I Have Always Considered Dorothy Kilgallen's Murder A Much More Important Reveal Of The JFK Truth Than We Have Ever Contemplated.

[James DiEugenio]

Welcome Andrew.

Again, almost everything of value on Kilgallen that Shaw uses comes from Sara Jordan's milestone article.

https://www.midtod.com/dorothy.html

[Michael Griffith]

I think Mary Pinchot Meyer's murder is even more revealing than Dorothy Kilgallen's murder. In Meyer's case, the CIA operative who murdered her confessed his crime to investigative journalist Leo Damore and in the process revealed many details about how the hit was done, including the use of spotters, a false witness, and a patsy. This is all detailed in Peter Janney's book Mary's Mosaic.

I do agree, though, that Dorothy Kilgallen's murder is important and revealing. Mark Shaw's book The Reporter Who Knew Too Much is superb. However, his book Collateral Damage unfortunately contains some Trump bashing and also contains several references to the theory that JFK was killed because he was going to spill the beans about UFOs. Collateral Damage contains a lot of valuable information on the deaths of Kilgallen and Marilyn Monroe--it's just too bad it delves off into unrelated issues that will turn off some readers.

Edited August 24, 2022 by Michael Griffith

[James DiEugenio]

Mike, you cannot be serious about Janney. Please.  

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/janney-peter-mary-s-mosaic-part-2

Leo Damore was full of it, and I have that from his working assistant Mark O'Blazeny.

And if you read Don McGovern's review of Collateral Damage, Mark Shaw does not know jack about the death of MM.  He actually tried to place the wrong car in LA and he did not even know that MM's house did not have French doors. 

[Pamela Brown]

On 1/30/2022 at 1:28 PM, Joe Bauer said:

Despite Shaw's obvious credibility flaws, no one else has ever come close to putting in the energy and effort he has to keep Dorothy Kilgallen's life sacrificing JFK/Ruby truth seeking memory alive in our societal consciousness.

I've watched several of Shaw's "Dorothy Kilgallen was murdered and why she and her JFK investigation mattered" presentations on You Tube over the years.

He is really good at keeping his audiences engaged and curiosity inspired with his passionate manner of speaking and a tight and quickly moving script of the Kilgallen story.

Pretty efficiently presented imo. Lots of interesting facts that are not in dispute.

The laughably absurd and illogically staged manner of DK's death scene alone is enough to easily conclude she was murdered. Sitting up in a bed she never slept in? Almosty fully dressed and with all her make up and hair piece still on? A glass of something placed farther away from her reach on a bed table next to her. A book she either read already or would not read sitting "upside down" in front of her? Her death in Manhattan but her autopsy performed by an outside Borough coroner?

His audiences don't get bored with Shaw and his smartly practiced summary presentation.

Yes, I too find a lot of side views and stories he shares as less than unbiased and a little too sentimental. Dorothy from heaven chose him to make her story his mission?

However, with no one else picking up the mantle and taking this level of effort by Shaw to keeping this very important life sacrificing JFK truth seeking story of DK from disappearing altogether ( which it has outside of Shaw's work ) my take is it's all we have so we might as well keep it in mind and not totally dismiss it over debatably worthy sourcing flaws.

Your hero and mine ( Jim Garrison) was ripped apart 1000 X more than Mark Shaw in the credibility and loose fact department regards his own JFK conspiracy investigation. Yet, with admittedly some flaws in Garrison's investigatory facts work and public pronouncements besides his discoveries, we would never have known the massive amount of nefarious Warren Commission false and hidden truth's Garrison discovered and of Oswald's super important New Orleans life, activities and contacts up to just months before his moving to Fort Worth in the fall of 1963.

And Oliver Stone's JFK was another effort ripped apart as filled with factual errors, omissions and false interpretations, yet look at what that film did to not only keeping JFK's murder importance alive in our collective conscience but inspiring a new investigative effort which again shown light onto dark truths Americans needed to know.

I wonder how many anecdotal stories Mort Sahl shared to friends and even audiences regards the JFK assassination that were 2nd, third and even 4th hand accounts that were impossible to verify. I'm sure he didn't embellish them or exaggerate them, but he still found them worthy enough in his mind to share.

And the exaggeration of trysts with Marilyn Monroe was a national past time with so many claiming this you wondered how MM had time to do anything outside of being bedded. Mark Shaw is way down the list of the most egregious MM story exaggeration story tellers imo.

 

 

I would agree that to a great extent it seems to be myth/countermyth in the research community. I think Mark Shaw asks a lot of questions that need to be asked. I too am appreciative that he is keeping Kilgallen in the spotlight.  Hopefully, we can find some answers. 

[Joe Bauer]

22 hours ago, Pamela Brown said:

I would agree that to a great extent it seems to be myth/countermyth in the research community. I think Mark Shaw asks a lot of questions that need to be asked. I too am appreciative that he is keeping Kilgallen in the spotlight.  Hopefully, we can find some answers. 

Shaw's Marilyn Monroe take is not something I agree with.

One can find credibility issues with Shaw regards M.M. I admit.

Still, as I have mentioned many times off-and-on however, I will always feel the Dorothy Kilgallen suspicious death story ( coupled with her amazingly accomplished, highest celebrity connected world life ) is one of the most illogically wasted and ignored Hollywood A-list movie themes in the last 50 years.

A film of her life alone, even without her Jack Ruby investigation and laughably staged suicide, would have been remarkably attractive and marketable imo.

Hundreds of films have been made about people of less accomplishment and less celebrity than Dorothy Kilgallen. And none of them had the end of life intrigue of DK.

She's nearing "blowing the case wide open" regards her investigation into perhaps the greatest murder crime in America's history ... and just before she does...she dies in bed, oddly dressed, made up, sitting up, reading an upside down book, with the air conditioning in her room turned to full blast mode in cool November and with no note expressing regret that she is leaving her sincerely beloved children and especially her young son without a mother....PLEASE!

And top off this laughably suspicious scene with Kilgallen's closest confident friend Ms. Smith dying the next day? And DK's Ruby investigation files immediately disappearing?

Why the grandly illogical ignoring and burying of this magnificently qualified Hollywood A-List film story of one of our most well known celebrities of her day? And for over 50 years?

Just another typically suspect and contrived part of the JFK/Oswald/Ruby affair ... no?

 

 

 

Edited August 25, 2022 by Joe Bauer

[Michael Griffith]

14 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Mike, you cannot be serious about Janney. Please.  

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/janney-peter-mary-s-mosaic-part-2

Leo Damore was full of it, and I have that from his working assistant Mark O'Blazeny.

And if you read Don McGovern's review of Collateral Damage, Mark Shaw does not know jack about the death of MM.  He actually tried to place the wrong car in LA and he did not even know that MM's house did not have French doors. 

We'll have to agree to disagree about Peter Janney's book.

I do recognize that Shaw's scholarship is spotty in some cases, but I also believe that he presents a lot of valid and important information. I don't recommend Collateral Damage on my website, but I do recommend The Reporter Who Knew Too Much.  

[Charles Blackmon]

24 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

W I don't recommend Collateral Damage on my website, but I do recommend The Reporter Who Knew Too Much.  

Mike

Please provide your website link. I would like to take a look at it sometime.

[Joe Bauer]

Peter Janney's credentials sure seem impressive. To me anyway.

I'd like to engage more regards Janney and his book after some better research.

FWIW ... I've never met and known anyone who is a jazz lover/aficionado to be anything but well read, honest and mentally healthy and grounded.

The Mary Meyer murder reads like a classic professional hit.

Her daily habits and comings and goings are studied. The perfect place to hit her is not at or inside her home. It would be in a lightly traversed public place with no eyewitness close by. Plant a mentally addled dupe nearby with a weak alibi and who just happens to have a criminal record no matter how benign.

There would be spotters in key locations.

Another unfortunate woman who knew too much.

To me her death is really sad. Shot twice. Pain beyond words to the point of passing out. Left crumpled up on a no-one-around path to die alone.

She never hurt anybody outside of her dumped husband.

A truly evil act.

Edited August 25, 2022 by Joe Bauer

[Michael Griffith]

Here is a balanced review of Janney's Mary's Mosaic that addresses the initial harsh reviews and notes the improvements that Janney made to his case in the second and third editions of his book:

Review of Peter Janney’s “Mary’s Mosaic” – Lit by Imagination (wordpress.com)

And I, for one, think that the case against the man prosecuted for Meyer's murder, Ray Crump, smells to high heaven, and I'm surprised that two of the harsh reviews argue that Crump was guilty. There were very good reasons that the jury acquitted Crump. If I'd been on that jury, I would have voted for acquittal hands down. 

[James DiEugenio]

This is just one part of my review of Janney, I recommend everyone read the whole thing.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/janney-peter-mary-s-mosaic-part-2

 

Secondly, would not such a precise commando team realize that there was a big problem somewhere along the way? Namely that Crump was black and Mitchell was white? So I imagine that after all the clothes were ordered, then delivered to the crime scene, some Navy Seal put on his color corrected glasses, looked up and said: “Oh dooky! The guy’s black!” We are supposed to believe that with its enormous reach, and realizing this was Washington D.C., the CIA could not find one black covert operator in all of its worldwide operations.

As is his bent, Janney shoves that lacuna under the rug. What he does to paper it over is startling. I had to read this section over twice to make sure I did not misread it the first time. Mary was shot twice. There is evidence her body was also dragged about 20 feet. Janney writes that this was done in order to be sure there was a witness! (Janney, p. 335) But why would you do that if Mitchell was white and Crump was black? Well see, the CIA had ways to alter skin pigmentation. (ibid, p. 332) Apparently the chemical process could be done on the scene and was effective instantaneously. In a matter of minutes, Mitchell went from Caucasian to African-American. It must have been an amazing sight to watch. (And Michael Jackson’s doctor was way behind the times.) But Janney’s pen cannot keep up with the constant convolutions of his imagination. Because three pages later he now says that Mitchell escaped after the killing and was replaced by a stand-in for Crump. (ibid, p. 335) Janney never asks himself: “Why would the CIA do that?” Why not just have the African-American stand in kill Mary in the first place? Maybe because someone just wanted to see if Mitchell could transform himself from a white guy to a black guy in front of your eyes?

As the reader can see, in his unremitting effort to fit a square peg into a round hole, Janney has ascended into the heights of dreadfulness. And he spared himself no embarrassment in getting there.

Edited August 24, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

Yes, and I think I was the only one to point this out. 

We are to believe that somehow, someway, that Janney's alleged killer altered his skin pigmentation instantaneously. Like right on the scene. 

But he then tops that by saying he was then replaced by a stand in.

🤕

Tom Scully did some excellent work on this.  He found out that the hard to find Mr. Mitchell, was actually easy to find.  And that he could not have been the guy who Damore said he talked to. And that Dovey Roundtree knew that Crump did not have an alibi.  

Edited August 24, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[Paul Brancato]

If one objection to finding Meyer’s death suspicious is that she wasn’t much of a danger no matter what she knew or might say, we cannot say the same of Dorothy Kilgallen, who would have been able to promote her theories far and wide. I do however find Meyer’s death suspicious. 

 

Edited August 24, 2022 by Paul Brancato

[Michael Griffith]

My approach is that I will not trash a book unless its central thesis is erroneous and unless it contains more invalid arguments than valid arguments. This is why I have not trashed Mortal Error. Even though the book's central thesis is wrong, the book contains a lot more valid information than anything written by Posner, Bugliosi, Belin, Moore, etc. 

I believe Shaw's The Reporter Who Knew Too Much is a worthwhile book that contains important information on Kilgallen and her death. I don't agree with Shaw's belief that the Mafia was the main, if not the only, group behind Dorothy's death, but that's okay. 

There are parts of Janney's book that I find weak, but, on balance, I think it is an important work of scholarship that contains some revealing, important information. I'm talking about the third edition. I have not read the first and second editions. 

 

[Guest]

On 8/24/2022 at 1:06 AM, James DiEugenio said:

Mike, you cannot be serious about Janney. Please.  

https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/janney-peter-mary-s-mosaic-part-2

Leo Damore was full of it, and I have that from his working assistant Mark O'Blazeny.

And if you read Don McGovern's review of Collateral Damage, Mark Shaw does not know jack about the death of MM.  He actually tried to place the wrong car in LA and he did not even know that MM's house did not have French doors. 

Hi Jim,

I god half or 2/3 through this one before taking a break. That really was a savaging of Janney. I enjoyed the book but, I felt its almost expected for him to write the book with MPM as the central character. He is trying to make people feel as sad for her as he does. I didn’t personally feel the book was about putting JFK down or diminishing his status. Anyway, I am sure you researched Damore and co diligently, but, I was left with a couple of questions, so far.

- Is it probable that MPM heard the anti-JFK rhetoric from Cord Meyer, Angleton and co, the hatred? Is it probably that she could have overheard or participated in convos when people were drunk? If there was indeed a relationship, is it likely that Cord would have been annoyed or angry about it? 
 

- Is there any evidence that Angleton went to Mary’s art studio to search for her diary? 
 

- Did you find any evidence that these friends of hers that moved away wished to remain silent on what they knew if anything? 
 

Now one on Teddy and Chappaquiddick:

- I have watched tons of docs and read all sorts on this event. My conclusion was that Teddy was not in the car when it went off the bridge. What was the one single thing that led you to believe that he was? 
I am just trying to make what seems highly illogical, logical, which everyone tries to do with that event. The media coverage on this and the movies were positively shocking, especially having Bruce Dern playing old JPK hissing the word “alibi” down the phone to Teddy. The bloke had only said yes or no since 1961 I read. 

[Andrew Prutsok]

Chappaquiddick has all the earmarks of a CIA op. 

Say what you will about Teddy Kennedy, but here's the 28-year-old, doughy, Hyannis Port rich boy on the back of a bucking horse in Miles City, MT in 1960. 

https://mtstandard.com/news/state-and-regional/kennedys-wild-ride/article_2b9ff079-1850-546a-aa9b-c478a3c9f33a.html

I live in Miles City and have been to these events. It's deranged. This was total badassery. He was twice the cowboy George W Bush ever thought of being.