Terry Mauro
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Thomas H. Purvis Posted Yesterday, 01:15 PM
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.assassi...7a05?hl=en&
http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/kellerma.htm
Mr. KELLERMAN. Entry into this man's head was right below that wound, right here.
Mr. SPECTER. Indicating the bottom of the hairline immediately to the right of the ear about the lower third of the ear?
Mr. KELLERMAN. Right. But it was in the hairline, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. In his hairline?
Mr. KELLERMAN. Yes, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. Near the end of his hairline?
Mr. KELLERMAN. Yes, sir.
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Hopefully, one would not be so lacking in understanding of human anatomy that they would confuse a point which is at the lowere edge of the hairline, and immediately to the right of the lower third of the ear, with a point which is almost in the top center of the head (cowlick area).
And rest assured, I am not making reference to Roy Kellerman!
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http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/arr...tml/Image03.htm
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Now!
It is hardly my fault if you can not resolve the pathological fact that the entrance wound through the SCALP of JFK, which the autopsy surgeons located, was BELOW the EOP, and that the actual entrance wound through the skull of JFK was ABOVE the EOP.
Most decent anatomy books will thoroughly explain the difference between SCALP and SKULL, as they represent completely separate parts of the human anatomy.
"Dr. Petty- Then this is the entrance wound. The one down by the margin of the hair in the back."
"Dr. Humes- Yes, sir."
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Now! If one will take the time and effort to go back and review the medical information, they will find that the shot to the head, which the autopsy surgeons all saw, (to include Roy Kellerman), entered the rear of the head through the scalp at a point which was at the lower edge of the hairline at the base of the skull.
Thereafter, the bullet traversed through the soft flesh at the base of the neck (upwards when the head is held erect), to penetrate the skull 2.5cm right and slightly above the EOP.
In addition to this oblique angle of entry, the bullet left a completely tell-tale "oblique/acute" angle of penetration through the skull of JFK in what would be an upwards direction (were the head in a vertical position at the time of impact).
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There exists a bullet penetration through the skull of JFK in the vicinity of the "Cowlick", as is readily determinable by review of the available anterior/posterior X-ray.
Penetration through the scalp for this entry point is also readily determinable from the autopsy photographs, and is also located in the cowlick area of the skull.
The HSCA determined that this bullet penetration location WAS NOT where the three autopsy surgeons reported having observed the entrance into the skull which they observed, and the entrance wound throught the skull, according to the HSCA Medical Panel, did not match in measurements, those measurements which the three autopsy surgeons measured for the entrance wound which they located.
Some 10cm/4-inches below the HSCA determined entrance wound (the cowlick entry), the three autopsy surgeons (as well as others present) observed the bullet entrance through the scalp at the rear of JFK's head. This entrance location was at the edge of the hairline, and approximately even with the lower one-third of the ear lobe.
The bullet pathway thereafter passed through the soft tissuej of the neck (on what would be an upward position, were the head held erect), and thereafter struck the skull 2.5cm and slightly above the EOP, and in so doing created an extremely acute angle of penetration through the skull.
The EOP entry being some 4-inches lower than the Cowlick entry, as well as having completely different measurements for the angle of penetration through the skull.
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Time to bring in the Kindergarden students, who for the most part, can easily figure this one out!
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The "Cowlick" entry was caused by that impact of the SECOND SHOT FIRED, as is clearly observed in the Zapruder film at approximately (purported) frame# Z313.
The "EOP" entry was caused by the impact of the THIRD/LAST/FINAL SHOT FIRED, which was that impact in which the Presidential Limo was down in front of James Altgens position, and which impact James Altgens observed to the head of JFK, and which impact also blew cerebral tissue forward, all over Nellie Connally & JBC.
And, which impact occured only afyter JBC was fully down in the seats with his head in Nellie Connally's lap, thus exposing his right shoulder to the bullet after it had passed through the head of JFK.
Lastly!
Politicians, not unlike Magicians, can make things disappear!
Tom,
You are making more sense here! Thanks.
Now! If one will take the time and effort to go back and review the medical information, they will find that the shot to the head, which the autopsy surgeons all saw, (to include Roy Kellerman), entered the rear of the head through the scalp at a point which was at the lower edge of the hairline at the base of the skull.Thereafter, the bullet traversed through the soft flesh at the base of the neck (upwards when the head is held erect), to penetrate the skull 2.5cm right and slightly above the EOP.
In addition to this oblique angle of entry, the bullet left a completely tell-tale "oblique/acute" angle of penetration through the skull of JFK in what would be an upwards direction (were the head in a vertical position at the time of impact).
Tom, you say that the head was in a vertical position, and about this shot, that "entered the rear of the head through the scalp at a point which was at the lower edge of the hairline at the base of the skull. Thereafter, the bullet traversed through the soft flesh at the base of the neck (upwards when the head is held erect), to penetrate the skull 2.5cm right and slightly above the EOP."
This is interesting.
How have you analysed the path of the bullet, considering that the head is in a "vertical" position, meaning upright? At the same time you say that "the bullet traversed through the soft flesh at the base of the neck (upwards when the head is held erect), to penetrate the skull 2.5cm right and slightly above the EOP."
This would mean that a bullet fired from the 6th floor TSBD, travelling in a downward angle, would hit the scalp at the hairline, traverse the soft tissue of the neck, but would then for some reason, change it's path and exit the skull at an upward angle.
I do find this analysis quite puzzling in your explanation. What changed the bullet's path?
The "EOP" entry was caused by the impact of the THIRD/LAST/FINAL SHOT FIRED, which was that impact in which the Presidential Limo was down in front of James Altgens position, and which impact James Altgens observed to the head of JFK, and which impact also blew cerebral tissue forward, all over Nellie Connally & JBC.I do find your take here to be quite sound. A few follow-up questions, since you say there were two shots to the head, and the second shot to the head (the final shot) occurred at James Altgens position, what film, or photo would have captured this event? Can you give an approximate Zapruder film frame or other?
I do disagree with your claim that John Connally was not already wounded in his back and chest when his wife had pulled him down.
Can you show supporting evidence for your claim? I would refer to their testimonies and the Zapruder film, which both indicate to me, that John Connally was already seriously wounded at the time that his wife pulled him down, and out of the line of fire.
Thanks.
Antti (& any others);
I am currently in argument with one of the so-called greats of the medical evidence on another talk show, and since this has more or less been my home for the longest time, then it would be supposed that it should be explained here.
1. Many think there is confusion on the part of Dr. Humes/Boswell/Finck in locating the entrance wound into the back of the head of JFK. (Above the EOP/Below the EOP)
Actually, not unlike most of the other evidence, the confusion lies in those who are not listening to what is stated.
The entry point through the SCALP was at the lower edge of the hairline at the back of the neck/base of the skull of JFK, and was BELOW the level of the EOP.
The bullet tunnelled through the soft tissue at the base of the neck, to strike the skull ABOVE the EOP.
NOW!
Were JFK sitting in an erect position (as he is at Z313) and such a bullet impact struck on a downward firing angle of approximately 15-degrees downward, then it would be physically impossible for that bullet to have immediately, upon impact, to have turned upwards on an angle which would have taken it through the soft tissue at the base of the skull, to ultimately impact with the skull in the EOP vicinity.
So!
1. The actual first point of impact was actually the coat of JFK at the junction of where the collar turns down.
Due to the acute/oblique position of the coat/collar at the point of impact, the bullet traversed through the fabric on an angle, and although it penetrated the coat as well as the liner, the two holes are not exactly/directly in alignment when the cloth is flattened out.
2. The bullet then struck the base of the skull of JFK at the lowere edge of the hairline.
3. Due to the position in which JFK was in at the time of impact, leaning/bent/well forward with his head down and his face slightly turned, the back of his neck and head were exposed in a horizontal/horizontal-downward position.
4. This position is how the striking bullet managed to strike at the base of the hairline below the level of the EOP, traverse through the soft flesh of the neck, and then ultimately strike the skull in the vicinity of the EOP.
5. This is also the WHY? that the entrance wound through the skull of JFK had an abnormally extended length, as the bullet struck the skull on the same actute/oblique angle as it penetrated throught the coat and the sof tissues at the base of the skull.
Dr. Boswell, in his autopsy sheet drawing merely drew in the direction of the bullet based on the vertical position in which the drawing was made.
When one takes the actual pathway of the bullet:
Base of skull below EOP at edge of hairline-----to/through soft tissue of neck------------to elongated skull impact slightly above EOP------------------to impact with tip/upper edge of occipital lobe of brain---------------
Then one must either accept that either a midget was hiding in the trunk of the Presidential Limo and fired on an upward position, or else, JFK's head was not in the vertical posiltion at the time of impact of this bullet.
I do find your take here to be quite sound. A few follow-up questions, since you say there were two shots to the head, and the second shot to the head (the final shot) occurred at James Altgens position, what film, or photo would have captured this event? Can you give an approximate Zapruder film frame or other?
Not unlike other things in the Zapruder film that one will not see, they will not see the impact of this, the final shot.
However, one may want to take a close look at:
http://www.assassinationresearch.com/zfilm/z341.jpg
(as well as those frames on each side of Z341)
As well as questioning exactly why the "Sprocket Holes" have the same demonstrated problem as those once missing frames of the film in the Z210 range.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/altgens.htm
Mr. ALTGENS - This would put me at approximately this area here, which would be about 15 feet from me at the time he was shot in the head--about 15 feet from the car on the west side of the car--on the side that Mrs. Kennedy was riding in the car.
Mr. ALTGENS - I know that it would be right at 15 feet, because I had prefocused in that area, and I had my camera almost to my eye when it happened and that's as far as I got with my camera.
Because, you see, even up to that time I didn't know that the President had been shot previously. I still thought up until that time that all I heard was fireworks and that they were giving some sort of celebration to the President by popping these fireworks. It stunned me so at what I saw that I failed to do my duty and make the picture that I was hoping to make.
Mr. ALTGENS - Yes. What made me almost certain that the shot came from behind was because at the time I was looking at the President, just as he was struck
There was flesh particles that flew out of the side of his head in my direction from where I was standing,
And, as Mr. Paul Harvey once stated: "Now, you know the rest of the story".
At least as to why Jackie determined it prudent to vacate the Limosine!
Can you show supporting evidence for your claim? I would refer to their testimonies and the Zapruder film, which both indicate to me, that John Connally was already seriously wounded at the time that his wife pulled him down, and out of the line of fire.
JBC suffered a broken wrist from impact of a bullet fragment from the Z313 headshot at the time that he went over into Nellie's side of the car with his head in her lap.
Nellie did not "pull him down", she merely grabbed JBC when he went into her direction and held onto him after he went over into her direction and began slumping down into the seat.
Mrs. CONNALLY. No, he turned away from me. I was pretending that I was him. I never again looked in the back seat of the car after my husband was shot. My concern was for him, and I remember that he turned to the right and then just slumped down into the seat, so that I reached over to pull him toward me. X was trying to get him down and me down. The jump seats were not very roomy, so that there were reports that he slid into the seat of the car, which he did not; that he fell over into my lap, which he did not.
I just pulled him over into my arms
And then he just recoiled and just sort of slumped in his seat.
I thought he was dead. When you see a big man totally defenseless like that, then you do whatever you think you can do to help most and the only thing I could think of to do was to pull him down out of the line of fire, or whatever was happening to us and I thought if I could get him down, maybe they wouldn't hurt him anymore. So, I pulled him down in my lap.
We learned later--I read a lot of stories that upset me later because they said we slipped down into the floor, that John slid off, fell over into my lap. Those little jump seats were not very big and there was no way that he could have slid to the floor, there is no way either of us could have got to the floor.
The only thing I could do was pull him down and by leaning over him, I hoped if anything else happened, they wouldn't hurt him anymore. I never looked back after John was hit. I heard Mrs. Kennedy say, "they have shot my husband."
and out of the line of fire.[/b]
NOPE!
When JBC went over/down across the seats with his head in Nellie's lap, he exposed his back and right shoulder to the bullet which exited the head of JFK (aka the third/last/final shot).
When this bullet exited:
Mrs. CONNALLY- The third shot that I heard I felt, it felt like spent buckshot falling all over us, and then, of course, I too could see that it was the matter, brain tissue, or whatever, just human matter, all over the car and both of us.
MR. Altgens - There was flesh particles that flew out of the side of his head in my direction from where I was standing,
Thus, JBC in fact went over/was partially pulled down, directly into the line of fire for the bullet as it traversed through the mid-brain of JFK, exited the skull in the frontal lobe, and thereafter struck JBC in the shoulder which was exposed across the open area between the jump seats where JBC & Nellie were located.
And, as Mr. Paul Harvey stated: "And, now you know the rest of the story". as regards the WHY that JBC's coat had to be laundered prior to being examined.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/frazr2.htm
Mr. FRAZIER - It is different in that the President's clothing had not been cleaned. It had only been dried. The blood was dried. However, the Governor's garments had been cleaned and pressed.
Sitting upright in the jump seat at Z313, it was physically impossible for cerebral tissue from the head of JFK to have splattered all over the back side of the coat worn by JBC.
However, when leaning across the open area between the jump seats with his back and shoulder exposed, at the time of the third/last/final shot impact, which also blew cerebral tissue forward in the limosine, the entire backside of JBC's coat would have been covered with blood/cerebral tissue.
One would have thought that some of these "Blood Splatter" experts would have taken the time to have figured this one out also.
Tom
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"The bullet tunneled through the soft tissue at the base of the neck, to strike the skull ABOVE the EOP."
I don't know, and maybe this sounds stupid, but are you saying that the bullet tunneled through the soft tissue at the base of the neck to strike the inside of the skull above the EOP? Therefore, that was where it exited and ended up looking like it exploded along the right side of his skull?
I'm confused, or maybe I should just shut up and leave and let you guys duke it out? Can somebody provide some graphics on this? Please?
I'd be most appreciative.
Ter
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Well, it provided a few good laughs!
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Well, that's because you're our resident wit, and comedian, T.G.
You always seem to know how to pick out the positive, upbeat, and sunny side of life, even in a horror story.
That's what I admire and love about you.
Your,
Femme Nikita
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Kennedy Murder Conspiracy Case Out Into Open.
Thanks for that one Terry,
I forgot about those guys.
BK
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You're welcome, Billy. I'm just glad that you and John Judge are around to help us get on with our mission.
Ter
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Kennedy Murder Conspiracy Case Out Into Open.
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Chris, I think you mean "lair". "xxxx" is a person who fibs, whose pants may burst into flames.
I think however that your analysis is astute but let's see what Thomas says about it.
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We're not supposed to use that term here on the forum.
Your,
Femme Nikita
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Thomas H. Purvis says:
One last time for those who actually care!
1. Three shots were fired in the assassination shooting sequence.
2. All shots were fired from the 6.5mm Carcano rifle which was found on the sixth floor of the TSDB.
3. To an extremely high probability (beyond any reasonable doubt), LHO was the shooter.
4. Each of the three shots fired, struck JFK.
5. The Z313 headshot IS NOT the final shot in the shooting sequence. It is in fact the second shot fired.
6. LHO was a relatively good shooter, as is clearly demonstrated by his USMC Rangefire Record.
7. The maximum distance of any shot fired was approximately 98 yards (slope distance) from the window to the target.
8. LHO repeatedly, in the USMC, demonstrated the abililty to shoot in those ranges of accuracy for EXPERT qualification during “Rapid Fire” shooting exercises at targets of 200+ yards.
9. The third/last/final shot fired in the shooting sequence, impacted the head of JFK some 30-feet farther down Elm St. than that location of the second shot impact at frame# 313 of the Zapruder film.
10. The WC is an intentional misrepresentation of the facts of the assassination in which the WC presented that all of the shots were fired within an approximate 5.6 to 5.9 second time frame window
(first shot to Z313 impact point), and that due to this “rushed” shooting scenario, one of the shots completely missed everything and everyone.
11. There was no “THE SHOT THAT MISSED”!
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk...eport_0068a.htm
12. With the available evidence, which included a first generation copy of the Z-film, as well as availability of the witness testimonies, the US Secret Service as well as the FBI, easily resolved the shooting sequence of the shots fired.
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk...eport_0068a.htm
13. There is absolutely nothing which is complicated in regards to the shooting sequence which occurred in Dealy Plaza on 11/22/63.
What is complicated is the extent to which certain members of the WC went to in order to make an entire shot “disappear”, and thereafter blame the wounds which the bullet created on CE399/aka the “Magic Bullet”.
14. CE399 is not “Magic”.
15. In event that one desires to see the TRUE “Magic Bullet”, then might I recommend that they search for the one which disappeared.
There is no Magic!
however:
“Politicians, not unlike Magicians, can make things disappear”
Tom
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Not with that gun, Purv. And, I don't put too much stock in any "Mockingbird" History Matters media take on the subject, either.
I long ago disregarded ever hearing anything but a white-wash from any form of T.V. fantasyland-waste-of-my-precious-time.
So, when it comes to this particular aspect of the case, I'll just have to agree to disagree.
In the words of Bob Dylan:
"I'm gonna let you pass, and I'll go last. Then, time will tell just who's be felled, and who's been left behind, when you most likely go your way, and I go mine."
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I am waiting until someone can send me the relevant pages scanned from Wecht’s book before I make my final statement on who got what wrong. But Jim D. had taken a negative ‘take’ on me prior. I had been in regular contact with Dr. Wecht for a long time, but just when he and his son were writing the book, I had just been relieved of all my money, possessions and was on the move and homeless, and they had no way [and don’t know if they even tried] to contact me to verify if the Russell material was correct. It seems not completely correct. Again, I will await to get those pages from Wecht’s book to make a final assessment. I’m sure if Wecht and his son got it wrong, they didn’t try to/mean to; I was much more in contact with Russell than they. Dr. Wecht is the most honorable man I know.
Robert Russell was a very bright self-made con-man his whole life and had underworld connections that went to low-medium level, but he could ‘play’ the game that they went higher. He got the clever idea in prison to read everything he could on the JFK Assassination and make that his next con. He was in the N. CA area and I as in San Diego working on JFK research. A very reputable and capable researcher and friend of mine somehow came across Russell and was impressed with his story. He suggested I contact him and follow up on his story as JFK was my expertise and not his. I will spare this researcher the embarrassment of mentioning his name, but can if need be. He was trying to help, but when he learned how much trouble he had caused me and Dr. Wecht, took to drink and even self-institutionalized himself for a while. I see he is back on track now and I forgive you...should you read this.
Russell was a real pro. He got a little money from me, but only a little – nothing close to the sum cited - not even close! Wecht never was asked to, nor looked at any rifles or other evidence, and many other parts of the story as related by Jim D. are NOT correct. Unless Russell contacted Wecht privately, without my knowledge. I had the rifles and other faux evidence. Russell had a tale, constructed out of his real criminal past associations and all his reading about the assassination. He knew the literature as well as any of us. He had a female companion who would act as his shill, verifying meetings and events I was not privy to and that his pieces of evidence were in fact available. I flew to Miami to meet his ‘Cindy’. There was a woman playing the role of ‘Cindy’ who claimed to know Ruby, and who even resembled one of Ruby’s dancers and was of the right age…but she was clearly a fraud, and knew nothing. All his other evidence: maps, guns, and lots of other evidence was [expletive self-deleted] and I soon contacted his parole officer, told him that Russell was in violation of his parole by purchase and possession of weapons [a M-C and two Mauser rifles] and had him put away back into prison. I just learned that he died in prison only a few months ago. He even persisted writing me from prison, ever creating new ways to explain that all was real. All were fakes. I lost a few thousand. Dr. Wecht was also done dirt and a huge run-around. There is more to that story, but somethings are best not said at this time and place.
Recently, Russell's female companion, who interestingly lives near Montreal, contacted me trying once again to say the story was real, notifying me he had died, and asked if I wanted to write his story. I said NO, and suggested she write it herself, about a great con artist who used the JFK Assassination as his con game. She contacted me here in Europe via Dr. Wecht.
More disturbing by far, however, was evidence that the REAL big players in the JFK Assassination cover-up knew about Russell, and while he was not IMO [but who knows?!] a creation of theirs, they just loved him and did a few things to allow him to have some free-reign to play his games on the research community – as it suited their purposes perfectly. It was even hard to get him back into jail…but I eventually did. He, and others like him, have done much damage. The greater damage comes from the pros behind the cover-up, however. The greatest harm to myself, Wecht, the un-named researcher who referred Russell, was to our reputations, no matter that we soon discovered and exposed the lies, and in this case the con. Jim D's little piece doesn't do anything to help our reputations.....nor was it meant to, or the others he mentions in his piece. I guess only Jim D is without blemish and can cast the first stone.
Jim DiEugenio and I were good friends and in regular contact for a while. He was in LA and I in San Diego at the time. He is a rather emotional type and easy to raise a flag of the traitor over someone with the weakest of evidence and without fully investigating, IMO and sadly. I remember I was on my way to fly to Dallas and my flight was via LAX. Jim and the others in the then newly-found CTKA knew I was en route and took the ‘trouble’ to physically meet my connecting flight check-in desk and confront me [in the MOST uncivil fashion!] as a possible intelligence mole in their organization. From that day to this, Jim has never been in contact with me. I can’t even remember what flimsy piece of non-information they had, but they had heard something and confronted me with it. It was false…..as false as Russell’s bull, but Jim put me on his [self-censored]list, and apparently, there I remain there to this day, along with many others. He never allowed me the opportunity to clear my name nor refute the info. I had moments between flights then, and they cut me off in those moments – never allowing further discussion or explanation. Sad, how the research community is all too often its own worst enemy. However, I believe there are also little professional ‘gremlins’ at work, who exploit this type of thing, and even sometimes plant false information and start/fuel these feuds, etc. I spent well over a million of my own dollars on investigating this case, and when I lost all my money, home, and even way to make a living or survive, only a few researchers were kind enough to help out with letters of support [needed in court]. One, who had been paid by me for research help tens of thousands of dollars, wouldn't even loan me a few hundred.....so it goes. I spent longer than I care to mention virtualy broke and broken. Some things I can't [or care not to] post as publicly as is this Forum, as I believe there are entities who would take advantage of that information to harm me further.
Another, and an intereresting side story, was a multi-millionaire high-tech industrialist who came to one of the Dallas Conventions and befriended me. I was often at his home and we were friends and had concocted together a very clever plan to get some important information on the case, using his fame. When my **** hit the fan, he faked that he had to leave to Argentina because of his connections to me. It was not so, just his way to distance himself. He today has the highest-level security clearances and makes parts for the military and intelligence community for their spy missions. I asked him for a loan of a few thousand when I had not a penny and was homeless and hungry.....but he cut all ties.....His name will be mentioned at a later date, and is a most famous one at that! [He came to Dallas under a false name!].
Another mystery friend or a mole? Elsewhere, I've mentioned that Gus Russo penetrated my investigative efforts and caused a lot of havoc. I still have a hard time trying to understand how he knew what he knew to intercept at an airport two persons I had paid to fly and interview a significant supect in the events [the possible Col. Bishop]. Gus told them I'd OK'd his participation [i'd not, and not told Gus of the flights, nor the interviews to happen! - he's pychic or gets good intelligence]. Yet another story, of which there are many others. Another matter happend to me to fleese me of some money and I needed the help of a PI [who turned on me when he found what I was working on] and the San Diego District Attorney [who told me "I only work for the 'good' people of San Diego" - and obviously my political slant was not included in that rubric....so I got no help - despite the fact I'd done my own detective work and all he had to do was arrest someone. [He was convicted of fraud and malfeasance some years later, but of no comfort to me.] Everything in America of today is political...and right-wing politics the norm in San Diego. I know other researchers have not had such problems and often wonder why me? I think I have a clue, but again, decline to mention so publicly. Part may also just be bad luck. Others have also had stranger experiences and a few met with death....so maybe I was in the end 'lucky'. So, those of you who find the research of JFK just an intellectual hobby, some of us have real scars, and it was a bit more than what would call a 'hobby' - that Mr. Oswald sure can do more from his grave than most can from life........
After the Russell episode, I continued my research, and some of it involved work with William Robert [Tosh] Plumlee. That is another story I’ve never told in full. It involved many interesting and strange incidents, all of its own….electronic bugs on cars; wiretaps; trumped-up court cases; death-threat phone calls; and much more….I’ll save most of it for another time, but at a certain point Tosh told me that he had misled me that all others on his flight were dead and two were willing to meet me, with certain pre-conditions. I talked to one on the phone, and a meeting was arranged. At about that time Tosh was contacted by one Mr. Theodore H. Shackley, formerly (sic) of the CIA and warned [politely (sic)] that it would be best to not continue his work towards a book with me. Tosh was during our work together shot at [bullet just missed his head at home] and had IRS ‘troubles’. I had a host of legal ‘problems’ made out of complete fabrications, but lost every time. Once I was not allowed to produce in court the very ONE thing that would have shown I should prevail. The judge ruled it inadmissible, though it was the very essence of the case/debate/contested facts. Then when I tried to appeal the case, I was told I could not, as the transcripts of the first trial no longer existed….etc. A bench warrant was issued for me for refusing to say who was a partial financial backer of my research, when the case [on the surface] was a dispute between my landlord and me over a [supposed] non-payment of 1/8th of the rent from about ten months prior. [The judge would not allow as evidence the cancelled rent check – when the fix is in, the fix is in, and certain judges can be used to put in a fix!]. This same judge said at trial that the landlord 'wouldn't have filed suit against me had I not done something wrong'....a nice, unbaised judge - but typical of our legal system today. He also had the case ordered shortened, so he wouldn't miss his golf appointment. My timid attorney refused to object or speak up, so I did, and was told 'one more word and its contempt of court'. I've seen it all. I've had it all....so if I sometimes seem 'short', I hope people understand a little.....just a little. I have little faith left in the 'legal' system, in fact the system as a whole.
All my property was confiscated by the Sheriff, and all my JFK files gone through - as well as the 'movers' helping themselves to my personal items of interest. My bank accounts were seized and never returned. I went from oceanside San Diego in a hugely expensive place, to life in my car…..and worse and much more I'll omit. Another time, but I’ve never fully recovered, and never really will. Even my financial backer in another country spent a day in jail, on a false charge - he got the 'message'. Strange things can happen when one tries to work on this case. Indeed. So, what is happening to Wecht now doesn’t surprise me. His JFK files have also been confiscated, though they have NO relationship to the current charges - also trumped-up. Both he and I were, at the time, in contact with Tom Wilson...who died not long after. Tom Wilson did very important computer analysis of the Dallas photos [copies some of which the FBI now have].
Someday, I'll tell the full story of my investigation, work and 'personal hell' for working with Plumlee, and on this case. Researching this case and related matters has shattered my life...yet I persist, to get out the truth. This may explain, in part, my iow tolerance to those who I perceive as trolls. I'm even apparently on the low-level 'no-fly' list [complete search every flight of baggage], thank you very much America. After being a millionaire, self-earned, I spent a long time semi-homeless [tent and car] and at times hungry [even denied foodstamps, on occasion - social services in the USA are a joke.], unable to get work for what TIA computer systems, disguised as 'credit/employment records', now are used in the USA to control 'questioners' of the state from getting work, at times. One grocery store refused to hire me as the vegetable stocker as one of these companies that employers use to vet new employees had me as having poor credit and some derrogatory comments [i'd just filled for bankruptcy!]. Even though they were to pay me, and not me pay them, I didn't get that, or many other jobs....America of today. Posting this truth will, of course, cause me nothing but new problems and loose me some future jobs. The world of today. So be it. I survived all this only due to my companion canine, who just died recently, after a horrible year's battle with cancer, and I'm crushed and bitter, I admit.
[An aside: One day, when I was in Pittsburg visiting Wecht, we were driving in his car in the downtown area early on a Sunday morning. Passing the City Hall there were perhaps 15-20 neo-Nazis in full uniform and with enourmous swastika flags on the steps of the city hall...and a few police watching them from a distance. Cryil and I are both of Jewish heritage, and I remember how he silently stopped, we looked at each other as if to do a reality check - were we dreaming?....Here we are working on the JFK Assassination case and its related fascist elements, and here are some Nazis seemingly unchallenged/unoppossed on the steps of a major city's City Hall....... a prophetic moment to what America has become since, IMHO.]
I'd also like to add that while I can't say who or where, I find it significant that someone possibly 'involved or a witness to' some events or persons 'connected or pertaining to' JFKs Assassination in Dallas 11/22/63, recently requested and was granted political asylum somewhere. Interesting indeed. If and when I have [and not until I have] their permission to discuss this, I will.
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My God in heaven, Peter. It's a wonder you're still alive to talk about this. I am so truly, truly sorry for you.
I see this happening to so many friends these days, it really gives me pause to wonder whose turn will be next.
In any event, I hope you find this article interesting, as I've always admired Lewis Lapham, especially for all the years he headed up Harper's Magazine, as editor-in-chief.
From my recent issue of HARPER'S MAGAZINE/NOVEMBER 2007
NOTEBOOK
Blowing Bubbles
By Lewis H. Lapham
Men have a indistinct notion that if they keep up this activity of joint stocks and spades long enough, all will at length ride somewhere, in next to no time, and for nothing, but though a crowd rushes to the depot, and the conductor shouts, "All aboard!" when the smoke is blown away and the vapor condensed, it will be perceived that a few are riding, but the rest are run over, - and it will be called, and will be, "A melancholy accident."
- Henry David Thoreau -
Reading the reports from the scene of August's melancholy accident in the country's credit markets - the bursting of the home-mortgage bubble, banks sinking into the sand of subprime loans, hedge funds losing 100 percent of their imagined value in a matter of days, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping 250 points in the space of half an hour - I was struck by the resemblances between the speculation floated on the guarantee of easy money on Wall Street and the one puffed up on the promise of certain victory in Iraq. To buyers of highly leveraged debt the promoters of the "All aboard!" money schemes issue PowerPoints similar to those concocted in the White House and circulated with former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's proviso that "there are know unknowns... But there are also unknown unknowns." A surplus of both commodities was found in the luggage of the travelers run over in August on the road to El Dorado. A number of them deserve to be renered as military acronyms.
The "NINJA Loan" - Extended to borrowers possessed of no income, no job, no assets - comparable to the predatory lending of the United States Army to the freedom-loving sheikhs of Iraq.
The "Neutron Loan" - Designed to remove the occupants but leave the property intact. Within the next year over a million American home mortgages are due to foreclose. in August 80,000 people were "displaced by violence" from their houses and neighborhoods in Iraq; another 2.2 million Iraqis have been obliged to flee the country.
The "Teaser Loan" - An adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) sometimes requiring no-money-down or up-front but in all variants offered at a low introductory rate that adjusts only in an upward direction. The American liberation of Iraq was originally priced at $50 billion over a span of seven months; the expenses now run to 2 billion a week. Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, estimates the eventual cost of the Iraqi investment at $2 trillion.
The "xxxx Loan" - Requiring no documentation attesting to the borrower's net worth, annual income, or intention to repay - the same terms on which the CIA accepted the story about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi detector code-named "Curveball."
SIV - "Structured Investment Vehicle" that "securitizes" subprime loans, thus creating credit with "access to liabilities." Soon after the invasion of Iraq the infatuation with a similar method of transforming loss into gain prompted the Pentagon to welcome terrorists arriving in Baghdad and Anbar province from everywhere in the Middle East. The bundling of America's enemies into one target supported the notion that the war on terror could be won at a single blow. Rush Limbaugh delivered the good news to his radio audience in the summer of 2003: "We don't have to go anywhere to find them! They've fielded a jihad all-star team."
"Toxic Waste" - Degraded financial material added as ballast to higher-quality assets contained in a mortgage-backed bond or security.
AAA - Bond rating affixed by Moody's and Standard & Poor's to SIVs [structured Investment Vehicles] transporting "toxic waste." The certifications correspond to former CIA Director George Tenet's assuring president Bush that finding WMDs in Iraq was a "slam dunk."
Risk Assessment Models - Systems of stock-market trading quantified as mathematical algorithms and engineered to guarantee the perpetual motion of profit. They bear comparison to the Pentagon's arsenal of high-technology weapons - the ones incapable of losing a war.
Model Misbehavior - In explicable displays of insubordination on the part of the algorithms, believed to account for the August loss of $5.5 trillion in the global stock markets. The Bush Administration attributes its failures in Iraq to model misbehavior on the part of the think-tank construct (computer-generated, ideologically enhanced) of a constitutional democracy in Iraq.
CDO - Collateralized debt obligation. A coalition of the willing assembled with debt instruments of a strength equivalent to the armed forces sent to Iraq from Albania.
Bubble - Employed as a verb in Eighteenth-Century London. "To Bubble" - i.e., to cheat, swindle, perpetrate a fraud. In contemporary American military parlance, a noun - the "surge" of liquidity in the form of 30,000 troops restoring calm to the Baghdad market in civil obedience.
August's misfortunes in the credit markets produced a good deal of collateral damage elsewhere in the economy - severe losses in the construction and retail trades, to school and sewer districts, in the hotel and travel industries, to the 1.7 million families forced to flee their homes - but the proofs of Wall Street's stupefied greed didn't rouse the news media or the season's presidential candidates to exclamations of anger and disgust. [my emphasis, TM] Throughout the whole of its history, the American commonwealth has been subject to the depredations of what George Washington knew to be "a corrupt squadron of paper-dealers"; a hundred or even fifty years ago the brokers of the fast shuffle might have been seen in savage cartoons like those drawn by Thomas Nast (top-hatted dancing pigs) or pilloried in the language once voiced by Walt Whitman ("canker'd, crude, superstitious and rotten...") and E.L. Godkin ("a gaudy stream of be-spangled, be-laced, and be-ruffled barbarians").
Once upon a time in galaxies far, far away we recognized the character of the risk in what was known to the first Dutch settlers in Seventeenth-century New Amsterdam, many of them participants in land or stock-jobbing ventures, as "The Feast of Fools." It wasn't that the new arrivals on the American shore didn't believe or delight in the expectation and promise of fairy gold. Understood as the most demotic of economic activities, expressive of a yearning for freedom, the game of speculative finance aligns with the American passion for gambling, and matches the spirit of the bet placed by the Declaration of Independence on the wheel of fortune set up with the slots marked "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." But we used to know that sometimes the numbers crap out.
The knowledge began to disappear from the American consciousness and vocabulary during the dawn of the new "Morning in America" that Ronald Reagan perceived on the horizon of the 1980's when he set up his rose-colored telescope on the White House roof. [My emphasis. TM.] Convinced that "the difference between an American and any other kind of person is that an American lives in anticipation of the future because he knows it will be a great place," Reagan brought with him the preferred attitude that the dealers in rainbows seek to instill in the minds of the customers shopping for financial salvation and political romance. Everybody a winner; the flowers never die.
The attitude has been sustained over the past twenty-five years by the corporate news media's increasingly messianic testimonies to the wonder and wisdom of the free market (Alan Greenspan as infallible as the Pope), by the entertainment industry's loudly applauding the miraculous transformations of frogs into princes (Donald Trump, the hero of our time), by the government's policy of providing the banks with infusions of cheap credit on which to float speculative bubble baths (in 1987, 1998, 2001, again in 2007), by a steadily multiplying herd of eager buyers, their number now estimated at one in every two Americans acting either as independent agents or as participants in mutual and pension funds, seeking to acquire, at steadily rising prices, beachfront property on the coast of Utopia. [My emphasis. TM.]
Together with the promises of an always brighter tomorrow (available on the Internet, delivered within twenty-four hours), the widely distributed faith in the philosophers' stone (i.e., the one with which medieval alchemists supposedly turned lead into gold) accords with the revelation bestowed on a correspondent for the New York Times in the autumn of 2004 by a White House sage identified at the time as "a senior adviser to Bush" but now generally assumed to have been Karl Rove, President Bush's recently retired man-for-all-seasons. Disdainful of the meager and obsolete truths that informed the think-tanks of "the reality-based community," the sage opened a wider-angle lens on the vision beheld by Ronald Reagan.
Guys like you, he said, "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." [My emphasis. TM]
Which didn't mean that the study would be easy to pursue. The Bush Administration's obsessive hiding of its actions and motives (from itself as well as from a public audit) rules against the handing-out of brochures illustrated with the four-color posters of imperial fantasies decorating the walls at the White House, the Pentagon, the Office of the Attorney General. On Wall Street the hedge against having to tell the truth is formed with exemptions from state and federal regulation that yield the elixir of "opacity." Highly valued by the speculators in the Nineteenth-century stock swindles engineered by Commodore Vanderbilt and Daniel Drew, opacity allows the private-equity operations to bubble both the government and their clients, empowering the dealers in SIVs in the same way that it serves the creators of new realities in Mesopotamia and assists the poker players in the Las Vegas casinos. Unfortunately, as with the water in the tale of the sorcerer's apprentice, too much opacity sloshing around on the trading floors makes it impossible not only to see what cards the other players hold in their hands but also to know how much money is on the table. The government in March stopped publishing the figure that measures the extent of America's money supply, possibly because by some estimates the financial risk exposure in the global markets for leveraged derivatives now stands at a sum somewhere in the vicinity of $60 trillion, four times the size of the American economy. [My emphasis. TM.]
When the smoke was blowing away and the vapor being condensed at the scene of the August wreckage, the fear of ghosts in the Wall Street attic precluded any movement in the markets for social conscience. The headlines flowed from the springs of panic, not from the wellheads of rage, the concern expressed for the concentrations of America's wealth (its safety, comfort, and good grooming) rather than for the health and well-being of the American citizenry. [My emphasis. TM] Together with most everybody else in the society, the big-ticket print and electronic media are heavily invested in the virtual realities that not only sustain the opulence of the country's rentier classes but also shape the course of the country's politics, sponsor its shows of conspicuous consumption, control the disposition of its armies. God forbid that the emperors of ice cream should be seen standing around naked on the reefs of destruction.
The financial press rounded up expert witnesses to cite the canonical distinction between risk ("present when future events occur with measurable probability") and uncertainty ("present when the likelihood of future events in indefinite or incalculable"), to implore the Federal Reserve for a surge of more money (Jim Cramer shouting into the camera a CNBC, "We have Armageddon!... This is not the time to be complacent!") [My emphasis. TM.], to say of the SIVs destroyed by the financial equivalents of improvised roadside bombs, "It is not the corpses at the surface that are scary, it is the unknown corpses below the surface that may pop up unexpectedly." "Corpse" in its Wall Street usage refers to a non-performing financial instrument, not to a dead human being.
In the context of the war in Iraq, the word refers to a non-performing geopolitical instrument. If over the past four years Wall Street's deployment of lethal paper has increased the country's mortgage debt to $9.5 trillion, the Bush Administration's deployment of lethal weapons has outsourced or exhausted much of the country's military capacity, meanwhile reducing the credit rating of the All Aboard! American superpower scheme from an investment-grade security to that of a junk bond. [My emphasis. TM.] By the end of August both speculations (the liberalization of America's capital markets, the liberation of the Islamic Middle East) were losing "tactical momentum" in the reality-based community. The Washington politicians faced difficulties similar to those faced by Wall Street's squadron of paper dealers - how to "securitize" the subprime loans backing the Iraqi civil war, where to find leverage in the imaginary numbers attesting to the soundness of the Anbar province ARM, what degree of protection was left in the hedge of opacity.
The preoccupation with derivatives forecloses debate about the worth of the underlying investment - the value or non-value of the war as a thing in itself - and shifts the discussion to the positioning of the political risk. Process, not product. Not why or to what end do we continue to kill our own soldiers (the known unknowns) as well as Iraqi civilians (the unknown unknowns), but which artful dodge stands the best chance of beguiling the voters in next year's elections while at the same time preserving the bubble floated on the belief that America's invincible military power serves as collateral for the $2.5 trillion debt to foreign central banks that America has neither the means nor the intention to repay. [My emphasis. TM.]
Among speculators in the commodity pits trading geopolitical futures, the rumors speak, as the do among the speculators following the play in the stock markets, to the coming of "the next big thing." Soon after the Labor Day weekend the financial press was unanimous in the opinion that the Federal Reserve was bound to step up the flows of liquidity to the Wall Street banks in order to sustain the world's faith in the American dollar. Informed sources in Washington were predicting a preemptive military strike against Iran. Three Navy battle groups were known to be present in the Persian Gulf, the president was casting the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in an increasingly evil light (terrorists, enemies of civilization), and how better to replenish the credit lost in Iraq than with a weapons-grade CDO spreading the risk to investors everywhere within range of a melancholy nuclear accident. With us or against us; buy American or lose the chance of a lifetime.
Lewis H. Lapham is the National Correspondent for Harper's Magazine and the editor of Lapham's Quarterly.
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Teresa Mauro:
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Why was this post of Peter's edited by Antti Hynonen?
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Talk about disinformation. This piece by DeEugenio, who used to be a friend of mine is full of it. I will detail them later, I must teach now...but I almost threw up, and wanted people to know a qucik take on this excrement about me and Cryil Wecht - is almost all false or twisted beyond recognition. I never gave that con artist 100,000 dollars. I will read more carefully, and respond later. This is the kind of backstabbing and unresearched bull**** that goes on in the research community all too often. Sad, becuase Jim was a good researcher and not on the 'opposing' side, but once he takes a dislike or a suspicion about someone......and I'm obviously now on his 'XXX list'.
Edited: language.
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Thank you for the clarification, Antti.
I am truly sorry for everyone. And, I also think that no matter how cordial and congenial we try to temper our discourse, the fact will remain that there will always be those who will continually try to sneak on board and cause disruption and flame wars. It will be up to the moderators, as well as John and Andy to adopt some sort of bloodhound or watchdog attitude to be able to sniff out the perpetrators and perform damage control before it gets too out of hand. That's a pretty labor intensive stance to have to take, but it has to be done. I don't envy your positions. I do wish you luck, though.
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Beware: The Douglas/Janney/Simkin Silver Bullets
By James DiEugenio
One of the reasons I do not post on JFK forums anymore is due to an experience I had on Rich Della Rosa's site, JFK Research.com. One of my pet peeves about the JFK field is the spreading of disinformation disguised as insider dope that is meant to "solve the case". After posting at Rich's site for a few weeks, I began to do a series on the book Farewell America, which -- as I shall explain later -- I have come to believe falls into this category. I also posted about a similar fatuous tome, The Torbitt Document. I was surprised at the reaction. I learned the hard way that some people have a difficult time accepting the fact that other authors or investigators could have less than honorable goals. One poster said that by criticizing Farewell America I was defiling Fletcher Prouty's name, since he liked that book. It got so heated that, although I liked Rich personally, I decided to sign off. I have not been back.
I don't think my vigilance about this subject is unwarranted. There have been several of these slick -- and not so slick -- poseurs who have attempted to supply both the research community and the public a silver bullet in the JFK case: a theatrical deus ex machina, which would finally and magically explain the events of 11/22/63. For example, the late Joe West was involved in two of them: Ricky White's late discovered treasure trove/footlocker and James Files' taped "confession". Another example: at the first ASK Conference in Dallas, a panel of "authorities" attempted to explain who the three tramps really were -- and how one of them was a killer who had previously murdered his family.
Perhaps the most memorable silver bullet is detailed in the first chapter of Cyril Wecht's 1993 book, Cause of Death. In 1988 a man named Robert Russell got into contact with the eminent pathologist after seeing him discuss the JFK case with Dan Rather. He was a convict turned mob informant who was in a California prison. He began a long correspondence with Wecht and in 1990 sent him a letter in which he linked himself to Jimmy Hoffa. He wrote Wecht that he had access to evidence in the JFK case, namely the JFK autopsy materials: negatives, photos, x-rays, blood and tissue slides -- and also Kennedy's long lost brain. (Wecht, pgs. 48-50)
Wecht asked Russell for more details. Russell obliged by saying that in 1967 he met a woman who knew an associate of Jack Ruby's named Ralph Paul. The woman, whose name was Cindy, claimed that on the day of Kennedy's murder, she drove Paul to the parking lot behind the grassy knoll. Paul carried a violin case. When he returned to the car, they proceeded to an apartment where they met both Jack Ruby and a Secret Service agent. After the two others departed, Cindy looked inside the violin case and found a rifle, ten bullets, a map of the motorcade route, and a check for a hundred grand made out to Ruby. Cindy said she stashed the evidence in a container and drove to New Orleans, which is where Russell met her. While living with the woman, Russell discovered these items, which were hidden in a small room.
Since it was RFK who had been hunting down Hoffa, Russell got in contact with him. Bobby told him to keep the evidence hidden and secret. Russell learned through RFK that Kennedy had taken the autopsy materials to a small church in upstate New York. Kennedy told the residing priest that if anything should happen to him he should call Russell and give the evidence to him. When RFK was killed in 1968, this is what happened. Wecht had reservations about this part of the story. As he writes, why would RFK "confide all this to a low-life snitch?" (p. 67) Sensing the impending doubt, Russell sent Wecht a home movie on VHS. Filmed in a swampland that looked like Louisiana or Florida, it showed Russell digging up one of the rifles used in the assassination that he had gotten from Cindy. At this point, and after Russell had asked for a loan, Wecht terminated the correspondence.
But Russell got in contact with others in the JFK research community who were more easily convinced. One was Peter Lemkin. Lemkin talked to Wecht about Russell and asked him if he would at least examine the swampland rifles. Why? Because Lemkin actually paid the ex-convict a hundred thousand dollars for the two rifles. Wecht relates in his book (pgs. 68-69) how Lemkin sadly wrote to him in December of 1991: Russell had turned out to be a fraud and he had lost a fortune in the scam. When Wecht got in contact with Russell's parole officer, he said, "We traced the guns and found out he bought them from a pawnshop just last year..." Wecht concludes the Russell section of his book by saying that people like Russell are one reason the JFK case may never be solved: "They are true wackos who are not interested in truth or justice, but are greedy con men ... " who "muddy the waters".
I agree. This is why I did what I did with Farewell America and the Torbitt Document. To remind people that you have to be on your guard about such things. Especially because the phenomenon has spread to related areas, like the Lex Cusack hoax that Seymour Hersh, and others, fell for concerning Marilyn Monroe. Cusack grossed seven million on that bit of forgery. Or the phony fables of the late Judith Exner, which she sold to People Weekly and Vanity Fair for six figures.
Another one of these related areas I had written about was Mary Meyer. And I thought that because of the essay I had done on her (The Assassinations. pgs 338-345), plus the work Nina Burleigh did on her murder, that the controversy swirling around the deceased woman would finally quiet down. But then David Talbot's book came out. When I read it, I noted that he had a few pages on the JFK/Mary Meyer episode. And he used people who I thought I had discredited, like Timothy Leary. And also the notoriously unreliable David Heymann -- who I will have more to say about later. There was another JFK book of recent vintage that discussed the Mary Meyer case. And the more I found out about why Talbot had used this material, the more curious I got about this other book. But to explain why, I have to go back in time to describe how I first met Kristina Borjesson.
II
Kristina Borjesson is one of the true heroines of contemporary journalism. A veteran and award-winning producer for both CNN and CBS, she was assigned to report on the famous and mysterious 1996 explosion of TWA 800. It was this career altering experience that forms the basis of her intriguing book Into the Buzzsaw (2002). The book is a collection of essays dealing with the problems mainstream media has in telling the truth about sensitive and controversial stories. I met Kristina in 2003. The Assassinations had just come out, and coincidentally we happened to have the same book publicist. As we were going to a gathering in Brentwood on a Sunday afternoon, she asked me about a web site called TBR News. I said I had not heard of it. She said the man who runs it, a guy named Walter Storch, had displayed some of the famous Fox News memos. If the reader recalls, in 2003 a Fox insider had released some company memos showing how higher-ups at the network told staffers how to slant stories. Storch said he had original copies of these memos. Kristina asked to see them. And she e-mailed him that request. He then called her and they discussed the memos. But Kristina told me that there was just something about him that did not inspire confidence in her -- something calculating and cagey. So she did not give him her address. But Storch did recommend to her a book he had been involved with. It was about the John Kennedy assassination. The title was Regicide. Kristina asked around about it and she told me there was something weird about Storch's involvement with the book. Namely, his name is not on it or in it.
Kristina is correct. The billed author of Regicide is a man named Gregory Douglas. The book was released in 2002. At the time it was published, it was actually highly acclaimed by some in the research community e.g. Jim Fetzer. The subtitle of the book is "The Official Assassination of John F. Kennedy." Why is it called that? Because it purports to reveal the actual conspirators in the assassination and how they worked together to pull it off. There are four main parts of the book: 1.) A Soviet Intelligence Study of the JFK assassination 2.) A DIA analysis of the Soviet Study called The Driscoll Report (title based upon the actual author of the analysis) 3.) Interpolated commentary by Gregory Douglas 4.) The Zipper Documents.
The most sensational part of the book is the last. These documents are supposed to be a record of actual meetings held by the conspirators from March to November of 1963. It was quite an extensive meeting. If one believes Douglas, the plot encompassed the CIA, FBI, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Lyndon Johnson, the American Mafia, Corsican hit men, and the Mossad. Talk about a grand conspiracy. And these were all involved before the actual assassination. So we are not just talking about the cover up. The grand master of the conspiracy is allegedly James Angleton, counter-intelligence chief of the CIA. If you know anything about Angleton, you realize how strained the Zipper documentation part of the book is. To believe that someone as secretive as Angleton would recruit all these people into the plot, and then keep an official record of it goes against everything we know about him. But according to Douglas, that is precisely what happened. Angleton kept a log of all meetings he had with his co-conspirators. The log is organized by date, time, and subject matter. And the log is not just of actual meetings. Even the phone calls Angleton made in furtherance of the plot are recorded. For instance, on April 10, 1963 Angleton's assistant called Sam Giancana about the Mafia Don's payments in aid of the plot. On October 24th, there was a phone call between Angleton and Giancana about the arrival of the Corsican assassins in Montreal. Angleton even included dates and times when he got reports from Sam Cummings of Interarmco on weaponry to be used in the shooting.
Besides the incredible thesis, there are other problems with this careless creation. For instance, Lyman Lemnitzer is listed as still being a member of the Joint Chiefs in April of 1963 (p. 92). He was not. Kennedy had replaced him with Maxwell Taylor several months before. If Hoover and the FBI were kept fully informed of the plot, then why was the FBI Director so puzzled by the Oswald machinations going on in Mexico City? To the point where, shortly after the assassination, he told President Johnson that there seemed to be an imposter for Oswald in Mexico. About the Mexico City episode, Douglas can actually write, "In point of fact, it matters not what Oswald did while in Mexico because this trip had no possible bearing on the allegations of assassination heaped onto a dead Oswald." (p. 99) In light of what we know today, this is incredible. It is clear now that Mexico City was meant to cinch the "Oswald in league with the Communists" angle of the conspiracy. That Johnson and Hoover a.) Did not buy it, and b.) Did not like it -- since it risked a war with either Russia or Cuba. And as commentators like John Newman have noted, this is where the fallback position of Oswald as the warped sociopath entered the scenario. And this is what the Warren Commission ended up running with. Just on the above grounds, the book seems a dubious concoction.
But there is more. The book says that "one of the assassins, the man who fired at Kennedy from nearly point blank range ... ". (p. 100) Who can this possibly be referring to? With the present copies of the Zapruder film, it is obvious that no one fired at Kennedy from anywhere near point blank range. According to Douglas, Oswald actually told the Russians he was an intelligence agent and gave them documents purloined by the ONI from the CIA (p. 173). Douglas also knows about documents that show the FBI paid Oswald as an informant. (p. 174) These are documents that no researcher has ever seen. In his description of the DIA analysis of the Soviet report, he has the DIA saying that there were three shots fired that day. And that all three hit either JFK or John Connally, thereby ignoring the hit to James Tague (pgs. 28-29). Yet, the Tague hit was something even the Warren Report was forced to admit. In another howler, Douglas has the Bay of Pigs invasion occurring in April of 1962! In the book's index, the middle name of Allen Dulles is listed incorrectly as "Welch", instead of "Welsh". The book also says that the reason that the Russians moved missiles into Cuba was that they found out about the assassination plots against Castro. (This makes absolutely no sense. Talk about killing a mosquito with an elephant gun.)
I could go on and on. But the point is made. The book is almost certainly a fabrication. But there is another angle running through the concoction that needs to be pointed out: Its reliance on what I have called elsewhere the posthumous assassination of President Kennedy. That is, the attempt to blacken his character and therefore his historical image. This explains why Regicide names only five Kennedy books in the acknowledgements section. And two of them have nothing to do with the actual murder of JFK. But they have a lot to do with his posthumous assassination. They are Thomas Reeves' A Question of Character, and Sy Hersh's infamous and atrocious The Dark Side of Camelot. Early in the book, this angle is clearly pronounced: " ... it was the personality, actions, and family background of John Kennedy that led to his death." (p. 67) In other words, Kennedy's assassination was not really an extension of politics by other means: a veto by assassination. Kennedy's fault was in himself. He egged it on by his irresponsible acts in office. In short, this book tries to blame the victim. In more than one way.
First, Angleton arranges the whole grand conspiracy because he believes that Kennedy and his brother are giving away state secrets to the Soviets. This is clearly based on the famous Anatoly Golitsyn inspired "mole hunt" conducted by Angleton. The problem with Douglas using this is that it did not start until September of 1963. Which is six months too late for the conspiracy timetable laid out in Regicide. Further, the Russian defector Golitsyn actually met with Bobby Kennedy in 1962. He gave no hint at the time that RFK or his brother was in league with the Soviets. (See Cold Warrior by Tom Mangold, p. 88) Finally, when Golitsyn did make the allegations about a mole, he placed him inside the CIA's Soviet Division. Not in the White House. (Ibid, p. 108).
Second, the Zipper documents are supposed to contain professionally done pictures of Kennedy and his adulterous conquests. (p. 83) The CIA got hold of these photos and they were included in the file. And President Kennedy was aware "that a number of these pictures were in Soviet hands ... " The Soviet report also says that Kennedy was a "heavy user of illegal narcotics." (p. 178) In no book on the Cold War have I ever read anything like this. (Douglas appears to have borrowed the latter charge from the Mary Meyer tale. A point I will refer to later.)
Third, consistent with the Hersh/Reeves revisionism, Douglas goes after Joseph Kennedy hard. The DIA report says that Joe Kennedy was heavily involved with bootlegging during Prohibition and had been involved with the Capone mob in Chicago. Kennedy and Capone had a falling out over a hijacked liquor shipment. Capone had threatened Kennedy's life over this and Joe Kennedy had to "pay off the Mob to nullify a murder contract" on himself. (p. 59) Further, RFK started his attack on the Mob at his father's request to revenge himself for this (p. 60) Need I add that Douglas bases this fantastic charge on Chicago police records that no one but him has seen.
So not only does the book seem to be an invention, it is also an invention with a not so hidden revisionist agenda. That traitor and libertine Kennedy got what he deserved.
III
As I said earlier, one of the things Kristina Borjesson was puzzled about was that Storch was pushing a book that his name was not on or in. That is not really puzzling. Because it appears that Storch is actually Douglas. Another pseudonym for Douglas is Peter Stahl. And this is where the story gets quite interesting. For it appears that, if anyone in the JFK community would have done any digging into the person, they would have found that Douglas/Stahl/Storch has spent a lifetime as a confidence man. He has been reported by some as counterfeiting such exotic items of art as Rodin statuettes. Another of his specialties seems to be faking documents about the Third Reich, which sometimes relate to the Holocaust. In fact, he wrote a four-volume set on Hitler's Gestapo Chief Heinrich Muller. Some believe the entire set is highly dubious. In fact, a group of people Douglas/Stahl has long been associated with are the Holocaust revisionists at Institute of Historical Review. They are so familiar with him and his past antics that one of them has set up a site detailing many of them. It makes quite an interesting read. And it is a puzzle to me how someone like Fetzer, who originally bought into Regicide -- and actually talked to Douglas/Stahl -- never found out about his past.
One of the reasons Douglas was associated with these people is that he had a prior association with Willis Carto. Carto will be familiar to those who have read Mark Lane's book Plausible Denial (1991). Carto ran a small media conglomerate called the Liberty Lobby for a number of years. But there was a split in the ranks and the dissidents founded the IHR, while Carto's main publication was The Barnes Review. This is important because the TRB in TRB News, stands for The Barnes Review. As one commentator has noted about the site, although its archives contain some Holocaust revisionist material, a lot of the other stuff comes off as anti-Bush liberalism. But here is the problem. A lot of the material appears to be about as genuine as Regicide. Further, as that book was aimed at a target audience, and the Muller book also appeared aimed at a target audience, some of the "stories" on the site seem aimed at the growing resentment towards President Bush. To the point of making up false stories which are picked up by legitimate outlets but are later discredited. For instance, there was a story there saying that the Pentagon is grossly underreporting the number of casualties in Iraq. The story's by-line was by one Brian Harring who was supposed to have found a PDF file with the real numbers on them. And this story then spread to places like the liberal Huffington Post. Well, there is a Brian Harring, but as one can see by reading this entry (scroll down to the section entitled "Riots in the Streets"), he had nothing to do with this story and it appears that Stahl/Douglas is using his name against his will.
I could continue in this vein , but the point is that not only does Stahl/Storch/Douglas partake in what seem to be fraudulent books and stories, but -- like a classic confidence man -- he seems to aim them at certain audiences he knows will be predisposed to accept them. The latter stories I mentioned seem to be targeted at left/liberal sites in order to fool and then discredit them by the eventual exposure of false information. To stretch a parallel, in intelligence realms, this concept is called "blowback".
IV
What gave Douglas/Stahl/Storch the impetus to write Regicide at the time he did? And what made him think anyone would take it seriously? The apparent pretext for the book is billed on the cover. It says the "documentation" for the work comes from files "compiled by Robert T. Crowley, former Assistant Deputy Director for Clandestine Operations of the CIA." There was such a person. He passed away in the year 2000. Douglas says that, although he never met him in the flesh, he talked to him many times. And when he died, Crowley went ahead and gave him many documents he had. In the appendix to the book, Douglas inserts a very long list of "intelligence sources" he found in the Crowley papers, which he says was "most likely compiled in the mid-1990's" (p. 125) The alphabetical list goes on for over forty pages and lists addresses and zip codes. How and why the CIA would list addresses and zip codes in its documents is a question Douglas never addresses. And for good reason. Daniel Brandt of Namebase looked at the list and came to the conclusion that it is almost entirely composed of the publicly available member list of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.
The other problem with the alleged "documentation" is even worse. Crowley worked in a small circle of friends which included William Corson, James Angleton, and journalist Joe Trento. When the news got out in 2002 about Regicide being based on files left behind by Crowley, Trento did a double take. How could Douglas be in possession of the Crowley files when Crowley had given those files to him? Further, Trento had published a book in 2001, The Secret History of the CIA, which was largely based on his longtime association with Crowley. And, unlike the long distance telephone relationship Douglas alleged, Trento's was an in-person relationship. Further, the content of Trento's book, based on interviews and materials given him by that trio, was also different -- especially on the Kennedy assassination. (In that book, Angleton clings to his cover story of Oswald as a Russian agent.) When I called Trento to ask him why Crowley would give his files to two different writers, he replied quite strongly that Douglas was "A complete xxxx." And he didn't "have anything". (Interview with Trento, 8/14/07)
So it would appear that Regicide is a concoction from A-Z. But before leaving it, I would like to point out something that struck me as odd about Douglas' commentary in the book. As many know, there have been several strange and untimely deaths related to the Kennedy assassination. I agree that some people have exaggerated the number of these, but still there are more than several that will not go away. Douglas had the entire spectrum to choose from in this regard. I found his choice rather weird. On pages 100-101 of his confection, he quotes from the DIA Report, "The hit team was flown away in an aircraft piloted by a CIA contract pilot named David Ferrie from New Orleans. They subsequently vanished without a trace. Rumors of the survival of one of the team are persistent but not proven." Right after this juicily phrased quote, Douglas writes that there was another murder "that bears directly on the Kennedy assassination." He could have picked from over a dozen documented cases. A few that I find particularly interesting are Gary Underhill, David Ferrie, Eladio Del Valle, John Roselli, Sam Giancana, George DeMohrenschildt, and William Sullivan. Douglas picked none of them. He chose Mary Meyer. And then he writes almost two action-packed and lurid pages about her death. Including this: Crowley saw her mythological diary. It contained "references to her connection with Kennedy, the use of drugs at White House sex parties, and some very bitter comments about the role of her former husband's agency in the death of her lover the year before."
And this is not the only place Storch/Douglas pushes the "mystery" about Meyer.
V
There is someone else who is relentlessly pushing the Meyer-as-mysterious-death story. Jon Simkin runs a web site with a JFK forum on it. It is hard to figure out his basic ideas about President Kennedy's assassination. But if you look at some of his longer and more esoteric posts, they seem to suggest some vast, polyglot Grand Conspiracy. He calls it the Suite 8F Group -- which resembles the Texas based "Committee" from Farewell America. And when he discusses it, he actually uses the Torbitt Document as a reference. In a long post he made on 1/28/05 (4:51 PM) he offers an interpretation of Operation Mockingbird that can only be called bizarre. He actually tries to say that people like Frank Wisner, Joe Alsop, and Paul Nitze (who he calls members of the Georgetown Crowd), were both intellectuals and lefties who thought that -- get this -- FDR did not go far enough with his New Deal policies. (One step further, and the USA would have been a socialist country.) At another point, he writes " ... the Georgetown Group were idealists who really believed in freedom and democracy." This is right after he has described their work in the brutal Guatemala coup of 1954, which featured the famous CIA "death lists". He then says that Eisenhower had been a "great disappointment" to them. This is the man who made "Mr. Georgetown" i.e. Allen Dulles the CIA director and gave him a blank check, and his brother John Foster Dulles Sec. of State and allowed him to advocate things like brinksmanship and rollback. He then claims that JFK, not Nixon, was the Georgetown Crowd's candidate in 1960. Allegedly, this is based on his foreign policy and his anti-communism. Kennedy is the man who warned against helping French colonialism in Algeria in 1957. Who said -- in 1954 -- that the French could never win in Vietnam, and we should not aid them. Who railed against a concept that the Dulles brothers advocated, that is using atomic weapons to bail out the French at Dien Bien Phu. (Kennedy actually called this idea an act of lunacy). The notion is even more ridiculous when one considers the fact that, according to Howard Hunt, Nixon was the Action Officer in the White House for the CIA's next big covert operation: the Cuban exile invasion of Cuba. Which Kennedy aborted to their great dismay. Further, if Kennedy was the Georgetown Crowd's candidate for years, why did the CIA put together a dossier analysis, including a psychological profile of JFK, after he was elected? As Jim Garrison writes, "Its purpose ... was to predict the likely positions Kennedy would take if particular sets of conditions arose." (On the Trail of the Assassins, p. 60) Yet, according to Simkin, they already knew that. That's why they backed him. At the end of this breathtaking post, he advocates for a Suite 8F Group and Georgetown Crowd Grand Conspiracy (i.e. somewhat like Torbitt), or a lower level CIA plot with people like Dave Morales, Howard Hunt, and Rip Robertson (a rogue operation). Mockingbird was unleashed on 11/22/63 not because the CIA was involved in the assassination -- oh no -- but to cover up for the Georgetown/Suite 8F guys, or a renegade type conspiracy.
When I reviewed David Talbot's book Brothers, I criticized his section on Mary Meyer. Someone posted a link to my review on Simkin's forum. Simkin went after my critique of Talbot's Meyer section tooth and nail. (I should add here that Simkin has a long history of doing this. He goes after people who disagree with him on Meyer with a Bill O'Reilly type intensity. Almost as if he is trying to beat down any further public disagreement about his view of what happened to her.) In my review I simply stated that Talbot had taken at face value people who did not deserve to be trusted. And I specifically named Timothy Leary, James Truitt, James Angleton, and David Heymann. And I was quite clear about why they were not credible. At this time, I was not aware of an important fact: it was Simkin who had lobbied Talbot to place the Mary Meyer stuff in the book. Further, that he got Talbot in contact with a guy who he was also about to use to counter me. His name is Peter Janney.
Janney has been trying to get a screenplay made on the Meyer case for a while. He advocates the work of the late Leo Damore. Damore was working on a book about Meyer at the time of his death by self-inflicted gunshot wound. Janney says he has recovered a lot of the research notes and manuscripts that Damore left behind. Damore had previously written a book about Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick called Senatorial Privelege. That book used a collection of highly dubious means to paint Kennedy in the worst light. For instance, Damore misquoted the law to try and imply that the judge at the inquest was covering up for Kennedy. He used Kennedy's cousin Joe Gargan as a self-serving witness against him, even though Gargan had had a bitter falling out with the senator over an unrelated matter. He concocted a half-baked theory about an air pocket in the car to make it look like the victim survived for hours after the crash. This idea was discredited at length by author James Lange in Chappaquiddick: The Real Story (pgs. 82-89) In other words, Damore went out of his way to depict Kennedy's behavior as not just being under the influence, or even manslaughter, but tantamount to murder. The book's combination of extreme indictment with specious prosecutorial brief resulted in its ultimate rejection by its original publisher, Random House. They demanded their $150, 000 advance back. When Damore refused, the publisher sued. The judge in the case decided that, contrary to rumor, there were no extenuating circumstances: that is, the Kennedy family exerted no pressure. He ruled the publisher had acted in good faith in rejecting the manuscript. (In addition to the above, it was well over a thousand pages long. See NY Times 11/5/87) There were also charges that the author had practiced checkbook journalism. But Damore then picked up an interesting (and suitable) book agent: former political espionage operative and current rightwing hack Lucianna Goldberg. The nutty and fanatical Goldberg has made a career out of targeting progressives with any influence e.g. George McGovern, Bill Clinton, the Kennedys. So she made sure Damore's dubious inquiry got printed. And sure enough, Goldberg got that rightwing sausage factory Regnery to publish Senatorial Privelege.
Damore's book on Meyer appeared to be headed in a similar direction. In a brief mention in the New York Post Damore said, "She [Meyer] had access to the highest levels. She was involved in illegal drug activity. What do you think it would do to the beatification of Kennedy if this woman said, "It wasn't Camelot, it was Caligula's court." If you are not familiar with ancient Roman history, Caligula was the demented emperor who, among other things, seduced his sister, slept with a horse, and later made the horse a senator. Which sounds made to order for Goldberg and Regnery. I can just see the split picture cover: JFK and Meyer on one side with Caligula and his horse on the other.
In his research, Damore interviewed drug guru Tim Leary and apparently believed everything he told him. As I noted in my review of Brothers, for specific reasons, Leary is simply not credible on this subject. But the fact that Damore was going to use him would connote he had an agenda. For instance, in the new biography of Leary by Robert Greenfield, the author concludes that Leary fabricated the whole story about Meyer getting LSD from him to give to JFK in order to spice up the sales for his 1983 book Flashbacks. Which is the first time Leary mentioned it in 21 years, even though he had many opportunities to do so previously. Further, Greenfield notes that Leary made up other stories for that book, like having an affair with Marilyn Monroe, in order to make it more marketable for his press agent. And he told the agent to use the Meyer/Kennedy story to get him more exposure. Leary understood that sex, drugs, and a dead Kennedy sells. Apparently, so did Damore.
VI
As I said, Peter Janney entered the picture after Damore died. His father had worked for the CIA, and he had been friends with Michael Meyer, a son of Mary and her husband, Cord Meyer. He has in recent years put together Damore's research and is now marketing s script called Lost Light based on Meyer's life and death. From what I have read about it, it should be a real doozy, right up there with Robert Slatzer's Marilyn and Me. In addition to promoting it in his book Regicide, Douglas/Storch has also pushed it on his web site, TBR News. In fact, there seems to be a kind of strange symbiosis between the two. For instance, when Trento contested Douglas ever having Crowley's files, Douglas accused Trento of trying to cover up the "Zipper documents". A post of April 2, 2007 by (the disputed) "Brian Harring" said that Trento and a "Washington fix-lawyer" actually burned the original documents. But somehow, Janney "discovered the original Zipper file and began the lengthy and time-consuming process of authentication." Which, as I have proved above, would be impossible. Asked about this rather bizarre statement, Storch/Douglas backtracked by saying that Janney had uncovered similar evidence and documents in his inquiry. Whether this is all true or not -- and with Douglas you never know -- I find it interesting that Douglas finds Janney's efforts bracing and attractive.
What Janney is postulating makes the ersatz claims of Tim Leary look staid and conservative. According to him, Mary Meyer had more influence in the Kennedy administration than Hilary Clinton had in her husband's. Various histories of the Kennedy administration will have to be revised and/or rewritten. According to Janney, Mary was such a powerful force guiding Kennedy that presidential aides feared her because of her influence with him. According to Janney/Damore, Kennedy was so smitten with her that he was going to divorce Jackie after he left office and marry his LSD lovechild guru. (Since Judith Exner also peddled this tale, Kennedy's agenda after the White House was pretty busy.)
What were some of the things Mary's acid love had guided JFK to? Well, apparently we were all wrong about Kennedy's ultimate disenchantment with Operation Mongoose and the subsequent role of Lisa Howard and others in the Castro back channel of 1963. Mary will have to be written into future versions of how that all started. And no, it was not the nightmare experience of the Missile Crisis that provoked Kennedy into the Soviet hotline and the 1963 test ban treaty. Somehow, historians missed Meyer's role in all that. Ditto for the American University speech. Plus poor John Newman will now have to revise JFK and Vietnam per Mary's role in the withdrawal plan. And finally -- drum roll please -- there is what Janney calls "the crown jewel of American intelligence": space aliens and UFO's. Yep. Kennedy was aware of the Pentagon's suppression of proof we had been visited by alien civilizations. And Kennedy -- guided by Mary the Muse -- wanted to tell the entire world about it. (Leary on acid would have never dreamt that one up.)
But this is only a warm-up for Janney/Simkin/Damore. The actual circumstances surrounding her death are even more fantastic. Here it begins to resemble Ricky White's long lost "foot locker" story. If you don't recall, in the White affair a late discovered journal revealed that Ricky's father Roscoe, a Dallas policeman in 1963, did not just shoot JFK. He was also part of a hit squad to eliminate a list of dangerous witnesses who could blow the lid off the Warren Report. (For a summary of the White debacle, see "I was Mandarin" at the Texas Monthly Archives.) Well, if you buy Simkin and Janney, Mary was killed as part of a planned and precise execution plot that was lucky enough to have a nearby fall guy in hand. Since she was one of those dangerous witnesses, the hit team had been monitoring Mary for months and knew her jogging routine. A man and woman walking her path that day were not really a couple. They were actually spotters to let the actual assassin know she was coming. This all comes from an alleged call Damore got from one William Mitchell -- except that is not his real name. He was really a CIA hit man with multiple identities. He spilled this all out to Damore after Damore wrote him a letter at his last known address. Which according to the tale was really a CIA safe house. (Why a CIA safe house would forward a letter from a writer to an assassin is not explained.) Damore told all this to a lawyer who made notes on it. Later, Damore killed himself. And no one can find Mitchell because of his multiple identities. In other words, the guy who heard the story is dead and the guy who told the story is nowhere to be found. A jaded person might conclude that it all sounds kind of convenient.
I should note, it is never explained why the hit man would spill his guts out to Damore thirty years after the fact. After all, Damore was just a writer. He had no legal standing to compel information. People usually do not confess to things like being the triggerman in a murder plot unless they have to. Between facing a writer researching a cold case and a lethal, living, breathing organization like the CIA, I think I would just bamboozle or hang up on the writer. Especially when the Agency can do things like tap my phone and find out if I am leaking dark Company secrets. And then dispose of me if I was. But since Simkin and Janney say this is the key to the case, we aren't supposed to ask things like that.
When I criticized the sourcing of Talbot's book on the Meyer episode, Simkin commented that in two cases I was discounting the sources on insubstantial grounds. The two sources were David Heymann and James Angleton. In this day and age, I would have thought that discrediting these two men would be kind of redundant. In my review, I compared the sleazy Heymann to Kitty Kelley -- which on second thought is being unfair to Kelley. To go through his two books on the Kennedys -- A Woman Called Jackie, and RFK: A Candid Biography -- and point out all the errors of fact and attribution, the questionable interview subjects, the haphazard sourcing, the unrelenting appetite for sleaze that emits from almost every page, and the important things he leaves out -- to do all that would literally take a hundred pages. But since Simkin and Janney like him, and since Talbot sourced him, I will point out several things as a sampling of why he cannot be used or trusted.
In the first book, Heymann writes that JFK's messy autopsy was orchestrated by Robert Kennedy and some other members of the family. (p. 410) This has been proven wrong by too many sources to be listed here. When describing the assassination of JFK, Heymann lists three shots: two into JFK and one into Connally. Although he is kind of hazy on the issue, he leans toward the Krazy Kid Oswald scenario. He can keep to that myth since he does not tell the reader about the hit to James Tague. (p. 399) Which would mean four shots and a conspiracy. Incredibly, Heymann tries to say that when Jackie was leaning out the back of the car she really was not trying to recover parts of Kennedy's blown out skull. What she was actually doing was trying to escape the fusillade! (p. 400) One might ask then: How did she end up with the tissue and skin, which she turned over to the doctors at Parkland? Predictably, Heymann leaves that out of his hatchet job.
The book on RFK is more of the same. Heymann discovered something about RFK that no one else did. Between his time on Joe McCarthy's committee and the McClellan Committee RFK moonlighted with the Bureau of Narcotics and Drugs. What did he do there? Well on their raids, he would switch from mild-mannered Dr. Jekyll to wild man Mr. Hyde. He seized bags of cocaine and distributed it among his buddies. If the drug suspects were female he would make them serve him sexually before busting them. He would watch idly as some of his cohorts threw drug runners out of windows. (p. 100) Now that he knew about drugs, when Ethel's parents died in a plane crash, Bobby sent her to a Canadian facility in order to get LSD treatments to cure her grief. (pgs 104-105) Did you know that RFK was secretly a bisexual who both made out and shared a homosexual lover with Rudolf Nureyev? (p. 419) According to Heymann (p. 361), Jim Garrison called RFK up in 1964 to discuss his JFK assassination ideas but RFK hung up on him. (Since Garrison had stopped investigating the case by 1964, this call has to be mythological.) About RFK's assassination, those who try and explain the many oddities that abound over the crime scene are quickly dismissed as "looking for a complex explanation to what seems a simple story." (p. 501) Therefore, he puts terms like the Manchurian Candidate, and the girl in the polka dot dress in belittling quotes. (He actually prefaces the latter with the term "so-called", like she doesn't really exist in that form.) Unbelievably, Heymann mentions the name of pathologist Thomas Noguchi in regard to his case shattering work on RFK exactly once. (p. 508) And this is in a note at the bottom of the page. In other words with Heymann, Oswald shot JFK, and Sirhan killed RFK. And if they didn't, it doesn't really matter.
Some of the things Heymann's interview subjects tell him are just plain risible -- to everyone except him. Jeanne Carmen was exposed years ago by Marilyn Monroe biographer Donald Spoto (see p. 472) as very likely not even knowing her. Heymann acts as if this never happened. So he lets her now expand on the dubious things she said before. Apparently she forgot to tell Anthony Summers that she herself also had an affair with JFK, "And he wasn't even good in bed." (p. 313) Carmen also now miraculously recalls that Bobby, Marilyn and her, actually used to go nude bathing at Malibu. (p. 314) The whole myth about Bernard Spindel wiretapping Monroe's phone has also been exposed for years. But Heymann ignores that, and adds that it wasn't just Spindel and Hoffa but also the FBI and CIA who were wiretapping Marilyn's phone. The whole chapter on Monroe had me rocking in my chair with laughter. It concludes with Carmen saying that the cover up of Monroe's murder was so extensive that the perpetrators broke into her home too! (p. 324) One of the things Heymann relies on in this Saturday Night Live chapter is an interview he says Peter Lawford gave him. Which is kind of weird. For two reasons. Apparently Lawford told him things he never told anyone else. Second, Heymann says he interviewed Lawford in 1983, which is the year before the actor died. It actually had to be that year. Why? Because Heymann's book on Barbara Hutton came out in 1983. And there was no point in interviewing Lawford for that book. When it came out, Heymann got into trouble and was actually investigated for charges of fraud. The original publisher had to shred 58, 000 copies of the book. It got so bad Heymann fled the country to Israel and reportedly joined the Mossad. But, amid all this hurly burly he somehow was prescient enough to know that he should interview Lawford before he left since he knew he would eventually be writing about the Kennedys. And Lawford trusted this writer under suspicion with sensational disclosures he never duplicated for anyone else.
Or did he? One of the many problems with Heymann is his very loose footnoting. Very often he quotes generic sources like "FBI files", without naming the series number, the office of origination, or even the date on the document. So an interested reader cannot check them for accuracy. This is fortunate for Heymann, since, like with his interviews, he finds things in government files that apparently no one else has -- like Secret Service agents writing about the sexual details of JFK's affairs. In his book on Robert Kennedy, again, people say things that they have said nowhere else. He writes that in 1997 Gerald Ford admitted that, as president, he had suppressed FBI and CIA surveillance files which indicated President Kennedy was caught in a crossfire in Dealey Plaza and that John Roselli and Carlos Marcello had orchestrated it. (p. 361) In 1997 Ford was saying what he always said. That Oswald did it and there was no cover up. He did have to defend against evidence he had moved up the wound in Kennedy's back to his neck. But during that controversy he never came close to saying what Heymann attributes to him.
But it gets worse. Apparently either Heymann is clairvoyant, or like the boy in The Sixth Sense he is so attuned to the spirit world that he can speak with the dead. In his RFK book he of course wants to place Bobby amid the plots to kill Castro. And it would be more convincing if he actually got that information from RFK's friends and trusted associates. So he goes to people like JFK's lifelong pal Lem Billings and White House counselor Ken O'Donnell. Naturally, they both tell Heymann that RFK was hot to off Fidel. There is a big time sequence problem with both these interviews. Now if you look in his chapter notes, Heymann simply lists people he says he interviewed for a chapter -- with no dates for the interview. This is shrewd of him. The RFK book was published in 1998. Lem Billings died in 1981. So we are to believe that while working on a book about Barbara Hutton, Heymann just happened to run into Billings and asked him about RFK and Castro. Even though Bobby Kennedy is never even mentioned in the Hutton book! Further, in Jack and Lem, a full length biography of Billings published this year, there is not even a hint of this disclosure. The O'Donnell instance is even worse. He died in 1977. At that time Heymann was working on a book about the literary Lowell family. Why on earth would he interview O'Donnell for that? Did he know that 20 years later he would be writing a book about RFK? But Heymann has been accused of faking interviews as far back as 1976 for his book on Ezra Pound. (For more evidence of Heymann's penchant for fabrication, click here.)
This is the author who Janney has sat and talked with many times. Whom Simkin vouched for as a source for their Mary Meyer/JFK construction. All I can say is that if I ever met Heymann, the last thing I would do is sit and talk with him. I'd leave the room. The fact that Janney and Simkin appear to be ignorant about the appalling history of this dreadful and ludicrous hack says a good deal about their work. But if they did know, and endorsed him anyway, it says a lot more.
VII
One of the things that Simkin uses to add intrigue to the tale is the famous Meyer "diary" story. In fact he names the number of people involved in the search for Meyer's diary as proof that a.) It must be true and b.) The diary must have been valuable. In my essay on Meyer in The Assassinations I minutely examined this whole instance and the various shapes and forms it has taken through the years. I concluded that clearly the people involved have been lying about what happened in this Arthurian quest, and also about the result of it. This, of course, touches on the credibility of the story itself and also shows that there were splits between the parties involved. Most notably James Truitt had an early falling out with Ben Bradlee. The Angletons and Truitts stayed chummy through the years. In fact I concluded that it was Angleton who had alerted Truitt to Meyer's death in the first place -- since he was in Japan -- and got him to go along with entrusting the legendary diary to him. (The Assassinations, p. 343) At that time, I wrote that no one knew what was in the diary and that if it contained what it allegedly did, Kennedy's enemy Angleton would have found a way to get it into the press. At that time I had not read Heymann's book on Jackie Kennedy. Although it is unadulterated trash, there is one interesting passage in it. It is an interview with James Angleton. Now, as I have warned, Heymann likes to disguise fiction as non-fiction, down to quoting dubious interviews. But this one might be genuine. Angleton died in 1987. The book was published in 1989, so the time frame is possible. Also, unlike with Billings, Lawford, and O'Donnell, the stuff he says sounds like Angleton. (Even though Heymann gets Angleton's CIA title wrong.)
Angleton (perhaps) says that Meyer told Leary that she and a number of Washington women had concocted a plot to "turn on" political leaders to make them more peace loving and less militaristic. Leary helped her in this mission. In July of 1962, Mary took Kennedy into one of the White House bedrooms and shared a box of six joints with him. Kennedy told her laughingly that they were having a White House conference on narcotics in a couple of weeks. Kennedy refused a fourth joint with, "Suppose the Russians drop a bomb." He admitted to having done coke and hash thanks to Peter Lawford. Mary claimed they smoked pot two other times and took an acid trip together, during which they had sex.
Angleton (perhaps) continues with Toni Bradlee finding the diary. But she gave it to Angleton who destroyed it at Langley. He says, "In my opinion, there was nothing to be gained by keeping it around. It was in no way meant to protect Kennedy. I had little sympathy for the president. The Bay of Pigs fiasco, which he tried to hang on the CIA and which led to the resignation of CIA Director Allen Dulles, was his own doing. I think the decision to withdraw air support of the invasion colored Kennedy's entire career and impacted on everything that followed." (pgs 375-376)
Heymann says that Angleton garnered the details about the affair from Mary's "art diary". Yet the details are quite personal in nature, and would seemingly be out of place in a sketchbook. And again, why, if Mary had turned against the CIA, would she entrust these personal notations with Angleton, of all people? Nothing about the diary story makes any sense. But if this interview is genuine, then it would confirm my idea that the diary was apocryphal, or was actually an "art diary", and that Angleton himself inserted the whole drug angle of the story through his friend and partner in Kennedy animus, Jim Truitt. (Truitt surfaced the drug angle in 1976 with an interview in The National Enquirer.) For Truitt, it was a twofer: he not only urinates on JFK -- which he had been trying to do for over a decade -- but he also gets to nail Bradlee, who had fired him. In 1976, when this all started, the revelations of the Church Committee were leading to the creation of the House Select Committee to investigate Kennedy's murder. So it would be helpful for Angleton to get this tall tale started since he had a lot to lose if the truth about Kennedy's death ever came out. Why?
As John Newman has shown, Oswald's pre-assassination 201 files were held in a special mole-hunting unit inside Angleton's counter intelligence domain. This unit, called SIG, was the only unit Angleton had that had access to the Office of Security, which by coincidence, also held pre-assassination files on Oswald. Angleton staffer Ann Egerter once said that SIG would investigate CIA employees who were under suspicion of being security risks. (The Assassinations, pgs. 145-146). When Oswald "defects" to the Soviet Union, it just happens that Angleton is in charge of the Soviet Division within the CIA. When Oswald returns, he is befriended by George DeMohrenschildt, a man who Angleton has an intense interest in. As Lisa Pease pointed out, shortly before the assassination, Oswald's SIG file was transferred to the Mexico City HQ desk. (Ibid, p. 173) While there, members of Angleton's staff drafted two memos: one that describes Oswald accurately, and one that does not. The first goes to the CIA; the other goes to the State Department, FBI and Navy. Ann Goodpasture, who seems to have cooperated with David Phillips on the CIA's charade with Oswald in Mexico City, had worked with Angleton as a CI officer.
After the assassination, Angleton was in charge of the Agency's part of the Warren Commission cover up. One of the things he did was to conspire with William Sullivan to conceal any evidence that Oswald was an intelligence agent. (Ibid. p. 158) He then imprisoned and tortured Soviet defector Yuri Nosenko because he stated that the Russians had no interest in Oswald, and Angleton's cover story was that Oswald had been recruited as a Russian agent. During the Garrison investigation, the CIA set up a Garrison desk, which was helmed by Angleton's assistant Ray Rocca. (Ibid p. 45) Garrison investigated the origins of the book Farewell America, which he came to believe was a disinformation tract. He discovered it was an off the shelf operation by an agent of Angleton. When Clay Shaw's trial was prepping, Angleton did name traces on prospective jurors. (Ibid p. 46) When Angleton was forced out of the CIA in early 1975, he made the infamous self-exculpatory statement, "A mansion has many rooms ... I was not privy to who struck John." Many have presumed that this was a warning that, now that he was unprotected, Angleton would not take the rap for the Kennedy case alone. Especially since, at that time -- in 1975 -- congress was about to investigate the case seriously for the first time.
While the HSCA was ongoing, Angleton was involved in two exceedingly interesting episodes: one that seemed to extend the cover up of his activities with Oswald, and one aimed at furthering his not so veiled threat about being a fall guy. The first concerns the creation of the book Legend by Angleton's friend and admirer Edward Epstein. Written exactly at he time of the HSCA inquiry, this book was meant to confuse the public about who Oswald really was. If anything, it was meant to portray him as a Russian agent being controlled by DeMohrenschildt. At the same time, DeMohrenschildt was being hounded by Dutch journalist Willem Oltmans to "confess" his role in the Kennedy assassination -- which he refused to do. Right after he was subpoenaed by the HSCA, DeMohrenschildt was either murdered or shot himself. The last person who saw him was reportedly Epstein. Angleton's other suspicious action was the1978 article by Victor Marchetti about the famous "Hunt Memorandum". This was an alleged 1966 CIA memo from Angleton to Richard Helms that said no cover story had been put in place to disguise Howard Hunt's presence in Dallas on 11/22/63. Trento later revealed that Angleton had shown him the memo. The release of the article through former CIA officer Marchetti was meant to implicate the Office of Plans, run by Helms in 1963. Hunt worked out of that domain. This could be construed as a warning: if Angleton was going down, he was taking Helms and Hunt with him.
Looking at the line of cover up and subterfuge above poses an obvious question: Why would one spend so much time confusing and concealing something if one was not involved in it? (Or, as Harry Truman noted in another context: How many times do you have to get knocked down before you realize who's hitting you?) In my view, the Meyer story fits perfectly into the above framework. Angleton started it through his friend Truitt in 1976. And then either he had Leary extend it, or Leary did that on his own for pecuniary measures in 1983. Angleton meant it as a character assassination device. But now, luckily for him, Simkin and Janney extend it to the actual assassination itself: The Suite 8F Group meets Mary and the UFO's.
James Angleton was good at his job, much of which consisted of camouflaging the JFK assassination. He doesn't need anyone today giving him posthumous help.
Talk about disinformation. This piece by DeEugenio, who used to be a friend of mine is full of it. I will detail them later, I must teach now...but I almost threw up, and wanted people to know a qucik take on this excrement about me and Cryil Wecht - is almost all false or twisted beyond recognition. I never gave that con artist 100,000 dollars. I will read more carefully, and respond later. This is the kind of backstabbing and unresearched bull**** that goes on in the research community all too often. Sad, becuase Jim was a good researcher and not on the 'opposing' side, but once he takes a dislike or a suspicion about someone......and I'm obviously now on his 'XXX list'.
The details are all lies or such gross distortions, as to constitute lies, and backstabs, to boot. I will detail. I'm sure Cryil will also have his own reponses to this crud..[but due to his legal problems, may not feel he can respond]. I will for him, to the best of my knowlege. As the 'info' about Cyril is not entirely correct either. Jim needs a lesson in putting out poison suppositories, and not preaching about silver bullets!
Sorry Jim - You have defamed me and Cyril, and no doubt others. Thanks [not!] for not checking the facts first. A sad piece. Full of false facts and character assassination. Jim, stick to the facts.....I see few about me or Cryil in this. More shortly. Now I see why DiEugenio doesn't post on the Forums..... Sadly, I once considered him a good friend. It is also the work of the Mockingbirdees/provacateurs to divide us and make the researchers fight by passing on false info about us to the others....I don't know if that was involved here...but somewhere the facts got lost in the part about me!
NB- As I don't have Wecht's book at hand, would someone on the Forum with it be so kind as to send me by private email with the pages from Wecht's book on Russell and myself. Thanks. I want this to be as accurate as possible.
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Why was this post of Peter's edited by Antti Hynonen?
Because I used one of the seven words the FCC bans on American broadcasts and the EF finds offensive....I find death and war and genocide and false-flag operations and assassinations infinitely more offensive than these words, but I don't set the rules. Is there a specific list of words or when they can be used and not. If I were to post verbatum statements of importance by LBJ or RMN or many others would someone cut those words out? While overuse or gratuitous use should not be encouraged, when one is of strong emotion, strong words are used in real life. We are talking about real world situations here and I was reacting to a post that is probably all over the internet now with a false fact about me. I'm darn/dang upset.
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All of this is very saddening, to me.
I suppose everyone has a cross to bear now. It's like someone said, "Why can't we all just get along?"
Too much back-stabbing and one-up-man-ship seems to be the rule of the day for whatever reason. I only hope we all haven't been lied to for so long that we actually are ready to jump on the nearest bandwagon that suits our comfort zone in this never-ending search down consistently dead end trails. I believe it's a matter of closure that will never be afforded the American people.
It truly is a royal scam.
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Beware: The Douglas/Janney/Simkin Silver Bullets
By James DiEugenio
One of the reasons I do not post on JFK forums anymore is due to an experience I had on Rich Della Rosa's site, JFK Research.com. One of my pet peeves about the JFK field is the spreading of disinformation disguised as insider dope that is meant to "solve the case". After posting at Rich's site for a few weeks, I began to do a series on the book Farewell America, which -- as I shall explain later -- I have come to believe falls into this category. I also posted about a similar fatuous tome, The Torbitt Document. I was surprised at the reaction. I learned the hard way that some people have a difficult time accepting the fact that other authors or investigators could have less than honorable goals. One poster said that by criticizing Farewell America I was defiling Fletcher Prouty's name, since he liked that book. It got so heated that, although I liked Rich personally, I decided to sign off. I have not been back.
I don't think my vigilance about this subject is unwarranted. There have been several of these slick -- and not so slick -- poseurs who have attempted to supply both the research community and the public a silver bullet in the JFK case: a theatrical deus ex machina, which would finally and magically explain the events of 11/22/63. For example, the late Joe West was involved in two of them: Ricky White's late discovered treasure trove/footlocker and James Files' taped "confession". Another example: at the first ASK Conference in Dallas, a panel of "authorities" attempted to explain who the three tramps really were -- and how one of them was a killer who had previously murdered his family.
Perhaps the most memorable silver bullet is detailed in the first chapter of Cyril Wecht's 1993 book, Cause of Death. In 1988 a man named Robert Russell got into contact with the eminent pathologist after seeing him discuss the JFK case with Dan Rather. He was a convict turned mob informant who was in a California prison. He began a long correspondence with Wecht and in 1990 sent him a letter in which he linked himself to Jimmy Hoffa. He wrote Wecht that he had access to evidence in the JFK case, namely the JFK autopsy materials: negatives, photos, x-rays, blood and tissue slides -- and also Kennedy's long lost brain. (Wecht, pgs. 48-50)
Wecht asked Russell for more details. Russell obliged by saying that in 1967 he met a woman who knew an associate of Jack Ruby's named Ralph Paul. The woman, whose name was Cindy, claimed that on the day of Kennedy's murder, she drove Paul to the parking lot behind the grassy knoll. Paul carried a violin case. When he returned to the car, they proceeded to an apartment where they met both Jack Ruby and a Secret Service agent. After the two others departed, Cindy looked inside the violin case and found a rifle, ten bullets, a map of the motorcade route, and a check for a hundred grand made out to Ruby. Cindy said she stashed the evidence in a container and drove to New Orleans, which is where Russell met her. While living with the woman, Russell discovered these items, which were hidden in a small room.
Since it was RFK who had been hunting down Hoffa, Russell got in contact with him. Bobby told him to keep the evidence hidden and secret. Russell learned through RFK that Kennedy had taken the autopsy materials to a small church in upstate New York. Kennedy told the residing priest that if anything should happen to him he should call Russell and give the evidence to him. When RFK was killed in 1968, this is what happened. Wecht had reservations about this part of the story. As he writes, why would RFK "confide all this to a low-life snitch?" (p. 67) Sensing the impending doubt, Russell sent Wecht a home movie on VHS. Filmed in a swampland that looked like Louisiana or Florida, it showed Russell digging up one of the rifles used in the assassination that he had gotten from Cindy. At this point, and after Russell had asked for a loan, Wecht terminated the correspondence.
But Russell got in contact with others in the JFK research community who were more easily convinced. One was Peter Lemkin. Lemkin talked to Wecht about Russell and asked him if he would at least examine the swampland rifles. Why? Because Lemkin actually paid the ex-convict a hundred thousand dollars for the two rifles. Wecht relates in his book (pgs. 68-69) how Lemkin sadly wrote to him in December of 1991: Russell had turned out to be a fraud and he had lost a fortune in the scam. When Wecht got in contact with Russell's parole officer, he said, "We traced the guns and found out he bought them from a pawnshop just last year..." Wecht concludes the Russell section of his book by saying that people like Russell are one reason the JFK case may never be solved: "They are true wackos who are not interested in truth or justice, but are greedy con men ... " who "muddy the waters".
I agree. This is why I did what I did with Farewell America and the Torbitt Document. To remind people that you have to be on your guard about such things. Especially because the phenomenon has spread to related areas, like the Lex Cusack hoax that Seymour Hersh, and others, fell for concerning Marilyn Monroe. Cusack grossed seven million on that bit of forgery. Or the phony fables of the late Judith Exner, which she sold to People Weekly and Vanity Fair for six figures.
Another one of these related areas I had written about was Mary Meyer. And I thought that because of the essay I had done on her (The Assassinations. pgs 338-345), plus the work Nina Burleigh did on her murder, that the controversy swirling around the deceased woman would finally quiet down. But then David Talbot's book came out. When I read it, I noted that he had a few pages on the JFK/Mary Meyer episode. And he used people who I thought I had discredited, like Timothy Leary. And also the notoriously unreliable David Heymann -- who I will have more to say about later. There was another JFK book of recent vintage that discussed the Mary Meyer case. And the more I found out about why Talbot had used this material, the more curious I got about this other book. But to explain why, I have to go back in time to describe how I first met Kristina Borjesson.
II
Kristina Borjesson is one of the true heroines of contemporary journalism. A veteran and award-winning producer for both CNN and CBS, she was assigned to report on the famous and mysterious 1996 explosion of TWA 800. It was this career altering experience that forms the basis of her intriguing book Into the Buzzsaw (2002). The book is a collection of essays dealing with the problems mainstream media has in telling the truth about sensitive and controversial stories. I met Kristina in 2003. The Assassinations had just come out, and coincidentally we happened to have the same book publicist. As we were going to a gathering in Brentwood on a Sunday afternoon, she asked me about a web site called TBR News. I said I had not heard of it. She said the man who runs it, a guy named Walter Storch, had displayed some of the famous Fox News memos. If the reader recalls, in 2003 a Fox insider had released some company memos showing how higher-ups at the network told staffers how to slant stories. Storch said he had original copies of these memos. Kristina asked to see them. And she e-mailed him that request. He then called her and they discussed the memos. But Kristina told me that there was just something about him that did not inspire confidence in her -- something calculating and cagey. So she did not give him her address. But Storch did recommend to her a book he had been involved with. It was about the John Kennedy assassination. The title was Regicide. Kristina asked around about it and she told me there was something weird about Storch's involvement with the book. Namely, his name is not on it or in it.
Kristina is correct. The billed author of Regicide is a man named Gregory Douglas. The book was released in 2002. At the time it was published, it was actually highly acclaimed by some in the research community e.g. Jim Fetzer. The subtitle of the book is "The Official Assassination of John F. Kennedy." Why is it called that? Because it purports to reveal the actual conspirators in the assassination and how they worked together to pull it off. There are four main parts of the book: 1.) A Soviet Intelligence Study of the JFK assassination 2.) A DIA analysis of the Soviet Study called The Driscoll Report (title based upon the actual author of the analysis) 3.) Interpolated commentary by Gregory Douglas 4.) The Zipper Documents.
The most sensational part of the book is the last. These documents are supposed to be a record of actual meetings held by the conspirators from March to November of 1963. It was quite an extensive meeting. If one believes Douglas, the plot encompassed the CIA, FBI, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Lyndon Johnson, the American Mafia, Corsican hit men, and the Mossad. Talk about a grand conspiracy. And these were all involved before the actual assassination. So we are not just talking about the cover up. The grand master of the conspiracy is allegedly James Angleton, counter-intelligence chief of the CIA. If you know anything about Angleton, you realize how strained the Zipper documentation part of the book is. To believe that someone as secretive as Angleton would recruit all these people into the plot, and then keep an official record of it goes against everything we know about him. But according to Douglas, that is precisely what happened. Angleton kept a log of all meetings he had with his co-conspirators. The log is organized by date, time, and subject matter. And the log is not just of actual meetings. Even the phone calls Angleton made in furtherance of the plot are recorded. For instance, on April 10, 1963 Angleton's assistant called Sam Giancana about the Mafia Don's payments in aid of the plot. On October 24th, there was a phone call between Angleton and Giancana about the arrival of the Corsican assassins in Montreal. Angleton even included dates and times when he got reports from Sam Cummings of Interarmco on weaponry to be used in the shooting.
Besides the incredible thesis, there are other problems with this careless creation. For instance, Lyman Lemnitzer is listed as still being a member of the Joint Chiefs in April of 1963 (p. 92). He was not. Kennedy had replaced him with Maxwell Taylor several months before. If Hoover and the FBI were kept fully informed of the plot, then why was the FBI Director so puzzled by the Oswald machinations going on in Mexico City? To the point where, shortly after the assassination, he told President Johnson that there seemed to be an imposter for Oswald in Mexico. About the Mexico City episode, Douglas can actually write, "In point of fact, it matters not what Oswald did while in Mexico because this trip had no possible bearing on the allegations of assassination heaped onto a dead Oswald." (p. 99) In light of what we know today, this is incredible. It is clear now that Mexico City was meant to cinch the "Oswald in league with the Communists" angle of the conspiracy. That Johnson and Hoover a.) Did not buy it, and b.) Did not like it -- since it risked a war with either Russia or Cuba. And as commentators like John Newman have noted, this is where the fallback position of Oswald as the warped sociopath entered the scenario. And this is what the Warren Commission ended up running with. Just on the above grounds, the book seems a dubious concoction.
But there is more. The book says that "one of the assassins, the man who fired at Kennedy from nearly point blank range ... ". (p. 100) Who can this possibly be referring to? With the present copies of the Zapruder film, it is obvious that no one fired at Kennedy from anywhere near point blank range. According to Douglas, Oswald actually told the Russians he was an intelligence agent and gave them documents purloined by the ONI from the CIA (p. 173). Douglas also knows about documents that show the FBI paid Oswald as an informant. (p. 174) These are documents that no researcher has ever seen. In his description of the DIA analysis of the Soviet report, he has the DIA saying that there were three shots fired that day. And that all three hit either JFK or John Connally, thereby ignoring the hit to James Tague (pgs. 28-29). Yet, the Tague hit was something even the Warren Report was forced to admit. In another howler, Douglas has the Bay of Pigs invasion occurring in April of 1962! In the book's index, the middle name of Allen Dulles is listed incorrectly as "Welch", instead of "Welsh". The book also says that the reason that the Russians moved missiles into Cuba was that they found out about the assassination plots against Castro. (This makes absolutely no sense. Talk about killing a mosquito with an elephant gun.)
I could go on and on. But the point is made. The book is almost certainly a fabrication. But there is another angle running through the concoction that needs to be pointed out: Its reliance on what I have called elsewhere the posthumous assassination of President Kennedy. That is, the attempt to blacken his character and therefore his historical image. This explains why Regicide names only five Kennedy books in the acknowledgements section. And two of them have nothing to do with the actual murder of JFK. But they have a lot to do with his posthumous assassination. They are Thomas Reeves' A Question of Character, and Sy Hersh's infamous and atrocious The Dark Side of Camelot. Early in the book, this angle is clearly pronounced: " ... it was the personality, actions, and family background of John Kennedy that led to his death." (p. 67) In other words, Kennedy's assassination was not really an extension of politics by other means: a veto by assassination. Kennedy's fault was in himself. He egged it on by his irresponsible acts in office. In short, this book tries to blame the victim. In more than one way.
First, Angleton arranges the whole grand conspiracy because he believes that Kennedy and his brother are giving away state secrets to the Soviets. This is clearly based on the famous Anatoly Golitsyn inspired "mole hunt" conducted by Angleton. The problem with Douglas using this is that it did not start until September of 1963. Which is six months too late for the conspiracy timetable laid out in Regicide. Further, the Russian defector Golitsyn actually met with Bobby Kennedy in 1962. He gave no hint at the time that RFK or his brother was in league with the Soviets. (See Cold Warrior by Tom Mangold, p. 88) Finally, when Golitsyn did make the allegations about a mole, he placed him inside the CIA's Soviet Division. Not in the White House. (Ibid, p. 108).
Second, the Zipper documents are supposed to contain professionally done pictures of Kennedy and his adulterous conquests. (p. 83) The CIA got hold of these photos and they were included in the file. And President Kennedy was aware "that a number of these pictures were in Soviet hands ... " The Soviet report also says that Kennedy was a "heavy user of illegal narcotics." (p. 178) In no book on the Cold War have I ever read anything like this. (Douglas appears to have borrowed the latter charge from the Mary Meyer tale. A point I will refer to later.)
Third, consistent with the Hersh/Reeves revisionism, Douglas goes after Joseph Kennedy hard. The DIA report says that Joe Kennedy was heavily involved with bootlegging during Prohibition and had been involved with the Capone mob in Chicago. Kennedy and Capone had a falling out over a hijacked liquor shipment. Capone had threatened Kennedy's life over this and Joe Kennedy had to "pay off the Mob to nullify a murder contract" on himself. (p. 59) Further, RFK started his attack on the Mob at his father's request to revenge himself for this (p. 60) Need I add that Douglas bases this fantastic charge on Chicago police records that no one but him has seen.
So not only does the book seem to be an invention, it is also an invention with a not so hidden revisionist agenda. That traitor and libertine Kennedy got what he deserved.
III
As I said earlier, one of the things Kristina Borjesson was puzzled about was that Storch was pushing a book that his name was not on or in. That is not really puzzling. Because it appears that Storch is actually Douglas. Another pseudonym for Douglas is Peter Stahl. And this is where the story gets quite interesting. For it appears that, if anyone in the JFK community would have done any digging into the person, they would have found that Douglas/Stahl/Storch has spent a lifetime as a confidence man. He has been reported by some as counterfeiting such exotic items of art as Rodin statuettes. Another of his specialties seems to be faking documents about the Third Reich, which sometimes relate to the Holocaust. In fact, he wrote a four-volume set on Hitler's Gestapo Chief Heinrich Muller. Some believe the entire set is highly dubious. In fact, a group of people Douglas/Stahl has long been associated with are the Holocaust revisionists at Institute of Historical Review. They are so familiar with him and his past antics that one of them has set up a site detailing many of them. It makes quite an interesting read. And it is a puzzle to me how someone like Fetzer, who originally bought into Regicide -- and actually talked to Douglas/Stahl -- never found out about his past.
One of the reasons Douglas was associated with these people is that he had a prior association with Willis Carto. Carto will be familiar to those who have read Mark Lane's book Plausible Denial (1991). Carto ran a small media conglomerate called the Liberty Lobby for a number of years. But there was a split in the ranks and the dissidents founded the IHR, while Carto's main publication was The Barnes Review. This is important because the TRB in TRB News, stands for The Barnes Review. As one commentator has noted about the site, although its archives contain some Holocaust revisionist material, a lot of the other stuff comes off as anti-Bush liberalism. But here is the problem. A lot of the material appears to be about as genuine as Regicide. Further, as that book was aimed at a target audience, and the Muller book also appeared aimed at a target audience, some of the "stories" on the site seem aimed at the growing resentment towards President Bush. To the point of making up false stories which are picked up by legitimate outlets but are later discredited. For instance, there was a story there saying that the Pentagon is grossly underreporting the number of casualties in Iraq. The story's by-line was by one Brian Harring who was supposed to have found a PDF file with the real numbers on them. And this story then spread to places like the liberal Huffington Post. Well, there is a Brian Harring, but as one can see by reading this entry (scroll down to the section entitled "Riots in the Streets"), he had nothing to do with this story and it appears that Stahl/Douglas is using his name against his will.
I could continue in this vein , but the point is that not only does Stahl/Storch/Douglas partake in what seem to be fraudulent books and stories, but -- like a classic confidence man -- he seems to aim them at certain audiences he knows will be predisposed to accept them. The latter stories I mentioned seem to be targeted at left/liberal sites in order to fool and then discredit them by the eventual exposure of false information. To stretch a parallel, in intelligence realms, this concept is called "blowback".
IV
What gave Douglas/Stahl/Storch the impetus to write Regicide at the time he did? And what made him think anyone would take it seriously? The apparent pretext for the book is billed on the cover. It says the "documentation" for the work comes from files "compiled by Robert T. Crowley, former Assistant Deputy Director for Clandestine Operations of the CIA." There was such a person. He passed away in the year 2000. Douglas says that, although he never met him in the flesh, he talked to him many times. And when he died, Crowley went ahead and gave him many documents he had. In the appendix to the book, Douglas inserts a very long list of "intelligence sources" he found in the Crowley papers, which he says was "most likely compiled in the mid-1990's" (p. 125) The alphabetical list goes on for over forty pages and lists addresses and zip codes. How and why the CIA would list addresses and zip codes in its documents is a question Douglas never addresses. And for good reason. Daniel Brandt of Namebase looked at the list and came to the conclusion that it is almost entirely composed of the publicly available member list of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.
The other problem with the alleged "documentation" is even worse. Crowley worked in a small circle of friends which included William Corson, James Angleton, and journalist Joe Trento. When the news got out in 2002 about Regicide being based on files left behind by Crowley, Trento did a double take. How could Douglas be in possession of the Crowley files when Crowley had given those files to him? Further, Trento had published a book in 2001, The Secret History of the CIA, which was largely based on his longtime association with Crowley. And, unlike the long distance telephone relationship Douglas alleged, Trento's was an in-person relationship. Further, the content of Trento's book, based on interviews and materials given him by that trio, was also different -- especially on the Kennedy assassination. (In that book, Angleton clings to his cover story of Oswald as a Russian agent.) When I called Trento to ask him why Crowley would give his files to two different writers, he replied quite strongly that Douglas was "A complete xxxx." And he didn't "have anything". (Interview with Trento, 8/14/07)
So it would appear that Regicide is a concoction from A-Z. But before leaving it, I would like to point out something that struck me as odd about Douglas' commentary in the book. As many know, there have been several strange and untimely deaths related to the Kennedy assassination. I agree that some people have exaggerated the number of these, but still there are more than several that will not go away. Douglas had the entire spectrum to choose from in this regard. I found his choice rather weird. On pages 100-101 of his confection, he quotes from the DIA Report, "The hit team was flown away in an aircraft piloted by a CIA contract pilot named David Ferrie from New Orleans. They subsequently vanished without a trace. Rumors of the survival of one of the team are persistent but not proven." Right after this juicily phrased quote, Douglas writes that there was another murder "that bears directly on the Kennedy assassination." He could have picked from over a dozen documented cases. A few that I find particularly interesting are Gary Underhill, David Ferrie, Eladio Del Valle, John Roselli, Sam Giancana, George DeMohrenschildt, and William Sullivan. Douglas picked none of them. He chose Mary Meyer. And then he writes almost two action-packed and lurid pages about her death. Including this: Crowley saw her mythological diary. It contained "references to her connection with Kennedy, the use of drugs at White House sex parties, and some very bitter comments about the role of her former husband's agency in the death of her lover the year before."
And this is not the only place Storch/Douglas pushes the "mystery" about Meyer.
V
There is someone else who is relentlessly pushing the Meyer-as-mysterious-death story. Jon Simkin runs a web site with a JFK forum on it. It is hard to figure out his basic ideas about President Kennedy's assassination. But if you look at some of his longer and more esoteric posts, they seem to suggest some vast, polyglot Grand Conspiracy. He calls it the Suite 8F Group -- which resembles the Texas based "Committee" from Farewell America. And when he discusses it, he actually uses the Torbitt Document as a reference. In a long post he made on 1/28/05 (4:51 PM) he offers an interpretation of Operation Mockingbird that can only be called bizarre. He actually tries to say that people like Frank Wisner, Joe Alsop, and Paul Nitze (who he calls members of the Georgetown Crowd), were both intellectuals and lefties who thought that -- get this -- FDR did not go far enough with his New Deal policies. (One step further, and the USA would have been a socialist country.) At another point, he writes " ... the Georgetown Group were idealists who really believed in freedom and democracy." This is right after he has described their work in the brutal Guatemala coup of 1954, which featured the famous CIA "death lists". He then says that Eisenhower had been a "great disappointment" to them. This is the man who made "Mr. Georgetown" i.e. Allen Dulles the CIA director and gave him a blank check, and his brother John Foster Dulles Sec. of State and allowed him to advocate things like brinksmanship and rollback. He then claims that JFK, not Nixon, was the Georgetown Crowd's candidate in 1960. Allegedly, this is based on his foreign policy and his anti-communism. Kennedy is the man who warned against helping French colonialism in Algeria in 1957. Who said -- in 1954 -- that the French could never win in Vietnam, and we should not aid them. Who railed against a concept that the Dulles brothers advocated, that is using atomic weapons to bail out the French at Dien Bien Phu. (Kennedy actually called this idea an act of lunacy). The notion is even more ridiculous when one considers the fact that, according to Howard Hunt, Nixon was the Action Officer in the White House for the CIA's next big covert operation: the Cuban exile invasion of Cuba. Which Kennedy aborted to their great dismay. Further, if Kennedy was the Georgetown Crowd's candidate for years, why did the CIA put together a dossier analysis, including a psychological profile of JFK, after he was elected? As Jim Garrison writes, "Its purpose ... was to predict the likely positions Kennedy would take if particular sets of conditions arose." (On the Trail of the Assassins, p. 60) Yet, according to Simkin, they already knew that. That's why they backed him. At the end of this breathtaking post, he advocates for a Suite 8F Group and Georgetown Crowd Grand Conspiracy (i.e. somewhat like Torbitt), or a lower level CIA plot with people like Dave Morales, Howard Hunt, and Rip Robertson (a rogue operation). Mockingbird was unleashed on 11/22/63 not because the CIA was involved in the assassination -- oh no -- but to cover up for the Georgetown/Suite 8F guys, or a renegade type conspiracy.
When I reviewed David Talbot's book Brothers, I criticized his section on Mary Meyer. Someone posted a link to my review on Simkin's forum. Simkin went after my critique of Talbot's Meyer section tooth and nail. (I should add here that Simkin has a long history of doing this. He goes after people who disagree with him on Meyer with a Bill O'Reilly type intensity. Almost as if he is trying to beat down any further public disagreement about his view of what happened to her.) In my review I simply stated that Talbot had taken at face value people who did not deserve to be trusted. And I specifically named Timothy Leary, James Truitt, James Angleton, and David Heymann. And I was quite clear about why they were not credible. At this time, I was not aware of an important fact: it was Simkin who had lobbied Talbot to place the Mary Meyer stuff in the book. Further, that he got Talbot in contact with a guy who he was also about to use to counter me. His name is Peter Janney.
Janney has been trying to get a screenplay made on the Meyer case for a while. He advocates the work of the late Leo Damore. Damore was working on a book about Meyer at the time of his death by self-inflicted gunshot wound. Janney says he has recovered a lot of the research notes and manuscripts that Damore left behind. Damore had previously written a book about Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick called Senatorial Privelege. That book used a collection of highly dubious means to paint Kennedy in the worst light. For instance, Damore misquoted the law to try and imply that the judge at the inquest was covering up for Kennedy. He used Kennedy's cousin Joe Gargan as a self-serving witness against him, even though Gargan had had a bitter falling out with the senator over an unrelated matter. He concocted a half-baked theory about an air pocket in the car to make it look like the victim survived for hours after the crash. This idea was discredited at length by author James Lange in Chappaquiddick: The Real Story (pgs. 82-89) In other words, Damore went out of his way to depict Kennedy's behavior as not just being under the influence, or even manslaughter, but tantamount to murder. The book's combination of extreme indictment with specious prosecutorial brief resulted in its ultimate rejection by its original publisher, Random House. They demanded their $150, 000 advance back. When Damore refused, the publisher sued. The judge in the case decided that, contrary to rumor, there were no extenuating circumstances: that is, the Kennedy family exerted no pressure. He ruled the publisher had acted in good faith in rejecting the manuscript. (In addition to the above, it was well over a thousand pages long. See NY Times 11/5/87) There were also charges that the author had practiced checkbook journalism. But Damore then picked up an interesting (and suitable) book agent: former political espionage operative and current rightwing hack Lucianna Goldberg. The nutty and fanatical Goldberg has made a career out of targeting progressives with any influence e.g. George McGovern, Bill Clinton, the Kennedys. So she made sure Damore's dubious inquiry got printed. And sure enough, Goldberg got that rightwing sausage factory Regnery to publish Senatorial Privelege.
Damore's book on Meyer appeared to be headed in a similar direction. In a brief mention in the New York Post Damore said, "She [Meyer] had access to the highest levels. She was involved in illegal drug activity. What do you think it would do to the beatification of Kennedy if this woman said, "It wasn't Camelot, it was Caligula's court." If you are not familiar with ancient Roman history, Caligula was the demented emperor who, among other things, seduced his sister, slept with a horse, and later made the horse a senator. Which sounds made to order for Goldberg and Regnery. I can just see the split picture cover: JFK and Meyer on one side with Caligula and his horse on the other.
In his research, Damore interviewed drug guru Tim Leary and apparently believed everything he told him. As I noted in my review of Brothers, for specific reasons, Leary is simply not credible on this subject. But the fact that Damore was going to use him would connote he had an agenda. For instance, in the new biography of Leary by Robert Greenfield, the author concludes that Leary fabricated the whole story about Meyer getting LSD from him to give to JFK in order to spice up the sales for his 1983 book Flashbacks. Which is the first time Leary mentioned it in 21 years, even though he had many opportunities to do so previously. Further, Greenfield notes that Leary made up other stories for that book, like having an affair with Marilyn Monroe, in order to make it more marketable for his press agent. And he told the agent to use the Meyer/Kennedy story to get him more exposure. Leary understood that sex, drugs, and a dead Kennedy sells. Apparently, so did Damore.
VI
As I said, Peter Janney entered the picture after Damore died. His father had worked for the CIA, and he had been friends with Michael Meyer, a son of Mary and her husband, Cord Meyer. He has in recent years put together Damore's research and is now marketing s script called Lost Light based on Meyer's life and death. From what I have read about it, it should be a real doozy, right up there with Robert Slatzer's Marilyn and Me. In addition to promoting it in his book Regicide, Douglas/Storch has also pushed it on his web site, TBR News. In fact, there seems to be a kind of strange symbiosis between the two. For instance, when Trento contested Douglas ever having Crowley's files, Douglas accused Trento of trying to cover up the "Zipper documents". A post of April 2, 2007 by (the disputed) "Brian Harring" said that Trento and a "Washington fix-lawyer" actually burned the original documents. But somehow, Janney "discovered the original Zipper file and began the lengthy and time-consuming process of authentication." Which, as I have proved above, would be impossible. Asked about this rather bizarre statement, Storch/Douglas backtracked by saying that Janney had uncovered similar evidence and documents in his inquiry. Whether this is all true or not -- and with Douglas you never know -- I find it interesting that Douglas finds Janney's efforts bracing and attractive.
What Janney is postulating makes the ersatz claims of Tim Leary look staid and conservative. According to him, Mary Meyer had more influence in the Kennedy administration than Hilary Clinton had in her husband's. Various histories of the Kennedy administration will have to be revised and/or rewritten. According to Janney, Mary was such a powerful force guiding Kennedy that presidential aides feared her because of her influence with him. According to Janney/Damore, Kennedy was so smitten with her that he was going to divorce Jackie after he left office and marry his LSD lovechild guru. (Since Judith Exner also peddled this tale, Kennedy's agenda after the White House was pretty busy.)
What were some of the things Mary's acid love had guided JFK to? Well, apparently we were all wrong about Kennedy's ultimate disenchantment with Operation Mongoose and the subsequent role of Lisa Howard and others in the Castro back channel of 1963. Mary will have to be written into future versions of how that all started. And no, it was not the nightmare experience of the Missile Crisis that provoked Kennedy into the Soviet hotline and the 1963 test ban treaty. Somehow, historians missed Meyer's role in all that. Ditto for the American University speech. Plus poor John Newman will now have to revise JFK and Vietnam per Mary's role in the withdrawal plan. And finally -- drum roll please -- there is what Janney calls "the crown jewel of American intelligence": space aliens and UFO's. Yep. Kennedy was aware of the Pentagon's suppression of proof we had been visited by alien civilizations. And Kennedy -- guided by Mary the Muse -- wanted to tell the entire world about it. (Leary on acid would have never dreamt that one up.)
But this is only a warm-up for Janney/Simkin/Damore. The actual circumstances surrounding her death are even more fantastic. Here it begins to resemble Ricky White's long lost "foot locker" story. If you don't recall, in the White affair a late discovered journal revealed that Ricky's father Roscoe, a Dallas policeman in 1963, did not just shoot JFK. He was also part of a hit squad to eliminate a list of dangerous witnesses who could blow the lid off the Warren Report. (For a summary of the White debacle, see "I was Mandarin" at the Texas Monthly Archives.) Well, if you buy Simkin and Janney, Mary was killed as part of a planned and precise execution plot that was lucky enough to have a nearby fall guy in hand. Since she was one of those dangerous witnesses, the hit team had been monitoring Mary for months and knew her jogging routine. A man and woman walking her path that day were not really a couple. They were actually spotters to let the actual assassin know she was coming. This all comes from an alleged call Damore got from one William Mitchell -- except that is not his real name. He was really a CIA hit man with multiple identities. He spilled this all out to Damore after Damore wrote him a letter at his last known address. Which according to the tale was really a CIA safe house. (Why a CIA safe house would forward a letter from a writer to an assassin is not explained.) Damore told all this to a lawyer who made notes on it. Later, Damore killed himself. And no one can find Mitchell because of his multiple identities. In other words, the guy who heard the story is dead and the guy who told the story is nowhere to be found. A jaded person might conclude that it all sounds kind of convenient.
I should note, it is never explained why the hit man would spill his guts out to Damore thirty years after the fact. After all, Damore was just a writer. He had no legal standing to compel information. People usually do not confess to things like being the triggerman in a murder plot unless they have to. Between facing a writer researching a cold case and a lethal, living, breathing organization like the CIA, I think I would just bamboozle or hang up on the writer. Especially when the Agency can do things like tap my phone and find out if I am leaking dark Company secrets. And then dispose of me if I was. But since Simkin and Janney say this is the key to the case, we aren't supposed to ask things like that.
When I criticized the sourcing of Talbot's book on the Meyer episode, Simkin commented that in two cases I was discounting the sources on insubstantial grounds. The two sources were David Heymann and James Angleton. In this day and age, I would have thought that discrediting these two men would be kind of redundant. In my review, I compared the sleazy Heymann to Kitty Kelley -- which on second thought is being unfair to Kelley. To go through his two books on the Kennedys -- A Woman Called Jackie, and RFK: A Candid Biography -- and point out all the errors of fact and attribution, the questionable interview subjects, the haphazard sourcing, the unrelenting appetite for sleaze that emits from almost every page, and the important things he leaves out -- to do all that would literally take a hundred pages. But since Simkin and Janney like him, and since Talbot sourced him, I will point out several things as a sampling of why he cannot be used or trusted.
In the first book, Heymann writes that JFK's messy autopsy was orchestrated by Robert Kennedy and some other members of the family. (p. 410) This has been proven wrong by too many sources to be listed here. When describing the assassination of JFK, Heymann lists three shots: two into JFK and one into Connally. Although he is kind of hazy on the issue, he leans toward the Krazy Kid Oswald scenario. He can keep to that myth since he does not tell the reader about the hit to James Tague. (p. 399) Which would mean four shots and a conspiracy. Incredibly, Heymann tries to say that when Jackie was leaning out the back of the car she really was not trying to recover parts of Kennedy's blown out skull. What she was actually doing was trying to escape the fusillade! (p. 400) One might ask then: How did she end up with the tissue and skin, which she turned over to the doctors at Parkland? Predictably, Heymann leaves that out of his hatchet job.
The book on RFK is more of the same. Heymann discovered something about RFK that no one else did. Between his time on Joe McCarthy's committee and the McClellan Committee RFK moonlighted with the Bureau of Narcotics and Drugs. What did he do there? Well on their raids, he would switch from mild-mannered Dr. Jekyll to wild man Mr. Hyde. He seized bags of cocaine and distributed it among his buddies. If the drug suspects were female he would make them serve him sexually before busting them. He would watch idly as some of his cohorts threw drug runners out of windows. (p. 100) Now that he knew about drugs, when Ethel's parents died in a plane crash, Bobby sent her to a Canadian facility in order to get LSD treatments to cure her grief. (pgs 104-105) Did you know that RFK was secretly a bisexual who both made out and shared a homosexual lover with Rudolf Nureyev? (p. 419) According to Heymann (p. 361), Jim Garrison called RFK up in 1964 to discuss his JFK assassination ideas but RFK hung up on him. (Since Garrison had stopped investigating the case by 1964, this call has to be mythological.) About RFK's assassination, those who try and explain the many oddities that abound over the crime scene are quickly dismissed as "looking for a complex explanation to what seems a simple story." (p. 501) Therefore, he puts terms like the Manchurian Candidate, and the girl in the polka dot dress in belittling quotes. (He actually prefaces the latter with the term "so-called", like she doesn't really exist in that form.) Unbelievably, Heymann mentions the name of pathologist Thomas Noguchi in regard to his case shattering work on RFK exactly once. (p. 508) And this is in a note at the bottom of the page. In other words with Heymann, Oswald shot JFK, and Sirhan killed RFK. And if they didn't, it doesn't really matter.
Some of the things Heymann's interview subjects tell him are just plain risible -- to everyone except him. Jeanne Carmen was exposed years ago by Marilyn Monroe biographer Donald Spoto (see p. 472) as very likely not even knowing her. Heymann acts as if this never happened. So he lets her now expand on the dubious things she said before. Apparently she forgot to tell Anthony Summers that she herself also had an affair with JFK, "And he wasn't even good in bed." (p. 313) Carmen also now miraculously recalls that Bobby, Marilyn and her, actually used to go nude bathing at Malibu. (p. 314) The whole myth about Bernard Spindel wiretapping Monroe's phone has also been exposed for years. But Heymann ignores that, and adds that it wasn't just Spindel and Hoffa but also the FBI and CIA who were wiretapping Marilyn's phone. The whole chapter on Monroe had me rocking in my chair with laughter. It concludes with Carmen saying that the cover up of Monroe's murder was so extensive that the perpetrators broke into her home too! (p. 324) One of the things Heymann relies on in this Saturday Night Live chapter is an interview he says Peter Lawford gave him. Which is kind of weird. For two reasons. Apparently Lawford told him things he never told anyone else. Second, Heymann says he interviewed Lawford in 1983, which is the year before the actor died. It actually had to be that year. Why? Because Heymann's book on Barbara Hutton came out in 1983. And there was no point in interviewing Lawford for that book. When it came out, Heymann got into trouble and was actually investigated for charges of fraud. The original publisher had to shred 58, 000 copies of the book. It got so bad Heymann fled the country to Israel and reportedly joined the Mossad. But, amid all this hurly burly he somehow was prescient enough to know that he should interview Lawford before he left since he knew he would eventually be writing about the Kennedys. And Lawford trusted this writer under suspicion with sensational disclosures he never duplicated for anyone else.
Or did he? One of the many problems with Heymann is his very loose footnoting. Very often he quotes generic sources like "FBI files", without naming the series number, the office of origination, or even the date on the document. So an interested reader cannot check them for accuracy. This is fortunate for Heymann, since, like with his interviews, he finds things in government files that apparently no one else has -- like Secret Service agents writing about the sexual details of JFK's affairs. In his book on Robert Kennedy, again, people say things that they have said nowhere else. He writes that in 1997 Gerald Ford admitted that, as president, he had suppressed FBI and CIA surveillance files which indicated President Kennedy was caught in a crossfire in Dealey Plaza and that John Roselli and Carlos Marcello had orchestrated it. (p. 361) In 1997 Ford was saying what he always said. That Oswald did it and there was no cover up. He did have to defend against evidence he had moved up the wound in Kennedy's back to his neck. But during that controversy he never came close to saying what Heymann attributes to him.
But it gets worse. Apparently either Heymann is clairvoyant, or like the boy in The Sixth Sense he is so attuned to the spirit world that he can speak with the dead. In his RFK book he of course wants to place Bobby amid the plots to kill Castro. And it would be more convincing if he actually got that information from RFK's friends and trusted associates. So he goes to people like JFK's lifelong pal Lem Billings and White House counselor Ken O'Donnell. Naturally, they both tell Heymann that RFK was hot to off Fidel. There is a big time sequence problem with both these interviews. Now if you look in his chapter notes, Heymann simply lists people he says he interviewed for a chapter -- with no dates for the interview. This is shrewd of him. The RFK book was published in 1998. Lem Billings died in 1981. So we are to believe that while working on a book about Barbara Hutton, Heymann just happened to run into Billings and asked him about RFK and Castro. Even though Bobby Kennedy is never even mentioned in the Hutton book! Further, in Jack and Lem, a full length biography of Billings published this year, there is not even a hint of this disclosure. The O'Donnell instance is even worse. He died in 1977. At that time Heymann was working on a book about the literary Lowell family. Why on earth would he interview O'Donnell for that? Did he know that 20 years later he would be writing a book about RFK? But Heymann has been accused of faking interviews as far back as 1976 for his book on Ezra Pound. (For more evidence of Heymann's penchant for fabrication, click here.)
This is the author who Janney has sat and talked with many times. Whom Simkin vouched for as a source for their Mary Meyer/JFK construction. All I can say is that if I ever met Heymann, the last thing I would do is sit and talk with him. I'd leave the room. The fact that Janney and Simkin appear to be ignorant about the appalling history of this dreadful and ludicrous hack says a good deal about their work. But if they did know, and endorsed him anyway, it says a lot more.
VII
One of the things that Simkin uses to add intrigue to the tale is the famous Meyer "diary" story. In fact he names the number of people involved in the search for Meyer's diary as proof that a.) It must be true and b.) The diary must have been valuable. In my essay on Meyer in The Assassinations I minutely examined this whole instance and the various shapes and forms it has taken through the years. I concluded that clearly the people involved have been lying about what happened in this Arthurian quest, and also about the result of it. This, of course, touches on the credibility of the story itself and also shows that there were splits between the parties involved. Most notably James Truitt had an early falling out with Ben Bradlee. The Angletons and Truitts stayed chummy through the years. In fact I concluded that it was Angleton who had alerted Truitt to Meyer's death in the first place -- since he was in Japan -- and got him to go along with entrusting the legendary diary to him. (The Assassinations, p. 343) At that time, I wrote that no one knew what was in the diary and that if it contained what it allegedly did, Kennedy's enemy Angleton would have found a way to get it into the press. At that time I had not read Heymann's book on Jackie Kennedy. Although it is unadulterated trash, there is one interesting passage in it. It is an interview with James Angleton. Now, as I have warned, Heymann likes to disguise fiction as non-fiction, down to quoting dubious interviews. But this one might be genuine. Angleton died in 1987. The book was published in 1989, so the time frame is possible. Also, unlike with Billings, Lawford, and O'Donnell, the stuff he says sounds like Angleton. (Even though Heymann gets Angleton's CIA title wrong.)
Angleton (perhaps) says that Meyer told Leary that she and a number of Washington women had concocted a plot to "turn on" political leaders to make them more peace loving and less militaristic. Leary helped her in this mission. In July of 1962, Mary took Kennedy into one of the White House bedrooms and shared a box of six joints with him. Kennedy told her laughingly that they were having a White House conference on narcotics in a couple of weeks. Kennedy refused a fourth joint with, "Suppose the Russians drop a bomb." He admitted to having done coke and hash thanks to Peter Lawford. Mary claimed they smoked pot two other times and took an acid trip together, during which they had sex.
Angleton (perhaps) continues with Toni Bradlee finding the diary. But she gave it to Angleton who destroyed it at Langley. He says, "In my opinion, there was nothing to be gained by keeping it around. It was in no way meant to protect Kennedy. I had little sympathy for the president. The Bay of Pigs fiasco, which he tried to hang on the CIA and which led to the resignation of CIA Director Allen Dulles, was his own doing. I think the decision to withdraw air support of the invasion colored Kennedy's entire career and impacted on everything that followed." (pgs 375-376)
Heymann says that Angleton garnered the details about the affair from Mary's "art diary". Yet the details are quite personal in nature, and would seemingly be out of place in a sketchbook. And again, why, if Mary had turned against the CIA, would she entrust these personal notations with Angleton, of all people? Nothing about the diary story makes any sense. But if this interview is genuine, then it would confirm my idea that the diary was apocryphal, or was actually an "art diary", and that Angleton himself inserted the whole drug angle of the story through his friend and partner in Kennedy animus, Jim Truitt. (Truitt surfaced the drug angle in 1976 with an interview in The National Enquirer.) For Truitt, it was a twofer: he not only urinates on JFK -- which he had been trying to do for over a decade -- but he also gets to nail Bradlee, who had fired him. In 1976, when this all started, the revelations of the Church Committee were leading to the creation of the House Select Committee to investigate Kennedy's murder. So it would be helpful for Angleton to get this tall tale started since he had a lot to lose if the truth about Kennedy's death ever came out. Why?
As John Newman has shown, Oswald's pre-assassination 201 files were held in a special mole-hunting unit inside Angleton's counter intelligence domain. This unit, called SIG, was the only unit Angleton had that had access to the Office of Security, which by coincidence, also held pre-assassination files on Oswald. Angleton staffer Ann Egerter once said that SIG would investigate CIA employees who were under suspicion of being security risks. (The Assassinations, pgs. 145-146). When Oswald "defects" to the Soviet Union, it just happens that Angleton is in charge of the Soviet Division within the CIA. When Oswald returns, he is befriended by George DeMohrenschildt, a man who Angleton has an intense interest in. As Lisa Pease pointed out, shortly before the assassination, Oswald's SIG file was transferred to the Mexico City HQ desk. (Ibid, p. 173) While there, members of Angleton's staff drafted two memos: one that describes Oswald accurately, and one that does not. The first goes to the CIA; the other goes to the State Department, FBI and Navy. Ann Goodpasture, who seems to have cooperated with David Phillips on the CIA's charade with Oswald in Mexico City, had worked with Angleton as a CI officer.
After the assassination, Angleton was in charge of the Agency's part of the Warren Commission cover up. One of the things he did was to conspire with William Sullivan to conceal any evidence that Oswald was an intelligence agent. (Ibid. p. 158) He then imprisoned and tortured Soviet defector Yuri Nosenko because he stated that the Russians had no interest in Oswald, and Angleton's cover story was that Oswald had been recruited as a Russian agent. During the Garrison investigation, the CIA set up a Garrison desk, which was helmed by Angleton's assistant Ray Rocca. (Ibid p. 45) Garrison investigated the origins of the book Farewell America, which he came to believe was a disinformation tract. He discovered it was an off the shelf operation by an agent of Angleton. When Clay Shaw's trial was prepping, Angleton did name traces on prospective jurors. (Ibid p. 46) When Angleton was forced out of the CIA in early 1975, he made the infamous self-exculpatory statement, "A mansion has many rooms ... I was not privy to who struck John." Many have presumed that this was a warning that, now that he was unprotected, Angleton would not take the rap for the Kennedy case alone. Especially since, at that time -- in 1975 -- congress was about to investigate the case seriously for the first time.
While the HSCA was ongoing, Angleton was involved in two exceedingly interesting episodes: one that seemed to extend the cover up of his activities with Oswald, and one aimed at furthering his not so veiled threat about being a fall guy. The first concerns the creation of the book Legend by Angleton's friend and admirer Edward Epstein. Written exactly at he time of the HSCA inquiry, this book was meant to confuse the public about who Oswald really was. If anything, it was meant to portray him as a Russian agent being controlled by DeMohrenschildt. At the same time, DeMohrenschildt was being hounded by Dutch journalist Willem Oltmans to "confess" his role in the Kennedy assassination -- which he refused to do. Right after he was subpoenaed by the HSCA, DeMohrenschildt was either murdered or shot himself. The last person who saw him was reportedly Epstein. Angleton's other suspicious action was the1978 article by Victor Marchetti about the famous "Hunt Memorandum". This was an alleged 1966 CIA memo from Angleton to Richard Helms that said no cover story had been put in place to disguise Howard Hunt's presence in Dallas on 11/22/63. Trento later revealed that Angleton had shown him the memo. The release of the article through former CIA officer Marchetti was meant to implicate the Office of Plans, run by Helms in 1963. Hunt worked out of that domain. This could be construed as a warning: if Angleton was going down, he was taking Helms and Hunt with him.
Looking at the line of cover up and subterfuge above poses an obvious question: Why would one spend so much time confusing and concealing something if one was not involved in it? (Or, as Harry Truman noted in another context: How many times do you have to get knocked down before you realize who's hitting you?) In my view, the Meyer story fits perfectly into the above framework. Angleton started it through his friend Truitt in 1976. And then either he had Leary extend it, or Leary did that on his own for pecuniary measures in 1983. Angleton meant it as a character assassination device. But now, luckily for him, Simkin and Janney extend it to the actual assassination itself: The Suite 8F Group meets Mary and the UFO's.
James Angleton was good at his job, much of which consisted of camouflaging the JFK assassination. He doesn't need anyone today giving him posthumous help.
Talk about disinformation. This piece by DeEugenio, who used to be a friend of mine is full of it. I will detail them later, I must teach now...but I almost threw up, and wanted people to know a qucik take on this excrement about me and Cryil Wecht - is almost all false or twisted beyond recognition. I never gave that con artist 100,000 dollars. I will read more carefully, and respond later. This is the kind of backstabbing and unresearched bull**** that goes on in the research community all too often. Sad, becuase Jim was a good researcher and not on the 'opposing' side, but once he takes a dislike or a suspicion about someone......and I'm obviously now on his 'XXX list'.
The details are all lies or such gross distortions, as to constitute lies, and backstabs, to boot. I will detail. I'm sure Cryil will also have his own reponses to this crud..[but due to his legal problems, may not feel he can respond]. I will for him, to the best of my knowlege. As the 'info' about Cyril is not entirely correct either. Jim needs a lesson in putting out poison suppositories, and not preaching about silver bullets!
Sorry Jim - You have defamed me and Cyril, and no doubt others. Thanks [not!] for not checking the facts first. A sad piece. Full of false facts and character assassination. Jim, stick to the facts.....I see few about me or Cryil in this. More shortly. Now I see why DiEugenio doesn't post on the Forums..... Sadly, I once considered him a good friend. It is also the work of the Mockingbirdees/provacateurs to divide us and make the researchers fight by passing on false info about us to the others....I don't know if that was involved here...but somewhere the facts got lost in the part about me!
NB- As I don't have Wecht's book at hand, would someone on the Forum with it be so kind as to send me by private email with the pages from Wecht's book on Russell and myself. Thanks. I want this to be as accurate as possible.
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Why was this post of Peter's edited by Antti Hynonen?
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I just received this e-mail from Jack and I thought his friends here might be interested in reading it ... I am posting this with his permission .
Duane...Thanks for all your help.
Yesterday about this time, our nephew Mark Cannon was killed
in Afghanistan in Bush's war. Partly responsible are those
on the forum who fight exposure of the official 911 story. The irony
is that Mark was a compassionate Navy medic who was there to save
lives. Thanks.
Jack
PS...I am now totally blocked from posting on the forum.
****************************************************************
"The irony is that Mark was a compassionate Navy medic who was there to save
lives."
My belated and heartfelt condolences go out to Jack White and his family for the horrendous loss of Mark. Dying in the line of duty while trying to save the lives of those unwittingly caught up in a war of deceit and mendacity. A war, in which the military service recruitment T.V. commercials would like you to believe, promise jobs to these servicemen whose prospects of such show little in the way of actual realization once off the battlefield and out of the militarized zones.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave in the name of the United States, overseas...
Thank you, Duane.
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I have always been interested in what Lester Prouty said in regard to the Korean and Vietnam wars, when he revealed that at the end of WWII, the massive stockpile of US war materiel was divided in two and sent to Korea and Indochina.
I don’t know, but suspect that clarification of this would be found in the aforementioned CFR War and Peace Study Project and that this is one of the reasons it remains secret.
But it is hard not to conclude from this tidbit of information, that both these wars were planned prior to the end of WWII.
On Nixon and the closing of the gold window (1971), I cannot think of another action in the history of the world that has so benefited bankers. Debt is their lifeblood and without ample quantities of it to bolster them, they are merely paper shufflers with limited power. But with massive debt under their control, they become masters of the universe. Witness the following:
The US national deficit in 1971 was $2.8 billion (0.03 of GNP). This leapt for fiscal 1971 to $23.0 billion. Thereafter:
1972 $23.4 bn
1973 $14.9 bn
1974 $6.1 bn (debt offset by the quadrupling of the oil price in that year)
1975 $53.2 bn
Today, it is $8.9 trillion.
And the community of bankers, as was their plan back in the 1930’s, now reign upon Mount Olympus handing down their diktats for people like Bush and Brown to enact.
David
***********************************************************
"I have always been interested in what Lester Prouty said..."
Pardon me David, but that's Col. L. Fletcher Prouty. A mentor of mine.
And, that "community of bankers" you refer to? I prefer to address them as a "cartel," which seemed to have acquired their strength, in numbers, by becoming united through the enactment of The Federal Reserve Act of 1913. But, that's just my humble opinion, and I'll stand corrected should I somehow be over-generalizing the situation, at hand.
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Sorry if this is a stupid question but what is a 'jarhead'?
*********************************************************************
"Sorry if this is a stupid question but what is a 'jarhead'?"
Not a stupid question at all, Francesca.
A "jarhead" is a slang term or nickname, mostly used by servicemen in the military, for a member of that branch of service known as, "the Marines."
Ain't that right, Purv?
Now, how they ended up getting that moniker hung on them is another story, maybe my friend, Purv might be able to elaborate on.
Ter
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No, Terry,
I sure don't think he wants to chuck it. I'm sure he was saddened by all of this.
I think he is a real "people" person. An historian--certainly, but a very social, engaging one.
This is not just a place for debate. This is for human interaction. In order to promote that humanity, he requires that we have a face. (That is the purpose of the photos.) This is not a board where we just share research. Were it merely a place for information trading, we could've gotten by with just our names.
His method of posting is friendly. If you didn't know better, you'd think you were actually sitting across the table from him, listening , and being encouraged to give your opinion.
He searches and posts topics and resources FOR US. He always has something new to share. He finds things he thinks we'd like. Look at the recent email he sent concerning the unsolved crimes. "Come talk with me about this. I want your opinion."
He is even interested in what type of music we like.
He has given us the opportunity to speak with and question famous people. Amazing!
He has given us friends. I have met some people here, from all over the world, that I dearly love, thanks to him.. I spend alot of time here, and some of it is for learning, but some of it is for the joy I have being around where many of my friends are..
All he has ever asked of us is that we respect one another, and not speak things that we KNOW to be untrue. That is a small price to pay for membership.
Very small.
This board is more a part of him than a part of us....
I think it is so sad that it took something of this magnitude for us to tell him "Thanks." We should have been doing that all along. Had we done so before, this thread would have never been needed.
Thank you, Mr. Simkin.
Kathy Beckett
***************************************************************
Don't get me wrong, Kath. I've thanked John many times before, and continue to observe my dream of an incredible database and repository of photographic and documented evidence unfold here, at his site. It's been the first place I've checked into, before and after BlackOps.
He's also been quite tolerant of my occasional caustic remarks and opinions, not to mention my cussing out, of certain obnoxious and blatantly asinine individuals, over the years. But, I've learned a lot in the way of discourse, having observed some of my mentors, like Dixie Dea, Pamela McElwaithe Brown, and Barb Junkarrinen, in action. Therefore, I will continue to strive and temper my "tone" with civility, and hope this has not gone unnoticed by John in recent months.
Thank you, John and the members of this forum, for giving me the opportunity to express my thoughts on the subject, here today.
Ter
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I mistrust you in that I think you too often tend to take the low road in terms of interpersonal issues, and I think that as a forum administrator you often lack discretion. Here is precisely when my mistrust started:
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...amp;#entry82388
Post #11, wherein you responded to allegations that you were a CIA agent (which I believe are false) as follows:
John>"I accept your point about researchers who disagree with your theories spreading rumours about you being CIA. I therefore would not be surprised if people I have clashed with me in the past like Tim Gratz, Tim Carroll, Ashton Gray, Wim Danbaar, Tom Purvis, etc. put it around that I was CIA. As a result of their past history, they would probably not be believed...."
My response came in post #33 in the same thread:
Myra>"The point being that I'll decide for myself what I think of people. It's insulting and suspicious to be told what to think. If John is trying to boost his own credibility by naming names, then he failed with me 'cause I don't appreciate those tactics. They're heavy handed, and frankly kinda catty, in addition to being unprofessional.
ether it's CIA strategy (which I don't believe) or just bad judgement, it's a negative.
Now, since I've "clashed" with John will I see my name in the next edition of "rogue's gallery"?"
And that's exactly what happened. I ended up in the rogue's gallery because I openly objected to your tactic John (new to me at that point 'cause I was a new member) of attacking people openly by name on your public forum in a heavy-handed attempt to influence readers' opinions.
Since then I've openly objected to your public forum insults of Americans. And most recently I objected to your nasty public digs about Jack's age:
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...t=0&start=0
John>"However, recently, Jack White has started several threads that have been completely untrue. It has been argued that he is an old man who gets confused and because of his “great work in the past” he should be allowed to post his nonsense. While I agree we should be more generous in our attitudes towards our senior citizens, there comes a point where you have to say enough is enough."
"Old man...confused...senior citizen." My god, how condescending and callous.
THAT is why I mistrust you John. Because I think you fight dirty.
Instead of sticking with issues and behavior, you make personal attacks.
I would be interested to know if anyone else shares Myra's view. If a significant number do, I will of course resign as an administrator of this forum.
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"...I will of course resign as an administrator of this forum."
Now, let's not get too hasty here, John.
I'm sorry to find things had degenerated to this level, and have managed to stay out of the fray simply due to employment schedules, as of late.
I want you to know that I do support your efforts at maintaining forum sanity, and realize the pressures you're under at present. Therefore, if you chose to shut it down, I would totally understand and be in agreement with your decision.
However, your forum and its format are the culmination of what I had been begging the research sites [Prouty's, Conway's, and DellaRosa's] to join forces and become from the time I first went on-line in 1997, and was able to witness the acrimony between these particular forums. I didn't quite understand the dynamics at the time, and couldn't fathom why they had to be at odds with each other over something they all had a common goal in fighting for. I was also under the idealistic impression that if they could somehow agree to combine their large databases and work together, the research community would eventually become a force to be reckoned with.
You have managed to single-handedly do just that using your own intensive reading and research skills on the subject. Created an impressive centralized database with what you've been able to glean from the different sites, including those of the opposition, or the McAdams and Rahn genre of thought, not to mention the various newgroups on the subject. By doing this, you have been able to encourage debate between opposing views, leaving them open to scrutiny and discussion. Are you sure you really want to chuck it all?
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I have had this message from Chris Dolmar:
I administer 'The American Town Hall Political Research Forum.' : http://www.forumspring.com/americanpolitic/
I occasionally visit your forum as a reference in JFK Assassination research. Although this communique does not concern that, I am writing after reading the thread " The Future of this Forum": http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=11141
I too, in my initial endeavor into forum creation & management, encountered the basic headaches you are currently addressing.
Freedom of Speech is vital not only as a basic Social Justice Right as humans, but for us, as Admins, to perpetuate the values of credibility and integrity of the forum(s) we maintain & administrate.
It is a mighty task to remain the neutral referee within forums of our kind. I regret to admit that I myself have made more than my fair share of biased decisions over the years due to allowing my emotions or views to creep into my 'neutral' judgment regarding a dispute or flame war sparked by forum members.
I devised a set of rules & titled it: "Forum Code of Conduct."
I vowed to stand by the Code of Conduct stipulations I instituted regarding violations by Any & All forum members:
The following Terms Of Engagement and Forum Code Of Conduct stipulations are in place to safeguard the purpose of The American Political Research Townhall Forum -- the free exchange of information and ideas in a cooperative and useful atmosphere, an environment which rarely exists nowadays in most other forums.
While these rules may seem draconian on the surface, it is through past & painful educated experience(s) in other political research forums that these rules have been devised. Real patriots, serious students, individual citizen members and political researchers, rest assured that you will be defended here. The forum code of conduct stipulations are designed to protect you from the most common forms of disruption sowed by the vast ' newsgroup xxxxx populace' that tirelessly roams the internet seeking new forum/msg board avenues from which to blaze their trails of unprovoked cyber assault & mayhem (See Also: "Internet Trolls").
Members are free to express their views and share the results/opinions of their individual research without being unduly criticized, ridiculed, or subjected to belligerent, personal attacks or threats by other members.
While members are free to criticize ideas, theories, research and methodologies -- they are NOT free to criticize each other personally.
Various facets of the topics discussed here may, from time to time, cause emotions to run high. In order to promote free expression in an emotional environment, it is recommended that members always be mindful of truth, honor, and respect, the primary values of this forum.
High-quality, constructive critical debate is encouraged and vital to our success as a forum, therefore in times of heated discussion(s), members are advised to confront the issue, not the person. In the unlikely event that a personal issue should arise between members, a moderator or administrator will work to help resolve the issue.
INSTANT DEATH POLICY
Obviously abusive disruption tactics exhibited here (Of which the Admins/Mods here ARE All Too familiar with) will not be tolerated and will simply result in the banning of the offending member(s). Any member(s) banned for violations of the aforementioned guidelines or the Forum Code of Conduct listed below will not be reinstated.
While forum members recognize the code of conduct, trolls don't. Thus . . .
Once again; To the trolls: -- be assured of the "instant death" policy. There will be no additional "warnings." ANY Failure to abide by AND adhere to the Forum Code Of Conduct below, AND the Terms Of Engagement listed above, whether by claimed "ignorance", or otherwise, and any blatant disruptive behavior will lead to instantly and permanently banned membership.
Please take a moment to review the Forum Code Of Conduct detailed below.
FORUM CODE OF CONDUCT
1] While real names are not required for membership, this is a "real name" environment. Handles, particularly well-known, credible handles are welcome here. But trolls, masquerading under various handles, including handles that appear to be real names, will be banned instantly upon detection.
2] All bots, spammers, pornographers, and flooders will be banned instantly upon detection. Registered members are entitled to know who their audience is.
3] A valid e-mail address is required for membership. E-mail addresses are validated as part of the registration process. You may get several response e-mails from the Administrators of this forum in order to validate your membership. In the event that an e-mail is determined to be non-functioning, or a fraud, the membership connected to that e-mail will be banned instantly and permanently. If you experience trouble with, or change, your e-mail, please PM an administrator so that your membership with the forum will not be jeopardized.
4] Ad hominem (personal) attacks MAY NOT be used against any other member. ("Flame free" zone.) Trolling will result in banned membership. All forms of personal attacks upon any forum member(s) ARE hereby designated as trolling, including but not limited to: the posting of offensive images directed at another member, repeated demands for "proof," the hijacking of forum threads, etc.
5] Upon detection, any use of the Private Messaging feature to harass a registered member will result in banned membership. Furthermore, cyber attacks of any kind, such as e-mail hijacking, stripped images, altered URL's, or any other attack, directed against any member, or the forum itself, will, upon detection, result in banned membership, up to and including criminal prosecution in the real world, of any member, non-member, or any other cabal of conspirators.
6] "Outing" another member's personal information, such as name, address, telephone number, e-mail, even if posted indirectly, will result in banned membership and immediate deletion of the post.
7] Once a member is banned, he or she is banned permanently.
8] Never publicly post PMs (Private Messages). If comments in a PM are relevant to research, such as one member requesting info from another, those comments may be paraphrased. When in doubt, ask a moderator or administrator.
9] The moderators and administrators may, from time to time, move a post to another forum in order to better the quality of the forum. A brief post explaining the move will be temporarily posted. Any questions, PM a moderator or an administrator.
10] The administrators may delete any post at any time for any reason. This is blanket protection against criminal attacks.
11] The administrators reserve the right to amend the forum rules and terms of engagement at any time for any reason. This is the administrators' loophole.
********************************************************************
Thanks for posting Chris' message, John.
I'm sorry to find things had degenerated to this level, and have managed to stay out of the fray simply due to employment schedules, as of late.
I want you to know that I do support your efforts at maintaining forum sanity, and realize the pressures you're under at present. Therefore, if you chose to shut it down, I would totally understand and be in agreement with your decision.
However, your forum and its format are the culmination of what I had been begging the research sites [Prouty's, Conway's, and DellaRosa's] to join forces and become from the time I first went on-line in 1997, and was able to witness the acrimony between these particular forums. I didn't quite understand the dynamics at the time, and couldn't fathom why they had to be at odds with each other over something they all had a common goal in fighting for. I was also under the idealistic impression that if they could somehow agree to combine their large databases and work together, the research community would eventually become a force to be reckoned with.
You have achieved what I was asking for, and had in mind one long decade ago. It would be a shame to see it dismantled. But, as Pat Speer posted, it might force many of the members to have to frequent Mary Ferrell's and do a little work for themselves on their own, which in the long run might be a more productive way of educating them. In any event, it was good advice and if well-heeded may be an answer to the present dilemma. One would hope.
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Well so much has been said on this subject by now that even if I can't go back and read all the background skirmishes, I can make some conclusions based on long term observations and recent posts. Bottom line:
This is a boffo forum and I hope it keeps going. But, if it doesn't then the void will quickly be filled and those of us who are dedicated to exposing the truth about what was taken from us, and who took it, will keep pushing forward.
Technical issues are one of the biggest contributing factors in Jack's ongoing forum frustrations, if not the biggest factor. For a variety of reasons mostly beyond the admin's control, the software sometimes acts flakey and makes it harder for some people to post and/or upload pix and/or even stay logged in. Whereas some people are not put off by technical flukes, Jack seems to have little patience for them. So he will quickly ask for help, but in a way that lacks tact, and also in a way that can provoke the ire of an admin.
Myra, when he has asked for help or explanations, he has not believed the answers, and usually spins the whole thing into a plot against him.
If we had an admin that was extra patient and kind and willing to give a little personal assistance to one of the most important, revered, and adored JFK researchers of all time, then the technical problems could probably be quickly identified and resolved, and Jack could soon be up and running and--true to form--finding something else to grumble about.
John has been patient. The technical problems have been quickly identified. Solutions have been offered. One example... the message he always complains about when he tries to post. This message indicates he was timed out while writing his post. The problem is, you don't know you've been timed out until you try to send the post. The solution given him was to write his post in a document, then copy and paste it when complete.
Instead we have admin Andy, who rarely misses an opportunity to humiliate and belittle, and takes particular relish in insulting Jack. He intentionally goads him. And Jack is easy to goad; we all know what the result will be because he is not exactly Mr. Zen. Here's a recent example; but then there's always a recent example:
Andy>"Though I believe he is quite elderly dealing with Jack White is like dealing with a small child."
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...t=0&start=0
Oh yeah, fuel on the fire. And sure 'nuff the result is the usual one. At which time all the trolls (you know who you are)--who target Jack because of his stature and productivity and courage--smell blood and pile on Jack and provoke him to the nuclear level. But they don't seem to get nailed for provoking the guy. Instead the guy gets nailed for being provoked, for being a human, admittedly a hot blooded human but hey, we all have our limits.
I believe I was the only person to publicly agree that Andy's comment above may be correct. I call it like I see it - as do you. I do think Andy went too far with other comments, and did point to one as being too harsh. To that one, I would add his comments on Jack's "inelegance" etc were quite needless.
We also have a forum owner who does not have time for all this nonsense, and has put much trust in his mods and admin, which is--IMO--totally proper and respectful of his volunteer staff even if I don't agree with all of his staff selections.
Like John, I have no interest in, and do not read, the subforums where most of the bickering takes place. However, if Evan has a "history" of antagonistic exchanges with Jack, it was almost inevitable, once Evan became a mod, that Jack would complain about being singled out for harassment by him. Evan, imo, placed himself in the firing line for what came by volunteering for the role.
Whatever, I happen to have a huge and growing appreciation for John, and for his intellect and energy and research and guidance and teaching skills. So it's kind of a shame that he is about to get really pissed at me for what I'm about to say. But oh well stuff happens so here goes. For some reason John has opted to make the following remark about the situation with Jack:
John>"It has been argued that he is an old man who gets confused and because of his “great work in the past” he should be allowed to post his nonsense."
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...t=0&start=0
How friggen catty. Nasty, uncalled for, counter-productive and catty. Period.
So John, unlike the rest of us, is not free to call it like he sees it?
But John was right about one thing, Jack has done great work. And many of us do feel indebted to Jack and beyond that feel tremendous affection for Jack. And I for one, take it personally when this VIP is treated so shabbily. Frankly I do think he has earned VIP treatment on this forum and on every JFK forum. I'm not saying he should be given special treatment out of charity, I'm saying he should be given the special treatment he has earned.
I don't think anyone earns, or warrants special treatment. Respect, certainly. To me, what you suggest should apply sounds neither charitable nor a reward. It sounds like condescension. Why not go whole hog and make him the forum mascot? Trot him out for anniversaries and other special occasions.
It would just be so kewl to wake up tomorrow and see that John graciously took Jack off moderation with no strings attached and Jack graciously promised to be more calm in the face of frustration while Andy graciously agreed to be genuinely helpful to Jack in the future when he encounters the inevitable technical problems.
Jack will apparently come off moderation in due course. Andy has been helpful in his technical advice. Maybe not so with his comebacks to Jack's sometimes over-the-top complaints about those he considers conspire against him.
Then we could get back to the issue of those gangsters who killed our last great president.
May their gods of choice have mercy on their souls if you ever corner them (and I mean that as a compliment).
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"...if Evan has a "history" of antagonistic exchanges with Jack, it was almost inevitable, once Evan became a mod, that Jack would complain about being singled out for harassment by him. Evan, imo, placed himself in the firing line for what came by volunteering for the role."
Now that you've mentioned it. I, for one, was nonplussed to find Evan Burton's name up there as one of the moderators. So much so, that I had to actually go back to the Apollo section to see if maybe I might have mistaken his name for someone else's. But no, it was the same Evan Burton, which IMHO, was equal to accepting applications for volunteer moderator work from someone like myself, or Myra, or Craig Lamson, even. Thanks for addressing that issue.
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I wasn't aware of this fact at the time, but I vividly recall my father always castigating the French for not having paid the U.S. back for the war debts they incurred and owed to us from WWI and WWII.
Terry,
I think it likely that things were more complex to this than most imagine.
There was much animosity between the US and France dating back from the way De Gaulle was treated by Churchill and Roosevelt. You might recall that France left NATO and threw it out of Paris. De Gaulle also suspected (or wanted to suspect) that the US was behind attempts to assassinate him. So, I expect there was more to the French demand to have their dollars converted to gold than met the eye at the time.
On the US delayed decision to participate in WWII, there has also been quite a bit of conjecture and high feelings. On the one hand there was a large volume of pro-Hitler sentiment at the corporate level. Hitler was financed by America and had powerful allies in Britain and France also. On the other hand, US interests were served by entering the war only after Europe and Britain had been sufficiently pummelled by the Nazis that the US would emerge as the dominate world power by a long shot.
The still secret War and Pace Study project by the Council on Foreign Relations that commenced in 1939 (what is known about it anyway) clearly spells out America's national interest to be gained from the war.
From: http://shwi.alternatehistory.com/American%...Geopolitics.txt.
Quote:
AMERICA'S MINIMUM LEBENSRAUM- THE GRAND AREA
The extensive studies and discussions of the Council group determined that, as a minimum , most of the non-German world, as a new American 'Grand Area', was needed for elbow room.' In its final form, it consisted of the Western Hemisphere, the United Kingdom, the remainder of the British Commonwealth and Empire, the Dutch East Indies, China and Japan itself.(50) Noam Chomsky summarizes the concept of American Lebensraum:
"The Grand Area was to include the Western Hemisphere, Western Europe, the Far East, the former British Empire (which was being dismantled), the incomparable energy resources of the Middle East (which were then passing into American hands as we pushed out our rivals France and Britain), the rest of the Third World and, if possible, the entire globe."(51) The whole China was also included.
Unquote
David
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From: http://shwi.alternatehistory.com/American%...Geopolitics.txt.
"It was John O'Sullivan who in 1845 formulated the concept of American Lebensraum - the Manifest Destiny Doctrine. He coined the term to signify the mission of the United States "to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions."(1)
For Josiah Strong, the American missionary imperialist par excellence, the Manifest Destiny had geopolitical destination-the creation of a world empire. The Americas would be the greatest of all empires. "Other nations would bring their offerings to the cradle of the young empire of the West, as they had once taken their gifts to the cradle of Jesus."(2) Since the destiny and its destination were preordained by God, Americans possessed supreme title to space, preempting and superseding the right of others. Combined with the Monroe Doctrine, the theological rationale of the Manifest Destiny Doctrine provided an almost evangelical explanation of the geopolitical manifest design to conquer and subjugate space, first the whole Western Hemisphere and then, beginning with the war against Spain in 1898, the whole world. As Carl Schmitt has pointed out, in 1898 USA embarked on a war against Spain and latter against the world which has not ended yet. In this context the American war against Yugoslavia is only a continuation of the one hundred years war which the United States began in 1898.
In the history of the United States the expansionist impulse has been as powerful as religion. The continuity of American expansionist war aims since the time of the Manifest Destiny Doctrine has been the most predominant feature of American foreign policy in which the three components of American expansionist Weltanschauung confluence: The Manifest Destiny Doctrine - the theological component - conquest preordained by God and Providence to carry the will of the Almighty, and subsequently, conquest to establish democracy or in the interests of democracy or mankind, The Monroe Doctrine - the geopolitical component and the Open Door Doctrine - the economical component.
It was at the end of the last century that the intellectual foundations of the American geopolitical doctrine were formulated by Frederick Jackson Turner, Brooks Adams, Admiral Mahan, and its implementation begun by Theodore Roosevelt and subsequently Woodrow Wilson. The geopolitical concepts advanced by Frederick Jackson Turner, Brooks Adams and Admiral Mahan "became a world view, an expansionist Weltanschauung for subsequent generation of Americans and ... important to understand America's imperial expansion in the twentieth century," writes the noted American historian William Williams. The policies of American Lebensraum, called "Open-Door" imperialism, and the enlargement of the American empire through expansion of the perimeter of the Monroe Doctrine, is the explanation of America's foreign policy during this century, including the present policies of NATO expansion, assertion of American preponderance of power over the whole Eurasia and the war against Yugoslavia.
The architects of the American Lebensraum provided also the rationale for NATO. NATO as a geopolitical construct is firmly anchored in the "Frontier thesis" of the American expansionist foreign policy, appearing as a function and instrument of the Atlantic Grossraum, as envisioned by Turner, Adams and Mahan. Or as Senator Tom Connally stated: "the Atlantic Pact is the logical extension of the Monroe Doctrine." The creation of the NATO signified the extension of the Monroe doctrine to Europe - Europe would become for the United States another Latin America, points out the American historian Stephen Amrose. (3)"
Thank you for providing that link, David.
I must tell you that I have, since first learning of the concept of Manifest Destiny in Elementary School, abhorred the very basis upon which it was formulated. For one thing, the twisted issues involving the methods of teaching it to school children. I would never have connected The Monroe Doctrine, which I was taught was aka, The Policy of Isolationism, which would have seemed antithesis to the expansion policy of Manifest Destiny in my little pea-brain of mind. At least, that's the way it had been explained to me, as a child. Why would the robber barons be hellbent on expanding and taking over every square foot of real estate they could get their hands on, if their ultimate goal would be to isolate themselves from the rest of the world?
Also, the treatment of the people who were already established in their own civilizations here in the Western Hemisphere, why were they not considered as human beings, and treated as viable traders, merchants, and commerce entities, in and of themselves? Which has always left me with a disconcerting question as to who gave these European moneyed venture capitalists the "divine" right to ride roughshod over those who were already established on this continent and in this hemisphere?
It is cited that this continent was "pre-ordained by God and Providence..." according to whom? Some bible thumping religious fanaticism which deemed it the right to automatically subjugate and plunder property, preempting and superseding the rights of others? Can you see how sanctimonious and utterly detestable this all comes across as?
You may counter that it was the sign of the times, or that this was the way the world was perceived from an 18th Century P.O.V. But, that doesn't make it morally sound. We have quite a few large, indelible stains on this tapestry known as The United States of America and its Manifest Destiny Doctrine. I certainly need not use this post to point them out, without risk of appearing rhetorically redundant on the subject.
There were only three instances in the historical record that I can recall where I ever felt even a modicum of national pride in the United States, as a country. It was during Abraham Lincoln's term of office and what he stood for with the Emancipation Proclamation, his Gettysburg Address, and the Fourteenth Amendment, the United State's involvement in WWII, with the defeat of Axis powers, and during John F. Kennedy's administration and his attempts to make good the rights of all men, equal before the law, the New Frontier, Peace Corp, and his foreign policy in bridging the chasm between Communism and Capitalism.
Other than those three, I cannot think of anything glowing and illustrious to say about carbon monoxide-emitting combustible engines, petroleum energy resources, strip-mining for coal and other minerals, clear-cutting of rain forests, and other ecological abuses perpetrated against the earth and its people by global industrial and manufacturing power-based cabals.
It's a distinct possibility that man has finally burned out his welcome here on this planet. The race has certainly shown no signs of slowing down it's sense of propagation, nor its insatiable consumption. In the end, we will eventually get what we deserve, and end up reaping what we've sown.
Thanks for enlightening me, which has served to reinforce my prior disgust and contempt for these bombastic, preferential-seeking, supreme opportunists, attempting to disguise their chicanery, and the malcontented rationale they used to justify their irresponsible abuse of power and annexation of other's personal property, in the name of God and Providence, no less.
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What Nixon says is catching. Nixon talks about "international speculators" who both create and then profit from the very "crisis" they create. And, his assessment is essentially truthful. That is how they do things.
Nixon was wrong to go to a floating exchange rate system (speculators love this) but he had people like John Connally and George Schultz advising him. Note also that he imposes a 10% tax on imports! Of course, back in 1971 this country still produced it's own physical wealth and didn't require cheap imports.
Is it possible that Nixon may have been character assassinated in a bloodless "coup d'etat" with Watergate of 1971, just as JFK had been physically assassinated in a "bloody" coup d'etat in Dallas of 1963? Did the Watergate coup plotters no longer need "Tricky Dicky" after he ended the Bretton Woods Monetary System? See for yourself.
Terry, I agree with you. Nixon made big mistakes with his bombing and withdrawal with Honor. But I've always felt sorry for him after Watergate. A penny ante burglary and the President has to resign. He was the butt of more jokes on TV, radio, etc. for so long; more than any other person I can remember (except maybe O.J. Simpson).
He was so proud to be President at his Inaugurations. I think he felt he was doing his mother proud. I think that was his drive. But this thing happened while he was in China and he had nowhere to go exept down. He was alcoholic and also took sleeping pills, according to Billy Graham. These tendencies grew as he was castigated. Also, people were surprised that he cursed so much. The funniest thing to me is when he was with Haldeman, he'd refer to Henry Kissinger as "Jewboy." For me, finding out that he cursed made me like him.
Under all the pressure, he deteriorated physically and mentally. But possibly after a drink or two, he gave such a great Au Revoir speech to his staff and America.
Another one bites the dust.
Kathy
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"The funniest thing to me is when he was with Haldeman, he'd refer to Henry Kissinger as "Jewboy." For me, finding out that he cursed made me like him."
But seriously, and all religious slurs aside, when people labeled Nixon as a paranoid, I would venture to say that after witnessing Dallas 1963, standing by while Johnson announced his intentions of not seeking presidential office for another term, then finally running, being elected and exercising his own style of foreign policy with China, led him to come to terms with what his shadow gov. really had in mind for him. In a way, he was trying to run the gov. with the same idealistic fervor that JFK had, albeit from a Republican platform. I believe he saw the handwriting on the wall, so to speak, when he discovered that Kissinger was already a part of that cabal, which most likely had him elected for the express purpose of using him as a puppet. Kind of like they've done with every president since, and including, Reagan.
Making that diplomatic trip to China, back in the day when China wasn't even allowed to be a member in the United Nations General Assembly, had to have put many a Cold War Hawk's nose out of joint. But Nixon, as a Naval officer in WWII, had made allied contacts with China in the war against Japan. He obviously held those contacts in higher esteem, and may have recognized the absurdity of Winston Churchill's brandishing the term "Iron Curtain," as a means of creating a barrier against our former allies, the Soviet Union, Mainland China, and the whole Communist Bloc, as well. But, I'm merely speculating in this paragraph, here.
I do believe Nixon's suspicions were in the right place as to what he believed Kissinger's role in the Conservative Party actually consisted of. Big money, corporate oligarchy, and the usurpation of the centralized government of the United States for the benefit of this new World Bank, the IMF aka the International Monetary Fund, a cartel of international bankers, out to use the U.S. taxpayers money, savings, pension funds, etc., as a way of leveraging and financing their war machine efforts. But, that's just my humble opinion on the subject.
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I believe I'm right in recalling that Nixon's actual purpose in doing this was to close the gold window as he had France demanding repayments of its dollars in gold. There was not enough physical official gold to meet this demand and thus he took the action he did.
I have always seen this move as something that would've have got him elected to office (if he wasn't already there) not abadoned, as it opened up the way for the world of debt we now live in.
David
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"...Nixon's actual purpose in doing this was to close the gold window as he had France demanding repayments of its dollars in gold. There was not enough physical official gold to meet this demand..."
I wasn't aware of this fact at the time, but I vividly recall my father always castigating the French for not having paid the U.S. back for the war debts they incurred and owed to us from WWI and WWII.
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What Nixon says is catching. Nixon talks about "international speculators" who both create and then profit from the very "crisis" they create. And, his assessment is essentially truthful. That is how they do things.
Nixon was wrong to go to a floating exchange rate system (speculators love this) but he had people like John Connally and George Schultz advising him. Note also that he imposes a 10% tax on imports! Of course, back in 1971 this country still produced it's own physical wealth and didn't require cheap imports.
Is it possible that Nixon may have been character assassinated in a bloodless "coup d'etat" with Watergate of 1971, just as JFK had been physically assassinated in a "bloody" coup d'etat in Dallas of 1963? Did the Watergate coup plotters no longer need "Tricky Dicky" after he ended the Bretton Woods Monetary System? See for yourself.
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I looked at the Google group, of which I was previously unaware.
Von Pein certainly is a prolific poster.
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"Von Pein certainly is a prolific poster."
Yeah, a prolific poster of bull-puckey.
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http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/topics
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...126&t=11050
Whereas Mr. "Von Pain" chose to attack me in a forum of which I do not normally visit, my responses are being made there as well as other places which Mr. "Pain" is attempting to pass himself off as some sort of expert on the JFK assassination.
http://openlettersmonthly.com/issue/he-died/#comment-1938
Although I have not visited JFK Lancer in some time, in event that anyone else sees Mr. "Von Pain"s" heroic attempts to defend VB; the WC; and Posner, if they will let me known than I will be more than glad to acquaint Mr. "Pain" with the true facts of the assassination.
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"Although I have not visited JFK Lancer in some time, in event that anyone else sees Mr. "Von Pain"s" heroic attempts to defend VB; the WC; and Posner, if they will let me known than I will be more than glad to acquaint Mr. "Pain" with the true facts of the assassination."
I thought Debra had kicked his sorry ass off Lancer a long time ago, Purv?
I carried on a heated exchange with him on Amazon.com's Book Review when Bugliosi's Baloney was first released. I told him he came off sounding like an hysterical female when attempting to defend his theory. When he finally ran out of counter-points to sling at me, he stated that I was probably a really nice person to know, outside of the assassination forums. Yeah, in his worst nightmare.
Well, methinks that he may have bitten into the wrong apple!
http://openlettersmonthly.com/issue/he-died/#comment-1968
Thomas H. Purvis says:
In Continuation:
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And I just love the way Tom relies much more heavily on eyewitness accounts (like those of James Altgens and Emmett Hudson) with respect to the wounds on JFK, rather than place more heavy reliance on the MUCH BETTER EVIDENCE provided by the autopsy doctors and the autopsy report which was produced by those doctors. (Not to mention the autopsy photos and X-rays.)
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Mr. Von “Pain”, with his quite obvious lack of reading comprehension is under some misguided impression that referencing eye witness testimonies which clearly state of having observed the impact to the head of JFK of two separate shots, constitutes some form of relying on witnesses to describe the anatomical injuries sustained by JFK.
This no doubt is why Mr. Von “Pain” can not accomplish research for himself, and thus must rely on others to inform him of what he apparantly readily accepts as the facts.
So it goes with those who, for whatever reason, lack the ability/capability for separate and independent thought process.
However! In event that I wanted someone to discuss the assassination of JFK who merely “Parroted” what Posner/the WC/VB stated, then I would go to the local pet store, purchase a parrot, and thereafter read “CASE CLOSED”/The Warren Report/and/or VB’s book to them.
Then, merely sit back and observe while the “Parrot”, repeats back the same, often incorrect information.
Personally, I would expect more from the human species!
Especially someone who goes around acting as if they were some sort of researcher with experience in research methodology who had at least taken the time or made the attempt to gain “first source” information.
As example:
Did Mr. Von “Pain”; VB; the WC; and/or any other LN supporter happen to inform that LHO was an absolutely excellent shot at targets of 500 meters or less when firing from a fixed/stable firing platform?
Nope!
Ole “know nothing” Tom is the one who informed of this little known fact.
Now, one can search this out for themselves quite easily by a review of LHO’s rangefire records as demonstrated and presented in the WC.
Yet! This is why other experienced USMC Experts truthfully testified to the lack of difficulty for LHO to have achieved the shots of less than 100 yards distance in Dealy Plaza.
So, exactly why would the WC not tell us all this little known fact (assuming that one accepets it as fact, and if they conduct the appropriate research, they will find that it is fact)?
Try telling the american public that LHO was an absolutely excellent, to the extent of being in the upper EXPERT range of firing, at such short ranges, and then try to sell them on “THE SHOT THAT MISSED” in which one is attempting to convince that this absolutely EXCELLENT shooter could not even hit the Presidential Limo with one of the three shots fired.
We, the american people, may at times be somewhat gullible, but we are certainly not all as dumb as those who have fallen for and believed “THE SHOT THAT MISSED” scenario as presented by the WC, and I might add, is highly expoused by Mr. Von “Pain”.
So, when all is finally said and done, there will be those who clearly will possess the imprint of “Dumb A**” imprinted across their forehead.
And specifically, all those who fell for “THE SHOT THAT MISSED” will no doubt get it stenciled in large block lettering.
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"We, the american people, may at times be somewhat gullible, but we are certainly not all as dumb as those who have fallen for and believed “THE SHOT THAT MISSED” scenario as presented by the WC, and I might add, is highly expoused by Mr. Von “Pain”."
And, all that bluster and falderal coming from a twit who's never fired a gun in his life, never bothered to go to a range to observe, firsthand, the effects of the different grades of projectiles, and their weight, or load, fired from different types of firearms, and their subsequent ballistic effect, on different forms of matter, entrance or exit, not withstanding. We live among fools, Purv. Dumb, ignorant, fools. We really do.
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Now, is that right? When the xxxx hits the fan, discredit Lane. Well guess what, fellas? You're all wet. Just a couple of revisionistas, and the whole world is laughing at your bizarre attempts to re-write history.
There you go talking for everyone again.
Mark Lane is a hero of mine & to accuse me of trying to discredit him is a bit much.
We are talking about one thing here, not his whole involvment in the case.
What I would suggest to you & others who haven't seen it for a while is to go watch RTJ again the first chance you get.
What Bowers said in it(or rather what was left out) may surprise you if you haven't took that much notice before.
If you think he referred to the area behind the fence in that film you are very much mistaken, it was Lane who suggested that, not Bowers.
To help,
Bowers makes his first appearance in the film around twenty minutes in, his second almost thirty minutes later, right after Charles Brehm.
The first portion deals with Bowers observation of the three cars, the second concentrates on the time of the shooting itself & the aftermath.
If you don't have it handy, this is what happens.
After a minute or two in the later segment, Bowers mentions the two men for the first & last time! It happens real fast, be ready with the remote.
The scene changes from the intimate interview, to an overhead photo of DP with a great big "X" plastered on the corner of the fence as Lee says the following;
Bowers: "At the time of the shooting, in the vicinity of where these two men I described where.... there was a flash of light, or something which caught my eye in this immeadiate area on the embankment"
That's it.
Bowers does not say there were men behind the fence & he does not talk about the two men at all other than this one small side reference to them.
If this was the only mention of the two men we had to go on then we might be forgiven for considering them irrelevant & not part of the murder at all, since the filmakers did not incude but this one tiny reference to them.
If you don't believe me, go watch the film or turn to p118 in "SSID" where Thompson has quoted what was said in the film about these two men word for word.
While your there "you" can also ponder why Thompson refers to these two men on that exact same page as being "behind the fence".
It's a mystery to me since he too gives his audience the exact same evidence to back that statement up as Lane did. Absolutely nothing.
Now let's review again the quote from "A Citizens Discent".
"In a filmed and tape-recorded interview in 1966, Bowers told me that, 'other than these two [men behind the fence] and the people who were over on the top of the underpass who, for the most part, were railroad employees or employees of a Fort Worth welding firm who were working on the railroad, there were no strangers out on this area."That is Mark Lane quoting the transcript of RTJ word for word.
With just one major difference.
Can you notice that the words "men behind the fence" are in brackets? Does that not strike you as slightly odd?
Now read the the exact same portion of the transcript taken from Dale Myer's web page.
LEE BOWERS: "Other than these two and the people who were over on the top of the Underpass who - that were, for the most part, were railroad employees or were employees of a Fort Worth welding firm who were working on the railroad, uh - there were no strangers out in this area."The words in brackets are missing.
So I guess what you really want to know is, which do you believe?
Lane & his bracketed words or the less than trustworthy Myers?
Well your kinda in a bad spot there Terry because the only man who can confirm what the original transcript says is Gary Mack.
If you really feel you can trust him, then ask him yourself & while your at it you can ask him if there is even one mention in the entire transcript that either these two men or the strange occurance were behind the fence.
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"Mark Lane is a hero of mine & to accuse me of trying to discredit him is a bit much."
Oh, my stars and garters, you could've fooled me!
Listen, if you and those numbnuts you've been hanging around with are so hell-bent on trashing Lane's transcript, then fine, who are we to argue with you for one minute more? All you've managed to succeed in doing is forcing a lot of people to search for a document, video, kinescope, or what have you, where Bowers utters those exact words you proclaim to be "bracketed" thoughts of Lane's. Then, you'll proceed to attempt to blow holes in some semantic form of minutiae with regard to what "was really meant" by that statement. What are you really trying to do here, Alan?
A little something I came acrsss, recently...
in JFK Assassination Debate
Posted · Edited by Terry Mauro
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"And one should remember that there is NO connection with John Wilkes and Clare Boothe Luce. John's last name did not have an "e" at the end!"
Quite rightly. But, many people have changed the spelling of their name, over time, in order to distance themselves from unsavory relatives with skeletons in their closets.
Similar to that old disclaimer, "The basis of the story is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent." As well as the not-so-innocent, or those with more to hide than that which first meets the eye.
I'm so glad I was able to bring some laughter and gaiety into you day, my dear!
Your,
Femme Nikita