New podcast on my books POLITICAL TRUTH and INTO THE NIGHTMARE

[James DiEugenio]

Oh no.🤐

Ask Larry Hancock why this is not good news.

[James DiEugenio]

Since Larry is not around, this is what I recall.

Larry communicated with Summers a few years back to get his take on the JFK case.

Summers said, it might have been a conspiracy, maybe not.  

Larry put this on his blog as I recall.  I hope he posts it here. That was an amazing reply since, I think it came after the ARRB and their declassification of so much new evidence, which decimated the Warren Report.

I will have something to say about this, when Don McGovern's comprehensive review of Summers' MM special is published at K and K, which will be soon.

Edited July 20, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[Derek Thibeault]

He literally wrote a book called Conspiracy. A great book. Has he flipped?

[Pat Speer]

21 minutes ago, Derek Thibeault said:

He literally wrote a book called Conspiracy. A great book. Has he flipped?

We can suspect so. I talked to him briefly and eavesdropped on a number of his conversations at a 2014 meet and greet at the beginning of a conference in Bethesda. And he certainly sounded like he was on the fence. 

As I recall he expressed no interest in researching the medical or ballistics evidence. He saw himself as a reporter, reporting on what the witnesses said, and what the "experts" told him. 

I think the one avenue of interest he retained at the time was the Veciana story, and I suspect Newman has convinced him that's a nothing burger. 

[Derek Thibeault]

1 minute ago, Pat Speer said:

We can suspect so. I talked to him briefly and eavesdropped on a number of his conversations at a 2014 meet and greet at the beginning of a conference in Bethesda. And he certainly sounded like he was on the fence. 

As I recall he expressed no interest in researching the medical or ballistics evidence. He saw himself as a reporter, reporting on what the witnesses said, and what the "experts" told him. 

I think the one avenue of interest he retained at the time was the Veciana story, and I suspect Newman has convinced him that's a nothing burger. 

I hadn't really seen him in awhile and thought he just kind of moved on, unlike the serious guys who stayed on the case still or until the end of their life. Him being more of a reporter makes total sense.

[Ron Bulman]

On 7/18/2022 at 10:07 AM, Robbie Robertson said:

Peter Kuznick who wrote untold history of the United States was on the show a few months back gave me a glimpse into it 

It's interesting to me this comes up at this point.  I don't know where I first heard of Untold History of the United States, quite likely here.  W. Niederhut had referenced it a couple of times in the last year or two.  Others hsave mentioned it I believe.  At some point I thought I need to check this out and googled it.  Looked interesting.  I kept putting off committing to 10 episodes.

Last week we watched the first two episodes.  Even my wife found it engrossing.  Sunday, another episode.  We're about to watch another one or two tonight.

Hearing the untold part, that I knew a tiny bit of, is really enlightening.  Seeing it is something else.  The footage brings it to life as opposed to reading about it with images left to the imagination.  Some is very dramatic and virtually never seen by the general public.  

The first three episodes and the upcoming fourth allow me to see what was really happening in the US and world while my parents and grandparents were living through it, unaware of a lot of it I'm sure.

I feel sure as it gets into the 60's and 70's I'll relate even more personally.  I also look forward to the latter parts as well, bringing all the way up to Obama.  Being born in 1956, barely remembering the JFK Assassination it's fascinating for me.  How we got to that, then to almost here, what set up the last six years.  A great contribution to the bigger picture.

If anyone else here has missed it.

Watch Untold History of the United States | Prime Video (amazon.com)

We're watching it free on a documentary channel (with commercials).

Now, to go interrupt Christmas in July on the Hallmark Channel.

Edited July 21, 2022 by Ron Bulman

[James DiEugenio]

Summers having no interest in the medical or ballistics testimony is sort of like Alecia Long's immortal phrase from her  Washington Post reply to Stone's JFK Revisited.

The truth about the assassination will not be found in bullets and ballistics.  😙

 

[W. Niederhut]

3 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Summers having no interest in the medical or ballistics testimony is sort of like Alecia Long's immortal phrase from her  Washington Post reply to Stone's JFK Revisited.

The truth about the assassination will not be found in bullets and ballistics.  😙

 

      That Alecia Long "review" of JFK Revisited is one of the most disgraceful excuses for a "scholarly" news article I've ever read in the Washington Post over the years -- perhaps the all-time worst.  Their other WaPo review-- by what's-his-face, the jocular film reviewer -- was equally absurd, but the guy made no pretense of being a scholar.  (He ridiculed Oliver Stone's JFK films, in passing, in the context of criticizing Spike Lee for interviewing the Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth.)

[Pat Speer]

3 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Summers having no interest in the medical or ballistics testimony is sort of like Alecia Long's immortal phrase from her  Washington Post reply to Stone's JFK Revisited.

The truth about the assassination will not be found in bullets and ballistics.  😙

 

Around the 50th anniversary, I tried to reach across the aisle. I exchanged emails with Howard Willens, Burt Griffin, and Skeptic Magazine editor Michael Shermer. I also sent an email to Robert Blakey, who'd provided me with his email address and said he would take a look at whatever I sent his way. 

The subject of these emails was the single-bullet theory. I presented them with some of the evidence I'd presented at the Bethesda conference. Their responses were illuminating.

Willens and Griffin both said they refused to look at the evidence knowing I felt the evidence suggested Arlen Specter had lied, and lied repeatedly, about the back wound location. They said this was unthinkable. And that we had nothing to talk about as long as I subscribed to this notion. 

Shermer, who I'd met at a local high school, similarly dismissed what I'd presented, without even looking at it. He said that I was lost in the minutiae and that the only way to see the truth of something was to step back and ignore the details. (Note that this was the exact opposite of what he'd said in his speech at the local high school.) 

Blakey refused to respond. I emailed him two more times to make sure he got the first email and he still refused to respond. I think it was shortly after that where I came across a recent interview where he complained about the CIA's lying to the HSCA about Joannides, while at the same time boasting that the HSCA had proved the single-bullet theory to be true. 

I realize that this happens on both sides of the aisle, or both sides of the fence, whatever. But this experience drove home the fact that people are not logical interpreters of the truth, and that the "truth" is subservient to how people feel. 

[James DiEugenio]

Thanks for that (unsuccessful) effort Pat.  

Concerning Summers, his book was good for its time, but today it has been pretty much superseded.  And on so many fronts, that i hardly ever refer to it anymore.

One of the oddest, but most revealing aspects of the book is this: He changed the title.  In fact, today, he almost runs away from that title. Also, although he has revised the book, I still think the original version is the best.  The other thing is, he and Blakey have become collegial chums. They kind of teamed up at the 50th.

[James DiEugenio]

BTW, just remember about Summers:  He was involved with the same 1993 PBS special Who was Lee Harvey Oswald? as Russo and Myers.

He did not ask to have his name taken off until the very last.

The other thing I learned about Summers was through Paul Hoch.  When I was doing my Bugliosi work, i was trying to find out about who were the consultants on that really poor lousy faux trial show.  I thought Hoch was.  Well when I got into contact with Paul--this was when I was speaking to him--he told me that Summers was really the main consultant.

Edited July 22, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[Pete Mellor]

10 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

I think it was shortly after that where I came across a recent interview where he complained about the CIA's lying to the HSCA

Pat, this as well,  "We also believe that the Cuban Government kept a careful eye fixed on its own best interests.  Here that interest-as the Cubans saw it-warranted not telling us the truth."

[Derek Thibeault]

On 7/21/2022 at 2:02 AM, James DiEugenio said:

BTW, just remember about Summers:  He was involved with the same 1993 PBS special Who was Lee Harvey Oswald? as Russo and Myers.

He did not ask to have his name taken off until the very last.

The other thing I learned about Summers was through Paul Hoch.  When I was doing my Bugliosi work, i was trying to find out about who were the consultants on that really poor lousy faux trail show.  I though Hoch was.  Well when I got into contact with Paul--this was when I was speaking to him--he told me that Summers was really the main consultant.

That's too bad "Conspiracy" was one of my original reads back in the day, along with Henry Hurt's "Reasonable Doubt". Which I read when I was in High School and did a report on. That's where it all started for me mid-80's, in the second wave of books.

[Anthony Thorne]

I bought both the older, and the recent versions of Summers' book. I eventually threw the recent edition out as I found it so annoying - there was a line at the end of it where Summers wrote something like, "Was there a conspiracy? Who knows? Maybe, maybe not [shrug].."

I figured if a writer was spending his time learning less about the case rather than more, then I didn't have to read him, so into the bin it went.

[James DiEugenio]

This is what Summers told Larry as I recall.

And just remember, the ARRB just got up and running when Summers wrote his last article on the case for Vanity Fair.

In other words this did not seem to matter to him.

If its anything like his MM special, we can afford to miss it.