Michael Griffith

We'll have to agree to disagree about Peter Janney's book. I do recognize that Shaw's scholarship is spotty in some cases, but I also believe that he presents a lot of valid and important information. I don't recommend Collateral Damage on my website, but I do recommend The Reporter Who Knew Too Much.

I'll just say one more thing about the crazy 9/11 controlled-demolition theory. Logically, it makes no sense whatsoever. What would the alleged plotters have rationally hoped to gain by blowing up the WTC towers after they were struck by two huge jetliners? The jetliners did enormous damage to the Twin Towers. The majority of the people who died in the North Tower were above the impact point and died of smoke inhalation, burns, and flying debris. The death toll in the South Tower was half that of the North Tower, and would have been even lower if a full evacuation had been ordered after the North Tower was struck. So what would have been the logical objective of using explosives after the jetliners struck? Why didn't the plotters blow up the North Tower minutes after the jetliner hit it, to ensure maximum casualties? Similarly, why didn't the plotters blow up the South Tower right after the jetliner hit it, to ensure maximum casualties? Instead, we are asked to believe that for some reason the plotters waited to set off the explosives in the South Tower until hundreds of people had exited the tower after the jetliner struck it. Why? That makes no sense. If the overall purpose of the plotters was to enrage the American public, why would they have passed up the chance to kill hundreds of additional people in the South Tower? On the other hand, to complete the double-whammy, why would any plotters have thought that killing a few hundred additional people would significantly increase the public's rage? Whether the death toll was 2,900 or 2,000 or 1,500, the public's outrage would have been identical. So either way, the alleged plotters' supposed actions make no sense. And why on earth would the alleged plotters have bothered blowing up WTC 7 at all, much less long after it had been evacuated? Again, it just makes no sense.

I think it's interesting to note that there were two other incidents of multiple items being left behind/planted: the two Oswald wallets and the three bullets (the bullet found at Parkland Hospital, the bullet that dropped out of JFK or his wrappings at the autopsy, and the bullet that was found in the limo in DC by CPOs Martinell and Mills during the autopsy). The plotters could not be sure which planted items would make it into the record and which might not, so they may have hedged their bets in some cases. As for the Mauser, WC apologists can only speculate Weitzman was somehow "mistaken" and that Craig was either "mistaken" or lying. I don't buy it. I believe Weitzman and Craig were correct and that they told the truth.

This is the kind of stuff that our critics love to see, because it gives them powerful ammo to tar-brush all pro-conspiracy authors. This kind of stuff being voiced by pro-conspiracy assassination researchers is part of the reason that so many educated people shy away from even considering evidence of a JFK assassination plot. It is almost as bad as arguing that JFK was killed by a conspiracy and then denying the Holocaust--no matter how good the conspiracy evidence is, no one will consider it when they hear Holocaust denial lumped in with it. No, there is no scientific evidence that any of the WTC towers were brought down with controlled explosions. This fiction has been destroyed, utterly destroyed. Before I link to some good resources on this issue, allow me to note that the 9/11 "Truthers" also claim that a missile, not a jetliner, hit the Pentagon. Well, sorry, but a friend of mine was a Pentagon police officer on 9/11, and after the explosion, he saw the jetliner's fuselage inside the giant hole, and he helped clear out some of the wreckage. Moreover, hundreds of people saw the jetliner flying very low and heading toward the Pentagon. If Flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon, where is Barbara Olson? (Hint: Her remains were eventually identified among the jetliner's debris.) Some good sources on why the WTC towers fell: What Did and Did Not Cause Collapse of World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York? | Journal of Engineering Mechanics | Vol 134, No 10 (ascelibrary.org) The biggest 9/11 conspiracy theories debunked | Sky HISTORY TV Channel NIST and the World Trade Center (archive.org) (the full NIST report) Debunking 9/11 Myths - Frequently Asked Questions - Conspiracy Theories (popularmechanics.com) Another blow for WTC conspiracy theorists | Machine Design Were Twin Towers felled by chemical blasts? (Update) (phys.org) Here's a book on the subject: Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts: Popular Mechanics, Dunbar, David, Reagan, Brad, McCain, John: 9781588166357: Amazon.com: Books Here's a good short video on the subject: And a longer video: Debunking 9/11 Conspiracy Theories | Mick West | Center for Inquiry

I think Mary Pinchot Meyer's murder is even more revealing than Dorothy Kilgallen's murder. In Meyer's case, the CIA operative who murdered her confessed his crime to investigative journalist Leo Damore and in the process revealed many details about how the hit was done, including the use of spotters, a false witness, and a patsy. This is all detailed in Peter Janney's book Mary's Mosaic. I do agree, though, that Dorothy Kilgallen's murder is important and revealing. Mark Shaw's book The Reporter Who Knew Too Much is superb. However, his book Collateral Damage unfortunately contains some Trump bashing and also contains several references to the theory that JFK was killed because he was going to spill the beans about UFOs. Collateral Damage contains a lot of valuable information on the deaths of Kilgallen and Marilyn Monroe--it's just too bad it delves off into unrelated issues that will turn off some readers.

I'm sorry, but I think he should have known better than to associate with Alex Jones. Among other craziness, after 9/11/2001, Jones joined the bizarre 9/11 "Truther" movement in claiming that the WTC towers were destroyed by "controlled demolitions." Disturbingly, several other JFK assassination researchers also began peddling this garbage. This did enormous damage to the cause of spreading the truth about JFK's death.

Yes, you are correct that there was a faction of the militarists who were opposed to surrender under any conditions, and those radical militarists were the ones who launched an unsuccessful coup attempt on August 13-15 to try to prevent surrender. There were two factions among the militarists. One faction consisted of militarists who were diehard, radical fanatics, such as Hatanaka, Shizaki, and Takeshita. The other faction consisted of militarists who were personally opposed to surrender but who were willing to surrender if the emperor himself ordered it. Luckily, the three militarists on the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War--Anami, Umezu, and Toyoda--were part of this non-radical faction. They were by no means moderates, but they were not nearly as bad as the likes of Hatanaka and Shizaki. I think it is interesting and worthwhile to note that Anami, Umezu, and/or Toyoda could have prevented surrender by resigning, especially after the August 9-10 imperial conference (when Hirohito issued his first decision to surrender). If any of them had resigned before the cabinet met to vote on the imperial surrender decision, this would have stopped surrender dead in its tracks because a new government would have had to be formed, which could have taken weeks. If Anami had resigned, the Army could have delayed the formation of a new government for weeks or months by refusing to nominate Anami's replacement. Moreover, if even one of the hardliners in the cabinet had voted not to accept the emperor's surrender decision, the decision would have been blocked. In order for imperial decisions to take effect, the cabinet had to ratify them unanimously. It only took one no vote to block an imperial decision. Two of the three militarists on the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War were also cabinet members: Generals Anami and Umezu. So, Anami and/or Umezu could have blocked surrender by voting no when the cabinet voted on surrender, but they did not because the emperor had made it clear he wanted to surrender and they were unwilling to act against his wishes. Two of the best books on Japan's surrender, and on the fact that the nuking of Japan was not the reason Japan surrendered, are Emperor Hirohito and the Pacific War, by Washington State University professor of history Noriko Kawamura, and Imperial Eclipse, by Yukiko Koshiro, who worked on Columbia University's special East Asian studies project. Both authors, fluent in Japanese, used previously unknown or ignored primary Japanese sources to shed important new light on how and why Japan surrendered, among other issues.

For a time during my early days of researching the JFK case, I believed that Oswald shot Tippit in self-defense, that Tippit was supposed to shoot Oswald but that Oswald beat him to the draw. However, the more reading I did on the Tippit shooting, the more I began to doubt that Oswald had anything to do with it. Something very suspicious was definitely going on with Tippit. Tippit had no valid reason to be in central Oak Cliff, far out of his assigned area. There was already a patrol car covering central Oak Cliff. The DPD initially concealed from the WC that Tippit had been dispatched to that area, and the dispatcher's later excuse for sending Tippit there is implausible. Plus, Tippit's strange actions in Oak Cliff--waiting at the gas station and then suddenly speeding off, and rushing into a business to use its phone--make it obvious that something very suspicious was going on with Tippit. And then there's the police car that Earlene Roberts saw in front of Oswald's boarding house after it had tapped its horn barely half an hour after the assassination, before any innocent person could have known that Oswald would soon be the one and only suspect.

Another unfortunate case of ultra-liberal politics in JFK: Destiny Betrayed also occurs in Episode 2, where the narrator laments that Truman broke away from FDR's policy of "cooperation" with the USSR, "creating a worldwide Cold War faceoff" (starts at about 19:35). Holy cow. Yes, Truman wisely broke away from FDR's destructive policy of "cooperation" with Stalin because that policy had already handed over entire populations, tens of millions of people, to Soviet tyranny. If FDR had not died, he probably would have allowed Stalin to grab substantial parts of China and Japan as well. The horrible results of FDR's policy of "cooperation" with Stalin have been documented in numerous books. Two of the better studies on this tragic disaster are Dr. Thomas Fleming's The New Dealers' War (2001) and Dr. Sean McMeekin's Stalin's War: A New History of World War II (2021). An important related book is John Haynes and Harvey Klehr's In Denial: Historians, Communism, and Espionage (2003), which documents that Roosevelt's administration was heavily penetrated by Soviet intelligence.

A few points, which I document on my website The Pacific War and the Atomic Bomb: * Truman knew by no later than July that Japan was willing to surrender if only the U.S. would stipulate that the emperor would not be deposed. By no later than several days before he ordered Hiroshima nuked, Truman also knew that emperor himself supported this position. * Yes, the Japanese military was vicious and cruel and had committed horrendous atrocities, but this was no excuse for nuking a civilian target such as Hiroshima. There was a Japanese army HQ garrison on the outskirts of Hiroshima, but the garrison constituted a small percentage of the city's population. By no rational measurement was Hiroshima a "military target." * The evidence is clear that it was Soviet entry into the war, not the atomic bombs, that caused Japan to surrender. Specifically, the Soviet entry into the war was the event that enabled the Japanese moderates to maneuver the militarists into being ordered to surrender by the emperor in two imperial conferences. The militarists could not have cared less about the destruction of another city or two, regardless of the means. In fact, after Hiroshima, the militarists would not even agree to convene the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War. But, when they learned of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, they hastily agreed to convene the council.

I had an experience today that relates to this subject. This afternoon, as chance would have it, one of my co-workers, a well-educated guy in his early 40s, asked me how my interview about the JFK case on the Out of the Blank podcast went last week (I had told him about the then-upcoming interview early last week). I said I thought the interview went really well because the interviewer did not veer off into political issues unrelated to the assassination. Curious, he asked what I meant. I explained that many assassination researchers seem to think that if you believe that JFK was shot by multiple gunmen you must also believe various far-left political positions, and that I was glad those positions never came up in my interview. Then our conversation got really interesting. He said, with considerable surprise in his voice, "Wait a minute, Mike. Are you saying you think there was a conspiracy behind Kennedy's death?" When I answered yes, he replied that this surprised him because he thought that only "left-wing whackos" believed JFK was killed by a conspiracy. He then asked me why I believe there was a conspiracy. I proceeded to give him a five-minute summary of some of the evidence, focusing on the scientific evidence that at least five shots were fired (one from the knoll), the evidence that Ruby premeditatedly shot Oswald to silence him, the evidence that Oswald was not in the alleged sniper's nest during the shooting, and the medical evidence of a shot from the front. He said, "wow, I've never heard any of this stuff. This is interesting." I then urged him to watch JFK Revisited on Amazon.

Any discussion about JFK and Vietnam must include RFK's oral history interview with John Martin for the JFK Library on 4/30/1964. Bobby said there were no plans to pull out of Vietnam. He also said there were no plans for the kind of all-out intervention that we did in the Korean War. He said the intention was to keep some advisers in South Vietnam and to provide South Vietnam with enough training, weapons, and supplies to enable them to win the war. Importantly, RFK indicated that JFK may have sent in combat troops if South Vietnam had been on the verge of collapse, and that JFK probably would have at least authorized air strikes. This rings true to me, and this is consistent with the picture that emerges when we consider all of JFK's statements and those of his aides on the subject. I certainly agree that if JFK had lived, our involvement in Vietnam would have been handled much more competently than LBJ handled it, and that our losses would have been vastly lower than they were under Johnson. If JFK had eventually decided to send in ground troops to prevent an imminent collapse of South Vietnam, he would have sent in far fewer troops than Johnson did, and I doubt that he would have appointed the incompetent blockhead William Westmoreland to lead the effort. Westmoreland had no combat command experience above the brigade level and had received very little formal training in military strategy and tactics. He had no business being placed in command of our ground forces in South Vietnam.

The Pacific War and the Atomic Bomb (google.com)

I think you are overestimating the level of public support for the lone-gunman theory. However, we should not be surprised that the numerous anti-conspiracy documentaries and articles over the last 10 years are having some effect. When major networks broadcast seemingly authoritative anti-conspiracy documentaries, when news channels broadcast anti-conspiracy segments, when established newspapers and journals publish anti-conspiracy articles, when YouTube is loaded with anti-conspiracy videos, and when some of the pro-conspiracy videos on YouTube are downright whacky, all these things have their effect. How many cable or streaming networks/channels have broadcast JFK Revisited? I certainly hope Oliver Stone is making it as easy and inexpensive as possible for networks/channels to broadcast JFK Revisited. How many pro-conspiracy documentaries are available on Amazon Prime Video or Netflix or HBO? Finally, if the research community wants to get the truth to more people, they had better stop producing material that attacks/alienates a huge chunk of their potential audience. They had better stop assuming that to believe and care that JFK was killed by a conspiracy you must also accept the liberal view on a number of controversial issues that have nothing directly to do with the JFK case.

Oh, I have no problem with the segments on the Congo and Indonesia. I agree with them, and I'm certain that most conservatives who view the documentary will see no problem with them. However, most conservatives, and even some centrists and liberals, will find the segment on Vietnam to be questionable. I strongly doubt that JFK would have stood back and done nothing to prevent South Vietnam from falling to communist tyranny. I don't think the record supports that view at all. I think the record shows that although JFK may have eventually withdrawn all of our advisers, he would have done so based on the situation on the ground, and he would have continued to provide South Vietnam with weapons and logistics, and quite possibly with close air support from Navy carriers. I think our knowledge of the record of JFK's views and intentions on Vietnam will be considerably expanded with the release of Dr. Marc Selverstone's upcoming book The Kennedy Withdrawal: Camelot and the American Commitment to Vietnam, scheduled for release on 1/27/2023. Yes, Powers and O'Donnell, in a book published in 1973, claimed that JFK planned a complete pullout and didn't care if he lost South Vietnam. But the earlier memoirs of Sorenson and Schlesinger, published in 1965, made no such claims and did not interpret NSAM-263 as evidence of an intention to withdraw and disengage from Vietnam.

RFK was very careless with his security arrangements. He only had one bodyguard. He should have had at least 12 bodyguards. He never should have walked through the Ambassador Hotel's pantry unless the room had been cleared out. Given what he surely must have understood about the sophistication of his brother's killers, I don't understand why he was so lax about his own security.

The conspirators behind JFK's assassination may have had a motive for arranging Boggs' death. Boggs was the one who tipped off Jim Garrison that there were serious problems with the lone-gunman scenario. Boggs, not Senator Long, was the one who prompted Garrison to reopen the case. Maybe the conspirators discovered this in 1972. Perhaps the plotters feared that Boggs would start to strongly publicly challenge the Warren Report.

Someone asked me for some examples of ultra-liberal preaching in the documentary JFK: Destiny Betrayed. One of the most unfortunate statements that jumped out at me when I watched it was this one in Episode 2 (starting at 27:22): John Foster Dulles and Alan Dulles came from a Christian background, and they felt, you know, what they had to say was good enough for the rest of the world. Are you kidding me? Seriously? What if someone made that same statement but replaced "Christian background" with "LGBT background" or "African-American background" or "Muslim background"? Nearly everyone, regardless of ideology, would call the statement bigoted and insulting. But I guess it's okay when Christians are the target? This is a needless, senseless insult to every person raised as a Christian and who takes their faith seriously. This is exactly the kind of far-left stuff that has caused so many conservatives to have the perception that the only people who reject the Warren Report are "godless, immoral liberals." To even imply that Alan Dulles and John Foster Dulles were Christians is an insult to every genuine Christian. Hitler made an annual donation to a Christian fund from the time he took over Germany until the end of the war, but no rational person would suggest that Hitler was a Christian. Alan Dulles ordered innocent people murdered. He was a pathological xxxx. The fact that he "came from a Christian background" is irrelevant because obviously he abandoned whatever Christian teaching he was given. Thank goodness that this insulting statement is omitted from JFK Revisited.

<< Mike, Whew. Stoll worked for Newsmax and Reason. And the New York Sun. >> And? So what? Have you read his book? Or, do you just assume that because he wrote for two conservative journals and a libertarian journal that he can have nothing valid to say? << The idea that Kennedy was a conservative is kind of ridiculous. >> Actually, it is not. It is not ridiculous at all. It is based on his record in the House, in the Senate, and in the White House. Have you read Stoll's book? << As ridiculous as saying he would be a Manchin Democrat. >> I think JFK's record proves he would be at least as center-right as Manchin, if not more so. Please understand one thing: I am not using the term "liberal" as a pejorative adjective. As an Independent, I'm liberal on some issues, such as a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, universal healthcare, red-flag laws, background checks for gun purchases, raising the age limit for rifle purchases to 21, most federal-level affirmative action policies, granting citizenship to "Dreamers," etc. However, I think liberal conspiracy theorists have done JFK a disservice by painting him to be a liberal peacenik who would have readily abandoned South Vietnam to communist tyranny, who would have gutted the defense budget, who would have endorsed today's mammoth welfare and regulatory state, etc.

When I began to study the JFK case, I was not a fan of JFK as a person because of his serial adultery, but I had a much more favorable opinion of him as a president because I knew he had supported tax cuts, increased defense spending, worked toward a balanced budget, etc. Thus, I was surprised to find that one pro-conspiracy book after another described JFK as a liberal and included varying doses of liberal politics (especially on the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and disarmament). After a while, I learned to ignore the liberal preaching, but the vitriolic, sweeping attacks on conservatives contained in Coup in Dallas go well beyond the liberal preaching I've seen in other pro-conspiracy books. I recommend that JFK fans read Ira Stoll's highly acclaimed book JFK, Conservative (Mariner Books, 2013). Stoll documents that JFK was not the liberal that most Democrats now paint him to be. If JFK were alive today, he would be aghast at how far left the Democratic Party has lurched. If he would be a Democrat at all, he would be, at the very least, a Joe Manchin Democrat. It is possible he would be a centrist Republican.

Look at the Kennedy family today. Where are they? Why aren't they helping to fund research efforts into JFK's death? Why aren't they talking about any of the historic disclosures and new research that have emerged over the last 10-20 years? RFK Jr. is the notable, lone exception. The rest of the family seemingly could not care less about the issue. If you want to experience a gag reaction, go to the JFK Presidential Library and Museum website and see what the site offers about the assassination. 99% of the site's material on the assassination accepts the lone-gunman theory. If you search for "HSCA" on the site, you get no results. Or, let's go back to 1967-1968 during the Jim Garrison investigation. Where was the Kennedy family? Where were RFK and Teddy? Teddy said and did nothing to help. Nor did RFK. In fact, whenever RFK commented on Garrison's noble effort, he made comments that helped those who were trying to sabotage Garrison. Garrison made many mistakes and sometimes made unfounded claims, but we now know that he was on the right track. Given the obstruction and outright sabotage that Garrison had to endure, it is a wonder that he managed to uncover as much evidence as he did. Again, my complaints about Democratic cowardice are not intended to be partisan. The Republican record on the case is even worse; it is downright shameful. What progress that was made on the case was made largely thanks to Democrats. But Democrats could and should have done much more than they did, and they could and should have done it much sooner.

If you watch the Z film at regular speed, there is no discernible slowdown, much less a full stop. This is not even a close call. The witnesses would have seen the limo moving in real time. It strains the imagination to fathom how the 1-2-second full stop or obvious slowdown described by over 40 witnesses could be the split-second slowdown that Alvarez only identified by measurement and frame-by-frame analysis.

I largely agree with every point you make here, but those points don't change the fact that JFK's family, friends, and allies failed to forcefully, vocally confront the lone-gunman myth. There is some question about how strongly Teddy backed the formation of the HSCA. But, even assuming he strongly backed the committee's creation, he stayed on the sidelines after that, not to mention that he said nothing when the Warren Report came out 13 years earlier. The firing of Richard Sprague was inexcusable and was a devastating blow to the HSCA investigation--not a fatal blow, but a badly damaging one. I think Dick Russell's chapter on Sprague in On the Trail of the JFK Assassins proves there was no valid reason to fire Sprague and every reason to keep him. Democrats had the power to defend Sprague and keep him as chief counsel, but they caved in. They had huge majorities in Congress, and they controlled the White House and the Justice Department. Yet, they let the Deep State's propaganda campaign against Sprague intimidate them into firing him. If Teddy and other Kennedy family members, not to mention other prominent Democrats, had vocally, forcefully defended Sprague and demanded that he remain as chief counsel, the HSCA investigation could have been historic and decisive. But it didn't happen because there were simply no Kennedy family members and prominent Democrats willing to stand up for Sprague and to insist on full, unconditional cooperation from the CIA, the FBI, and the Secret Service. At that time (late 1970s), it was still possible to bring at least some of the conspirators to justice. Even Blakey said he believed it was possible to get convictions of a few of the conspirators. But there was no one with the courage of Mary Pinchot Meyer in the Kennedy family or among JFK's friends and allies. Thus, the conspirators got away with their crime and the lone-gunman tale has never been officially exposed and repudiated.

There is no visible slowing down of the limousine in the Z film. There is only the virtually invisible, split-second slowing identified by Alvarez. This virtually imperceptible slowing occurs from Z295-304, as the limo decelerates from 11/12 mph to 8 mph, per Alvarez's measurements. In the film, this event is so subtle that viewers usually do not notice it. In fact, no one appears to have noticed it until Alvarez detected it by measurement and frame-by-frame analysis. It seems highly unlikely that this split-second, subtle slowing is the 1-2-second stop or drastic slowdown described by over 40 witnesses. There is also the problem of the vanishing explosion of blood and brain. The spray of particulate matter disappears far too quickly. In the current film, it is there in one frame but gone in the next frame. Ballistics tests have proved that the spray should be visible for at least six frames. In addition, no spray is seen blowing backward. Yet, we know that two of the trailing patrolmen and the follow-up car were sprayed with blood and brain matter. Hargis said the spray hit him such force that he thought he himself had been hit.

Obviously, that plan failed. I totally get that RFK and other family members were devastated, and I could excuse them if their inaction and silence had only lasted a few weeks. But, once they saw the FBI's propaganda blitz for the lone-gunman theory, they should have shaken off their grief and loudly protested the emerging myth. Certainly, at the very latest, when the Warren Report was released, with its obscene disregard for the truth, they should have spared no effort to challenge the report in the public arena. I'm reminded of Mary Pinchot Meyer, who truly loved JFK. She recognized early on that the emerging tale was a brazen falsehood, and when the Warren Report was released, she became determined to challenge it. Yes, that's what got her killed. However, if many/most/all of JFK's family members and friends had boldly and loudly challenged the government's myth, the conspirators would have been unable to silence them, and the cover-up probably would have collapsed. If nothing else, such determined, vocal opposition from JFK's family members and friends would have drastically changed the public debate on the issue.