John Newman on Lisa Pease's challenges to his research

[David Andrews]

I get you, Larry, but I was schooled on our back threads, and I think members past and present did excellent work on spelling out the roles for those names.  More people should be looking at those threads.

I look forward to the specificity you're going for in your forthcoming work.

Edited December 29, 2019 by David Andrews

[Larry Hancock]

In terms not only of roles but of actual documents, travel, confessions I think I got pretty specific in NEXUS, beyond that to some extent I've been surprised that nobody has ever really engaged with that level of detail or the tactical scenario I spelled out in SWHT.  I would have liked to see that sort of exchange...   What I intend to do next is a final monograph, not necessarily a book, based in SWHT, NEXUS, my new book In Denial and the Wheaton Names research papers. There will be some new sources and citations but I did enough footnoting in the other work that it should not have to be repeated.  Basically it will be a scenario, beginning circa 1958 that ends up with the attack in Dallas...my best effort to present my own conclusions of how matters jelled into a situation where the president was at actual risk beginning in the fall of 1963 and then was attacked in Dallas. 

How long this will take me, not sure, hope to be finished with it in 2020.  It will be as factual as I can make it, with some speculation but minimal inference and maximum attribution to human sources.

[Paul Brancato]

29 minutes ago, Larry Hancock said:

In terms not only of roles but of actual documents, travel, confessions I think I got pretty specific in NEXUS, beyond that to some extent I've been surprised that nobody has ever really engaged with that level of detail or the tactical scenario I spelled out in SWHT.  I would have liked to see that sort of exchange...   What I intend to do next is a final monograph, not necessarily a book, based in SWHT, NEXUS, my new book In Denial and the Wheaton Names research papers. There will be some new sources and citations but I did enough footnoting in the other work that it should not have to be repeated.  Basically it will be a scenario, beginning circa 1958 that ends up with the attack in Dallas...my best effort to present my own conclusions of how matters jelled into a situation where the president was at actual risk beginning in the fall of 1963 and then was attacked in Dallas. 

How long this will take me, not sure, hope to be finished with it in 2020.  It will be as factual as I can make it, with some speculation but minimal inference and maximum attribution to human sources.

Really look forward to that.

you mentioned Skorzeny a few posts ago. I’m still curious what Ganis shared with you at last year’s conference, and what your efforts to run down leads  revealed if anything. And I’m waiting for whoever is handling Albarell’s  last work to publish it. My private communications with Hank (never met him in person) Lee me to believe he was on a similar trajectory, and that he had the goods on who in Dallas may have been a liaison with Otto.

my own sleuthing of old newspaper columns and a few documents etc suggests that we have not dived deep enough into Skorzeny’s connections with Cuban exiles. By his own words we know he worked through intermediaries with ‘the enemies of Castro’. I know you work with provable facts as much as possible and avoid too much ‘speculation’, but it’s unfortunately unavoidable given the massive attempt to obscure the truth. 

You seem to be at cross purposes with Newman. From my perspective there is ample evidence of MI involvement, and it does not seem incompatible with CIA/exile theories. 

[David Andrews]

1 hour ago, Larry Hancock said:

In terms not only of roles but of actual documents, travel, confessions I think I got pretty specific in NEXUS, beyond that to some extent I've been surprised that nobody has ever really engaged with that level of detail or the tactical scenario I spelled out in SWHT.  I would have liked to see that sort of exchange...  

I expect my final monograph on the subject to be far more specific than I was even in NEXUS. 

Larry, I was just commenting on this expectation, not ignoring your exemplary prior work.

I had thought that John Simkin, for one, had given excellent attention to SWHT, and that past threads here - for instance, on John Martino - owed a lot to SWHT.

Beyond the Wheaton-Carl Jenkins material on JFK, do you have any thoughts Gene Wheaton's statements on our 1980s involvements in Central America?

Edited December 29, 2019 by David Andrews

[Larry Hancock]

Good point David,  actually this had been in play for so long I tend to forget some of those older threads...and there was some very good discussion back then.  I do think that for some reason certain individuals - including Jack Ruby - are significant indicators as to the actual nature of the Dallas operation and the implication of that seems to have faded away over time.  I think the same is true for the major implications of the conspiracy story that Roselli took to Washington, to Warren, the FBI, the Secret Service and even to LBJ as the Garrison investigation was just about to be made public...force out by De Torres ...all that seems to fade away in the face of new theories and suspects.

As to Wheaton on Central America, I think Stu and I both feel that as soon as Wheaton tried to get Jenkins and Quintero to go on the record, even with some sort of deal, they did exactly as they told him they would and started planting misinformation, both with him and with others. For that reason we tend to be cautious about his remarks about Central America because if he was getting the majority of his info from them...as seems probable....it would likely be a mixture of true and false as any good misinformation had to be..

[Larry Hancock]

Paul,  about all I can say is that Stu actually went down and spent time with Ganis looking for more detail and while it remains interesting we are simply waiting for the Alberelli book to reach any further conclusions, or frankly for more data to assess.  I really try to refrain from having an opinion before seeing all the data so at this point its an open question.  I have tried to run down all the Cuban connections Ralph listed and all I can say is that they don't seem to help me connect any dots.  What is clear is that lots of people talked to Skorzeney over time, some found him helpful, others (including military officers) did not.  Depends who was asking him for what purpose.  The most help he seems to have been was to give introductions and point to scientists and other military personnel he had known during his WWII service.

As far as being at cross purposes with John,  not so far as I know at this point.  I've reviewed what he has presented and so far its pretty much things I had already seen and even written about.  He is making some inferences that I expect he will support in his next works so I have to wait for that. 

But beyond that, as far as my own research goes, I have seen no factual evidence the military intelligence was directly involved in the attack in Dallas....I'm going to need a lot more than simply seeing former military officers within the DPD to make that case - and as I said earlier, I do personally object to accusing people of something like treason and conspiracy simply on the basis of propinquity.  If that makes me too conservative, too contrarian or just too much of a pain in the rear, that's just me.

 

Edited December 29, 2019 by Larry Hancock

[James DiEugenio]

20 hours ago, Douglas Caddy said:

Pease is the protégé of Jim DiEugenio and always echoes what he promulgates. Since he is writing the script for Oliver Stone's JFK 2.0 it will be interesting to see if the script takes the CIA-Did-It theory or the Military-Did-It theory. A lot rides on the decision because Stone likely does not want his upcoming TV series to embrace an old orthodox theory of the assassination that is being brushed aside by new evidence discovered and compiled by John Newman about the paramount role of the Military in the killing of JFK.

I really do not understand what this means.  

 "Pease is a protege of Jim DiEugenio and always echoes what he promulgates."

First, Lisa wrote her own book on the RFK case.  All I did with that book was proofread it and write the intro. (And she did not think I did a good job proofreading it.) Lisa wrote the 500 pages of text and notes.  She did  the research and writing on her own.  She did not even invite me to go to Canada and interview John Meier with her. That was David Talbot. 

It was Larry Hancock who did previous work on this particular subject, that is the sponsorship of Alpha 66 in 1963, and how the CIA was intent on spying on that group.  It is right in his book, SWHT.  (440-41) He noted this to me weeks ago in a personal email.  

The idea that  the CIA having the major hand in the plot stand or falls with Veciana, that is so bizarre that its a little risible-- and only Tracy Parnell could think it up.  My entire 60 minute lecture at the Dallas CAPA conference was themed around the CIA's role in the conspiracy.  I did not mention Veciana once.  Nor did I mention Phillips.  That is how much evidence there is for Agency complicity.  And I was very specific about this in my talk.   And only as an addendum did I even mention Bernardo DeTorres. If Caddy or Parnell do not attend these things then that is their decision. Maybe they think they know everything there is to know by surfing forums?

As per military involvement, I mean be real.  Ever since the trial of Clay Shaw there has been primary evidence that there were was a military presence at the autopsy at Bethesda. This presence was there in order to be sure that normal autopsy  procedures were not carried out,  since it would reveal a crossfire in Dealey Plaza, e.g.:

1. The dissection of Kennedy's back wound.  

2. The weighing of Kennedy's brain that night.

3. The sectioning of the brain.

None of the above were done, and they should have been.  I could also mention the strange cover up of Lemay's travels that day.

The CIA would have no excuse to be there.  The military did.  And as I posted previously, Lemay and Dulles were on a nickname basis.

 

Edited December 29, 2019 by James DiEugenio

[Douglas Caddy]

This thread started off with a posting by John Newman on Facebook that read:

This post is only ostensibly directed at Lisa Pease The details illustrate a perfect example of what I said yesterday: “So many have for so long been invested in an orthodoxy that it is only natural that it will take time for the change to take place. That is normal. That is the nature of orthodoxies when the time comes to overturn them. I am not interested in heated arguments and will not participate in them.”

Clearly Newman is declaring that those with a vested interest in promoting an old orthodoxy that is being replaced by a new belief in who was primarily responsible for the assassination of JFK are in a form of denial and that "it  is only natural that it will take time for the change of take place."

This is Newman's opinion as articulated by him, not by me, although I agree with him

 

 

Edited December 29, 2019 by Douglas Caddy

[W. Tracy Parnell]

3 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

The idea that  the CIA having the major hand in the plot stand or falls with Veciana, that is so bizarre that its a little risible-- and only Tracy Parnell could think it up.

If Veciana is ultimately discredited in the eyes of the majority of the research community (which is coming I believe), I certainly do not expect it to be the end of the CIA-did-it theories. However, Veciana's story is brought up time and time again by authors of books that think the CIA did it and for that reason I certainly think it is long past time that Veciana is exposed. But people on my side of the debate are just as guilty as Fonzi and his followers who did little to vet Veciana's story.

[Douglas Caddy]

Jim DiEugenio and John Newman are both renowned scholars and are deservedly accorded the highest respect for their knowledge by all dedicated researchers interested in the Kennedy assassination. That there may be a major disagreement developing between them as to who was primarily responsible for the assassination of JFK is a healthy sign. The controversy could lead to a rebirth of interest in the topic  by the academic community, mass media and public. As someone wrote on Facebook today about this development, "Wow! There is hot magna moving underneath the surface." What Jim and John do as well as the rest of us is to assure that the Eternal Flame never dies out because the JFK assassination as a watershed event is the key to understanding what has happened since 1963 and is happening to our world today.

Edited December 30, 2019 by Douglas Caddy

[Douglas Caddy]

John Newman posted the following on Facebook this afternoon:

Well, I suppose it's not hard to believe, but here we go again. Yesterday, near the end of all the exhausting threads on Veciana, I encountered a post from Gavan McMahon. I responded, and, apparently, not satisfied, he posted another FB message to me today. As most of you know, I would rather not persist answering questions from people who have not read what I have published. I also prefer to keep what I have to say easy for everyone to see rather than at the tail end of a marathon thread. With that here goes:
1. Gavan McMahon to John Newman: Dr John Newman , thank you for your work. Can you tell me when you spoke to Mr Antonio Veciana about your findings that his Alpha 66 role was under the control of Army intelligence and not CIA? What was his response to the documents that you have identified and researched that connect his Alpha 66 reporting to Army intelligence?
At the AARC conference in September 2014 Mr Antonio Veciana made his public admission about working for Mr David Atlee Phillips CIA and linkage to Lee Harvey Oswald. I note that you didn't ask Mr Veciana any questions at this presentation. It is clear that there was research back in 2014, and I would imagine well before then, that provided information that suggested Mr Veciana was working for Army Intelligence.Can you explain why you did not take take this opportunity at the 2014 AARC to question Mr Veciana about your findings? Or had you contacted Mr Veciana prior to his 2014 AARC presentation about your findings?
I note that at the 2014 AARC Mr Bill Simpich asked Mr Veciana whether he worked with Army Intelligence as well as with Mr David Philips during a 'bazooka attack' to which Mr Veciana said no. I note that Mr Malcolm Blunt asked Mr Veciana at 2014 AARC about his role with Army Intelligence and reference to a working crypt DUP748 and Mr Veciana being connected to 902 Military Group. Mr Veciana then responds that he was approached by a Mr Patrick Harris Army Intelligence to assist and he provided assistance at that time. Mr Blunt asks Mr Veciana if he was working for Army intelligence and CIA which he states is illegal and Mr Veciana says no. Thank you.
2. John Newman to Gavan McMahon: Malcolm and Bill, who are very close friends of mine, asked the questions that were on my mind. In addition, other researchers I am in touch with (former investigators for the HSCA) interviewed Veciana afterward and posed the questions to him that I had. I would point out that Veciana is speaks in Spanish and is now getting on in years. I am sorry to report that I move at a very slow pace on important questions on this case; I also have a very conservative methodology that requires independent attestation in order to put something in the possible or probable columns. May I ask you if you have read the Veciana chapters in my most recent book, Volume III "Into the Storm"? 🙏
3. Gavan McMahon to John Newman, John, thank you for your response. I must say I am surprised that in the last 10 years you have chosen not to talk to Mr Veciana given he is a primary not secondary source. He was 86 at the 2014 AARC and 91 now, but it appears you are reluctant to make contact with him. I would have thought an exchange with Mr Veciana would help you sort information into possible or probable columns. Can you explain why you have chosen not to talk to Mr Veciana about your findings and his role.
Can you also clarify what your questions to Mr Veciana at the 2014 AARC were (via the former HSCA investigators) and his responses to these. Can you confirm who the former HSCA investigators were that you engaged at the 2014 AARC. Dan Hardway? I have one more question please. Who was the member of the Warren Commission representing the military? I will follow your book reviews etc with a view to purchasing your work.
4. SO.....here were are now. Although something tells me Gavan McMahon will not let this go, this is my final response to him:
John Newman to Gavan McMahon: Your post presupposes that I have “chosen” for ten years not to talk to Veciana. And there you are wrong. That is what happens when you get ahead of your skis. Although I have been publishing books on the Kennedy Presidency since 1992, you will not find anything under my name about Veciana until Volume III, “Into the Storm,” published in 2017. I did not take the opportunity to speak to Veciana at the 2014 AARC because, as I have already told you, what questions were on my mind existed only because of what I had learned from Malcolm Blunt, Bill Simpich, and Dan Hardway. Not long after that conference, however, Dan suggested to me that I look into Veciana’s story. When Veciana’s Book, “Trained to Kill,” was publisheded in 2017, Dan Hardway posted his own concerns on the AARC website: https://aarclibrary.org/a-professional-conspirator-questio…/

At the time my book “Into the Storm” was published, Dan, and another former HSCA investigator interviewed Veciana again and asked him many questions, including questions I had. Even with Spanish translation, the interview was difficult and did not go so well. That is all I will tell you about it. I am not in a position to share the contents of that interview with you because it was given to me privately. I suggest that you should contact Dan Hardway and ask him yourself. Better still, you could contact Veciana and ask to speak with him. If you want to ask him questions about what I have written, I respectfully suggest that you read what I have written before doing so. No matter what you decide to do, if your interview with Veciana takes place, I would be—as many others would be—interested if you would post the details publicly.
I have only begun to process all of the existing information. That has been my research methodology for the last thirty years. I told you before that I work slowly. Besides witnessing Veciana’s performance in 2014 and reading his autobiography several times, I have three linear feet of documents on Veciana—including all of his interviews with Gaeton Fonzi, all of his interviews and depositions, and all of the long FBI interviews with Veciana’s associates and closest friends and much, much more. I am satisfied with the records we have. If you are not satisfied and think you can shed new light on Veciana’s activities from 1959 to 2017, please contact him. And please report back what you have discovered. I wish you well.✍️🙏

A PROFESSIONAL CONSPIRATOR: Questions About Antonio Veciana and His Book: Trained To Kill © 2017 Dan Hardway — 20 April, 2017 | It appears to me that Antonio Veciana has, once again, been less than forthcoming in connection with the Kennedy assassination. I will try to explain why but, first, I w...

aarclibrary.org

 

A PROFESSIONAL CONSPIRATOR: Questions About Antonio Veciana and His Book: Trained To Kill

A PROFESSIONAL CONSPIRATOR: Questions About Antonio Veciana and His Book: Trained…

A PROFESSIONAL

[Anthony Thorne]

I dunno if there is a ‘major disagreement’ between John N. and Jim D - maybe there is, but it hasn’t stood out to me - as Newman has evidently been doing a solid job of indicating that Veciana was duplicitous about his bio. And it looks like Newman is building a case that this was done to point the finger away from Army Intelligence and military involvement, and towards the CIA. Newman’s book that apparently will go into this doesn’t come out till 2021, and it’s not even the final volume, so if anyone asked me to break Newman’s thesis down further, I couldn’t.

But does this really prove or disprove anything about the CIA’s ultimate involvement? Maybe the CIA and military were both involved. You’d figure it’d be easier to kill a sitting President with the combined help of the military and CIA, rather than the military running the whole show themselves as best as they could with the CIA sitting on the sidelines with surprised looks on their faces. I’ll defer to others but from what I’ve read of Newman’s stuff (I haven’t finished book 3) he hasn’t disproven the CIA’s involvement yet.

[David Andrews]

A bit like Murder on the Orient Express, innit?  They all dunnit, they all covered it up.  Some struck hard, some struck weakly.  They all watched.

This sounds like parody, but really is not.

[Anthony Mugan]

I would join Larry Hancock and others in urging a degree of caution here at the moment.

One of the difficulties here is in differentiating between evidence of participation in the actual conspiracy itself and, other activity that was going on anyway (such as a lot of the FBI and Agency involvement that appears to have been going on with LHO - and perhaps army intelligence involvement with Alpha-66).

It is probably a mistake to think of this in terms of 'the CIA' or 'the army' or 'the mob' rather than as a network of individuals that came together to do this, centered, at an operational level around a core group of anti-Castro Cuban exiles, many of whom seem to have been in Operation 40 or very closely associated with that, supported by individuals such as Morales, Robertson, Martino, Roselli etc who were also closely connected into operations out of Miami against Cuba. The very short connection path from Roselli (and Giancarna) to Ruby via the Chicago mob is highly persuasive of how that side of things came together.

I just do not know where Professor Newman's work on Veciana and other matters will take us. As I can't work full time on this sort of thing, like most of us, I shall have to wait and see were the evidence takes us.

At the moment we have a puzzle - why did Veciana lie about this? I could well be wrong, but it's not like anyone was seriously going after army personnel involvement in the JFK case in 1976 (or were they?)

 

 

[Douglas Caddy]

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