Michael Griffith

I am in disbelief that people are still using the tramp photo showing a man with his back to the camera as "evidence" of Prouty's nutty claim that Lansdale was in Dealey Plaza on 11/22. Anyway, one of the facts that Dr. Berman notes in his 29-page critique of Newman's theory is that McGeorge Bundy, i.e., the guy who drafted NSAM 273 for JFK, told LBJ, in writing, under the heading of "Can this be ended by 1965?" that 1965 has never been anything more for us than a target for the completion of certain forms of technical training and assistance. A struggle of this kind needs patience and determination. ("NSAM 263 and NSAM 273: Manipulating History," in Vietnam: The Early Decisions, Kindle edition, loc. 3585) William Bundy, another JFK aide, rejected Ken O'Donnell's claim that JFK intended to withdraw from Vietnam without victory/regardless of the consequences. He noted that this claim and similar claims surfaced "at the height of anti-Vietnam sentiment" and "go alongside other literature . . . that President Kennedy would have acted very differently from what was done later" (Ibid., loc. 3537). William Bundy continued: But I think this line of thought is open to grave doubt. Was President Kennedy affirming an intention to withdraw under any and all circumstances? I do not believe that, not at all. (Ibid., loc. 3537) When Senator Mike Mansfield was asked about Ken O'Donnell's famous account of one of JFK's meetings with Mansfield, during which JFK supposedly said he was going to withdraw from Vietnam no matter what after the election, Mansfield contradicted O'Donnell's account. Said Mansfield, The only thing discussed at that meeting . . . was the President's desire to bring about a withdrawal but recognizing that it could not be done precipitately but only over a period of months. The election was not even mentioned nor thought of and I must disassociate myself with any inference that the President and I agreed that "the party image" would or should be taken into account. What conversations Mr. O'Donnell and the President had after my meeting, I am not aware of. (Ibid., loc. 3528) Finally, let's remember what Bobby Kennedy, who knew JFK better than any other man, said in his April 1964 oral history interview about his brother's views on Vietnam: The President felt that he had a strong, overwhelming reason for being in Vietnam and that we should win the war in Vietnam. (Ibid., loc. 3546) This is exactly what we see in every public and private firsthand statement that we have from JFK during the last few months of his life, including the day of his death.

Wow. You believe Prouty was credible after all we now know about him? Really? Sheesh, that's just sad and discrediting. Yes, I am in the minority in this forum when it comes to Prouty, and that is big black mark on this forum's credibility. Outside this forum, I am part of the 99.9% of scholars and researchers who acknowledge that Prouty was a crackpot. Given what we know about him, there is no excuse for defending him. You think Lansdale was involved in the plot? Based on what? This is sheer fantasy that no reputable historian takes seriously. I just have to wonder about your basis for believing that JFK was getting out of Vietnam when every single firsthand statement that we have from JFK himself contradicts this theory, when all the primary source documents make it clear that victory was the goal and the main criterion for any action regarding Vietnam, when there is not one shred of support for this theory on the JFK White House tapes, and when Bobby Kennedy expressly rejected the theory during his April 1964 oral history interview when he was specifically asked about it.

Dr. James Giglio, a historian and author of the book The Presidency of John F. Kennedy, provided a good summary of some of the problems with using the 1,000-man withdrawal/NSAM 263 to support the unconditional-withdrawal myth, in an article he wrote for the American Historical Association's magazine Perspectives on History in 1992: The 1,000-force cutback slated for the end of 1963 mostly involved a construction battalion that had completed its work; it was understood that it would be replaced by other troops. Moreover, the testimony of several contemporaries and Kennedy's own statements suggest that he intended no pullout after the 1964 election. In a 1964 oral history interview, Robert Kennedy, who knew his brother best, confirmed that the administration had not considered a withdrawal. When asked what the president would have done if the South Vietnamese appeared doomed, Robert answered in a way that truthfully expressed the ad hoc nature of the Kennedy presidency: "We'd face that when we came to it." The recently published Foreign Relations of the United States, Volume 4, Vietnam, August-December 1963, further affirms the no-pullout conclusion. (Oliver Stone's JFK in Historical Perspective | Perspectives on History | AHA (historians.org) Far-left author and Noam Chomsky disciple Andy Piascik discussed some of the reasons that even most ultra-liberals reject the myth that JFK was determined to unconditionally withdraw from Vietnam after the election: This fixation on what he might have done is understandable, for the historical record -- what JFK actually did -- is quite horrifying and laid the groundwork for the decade of slaughter that followed. First was the escalation in Laos, accompanied by diplomatic shenanigans that undermined coalition governments that included the Pathet Lao revolutionaries despite they're being the most popular force in the country. The goal, as always with empire, was victory and the annihilation of anyone who favored national liberation. In Vietnam, a similar approach led to massive devastation. In the winter of 1961-62, Kennedy initiated the full-scale bombing of those parts of South Vietnam controlled by the National Liberation Front (all but Saigon and its immediate surroundings). The justification that bombing was needed to defeat the revolution masked the indiscriminate nature of the aerial assault, which resulted in casualties that were overwhelmingly civilian. And so the tone was set for the next eleven years of war. It was also Kennedy who authorized the first use of Chemicals of Mass Destruction in Southeast Asia, with napalm the best-known and most deadly. Never had chemical warfare been used so extensively, though the U.S. had also used napalm in Korea in the early 1950's. Again, the tone was established as massive amounts of phosphorous, Agent Orange and other chemicals were used for the rest of the war, chemicals the deadly affects of which are being felt to this day throughout Indochina. And it was under Kennedy that the notorious strategic hamlets were set up throughout South Vietnam. "Strategic Hamlets" is a term worthy of Orwell at his best or Madison Avenue at its worst, designed to induce thoughts of happy, grateful peasants gathered around a campfire. The more accurate phrase would be Concentration Camps, as Vietnamese by the thousands were rounded up at gunpoint and forced to live behind barbed wire. . . . As each of these moves failed and the NLF grew stronger, Kennedy ordered ground troops to Southeast Asia in the spring of 1962 and gradually increased their numbers until his death. There is no evidence to indicate any plan for withdrawal short of victory. . . . Significantly, Schlesinger and the many other memoirists, biographers and historians of Camelot never mentioned withdrawal short of victory until domestic opinion had turned dramatically against U.S. aggression long after Kennedy's death. Only then did the myth of "Kennedy the Peacemaker" emerge. (https://www.ctpost.com/opinion/article/kennedy-s-never-ending-cult-5076200.php)

Given your refusal to concede the obvious fact that Prouty clearly fabricated his tale about Chiang and the Chinese delegation secretly attending the Tehran Conference, I suspect that nothing I say will cause you to change your position, but I offer this response for the sake of visitors and others. Relying solely on public statements from the time, one could make a case for either withdrawal or engagement simply by cherry-picking from the self-contradictory record. One, we’re not just talking about his public statements. We’re also talking about the JFK White House tapes and meeting minutes. Did you read Dr. Berman’s chapter? Two, the record is not “self-contradictory.” In every single firsthand statement from JFK himself we see him reaffirming his determination to win the war. You cannot cite a single firsthand statement from JFK to support your view. Critics such as Prouty and Newman look closely at what was done rather than what was said. They give more weight to the production of NSAM 263 - culminating a period of intense concentration on a strategic plan for Vietnam led personally by Kennedy - rather than discourse which may have been subject to electioneering and political persuasion. The intention of 263 is not ambiguous. You are citing Prouty?! Anyway, as dozens of scholars have noted, NSAM 263 simply does not support the unconditional-withdrawal myth. In fact, it refutes the myth. NSAM 263 itself is less than one page long and merely announces the 1,000-man withdrawal and refers to sections of the Taylor-McNamara report. If you read that report and the instructions that JFK himself gave to Lodge afterward, it is crystal clear that the withdrawal was conditioned on the situation on the ground and did not even involve the withdrawal of all troops. Moreover, the background documents prove that even if ground conditions permitted the gradual, phased withdrawal of “the bulk” of U.S. troops, we would continue to aid South Vietnam, and that the goal was to win the war. What is notable with the argument that “JFK never faced” what LBJ “had to confront” – which was first broached in Les Gelb’s NY Times op-ed December 1991) – is that rhetorically it dismisses the withdrawal argument for its presumption regarding the “unknown”, while simultaneously presuming to in fact “know” the “unknown” (i.e. JFK would have reacted the same as LBJ). It also fails to factor the escalatory measures initiated by the Johnson administration, beginning with NSAM 273. I know some here will never abandon this mythical spin. A few facts: One, it is simply a fact that JFK never faced the kind of escalation and precarious situation that LBJ faced. Two, some of the loudest voices for deploying combat troops to Vietnam were the JFK aides who remained in the White House under LBJ. Three, the draft of NSAM 273 that was prepared for JFK made it abundantly clear that every action was to be judged by whether or not it helped to defeat the Communists. Four, the indisputable and profusely documented facts are (1) that LBJ was reluctant to deploy combat troops, (2) that he was even reluctant to substantially escalate the war in any way because he wanted to focus on his domestic agenda, (3) that he only changed his mind when faced with the dire situation that developed in early 1965 and after former JFK aides and others repeatedly urged him to send combat troops, and (4) that even after he agreed to the first deployment of combat troops, he hoped they could return within a year. These facts are a matter of record. They have been acknowledged, documented, and discussed by scholars from all across the political spectrum and on both sides of the Vietnam debate. Only a tiny handful of scholars/authors deny these facts, and only a tiny minority of scholars/authors still peddle the unconditional-withdrawal myth.

Oh, I totally agree that Stone's movie deserves great credit for causing the passage of the JFKA Records Collection Act and the creation of the ARRB. I've said the same thing many times, including in my book and in my podcast interviews. But Stone's movie was very much a two-edged sword because it also discredited the case for conspiracy among the vast majority of academics and journalists, including among some who had previously at least been open to the possibility of a plot. And, yes, diehard WC apologists would have attacked Stone's film had there been no Prouty content in it, but they would have had a much harder time attacking it absent the Prouty claims. The Prouty claims presented WC apologists with low-hanging fruit, with easy targets, and made the film seem reckless and fringe. To put it another way, think how much harder it would have been for critics to attack the film if it had not included Prouty's debunked claims that JFK had decided to abandon the Vietnam War, that Edward Lansdale was one of the plotters, that the DC telephone system was taken offline for an hour shortly after the shooting, that Prouty (Mr. X) was sent to the South Pole to prevent him from helping with presidential security, that someone ordered the 112th MI Group to stand down on 11/22, etc.

I think the speculation that Nixon knew of the plot or was involved in the plot is the kind of speculation that does great harm to the case for conspiracy. If we assume the plotters were right-wingers, they would have been furious with Nixon and would not have let him get reelected. Why? Between January 1969 and October 1972, Nixon -- began withdrawing large numbers of troops from South Vietnam five months after taking office--by December 1971, he had withdrawn nearly 400,000 troops -- created the EPA in 1970 -- tried hard to push through Congress a huge expansion of federal welfare called the Family Assistance Program (FAP) that would have made 13 million more people eligible for federal assistance--the FAP passed the House in April 1970 but Southern conservatives killed it in the Senate (twice) -- earmarked $100 million for cancer research, far more than any other president had spent on such research -- initiated the desegregation of Southern schools -- increased funding for the Bureau of Indian Affairs by 225 percent, doubled funds for American Indian health care, and established the Office of Indian Water Rights -- extended Affirmative Action in federal employment -- restrained defense spending so that by August 1972 defense spending took the lowest percentage of GNP since the early 1950s -- substantially increased Social Security benefits.

I don't think anyone would mistake a Harrier for a UFO unless they saw it from so far away that they could not even see its basic shape and components (i.e., wings, tail, cockpit, and fuselage). A Harrier looks like any other military fighter jet. Plus, no Harrier, nor any other jet, could perform the gravity-defying flying maneuvers that so many witnesses (including my wife) have seen and described.

Critics pounced on three blunders in Stone's 1991 JFK to discredit the movie in the eyes of most journalists and academics. Those three blunders were (1) the claim that Ed Lansdale was one of the plotters, (2) the claim that JFK was determined to abandon the Vietnam War after the election, and (3) Stone's use of Fletcher Prouty as a source. One of Stone's own aides, Jane Rusconi, who checked into Prouty, warned Stone five months before the movie's release that Prouty must have known about Liberty Lobby's "unsavory" nature: “Basically, there’s no way Fletcher could be unaware of the unsavory aspects of the Liberty Lobby. The Anti-Defamation Leagues keeps a close watch on the Liberty Lobby and are very aware of Fletcher’s involvement. It could come back to haunt us if we don’t find a way to deal with this.” And Rusconi was apparently unaware that Prouty had actually spoken at an IHR Holocaust-denial conference and had written a letter praising the primary goals of the IHR's Holocaust-denying journal. Yet, just the information that Rusconi found on Prouty should have been enough to cause Stone to drop him, but Stone decided to use Prouty as a source anyway. This decision came back to haunt Stone in a major way when critics pounced on Prouty's bogus claims and documented Prouty's record of prolonged and close associations with anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers, and white supremacists.

Has the Stone-Prouty-Newman camp ever responded to Dr. Larry Berman's 29-page critique of Newman's case for the unconditional-withdrawal myth? I'm referring to Dr. Berman's 29-page chapter titled "NSAM 263 and NSAM 273: Manipulating History" in the roundtable book Vietnam: The Early Decisions (University of Texas Press, 1997, pp. 177-206), edited by Dr. Lloyd Gardner and Dr. Ted Gittinger. Among many other things, Berman documents that JFK clearly expressed his intention to win the war in both public and private statements that he made in the last four weeks of his life. Indeed, in the speech that JFK was going to give at the Trade Mart, he warned that we "dare not weary of the task" of supporting nations that were threatened by communism, and that reducing our aid to those nations would be dangerous: Our security and strength, in the last analysis, directly depend on the security and strength of others, and that is why our military and economic assistance plays such a key role in enabling those who live on the periphery of the Communist world to maintain their independence of choice. Our assistance to these nations can be painful, risky and costly, as is true in Southeast Asia today. But we dare not weary of the task. . . . Reducing our efforts to train, equip, and assist their armies can only encourage Communist penetration and require in time the increased overseas deployment of American combat forces. Berman also documents that when LBJ was faced with Hanoi's vast escalation in South Vietnam in the 14 months following Diem's death, his holdover JFK aides were among those who recommended sending combat troops to stabilize the situation. To get some idea of how drastically Hanoi's leaders escalated their war effort after Diem's death, the first division-sized battle did not occur in Vietnam until late 1964. Until then, the Communists had never deployed more than a regiment or a battalion into battle--they usually only deployed a company or two. Yet, in late 1964, they attacked Binh Gia with a division (a typical division contained three regiments or nine battalions). This brings us back to the key point that LBJ and JFK faced very different situations--JFK was never faced with the kind of massive escalation that LBJ had to confront. And, Berman documents that LBJ was initially reluctant to send combat troops to South Vietnam, and that it took considerable persuasion from former JFK aides and others to get him to change his mind.

Some of the clearest indications of alteration are the impossibly fast movements of Malcolm Summers and Charles Brehm's son, the obvious conflict between Jackie's and Agent Hill's locations and positions in the equivalent Nix and Zapruder frames. I discuss these issues in my article on Z film alteration: Evidence of Alteration in the Zapruder Film Another strong indication of alteration is the absence of a noticeable limo stop in the existing film. When you watch the film at regular speed, which is how the people in the plaza would have seen the event, the limo appears to travel at a steady speed until after the head shot, and the limo speeds up dramatically after the head shot. However, dozens of witnesses, from all over the plaza, said the limo stopped or markedly slowed soon after the shooting began. No such event is seen in the existing film. I reject the argument that all of these 40-plus witnesses experienced the same hallucination.

And let's not forget that Prouty also made the fantastic claim that Lucien Conein was in Dealey Plaza too, despite the fact that Conein was in South Vietnam at the time. We should also keep in mind that Prouty's website still claims that Victor Krulak identified the man with his back to the camera in the tramp photo as Lansdale, even though we know from Harrison Livingstone's recorded interview with Krulak that Krulak did no such thing. It should be noted that Prouty did not float his obscene claims about Lansdale until after Lansdale died in 1987.

The claim that Lansdale was part of the plot is obscene, embarrassing, and discrediting. It was popularized by the anti-Semitic crackpot Fletcher Prouty. It remains one of the main reasons that academics and journalists dismiss the case for conspiracy. Even Oliver Stone has distanced himself from this scurrilous claim. There is no credible evidence that Lansdale was in Dealey Plaza. Zero. None. Zilch. Prouty's letter from General Krulak was exposed as a forgery when Harrison Livingstone interviewed Krulak on tape. Lansdale admired JFK and mourned his death. Lansdale was not a political partisan, either. The man with his back to the camera in one of the tramp photos is not Lansdale. Lansdale did not wear glasses, and the man is wearing a ring that Lansdale's family says he never wore. Lansdale's son insists the man is not his father. JFK did not intend for Diem to be killed, and he was shocked when he learned of Diem's death. Even many of the South Vietnamese generals did not know that Diem would be killed--indeed, many of them joined the plot on the condition that Diem would not be harmed. Diem's death proved to be a disaster for South Vietnam. In the two years following Diem's murder, South Vietnam had several coup attempts and four changes in government. Whereas the war effort had been going well since 1962, it began to unravel within weeks of Diem's death, causing North Vietnam to start sending massive, unprecedented amounts of troops and weapons into South Vietnam in early 1964.

Joe, I agree. And I think we should keep in mind that Councilman Holden has called on the DA to reopen the case and has released his letter to the DA thanks to the dogged work of Mark Shaw. When readers see the existing evidence that Dorothy was murdered, they also recognize that the only people who would have had any conceivable motive to murder her would have been people who did not want her to publish her findings on JFK's assassination. This is why the case of William Bruce Pitzer is also revealing and important. The case for suicide in Pitzer's death is highly implausible, to say the least, especially given the information revealed in the FBI and Navy files on the incident. Pitzer was just about to retire from the Navy and start a great new job that he had lined up for himself. He had already accepted the job offer and was just waiting to retire from the Navy. His family reported that he was happy, upbeat, and looking forward to this next phase of his life. They never bought the suicide finding. They also said that he told them that he knew things about JFK's wounds that disproved the official account of the assassination. And add to this the fact that a former Army Special Forces officer revealed that a CIA officer asked him to kill Pitzer because Pitzer was supposedly about to hand over classified information to the enemy. Here, too, the only plausible suspects in Pitzer's murder would be people who feared he would reveal suppressed information about JFK's wounds.

So you believe that the back shot occurred immediately before the Z313 head shot??? Even the altered Zapruder film shows JFK reacting to an apparent back shot at least 87 frames, or 4.75 seconds, before the Z313 head shot. Do you think it's wise to rely so heavily on a single eyewitness recollection? I think Bennett clearly merged some events and compressed their time frame. There is no way that the back shot came immediately before the Z313 head shot.

This specious scenario is one of the main reasons that most academics and journalists dismiss the case for conspiracy. The scenario is just not true. There is a mountain of evidence that contradicts it. No one would accuse H. R. McMaster of being a pro-LBJ historian. Quite the contrary. Yet, even McMaster, in his best-selling and award-winning book Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam, documents in great detail (1) that LBJ did not want to send combat troops to Vietnam (certainly not in large numbers), (2) that LBJ hoped that the initial deployment of combat troops would be able to return within a year, (3) that when LBJ took office he hoped he could cut defense spending, (4) that LBJ hoped to keep Vietnam escalation to a minimum because he wanted to focus on his domestic agenda, and (5) that LBJ's relationship with the Joint Chiefs was anything but chummy and friendly. I discuss these and other problems with the JFK-was-killed-over-Vietnam scenario in my thread The Myth that JFK Was Killed Over the Vietnam War.

The back shot would not have been 90 yards away but only about 50-70 yards away from the sixth-floor window. The Z313 head shot would have been 90 yards away. A short shot (misfire) is a possibility. A number of witnesses said one of the shots sounded different from the others. Another possibility is that the back wound was made by a large fragment from the bullet that struck the pavement behind JFK's limo early in the shooting sequence. Regarding the Harper fragment, Dr. Angel only studied the photos of the fragment for a week or two. Dr. Mantik studied the photos of the fragment for years, and after refining and revising his analysis, he meticulously built a strong case for identifying the fragment as occipital bone, the same conclusion reached by the only three pathologists who actually handled the fragment.

Fletcher Prouty's nutty, obscene claim that Lansdale was one of the key plotters, that he was in Dealey Plaza during the shooting, and that he is pictured in one of the tramp photos has been used by WC apologists as a sledge hammer to discredit the case for conspiracy. Academics and journalists pounced on this scurrilous claim to discredit Oliver Stone's 1991 movie JFK. Thankfully, Stone did not include any of this ludicrous material in his 2021 documentary JFK Revisited. Prouty or one of his adoring supporters almost certainly fabricated the letter that Prouty allegedly received from Victor Krulak in which Krulak is represented as confirming Lansdale's presence in one of the tramp photos. When Harrison Livingstone interviewed Krulak, on tape, Krulak made it clear that he believed no such thing (LINK). Prouty was an anti-Semitic crackpot who spent years palling around with Holocaust deniers, white supremacists, and other extremists, speaking at their gatherings, praising the IHR's journal, having the IHR republish one of his books, appearing 10 times on Liberty Lobby's anti-Semitic and Holocaust-denying radio program, appearing on Holocaust-denier Lyndon LaRouche's TV program, expressing concern about having Jewish sergeants operating a weapon targeting system, blaming the Israelis for high oil prices and accusing them of "usury" (a favorite line of anti-Semites throughout history), praising Holocaust deniers Willis Carto and Thomas Marcellus, recommending that people read the anti-Semitic rag The Spotlight, smearing Church of Scientology whistleblowers, defending Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard, arguing that the "Secret Team" may have murdered Princess Diana, etc., etc., etc.

I think this development regarding Dorothy Kilgallen's death, though modest, is important. It shows that a government official has become convinced that Dorothy was murdered, and now that official is publicly asking the DA to reopen the case. One of the most vulnerable aspects of the lone-gunman myth is the pattern/number of suspicious deaths. In many instances, a crime is revealed by the efforts of the criminals to cover up the crime. Dorothy was clearly murdered, and her murder was clumsily staged to look like an accidental overdose or suicide. Mark Shaw's crucial discovery that Nembutal powder was discovered on a glass in the bedroom where her body was found constitutes strong evidence of murder. Nembutal was always provided in capsule form. The only way Nembutal powder could have gotten on the glass would have been if someone had taken apart the capsule and poured the powder into the glass.

Many sources say that Kilgallen interviewed Clemons, not just the link I cited. John Simkin's Spartacus site says she interviewed Clemons (LINK, LINK). Simkin repeated this assertion in a post in this forum (LINK). Kilgallen biographer Sara Jordan says Kilgallen interviewed Clemons (LINK). So does James Chipman (LINK). Dorothy was in Dallas for several weeks in 1964 and had ample opportunity to speak with Clemons. However, I suspect Parker may be correct. Parker's source is an excerpt from Lee Israel's 1979 book Kilgallen. Israel said that Martin interviewed Clemons on tape, then sent Dorothy a copy of the tape, and that Dorothy transcribed the tape and then used the transcript in her column. I can understand how this got morphed into Dorothy doing the interview herself. Until I can find a copy of Dorothy's 9/26/64 column, I'm inclined to accept Israel's account of the interview. Anyway, the stuff you posted on Sara Jordan-Heintz's new book The Incredible Life & Mysterious Death of Dorothy Kilgallen (2023) is very interesting.

She talked about it in one of her columns, her 9/25/1964 column (LINK).

Are you aware of the considerable evidence that Oswald was not even on the sixth floor of the TSBD during the shooting? Have you seen Oliver Stone's recent documentary JFK Revisited? It contains an excellent segment on this evidence. Also, are you aware of the James Young deformed bullet, the Aldredge curb bullet mark, and the bullet that burrowed into the grass near the manhole cover farther down Elm Street near the triple underpass? Extra Bullets and Missed Shots in Dealey Plaza An expanded version of this article is included in my new book A Comforting Lie: The Myth that a Lone Gunman Killed President Kennedy.

She said she saw two men, that the man with the gun waved off the other man, that the two men headed in different directions, and her descriptions of the two men do not resemble Oswald (LINK, LINK). Frank Wright saw an assailant jump into a car and speed off, while other witnesses saw an assailant leave the scene on foot. Do you believe that Dorothy Kilgallen accidentally overdosed on sleeping meds?

To show how truly embarrassing and inexcusable it is for anyone to still deny that the North Vietnamese imposed a reign of terror after they won, let us consider the open letter that numerous former anti-war activists sent to the Hanoi regime in 1979. To their credit, a number of liberals who played leading roles in the anti-war movement during the Vietnam War condemned the Hanoi regime in 1979 when they finally--some would say belatedly--became convinced that the Communists were brutalizing and oppressing the people. In an “Open Letter to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” published in five major newspapers on May 30, 1979, Joan Baez and other former anti-war activists called out Vietnam's Communist leaders for serious human rights violations. The letter was written by Joan Baez and Ginetta Sagan and was signed by numerous other prominent liberal anti-war activists, including Norman Cousins, I. F. Stone, Norman Lear, Cesar Chavez, Edward Asner, and Daniel Berrigan. Guess which anti-war activists condemned the letter or declined to comment on it? Shamefully, the list is very long. A small sampling: Jane Fonda, Dave Dellinger, Abbie Hoffman, William Kuntsler, and Tom Hayden condemned the letter--they actually blamed the U.S. for the oppression in Vietnam (some anti-war activists even argued that the CIA was behind the refugee accounts). Musician John Lennon and his wife Yoki Ono and actors Donald Sutherland, Michael Alaimo, and Peter Boyle declined to comment on the letter. Vietnam Veterans Against the War leaders John Kerry, Ron Kovic, Jan Barry, and Al Hubbard also declined to comment on the letter. On a separate occasion, Joan Baez even complained that she had been "used" by the Left during the Vietnam War. To her further great credit, Joan Baez led the effort to persuade President Jimmy Carter to help the Vietnamese boat people and other Vietnamese who were fleeing from the Hanoi regime's tyranny. She eventually even persuaded President Carter to send the Seventh Fleet to rescue the boat people who were still at sea. Baez became convinced that the growing mountain of accounts of Communist brutality in Vietnam were true when her good friend and Amnesty International official Ginetta Sagan personally interviewed numerous Vietnamese refugees (see https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1152&context=dissertation). Baez and Sagan teamed up to form Humanitas, which sponsored the open letter. Here is a portion of the open letter: Thousands of innocent Vietnamese, many whose only «crimes» are those of conscience, are being arrested, detained and tortured in prisons and re-education camps. Instead of bringing hope and reconciliation to war-torn Vietnam, your government has created a painful nightmare that overshadows significant progress achieved in many areas of Vietnamese society. . . . We have heard the horror stories from the people of Vietnam from workers and peasants, Catholic nuns and Buddhist priests, from the boat people, the artists and professionals and those who fought alongside the NLF. The jails are overflowing with thousands upon thousands of detainees. People disappear and never return. People are shipped to re-education centers, fed a starvation diet of stale rice, forced to squat bound wrist to ankle, suffocated in connex boxes. People are used as human mine detectors, clearing live mine fields with their hands and feet. For many, life is hell and death is prayed for. . . . Many victims are men, women and children who supported and fought for the causes of reunification and self-determination; those who as pacifists, members of religious groups, or on moral and philosophic grounds opposed the authoritarian policies of Thieu and Ky; artists and intellectuals whose commitment to creative expression is anathema to the totalitarian policies of your government. Requests by Amnesty International and others for impartial investigations of prison conditions remain unanswered. Families who inquire about husbands, wives, daughters or sons are ignored. (https://vietnamkrigen.wordpress.com/dokumentsamling/open-letter-to-the-socialist-republic-of-vietnam/)

I have answered every one of these claims with documented facts, several times now, but you just keep ignoring those facts and keep repeating these claims (LINK, LINK, LINK, LINK). You can repeat these erroneous claims with all the adamance at your command, over and over again, but they will still be claims that are recognized as erroneous and fringe even by the vast majority of liberal scholars and historians, even by ultra-liberal historians such as Moise and Chomsky. I realize you don't care about this fact, but I think it should be pointed out for the sake of others. No, Dr. Selverstone's suggestion that JFK may have committed 300,000 combat troops in response to the kind of dire situation that developed in 1965 is hardly "wild, irresponsible, and bizarre" but has been voiced by most scholars who have addressed the issue. I think that your polemic against this suggestion indicates that you are not qualified to be discussing JFK and Vietnam. I should point out, again, that even Bobby Kennedy, in his April 1964 oral history interview, allowed that JFK may have authorized combat troops if the situation had become serious enough. You keep ignoring the fact that JFK was never faced with the situation that LBJ faced in early 1965. I devote an entire chapter to JFK and Vietnam in my new book A Comforting Lie: The Myth that a Lone Gunman Killed President Kennedy (chapter 20, which is 22 pages long). I think that anyone who continues to defend Fletcher Prouty, given all that we now know about him, is showing a troubling lack of objectivity and credibility. Among the many pitiful excuses offered for Prouty is the argument that Prouty agreed to have the Holocaust-denying IHR Noontide Press republish his (nutty) book The Secret Team because no one else would publish it. One, if Prouty truly could not find a single other publisher who would republish the book, that should tell you something. Two, no matter how anxious I might be to get a book published, I would never, ever, ever agree to have a Holocaust-denying publishing company publish my book. Finally, regarding "fringe claims," yes, Prouty most certainly made a number of fringe claims. The claim that Ed Lansdale was a key plotter and was in Dealey Plaza is a nutty, obscene, fringe claim, and is recognized as such by 99.99% of the scholars and historians who have written on the subject. The claim that Prouty flew the Chinese delegation to the Tehran Conference and that Chiang and his delegation secretly attended the conference is a nutty, fringe claim, and is rejected by 99.99% of the scholars and historians who have written on the subject. The claim that the Israelis were to blame for high oil prices in the 1980s/early 1990s is a nutty, fringe claim, not to mention an anti-Semitic smear peddled by neo-Nazi groups and radical Muslims, and is recognized as such by 99.99% of the scholars and historians who have written on the subject. And on and on we could go.

Thanks to the efforts of Mark Shaw, a prominent member of the NYC council, Robert Holden, has formally requested that the NYC DA reopen the case of Dorothy Kilgallen, an early critic of the Warren Commission who died under highly suspicious circumstances soon after telling friends that she believed she was about to break the JFK assassination case wide open. Dorothy was one of the first critics of the lone-gunman theory. She used her widely read newspaper column to raise questions about the single-assassin scenario and about Jack Ruby. She interviewed Acquilla Clemons and noted that Clemons said the man with the gun did not look like Oswald but was short and chunky/heavy, and she said there was another man nearby who was waved off by the man with the gun. She was the only journalist to obtain a private interview with Jack Ruby. Councilman Holden sent his formal request last week, on January 31. Mark Shaw published an announcement about the request today: The official Mark Shaw Books Website Here is the letter that Councilman Holden sent to the NYC DA: CM-Holden-Letter-to-DA-Bragg-on-Dorothy-Kilgallen-January-31-2024.pdf (markshawbooks.com)