Greg Doudna

16 minutes ago, Eddy Bainbridge said:

Can you explain why one piece of evidence is definitive (a photograph) and one isn't (Statement of officer as to what he found)?

Because an officer's identification is subject to human fallibility. But the photograph tells the story. The weights given to the conflicting claims of evidence are not equal, provided there is no issue of photo alteration, which in this case there isn't.

Its like why consider a tape recording of a conversation as definitive and a witness's testimony saying something different was said not? Because the weight given the conflict claims of evidence are not equal, provided there is no issue of alteration of the tape recording.

In the present case there is not one anomaly in the DPD police report, but two. One is why did the FBI lab say they could not find a Minox camera in the DPD evidence, when DPD's records said they sent one. But the other, which receives less attention, is: why did the FBI lab say they DID receive a Minox light meter (similar shape and appearance) from DPD, when DPD's records showed no light METER found or conveyed?

Two, not one, anomalies. And the FBI lab has a much stronger record of accuracy, compared to the Dallas Police Department, just in terms of error rates.

And--most of all--the very two items that the FBI lab reported disagreed with the DPD inventory lists--both of them--agree EXACTLY with the DPD's own evidence photo taken before that evidence was sent.

How about that for a coincidence! Some coincidence! The DPD's own evidence photograph, of which the FBI lab had no knowledge, says the FBI lab was right! 

Right there in the photograph: No Minox camera to be found. But a Minox light meter is there. Two out of two, independent of one another, in favor of the FBI and against the DPD.

All the debates over this, the DPD vs. FBI, he-says/she-says kind of argument, all the elaborate theories of Ruth Paine fabricating a camera among her many, many other alleged sins not one of which is proven any more than this one . . . all those debates overlooked the tie-breaker, the decider, the DPD evidence photograph which tells the story. They simply did not address the DPD evidence photograph. Simply did not address the DPD evidence photograph. The gold standard of evidence here.

It is a debate which can be settled, and need not go on for another fifty years.

The photograph says the FBI lab was right, not the DPD identification and evidence list which were mistaken. The photograph decides and settles the issue. All the Minox camera equipment, and the Minox camera itself which the Dallas police did not find that weekend, were Michael Paine's. Nothing Minox was Oswald's. There never was any Oswald Minox camera. 

On 4/9/2022 at 12:40 PM, Paul Brancato said:

Myth - LBJ and WC saved the world from nuclear annihilation by claiming a lone nut did it, rather than a conspiracy related to Cuba and Castro. That didn’t stop us from bombing the heck out of so-called Soviet proxies later. 
The truth has long been obvious - JFK was trying to bring peace to the world by focusing on finding common ground with the Soviet Union and allowing the third world to be unaligned rather than militarized pawns. Those of us that mourn his death, and the death of his brother and MLK (who had finally turned against the Vietnam war and had proposed to occupy DC in furtherance of ending that war) mourn the loss of the world these men envisioned. The Mafia is long gone, and we still live in permanent war. 

Well said Paul. I agree, and mourn too.

2 hours ago, Denny Zartman said:

 

Attached is the only picture of Oswald with a weapon that I could find in Weberman's book "The Oswald Code."

2015 edition, Pg 12.

 

I looked this up in the Weberman book. Hemming claimed to Weberman that he, Hemming, took this photo using Oswald's Minox. Since Hemming has produced so much bull otherwise, I think some caution is called for here. However, if Weberman is correct these are photos Weberman obtained (nothing to do with Hemming) through the FOIA. Weberman:

"Undeveloped rolls of Minox film were also found among Oswald's possessions in the Paine['s] garage. Some of them belonged to Michael Paine. I had all the rolls developed under provisions of the Freedom of Information Act."

I believe those who have studied the Minox photos found in the Paine garage attribute them to Michael Paine taken during his early 1950s military service in Asia, also so identified by Michael. Assuming there is no misidentification of the photo and that the photo above is one among the others, I would say the man in the photo cannot be Oswald. If it is Oswald, then it must be some photo unrelated to the Minox photos from the Paine garage.

3 hours ago, David Boylan said:

AJ Weberman posted this. He said "photo of Hemming found in undeveloped film in Oswald minox by DPD. Hemming has Huk in garret.

 

David, that is only Hemming saying this photo was found in an Oswald camera. If this photo comes from the film or undeveloped Minox film found by the Dallas police, it would be Michael Paine's pictures. Hemming has nothing to do with being an authority on identification of who was the owner of the camera that took those photos. 

3 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

The story of the Minox camera has been settled for several decades.  The camera is at the National Archives and was held by John Armstrong while wearing white evidence gloves in the late 1990s. Here is John’s summary of what happened to the camera from this page of our website HarveyandLee.net:

Sorry Jim. The premise of what you post is that the Dallas Police Department inventory list claiming a Minox spy camera had been found and was sent to the FBI lab, was correct. The DPD evidence photograph--photograph of DPD's collected evidence prior to sending it to the FBI-- must show that Minox camera if it had been found. Where is it in the photograph? Either it is in the evidence photograph or it is not. Nothing else is decisive apart from this single point. 

All of the rest of the two cameras in the Warren Commission have good alternative narrative explanation but are other issues. Those are extraneous to the point here. It all goes back to whether the Dallas Police did or did not find a Minox camera that first weekend. The photograph tells. Either it is in that evidence photograph or it is not. 

4 hours ago, Pete Mellor said:

I bow to Richard's knowledge of the Minox camera, but I find the DPD evidence photograph extremely vague and ambiguous.  After the DPD were given "voluntarily" access to Oswald's possessions by Ruth Paine & Marina Oswald on the 22nd., & 23rd., nowhere is the Imperial Reflex camera that Marina reportedly used for the famous 'backyard photographs'.  Not found by the DPD, but reported by a Detective of the Irving police on the 23rd., but left as Irving Detective McCabe considered the camera in poor condition.  The Imperial Reflex was collected from the Paine's by Robert Oswald in early December '63 and only surrendered to investigators in February '64!

Even though FBI stated there was never a Minox in Oswald's possessions, DPD Detective Rose claimed he inspected the camera which definitely had a film in it.  One of the developed photos shows Oswald in Asia with an M16 rifle. 

Pete I do not believe this is accurate. Could you document this? All information known to me says the photos found and developed collected by the police that weekend were identifiable as taken by Michael Paine, which is in agreement with Michael's identification, with no photo of Oswald in any photo which came from a Minox. 

4 hours ago, Pete Mellor said:

Did Lee get this Minox from the military? 

Unless a Minox camera can be found in the DPD evidence photograph, Lee had no Minox camera. But I think your question is based on the prior premise that there was a photo of Oswald among undeveloped Minox camera photographs, which cannot be accepted without documentation.

4 hours ago, Pete Mellor said:

I may agree with Richard, that the spy camera is visible in the DPD photograph, but what always troubles me in this case is the haphazard presentation of evidence, which reminds me of the late British comedian/magician Tommy Cooper's tricks!  (U.S. readers may need to check out You Tube vids of Tommy to see the similarities.)

Before something gets started, (a) Richard never claimed a Minox camera is visible in the photograph, and (b) it is definitively excluded that a camera could be located where Richard suggested, from the closeup.

5 hours ago, Richard Price said:

Greg and any other interested parties, I found this picture online. 

I think the Minox camera is in the case to the right of the pocket watch.  I once owned one of these, but sold it.  I knew it was small, but couldn't remember the dimensions, so I looked it up.  The Minox was approximately 4"x1"x1/2" and the largest pocket watches were just under 2" (I looked this up also).  Therefore, if the Minox camera were left in its case it would be approximately the length of a large pocket watch in an open position.  This coincides with what we see in the picture.  If the police were trying to obfuscate, or just didn't care about complete documentation (since other pictures could be taken individually), they may have left it in the case.  Mine had a case just like the one shown, it just opened with a basic flap and the controls were usable to take pictures without taking it out of the case entirely.

Richard a closeup of the photograph is definitive: the camera is not in the case. I have now found an image of that closeup:

The photograph below is of the physical evidence collected by the Dallas Police Department from Ruth Paine's garage that first weekend, and was in the possession of Rusty Livingstone of the DPD Crime Lab until first published in 1993 in Gary Savage, First Day Evidence. This photograph should settle for good the debate over whether officer Gus Rose of the Dallas Police found a Minox camera that weekend as reported on the DPD inventory lists.

Either a Minox camera is in this photograph or not. This will be an up or down, yes or no, answer.

The Dallas Police said they found a Minox camera but no light meter, according to their lists. The FBI lab said the DPD had sent a Minox light meter but no Minox camera. The FBI said the Dallas Police must have made a mistake in identification, confused what actually was the light meter they sent as if was a camera (even though an FBI man signed off on receipt of the evidence list in Dallas before the evidence arrived to the FBI lab). The Dallas Police stuck by their story. So much debate.

This photograph will decide, for it is a DPD photograph of what the DPD actually had, never mind what their inventory list claimed. Nothing else matters. This photo settles the issue one way or the other.

First Day Evidence believes the Dallas Police Department was right and the FBI wrong on the Minox camera issue. First Day Evidence says there is a Minox camera in this photograph. The photograph appears on p. 208 and underneath it a caption reads: "in the center of the photo is the small Minox camera located on top of the open camera case".

Officer Gus Rose was shown this photo and thought he saw the Minox camera in this photo. 

"After I [Gary Savage] told Gus [Rose] about Rusty's photograph, he seemed pleasantly surprised. He told me that he had initialed the camera and asked if his initials were visible n the photograph. I told him I'd take a look. Although hard to see in a blowup of the photograph, an area does appear to have been marked by a dark pen. Later on, Rusty and I showed the photograph to Gus, and he stated that it appeared to be the camera that he found and initialed. He said that 'There was film still in it, and we examined it and looked at it and noted that there was film still in it. But after that, I never saw it again after we put it in the property room.'" (p. 212)

All parties agree that in the upper left of the bottom right quadrant of the photo is a Minox light meter inside an open Minox light meter case. All parties agree that in the middle of the photo about three-quarters up is an empty Minox camera case (that it is empty is clear in blowup). On those two points, no one disputes.

The dispute concerns that rectangular object above the camera case. First Day Evidence has a blowup of the area around the camera case on p. 209 which I am unable to show here.

The rectangular object above the empty camera case does not agree in size and shape with any Minox camera I see on Google Images. All the Minox miniature spy cameras I see appear longer and narrower than the rectangular object in the photo below, plus have dials and so forth which the unbroken flat surface of the rectangular object in the photo below does not.

But this is an answerable question. Either that rectangular object above the empty camera case is a Minox camera or it isn't. What is the truth about that rectangular item? Is it or isn't it? What do people here think?

59 minutes ago, Cory Santos said:

Jim, I agree about Garrison and Marcello.  I was being nice. As you know, I have spoken with primary sources that knew this about Marcello and Garrison.  Again, if ones sources are only books, then one can have the tendency to rely on the bias of the authors.  I could cite Posner all day, but when I researched Garrison so long ago, I found a bias against weighing the facts.

Cory, could you elaborate a little on what primary sources told you re Marcello and Garrison?

12 hours ago, Cory Santos said:

Greg, your above statements, based upon your personal opinions, are incorrect.  Garrison was keenly aware that the mafia existed.  He also knew about Marcelo.  Lastly, you state, essentially, that everyone but him knew about Marcello and the mafia.  As you do not really provide a date of reference, you might note Hoover did not believe in the mafia until late in the game.  So assuming you were correct, he was in good company.   

Cory--

"Garrison further stated that he has heard of allegations linking Marcello to organized crime and the Mafia, but does not know if they are true." (HSCA interview of Garrison, 1977)

I posted the following in an earlier thread, maybe I should have been clearer in citing it, but here is partly where I have been getting that. David Scheim, Contract on America (1988), 70-74:

"But critical review of the Kennedy case was put on hold in February 1967, following the dramatic announcement of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison that he had uncovered an assassination conspiracy. In the wake of Garrison's sensational allegations, Congressional calls for a new investigation were soon forgotten. And thinking the D.A. had a genuine lead, many leading assassination probers rushed down to New Orleans to jump on his bandwagon.

"Through the efforts of these researchers, a good deal of legitimate information was exchanged and disseminated from Garrison's office. Yet as Garrison's case unfolded, his specific accusations became increasingly outlandish and the thrust of his efforts increasingly questionable. Especially bizarre was Garrison's prosecution of Clay Shaw, who became his prime culprit. A retired director of the New Orleans International Trade Mart, Shaw was a soft-spoken liberal who devoted most of his time to restoring homes in the Old French Quarter and writing plays. It took the jury less than an hour to find Shaw innocent of Garrison's extravagant accusations. As summarized by Walter Sheridan, a former aide to Robert Kennedy who investigated the New Orleans probe for NBC, Garrison's effort was 'an enormous fraud,' involving 'bribery and intimidation of witnesses.' The particulars were reported by Newsweek, the New York Times, Look magazine, the Saturday Evening Post, an NBC News special, and the book Counterplot by Edward J. Epstein. The methods, as documented in these sources, included promised or transacted bribes of cash, gifts, an airline job, financing for a private club, heroin and a paid vacation in Florida. Garrison and his aides also resorted to threats of imprisonment and death, a plot to plant evidence in Clay Shaw's home and indoctrination of witnesses to parrot invented charges under the influence of hypnosis and drugs.

"Although Garrison made extravagant charges against an assortment of Cuban exiles, CIA agents, Minutemen, White Russians and Nazis, he conspicuously avoided any reference to one prime assassination suspect: the Mafia. For example, in discussing testimony concerning Ruby's anti-Castro activities, which he quoted at length, Garrison described Ruby as a ‘CIA bagman’ and an 'employee of the CIA.' But Garrison said nothing about Ruby's organized crime involvement. The cited testimony, in contrast, contains not one allusion to the CIA. Yet it is replete with references to the 'Mafia' and the 'syndicate' in connection with both Ruby's Cuban activities and his night club operations. Amazingly, Garrison also refrained from mentioning the close and portentous ties of his key suspect, David Ferrie, to Mafia boss Carlos Marcello.

"But such ties were of little concern to Garrison, who declared on national television that Marcello was a 'respectable businessman' and who stated that there was no organized crime in New Orleans. According to Garrison, 'people worry about the crime "syndicate," but the real danger is the political establishment, power amassing against the individual.' Skeptical of Garrison's professed ignorance about organized crime, a team of Life magazine reporters once asked him about Frank Timphony, a notorious Syndicate figure in Garrison's own district. Garrison claimed never to have heard of him and, carrying the act further, placed a call to an aide in the reporters' presence. The Garrison aide 'promptly assured' his boss that Timphony was 'one of the biggest bookies in New Orleans.'

"It became apparent, however, that the district attorney's knowledge of organized crime was quite direct and intimate. Garrison's hand-picked chief investigator during his first years as district attorney was Pershing Gervais, an admitted associate of Carlos Marcello. Gervais was formerly a New Orleans policeman but was fired after twice stealing the payoff money awaiting distribution to his fellow officers. In 1967, Life magazine reported that Garrison had been given free lodging and a $5,000 line of credit on three trips to the Mob-controlled Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. One of Garrison's tabs was personally signed by Marcello lieutenant Mario Marino, who took the Fifth Amendment when questioned about the matter. And on June 1969, as Life subsequently reported, Marcello bagman Vic Carona died after suffering a heart attack in Garrison's home during a political meeting. 

"Throughout his career, Garrison demonstrated his fidelity to his reported friend, Carlos Marcello. This loyalty was exhibited in the early 1960s, when Garrison conducted a cleanup of the Bourbon Street night club district after being elected district attorney as a reform candidate; his raids deliberately avoided the clubs controlled by Marcello. From 1965 through 1969, Garrison won just seven cases against Marcello gangsters. Yet he dismissed 84 such cases, including one charge of attempted murder, three of kidnapping and one of manslaughter. 

"In 1971, Garrison was on the receiving end of an indictment--on the federal charge of accepting $50,000 a year in payoffs to protect illegal gambling. The tax evasion case against Garrison became 'airtight,' as evaluated by U.S. Attorney G. Gallinghouse, when six of Garrison's codefendants turned state's evidence against him. The jury was presented with first-hand bribes to Garrison and with actual tape recordings to the bribe transactions. But Garrison was acquitted, possibly with the help of reported bribes of $50,000 and $10,000 offered to rig his trial and swipe evidence. The outcome was reminiscent of Marcello's acquittal on a fraud charge on November 22, 1963, after a juror had been offered a $1,000 bribe and the key witness against him set up to be murdered.

"Although Garrison, now a judge, vigorously denies any corrupt links to organized crime, his congenial relationship with the Marcello fiefdom has been repeatedly demonstrated in both his conduct and contacts, as reported in several sources. Indeed, as recently as 1987, Garrison was seen dining at La Louisianne restaurant in New Orleans with two of Carlos Marcello's brothers, Sammy and Joe, Jr. The latter is allegedly the acting Mafia boss of Louisiana now that Carlos is in jail.

"Given Garrison's coziness with the Marcello Organization and his strange blindness toward Mob leads in his Kennedy assassination probe, it is reasonable to question his motive in pursuing it. Indeed, the possibility that Garrison deliberately tried to obscure Mafia ties to the case is indicated by his false charges against an Edgar Eugene Bradley of California, described in Los Angeles files as 'the man Garrison mistook for Eugene Hale Brading.' There were enough similarities between Bradley and Brading for Garrison's accusations to confound reports about Brading. But to a professional investigator, the distinction between Bradley, an uninvolved Caliornian, and Dal-Tex felon Brading was apparent.

"A further incident raised the possibility of Mob input into Garrison's Kennedy probe even more sharply. On March 3, 1967, during a campaign by the Mob and Teamsters to spring the latter's former boss, Jimmy Hoffa, from prison, James 'Buddy' Gill tried to bribe government witness Edward Partin to invalidate his testimony against Hoffa. Gill, the intermediary in this Mob ploy, had been an administrative assistant and close associate of former Senator Russell Long. Long, in turn, was an old political ally of Garrison who assisted the Marcello-coordinated effort to spring Hoffa.

"During Gill's approach to Partin, apparently to apply additional pressure, Gill informed him that Garrison was going to subpoena Partin in his assassination probe. And on June 23, 1967, Baton Rouge Radio Station WJBO broadcast that Partin had been 'under investigation by the New Orleans District Attorney's Office in connection with the Kennedy Assassination investigation.' The station quoted a Garrison assistant as saying that a man drove Oswald and Ruby during alleged encounters in New Orleans and that Garrison's office was 'checking the possibility it was Partin.'"

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Here are the sites that his posted at:

Global Research, Dissident Report, Lew Rockwell, Off-Guardian, Unz, Transcend Media, and probably at others that I am not aware of.

Are any of those in Sri Lanka?

PS Note I have been rather kind about Speer and GD hijacking this thread.  

Not intentional. Apologies.

Update to Tom Gram:

On the question of the sources for the Oster and Kohn reports to the FBI of Feb 24, 1967 that they had received information that Dean Andrews' Clay Bertrand was Clay Shaw, this from Litwin has FBI interview documents which answer that question: https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/did-the-fbi-know-that-shaw-was-bertrand. Unidentified sources in the media. In other words insubstantial, could be coming out of the district attorney's office.

23 hours ago, Cory Santos said:

Jim, you are right.  I grow so tired of people interjecting their “opinions” and then preventing any discussion based on contrary opinions.  Here, for example, GD shares what he knows is his speculation about the facts and thus, his interpretation of the facts.   Yet, then ignores that same rule and attacks others for doing anything similar.  
Having read the above diatribe, it confirms that reading books does not substitute for first hand knowledge based on interviews and actually going to NO and/or Dallas.  As you know, I wrote about Garrison in law school.  It really amazes me how many people get the legal side of the prosecutions and trials wrong.   Oh well.  

That's not accurate Cory, I'm not trying to stop expression of opposing views, certainly don't mean to. Jim D. said Metropolitan Crime Commission head Aaron Kohn fabricated a Clem Sehrt link to Bertrand of the Dean Andrews phone call. I was accused of not understanding that. Jim D. said the reason Kohn fabricated the Bertrand connection was to discredit Garrison. I said Kohn did not say that. Jim D. insisted he did. That I did not know how to read footnotes, if I could read footnotes I would know Kohn's Bertrand reference was fabricated. Here is the complete paragraph of HSCA vol. 9, p. 101 (footnoted to an HSCA interview of Kohn):

"On December 7, 1978, the New Orleans Crime Commission informed the committee of some information it had recently learned from a former associate from a former associate of Sehrt's, a source it regarded as highly reliable. This associate had stated that Sehrt told him prior to his death that some party had contacted him soon after the assassination to request that he go to Dallas to represent the accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. Sehrt did not tell his associate who requested this legal representation, nor did Sehrt agree to represent Oswald. Sehrt's associate could not recall any further information."

As you can see, there is no Bertrand connection there. The Bertrand connection was first proposed in Peter Whitmey's good article 15 years later. Jim D. simply made a mistake, no big deal, we all make mistakes. Some people acknowledge this kind of error. I am quite certain Jim D. realizes it was a mistake now, though it is unlikely he will say so. Most likely Jim D. will move on to other topics or things, may or may not attack me now or later on some other failing of mine over here or over there, whatever. But what he will not do is repeat the claim that Kohn in the above paragraph fabricated a connection to Bertrand, the idea that Whitmey published 15 years later. In this I do not mean to clobber Jim D. or anyone else for making this nature of mistake. I make this kind of mistake too, nearly everyone has at one time or another. It is helpful if it is acknowledged so it gets taken off the plate, but the reality is that is not what all people do. I have seen scholars react differently when mistakes are pointed out. Some acknowledge and correct. That is ideal. But especially with major scholars with reputations, I have seen the phenomenon of never apologize. They won't retract or correct, but they also won't bring up the point again. It just dies a slow death, with a long afterlife because the major-name scholar has it in print and it is not retracted and the mistaken claim is attached to the major name's reputation. 

In the present case, Jim D. has on record an unretracted smear of Kohn: a claim that Kohn fabricated something Kohn never said. It is unlikely there will be acknowledgement of the error or explicit retraction of the smear founded upon that error. But you can know he realizes it was an error, by the fact you will not see him repeat again the claim that Kohn fabricated a Bertrand connection. 

As I brought out in my opening of this topic, the Garrison investigation uncovered independent information that Marguerite Oswald said she called Clem Sehrt the weekend of the assassination seeking legal counsel for her son. So there is no point to saying Kohn fabricated a contact to Sehrt which Marguerite herself said happened and came from her. 

I have been thinking further on that Jan 11, 1967 LBJ/Abe Fortas phone call in which LBJ says, “if we'd had anybody less than ... the chief justice, I would already have been indicted”.

I don't think that is LBJ saying if not for Earl Warren he would have been indicted for killing JFK. I also think it is not exactly clear whether he is referring to Earl Warren as head of the Warren Commission or of the Supreme Court. I think the "indictment" alludes to the known risk and spectre and issue of indictment many believe LBJ faced, conceivably prison, in his last months as vice-president before Nov 22, 1963, in the Bobby Baker scandal and a congressional investigation which was dropped after Nov 22, 1963.

In the context of that phone call, LBJ sees the Kennedys as controlling media and able through media and targeted prosecutions to take down their opponents. As he cited other cases of victims of the Kennedy machine taken down (in that phone call continuing after the transcript excerpt), he saw himself as one such in his earlier experience and near-miss of the Bobby Baker scandals. Exactly how in LBJ's reasoning Earl Warren made the difference in LBJ not being indicted I do not know. As chief justice Earl Warren gave decisions favorable to civil rights legislation that was a success of the Johnson presidency, would that be it? If the meaning was Earl Warren as the head of the Warren Commission, perhaps it was having a final report exonerate every agency and portray Johnson sympathetically, reducing pressure in Congress to prosecute a sitting president.

The main point is there is no confession of the JFK assassination there unless one goes for Freudian slip explanations.

The paragraph of HSCA vol 9, p. 101 dealing with Clem Sehrt having been contacted (does not actually say by telephone) soon after the assassination asking him to go to Dallas to represent Oswald, is attributed to the New Orleans Crime Commission. There are four footnotes, 128-131, all of which go to "Interview of Aaron M. Kohn, Dec. 2, 1978, House Select Committee on Assassinations."

I have no idea why you are going nasty or why you are saying that witness testimony citation is worthless. Books footnote statements from witnesses to dates of interviews all the time. What does that have to do with anything? Why are you talking about footnotes anyway? You got your reading of the content screwed up is what happened. Instead of acknowledging, thanking me for bringing it to your attention, maybe making a minor correction in future publications of the point ... you go nasty toward me.

So to close this out, as I understand it you are saying disregard the HSCA paragraph on p. 101 of vol IX recounting information which HSCA says was told to it in an interview with Aaron Kohn.

Fair enough. You are free to disregard it, though I have no idea what your reasoning is on that. Meanwhile, I will proceed with any who wish to discuss the research I have posted in which I do make use of HSCA.

2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

This is why Kohn made up that baloney about Clem Sehrt.   (Look at his footnotes in the HSCA volumes, they are all empty.)

Because he knew Shaw was Bertrand.

https://servimg.com/view/19524087/2478

I think by "baloney about Clem Sehrt", you are probably meaning Kohn telling HSCA that an associate of Clem Seht said Seht had been contacted by someone the weekend of the assassination about representing Oswald. My reason for thinking that is what you mean, is because it seems to repeat what you wrote earlier on your site in Feb 2021:

"Kohn created the whole Clem Sehrt mythology: that a lawyer Marguerite Oswald knew was known as Bertrand. (https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/fred-litwin-on-the-trail-of-delusion-part-two)

But that is so mixed up and wrong. It just isn't true. Kohn never connected Clem Sehrt's phone call to Marguerite, or to Bertrand, or to Dean Andrews. Kohn never connected that Sehrt phone call to anything at all. Nor did anyone else. There was no connection that you are talking about made by anyone until conspiracy-theorist Peter Whitmey's article in Fourth Decade in 1994. So now you have Kohn creating a fabrication as a plot and you have a motive--all so that fifteen years later conspiracy-theorist Whitmey writing in an obscure conspiracy-theorist journal of a circulation all the way maybe up into the hundreds of other conspiracy-theorists would make that connection, thereby diverting people's attention away from the truth that Clay Shaw was Bertrand.

Due to the marginal, low-circulation venue in which it was published, nobody paid much attention to Peter Whitmey's making the connection to the Dean Andrews phone call except for the niche of conspiracy theorists who subscribed. Maybe a few CT's commented, discussed, probably so, I don't know, until now a still further 28 years later on the present topic discussion I develop that idea earlier suggested by Whitmey, as perhaps the second major argument development of the idea since Kohn told HSCA. That is some plot you impute to Kohn as motivation for your off-the-wall assertion that Kohn fabricated the whole thing, just so that Whitmey and I could run with it and discredit that aspect of the Clay Shaw prosecution (!).

It was Peter Whitmey 15 years later, developed further by me in the present topic thread 43 years later, who propose the connection to the Dean Andrews phone call or Bertrand. It is not Kohn who did that! Don't you understand? 

I think your smearing of Kohn as dishonest and a fabricator of his Clem Sehrt information given to HSCA, without any evidence whatsoever--just asserted ex cathedra on your sayso--is sad. There is too much smearing of innocent people. You can be better than this.

More on Garrison's mob-did-it theory of the JFK assassination

This continues from an earlier comment of mine above, in which I told of learning from another researcher that Garrison held a mob-did-it view of the JFK assassination. 

For clarification, here was Garrison's mob-did-it theory as reported by the researcher:

"The FBI also picked up information that Garrison was examining the Mafia angle when, in June of 1967, a Bureau  source said that 'Garrison believed that organized crime, speciically, "La Cosa Nostra", is responsible along with other anti-Castroites for the assassination.' In fact, in no less than Harper's Weekly of September 6, 1976, Garrison expounded on this concept in an interview with Dick Russell. He started off by saying, 'It's really not all that complicated. Elements of the CIA utilizing anti-Castro adventurers and elements of the Lan[sk]y Mob. It all revolved around Cuba, getting Cuba back.' As Russell commented, very few people back in 1967 had knowledge of the long association between the CIA and the Mafia. Garrison discovered this by his own digging." (DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed [2012 edn], 212)

Since Lansky and Trafficante were closely intertwined in their organized crime activities in Florida and pre-Castro Cuba, this lessens the distance between Garrison's theory and that of Blakey who also had Marcello and Trafficante. Both Garrison and Blakey therefore had organized crime in Florida and anti-Castro Cubans in their respective views of the JFK assassination (the anti-Castro Cubans involved were associates of Trafficante according to Blakey and Escalante). And did Blakey rule out a CIA hand in mob JFK assassination activity altogether? Therefore although there is a difference in emphasis in that Garrison emphasized a stronger role of the CIA as "the lead locomotive driving the train" more than did Blakey who focused on the Mob, how much of that is a difference in emphasis in the end?

But there was a big, BIG, B-I-G difference between Garrison and the 1970s mob-did-it theories of HSCA/Blakey and the mob-did-it books. This BIG difference was not over a role of the mob in the JFK assassination--both agreed on that--nor necessarily in all cases a possible role of the CIA (apart from difference in emphasis). 

The difference is that Garrison in New Orleans saw NONE of that mob that did the JFK assassination as having occurred in New Orleans, whereas Blakey and most other mob-did-it theories, and Robert Kennedy who thought Marcello killed his brother, saw New Orleans as the MAIN mob center involved in the mob's role in the assassination, with focus of attention on mob boss Carlos Marcello of New Orleans. On the point of which mob and where it operated in its involvement in the JFK assassination, the difference between Garrison and Blakey was night and day.

For Garrison did not believe there was any organized crime in New Orleans. Just didn't exist so far as he could see. At least that is what he said. Therefore by definition the mob elements that he did see as involved in the JFK assassination could not, by definition, have been in New Orleans, since New Orleans had no organized crime! All mob role in the JFK assassination that happened, in Garrison's view, happened in Florida, or anywhere else but not New Orleans, which was clean of organized crime. So it is not as if Garrison failed to acknowledge that organized crime existed. It is not that Garrison denied there was a Mob in America. It is not that Garrison denied some of that Mob was involved in the JFK assassination. But Garrison, living next door to a home-builder who had built Garrison's home and who was a long-term business partner of Carlos Marcello, denied that organized crime was present in New Orleans.

What comes to mind is Capt. Louis Renault in the movie Casablanca saying he was shocked, just shocked, at learning gambling was going on. Here is from the HSCA report on an interview with Garrison in Nov 1978. At this time Garrison had modified his views on Marcello to going all the way to conceding that he had heard some vague rumors that Marcello might have had a few shady things going on in the background long ago, not sure when, but long ago: 

"When asked if he believed Marcello was a man capable of having President Kennedy murdered, Garrison did not directly answer the question. Garrison stated that he has 'certainly heard' that Marcello may have once been involved in some kind of criminal activity years ago. He stated that he has some reason to believe that some of Marcello's money was obtained through criminal acts many years ago. Garrison further stated that he has heard of allegations linking Marcello to organized crime and the Mafia, but does not know if they are true. He stated that he has heard over the years that Marcello may be a man of significant wealth, and may in fact be one of Louisiana's wealthier citizens. He stated that Marcello is not active in real estate and is a businessman.

"When asked again if he believes that Marcello had the motive and means to assassinate President Kennedy, Garrison again did not respond to the question, and began talking about another subject at length." (https://www.jfk-assassination.net/jim-hsca.htm) 

Bear in mind Garrison was the public servant paid and mandated to investigate and prosecute crime. But he was unable to discover what every other law enforcement official and agency involved in organized crime prosecutions, from Robert Kennedy on down, had known for years: that Marcello was the head of organized crime in the region, headquartered in New Orleans. Robert Kennedy went to war with Hoffa and the mob and tried to have Marcello permanently deported from the US in a bitter struggle. There are recurring reports that Marcello gave a huge bundle of money to what may have been the most mobbed-up president in US history, Nixon, in the runup of the 1960 presidential campaign. Marcello's region included the scene of the crime of the JFK assassination, Dallas. And if it was not clear then it is certainly clear now, if you don't buy the Jack Ruby moment-of-passion killing of Oswald, then in Ruby's killing of Oswald that is looking at Marcello killing Oswald. It is that plain.

So it was not that Garrison did not have a mob-did-it theory (along with other actors such as the CIA on top). It was not that Garrison denied the mob existed in America. He just saw no sign of any mob in New Orleans worth investigating for crime at all, and certainly not for the specific crime of the assassination of JFK as he sought earnestly to leave no stone unturned in investigating leads that could solve that assassination.

Instead of investigating Marcello, Garrison went after Clay Shaw. Instead of going after the bad actor in New Orleans who may have done it for real, Garrison went after someone who had nothing to do with the JFK assassination, forever bringing discredit upon JFK assassination conspiracy-theory researchers who continue to embrace that miscarriage of justice and will not acknowledge it was wrong, horribly wrong. David Lifton stated it well:

"I think its ugly when the power of the state is arrayed against an innocent man--and the witchhunt that took place in New Orleans back in 1967-69 will always remain exactly that: an ugly incident in the annals of jurisprudence." (https://www.jfk-assassination.net/garrison.htm)

More on was Clay Bertrand Clay Shaw

I received this email from one of the brightest current JFK assassination researchers producing original research, Tom Gram.

Wow Pat. I stand corrected. It was about clearing LBJ, suspected the world over already, more than anything. You've convinced me. 

Of course foreign conspiracies needed to be eliminated too, not too hard to do since there never was one to begin with. But putting to rest a domestic conspiracy was #1. You lay out an eye-opening argument.

I looked up the LBJ/Abe Fortas phone call of Jan 11, 1967 you referred to near the end of your sections. The link is here: https://www.discoverlbj.org/item/tel-11333, and the relevant section is at -8:40 to -7:45. I made a transcript, which is pretty stunning. LBJ appears to be talking about the Kennedys and especially Robert Kennedy, although he does not say the name "Robert Kennedy". He calls them by euphemisms, "our friends up in New York", and so on. This section of the phone call follows Abe Fortas telling LBJ how a favorable series done by a reporter for the New York Times on the work of the Warren Commission was spiked by higher management, the story killed. It sounds like Fortas is implying a Kennedy hand in the spiking of that story. That is immediately followed by this below. The stunner is that in this phone call LBJ comes across like a raving conspiracist, accusing the unnamed them which appears to be the Kennedy machine of literally killing anyone who opposes them. Then there is reference to the same them which appears to be the Kennedy machine doing politically targeted prosecutions taking out political enemies. Here is Johnson, and anyone listening to this call can hear the passion and feeling coming through from Johnson as he says the following:

"They started--our friends up there--every one--y'all won't believe this, but every man that crosses them in any way gets murdered. They've started all this stuff. They, they've created all this doubt--its like they have with Manchester, and if we'd had anybody less than the attorney gen--uh the chief justice--I would already have been indicted. That's the way this operation runs. Of course everybody's got skeletons, and it happens that they pick out the ones with the most skeletons first. But they'll get to 'em. Eddie Wiser told me that in 1960. And I just couldn't believe it--I just couldn't think--I was just too naive, thinking anything like that in this world could happen. But I see it just plain as day now, just as clear as anything."

You read this as Johnson saying that if Earl Warren had not been heading the Warren Commission, but someone else (perhaps aligned with the Kennedys?) Johnson could have been indicted. Indicted for what? For the topic of the investigation Earl Warren was head of, the topic of immediate prior discussion to these words, the Warren Commission, the investigation of the assassination of Kennedy. What improprieties related to the assassination or its investigation or aftermath did Johnson have in mind, that someone else running the Warren Commission might have targeted Johnson for indictment? Well, Johnson does not say.

When I read that part toward the end of your above, I thought I have got to fact-check this, see if LBJ really said that and if in context that is being represented and interpreted accurately. But, I don't see how else to read the words than as you presented. I would be interested if others can offer some other reading, but it does read as if LBJ really did say and mean that if it had not been the Earl Warren Commission, but some non-Earl Warren Commission doing the same investigation of the JFK assassination, LBJ could have "already been indicted". Not necessarily for the assassination itself. But something. Or did he mean for the assassination itself. 

Just amazing. That's a game-changer of a piece of analysis Pat. 

2 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

Greg - how do you inow that Habighorst had an issue with Shaw’s attorney? Had you previously elaborated on this in a previous post here? 

From James Kirkwood, American Grotesque (1970 edn), 354:

The policeman [Habighorst] was cross-examined by [defense counsel] Billy Wegmann, not Irvin Dymond. There was an interesting reason for the substitution. Officer Habighorst's brother had been driving across a bridge several years previously and gotten into a contretemps with another motorist. They stopped their cars, argued, and then Habighorst's brother had taken out a gun, shot and killed the man. Dymond, who defended the brother, succeeded in reducing the crime from murder to manslaughter and the defendant had served four years in prison. It was widely rumored that Officer Habighorst thought his brother should have gotten off scot free, and his feelings toward Dymond were not friendly. In an attempt not to crank up an already hostile witness, Billy Wegmann handled the questioning."

I would like to make clear I do not think any issue Habighorst had with Dymond entered into Habighorst's testimony. I think it started out as a case of an honest cop making a mistake from memory in that deposition written ten months after the fact, then as it became questioned at a late stage sticking to it. 

4 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Litwin seems blind to the full context of the memo. In deciding to use the press to shut down "undue rumors" Katzenbach has started a defacto cover-up. Neither he, nor Hoover, nor the DPD, had enough info at that time to say it was Oswald acting alone, but they had already decided that was the best story to tell the public.

He is also misleading about just what these "undue rumors" were. One of the biggest surprises I came across when I started looking into this horrible bit of history was that most everyone has bought the cover story--that Johnson was worried the assassination would lead to nuclear war, etc--when the historical fact is that Johnson was mostly concerned people would think he was behind the assassination. That's right. It's 100% clear when one looks at it that the WC was created to clear Johnson of the crime. Warren would not think it improper to chair a commission looking into the possibility of foreign involvement, after all, but would think it improper to have the Chief Justice--the head of the Judicial branch--clear a President--the head of the executive branch. And he was right. It was improper. Grossly improper. So improper that only a Machiavellian animal like Johnson would force Warren to do it.

Pat on the face of it this idea that the purpose of the Warren Commission was to clear LBJ of the crime, and that was the issue with Earl Warren's reluctance, does not make sense. Could you elaborate or develop that?

Here is what does not make sense: you know there had to be a high-profile investigation in the public eye so the only issue was what form it would take. There was no evidence or credible allegation that LBJ had done it so it was not as if something concrete was out there in the air that needed to be investigated and cleared. No doubt LBJ did not want people thinking it was him, and for sure there would be street talk in America wondering if he did it. But as long as that was not the talk in Congress or from Walter Cronkite, which it wasn't, that does not drive an investigation of that magnitude. (What the non-voting working poor bottom half of America says or thinks being of little concern in the larger picture of things provided it is not organized.) Earl Warren's reluctance, its been a while but I have read that he had other things on his plate in his life at that time and it was not his wish to take on this major undertaking, for reasons that appear unrelated to an issue of clearing LBJ. I also do not see an obvious legal issue per se in the head of the judicial branch investigating the head of the executive branch. There is no legal conflict of interest that I can see in that (if hypothetically the investigation had gone in that direction). And on LBJ invoking the nuclear threat/Cold War becoming hot war issue, that strikes me as very, very believable as a real issue and not a pretext. 

That is why your comment took me by surprise. Could you develop it a little? Say why the the sensitive issue of the Oswald/Castro or Oswald/USSR linkages would not be of real, as opposed to manufactured, concern as to relations between the superpowers and management of conflict so as to limit the Cold War to skirmishes in proxy small states without going nuclear at each other in a big way? If, for example, there came to be a believed public narrative that the USSR had been behind the assassination--killing America's own popular president!--is there a realistic way that could not have gone nuclear? (Doesn't matter whether the allegation is true or not, only if it is popularly believed.) Maybe skilled diplomacy on both US and USSR sides could have navigated a non-nuclear resolution to a US president assassinated by Moscow--they could apologize? promise a trillion dollars to make it up to Jackie and Caroline and the American people? Soviet leaders assure the American people that the KGB who did that had been fired and it was a mistake and won't happen again? 

And if the only exit ramp away from the destruction of the world was for LBJ to explain that it was all some loose cannon CIA fabricating the whole setup to only make it look that way with Oswald, that might quell the overpowering popular urge to retaliate on the USSR (think 911 reaction driving the Iraq war x 500). But it would be an utter meltdown of the US intelligence agencies, the mother of all scandals (as Saddam Hussein would put it).

I can see LBJ leaning on Earl Warren, elder statesman of America with gravitas and respect, telling Earl Warren this was much bigger than what he would prefer to do with the rest of his life. It was existential. If he loved his country he had no choice. LBJ pressed hard and Earl Warren consented, and looked like a broken man the rest of his life over it.

What is your counter-narrative? 

13 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

Sorry, but when witnesses "directly involved" with major players or other important aspects of the JFK/ OSWALD/JIM GARRISON investigation come forward with incredible claims that bolster Garrison's case, it seems they are just too often labeled as L****.

Russo, Martin, Francis Fruge, Lewis, Habighorst, Bannister's secretary ( stating Oswald's presence ) etc, etc.

When all other avenues of discrediting these pro-Garrison witnesses doesn't hold well ( Dallas witnesses as well ) the final tactic is to just say they are simply l****.

Then you are left with either blindly accepting this final base assessment of these pro-Garrison witnesses "or" giving at least some consideration to the weight of logic, reason and common sense in determining whether this final discrediting label is more justified than not.

I don't know the personal background of Officer Habighorst. However, if he wasn't making money or fame by sticking with his Clay Shaw alias stating claim even years after his personal one-on-one encounter with Shaw in the booking department of the NOPD...why put himself out there for ridicule and attack by publicly doing so years later? 

And regards these 5 other witnesses in the NOPD booking room who contradict Gabighhorst's Clay Shaw alias claim; weren't they all farther away from Gabighorst and Shaw in this booking interaction?  

Sean Coleman...you admit cropping this copy of the the Habighorst booking document. Why did you do this?

Do you believe the document ( original and copy) is a phony? 

Do you personally believe Habighorst's Clay Shaw / Clay Bertrand alias claim?

Or do you also prescribe to the "Habighorst is simply a l***" take?

Here is how I reconstruct it. Habighorst was the officer who processed Clay Shaw. There is 100% certainty that both Clay Shaw and his lawyer were correct that his attorney instructed Clay Shaw to say nothing to police during this process--according to the attorney, not even good morning or how are you, literally nothing. Furthermore, Clay Shaw was accompanied by his attorney and the attorney sought to be with him at every moment of the process, though was prevented by police during the process of Habighorst's fingerprinting.

OK, Habighorst does the fingerprinting cards. He's an honest cop, doing his job, there is no attempt to frame Clay Shaw. (Whether or not it was constitutionally proper, I believe the refusal to let the attorney be in the room with Clay Shaw during the fingerprinting appears to have been procedure, not singled out by police for Clay Shaw--though I admit not being quite sure of that, but give the police the benefit of the doubt there.) This is March 1967.

Months later the Garrison district attorney's office in its investigation of Clay Shaw takes depositions, and takes Habighorst's deposition in Jan 1968, ten months later. Here is what I think. Habighorst is still an honest cop. He was mistaken in the detail of what had happened ten months earlier through carelessness (ten months later). He was not suborned into writing the statement the way he did, he just wrote it from memory. He had imperfect memory ten months later. Not intent to lie. 

I see an indicator in that Jan 1968 statement which reads in support of this "mistake" interpretation. It is that Habighorst actually gives the accurate sequence of when the signature was obtained from Clay Shaw in that fingerprinting. In his own Jan 1968 deposition Habighorst tells of having Clay Shaw sign the cards, following which, in the deposition, Habighorst then tells of after that, asking Clay Shaw for his personal information and Clay Shaw answering and then the rest of the card (including the alias) being filled in. This is in agreement with the whole point at issue which Clay Shaw testified had happened, and other officers testified was common procedure--have the person SIGN FIRST, then the officer fills in the rest of the card AFTER the prisoner had SIGNED a blank card. If Habighorst had intended to frame Clay Shaw, or if Habighorst's later testimony was true that Clay Shaw had framed himself (so to speak), Habighorst would have written his Jan 1968 differently, referring to the relative sequencing of when the signature happened. The reason Habighorst wrote Clay Shaw was asked to sign the card, before Habighorst then wrote of the information on the card being filled in, was because that sequence, in which Clay Shaw signed the blank card before the card was filled in, is what happened. 

The Garrison office notices Habighorst's deposition and runs with it. Six months later Habighorst goes public with his claim, in agreement with what he wrote in the deposition in Jan 1968, that Clay Shaw told him the alias. (As if Clay Shaw had taken "stupid pills" that morning, and blew off his attorney's instruction to say nothing.)

I believe what happened was Habighorst got what happened ten months earlier a little jumbled in his deposition of Jan 1968 and then became convinced that was the truth. At the time he went public with it in July 1968 I do not believe Habighorst was aware that he had been mistaken or that other officers would call it mistaken. The other possibility is that Habighorst was corrupted, not in Jan 1968 but in July 1968. By corrupted meaning willing to help the district attorney's office. It is known Habighorst had a serious personal grievance against Clay Shaw's attorney over an unrelated matter. Not any personal issue with Clay Shaw himself, but the attorney representing Clay Shaw. Did that enter into Habighorst being happy to stick it to that attorney's case as a contributing factor? Who knows. 

It would be a different matter if Habighorst's testimony had been backed up by his fellow officers as to the normal procedure and what happened. That would probably shift weight in favor of Habighorst's testimony to a lot of reasonable minds, if that had been the case. But that wasn't the case. It was Habighorst versus multiple opposing testimony from colleagues and fellow officers bringing out what nearly all objective observers have judged as what happened, which is what Clay Shaw said: he had been asked to sign the blank fingerprint cards first, then the rest of the information on the cards was filled in by the officer, which in this case was Habighorst.

Again, even if there is genuine ambiguity (doesn't look too ambiguous to me), ambiguity is not a sound basis upon which to convict someone criminally. Not in America. Do you agree? 

Sean's cropping of the photo had nothing to do with it being phony Joe. Nobody on earth has ever said that document is phony, even though you keep raising that as if that is a question. Although you can ask Sean to confirm this for sure, I am sure the cropping was inadvertent without intent to distort the appearance of evidence. I know of nothing in Sean's history that is other than honest, he is a poster on this forum who has a track record of intelligent and accurate comments, and there is no need to go to any conspiratorial question (in this case re Sean's cropping of the photo of the document).  

You're still in "just asking questions mode" Joe. Now that you've had a little time to think over at least the basics of the situation, both sides of this story, what do you think? Where do you come down? Yes, no, uncertain ...? what is your verdict or call? (Referring to the specific issue of the Habighorst claim that Clay Shaw told his alias, then signed the card verifying his alias on that card, as opposed to the defense testimony that Clay Shaw, in agreement with customary police procedure, signed a blank card that was filled in by police after he signed it, and Clay Shaw did not tell Habighorst that alias.)

Remember the issue here is not what about a lot of other Garrison witnesses over here or over there, but the facts of this particular issue. 

Saying, well, these other witnesses over here and over there of Garrison have been wrongly rejected and Garrison got a raw deal over here and over there, therefore I think the guy must be guilty in this case (even if I have no idea what the actual truth is in this case) . . . that is the most common form of logic by which innocent people get "stitched up", to use the UK expression. "Looks guilty to me" (based on other things). Therefore its OK to be loose with the evidence in this particular instance, because we know he's guilty anyway. 

On 4/3/2022 at 10:56 PM, Pat Speer said:

No, that woman has not been positively ID'ed as the babushka lady. Someone colorized the photo years ago and raised the question if it was or was not the babushka lady, and many jumped in line and said it was proof positive Oliver was a fabricator. When the truth is we don't even know the color of that woman's coat. It was a rainy morning. There were dozens of women in the plaza with beige, tan, or yellow coats.  There simply isn't enough info to say where the woman charging up the stairs came from. 

Thanks Pat. I think that older lady can be excluded as being babushka lady, not simply from the bulkiness of the coat that Joe B. mentioned, but the removal of the head covering. That the head covering was not removed seems confirmed by a photo of babushka lady, with head covering on, heading east on Elm after crossing the street to the Grassy Knoll area. Also, babushka lady had a camera strap over her shoulder, and the older lady does not. After reviewing Beverly Oliver's book and this 2013 video of her speaking, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOtZetem1qI, I think babushka lady was Beverly Oliver. Another photo that should be excluded as babushka lady is the one with the smiling face and sunglasses on the other side of JFK and Jackie in the limousine. That woman was on Houston, is not taking film footage, and the distance to run and set up to take film footage where babushka lady is before the presidential limousine got there does not make sense logistically. Most of all, in Beverly Oliver's book she gives photos of babushka lady (herself) and does not include either the older lady or the smiling face lady as pictures of herself. Also, in her book and story she tells her path of walking and it was west on Commerce, crossing Houston, seeing the spot on the south side of Elm where there were not many people and she could get good film coverage, and going there, the only place she was situated, for the purpose of taking the film footage (then crossing Elm to the Grassy Knoll, then east on Elm and east back to her parked car on Commerce). In the utube, she holds up a pair of shoes that she says were the shoes she was wearing visible in one of the babushka lady photos, and they do look identical. She fits in size, shape, she publishes photos of herself with the same dark-haired wig she says she wore, there is no other babushka lady ... I think its her, not much doubt to me about it now.

On 4/3/2022 at 10:56 AM, James DiEugenio said:

Is this more of Greg's Mafia did it angle?  

Let me take a guess: Clem Sehrt maybe?

Completely bogus if that is it.

The whole Sehrt as Bertrand stuff was Aaron Kohn's invention.  And it was designed as a "Mafia did it" distraction, which is what Kohn specialized in. What Greg does not understand is that this whole Mob did it angle was elicited and then magnified to both smear Garrison, and also to distract from his evidence. And you can take this all the way back to Peter Noyes and his Legacy of Doubt book. It peaked during the Blakey/Billings HSCA days and their following cruddy book.  Kohn was working hand in glove with those two, and he supplied the Clem Sehrt nonsense.  Andrews himself told Weisberg that Shaw was Bertrand.

Just avoid this rigamarole and listen to Paul Bleau, who went through the voluminous Garrison files. 

That is he did primary source work without the McAdams/Reitzes Maytag driver spin to it.

In this topic I presented what represents considerable research on my part on a certain question, a proposal and an argument, as an attempt to possibly advance better understanding of an aspect of the JFK assassination, for those who may find it of interest or worthy of discussion. You come over here, on my topic thread, simply for the purpose of trashing and discrediting and poisoning of a well, without deigning to read my research or comment on it, just telling others not to read it ("just avoid this rigmarole").

You say, "what Greg does not understand is that this whole Mob did it angle was elicited and then magnified to ... smear Garrison". 

Are you serious? The "Mob did it" angle did not begin in any public or published sense until after the Garrison investigations and the trial and acquittal of Clay Shaw were completed and over. The two books which are considered the first "mob did it" books are Peter Noyes, Legacy of Doubt (1973), and Dan Moldea, The Hoffa Wars (1978). Are you serious that those two books, and then Seth Kantor's 1978 and David Scheim 1988 and HSCA 1989 and so on, were done for the purpose of smearing Garrison in 1967-1969? Isn't that a bit of a skewed interpretation?  

I did a little further checking and actually found two mob-did-it proponents before 1973. One was Robert Kennedy, referring to reports of private belief on the part of Robert Kennedy that Marcello killed his brother. However that was never published.

The other was (boy do I wish I could do a drumroll here) . . . a courageous New Orleans district attorney named Jim Garrison.

I learned this from an author who has been at this a lot longer than me, one James DiEugenio. I looked up all the "Mafia" references in your book, Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case and find, according to your book, that Garrison already in the late 1960s was pushing that the Mob did the JFK assassination, with you at pains to have the reader understand that any claims to the contrary are wrong!  

"So the idea that Garrison never entertained any kind of Mafia involvement is one of the many canards passed around from book to book by authors who were all too eager to criticize the DA without even looking at his files. In that same year of 1967, there was a story in Newsday which stated that 'Garrison is trying to learn whether the Cosa Nostra and anti-Castro Cubans may have been linked by mob-controlled gambling operations in pre-Castro Cuba ... Garrison is trying to determine if there is a thread which binds the Cosa Nostra, anti-Castro groups, the late David Ferrie, Oswald, and Jack Ruby. During his deposition for his unsuccessful libel suit against Garrison, Gordon Novel revealed that at one time Garrison was considering involvement by local don Carlos Marcello in the assassination. The FBI also picked up information that Garrison was examining the Mafia angle when, in June of 1967, a Bureau source said that 'Garrison believed that organized crime, specifically, 'La Cosa Nostra' is responsible along with other anti-Castroites for the assassination.'" (DiEugenio, Destiny Betrayed [2012 edn], p. 212)

It is true Garrison believed the mob, whatever its responsibility in carrying out the hit, was still subordinate to the CIA in chain of command. But I also think there was a "green light" to Marcello and Trafficante to carry out the assassination, and that elements in the CIA attempted to link Oswald to Castro for the purpose of creating a casus bellus for an attack upon Cuba or the Soviet Union.

So what is the difference really.

Well, the difference is Garrison did not go anywhere with it--no evidence of investigation, let alone prosecutions, no development of evidence in that direction, and no book publication--as others later did develop, and in my small way I in 2022 propose to further develop. 

45 minutes ago, Sean Coleman said:

Apologies Greg, I did the cropping 

Thanks Sean for clearing that up quickly before I ran with a conspiracy theory of my own regarding that cropped photo! 🙂 You're a gentleman.