Two for the Price of One

[Charles Drago]

[NOTE: The following originally appeared in slightly different form on the "Op Dallas" thread by Lee Forman, whose insight and question as quoted below prompted what I hope in turn will stimulate some interesting exchanges.

And the full, hideously long-winded sub-title of this thread: "Dramatic Construct and the Role of the Doppelganger -- or Double -- in the Assassination of JFK"

-- CD]

"Further - to continue on this bit - it would appear that the operation also made use of doubles - precedent with the doubling of Oswald -- Haven't been able to work that all out yet - but lookalikes may have been used for the purpose of both obfuscation as well as the protection of the identity of the operatives. Ever hear anything like that?"

- Lee Forman

_______________________________________

The use of doubles for the purposes you cite is an absolutely key insight into the identities of the prime facilitators not only of the JFK assassination, but of other deep political operations across a broad swath of history.

From Richard Popkin through John Armstrong and beyond, the doppelganger gambit at play in the JFK conspiracy is well documented.

If the operation to kill the president is best understood as drama (or, if you prefer, a dramatic construct; Evica's original theory, one that I wholeheartedly endorse), then you would be well advised to find and read in full a copy of The Double in Literature, by Robert Rogers (Wayne State University Press, 1970).

Rogers, on "the functions of doubling," offers this:

"If a character is not what he seems to be in the sense of being a fragment rather than a whole, it may be asked if he is real ... [R]econsider [Angus] Fletcher's assumptions when he states that the allegorical hero 'is not so much a real person' as he is a 'generator' of secondary personalities, partial aspects of himself." (emphasis in original)

Later, discussing what he terms "doubling for dramatic conflict," Rogers notes, "In essence, doubling of characters does not simply make the representation of intrapsychic conflict possible; it allows for the potential development of that conflict in the most dramatic way possible ... a dynamic opposition of psychic forces permeates practically all modes of literature. Shaw's dictum, 'No conflict, no drama,' goes right to the heart of the matter for the genre he was most interested in. It is impossible to think of any play deserving the name drama which is without sharp conflict. What obviously holds for the drama might not seem to obtain for so-called nondramatic literature; but to say so is to mistake conventional label for literal fact."

I would argue that the primary (but by no means exclusive) function of the double in an intelligence operation such as the JFK assassination is to create cognitive dissonance -- or conflict, if you will -- in the minds of investigators and witnesses.

(As an aside: To the degree that John Armstrong buttresses the "two Oswalds" perceptions, he simultaneously exposes and abets the agenda of the author(s) of the LHO doppelganger play-within-a-play.)

Two Oswalds. Two Zapruder Films. Two brains. Two brain exams. Two sets of autopsy notes. Two sets of X-rays. Two sets of autopsy photos.

And the granddaddy of them all: TWO conflicting conclusions by official United States government panels investigating the assassination.

Another common element of the doppelganger phenomenon is termed bi-locality -- a character impossibly being in two places at the same time.

Thus the "impossibility" of LHO being in Mexico and the U.S. simultaneously, for one of many examples, fits the doppelganger gambit's design and serves its ends quite neatly.

Further, I would suggest that this and related condundra, far from revealing flaws in the assassination plot (in both senses of the word), rather are well-designed, intentionally executed, critically significant elements of that plot.

So we are prompted to ask: Was LHO in Mexico or elsewhere?

We are prompted to choose A or B. (And as a consequence of so doing, we remain mired in an "endless" mystery that in fact was solved a long time ago.)

In fact, it is the NULL A, NULL B option -- or the third alternative -- that leads us to the truth.

Was LHO in Mexico or elsewhere?

The answer is YES, if the persona in question is the dramatic character LHO.

Pre-Oswald? Take a look at the case of Gordon Lonsdale.

As far as JFK is concerned: Who had the literary background to create such a drama? Who were the writers among the suspects?

Charles Drago

Edited July 9, 2007 by Charles Drago

[Jack White]

[NOTE: The following originally appeared in slightly different form on the "Op Dallas" thread by Lee Forman, whose insight and question as quoted below prompted what I hope in turn will stimulate some interesting exchanges.

And the full, hideously long-winded sub-title of this thread: "Dramatic Construct and the Role of the Doppelganger -- or Double -- in the Assassination of JFK"

-- CD]

"Further - to continue on this bit - it would appear that the operation also made use of doubles - precedent with the doubling of Oswald -- Haven't been able to work that all out yet - but lookalikes may have been used for the purpose of both obfuscation as well as the protection of the identity of the operatives. Ever hear anything like that?"

- Lee Forman

_______________________________________

The use of doubles for the purposes you cite is an absolutely key insight into the identities of the prime facilitators not only of the JFK assassination, but of other deep political operations across a broad swath of history.

From Richard Popkin through John Armstrong and beyond, the doppelganger gambit at play in the JFK conspiracy is well documented.

If the operation to kill the president is best understood as drama (or, if you prefer, a dramatic construct; Evica's original theory, one that I wholeheartedly endorse), then you would be well advised to find and read in full a copy of The Double in Literature, by Robert Rogers (Wayne State University Press, 1970).

Rogers, on "the functions of doubling," offers this:

"If a character is not what he seems to be in the sense of being a fragment rather than a whole, it may be asked if he is real ... [R]econsider [Angus] Fletcher's assumptions when he states that the allegorical hero 'is not so much a real person' as he is a 'generator' of secondary personalities, partial aspects of himself." (emphasis in original)

Later, discussing what he terms "doubling for dramatic conflict," Rogers notes, "In essence, doubling of characters does not simply make the representation of intrapsychic conflict possible; it allows for the potential development of that conflict in the most dramatic way possible ... a dynamic opposition of psychic forces permeates practically all modes of literature. Shaw's dictum, 'No conflict, no drama,' goes right to the heart of the matter for the genre he was most interested in. It is impossible to think of any play deserving the name drama which is without sharp conflict. What obviously holds for the drama might not seem to obtain for so-called nondramatic literature; but to say so is to mistake conventional label for literal fact."

I would argue that the primary (but by no means exclusive) function of the double in an intelligence operation such as the JFK assassination is to create cognitive dissonance -- or conflict, if you will -- in the minds of investigators and witnesses.

(As an aside: To the degree that John Armstrong buttresses the "two Oswalds" perceptions, he simultaneously exposes and abets the agenda of the author(s) of the LHO doppelganger play-within-a-play.)

Two Oswalds. Two Zapruder Films. Two brains. Two brain exams. Two sets of autopsy notes. Two sets of X-rays. Two sets of autopsy photos.

And the granddaddy of them all: TWO conflicting conclusions by official United States government panels investigating the assassination.

Another common element of the doppelganger phenomenon is termed bi-locality -- a character impossibly being in two places at the same time.

Thus the "impossibility" of LHO being in Mexico and the U.S. simultaneously, for one of many examples, fits the doppelganger gambit's design and serves its ends quite neatly.

Further, I would suggest that this and related condundra, far from revealing flaws in the assassination plot (in both senses of the word), rather are well-designed, intentionally executed, critically significant elements of that plot.

So we are prompted to ask: Was LHO in Mexico or elsewhere?

We are prompted to choose A or B. (And as a consequence of so doing, we remain mired in an "endless" mystery that in fact was solved a long time ago.)

In fact, it is the NULL A, NULL B option -- or the third alternative -- that leads us to the truth.

Was LHO in Mexico or elsewhere?

The answer is YES, if the persona in question is the dramatic character LHO.

Pre-Oswald? Take a look at the case of Gordon Lonsdale.

As far as JFK is concerned: Who had the literary background to create such a drama? Who were the writers among the suspects?

Charles Drago

Excellent Charles!!!!!

Let me point out that David Atlee Phillips was a playwright, and

E. Howard Hunt was a novelist.

Lucien Conein, according to Prouty, was the CIA's BEST SCENARIO WRITER.

Read up on Prouty's description of Conein as an inventor of confusing

plots, complete with doubles and false trails.

Jack

[Charles Drago]

Thanks, Jack.

I'm aware of the literary abilities -- and pretensions -- of Messrs. Hunt and Phillips, and I've read of Conein's flair for the tasks of the scenarist.

One could go on at some length to draw comparisons between the JFK dramaturgy and, for instance, characters from Shakespeare and their dramatic functions.

Ruby as Falstaff.

Angel and Leopoldo as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Playwright Barbara Garson went TOO far, I'm afraid, with MacBird -- but nonetheless, that satire did have its moments.

Back to the matter at hand: Dual identities, or aliases, or war names, are but distant cousins to the vastly more sophisticated and ravaging (to the psyche) doppelganger game as I try to understand and explain it.

An operation like the JFK murder by definition and before tampering -- as a product and representation of creative human consciousness -- contains all of the elements critical to the classic story form (main and supporting characters, rising and falling action and denouement, sub structures [or acts], irony etc. etc. etc.).

As such, it is subject/vulnerable to deconstruction and other analytical approaches not unlike those brought to bear on more traditional literary and dramatic forms.

The best way to defeat the analysts of the literal tale is to create what is called -- and not by accident -- a cover story -- one with more compelling, confusing, contradictory, and seductive elements than that of the original.

Peter, I agree that LHO's doubles were numerous; any argument would be of a semantic nature. For me, all the "others" equal one other -- the Non-Oswald.

Pick just one "doubled" element of the JFK story -- for the sake of argument, let's stipulate the two-casket gambit. Show me how exposure and analyses of this element of the plot (again, in both senses) have done anything but serve the purposes of the plotters.

Permit me to conclude by returning to a point I've made repeatedly in the past: This line of inquiry is designed to answer the "who" question -- not the HOW.

How = conspiracy.

Masterful uses of the arts of the storyteller, fabulist, dramatist, novelist, and even, if we look far enough back into time, the magician (in the Giordano Bruno sense; the murder of Ioan Culianu is of enduring relevance to our inquiries) were beyond the overwhelming majority of JFK assassination suspects.

Who were the conjurers of these dark arts? On whose behalf were they conjured?

The answers will lead to the tops of the "facilitators" and "sponsors" ranks, respectively.

Charles

Edited July 9, 2007 by Charles Drago

[Jack White]

Charles...I like your analogies.

If I were a novelist, I would do a murder mystery wherin the perfect crime

is committed by someone like Lance Burton or David Copperfield...A MAGICIAN.

Magic acts are perfect examples of illusion and misdirection. I have no doubt

that an evil magician could pull off a PERFECT CRIME which could never be

solved.

Jack

[Jack White]

Charles...I like your analogies.

If I were a novelist, I would do a murder mystery wherin the perfect crime

is committed by someone like Lance Burton or David Copperfield...A MAGICIAN.

Magic acts are perfect examples of illusion and misdirection. I have no doubt

that an evil magician could pull off a PERFECT CRIME which could never be

solved.

Jack

[Charles Drago]

And the magic words for Dealey Plaza ...

Abra Cadaver!

Seriously. I commend to the attention of this Forum's correspondents Eros, Magic, and the Murder of Professor Culianu, by Ted Anton, published by the Northwestern University Press in 1996.

It is simultaneously an accessible primer for a challenging area of scholastic inquiry and an investigation into what the author makes a convincing argument for being the first political assassination of a professor on American soil.

Contemporary science (social and otherwise) dismisses "magic" as fantasy or stage trickery. Culianu and his mentor, the legendary Comparitive Religions scholar Mircea Eliade, understood the word in its accepted Renaissance definition: what we today term "behavior modification," but based on the identified and manipulated erotic motivations of subjects.

They referred to the "art" of memory as the primary tool used to manipulate intellects, imaginations, and ultimately free wills.

The "magician" of the past, Culianu would argue, is the publicist, advertising executive, and psychologist/psychoanalyst of today.

And the magic words for all the contemporary world ...

Artichoke. Ultra. Mockingbird ...

Charles

[Ron Ecker]

I can understand doubles and other forms of illusion being employed in the assassination if it's taken for granted or admitted from the start that there was a conspiracy. The game is to use these tricks to hide who the conspirators were. But with two brains, two sets of X-rays, etc., you are virtually advertising the fact that there was a conspiracy.

I fail to see how this MO would be planned or utilized in a plot to be blamed on Castro or to be blamed on a lone nut. It would seem to be self-defeating. I suppose it could be claimed that Castro used doubles etc. based on literary knowledge (being a fan perhaps of Hemingway and Hunt), but a patsy like Oswald could hardly have managed these machinations.

I would think that blaming it on Castro would involve setting up patsies as obvious Castro agents, not setting up doppelgangers or two this or two that to confuse the very people you want to convince that Castro did it.

[Charles Drago]

Ron,

I think I understand your difficulty with accepting a lot of this insofar as it mirrors my own -- at least as I experienced it early on in my thinking.

It had to be abundantly clear to the prime movers and facilitators that their deed would be recognized as being conspiratorial in nature even before the echoes of gunfire in Dealey Plaza had a chance to fade.

Yes, conspiracy was indeed "advertised," as you write, because no other strategy could hope to protect the highest level plotters for any meaningful length of time.

The hit was attributed to multiple patsies simultaneously and immediately for the purposes of confusing, mollifying, and/or intimidating those groups as well as a variety of post-assassination investigators.

Blame it on rogue elements of Cuban and Soviet intelligence to stimulate among honorable investigators the "if we tell the truth, 40 million will die" terror. Result: official USG endorsement of the LN story.

Link it to the CIA and FBI to enlist into the coverup previously uninvolved officers who would stop at nothing to conceal KUBARK's and the Bureau's links to the putative assassin and the above-top-secret operations to which he could be traced. Result: support of the LN story by the great foreign intel and domestic law enforcement agencies that continues to this day.

Implicate OC and anti-Castro Cubans and "big oil" to blackmail and control these factions. Result: many decades of mutually profitable business dealings.

Plant outrageous stories pointing to motives relating to everything from protection of UFO secrets to a homosexual thrill killing to allow for a general lampooning of other, serious arguments. Result: "the grassy knoll" has become synonymous with Cloud Cuckoo Land as a description of where the lunatic fringe may be found.

Once we travel beyond the simple, elegant, irrefutable proof of conspiracy to be found in the medical, photographic, ballistic, audio, eyewitness, and earwitness evidence, we move into the wilderness.

The United States House of Representatives concluded that conspiracy is "probable," but would not follow us into the unknown territory where answers to "who" and "why" await discovery.

How do we account for such a decision?

Charles

Edited July 10, 2007 by Charles Drago

[Mark Stapleton]

Once we travel beyond the simple, elegant, irrefutable proof of conspiracy to be found in the medical, photographic, ballistic, audio, eyewitness, and earwitness evidence, we move into the wilderness.

The United States House of Representatives concluded that conspiracy is "probable," but would not follow us into the unknown territory where answers to "who" and "why" await discovery.

How do we account for such a decision?

Charles

I could take a guess, Charles.

Because it knows that if the principal conspirators were ever revealed then it would shatter any remaining faith people might have had in the Government.

And since the media has been such a fierce defender of the Government position, one must assume that they share the same fear and hence those two are on the same team. Which team they are playing for is not clear but it definitely isn't ours.

[Charles Drago]

I'm with you, Mark.

Once the USG and the media made their blood oath commitments to the lie -- which is to say, once the lie became institutionalized -- reversal ceased to be an option.

Some have argued, in abject naïveté , that America could not survive the truth about JFK's murder. This point of view, of course, precisely reflects the conclusion that the liars wanted and needed and manipulated their surviving victims to reach.

In point of fact, it now may be argued that America did not survive the lie.

America always was the xxxx's enemy.

America, Inc. is the xxxx's greatest invention.

Charles

[Greg Parker]

I would argue that the primary (but by no means exclusive) function of the double in an intelligence operation such as the JFK assassination is to create cognitive dissonance -- or conflict, if you will -- in the minds of investigators and witnesses.

Charles,

there may come a time where you'll be able to say "I told you so" if you're so inclined.

Seriously. I commend to the attention of this Forum's correspondents Eros, Magic, and the Murder of Professor Culianu, by Ted Anton, published by the Northwestern University Press in 1996.

It is simultaneously an accessible primer for a challenging area of scholastic inquiry and an investigation into what the author makes a convincing argument for being the first political assassination of a professor on American soil.

Contemporary science (social and otherwise) dismisses "magic" as fantasy or stage trickery. Culianu and his mentor, the legendary Comparitive Religions scholar Mircea Eliade, understood the word in its accepted Renaissance definition: what we today term "behavior modification," but based on the identified and manipulated erotic motivations of subjects.

They referred to the "art" of memory as the primary tool used to manipulate intellects, imaginations, and ultimately free wills.

The "magician" of the past, Culianu would argue, is the publicist, advertising executive, and psychologist/psychoanalyst of today.

And the magic words for all the contemporary world ...

Artichoke. Ultra. Mockingbird ...

This is absolutely right on the money. It is the very reason CIA funds such things as anthropology and psychosocial studies.

[Charles Drago]

Yes, Greg.

For the upteenth time let me HIGHLY recommend Peter Levenda's Sinister Forces trilogy as the most encompassing, daring, and provocative investigation of these and related matters.

[Greg Parker]

Another common element of the doppelganger phenomenon is termed bi-locality -- a character impossibly being in two places at the same time.

Thus the "impossibility" of LHO being in Mexico and the U.S. simultaneously, for one of many examples, fits the doppelganger gambit's design and serves its ends quite neatly.

Further, I would suggest that this and related condundra, far from revealing flaws in the assassination plot (in both senses of the word), rather are well-designed, intentionally executed, critically significant elements of that plot.

So we are prompted to ask: Was LHO in Mexico or elsewhere?

We are prompted to choose A or B. (And as a consequence of so doing, we remain mired in an "endless" mystery that in fact was solved a long time ago.)

In fact, it is the NULL A, NULL B option -- or the third alternative -- that leads us to the truth.

Was LHO in Mexico or elsewhere?

The answer is YES, if the persona in question is the dramatic character LHO.

Excellent, Charles!

But let's change the question slightly, because I think it can be answered - a positive step to a definitive solution, if so:

Was the real Oswald in Mexico City?

What I consider to be a very reliable witness places him "elsewhere".

Houston, We Have a Problem

Pre-Oswald? Take a look at the case of Gordon Lonsdale.

Not a good example. The real Lonsdale was dead prior to his persona being appropriated.

As far as JFK is concerned: Who had the literary background to create such a drama? Who were the writers among the suspects?

Another good question with a number of possible answers.

Charles Drago

greg

ps thanks for the heads up on Levenda - have since read a little of his work. Great stuff!

[Charles Drago]

Greg,

The "real" Oswald?

That's precisely the point, isn't it?

I fear that when we refer to the "real" LHO we unwittingly may be referencing the null Lee, null Harvey third alternative -- the fictive LHO.

Or, if you prefer, the character (pro/antagonist) created by the playwright (plotwright?) for the classic assassination drama that so intrigues us -- you know, the one with a second act that ends in Dallas.

Good point on Lonsdale.

Peter,

I'm with you -- especially your call for perseverance.

Charles

[Jack White]

Peter wrote:

"Perhaps the most 'frightening' thing ever said to me after a public talk on the subject of covert operations and the JFK Assassination was one man who came up and red in the face and said, "If what you say is true, I just don't want to know about it!" I think he was speaking to the fear about the fall of the Myth."

I have several highly intelligent friends who say exactly this. I call

it the ostrich syndrome.

Sometimes I send out information updates to friends, and one of

them sometimes emails back...QUIT SENDING ME THIS CRAP.

EVEN IT IS TRUE, I DON'T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT IT...IT MAKES

ME ILL.

Some just can't handle the truth.

Jack