David Andrews

Did we not do more than this? Castro was of the landowner class, educated, well-spoken, and made a darling of US society when he was a pre-revolution freedom fighter. Did our government and CIA not back his revolution, only to demonize him when, once in government, he refused the terms of a US alliance and turned (like Lumumba) to the Soviets? Did we not advise Batista to flee Havana, as US help would not be forthcoming at the end of 1959?

You know, I really hate to come back at everybody like this, and I know this thread should be moved elsewhere, and I promise not to make a big thing of this,,,but...see you in the Clinton administration: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ex-trump-insider-donald-doesn%E2%80%99t-want-to-be-president/ar-BBr2kwt?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout Ex-Trump Insider: Donald Doesn’t Want to Be President Fiscal Times Rob Garver 5 hrs ago In an open letter to voters supporting Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primary, the former communications director of Trump’s now-defunct Super PAC said that the former reality television star not only never expected to be the Republican nominee, much less president, but never even wanted to be. Writing for the website xojane.com, Stephanie Cegielski said that when she was brought aboard as communications director for the Make America Great Again PAC last summer, the instructions from Trump Tower were to make sure that Trump finished a respectable second in the GOP primary. It was made clear that Trump was running not as a serious contender, but as a “protest” candidate. “I don't think even Trump thought he would get this far,” she wrote. “And I don’t even know that he wanted to, which is perhaps the scariest prospect of all. “He certainly was never prepared or equipped to go all the way to the White House, but his ego has now taken over the driver's seat, and nothing else matters. The Donald does not fail. The Donald does not have any weakness.” The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story. Cegielski, now an adjunct professor at New York University and the owner of a communications firm, said that she was a true believer herself when she was recruited to join the Super PAC. “I was tired of the rhetoric in Washington. Negativity and stubbornness were at an all-time high, and the presidential prospects didn't look promising,” she wrote. In 2015, I fell in love with the idea of the protest candidate who was not bought by corporations. A man who sat in a Manhattan high-rise he had built, making waves as a straight talker with a business background, full of successes and failures, who wanted America to return to greatness. I was sold.” But as time went on, she said, she came to realize that Trump’s entry into the race had always been about raising his own profile, not about actually winning a presidential nomination. “Trump never intended to be the candidate. But his pride is too out of control to stop him now,” she wrote. “He doesn't want the White House. He just wants to be able to say that he could have run the White House. He’s achieved that already and then some. If there is any question, take it from someone who was recruited to help the candidate succeed, and initially very much wanted him to do so.” Cegielski, an attorney and the former vice president of public relations for the Public Relations Society of America, could be dismissed as a disgruntled former employee. The Trump campaign shut down the PAC that she worked for in October. (Interestingly, Cegielski describes the move to shut the Super PAC as an “internal decision” made “in order to position him as the quintessential non-politician.” It’s unclear, but this at least suggests a degree of coordination between the campaign and the Super PAC, which would violate election laws.) However, Cegielski said that she supported the decision to shut down the PAC and continued to support Trump “with great passion” afterward. It was only slowly, as she began to look at Trump “as a member of the voting public rather than a communications person charged with protecting his positions,” that she started to feel disillusioned. In the end, she said, she decided that Trump is not an authentic voice for disaffected Americans alienated from Washington and left behind by the global economy. Speaking to current Trump supporters, she wrote, “He is not that voice. He is not your voice. He is only Trump's voice.”

Do we see these Parkland chest incisions in the Bethesda "Stare of Death" photo(s)?

From Shermer's Wiki page, which is more self-serving than the average: "Shermer says of Jefferson, 'When he dined alone at the White House there was more intelligence in that room than when John F. Kennedy hosted a dinner there for a roomful of Nobel laureates.' " Steal from the best!

Kathy - that photo is on sensationalist/disinfo sites. The woman is a bystander in Dealey and looks nothing like Dorothy. She's shocked because she thinks she's seeing the cops arresting the perps. You can see her in other photos outside the TSBD. She's not even looking at the old tramp. If it were Dorothy and Howard - why would Dorothy be shocked? She was an intel pro. I agree that Howard Hunt is not the old tramp. I have strong leanings toward accepting the tall tramp as Charles Harrelson, though. I, too, have wondered about that lackadaisical, hatted figure crossing the street in the Cancellare photo - wondered if it is Hunt. It's important in the Dealey pix to keep an eye out for persons who look like they're from out of town. There are few men in raincoats in the photos - other than Danny Arce, and the policemen who apparently expected a long day, chance of rain. It's also interesting that Tall Tramp and Foreign Tramp look like they bought their polo shirts in the same place. President John F Kennedy greeted a crowd on a misty morning rain in Fort Worth at 8:45 a.m. central standard time. The weather in Dallas had been rainy, but the sun came out before the president's plane had landed. The plexiglass "bubble" top had been removed from the car. The Secret Service knew the president preferred not to use the bubble, unless it was inclement weather, according to media reports. ​where would they have hung their raincoats up? I don't understand your question Martin. I just named the most conspicuous persons with raincoats/topcoats on, and said that the "Hunt" figure is among the few, so maybe he's from out of town.

Robert - I was asking if you thought it was between Z-225 and Z-313. I only had a minute to ask, as I was PAW (Posting At Work), so not the best questions were available. I couldn't wait to read more, though.

Robert - Can you pick an approximate Zapruder frame where this bullet strike occurred? I ask because JFK seems rather conscious and mobile (despite the "paralyzed" arms) for a head wound victim in most of the frames between Z-225 and Z-313.

David, Are you saying that Charles Harrelson claimed to have been in Daily Plaza that day? From Mr. Simkin's Spartacus capsule bio of Harrelson: "When he was arrested [for the rifle assassination of a federal court judge] he confessed to being one of the gunman who killed President John F. Kennedy. He later withdrew this confession but he was eventually convicted of the murder of [Judge] Wood and sentenced to two life sentences." http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKharrelson.htm I do not as yet believe Harrelson was one of the shooters. But his own son has given indications in the press that he believes CVH was in Dealey. I'm bowing out now because I made myself a pledge not to start or further contentious topics here. But I do believe that Gerry Hemming is photographed by the Elm/Houston reflecting pool pergola in Cancellare. See this link and click photo to enlarge: http://www.jfkassassinationgallery.com/displayimage.php?album=33&pos=7 There are other versions of this Cancellare shot online that will allow you to look more closely at "Hemming" and at the figure he's apparently talking to. It's interesting that the policeman in the colonnade above "Hemming" has the time to give attention to the "Hemming" figure, when there's a crowd pressing around that cop. The "Hemming" figure more famously appears behind the crowd on Houston, but I can't shake the suspicion that he's been pasted into that photo. Paul B. - sorry to have diverted your thread. I'm out.

Doin' my best here, Jim. That damn well looks like Harrelson. And of all the so-and-so's who claim to have been there, I credit CVH the most. I would still like to hear Doug Caddy on further resemblances between Hunt and the street crossing man in Cancellare.

Doug, does that man look like Hunt walking? Gait, posture, hands in pockets? His shoulder line? Did he favor that style of car coat?

Kathy - that photo is on sensationalist/disinfo sites. The woman is a bystander in Dealey and looks nothing like Dorothy. She's shocked because she thinks she's seeing the cops arresting the perps. You can see her in other photos outside the TSBD. She's not even looking at the old tramp. If it were Dorothy and Howard - why would Dorothy be shocked? She was an intel pro. I agree that Howard Hunt is not the old tramp. I have strong leanings toward accepting the tall tramp as Charles Harrelson, though. I, too, have wondered about that lackadaisical, hatted figure crossing the street in the Cancellare photo - wondered if it is Hunt. It's important in the Dealey pix to keep an eye out for persons who look like they're from out of town. There are few men in raincoats in the photos - other than Danny Arce, and the policemen who apparently expected a long day, chance of rain. It's also interesting that Tall Tramp and Foreign Tramp look like they bought their polo shirts in the same place.

One wonders what the hell the desired long-term strategy in SE Asia could have been, and how it may have changed over time. LBJ refused to use nuclear weapons - and advertised it in his TV commercial against Goldwater. As a last resort in the peace talks, Nixon held the threat over Hanoi's heads with his "madman strategy," but in his last days suffered staffers alerting the military to refuse any nuclear orders by the president. Neither successor seems to have been prodded and goaded into nuclear action by the military, as was JFK. The common wisdom is that Vietnam was planned as a ten year ground-air war that would profit the defense industry and allow the US to leech resources, including opium, out of SE Asia. How does the LeMay-Lemnitzer nuclear quick victory fit into that strategy? There are times when it seems that the JSOC were as much off the track of the financial objectives as JFK was. If the money powers wanted an Orwellian state of constant war for constant profit, the JSOC in the Kennedy admin seemed bent on repeating the conclusive defeats they inflicted in WW II. +++++ (Edit: Two days later.) Was all the nuclear strategy by the JSOC a series of feints intended to get Kennedy to commit to conventional ground-air war?

On a certain level, Sirhan is imprisoned because Oswald was not. But whose fault is this?

The pictures of RFK and McNamara at the Arlington reinterment were up here several years ago in a thread probably devoted to the subject. The container was in some photos. I posted and Bill Kelly posted on that thread, if it helps you search.

I'd bet the house that Bev's not Babushka Lady. I'd bet the house that Nagell was involved with Oswald and embroiled in pre-assassination maneuvering, to an extent, however, that we cannot yet (or ever?) completely define. Of course Nagell's claims demand investigation: he had things to protect, such as his own life, his children, and his pension. Nagell may have had his moral and psychological qualms about his work and the assassination, but his hands weren't clean, and he tried to exculpate himself by getting incarcerated both before the Dallas plot, and before a previous assassination plot set in another city. In the end, though, he told enough to lose everything he was protecting.

I don't see how the Oswald described in Dick Russell's book, or in documents or comments Nagell produced, refutes these points. In Russell, Nagell presents Oswald as an unknowable, unspecified part of the assassination plot, which Nagell warns Oswald against remaining involved in. Nagell, however, may not have had full knowledge of exactly what mission Oswald was truly on, and Oswald may have denied Nagell knowledge because of paranoia, distrust, or higher allegiances - Nagell being only a part of the great game, and a dirty trickster in his own right. I don't even see how the interest that Nagell's KGB handlers took in Oswald strictly defines Oswald as an "assassin for hire." I have considered writing a screenplay based on Russell's book, but the foremost impediment to an audience's interest would be the difficulty in understanding Oswald's mission, as seen through Nagell's revelations. (In other words, the viewer won't much like a movie about Nagell and Oswald if he doesn't learn what Oswald was up to.) What I do understand does not contradict every one of your points, and perhaps not any of them.

I've always wondered if Marina was a KGB "honey trap" who was doubled on her return to the USA, and then controlled or baby-sat by Ms. Paine. Seems plausible she was held under supervision while her husband paid off her debt to the US and perhaps one or more of his own. Makes the Paine household look like a hostage-for-ransom situation.

Lance - As Jim and others (on other threads) have shown, partly through research, partly through recommending books and documents, President Kennedy implemented, tried to implement, and wanted to implement foreign policy and domestic policy changes that were radically different from US policy of this century and from his post-WWII predecessors and the system they worked in. No president has done as much since. Do the reading and you'll have a deeper sense of Kennedy's idealism and pragmatism. I know exactly how flawed Kennedy was personally, know what compromises he made over Cuba and in domestic areas because of the Cold War and our political-economic tendencies. We haven't gotten a better man in the office since JFK. His compatriots were Lincoln and FDR, each also flawed and working under compromises.

I thought that this James Franco guy was supposed to be smart and worldly and literate, and that this Stephen King guy wrote a non-fiction book proving he was an intellectual, not like Dean R. Koontz who only has a steel vault in his basement to protect his manuscripts probably for money reasons, and not because he supposes his prose to be deathless genius. If all so smart, why all so stoopit? Running out of options for lucre so have to pick a corpse? Maybe Dean R. Koontz be smarter with Oswald. **** As far as I could go with this type of programming was to watch the miniseries The Kennedys, and that was only for the good actors in it.

Colored by my political ideology to the extent that I prefer good government and good foreign policy to bad. How evil would the world be today without the US and its backers having encouraged it in JFK's wake, for profit? At the level of corporate and international influence of American politics - I no longer believe we have true party politics. Party politics do not influence my distrust of Johnson over Vietnam, the USS Liberty incident, or other crimes and misdemeanors.

Maybe two set-ups, two screw-ups: 1) Kill on sight in the TSBD or Plaza (evaded that) 2) Kill on arrest at appointed "escape" rendezvous at Texas Theater (botched?) He had a pistol at the theater, fought back, and gave every provocation. Close combat in the theater seating, and also hollering "Police brutality!" and "I am not resisting arrest!" probably saved him. Fighting and hollering at the theater strongly suggest that Oswald expected to be killed by police there. Do we really know for certain that he didn't also have a pistol at the TSBD, or are we dependent on Will Fritz's after-the-fact "interrogation notes" for this? (I suppose that if he actually got a jacket at North Beckley Street, it argues for getting the pistol there and camouflaging it. But maybe he got the jacket and extra shells because he was planning on leaving town one way or another, and had capture or kill worries.) It's possible that the cop with a "throw-down" pistol to justify Oswald's killing in Dealey didn't find him. If anyone was monitoring recent history, they would know that Oswald called for his FBI contact after the Carlos Bringiuer arrest, and so had to be eliminated quickly after capture. The plot may not have had (or needed) that much sophistication, though. If he can't talk - he's a Castro agent. If he disavowed responsibility - he's a lone nut. So nuts that he thought he could get away with it. If, from among the morass of conflicting testimony and "testimony," we can correctly evaluate his behavior and movements between the TSBD and the Texas Theater arrest, we can infer correctly that Oswald had some foreknowledge of the assassination, including knowledge of an "escape" rendezvous. Still, we'll never know if he was able to make a pay phone call or have any other verbal exchange with an advisor after the shooting. But I ask, seriously: If you knew Kennedy might be killed and you might have to leave town, or be arrested, wouldn't you try to get a shower in before work? The one he demanded at the police station? Maybe Allen Dulles was right, and everything transpired through miraculous coincidences, such as Oswald getting up too late, or not having bath towel privileges at the Paine house. I doubt it was a case of, "It's OK, honey - I'll grab a shower in jail."

The Clinton concussion rumor has been kicking around the supermarket counter tabloids for a year, with no one acting on it. As we know from the George W. Bush administration (not to mention the Reagan administration), the face sells but the team manages. It won't be the Trump team or the Sanders team. Weirder than a Trump presidency would be Bill and an ill Hill doing a reverse-Woodrow Wilson admin, but no one would blink at it, least of all on Capitol Hill.

I don't see Trump shaking up and destroying the Democratic Party one whit. In the end, he won't drive voters into Bernie Sanders' camp, but into Hillary's, which would seem to be the overarching strategy of his backers. Mockingbird press like this seems to be shepherding the reaction: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/03/mitt_romney_s_only_weapon_against_donald_trump.html

Slate.com: Let Hillary Win: If GOP leaders really want to stop Trump, they need to be willing to lose the election. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/03/mitt_romney_s_only_weapon_against_donald_trump.html "You can't make this stuff up." Now I know how Eugene Dinkin felt.

Well, that still leaves the business of why Oswald didn't claim his status as a hero of the left or right for assassinating Kennedy.