The CIA, the JFK Assassination and the death of David Kelly

[Tim Gratz]

Dawn, I some times fail to see how you can be a lawyer trained in logic.

How can you say that every other member of the Forum but me believes that the assassination tapes are relete with discussion between LBJ and JEH of using blackmail to keep WC members "in line"? Have you talked to every other Forum member? Although it may not seem like it, I do not protest every post with which I disagree. (That would be a 24 hour a day job!)I know of a very well respected Forum member who believes the thread about "Hammer Man" is just wacko, but he has never gone public with his disgust.

Is it your belief that any Forum member who has chosen not to respond to a post agrees with the content of that post? That is just absurd.

So I have two questions for JS and anyone else who defends his POV about the alleged use of blackmail on WC members:

"The Assassination Tapes" have been out for several years and I assume any SERIOUS assassination researchers have read them (although I would not bet on Dawn M). Is John then the VERY FIRST assassination researcher to discover all of this blackmail talk on the tapes?

Second question: if JEH indeed had enough "dirt" on the WC members to blackmail them, why was the WC so critical of the performance of the FBI--so critical that Hoover never talked to Warren again?

Finally, I am still waiting for John to post an example of the discussion of blackmail of WC members between Johnson and Hoover.

Edited November 28, 2007 by Tim Gratz

[Tim Gratz]

Charles, your post #28 has nothing whatsoever to do with the topic under discussion. Nor anything to do with the assassination, for that matter.

To any moderators who may view this post, to keep these threads from meandering, what would you think of moving any totally irrelevant post to a thread where it is relevant? Often a thread develops into a totally different line due to one person making an "off topic" post. It is not always a BAD thing, sometimes the new discussion proves to be most informative, but it does "muck up" the thread as well as making indexing by subject extremely difficult.

[Tim Gratz]

To Dawn:

Obviously there is not a SINGLE FACT posted here by JS that supports his statement that LBJ and Hoover discussed using blackmail tactics against WC members.

Since you claim JS is correct, I must assume you have information that supports what he said since you clearly cannot get it from his posts.

I therefore request, since you voluntarily inserted yourself in to this subject, that YOU post a single tape that includes a discussion of blackmail. If you do not, I will draw the inference that you do not know what you are talking about.

Readers, as a caution, please do not hold your breath waiting for either John or Dawn to come up with an example of blackmail talk. I have read "The Assassination Tapes" cover to cover. Since DW does not agree with its POV, I strongly doubt she has ever read it. She is not in the habit of reading books that do not conform to her POV.

[Tim Gratz]

John started this thread by making a comment in his very first post stating that the members of the Warren Commission were selected because they could be "blackmailed" into doing what the government wanted. I challenged John for any proof that any member of the WC was ever blackmailed.

To which John responded:

Your ignorance about this case never ceases to amaze me. I know you are desperate to put your name at the end of every thread but surely you could have come with a better question.

I then asked John where there was any discussion on the LBJ tapes of blackmail.

He posted 5 tapes of LBJ talking with J. Edgar Hoover (twice); Richard Russell; Charles Halleck and John McCormick.

I reviewed every single one of those tapes. None involve even a hint of blackmail.

In post #12 John stated:

The tapes show that LBJ was constantly working with Hoover in order to blackmail politicians from disclosing important information. Members of the Warren Commission was only a small part of this activity.

I challenged John at least two days ago to present any evidence whatsoever to show a tape in which LBJ and Hoover discussed blackmail. To date, not a peep from John to support that statement. As I pointed out earlier, he must be the first assassination researcher who has read "The Assassination Tapes" to discover blackmail discussion therein.

Of course what bothers me as much as John posted obviously incorrect information on a web-site to which gullible children and Dawn Meredith have access is that he had the audacity to make a snide remark about my "knowledge of the case" and to imply I had an improper motive for asking him the question I did.

"Surely you could have come with a better question. " Obviously what John meant by that was a question he could answer.

Edited November 28, 2007 by Tim Gratz

[Dawn Meredith]

It is really annoying to see every thread devolve into a Tim Gratz madhouse. The threads all lose the original intent of the post and become a vehicle for Tim to simply interrogate members. Gratz I have not asked you any questions nor will I submit to yours. You are hereby on "ignore" status.

Dawn Meredith

[Tim Gratz]

Dawn, you are the one who injected yourself into the argument by posting a facially ignorant statement that every member agreed with JS's totally unsupported proposition that WC members were chosen (by LBJ and two upon recommendation by RFK) because they were susceptible to "blackmail".

Of course you won't answer my questions. You can't.

[Tim Gratz]

In one of the earlier posts John in this thread John suggested I should read "Breach of Trust" by Prof McKnight which he said supports his proposition that members of the WC were selected because they were "susceptible to blackmail."

I just received the book on Wednesday. It is as excellent as people have told me. But i have found not a single paragraph that support's John's proposition.

Perhaps John can refer me to the passage(s) in the book that he had in mind.

[Tim Gratz]

In one of the earlier posts John in this thread John suggested I should read "Breach of Trust" by Prof McKnight which he said supports his proposition that members of the WC were selected because they were "susceptible to blackmail."

I just received the book on Wednesday. It is as excellent as people have told me. But i have found not a single paragraph that support's John's proposition.

Perhaps John can refer me to the passage(s) in the book that he had in mind.

[Michael Hogan]

In one of the earlier posts John in this thread John suggested I should read "Breach of Trust" by Prof McKnight which he said supports his proposition that members of the WC were selected because they were "susceptible to blackmail."

I just received the book on Wednesday. It is as excellent as people have told me. But i have found not a single paragraph that support's (sic) John's proposition....

From Breach of Trust, p 42:

Katzenbach and Hoover initiated a "dump Olney" campaign, for which DeLoach was the point man. The Crime Records Division resorted to the "gray art" as opposed to the "black art" of outright blackmail - of collecting tidbits of information on Olney; pitching them with the calculated derogatory spin; and in DeLoach's words, identifying a "number of sources to confidentially brief" the commissioners on why the candidate was unfit for the position.

Sometimes the threat of blackmail is more effective than the actual act. I'm sure this was not lost on the members of the Commission as they witnessed what happened to Earl Warren's personal choice for chief counsel.

[Tim Gratz]

Sorry. Michael, as much as I admire McKnight's book and research, what happened to Olney is not blackmail either.

Nor is it gray mail.

Blackmail would be if Olney had been appointed counsel and forced to do what he was instructed to do lest the derogatory information in his past be publicly disclosed. Or, if Olney had been asked to withdraw his name lest the information against him be made public, THAT would also be blackmail.

In this case Hoover used the information he had against Olney to prevent his appointment in the first place.

Hoover may have "blackballed" Olney but he clearly did not blackmail him.

An analogy here: Had Anita Hill told Clarence Thomas that unless he withdrew his appointment to the Supreme Court she would reveal derogatory information against him, THAT would be blackmail. But when she came forward with her story in an attempt to block his nomination, that was not a case of Hill blackmailing Thomas.

Note also that if blackmail involves a threat to reveal derogatory information, the information is usually true. If it was not true, the blackmail threat would, presumably, be inefficacious.

And of course John had been talking about the use of blackmail against Warren Commission members. Michael, since you have obviously read Mcknight's book, would you agree with me that Mcknight never hints that blackmail was considered against commission members?

As you know from reading the book, Hoover was just incensed at what the WC was doing to the FBI. Yet, presumably, he never tried to blackmail Warren to change the direction of the WC.

And why was blackmail not used against Russell, Cooper or Boggs to get them to accept the SBT, if they had been selected because they were as John put it "susceptible to blackmail"?

The record of the WC is bad enough. It just discredits critics of the process to add claims that are not supportable by the facts.

Edited December 2, 2007 by Tim Gratz

[John Simkin]

Tim, it is true that LBJ does not ever say on the phone that I am going to “blackmail” you. In the same way you never told any of your clients that you were going to use their funds for your own purposes. Criminals do not do such things. Your criminality was discovered by the authorities examining your files, interviewing your clients, etc.

What we do know is that from an early stage in his political career he collected information about other politicians and powerful businessmen. Hoover of course was the master of this political strategy. When it suited them, they worked together on this. For example, when LBJ tried to blackmail Don Reynolds, he used information from Hoover’s FBI files. On other occasions, LBJ returned the favour and provided potential blackmail information to Hoover. Both men kept information about each other. In that way they made sure that they would keep quiet about each other’s activities. It also guaranteed that Hoover kept his post as Director of the FBI. It was the same reason why JFK and Nixon could not sack him.

LBJ used Bobby Baker to obtain information about people. One way was Baker’s sex parties he held in the home of Nancy Carole Tyler. All LBJ had to do to get politicians to do as he wanted was to refer to these sex parties. For example, this is what LBJ does to George Smathers in the telephone call he makes on 23rd November, 1963. After reminding him that he has heard there is evidence of Smathers participation at one of these parties, he tells him how to vote on the Senate finance committee. That was the one that JFK had tried to get the oil depletion allowance changed.

Some of the girls used at Baker’s parties had come from Eastern Europe. Later, these politicians were told by LBJ and Hoover that these girls were suspected KGB agents. This was a tremendous lever over politicians. This blackmail device was also used on JFK and RFK via the case of Ellen Rometsch.

The main way LBJ discovered about politician’s corrupt activities was to use Baker to draw them in to his corrupt network. Once they had received money in this way, they were unable and unwilling to participate in the exposure of LBJ.

I am surprised that you have made so much of this issue as every person who has written about LBJ political activities have accepted that he was a corrupt politician. That includes Robert A. Caro’s The Path to Power (1982), Means of Ascent (1990) and Master of the Senate (2002).

LBJ was only acting like any other politician when he set up the Warren Commission. This is the one advantage that politicians have over other criminals. They are allowed to select the judge and jury. It is no surprise that investigations instigated by politicians always end up coming up with the information they wanted disclosed in the first place. In the UK we have seen this happen several times over recent years. It happened only the other day when Gordon Brown appointed Lord Whitty to carry out an investigation into the way that the Labour Party had obtained donations from businessmen. Larry Whitty, as he was known before he was bribed with a peerage, is a former general secretary of the party who had responsibility for collecting funds from businessmen. In other words, he was being asked to investigate illegal activities that he was part of. It is a bit like asking you to investigate your corrupt activities. I think we know what sort of report you would write.

[Tim Gratz]

John, I did something terribly wrong years ago, admitted it and paid a just penalty for it.

You bring it up simply to discredit and besmirch me because I obviously proved that there is no evidence to support your statement that the members of the WC were selected because they were "susceptible to blackmail." You are clearly upset that I challenged your assertion and you were totallly unable to support it. That is a rather tawdry tactic.

All the stuff you wrote in the preceding post has nothing to do with members of the Warren Commission.

When did I ever argue that LBJ was not a corrupt politician? I knew that in 1964. But the fact that LBJ was corrupt does not mean that he selected members of the WC because they were "susceptible to blackmail" by the government.

Here is what McKnight says about the men chosen for the WC: "These were all men with solid reputations, the kind of men for whom the word eminent was coined." NBo where that I could see does McKnight state that a single member of the WC was selected because either LBJ or Hoover had information that could be used to blackmail them. In fact, McKnght as much as says the opposite--that the WC members had solid reputations.

[Michael Hogan]

Gerald McKnight writes:

During the 1970s Congress launched the first systematic investigation into the U.S. intelligence community, including uncovering disturbing FBI abuses of power - dubbed the "Hoover horrors" by some in the national press. This tickler was one of numerous documents released to Mark Allen in April 1985 in an FOIA lawsuit....It presents a remarkable record of improper acts ranging from potential blackmail threats to revelations that the FBI opposed and impeded the Warren Commission while failing to conduct any semblance of a good faith investigation.

[Tim Gratz]

Michael, may I respectfully suggest that if the "potential blackmail threats" included threats against members of the WC, I think Prof. Mcknight would have not only stated that directly but discussed it at some detail.

Did the FBI oppose and impede the WC? Is the Pope Catholic? Prof. McKnight of course does a masterful job in proving that point!

I think McKight's book should be in every public and educational library. (We were able to persuade the library of the Florida Keys Community College to order it.) I do disagree with certain of his conclusions but still consider it a "must-read" book re the case.

[Gary L. Aguilar]

John you wrote:

I believe that the JFK case can provide clues about the death of Kelly. For example, the selection of Lord Hutton to carry out the investigation of Kelly's death. Like the members of the Warren Commission, Hutton was selected because he could be blackmailed into doing what the government wanted.

Bill Miller wrote, admittedly in a different context:

One cannot help but wonder if some of the more ridiculous claims are being made so to make it appear that CT's are off their rocker.

John, I have no idea if you have a rocker or not and if you do whether you were on it or not when you wrote that.

Surely you do not seriously suggest that any member of the WC was being blackmailed to support the "party line" of LHO as a LN? If you do so assert, perhaps you can offer just a little support for that claim, e.g.:

(!) Which WC members were being blackmailed?

(2) Who was doing the blackmail?

(3) What was the nature of the blackmail?

I suggest, as Bill Miller did in another context, that the offering of bizarre theories only discredits the assassination research community. As you pointed out in another thread, it is critics such as Jeff Morley, whose statements are always capable of substantiation, who can achieve public attention and respect.

As with so many investigations of this nature, it is often impossible to know precisely what pressures may have been brought to bear on the investigators. But the documented record of the Commission's shoddy work, and much else, suggests John is on to something here.

For example, the Church Committee reported that “derogatory information pertaining to both [Warren] Commission members and staff was brought to Mr. Hoover’s attention ... .” (*)

One needn't be too imaginative to wonder if the notorious Hoover might have sought such information as insurance that the Commission wouldn’t deviate from Hoover’s lone nut theory – one that he announced within 2 hours of Oswald's arrest and before he'd lifted an investigative finger, and one that conveniently exculpated the Bureau and Hoover for not shielding JFK from a successful plot.

Gary

*Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations, Book V, p. 47. On-line at: http://www.historymatters.com/archive/chur...hVol5_0027a.htm