Greg Doudna

19 hours ago, Steve Roe said:

Greg, I have to correct myself here. My ID of John Timonthy Martin was wrong. Tom Scully has the correct ID with another John T. Martin from St. Paul, MN. 

Both Scully's and my Martin were both too young to be in General Walker's 24th Infantry in Germany. 

The fact remains, it was a coincidence that John T. Martin captured General Walker and Oswald on the same film.

I acknowledge the correction on my original article. 

Thank you Steve. I too am convinced Scully got it right on the identification, which I see here: https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,3672.0.html?PHPSESSID=ke6ei47inq4tgevl43bmc65jpt, which although it is a bit confusing has the raw data showing the correct identification. And much respect from me that you make corrections on the basis of evidence. A better research context if everyone behaved this way.

It seems the true identification is of an ROTC high school student who graduated about 1963, who held right-wing political views and had the Minutemen connection as a high school student. Then the military service he did would have followed rather than preceded 1963 and not been under Walker--the "serving under Walker" being a later mistake introduced by somebody but not from John T. Martin. Then he came out of the military as he says a pacifist rejecting his Minutemen connection earlier.

When I read the Pat Speer chapter (linked by Tom Gram above) I could hardly believe what I was seeing, it goes beyond an academic cutting corners or sloppiness (more common than one would like to think). This is an issue of up or down outright witting fraud, with a lot of cognitive dissonance in that (a) he is a professional historian, academic; and (b) the above-mentioned cites by Stu Wexler of his colleagues vouching for his integrity on a personal level. 

Sometimes in issues such as this, a few examples I have seen over the years, there is actually a "third path" of making sense of something of this nature: unacknowledged ghostwriters or student researchers who do the drudge work for the Great Man who has his name on it and gets all the credit. Then, with unsung students or hired help or graduate students who do the actual work, the digging up of footnotes and the writing, its not their baby, what do they care, just crib or copy or whatever. This can later be caught by peers and embarrass the Great Man who has claimed it was all his work. What is he going to do? Deny he did the work (only put his name on it), and throw his uncredited staff under the bus? (The Ron Paul approach to his old newsletters in his name having some objectionable racist things in them: "I never saw what went out in my name"). I believe something of this nature happened with Ambrose Bierce and some plagiarism accusations. It was really some underlings who did the copy and paste (just like some students do pressed for time on term papers). But it was under Bierce's name so he was (justly of course, since it was under his name) hammered for it. But not all cases of demonstrated plagiarism in the published work of famous authors are necessarily witting personal plagiarism, is my point. Some are cases of plagiarism done by the underling whose work was utilized. The big-name author would not knowingly do plagiarism in some of these cases but are now stuck with it since they claimed credit for the authorship.  

This falls into a context that it is way underreported, how much of published Great Man academics' work traditionally has been produced by graduate assistants. This is not the case with everyone or necessarily a majority, but it is a statistically high incidence historically. The old idea was that graduate students labor at low pay for years as "apprentices", doing the actual research and writing for the Great Man advisor whose name goes on the published work, as quid pro quo for the degree, the training, and job recommendations and placement where at last they can find their own voice and be on their own. 

I do not know whether any form of this "third path" of explanation could apply or not to what has been noticed and brought out re Kurtz. If Kurtz is still living and in command of his faculties I can only urge urgently that he get the matter cleaned up, make any corrections called for with explanations of what happened, and make his papers and records available in the interests of history. 

On 3/11/2023 at 4:41 PM, Benjamin Cole said:

IMHO, as guided, he shot near Walker intending to miss. A trial run for his role in the JFKA.....

The argument that Oswald acted alone there that night--whether to intend to hit or intend to miss (as you)--suffers from this objection: four conditions were necessary for the shot to work and Oswald taking a bus out on his own without assistance from someone inside the house won't cut it. The four things are: neighbor dog not barking; floodlight out; blinds on window up; and Walker present in the room at 9 pm.

How do you account, not for just one, but all four of those simultaneously, working after Oswald went to all the trouble to get there? 

1 hour ago, Joseph Backes said:

No. He didn't. He was never a suspect in it until after the assassination, and not until he was long dead too.

Original DPD files describe a very different bullet casing, steel jacketed, not copper.  All this was ignored, buried, and covered up.

Claiming LHO shot at Walker is a story, a fiction, to make it seem LHO couldn't tell the difference in the political ideologies between JFK and Walker. This then made LHO a non-political assassin and thus solved the quandary of LHO having no apparent motive to kill JFK.  That was a problem for investigators for a longtime.   

If you are saying Lee did not take the shot, my paper takes a different position. Marina told both the Secret Service and FBI, two agencies, within days, that Lee had told her he took the shot at Walker, against interest (she wanted Lee to be innocent of the JFK assassination). There is no way on earth Secret Service and FBI--two separate agencies who didn't like each other particularly well--would pressure the widow to lie back to them in answer to their own questions when they interviewed her. Makes no sense. Here is the position of my paper on p. 40:

"There is always the question concerning any specific aspect of Marina’s testimony: whether it is true, and if it is true is it the full truth. Marina was not scripted or coerced or requested to tell lies by any agency or by police or federal investigators questioning her or by the Warren Commission; there is no evidence or plausibility for that. Any prevarications of Marina were generated by herself for purposes of her own. Despite denials, the FBI probably did utilize a threat concerning Marina’s deportation/residency status in the United States as leverage to get her to cooperate in talking to them, but they wanted her to tell them the truth of what she knew, not lie to them. In the case of the Walker shot, Marina’s testimony is probably largely true in reflecting what she saw and was told by Lee. The degree to which details of Marina’s testimony are true or reflect unwitting or witting errors or material omissions, remains an open question. But Marina’s testimony that Lee told her he took the Walker shot is surely true, and the Walker Note was not forged or planted—those two facts can be taken to the bank." 

"Did Lee Harvey Oswald shoot at General Walker on April 10, 1963?"

March 11, 2023. 79 pp. New material.

https://www.scrollery.com/?p=1497

2 hours ago, Steve Roe said:

Well, if Gary Mack was still alive, then this would be a short conversation. 

As per what I cited by the 6FM, Martin says the film now in the Museum’s collection is the film the FBI returned to him in 1964, but inspection shows the film’s date code shows 1977. 

That means Gary Mack had talked to him or had correspondence. From personal experience dealing with the 6FM staff, they just don't accept anything without provenance. As you can see, they checked the film out closely. I'm sure Gary Mack did his homework and wouldn't accept something as important as a historical JFK film without checking the source. 

My John T. Martin was still alive in 2007 (confirmed myself). 

Steve you are right--I checked with Stephen Fagin of the Sixth Floor Museum and he confirms that John T. Martin worked with then-curator Gary Mack in the Museum's obtaining the film in 2007, and that John T. Martin was alive in 2007.

The Minneapolis Timmons who used the same name and died 1997 therefore is not him.  

Is it possible your John T. Martin was in the military but post-1963 not under Walker, and the "Walker" was an error introduced by Schoener (perhaps caused by association with John T. Martin being in the "Minutemen" or the 1963 trip to Dallas to visit Walker himself?--easy error to make?) That would set up this relative sequence which would at least make sense: (a) Minutemen involvement; (b) Aug 1963 trip to Texas/La. to visit Walker; (c) military service; (d) becomes pacifist and exits both military and Minutemen; (e) meets Weisberg and Schoener and gives film. 

With that reconstruction your John T. Martin, the son of the Swedish Lutheran pastor family, would work chronologically provided the 17 years of age Minutemen card could reflect 1961 as you suggest (no need to propose typos or intentional giving of wrong age).

3 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

This is an interesting thread. I don’t really have anything to contribute, but I do think it should be possible to verify whether or not Martin, Timmons, etc. served under Walker in Germany. I know Ancestry.com has a ton of military records online, and all military records at NARA are open to the public and available for request once they are over 62 years old: 

https://www.archives.gov/personnel-records-center/military-personnel/ompf-archival-requests

Thank you Tom! Thanks to your advice and link I just filled out my first-ever request on NARA for veteran's records for Martin John Timmons, Jr. (1935-1997)! The website warned me I might not get much due to not being next-of-kin, but I will see what information they send. 

On 3/5/2023 at 7:54 AM, Steve Roe said:

Greg, I always enjoy a good research discussion. I'll make a couple of points here. 

1. The Minutemen Index membership card could have been from 1961. DePugh's organization was in existence then. 

2. As per your Find-A-Grave on Timmons, it shows he died on May 26, 1997. I confirmed that is correct in a couple of newspaper Obit columns. However, the John T. Martin film was donated to the 6FM in 2007. The 6FM catalogs their collections with the year donated, followed by an item number. In this case the 6FM catalog number for the John T. Martin film is 2007.028.0001. You can check other 6FM collections and see the years that it was entered into the museum. (Link below)

Now something interesting about the John T. Martin film that I have overlooked, it's not the original. From the 6FM description: 

 Further inspection reveals that the film is not the original, but a copy of a copy, which may account for the poor quality of its images. Martin says the film now in the Museum’s collection is the film the FBI returned to him in 1964, but inspection shows the film’s date code shows 1977. The film was borrowed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the late 1970s and its records are stored at the National Archives (NARA) in College Park, MD. According to NARA, the Martin film is not among those records.

I wonder who has the original? This reminds me of the Nix film shenanigans. 

6FM John T. Martin film

Thanks Steve. Now this 2007 is a curve ball, and I'm willing to throw in the towel if there is evidence of a contact with John T. Martin later than May 26, 1997, but not so fast. The first point is from everything I can read John T. Martin gave the film to Schoener and Weisburg, which means to Schoener who had physical possession, in 1968. Then something about Martin Shackelberg was selling it for some years. Then there is the donation in 2007 but was that donation from John T. Martin? Here is Paul Trejo, 10/31/16: 

I implored Gary Mack to set up an interview with Jack T. Martin, but Gary told me that the sole condition for obtaining the Jack Martin film was that Jack T. Martin must never be contacted by anybody at any time. So, Gary refused to give me Martin's contact info. (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/23168-jack-t-martin/)

Note the wording carefully--I do not see the wording as saying who donated the film to the Sixth Floor Museum. Whoever did, made a condition not to contact Jack T. Martin at any time. 

Could be a family member? Paul Trejo interprets that as Gary Mack had current "Martin's contact info" but that is not Gary Mack saying that, that is Trejo's interpretation of Gary Mack's refusal to provide contact info.

I'm going to stick my neck out here--based on how strong my hunch is I have the right guy with Timmons who d. 1997--that there is not confirmation that the donation year of 2007 means John T. Martin the filmmaker was the one personally who did that donation in 1997 or who made that condition with Gary Mack, or any other evidence John T. Martin the filmmaker was alive or anyone spoke to him after 1997. Prove me wrong Steve? 🙂 

7 hours ago, Steve Roe said:

Greg, I of course disagree with that. There are other items of John Timothy Martin I did not include in my article. 

Before I get into that, why Martin John Timmons? What makes you suspect that, other than the age? Do you have any proof that Martin John Timmons was in the U.S. Army 24th Infantry? Maybe you have other evidence to support your argument?

Unfortunately, I can't post pictures of this newspaper article of the marriage license notice, so I will transcribe it. Source: Star Tribune (Minneapolis) July 8, 1966

John T. Martin, 22, County Road 82, W. End St., Excelsior; Jerilyn N. Miller, 23, 6820 Pillsbury Av. S. Richfield

That would make John T. Martin born somewhere around 1944, too young to join General Walker's 24th Infantry Army. Remember Walker was relieved of his command in 1961. I believe Schoener's memory was not correct. He admitted it was many years ago. 

I find it a huge stretch that the FBI would not check Martin's (or your Timmons) identification before filing their report. 

Now to back up the film footage, taken on a family vacation: Reverend J. Orville Martin was John's father. He was a Lutheran minister who moved to Minnesota around 1958 from California. His family ancestors were Swedish, and J. Orville spoke the language. Again, another newspaper article from the Minneapolis Star on September 7, 1963:

The Reverend J. Orville Martin, pastor, Mount Calvery Lutheran, Excelsior: "Visiting Sweden the ancestral parishes in Sweden which our relatives attended before coming to this country. We stood in pulpits from which three generations of our people heard had the word of God preached and we took film of baptisteries and altars where they received the sacraments.  

That sounds like a family trip, taking film footage, and would coincide with the Martin's family trip to Dallas, New Orleans (August 9, 1963) and eventually over to Sweden. 

Steve, on your candidate for John T. Martin, how do you reconcile age 22 in 1966 with age 17 in 1963-1965 from the Minutemen card? It doesn't work. The vacation of his Swedish pastor father is to Sweden, no mention of going first to Texas then Louisiana because of an interest in General Edwin Walker (at the first stop). I don't know what the politics of Reverend J. Orville Martin was, but I do know a little of Swedish and Danish Lutheran pastors, being married to a former Danish Lutheran pastor. I know the culture, and it is traditional and conservative but not Minutemen or General Walker right-wing which would be very surprising. The newspaper article mentions no trip to Texas/La. first, and the John T. Martin met by Weisberg and Schoener there is no mention of a continuation of that trip to Sweden. From my memory after the final scene of the torn-up FPCC flyers blowing in the wind on the street after Oswald's arrest, I think there is one final few seconds of airplane flight and clouds indicating a flight back to Minneapolis I presume. Why would footage not continue to Sweden if the family went there next and the film was unedited?

And Schoener remembers the home-film John T. Martin as being a veteran serving under Walker and, in late 1960s late 20s/early 30s age. Schoener:

"The only things I recall were that John was formerly a right-winger who was a member of the John Birch Society and the Minutemen, but somehow serving under Gen. Edwin Walker in Germany caused him to become a pacifist and have to be discharged from the army. The film was taken on a family trip and the other segment on it showed the zoo in NO. We did go to his home, but I have no idea where that was." 

So you have an agreement on the name, a young age, and Minneapolis, and a family trip to Sweden in September, and (I forget) maybe a student verification, as the case for the identification. But it omits completely the General Walker army service for no good reason--only the age on the Minutemen card--and it also does not agree with the age on the Minutemen card either. 

The root of the problem is there is a discrepancy between the Minutemen card age and the claim of John T. Martin (according to Schoener) to have served under Walker in Germany. As I see it there are only three possibilities to resolve this: either (a) the Minutemen age "17" was a typo; (b) the Minutemen age "17" was a false age given by John T. Martin who was actually a different age; or (c) John T. Martin lied in claiming he served in the Army in Germany under Walker or Schoener was mistaken in hearing or memory. 

Of those three, you seem to go for "c", whereas to me, "c" is the least likely of the three. Can you explain why you consider "c" more likely than "a" or "b"? 

Now turning to my candidate, no I do not have any further evidence than cited. The reason I went for that identity was because he had a Minneapolis connection; age in agreement with Schoener's memory; agreement in plausibility with the Walker army service; and the evidence for Timmons using the John T. Martin name for himself which I saw falling into why nobody could ever find the guy plus it looked to me like he gave a false age on his Minutemen card suggesting possible deception or informant activity, plus the deal he made with the Sixth Floor Museum in which the agreement was he donated the film on condition no one ever contact him about it--the guy wanted his privacy (in agreement with using a reversed name--someone who likes his privacy). It is not an airtight argument but you asked my reasons and that was my reasoning. He fits on all counts in terms of "a" or "b" of the three possibilities above, as opposed to your "c".

On your point about the FBI would have verified true identity, as an argument against Timmons representing himself as John T. Martin successfully to the FBI, I am doubtful that FBI routinely asked to see personal identification of walkins or people they interviewed. I have never heard of this. In the accounts I have read of people telling of their FBI interviews I do not recall mention of "they asked to see my driver's license" or something like that. Some FBI interviews are by phone and those would not involve showing personal identification. I am willing to be shown wrong on this but I do not follow that as a decisive point.  

Update, March 6, 2023: Timmons is not the right guy; see below, with thanks to Steve Roe.   

3 hours ago, Rob Clark said:

It's kind of a running joke on our Quick Hits podcast how many variations of the J first name and Martin surname associated within the assassination milieu...

These are top of mind...I think there are 4 more we found

 

John Martin Jr. - Took film in Dealey Plaza                                                         John Martino - CIA asset, Castro prisoner, helped Anti-Castro causes

John Martin Sr. - Father, worked at Postal Annex                                               Jean Martin - Pierre LaFitte's (Coup in Dallas) CIA pseudonym in New Orleans

John T Martin - Took Film, Walker house & New Orleans Oswald arrest           Jack Martin - Alias Ed Suggs, Banister associate

James Martin - Manager Six Flags, brought Marina home with him                 Jim Martin - Attorney at meeting at Ruby's house night of 11/24/63

Jim Martin - Department 03 of CIA                                                                      Johnny Martin - Dating Serita Odio

Rob, are you sure about a John Martin Sr. working at the Postal Annex, different from Jr. who took the Dealey Plaza film? I think they are the same person, Jr., no Sr. at the Postal Annex. Are you sure there are two (father and son) and not one ("Jr" only)? 

9 minutes ago, Mark Ulrik said:

So, it was an unknown YouTuber, not Trask, who caused the confusing by adding the "T"?

I believe that is correct. If a middle initial could be found for the Dallas John Martin Jr. that would confirm the YouTuber made a mistake.

1 hour ago, Paul Brancato said:

Greg - can you make out anything taking place kn the grassy Knoll?

Beats me, I haven't looked at it. I was after whether the two John Martin home-films were the same person but evidently not. 

No, this John Martin, Jr. cannot be the Minneapolis John T. Martin of the Walker/New Orleans film, because this John Martin Jr. is identified in this FBI interview document (which I located after posting the thread) as "Superintendent of Safety, Room 517, United States Post Office Terminal Annex, 207 South Houston Street ... resides at 9846 Shoreview Road, Dallas, Texas". 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=58951#relPageId=95 

I believe this link answers my own question. As odd as it seems, the identity of names seems to be a coincidence. I see this FBI document does not give a middle initial of "T.", reducing the startle quotient a little on the coincidence down to a manageable level.

Seeking identification of this Dealey Plaza filmer of the JFK assassination: John T. Martin, Jr.

On UTube there is a film of the JFK motorcade at Dealey Plaza at the time of the assassination, by one John T. Martin, Jr., 

Here, posted Dec. 3, 2006, it is 24 seconds, said to be by "Jack Martin" a mail carrier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8dLonVQTRA

"Yet another film of JFK's motorcade entering Dealey plaza, then restarting after the shooting, made by another US mail carrier, Jack Martin."

Here, same film, posted Dec 10, 2022, now it is 68 seconds, said to be by "John T. Martin, Jr.", a "member of the Dallas Cinema Associates". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg_02sulEss

"This is most of John T. Martin Jr.’s film of the events surrounding the assassination. Martin was the closest member of the Dallas Cinema Associates to the assassination. The largely unseen film supposedly shows: -“five men on the Grassy Knoll and in apparent flight after the fatal shot” -“Three or four men, a puff of smoke clearly drifting away from the Grassy Knoll. One man is in the pergola shelter, while three or four are running between the wall and fence towards the RR tracks and then along the base of a longer fence at the top of the slope. Three camera cars are seen with two men in the second camera car, taking pictures towards the running men” -“The same three cars further down elm street, the grassy slope area closer to the underpass and a portion of the fence at the top of the slope” Source: Richard Trask’s “Pictures Of The Pain” Please note that the content shown in this video is not my own, therefore any requests to reproduce the content should be sent to the copyright holders. This film is currently in the public domain, footage courtesy of @DenisMorissetteJFK. The original is apparently still held in a Safety Deposit box in Dallas."

Question: who is this individual? Has anyone met him or met anyone who has? Is there anything known of his biography or identification?

36 minutes ago, Chris Barnard said:

He is back, because he still feels bitter about the situation, that’s his ego/narcissistic personality IMO. I think it makes no odds to most of us whether he is contributing or not, there no significance. Of course this is only my opinion, some may feel differently. 

Chris the public psychologizing personally of others in public is irritating and ad hominem. It is irritating because in all likelihood you don't know what you are talking about, which is a generic problem in the whole enterprise of shoot-from-the-hip psychoanalysis of others' motives. How do you know what goes on in other peoples' heads that you so easily label and characterize ("bitter", etc.). How is someone supposed to respond to that? It is unfalsifiable, there is no good response. It is a conversation stopper, shuts down discussion of content.  

If I were to guess why Lance left (I don't know, only a guess), some nasty person instead of engaging on topic substantively went after Lance citing some allegation of his legal career years earlier dug up from the internet, nothing to do with JFK assassination discussion (and from the little I heard of it, the allegation itself went nowhere but it should not have to be Lance's burden to defend himself on that on this forum since it has zero to do with anything related to topical matters), and the sheer nastiness of that became too discouraging. No poster should have to put up with that. Maybe that wasn't the reason but it would not surprise me that that kind of ad hominem would drive anyone away.  

Instead of doing this weaponized psychoanalysis of others when you disagree with someone, this ad hominem, why not address the substance of what Lance is talking about. 

What Lance offers is much needed and is good and healthy to be considered and discussed.  

Actually Chris, overlooking the mild ad hominem response instead of substantive response, your 20 points are quite good, I mean that seriously, you just haven't shown how they relate as explanatory power to perceptions of the JFK assassination conspiracy because you won't define what you mean by that, not that that could not potentially be done. But your 20 points are quite good in terms of a more Chomsky or C. Wright Mills power-structures analysis, or Gramsci, and how propaganda works, but that goes apart from "conspiracy" thinking and is more in terms of what you yourself correctly observe as causes of inability to "see what is in front of their [our] eyes", a subject that has fascinated me no end (the "purloined letter" phenomenon, drawing on the famous short story of Edgar Allen Poe of 1840 of that name). This is different from conspiracies which involve secrecy leading up to overt criminal acts, but concerns the ability to spin what is publicly visible to have people think they see the opposite or differently, which is an art form to behold, the stuff of ancient classical rhetoric and ancient and modern magic and modern public relations and advertising and political campaigns. But I did jerk your chain a little there Chris, will try not to going forward, carry on.  

1 minute ago, Matthew Koch said:

I like how you are saying what I said is baseless in one breath and in the next say it probably came from Hillary side which is #3 or #4 maybe both, then you proceed exhibit #20 The Hidden hand of the cabal must be behind this! 💯😝!

But you see Matthew, you smear Hillary Clinton personally on this point without support from facts. It is not right to do that. Instead of correcting retracting, or being more careful in the first place, you counterattack. I'm not interested in debating this. Your posting a video of Hillary with intent to provoke or inflame is off-topic and is not helping critical discussion of the JFK assassination. (And do not typecast me; this is not about whether I like Hillary Clinton or not politically.) 

20 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

Wait. It appears that you are going out of your way to blame Hillary for the hoax that helped bring Trump to power. Will you at least agree that Donald pushed this issue for attention, and to send a wink-wink nudge-nudge to the Republican base that it was okay to doubt the "American-ness" of a mixed-race guy born and mostly raised in Hawaii?

Or do you think he had the best of intentions?

Background note Pat: Matthew is falsely claiming that the origin of Obama birtherism came out of the Hillary Clinton campaign back in 2007-2008, when Obama and Hillary were rivals for the Democratic nomination. That precedes Trump getting on board with promoting birtherism (still believed by half of Trump voter incidentally, according to polling). I  researched the Hillary-origin claim and the claim is baseless. The fact that after birtherism got started one or two Clinton staffers forwarded it opportunistically on facebook or whatever, or that grassroots Democrats partisan to Hillary may have, does not cut it as evidence implicating Hillary or her campaign, and the Clinton campaign overtly sought to dampen that sort of thing from its staffers. The actual basis for the argument I have usually heard if one were to press the point is that a former deputy attorney general in Pennsylvania, Phil Berg, who filed the first legal action associated with birtherism, claimed he was a supporter of Hillary Clinton. Neither Hillary nor her campaign had anything to do with that. 

If there was a hidden hand in birtherism (probably was) the smoke surrounding it suggests it was coming from the right seeking to discredit a potential and then actual Democratic nominee in the general election. (I do not believe either McCain or Romney or their campaigns had anything to do with promoting birtherism either. Unlike Trump, each of those two Republicans had some conscience about things.)

5 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:

Hi Greg,

I find your response tangential, vague or at cross-purposes to my list of psychological reasons that often inhibit, or prevent people from seeing things as they are. 

To save us both precious time; do you have any particular criticisms of the list of 20 reasons? Or, are you in agreement with the list? 
 

You have a list but you do not explain its relationship to the claim in your title that they apply to "the" JFK assassination conspiracy theory. For example, the JFK assassination conspiracy theory that the Mob killed JFK of Blakey/HSCA: only a few on this forum accept it. I don't know if you do, but most here do not. Which of your twenty points in terms of explanatory power applies in explanation to what you call in your title "being blind" to the JFK conspiracy theory that the Mob did it? 

You are omitting a point 21: some people reject conspiracy theories because they believe them not to be true, based on their assessment of the evidence. Why did that not make your list of 20 points?

Now if you mean your 20 points to assume a prior premise, as applying only to being blind to conspiracy theories which are indeed true ... a logical prior ... which conspiracy theory do you mean, specifically, with reference to "the" JFK conspiracy?

Please be specific. Otherwise this is just shadow boxing in air. 

You haven't explained how your 20 points apply to any specific JFK assassination theory because you haven't said which one you mean.

Also, if conspiracy is understood as meaning two or more persons plotting to commit a crime, then 100 percent of people believe in conspiracies because everyone believes there are Mob hits, and every contract killing is a criminal conspiracy, that is, a conspiracy. It all goes to cases, which ones then. 

But back to your 20 points. Which of your 20 points do you believe apply in explanation of the fact that most on this forum are resistant to the Mob conspiracy killing of JFK?

Chris could you comment on how to distinguish true conspiracies from false ones? For example, Obama birtherism is a conspiracy theory. How would you apply your twenty points in the case of Obama birtherism?

Which segues back to the JFK assassination since there is not just one but dozens of JFK assassination conspiracy theories. Which one or ones are you talking about specifically, and which ones are you not talking about specifically? How do your twenty points assist in distinguishing good ones (true ones) from bad ones (flimflam and delusional thinking)?

Welcome back Lance! 

On 2/19/2023 at 8:48 AM, Michael Kalin said:

Maybe two diametrically opposed versions of the same thing that did not happen. Phantom Tatum claimed he saw the killer, not the victim, run around the squad car from behind. The only result produced by conflating Odum's garbled report with Moriarty's work of fiction is to add another layer of confusion to the stack of existing narrative fables replete with fantastic scenarios that bedevil research into this murder.

How do you interpret the Nov 22 FBI interview report of what Helen Markham said she saw, concerning her seeing someone go around the rear of the cruiser before two shots were fired into the head of Tippit, Michael? 

p.s. Bill it occurs to me an answer to another question that has bothered me: why the gunman would might run the longer way around the back of the cruiser (as indicated in two out of two of the witnesses who actually saw the run-around and shooting, that's one hundred percent of the eyewitnesses, both of them), instead of the shorter way around the front of the car, to get to Tippit on the ground and finish him off. 

I had wondered if it was because Tippit had pulled up and stopped behind some other car's rear bumper so close that it was not possible for the gunman to walk around the front. That would be one possible way of accounting for that.

But it is not necessary to suppose that (a bumper-to-bumper stopped Tippit cruiser). The longer run around the rear of the cruiser can be explained on personal safety grounds, if the gunman believes Tippit is only wounded and may have seen Tippit going for his gun. Go around the front, Tippit even though hit and on the ground could be waiting for him, gun drawn, and shoot him. The gunman therefore runs around the rear where he can more easily approach the fallen Tippit from behind where Tippit may not be looking, and only when seeing it is safe to do so does the gunman go closer and fire the final 2-3 finale shots including the coup de grace to the right forehead, Tippit on the ground and now dead for sure.

Either way this was an execution, a professional killing, a hit, an ambush, not a random or impulse killing, and I believe the Oswald identifications of Helen Markham and Tatum (and Callaway and Scoggins and Brewer) were mistaken identifications, though that is a larger and obviously more complicated and difficult discussion but does not affect the point here, which is that Helen Markham and Tatum were not wrong on seeing a running around the rear of the cruiser before final shot(s), as both said, and as counterintuitive as it may have seemed to decades of later researchers to imagine a run around the rear of the cruiser of the gunman.  

On 2/17/2023 at 8:53 PM, Bill Brown said:

Odum got it "garbled" and therefore completely wrote down the wrong thing, as far as who shot who and where.  Sorry Greg.  I'm not buying it.  You're changing the words of a witness for no other reason than to get it to fit a narrative. 

Bill let's discuss this a moment OK? You know Markham knows where Tippit fell because she was there. That is the point Michael Kalin made. In this FBI interview, which was the same day as the Dallas Police statement, as Odum tells it, Helen Markham has Tippit going around the rear of the cruiser and being shot at the rear of the cruiser "twice in the head". 

Now be serious: is it reasonable to you that Helen Markham is going to say Tippit fell in a different place than at the left front of the cruiser where Tippit plainly fell and Helen Markham was there and saw it? Which is more likely, that Helen Markham would claim to see Tippit fall around behind the cruiser which she knew did not happen, or that her statement was garbled in Odum's rewrite in his report? Seriously, which do you think is more likely? 

Your reaction comes across a little like insisting that a witness who hears 3 shots cannot have heard the same shooter as heard by another witness who heard only 2 shots, because that is "changing the words of a witness for no other reason than to get it to fit a narrative". Any time there are multiple versions of the same event especially told secondhand there are going to be minor differences. And you know FBI agents can make errors in reporting hearsay (witness interview reports), and the situation here is a very simple error to have made, getting a pronoun mixed up as to who went around the rear of the cruiser as Helen Markham tells likely in runon sentences and Odum tries to follow what Helen is saying. It is like you are being such a stickler on FBI agent-written-report-inerrancy, on a hearsay report, at the cost of having Helen Markham highly improbably claiming Tippit fell in two very different locations. Do you really believe Helen Markham would say Tippit fell behind the cruiser? Where's your common sense here? Isn't it more likely Helen Markham knows where Tippit fell and was not really saying different from that, even if it came out that way or Odum heard it that way--that is hardly what she can have actually meant?

The big problem with the Tatum story has always been the gap required between the time of the first four shots and then the final one (assuming with you the logic that there were five shots). But the premise is wrong: there were two groups of shots but it was not 4 + 1. Rather it was as Callaway heard and said: 1 + 1 + 3! bam...bam...bam-bam-bam! That is 2 + 3! Two over the hood, Tippit falls, killer now has no line of fire because Tippit has fallen, so killer has to go around the car either around the front or the back to get to Tippit prone on the ground and fires 3 more rapidly at Tippit prone, killing Tippit dead for sure. And the only two witnesses to have directly seen the shooting (unless there was someone on a porch or something that did not come forward) were Helen Markham for sure and the contested later witness Tatum. (Or maybe it was 3 + 2 if Callaway got the grouping of the shots off by one. Whichever it was, there was more than one final shot into Tippit prone. It was either two or three finales, not one.) 

Again the logic: Helen Markham would not have told Odum that Tippit went around the rear of the cruiser and was shot twice in the head at the rear of the cruiser, since Helen Markham knew full well where Tippit fell. But Helen Markham does speak of seeing "walk[ing] around behind the squad car" and Tippit "shot twice in the head" (what it looked like to her). q.e.d.

It sort of just leaps out pretty clearly what is going on: Helen Markham told on Nov 22, 1963, in what may be the earliest law enforcement witness report of Helen Markham (the FBI Odum report), what the years-later Tatum to so much criticism and skepticism said he also saw that day.

Its the same thing, plain as can be, two versions of the same thing.

On 2/17/2023 at 8:53 PM, Bill Brown said:

"...and Odum writing up his report simply got it garbled in hearing from Markham..."

Odum got it "garbled" and therefore completely wrote down the wrong thing, as far as who shot who and where.  Sorry Greg.  I'm not buying it.  You're changing the words of a witness for no other reason than to get it to fit a narrative. 

Whatever. You go ahead and interpret the wording wooden-literally giving a meaning completely outlandish or say Markham hallucinated same-day, whichever suits you best. Any idea how Myers missed the Odum FBI Markham Nov 22 interview? I have looked and its just not in his book, and is missing at points where one would expect mention of it if he knew of it when he was writing. Can you shed any light what was going on with that? It is not like Myers to overlook a primary source. Why?