Terry Mauro

What pop-ups? I didn't notice any pop-ups, and I was able to access the site very easily. Good job, John. I signed the petition, too. Number 46.

Ter

Thanks for the photos, James.

In CIA Personnel picture, do you know the name of the guy on the far right?

I recognize what appears to be Shelton to his right, but that guy looks very familiar for some reason.

Che, should at least be commended for his committment to the common people, the oppressed, the laboring class, the hardworking, and the indigent guajiros of the world, as well as his dogged resistance against Imperialistic America.

Below are excerpts from those books.

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National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 5

The Death of Che Guevara: Declassified

by Peter Kornbluh

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On October 9th, 1967, Ernesto "Che" Guevara was put to death by Bolivian soldiers, trained, equipped and guided by U.S. Green Beret and CIA operatives. His execution remains a historic and controversial event; and thirty years later, the circumstances of his guerrilla foray into Bolivia, his capture, killing, and burial are still the subject of intense public interest and discussion around the world.

As part of the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Che Guevara, the National Security Archive's Cuba Documentation Project is posting a selection of key CIA, State Department, and Pentagon documentation relating to Guevara and his death. This electronic documents book is compiled from declassified records obtained by the National Security Archive, and by authors of two new books on Guevara: Jorge Castañeda's Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara (Knopf), and Henry Butterfield Ryan's The Fall of Che Guevara (Oxford University Press). The selected documents, presented in order of the events they depict, provide only a partial picture of U.S. intelligence and military assessments, reports and extensive operations to track and "destroy" Che Guevara's guerrillas in Bolivia; thousands of CIA and military records on Guevara remain classified. But they do offer significant and valuable information on the high-level U.S. interest in tracking his revolutionary activities, and U.S. and Bolivian actions leading up to his death.

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Contents:

Declassified Documents

The Death of Che Guevara: A Chronology

New Books on Che Guevara (further information)

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DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS

Click on the document icon to view each document.

CIA, The Fall of Che Guevara and the Changing Face of the Cuban Revolution, October 18, 1965: This intelligence memorandum, written by a young CIA analyst, Brian Latell, presents an assessment that Guevara's preeminence as a leader of the Cuban revolution has waned, and his internal and international policies have been abandoned. In domestic policy, his economic strategy of rapid industrialization has "brought the economy to its lowest point since Castro came to power," the paper argues. In foreign policy, he "never wavered from his firm revolutionary stand, even as other Cuban leaders began to devote most of their attention to the internal problems of the revolution." With Guevara no longer in Cuba, the CIA's assessment concludes, "there is no doubt that Castro's more cautious position on exporting revolution, as well as his different economic approach, led to Che's downfall."

U.S. Army, Memorandum of Understanding Concerning the Activation, Organization and Training of the 2d Battalion - Bolivian Army, April 28, 1967: This memorandum of understanding, written by the head of the U.S. MILGP (Military Group) in Bolivia and signed by the commander of the Bolivian armed forces, created the Second Ranger Battalion to pursue Che Guevara's guerrilla band. The agreement specifies the mission of a sixteen-member Green Beret team of U.S. special forces, drawn from the 8th Special Forces division of the U.S. Army Forces at Southcom in Panama, to "produce a rapid reaction force capable of counterinsurgency operations and skilled to the degree that four months of intensive training can be absorbed by the personnel presented by the Bolivian Armed Forces." In October, the 2nd Battalion, aided by U.S. military and CIA personnel, did engage and capture Che Guevara's small band of rebels.

White House Memorandum, May 11, 1967: This short memo to President Lyndon Johnson records U.S. efforts to track Guevara's movements, and keep the President informed of his whereabouts. Written by presidential advisor, Walt Rostow, the memo reports that Guevara may be "operational" and not dead as the CIA apparently believed after his disappearance from Cuba.

CIA, Intelligence Information Cable, October 17, 1967: This CIA cable summarizes intelligence, gathered from September 1966 through June 1967, on the disagreement between the Soviet Union and Cuba over Che Guevara's mission to Bolivia. The cable provides specific information on Leonid Brezhnev's objections to "the dispatch of Ernesto Che Guevara to Bolivia" and Brezhnev's decision to send the Soviet Premier Aleksey Kosygin's visit to Cuba in June, 1967 to discuss the Kremlin's opposition with Castro. CIA sources reported that Kosygin accused Castro of "harming the communist cause through his sponsorship of guerrilla activity...and through providing support to various anti-government groups, which although they claimed to be 'socialist' or communist, were engaged in disputes with the 'legitimate' Latin American communist parties...favored by the USSR." In replying Castro stated that Cuba would support the "right of every Latin American to contribute to the liberation of his country." Castro also "accused the USSR of having turned its back upon its own revolutionary tradition and of having moved to a point where it would refuse to support any revolutionary movement unless the actions of the latter contributed to the achievement of Soviet objectives...."

White House Memorandum, October 9, 1967: Walt Rostow reports in this memorandum to President Johnson that unconfirmed information suggests that the Bolivian battalion--"the one we have been training"--"got Che Guevara."

White House Memorandum, October 10, 1967: In a short update to Walt Rostow, William Bowdler reports there is still uncertainty about whether Che Guevara was "among the casualties of the October 8 engagement."

White House Memorandum, October 11, 1967: In another daily update, Walt Rostow reports to President Johnson that "we are 99% sure that 'Che' Guevara is dead." Rostow believes the decision to execute Guevara "is stupid," but he also points out his death "shows the soundness of our 'preventive medicine' assistance to countries facing incipient insurgency--it was the Bolivian 2nd Ranger Battalion, trained by our Green Berets from June-September of this year, that cornered him and got him."

White House Memorandum, October 13, 1967: In a final update, Walt Rostow informs Lyndon Johnson that the White House has intelligence information--still censored--that "removes any doubt that 'Che' Guevara is dead."

CIA Debriefing of Félix Rodríguez, June 3, 1975 When Che Guevara was executed in La Higuera, one CIA official was present--a Cuban-American operative named Félix Rodríguez. Rodríguez, who used the codename "Félix Ramos" in Bolivia and posed as a Bolivian military officer, was secretly debriefed on his role by the CIA's office of the Inspector General in June, 1975. (At the time the CIA was the focus of a major Congressional investigation into its assassination operations against foreign leaders.) In this debriefing--discovered in a declassified file marked 'Félix Rodríguez' by journalist David Corn--Rodríguez recounts the details of his mission to Bolivia where the CIA sent him, and another Cuban-American agent, Gustavo Villoldo, to assist the capture of Guevara and destruction of his guerrilla band. Rodríguez and Villoldo became part of a CIA task force in Bolivia that included the case officer for the operation, "Jim", another Cuban American, Mario Osiris Riveron, and two agents in charge of communications in Santa Clara. Rodríguez emerged as the most important member of the group; after a lengthy interrogation of one captured guerrilla, he was instrumental in focusing the efforts to the 2nd Ranger Battalion focus on the Villagrande region where he believed Guevara's rebels were operating. Although he apparently was under CIA instructions to "do everything possible to keep him alive," Rodríguez transmitted the order to execute Guevara from the Bolivian High Command to the soldiers at La Higueras--he also directed them not to shoot Guevara in the face so that his wounds would appear to be combat-related--and personally informed Che that he would be killed. After the execution, Rodríguez took Che's Rolex watch, often proudly showing it to reporters during the ensuing years.

State Department Cable, Official Confirmation of Death of Che Guevara, October 18, 1967: Ten days after his capture, U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia, Douglas Henderson, transmitted confirmation of Guevara's death to Washington. The evidence included autopsy reports, and fingerprint analysis conducted by Argentine police officials on Che's amputated hands. (Che's hands were cut off to provide proof that he was actually dead; under the supervision of CIA agent Gustavo Villoldo, his body was then secretly buried by at a desolate airstrip at Villagrande where it was only discovered in June 1997.) The various death documents, notes Ambassador Henderson, leave "unsaid the time of death"--"an attempt to bridge the difference between a series of earlier divergent statements from Armed Forces sources, ranging from assertions that he died during or shortly after battle to those suggesting he survived at least twenty-four hours."

Southern Command, Activities of the 2nd Ranger Battalion and Death of Che Guevara: The U.S. Special Forces Group, which trained the Bolivan military units that captured Che Guevara, conducted an extensive debriefing of members of the 2nd Ranger Battalion. This report, based on interviews by a member of the U.S. Mobile Training Team in Bolivia with key Bolivian commanders, documents the military movements, and engagement with Che Guevara's guerrilla band. The sources also provide key details and descriptions of his capture, interrogation and execution, although it makes no mention of the CIA official, Félix Rodríguez, who was present. Guevara's last words to the soldier who shot him are reported as: "Know this now, you are killing a man."

Department of State, Guevara's Death--The Meaning for Latin America, October 12, 1967: In this interpretive report for Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Thomas Hughes, the Latin America specialist at the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, summarizes the importance of "the defeat of the foremost tactician of the Cuban revolutionary strategy." The analyst predicts that Guevara "will be eulogized as the model revolutionary who met a heroic death." The circumstances of his failure in Bolivia, however, will strengthen the position of "peaceful line" communist party groups in the Hemisphere. Castro, he argues, will be subject to "we told you so" criticism from older leftist parties, but his "spell on the more youthful elements in the hemisphere will not be broken." The analysis fails to incorporate evidence of the disagreement between Castro and Guevara on the prospects for revolution in Latin America, or the Soviet pressure on Cuba to reduce support for insurgent movements in the Hemisphere.

CIA, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Fidel Castro Delivers Eulogy on Che Guevara, October 19, 1967: On October 18, 1967, the third day of national mourning, Fidel Castro delivered a eulogy to a crowd of almost one million at the Plaza de La Revolución in Havana. The next day, the speech is transcribed and distributed by FBIS, a CIA transcription agency that records, and translates news and television from around the world. Calling Guevara "an artist of revolutionary warfare," Castro warns that "they who sing victory" over his death--a reference to the U.S.--" are mistaken. They are mistaken who believe that his death is the defeat of his ideas, the defeat of his tactics, the defeat of his guerrilla concepts." This speech contributes immeasurably to the making of the revolutionary icon that Che Guevara became in the ensuing years. "If we want to know how we want our children to be," Castro concludes, "we should say, with all our revolutionary mind and heart: We want them to be like Che."

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THE DEATH OF CHE GUEVARA:

A CHRONOLOGY

Compiled by:

Paola Evans, Kim Healey, Peter Kornbluh, Ramón Cruz and Hannah Elinson

OCTOBER 3, 1965: In a public speech, Fidel Castro reads a "Farewell" letter written by Che in April, in which Che resigns from all of his official positions within the Cuban government. The letter, which Che apparently never intended to be made public, states that "I have fulfilled the part of my duty that tied me to the Cuban revolution...and I say goodbye to you, to the comrades, to your people, who are now mine." (CIA Intelligence Memorandum, "Castro and Communism: The Cuban Revolution in Perspective," 5/9/66)

OCTOBER 18, 1965: A CIA Intelligence Memorandum discusses what analysts perceive as Che Guevara’s fall from power within the Cuban government beginning in 1964. It states that at the end of 1963, Guevara’s plan of "rapid industrialization and centralization during the first years of the Revolution brought the economy to its lowest point since Castro came to power." "Guevara’s outlook, which approximated present -day Chinese--rather than Soviet--economic practice, was behind the controversy." In July 1964, "two important cabinet appointments signaled the power struggle over internal economic policy which culminated in Guevara’s elimination." Another conflict was that Guevara wanted to export the Cuban Revolution to different parts of Latin America and Africa, while "other Cuban leaders began to devote most of their attention to the internal problems of the Revolution." In December, 1964, Guevara departed on a three-month trip to the United States, Africa, and China. When he returned, according to the CIA report, his economic and foreign policies were in disfavor and he left to start revolutionary struggles in other parts of the world. (CIA Intelligence Memorandum, "The Fall of Che Guevara and the Changing Face of the Cuban Revolution," 10/18/65)

FALL, 1966: Che Guevara arrives in Bolivia sometime between the second week of September and the first of November of 1966, according to different sources. He enters the country with forged Uruguayan passports to organize and lead a communist guerrilla movement. Che chooses Bolivia as the revolutionary base for various reasons. First, Bolivia is of lower priority than Caribbean Basin countries to US security interests and poses a less immediate threat, "... the Yanquis wouldn’t concern themselves... ." Second, Bolivia’s social conditions and poverty are such that Bolivia is considered susceptible to revolutionary ideology. Finally, Bolivia shares a border with five other countries, which would allow the revolution to spread easily if the guerrillas are successful. (Harris, 60, 73; Rojo 193-194; Rodríguez:1, 157;Rodríguez:1, 198)

SPRING, 1967: From March to August of 1967, Che Guevara and his guerrilla band strike "pretty much at will" against the Bolivian Armed Forces, which totals about twenty thousand men. The guerrillas lose only one man compared to 30 of the Bolivians during these six months. (James, 250, NYT 9/16/67)

APRIL 28, 1967: General Ovando, of the Bolivian Armed Forces, and the U.S. Army Section signed a Memorandum of Understanding with regard to the 2nd Ranger Battalion of the Bolivian Army "which clearly defines the terms of U.S.-Bolivian Armed Forces cooperation in the activation, organization, and training of this unit."

MAY 11, 1967: Walt Rostow, presidential advisor to Lyndon B. Johnson, sends a message to the President saying that he received the first credible report that "Che" Guevara is alive and operating in South America, although more evidence is needed. (Rostow 05/11/67)

JUNE, 1967: Cuban-American CIA agent Félix Rodríguez receives a phone call from a CIA officer, Larry S., who proposes a special assignment for him in South America in which he will use his skills in unconventional warfare, counter-guerrilla operations and communications. The assignment is to assist the Bolivians in tracking down and capturing Che Guevara and his band. His partner will be "Eduardo González" and Rodríguez is to use the cover name "Félix Ramos Medina." (Rodríguez:1, 148)

JUNE 26-30, 1967: Soviet Premier Aleksey Kosygin visits Cuba for discussions with Fidel Castro. According to a CIA intelligence cable, the primary purpose of his "trip to Havana June 26-30, 1967 was to inform Castro concerning the Middle East Crisis...A secondary but important reason for the trip was to discuss with Castro the subject of Cuban revolutionary activity in Latin America." The Soviet Premier criticizes the dispatch of Che Guevara to Bolivia and accuses Castro of "harming the communist cause through his sponsorship of guerrilla activity...and through providing support to various anti-government groups, which although they claimed to be "socialist" or communist, were engaged in disputes with the "legitimate" Latin American communist parties, those favored by the USSR." In reply Castro stated that Cuba will support the "right of every Latin American to contribute to the liberation of his country." (CIA Intelligence Information Cable, 10/17/67)

AUGUST 2, 1967: Rodríguez and González arrive in La Paz, Bolivia. They are met by their case officer, Jim, another CIA agent, and a Bolivian immigration officer. The CIA station in La Paz is run by John Tilton; eventually the CIA’s Guevara task force is joined by another anti-Castro Cuban-American agent, Gustavo Villoldo. (Rodríguez:1, 162)

AUGUST 31, 1967: The Bolivian army scores its first victory against the guerrillas, wiping out one-third of Che’s men. José Castillo Chávez, also known as Paco, is captured and the guerrillas are forced to retreat. Che’s health begins to deteriorate. (James, 250, 269)

SEPTEMBER 3, 1967: Félix Rodríguez flies with Major Arnaldo Saucedo from Santa Cruz to Vallegrande to interrogate Paco. (Rodríguez: 1, 167)

SEPTEMBER 15, 1967: The Bolivian Government air-drops leaflets offering a $4,200 reward for the capture of Che Guevara. (NYT 9/16/67)

SEPTEMBER 18, 1967: Fifteen members of a Communist group, who were providing supplies to the guerrillas in the southeastern jungles of Bolivia, are arrested. (NYT 9/19/67)

SEPTEMBER 22, 1967: Che’s guerrillas arrive at Alto Seco village in Bolivia. Inti Peredo, a Bolivian guerrilla, gives the villagers a lecture on the objectives of the guerrilla movement. The group leaves later that night after purchasing a large amount of food. (Harris, 123)

According to Jon Lee Anderson’s account, Che takes the food from a grocery store without paying for it after discovering that the local authorities in Alto Seco have left to inform the army about the guerrilla’s position. (Anderson, 785)

SEPTEMBER 22, 1967: Guevara Arze, the Bolivian Foreign Minister, provides evidence to the Organization of American States to prove that Che Guevara is indeed leading the guerrilla operations in Bolivia. Excerpts taken from captured documents, including comparisons of handwriting, fingerprints and photographs, suggests that the guerrillas are comprised of Cubans, Peruvians, Argentineans and Bolivians. The foreign minister’s presentation draws a loud applause from the Bolivian audience, and he gives his assurance that "we’re not going to let anybody steal our country away from us. Nobody, at any time." (NYT 9/23/67)

SEPTEMBER 24, 1967: Che and his men arrive, exhausted and sick, at Loma Larga, a ranch close to Alto Seco. All but one of the peasants flee upon their arrival. (Harris, 123)

SEPTEMBER 26, 1967: The guerrillas move to the village of La Higuera and immediately notice that all the men are gone. The villagers have previously been warned that the guerrillas are in the area and they should send any information on them to Vallegrande. The remaining villagers tell the guerrillas that most of the people are at a celebration in a neighboring town called Jahue. (Harris, 123)

1 p.m.: As they are about to depart for Jahue, the rebels hear shots coming from the road and are forced to stay in the village and defend themselves. Three guerrillas are killed in the gun battle: Roberto (Coco) Peredo, a Bolivian guerrilla leader who was one of Che’s most important men; "Antonio," believed to be Cuban; and "Julio," likely a Bolivian. Che orders his men to evacuate the village along a road leading to Rio Grande. The army high command and the Barriento government consider this encounter a significant victory. Indeed, Che notes in his diary that La Higuera has caused great losses for him in respect to his rebel cell. (Harris 123,124; NYT 9/28/67))

CIA agent, Félix Rodríguez, under the alias, "Captain Ramos," urges Colonel Zenteno to move his Rangers battalion from La Esperanza headquarters to Vallegrande. The death of Antonio, the vanguard commander [also called Miguel by Rodríguez], prompts Rodríguez to conclude that Che must be close by. Colonel Zenteno argues that the battalion has not yet finished their training, but he will move them as soon as this training is complete. Convinced that he knows Che’s next move, Rodríguez continues pressuring Zenteno to order the 2nd Ranger battalion into combat. (Rodríguez:1, 184)

SEPTEMBER 26-27, 1967: After the battle of La Higueras, the Ranger Battalion sets up a screening force along the river San Antonio to prevent exfiltration of the guerrilla force. During the mission, the troops captures a guerrilla known as "Gamba." He appears to be in poor health and is poorly clothed. This produces an immediate morale effect on the troops because they notice that the guerrillas are not as strong as they thought. "Gamba" says that he had separated from the group and was traveling in hope of contacting "Ramón" (Guevara). (Dept. of Defense Intelligence Information Report - 11/28/67).

SEPTEMBER 29, 1967: Colonel Zenteno is finally persuaded by Rodríguez, and he moves the 2nd Ranger battalion to Vallegrande. Rodríguez joins these six hundred and fifty men who have been trained by U.S. Special Forces Major "Pappy" Shelton. (Rodríguez:1, 184)

SEPTEMBER 30, 1967: Che and his group are trapped by the army in a jungle canyon in Valle Serrano, south of the Grande River. (NYT 10/1/67)

OCTOBER 7, 1967: The last entry in Che’s diary is recorded exactly eleven months since the inauguration of the guerrilla movement. The guerrillas run into an old woman herding goats. They ask her if there are soldiers in the area but are unable to get any reliable information. Scared that she will report them, they pay her 50 pesos to keep quiet. In Che’s diary it is noted that he has "little hope" that she will do so. (Harris, 126; CIA Weekly Review, "The Che Guevara Diary," 12/15/67)

Evening: Che and his men stop to rest in a ravine in Quebrada del Yuro. (Harris, 126)

OCTOBER 8, 1967: The troops receive information that there is a band of 17 guerrillas in the Churro Ravine. They enter the area and encounters a group of 6 to 8 guerrillas, opens fire, and killed two Cubans, "Antonio" and "Orturo." "Ramon" (Guevara) and "Willy" try to break out in the direction of the mortar section, where Guevara is wounded in the lower calf. (Dept. of Defense Intelligence Information Report - 11/28/67)

OCTOBER 8, 1967: A peasant women alerts the army that she heard voices along the banks of the Yuro close to the spot where it runs along the San Antonio river. It is unknown whether it is the same peasant woman that the guerrillas ran into previously. (Rojo 218)

By morning, several companies of Bolivian Rangers are deployed through the area that Guevara’s Guerrillas are in. They take up positions in the same ravine as the guerrillas in Quebrada del Yuro. (Harris,126)

About 12 p.m.: A unit from General Prado’s company, all recent graduates of the U.S. Army Special Forces training camp, confronts the guerrillas, killing two soldiers and wounding many others. (Harris, 127)

1:30 p.m.: Che’s final battle commences in Quebrada del Yuro. Simon Cuba (Willy) Sarabia, a Bolivian miner, leads the rebel group. Che is behind him and is shot in the leg several times. Sarabia picks up Che and tries to carry him away from the line of fire. The firing starts again and Che’s beret is knocked off. Sarabia sits Che on the ground so he can return the fire. Encircled at less than ten yards distance, the Rangers concentrate their fire on him, riddling him with bullets. Che attempts to keep firing, but cannot keep his gun up with only one arm. He is hit again on his right leg, his gun is knocked out of his hand and his right forearm is pierced. As soldiers approach Che he shouts, "Do not shoot! I am Che Guevara and worth more to you alive than dead." The battle ends at approximately 3:30 p.m. Che is taken prisoner. (Rojo, 219; James, 14)

Other sources claim that Sarabia is captured alive and at about 4 p.m. he and Che are brought before Captain Prado. Captain Prado orders his radio operator to signal the divisional headquarters in Vallegrande informing them that Che is captured. The coded message sent is "Hello Saturno, we have Papá !" Saturno is the code for Colonel Joaquin Zenteno, commandant of the Eighth Bolivian Army Division, and Papá is code for Che. In disbelief, Colonel Zenteno asks Capt. Prado to confirm the message. With confirmation, "general euphoria" erupts among the divisional headquarters staff. Colonel Zenteno radios Capt. Prado and tells him to immediately transfer Che and any other prisoners to La Higuera. (Harris, 127)

In Vallegrande, Félix Rodríguez receives the message over the radio: "Papá cansado," which means "Dad is tired." Papá is the code for foreigner, implying Che. Tired signifies captured or wounded. (Rodríguez:1, 185)

Stretched out on a blanket, Che is carried by four soldiers to La Higuera, seven kilometers away. Sarabia is forced to walk behind with his hands tied against his back. Just after dark the group arrives in La Higuera and both Che and Sarabia are put into the one-room schoolhouse. Later that night, five more guerrillas are brought in. (Harris, 127)

Official army dispatches falsely report that Che is killed in the clash in southeastern Bolivia, and other official reports confirm the killing of Che and state that the Bolivian army has his body. However, the army high command does not confirm this report. (NYT 10/10/67)

OCTOBER 9, 1967: Walt Rostow sends a memorandum to the President with tentative information that the Bolivians have captured Che Guevara. The Bolivian unit engaged in the operation was the one that had been trained by the U.S. (Rostow 10/9/67)

OCTOBER 9, 1967: 6:15 a.m.: Félix Rodríguez arrives by helicopter in La Higuera, along with Colonel Joaquín Zenteno Anaya. Rodríguez brings a powerful portable field radio and a camera with a special four-footed stand used to photograph documents. He quietly observes the scene in the schoolhouse, and records what he sees, finding the situation "gruesome" with Che lying in dirt, his arms tied behind his back and his feet bound together, next to the bodies of his friends. He looks "like a piece of trash" with matted hair, torn clothes, and wearing only pieces of leather on his feet for shoes. In one interview, Rodríguez states that, " I had mixed emotions when I first arrived there. Here was the man who had assassinated many of my countrymen. And nevertheless, when I saw him, the way he looked....I felt really sorry for him." (Rodríguez:2)

Rodríguez sets up his radio and transmits a coded message to the CIA station in either Peru or Brazil to be retransmitted to Langley headquarters. Rodríguez also starts to photograph Che’s diary and other captured documents. Later, Rodríguez spends time talking with Che and takes a picture with him. The photos that Rodríguez takes are preserved by the CIA. (Anderson, 793; Rodríguez:1, 193)

10 am: The Bolivian officers are faced with the question of what to do with Che. The possibility of prosecuting him is ruled out because a trial would focus world attention on him and could generate sympathetic propaganda for Che and for Cuba. It is concluded that Che must be executed immediately, but it is agreed upon that the official story will be that he died from wounds received in battle. Félix Rodríguez receives a call from Vallegrande and is ordered by the Superior Command to conduct Operation Five Hundred and Six Hundred. Five hundred is the Bolivian code for Che and six hundred is the order to kill him. Rodríguez informs Colonel Zenteno of the order, but also tells him that the U.S. government has instructed him to keep Che alive at all costs. The CIA and the U.S. government have arranged helicopters and airplanes to take Che to Panama for interrogation. However, Colonel Zenteno says he must obey his own orders and Rodríguez decides, "to let history take its course," and to leave the matter in the hands of the Bolivians. (Anderson, 795; Harris 128, 129; Rodríguez:1, 193; Rodríguez:2)

[my emphasis. TCM]

Rodríguez realizes that he cannot stall any longer when a school teacher informs him that she has heard a news report on Che’s death on her radio. Rodríguez enters the schoolhouse to tell Che of the orders from the Bolivian high command. Che understands and says, "It is better like this ... I never should have been captured alive." Che gives Rodríguez a message for his wife and for Fidel, they embrace and Rodríguez leaves the room. (Rodríguez:2; Anderson, 796)

According to one source, the top ranking officers in La Higuera instruct the noncommissioned officers to carry out the order and straws are drawn to determine who will execute Che. Just before noon, having drawn the shortest straw, Sergeant Jaime Terán goes to the schoolhouse to execute Che. Terán finds Che propped up against the wall and Che asks him to wait a moment until he stands up. Terán is frightened, runs away and is ordered back by Colonel Selich and Colonel Zenteno. "Still trembling" he returns to the schoolhouse and without looking at Che’s face he fires into his chest and side. Several soldiers, also wanting to shoot Che, enter the room and shoot him. (Harris, 129)

Félix Rodríguez has stated that, "I told the Sargento to shoot....and I understand that he borrowed an M-2 carbine from a Lt. Pérez who was in the area." Rodríguez places the time of the shooting at 1:10 p.m. Bolivian time. (Rodríguez:2)

In Jon Lee Anderson’s account, Sergeant Terán volunteers to shoot Che. Che's last words, which are addressed to Terán, are "I know you've come to kill me. Shoot, you are only going to kill a man." Terán shoots Che in the arms and legs and then in Che's thorax, filling his lungs with blood. (Anderson, 796)

OCTOBER 9, 1967: Early in the morning, the unit receives the order to execute Guevara and the other prisoners. Lt. Pérez asks Guevara if he wishes anything before his execution. Guevara replies that he only wishes to "die with a full stomach." Pérez asks him if he is a "materialist" and Guevara answers only "perhaps." When Sgt. Terán (the executioner) enters the room, Guevara stands up with his hands tied and states, "I know what you have come for I am ready." Terán tells him to be seated and leaves the room for a few moments. While Terán was outside, Sgt. Huacka enters another small house, where "Willy" was being held, and shoots him. When Terán comes back, Guevara stands up and refuses to be seated saying: "I will remain standing for this." Terán gets angry and tells Guevara to be seated again. Finally, Guevara tells him: "Know this now, you are killing a man." Terán fires his M2 Carbine and kills him. (Dept. of Defense Intelligence Information Report - 11/28/67).

Later that afternoon: Senior army officers and CIA Agent, Félix Rodríguez, leave La Higuera by helicopter for army headquarters in Vallegrande. Upon landing, Rodríguez quickly leaves the helicopter knowing that Castro’s people will be there looking for CIA agents. Pulling a Bolivian army cap over his face, he is not noticed by anyone. (Rodríguez:1, 12; Harris, 130)

Che’s body is flown to Vallegrande by helicopter and later fingerprinted and embalmed. (NYT 10/11/67)

General Ovando, Chief of Bolivian Armed Forces, states that just before he died, Che said, "I am Che Guevara and I have failed." (James, 8)

OCTOBER 10, 1967: W.G. Bowdler sends a note to Walt Rostow saying that they do not know if Che Guevara was "among the casualties of the October 8 engagement." They think that there are no guerrilla survivors. By October 9, they thought two guerrilla were wounded and possibly one of them is Che. (Bowdler, The White House 10/10/67)

OCTOBER 10, 1967: Two doctors,. Moisés Abraham Baptista and José Martínez Cazo, at the Hospital Knights of Malta, Vallegrande, Bolivia, sign a death certificate for Che Guevara. The document states that "on October 9 at 5:30 p.m., there arrived...Ernesto Guevara Lynch, approximately 40 years of age, the cause of death being multiple bullet wounds in the thorax and extremities. Preservative was applied to the body." On the same day, and autopsy report records the multiple bullets wounds found in Guevara’s body. "The cause of death," states the autopsy report, "was the thorax wounds and consequent hemorrhaging." (U.S. Embassy in La Paz, Bolivia, Airgram, 10/18/67)

OCTOBER 10, 1967: General Ovando announces that Che died the day before at 1:30 p.m. This means that Che lived for twenty-two hours after the battle in Quebrada del Yuro, which contradicts Colonel Zenteno’s story. Colonel Zenteno changes his story to support General Ovando’s. (James, 15)

The New York Times reports that the Bolivian Army High Command dispatches officially confirm that Che was killed in the battle on Sunday October 8th. General Ovando states that Che admitted his identity and the failure of his guerrilla campaign before dying of his wounds. (NYT 10/10/67)

Ernesto Guevara, the father of Che, denies the death of his son, stating that there is no evidence to prove the killing. (NYT 10/11/67)

OCTOBER 11, 1967: General Ovando claims that on this day Che’s body is buried in the Vallegrande area. (James, 19)

OCTOBER 11, 1967: President Lyndon Johnson receives a memorandum from Walt W. Rostow: "This morning we are about 99% sure that "Che" Guevara is dead." The memo informs the President that according to the CIA, Che was taken alive and after a short interrogation General Ovando ordered his execution. (Rostow, "Death of Che Guevara," 10/11/67)

OCTOBER 11, 1967: Walt Rostow sends a memorandum to the President stating that they "are 99% sure that ‘Che’ Guevara is dead." He explains that Guevara’s death carries significant implications: "It marks the passing of another of the aggressive, romantic revolutionaries...In the Latin American context, it will have a strong impact in discouraging would -be guerrillas. It shows the soundness of our ‘preventive medicine’ assistance to countries facing incipient insurgency--it was the Bolivian 2nd Ranger Battalion, trained by our Green Berets from June-September of this year, that cornered him and got him." (Rostow 10/11/67)

OCTOBER 12, 1967: Che’s brother, Roberto, arrives in Bolivia to take the body back to Argentina. However, General Ovando tells him that the body has been cremated. (Anderson, 799)

OCTOBER 13, 1967: Walt Rostow sends a note to the President with intelligence information that "removes any doubt that ‘Che" Guevara is dead." (Rostow 10/13/67)

OCTOBER 14, 1967: Annex No.3 - three officials of the Argentine Federal police, at the request of the Bolivian Government, visited Bolivian military headquarters in La Paz to help identify the handwriting and fingerprints of Che Guevara. "They were shown a metal container in which were two amputated hands in a liquid solution, apparently formaldehyde." The experts compared the fingerprints with the ones in Guevara’s Argentine identity record, No. 3.524.272, and they were the same. (U.S. Embassy in La Paz, Bolivia, Airgram, 10/18/67)

OCTOBER 14, 1967: Students at Central University of Venezuela protest the U.S. involvement in Che’s death. Demonstrations are organized against a U.S. business, the home of a U.S. citizen, the U.S. Embassy and other similar targets.

OCTOBER 15, 1967: Bolivian President Barrientos claims that Che’s ashes are buried in a hidden place somewhere in the Vallegrande region. (Harris, 130)

OCTOBER 16, 1967: . The Bolivian Armed Forces released a communiqué together with three annexes on the death of Che Guevara. The communiqué is "based on documents released by the Military High Command on October9...concerning the combat that took place at La Higuera between units of the Armed Forces and the red group commanded by Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, as a result of which he, among others, lost his life..." The report states that Guevara died "more or less at 8 p.m. on Sunday, October 8...as a result of his wounds." Also, in order to identify his body it requested the cooperation of Argentine technical organizations to identify the remains to certify that the handwriting of the campaign diary coincides with Guevara’s. Henderson, the U.S. Embassy agent in La Paz, comments that "it will be widely noted that neither the death certificate nor the autopsy report state a time of death." This "would appear to be an attempt to bridge the difference between a series of earlier divergent statements from Armed Forces sources, ranging from assertions that he died during or shortly after battle to those suggesting he survived at least twenty-four hours." He also notes that some early reports indicate that Guevara was captured with minor injuries, while later statements , including the autopsy report, affirm that he suffered multiple wounds. He agrees with a comment by Preséncia, that these statements are "going to be the new focus of polemics in the coming days." (U.S. Embassy in La Paz, Bolivia, Airgram, 10/18/67)

OCTOBER 18, 1967: The U.S. Embassy in La Paz, Bolivia sends an airgram to the Department of State with the Official Confirmation of Death of Che Guevara. (U.S. Embassy, La Paz, Bolivia, 10/18/97)

OCTOBER 18, 1967: A CIA cable highlights the errors leading to Guevara’s defeat. "There were negative factors and tremendous errors involved in the death of Ernesto "Che" Guevara Serna and the defeat of the guerrillas in Bolivia... ." Che’s presence at the guerrilla front in Bolivia, " ... precluded all hope of saving him and the other leaders in the event of an ambush and virtually condemned them to die or exist uselessly as fugitives." The fact that the guerrillas were so dependent on the local peasant population also proved to be a mistake according to the CIA. Another error described in this cable is Che’s over-confidence in the Bolivian Communist Party, which was relatively new, inexperienced, lacking strong leadership and was internally divided into Trotskyite and Pro-Chinese factions. Finally, the cable states that the victory of the Bolivian army should not be credited to their actions, but to the errors of Castroism. " The guerrilla failure in Bolivia is definitely a leadership failure..."("Comments on the death of Ernesto "Che" Guevara Serna," 10/18/67)

OCTOBER 18, 1967: Fidel Castro delivers a eulogy for Che Guevara to nearly a million people --one of his largest audiences ever--in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución. Castro proclaims that Che’s life-long struggle against imperialism and his ideals will be the inspiration for future generations of revolutionaries. His life was a "glorious page of history" because of his extraordinary military accomplishments, and his unequaled combination of virtues which made him an "artist in guerrilla warfare." Castro professes that Che’s murderers’ will be disappointed when they realize that "the art to which he dedicated his life and intelligence cannot die." (Anderson, 798; Castro’s Eulogy, 10/18/67)

OCTOBER 19, 1967: Intelligence and Research’s Cuba specialist, Thomas L. Hughes, writes a memorandum to Secretary of State, Dean Rusk. Hughes outlines two significant outcomes of Che Guevara’s death that will affect Fidel Castro’s future political strategies. One is that "Guevara will be eulogized as the model revolutionary who met a heroic death," particularly among future generations of Latin American youth. Castro can utilize this to continue justifying his defiance of the usual suspects--"US imperialism, the Green Berets, the CIA." Another outcome is that Castro will reassess his expectations of exporting revolutions to other Latin American countries. Some Latin American leftists "will be able to argue that any insurgency must be indigenous and that only local parties know when local conditions are right for revolution." (Intelligence and Research Memorandum, "Guevara’s Death--The Meaning for Latin America", 10/19/97)

NOVEMBER 8, 1967: The CIA reports that Cuba is threatening assassin a prominent Bolivian figure, such as President Barrientos or General Ovando, in revenge of Che Guevara’s death. ( CIA cable, 11/8/67)

JULY 1, 1995: In an interview with biographer Jon Lee Anderson, Bolivian General Mario Vargas Salinas reveals that "he had been a part of a nocturnal burial detail, that Che’s body and those of several of his comrades were buried in a mass grave near the dirt airstrip outside the little mountain town of Vallegrande in Central Bolivia." A subsequent Anderson article in the New York Times sets off a two-year search to find and identify Guevara’s remains. (Anderson,1)

JULY 5, 1997: Che Guevara biographer, Jon Lee Anderson, reports for the New York Times that although the remains have not been exhumed and definitely identified, two experts are "100 percent sure" that they have discovered Che’s remains in Vallegrande. The fact that one of the skeletons is missing both of its hands is cited as the most compelling evidence. (NYT 7/5/97)

JULY 13, 1997: A ceremony in Havana, attended by Fidel Castro and other Cuban officials, marks the return of Che’s remains to Cuba. (NYT 7/14/97)

OCTOBER 17, 1997: In a ceremony attended by Castro and thousands of Cubans, Che Guevara is reburied in Santa Clara, Cuba. (NYT, 10/18/97)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LIST OF SOURCES

Anderson=Anderson, Jon Lee, Che Guevara : A Revolutionary Life, Grove Press, 1997.

Harris= Harris, Richard, Death of a Revolutionary: Che Guevara's Last Mission, W.W. Norton and Company Inc.,1970.

James= James, Daniel, Che Guevara: A Biography, Stein and Day, 1970

National Security Files, "Bolivia, Vol. 4" Box 8.

NYT=New York Times

Rodríguez:1=Rodríguez, Félix I.,Shadow Warrior, Simon and Schuster Inc., 1989

Rodríguez:2=Rodríguez, Félix . BBC documentary, "Executive Action," 1992.

Rojo= Rojo, Ricardo, My Friend Che, The Dial Press, Inc., 1968

WT= Washington Times

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NEW BOOKS ON CHE GUEVARA

Henry Butterfield Ryan, The Fall of Che Guevara

(New York: Oxford University Press, November 1997; $27.50)

Jorge Castañeda, Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara (New York: Knopf; October 1997, $30.00)

Mark wrote:

So, while I will not engage in the finger-wagging, condescending tone that you delight in using, I will suggest that while one could argue Kennedy’s post 11/62 policy re: Cuba was to support yet another attempt at an exile coup or invasion, such an argument would be short-sighted, and completely out of context.

Greg, the problem is you are arguing using logical analysis to support your position, but not the FACTS.  And your logic could be wrong.  But the facts, as they say, speak for themselves.

You have yet to investigate the financial commitment the Kennedy Administration was making to the Second Naval Guerilla, AMTRUNK and Manuel Artime.  With the time you spent formulating your post, you probably could have discovered those facts through the index in "Live By the Sword".

As an example why your logic could be wrong, let's just take two of your points:

*NSAM 263

There are other ways to interpret NSAM 263, but without getting into that debate, assuming arguendo JFK planned to reduce the troop commitment in Vietnam, what does that necessarily have to do with whether or not he intended an invasion of Cuba?  JFK could certainly have decided that America had an interest in getting rid of Communists within our backyard (heck, I'm closer to Fidel than I am to Luis Posada Carriles--geographically speaking, of course) but not to fight a war 10,000 miles away.

And another point you make:  why would JFK plan an invasion of Cuba in late 1963 when he did not choose to invade when he had the chance during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962?  Well, there are several answers to this.  One, JFK might not have wanted to invade when all of the nuclear warheads were still 90 miles from our shore (even though there was a question whether they were yet operational.  Second, Khruschev's response to the Cuban missile crisis might have convinced him that the Soviet Union would never go to war over Cuba.

So as you yourself said "talk is cheap" and so is arguing by inferential logic.  Look at the facts, man.  Huge amounts of money were going into the Second Naval Guerilla and Artime's operation.  The CIA was still trying to kill Castro, and there are certainly indications the Kennedys were aware of Cubela. 

I am sorry to sound condescending but it is frustrating beyond belief that you assume a position that is totally contrary to what was happening; at least a week has gone by since our original exchange and you have yet to research the level of the Kennedy Administration's commitment to Second Naval Guerilla and Artime.  The facts seem to make no difference to you, or you would have followed up on my suggestion to research the monetary commitment.   Nothing will interfere with your preconceived theories.  At least that is the way it appears.   

Why was Kennedy secretly funding the plans for the Second Naval Guerilla?  Just to fool the limited number of Cuban exiles who were privy to those plans?  Does that make any sense whatsoever?

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Hi Tim-

Well I certainly don’t mean to frustrate you, but I do understand where you’re coming from, as I too have felt that same frustration at times. And I will make an effort to read Live By The Sword this summer. Perhaps that will help me to better understand your point-of-view.

You use the word “fact” repeatedly in your effort to point out what you perceive to be errors in my thinking:

“…you are using logical analysis to support your position, but not the FACTS.”

“…you probably could have discovered those facts through the index…”

“Look at the facts, man.”

“The facts seem to make no difference to you…”

You are right in suggesting that the weight of an argument should stand on the facts, as truth and inquiry are a process related to fact, logic, and argument. However, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, the facts in this case are often contradictory and ultimately inconclusive. This is largely, but not entirely, due to disinformation and governmental secrecy, the result of which renders deductive logic (the process of reaching a conclusion that is guaranteed to follow, eg. mathematics) unavailable in many instances. Or as the Talking Heads so eloquently put it:

Facts are simple and facts are straight

Facts are lazy and facts are late

Facts all come with points of view

Facts don't do what I want them to

When the nature of the evidence renders deductive reasoning impossible, we are left with abductive reasoning (reasoning based on the principle of inference to the best explanation). The key to understanding abductive reasoning lies in the “inference to the best explanation” part. It appears that this is where you and I view things differently.

Tim, you made the very true statement that there are different ways to interpret evidence (I think your reference was to NSAM 263). That is an absolutely true statement. However, I would suggest that some methodologies of interpreting evidence are inherently more reliable, and I would argue more correct, than others. For example, with regard to my reference to NSAM 263, you ask, “…what does that necessarily have to do with whether or not he (Kennedy) intended an invasion of Cuba? JFK could certainly have decided that America had an interest in getting rid of Communists within our backyard….” To support my premise that Kennedy’s true agenda regarding Cuba, the one that began in October 1962, was one seeking coexistence with Castro’s Cuba rather than eradication, I utilized abductive reasoning. That is, I used several other facts, matters of historical record, to establish context: NSAM 263, Kennedy’s signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963, Kennedy’s decision to opt for blockade during the missile crisis, Kennedy’s intensive back-channel communications with Khrushchev while publicly taking a firm, no-negotiations stance toward the Soviet Union, Jean Daniel’s meeting with Castro, the deal Kennedy made to resolve the missile crisis, and Khrushchev’s 12/11/62 letter to Kennedy. These are matters of fact, that when viewed in relation to one another, form a very clear, logical basis for understanding Kennedy’s foreign policy. This is where understanding abductive reasoning and inference to the best explanation is valuable. The “dual track” appearance Kennedy’s Cuba policy had on the surface (going forward from 11/1962) forces historians to decide which “track” Kennedy was truly supporting, and would have supported had he lived. In my view, since the nature of the evidence precludes the use of deductive reasoning (deductive logic), abductive reasoning (abductive logic) is the correct method to employ. Given the established framework I cited, which clearly establishes Kennedy’s tendencies and over-arching philosophy with regard to conflict and foreign policy, abductive reasoning tells us that Kennedy’s ultimate “track” with regard to Cuba was one of dialogue and peaceful co-existence. This is true because it is the “track” that is most congruent with the many Kennedy foreign policy decisions which frame this issue in historical context.

As opposed to abductive reasoning, the methodology you employ to interpret the evidence in this instance is interpolation. Interpolation is a message (spoken or written) that is introduced or inserted. For example, in your prior post you stated, “…Khruschev’s response to the Cuban missile crisis might have convinced him (Kennedy) that the Soviet Union would never go to war over Cuba.” While certainly a possibility that one might consider, the facts as they exist today simply do not provide any contextual framework or support to that idea. In fact, Khrushchev’s 12/11/62 letter to Kennedy candidly and forcefully stated just the opposite (see an excerpt of the text of this letter in my prior post). Additionally, in another letter between the two of them during the same period (I can’t seem to locate it at the moment, but perhaps another Forum member can recall the date of this communication), there is a passage that expresses a truth that they both understood to the effect that there are forces in their respective governments that they themselves may become powerless to control should tensions escalate. So, while the idea that Kennedy might have concluded that the Soviets would not go to war over Cuba based on the outcome of the missile crisis sounds plausible on an elementary level, closer examination using sound logical reasoning methodology renders such a suggestion devoid of merit. Such are the pitfalls associated with interpolation.

Abductive reasoning versus interpolation.

With regard to Kennedy’s funding of the Second Naval Guerilla, I believe I addressed that in my earlier post. Call it leverage to be used in the dialogue Kennedy was seeking, call it temporary placation of the militant exile community and the hawks in his administration, call it a “carrot and stick” approach, or call it a combination of all of the above. But common sense and the employment of sound methodology in interpreting the facts clearly prevent one from calling it Kennedy’s true policy toward Cuba.

And no, I have not researched the amount of money Kennedy pledged to the Second Naval Guerilla. However, simply providing funding doesn’t tell us anything about the motivation behind such financial support.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Abductive reasoning versus interpolation.

With regard to Kennedy’s funding of the Second Naval Guerilla, I believe I addressed that in my earlier post. Call it leverage to be used in the dialogue Kennedy was seeking, call it temporary placation of the militant exile community and the hawks in his administration, call it a “carrot and stick” approach, or call it a combination of all of the above. But common sense and the employment of sound methodology in interpreting the facts clearly prevent one from calling it Kennedy’s true policy toward Cuba.

And no, I have not researched the amount of money Kennedy pledged to the Second Naval Guerilla. However, simply providing funding doesn’t tell us anything about the motivation behind such financial support.

BRAVO, Greg! You most definitely deserve an "atta boy!" for your astute observation.

But seriously folks, I think Tim does serve a worthy purpose in keeping us on our toes around here. We could view his role in this debate as similar to one whose part is in playing Devil's Advocate. My Sociology of Law professor always stressed the importance of reading both sides of the coin, if for no other reason than to, "Know thine enemy." This was crucial to the process of assured success in honing ones skills prior to engagement of the opposition in the debating arena. And, from what I've been observing so far, this thread is bringing out the best in everyone here. Rock on!

I have in the past argued that in the early days of Operation Mockingbird it relied heavily on a group of CIA officials, journalists and politicians known as the “Georgetown Crowd”. This group included Frank Wisner,  George Kennan, Dean Acheson, Richard Bissell, Desmond FitzGerald, Joseph Alsop, Stewart Alsop, Cord Meyer, Mary Pinchot Meyer, Tracy Barnes, Thomas Braden, Philip Graham, Katharine Graham, David Bruce, Clark Clifford, Walt Rostow, Eugene Rostow, W. Averell Harriman, Chip Bohlen and Paul Nitze. This group became known as the Georgetown Crowd. Later this group included Ben Bradlee. LBJ also had access to this group via Philip and Katharine Graham.

Up to now I have been unable to find a direct link between this group and the JFK assassination cover-up. My copy of C. David Heyman’s The Georgetown Ladies’ Social Club arrived this morning. Heyman covers this group. To my surprise it also included John Sherman Cooper. Maybe that is why LBJ selected him to join the Warren Commission.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Here's Robert Parry's P.O.V. on what happened to the media. Although I don't believe he goes back far enough in history, he does bring up a few points:

The Answer Is Fear

By Robert Parry

May 26, 2005

One benefit of the new AM progressive talk radio in cities around the United States is that the call-in shows have opened a window onto the concerns – and confusion – felt by millions of Americans trying to figure out how their country went from a democratic republic to a modern-day empire based on a cult of personality and a faith-based rejection of reason.

“What went wrong?” you hear them ask. “How did we get here?”

You also hear more detailed questions: “Why won’t the press do its job of holding George W. Bush accountable for misleading the country to war in Iraq? How could the intelligence on Iraq have been so wrong? Why do America’s most powerful institutions sit back while huge trade and budget deficits sap away the nation’s future?”

There are, of course, many answers to these questions. But from my 27 years in the world of Washington journalism and politics, I would say that the most precise answer can be summed up in one word: fear.

It’s not fear of physical harm. That's not how it works in Washington. For the professionals in journalism and in intelligence, it’s a smaller, more corrosive fear – of lost status, of ridicule, of betrayal, of unemployment. It is the fear of getting blackballed from a community of colleagues or a profession that has given your life much of its meaning and its financial sustenance.

Dynamic of Fear

What the American conservative movement has done so effectively over the last three decades is to perfect a dynamic of fear and inject it into the key institutions for generating or disseminating information.

This strategy took shape in the latter half of the 1970s amid the ashes of the Watergate scandal and the U.S. defeat in Vietnam. Conservatives were determined that those twin disasters – getting caught in a major political scandal and seeing the U.S. population turn against a war effort – should never happen again.

As I describe in Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, the initial targets of the Right's “war of ideas” were the national news media and the CIA’s analytical division – two vital sources of information at the national level.

The U.S. press was blamed for exposing President Richard Nixon’s dirty tricks and for spreading dissension that undermined morale in the Vietnam War. The CIA analysts had to be brought under control because the driving rationale for the conservative power grab was to be an exaggerated threat assessment of America’s enemies.

If the American people saw the Soviet Union as a leviathan coming to swallow the United States, then they would surrender their tax dollars, their civil liberties and their common sense. Conversely, if the CIA analysts offered a nuanced view of the Soviet Union as a rapidly declining power falling farther behind the West technologically and desperately trying to keep control of its disintegrating sphere of influence, then Americans might favor a shift in priorities away from foreign dangers to domestic needs. Negotiation – not confrontation – would make sense.

Neocon Wars

So, one of the first battles fought in this historic neocon conquest of the U.S. government occurred largely behind the walls of the CIA, beginning in 1976 (under George H.W. Bush’s directorship) with the so-called “Team B” assault on the CIA’s fabled Kremlinologists. In the 1980s, this attack on the professional objectivity of the CIA’s analytical division intensified under the watchful eye of CIA Director William J. Casey and his deputy, Robert Gates.

Through bureaucratic bullying and purges, the neoconservatives eventually silenced CIA analysts who were reporting evidence of Soviet decline. Instead, a “politicized” CIA analytical division adopted worst-case scenarios about Soviet capabilities and intentions, estimates that supported the Reagan administration’s costly arms buildup and covert wars in the Third World.

The neocon strategy was so successful that the battered CIA analytical division largely blinded itself to the growing evidence of the coming Soviet collapse. Then, ironically, when the Soviet Union fell apart in 1990, the neoconservatives were hailed as heroes for achieving the seemingly impossible – the supposedly sudden collapse of the Soviet Union – while the CIA’s analytical division was ridiculed for “missing” the Soviet demise. [For details, see Secrecy & Privilege.]

The second important target in these Neocon Wars was the U.S. national press corps. The strategy here was twofold: to build an ideologically conservative news media and to put consistent pressure on mainstream journalists who generated information that undercut the conservative message.

The so-called “controversializing” of troublesome mainstream journalists was aided and abetted by the fact that many senior news executives and publishers were either openly or quietly sympathetic to the neocons’ hard-line foreign policy agenda. That was even the case in news companies regarded as “liberal” – such as the New York Times, where executive editor Abe Rosenthal shared many neocon positions, or at Newsweek, where top editor Maynard Parker also aligned himself with the neocons.

In the 1980s, reporters who dug up hard stories that challenged the Reagan administration’s messaging found themselves under intense pressure, both externally from well-funded conservative attack groups and behind their backs from senior editors. Any false step – if it offended the Reagan-Bush White House – could prove fatal for a career.

The New York Times’ Central America correspondent Raymond Bonner was perhaps the highest profile journalist pushed out of a job because his reporting angered the neoconservatives, but he was far from alone. The Reagan administration even organized special “public diplomacy” teams to lobby bureau chiefs about ousting reporters who were deemed insufficiently supportive of government policies.

[For details, see Robert Parry’s Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & Project Truth.]

Disproving Liberalism

Also, by popularizing accusations of “liberal media,” the conservatives both justified the existence of their own ideological news outlets and put mainstream news organizations in the constant position of trying to prove they weren’t liberal. To protect their careers, journalists made a point of writing stories that would please the Reagan-Bush White House.

Similarly, in the 1990s, mainstream journalists wrote more harshly about President Clinton than they normally would because they wanted to show that they could be tougher on a Democrat than a Republican. This approach was not journalistically sound – reporters are supposed to be equal-opportunity abusers – but it made psychological sense for journalists who knew how vulnerable they were, having seen how easily the careers of other capable journalists had been destroyed.

As the years wore on, the survivors of this bureaucratic Darwinism – who had avoided the Right’s wrath both in the worlds of journalism and intelligence analysis – rose to senior positions in their respective fields. The ethos shifted from truth-telling to career-protection. [For an extreme example of how this dynamic worked, see Consortiumnews.com's "America's Debt to Journalist Gary Webb."]

The consequences of these changes in journalism and intelligence analysis became apparent when the neocons – the likes of Paul Wolfowitz and Elliott Abrams – returned to power under George W. Bush in 2001 and especially after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

As happened with the hyping of the Soviet threat in the mid-to-late 1980s, a pliant intelligence community largely served up whatever alarmist information the White House wanted about Iraq and other foreign enemies.

When an individual analyst did challenge the “group think,” he or she would be called unfit or accused of leftist sympathies, as occurred when State Department analysts protested Undersecretary of State John Bolton’s exaggerated claims about Cuba’s weapons of mass destruction. [see Consortiumnews.com’s “John Bolton & the Battle for Reality.”]

Meanwhile, in the mainstream media, news executives and journalists were petrified of accusations that they were “blaming America first” or didn’t sufficiently “support the troops.” Mainstream news outlets competed with conservative Fox News to wrap themselves in red, white and blue. News executives transformed their networks and newspapers into little more than conveyor belts for the Bush administration’s propaganda.

Poorly sourced allegations about Iraq’s supposed nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs were trumpeted on Page One of the New York Times and the Washington Post. Skeptical stories were buried deep inside.

This journalistic fear has lessened somewhat since the discovery by Bush’s own investigators that the U.S. claims about Iraq’s WMD were “dead wrong,” but the residual intimidation remains. News executives still realize it’s safer for their careers to downplay stories that cast a harsh light on Bush’s rationale for invading Iraq.

So, in May 2005, when the British press disclosed a secret government memo from July 2002 stating that everyone knew the Iraq WMD evidence was “thin” but that Bush had decided to go to war anyway – months earlier than the official story – these revelations were treated as old news in the U.S. press.

The Washington Post’s national security writer Walter Pincus used the so-called Downing Street Memo as a way to reexamine the evidence that some U.S. intelligence analysts were warning the Bush administration about the weak WMD case in 2002. But the Post’s editors followed their long-set pattern and stuck the article on Page A26. [Washington Post, May 22, 2005]

Reasons Why

On the progressive talk radio shows, both callers and hosts struggle to explain this phenomenon of downplaying important life-and-death stories.

Some put the fault on media profiteering that invests little money in investigative journalism and favors circuses like the Michael Jackson trial. Others blame corporate consolidation that wants to reward Bush for lucrative deregulation policies at the Federal Communications Commission.

Though there’s some truth in these analyses, I believe the more fundamental motivation is career fear.

The major U.S. news outlets didn’t shut their eyes about the Downing Street Memo because it lacked news interest. Indeed, many readers would have dropped 50 cents into a newspaper vending machine to read about how the nation was duped into war or they’d watch a penetrating segment about the issue on a TV news program.

But news executives judged that whatever financial gain they might receive from playing this story up was outweighed by the grief they would get from Bush administration defenders. So the news judgment was to play the story down.

Too many journalists had lost jobs over the preceding quarter century to take the risk. The neocons had instilled enough fear in the American news business – from executive suites to beat reporters – that nearly everyone wants to err on the side of not offending the powers that be.

Career fear trumped the profit motive.

What is perhaps even more troubling is that this fear is spreading to other institutions. Academia is now feeling the heat from conservatives who want to eliminate it as the last bastion of liberal thought. Corporate leaders also appear to be suffering from paralysis in the face of policies that are threatening the long-term future of the United States.

As New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman observed after traveling to American cities, CEOs are mostly staying on the sidelines in these crucial debates.

“America faces a huge set of challenges if it is going to retain its competitive edge,” Friedman wrote. “As a nation, we have a mounting education deficit, energy deficit, budget deficit, health care deficit and ambition deficit. …

“Yet, when I look around for the group that has both the power and interest in seeing America remain globally focused and competitive – America’s business leaders – they seem to be missing in action. … In part, this is because boardrooms tend to be culturally Republican – both uncomfortable and a little afraid to challenge this administration.” [NYT, May 25, 2005]

How to Build Courage

So, what’s the answer? If a big part of the problem is fear, how can fear be overcome?

It’s simply not enough to tell journalists, politicians and others that they must buck up and do the right thing, especially when people who do show courage are systematically destroyed and made into object lessons for colleagues left behind.

If individuals are expected to be courageous, there must be courageous institutions to surround and protect them. That’s why the creation of a counter-infrastructure – one that will take on both the powerful conservative infrastructure and the cowardly mainstream media – is so vital.

Examples of how this counter-dynamic could work can be found in the take-no-prisoners ethos of the anti-Bush Internet sites, or in the irreverent comedy of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” or in the unabashed liberalism of the fledgling progressive talk radio.

All have shown toughness in refusing to genuflect before Bush and his enormous political power.

Just as cowardice can come in small pieces, none seeming to be that important alone but which added together can destroy a worthy cause, so courage can build one piece on top of another until a solid foundation is established from which a mighty edifice can rise.

But it is urgent that progressives begin immediately to invest in the building blocks of this new infrastructure. It's the only hope for a healthy political balance to be restored.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His new book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'

Great cv and great picture and great countryside, Shanet!

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Thanks Tim.

The photo was taken in the Great Valley of Virginia, a farm region between the Allegheny Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains, near Staunton.

The purpose of this topic posting is twofold:

One, to establish my credentials with participating FORUM readers; and

Two, this links the name I was known by for many years with my current postings.

{It is essentially a search engine tactic for my former associates.......}

Thanks for the support,

The photo was taken in the Great Valley of Virginia, a farm region between the Allegheny Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains, near Staunton

.

Hey Shan,

You're making me homesick for my family's annual summer roadtrips to my Grandma Katie's farm in Alabama. Beautiful country through those Appalachians. I used to love coming up over Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, on our last leg of the trip, crossing over the TVA, and riding down through Ft. Oglethorpe, after crossing over the state lines of Tennessee, Georgia, and on into Alabama.

Shanet Clark / Shan Clark

IF PHOTOS ARE NOT VISIBLE PLEASE CLICK ON THE PHRASE: "FULL VERSION"

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There's an hour of my time I will never get back. Standard stuff. Posner was wheeled out, Ruby was portrayed as a simple character looking for his 15 minutes and conspiracy themes were not seriously looked at.

To quote Mark Stapleton, "Some of these docos are not what they're cracked up to be."

Add this one to the list, Mark.

James

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Yep, James. There were so many errors and omissions, it's difficult to know where to start. The only plus (for me, at any rate) was in seeing some photos and film footage I hadn't previously seen.

greg

To quote Mark Stapleton, "Some of these docos are not what they're cracked up to be."

Add this one to the list, Mark.

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Could be just another verification of the fact that Operation Mockingbird is still alive and well, and living up to its specific job description.

I suspect he will be dead before he ever testifies in a courtroom about what he knows about CIA funded terrorist attacks.

For some reason I have a feeling he will have the flu very soon The can of worms he can open is way to dangerous to just send him on his way to Venezuela or Cuba to stand trial.

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Yesterday from the LATimes - The Nation - Section [FWIW]

May 20, 2005 latimes.com : Nation E-mail story Print Most E-Mailed

THE NATION

Cuban Exile Is Charged by U.S.

Former CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles, wanted in Venezuela and denounced in Cuba, is accused of entering the United States illegally.

By John-Thor Dahlburg and Nicole Gaouette, Times Staff Writers

MIAMI — Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban exile accused of terrorism and wanted in Venezuela to stand trial, was charged by the U.S. government Thursday with entering the country illegally, putting the onus on the former CIA operative to prove he had the right to remain.

Posada, 77, who said he came to the U.S. through Mexico about two months ago, was taken into custody Tuesday by federal agents in Miami.

On Thursday, U.S. immigration officials said he had been charged with entering the U.S. "without inspection," a violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act, and would be held without bond. He has a right to a bond hearing, and is scheduled to appear before an immigration judge June 13, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement.

Venezuela has called on the U.S. to extradite the opponent of Cuban President Fidel Castro in connection with the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. Posada has denied involvement.

Cuban authorities say he is responsible for bombings at Havana hotels in 1997 that killed an Italian tourist and injured 11 others.

Posada was acquitted twice in the airliner bombing by courts in Venezuela, but he escaped from a Caracas jail in 1985 while an appeal was pending.

As a reflection of the tensions surrounding the case, U.S. officials declined to say where Posada was being held.

But an official in the Department of Homeland Security, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Posada had been transferred to El Paso, and that the bond hearing would be held there.

Manny Van Pelt, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Washington, confirmed that after his arrest Posada was taken from the Miami area by helicopter. But he said he did not know why.

Officials said one reason detainees were taken to a different state was because of limited space in facilities where they were being held.

Another federal official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Bush administration might have wanted to head off any show of support for Posada in Miami's Cuban American community.

The administration may also be trying to buy time to decide what to do with Posada, the official said.

Ira Kurzban, a Miami lawyer who has written a book on immigration law, said Posada could be freed on bond, detained indefinitely, deported or sent to another country with his consent.

The political clout of Cuban Americans, many of whom vote Republican, made it unlikely that Posada would be sent to Cuba or to Venezuela, Kurzban said.

At the June immigration hearing, Posada could ask for asylum and oppose deportation because his life or freedom would be placed in jeopardy, Kurzban said.

If Posada cannot establish that he has a legal right to be in U.S., the judge can issue a "final order of removal," or deportation, subject to a review by immigration courts and the federal court system.

Eduardo Soto, a Coral Gables, Fla., immigration lawyer who represents Posada, said he should be allowed to stay in the U.S. because of his work with the CIA against Castro in the 1960s and because he could be persecuted if sent to Venezuela or Cuba.

At a Thursday news conference, Soto said he was satisfied that Posada had been charged with an immigration violation and not with terrorism.

He said he would meet with his client today in Texas and would file motions to have him released on bond and to have the case transferred to Miami.

Asked if Posada might agree to leave the U.S. for a country where he would not face the threat of a criminal trial, Soto said, "I think that that possibility is there…. I think everything is on the table."

I see your on Gerry,

How about a hint to discredit this. Two positions for shot origin disruption on the ground that would serve to view high elevation viewpoints to alert of shooter origins in positions on buildings on Houston and Elm. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to disrupt an ambush in the confines as small as DP. What went wrong?

Al

--------------------------------

OK Mr. Lieutenant of the CSI Nightwatch [i have had both your home & City PD E-mail addresses for months thank you] -- You see that I "am on !!" -- as I stated, my AOL connection got dumped and I was never able to log out of this forum yesterday due to the wierd crash on my server, so, as I noticed, (tonight) I was still logged on. I detect in your numerous snide remarks the very same attitude of our famous fantasizing Kazakh Jew, AJ Weberman. What went wrong?? How the hell would I know??!! I have shot low masters at Camp Perry since 1965 [Nat'l Match F/Bedded M-14 w/ iron sights] and missed the "President's 100 Team" by one "V" -- BOO-Hoo !!

Your file shows that you, as a 42 year old "Techie" in a City P.D., are the recipient of two glorious awards from the Iowa State Police Academy: one for "Most Conscientious", and the other "Most Congenial". So where is "Miss Congeniality" when it comes to decent converstion with yours truly??!!

What SOF ramblings are you pissed most about? I have answered directly what queries were posted, and so far none of the interested parties have reacted like some wannabe "rent-a-cop". I hear that Chief Jennings [is it?] thinks highly of your talents -- have you introduced him to any of your spook mentors??

Why would Izqueirdo [and others] be receptive to being placed in a snipers post as security assist for JFK. The same reason that my team was placed in similar circumstances at MIA on Monday afternoon, 18th November 1963. And this was after FBI S/A George Davis [without his partner Paul Schrand] showed up at my riverside [Just Island] cottage on Saturday the 16th. Davis initially stated that MI & SS had firmly determined that one of the Cubans that we had extracted via the USS Oxford [AGTR-1] during the Missile Crisis [one Ismael Santana, known before the extraction to be a Castro D.S.E. agent]

represented a threat to the Prez during the Miami visit. Upon my challenging same [our Info showed that Santana was attending an Intel course at Las Mercedes School, Oriente Province [eastern Cuba] that weekend !!

Davis then shifted gears and said that the really big threat was from Eduardo "Bayo" Perez and his AM/TILT group. Davis insisted that both myself and HKD attended a special briefing at the MI [covert] HQ sited at SW 12th ave, & 1st Street the following day, Sunday [11/17/62] morning.

Present at that briefing were:

Secret Service S/A Ernesto Aragon [latered authored numerous WC docs.];

Fed. Bureau Narcotics A/SAC Nick Navarro [later of TV "Cops" series fame];

Bernardo G. De Torres;

A now retired Miami PD Homicide dick [who later was promoted to Parole Commissioner during the 1970s] Ray Fontana (the cop who Identifieded the corpse of "Gito" Del Valle at the morgue in 1967;

Two JM/WAVE operators, who coming out of retirement, are currently working for Homeland Security, and;

seven others that will remain unidentified until an NARA check is made.

Who was missing?? The Fed. Bur. Narc SAC [Navarro's boss] S/A Gene Marshall.

[2 months later he was set up with a Miami cop and a Dade Co. Deputy Sheriff on a phony drug deal -- just as the WC was shaping up. At that time, Gene was sharing a condo with our lawyer Chuck Ashmann. I found him during late 1966 working on a construction site -- under an alias given to him after a few months at the Fed nut house at Springfield, MO.

Our instructions were to carry our regular sidearms, pick up a govt. suburban, and enter MIA through the Delta-Dash security gate using the password "Lancelot". We were then instructed to be at the airline stairway set up forward [portside] of Air Force One -- in the receiving line.

After adjourning, we discussed serious flaws in this operation: No attendance at the morning roll-call [MIA west end barracks (Intel Section) "corrosion corner"] that would allow ALL of the civvy & uniformed cops and agents to exchange "face-time"; no issuance of bouttoniers for ID purposes, etc. !!

I instructed my team to go unarmed on this detail, and so informed the agents at the Delta-Dash gate. They weren't happy campers on this. "Little Joe" C. Garman disobeyed and carried his Colt .45 Auto. !!

When we saw that the sundecks were bulging with crowds, and that JFK was stopping to make a speech at a makeship platform nearby, we bailed out of the airport "toot-sweet". We observed Frank Fiorini/Sturgis at one side of the platform, and this caused some dismay from two of our folks who had been under him on "Operation-40".

Lt. Carrier, you made vague reference to the fact that you were in the "Army".

Do you have a DD-214? Gots any jump wings, Ranger Tab, or C.I.B.?? or were you a REMF -- "in-the-rear-with-the-gear-troop"??

If you want to pose some numbered paragraph queries rather than snidely-P-wierdf...k rants, then I will attempt to answer any that are not in violation of NDAs, or the 1982 Intel-Identities Act.

What I know comes from "being there" sonny, not from book-reading, and definetly NOT from swallowing disinformation put out by the damage control artists and "Moles".

I didn't ask to be on this forum, but I do see that you are amongst a large group in the membership who have made intense and tedious study of difficult materials -- so lets get off of the juvenile ad-homonym (sp) blatherings, and simply state your case. I then will state mine [with extensive redactions; due to the bare faced fact that: Most is none of your business, and I am not in a tutoring mood.]

Pat Speer: That was a hand gun, not a rifle [.22 cal. Hi-Standard semi-auto pistol w/ suppressor/silencer] that RVK displayed during late 1961.

J. Tim Gratz: Buy a damn tape-recorder, and use a landline. [Florida law permits consensual taping for press work]. I didn't say that Fidel had anything to do with the 2 thermo-nukes buried [a-la Chernobyl] under tons of domed (w/copper mesh) concrete. It was Raul who made references to Fidel's son {"Fidelito"] -- a Soviet trained and expert nuclear physicist -- that an empathetic "shaped-charge" might set off the decaying Tritium triggers used by the Soviets during that era. "Fidelito" convinced his dad to shut down the Chernobyl model nuke reactor [under-construction] sited near Cienfuegos.

The Soviets lost 2 "Yankee-Class" boomers [submarines] transporting the '62 and '65 warheads [onboard fires caused by decaying triggers]. The 5 kiloton fission scuds remained at the Sov-Naval base at Banes, Oriente -- until late 1966. [47 in total] The 2 thermo-nukes were removed from storage at the Bejucal facility [southwest of Habana] when the Gamma, Beta, rads went of the gauges. Bejucal [becausing of anti-EMP/RFE emission shrouding (we term it "Iron-Clad") is now used to beam "white-sound" against our satellite heretofore used by "Marti/RA/RME" entities to broadcast Farsi language "news" to Iran. [The technology and advisors were provided by Belarus via Iran to Cuba two years back.]

The dawn is breaking, and Fort Bragg is waking, so I am hitting the rack toot sweet,

GPH

___________________________________________

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I didn't say that Fidel had anything to do with the 2 thermo-nukes buried [a-la Chernobyl] under tons of domed (w/copper mesh) concrete.

The Soviets lost 2 "Yankee-Class" boomers [submarines] transporting the '62 and '65 warheads [onboard fires caused by decaying triggers]. The 5 kiloton fission scuds remained at the Sov-Naval base at Banes, Oriente -- until late 1966. [47 in total] The 2 thermo-nukes were removed from storage at the Bejucal facility [southwest of Habana] when the Gamma, Beta, rads went of the gauges.

Thanks for clarification of that matter.

According to Gerry, there are two nuclear weapons still in Cuba that Fidel could ignite to go out in a suicidal glory if a US invasion of Cuba was imminent, an explosion the results of which would decimate most of Southern Florida.  Not sure if he has any delivery mechanism.  According to Gerry, every President since JFK has known this and that may be the only reason (per Gerry) none has ever invaded Cuba.

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"...an explosion the results of which would decimate most of Southern Florida.  Not sure if he has any delivery mechanism."

Remember Boca Chica Naval Air Station circa 1963 - 1964, with its floating ammunition dump, purportedly holding enough nuclear warheads to blow up the whole state of Florida? It was situated right across a little lagoon-like inlet from the Stock Island trailer park I was living in, at the time. BTW, if it's still activated it could be used as counter-insurance against whatever payloads Castro may have his hands on, possibly as measure or margin of safety in a Mexican stand-off with Cuba? If it's still there, that is, what with all the base closures going on, now that we're engaged in an all-out war in the Middle East. But, it all stopped making sense years ago.

Certainly Israel benefited, but it didn't have to participate. What role did it play? I suppose Israel could have helped finance it (using U.S. foreign aid money). In fact I believe Echeverria in Chicago mentioned getting Jewish money, but I think that's generally assumed to be a reference to Lansky gangsters.

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Ron,

The answer to your question is that I don't know what role they played but they were major beneficiaries and there is some circumstantial evidence, IMO, pointing to Jerusalem. Don't you think it's a strange coincidence that Ben Gurion resigns in July '63, telling friends he's exasperated with JFK's hardline approach to Dimona and that he's a threat to Israel's security and four months later JFK's dead? Mossad is the most efficient and savvy of intelligence agencies, whose involvement may not be noticed by those unfamiliar with the way they operate. Didn't Gerry Hemmings once state that he found out in the late '60's that Mossad knew about the assassination in advance? As you say, Rabin was reportedly in Dallas (I think it was his wife who mentions this) and the connection with Ruby's Jewish background is a point to remember. He was proud of his heritage and, according to some researchers, had often stated that people discriminated against him because of it. Throughout his life he was getting into scraps with anyone who made derogatory comments about his race. Ruby, IMO, was definitely involved in the plot to kill JFK, as well as his role in silencing Oswald.

Until your post, I was unaware of Echevarria's comments concerning Jewish money. That is interesting. He is one individual who has always interested me because of that incident, described elsewhere on the forum, when a Chicago CIA officer was ordered by HQ in Washington to return all documents relating to Echevarria immediately and not discuss him with anyone.

The problem with this aspect of JFK research is that it is a very sensitive issue and genuine research efforts can be mistaken for a witchunt directed against a race which has had its fair share of suffering throughout history. This may be why it doesn't recieve the focus that other, less productive lines of inquiry receive. Research on the Israeli Government's possible role should just be regarded as an attempt to solve the JFK riddle, similar to research efforts by others into the role of the Governments of Cuba, the Soviet Union, South Korea and the United States.

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He was proud of his heritage and, according to some researchers, had often stated that people discriminated against him because of it. Throughout his life he was getting into scraps with anyone who made derogatory comments about his race.

Since when did Judaism become a race? I thought there were only three: Negro, Caucasian, and Asian, aka: Negroid, Caucasoid, and Mongoloid.

[i also agree with you that one can be a "liberal at heart" and a strong anti-communist.  That I think is also a very good description of John F. Kennedy.

_______________________

I have always been anti-communist and a strong liberal at the same time. Have never seen any contradiction.

I also read all Ayn Rand's works as a young woman and I know that greatly influenced my views re. communism.

Dawn

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I also read all Ayn Rand's works as a young woman and I know that greatly influenced my views re. communism.

I've got all of her books, too. I became fascinated by "The Fountainhead", and proceeded to immerse myself in all of her works, one after the other, back in 1998.

DL often jokes about me being a socialist with leanings toward Ayn Rand philosophies, a contradiction in terms. But now that the paradox of the two ideologies has been brought up, i.e. "anti-communist and a strong liberal...",

I can understand the association from another perspective. Although, I never thought of her life story as anything other than that of a severely oppressed

victim of another form of coup d'etat, I could empathize with her feelings of hatred for the Bolsheviks, and their particular form of barbarism.

Anytime you have persecution or oppression of creativity, whether in the artistic or literary sense of the word, or in the philosphical aspects associated with the study of economics, you have totalitarianism. This is what I believe happened to Ayn Rand's Russia. At least, that's what I gleaned from her writings.

The Bolshevik Revolution ushered in a totalitarian form of communism, similar to the form later embraced by Mao Tse Tung in the P.R.C. with its emphasis on the use of pressure to force conformity from within, for the good of the party.

Here is my dictionary's definition of fascism: n. A one-party system of government in which the individual is subordinated to the state and control is maintained by military force, secret police, rigid censorship, and governmental regimentation of industry and finance.

This is the style of oppression I read into the thread of Ayn Rand's books. Communism, on the other hand, is defined as: n 1. A social system characterized by the communal sharing of goods and services. 2. A theory of social change advocating a classless society, public ownership of almost all productive property, and the sharing of the products of labor. 3. The system in force in any state based on this theory [< F commun common, shared equally + ism]. Totalitarianism, is therefore defined as: Designating or characteristic of a government controlled exclusively by one party or faction, and maintained by political suppression.

Thus, to avoid the use of the "f" word to actually summize Ayn Rand's description of the kind of life she was forced to live under the Bolsheviks' regime, I've taken the liberty of using the totalitarian description, instead. On the other end of the spectrum you have what is called a Plutocracy: n 1. A wealthy class that controls the government, hence a government by the wealthy [<GK. ploutos wealth + krateein to rule].

Sounds like "the beltway" gang, to me.

Thanks Pat,

I appreciate your response. Do you have a copy of Patricia Lambert's book on the Garrison fiasco? - False Witness - she describes Billings role.I'll try and respond to the other issues when I get time.Thanks for your patience.

Mel

http://www.melayton.co.uk

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I haven't read Lambert's book, but have read a lot of the anti-Garrison stuff online at Dave Reitzes' site. As on so many of the issues, I'm right in the middle. I believe Garrison AND Billings were well-intentioned. Garrison smelled a rat and ran around the house looking for it, over-turning furniture; men like Billings also smelled a rat but were reluctant to tear up the floor to find it.

I have read the Di Eugenio book.

P.S. I re-wrote and added to my earlier post about the NAA tests of Vincent Guinn.

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P.S.  I re-wrote and added to my earlier post about the NAA tests of Vincent Guinn.

And, I meant to thank you for posting that information last night, Pat.

That was very important information, to me.

Thanks,

Ter

Pat,

Thanks for the input. Your criticisms are, for the most part, valid, even if acerbic. My response -

· “…virtually no one makes a living off of the assassination….” There are …limousine rides, tours, bogus witnesses like Ed Hoffman and Beverly Oliver ‘selling’ their autographs. I’m sure the conspiracy  writers who haven’t ‘sold many books’ would like that situation to change.

· I stand by my statement about ‘détente’ – I believe most historians would agree with me.

· I agree with your statement about George Joannides. An open letter in the NYT signed by lone assassin and  conspiracy writers, including Gerald Posner, is something I support. This info should be released.

·  Ford ‘knew’ – see Max Holland’s research – simple google search – please cite HSCA’s referenece to ‘prove’ he lied.

· If Life magazine was promoting the Lone Assassin position why did the mag devote a cover story, in 1966, to John Connally and the Zapruder film which seemed, at the time, to negate the WR’s conclusions re: single-bullet conclusion?

· Bobby Kennedy asked an aide to read the Warren Report for him. He also initiated his own investigation, I believe it was Chicago based, and came up with nothing.

· Doubts expressed by Cyril Wecht et al.Wecht was part of the HSCA forenesic pathology panel – I believe 9 members – he was the only member to dissent from the report’s conclusions.

· Computer simulations – Dale Myers – his work has been critically acclaimed by many leading computer experts, too many to name, but a simple google search ‘Dale Myers’ will probably suffice.

· Head shot – Ken Rahn has, in my opinion, provided an excellent explanation.

http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/JFK.html

Readers can judge for themselves.

· ‘Witnesses’ – readers will have to make their own minds up about this – to  examine each one will make this forum book-length. I stand by my statement that Howard Brennan was a good eyewitness.

· Your description of Brennan is misleading. He reported his sightings to a police officer at the time of the shooting and gave a good description of the shooter. Later that evening he identified Oswald but said he could not be sure. As we know now he was definitely sure but was afraid the assassination involved others and this is the reason he balked. He was, in fact, guarded by FBI agents for three weeks. His memoirs leave no doubt that he positively saw Oswald shoot from the 6th floor window of the BD.

· There are many excellent books which cover the murders of Sam Giancana – murdered by the mob (probably Accardo) to prevent his return to rule. I believe the evidence presented by author Charles Brandt has solved the Jimmy Hoffa murder. Check his excellent book on Amazon.

· Dallas police officer Billy Combest, in the ambulance with Oswald as the assassin lay dying. He said it was a ‘definite clenched fist salute’.

· Your use of words like ‘indoctrination’ is demeaning to those in the research community who accept the Lone Assassin conclusions.

· Readers should know that the HSCA only reached their conspiracy conclusion for one reason and one reason only – the acoustics evidence which has now been proven to be false (see Ken Rahn JFK Academic website above). The sounds of ‘shots’ eminated from a motor cycle which was nowhere near Dealey Plaza. Furthermore, the sounds eminated from a ‘three-wheeler’ motor cycle.

Last point – I will only participate in this forum if members avoid sarcasm and ridicule.

My appreciation to Tim, John, Stephen and Mike for their support. I realise I have stumbled into a 'viper's nest' but debates like these can only be for the good. I'm not sure how much time I can devote to the site. I am, after all, trying to research and write. However, I'll try my best. One small point to make which I'll mention just to prove I do not take facts eminating from Government bodies uncritically. I have been researching the 1973 murder of Bermuda's Governor for the past year and I believe I have uncovered a conspiracy.

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Head shot – Ken Rahn has, in my opinion, provided an excellent explanation.

http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/JFK.html

I'd like to post a debate between a friend of mine, Chris Dolmar, and Ken Rahn,

which took place over a period of months during June and September 2001:

From Col. L. Fletcher Prouty's site:

Chris

Unregistered User

(9/1/01 5:35 am)

Reply

<http://pub78.ezboard.com/ffletcherproutyfrm1.showAddReplyScreenFromWeb?topicID=14.topic>

Debating Assassination Educator Ken Rahn

Hi Everybody,

I've been busy this summer but have still had time to participate in various arenas of the JFK case and thought I would share my correspondances with a Dr. Ken Rahn, who I mentioned before in the old forum as teaching a course on the JFK Assassination at the University of Rhode Island. He teaches this course as part of a "critical thinking" model in which his students are funneled toward a "LHO-could-have-easily-done-it-alone" conclusion.

He has a website supporting his course located here:

karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/JFK.html <http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/JFK.html>

Instead of an in-depth review, it appeares to me that Dr. Rahn and his alleged critical thinking review was as biased as anyone's based on what was shown in the "further thoughts" section of his course outline:

"There is overwhelming physical evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK.

There is an overwhelming absence of evidence that anyone else was involved.

No other credible suspects, general or named, have emerged after 37 years of intensive investigation.

Thus, the exceedingly strong working hypothesis must be that Lee Harvey Oswald did it alone.

The logical and procedural errors of the critics and conspiracists are so clear and obvious that further discussion of conspiracy is no longer justified without solid new evidence.

Given that no conspiracy has emerged in 37 years, there is no reason to expect the present situation to change (although it could at any time). Therefore the era of national soul-searching and angst that followed the JFK assassination and the distrust of the government it created were unnecessary and hurtful. The spotlight should have been turned inward on the critics rather than outward on the government. Recognizing these things, we are now ready to write the simple, clear, and true history of the assassination."

Re: karws.gso.uri.edu/PSC404/...ughts.html

<http://karws.gso.uri.edu/PSC404/Spring2001/Further_thoughts.html>

Obviously, when the "teacher" puts statements like that into a course outline, the direction of that course has already been determined. As such, the students in the class already know what is necessary...though not necessarily correct...to obtain a good grade. Challenging a tenured professor's stated opinion would hardly help achieve a good mark, and most students understand that. Others attempting to debate aspects of the assassination might also feel intimidated, confronted by the prestige of his professional standing.

I believe we should hold our educators to high standards in their methodology. They influence many potential leaders and are looked up to by the masses of the populace. As such, they must be totally objective, something apparently lost in this case. Anything less than complete integrity risks creating and perpetuating a false history.

And so, I decide to engage our esteemed Dr. Rahn in an evidence debate to see just how strongly he could hold up to a lowly Alaskan wilderness guide in support of his university course objectives.

Following is our email debate:

6/6/01 (9:25pm)

Hi Mr. Rahn,

My name is Chris Dolmar and I'm writing to you from the far south coast of Alaska.

After studying the JFK event since about 15, when I saw a bootlegged copy of the Zapruder film shown on an early Geraldo Rivera tv show, I have personally come to the conclusion that the evidence surrounding CE 139 indicates that NOBODY, much less LHO could have performed the shooting skills required to accomplish the assassination as presented by the WC to the American people.

WHAT THE EVIDENCE AND TESTIMONY ACTUALLY SHOWED:

The 2 sheriff's deputies who found a rifle on the 6th floor of the TSBD, and a highly decorated deputy who saw it before it was taken from the floor, ALL identified it as a "7.65mm Mauser". Subsequent documents and affidavits filed by these deputies continued to identify it that way (Commission Exhibit Decker 5323).

CIA documents still identified it as a "Mauser", 4 days later. One of the officers, decorated deputy sheriff, Roger Craig, continued to insist that this identification was correct, even after his testimony before the Commission. He maintained that the gun he saw had the word "MAUSER" stamped on the barrel. Craig also told researchers that his WC testimony had been altered in 14 different places by WC counsel David Belin so that it appears bland in the 26 volumes.

Another of the deputies in question, Constable Seymour Weitzman, had also sold rifles while working, for many years in a sporting goods store and therefore, had a vast amount of experience in both handling and identifying them. Police officers are trained to properly observe and notate evidence. In fact, their observations are more readily accepted in a court of law than those of most other witnesses.

The Warren Commission Report attempts to slide past this "problem" with the weapon by saying that the deputies only had a "glance" at the weapon.

The tape recording of a news broadcast of November 22, 1963 on Dallas radio station K-BOX said:

"Sheriff's deputies identify the rifle as a seven point sixty-five Mauser, a German-made Army rifle with a telescopic sight. It had one shell in the chamber. Three spent shells were found nearby." (CE 304)

Additionally, in his book, On the Trail of the Assassins, Jim Garrison claims to have viewed a Dallas TV newsreel from that day which he claims showed a police officer bringing another rifle down the fire escape from the roof. Five separate documents with descriptions of the rifle originally found on the 6th floor were missing from the FBI files on the Presidential assassination when presented to the WC. Those documents were:

1) DPD Lt Carl Day's dictated memorandum on the weapon

2) Day's description to FBI SA Bardwell Odum

3) Odum's subsequent description, which was broadcast over FBI radio

4) Constable Weitzman's original report to the FBI

5) DPD Detective C N Dhority's written report.

The legal "chain of possession" of CE 139 was never properly established. The officers who found a gun should have either marked it for identification purposes immediately, or watched as the detective who removed it did so.

Neither identification procedure took place at the scene. It appears that this was finally done some six hours later, at DPD Headquarters, after the weapon found had passed through countless other hands, and had allegedly laid in the evidence room for several hours. What chain of possession that existed after that, was again broken when the rifle was taken to FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC, by FBI Special Agent Vincent Drain on the night of November 22nd, unaccompanied by any officer of the DPD.

In 1963, even though threatening the President was a federal crime, the assassination of a President was not. It was merely an all too common, local murder. This meant that the FBI had no jurisdiction whatsoever in the case. If the weapon needed to be sent to an FBI lab for analysis, it needed to be accompanied by a Dallas officer to maintain the legal "chain of possession". The reasons behind this continuous improper handling of such vital evidence, in such a high profile case, by highly trained local and federal officers are very suspicious.

This type of handling would have been questionable enough for the weapon to have been excluded from the evidence in any trial of LHO. How fortunate they were that there was no trial. Despite all the controversy over the initial

"misidentification" of the rifle, at no time did the WC show CE 139 to any of the Dallas law enforcement officers who found it and ask them, point blank, if CE 139 was the weapon that they had found. What they showed them were photographs,

not the weapon itself. Not one of those Dallas witnesses could positively state that the weapon in the photos was the weapon that they had found. Even today, you and I still can only see photographs of this infamous weapon at the National Archives. We cannot see nor measure the weapon itself.

The paper bag found on the 6th floor showed no signs of any gunpowder residue nor any gun oil, and contained no verifiable fingerprints (a partial palm print that had some characteristics similar to Oswald's palm print was found. However, there were too few similarities for a legal match), according to the FBI examination conducted of it. The package's size was also too small to have contained CE 139, unless the rifle was broken down. (CE 1304) Next, when broken down, the weapon contained a number of sharp-edged parts, which, logically, should have made some scratches or tears in the paper, had it been in there. Not only were there no scratches or tears, there wasn't a single crease which the FBI could match to any part of CE 139.

Basically, we find that there was no physical evidence that any gun had ever been inside the bag found on the 6th floor and alleged by the WC to have carried CE 139 from Irving, Texas to the TSBD that day. If the rifle was broken down for transport, its accuracy would have suffered further without the ability to be sighted-in after re-assembly.

Military experts stated that a minimum of 10 shots would have been required, adjusting the scope after each, to re-sight any rifle for accurate shooting. Both Buell Frazier and Linnie Randle, the only people to have seen it, testified that the package LHO had in Frazier's car was no more than 26" in length, yet the longest part of CE 139, even when broken down was 34.8". (CE 1303)

Frazier further testified that when Oswald laid the package in the back seat of the car, it took up less than half of the length of the seat. The back seat's total length was 62". Frazier also testified that when they arrived at work, Oswald took the package out of the back seat and, holding one end in the palm of his hand, tucked the other end under his arm. For the package Frazier saw to have contained CE 139, even broken down, would have required Oswald to have an arm length of over 36". Rather amazing for a man of 5' 9". (2 WCH 210-245)

We see, therefore, that there was also absolutely no testimony corroborating the WCR conclusion about how Oswald allegedly got the rifle into the depository, either. How and why then was this conclusion drawn?

While the Warren Commission Report used as evidence an FBI document (Dallas 89-43) which says that the FBI laboratory found the materials used to construct the paper bag entered into evidence to be consistent with materials found at the TSBD and could have been constructed from them, researcher Livingstone in his book High Treason, shows another copy of that same document which says that the materials were not similar.

While there is no way to categorically determine which is the correct copy, there would appear to be no logical reason for the FBI to have revised the report to deny the similarities, then enter the incorrect one into evidence. However, if my belief that they altered evidence is correct, then changing the report from Not similar, to similar fits in quite nicely with that scenario.

FBI tests of CE 139`s accuracy showed that the rifle was:

1) inaccurate from 15 yards (CE 549),

2) carrying a scope that was mounted for a left-handed shooter (CE 2560); [LHO was right-handed], and,

3) unable to be sighted in, using the scope, without the installation of 2 metal shims, which were not present when the rifle arrived for testing, nor notated in any previous description of CE 139. (3 WCH Pg 440-445) Nothing resembling a shim was found at the TSBD, Oswald's room in Oak Cliff, or on his person, when arrested.

During efforts, supervised by the FBI, to duplicate the shooting accuracy allegedly achieved, no FBI, military, or civilian (National Rifle Association) expert was ever able to match the concluded performance, while using CE 139 in the condition it was found, within the time frame established, and under conditions similar to those faced by a shooter crouched in the 6th floor window of the TSBD.

These re-creations took place on November 27, 1963, March 16, 1964, and March 27, 1964. None of these attempts were made under circumstances that came even remotely close to the difficulties and pressures that would have been encountered by a gunman in that 6th floor window and still, they all failed to duplicate the feats attributed to Oswald.

Later efforts, sponsored by the HSCA Firearms Panel, were successful in hitting three stationary targets, within the time frames. However, they used a different rifle, albeit a similar Mannlicher-Carcano and fired using open-sights, instead of the scope, and again, from a different position, angle, and under different circumstances than would have been encountered by LHO, or anyone else,

crouched in the 6th floor window of the TSBD. (3 WCH 390-430)

In addition, the HSCA testimony of Firearms Panel member Monty Lutz shows his opinion of the scope:

Mr. LUTZ: This is a four-power Ordinance Optics telescopic sight with a crosshair reticle.

Mr. MCDONALD: Would you, in your opinion, classify it as an accurate scope?

Mr. LUTZ: The accuracy is fairly undependable, as far as once getting the rifle sighted in, and it is very cheaply made, the scope itself has a crosshair reticle that is subject to movement, or being capable of being dislodged from dropping, from impact, or a very sharp recoil. So, the accuracy would be somewhat questionable for this particular type of a scope. (HSCA Vol 1, pg 449)

Why the HSCA experts did not use the real exhibit is another valid question that has never been answered. Perhaps, it was because the original examination by the FBI in 1963-1964 showed that CE 139 was inaccurate at 15 yards, or someone involved knew the shooting could not be duplicated using that weapon.

Former HSCA Firearms Panel member Lutz, an expert rifleman himself, later confirmed these failures. He stated, in a 1986 mock Oswald trial sponsored by the BBC, that to his knowledge, no one had ever duplicated LHO's alleged shooting feats, using CE 139 in the condition it was found. Also, in this regard, Craig Roberts, a Marine Corps sniper with combat experience in Vietnam, professional law enforcement officer, and world-class rifleman, states in his book Kill Zone, that even using his precise equipment loaded with matched rounds, he could not have equaled the shooting process assumed by the Warren Commission to have taken place.

It is very hard to disregard such statements by an expert who has actually looked out on Elm St from the "sniper's window". Mr. Roberts is not the only expert to feel this way. In fact, efforts to duplicate the shooting expertise were attempted by agencies within the governments of Cuba, Israel, and the USSR. All reached the same conclusion:

The shooting, as outlined by the Warren Commission, was virtually impossible!

The time frames required were established by the FBI after the review and calculation of time between shots shown on the Zapruder film, also taking into consideration the time required to operate CE 139, and the view from the 6th floor. The HSCA findings concluded that only if Oswald had fired using open sights, could he have fired 3 shots accurately within the WCR time frames.

No possible scenario that included any additional gunmen was ever considered, meaning all shots must have come from that rifle and during the designated time frames.

DPD searches of Oswald's room in Oak Cliff, and his family's residence in Irving, failed to unearth any additional ammunition, or any cleaning supplies normally associated with the operation of a rifle. In fact, additional checks by agents of the Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, failed to find any evidence that either LHO, or Alec Hidell, had ever purchased any ammunition for the rifle, either. Yet, an FBI memorandum described the rifle, when presented to them, as being in "...a well-oiled condition...".

Additional ammunition would have been needed to practice, and that same FBI memorandum, signed by Director J.Edgar Hoover himself, noted that an examination of the firing pin showed that "numerous" shots had been fired through CE 139. (CE 2974) Also, the three experts who first test-fired the rifle showed concern that the firing pin might break because it was rusted. (3 WCH 444)

Ammunition isn't purchased one bullet at a time. The minimum would be a box of twenty. It would be inconsistent with the way LHO allegedly purchased the weapon, for him to hide the purchase of the ammunition. And, rusted firing pins are not what one would consider suitable for a rifle being used in such a high profile political assassination...what if it broke on the first shot?

FBI searches of every gun range in the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area failed to come up with even a single shell casing that could be matched to CE 139. In all, literally millions of used casings were reviewed, and 13,000 possible Mannlicher-Carcano casings were recovered and compared. None ballistically matched CE 139.

This lack of physical evidence came despite the testimony of several witnesses who told stories of a man, allegedly LHO, practicing at various ranges with a high-powered rifle, and being very visible doing so...in some cases going out of his way to draw attention to himself. The fact is, that the FBI could find absolutely no physical evidence, which showed that LHO had ever purchased ammunition, or practiced firing CE 139.

Yet again, in spite of this lack of evidence, not only did the WCR conclude that he had, but they also concluded that he became so good at shooting that he could make shots that documented experts could not.

The length of CE 139 and the length of the rifle depicted in the ad allegedly used to order it, from the February, 1963, issue of American Rifleman magazine, are significantly different. The weapon depicted in that ad, a Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5mm Italian Carbine, model # C20-T750, is 36" long, assembled. This is the weapon reportedly shipped, on March 20, 1963 to:

A. Hidell

PO Box 2915

Dallas, Texas

The length of CE 139 is 40.2" assembled and it is model # C20-750. Representatives of Kleins were unable to adequately explain these differences. (CE 773) Also, the FBI records of the length of the rifle they tested show 3 different figures, none of which was 36".

(NOTE: the author owns a Mannlicher-Carcano of the same model as CE 139. Its length is 40.2")

Klein's was also able to state how it was paid for (postal money order), when it was deposited, AND they were able to produce both the envelope it was received in, and the stamp used to mail the order to them!

While the serial number of CE 139---C2766---was the same as that of the weapon shipped by Kleins to A. Hidell, the FBI discovered that, due to the manufacturing techniques used by Italy during World War II, this serial number was not necessarily unique to only one such weapon. In fact, it is possible that as many as 5 different rifles could have had the serial number C2766. The FBI eventually traced another Carcano, serial number C2766, to Canada.

In addition, Scottish researcher, and friend Bill MacDowall, has done significant research in this area, and has traced the rifle mailed by Kleins to A. Hidell, all the way back to its manufacturer. He has found evidence that ALL identifying markings were supposedly removed prior to Kleins purchase of the weapon.

Bill has written an extensive paper on this weapon and has made it available to be posted exclusively on this site. While evidence showed that the rifle from Kleins was shipped to the post office box of LHO, no one knows for sure who actually took possession of it, on its arrival. For Oswald to have received it, the Dallas Post Office would have needed to violate Postal Regulations since it was addressed to "Hidell", and it was Oswald's PO box.

Amazingly, the FBI was able to track this weapon to the retailer (Kleins) even before SA Vince Drain actually took possession of it at 11:30 that first night. This is truly amazing since, as late as 9PM on the night of November 22nd, Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade was still calling it a "Mauser", and other than the serial number, there was nothing to go on to search for its owner.

That serial number was only worthwhile if the FBI knew the manufacturer, and in this case even that would not have been enough, since more than one Mannlicher-Carcano had that serial number. Yet, by 11:00 PM, government agents were already at Kleins to look up the purchase and shipping orders, despite the fact that the retailer would have been next-to-last on the possession time-line.

Few of the eyewitnesses who testified that they saw a gun firing, from the 6th floor window of the TSBD, described anything similar to CE 139. Several felt that the weapon was an automatic rifle because of the speed of the firing, and those few witnesses who testified as to seeing a scope mounted on the rifle they saw, did not see the rifle actually being fired.

There is no notation, anywhere within the twenty-six volumes of evidence that either, the DPD or FBI, ever tested CE 139 to see if it had been fired recently...

they simply assumed that it had been fired that day. This, despite the fact that no one testified to smelling gunpowder, in or around, the "sniper's nest", and with no notations that forensic examinations of the boxes, showed any traces of gunpowder residue.

Documents concerning what was recovered from the 6th floor all state that one live round was in the chamber when the rifle was found. One live round was also turned over to the FBI. The problems with this are generally overlooked.

They are:

1) None of the witnesses who testified as to seeing the shots fired, spoke of seeing the shooter eject a round after the fatal head shot, thus meaning a spent cartridge, not a live round should have been in the chamber.

2) If the shooter did eject the fired round, why would he do it after moving away from the window?

3) And if he did so, why were all 3 casings allegedly recovered together?

If it was LHO who did this, we must factor in the additional delay that ejecting the final spent round, for reasons unknown, would have on his ability to wipe the gun clean of prints, hide it, and still be on the first floor no more than 90 seconds after firing the fatal shot.

Do you have any opinions, input, feedback, or any other comments relating to these issues concerning CE 139 as I have expressed them?

Thanks for your time.

Sincerely,

Chris Dolmar

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Rahn's response: 6/11/01 (11:03am)

Dear Chris,

Thanks for your note. I just returned from two weeks of traveling and found it last night.

I do indeed have much to say about your views, but I don't know when I will get time enough.

Basically, you are emphasizing the apparent negatives and avoiding all the positive physical evidence that shows that the assassination was an easily do-able feat.

I urge you to take more time on the sites maintained by John McAdams and me.

More later, but I don't know quite when.

Best regards,

Ken Rahn

Kenneth A. Rahn

Center for Atmospheric Chemistry Studies

Graduate School of Oceanography

University of Rhode Island

Narragansett, RI 02882-1197, USA

*****************************************************************

My 2nd email to Rahn: 6/28/01 (2:14am)

Hello Mr. Rahn,

No doubt you are a busy man as I am, but I thought I would maintain our correspondance regarding CE 139.

I think, as was outlined in my initial email to you, that the ability of THE WEAPON itself, is in serious question as to whether it (CE 139) could have been remotely mechanically capable of accomplishing the accuracy attributed to it by the SBT & WC, the shooting skills of the alleged assassin, notwithstanding.

The only way the assassination "could have been an easily do-able feat", as you stated to me previously, is if LHO had acted like the Lone gunman that the WC portrays him as, and taken the Best percentage shot he had - which was a straight away, dead-on, head shot at Kennedy as the limousine was traveling down Houston Street - almost straight at him-before it took the dog-leg left turn onto Elm Street.

But, being LHO was, allegedly, using a rifle (CE 139) that the FBI determined was:

1) INACCURATE at 15 yards.

2) Had a scope mounted for a LEFT-handed shooter (LHO was a RIGHT-handed shooter).

3) And, was missing 2 metal shims that further compromised its accuracy.

4) That LHO, the lone gunman, STILL passed up "The Perfect Shot" on Houston Street, for a tree-filtered, going-away, MUCH lower-percentage shot, on Elm Street? Why did LHO pass on the EASY Houston Street shot?

- and let's not debate the difficulty of the Houston & Elm Street shots:

The Houston Street shot would have been, BY FAR, the EASIEST shot for ANY shooter in the, alleged, "sniper's nest" of the TSBD~especially a "lone nut assassin", who (in his mind) would have known that ONLY he would have a chance to kill the president.

Knowing that, as a lone assassin, in your opinion Mr. Rahn, why didn't LHO take the high percentage, easy shot on Houston Street?

Sincerely,

Chris Dolmar

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Rahn's response: 6/28/01 (5:28am)

Chris,

I cannot pretend to get inside Oswald's head. I can only say that the shot on Houston Street has a couple of obvious disadvantages:

The Secret Service agents would be looking right at him.

And, Gov. Connally would have blocked much of Kennedy's body.

I think I also heard something about the metallic "rollbar" blocking something as well, but I can't really remember.

I believe you are overstating the inaccuracy of the rifle.

But, your arguments are made moot by the fact that each of the two bullets recovered was traceable ballistically to that rifle, to the exclusion of all others.

We also know that the bullets were not planted, because fragments from JFK's brain and Connally's wrist matched the larger fragments chemically.

In general, I think that it is an error to start asking "Why?", too soon.

First, we settle what happened, and only then do we worry about why.

Ken Rahn

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My Followup email to Rahn: 8/25/01/ (2:53pm)

Hello Mr. Rahn,

It's been a couple of months since we corresponded.

This is the biggest push of the year, business-wise, for me and thus my infrequent exchanges.

I thought I would continue our correspondance regarding some of the issues you last mentioned.

You said:

" But your arguments are made moot by the fact that each of the two bullets recovered was traceable ballistically to that rifle to the exclusion of all others."

From what I can ascertain, allegedly, no human matter of any kind was found on CE 399 despite the necessary assumption that it had caused numerous wounds, nor was it recovered from either victim's body. It, therefore, could not be scientifically linked to either, Kennedy or Connally.

In fact, in what appears to be an effort to hide this, the WC leads FBI SA Robert Frazier through contradictory testimony about CE 399. (WCH 3, Pgs 228-244)

He finally states, however, that even under microscopic examination, no blood nor human tissue was found.

No striation marks (tiny scratches) were found by the FBI on the bulbous, undamaged nose of CE 399, despite allegedly going through JFK's jacket, shirt, possibly nicking his tie, JBC's jacket, shirt, shirt, jacket, jacket, shirt, shirt, jacket and pants. Striation marks, around the nose, are common even when bullets are fired only into cotton for ballistic comparison purposes. Because of this, CE 399 cannot scientifically be determined to have gone through either man's clothes, much less both.

No traces of copper were found on JFK's tie. This is very inconsistent with the copper traces found in the other clothes and/or wounds of both men. CE 399 is copper jacketed. If traces of copper were found on JFK's suit (entrance), and in JBC's wounds (entrance and exit), logic would dictate that there should be traces on the tie (JFK exit), IF they were caused by the same bullet or even the same type of bullet.

In addition:

The testimony of every one of the autopsy doctors and the physician who treated Connally at Parkland, stated that none of them could believe that CE 399 could have caused all the wounds because of its "pristine" condition and because too much metal was removed or remained in the victims.

Their testimony on this point was unequivocal.

(2 WCH 374-375, 382; 4 WCH 109, 113-114)

Dr. Shaw's testimony about the wound in JBC's thigh (4 WCH 109-135) is extremely important yet, almost always overlooked. For the SBT theory to hold up, the wound to Connally must have been made by the complete bullet (CE 399) which later "fell out". The wound must therefore show these characteristics.

Shaw's testimony, while ambiguous on this point, appears to describe the wound as being made by a fragment, not a complete bullet. CE 399 is not a fragment, and the largest fragment that could have come from it would have been no more than 3 grains, hardly large enough to cause a treatable wound.

Additionally, Dr. Shaw has told researcher Livingstone that the thigh wound was indeed caused by a fragment, larger than 5 grains. The Parkland Hospital report on Connally (CE 392), appears to corroborate this point, and Dr. Shaw again identified the thigh wound as being made by a fragment in the NOVA documentary, "Who Killed President Kennedy?". This seriously undermines the theory that CE 399 fell out of JBC's leg while he was on the stretcher, and that CE 399 caused all his wounds.

In addition, fragments too large to have come from CE 399 show up in X-rays of Connally. Parkland nurse, Audrey Bell, described these fragments as, "Anywhere from 3-4 millimeters in length by a couple of millimeters wide." (Dallas Morning News interview, 4/1/77)

Finally, Dr Charles Gregory, who worked on Connally, testified (6 WCH 122-123) that he saw multiple fragments that were large enough for him to determine their color.

Darrel Tomlinson, the Parkland hospital employee who recovered the bullet from a stretcher in the hall of the emergency room, required much cross-examination by Commission counsel Arlen Specter before he would say that it was even possible that the stretcher in question was the one that carried John Connally. His initial, and vigorously maintained testimony was that the bullet he found came from a stretcher that had not been used by either, Connally or Kennedy (6 WCH 130-134).

He has stood by that contention ever since. (NOVA, November 15, 198?)

Neither Tomlinson, O.P. Wright, Secret Service Agent Richard Johnsen, nor Secret Service Chief J.J. Rowley, the first 4 people to handle the bullet found on the stretcher, could later identify CE 399 as that bullet, leaving open the possibility that another bullet was originally found and CE 399, a ballistic match to CE 139, substituted to implicate LHO. This would have been possible, since many hours passed before the proper chain of possession was established. (CE 2011)

But you fail to backup your statement, "We also know that the bullets were not planted, because fragments from JFK's brain and Connally's wrist matched the larger fragments chemically.", with any available supporting source references concerning this issue.

"CE 567 and CE 569---Two bullet fragments, one from the front of a bullet, the other from the rear of a bullet. They were supposedly found, on the night of November 22-23, 1963, inside the President's limousine while it was being searched at the White House Garage.

Secret Service agents, allegedly, found both of these fragments on the floor, near the front seat. Each fragment was ballistically linked to CE 139, the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle.---"

However, I find NO source references concerning this evidence anywhere that they could be linked, in any fashion, to any of the other fragments removed from either victim, nor could they be scientifically linked to either victim.

Please list official source references for me to review concerning this issue. So, as can be seen, there is NO SUPPORTING TESTIMONY, and NO PHYSICAL EVIDENCE, to support the KEY WCR conclusion that:

"All the evidence indicated that the bullet found on the Governor's stretcher could have caused all the wounds."

I have spent some time browsing your website, Dr. Rahn, and I couldn't help but notice that at the bottom of your 1st page, you state:

"My JFK course at the University of Rhode Island takes this academic approach. Each year it enlightens a significant fraction of the students who take it, often with striking results. That is also the goal of this web site-enlightenment though proper academic procedures. I welcome any and all reactions from readers, and will post them for all to see."

When I went to view your "Reactions from Readers" link, I was disappointed to see the most recent exchange of messages was posted from Aug 30, 2000-almost a year ago-and thought I would suggest you update your link to that page, perhaps starting with our exchange.

I think visitors, to that particular link on your site, would enjoy seeing that debates over differences of opinions (and, on reaching critical-thinking conclusions) on issues surrounding this case can be discussed in a courteous and respectful manner even between a renowned university professor and a simple Alaskan wilderness guide, and judge for themselves which one of us is displaying true

critical thinking over the issues being debated.

Thank you for taking time to debate these issues with me.

Sincerely,

Chris Dolmar

************************************************************

Rahn's last reply: 8/25/01 (8:00pm)

Chris,

Please understand that I didn't let, "Replies from Readers" go because I wanted to. It was a casualty of general workload, including preparing the big monograph on NAA, which was a huge undertaking but very important to the JFK case.

Also, the kinds of messages you write, with many questions and weak premises, take hours to answer properly. I seldom have that amount of time to spare these days.

Lastly, if you are implying that I am not thinking critically in my class and my writings, I am out of this discussion immediately. I will discuss things, but I will not be put under the gun.

Ken Rahn

************************************************************

And my most recent reply to Rahn: 8/28/01 (5:03am)

Good Morning Mr. Rahn,

I just finished reading your reply to my last email to you.

I did not mean to put you on the defensive, and had thought that according to your WORLD WIDE WEBSITE that you defined your course analysis of the JFK as an objective one.

Oh yes, Dr. Rahn, I have spent a considerable amount of my leisure time examining your site, and have thus directed my own VERY OBJECTIVE queries to you regarding THE EVIDENCE in a courteous, albeit, professional manner, as you might review throughout our correspondances.

Your last response does you no justice as far as confronting the issues I brought forth backed up with solid, supporting WC, and/or HSCA testimony and evidence.

"weak premises"????? Are you accusing me of providing false source references to you concerning the issues we have been debating? Please elaborate and don't try to tell me it would take hours, as I drafted my email to you in less than one hour, referencing everything with which you've confronted me concerning the issues I've brought forth to you with WC, and/or HSCA recorded testimony/

evidence.

In most of my emails I have not asked questions, simply provided the FACTS. If I asked you for source references regarding your unsupported replying

statements to me - you should have been able to reference them, and cut & paste them into your reply e-mails to me in a matter of minutes.

After all, you're an acknowledged expert on the case and happen to have the ENORMOUS RESPONSIBILITY of providing AN OBJECTIVE presentation of the assassination events to numerous generations of our impressionable youth, some of whom may one day become leaders in various fields in our country.

I waded through your very dated, "Reactions From Readers", page and enjoyed it very much. But, am I willing to bet (and, to be honest with you, I'm not a wagering man) that OUR CORRESPONDANCES will never see the light of day on any "Reactions From Readers" page on your website because you CANNOT (and SO FAR REFUSE) to refute ANY of the issues I have confronted you with in an OBJECTIVE way that would do justice to your website statement:

"I can state with surety, and will demonstrate in the coming months, that anyone in command of the core physical data, and the principles of critical thinking, can circumscribe the right answer to the assassination in a matter of minutes."

BUT YOU TOLD ME it would take HOURS to answer my questions???? I didn't really pose many questions to you, JUST FACTS, that you for one reason or another, REFUSE to refute. WHY?

For example, (from our last correspondance):

"But you fail to backup your statement: 'We also know that the bullets were not planted, because fragments from JFK's brain and Connally's wrist matched the larger fragments, chemically.', with any available supporting source references concerning this issue."

Is this an issue you can't support with any verifiable source references? C'mon DR. Rahn, you're an educator of this case - BACK IT UP, OR DON'T TELL ME my "premises" are "weak".

When you take on the responsiblity of educating college students (WHO ARE PAYING YOU TO BE OBJECTIVE) then at least assume that responsibility,

OBJECTIVELY, as you CLAIM you are.

Your defensive attitude reeks of an official who thinks his "credentials" automatically enable him to preach his "gospels" in a manner that is unquestionable.

Please, OBJECTIVELY, respond to my very ACCURATE source references concerning the FEW issues we have debated, in a professional manner, so that I may ponder ALL my "weak premises".

Thank you for taking time to consider my statements.

Sincerely,

Chris Dolmar

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I apologize for the extreme length of this post but I thought it worth sharing to reveal how some of our, "celebrated", university professors, who are entrusted with educating our youth, show their true colors when confronted by individuals who happen to be able to debate them on their own terms.

In Dr. Rahn's case, I expect the only reply I will ever hear from him, after my last correspondance to him, will be the deafening sound of silence. And, I should hope his silence speaks volumes to you all, and especially to any youths who might happen to take the time to read through this post.

Blessings to All,

Chris

************************************************************

From: Chris Dolmar

To: Kenneth A. Rahn 8/28/01 (5:35am)

Dear Dr. Rahn,

I thought I would add a list of "objective" source references concerning various issues of this case for you to review. Although, they are manied and varied, as an objective historian of the case, they merit review.

Sources and Notes:

Oswald: Michael Benson, "Who's Who in the JFK Assassination" (New York: Citadel Press, 1993), pp. 124, 329-352; John M. Newman, "Oswald and the

CIA" (Carroll & Graf, 1995) Paul Brancato, "Coup D'etat" illustrated card set (Forestville, California: Eclipse Enterprises, 1989), pp. 1, 7, 10.

Although we often assume that most of the American public initially accepted the lonegunman scenario, some of the following source references show that this was not necessarily the case.

Public doubt: Paul B. Sheatsley and Jacob J. Feldman, "The Kennedy Assassination and the American Public", National Opinion Research Center, [stanford University Press, 1965] (a large majority expressing doubt over Oswald's guilt).

For sources of public opinion for the period Nov. 1963 through Feb. 1977, see: "Studies of Public Reactions," items 1673-1714, DeLloyd J. Guth and David R. Wrone, "The Assassination of John F. Kennedy:

A Comprehensive Historical and Legal Bibliography, 1963-1979"

[Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 198 pp. 174-177; hereafter cited as Guth and Wrone 174-177.

It's also interesting to note that on Sunday, Nov. 24, 1963, soon after Oswald had been shot, Gordon McClendon, owner of Dallas radio station KLIF, reported the following from Cleveland's Municipal Stadium, where 40,000 spectators were attending the Dallas Cowboys-Cleveland Browns football game:

"People seem to think that the Dallas Police Department really had the wrong man, or that Oswald was being held for want of a better suspect...No one here that we've talked to -- taxi drivers, hotel employees, the various people we've had an opportunity to be around since we arrived here yesterday afternoon -- no one really thought that Oswald was the guilty party." ("The Fateful Hours:

a Presentation of KLIF News in Dallas," Capitol Records, 1964; reissued on audiotape by KLIF, 1993.)

For sources of public opinion just before and after the release of the Oliver Stone film; "JFK", see: Kenneth Auchincloss, "Twisted History," Newsweek Dec. 23, 1991, p. 46, and Ted Gest and Joseph Shapiro,

"JFK: The Untold Story of the Warren Commission,"

U.S. News & World Report Aug. 17, 1992, p. 29.

No "credible" evidence: Warren Commission Report (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964) p. 374; hereafter cited as R 374.

Official doubt: Chairman Warren: William M. Blair, "Warren Commission Will Ask Mrs. Oswald to Identify Rifle Used in the Kennedy Assassination," New York Times Feb. 5, 1964, p. 19; Richard Bartholomew discussion with Clint Richmond, Mar. 5, 1997; Commissioners Russell, Cooper and Boggs: Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with respect to Intelligence Activities, The Investigation

of the Assassination of President Kennedy:

Performance of the Intelligence Agencies [senate Report 94-755, 94th Cong., 2nd sess., 1976, Final Report, Book V] p. 80; cited in Bernard Fensterwald, "Coincidence or Conspiracy" (New York: Zebra Books, 1977) pp.74-75 (hereafter cited as Fensterwald 74-75);

Edward Jay Epstein, "Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth" (New York: Viking, Jun. 1966) pp. 149-50, (Bantam, Oct. 1966) p. 122;

see also Fensterwald 86, 91, 96, 99; Commissioner McCloy: Hearings Before the House Select Committee on Assassinations, vol. XI (Washington D.C.: U.S.

Government Printing Office, 1979) note 11 at p. 14; hereafter cited as 11 HH 14 n.11; see also Fensterwald 86; Griffin statements: Charles J. Sanders and Mark S. Zaid, "The Declassification of Dealey Plaza: After Thirty Years, A New Disclosure Law At Last May Help To Clarify the Facts of the Kennedy Assassination," South Texas Law Review, Vol. 34:407, Oct. 1993; later published in "The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992" (ARCA), The Fourth Decade, Special Edition, 1994, pp. 411-12 n.8; hereafter cited as Sanders and Zaid 411-12 n.8; President Johnson: Walter Cronkite interview, CBS News, broadcast on Apr. 25, 1975 (President Johnson's doubt); see also Fensterwald 76, 124; FBI policy: Warren Commission Hearings and Evidence (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964, v. V) p. 99 ; cited hereafter as 5H 99 (Hoover's policy); see also Sanders and Zaid, p. 412 n.11.

Evidence problems: Robert Sam Anson, "They've Killed the President!" (New York: Bantam, 1975) p. 356; hereafter cited as Anson 356; Peter Dale Scott, "Deep Politics and the Death of JFK" (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1993) pp. 58, 60-61, 69; hereafter cited as Scott 58, 60-61, 69; Walter F. Graf and Richard R. Bartholomew, "The Gun that Didn't Smoke" (Fair Play Magazine, Issue 19, November-December 1997); Karen Gullo, "No JFK Shirt Material on Bullets," Associated Press, January 21, 2000, (AP-NY-01-21-00 1120EST, www.wire.ap.org/);

<http://www.wire.ap.org/);> Joe Backes, "Backes responds to NARA's blundered test report, and Gullo's AP piece" (self published critique, January 21, 2000, 19:32:42 EST); Charles E. O'Hara, "Fundamentals of Criminal Investigation" (Springfield, Ill.: Thomas Books, 1956, 1970, 2nd ed., 2nd printing) pp. 5-6, 30, 67, 69, 80, 197, 199, 438, 450, 493, 562, 575, 681, 684-85, 687; hereafter cited as O'Hara with page number(s). As if speaking to the crime-scene investigators of the JFK assassination, O'Hara wrote the following in a brief preface to his second edition: "On review, however, it would appear that insufficient attention had been given to the role of the investigator in establishing the innocence of persons falsely accused. It was thought that this aspect of investigation was too obvious to stress; that the continued insistence on objectivity and professionalism in the investigator's conduct should meet this requirement. After all, the process of establishing innocence is hardly separable from the task of detecting the guilty. One does not, that is to say, prove guilt by the method of exhaustion." (O'Hara vii)

See also: Walt Brown, Ph.D.,"The People v. Lee Harvey Oswald" (Carroll & Graff, 1994).

Two Oswalds: John Armstrong, "Harvey and Lee," A lecture by John Armstrong, including text and documents; Introduction by Jim Hargrove (Self published, 199 100 pgs.; Deb Riechmann, "Tape: Call on JFK wasn't Oswald," Associated Press, Nov. 21, 1999, 1246EST;

Joe Nick Patoski, "The Two Oswalds," Texas Monthly magazine, November 1998, pp. 135, 160.

Conflicting single bullet theories: Warren Commission: Sanders and Zaid 410-12 n.8; House Committee: Guth and Wrone xxvii-xxx; American Bar Association: Gerald Posner, "Case Closed" (New York: Random House, 1993) p. 317, 326,-35, 474, 477, 478-79; hereafter cited as Posner with page number(s) (Posner's theory is taken from the American Bar Association Mock Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald prosecution single bullet theory. It was presented uncritically and without credit to the A.B.A. by Posner. The entire, unabridged transcript of the 1992 American Bar Association's two-day mock trial presentation: "The United States v. Lee Harvey Oswald" can be found in American Jurisprudence "Trials" Volume 56, published by Lawyers Cooperative Publishing).

JFK and Vietnam: L. Fletcher Prouty, "JFK: The CIA, Vietnam and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy" (New York: Birch Lane Press, 1992);

John M. Newman, "JFK and Vietnam: Deception, Intrigue and the Struggle for Power" (New York, NY, 1992) CIA - Oil industry & Wall Street connections: Darwin Payne, "Initiative in Energy: Dresser Industries, Inc. 1880-1978" (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979), Appendix C; Donald Gibson, "Battling Wall Street: The Kennedy Presidency" (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1994)

The Assassination and Academic History: Michael L. Kurtz (is a Professor of History at Southeastern Louisiana University and has taught a course on the assassination for several decades), "Crime of the Century: The Kennedy

Assassination from a Historian's Perspective"(University of Tennessee Press, 1993, 2nd ed); Kenneth A. Rahn, "The Academic JFK Assassination Website": karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/JFK.html <http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/JFK.html>

which supports the University of Rhode Island's Political Science course: "The JFK Assassination."

The Assassination in the Media: Dr. George Michael Evica produces a weekly half-hour radio program on the assassination and related matters, "Assassination Journal," which is broadcast by the University of Hartford's radio station WWUH. It is the Longest-Running Public Affairs Program in the United States. Live webcasts are broadcast every Tuesday from 12noon-12:30pm EST & repeated(sameday)from 8:30-9:00pm EST at:

uhaweb.hartford.edu/WWUH/ <http://uhaweb.hartford.edu/WWUH/>

The program focuses mainly on the JFK assassination, but has covered coups, murders, and mysteries such as TWA 800, the Gulf War Syndrome, and the failed war on drugs. Dr. Evica is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Hartford, Connecticut. He has been interested in the JFK assassination from its inception. He is the author of one book, "And We Are All Mortal: New Evidence And Analysis In The Assassination Of John F. Kennedy," published in 1978 by the University of Hartford. For several years he was Editor of "Assassination Chronicles", published by JFK Lancer, Inc., in Dallas, Texas. During the last decade, he has published several articles and has lectured at many JFK conferences.

Len Osanic, "Black Ops Radio", webcast live: Thurdays, 6pm PST / 9pm EST

Call in... 1 604 525- 4167, see: www.astridmm.com/radio/blackmain.htm

<http://www.astridmm.com/radio/blackmain.htm>

Misc. Assassination-related topic sources: David G. Armstrong, "Where Was George?," Austin Chronicle, February 28, 1992, pp. 20-22; Richard Bartholomew, "Possible Discovery of an Automobile Used in the JFK Conspiracy" (self-published manuscript, 1993, p. 63; Fair Play Magazine, Issue 17, July-August 1997).

Malcolm Wallace Fingerprint: John Kelin, "JFK Breakthrough?", (Fair Play Magazine, Issue 23, July-August 1999 ; "A. Nathan Darby's Affidavit" (Fair Play Magazine, Issue 24, September-October, 1999; Barr McClellan, "Mac Wallace Update: Statement Regarding Print Evidence" (Fair Play Magazine, Issue 28, May-June 1999).

And finally, a couple of notes to conclude with:

Let's consider that a bullet fired from the 6th floor window of TSBD entered the back of JFK's head and killed him. The building in question was horizontally located to the President's rear, while the 6th floor of that building was vertically considerably above the President's head. Therefore, any such bullet must have entered the President's head from above and behind. That much is indisputable. No photographs of the President's injuries were published at the time, but the Warren Commission Report (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964) did provide drawings (which can also be found in James H. Fetzer's, Ph.D.

[editor] "Assassination Science: Experts Speak Out on the Death of JFK", p 38, Catfeet Press, 199.

Since these illustrations are published in the Warren Report, we must assume they are official and accurate portrayals of the President's injuries. The drawings of the head wound do therefore, appear to show a trajectory from above and behind, as the official account requires.

In what I consider to be a solid study of the most basic evidence in this case by Stewart Galanor for his work "Cover-Up" (Kestrel Books, 199, he has juxtaposed the official WC drawing with frame 312 of the Zapruder film, which the WC itself regarded as the instant before the fatal head shot incident to frame 313, with the following result: when the images of the WC head wound drawing and Zapruder frame 312 are super-imposed over each other and the President's head is properly positioned, the WC's own drawing displays an upward rather than downward trajectory. If the official WC drawing of the injury to the head is correct, then the conjecture that the President's head wound was sustained from a hit from above and behind cannot be true. The Zapruder film itself confirms this.

Let's also consider that the bullets that hit JFK & JBC were fired by LHO using a high-powered rifle, which the WC also identified as a 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano.

The President's death certificates, The Warren Report, articles published in the Journal of the AMA, as well as other sources state that the President was killed by wounds inflicted by high velocity missiles. (Some of these articles are reprinted in Fetzer's, "Assassination Science")

The Mannlicher-Carcano is the only weapon that LHO is alleged to have used to kill the President, but the Mannlicher-Carcano is not a high-velocity weapon:

its muzzle velocity of approximately 2000 fps indicates that it qualifies as a medium to low velocity weapon. This issue is especially noteworthy, because the extensive and severe damage sustained by JFK's skull and brain, could not possibly have been inflicted by a weapon of this kind.

The ammunition that LHO is alleged to have used was standard full-metal jacketed military ammunition, one round which is supposed to have been found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital, a photograph of which appears as CE 399. This kind of ammunition conforms to Geneva Convention standards for humane conduct of warfare and is not intended to maim but pass through the body leaving a fairly clean, small wound, as far as bullet wounds go. In other words, this type of ammo does not explode on impact. If you examine the lateral cranial X-ray of the President's head, it reveals an obvious and definitive pepper-like display pattern of metallic debris which classically exhibits the effects of the impact of an exploding bullet, which could not have been caused by ammunition of the kind LHO was alleged to have used.

The axis of the debris in the above mentioned X-ray also appears to be consistent with a shot entering the area of the right temple rather than the back of the head. Studies of this issue are found in Joseph N. Riley's, Ph.D. "The Head Wounds of John F. Kennedy: One Bullet Cannot Account for the Injuries", The Third Decade (March 1993) pp 1-15, in David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D. research on the X-rays published in James Fetzer's "Assassination Science"(199, in his comments on the recent deposition of James J. Humes, M.D., for the ARRB (Appendix G), and in his present study of the medical evidence. The major fatal trauma the President endured had to have been inflicted by one or more high velocity weapons.

Any comments?

Sincerely,

Chris Dolmar

******************************************

I know Chris to be a diligent and extensively detail-oriented researcher.

If I've overstepped any bounds in posting this debate, I apologize to Chris Dolmar and Len Osanic. But, if the case is so strong for no conspiracy, then why is Dr. Rahn's response so weak?

Thank you for you time and consideration in allowing me to post this debate.

Sincerely yours,

Theresa C. Mauro

Scientists tell us that humans and chimps are 99 percent genetically identical. I'm not sure that is true. Judging by these controlled political systems we're talking about, I'm more and more convinced that humans are more closely related to sheep than to chimps. I don't think chimps would stand for this stuff.

Ron

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I'm more and more convinced that humans are more closely related to sheep than to chimps. I don't think chimps would stand for this stuff

That's why many in the research community refer to them as "Sheeple", Ron.

But, I think "Lemming" is more appropriate. You know, those little artic rodents that will follow blindly en masse, off a cliff into the frozen waters.

Here's the description from my Funk and Wagnall's Encyclopedia Dictionary circa 1958. Yes, that's right folks. I also don't believe in further atrophying my mind by using "Spell-Check".

lemming (lem'ing) n. Any of several small arctic rodents, having a short tail and furry feet; esp., a European species, noted for recurrent mass migrations often terminated by drowning in the ocean. [< Norw.]

Terry wrote:

How low can you go folks, while you lamely accept the $2.77 a gallon rip-off to fill your gas-guzzling SUV's and Hummers?

According to the April 1, 2005 New York Times, there is indeed a link between the car a person drives and his or her voting patterns.  Can't create a link now, will try later.

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According to the April 1, 2005 New York Times, there is indeed a link between the car a person drives and his or her voting patterns. Can't create a link now, will try later.

I presently drive a 1994 Ford XLT Ranger p/u truck, 5-speed manual transmission, 4 cylinder engine, that gets 27 - 30 miles to the gallon, depending on whether on the street, or on the freeway. It's been quite dependable, expecially from its utilitarian aspect. And, being that I live within walking distance of my job, I only have to fill it every one or two months.

Now, if I did have to make a long commute to a job like I've had to in the past, I would still invest in a 4 cylinder economy line p/u , manual transmission, due to its versatility, although I'd be more interested in a hybrid engine if available in that specific model.

I would never drive an automatic, especially in a 4 cylinder, due to the lack of power and loss of maneuverability inherent in an automatic transmission as it ages. I want to feel as if I'm driving the vehicle, and not as if the vehicle is driving me. I've been able to keep my vehicles up to 13 years by maintaining them with 3000 mile oil changes, and sometimes more frequently depending on

the time span as opposed to mileage, simply because oil gets old, like anything else. Always maintain your electrical, radiator, tire wear, and abide by the required tune-ups necessary for all-over proper functioning, as well.

I guess that puts me in the poor slob category of voter, as opposed to the young, upwardly mobile and affluent, presently purchasing their high-end SUV's.

You know, it's kind of ironic if you think about it. These soccer moms and off-road

enthusiasts insist on driving these most treacherous of vehicles which are known for their propensity to flip over so easily, and the high auto insurance rates that accompany these vehicles are mainly due to the frequency of broken axles that occur when the off-roaders think they can climb small mountains with these 4-wheel drives that weren't meant to perform like earth moving equipment or John Deere caterpillar tractors. Just my HO, though.

After the war the MIC/CIA put a great deal of effort into Operation Mockingbird. After all, if you could control the media, you could control the political opinions of the electorate.

In recent years, especially since the development of the internet, this has become much more difficult. This forum is evidence of this.

MIC/CIA had to change its tactics. It became less important to keep control over the media. Instead, it concentrated on controlling the political parties. After all, it does not matter what people think if you can control the people who you vote for. The same is true in the UK. The majority of people are opposed to the Iraq War, our unfair tax system, privatisation, the size of our armaments budget, etc. However, our two parties, who dominate our political life, support these policies and therefore people have become apathetic about politics. The same seems to have happened in the US. If a third party in the US or the UK threatened this duopoly, you get bet the dirty tricks department of the intelligence services would be kept very busy.

What is the situation in Australia? Do you suffer from a corrupt duopoly?

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a corrupt duopoly

Now that's what I call an EXCELLENT choice of words to describe the hypocrisy

masquerading as a democracy in the U.S. today, John.

If history be our guide, what is happening now in America was played out earlier in the 20th century in Germany

But the Nazis had nothing to do with the Reichstag Fire. Any Germans who believed that were wacko unpatriotic conspiracy theorists.

Ron

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Hey Ron,

Isn't that what they call us, "wacko, unpatriotic, conspiracy theorists"?

Mark and Ron, you are both substantially correct.  If history be our guide, what is happening now in America was played out earlier in the 20th century in Germany, as the Nazi party was voted in by people who were more concerned with the "me" factors than they were with the direction the counrty was taking.  By the time the German people woke up, World War II was upon them and their only course at that point was REactive, rather than PROactive.  Right now in America, we have a government in power that is bent on taking away rights from its citizens, all the while telling them how they are getting government regulation off the backs of the people.  Compounding this, they are raiding the treasury while talking about how they are securing the future for the upcoming generations of Americans.  If there is a plainer example of Orwellian "doublespeak," I've yet to see it.

And it's not just one party; BOTH entrenched political parties are involved in their surreptitious game of speaking for the rights of the indivual while simultaneously taking them away.  The Nixon administration was stopped in their tracks because of an effective press and an effective anti-establishment movement, which had been building since--approximately--the JFK assassination.  Today, any potential countermovement is checkmated by government infiltration almost from inception, and the infiltration of the working press has all but neutered their corrective influences on government, subverting the vision of the Founding Fathers. 

And I just want to warn you that it's getting worse.

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And it's not just one party; BOTH entrenched political parties are involved in their surreptitious game of speaking for the rights of the indivual while simultaneously taking them away. 

Actually, it's more like one party - two branches, nowadays, speaking for the rights of individuals, while simultaneously taking them away.

I believe that in the long run people in a democracy get the government they deserve. If America is headed toward fascism, I don't blame the fascists leading us there but the people who, far from refusing to go along, keep voting for them.

and keeping up with the latest celebrity trial and who’s voted off of Survivor, to give a damn about where the country is going, as long as the economy doesn't go down to the toilet.

That's where you'll find the people who keep voting for them, in front of their new plasma screens, or hiding their heads in the sand via the latest cable network coming down the pike to enable their denial even further. But, isn't it also a little disconcerting to watch their Pavlovian knee-jerk responses to vain banalities such as those "reality" shows they're so eager to swallow, or that dumb soap opera soft-porn tripe, designed for the chronically brain-dead, along with the white-trash tell-all, see-all our dirty laundry being aired, world-wide for everyone to observe how truly stupid the majority of American people, who buy into this line of crap, really are? How low can you go folks, while you lamely accept the $2.77 a gallon rip-off to fill your gas-guzzling SUV's and Hummers? And, of course you'll vote for your Gestapo hero in the polls next election, won't you? They don't even care... they're all so clueless, it's frightening.

I am having trouble corrolating that image:

Does this photo below look like the position where i have marked the (X) I am only going by the path, and the fact that there is a tree overhanging to the left of the image. ? (Robin Unger)

Hi Robin,

I agree with Mike, that you have the position pretty well pegged.

James

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James/Mike

Thanks for that.

This is an image that lee sent me.

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Robin,

I would be more apt to pick the blue square as the position Tosh most recently described to us. Thank Lee for that one for me.

Ter

If you can post the picture that would be awsome, Has any researchers tried to contact John Liggets ex wife or other relatives for further research on this ?, or was there story pretty much told and nothing more to tell? (Ryan Crowe)

Hi Ryan,

Here's a Liggett comparison. There is obviously many years between the images but I do believe it's the same man.

BTW, my email is not working so I have been unable to contact you. Hopefully I'll get the gremlins out soon.

James

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James, Shanet, and Roger,

Are there any photos of Jay Peck?

I've never thought about this aspect of the case, but it sure could lead to some

viable connections as to whom was instrumental in supervising the "first string line of defense" emanating from the Dallas sector of the cover-up. And, being that

"doubles" or "twins" seem to be attributes considered "desirable" to covert ops, it sure would be interesting to see how deep Peck's role in Texas politics went with respect to his cousin Lyndon's career.

Thanks,

Ter

It appears to be a little further north of the overpass and closer to Houston than he described his location back when we had that discussion involving the overview or "birdseye" view of Dealey Plaza, some months ago. But, I could be wrong as

Dealey Plaza appeared to be much smaller in size when I first saw it from the Stemmons Freeway in 1979. Therefore, my perspective of the distance between Houston and the Stemmons Freeway could be just as out of whack, in determining the placement of landmarks, and such. You'd have to have really "walked the job" , so to speak, in order to get your bearings straight on this one.

Where's Jack White or Bill Miller with respect to this?

I really don't think this is the work of the scholarly John McAdams.  Do you have any proof, Terry?

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Here's the retraction:

Of course, no one knows what this means. That's because Mr. Paul Gibson aka Mr. Paul Nolan, aka Mr. John MacMadman, aka Mr. Paul MacNolan's specific purpose here, is the spread of nonsensical disinfo, supposedly disguised as misinfo, with the intention of breaking threads, and sidetracking any legitimate work being done on forums dedicated to the study of the assassination.

Terry, so your simple answer to my question is "No" you have no evidence that Professor McAdams posted this.

This "Gibson"post is nonsense drivel. You may be enitled to your opinion, but it is another thing to publish what may very be a defamatory statement, attributing the drivel to a well-respected University professor, without ANY proof.

Nor do I think you should impugn his academic credentials merely because you disagree with his opinions. I have read some of his materials and his writing is articulate, but wrong.

Although Professor McAdams is wrong about his conclusions, is he not entitled to his opinions, just as you are?

And does not fairness require that you not accuse him of making a poorly written statement and publish it under a false name, unless you have evidence to support such a charge?

As you know, I disagreed with many of President Kennedy's policies but there are many things for which I did respect him. I think President Kennedy was a fair man who sought justice and I do not believe he would condone posting false charges about someone on a forum dedicated to bringing his killers to justice.

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Terry, so your simple answer to my question is "No" you have no evidence that Professor McAdams posted this.

I stated that I was under no obligation to reveal my source of information.

Unless you're intending to make a federal case out of it?

This "Gibson"post is nonsense drivel. You may be enitled to your opinion, but it is another thing to publish what may very be a defamatory statement, attributing the drivel to a well-respected University professor, without ANY proof.

And, since I refuse to hand over the "proof", I guess I'll just have to retract my

statements about your "well-respected University professor". But, once I get the

actual docs in my hands, I'll make sure you're the very first person I let know.

Nor do I think you should impugn his academic credentials merely because you disagree with his opinions. I have read some of his materials and his writing is articulate, but wrong.

Since when is that against the law? He may be articulate? I should hope so.

Although Professor McAdams is wrong about his conclusions, is he not entitled to his opinions, just as you are?

Of course he's entitled to his opinions, but his unbridled influence over the minds of

potential future leaders of the United States with regard to presenting one-sided information on an important homicide case such as this, needs to be addressed.

And does not fairness require that you not accuse him of making a poorly written statement and publish it under a false name, unless you have evidence to support such a charge?

In due time. But as I just stated, I will delete the references to him as it seems to have you in such a snit.