Does Anthony Summers Now Reject Conspiracy in the JFK Case?

[Matt Allison]

Did FDR want to enter WWII? Yes, he did.

Did he want to lose 1/3 of his Navy as well as all the oil stored at Pearl Harbor that was necessary to supply the Pacific fleet?

Not unless he was batsh*t crazy and incompetent.

That's why you know he had no idea Pearl was going to be attacked.

[Benjamin Cole]

16 hours ago, Lawrence Schnapf said:

@Jean Paul Ceulemans

Ben Cole is correct about the very strong isolationist movement in the US. There was a very interesting CSPAN boardcast last December about the run up to Pearl Harbor and there was consensus that had the Japanese attacked our fleet at Philippines  instead of Pearl Harbor, it would have been very hard for FDR to get a declaration of war out of Congress. Indeed, had Hitler not declared war on the US after Pearl Harbor, the historians said it would have been equally as hard to divert focus away from the Japanese after Pearl Harbor. You cannot underestimate the strength of the isolationist movement in the US in 1941. 

LS-

Well, I might choose the word "non-interventionist" rather than "isolationist."

 

[Michael Griffith]

20 hours ago, Lawrence Schnapf said:

not the last time I communicated with him about three months ago in connection with the letter to the House Oversight Committee requesting an oversight hearing on the JFK Records Act.  

First off, I'll say one more thing about FDR's allowing Pearl Harbor to be attacked: FDR and his inner circle did not believe the Japanese would do much damage in their attack, and they were stunned when they learned the extent of the damage. Navy Secretary Frank Knox revealed this to close friends, and the great damage that was done was the reason he decided to start disclosing FDR's foreknowledge to selected friends.

Beyond this, I'm not going to comment further on FDR's advance knowledge of Pearl Harbor. I lay out most of the evidence of advance knowledge in my previously mentioned book. I also present much of it on my Pearl Harbor website. Doug Horne presents a great deal of the evidence in his book on the subject, although Doug thinks FDR's duplicity was warranted and wise.

I engage in no "screed" against Democrats. I'm an eclectic Independent. I agree with the Democrats on several issues, including universal healthcare, most aspects of the Affordable Care Act, infrastructure spending, tougher environmental laws on proven big polluters, granting legal status to illegal immigrants who've committed no serious crimes, granting full citizenship to "Dreamers," and raising the minimum age for buying rifles to 21. When it comes to the Vietnam War, yes, I absolutely believe that liberal Democrats in Congress and the anti-war movement behaved terribly and treasonously. But, that was a long time ago. I'm conservative on many issues, moderate on many issues, and liberal on some issues. 

So, with that out of the way, Lawrence, I'm glad to hear that as of three months ago when you communicated with Summers, he had not embraced the lone-gunman theory. 

Edited October 11, 2022 by Michael Griffith

[Matt Allison]

1 hour ago, Michael Griffith said:

FDR and his inner circle did not believe the Japanese would do much damage in their attack

???

This statement doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me.

[Matt Allison]

Knox blamed Japanese-Americans living in Hawaii.

https://wapo.st/3RNpajb

[Michael Griffith]

7 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

8 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

FDR and his inner circle did not believe the Japanese would do much damage in their attack.

This statement doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me.

Knox blamed Japanese-Americans living in Hawaii.

https://wapo.st/3RNpajb

I could easily answer these arguments, but Pearl Harbor is not the topic of this thread. If you want to start a separate thread on the evidence of advance knowledge, go ahead and I'll be glad to engage the issue and post more evidence.

 

[Anthony Thorne]

In his most recent JFK book Summers said something like, "So, was there a conspiracy? Maybe, maybe not."  I think Jim even pointed this out in his review at the time.

Summers is dragged out for TV interviews and articles more than many other researchers. Is saying "Oswald did it." a more lucrative gig? I think it is.

[Bob Ness]

9 hours ago, Michael Griffith said:

I could easily answer these arguments, but Pearl Harbor is not the topic of this thread. If you want to start a separate thread on the evidence of advance knowledge, go ahead and I'll be glad to engage the issue and post more evidence.

 

More bad news.

You were the person who brought it up and also posted a link to it.

You derailed your own thread this time at least. I do appreciate the research you and others put into various topics. Don't get me wrong. But following the topic presented is also a polite thing to do so people don't have to wade through unrelated chatter (I'm sure we're all guilty to some extent) in order to get to the subject and knowledgeable posters who may have valuable insights and expertise. Flaming a book author with political jibber-jabber which causes them to disappear cheats everyone else out of that valuable perspective. They often don't reappear.

[Michael Griffith]

On 10/12/2022 at 2:42 AM, Bob Ness said:

More bad news.

You were the person who brought it up and also posted a link to it.

You derailed your own thread this time at least. I do appreciate the research you and others put into various topics. Don't get me wrong. But following the topic presented is also a polite thing to do so people don't have to wade through unrelated chatter (I'm sure we're all guilty to some extent) in order to get to the subject and knowledgeable posters who may have valuable insights and expertise. Flaming a book author with political jibber-jabber which causes them to disappear cheats everyone else out of that valuable perspective. They often don't reappear.

I brought up Pearl Harbor only to highlight a case where Summers has stared right at clear evidence of conspiracy--in this instance, advance knowledge--and has offered lame explanations for that evidence. I was not trying to start a discussion about Pearl Harbor itself. The link I posted was a link to my review of Summers' Pearl Habor book in which I respond to his rejection of evidence of advance knowledge. 

I'm rather surprised there there's pushback on this issue here of all places. Have any of you read Doug Horne's excellent book on the subject? Horne presents a great deal of evidence that FDR knew Pearl Harbor would be attacked and welcomed the attack in order to get America into the war. (Horne, however, thinks FDR's duplicity was a necessary evil that ended up doing much more good than evil, a view that I strongly reject.)

Anyway, I'm glad to hear that Summers has not switched sides on the JFK case. His witness interviews have been some of the most important ever done on the case. His 2014 book Not in Your Lifetime is superb. His chapter therein on Oswald's whereabouts during the shooting presents a strong case that Oswald was not on the sixth floor during the assassination.

Edited October 14, 2022 by Michael Griffith

[Matt Allison]

25 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

Horne presents a great deal of evidence that FDR knew Pearl Harbor would be attacked and welcomed the attack in order to get America into the war. (

And I succinctly explained why such a notion is ludicrous.

[Bob Ness]

2 hours ago, Matt Allison said:

And I succinctly explained why such a notion is ludicrous.

And I have extensively questioned a person who would be well placed to know and have first-hand information not available to REMF's on the subject.

Edited October 14, 2022 by Bob Ness

[Matt Allison]

2 minutes ago, Bob Ness said:

And I have questioned extensively a person who would be well placed to know and have information not available to REMF's on the subject.

Under oath?

Because anybody can claim anything.

Logic dictates that FDR would not risk losing 1/3 of his Navy and all the oil to power it just so he could enter WWII. The idea is ridiculous on its face.

[Bob Ness]

2 minutes ago, Matt Allison said:

Under oath?

Because anybody can claim anything.

Logic dictates that FDR would not risk losing 1/3 of his Navy and all the oil to power it just so he could enter WWII. The idea is ridiculous on its face.

Have you read my earlier posts? My grandfather literally intercepted those messages. IOW I'm agreeing with you and so would he. Pay attention here pal...

[Matt Allison]

7 minutes ago, Bob Ness said:

Have you read my earlier posts? My grandfather literally intercepted those messages. IOW I'm agreeing with you and so would he. Pay attention here pal...

ah. Mea culpa

[Pamela Brown]

Speaking of Anthony Summers, in an entirely different situation, it seems he set Judyth up with the first version of her book.  He asked her to send her manuscript to his agent in London.  She was all excited about that. Then she did not hear anything for a long period of time.  When she made requests as to what was happening they finally 'returned' her manuscript.  However, it was not her manuscript -- it was just a box full of old newspapers...I don' think she ever got the manuscript back...

Edited October 16, 2022 by Pamela Brown