Paul Trejo

That's quite correct, Michael. You did not suggest that Hoover was a friend of Civil Rights, but Drabble's article might be interpreted as an Either/Or proposition -- i.e. "one is either 100% for the KKK or 100% against the KKK and there is no middle ground." Yet reality tends to suggest shades of grey. Michael, I don't believe Hoover was a member of the Klan. I don't believe that Hoover was a Grand Dragon in the Klan. As for Terri's hyperbole that Hoover was the Klan, I take that as intended, IMHO, when I take it as hyperbole. Also, I did read Drabble's paper, and found it interesting and valuable. It's a triumphant article, claiming total victory over the Klan in Mississippi. According to Drabble, if it weren't for the FBI, the Klan would have been much, much worse than it is, i.e. it would have been united and enormous. That is speculation. Drabble provides (as far as I can see) no social statistics to demonstrate his claims. Drabble succeeds in showing that a long-term, well-funded FBI program of infiltrating the KKK did take place in the 1960's. After the 1960's, to the best of my knowledge, Civil Rights workers were no longer murdered with impunity in Mississippi -- and so one may tend to agree with the conclusions suggested by Drabble. Or not. I remember in the late 1970's, when I lived in Hollywood, California, we saw a local news story about a mixed-race couple who were shot in broad daylight in a public park. The perpetrator exclaimed to the Press, "My name is ____ and I'm against race-mixing and communism!" So the KKK fire may have dissipated in the 1960's, but it was not extinguished, and might even have spread beyond Mississippi. My original point is that J. Edgar Hoover, while bringing the KKK under control in Mississippi, nevertheless spent more FBI time and money spying on Martin Luther King, Jr. than any other American. Every activity of MLK's life was taped and photographed by the FBI. IMHO that is comparable to the actions of the KKK. From this viewpoint, Hoover seemed only to demand a higher role than the Grand Dragon in monitoring and controlling black Americans. As it turns out, MLK, like JFK, had a weakness for women. So J. Edgar Hoover kept a photo-library of MLK's liaisons (just as he kept a photo-library of JFK's liaisons) and he tried to bribe the King family (just as he tried to bribe the Kennedy family) with threats to publish these photographs. One might grant that spying and blackmail are at least more genteel than lynching. On that point, I'm willing to agree. Best regards, --Paul Trejo

Having said this, I must remove Lee Harvey Oswald from the line-up on the basis of this characteristic alone. This adds contour to my theory -- it is becoming increasingly clear to me that the perpetrators of plot to kill JFK were motivated by the Brown decision, also known as the 2nd Reconstruction, which comes to a peak with JFK's Civil Rights address of 11 June 1963: .This was soon followed by MLK's "I have a dream" speech of 28 August 1963. The massive right-wing resistance to the 2nd Reconstruction yielded organizations like the White Citizens' Councils (later renamed to Citizens' Councils) which openly called for the impeachment of Chief Justice Earl Warren for his 1954 decision in Brown v. The Board of Education. Ex-General Edwin Walker played a vocal role in the Citizens' Councils after his conscience was torn in Arkansas following his obedient fulfillment of Eisenhower's demand to racially integrate Little Rock High in 1957. Walker's politics were increasingly molded by the 2nd Reconstruction, by the Citizerns' Councils, and by segregationist neo-Christian preachers like Dr. Billy James Hargis. All this pressure was heightened by the threat of Communist Cuba, so that new groups like the JBS and the Minutemen sprang up for a new generation. The paramilitary groups among these rightists became Edwin Walker's new troops after his loss of command over the 24th Infantry Division in Augsburg, Germany in early 1961. Along with Harry Dean, I place my suspicions on Edwin Walker, the Minutemen and their fellow travelers regarding the JFK plot. Our suspicions are confirmed by ATF Agent Frank Ellsworth who told the Warren Commission via the FBI that his evidence pointed directly to "General Walker and the Minutemen." There is no doubt in my mind that the KKK was a kindred spirit of the Minutemen and joined in the same White Citizens' Council meetings. All of this gives further plausibility to Terri Williams' claim that some KKK member in her family was a Dallas shooter on that fateful day. Best regards, --Paul Trejo <edit typos>

OK, John, so as you point out, the French OAS was not like the American CIA, but more like the American Minutemen -- a vigilante, paramilitary group with an extreme rightist political position. Best regards, --Paul Trejo

John, this aspect of Joachim Joesten is his most intuitive. It shows he was paying close attention in the first few days of the JFK assassination. Even in the USA, many reporters and observers suspected ex-General Edwin Walker, a leader among the radical rightists (see my web site at www.pet880.com) of complicity in the JFK assassination, until Lee Harvey Oswald was thrown to the dogs (so to speak). It is a European cliche -- a known gambit in Italian politics -- to quickly blame somebody of a fresh assassination, and then quickly kill him before he goes to trial. Americans had never seen that gambit before -- but Europeans knew intuitively what it meant. JJ immediately suspected the American right-wing; the KKK, the JBS, the Minutemen, the Neo-Christian White Supremacists, from Billy James Hargis to Carl MacIntire to Fred Schwarz, and all the Neo-Nazi types like Robert Allen Surrey as well as Cuban Exile and mafia monsters, for whom JFK and Martin Luther King, Jr. were Communist traitors. It seems so hard for Americans to see, but Europeans saw it immediately. The trouble is that the Warren Commission strictly forbade the US Mass Media to go there -- and they obeyed. True, the right-wing didn't take power. Their gambit failed. There was no actual coup'd'etat. The USA didn't invade Cuba either. LBJ enacted the most thorough-going Civil Rights bill in history to to that time. Today we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. in a holiday all his own. America is several times more liberal today than it was in 1963. (People who doubt this weren't alive in 1963.) Perhaps the fitting puniishment of the right-wing was to be forced to watch as American grew more liberal decade after decade, as the rightists continue to creep further along toward a legacy of Tea Parties in local politics as these John Birch Society spin-offs struggle to keep control over PTA groups and local libraries. Best regards, --Paul Trejo <edit typos>

Michael, although I agree that J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI worked to "neutralize" the KKK in America, we must also consider the other side, namely, that J. Edgar Hoover spent more time and money spying on Martin Luther King, Jr. than any other single American. We should not conclude that the FBI was a friend to the Civil Rights movement in the USA, simply because they opposed the KKK here and there. We should also bear in mind that JFK and RFK took a public position of condemning the vigilante raids against Cuba, and closed down Minutemen and other vigilante training camps -- while at the same time they continued underground and secret activities against Castro's Cuba. In other words -- some actions that powerful public figures perform for the Mass Media are strictly intended for public consumption, while privately they may hold different attitudes. For example, J. Edgar Hoover was a zealous Anticommunist -- and yet he also convinced himself and his followers that the Civil Rights movement -- especially with regard to Negroes -- was part of the Communist movement and the USSR underground. That is, Hoover twisted his Anticommunism to attack the USA Civil Rights movement! Granted, Hoover might have believed this fantasy in his heart. But the end result was racist business as usual, was it not? Terri's perception that the FBI acted to suppress the rights of black Americans to an equal extent as the KKK did, has real merit in the light of actual history. . Best regards, --Paul Trejo

Ken, to speak of Gabaldon here is topical in my theory, although my theory is anything but settled. Anyway, in my personal view so far, there were so many people involved in the JFK assassination plot that there's plenty of blame to go around. For example, I accept Harry Dean's claim that Guy Gabaldon was involved in the arm of this plot that reached into Southern California. This is also where Loran Hall and Larry Howard entered the picture. Yet Harry's eye-witness account does not (to the best of my knowledge) extend all the way to Dallas. Harry saw what he reported that he saw -- and the rest of Harry's theory is his own interpretation of events based upon what he could see from his single viewpoint. I happen to accept Harry's eye-witness account as truth, and I build on that. Yet that doesn't mean that I accept all of Harry's interpretation of events that occurred outside of his eye-witness account. Harry Dean says he saw ex-General Walker and Guy Gabaldon at a secret John Birch Society (and quasi-Minutemen) meeting in September 1963 discussing Lee Harvey Oswald and the future assassination of JFK. I take that as fact. Now, does this mean that Harry's conclusions about Dallas must be correct? Not necessarily, because (to the best of my knowledge) Harry wasn't in Dallas on 22 November 1963. Anything could have happened at that point -- literally anything. For example, the crew that was supposed to be on the front lines that day might have been held up in traffic, and another crew had to take their place. Jim Garrison thought there had to be at least three crews. Other researchers thought that there were at least five crews. The estimate of the number of shots fired ranges from three to twelve, as I've read them. The truth will be hard to find, but we must start with the ground-crew, in my opinion. That means (to me) that the Dallas players will probably play the leading role. It is possible (but not certain) that Guy Gabaldon was the leader of only one critical task, namely, management of the patsy. That is what Harry Dean's eye-witness account seems to guarantee. Guy Gabaldon was in direct and close contact with Loran Hall and Larry Howard. We can connect these two with Gerry Patrick Hemming, who confessed to A.J. Weberman that he convinced Lee Harvey Oswald to sell his Manlicher-Carcano rifle for double its going price, and to bring it to work on 22 November 1963, and leave it on the 6th floor for his friend to pick up. I accept that. Since we can connect Hemming directly with Loran Hall and Larry Howard, then I will surmise that Guy Gabaldon managed Hemming's participation, as well. These are tiny roles, but totally necessary for the big picture. Therefore, it is not necessary for me even to conclude, along with Harry Dean (whom I respect and admire) that Hall and Howard were the JFK shooters. They did their part by managing to manipulate and position Oswald in Mexico and in Dallas. That was what they were ordered to do (as Harry Dean witnessed it) and that is what they did, and if they did any more than that, then we simply have no eye-witness confirmation of that extra work (to the best of my knowledge). Let's take a moment to reflect, Ken, on our situation today, fifty years after 1963. Now is the time when we might expect the real shooters to come forward to stake their claim to history. There was more than one shooter -- how many were there? Not as "groups" (like the CIA, FBI, Minutemen, KKK, JBS, Mafia, Cubans, etc.) but as individuals? This identification stage has already begun. Aside from Lee Harvey Oswald theorists have proposed the individual names of Roscoe White, James Files, Charles Nicoletti, Loran Hall, Larry Howard, Johnny Roselli, Tony Cuesta, Eladio Del Valle, Herminio Diaz Garcia, even J.D. Tippit and a growing list of others. Who knows where it will end? What we might surmise about the individual names offered so far is that they were all racists and they were all right-wing fanatics. Terri's description of this person she believes shot JFK matches this profile. Terri proposes that somebody from her childhood (not her uncle) was the shooter and I believe that she is earnest in her proposal. I'm even willing to place this person in Dealey Plaza on 22 November 1962 -- but that doesn't prove that this person fired the fatal shot. There were at least nine expert rifleman in Dealey Plaza that day, and only one of them fired the fatal shot. Who will it turn out to be? That's the big question today. Roscoe White was an excellent candidate, in my opinion, but his family lost their empirical evidence, so we have no final proof. What we are all waiting for, IMHO, is that final proof of the final shooter -- the Rosetta Stone of the JFK conspiracy theorists. Best regards, --Paul Trejo <edit typos>

That makes sense to me, since he certainly DID manage to let the real assassins live out their lives in peace and prosperity. I have no proof, but I know that ------ --- ----- was the man who actually pulled the trigger, that shot the bullet, that killed JFK. It was not at all beyond the man to do such a thing. My uncle was also present at what was a 'Turkey Shoot'. I have heard tell of another man named Malcolm Wallace who may have been the third shooter. No matter who it was, I am convinced there were three marksmen that day in Dallas; only one of them is attributed with having fired the fatal shot. But the files sealed until long after the cows come home, must contain more than just info on Oswald. If LBJ was in on the cover up, there would have been such things as the letter I wrote to JFK to warn him. If I live long enough, I would like the letter back; it is my only evidence that I have not made this whole 'theory' up. Without it, I trudge forward to open the bag a little so to speak, ahead of schedule. I am not sure what harm it could do now, most of the guilty are dead. No one has ever listened to me in the past and I must say I am surprise anyone does now, but I will say in my defence, I have not said anything that didn't actually happen. I have not made up any 'facts'. That's what it was like in the south in the fifties and sixties, total apartheid. It has morphed into the various right wing groups today. Besides, it is common knowledge among racists, just who killed JFK AND where he is from. The info racist groups in Canada have about the JFK assassination did NOT come from me; it came from the Klan. Terri, I think your claims have merit, even if it turns out that your uncle was only one of the many possible shooters at JFK on 22 November 1963. According to my theory, your uncle fits the profile -- he was among the thousands of radical right-wing Minutemen obedient to ex-General Edwin Walker who gathered reguarly throughout 1963 to call for the execution of the "traitor" and Communist JFK who was selling the USA out to the United Nations and the USSR. These right-wing vigilantes -- who would have quickly accepted anybody from the KKK on their side, as well as any radical Cuban Exile -- operated completely underground, without oversight from any governmental agency. They were also a magnet for rogue CIA and rogue FBI defectors. If there were CIA and FBI spies that infiltrated them (e.g. Harry Dean) and reported what they saw, then obviously their words fell on deaf ears. ATF agent Frank Ellsworth told the Warren Commission point blank that "the most likely suspects for the JFK assassination in Dallas were General Walker and the Minutemen." Nothing whatsoever came from his admonitions. David Andrews asked about Hoover's role in all this -- I also wonder. Mark Knight wrote that Hoover knew about the Carlos Marcello contract on JFK and did nothing about it; and Sylvia Meagher wrote that Hoover was clearly an accomplice 'after the fact'. Harry Dean says that he himself reported to the FBI about his eye-witness account of hearing ex-General Edwin Walker identify Lee Harvey Oswald as the patsy in a plot to kill JFK at the same time that my Congressman, John Rousselot, handed a suitcase full of money to war hero Guy Gabaldon in the company of Loran Hall and Larry Howard, and the FBI never responded to his report. This makes me suspect Hoover. Yet I'll personally withhold judgment against Hoover until more evidence is in. At the very worst I'm inclined to believe that J. Edgar Hoover was willing to look the other way as the countless enemies of JFK made closer and closer circles around JFK. Hoover was indeed threatened by the Kennedys on many levels. Gerry P. Hemming wrote (on this very FORUM in 2005) that he was the one who personally accepted money from RFK to find dirt on J. Edgar Hoover, and he quickly and easily did so -- very compromising photographs. In exchange for those, Hoover was obliged to hand over his compromising photographs of the Kennedys. At that point, said Hemming, Hoover was out to frame Interpen for anything he could. In my theory, however, since Hoover came up with the "Lone Nut theory of Oswald," he cannot belong to the plot to kill JFK -- because those who plotted to kill JFK proposed the "Communist theory of Oswald." in order to inspire the USA to invade Cuba. That tells me that, no matter how much J. Edgar Hoover hated the Kennedys, his role in the assassination was at the very worst to ignore reports that came his way, and to look the other way as the inevitable happened. See -- the Kennedys had so many enemies that all the government had to do was "look the other way" for a few weeks at most. I think that's what happened. Finally, Terri, I find your account interesting on many levels. Your descriptions of your home town when you were growing up are fascinating; I believe many readers want to read a lot more about the KKK in the mid-20th century South -- especially Yankee readers. I also believe that your portrait of the South in the early 1960's offers the most appropriate background for understanding how and why JFK was assassinated when he came to the South. This would be the case whether or not your uncle turns out to be the fatal shooter of JFK. Best regards, --Paul Trejo <edit typos>

OK, I understand what you're saying now, Terri. This is interesting sociological anecdotal information, and I'm not aware of any other writer who has been willing to come forward with anecdotes about the KKK during the 1960's as it relates directly to the JFK assassination. You're saying that black slavery was still illegal in Mississippi in 1963, although the social climate was still profoundly oppressive of black Americans. That's an important distinction for me -- I define slavery in terms of ownership of one's own body. (That is, genuine slaves, no matter what race, can be bought and sold, their children can be bought and sold, and they can be rented as sexual objects, female or male, at the caprice of their owners, all within the permission of the legal system. That's the only true definition of slavery -- metaphors don't apply. When people use catch-phrases like 'wage-slavery,' that is just literary phooey. True slavery is physical brutality and any milder definition desecrates the memory of real slaves.) So, slavery was gone in Mississippi, although the KKK and similar organizations worked hard to keep black Americans (along with brown, yellow, red and Jewish Americans) as dependent as possible, including lynching as a deterrent. Although that is obviously criminal, it is not precisely the same as slavery. I just wanted to clarify my opinion on that. Terri, your claims here are interesting on multiple grounds. They help to explain why Brown v. the Board of Education was such a disaster for the KKK and its Southern culture. It was probably perceived as part of the Restoration after Lincoln. No wonder the same arguments used before the Civil War would arise again when speaking of the integration of public schools, specifically, the argument of State's Rights. It's a legitimate argument -- whether States ought to retain any rights or not. But the outcome of World War 2 complicated this -- now the USA was no longer one more nation in the world, but the USA now became the new British Empire -- the leader of the free world. We now have to put on a noble face for the whole world to see. (Here's something we don't commonly learn in US History class -- the US Army during World War 2 did not start out as racially integrated. Yet we were going up against Nazi Germany, which was stridently racially segregated. In order to preserve Army morale, Eisenhower and the Pentagon generals decided to racially integrate the US Army. Hollywood was drafted into this propaganda campaign, to always portay US soldiers in racially integrated platoons. But when the War began, that was a myth. World War 2 changed everything for the USA.) Anyway, your claims are topical today, Terri, because education remains a major problem in the USA. Public education is more expensive than ever, and yet millions of kids graduate from high school with low reading, writing or arithmetic abilities. Many US public schools are surrounded by guards and barbed wire, and some of them resemble prison camps. White flight from public schools is a cliche today. Home schooling is increasingly common. It is disingenuous to ignore race as the primary issue here. That is, it appears that some powerful force is working overtime to ensure the failure of the public schools, and to undermine education for the children of poverty. Your citation of the KKK in this same regard in your home town while you were growing up is interesting sociological anecdotal information. As for LBJ, Terri, I'm one of those who places LBJ above the level of the JFK assassination itself. In my opinion, LBJ was the leader of the cover-up of the JFK assassination. I hope the difference is clear. Some right-wing extremists (probably inluding the KKK, the Minutemen, the JBS and ex-General Walker) were the perpetrators, but they only wanted to invade Cuba. That was their main target. LBJ did not belong to the perpetrators, because he did not want to invade Cuba. (If LBJ was on the side of the perpetrators of the JFK assassination, we would have invaded Cuba right away, I have no doubt. Lee Harvey Oswald would have been portrayed as a Communist Castro agent, and that would have been that.) LBJ belonged to the second plot -- to the cover-up plot. But the cover-up plot was not invented by the JFK assassination plotters. This is clear because the cover-up plot had a different motivation or goal. The cover-up plotters wanted to hide the identity of the actual JFK assassins because they knew that the American people would start riots in all major cities, and that this might spark a new Civil War in the USA. Now, during the Cold War, a new Civil War would have tempted the USSR to interfere, and this could have ignited World War 3. Therefore, LBJ, J. Edgar Hoover and Chief Justice Earl Warren, in order to prevent World War 3, told the truth -- for reasons of National Security the truth about Lee Harvey Oswald would be sealed away until 2039. This is the only explanation that makes sense to me. If Oswald was the lone assassin, and Oswald was now dead, then how is National Security threatened by releasing his files? No, the only threat to National Security was in disclosing the identity of the real perpetrators. So, you're partially correct, Terri, in my opinion, that is, LBJ certainly knew more about the JFK assassination than he ever admitted -- however, it wasn't because he was a member of the KKK. As Robert Morrow rightly said, LBJ was an enemy of the KKK. But for purposes of National Security, LBJ would protect the identities of the real JFK assassins for 75 years. That's my opinion. Best regards, --Paul Trejo

Terri, I agree with you on most points here. I have a friend in church about my age (60) who grew up outside of Dallas, and he tells me that in his home town the KKK was very active and strong. In my own home town, Duarte, California, there was a tree on the main road, Huntington Boulevard, called "the hanging tree", and it had a historical marker that explained its use in the 1920's and 1930's for "lynching." I never saw a lynching myself, but I was assured that it was not unknown in my parent's generation in Southern California. Even in my wife's home town in Northern California, even today, near Stanford University, West Palo Alto is almost entirely white and East Palo Alto is almost entirely black. California is advanced -- but not that advanced. (Southern California reflects the South a bit more, so we had the Rodney King beatings, for example.) So, I can accept your observation that in the early 1960's in the South the KKK did not have to hide but was often openly in power through the police departments. I get the impression from your posts that you might have seen a lynching in your lifetime. If so, I'm sorry to hear that -- it sounds traumatic. Another image you conveyed that sounds eerie is the night-time marches of the KKK. I gather this was their "duty" after work as they burned crosses on the lawns of suspected infidels, or went wild in a lynching. It's discouraging to recollect that the KKK was a normal part of American life at the start of the 20th century. In your own perception, the KKK ran your home town all the way through the 1970's. Furthermore, even though they lost some influence in recent decades, we must all agree that the KKK still exists today. What is crucial for the EDUCATION FORUM, Terri, is your perception that the KKK in the 1960's were also "training to invade Cuba." From 1959 to 1963 we see a five-year period -- before Vietnam -- in which the USA was obsessed with the news about Cuba. In 1960 Che Guevarra had published a book called "Guerrilla Warfare," and this terrified many Americans. Robert DePugh responded with his own book, and he started the Minutemen. Robert De Pugh and his hunting friends were terrified that Cubans (and other Latin American forces) would invade the USA, beginning with the South. So, they organized as many riflemen as they could into a secret organization called the Minutemen. Robert De Pugh was the leader -- sort of. Ex-military men (like Edwin Walker) would join and would take command of entire cities of Minutemen. They held official guerrilla warfare training in large outdoor camps. Naturally, ex-military men with combat training would be very valuable to them. The Minutemen ground-troops would consist of volunteer policemen, National Guard, reservists, Klaverns, and various hunters and mercenaries looking for connections. Naturally, Cuban Exiles would become involved in the Minutemen -- seeking support for their next raids against Castro. But the Minutemen did not pay -- they charged membership dues. The Minutemen were not generally rich men but were generally working men and women. Cuban Exiles could be valuable if they could lead combat training. They might also give speeches about how dangerous Castro had become. But there would also be tensions because Minutemen tended to be WASP, while Cubans tended to be Catholic, and many Cubans spoke little English. (This is why non-religious, English-speaking Latinos like Loran Hall, Larry Howard and Ed Butler could become the leaders in and around the Minutemen and the Cuban Exiles.) What your claims clarify, Terri, is that in the South the KKK was deeply involved in the Cuban crisis through paramilitary training camps like those of the Minutemen and the Cuban Exiles. JFK's demand to keep these low-profile as possible was probably misunderstood (or misinterpreted) to mean that JFK was against them. But the Ole Miss riot was probably the final straw. Now, you believe that the KKK was probably the leader of the plot to kill JFK, Terri, because the KKK would not do business with just anybody. I can understand that. For example, the KKK was and I believe still remains exclusively WASP -- that is, no Jews or Catholics were invited. Do I have that right? In that case, the Minutemen would be in a stronger position, since it could include more money and members from among Catholic and Jewish rightists in the USA. Your portrait of Mississippi in 1963, in which blacks were intimidated at polling places, is chilling. I know little about the South -- it is especially chilling to read your words that "slavery was not abolished in Mississippi until 1991." I take that to mean that slavery -- which was illegal in the USA since Abraham Lincoln abolished it in 1865, was still practiced underground in Mississippi. Is that correct? This culture was hidden from the rest of the country, but in the countryside in Mississippi, in 1963, black slavery was still practiced out in the open? Is that what you're saying? This is important information for gauging the social climate in the South in 1963, and why the South was more dangerous than JFK ever understood. Best regards, --Paul Trejo

There is clearly a lot of truth in your words, Terri. At the turn of the 20th century, the USA was 94% white, while colored people as a whole owned next to nothing in terms of land or capital property. Therefore, to protect private property (which is widely considered the basis of civilization) it was most common for people in power to be white, and to give preference to other white folks. However after World War 2, the demographics of the USA began to change significantly. American boys who fought in Europe saw first hand that they were no longer as white demographically as the USA used to be -- there were already lots of half-breeds in the USA population. By the time of LBJ, it was clear that half-breeds in the USA were a major force. With the passage of LBJ's Civil Rights legislation, the dam broke, and lots of colored people began to own land, companies, capital and to get rich in the USA. At the turn of the 21st century, there is hardly one city in the USA that can claim to be purely white anymore. Things have changed. There are exceptions. My guess is that in the South there are pockets of old-fashioned culture that resist any encroachment of the modern age. It's all too sinful -- all these half-breeds running around doing whatever they want. But the world has changed. By the middle of the 21st century, the half-breeds in the USA might even become the majority. The problem with the KKK is not that it's right-wing (because everybody who wishes to protect private property is right-wing to that extent). Rather, the problem with the KKK is that it still lives in the turn of the 20th century, when the USA was 94% white. But those days are long gone. I actually agree with you here, Terri. The KKK today is still represented by some large land-holders in the South, and because USA property values are forty times what they were at the turn of the 20th century, some of them are very rich and powerful. Now, when it comes to 1963 and the assassination of JFK, I am not at all surprised to hear claims that the KKK was not only rooting for the ground-crew, but supporting them and even guiding them at every turn. That sounds correct to me. Guy Banister was reputed to be a profoundly racist individual. But there is still a difference. In 1912 the KKK was out in the open, proud of their enormous membership, and they even marched in Washington and convinced several Congressmen to join their ranks. But that doesn't happen anymore. In fact, that stopped happening soon after World War 2, and by 1963, the KKK was only a shell of its former self (at least in public; because it's hard to say what happened behind closed doors). But my point is that the KKK, if it still operated with power, had to take that power underground. Now -- joining other underground organizations would make this an easier task. The Minutemen were a secret organization, also. They also had lots of rifles. They also practiced target shooting on a regular basis, out in the countryside. It makes good sense to me that there were plenty of KKK members there in the underground with the Minutemen. No problem. As for the CIA however, they had rules against membership in the KKK. It was already illegal -- illegal -- to be a KKK member and also an employee of the CIA or the FBI (although secret, underground membership was still possible). The differnece is -- how open were they? Already in 1963 the days were gone when racists like the KKK, or the Third Reich, could march in large numbers down public streets in their full costumes with pride. No, already in 1963 the racists had to hide in the shadows. But it is precisely these same shadows that give more credence to your theory, Terri, that the KKK was centrally involved in the JFK assassination. Well, there I agree, too -- Ross Barnett was not a major player -- although he took a gamble. If he had successfully made JFK back down at Ole Miss, then Ross Barnett (like Woodrow Wilson) would have had a chance to become President of the USA. I agree, also, that in 1963 the majority of rich and powerful people in the USA were white and proud, and convinced that there must be something about their genes (as opposed to, say, their Judeo-Christian culture) that gave them their great power. Add to this the USA emerging from World War 2 as the most powerful nation on earth. There's an ego-booster. Yet the paradox was that the USA gained power only after the ignoble defeat of Nazi Germany, who tried to attain global power based on their white race credentials. What a challenge for the rightists in the USA. The USA under Eisenhower (and Earl Warren) found another way to be rightist and conservative -- without racism and without the KKK. The riots at Ole Miss, brought on by Ross Barnett and ex-General Edwin Walker, wanted to return to the old days -- when white was right and colored people knew their place. Eisenhower and Earl Warren were Communists, preached the JBS. That's just what the KKK wanted to hear. Yet by 1963 they were already reduced to running in the shadows. Best regards, --Paul Trejo <edit typos>

Ian, your first comment appears to me to suggest: (1) that a high-level plot was already in the works before April, 1963, and Walker was a small player in that plot; (2) Walker got over-excited and so his superiors in the plot sent him a warning shot to let him know who was in charge; (3) and this was similar to the shooting of JFK over the head of LBJ, as Jim Garrison said, so that LBJ would also know who was boss. No JFK researcher will deny the possibility of truth in your comment -- because it agrees in general with Jim Garrison's viewpoint. I myself reject much of Jim Garrison's theory, as follows: (i) Although JFK had too few friends in the Pentagon, FBI and CIA, their motive to eliminate JFK could never find enough secrecy to act on it, and it is sheer speculation that there was a high-level plot. Suspicion alone is raised, and the hatred of JFK alone is raise, but the details of the plot are only guesswork and no evidence comes forth. (ii) There are many theories about Walker's shooting -- that Oswald did it (Marina) -- that Walker staged it himself (Hemming) -- and now yours, that the military-industrial complex did it as a warning. To this we must add Walker's own published theory -- that RFK did it and was planning to do it again. They are all possible, but I believe they are all mistaken. The evidence we have evokes the names of George De Mohrenschildt, Volkmar Schmidt and Michael Paine (i.e. the Baron and the Paines), as well as the photographic equipment at Jagger/Chiles/Stovall. Because the material evidence continues to point to Oswald, and because we know Oswald regularly lied to Marina, and because Oswald seems to me to be a young man who was fairly easily manipulated, I continue to maintain that the Walker shooters on 10 April 1963 involved a plot of at least two shooters and several Liberals, including the Baron and the Paines. Walker's alleged crime was his "Midnight Ride" speaking tour, after being improperly acquitted by a Mississippi Grand Jury for his role in the Ole Miss race riots. Liberals would have gone nuts over this -- so this is our best evidence, IMHO. (iii) This was not a warning shot to Walker, nor was the JFK assassination a warning shot to LBJ, as I see it. Nor was the Pentagon, FBI or CIA in charge of the assassination of JFK. On the contrary, I believe they were all bemused observers, and accomplices after the fact. For me, the actual perpetrators were extreme rightists who believed that blaming a Communist patsy for the JFK killing would stir the American public to invade Cuba and kill Castro. As for your question about Walker's sources and reaction to the shooting -- Walker continually said -- and I believe him -- that he heard from official Government sources that Oswald was a suspect. He did change this story a bit over the decades (e.g. who the source was) so I gather it was originally a voice over the telephone. I believe the shooting frightened Walker -- actually made him more paranoid than he already was. For example, during the Warren Commission hearings in February 1964, Walker sent a man named "Moore" or "Morse" (or "Morris"?) to visit Marina's caretaker, James Herbert Martin, to ask for more information about the 10 April 1963 shooting. "Why?" asked Martin. "Because," said Morse, "Walker is frantic that the other shooter might still be at large." Finally, Ian, you are intrigued by the 23 questions of ex-General Edwin Walker that formed the platform for his speeches for the "Midnight Ride" from February to April, 1963. That is, by replacing the "European Union" for the "United Nations" you find some sympathy with Walker's complaints. It seems clear to many that nationalism is a major problem in Europe today, in the face of the EU. Certainly nationalism was the main problem that Walker and his followers felt with the rise of the United Nations. Best regards, --Paul Trejo

John, you're certain that Oswald was a right-wing fanatic, but not all readers and researchers are convinced of this. I agree that it feeds the Warren Commission myth to insist that Oswald was a left-wing fanatic, and that myth has been sufficiently challenged. To make Oswald a right-wing fanatic, however, will take more proof than intuitive certainty. For example, you say that Oswald's chained right-fist clench was an old southern white supremacy symbol. Edwin Walker, on the other hand, told his audiences that Oswald's right-fist clench was a symbol of Communist solidarity. Now, I personally doubt that Oswald was a leftist -- yet this must be proved, and not merely asserted. Further, Oswald wasn't a "typical" fascist, because the typical fascist was not a double-agent. It's painful to observe that Oswald's handing out FPCC leaflets on Canal Street in New Orleans is still regarded by the mainstream press as hard evidence that Oswald was an active member of the FPCC. The 100% phony nature of that New Orleans FPCC chapter must still be drilled into the public memory. As for Oswald's support of capitalism -- that's not very clear to me. He himself had no capital or property, and he didn't try to befriend the rich, evidently. He seems to resent people with more money than himself, e.g. the Russian Exiles in Dallas. He tended to sympathize with the underdog (even when that was contradictory). Now, John, in your opinion, the KKK, FBI, CIA, Pentagon, Police and the Minutemen can all be lumped together, without further distinctions. The fact that some are profoundly local while others are profoundly federal (and others in between) makes no difference in your view. Yet the FBI and CIA had rules that no member of their organization could also be a member of the KKK. (Probably that rule was broken quite a bit in secret, but the rule still remained in force.) Also, the KKK regularly clashed with the police in the latter part of the 20th century. Without noticing the distinctions between the right and the center, everything except the extreme left will appear to be rightist -- so naturally Oswald will appear rightist. At the same time, John, you make useful distinctions within the KKK itself; for example, you distinguish Klaverns, White Camelias, The Southern Intelligence Network, The K.B.I., the Mississippi Hoghway Patrol and White Citizens Councils (comprised of professional men). But most interesting of all, you claim that Oswald "doesn't reject the Minutemen, he sees them as flawed and he is the one that has the 'alternative' (that's his intro, his direction and ultimately his death sentence)." I find this interesting because Oswald was finally condemned by the Minutemen through ex-General Edwin Walker (if I can insert Harry Dean here). Yet the ploy that Walker used to get the JBS/Minutemen agreement to make Oswald into their patsy was the accusation -- and the widely held belief -- that Oswald was a Communist (a tyrant on the Left) instead of a Fascist (a tyrant on the Right). If Oswald was clear in his own mind about his politics, it doesn't show. His public persona sometimes appears on the right, and sometimes appears on the left. But it never seems to appear in the middle. Best regards, --Paul Trejo

Very astute observation Paul Trejo. Terri, that was John White's observation. Terri, I think what you're saying here is plausible to a degree, but I would hedge my bets a little more. What you're implying, namely, that high-placed members of the US Government were supporters of the KKK, was certainly true in the early 1900's. The great Democratic President, Woodrow Wilson, for example, was an outspoken advocate of the KKK, and he allowed the KKK to march in Washington in great parades. Wilson promoted the movie, Birth of a Nation, as historical truth. The reason that Woodrow Wilson was nominated by the Democrats in 1912 was because he successfully maintained race segregation at Princeton University. (It's hard to imagine that the party of JFK and LBJ was once the party of racism and Jim Crow. But the new movie, Lincoln, makes this very clear.) There was a time when keeping a US University free from Negroes could get a man elected President. That is possibly what Ross Barnett believed (with ex-General Walker at his side) when he struggled so hard to keep the first Negro student (James Meredith) from enrolling at Ole Miss University in 1962. We should count George Wallace in that same category. The KKK was still very active in the South in 1962, and the riots at Ole Miss are sufficient proof. But the time for racist Presidents had long passed. After World War 2, the USA (like it or not) inherited the mantle of the British Empire. So, in order to be the new World Police, the USA has to put on a noble face for the whole world. JFK was very good at this. Ross Barnett didn't understand what was going on. The KKK, in my opinion, still does not understand what is going on. Best regards, --Paul Trejo

John, on the theory that the KKK was at the center of the plot to kill JFK, I have no problem believing that rogue or ex-CIA players would be involved. I think Terri is correct in suspecting that plenty of conservative officers of the US Government were (and are) secretly members of the KKK. Naturally, if some loose-cannon rogues from the CIA did get involved with a grass-roots plot like this, they would bring a lot of resources to the table. However, repeating my reply to Ron, I don't think that the cover-up was planned at the same time as the JFK assassination. IMHO the perpetrators believed in their hearts that the USA would get behind them 100% and blame Oswald the Communist, and then blame Castro, and then invade Cuba within a few days. In other words, the patsy was their whole gambit -- their entire alibi. IMHO, they thought the Communist patsy ploy was a fool-proof plan that would have no repercussions at all. They did not count on the Federal Government's response -- namely, to blame neither the left-wing extremists (Communists) nor the right-wing extremists (KKK) but to blame the Lone Nut and his neurotic mother. IMHO, the people who killed JFK did not care if they were caught, as long as the American people became fired up enough to invade Cuba. It would have been worth it to them, even if they were later caught, as long as Cuba was taken back from the Communists. The people who covered up the JFK killing, on the other hand, prevented the truth from becoming known -- not to protect the KKK, but to protect the planet from World War 3. Best regards, --Paul Trejo

Ron, I'll try to answer that. First, the Establishment (LBJ, FBI, CIA, Pentagon) did not provide the patsy (Lee Harvey Oswald). It seems to me that there were two plots -- the plot to kill JFK and the plot to cover it up. The two plots were guided by two different groups with two different goals. The kill-JFK plotters provided the patsy, Oswald, and their goal was to inspire the USA to invade Cuba and eliminate Castro (much as we invaded Iraq and eliminted Saddam Hussein in the past decade). The coverup-plotters knew who the kill-JFK plotters were, but they believed that the truth would only make the USA attack the right-wing, start a Civil War in the midst of the Cold War, tempt the USSR to interfere, and thus start World War 3. So, the goal of the coverup-plotters was National Security -- that is, to prevent a Civil War and so prevent World War 3. Best regards, --Paul Trejo

Terri, the question the researcher must ask is -- where do we take it from here? The 1964 Warren Commission did not investigate the KKK. Jim Garrison did not investigate the KKK in 1968. The 1979 House Select Committee on Assassinations did not investigate the KKK. Oliver Stone's 1991 movie, JFK, did not implicate the KKK (because it was based firmly on Jim Garrison's investigation). All the major books about the JFK assassination tend to revolve around a handful of suspects: Oswald, the CIA, the Mafia, the FBI, the Pentagon or LBJ...but nobody has yet developed a theory about the KKK. Maybe, just maybe, this is the reason why nobody has solved the JFK assassination after 50 years. There is a link between your claim, Terri, that the KKK was the predominant player in the JFK assassination, and Jim Garrison's claim that 544 Camp Street is the center of the cyclone, namely, Guy Banister. You speak of Guy Banister as a man whom you saw in your home town -- actually in your grandmother's kitchen -- and you portray him as very friendly to the KKK. Banister once rewarded a KKK member for his help, you said, by buying him a truck. That's significant. So, for those who wish to pursue this line of questioning, I think the next step should be a full disclosure of Guy Banister's possible connections with the KKK. This is something that Jim Garrison failed to provide for us, although he should have, since Guy Banister lived in New Orleans. Best regards, --Paul Trejo

John, thanks for posting these notes from Lee Harvey Oswald. They may well have been notes for a speech -- but certainly not a speech designed for Cuban Exiles! At the very least, these notes prove that Lee Harvey Oswald was already aware of the Minutemen organization in 1962, which Robert DePugh had only recently founded. How did Oswald become aware of the Minutemen? IMHO he wouldn't have learned about them from the "Baron and the Paines" who were openly moderate politically; rather, Oswald would have learned about the Minutemen from his fellow Marines, most likely. Oswald is a puzzle of right-wing and left-wing attitudes. It's difficult to sort them out. His only consistent associates in New Orleans, for example, are Carlos Bringuier and Ed Butler, who were Cuban Exile radicals on the right-wing. Also, Volkmar Schmidt admitted to Bill Kelly (and George De Mohrenschildt also admitted in his booklet, I'm a Patsy, I'm a Patsy!) that Lee Harvey Oswald expressed the strident Marine attitude that JFK betrayed the Cubans at the Bay of Pigs. This also matches what "Leopoldo" told Sylvia Odio in September of 1963. So, even though Oswald is somewhat familiar with Marxist-Leninist ideology, he continues to waver between leftist and rightist positions. What was Oswald's opinion about the Minutemen? He shows some interest. He shows some intrigue -- as if he was tempted to join -- or perhaps he was invited to join -- and yet he also rejects them -- he will probably not join them because they are (1) suicidal; (2) capitalist extremists; (3) obsolete. Yet it is interesting that Oswald also calls them the "most far-sighted." So, Oswald remained ambivalent about the Minutemen. We have evidence that both Edwin Walker and Guy Banister were leaders among the Minutemen. Insofar as Jim Garrison places Oswald close to Guy Banister in New Orleans from May through August 1963, I would like to place a date on these notes from Oswald that you posted, John. Any notion of month or year? Best regards, --Paul Trejo <edit typos>

David, I had thought of that before, but it doesn't seem to fit the situation well. It seems to make sense after the JFK assassination, but way back in April, 1963, it doesn't seem to fit. In other words, why would Walker select Oswald as the patsy of a shooting plot in April -- in private, without alerting the newspapers? My theory has Walker boiing mad at the Kennedys after the Ole Miss fiasco of late 1962. Let's briefly review that history: Walker loved the limelight. When he quit the Army in late 1961, he immediately began writing and delivering speeches, starting in Dallas (to the NIC) and he would receive five or six standing ovations for every speech, and the final standing ovation might last for minutes at a time. (Some believe this popular fame convinced him to run for Governor of Texas.) He just loved the limelight. After he lost his bid for governor, he gave more speeches, but he kept his eyes open for a Big Opportunity. It came with the Ole Miss protests in Mississippi. There we notice Walker's enormous ego -- he had to be at the head of this line -- he had to be in charge. Right before he traveled to Jackson, Mississippi, he wrote an open letter to JFK. The open letter protests the Ole Miss situation, but it gives top billing to the Cuban situation. Here's Walker's open letter to JFK from his personal letters: http://www.pet880.co...Open_Letter.JPG When Walker was acquitted in late January, 1963 for his role in leading the racial riots at Ole Miss, he emerged like a raging lion. It was at this point that Walker seems to contemplate joining forces with the Cuban Exiles, so hot to take back Cuba from Castro. However -- Walker doesn't immediately jump into the Cuban game -- from February through April, 1963, Walker goes on a coast-to-coast bus tour with segregationist preacher, Reverend Billy James Hargis. We don't have copies of his speeches on this tour, but there were 27 stops from MIami to Los Angeles. We have some newspaper articles from reviewers, but the reviews were typically one-sided -- either praising Walker or condemning him broadly, with little substance. However, Walker's papers still include the outline he used to draft his speeches before he went out on the "Midnight Ride" speaking tour. This list of 23 questions reveals much about his thinking: What name has been devised for the world religion that will include the atheistic Communists and their clergymen? When will church property be taken over? What agency will control it? When will our armed forces and weapons go under the UN, and who will be their Commander in Chief? Who will draft and pay the American soldiers called to service in the World Peace Force? What oath will they take? What foreign troops will be stationed in the U.S.? What flag will they carry and what national anthem will they sing? When will the UN disappear and become the world government and under what name? Will UN currency replace U.S. currency? Will the World Government be located in Washington, Moscow or Havana, Cuba? When will the office and title of Commander in Chief cease to exist? When will the functions of the office of president of the U.S. cease to exist under the Constitution? Will the election in 1964 be for a president or for an agent of the UN who is fulfilling the policy of the UN? Will there be any elections held in the U.S. for UN officials? What government will the 50 states of the Union deal with? The UN government or with its agency in Washington D.C.? Will the states still have Governors? Does the Congress of the U.S. become a committee under the UN? How will the separate state National Guards, for which the Governors are responsible, be placed under the UN or what disposition will be made of these State Militia Forces? Will the Internal Police Forces take over all law enforcement at the community level? Will the Attorney General’s office still exist when the Connally Amendment is repealed? Will the Circuit and District courts deal directly with the UN government? Who will make the appointments? What prisons will be used for American political prisoners and others tried under international law? When will the inheritance tax be abolished and land reform commenced to destroy property rights and legal ownership? What will be the size of the migrants world labor force? Will a man be authorized one wife or five as the Moslems or will he be able to buy a mate as they can do in India? Based on Cuba, what will we do if the Soviets claim and take Alaska, considering that it would be 100% more difficult to defend? This shows Walker's thinking after his narrow escape from a possible life-sentence (or even a death-sentence) for insurrection at Ole Miss. These there the issues that occupied Edwin Walker's mind in early 1963. Reports say that thousands of people attended the "Midnight Ride" speeches, so that Walker and Hargis made a lot of money and had a solid following. Walker was a poor speaker when he was being cross-examined, or dealing with a hostile audience, but at his rallies he was preaching to the choir, so to speak, and in such situations he was a rousing speaker. He always got multiple standing ovations. Walker liked being out in front. But everything seems to change after he returned from the "Midnight Ride". Two days later the police reported that somebody tried to kill Walker at his home. After this point, Walker is not out in front nearly as much as in the previous two years. He seems to sulk and skulk around in the underground. This is the period when -- as I believe -- Walker selected Oswald as the patsy. It is not merely because of Marina's testimony in early December, 1963 that I say this -- there was plenty of other evidence that Oswald was involved. George De Mohrenshildt believed that Oswald was involved. So did Volkmar Schmidt. Michael Paine refused to talk about it, although I believe he and Ruth know more about it than they ever admitted. If (and only if) Oswald shot at Walker, and if (and only if) Dick Russell is right that Mrs. Voshinin told the FBI about it on 14 April 1963, then we have a clear motive for Walker to make Oswald the patsy. However, the theory that Walker staged his own shooting (simply because he was an egotist who wanted to be in the limelight) removes the motive that I perceive. Instead, Walker's motive for selecting Oswald as his patsy in April for a shooting that he himself staged remains vague. Why Oswald? How else did Oswald distinguish himself in Walker's world in April? Yet it remains possible. Walker might have selected Oswald for no other reason than his Russian wife -- as shallow as that sounds; after all, Walker was a common man in many ways. Best regards, --Paul Trejo

David, I've reconsidered this question many times, and I cannot say that I'm devoted to one conclusion or another today. Even though the facts, as they seem strung together from 10 April 1963 all the way through his Warren Commission testimony on 23 July 1964, suggest that Walker was continually paranoid about the two shooters who tried to kill him on 10 April 1963, and about the Attorney General's alleged role in Oswald's escape for this crime, I cannot say that I am "all-in" with this theory. The evidence remains that ex-General Edwin Walker was an accomplished xxxx as a homosexual in the US Army who rose to the rank of Major General while evading court marshal according to US military law from 1931-1961. Also, Gerry P. Hemming (on this Forum in 2005) once speculated that Walker was too calm after the shooting (when Hemming and Interpen visited the General at his home in Dallas). Hemming thought, as in your remark, that Walker participated in the shooting. Now, Hemming is not the best witness, nor was he under oath when he said this; he often contradicted himself. But for what it's worth, Hemming thought Walker staged the whole shooting. Now -- why would Walker then blame Lee Harvey Oswald? Actually, in this scenario, Walker had no reason to blame Oswald for anything -- and in fact he didn't blame Oswald for anything in April 1963. Oswald was an afterthought. The question is -- how much of an afterthought? Let's say, for example, that Walker staged this shooting. Actually, if this is the case, then I was wrong to challenge John Dolva by saying that Walker would have to sit still and let somebody shoot from 40 yards away and miss his head by inches. If it was all staged, then Walker didn't even need to be in the room. The scratches on his arm after the shooting could have been obtained from working outdoors that day -- or any number of sources. If it was all staged -- what in heck would be the purpose? The only purpose I can imagine is that Walker had a sick obsession to be in the limelight. We must remember that exactly one-year prior, in April 1962, ex-General Edwin Walker was running for the office of Texas Governor. Walker had been in the news since he was fired by JFK as Commander of the 24th Infantry Division in Augsburg, Germany (April, 1961). April was a traumatic month for Walker in 1961, and a memorable year for Walker in 1962. Half a year later in 1962, Walker led a failed race riot at Ole Miss University (in which hundreds were wounded and two were killed), and RFK tossed Walker into an insane asylum for a 90-day evaluation. Well, Walker walked out in only five days with a near-apology from the Attorney General's office, but the damage had been done. Nevertheless, with the help of the brilliant attorney, Robert Morris (legal counsel for Senator Joseph McCarthy) and his long time friend, attorney Clyde Watts, ex-General Edwin Walker emerged from the Mississippi Grand Jury fully acquitted. Their courtroom strategy was brilliant -- probably the work of Morris. Instead of dwelling on the race riot itself, Morris directed the Grand Jury to focus entirely on the question about whether Walker was insane or not. Two hostile psychiatrists were called as witnesses, and both suggested that Walker was paranoid. However, Morris handled them skillfully -- "Would you say that all right-wingers who seek racial segregation in Universities are paranoid?" he asked them. "Certainly not," they replied. Walker himself waffled back and forth about how much he enjoyed the riots and how sad he was to see the riots. His final words were that he was only there to calm the crowd down. No eye-witnesses to the riots themselves were called, to the best of my knowledge. The Mississippi jury quickly closed the case. My point is that Walker was possibly somewhat paranoid -- but he got away with it. Then, from early February 1963 until early April 1963, Walker joined segregationist preacher Reverend Billy James Hargis on "The Midnight Ride" speaking tour from Florida to Southern California, preaching that the United Nations is Satanic and that all US Presidents since FDR have been Communists -- especially JFK. The night after he returned to Dallas (9 April 1963) Walker called the police to report that somebody had tried to kill him in his home. His neighbors all came out because they heard the shot, and heard at least one car screech away, while a young neighbor boy saw two men jump in a car behind Walker's house toss something in the back seat and speed away. Nobody saw Walker sitting at his desk, doing his taxes as he claimed. It is at least within the realm of possibility -- I must admit -- that Walker hired some sharpshooters to fire one bullet through his window, and then speed away, and then he called the police. That is, it is possible that Walker staged the whole thing. Why? To get attention. He lost his bid to be Governor of Texas, but at least he could stay in the news, in the limelight, and spread his propaganda that JFK was a Communist. I mean, it's a least possible. And we notice that in his testimony to the Warren Commission, Walker suggested that the "Baron and the Paines" were part of the plot to kill him on 10 April 1963. Best regards, --Paul Trejo

Terri, although I consider your claims to be reasonable and plausible, I don't imagine that you are presenting your claims as proven -- even if you know for a fact that they are true. You cannot produce proofs without endangering your life -- and you probably couldn't produce proofs even if you did endanger your life, because as you said, the children of these extremists would never admit anything. I find it easy to accept the existence of right-wing militia, bearing arms, and hating JFK in 1963. Harry Dean says that whenever he attended a Minuteman training camp event, there was a continual, chatter about killing JFK and FIdel. It was the daily routine. By the way, JFK didn't even recommend gun control -- all he did was shut down all all these Cuban Exile training camps and confiscate underground arms shipments -- and furthermore he did this to present a smiling face to the world -- in clandestine terms he (almost certainly) kept some training camps open. But that wouldn't matter to the Minutemen -- it wasn't the gun issue that was the problem -- because they all owned their own rifles and guns anyhow. Rather, it was James Meredith on the one hand, and Fidel Castro on the other hand. These two monsters were frightening the hell out of the average American -- but in the rural areas the response was considerably different than in the urban areas. There were many more paramilitary training grounds in the rural areas. The James Meredith case (like the Little Rock case) directly addresses your claim, Terri, namely, that African-American education was the key motivation for blowing up Churches in the South that were used to teach literacy to African-Americans. I have often heard that Guy Banister was a member of the KKK, but I have not seen documented proof. Your eye-witness account is valuable, however, and I appreciate it. I can also accept your account, Terri, when you say Guy Banister visited your grandmother for supper and chose your uncle as a shooter in Dallas in November 1963. However, I would add that there were probably dozens (if not scores) of plots to kill JFK nationwide, and besides that (as Gerry P. Hemming told this Forum years ago) there were many teams of shooters that were available for various positions around Dallas. Furthermore, none of these teams would be allowed to meet the other teams, or to know of their existence. So, even if your uncle was available with his rifle in Dallas on 22 November 1963, Terri, we still cannot guarantee that he was the final shooter, nor even that he was in the front lines. As I say - I believe that your claims fit all the criteria of reason and plausibility, and yet so do the claims of the familiy of Roscoe White, for example. There were many such figures, in my opinion. I find your imagery about the KKK Kidz bragging to be unforgettable. We might recall, in the aftermath of 11 September 2001, when some groups in the Middle East danced in the streets after the World Trade Center in NYC fell to the ground. Apparently you saw something similar in the aftermath of 22 November 1963, when your schoolmates cheered and gloried in the fall of JFK. Also, that chilling prophesy, that "They're gonna keep goin' till there's a KKK" (which referred to the deaths of JFK, MLK and RFK) would be fulfilled in five more years. Such a prophesy suggests more than foresight -- it suggests insight. It suggests planning. And it speaks volumes about a subculture in the USA that we typically prefer to ignore, to neglect, which exists in our blind spot -- so that we might not even know how large it is, to this very day. If this is correct, then it also helps to explain why after fifty years the JFK murder has not yet been solved to the satisfaction of reason. The solution may exist in our blind spot. Best regards, --Paul Trejo

Didn't Marshall resign to become Secretary of State and Ike resign become President of Columbia and 2nd time to run for POTUS? Len, no; Marshall and Eisenhower retired. When an officer resigns from the US Army, he forfeits his pension. It's considered a hostile act. Only a rash, brash fool would do something like that. There was utterly no reason for Walker to resign, either -- even if he wanted to become a KKK member after he quit the Army -- his pension had nothing to do with it. It was a hostile act -- a protest against the USA and against the Presidents that Walker considered to be COMMUNISTS. Best regards, --Paul Trejo

Dear Terri Williams, I find your account intriguing and plausible. It conforms to my own theory that places the core of the JFK assassination in a grass-roots movement of men and women associated with the "Minutemen," whom, as I have read, had close ties to the KKK. The "Minutemen" were (and to a lesser degree still are) local vigilante groups loosely organized into a national movement (just as the KKK has always been). They were all riflemen, and they gathered on formal occasions in the country-side for shooting practice and even "war games", much like the KKK. Writer and member of this Forum, William Turner, wrote a book about the extreme right-wing in the USA (Power on the Right, 1973), and in that book, as I recall, he said that in 1963, no man could become a member of the Dallas Police Department unless he was already a member of the John Birch Society, the Minutemen, or the KKK and preferably all three. In local legend, one of the shooters at JFK in Dallas -- and possibly even the killer of J.D. Tippit -- was Roscoe White. Roscoe was working for Guy Banister in New Orleans in the summer of 1963, and in the fall of 1963 he joined the Dallas Police Department. Although he was a new trainee, he was already wearing a gun in Dallas beginning in November, 1963. His wife and son claim that he confessed to being one of the grassy knoll shooters. My point is that Roscoe White was also allegedly a member of the KKK as well as the Minutemen. Guy Banister, so I've read, was also a member of the KKK, a member of the Minutemen and also a member of the White Citizens' Council in his neighborhood. Many Minutemen, especially in the deep South, were also members of their local KKK chapters. Ex-General Edwin Walker was a frequent speaker at White Citizen Council meetings, and was also a respected leader of the Minutemen (according to Harry Dean). By considering the assassination of JFK to be a grass-roots movement of extreme rightist organizations, we obtain a more plausible theory, IMHO, that best explains why: (1) the shooters have remained unknown for so long; and (2) why so many witnesses who offered warm clues ended up dead on a regular basis. Another strong point to a KKK-Minutemen involvement in the JFK assassination is that it confirms that we are talking about a conspiracy involving hundreds of people -- a discipilned group that is able to keep quiet for fifty years or more. Further, so many KKK-Minutemen would need a leader and a goal. Ex-General Edwin Walker who led the Ole Miss race riots in Oxford, Mississippi, would be a plausible leader for them. He was shunned by the American majority but he was still beloved by the extreme right-wing. Walker was a regular speaker on nationwide right-wing tours promoting racial segregation as late as April, 1963, and appeared in local segregationist venues throughout the South for the remainder of 1963. But more to the point, Edwin Walker and Guy Banister were leaders among the Minutemen and helped to provide training grounds for war games. These training grounds were also shared with Cuban Exiles who wanted nothing more than to take Cuba back in a blaze of glory. This combination of KKK, Minutemen and Cuban Exiles on fire was a witches brew. Add a dash of ex-CIA rogues and anything was possible. In June, 1963 James Meredith was seriously wounded by a shooting in Mississippi, while his mentor in the Ole Miss movement, namely, Medgar Evers, was shot in the back in his own driveway and killed. His killer, Byron de la Beckwith, was brought to justice decades later, but in 1964 he got away with that crime. During his first trial in 1964, Ex-General Edwin Walker walked up to Beckwith and shook his hand publicly, in a show of support. Although Ex-General Edwin Walker was not an open racist while he was wearing a US Army uniform, after he resigned from the Army (as the only US General to resign in the 20th century) Walker soon learned that the only friends he had left were those among the extreme right-wing. Luckily for Walker, the entire USA right-wing had begun to fall in line under the McCarthyist doctrines of his beloved John Birch Society, whose key doctrine was that FDR, Truman, Ike and JFK were all Communists, traitors and deserved to die. The Cuban crisis brought it all to a head. The Minutemen arose in 1961 upon fears that Fidel Castro would invade the USA (see the 1984 version of the movie, Red Dawn, starring Patrick Swayze). Perhaps 1963 was the peak of extreme right-wing grassroots militant activity in the USA, in my opinion, and it was ripe for a world-historical act like the assassination of JFK. Finally, Terri Williams, I believe that the KKK involvement with the Minutemen fits with the pattern in which we find ex-General Edwin Walker throughout 1963. So, your claims are plausible according to my own theory. Best regards, --Paul Trejo <edit typos>

Two portraits are on offer here. In the first portrait, the Kennedys are portrayed as innocent lambs with regard to Cuba, and the mean old CIA with their Cold War cronies are doing whatever they want despite the noble orders of the President of the USA. In the second potrait, the Kennedys are portrayed as consummate politicians, who present to the Domestic and Foreign public a benign face of nobility, while at the same time pursuing clandestine struggles with global politics regarding Cuba. I prefer to remember JFK as a consummate politician, and not as a wimp who was regularly by-passed by his Cabinet. JFK was brilliant, and to imagine that any USA activities were going on in Cuba without his knowledge portrays JFK as an imbecile. McClone was faithful to JFK, even though some rogue or ex-CIA contractors were not. The CIA did not kill Kennedy, I say. The forces that killed JFK were entirely underground -- probably the Minutemen -- and they were an effective secret sociey. If the CIA or FBI had spies in the Minutemen (for example) there was clearly bureaucratic resistence to prevent all the facts from reaching the top of the organization. That's precisely how the underground works. JFK and RFK were consummate politicians. They knew that the fall of Castro would guarantee a Kennedy re-election. They knew how to smile in the cameras and get dirty work done nevertheless. They weren't imbeciles. Regards, --Paul Trejo

John D. Yes, it was Rousselot of {JBS} making the offer to Reagan in the way you decribe. Rousselot was then Western Director of {JBS} at the time. Harry Documented JBS MO John, that's a clear message. The John Birch Society (the forerunner of today's Tea Party) was so right-wing in 1965 that they already knew the majority of Americans would never vote for them in an open and honest contest -- so they twisted the truth any way they could. In this case, Congressman John Rousselot (from the San Gabriel Valley, where I grew up) approached Ronald Reagan in 1965 and told him: "We want you to win, so if you prefer, we'll oppose you so that all our enemies (the majority) will vote for you!" That's shrewd, all right. So how did the Berkeley Barb end the story? Best regards, --Paul Trejo

David, it's a fair question that has stood the test of time. It's relevant to the thread about "Baron" George De Mohrenschildt and Michael Paine, because the closest they come to the JFK assassination, I believe, is their social complicity with Lee Harvey Oswald during this controversial time of his shooting at ex-General Edwin Walker. My reason for doubting that Walker himself staged his own shooting is that such a theory rests on weak premises and assumptions. Firstly, the theory suggests that Walker chose Oswald as a patsy out of the clear blue sky. In April of 1963, Oswald had not yet made any public appearances as a phony officer of the FPCC. The only known motive to select Oswald in April, 1963 was that he had allegedly defected to the USSR in 1959 and brought home a Russian wife; not particularly compelling. (Also, this approach ignores Jim Root's evidence that Walker himself might have helped Oswald get into the USSR.) Secondly, the theory does not tell us what Walker stood to gain by staging his own shooting. Attention? This motive further ignores the fact that while Walker was away on his "Midnight Ride" speaking tour with segregationist preacher Billy James Hargis, his live-in publisher, Robert Allen Surrey saw two men in a car prowling around the Walker house. Thirdly, the theory attempts to rest on the premise that Walker might have been insane. That is a political opinion that was begun by JFK and RFK. Walker was indeed a political enemy of the worst kind to JFK. On 30 September 1962 Walker instigated a race riot at Ole Miss University in Oxford, Mississippi, where hundreds were wounded and two were killed. In response, JFK and RFK demanded that ex-General Edwin Walker be detained for a 90-day psychiatric evaluation in a military hospital. That, however, was one of the great blunders of the JFK Administration. Neither the White House -- nor any political body -- is qualified to decide who is insane and who is not. Political psychiatry is a two-edged sword that could be played by both the right-wing and the left-wing if it ever became common practice. The famous psychiatrist, Thomas Szasz, immediately protested this abuse of power, and the ACLU immediately joined Thomas Szasz to demand the immediate release of ex-General Edwin Walker from this travesty of justice. Walker was released after five days, and RFK all but apologized. Now, one can understand the enormous personal frustration of JFK and RFK, since the Ole Miss riots happened at the peak of the Cuban Missile Crisis!! But personal frustration is no excuse for the violation of Habeas Corpus and other basic human rights. So, no, Walker was not insane. Also, Walker had no solid reason to incriminate Oswald -- yet. The actual criteria were: (1) George and Jeanne De Mohrenshildt (and possibly Michael Paine and Volkmar Schmidt, and also Marina Oswald and Ruth Paine) had ample evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald was the shooter at ex-General Edwin Walker on 10 April 1963; (2) they all declined to tell the Dallas Police about their evidence; (3) the Baron told his friends, the Voshinins on Easter Sunday 14 April 1963; (4) Mrs. Voshinin immediately told the FBI (as she later told Dick Russell); and (5) the FBI has rules about warning shooting victims. It was only after Walker learned from the FBI (or other internal government agency, as he often said) that Lee Harvey Oswald was his April shooter -- only then did Walker have any reason to select Oswald as the patsy for a plot to kill JFK. It makes most sense to me that Walker selected Oswald out of revenge. In other words, Oswald had to act first -- as the shooter on 10 April 1963 (as he confessed to Marina three hours later). Then Walker had to learn about the shooting four days later (through the FBI through Mrs. Voshin through George De Mohrenshildt). (Only this explains Walker's life-long obsession with what he called the "April Crime.") Was Walker insane? We have no evidence that he was. Was Walker a deadly enemy of JFK and RFK? We have lots of evidence to affirm this. Walker's close association with the John Birch Society and its guiding paramilitary arm, the Minutemen, continually repeated on a daily basis that JFK, exactly like every US President since FDR had been Communist, a traitor, and deserved the firing squad. Just this had been the message of the Walker-Hargis "Midnight Ride." Best regards, --Paul Trejo <edit typos>