Joseph McBride

From the BBC: On Thursday, President Joe Biden issued an executive order authorising the latest disclosure. But he said some files would be kept under wraps until June 2023 to protect against possible "identifiable harm". The US National Archives said that 515 documents would remain withheld in full, and another 2,545 documents would be partly withheld.

Steven, I am glad you and David's family will be working to put out what remains of FINAL CHARADE. I was concerned to read a recent post claiming he had lost the ms. in his computer. I hope he had a backup file or paper manuscripts, as most authors do. Could you please update us on the status of FINAL CHARADE? As you know, we all have been eagerly awaiting it for years, so it will be good if it is finally out in whatever incomplete state. Perhaps it can go the self-publishing route via a fullfillment house and sales through Amazon, an option that is quite viable these days, as I have found with my two books on the assassination.

Has any of this been released before? It's a 143-page formerly "SECRET EYES ONLY" CIA report to the DCI, Richard Helms, by the Inspector General in 1967, "SUBJECT: Report on Plots to Assassinate Fidel Castro." It says all other copies, notes, and drafts were destroyed. https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10057-10270.pdf

https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t419-william-james-lowery-james-patrick-hosty-and-lee-oswald Castellanos reportedly made the comments on an audiotape that came into the possession of Dallas Police Lt. George Butler.

In INTO THE NIGHTMARE, I discuss the serious and little-discussed security concerns the police in Houston had about Kennedy's visit on November 21, 1963, and the possible connections with James Parrott, whom George H. W. Bush told the FBI had threatened to kill Kennedy when he came to Texas (odd that Bush didn't make that call until after Kennedy was killed). As for a film about Jack Ruby, there was a forgettable 1992 film called RUBY.

Since these names listed in groups for requests by Blakey appear to have common themes, does the listing of Carl Mather (the mysterious man from Collins Radio whose car turns up in Oak Cliff on 11-22 and who was a close friend of the Tippits) and Collins Radio on April 19, 1978, with the name of John David Hurt (the "former" U.S. Army Intelligence agent in Raleigh, North Carolina, whom Oswald tried to call from jail) imply a linkage between Mather and Hurt? Besides Mather's car being in Oak Cliff near Oswald's rooming house (possibly with Oswald in it) on Nov. 22, 1963, Mather and his wife visited Marie Tippit and her children that afternoon. Also in that small group of five subjects listed by Blakey are Nestor R. Castellanos (who piloted a plane during the Bay of Pigs operation, per Blakey, presumably for the CIA; he was alleged to have said on tape in October 1963 of President Kennedy, "We're waiting for Kennedy on the 22nd [of November] plenty. . . . We're going to give him the works when he gets in Dallas") and "Minuteman Organization, 1960-64." These five subjects are listed in Blakey's 4-19-78 letter to Patrick Carpentier, office of the legislative counsel, CIA, Washington, D.C. That letter, previously released by the CIA, does not draw explicit connections among the five subjects.

She could explain how her name is spelled.

That hed is unfortunate, but it used to be newspaper lingo to omit subjects in a sentence and use the verb to convey immediately what happened, particularly in one of those huge headlines for a major event.

Oswald did not visit Mexico City but was impersonated.

Thanks much, Anthony. I am glad you enjoy my writing.

Thanks for the suggestion, Michael. I will check into it. And I appreciate your good words on POLITICAL TRUTH. It's the result of many years of research and thought as well as reflecting what I've learned in my long career as a journalist, which began in May 1960. The first article I sold (about my sports hero, Milwaukee Braves pitcher, Warren Spahn and his son, Greg, my Little League teammate) was published in the national magazine The Young Catholic Messenger in the same week that I received a letter for Senator John F. Kennedy thanking me for my work on his Wisconsin presidential primary campaign.

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.” — James Baldwin Read my Slate article for my thoughts on the film. https://slate.com/culture/2022/11/fabelmans-steven-spielberg-movie-true-story-parents-divorce.html You may or may not be aware that his parents' divorce is the primal trauma that drives most of his films, not only this one, which portrays it most directly. His films usually deal with irresponsible father figures and sometimes irresponsible mother figures. Spielberg once said that the worst thing about the anti-Semitic abuse was getting punched in the face, which the film shows graphically and viscerally. He also suffered some anti-Semitism in Phoenix that the film does not show. He often felt like an outsider as a kid, which is traumatic for anyone. That's as big a motivator for his work as anything; he became a filmmaker to find acceptance from his peers in school. I can easily relate to those traumas. And most filmgoers can, as the great success of E.T., for example, shows. That was his most closely autobiographical previous film, although as he notes all his films are autobiographical. BTW, since we're on this site, I will note that Spielberg's Saratoga pal Mike Augustine told me they made a short film commemorating the JFK assassination and that Spielberg thought a conspiracy was behind it. Gus Russo claimed to me that he asked Spielberg about that film but that Spielberg denied making it. But Gus Russo is a dubious source, as we know. I assembled the history and listing of Spielberg's amateur films from my many interviews with his friends (cast and crew et al) and from other sources.

The odd Ready theory cries out for some kind of evidence, if any exists. I will note that Senator Yarborough told me when the limo "almost came to a halt," Secret Service agents (plural) jumped out of the Queen Mary and ran to the limo, which we don't see in the extant Zapruder film. So Ready could have been one of them. The story about the "fight" and shooting of Connally in the car seems bizarre. On the other hand, the first time I read BEST EVIDENCE I found it hard to believe or follow entirely, but then I read it again and found it convincing in most respects. It's hard for people to accept a radical departure from an official story. So the psychological tendency is to rule it out without considering the contrary evidence to the official story. We need to have Lifton's text of FINAL CHARADE, in whatever form it exists, and his supporting notes for his later claims. I looked into Similas and couldn't find corroborating evidence of his claims, although the available information doesn't rule them out, either.

Yes, Spielberg has told that story before making the film: see his clip telling it to Ron Howard et al. on YouTube and his recounting the experience in the Peter Bogdanovich documentary DIRECTED BY JOHN FORD. The only part he left out in THE FABELMANS is Ford telling him never to spend his own money on a film (Spielberg eventually violated that when he and his partners each put $33 million into starting up DreamWorks). My experience interviewing Ford on the last day of his career, August 19, 1970, was quite similar, though I had an hour with him and doggedly tried to elicit cogent remarks from him, with occasional success (that interview is transcribed at length in my 2007 book TWO CHEERS FOR HOLLYWOOD: JOSEPH McBRIDE ON MOVIES). Ford was both gruff and somewhat affectionate with me, as he is in THE FABELMANS. He stonewalled me a lot and gave me a rough time, but at the end he gave me an Irish blessing -- and then joked about it -- and when I gave him a copy of my first published book, PERSISTENCE OF VISION: A COLLECTION OF FILM CRITICISM, he read the dedication to him (lifting his eyepatch and holding the page close to his eye) and said, "Oh, that's sweet." I don't find THE FABELMANS "highly sentimentalized" (?), an odd description for a film that's often searingly painful; see my article about it in Slate, from the viewpoint of a biographer comparing it with the actual events of his youth. It mostly portrays them accurately but takes some liberties and leaves out some things I wish he had put it, but overall it's one of the best filmed autobiographical works.

Robbie's doing remarkable work getting a wide range of guests and conducting lively interviews and panel discussions. I complimented him on doing all this at age 24, the same age as another precocious fellow, Oswald. We need to help cultivate the new generation of researchers and podcasters, such as Robbie. They give us hope in the future of the field. I find that my students are fascinated to learn about it and have open minds on it, unlike most of my Baby Boomer generation.

BEST EVIDENCE was one of the paradigm changers in the case for me. A towering work of investigative and iconoclastic research.

COUP 53 (2019) is a great and revealing documentary by Taghi Amirani and Walter Murch about the 1953 CIA/MI6 coup that overthrew Mossadegh. Amirani directed the film and wrote it with Walter Murch, who also was the editor. Murch is the world's best film editor and sound designer.

One of the times when I visited the Tippit murder site to do my research, a bunch of neighborhood kids clustered around me to ask what I was doing. When I told them, they were seriously interested and asked me to talk with them about what had happened there. They knew a little about it but were eager for more. So I spent half an hour going through the evidence and showing them photographs and answering their intelligent questions. All most gratifying. The kids also told me that Geraldo Rivera had come through there about a week earlier. He arrived in a limousine and spent only a few minutes looking around and didn't talk with any of them. They naturally resented his attitude and viewed him with scorn.

The "dark-complected man" aka "Cuban" sitting next to the Umbrella Man had a walkie-talkie, as did that other fellow with the crew cut (identified as Jim Hicks) who was walking on the grass on the south side of Elm Street with the device in a back pocket just after the shots were fired.

Such a tiresome, specious lot of schoolyard-level attacks.

Robert Oswald is a deeply biased witness against his brother.

Ad hominem insults only reveal the lack of credibility of the person lobbing the insults. They show an inability to argue factually.

Oswald didn't own the revolver placed into the "so-called evidence." So it was a plant.

Yes, indeed, Lori, it is outrageous. Let us all raise our voices against this latest plan of Dallas to obfuscate history.