W. Tracy Parnell

Well that was their side of the story. I can't remember if Gary or Dave ever provided their version.

Yeah, I'd like to see Hargrove and Larsen go over there. If it became abusive, they could just cite the abuse and quit. I think Greg would be civil though and would relish the chance to debate them.

This debate between Greg Parker and Dr. Norwood may be of interest: https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t1649-lee-harvey-oswald-the-legend-and-the-truth Seems to be quite civil as well. Maybe Jim and Sandy will reconsider and debate as well.

I admit that it would probably be difficult to find a truly independent source to evaluate the H&L claims. I would say either a journalist or former investigator would be qualified to do the job.

Andrew, While you are reading the book perhaps you will take time and read an article I did which summarizes why Palmer McBride was wrong: http://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/2017/01/palmer-mcbride.html And remember, as Armstrong admits, McBride formed the basis for the H&L theory.

I don't know if Marrs was referring to Mack or Perry here but he was wrong in either case. Both worked on the case extensively, writing articles and appearing on TV in documentaries. And of course, Gary was one of the top JFK experts in the world and curator of the Sixth Floor museum. He was also a fantastic man who was willing to help anyone with his extensive knowledge. Apparently, Gary and Dave committed the "sin" of confusing Armstrong and Marrs with a little common sense.

What did they do that was wrong in your opinion? They simply informed Armstrong that other evidence showed his theory was incorrect. I said independent-take it to an investigative journalist and let me know what they say.

Wrong again David. We did an informal poll right here at EF and H&L lost by a good margin. Verified by whom- H&L people? I know of no credible independent source that believes Armstrong.

David, I am not a professional proofreader and I do the best I can. I certainly have not proofread the entire book or was that ever my desire. I stated that there are many errors in the book related to citations and you seemed doubtful. I provided two cases where Armstrong made something up out of whole cloth and you are very dismissive of these. This fact may be indicative of your willingness to let Armstrong off the hook despite these very serious errors of logic or something else. I assure you if I had the time and inclination I could provide many more examples of his sloppy or non existent sourcing. I could also provide many examples of typos and the like. Some of these have been confirmed and commented on by Jim Hargrove who is a professional writer and would know. But I will drop the matter since I have proven my original point-that Armstrong doesn't know what a correct citation is or doesn't care. I think it is the latter and he believes in the old adage of the end justifies the means. In this case, any means.

Armstrong mostly just makes flat statements that are uncited. When he does provide a source, it is often to a WC or other document that is many pages long and references no specific page. Most people (including myself sometimes) are not going to take the time to see if he is providing a correct citation. But when he does provide specific citations, they are often do not say what he says they do. Two quick examples. On page 380 of H&L, Armstrong makes the following assertion: L’Eandes (Landesberg) was seen at a meeting with Earl Perry and “Lee” Oswald, who had a camera. His source is the Village Voice, January 18, 1962. But when you check the article, there is no mention of Oswald, Earl Perry or a camera, only that L’Eandes was at the meeting and was attacked (page 9 at following): http://digitalcollections.baylor.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/po-arm/id/3926/rec/14 Now a cited source is supposed to support your assertions and other that the fact that L’Eandes was at the meeting this does not do that. Armstrong apparently believes that “Lee” Oswald and Perry were there but it is merely an unsupported belief on his part. And unless the reader takes the time to check it out, they will not know this and assume, incorrectly, that Armstrong has done his due diligence and properly sourced his assertion. Instead, the source appears to be his own fertile mind. Later in the same paragraph of his book, Armstrong asserts that when L’Eandes was attacked, “Lee” Oswald “took photographs of the fracas.” This time he provides no citation, but it is safe to assume it is the same Village Voice article. Once again, the assertion is unsupported. Now I don’t have time to proofread Armstrong’s book to find all the errors and misrepresentations in his 1000-page tome. To do so would take 2000 pages at least as I have mentioned before. But I have provided a couple egregious examples of Armstrong essentially making something up and falsely attributing to a source. These should be enough to give anyone pause.

Paul, Thanks for your thoughts. My main goal with the article was to convey the fact that the late August-early September timeline promoted by Fonzi for years is not supported by the Veciana interviews. Of course, I can not rule out that Oswald was somehow transported to Dallas and back to New Orleans by some unknown helper. I just find the evidence for that very weak. As for Phillips' novel-it was a work of fiction and I don't see him using it to convey any hidden truths. As for Veciana, I'm not sure he was that interested in killing Castro. If he was, he failed miserably. He may have been more interested in the "killing Casto business" which seems to have paid very well indeed. But that is just a pet theory of mine and I have no proof at this time and in fact it could probably never be proven.

Thanks Paul and yes we agree that mistaken witnesses (and misread documents etc.) are the core of the theory. The H&L people don't seem to realize that in any complicated case, there will be those that say one thing and those that say another and this is common.

And BTW, Lance is correct. Many of the sources are incorrect (in other words do not say what he claims) or nonexistent. I checked them myself.

I'm not "mangling" anything. The point is, he relies on questionable witness statements to make his points and ignores those who knew the one and only Oswald. Except, of course, when he cherry picks their statements even though he believes they were in on the plot.

Oh my work is out there for scrutiny and has been for years. I guess you haven't seen my work on Veciana-Bishop. I indeed "forged a path" where others hadn't been. It seems nobody had ever seen Fonzi's original Veciana interview notes or if they had they "forgot" to mention them since they don't support what Fonzi has been saying all of these years. http://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/2017/04/gaeton-fonzi-and-veciana-allegations.html I also did extensive research on the LHO exhumation and not just to refute Armstrong but for the sake of clarity. So. I have done plenty of original research, but i suspect you already knew that.

It's all a moot point because the late August-September timeframe was invented by Fonzi. If you don't believe me, go back and read Fonzi's original interview notes on which he based his theory. This is all explained here: http://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/2017/04/gaeton-fonzi-and-veciana-allegations.html But to answer your question, LHO couldn't have met with anyone in Dallas (barring a plane flight that there is no evidence for) since he was indeed in New Orleans.

There are any number of reasons to disbelieve the H&L theory and Lance and Michael have provided some good ones. As far as the new article, debunking that mess would take more time than I an prepared to spend right now. But one quick example is the list of people who thought "Lee" could drive. Armstrong does not rely on people like Marina or the Paines who knew the one and only LHO or even the Russian community for his information. He apparently believes all of these very credible witnesses to LHO's history are in on the CIA plot or being paid to lie. He instead relies on a group of people who for the most part had a single "experience" with LHO or think they did. And this is where much of the information for the theory comes from-unconfirmed and non-credible witness statements. So, this new article is a microcosm that demonstrates the problems of the overall theory. BTW, I challenge the H&L followers to document every report about LHO that exists and then make each and every one fit into their theory. If they can not do that, will they then postulate several Oswalds or finally admit the theory is nonsense and you can't believe every report?

There goes David Josephs again, resorting to insults as he often does. Michael Walton has as much right to post here as you do. If you want to have a discussion with him or refute his arguments go ahead, but please stop the tactics of personal insult.

Armstrong is supposedly very wealthy so there is no excuse for any of this, especially not hiring an editor. But I will agree with my friend Jim on point. By all means, decide for yourself-the information is out there on both sides of the issue and lengthy debates at this point are redundant.

Here are the problems with John Armstrong and his work. He is trying to convince people that there was a vast conspiracy run by the CIA involving two boys (H&L) and their mothers. But scientific evidence and common sense tells us this did not happen. I believe H&L is a vehicle for Armstrong to promote his views and I am not even sure that he believes it. The documents published with the book and at the Baylor website are useful to researchers as even one of his greatest critics, Vincent Bugliosi, noted. But it is not useful to attempt to mislead people even if you believe it is for a good cause. Many people of the CT persuasion recognize these facts to their great credit. If Armstrong's sole motivation was to do a service to the research community, he would have published his documents and website minus his own bizarre theories. A proper book would have had an editor and been around 350 pages. But like Ayn Rand, he would not allow a single edit to be made. Unfortunately, he doesn't have Rand's skill (as Jim Hargrove has noted) and the result is not only nonsense but bad writing. Bottom line-use the information he has provided, as I do myself, but check it carefully first. And as I have said before, perhaps someday someone will prove a conspiracy of some kind in the JFK case. I doubt it myself, but it is a possibility. But Armstrong's theory is not one such possibility and is in fact a falsehood. http://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-truth-about-harvey-lee.html

The bottom line for me is that these notes are obviously information obtained from Wilcott by an HSCA staffer. I don't doubt Wilcott believed what he was saying. But he had absolutely no evidence to back it up and would not testify to it under oath. It was simply a belief on his part.

No, you don't and it is obvious that Wilcott could not remember what the alleged cryptonym was with enough certainty to swear to it under oath. He stated that he could not remember it both in his testimony and in his "Kennedy Assassination" manuscript. Note also that there are no "RX" cryptonyms listed in the Mary Ferrell database or in John Newman's work.

I think that certainly is a possibility Paul and thanks for mentioning it. There were at least a couple instances where Willcott was described as "gullible" and that would fit with your theory.

More H&L nonsense from Jim. The information Jim is quoting from is not titled but appears to be notes by an HSCA staffer recording comments by Wilcott and his lawyer. The HSCA consul was merely concerned about public revelations by Wilcott concerning classified information and so on. And Jim gets into the famous "mystery deaths" subject but Wilcott and any number of people ran around for years expounding whatever theories they wanted to and nothing happened to them. It is clear to me that Wilcott devised his theories as a result of his political views, his CIA experience and exposure to people like Phillip Agee and Jim Garrison. There is no doubt in my mind that he didn't remember the person who allegedly told him about the cryptonym and the project. I have updated an endnote to my Wilcott article that sums up this subject and this will be about all I have to say. I'll let the readers decide: In the HSCA files on Wilcott there is a reference to an alleged CIA cryptonym for the “Oswald Project” that probably came from notes of Wilcott's statements to an HSCA staffer. It should be noted that two respected sources of extensive information regarding CIA cryptonyms, The Mary Ferrell Foundation and author John Newman, do not recognize this cryptonym (RX-ZIM). Wilcott has alleged that he became aware of the cryptonym from discussions with a CIA employee. In his HSCA testimony (page 12-13), Wilcott stated that he couldn’t remember the cryptonym or the name of the person who told him about it. He confirmed this in his manuscript titled “The Kennedy Assassination” which was published by the HSCA with his testimony and other evidence. However, in a later statement before the Cuban “tribunal” Wilcott's memory improved and he claimed to remember the cryptonym as well as the name of the employee that provided it. The name is illegible in the copy I read which is at the John Armstrong Baylor archive. It is clear that Wilcott couldn’t remember either the cryptonym or the name of the employee with enough conviction to testify to these facts under oath. He probably feared that the HSCA would call the individual to testify and he would deny knowledge of the cryptonym and the "Oswald Project."

I disagree completely. It is impossible to know, of course, when he developed his more extreme political leanings but he certainly was already left of center by the time of the JFK killing and he stated he was a JFK supporter then. He never spoke publicly about his theories until 1968 and that was plenty of time for him to develop his views. No doubt the conspiracy literature he read (he mentioned reading Garrison at least) mixed with his own recollections resulted in his story.