Greg Doudna

20 hours ago, Denis Morissette said:

DAVIS.  …. Shields. Alright. Did they go

And the answer Denis: Hm-hm. 🙂 

There is a name "Oswald" on that 1961 Bolton Ford bid sheet in New Orleans. That is the only fact from the time-- "Oswald" on a document. Not "Lee Harvey Oswald", not "Lee Oswald", but "Oswald". There were dozens of Oswalds in New Orleans and immediate vicinity, including one in an immediately adjacent business next door to Bolton Ford in the business of ordering and supplying vehicles for purchasers. Now the question is: why on earth would anyone assume this "Oswald" name on that bid order form was an Oswald halfway on the other side of the world in the Soviet Union, according to his mother, his brother, his wife, and himself, not to mention plenty of documentation--and not one of the dozens of Oswalds who actually were in Louisiana at that time.

Why?

Well, there seem to be two things. After the assassination in Nov 1963--two years later--some at Ford Bolton remembered that name "Oswald" and leaped to the conclusion that maybe the accused assassin of JFK by the same name had been that Oswald in their building in 1961. And then--six years later--one of the salesmen said he thought it was someone named "Lee Oswald" because he thought "Lee Oswald" (but not "Harvey") had been said and written on the bid form. That is six years later. Is it not obvious that that sole basis for supposing the "Oswald" was Lee Harvey Oswald is a retroactive manufactured memory of a salesman who admitted his memory was imperfect but thought he remembered (six years earlier) a first name "Lee"? And yet the bid sheet where he thought he remembered had been written "Lee Oswald" did not have "Lee Oswald". It had just "Oswald". No Lee. The "Lee" was a manufactured memory six years later under the influence of the Lee Harvey Oswald story of the JFK assassination.

So my question is very simple and very basic: is your only basis for assuming that "Oswald" had anything to do with "Lee Harvey Oswald" that six-years' later questionable imperfect memory of one salesman, six years later, who thought he remembered "Lee"? Is that it? Why then these whole mountains of discussion over this 1961 Bolton Ford "Oswald" focusing on the one Oswald who it cannot possibly be because he was not in Louisiana?

Why are you excluding that it is one of the dozens of possible Oswalds--Oswalds living in Louisiana in proximity to New Orleans? Or casting a wider net and adding east Texas or Arkansas would put it into the hundreds of possible Oswalds who could be the "Oswald" on that Bolton Ford bid sheet in 1961? 

What is the basis for excluding the known possibilities--Oswalds who actually were located in or near New Orleans at that time--as that Oswald? 

Seriously. And not even a mention of this, as if this is not even on the radar of possibility in your discussions! 

As only one example of the dozens of possible Oswalds that 1961 Bolton Ford "Oswald" could have been, Fred Litwin's blog makes an intriguing case that "Oswald" written on that 1961 Bolton Ford bid quote was the owner of Schulingkamp Motor Company located adjacent to Bolton Ford from where he could have walked over, named Oswald Schulingkamp. Here: https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/lee-harvey-oswald-was-not-impersonated-at-bolton-ford 

Would it not be simple honesty to disclose this link of Litwin each time you start or renew a discussion of Bolton Ford with your leaping to conclusion that the 1961 "Oswald" must be either Lee Harvey Oswald or clone or someone claiming to be him etc and etc and etc and etc, all because a salesman there thought six years later he maybe heard the name "Lee" and thought "Lee" had been written on the 1961 order form (which it wasn't)? 

Why exclude a priori a reasonable explanation--that the 1961 Bolton Ford "Oswald" was one of the hundreds of Oswalds within driving distance of Bolton Ford, and that "Lee" from six years later from that salesman was an influenced or manufactured memory after the accused JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald became famous? 

It does not matter whether one accepts that neighbor vehicle-dealer Oswald Schulingkamp was the "Oswald" written on that Bolton Ford paperwork involved with ordering vehicles. Fred Litwin's suggestion that that could be that identity is presented by Litwin as a conjecture, not certainty. I think the suggestion is brilliant and some form of it likely to be the true explanation, but who knows, maybe it is only coincidence that there is an Oswald so close by in exactly the line of business doing exactly what the Bolton Ford Oswald was doing--involved in the money or ordering end of the deal. But even if that suggestion is not deemed convincing, why exclude a priori dozens or hundreds of other Oswalds in Louisiana (or east Texas or Arkansas) as the Bolton Ford "Oswald" of 1961? Why insist on closing one's eyes very hard and believing that it must be Lee Harvey Oswald or someone claiming to be Lee Harvey Oswald--that particular Oswald of all Oswalds in the universe?

Readers note: see whether responses to this post answer the question, or go off further in all directions not responsive to the question.

Here is a fresh transcription I have made of four more minutes of the HSCA Edward Shields interview, including the "where's your rider?" exchange with Wesley Frazier told by Shields. To correct one misunderstanding, it seems from this transcript that Shields did not personally hear that exchange himself but was recounting what he had been told of it, in keeping with the other parts of his testimony in which Shields relates what the African-American employees at TSBD learned and told among themselves of that day's events. Is it noteworthy that on the morning of the assassination someone was checking to ensure Oswald arrived to work? Was the question to Frazier prompted by someone having seen two persons arriving in Frazier's car, then looking again seeing only Frazier by himself?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8Y9lU8u7S4

 

[START EXCERPT]

Davis. Now, let me back up a little bit. Are you telling me that this fellow said that somebody who worked in the Book Depository—the building down on Elm and Houston—hollered out the window and asked Frazier, where was his rider?

Shields. Um-hm. [= yes]

Davis. Are you talkin’ about the, the morning of the assassination?

Shields. I think it was, Mr. Davis, if I’m not mistaken, I think it was.

Davis. And how did you come about this information?

Shields. Well I was down on the floor when they hollered out and sayin’ how ‘I see you’, I don’t know, I think he said, ‘I drive to here.’ He says, ‘I dropped him off at the building.’

[[note: Shields' wording at this point is difficult to decipher. This transcription differs slightly from a commonly-quoted transcription of these lines reading "Well, I was down on the floor when they hollered out and said and the answer he gave them, I don't know, I think he said: 'I dropped him off at the building'."]]

Davis. Hm-hm.

Shields. Now whoever was hollering and asked him I don’t know.

Davis. Hm-hm. OK. This is the morning of the assassination. 

Shields. Hm-hm.

Davis. Somebody hollered out the window at Frazier and saying, “Where is your rider?”

Shields. Hm-hm.

Davis. And, and to your recollection Frazier says, “I dropped him off at the building”. 

Shields. Yes.

Davis. Alright. OK. Alright. Now, the guy that—or the person that asked Frazier where was his rider, where was he? Was he in the Book Depository when he yelled out, uh--?

Shields. He’s at the warehouse, uh, sittin’ at the back--

Davis. Where you were?

Shields. Uh-huh. Houston Street.

Davis. Uh-huh.

Shields. And he was parking on the back—

Davis. Right.

Shields. --on the back lot out there—

David. Uh-huh.

Shields. –and he hollered out and asked him where’s his rider, and he said, ‘I dropped him off at the building’.

Davis. OK. Now, have you told me something about venetian blinds—

Shields. Uh-huh.

Davis. --in connection with Oswald? Will you tell me about that now? 

Shields. Well the thing about the venetian blinds, when he got out of the car that morning he had a package with him. He asked him what it was, and he told him it was venetian blinds he was gonna have cleaned. 

Davis. Um-hm.

Shields. That was in—

Davis. Did you see a package?

Shields. No I did not. I was at the warehouse. That’s what they told me up there.

Davis. Alright. Now what you tell me now is what you heard--

Shields. Yeah.

Davis. --from up in the building. Can you tell me any one individual that told you that?

Shields. No I could not.

Davis. But they did talk about him having a package—

Shields. Yes.

Davis. --containing venetian blinds?

Shields. Yeah. A long package.

Davis. Alright. Do you know if anybody in that building ever found any venetian blinds?

Shields. No they did not. What they find was after the assassination was that rifle.

((someone else)) Do you know if anyone looked for any blinds?

Shields. No they did not. They just went by what he said.

Davis. How about, uh, Jack Dougherty?

Shields. He’s still workin’ there with me.

Davis. He works with you? 

Shields. Yeah he’s still there.

Davis. Out <<rigor>> roa—out at, uh, <<ambass>>--

Shields. Out at <<ambassador>>

Davis. <<ambassador>>?

Shields. Yes.

Davis. OK. Do you have a phone number and an address on him?

Shields. He should be listed in the book there. He’s on marsell--he lives on Marsallis.

Davis. Lives on Marsallis. 

Shields. Oh right around here, right up at the ‘C’ here--

Davis. He’s in the book. OK. How about, uh, Bonnie Ray Williams?

Shields. Now I haven’t seen him.

Davis. Do you believe that he’s still in the Dallas area?

Shields. Now that I couldn’t answer.

Davis. Alright. Do you know where Jack Dougherty and Bonnie Ray Williams were on that day—

Shields. They were on the s—

Davis. --the day of the assassination?

Shields. They were on the sixth floor with him.

Davis. Now wait a minute. They were on the sixth floor with him? You mean—

Shields. With Oswald.

Davis. With Oswald?

Shields. Yes.

((other voice)). They told you this?

Shields. Yeah.

Davis. Did they tell you this themselves?

Shields. Yeah, they all came to ask him when was he going down. And he said no, I’m gonna stay up here.

Shields. Alright. Did they give you any time frame as to when this was? Was this before the shooting? After the shooting?

Shields. It was before the shooting, ‘cause they’s all going down for lunch. And the parade is starting at lunchtime, at twelve.

Davis. Alright. Now, let, let me understand this. You’re telling me that Bonnie Ray Williams and Jack Dougherty were on the sixth floor, with Lee Harvey Oswald?

Shields. Yes.

Davis. Before the shooting? 

Shields. Yes.

Davis. They asked him if he would--if he was going down.

Shields. Yes.

Davis. And Oswald said ‘no’?

Shields. Yes. He was going to stay up there and look at the parade through the window.

Davis. He’s gonna stay there and look at the parade through the window. Do you know how they came downstairs? That’s the other two.

Shields. Well they must have came down on the elev--see they have a freight elevator there. And they really could walk but that is so slow they usually ride the elevator.

Davis. Did, did Bonnie Ray Williams tell you this himself?

Shields. Yes.

Davis. Did Jack Dougherty tell you this?

Shields. Yes.

Davis. Alright. When did they tell you about this?

Shields. That was the day after the assassination, the next day.

Davis. The next day.

Shields. Yes.

[END of tape excerpt]

Here is my transcription:

Q. –and stuff in the papers here in Dallas, concerning the assassination. Do you remember seeing a picture of Billy Lovelady in the paper?

ES. Yeah they used to kid him about that, tell him how he was all—tell how he looks thinner than a door jamb.

Q. Mm-hm. Alright, you know what picture I’m talking about? 

ES. I think I do.

Q. The one where he’s standing on the steps.

ES. On both steps, yes.

Q. Do you believe that picture was Billy Lovelady?

ES. I really do.

Q. You think it was him?

ES. Because after the assassination Oswald came through the building there. Mrs. Reid was sittin’ at the desk.

Q. Wha--Wait a minute. You’re talking about the day of the assassination?

ES. Uh-huh.

Q. After the shooting?

ES. Uh-huh.

Q. Come on—

ES. He come through the office there. Mrs. Reid was sittin’ at the desk. And he said ‘the President has been shot’. And just as he walked out the door the Capitol bus was coming. That’s when he rode the bus down to Oak Cliff.

Q. Now how do you come about this knowledge?

ES. That’s what <<Divid O Dito??>> was telling me when he come through the door ‘cause he ran upstairs—said he ran upstairs, after all that was over. ‘Cause he was tellin’ me--

Q. Who—who said that he ran upstairs? I’m trying to get to an individual.

ES. Two of them. There was a policeman upstairs.

Q. Right.

ES. Uh-huh.

Q. Now who—where did you get the information that Oswald walked by the lady at the desk and said, ‘The President has been shot’?

ES. That’s what Hank and Junior and all of them that was in there, that’s why they all had to go to Washington.

Q. Julian—

ES. Junior (?) <<Arbrade?>>. Jarmin Junior. And Bonnie Ray Williamson. And Hal Norman. And Mrs. Reid. And Mr. Truly. They all went to Washington.

Q. Alright. Did they hear, uh, Oswald make that statement?

ES. Mrs. Reid did but she’s passed now. She’s deceased.

Q. Did Mrs. Reid ever tell anybody that she heard that?

ES. Not that I know of.

Q. And who is Mrs. Reid?

ES. She was the head of, the head of all the women in the Personnel Office on Elm Street.

Q. She was in the Personnel Office, on Elm Street, and she was the supervisor.

ES. Yes.

Q. Hm-hm. OK. Now would you go through that again for me. This was on the first floor.

ES. Yes, yes it was.

Q. This was on the day of the assassination.

ES. Yes.

Q. The president had been shot.

ES. Yeah.

Q. And Oswald came through the first floor.

ES. Comin’ downstairs. And just--

Q. What stairs are you talking about now?

ES. The back stairs on Elm Street.

Q. Alright.

ES. That’s where that little lunchroom there.

Q. Right.

ES. And he walked through the door and Mrs. Reid was there at the desk and he said the president has been shot. And this is where I can <<told?>> the bus was coming that he got.

Q. Now this is what you have heard.

ES. Yes this is what I have heard. I wasn’t there to witness of that. I heard that.

[tape ends]

On 8/11/2021 at 1:27 PM, Gayle Nix Jackson said:

My notes must be in storage Greg, 

I'll get them as soon as I can.  I do remember though, how this line of research progressed.  Marie Fonzi, one of the most wonderful people in the world and the late Gaeton Fonzi's wife answered several of my questions regarding Silvia and Lucille through his notes.  Then I found a transcript of a tape that the late Harold Weisberg made of his interviews with Trudi and Colonel Castorr.  I'm going to try and upload part of that here.  Then I found the La Fontaine's book OSWALD TALKED (no critique here) but it mentioned all the people I just spoke about:  Silvia, Lucille, Marcella Insua, Father Machann, Sarita, etc.  I did more research and found that Lucille had shared her story in testimony.  It must be the HSCA and I haven't time to look right now.  Anyway, the La Fontaine book led me to a little known romance book (supposedly fiction) where the author changed from her married name.  Marianne Rahmes=Marianne Sullivan and the book is Kennedy Ripples.  I tried to contact the author who has passed away, but I did converse with her son for over a year.  He told me to get in touch with Faith Leicht, and I asked her about the movie story.  She remembered it clearly, but unfortunately, she too has since passed away.  Anyway, Gary Shaw told me that Wallace Milam had been studying this for years so I got in touch with him.  We share info back and forth and I finally went to meet Father Machann in person.  Since you've read the book, you know how that interview went.  So many people say that was the worst chapter of the book but I love it because I wrote out our interviews in longhand after transcribing them and sent copies to Machann.  He and I are still in touch though I'm quite worried about him.  He's in Thailand and he says he's being held there by his son who won't let him return to the US.  He has been emailing me cryptic letters saying, "Please help me get out, I'll tell you all you want to know" and it worries me.  Is he truly in jeopardy?  Is he just saying this because of his age?  WTH is going on?  

 

Okay the file is too big.  Go here:  http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/C Disk/Castorr L Robert Colonel/Item 02.pdf

 

More to come I promise!

 

Gayle

Hi Gayle--I have been rereading your book, and I also have now read Marianne Sullivan (Rahmes), Kennedy Ripples (1994). What struck me about Kennedy Ripples is that it is a true story ("this book is historically based and all events and interactions are described as accurately as possible"), telling of events of the 1960s. Then your interviews as if in a time-warp, find Father Machann all these years later giving a postscript or retrospective. And you are about the only person who has followed up on some of these people in later years. Just fascinating, especially if one thinks there could be something to the John Martino claims told by Larry Hancock. Some points that strike me, of possible interest:

• Kennedy Ripples's first words, an "Author's Note", refers to the stories of strange deaths and says, "Many more people were threatened, harassed, injured and frightened into seclusion, where they dared not come forth with any information concerning the assassination. I was one of those people [emphasis Marianne's]. As a result, for 30 years I too said nothing. Out of the love for my children in want of peace in my own life, I stepped back into the shadows of silence in order to go on. But now, in the winter of my years, my children grown ... I can only hope and pray that the effect of my written word, my true life experiences, will shed some light not only on the events surrounding the assassination but also on the silent torments of celibacy among Catholic priests."
• Underneath the Harlequin romance purple prose telling of her love for Fr. Machann, I see that as her vehicle to tell her story but her love was true. She wanted a future with him, a life and marriage with him. She says she had a miscarriage of a baby that was his. Reading the La Fontaine's telling of Kennedy Ripples it comes across as cheap or a joke, or as if she was a stalker. Reading Marianne's story firsthand that is not how it comes across to me. The stalking? After Fr. Machann's unexplained disappearance (although the mystery remains as to why) Marianne and her close confidantes--Faith (Hope) Leicht and Marcella Insua--thought Fr. Machann's disappearance and exit from Dallas may have been JFK-assassination caused and this belief was encouraged in Marianne--Marianne was victimized--by unscrupulous investigators. But Marianne had every legitimate reason to suspect or fear foul play, and was intent on moving heaven and earth to find him and ensure he was OK. That is not stalking. That is what someone does who cares about someone for real, like family members who spend years pursuing the truth of loved ones' disappearances, or like the son of Frank Olsen in the film Wormwood. In the absence of knowing, imaginations run wild and fear the worst. 
• What is sobering is her accounts of being tailed and stalked herself for unknown reasons in the years immediately following the assassination. What was going on? The reader of Kennedy Ripples, just as Marianne herself, does not know who or why, but suspects that it is related to the JFK assassination, perhaps the unknown, unseen, mysteriously powerful "they" suspected to have done the JFK assassination. I put some thought into trying to figure out the targeting of Marianne and what was going on with that. She tells of herself first hiring a private investigator to try to find Fr. Machann, named "Jonesy". Then there is another man who enters her life, who stalks her and romances her, spying on her, moving into a house with a direct view by telescope of her house, stalker of Marianne, named "Donald Simmons" (ch. 21). Finally there is the loathsome and unscrupulous Lt. Butler of the Dallas Police Department, to whom she is referred and of whom she gives a believable account of a sexual assault by him using his power. All of these investigators suck information out of Marianne, trying to get information from her related to the JFK assassination, and telling scary and unbelievable stories to Marianne re Fr. Machann--stringing her along. What is going on? I think your book pp. 268-272, where you present some of Wallace Milam's work on Holland McCombs archived-papers information on an unpublished Life magazine JFK-assassination investigation of 1964-1967 explains much here. The Life investigation involved the same personalities discussed by Marianne in Kennedy Ripples including Marianne herself, and much the same content of rumors or leads investigated of which Marianne tells. Life put major money into this investigation, analogous to Life putting major money into the Zapruder film for no apparent financial benefit. As you summarize: "Interviews were made; private investigators were hired, research was done" (p. 269). What "Jonesy" tells Marianne about Fr. Machann, Silvia Odio, etc. is similar to the Life investigation McCombs material. The next one, "Donald Simmons", however is not the Life investigation but sounds to me as best guess hired by Marianne's well-to-do ex-husband Mark. The unscrupulous investigator who purposely tries to romance the lady in addition to surveilling her sounds private-sector not government agency. Marianne's "Donald Simmons" corresponds to "Casey Denton" noted at your p. 271 from the McCombs material (Life findings): "An unscrupulous investigator named Casey Denton was hired by someone unknown to the Life investigation team to grill Marianne Sullivan Rahmes. He is described as a divorce evidence scavenger, keyhole peeping, unscrupulous detective (. . .) McCombs' team was interested in finding who was paying him, who he represented and his real purpose in asking about the JFK assassination ..." In Simmons/Denton's case, frightening Marianne with outrageous stories of sinister conspiracy-theory stories and how he was assigned or "sent" by unnamed forces to "protect her" (surveil and romance her), translated reads as a story of an unscrupulous divorce-evidence private investigator on assignment for pay. He does all in his power to convince Marianne that Fr. Machann is gone to her, vanished, she should forget him: "You would be better off forgetting him and going back to your husband" (p. 233)--and the ex, Mark, in the aftermath of what Marianne alludes to as a messy divorce perhaps with legal issues still pending, had the means to hire such a p.i. The story Simmons/Denton tells Marianne at pp. 232-233 reads as just total bullsh-t, analogous to accounts I have heard of how auto repossessers who are very good at their job will sympathize and convince the owners of cars being repossessed that they are on their side, as they take their car. This p.i. was telling Marianne, who seems to have half-believed him, that he was assigned to surveil and protect her by unknown mysterious parties too dangerous for him to identify to her but was on her side and she should cooperate with his surveillance and learning every last detail of her life. As for Lt. Butler, who knows who Butler was working for in his getting information out of Marianne. 
• Marianne goes into some of her own JFK-assassination conspiracy theorizing, and on one point may have been a victim of a ploy to discredit her (my conjecture). She tells of, in Chicago, finding a random copy of Esquire with an article about the JFK assassination. There she sees a photo of the mystery figure outside the Soviet embassy in Mexico City who was not Oswald. She says she recognized that photo as being a photo in the Warren Commission exhibits (which she had studied) of Amador Odio! (Silvia Odio's father, prisoner of Castro in Cuba.) And she publishes copies of the pages as evidence that the figure of the mystery photo was Amador Odio, both in her narrative at pp. 328-29 and again in her appendices at pp. 423-425! And there it is in her photographed pages, evidence: the Soviet embassy person labeled "Odio Exhibit No. 1" following the letter of Amador Odio also labeled "Odio Exhibit No. 1". When I saw this I did a double-take. Since this was purported to be a photocopy of a page from a Warren Commission volume I looked up the page on the Mary Ferrell site (here: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1137#relPageId=711). The actual caption published in the Warren exhibit under the Soviet embassy person is "Odum Exhibit No. 1", named after the FBI agent (Odum) who showed and testified to that photo. It follows "Odio Exhibit No. 1" (the Amador Odio letter to Silvia) because the exhibits are in alphabetical order. However in Marianne's book with the same font and typeface as if it is a direct photocopy the caption under the Soviet Embassy photo has substituted "Odio Exhibit No. 1" for "Odum Exhibit No. 1". Someone went to some work to cut and paste this wrongly, so skilfully that it looks like the photocopied page of the original volume. I reject that Marianne did that. But Marianne, unwitting to the error, published it, where it awaited being discovered to discredit her, and in her book Marianne believes it and may have gone to her grave believing it. I interpret that as either someone's practical joke or sabotage of Marianne's published book, one or the other. Although this is a wild guess only, it is the kind of thing Lt. Butler I believe has done in other cases and would be capable of having done here. (I think of Lt. Butler's ludicrous but presented-as-serious claim to have learned from an unnamed source that Oswald was the illegitimate child of Jack Ruby!) Playing games with people's minds as sport related to the JFK assassination.
• Marianne's story is real, true--that is, her truth, with a curious combination of a deep religious belief consisting of blended Catholicism, new age, and classics of love poetry, and the forbidden affair with the priest violating his vows. Marianne's closest friends, devout Catholic women themselves, support her in her matter of the heart. But it is heartbreak for Marianne because in the end it is unequal, she loves him more than he can return. Along the way by total accident she was caught up in the JFK assassination and some of the personalities involved in Dallas 1963.

Your last lines concerning Machann in Thailand suggesting he is is unhappy where he is now and would tell you more ... do you have further update on that?  

Does anyone know who this woman was? Gary Mack reporting, May 1984:

"Also unresolved is the fate of Fritz' notes of his Oswald interrogations. He told the Warren Commission he kept no notes, but was not asked why. The wife of one of Fritz's best friends recently told researchers that Fritz had secretly recorded his Oswald interrogations. Only one other DPD employee even knew about the recording equipment, which was in a small room or closet adjoining Fritz' office. The tapes are supposedly safe. She added that Fritz was afraid for the safety of his family and relatives, and that Oswald admitted being a member of the Intelligence community. There is no known reason to doubt the credibility of the woman or her husband."

(http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/M Disk/Mack Gary Cover-up/Item 19.pdf)

Another unrelated detail from the same link, this quote from Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Alexander, published April 20, 1984 in the Dallas Times Herald: "[Will Fritz] was one of the few intellectually honest police officers I ever met". Not clear if that was an accurate quote but it sounds like an assistant U.S. attorney considered an honest cop in Texas in the '60s to be exceptional, a "few good apples" interpretation of police departments.

Back to the Fritz tapes story. There have been rumors of Fritz Oswald interrogation tapes but such tapes have never come to light. One explanation might be because those tapes have something of Oswald on it such that unknown external reasons ensured those tapes would not come to light. However another possibility could be: some cases of claims of having secret tapes, etc. in safety deposit boxes, and getting the word leaked out to that effect, can be behavior of someone fearing for the safety of himself or family, just letting the right people know that he "has something", a claim of having "insurance". It is not necessary for the claim to be effective that the insurance exists, only that the desired party believes that it could exist. Of course if that is what was going on with Fritz that would suggest Fritz was not certain Oswald was a lone nut and considered there could be living conspirators still at large. How does one distinguish bluffing from reality in cases such as this genre of claim (stories of secret tapes that no one has ever seen)?

The biggest cause for skepticism that such Fritz tapes exist: if they existed it would seem they would have come to light by now, or someone would have talked. Of course Gary Mack did report a claim in 1984 that someone was talking, but who was she? 

Larry do you know anything about this woman claiming to know of Fritz Oswald tapes?

I have thought of those speeches and how it is unthinkable that you would hear those kinds of speeches from a Nixon or a Reagan or a Trump. Those were speeches up there with King's "I Have a Dream". Yes America lost when JFK was assassinated. 

4 hours ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

No.

EDIT: Should have said I don't believe in conspiracy theories. Conspiracies have, of course, occurred in history.

Tracy just for clarification of definition, do you suspect the Jimmy Hoffa killing was the result of a conspiracy (two or more persons premeditating the murder, instead of just one)? 99.9% of other people do. Yet that has never been established in the sense of a formal finding by a court or epistemological authority. Is the belief held by the 99.9% of people who just assume Hoffa was whacked in a gangland contract killing of some sort (conspiracy) a "conspiracy theory" or a "conspiracy fact"? What do you think about the Hoffa killing and does that make you a believer in at least one conspiracy theory, in that case? If not, why not? (according to operable definitions)

From Fred Litwin's blog. I believe he has cracked (solved) this one, the solution. "Oswald" written on the Bolton Ford bid quote was Oswald Schulingkamp, owner of Schulingkamp Motor Company, adjacent to Bolton Ford. "Lee Harvey Oswald was not Impersonated at Bolton Ford", https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/lee-harvey-oswald-was-not-impersonated-at-bolton-ford.

A mountain of Oswald impersonation articles, gone just like that!

There never was any evidence in the first place that that "Oswald" in Louisiana in 1961 referred to Lee Harvey Oswald. But now it no longer is a mystery who that "Oswald" was--solved!

3 hours ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

The term relates to the discussion of conspiracy theories. It comes, not from me, but from Professor Uscinski, an expert on the subject. 

Uscinski explains:

"An appropriate epistemological authority, therefore, is one that is trained to assess knowledge claims in a relevant area and draw conclusions from valid data using recognized methods in an unbiased way."

Of course, I understand that just about no one here at EF believes the WC was unbiased. But Uscinski does mention Presidential commissions, congress and the FBI as examples of these authorities. So, these are the kind of authorities that the conspiracy people must convince.

The problem with having Stone as a mechanism for change is one that you have alluded to-his poor track record. JFK the film was full of falsehoods and Dave Reitzes found 100 of them. And as you say, there is at least some "nonsense" in his current documentary (I would say most of it is). So, the authorities you must convince will ignore him for this reason. 

Now, maybe your assessment of the situation is more accurate than mine and eventually the current epistemological authorities will die off and be replaced by new ones amenable to your position. Time will tell and anything is possible.

 

I follow the point on the term "epistemological authority". It is like a wise old professor emeritus I knew, a holocaust refugee who had become a formidable scholar, told me once: politically and on human rights he believed in equality, he said (he was opposed to social classism), but on scholarship he was an elitist: not all ideas and not all who advocate ideas are equal. 

But on the Warren Commission as one of those epistemological authorities: how does one assess it if the Warren Commission's published conclusion was "there was no conspiracy" but a majority of the seven signatories of the Warren Commission actually believed, at the time they signed it, that there was, against their own signatures to a report asserting the opposite? I believe it is essentially uncontested that at least three of the seven (Boggs, Cooper, Russell) disagreed that Oswald acted alone. And according to Russell, in a WSB-TV, Atlanta, Ga. interview, Feb 11, 1970, it was at least four. Russell:

"I never believed that Lee Harvey Oswald planned that altogether by himself ... [T]here were so many circumstances there that led me to believe that you couldn't just completely eliminate the possibility that he did have some co-conspirators ... I'm not completely satisfied in my own mind that he did plan and commit this act altogether on his own, without consultation with anyone else. And that's what a majority of the Committee wanted to find." (cited https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/fac_pm/133/ )

A fourth who Russell may have had in mind which would constitute a majority of the seven may have been McCloy, whose position on the conspiracy matter seems equivocal or debated at the time of publication of the Warren Report (I have not studied McCloy thoroughly). But McCloy in 1978: "I no longer feel we simply had no credible evidence or reliable evidence in proof of a conspiracy ..." (cited in A. and R. Summers, "The Ghosts of November", Dec. 1994 Vanity Fair, https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/1994/12/the-ghosts-of-november).

And so here is the oddity that, according to testimony of one of the members of the Warren Commission (fairly credible witness testimony), a majority of the Warren Commission disagreed with their own unanimous published conclusion that responsibility for the JFK assassination began and ended with Oswald alone. A majority of the Commissioners wanted to find differently than they did, according to Commissioner Russell.

Then there is that later claim of French president Giscard D'Estaing that one of the other of the seven, Ford, told him the Commissioners believed there was a conspiracy but had never been able to prove it. However that is not supported by anything known from Ford himself. However it could also easily have come from Ford saying something like, *"Yes, Giscard, some of us did consider and suspect there was a conspiracy, but we never were able to find any evidence for that"--that would not be inconsistent with Ford's public record. 

It has been reported that pretty much all of the European nations' intelligence agencies, and the intelligence agency of the Soviet Union, believed that there was a conspiracy in the JFK assassination. If US epistemological authorities concluded otherwise they were outliers, in the spectrum of judgment of world epistemological authorities. 

The second major US investigation, HSCA, an epistemological authority, concluded in print that there was a conspiracy, though that was on the basis of an acoustics argument which majority expert opinion overturned and remains rejected today, in term of majority expert opinion. Rejection of that acoustics argument removes the positive evidence cited by HSCA as proving there was a conspiracy (a fourth shot from a different direction), however without the acoustics evidence HSCA likely still would have concluded by leaving the conspiracy question open. As I recall HSCA concluded that Marcello and Trafficante had means, motive, and opportunity to kill JFK though HSCA had not found evidence of such, but had not excluded a Mob role in the assassination either. Blakey, chief counsel of HSCA, speaking personally: "The Mob did it ... It is a historical truth". 

So one US epistemological authority's published conclusion, that of the Warren Commission, unanimous (all seven signed), was "no conspiracy", while there are credible reports that a majority of those Warren Commission signatories disagreed with their own unanimous published conclusion and believed "there was a conspiracy". And the second, HSCA, does say in its published conclusion that there was a conspiracy (though the basis for that is widely understood subsequently to have been discredited by epistemological authorities), and its chief counsel, Blakey, considered the indications that JFK was hit by the Mob to be so strong as not to be simply theory but fact. Hoover's FBI, however, concluded there was "no conspiracy" and there may have been other government agency investigations which concluded the same on the conspiracy question though I cannot specifically cite any. I don't think the Dallas Police Department issued a formal opinion on the JFK assassination conspiracy question. The sense is that whereas Dallas police essentially unanimously believed Oswald killed Tippit alone, that Oswald killed JFK alone was not nearly so unanimous, from Chief Curry on down. 

It may be objected that the Commissioners of the Warren Commission were basically figureheads rubber-stamping their signatures on a report prepared by staff rewriting FBI reporting which did the actual work, and that would be true. Probably most Supreme Court decisions published in the name of the Justices represent mostly staff work too, but it comes out in the name of the Justices and the Court itself. What would we think of a unanimous Supreme Court decision if a majority of the Supreme Court justices said they privately believed that unanimous ruling had been a wrong ruling and if it had been up to them they would have ruled differently? Where would the epistemological authority be in that case?

Also speaking of "conspiracy theorist", take the murder of Jimmy Hoffa. It is safe to say everyone believes that was a conspiracy. I assume the reason people who believe Hoffa was whacked are not called "conspiracy theorists" is because that is considered a "conspiracy fact" not a theory (by epistemological authorities)? And yet formally the Hoffa killing has never been solved--the "whacked/conspiracy" assumption, just as in the cases of other high-profile unsolved gangland killings such as of Roselli and Giancana, are just assumptions, however assumptions that nobody seriously questions. This would be analogous to how essentially every national intelligence agency on earth other than in the US also just assumed JFK had been whacked, certainly before but probably still in most cases after the Warren Commission's findings. 

The verdict of epistemological authorities on the issue of conspiracy in the assassination of JFK therefore seems more equivocal than it is sometimes presented.

Thanks Chris. For unknown reason that is not working on my Mac laptop, but apparently the technical glitch is not the case with most other people and computers. 

7 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

In the talk I will give in San Francisco this weekend, I will explain that one of the things I told Oliver was that I did not think we should advance a theory as to how the crime was actually committed. Because that had been the graveyard of others.  Nigel Turner, for example, fell on his face twice in that regard e.g. Steve Rivele and the French Connection and then the Malcolm Wallace fingerprint.

Since neither the FBI, the Commission nor the HSCA ever conducted a criminal investigation it would be difficult to do that kind of thing. And if we had, it would detract from the very solid evidence in the film that discredits the Commission and acquits Oswald, and does indicate a sophisticated conspiracy.  Which is what Chomsky denied to Morrisey.

As per my theory of the crime, contrary to what you posit Greg, I have set forth what I think happened. In the days of David Von Pein he provoked me to do so and I did.  I still stand by that theory, although I am not going to dig it up right now.  In the long version of the film, there is an implicit motive applied also. 

That's what I mean. Here it is 59 years after the assassination, and after all this time you cannot cite a single book or article in print that expresses what you believe is the solution to the case. This is not a criticism either of you or of JFK Revisited. It is only an appeal not to condemn Chomsky for not doing what you are unable to do in print either.

As I see it JFK Revisited is an argument that (1) the Warren Commission has numerous problems and is unsatisfactory; (2) it was a high-level coup-level conspiracy; (3) there was a high-level coverup; and (4) JFK was killed because of good directions he was headed. It is sufficient for the film to make that argument or case without going to (5) solution to the case. 

I think Chomsky had no problem with #1 but was not convinced of #2 or #4 therefore took the position that he "didn't know and didn't care" concerning #5. Honest inquiry: in your judgment will the four-hour version of JFK Revisited establish #2? (to the exclusion of, say, a mob hit or Milteer/minutemen assassination or Castro sympathizers--i.e. some wildcat assassination, a low-level conspiracy not anywhere near coup-level?) By "establish" I don't mean proof or beyond reasonable doubt, but rather credible explicit argument that will withstand scrutiny (that is, an argument with some substance, not easily falsified).

7 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

As per Clay Shaw, Greg, I really have to say this: your ideas about Shaw/Bertrand really seem to echo the likes of the Washington Post..  No matter how much evidence is produced to show the contrary, you still stick to this outmoded concept. This is a guy who denied he worked with the CIA, yet we now know he had three CIA clearances. For whatever reason, the ARRB discovered that the CIA destroyed his 201 file.  He denied he was Bertrand, yet 12 witnesses said they knew he used that alias. Both the FBI and DOJ knew this was the case. So did Dean Andrews. And two of those witnesses are open ended types. Ed Tatro's source and Ricky Planche both said, heck everyone in the Quarter knew this.  The FBI knew he was lying about not knowing Ferrie. Several witnesses saw him with Oswald in Clinton/Jackson; he admitted to Phil Dyer that he knew Oswald; Paul Bleau, who is doing some amazing work on Oswald in New Orleans,  is coming out with a new article in which a witness said he saw Oswald with Shaw before he defected. The only person I know who rivals Shaw on this lying score is Kerry Thornley.

Now let us step back into the real world and listen to a colloquy on this issue:

Q: False exculpatory statements are used for what?

A: Well, either substantive prosecution or evidence of intent in a criminal prosecution.

Q: Exactly. Intent and consciousness of guilt, right?

A: That is right. (CNBC story by Arriana McLymore, 7/7/2016)

The guy doing the questioning above was Trey Gowdy, the guy replying was Jim Comey. A combined 34 years as professional prosecutors. They knew what they were talking about. The question Shaw was intent on avoiding was: Why did you call Andrews and tell him to go to Dallas to defend Oswald? Which indicates consciousness of guilt.

Or to put it more simply, let us use another attorney, the late Allard Lowenstein: In my experience as a lawyer, people with nothing to hide don't hide things.

In other words, you are unable to respond to the question of what exactly it is you suppose Clay Shaw did to kill JFK, let alone name any specific evidence for whatever it is that you are unable to say. What you say above does not address the question asked. What did he do? What was his crime? What did he do wrong that was involved with the assassination of JFK?

I do not know why Clay Shaw either perjured, or was not forthcoming, whichever it was, concerning his CIA history. But I have a pretty good idea why he perjured concerning his probably false claim not to have known Ferrie. It was not consciousness of guilt of the assassination of JFK that caused that falsehood. It was consciousness of professional ruin and criminal charge vulnerability if he was outed as gay in an era when being gay was criminal (as Alecia Long's work has opened my eyes on that), which was probably the basis upon which Clay Shaw knew Ferrie. I don't think your assumption is valid that lying or perjury automatically carries a straight line to proof of guilt in the assassination of JFK. There are all sorts of reasons people do not tell the truth. (Think of all the times Marina lied in her testimony. While some of that may or may not have been consciousness of guilt of something, I don't think you would recommend the same logic to conclude Marina therefore was a witting participant in a conspiracy to assassinate JFK.) You need more evidence than that for Clay Shaw. Where is the specific xyz overt act of Clay Shaw involved in the planning or execution of the assassination of JFK and what is the xyz evidence proving that overt criminal act or witting participation? I don't think you can say, because there isn't any.  

Getting someone a lawyer, or registering African Americans to vote, is not an overt criminal act proving participation in a conspiracy to assassinate JFK--even if Clay Shaw did either of those with Oswald (very questionable on both counts, but even if he did). 

However I see Oliver Stone and you have focused this film--the two-hour version anyway--without pressing the Clay Shaw aspect. So that is something of a side issue and not central to JFK Revisited. Looking forward to the four-hour version! 

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

As to the case itself, if one is not convinced by the evidence in JFK Revisited then one will never be convinced.  The main points brought up in the film is court room kind of stuff that goes to the heart of both fraud and hiding exculpatory evidence. Its the kind of thing that gets felony cases thrown out of court in the real world.  The problem with this case is that that people like Chomsky and ZInn have taken it out of the criminal realm and turned it into something political. That is what I mean by giving up the high ground.

I was not referring to the case against the Warren Commission, which is JFK Revisited. I was referring to a solution to the question of who killed JFK. You yourself to my knowledge have not set out a solution, a specific conspiracy theory, other than to cast wide suspicions on maybe 100-200 people usually without concrete specific allegations, and certainty in the case of maybe one: Clay Shaw, where the case that Clay Shaw conspired to kill JFK is so weak that even half of JFK assassination conspiracy researchers do not believe Clay Shaw had anything to do with plotting to assassinate President Kennedy, and you yourself to this day do not make clear what exactly you suppose Clay Shaw actually did, specifically, to kill JFK, other than that you are sure he was guilty of something, somewhere, somehow. That is not what I call a solution to the case. 

I agree there are strong grounds to impeach the Warren Commission's conclusions. There are compelling grounds not only for reasonable doubt of Oswald's guilt in the cases of both the JFK and Tippit killings, but credible argument for exoneration in both of those cases. That, however, does not solve the question of "who killed JFK?" From what I saw, JFK Revisited did not propose a specific solution, nor am I aware that you have ever offered a specific one either. There have been specific solutions argued by various other authors, some better-argued than others, and who knows, one of them could even be right, but no existing argued proposed solution to the case to my knowledge has gained majority consensus even internal to JFK assassination researchers. That is what I meant. 

29 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

Has Chomsky been a Mockingbird the whole time?

No.

2 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Jim,

    IMO, one of the main shortcomings of Chomsky and Edward Herman's landmark 1988 text, Manufacturing Consent, was that it virtually ignored the major role of the CIA's "Operation Mockingbird" (and it's post-Church Committee permutations) in the manipulation of mass media information and public opinion in the U.S.

    The book was useful in raising public consciousness about corporate and financial influences on propaganda in the U.S. mainstream media, but said almost nothing about the CIA's "Mighty Wurlitzer," which had been operational since the days of Frank Wisner and the OSS psy ops experts who established the CIA.

    It was a very strange omission, because Herman and Chomsky published Manufacturing Consent a decade after Colby's Church Committee testimony about Mockingbird, (and Carl Bernstein's famous CIA and the Media essay in Rolling Stone.)

    I remain puzzled by Chomsky's strange silence about CIA involvement in our M$M, generally, and about his persistent denial (or blatant dishonesty) about LBJ's role in reversing JFK Vietnam policy-- especially since Chomsky was such an active, early critic of the Vietnam War.

    I suppose it's possible that Chomsky's recent erroneous comments about JFK and Vietnam are mainly a result of sheer ignorance about the declassified data of the past 30 years, and fixed opinions from the Halberstam era.  But that wouldn't explain his apparent dishonesty about the things Ray Marcus shared with him back in the day.

On your last paragraph, the first sentence looks accurate. But the second sentence alleging dishonesty in Chomsky is unjustified. Going through the facts: Chomsky listened to Marcus's case for conspiracy and appeared open and persuaded, and was thinking whether he should publicly embrace it as an issue (separate issue). Then there was a passing comment in a car speculating that the assassins of JFK could still kill people today. Then Chomsky declined to make it a public issue and said he did not care who killed JFK if it was not a high-level hit (coup) that changed policy, and said he did not see evidence for that or think that was very likely. At no time since then has Chomsky defended the Warren Commission, nor is it clear that he ever rejected whatever Ray Marcus showed him (concerning argument that the Warren Commission explanation was full of holes). Chomsky has criticized fellow leftists for two things here. First, hagiography of JFK--Chomsky considers JFK not exempt from his characterization of all US presidents without exception as war criminals implementing imperial atrocities on foreign native peoples (in Kennedy's case, Chomsky charges Cuba, Latin America, and Vietnam). And second, Chomsky considers "who killed JFK?" to be a deadend kind of rabbit hole question which sucks popular movement energy away from real issues of power and oppression in our world which are just right out in the open involving facts not in any dispute. 

It is totally unwarranted to leap to the conclusion that that random comment in a car is what "caused" Chomsky, out of fear for his life, to dishonestly draw away from joining the cause of JFK assassination conspiracy researchers who to this day have not yet offered hard evidence, only suspicion, of any solution to the case sufficient to convince a significant number of other serious researchers let alone the intelligent reading public. Chomsky has faced a parallel issue with people wanting him to embrace 911 trutherism, that the Trade Towers were brought down by controlled demolition. He says: take it to peer-reviewed science journals and relevant expert journals, persuade expert peers there by the power of evidence. He recommends activists stick to the abundant issues of human rights and power issues in our world for which facts are wide open and not in dispute.

The idea that Chomsky backed off from embracing JFK conspiracy theory publicly because he was afraid of being killed from that passing car comment is just a figment of imagination. It is a disservice to a public intellectual who is America's equivalent of the Soviet Union's Solzhenitsyn of the Gulag Archipelago trilogy, a searing voice of dissidence against the ravages of power, and just as Solzhenitsyn was bitterly and widely reviled in Russia for exposing crimes of his native land's government, so Chomsky similarly in ours. Do not fall for simplistic and baseless leaping to conclusion that that passing comment in a car explains why Chomsky made the career-direction choice he did on this matter, for that is just ludicrous in terms of anything that makes sense. Nor should Chomsky's choice be explained in terms of dishonesty, such a serious and lethal charge to level against someone, going not simply to being on the wrong side of what is true (as we all are at times) but doing so wilfully and knowingly, going to intent. Such language of imputing the worst of motives which has little basis in actual reality smears and destroys innocent people. One can disagree with Chomsky's position on the JFK assassination, but I would wish to see people have the decency to credit Chomsky's position as being a coherent position that has been shared by others on the left, for reasons having nothing to do with fear of personal safety or automatic assumption of dishonesty.

I think James DiEugenio is right on JFK and Vietnam, and Chomsky is wrong--because of the power of the evidence and studies DiEugenio cites--and I say that as something of a Chomsky partisan. Hit Chomsky hard on evidence and issues there, on the historical analysis of Kennedy. That is a worthy discussion. But the attacks on Chomsky's personal character--the smearing--is what I see as gratuitous and wrong.   

Jeremy Bojczuk's concise summary of Chomsky on the JFK assassination is relevant: http://22november1963.org.uk/noam-chomsky-jfk-assassination. I don't think in Chomsky's voluminous writings one can find anywhere a defense of the Warren Commission's solution to the Kennedy assassination. Here is a soundbite from Chomsky. Does this sound like a defender of the Warren Commission?

"Take for example all this frenzy about the JFK assassination. I mean I don't know who assassinated him and I don't care, but what difference does it make? It's not an issue of any general political interest. And there's a huge amount of energy and effort going into that [JFK assassination]. If somebody could show that there was some general significance to the assassination, that it changed policy, or that there was some high-level involvement or whatever, then it would be an important historical event. Other than that it's just like the killing of anyone else. Naturally you're upset when somebody gets killed, but why is it an issue for the popular movements any more than the latest killing on the streets of Hoboken?" (Chomsky, interview with David Cogswell, 1993) 

I don't think Chomsky is right on this. But it is a fair view calling for response in terms of evidence-based argument, not unjustified attacks on the personal character of someone who has been one of the most courageous public intellectuals in history.

Disclosure: my undergraduate major at the U. of Oregon was in a linguistics department which had the distinction of being one of the leading anti-Chomsky departments in terms of linguistics theory while being pro-Chomsky's politics. I had one contact with Chomsky myself, a question which he answered thoughtfully and reasonably.  

The link to Chomsky and Buzzanco, Jan. 6, 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nd0cN7MVHk.

"What Does Noam Chomsky Say About the JFK Assassination?" on the "22 November 1963" site (Jeremy Bojczuk), http://22november1963.org.uk/noam-chomsky-jfk-assassination.

 

2 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Greg D-

Then you subscribe to the idea there could be a Civil War in the US?

Obviously there could be if Trump incites one. Whether that will happen I don't know. With any leading Democratic figure and with any other leading Republican figure it would be unthinkable it realistic that they would incite organized violence. It is not unthinkable in Trump's case. He has repeatedly incited violence in small cases (urging crowd violence toward protesters at rallies, promised once to pay legal fees for vigilante violence, has joked about shooting border crossers and regretted not possible to do so legally, expressed lust to restore torture of prisoners openly at his command, channeled mob hate toward and pointed at journalists covering his event calling them "enemies of the people", etc.). But it would be parsed by Trump in a way to have deniability, words that can be taken in more than one way, on purpose. 

Let me tell you what I see as about one hair's breath away, could happen at any time. Up to now there has not been organized violence against human targets, i.e. brownshirts or death squads. There have been wildcat killings, lone-nuts who get pumped up on Trump rhetoric and kill, but that is not organized. But on the road to fascism it seems there are always, in addition to the strong man authoritarian charismatic leader, militias personally beholden to that figure, who carry out violence upon signal from the strong man or the strong man's subordinates. This will always have deniability, but at some point the brownshirt phenomenon begins: organized beating up, organized violence, against demonized targets. In El Salvador charismatic right-wing D'Abuisson would go on television and read lists of names of leftists, social workers, teachers, labor union leaders, call them subversives. Death squads--off-duty police officers moonlighting for extra pay paid for by wealthy landowners--would then go out and kill the ones named on D'Abuisson's lists. D'Abuisson denied he had anything to do with it. 

If and when that becomes a phenomenon in the US--it is not yet, but I see it as the next-stage tripwire of many tripwires that everyone thinks cannot possibly happen in America--Trump will deny. The armed militias personally loyal to Trump exist at this point. (Trump during the campaign told his armed supporters to "stand by", remember that? Trump has more than once spoken of rough types--bikers, hoodlums--that support him and "hopes it will not come to that" that they would be so upset on his behalf that they would start taking out Trump's opponents.)

Trump has the ability to start a civil war. Whether there will be civil war depends on whether Trump chooses to do that. 

2 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Have you met white supremacists who advocate a violent overthrow of various governments?  

If so, what part of the country do you live? 

No, I don't hang out in those circles. I witnessed some high school kids in a small town locally, where I was working, peacefully marching for Black Lives Matter, and previously I observed Facebook calls from locations 50 miles away calling upon armed right-wing types to go there and be ready to use their firearms if any person or property was attacked. The unarmed high-schoolers (white) were entirely peaceful (and seemed blissfully unaware of the venomous attitudes near them), while I observed the out-of-towner pickup trucks with armed nasty-looking types driving around, though no incident occurred that evening. It could easily have become a mass shooting. Whether they were formally white supremacists I have no idea, but it was clear they were Trumpers, and from the Facebook talk, some of them seemed like they were itching to have some action with their firearms. Pacific Northwest.

2 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Do you think the two political "halves" of the US body politic are demonizing each other for partisan gain? 

Yes but it is not equally distributed. 90% of the divisiveness is coming from the Trump side, 90% of the smearing, 90% of the big lies. I don't buy the notion that both sides are equally at fault on this. Trump has divided this country with his rhetoric in a way that no other major political figure, Democrat or Republican, has done. When the covid epidemic began (it began in the US here in Washington state) VP Pence came to meet Dem Governor Inslee to arrange federal aid. Pence behaved as a gentleman and Pence and Inslee conducted their necessary business amicably and productively. Trump made an ass of himself by publicly to the nation rhetorically attacking Inslee (Inslee had criticized him politically) and publicly, as linkage, urging Pence to withhold federal aid to the people of Washington state--we're talking medicine and medical care here--collective punishment because he thought Inslee had insulted him personally some time in the past. There are hardly any Democratic public figures, and hardly any other Republican public figures, that I can even imagine would behave in such a childish and atrocious way. He was wielding the power of the federal government as a sledgehammer as if he was a Mob boss.  

2 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Many describe the D-Party (outside of Bernie-AOC) as controlled by Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, media, globalists, the national security state and a billionaire donor class. Is that a fair wrap-up? 

Yes, its the worst major party in America except for all the others.  

But two things here. First is that a push for serious solution to that--concrete reforms for getting the power of money out of politics--is coming from the Democratic side in Congress, with industrial-strength opposition to reforms that address that problem at its cause, coming from the Wall Street, billionaire donor class etc. (similar string of adjectives as yours above) controlled Republican Party. And second, Bernie is not bought off, nor is the Bernie sector, and the Bernie sector of the Democratic big tent is major, and that is where I caucus. 

To your question, you leave out in your list of things "controlling" the Democratic Party, the power of the people, in my state, Washington, the voters in the precincts and the caucuses. You left that off your list. Think about that, why that is not on your list as having some pathway for reforms passed into law, something to do with what Democratic legislators fight for in Congress.

Think about whether you support the specifics of the reforms of the Democratic Party platform. I doubt you do, because if you did I don't think we would be having this discussion. If you do support such reforms, I am open to any better suggestion from you applicable to the real world in America to get those Democratic Party platform positions adopted into law than via the Democratic Party.

On 1/9/2022 at 2:34 PM, Kirk Gallaway said:

As I've said before the only impingement, the only check  that the  multi national corporate state can experience is through the separate governments of the world. And that's through appropriate taxation and the attempted diminution or eradication at whatever level of money in politics.The only way that can happen is through a grass roots movement of populations who understand and recognize these present relationships (because as we've seen in recent years, a miss as good as a mile!), and act on them in their everyday actions and at the ballot box. Not "withdrawing your consent" to represent yourself.

Yes. When I was in Denmark for four years in the late 1990s, my first time living outside the U.S., it was surprising to me to realize, looking at my home country from the outside, that compared to Denmark's ten political parties and similarly in other European nations, parties who form coalitions and participate in governments, the US was decidedly odd in having only two--two that matter that is in terms of holding power. And the two major American parties consisted of a center-right party and a far-right party. The Democratic Party (center-right) and the Republican Party (far-right), respectively. That's Americans' choices. But since then, in the era of Trump, the Republican Party has gone from far-right to extremist-right, a party of Trump comparable to the supporters of General Edwin Walker of the early 1960s, supporters who then wanted the death of political opponents and to take right-wing power in America by force, just as today.

Here is Noam Chomsky, so laser-sharp on nailing issues (like you in that respect Kirk, though different voices). Jan. 6, 2022, talking about real issues right out in the open. Talk about conspiracies--this is right out there in plain view.

"A year ago there was a coup attempt. No getting around it. It was an attempt to overrhrow an elected government. It came very close to success. If a few, handful of Republicans had changed their minds and gone along with Trump, it could have succeeded.

"Now since the coup, the Republican Party has been dedicated, openly, publicly, nothing hidden, to implement a kind of soft coup. To make sure that next time it works. They are doing it, nothing hidden. Its open, they're writing about it. Trying to set things up so that Republican legislatures will be able to intervene to overthrow votes of people at the election sites, will be able to intimidate voters, if you don't like the results you throw them out, a dozen different--keep the wrong people from voting. To make sure that a minority of white supremacists, Christian nationalists, of so-called conservatives, in fact reactionaries, will be able to carry out permanent minority rule.

'That's in the works. Nothing secret. Its in front of our eyes. Of course there is a strategy in Congress, McConnell's strategy, which is very sensible. Harm the country as much as possible. Make sure that no legislation passes that could help anyone. Blame it on the Democrats. Come back to power out of justified rage with misplaced focus. 'We're doing it, but we'll blame them. And people will see life is getting worse and so on, so it must be the fault of the Democrats. So we'll come back into power, we'll consummate our coup.' Its the end of American democracy. 'We can move forward on destroying the environment, enriching the very rich'--all of their main policy programs. 

"We might be facing not just something like the end of American democracy, but species destruction. It's very hard to exaggerate these days. It takes real literary talent to exaggerate. Because the simple facts that are before our eyes are frightening enough." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nd0cN7MVH, 35:20 to 38:25)

There are a number of good Democrats fighting the good fight. Bernie, not bought off, courageous, lit a fire for a new generation and some older ones too--lit a fire for me, I did doorbelling, sent in my token $6 or $8 repeatedly not to impoverish myself but to show continuing moral (if not significant material) support--but Bernie is not the only one. I remember 2016 when, as the saying goes, voters under 40 liked Bernie, voters under 30 loved Bernie, and voters under 25 did not know any other candidate existed than Bernie. Bernie did not make it, broke my heart. But he came close, and he's still there, in Congress. And I found good people around in the community in greater numbers than I could have imagined. These are the kind of people which I see as the hope for America and a better world.

And in the present situation, America's Democratic Party has become by default the firewall against Trumpism and spectre of hard fascism represented by what the other major party in America has been becoming--as if General Edwin Walker and his Minutemen militia supporters across the land with their mass rallies and death lists of liberals in public office, had taken over the Republican Party and the government of the United States in the early 1960s. 

For those like me who read better from a paper printout than reading 50 pages on a screen, Tom Gram has supplied this link to a printable pdf of his article.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XvkmfIq44G8B-B_RV4L90f5AoXYdRTN4/view

The article is meticulously researched and casts new light on some familiar and well-known anomalies involved with the Dallas post office, the testimony of Holmes, and the rifle mail-order--the lack of postal employee testifying to having conveyed a 5-foot package containing a rifle to "A. Hidell"; the missing section 3 on Oswald's post office box application; anomalies in Warren Commission witness testimony and in the way questions were asked of witnesses by counsel, etc. That there was official dissembling can hardly be denied by anyone after reading this study; what is less clear or obvious is why. A longstanding interpretation in conspiracy-theorist circles has been it is because there never was an Oswald rifle and all of the evidence was fabricated. Gram does not go that route, but instead goes into the documents and Warren Commission testimony to try to discover what was going on. Gram's theory on the "why"--of official dissembling in the presentation of evidence related to Oswald's post office box and the rifle order paperwork--is that it goes to the decision of LBJ/Hoover to not have Castro/Soviet connections and pin everything on Oswald alone. Gram demonstrates from documents--documents some of whose existence may surprise even long-time veterans? (a few certainly were new and surprising to me)--that Marina had a greater role in the paperwork, so much so that it could look like--from the paperwork as investigators found it immediately after the assassination--that Marina ordered the murder weapon which killed President Kennedy. Since Marina was Russian, LBJ and Hoover may have decided that was impolitic or would complicate matters--that is what Gram proposes as the rationale behind a "shaping of the evidence to fit", a different narrative of the paperwork in which it was Oswald through and through on the post office and rifle order. (Perhaps so that Marina would not become a negative target of public opinion or subject to legal charges herself--a decision not to go that route.) In other words, what was being covered up or altered was not that there was no rifle, but that the paperwork went to Marina instead of Lee. But whether one agrees or disagrees with that explanation of the reason for irregularities in the evidence--that there were irregularities in the evidence is brought out in this study to devastating effect. What Gram has done is show the anomalies not simply as scattered and debated curiosities in isolation but rather that there is method to the madness, a logic in the irregularities, in a careful and methodical way. This is a study that requires careful analysis and it will be interesting to see how this study is assessed by others.

Thanks Ian--corrected!

Tom Gram, "Rethinking Oswald's Mail: P.O. Box 2915 and the Missing Change of Address Orders". 

https://gregrparker.com/rethinking-oswalds-mail/

This was announced by Greg Parker on the ROKC (Reopen Kennedy Case) site on Jan 7, 2022, introduced as: "Congrats to Tom G. This . . . count[s] among the finest examples of investigative journalism to be found on the case. Warning: it is 50 pages of tightly packed dynamite."

Meticulously researched, going in a different direction than has previously been developed. Author argues on the basis of analysis of documents that PO Box 2915 may have been rented in Marina's name and that Marina played a greater role in the paperwork of the order of the rifle from Klein's than previously considered.

Further evidence Oswald was in downtown Dallas (not Irving) on Saturday morning, Nov 2, 1963

I have argued above and I think established that Saturday Nov 2 was the date of Oswald at the Southland Parking Garage and Oswald at the Downtown Lincoln-Mercury--the Saturday Marina said she remembered Lee arrived late to Irving one Saturday because he told her he was applying for another job.

All of that was before becoming aware of this document which confirms Oswald was in downtown Dallas that Saturday. From Dallas postal inspector Harry Holmes to the Postal Inspection Service, Dec 3, 1963:

"His [Oswald's] current post office box was 6225 located in the Terminal Annex post office just one block from where he was employed. The fact that this box existed was brought to light by the alertness of a postal employee in the box rental section who, after hearing early broadcasts of the apprehension of Lee H. Oswald, recalled that he had recently rented a box to a person by that name and upon checking his box rental applications, he did determine that this box had been rented to Lee H. Oswald on November 2, 1963, and promptly furnished this information to me and it was passed on to the Secret Service."

(Report of Harry Holmes, Malcom Blunt Archive, "USPS--Rifle order--Kleins Chicago--A. Hidell 1964", p. 31, quoted in Tom Gram, "Rethinking Oswald's Mail" [Jan 2022], reference at fn cviii, https://gregrparker.com/rethinking-oswalds-mail/)

The post office box rental would be done in person at the counter. Oswald combined at least three activities in downtown Dallas that Saturday morning, the third being the opening of PO Box 6225 at the Terminal Annex post office, before going to Irving that day. 

UPDATE 2/7/22: It is possible Oswald turned in the paperwork for the PO box in person at the Terminal Annex post office on Fri Nov 1, near his workplace (TSBD), with processing of the paperwork done and dated Sat Nov 2 at the post office, such that this item in itself may not require Oswald's physical presence there on Saturday.

Thanks W. Yes.

Chris, on issues of collapsing middle class, etc. that you cite--all true incidentally, and news flash, a lot of Americans who voted for Bernie Sanders, and quite a few of your reading audience here, are a bit more informed on this than you realize--have you read and what do you think of the work of economist Thomas Piketty who gives concrete proposals to remedy the economic things you name?

Roughly half of America's wealth today was not earned but inherited, and though I do not know specifics I imagine the situation may be somewhat similar in your UK. Piketty proposes "Inheritance for All" in which a stiff (but not totally confiscatory) inheritance tax on estates of over $100 million would go pass-through to a lump-sum grubstake to every citizen on their 21st birthday, with the amount adjusted annually based on how much is in the trust fund. A lot of economists have focused on wealth--assets--not income levels, as the most fundamental key to change of poverty mentality and bringing about a reality of economic security for all people going forward. There is no need to mystify with psychological self-help bromides as proposed solutions to poverty--simple policies that result in every person having their own grubstake, assets, will do that for real, say a lot of serious economists--the universalization of inherited wealth. What say you?

When you rail against "collectivism" as if universal health care coverage in Canada out of the tax base is on a continuum with the holocaust of N-azi Germany because both Canada and Hitler collected taxes = collectivism = slippery slope to totalitarianism = right-wing libertarian logic . . . and then cite shysters like Jordan Peterson instead of Naomi Klein or Ralph Nader or Bernie Sanders . . . you see, W. is right. I don't think you know what you are talking about. (For another view on Jordan Peterson see https://jacobinmag.com/2020/04/jordan-peterson-capitalism-postmodernism-ideology/.)

Here is a specific question. Earlier this year Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders introduced a proposal for a 2-3% wealth tax: 2% on wealth over $50 million and 3% on wealth over $1 billion. The money would go to childhood education, health care, and infrastructure (= jobs). It would directly and materially go to solutions to the economic issues affecting three hundred million Americans that you name. The specific question for you is: do you support or oppose this kind of proposal, and why? Please be specific.

"Mar. 1, 2021. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Bernie Sanders and other Democrats on Monday proposed a 2% annual tax on wealth over $50 million, rising to 3% for wealth over $1 billion. The Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act would aim to close the U.S. wealth gap, which has grown wider during the Covid pandemic. 

"A slew of Democrats on Capitol Hill--including progressives Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.--on Monday propose a 3% total tax on wealth exceeding $1 billion. They also called for a lesser, 2% annual wealth tax on the net worth of households and trusts ranging from $50 million to $1 billion. 

"The Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act aims at reigning in a widening U.S. wealth gap, which has been exacerbated by the Covid pandemic.

"'The ultra-rich and powerful have rigged the rules in their favor so much that the top 0.1% pay a lower effective tax rate than the bottom 99%, and billionaire wealth is 40% higher than before the Covid crisis began,' Warren said Monday in a satement.

"About 100,000 Americans--or, fewer than 1 in 1,000 families--would be subject to a wealth tax in 2023, according to Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, economists at the University of Callfornia, Berkeley. The policy would raise at least $3 trillion over a decade, they found. Warren called for the tax revenues to be invested in child care and early education, K-12 education and infrastructure. (. . .)

"The bill likely faces significant obstacles in the Senate, where Democrats hold the slimmest of majorities."

(https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/01/elizabeth-warren-bernie-sanders-propose-3percent-wealth-tax-on-billionaires.html) 

On 1/7/2022 at 5:26 PM, Chris Barnard said:

It’s impossible to say. In every election votes are stolen, whether 2020 or 1960. I don’t think that’s in question at all. The question is; to what extent? (. . .)

As an outsider, looking in, does it even matter? (. . .)

Chris, do I understand you correctly, that your message is as follows:

(a) It is not possible to ever say who wins an election.

(b) And it never makes any difference who wins or loses elections anyway.

Now that elections and voting are dispensed with as the least consequential thing any American citizen could possibly do, what is it you DO recommend people do?

(c) be afraid. be very afraid.

(d) however, the "be very afraid" should NOT, repeat NOT, apply to what the world's climate scientists, by unanimous verdict of formal statement of every national and international scientific organization on earth, says is the most serious threat to the future of the world: climate change. On this point, you and the fossil fuel economic interests of the world are in agreement: give a little lip service to it but for the most part blow it off. Not the right thing to be very afraid of. Nothing to see there. Look over here (vast conspiracy de jour). 

My comment: of the above, I think "a" is nuts, "b" is nuts, "c" is inchoate in the form you present it and contradicted by "d".

It is a message of learned helplessness serving the interests of those with power who do not want to be interfered with in what they do--the large-scale rapacious economic interests of this world which have little social conscience--to have a message of "don't vote" combined with "be frightened" of a vast conspiracy de jour (but do not focus on what rapacious economic interests are doing and respond to that in the form of regulation, voting, laws, and political action). 

It is not a helpful message to three hundred million Americans many of whom are in dire straits. People need to hear messages of empowerment, which means becoming informed and making serious and thought-out choices on specific policy issues and engaging in politics on local and national levels, finding others who share values and caucusing within one of the major political parties--and voting.

And note how selective and weaponized vast-conspiracy theorizing can be: Bill Gates, a billionaire who is serious about using his billions to eradicate hunger and infectious diseases in all the poor nations on earth--a billionaire with a social conscience!--becomes a lightning rod. Take out that kind of billionaire--a Democrat, a progressive! Take him out! Tell all sorts of lies and untruths in utube videos from right-wing swampy sources funded from who knows where that no one will fact-check but which uncritical viewers believe. Smear. Get him to stop that. 

No, I'm not defending all of Bill Gates' business practices that made him those billions. Also, there are legitimate watchdog journalism roles on any nonprofit work of the scale of the Gates Foundation. That goes without saying. But the world needs more Gorbachevs--who rise to the top of systems and then move to accomplish good and visionary things on major scales. That is what JFK was, and that is my take on Bill Gates looked at in the eyes of history.  

The most extensive discussion of Frank Ellsworth (though nothing about Ellsworth present with Fritz and Oswald in the Dallas police station) seems to be Larry Hancock, Someone Would Have Talked (2011 ed.), 171-75.

Incidentally, does anyone know of/have a reference for a statement from the Treasury Department that Oswald had no informant relationship with any of their sub-agencies, specifically the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax division of IRS (Ellsworth's)? Is such a denial formally on the record?