Paul Brancato

I wonder if our resident secret service expert Vince Palomara will weigh in?

As Joe points out, a curious ending to White’s comments. Even more, I feel it is a tragic loss not to have everything Jackie wrote and felt in the public record.

Thanks Mr. Rigby. I’m no expert on this subject - much of it new news for me. I believe I had read Krock’s warning about CIA and JFK. I’m hoping others will read and comment.

Absolutely shocking short video. Abraham Bolden speaking out about the Southern Secret Service agents hating Kennedy rings too true. It must have been difficult to be the first Black American assigned to protect the President.

Good question. He wasn’t hit from the right front, nor from the TSBD.

Pete - interesting, look forward to an update. Also interesting is Morley looking at JCS running anti-FPCC operations. JFK moved Lemnitzer out - to NATO. The making of Seven Days in May during his presidency strikes me as significant. Dulles and Lemnitzer - what a pair.

Mark Lane, in 1964, interviewed many Dealey Plaza witnesses who said that shots came from the front. I attended 3 of his events in NYC that year and the next. There was never any doubt about this, so much so that it became part of the people’s history, even though not part of the WCR.

He probably just kept his money in cash

This escalation is troubling. Matt - I like your posts. I also like Kathy’s. I think she and the other moderators do a good job here. I don’t understand what troubles you so much about her responses. I’m glad btw that you complained about Jonathan Cohen. Let the process unfold. it’s better to cast a wide net. Ad hominem attacks aren’t useful, and they are divisive. If I posted my take on Christianity here it would undoubtedly ruffle feathers. So I don’t. It’s rude to attack someone for their beliefs. take a deep breath Matt. You’re not under attack.

Please Matt. You’re an intelligent guy. Calling someone Putin’s mouthpiece is just too easy and dismissive.

Stoicism influenced me as well. It’s a very practical method of living a good life.

I never look askance at people who cannot see the sinister forces at work. I feel mostly sadness. I’ve read arguments that say folks like me need to be right, that we are attracted to the position that we see clearly where others are blind. Convenient way to dismiss the conspiracy minded. So many of my friends over the years have let me know that they prefer not to believe certain things because it makes them feel powerless. ‘What can I do?’ is the question often asked. Dr. Helen Caldicott called this propensity psychic numbing. What sees me through all this is that from studying history I’ve learned that this is nothing new, that power corrupts, that authority figures need to be very carefully vetted, which by the way comes down to one’s own desire to seek truth and doing the work oneself. History as we are taught it is full of lies, truth seekers have often been marginalized and worse. At its deepest level my desire for truth stems from empathy with humanity, and from wanting a better life. i also see that life on earth is beautiful, that friends and family take precedence, that the only person I can truly be responsible for is myself, that my behavior towards others is more important than my beliefs. It is not necessary to be detached from the horrors of war and poverty in order to live a good and meaningful life. It’s a gift beyond measure to be here now.

She deserves a lot of credit.

It’s an interesting possibility. From your response I gather you think LHO was there purely to offer cover for the impersonation of him, and not otherwise on an assignment. If your theory is correct the Odio incident must have caught CIA unawares. As for photographs of him in MC at the consulates I’ll go with no pictures exist because he didn’t visit the consulates.

I agree with this. I’d rather see documents than hear from the person who says he’s read them. Revealing the name could result in a follow-on shoot the messenger, end of story. Carlson may have done us a favor by doing his hard hitting piece, but only if Larry is successful in parlaying this opening into bi-partisan Congressional pressure.

Your theory is novel. Don’t you think David Josephs demolished the Oswald bus ride? Let’s assume Oswald did go to Mexico by some means to carry out still hidden operations, and that there were no photos of him entering or leaving either consulate or embassy, Cuba or Russia because he was never there. (Add to that the impersonation, at least in a phone call, of Oswald). What would Oswald have been doing in MC?

While I’m quite in sympathy with your last sentence, it was Angleton that made sure no one saw the contents of Winston Scott’s safe.

Its interesting to ponder what Ruby might have said had he thrown caution to the wind and just laid it out.

Those are of course good questions. But I prefer to say they did lie, like CIA lied, and the why of it is the real mystery. If there was a real photo we of course would have seen it, since the WC case hinges on it. Likewise, once we accept the fact that there are no photos we are left with a Big Lie. The problem you pose suggests some mutual benefit, since apparently money wasn’t the underlying motive.

When I first read the 3 kgb agent summary of Oswald at the Russian Embassy it threw me for a loop. It seemed so believable. But they have no proof, no photos. They only have their own credibility, and we have no way of knowing how credible they are, no matter how convincingly they tell their story. We have entered the world of deep fakes. Someday perhaps they, or the CIA, will have those photos, and they’ll look convincing. But they won’t be real. Like Sandy says….and David Josephs, who convinced me too. But I’ve always been suspicious of this story, because so much appears to hinge on MC, and the evidence is so flimsy. One thing that troubled me about Michael Beschloss appearance on MSNBC was his repetition of MC in his summary. Then we found out the CIA had ‘secretly’ briefed news organizations before the document release, setting up their limited hangout. They are going to stick to their basic story, and MC is central to it. A major question for me, perhaps only me, is whether this crafted story, seemingly in place to convince the public that LHO was up to no good leading up to Nov 22, ready for distribution soon after and still relied upon to support the WC report, proves that CIA was planning to assassinate JFK. Does it? Do LHO’s actions in New Orleans in possible cahoots with a CIA or FBI prove that his manipulators were planning an assassination? I don’t think they do prove that. I’m more inclined to think that some cabal, even one working for the highest echelons of State power, piggybacked their plans onto an existing operation whose purpose was to smear FPCC and the dupes that dared to see Castro in any positive light. Yes, he was a patsy in my view, but we’ve spent the better part of 59 years looking in the wrong place and at the wrong individual.

A very interesting book I’m reading - The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity - questions the paradigm that human history has always had dominance hierarchies. It’s certainly been the case for the past several thousand years. The authors ask the question how did we end up with inherited rulership as the norm when prehistory, even after the agricultural revolution, suggests that deliberately temporary rulership was the norm?

Left and right finding common ground especially regarding the National Security State has been brewing for years now. My own personal theory is that obviously false conspiracies provide cover for real ones, and therefore their injection into the public debate should be viewed with suspicion. There is a nearly invisible process at work here, one that appears designed to sow confusion and division. Ultimately the broader left has adopted a neocon view, anathema to old lefties, who then ironically find themselves in sympathy with some positions articulated by the so-called far right. Strange Days Indeed. But truly there is a lot to be upset about, especially if you are poor, whether you live in a big city or in the boonies. It’s too bad really that the anti-government message they are being inundated with often comes from those that then preach all kinds of nonsense to their unsuspecting and undereducated ears. Tucker Carlson has been up til now a mouthpiece for some of this, but i appreciate what he did, and hope like Larry says some bi-partisan consensus is reached as a result of him and others speaking out.

Thanks for bringing this outstanding video to our attention.

Thanks for being able to answer Adam. My own take is that everyone is a phone call away from everyone else. It would be nice to prove that some or most of these individuals were actually meeting together prior to Nov 22, 1963, but I wouldn’t expect to find anything.

You make an excellent point, and I hope something comes of it.