Review of Joan Mellen's new book on LBJ

[Larry Hancock]

Sandy, I follow your distinction on the systems, I'm familiar with expert systems and their development and familiar with AFIS. I have to admit I didn't know a true "expert system" for fingerprint ID even existed so I really

can't say anything about that one way or the other.

[Glenn Nall]

I did a little reading on this yesterday after Larry mentioned AFIS, which I think is a good point. I was curious about procedures and accuracy.

Briefly, it seems that many state and local AFIS systems (apparently they're not all directly FBI AFIS) require a dual AFIS/Human verification, which tells me that they're at least acknowledging the possibility of false results.

I was also left with the impression that AFIS results are incredibly accurate.

And it was kind of looking like there seems to be a difference in AFIS' programming to match one fingerprint to one of millions versus comparing one against another, but at this point in my reading The Atlanta Braves last game at Turner and the Dallas Cowboys usurped precedence, so that's as far as I got.

Edited October 3, 2016 by Glenn Nall

[Dawn Meredith]

And [Joan Mellen] found out about the circumstances of that trial, things that no one has ever written about before. Namely that there was a ringer on the jury.

James,

Didn't the "ringer" ask for a life imprisonment? (As opposed to the rest of the jury, who asked for the death sentence.)

And then didn't the judge overrule the jury and give Wallace only a 5 year sentence? After which he suspended the sentence and immediately freed Wallace?

That is my understanding. And yes I knew there was a "ringer" on the jury.

I am not making pronouncements about this book. I am discussing J and Nathan. You Jim are the one doing this. On what basis do you "know" what Hoffmeister and his wife said? I know second hand from Jay. His wife freaked because they knew who Wallace was. And got him to back out. J KNEW them. Mellen does not. I am sure they are both dead now so she could not cite THEM. You do not even say who she does cite. If it is a family member that may have been a convenient secondary reason given to stay far away from the truth.

I totally agree that Barr had enormous errors in his book. I read it when it first came out and then sent him a three page email regarding all the problems I had.

I will read the book at some time and will be interested in your review but I am amazed that you are buying her hook line and sinker. I suspect it's because like others you just have some need to discount the entire TX connection. You do this with every book that discusses it. I am not wedded to some one theory of who killed Jack. He had powerful enemies. And many were here in TX.

[Douglas Caddy]

My understanding is that Barr McClellan's book, Blood, Money & Power: How LBJ Killed JFK, sold approximately 85,000 copies and that the publisher of that book got orders for 30,000 of Barr's second book on which he is working at the present time.

Few in the JFK assassination community have such a sales record of books that they have written.

J, Evetts Haley's 1964 book sold over a million copies.

When Joan was working on her book, I told her that when I was assisting Billie Sol Estes in 1984 on his endeavor to tell what he knew, I mentioned this to my mother. She said that she could obtain a dozen copies of Haley's book for me from a friend, which she did. Her friend and her husband had purchased several thousand copies of Haley's book in 1964 and had copies left over. My mother's friend told her that after Johnson was elected president in 1964, two IRS agents soon showed up at the small business that she and her husband operated and sat in that office every business day for two years to monitor minutely everything that was done there. The IRS agents told her they had been assigned to do so upon orders that came from President Johnson.

This is an example of what I mean when I wrote previously that Texas was a world of its own when LBJ and his cronies ruled the Lone Star State,

Edited October 3, 2016 by Douglas Caddy

[Sandy Larsen]

I did a little reading on this yesterday after Larry mentioned AFIS, which I think is a good point. I was curious about procedures and accuracy.

Briefly, it seems that many state and local AFIS systems (apparently they're not all directly FBI AFIS) require a dual AFIS/Human verification, which tells me that they're at least acknowledging the possibility of false results.

I was also left with the impression that AFIS results are incredibly accurate.

And it was kind of looking like there seems to be a difference in AFIS' programming to match one fingerprint to one of millions versus comparing one against another, but at this point in my reading The Atlanta Braves last game at Turner and the Dallas Cowboys usurped precedence, so that's as far as I got.

Glenn,

AFIS results are "incredibly accurate" only when a tenprint is in the database, and a tenprint from the same person is searched for. In other words, the person's fingerprints are taken twice, one set of which is entered into the database, and then the other set is entered as though it were a latent print to be searched on. All ten fingers, not just one. This is the ideal case in terms of easily identifying a print. The odds of the system finding the tenprint is near 100%..

It's a much different story for latent prints, and even more so if only one latent print (one finger) is available, especially if it is smeared or incomplete.

According to this document, the odds of locating a print (known to be in the database) that matches a LATENT print is 70% to 80%. But guess what... actual statistics have not been done to show these numbers to be the case. These numbers are what the purchasing agent specifies when they order the AFIS system. The vendor makes up a small database, does some testing, gets a result in or above that 70 to 80% range, and sells their system.. It is not a real world statistic, and the testing is most likely done in a way that benefits the vendor. (Search on "70 to 80%" to find this in the document.)

Inversely, the odds of not even finding the matching print -- known to be in the database -- is 20% to 30%. Which is not stellar. (I wonder if that is for latent tenprints.)

But, yes, AFIS is useful. But it's no replacement for human experts.

Edited October 3, 2016 by Sandy Larsen

[Glenn Nall]

I did a little reading on this yesterday after Larry mentioned AFIS, which I think is a good point. I was curious about procedures and accuracy.

Briefly, it seems that many state and local AFIS systems (apparently they're not all directly FBI AFIS) require a dual AFIS/Human verification, which tells me that they're at least acknowledging the possibility of false results.

I was also left with the impression that AFIS results are incredibly accurate.

And it was kind of looking like there seems to be a difference in AFIS' programming to match one fingerprint to one of millions versus comparing one against another, but at this point in my reading The Atlanta Braves last game at Turner and the Dallas Cowboys usurped precedence, so that's as far as I got.

Glenn,

AFIS results are "incredibly accurate" only when a tenprint is in the database, and a tenprint from the same person is searched for. In other words, the person's fingerprints are taken twice, one set of which is entered into the database, and then the other set is entered as though it were a latent print to be searched on. All ten fingers, not just one. This is the ideal case in terms of easily identifying a print. The odds of the system finding the print is near 100%..

It's a much different story for latent prints, and even more so if only one latent print is available, especially if it is smeared or incomplete.

According to this document, the odds of locating a print (known to be in the database) that matches a LATENT print is 70% to 80%. But guess what... actual statistics have not been done to show these numbers to be the case. These numbers are what the purchasing agent specifies when they order the AFIS system. The vendor makes up a small database, does some testing, gets a result in or above that 70 to 80% range, and sells their system.. It is not a real world statistic, and the testing is most likely done in a way that benefits the vendor. (Search on "70 to 80%" to find this in the document.)

Inversely, the odds of not even finding the matching print -- known to be in the database -- is 20% to 30%. Which is not stellar.

But, yes, the AFIS is useful. But it's no replacement for human experts.

Yes, I was also left with the impressions that a) it's not exactly like we see on CSI, Des Moines and similar shows, and the Dallas Cowboys and the Atlanta Falcons are two very serious football teams this year.

Edited October 3, 2016 by Glenn Nall

[Glenn Nall]

I did a little reading on this yesterday after Larry mentioned AFIS, which I think is a good point. I was curious about procedures and accuracy.

Briefly, it seems that many state and local AFIS systems (apparently they're not all directly FBI AFIS) require a dual AFIS/Human verification, which tells me that they're at least acknowledging the possibility of false results.

I was also left with the impression that AFIS results are incredibly accurate.

And it was kind of looking like there seems to be a difference in AFIS' programming to match one fingerprint to one of millions versus comparing one against another, but at this point in my reading The Atlanta Braves last game at Turner and the Dallas Cowboys usurped precedence, so that's as far as I got.

Glenn,

AFIS results are "incredibly accurate" only when a tenprint is in the database, and a tenprint from the same person is searched for. In other words, the person's fingerprints are taken twice, one set of which is entered into the database, and then the other set is entered as though it were a latent print to be searched on. All ten fingers, not just one. This is the ideal case in terms of easily identifying a print. The odds of the system finding the tenprint is near 100%..

It's a much different story for latent prints, and even more so if only one latent print (one finger) is available, especially if it is smeared or incomplete.

According to this document, the odds of locating a print (known to be in the database) that matches a LATENT print is 70% to 80%. But guess what... actual statistics have not been done to show these numbers to be the case. These numbers are what the purchasing agent specifies when they order the AFIS system. The vendor makes up a small database, does some testing, gets a result in or above that 70 to 80% range, and sells their system.. It is not a real world statistic, and the testing is most likely done in a way that benefits the vendor. (Search on "70 to 80%" to find this in the document.)

Inversely, the odds of not even finding the matching print -- known to be in the database -- is 20% to 30%. Which is not stellar.

But, yes, the AFIS is useful. But it's no replacement for human experts.

WAIT. What...?

David Von Pein was never a full-fledged CTer??

Man, I really need to pay more attention.

[Sandy Larsen]

WAIT. What...?

David Von Pein was never a full-fledged CTer??

Man, I really need to pay more attention.

LOL, yeah David said that earlier this year. Too funny!

[Douglas Caddy]

Decades ago when Jay Harrison was compiling evidence on LBJ, Billie Sol Estes and Mac Wallace, I visited him in his trailer in Austin. He described to me the research in which he was engaged. I later received three binders containing documents on the three aforementioned persons that Jay had compiled. A year ago I gave a set of the most relevant of these documents, a pile about a foot and a half high, to Roger Stone and also to Robert Morrow. I also gave these to a highly credible person whom I am not at liberty to name but who is legend in Texas history and who knows plenty about the murdering trio.

I am exploring the feasibility to reproducing these documents and making them available to those who want to see them.

I plan to cite some of them in my review of Joan Mellen's new book.

Anyone who sees these documents compiled by Jay Harrison when quickly realize that there remains a big story not yet told about LBJ, Billie Sol Estes and Mac Wallace. Hopefully Robert Caro will tell this saga in the fifth installment of his LBJ biography that he is working on now. This may the reason why Caro did not even mention Billie Sol or Mac Wallace in his most recent volume that covered the years Billie Sol and Mac Wallace had contact with LBJ.

Barr McClellan, Dawn Meredith and I have lived in Texas and we know what it was like when LBJ exercised supreme power both within the state and nationally. This knowledge sets us apart from others in the JFK assassination community who may live in California or Pennsylvania or elsewhere. Texas was a world of its own when LBJ and his cronies held sway in the Lone Star State.

Amen Doug.

But I don't expect the truth about this from Caro. I fact I doubt he will even go near it.

I just listened to an interview with Stone for the first time ever. Most interesting. I agreed with a lot of it, but I do not see LBJ was the mastermind, just deeply involved. And I said THAT day one at age 14 .

I no longer believe Joan had a mission for the truth. But that is as far as I will go on a forum.

I spoke with Nathan Darby's son today to see if he had any proof - aside from his personal recollection- that his father had kept up his certification. He is not certain if such still exists. I also told him about an alleged note his dad had sent to the IAI and his response to that was "then let her produce this note". (Which no one will I am sure as I know that never occurred).

J had told me about meeting with you Doug and had a copy of your book. A funny Jism: One day after I had returned from court he called and just told me to go find a copy of that day's Wall St journal. Nothing else. (Cryptic as usual) then to call him back So I did. Then it was "open to such and such a page", then lo and behold there was an editorial by you about your days as Watergate atty. I was taken aback as I knew you had represented Billy sol in his letters to AG Trott (etc). "Strange bedfellows", I thought at the time.

I hope someone does a TRUE bio of Mac. Not a whitewash. He was truly a stone cold killer. I have a lot more on my mind about this but have a very early morning. I wonder if non Texan residents are quick to dismiss the TX connection out of some Democratic loyalty to LBJ. It simply baffles me.

Dawn

Dawn: You must possess a form of ESP. You reference above my article to which Jay Harrison called your attention, "What If Judge Sirica Were With Us Today?", that the Wall Street Journal published on March 24, 1998. It was later included in a book that the Journal published on the Clintons.

As I write this my priority mail envelop is being delivered to the Wall Street Journal this morning in which, 18 years later, I submit a second article. This one is titled, "Contrasting the roles of the FBI in Watergate and Clinton's Email Case." In It I draw upon a FBI internal 1974 report to show how the Bureau mishandled both cases. I don't know if the Journal, which receives 300 submissions each day, will publish my latest article but the coincidence in your mentioning my prior one after all these years leads me to be hopeful.

[Glenn Nall]

WAIT. What...?

David Von Pein was never a full-fledged CTer??

Man, I really need to pay more attention.

LOL, yeah David said that earlier this year. Too funny!

man, I blocked his stuff a year ago. His arguments were changing me as a person, and I didn't like who I was becoming. Beating my dog, abject failure at simple math and logic problems... mysterious disdain for KFC, (which I've grown up loving)...

when I began questioning Galileo's theories, I knew something was wrong, and I had to draw the line.

[Glenn Nall]

Decades ago when Jay Harrison was compiling evidence on LBJ, Billie Sol Estes and Mac Wallace, I visited him in his trailer in Austin. He described to me the research in which he was engaged. I later received three binders containing documents on the three aforementioned persons that Jay had compiled. A year ago I gave a set of the most relevant of these documents, a pile about a foot and a half high, to Roger Stone and also to Robert Morrow. I also gave these to a highly credible person whom I am not at liberty to name but who is legend in Texas history and who knows plenty about the murdering trio.

I am exploring the feasibility to reproducing these documents and making them available to those who want to see them.

I plan to cite some of them in my review of Joan Mellen's new book.

Anyone who sees these documents compiled by Jay Harrison when quickly realize that there remains a big story not yet told about LBJ, Billie Sol Estes and Mac Wallace. Hopefully Robert Caro will tell this saga in the fifth installment of his LBJ biography that he is working on now. This may the reason why Caro did not even mention Billie Sol or Mac Wallace in his most recent volume that covered the years Billie Sol and Mac Wallace had contact with LBJ.

Barr McClellan, Dawn Meredith and I have lived in Texas and we know what it was like when LBJ exercised supreme power both within the state and nationally. This knowledge sets us apart from others in the JFK assassination community who may live in California or Pennsylvania or elsewhere. Texas was a world of its own when LBJ and his cronies held sway in the Lone Star State.

Amen Doug.

But I don't expect the truth about this from Caro. I fact I doubt he will even go near it.

I just listened to an interview with Stone for the first time ever. Most interesting. I agreed with a lot of it, but I do not see LBJ was the mastermind, just deeply involved. And I said THAT day one at age 14 .

I no longer believe Joan had a mission for the truth. But that is as far as I will go on a forum.

I spoke with Nathan Darby's son today to see if he had any proof - aside from his personal recollection- that his father had kept up his certification. He is not certain if such still exists. I also told him about an alleged note his dad had sent to the IAI and his response to that was "then let her produce this note". (Which no one will I am sure as I know that never occurred).

J had told me about meeting with you Doug and had a copy of your book. A funny Jism: One day after I had returned from court he called and just told me to go find a copy of that day's Wall St journal. Nothing else. (Cryptic as usual) then to call him back So I did. Then it was "open to such and such a page", then lo and behold there was an editorial by you about your days as Watergate atty. I was taken aback as I knew you had represented Billy sol in his letters to AG Trott (etc). "Strange bedfellows", I thought at the time.

I hope someone does a TRUE bio of Mac. Not a whitewash. He was truly a stone cold killer. I have a lot more on my mind about this but have a very early morning. I wonder if non Texan residents are quick to dismiss the TX connection out of some Democratic loyalty to LBJ. It simply baffles me.

Dawn

Dawn: You must possess a form of ESP. You reference above my article to which Jay Harrison called your attention, "What If Judge Sirica Were With Us Today?", that the Wall Street Journal published on March 24, 1998. It was later included in a book that the Journal published on the Clintons.

As I write this my priority mail envelop is being delivered to the Wall Street Journal this morning in which, 18 years later, I submit a second article. This one is titled, "Contrasting the roles of the FBI in Watergate and Clinton's Email Case." In It I draw upon a FBI internal 1974 report to show how the Bureau mishandled both cases. I don't know if the Journal, which receives 300 submissions each day, will publish my latest article but the coincidence in your mentioning my prior one after all these years leads me to be hopeful.

VERY eager and hopeful to read this new article, Doug. I'd like to think that your submission might earn its way toward the top of the list. Here's hoping...

[Dawn Meredith]

Doug: I have had many "experiences" actually. But this is another topic altogether and not for the JFK forum.

Hope they publish you again.

Wow, that was 18 years ago? I still miss J even after so long. We talked every single day for the 8 years we were friends, often several times a day. When he wrote his own obit, just before his death from cancer he emailed it only to two people: Walt and me. I never uttered his name until the day he died. THAT is how secretive he was. That was the price of being his friend that I gladly accepted.

Jim: No J did not believe Mac died that day due to all of the anomalies on the death certificate. Joan had that and we talked about it. But I have no opinion on this, and it was not something J and I discussed except one time in passing. That Wallace's brother would open an empty probate case in 1984 right around the same time as the grand jury was even weirder. The people with whom I spoke had no explanation for this and had never seen it done before. Onward.

[James DiEugenio]

And [Joan Mellen] found out about the circumstances of that trial, things that no one has ever written about before. Namely that there was a ringer on the jury.

James,

Didn't the "ringer" ask for a life imprisonment? (As opposed to the rest of the jury, who asked for the death sentence.)

And then didn't the judge overrule the jury and give Wallace only a 5 year sentence? After which he suspended the sentence and immediately freed Wallace?

That is not the way Joan presents it in her book. (Pgs. 103-04)

And this is the problem I have with people who critique someone's work without reading it. And also relying on what I call the folklore in the field.

May I ask another question:

Who the heck is Jay Harrison? Did he ever write a book? Did he publish any essays in any journals?

Did he ever compile any indexes to files?

I mean even Mary Ferrell published a couple of essays.

I am not one to be overly impressed by how many binders a researcher accumulates.

Edited October 3, 2016 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

GN: And Wallace is known to have "dated" LBJ's wacky-named sister... don't you find all of these "coincidences" a bit smelly? After a time, all the tedious explanations of tedious coincidences start to ring hollow, no matter how factual they may be...

​This is another point Joan goes into. According to her, it was Kinser who had the sexual relationship with Johnson's sister. That is because he was trying to use her to get a government loan to expand his golf course. (pgs. 81-82)

​Joan writes that Wallace, working for the Agriculture Dept. at the time, was supposed to keep an eye out for Josefa through a LBJ crony named Horace Busby. It does not appear that he had the same kind of relationship with Josefa as Kinser had. Kinser seems to have been a real player.

Since, among others, he was fooling around with Wallace's wife.

Edited October 3, 2016 by James DiEugenio

[Douglas Caddy]

Jim:

Jay Harrison was a great American as were J. Evetts Haley and Nathan Darby, all of whom you never miss a chance to defame and villify. They are deceased but those of us who were privileged to know them are still able to speak up in their behalf.

Jim, you are an extremely talented researcher and writer, one of the best, but like Trump you undercut your effectiveness with personal attacks like these. Why do you want to alienate those would gladly boost your public persona except for these unwarranted attacks? As with Trump, this is puzzling as it is self-defeating.

In memory of these three great Americans, I am mailing to Robert Caro the most relevant documents that Jay compiled although I suspect that he already has these as he writes his fifth installment of the LBJ biography.