A Lie Too Big To Fail by Lisa Pease

[Paul Jolliffe]

FWIW,

 

The home page of "The Unz Review" (published by Ron Unz, former gubernatorial candidate in California in 1994) has Edward Curtin's 2,900 word review on the front page.

For those who have never heard of this site, "The Unz Review" is a mixed bag - some mediocre/poor/unreadable writers, and some who are outstanding. Among the latter is Steve Sailer, one of the most observant, prescient and pithiest writers of current events in America.

In any event, I thought it worthwhile to point out that Lisa Pease's book is gaining traction certain circles among some very smart readers.

https://www.unz.com/article/the-cia-takeover-of-america-in-the-1960s-is-the-story-of-our-times/

[James DiEugenio]

Lisa will be on CSPAN 3 this Saturday talking about RFK.

 

 https://www.c-span.org/video/?459353-1/robert-f-kennedy-assassination-reconsidered

Edited April 23, 2019 by James DiEugenio

[Stephanie Goldberg]

I just finished reading this book this week.  Wow!   I had previously read the book by Turner & Christian, but this work obviously has access to far more information than what was available to them at that time.

There was a wealth of information here, so much so that I feel the need to let it digest for a bit.  One thing is very clear, though.  Using just the autopsy evidence and the statements of the people who tackled Sirhan that night, there's no way that he could have done the shooting attributed to him.  Combine that with the remaining original statements of witnesses and the obvious mishandling of the evidence and witnesses in the case, and there's enough information to give any potential juror lots & lots of reasonable doubts.  

(Oh, and I read somewhere that somebody on the forum wrote the introduction.  It was quite good, too.)

 

ETA:  I meant to post this earlier, but I forgot.  It's been a long week, but I wanted to say what a good book this is if anyone hasn't read it yet.

Edited April 24, 2019 by Stephanie Goldberg

[Ray Mitcham]

I second Stephanie's recommendation. The book has so much new evidence, which has never before been seen, and Lisa has shown just how unjust the continued imprisonment of Sirhan Sirhan is.

[Robert Harper]

On 3/9/2019 at 7:38 AM, James DiEugenio said:

Candy Barr and Cohen only went together for a couple of months as far as I can tell.

from the  Diaries of Drew Pearson 1949- 1959

Oct 24 1959:...We had dinner with Mickey Cohen,who is hipped on helping his strip-tease friend, Candy Barr, sentenced to fifteen years in a Texas jail for possession of marijuana. Unquestionably, it was too harsh a sentence, but what was in the judge's mind no doubt was the black  record of her arrests for prostitution and the pornographic motion picture which is still shown in Tiajuana. I told Mickey that I had taken the matter up carefully with the Governor of Texas, but that the Governor was not going to stick his neck out, especially in view of the picture. Mickey put up quite an elegant plea that a girl has to be forgiven mistakes for youth and that she was only fourteen or fifteen at the time that happened. Of course, I'm inclined to get on my white steed and go charging off for various lost causes, but this is one which I don't enthuse over.

The diaries were published after his death by his stepsonTyler Abell in 1973. He spoke of the "staggering amount of words" in the complete diary, yet Volume 2 never came out.

Edited May 29, 2019 by Robert Harper
corrected son in law to stepson

[Pat Speer]

20 hours ago, Robert Harper said:

from the  Diaries of Drew Pearson 1949- 1959

Oct 24 1959:...We had dinner with Mickey Cohen,who is hipped on helping his strip-tease friend, Candy Barr, sentenced to fifteen years in a Texas jail for possession of marijuana. Unquestionably, it was too harsh a sentence, but what was in the judge's mind no doubt was the black  record of her arrests for prostitution and the pornographic motion picture which is still shown in Tiajuana. I told Mickey that I had taken the matter up carefully with the Governor of Texas, but that the Governor was not going to stick his neck out, especially in view of the picture. Mickey put up quite an elegant plea that a girl has to be forgiven mistakes for youth and that she was only fourteen or fifteen at the time that happened. Of course, I'm inclined to get on my white steed and go charging off for various lost causes, but this is one which I don't enthuse over.

The diaries were published after his death by his son in law Tyler Abell in 1973. He spoke of the "staggering amount of words" in the complete diary, yet Volume 2 never came out.

I'm fairly certain Volume 2 is among the Pearson papers at the LBJ Library. I remember reading an excerpt online somewhere, and belief I quote from it on my website. I'll try to find the passage. 

 

Here, I found the quote. (off-topic, but still presumably of interest).

From patspeer.com, chapter 10

 

On March 1, 1967, after a months-long investigation performed by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison's office, in which Garrison suggested President Johnson's involvement in the murder of President Kennedy, local business leader Clay Shaw was arrested as a conspirator in the murder of President Kennedy. This cast a dark shadow over the Johnson Administration. The next day, Robert Kennedy made a speech in which he implored President Johnson to stop bombing North Vietnam and give peace a chance. This cast an even darker shadow. That afternoon, a disgusted President Johnson called up men such as Senator Richard Russell, Senator Scoop Jackson, House Majority Leader Carl Albert, National Security Advisor Walt Rostow, and Secretary of State Dean Rusk to complain about Kennedy's speech, and to ask them to help get the message out that he'd tried a bombing halt, but it hadn't worked. Still later that night, President Johnson received a phone call from Texas Governor John Connally, of all people, who had heard a story going round that President Kennedy was killed by Cubans who'd been turned against him by Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, as a response to Robert Kennedy's attempts at killing Castro. Johnson told Connally he'd already heard about this from Drew Pearson, and that there was almost certainly nothing to it.

But then on March 3, 1967, the very next day, Pearson and his colleague Jack Anderson published a column regarding a story they'd known about for months, and had personally discussed with President Johnson on January 16. Its opening line read: "President Johnson is sitting on a political H-bomb, an unconfirmed report that Senator Robert Kennedy may have approved an assassination plot which then possibly backfired against his late brother." Yep, you got it. In December 1966, just after Life Magazine, the New York Times, and Kennedy family friend Arthur Schlesinger called for a new investigation of the Kennedy assassination, Pearson published a column blaming the Kennedy family for the secrecy regarding President Kennedy's autopsy, and then, in March 1967, just after Robert Kennedy started criticizing Johnson's policy regarding Vietnam, Pearson published a column blaming Robert Kennedy for his brother's murder. 

And I'm not the first to suspect Johnson was behind all this. Nope. Not at all. A 6-20-77 column by Pearson's colleague and successor, Jack Anderson, found in the Spokane Daily Chronicle, reveals that "Former aides of the late Robert Kennedy have now confided that he was furious over our (March 3, 1967) column. It was published at a time of strained relations between Kennedy and then-President Lyndon Johnson. Kennedy thought Johnson had leaked the story to us."

It's a lot to chew on, I admit. And there's more to chew on than I'd originally believed. In 2013, Philip Shenon published his book on the Warren Commission, A Cruel and Shocking Act. Although his book dealt primarily with the 1964 investigation of Kennedy's assassination, Shenon shined a light on this point as well. While reading Pearson's unpublished diaries (strangely stored at the LBJ Library), Shenon discovered both that Pearson was unhappy with the March 3, 1967 story as published and that the decision to publish the story was not made by Pearson, but by his younger colleague, Anderson, who was fearful the story was about to be outed by Jim Garrison, and that he and Pearson would thereby lose their scoop. 

So why didn't Pearson make the decision, you might ask? Well, get this, he was out of the country, in South America, traveling across the Andes with Chief Justice Earl Warren. And what was Warren doing in South America, you might ask?  Well, isn't it obvious? He was on an official visit promoting America in general and the conclusions of the Warren Commission in particular. 

You know, the way Chief Justices of the United States always do...

 

Edited May 9, 2019 by Pat Speer

[Ron Bulman]

On 1/6/2019 at 12:42 AM, Ron Bulman said:

RFK was slightly past where the crouching policeman is when he was shot.  There were 70 plus people in this area at the time.  Sirhan and the girl in the Polka dot Dress were standing on the tray cart to the left by the ice machine when RFK  came through the double doors where the man in the distance is in the picture.  As RFK approached Sirhan stepped off the tray cart toward the tables on the right and began firing  at RFK around another man from 3-6' away (blanks?).  Another man, similary dressed, crouching on the table beside and behind him began firing to RFK's right, hitting four people.  Upon this signal Security guard Thane Cesar from Ace Security, leading him by his right hand with his left shot RFK three times in the chest with is right.  At the same time a man hiding between the ice machine and the wall sticking out behind it behind the kneeling officer in this picture stepped out and shot RFK behind his right ear. Possibly twice.  

 

 

On 1/6/2019 at 10:36 PM, Ron Bulman said:

Notice the Eight ceiling tiles removed in the picture.  LAPD expert criminologist/investigator Wolfer commented on the number of bullet holes in the ceiling.  The tiles I guess disappeared from evidence after the trial along with the door facings with bullet holes in them.  Wolfer then testified on RFK being shot from 3/4" away behind his right ear.  Not 3 - 6' away from the front.  He then lied about the identification of bullets from RFK and other victims.  Conflicted?  Further evidence of malfeasance is presented in the book, read it.    

This picture says so much, about both assassinations.  Some of the dark spots on the floor in front of the policeman may well be RFK's blood.  The tray stacker in the left front is where Polka Dot woman and Sirhan stood for an elevated look as RFK came into the room, from whence she prodded him towards the tables on the right where he shot from and was immediately tackled onto while firing wildly.  But not 3/4 of an inch from RFK's ear.  Another guy crouched from on the tables to the right where the bottles and cups are in the picture and fired into the crowd to create the fact of shots from there, wounding several, and causing others to duck and seek shelter from the shots instead of witnessing what was happening.  Then he jumped down and ran out the door behind him.  All witnessed.

As this happened, while they were passing the slight partition in the hallway behind the policeman crouching with the flashlight in the picture,  Ace Security Guard Cesar grabbed RFK's right arm with his left and drew his gun with his right hand and shot RFK twice in the chest.  At the same time another assassin stepped out from the partition next to where the officer is crouched in the picture.  While Cesar held and shot him he did too, twice behind the right ear, less than an inch away.  No other way it happened.   Don't believe me?  Read the book, look at the pictures, diagrams and layout.

If Maheu engineered this in 68, what did Dulles and Angleton do in 63? 

[Robert Harper]

On 5/9/2019 at 9:39 PM, Pat Speer said:

late Robert Kennedy have now confided that he was furious over our (March 3, 1967) column. It was published at a time of strained relations between Kennedy and then-President Lyndon Johnson. Kennedy thought Johnson had leaked the story to us."

Pat--Thanks for this. For a number of years I'd check whether or not Pearson's Vol 2 was published. It was my understanding that his stepson (I erred in referring to him as son in law) had them stashed at U of Texas. I read Vol 1 few years back and was surprised he was so attached to everything--he'd casually note for instance, that he'd just written a speech for Adlai or Johnson; or  been contacted by so and so. It's a pretty hefty book covering a decade and I was certainly interested in reading Vol 2. By definition, the diarist is writing to be read, so I don't know how candid he would have been about 1961-1963. The papers sat for over 40 years without publishing and I just found that Harvard has printed Vol 2 in a 2015 copyright. Since his death, his ties to the Mockingbird process has been studied and the stepson - a lawyer who edited the first volume - passed away and let #2 sit in purgatory without readers. I think whoever edited or whoever got the material after the 1974 publication likely altered it, so I'm not springing for this way overdue sibling.

[Shane O'Sullivan]

51 years after the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, we continue to seek justice for Kennedy and the unfairly-convicted Sirhan. I'm writing a new piece on why we need to reopen the case but in the meantime, I'm sharing a new essay on some of the theories presented in Lisa Pease's recent book A Lie Too Big to Fail. While it's well-researched and digs up plenty of interesting new leads, I don't believe Sirhan was firing blanks or that there were more than two shooters in the pantry. Here, I explain why: http://www.whokilledbobby.net/a-lie-too-big-to-fail

[Ron Bulman]

You smooth over a lot there.  RFK was hit twice under his right arm in the chest.  One bullet lodged in the spine, the other passed through the chest.  Another bullet passed through RFK's coat not injuring him.  Then another bullet, or two (you don't acknowledge the tracking of two bullets in the brain by coroner Naguchi) behind the right ear in the brain.  That's at least four bullets.  There were five other shooting victims.  That's nine bullet's minimum.  One too many for Sirhan's gun.  Then we have pictures of and statements about bullet holes in the door frames and ceiling tiles.  Way more than eight.  Just for starters.

As for "Rafer Johnson and her husband".  He helped subdue Sirhan between the second and third shots.

https://www.sosc.org/raferjohnson 

[Shane O'Sullivan]

Ron, I'm not sure you read my piece. I agree there were two shooters but I don't think there were four, or that Sirhan was firing blanks. 

[Stephanie Goldberg]

7 hours ago, Shane O'Sullivan said:

Ron, I'm not sure you read my piece. I agree there were two shooters but I don't think there were four, or that Sirhan was firing blanks. 

For reasons I can't explain, I had issues when I clicked on the link above.  -shrugs-  I did find your essay by just doing a search for your website.  I will need to pull out Ms. Pease's book to re-examine the points you list in relation to her book since I read it a few months ago.

Just from an operational standpoint, though, I do think that Sirhan's gun having blanks makes more sense.  If the goal is to take out RFK, then you don't want the hypnotized (?) Sirhan taking out the other shooter by accident before they can accomplish their goal.  Otherwise, you've mounted a risky plan with a built in chance of failure from the start.  And I have never believed that these people were minor league plotters.

[Shane O'Sullivan]

Glad you found it, Stephanie. If anyone else has issues accessing it, you can also find it here: https://www.scribd.com/document/412494211/A-Lie-Too-Big-to-Fail

I think adding two more shooters in the pantry - one on the steam table ensuring he fired in the same direction as Sirhan, and another in a busboy outfit, right next to Cesar - makes the operation even more complex and risky, with two more shooters who need to escape undetected. It's best to discuss the operational risks of the two-shooter scenario with a professional, who's been involved in such operations but as far as I know, Lisa hasn't done that. 

 

Edited June 7, 2019 by Shane O'Sullivan

[Ron Bulman]

Yes Shane I read the article and appreciate the fact you've investigated the subject, written a book and directed a show about it.  I hope that your "hope that we can work together … to seek justice" works out since you agree Sirhan didn't kill RFK, he was a programed patsy, and a second gunman killed RFK.

To paraphrase "The purpose of the essay is to stop the public from being lead down the rabbit hole of the blanks, due to a lack of evidence for them".  Even though you go deeper than the blanks.  There's not hard evidence for them or if there was it's been obscured.  Other than the fact that if Sirhan's wild shooting wounded five others but not RFK, from the front, that leaves 3 shots to cause the 4 shots in the door jambs (documented), and all those holes in the ceiling Wolfer mentioned.  I still think it's possible someone was shooting from behind Sirhan to supplement his shots, or blanks. There are witness, you note, who saw gun flashes and bit's of paper (wadding).  You also note witnesses who saw shots being fired from an elevated position behind Sirhan.  E.G Lubic.  In spite of your speculation regarding his statements I don't see Sirhan getting his knee on the table as he was subdued.  12 year old Panda at 5'2", 10-15' behind RFK sees a man with a gun over the top of RFK's head.  The angles don't work for me for that being Sirhan.  Then Mrs. Plimpton's statements are varied and can be interpreted different ways.

You say "Lisa uses second hand reports of a pretty flaky sounding story to support her extra shooter theory".  Limiting the operation to two shooters makes your theory a little flaky IMHO.  If Sirhan shot eight times and missed RFK from the front that leaves all four, or more likely five shots to Ceasar.  It's hard for me to believe he shot three times under RFK's arm, pulled the gun out then shot him (twice?) behind the ear from 1/4 - 2" away.  And nobody noticed.  Didn't only two witnesses notice Ceasar having drawn his gun at all?  (which he admitted doing, but said he never fired it).  But with two shooters that's about the only possibility.

Regarding CCI blanks.  Yes they (still) make them, they're short's with a crimped tip as there's no bullet in it.  It can be fired from any 22 but the shell is very obviously shorter than a long or long rifle version.  Which would have been noticed if pulled out of an open cylinder but not with a cursory look at it, one would still see the "C" on the bottom of all their shells.  All this begs the question, is the gun in evidence the one Rafer Johnson handed over.  It's not the one Wolfer test fired, admittedly, if memory serves.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=cci+22+blank&form=PRUSEN&mkt=en-us&httpsmsn=1&refig=95bd3968b8ad406cb5ee44b6a8b1ca1e&sp=1&qs=AS&pq=cci+22+bl&sc=8-9&cvid=95bd3968b8ad406cb5ee44b6a8b1ca1e

The part that most perplexes me is the two head shots.  From pg. 204 of Lisa's book; Wolfer's log 6/13, items 24/25, Bullet's from Kennedy's head.  Not fragments, bullets.  Pgs. 201-2; "Autopsy...Two bullet tracks, one anterior to the vertical dimension (15 degrees), the second by 30 degrees.  The tracks diverge by 45 degrees."  Not fragment tracks, dispersed throughout the brain.  Bullet tracks.  Yet elsewhere 44 fragments from the brain are mentioned. 

You don't believe Meier, or that Maheu was involved.  But you believe in a second shooter, a conspiracy.  Ceasr hypnotized Sirhan because he (admittedly) hated Kennedy?  I still think it was a little more complex than that.  And somebody had to organize, manage and execute the operation. 

Edited June 10, 2019 by Ron Bulman

[Dawn Meredith]

On ‎2‎/‎28‎/‎2019 at 10:32 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Makes you wonder does it not?

Literally hundreds of books written on the JFK case in the last several years.  IMO, most of them worthless.

Lisa writes a good book on the RFK case and look what happens.

Were we barking up the wrong tree for decades?

Not necessarily but I have always believed that this would be the easiest case to prove due to the autopsy. It is hard to argue with that conclusion and if any mainstream news man or woman dares to host Lisa this is the main point to argue. (Did Wolf ever really have her on? )

I wonder if RFK Jr has read this book yet? He has made his views known but of course MSM ignores him too.

Dawn