Jeremy Bojczuk
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Posts posted by Jeremy Bojczuk
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BC - Thanks for that information!
Yes, it makes little sense for a film company to abandon a project after being told that the document in question is authentic. The "incomplete" nature of the authentication process surely means that the experts have expressed doubts about the authenticity of the datebook. It would be nice to know exactly what their opinion is, and what the justification is for all the secrecy.
If the experts doubt the authenticity of the datebook, it's reasonable for the rest of us to have doubts about any theory that relies on the datebook and requires it to be authentic. That's especially so given the unanswered criticisms made by Greg Doudna, which suggest that the datebook is a fake. For example:
Quotethe ink of the 1963 Lafitte datebook entries could not be matched by the analyst to any of the known inks for 1963.
Quotethe handwriting analysis found that the handwritten entries of the Lafitte datebook "were all made by one and the same individual within a constricted timeframe".
(ibid.)
QuotePrima facie, it appears Lafitte is not the author of the multiple Skorzeny written references in Lafitte's datebook, since the allusions to Skorzeny appear to postdate Lafitte's death.
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Leslie Sharp writes:
QuoteThe datebook reflects a number of similar quirks. "merde merde," "vu je" "di coup de grace."
I'm not sure how similar those three quirks are to DUUM, what with duum being Latin and the others French, with a bit of Italian in the last one. Are there any examples of the author or authors inserting archaic Latin words into the datebook, using capital letters? Incidentally, the first of the three quirks may turn out to be an apt description of the datebook.
QuoteA cursory google translate
If that's how Google translated it, Google got it wrong. The French for duum is not deux but des deux, which means 'of the two': des is a contraction of de ('of') and les (the plural form of 'the').
Admittedly, my French isn't vastly better than my rather rusty Latin, and it's conceivable that there's an idiomatic usage I'm not aware of, in which deux is used instead of des deux. But until someone demonstrates the existence of such a usage, we have to conclude that DUUM does not mean what Leslie claims it means.
We're still facing the problem that 'of the two' doesn't make sense in the context of 'rifle into building'. Either the indistinct handwriting does not spell out D-U-U-M, or, if it does, D-U-U-M is an unexplained acronym.
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Michael Griffith writes:
QuoteLeslie, can you just give us a brief summary (i.e., just a few sentences) of what has been done to authenticate the datebook?
That's a reasonable question, but you might be waiting some time for even a brief summary, let alone a comprehensive account. The difficulty of extracting any useful information is worrying.
As far as I can tell, there have been two attempts to authenticate the document, both of which are incomplete and neither of which has succeeded. Whether there are plans to complete these attempts, or to arrange a third attempt, we don't know.
Whether each attempt was made by the same group of experts, or by a separate group of experts, we don't know. Two names have been put forward, though whether each of these two experts examined the ink or the paper or the handwriting, we don't know. Exactly what these two experts concluded, we don't know.
The second attempt at authentication was apparently commissioned by a film company. What the identity of this film company is, we don't know. Where in the world the company is based, we don't know. Whether the film company has made, or intends to make, a film about the datebook or the theory that's based on the datebook, we don't know.
Worryingly, everyone involved appears to be gagged by a non-disclosure agreement. The gagging order seems to apply to the film company's attempt at authentication, but whether it also applies to the original attempt at authentication, we don't know.
What justification there is for imposing a non-disclosure agreement on the examination of what is claimed to be a very significant piece of evidence in a very important unsolved murder case, we don't know. How any sort of gagging order assists in establishing the authenticity of a document, we don't know.
Why the document has been kept out of public view, and why the results of its examination have also been kept out of public view, we don't know, but we can have a pretty good guess.
On the current state of evidence, the datebook appears to be a fake, and a potentially dangerous fake too, since it could be used to undermine serious efforts to find out the truth of the assassination.
Incidentally, this thread is the appropriate one in which to discuss the possible (note the question mark in the title) inauthenticity of the datebook.
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Leslie Sharp writes:
QuoteDUUM is the Latin word for deux, French for TWO as in rifles.
As I explained back on page 11, duum is not the Latin word for 'two' or 'deux'.
The Latin word for 'two' is duo, not duum. The latter was an archaic, i.e. non-standard, version of duorum, the genitive form of duo. It means something like 'of the two', and makes no sense in the context of 'rifle into building / [illegible] DPD /' (check the original, provided by Andrej Stancak).
Can anyone think of a good reason why, in that context, a native French speaker writing in English would use an archaic form of the Latin word for 'of the two'? If, for whatever reason, the author of the datebook really felt the urge to write something in Latin, why didn't he just use the word duo?
Since the remainder of that entry appears to be in English (insofar as it can be deciphered at all), why didn't he use the English word 'two'? Does the author, whoever he was, do this sort of thing elsewhere? If not, why would he do it here?
The word probably isn't DUUM, is it? And if it isn't DUUM, that entry probably isn't referring to two rifles, is it?
Indistinct handwriting, combined with vague phrases and incomplete sentences, allows plenty of room for interpretation. These are precisely the sort of features you would expect of a datebook that was fabricated to appeal to over-imaginative conspiracy-minded folk who enjoy playing join-the-dots but aren't too bothered about establishing the authenticity of their sources.
Given the harm that this venture could cause to genuine criticism of the lone-gunman ideology, perhaps Leslie could get in touch with the film production company and let them know that the datebook is probably a fake and thus can be of no use to anyone who wants to find out who killed JFK.
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Leslie Sharp writes:
QuoteThe current status of authentication is, as I've shared several times on various threads on this forum, incomplete.
Well, that's a start. We now have a straightforward sentence that begins to explain the current state of play. The authentication is incomplete.
It would be helpful if Leslie could set out, in one comment and in clear English (or Latin; either would do), the ways in which the authentication is incomplete. The following questions may help to identify the details that ought to be provided:
- Have the ink, paper and handwriting in the datebook all been examined by accredited experts (assuming that such a thing exists in the realm of handwriting analysis)?
- If the ink, or the paper, or the handwriting have not been examined by any accredited experts, why has this not happened?
- If this has happened, who are those experts, what are their credentials, and what precisely are the results of their examinations?
- Where can we read the results of their examinations of the datebook?
- If these results are not publicly available, what steps are being taken to make them publicly available?
- If no such steps are being taken, why not?
- In short, what solid evidence is there to support the claim that the datebook is authentic?
Earlier, Greg Doudna gave good reasons to suppose that the datebook is not authentic. Rather than deal with the points he made, he was bullied into silence, which is a pretty strong indication that:
- Greg's criticisms were accurate;
- the datebook is probably a fake, as most of us suspect;
- and Greg's attackers also suspect that it's probably a fake.
As Jim and Tom pointed out, the treatment of Greg was disgraceful and the moderators really ought to do something about it, if they haven't already (and about the spamming of the forum with numerous threads about the same topic, including lengthy quotations from the holy book: it's like 'Harvey and Lee' all over again).
Given the number of individuals over the years who have claimed involvement in the JFK assassination on dubious grounds, it shouldn't be a surprise that people are refusing to accept the authenticity of a document which:
- hardly anyone has seen,
- is not in the public domain,
- contains vague and incomplete statements which are open to wild interpretation (e.g. an illegible squiggle = DUUM = "two rifles were taken into the building" = a bunch of Nazis killed JFK, or something),
- and, as Leslie admits, has not been properly authenticated.
The last of these is the most worrying: a book has been published which pushes a theory that relies fundamentally on a hand-written document which has not even been authenticated!
When there is any doubt about written sources, the first thing a reputable author of non-fiction would do is to verify those sources, and only then construct a theory based on those sources. I'm sure Leslie can appreciate why so many of us find the "incomplete" nature of the authentication worrying.
Leslie clearly wants to find out the truth about the JFK assassination. No doubt she's aware of the harm that might be caused to JFK assassination research if her theory gets publicity in the media, only for the datebook then to be exposed as a fake.
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Leslie Sharp writes on page 8:
QuoteDUUM is Latin for the French word "deux". Lafitte (fluent in French, btw) is noting that two rifles are in the building. on November 20.
My Latin is a bit rusty these days, but the word for the number two is duo, not duum.
Duum is one of the genitive forms of duo, and an archaic form at that. The standard Latin genitive form of duo would be duorum, not duum.
To clarify, 'genitive' refers to the possessive form of a noun. Whereas in English you might use 'of the' to indicate possession, in Latin you'd change the ending of the noun and its associated words: duo becomes duorum or (if you were being deliberately old-fashioned) duum.
Leslie's sentence, "two rifles are in the building", doesn't require the use of the genitive. To justify the word duum, the sentence would need to be something like "of the two rifles in the building". But this doesn't make sense if we look at the extract Andrej posted, which clearly contains the word 'into', not 'in'.
I suspect that the squiggle in question isn't DUUM at all. What it actually is, I've no idea, and until the datebook is properly authenticated, it doesn't really matter.
The Latin word duo is indeed, as Leslie implies, cognate with the French deux, though I fail to see why a native French speaker, when writing in English, would use an incorrect and archaic version of a Latin word when he could have written 'two' or 'deux'.
Sorry for the linguistic pedantry, but the DUUM question illustrates a basic problem with the Nostradamus-like nature of the datebook. There's too much vagueness, too much room for interpretation. I suspect that, like Nostradamus, the author or authors deliberately left things vague, so that readers could fill in the gaps themselves to fit whatever pre-conceived ideas they already have. That's part of its attraction: it's a puzzle to be solved.
On the subject of demonstrating the authenticity of the datebook, making a facsimile of the full manuscript publicly available would be only the beginning of the process. The main thing that needs to be verified by properly accredited experts is the physical object: the ink and the paper. If, as Leslie writes, "The disposition of the physical instrument is mine to make", and she has the power to get this essential task done, she should get things moving as soon as possible.
Who knows - despite what most people seem to think, it might turn out to be genuine after all!
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Benjamin Cole writes:
QuoteGreg [Doudna] is a cakewalk to the daily and permanent Niagara of ridicule and feculent invective that will be the world of JFKA researchers if the datebook gets notoriety...and then is revealed as a fraud.
That's a good point. With the sixtieth anniversary coming up, some elements of the media will be on the look-out for anything that might discredit JFK assassination research in general and critics of the lone-gunman theory in particular. A JFK-related equivalent to the Hitler diaries hoax would do the job perfectly, just as Best Evidence did a few decades ago.
Until this document is published in full and has been examined and declared authentic by accredited experts, there is no reason to place any trust in what it contains.
And there's no good reason not to get it fully examined as soon as possible. If it's authentic, it would be probably the most important single piece of documentary evidence in the case. If it's a fraud, the sooner it is exposed as a fraud, the better. It really should have been thoroughly examined by experts long ago. The fact that it wasn't, does tend to raise suspicion.
On the subject of suspicion, Greg Doudna's Fact#4 is an eye-opener. If Greg's conclusion is correct, and parts of the document really were added after the death of the supposed author of the document, that's the end of the matter, isn't it?
To the group of chancers who have claimed to have been the gunman on the grassy knoll, or the gunman in the storm drain, or the gunman on the sixth floor, or any of these gunmen's getaway drivers, or Oswald's girlfriend, or one of the three tramps, we could add the author or authors of the datebook.
The JFK assassination does tend to attract claims like that. Until the datebook is properly examined and declared authentic, you can't blame people for assuming that it's probably a fraud, can you?
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Denny Zartman writes:
QuoteHoover's 1960 memo about the FBI suspecting someone was using Oswald's identity is also very compelling, imho. ... why would the Director of the FBI be writing about it? Do all cases of possible identity theft go all the way to the Director?
The Hoover memo ("there is a possibility that an impostor is using Oswald’s birth certificate") had nothing to do with a possible impersonation of Oswald by any US agency. Prompted by Marguerite Oswald's claim that Oswald had taken his birth certificate with him when he defected to the Soviet Union, FBI officials were worried that the document might have got into the hands of the Soviet authorities. The theoretical impersonation of Oswald that Hoover was worried about was by the Soviets.
The context of Marguerite's behaviour, and of officialdom's response, is explained in Part 5 of Bill Simpich's The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend:
https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Essay_-_Oswald_Legend_5.html
Tracy Parnell has written a good account of the Hoover memo and Oswald's birth certificate:
http://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-truth-about-oswalds-birth.html
Tracy quotes Paul Hoch, who points out that the US officials took an interest in Marguerite's allegation because the Soviets were known to have misused such IDs in the past. Greg Parker, who helped Bill with the research for his article, makes the same point here (in reply to Denny when he brought up the Hoover memo a couple of years ago):
https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2419-the-mullberry-bush#36818
Greg writes that Marguerite's "search for Lee and that comment [that he took his birth certificate with him when he defected], were discussed in a series of memos going up the line, escalating ala Chinese Whispers, into the possibility that someone may be using Oswald's ID."
Just because several officials discussed Marguerite's claim, doesn't mean that several officials independently had evidence that Oswald's ID was being misused. In fact, none of them had any evidence that Oswald's ID was being misused. The whole episode was a storm in a tea cup: it was not a response to any known impersonation, and provides zero support for any long-term double-doppelganger-related speculation.
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Michael Griffith writes:
QuoteStevens' article is mostly a bunch of nit-picking and accusing witnesses he does not like of lying, exaggerating, or misremembering.
Mark didn't accuse any of the witnesses of lying. He examined each witness's evidence critically and pointed out some obvious flaws. It wasn't a case of dismissing "witnesses he does not like", but of providing actual evidence and argument to support his conclusion that these alleged witnesses:
- gave contradictory or confusing testimony;
- or failed to justify their assertions;
- or were not in a position to remember what they were supposed to have remembered.
Robert Oswald, for example, did not know which school his brother attended that year, because Robert was away in the Marines at the time and had little contact with his family. He assumed a few years later that Lee had gone to the same school he himself had attended, but he was in no position to know this. He appears to have made a trivial and understandable mistake.
Here's Mark summary of all this flimsy evidence:
Quote- Robert Oswald – Refers to different timeframe
- Kudlaty – Gives confusing information regarding school records
- Schubert – Gives contradicting timeframe, gives contradicting descriptions of Oswald, gives contradicting location of where he lives (same house different apartment)
- Summers – Is clearly confused
- Gann – Does not make clear case for identification
- Pitts – Gives no information about Oswald attending Stripling
- Galindo – When weighed against totality of Stripling evidence, is clearly wrong
(https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26639-the-stripling-episode-harvey-lee-a-critical-review/)
None of that is nit-picking.
One interesting fact that Mark includes in his critique is that Mrs Beulah Bratton, a teacher at Stripling during the period when Oswald is claimed to have been there, was featured in a Fort Worth Star-Telegram article in 1992 about famous people who attended Stripling. In that article ('Teacher Recalls Famous Students'), she mentions that after the assassination she was asked by the New York Times to do some research on the Oswald family. But, strangely, Mrs Bratton neglected to mention anything about the most famous (or infamous) person to, allegedly, attend the school.
I wonder why. Could it be that the CIA got to her and made her an offer she couldn't refuse? After all, it is a well-known fact in 'Harvey and Lee' circles that the CIA altered an Oswald doppelganger's dental records and found a way to perform a mastoidectomy on a six-year-old Oswald doppelganger at a hospital that hadn't been built yet. I suspect that's the most likely explanation! Well, it's either that or Oswald didn't actually attend Stripling.
QuoteWC apologists always apply draconian standards to conspiracy witnesses but apply extremely lax standards to lone-gunman witnesses.
That's true. It's also true, as Mark's piece makes clear, that double-doppelganger enthusiasts "apply extremely lax standards" to witnesses who support their case.
Michael implies that Mark Stevens is a "WC apologist". Is that true? Since most of the critics of the 'Harvey and Lee' nonsense are also critics of the lone-gunman nonsense, the odds are that Mark isn't a "WC apologist". Whether he is or isn't, his criticism of the Stripling evidence stands on its own merits.
By the way, Alex Wilson takes some time out from questioning the "fat Nazi did it" claims to offer some interesting thoughts on the topic of this thread, here:
https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2749-stripling-and-son-ride-again
N.B. The Steptoe and Son Alex refers to was a legendary BBC sitcom from the 1960s, which was made into a film, Steptoe and Son Ride Again (like most spin-offs, the film wasn't as good as the sitcom).
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Chris Bristow writes:
QuoteIt is really common to hear people who have been to the plaza remark about how small it actually is.
Wide-angle lenses do have the effect of making the plaza look noticeably larger on TV and in photos than it is in real life.
I explained to a British friend once that Dealey Plaza is roughly the size of Trafalgar Square in London. (For those readers who are not familiar with Trafalgar Square, it's roughly the size of Dealey Plaza.)
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Jonathan Cohen writes:
QuoteHasn't this been in the works for years? A decade or more? Couldn't one assume that if they truly found evidence of alteration, the whole world would know by now?
If there really exists indisputable proof of alteration to such a crucial piece of evidence in what is perhaps the world's most famous real-life murder mystery, it would of course be front-page news.
But there obviously isn't any such proof. At least, not yet. I mean, the proof might turn up tomorrow, or next year. If we all believe strongly enough, the proof will arrive! Don't lose hope! Believe!
It reminds me of a 'the end of the world is nigh' cult. Some charlatan predicts that the world will end on a particular date. That date comes and goes, and the world doesn't end. Ah, no, what I actually meant was that the world will end on this other date, some time in the future. The new date comes and goes, and the world still doesn't end. So the charlatan makes a new prediction. And the cycle continues.
The Zapruder film shows Mary Moorman standing in the street! That means it's a fake! What's that? Someone got their measurements wrong, and the film doesn't actually show her standing in the street? Ah, but look at Marilyn Sitzman! She's standing in front of Zapruder! That proves the film is a fake! What's that? I've been looking at a poor-quality copy? Well, look at the woman in the brown coat! It changes colour! And that other woman is suddenly seven feet tall! And that car over there is back to front! The cycle continues, one empty claim after another.
I suppose there's still a chance that this never-ending Wilkinson project might produce the goods, one day. But you'd think a decade or more should be plenty of time to find whatever there is to find in one or two frames of an 8mm home movie.
The worrying thing is that they might actually make a film about their project, and the film might get some publicity, and the general public might discover that the 'head blob' is actually (surprise, surprise!) nothing more than a shadow or an artefact of the photographic process, and the reputation of lone-nut critics takes a battering.
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Again, you make some good points, Roger.
QuoteThere is no way they would have just hired shooters and snuck them out of Dallas afterward, without also having a plan to blame the murder on someone else.
True. It's clear that Oswald had been implicated in advance, and that Oswald's apparent ownership of the rifle, combined with his apparent links to the Soviet and Cuban regimes, implicated those regimes in the assassination, before the event.
To go back to the topic of this thread, the question that interests me is: if evidence turns up which undeniably places Oswald on the TSBD steps when he is claimed to have been on the sixth floor (i.e. the originals or early copies of the Darnell and Wiegman films), what conclusions should we draw about the conspiracy and the cover-up?
Thre's one obvious conclusion: it would confirm that, as Steve points out, "the people who planned JFK's assassination wanted there to be evidence of a conspiracy." We know that the lone-gunman explanation was imposed after the event by political insiders, who had obvious political reasons for doing so. I can't disprove Roger's claim that Johnson helped matters along because he was involved in the plot, but I think the simpler explanation is sufficient: political insiders did it for simple political reasons. I'm not sure why the conspirators would have wanted the event to be seen as a conspiracy if they also had the power and desire to impose the lone-gunman explanation on it.
A second conclusion is that all of the inconclusive pre-assassination evidence which implicated Oswald as a shooter, should be dismissed. Sightings of Oswald at a rifle range, for example, would have been honest cases of mistaken identity, and not deliberate impersonation (let alone deliberate impersonation by long-term doppelgangers with 13-inch heads). Here, too, the simplest explanation is sufficient.
Quotethey did grab some of the essential films that had captured the murder and surrounding vicinity. Zapruder was hidden from the populace for 12 years until shown on TV. The original Nix has still not been returned to the family. And the NBC accomplice has hidden the camera original of Darnell and Wiegman ever since the murder.
The fact that there was no co-ordinated confiscation of films and photographs suggests that the treatment of the Zapruder, Nix, Darnell and Wiegman films was not the result of careful pre-assassination planning. I'm not sure that anyone in a position of influence at NBC was aware back in 1963 that a couple of their news films might contain a few frames of Oswald on the steps. The topic didn't even become prominent in assassination circles until about ten years ago. Bureaucratic inertia might be sufficient to explain NBC's actions, or lack of actions.
The Zapruder film was surely kept largely (but not entirely) out of public view because of the 'back and to the left' head snap which undermined the official lone-gunman explanation. If any conspirators had access to the film and wanted to suppress what it contained, all they needed to do was accidentally lose or destroy it before any copies were made. Insofar as the film was suppressed, the standard political reason applies: to minimise public distrust of established institutions. There is no need to assume that this was done by anyone connected to the assassination, let alone that the film's suppression was integral to the planning of the assassination.
Incidentally, David Wrone's excellent book The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination (University Press of Kansas, 2003) points out that the suppression of the film was nowhere near as complete as is often assumed. Numerous bootleg copies were in circulation for years before the film was shown on TV. There were thousands of showings of these bootlegs, at some of which more bootlegs were distributed. As Wrone points out (on page 60):
QuoteAlthough public showings of the bootleg Zapruder film could take place in such diverse places as the living rooms of the wealthy, the back rooms of taverns, or the meetings of small social clubs, the most typical one was in colleges across the nation. A typical showing of the film in a college lecture hall would occur before an audience of two or three hundred students, a scattering of local people (conservatives and liberals), and representatives of the press.
... The film would be the highlight of the evening, the central point in the speaker's argument, and at the end the audience would usually be silent, sensing the profound seriousness of the problem. The lights would go on, and questions would be taken, often for as long as the speaker's formal presentation. After the speech, various books on the subject of the assassination and copies of the film and slides were often sold.
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Allen Lowe writes:
Quotedo you really think the plotters had no thoughts as to what would happen in the aftermath, no plans for handling conspiracy allegations?
Well, that depends on who the plotters were! And on what their ultimate intention was in killing JFK.
If we assume that the plotters wanted the assassination to look like the act of a lone gunman, they took a lot of risks by not controlling the photographic evidence. Certainly there was no guarantee that any spectators would capture images that provided good evidence of more than one assassin. But, with hundreds of spectators likely to be in the area, many dozens of whom could be expected to make an effort to bring their cameras with them, the plotters must have known that there was an appreciable chance that their 'lone gunman' plot would be exposed.
If, on the other hand, we assume that the plotters were happy for the assassination to look like a conspiracy, perhaps in order to place the blame on the Cuban or Soviet regimes, they went about things in the right way. Should any spectators happen to capture images that suggested a conspiracy, so much the better.
Perhaps the plotters were confident about how officialdom would react to any evidence of an external or domestic conspiracy: by suppressing such evidence and imposing a lone-gunman explanation for public consumption. In this case, the plotters wouldn't need to handle any conspiracy allegations themselves; officialdom, motivated by its own reasons, would sort out that problem for them.
If the intention was to make it look as though the Cuban or Soviet regimes were behind the assassination, the plotters may have done this for two very different reasons: to provoke a military attack, or to provoke an internal cover-up. The former would require the assassination to be officially interpreted as a conspiracy; the latter, as the act of a lone gunman. In the event, the threat of a military attack was the motivation for imposing the lone-gunman interpretation. Maybe the plotters intended this to happen; maybe they didn't.
Perhaps the plotters simply weren't concerned about whether the assassination was viewed after the event as a conspiracy or the act of a lone gunman, as long as JFK was eliminated and their gunmen got away undetected.
I don't know which, if any, of these scenarios is accurate. But I think it's a mistake to assume that the way things played out necessarily matched the intentions of the plotters. It's certainly a mistake to assume, as many people seem to do, that those who instigated the assassination also controlled the cover-up.
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Sandy Larsen writes:
QuoteThe lone-gunman explanation was merely a part of the coverup, not the plot.
Sandy and I are of one mind!
Many conspiracy theorists jump to the conclusion that everything that happened, both during and after the shooting, had been carefully planned in advance, and that those who instigated the assassination had the power to carry out those plans after the assassination.
But we know that the plotters, whoever they were, either didn't have the power to control the photographic record or simply were not concerned about what it might show (or both). If, as appears to be the case, more than one gunman was involved, there was always a chance that some bystander would capture images which demonstrated that more than one gunman was involved. The plotters, whoever they were, clearly were not bothered by the possibility that the shooting could be demonstrated to be a conspiracy. They may in fact have preferred the assassination to be seen as a conspiracy.
We also know that the lone-gunman explanation was put forward and promoted in the early stages by political apparatchiks for political reasons. That explanation was later promoted by the media for the same basic reason: to maintain public trust in established political institutions. There's no need to assume that insiders such as Nicholas Katzenbach or Earl Warren, or entities such as CBS or the New York Times which heavily promoted the Warren Report, had any connection at all to whoever instigated the assassination.
It really is time for people to look at the assassination story in a more nuanced way, by making a distinction between the plot and the cover-up. This may even help us to discover precisely who might have been behind the shooting.
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Thanks for your reply, Roger! You ask some interesting questions.
QuoteWhy do you suppose they weren't very concerned about what those films and photos might show?
If by 'they' you mean whoever instigated the assassination, the implication is that whatever the photographic record might show, that was fine by them. If it showed evidence of more than one gunman, they would have been happy for the shooting to be viewed as a conspiracy.
There were hundreds of people in Dealey Plaza, any number of whom could have captured any aspect of the shooting on film. Clearly the lone-gunman explanation was not baked into the plot.
If by 'they' you mean the law enforcement agencies who were responsible for investigating the crime, the implication is that they were not motivated by any preconceived interpretation of the assassination, at least in the early stages while dozens of members of the public with cameras were leaving Dealey Plaza and dispersing all over the country and abroad.
In those early stages, law enforcement treated the event like a normal crime: by interviewing the photographers who came to their attention, such as Zapruder and Moorman, and putting out a message for people to turn in their films and photos if possible.
QuoteThey were going to shut up Oswald and create their own version of what happened.
The 'they' who wanted to shut up Oswald need not have been the same 'they' who wanted to enforce the lone-gunman explanation.
That explanation was decided upon by insiders in Washington, and can be interpreted plausibly as a straightforward political action by people for whom minimising public distrust of political institutions was more important than finding out who had shot the president.
The reason for shutting up Oswald might have been to prevent him spilling the beans about what he knew about the assassination, assuming that he knew anything. But we don't need to assume that. He may have been murdered simply to prevent the flimsy case against him being exposed during a trial. The latter would apply even if Oswald had known absolutely nothing about the assassination in advance.
QuoteThey controlled the flow of information through the media. Given that, perhaps they decided running around immediately after the murder confiscating anything that might show what happened was too heavy handed and could ultimately backfire. The record shows that so far their approach has worked.
Again, the 'they' who controlled the media need not have been the same 'they' who instigated the assassination or the 'they' who could have confiscated the films and photos if they wanted to.
Widespread confiscation of films would indeed have looked heavy-handed. The important thing to remember is that it didn't actually happen.
QuoteHave you ever wondered why the cops went so hard after Frazier the day of the murder ... Could it be they had already seen an image on the steps that showed Frazier standing beside Oswald?
That sounds perfectly plausible. Or maybe Oswald mentioned that his buddy Wesley could vouch for his whereabouts: one more aspect of his alibi that didn't make it into the official reports.
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Pat Speer writes:
QuoteI wish you'd had that at the ready a decade or so ago, when certain people were endlessly arguing that the photos were confiscated and faked via a CIA photo alteration lab set up in the parking lot next to the TSBD.
I recall those arguments, which I think were what prompted me to actually look at the evidence. It took me about half an hour, trawling through Trask's Pictures of the Pain, to learn that the authorities had no great interest in the photographic record and certainly didn't set out to confiscate the cameras and films.
Whoever instigated the assassination was clearly not concerned about what any home movies, news films, and still photographs might show. This fact alone is enough to debunk some of the more elaborate conspiracy theories.
It's conceivable that there may have been some ad hoc photo manipulation, although I'm not at all convinced that this happened. But if it did happen, it would have been done to support the lone-nut explanation for straightforward political reasons, and not necessarily by anyone who had a hand in the assassination.
Any theory that proposes all-powerful overlords micro-managing the events in Dealey Plaza, and then manipulating the physical evidence to the level of widespread photo alteration, needs to explain why those all-powerful overlords were happy to let dozens of photographers wander off to who-knows-where with their cameras and films.
Likewise, if undeniable evidence turns up which places Oswald on the steps when he should have been on the sixth floor, it won't just be the lone-nut explanation that gets destroyed. Any conspiracy theory that requires him to have been on the sixth floor will also fall apart. It's important to remember that Oswald could have been set up as a patsy before the assassination even if he was at liberty to go outside to watch the p. parade, or to eat his lunch in the domino room, during the shooting itself.
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James DiEugenio writes:
QuoteBart Kamp's book is coming out in a couple of weeks.
That should be a thorough look at the whole issue of what was said about this during detention.
I hadn't heard about that, but I'm looking forward to reading it. I hope you'll be reviewing it! Bart has done a lot of good work on Oswald's interrogations.
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Tom Gram writes:
QuoteAlex Wilson, who knows a lot about WWII and European history, requested temporary posting status on the EF to debate Leslie. Can we start a petition? Mods, you know you want to see this happen.
I'd sign that petition!
Alex is a serious student of the historical background which appears to be central to Albarelli's claims. I'm sure Leslie will be keen to correct Alex's belief that the book contains "errors, omissions, inventions and flat out falsehoods relating to WW2 era history and wider European history in general."
If Alex is prevented from joining the Ed Forum for whatever reason, the obvious next step would be for Leslie to join the ROKC forum and have the debate there instead.
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P.S. I don't know if I'm the only reader who has trouble following the "RO1-RO2-LS1" discussion. Handy hint: copy and paste the relevant part of the other person's comment, highlight it, then click the little quotation mark icon, and - hey presto! - it will appear within a blockquote box. You can then write your reply underneath, and everyone will be able to work out who's replying to whom!
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It has been mentioned a couple of times that films were confiscated. Although many home movies and photographs passed through the hands of the authorities at some point, there was no concerted attempt to confiscate films, photographs or cameras from Dealey Plaza.
This is a claim that crops up every couple of years or so. I'll reproduce a reply I've used on previous occasions (see https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/24498-david-lifton-spots-a-piece-of-scalp-in-the-moorman-photo/?do=findComment&comment=442261, for example):
There was only a half-hearted official request for people, if they would be so kind, and if it isn't too much trouble, to turn in their photos or films. A handful of photographers, such as Abraham Zapruder and Mary Moorman, came to the attention of the authorities immediately, but very little active effort was made to track down the rest of the photographers or to confiscate cameras or films.
In fact, almost all of the photographers and home movie-makers, including Zapruder, left Dealey Plaza without having their cameras or films seized. Here's a partial list I compiled earlier:
- Oscar Bothun didn't have his camera or film seized: "Shortly after the shooting Mr Bothun apparently went back to work. He seems not to have been stopped or questioned as a witness at the scene" (Richard Trask, Pictures of the Pain. p.157).
- Hugh Betzner didn't; he went out of his way to make himself and his photographs known to the police.
- Phil Willis didn't: "Remaining around the area for about an hour after witnessing the shooting, none of the family was questioned by law enforcement personnel" (Trask, p.179). Willis made his own way to the Kodak plant to get his film processed, and didn't have his camera seized there either.
- Orville Nix didn't; like Zapruder, he walked out of Dealey Plaza with his home movie camera. He returned later to take some more footage, and again left the scene without having his camera seized.
- Marie Muchmore didn't; she retained her camera and film until she sold the film to UPI three days after the assassination.
- Wilma Bond didn't; she wasn't even contacted by the authorities until February 1964.
- Jim and Tina Towner didn't; they stayed in Dealey Plaza for a while, then went home with their cameras.
- Robert Croft didn't; he left Dealey Plaza and went home to Denver with his camera.
- Mark Bell didn't; he walked across Dealey Plaza with his home movie camera and went back to work. There is no evidence that the authorities even knew of the existence of Bell's film until several years after the assassination.
- Robert Hughes didn't; he too left Dealey Plaza without having his home movie camera seized. The first thing the authorities knew about Hughes's film was when he voluntarily handed it to the FBI two days after the assassination.
- Charles Bronson didn't; he left Dealey Plaza with his still and home movie cameras, and returned the next day to take more footage and still photographs, and again left without having his cameras seized.
- James Altgens didn't; he waited for a short while in Dealey Plaza and then walked a few blocks to the local newspaper office to get his film developed.
As you can see, several of these people didn't come to the attention of the authorities until months or even years later. The authorities clearly weren't too bothered about what the photographs and home movies might show, apart from the obvious 'back and to the left' head snap that was presumably the main reason for keeping the Zapruder film largely away from public view for over a decade.
This implies that whoever was behind the assassination wasn't too bothered either. As long as the assassination happened and their gunmen got away undetected, why should they have cared about what the films and photos contained?
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Leslie Sharp writes:
QuoteAs I asked in a separate post, why didn't Oswald say immediately on arrest or at least in the early hours at DPD that he was standing outside, and that he could identify his coworkers who were standing nearby.
Oswald does appear to have provided his alibi in his first interview on the afternoon of the assassination.
The official record of Oswald's interviews is disgracefully incomplete. Accounts by some of those who interviewed Oswald can be found in Appendix XI (pp.598-636) of the Warren Report:
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=946#relPageId=621
Until the discovery of Hosty's notes in 2019, all we had was some vague accounts:
- "I asked him what part of the building he was in at the time the president was shot, and he said that he was having his lunch about that time on the first floor" (Fritz's written account, made some time later: Warren Reoprt, p.600)
- "He said he was having lunch at about this time on the first floor" (Fritz's Warren Commission testimony: Hearings and Exhibits, vol.4, p.231)
- "OSWALD claimed to be on the first floor when President JOHN F. KENNEDY passed this building" (Hosty and Bookhout's reprt, 23 November: WR, p.613)
- "OSWALD stated that he took this Coke down to the first floor and stood around and had lunch in the employees’ lunch room. He thereafter went outside and stood around for five or ten minutes with foreman BILL SHELLEY" (Bookhout's report, 23 November: WR, p.619)
We now have Hosty's notes:
QuoteOn 11/22 at 3:15 pm LHO was interviewed by Capt. W. Fritz JWB [James Bookhout] + JPH [James Hosty] ...
O stated he was present for work at TBD on the morning of 11/22 and at noon went to lunch. He went to 2nd floor to get Coca Cola to eat with lunch and returned to 1st floor to eat lunch. Then went outside to watch P. [Presidential] Parade
We also have accounts by Bookhout and the Secret Service agent Thomas Kelly of a later interview, in which Oswald claimed to have been in the domino room when he saw Jarman and Norman enter the building (WR, pp.622, 626).
Even from this highly incomplete record, we can be sure that Oswald claimed:
- that he ate his lunch on the first floor in the domino room, where he saw Jarman and Norman enter the building, an event which we know happened at around 12:25;
- that he then went to the front entrance to watch the motorcade;
- and finally he spoke to Bill Shelley, who we know was outside, standing on the steps.
The question of exactly where Oswald claimed to have been when the shots were fired is unanswered. He may have claimed to have been in the domino room, or on the steps, or on his way from the domino room to the front entrance. Or he may not have mentioned exactly where he was during those few seconds. Presumably he wouldn't have thought that his exact location was important; what mattered was that he was not in any location that would have allowed him to shoot JFK and Connally.
There's a discussion of Oswald's alibi, and the way in which official accounts of it evolved, here:
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Leslie Sharp writes:
QuoteThe "problem" with Prayer Man remains, how can he be an effective patsy if he's filmed standing outside the building at the time of the shots?
If we assume that the lone-gunman explanation was an essential component of the plot, then it would of course be a serious problem if Oswald was filmed standing on the steps, or indeed was seen anywhere other than on the sixth floor.
But Oswald's presence elsewhere wouldn't be a problem at all for a plot that didn't require Oswald to be officially designated as a lone gunman. For a plot which, let's say, intended the assassination to be blamed on the Cuban or Soviet regimes, it would not matter where Oswald was at the time of the shooting. All that was needed was a rifle to be discovered that would link the crime to Oswald.
Oswald's history, as a defector to the Soviet Union and then as a public supporter of the Castro regime, would be sufficient to link him to those regimes. Oswald need not even have turned up for work that day; as long as he could be linked to the rifle, those regimes would be linked to the assassination.
For a 'blame it on the Cubans or Soviets' type of plot, an apparent lone gunman would in fact be less effective than an apparent conspiracy involving more than one person. In this scenario, it would be better for Oswald to be said to have supplied the rifle than to have used it himself.
As it turned out, the lone-gunman explanation was manufactured after the event for straightforward political reasons. There's no need to assume that it was part of any plot.
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P.S. There's an explanation of the background to this thread here:
https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2743-the-latest-pm-thread-at-the-ef
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Leslie Sharp writes:
QuoteA response to Greg Parker's recent remarks regarding Albarelli's last investigation, "Coup in Dallas."
I'm not sure what Greg Parker's recent remarks are, and I'd be surprised if he made them here, what with not having been a member for years.
More importantly, I'm not sure what the "Problem with 'Prayer Man'" is. The Prayer Man question isn't just about "a blurry photo". The argument is that:
- certain frames of the Darnell and Wiegman films show someone standing on the TSBD steps immediately after the shots were fired;
- although there is not enough detail in the publicly available copies to allow the person on the steps to be identified with certainty, the person's physical appearance and clothing are consistent with those of Oswald;
- all the other people standing on or very near the steps can be identified in these films, to varying degrees of certainty, as TSBD employees;
- all the TSBD employees who claimed to have been standing on the steps can be identified, to varying degrees of certainty, and none of them is the Prayer Man figure;
- none of the TSBD employees on the steps mentioned that any outsiders were present there;
- it is unlikely that a random member of the public would have decided to push past a group of TSBD employees when better viewpoints would have been available along the side of the road;
- there is no strong evidence placing Oswald anywhere else at the time of the shooting;
- Oswald was on the first floor of the building, in the domino room, around five minutes earlier, when he saw Harold Norman and James Jarman enter the rear of the building;
- Oswald claimed in an interview that he had eaten his lunch on the first floor and then "went outside to watch the p. parade", in the words of James Hosty in a note that only came to light in 2019 (see http://www.prayer-man.com/the-james-hosty-notes/);
- Oswald's alibi was misrepresented in the official accounts of his interviews, and in the Warren Report.
Against this, there is the fact that none of the other TSBD employees on the steps mentioned seeing Oswald there, and that some of them denied having seen him at all that day.
Overall, there is good reason to suspect that the unidentified person on the steps is Oswald, although the current state of the evidence doesn't allow the question to be resolved with certainty.
It's important to note that the potential consequences of Oswald's confirmed presence on the steps are so great that the question really needs to be resolved, if possible.
QuoteI assume by now you [Greg] have a peer reviewed report produced by a qualified photo examiner or better, a team of experts — the equivalent of authentication of a document — to advance your hypothesis.
The problem is that a "peer reviewed report" cannot be made because the copies of the Darnell and Wiegman films that are in public circulation are insufficiently clear, being several generations removed from the originals.
Apparently the originals, or at least early copies, do exist. See Bart Kamp's account: http://www.prayer-man.com/the-search-for-the-wiegman-darnell-films/. It's possible that they may allow us to confirm or deny Oswald's presence on the steps at the time of the shooting. These films really ought to be treated as official JFK assassination records.
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Andrej,
Greg Parker has an answer to your question:
https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2730-for-andrej-stancak-the-ed-forum
(No, this Lynn isn't Karen Carlin.)
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Those markings on Ruth Paine's calendar may have a mundane explanation:
https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t112p25-ruth-paine-s-calendar#42052
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James DiEugenio writes:
QuoteEspecially curious about those who trash it who have not read it. ... So I would like to ask if Jonathan had read the whole book and if Jeremy has read the whole book?
No, I haven't read the whole book. I've read the first few dozen pages, and parts of the rest of it, to see what Armstrong has to say about particular topics.
I'm not sure how anyone can read the whole thing from beginning to end. It's an unreadable mess. It jumps from place to place for no obvious reason; it has 'notes' stuck between paragraphs of unrelated text; it has boldface, italics and underlining applied seemingly at random. It isn't so much a finished book as a set of rough notes.
How much of an allegedly non-fiction book does one need to read to get a fair impression of its relation to reality? In the case of Armstrong's 900-page tome, I'd say it's the first 14 pages. By page 14, Armstrong has put forward a major element of his theory as a proven fact while supplying virtually zero evidence to support it:
QuoteAs early as page 14, it will be obvious to even a half-alert reader that the 'Harvey and Lee' theory is the product not of solid evidence and argument but of wishful thinking. All but the most credulous conspiracy theorists, who surely make up Harvey and Lee’s target audience, would be wondering how many more evidence-free inventions were lurking in the remaining 900-odd pages.
(http://22november1963.org.uk/john-armstrong-harvey-and-lee-theory)
As far as "trashing" goes, I concentrated on criticising the ideas, not the book, when (and because) those ideas were very heavily promoted on this forum. Very heavily indeed! Thank [insert name of preferred deity] that those days appear to be over. I've done the same to the late Mr Lifton's equally ludicrous ideas when he promoted them here. If anyone were to actively promote, say, the claim that Greer shot JFK, which is about as well-grounded as Armstrong's and Lifton's claims, I'd probably get to work on that, too, if I had time.
This sort of stuff (doppelgangers, body-snatchers, mobile photo-alteration vans in Dealey Plaza, etc) is harmful, because it is liable to make the rest of us look like fantasists. If you think a particular theory is not only faulty but actively harmful, you're justified in questioning it, surely?
Armstrong's theory is essentially the lone-nut theory coated with a thick, glutinous layer of paranoia, which is why most of those who "trash" it are also critics of the lone-nut theory. If casual readers see stuff like that promoted and not questioned, what are they going to think about those who don't question it?
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By the way, those of a delicate disposition may like to know that the humourous and satirical posts at ROKC have been moved from the 'Debunked' section to a separate area:
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Sandy Larsen writes:
QuoteSo what do you suggest we do, Jeremy? Kick off from the forum any member who points something out that Jonathan Cohen thinks is nonsense? What about if you think so? Or I, or Kathy, or Mark? Greg Parker?
I'm not sure why Sandy thinks promoters of nonsense should be expelled from the forum, or why the identification of nonsense should be the responsibility of one person.
The basic principle is that anyone who makes a positive claim has the responsibility of justifying that claim. That doesn't always happen.
In practice, of course, it doesn't matter much when someone makes an unsupported claim in an online forum. But in controversial cases such as the JFK assassination, when critics of the lone-nut theory are branded as 'conspiracy theorists', there is a particular need for people to justify any claims they make that might be considered far-fetched by reasonable members of the public.
Faked trees, faked photos, faked home movies, faked Oswalds, faked Rubys, faked presidential corpses: these types of claims, if unsupported by sufficient evidence, are likely to cause intelligent, open-minded members of the general public to believe the media's assertions that we're all a bunch of 'conspiracy theorists' (in the propaganda definition of the term).
In such cases, it would be the responsibility of the moderators to enforce standards of rational debate. The moderators should do more than limit their role to dealing with name-calling and the like.
All it should take, in most cases, would be a bit of gentle prodding. If someone makes a claim for which they don't appear to have provided sufficient evidence, or if someone claims certainty when their evidence doesn't appear to justify certainty, the moderators should point it out. Maybe the person making the claim will produce more evidence, or formulate their claim in a more plausible way, or acknowledge that their claim isn't quite as water-tight as they had imagined.
There's no need for arbitrary or draconian punishment. As long as far-fetched claims can be seen to be questioned by those with authority over the forum, casual visitors won't get the impression that the far-fetched stuff is any more widely accepted than it is.
Getting Down to the Nuts and Bolts ... and the question of Cubans in "direct capacities"
in JFK Assassination Debate
Posted
Leslie Sharp writes:
None of those references will mean anything until the datebook has been authenticated, if that ever happens.
As Benjamin Cole points out elsewhere, a film company commissioned an examination by experts, after which the company ceased its filming project. The obvious conclusion is that those experts had expressed doubts about the datebook's authenticity. See: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/29468-the-pierre-lafitte-datebook-a-fake/?do=findComment&comment=509926.
In another thread, Greg Doudna gave several arguments, so far unanswered, which suggest that the datebook is a fake. Some examples:
Given that the datebook appears not to be authentic, and that no-one seems interested in getting it authenticated, any theory that's based on information within the datebook would appear to be worthless.
There is an interesting current discussion of the datebook and the theory that is based on it, at the ROKC forum:
https://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2714-reality-checks