11 hours ago, Gil Jesus said:

 

by Gil Jesus ( 2024 )

The Dallas Police....developed by powder and lifted a latent palmprint from the underside of the barrel....the latent palmprint was identified as the right palm of Lee Harvey Oswald. ( Report, pgs. 565-566 )

This is what the Commission's Report said about the palmprint, probably the most important piece of evidence tying Oswald to the rifle.

But it's not what the Report says, as much as what it learned in testimony and chose not to say.

The Report CHOSE NOT TO SAY how the Dallas were able to "develop" the palmprint using a black powder on the dark surface of the barrel.

The Report CHOSE NOT TO SAY that it never corroborated that Lt. J.C.Day lifted the palmprint. It chose not to say that Day never told the FBI that the palmprint was on the rifle.

The Report CHOSE NOT TO SAY that Lt. Day failed to photograph the palmprint in situ before lifting it.

The Report CHOSE NOT TO SAY that contrary to Day's claim that there was a remnant of print left on the barrel after the lift, the FBI found no residual of any palmprint or that any lift had occurred.

The Report CHOSE NOT TO SAY that no mention of the discovery of a palmprint was made known until the evening of November 24th, after Oswald was dead.

This narrative is not to reject the palmprint as being Oswald's, nor is it to reject that it was lifted off the gun barrel, but rather it is to refudiate the manner in which it was obtained.

I do not accept that the palmprint was lifted off of the barrel of the rifle on November 22nd, but rather sometime between November 24th and November 26th, well after Oswald was dead.

And the following evidence supports my theory.

Let's start with Lt. Day's story and look at the evidence that refutes it.

 

LT. DAY'S STORY

Sometime on the evening of the assassination, Dallas Police Lt. J.C. Day allegedly found a palmprint on the underside of the barrel of the rifle. 

The palmprint was reportedly under the wooden stock and could not have been disturbed without disassembling the rifle. Day testified that he lifted it from the underside of the barrel, not the wooden stock.

Mr. BELIN. Let me clarify the record. By that you mean you found it on the metal or you mean you found it on the wood ?

Mr. DAY. On the metal, after removing the wood. ( 4 H 260 )

At 11:45pm, FBI Agent Vincent Drain picked up the CE 139 rifle and flew with it to Washington aboard an Air Force plane to be examined by FBIHQ. 

Early the next morning, the rifle was examined by Latona along with the cartridges and the clip. He processed the entire weapon using GRAY POWDER. In order to do this, he completely disassembled the rifle. His examination could find no identifiable prints. 

Lt. Day testified that when he released the rifle to the FBI at 11:45pm on Friday, he thought that "the print ......still remained on there...there were traces of ridges still on the barrel." ( 4 H 261-262 )

But when the rifle arrived at FBI Headquarters, there was no trace of the print.

Mr. LATONA. I was not successful in developing any prints at all on the weapon. I also had one of the firearms examiners dismantle the weapon and I processed the complete weapon, all parts, everything else. And no latent prints of value were developed.

Mr. EISENBERG. Does that include the clip ?

Mr. LATONA. It included the clip, it included the bolt, it included the underside of the barrel which is covered by the stock. ( 4 H 23 )

On 11/23, there was no palmprint on the rifle.
 

HOW DO YOU DEVELOP A PRINT ON A DARK SURFACE USING BLACK FINGERPRINT POWDER ?

When dusting for fingerprints, we're always trained to use black powder for lighter surfaces and the lighter grey powder for dark surfaces. This is Criminal Investigation 101. It's common sense that you'd use a powder that brings the print out, not blends the print in with the background.

The point was made to the Commission during testimony by its FBI expert on fingerprints, Sebastian Latona:

These powders come in various colors. We use a black and a gray. The black powder is used on objects which are white or light to give a resulting contrast of a black print on a white background. We use the gray powder on objects which are black or dark in order to give you a resulting contrast of a  white print on a dark or black background. ( 4 H 4 )

But Lt. Day testified that everything he dusted, he dusted using black powder. ( 4 H 259 )

The Commission never asked him why he would use a black powder to bring out a print on the dark colored barrel. More importantly, how he was able to dust a print on a dark surface with black powder without damaging it.

 

THERE IS NO CORROBORATION THAT LT. DAY LIFTED THE PALMPRINT ON 11/22

No witness can corroborate the act of the lifting of the print. Day told the FBI that "he had no assistance when working with the prints on the rifle and that he and he alone did the examination and lifting of the palmprint from the underside of the barrel ( CE 3145, 26 H 832 )."

Not only were there no witnesses to Lt. Day's discovery and lifting of the palmprint, he apparently told two different stories, one to the Commission and one to the FBI.

In his April 1964 testimony, Lt. Day told the Commission that he could not identify the palmprint as being Oswald's:

The palmprint again that I lifted appeared to be his right palm, but I didn't get to work enough on that to fully satisfy myself that it was his palm. ( 4 H 262 )

Mr. BELIN. Did you make a positive identification of any palmprint or fingerprint ?

Mr. DAY. Not off the rifle or slug at that time ( ibid. ).

But in September 1964, Day told the FBI that he made a tentative identification of the palmprint as Oswald's on the evening of 11/22 and only told two people about it, Chief Curry and Capt. Fritz. Day said that "he could not remember the exact time he made the identification nor the exact time that he told them", but it was "prior to the time he released the rifle to SA Agent Vincent Drain" at 11:45 pm. ( CE 3145, 26 H 832 )

During  the period that oswald was in custody, both Curry and Fritz were reeling off an abundance of information to the press, yet neither one mentioned the incriminating palmprint. ( CE 2141-2173 )

If Day had lifted a palmprint and hadn't been able to identify it on the evening of the 22nd, why didn't he send the lifted print off to the FBI with the rest of the evidence for identification ?

If he had told Chief Curry about lifting the palmprint and tentatively identifying it as Oswald's, why did the Chief express disappointment the next day that Oswald's prints had not been found on the rifle ?

 

11/23: CHIEF CURRY EXPRESSES DISAPPOINTMENT THAT OSWALD'S PRINTS HAVE NOT BEEN FOUND ON THE RIFLE

The next day, when asked by a reporter about fingerprints on the rifle, Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry never mentioned that police had lifted a palmprint from the rifle the night before. 

In fact, he implied the opposite, lamenting, "if we can put his prints on the rifle" meaning that as of Saturday the 23rd, police still had not found Oswald's prints on the weapon.

https://gil-jesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/curry-if-we-can-put-his-prints-on-the-rifle.mp4

This exchange was ( according to Lt. Day ) AFTER Day had notified him that he had lifted a palmprint from the underside of the barrel and identified it as Oswald's.

So why is the Chief expressing disappointment at not having Oswald's prints on the rifle when he knows a palmprint has been found and identified as Oswald's ?

Because he hadn't been told. The palmprint didn't exist on 11/23.

The Chief wasn't the only one who Lt. Day never told about the palmprint.

 

LT. DAY NEVER TOLD THE FBI ABOUT THE PALMPRINT

Not only did Lt. Day not tell the Chief or Capt. Fritz about the palmprint, he never told the FBI about it.

But FBI agent Sebastian Latona, who examined the rifle in Washington on 11/23, testified that, "we had no personal knowledge of any palmprint having been developed on the rifle." ( 4 H 24 )

If the palmprint was on the rifle on 11/22, why was there no verbal or written communication to the FBI from Lt. Day addressing it ? 

Day never communicated it to the FBI because the palmprint didn't exist on 11/22. 

Of course, as has been seen many times in this case, whether or not there was a remnant of palmprint left on the barrel and whether the FBI had been told about it could have been resolved by Agent Drain, who picked up the rifle from the Dallas Police both times, on 11/22 and on 11/26.

But Agent Drain was never called to testify.

Not only did the FBI have no knowledge of the palmprint's existence on 11/23, when they examined the rifle, they found no evidence that a palmprint had existed.

Sebastian Latona testified that, "There was no indication on this rifle as to the existence of any other ( than the trigger guard ) prints." ( ibid. )

 

LT. DAY TOOK NO PHOTOGRAPH OF THE PALMPRINT

Lt Day testified that this omission was because he was ordered by Chief Curry to "go no further with the processing, it was to be released to the FBI for them to complete..." ( 4 H 260-261 )

But the normal procedure in lifting fingerprints is to photograph the dusted print first, then lift it, as described by Latona:

"Our recommendation in the FBI is simply in every procedure to photograph and then lift." ( 4 H 41 )

Lt. Day knew this, because he attended, "an advanced latent-print school conducted in Dallas by the Federal Bureau of Investigation" ( 4 H 250 ). 

He admitted  that "it was customary to photograph fingerprints in most instances prior to lifting them." ( CE 3145, 26 H 832 )

If the Chief really had interrupted him in the middle of his processing the palmprint, he should have ended up with the photograph and not the lift.

So why did he choose to lift the print before photographing it ? The Commission never asked. It simply accepted his excuse that his work was interrupted by the Chief.

Either Lt. Day neglected every possible procedure that would have provided proof that he found and lifted a palmprint on the rifle, or the palmprint did not exist until 11/24, after Oswald was dead.

The first revelation of the palmprint came on the evening of Sunday, 11/24.
 

WADE MENTIONS THE PALMPRINT FOR THE FIRST TIME ON 11/24

The first mention of a palmprint was during DA Henry Wade's Sunday night press conference, after Oswald was dead. This except is taken from a video at @Vince Palamara's Youtube Channel:

https://gil-jesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/palmprint-wade.mp4

Wade did not mention the palmprint in any of his interviews on Friday night or Saturday ( CEs 2142, 2169-2173 ), even when asked specifically by reporters if fingerprints had been found on the rifle.

Wade's announcement of a palmprint caused the FBI to take notice. They had examined the rifle the day before and had found no palmprint or any evidence that a lift had been done.

So if the palmprint did not exist before 11/24 but it did exist when the Dallas Police sent it to the FBI on 11/26, how did the police come into possession of it ?

The answer could lie in a visit to the Miller Funeral Home on the night of 11/24.

 

THE POST MORTEM FINGERPRINTING OF OSWALD

Late in the evening of November 24th, authorities descended on the Miller Funeral Home, where Oswald's corpse was beng prepared for burial. Mortician Paul Groody alleged that during their time there, Oswald's body was fingerprinted.

https://gil-jesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/groody.mp4

The purpose for this post-mortem fingerprinting has never been offically explained. Authorities had Oswald's fingerprints on record from the Marine Corps ( 17 H 289 ), his arrest in New Orleans ( 2 HSCA 379 ) and his arrest in Dallas ( 17 H 282 ).

Why would they need a fourth set of his prints ? 

They wouldn't. The only purpose for such a visit would be to finally place Oswald's palmprint on the rifle in order to connect him to the weapon.

IMO, the post-mortem fingerprinting of Oswald's corpse was a ruse to give authorities access to the body and to hide the fact that Oswald's palmprint was being placed on the rifle.
 

THE LIFTED PALMPRINT IS FINALLY SENT TO THE FBI

Two days after the post mortem fingerprinting, on November 26th, the "lifted palmprint" was finally sent to the FBI with all the other evidence. It is listed as the 14th item on the evidence list. The evidence was turned over once again to Agent Drain.

Although the fingerprint card with the lifted palmprint is dated 11-22-63, that date could have been added to the card anytime between 11-22 and 11-26.

The card is initialled by Capt. George Doughty, who may have cleared up the time and day of the lift, but he was never called to testify.

The FBI received the "lifted palmprint" on November 29th. ( 4 H 24 )

 

THERE'S ALWAYS AN INDICATION THAT A LIFT HAS BEEN PERFORMED

The Commission concluded that Day's lift was so perfect, that it was the reason that Latona found no trace of the print on the rifle when he examined it, nor "any indication that a lift had been performed." ( Report, pg. 123 )

While it's possible to lift a print without leaving a remnant of that print behind, it is not possible to lift a print without disturbing the power surrounding it.

This video shows how to dust a print on a dark surface and what happens to the surrounding powder when that print is lifted:

https://gil-jesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/lifting-a-fingerprint.mp4

As you can see, the tape pulls all of the powder off in the area under where the tape contacted the surface. This leaves the surface to appear shiny.

The point is that when you lift a fingerprint, there is always evidence that a lift has been done because there is an area surrounding the print where no powder exists.

Even if the lift of the palmprint was so perfect as to completely lift the print off the gun barrel, it would have also taken with it the surrounding loose powder and the absence of that powder would have made it obvious that a lift had been performed.

The fact that the FBI did not find "any indication that a lift had been performed"  means that no lift could have been done prior to their examination of 11/23.

As I said in the beginning of this narrative, I'm not contesting that the palmprint came from the rifle or that it was even Oswald's.

I'm contesting the manner in which the palmprint was obtained. I believe the palmprint was placed on the rifle late night 11/24 at the mortuary. 

The timeline and evidence surrounding its discovery seems to indicate that the account provided by Lt. Day and accepted by the Warren Commission was not the truth.

 

CONCLUSION

Lt. Day claimed to have seen and lifted a palmprint from the bottom of the gun barrel under the stock on the evening of November 22nd.

He made no such report about the print.
No one saw him lift the print.

He said he told Chief Curry and Capt. Fritz about it.
Neither ever mentioned it and the Chief acted as if no prints were found on the rifle.
In fact, that's what David Brinkley reported the next day.

https://gil-jesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/rifle-no-fingerprints.mp4

Lt. Day never told the FBI either verbally or in writing about the print that "still remained on there...there were traces of ridges still on the barrel." ( 4 H 261-262 )

When the FBI received the rifle on the 23rd, it found no trace of the palmprint and no evidence that a lift had been performed.

It sent the rifle back to the Dallas Police.

On the evening that the police got the rifle back, DA Henry Wade revealed for the first time the existence of a palmprint. 

The Commission was faced with a problem, conflicting stories from the Dallas Police and the FBI. During his testimony for the HSCA, Wesley Liebeler said that the palmprint problem was a rather heated subject matter for the staff. ( 11 HSCA 219 )

In the end, the Commission decided that both Lt. Day and the FBI were correct and that Day's lift of the print was so perfect, the FBI didn't even know the lift had been performed.

Apparently, the HSCA avoided the "heated subject matter" like the plague.

The Committee, although mentioning that "Critics of the Warren Commission have...... argued that..... his palmprint was planted on the barrel" ( HSCA Final Report, pg. 54 ), never took on the topic in its Final Report. 

Instead, its footnotes on its conclusions with regard to the palmprint referred to pages 122-124 of the Warren Report.
 

A FINAL WORD

The FBI suspected that the palmprint had been planted. In a memo, A. Rosen stated that, "the Dallas Police made no mention of this latent palm print for a number of days after the assassination."

He went on to note that Henry Wade made the first mention of the print on November 24th:

"On Sunday, Novenber 24, District Attorney Henry Wade, when questioned before news media, made the statement that a palm print had been found."

His final point was clear: "the existence of this palm print was not volunteered to the Bureau until a specific request was made to the Dallas Police Department." ( FBI file # 62-109060, Sec. 86, pg. 52 )

That request was the request of November 26th, that all the evidence in the case be turned over to the FBI.

In December 1996, ARRB staff member Joseph R. Masih wrote to Jeremy Gunn:

"there is no contemporaneous evidence of the palm print such as a photograph or written record on the date of discovery by Lt. Day. Furthermore, the FBI found no print on the weapon or any evidence that one had been lifted." ( ARRB files of Joseph R. Masih, Palm3.wpd, pg. 2 )

There's no record of it and the FBI never saw it because the palmprint was never lifted on November 22nd. 

On the evening of the day Oswald was murdered, its existence was made public and later that night, the palmprint was placed on the rifle under the guise of "fingerprinting the corpse".  It was then "lifted" from the barrel of the rifle and the lift was sent to the FBI on November 26th, with the rest of the evidence.
 

 

Excellent presentation by Gil Jesus. The official LHO palm print tale is very dubious, to put it mildly. 

Lt. Day's testimony regarded the putative Walker bullet is also very squirrelly. Also, there are no photographs of the putative Walker bullet in DPD records.

I suspect the WC was also dubious about the Walker bullet, but could not do much about it or the LHO palm-print.

To earnestly explore either the palm-print or the Walker bullet might lead to the conclusion that evidence tampering had taken place---obviously, that was a road that could not be taken. 

16 hours ago, Kevin Balch said:

First, it would not have to have been Fidel Castro’s idea. It could have been Raul or unidentified elements in the Cuban intelligence service.

Second, if the Cubans knew Oswald was doubling, his association with US intelligence would have prompted the US government itself to cover up details of the assassination. I think this is one of the reasons the US covered up the USS Liberty attack. The US was not nearly the “ally” of Israel that it is today. It would have been extremely embarrassing if it were known that Israel was able to steal highly enriched uranium from a US defense plant to advance Israel’s nuclear weapons program. Further, revealing that Israel had nuclear weapons would have led the Arabs to prevail upon the Soviets for nuclear weapons or develop their own resulting in a nuclear arms race in the middle east.

Third, the assassinations were largely an RFK project. There is no indication LBJ knew anything about them, particularly given the hatred between RFK and LBJ.

Besides Castro’s desire for the Soviets to initiate a nuclear first strike on the US and his opening of the prisons and mental institutions to supply the exodus for the Mariel boat lift, how many examples of a madman  do you need?

KB--

That the Cuban commies are the usual tinpot ideological autocrats, you will get no argument from me. 

I think you may be on to something, but more along the lines of this:

1. The US Cuban exile-intel community was heavily infiltrated by Castro double-agents, and others working for Castro. 

2. These US-based elements took umbrage at US attempts to assassinated Castro, and decided to play tit-for-tat. In other words, a fragment of the Castro intel community perped that JFKA. 

3. The Castro Cubans had enough sources and info to know that LHO was a CIA asset, and perhaps learned of a password or signal that would convince LHO that they were earnest CIA assets also. 

4. They convinced LHO to partake in what LHO thought was a false-flag op, a failed JFKA that would be blamed on Castro. 

5. On 11/22 they fired upon JFKA for real, perhaps from the Dal-Tex building, while LHO fired a lone shot that intentionally missed. 

The CIA still had a situation that had to be covered up. 

1. A CIA asset had played a role in the JFKA.

2. They has been so penetrated that the CIA itself enabled the JFKA, to some degree. 

So, this led to the cover-up.

---30---

All that said, it is a speculative JFKA explanation above. Who? Who were the Cubans who worked with LHO? Other than a reasonable deduction, is there any evidence at all that Cuban intel perped the JFKA? 

I have yet to read as explanation of the JFKA that is compelling on the nuts-and-bolts side, including my own favored explanation.  

We have Russians, Cubans, Nazis, LBJ, Mob, CIA, Israelis, Mormon Mafia, French mercs. All are favored by one explanation or another. 

A government cannot investigate itself, which was the WC, and then the HSCA. Garrison tried, but was tasked with a skiff against battleships. 

The Biden Administration is still doing a snuff job on the JFK Records. Maybe some answers are in there. 

On 4/30/2024 at 10:20 PM, Paula Botan said:

I wonder what everyone thinks about the German language matter related to Oswald's college "intentions". There are indications that Oswald was at least giving the impression of learning some German while still in the Marines. His buddy Nelson Delgado testified to the Warren Commission that he thought Oswald was speaking some German while they were stationed together. And Delgado had been stationed in Germany so had some familiarity with the language. Also, Oswald mentioned that he had some German language acquisition on his application to the Schweitzer school.  If he did not really expect to go to the Schweitzer school and he knew he was going directly to the USSR, why bother trying to learn such a difficult language? Especially for a dyslexic kid?

We also know that the German language lessons seemingly did not end there. Marina, in the McMillan book mentions that Oswald's friend, Ernst Titovets would sometimes come over to their apartment to give him German lessons. Now whether you believe Marina or not about this, we do know that Titovets did know German and would eventually give several books to Oswald, including at least one German language textbook (actually I believe he gave him 2 German textbooks--I have the other one, picture below). By the way, Titovets denies offering any German language instruction to Oswald. (I asked.) Why, I don't know. But even if Titovets is telling the truth and did not give Oswald any German lessons, why did Oswald hang on to the books? Did he think he was going to go to the ASC eventually at some future date? Why would Oswald continue with the German lessons if the application to the Schweitzer school was entirely a ruse to get him out of the Marines and into the USSR?

Any opinions on this?

Interesting questions. 

Back in the 1960s, there was more interest in learning languages, and it seemed to impart an open, cosmopolitan or international air to those who wanted to learn other languages and cultures. 

As for keeping books, that is what people did in the old days. In some families and quarters, books were revered. This was pre-internet obviously. 

I myself lugged crates of books around the country until I moved offshore.  

I don't know why LHO wanted to learn German.  

9 hours ago, Kevin Balch said:

One can be of above average intelligence and still have severe psychological issues.

LHO may have had "severe psychological issues," or he may have been a free spirit, sometimes a bit cynical. He received an honorable discharge from the Marines. 

He may have been sent to Russia (I suspect he was). And so the Russia trip was not the sojourn of a lost soul. 

LHO evidently had no drug or alcohol habits, which might have been an indicator of inner demons. 

I would say it is impossible to know the "real" LHO at this late date. 

Was he a sincere Marxist, or an intel plant? A 24-year-old with little formal education, fleetingly seduced by one idea or the next? 

13 hours ago, Kevin Balch said:

You bring up several interesting points that are worthy of further consideration.

One factor that has been overlooked is LHO’s psychological makeup. It’s often claimed that the Warren Commission was charged with painting LHO as a nut. But if anyone else had the childhood that LHO had, it would not be at all controversial to say he was likely to be outside of psychological norms. Someone who has been rejected all his life could be extremely motivated toward a particular cause (Marxism? Anti-communism?) and perhaps susceptible to the overtures of those that do accept him. LHO seemed to be enamored with the glamor of espionage which is what I think drew him to read James Bond novels. Such a person would relish the acceptance by CIA, FBI, ONI, Cuban intelligence. As the Burt Lancaster character put it in Executive Action,  “Possibly a little doubling”.

Cuba turning a US intelligence asset into an assassin or into an assassination plot would be an elegant way to get the US government to cover up the assassination.

LHO--

At his late date, knowing the "true LHO" may be an exercise in futility. 

His reading lists from N.O. library were a lot broader than spy novels, and some of it every elevated. 

In Russia, LHO formed a serious friendship with Ernest Titovets, who regarded him highly. Titovets is much an intellectual, with PhD etc. 

In the US, De Mohrenschildt discussed War and Peace in the original Russian with LHO. Also regarded his intellect highly. 

LHO's manuscript on Russia, written when he 23, and sans college education, shows an active and insightful mind. And it is something of a first draft. How many of your first drafts from age 23 would you like someone to read? 

In high school, LHO joined the chess and astronomy clubs, and played chess through his military service. No, who plays chess? 

LHO got through Marine boot camp at age 16 (17?). 

Was LHO "rejected" his whole life? By who? His supervisor at TSBD, Frazier, regarded him as a solid worker. LHO had made many friends in the Russia, and got married. 

Like millions of other American boys from modest circumstances (especially back in the 1960s), he joined the military when he could. 

His wife, Marina, remarked of LHO "he was always reading." 

LHO's last landlady said he was kind to kids. 

Could LHO been attracted to intel work? Sure, most young men, with limited options, would be. Did he become a US intel asset? I suspect so. 

But how well can any of us know LHO today? Based on what? 

5 hours ago, Kevin Balch said:

If any Cubans benefitted from this, it was the pro-Castro Cubans. That doesn’t necessarily mean Fidel Castro was behind it. It could have been Raul Castro or elements within Cuban intelligence.

There were definite attempts at back-channel negotiations between the Kennedy administration and Castro. However, JFK still made less than conciliatory remarks at the same time. The sabotage and assassination plots continued prompting Castro’s warning of retaliation in September, 1963.

Lisa Howard was one of the intermediaries used in the back channel discussions. Why did she turn so strongly anti-RFK and endorse Kenneth Keating (who initially made claims that the Soviets were placing missiles in Cuba) in the 1964 NY senate election?

https://www.nytimes.com/1964/09/29/archives/democrats-form-a-keating-group-120-liberals-say-kennedy-is-using.html

It’s widely believed that the Kennedys saved us from Operation Northwood. However, in the secret EXCOM tapes made during the Cuban Missile Crisis, they were attempting to justify a preemptive strike to take out the anti-aircraft defenses and the IRBMs. RFK himself proposed a sinking of a US ship in Guantanamo Bay even calling it a “Remember the Maine” event. I don’t believe JFK was in the room at the time. How much of Operation Northwood was regurgitating what RFK wanted to hear?

If I remember correctly, serious JFKA researcher Larry Hancock is open to the idea of pro-Castro elements either working with or manipulating LHO. 

In this scenario, the pro-Castro elements were probably aligned with double-agents, who were working within the US Cuban exile community, in which they learned about LHO. 

Well, anything is possible. 

One key element is the same: As LHO was a CIA asset, even if Castro elements had played a role, the whole situation had to be hushed up. The CIA could not have any story come out that a CIA asset had helped perp the JFKA, even if he had been manipulated by Cuban intel. 

8 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

I didn't ask you to say again what your take is, but rather what did you disagree with that Hornberger said that underlies your different take.   I found little or nothing to disagree with him about. 

RO-

So many of these versions of the JFKA are compelling (including mine) but fall apart in the last mile. 

LBJ is certainly a suspect, but then even more so is the Miami Station of the CIA. Or Marcello, or WASP globalists, or former Nazis, Russians or the Cuban government. Israelis, and the Mormon mafia. 

Some people, such as Vincent Salandria, try to wave this all away and say, "Oh we know the globalist-elite national security state did the JFKA, and the question is why?"  And then we get the Vietnam-globalism-imperialism explanation. 

Much of LBJ's actions in the immediate post-JFKA hub-bub appeared influenced by CIA, including the World War III virus. LBJ certainly got the US into Vietnam in force, something JFK would have avoided, IMHO. Curiously, Cuba dropped off the map after the JFKA. 

Would you vote to convict LBJ of murder, put him in the electric chair, if you sat on a jury? I could not. 

LBJ, and many other people, should have been mercilessly grilled and cross-examined, and investigated and re-investigated, wiretapped and everything else back in 1963-4. 

6 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:

I'm not sure, Ben, what part you disagree with or why you think Johnson was out of the loop (would you care to elaborate?) but Hornberger nails many key points.

I would add a few things. Johnson's order to snatch the body from Dr. Rose was verified by Jack Valenti, who was sitting next to Johnson on AF1 at the time, in his book  defending Johnson, A very Human President.  He says the order was the first of Johnson's new presidency, "and a good one".

I don't know about the accuracy of the account of the struggle in the hallway with Rose, but Hornberger makes the key point.  It was likely settled by the statement Rose couldn't object to: we have orders from the President. 

Horne was also essential to uncovering the alteration of the Z film and the concurrent destruction of the original, another crucial part of the coverup of evidence.

RO-

My take is more along the lines of a very small group of witting pre-JFKA operatives, perhaps just two or three, all CIA assets, as was LHO.

I don't see much of a LBJ-LHO-Cuban exiles nexus. 

Just my IMHO. 

17 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

Isn't this exactly what Robert Morrow has been presenting for years?

Very close versions of the JFKA and the perps, I would say. 

I disagree with some of this, and tend to think LBJ was out of the loop, but it is well-presented, and Hornberger has been following the JFKA for many decades. 

https://www.fff.org/2024/04/29/lyndon-johnsons-role-in-the-jfk-assassination/

Lyndon Johnson’s Role in the JFK Assassination

by Jacob G. Hornberger

April 29,

Ever since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a question has naturally arisen: What role, if any, did Vice-President Lyndon Johnson play in the assassination?

With the publication of Douglas P. Horne’s massive 5-volume book Inside the Assassination Records Review Board, the national-security establishment’s role in the assassination has now been established beyond a reasonable doubt. That’s because Horne meticulously detailed the fraud in the autopsy that the U.S. military carried out on Kennedy’s body on the very evening of the assassination. Horne served on the staff of the ARRB in the 1990s.

Examples of autopsy fraud set forth by Horne (which are summarized in my book The Kennedy Autopsy) include (1) sneaking JFK’s body into the Bethesda Naval morgue before the official start of the autopsy in order to perform pre-autopsy surgery designed to hide evidence of shots having been fired from Kennedy’s front and (2) two separate brain examinations, the second of which involved someone else’s brain rather than Kennedy’s. Horne’s findings have now been reinforced and built upon in a new book, The Final Analysis by David Mantik, M.D., Ph.D. and Jerome Corsi, Ph.D.

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, there is no innocent explanation for a fraudulent autopsy. It necessarily means criminal culpability of the national-security establishment in the assassination itself. There is no way around that. That’s how we can definitively conclude that the JFK assassination was one of the national-security establishment’s patented regime-change operations based on what have become the two most important words in the American political lexicon — “national security.” See FFF’s book JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated.”

But what about Johnson? Was he just an innocent beneficiary of the assassination? Actually not. The circumstantial evidence establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that Johnson himself was up to his neck in the assassination. Johnson had three primary roles in the assassination.

The first role was to get JFK’s body out of Dallas and deliver it into the hands of the military. Keep in mind that JFK’s murder was a state criminal offense. At that time, it was not a federal crime to assassinate a president. Therefore, no federal agency had any jurisdiction over the crime. That includes the Pentagon, the CIA, and the FBI.

Under Texas law, the Dallas County Medical Examiner, Dr. Earl Rose, was required to perform an autopsy on JFK’s body. Immediately after JFK was declared dead, Rose announced that he was going to perform the autopsy. A team of Secret Service agents immediately declared that no such autopsy would be permitted. Headed by a Secret Service agent named Roy Kellerman, who was brandishing a Thompson sub-machine gun, the Secret Service team began screaming, yelling, and cussing as they began forcing their way out of Parkland Hospital  with the president’s body, which had been placed in a heavy casket. Rose refused to give ground, insisting, correctly so, that Texas law required him to perform the autopsy before the body could be released. One Secret Service agent physically picked up Rose, carried him to a nearby wall, and wagged his finger in his face. The others pulled back their suit coats to brandish their guns, thereby threatening to use deadly force against anyone who got in their way.

Kellerman declared that he and his team were simply following orders. There is only one person who could have issued such an extraordinary order to Kellerman — Lyndon Johnson, either directly to Kellerman or indirectly through one of Kellerman’s superiors. Who else would have dared to issue an order that violated state criminal law?

In fact, Johnson’s own actions confirm that he was the person who issued the order. Once JFK was declared dead, Johnson headed to Love Field, where he ordered seats to be removed from the back of Air Force One to make room for the big casket in which JFK’s body had been placed. Johnson had absolutely no intention of waiting at Love Field for the 2-3 hours that would have been needed to complete the autopsy. He was removing those seats in the full expectation that the casket and the body would be arriving shortly. How would he know that? Because he had to have been the one who issued the order to Kellerman to get the body out of Parkland at all costs and deliver it to Johnson at Love Field.

The second role that Johnson had was to conjure up the prospect of World War III by suggesting that the assassination might be the first step in a nuclear attack on the United States by the Soviet Union. He first raised this possibility while he was waiting at Parkland Hospital for Kennedy to be declared dead. He raised it again on the way to Love Field.

Yet, when Johnson arrived at Love Field, his actions belied any such concern. Rather than get up in the air immediately in order to direct America’s defenses and counterattacks to a possible Soviet nuclear attack, he instead lollygagged at Love Field, waiting, first, for a federal judge to arrive and swear him in as president and, second, for JFK’s body to be delivered to him. In fact, JFK was declared dead at 1 p.m. and LBJ waited until 2:47 to take off. That was the action of a person who knew for certain that the assassination could not possibly have been the first stage of a Soviet nuclear attack on the United States. The only way that Johnson could have been so certain is that he knew that it was not the Soviets who committed the assassination.

Once Johnson arrived at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, he dutifully delivered JFK’s body into the hands of the military, notwithstanding the fact that the military had absolutely no jurisdiction whatsoever to conduct such an autopsy.

It was not the last time that LBJ conjured up the possibility that the Soviets or the Cubans had assassinated JFK, however. When he began inducing people to join what became known as the Warren Commission, he once again conjured up the possibility that the assassination had been committed by the Soviet Union or Cuba. Why would he do that? Because that was the way that the plotters were able to get the investigation into the assassination shut down immediately — in order to ostensibly avoid World War III and all-out nuclear war that would come with it.

How did this ingenious strategy play out? As I detail in my book An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story, the plot called for shots being fired from the front and the back. That would establish a conspiracy with the supposed communist, Lee Harvey Oswald, a U.S. intelligence agent who the national-security establishment was setting up to take the fall. The only people with whom Oswald would have been supposedly conspiring were the Soviet Union and Cuba. That was the purpose of setting up Oswald in New Orleans and Mexico City as a supposed communist agent.

Keep in mind that JFK and his brother RFK had initiated Operation Mongoose, whose aim was to oust Cuban leader Fidel Castro from power. Keep in mind also that the CIA had repeatedly tried to assassinate Castro. Thus, Johnson’s second role was to assert that the communists had gotten to JFK first and that if the United States responded to their assassination of JFK, World War III would occur. Therefore, the only way to obviate going to war based on what the Kennedy brothers had started was to immediately shut down the investigation and hide the fact that shots had been fired from the front.

The third role that LBJ had was to ensure that there would never be an official investigation that could lead to the national-security establishment, including, of course, with respect to the military’s fraudulent autopsy. That was the purpose of appointing former CIA Director Allen Dulles to the Warren Commission. Dulles, who Kennedy had fired after the Bay of Pigs disaster and who loathed Kennedy, ensured that the commission stayed on track with the official lone-nut narrative.

Finally, it should be noted that if JFK had not been assassinated, it was a virtual certainty that LBJ would have been removed from office, indicted, and convicted for political corruption. In fact, it is also a virtual certainty that Johnson knew that Robert Kennedy, the attorney general, who loathed Johnson, was furnishing evidence of Johnson’s corruption to LIFE magazine. Thus, LBJ, who had a lifelong obsession to become president, had a choice: Go to jail or participate in the assassination of JFK and become president. He chose the latter course of action and, after being elected president in the 1964 election, gave the U.S. national-security establishment what Kennedy had refused to do–its war in Vietnam.

3 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

The video does not say Angleton confessed he was involved in or complicit in the assassination. The video says a claim that Angleton in a document had knowledge that the CIA was involved.

At 1:40f, Carlson speaking of his source who he says saw the documents two years ago: "I got one fact out of him, which was, yes, the CIA was involved ... James Jesus Angleton ... had knowledge of this"

Doesn't claim Angleton had pre-Nov 22 knowledge, doesn't claim Angleton was complicit in it or was part of it. Only that he had knowledge that the CIA was involved in the assassination, which could be in one of the other rooms in the CIA mansion than Angleton's, could be after-the-fact knowledge ... and that's if the hearsay got transmitted accurately to Carlson as to what the document said. If the source of the hearsay was Trump (as until established otherwise, is the leading suspect), Trump does not have the best reputation for accuracy in exegeting and transmitting nuanced meanings of texts. Furthermore, if it was Trump, then it could be, notwithstanding Trump told Carlson he saw a document, he may really have been just briefed orally by Pompeo, told by Pompeo the documents say xyz and Trump told Carlson he saw "y" when he was actually told "y" (not sure how much Trump actually reads), the point being if so now there are two hearsays, not just one, between text and Carlson's report, one of whom should be assumed unless shown otherwise to be someone with a less than stellar track record for nuance and accuracy.

I do wish Congress would subpoena and attempt to compel testimony from Tucker Carlson on naming his source--so that that source could in turn be subpoenaed and attempted to compel testimony to what the source saw and knew of that specific claim in a document. Carlson would probably refuse to reveal his source citing precedents of journalists and sources, but I wish there was a way to turn up the heat on this in the interests of the utter importance to history and America's interest in knowing the truth, to attempt to run this thing down, rather than this circus of Tucker Carlson throwing that out into the air and people going bananas over something which is at present in the genre of unverified anonymous gossip.

I think GD raises a good point. 

The language is murky but it could be what is being said is actually that Angleton knows what happened in the JFKA, not that he perped it. 

"The CIA is involved in the JFKA" could mean that CIA asset LHO hooked up with CIA-asset Cuban exiles and mercs in Dallas, with the resulting JFKA. 

"Three CIA Assets Did the JFKA"---well, the agency had to do a snuff job on that story. And keep doing it. 

Also, John Newman has his whole Bruce Solis deal going on, and James McCord. 

As usual, I wonder what to think. 

1 hour ago, Robert Morrow said:

Regarding, pro-Castro Cuban involvement in the JFK assassination, there just isn't any evidence of it. On the contrary, behind the scenes relations were about to start warming with JFK and Fidel Castro. I am sure you know about the journalist Jean Daniel revelations. JFK was using journalist Jean Daniel as a back channel to Fidel Castro in an attempt to ease tensions between the USA and Cuba.

“I Was With Fidel Castro When JFK was Assassinated” by Jean Daniel for the New Republic - December 7, 1963

Web Link: https://newrepublic.com/article/120460/fidel-castro-reaction-kennedy-assassination-cuba

QUOTE

Then, suddenly, he had taken a less hostile tack: “Kennedy could still be this man. He still has the possibility of becoming, in the eyes of history, the greatest President of the United States, the leader who may at last understand that there can be coexistence between capitalists and socialists, even in the Americas. He would then be an even greater President than Lincoln. I know, for example, that for Khrushchev, Kennedy is a man you can talk with. I have gotten this impression from all my conversations with Khrushchev. Other leaders have assured me that to attain this goal, we must first await his re-election. Personally, I consider him responsible for everything,  but I will say this: he has come to understand many things over the past few months; and then too, in the last analysis, I’m convinced that anyone else would be worse.” Then Fidel had added with a broad and boyish grin: “If you see him again, you can tell him that I’m willing to declare Goldwater my friend if that will guarantee Kennedy’s re-election!”

This conversation was held on November 19.

Now it was nearly 2 o’clock and we got up from the table and settled ourselves in front of a radio. Commandant Vallero, his physician, aide-de-camp, and intimate friend, was easily able to get the broadcasts from the NBC network in Miami. As the news came in, Vallero would translate it for Fidel: Kennedy wounded in the head; pursuit of the assassin; murder of a policeman; finally the fatal announcement: President Kennedy is dead. Then Fidel stood up and said to me: “Everything is changed. Everything is going to change. The United States occupies such a position in world affairs that the death of a President of that country affects millions of people in every corner of the globe. The cold war, relations with Russia, Latin America, Cuba, the Negro question… all will have to be rethought. I’ll tell you one thing: at least Kennedy was an enemy to whom we had become accustomed. This is a serious matter, an extremely serious matter.”

 UNQUOTE

QUOTE

We arrived at the granja de pueblo, where the farmers welcomed Fidel. At that very moment, a speaker announced over the radio that it was now known that the assassin is a “pro-Castro Marxist.” One commentator followed another; the remarks became increasingly emotional, increasingly aggressive. Fidel then excused himself: “We shall have to give up the visit to the farm.” We went on towards Matanzas from where he could telephone President Dorticós. On the way he had questions: “Who is Lyndon Johnson? What is his reputation? What were his relations with Kennedy? With Khrushchev? What was his position at the time of the attempted invasion of Cuba?” Finally and most important of all” What authority does he exercise over the CIA?” Then abruptly he looked at his watch, saw that it would be half an hour before we reached Matanzas and, practically on the spot, he dropped off to sleep.

UNQUOTE

JFK interview with journalist Jean Daniel on October 24, 1963:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Revolution

QUOTE

I believe that there is no country in the world, including the African regions, including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country's policies during the Batista regime. I believe that we created, built and manufactured the Castro movement out of whole cloth and without realizing it. I believe that the accumulation of these mistakes has jeopardized all of Latin America. The great aim of the Alliance for Progress is to reverse this unfortunate policy. This is one of the most, if not the most, important problems in America foreign policy. I can assure you that I have understood the Cubans. I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will go even further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries.

UNQUOTE

Jean Daniel (1920-2020) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Daniel

Spartacus bio of Jean Daniel Bensaid:

https://web.archive.org/web/20180112160030/http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKdanielJ.htm

Fidel Castro told French journalist Jean Daniel after hearing some conciliatory words relayed to him from JFK, that JFK could become “the greatest president of the United States, the leader who may at last understand that there can be coexistence between capitalists and socialists, even in the Americas.”

http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKdanielJ.htm

 

All true (AFAIK).

But there is always the possibility that rogue fragments of any particular organization could have perped the JFKA. 

Cuban intel, US intel, US WASP elite globalists, Russians (less plausible), former Nazis in US intel, Mormon Mafia. All of these elements could have subcontracted out to mob gunsels, or those who operated in the Cuban-mafia nexus, such as Eladio Del Valle and Herminino Diaz. 

4 hours ago, Robert Morrow said:

I think that the George Joannides' files will show something EXTREMELY TOXIC to the official narrative of the JFK assassination. Something like indirect proof that Oswald was a governmental operative or indirect proof that George Joannides was a handler of Oswald. Something really really discrediting to the U.S. government must be in there. Jefferson Morley is right to be hound on this.

Joannides and Oswald were very likely working in the same CIA program to undermine/discredit the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.

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. 

12 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

Let's say that 65% of the public believe Kennedy was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy and 35% believe Oswald acted alone.

Let's say of the 65%, there are a dozen different conspiracy theories. Splitting it up evenly and we have each of the dozen conspiracy theories taking up about 5% to 6% of those polled.

Now, we have the idea that Oswald acted alone taking up 35% of those polled.

Therefore, the idea that Oswald acted alone is the most popular theory.

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. 

2 hours ago, Robert Morrow said:

Paul Brandus is a well known lone nutter journalist. I think his work history includes being in Russia. I have often wondered if Paul Brandus is or was an undercover operative for the United States government. I don't necessarily mean CIA - but rather any branch of the US government with CIA on the suspicion list.

I am not saying he is - I am saying it is worth investigating if he is or was a governmental operative.

The following profile could easily be for someone who is a CIA or governmental operative who is acting under cover as a journalist. I am merely saying this is fishy because the government has played this game so often in the past. See Carl Bernstein's article on the CIA and the Media.

Paul Brandus bio for The Week: http://theweek.com/authors/paul-brandus

QUOTE

An award-winning member of the White House press corps, Paul Brandus founded WestWingReports.com (@WestWingReport) and provides reports for media outlets around the United States and overseas. His career spans network television, Wall Street, and several years as a foreign correspondent based in Moscow, where he covered the collapse of the Soviet Union for NBC Radio and the award-winning business and economics program Marketplace. He has traveled to 53 countries on five continents and has reported from, among other places, Iraq, Chechnya, China, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

UNQUOTE

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.

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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? 

11 hours ago, Charles Blackmon said:

My suspicion as well. It would explain so much but most especially Oswald's possible involvement. I firmly believe LHO was put in that job at the TSBD for a reason.

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. 

5 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Blakey I think was really chagrined about two things that he fell for as chief counsel:

1. Guinn's "junk science" about the NAA testing which has been exposed today as being completely unreliable by two separate teams.

2. How the CIA lied to him about Joannides not being involved in the JFK case in 1963.

Those are two strikes against his inquiry.

Ben: he sounded seriously ill to you? The last time I saw him he needed a cane to get around with.

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. 

13 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

I should have mentioned this in my review.

In all fairness to the program, they did seem to have some effect on Blakey.

He said a couple of things that I did not recall him saying before.

First, he said that the JFK murder set up Oswald as a false flag creation.

Secondly, he said that Harvey likely worked wiwth Roselli on the hit plan.  If oen combines that with what he said previosuly about the cuban exile and Diaz Garcia, what he has come to now is a CIA/Mob/Cuban exile conspiracy.  Which is a big improvement over what he thought back in 1979.

So congrats to Rob for that. 

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

7 hours ago, Kevin Balch said:

Supposedly over 600 attempts on Castro and Castro outlived all of them.

 

I had Cuba in mind. I don’t know why everyone give Cuba a pass. Their intelligence service could run rings around the CIA and FBI except for technical intelligence gathering. Castro wanted Khrushchev to nuke the US if there was a US invasion of Cuba. Castro was also pissed at having the Soviets pull the rug out from under him to resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis. I don’t believe things were patched up until Castro paid an extensive visit to the USSR in early 1964. Note, it might not even have been Castro himself. Cuba’s intelligence service, like all others, surely must have rogue elements. It doesn’t matter if JFK instigated or even knew of the assassination attempts on Castro.

 

Agreed. The Discovery Channel documentary “Beyond the Magic Bullet” went to great lengths to replicate the single bullet theory, no doubt thinking they would dispel the critics. But in their demo, the throat exit wound was a chest exit wound. They even showed the trajectory in slow motion, though from behind. They never directly showed the exit wound (for obvious reasons) or Connolly’s wounds. They made up “autopsy forms” showing the wounds on JFK and Connolly. if you freeze frame and look carefully, you can see the JFK wound exiting the chest. They took it to an independent forensic pathologist who concluded it was two bullets. My takeaway is that the single bullet theory is possible but not from the 6th floor of the TSBD (probably lower floor of DalTex).

There was another demo actually conducted in Dealey Plaza with lasers. Lasers are high tech so this surely must be accurate right? Except bullets follow a ballistic trajectory, not a straight line. A bullet would fall several inches from a straight line in the 0.15 seconds it would take to hit the target at the speed and distances involved.

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.

8 hours ago, Kevin Balch said:

Would the CIA use an asset that they had used extensively in the USSR that could be easily tied to them for a domestic assassination or frame him for it? How could they be sure he wouldn’t talk if captured alive?

On the other hand, if a foreign interest had been able to “turn” Oswald, they could count on the CIA to cover up the assassination just to cover their own asses.

How many of those thousands of anti-Castro Cuban exiles were actually infiltrators sent by Castro’s intelligence service? We are still uncovering Cuban moles in US intelligence and they have had very long careers before getting caught. Ana Montes had been in various US intelligence agencies since the mid-1980s before she was caught a few years ago.

I agree that the DPD was not involved in the JFKA pre-event. I don’t think they were competent enough. Actually, I don’t think the CIA was competent enough (killing Castro with exploding seashells?) If the JFKA was time critical and the chosen opportunity was a motorcade with an open car, the choice of locations was limited by climate at that time of the year.

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. 

1 hour ago, Matt Allison said:

And how about that; Mike Johnson, who I most certainly do not care for, did the right thing as an American.

A must-watch right here:

 

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.