Benjamin Cole

Denny Z- Well, thanks for reading, and yes my article rambled a bit. I am actually not much of a Trump fan, and I loathed Nixon, back in the day. My concerns are that we have a national security state, aligned with multinationals, who run foreign, military and trade policies to their benefit, paid for by US taxpayers. The Deep State, the Shadow Government, you name it. When Nixon asked to see the CIA files on the Bay of Pigs, he was rebuffed. What kind of executive branch is that, when the CIA operates with impunity, and refuses to comply with an executive order? On Trump, the Deep State was after him even before he became president. I agree with you, the GOP is wrong in their stupid popular definition of the Donks as "socialists." The Donks are really crony capitalists, with a repellent and heavy dose of ID politics tossed in. In addition, the old-line GOP---the Bushes and so on---was totally on board with the globalist vision. You may be right on whether or not the Deep State should be discussed here. But I see this thread that runs from Smedley Butler, to the JFKA to the present day. If you want to understand the JFKA, you have to understand that thread. But hey, thanks for reading. I am running out of topics anyway. If I post again, it might be a JFKA micro-topic.

W. Niederhut: Thanks for reading, and yes I presented a bit of a ramble. If you had the patience to wend your way through, I thank you. On the DC medical examiner---I do not follow. On the JFKA autopsy, we have reasonable grounds for skepticism. We have the insights of Cyril Wecht, who has reviewed the case and evidence in detail, among many others. You can look for yourself at the bullet hole in JFK's coat. The CE399 bullet has been debunked. We have the Z film. We are reliably informed the autopsy scene was chaotic, with the autopsy-ists answering to brass. On the DC medical examiner---has anyone challenged the results? Including the Capitol Police union? Can you show one videotape of Sicknick being struck, or even being sprayed? If he was sprayed, was it incidentally by police or by protestors? On strokes, you must know that, unfortunately, young people get strokes. I know a potter in LA had a stroke in his late 30s. Double-sad, as full recovery is not possible. On strokes: "It's true that your stroke risk increases with age, but stroke in young people — even infants, children, and adolescents — does happen. In fact, between 10 and 15 percent of strokes occur in people ages 18 to 50, according to a study published in February 2020 in the journal Stroke" ---30--- I do not only take my cues from Glenn Greenwald, but he is a tenacious and unaligned reporter. His views on the media treatment of Russiagate, the Hunter Biden laptop story, or the Wuhan lab leak, are worth considering. Well, we have different perspectives, and that is what makes a good conversation.

Kirk G-- Well, as always, thanks for reading. No, I do not regard Trump as a saint. I define my preferred US foreign-military policy as "non-interventionist." I would like Iraq and Afghanistan (or any other nation) to blossom into democracies, and even to have large private-sectors. What I want and what can be achieved.... Elites are not homogenous, and there are occasional schisms sometimes between the multinationals and elements in the US military, both with their own agendas. For example, the US military is much more wary of China or sees "the China-threat" as a major source of funding and growth. The multinationals love the CCP and China. Again, thanks for reading. We have different viewpoints, and that is what makes an intellectual stew.

Ron B. As always, thanks for reading. Bear spray has the same effective ingredient at police pepper spray. I think this is a rather weak case to make, that Sicknick did not die of natural causes. I would say the pressure, in this case, was to "blame" protestors. I lived in DC (1980-4), and it is a Democratic stronghold.

OK, Education Forum friends, here you go. This will ruffle some feathers, and this piece admittedly rambles here or there, and is not footnoted and so on, being an op-ed of sorts. But I think the basics herein need to be addressed From JFK To Brian Sicknick: Deep State Behind the "News" There is a strong thread that runs through so many high-profile events in US life, often woven by the hidden hand of the national security state, its service to the dominant multinationalist-globalist class, and its influence over a sewn-up US media. Media It hardly need reiteration here that the US media (guided by the CIA) fulsomely embraced, rather than skeptically unraveled, the Warren Commission report in 1964. And the same media torpedoed Jim Garrison down in New Orleans in 1969, helped kneecap Richard Sprague, first chief counsel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, in 1978. But still, it is always worthwhile to ponder this paragraph in the pillar of 1960s print journalism, Life magazine, which ran in the December 6, 1963 issue. "The 8mm [Zapruder] film shows the President turning his body far around to the right as he waves to someone in the crowd. His throat is exposed to the sniper's nest [in the TSBD] just before he clutches it." At the time Life went to press the story of the JFKA for public consumption was garbled, and included the idea that JFK had been shot in the throat. But Oswald was behind JFK, in the TSBD. So, Life solved the emergent problem by falsely citing the Z film, which it simultaneously withheld from public view. The cynicism may be breathtaking, but is becoming routine in US media in the present day. Life was famously owned by magazine magnate Henry Luce who had printed in 1941 the influential article “The American Century,” a grandiose globalist vision of democratic postwar world that also also effectively justified US military and covert action anywhere on the planet to favor multinational business interests. The story is well-worn here in The Education Forum that after the JFKA the media, especially Life, went to work defining Lee Harvey Oswald as a leftie-loner-loser, and characterizing those who questioned the accepted official WC narrative as cranks, or communist sympathizers. To be considered a “communist” in the 1960s was to be radioactive—remember that word, “radioactive.” The Globalist State As has been so excellently chronicled by James DiEugenio and others, President Kennedy was at odds with the multinationals and the national-security state of his day, on issues from Cuba, to Indonesia, to the Mideast, to Africa to Vietnam. At bottom, JFK (who had been in real battle in the South Pacific, and knew what war was) did not want to engage in a lengthy, perhaps permanent string of covert actions, occupations and wars in both hemispheres to favor colonialist powers or multinational business interests. Some posit it was this friction that led to the JFKA, certainly a believable scenario. As the charming JFK was a media favorite in many circles for good reasons, the multinationals and the national security state—aka the Deep State, the invisible government, the shadow government—could not so easily “do a Trump” on JFK, and dispense with him accordingly. Also, while the mainstream national media was compliant back in the 1960s, it was also a bit of a hodge-podge, and not the nearly monolithic lapdog of the globalist system as it is today. Unlike Trump, JFK schmoozed the media, with some success. The epic battle behind the scenes at the Kennedy White House, that between JFK and the Deep State global interventionists, was hardly told to voters, and remains obscure to this day. Brian Sicknick “He Dreamed of Being a Police Officer and Then Was Killed by a Pro-Trump Mob” That was headline in The New York Times on Jan. 8, about Brian Sicknick’s death a day after rioters briefly occupied the Capitol. The story reads in part: “Then on Wednesday, pro-Trump rioters attacked that citadel of democracy, overpowered Mr. Sicknick, 42, and struck him in the head with a fire extinguisher, according to two law enforcement officials. With a bloody gash in his head, Mr. Sicknick was rushed to the hospital and placed on life support. He died on Thursday evening.” If the circumstances of Sicknick’s death were simultaneously not so sad and galling, the suddenly icon-worshipping New York Times description of the Capitol building as a “citadel of democracy” might be taken as satire. In iterations perhaps in the previous edition, the paper of record defined the Capitol as a symbol of systemic white racism. The “lobbyist stronghold of the neoliberal world order” is probably a truer definition of the domed structure. Of course, The New York Times was hardly alone in this wretched skewed first draft of history; the Washington Post and every major news outlet covered the story much the same way—although as early as Jan. 8, the KHOU-11 television station in Houston and some other outlets were running a version of events that did not hew to the dominant narrative. More on that later. The truth did not stop The Nation from reporting on Feb. 3 that Sicknick was the “Capitol Police officer who was beaten to death with a fire extinguisher.” That’s a visceral image. Yet in bottom paragraphs of a cable news story published on the same day, it is conceded that “medical examiners did not find signs that the officer sustained any blunt force trauma, so investigators believe that early reports that he was fatally struck by a fire extinguisher are not true.” Veracity took a backseat, or was pushed under the bus, as Sicknick’s remains (ashes in urns) on Feb. 2 were displayed in the Capitol Rotunda, with credulous and reverent attendance by mass media. The ruling Democratic Party, so eager to defund the police in other circumstances (at least rhetorically) reached the very pinnacles of eulogy in describing Sicknick, and even subsequently impeached a non-sitting US President—that being Donald Trump—on sedition and murder charges, to bring the political theater to a crescendo. Murder charges? Yes, on Feb. 2 House Democrats charged that “The insurrectionists [instigated by Trump] killed a Capitol Police officer by striking him in the head with a fire extinguisher.” But by then Washington had became a police state, not only of the usual break-ins, blackmail, censorship, wiretaps, surveillance, honey traps and warped PR and media coverage, but where concertina wire and green uniforms confronted the scant tourists. A Competent Autopsy The Washington, D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner may not be top-flight at autopsies, but it is not Bethesda Naval Hospital, the site of the JFK “autopsy.” The world now knows Sicknick died of natural causes, suffering from two strokes a day after after the events at the Capitol, as reported the DC medical examiner. If Sicknick was doused with bear repellent, it played no role in his death, and the examiner found no evidence of Sicknick had been sprayed. This was a story that ran on Houston radio station KHOU on Jan. 8, two days after Sicknick’s death. WASHINGTON — A police officer with the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) died after he suffered a stroke at the Capitol during riots, according to US Capitol Police in a late statement Thursday night. There are other published stories well before the House impeachment proceedings began, to the effect that Sicknick had texted his family before leaving for the hospital, and said he was in good shape but had been pepper-sprayed twice. No one seems to know if Sicknick was sprayed by rioters, or incidentally by police. After the riot at the Capitol, the mass media decided that right-wing extremists, racists and Trump supporters (all one and the same) backed sinister and evolving terrorist groups, and were a danger to the Republic. Dangers? In America, about 80,000 people a year die from drug overdoses, mostly opioids. About 40,000 die from apolitical gunshots and another 40,000 from vehicular deaths. But the Deep State wants Americans to fear domestic terrorist groups, presently “right-wing” but previously left-wing and sometimes religious- or racially-based. How many people have domestic terrorists killed of late? The JFK-Trump Parallel It is doubtful there are two US Presidents further apart on the spectrum of intelligence and personality than Trump and JFK. Trump was and is a vulgarian, boorish, lazy, disinclined to read or exert any mental effort, but very inclined to garish and demoralizing petty squabbles and pompous posturing. (This image may have been exaggerated by mass media). JFK was a lifelong scholar, a book author, witty, earnest, urbane, charming. War hero. But as JFKA scholars know, true history is stranger than fiction. For all of their differences, JFK and Trump shared and angered a common and dominant adversary—the globalist security archipelago and its commercial backers, aka the Deep State. And by the time Trump was president, what had been an 800-lb gorilla to JFK had become the zookeeper in a panopticon. The Real Story? The real story is that globalist Deep State has become so bloated, so expensive, so ubiquitous that even a Trump recognized the Frankenstein that runs Washington’s foreign, military and trade policies. Inside the Beltway, the perma-wars, endless occupations, the surveillance state and an interventionist global mercenary military are lionized, and worldwide “free trade” is endlessly touted as an unalloyed benefit. Outside of DC, I have never met a citizen who wants to pursue military, or indeed, any solutions in Afghanistan. How about Iraq? Another Vietnam? Flatten Raqqa again in Syria? Drone-bomb civilians in Yemen or Pakistan? Destabilize Cambodia? Make war for Ukraine? Some are beating the drums that the US must add onto the $150 million recently spent in Kyrgyzstan, lest it become like its neighbors, the authoritarian regimes of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. (Who knew?) And it is so unreasonable to wonder that the populous, rich and technologically advanced nations of Germany, Japan and S. Korea cannot defend themselves, more than 50 and 75 years after being liberated? But what is the purpose this US-taxpayer-financed global archipelago of weapons and soldiers? International trade? Trade What ordinary American does not ponder what “free trade” did to Detroit and so many other once-proud industrial citadels? Why do living standards feel lower than they were 60 years ago? Why are homeless populations becoming permanent in major cities? If wages are soft in the US—as they have been for 50 years—why are de facto open borders for illegal and low-wage immigrants the norm? Why is the offshoring of industry considered a positive? Americans know something is wrong, even if the media obscures as much as it reveals. The popularity of Trump is one result. (It is beyond the ken of this article, but necessary reading is Trade Wars are Class Wars by Michael Pettis and Matthew Klein. In brief, there is no such thing as “free,” “fair” or “foul” trade. The largest influences on international trade are state subsidies and relative wage repression.) So, who benefits from global trade? Enter Trump Trump, being Trump, entered the DC landscape in 2016, and immediately and bluntly, inarticulately, woefully, bombastically, and unskillfully warred with the global Deep State and its media minions. Well, and anybody else too. And so how did much of the globalist media define Trump and his backers? By today’s radioactive word: “Racist.” Think back to the treatment of WC critics as “communists.” And the Democrats—that party that a couple generations ago was mostly aligned with the employee class, and hosted a better-late-than-never antiwar movement in 1968—where were they? They ridiculed Trump’s naïveté at daring to cross Washington standards, the intel community and the Deep State. Trump had not yet set foot in the Oval Office, when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Shumer (D-NY) chortled that President-elect Trump was being “being really dumb” by taking on the intelligence community and its assessments on Russia’s cyber activities. “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” Schumer told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. The well-coiffed TV hostess Maddow got a satisfying chuckle out of the Deep State harpooning Trump, evidently blissfully unaware she was fast-becoming the latest iteration of an intel-community “usual idiot.” Appallingly, CNN, MSNBC, and other outlets, though characterized as “left wing,” are now bristling on-air with former Pentagon and CIA officials who shape news coverage, including that of the loathsome intruder, Trump. The cable-news reporters no longer report on the national security state, they present the news alongside of it. Without apology, the new Democratic Party that Trump battled was and is aligned with globalist Wall Street, Silicon Valley, media-entertainment, as well as the national security state and the multinationals. The same elite Olympians that put “Back Lives Matter” on their advertising also ache to craft business deals with the Communist Party of China, no matter how deep the repression that increasingly defines eastern China, Beijing, and now Hong Kong. Or how much shifting millions of jobs offshore undercuts working Americans, whether Black, brown, white or otherwise. But Trump did not see things the same way. Digression—Glenn Greenwald and the Russia Hoax Glenn Greenwald is no one’s fool, and no pal of any political party on the planet. Whatever Greenwald believes, be believes it sincerely. And the guy does his homework. Greenwald told Matt Taibbi (another great observer) that the Russia hoax was a “lawfare” tactic, a coup by legal means: Maybe it’s not so new (lawfare), but it’s more prevalent, it has this modern form, where instead of doing overt coups, you give the cover of concocting corruption scandals against democratically elected leaders you dislike. I actually think one example that is similar, though not identical, was what the CIA did in manufacturing the Russiagate scandal against Trump. Greenwald is worth listening to. Which suggest a great irony: It was the not the Russians who effectively meddled in the 2016 and 2020 elections. It was the Deep State. They tell you it was the Russians. Why Does the Deep State So Loathe Trump? 1. Trade 2. The Global Guard Service For Multinationals The primary goal of US foreign policy is keeping the globe open for commerce for multinationals. There are many earnest soldiers inside the US military, and no doubt sincere public servants who actually try to promote human rights inside the State Department. But the modern US armed forces are badly used as a global guard service for multinational commercial interests. Human rights? Before Trump, everyone did business with the China Communist Party (CCP), without blinking an eye. Trump barged into this scene, by unilaterally placing tariffs on imports from China—the factory marital bed of of the CCP and multinational manufacturers. And not only manufacturers—Wal-Mart, the largest bricks-and-mortar retailer is thick with China product, while online colossus Amazon is flooded with China gew-gaws. In JFK’s day, the multinational community was much smaller. Outfits such as Freeport Sulphur (now FreeportMcMoran), or the Dell fruit empire, or Cuba-based cattle ranchers and sugar farmers were huge for their day, but pale next today’s global behemoths. In general, the first iteration of postwar globalists—those who targeted JFK—were in the commodities business, the extracting of minerals or the growing of fruit and crops. The biggest US businesses in JFK’s time were still domestically oriented, and were building, sourcing and servicing inside the US. Today, the globalists rule—a corporation such as Apple, tight with Beijing on computer and smartphone factories, has a market cap north of $1 trillion (yes, “trillion” with a “t.”). The money-manager BlackRock is heavy into China, especially real estate, and manages $8.7 trillion in assets. Yes, also with a “t.” Disney not only makes and sells films in China (for which they publicly thank authorities in Xinjiang for help) but operates theme parks in Shanghai and Hong Kong (the CCP is a co-investor in the Shanghai park). Disney owns the television network ABC, by the way. NBC-Universal runs the Universal Beijing Resort, and yes, owns the NBC network. Ever wonder why US mass media was so intent on dismissing the Wuhan lab leak explanation for COVID-19 virus? The “de-bunked” lab leak conspiracy theory? The Global Guard Service With tens of trillions of dollars invested globally, and fiduciary obligations to shareholders that trump loyalties to any nation or region, or indeed any creed or principle beyond bare compliance to law (and even that may be fizzle in large gray zones), the multinationals demand protection, diplomatic and military. What is remarkable is how strong this alliance between multinationals and the co-opted US military has been. A century ago Smedley Butler was a US Marine, becoming the most highly decorated of his time, and raising to the rank to Major General. After a professional lifetime in battle, including WWI other fights too numerous to mention here (but sojourns in the “Banana Wars”) Smedley left the military. The book Smedley wrote: War is a Racket. A quote: I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. Has much changed since Smedley? Why Study the JFKA? So why do we persist in studying the JFKA? Of course there is obvious: A fellow human being was murdered, and it is everyone’s responsibility to see justice done thereafter. And not only that, an elected leader was struck down, possibly in a coup. If we believe in democracy, then again we have a responsibility to seek justice. But there is even more cause to study the JFKA, and that is to learn how commerce, government and media work in the real world. What happened before and after the JFKA, or the Brian Sicknick death, are not rare, but rather the way events are usually curated in mass media, especially in the current season. To my fellow JFKA’ers, I advise watching what the Deep State and media minions do to candidates, office holders and to policy, regardless of whether or not a certain candidate or office holder is a personal favorite. I consider this a parallel to the principle of freedom of speech. Even today, most people support freedom of speech whether or not we agree with the speaker. To wear blinders when the Deep State torpedoes an unpopular President is no wiser. Beyond that, was Trump wrong to alter terms of trade with China, to want out of Mideast and foreign entanglements and to seek reductions in US global troop commitments? To limit immigration into soft US labor markets? Who says? And why?

James D- Egads, the more one reads about the JFKA and US foreign-policy military history, the more depressing it gets. The standard chatter from historians is clueless. How many people understand the global security state and the multinational-commercial class for which it works? Thanks to leads from you, I read up on Indonesia. In some respects, I wish I hadn't. It is like learning the US dropped 260 million cluster bomblets on Laos. They still go off sometimes, taking limbs. No one cares. As you recently stated, there are few rewards for being informed. Don't stress about people with different opinions. You do have admirers.

Great stuff from Milicent Cranor. I have stayed away from whether JFK was shot front to back, or otherwise, as I have concluded JFK and Connally were not struck by the same bullet (watch the Z film). So JFK's head wound comes too close, time-wise, to Connally's wounds, to have been executed by a single-shot bolt action rifle. Ergo, at least a second gunman. Plus, you have dozens of experienced witnesses (vets, cops) smelling gunsmoke in Dealey Plaza, in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. So, somebody shot at JFK in Dealey Plaza, and maybe more than one person from behind. That means a conspiracy. This is just the basics, indisputable. You have to lie through your teeth with a forked tongue---like Life magazine---to present a different picture.

If I ever knew, I had forgotten about the Pike Report suppression. To this day, no ones seems to know what is the CIA "black budget." "Democracy Dies in Darkness"

Paul B- I look at the evidence (much as it is) and I deduce that LOH was an CIA-intel asset, and was in the TSBD at the time of the JFKA, then went home and got a gun. He may have been a patsy (I think so), but he was likely involved. LOH is a valuable lead to put it mildly. The national security state-globalist class wanted JFK out. The above all strongly suggests elements of US intel-CIA, perhaps rogue, got JFK. The JFKA cover-up was not rogue, and the murder of LOH probably was tacitly approved by intel higher-ups. That's my take. But more importantly, did you like my joke about reading the Damascus Daily?

Richard B.--- Which reminds of an old joke. Mr. Finebaum was on his porch in Jerusalem...reading the Damascus Daily. So his son encounters his father, and asks, "Dad, why every day do you read the Damascus Daily, and not the Jerusalem Post? "Aaach," says the father, opening up a copy of the Jerusalem Post. "Look at this this. Every day we are surrounded by enemies, besieged even in our homeland," the father said, pointing at various stories. "Not a day of rest." Then the father unfurled the Damascus Daily. "Look at this!" said the father. The headline: Jews Rule the World! Control Finance, Media, Governments "Which paper would you read?" asked the father. ---30--- Suffice it to say, no, LOH was not a Mossad agent, and the Dulles brothers, or Phillips, or Angleton, or Joannides, did not report to Jerusalem.

I entirely agree that from the days of Smedley Butler through the present, US foreign-military policy has always reflected the preferences of the multinationals, or globalists. WWII was a shining exception, in many regards. A lot about this is concerning, even more so that the multinationals today are larger and more powerful than ever. Sheesh, United Fruit and Freeport Sulphur are pipsqueaks compared to the BlackRocks, Apples, Wal-Marts, Googles, GMs and Disneys of today. The US military has become a mercenary global guard service for multinationals----a million miles from what the Founding Fathers intended, which was a largely citizen-militia called up to fight foreign invasions when necessary. The revolutionists who created America loathed, detested and reviled standing armies, and warned against foreign entanglements. To speak this way today is to be regarded as a ingrate Putin-lover who coddles terrorists, or a Neanderthal isolationist nativist. Still the most amazing speech of all time is President Eisenhower's farewell address. This multinational ruling class of people heavily cultivated the post-JFKA media environment, perpetuated a fiction, flummoxed justice. Destroyed Garrison, destroyed Sprague, went after LA Coroner Thomas Noguchi, and too much else to catalog. Did they order the JFKA? Harder case to make. Their underlings were involved. In the RFK case too, likely.

Ron B. OK, I will bite. How are the Rockefellers involved?

It sure looks like Dick Sprague and Jim Garrison were torpedoed. There was a lesser episode, but with same dread intent, made in the RFK case: Some elements tried to torpedo the Los Angeles County Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner Thomas Noguchi, who performed what Cyril Wecht has called a good autopsy. Noguchi found that RFK was shot from behind at very close range. Trying to square Noguchi's findings with the Sirhan shooting scenario...well, like trying to put a square peg in a round hole. I will put together a piece on the media hatchet job done on Noguchi. One starts to see a pattern....

Not to belabor a point, but Uscinski could have a few good ideas, and indeed, certain elements of the public could be susceptible to conspiracy theories. So what? There could be 100 crackpot theories out there on various topics, and they have nothing to do with the facts in the JFKA. And BTW, the mainstream media presented the Hunter Biden laptop story as a conspiracy theory, fomented by Russian disinformationists. And that the Wuhan lab leak was a "debunked conspiracy theory." Egads. Unfortunately, the mainstream media has earned---with hard sustained work earned---the distrust of American readers.

W Tracy--- I am sorry there has been umbrage in your JFKA work. McAdams was dismissive of my inquiries, but not abusive, as I recall (been about 10 years). What puzzled me, was that I wrote the McAdams that Connally did a full 180 in his seat, to look back at JFK, after JFK raised his hands to his throat. Around frames 260-280, you can nearly see the left profile Connally's face, from the perspective of the Z film. It is a concerned face, but not a face in agony. That does not look like a man who has been shot through the chest. McAdams said Connally did not really turn a 180. My other comments, to the effect that when it appeared Connally was shot and the head shot of JFK are too closely spaced to have been accomplished with a single-shot bolt action rifle were more or less ignored. But, for the record, it was not an abusive exchange. It just left me puzzled, and thinking that WC supporters have circled the wagons. Well, that's my little story.

W. Tracy-- Impersonation does not sit right. Harm? You can say "little" in the circumstance under question. But such an action decreases trust, and rents the social fabric. So, the next time people convene, there is some distrust. Are you who you say you are? Do you have a hidden agenda? Are you gaining my confidence under false pretense? I realize in modern America, no one seems to care anymore about the social fabric, or to have reasonable national pride, and feel they have civic duties. Maybe I am naive, I think one should be straight-forward.

Ron B- Oddly enough, McAdams is one of the reasons that my interest in the JFKA was re-ignited. Years and years ago, I was just anew nosing around the JFKA again (the first two iterations of my JFKA interest involved reading books, which is about all one could do. I might not have even known about JFK conferences, etc.). I had discovered the internet had radically changed the landscape (and 90% for the better) and discovered McAdams. I reviewed the Z film online for myself, and noted Connally did a 180 in his seat after JFK moved his hands to his throat. Connally is seen looking back, with a concerned look on his face, but not a pained look from about frames 260-280. Connally does not appear to been have been shot. So I sent McAdams a very polite e-mail, and received a dismissive reply. I again e-mailed politely, to another dismissive response, but no real answer. The third time my e-mail was ignored. I thought to myself, "If that is how backers of the WC think, then something is wrong." Later, I re-discovered (what many JFKA'ers already knew) that many experienced observers (veterans, police officers) smelled gunsmoke in Dealey Plaza in the immediate aftermath of the JFKA. OK, the JFKA was not looking like a lone gunman, based on what I could see with my own eyes, and what too many consistent witnesses had said about gunsmoke. I tend to treat witness testimony warily, as it is so garbled, whether it favors my view or not. But everybody experienced seemed in agreement they smelled gunsmoke. So...there you have it. McAdams triggered me into being a JFKA'er. Well, for me, forgiveness is something that you have to do (barring war criminals and true monsters). I have made mistakes in my life, plenty. But each to his own. Still, let us look forward.

If this description of John McAdams behavior is accurate (and James D. places an emphasis on accuracy in his writing) I do not see how McAdams can be defended. I feel sorry for McAdams, who has befouled his own memory, but as he has passed on, probably less said the better.

Great stuff, the old b/w photos, and the picture of JFK with Willy's widow, Willy being a vet who perished with Joe Kennedy, JFK's older brother, in a WWII bomber. Those were the days when the elites actually wore uniforms, and we had a draft, not a mercenary force. Of course, JFK served in the Pacific. You won't see that again.

Mark W--- Thank for reading. Yes, an accurate telling of the Walker episode raises more doubts than it closes off.

Yes, I mean the Zapruder does not show anyone inside the limo, or a follow-up car, shooting at JFK. No eyewitnesses reported as such, including the Connallys, Jackie etc.

Ron B. and others: I try to be as open-minded and gentle as I can be in JFKA discussions, as the hard details of what actually happened are not nailed down. In addition, there is planted disinformation afoot, and any of us can be fooled on some matters (including me). But, after all, we have the Zapruder film and numerous witnesses. I see no indication anyone inside the JFK limo was shooting. Beyond that, who would plan to have someone inside the limo shoot a President in public and get away with it? And no one saw the Secret Service man with the automatic weapon shoot JFK? Reasonable people can disagree, and do. But let us be reasonable.

John B.- Thanks for your comments and posting that always-gloomy picture of the Walker house. It looks like Halloween of Friday the 13th every time.

Richard B.--- I suspect as much, but have never found compelling evidence. Yes, a few examples are in the official iterature, under limited, perfect circumstances. I did attend a live show once, where a hypnotist on stage apparently hypnotized bona-fide audience members. I happened to be sitting in the first row, and felt myself falling under the hypnotist's sway, but jerked out of it. I suspected the hypnotist was using a gas sedative or something to that effect (without any proof). So, I believe I saw first hand how a hypnotist can in fact put someone "under" and they will walk around in their underwear etc. (Unfortunately, the hypnotist had little imagination beyond that, haha). So maybe, if someone slipped Sirhan a mickey of some type.... The fact that RFK was shot from behind and at close range suggests the security guard shot him, but no one really saw it. Strange case.

Richard Booth--- Well, Westbrook did end up in Vietnam, or at least so I read. Likely, he was another CIA asset, or contact. As was the Mayor of Dallas. That said, I think (as I always do) Westbrook was complicit after the fact, but not before. After the fact, the official story line was "LOH did it, and leftie-commies want to change the narrative to protect one of their own, and score PR points." This official narrative is in addition in addition to the "WWIII virus" making the rounds in the White House. This was effective is suppressing a real investigation of the JFKA. So, after the JFKA , Westbrook fell in line. I find it less suspicious that Westbrook did not want to sit at his office and attend personnel files on Nov. 22, after the JFKA. It was, to be fair, for the DPD an "all hands on deck" situation. Westbrook had rank, so he went where he wanted to, and that is where the action was. I would have done the same thing. But whatever one's opinions, the arrival of LOH's wallet on the Tippit murder scene is a strong indicator of a conspiracy. You and I may differ on the mechanics of the conspiracy, which is fine. The RFK case is even uglier, if possible. I wish I knew how successful the MKULTRA program, or similar programs, were or are. Can a human being really be so programmed?