John Geraghty

Thanks for the good thoughts David. I've had a lot of positive feedback so far. No doubt I'll be trawling the forum for information and asking a few questions along the way.

I want to share with you all my proposal for a 5 part internet series on the Kennedy assassination. The project will be carried out through the Coalition on Political Assassinations.

JFK- The truth in our lifetime is the working title for the project and will likely not be the name of the finished product.

If you have any questions or queries, please write them here or contact me at johnpetergeraghty@gmail.com

If you can make any kind of contribution towards the project it would be very much appreciated.

All the best,

John Geraghty

JFK - The Truth in Our Lifetime

The last few years have seen the release of some of the most complete and important accounts of the Kennedy assassination, mainly in terms of its historical significance as a deep political event. Most are based on the release of over 6.5 million pages of classified records that have rewritten the history of the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the assassination itself.

For years the work of the critics has always been of great quality and has overshadowed and outsold those books that sought to uphold the establishment perception of the assassination of President Kennedy was not a conspiracy, but an aberration of history.

This struggle between the combined will of the informed populace and the sturdy control of a domineering elite is best exemplified in two books- JFK and the Unspeakable by Jim Douglas and Reclaiming History by Vincent Bugliosi. One is a relatively short book, detailing the most recent and complete analysis of the politics of the JFK assassination, drawing on all credible material unearthed and analyzed thus far. The other, a voluminous tome focused on the infallibility of the Warren Commission’s findings and the dismissal of any notion of a coup within the United States.

Although both books may have sold in similar quantities, Bugliosi’s work is set to become a ten part mini-series, produced by Tom Hanks for the HBO network. It is here that the distinction between the good and bad research must be made. The critics’ contribution to history is more accurate and more honest, yet their work is not as widely available or acceptable in a hierarchical society.

Bugliosi’s aim with his book and series is to make a serious dent in the 75% majority of the American population who believe there was a conspiratorial plot to assassinate President Kennedy, and he may well do so. This will be the largest tele-visual project on the topic of the assassination since Oliver Stone’s film ‘JFK’ and Nigel Kennedy’s History channel series, ‘The Men Who Killed Kennedy’.

No matter how valuable or important a book is on this case, it will still not reach a wider audience in the way it can via a visual medium.

A new audience

The ‘research community’, as we call it, has made a significant contribution to American politics and society since the day of the assassination. Authors and researchers have freely shared information, created archives, tracked down leads, forced new investigations and successfully lobbied Congress to investigate the murder and to release millions of relevant documents.

The research community has now grown to a stage, both in terms of knowledge and stature, that we can leave the familiar confines of attempting to create exposure for our stories, books and truths in the mainstream media and produce our own material available for mass consumption. Such a production could take the form of a 5-part documentary series, available online for free - our response to ‘Reclaiming History’.

This new series would draw upon the internet culture that has grown up around us and that we have harnessed to enable discussion and to disseminate the riddles of the past at a much quicker rate than was previously possible.

We live in an age when a documentary costing a few thousand dollars can be seen by millions of people on the internet and in DVD form. The power of the word of mouth is now matched by the power of the keyboard. After being blocked out of various Democratic presidential debates Dennis Kucinich was still able to use the internet to get his message out to millions of Americans, one video alone being viewed by 1.9 million people on youtube.

This proposed series would not simply be an extension of ‘The Men Who Killed Kennedy’, focusing in on individual stories laced through a broader spectrum, nor would it be a straight rebuttal to the tightly wound and loosely conveyed arguments put forward in ‘Reclaiming History’. It can instead be the story that has been on the tip of our collective tongue for decades. The story of the Kennedy assassination, told not in terms of entrance wounds, intelligence agency rumors, ballistics, trajectory, but in terms of the political scene, the danger of a Kennedy presidency to those financial power and in the military.

In other words, this series will take the assassination out of Dealey Plaza and into the real world, making it tangible for an audience to realize that this past event genuinely effects them in the current political climate, and not just in the USA, but globally.

The focus of this version of the assassination can be narrowed into a much more digestible and relevant format, taking it out of the obscure sciences and into the understandable political event that it was. As Mr X, the character in the film JFK tells Jim Garrison, the DA on the trail of the killers, “Why was Kennedy killed? Who benefited? Who has the power to cover it up? Who?"

Not only will the series focus upon the causes and impact of the assassination, but it will do something other series and films don’t and can’t do, provide solutions. The last of the 5 episodes will be an examination of the various methods that have been employed to seek justice and a collection of those legal remedies that we can still use in order to seek some form of resolution.

Who am I, who are we?

What is it that I mean when I say that ‘we’, the ‘research community’ can produce this documentary series? First of all, who am I?

My name is John Geraghty, I’m 23 and from Dublin, Ireland. I hold a Degree in History from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth and I am currently working on a Masters Thesis there on the topic of JFK and the Freedom of Information Act. In the 6 years that I have been interested in this case, I think it is not over-reaching to say that I’ve been responsible for some good and critical work.

Since the age of 17 I have studied the Kennedy assassination, being a regular contributor to online forums and a member of Dealey Plaza UK, a group of researchers of all ages and backgrounds. In 2006 I worked as an intern in the office of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. There I worked with John Judge on the Martin Luther King Records Act, modelled after the successful JFK Records Act of 1992.

The following summer I worked in the Assassination Archives Research Centre under James Lesar, compiling a large list of CIA cryptonyms, code words and personnel. Over several years, I have assisted John Judge with his work in the Coalition On Political Assassinations, including building and managing their website.

I am proposing that I take on the task of actually filming, producing and editing this proposed series. Of course, my knowledge and assets can take me only so far, so it is to the research community that I look for support.

The most important contribution that the research community can make to this project is their knowledge and expertise. It is my intention to talk to and interview authors and researchers of the calibre of Professor Peter Dale Scott, Jim DiEugenio, Walt Brown, Gerald McKnight, Dick Russell, Michael Parenti and Jim Douglas to name but a few. The other contribution that we will need from the research community is financial support, supplies and hospitality.

The whole idea of producing this series is that a group of committed citizens (of any country) can now get together and make a project like this work on very minimal funding.

I do not think it unreasonable to be targeting an initial figure of 50-60,000 viewers of the series. In the age we live in, this is an extremely achievable goal. This is the bare minimum of viewers that I would expect to watch. I will ensure that the documentary is properly marketed on the internet on forums, blogs, websites, social networking sites and hopefully through word of mouth.

Documentaries made for the internet including Zeitgeist and Loose Change have garnered viewers in the millions. The Men Who Killed Kennedy is available online and has been viewed on youtube alone 30,000 times, though this number is likely higher when google video is taken into account. COPA has uploaded 14 videos over the last year. These videos were not professionally produced, nor were they fully promoted, yet they were still viewed 38,000 times.

The funding of this project will be done through COPA, the Coalition On Political Assassinations as a sponsor of our project. We will be asking members of the research community to help us in any way they can - in terms of knowledge, monetary donations, allowing me to stay with them if I’m travelling around the country, loaning filming equipment or donating air miles.

This series will have a very professional feel to it, both in terms of presentation and content. The more material donated and offers of hospitality, the fewer monetary contributions we will need.

This can be our great collaborative effort, our response to the history texts and a chance to bypass a distorted media and tell our own truth without thought of pleasing sponsors, succumbing to government pressure or the need to make a profit.

I speak of this series as a project for this community, but I will say with absolute definite certainty that nothing will be put into this series unless it is absolutely verifiable. The collaborative element of this project ensures that no personal agenda’s can be followed, I will be merely the organizer of the facts.

Preproduction on the series will begin immediately, with initial filming beginning in July and running through the summer. Following the editing process the episodes will be screened live online each weekend until the anniversary of the assassination Dallas in November. Following the live screening the episodes will be made available for free to stream, to download and to burn onto DVD.

Each episode will be screened at live events in cities across the U.S. with feedback sessions with live audiences to be broadcast directly after the episode.

Because this documentary is made by a non-profit you can be guaranteed that the money is being put to good use, that there are no hidden agendas, and that we will employ every cost cutting technique that does not impact on the quality of the film.

Internet blockbusters are a reality today. With the right story, good research and good production, it really is possible for a series like this to be seen by hundreds of thousands of people. This project is citizen activism at its purest, a group of people from various political and social groupings who share a common goal in the interest of the common good.

Of course, to make all of this possible we need your support. Our goal is to raise $4,000 to cover basic costs for travel, production and editing. I will come over as soon as possible from Ireland and cross the US to get the best interviews I can, drawing on other earlier recorded talks and documentary materials.

Let me put it this way, for every dollar you donate, at least 6 people will be introduced to the historical reality of the Kennedy assassination. This figure could rapidly grow, but I do not wish to speculate at this early stage of the project.

Donations to this project and COPA are not tax deductible. For donations over $50, I will make sure you receive the 5 part series on DVD.

To donate, please go to www.politicalassassinations.com and under the heading of the project click the 'donate' button or by sending a paypal donation to johnpetergeraghty@gmail.com.

Or by mail, please make the check to COPA and note "Know the Truth" at the bottom.

Thank you

John Geraghty

COPA

P.O. Box 772

Washington, DC 20044

johnpetergeraghty@gmail.com

www.politicalassassinations.com

Know the Truth

Breakdown of the 5 part series

Part 1

An introduction to the assassination for someone without any real prior knowledge of the time line, geography and background to the assassination. Beginning with the actual assassination itself and the political, economic and foreign policy battles that pre-dated the act itself.

This episode will also chronicle the establishment of the CIA, the growth of the Military Industrial Congressional Complex. It will touch on subsequent events arising from this intense militarism, such as the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban missile crisis, two events which foreshadowed President Kennedy’s ultimate demise.

Specifics such as the telephone blackout in Washington D.C. immediately after the assassination, the cabinet’s plane journey at the exact time of the assassination, the DEFCON status, missing code books and troop movements in Florida will be focused upon to give the viewer a sense of the wider implications of Kennedy’s assassination in the immediate aftermath.

Part 2

A study of Lee Harvey Oswald, his ONI intelligence background, his movements and the move to convict him in the mind of the public. Also, the Miami and Chicago plots to kill JFK. This will include Oswald’s time in the Soviet Union and other brief stays in New Orleans and his connections in Dallas.

The principal importance of this episode is to outline the circles in which Oswald ran and the characters with whom he was associated, primarily George De Mohrenschildt and other intelligence agency assets and officers.

Part 3

The investigations, legal battles and official responses which wrote mainstream history with regards to the assassination. Included in this is a presentation on the control exerted over the media in the reporting of the event and subsequent repercussions, including the deaths of witnesses, the Vietnam war and the further drift towards global capitalism, paranoia about international communism and intensified spying upon U.S. citizens.

In the case of the Warren Commission, it will be outlined how in some ways the perpetrators of the crime controlled the investigation into the crime they committed or allowed to happen. The backgrounds of the Commission members will be explored.

Part 4

Foreign policy shifts following the death of the President. The intensification of armed conflict in Vietnam juxtaposed with Kennedy’s proposed policies before his death. An examination of those hawks who advocated an increased presence and a full scale U.S. invasion of Vietnam.

Also including the assassination of Diem, the actions of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA, détente with Soviet Union and Cuba, and Kennedy's clear intent to end the nuclear arms race and find real peace. In specific focus will be the actions of the Joint Chiefs of staff, their actions being the overt actions of the state, and the CIA and DIA, the covert and unseen actions of the state.

Part 5

What can be done in the current climate? Introduction to researcher's proposals about grand juries, citizen solutions and an insight into the various researcher communities that endeavor to see a resolution to the case. The end goal being a release of all files in this and other related cases such as the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Robert Kennedy as well as a final reassessment of the case in some official and unbiased forum to get at the truth.

Unfortunately, I don't think anyone at Wecht's end pressd 'record' as well as 'broadcast', so I don't know if we have an archived version yet. We do, however, have videographers at the conference itself. Myra Bronstein has offered to transcribe the talk if we can secure an online copy.

I'll know for certain whether it was archived or not quite soon.

The stream is working perfectly. It's an xcellent picture, perfect sound. The service is called ustream.tv and it's free. We, as a community, should use this technology more regularly.

Cyril Wecht will be broadcasting live to the COPA conference and around the world from Pennsylvania this morning at 9am Dallas time. Which is 10am EST and 3pm GMT.

The live stream has been set up and will be available from the start of Dr. Wecht's speech on the COPA website www.politicalassassinations.com

While this element will definitely go ahead, we also hope to stream the rest of the conference online, a first for COPA and conferences like this.

http://www.politicalassassinations.com

Please circulate

I should, of course, have written ARRB where I wrote AARB. I worked in the AARC you see.

This sounds intriguing and most helpful to me, given that my masters thesis will focus upon FOIA, JFK act and the AARB. Doug, I hope to at some point request an interview with you. I also hope to interviwe Judge Tunnheim and others who worked for the AARB. My thesis will cover how the FOIA and similar legislation shaped the academic literature on the Kennedy administration with specific reference to Kennedy's assassination and Vietnam policy.

Doug wrote an article on life inside the AARB did he not? I'll try to find it, as i know that it is online.

I really do look forward to this, as it will make my life considerably easier and will benefit my masters no end.

Thanks Doug.

Brand is well known for his leftist leanings, writing for the guardian (albeit the football section) and describing himself as a 'social revolutionary'. His phrasing may have been tactless, but the message is spot on. While I don't endorse Obama in many ways, I'll take him for now. If I were a die hard revolutionary I would be hoping for a McCain victory, as an Obama victory would be an appeasement towards progressives, socialists and others of revolutionary spirit. Linking in with John's thread on Fannie and Bernie, a McCain presidency would send the economy into further tailspin.

Brand presented a documentary about the BNP in which he followed the organisations youth leader around for a few weeks. Brand openly called him a fascist and verbally tore him apart in a pub. The documentary is available on youtube.

Similar available documentaries include 'BNP: the secret agent' and 'Young, nazi and proud' with David Modell. Off topic, but interesting.

Ex-KKK man freed over 1964 deaths

James Ford Seale was first arrested in 1964 but charges were dropped

A US appeals court has overturned the conviction of a former Ku Klux Klansman jailed last year over the deaths of two black teenagers in Mississippi in 1964.

James Ford Seale, 72, was serving three life terms on charges of kidnapping and conspiracy over the deaths.

The court agreed with arguments by Mr Seale's lawyer that a legal time limit for prosecuting the case had lapsed.

Dozens of black people were killed in the 1950s and 1960s by white people wanting to preserve racial segregation.

Former policeman Mr Seale's case is one of many recently revived by US prosecutors hoping to punish unsolved crimes from the era of the civil rights movement.

Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee were both aged 19 when they were killed.

They were said to have been kidnapped and forced into a vehicle owned by Mr Seale before being tied up and drowned in the Mississippi river.

Their bodies were found months later during a search for three well-known civil rights activists - Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney - who had disappeared in the area.

The investigation into the campaigners' disappearance was dramatised in the 1988 Hollywood film, Mississippi Burning.

'Life disrupted'

The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the lower court had failed to recognise a statute of limitations applied to the case.

Mr Seale's lawyer, Kathy Nester, had argued that a 1972 law abolishing the death penalty for kidnapping also imposed a five-year limit in such cases.

The appeals court ruling noted that the alleged crimes took place in 1964, while the indictment against Mr Seale was issued in 2007.

Ms Nester told the Associated Press news agency the ruling effectively dismissed the case against her client but said prosecutors may take the case to another appeals court.

Thomas Moore, the brother of one of the dead teenagers, told AP he felt the truth about the murder had been revealed.

"This [ruling] doesn't take one ounce away from me," Mr Moore said.

"James Ford Seale has spent more than a year in jail. I know I have disrupted his life."

'Dumped alive'

Mr Seale was first arrested in 1964 but authorities freed him, citing lack of evidence.

The charges were dropped at the time because local police were colluding with the Ku Klux Klan, federal prosecutors have said.

He was rearrested in January 2007 after he was found to be very much alive - despite his relatives' claims that he had died.

Mr Seale, who has cancer and growths on his bones, was sentenced last year to serve time in a prison that could provide the medical care he needed.

The key witness in his trial, confessed Klansman Charles Marcus Edwards, said during the trial that Mr Seale attached heavy weights to the boys and dumped them alive into the river.

But the defence had argued that Mr Edwards, who was granted immunity for his testimony, was an "admitted xxxx".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7607883.stm

After a prolonged absence from the forum I shall add my two cents.

I think Dr Newman may be quite close to the mark. What he says makes some sense to me, and his deduction sounds logical. The fact that Angleton investigated the assassination internally for the CIA also tends to point to a 'handling' of information and its control.

I held suspicions about Angleton, he seemed to be 'the man who kept the secrets', despite what Richard Helms biography may say. Angleton really does personify the agency, having been there for all the major operations, paperclip and the Bay of Pigs.

Like Newman, I can only really speculate, but logic suggests that something like an assassination of this nature was not going to get passed Angleton.

We also know from David Talbot's work that Angleton was no admirer of Kennedys, both in personal and political terms. Angleton most likely held the dossier on Kennedy, something that could have been used to get Johnson as VP. I would be interested to know who Angleton was affiliated with in military intelligence, as I think the operation was carried out from within that organisation rather than the CIA. Oswald was, after all, ONI.

Here is an article from indymedia.ie about Declan Ganley, the mouthpiece of Libertas.

DECLAN GANLEY’S IRAQI SHENANIGANS

David Cochrane, Declan Ganley’s campaign director for Libertas, has been crying foul over what he describes as harassment of him by Fianna Fail’s solicitors over allegedly libellous comments about Bertie Ahern on his politics.ie website. But Cochrane has threatened heavy handed tactics himself and was swift to erase all trace of questions about Ganley’s activities in Iraq on the same website.

Early this year, one of politics.ie’s users made reference to Blood Money, Wasted Billions, Lost Lives and Corporate Greed in Iraq, a book on the reconstruction of Iraq by the American Coalition Provisional Authority, which outlined the wheeling and dealing during the bidding for contracts by such companies as Halliburton, of which vice president Dick Cheney used to be ceo. The book also outlined in detail how Ganley’s Liberty Mobile had unsuccessfully tried to get a slice of the reconstruction pie in 2004.

Ganley has extensive connections to the neo-con Republican administration in the US. As Goldhawk pointed out (see The Phoenix, 25/01/08), one of Ganley’s advisors in his Rivada Networks is a former Assistant Secretary of Commerce John Kneuer, while Ganley counts Admiral Timothy J Keating, head of the US Pacific Command, as one of his pals. However, Ganley’s most important trans-Atlantic relationship is with long-time business partner Don DeMarino, with whom

he had bid for a mobile phone licence here in Ireland back in 1998.

Ganley, in a consortium with US phone company Qualcomm, had made two attempts in 2003 to get a contract to build a cellular phone network in Iraq. Neither was successful, with the contracts going to European companies instead. While Ganley was licking his wounds over the failures, a row broke out over the two types of cellular phone systems; one of the systems, GSM, predominantly used in Europe and the other, CDMA, mainly used in the USA. That the European system was chosen greatly hacked off American companies, who saw their country’s hard work in ‘liberating’ Iraq not being rewarded with the spoils of war. One of those who was most annoyed was John A Shaw, deputy undersecretary in the Department of Defence, who just happened to be a lifelong pal of Ganley’s friend, DeMarino.

Shaw had a novel wheeze to help get American companies in on the mobile phone action in Iraq. The contract for Baghdad’s first responder network (that is, the communication system between the police, fire and ambulance services in the city) was up for grabs. Shaw suggested using a piece of positive discrimination legislation written up in the 80s (designed to promote the business interests of Alaskan Eskimos) which allowed companies with Eskimos on their board to bid for no-competition contracts. Crucially, those companies could then sub-contract the work out to whomever they liked.

According to Blood Money, in late 2003, Shaw introduced Ganley to the directors of NANA Pacific, an Alaskan company, with whom he formed a consortium including a new business entity, Guardian Net (which consisted of a couple of old business pals of Ganley’s, including DeMarino).

So far, so good for Ganley, and all perfectly legal. Unfortunately, the NANA/Guardian consortium pushed their luck too far and in their bid for the first responder contract in early 2004 they suggested in discussions with officials in the coalition authority that the network would form a footprint for a commercial network based on the American cellular system. This would, of course, give US companies a chance to avail of the billions of dollars on offer to mobile phone companies in a future, peaceful Iraq. The coalition authority, though, needed a first responder network, not another mobile phone system and in March 2004 they threw out NANA’s bid and started the whole process again. And there ended Ganley’s interest in Iraq’s mobile phone network.

Unfortunately, it was not the end of Ganley’s new pal John Shaw’s interest, and he lambasted the officials who had rejected the bid, suggested massive corruption in the bidding process, and generally made a nuisance of himself. This led to the resignation of two senior officials and delayed even further the process of setting up the first responder network. In October 2004, the wacky Shaw publicly claimed that the infamous WMDs in Iraq had been spirited out of the country by Russian special-forces, a claim that so embarrassed senior White House Officials that they sacked him.

Los Angeles Times journalist T Christian Miller wrote extensively about the entire debacle, which didn’t please Ganley (who had spoken on-the-record to Miller in 2004), and the angry millionaire threatened the hack with legal action, though he never actually filed any writs. Ganley is clearly still sore about the whole affair, though, and when a contributor to Cochrane’s website posted a link to the book, Cochrane deleted the post, cancelled the contributor’s account, and sent an email to his personal email account threatening him and his company (from whose computer the contributor had accessed politics.ie) with legal action.

Related Link: http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Money-Wasted-B...s-Corpo...66278

Elements of the Irish government seem to be pushing the line that a large proportion of the NO voters did so because they feared the creation of a European army under the treaty. Of course, the treaty had absolutely nothing to do with this and the government are portraying a portion of the electorate as somehow idiotic and not fully informed. I voted no because the terms of the treaty were undemocratic, as was the voting method for the majority of the EU. I also saw it as a furthering of globalisation and the creation of a more tightly run protection racket.

Lucinda Creighton, of the Fine Gael party, made the characterisation that middle class voters did their job and voted no, whereas the working class voted no for reasons of racism, xenophobia etc.

I am usually fairly thankful for the quality of Ireland's media and journalism in comparison with other nations, but the reaction from the national newspapers and broadcasters put a very sour taste in my mouth. This was a referendum, not an election, but we have been lumped into the 'YES' and 'NO' sides. The 'NO' campaign was supposedly led by the group 'Libertas', a foundation funded by American businessmen who fear a powerful centralised Europe. I voted not because I have party loyalty, or because I was swayed by propaganda from either side, but because I disagree with the direction of the EU.

Ireland is now being asked to explain itself. To explain how we let democracy get in the way of economic 'progress'. This debacle has shown me the level of contempt around Europe for democracy and the elites respect for the will of the people. This result also has serious implications for the manner in which the EU treats smaller countries over larger ones. France and the Netherlands rejected the EU constitution, and it was then revised into the Lisbon treaty. Now that Ireland has rejected it, we are seeing a different reaction.

John

Indeed it will Peter. I have been on the phone with L.A. today, things seem to going well. We have had 815 views on our blog so far today, so hopefully that will be an indication of viewers for the conference. ABC news have shown interest in the conference, Japanese national TV will be in attendance, and we have been listed in the AP press calendar. It looks like there should be a good deal of media presence at the event.

The good news for you Peter is that if the stream works tonight, we will have it for the whole weekend. So stay tuned.

Priscilla Johnson McMillan on assassinations

It seems as though the International Herlad Tribune has picked up where the North American Newspaper Alliance left off (NANA was formed by British intelligence agent and James Bond creator Ian Fleming).

See the article bottlefed by Oswald’s NANA as referenced by COPA’s William Kelly here

Priscilla Johnson McMillan wrote a biography of Lee Harvey Oswadl. She acted as Marina Oswald’s minder, she met Lee Harvey Oswald in Russia and her husband wrote a book about James Earl Ray.

International Herald Tribune

Why assassination talk is taboo

By Priscilla Johnson McMillan

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Shock ran through many of us when Hillary Clinton raised the specter of Robert Kennedy’s assassination 40 years ago this week to justify her decision to stay in the presidential race. Although Clinton regarded her comments as innocent, they were disturbing because fear for the safety of Barack Obama has been a disquieting undercurrent throughout the primary season. Clinton’s remarks only served as an incitement.

While writing a biography of Lee Harvey Oswald, I learned that there is a web of associations in the mind and emotions of the assassin that leads him toward his victim. Almost anything can contribute.

Oswald, for example, may have begun to consider committing an act of political violence as early as 1962, when he was living in Minsk, which was then in the Soviet Union. There, he heard a relative of his wife, Marina, recount in hushed, frightened tones the details of a shooting attempt on the Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev that had just taken place at a nearby hunting lodge.

Commenting on the secrecy that surrounded the attempt, Oswald said, “If this had happened in America, it would have been in all the newspapers and everyone would be talking about it.”

For Oswald, another suggestive event appears to have occurred on June 12, 1963, when civil rights leader Medgar Evers was slain by a sniper outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi, a city close to New Orleans, where Oswald by then was living.

But the associations that affected Oswald most had to do with President Kennedy himself. Oswald was attracted by Kennedy’s youth and the spirit of hope he conveyed. And there were personal resemblances. Kennedy was, like Oswald during the summer of 1963, a husband and father of a young daughter, with another child expected soon.

We know that these similarities were in Oswald’s mind because he talked about them to his wife, Marina. When the Kennedys’ child Patrick was born prematurely in August and died, the Oswalds took it to heart and were afraid that something similar would happen to their child.

Oswald had often told Marina that he wanted enough children for a “whole football team,” like the Kennedy family, and, during the summer of 1963, he boasted that he would be president or prime minister some day.

Not only does a chain of suggestion sometimes lead an assassin to his victim, the act of assassination itself is, to an appalling degree, contagious. As the convicted bank robber James Earl Ray watched reports of President Kennedy’s assassination on a rickety television set at the federal penitentiary in Jefferson City, Missouri, in 1963, he jumped up, a fellow convict later reported, and shouted that he was going to kill the Reverend Martin Luther King. Less than five years later, he did.

There are other signs pointing to the contagious nature of assassination, among them the succession from the Evers shooting in June 1963 to that of John Kennedy in November the same year to those of Malcolm X in 1965, King in April 1968, Robert Kennedy in June of that year, and, finally, the attempt on former Alabama governor George Wallace in a Maryland shopping center in 1972.

Not only is the crime of assassination contagious: Most people, at some level, know it. That knowledge accounts for the curtain of silence that until recently has enveloped the anxiety many people - and not only blacks - feel about the peril that constantly confronts Barack Obama. Even the dismay that greeted Mike Huckabee’s careless gaffe before the NRA recently failed to inhibit Hillary Clinton.

Clinton, who has been shielded by the Secret Service since 1992, raised the taboo subject, and in a way that could only lead emotionally troubled members of the public to thoughts of her rival for the nomination.

The trouble is that because of the contagiousness - and, for many, the parricidal appeal - of the act of assassination, Clinton’s intentions do not matter. A remark such as hers only compounds the atmosphere of suggestion.

Priscilla Johnson McMillan is author of “Marina and Lee.”

Bill Eppridge, RFK assassination photographer

Sun reporter

June 4, 2008

New Milford, Conn.

The kernel was planted in Bill Eppridge’s mind while he was studying photojournalism at the University of Missouri.

“Create a photographic epic poem.”

Eppridge was taking a history course in the late 1950s taught by the university’s poet-in-residence, John Neihardt, who was best known for his 1932 book, Black Elk Speaks, about an Oglala Lakota medicine man who had witnessed Gen. George Custer’s defeat at Little Big Horn and the Massacre of Wounded Knee. Outside of class, Eppridge spent a lot of time discussing what Neihardt, the poet laureate of Nebraska and the Plains, called epic poems. He asked Neihardt if he had ever seen a photographic version of an epic poem.

“I have seen a lot, but never really something I would call an epic,” the professor told him, Eppridge said.

Forty years ago tomorrow, Eppridge captured what could be described as an epic photo and certainly one of the most famous images in modern American history: A mortally wounded Robert F. Kennedy lying cradled in the arms of an anguished hotel busboy named Juan Romero.

The slow-motion events of that night, June 5, 1968, remained with Eppridge forever.

“Every day I think about it,” he said, sitting in a wooden rocking chair as a thunderstorm boomed in the hills surrounding the Connecticut home he shares with his wife, and editor, Adrienne Aurichio. “Bad dreams go away. … I don’t think nightmares ever do.”

In 1966, Life magazine assigned Eppridge to cover Kennedy, the 42-year-old New York senator, former U.S. attorney general and brother to assassinated President John F. Kennedy, for a six-month assignment.

“He’s a superb photojournalist,” Donald M. Wilson, assistant publisher of Life at the time, said of Eppridge. “I worked there for many years, knew all the greats. He was excellent.”

In 1968, after Kennedy announced his intention to seek the Democratic nomination for president, Eppridge volunteered to cover his campaign. From state to state, in open limousines and among the throngs of people, the specter of the candidate’s brother’s tragic death always seemed to accompany them.

Eppridge was in Los Angeles the June evening when Kennedy won the California primary. Inside the Ambassador Hotel that night, he stood directly behind Kennedy and his wife, Ethel, as the candidate gave his victory speech - “now it’s on to Chicago” - to a crowded ballroom. Eppridge was in the kitchen, hanging tight to the sparsely protected candidate as he left the ballroom the same way he had entered it. The photographer was not far behind Kennedy when Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian whose motives were believed to be tied to Kennedy’s support of Israel, fired eight .22-caliber shots. One struck Kennedy in the head. He would die the next day.

“I have been living with this thing 40 years now,” Eppridge said. “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think, somehow, about him. Or that campaign. Or the consequences of his assassination.”

Eppridge, an avid outdoorsman who had slogged his way through a Vietnam stint and other conflicts for Life, immediately recognized the firecracker pops as gunshots. His thought that they came from a .25-caliber gun was off just a little.

Eppridge pushed himself and CBS cameraman Jim Wilson forward through the small, dense crowd stuffed in the narrow kitchen. He stopped briefly to photograph a wounded Paul Schrade, a United Auto Workers official. Then he continued to push and covered the 12 or so feet to the candidate.

Instinct took over. Emotion, for the moment, repressed. Eppridge crouched at Kennedy’s feet, the television light for Wilson’s camera eerily illuminating the scene. Bracketing the imprecise exposure, the first two grainy frames of Tri-X black and white film show Romero holding Kennedy’s head and looking down at him. In a third frame, backlit and underexposed, Romero looks up. The images after that show the bedlam that erupts.

As he recalls that night, Eppridge sits with a slouch. Steel and titanium rods run through him: He wears a back brace to help with the genetic osteoporosis intensified by years of carrying camera gear and bags. His gaze turns down. He reveals what Kennedy told him and others on the trail.

“There were something like 22,000 Americans killed because that [Vietnam] War didn’t end when [Kennedy] said he was going to end it. If he told us once he told us 20 times that ‘When, not if, but when I am president, that day the war ends. We’re out.’”

In April, Abrams published Eppridge’s book, A Time It Was: Bobby Kennedy in the Sixties. He had published an earlier book, Robert Kennedy: The Last Campaign, in 1993 that eventually sold out its 10,000 copies, but the results left him unsatisfied.

“The words really weren’t mine,” he said of that earlier effort, on the 25th anniversary of Kennedy’s death. “I wasn’t able to talk too much about what I felt.

“That didn’t get the message out as far as I was concerned. It’s important that we recognize and realize who this man was, and what he meant, and what might have been. Because, he certainly, historically, will be proved to be a most important figure in the history of this country.”

The new volume includes Eppridge’s own text - and pictures he didn’t know he had.

“One day, I heard this little yelp,” Eppridge recalled. His wife was cleaning out his unorganized archive, full of the cardboard boxes that Eppridge says all photographers use for storage. “She called to me and said. ‘You might want to see this.’”

She had uncovered more than 2,000 photographs - in unopened boxes - that were sent to him when Life magazine folded in 1972.

“You’d be off on the next assignment, and you just didn’t have time to look at what it was you did,” he said. “You’d always be looking to the future.”

Among the photos were 500 from his Kennedy assignment, including some that would become logical closers for his latest book, such as a motion-blurred, watery view from the photographers’ bus of the funeral procession as it approached Arlington National Cemetery.

Much of 2008 reminds Eppridge of the tumultuous ’60s: an unending war, an embattled White House. And then there is Democratic candidate Barack Obama, whose style has been compared to Kennedy’s.

Eppridge and his wife traveled to an April rally in Philadelphia to hear Obama speak. It was the first time Eppridge had ventured near politics of any sort in almost 40 years.

There were more than 20,000 people there and, unlike in 1968, enormous security. All serious candidates for the presidency, not just the party nominees, get Secret Service protection now. Kennedy did not even have police protection in Los Angeles.

“Security is incredible with this guy,” Eppridge said of Obama. “And I was glad to see it.”

When not watching the security at work, he studied Obama and the crowds.

“It’s fascinating to watch him work the crowds, and the crowds look the same,” he said. “And they look at him like God. And Bobby’s people did the same.”

Returning to Missouri to teach a workshop in the early 1970s, Eppridge went to his former mentor Neihardt, who asked to see the Kennedy photographs. He sat silently while going through the images, Eppridge recalled. When he finished, a half-minute passed before the poet looked up.

“You did it,” he told his former student. “That is an epic poem.”

christopher.assaf@baltsun.com

Bill Eppridge

Age: 70

Education: Bachelor’s degree in photojournalism

Career: Photographer for Life magazine where he covered Barbra Streisand in Paris, the 50th anniversary of the Soviet Revolution, the Beatles’ first visit to the U.S., civil unrest in Mississippi and the war in Vietnam; staff photographer for Sports Illustrated; has covered such things as the Olympics and the America’s Cup, the Mount St. Helens eruption and the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.

Awards: Twice named Photographer of the Year by the National Press Association while in college.

Books: A Time It Was: Bobby Kennedy in the Sixties; Robert Kennedy: The Last Campaign; provided photographs for Upland Passage: A Field Dog’s Education and Jake: A Labrador Puppy at Work and Play.

Personal: Lives in New Milford, Conn., with his wife, Adrienne Aurichio. She is also his editor.

Online

See a multimedia presentation on Bill Eppridge at baltimoresun.com/eppridge

Copyright © 2008, The Baltimore Sun

SF Gate article on the RFK assassination

Mentioned in this article are Shane O’Sullivan, William Turner, Philip Van Praag, Robert Joling, all of whom will be presenting at the COPA conference this Friday in Los Angeles.

(06-02) 20:11 PDT — The assassination was over in a few seconds. In the photograph of that moment, Bobby Kennedy, his eyes open and glazed, lies on his back on a hotel pantry floor, his head cradled by a busboy dressed starkly in white - a tableau that seems almost angelic were it not so brutal.

Less than 26 hours after being shot early on June 5, 1968, right after winning the California presidential primary, Kennedy was dead. He was 42.

Three major assassinations rocked America in the 1960s. Two of the assassins - Lee Harvey Oswald, the killer of John F. Kennedy, and James Earl Ray, who shot Martin Luther King Jr. - are dead. But Sirhan Sirhan, convicted of killing Robert F. Kennedy 40 years ago this week in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, is living out his days in the California state prison at Corcoran. He is 64 and has never fully explained what happened that night other than to say he can’t remember it.

Sirhan was a seemingly unremarkable man. He was a Palestinian who was raised in the Middle East until he was 12, when his family settled in Southern California. Before the Kennedy assassination, he held a series of menial jobs and at one point worked at the Santa Anita racetrack and had hoped to be a jockey.

After Los Angeles police found his diary, in which he had written, “RFK must die,” investigators concluded that he was angry about Kennedy’s support for Israel and somehow had tied the assassination date - he wrote that Kennedy must be killed “before 5 June 68″ - to the one-year anniversary of the Six-Day War.

Open and shut

Los Angeles police, who declined Monday to comment on their investigation, deemed the assassination an open-and-shut case - Sirhan did it by himself. Independent investigators who have looked at the case over the years, however, suggest otherwise.

“The interesting thing is how under-examined the Robert Kennedy assassination is, compared to President Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.,” said David Talbot of San Francisco, author of “Brothers,” a book that looks into Robert Kennedy’s own investigation into his brother’s death and his conviction that JFK was the victim of a conspiracy.

“Bobby remains the unknown territory,” Talbot said. “But even if you look at it minimally, there are questions that come to mind.”

Among them:

– Sirhan fired his .22-caliber revolver from a few feet in front of Kennedy, according to police, yet Los Angeles County coroner Thomas Noguchi reported that the fatal shot was fired less than one inch from Kennedy’s head, behind his right ear. Of the four shots fired at Kennedy, all came from the rear. None of this was raised at Sirhan’s trial because his defense was based on the theory that he suffered from “diminished capacity” rather than on any challenge of prosecutors’ evidence.

– Sirhan’s revolver held eight rounds; a radio reporter’s tape recording of the shooting has sounds of what one audio expert describes as 13 shots. Sirhan never had a chance to reload before bystanders tackled him. Two of the sounds on the tape are what forensic experts call “double shots,” which means two shots so close together that they couldn’t have come from the same revolver.

– Several witnesses saw a security guard just behind Kennedy draw his revolver, and one reported seeing him fire it.

– Over the years, Sirhan has told investigators who interviewed him in prison that he was in a hypnotic trance during the shooting and can’t remember it at all. He said he could not remember writing, “RFK must die.” He did not respond to an interview request for this story.

Night of celebration

On the night Kennedy was killed, the hotel ballroom was filled with supporters celebrating his victory in the California primary and looking to the Democratic convention in Chicago. The last thing Kennedy said from the ballroom podium, just after midnight, was, “My thanks to all of you, and now it’s on to Chicago, and let’s win there.”

In the pantry, as Kennedy moved through the crowd, he was surrounded by friends, including Paul Schrade of the United Auto Workers, labor chairman for Kennedy’s campaign.

“All of a sudden, I got hit in the head by a bullet,” Schrade said. “I shook violently. I thought I was being electrocuted. When I came to, I was on the floor.”

Schrade was one of five people besides Kennedy who were hit by bullets. For the past 33 years, he has been investigating the shooting.

Mystery bullet hole

Unlike the JFK assassination, which created an outdoor crime scene in Dallas sprawling from the grassy knoll to the Texas School Book Depository, the shooting of Robert Kennedy happened in a confined space. Stray bullets ended up buried in walls and the ceiling, where they could be tracked down.

In photos, police investigators can be seen circling what they later said was a bullet hole in a ceiling panel, behind where Sirhan fired. For Sirhan to have shot into that panel, he would have had to “either turn around or the bullet would have to have made a U-turn,” said Philip Van Praag, a retired electrical engineer and audio expert who co-authored a book about the case.

Then there was the mystery of the woman in the polka dot dress. According to witness Sandra Serrano, the woman fled from the hotel kitchen with an unidentified man, shouting, “We shot him, we shot him.” When a bystander asked who got shot, the woman said, “We shot Kennedy.” Other witnesses reported seeing the woman, though it is not clear whether they heard the comment.

In a new film about the assassination, “RFK Must Die,” Irish documentary maker Shane O’Sullivan asked Serrano about what happened later. She said Los Angeles police spent hours trying to convince her she was wrong in what she saw, and she finally gave in. Forty years later, however, she told O’Sullivan that her original version was correct.

‘I don’t remember’

In fact, the iconic polka dot dress is also something fixed in the mind of Sirhan himself.

William Turner, a retired FBI agent who wrote a book about the case, says he interviewed Sirhan in prison in 1975.

“He told me, ‘I don’t remember anything after the woman in the polka dot dress asked me for coffee, and heavy on the cream and sugar,’ ” said Turner, who lives in San Rafael. “He said he had amnesia from that time until he was overpowered in the pantry after the shots were fired. He said, ‘I must have done it, but I don’t remember.’ “

Turner thinks Sirhan was “hypno-programmed to shoot” and that he was a real-life Manchurian Candidate - the fictional brainwashed dupe whose controllers want to assassinate a presidential candidate. Turner suspects the same villains as do the JFK conspiracy theorists - “organized crime and, predominantly, people from the CIA.”

Van Praag and a fellow investigator, former American Academy of Forensic Scientists president Robert Joling, don’t subscribe to any one conspiracy theory, but they are convinced more than one gunman was involved. The two have written a book about the killing, whose title, “An Open and Shut Case,” is a dig at the police investigation.

Van Praag, a former senior instructor in commercial audio-video systems for Ampex Corp., analyzed a tape recording of the killing made by a Polish radio reporter. He said he heard 13 shots over five seconds and was able to isolate the sounds well enough to say that two different weapons were firing during those five seconds.

Guard passed polygraph

One of those weapons, according to the documentary, “Conspiracy Test: The RFK Assassination,” which ran on the Discovery Times Channel a year ago, could have been held by Thane Eugene Cesar, the security guard who was near Kennedy.

Dan Moldea, who wrote a book, “The Killing of Robert F. Kennedy: An Investigation of Motive, Means and Opportunity,” said he thought for years that “Cesar had done it.” But in 1987 he persuaded Cesar to undergo a polygraph examination that the former guard “passed with flying colors,” Moldea said.

“He’s being accused of murder all over the place,” Moldea said, adding that he is now Cesar’s protector and would be willing to “bring him forward” if authorities ever reopen the case.

In fact, reopening the case is not a far-fetched idea.

Joling says an “independent panel of forensic scientists” should be created to “reinvestigate this matter on all the evidence.” The case “should be resolved in a truthful, factual and honest presentation,” he said.

“Let the chips fall where they may. That way, at least, the American people will know that somebody without a stake in the outcome made this finding.”

Online and on screen

Documents and other information about the Robert Kennedy assassination can be found at these Web sites:

www.anopenandshutcase.com

www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Robert_Kennedy_Assassination

www.aarclibrary.org

www.robertfkennedylinks.com/assassination.html

www.realhistoryarchives.com/collections/assassinations/rfk.htm

www.aldridgeshs.qld.edu.au/sose/modrespg/mystery/rfk/titlepg.htm

www.paperlessarchives.com/rfk_assassination.html

A new documentary, “RFK Must Die,” will be screened at 9:20 tonight at the Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St., San Francisco.

Another documentary, “Conspiracy Test: The RFK Assassination,” ran on the Discovery Times Channel last year and can be found on YouTube.

E-mail Michael Taylor at mtaylor@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c.../MNN110S5KH.DTL

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

John Meier says Howard Hughes organization was involved in the RFK assassination

Courtesy of Lisa Pease' Real History blog.

This may be a topic of discussion at the COPA conference in L.A.

John Meier, former advisor to the recluse billionaire industrialist Howard Hughes, claims that the Hughes organization was involved in the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968.

Among Mr. Meier’s acquaintances were members of the Nixon family, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Robert F. Kennedy, Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty, Head of the F.B.I. J. Edgar Hoover, Paul Schrade (who also was shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles along with Robert Kennedy), Harry Evans (who was six feet away from Kennedy when he got shot) and numerous others that are pertinent to this subject.

Mr. Meier had been introduced to Sirhan Sirhan’s lawyer, Mr. Lawrence Teeter, by Paul Schrade in 2005. Mr. Meier had numerous telephone conversations, e-mail exchanges, and meetings in Los Angeles with Mr. Teeter regarding Robert Kennedy’s assassination. The meetings that occurred during the week of February 13th - 19th 2005 in Beverly Hills, California, were recorded by Mr. Teeter. During that time Mr. Meier was also in communication with Paul Schrade and his wife.

Mr. Meier claims that Mr. Teeter was preparing for a new trial for Sirhan Sirhan based on the new evidence that they had put together.

Mr. Teeter died in Conchitas, Mexico on July 31, 2005.

Mr. Meier had his lawyer, Mr. Dale Pope get in touch with the State Bar of California, in order to retrieve all the documents, tape recordings, and e-mails that were in the hands of Mr. Teeter pertaining to Mr. Meier. After getting no satisfaction from the State bar of California, Mr. Meier had been informed by a contact that a burglary took place at Mr. Teeter’s home. Mr. Pope then was told by Mr. John Fulton from the State Bar of California that there was indeed a theft of records from Mr. Teeter’s home. Mr. Meier has not been given back any of the items that he requested.

Mr. Meier is now preparing to release the information that he has in regard to the Robert Kennedy assassination.

Go to www.johnhmeier.com for more information on Mr. John Meier and the harassment by the U.S. Government on Mr. Meier and his family

Video log by Mr Meier about Hughes involvement with the assassination and his knowledge of the affair.

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=jGAHYTu_6wg

Thanks for that Evan,

Where was the missile site? The computers look truly archaic, but most likely unbuggable because they were so 'primitive'. Do you know when the site was deactivated? I had no idea that missile sites were open to the public, usually things of no significance that relate to the cold war are not released at all.

John

Video promo for COPA in L.A.

Here is a promotional video for the L.A. conference. Please distribute to mailing lists, your blog and your friends.

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn-2ce6SVpw

COPA listed in Associated Press calendar

COPA’s conference on the RFK assassination has been listed in the Associated Press calendar for the coming week. The calendar is sent to all major and minor news media organizations throughout the US. At the moment COPA is mentioned all over the net, from the Boston Globe to Fox news to Forbes.

http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008May30/0,4...alendar,00.html

http://www.boston.com/news/education/highe..._news_calendar/

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/05/30/ap5065123.html

If you want to feature the Friday of the COPA conference embed this html code into a post.

<embed flashvars="autoplay=false&brand=embed" width="400" height="320" allowfullscreen="true" src="http://www.ustream.tv/flash/live/143207" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" /><a href="http://www.ustream.tv" style="padding:2px 0px 4px;width:400px;background:#9A999A;display:block;color:#000000;font-weight:normal;font-size:10px;text-decoration:underline;text-align:center;" target="_blank">Web TV provided by Ustream</a>

I also encourage you to embed the chat for the stream underneath the video.

<embed width="563" height="266" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" flashvars="channel=#copa-conference--mlk-assassi&server=chat1.ustream.tv" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer" src="http://www.ustream.tv/IrcClient.swf" allowfullscreen="true" />

Thanks,

John

Cynthia McKinney to attend COPA L.A.

Green party presidential candidate and former Democratic Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney will speak on the 6th of June at the COPA conference on the assassination of Robert Kennedy.

Ms. McKinney also spoke at the COPA conference on the assassination of Malcolm X, held at the Audubon ballroom in February of this year.

The Friday of the conference will be carried live on COPA’s website, be sure to drop by between 7-10pm L.A. time or 10pm-1am EST.

JFK assassination plot in Chicago

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=NBKcJAwwKrQ

There is of course a new James Bond novel release. It was written by Sebastien Faulks and is titled 'Devil may care'. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7423349.stm

Will you be reading it Bill?

Who knows what we might find in there Bill...