What happened to the thread of Jim DiEugenio

[Jack White]

I just posted an addition to a thread of material which Jim DiEugenio asked me to post for him.

It was a reply to Duke Lane about an earlier message I had posted at Jim's request.

Now it appears that the entire thread has been deleted.

Why?

Jack

[John Simkin]

I just posted an addition to a thread of material which Jim DiEugenio asked me to post for him.

It was a reply to Duke Lane about an earlier message I had posted at Jim's request.

Now it appears that the entire thread has been deleted.

Why?

Jack

I am sure no one has deleted this. Please post it again or send it to me and I will do it for you.

[Jack White]

Posted again:

Duke:

This is the second time you have gone after my essay “How Gary Mack Became Dan Rather”. You did it at the Lancer Forum when you debased the discussion into something about religious slurs. Now you do it at Spartacus by saying that it amounts to nothing more than character assassination by innuendo, sketchy information and imagined threads between them. (Which it is not.) Obviously the piece hit a nerve with you.

How else can anyone explain the apparent comparing of Dave Perry or Gary Mack as researchers with Beethoven as a composer. I hope you were kidding. Or maybe you just wanted to debase the debate like you did at Lancer.

There you used another neat technique. You compared Perry and Mack associating with the likes of Posner and Aynseworth to opposing lawyers who should still be friendly. Loved that one. So to you the Kennedy case is the equivalent of a child custody case, or maybe graffiti spraying. I guess we disagree. I thought we were talking about murder and treason. And beyond that, the beginning of the destruction of the social fabric of the USA and the start of the Vietnam War—a little sidelight you may have missed. In case you did, it eventually killed 58, 000 Americans and over two million Vietnamese. You won’t see anything about it on Perry’s—I mean Beethoven’s site. (BTW for you, is Dave’s Roscoe White article the equivalent of the Ninth Symphony. Or would you save that for his stuff on Judy Baker?)

Which brings us to the curious output of the great composer. In my essay, I went over his pieces in The Third Decade. I was fair about them. I didn’t enumerate the stuff on his web site because I couldn’t take that much punishment for one essay. But I think the site is even worse. He actually says that “dedicated researchers” have narrowed the field of probable assassins to 68. Funny. Is Hugh McDonald a “dedicated researcher”? I wasn’t aware of that. Is Robert Russell a dedicated researcher? News to me. Is Glenda Grabow a dedicated researcher? That’s a surprise. Is Chuck Giancana? Perry even names Julia Mercer as a source when she never named anyone as an assassin.

What kind of dedicated researcher places a vote tabulation machine on his site that says “Who do you think killed JFK?” And if you don’t like one of the 13 choices, you can pick “Other”. That’s real research, right Duke. Figuring out who killed President Kennedy is like picking an All Star team in the NFL.

What kind of “dedicated researcher” writes an article entitled , “Is there really news on news groups?” Well, Dave, sometimes there is. And I’ve learned things by lurking around some of them.

What kind of “dedicated researcher” writes an article attacking Pamela Brown for taking her agreed upon compensation from Discovery Channel and then criticizing the show. That’s some real valuable research huh Duke? BTW, Tony Summers did the same thing in 1993 for Perry’s buddy Gus Russo’s Frontline special on Oswald. And for the same reason. He didn’t realize how bad the show was going to end up. That’s not their fault. Full disclosure up front might have helped.

I saved the best (or worst) for last: Perry placed the full indictment of Dr. Cyril Wecht on his web site. And he keeps it there even though 1.) Wecht was never convicted of any of those charges and 2.) The case was dropped over a month ago. Why hasn’t the dedicated researcher removed it or posted the articles about the case being dropped? Will he now post the long essay Jerry Policoff is writing on how the case was politically motivated from the start. Want to bet he won’t Duke?

If you don’t’ get it yet, Dave Perry’s whole MO from the beginning has been to discredit the critical community by concentrating on the easiest and most irrelevant targets. His other strategy is to ignore the actual achievements that go a long way toward solving the JFK case. In other words, to create that whole sideshow image that people like his good friend Hugh Aynseworth have worked so hard to pin on us. So he does what you accuse me of doing: character assassination by innuendo, Except he does it to the whole community. But somehow you give him a free pass.

Because of that agenda, you will see a lot of space spent on the likes of Judith Baker, Chauncey Holt, and Bob Vernon. But you will not see one word about any of the following:

Carol Hewett’s work on Ruth and Michael Paine

John Newman’s work on the CIA and Oswald or the reversal of Kennedy’s Vietnam withdrawal plan 48 hours after his murder

John Armstrong’s work on Mexico City, the rifle, or the Walker shooting

David Mantik’s, Milicent Cranor’s or Gary Aguilar’s work on the autopsy

John Hunt’s and Gary Aguilar’s work on the switching of CE 399 by the FBI

Newman’s and Lisa Pease’s work on the roles of James Angleton and David Phillips in manipulating Oswald as an agent provocateur

Bill Davy’s work on New Orleans

Ian Griggs’ and Pat Speer’s work on the alleged brown bag found on the sixth floor that the DPD failed to photograph even though it was lying in situ

Griggs’ work on what a dismantled MC really looks like and how improbable it would be for Oswald to carry it in a brown bag under his armpit.

That’s quite a lot of good work to ignore isn’t it Duke? And by the way, the work of Speer and Griggs is not based on any of the new documents. It is based mostly on the Commission volumes. See in your rush to defend your buddy Dave, you omitted what else I said about his work. Not only does he ignore things new and important, he has never written anything highly critical of the Warren Commission. And he has not.

In the face of all that you can actually write, “I’ve yet to see or be shown where either of them [Mack or Perry] has conveniently omitted facts or misdirected their research or writings.” Were you giggling when you typed that sentence? Maybe falling out of your chair? Or have you not visited Perry’s site lately? If what I just described is not “misdirected” then what the heck is? (Why don’t you ask Wecht about it?) As for Mack, maybe you didn’t catch “JFK: Inside the Target Car”? Oh, but you have an excuse for Perry’s pal Gary, don’t you? You said on Lancer the problem was money. Really. You mean the budget didn’t allow for the extra bullets being fired from the other sites? The budget couldn’t accommodate the extra gasoline to move the limo instead of keeping it still in Sylmar? Maybe the budget could not afford buying twenty bucks for the DVD version of the Z film so they could see that Jackie was not really in the line of fire? Did the budget cause the temporary amnesia Mack had about all those witnesses with powerful evidence of something going on behind the stockade fence: Bowers, Holland, Price, Smith etc.? Did the lack of money make him forget that the doctors saw the x-rays sat Bethesda, or that the Clark Panel actually raised the rear skull wound and not the HSCA? In the face of all that you can write that Mack has never “conveniently omitted facts.” Whew. Oh, and by the way Duke, this is all old stuff, nothing new right? Because I know that many researchers don’t write on the new documents, but they also don’t spend all their time going after Vernon, Holt, and Baker. And at the same time, working hand in glove with FBI/CIA operative Aynseworth. Or printing a politically motivated indictment to smear someone and then not removing it when the case is drooped. In fact, no one besides Perry does all those things. (Or McAdams maybe. Which would prove my case.). Or maybe you didn’t notice that?

But I like what you say “character assassination by innuendo, the drawing of parallels based on sketchy information and imagined thread between them.” Did you miss the footnotes Duke? Or do you really think I was assassinating the character of people like Gus Russo or Mark Zaid? People who have made a lot of money by switching sides in the JFK case. (In my view they may have never switched though.) How is it possible to assassinate the character of someone like John McAdams? He has done a great job of that by himself. A guy who uses an undercover name and lies about his occupation to do a hatchet job interview smearing COPA? Sketchy information? Was Newman lying about his talk with Colby about Russo? Did Aguilar lie about his interview with Labash? (If you want to listen to it, he has it on tape.) Did I hallucinate Zaid screaming about Alvarez at a JFK conference? Just about everything in the essay up until two paragraphs into Part IV is either in the public record or footnoted. (And I explained why some of the rest was not.) And if you think Bob Loomis isn’t the kingpin behind the NY/DC anti-conspiracy crowd—the Dark Side—then ask yourself this: What two books in the last 15 years in the field have had the largest publicity tours and press build ups? I would say Posner’s on the assassination, and Hersh’s hatchet job on Kennedy. Is it just a coincidence that Loomis represents both men? If you believe that, then you might believe Oswald was a commie.

Finally, I liked your attempt at ridiculing the fact that geez, there could be “bad people” involved in the research community. Or that someone like Bob Loomis or the CIA, might be behind them. According to you, there is no real Dark Side out there. Let’s be chummy and high five everyone. Duke, even Judy Garland found out the truth at the end of the movie. Maybe you should check out the career of one Ed Epstein, since his case goes back to the beginning of the critical movement. Yep, back to 1965 actually. Epstein did a book called Inquest for which he met with Allen Dulles and John McCloy, among others. (Hmm. Sylvia Meagher couldn’t even get them to return her letters.) Then, one year after publication he told Vince Salandria he “switched sides”. He also agreed to appear on an album by Lawrence Schiller to accompany his book The Scavengers and Critics of the Warren Report. He then joined the campaign against Jim Garrison along with the likes of Aynseworth, Phelan and Sheridan, who in addition to writing propaganda pieces also bribed witnesses—like John Manchester in Clinton. This propaganda and bribery campaign was coupled with the double agents in Garrison’s office e.g. Boxley, Novel, De Torres. (This is all detailed in Part 5 of my Bugliosi piece. It has reams of supporting data to it.) A similar campaign was waged against the HSCA’s first counsel, Sprague, since he was trying to do a real investigation. Certain journalists did hit pieces on him and an infiltrator was in his office to ratchet up the feud with Gonzalez, which led to their mutual destruction. (The Assassinations pgs 60-61)

But let us return to Epstein to complete the arc. At the time of the HSCA, he produced a black propaganda masterpiece entitled Legend. This said Oswald did it working for the Soviets and suggested his control agent was George DeMohrenschildt. See, the CIA was caught napping because Yuri Nosenko suckered them: he was not a real defector. We now know that this book was inspired and guided by James Angleton--who today, many people believe was running Oswald. But if people would have noted the access he had back in 1965—he even knew how many files the FBI had on Mark Lane—they wouldn’t have been surprised. Also, his book differed in kind from the works of Meagher and Lane. He talked about “political truth” being a palliative to the public—which Lane and Meagher did not. Kennedy’s death was not really that big of a deal—just something to be spun. (Sound familiar?) Maybe its because Lane and Meagher were real critics and Epstein was not. With that historical pattern in mind, it was only logical to suspect something like this would occur at the next big revival in the JFK case, Stone’s film.

Only someone as naïve as Candide would not even suspect it.

Be sure to show this to Dave. I know you two are pals. One of my anonymous sources told me so. I didn’t know how close you were though. Now I do.

[Don Jeffries]

Thanks, Jack, for posting this. Now if Jim would just post himself, we could really have some great debates here....

Duke is being just a bit hypocritical, when he castigates others for pointing out the very real changes Gary Mack, Dave Perry, etc. have undergone in recent years. Duke is the same researcher who tore apart Richard Carr's background with a fine tooth comb a while back, in a passionate effort to discredit him as a witness. He did much the same thing to another witness often cited over the years by conspiracy adherents, James Worrell. Yet he finds it offensive that someone is suspicious of "critics" linked to the likes of Hugh Aynesworth? Mack, Perry and other neo-cons and converted lone nutters are all alive and able to defend themselves. Carr and Worrell are not.

To those of us who read Gary Mack's work in The Continuing Inquiry a few decades ago, his totally different perspective about almost everything in his case is certainly an appropriate topic for discussion on a forum devoted to the subject. To those who encountered and knew Perry personally, it is also certainly only natural that they would want to pass on pertinent information about the influence he may have had on Mack and others.

[John Simkin]

Thanks, Jack, for posting this. Now if Jim would just post himself, we could really have some great debates here....

I agree. I have invited Jim to join and he is considering the offer.

[Anthony Thorne]

I like Jim's articles at his site and would enjoy seeing him pop up here.

[William Kelly]

Posted again:

Duke:

This is the second time you have gone after my essay “How Gary Mack Became Dan Rather”. You did it at the Lancer Forum when you debased the discussion into something about religious slurs. Now you do it at Spartacus by saying that it amounts to nothing more than character assassination by innuendo, sketchy information and imagined threads between them. (Which it is not.) Obviously the piece hit a nerve with you.

How else can anyone explain the apparent comparing of Dave Perry or Gary Mack as researchers with Beethoven as a composer. I hope you were kidding. Or maybe you just wanted to debase the debate like you did at Lancer.

There you used another neat technique. You compared Perry and Mack associating with the likes of Posner and Aynseworth to opposing lawyers who should still be friendly. Loved that one. So to you the Kennedy case is the equivalent of a child custody case, or maybe graffiti spraying. I guess we disagree. I thought we were talking about murder and treason. And beyond that, the beginning of the destruction of the social fabric of the USA and the start of the Vietnam War—a little sidelight you may have missed. In case you did, it eventually killed 58, 000 Americans and over two million Vietnamese. You won’t see anything about it on Perry’s—I mean Beethoven’s site. (BTW for you, is Dave’s Roscoe White article the equivalent of the Ninth Symphony. Or would you save that for his stuff on Judy Baker?)

Which brings us to the curious output of the great composer. In my essay, I went over his pieces in The Third Decade. I was fair about them. I didn’t enumerate the stuff on his web site because I couldn’t take that much punishment for one essay. But I think the site is even worse. He actually says that “dedicated researchers” have narrowed the field of probable assassins to 68. Funny. Is Hugh McDonald a “dedicated researcher”? I wasn’t aware of that. Is Robert Russell a dedicated researcher? News to me. Is Glenda Grabow a dedicated researcher? That’s a surprise. Is Chuck Giancana? Perry even names Julia Mercer as a source when she never named anyone as an assassin.

What kind of dedicated researcher places a vote tabulation machine on his site that says “Who do you think killed JFK?” And if you don’t like one of the 13 choices, you can pick “Other”. That’s real research, right Duke. Figuring out who killed President Kennedy is like picking an All Star team in the NFL.

What kind of “dedicated researcher” writes an article entitled , “Is there really news on news groups?” Well, Dave, sometimes there is. And I’ve learned things by lurking around some of them.

What kind of “dedicated researcher” writes an article attacking Pamela Brown for taking her agreed upon compensation from Discovery Channel and then criticizing the show. That’s some real valuable research huh Duke? BTW, Tony Summers did the same thing in 1993 for Perry’s buddy Gus Russo’s Frontline special on Oswald. And for the same reason. He didn’t realize how bad the show was going to end up. That’s not their fault. Full disclosure up front might have helped.

I saved the best (or worst) for last: Perry placed the full indictment of Dr. Cyril Wecht on his web site. And he keeps it there even though 1.) Wecht was never convicted of any of those charges and 2.) The case was dropped over a month ago. Why hasn’t the dedicated researcher removed it or posted the articles about the case being dropped? Will he now post the long essay Jerry Policoff is writing on how the case was politically motivated from the start. Want to bet he won’t Duke?

If you don’t’ get it yet, Dave Perry’s whole MO from the beginning has been to discredit the critical community by concentrating on the easiest and most irrelevant targets. His other strategy is to ignore the actual achievements that go a long way toward solving the JFK case. In other words, to create that whole sideshow image that people like his good friend Hugh Aynseworth have worked so hard to pin on us. So he does what you accuse me of doing: character assassination by innuendo, Except he does it to the whole community. But somehow you give him a free pass.

Because of that agenda, you will see a lot of space spent on the likes of Judith Baker, Chauncey Holt, and Bob Vernon. But you will not see one word about any of the following:

Carol Hewett’s work on Ruth and Michael Paine

John Newman’s work on the CIA and Oswald or the reversal of Kennedy’s Vietnam withdrawal plan 48 hours after his murder

John Armstrong’s work on Mexico City, the rifle, or the Walker shooting

David Mantik’s, Milicent Cranor’s or Gary Aguilar’s work on the autopsy

John Hunt’s and Gary Aguilar’s work on the switching of CE 399 by the FBI

Newman’s and Lisa Pease’s work on the roles of James Angleton and David Phillips in manipulating Oswald as an agent provocateur

Bill Davy’s work on New Orleans

Ian Griggs’ and Pat Speer’s work on the alleged brown bag found on the sixth floor that the DPD failed to photograph even though it was lying in situ

Griggs’ work on what a dismantled MC really looks like and how improbable it would be for Oswald to carry it in a brown bag under his armpit.

That’s quite a lot of good work to ignore isn’t it Duke? And by the way, the work of Speer and Griggs is not based on any of the new documents. It is based mostly on the Commission volumes. See in your rush to defend your buddy Dave, you omitted what else I said about his work. Not only does he ignore things new and important, he has never written anything highly critical of the Warren Commission. And he has not.

In the face of all that you can actually write, “I’ve yet to see or be shown where either of them [Mack or Perry] has conveniently omitted facts or misdirected their research or writings.” Were you giggling when you typed that sentence? Maybe falling out of your chair? Or have you not visited Perry’s site lately? If what I just described is not “misdirected” then what the heck is? (Why don’t you ask Wecht about it?) As for Mack, maybe you didn’t catch “JFK: Inside the Target Car”? Oh, but you have an excuse for Perry’s pal Gary, don’t you? You said on Lancer the problem was money. Really. You mean the budget didn’t allow for the extra bullets being fired from the other sites? The budget couldn’t accommodate the extra gasoline to move the limo instead of keeping it still in Sylmar? Maybe the budget could not afford buying twenty bucks for the DVD version of the Z film so they could see that Jackie was not really in the line of fire? Did the budget cause the temporary amnesia Mack had about all those witnesses with powerful evidence of something going on behind the stockade fence: Bowers, Holland, Price, Smith etc.? Did the lack of money make him forget that the doctors saw the x-rays sat Bethesda, or that the Clark Panel actually raised the rear skull wound and not the HSCA? In the face of all that you can write that Mack has never “conveniently omitted facts.” Whew. Oh, and by the way Duke, this is all old stuff, nothing new right? Because I know that many researchers don’t write on the new documents, but they also don’t spend all their time going after Vernon, Holt, and Baker. And at the same time, working hand in glove with FBI/CIA operative Aynseworth. Or printing a politically motivated indictment to smear someone and then not removing it when the case is drooped. In fact, no one besides Perry does all those things. (Or McAdams maybe. Which would prove my case.). Or maybe you didn’t notice that?

But I like what you say “character assassination by innuendo, the drawing of parallels based on sketchy information and imagined thread between them.” Did you miss the footnotes Duke? Or do you really think I was assassinating the character of people like Gus Russo or Mark Zaid? People who have made a lot of money by switching sides in the JFK case. (In my view they may have never switched though.) How is it possible to assassinate the character of someone like John McAdams? He has done a great job of that by himself. A guy who uses an undercover name and lies about his occupation to do a hatchet job interview smearing COPA? Sketchy information? Was Newman lying about his talk with Colby about Russo? Did Aguilar lie about his interview with Labash? (If you want to listen to it, he has it on tape.) Did I hallucinate Zaid screaming about Alvarez at a JFK conference? Just about everything in the essay up until two paragraphs into Part IV is either in the public record or footnoted. (And I explained why some of the rest was not.) And if you think Bob Loomis isn’t the kingpin behind the NY/DC anti-conspiracy crowd—the Dark Side—then ask yourself this: What two books in the last 15 years in the field have had the largest publicity tours and press build ups? I would say Posner’s on the assassination, and Hersh’s hatchet job on Kennedy. Is it just a coincidence that Loomis represents both men? If you believe that, then you might believe Oswald was a commie.

Finally, I liked your attempt at ridiculing the fact that geez, there could be “bad people” involved in the research community. Or that someone like Bob Loomis or the CIA, might be behind them. According to you, there is no real Dark Side out there. Let’s be chummy and high five everyone. Duke, even Judy Garland found out the truth at the end of the movie. Maybe you should check out the career of one Ed Epstein, since his case goes back to the beginning of the critical movement. Yep, back to 1965 actually. Epstein did a book called Inquest for which he met with Allen Dulles and John McCloy, among others. (Hmm. Sylvia Meagher couldn’t even get them to return her letters.) Then, one year after publication he told Vince Salandria he “switched sides”. He also agreed to appear on an album by Lawrence Schiller to accompany his book The Scavengers and Critics of the Warren Report. He then joined the campaign against Jim Garrison along with the likes of Aynseworth, Phelan and Sheridan, who in addition to writing propaganda pieces also bribed witnesses—like John Manchester in Clinton. This propaganda and bribery campaign was coupled with the double agents in Garrison’s office e.g. Boxley, Novel, De Torres. (This is all detailed in Part 5 of my Bugliosi piece. It has reams of supporting data to it.) A similar campaign was waged against the HSCA’s first counsel, Sprague, since he was trying to do a real investigation. Certain journalists did hit pieces on him and an infiltrator was in his office to ratchet up the feud with Gonzalez, which led to their mutual destruction. (The Assassinations pgs 60-61)

But let us return to Epstein to complete the arc. At the time of the HSCA, he produced a black propaganda masterpiece entitled Legend. This said Oswald did it working for the Soviets and suggested his control agent was George DeMohrenschildt. See, the CIA was caught napping because Yuri Nosenko suckered them: he was not a real defector. We now know that this book was inspired and guided by James Angleton--who today, many people believe was running Oswald. But if people would have noted the access he had back in 1965—he even knew how many files the FBI had on Mark Lane—they wouldn’t have been surprised. Also, his book differed in kind from the works of Meagher and Lane. He talked about “political truth” being a palliative to the public—which Lane and Meagher did not. Kennedy’s death was not really that big of a deal—just something to be spun. (Sound familiar?) Maybe its because Lane and Meagher were real critics and Epstein was not. With that historical pattern in mind, it was only logical to suspect something like this would occur at the next big revival in the JFK case, Stone’s film.

Only someone as naïve as Candide would not even suspect it.

Be sure to show this to Dave. I know you two are pals. One of my anonymous sources told me so. I didn’t know how close you were though. Now I do.

[Terry Mauro]

Jim should re post his expose of the book "Farewell America". His analysis of that book was superb.

It ruffled alot of feathers as I recall.