Jonathan Cohen

1 minute ago, Tom Gram said:

I agree that the tramp lead is dead, but to be fair, the 1992 reporting and FBI interviews didn’t really prove anything. If our alternatives here are legitimate hobos and full-blown covert operatives, what happened is exactly what we’d expect to see in either scenario - unless you think that an intel agency or other expert in creating long-term backstopped cover identities wouldn’t be able to fool the general public and a couple street cops. 

Tom, what do you mean, they didn't really prove anything? Were the arrest records faked, in that case?

56 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

Jonathan,

     How many times have you repeated this "authoritative shredding" trope about the Oswald doppelganger evidence?

     It's your same old song and dance.

     But, on the contrary, if I recall correctly, David Josephs and Jim Hargrove took you ROTC Doppelganger Deniers to the cleaners the last time this subject was discussed here on the Education Forum.

W: they did no such thing. The Harvey and Lee theory has been destroyed by Mark Stevens, Robert Charles Dunne, and Jeremy B. in numerous threads right here on this forum - not just at ROKC. 

1 hour ago, Joe Bauer said:

It's not illogical to keep this reality in mind when considering the possibility of disguises being used in important covert events.

What's illogical is rejecting the arrest reports of the actual three tramps, which show them to be nothing more than... tramps. This was thoroughly confirmed in 1992 reporting by Mary and Ray La Fontaine.

2 minutes ago, Keyvan Shahrdar said:

Prouty discusses the mysterious figures known as "the tramps," who were photographed in Dealey Plaza shortly after JFK's assassination. He goes on to identify Lansdale and Conein in photographs taken at the scene, suggesting their presence as part of the plot. We will analyze these photographic claims and consider the implications of their alleged presence in Dealey Plaza.

Kevyan, I'll be interested to read your full article, but I am preemptively hoping we're in agreement that the Tramps were most definitely not CIA operatives and were in fact actual hobos...

8 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:

But, their Debunked section on ROKC is the worst possible advert for JFKA research.

In fact, the opposite is true. We owe the members of the ROKC a debt of gratitude for authoritatively shredding the looniest and most embarrassing fringe theories in this case ("Harvey" and/or "Lee," I'm aiming a Minox camera in your direction...) -- theories that impugn the integrity and credibility of the JFK research community at large.

16 minutes ago, Pete Mellor said:

Why would a senior CIA official want to wait out the investigators of a presidential assassination?

Because that would have forced him to confront the fact that something was fishy as it pertained to the way Oswald's internal files were being handled.

5 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Chris Barnard writes:

But Sir Alex doesn't put that much effort into his writing. He doesn't spend hours each day in front of his computer, unlike some of the more prolific contributors to this forum.

There's another difference, too: he has a sense of humour. And a third difference: he treats the JFK assassination as a serious historical event, not as an excuse to promote nutty ideas of one type or another.

Amen, Jeremy. But maybe everyone at ROKC will finally take us here at the Education Forum more seriously now that we have unearthed the earth-shattering fact that Bob Dylan was involved in all the political assassinations of the 1960s? Or that every film and photo from Dealey Plaza has been altered?

34 minutes ago, Pete Mellor said:

Well, clearly we are in the territory of 'hypotheticaland' here.  However, I can't see Oswald having no idea who was behind his defection.  Simply because of his route through Finland.  I'm not saying CIA or ONI, but it does appear to me his journey into USSR was too clever for some ex-marine private, not to mention the financial aspect.  So I lean towards some kind of intelligence backing.

Again, hypothetically speaking ... let's assume Oswald did have "intelligence backing" for his trip to Russia. Are we then to assume that when Oswald marched into their office to renounce his citizenship, U.S. Embassy officials Richard Snyder and John McVickar were on the receiving end of an intelligence operation by their own government? Or were they in on the scheme from the beginning too? In my opinion, Oswald's behavior, despite whatever odd means by which he made it to the Soviet Union in the first place, shows no evidence of stemming from or being a part of an intelligence-backed operation.

1 hour ago, David Josephs said:

From what I have learned about the situation over the past 15 years, there are more possibilities than are acknowledged. 

Now let me guess ... could it be .... DOPPELGANGERS ?

16 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

That is, ONI was there covertly at the earliest interrogation of Marina. See William Kelly’s blog posts for that. 

Thanks Greg. I guess I'd again pose the question to both you and Steve: ONI presence at Marina's early interrogations may not have been strictly above board, but do we have reason to suspect it was anything more than the agency just attempting to cover its own backside due to Oswald having been an ex-Marine?

A little walk down memory lane: Alexander Butterfield discusses Fletcher Prouty's allegations about him on "60 Minutes" in 1975:

19 minutes ago, Steve Thomas said:

I went through these memos last night, and most of them deal with Oswald's discharge and how the Navy was going to respond to Oswald's objections.

Steve, in your opinion, is there anything untoward or unusual about the above?

49 minutes ago, David Josephs said:

Ben... I'd ask why in the first place JC here would bother asking the question...  especially when he needs to add in the snarky, back-handed insult directed specifically at me due to my understanding of the evidence at a depth he couldn't find with both hands and a flashlight

Right, so, as I expected, there's no evidence to support Oswald and Ruby having known each other, and as Ben correctly observes, "witness statements are notoriously unreliable" vis a vis these memos. It should be pretty laughable to any reasonable person here that you slam Judyth Baker and then moments later resurface the idiotic Harvey and Lee theory as some bastion of higher truth. Have fun wading in the "depths" with "both hands and a flashlight." Let me know if you need help dragging any doppelgangers up from their CIA-sponsored tombs, mmkay?

12 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Well, the ONI memo dated Nov. 27 says a witness, or maybe two witnesses, saw LHO and Ruby together trying to get a stage mike fixed. 

Of course, witness statements are notoriously unreliable, in the JFKA or any other complicated event. 

OK.. but can you point to any credible, non-Judyth Baker evidence to support the notion that Oswald and Ruby actually did know each other, which would in turn back up the claims made in this memo? I've certainly yet to see it.

And the significance of this memo is supposed to be ... what, exactly?

There is no "other" Zapruder film and there never has been.

On 5/4/2023 at 7:03 AM, Sandy Larsen said:

Of course, for this to be the case, it is necessary that Prouty and the friend he wrote the letter to have had conversations where they came to a common understating that Jews tend to be smart, competent people.

This is not a silly idea. My best friend and I were both amazed by how successful Jews are on average when we discussed the topic back in the 1980s.

This is one the most bizarre things I’ve ever read on this forum. You first realized that you were “amazed” that Jews were “successful” in… the 1980s? Well gee, what did you think about them BEFORE the 1980s, Sandy? What type of research was necessary for you to undertake before you came to this earth-shattering conclusion? Either way, we Jews are so relieved to know you deem us to be smart and competent!

To say nothing of how absolutely ludicrous these theories are, there's already (regrettably) another current thread on this subject. Why another separate one?

Two words: Roland Zavada.

http://www.jfk-info.com/zavada1.htm

1 hour ago, Pamela Brown said:

Bob secretly married Shirley Navitsky...whom he and Albert Grossman transformed into "Sara Lownds" on 11.22.65

The level to which you are misinformed about this is truly staggering, to say nothing of the unspoken implication you're making. They didn't "transform" her into anything. Her first husband, to whom she was married in 1959, was a New York photographer named Hans Lownds, He was a widow, and his previous wife was named Shirley. He asked if his new bride would change her name, so that he would not need to be reminded daily of the pain of his previous wife's passing. She agreed. She was using this name when she met and later married Dylan. They were together for 13 years and raised five talented, well-adjusted children. The end.

49 minutes ago, Pamela Brown said:

So are you saying Dylan does not have more than one level of meaning to his lyrics?

Hardly. I'm saying that the meaning you're deriving from them, ie., that he somehow has insider knowledge about various political assassinations of the 1960s and may have been involved in them (??!?(, is absolutely absurd and without any evidence to support it.

47 minutes ago, Pamela Brown said:

Is Bob hinting that he is an 'invisible man' in some of these events? 

Uhhhh, no. He isn't. And I believe it's beyond absurd to think he is.

5 minutes ago, Pamela Brown said:

Even if what happened to John Lennon may be a Rosetta Stone to what happened to JFK?

There is absolutely ZERO evidence to support such a claim, much like your prior insinuation that Bob Dylan is somehow involved in the assassination too...

20 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:

I am not positing that they are solely responsible, more than they can be a component of a conspiracy. 

Have you read Jefferson Morley's "The Ghost" ? I would think this would strongly disabuse any rational person of the notion that Israel was involved in Kennedy's assassination.

This is one of the more embarrassing threads on this forum in recent memory, and that's really saying something ...