Jim DiEugenio vs Fred Litwin

[James DiEugenio]

Why not?

 

[Calvin Ye]

2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Why not?

 

The problem is that if I post evidence on FB, Fred might distort or misconstrued it

[James DiEugenio]

I agree that is a real problem with Fred.

I learned how it all started with his Conservative Confidential book.  When you can do what he did with the Iraq War, 9-11, the hunt for Bin Laden, and Afghanistan, that was simply amazing. As I recall, in addition to ignoring the Manning Memo and Downing Street memo,  he never mentioned the battle at Tora Bora, where Bin Laden escaped. 

I could barely believe what he had done. It was like the magic of David Copperfield making a building disappear.

[James DiEugenio]

The way he did that was this:   he just about made the Iraq War disappear.   No joke.

Its quite a feat to make the deaths of 650,000 innocent Iraqis civilians dissipate into the ether.  But this is what he tried to do. And then he does not mention Tora Bora where BIn Laden was allowed to escape.  What he does is distract from the facts that:

1. Clinton left an overall plan to confront Al Qaeda when he  departed. W never opened it and ignored the problem until  9/11  happened.

2. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11

3. W and Blair ignored that in order to start a needless, horrendous war of choice. And they deliberately deceived the public about this with the mythical WMD.

4. That needless war provoked more terrorists and terrorism, not less

5. W mismanaged the hunt for BIn Laden and this allowed him to escape at Tora Bora

6. It was Obama who did away with Bin Laden.

7. W's war in Afghanistan ended up pretty much a huge, expensive failure.

Conservative Confidential is nothing but a  magician's trick, done in order to distract from these fundamental facts. This is why I concluded that it was a run through for his Kennedy books.  Fred doesn't give a hoot about the real facts upon which historians build an honest narrative.  Fred is really a political hack, a Canadian version of Bill O'Reilly.  He is a Culture Warrior. Which is the last thing we need in this case.  He does this repeatedly in his two Kennedy books.  For example, as with Iraq, he obfuscates what really happened in Vietnam. He says there really was not a serious breakage between Kennedy and LBJ on the issue. Which is hogwash.

I am finally reading Newman's revision of JFK and VIetnam.  The first part of the book is substantially rewritten. Like Swanson, John agrees that the JCS wanted war in Laos. When Kennedy declined,  John makes it clear that LBJ, in cooperation with the Pentagon, urged Diem to then request combat troops in 1961.  In other words, what LBJ did after Kennedy's death was presaged almost two years prior. This is all ignored by Litwin, just as he ignored the above 7 points in his first book.

Edited May 20, 2021 by James DiEugenio

[John Kowalski]

On 5/7/2021 at 11:08 AM, W. Tracy Parnell said:

On 5/7/2021 at 10:55 AM, John Kowalski said:

Fred has spoken about JFK on TV Ontario and Parallax and there may be other places where he has spoken that he trusted would be neutral. So why not contact them? They can also look for a moderator that they both would agree would be neutral.

Good suggestions John, we'll see what happens.

Tracy:

I doubt that a debate is going to happen because Fred must realize that his books are without substance, otherwise he would have debated Jim by now.

[James DiEugenio]

I agree John.

BTW, here is Gary Schoener's reply about the Martinsburg PA incident.  Gary did one of the best, if not the best, inquiry into the affair.

 

 

"I was fascinated to see all of the materials related to Mrs. L.E. Hoover in Martinsburg, PA posted by Mr. Litwin. I challenge his interpretations (e.g. that Mr. Fernandez left town because people didn't like him) or that this amounted to nothing of importance, but could see that doing a detail-by-detail debate was going to accomplish nothing. I simply disagree with his interpretations and conclusions -- the facts speak for themselves.

 

The bottom line is that it was a potentially very important set of clues coming from an honest citizen whom the FBI stomped on rather than thanking and encouraging. She and her family felt that the FBI was not interested in the truth. The FBI never really worked on it and even I (a college student studying Wildlife management who had switched to psychology) was able to take it further. But in the end what was needed was a serious professional investigation by an agency with police powers to find explanations for not only what the FBI got in its first visit but what Mrs. Hoover sent to Senator Scott and even what she gave me. The FBI didn't do it in 1963/64, or after the congressional committee sent it back to Justice Dept. in the late 1970's.

 

I did not include this story in my article "Legacy of Fear," but it is an example of the impact of intimidation that the FBI's conduct had on average citizens who were behaving as good caring Americans. Mrs. Hoover, and her daughter who I later interviewed, both still had anxiety years afterwards. You may not remember, but when I first approached Mrs. Hoover she was reluctant to talk and challenged me with: "How do I know you are not a communist?" Ironically, quick thinking saved the day when I asked if she could simply review the comments her son-in-law had made about her (they were not on good terms, and the FBI used his statement that she was "not reliable," sans any clarity about what that meant, to discredit her).

 

The reality was that although she never found the piece of paper, the rest of what she produced, as well as my collateral interviews, supported what she had to say. This was a key investigative lead subject for an actual follow-through investigation which was apparently never done – or if done, hidden from the commission. Nor was there accounting for the added documents that Senator Scott sent the FBI. This was typical of what I was to learn in my own work on this case. When John Martin called into a radio show Harold Weisberg and I were doing and produced a film showing LHO in New Orleans (not mentioned in any commission documents) the FBI returned what turned out to be a copy to him and apparently kept the original.

 

Sadly it it is now too late to fully investigate Julio Cesar Fernandez Jr. Which was probably the point."

 

Gary Schoener

Edited May 20, 2021 by James DiEugenio

[Steve Roe]

6 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

I agree John.

BTW, here is Gary Schoener's reply about the Martinsburg PA incident.  Gary did one of the best, if not the best, inquiry into the affair.

 

 

"I was fascinated to see all of the materials related to Mrs. L.E. Hoover in Martinsburg, PA posted by Mr. Litwin. I challenge his interpretations (e.g. that Mr. Fernandez left town because people didn't like him) or that this amounted to nothing of importance, but could see that doing a detail-by-detail debate was going to accomplish nothing. I simply disagree with his interpretations and conclusions -- the facts speak for themselves.

 

The bottom line is that it was a potentially very important set of clues coming from an honest citizen whom the FBI stomped on rather than thanking and encouraging. She and her family felt that the FBI was not interested in the truth. The FBI never really worked on it and even I (a college student studying Wildlife management who had switched to psychology) was able to take it further. But in the end what was needed was a serious professional investigation by an agency with police powers to find explanations for not only what the FBI got in its first visit but what Mrs. Hoover sent to Senator Scott and even what she gave me. The FBI didn't do it in 1963/64, or after the congressional committee sent it back to Justice Dept. in the late 1970's.

 

I did not include this story in my article "Legacy of Fear," but it is an example of the impact of intimidation that the FBI's conduct had on average citizens who were behaving as good caring Americans. Mrs. Hoover, and her daughter who I later interviewed, both still had anxiety years afterwards. You may not remember, but when I first approached Mrs. Hoover she was reluctant to talk and challenged me with: "How do I know you are not a communist?" Ironically, quick thinking saved the day when I asked if she could simply review the comments her son-in-law had made about her (they were not on good terms, and the FBI used his statement that she was "not reliable," sans any clarity about what that meant, to discredit her).

 

The reality was that although she never found the piece of paper, the rest of what she produced, as well as my collateral interviews, supported what she had to say. This was a key investigative lead subject for an actual follow-through investigation which was apparently never done – or if done, hidden from the commission. Nor was there accounting for the added documents that Senator Scott sent the FBI. This was typical of what I was to learn in my own work on this case. When John Martin called into a radio show Harold Weisberg and I were doing and produced a film showing LHO in New Orleans (not mentioned in any commission documents) the FBI returned what turned out to be a copy to him and apparently kept the original.

 

Sadly it it is now too late to fully investigate Julio Cesar Fernandez Jr. Which was probably the point."

 

Gary Schoener

Mr. DiEugenio, there is no doubt that Mr. Schoener held those beliefs about the FBI's treatment of Margaret Hoover. He's said it in many correspondences. 

What you failed to reveal here is, Mr. Schoener does not believe the Hoover trailer ad (with Ruby Slipper on it) is anyway connected with the Rose Cheramie story as outlined in your "Destiny Betrayed" book.

You and Lisa Pease were attempting to link the Hoover story to Rose Cheramie. 

I've given proof that the "Ruby Slipper" on Hoover's recollection was in Las Vegas, not in Eunice, Louisiana. 

For those not familiar with this "Ruby Slipper" story, here's Gary Schoener's memo. Scroll down to the 4th paragraph, near the end. http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/F Disk/Fenandez Julio Cesar Dr/Item 06.pdf

Now why don't you tell the whole story? 

[James DiEugenio]

It turns out that I had four sources for one paragraph in my book.

One of those being the guy who is, by far--as everyone can see by now--the best source on the subject, Gary Schoener. Since he did his own independent inquiry.

Case closed.

 

 

[Steve Roe]

23 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

It turns out that I had four sources for one paragraph in my book.

One of those being the guy who is, by far--as everyone can see by now--the best source on the subject, Gary Schoener. Since he did his own independent inquiry.

Case closed.

 

 

Yes Gary Schoener is the best source. It is Case Closed on the Rose Cheramie - Dr. Julio Fernandez false story. It's been debunked. 

[Steve Thomas]

On 5/20/2021 at 1:32 AM, James DiEugenio said:

I agree John.

BTW, here is Gary Schoener's reply about the Martinsburg PA incident.

 

I have to tell you that I get the willies every time I see a reference to Martinsburg.

That's where I went the last three years of high school back in the late 60's.

Steve Thomas

[Greg Doudna]

Steve Roe--the Silver Slipper as the Las Vegas Silver Slipper, and not Rose Cheramie's Silver Slipper--thank you for this because prior to your bringing this out, I thought Silver Slipper = Silver Slipper was striking. But there was no connection between the Silver Slippers. A match, a coincidence, that was nothing. The reason I am glad to learn this is because I think that false information--dud leads--impede rather than advance getting to accurate knowledge of the truth of the JFK assassination, and it is good to have false leads gone.

The other detail I saw of interest in the Mrs. Hoover story was Julio Fernandez, Jr.--not Sr.--as the same name as Clare Boothe Luce's Cuban contact who tried to plant an LHO-implicating story for her and husband to publish, within hours of the assassination. Luce later told Fonzi she had made up the name, but I think it is at least as likely that she was lying the second time to Fonzi on that, as that her claim was truthful that she was lying the first time. Whoever talked to Luce I think had a reasonable chance of having been connected to people connected to the JFK assassination, and those contacts of Luce on that occasion have the appearance of having been covered up (since no WC or any other investigators found them and questioned them under oath). Julio Fernandez Sr. is totally innocent--Mrs. Hoover's reporting on suspicious-looking Cubans visiting his house is just sideshow, anti-foreigner suspicion. Forget Sr., it was Jr. who had been in Florida who would be the only possible person of interest if there was one there. But, he was 19, sounds like an artist afterward and not an ex-Bay of Pigs kind of warrior, nothing obviously incriminating, and Julio Fernandez apparently was a common name, like John Smith. Jr.'s name match with the Clare Boothe Luce story just not substantial enough either, once the Silver Slipper is gone. 

Mrs. Hoover may have sent items culled from Fernandez Sr.'s garbage to a Congressman, but there's nothing there. She was suspicious of everything about Fernandez Sr. People can say "well there could have been something there". Yes, but that can be said about a lot of things. No one has shown anything connected to the JFK assassination in whatever items Mrs. Hoover sent out of Sr's garbage to Congress, therefore--based on what is known there, which is zero--therefore there is zero. Until such time, if ever, it is ever shown that there is something there more than zero (not very likely). 

On Rose Cheramie. I lived 2-1/2 years in Big Sandy, Texas, population 1200, and I have visited the spot on Highway 155 that I think may have been the site of Rose's death, and I know that stretch of road well. I totally agree that site makes no sense as a hitchhiker trying to go west to Dallas or east to Shreveport. I talked to a local who knew something of the story of the man who found her, drove her to a doctor and tried to save her life, and that Rose lived for hours before dying. I arrived in Big Sandy in the early '70s, about seven years after Rose's death. Soon after I arrived I heard a hearsay story indicating how Wild West east Texas was. I want to preface this story by saying I have googled trying to verify or find the actual story behind what I heard but have found nothing online, no verification. But anyway here is the hearsay, told to me by a private college's security officer (I think it was hearsay to him too). Apparently there was a murder conspiracy, a plot, to kill the fire chief of Gladewater (small town about ten miles east of Big Sandy). The way the hit was going to work was a fire was started, and shooters lied in wait for the fire chief to show up when they would kill him. Well, the police chief showed up first on the scene, and he was shot dead by the killers, by mistake, they thinking he was the fire chief. Oops. As noted, I have been unable to find any story that matches this online, but that is what I was told. No connection to Rose Cheramie, other than Wild West context.

With Rose Cheramie, if it was a hit it does not seem to have been a professional one because she was not left dead but alive. But it is hard to read that as an accident either--just puzzling. But anyone in the organized crime/ drug smuggling/ police informant world, an untimely death could be for any reason, who knows if it was JFK related or not, just no way of knowing. We can go crazy with what-ifs unverified by evidence.

I just received and read the updated edition of Michael Marcades's book, the son. With utmost compassion for Dr. Marcades's story of his quest to recover and tell his mother's story, the book itself was a disappointment in being in the genre of ghost-written creative nonfiction--written like a novel. I personally cannot stand that genre. I want old fashioned straight discussion of facts and footnotes and leave out the creative fiction, the imagined conversations and inner thoughts of characters told by the omniscient narrator, etc. What made the book nevertheless worth purchasing was the documents at the end from the medical records of Rose's death, especially to me with my local connection to the scene. But everything else in the creative fiction retelling, mixes fact and fiction, with no judicious analysis of what is true or not true.  

The bar owner at the Silver Slipper lounge, the one of Rose Cheramie, made two identifications from photos several years after the fact which are a bit questionable in reliability, but he also gave the exact proper name of a third man who he saw talking with the two in that bar like he knew them, the night that Rose Cheramie was there. But that full correct name of that third man (so far as I know) was and has never been tracked down. He would likely have known who the other two were if asked, but he never was found and asked. 

Edited May 25, 2021 by Greg Doudna

[W. Niederhut]

1 hour ago, Greg Doudna said:

e.

I just received and read the updated edition of Michael Marcades's book, the son. With utmost compassion for Dr. Marcades's story of his quest to recover and tell his mother's story, the book itself was a disappointment in being in the genre of ghost-written creative nonfiction--written like a novel. I personally cannot stand that genre. I want old fashioned straight discussion of facts and footnotes and leave out the creative fiction, the imagined conversations and inner thoughts of characters told by the omniscient narrator, etc. What made the book nevertheless worth purchasing was the documents at the end from the medical records of Rose's death, especially to me with my local connection to the scene. But everything else in the creative fiction retelling, mixes fact and fiction, with no judicious analysis of what is true or not true.  On foreknowledge I see two possibilities: either Rose was in a car and there was talk of killing JFK, or in her heroin withdrawal she hallucinated and heard some TV reports and mixed up fiction with reality that she believed was reality.

Greg,

     I worked part-time in the substance abuse field during my psychiatric career, and I was board certified in Addiction Psychiatry.  Hallucinations are not a characteristic symptom of heroin withdrawal.

[Greg Doudna]

On 5/22/2021 at 6:59 PM, W. Niederhut said:

Greg,

     I worked part-time in the substance abuse field during my psychiatric career, and I was board certified in Addiction Psychiatry.  Hallucinations are not a characteristic symptom of heroin withdrawal.

Thanks W., you are right. 

Edited May 25, 2021 by Greg Doudna

[Calvin Ye]

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

Greg,

     I worked part-time in the substance abuse field during my psychiatric career, and I was board certified in Addiction Psychiatry.  Hallucinations are not a characteristic symptom of heroin withdrawal.

Niederhut, hallucinations is a characteristic symptom of schizophrenia

[W. Niederhut]

16 minutes ago, Calvin Ye said:

Niederhut, hallucinations is a characteristic symptom of schizophrenia

Indeed.  I was merely pointing out that heroin withdrawal would not have caused Rose Cheramie to hallucinate conversations about an impending hit on President Kennedy.