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Oy vey, Ernie. Anybody who read John Birch Society material in the 1960's, 1970's and 1980's as I did, knows very well the McCarthyist slant of their rant -- and their accusation that Washington DC, and especially the White House, was riddled with Communists.

You want to fight -- but please remember that the Harry Dean thread was shut down partly because of your relentless defense of the John Birch Society.

You want to be the only authority on the John Birch Society -- but too many people have read too many of their works already -- and we know what McCarthyists they were.

It was probably their incessant pushing at JFK, accusing him of being a Communist, that drove a True-believer like Ex-General Edwin Walker INSANE, so that he planned and executed the JFK Assassination in his effort to please Robert Welch, his new tin god.

(For example, one cartoon in American Opinion depicted JFK in a wedding gown, being approached by Khrushchev. This was typical of the political pornography that Robert Welch published!)

In the same way, Edwin Walker was obeying the instructions of Robert Welch when he and his minions and quislings humiliated United Nations Ambassador Adlai Stevenson in Dallas on 24 October 1963.

The John Birch Society bears the same weight of blame for the murder of JFK as Edwin Walker will bear. Let's wait for Dr. Caufield's book to estimate the extent of his blame.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Paul---there is a profound difference between making a generalization (often vague) versus making specific accusations. Yes, the JBS is often presented as an heir to McCarthy but acknowledging that generalization does not mean that everything you subsequently claim about the JBS is accurate, truthful, or factual.

Again, for the record, correcting factual errors about history or about an individual or organization is NOT the same as "defending" them. Everybody rational knows that I have spent my entire lifetime (starting when I was a teenager) falsifying JBS premises and conclusions and warning about how accepting or believing their viewpoints would be deeply harmful to our survival as a free society. So for you to claim I "defend" the JBS is massively offensive -- but I understand that you cannot make rational distinctions because of your ideological bias (which operates just like the JBS ideological bias when I debate JBS members).

I have never claimed nor have I ever suggested that I should be considered "the only" or even a primary expert about the JBS. That is another example of how you fabricate falsehoods. Instead, I have routinely recommended careful studies which have been done on the JBS by qualified historians -- and that includes my recommendations here in EF of Samuel Brenner's 2009 doctoral dissertation as well as the 2014 book by Dr. Darren Mulloy. By contrast, you never cite ANY reputable historian's original research regarding the JBS. Instead, you just want us to mindlessly accept whatever you write.

In your current message you describe Walker as "insane" but in previous messages you have vigorously denied that possibility. What gives? No serious or rational person believes that Robert Welch would have welcomed any association with someone who engaged in murder or planning a murder. Whatever you think about Welch his entire lifetime was spent defending certain principles which are inherent in all conservative philosophical and moral arguments regarding human behavior and the proper role of government. You just want to create absolute cartoon villains to rail against instead of wanting to understand human beings whose views differ from your own beliefs. Significantly, you have never once presented one iota of evidence from anybody who actually knew Welch to support your characterization of him nor have you presented any primary source evidence to support your malicious description. There are plenty of VALID reasons to reject Welch and the JBS without inventing absolute falsehoods.

Like all conservatives, Welch opposed anything that smacked of "mob rule". Like all conservatives, Welch saw society as a living organism which could not survive or prosper without compliance with laws and compliance with moral principles grounded in Judeo-Christian beliefs. As I have told you previously (here in EF and privately), Welch did not want Edwin Walker associated with the JBS -- which is why Welch refused the entreaties of numerous JBS members who wanted Welch and the JBS to mount a vigorous public relations campaign to defend Walker (particularly after the University of Mississippi episode). But Welch refused and, moreover, he told his National Council members that Walker was accepting bad advice and counsel from people whom Welch regarded as bigots who could discredit not only the JBS but the entire conservative movement. So for you to claim that, somehow, Welch supported or condoned Walker is absurd on its face --- but (as previously mentioned) fiction writers are not constrained by facts.

Edited by Ernie Lazar
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In your current message you describe Walker as "insane" but in previous messages you have vigorously denied that possibility. What gives?

Well, Ernie, two psychiatrists examined Edwin Walker after the Ole Miss riots in late 1962, and concluded that he suffered from clinical paranoia.

These two psychiatrists also testified to this at Walker's Grand Jury hearing in Oxford, Mississippi in January 1963. (Their testimony can be found in full in Walker's personal papers stored at UT Austin.)

The two lawyers of Edwin Walker there, Clyde Watts and Robert Morris, devised this defense strategy: 'Since JFK and RFK committed Edwin Walker to an insane asylum on Tuesday 1 October 1963, then actually Walker is on trial for being insane. Therefore, you get your psychiatrists and we'll get ours.'

Walker's defense attorneys produced their own psychiatric testimony, affirming the sanity of Edwin Walker.

That was really the crux of the trial. Since there was a reasonable doubt whether Edwin Walker was insane, the Grand Jury concluded that he was not insane -- and therefore innocent of all charges.

Regarding the Ole Miss riots themselves, Walker testified under oath that he was only at Ole Miss that night to "keep the peace." The Grand Jury believed him.

Actually, we have Edwin Walker in open radio and TV broadcasts calling for "ten thousand strong from every State in the Union" to join him at Ole Miss University to protest any Black American like James Meredith who qualified to enter the college and demanded their American rights. Minutemen and other radical rightists and racists, waving the Confederate Flag, flooded Ole Miss by the thousands, and there confronted the thousands of Federal Troops that JFK sent to the college.

On the night of Monday 30 September 1963, hundreds were wounded and two were killed at Ole Miss.

Several witnesses testified (in other trials, not the Grand Jury trial, where witnesses were strictly limited) that Edwin Walker directed the students as they charged the Federal Officers for hour after hour, with bricks, stones, bottles, shotguns, a fire truck and a bulldozer. The AP sent a young reporter to dress like a student to infiltrate the crowd and get close to Edwin Walker, and AP reported Walker's leadership.

So, Walker perjured himself before the Grand Jury -- just as he perjured himself before Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren whom he despised so fiercely.

Also, I joined many others by interviewing Bishop Duncan Gray of Mississippi, who was there on the Ole Miss campus during the riots, and who personally confronted Edwin Walker there, and told him to go home, and was roughed up for his efforts. He was a young Episcopalian priest at the time, but he is still alive today, and now a Bishop, and he still insists that Edwin Walker was the leader of the riots. I believe the good Bishop.

Was Edwin Walker insane? It was a matter of divided opinion among psychiatrists. One can still argue both sides to this very day.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited by Paul Trejo
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Oh my, so much to say...however, I will leave you with this nugget for now;

If I had the Kennedys here I would line them up and shoot them.”

-General Walker

Yes, it is sourced.

Bill

So what? Nobody disputes that Walker made incendiary comments. I often cite his 1965 comment that: “I’ll bet you will find more good Americans in the Ku Klux Klan than in the Americans For Democratic Action.”

The issue which Paul Trejo and I have debated is whether or not Robert Welch or the JBS supported anyone who planned or facilitated murder or any other illegal activity. We know that when the JBS discovered neo-nazis, Klan members, and Minutemen in its ranks -- it terminated their membership.

And we know that the only official investigation ever conducted into the JBS (by the California Senate Factfinding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities over a 2-year period and released in 1963) did not find evidence to support the idea that the JBS was subversive or that it engaged in or condoned criminal activities. Very significantly, that Subcommittee was controlled by Democrats who were allied with the then-Governor of California (Edmund G. Brown) whom Welch described as "almost certainly a Communist" !!!

PAUL: With respect to Edwin Walker's mental condition. As a legal matter, sanity or insanity is not just a medical issue. Instead, in a legal context, insanity is defined as follows:

"A mental defect or disease that, as understood in most states, makes it impossible for a person to know what he or she is doing; or if he or she does know, to know that what they are doing is wrong....Defendants who are criminally insane cannot be convicted of a crime, because criminal conduct involves the conscious intent to do wrong -- a choice that the criminally insane cannot meaningfully make."

Nobody found Walker legally insane. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, which is the diagnostic standard for mental health professionals in the United States, lists the following symptoms for paranoid personality disorder:

* suspicious; unfounded suspicions; i.e. believes others are plotting against him/her
* preoccupied with unsupported doubts about friends or associates
* reluctant to confide in others due to a fear that information may be used against him/her
* reads negative meanings into innocuous remarks
* bears grudges
* perceives attacks on his/her reputation that are not clear to others, and is quick to counterattack
* maintains unfounded suspicions regarding the fidelity of a spouse or significant other

Does Walker qualify? More importantly, when we disagree with the political views of a specific organization, should we comfort ourselves by assuming that "they" are composed of clinically paranoid persons while "we" are entirely rational, moral, decent, honorable, principled people? Do you see any danger in always adopting that belief about our perceived political opponents?

The problem which I have always seen with respect to discussions of the John Birch Society is the remarkable absence of any studies which have been made regarding JBS members.

Only twice did the JBS cooperate with scholars and allow academics to submit anonymous questionnaires to a portion of its membership (which the JBS chose---not the academics). But we do know that many extremely well-known and accomplished individuals decided to join and/or support the JBS -- and that includes people from every walk of life. Even today, many Americans are shocked to discover the range of individuals who became JBS members --- including clergymen, lawyers, doctors, dentists, Mayors, Governors, Congresspersons, Fortune 500 CEO's, movie stars and other Hollywood personalities, major league baseball players, world-famous authors, former U.S. Ambassadors, newspaper publishers, retired senior military officers, a child of a former President, a state Supreme Court Chief Justice, the Dean of Notre Dame University Law School, the father on a former Vice President of the U.S., etc. etc.

Warren Buffet's father (Howard) was a JBS member. Do you think that Warren believes that his dad was "insane" or "clinically paranoid"?

Edited by Ernie Lazar
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Incidentally, does anyone have any specific knowledge regarding WHEN Caufield's book will be published and WHERE it can be purchased?

Ernie, when William O'Neil started this thread a few days ago, he said:

"This book is in the printing stages, stay tuned for further information regarding availability and pricing."

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited by Paul Trejo
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Oh my, so much to say...however, I will leave you with this nugget for now;

If I had the Kennedys here I would line them up and shoot them.”

-General Walker

Yes, it is sourced.

Bill

Well, I think we now see the MOTIVE of the JFK murder. Now we can talk about the Means and the Opportunity.

Regarding the MEANS, we should remember the Dallas humiliation of Adlai Stevenson on 24 October 1963, where we saw the "Friends of Walker" in action.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Edited by Paul Trejo
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Oh my, so much to say...however, I will leave you with this nugget for now;

If I had the Kennedys here I would line them up and shoot them.”

-General Walker

Yes, it is sourced.

Bill

Well, I think we now see the MOTIVE of the JFK murder. Now we can talk about the Means and the Opportunity.

Regarding the MEANS, we should remember the Dallas humiliation of Adlai Stevenson on 24 October 1963, where we saw the "Friends of Walker" in action.

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

The problem with your "motive" argument is that there were numerous actors who made comparable statements both in tone and substance -- particularly in southern states. Psychologists often point out that political extremists vent their feelings through extravagant hyperbolic rhetoric but they use that rhetoric as a substitute for actual behavior. In short, they are not prepared to take actions commensurate with their rhetoric because the rhetoric is simply meant to express their disgust, revulsion and contempt --- often because they are trying to generate political support.

For example: Max Nelsen was a self-described neo-nazi and fascist. While he attended college, he posted "Kill Jews" signs around his campus and in 1958 he praised the bombing of an Atlanta GA synagogue but he said it would have been better if there were Jews inside at the time of the bombing.

In a November 1946 letter which Nelsen sent to the editor of the Minneapolis Star Journal newspaper on the letterhead of his organization (Democratic Nationalist Party aka DNP) Nelsen made veiled threats against the then-Mayor of Minneapolis (Hubert H. Humphrey). Nelsen's letter described Humphrey as an “infamous Jew and Negro lover and then Nelsen warned:
“Humphrey is a traitor to his people and consequently the local group of the DNP has officially condemned him. At the proper time he will meet his just retribution.”

In September 1947 Nelsen wrote:

"My associates and I are looking forward to our World War III with great enthusiasm, because we shall destroy Jew-dominated, Communist Russia once and for all time to come. We are planning for the day when there will not be a single Jewish Communist left alive on this planet, and in all sincerity I say that I know I shall play a part in their annihilation.”

In March 1963, Nelsen sent a letter to J. Edgar Hoover:

“Dear Commissar: I refer your attention to page 41 of the Truth Seeker of March 1963, lower left column. Your participation in starting World War II involvement of the USA is stated quite clearly. I always knew that you were a Jew-loving bastard, and now it is coming out at last!...The future belongs to we Whitemen, and not your type of mongrel.”

In January 1964 Nelsen wrote a letter to RFK after JFK's assassination:

“Dear Bobby-O:
Well, now that the shooting is over I want to convey my very personal condolences to you and your entire anti-White, Jew-worshipping, n-loving family…I enjoyed the death of Rockefeller’s son in New Guinea…and I also enjoyed the Dallas shooting. It is good to see the rich suffer and die just as the poor…I look forward to reading the front pages of the local newspapers re: that Jimmy Hoffa has personally beaten you to within an inch of your life. Happy Hate, Max Nelsen.”

However -- despite Nelsen's vicious rhetoric he never acted upon it, i.e. he never physically attacked any Jews, he never participated in any bombings, and he never did anything which resulted in his conviction for some violent crime. Nevertheless, he associated himself with every despicable racist and anti-semitic organization in our country. For a time, he was the Chicago representative of the National States Rights Party and he was a member of the American Nazi Party. In 1967, Nelsen created a paper organization called The Sam Adams Committee of Public Safety which Nelsen dedicated to Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker.

So---here (again) is what Paul considers "motive" -- but Nelsen is just one of literally hundreds of persons and organizations who made vicious and hateful comments -- but most of them had no connection to the JBS except for (occasionally) referring to the JBS as a "patriotic" organization. If we use lowest-common-denominator reasoning, we could assert that everybody we do not like is "connected" or "linked" to the JBS, the American Nazi Party, to Gerald L.K. Smith, to neo-nazi organizations like National Renaissance Party, to National States Rights Party, to the Klan and to every other conceivable organization. That would mimic the JBS attempt to link liberals to every Communist Party endeavor.

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Incidentally, does anyone have any specific knowledge regarding WHEN Caufield's book will be published and WHERE it can be purchased?

Ernie, when William O'Neil started this thread a few days ago, he said:

"This book is in the printing stages, stay tuned for further information regarding availability and pricing."

Regards,

--Paul Trejo

Yes I know -- but that does not give me any specific idea of when and where. Is it going to be available in August or September or October? If "yes" -- then will it be available through any on-line bookstore or only directly from Caufield and does anyone know what price it will sell for?

BTW Paul.....Let's assume for sake of argument that Caufield...

(1) has not found anything which clearly establishes that Robert Welch had any sort of advance knowledge regarding JBS members (including Walker??) who were interested in assassinating JFK.

(2) has not found anything which clearly establishes that Robert Welch approved of JFK's assassination (after-the-fact)

(3) has not found anything which clearly establishes that the Birch Society (as an organization) facilitated or approved of any sort of criminal activity---particularly anything which was politically motivated

THEN....how would that impact your conclusions??

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"If I had the Kennedys here I would line them up and shoot them."

how could anyone realistically use this as an intended action/threat?

i very truly wonder just how many people in the 50's and 60's have expressed this very sentiment IN HEARING RANGE of others -- less than 50? doubtful.

i guarantee it's been said of every President that's ever served - oops > INCLUDING the present one!

that line in and of itself isn't worth repeating. ESPECIALLY about the Kennedys.

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"If I had the Kennedys here I would line them up and shoot them."

how could anyone realistically use this as an intended action/threat?

i very truly wonder just how many people in the 50's and 60's have expressed this very sentiment IN HEARING RANGE of others -- less than 50? doubtful.

i guarantee it's been said of every President that's ever served - oops > INCLUDING the present one!

that line in and of itself isn't worth repeating. ESPECIALLY about the Kennedys.

You are, of course, correct. Extravagant hyperbole is not only common in political discourse (does everyone recall Mike Huckabee's recent comment about Obama's Iran deal bringing Jews to the door of the ovens??) -- extravagant hyperbole is also commonplace in English literature -- when authors use the shock value of inflammatory language to make a point.

The FBI even created a list for such people. It was called "Rabble Rouser Index" (later known as Agitator Index). According to the FBI's 1967 description:

"A rabble rouser is defined as a person who tries to arouse people to violent action by appealing to their emotions, prejudices, etc.; a demagogue. You will note that under prior criteria the Rabble Rouser Index served as an index only for individuals of national prominence with particular consideration given to those who travel extensively and was limited to those fomenting racial disorder. It is the intent of this expanded criteria to have within each division as well as nationwide an index of agitators of all types whose activities have a bearing on the national security. This would include, for example, black nationalists, white supremacists, Puerto Rican nationalists, anti-Vietnam demonstration leaders, and other extremists." ...

Max Nelsen (whom I mentioned in my previous message) was on the FBI's Rabble Rouser Index. Significantly, Robert Welch was not. Nor was any other national JBS official.

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The books printing had a setback- delay by the publisher.... (typical). <_< The last news I got, was that printing will hopefully be done in 3 weeks. It will be available via a website and eventually Amazon.

When I know more I will report.

Bill

Thanks for the update.

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Paul - hatred is the motive? Plenty of that to go around. I prefer to think the killers had specific aims which were realized afterwards.

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