John Simkin Posted August 14, 2007 Share Posted August 14, 2007 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-belz...o-_b_60188.html "President Kennedy's assassination was the work of magicians. It was a stage trick, complete with accessories and fake mirrors, and when the curtain fell, the actors, and even the scenery, disappeared...The plotters were correct when they guessed that their crime would be concealed by shadows and silences, that it would be blamed on a madman and negligence." -- James Hepburn, Farewell America "It's pretty heavy, huh?" -Lyndon Johnson, after being presented with the hefty Warren Commission Report by Chief Justice Earl Warren When I came across prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's, Reclaiming History; I said to the salesperson who guided me to the tome, "It's pretty heavy, huh?" The clerk smiled knowingly as if to get my reference, I hope...I thought to myself why would Vinnie (Bugliosi) spend, as he claims five plus years writing a book that after 1600 some pages triumphantly declares, "Oswald did it!!!". In his increasingly testy and defensive style he boldly if not patronizingly announces that he is in fact reclaiming history and in the bargain he absurdly and summarily dismisses a virtual library of meticulous and overwhelmingly compelling research by the most serious and sober scholars, authors, journalists, archivists, historians, scientists...who just happen to have come to radically different conclusions than the esteemed prosecutor. Upon turning to virtually any page of his "history" one major glaring reality becomes more than clear: Mr. Bugliosi is a prosecutor first and foremost...presenting his "case"...which should in any reasonable reader's mind disqualify him as a true, let alone objective historian: Even to the masses of us who are not lawyers it is almost jokingly obvious that in the classic technique of his trade there is a torrent of evidence ignored, ridiculed, distorted, re-interrupted and when needed he laughingly draws the most ludicrous conclusions and makes mindless ill-informed guesses about the who, what and whys of Lee Harvey Oswald. The so-called "mainstream media" in general and depressingly predicable fashion, of course embraced Bugliosi's assault on reason with the glee of ancient archbishops reviewing 1600 pages of a book verifying there "belief" that the world is indeed flat! So what are we to make of the thousands of pages of theories, counter-theories...facts chasing facts, a Japanese beetle jar...that jug of motor oil filled with bugs...a physicist's nightmare of neutrinos in a rodeo in the fifth dimension...I sift through those pages and I begin to feel like Boo Radley watching Two and Half Men in Esperanto. It's like watching a David Lynch film projected on rain clouds in a Tasaday village. I was taught the truth will set you free...unless of course you want the truth about who killed JFK. Like all of you, I have a beautiful wife, a house in France, and a career in show business. You might know me from the critically acclaimed and therefore doomed series Homicide: Life on the Street or from one of my television specials or Law and Order: SVU or perhaps my political commentary or one of my books, or one of my personal appearances in a nightclub near you...I don't know! Just leave me alone! But anyway, just like you, I would rather live my life than sit around thinking nasty thoughts about who killed JFK. So it behooves me to settle one irrefutable reality about the "crime of the century": IT WAS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR OSWALD TO HAVE SHOT PRESIDENT KENNEDY!!!...There I said it: with no apologies to the likes of prosecutor Bugliosi. Let me explain this pesky fact once and for all. The prosecutor likes to boast that he is virtually the only person on earth to have read the entire 26 volumes of the Warren Report. He fails to mention his willfull, startlingly lax examination of the contradictions and omissions in the report. After President Kennedy's head was exploded, Lee Harvey Oswald was discovered on the second floor of the Book Depository building drinking a Coke. His presence was verified by his boss, Roy Truly, and motorcycle patrolman Marion Baker. According to the Warren Commission, the three men's encounter was reenacted in two "tests" by the commission: in the first, Baker (walking!) reached the second floor landing in 1 minute, 30 seconds. In the second test; in his words: "at kind of a trot"; he finished the course in 1 minute, 15 seconds...to "time" Oswald's movements Special Agent John Howlett of the Secret Service (in another rigged "test") carried a rifle (there were three rifles found in the Depository on November 22: a German Mauser, a much joked about Italian Mannlicher-Carcano, and a British Enfield Rifle; but that's another story) from the "nest" and "placed" the Carcano on the floor near the site where it was actually found. The truth is the murderer hid the rifle, which would take longer than to "place it on the floor". The reality is (as Mr. Bugliosi knows full well if he "read" the Report as he claims) the Warren Commission reenactments of Baker's reaction times were done at a slower speed than his actual movements, according to Baker's own testimony he ran from his motorcycle and into the depository quickly but the reenactments had him purposely go slower to meet the needs of the Commission's desire to create the impression that there was time enough for the assassin to do his dirty deed. Let us now consider what Oswald was alleged to have accomplished, by some miracle, with his rickety ass misaligned bolt-action relic of a rifle: fire three bullets, with deadly accuraccy (of which one was "magic": a theory concocted by Arlen Specter, at the behest of the Commission, that manages to suspend the laws of Newtonian physics!) squeeze out of the sniper's nest, wipe off the gun, go to the opposite end of the sixth floor, zigzagging and dodging stacks of books, wedge the weapon between two of the stacks, run down four flights of stairs (with landings, actually making it eight flights, I visited the Book Depository) then, according to page 679 of Volume XXV1 of the Commission's Hearings and Exhibits...exhibit No. 3076 quoting Officer Baker's deposition: "on the second floor where the lunchroom is located, I saw a man standing in the lunchroom drinking a Coke"; Oswald appeared completely calm and not the least out of breath or nervous at his chance encounter with patrolman Baker and Roy Truly (who remember ran up just one flight of stairs) in reality surely getting them there in more like SIXTY TO SIXTY FIVE SECONDS ladies and gentlemen: Therefore to repeat: IT WAS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR OSWALD TO HAVE SHOT PRESIDENT KENNEDY!!! THANK YOU AND GOODNIGHT! In conclusion I would have the distinguished prosecutor ponder two quotes: "Let General de Pellieux allow me respectfully to point out that a piece of evidence, whatever it may be, cannot have any value and cannot constitute scientific proof before it has been subjected to cross-examination..." -- Fernand Labori, defense attorney at the trial of Emile Zola. Paris, February 17, 1898 And finally: "There is a certain nobility about facing up to the truth..." -- Oxford scholar Richard Dawkins. P.S. I highly recommend Josiah Thompson's masterpiece Six Seconds In Dallas: A Micro-Study of the Kennedy Assassination, Published by Bernard Geis Associates-Distributed by Random House, l967; The Oswald Affair-An Examination of the Contradictions and Ommissions of The Warren Report, By Leo Sauvage, Published by The World Publishing Company 1966; and the most compelling, incredibly revelatory book ever written about the murder and all it's labyrinthian logistics and mysteries, Ultimate Sacrifice, by Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann, Published by Carrol & Graf 1966. Conspiratorially Yours, RICHARD BELZER Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Gratz Posted August 14, 2007 Share Posted August 14, 2007 Belzer is a good actor. He's also a good writer! A great post! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles Drago Posted August 14, 2007 Share Posted August 14, 2007 Alas, the Belz is all too willing to believe that the wool that has been pulled over his eyes is just a new sweater, in transit, knitted by Waldron and Hartman. Wait 'til he tries to inhale. Charles Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter McGuire Posted August 14, 2007 Share Posted August 14, 2007 Alas, the Belz is all too willing to believe that the wool that has been pulled over his eyes is just a new sweater, in transit, knitted by Waldron and Hartman.Wait 'til he tries to inhale. Charles Funny stuff indeed, but the only palace coup that "ultimately" happened was not in Havana, but in Washington. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Gratz Posted August 14, 2007 Share Posted August 14, 2007 (edited) Peter, it was what happened in Dallas on November 22nd that prevented the coup in Havana that had been scheduled for December 1963. The dream of the Cubans to free their home land died when the assassins' bullets ripped open the head of the man who promised the brave members of Brigade 2506 that the Cuban flag would one day fly once more over a free Cuba. He intended that to happen within twelve months of the date that he made that pledge to them in Miami, Florida. Desmond Fitzgerald (the head of the Cuban operation in the fall of 1963) told a group of CIA agents that had JFK not died there would have been a "free Cuba" by Christmas of 1963, almost twelve months to the date of JFK's pledge. The Cuban exile from Key West, Gilberto Policarpo Lopez, who went to Trafficante's home town six months before the assassination, and returned to Cuba within days after the deed was done, is proof positive, IMO, that there was Cuban involvement. And remember (or be aware if you did not know) that Fabian Escalante was in Dealey Plaza to witness the murder of the man his boss denounced as a "butcher" and a "criminal". QED. Edited August 14, 2007 by Tim Gratz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Simkin Posted August 14, 2007 Author Share Posted August 14, 2007 And remember (or be aware if you did not know) that Fabian Escalante was in Dealey Plaza to witness the murder of the man his boss denounced as a "butcher" and a "criminal". Have you a source for that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Gratz Posted August 15, 2007 Share Posted August 15, 2007 (edited) Yes, it came from Marty Underwood, the JFK advance man. I believe he said his source was Mr. Mann. Perhaps we should take the report with a grain of salt, as we should when Escalante starts to blame his boss's enemies for killing JFK. (Underwood's report was to the AARB as I recall.) However, if Mann was a truth-teller, it does raise disquieting implications that the DGI had at least advance warning of the assassination, even if the DGI was neither a sponsor nor a participant. Edited August 15, 2007 by Tim Gratz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Kelly Posted August 15, 2007 Share Posted August 15, 2007 Belzer is a good actor. He's also a good writer!A great post! Belzer also wrote a book with a title like "UFO's, Elvis and the Kennedy Assassination," which I think is a takeoff on his standup comic routines. He also played a cop on a TV detective show based in Baltimore, which I managed to never see. Anybody got a contact number for Belzer because we're trying to book him to participate in a standup comix COPA benefit at Ford's Theater, along with Dick Gregory, Paul Krasner, is Mort Saul still alive?, et al. BK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Simkin Posted August 15, 2007 Author Share Posted August 15, 2007 Belzer is a good actor. He's also a good writer!A great post! Belzer also wrote a book with a title like "UFO's, Elvis and the Kennedy Assassination," which I think is a takeoff on his standup comic routines. He also played a cop on a TV detective show based in Baltimore, which I managed to never see. Anybody got a contact number for Belzer because we're trying to book him to participate in a standup comix COPA benefit at Ford's Theater, along with Dick Gregory, Paul Krasner, is Mort Saul still alive?, et al. BK He should be told to read David Talbot's "Brothers" and especially Larry Hancock's "Someone Would Have Talked". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles Drago Posted August 15, 2007 Share Posted August 15, 2007 (edited) Sahl is alive, though all but fully retired. You might consider, Bill, including in the program filmed performances by Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks doing assassination-related material. May I also suggest a working title for the show: Stand-Up Tragedy. (Take my life. Please.) Charles Edited August 15, 2007 by Charles Drago Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pat Speer Posted August 15, 2007 Share Posted August 15, 2007 (edited) Peter, it was what happened in Dallas on November 22nd that prevented the coup in Havana that had been scheduled for December 1963.The dream of the Cubans to free their home land died when the assassins' bullets ripped open the head of the man who promised the brave members of Brigade 2506 that the Cuban flag would one day fly once more over a free Cuba. He intended that to happen within twelve months of the date that he made that pledge to them in Miami, Florida. Desmond Fitzgerald (the head of the Cuban operation in the fall of 1963) told a group of CIA agents that had JFK not died there would have been a "free Cuba" by Christmas of 1963, almost twelve months to the date of JFK's pledge. The Cuban exile from Key West, Gilberto Policarpo Lopez, who went to Trafficante's home town six months before the assassination, and returned to Cuba within days after the deed was done, is proof positive, IMO, that there was Cuban involvement. And remember (or be aware if you did not know) that Fabian Escalante was in Dealey Plaza to witness the murder of the man his boss denounced as a "butcher" and a "criminal". QED. Tim, be honest now. What are the chances JFK and RFK would plot a second Bay of Pigs with no clear chance of success, and not even run it by McNamara? C-Day was a myth told to cool the jets of the increasingly antsy and MURDEROUS anti-Castro community in Florida. It seems much more likely that someone, possibly Hunt, got word of Attwood's contacts with Lechuga, and told his pals in anti-Castro land. BANG. The bit about Escalante is almost certainly garbage, and you know it. Was Escalante even in the DGI in 1963? If not, then how would Mann know him by name? If so, since Mann was so quick to spread disinfo about Oswald's visit to the embassy, why wouldn't he tell anyone about this little tidbit? Where are the cables supporting this claim? Taking the blatherings of an old man about hearsay he'd heard many years before and repeating it as if it's an established fact only serves to distract, IMO. You believe that someone-anyone--other than the CIA was responsible for Kennedy's murder. Fine. We get it. That's no reason to spread the almost certain fantasy that Escalante was in Dealey Plaza. Edited August 15, 2007 by Pat Speer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J. Raymond Carroll Posted August 15, 2007 Share Posted August 15, 2007 However, if Mann was a truth-teller..... Welcome back to the forum, Tim. We missed your sense of humor. "If Mann was a truth-teller..." I nearly fell off the chair from laughing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Gratz Posted August 16, 2007 Share Posted August 16, 2007 Pat wrote: The bit about Escalante is almost certainly garbage, and you know it. Was Escalante even in the DGI in 1963? If not, then how would Mann know him by name? If so, since Mann was so quick to spread disinfo about Oswald's visit to the embassy, why wouldn't he tell anyone about this little tidbit? Where are the cables supporting this claim? Pat or someone, can you refresh my recollection re "disinfo" Mann propogated about Oswald's visit to the embassy? Also, Pat, for reasons I'll elucidate later, I think you may be too quick to clear Mr. Escalante. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hogan Posted October 7, 2007 Share Posted October 7, 2007 (Mort) Sahl is alive, though all but fully retired. I dunno Charles, seems like he is keeping quite busy for an eighty year old guy. He's playing in Montreal and Toronto this weekend. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...71006.wsahl1006 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles Drago Posted October 7, 2007 Share Posted October 7, 2007 Good for Mort! I'm very curious to read reviews of his recent gigs, and I wouldn't hesitate to experience one "live" if circumstances permitted. If you hear any reports, please advise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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