Paul Brancato

Oswald had not yet purchased the coke when he was confronted by Baker.

The statement Baker wrote in which he crossed out the coke was written days later and is not the first day statement,

I think Baker must have heard of the coke story from others and after mentioning it in his statement realized that he did not see Oswald with the coke in hand and crossed it out.

I think you are dead right on this one, Bill.

David Lifton once told me that he believed Baker was sent to Kill Oz

but was prevented by the presence of Roy Truly.

I do not know whether David still holds that view, (it was many years ago) but as I told David then,

I have never harbored any suspicions about officer Marion Baker.

Am I understanding correctly that officer Baker was interviewed on the 22nd but did not mention,the lunch room encounter until his interview on the 23rd?

Kathleen - decades ago I was an amateur astrologer, and also good at math by the way.

Wow Brad - that was quite a post. I have never heard that explanation of Jackie's movements before. What would have happened had she gone on the warpath after returning home? She was hugely respected.

Some intrepid reporter should interview Ted Cruz and ask him flat out.

Outstanding.

Don - I concur. I'm sympathetic to David Larsen, who appreciates the diversity of opinions and free debate here. But I wish the major writers and researchers would find and express the common grounds between them while they engage in their well considered disagreements.

Like a few here, I would appreciate a small digression in order to explain the missing Z frames.

Thanks - it always seemed logical that Oswald would have been watching the motorcade. I can't picture him eating his lunch while every one else was watching, any more than I can see him looking out a 6th floor window aiming a rifle.

Bart et al - is there any evidence that LHO said he was on the front steps watching the motorcade?

Movers has a lot to answer for, and he owes the public an explanation. Unfortunately he has never explained his actions that day, or opened himself to questions about his relationship to LBJ. He was obviously loyal to him.

Michael Walton - I'm pretty much with you on your more minimalist approach. I think it's just obvious that JFK was hit in the throat first, and agree that the early reports from Parkland are more reliable. I also agree that the Z film is not altered, and believe that its authenticity has been the subject of a concerted attack precisely because it is our best evidence of multiple shooters. I likewise had a lot of trouble with Lifton's theories of body alteration for the same general reason it takes a lot of twisting and turning. But that one at least has the benefit of loads of eyewitness testimony over the years that support his theory, so I have come to accept it.

I don't generally post on threads dealing with the re-enactments of what happened during those 6-8 seconds because I think it is a distraction. No one will ultimately win arguments like these, though they may be convinced they are right. And no one will ever convince me that a proven exactly correct sequence will bring us any closer to Who done it. I want to know Who and Why. The only thing this minute examination of wounds and ballistics and trajectories proves is that there were multiple shooters. Duh!

I guess John Newman has, and he is indefatigable. Time to begin reading his new book 'Where Angels Tread Lightly'

And I started a new thread rather than complain about the direction this one took.

Thanks for keeping the thread on life support

Michael - do we know when Ruth marked that on her calendar?

Thank you Tom. You made it much clearer.

Larry - I was going to mention Mena, so thanks for that. And I agree that one was worth investigating and was covered up as you say. Ron, do you know what Larry is referring to?

I think it's interesting how McBride's initial post on RFK has evolved into something completely different, and I am not without some blame. In order to correct that, I posted the current thread on which I am now the only poster. I think it's strange that the RFK case, which in my view is a better candidate for retrial that JFK, seems to fade out every time it's brought up here. Now I know this board is about JFK, but still...

Sirhan, unlike Oswald, is still alive. Others who were injured in the attack, like Schrade, are still alive. RFK's son is still with us and well known. The autopsy was not botched. Yet the case lingers, and doesn't elicit the same response here. Why not? Didn't that death not likewise alter history? Don't we believe that Talbot is right when he asserts that Bobby was planning to investigate his brother's death, and that he knew right away that there had been a conspiracy?

Prescott Bush was prosecuted by Congress for trading with the enemy. He was not convicted. But the Union Bank certainly was guilty.

I would say that powerful families are largely above the law, a sorry but true fact.

I think that there is a false equivalence in your analysis, even though as you say ones view of the Bushes and Clintons is colored by ones political leanings. I remember well the feeling I had when Bill was in office and the scandals you mention were swirling around him and Hillary. I saw these scandals as witch hunts. But in my defense I have to say that whenever I tried to scrutinize Whitewater, or Vince Foster, I was left with the feeling that there was no there there. That doesn't mean I saw no possibility of sleazy financial dealings, but it was nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that couldn't be said about politicians in general. Show me something other than stolen files that points to the Clintons having had Foster murdered. Frankly I was more upset with Bill Clinton for free trade deals and welfare reform than any of the scandals you mentioned. From the left perspective Bill was far too centrist.

So why was he hounded by the Republicans so mercilessly? This wasn't just political squabbling and complaining the way Democrats did during Bush the younger's presidency. I came to the conclusion that there had to be a deeper reason. There is no moral high ground on the Republican side. In my opinion financial elites stand to gain a lot from governmental disfunction. I see divide and conquer at work. I don't see a great deal of difference in foreign policy between the parties. Domestically we have been fighting about self evident human rights like women's right to choose or gays right to marry not because there are really two sides to these issues, but rather because it takes so much energy to fight these battles that we never get to focus on issues like poverty and privilege, issues the financial elites really do care about.

So if people become convinced that both sides are equally inept and equally corrupt we end up in the situation we are apparently in now, which is that a loser like Trump can harness the bitterness of the blue collar and unemployed underclass and make a serious run at the White House. Unfortunately this reminds me of another loser in another country not too long ago.

Ron - I think you are underestimating the calumny of the Bush crime family. Fabian Escalante, long time Cuban intelligence agent, named George senior as supplying funding for Operation 40, along with fellow oilman Jack Crichton. I personally think that the operation was called Zapata because of Bush, who probably supplied logistics from Zapata's offshore rigs to the BOP gang. We know about Hoover's George Bush of the CIA memo. What about Bush supplying telephonically a false lead right after the assassination to someone named Parrot who later became a Republican operative?

The reason I asked Douglass Caddy about Hunt is that I think it's time we get back to where we were the first time we heard about Guy Banister and the Cuban exiles. Why shouldn't we give serious consideration to what Escalante said? Spartacus has a good concise article about him, bio etc. He probably did us all a great favor when he named 5 Dealey Plaza hit men who came from the ranks of the Chicago mob and Cuban exiles. Doesn't that lead directly to Giancana and Roselli and William Harvey and Hunt? Isn't that why Joannides was put in charge of controlling the HSCA access to CIA files during their investigation? Doesn't Hunt lead us to Nixon, and thus to Prescott Bush? Doesnt Nixon, Prescott's hand picked dirty politician, lead straight back to George senior, whose failing political career was rescued by Nixon when he appointed him ambassador to China? How the heck did Bush ever become CIA director, and at such a critical time right after the post Watergate congressional investigations into the CIA? Which brings us back to the Hoover memo.

I know I am completely off track on a post I started, but what the heck?

Douglass - no need to apologize. I was a bit impatient which I have been recently for a variety of reason. Mainly the thread had been diverted into a discussion of the tramps identities which was my fault. That's why I rephrased the question. Thanks for your generous and thought provoking answer. Did Hunt actually name which high up CIA officials he blamed for BOP?

Ron - wow - he really said 'offing'.

Tom - thanks. My frustration isn't with you or anyone else for diverting this thread or others, it's with McBride. And Caddy.

Good work Ron - thanks - though the Hinckley connection, while interesting, seems too crazy to be real. If I were naming off the Bush crime family doings I would start with Prescott and the nazis, his promotion of Richard Nixon, and then his son George's obvious CIA ties beginning in the 1950's,his involvement in the BOP, his close ties with those Cubans going from BOP through Iran Contra.

When I criticized your Clinton list it was because it left out the very things that make Hillary the kind of presidential candidate that I unfortunately have to hold my nose when I go to the voting booth. Do you think that we would've no worse off with Kasich than Clinton? I don't. I don't feel it necessary to draw the same comparisons with Cruz or Trump, do I?

I'm watching Obama speaking in Cuba at this moment. Whatever corporate interests may support this opening to Cuba, I still have to give Obama credit. This took some courage.

Mr. McBride is a fine author and investigative journalist, but I wish he would engage here more after he posts.

By real ones I mean voting record mostly. As I said, there is plenty not to like, but Vince Foster, travel gate, whitewater?

Here's a question for you, a litmus test if you will. What do you think of George Bush and his family? Do you have a similar off the top of your head list?