Paul Brancato

I am not that hard on Ventura. I think he is earnest. He had many shows in his series where he investigated conspiracy theories and debunked them. In one of his episodes he tells the story of what it was like on day 1 of his governorship. As he describes it, he sat down in a room with a very large table at which were seated many people he did not recognize and who were unidentified, but were clearly intelligence types, shadow govt etc., and realized at that moment that he knew almost nothing about the power establishment. I believe it was the beginning of his education in how little power an elected official really has, even a governor or a president. He has a lot of courage, apparent in his on air confrontations. I don't want to overdo my admiration, but it is considerable.

Will there be a kindle edition soon?

Yes Bill, so LeMay could get to Bethesda quicker.

I don't think altering wounds to set up Oswald as the lone shooter necessarily meant that there would be no perceived communist conspiracy. After all the conspirators tried, and did a pretty good job of bolstering Oswald's left wing bonafides - with Oswald's help of course, witting or not. LBJ certainly pressed home the necessity of portraying Oswald as acting on his own, but whoever was instrumental in creating the Oswald commie image had other ends in mind.

It seems that you know a lot more about the JBS than I do. How would you describe the JBS in 1963 in LA, or Dallas, or New Orleans?

Bill - I hope you are able to locate unedited transcripts, because, as you say, its the parts that were edited out of the tapes that will prove to be the most interesting.

Larry - Dorman was concerned that LeMay be contacted while he, LeMay, was still in flight. It doesn't sound like SOP to me. Surely Dorman had already contacted LeMay hours earlier before AF 1 was aloft.

Sure there are principled conservatives. But calling out states rights champions who are using the term as a cover for their racist views is necessary. I am not foolish enough to call all conservatives racist, or even all JBS members racist. But the interlock between the far right and the racist south is very real.

Ernie - I think you might be splitting hairs just a bit. In any case I am going to order Dean's book and read what he has to say.

Do you not think that states rights activists are often racists? The history of that goes way back.

It looks that way to me too Cliff, but the idea hasn't gotten much traction.

Robert - does this story intersect 'Gold Warriors' by the Seagraves?

I know that intuition is anything but evidence, but I think that the new info about Colonel Dorman trying to contact LeMay, edited out of the LBJ version, is the tip of the iceberg. Its reasonable to assume that LeMay was the cigar smoking general in the autopsy gallery. How he found out where the autopsy would occur is the question. Was Dorman trying to tell LeMay that Bethesda was to be the location, rather than Walter Reed? And further, did this come as a surprise to LeMay, or perhaps was he behind the scenes making sure the autopsy would be at Bethesda, and only receiving final confirmation from Dorman that the plotters had been successful in convincing JFK's AF1 aides to switch the location?

Senseney says they made dart weapons that could be disguised as even an umbrella, and that the dart would dissolve once it entered the body. I have seen this info before. Is there good info to support the idea that a neurotoxin-coated dart weapon could have been made as early as 1963? Once I was alerted to at least the possibility of this, I viewed the Zapruder film differently. I can't watch it without being astonished that JFK's arms appear immobilized, and that he did not duck for cover, nor did Jackie fully realize he had been hurt. Seriously, if it had been a bullet wound would we not expect a different reaction?

Hi Bill - The tapes pose more questions than they answer. Who decided to bring the body to Bethesda? It seems that Burkley thought the autopsy would be done at Walter Reed, but there is no evidence on the tapes that he put up much of a fight. And was it Secret Service agent Behn that made the Bethesda decision? Was this part of the tape from the LBJ version or Clifton or both?

The main question I have, and which will surely not be answered, is who edited the tapes? Why did Clifton have a longer yet still edited tape?

I wish Summers had found a way to incorporate some of the voluminous notes at the end into the text of the book. As it is, nearly half the book is in the notes at the end.

Did anyone notice that illustration 43 in Summers book 'Not in Our Lifetime', latest edition, has a photo of Ted Shackley identified as Joannides. Or perhaps the photo has previously been misidentified as Shackley. Which is it?

Cliff - I can't download your last link, but think I have read this info before. I don't find the idea of a high tech weapon being used at Dealey Plaza farfetched, and in fact find the argument that the throat entry wound might have been a neuro toxin believable. But I find it hard to imagine that Umbrella man delivered that poison dart. It does appear that Jfk was immobilized after that first hit. A normal reaction to being shot in the throat it seems to me would have been to duck, not freeze.

Danny Arce - what else is known about this TSBD employee? The photo of the man with the communication device sure looks like Arce.

I agree with Schots completely. The Kennedy family made a conscious decision I think to at least appear to have drank the Koolaid. RFK might have been playing a waiting game, hoping that as president would be able to go after the perpetrators. If any family knew how dangerous it was to tell the truth it was the Kennedys. Of course RFK never got to the White House, and it wasn't until RFK Jr. visited Dallas in January that any Kennedy dared to speak out. And we all know that his words on that occasion were misquoted. The Kennedys made an understandable choice in my opinion, and it has left the rest of us in limbo. Many of us, and many Americans, know the truth in their hearts. But collectively we do slip into the more comfortable position of finding solace in the slowly emerging details that prove what we individually already know. Schots' point about the victims of American aggression not having the luxury that Americans do to pretend not to know what our military does in our name, is well taken. I don't think that I have personally been hoodwinked by any of this Orwellian reality, but I have been seduced into accepting the idea that I cannot change things for the better. The only thing that could alter that would be a revolution on our own shores, and even then I might well choose personal safety. I always come back to how horrible it must have been to be a Jew in Europe in the years leading up to WW 2. Bottom line - its dangerous to know the truth and act on it.

I think Chris might have put his finger on it. Lumpkin and Crichton. Makes sense.

Bill - looking forward to your completed combined transcript.

David Andrews - there is a link to the excised chapters at the end of Joseph McBride's post that begins this thread.

Mr. McBride - thanks forosting this review. I. Read the 40 page chapter on Chicago and Mexico that was edited out of the book, and it is very detailed and revealing. I don't know David Von Pein, but of course his reputation precedes him. I don't suppose that he read this chapter. What is clear is that he always throws the baby out with the bathwater if its related to conspiracy in the JFK assassination. The researchers who he finds nothing but faults with have done so much good work. Of course its possible that one or another conclusions they come to might not be true. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. But to dismiss entirely their works because some of their conclusions are easier to poke holes in doesn't dismiss the good work they do. This chapter on Chicago and Mexico, where DiEugenio destroys Bugliosi is a case in point. Is David Von Pein prepared to believe Bugliosi when he so cavalierly dismisses evidence of coverup in Mexico City? I guess so. In my opinion its David Von Pein who is wedded to a version of history that is patently false, not the writers and researchers who he mocks.

What do you make of Allman's description of the sound of the first shot? He calls it a 'boom', and says it was not the typical sound of a rifle firing. While in some way it makes sense that the volume of sound being greater than a rifle might be because he is near the TSBD. I wonder whether what he really heard was the echo bouncing off the buildings of a shot from somewhere in front of the limo. I always thought the first shot hit JFK in the throat, delivered from the front. If that is true, then what he heard was an echo.

I am enjoying reading the exhaustive analysis on this thread by experts who have devoted much time and effort into trying to ascertain Oswald's likely movements in the tsbd. From a purely logical pov, Oswald is much more likely to have been on the first floor than in the sniper's nest, unless he was one of the shooters, the reason being that a political animal like him and a JFK admirer as almost everyone who knew him attests, would have been watching the motorcade, not sipping a soda in the lunchroom.

I'm following. Is google the best choice of search engine? Do we have an alternative that is less commercially based?