Joseph McBride

You can choose to consider what JP Johnston said on Nov. 23, that he WOULD read the complaint about the assassination to the suspect, as a fait accompli, which it was not. Captain Will Fritz on Nov. 25 told the FBI's James Hosty that (in the words of the FBI document), "No arraignment on the murder charges in connection with the death of President KENNEDY was held inasmuch as such arraignment was not necessary in view of the previous charges filed against OSWALD [on the Tippit murder] and for which he was arraigned." Since Fritz was not always reliable (see THE THIN BLUE LINE for how he and the DPD helped frame an innocent man for killing another Dallas police officer), you might read Summers's book, which reports that "Officer J. B. Hicks was on duty in the relevant office [on Nov. 23, 1963] until aafter 2:00 A.M. and is certain Oswald was not arraigned at 1:35." The Warren Report states that the time Fritz signed the complaint charging Oswald with murdering Kennedy was "shortly after 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, November 23." At Oswald's midnight press conference, when he said he didn't know he had been charged with murdering the president, a reporter angrily said he had. But Detective Jim Leavelle, who was involved in the interrogations of Oswald, told me Oswald was telling the truth that he hadn't been informed of that charge by the authorities. Naturally, anything the DPD said, or the Warren Report claimed, has to be taken with a large grain of salt, but you can watch the press conference and see that Oswald appeared genuinely surprised. You might also not believe Hosty and the FBI, with good reason. But the way to study any facet of this case is to assess all the reports and draw conclusions of your own, doing so without preconceptions.

An FBI document says Oswald was never arraigned for the murder of JFK, only for the murder of Tippit, although he was charged with both murders. And a point about Calloway -- his escapade taking Tippit's service weapon and joyriding with it broke the chain of custody on that particular gun.

It seems that trolls are trying to take over the forum.

A podcast panel on the JFK assassination and Lee Oswald et al with host Robbie Robertson and fellow panel members, esteemed assassination researchers Joe Green and Richard Bartholomew.

I second what Jim DiEugenio says about Robbie Robertson -- he's a young JFK assassination/other political topics researcher who has gotten up to speed quickly and well. I enjoyed talking with him and will happily do so again.

See Warren Commission Exhibit 1054 in Vol. XXII ("Photographs of individuals present in lineups with Oswald") for two photos of the participants in the lineups, Dallas Police vice squad detectives William Perry and Richard Clark and jail clerk Don Ables (I would have posted these photos but wasn't able to do so). The two detectives at left are wearing suits and ties in these two photographs. The man at right, Ables, is wearing a checked short-sleeve shirt over an undershirt. Oswald was disheveled in the lineups and wearing only an undershirt with his pants. He also was bruised. Joseph Ball asked Detective Jim Leavelle in his WC testimony, "Is it unusual to use officers in the showup?" Leavelle replied, "Yes; we don't normally do it. . . . I know in all cases we usually try to have them dress as alike as possible, the same as each other." That clearly was not the case with these lineups. Although the detectives are wearing suits and ties in the photos, Captain Will Fritz said the officers took off their coats and neckties for the lineups; but Perry said he took off his coat and tie but put on another sport coat, and Clark said he took off his coat and tie but put on a red vest.

From Helen Markham's testimony before the Warren Commission: . . . Mr. [Joseph A.] BALL [assistant counsel]. Did anybody tell you that the man you were looking for would be in a certain position in the lineup, or anything like that? Mrs. MARKHAM. No, sir. Mr. BALL. Now when you went into the room you looked these people over, these four men? Mrs. MARKHAM. Yes, sir. Mr. BALL. Did you recognize anyone in the lineup? Mrs. MARKHAM. No, sir. Mr. BALL. You did not? Did you see anybody -- I have asked you that question before -- did you recognize anybody from their face? Mrs. MARKHAM. From their face, no. Mr. BALL. Did you identify anybody in these four people? Mrs. MARKHAM. I didn't know nobody. Mr. BALL. I know you didn’t know anybody, but did anybody in that lineup look like anybody you had seen before? Mrs. MARKHAM. No. I had never seen none of them, none of these men. Mr. BALL. No one of the four? Mrs. MARKHAM. No one of them. Mr. BALL. No one of all four? Mrs. MABKHAM. No, sir. Mr. BALL. Was there a number two man in there? Mrs. MARKHAM. Number two is the one I picked. Mr. BALL. Well, I thought you just told me that you hadn't -- Mrs. MARKHAM. I thought you wanted me to describe their clothing. Mr. BALL: No. I wanted to know if that day when you were in there if you saw anybody in there -- Mrs. MARKHAM. Number two. Mr. BALL. What did you say when you saw number two? Mrs. MARKHAM. Well, let me tell you. I said the second man, and they kept asking me which one, which one. I said, number two. When I said number two, I just got weak. Mr. BALL. What about number two, what did you mean when you said number two? Mrs. MARKHAM. Number two was the man I saw shoot the policeman. Mr. BALL. You recognized him from his appearance? Mrs. MARKHAM. I asked -- I looked at him. When I saw this man I wasn’t sure, but I had cold chills just run all over me. Mr. BALL. When you saw him? Mrs. MARKHAM. When I saw the man. But I wasn’t sure, so, you see, I told them I wanted to be sure, and looked,at his face is what I was looking at, mostly is what I looked at, on account of his eyes, the way he looked at me. So I asked them if they would turn him sideways. They did, and then they turned him back around, and I said the second, and they said, which one, and I said number two. So when I said that, well, I just kind of fell over. Everybody in there, you know, was beginning to talk, and I don’t know, just -- . . .

Max Good will be talking about his documentary with Donald Jeffries on I PROTEST tomorrow, July 8, at 5 p.m. Eastern at https://www.rokfin.com/americaunplugged.

I posted on the RFK section of this site a new podcast interview I did with the rarely interviewed Scott Enyart, the only person taking pictures during the shooting. He discusses what happened, what he saw, and his Kafkaesque ordeal after the LAPD, to which he lent the photos, failed to return the ones he took during the shooting, only those he took during RFK's speech and in the ballroom after the shooting. This podcast is Bob Wilson's I'M LOOKING THROUGH YOU. https://ochelli.com/rfk-assassination-witness-54-years-after/?fbclid=IwAR1U9eJGgaKdZbr01Yobf7KFgr2SdULQiqE-7Acw5emN8jJTpHmNTsCT9tA

RFK assassination witness Scott Enyart is the only person who took photographs in the Ambassador Hotel kitchen during the shooting. He also took pictures in the ballroom during the senator's victory speech and after the shooting. Enyart let the Los Angeles Police Department have the photos on the agreement that they would return them, but he never received the ones taken during the shooting. He tells that Kafkaesque story in this podcast discussion with me and host Bob Wilson on I'M LOOKING THROUGH YOU. https://ochelli.com/rfk-assassination-witness-54-years-after/?fbclid=IwAR3tLkqNN7QG8U94Re0r4oftS-k1rkX69T2DFriKiogThR69R8cDstQQLFI

I don't know why anyone would take the DPD's supposed identification of the "three tramps" at face value. Their identity is an open question.

My FIFTY REASONS . . . FIFTY YEARS segment on J. D. Tippit (note the correct spelling). Len Osanic produced the series, and Jeff Carter did the videography. This is based on my research for my book INTO THE NIGHTMARE, about two-thirds of which is on Tippit.

It did seem irregular, but Moyers was a key advance man for Kennedy's Texas trip, and LBJ was his boss. Moyers also helped publicize the motorcade route. The Secret Service and the politicians often get into turf battles, even though the Secret Service is supposed to have the last word on security matters. It's odd that Moyers has never written the autobiography that would have been expected from him, but he has too many controversial actions to hide.

Bill Moyers testified to the HSCA that he gave the order to remove the bubbletop from the limousine before the motorcade began at Love Field.

Are you claiming that Jane Curtin carries a rod?

Holland is a well-known CIA apologist in various journals. For example, there could have been more discussion of his article "The Power of Disinformation: The Lie That Linked the CIA to the Kennedy Assassination" in Studies in Intelligence, the journal of the intelligence community. Read up on Holland's work.

"He does let Holland reply but he says 'I took the money because it was $1000.' That implies (to me anyway) that Holland will work for the CIA for money." Um, yeah, you could draw that inference. It's like the old joke: "We've established what you are. We're just haggling over the price." Keep the laughs a-comin', W. Tracy. There is more on Holland and the CIA that could have been included in the film, but you just deny everything, even if someone admits it.

Oswald didn't own a gun.

John Armstrong's exhaustive research demonstrated that there is no evidence Oswald owned a rifle or a handgun.

I studied the crucial planning of the motorcade route for INTO THE NIGHTMARE. Kenneth O'Donnell was a key inside man. The decision was made at the Dallas office of Eugene Locke, head of the state Democratic Party, but O'Donnell appears to have been the main decider. The route could essentially have been decided before that but officially finalized then.

This is hilarious, because it's based on Greg's fantasy of what his heroine Ruth Paine might have done, in his dreams. He has no actual evidence to prove her a saint but forges ahead regardless.

I'm with Jim in having been appalled by the shooting of Oswald at the time. Millions of people felt that way. Even J. D. Tippit's father, Edgar Tippit, told me he felt so bad about it, because he wanted the truth to be known. (I did not see it live on TV because my mother made me go to work as a vendor at a Green Bay Packers game despite my protest. But it was the only time I saw news strike like a wave, as people were listening to it on their portable radios before the game.) By the evening of Friday the 22nd I was not believing the official line and was believing Oswald's protestations of innocence. I lay out in my book INTO THE NIGHTMARE how I came to that conclusion. Many people around the world, as well as in the US, immediately recognized the Oswald hit by Ruby as part of the coverup. For someone to say he doesn't care about that one way or another is a confession that he doesn't care what the Kennedy assassination or the trampling over the rule of law in the Oswald case did to our country. That is revealing, like Ruth's admission, "I was glad."

What's your evidence to support that the bones were not those of Geronimo? I assume you've seen the original Skull & Bones document. Prescott Bush was stationed at Fort Sill when the grave was robbed.

The question of Geronimo's remains is not a laughing matter. When the Apaches sued Skull & Bones to reclaim what they said was Geronimo's skull and two femurs, brought to the clubhouse by Prescott Bush et al., the Bonesmen offered to return to the tribe what they said was the skull of a ten-year-old Indian child. That of course raises the question of what the Bonesmen were doing with the skull of a ten-year-old Indian child in their basement in New Haven. The two men who offered to return the child's skull were Jonathan Bush, brother of Bonesman George H. W. Bush and son of Prescott, and attorney Endicott Peabody Davison. https://www.sfreporter.com/news/coverstories/2009/07/01/the-strange-saga-of-geronimos-skull/