Charles Brandt on the Hoffa killing and JFK assassination

[Tom Gram]

9 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Tom:

The last thing that Brandt did was solve the JFK case.  Not even close.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/brand-review

 

Great review Jim. I can’t say I’m surprised, but a genuinely Communist Oswald as a hit man for the mob is even worse than I thought. Your review reminded me of a Lamar Waldron book I got randomly and had to stop reading cause it was so awful.

My only minor quip would be regarding Earl Warren. Pat Speer and several others have shown that Warren did play an integral role in the cover-up and exerted a good deal of control over the Commission, especially regarding the medical evidence. The Dulles-Ford-McCoy trio was clearly running the show, but I think Warren does deserve a fair amount of criticism. 

I’m going to try to get an email exchange going with Brandt and get his comment on your review - and grill him with some questions. It might take a while but I think I can make it happen. I haven’t read the book, but from your review it almost seems like he just didn’t know the case very well. I don’t see how anyone could argue some of the things he did in 2022 without even attempting to address the contradictory evidence, so it looks like Brandt might have not been aware of a lot of this stuff. 

[Calvin Ye]

11 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Tom:

The last thing that Brandt did was solve the JFK case.  Not even close.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/brand-review

 

Jim, I read your assessment and I agree with it. Let me add one more thing: Brandt's book have no citations, appendix and bibliography page. Brandt failing to add citations, appendix and bibliography page seriously damaged the credibility of the book.  I noticed that when I read the book multiple times.

[Gene Kelly]

Jim

Your review is cogent. Brandt has solid credentials but appears to be an amateur historian who doesn't understand the deeper truth about events like the Bay of Pigs and Kennedy's election. His instincts about the testimony of Jack Ruby and the importance of Earlene Roberts are well founded, especially who the two policemen were in that car outside her boarding house. But he isn't apparently adding anything new here.  I agree with Calvin that the lack of citations, references and a bibliography are telling ... did he actually do any original groundwork (interviews of principals, independent investigation)?  With all that we know today about the inconsistencies in the case, and the role of intelligence parties, Oswald's strange affiliations, the New Orleans and Mexico City intrigues, Tippit's murder - Brandt's thesis is pure speculation.  Simply a spin on the official storylines that have since proven questionable.  

Perhaps Robert Blakey might find Brandt's story credible ... but I'll bet Dick Sprague and Rob Tannenbaum would not.  This was no ordinary homicide, as both of those guys well recognized:

We were trying to investigate like we would any other murder case,” Tannenbaum said, but added it was not possible to do so. He cited examples of evidence that disappeared, a CIA agent providing false testimony, and numerous other examples of improprieties which led him to believe that the “search for truth” in the case was going nowhere.

Gene 

 

[James DiEugenio]

Nice work Ben on Jarman.   No, Brandt did not mention that.

Calvin, yes I was surprised by that.  The book did not have End Notes, or footnotes, no bibliography and not even an index. I thought this was really odd for a guy who has a name in the publishing industry.

Tom, my point was that, if you read Brandt, Warren was running the show.  I don't think that is accurate.  When Warren was blocked on Olney, and then got Elmer Moore as his handler, he was chairman in name only.  He might have made some decisions on evidence, and the interview with Jackie Kennedy, but its not as Brandt says it was.

Gene: Brandt is a terrible historian.  In fact, what he does is spin, spin, spin.  And its not even original spin.  Its spin he takes from other authors to serve his purposes.  Its like he never heard of the Truman Doctrine.

 

[Gene Kelly]

Jim

In the spirit of what Tannebaum and Sprague shared, it is quite a different strategy (from that of a normal detective or homicide investigator) when you are going up against intelligence agencies.  Conventional procedures and investigative strategies simply don't work.  I am reminded of a conversation that I had (in the mid-90's) with a gentleman who was an investigator in the agency that I worked for (the Nuclear Regulatory Commission).  He had previously been a NYC criminal investigator, and later recruited to be an investigator with the HSCA.  He knew that I was interested in the assassination and approached me to talk about it.  He shared how utterly difficult it was to get anything out of the CIA (near impossible), and when you did get something, it couldn't be trusted as accurate. 

I asked him who did it ... he said matter of factly "the CIA".  When I asked him how sure he was - since at the time I was skeptical and knew far less about the case - he replied, "I'd bet a year's salary on it".  Being younger and naive at the time, it was difficult for me to believe our own government could be party to such a crime ...so I asked the classic question of "it's been more than 30 years ... why don't they just come out and tell us what really happened?"  

I will never forget his memorable reply: "What makes you think that is the worst thing that they've ever done ...?"

Gene

[James DiEugenio]

Nice one Gene.  That one is new to me.

I have talked to Tanenbaum many times about this case.

Me and Oliver visited him 3-4 times before we started the film.

He once said to me that  the  something less than a year  he spent on this case was one of the most frustrating, crazy years he ever had as an attorney. And he said the same thing: trying to get anything out of the CIA, and the FBI for that matter, was like pulling teeth.  They could only get heavily redacted documents. 

He said Sprague did not want to make a deal.  He was going to go to court: legislative vs executive branch.  Who knows what would have happened.  Tell you this, it would have been nice to have had the Lopez Report back in 1979 wouldn't it? 

 

BTW, to get back to Brandt, I am not even sure he read the Lopez Report.

Edited November 10, 2022 by James DiEugenio