David Andrews

I think LBJ was in it up to his ears, too. It just depends on what in was, exactly. I've been in it myself, and a man can be up to his ears in all moral and actual variety of in it. I think LBJ got the heads-up that he stood to succeed. I think that, for some time before, he lobbied the Texas small oil money for Kennedy's removal. I think that the Baker scandal put on pressure to remove. But I think that the removing was ordered by money and influence beyond the compass of the Presidency and the Vice-Presidency. I think that on 11/22/63 and after, LBJ was frightened of what stood beyond his arms' length. I think the same money and influence brought on LBJ's abdication and RFK's death, so that nothing barred Nixon, their next tap, from office - the action having now moved from the Caribbean to Southeast Asia. I could go on into the Ford years. I think that a lot of this is right there on the surface, in the involvements among characters and the timing of events. Apologies to the shades of Manchester and Mailer, and to all lovers of the fallacy that we are deluded into believing that the small-time trade couldn't possibly have killed Kennedy. Great events have great causes.

I wouldn't blame her, if it were true, and I can't say it's not. I've always felt, though, that the remark addressed the whole right-left spectrum of political fanaticism in a country that, even a decade later, seemed to burning from within like one of those great West Virginia mine fires that undercut the earth, until the surface fissured and structures were swallowed and consumed.

The Altgens figure's shirt looks like the brown weave overshirt that DPD identified as the shirt "LHO"* wore to work. +++ *My use of quoations around "Oswald's" name is informal, and based on the notion that "Reality is a word that should always appear within inverted commas." --Vladimir Nabakov

I think that if the figure at right, with arms over head, has been altered to have no head, tha\en the man at left could have an altered head - perhaps Lovelady's was substituted. Which opens the question - was Arms-Up Man (AUM - I coined an acronym!) Billy Lovelady, and was the figure at left originally LHO? If that is, as I think, Lovelady's face atop LHO's overshirt - then that makes Lovelady worthy of suspicion, along with the other TSBD workers and management, as discussed in the Elevator Escape thread. I submit that even Stalinist photo altering wasn't as clumsy and provocative as the headless AUM in Altgens. Were the arms left in to confuse us, or just to tick us off?

Duke, I see, and take, all your logical points. There is some tendentious writing there, but also much ground for additional research. You, no doubt, know the Weston articles; between those efforts and this, there are a lot of useful beginnings that have not been further capitalized on. How I wish I had the resources and time to take on a TSBD book project. Again - there are several suspicious characters at the TSBD other than LHO. We have to find out what puts LHO in among this crew, and who and what directed them. What, for rhetorical instance, was the reasion for Bonnie Ray Williams stating that he ate his lunch on the sixth floor all the way up to ten minutes before "Oswald" is alleged to have fired?

I was going to say, yes, that TSBD Dealey may have been set up for a Gulf/Caribbean smuggling op, and then adapted, like so much (potentially), toward JFK's assassination. Two or more articles on the TSBD by William Weston in The Fourth Decade give some good background to CIA and other agency involvement with publishers for anti-communist propaganda destined for the US, Cuba, and Eastern Europe.

Yeah, those photos are something to be researched, all right. In the case of police securing the building, curious notions of preserving the right of private property were allowed to intrude, when control of the TSBD ought to have been fought over by law enforcement just as Kennedy's body was fought over at Parkland. That same noble obligation to ownership almost allowed the later destruction of the TSBD - and, of course, caused the later removal of massive evidence from the World Trade Center site.

I tend to agree. Most of those guys were not someone one would want as plot participants. I agree that they were underinvestigated. Jack Has anyone checked the service records of the TSBD rank-and-file employees? With Byrd and Shelley above them, one suspects that the place was something of a hive. When LHO is not the only suspicious character in a building that the author of the article rather aptly characterizes as a Potemkin village, set up only months before the assassination, well... Again - the TSBD deserves it's own comprehensive, book-length study, possibly a collection of authors' essays.

I believe JFK was shot in the throat through the windshield. Let me mention, though, that I find it likely that any action taken to insure JFK's decease, performed at any point, would have as its motive the unfettered and swift appointment of a successor, avoiding any delay due to a Constitutional crisis. This point seems to be missed in the furor surrounding this thread and its sister. It's ripping good furor, though. Persons with theories of poisons and darts should consider that poison might have been administered in secret, with the subsequent autopsies tailored to blame Kennedy health issues. Instead, a public scene was required so that murder could be played as communist conspiracy, if required to. Johnson's later disavowing of the Castro animus and any Cuban invasion plans - are they indicative of Cuba being only an impetus to cause persons to kill Kennedy, while not being the determining motive for the hit? Or was the evil sufficient to the day, in the end?

Thanks, Greg. There's probably more there in the elevator pages, as well as on the rest of the site, than people have had time to take in today, but it's a resource that I wasn't aware of.

Really - what is that dark vertical marking in the large and the cropped Dillard limo interior photo? It coincidentally crosses the driver's side of the windshield... For some reason, I can't re-up it here. Fender flag in a protective sleeve..... I see, thanks. What made me wonder if it was a stain is that, at the uppermost (near the "point"), it seems to take on the horizontals and verticals of the fence line in the background... +++ Note to mods: I can't upload pictures, or even re-load pictures already uploaded in thread posts above mine. The reply controls always say the picture exceeds the size limit. when the actual size listed is much, much lower than the limit, and also lower than what the error message says it is. Is there a setting I should change?

Really - what is that dark vertical marking in the large and the cropped Dillard limo interior photo? It coincidentally crosses the driver's side of the windshield... For some reason, I can't re-up it here.

Amazing how that dark object seems to cross the photo just to frame left, left of the rear-view mirror, where a bullet strike might have been visible. What is that? A "stain"? A "water mark"?

Mentioning only that RFK is said to have, early on, asked McCone to his face if the alleged assassin was one of McCone's anti-Castro operatives.

I'd be interested in a study of Arizona corruption, from Barry Goldwater to murdered reporter Don Bolles. It took a lot of bucks to make that desert bloom.

Priests may be defrocked - ejected from the priesthood - without being excommunicated, which is to be denied participation in worship and church community, and refused the blessings of the Sacraments. Henry VIII was excommunicated for rejecting the Pope's authority; David Ferrie, defrocked for homosexuality. This is eight years of Catholic school talking, Bernice.

"I don't know the Catholic term for when you are kicked out" > > Defrocked. Because they're men in skirts, ostensibly practicing celibacy at close quarters.* +++ * No offense doctrinally or otherwise, I was raised Catholic and still observe the prayer forms. And I don't care what people enjoy absent child abuse and other atrocities - including assassination.

I'm lacking research works to make comparison - is this Catholic involvement separate from Ferrie's membership, with Raymond Broshears, in a thing called, I think, the Old Catholic Church, basically a bunch of diploma-mill mystic pederasts claiming to be Catholic apostates? Just want to be sure.

The Texas trip was unique because IT INCLUDED LYNDON JOHNSON. The power of LBJ in Texas far exceeded the power of JFK. That should answer your question about increased coverage. Major Phil Willis, who took the Willis photos, was prominent in Democrat political circles (his brother Doyle Willis was a long-time legislator) said he TOOK HIS FAMILY TO THE PARADE SO HE COULD TAKE PHOTOS OF LBJ. Lyndon in the parade assured big crowds. There was a big rift in the Democrat party...LBJ vs Ralph Yarborough. The parade would have the two of them TOGETHER. Any anticipated trouble focused on that, not on JFK. Kennedy was largely unpopular in Texas. Lyndon was popular. Jack Indeed, all part of the charged atmosphere, as we have read. I wonder, though, if the charged atmosphere in Florida got as much TV coverage. In 1963 the Dallas area had FOUR TV STATIONS...more than most cities. Three network and one independent. They were very competitive in news coverage. Jack I also asked: "Does it seem as if many trips on the assassination attempt agenda of 1963 were more heavily covered than previous domestic political jaunts?" +++++ Jack - off-topic but, with your moon interest, I wonder if you know the "Moondoggie" installments on the Center for an Informed America site, which I read through with some interest this evening. If not, enjoy: http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/index.html Worth a look by all.

Just a thought regarding historical analog or precedent for the Main-Houston corner resemblances. Lincoln's second inaugural was reputed (from statements by J. W. Booth and other conspirators and a federal witness) to have been attended by Booth and three of his confederates, including hired muscle Lewis Paine (or Powell) and artful dodger sans elan David Herold. A classic plate photo of the inaugural speech shows a mustachioed man in top hat standing arguably where Booth bragged that he had stood, close enough above Lincoln to have fired at him. In the crowd a dozen feet below Lincoln's boots, before a temporary security wall erected before the stage built over the Capitol steps, are two men looking very much like the imposing Paine and the shrinking Herold. A third man looks like co-conspirator George Atzerodt, a man who appeared permanently stricken by having been bested by others long ago. Booth claimed that his attendance had been a dry run at assassination, downgraded due to the difficulty of escape. He boasted that he had been so close to "old Abe" as to have shot him. His three co-conspirators look like they're facing the crowd and not the stage because they may be there as crowd control, to assist Booth's escape. One wonders if the defense team is on the ground because Booth contemplates firing at Lincoln from above, and then escaping by jumping from his place above Lincoln onto the speakers' platform (similar to his dramatic leap at Ford's Theater); it might be the groundlings he fears, rather than the VIPs onstage and around him, which is why the figures identified as Paine, Herold, Atzerodt, seem to be taking the measure of individuals in the crowd who might try to climb the wall while the assassin is briefly on stage. This could argue that presidents permitting themselves to be public captives under their official duties do draw familiar faces from among their enemies when plots are operational. On the other hand, given the resolution of the plate photo, and the anecdotal reporting of the Booth claim, it could prove nothing at all.

That triangle of Reformed Church conservatism angled among Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, and Holland, MI (the latter the home of the Prince fortune and upbringing) is really something estimable, though strong liberal traditions exist in Holland. During my time there I really ought to have calculated better the correlation between the Calvinist branch of the Reformed Church (Kalamazoo-Grand Rapids) and conservatism, and taken Holland's lefty quotient with a bit of salt. Any other watchers of that neck of the woods?

The Texas trip was unique because IT INCLUDED LYNDON JOHNSON. The power of LBJ in Texas far exceeded the power of JFK. That should answer your question about increased coverage. Major Phil Willis, who took the Willis photos, was prominent in Democrat political circles (his brother Doyle Willis was a long-time legislator) said he TOOK HIS FAMILY TO THE PARADE SO HE COULD TAKE PHOTOS OF LBJ. Lyndon in the parade assured big crowds. There was a big rift in the Democrat party...LBJ vs Ralph Yarborough. The parade would have the two of them TOGETHER. Any anticipated trouble focused on that, not on JFK. Kennedy was largely unpopular in Texas. Lyndon was popular. Jack Indeed, all part of the charged atmosphere, as we have read. I wonder, though, if the charged atmosphere in Florida got as much TV coverage.

I saw the "Lost Tapes" show and also a similar broadcast compilation show on History Channel, and have a question for students of TV broadcasts in the JFK years: Does it seem to you that the Dallas-Ft. Worth trip was more heavily covered by network TV affiliates than other contemporaneous presidential trips (Miami-Tampa, the aborted Chicago trip)? Does it seem as if many trips on the assassination attempt agenda of 1963 were more heavily covered than previous domestic political jaunts? I ask because there seems to be so much coverage of November 21-22. Some of it contains startling events and commentary: reporters' references to JFK's security being as ill-guarded as McKinley's; a boys' choir serenading JFK with the rather ominous lyrics of "The Eyes of Texas are Upon You" ("...You cannot get away!..."); a toastmaster's gift of a cowboy hat and boots to Kennedy, to protect him from both the rain and "the rattlesnakes on Vice-President Johnson's ranch." The broadcasting community seemed to sense that something was up - was it just the dramatics of a trip into unfriendly political country? If Miami and Tampa were covered at length, were there set-up references to high emotions among Cuban exiles"? Set-ups are usually followed by punchlines. Something perhaps worthy of study and cross-reference. How much coverage did Kennedy's domestic trips get in non-trouble spots, and years that weren't pre-campaign?

OK - now I recognize the second photo in the series. I notice that his left shoulder is lower than the right again - could this be used as a marker to judge dubious Oswald IDs? It doesn't seem like it would change with upright posture, unless in the first pic his right hand is higher on his hips than in the second. How did he acquire fuller earlobes? And wherefore and why that schnoz?

That bit where his right shoulder is higher than his left - is that just how he's standing? Do we see this in other "Oswald" photos? Is it Oswald at all? I'm playing hooky from work, here...but at first glance it looks like the Oswald features have been painted onto someone with a big schnoz. Hairline odd...ears odd...