Paul Brancato

Excellent. Kindle edition available?

So you don't believe Loran Hall when he told Garrison that he had never met Odio?

So you don't believe Loran Hall when he said he had never met Odio?

Ernie - your opinion is that no one can have an opinion on who killed JFK because none of the '13' theories can be proven. I already got that. Who do you think killed JFK?

Ernie - your personal opinions are very relevant, and you have not shared them to my knowledge, though I confess I have not read every single word you have posted. My post was a bit inflammatory but not at all dishonest in my opinion.

Thanks - interesting presentation, especially in light of the lack of movement re unreleased files since then. Lawyers records would be telling.

Ernie - at least Trejo is honest about what he believes. You continually evade the question of what you believe. Apparently you think that no one has the right to promote a theory without first proving that all the 'facts' support it. In the field of JFK assassination research that is a literal impossibility. Could Trejo or Dean try a little harder to did up every iota, every file, of info? Yes of course. Is Trejo prone to see everything through the lens of his own beliefs? Yes. We already knew that. You have not enlightened me about that - it's perfectly obvious. But we still don't know what you believe, other that your point that lefties and righties fall into the same logical traps. We, and I think I speak for most of us, nevertheless know on which side of that divide we stand. Where do you stand!

Ernie - I for one would not accuse you of having 'blind faith' in FBI integrity or record keeping procedures. I would simply ask you whether you do think the FBI has integrity? Do you think they destroy files or create false ones? This is not, or should not, be a litmus test of your political persuasions. They can either be trusted or they cannot. Same goes for other intelligence agencies. In 1964 I went to hear Mark Lane speak in NYC on at least two occasions. I was 16 at the time and for some reason felt that something terribly sinister had happened to our president, and I wanted to find out the truth. I was sure that we weren't getting the truth from most of our media. I'll admit a certain bias here, as I was and still am a humanist and an idealist, and then and now cannot make peace with the idea of endless warfare. But I did not know then what extreme challenges JFK faced and what he was trying to accomplish. I had not heard or read the American University speech. I knew that he had unilaterally stopped nuclear tests in the atmosphere. I had a generally positive feeling about him. The second time I heard Lane it was at a debate between him and Melvin Belli. About half way through that debate Belli, in extreme exasperation, stood up and proclaimed to Lane and the audience before walking out altogether 'if you can't trust the FBI who can you trust?' I never forgot those lines. In the fullness of time it became obvious, to me at least, that you cannot trust the FBI. If the lies and obfuscations surrounding the investigation for the Warren Commission are not enough, look at Hoover's enemies list. I think you draw a false equivalence between the left and the right. The left wanted more from JFK than they were getting, at least it appeared so. I am not sure they really had enough facts to make that judgement. Civil rights, Cold War politics, things were moving too slowly. Still are. But the vitriol and hatred came from the right not the left. Any sane person not blinded by media lies, willing to consider that so much of how things actually work are deliberately hidden from the electorate, (just look at Assange and Snowden - traitors? Really?) can see that power corrupts. The national security state doesn't work for the people, it works for the powerful. And that is the way things have been on this planet forever. I would return to the thing that really bugs me about this thread - that Harry Dean's bonafides will make or break the case against Edwin Walker and his smarmy racist warmongering confederates. No way.

I may have gotten the ball rolling on focusing this thread on Umbrella man, but it was quite unintentional. The rest of my post is about multiple hit teams. I don't think Umbrella man was signaling shooters, but I do find it extremely odd that he and his 'partner' sat down on the curb after the shooting and waited while everyone else was running up the embankment or at least somewhere. That it was a symbol of the reason JFK was killed I have no doubt, as the killers in this large conspiracy saw him as an appeaser, trying to make peace with a sworn enemy. That was what I had in mind when I called his actions a significant clue.

Though I weighed in for what is so far the majority view, I also like the second most voted idea, and think both of them could be true.

I too think umbrella man was a significant clue. I think the sniper analysis a good one, but think it more likely that there were multiple hit teams, and that several groups participated. Other writers have pointed out, and I agree, that there was a kind of safety in numbers. In my opinion it is no accident that films of Dealey plaza that day who so many lookalikes to 'suspects'. People like E Howard Hunt, George Bush, Rip Robertson. The presence of known Corsican hitmen in Dallas, hitmen in the Dal-Tex building, men with guns in several promising locations including rooftops, railroad overpass, grassy knoll, snipers nest. This is a bit off topic I suppose - just sayin'

If there are other dramatists/musician composers reading this and you think its a good idea send me a message.

I think LHO would make a great dramatic subject. He was in a Shakespearean sense a tragic figure. I've done some serious thinking about how to do this, but find myself stymied by lack of time and maybe talent. But I have some ideas on how to present it. Of course it could be a musical - the comic/tragic nature of his life lends itself to that kind of treatment. Wasn't MacBird a musical?

Whew. David - how is it that two young teens who did not resemble each other in height and weight end up looking so much alike? I get that there were two conflicting descriptions floating around of LHO. But the faces are so identical that they would seem to be twins. What is Armstrong's explanation according to you? Or yours? Did one of them shoot JFK? Just curious whether Armstrong eventually outlines how the H&L story intersects with the assassination itself.

I'm inclined to agree with Martin Blank in that I feel the theory makes sense out of chaos, and I have no problem believing that Angleton could be so clever. The most difficult part for me is believing that Lee was born in Russia, and Harvey in the US, and that having such different physical descriptions growing up they somehow ended up close in size and weight and looking so much alike. Is plastic surgery the explanation for this?

David - I am not a serious researcher, just a citizen with a 50 year interest in JFK. I have read dozens of the best books, and will always feel the tragic loss Americans suffered during the 1960's. I have read about a third of Harvey and Lee. The trouble I have with the theory, and with some of your earnest threads on the subject, is that I simply can't piece together the information presented. I suspect the problem is more one of style than substance. I have an open mind and would really like to understand and be able to follow this deep cover operation if it is real. You have such intimate knowledge of this that you use a lot of shorthand when you write about it, and the author of the book is all over the map in his organization of the information. I'd like to be able to read something I can more easily comprehend before I form any conclusions. What would you suggest? I wonder if anyone else reading this agrees with me.

You are so right Greg. Elements of the press and media would like us to remember JFK as an opportunist and a cold warrior, but fortunately some great books have been written showing that he was a humanist and a progressive. For those that remember him as the former his death was a random act of violence, or at the very least wasn't all that important. I think David Talbot, in his great book 'Brothers', and James Douglass in 'JFK and the Unspeakable', enable us to put his death in its true context. But the revisionists will continue to try to paint JFK otherwise.

The only real dispute is whether released or unreleased files would show a deeper relationship with the FBI, and whether, if they did not show a deeper relationship, and/or did not provide direct corroboration of Harry Dean's story of the assassination plot and plotters, that the FBI files should then be considered proof that this plot as detailed by Harry Dean did not exist. Let's see what Lazar uncovers. If nothing new is revealed we can then debate the general question of the ultimate veracity of Intelligence files. We read often that so and so destroyed this or that file. We know cops cover their tracks as best they can, and that is true everywhere. Its easy for me to conclude that the FBI, CIA, ONI etc deliberately misfile or otherwise hide from investigators any files that reveal illegal actions by their operatives.

This thread about Harry Dean and his story is in some way a distraction. Dean did not kill JFK, and whether or not his story is true or false, General Walker may very well have been a key part of the assassination. What worries me therefore is that if Dean's bonafides are never verified by FBI files or other independent corroboration it will do serious damage to what should be the focus here - the very real possibility that Walker was a key element in the plot to kill JFK. I have read the book that Dean, with Trejo's help, has written, something I doubt most readers here have done. That's not meant to be a knock on forum members, but a comment on the way that Dean's posts here read. They are mostly inscrutable. If his story is true he is not a good advocate for it. Trejo's unflinching belief in Dean likewise strikes me as over zealous. I don't doubt Trejo's earnestness, just his choice to promote Dean's story. Trejo's research on Walker is revealing and important, and I think there is more to discover about Walker and the far right racist milieu he was an integral part of. I remember that in the first hours and days after the assassination, suspect number one for those that thought Oswald was a patsy was the Minutemen.

Robert - its very unclear to me why someone named Oswald who is not LHO is of interest to you. But the issue of continuity between Nazi hierarchy and operatives, and elements of the US government and US intelligence is important, and directly linked to the Deep Politics of the entire post-war period. Power structures of the military establishments are not bound by narrow ideologies. I think Oliver Stone did a pretty good job in his Secret History of the US series of showing how that establishment purged the US of elements who were willing to find a way to peacefully coexist with the 'Communist' world. These same establishment forces were supportive of Hitler before WW 2 and viewed Stalin (and later Mao and Stalin's Soviet successors) as the true enemies of capitalism. The interlocking directorates between US and German corporations were extensive. The Dulles brothers and Sullivan and Cromwell, and the Bushes and Brown Brothers Harriman, were central parts of this ideological interlock. It's very clear that JFK's speech at American University was a direct threat to this fascist power structure, and I believe it sealed his fate. The world we inhabit today is the direct result. People who threaten this not so secret power structure are killed routinely and cleverly. As Al Pacino says in Godfather 3, and I paraphrase here, he thought his Mafia opponents were never as dangerous as the corporate 'mafia' he encountered when he tried to go legit. There is a huge sucking sound as the world's wealth is being concentrated ever more completely in the hands of the few. And given their enormous power and ability to hide in plain sight it seems there is little any of us can do. 'News' is a joke. Political parties are a distraction. The control of information is near total. Google has become a tool. Anything else?

Ernie - one question. Would you admit that the FBI, the ONI, the CIA etc destroy files on occasion?

Thanks Greg - the link works. Interesting - wonder about the blacked out portions. Angleton would have been the perfect KGB mole. How to square that possibility with Newman's theory that Angleton ran Oswald, especially in Mexico City.

Greg - I would like to read this but cannot figure out how to do so. Perhaps its my Ipad. Any other way to do so?

When do we get to see the files?

Joseph - I posted on the Tippit thread recently that I find it likely that Tippit lied about his location at 12:45 pm, and that if he did lie it made it more likely that he also lied about his location at 12:17 pm. You covered this ground well in this interview and in your recent book. If both locations (on the same street) were lies it follows that Dealey Plaza might have been where he actually was at 12:30 pm. One has to do a lot of twisting to imagine someone other than Oswald killing Tippit if all he was doing was looking for Oswald. But of course if he was an assassin that day killing him would be easy to understand. His actions during the 40 minutes or so between the assassination seem more like a man trying to avoid danger than a man looking for a suspect. And he did in fact get murdered. I know its all conjecture on my part.