Jeff Carter

There is basic information which is being garbled here. - There was no Treaty formalizing NATO’s promise not to expand eastward. However, there were very many high-level assurances made at the time (early 1990s), to the extent that when the expansion occurred it was a betrayal of a promise, a rescinding of an assurance. Note that a NATO analysis in 2004 concluded Russia would annex Crimea should NATO appear to covet the naval facilities there, and US Ambassador to Russia Burns penned a memo in 2008 which strongly warned of an armed conflict should NATO seek to expand into Ukraine. Both the analysis and the memo undercut the later argument that the Russian SMO was “unprovoked”. - Ukraine never possessed nuclear weapons (for which everyone should be thankful). Those weapons belonged to the Soviet Union, and were based in Ukraine but redeployed or decommissioned through Soviet or CIS direction. - The Minsk Agreement was a cease-fire treaty regarding the status of the Donbass region, signed twice and both times ahead of an imminent defeat of Ukraine forces in battle. The second signing was sponsored by the UN Security Council. It’s purpose was to formalize a federalization of Ukraine which would allow a degree of autonomy to Donbass in response to the constitutionally illegal change of government which occurred in February 2014. This federalization would have resulted in a status not unlike that of Quebec in Canada, but these terms were never accepted by nationalist interests within Ukraine. Otherwise, the agreement had high levels of support across the population. In 2020, Ukraine passed laws formally rejecting the Minsk Accords and announcing the intent to reclaim the territory, and Crimea, through force of arms. Large Ukraine troop buildups on the Donbass border began in the spring of 2021. Ukraine renewed shelling of Donbass territory, including civilian areas, in February 2022 ahead of Russia’s SMO. Analyzing geopolitics should not be a team sport featuring tribal partisanship. From my remove, I followed the Maidan protest movement from late 2013 through to the coup in late February 2014 and the subsequent annexation of Crimea. Clearly there was inappropriate meddling from Americans such as Nuland and McCain, and the recorded phone conversation by Nuland hinted at a more sinister role. The rapid declaration of legitimacy applied to the illegal coup on behalf of US, UK, and Canada, which scotched international mediation efforts, was an expression of bad faith and inherently destabilizing. That NATO’s leadership expressed “shock” over the annexation of Crimea, despite being foretold of such years earlier, was another expression of bad faith. Murderous attacks on protestors in Odessa and Mariupol by far-right militias, and initial attempts to “cancel” Russian cultural influence within Ukraine was an expression of belligerent attitudes cultivated by a fanatic minority during WW2 which had effectively been since weaponized by the CIA. Objectively, Putin’s role in Ukraine has been one of reaction rather than initiation.

On my bookshelf is a collection of interviews conducted by the great Italian journalist Ariana Fallaci (Interview With History 1976). She talks with everyone - Kissinger and Giap, Golda Meier and Yassir Arafat - and no one at the time condemned her work for providing a platform for propaganda or argued she shouldn’t speak to certain leaders. At the time, hearing from “the other side” was something to be welcomed as a tool to promote “understanding”. Times have changed! I believe Oliver Stone did a tremendous service by seeking out demonized adversaries and allowing them a space to set out “where they are coming from”, particularly at a time when media consolidation has resulted in a narrowed and agenda-driven information sphere.Stone’s effort has been subject to criticism more because it tends to reveal these adversaries as rational actors whose policies reflect particular understandings of national interest, as opposed to pathological evil-doers who cannot be reasoned with. Maybe its just me, but in my opinion criticizing Stone for conducting an interview reveals more of an authoritarian mindset than anything else from the process does. It’s also interesting that Stone’s brief comment on Putin - which appears as objectively correct considering the social, economic, and political condition of the Russian Federation circa 2000 - was a throwaway aside offered during a press interview for his nuclear energy documentary. The Guardian’s editorial decision to feature it as the headline appears as a form of clickbait and irrelevancy which neatly diverges the conversation from the actual topic in question, and furthers the silly tendency to get all huffy over the actual conduct of journalism and inquiry.

hi David One of the 50 Reasons episodes was assembled from live contemporaneous televised news feeds from this event. I’ve been curious as to the identity of one of the police officers, seen at 3:43 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hreBWIdzHoA Q. Do I believe that you recognized this man after the capture? DPD officer: Yes, sir. Q. Did I understand you to say that if you had recognized him before you would have ejected him? DPD officer: Yes, sir. Any thoughts?

"The hammer blow"??? Has this been some kind of contest? Griffith’s contribution to this topic began with a conclusion and proceeded to search for supporting evidence. Kind of backwards to how inquiry is supposed to work. His strident belligerent tone was curious, as he mostly cut and pasted from first an ancient list compiled by McAdams and then most recently posts which have been appearing on Litwin’s blog.

The items you have presented do not live up to the maximalist interpretations you seek to attach. The poster for the Revisionist Conference was drawn up well in advance of the event, as can be confirmed by the date of the publication (Spring 1990) and the offer of “early-bird tickets”. Objectively, all that could be said is that an IHR publication attached Prouty to the event some months before it actually occurred. The extent to which Prouty knew of or understood what this event was is unknown. It is extremely doubtful that he participated, and this can be averred with some confidence due to the presence at that time (1990-92) of at least four identified individuals - the Esquire author, Berlet, the ADL researcher, John McAdams - motivated and active in presenting Prouty in a bad light who would have jumped on such participation and waved it like a red flag. None of them did so. Next, there is a private letter from which you have isolated a brief phrase - “a Jewish Sgt.” - and again applied a maximalist interpretation. It is immediately obvious the context informing the use of this phrase is missing. Prouty is responding to something from a previous communication (“what about that computer in California?”). The phrase in question is entirely meaningless without the context, without knowing what exactly “that computer in California” is referring to. You have hijacked the thread from the start with vicious character assassination buttressed by an extremely poor scholarly methodology. What you have presented to date doesn’t rise much above the constant iteration of a nasty ill-informed opinion. It is becoming increasingly obvious why you have been removed from other forums.

Kirk - you have little to no knowledge of Prouty’s work, yet deign to offer “best defence” and other unsolicited advice to handle or deflect what is essentially a half-forgotten thirty year old controversy originally propagated in an Esquire Magazine hit piece designed to blunt the impact of Stone’s “JFK” film in general and to disavow Prouty’s insider account of NSAM 263/273 specifically. Prouty wrote several books, dozens of essays, and was the subject of many dozen interviews. Nowhere in that voluminous collection appears any content which could be credibly described as containing anti-semitic or holocaust denying concepts. None of his critics have ever produced or referred to such content. Instead, their tact is entirely associative, with an implied logic which equates association, fleeting or otherwise, with positive endorsement. This line of attack was most famously directed against Noam Chomsky in what became known as the Faurisson Affair (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faurisson_affair). For his part, Prouty acknowledged, to his later regret, appearing at a Liberty Lobby event as a “paid speaker” and permitting “Secret Team” to be republished by IHR. These events occurred over the course of a few months in 1990. He otherwise, according to his account, had limited contact with the organization. That his name occasionally appears in related publications - attached to a conference, attached to an advisory board, or said to be a confirmed “character witness” - appear more as institutional self-promotion, and there is no evidence Prouty was even cognizant of the circumstances. He certainly never appeared in a courtroom, never attended an advisory board meeting, and I strongly doubt he ever appeared at a Revisionist Conference. The announcement in question was published six or so months ahead of the event and does not constitute either a confirmation of Prouty’s actual participation or his awareness of the event particulars. In sum, these renewed accusations lack any evidentiary basis other than associative links which notably have no context. How exactly Prouty was introduced to this orbit and who or what he thought he was dealing with is, at this point in time, largely unknowable. However, nothing in his extensive work suggests the status of an intellectual “fellow traveller” with the Liberty Lobby milieu as is being implied, and no one who actually knew him has ever endorsed such a characterization.

Let’s be clear here: Griffith joined this topic and began expressing his strong views 4-5 weeks ago and immediately established he didn’t know what he was talking about. His engagement proceeded as a defence of Lansdale whereby he claimed there was a body of scholarship which expressly criticized and rejected the “JFK” film based exclusively on the Lansdale portrayal influenced by Prouty. Griffith needed to be corrected over several assumptions, including the wholly speculative nature of the portrayal and the documented presence of Lansdale in a Dallas suburb at the time in question (of which was entirely unaware), There is also no “body” of scholarship on this topic as he asserted. Instead of incorporating these corrections, Griffith instead doubled down and apparently began scouring the internet for negative information on Prouty, dredging up a thirty year old list of derogatory talking points originally published by John McAdams. Presenting these items in a cut and paste fashion, Griffith revealed he was wholly unaware this list had been thoroughly debunked more than a quarter century ago ( and he persists to cite some of these long exposed misconceptions). This list led him to next denounce Prouty for presumed ties to Scientology, a position requiring a rejection of the legal definition of “expert witness”. In turn, he discovered a brief association with the Liberty Lobby which he has transformed into a harsh and absolutist accusation of “anti-semitism”, a position which not even McAdams dared to descend. This ugly smear is presented with fanatical certainty, based on an expertise which is all of five weeks old and has required constant correction of basic facts.

Griffith continues to assert that Prouty had a "close and prolonged association with anti-Semites", a serious and reputationally damaging charge. "Close" means a particularly strong bond or connection, and "prolonged" refers to a “longer than usual” time span. Griffith’s repeated “evidence” (I.e. “ten times in four years”) fails to support his own conclusion, and therefore his repeated assertion is slanderous and libellous and serves no purpose in the development of an educational function to the discussion. We should encourage all points of view, but the repeated assertion described above needs to be addressed at a moderator level.

It’s a speculation - a trial balloon, a thought experiment. Reagan’s quick demise elevates George HW Bush to the presidency. In Russ Baker’s book, he notes there was a very concerted effort to install Bush as VP in the wake of Agnew’s flame-out, which would have brought him to the presidency in 1975. Bush runs in 1980, but is overwhelmed by Reagan’s populist campaign. However , he gets the VP slot and Bush people run the campaign and October Surprise. If Reagan does not survive the assassination attempt, Bush is President in the Spring of 1981. Why was it so important for Bush to be President circa 1974-81? Again, a speculative thought experiment would include the investigations directed at CIA in mid-70s, and the concurrent steady rise of a “deep state / secret team” apparatus. The ultimate goal is realized in 1991, as the US becomes the sole global hegemonic power, a position given crucial assist by continuous covert activities which veer into vast criminal conspiracies (I.e. Iran-Contra). An oligarchical Wall Street faction realize vast fortunes. John Lennon, as a target for sinister forces, was a Beatle, the beloved entity which suggested to the world humanity was a hopeful experiment, a glass half full. His senseless killing revealed otherwise - humanity was compromised and hopeless, the glass was half empty. This cynicism became, alchemically, a prevailing mood through the decades ahead. This is an entirely speculative thought experiment although based on available information, and I would prefer not to be labelled a “crackpot, “kook” or other perforative term currently popular with the self-appointed speculation-police on this forum.

There has been speculation the Lennon shooting was a dress rehearsal for the planned and potentially far more consequential attempt on Reagan several months later.

It’s important to understand that the buildup of American “advisors” in Vietnam in the first years of the Kennedy administration was under the operational control of the CIA. The steady rise in the numbers of these personnel was related to an influx of materials. As Prouty described in an interview: “C123 aircraft were flown to Vietnam. The B26’s (used in Bay of Pigs) were flown to Vietnam and became the first heavy combat over there. The helicopters which were used in different operations in Laos were moved to Vietnam, they became the air patrol capability. The P51 fighters that we had fixed up for Indonesia, they went into Vietnam… In those days, for every hour that a military helicopter flew, it had to receive 24 hours of maintenance. Which meant that we had to cover Vietnam with helicopter maintenance people. And anytime you get a helicopter squadron together, you have to get a helicopter supply unit. So what was 400 men becomes 1200 men. You get 1200 men together then you got to have a PX, you have to have a hospital. We were creating a structure in Vietnam. The next thing you know we had 3000 men, then we had 6000, and by the end of ’63 there were somewhere between 13,000 and 16,000 so-called military in Vietnam… (at that time) no American military people were operating in Vietnam under American military commanders. They were all assigned to a structure that was under CIA military control.“ Prouty maintained that a major purpose of the planned personnel withdrawals envisioned by NSAM 263 was as part of a program to remove the CIA from covert and overt military operations, a policy which took shape in the wake of the Bay of Pigs.

The alleged Bannon connection doesn’t rise above being a Twitter rumour. The best the CBS reporter who originated the claim could say is he was informed by undisclosed persons “familiar” with the matter. Edward Curtin has a strong piece on the RFK Jr candidacy: Despite a family actively opposed to his candidacy, despite all the media lies about him, and despite the odds makers giving him little chance, RFK, Jr. is entering the race. It is an act of supreme moral courage. Like his father in ’68, he is the only candidate who can heal this nation’s great divide. https://edwardcurtin.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr-to-heal-the-great-divide/

I think a close reading of the Esquire piece makes it almost certain that Berlet was in fact the source of the Prouty quote which has Griffith so agitated. The footnotes in the piece I linked previously - the Right Woos Left piece - make clear that one of Berlet’s methods was to contact and question persons of interest through phone calls to their residences (they tend to hang up on him). This is not an uncommon practice, but Berlet’s writings demonstrate his aggressive absolutist attitudes which could suggest the tone of these phone calls is not exactly professional. In my opinion, the Prouty quote in question reads entirely differently once one understands that it was likely a response delivered in the midst of an aggressive “when did you stop beating your wife?”-style cold call to his residence, with some accusatory stranger on the other end. The true context has been omitted in the Esquire piece. Berlet wasn't prominent at all. And he's a funny figure to accord “stainless anti-fascist credentials”. He has a record of creating division and conflict within anti-fascist organizations. One of his targets over the years has been highly respected anti-fascist researcher David Emory. Emory is a long-time ally to the JFK community. Berlet also targeted John Judge, whose credentials in this milieu are unimpeachable. Judge was a long-time friend and colleague with Fletcher Prouty.

Through the 80s into the early 90s, Berlet published in Guardian, a NYC based publication which perfectly conforms to the description from Esquire - “tiny, left-wing New York weekly”. Here's some more context: Daniel Brandt, founder of Namebase,[14] Google Watch, and Wikipedia Watch, removed Berlet from his Board of Advisors in 1991 when Berlet refused to sit on the same Board which included, in Berlet's words, "LaRouche-defender Fletcher Prouty." Prouty, a retired Air Force colonel whose intelligence career stretched back to accompanying President Franklin Roosevelt to the Teheran conference, was allegorically portrayed as the mysterious “Man X”[15] by Donald Southerland in Oliver Stone's film, JFK. Berlet considered Prouty a fascist. Brandt retorted, "When it came to making a choice between Prouty and Berlet, it was a rather easy decision for me to make."[16] Berlet further sought to undermine Brandt by convincing three others to quit, adding "He (Brandt) was mad"[17] but admitting "On the other hand, Brandt is highly critical of the LaRouchians."[18] https://www.conservapedia.com/Wikipedia:The_Daniel_Brandt_controversy Portraying Prouty as a "fascist" or a "LaRouchian" is frankly ridiculous, and a bit fanatical.

I did find confirmation of an IHR edition of The Secret Team. It took some work. I don’t believe the press run was very large. What’s missing here is an account of how Prouty came into this orbit, and what was he thinking? Having worked with a lot of interviews and lectures of his, the concept that he was some kind of fellow traveller, as Griffith has been insinuating, appears to me as wildly off-base and somewhat slanderous. Griffith is applying an absolutist standard. Beriet also adopted an absolutist position on political affiliations, and created a lot of trouble for leftish organizations and individuals in the early 90s through tagging persons through association, and then demanding their exclusion from the left sphere. He did that with Christic, and he did it with Daniel Brandt / namebase specifically over Prouty. In 1990/91, Berlet was developing a theory that the extreme/anti-semitic right were expressly cultivating “conspiracists” to establish a more watered-down version of their concepts to create a sort of bait-and-switch to widen their constituency, as well as to sow confusion in the Left. Flip through this account by Berlet for reference: https://politicalresearch.org/sites/default/files/2018-10/RIGHT-WOOS-LEFT-Berlet-Report.pdf Berlet’s efforts in 1990-91 appear to coordinate with the Prouty section of the Esquire article, at least the paragraphs describing the revelation of Prouty’s ties to LL as “discovered” by Stone’s production office. I say that because of how that section is written, vague on the introduction and source of the info and rather manipulative in describing the response.

Thanks Paul. That’s very interesting. The Esquire article from 1991 is intriguing as it gradually becomes apparent that its real target is not Stone or Garrison but Prouty, and ultimately not due to Prouty’s politics or associations but due to his reading and timeline of NSAM 263/273. It’s curious how Prouty sort of nonchalantly drifted into contact with extremist-linked entities just as the “JFK” film was developing. It’s curious how the Esquire writer seemed to happenstance be around at the same time unspecified “information” turned up at the “JFK” production office. As I read through that section I did think of Berlet, and wondered if he was linked to the unidentified “tiny, left-wing New York weekly” in the story.

just a few more. Griffith: allegations directed at Prouty “are abundantly documented…Let’s summarize some of what we now know beyond any doubt about him: -- When he was asked to produce the putatively historic notes that he had claimed in writing he had taken of his alleged 316th Det/112th MI Group "stand down" phone call, he lamely said they were "long gone" and offered no explanation for why he had failed to safeguard such supposedly historic notes (and, sadly, the ARRB interviewers were too polite to press him on this point). The notes actually do exist, and internal ARRB documentation reveal that “two independent sources confirmed that the information conveyed by Prouty was accurate in its outlines.” DiEugenio “Fletcher Prouty vs the ARRB https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/fletcher-prouty-vs-the-arrb --He said that Princess Diana may have been assassinated by "the secret team." He said he "would not be surprised" to learn that the secret team had killed Diana. This is a cherry-picked speculation presented out-of-context. Its inclusion in the list presumably serves a prejudicial rather than informative function. -- He approvingly quoted Stalin's nutty theory that Churchill poisoned FDR. A distortion and misreading of Prouty’s original statement, which was an accurately transcribed quotation lifted from and properly attributed to an article written by Elliott Roosevelt, published in the Sunday Supplement magazine “Parade” (Feb 9, 1986). — He associated with known anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers, and even appeared as a character witness for Willis Carto in the IHR trial. Prouty acknowledged appearing at a Liberty Lobby event as a “paid commercial speaker”, but denied any “association” beyond that. There was no court appearance tied to Carto, and not much more than an unverified rumour to say Prouty “agreed” to such. - He repeatedly defended the crook and quack Ron Hubbard. He stridently attacked Russell Miller's excellent expose of Hubbard and Scientology Bare-Faced Messiah. - He publicly praised the cult of Scientology. Prouty was hired as an “expert witness” by Hubbard’s legal team in the 1980s. Saying that Prouty “repeatedly defended” Hubbard, or “stridently attacked” a critic of Hubbard, or “publicly praised the cult” during service as an expert witness is a gross distortion of both the record and long established legal protocol. An “expert witness” is legally defined as an “objective party to the lawsuit and never function as an advocate for one side or the other.” It is revealing that Griffith disavows legal protocol so to attack Prouty for his expert witness work, yet insists on protocol when discussing Mark Lane’s work with Liberty Lobby.

I would just point out that a calm focussed discussion of Prouty, including faults and lapses of judgment, was always possible but hijacked by Griffith’s insistence that gratuitous insults and character assassination would define the topic. Griffith: allegations directed at Prouty “are abundantly documented…Let’s summarize some of what we now know beyond any doubt about him: —The fact that Prouty peddled the Iron Mountain Report hoax and even claimed he spoke with a member of the non-existent study group is well documented It’s not well-documented other than as an oft-repeated misreading. A correction to this appears on page 7 of this thread and does not need repeating. That you continue to persist in publicizing this misreading underlines the general quality of your scholarship on this issue. -- He lied about his role in presidential protection. This is not correct. His statements were entirely consistent with his experience, and Secret Service expert Vince Palamara has confirmed Prouty’s opinions were by and large an accurate representation of presidential protection protocols in the early 1960s. The charge that Prouty “lied” is based in part on a fundamental misunderstanding or confusion, which attributes portions of the “JFK” script as literal statements made by Prouty. The ARRB panel, often referred as exposing this particular “lie”, merely concludes that Prouty was not in possession of specific “records relating to presidential protection”. -- He lied about the sinister nature of his trip to the South Pole. Factually incorrect. As can be confirmed in his Letter to Garrison Oct 2, 1985, among other sources, Prouty on occasion speculated retrospectively on the nature of the trip, while maintaining that “it may be just a coincidence.” The charge that Prouty “lied” is, again, based in part on a fundamental misunderstanding or confusion, which attributes portions of the “JFK” script as literal statements made by Prouty. The ARRB panel, often referred as exposing this “lie”, sources the “sinister connotations” to the “JFK” script as well. (“Allegation #1” ARRB Interview with L. Fletcher Prouty September 24, 1996) -- He made the slanderous claim that Lansdale was involved in the Lumumba and Trujillo murders. -- He made the slanderous claim that Lansdale hated JFK and wanted him dead. -- He made the bogus claim that Lansdale wanted to see a huge escalation in the American involvement in South Vietnam. All three of these claims are factually incorrect, and nowhere in his voluminous writings and interviews does Prouty ever say such things. This represents, again, a fundamental misunderstanding or confusion, which attributes portions of the “JFK” script as literal statements made by Prouty. -- Without a shred of supporting evidence, he claimed that Lansdale was involved in the assassination plot and was even in Dealey Plaza on the day it happened Prouty never made such claim as a definitive statement. He speculated on the possibility of Lansdale’s involvement based on his subjective identification of Lansdale in one of the Tramps photos. This ID was corroborated by General Krulak in a correspondence. Documentation which came to light since places Lansdale in Denton, Texas on November 21, 1963 (Dale, Blount The Devil Is In The Details p 86, 88, 262)

Your opinion has been forcefully articulated. It is clear where you stand on this matter. It is also the case however that sources and information you have presented to bolster your opinion have generally been of poor quality. This would include the Esquire article which is the primary source of a fair bit of your arguments over the past days - including the alleged “I’m no authority in that area” quote which you have jumped on. Again, this article was denounced by Oliver Stone as “filled with numerous errors, omissions, out-of-context quotes, and misunderstandings.” Fletcher Prouty said that the contents of the article referring to him were “made up.”

The source is an article - “The Shooting of JFK” by Robert Sam Anson - which was published in the November 1991 edition of Esquire. Note that this article was one of a series of essentially hatchet-jobs directed at the “JFK” film as published in the mainstream press on its release. For example, the article describes the Garrison-Shaw trial as a “paranoid charade”,“one of the most grotesque chapters in American legal history”, and ties Garrison with “psychotherapy”, “bribery”, “income tax evasion”, and “association with organized crime.” Assassination researchers are repeatedly referred as “buffs”. The relevant section of the article, and where much of the information promoted by Griffith in his assertions first appears, is poorly sourced. A “tiny, left-wing New York weekly” is said to directly tie Prouty to Liberty Lobby, and supposedly later corroborated by “more information”. News of the alleged sale of the reprint rights of Secret Team is said to have been “discovered” by Stone’s staff. Prouty is portrayed as having “pleaded ignorance” when questioned by unknown interlocutors in undescribed circumstances, a response said to have dismayed a Stone assistant “after listening to the rationalizations”. Prouty’s rebuttal, as interpreted, is circumscribed, and it is unclear if the assistant reacting to "the rationalizations” was present when Prouty was “questioned”. To reiterate, the sources for the assertions of Prouty’s ties to the extremist Lobby, beyond the paid speaking engagement and a handful of radio appearances, are: - unidentified publication - non-specified “information” - non-specified “discovery” Prouty: “they just made up these things…they put all this in this Esquire magazine but did it all backwards, as though I was a member, writing with these people or joining them. “ (Interestingly, John Newman is introduced late in the article as a sort of anti-Prouty - “meticulous, low-key, methodical” - as opposed to the ”ever-voluble” Prouty whose “Vietnam expertise was not all that had been assumed.” In the recent Malcolm Blount book, Newman describes advising Stone to do due diligence and allow for some basic research on Lansdale before including a sequence featuring General Y standing in Dealey Plaza in the “JFK” film. That is how Newman discovered the documentation locating Lansdale in Denton, Texas on November 21, 1963.) Oliver Stone responded to Anson’s article in a letter published the following month by describing its “numerous errors, omissions, out-of-context quotes and misunderstandings” and avowed “I have not, or do I intend, to ‘distance’ myself in any way from Garrison’s or Colonel Prouty’s long efforts in this case. They may have made mistakes, but they fought battles that Anson could never dreamed of.”

This is again, as a slander directed against Prouty, completely incorrect. It derives here from the Epstein article, but was sourced elsewhere. The premise has been entirely refuted: Epstein - “While Prouty quotes accurately from the Report from Iron Mountain, he fails to realize it was a complete hoax…a brilliant spoof by political satirist Leonard Lewin.” Prouty: “…a novel written by Leonard Lewin entitled "Report From Iron Mountain" and published by Dial Press in 1967…when my book "The Secret Team" was published in 1973 by Prentice-Hall my editor was an old friend of Leonard Lewin. During a conversation, some years later, my publisher asked me if I had read "Report From Iron Mountain"? When I said, "No", he said that he would send me a copy. I read the book and was amazed to discover how much of the language and "small talk" discussions attributed to people in Washington during Kennedy's time, sounded so real and periodically distinct…In a Book Review item in the March 19, 1972 New York TIMES Lewin himself wrote: ‘Most reviewers, relatively uncontaminated by exposure to real-politik, were generous to what they saw as the author's intentions: to expose a kind of thinking in high places that was all too authentic, influential, and dangerous, and to stimulate more public discussion of some of the harder questions of war and peace…’ WWith his closing sentence, Lewin states "that the work is fictitious." He had written a remarkable novel… (Epstein’s source) attempts to have his readers believe that I had been taken in by this ‘Hoax’. To come to this academic conclusion he totally overlooks the facts of the case. I heard of Lewin from his old friend my Prentice-Hall editor during the Seventies. I corresponded and spoke with Lewin many times after that.”

The short answer is that the characterization of Prouty as an "extreme fringe conspiracy kook" is entirely inaccurate and slanderous, and largely the creation of a backlash directed at the "JFK" film.

There's a lot of innuendo on display here. From what I can tell, an alleged "close relationship" sources to an article by Chip Berlet from the early 90s. Berlet was attempting, with this article, to bolster his thesis that right-wing conspiracists had in the 1980s made common cause with anti-semitic organizations. This article is the source mentioning Prouty quotes appearing in Spotlight - which according to Prouty, were published in the wake of his paid speaking engagement at Spotlight's initiative, not his. Berlet's article is also the source for the claim that Noontide republished Secret Team. Here's the thing: I cannot find any material evidence that such edition ever existed - it's not on Noontide's own list of publications, there's no image available of a cover, such an edition does not appear in lists of printing history, etc The alleged "close relationship" appears to boil down to a paid commercial speaking engagement and a few appearances on a nationally syndicated radio program. The charge may well be that Prouty should have known the radio program's ultimate sponsors, but there is no evidence that he did know this. Just as there is no evidence that Prouty held anti-semitic views, or was even what could be described as "right-wing".

The following is Fletcher Prouty's own response to accusations of extremist ties, from April 1996: "Esquire magazine published an article, in which they just made up these things, I've never written for Liberty Lobby. I've spoken as a commercial speaker, they paid me to speak and then I left. They print a paragraph or two of my speech same as they would of anybody else, but I've never joined them. I don't subscribe to their newspaper, I never go to their own meetings, but they had a national convention at which asked me to speak and they paid me very, very well. I took my money and went home and that's it. I go to the meeting, I go home, I don't join. That sole speech was years ago and was no different than the speech I gave at the Holocaust Memorial Conference. I spoke my own words and ideas. I do admit to having been a rather active public speaker for all types of audiences, on a commercial except for Rotary, They're gratuitous from my point of view. "The funny thing was two months earlier I had spoken at the Holocaust Conference for the second annual meeting of the Holocaust Group which I learned later the Liberty Lobby is completely opposed to. Dr. Littel, of the Holocaust Memorial organization invited me to attend and make a few comments,as others were requested. Well, they put all this in this Esquire magazine but did it all backwards, as though I was a member, writing with these people or joining them. The only club I've joined is the Rotary Club ! The attempt of character assassination is a sign you have become a small threat. Others, at the levels I know of, have played up that as though I had been converted to something. It is just their "gentlemanly" tactic of dealing with people they can't handle otherwise.. In fact it is a CIA characteristic trait...as I well know. When they can't handle you, they attack your character.

But what you fail to grasp is that the “claims” as they appear in the film cannot be attributed to Prouty. A speculation or a surmise is not a statement of fact. This is the essential “straw man” fallacy of your argument.