Joseph McBride

Such a waste of time to argue with David Von Pein, whose (no doubt paid) mission is to keep rehashing old (mostly settled) issues as distractions from more valuable questions raised by Jim and others here. DVP's is an old tactic that does its job all too well, but we should not fall for it here anymore.

Many here will recall previous discussion of the January 27, 1964, executive session of the Warren Commission in which J. Lee Rankin was discussing Marina Oswald as well as Lee Oswald's knowledge of languages. He said, "In addition to that there is this Spanish dictionary, and the books about Spanish where he was trying to learn Spanish although he had know some Spanish before he went to Russia, and we are trying to run that down to find out what he studied at the Monterey School of the Army in the way of languages because she used to make fun of him, according to some of their Russian friends, about his pronunciation of Spanish words, and he was very clumsy at it, and was embarrassed by her making jokes about that."

That quote you have attributed to RFK is really from George Bernard Shaw. RFK always attributed it as such at the end of his stump speech. When the traveling press heard him say, "As George Bernard Shaw once put it . . .," it was their cue to run for the bus. It was only after Ted Kennedy skipped the Shaw attribution in his eulogy that people began attributing the quote to RFK.

In THE MEN WHO KILLED KENNEDY, Charles Harrelson is shown Tramp pictures and admits one of the Tramps sure looks like him. Oliver Stone had Woody Harrelson as the male lead in NATURAL BORN KILLERS. Woody reportedly doesn't believe his father shot JFK.

Ironically, in the famous photo by George Tames of the New York Times of JFK in the Oval Office leaning on a table with his back to the camera -- a photo often taken to represent the burdens of the office of the presidency and sometimes titled "The Loneliest Job" or "The Loneliest Job in the World" -- JFK was reading the Times editorial page at the time and turned around to mutter, "That goddam Arthur Krock." He also said, "I wonder where Mr. Krock gets all the crap he puts in this horsexxxx column of his." The photo was taken on Feb. 10, 1961. Krock's column that day summarized criticisms of Kennedy's health care proposals, including that they amounted to "socialized medicine." Krock was an old friend of Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and helped rewrite JFK's Harvard thesis into his early book WHY ENGLAND SLEPT.

“If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought -- not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.” -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1929

When this photo of the limo and the motorcycle escort was first published in the Dallas Morning News in 1988 when I was in Dallas for the twenty-fifth anniversary, I immediately noticed that Dan Rather is not in it. He claimed he was on that side of the overpass. That was just one of the stories he gave about where he was then. A colleague said Rather was actually at the Trade Mart, where CBS had the only live TV hookup. Rather had arranged that as one of five film crews the network had in Dallas for the president's visit. NBC and ABC only had the usual one crew each. I discuss this in my video on the news media and the assassination in Len Osanic's series 50 REASONS . . . FOR 50 YEARS.

The limo reportedly was going 70mph to Parkland. I drove that route many times at 70mph and timed the trip repeatedly at four minutes, which meant that it arrived at 12:34. (Different times are sometimes given, but I discount them.) The way was cleared for the limo by police cars and motorcycles, though the Secret Service allegedly did not know the route ahead of time (which is hard to believe, however). The direction to the driver was to get there "fast, but safe," since Clint Hill had given the thumbs-down signal in Dealey Plaza indicating that Kennedy was dead. I read somewhere that one of the preceding motorcycles flew off the road when they made the sharp left turn onto Harry Hines Boulevard, past the Trade Mart as they approached the hospital. But the rider was uninjured, apparently. It's surprising to read in this account of the interview with Ellis that limo drive William Greer was tailgating the motorcycles. The hospital was unprepared for the limo's arrival, and it took a few minutes to get JFK inside. Partly because at first Mrs. Kennedy wouldn't let him go. And Connally's body was blocking him and the governor had to be removed first. But no gurneys were there when the limo arrived.

It is astounding, though indicative of the depth of our state of denial, that the family that had the most impact on American politics in the last decades (other than perhaps the Kennedys) still has received so little serious historical research and scholarship. Most of the books about the Bushes are puff pieces and/or coverup jobs. If you go back beyond Prescott Bush to the banking and other financier ancestors, it's a family that's been entwined in our history for more than a hundred years. And "Bar" was even a descendant of President Franklin Pierce.

The Nation ran my two revelatory 1988 articles on Poppy Bush's early CIA connections but then refused to run my well-documented article on his involvement with James Parrott and his far-right extremist allies in Houston and Dallas. All that was in the run-up to the election. Victor Navasky did not give me any reason for not running the third article other than to tell me to avoid writing about the JFK assassination because it is a "quagmire." The Nation has a long and sorry history of covering up on that subject; my Bush articles were anomalies. In my book INTO THE NIGHTMARE, which has 35 pages on Bush, I go into what I learned about him and Parrott and about The Nation itself.

Earl E. T. Smith, the Florida neighbor in the first picture linked above of JFK with the back brace, was Eisenhower's ambassador to Cuba. JFK offered Smith the ambassadorship to Switzerland, but he declined. His wife Florence Pritchett Smith reportedly was romantically involved with JFK. She was a journalist and friend of Dorothy Kilgallen. Florence Pritchett's death two days after Kilgallen's in 1965 has led to her inclusion in some "mysterious deaths" lists. http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKsmithF.htm

Another one of JFK in his back brace: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/396246467207161124/

A rare photo of JFK wearing his back brace: https://www.scoopnest.com/user/NotableHistory/684841930631458816

I must have been thinking of Phillips Academy, sorry. He was reported to be at school back east that day.

David McCullough, who gave the keynote speech at the sham fiftieth anniversary ceremony in Dealey Plaza, is a Bonesman like Poppy and W.

Reportedly, George W. Bush was at Yale that day.

The story about the party does not seem credible to me.

There was a bullet recovered from his right temple and not entered into evidence. See the Belmont memo of 11-22 pm and my discussion of it in INTO THE NIGHTMARE.

We will refer this to Cliff who knows all and has X-ray vision.

A likely addition to the list is Dan Rather.

For a discussion of why LBJ ducked during the shooting, see my book INTO THE NIGHTMARE, in which I interview Sen. Ralph Yarborough about LBJ's behavior during the motorcade, including at the time of the shots and immediately thereafter.

David, you should ask your handlers for a raise, you are working so hard.

See my book INTO THE NIGHTMARE for my revealing interview with Senator Ralph Yarborough on what LBJ was doing before, during, and after the shots.

I am reading a new book, PRESIDENT CARTER: THE White House YEARS, by his aide Stuart Eizenstat. It is filled with fresh insider info and interview material. So far I am not sure where he's going with all the issues, but it's worth reading

And Carter tried to appoint Ted Sorensen head of the CIA to clean it up. That plan was shot down by furious CIA and Senate opposition, using his conscientious-objector status in his youth as part of the excuse.