Michael Griffith
-
Posts
1,743 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Store
Posts posted by Michael Griffith
-
-
I forgot to mention that Fletcher Prouty actually appeared on a third anti-Semitic program: On 11/11/1992, he appeared on The LaRouche Connection TV program, a program created by a lunatic fringe anti-Semite and Holocaust denier named Lyndon LaRouche (LINK). The U.S. Justice Department's Office of Justice website says the following about LaRouche:
LaRouche has had frequent encounters with the law and has voiced his blatant anti-Semitism. He has also made outrageous accusations against prominent political figures, such as accusing the Queen of England of being the head of an international Jewish drug conspiracy and calling Henry Kissinger a Soviet spy. The portrait of LaRouche details his political activities since the late 1960's, reveals who supports his neo-Nazi activities and discusses why and where his financial support originates (LINK; see also LINK and LINK).
Prouty apologists can offer only pitiful excuses and surreal denials regarding Prouty's prolonged association with anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers, his documented support of Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism, his shameful defense of L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology, his bizarre theories, and his bogus claims.
Academics and journalists who reject the conspiracy view of the JFKA always pounce on authors who cite Prouty; understandably, they point to the citation of Prouty as an indication that the authors are not credible or believable. Oliver Stone's unfortunate reliance on Prouty's claims in his 1991 movie JFK provided critics with devastating ammo with which to attack the movie. Researchers who continue to cite and praise Prouty are embarrassing themselves and are doing considerable damage to our cause.
-
Part of what is disappointing about the OP and the article linked in the OP is that the authors keep repeating these fringe claims and never address or acknowledge contrary facts that have been presented to them. I know they are aware of these facts because I have personally presented these facts to them in this forum.
As just one example, let's take a look at the original draft of NSAM 273, i.e., the version that JFK was going to sign when he returned from Dallas. Among other things, the original draft is further clear evidence that JFK was determined to win the war to keep South Vietnam free, and that he stipulated that all decisions and actions should be judged based on whether or not they contributed to this purpose:
1. It remains the central object of the United States in South Vietnam to assist the people and government of that country to win their contest against the externally directed and supported Communist conspiracy. The test of all decisions and U.S. actions in this area should be the effectiveness of their contribution to this purpose. . . .
Immediately after this statement, the draft mentions the 10/2/63 withdrawal announcement, i.e., NSAM 263. Obviously, the objectives of NSAM 263 were to be judged by whether or not they helped South Vietnam to win the war and remain free, and if they began to harm that "central object," they would be abandoned.
Paragraph 6 directed that military and economic aid should be maintained at the same levels that they were during Diem's tenure:
6. Programs of military and economic assistance should be maintained at such levels that their magnitude and effectiveness in the eyes of the Vietnamese Government do not fall below the levels sustained by the United States in the time of the Diem government…
Paragraph 7 called for "a wholly new level of effectiveness" in action against North Vietnam:
7. With respect to action against North Vietnam, there should be a detailed plan for the development of additional Government of Vietnam resources, especially for sea-going activity, and such planning should indicate the time and investment necessary to achieve a wholly new level of effectiveness in this field of action. . . .
Paragraph 10 called for making the case to the world that the Viet Cong were "controlled, sustained, and supplied" by the Hanoi regime:
10. In connection with paragraphs 7 and 8 above, it is desired that we should develop as strong and persuasive case as possible to demonstrate to the world the degree to which the Viet Cong is controlled, sustained, and supplied from Hanoi, through Laos and other channels.
None of these things should be the least bit surprising, given JFK's statements in the months leading up to the Texas trip, and given his statements during the Texas trip, in which he made it clear that he was determined to keep South Vietnam free and that he was opposed to abandoning the war effort.
However, you'd never imagine these things, much less know them, to read the way the defenders of the unconditional-withdrawal myth spin the original draft of NSAM 273. Nor do these authors ever bother to tell their readers that they are pushing a theory that is rejected even by most liberal Vietnam War scholars and historians, not to mention the overwhelming majority of moderate and conservative Vietnam War scholars and historians.
-
On 1/22/2024 at 4:24 AM, Robert Burrows said:
Phil Spector on John Lennon's assassination...
I think Spector's take is ridiculous. The "perfect time" to have gotten rid of John Lennon would have been shortly after he became a leading figure in the anti-Vietnam War movement, not in December 1980. One of the facts that cries out against this whacky conspiracy theory is that there was no conceivable, rational motive for the CIA/MIC to assassinate Lennon in December 1980.
This Lennon assassination conspiracy theory is the poster child for the kinds of zany, irrational conspiracy theories that critics accuse us of concocting. Pushing this theory hands our critics powerful ammo on a silver platter.
There are no credible parallels between Mark David Chapman and either Sirhan Sirhan, James Earl Ray, or Lee Harvey Oswald. Chapman not only immediately confessed his crime but pled guilty to the shooting in a court of law. He remembered his crime in considerable detail; he still remembers it; and he has never denied it. There is no mystery about how Chapman paid for his few travels. Chapman has provided a plausible motive for his action. And Chapman was clearly mentally disturbed during the months leading up to his shooting of Lennon and for many months afterward.
-
16 hours ago, Greg Burnham said:
One big difference between you and David [Mantik] is this: When David makes a mistake he admits it. For some reason you keep harping on the same error, that he already acknowledged, as if he was supposed to be 100% infallible 100% of the time. Now, back to the matter at hand. Please show your work. Ya know, that pesky math stuff. Specifically could you show your optical densitometry readings for comparison purposes?
You are spot on.
Pat's response to Dr. Mantik's historic OD measurements is specious and amateurish, and a gift to WC apologists (they frequently cite Pat's anti-alteration arguments in the JFK Assassination Forum). Dr. Michael Chesser did his own OD measurements, and his measurements support Dr. Mantik's, but Pat brushes this aside as meaningless. Pat's refusal to accept this historic scientific evidence is both baffling and discrediting.
Similarly, Pat's criticism of Dr. Mantik's placement of the Harper fragment in the occiput reflects his refusal to face facts that contradict his rigid ideological opposition to film and x-ray alteration. He waves aside the fact that the only three pathologists who actually handled the Harper fragment all said it was occipital bone, even though Dr. Ebersole told the HSCA that one of the late-arriving skull fragments was occipital bone.
-
This is embarrassing, and inexcusable, given what we now know about Fletcher Prouty, about NSAMs 263 and 273, and about JFK's Vietnam intentions. Threads such as this one do great harm to our cause and make the forum appear to be a home for crackpot claims. Prouty was a fraud who spent years palling around with anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers, and who made ludicrous claims, including some downright obscene accusations, some of which even Oliver Stone has wisely repudiated (see the links at the end of this reply).
Also, as I have noted in several other threads when the unconditional-withdrawal myth has been peddled, even most liberal scholars reject the claim that JFK was going to unconditionally withdraw from Vietnam after the election, including ultra-liberals such as Ed Moise and Noam Chomsky.
Dr. Marc Selverstone's recent book The Kennedy Withdrawal, which has been praised by scholars from both sides of the Vietnam War discussion, puts the final nail in the coffin of the unconditional-withdrawal myth. Among other things, Selverstone documents that the JFK White House tapes do not contain even a tiny shred of evidence that JFK planned on abandoning the war effort after the election, much less that he planned on doing so regardless of the consequences.
People need to understand that the unconditional-withdrawal myth is a fringe theory, a theory that is rejected by the overwhelming majority of Vietnam War historians and scholars from all across the spectrum.
Whenever you see someone favorably cite or praise Fletcher Prouty, keep in mind that Prouty
-- wrote a letter to a Holocaust-denying journal and praised the journal's goals
-- spoke at a Holocaust-denial conference sponsored by the Institute for Historical Review (IHR)
-- spoke at a convention of the vile anti-Semitic group Liberty Lobby, during which he blamed the Israelis for high oil prices and repeated the standard anti-Semitic charge of "usury"
-- co-hosted a panel discussion with white supremacist Bo Gritz during the Liberty Lobby convention
-- appeared 10 times in four years on Liberty Lobby's radio program, a program that frequently included known Holocaust deniers and white supremacists as guests
-- had one of his books republished by the IHR's publishing arm, the Noontide Press (other books published by Noontide include works that deny the Holocaust, works that praise Hitler and the SS, the infamous anti-Semitic screed The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, and works that overtly promote white supremacy)
-- claimed that he flew the Chinese delegation from Cairo to Tehran after the Cairo Conference and that the Chinese delegation, along with Chiang Kai-shek himself, attended the Tehran Conference, even though it is an undisputed historical fact that Chiang and his delegation returned to China after the Cairo Conference and did not attend the Tehran Conference
-- claimed that after he arrived in Tehran, he saw Winston Churchill and his delegation held up at a Soviet checkpoint because Churchill didn't have his ID on him since he was allegedly wearing a pocketless military jumpsuit, and during this delay the members of the Chinese delegation stood up in their cars and pointed and laughed at the British delegation, yet no one in the British delegation ever mentioned such an incident, and there was no such thing as a pocketless jumpsuit during WWII (no member of the Chinese delegation ever recalled such an incident either, and never mentioned attending the Tehran Conference)
-- claimed that he met FDR's son Elliott while allegedly refueling at Habbaniya Airfield in Iraq, that Elliott met the Chinese delegation during the stop, and that Elliott knew the Chinese delegation attended the Tehran Conference, yet Elliott said nothing about seeing the Chinese delegation in Tehran or in Egypt in his extensive accounts of his travels and of the conference, and the kind of plane that Prouty said he flew would have had no need to stop for fuel between Cairo and Tehran
-- said he would not be surprised to learn that the Secret Team assassinated Princess Diana
-- claimed that the Jonestown Massacre was carried out by the CIA/U.S. intelligence
-- took seriously Joseph Stalin's theory that Churchill had FDR poisoned
-- defended the fraudulent Church of Scientology and its criminal founder L. Ron Hubbard, and actually attacked Scientology whistleblowers who were exposing the cult
-- and claimed that General Edward Lansdale, who admired JFK and mourned his death, was a key plotter in the JFK assassination, that Lansdale was in Dealey Plaza during the shooting, and that one of the tramp photos shows Lansdale walking away from the camera. To his credit, Oliver Stone has distanced himself from Prouty's nutty, obscene charges against Lansdale.
-
5 hours ago, Pamela Brown said:
An appeal to "Occam's Razor" is a appeal to authority...
MDC killing John Lennon ergo no conspiracy falls prey to the fallacy of false alternatives...
Appealing to Occam's Razor is not an appeal to authority.
Chapman confessed right after the crime and has continued to confess ever since. He is no Sirhan Sirhan--he is the exact opposite. There is nothing suspicious about Chapman's few trips.
But, if you are determined to believe that the CIA/MIC killed Lennon, no amount of evidence will convince you otherwise.
-
On 5/5/2023 at 9:53 AM, David Whelan said:
The ten disturbing parallels between John Lennon’s assassination and the assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK.
https://davidwhelan.substack.com/p/10-disturbing-parallels-between-john
I recently watched the Apple TV documentary John Lennon: Murder without a Trial, and then read Jack Jones’ book Let Me Take You Down: Inside the Mind of Mark David Chapman, the Man Who Killed John Lennon. This has prompted me to return to this thread to comment on your alleged parallels between Lennon’s death and the JFK, RFK, and MLK assassinations.
I’m not going to discuss all 10 of your alleged parallels because some of them are so general and/or lame that they don’t merit discussion, but I will address six of them. I’ll start with the erroneous claim that Chapman, like Sirhan Sirhan, did not remember shooting Lennon.
3. The alleged murderer of John Lennon could not coherently remember what he had done and how he did it. Sirhan Sirhan does not recall shooting RFK.
This is false, and it is hard to understand how you could make this claim. Chapman clearly recalled shooting Lennon. His recollections were recorded. He recalled sitting on the curb, seeing a black limo pull up to the building. He recalled seeing Yoko Ono and then Lennon emerge from the limo. He recalled walking 6 feet toward Lennon. He recalled taking the gun out of his pocket, aiming at Lennon, and firing at him. In one interview, Chapman said he “took the gun out of my pocket and aimed at him and just fired away, all five shots.” In another interview, he recalled that “I took five steps and fired five shots.”
In fact, shortly after the shooting, Chapman acknowledged to the police that he had shot Lennon, and he added that he had been tracking Lennon “for a while.”
In interviews that Chapman gave years later, he admitted that he began thinking about killing Lennon shortly after he read the book John Lennon: One Day at a Time months before he flew to NYC to kill Lennon. He also recalled how he lied when he bought his gun and how he lied to his wife and mother about why he was going to NYC.
Obviously, this bears no resemblance to Sirhan, who (1) did not even know he had fired at RFK until he was told he had done so after he was arrested, and (2) never claimed he had planned on shooting RFK. To this day, Sirhan has no memory of what he did during the shooting. This is the exact opposite of Mark Chapman.
So your theory that Chapman was a hypno-programmed killer, much less ala Sirhan, is clearly wrong.
9. Mark Chapman travelled the world on a Janitor’s salary. James Earl Ray, a petty thief, travelled the world after he allegedly shot MLK.
This is ridiculous. Chapman stayed in a dingy room at a YMCA hostel for most of the time he was in NYC before he shot Lennon. He had to go long periods without food there because he didn’t want to use up all the money that his father-in-law loaned him to pay for the trip. He father-in-law loaned him $5,000, so there is no mystery about how he paid for his travels to NYC, to Georgia for ammo, back to Hawaii, and then back to NYC.
It’s not like he was a frequent flyer or a world traveler. He was able to go on a vacation to the Far East and Europe in 1978 because he had saved up some money, because his father had given him $1,000 as a Christmas gift, and because he borrowed money from the credit union at the hospital where he worked. He was able to take a six-week leave of absence from his job for the trip. For most of his trip, he stayed at YMCA hostels. There is no mystery about how he paid for this trip.
2. John Lennon was shot in the front. The official narrative says he was shot in the back.
The autopsy report says he was shot from behind. The ER doctor and nurses did not do the autopsy. They were trying to revive Lennon. They opened his chest so the doctor could massage the heart. I’m not sure how they were qualified to make a shot-direction determination under those circumstances.
If the ER doctor and nurses believed Lennon was shot from the front, in this case I would defer to the autopsy report, given the nature of their experience with Lennon’s wounds, given the fact that Chapman immediately confessed to shooting Lennon and has repeated his confession many times over the years, and given the fact that witnesses saw Chapman shoot Lennon.
4. Strong medical and forensic evidence points to a second shooter in John Lennon’s assassination.
Only according to you. And, BTW, Chapman fired from 5-6 feet away, not 20-25 feet.
It’s worth mentioning that Chapman had a list of other targets that included Walter Cronkite, Johnny Carson, Jackie Kennedy, Marlon Brando, and George C. Scott. Now, why would the CIA or the military-industrial complex (MIC) have targeted any of these people? What threat did any of them pose to the CIA/MIC’s alleged pro-war agenda?
I should add that the government documents you cite that identify Lennon as an anti-war activist and a threat were written during the Nixon years. By December 1980, Nixon had been out of office for six years, and American troops had left South Vietnam seven years earlier.
Even John Scheinfeld, director of the far-left documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon, rejects the idea that government forces were behind Lennon’s death, saying, “I’ve been through every FBI document in John Lennon’s file. There’s not one shred of evidence to suggest that the U.S. Government had the least interest in John after 1972” (LINK, starting at around 38:43)
5. Mark Chapman, the alleged murderer of John Lennon, was interviewed by hypnotist Bernard Diamond. Sirhan Sirhan, the alleged murderer of RFK, was interviewed by hypnotist Bernard Diamond.
More than a dozen psychologists and psychiatrists interviewed Chapman in the six months before his trial. They conducted numerous standard diagnostic tests and more than 200 hours of clinical interviews. Diamond and Kline were only two of the dozen-plus psychiatrists/psychologists who examined Chapman.
6. Bernard Diamond made Sirhan Sirhan act like a monkey under hypnosis. Mark Chapman acted like a monkey while being assessed at Rikers Island.
Wrong. Chapman did not act like this “while being assessed” at Rikers, and Diamond had nothing to do with it. You’re referring to an episode that occurred after Chapman had already pled guilty. This incident started when he was outside his cell on a recreation break, not while he was being assessed, and it involved a lot more than acting like a monkey. This is covered in the Apple TV documentary. Jack Jones discusses the incident in his book:
Calling demons by name, he stripped naked and destroyed television sets, radios, toilet facilities, and other items on the gallery outside his Rikers Island cell. It took eight guards to bring him under control.
Although temporarily restrained and returned to his cell, Chapman continued to cry out to the demons that danced in his brain. He climbed and hung like a beast from the bars of his cage, taunting jailers with the curses of an alien tongue. (Let Me Take You Down, Kindle edition, loc. 4286)
Occam’s Razor literally screams that there was no conspiracy involved in John Lennon’s death. Lennon was killed by Mark David Chapman, who was seriously mentally ill, who confessed to killing him right after doing so, and who has repeated his confession literally dozens of times over the years.
-
2 hours ago, Tom Gram said:
. . . I tend to agree with Jeremy that particularly “far-fetched” theories can be a potential turn-off for neutral prospective researchers of the assassination, and fodder for the media etc. to denigrate serious study of the JFKA. Attracting new talent to JFK research is very important IMO. . . .
Yes, indeed, indeed, indeed.
This is why I have railed against L. Fletcher Prouty's nutty, wild claims and have urged that other researchers repudiate them.
This is also why it is so harmful when people get on this forum and defend the fringe, discredited conspiracy theories regarding 9/11, John Lennon's murder, and Princess Diana's death.
-
2 hours ago, Pat Speer said:
So now the mask has come off. Keven's not just here to try to make a name for himself by attacking me. He's here to defend the good name of Dr. Mantik, and to push that the Harper fragment is occipital bone. What nonsense!
Huh? The only three pathologists who actually handled the Harper fragment all concluded that it was occipital bone, and one of those pathologists, Dr. Cairns, was the chief of pathology at a hospital in Dallas. When one of the two other pathologists, Dr. Noteboom, was interviewed in 1992, he reaffirmed his identification of the fragment as occipital bone.
Has anyone answered the dozens of pages of analysis of the Harper fragment that Dr. Mantik has presented in his last three books? Are you aware that Dr. Chesser, a neurologist, agrees that the Harper fragment is occipital bone? Are you aware that Dr. Ebersole told the HSCA that one of the late-arriving skull fragments was occipital bone?
-
14 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:
Yes. There is a difference between some spookery, creating a shadow Oswald on paper, and occasional impersonations vs. the full-on from childhood LHO-HLO theory.
Yes, I agree there is a difference. However, the CIA program of using one identity that was played by two people was more involved and detailed than you may realize.
In any event, I never paid much attention to the two Oswalds theory until I read journalist and author Joe Patoski's article on the subject in Texas Monthly and learned of the evidence that Oswald attended a junior high school in Fort Worth and that the school's vice principal handed over Oswald's school records to the FBI after the assassination:
When Patoski decided to write an article about the two Oswalds theory for Texas Monthly, he did so only because he thought it was ludicrous and crazy. But, after spending some time looking at the evidence, he came away stunned by some of it and concluded that there might be something to it. Patoski was impressed by two pieces of evidence: Hoover's 1960 memo about someone possibly using Oswald's birth certificate and the account of Frank Kudlaty that Oswald attended a junior high school in Fort Worth and that he handed over Oswald's school records to the FBI. Patoski tracked Kudlaty, and Kudlaty confirmed the account:
There is in fact a memo from J. Edgar Hoover written in 1960 saying “there is a possibility that an impostor is using Oswald’s birth certificate.” But an even more intriguing moment occurred for me when Armstrong began talking about Frank Kudlaty. Kudlaty was the vice principal at Stripling Junior High in Fort Worth, where I was a student on November 22, 1963. Kudlaty told Armstrong of handing over Oswald’s school records to two agents from the FBI the day after the assassination. According to the Warren Commission, Lee Harvey Oswald attended junior high schools in New York and New Orleans but not in Fort Worth. The FBI denies the existence of the Stripling records.
I tracked down Kudlaty in Waco, where he now lives in retirement after a lengthy career as a school administrator in several Texas cities. He related the incident that turned out to be his brush with infamy. The day after the assassination, Mr. Wylie, Stripling’s principal, asked him to pull Oswald’s records and hand them over to FBI agents. Kudlaty recalled those events and briefly examined the records before handing them over. “I do recall the grades were not good,” he told me. That has bothered him ever since. “A person of that mind could teach himself Russian and pass himself as Russian? I don’t think so,” Kudlaty said.
The Hoover memo and that short conversation with Kudlaty put more doubt in my mind than the two days I spent with Armstrong and his blizzard of documents. Is there a good explanation for what happened to those records? Was Kudlaty wrong? And what was Hoover talking about in that memo, and what’s the story behind it? I don’t know the answers and I’m not going to devote my life to finding out. But here was one undeniable, strange, and tantalizing fact in the memo and the personal testimony of a man I knew and respected, and that almost had me going. It was enough to let me understand why a man like Armstrong has fallen under the spell of the Two Oswalds. (https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/the-two-oswalds/)
All this being said, I really don't like to talk about Armstrong's two Oswalds theory because it just seems so exotic and fantastic--and disturbing. Yet, I must admit that there seems to be credible evidence for it.
-
22 hours ago, Pat Speer said:
We're in a time loop. 15 years ago or so, Fetzer on this very forum claimed Mantik had proved the x-rays had been altered to hide a hole in the back of the skull. I then pointed out that Mantik had long claimed the very back of the skull on the x-rays is not altered, and that he claimed instead that his OD measurements in this area proved there was a hole. Fetzer then checked with Mantik and Mantik confirmed what I'd told him--that he thinks the white patch was added to cover missing brain and not missing skull, and that whoever added the white patch had actually not covered up the hole on the skull.
It should also be pointed out that Mantik places this hole on the skull in the middle of the occipital bone at the level of the ears. So, no, a number of witnesses pointing to a location above the occipital bone on the right side of the head does not support Mantik's claims, and his claim the middle of the back of the head was blown out at the level of the ears does not support that their recollections were accurate.
This is baffling and concerning. I just proved that the three morticians, two of whom actually handled the skull, put the wound in the back of the head at or near the midline, nowhere near the wound seen in the existing autopsy photos. Naturally, they did not perfectly, precisely agree on the exact location, but their placements were similar and were nowhere near the official exit wound. I should add that Robinson told both the HSCA and the ARRB that he saw a sizable back-of-head wound at or near the midline.
I also just proved that Spencer clearly recalled seeing a large back-of-head wound in the autopsy photos that she developed. And I just proved that Joe O'Donnell recalled seeing a back-of-head wound in some of the autopsy photos that Knudsen showed him.
I might add that other autopsy witnesses who described a sizable back-of-head wound include Edward Reed (to the HSCA), Dr. John Ebersole (to the HSCA), General Godfrey McHugh, Sibert and O'Neill (even though both assumed all shots came from behind), James Curtis Jenkins (to the HSCA), and Dr. Robert Karnei, among others. Moreover, Sibert, O'Neill, Robinson, and Jenkins drew wound diagrams for the HSCA, and all drew a sizable wound in the occiput or that included a sizable part of the occiput.
But according to you, all of these people, even the two morticians who handled the skull, could not tell the difference between a wound directly above the right ear and a wound that was in the occiput or that included a noticeable part of the occiput.
-
3 hours ago, Tom Gram said:
Malcolm Blunt has said that this is why he had a falling out with Armstrong and they didn’t speak for a year or so. Blunt believed that the anomalies he’d uncovered in Oswald’s background as Armstrong’s researcher were evidence of use of the Oswald identity by intelligence agencies. Then when Armstrong told him he was going with the long-term two Oswald theory for his book he disowned the project.
I might be missing something here but that’s what I remember from listening to a couple of Blunt’s interviews.
I can't see a huge difference between (A) two Oswalds and (B) two Oswald identities being used by the real Oswald and by a fake Oswald. I know they're not the same, but I don't see a gigantic difference between them.
-
On 1/20/2024 at 7:28 AM, Jim Hargrove said:
Absolutely! There is a ton of evidence that “Lee Harvey Oswald” was stationed near Ping Tung, Taiwan (aka Formosa) at the very same time he was being treated for VD in Japan, two locations roughly 1400 miles apart. I’ve already shown in this very thread the DoD report indicating he was shipped to the “South China Sea area” on 9/14/1958 and the USMC unit diaryindicating he was in Ping-Tung, Taiwan a couple of weeks later.
But there’s much more evidence than this.
Marguerite Oswald told the Warren Commission, "Lee was in Japan, Lee was in Corregidor, Lee was in the Philippines, Lee was in Formosa."
Priscilla Johnson interviewed Harvey Oswald at the Metropole Hotel in Moscow in 1959. She wrote, “At 17 he entered the Marine Corps and was discharged in September, having spent 14 months in Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Formosa [Taiwan]....”
A U.S. Navy message dated November 4, 1959 said that “Oswald served with Marine Air Control Squadrons in Japan and Taiwan with duties involving ground control intercept.”
A message from the Chief of Naval Operations to “ALSUNA” in Moscow said, “Oswald served with the Marine Air Control Squadron operations in Japan and Taiwan.”
There is plenty more evidence, a lot, indicating Oswald was in Formosa, but are people here so desperate to discredit Harvey and Lee that they will seriously argue Oswald was not in Formosa? Really?
Why don’t you folks just relax and let the truth settle in? For most of its existence, that Oswald Project was an entirely patriotic program. It just got tragically misused and misdirected in 1963. That’s no reason for us to be misdirected more than 60 years later.
(Sorry about the duplicate graphic at top. I can't seem to delete one)
I find this evidence compelling.
Mary Haverstick's new book, A Woman I Know, contains a lot of revealing information about the CIA's program of using two people for a single identity, with one person being the real person and the other person pretending to be the real person at certain times.
-
20 hours ago, Pat Speer said:
Spencer was recalling stuff from eons before. . . .
No, Spencer was not recalling events from "eons" before. She was only about 25 years old in November 1963, and she was only about 58 at the time of her ARRB deposition. So we're not talking about some decrepit old lady who was struggling to recall events from "eons" ago; we're talking about a woman in her late 50s who was describing important, historic events that she took part in 33 years earlier, and I might add that she described them in great detail and gave no indication that she was having trouble recalling key information.
When you were in your late 50s, or even your early 60s, were you not able to recall some events from 33 years earlier, especially traumatic and/or important events? Really?
33 years ago, I was stationed at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. I can easily remember plenty of details about things I did and saw in 1991, especially things that happened to me during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm. I could provide detailed descriptions of many things that I did and saw during this period. These are not "faded memories" but things I can remember in great detail. Some of them were so impactful for me that I suspect I'll remember them until the day I die.
Have you actually bothered to read Spencer's ARRB testimony? She was able to recall names, time periods, types of film, her training and experience, the processing of the autopsy photos, what she saw in the photos, etc., etc.
This "eons ago" argument is a standard line used by WC apologists to dismiss eyewitness accounts that refute the lone-gunman theory.
-
3 hours ago, Pat Speer said:
Oh my. O'Donnell had dementia and said lots of other nonsense no one takes seriously. Spencer was recalling stuff from eons before--heck even Horne thinks she was talking about photos taken after the reconstruction. Van Hoesen and Gawler were in fact talking about the wound as it appeared during reconstruction.
"Oh my" is right.
O'Donnell recalled plenty of details that others also recalled. I notice you said nothing about Robinson and Hagan and that they, like O'Donnell, saw a large back-of-head wound.
Regarding Spencer, the fact remains that she said that the existing autopsy photos are not the ones that she developed, and that the photos that she saw showed a large hole in the back of the head. And her account of a back-of-head wound, which seems very clear and detailed, is supported by Robinson's accounts to the HSCA and the ARRB, by most of the Parkland accounts, and by Hill's and Kellerman's accounts of the wound.
Uh, no, VonHoesen was not talking about the wound as it appeared "during reconstruction." He specified that he was describing how it looked after the skull had been reconstructed.@Sean Coleman
Quote@Sean ColemanThere’s a lot of talk on this subject, but my eyes give me the answer…man, there’s a hole in the top of his head.
Then dozens of people, in three different locations, amazingly experienced the same hallucination.
-
Are we really supposed to believe that the three morticians discussed below, two of whom handled the skull while they reconstructed it, mistook a gaping wound directly above the right ear for a wound in the back of the head, especially when they indicated the wound was at or near the midline, and when two of them specified that the wound was not visible when the head was lying face-up on a pillow? Are we really supposed to believe that it is merely a coincidence that a photographer and a photographic technician who saw and/or developed JFK autopsy photos said those photos showed a large hole in the back of the head?
Let us start with the three morticians.
Tom Robinson (Meeting Report, ARRB, 6/21/96)
Tom Robinson was part of the Gawler’s Funeral Home four-man embalming team. The team embalmed President Kennedy's body and reconstructed the skull to prepare the body for burial.
Robinson said that a large percentage of the rear part of the brain was gone and that the amount of missing brain was the size of a closed fist:
Robinson said that he saw the brain removed from President Kennedy's body and that a large percentage of it was gone "in the back,” from the "medulla,” and that the portion of the brain that was missing was about the size of a closed fist. (p. 2)
Note that a closed fist would be equal in size to at least one-third of an average male brain, since the male brain is typically about 5.5 inches wide, 6.5 inches long, and 3.6 inches high.
Robinson said there was a large wound in the back of the head:
He described a large open head wound in the back of the President's head centrally located right between the ears where the bone was gone as well as some scalp. (p. 2)
Robinson noted that they used a piece of rubber to cover the back-of-head wound and that the wound was nearly the size of a large orange:
Robinson said that Ed Stroble (now deceased) had cut out a piece of rubber to cover the open wound in the back of the head so that the embalming fluid would not leak the piece of rubber was slightly larger than the hole in the back of the head and Robinson estimated that the rubber sheet was a circular patch about the size of a large orange. (p. 3)
Robinson also noted that the back-of-head wound was not visible when JFK’s body was lying in repose—i.e., with the back of the head resting on the pillow:
The scalp was sutured together and also onto the rubber sheet to the maximum extent possible, and the damage in the back of the head was obscured by the pillow in the casket when the body lay in repose. . . . (p. 3)
When Robinson was shown the autopsy back-of-head photo, it did not make him change his mind about the wound; rather, he said the hole was where he drew it but that it just did not show up in the photo:
When asked by ARRB where the hole in the back of the head was in relation to this photograph [the back-of-head photo] Robinson responded by placing his fingers in a circle just above the white spot in the hairline in the photograph and said, "The hole was right here where I said it was in my drawing but it just doesn't show up in this photo.” (p. 4)
John VanHoesen (Meeting Report, ARRB, 9/26/96)
VanHoesen was a member of the Gawler embalming team.
When asked about the condition of the JFK’s head, he said there was material missing in the center of the back of the head, and he demonstrated the wound by placing his hand over upper rear portion of his own head at or just below the cowlick area:
When asked to recall the condition of the President's head at the completion of the embalming and reconstruction process Mr. VanHoesen recalled that there was a section of material missing from the skull. . . . He described the size and location of the missing skull material as follows it was roughly the size of a small orange (estimated by gesturing with his hands) in the centerline of the back of the head and its location was in the upper posterior part of the skull (demonstrated by placing his right hand on the upper back portion of his head just at or perhaps just below the cowlick area).
He independently recalled one of the doctors at Bethesda bringing back what he described as a sheet of plastic for the Gawler's team to use in covering the area of missing material to prevent leakage. (p. 2)
Like Robinson, VanHoesen recalled that the back-of-head wound was not visible when the body was lying supine with the head lying on the pillow:
At the conclusion of the embalming process the President's body was wrapped in plastic and then dressed in clothes which had been brought to the morgue from elsewhere. He said that the damaged area in the back of the President's head was not visible as the President lay supine in the casket and that it was covered by the pillow which the President's head was resting on. (p. 2)
This brings to mind the fact that General Godfrey McHugh's said that the large head wound was in the back of the head, and that he specified that by "back of the head" he meant the part of the head that touches the bottom of the bathtub when you're lying down in the bathtub:
The portion that is in the back of the head, when you're lying down in the bathtub, you hit the back of the head.
Joe Hagan (Meeting Report, ARRB, 5/17/96)
Joe Hagan was the supervisor of the Gawler’s embalming team. He viewed the last 20 minutes of the autopsy from the viewing gallery. He noted that since he was the supervisor, he left the morgue several times during the embalming and reconstruction process to discuss arrangements with John Gawler and Navy personnel and did not see every step of the reconstruction work.
When asked to describe and diagram the head damage as he saw it during the autopsy, he declined to do a drawing but said and demonstrated that there was a large wound in the back of the head:
He declined to draw his recollections of damage to the head on either anatomical skull diagrams reproduced from a medical textbook or on a model of a human skull. However, he did state that "all of this was open in the back,” while holding his two hands about 6 inches away from his upper posterior skull gesturing to the area between both of his own ears on the back of his head. (p. 3)
Note that he put his hands on the back of his head “between both of his own ears,” clearly indicating it was not far from the midline.
When asked to describe the head as it appeared after the autopsy, he said the hole that he previously mentioned was noticed during the skull reconstruction and that it was in the “upper left posterior portion of the head”:
The hole in the cranium was noticed during reconstruction to be in the upper left posterior portion of the head Gawler's. (p. 3)
Obviously, the term “left” here may refer to Hagan’s left and JFK’s right. In any case, he both demonstrated and described a large hole in the back of the head, a hole that was visible during and after the autopsy.
O'Donnell and Spencer Confirm the Morticians' Descriptions
The three morticians’ descriptions of a sizable back-of-head wound is supported (1) by the account of a government photographer who saw some of the autopsy photos soon after the autopsy and (2) by a Navy photographic technician who developed some of the autopsy photos, namely, Joe O’Donnell and Saundra Spencer.
Joe O’Donnell (Call Report, ARRB, 1/29/97)
O'Donnell was a government photographer employed by USIA in 1963 and was frequently detailed to the White House to perform various photographic tasks. He knew White House photographer Robert Knudsen very well. Knudsen took photos at the autopsy.
O’Donnell reported that a few days after the autopsy, Knudsen showed photos from JFK’s autopsy, and that those photos showed a large wound in the back of the head:
Within the week after President Kennedy's assassination on two occasions Robert Knudsen showed him autopsy photographs of President Kennedy.
On the first occasion he was shown approximately 12 ea 5 X 7 B &W photos. The views included the President lying on his back on his stomach and closeups of the back of the head. He said that the back-of-the-head photograph(s) showed a hole in the back of the head about 2 inches above the hairline about the size of a grapefruit the hole clearly penetrated the skull and was very deep.
O’Donnell added that one of the photos showed a small wound in the right-frontal area:
Another one of the photographs showed a hole in the forehead above the right eye which was a round wound about 3/8-inch in diameter which he interpreted as a gunshot wound. (p. 1)
Saundra Spencer (Deposition of Saundra Kay Spencer, 6/5/97, ARRB transcript)
In November 1963, Saundra Spencer was a Navy photographic technician serving at the Naval Photographic Center at Anacostia and was involved in developing JFK autopsy photographs the day after the assassination.
When she saw leaked copies of the autopsy photos, she assumed they were taken in Dallas because they were not photos that she developed:
. . . when they came out with some books and stuff later that showed autopsy pictures and stuff, and I assumed that they were done in - you know, down in Dallas or something, because they were not the ones that I had worked on. (p. 33)
The autopsy photos that she developed showed a large hole in the back of the head:
Q: Did you see any photographs that focused principally on the head of President Kennedy?
A: Right. They had one showing the back of the head with the wound at the back of the head.
Q: Could you describe what you mean by the “wound at the back of the head”?
A: It appeared to be a hole, inch, two inches in diameter at the back of the skull here. (p. 37)
Q: And you have put some hash marks in there and then drawn a circle around that, and the part that you have drawn, the circle that you have drawn on the diagram is labeled as being as part of the occipital bone, is that correct?
A: Yes. (p. 38)
In her diagram of the head wound, she put the wound in the top part of the occipital bone and somewhat to the right of the midline (ARRB exhibit MD 148).
Are we really supposed to believe that three morticians confused a wound above the right ear for a wound in the occiput, at least 3 inches behind the right ear, and that it is just a coincidence that O’Donnell and Spencer independently recalled seeing autopsy photos that showed a large wound in the back of the head?
-
9 hours ago, Pat Speer said:
Just as the lifting of the flap in the back of the head photos made the wound appear to be more forward than its actual location, the laying of the body on its side, and the subsequent upward lift of the the shoulder, made the wound in the back wound photo appear higher than its actual location. The doctors stood by the autopsy measurements, in which the wound was presented as equidistant between the bottom part of the head and the shoulder tip. This places it around T-1, and perhaps a little lower. This is too low to support the single-bullet theory. As far as Burkley's approximation of the wound at T-3, it was just that: an approximation. There is no evidence whatsoever supporting that Burkley took his own measurements. I mean, when would he have done this? At the autopsy? Then why did no one see this? The most logical assumption then is that he guessed T-3 after viewing the face sheet, which had a distorted outline of a body...that would serve to make a wound at T-1 appear to be a wound at T-3.
Are you saying that you accept the bunched-clothing theory to explain the location of the rear clothing holes? The rear clothing holes clearly put the wound below T1.
And wouldn't it have been a rather surprising error to mistake a wound at T1 for a wound at T3, given that T1 is right at--or very slightly below--the base of the neck?
-
2 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:
Michael,
Do you know if Dr. Chesser agrees with Dr. Mantik's occipital placement of the Harper fragment?
Yes, Chesser agrees with Mantik that the Harper fragment is upper occipital bone. See Chesser's Reviewing the Autopsy X-Rays – The Future of Freedom Foundation (fff.org) (start at about 1:41).
-
On 1/23/2024 at 9:55 PM, Pat Speer said:
Not exactly. Mantik says they are JFK's x-rays, but says further that in his analysis they have been altered. But not in the way you'd expect. He says the far back of the head on the x-rays, which everyone else to study them thinks proves the back of the head to be intact, actually show a massive hole, that only he has been able to discover.
Now, a number of prominent researchers accept Mantik's findings about the OD ratings being too high for the white patch, or too high for the supposed 6-5 mm fragment, but I'm not aware of anyone with any credibility buying into his claim the back of the head is missing on the x-rays. Are you?
Uh, yes: Dr. Michael Chesser, a board-certified neurologist with over 30 years of experience and a former professor of neurology. Dr. Chesser took his own OD measurements on the JFK skull x-rays, including a premortem skull x-ray. Dr. Chesser agrees that the autopsy skull x-rays indicate missing occipital bone. He also agrees with Dr. Mantik's orientation of autopsy photo F8, i.e., that it shows part of a sizable defect in the occipital bone. In addition, he agrees that the white patch is clear proof of alteration.
JFK Autopsy X-rays Proved Fraudulent | Assassination of JFK
Reviewing the Autopsy X-Rays – The Future of Freedom Foundation (fff.org)
-
4 hours ago, Pat Speer said:
Many researchers have the whole back of the head controversy on the brain, and interpret every statement through the prism of "If someone says back or rear, someone must mean the far back of the head."
But not everyone thinks that way.
Hill has said the "right rear" or the "right rear quadrant" dozens of times in public while pointing out a location above his right ear and behind. A number of these demonstrations are on Youtube. In these demonstrations he places his hand an inch or so to the rear of where the wound appears in the autopsy photos. As he has long disputed the single-bullet theory, and has described the injury to the brain in a manner inconsistent with the Oswald did it scenario, we have no reason to believe he is lying. His placement of the wound, after all, matches up quite well with the placement of the wound by the Dealey Plaza witnesses, and is largely corroborated by the films and photos.
After thinking about the Hill mystery--why he continued saying "right rear" or "right rear quadrant"--while pointing to a location above his ear and back, moreover, I came to realize that it was really not a mystery. When viewed from above, the front of the ear is roughly half-way between the front of one's face and the back of the head. So yessiree Hill is right and a wound above the ear and back is on the right rear quadrant of the skull.
But in the 2013 demonstration, he clearly put his hand over the right parietal-occipital area. It is amazing that you won't admit this.
And it is baffling that you could see the term "right-rear" as "vague," much less as including the area above the right ear.
I notice you said nothing about Jackie's statement that she tried to hold hair and skull in place on the back of his head.
Let me ask you this: How do you explain the fact that the three morticians said they saw a sizable hole in the back of the head? These guys not only got a prolonged up-close look at the wound, they handled the head while reconstructing the skull after the autopsy. Do you believe they mistook the gory wound above the right ear seen in the autopsy photos for a wound in the occiput? Really?
-
20 hours ago, Aaron Sharpe said:
In terms of authenticity, I go back and forth in my feelings about the Zapruder film. Without going into detail, my question is simply this:
Has anyone ever tried to recreate the Zapruder film in as faithful a manner as possible? I'm talking about a person of Mr. Z's height standing atop the pedestal along Elm Street and filming using an identical B&H camera and identical film stock, in similar lighting/weather conditions, and panning slowly down the street as a vehicle makes its way down Elm toward the underpass. Ideally, such a recreation would employ a "limo" of similar proportions to the presidential Lincoln and maybe some motorcycle outriders behind. Even more ideal would be to place at least a few "witnesses" in their same positions along both sides of the street.
Apologies if this is common knowledge, but I've searched and have never come across such a thing. I imagine it might have been done back in the original WC investigation, but even if it was I don't think such a film has ever been released into the public domain.
Seems like the time period when the film JFK was being made (1991) would have been an ideal time to do this. But certainly this is something that could be done even today. Obviously there are differences in the plaza now (no Stemmons Freeway sign, to name but one), but I think it would be revealing as to whether any of the strange artifacts in the extant Z-film could be recreated. To that end, even the simplest version of such a recreation—ie, simply panning slowly down the street using the B&H camera atop the pedestal, and never mind the subject matter—would have value.
The real problem, and the real test, would be to recreate the Zapruder film so that it included (1) the impossibly fast movements that we see some people perform in the existing film, (2) the streaking anomalies that we see in the existing film, (3) the odd black dot over the back of JFK's head that we see in the film, (4) the split-second 0.37-g slowing in Z295-304 that Dr. Alvarez detected in the current film, (5) the strange absence of any visible reaction by the limo's occupants to this split-second 0.37-g slowing, etc., etc.
It would also be useful to have a crowd in the plaza during the recreation to see if anybody noticed the nine-frame slowing. When you watch the current film at normal speed, the split-second slowing is unnoticeable--the limo appears to move at a steady speed until after the head shot. Indeed, no one noticed the split-second slowing until Dr. Alvarez detected it, and he only detected it after hours of frame-by-frame analysis.
Yet, dozens of witnesses, from all over the plaza, said the limo either came to a complete stop or that it markedly slowed. Nothing like this is seen in the current film.
-
16 hours ago, Pat Speer said:
P.S. The image presented above does not support Michael's contention Hill is pointing out a location behind his right ear, let alone one inches behind his right ear. Hill's thumb is directly behind his ear and his pinky is above the ear, not inches behind.
Holy cow. If you can't admit that the 2013 photo shows Hill putting his hand over the right parietal-occipital area, there's no point in discussing the issue with you. Hill's thumb is not "directly behind his ear"--that's why you can't see the end of this thumb. His thumb is clearly at least 1 inch behind his ear. I can't understand how you can look at that photo and deny that his hand is over the right parietal-occipital part of the head.
Yes, at other times, Hill placed the wound farther forward, as you show in your graphic. But your graphic also shows that Hill markedly contradicted himself in the three photos in your graphic.
In the top-left photo, he has his hand nowhere near the official location of the exit wound--rather, most of his hand is visibly behind his ear and well below the official location. In the top-right photo, his hand is only slightly more forward than it is in the top-left photo, and it is still well below the official location. In contrast, in the bottom photo, his hand is much higher and farther forward--it is directly above the ear.
You are so ideologically committed to denying the back-of-head wound that you won't acknowledge the plain, clear meaning of Hill's 11/30/63 description of the wound. Even a child would not read "right-rear" as including the area directly above the right ear. No one uses the term "right-rear" like that. Even a child understands that the back of the head is not the side of the head. Not even a child would describe the wound seen in the autopsy photos as being anywhere near the "back" or "rear" of the head. A wound above the right ear is on the side of the head, not the back.
Jackie Kennedy's declassified testimony to the WC supports Hill's 11/30/63 description:
I was trying to hold his hair on. But from the front there was nothing. I suppose there must have been. But from the back you could see, you know, you were trying to hold his hair on, and his skull on. (5 H 180, declassified version—this portion of her testimony was omitted from the published version, but it was “declassified” in 1972)
The only way to read this is that she was saying that she was trying to hold down the hair and skull on the back of her husband’s head. "From the back" means, well, from the back. "From the back" she "could see" the wound. "From the back" she was "trying to hold his hair on, and his skull on." She saw nothing "from the front," but "from the back" she could see damage and was trying to hold "his hair on, and his skull on" from the back.
-
On 1/23/2024 at 6:39 PM, Gerry Down said:
According to a recent presentation by Stuart Galloway (see video below), the CIA called on Walker to go to New Orleans to train anti-Castro Cubans. Apparently he was heavily involved in smuggling guns to them and hooked up with David Ferrie and Guy Banister there. I had never heard this before. I’m sure the claim about hooking up with David Ferrie and Guy Banister is bogus. . . .
Well, wait a minute. How can you be certain that Walker did not encounter Ferrie and Banister if Walker went to New Orleans to train anti-Castro Cubans, given that Ferrie and Banister were both heavily involved in anti-Castro activities in New Orleans?
-
11 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:
Sandy I see things differently than you in a lot of ways but it is clear to me you have always attempted to be honest. I respect your comment here because it is what I see too. Pat Speer has done a massive amount of original research, all by his own policy and commendably put up on his website free access without attempting to monetize a thing. In the course of discussion of his research made minor errors from memory on nitpick level re the Custer x-rays. There is no way Pat is willfully attempting to deceive as Keven is trying to present.
Well, I must confess that I believe that Pat has been less than forthright on some occasions regarding the medical evidence. I base this on my many exchanges with him regarding the 6.5 mm object, the white patch, the autopsy brain photos vs. the EOP site, his misleading attacks on Dr. Mantik, and the bullet fragments removed from the brain.
A few months ago, he made demonstrably false claims to me about what his book explains regarding the absence of cerebellar damage in the brain photos. When I called him on this, he refused to acknowledge his misstatements.
However, I think his conduct stems more from a reluctance to admit error than from a chronic lack of candor.
Moreover, I should also say that I believe that about 70% of Pat's research is valid and worthwhile. It is just most unfortunate that WC apologists frequently cite/quote the errant 30%.
Prouty on Vietnam: NSAM 263 and 273 60 years on
in JFK Assassination Debate
Posted · Edited by Michael Griffith
I understated things a bit. The vast majority of liberal Vietnam War scholars and historians reject the unconditional-withdrawal myth, and all moderate and conservative scholars and historians reject it. If someone is aware of a moderate or conservative scholar/historian who accepts the myth, please name him/her. I've been researching the Vietnam War for decades and have read dozens of book and hundreds of articles and papers. I'm not aware of a single moderate or conservative scholar/historian who accepts the unconditional-withdrawal claim.
Bundy wrote the first draft of NSAM 273 after consulting with JFK. He tailored it to conform with JFK's views. The version that LBJ signed was not drastically different from the first draft.
As Dr. Marc Selverstone has proved in The Kennedy Withdrawal, the JFK White House tapes contain not one shred of evidence that JFK saw Vietnam "as a morass" and that he was looking to pull out while not losing at the same time. For one thing, North Vietnamese sources have confirmed that the war was actually going well until Diem was assassinated in November 1963.
If you read the supporting documents behind NSAM 263 and 273, you see that the withdrawal was clearly conditional, that some support troops would remain, and that military and economic aid would continue.
If you stop outside the JFKA research community, you quickly discover that the Stone-Prouty-Newman unconditional-withdrawal myth is a truly fringe theory that is accepted by only a handful of scholars/historians. Even the vast majority of liberal scholars/historians reject it, including ultra-liberals such as Moise and Chomsky.