Joe Bauer

WOW!

SK ... thank you for showing us your personal video.

I'm never going to be able to visit Dealey Plaza in person for many reasons.

I've never even been East of the Grand Canyon in my 70 years of living on the Central California Coast!

Although I've viewed hundreds of other videos of Dealey Plaza over the years, yours actually places you in a vehicle while going onto Elm and down it just as what it was like from JFK's perspective.

I couldn't help but notice how far away the shooter or shooters were willing to let JFK's limo travel from their alleged 6th floor perch before letting their volleys go.

I don't care how many times WC experts said hitting a bullseye into JFK's moving sideways and down 10 inch wide skull target almost a full football field distance away and while his limo was also moving at 11 MPH and down a slight grade was very doable with a telescopic scope ... I can't buy it.

Hitting a bullseye into one of the "stationary" street signs on the sidewalk in front of the grassy knoll sure.

But if that street sign was only 10 inches wide, swaying sideways and moving away at 11 MPH from the 265 feet away shooter and down a slope?

And by a shooter who had just missed a shot just two to three seconds earlier and was under life and death risk stress with his last possible shot chance...no way Jose.

The X's in the street are so important in showing viewers exactly where JFK was when he was hit.

Thanks again SK for this enlightening and thought provoking video.

I wonder whether any of our forum members ( especially those who regularly post or even just visit this specific broader political current news thread ) will choose not to tune into and watch the January 6th investigation committee hearings tonight and in later days?

I'm not asking for anyone here to say whether they will or will not choose to watch.

No need at all to initiate personal angst back and forths about such decisions.

Just hoping more of us versus less give these hearings their national interest caring viewing dues.

Avoiding hearing what the committee has found and will be reporting regards their months of investigative research into the extremely violent January 6th coup attempt upon our congress members, the Capital police and our Capital building and our constitutional election process just seems so blatantly and illogically irresponsible imo.

If this isn't the clearest, strongest case of "aiding and abetting" and even encouraging the capital crime of extremely violent "Seditious Insurrection" ... what is?

What we know about Trump's actions as insurrection unfolded

LBJ's call to Dr. Charles Crenshaw in the Parkland Hospital surgical room advising him of the presence of a man who was there to take the dying Oswald's confession doesn't sound like LBJ wanted an investigation at all.

He wanted it all to fall on and end with Oswald ( the lone nut ) right then and there.

Within days of returning to the White House after JFK was murdered, LBJ gets in touch with the JFK and RFK hating J. Edgar Hoover ( one of his best and closest long time friends and even his D.C. neighbor - "we are like brothers you and I") to discuss everything he needed to consider and do regards the immediate beginning stages of an investigatory process and committee.

LBJ is literally running by Hoover, the names of his choices to head such a panel in an approval seeking way?

What do you think of Allan Dulles? Dulles ... whom JFK fired and who hated JFK?

Hoover approves?

Gerald Ford? The most ardent supporter of Hoover in the entire congress? The man who kept Hoover and the FBI informed of every inside aspect of the supposedly independent of outside influence Warren Commission investigation it's entire run?

Thereby making Hoover another full and informed member of the Warren Commission by proxy?

Hoover to LBJ regards Ford ..."Good Man."

John McCloy? Oh please.

Richard Russell? Who represented the JFK hating deep South segregationist electorate?

We all know Henry Marshall was brutally murdered. And who benefitted by his killing - LBJ cronies and partners in crime.

I think 90% of anyone who has seriously studied LBJ honestly believes he was psychologically wired to cross the ultimate corruption line. And that he did do so in tacitly or even directly ordering or giving his approval to such deeds.

No LBJ writer has a problem with describing him as ruthless.

They just can't go on record stating LBJ ever went any further with his ruthlessness than just below the ultimate corruption mountain top line. Imo anyway.

10 hours ago, Phil Nelson said:

Mssrs. Niederhut and Bauer are on the right track.  Caro himself described Johnson as a great planner and manipulator in his first book, I think he even used the adjective "meticulous" or something near it. 

For anyone who hasn't read it already, Ed Tatro's great work "Lyndon Johnson the Charlatan Liberal" is must reading.   Proving that LBJ's real attitudes were exactly opposite of what he portrayed them to be;  but above all, he was a master politician who knew that ...

 

" passage of civil rights legislation would effectively erase all the bad stuff and provide him a grand legacy, just like Washington, Lincoln and FDR (his mentor). "

If LBJ believed that... he was desperately wrong.

If LBJ was involved in any way with JFK's murder ( including foreknowledge of ) ...that legacy completely erases his passage of the civil rights legislation one.

 

 

 

On 6/4/2022 at 10:46 AM, W. Niederhut said:

My impression is that LBJ's successful Presidential support for the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act-- after sabotaging civil rights legislation in Congress for years-- was part of a cynical, self-serving maneuver to endear himself to northern liberals in the Democratic Party after 11/22/63.

IMO, it was also part of a calculated strategy to reduce suspicion of his involvement in the JFK assassination, by publicly aligning himself with JFK's policies on civil rights.

Similarly, LBJ worked hard to create the public impression that he had not altered JFK's Vietnam policy, as John Newman, James DiEugenio, and other historians have demonstrated so clearly.

I should mention that I was not fully aware of LBJ's serious character pathology until I read Mr. Nelson's LBJ biographies (Mastermind and Colossus) a few years ago.

These threads are personally interesting to me because, several years ago, after reading the Nelson LBJ biographies, I had a rather heated argument with a family member who revered Robert Caro.   (I ended up sending her copies of the two Nelson books.)

Yes.

13 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

Personally I find that quite reasonable, especially given that advance Secret Service lead Lawson prepared an extensive report on his security preparations and that involved the DPD calling up police reserves and its own intelligence unit reserves (one of whom I interviewed on his duties that day yeas ago). Even offers from the Sheriff's office were refused as Lawson thought he had done an extensive job (it was his first advance) and the DPD support was sufficient.  

Lawson was grossly negligent in his over-confidence regarding JFK's motorcade security.

Resulting in the epic worst case scenario failure of presidential security since Lincoln.

His first advance? Wonderful.

Those 40 security protection trained personnel offered by the 112th as well as extra Sheriff department personnel could have been used to secure the rooftops of all the higher downtown motorcade fronting buildings.

With binoculars they could have scanned all the open higher floor windows just as JFK was passing underneath. Others could have been placed on the downtown motorcade streets to do the same thing.

Untrained idle minded naked eye sidewalk dwelling bystanders in Dealey Plaza just looking around easily spotted rifle toting men in the TXSBD building upper floors just minutes before JFK's arrival there. Carolyn Walthers and Aaron Rowland.

But not one motorcade security person?

When questioned many times about the lack of higher floor Dallas motorcade open window security during his many book tour promoting public appearances, SS agent Clint Hill would always respond..." Well...we just didn't have enough manpower to do so."

According to Lawson, they had this covered? Obviously not.

And if Hill was right, why turn down offered help to fill in that clear security gap?

Wonder if Lawson took his JFK slaughter security failure as hard as Hill, or even at all?

Bottom line reality fact here folks is...everyone involved in JFK's Dallas security "failed!"

In the most epic, worst case scenario nation and society damaging way.

Surprised none of those in the highest circles of JFK security planning were fired.

Waiting until the JFK limo arrives to the much more open part of Dealey Plaza and is leaving away from it makes sense to me as far as there being much more open room for multiple shooters to do their thing.

Also, the farther away from the kill shot location the better for the shooters to get away.

I also agree that the indentation in the chrome/steel upper front windshield frame is from a separate shot.

The trajectory of which came from a different point of origin than the 6th floor window.

As shown by the entrance angle of the hole itself, which lines up to an origin point farther West than the supposed 6th floor origin head shot into JFK.

Any bullet fragment exiting JFK skull would have had to swung out a foot or two to the right and swung back left into the windshield frame to come in from that angle.

Also, there is a concussive force effect from a high caliber rifle being fired not too far from you.

You can "feel" the shot. 

I think the people on the grassy knoll starting from the Stemmons Freeway sign stated their belief of a shot coming from behind them because they "felt" this concussive force.

Echos from TXSBD 6th floor shots would not have been "felt" by these grassy knoll people.

16 hours ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

Joe said:

Also, the woman sang in choirs, folk danced, listened to Peter, Paul And Mary and Kingston Trio records, watched Lawrence Welk on TV, her husband bowled and she actively participated in trying to desegregate Dallas area libraries and other facilities and sympathized with the civil rights movement. A true liberal.

Maybe I'm just totally naive about how well assets can be set up to look so every day normal and innocently humanitarian minded nice and kind?

It's interesting Joe mentioning Ruth Paine  having Kingston Trio records. 2 of my oldest siblings were born before the war. The oldest, my sister is 13 years older than me or roughly Doug and LHO's age. My sister and oldest brother liked the Kingston Trio because they were a local S.F. Bay Area phenomena,  and their first gig was 3 miles from where we lived. They were later shunned by the folk purists as being too commercial but they sort of popularized folk music in the late 50's. They liked some of the early folk artist such as the Weavers, and Woodie Guthrie and were nurturing of the folk movement  and attended Pete Paul and Mary's first gig. And they were celebrity friends with JFK.

This is a song from around 1958, performed at the "Hungry I" in San Francisco, a local venue in the beatnik era that also gave Mort Sahl and the Smothers Brothers a break in their careers. At the very beginning commentary, they raise my first reference as a kid, to John Foster Dulles.

 

https://youtu.be/JVUh5OaiADc

My oldest brother was born in 1939.

He was into folk music.

He'd play this on his record player throughout the late 1950s.

As a child of 4 through 8 or 9, I liked hearing his records playing.

Something good, wholesome, decent and fun and catchy about it all.

Heady stuff.

So, the 112th had a dozen or more men in Dallas during the motorcade?

Simple question to Powell - were any of them assigned to Dealey Plaza?

Army intelligence had been watching and investigating Lee Oswald throughout Oswald's time in New Orleans?

No sharing of their Oswald concerns with the DPD and FBI leading up to and including the morning of 11,22,1963?

23 hours ago, Denny Zartman said:

Forgive me, @Joe Bauer, you're one of my favorite people in the forum. I always enjoy reading your posts, but I must respectfully disagree with you on this particular issue.

In your earlier post you wrote:

And you go on to describe her alleged altruistic Quaker nature. But then you follow that with your next post where you write:

Which suggests she was motivated primarily or solely by what she would personally get out of helping Marina and not because of the satisfaction gained from a doing a truly selfless act of charity. That's not sincere, that's selfish.

if the foreign exchange student story is true, then she was either defying or ignoring what was specifically being encouraged by her church and practiced by her fellow Quakers. In my opinion this would further undercut any claims of her sincerity because of her specific religion. It seems Ruth had an interest in other cultures as evidenced by her knowledge of the Russian language. Why then would a foreign exchange student not satisfy her interest? And I sincerely doubt that Quaker teachings encourage Quakers to help individuals in order to satisfy their own carnal desires. When you and your wife so generously took in a young mother, I hope neither of you did so because of what either of you wanted to gain out of it, but because she was a human being in need of help.

I believe Ruth's involvement with the Oswald family did not happen by chance and was not primarily or even secondarily driven by what the young people refer to as a "girl crush." Ruth needed to be in Lee's life to such a level where it gets Lee in Dallas, anchors him there, and where it would not be suspicious if Ruth "helped" Lee get a job downtown at what just happened to be the pre-selected kill zone. I personally believe the "crush" story is overblown, exaggerated to discourage further speculation about Ruth's motives. I think the Paine's involvement with the Oswald's was primarily as a result of needing to place the patsy at the specific location and secondarily to have a convenient source of incriminating physical evidence few would question. After all, she's just a nice Quaker lady.

 

Denny I see your points and "also" respectfully disagree and agree!

Yes, Ruth had some personal interest motivation in asking Marina to live with her.

It wasn't 100% pure altruistic.

Heck, hundreds of thousands of people taking in foster kids all across America get a check from the government for doing so. That doesn't generally equate into their intentions being much less than altruistic and admirable.

I'm not trying to make Ruth out to be a saint, but what is wrong with having at least "some" personal interest leeway in choosing who you decide to take into your home?

That is the ultimate act of giving. You give up so much privacy, space and expenses. And potentially risky for many reasons. What if Marina had a hidden selfish dark side? Or she was super lazy and slovenly? Plus, what if Lee turned ugly about Ruth stealing away his wife and baby and had become belligerent towards her?

Yes, Ruth had some needs of companionship and Marina fit the bill. In all the ways I previously mentioned.

When I commented that I think Ruth was smitten with Marina to a possible "crush" degree I was irresponsibly wrong in doing so as I honestly do not know anything at all about her sexual orientation. 

However, I think that it is easier for some people to open their homes up to others who they feel good about being around 24 hours a day. And an attractive young woman ( with an intriguing Russian background ) with a 2 year old child and late term pregnant with another fit that bill. 

If a 230 lbs. dirty, smelly, hairy faced and bodied man in need knocked on Ruth's door asking for shelter, pure altruistic intentions take a hike.

So, yes, one can say Ruth had some selfish need motivations in taking in Marina besides pure blindly altruistic ones.  But I don't think those on their own totally negate the worthiness of her kindness and generosity she bestowed upon Marina and her children, especially when the newly unemployed ( again ) Lee couldn't provide for their most basic needs of shelter, medical attention, transportation etc.

Now, the latter long term relationship Marina had with Precilla Johnson McMillan is the more suspicious one by a mile imo.

Oh, and to answer your curiosity about my wife's and my honestly altruistic intentions when helping the barefoot 17 year old girl holding her just months old baby in her arms  that knocked on our door one rainy night let me assure you, they were.

We knew the girl's parents. Their home life was pure chaos.

We had two children ourselves 12 and 9.

We had also taken my elderly mother into our home 6 month's earlier after she was financially abused by another brother in the 11 months he had her.

This girl's 17 year old boyfriend out of desperation to support his girl and new baby had robbed a local motel, gotten caught and was arrested at the time of her homelessness.

The boy called me with his one allowed phone call from the police department asking for some help. He was scared, crying even. He knew we had taken in his girl and baby.

To this day, I regret deeply that I didn't do more for him than just sympathetically listen to his anxious reaching out. 

I could have ( and should have ) done more. 

5 minutes ago, Matt Allison said:

The crudest man to become President in the 20th century. Yet he also got the Civil Rights Act passed, a monumental achievement.

As for Wallace, him cold bloodily murdering someone didn't seem to phase most people in Texas...

LBJ did push the act through and it lifted millions of black Americans faster and higher than ever before. 

Yet, I think LBJ did this as an act of legacy image improvement dressing.

Excuse my cynicism but many historic evil doers will often do substantial acts of charity during and after their climb to the top of their power and wealth positions.

Most are not aware of the full extent of Al Capone's acts of charity.

Drug and Cartel leaders spend millions if not billions on social programs once they have murdered their way to the top of these criminal empires.

If LBJ had anything to do with JFK's death including held back foreknowledge nothing he did later in his position as President means anything to me.

1 hour ago, Douglas Caddy said:

 

Billie Sol Estes told me that the only person more ruthless than LBJ was John Connally.

Really? More ruthless than LBJ?

I would loved to have heard Estes elaborate on this charge against Connally.

On 6/4/2022 at 5:57 AM, Phil Nelson said:

Joe, think of it this way:  If he was capable of murdering numerous others, evidence of which I have noted in four books and numerous blogs -- BTW, including RFK and MLK -- but also his attempt to sink the USS Liberty and all 294 men aboard, merely to secure reelection in the next year -- in his deluded mind anyway (while risking nuclear war with the USSR) then wouldn't such a man pass this hurdle you've constructed?

Tom Cahill, who was subjected to the most vile and hideous treatment imaginable (an honorably discharged veteran BTW), all for his protesting LBJ's Vietnam policies "in his backyard," had this to say:

“As far as I’m concerned [Phil Nelson’s] exposure of “Operation Cyanide” is the smoking gun in the case against LBJ for his role in the execution of JFK.  If Johnson was criminally insane enough to conspire to send to “the bottom” a US Navy ship with all hands as well as nuke millions of residents of Cairo, why would he not conspire to kill the man in the way of his ambition to be president.  And you have certainly proved Johnson was indeed criminally insane by the strictest definition of the term.
[ . . . ]
And you deserve a Presidential Medal of Honor for your work in closing a fifty plus year cold case. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your hard work.”

~ Tom Cahill, Oswald Innocent Campaign — Cluny, France

Thank you for responding.

As long as our officially sanctioned scholastic books and government records keep downplaying or ignoring all together the true depths of corruption of so many of our highest institution leaders during the 1950's, 60's and beyond, the longer we all will continue to live in a world of unnecessary misguided faith, understanding and beliefs. 

The cheating and stifling let down and emptiness of myth versus truth.

I know, it's one thing to always look at everything in the worst possible light. The total cynic. What a sad wasted existence for sure. 

Lincoln once said something like "when you continually look for the bad in government, you will surely find it ..." 

And then there's the total pollyannaish mentality which has it's obvious let downs as well.

In the more rational and healthy middle, life is always a daily challenge to see, appreciate and enjoy the good along with the bad, joy and laughter with the sadness, faith and hope with lost hope, discouragement and corruption.

I believe much more often than not, most of us in America do look for, see, appreciate and enjoy and share the good more than the bad.

Personally, I actually do count my blessings almost daily as I've had a relatively good, happy and fulfilling life here in America the last 70 years. Always keeping in mind the often harsh, deprived and repressed liberty lives of billions of other humans on this planet. Even the homelessness, addiction and other stress struggles of millions of Americans as well, especially the 1/4 poorest.

Yet, when a criminal act so vile, so barbaric, so damaging and hurting and long term negatively effecting of most of our society takes place such as the murders of JFK and others, the good and great and beautiful of this country is no excuse to not give these ultimate crimes the fullest truth and justice seeking attention and effort we can until we know who committed them and why.

If it makes most of us sick to our stomachs and extremely depressed to know the full truth extent of the corruption of many of our top leaders over the last 7 decades, it is a price we must pay to purge ourselves of the toxic schemes and lies that have cheated us of so much during this time.

If LBJ, Hoover and others were that corrupt we must face and deal with this truth.

We'll get through it just fine. Like we did with Watergate.

With Watergate, we somehow were finally gifted with the exposure of one of the most egregious criminal enterprises ever existing in the highest levels of our government.

Nixon's entire staff was involved and almost 30 of them and their aides were tried, convicted and served jail time.

But it was all for the good.

And so will acknowledging the truth about LBJ and others and their highest level of sometimes brutal corruptness...imo anyway.

On 6/3/2022 at 2:39 PM, Denny Zartman said:

I can't find the reference, but I remember reading that someone from Ruth's church said their church had a program to take in foreign exchange students, and Ruth did not participate in this program.

Denny, I think Marina knocked Ruth's socks off the moment she met her.

It was smitten at first site.

Having Marina live with her would fill many of Ruth's personal needs, interests and desires much more than some random foreign exchange student.

Marina was special.

Most everyone was intrigued by Marina's real Russian upbringing, her willingness to leave Russia and live here and her very real brilliant blue-eyed attractiveness.

I was smitten with Marina myself after seeing her in that nationally televised "Marina, what do you do all day" interview just weeks after 11,22,1963.

Until we fully acknowledge and embrace the full depth truth of LBJ's corruption, including his ordering and or sanctioning murders of individuals who were threats to his power, position and wealth, we will continue to live in a misguided false reality world of myth and ignorance.

We need to face and accept this truth about LBJ before we can understand the truth about the JFK assassination. 

I also believe LBJ knew in advance that JFK would be murdered before his first full term was completed.

Did LBJ's well documented super aggressive ambition drive mental and emotional make up go beyond just lying, cheating, strong arm coercing and corrupt financial dealings? 

Was he ruthless enough to cross the ultimate corruption line?

E. Howard Hunt, Billy Sol Estes and many, many others have claimed or suggested he was.

Richard Nixon quote " You know that Lyndon. He never liked to be number 2."

However, LBJ's most officially crowned highest esteemed academically accepted biographer Robert Caro won't go there.

He and other acceptable LBJ bio writers are willing to only go just below that ominous apex of corruption ruthlessness proposition.

If the chosen ones ever did commit to promoting this ultimate LBJ corruption charge, the powers to be would probably kick in and exercise their power and influence to dissipate their proclamations and even their earning standing rank in the world of literary publishing ...  imo anyway.

Look at what happened to the producers and distributers of the documentary "The Men Who Killed Kennedy."

When they filmed and tried to distribute the episode suggesting LBJ's possible guilt in the JFK assassination, the Johnson family and the powerful people and groups still behind them such as Jack Valenti and so many others hammered them so quickly and powerfully and successfully ...the episode was quashed and serious punitive fines were imposed.

Any LBJ biographical writers must surely keep such threat realities in mind?

I have always accepted that LBJ was psychologically ruthless enough to cross the murder ordering and/or sanctioning line if he felt the target was that much of a threat to his power, wealth and standing. And when the only option to truly eliminating the threat was to -as Ed Tatro once said LBJ said - "get rid of him."

In that particular conversation the "him" was Henry Marshall.

Our officially sanctioned academic history books deal with LBJ in mostly reverent terms and barely or not at all mention the true reality and depth of his great life-long corruption.

This sanitization is cheating their target readers of the real and full truth imo. 

I ask debaters of this "was LBJ capable and ruthless enough to order or okay murders of his threat enemies" question to also keep in mind LBJ's direct and aggressive effort to get his protege Mac Wallace out of a viciously brutal day time gun shooting jury arrived at guilty verdict of murder conviction which incredibly resulted in Wallace walking away...scot free!

An almost unbelievable example of the level of power and influence LBJ actually had and exerted in Texas.

Wallace cold bloodily murdering someone didn't phase LBJ. This was his man...and when it came to protecting those close to him that act didn't matter.

Maybe Wallace had such dirt on LBJ...his murder conviction freedom had to secured?

Was LBJ truly psychologically predisposed to sanctioning and even ordering murders?

If a clear majority consensus of mental health professionals believes so it adds to the weight of considering his possible involvement in the JFK assassination more than not ... imo.

There are many main characters in the Lee and Marina Oswald story that leave one unsure about their involvement with them in nefarious ways more than simple good will intentioned ones.

Regards Ruth Paine. 

No matter how much is reported about her possible asset work, travel and other odd activities one has to admit how much Ruth did for and gave to Marina and her babies at a time when they truly needed someone to step in like Ruth did, especially right up to, during and right after Marina just gave birth.

No one else was stepping forward on the total help giving commitment level Ruth was.

Robert Oswald and his wife? Other White Russians? Social services?

Ruth took Marina and her children into her own fairly small home where she had two children of her own. She paid for most all of Marina and her babie's basic needs.

Shelter and utilities, food, transportation especially in setting Marina up with pre-natal medical care. She allowed Lee to come and visit and even spend the night.

Whether there was something more nefarious going on with RP, or even if she had developed a kind of crush on Marina ... one still has to acknowledge her doing more for Marina and her children than 98% of society ever would. Taking them into her own small home and providing 95% of their basic needs. I don't think Ruth ever asked Marina, or even Lee, for a penny of shared costs expenses did she?

Ruth's background and her family's background certainly may be open to some curious scrutiny. Her sister's employment for one. Same with Michael Paine.

Where that leads is where it leads I guess.

I know a little about the Quakers. Love their active involvement humanitarianism and non-violent commitment to peace.

I am not convinced that Ruth wasn't sincere in her involvement with others and her motivations in helping them.

Even on the grand scale of improving relations between cold war adversaries and the very real threat of devastating conflict.

Also, the woman sang in choirs, folk danced, listened to Peter, Paul And Mary and Kingston Trio records, watched Lawrence Welk on TV, her husband bowled and she actively participated in trying to desegregate Dallas area libraries and other facilities and sympathized with the civil rights movement. A true liberal.

Maybe I'm just totally naive about how well assets can be set up to look so every day normal and innocently humanitarian minded nice and kind?

On 6/2/2022 at 10:31 AM, W. Niederhut said:

I finally started watching the Gaslit series during the past week and, as of last night, I've caught up through the first six episodes.

Thanks to Ron Bulman for recommending this.  It's highly entertaining and well produced.

I had to go back and review what I remembered about Jim Hougan's book, Secret Agenda, to put the Gaslit screenplay in proper historical perspective.

E. Howard Hunt, unfortunately, remains a shadowy, peripheral character throughout the first six episodes.  Baldwin isn't even named.

(Martha Mitchell refers to Dorothy Hunt's plane crash in a mere two lines.)

They depict James McCord as slow-witted, clumsy, and inept-- without attempting to clarify his role in deliberately bungling the Watergate burglaries.

They also run with the standard Mark Felt = Deep Throat narrative.

This Gaslit drama is centered primarily on the Mitchells and the Deans, based on a podcast called Slow Burn.

The RNC sex party host who grabbed John Dean by the cajones in the hot tub was Kenneth Harry Dahlberg, (1917-2011) a WWII fighter ace and Nixon booster who made his fortune with Telex, a hearing aid manufacturer, and venture capitalist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_H._Dahlberg

The most compelling characters in the show by far are not Martha and John Mitchell.

They are John and Maureen Dean and G. Gordon Liddy.

I don't know how close to reality the Mo Dean character is, but if not for her bolstering and encouraging ... John Dean would have never gone through with his whole criminal enterprise exposing testimony.

And Watergate would have gone nowhere were in not for John Dean.

Maureen Dean comes across as a courageous, tough, super smart and even decent moral values beauty.

Hard to watch an aging, almost always depressed and slightly drunk Martha Mitchell.

Sean Penn's portrayal as John Mitchell is amazing to me in that I literally forget that is really Sean Penn under all that superb makeup and padding job.

Yes, I don't buy the portrayal of McCord as a bungling screw up.

And did Liddy really kick the cr** out of McCord one time ( as the show depicts ) after he sensed McCord was wavering in his loyalty to his fellow perps?

Shea Whigham's portrayal of G. Gordon Liddy is of Emmy award winning caliber.

2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

JB: First, Ruby had to get past the street guards and down the ramp 

There is no way on God's green earth that Jack Ruby came down that Main Street ramp that day.

 

 

 

AGREE 100%.

And if one of Ruby's closest night club drop-in DPD buddies for years William "Blackie" Harrison ( who was actually in the press crowd supposedly for close up surveillance purposes ) had just once looked around or in back of himself instead of staring straight at Oswald as Oswald was being walked down the corridor he would have seen Ruby. Ruby was mere feet or even inches behind Harrison in those seconds before Ruby shot to the front of the press line.

And didn't Harrison himself go to the outer back door entrance area to use the cigar/cigarette dispensing machine to get a pack of his trademark stogies sometime before returning to the press crowd in the basement loading ramp area?

Somebody had to unlock the exit/entrance doors down there for Ruby ... yes?

*******

Do either of you have any opinion of Caro's treatment of Billie Sol Estes and his business involvements with LBJ?

Has Caro's ever given any public comment regards his ignoring, downplaying and even dismissing of Estes and Estes's most shocking charges against LBJ?

A question I have pondered and wondered what Caro's answer to it would be is this:

Was LBJ ever psychologically capable of ordering or sanctioning actual murders?

Murders of individuals who could have seriously derailed or even ruined his political career and maybe even personal life?

Did LBJ's well known ruthlessness exceed the bounds Caro ascribed to him?

1 hour ago, Douglas Caddy said:

The Durham fiasco

https://wapo.st/3x1mg21

Trump's efforts in everything the last three years are 90% failures.

Dozens and dozens.

Seriously, the biggest "loser" to ever occupy the White House.

We all see this.

But Trump and his followers can't admit this reality.

MC.

Notice also how long it took to get an ambulance down into the basement for Oswald?

Oswald's massive internal bleeding body had been carried back down the corridor and into an adjoining room. Then it was carried back into and down that corridor again and finally lifted into the ambulance. Oswald looked totally lifeless by that point.

How many minutes did it take from the second Oswald was shot to the point of his Parkland admittance and beginning surgery?

You can't stop that kind of internal bleeding without immediate surgery and blood infusions.

Oswald didn't have a chance.

Ruby's ability to get his gun within inches of Oswald's midsection ( even when Oswald had 2 guards by his side ) is the key here.

On 5/30/2022 at 12:00 PM, David Andrews said:

Does it seem like Ruby had plugged a guy at close range before?  Practice, practice.

David, after viewing 1,000 times the video clip of Ruby shooting Oswald the last 59 years, I have also come to a point of considering the actual physical feat of his doing so as quite remarkable in several ways.

It was skillfully timing, location and action choreographed.

First, Ruby had to get past the street guards and down the ramp and into the press crowd in a hurry and at just the right time before Oswald was brought out towards it. 

Then, once there, he had to keep kind of stealthily hidden behind others in the press crowd for at least a couple or more minutes before and up to Oswald's hallway perp walk.

Ruby knew he could be instantly recognized by Dallas PD officers like Patrick Dean and others if he pushed himself to the front of the press line too early.

He then had to coordinate his front of the line push not only within a two or three second window of Oswald's closeness, but also to a perfect front of the press line location position to be able to reach Oswald unimpeded with just a quick thrust and a few bounding steps. 

Ruby then had to skillfully and strongly bound out to get his body and gun holding arm and hand to a "can't miss" close up position ( within inches ) of Oswald's gut and then get his shot off before he and his arm and hand were grabbed by officers.

Successfully doing so was, again, a fairly impressive physical feat.

The front of the press line position Ruby garnered was just too perfect  in giving him unfettered 3 step access to a frontal wide open Oswald  imo. An Oswald that was walked right to him.

And was it just fatefully fortuitous for Ruby that Oswald was so frontally wide open for his thrust and shot? Or, purposely so?

Presenting Oswald with just two guards at his side instead of an extra two in front and two more in back of him as he was brought to just feet next to this poorly watched and checked press crowd was the final break Ruby needed to get to Oswald's wide open gut and blast away.

I often wondered what the Oswald jail transfer plan write off people like Curry and Fritz said to themselves when the absolute worst case Oswald security failure scenario played out right in front of them and right inside their own building?

And this after JFK's worst case death causing security failure in their city just two days before?