Denny Zartman

I'm not sure what you mean by this. What's the alternative to someone with the authority to tell Hoover how the investigation was going to go?

Wasn't Oswald's alleged presence in Mexico City the main reason investigators rejected the Odio incident?

There's that good ol' critical thinking in action.

Deleted.

This is a good question. I agree, 2067 is absurd. I wonder if anyone holding these papers will go on record as explaining the reasoning behind restricting these interviews.

Thanks, Ron.

I'm surprised Gene is part of any group, because he's not really a joiner.

That's the thing about protests: they're not very effective if people don't know you're protesting. Duct tape over the mouth or a sign or something like that, is recognizable as a protest. There's no question about it. But, holding up an open umbrella on a sunny day could also be interpreted simply as someone with sensitive skin protecting themselves from a potential sunburn. And it seems that most of the images of Neville Chamberlain with his umbrella show it closed. Brandishing a closed umbrella would have slightly more impact as a protest if that protest were truly meant to visually evoke Neville Chamberlain. In fact, wouldn't it be more effective to wave a piece of paper in the air if a protester really wanted to protest evoking Chamberlain's appeasement policy? Umbrellas were not a common method of protesting JFK, yet some random office worker in Dallas believed that the Kennedy's were easily annoyed at the sight of an umbrella, and that was enough for the self-described apolitical Witt to make the only political protest in his lifetime. Then Witt lies and says the umbrella was blocking his view when anyone can see for themselves that's just not true. In my opinion, it takes a lot of gullibility to believe Witt was telling the truth. I'm not convinced he was Umbrella Man in the first place. I am convinced that Umbrella Man was a conspirator.

Outstanding. Thanks very much, Steve. You sure know your stuff! What do you make of all these Colonels bopping around?

Thank you, Steve. That's an interesting story. Great catch. I can't believe I typed that out and didn't make a connection. I have to dig through my notes and refresh my memory about that other story. Someone was at a meeting (with Ruby?) where there was reportedly a Colonel (in uniform?), and there was also a guy who was described as looking like a boxer. I found the name of the boxer by accident and have to find it again, and now I have to see if I can go back and find those details. As for Colonel Wilmeth, as usual, the forum here has already discussed him a bit on this thread, which I haven't yet read: Col. J. D. Wilmeth Here's the FBI report about Wilmeth and his contacts with the Paines and Marina. Looks like the scanner software was really struggling to turn this into a text file: Full text of "Wilmeth J D Colonel"

I just finished listening to it. It's an interesting compilation of two interviews from a few years back. There's a little repetition between the two interviews and occasionally the topic of conversation veers away from JFK, but that's brief. Brown does not name a shooter, so the title is misleading. I still found it informative, though there are a few things I would want to follow up on. Here are my notes. This is only my interpretation. Hopefully I'm summarizing his views accurately. If not, I apologize. I'm not sure of the spelling of certain names, so I've tried to put them in quotes. Also, these are only a few of the things that stood out the most to me personally. It's not meant to comprehensively represent everything that was discussed in the entire video. - Brown believes it was a military plot ultimately intended to reverse Kennedy's intent to draw down in Vietnam, and that George H.W. Bush was probably the man in charge of the conspiracy at the Texas level. Brown's view appears to be that there is not that much of a difference or divide between top military intelligence and the CIA. He doubts that Lyndon Johnson was the main force behind the conspiracy. At 26:30 and 32:00 Brown mentions a "J.D. Wilmuth" a Colonel in Army intelligence that served in Moscow and was connected to Michael Paine in some way. (I'd love to know more. I find the Paines to be persons of interest.) Brown also mentions James Powell, a military intelligence officer that was in Dealey Plaza and taking pictures of the TSBD during the assassination. Brown theorizes that Powell was there to ensure that Oswald was on the scene. ( If my memory serves me, Powell then made his way to the Dal Tex building and to the company of Jim Braden. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong about that.) A surprising factoid that I had never heard came around at 34:00, where Brown says there were no planned DPD escort assignments to go from the Trade Mart back to Love Field. I wonder if this is true? Around 36:00 Brown mentions Jack Crichton, Texas oilman with a military intelligence background and with connections to George de Mohrenschildt (and, according to Wikipedia, George H.W. Bush). Brown also mentions a connection with a person by the name of "Mamentoff" maybe? I couldn't quite understand what Brown was saying or the relevance of the person by that name. Most interestingly, Brown says that Crichton later went to work for fellow oilman D.H. Byrd who owned the TSBD and kept the sixth floor window frame in his home. Brown points out that Oswald made a late night phone call to North Carolina to a person named John Hurt. If memory serves me again, there were two men in NC by that name, one of them former military intelligence. Around 43:00, Brown seems to say Arlen Specter was also former Army intelligence. Does anyone know if that's true? Brown made a good point that doesn't get much attention: if the rifle was disassembled and reassembled, it would need to be resighted before it would again fire accurately. Around 1:13:00, Brown tells of the rifle being "bench fired" (fired while fixed in position by a vice) and reportedly the rifle was inaccurate even from a 15 yard distance. Brown calculates that at Oswald's alleged distance, any bullets would be 20 feet off the mark. Around 1:19:30 in the video, Brown says Tippit was parked at the final bus stop of the bus that Oswald had boarded earlier. That's a detail I hadn't heard before. Around 1:42:00 Brown claims that Oswald had not been practicing with his rifle since 1959. I'm not sure how Brown views the reports of people allegedly seeing Oswald at the Sports Drome rifle range just before the assassination. Around 2:06:30 Brown talks about radiating fractures criss-crossing JFK's skull, and how this should be impossible. I need to follow up on this. At one point Brown talks about Dr. Cyril Wecht saying that Wecht believes a bullet went into JFK's back and out his throat, and Brown theorizes that bullet is the bullet that hit the chrome trim over the front windshield. I could be wrong, but I suspect Wecht was saying that even if the bullet hit JFK in the back and went out his throat, for it to go on and hit Connally at the angle it was going, JFK would have had to been tying his shoes at the time. Saying that he believed the bullet entered JFK's back and went out his throat doesn't sound at all like something I'd ever expect Cyril Wecht to say. All in all a good series of interviews, and Brown's timeline is a valuable resource.

Here's my full transcript of the video and partial transcript I posted upthread:

It also makes you wonder why, if Oswald really wanted to kill Connally, why he didn't just fill him full of lead as the limo was going north on Houston? You have to give it to Oswald, he truly was a bipartisan assassin.

Thanks Bart, I look forward to reading your upcoming paper as well.

But Hunt was trusted enough by high level covert operators to be included the Watergate break in nine years later, wasn't he? I have a hard time understanding how someone who was part of the Plumbers wouldn't be considered a "real" covert operator.

Thank you very much, Vince!

I just happened to be working on this subject and happened to see this thread. The pdf link in the first post is dead. Does anyone have a working link or a copy?

I'm not doubting James DiEugenio or Larry Hancock, two researchers I respect and to whom I will defer. They say they're not at liberty to discuss the details, so I don't feel comfortable pressing them for more information or making guesses even though I still don't fully understand. The fact that there's still legal sensitivity right this minute regarding Hunt's JFK assassination confession, even though Hunt's been dead for over a decade, speaks for itself.

I'm not down, David. I'm as happy as a bug in a rug. Thanks for your reply. You make some good points in your post, but I don't see anything that would cause me to believe that E. Howard Hunt definitely wasn't involved on some level. I don't need to be "persuaded" to believe the verdict of the retrial of Hunt v Liberty Lobby. That verdict alone is enough to settle the issue in my mind. The other instances are supporting circumstantial evidence. The questions for me now are: to what extent was Hunt involved, what role did he play, and how much (if any) of his alleged confession is accurate? Hunt died in 2007 and "Mary's Mosaic" was published in 2012. Hunt certainly didn't use "Mary's Mosaic" as his source on Cord Meyer, and I'm reasonably certain author Peter Janney didn't rely solely upon Hunt's confession as his source of information regarding Cord Meyer's possible involvement or Cord's quote at the end blaming Mary's death on the same people who killed Kennedy. Perhaps I'm wrong about that. I'm sure someone will correct me if I am. I understand being suspicious of Thornley. He was not a professional researcher, and from what I've read, some suspect him of intentionally planting disinformation that would tend to incriminate Oswald. You rightly pointed out his error in Hunt's first name, a simple one that should have been caught by Thornley or his editors somewhere along the way. It's only the preface of a short novel, for goodness' sake. I wonder how Thornley knew Hunt was Atsugi when Thornley claims to have not met Hunt at the time? How did anybody know who Hunt was at that time anyway? Accepting all the understandable skepticism about Thornley, it still stands that Thornley did know Oswald in the Marines, so he's always going to have some inherent value as a witness. Judging by Thornley's other book "Oswald", Thornley is a LN. What would motivate an LN to make up a lie about knowing Hunt on CIA assignment at Atsugi at the same time as Oswald? That kind of lie is not in the LN wheelhouse. If it was a lie to get attention and sell more books, why not play it up more instead of an offhand reference in a preface? If it was a lie to get attention and sell more books, why not at least get Hunt's first name right? Setting aside Thornley's statement and Hunt's confession for the moment, how do you explain Sheeran's linking of Hunt and Ferrie? How do you explain Haldemans belief about Nixon's references to the Bay of Pigs? I don't believe Hunt was just a dying old man poking around on the internet collecting little bits of JFK conspiracy theories to set his kid up with a book deal after he died. (JFK conspiracy theories that Hunt just happened to "get lucky" to have been in litigation about.) I'd say it's arguable that at a moment in time Nixon's presidency hinged on keeping E. Howard Hunt quiet about what Hunt knew, and Nixon's Chief of Staff has stated for the record that he thought those secrets Hunt was involved in included the JFK assassination. I believe history has proven beyond a doubt that E. Howard Hunt was as involved in top-level clandestine government activity as anyone has ever been. Simply put, he was in a position to know. He was in extended litigation to try and deny being in Dallas on the day of the assassination, and he lost that lawsuit in a retrial.

I'm slowly moving to the stage when I'm forcing myself to draw some conclusions about this case, and one of them is believing that E. Howard Hunt likely did play a role in the JFK assassination. Losing the retrial of Hunt v Liberty Lobby. That alone would seem to prove Hunt's involvement on some level. H.R, Haldeman believed that when Nixon was discussing hush payments to Hunt during Watergate and referring to "the Bay of Pigs", Nixon was actually referring to the JFK assassination. In the book "I Heard You Paint Houses" by Charles Brandt, 2016 edition, pgs 128 - 129: Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran, a labor union official that worked for Russell Bufalino, (Mafia boss of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Bufalino family from 1959 to 1989) and labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa, describes meeting Carlos Marcello’s (Mafia boss of New Orleans) pilot David Ferrie (initially the central figure in New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison’s 1966 JFK investigation.) Sheeran says that some time before the 1961 failed Bay Of Pigs invasion of Cuba, he was told by Hoffa to drive a truck to Baltimore, Maryland, and meet Ferrie at a landing strip at the Harry C. Campbell concrete plant. A group of soldiers loaded military uniforms, weapons, and ammunition onto Sheeran's truck and Sheeran drove the weapons to Orange Grove, Florida. According to Sheeran, Ferrie told him to deliver the weapons to E. Howard Hunt., even describing Hunt’s large ears. Sheeran says he delivered the weapons to Hunt and a group of anti-Castro Cubans. In the book "The Idle Warriors" by Kerry Thornley, 1991 edition, pg 13, Thornley, who served with Oswald in the Marine Corps, writes in the preface "When I was stationed at Atsugi Naval Air Station undergoing much of the grist for this book, Edward Howard Hunt (the Watergate burglar was also there, on CIA assignment. We did not meet, but I was an outspoken radical with a reputation for "stirring up s**t" and so, perhaps, I came to his attention." Hunt appears to name Cord Meyer as one of the principal figures in the conspiracy, which seems to line up with the revelations in the 2012 book "Mary's Mosaic" by Peter Janney. Add the confession on top of all that, and in my personal opinion it's fairly compelling circumstantial evidence from a variety of disparate sources. There may even be other stories placing Hunt on the periphery or the inside of the JFK assassination. Judging from Thornley's other book "Oswald", he seems to be firmly in the LN camp, so the motive to make up a lie about Hunt being at Atsugi on CIA assignment at the same time Oswald was there seems questionable. At least, that's the way I look at it.

I believe I've seen Angleton named in several books; Mary's Mosaic, Oswald And The CIA, and another one I can't recall off the top of my head that mentioned he was seen at a location possibly rummaging for evidence as he was alleged to have done in Mary's Mosaic. He certainly seems to be a suspicious individual with the means and opportunity.

I agree. I was going to mention Bethesda, but I didn't want to clutter up my original post with too much stuff. Rich right wing oilmen and the Mafia are certainly powerful and had motives, but could they get into the operating room at Bethesda? My instinct says it is unlikely. For me, this is part of trying to untangle the puzzle. A lot of time and effort was spent making Oswald look like a Castro & Russian sympathizer, and it would have been easy for the government to use JFK's assassination as pretext for attacking Cuba and/or the USSR. Yet the cover story of Oswald acting completely alone appears to have been implemented almost immediately. Some seem to theorize that that indicates the conspirators and those doing the cover-up were two different groups. I find that hard to believe. I also don't believe that Hoover and the FBI would have immediately jumped in of their own volition and almost immediately start covering up a crime that they didn't know the truth about. All the logic seems to indicate that either Hoover must have been told in advance by someone fairly high ranking or that there was someone above Hoover that was able to get in contact with him minutes after the assassination and tell him how the lone assassin scenario was going to go down. Angleton? Helms? LeMay? LBJ? Someone else?

I look forward to hearing it. I just received The Inheritance and Who's Who In The Secret Service too.

In my opinion, logic seems to suggest a conspiracy would have to have originated from J. Edgar Hoover, or from someone with the authority and ability to tell J. Edgar Hoover what the official story was going to be. Since few people seem to believe that an assassination plot is the FBI's type of thing, I'd guess that it's more likely this instruction to Hoover came from outside. But who really had the authority to tell Hoover (either before the assassination or immediately afterward) that a lone nut was to be the assigned patsy? Who even had the ability to speak to Hoover one on one, much less have the authority to get him to follow an instruction such as this? There seems to be at least one obvious person who fits the bill, but I wanted to pose the questions to the forum before doing any more guessing. Thanks!

Merry Christmas, everyone. I hope everyone has a peaceful and happy day.