Greg Burnham

What a waste of time and bandwidth.

False alarm. Welcome back, Steve!

I have published a new article on my main website titled: Umbrella Man and the Two Altered Photos by researcher, Karen Clift. The author offers an interesting analysis of the evidence discussed. As always, I caution against drawing firm conclusions based on analyzing fuzzy/blurry images viewed in a web browser.

DISCLAIMER: My publishing this article should not be construed as an endorsement of all of the conclusions reached by the author. It is published for research and peer review purposes only. A discussion of the content was begun on my Forum.

By Steve. Good luck!

I haven't read that book yet, John. I'll pick it up when I get a chance. I think you raise a good point: When historians report events they should not speculate beyond what can be logically inferred. So while it is logical to conclude the official story is fatally flawed and that Lee Oswald more than likely was not involved as a shooter, it is not logical to conclude that the mob, the anti-Castro Cubans, the John Birchers, or the CIA did it. Moreover, at this late date the question "Who shot JFK?" is no longer relevant because it is no longer solvable. However, the realization that very powerful forces without our government manipulated elements within our government in order to not only perpetuate obstruction of justice, but to strip from us our right to intellectual freedom is what historians have failed to note with sufficient force, IMO.

A new poll was placed on my website. Scroll down and vote on the right side of the page.

The Silence of the Historians is an excellent essay on this subject, IMO.

Paul,

You are again making statements that are untrue. Hemming was not "right-wing" nor was he an activist or a mercenary.

Greg, the mercenary status of Hemming's group, Interpen is well-known, is it not? They were engaged in toppling the left-wing government of Fidel Castro, were they not? The right-wing funded this activity, did they not?

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Here's your answer -- straight from the horse's mouth.

According to the 1963 US Census, the median income for a male was $4500/year or $375/month. That would make a payment of $200/month by itself more than half of the total.

[paraphrased]

Article and audio interview: "Dick Billings (Life Magazine) gave me the Minox camera that I gave to Eduardo Perez (Bayo) that turned up in Oswald's room."

Perhaps I should begin to refer to you as: A.J. Trejo? Or perhaps: Paul Weberman.

Dire poverty could potentially fit perfectly with his legend of being a malcontented, generally misanthropic, communist (or communist sympathizing) loner.

Paul,

You are again making statements that are untrue. Hemming was not "right-wing" nor was he an activist or a mercenary.

Yes, he thought Walker was a right-wing asshole nutcase.

Intelligence Officer.

David,

Hemming was not in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963, in my opinion. I don't think the tall tramp was Sturgis, the old one was Hunt, or the other one was David Christ. I don't think Felipe Vidal Santiago was the DCM either.

Hemming not only denied the photo was of him, but he ridiculed the individual(s) who made the claim. I don't know off the top of my head what he told Stone about that.

Let me reiterate that when I first spoke to Gerry--and continuing for about a year after that--I treated him with disdain; as a suspect. Over time that opinion changed. Noel Twyman had a similar experience.

There is a new article and audio interview on my main site.

In this conversation Gerry Hemming discusses with researcher, Greg Burnham, the details surrounding the Military Intelligence briefing that he and his team attended in preparation for the President's visit to Miami. At the time of this conversation (1998) Hemming still remained very angry about this briefing--even though it was now 35 years after the fact.

You're welcome, Tommy.

Yes, we talked about Holt, but not too much. They didn't know each other, but occasionally they would both mention the same obscure name of a third party.

OK, so Greg Burnham won't further elaborate on his comment from two days ago, namely:

"Why do you think there are files being withheld? Because the American People will scream about us NOT attacking Castro. Watch how fast the files are freed once Castro passes away. Tick tock tick tock..."

So, I'll turn the topic back to Gerry Patrick Hemming and his various and sometimes contradictory opinions.

One of those contradictory opinions was stated in the context of this thread, namely, the Plotters would never use hot-headed Cuban Exiles or rightist mercenaries when they had impartial professionals at their disposal.

In other words, to identify the shooters themselves, we should look away from Cuban Exiles and rightist mercenaries (who would have been too emotionally involved to be trusted) and look toward paid professionals only, presumably those without a political position on JFK.

In that regard we should also recall that Gerry Patrick Hemming was the leader of a mercenary organization named, Interpen, which consisted largely of hot-headed Cuban Exiles and rightist mercenaries.

But what is most important in this context is the fact that Gerry Patrick Hemming contradicted his 2001 statement in his 1974 interview with Dick Russell (ARGOSY Magazine). Here's an excerpt from that interview:

--------------------------- BEGIN Excerpt - 1974 ARGOSY Interview --------------------

ARGOSY: Do you think it's possible that the Kennedy killing involved some of the Cuban exile community?

HEMMING: Yes, very possible. It wasn't that hard a job. I've seen and been on the scene for harder jobs than what happened in Dealey Plaza. You had a hard core of characters in the Dallas Police and County Sheriff's Department that would blow somebody's head off at a whisper. When you've got people running around who have friendships with organized crime, Federal agencies, and have been in bed with so many people – well, when the assassination goes down, everybody's covering their tracks.

ARGOSY: Can you be specific about the offers you received to kill Kennedy?

HEMMING: Look, there are people who didn't have a goddamn thing to do with it, but they think they did because they were conned by other people. If they think somebody's gonna point the finger at them, they're gonna get 'em. And I'd like to stay alive.

ARGOSY: You told the Senate investigators that you believed in 1963 that Loran [Lorenzo] Hall was somehow involved. [Hall, an ex-CIA contract employee, right-wing politico and trainer of Cuban exiles for a Cuban invasion, was named by the Warren Commission as one of three men who may have been in Dallas with Lee Harvey Oswald in September 1963.]

HEMMING: Yes, the day of the assassination, I made a call to Texas from Miami. And I pointedly asked, is Lorenzo Hall in Dallas? I made the call about 1:30 or 2:00 in the afternoon. He was there. My contact had seen him in Dallas the day before.

ARGOSY: Why were you suspicious of Lorenzo Hall?

HEMMING: Because he left Miami with the stated intent to get Kennedy. And he had my weapon, a Johnson 30.06 breakdown rifle with a scope on it that had been prepared for the Bay of Pigs. I'd left it with a private investigator who had previously worked under CIA Agency auspices on the West Coast. Hall got the weapon when we ran short of funds on a return trip from L.A. to Florida, and we ended up using Hall's car.

ARGOSY: You were working closely with Hall?

HEMMING: He came out to work with our group in 1963. Then he ran afoul with some people, and immediately went to work with a group that I thought was infiltrated by Castro's agents. Hall ignored this. He siphoned off a couple of people who had worked with me in the past, and started organizing his own operation with Frank Sturgis and some other guys.

ARGOSY: Hall left Miami again shortly before the assassination? Could you be more specific about his plans?

HEMMING: He was gonna stop and look up a number of people. Some he'd met through me, others when he was in Cuba in 1959. One was Santo Traficante's brother in St. Peter, and some others who operated under Meyer Lansky's auspices. And there were still other connections in Louisiana and Texas that had expressed an interest.

ARGOSY: In eliminating Kennedy?

HEMMING: Yes.

ARGOSY: And you believe Hall was directly involved...?

HEMMING: He knew how to do the job. We'd discussed various techniques as part of our schooling-techniques required for Havana, Port-au-Prince and other Latin American jobs. But I think somebody was trying to put him there [Dallas] so he'd be one of the patsies.

--------------------------- END Excerpt - 1974 ARGOSY Interview --------------------

Knowing that Loran Hall was a rightist mercenary, working closely with Cuban Exiles inside Cuba at first, and then in several paramilitary raids on Cuba after he escaped from a Cuban prison, we see the obvious contradiction.

Obviously, the direction of this interview points in the exact opposite direction of the interview that Gerry Patrick Hemming gave Greg Burnham a quarter-century later.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

Paul,

Here's an excerpt from HEMMING to RUSSELL regarding Loran Hall:

Russell: You were working closely with Hall?

HEMMING: He came to work with our group in 1963. Then he ran afoul with some people and immediately went to work with a group that I thought was infiltrated by Castro's agents. Hall ignored this. He siphoned off a couple of people who had worked with me in the past, and started organizing his own operation with FRANK STURGIS and some other guys...He knew how to do the job...But I think someone was trying to put him there so he would be one of the patsies."

HEMMING 1994: "After the thing went down, I called Lester Logue. Lester, having been a big guy in Republican politics, started making calls. I said, 'Did Loran show up there?' Logue says, 'Yeah, he was here yesterday.' I said, 'That son-of-a-bitch has got my xxxxing rifle, I don't know if he's part of this xxxx. If he shows up on your doorstep blow his xxxxing head off, cause he's come to kill you.' Hall could have ended up in the xxxxin' school book depository himself. He was another xxxxin' OSWALD being led down the path. Being put into position where he could have taken a fall. A fall guy."

Gerry provided very useful information and it got better over time. The interviews that I've posted thus far were relatively early in our relationship (late 90's and one from 2000). When I first interviewed him I did so from a position of assuming his guilt; that he was somehow involved in the assassination. I haven't posted any of those because the exchanges were generally caustic, filled with expletives on both sides, dripping with disdain from me and sarcasm from him. They are not very helpful. However, I persisted in questioning him and he continued to tell me his story. Gradually I began to see a very complex man, indeed. As time went on I became less and less convinced that he was complicit in this crime and, much like my friend, Noel Twyman (Bloody Treason), was greatly impressed by the sheer volume, as well as the depth and breadth of his knowledge. It was truly encyclopedic. His memory was nearly perfect on a vast number of subjects. He simply never forgot anything--including details about my own life that I shared with him. Even small things that I mentioned to him in passing he remembered in detail years later--without referring to notes.

As for George Bush, all I will say for now is that Gerry didn't hold many politicians in high esteem...perhaps none. And some he had no use for at all. But, as a former Marine, Gerry was politically neutral. As he once said, "A Marine doesn't give a flying f*** who's in the White House. He only cares about the code and the guy next to him in the trenches."

That just about sums it up.

Here's the introduction to the clip.

Audio interview:

Gerry Patrick Hemming discusses Gary Powers' U2 Flight with Greg Burnham

Includes information from Fletcher Prouty...