Benjamin Cole

The National Security State Keeps Full JFK Assassination Story Under Wraps After 60 Years Lawsuit highlights continuing secrecy. JEFFERSON MORLEY APR 22 READ IN APP In this clip from December 2022, MSNBC reports on the Mary Ferrell Foundation’s lawsuit for JFK disclosure, which is still ongoing. Importantly, this lawsuit has compelled many mainstream news organizations to begin asking a key question: why is there still all this secrecy around the JFK assassination story more than 60 years later? here is the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4DeENr4AtY ---30--- I am a bit puzzled that Morley says mainstream media are asking questions about the JFK Records snuff job. Maybe I missed the swelling crescendo demanding that the JFK Records Act be honored. I do live offshore.

RM-- My guess is you are right on this score. Joannides, despite working in the Miami Station of the CIA, had leased a house in NO in the summer of 1963.

BB- I think you mean to say, "The idea that LHO acted alone has a plurality of support among Americans." That is to say, suppose for example, RFK2 beats Biden and Trump by getting 38% of the vote in enough states to win the Electoral College. RFK2 would have won a "plurality of the vote," and the Presidency, but not a majority of votes, and a majority of Americans would not have voted for him. I do not subscribe the LN theory, but hey, each to his own.

Operation Mockingbird is alive and well...and sometimes out in the open, as when legacy broadcast outfits hire platoons of former CIA'ers to perform on-air analysis. Of course, the legacy broadcasters to be most skeptical of are those funded by the government. Usually, when citing "news" from Xinhua, or Radio Tass, one notes that are "government news organs." Do you suppose the US is different?

https://theweek.com/articles/458953/jfks-murder-not-conspiracy JFK's murder was not a conspiracy It's been nearly 50 years. It's time to face facts. BY PAUL BRANDUS LAST UPDATED JANUARY 9, 2015 The 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, is fast approaching. The murder of America's 35th president was a monstrously traumatic, instantly unforgettable event. It was over in about six seconds. And we've been arguing about it ever since. Today, 59 percent of Americans believe the president's murder was the result of a conspiracy. That's actually down from 75 percent a decade ago. But the fact is, after half a century, such conspiracy theories have never been conclusively proven. These theories are fueled by shadowy photos, odd coincidences, conjecture, and distrust in government. But there is no proof, after all this time, that anyone other than Lee Harvey Oswald had anything to do with the assassination. Still, the many theories make for colorful debate. Let's take a look at one of the more popular ones, which was first sparked 50 years ago Tuesday — October 15, 1963 — when Lee Harvey Oswald was hired to work at the Texas School Book Depository, which overlooks Elm Street, where the assassination would soon occur. He was planted there, conspiracy buffs argue, and Kennedy's motorcade route was deliberately planned to put the president within the crosshairs of Oswald's rifle. The evidence contradicts such speculation. It helps, first of all, to know about Oswald's history in the preceding 12 months. He was fired from three different menial jobs in Dallas and New Orleans. Each time, he racked up a poor work record and alienated himself from bosses and co-workers. At one job, greasing machinery for a coffee company, a supervisor, Charles LeBlanc, recalls Oswald walking around aiming his forefinger at people. "He would go 'Pow!'" LeBlanc says. Oswald's supervisor recalls thinking to himself, "What a crackpot this guy is!" But Oswald, a smug, uneducated drifter, didn't just hint at violence. He regularly beat his wife, Marina, even when she was pregnant. In April 1963, he tried to shoot a leading right-wing figure in Dallas (ironically an enemy of President Kennedy), an event Oswald detailed extensively in his diary. Two weeks later he planned to bring his .38 to a Dallas event where Richard Nixon would be appearing — until an alarmed Marina forced him into the bathroom and refused to let him out until he calmed down and gave her the gun. And in August 1963, says Marina, he asked her to help hijack a plane to Cuba. She refused. "Our Papa is crazy!" Marina told their daughter. Oswald returned to Dallas on October 4, 1963 (after a failed attempt to go to Cuba or return to the Soviet Union) with no job, no money, and no prospects. About to become a father for the second time, he needed work desperately. That Oswald found work at the Book Depository is nothing less than a miracle. Many little pieces, seemingly unconnected, had to fall into place — and they did. Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. Just a week before, Oswald nearly got a job as a typesetter trainee at a printing company far from what would be President Kennedy's motorcade route. He wanted the job badly, and made a favorable impression on his would-be-boss — until the boss called Bob Stovall, a prior boss at Padgett Printing Co., who fired Oswald in April 1963. Stovall told him of Oswald's poor attitude and lazy work habits. He was a troublemaker and may be a communist, Stovall said, adding, "If I was you, I wouldn't hire him." Had Oswald been hired, the world never would have heard of him, and it's likely President Kennedy's visit to Dallas would have gone smoothly — as it did until his dark blue Lincoln Continental turned onto Elm Street. It's also important to note that even though Oswald was about to become a father for the second time, he lived alone, in a cheap rooming house in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas. Marina, eight months pregnant and tired of Oswald's beatings and unstable behavior, was living in suburban Irving at the home of Ruth Paine, a woman who had previously befriended the Oswalds. Ruth, no stranger to Oswald's mistreatment of Marina, made it clear that he would have to live elsewhere, and could only visit with her and Marina's approval. On the morning of October 14, Ruth and Marina were having coffee at a neighbor's house. At one point, the conversation turned to Oswald and the fact that he needed a job. Two possibilities were raised: one at a local bakery and another at a gypsum plant. But those jobs required driving, and Oswald didn't know how to drive. His prospects were narrow. But another neighbor in the little coffee klatch, Linnie Mae Randall, mentioned that her brother had just gotten a job at a place called the Texas School Book Depository downtown. It was the busy season, Linnie Mae said, and perhaps they could use another man. Ruth Paine and Marina, who wanted Oswald to pull his weight, called the Depository. Superintendent Roy Truly said he would see Oswald the next day, October 15. As he did at the printing company, Oswald made a good impression during the interview. He called Truly "sir," which impressed Truly. He also lied to Truly that he was just out of the Marines (Oswald got out in 1959 and had his discharge reduced to "dishonorable" after defecting to the Soviet Union). Truly didn't bother to check Oswald's references and offered him a job filling book orders for $1.25 an hour. Oswald thought it beneath him, but needing a paycheck, took the job. The printing company, the bakery, the gypsum plant — had any of those jobs worked out, Oswald would not have been in a position to shoot President Kennedy on November 22. And there's something else many conspiracy theorists overlook: The Texas School Book Depository had two locations in 1963. Truly, Oswald's boss, nearly told Oswald to report to a storage warehouse elsewhere, but at the last minute, decided he could use the extra help at the main location — in Dealey Plaza. It took a string of tiny things to put Lee Harvey Oswald in the Texas School Book Depository on November 22, 1963. If it was a conspiracy, then everyone, at each point along the way, would have had to be in on it. One boss checked references, another didn't. Neighbors gossiping over coffee and cigarettes. The wrong skills for one job, the right skills for another. A warehouse here, or a warehouse there. Had any one of these minor footnotes to history been slightly different, what would our world be like today? ---30--- One always wonders about articles like this. Earnest writing...or financed, prodded somehow?

Possibly. My take on that is that the CIA had literally thousands of assets in the US at the time, due to the Cold War-Cuba situation. Mercs, Cuban exiles, Eastern Europeans, former Nazis. I wonder if LHO happened to be in the right place, and the CIA (or fragments thereof) took advantage of his location. If the deed had been done in Miami, or Chicago...no LHO. It sure seems like strings were pulled to get LHO into his job at the Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall facility, and "keep him on the shelf" until he was needed for any mission, JFKA or otherwise. But LHO could never hold down a job. I am agnostic on Ruth Paine. She may have been a handler of sorts. Or maybe she was do-gooder of a type hardly seen anymore. A New England Quaker. You have to be an oldie to know about the New England do-gooders of yesteryear, joining the Peace Corps, and holding church meetings on the woes of people on far-flung continents, the woes of America's poor, and exchanging pamphlets. It is worth pondering why the Biden Administration has done what looks like a permanent snuff job on the records of George Joannides' work in New Orleans in the summer of 1963. Was Joannides animating LHO in NO? Or, are records on Paine being buried as well? Just IMHO.

JD--- Well, I only communicated by e-mail. I had prepared an op-ed for him on the JFKA 60, with his permission. His review and editing reminded me of my elderly parents, in their e-mails of their last years. You notice things slipping, like typos, wandering sentences. Maybe Blakey had an off day. Maybe he was rushed while responding to the e-mail. I hope for the best for Blakey. Yes, his performance at the HSCA was mixed at best. But I also think his good nature was taken advantage of. He just could not believe other civil servants would shake his hand and lie to his face.

https://www.npr.org/2023/11/22/1214619338/on-this-day-60-years-ago-president-john-f-kennedy-was-assassinated-in-dallas On this day 60 years ago: President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas NOVEMBER 22, 20235:18 AM ET HEARD ON MORNING EDITION LISTEN· 4:334-Minute ListenPLAYLIST Transcript NPR's Michel Martin talks to television and film writer Hunter Ingram, who has watched many of the documentaries and specials released this year to mark the anniversary, and has recommendations. MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: On this day in 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, while riding through Dealey Plaza in his motorcade, his wife Jackie by his side. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) WALTER CRONKITE: President Kennedy died at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time, 2 o'clock Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago. MARTIN: That, of course, is the voice of Walter Cronkite. Six decades later, JFK's assassination remains a subject of fascination, mystery and even conspiracy theories for many people, as evidenced by the documentaries and specials released this year to mark the anniversary. TV and film writer Hunter Ingram has watched all of them, and he's here with us now to tell us which ones we might want to check out. Good morning. HUNTER INGRAM: Good morning. Thank you for having me. MARTIN: Thanks for coming. So as we said, JFK died six decades ago. From what you've gleaned while watching, is there any new information out there? INGRAM: Well, we have a lot of trickling documents that have come out since 1992. Of course, that was the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Act, and that was spurred by the release of Oliver Stone's 1991 film "JFK." And up until last year, the government was still releasing thousands of documents related to the assassination. And so a recent documentary was done by Oliver Stone himself, "JFK Revisited: Through The Looking Glass," kind of sifting through those documents and trying to make sense of why they were important, why they were redacted and how they may or may not feed into some of these conspiracy theories that have persisted for six decades. MARTIN: So did they come to any conclusions? INGRAM: They come to the conclusion that a lot was not told to the American people. I think that was the prevailing theory. There's the talk of the magic bullet and how it doesn't add up to the single-bullet theories. I mean, there're so many things that have grown from that single moment in 1963 that people are still trying to reckon with today on so many levels, which is why I think we see some of these documentaries coming out like this. MARTIN: So do you have - gosh, in this context, I hate to use the word favorite because, you know, given the subject matter - but is there one or two that you would particularly recommend? INGRAM: Well, I think the ones that were released specifically this year. The ones that actually have come out within the last few weeks - and in one case, a few days - were really fascinating and come at this subject in a different way. The first one that I would suggest, and the one that I really enjoyed, was through National Geographic. They have a franchise of docuseries called "One Day In America." People may have seen the 2021 one about 9/11 for the 20th anniversary. This one that came out a few weeks ago is "JFK: One Day In America," and it literally follows JFK and Jackie from the morning of November 22, 1963, all the way through the assassination in Dallas. And then it carries through the manhunt for Lee Harvey Oswald and even through the night and past midnight, as they're trying to get a handle on what to do with Harvey - Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas. That was really fascinating because you live minute to minute, and obviously, today being an anniversary might be of interest to people to get a sense of how that day unfolded. But if they want a deeper look, I think one that is just as fascinating was the History Channel's new documentary, "Kennedy," which is eight episodes, and it digs even more deeply into his life, from birth all the way to his final day. MARTIN: You know, obviously for some people, this - that day is seared in memory. I mean, people know where they were and what they were doing when they learned this news. But for people who don't have that memory, they're just starting to think about it, is there one of these specials, new or old, that you would recommend? INGRAM: Well, I think that a good complement would probably be "JFK: One Day In America" because you get to see the whole day. You know, it is seared in so many Americans' minds. And for those who didn't live it, I think this is a way for you to understand the tragedy of the day. I mean, that is something that is inescapable in any of these documentaries, that this was something that has imprinted itself in American history in the minds of those who were there. And for those who weren't, I think we are reliving them every year with documentaries like this that get to preserve that moment in a way, that - it's not going to be as if you were there, but it will give you a sense of why it's important and why we are still seeing the reverberations six decades later. MARTIN: That is Hunter Ingram. He's a freelance TV and film writer. Hunter, thanks so much. INGRAM: Of course. Thank you. ---30--- IMHO: Not impressive.

The evolution of Robert Blakey is probably worth a separate story. It would make a great magazine article. Yes, in 1979 Blakey was entirely in the "Mob did it maybe" camp, deeply suspicious of Marcello, but he ID'ed LHO as the lone gunsel, and exonerated the CIA. Blakey's background was as a mob-hunter for the Justice Department. He was an earnest civil servant, and likely the worst man for the job of HSCA chief counsel because of that. (Blakey literally wrote the RICO Act, among other items). I suspect Blakey got the chief counsel job after Sprague was railroaded, but only after Blakey first signed onto the "CIA not involved" platform after confidential assurances from CIA'ers. Blakey, too honest, also believed the CIA'ers were earnest civil servants. And maybe the CIA'ers who delivered the message to Blakey were in fact earnest, but did not know the facts themselves. Blakely would later say he would never again believe anything the CIA said, that could not be independently verified. In 2018 Blakey said he suspected Eladio Del Valle and Herminio Diaz of the JFKA, both Cuban exiles but perhaps in the drug biz too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juyYn9eDSHg I did not know Blakey now is open to the idea that LHO was involved in a false flag op. That is my suspicion as well. CIA'er Bill Harvey, btw, said he would routinely file false paperwork to obscure or disguise CIA ops. I assume other files were destroyed or never filed, so to speak. People who met Harvey seem to think he was capable of perping the JFKA. I exchanged e-mails with Blakey about one year ago, maybe more. He may be on his last legs. I hope someone can interview Blakey and write about how even Blakey now harbors convictions that the JFKA was no LN job.

Just FYI. https://www.fff.org/2024/04/08/a-great-new-book-on-the-jfk-assassination/ A Great New Book on the JFK Assassination by Jacob G. Hornberger April 8, 2024 A great new book on the U.S. national-security establishment’s assassination of President John F. Kennedy has recently been published. It is entitled The Final Analysis by David W. Mantik and Jerome R. Corsi. Longtime supporters of The Future of Freedom Foundation might recognize Mantik’s name. That’s because he was one of the speakers at our online 2021 conference entitled “The National Security State and the Kennedy Assassination.” In fact, Mantik cites presentations at that conference in various parts of his new book. Mantik is a radiation oncologist who also has a Ph.D. in physics. He is one of the few people who have been permitted to examine the extant X-rays that were taken of President Kennedy’s head as part of the autopsy that the U.S. military conducted on JFK’s body on the evening of the assassination. As he points out in this new book, Mantik did a careful examination of the X-rays on nine different occasions. It is Mantik’s findings with respect to those X-rays that form the central thesis of The Final Analysis. But before I reveal Mantik’s findings, permit me to put things into context. I began reading books on the Kennedy assassination after watching Oliver Stone’s movie JFK in 1991. That movie posited that the official narrative on the assassination — which is that a lone nut, former U.S. communist Marine who just happened to be at the right place at the right time assassinated the president using an Italian-made rifle with a misaligned scope — was wrong. In fact, Stone’s movie argued, the assassination was carried out by the U.S. military-intelligence establishment based on the notion that Kennedy’s Cold War policies posed a grave threat to “national security.” (See FFF’s book JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated by Douglas Horne.) Over time, I became convinced that Stone’s thesis was correct, but while assassination researchers had made a convincing case for criminal culpability on the part of the national-security establishment, I still felt that they had nonetheless not proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the standard of proof required in a criminal case. Then I read a five-volume book entitled Inside the Assassination Records Review Board by Douglas Horne, who had served on the staff of the ARRB in the 1990s. The ARRB was an independent agency that was charged with enforcing the JFK Records Act, which mandated that the military-intelligence establishment, which had succeeded in keeping its assassination-related records secret for some 30 years, disclose such records to the public. The law was enacted in the wake of public outrage that was generated by Stone’s movie JFK regarding such secrecy. Horne’s book convinced me beyond a reasonable doubt of the criminal culpability of the U.S. national-security establishment in JFK’s assassination. That’s because Horne focused on the autopsy that the military conducted on the president’s body and, specifically, on the fraudulent nature of that autopsy. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, there is no innocent explanation for a fraudulent autopsy. It necessarily equates to guilt in the assassination itself. That’s because a fraudulent autopsy can only mean a cover-up. And the only entity the military would be covering up for is itself. Realizing that many people might not take the time to read Horne’s massive five-volume work, I wrote The Kennedy Autopsy, which summarized the key points in Horne’s book. I dedicated the book to Horne. It became FFF’s all-time best-selling book. Mantik’s book builds on the foundation built by Horne. In fact, Mantik dedicates his book to Horne. Mantik builds on Horne’s evidence of the fraudulent autopsy by establishing the fraudulent nature of the autopsy X-rays. On several of his visits to examine the X-rays in the National Archives, Mantik took an instrument called a densitometer, which measures the density of various parts of the X-rays. As he carefully documents and explains in his new book, the measurements he took establish that the extant X-rays have to be fraudulent altered copies rather than original X-rays. One of most fascinating aspects of the book is a chapter about a 6.5 mm bullet fragment in the extant X-rays. The size of that bullet fragment conveniently matches the Italian-made rifle that the accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, supposedly used to assassinate the president. However, when the three military pathologists were asked about that bullet fragment, they all said that they never saw it. Yet, given the enormous size of the fragment, it is impossible to miss. Mantik even asked his young daughter if she could identify the fragment and she easily did so. When you see a photograph of that particular X-ray in his book, you will easily see the fragment as well. Why didn’t those pathologists see that fragment after the original X-rays were taken? After all, one of the main purposes of taking X-rays is to find bullet fragments and remove them as evidence. There is only one reasonable explanation: Someone made a fraudulent copy of the X-ray with the bullet fragment inserted. Mantik carefully explains how this would have been done with the technology existing in 1963. Another fascinating part of the book comes at the end, when Mantik describes the process by which Kennedy’s body was sneaked into the Bethesda Naval Medical Center morgue at 6:35 p.m. on the Friday of the assassination, which was almost 1 1/2 hours before the official entry time of 8 p.m. That’s a point covered in my book The Kennedy Autopsy and in Horne’s book Inside the Assassination Records Review Board. At the risk of further belaboring the obvious, when people are sneaking a president’s body into a morgue, they are up to no good. I would be remiss if I failed to mention my latest book An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story, which details the CIA’s role in the cover-up by producing an altered copy of the famous Zapruder film, which captured the JFK assassination. As Mantik mentions in his book, he — as well as Horne — have also concluded that the extant Zapruder film is an altered, fraudulent copy of the original. In fact, at a JFK conference last fall at Duquesne University, Mantik delivered a fantastic presentation on this part of the JFK cover-up, during which he noted my book. By establishing the fraudulent nature of the X-rays in his book The Final Analysis, Mantik has added to the mountain of evidence that establishes beyond a reasonable doubt the guilt of the national-security establishment in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. This is a great book. I highly recommend it. This post was written by: Jacob G. Hornberger

1. Oh good one, I forgot about the Cubans as possible JFKA perps. And given the many US attempts on Castro's life, they could consider themselves "justified" in tit-for-tat, or revenge. Some have posited that the assassin-Cubans told LHO they were actually CIA, and hoodwinked him into the playing a patsy role in the JFKA. That would imply that the Cubans had intel on a password, or other another device (half-dollar bill?), that would convince LHO they were CIA. 2. 600 CIA attempts on Castro's life? I have read about a few. Some sound far-fetched. But as I said, from the stands every home run looks easy. 3. I would not know if Cuban intel-services were better or worse than US intel services. They would have a natural "upper hand" in Cuba and in the Cuban exile community, I would guess. Easy for Havana-Cubans to embed Castro-supporters into the exile community. Larry Hancock has written that CIA'ers were exasperated that Cubans leaked everything, as they like to talk. Playing on the other team's "home court" is always a challenge. Side note: As I recall, De Gaulle also survived repeated assassination attempts. Maybe French righties were crappy at assassinations too.

KB- Again you raise very interesting observations. 1. I agree, it makes no sense for the CIA proper to use LHO in a planned JFKA, in any role, even as a patsy role, for the reasons you mentioned. Caveat: In times of stress, people make rushed judgments. Sometimes people do not act rationally. I give this low probability. 2. I disagree that the CIA was not competent in assassinations. They conducted quite a few and perhaps many that we do not know of. Talk is easy; actually getting things done in the physical world is a whole 'nother matter. The best (baseball) batters hit .350. Are they crappy batters? 3. The DPD? The reason I think they were not involved is that I suspect planning for a JFKA would involve a very small number of people, and would not cross organizational lines, and would involve only very trusted compatriots--such as fellow BoP vets, something along those lines. But again, this is a rational assessment---sometimes people act irrationally, or take big chances. Drug users and alcoholics often lose judgement, as well as those with suicidal tendencies. 4. Foreign government (Russians) turned LHO? CIA'er Woolsey said this in a book he published. The dubious Richard Case Nagell said something along these lines. Doesn't line up for me; JFK was about as good a leader as Moscow was going to get. But then, perhaps a hawkish and war-loving fragment within the Russia military did not want detente, and they manipulated LHO. I give this low probability. LHO's manuscript on Russia reveals a man disaffected with Russia. Was it an earnest manuscript? Seems like it. But who knows for sure? I still contend the Z-film shows shots being fired too rapidly to have been issued by a lone gunman with a single-shot bolt action rifle. So, they had to be two gunsels, or someone armed with a repeating rifle. Add on, the WC was an investigation-prosecution, or show trial. The HSCA was a little better, though Blakey was hot on the trial of the Mafia. And so it goes.

I agree, Matt Allison. The US, Japan, India, Israel, most European nations have flaws, like any working democracies. They also have free press that point out those flaws, in profusion. But, egads, look at Tehran, Beijing, Moscow, Hamas, Houthis, and Hezbollah. They do not have free press that illuminate anything, but rather service oppression, repression, suppression and atrocities. The Western liberal democracies need to be stout in standing up for traditional liberal values.

BB- Thanks for you comment. I do not think JFKA CT researchers take that one "patsy" statement as the conclusive evidence of LHO's involvement in the JFKA. The "patsy" is part of a huge mosaic. Many of us fully admit that the whole mosaic is not completed---and even you should be outraged that the Biden Administration has done what appears to be a permanent snuff job on the JFK Records Act, and 4000 records, perhaps more, have been buried. As you may know, researcher Jefferson Morley has shown that records pertaining to CIA officer George Joannides in New Orleans in the summer of 1963 have been put six-feet under. Really...after 60 years, records of what Joannides was doing in New Orleans in 1963 are threat to national security? Was Joannides involved with LHO? There are solid reasons to suspect as much. My own guess is LHO was inveigled into what he believed was an anti-Castro red flag op. Instead it became the JFKA, but LHO was in it up to his eyeballs (to outside observers), and he knew it. My take is LHO was a CIA asset, and that explains his sojourn to Russia, and later involvement with anti-Castro and Castro elements in New Orleans and Dallas. BTW, the CIA had literally thousands of assets in the US at the time, due to the Cuba situation, and those assets were largely Cuban exiles and other mercs, but also plenty of former Nazis and Eastern Europeans. If only a fragment of these various CIA assets, all with the means and motivation, decided to undertake the JFKA....then you have the intel-state involved (even if unwillingly) in the JFKA, but in extremis to keep that story blacked out. That's IMHO, and I am sticking with it. BTW, LHO was not referring to the DPD as framing him as the patsy. He meant the DPD acting on behalf of the intel state. My own guess is the DPD was not involved in the JFKA, pre-event.

https://www.union.edu/news/stories/202404/jfk-assassination-focus-special-ucall-presentation Not much new herein, but Bob Saltzman has been at this a long time, and deserves a nod. (Unimportant side note: More than 150 years ago, Union was one of the big four – right up there with Harvard, Yale and Princeton – before losing ground amid a scandal over college finances.) JFK assassination focus of special UCALL presentation Publication Date April 16, 2024 For more than 50 years, Robert (Bob) Saltzman ’69 has been on a quest to uncover the truth about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy was shot in Dallas, Texas, on Nov. 22, 1963, while riding in a car with his wife, First Lady Jackie Onassis and Texas Gov. John Connally. Robert (Bob) Saltzman ’69 has been on a quest for decades to uncover the truth about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Lee Harvey Oswald was immediately charged with the killing. Two days later, local nightclub owner Jack Ruby fatally shot Oswald. The events sparked a wave of conspiracy theories about who may have been behind the Kennedy assassination. A week after Kennedy’s killing, his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, convened a panel led by Chief Justice Earl Warren of the Supreme Court, to investigate the case. The Warren Commission’s main conclusion was that Oswald acted alone. That finding has been challenged over the decades by many, including Saltzman, who took a keen interest in the case shortly after graduating from Union with a B.S. in electrical engineering. Saltzman became a member of the Committee to Investigate Assassinations (CTIA), an unofficial, private organization founded in 1968. He opened a branch office in Niskayuna, N.Y. Through exhaustive research, Saltzman has amassed a trove of material related to the assassination that he says conclusively proves that there was a conspiracy, and that Oswald likely was not the assassin. Saltzman has given scores of lectures and presentations around the country on his findings, including at Union. On Saturday, April 20, from 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. in the College Park Hall ballroom, Saltzman returns to his alma mater to present “The Warren Commission Report on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: Fact or Fiction? (JFK Assassination 101 and my 54-year journey Seeking the Truth).” The presentation, free and open to the public, is a special event hosted by UCALL – the Union College Academy of Lifelong Learning. Registration is suggested. The following conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity. When did you first become interested in the JFK assassination? In late 1964 when the Warren Commission report was released, which I read. I then read an early book about the topic. I wrote a paper in high school about it but did not pursue it in earnest until 1970, after I had graduated from Union. How did you become involved in the Committee to Investigate Assassinations? In May 1970, I read an article about the assassination and the use of computers with the photographic evidence. I wrote to the executive editor of the CTIA offering my help. I subsequently developed a comprehensive computer data base and information retrieval system for JFK assassination related evidence and research. The following year, I was asked to fill in for the author of the article I had read. He was supposed to give a presentation for the organization. Is the committee still active? It is now the Assassination Archives and Research Center. The founder, and my mentor, Bernard Fensterwald Jr. unfortunately died unexpectedly in 1991. How much material have you collected related to the assassination? Quite a bit over 54 years. A huge library of books, images, slides, film, videos, artifacts, documents – much of which I am trying to donate to libraries and other researchers and organizations to carry on the work as I get older. The central conclusion of the Warren Commission’s 888-page report was that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, firing three bullets from a sixth-floor window, the third of which killed Kennedy. Why do you think the Warren Commission’s findings were flawed? There is virtually nothing about the Warren Commission’s conclusions that is accurate. They are inconsistent with the evidence in their own 26 volumes of hearings and exhibits, and they blatantly ignored a huge amount of evidence, in addition to vast amounts that were intentionally withheld by government officials at the highest levels. Several of the Commission members did not even want to sign it. The documented proof has been uncovered over the years. Fundamentally, their conclusions are flawed by the simple fact that they defy observations, science and human capabilities. In most recent polls, 70 percent or more of U.S. adults believe that there was a conspiracy, and also want all of the JFK related records to be released. In 1992, Congress passed the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act, which mandated that materials related to John F. Kennedy’s killing be housed in a single collection in the National Archives and Records Administration and that all records be publicly disclosed by 2017. Yet some records remain sealed. Do you think those records could shed more light on what happened? They likely do. It is not unreasonable to ask the question, “Why are they still hidden after 60 years?” What is there to hide, if this was just the act of a single “lone nut” with no discernable ability or motive? Why have congressional mandates for their release been stonewalled by government agencies and ignored by presidents? Last fall we actually brought a lawsuit against President Biden requesting that he follow the law and have all of the documents released as mandated by the ARCA. It is still an active case in court. In fairness, Obama and Trump did not release them either, despite their commitment to do so. RFK, Jr., has been making a campaign issue of this. Many of the documents that have been released are so highly redacted that they are of little value. Why do you think, more than 60 years after the assassination, people like you remain obsessed with the case? I do not feel that I have been obsessed with this event, but maybe rather meticulous, thorough and persistent over a long period of time. I stay with it because of my concerns about the implications of what happened in 1963 affecting us all to this day, well beyond the disenfranchisement that resulted from the murder of an elected president. In general, I do not subscribe to conspiracy theories, but this event is well beyond being a theory. All indications are that the same forces of “hidden government” are still in play today – maybe even more powerful (with potential outcomes that could be very unsettling). Finally, who killed JFK? If I knew that answer I would probably not be speaking about it only at Union College. However, over the years, and with document releases and research, the evidence becomes clearer about the who and why. The CIA, FBI or organized crime did not kill JFK. However, there are clearly elements of people in these organizations who appear to have been involved, and had aggregated their resources and expertise to make it happen. It may have been motived by ardent anti-communist and extreme hawkish military types, with counterparts in the CIA, and anti-Castro Cuban community, with assistance from organized crime. Evidence shows that even Oswald was working for both the CIA and FBI. The evidence also shows that he was not knowingly involved in the assassination, but was set up to become exactly what he stated he was after he was arrested and before he was conveniently silenced – a patsy.

Thanks for posting JB. I have seen the video of Kantor also. Sure seems like Kantor met Ruby at Parkland.

Evidently, LHO liked to play chess through his military career. No word on his skill at chess, that I know of.

Excellent suggestion Kirk Galloway. I salute the Kirk Galloway flag.

The 56 years tread had become a cesspool of pig excrement, with various members in trading sphincter-expulsions with Mathew Koch. Better off the main page.

RM-- This was a 24-year-old fellow with no college education, yet he was reading some serious stuff. LHO's manuscript on llfe in Russia also shows an active, insightful mind. LHO strikes me as a high-IQ fellow. Joined his high-school chess and astronomy clubs too. Now, who joins their high-school chess club.

Interesting post. Was Dulles of the character to order the JFKA? Maybe. Was LBJ? Maybe. Was Carlos Marcello? Maybe. Were Cuban exiles-mercs and CIA Miami station? Maybe. The KGB? Maybe. (Ex-CIA'er Woolsey thinks so). The Mormon Mafia? Maybe. Nazis brought to the US after WWII? Maybe. Did fragments break off from any of these groups and perp the JFKA as a rogue action? Maybe. Did higher-ups tacitly agree to a "rogue op"? Maybe. Were any fragments essentially a "cat's paw" for higher ups? Maybe. Was there a government "investigation" and then cover-up post-JFKA? For sure. One that continues through the present Administration.

RB- Yes, a few non sequiturs here and there. 1. In my estimation, the LBJ-LHO connection seems empty. (But others have said LBJ knew people who knew people who knew LHO). I brought up LBJ as a candidate for someone who met some criteria for perping a JFKA on a timeline. LBJ did not have power to swing national media or globalist policies, especially if he was going to be disgraced by LIFE magazine. So he had a motive to perp the JFKA sooner, rather than later.

KB-- I like your way of thinking about the JFKA. 1. Yes, if a globalist group was powerful enough to sway media and the intel state...would they not prefer to "wait JFK out" rather than assassinate him in broad daylight? Smear him in the media? 2. OK (for sake of argument) then by deduction, the group perping the JFKA was relatively powerless. They assumed they would not be able to influence US policies going forward. Policy was drifting away from their goals. 3. That would suggest perhaps CIA-linked Cuban exiles, BoP mercs. Who also felt betrayed by JFKA, and so had the means and motivation. This would also be a tight group that had served in battle together and trusted one another. This does not quite exonerate LBJ. He was facing political ruin, and was saved by the JFKA. But IMHO, the LBJ-LHO connection is dubious. Moreover, the biography build on LHO was an intel-state operation. But I am glad to meet someone else who does not know for a hard, incontrovertible fact who perped the JFKA, including by which methods, and how exactly the bullets or missiles struck JFK.

Another perspective on the the NPR lack-of-credibility issue, his time from a lady who runs an agriculture news publication, The Fence Post. This article on The Fence Post is probably from the other end of the spectrum from the article I posted from the NYT. One value of the internet is the ability to read far and wide. The truth comes out at NPR News NEWS | Apr 12, 2024 Rona Johnson rjohnson@thefencepost.com Like most everyone, I love it when I have been proven to be right. I have for a long, long time listened to National Public Radio and complained about its left leaning reporting. But I listened any way because I thought it would be good to know what the left is thinking and saying. Many times, I would catch myself yelling at the radio and slapping my forehead in disbelief and frustration. So, when senior business editor Uri Berliner wrote an opinion piece for Bari Weiss’ Free Press, criticizing NPR, which is funded primarily with taxpayer dollars, for its liberal stance, I felt vindicated. I have been long raging that NPR should lose public funding because of its politics but I am but a lowly ag editor and my opinion doesn’t much matter in the world. In his piece Berliner severely criticized NPR on its coverage of “Russiagate” even though it was later debunked. The worst part of the news organizations coverage of Russian collusion by Trump, is that once the scandal was proven not to be true, NPR didn’t bother to apologize or explain to their listeners that they were wrong and felt no need to set the record straight. “What’s worse is to pretend it never happened, to move on with no mea culpas, no self-reflection. Especially when you expect high standards of transparency from public figures and institutions, but don’t practice those standards yourself. That’s what shatters trust and engenders cynicism about the media,” Berliner said in his piece. He also lamented NPR’s coverage of the origin of CVID and Hunter Biden’s laptop, saying, “The laptop was newsworthy. But the timeless journalistic instinct of following a hot story lead was being squelched. During a meeting with colleagues, I listened as one of NPR’s best and most fair-minded journalists said it was good we weren’t following the laptop story because it could help Trump.” Berliner even went so far as to research his colleagues and find out where they leaned politically. He found that 87 of NPR’s newsroom were registered Democrats and none were Republicans. And, what’s worse, although NPR has embraced people of color and sexual identity and jumped on the white conservatives are bad bandwagon, they have made no inroads into the black and Latin communities as far as listenership. To his credit, Berliner tried to talk to his superiors about these issues but was pretty much ignored. I have to give him credit for coming out of the closet per say but I doubt it will do much to change the liberal bent of the news media because the train left the station many years ago. It will take many years for the news industry to go back to being fair and balanced in its reporting and no amount of telling us how fair and balanced they are will change our views. People need to be able to trust the media and know that they are reporting all the news in a nonpartisan way. There is plenty of room for opinions in newspapers and magazines, for instance in The Fence Post we have an Opinion page and an Editor’s Note. But if a publication decides to make every page an opinion page then they are not informing you of the news, they are telling you what to think. Berliner, who has been at NPR for 25 years, is still employed but I must wonder how long that will last. I’m sure he gets a frosty reception whenever he steps into the newsroom. Although I feel vindicated, I don’t take pleasure in seeing the news industry stray from its mission and lose the trust of the American people. ---30--- I do wonder how a news (or academic) organization could end up with 87 staffers from one major party, and zero from the other major political party.

Probably not many make the transition to bank veep from DPD...as most are seeking the city pension. But bank veeps, especially back in the 1960s, may not be as exalted as you might think. The bank veeps could be loan officers. In any words, their job is to check papers, make sure the borrower is who he says he is, and the loan is secured properly (usually property loans, at 80% LTV) and so on. In the 1960s, there was more informality and less credentialism in the world. A well-liked guy might get a bank job, if he was reasonably smart and reliable. OTJ training for a few months, and an experienced secretary.... Also, the DPD had civil service exams for employment and promotion in the 1960s. There is a sentiment in some circles that DPD officers were not smart guys. I think they likely were smart guys, having passed civil service examinations.