Ed Hoffman's Activities and Observations

[Duke Lane]

What Foster said in 1964 and sometime in 1987 or after are immaterial. Once something has been shown not to be true, it should be discarded and no longer used to support some silly argument. Who cares how long it took him to get to the end of the overpass, or if he was actually "on" or "off" of it when he supposedly talked to someone? Es machts nichts!

Where was this type of thinking when days were wasted reading post saying how Holland immediately ran off the underpass. I also got to say that it sounds ridiculous when someone tries to use what one witnesses didn't see to prove a point.

Gosh, was that me saying any of that? Did you get me drunk again? What day is today? Is this British Columbia?

... An earlier line was drawn in the sand pertaining to what Ed Hoffman could and could not see. Then the LOS was changed because it had been misrepresented at one point.

Bill, I know you're smarter than the rest of us combined, but do you have any clue whose line of sight that actually was, intended or otherwise? It was actually testified to! It is a matter of record!

Foster cannot "corroborate" something Ed didn't see. Even if Foster saw it, it hardly proves that Ed did.

I think the above quote falls under the 'I won't see it until I believe it' mentality. I mean think about this ... 'If Ed described something that Foster saw as well - it doesn't mean that Ed saw it.' What kind of a position is that to take on anything? On the plus side - it shows just how solid these witnesses are for someone to have to resort to the type of thinking I quoted above.

Billy, even you can repeat what someone else said! That you can repeat it to me - or that I can repeat it again - does not mean that either you or I witnessed it first-hand, does it?

Foster's being on the bridge was published before Ed's first meeting with the FBI, by both Tink Thompson and Sylvia Meagher. Ed Hoffman "devoured" this stuff, the "most accurate ... [and] complete" account - other than his own, presumably - having established that.

His "detailed descriptions of the crime scene" and the events that went on around it do NOT reveal anything that hasn't already been on the record, and is completely ignorant of what IS on the record, albeit outside the "popular press."

Personally, my thinking is this: Ed told a little white lie to his family, perhaps to impress his father and brother who didn't seem to think highly of him. Perhaps in the process of "convincing" himself of the story, he told it to some people whom he'd worked with, who in turn brought it to the FBI's attention.

Were you a boy when you were young? Did you know any bullies? One thing that can definitely be said of the people that "helped" Ed get his story told is that they abandoned him at the moment of truth. In the first case, the FBI told his co-worker to get Ed to write everything down so it would be understandable. Instead, Ed shows up empty-handed two days later and has to gesture to attempt to make himself understood, which didn't seem to work all that well.

Where was the co-worker, and why didn't he tell Ed to write everything down? Did Ed simply ignore him and figure that, despite past difficulties, he could actually make the FBI understand him this time? This guy could "understand" Ed, but couldn't be bothered helping him out. I think he was making a fool of Ed, and succeeded.

The 1977 incident was not dissimilar: guy calls up, translates for Ed, even goes to DP to re-enact the whole deal, and when it comes time for Ed to tell the story first-hand to the FBI ... where's this "friend?" NOT translating for Ed, that much is for sure! Ed was on his own again, good luck with that!

Despite the fact that his family and personal friends confirm his story, none of them were those who'd persuaded Ed to contact the FBI to tell it in the first place ... and those that did persuade him and "help" him, abandoned him. I think they were making fun of him and succeeded spectacularly.

Bullies.

Then Ed's story came to the attention of someone who was able to publish the story nationally, and did. According to Ed's own later - and presumably accurate - narrative, that author actually provided "corroborating evidence" of a "conversation" between two of Ed's characters that never took place. At this point, his "little white lie" assumed national prominence: what was he to do or say? That it was all just an "inside joke?"

And then came The Men Who Killed Kennedy and the whole Marrs/Howard thing ($$ - even if not to Ed! Let Jim sue me if I'm misrepresenting anything here ...) preceding the JFK movie that put Ed on the international stage. And then came the elaborations, the "detailed descriptions of the crime scene" that were anything but, all just to show that he wasn't fibbing to his family.

The simple fact is that Ed knows nothing about the actual scene that supposedly confronted him as he watched this "deadly tableau" unfold before him. He has reported only the published information that was already available, and none of what is not generally known, but which is nevertheless established and unequivocal FACT.

[Duke Lane]

Email from Duke Lane: How did Ed get past the cops?

The above was an email I had gotten from Duke Lane. The fact that I have stated that I am in the mountains of British Columbia where sets of the 26 volumes are non-existent obviously didn't register with this poor individual who seems to have came off sounding like a lunatic IMO.

Email is generally considered private; calling someone a "lunatic" is generally considered slander or libel. You have absolutely no decency, sir, whatsoever.

[Bill Miller]

Email is generally considered private; calling someone a "lunatic" is generally considered slander or libel. You have absolutely no decency, sir, whatsoever.

The term "lunatic" that I used did not reference your ability as a researcher, but rather that you are so emotionally involved that you would attempt to call me a fraud not because I have purposely tried to mislead someone, but because of my current circumstances of not having access to my collection of data. This is not rational thinking on your part in my opinion and it is certainly not tolerable from where I sit. What you did is little different than someone saying they have a crop from Towner #3 showing two people at the large tree above the knoll immediately following the shooting, but cannot share it because they don't have access to their files at the current time ... only to then have someone else come back and call them a fraud for not being able to immediately get access to their materials. Had I of done that with you - I would expect others to view my actions the same way. Had I of quoted you saying something positive - you'd not said a word, but when I shared your inappropriate tone with me with this forum - you then see that as something to complain about. The point I wanted to make was to make future students of the assassination (which I get plenty of) who wish to discuss the evidence of the case with me privately ... can do so as long as things are kept on a rational level and they do not allow their emotions to get the best of them whereas they start insulting me over something as silly as my not currently being where I can get to my complete JFK assassination collection of data. When the latter occurs, then the discussion is no longer about the facts of the case, but rather a game of politics where slander is used in place of knowledge of the case. What you attempted to do could be compared to a guy bad mouthing a disabled person for not shaking his hand when it was obvious that person had no hands to shake with. That tactic is old-hack and it reflects poorly on those who use it - not those who it was used on and that's exactly why you didn't like my mentioning it in my post.

Bill Miller

Edited August 7, 2007 by Bill Miller

[Miles Scull]

Lee Bowers, Bill Sloan and Ed's friends have nothing to do with my question which has yet to be answered.

Ken,

Perhaps then, under separate cover, you won't mind answering those questions I'd raised? These were:

You do realize, of course, that Ed was not the only person to have essentially the same vantage point, don't you? That being the case, why did nobody else see this non-event? What about the two parking lot attendants? What about Bowers?

... Speaking of whom, would you care to elucidate the "suit man - plaid shirt man" conversation that is supposedly "confirmed" by Marrs' account of Bowers' testimony in Crossfire, to wit:

One man, middle aged, or slightly older, fairly heavyset, in a white shirt, fairly dark trousrs. Another younger man, about mid-twenties, in either a plaid shirt or plaid coat or jacket ... They were facing and looking up toward Main and Houston and following the caravan as it came down.

How about the point made by Bill Sloan that "Ed read every article and devoured every published detail about the case?" You realize that every bit of "supporting evidence" comes from published sources, all before Ed's "forced" trip to the FBI in June 1967, don't you?

Do you really believe that Ed's "friends" at TI really had his best interests at heart and wanted to help him get the story out, or do you believe that they were really doing it out of derision, hence their universal abandonment of him at the crucial moment of being interviewed by the FBI?

What Foster said in 1964 and sometime in 1987 or after are immaterial. Once something has been shown not to be true, it should be discarded and no longer used to support some silly argument. Who cares how long it took him to get to the end of the overpass, or if he was actually "on" or "off" of it when he supposedly talked to someone? Es machts nichts!

Frankly, it doesn't even matter if Foster said that he'd watched the "rifle toss" himself and chased the guy down the railroad tracks, it remains that Ed didn't see it happen, and that's what this is all about, isn't it? Foster cannot "corroborate" something Ed didn't see. Even if Foster saw it, it hardly proves that Ed did.

Beware the other foot falling. Meanwhile, can you comment on the above please?

Duke,

I notice that Ken is not answering your questions although you repeatedly ask them.

I think that Ken has become the victim of a grammar hoax.

Here's what I found out:

Sneed’s book, with regard to Foster's recollections, has been discredited. Sneed's rendering of Foster's recollections has been discredited. What Sneed mocks up as Fosters recollections cannot be taken seriously as reliable.

However, on the question of "does what Sneed has Foster saying make any sense?", a FEW words might help Ken avoid a big trap. Because somebody might be adding words that are not there in Sneed's sentence in order to falsely revise & alter the meaning of Sneed's sentence.

Let's see:

Sneed has condensed & edited Foster's alleged recollections this way:

"After the shooting, one officer ran up and said that the shots came from the overpass, and I told him they didn't. Then I moved around to the end of the viaduct where somebody said some man had run up the railroad track from that location. So I proceeded up to the yards to check the empty boxcars to see if anybody had run up that way.

I was in the yards maybe ten to fifteen minutes looking in the cars, but I didn't find anything. Nor did I see anything suspicious behind the picket fence or see anyone with Secret Service or FBI identification, as some have stated. From there I moved on down to the book store and walked on down to the south side of Elm..."

The key sentence is:

"Then I moved around to the end of the viaduct where somebody said some man had run up the railroad track from that location."

"...somebody said..." is simple indicative past tense.

(past tense: A verb tense that expresses actions or states in the past)

"...somebody HAD said..." is indicative pluperfect past tense.

(pluperfect tense: A perfective tense used to express action COMPLETED in the past)

This is the critical distinction. In Sneed's sentence there is NO "HAD." ----> NO "HAD" !!

Thus, the only allowable construing of Sneed's sentence is that Foster moved to an area where at, or where in, someone said something.

In the case that Sneed's sentence reads: "...where somebody HAD said something..."

then, and ONLY then, an allowable construing could be that Foster might have been told something while he was still on the UT. A stretch, but possible.

IF an officer ran up to say that shots came from the overpass (which is open to doubt because of Sneed's lack of credibility), then it would have taken only one second for Foster to have said: "No, they didn't."

Again, Sneed's recounting of Foster's 30 year old faulty recollections is bogus as has been proved.

But, even so, Foster's original testimony stands solid, as solid & as everlasting as the proverbial Rock of Gibraltar.

Therefore, 20 to 30 sec. is accurate. ----->

Edited August 7, 2007 by Miles Scull

[Duke Lane]

Email is generally considered private; calling someone a "lunatic" is generally considered slander or libel. You have absolutely no decency, sir, whatsoever.

The term "lunatic" that I used did not reference your ability as a researcher, but rather that you are so emotionally involved that you would attempt to call me a fraud not because I have purposely tried to mislead someone, but because of my current circumstances of not having access to my collection of data. This is not rational thinking on your part in my opinion and it is certainly not tolerable from where I sit. What you did is little different than someone saying they have a crop from Towner #3 showing two people at the large tree above the knoll immediately following the shooting, but cannot share it because they don't have access to their files at the current time ... only to then have someone else come back and call them a fraud for not being able to immediately get access to their materials. Had I of done that with you - I would expect others to view my actions the same way. Had I of quoted you saying something positive - you'd not said a word, but when I shared your inappropriate tone with me with this forum - you then see that as something to complain about. The point I wanted to make was to make future students of the assassination (which I get plenty of) who wish to discuss the evidence of the case with me privately ... can do so as long as things are kept on a rational level and they do not allow their emotions to get the best of them whereas they start insulting me over something as silly as my not currently being where I can get to my complete JFK assassination collection of data. When the latter occurs, then the discussion is no longer about the facts of the case, but rather a game of politics where slander is used in place of knowledge of the case. What you attempted to do could be compared to a guy bad mouthing a disabled person for not shaking his hand when it was obvious that person had no hands to shake with. That tactic is old-hack and it reflects poorly on those who use it - not those who it was used on and that's exactly why you didn't like my mentioning it in my post.

You have an amazing way of making even an "apology" seem like an attack. The best defense is always a strong offense, and the truth is that you can oftentimes be quite offensive.

The issue of not having access to your hard-bound 26 volumes is a non-sequitur since it is all available online; since you are here, you clearly have access to them and much more. I have hard-bound copies here too, but only cracked them once or twice.

Your accusations of emotional involvement are a perception of yours alone. Your decision to publicly post an edited version of a private email is not justified by that or any other perception.

People "who wish to discuss the evidence of the case with [you] privately ... can do so as long as --" ... apparently, only for as long as you alone want it to be private. You can change your mind at any time. You can quote selectively, just as you have done, including with McAdams' private note to you ... and as far as I can tell, he said nothing to "force" you to take his note from private to public, but you chose at whim to do so ... selectively.

Your opinions that I'd have "said not a word" in protest if you'd quoted me either fully or more positively, and what is "exactly why" I didn't like it, are just that: opinions. We know that most people have them, and they usually stink. QED.

If I "insulted" you, it was done privately. You clearly prefer to keep your insults in the public arena. Your reading of minds is substantially less than perfect. I'm not quite certain if I'm surprised that you think you have the ability.

If this was an "apology," I can't accept it in good faith because it doesn't seem to have been made in good faith. It's just another thinly-veiled attempt to justify yourself by placing the "blame" elsewhere.

As I said, you have no decency.

[Jack White]

Not having access to the printed volumes is no longer an excuse.

They are available online at HISTORY MATTERS.

Jack

[Duke Lane]

Miles said:

"Sneed's book, with regard to Foster's recollections, has been discredited. Sneed's rendering of Foster's recollections has been discredited. What Sneed mocks up as Fosters recollections cannot be taken seriously as reliable."

What is your source for this?? Just curious. It may help your argument to cite the source.

Kathy

This was discussed and cited at length earlier in this thread. Do a keyword search on the word "sergeant" - a reference Foster made in his testimony, which was quoted - and you should find it.

The sources are Sneed's book No More Silence, and Foster's own sworn testimony at 6H248ff.

Here is a synopsis:

Shortly after the 1997 publication of Eye Witness, Larry Sneed compiled a series of interviews he had conducted over a several-year period with assassination witnesses and investigators into book form (No More Silence, University of North Texas Press, Denton TX, 1998). The interviews were by no means forensic, but rather the unchallenged and uncorrected recollections of the principals of over 30 years later. One interviewee was former Dallas police officer J.W. Foster, one of two officers assigned to secure the Triple Underpass from unauthorized pedestrian traffic (not the railroad overpass atop Stemmons, as reported in Eye Witness [page 7]).

In his account of the events of November 22, Foster informs us that after the shooting, an unidentified officer ran up to him and told him that the shots came from the overpass, to which Foster responded that they had not (he believed them to have come from the TSBD). "Then I moved around to the end of the viaduct [i.e., the north end of the Triple Underpass] where somebody said some man had run up the railroad track from that location. So I proceeded up to the yards to check the empty boxcars to see if anybody had run up that way. I was in the yards maybe ten to fifteen minutes looking in the [box]cars, but I didn't find anything." [sneed, 212]

While apparently corroborative of Hoffman's account of "train man" running north on the railroad tracks after disassembling "suit man's" rifle, Foster's later account contradicts his sworn deposition with Warren Commission assistant counsel Joseph Ball:

Mr. Ball. Now, tell me what you saw happen after the President's car passed -- turned onto Elm from Houston.

Mr. Foster. After he came onto Elm I was watching the men up on the track more than I was him. Then I heard a loud noise, sound like a large firecracker. Kind of dumbfounded at first, and then heard the second one. I moved to the banister of the overpass to see what was happening. Then the third explosion, and they were beginning to move around. I ran after I saw what was happening.

Mr. Ball. What did you see was happening?

Mr. Foster. Saw the President slump over in the car, and his head looked just like it blew up.

Mr. Ball. You saw that, did you?

Mr. Foster. Yes, sir.

Mr. Ball. And what did you do then?

Mr. Foster. Well, at that time I broke and ran around to my right -- to the left -- around to the bookstore.

...

Mr. Ball. Was any shot fired from the overpass?

Mr. Foster. No, sir.

Mr. Ball. Did you see anyone with a weapon there?

Mr. Foster. No, sir.

...

Mr. Ball. Where did you go from there?

Mr. Foster. Went on around the back side of the bookstore.

Mr. Ball. Immediately?

Mr. Foster. Yes, sir.

[

6H251

]

Not only did Officer Foster go directly and "immediately" to the back side of the TSBD, he also did not search any cars or boxcars in the railroad yards:

Mr. Ball. When you got over to the School Book Depository Building, what did you do?

Mr. Foster. I was standing around in back there to see that no one came out, and the sergeant came and got me and we were going to check the -- all the railroad cars down there.

Mr. Ball. Who was that sergeant?

Mr. Foster. Sergeant came up there.

Mr. Ball. Did you search the railroad cars?

Mr. Foster. No; he sent me back down to the inspector. Told me to report back to Inspector Sawyer.

Mr. Ball. Where?

Mr. Foster. At the front of the Book Depository.

Mr. Ball. Did you talk to Sawyer there?

Mr. Foster. Yes, sir.

[ibid]

Among other misstatements in Foster's interview with Sneed, he also "remembered" a train passing over the Triple Underpass at the time of the shooting (one didn't), and contradicted fellow officer Joe Marshall Smith's account of a man in a suit behind the picket fence producing Secret Service or other credentials. [sneed, 213] Thus, Foster's faulty recollection serves more to aggrandize his own part in history than it does to substantiate Hoffman's tale.

Edited August 7, 2007 by Duke Lane

[Miles Scull]

Not having access to the printed volumes is no longer an excuse.

They are available online at HISTORY MATTERS.

Jack

Duke,

Regarding the apocryphal "Weitzman Report" which Miller claims to exist, but which others question if it ever existed, does this mean that Miller's excuse of being removed from hard copy is invalidated?

Therefore, one can conclude that it does not exist & never has existed. Yes?

[Duke Lane]

Miles said:

"Sneed's book, with regard to Foster's recollections, has been discredited. Sneed's rendering of Foster's recollections has been discredited. What Sneed mocks up as Fosters recollections cannot be taken seriously as reliable."

What is your source for this?? Just curious. It may help your argument to cite the source.

Kathy

This was discussed and cited at length earlier in this thread. Do a keyword search on the word "sergeant" - a reference Foster made in his testimony, which was quoted - and you should find it.

The sources are Sneed's book No More Silence, and Foster's own sworn testimony at 6H248ff. ...

Since I just came across this while searching for something else, I'll add Foster's report to Chief Curry, dated 12/4/63, which states in relevent part:

After the motorcade turned from Houston Street to Elm Street, I was watching the railroad employees very closely so that I would be in a position to prevent any incident. When I heard the shots, I was standing directly in back of these railroad employees and I then moved to the railroad overpass banner to see what was happening. I saw the President slumping over in the car and other persons falling down on the grass in the vicinity of the President's car. The President's car and a couple of other cars left the scene immediately at a high rate of speed with a motorcycle escort. I then observed some officers running toward the building on the northeast corner of Elm and Houston. I immediately rand towards the same building and assisted in blocking off the building.

[CE1358 at

22H605

)

This clearly omits any encounter with someone who saw anyone running up the railroad tracks and Foster's searching the railroad cars immediately thereafter.

Interestingly, J.C. White filed his report on the same day, and wrote as follows:

A Texas and Pacific freight train was traveling North on the railroad tracks between the parade and me. I did not hear the shots. I did not see any of the parade until some motorcycles and a couple of cars out of the parade went West from under the overpass. There was no one on the West side of the overpass watching the parade, but there were some railroad employees on the East side of the overpass watching the parade. As soon as the train cleared the tracks, to where I could cross to where the search was being made, I went to the location to help block off the building.

[CE1358 at

22H604

)

It's a curiosity why, even so early in the game, White was claiming that a train obscrued both his vision and his hearing so that he heard no shots and had no idea where they came from and didn't see a thing that might prove useful.

[Miles Scull]

Foster's report to Chief Curry, dated 12/4/63, which states in relevent part:

After the motorcade turned from Houston Street to Elm Street, I was watching the railroad employees very closely so that I would be in a position to prevent any incident. When I heard the shots, I was standing directly in back of these railroad employees and I then moved to the railroad overpass banner to see what was happening. I saw the President slumping over in the car and other persons falling down on the grass in the vicinity of the President's car. The President's car and a couple of other cars left the scene immediately at a high rate of speed with a motorcycle escort. I then observed some officers running toward the building on the northeast corner of Elm and Houston. I immediately ran towards the same building and assisted in blocking off the building.

This clearly omits any encounter with someone who saw anyone running up the railroad tracks and Foster's searching the railroad cars immediately thereafter.

Yes, that's QED.

But just as a side glance, Sneed has Foster saying:

Then I moved around to the end of the viaduct where

somebody said some man had run up the railroad track

from that location.

The meaning here is that in the area of the (north) end of the viaduct somebody said that some man had run up the the tracks from the (north) end of the viaduct. One infers that the

somebody

who said this said this to Foster. However, it is possible that this

somebody

who had said this had not told this to Foster at all but had told this instead to someone else who then in turn relayed the information to Foster, et cetera.

The point is that Sneed's editing distortion & condensation of Foster's 30 year old recollections creates enough blur to force discrediting the account on that ground alone.

[Duke Lane]

But just as a side glance, Sneed has Foster saying:

Then I moved around to the end of the viaduct where somebody said some man had run up the railroad track from that location.

The meaning here is that in the area of the (north) end of the viaduct somebody said that some man had run up the the tracks from the (north) end of the viaduct. One infers that the somebody who said this, said this to Foster. However, it is possible that this somebody who had said this, had not told this to Foster at all but had told this instead to someone else, who then in turn relayed the information to Foster, et cetera.

The point is that Sneed's editing distortion & condensation of Foster's 30 year old recollections creates enough blur to force discrediting the account on that ground alone.

I don't understand why you continue speculate on the multitude of possibilities surrounding something that doesn't seem to have happened, and then having supplied such unending possibilities, opine that it proves or disproves anything at all. It has nothing to do with anything.

I don't know what Sneed's source materials were. Were they sketchy notes he'd made, or tapes of his various subjects' recollections, and if the latter, were they culled from a question-and-answer format, a casual conversation, or an uninterrupted "oral history" by them? Not knowing any of that, much less what was actually said (if not what Sneed wrote), I'm not going to suggest that he either condensed or distorted anything.

The "blur" is not caused by something that someone may have said to Foster, or to someone else who mentioned it to him, or something he may have remembered but not reported or testified to. It is caused by his recollection of facts that are in direct contradiction to what he said in '63-64, especially about searching the boxcars.

It is the contradictions that make this "running man" story dubious, not anything in particular to do with that part of the story itself. Had he not told of doing things he specifically said he didn't do, then the story of the supposed encounter might have been more plausible.

[Miles Scull]

But just as a side glance, Sneed has Foster saying:

Then I moved around to the end of the viaduct where somebody said some man had run up the railroad track from that location.

The meaning here is that in the area of the (north) end of the viaduct somebody said that some man had run up the the tracks from the (north) end of the viaduct. One infers that the somebody who said this, said this to Foster. However, it is possible that this somebody who had said this, had not told this to Foster at all but had told this instead to someone else, who then in turn relayed the information to Foster, et cetera.

The point is that Sneed's editing distortion & condensation of Foster's 30 year old recollections creates enough blur to force discrediting the account on that ground alone.

I don't understand why you continue speculate on the multitude of possibilities surrounding something that doesn't seem to have happened, and then having supplied such unending possibilities, opine that it proves or disproves anything at all. It has nothing to do with anything.

I don't know what Sneed's source materials were. Were they sketchy notes he'd made, or tapes of his various subjects' recollections, and if the latter, were they culled from a question-and-answer format, a casual conversation, or an uninterrupted "oral history" by them? Not knowing any of that, much less what was actually said (if not what Sneed wrote), I'm not going to suggest that he either condensed or distorted anything.

The "blur" is not caused by something that someone may have said to Foster, or to someone else who mentioned it to him, or something he may have remembered but not reported or testified to. It is caused by his recollection of facts that are in direct contradiction to what he said in '63-64, especially about searching the boxcars.

It is the contradictions that make this "running man" story dubious, not anything in particular to do with that part of the story itself. Had he not told of doing things he specifically said he didn't do, then the story of the supposed encounter might have been more plausible.

Duke,

You are correct. Thx

But you don't answer this question:

Not having access to the printed volumes is no longer an excuse.

They are available online at HISTORY MATTERS.

Jack

Duke,

Regarding the apocryphal "Weitzman Report" which Miller claims to exist, but which others question if it ever existed, does this mean that Miller's excuse of being removed from hard copy is invalidated?

Therefore, one can conclude that it does not exist & never has existed. Yes?

Edited August 9, 2007 by Miles Scull

[Duke Lane]

... you don't answer this question:

Not having access to the printed volumes is no longer an excuse. They are available online at HISTORY MATTERS.

Jack

Duke,

Regarding the apocryphal "Weitzman Report" which Miller claims to exist, but which others question if it ever existed, does this mean that Miller's excuse of being removed from hard copy is invalidated? Therefore, one can conclude that it does not exist & never has existed. Yes?

One certainly may draw that conclusion, but one wouldn't necessarily be correct. Questioning its existence is not the same as proving it doesn't exist. The burden of proof, however, is always upon the person who makes the claim to validate it, not on others to disprove it. Unless someone knows of this report's existence and can provide a citation to it, there's no sense in scouring everything you can lay your hands on to find it and then being told that you've simply looked in the wrong place, you need to keep looking because someone's "sure" it's somewhere, but wants you to do the legwork to (not) find it.

[Bill Miller]

You have an amazing way of making even an "apology" seem like an attack.

It also seems like I have a way of just citing the facts as they were and making someone think it was an apology.

Bill Miller

[Bill Miller]

The burden of proof, however, is always upon the person who makes the claim to validate it, not on others to disprove it.

Yes, I witnessed that modus-operandi in action when several critics of Ed's story admitted they had not so much as read Ed Hoffman's book before attempting to cite certain things as fact.

Unless someone knows of this report's existence and can provide a citation to it, there's no sense in scouring everything you can lay your hands on to find it and then being told that you've simply looked in the wrong place, you need to keep looking because someone's "sure" it's somewhere, but wants you to do the legwork to (not) find it.

I will keep doing what I can to find it. I know this has come up in the past, thus I have a specific memory of it. Until then you guys can keep busy voicing opinions about other books you haven't read.

Bill Miller