Paul Jolliffe
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Posts posted by Paul Jolliffe
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5 hours ago, Ron Ecker said:
As I read it, LBJ was simply complying with a request from Baylor that the idea of JFK getting an honorary degree there be dropped. It seems evident that JFK was not welcome at Baylor, which saw any JFK visit there as political. Of course it was also convenient for the plotters (whether they included LBJ or not) that JFK accordingly did not go to Waco instead of Dallas.
Yes, Ron, that's the way I read the article, too. Whatever we may think LBJ's role in the assassination was, this article provides no support for anything.
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12 hours ago, Cory Santos said:
The answer is it should have been investigated by the DPD in conjunction with the FBI. A congressional investigation also could have made sense and would have been more thorough. No LBJ made sure it was a presidential commission with an objective which was not to get to the truth, but rather to produce a plausible theory of Oswald did it alone.
Cory,
The most interesting extended analysis of the formation of the Warren Commission (and all of the attendant pressure on LBJ to form such a commission) can be found in Donald Gibson's "The Kennedy Assassination Cover-up". The first 130 pages or so are magnificent - I highly urge you (and everyone else) to read Gibson's work.
The pressure on LBJ to have a quasi-independent body offer up a counter to whatever the FBI might come up with started on Sunday afternoon, 11/24/63 with phone calls from Yale Law School Dean Eugene Rostow to Acting Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach. While those phone calls were not recorded, we do have the tape of Rostow's call to Bill Moyers (LBJ's Special Assistant and later Press Secretary), which was compeleted before 4:00 pm. "Oswald's" body was not even cold yet! No one knew at that moment what the hell was going on!
Yet Rostow had one overriding mission - to get LBJ to create a body that would issue a no-conspiracy finding.
I commend Gibson's work - it is invaluable in helping us to hear from where the pressure came.
https://www.amazon.com/Kennedy-Assassination-Cover-up-Donald-Gibson/dp/1615779639
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4 hours ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:
I can explain that. It is because they take things out of context. No investigation is done in a vacuum. All of the facts are considered when reaching a conclusion. H&L does not do that. It takes a "fact" (that may be a fact at all) and says "look at it just our way and it shows 2 Oswalds."
ALL of the subjects you mention have alternative explanations. All of those explanations have been posted right here at EF in other threads, several of which have been pointed out to you. Greg Parker has a section of his website titled "alternative explanations for H&L." But apparently it is more "fun" for you to try and draw someone into a debate rather than read the explanations that have been provided. Evidently, you don't realize that nearly everyone is sick of H&L and uninterested in further debate.
You don't get it, do you Tracy? All of those "alternative explanations" that you claim disprove the H&L thesis (never mind whether they are slipshod, juvenile, illogical and, in some cases, downright stupid) none of it matters!
It was not up to you nor me nor anyone else to find "alternative explanations" - it was up to the Warren Commission to explain these problems in THIER OWN EVIDENCE!
The reason you and I and everyone else is having this discussion today, 55 years after the issuance of their report, is because they, the Warren Commission completely failed to address any of this!
Those on the WC aware of the evidentiary problems sought desperately to avoid the implications, and yet, some of the truth did slip out - they (inadvertently) published the Fall 1953 public school records indicating that there were indeed two different LHO's in two different schools in two different states.
You may claim that this (and everything else) has all been "altenative explained" away elsewhere all you like, but the fact remains:
It was up to the Warren Commission to explain it, and their collective failure (they couldn't even answer such a simple question as "where did the accused go to junior high in the fall of 1953?") voids all their conclusions about anything for all time.
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On 9/26/2019 at 2:32 AM, Steve Thomas said:
David,
Though there was supposed to be regular liaison and close cooperation between agencies, sometimes (a lot of times I suspect), that military intelligence, the FBI, the CIA, and the State Department did not play well with others. I can't remember which memo it is exactly right now, but there's a memo with a handwritten note from Hoover at the bottom, grudgingly allowing the FBI to cooperate with the CIA in something and Hoover saying, "OK, but don't forget their double dealing in that Mexico City thing." (or something along those lines).
( I think Hoover mentioned something else in that note - something about French intelligence maybe?)
And, I know from reading various military intelligence files from the Bay of Pigs era, that MI considered the CIA to be a bunch of cowboys.
I think it's quite possible that different agencies were using different Oswald personas for different reasons, and not telling each other.
Steve Thomas
Steve,
Peter Dale Scott has long argued that "Oswald's" Russian defection was a part of CIA Counter-Intelligence Chief James Angleton's long-running operation to ferret out a suspected mole in the CIA. Scott's impressive work has been supported by others for decades.
Was that (the molehunt) the sole purpose of "Oswald's" defection?
Probably not.
It was probably piggy-backed onto any number of objectives from any number of American intelligence agencies. The main thing though is that the defection itself was a "false" defection, and if Scott is right, then whether "Oswald" actually gulled the Russians into buying him as a real defector was ultimately not that important to Angleton. Angleton was hunting moles in America, not trying to elicit clandestine information about the USSR from teenage "defectors." (That's my conclusion, not Peter Dale Scott's.) I believe that is why "Oswald" was sent on such a hair-brained scheme - were the CIA/ONI/M-2 really so stupid as to believe that the Soviets would fall for "Oswald" as a true defector?
From the available evidence, it would seem that the Soviets saw right through "Oswald" in a matter of days. And treated him as anything but a true defector for years after.
As to Marita Lorenz and her Florida LHO, well, somebody was down there using the name LHO at some point. Hell, even the LHO who walked into Carlos Bringuier's store in New Orleans seemingly claimed to have been in Florida!
Here is Vance Blalock's testimony:
Mr. LIEBELER - What did you think of Oswald?
Mr. BLALOCK - He seemed like a very intelligent man to me, well spoken, looked well dressed, well groomed.
Mr. LIEBELER - Did you think anything else about him, or is that about it?
Mr. BLALOCK - That is the impression that I got right at the moment.
Mr. LIEBELER - Did he say anything about Florida?
Mr. BLALOCK - Just mentioned the Cuban anti-Castro organization there.
Mr. LIEBELER - What did he say about that?
Mr. BLALOCK - I don't remember exactly, but I think he said he had been there and he had looked into it. I couldn't say for sure on that.
Mr. LIEBELER - Did he mention the name of the organization?
Mr. BLALOCK - No, sir. No, I don't recall any name.Later:
Mr. LIEBELER - So the best you can recall, Oswald didn't say that he had recently visited someone in the Cosa Nostra?
Mr. BLALOCK - No, sir. Yes, sir.
Mr. LIEBELER - But you do recall sort of vaguely that Oswald did say that he had been in Florida and he had visited an Anti-Castro Cuban organization there?
Mr. BLALOCK - Yes, sir; I do.Blalock's testimony was NOT contradicted by his friend, Philip Geraci:
Mr. LIEBELER - Do you remember whether Oswald said anything about having been in Florida?
Mr. GERACI - In Florida?
Mr. LIEBELER - Yes.
Mr. GERACI - I am not too sure about that.
Mr. LIEBELER - You don't remember one way or the other whether----
Mr. GERACI - The only thing I remember about Florida is when he asked was headquarters down there. He could have, but I don't know.But better than that, the FBI itself had allegations from a witness, John K. Kaylock, that LHO was in Punta Gorda Florida on October, 2, 1963, apparently predicting the assassination. Was Kaylock a crackpot? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. The FBI did NOT want to know.
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=96509#relPageId=6&tab=page
What I do know is that the CIA really, really wanted to know what the author Nathaniel Weyl had been told about LHO in Florida. Here is a declassified document CIA analyst Helene Finan from 1964:
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10121-10377.pdf
So, was at least one LHO in Florida when another LHO was somewhere else?
A helluva lot of intelligence agents sure thought so as far back as 1964 . . .
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49 minutes ago, David Andrews said:
I know Warren's role in the internment business, for which he apologized publicly later. It's possible that recognition of his error helped bring about Brown.
What can I say? One's reactions to historical figures can't please everybody. Even LBJ brought about some good domestic policies, partly in emulation of JFK and FDR, partly to save his reputation from Vietnam.
I could recant and call Warren a weepy coward who enabled a cover-up. But everyone then was effin' scared, right down to RFK.
Warren resigned the Chief Justice post and never ran for high office, as he did before his appointment. No Chief Justice ever ran for the presidency, except Salmon P. Chase, who was refused the Democratic nomination in 1868 because he defended black voting rights from state action. Charles Evans Hughes left office as an ordinary Supreme Court Justice to run against Woodrow Wilson in 1916, and was later appointed Chief Justice, which is such a dead-end job that William Howard Taft took it to keep his hand in..
There was no serious chance of a Warren presidency, and Warren would have seen it. Like Chase's, Warren's divided reputation could not be reconciled.
David,
When I mentioned Earl Warren's presidential ambitions, I was referring specifically to his decision to support FDR's 1942 Japanese Internment Executive Order. Absolutely Earl Warren wanted to be president of the United States, and in 1948, he almost came a heartbeat away.
After all, it took a miracle in 1948 for Harry Truman to defeat the Republican nominee, Thomas Dewey and his vice presidential nominee . . . Earl Warren.
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9 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:
Yes. Scared.
And rightfully so.
Like the line the Beverly Oliver character ( Lolita Davidovich ) in Oliver Stone's film JFK said in response to Jim Garrison ( Kevin Costner) after he asked her to appear in his trial of Clay Shaw ( Clay Bertrand.)
Something close to...if they can kill the President of the United States, don't you think they could get to little ole' me?
If Warren thought it was an inside job, I could well understand and believe he felt the same way about his own security.
If (IF) that were the case, then Warren's only honorable choice was to resign from the commission.
Resignation rather than the active promotion of an obviously false "solution" would have at least salvaged some of his reputation and probably would have helped America to get closer to the truth. Instead, he chose the politically expedient path and denounced any and all who voiced even the slightest doubts about his findings.
No, I am afraid Joe that you and I will have to disagree about Warren.
And such disagreement, in a free forum such as this one, is a perfectly fine thing.
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2 hours ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:
I can provide a simpler explanation than yours. The H&L people are misinterpreting or intentionally misrepresenting the evidence to promote their theory. The records clearly show that LHO attended school at Beauregard beginning on January 13, 1954. This jibes with other evidence showing that he and Marguerite left NYC just before this. Here is a 12-page thread (involving Lance) from 2017-18 discussing all of this. So for you to say there is no alternate explanation is just not correct:
And yet, remarkably, just yesterday Lance admitted that he could provide no explanation for the conflicting school records fiasco. Further, Lance demanded that it was up to the H&L supporters to explain the incompatible documents published by the Warren Commission: (" If you think these records on their face show something inexplicably mysterious, why don't you contact the respective schools, school districts or state departments of education and see what they say? My guess is that the "mystery" would immediately go poof - and that's what you fear. The H&L game is to posit "mysteries" on the basis of documents that may appear inconsistent because you don't know enough about the subject matter to understand what they actually say, then to "solve" those mysteries with "Harvey" and "Lee.")
Tracy, it appears you and I agree that the documentary record shows that someone named "Lee Harvey Oswald" enrolled at Beauregard Jr. High in New Orleans on January 13, 1954 after he and his mother left NYC.
I have news for you Tracy - all H&L supporters accept that as a fact. No one disputes that. So, stating the obvious does nothing for your argument.
The real problem, once again, is that the Warren Commission published this record from the fall of 1953 in NYC:
And the Warren Commission also published this record from New Orleans from the fall of 1953:
Just as Jim Hargrove and John Armstrong have long contended, these documents conflict. They don't match. They are incongruous. "Lee Harvey Oswald" could not be in both NYC (at P.S. 44 in the Bronx) and at Beauregard Jr. High in New Orleans in the fall of 1953 ("1953 -54 - Report 1")
If there was an explanation for this mismatch, the Warren Commission was obligated to provide it. (Not the defenders of H&L. The burden of proof was then, and shall ever be, on those who defend the Warren Commission's version of events.)
The Warren Commission made no attempt to explain any of this, probably because those who knew of it could provide no "innocent" (i.e. no conspiracy) explanation.
As to why they published it?
My guess is that not all of those responsible for drafting the report were fully appraised of the "problem", and that in the crunch of the deadline, some of the truth inadvertently slipped out.
In any event, it is not up to us to explain this.
That failure lies for all time with those malefactors of the "official solution", the Warren Commission.
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6 minutes ago, David Andrews said:
Against all logic, I retain a certain respect for Earl Warren for initially refusing to accept the Commission chair post, until LBJ browbeat him to the point where he wept. With his dangerously troubled reputation among the right-wing fringe, Warren may have felt that controversy would mean a death sentence from that quarter, and non-compliance with the Commission's more specially interested members (Dulles, McCloy), and LBJ himself, would bring a similar fate. This does not excuse his disservice to Americans late in a distinguished career.
David,
I realize this is almost turning into a separate thread about Earl Warren, but I must respectfully disagree. Whatever you or I may think about Warren's role in the 1954 Brown vs. the Board landmark decision must be weighed by his role in the 1942 decision to support FDR's plan to lock up roughly 80,000 Japanese-Americans citizens in California.
These 80,000 people were American citizens! (FDR also locked up about 35,000 Japanese nationals without any due process. I don't like that, but to lock up actual American citizens is an entirely different matter, and should have been completely unacceptable!)
And Mr. Civil Rights, Earl Warren, was more than fine with it! Warren was the Governor of California, and I suspect he had one finger in the political wind - he was aiming at the White House, I suspect.
For whatever reason, Warren was willing in 1942 to trample the rights of American citizens.
It would seem, in 1964, that he was fine with conducting a sham "investigation."
We don't know the truth about the JFK assassination today because he was too (scared? unwilling? intimidated?) to conduct an honest investigation then.
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14 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:
Regards Russell,
I posted a few years ago something I heard former FBI agent James Hosty state in a radio interview about his newly published book "Assignment: Oswald."
I believe this interview was on a radio station near Kansas City.
At some point well into the interview I caught and was surprised to hear Hosty say ...
"We had three of them. Ford, Russell and ... " (Hosty paused as if trying to remember a third name) and it was absolutely clear that Hosty was stating who on the Warren Commission was friendly and/or cooperating with the FBI.
However, before Hosty could remember and state the name of the third FBI helping WC member, the interviewer immediately interjected after a second or two of this pause with a subject changing question which I found frustrating and even illogical because who in their JFK event story interested right mind wouldn't want to know who this third FBI helping WC member was?
But to hear Hosty state Russell's name in this area of cooperation begs some interesting questions regards Russell and his true intentions in this historical event imo.
Any thoughts on Hosty's radio interview statement regards Russell?
I tried over and over to find this interview somewhere on the internet years after I heard it, but it seems never to have existed. I think I even found the radio station and the interviewer's name at some point. But I couldn't find any mention of the interview even with this info.
Joe,
Whatever faith Russell may have had early on in his career in the FBI had disappeared by the time of the Warren Commission. Russell repeatedly told friends, colleagues and associates that the FBI's investigation was insufficient, shoddy and inaccurate.
Personally, I doubt that Russell really understood the implications for the "solution" if the magic bullet theory was rejected. We know that without the magic bullet theory, the entire no-conspiracy answer collapses into nothing. But I don't think Russell really comprehended that. He didn't like Earl Warren, he didn't trust the FBI, and in the end, he was disgusted enough with LBJ's willingness to facilitate the cover-up that Russell even broke his longtime friendship with Johnson. Before he died in 1971, Richard Russell had even urged a private researcher (Harold Weisberg) to pick up the trail and conduct a real investigation.
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=bhMwAAAAIBAJ&sjid=aTMDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3085%2C4917493
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9 hours ago, Karl Kinaski said:
@David Josephs: At last your Huston pic shows a lot of motorcycles flanking the limo ... had you read my post, than you would know, that my claim is, that it was a combination of deliberate security flaws which lead to the "siting duck" situation.
-- No motorcycles beside the limo
-- Two secret service men recalled at Love field, therefore no SS men on beack of the limo
-- Stand clear of the Limo
-- No additional security provided by the sheriffs in Dallas and army Intelligence
-- Low speed at Elm
--And last but not least : Breaking the Motorcade into three pieces, Elm, Huston and Main, so that the motorcade participants at one piece can not see what is happening at the other piece ... especially the front piece with the Pres. Limo and the Queen Mary, the kill zone ...
BTW Your pic is a highway pic ... where the motorcade travels with higher speed ... and each driver is supposed to stand clear of the car in front of him on a highway ... you and me too ... posting a low speed Huston down-town pic of the Huston Motorcade would have been more fair and appropriate ...
Karl,
Given the casual seated positions of both the press photographers in the immediate foreground and the Secret Service agents in the Queen Mary (at least three of them have at least one leg outside their respective vehicles, and the photographer to our right seems to have both legs outside the car!) it doesn't seem very likely that the motorcade could have been traveling very fast.
You're right that it is a highway, but those vehicles just couldn't have been zipping along - those guys would have risked tumbling out.
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Harold Weisberg long ago insisted to me (Weisberg somehow got ahold of a witness) that when Hoover learned of the assassination, he flipped out. As Weisberg said, the most important dictum FBI-ese was "cover the Bureau's ass" and the second one was "cover your own ass."
Weisberg stated that Hoover was mortified that the FBI would be blamed for failing to prevent the assassination, and that the obvious, immediate answer was to craft a solution with a "lone nut", a person flying under the FBI's radar. After all, no one could blame the FBI for failing to uncover a conspiracy if in fact the "lone nut" had conspired with no one.
"Oswald's" arrest meant all FBI fingers would be pointed at him, and "Oswald's" murder solved the problem of having to prove their case against him in court. The "evidence" would never be tested, and that was fine with Hoover.
Was Hoover also vulnerable to blackmail from Mob/CIA sources about his personal life?
Of course.
Did Hoover fear the CIA?
Yup.
Was "Oswald" a long-time creature of the CIA, foisted in 1963 on an unwitting FBI to ensure their help in the cover-up of the assassination?
Seems awfully likely to me. Apparently Hoover realized belatedly just how trapped the FBI was. The CIA had done its homework. They knew how the FBI would react.
And they were right.
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36 minutes ago, Lance Payette said:
I'm going to stop beating my head against the H&L wall as well. It's truly like debating with the most extreme form of religious fundamentalist - and I have a great deal of frustrating experience with that. These folks need H&L for some reason. The fact that we keep seeing the same documents, the same arguments, the same everything on thread after thread would make me suspicious that they have some sort of commission from Armstrong to keep H&L alive and help him sell books - but the sales of this $80, 5-pound behemoth have to be miniscule at best (and Armstrong apparently doesn't need the money).
I really think this site would be better if it were segmented into topics - if you want to discuss H&L or Prayer Man or the Zapruder film or the ballistic evidence, go to your very own little denominational sub-forum and beat the subject to death. As I said in my recent response to Greg Parker's open letter to me, I believe the conspiracy community's willingness to entertain any and all "evidence" and theories is completely counterproductive. I have to wonder if the prominence of H&L on this site is one of the reasons that many of those who used to have the most to contribute seem to have departed.
Since you freely admit you have no coherent explanation for the school records mess, yet you have the arrogance to insist that some rational non H&L explanation exists somewhere in some fantasy land, your insulting posts on this topic will not be missed.
The school record debacle is solely the fault of the Warren Commission's failure to investigate properly "Oswald's" background. The failure to answer such a simple question as "where did the accused go to junior high school in the fall of 1953?" reveals an incompetence of colossal proportions at best.
It's really not a difficult question, Lance.
Why did the Warren Commission publish school records that indicated that "Oswald" attended school full time in both NYC and New Orleans in the fall of 1953?
I don't know why they did that, but the fact remains, that's what they published.
Of course, the simplest answer is very reasonable: there were two separate sets of 1953 school records because there were two separate young boys using the name "Lee Harvey Oswald."
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Warren Commission member Richard Russell assumed (mistakenly) that his September 16, 1964 drafted dissent ("I do not share the finding of the Commission as to the probability that both President Kennedy and Governor Connally were struck by the same bullet") about "this bullet business" (he didn't believe the "single-bullet theory". Why not? As he said "John Connally testified directly to the contrary") would be incorporated into the body of the Warren Report.
It was not.
Russell was unaware of this incredible omission until talking with Harold Weisberg on June 5, 1968. (A propitious date in history!)
Russell had personally forced a last-minute meeting of the Warren Commission back on September 18, 1964 so that his dissent and his suspicions about the inadequacy of the investigating agencies (particularly the FBI and the CIA) would be a part of the public record. Instead, Chief Justice Earl Warren misled Russell by having a stenographer from Ward & Paul present, seemingly taking exact dictation, but instead just taking vague minutes. When in 1968 Harold Weisberg showed Russell the public record of the September 18, 1964 Executive Session, Russell was astounded to learn that no record of his dissent existed. As Gerald Ford later admitted, whatever it was that the stenographer was doing at that 1964 session was at the explicit direction of the Chief Justice of the United States.
In simple terms, with this charade, Warren lied to Russell and to the American public about the credibility and strength of the evidence in order to preserve the fiction that the assassination was solely the work of a "lone nut."
Why did Warren do that?
Because he was an intellectual coward, afraid of where a real investigation might lead. He was afraid that the truth, whatever it was, might be catastrophic for America.
In other words, Earl Warren thought he knew what was best for America, and with what the American people could be trusted when it came to the murder of their president. And if that meant lying to both a fellow commission member, a long-time respected member of the U.S. Senate, and lying to the American people about the greatest political murder in American history, well, Earl Warren was just the man for the job . . .
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4 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:
Sandy’s clear analyses are always appreciated. It does seem that summer school attendance is the only explanation for the numbers David quoted, but I have to agree with DJ that these documents have probably been “monkeyed with,” to quote Sandy’s phrase, just as the rifle documents were fabricated, “Oswald’s” possessions list was vastly altered, and the Dealey Plaza witnesses statements were fabricated out of thin air. That’s just how the FBI rolled.
If these are composite documents created by the FBI, the numbers had to come from somewhere, and I’ll bet they were just transferred from the legitimate documents. Fake or not, there is no innocent explanation for this material.
Jim,
The fall 1953/54 record from BJHS is not an FBI record, is it? It is, in fact, the record from the New Orleans School District itself, isn't it? I am referring to the document with the grades of "70" for both General Science and Physical Education. It appears to me that it was filled out by NOSD officials.
I ask because at the top, it says that Oswald received a "p" during 53 - 54 Summer School Session in at least one class. Beneath that line, but still in the Summer School Session section, it lists the 54-55 session, but neither "p" or "f" is recorded.
"P" is passing.
"F" is failing.
It also appears to me that the year "53-54" has been altered slightly. It appears to have originally read "52 - 54". More interestingly, in the column marked "Grade" (meaning school year), the extant "9" is distinctly different from the "9" beneath it.
The lower "9" in the 54-55 row, appears authentic.
The upper "9" does not.
I think it originally was a "7" and was later altered to read "9".
If I am right, might that indicate that Oswald took at least one summer school class at Beauregard, probably at the conclusion of his 7th grade year during the summer of 1952?
Does anyone else see an altered "9" at the top?
Can anyone tell me why "Oswald" apparently received a "p" for at least one class in summer school, maybe during the summer of 1952 (or maybe 1953?)
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2 hours ago, Rich Pope said:
Good post. JFK Jr. was convinced George H.W. Bush was in the Dal-Tex building that day. I'm not saying Bush was a shooter. In fact, James Files claims Johnny Roselli was a shooter from the Dal-Tex building. Dallas Uranium and Oil was a CIA front located in the Dal-Tex building. So, with the help of the CIA, shooters had easy access.
Rich,
Where did you get the info on JFK Jr.'s beliefs about GHWB? That is fascinating, but I've never seen that before. When and where did JFK Jr. say that? Can you link it, please?
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1 hour ago, David Josephs said:
I'm obviously not the first to suggest this was not Bethesda's Autopsy Room - especially since these photos were so terribly lit and from terrible angles. etc....
And I know thing... "surely" would not be a word I'd use in this case about almost anything other than it was a conspiracy... at least not related to anything posed as "the truth"
DJ
http://www.manuscriptservice.com/AutopsyRoom/
A meeting in Dallas organized by Mr. Livingstone in 1991 was attended by autopsy technicians Paul O'Connor and James Jenkins and photographer Floyd Riebe. Part of the discussion is described in High Treason 2 as follows [1]:
"There was a moment of quiet as the men studied the autopsy photographs. Then the bomb exploded: 'This doesn't even look like the morgue!' Paul said.
'What?' I exclaimed.
'That's true,' Jenkins said. 'It doesn't look like the morgue [at Bethesda].'
Floyd Riebe said, 'No, I just noticed the floor.'
'What did the floor look like?'
'Well it was similar in design, but it was white!'The floor at Bethesda was stone tile. It was put in there so it would last for years.'
'What color was it?'
'It was white and black.'
'This area does not exist in that morgue,' Jenkins said.
'Does not!' Paul said. 'We have no wooden structures in the morgue.'
'The Bethesda floor had the small dots,' Floyd said. We saw them in the picture.
'We didn't have anything wooden in there,' Paul said.
'It does not look like the morgue,' Jenkins said."David,
Thanks for that passage from High Treason 2. I had forgotten all about that exchange. The case that the Fox photos weren't even taken there is one helluva lot stronger than I thought!
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2 hours ago, Keyvan Shahrdar said:
Hi Paul,
I am just evaluating facts in Dealey Plaza at the time without taking into account what anybody said or says that was there. All I know is:
1. There are gunmen in the pergola that took two shots, one to JFK's head, the other to Gov. Connally. There are photo and film evidence that show this facts.
2. There are two yellow lines painted in the curb of Dealey Plaza, one before the pergola, and the other after the pergola on the driver side of the limo. You can watch the Zapruder film to see that this is fact.
3. William Greer slowed down the limo to a crawl so much so that SS Clint Hill was able to run from the follow up car to the limo. You can watch the Zapruder and the Nix film as this that this is fact.
I am deducing because of the facts presented that Greer slowed the limo down between the first yellow line and the second yellow line so the shooters could kill JFK.
Keyvan,
I agree that Greer's failure to speed the limo out of Dealey Plaza until it was too late was a huge factor in the assassination. That failure may well have been deliberate on his part. Further, his apparent braking of the limo to a crawl was critical to the success of the assassination. You are correct to suspect him of complicity.
A possible (and only a possible, not a sure) defense might point out that:
1. The presidential limo was not a high-performance vehicle. It did not accelerate quickly - it was a 6.000 pound armored monster that was compared to driving a huge sled. Slow, unresponsive, slushy. Incredible, but allegedly true in 1963.
2. Greer was genuinely alarmed by the men on the overpass - under no circumstances should any men have been permitted to watch the motorcade from the Triple Overpass, immediately over the head of the president! Any assassin located there did not need to shoot the president - all they had to do was to drop a brick on his head, and the Secret Service was helpless!
Therefore maybe (MAYBE) Greer was innocent of complicity.
But whether he was guilty of complicity or not, Greer's driving actions were derelict and contributed to the president's murder. To me though, the single most suspicious Secret Service agent is Winston Lawson, the advance man ultimately responsible for the motorcade route down Elm Street. Only because the motorcade made that fateful turn off Main and up Houston did it come within sniper range of any concealed spot in Dealey Plaza. If it had stayed on Main at a reasonable speed, the odds of a successful head shot from behind any fence or any high-rise building would have been astronomically small.
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On 9/16/2019 at 3:09 PM, Keyvan Shahrdar said:
Two gunmen in the concrete pergola. One blew JFK's head off, the other shot Governor Connally on the back; There is photographic and film evidence to prove this.
After the sharp turn from Houston to Elm Street, why didn't the limo take off? He stated he was going 12-15 miles per hour.
Why did the limo slow down to a crawl? The limo slowed down enough that Secret Service Agent Clint Hill was able to run from the follow up car to the limousine and get on.
Clint hill would have to run at a speed to 24-30 mph to catch up to the limo if the limo was going 12-15 miles per hour.
IMO, it looked like the only reason William Greer sped off was to prevent SSA Hill from getting on the limousine.
The question is, who told William Greer to slow down the limo on Elm Street in front of the concrete pergola?
Who could have possibly told to him to do so? When was he told to do so?
How was he convinced it was the right thing to do?
FYI - Greer retired on disability from the Secret Service in 1966 due to a stomach ulcer that grew worse following the Kennedy assassination.
Keyvan,
I agree that Greer is a suspect. However, in his defense, the Secret Service protocols were violated left and right on the motorcade route, and that was the responsibility/fault of Winston Lawson, the Secret Service advance man who (ultimately) opted for the bizarre 135 degree turn onto Elm Street.
Walt Brown interviewed Greer (in 1970?) and published his work in 1985. Greer told Brown that as soon as he completed that tough turn onto Elm (the limo almost hit the north edge of the curb in front of the TSBD) that he looked ahead and saw . . . men on the overpass, beneath which he was to drive the limo! This was such a flagrant violation of Secret Service protection protocol that he began scanning left and right to see if there was any other way around them.
There was not.
Greer claimed (to Brown) that it was the dangerous presence of several unknown men on the triple overpass that caused him to momentarily slow the limo. He claimed this was such an obvious red-flag that he (almost involuntarily) hit the brakes.
Was Greer telling the truth?
I don't know, but whether he was in on the plot or not, the unacceptable presence of men on the overpass directly above the presidential limo would have alarmed any trained Secret Service agent.
A further factor in favor of this thesis:
I believe that the very first shot fired at President Kennedy came just as the limo was turning onto Elm from Houston. That shot missed, but it caused JFK to involuntarily flinch to his left. That flinch was edited out (apparently) of the Z-film (Zapruder claimed he never stopped filming, yet there is an obvious break in his footage.)The Hughes film and the Towner film both have obvious damage to the key frames just as the limo completes its turn onto Elm. This damage occurred while these films were in the hands of the authorities. It is not a coincidence that visual confirmation of an "early" shot was concealed in all three films.
Therefore, I think it highly likely that a muffled - but audible - shot was fired from the Dal-Tex building at the motorcade just as the limo turned.
It missed.
I doubt Greer had any idea that the kill zone extended to the corner of Elm and Houston.
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3 hours ago, Karl Hilliard said:
Did not happen in the city proper. Perhaps an area further south [near Hutchins maybe] if at all.
Karl,
Here is the landing area, according to Robert Vinson: next to the Trinity River, between I - 35 and the Corinth Street Bridge. Vinson described the landing as "very rough." That fits with the terrain.
According to L. Fletcher Prouty, it was just long enough for a skilled C-54 pilot to land and take off. Prouty claimed that the Berlin Airlift vets did indeed have that ability.
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1 hour ago, David Andrews said:
I prefer the John Armstrong scenario where both Lee and Harvey had .38 revolvers, and the Tippit gun was delivered to Westbrook (or another contact) at the theater and later switched by Westbrook at the police station. Lee only receiving the gun at the theater seems to contradict witness Jack Davis's account of Oswald's seat hopping. If he got the gun from the last person he sat by and then moved off to sit alone, then that person would have stayed in the theater through the arrest, risking arrest himself. Davis doesn't say that the last person Oswald sat by left afterward.
David,
I didn't say Lee only received the .38 at the Texas Theater. Instead I argued that Lee carried it with him to the Texas Theater from the site of the Tippit murder.
No, I wrote that "Oswald" (Harvey) got the .38 from the contact, the same person to whom Lee delivered the gun. That unknown person was "Oswald's" mysterious contact and was responsible for framing him with the real .38.
Burroughs said that the pregant woman got up and left after "Oswald" (Harvey) sat next to her. I can't tell what Davis had to say of the last person he saw sitting beside "Oswald."
I agree that both Lee and his handler (the mysterious "assistant manager" who knew nothing about the Texas Theater, the one who provided the impossible alibi for Lee) risked arrest by remaining in the Texas Theater until the DPD arrived. I don't think they planned to do so. However, I speculated that Westbrook, Bentley and others inadvertently arrived "too soon", preventing a clean getaway.
Thus the "Oswald arrested in the balcony, Oswald taken out the back" fiasco. That whole debacle was an improvised fall-back plan to cover the Lee's exit from the TT.
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On 9/8/2019 at 11:54 AM, David Andrews said:
I know it, Paul - but as I said, operationally it would be a big risk to have two Oswalds in one theater with a lot of cops charging around, many unwitting of the plot. I guess it was a big-risk day, especially if one believes that an Oswald was to be killed in the theater while resisting arrest.
Hell, maybe it was "Kill either one - we don't care." But would that not have crossed the balcony Oswald's mind?
What if they had a dead-twin-Oswalds back-up story to blame on the Russians, just in case?
Also - if we believe one Oswald went to the theater to give the other the pistol, then we have to believe that the two were aware of each other and had met at least once before. In that case, why the business of the torn dollar bills and the orchestra-seat Oswald searching for an unknown contact in the dark, if he'd already collected the pistol from his double?
David,
A simple answer:
Lee (American-born LHO) delivered the actual Tippit-killing .38 to his contact up in the balcony of the Texas Theater. That contact then delivered that same .38 to "Oswald" (Harvey) down on the main floor. Harvey had the torn dollar bills because he did not know Lee's contact, nor did he know that the purpose of the meeting was to take possession of (to be framed for) the .38 that could be linked ballistically to the Tippit murder.
(Incidentally, I think it likely that Lee was to make his getaway immediately after his rendezvous with his handler, but that the DPD's Westbrook, Bentley and others "jumped the gun" (sorry!) and arrived too soon, before Lee could escape. If not for Lee's handler (the mysterious, nameless "assistant manager" who provided an impossible alibi) Lee would have been arrested right then and there! Thus the whole "Oswald arrested in the balcony, Oswald taken out the back" fiasco.)
"Oswald" (Harvey) may have met Lee before - I suspect they had met. But it is certainly plausible to me that Harvey would have been tipped off that he was being framed for something terrible if he met Lee face-to-face. "Oswald" (Harvey) might have gone off-mission.
Thus an intermediary was used to keep Harvey (literally) in the dark until they could kill him.
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On 8/29/2019 at 10:03 AM, Karl Hilliard said:
If it hasn't been mentioned....Johnny Brewer stated to Vince Bugliosi [the trial film] that he saw Oswald sneak into the theater from his position in front of the shoe store...or at least from some distance. The shoe store is a bridal shop now [213 W Jefferson] on the same side of the block. I will attempt to link a google map showing that the doors and ticket booth of the theater are so deeply inset that such an observation is ludicrous.
Karl,
Thank you for emphasizing this. I tried to make that very point (amoung many others) back in August. Johnny Brewer, from his vantage point on the sidewalk in front of Hardy's Shoes,simply could not have seen whether or not "Oswald" or anyone else actually bought a ticket from Julia Postal. The ticket booth was slightly recessed from the sidewalk. To see such a ticket purchase, Brewer had to walk nearly to the entrance of the Texas Theater. (This is the video with the infamous edit/splice of Brewer's key statement at the 1:32 mark, a splice that omits Brewer's sentence about exactly what happened after he stepped out onto the sidewalk to watch the man head toward the Texas Theater. This edit coincides perfectly with two other filmed edit/slices of Brewer's filmed statements, all at precisely the same moment. Why?
To hide the existence of the strangers still in Hardy's with whom Brewer had a conversation in which he was urged/pressured/ordered to go up and call the police, even though, as he admitted in 1996, he had no reason to do so!)
This video below (inadvertently) shows up that from the 1960's.
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On 8/28/2019 at 4:11 PM, Steve Thomas said:
From JFK and the Unspeakable, by James Douglas p, 361
Footnote 823 (pp 486-487) is not included in this online version.
Steve Thomas
Steve,
It's actually a little better than that: Ball had actually ended the deposition when Applin volunteered the information about the odd inactions of the mystery man at the back of the Texas Theater!
When re-reading Applin's testimony, it is obvious that Josephy Ball both knew of and desperately wanted to avoid any statement about this mystery man, a man whom Applin later identified as Jack Ruby. How do I know that Ball already knew?
Because Applin told the FBI about this man, and Ball had the FBI reports! Ball knew exactly what to avoid!
Now, was Jack Ruby actually present in the Texas Theater during "Oswald's" arrest?
I don't know. But if we use Peter Dale Scott's "negative template" theory about sensitive names, then I'd guess that yes, Jack Ruby was indeed present in the Texas Theater around 1:50 or so.
Mr. BALL - Okay, fine, that is all, Mr. Applin.
Mr. APPLIN - But, there is one thing puzzling me.
Mr. BALL - What is that?
Mr. APPLIN - And I don't even know if it has any bearing on the case, but there was one guy sitting in the back row right there where I was standing at, and I said to him, I said, "Buddy, you'd better move. There is a gun." And he says--just sat there. He was just back like this. Just like this. Just watching.
Mr. BALL - Just watching the show?
Mr. APPLIN - No; I don't think he could have seen the show. Just sitting just like this, just looking at me.
Mr. BALL - Did you know the man?
Mr. APPLIN - No; I didn't.
Mr. BALL - Ever seen him since?
Mr. APPLIN - No, sir; didn't. I tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Buddy, you'd better move," and----
Mr. BALL - Were you scared?
Mr. APPLIN - Well, when I seen the gun I was.
Mr. BALL - Did you tell the police officer about this man?
Mr. APPLIN - No, sir; at the time, I didn't think about it, but I did tell--I didn't even think about it when I went before the Secret Service man, but I did tell one of the FBI men about it.
Mr. BALL - Okay. I guess that is all, Mr. Applin. Thank you very much.
Mr. APPLIN - All right. -
30 minutes ago, David Josephs said:
So.... where is the Casket, Gallery and what is that on wheels... where there is a door that opens into the room...
The illustration comes from O'connor's DPUK article
Fox 4 from the left side does appear to show that hallway, no mention of the phone tho...
David,
Are you suggesting that these Fox photos of the autopsy were not taken in the Bethesda Morgue? I mean, surely President Kennedy's body was there at some point on 11/22/63 and surely photos were taken, right?
The assassination of JFK: Who was the Mastermind?
in JFK Assassination Debate
Posted
Rich,
I strongly suspect that Eugene Rostow was speaking for the sponsors (and apparently had one with him at that very moment in his office) on Sunday afternoon, November 24, 1963!
Rostow should have been interrogated under oath about his repeated Sunday afternoon phone calls to Katzenbach and his later call to Moyers. At that moment, "Oswald's" body was not even cold - yet Rostow's pressing concern was to make sure that LBJ created a body that would issue a "no - conspiracy" finding!
The ultimate sponsors of the assassination were in Yale Law School Dean Eugene Rostow's social and political circle - he knew exactly on whose behalf he was speaking.