Michael Griffith
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Posts posted by Michael Griffith
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On 10/19/2023 at 4:09 PM, Anthony Thorne said:
I agree, a great review. When I'm slightly more cashed up than I am this minute, I'll be getting that book.
You can get the Kindle version on Amazon for only $9.99.
It is a very good, and a very important, book.
And Jim did a good job with his review of it.
BTW, Kamp did a 97-minute video on his findings, and it's available on YouTube: LINK.
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20 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:
Leaving aside the questionable nature of the evidence for Brown's claims about the party, I am struck by the sheer absurdity of the idea that LBJ, Nixon, and Hoover would have held any kind of a meeting the night before the shooting if they were involved in the plot.
When the "richest men on Earth" in 1963 ( Texas Oil ) come calling to ask your presence for an important personal meet up, even the likes of Nixon and LBJ himself take pause.
And what a remarkable coincidence. Both Nixon and LBJ just happened to be in Dallas at the same time and mere minutes away from the alleged Murchinson home that very evening?
Physically it was totally possible for LBJ and Nixon to have made that meeting. And LBJ may have only been there for 20 minutes. A 1 to 1 1/2 hour brief absence from his hotel including drive time would barely be noticed.
We all know Hoover was in DC on the day of the shooting.
So?
He could easily have made the meeting the evening before and got back to DC before dawn.
What is the documentation proving he was home with Tolson the entire evening before?
He ( Hoover ) was the one who notified RFK about it.
Again...so? What's that got to do with anything regards the evening before?
"He would have had to do an awful lot of flying in the space of about 10-12 hours to have attended the alleged party and made it back to DC."
How about 8 to 10 hours?
Yes, Nixon was in Dallas for a convention, but he had a protective detail with him, and there's no evidence he attended the alleged party.
Why would Nixon have a protective detail? He was 3 years out of government office and only a Vice President while in. Extreme right-wing Dallas loved the guy.
Nixon could have easily ducked his security detail.
Heck, as "President" Nixon did so. Drove by himself to pick up Jackie Gleason at his home in Florida one evening and took Gleason to the nearby Air Force base to show Gleason ET bodies.
I know, National Enquirer stuff...but even Jackie Gleason before he passed finally admitted this strange Nixon encounter.
And of course there's no evidence he ( Nixon ) was at the Murchison get together.
Of course not, it was "supposed" to be off the books.
Bottom line is Nixon was only minutes away from the Murchison home that entire evening.
You might get with Lisa Pease about Brown's story. Lisa does not buy it at all.
Wonder what Lisa Pease has to say about 36 year long employ Virginia Murchison seamstress/companion May Newman's story.
Newman had no publicity or money seeking bad integrity baggage at all like Madeline Brown.
How does Lisa Pease or anyone else explain Ms. Newman's Hoover story?
Misremembering? Exaggerated or even made up? Ms. Newman was mentally ill or suffering from dementia during her interview? Maybe sloshed to boot?
I don't recall any published accounts of Newman detractors explaining away her Hoover story and her personal integrity.
I would think there might be "somebody" alive today that knew Virginia Murchison and remembered her domestic staff back in 1963. May Newman, Jules Fieffer and John Murchison's cook Beulla Holman as well.
Newman was employed by Virginia Murchison for 36 years!
Still? You're still defending this stuff?
I thought the research community had repudiated the likes of Madeleine Brown and Fletcher Prouty years ago. When I joined this forum last year, I never expected to find posts, much less entire threads, that defended the crazy, nutty claims of Brown and Prouty.
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18 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:
Every once in awhile I make a mistake and look at a Griffith post.
Yes Mike, I think the title of this thread is loony. Its Mark Shaw BS, and Shaw has become a sideshow who has nothing to do with solving the JFK case today.
RFK was not in Brentwood, or close to Brentwood, that day. And the group pictures in Sue Bernard's book prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt. (pp. 186-87)
MM passed on by the process of ingestion not injection. Dr. Boyd Stephens of SF who was hired to do a review wrote that "The person metabolized the Nembutal in a manner consistent with oral ingestion of a large quantity of pills, and further that the metabolic process had reached the stage where much of the toxic material had already reached the liver and was in the process of at least beginning the excretion process." (McGovern, pp. 494-95)
After reviewing his work, attorney Ron Carroll agreed with Stephens. Namely that an injection would have produced a much higher blood level of the barbiturate, and a much faster death, without the evidence of the extended metabolic process which allows for the liver to absorb the toxic substance. (ibid, p. 495)
This is what is usually called hard evidence or core evidence. The only real question about her death is: was it an accidental overdose?
One, until you stop defending Fletcher Prouty, you are in no position to be calling anything loony or nutty. Defending Prouty is as bad and inexcusable as defending Alex Jones or James Fetzer.
Two, I notice that you are still ducking the issue of acknowledging JFK's serial adultery. Why is that? No serious, credible JFK researcher denies that he was a flagrant adulterer. Why do you keep refusing to acknowledge this fact? Because you don't want people to realize just how far out on the fringe you are when it comes to the Kennedys?
Three, I know you're going to just keep repeating the suicide/OD story, but you still have not laid a finger on the problems with that story.
Four, no, the group pictures do not "prove" that RFK was not at Marilyn's house on the day she died. Again, even Summers, who initially did not want to believe it, acknowledges that RFK was at her house that day.
Five, don't you find it a bit embarrassing that David Von Pein totally agrees with you about Mike Rothmiller and the evidence presented in Rothmiller and Thompson's book?
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On 10/21/2023 at 9:40 PM, Sandy Larsen said:
Paul,
I don't know about Greg and Doug, but I believe that some here are Prouty critics simply because he said things that contradict their strongly-held beliefs. For example, Michael Griffith for Prouty saying JFK was getting out of Vietnam.
You're kidding, right? In this entire thread, how many lines have I spent on attacking Prouty over his erroneous claim that JFK was getting out of Vietnam? Maybe, oh, 15 or 20 out of dozens of replies?
Anyone who reads my posts in this thread will readily see that I repudiate Prouty (1) because he spent years palling around with--and agreeing with--anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers, (2) because he attacked Scientology whistleblowers and defended L. Ron Hubbard, (3) because he made bogus claims about Chiang Kai-shek and the Tehran Conference, (4) because he made bogus claims about Chiang and the Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War, (5) because he back-peddled on nearly every major claim he'd been making about the JFK case in his ARRB interview, and (6) because he peddled truly nutty theories (Diana may have been killed by the Secret Team; the Jonestown Massacre was a U.S. intel operation; etc.).
I haven't felt the need to spend much time attacking Prouty over his claim that JFK was getting out of Vietnam because so many other scholars have destroyed that myth. As I've mentioned many times, even the vast majority of liberal scholars reject the idea that JFK was going to unconditionally withdraw from Vietnam after the election. A major reason for this rejection is the evidence from the JFK White House tapes and from JFK's own public statements on the war in the last months of his life, including one that he gave the day before he died and another that he was going to give at the Trade Mart, in addition to Bobby's statements about JFK's intentions in his April 1964 oral interview.
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On 10/17/2023 at 1:57 PM, James DiEugenio said:
Mike:
You know between your comments on the Prouty thread and now this, I really do not know what to make of you on this forum.
You started this dumb thread in the first place with its ridiculous heading. You then abandon it and then you come back and you apparently do not read what was written in between.
There is evidence for one encounter between JFK and MM. Period.
There is no evidence at all between RFK and MM. That is simply balderdash.
Nothing at all happened at the night in question at MSG, and I have proved this with first hand evidence.
FInally, RFK had no romantic entanglement with MM and had nothing to do with her demise. Over and out. And this is also provable with all kinds of evidence. And any rumors about that did not occur in print until 1964, after JFK was killed. So you should just stop this innuendo with that Mark Shaw type of overtone you have as a heading on this thread. It is truly nutty. As it smears three people.
MM died of barbiturate poisoning which had been ingested, not injected. And not taken by enema or suppository. And that is also proven. The question then becomes: was it deliberate or was it accidental? One can make an argument for both sides on that one. But if someone takes well over seven hundred pills in 50 days, and a bottle of Nembutals in 36 hours, I mean that is pretty much asking for trouble. Try and buy Nembutals on the open market today.
You have not "proved" anything.
I notice you avoided the question about whether or not you acknowledge that JFK was a serial adulterer. Were you the one who told a newcomer that all the stories about JFK's serial adultery were just slanderous lies?
You call the thread "dumb" and its heading "ridiculous" because you are unwilling to objectively consider the evidence that RFK was involved in Marilyn's murder and that JFK appears to have acted as an accessory after the fact. The thread's title is actually a serious question that deserves thoughtful consideration, but you won't even discuss the matter because you refuse to even consider the possibility that RFK played a role in Marilyn's death.
I don't know why you are puzzled by my comments in the Prouty thread. I've discussed part of the mountain of evidence that Prouty was a fraud and a crackpot, and I've done so because his bogus claims have done great damage to the case for conspiracy (and yet there are researchers who, incredibly enough, still cite and quote him, and you are one of them).
As a Prouty believer, and given the abject howlers that you've posted in our Vietnam discussions, you are in no position to be using terms like "nutty" to describe the credible claim that RFK and Marilyn had an affair. Even Summers admits RFK was at her house the day she died. Gee, what was he doing there??? Oh, that's right, you won't even admit he was there--you buy the fable that he was in Gilroy, never mind that several sources independently said he was at her house that day.
The suicide/accidental OD explanation is a disgraceful joke. You brush aside all the evidence of foul play because that evidence contradicts your unrealistic, ahistorical view of the Kennedy brothers.
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On 10/21/2023 at 8:41 PM, Paul Brancato said:
What I’m trying to figure out is why many posters here want to tear Prouty to shreds.
Because Prouty was an obvious fraud and a crackpot. Because he spent years palling around with vile anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers, speaking at their conferences, appearing on their radio program, praising their "courage" and "vision," praising their publications, etc. Because he made many claims that were demonstrably false, including some claims that were downright nutty. Because he back-peddled all over the place in his ARRB interview. And because he viciously attacked former Scientologists who were trying to expose that cult's manipulation and corruption.
Perhaps a better question is, Given all that we now know about Prouty, how can anyone defend him?
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Anyone who is going to talk about Watergate must, absolutely must, become familiar with the new evidence on the subject developed by Geoff Shepard. Much of what most history books say about Watergate is wrong. Shepard's two books are required reading for anyone who wants to talk about Watergate: The Real Watergate Scandal: Collusion, Conspiracy, and the Plot That Brought Nixon Down (2019) and The Nixon Conspiracy: Watergate and the Plot to Remove the President (2021). Here is a good summary of Shepard's research:
Geoff Shepard: An Alternative View Of Watergate
If you'd rather watch some videos, here are some of the better ones:
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On 10/24/2023 at 1:32 AM, Joe Bauer said:
I don't know why so many JFKA debaters are so firmly accepting of the "Hoover wasn't there" proposition regards whether or not he actually did fly into Dallas the evening of 11,21,1963.
Maybe I've missed it...but is there absolute documented proof that Hoover never left DC the day or evening of 11,21,1963?
And did Hoover never travel by way of his own plane that didn't have to register a flight plan as the CIA and military often did?
May Newman gave a quite detailed account ( admittedly second hand ) of Hoover flying in because she was aware of Virginia Murchison's chauffer Jules Fiefer ( spelling? ) being sent out to pick up "Bulldog" and his also having to drive the departing Hoover back to the airport.
And when driver Fiefer came back to the Murchison household after his last Hoover drop off run to the airport Newman asked him if Hoover had given him a good tip?
To which driver Fiefer said no...as he was upset about the stiffing.
Some corroborating facts.
Hoover was known as a cheapskate. So Newman's account of Fiefer's angst at being stiffed by Bulldog rings true. If Hoover was known as a big tipper Newman's story would be more suspect.
EVERYONE knew about Hoover's close relationship with the Murchisons.
You don't get flown out to sunny California to stay at Murchison's Del Charro hotel with everything free including meals and hot horse race tips ( more times than once ) if you are not a favored friend of the owner.
So, Hoover flying in to see and talk to his super wealthy and giving friends the Murchison's ( upon their asking ) even at odd hours is not so improbable on Hoover's part ... imo anyways.
Hoover traveled quite a lot. A 3 hour flight to Dallas would not have been a big deal to him.
And he very well could have dozed on the 3 hour flight back to DC as well.
Hoover liked the night life. Sometimes making the rounds of clubs in New York City, no? So, staying up late at night was not completely out of character for Hoover.
So, Hoover gets home at say 4:am the morning of 11,22,1963.
He catches a few hours of sleep and gets on with his day.
May Newman knew the Virginia Murchison's chauffer ( Jules Fiefer ) by name.
She knew John Murchison's cook Beulla May Holman.
Holman called May Newman and asked her if she wanted to come to the bigger Murchinson home that evening where Holman was preparing quail for the incoming guests. To help out one imagines.
Holman told May Newman she could see and possibly meet the guest of honor - Bulldog/Hoover- but Newman declined as she never heard of him.
It would have been feasible at some point to find the Murchison family service staff and ask them to corroborate Newman's story about Hoover coming in to attend the Murchison get together the evening of 11/21/1963 except for the fact that no one came forward to report it until Madeline Brown and then May Newman finally did so.
Brown 25 years after the fact and Newman 40 years later?
Unfortunately by then those other service staff members were probably gone or even dead.
I just watched the interview video of May Newman in the TMWKK documentary again.
My long lifetime developed gut feeling instincts ( more accurately right than not ) tell me she was not lying or even exaggerating her account of the night of 11/21/1963 and the days following where the champagne and caviar flowed for a week in the Murchison households.
She said the mood in that family was joyous and happy right after JFK was killed through the entire next week!
You could sense May Newman's disgust in sharing that cold-hearted reaction of the Murchison family.
She made it a point to say she was the only one grieving over JFK's brutal killing.
You should review again May Newman's interview in chapter 9 of "The Men Who Killed Kennedy" doc.
Titled "The Guilty Men."
Watch closely Newman's eyes when she says she was the only one grieving for the loss of JFK in that Murchison celebration household.
You can really see and feel her sadness in recounting her being alone in her grief.
I assume Ms. Newman was Irish Catholic. Her people loved fellow Irish Catholic JFK more than any other foreign nation society.
Leaving aside the questionable nature of the evidence for Brown's claims about the party, I am struck by the sheer absurdity of the idea that LBJ, Nixon, and Hoover would have held any kind of a meeting the night before the shooting if they were involved in the plot.
Manchester says LBJ was at the same Ft. Worth hotel where JFK and Jackie stayed that night, and Lady Bird Johnson's biographer confirmed this. We know Hoover was in the DC on the day of the shooting. He was the one who notified RFK about it. He would have had to do an awful lot of flying in the space of about 10-12 hours to have attended the alleged party and made it back to DC. Yes, Nixon was in Dallas for a convention, but he had a protective detail with him, and there's no evidence he attended the alleged party.
You might get with Lisa Pease about Brown's story. Lisa does not buy it at all.
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On 10/22/2023 at 9:39 PM, Keyvan Shahrdar said:
Wesley Buell Frazier's connection to Lee Harvey Oswald's employment at the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) cannot be overlooked. Beginning his tenure at the TSBD in September 1963, Frazier soon became an inadvertent bridge, facilitating Oswald's association with the Depository. It was Frazier who communicated about the job opening, initially to his sister, Linnie Mae Randle. She, in turn, relayed the information to Ruth Paine, leading to Oswald's subsequent hiring.
It's curious to consider that if Oswald was strategically positioned at the TSBD, someone must have nudged him in that direction. While I'm not implying Frazier was an orchestrator, it's plausible he could have been unknowingly maneuvered by external forces to spread word of the job vacancy among his kin and acquaintances.
The Warren Commission's narrative raises eyebrows. Their pronounced emphasis on Ruth Paine and Linnie Mae Randle in the chain of communication about the job, while subtly sidestepping Frazier's initial role, is suspicious. This evasion is reminiscent of their notable silence regarding the mysterious "three tramps."
In sifting through the Warren Commission's findings, it seems prudent to focus on what they chose to downplay or omit. Their silences might just be where the real stories lie.
I would ask Frazier: Who told you there was an opening at the TSBD and what did they tell you?
Frazier's sister said that Ruth Paine asked her to call about getting Oswald a job at the TSBD.
Frazier defended Oswald and repeatedly gave a description of the bag Oswald took to work that ruled it out as a bag that could have been used to carry the rifle into the building.
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1 hour ago, Joe Bauer said:
One has to consider Madeline Brown and her years of often times embellished ( if not made up ) comments and claims with at least some allowance for there being more than a few important actual truths she reveals about LBJ in them.
The truth that LBJ did father their son Steven for one.
LBJ wouldn't have kept MB financially subsidized all those years if they hadn't had a child together.
LBJ's family didn't call Steven Johnson's bluff regards his filing a legal claim to LBJ's estate after his death.
They and their powerful connections had to destroy Steven Johnson. His legitimacy as provenly LBJ's son was a huge threat to them in so many ways, including the legacy of LBJ.
I came to the conclusion that Madeline Brown did embellish many aspects of her story, and even made up many others.
I believe she was a desperate woman after her endowment funds were cut off when LBJ passed away.
Her thrusting herself into the national limelight did bring her some financial gain, and I would imagine she got a fairly good sum of money with her book deal?
I also feel MB definitely wanted to get some revenge on the LBJ family ( and the high powered LBJ loyal minions in their camp who did their wealth and reputation protecting bidding ) for their treatment of her ( cut off funds ) and her son Steven who was denied his birth right acknowledgement and died under tragic circumstances.
In her book "Texas In The Morning" MB relates quotes of LBJ made during their many overnight trysts in his own reserved hotel room suites.
I agree with another of our forum members who believed that those quotes rang true to the known "private setting" speaking traits LBJ exhibited throughout his life.
Whether MB's account of the big shot JFK haters meet up at one of the Murchison households the night before the assassination was so embellished it was meaningless, the woman did have a totally legitimate insider connection to LBJ in a uniquely deep intimacy way that in my opinion adds weight to her statement that she felt LBJ knew of the JFKA before it happened.
Oh my goodness. Really? So now we're peddling Madeleine Brown's demonstrably false tales? Her statement "rings true" only to those who want to believe her and who are willing to ignore all the holes in her story.
We know where Nixon, Hoover, and LBJ were the night before the assassination. They were not at Murchison's house finalizing a plot to kill JFK. Brown's story is crazy talk.
The very idea that they would have held such a meeting at that time and location is absurd, even if one wants to imagine that they were the key plotters.
This stuff is embarrassing, low-hanging fruit for WC apologists to use to discredit the case for conspiracy.
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20 hours ago, David Von Pein said:
I guess it comes down to each person's own definition of "proof". As we all know, the definition and scope of that particular word varies (greatly) from one person to the next.
And when you say that "various assertions" that have been made by certain Lone Assassin believers have not been "backed up", can you provide a specific example or two?
Frankly, I just don't see how a person (namely Mr. Oswald) can have this much evidence pointing toward his guilt (in two separate murders that occurred within 45 minutes of each other on 11-22-63) and yet still be innocent....
http://Oswald-Is-Guilty.blogspot.com
http://drive.google.com / Summary Of Oswald's Guilt (By Vincent Bugliosi) (All 53 Items)
Every single one of those alleged items of evidence against Oswald has either been debunked or explained.
Faulty Evidence: Problems with the Case Against Lee Harvey Oswald
The HSCA and Fraud in the Backyard Rifle Photos
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On 10/21/2023 at 2:34 AM, Joe Bauer said:
"After tomorrow those damn Kennedy's will never embarrass me again. That's no threat, that's a promise."
LBJ to his nineteen year long mistress Madeline Brown.
Madeleine Brown was a fraud. She made demonstrably false claims, such as the alleged 11/21/63 evening party at the Murchison home, which she said was attended by LBJ, J. Edgar Hoover, H. L. Hunt, John McCloy, and Richard Nixon, among others.
Her tales were debunked years ago. She ranks right up there with Fletch Prouty in telling tall tales that critics have used to discredit the case for conspiracy.
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On 8/28/2017 at 5:37 PM, Douglas Caddy said:
Joan Mellen did not debunk LBJ’s complicity in JFK’s assassination
By David Denton
Olney Central College
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_l9QjzWCflIcml2RHdwZHRnZ1E/view
I do not rule out LBJ as a suspect. However, if LBJ was part of the plot, or if he knew about it but did nothing, he was a very good actor on the day of the shooting. Many people who saw him that afternoon said he looked and acted like he was very frightened. Also, he seemed to be sincere when he asked Hoover if any of the shots had been directed at him when the two spoke shortly after the assassination. But he could have been putting on an act.
I am surprised that Denton uses the unbelievable Madeleine Brown as a source. Brown claimed she attended a party at Clint Murchison's home the evening before the assassination, and that LBJ, J. Edgar Hoover, Richard Nixon, H. L. Hunt, and John McCloy were there, among others. She also claimed that during that evening, LBJ told her that "after tomorrow" the Kennedys would never embarrass him again. This lady was clearly a fraud.
When her son filed a paternity suit to establish his mother's alleged death-bed claim that LBJ was his father, the Johnson family called his bluff, and he never showed up in court to arrange for the paternity test.
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@Pat SpeerWe are basically going around in circles. You keep repeating the same arguments and keep dismissing contrary evidence and arguments. We are not going to agree on the specious, contradictory assumptions your position requires one to make.
I'm never going to buy the idea that all three autopsy doctors and the radiologist committed the mind-boggling blunder of mistaking the 6.5 mm object for the 7x2 mm fragment, much less for your non-metallic slice object. Nor am I ever going to buy your argument that Humes mismeasured the largest fragment, especially given the fact that he did *not* measure it on the x-ray but measured it after he removed it. Nor will I ever buy your vacuous theory that a bullet entering at the EOP site could have missed the cerebellum. Etc., etc., etc.
I will address one issue that you raised that I only briefly answered, namely, the controls used by Dr. Mantik in his OD findings on the white patch on JFK's lateral autopsy x-rays. Dr. Mantik and Dr. Doug DeSalles (M.D.) took OD measurements of the lateral x-rays of nine other deceased persons, in addition to examining one of JFK's pre-mortem lateral x-rays (Dr. Chesser examined the original pre-mortem x-ray).
In all the control cases, there was no white area that even came close to transmitting the amount of light transmitted by the white patch. There was a drastic difference between the light area-dark area contrast on the control x-rays vs. the white patch's contrast with the dark area in the frontal region. On the control x-rays, the brightest area was only two or three times brighter than the dark areas, whereas the white patch transmitted about 1100 times more light than the dark area in the frontal region.
Doug Horne discusses these facts and provides a detailed explanation of the OD findings in his book Inside the Assassination Records Review Board, Volume 2 (pp. 546-554). He also discusses the science of OD measurement in relation to the 6.5 mm object and the state of x-ray technology at the time of the autopsy.
Contrary to what you and some WC apologists claim, the overlapping bone above JFK's right ear on the lateral x-rays has nothing to do with the white patch. The white patch is noticeably farther to the rear than the overlapping bone; they are in two different areas of the skull, as Dr. Mantik observes in his reply to your critique of his research (LINK).
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14 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:
Mike is relying for his Vietnam stuff on an agenda driven book which Tom Gram exposed on this site as being full of holes.
Ha! Tom Gram did no such thing. He knows less about the war than you do.
Folks, I invite interested readers to read my exchanges with Tom Gram in the thread "Top 5 Books on the JFK & Vietnam." I would also direct interested readers to my thread "The Myth that JFK Was Killed Over the Vietnam War."
And, FYI, I've cited many more books than just Dr. Moyar's excellent book Triumph Forsaken.
And yes Mike, i am calling Nixon a fruitcake, you know why? Even Ambrose, Mr. Establishment, thought that Nixon was around the bend on Vietnam.
Oh, well, that proves it! What did Ambrose say about Nixon's signing of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Voting Rights Act Amendments, the ABM and SALT arms control agreements? What did he say about the fact that Nixon started Affirmative Action, desegregated Southern schools, invested the largest sums up to that time in cancer research, and created the EPA?
I proved Nixon knew he could not win the war and he proceeded with it for political and personal reasons for over four years.
You didn't prove any such thing. You haven't done enough research to prove anything about the war, except that you don't know what you're talking about. You didn't answer a single point I made about your timeworn, debunked claim.
You do this all the time: You make a false claim, and the claim gets refuted (with sources), and then you just repeat the claim again and act like you've won the argument.
People should read our exchanges in the "Top 5 Books on JFK & Vietnam" thread and see how many times I caught you making inexcusably erroneous claims about the war, not to mention utterly false claims about Moyar's book (which, of course, you haven't even read).
Ted Draper proved that the terms he agreed to in 1973 were just about the same that he was offered in 1969.
LOL! Really???! "Just about the same"???! Why don't you go read the 1973 terms and compare them with the 1969 terms, hey? This is basic stuff, Vietnam War 101 stuff, but you don't even know that much.
No, the '73 terms were not "just about the same" as the '69 terms. This is yet another gaffe in the long list of inexcusable gaffes that you've made about the war.
To kill as many people as he did in three countries, and to bomb them to the point that Indochina looked like the surface of the moon, that is just beyond the pale. What Nixon did in Cambodia was simply nutty.
Phew! What??? Your claims are what are truly "simply nutty." Seriously, this is wingnut material. You are spewing Communist propaganda that is detached from all reality. Our bombing was limited to small parts of Cambodia and Laos. Most parts of Cambodia and Laos never had a single bomb dropped on them. Even ultra-liberal and ardently anti-Vietnam War historian Stanley Karnow admitted that the North Vietnamese greatly exaggerated the degree of damage caused by American bombing.
That you either cannot see this, or deem it excusable, that is your problem Mike. Not mine.
I "cannot see this" because it did not happen. You seem to be caught in a time warp from the 1960s and appear oblivious to all the research that has been done since North Vietnam and the Jane Fondas and the John Kerrys peddled their propaganda.
You and so many other liberals continue to be in denial about the enormous crime that your side committed during the Vietnam War. Your side constantly smeared South Vietnam and praised and whitewashed the far-more-repressive Hanoi regime of North Vietnam. And when your side finally got their wish and enabled North Vietnam to win the war, your side looked the other way when the Hanoi regime imposed a brutal tyranny, breaking every promise it had made during the war, sending over 800,000 South Vietnamese to concentration camps (where thousands died from the harsh conditions and mistreatment), executing over 60,000 people, and ending the basic rights that the South Vietnamese had enjoyed under the Thieu government (freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of religion, local control of education, the right of private schools to operate, freedom of travel, and the right of private property).
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Nice dodge. ONE expert noticed it and thought it didn't look like metal.
Dr. Mantik has noticed it as well. He, too, says it’s not metallic.
There is no evidence he was told or knew that the autopsy participants specified from where the fragment was removed, and that it matched the location of what is undeniably a fragment. Think clearly, Michael. What are the odds of a bone fragment just so happening to appear on the x-rays where the doctors said they recovered a metal fragment? Hmmm...
Sigh. . . . You just keep repeating this nonsense and ignoring the refutation of it. You know that to make this argument, you must assume that Humes, Boswell, Finck, and Ebersole committed the mind-boggling blunder of mistaking the round 6.5 mm object for the narrow, club-shaped 7x2 mm fragment on the AP x-ray. That is just ridiculous. A child could tell the difference between these two objects on the AP x-ray.
You also know that your argument requires that we dismiss the fact that Humes clearly, plainly, and undeniably stated that the largest fragment he removed was the 7x2 mm fragment, which he correctly said was behind and slightly above the right orbit, exactly where it appears on the x-rays.
You further know that your argument requires that the 6.5 mm object is the AP view of your tiny slice object on the lateral x-rays, which is just hogwash for several reasons, starting with the fact that nearly all experts who’ve studied the x-rays have placed the 6.5 mm object in the back of the head, not to mention that no expert has identified your slice as metallic, much less as the partner image of the 6.5 mm object.
You keep making these dogmatic, emphatic assertions for a position that is utterly devoid of evidence and that is contradicted by every expert who has examined the x-rays.
What? They saw a fragment on the x-rays. As they provided but two measurements for this 3-d fragment, they probably even measured it on an x-ray. The fragment behind the eye is roughly 7 x 2 on the lateral x-ray. They said nothing about a club-shape. In any event, the fragment I've identified--which was also picked out by others--is far closer in proportion to being 7 x 2 on the lateral x-ray than the club-shaped fragment INCHES AWAY from where they removed a fragment. .
One, see above.
Two, “the fragment” you’ve “identified” is not metallic, and no expert has said it is. Not one. So, poof, there goes your convoluted theory from the get-go.
Three, I did not say that the autopsy doctors described the 7x2 mm fragment as club-shaped. I’m saying that this is the fragment’s shape. Humes described is as “irregular,” 7 mm in height and 2 mm in width. But you’re making the absurd argument that Humes was actually describing the neatly round 6.5 mm object.
Four, you know, you must know, that it is patently false to claim that the 7x2 mm fragment was “inches away from where they removed a fragment.” That is total bunk. Humes specified, in plain English, that the 7x2 mm fragment was behind and slightly above the right orbit, and that it was the largest fragment that he removed. It is simply amazing that you keep dismissing this fact.
OD is hard science for determining bone density. It has never been used by forensic radiologists to determine the authenticity of x-rays.
That’s a cop-out and a dodge. OD analysis can determine the density of any object on an x-ray, not just bone. It is usually used to determine bone density, but it can also determine the density of other objects on an x-ray, as Dr. Mantik has demonstrated. When he provided his hundreds of OD measurements to Dr. Fitzpatrick and invited him to review them, Fitzpatrick refused. Dr. Arthur Haas, the chief of medical physics at Kodak, reviewed Mantik’s OD research and saw no problems with it.
Before one can state the whiteness on an x-ray is so white it must be fake, moreover, one must ascertain the settings on the machine, and time of exposure, etc. Mantik never even tried to do any of this. In one of his embarassing responses to my writings, he expressed outrage that I would suggest they used sub-standard x-ray equipment at Bethesda. He was CLUELESS to the fact the x-rays were created on an old portable machine, and that such machines were notorious for their wide swings in contrast.
This is false. Have you not read his response to your critique of his research?
He also claimed that he'd compared his OD measurements to those on similar x-rays, and that he used these as controls. This is deceptive. Apples vs Oranges. None of these x-rays were created on old portable machines, and none of them involved over-lapping bone.
This is nonsensical gibberish. The overlapping bone is irrelevant because it is not even close to the area of the white patch, and it has nothing to do with the OD measurements of the 6.5 mm object.
Folks, I suggest interested readers read Dr. Mantik’s reply to Pat’s amateurish attacks (LINK).
And not only that, there is reason to doubt he tested as many as he and others would later claim. You, Michael, keep playing the science card. So where's the data 0n his controls? And where are his images of similar skull wounds created on similar machines? That would be science, Michael.
This is more amateurish flailing. How about Dr. Chesser’s OD measurements? Hey?
As it is, no one in radiology-land takes him seriously.
This is a petty smear. If no one takes him seriously, how has he been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals on issues relating to radiation oncology? What about the doctors, one of whom is a radiation oncologist, who have endorsed his work?
He is like someone who spotted a ghost image on an old photo who jumps right to "It's a ghost" without first testing to see if it could be a double-exposure. (And no, you shouldn't run to him to get his response. READ some textbooks and see for yourself. Or, better yet, join a radiology forum and see what they have to say about all this.)
You have no clue what you are talking about. He compared JFK’s pre-mortem x-rays with the autopsy x-rays. He collected hundreds of data points in OD measurements of the white patch. He was able to demonstrate how the white patch was created, i.e., via double-exposure. As mentioned, Dr. Arthur Haas checked his work and saw no issues with it. Dr. Greg Henkelmann, a fellow radiation oncologist who also happens to have a background in physics, has endorsed Dr. Mantik’s research.
[[ME: Here we go again. So far, every single time you have claimed that your website (your online book) "explains X" or "explains Y" or "explains Z," when I have gone back and checked your website, I have found that it does not explain those issues.]]
WRONG.
Uh, no. NOT WRONG. You said your online book explains the virtually undamaged cerebellum, but it does no such thing. You said your online book has diagrams that show a bullet entering at the EOP could have exited the throat, but no such diagrams appear in your book. Do you want me to quote what you said to refresh your memory?
[[MG: So how about we do this: How about if you name just one piece of evidence that you believe was faked or deceptively altered? How about that? Just name one. Now, obviously, I'm not talking about a diagram, drawing, or statement created or submitted to the WC or the HSCA, etc. I'm talking about an item of physical evidence, such as an autopsy photo, an autopsy x-ray, a bullet fragment, a film, a rifle, a shell casing, a fingerprint, etc., etc. Just name one. Just one.]]
I'll give you a bunch. I believe the palm print lift is a fake--perhaps lifted off a table top or palm print card. I also believe the paper bag was created by the DPD, for unclear reasons, perhaps to transport a part of the window frame, and that it was then decided it should be used against Oswald. So, yeah, that would mean the bag prints--which I proved were misrepresented in the WR--are also fakes. And, oh yeah, there's Oswald's shirt. All the photos of the shirt he was wearing when arrested fail to show a hole in the elbow, but then Bledsoe said she thought his shirt he'd been wearing had a hole, and all the photos after that show a hole in the elbow. And this wasn't a coincidence, mind you. Fibers from that shirt were "discovered" on the rifle before Oswald told Fritz he had actually been wearing a different shirt at work. This then led to a desperate attempt to prove he really had been wearing the dark brown shirt at work. So it's a two-fer. The DPD/FBI planted fibers on the rifle, and then tore a hole in the sleeve to elicit an ID from Bledsoe.
Uh, well, yeah, I’ll buy these examples as examples of faked/altered evidence. So, I happily stand corrected on this point. However, I was thinking more of medical evidence, but I take your point.
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16 hours ago, Pat Speer said:
Once again, NONE of your proclaimed experts were both radiologists and well-versed in the issues at hand. None of them studied the witness statements
Oh, wow, so you’re saying that all those pathologists and radiologists couldn’t even read an x-ray, could not distinguish between a round 6.5 mm object and a narrow club-shaped 7x2 mm fragment, and royally goofed in locating the 6.5 mm object in the back of the head! Okay, you bet.
and noted that a fragment was found in that location.
We’ve already been over this. We both know that Humes clearly, plainly, and undeniably said that the largest fragment he removed was the 7x2 mm fragment, which he correctly noted was behind and just above the right orbit. But you wave this aside and rely on a confusing statement by two FBI agents about a fragment in the back of the head, and ignore the fact that there was a fragment in the back of the head but that Humes obviously did not remove it.
As far as the EOP entrance...your persistence on this point can only be viewed as trolling.
My persistence in rejecting your erroneous, convoluted arguments is “trolling”! Okay. You just can’t admit when you’re clearly wrong.
You acknowledge you believe there was an entrance at this location, and that its pathway through the body is unknown.
Huh??? Its “pathway through the body”??? Its only pathway would have been in/through the head, and only the head. It could not have gone below the head unless it was fired from a helicopter hovering above the TSBD, and even then it would have had a hard time missing the cerebellum.
You acknowledge as well that some who have viewed the photos have noted damage to the cerebellum. I have shown you as well that the original reports noted damage in this area that they believed had been caused by a bullet,
You know this is misleading. You know that no expert who has viewed the brain photos has noted anything remotely close to the kind of damage that would have been done by a bullet entering at the EOP site.
You know that all but one of the experts who have viewed the brain photos have noted no pre-mortem damage to the cerebellum and only very slight post-mortem damage. The one exception is Dr. Chesser, and the only pre-mortem damage he saw in the brain photos was a small sliver of the cerebellum hanging down. Yet, Finck told the ARRB that there was “extensive damage” to the cerebellum, and some of the Dallas doctors, including a neurosurgeon, said the cerebellum was badly damaged.
and that a number of the experts you pretend to believe in have noted a passage in the tissues down the neck ending at the throat wound. So what's the problem?
There is no path from the EOP site to the throat wound that does not go through the cerebellum. I have repeatedly challenged you to prove otherwise, and you have declined to do so.
The throat wound was an entrance wound—that’s why it was small, neat, and punched-in. Furthermore, we now know that on the night of the autopsy, the pathologists absolutely, positively determined that the back wound was shallow and had no exit point.
A number of those inspecting the photos have claimed they proved no bullet had traversed UPWARDS from he EOP, and then used this to push the bullet really entered 4 inches higher where no one saw a wound. The possibility it went downwards was never addressed. Although there is some language suggesting they thought the lack of damage meant no entry of any kind was by the EOP, they were clearly just blubbering, as they elsewhere acknowledged there was some damage and that there was a passageway down the neck.
You can repeat this nonsense a hundred times and it will still be nonsense. There was no path from the EOP site to the throat wound that did not go through the cerebellum. The throat wound was an entrance wound. Your entire argument starts with the bogus assumption that your slice object on the lateral x-rays is the partner image of the 6.5 mm object, yet no expert has even identified that slice object as metallic, much less as the partner image for any object seen on the AP x-ray.
So let's be clear... If you believe there was an EOP entrance that led upwards, but that the photos were faked and don't show this, then your claims he bullet could not have gone down the neck has no basis outside your pretending to trust in the expertise of men you believe conjured up a fake entrance in the cowlick, while studying photos and x-rays you assume to be fake.
I do not claim that the x-rays are “fake.” I say they have been altered, that they are x-rays of JFK’s skull taken at the autopsy but that they have been altered. And, yes, I do most certainly say that the brain photos are fake because they could not be photos of JFK’s brain, since we have numerous credible accounts that a large part of JFK’s brain was gone and that a large amount of brain tissue was splattered onto 15 surfaces, since the x-rays portray far more missing brain than we see in the brain photos, and since the brain photos show a virtually undamaged cerebellum.
Yes, the HSCA FPP members followed the Clark Panel’s relocation of the rear head entry wound, but they did so partly because they noted that the brain photos categorically and incontrovertibly refuted the EOP site. They also did so because they were trying to account for the 6.5 mm object, which all of them correctly located in the back of the head. At least one of the FPP consultants raised issues with the revised entry wound location, but his observations were ignored.
In other words you are arguing just to argue...and your arguments are without merit.
Phew! Can you say “projection”? You can’t cite a single expert who says your slice object is metallic. You wave aside the fact that virtually every expert who has examined the skull x-rays has placed the 6.5 mm object in the back of the head. You make the absurd assumption that Humes, Boswell, Finck, and Ebersole horrendously misread the skull x-rays, that they incomprehensibly mistook the round 6.5 mm object for the narrow, club-shaped 7x2 mm fragment on the AP x-ray, and that they then read your small slice object as being the partner image of the 6.5 mm object on the lateral x-rays!
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15 hours ago, Robert Reeves said:
You position yourself as if you're the gatekeeper of what can be discussed on this forum. Well you may be in an imaginary hierarchy - on this forum - but I don't believe that you have any authority to dispel discussions you do not agree with. You just have the right to allege there is some ''Mysterious new members'' campaign taking place right here to derail your precious beliefs.
Like I said, Col. Prouty is a tricky fella.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg2-5NzVdoQ
From clip above: Man stands up at 1:33:45 named Paul Roofer (sic) and asks ''as a voter it seems to be the least I can do is vote for someone who wasn't director of the CIA in the next election (i.e. Bush snr 1992 election) however, I did hear Mark Lane say that George Bush was not only director of the CIA, BUT THAT AS FAR BACK AS 1963 AND EVEN BEYOND HE WAS A MEMBER OF THE CIA --- I would like to ask any of the panelists to confirm what Mark Lane said: based on what they know, and be specific PLEASE!''
Host of the event asks panelists: ''Anyone here have confirmation that George Bush worked for the CIA before he was director?''
Col. Fletcher Prouty is one of the people in attendance and he says nothing. He sits impassively, resting his face on his right hand.
John Judge chimes in detailing the documents mentioning a George Bush of the CIA, in an FBI memo mentioning -- a G Bush of the CIA debriefing anti-Castro Cubans in Miami, the another document mentioned George Bush grassing on someone in the Republican party called Parrot. And lastly Judge mentions the ships used in the Bay Of Pigs raid, the ships, which he says directly link Bush to the CIA, due to the names of the ships - Zapata - Barbara - Houston.
Prouty still says nothing. Prouty has openly revealed in other instances that during his role as the Chief of Clandestine Ops, he was the purchaser of those ships mentioned by John Judge. That he, Prouty, allegedly supplied the CIA with the ships for the mission. IF TRUE, there couldn't be a person with more knowledge on the subject of those ships. Presumably the questioner wasn't a plant, inserted into the order of questions to tempt Prouty into answering truthfully about the purchases of those ships. Details I'm guessing was still classified?
From Prouty's website letters section, below (undated) source https://www.prouty.org/email.html
"To Jeff Orr
RE: The names of the ships used in the Bay of Pigs operation that were named for the BUSH family.
I was asked to locate three transport vessels to support the Bay of Pigs landing. I was able to get them and sent them to a U.S. Navy base in North Carolina where they were prepared for that operation. In the process they were painted and then given the names: HOUSTON, ZAPATA, and BARBABA. The name Houston was where Bush's business was. Zapata was the name of his oil company. Barbra was the name of his wife. Whoever selected those names certainly knew George Bush in 1960.
L. Fletcher Prouty "
So why does Prouty big up himself, at times, and then when cornered he does not speak up and tell the public what he knows. This is duplicitous, to me.
So Mr Niederhut, are we allowed to ask why Col. Prouty (someone with direct knowledge of the support ships used in the BOP) chooses to sit on his hands when asked to give forth any information he has on the subject? ... in one instance ... and in other instances Prouty openly discusses the theory Bush was almost certainly involved with the CIA purchased supply ships. Even naming them after his wife, his home town, his oil company. Or would you prefer it's not discussed?
This is strange to me. Why is Col. Prouty untouchable?!? I say this as someone who actually became interested in this subject because of the brilliant Donald Sutherland role in the movie. I searched out this mysterious figure. So this doesn't come from somewhere bad, like you're trying to allege. There's no ''Mysterious new members'' campaign. There are some inconsistencies with Col. Prouty and the thing's he said. That's all.
I, too, became interested in the JFK case because of Oliver Stone's movie JFK, and, like you, I was intrigued by what Donald Sutherland said as "Mr. X."
The problems with Prouty go well beyond his bogus, and sometimes nutty, claims. His close and prolonged association with anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers and with L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology disqualifies him as a credible source, by any rational standard.
One big reason that Prouty's followers refuse to face the facts about him is that he was one of the main sources for the myth that JFK was going to unconditionally withdraw from Vietnam after the election and that this is why he was killed.
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1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:
Michael Griffith is passing gas to disguise just how bad Nixon was and how hopeless the war was.
Here is the exact quote in context. So there is no denying it, its just what I said it was.
Nixon had heard about the Wise Men meeting and understood what it meant. In March of 1968, before the presidential campaign began, he told three of his speechwriters: “I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s no way to win the war. But we can’t say that, of course. In fact, we have to seem to say the opposite, just to keep some degree of bargaining leverage.” (Jeffrey Kimball, Nixon’s Vietnam War, p. 52)
There is no better source on this than Jeff Kimball. He was the foremost scholar on this subject, Nixon and Vietnam.
From the start, Nixon knew he could not win. The best he could do was a Korea type stalemate. And he could not even attain that. Even though he needlessly invaded two other countries with utterly disastrous results.
Here again we will see the difference between your level of research on the Vietnam War and mine. Do you think this is the first time I’ve seen a liberal quote this alleged statement? Do you have Kimball's book? Do you? If so, did you check the source he cites for this alleged statement? Did it occur to you that, gee, after all the times I caught you peddling dubious and even fraudulent "evidence” in other threads on the Vietnam War, that perhaps you should do some checking before running with this statement?
Now, if you turn to Kimball's book, you'll see that his source for this quote was a disgruntled former Nixon speechwriter named Richard Whalen (p. 54). Even a New York Times reviewer recognized that Whalen used his book to "settle a few personal scores" (LINK). Just FYI, Whalen’s book is loaded with doubtful claims, some of which come across as downright paranoid, such as his accusation that LBJ’s final bombing halt was an “ambush.”
Does it concern you that none of Nixon’s other speechwriters said they ever heard Nixon say this? Does it concern you that Whalen did not bother to get the other speechwriters who supposedly heard the statement to confirm his story? What about all the instances on the Nixon White House tapes when Nixon expressed confidence in the war effort? How do you explain those statements? And, you know that Nixon and Kissinger both wrote books that strongly argued that the war was most certainly winnable, right?
Have you read Dr. Larry Berman’s book No Peace, No Honor yet, as I recommended that you do months ago when we were discussing your erroneous spin on the “decent interval”? Using the White House tapes, Berman, no Nixon lover, shows that Nixon was determined to win the war and that one of the reasons he agreed to the Paris Peace Accords was that he intended to order massive bombing when North Vietnam violated them.
even though he needlessly invaded two other countries with utterly disastrous results.
This is sheer fiction. Apparently you still have not read a single scholarly study that challenges your far-left myths about the war. The incursions into Cambodia and Laos were entirely legal under international law, since the North Vietnamese were illegally using their eastern regions as staging and supply bases against the express wishes of those governments.
The Cambodian incursion did great damage to the North Vietnamese army. The Laotian incursion, though not as successful as the Cambodian one, did considerable damage and caused a noticeable decline in NVA operations from the area for several months.
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7 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:
Pat, you accidentally put your reply in the quoted portion that contains my reply.
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3 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:
The technical science of human anatomical identification including walking gate, posture, height, head and body shape is so advanced now that it is used worldwide in security surveillance by almost every type of highest level intel agencies.
One assumes the equipment and technical expertise to operate and analyze this high tech identification process is very expensive and tightly controlled by those who utilize it.
Even so, if it could be used in this case, I would guess that the top experts in this field could make a high probability ID finding either proving the Dealey Plaza walking man is or is not Lansdale.
They could do this by analyzing every known full body still photo or even video footage of Lansdale and comparing them to the man in the Dealey Plaza Tramp walk photo.
That would be the only way to come up with anything close to a definitive scientific proof conclusion in the matter.
And it will never happen.
However, just taking the most unscientific layman look at photos of Lansdale such as the one where he is standing next to Alan Dulles and one where he is arriving at and walking over some airport tarmac overseas, my untrained eyes do see similarities between those two photos and the 11,22,1963 Dealey Plaza Tramp photo man.
The height. Dulles was 6 ft. 2 in. tall. Lansdale matches him in height.
The build. Lansdale was a thin bone structure man. Narrower shoulders than Dulles.
Longer neck from head to shoulders than Dulles.
Lansdale's military uniform is cut with a much more tightened waist draw in. This is just above the hip line of which is noticeably high with Lansdale. I see these same two upper body and coat aspects in the Dealey Plaza photo ... do you?
There is a slight drop of Lansdale's shoulders, one lower than the other. They are not equally straight across.
Landale appears to be moderately bow legged. You can see this in the tarmac photo. Much more space between them than the more straight-legged men next to him.
Lansdale clearly has a block head shape. So does the Dealey Plaza man.
Same ear shape and vertical and horizontal skull location. Same hair cut.
And the hands.
Lansdale's hands in the Dulles photo match the size, shape and curled in finger hold position as the Plaza man...imo anyways.
The Dealey Plaza man walks with his head slightly stooped or bowed forward. Did Lansdale have this lean to as well?
The similarities are close enough to not easily dismiss their importance imo.
Yes, the Dealey Plaza photo man is wearing glasses. Don't know if Lansdale ever did. That's a valid point of debate in the matter.
I'm sorry, but this strikes me as debating the validity of an Elvis sighting.
No, there is no known photo of Lansdale wearing glasses. His son said he did not wear glasses. His son also said that Lansdale did not wear the prominent ring that the man in the tramp photo is wearing.
The whole discussion is absurd. I have proved that Prouty made utterly bogus claims, some of which are as whacky as claiming that McGovern won the 1972 election.
How many years does a person have to spend palling around with anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers to be repudiated as a credible source? How many of the person's claims have to be indisputably exposed as false, and even downright nutty, before Occam's Razor kicks in?
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7 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:
And let me add one other thing about this alleged comparison of that fruitcake Nixon with JFK.
“That fruitcake Nixon”??? Such a comment again puts you on the left fringe of the political spectrum.
That “fruitcake Nixon” desegregated schools in the South and did so without major confrontations with governors. He supported and signed the Voting Rights Act. He created the EPA. He signed the ABM and SALT arms control agreements. He signed the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. He ended discrimination in companies and labor unions that received federal contracts. He established affirmative action hiring for African Americans. He was the first president to invest a large sum of money in cancer research ($100 million, $800 million in today’s dollars). He signed Title IX, opening the door for women’s collegiate athletics. And he literally saved Israel from destruction when your peace-loving Egyptian and Syrian governments launched a combined attack against Israel in the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
Kennedy would have never ever even thought of using nukes in Indochina
Yes, I know most liberals shudder and shiver at the thought of ever using nukes, even tactical nukes. Did it slip your mind that FDR was fully prepared to nuke Nazi Germany if necessary?
Even many liberal scholars still defend Truman’s atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even though they were clearly unnecessary and unjustified.
By the way, guess who first authorized the extensive use of chemical defoliants in Vietnam? John F. Kennedy.
or bombing the dikes.
Uh, FDR authorized the bombing of German dams during WW II. In Operation Chastise, we and the Brits blew huge holes in two major dams, the Mohne Dam and the Edersee Dam in 1943, which caused catastrophic flooding in the Ruhr Valley and flooded entire villages in the Eder Valley.
Both Truman and Ike authorized the bombing of dikes and dams in North Korea during the Korean War, directly killing tens of thousands of people, and causing the deaths of many more people due to starvation and the lack of electricity in the cold months.
Your beloved, peace-loving Soviets blew up the Dnieper Dam in Ukraine in 1941, in order to stop a German advance, flooding numerous villages along the river and killing thousands of civilians. The Soviets also blew up the Kakhova Dam in Ukraine in 1941, in order to stop a German advance.
The Chinese blew huge breaches in the Yellow River dikes in 1938, killing some 400,000 of their fellow Chinese, in order to stop a Japanese advance.
Nixon proposed both and we have it on tape. The latter would have been even more lethal than the former; John Newman said it would have killed about a half million people.
I already debunked the myth that bombing the Red River Dikes would have killed half a million people. That is ridiculous.
By the way, did Newman say anything about the fact that the North Vietnamese put AAA and SAM batteries near and on those dikes?
As we have seen, dikes and dams were considered valid targets by FDR, Churchill, Truman, Ike, and Chiang Kai-shek during the Sino-Japanese War, World War II, and the Korean War. Moreover, when you put AAA and SAM batteries on and near a dike or dam, as the North Vietnamese did, that dike or dam is a perfectly valid target, according to even the most rigid rules of war.
To top it off, Nixon lied about this after.
Probably because he knew that liberals would pounce on it to try to make him look like an ogre. I am not sure that Nixon really ever seriously considered using nukes. He may have just been thinking out loud. As is well known, Ike finally got the Chinese and the North Koreans to agree to an armistice by threatening to use nukes. He even had nuke tubes shipped to South Korea and arranged for this movement to be leaked to the Chinese and the North Koreans. They got the message. I trust you know this stuff.
Besides, according to you, JFK was lying through his teeth in 1963, right up until the day he died, when he repeatedly said that he opposed withdrawing from Vietnam, that withdrawing from Vietnam would be a great mistake, and that we had to be prepared to stay the course in Vietnam. According to your scenario, JFK was involved in a cynical-but-necessary deception and was prepared to allow thousands of more deaths in Vietnam until after the election.
However, Bobby Kennedy, as late as March 1968, just three months before his death, said he opposed a unilateral withdrawal and called the idea "unacceptable":
I do not want, and I do believe that most Americans do not want, to sell out America's interest to simply withdraw -- to raise the white flag of surrender in Vietnam -- that would be unacceptable to us as a people, and unacceptable to us as a country. (https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/the-kennedy-family/robert-f-kennedy/robert-f-kennedy-speeches/remarks-at-the-university-of-kansas-march-18-1968)
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12 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:
Maybe.
Evidently, even before they got into office, Kissinger and Nixon regarded Vietnam as a lost cause, and Nixon wanted to get out, but waited for the 1972 election.
Remember, after the Tet offensive, Westmoreland wanted 750,000 troops for South Vietnam. That is a matter of public record.
From a military perspective, maybe there was a case to be made that some sort of victory could be had in South Vietnam. With enough outlays and fighting, maybe. From the perspective of US interests, and taxpayer dollars, South Vietnam did not add up.
Remember, the US had to abandon Khe Sanh, after spending who knows how many lives and dollars there.
In a way, you are arguing the case Nixon was deposed. Nixon and political leaders of the US had concluded that Vietnam should not be a national priority, that the cost of victory was too high for a non-existential war, in fact a volitional war.
But the military---the Pentagon, CIA---still thought the war should be prosecuted. And that Russia had to be alienated, not negotiated with.
Another reason for deposing Nixon was his insistence on reviewing the "Bay of Pigs" files.
I am open-minded on the topic whether deposing Nixon was an intel-Pentagon op. Carter, and Mr. T too.
No, Nixon and Kissinger most certainly did not view Vietnam as a lost cause. This is part of the invalid liberal spin on the "decent interval." I addressed this issue at some length in the thread "Top 5 Books on JFK & Vietnam."
Trying to save 18 million South Vietnamese from Communist tyranny, concentration camps, and mass executions was a noble goal, and the cost would have been much smaller in blood and treasure if we had used our military power smartly and effectively. The Linebacker campaigns in 1972 proved that we had the power to bring North Vietnam to its knees in a matter of a few months. If a slightly longer campaign of the same intensity had been done earlier, especially in 1965 or 1966, the war would have been won relatively quickly and with far fewer lives lost.
I certainly do agree that Nixon was deposed, but not by JFKA plotters. He was deposed by dishonest elected Democrats and their allies in the news media. We now know that the case against Nixon was a mix of gross exaggeration and outright fabrication. You should read Geoff Shepard's books The Real Watergate Scandal and The Nixon Conspiracy. A good intro is this panel discussion on Shepard's research held at George Washington University: LINK.
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16 hours ago, Pat Speer said:
You've been suckered. The fragment behind the eye is far more likely to be the 7 x 2 fragment than the forehead fragment.
Gosh, you must be kidding. We've been over this. You keep repeating arguments that I have proved are full of holes. Again, for the umpteenth time, your supposed "fragment behind the eye" is the slice object that no medical expert has even identified as metallic. That's just for starters.
Then, as I've also pointed out several times, to believe that your slice object is the 7x2 mm fragment, we'd have to believe that Humes, Boswell, Finck, and the radiologist committed the mind-boggling blunder of mistaking the round 6.5 mm object for a club-shaped 7x2 mm object on the AP x-ray, even though the 7x2 mm fragment and the 6.5 mm object are plainly visible on the AP x-ray.
And, of course, your entire convoluted explanation also requires us to dismiss the hard science of the OD measurements that prove the 6.5 mm object is not metallic. We have two sets of OD measurements that include hundreds of data points and that were done independently by two medical experts, one of whom uses OD measurements in his work as a board-certified radiation oncologist.
As far as my "emotional attachment"...hogwash. If you'd read my website, you'd know I've discovered and have pointed out numerous problems with the evidence.
Here we go again. So far, every single time you have claimed that your website (your online book) "explains X" or "explains Y" or "explains Z," when I have gone back and checked your website, I have found that it does not explain those issues.
So how about we do this: How about if you name just one piece of evidence that you believe was faked or deceptively altered? How about that? Just name one. Now, obviously, I'm not talking about a diagram, drawing, or statement created or submitted to the WC or the HSCA, etc. I'm talking about an item of physical evidence, such as an autopsy photo, an autopsy x-ray, a bullet fragment, a film, a rifle, a shell casing, a fingerprint, etc., etc. Just name one. Just one.
Why Col. L. Fletcher Prouty's Critics Are Wrong
in JFK Assassination Debate
Posted
So after all the facts I've documented in this thread about Prouty's bogus and/or nutty claims, you are still defending him???
BTW, just this morning I stumbled across another Prouty howler on YouTube. In his April 5, 1975, lecture titled "Anatomy of Assassination" at Yale University, Prouty claimed that Saudi Arabia's king, Ibn Saud, secretly took part in the Cairo Conference! Here's the LINK (1:10-1:20).
As with Prouty's fiction that Chiang and his group attended the Tehran Conference, not a single one of the hundreds of primary sources on the Cairo Conference says anything about Ibn Saud taking part in the conference. Many of these sources are available and searchable online.
Saud was famous for refusing to travel outside his country's boundaries. The first time he did so was in February 1945, when he met FDR at Great Bitter Lake in Egypt when FDR was on his way home from the Yalta Conference.
Prouty loved to make up false history to impress his gullible audiences, none of whom seemed to know enough history to realize what a fraud Prouty was.