Joseph McBride

I'm just saying if you are truly interested, you can read Horne's five volumes in two weeks. It's not hard to do so even while working for a living. And the details of the Zapruder film alteration and the body alteration are crucial. Horne turned up fresh and convincing evidence of both. As you know, these are still matters of controversy even within the research community, so it was wise of Horne to lay out all of his evidence. People can then agree or disagree based on what he presents, and he doesn't simply speculate or make unsupported claims, as too many authors do. He was in a special position with the ARRB and was able to find aid in the interrogation of key witnesses as well as to obtain revealing documents and other witness reports. He differs with some of the approach of the others on the ARRB and goes well beyond their report, which in some ways was another US government coverup. I found Horne's prose lucid, so I didn't think the text was hard to manage. I find the same is the case with John Newman, who is taking a different angle and knows his material thoroughly. I want the detail and the analysis. These books are for experts and scholars more than for general readers.

I read Doug Horne's five-volume set eagerly in two weeks. I learned a lot from it and am glad he put in all the valuable detail.

Back in the 1990s I had an argument with a friend of Moldea's -- when I told him Moldea had done some good early work (his book DARK VICTORY: RONALD REAGAN, MCA, AND THE MOB is a revealing work of Hollywood and political history) but then turned and sold out on the RFK case (see how he changed his supposed viewpoint between his Washington Post article and his book), my friend (a fellow reporter) became incensed and started ranting incoherently. I also argued with my friend (who himself has done some good work on labor issues and so forth) about conspiracies -- he claimed there are no conspiracies in politics, etc. etc. I simply mentioned Watergate and asked if he thought it was a conspiracy, and he went off on another tirade. Someone else I know was railing against conspiracy theories, and I mentioned she believed in a conspiracy theory about 9/11. She was surprised and asked what I meant. I said, "The conspiracy theory that nineteen Arabs armed with box cutters brought down the Twin Towers." She was thrown aback and tried to explain that wasn't what she meant by conspiracy. Evidently to them conspiracy means any viewpoint opposing the official story.

Penn Jones used to say that LBJ "was the only one in the motorcade who ducked."

In my book INTO THE NIGHTMARE, I quote my 1988 interview with Sen. Ralph Yarborough (D-Texas), who was riding in the back seat of the convertible with LBJ and Lady Bird Johnson right behind the Queen Mary. Among other things, Yarborough told me that Secret Service Agent Rufus Youngblood did not jump over the seat, as LBJ later claimed, and that while the shots were fired, LBJ was crouching to listen to Youngblood's walkie-talkie, which he wore on a strap over his shoulder in the front seat. Yarborough said this about his reactions on hearing the shots, an account at variance with the extant version of the Zapruder film: "The first shot I heard I thought was a rifle shot. The second shot, the motorcade almost came to a halt. They said later that the president‘s car slowed to something like five miles an hour. I wondered what the hell they were stopping for when somebody is shooting. People were jumping out of the car in front of me [the Secret Service followup car] and running to the president‘s car. I thought maybe somebody had thrown a bomb in there. The third shot I heard was a rifle shot."

FBI agent James Hosty, who was assigned to the Oswalds in Dallas, writes in his book that he was more concerned about Marina than Lee because he thought she might be KGB. Of course, Hosty may not have been telling the truth, since he "bungled" the case so badly, and since Oswald was an FBI informant (Henry Wade told me Oswald last spoke to the FBI a day or two before the assassination, and it was reported he also spoke with them on November 16 and in the second week of November). We know about Marina's uncle in Soviet intelligence and how she allegedly had been a "Red Sparrow" and had been kicked out of Leningrad for prostitution. She may have been a sleeper KGB agent, at least in her initial assignment to go with Oswald to the US, but helped Ruth Paine set up Oswald for the CIA, so she most likely turned before the assassination. In any case, under extreme pressure from the US government after the assassination, Marina did whatever was needed to cooperate and stay in the country. Her actions in the next few years show an attraction to American materialism, but she was probably disoriented and she remains an enigma today. All her changes of heart don't add up to much of a coherent picture, in my view.

Read Doug Horne's volume four.

What a duo. Accessories after the fact and in Rather's case, before as well.

I would hope Jim and other will ignore the disinformation that is being spewed out by Carlier. He is obviously one of those trolls whose job is to derail legitimate discussion of the issues.

François Carlier is one of those obvious disinformation specialists whose job is to disrupt a forum such as this by making ridiculously untrue statements that people feel compelled to answer, thus distracting us from more important topics. Ignore him (as I fail to do here).

Dulles's book THE CRAFT OF INTELLIGENCE is valuable, if obviously evasive, and it reportedly was drafted by E. Howard Hunt. Gore Vidal has a hilarious piece in which he speculated that Hunt also wrote the Oswald and Hinckley diaries. Paul Schrader thought Hinckley showed unfulfilled promise as a film critic, since he described Otto Preminger's TELL ME THAT YOU LOVE ME, JUNIE MOON as being like a plastic flower stuck in a pile of doggie-do (I used the actual word, but it was censored here).

http://www.wrkf.org/post/thursday-november-22nd-joseph-mcbride-thom-bierdz On Nov. 22, I discuss with Jim Engster of Talk Louisiana the murders of JFK and Tippit after we talk about my involvement in the new Orson Welles film, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND.

I also read an FBI report that mentioned that they were investigating a brother of hers in connection with the case. She has never been properly investigated.

Peter R. Whitney writes in his 1999 article "Priscilla and Lee: Before and After the Assassination": Nevertheless, when the assassination did occur, Miss Johnson promptly retrieved her profile of Oswald from Sid Goldberg at NANA(88) and quickly redefined the subject of her report. One possible reason behind Miss Johnson's decision to change drastically the slant of her report was the fact that she was interviewed by two FBI agents, Darrel Currie and James Sullivan, on November 23, 1963. According to their report, which remained "classified" until November, 1977, "the purpose of the interview was to obtain information about Lee Harvey Oswald." It was also stated that "incidental thereto and without indicating possible Bureau interest in her as a suspect in the captioned case, she was advised that inasmuch as she is a potential witness, that biographical and background data on her would be advisable."(89) http://www.jfk-info.com/pjm-1.htm

From my book INTO THE NIGHTMARE, quoting my interview with DPD Detective Jim Leavelle, the lead detective in the Tippit case: In my interview with Detective Leavelle, I observed that on the tape of the police broadcasts from November 22, 1963, the police comments on Kennedy's shooting seemed relatively calm and matter-of-fact in comparison to the sound of their voices when it is reported that a police officer was also shot. Leavelle nodded in agreement. I asked how he thought his department reacted to the shooting of the president. The detective's lips curled in a little smile: "As the old saying goes back then, 'It wasn't no different than a South Dallas n[-word; the rest of the word Leavelle uttered is quoted accurately in the book was redacted by the forum] killing'.' When you get right down to it -- because it was just another murder inside the city lines of Dallas that we would handle. It was just another murder to me. And I've handled hundreds of 'em. So it wasn't so big deal."

Jacqueline Kennedy told Theodore White in her "Camelot" interview on November 29, 1963 (according to White's notes), "Every time we got off the plane that day, three times they gave me the yellow roses of Texas. But in Dallas they gave me red roses. I thought how funny, red roses -- so all the seat was full of blood and red roses." (The person who presented her with a bouquet of red roses at Love Field on November was Elizabeth [Dearie] Cabell, the wife of CIA-connected Dallas mayor Earle Cabell. Jacqueline Kennedy's reference to "that day" must mean she conflated in her mind the airport landings of Nov. 21 and 22. On Nov. 21 they landed in San Antonio and Houston. On Nov. 22 they landed in Dallas.)

If you compare Witt's HSCA testimony to the Umbrella Man's actions in the Zapruder film, you will see Witt is a fake. It's as simple as that.

Back in the nineties, establishment historian Michael Beschloss (who has done some good work here and there) announced he was doing a book on the Lincoln assassination. In my research on John Ford at the Portland, Maine, public library, I found a lengthy, highly detailed eyewitness account of the assassination in an obituary of a local man from around the turn of the century. I was not familiar with that account so thought it might be rare. I sent a copy of the obit to Beschloss with a note saying, "I hope you don't write the Warren Report of the Lincoln assassination." That was somewhat impolitic, I admit, and I did not hear back, but he has not come out with that book.

Vince Palamara deserves great respect because he has advanced our understanding of the case in a crucial way. He staked out territory that had been seriously neglected -- the role of the Secret Service -- and dug into it as much as humanly possible. He came up with a wealth of fresh information, much of it revealing and incriminating, and he's still at it. He exemplifies Penn Jones's advice (given to me and other researchers), to take a neglected area of the case "and research the hell out of it." I am surprised that anyone could question Palamara's dedication and contribution. But as has long been said, you know a man by the enemies he makes -- in Vince's case, both inside and outside the Secret Service.

When I told a Dallas researcher that Morris Brumley had claimed he "infiltrated" the Klan for the Dallas police, he laughed and said a majority of the Dallas KKK were DPD members. You'd be hard pressed to find membership lists of a criminal organization, though perhaps it's possible there is one somewhere.

David, I read your question a couple of times but can't follow it, so please rephrase it.

I doubt there is a list of DPD officers who were Klan members. Morris Brumley surprised me by bringing up his KKK membership in our interview, with a tape recorder going on the table in front of him, and boasting about his involvement, showing me his membership card and talking about the crimes he helped commit. It was a stunning moment. Brumley had known Tippit from their youth.

Good work, Vince. Your digging into the Secret Service and its role in the assassination has been central to enlarging and sharpening our understanding. Keep up the valuable research!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=109&v=TVowQ4LgwLk Inspiring, though I miss his wry question, "Why does Rice play Texas?" That touch of Kennedyesque humor always moves me as a key part of his rousing speech.