Is the "Lansdale Hypothesis" of the JFK Assassination the Real Deal?

[Sandy Larsen]

8 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

Stone decided to use Prouty as a source anyway. This decision came back to haunt Stone in a major way...

 

... in the minds of people like you. Which doesn't matter to most of us.

Stone's critics would have pounced on something else had there been no Prouty.

Regardless, JFK the film was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won two, and was the 6th highest grossing film internationally for 1991. Roger Ebert said it was the year's best film, and one of the top ten films of the decade. And it rates 84% on Rotten Tomatoes.

But best of all, it led to the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act.

 

[Anthony Venturella]

19 hours ago, Robert Morrow said:

By putting Edward Lansdale's name plate in the movie JFK, Oliver Stone is OBVIOUSLY (and in my view correctly) indicting Lansdale for the JFK assassination. In my book that is a good thing.

Oliver Stone asked John Newman to go out to the Hoover Institution archives and see if he could find anything that might give Lansdale an alibi proving that he was not in the infamous three tramps photo. Instead John Newman and David Lifton found correspondence between Gen. Edward Lansdale and his friend Gen. "Hanging Sam" Williams in which Lansdale says I am coming down to see you this fall.

Gen. Williams lived in Denton, TX which is exactly 38 miles to the northwest of Dealey Plaza, Dallas TX.

Even worse than THAT in Max Boot's book he says that Lansdale had a job in the Johnson Administration in the Food for Peace program within 11 days of the JFK assassination. Lansdale's office was in the Old Executive Office Building ON WHITE HOUSE GROUNDS and in the same building that Vice president LYNDON JOHNSON had his White House office.

Sean Fetter, in vol 2 of his new book, makes a persuasive argument that LBJ met with Lansdale in the early morning of 11/22/1963 in the hotel where LBJ (and JFK) stayed the night, The Hotel Texas, Ft Worth.

[Michael Griffith]

17 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Michael Griffith said: Stone decided to use Prouty as a source anyway. This decision came back to haunt Stone in a major way. . . .

... in the minds of people like you. Which doesn't matter to most of us.

Stone's critics would have pounced on something else had there been no Prouty.

Regardless, JFK the film was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won two, and was the 6th highest grossing film internationally for 1991. Roger Ebert said it was the year's best film, and one of the top ten films of the decade. And it rates 84% on Rotten Tomatoes.

But best of all, it led to the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act.

Oh, I totally agree that Stone's movie deserves great credit for causing the passage of the JFKA Records Collection Act and the creation of the ARRB. I've said the same thing many times, including in my book and in my podcast interviews.

But Stone's movie was very much a two-edged sword because it also discredited the case for conspiracy among the vast majority of academics and journalists, including among some who had previously at least been open to the possibility of a plot.

And, yes, diehard WC apologists would have attacked Stone's film had there been no Prouty content in it, but they would have had a much harder time attacking it absent the Prouty claims. The Prouty claims presented WC apologists with low-hanging fruit, with easy targets, and made the film seem reckless and fringe. 

To put it another way, think how much harder it would have been for critics to attack the film if it had not included Prouty's debunked claims that JFK had decided to abandon the Vietnam War, that Edward Lansdale was one of the plotters, that the DC telephone system was taken offline for an hour shortly after the shooting, that Prouty (Mr. X) was sent to the South Pole to prevent him from helping with presidential security, that someone ordered the 112th MI Group to stand down on 11/22, etc.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

35 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

But Stone's movie was very much a two-edged sword because it also discredited the case for conspiracy among the vast majority of academics and journalists, including among some who had previously at least been open to the possibility of a plot.

 

There mere fact that the movie promotes the assassination as a conspiracy discredits it among the majority of academics and journalists. Anybody who is open to the idea of a conspiracy isn't going to change their attitude because of the content of a movie.

 

35 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

To put it another way, think how much harder it would have been for critics to attack the film if it had not included Prouty's debunked claims that JFK had decided to abandon the Vietnam War, that Edward Lansdale was one of the plotters, that the DC telephone system was taken offline for an hour shortly after the shooting, that Prouty (Mr. X) was sent to the South Pole to prevent him from helping with presidential security, that someone ordered the 112th MI Group to stand down on 11/22, etc.

 

I don't know about your full list of complaints, but I for one believe than Lansdale was involved in the plot. And that JFK was getting out of Vietnam. I find Prouty to be credible. You seem to be in the minority on that point, here in the forum.

 

[Michael Griffith]

19 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

There mere fact that the movie promotes the assassination as a conspiracy discredits it among the majority of academics and journalists. Anybody who is open to the idea of a conspiracy isn't going to change their attitude because of the content of a movie.

I don't know about your full list of complaints, but I for one believe than Lansdale was involved in the plot. And that JFK was getting out of Vietnam. I find Prouty to be credible. You seem to be in the minority on that point, here in the forum.

Wow. You believe Prouty was credible after all we now know about him? Really? Sheesh, that's just sad and discrediting. Yes, I am in the minority in this forum when it comes to Prouty, and that is big black mark on this forum's credibility. Outside this forum, I am part of the 99.9% of scholars and researchers who acknowledge that Prouty was a crackpot. Given what we know about him, there is no excuse for defending him.

You think Lansdale was involved in the plot? Based on what? This is sheer fantasy that no reputable historian takes seriously.

I just have to wonder about your basis for believing that JFK was getting out of Vietnam when every single firsthand statement that we have from JFK himself contradicts this theory, when all the primary source documents make it clear that victory was the goal and the main criterion for any action regarding Vietnam, when there is not one shred of support for this theory on the JFK White House tapes, and when Bobby Kennedy expressly rejected the theory during his April 1964 oral history interview when he was specifically asked about it.

[Joe Bauer]

2 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

Outside this forum, I am part of the 99.9% of scholars and researchers who acknowledge that Prouty was a crackpot.

IMO, a reasonable person is forced to ask this question:

How does a person justify labeling someone of Prouty's uncommonly high responsibility life-time achievement background with one of the most extreme mentally illness indicating terms of "crackpot?"

Anyone reading the decades long bio of Prouty and his constant rise in high military/government responsibility positions all the way to the Joint Chief Of Staff and the even the White House... and with praise from some of the highest command military generals like Victor Krulak, one has to suspend their rational common sense to ignore and dismiss Prouty's intelligent and rational traits needed to achieve such and the extremely high respect for him at that level.

Prouty was extremely intelligent. He wrote coherent and interesting books and papers which indicated a learned man of history both military and political.

Vince Bugliosi in his 50lb door stop JFKA book "Reclaiming History" resorted to this same juvenile criticism about anyone who suspected a conspiracy in the JFKA. He must have called them Lunatics, Kooks, Crackpots, Nut Cases and a dozen more basest mentally ill labeling names 100 times in his book. 

IMO that reflected an emotional insecurity flaw with Bugliosi more than the people he was trying to disparage. Those extremely exaggerated labels were as irrational and immature as a junior high school kid's bullying taunts. 

If Bugliosi's JFKA conspiracy debunking research findings are that provenly strong and valid, they wouldn't need to be infused over and over with junior high school bully taunts and name calling insults toward his JFKA belief adversaries which childishly debases his entire thesis presentation, imo anyways.

Edited February 15 by Joe Bauer

[W. Niederhut]

1 hour ago, Joe Bauer said:

IMO, a reasonable person is forced to ask this question:

How does a person justify labeling someone of Prouty's uncommonly high responsibility life-time achievement background with one of the most extreme mentally illness indicating terms of "crackpot?"

Anyone reading the decades long bio of Prouty and his constant rise in high military/government responsibility positions all the way to the Joint Chief Of Staff and the even the White House... and with praise from some of the highest command military generals like Victor Krulak, one has to suspend their rational common sense to ignore and dismiss Prouty's intelligent and rational traits needed to achieve such and the extremely high respect for him at that level.

Prouty was extremely intelligent. He wrote coherent and interesting books and papers which indicated a learned man of history both military and political.

Vince Bugliosi in his 50lb door stop JFKA book "Reclaiming History" resorted to this same juvenile criticism about anyone who suspected a conspiracy in the JFKA. He must have called them Lunatics, Kooks, Crackpots, Nut Cases and a dozen more basest mentally ill labeling names 100 times in his book. 

IMO that reflected an emotional insecurity flaw with Bugliosi more than the people he was trying to disparage. Those extremely exaggerated labels were as irrational and immature as a junior high school kid's bullying taunts. 

If Bugliosi's JFKA conspiracy debunking research findings are that provenly strong and valid, they wouldn't need to be infused over and over with junior high school bully taunts and name calling insults toward his JFKA belief adversaries which childishly debases his entire thesis presentation, imo anyways.

   Michael Griffith's propaganda trope about "scholars" agreeing with his inaccurate defamation of Col. Prouty is risible-- and I say that as a guy who earned academic awards and degrees from two Ivy League universities.

   Griffith's own educational credentials are hardly impressive.  He has been educated, partly, in the U.S. military industrial complex, and he works within that complex.

    The truth about academia, in the JFKA case, is that academicians have mostly been on the wrong side of JFKA history for the past 60 years, with some notable exceptions, like Peter Dale Scott and John Newman.

     One of the worst examples was Nobel Laureate Luis Alvarez promoting his cellophane-wrapped melon propulsion theory to explain the violent retrograde motion of JFK's head during the frontal headshot from the Grassy Knoll area.

Edited February 15 by W. Niederhut

[Robert Morrow]

4 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

   Michael Griffith's propaganda trope about "scholars" agreeing with his inaccurate defamation of Col. Prouty is risible-- and I say that as a guy who earned academic awards and degrees from two Ivy League universities.

   Griffith's own educational credentials are hardly impressive.  He has been educated, partly, in the U.S. military industrial complex, and he works within that complex.

    The truth about academia, in the JFKA case, is that academicians have mostly been on the wrong side of JFKA history for the past 60 years, with some notable exceptions, like Peter Dale Scott and John Newman.

     One of the worst examples was Nobel Laureate Luis Alvarez promoting his cellophane-wrapped melon propulsion theory to explain the violent retrograde motion of JFK's head during the frontal headshot from the Grassy Knoll area.

Did someone mention Luis Alvarez? Here is a picture of the Murderer of JFK giving Luis Alvarez the 1963 National Medal of Science at the White House on January 13, 1964 Alvarez and President Johnson | Niels Bohr Library & Archives (aip.org)

Hey, I wonder if Luis Alvarez ever benefited from GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS in this time period?

Edited February 15 by Robert Morrow

[Sandy Larsen]

10 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

Outside this forum, I am part of the 99.9% of scholars and researchers who acknowledge that Prouty was a crackpot.

 

Most scholars likewise believe that there was no JFKA conspiracy. That doesn't mean they are right, any more than they are right about Lansdale. It means they are lazy, ignorant conformists.

 

10 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

Given what we know about him, there is no excuse for defending him.

 

You are prone to believing anti-Prouty propaganda that was fabricated to discredit him. Most of us CTers aren't.

 

10 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

You think Lansdale was involved in the plot? Based on what?

 

Based on Prouty and Krulak's identification of Lansdale walking among the tramps. And the fact that the man -- Lansdale -- is wearing fake glasses as a disguise. I mean, why would some average guy be wearing fake prescription glasses?

 

10 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

I just have to wonder about your basis for believing that JFK was getting out of Vietnam...

 

I read NSAM 263 and the part of the McNamara/Taylor recommendations that it accepted.

It says that 1000 U.S. troops will be removed by the end of 1963, and the remaining troops by the end of 1965.

THAT... is getting out of Vietnam. Anything said otherwise would have been for political posturing.

 

[Robert Morrow]

Actually, I agree with Lyndon Johnson on this point below. If Gen. Edward Lansdale was involved in the JFK assassination, then he did it for two big reasons: 1) because he had been cashiered out of the military and the Kennedy Administration and 2) Lansdale was in an absolute rage over the overthrow and death of Diem who was a man he had invested a great deal of time and effort in to make the "George Washington" of Vietnam - a man who happened to be puppet of the United States' government.

My thesis is that Lyndon Johnson used Gen. Edward Lansdale to murder JFK.

Richard Helms: LBJ in the early days of his presidency would say that JFK got assassinated because he murdered President Diem of South Vietnam and this was "just justice"

 https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32113033.pdf

 QUOTE

 President Johnson used to go around saying that the reason President Kennedy was assassinated was that he had assassinated President Diem [of South Vietnam] and this was just justice. He certainly used to say that in the early days of his presidency and where he got this idea from I don’t know.

 UNQUOTE

 [CIA director Helms in his testimony to the Rockefeller Commission in 1975

April 23, 1975 deposition to the Rockefeller Commission]

Author Larry Hancock on who LBJ blamed for the JFK assassination:

 

            “The day after John Kennedy’s funeral, Johnson pointed at a picture of Diem and told Hubert Humphrey that, “We had a hand in killing him; now it’s happening here.” Johnson later told Pierre Salinger a story about “divine retribution” and implied that perhaps also applied to Kennedy’s death. A few days after Kennedy’s funeral, Kennedy aide Ralph Dungan was working late in his office in the West Wing when he heard a noise at the door. Dungan looked up and there was President Johnson, in nothing but a t-shirt and boxer shorts. He told Dungan he wanted to talk to him and motioned him to the Oval Office, where Johnson forced him to sit on the sofa and in a low voice said, “I want to tell you why Kennedy died.” A stunned Dungan sat while Johnson pointed his finger and said, “Divine retribution … he murdered Diem and then he got it himself.” (Mahoney 302-303, from Mahoney interview with Dungan). Shesol also relates that Johnson told Jack Valenti his inner political instinct was that Castro was behind the killing. Johnson expanded on that thought to Joseph Califano – President Kennedy tried to get Castro, but Castro got Kennedy first. Apparently, Johnson made a similar remark to Richard Helms of the CIA. When asked by the Congressional Committee if he had ever heard the theory that Castro might have been behind the assassination of President Kennedy, Helms replied that “the very first time I heard such a theory (that Castro might have shot the president on Casto’s behalf) was in a very peculiar way from President Johnson.” Later Johnson would relate to Acting Attorney General Ramsey Clark that (he) Castro called Oswald and a group in … and said go set it up and get the job done (killing Kennedy). Jeff Sheshol, Mutual Contempt: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy and the Feud that Defined a Decade, (New York, NY: Norton and Company, 1997), 131-134. Johnson’s best known biographer, Robert Caro, remarked that “Johnson could believe whatever he wanted to believe … could believe it with all his heart … he could convince himself of anything, even something that wasn’t true” 

[Larry Hancock, Someone Would Have Talked, p. 462]

 

Edited March 3 by Robert Morrow