Joe Bauer

I noticed on the Wiki Page for Raphael Cruz SR. that it mentions him moving to New Orleans, but they conspicuously leave out any "specific time frame date" and say only "in the early 60's."

The dates that Cruz moved to N.O. and lived there are important to validate whether he was actually living in New Orleans during the time Oswald was there and demonstrating.

And we now know that Cruz Sr. was indeed there at that time.

And it's also common knowledge that during this time New Orleans was a hub for some of the most militant anti-Castro Cubans who's obsession was to seek vengeance against Castro for running them all out of their homeland. This N.O. area anti-Castro activity included military training.

I cannot believe that Cruz Sr. ( who at that time was so involved in the anti-Castro movement he traveled and lectured on the Cuban situation ) did not know the key players of that movement in N.O. including Carlos Bringuier whose clothing store was the headquarters for this group and that Cruz Sr. did not know of Oswald, at least starting with the day Oswald and Bringuier got into that tussell downtown while Oswald was passing put pro-Castro leaflets and that was reported and actually filmed and broadcast on N.O. TV and radio.

What serious anti-Castro Cuban living in New Orleans in the summer of 1963 wasn't aware of Oswald after his broad daylight downtown leaflet activities were reported?

Common sense tells you that those N.O. Cubans communicated among themselves and what would enrage them more than hearing of some non-Cuban was passing out pro-Castro leaflets right in their midst? The Anti-Castro group head Bringuier was "reportedly" so enraged he confronted Oswald with cursing and even started fighting with him.

Cruz Sr. was in New Orleans during this news reported heated Oswald/ Bringuier confrontation and being so passionate and even active in the Anti-Castro movement with his speeches against Castro to outside groups, certainly knows much more about those doings and Oswald than he has or ever will acknowledge. He had to know. Even people who didn't have any concern about Castro or Oswald saw this report on their TV news station and maybe even their local paper.

Regarding the National Enquirer story of Cruz Sr. being photographed with Oswald;

I don't dismiss this suggestion out-of-hand.

Those pictures they published do look a lot like Cruz Sr.

Cruz Sr. was there in New Orleans at that time.

He was active in the anti-Castro movement.

The National Enquirer cites the conclusion of two so called photo or facial recognition "experts" who state it is probable that those pictures do show Cruz Sr.

They cite the credential of those experts and at least one ( the lady from U.C.L.A.? ) seems pretty legitimate.

The man identified as Cruz looks definitely Cuban ( white Cuban with Euro ancestry. )

And as far as the credibility of the National Enquirer and the expose articles they have published over the last 4 decades, my take on them and these articles are that they are more revealing of the truth than not.

In fact, even several of our so-called " more credible" main stream media entities have grudgingly admitted that the National Enquirer has scooped them many times. These medias gave weak excuses for this scoop disparity such as stating they just didn't commit the needed resources to do the ground investigative work the N.E. was doing to get to the truth behind these stories.

I have seen so many exclusive N.E. stories in the last 30+ years ( not reported in the main stream media until after these came out ) that were found to be factual and that changed the most famous celebrity's lives and careers and even the course of national elections and murder and other criminal trials.

Just a handful but there are dozens more:

Gary Hart & Donna Rice.

John Edwards and Reille Hunter and their love child.

O.J. Simpson and his Bruno Magli Shoes.

Micheal Jackson and his trial and pay offs to the families of his supposed victims.

Tiger Woods and marital troubles and harem of kept women.

Jesse Jackson and his love child.

Mel Gibson.

Rush Limbaugh's addiction to pain killers.

Yes, they have been caught publishing false stories and forced to retract, admit and apologize and even make restitution.

Carol Burnett

Cameron Diaz.

The Family of Elizabeth Smart, etc.

But, the numbers of these are quite low considering how many exposes they cover and report.

Here is another person's comment ( not mine ) that one could argue is more logical in determining who to trust in our national media versus who not to trust.

It brings to mind Judyth Miller of the New York Times.

"Despite its reputation as a smear rag, the Enquirer turns out to be more often right about celebrity scandals than the vast majority of the Operation Mockingbird-infiltrated American media.

It is a mark of how far American journalism is falling that the National Enquirer is now more trustworthy than CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and the rest of the CIA's Hegelian-dialectic, divide-and-conquer cable news media empires."

Douglas Caddy,

What a strange and credibility questioning action on the part of JVB.

Who better to have at a conference with Billy Sol Estes as a main topic than the person who legally represented him at a most crucial and important time in the LBJ/Mac Wallace/Estes revelation story?

I have always given JVB's story more respect than those who feel she is nothing more than an off-balance nut case seeking fame and fortune through exaggerated claims of her New Orleans relationship with Oswald and Ferry, etc.

I gave more weight to the "facts" of her being employed at the same work location in New Orleans and on the same day as Oswald along with many other parts of her New Orleans /Oswald/Ferry story that to me could not be easily dismissed as totally untrue or created only from the investigative literary work of others that was published years before she came on the scene.

Her early life auto-biography matched known records and has been verified by others close to her in her youth and teen years.

And I believe she was as naive and innocent as she claimed by the time she reached New Orleans as a very young woman.

The opposite of hard youth life Marina Oswald.

I could easily see Lee Harvey Oswald being attracted to a young and less hard woman who thought he was something special versus Marina's almost disdainful feeling and attitude towards him and even having an intimate affair with person like JVB.

This seemingly illogical cancellation of your invitation e-mail from JVB to you Mr. Caddy is something that can't help but give one pause in the JVB credibility area.

Heck, if you were the "only" speaker here near the San Francisco Bay Area regarding your first person interaction history with many of the most important persons involved with the JFK and Watergate events, I would gladly pay to see and hear you alone.

JVB's loss here.

Larry, just read your essay.

So informative.

It reminds me again that the main group of contributors on this site are esteemed researchers and I am not.

I feel embarrassed re-reading my few simple minded postings and seeing that they would be more appropriate on a "beginners" JFK website versus this much more " advanced" research one.

However, I will continue to read the incredibly informed postings here and deeply appreciate the lifetime efforts you all have contributed in this heroic search for the JFK assassination truth.

As well as the RFK and MLK assassination truths.

Yes, fascinating.

Who was in charge of RFK's personal body guard security in the Ambassador at that time?

It seems a given that someone of RFK's stature and just winning the Calif. primary, which everyone knew made him "the Democratic candidate" in the next election, would mandate much more serious physical protection than allowing an uneducated, racist, Nazi admiring rent-a-security guard George Zimmerman type cop wannabe who couldn't pass the basic psychological and educational requirements to be one, to be RFK's personal body to body escort.

Assigning Thane Cesar ( who hated RFK and was armed no less ) to this position seems like a security lapse so negligent it shouts suspicion.

There is an audio tape ( On You Tube ) of the Ambassador Hotel's night manager calling the L.A.P.D to first report a shooting at their hotel that night, right after RFK was gunned down.

She tells the police dispatcher that RFK is at the hotel and this police dispatcher immediately interjects a derisive toned "Big Deal" in response to the lady manager's mention of RFK.

This dispatcher's dislike of RFK was so strong and personal, he couldn't help but interjecting it, even though doing so was highly unprofessional in response to an emergency shooting call.

His hateful words towards RFK couldn't help but make you think that many in the L.A. P.D. felt the same way about RFK and reminded you of the same ultra right wing Kennedy hating mind set of many Dallas PD personnel in 1963.

I have always wondered if Clint Hill had fallen in love with Jackie Kennedy while he was assigned to guard her.

After reading what I could about his life and feelings as related in his book and in his many interviews...I felt instinctively that there was something deeper going on in his heart about the most beautiful first lady that ever graced the White House...and that he will never ever reveal to anyone.

I have seen at least one home movie type video showing Hill with Jackie that gave me a feeling that their relationship was far from impersonal.

In this one scene, Jackie and her two your children are walking with Hill on a small two lane road or driveway in what looks like a Seaside rural area. Perhaps at the ocean in Mass?

They ( Jackie, the kids and even Hill ) are all dressed in very casual beach type clothing...and Hill is actually holding up and swinging John John in a playful way as they walk as Jackie is looking at them both with a relaxed, approving and trusting smile.

If you didn't know who these people were you would swear they were a family ( a happy and content one ) and Hill fit the loving playful father image to a tee.

John John looks young enough that this may have been before 11,22,1963. If so, JFK was obviously far away on business.

I wondered how much of Hill's job time was interacting so closely with Jackie like this.

Now, I am going to speculate a little here.

Clint Hill is in his younger middle age prime when he starts protecting Jackie Kennedy. He obviously is as attracted to beautiful women as any other healthy man his age.

He sees just over 30 years old world class attractive Jackie so much and is so physically close to her as well, he could literally smell her perfume.

I know that if it was me with that job, I couldn't help but be battling my attraction to this women. And when a man has a job of protecting such a person, often even a possessiveness can take hold.

That may not be a scientifically proven fact...but I believe it can be the case if the protected one is incredibly, even seductively beautiful as Jackie Kennedy obviously was.

You do remember the film "The Body Guard" with Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston?

I know...that's not a great comparative analogy, but the film's story line did follow the same emotional connection and bond I just described and which is somewhat commonly related to historically.

Didn't Patricia Hearst and her bodyguard fall in love as well? I can think of several other similar situations with famous people.

I also understand that Clint Hill's own marriage wasn't a healthy or happy one.

That would make him even more prone or even susceptible to falling for someone of Jackie Kennedy's beauty and classy but soft feminine ways and speaking.

When Hill supposedly and reportedly fell apart and began drinking heavy years after the JFK ass. I sense that this had more to do with him losing his connection to Jackie Kennedy than failing in keeping JFK from having his head blown apart right in front of him.

Now, without being the revered researchers like our main posters here, I must ask, didn't Hill and Jackie finally get intimate after JFK was taken out?

If they did, that would cement in my mind the belief that Hill was deeply in love with Jackie from the get go.

I bring up this possible emotional feeling scenario regards Hill toward Jackie to also propose that I don't think Hill cared that much about JFK's brutal death.

I also feel that contrary to Hill's often repeated statement that the Secret Service all liked JFK very much is a non-truth.

I believe that many hated JFK for his stand on race ( The Abraham Boldin affair highlighted this ) and many felt complete disgust for him regards his incredible sexcapades, sometimes with hookers and some felt extreme jealousy towards him as Jackie Kennedy's husband ...in particular Clint Hill.

I believe these negative feelings ( some deeply hateful ) towards JFK's by his own private guards in the least may have caused them to be more lax than they should have in his protection in Dallas. If I was assigned to guard JFK in a city known for it's extreme JFK hatred...I would have raided a fuss about going against driving protocol in so many ways it was outrageous...and I would have demanded that every open window above JFK be watched continuously while he was driving underneath.

I have not read Vince Palamara's books except excerpts but I have listened to his interviews on line. It seems to me that this is a take on Hill that he doesn't go into at all.

So without good research evidence I can only present my take as curious speculation, but I do feel this area of Hill's part in this historical period would take on a different meaning with this understanding of his true emotional connection towards Jackie Kennedy and JFK.

Your thoughts?

This statement by Marina is thoughtfully reflective and relevant.

Marina Oswald has always been extremely interesting.

Her place in this incredible historical drama.

Her entire life from Russia and marriage to Oswald to now.

Her words and commentaries throughout the decades.

Even her early contradictory testimony which changed over the years.

And so many from 1963 on were smitten by her natural beauty.

Norman Mailer in a nationally televised book interview promoting his book on Oswald said after meeting and interviewing Marina Oswald ...

She's very intelligent and " the truth is very important to her."

He also said about Marina "She has extraordinary blue eyes, absolutely beautiful, they look like diamonds."

Married men of great financial means having sex with other women besides their one legal spouse is so common that to me it is a non-issue.

Unless you are a TV preacher/evangelist asking people to send in "donations" to help you in your moral crusade message cause.

I have wondered several times in my life what it must be like to have millions of dollars and a true love for women and intimacy with them and how hard it would be to not have at least "some" extra-marital affairs. That kind of temptation would be extremely hard to avoid under those circumstances.

I am sure that more than half of all married men of these common male traits would do this if they had the financial means.

I am brand new to the forum.

I joined out of desperation.

I am no writer.

I am not a person who has spent anything close to the "years" of incredibly hard work, time and even money the core group of contributing members here have in researching the JFK assassination.

For those two reasons I felt I didn't deserve to join the forum and post.

Until now.

I am getting up there in age and I am willing to risk some embarrassment to leave my deeply, deeply heart-felt JFK murder and cover-up injustice thoughts and feelings "somewhere more meaningful" than my own head and my poor suffering wife's head as she has truly earned martyrdom granting me a one person audience ( albeit with eyes rolled back in her head and her mouth agape ) listening to my long-winded and surely boring JFK assassination obsession rants ... for the last 34 years!

It is with a leap of faith that my personal passion for the JFK truth will somewhat balance my lack of research knowledge and writing skills and not lower this most prestigious JFK research and debate forum's standards when posting.

Quick JFK assassination historical interest synopsis:

I was 12 when a fellow student ran out on our junior high school football field and yelled "the president's been shot!"

We were sent home.

I watched TV every second for the next few days.

I watched Jack Ruby whack Lee Harvey Oswald live on TV.

It was Lee Harvey Oswald's incredible openness, lack of logical security and his killing inside the Dallas Police Department building with dozens of armed security looking on that instantly made me feel in my young gut...that the entire JFK affair was much more than one "Lone Nut" who wanted fame.

I lived ( and still do ) in the same small town area that Mae Brussells and I believe Harrison Livingstone lived. Monterey, Carmel and Carmel Valley, Calif.

I listened to Mae Brussell's radio broadcasts on KRML for years.

Clint Eastwood lives here.

In his film "Play Misty For Me, Eastwood's role is that of a radio DJ and the station he is broadcasting from is this same KRML.

I have always been deeply effected, saddened and curious about the killing of JFK and the falsehood of the official explanation of this event as stated in our MSM and accepted historical record.

I have read what I could regarding independent JFK research off-and-on while just living and scraping by and raising a family.

I feel Jim Garrison and Mark Lane and so many other investigators, researchers and writers are heroes in this regard, including many who post here currently.

You know who you are.

The work you have done for this cause is just incredible and invaluable and will never get the credit it deserves in your life times.

Just to mention one of many who are on my mind - Doug Caddy.

I know your background from reading your many postings and watching your interviews when I can.

I find it truly inspiring that someone of your first person republican political insider position back in the 60's and 70's would spend years of great time and effort on your part, trying to help everyone find the truth about not just the JFK affair but so many other important American secrets.

I hope to post my own thoughts of some areas of JFK study soon enough. Mostly just tid-bits to further the discourse.

My one claim to fame regards any input in the JFK discussion?

An e-mail I sent to Ian Punnit ( spelling? ) of Coast To Coast AM during his interview of David Talbot about his book "Brothers" was read in it's entirety while he and Talbot were in the middle of their interview...and given a positive acknowledgement by both.

The e-mail I sent to Punnit and Talbot expressed my thoughts that one thing we could all agree on regards JFK's assassination, was that America was a much more corrupt country than most of it's citizen's could ever imagine and that in fact, corruption was one of America's top 3 legacies of the 20th century.

Corruption in every area and level of government, corporate and organized crime importance.

An as Robert Kennedy said in his book "The Enemy Within" it was this corruption that was eating away at the core of America's societal soul.

And I believe it was this same great corruption that took out Robert Kennedy in 1968.

One of my favorite Dealey Plaza testimonies?

Julia Ann Mercer.

Consider Mark Lane & Jim Garrison American Heroes.