived and a few minutes later really be a big, magnificent and inspiring leader?"

In his book, Lyndon B. Johnson: A Memoir by George Reedy… Reedy is quoted on his book flap as calling LBJ “a bully, a sadist, lout, and egoist.” He describes LBJ as “magnificent, inspiring leader; the other that of an insufferable bastard.”

Damn, those are great quotes from Reedy; sorry I missed them. But, I did manage to include numerous others which said the same thing :-)