Ron Ecker

John, It looks like our posts crossed in transit. I'll have to check out your links. Ron

Tim, I don't recall enough about Easterling's story to say more about it at present, except that it was certainly not true in its entirety. One thing that lends credence to Morrow's story is that he said he bought and delivered 7.35mm MCs, not 6.5mm like Oswald's. I found the explanation for this (Morrow never explains it) in Twyman's Bloody Treason (p. 618): the manufacturer had rebarreled the 7.35mm model with a 6.5mm barrel because there was a plentiful supply of 6.5mm ammunition. But how many people would know this? It would seem that if Morrow were to make up a story about buying MCs for the assassination, he would have simply said they were 6.5mm, everyone knowing that Oswald's rifle was 6.5mm. Ron

Robert Morrow claimed he bought and delivered to David Ferrie 3 Mannlicher-Carcano rifles for the assassination (not knowing that's what they were for till after the fact, at which time Tracy Barnes told him not to worry, he was "clean as a whistle"); Morrow also claimed he delivered radios for the job to Eladio del Valle. (First Hand Knowledge) Robert Easterling, a diagnosed psychotic, confessed to involvement in the assassination, with a story containing verified elements as well absurdities (chapter 12 of Henry Hurt's Reasonable Doubt).

Richard, At Parkland there was one non-medical witness, Chief Curry, to the rear head wound. On page 32 of his book Retired Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry Reveals His Personal JFK Assassination File (of which I just acquired a copy), he describes how Jackie was holding JFK's head in her lap and bending over him in the limo. "Agent Hill finally convinced her to let go of the President. Apparently she didn't want anyone to see that the back of the President's head was partially blown off." Ron

American Free Press BLACK BOX COVER-UP Rescue workers silenced after exposing 9-11 whitewash By Greg Szymanski A 9-11 rescue worker recently came forward to say he was told by FBI agents to “keep my mouth shut” about one of the “black boxes” a fellow firefighter helped locate at ground zero, contradicting the official story that none of the flight and cockpit data recorders were ever recovered in the wreckage of the World Trade Center (WTC) towers. Honorary firefighter Mike Bellone claims he was approached by unknown bureau agents a short time after he and his partner, Nicholas DeMasi, a retired New York firefighter, found three of the four “black boxes” among the WTC rubble before January 2002. The pair first claimed in an August 2003 book entitled Behind the Scene: Ground Zero to have found the data recorders. DeMasi said the “black boxes” were found while he traversed “ground zero” in his all-terrain vehicle (ATV) with three federal agents. FBI and New York fire officials have denied ever finding the voice and data recorders. Now Bellone claims agents were adamant about keeping the discovery a secret. “They confronted me and told me to not to say anything,” recalled Bellone, referring to one of three reddish-orange boxes with two white stripes he saw in the back of DeMasi’s ATV. “I said, ‘Give me a good reason.’ When they couldn’t, I told them I wouldn’t shut up about it. “Why should I? I have nothing to hide and nothing to gain. It’s the truth, and Nick and I are sticking to our story as we always have.” Bellone said he and DeMasi were not the only 9-11 rescue workers to see the “black boxes.” He said there were several other witnesses and said he knows they have been silenced by federal agents. “I know two or three others saw what went down, but they are not talking,” said Bellone. “They got to those guys after they talked to me. The only reason I can figure they are trying to hide the truth is that the government knows it screwed up, and the recorders would prove it.” Asked to give names of the other witnesses, he said he wouldn’t break a fellow worker’s confidence by revealing his identity. “I can tell you this, though, it was all very strange. I worked on the spaceship Columbia cleanup, and you know when something important is found and when something is not,” he said. The day the “black boxes” were secretly carted away, agents acted like “something big was going down,” he added. Bellone said he never learned the FBI agents’ names as this type of personal contact and information wasn’t exchanged between the civilian workers and government officials working side-by-side at ground zero. “They had on their FBI jackets, but I’m sure I could pick them out of a lineup or recognize their pictures,” said Bellone. The pair’s bombshell accusations blow a big hole in the official story as well as the findings in the recent 9-11 commission report.” In Chapter 1, footnote 76, there is the sole but definitive reference to the airline “black boxes”: “The CVR’s and the FDR’s [voice and flight data recorders] from American 11 and United 175 were not found.” Asked if DeMasi and Bellone were questioned or subpoenaed, commission spokesman Al Felzenberg said: “I can’t tell you now if he was one of the 1,200 people we interviewed or if the book was one of the countless ones we researched. We explored every lead, but I will try to find out if we talked with him and get back to you.” Bellone said commission members never contacted him or DeMasi and never asked the two to appear before the group even though the book was published well before the hearings commenced. “I have been contacted by only one newspaper reporter, from The Philadelphia Daily News,” said Bellone, referring to an October 2004 story by reporter William Bunch, who recapped DeMasi’s statements as well as the usual official denials. Those close to the 9-11 investigation said the recovery of the “black boxes” is important because they may hold vital clues about what really happened on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. The cockpit voice recorder uses a pair of microphones to capture all cockpit sounds for the last 30 minutes of a doomed flight. The flight data recorder is also significant since it records altitude, heading and airspeed. Both recorders are designed to withstand enormous impact and heat. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials said they should have withstood the conditions at the WTC. And finding the boxes after a crash seems to be standard procedure, according to the NTSB. “It’s extremely rare that we don’t get the recorders back,’ said NTSB spokesman Ted Lopatkiewicz. “I can’t remember another case which we did not recover the recorders.” Bellone is retired and was made an honorary New York fireman for his efforts after 9-11. DeMasi has recently retired from Engine Co. 261, nicknamed the “Flaming Skulls.” Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute - as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003 http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/black_box.html

Wim and Nic, I have seen nothing about Moceri being under subpoena. From all I've seen his death was part of Nardi's and Greene's campaign to take over the Cleveland crime family. Here's what I found on his death, quoting from To Kill the Irishman, by Rick Porrello (Cleveland: Next Hat Press, 2001), p. 127: The Mafia’s war with Danny Greene hit its peak in 1976. In August, only two weeks after Mob enforcer Eugene Ciasullo was bombed, feared underboss Leo Moceri received a threatening phone call. “Leo you’re dead,” the unidentified caller said. His girlfriend expressed concern over the call, but Leo laughed. “If anyone wanted to kill me I wouldn’t get a call about it,” he told her. “They would just do it.” Two weeks after the phone call, Moceri disappeared. Several days later his Mercedes was found abandoned. In the trunk were a set of golf clubs that Leo had won. They were laying in a pool of blood infested with maggot larvae. Moceri’s body was never found.

Wim, Yes, it's also on my website. I don't remember how Moceri died but will try to find it. Ron

He also received a terrifying phone threat, and was never called to testify by the Warren Commission or the HSCA. Ron

Yes, as I assume you know it's from my online seminar. Ron

Unless something new has turned up, there is no evidence that such a party took place. Like Steve, I'm curious as to what the memo says about this lady. She was involved in the story about Ruby's dog Sheba. Jones was not the operations officer (he lied or else didn't know what he was talking about), and Powell told the ARRB that neither he nor any other agents were on duty in Dealey Plaza that day. There are also no Secret Service or DPD references at all to military personnel helping with security that day. This is all covered in Larry Hancock's "The Mysteries of the 112th Intelligence Corps Group," on his CD "Keys to the Conspiracy." Reich was interviewed by the ARRB (this is also available on Larry's CD). Reich denied there was any such stand down, as his unit never had any order or responsibility to provide presidential protection. Reich told the ARRB that Prouty was "smoking something," and when he read Prouty's stand down story Reich wrote to the Army about whether or not to take legal action. Ron

While the Warren Commission, HSCA, and 9/11 Commission were all exercises in whitewash, it is interesting to note the difference in the amount of information provided to the public. Though there are documents still withheld, the WC gave us 26 volumes of material and information. The HSCA gave us 12 volumes. The 9/11 Commission gave us 1 volume, a total of 567 pages. I think this steady decline in volumes provided, from 26 to 12 to 1, is instructive. It can be seen as reflecting the fact that over the years the American people have come to expect less and less information or truth from their government. The notes in the 9/11 report refer to many interviews that were conducted by staff. Those interviews would be of great value to 9/11 researchers, in the same way that published statements and interviews by the WC and HSCA have been of great value to JFK researchers. But the 9/11 interviews are locked away somewhere and may never see the light of day. A few months ago, I wrote to the 9/11 Commission office while it was still in operation, asking how a copy of an interview might be obtained. I received no reply.

I'm not familiar with the law, but ask Paul Wellstone if there are any restraints.

I can see assassinating the leader of a foreign country with whom we're at war if there is little chance of negotiated settlement as long as he's alive. Killing him could save many soldiers' lives on both sides. Hitler is of course a prime example. Otherwise assassination is unjustified. It can be carried out for the wrong reasons, it can later be judged a mistake, and if a leader is so low down and despicable that he should be assassinated, then you can be fairly sure that there is someone ready to step into his shoes who is just as bad. I believe Hemming claims somewhere in his HSCA deposition that the goal of the No Name Key group was never to assassinate Castro, because his brother Raul would take over and was even worse than Fidel. If that's true, and it certainly sounds like a sensible judgment, someone should have told the Kennedys and the Mongoose clowns. There are probably plenty of people who think we should have tried to assassinate Saddam Hussein (assuming it was feasible), hopefully to avoid having to invade his country. What, so one of his psychotic boys could take over? (The neocon Bush regime was going to invade Iraq anyway, so it was in the Bush regime's interest to be sure Saddam stayed alive as justification for war. But that's another story.)

From an FBI report on interviews of Marina Oswald in December 1963 (FBI File # 100-10,461, Commission Exhibit 1403): “MARINA did not see OSWALD either take the rifle with him from the house in New Orleans or bring it back with him to the house on any occasion. She never saw him clean it, nor did he ever hold it in her presence as best she can recall. “She cannot recall that he ever practiced firing the rifle in New Orleans or in Dallas. She does not think he did practice in New Orleans because as a rule he stayed home when he was not working. When he did go out, she did not see him take the rifle. “OSWALD did not have any ammunition for the rifle to her knowledge either in Dallas or New Orleans, and he did not speak of buying ammunition.” http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk...Vol22_0404b.htm Now see her WC testimony on February 3, 1964: Mr. RANKIN. Now, do you recall your husband having any ammunition around the house at any time? Mrs. OSWALD. Yes. Mr. RANKIN. And where do you remember his having it in the places you lived? Mrs. OSWALD. On Neely Street, in Dallas, and New Orleans. Mr. RANKIN. Do you know whether that was rifle ammunition or rifle and pistol ammunition? Mrs. OSWALD. I think it was for the rifle. Perhaps he had some pistol ammunition there, but I would not know the difference. Mr. RANKIN. Did you observe how much ammunition he had at any time? Mrs. OSWALD. He had a box of about the size of this. Mr. RANKIN. Could you give us a little description of how you indicated the box? Was it 2 or 3 inches wide? Mrs. OSWALD. About the size here on the pad. Mr. RANKIN. About 3 inches wide and 6 inches long? Mrs. OSWALD. Probably. http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/oswald_m1.htm Ron

DCM looks darker than both Bosch and Vidal. I think Bosch also had a chunkier body, and DCM's right profile rules out Vidal. I'd sure like to see a photo of the guy called Gator, with a finger missing from his right hand, whom Tosh has said DCM resembles. But I can't tell from the Z clip of DCM waving if there's a finger missing. One thing I strongly suspect is that DCM, whoever he was, was prepared to act as a walk-up assassin. I say this because of the large object that he obviously has under his jacket. This bulge can be seen in the right-profile photo of him sitting beside UM, and also in the photo below of him walking down the sidewalk. He looks like he's got Citizen Kane's Rosebud under the back of his jacket. What kind of weapon is shaped like that? Ron

Here is Liddy's summary of the outcome of the defamation suit by Ida Maxwell Wells: "In 1999, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that there was sufficient evidence in the Wells case to warrant a jury trial. After a long trial in the United States District Court in Boston, the jury, on 1 February 2001, hung, split 7 to 2 in my favor, and Judge Motz granted judgment for me as a matter of law on the grounds that no 'reasonable jury' could have found that I 'had been negligent in making the allegedly defamatory remarks upon which Wells's suit was based" (p. 199). Liddy also notes that the Washington Post "erupted in editorial fury" over this on February 4, given "its huge investment in the bogus Woodward and Bernstein theory of Watergate." Quoting from the Post: "The secretary, Ida Wells, is now a community college teacher in Louisiana and was understandably offended by the implication that she was somehow involved in a call girl ring. . . . (T)he majority of jurors felt that Ms. Wells's lawyers had failed to prove (Liddy's) theory wrong. They found this in spite of the fact that Mr. Liddy relies, for his theory, on a disbarred attorney with a history of mental illness. The call girl theory 'is possible,' one juror told Post staff writer Manuel Roig-Franzia. 'It sure makes me more cautious.' 'We'll never know' what happened, said another" (p. 200). Ron

Jim, He may not have known the number. He may have asked someone to get him the number of John Hurt in Raleigh, and they gave him two numbers to try. That may have been why they knew he wanted to make a call, and why they wanted to let him make it and listen in. But trembling Mrs. Swinney took care of that. We could answer a lot of questions like this if there had been a real investigation of the JFK murder. Ron

I wonder if the cap Whatley was wearing in the film clip from Dallas was the kind of cap worn by railroad workers. Could he have been posing as a worker in the railroad yard? If so, yet another coincidence. In Hemming's HSCA deposition, Hemming tells about a railroad detective in Florida who may have tried to set up Whatley regarding some railroad sabotage that had been going on in the state, by luring Whatley to a cache of weapons supposedly to be found near a railroad trestle. On Hemming's advice, Whatley reported the railroad detective to the FBI. Ron

There's a good summary of Watergate in the appendix ("The Key to Watergate") of Liddy's book When I Was a Kid, This Was Still a Free Country. He means "key" literally, as the key found on Watergate burglar Martinez fit one desk, that of the secretary who kept the photos of prostitutes to be shown to out-of-town guests. A compromising photo therein of Dean's fiance was what the burglars were after. Liddy, who gives credit to the book Silent Coup, is thus convinced that Dean was behind the burglary, and that Dean betrayed his client Nixon "to save his own worthless skin." The secretary sued Liddy for defamation when he portrayed her in public appearances as a procurer of prostitutes for men who visited the DNC. The secretary lost the case. At the conclusion of the book, Liddy says, "It has taken ten years and the expenditure of great energy and treasure to crush the Watergate rat, John Dean. It is personally gratifying, of course."

Jim, The only primary sources on the attempted call to Hurt appear to be the affidavit of operator Alveeta Treon and a note she wrote about it to attorney and investigator Bernard Fensterwald. She and Mrs. Swinney were the two operators on duty. Treon says in the note, "I was the first one to say 'Number please' to Oswald. He gave his name & placed his call & then I realized that Mrs. Swinney was on the line too. When she started taking over the call, I quit handling it & let her - but I stayed on the line." In the affidavit, Treon says, "Mrs. Swinney and I both plugged in simultaneously to take (the call) . . . I let her handle it alone . . . I heard her repeat a number to the caller and saw her write down details on a notation pad." This clearly says to me that Oswald gave Swinney the numbers, with Swinney repeating one and writing down the information. There is no indication at all that Swinney got any information from Raleigh, but simply wrote down what Oswald gave her, including her repeating of a number. Getting the numbers from Raleigh would take some time and I don't see why Treon would not mention it if that's what Swinney did. The only conversation with regard to the numbers, if Treon is telling the truth, was between Oswald and Swinney. What suggests that Oswald gave Swinney only a name and place (Raleigh) is the fact that there were two numbers to two different Hurts. IOW Oswald didn't know which one to call, he just knew that Hurt was in Raleigh. But Treon doesn't suggest this, she clearly suggests that Oswald had the numbers. How did Oswald have them, and what did he do with them thereafter? Who knows. I believe that Victor Marchetti is probably right that whoever Hurt was, he was just a cut-out whom Oswald was to contact if he needed to get word to someone, and would not be someone involved in the conspiracy. In any case a big mystery in this, aside from who exactly John Hurt was, is why Swinney did not even place the call but lied to Oswald and said nobody answered. Treon herself says she was "dumbfounded," and suggests, though she doesn't say, that Swinney did what she did because she was nervous and "trembling." That hardly seems reason enough not to place the call, considering that two government agents were waiting in the next room to listen in. What was she afraid of? Did those agents tell her not to complete the call? If so, Treon heard no such instruction. http://groverproctor.us/jfk/jfk-affidavit.html Ron

Have you read Jim Marrs's book Inside Job? Or David Ray Griffin's The New Pearl Harbor? I think it is fairly clear from the evidence that 9/11 was a covert military/intelligence operation. This evidence includes the complete inaction of the Defense Command Authority (officially the president and secretary of defense) during the attacks, with the spectacle of Rumsfeld hiding in his office, the Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs hiding in Max Cleland's office on Capitol Hill, and the president continuing to listen to a goat story in a Florida schoolhouse. Some would call the total inaction of the DCA during an attack on the nation acts of treason, but instead those who attack these "leaders" are looked upon as treasonous (un-American). Anyway, "Who benefited?" The military industrial complex, which had the added advantage of a virtual coup in the form of the neocon Project for the New American Century (PNAC, of which Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and several others now running the Bush regime were members) assuming key positions in government to further the PNAC agenda of democratic imperialism through "transformation of warfare" which would be hastened, as the PNAC wrote in 2000 in what amounted to wishful thinking, if there were some catastrophe like "a new Pearl Harbor." This was a coup in that hardly anyone had heard of PNAC and its agenda until after the 2000 election. Bush was elected, and the PNAC simply moved in. A few months later, they had their new Pearl Harbor. For simplicity, this combination of the MIC and PNAC may be simply called the "warlovers," with plans on the table for invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq even before 9/11, the spoils of war in this case being, aside from all the money for Halliburton etc., control of Middle East energy resources. But 9/11, i.e. a casus belli, was first needed, just as Roosevelt needed one in 1941 to take an isolationist America to war. The evidence in the JFK assassination also points to a covert military/intelligence operation, with the intelligence component most apparent in the murder itself, and the military component most apparent in the cover-up (sham autopsy etc.). Again those who benefited were the warlovers, in this case war in Vietnam, along with all the money therein for Halliburton (which had bought Brown & Root) etc., control of the Southeast Asian drug trade, and whatever else could be gained out of those two old standbys, death and destruction.

I've always assumed (perhaps wrongly) that Khruschev was removed because of the Cuban Missile Crisis, in which Russia was seen in the eyes of the world as having backed down when confronted by the U.S. It was a disaster for Khruschev in the same way that the Bay of Pigs was a disaster for JFK. It can thus be argued that Cuba was the downfall of both men. In any case I think history will show that Fidel Castro was a lot more trouble than he was worth. Ron

Jim, The two numbers that Oswald gave the operator for a John Hurt in Raleigh belonged to John David Hurt and John W. Hurt. The HSCA interviewed John David Hurt, and Blakey later said they found nothing sinister about him, but Blakey nonetheless found the call "deeply disturbing." This was because Hurt was in U.S. Army Counter Intelligence from 1942 to 1945, as he acknowledged, though he claimed to be nothing more than an insurance investigator and employee of North Carolina since the war. What I find deeply disturbing is that the phone operator didn't even put the call through, but simply told Oswald that nobody answered. It's possible that Oswald was trying to call the wrong John Hurt, but the fact that John David Hurt was once in Army Counter Intelligence tells me that he was the right one (a "cut out," no doubt, to try to get a message to someone else), as I generally quit buying coincidence theories a long time ago. Ron

Jim, Any plans for a new edition? The book has stood the test of time, and IMO is still the first book to read for newcomers. But after 15 years an update would hit the spot, for researchers new and old. Ron

Could there have been a Canadian connection to the French/OAS plots? Gerry Patrick Hemming was at the 1996 Dallas in November conference. In his summary of what Hemming had to say while in Dallas, Charles Drago wrote, "In Montreal, Arturo Espaillat gathered funds from Canada and Europe and sent them to Dallas in order to fund a French team" ("Hemming Does Dallas," Kennedy Assn Chronicles, Winter 1996-97, p. 47). In his HSCA deposition, Hemming said, "I had been in touch in Ottawa with Arturo Espaillat, who at one time had been part of the triumvirate that took over when Trujillo was assassinated. One of my people, (Ed) Kolby, had been in Canada with Espaillat . . . Kolby had disappeared, let us say, from the Miami scene and busied himself up in New York and Canada . . . And, now, I had gotten the information that Espaillat and this American had traveled to Dallas and were in Dallas that week (of the assassination). Now, this perturbed me considerably that behind my back everybody I knew was going to meet the Texans" (p. 171-172). (What Hemming was supposedly perturbed about was that all these people - he named Cuesta, Hall, Sturgis, Vidal, Espaillat, and Aguilar - were going to Dallas to "burn" his financial contacts, "the Texans" such as Lester Logue; but he also said he tried to find Vidal in Miami on 11/21 to warn him "to stay the hell out of Dallas while the president was there") (p. 167). Hemming identified "the American" who traveled with Espaillat from Canada to Dallas as Robert Johnson, who Hemming believed (according to Noel Twyman) was "Raoul" in the MLK assassination (Hancock, Someone Would Have Talked, p. 277). Hemming told Dick Russell in a 1975 Argosy interview, "There was an American, an ex-Marine, who worked for Arturo Espaillat, Trujillo's chief of intelligence . . . Espaillat tried to take over after the (Trujillo) hit went down. He died in an accident in Lisbon a few years ago. His American friend (Johnson) went to work for a private CIA operation in Baltimore called International Services of Information." It is also worth noting that U.S. Army Pfc. Eugene Dinkin, who claimed to have advance knowledge of the JFK assassination (he was diagnosed by the Army as having a mental condition called "schizo-assassination prognostication") presumably learned of the JFK plot through his work as a military code breaker in France.