Tipping Point serialization now in progress on the Mary Ferrell Foundation site

[Denny Zartman]

6 minutes ago, Matt Allison said:

Not really. Bobby Kennedy influenced the autopsy at Bethesda and he didn't want his brother killed. Many things were covered up in this crime, but not all for the reason of hiding a conspiracy.

It's easy to point fingers at people, but evidence is required.

Of course it's easy to point fingers at people. You yourself pointed to hundreds if not thousands of nameless ones in one sentence. It's harder to use the process of elimination to narrow a list, but it's possible.

Unless I'm mistaken, hundreds or thousands of people could not just call up and issue directions to the doctors at Bethesda Naval Hospital like one would call a pizza place and make an order.

I believe if we are to look for suspects, we might consider looking at those that did have that access and authority.

Your point about Bobby Kennedy also influencing the autopsy is a bit disingenuous since you ignored all the other qualifiers that were mentioned.

Yes, the deceased President's brother who is also the Attorney General of the United States would be part of a select group that could call or enter the autopsy room in Bethesda while an autopsy on a president was being performed, or even issue directions and orders. Therefore, the four additional qualifiers come into use.

• Did RFK want JFK dead?
• Did RFK benefit from JFK's death?
• Could RFK count the top law enforcement official in the country as an ally during the investigation of JFK's murder?
• Was RFK handpicking the members of the commission tasked to investigate and confirm a pre-determined conclusion?

OF course, the answers to all four are no. In my opinion no reasonable person would argue otherwise.

Then who does fit those four qualifiers, while also fitting the following:

• Had the ability to call or visit the autopsy room at Bethesda at the time
• Had the authority to direct the doctors

[Allen Lowe]

I gotta say, anyone who doesn't think the Zapruder film is what consolidated and then rescued the pro-conspiracy movement is just too young to understand what a different world it was in those days. We had none of the mass of public photography and public testimony as amplified a million times through social media, and there was still, pre-Vietnam, an essential trust in government. Even with Vietnam, without the full exposure of the Zapruder film, the evidence would have been based on a lot of hearsay, and much that emerged LATER - FBI, CIA files, et al - would have been much less in demand. I feel so certain about this, and pardon me for pulling the age-card, but people born much later really often don't understand how radically different communications were in the early 1960s. I am not saying there wouldn't be a movement that thought there was a conspiracy, but without the oxygen given it by Zapruder it would be a fraction of what it is today.

Also, I am a bit startled to hear the repeat of the old myth of RFK restricting the autopsy. That is pure CIA disinformation. There is absolutely no evidence that he did so.

Edited December 30, 2020 by Allen Lowe

[Eddy Bainbridge]

22 minutes ago, Allen Lowe said:

I gotta say, anyone who doesn't think the Zapruder film is what consolidated and then rescued the pro-conspiracy movement is just too young to understand what a different world it was in those days. We had none of the mass of public photography and public testimony as amplified a million times through social media, and there was still, pre-Vietnam, an essential trust in government. Even with Vietnam, without the full exposure of the Zapruder film, the evidence would have been based on a lot of hearsay, and much that emerged LATER - FBI, CIA files, et al - would have been much less in demand. I feel so certain about this, and pardon me for pulling the age-card, but people born much later really often don't understand how radically different communications were in the early 1960s. I am not saying there wouldn't be a movement that thought there was a conspiracy, but without the oxygen given it by Zapruder it would be a fraction of what it is today.

I accept that I (who at 53) did not really 'live' the experience but if you will allow me an equivalent generalisation. I discern in older posters/ researchers a resistance to honest consideration that the extant Z film is not the camera original. I suspect the shock at seeing the film in the sixties burned a version of reality onto the brains of those who experienced it 

I feel this has and is hampering research progress 

[Matt Allison]

1 hour ago, Allen Lowe said:

Also, I am a bit startled to hear the repeat of the old myth of RFK restricting the autopsy. That is pure CIA disinformation. There is absolutely no evidence that he did so.

RFK was at the autopsy. RFK did not want his brother's Addison Disease revealed. Are you disputing that?

As far as "CIA disinformation", prove that assertion or don't expect to be taken seriously.

[Paul Brancato]

1 hour ago, Eddy Bainbridge said:

I accept that I (who at 53) did not really 'live' the experience but if you will allow me an equivalent generalisation. I discern in older posters/ researchers a resistance to honest consideration that the extant Z film is not the camera original. I suspect the shock at seeing the film in the sixties burned a version of reality onto the brains of those who experienced it 

I feel this has and is hampering research progress 

Eddie - I’m one of those older folks who remembers the shock of the Zapruder film when we finally got to see it, and I admit I am reluctant to give credence to the altered Z film scenario. The version we saw shows a frontal hit, or perhaps more than one. Why bother  to alter the film and leave that crucial evidence? What exactly was altered? The speed of the limo? The actions of Clint Hill? I’ve always been puzzled about this. What do you think, as someone not prone to such resistance as I, is the importance of the film alteration? Where does it lead? 

[Ron Bulman]

I'm certainly no expert but from what I've read I believe the Z film kind of kicked public opinion in the rear and thereby supplemented the work of the Church Committee leading to the HSCA.  Which concluded conspiracy.  The senate, congress, some of the press and public were disturbed by what had been found.  But would there have been a HSCA without the Z film?  I don't know.

I'm not sure when I first saw pictures of a few frames, very blurry/grainy.  But I don't remember actually seeing it until the film JFK came out.  To my knowledge it was still not widely shown to the public by the msm after the Geraldo reveal.  I've looked at it/parts of it several times frame by frame in full screen in the last 15 years or so.  But that option wasn't available from the latter 70's through the 90's.

Alteration IDK again.  Editing I lean towards, two or three frames removed in two or three spots could have changed our perspective.  jmo

Book V: The Investigation of the Assassination of President J.F.K.: Performance of the Intelligence Agencies (history-matters.com)

Edited December 31, 2020 by Ron Bulman

[Ken Davies]

7 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

RFK was at the autopsy. RFK did not want his brother's Addison Disease revealed. Are you disputing that?

As far as "CIA disinformation", prove that assertion or don't expect to be taken seriously.

Actually he was in the building with Jackie. What source

states thst he was at the sutopdy per se?

[Ken Davies]

Autopsy per se. 

[Ron Bulman]

Just finished part four tonight.  Roy Hargraves Secret Service credentials are still intriguing. 

The latter third get's really deep, I need to re read it for clarification..

I've read bit's of this but April 63 sticks out to me.  Harvey w/Rosselli and Morales in Miami three days, then Harvey and Roselli at Plantation Key, taking a boat trip to Islamorada Island with it's CIA facility.  Hmm.

Especially considering Helms termination of Task Force W but continued expense payments for unstated purposes.

Sylvia Duran was secretary of Carlos Lechuga  and had a long affair with him?  That's deep within itself.

Then there is Attwood's statement.

 

[Larry Hancock]

If we knew more about who really participated in the April contacts, not just in Miami but in the Keys it would really help explore the roots of the conspiracy that developed in the fall.  While Morales was very likely a candidate Deputy Chief of Station Moore may have been as well.  As an old Cuba project/Bay of Pigs guy and being in charge of all maritime operations he is another very real person of interest.  We just know a lot less about him personally than we do Morales.  At the moment he is still a work in progress and I expect more about him (as well as a couple of other things) to show up in the print version of Tipping Point if I don't exceed Rex's editorial patience.

The Lechuga / Duran story deserves far more attention than it has received and is based in deep research by Bill Simpich and Stu Wexler, now continued by David Boylan (who is working the Moore lead as well). I would say it is one of the deepest and perhaps the most seminal leads to explain events in Mexico City (including Emilio Rodriquez, Tony Sforza, the AMOTS and the impersonation of Oswald) than anything else I've seen. 

More importantly, it provides a very specific path by which Oswald would have been selected as the ideal patsy for Dallas....a path leading back directly to Miami and SAS/WAVE personnel.

[Eddy Bainbridge]

Another question for Larry: You are certainly not suggesting a Corporate decision by the CIA to assassinate the President, but the impact on the CIA must have been massive. Firstly in creating tensions in the Organisation and secondly in internal review of its chains of command. Do you see these consequences in your research? 

[Larry Hancock]

Commenting on that leads me to revisit the situation inside CIA operations, in particular at JMWAVE.   First, over the two years leading up to the conspiracy there were immense emotional stresses and literal hatred created among virtually all the personnel with the initial Cuba Project, in particular those officers working in the military  operations, the maritime operations at both the Guatemala bases, at Miami Station and in the base in the Keys. 

The dynamics of that and the vitriol involved in it appear in segment 2 but for anyone really interested, I cover them in more detail in my most recent book In Denial, in its chapters on JFK and the Bay of Pigs.

So in terms of tensions and a deep seated mistrust of JFK you only need to look at how Esterline communicated that to those in the chain of command and follow him down to Miami, to Moore, to Morales, and to the exiles in the maritime operations there.  I just referenced that a bit in my reply to Ron.  I think I make it pretty clear where that attitude resided within the chain of command in 1963, stretching back to DC.

In segment 5 I discussed how it was being fueled by ongoing information coming from DC,  from Harvey but also in word about the new programs and attitudes being carried down by Fitzgerald to Shackley, Moore and Morales...and I describe their attitudes. I have to believe that given the depth of those emotions, individuals might well have offset much of the normal concern over the assassination and of JFK's murder you would expect to find after his death.

Now directly to your question, which I read as being the tension following the assassination...and that is more speculative.  What is obvious is that there were a number of officers who did suspect (with good reason) that the attack had come from CIA assets, with officer involvement. 

I cite statements from Kent and Phillips in the book to that point and also describe an actual investigation that was conducted within Miami station and then destroyed, suppressed and literally denied by Shackley.  So he lied about that, which goes a bit beyond suspicion. 

Going back up the chain of command, I think there were suspicions at headquarters but the Director himself had assured RFK the CIA had not been involved so nobody was too likely to raise that question again - his denial preempted within the organization even though with his limited experience, he really had no justification to give it nor RFK to believe it.

Beyond that its pretty clear that SAS and WAVE and even Mexico City had enough worries about what they had been doing in and around Oswald to be more engaged with suppression than inquiry - certainly they had to cover up a great deal of those activities, especially in regard to New Orleans and Mexico City.

Was their tension at headquarters, yes - but my suspicion was that consisted more of a great desire to deal with their immediate Oswald related problems.  I really doubt there was any high level desire to investigate. Whatever anyone suspected or knew was overridden by personal concerns and by fears of survival of the Agency as a whole - whom everyone still saw as a front line unit in the fight against global communism.  Right or wrong I imagine that was used as the justification for just moving on.

 

[David Andrews]

On 12/30/2020 at 10:23 PM, Ken Davies said:

Autopsy per se. 

Isn't it said in William Manchester that Jackie and RFK were in a VIP waiting suite in the Bethesda hospital tower?

[Pete Mellor]

18 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

I think I make it pretty clear where that attitude resided within the chain of command in 1963, stretching back to DC.

Larry, Do you consider, even after his exit from CIA in November '61, Allen Dulles was still able to input his agenda onto his old colleagues in '63?  We know Ike gave green lights to get rid of Lumumba, Castro & Trujillo.  But the killing of Dag Hammarskjold in September '61 was given no presidential authority, yet Dulles and ZR/RIFLE were involved.  Having read the recent brilliant publication by Greg Poulgrain 'JFK vs Allen Dulles' that documents the 30 years of Dulles fingers in the pie of Indonesia, that required the removal of Sukarno & JFK, which resulted in the regime change in '65....what odds that the ex Director could also set Dallas in motion!

I realise that any solid proof is nowhere to be found, but for my money highly likely.

[Larry Hancock]

Pete, I'm going to be a contrarian once again and say that while Dulles's worldview might certainly influenced the senior officer cadre that he had around him for so long I don't see any sign of operational involvement in a conspiracy to kill JFK.  For that matter, a great deal of his earlier extreme actions were driven by his brother's influence over him rather than at his own initiative.  John Foster Dulles had to carry a great deal of the blame for taking the U.S. off the rails in international relations during the Eisenhower regime.  

As to Allan, he often either just channeled his brother or quite literally took a remark from Eisenhower and passed it on to a senior officer who took it as an order (I tried to show again and again in NEXUS that was one of the biggest dangers of how the CIA was operating under Dulles).  Presidential authority got lost in the world of subtle conversations and indirect dialog in the Directors office at CIA....resulting in political assassinations which never carried any real authority. 

It became a contagion, as an example J.C. King was the first officer to propose killing Castro - and quite frankly was the senior officer that approved the TILT mission, a political action which could have eviscerated the Kennedy administration had it succeeded.  Frankly I think King doesn't get nearly enough attention, a man with extreme views who was operationally in charge of Western Hemisphere for way to long.

As a more direct answer, all I can postulate as I did in Tipping Point is that there were conversations which would have involved Dulles, Angleton, Harvey - the latter two some of the most paranoid and off the rails people you would find anywhere - ,and Helms about their concerns over JFK's drift towards negotiation and neutrality in international relations, which they considered both extremely naive and actually dangerous.  Those conversations were repeated within Operations, likely to King but more importantly down stream to officers in SAS/WAVE. 

The whole purpose of Tipping Point was to lay out a very concrete scenario how those conversations were translated into a conspiracy by a clique of Cuba Project alumni in Miami - I know that is too low level to be satisfactory for many but that's the way I see it.  Dulles and an "influencer", yes....as someone giving orders, the operational driver in a conspiracy...not in my opinion.

I don't know if you consider that "setting in motion", to a certain extent it would be I suppose, little different than how earlier conversations had triggered actions with no orders given. It certainly would not have been the first time, just the most extreme. 

Edited January 1, 2021 by Larry Hancock