Greg Burnham

I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't relevant to JVB. Sorry for the misunderstanding. It just seems like it might be worthy of its own thread, IMHO.

Perhaps to maintain thread integrity this subject is best discussed as a New Topic so as not to break the Judyth Vary Baker discussion? Just a suggestion.

Hi John, FWIW: You might want to cross reference the two names through the Catholic Diocese records of Natchez. Rivera is a Hispanic (and presumably) Catholic surname. It may show up--several thousand times, since it is common--but possibly worth a shot. In the early 1960's the Bishop of Natchez diocese was The Very Reverend R. O. Gerow. The address was in Jackson at: 237 East Amite. Gerow himself was interviewed by the FBI on December 20th 1963 by Special Agent Roger J Fontanella because his name "came up" regarding the assassination due to a possible link to a third suspect. Oh yes, there were other suspects... GO_SECURE monk

Hello Bernice, "It's good to be seen..." -- You take care too, my friend. GO_SECURE monk

My pleasure, Jim. GO_SECURE monk Hi, Monk! Somebody here asked whether Prouty encountered GHWB in the CIA. Since you are the Prouty expert, maybe you know. Jack Hi Jack! I must be the last researcher to join this forum, huh? Prouty’s office provided the two ships used for the Bay of Pigs invasion support. Since we now know that the Bay of Pigs was “Poppy” Bush’s operation (Codenamed after his Oil Company: ZAPATA) it follows that Bush procured the ships from Prouty. It’s interesting to note Bush Senior’s arrogance, even then. He named the ships the Houston (his home town), and the Barbara J (his wife’s name), as well as the operational codename: ZAPATA. He doesn’t appear to be attempting to keep the US hand in the operation a secret to me. Or maybe he just wanted to add his own personal signature to it? Well, guess what Georgie, your op failed and was discovered! Great work… In any event, Fletch never directly said to me that he had personal contact with George Bush, but he many times said that: "I (Prouty) knew he (Bush) must have been behind this or that thing” – Here’s a quote from "Understanding Special Operations" regarding the Bay of Pigs: [PROUTY] “They asked me to see if we could find – purchase – a couple of transport ships. We got some people that were in that business, and they went along the coast and they found two old ships that we purchased and sent down to Elizabeth City and began to load with an awful lot of trucks that the Army was sending down there. We deck-loaded the trucks, and got all of their supplies on board. Everything that they needed was on two ships. It was rather interesting to note, looking back these days, that one of the ships was called the Houston, and the other ship was called the Barbara J --. Colonel Hawkins had renamed the program as we selected a name for the Bay of Pigs operation. The code name was "Zapata." I was thinking a few months ago of what a coincidence that is. When Mr. Bush graduated from Yale, back there in the days when I was a professor at Yale, he formed an oil company, called "Zapata", with a man, Lieddke, who later on became president of Pennzoil. But the company that Lieddke and Mr. Bush formed was the Zapata Oil Company. Mr. Bush's wife's name is Barbara J. And Mr. Bush claims as his hometown Houston, Texas somewhere around. Now the triple coincidence there is strange; but I think it's interesting. I know nothing about its meaning. But these invasion ships were the Barbara J and the Houston, and the program was "Zapata." George Bush must have been around.” GO_SECURE monk

Hey Don! Thanks for the kind words, my friend. GO_SECURE monk

My pleasure, Jim. GO_SECURE monk

The very first time I became aware of Judyth Vary Baker was from Gerry Patrick Hemming about 10 years ago. He asked me if I would be willing to hear her out in a face to face interview. Other than it involving the assassination of JFK, Gerry supplied very little by way of a clue as to what the subject matter to be discussed would be about. Gerry knew that when I am conducting primary research (particularly eyewitness interviews) I always prefer to first form my own conclusions—independent of the judgments of even those whom I respect the most. Therefore he didn’t offer nor did I solicit his opinion of her credibility. I knew we could discuss that at a later date—compare notes, etc. So, I agreed to meet with her—at her expense. She would be responsible to travel literally across the country and meet with me in a predetermined, busy, public location—which ended up being a sufficiently, but not too crowded restaurant—in the greater Los Angeles area. Little did I know, but this interview would take the better part of the entire day. I was my normal charming self. For those of you who don't know me, that means I was ruthless in my bluntness; somewhat insensitive or at least dispassionate; and I was not sympathetic to her story at all. I was very much skeptical as soon as she told me the outline of her account. And, frankly, I didn’t give a damn about some extra-marital affair that she was alleging to have had with Lee Harvey Oswald. Against my own will, however, I found Judyth to be credible. She held up under my scrutiny—and I pulled no punches in my relentless attempt to “crack” her. Then something happened. The importance of her story began to emerge and most of it had little to do with Lee Harvey Oswald. Don’t misunderstand, that was the least interesting part to me. I am unable to determine how important the affair was to the big picture, how much information she was privy to about the plot, but I did find her various relationships with others that have already been discussed on this forum to be much more relevant. Oschner, Rivera, Ferrie, et al. After the interview she and I stayed in touch for years, exchanging information, and she answered my questions without hesitation as far as I could tell. Rather than re-hash the details of her story over again in this post, I would prefer to merely say that when all the smoke cleared, I believed her. I didn’t always arrive at the same conclusions as she did based on the same evidence, but the EVIDENCE is just that: EVIDENCE—and it needs to be treated as such. Judyth participated on another JFK forum, but received an undeserved, negative, harshly critical, less-than-welcome there. That was most unfortunate. I attempted to defend her and was involved in many battles with other friends and well respected researchers. I stand by my original assessment, and I support her. It is not constructive to dismiss the EVIDENCE offered by a witness simply because we don’t find them likeable or we find them otherwise objectionable. If a critic finds a witness less than credible, it seems that the critic needs to demonstrate why before summarily rejecting the witness, let alone rejecting the EVIDENCE! The dismissal of the “bathwater with the baby” is not a play on words in this case. It is difficult to debunk the EVIDENCE she has provided because it is so strong. That evidence “means something” and possibly leads somewhere. I am not in a position to suggest that everyone believe her story, agree with all of her conclusions about what the evidence means, or even personally like her. However, I would hope that honest researchers would find it beneath them to conduct their inquiry in a manner rife with ad hominem declarations. Those who suggest that I and others, by virtue of being males, were placed “under her spell” – are mistaken. We are no longer in high school boys and girls. This is a serious subject, a serious witness, providing serious evidence. A note to Judyth: Thank you for your sincerity and courage.

I was born in San Diego, CA in 1957. My father had worked for both Truman and Eisenhower while they were sitting presidents. Shortly after my birth we moved back to Maryland where we lived about 15 minutes from the White House. In 1963 my family attended the services for JFK, including walking past his coffin as he lay in state in the Capitol's Rotunda. The mood in Washington was extremely somber that weekend, to say the least, and it made a lasting impact on me. I began seriously questioning the official version in high school and, by the time I was in college, I had become convinced that the WR was non-sense and that the HSCA was barely any better. The 2 most important subjects of my primary research--and best sources of information--with whom I became close friends, were the late Colonel L Fletcher Prouty, USAF and the late Gerry Patrick Hemming. I am a "founding member" of Rich DellaRosa's JFKresearch Assassination Forum. I appeared in The Guilty Men episode of The Men Who Killed Kennedy program for the History Channel; I appeared in The Exhumation of Lee Harvey Oswald/The Norton Report (Discovery Channel); I appeared in "Infamous Grave Sites" (Travel Channel); I appeared in a documentary about the Final Disposition of JFK's Casket, which was aired in 1999 concerning its having been dumped in the ocean in 1966; I was on the Intelligence Connections Panel at the JFK Lancer conference in 2000, as well as the Chauncey Holt panel; I was the moderator and a presenter at the Murdering America JFK Symposium in Encinitas, CA with James Fetzer, David Mantik, and Noel Twyman in 2001; I was the first guest on Black Op Radio and have been a guest there on several subsequent occasions; I've appeared on several other radio programs, including KFI Radio (Los Angeles) and Radio Liberty, among others, to discuss the JFK case; I debated Political Science Professor John McAdams of Marquette University on the Paul Garson Radio show.