Can Oswald's denials be reconciled with the Lone Nut position?

[Guest]

Hi
 

Edited February 15, 2023 by Lance Payette

[David Von Pein]

Welcome back, Lance Payette!

So good to see you here again!

 

[Guest]

On 12/12/2022 at 3:55 PM, David Von Pein said:

Welcome back, Lance Payette!

So good to see you here again!

 

Hi

 

Edited February 15, 2023 by Lance Payette

[John Cotter]

16 minutes ago, Lance Payette said:

Thanks - I'm pretty sure not everyone will agree! 😁 I am, however, now a kinder and gentler Lone Nut advocate.

Have any thoughts on my theory as to the reason for Oswald's denials?

I do think the Lone Nut label is unfair to us Lone Nutters. I believe Oswald was far from a nut and was in many ways pretty shrewd. I always go back to his appearances on New Orleans radio, LEE HARVEY OSWALD ON THE RADIO (AUGUST 1963) (TWO COMPLETE PROGRAMS) - YouTube, as being lucid and far from nut-like.

 

Lance,

As a lone nut theorist, how do you explain away the incontrovertible proof of the JFKA conspiracy and of its being officially covered up, which is presented in the video below by Gil Jesus?

I’ve already put this repeatedly to two other lone nut theorists here, David Von Pein and Paul Baker. DVP attempted to explain it away by claiming Mark Lane had manipulated the witnesses who had observed shooting-related activity on the “grassy knoll” into making false statements on camera.

He presented no evidence whatsoever to support this scurrilous accusation. What he did was adduce material which purportedly showed Mark Lance had manipulated or misrepresented other witnesses. This material did not withstand scrutiny either. And even if it did, it would be irrelevant.

Paul Baker simply didn’t reply, and no other forum members who advocate the lone-nut theory came to the rescue of either him or DVP.  

QED.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODXoISgU-0M

[David Von Pein]

38 minutes ago, Lance Payette said:

Have any thoughts on my theory as to the reason for Oswald's denials?

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2019/03/ Why Did Oswald Deny Killing President Kennedy?

 

Edited December 13, 2022 by David Von Pein

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Lance Payette said:

If Oswald single-handedly assassinated JFK, as I believe he did, why did he deny having done so after he was arrested? If he’d always believed he was destined for an important place in history, as I believe he did, why didn’t he bask in the limelight of being a Presidential assassin when he had the opportunity? Why didn’t he spew anti-American, pro-Cuba and pro-Marxist rhetoric when he had the chance?

According to the 22 November 1963 website, http://22november1963.org.uk/why-did-oswald-deny-shooting-jfk, for example, “If Oswald genuinely had been motivated by a desire to get his name in the history books, he could be expected to boast about his crime rather than repeatedly deny that he was responsible.”

Is this true? Is it a massive problem for the Lone Nut position?

I admit it’s at least “a” problem that cries out for a plausible Lone Nut explanation.

One such explanation, of course, is that Oswald was himself assassinated by Ruby less than 48 hours after being arrested. He’d had no legal representation and was still hoping to make contact with John Abt. Can we really be so sure he “could be expected to boast about his crime” during this short period if recognition were his motivation? I won’t belabor the point, but his denials scarcely seem to me to weigh heavily in favor of his innocence.

In American Assassins: The Darker Side of Politics, published by Princeton University Press in 1982, political scientist James W. Clarke identifies four psychological types of political assassins. You can find them summarized at https://www.unl.edu/eskridge/cj394assassins.html, which I’ve also copied below. I haven’t read Clarke’s book but would see Oswald as an amalgam of Type I and Type II.

Oswald may or may not have expected to survive. He may have hoped to survive, escape and somehow use the assassination as his ticket to Cuba after his previous failure in Mexico City. Or he may have believed the assassination would vindicate him to the Cubans and Marina even if he died in the process (to the Cubans by showing the sincerity of his Marxist convictions and to skeptical Marina by showing he really was the historically important figure he’d always claimed to be destined to be).

Having survived the assassination, but not escaped, I believe he was shrewd enough to realize he’d been handed a golden opportunity to cement his place in history. If he’d confessed, this would’ve been the end of the matter. He’d just be a modern Leon Czolgosz. (Who? Czolgosz was the anarchist who assassinated President McKinley.)

I believe the key to what Oswald was up to is found in his hope that John Abt would represent him. Abt was the chief legal counsel for the Communist Party USA. Oswald said he didn’t know Abt personally “but I know about a case that he handled some years ago, where he represented the people who had violated the Smith Act.” (The Smith Act criminalized advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government.)

I believe Oswald pictured an elaborate trial that would cement his place in history as he explained, under the sympathetic questioning of Abt, his own brilliant political philosophy, the glories of Marxism and Castro’s Cuba, and the failings of capitalism in the U.S. and Leninism in the USSR. He wouldn’t be just another forgotten Czolgosz but a deep political thinker who had sacrificed himself to expose the corruption of both capitalism and communism. My belief is that he knew he was likely to be convicted, but he was going to go down in a historical blaze of glory that a confession would’ve made impossible.

Bear in mind as well that he could’ve expounded on his politics at trial while still maintaining his innocence as a “patsy” of the Dallas Police Department who’d been arrested only because he’d been a defector to the USSR. Indeed, the “patsy defense” would have afforded a perfect opportunity to expound on his politics.

Here are the types from Clarke's book and the above site:

AN ASSASSIN TYPOLOGY

Type I - Assassins view their acts as a probable sacrifice of self for a political ideal. They are fully cognizant and accepting of the meaning, implications and personal consequences of their acts. Inherently personal motives, such as a neurotic need for recognition, are secondary to their primary political purpose. Type I's may or may not attempt to escape, but the sacrificial theme that characterizes their zeal and commitment suggests that capture, like death, is an acceptable, if not
preferred, risk. Emotional distortion is present only to the extent that political ideals supersede survival instincts. If captured, the Type I does not recant on his or her motivating principles or seek clemency or personal publicity. Unlike Types II, III, and IV, their extremism is rational, selfless, principled and without perversity.

Type II - Assassins are persons with overwhelming and aggressive egocentric needs for acceptance, recognition and status.  There is none of the cognitive distortion associated with psychoses. Emotionally they are characterized by moderately high levels of reality-based anxiety that exerts a strong influence on their behavior. Without delusion, they fully appreciate and accept the personal consequences of their acts. The primary characteristic they share is called a "political" personality.  That is, a personality which is inclined to project personal motives on public objects and rationalize them in terms of some larger public interest.  Such persons seek power in order to compensate for low estimates of self are most frequently a result of a deprivation of love and affection in their personal lives.  Thus there are always significant others in the personal lives of Type II subjects.  Under these circumstances, in every instance, the exercise of power in a public manner generates the attention that had been denied in the past. In some cases, the act may serve to place the burden of guilt on those persons in their disturbed
personal lives who have denied or rejected them. Assassins of this type anticipate capture or death and prepare for it. The neurotic Type II assassin is an anxious, emotional and ultimately depressed person who is primarily concerned with her/his personal problems and frustrations and only secondarily with causes or
ideals.

Type III - Assassins are either psychopaths or sociopaths who believe that the condition of their lives is so intolerably meaningless and without purpose that destruction of society and themselves is desirable for its own sake. Unlike ordinary psychopaths whose rage is usually directed at specific segments of society, this type of killer strikes at persons who personify the majority, or those who represent a cross-section rather than any particular segment. Type III subjects possess no positive political values and are belligerently contemptuous of morality and social convention. The amorphous rage and perversity that characterizes the lives of these persons may finally take form in some extreme act like suicide, mass murder, or assassination; but in the case of assassination, there is no political motive. Except for their perverse anger, they are emotionally dormant; the pendulum swings of emotion associated with some psychoses are absent. They also differ from Type I assassins in that they are rational in a negative and perverse Dostoyevskian sense and thoughtfully aware of their motives and the consequences of their acts. Feeling neither joy nor sadness and indifferent to death, they are unable to relate to others.  Thus, unlike Type II's, there are no significant others in their empty lives.  The Type III subject accurately perceives reality but is limited in his capacity to respond to it emotionally. He is not someone who has
lost his reason, rather someone who has lost everything but his reason.

Type IV - Assassins are characterized by severe emotional and cognitive distortion that is expressed in hallucinations and delusions of persecution and/or grandeur. Their contact with reality is so tenuous that they are usually unable to grasp the significance of their actions or understand the response of
others to them. Their acts are mystically or divinely inspired. They are simply irrational or insane.
 

Good post, but even if we accept the jaundiced view of LHO (and exclude that he may have been an intel asset), surely then LHO's personality-type would have susceptible to blandishments. 

Given the jaundiced view of LHO, then he would be vulnerable to promises of money (we are repeatedly told LHO was of middling financial status), fame, career advancement or passport to a new and better life by those with the power to provide it. Confederates with designs, in other words. 

Paul Gregory recently wrote a book in which he declares he divined LHO was the lone assassin while at home watching TV in Oklahoma on Nov. 22. 

At this late date, IMHO such psycho-analysis of LHO wears very thin.

There are stories of LHO's courtesy and kindness, of his abruptness, of his constantly being in groups (not a loner), but being stand-offish to some employees inside the TSBD. His supervisor Frazier regarded him as a good employee, while not so at the Reilly Coffee Co. LHO had marital difficulties, but their true nature is unknown. LHO got through Marine boot camp at age 17, and was then assigned skilled work at Atsugi Air Base. LHO appeared on contentious radio shows and handled himself well, not so easy to do (even if you disagree with his views on those shows, which I do). 

From this, you can sketch any version of LHO you want. 

IMHO, LHO's personality is a dead end for analysis.

I contend that too many shots were fired at JFK in too-rapid a sequence to have been fired by a lone gunman, armed with a single-shot bolt action rifle.

That does not exonerate LHO. No one knows where he was when shots rang out, and he appeared to have ties to US intel agencies, and was likely a witting asset.  

[James DiEugenio]

Oh no.

Lance could not say away could he?

I did some research on this guy once he left.

He is a lawyer who advised the law authorities in his home state on how to handle evidence in drug cases so it could be admitted into court and withstand challenges by the defense!

OMG!  And he somehow does not see any problems with the way the authorities handled the evidence in this case?

I am sorry I don't buy that for a second.

Edited December 13, 2022 by James DiEugenio

[Guest]

On 12/12/2022 at 4:46 PM, John Cotter said:

Lance,

As a lone nut theorist, how do you explain away the incontrovertible proof of the JFKA conspiracy and of its being officially covered up, which is presented in the video below by Gil Jesus?

I’ve already put this repeatedly to two other lone nut theorists here, David Von Pein and Paul Baker. DVP attempted to explain it away by claiming Mark Lane had manipulated the witnesses who had observed shooting-related activity on the “grassy knoll” into making false statements on camera.

He presented no evidence whatsoever to support this scurrilous accusation. What he did was adduce material which purportedly showed Mark Lance had manipulated or misrepresented other witnesses. This material did not withstand scrutiny either. And even if it did, it would be irrelevant.

Paul Baker simply didn’t reply, and no other forum members who advocate the lone-nut theory came to the rescue of either him or DVP.  

QED.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODXoISgU-0M

Hi

 

Edited February 15, 2023 by Lance Payette

[James DiEugenio]

And now he is all over the board.

[Guest]

On 12/12/2022 at 6:02 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Oh no.

Lance could not say away could he?

I did some research on this guy once he left.

He is a lawyer who advised the law authorities in his home state on how to handle evidence in drug cases so it could be admitted into court and withstand challenges by the defense!

OMG!  And he somehow does not see any problems with the way the authorities handled the evidence in this case?

I am sorry I don't buy that for a second.

Hi

Edited February 15, 2023 by Lance Payette

[Pat Speer]

9 minutes ago, Lance Payette said:

Nice job of attempting to derail the thread, which is right out of the CT playbook. Perhaps you might have had the courtesy of responding to what I said before launching into the "Oh, yeah, what about THIS?" mode that is the staple of conspiracists.

One man's "irrefutable proof" is another man's "much ado about very little." In this instance, "irrefutable proof" is hyperbole to the nth degree.

As someone who practiced law for nearly 40 years myself, my opinion of Mark Lane's ethics, tactics and credibility could scarcely be lower. His manipulation of witnesses is legendary. He was a single-minded fanatic with little regard for truth. He was little more than a self-appointed defense attorney for Oswald.

What the video actually shows is that "statements obtained by Mark Lane in these three instances do not match the descriptions in previous FBI reports." Conspiracy theorists immediately jump to the conclusion that this is "proof" the FBI "lied."

We have no idea as to what coaching these witnesses may have received from Lane. Given what we actually do know about Lane, I am not prepared to assume no coaching or manipulation occurred.

We have no real idea why the reports differ from what the witnesses say they said. Could the witnesses have been embellishing to please Lane? Could the chaos of the situation explain some or all of the discrepancies? Perhaps confusion or honest mistake on the part of the FBI agents? Did Lane undertake any effort to interview the agents and ask them to explain the discrepancies?

Is it believable to you that, beginning on the day of the assassination and extending over a period of weeks or months, FBI field agents were somehow ordered to make sure their reports conformed to some prearranged Official Story and contained nothing at odds with it? It isn't to me. For that matter, I hear nothing so startling and definitive in the statements to Lane that an FBI agent would've felt compelled to omit it even if he were under such an order.

To take this to a worst-case scenario, even if some FBI agents actually did knowingly omit from their reports witness statements contrary to the Lone Assassin explanation that Hoover adopted almost immediately - i.e., they "lied" - the conclusion "ergo, there was an assassination conspiracy" doesn't necessarily follow at all.

 

Let's be clear. The problematic FBI reports--in which the statements of a number of railroad workers were quite obviously sculpted to hide that the recollections of these men supported S.M. Holland's 11-22 statements re smoke on the knoll--were written in March, 1963, well after the FBI had completed its investigation, and long after the Warren Commission had presented its staff with an outline indicating Oswald acted alone. So I tend to agree with your final statement--that the agents tasked with writing these reports did not "know" there was a conspiracy, only that they were in clean-up mode, and were not to add to the mess. 

It should be added, moreover, that these interviews were conducted only after James Simmons came forward and asked why he and a number of other witnesses had not been interviewed. It follows, then, that if anyone is responsible for corralling up these witnesses it would be Simmons, and not Lane. Now, It should be noted as well that most of the railroad men who would subsequently confirm Holland's impression he saw smoke told this to Stewart Galanor, and not Lane. 

 

So the "Lane was a boogey man who scared all these big tough railroad men into saying cwazy things" argument doesn't hold water. It's nonsense. 

 

[Guest]

On 12/12/2022 at 5:38 PM, Benjamin Cole said:

Good post, but even if we accept the jaundiced view of LHO (and exclude that he may have been an intel asset), surely then LHO's personality-type would have susceptible to blandishments. 

Given the jaundiced view of LHO, then he would be vulnerable to promises of money (we are repeatedly told LHO was of middling financial status), fame, career advancement or passport to a new and better life by those with the power to provide it. Confederates with designs, in other words. 

Paul Gregory recently wrote a book in which he declares he divined LHO was the lone assassin while at home watching TV in Oklahoma on Nov. 22. 

At this late date, IMHO such psycho-analysis of LHO wears very thin.

There are stories of LHO's courtesy and kindness, of his abruptness, of his constantly being in groups (not a loner), but being stand-offish to some employees inside the TSBD. His supervisor Frazier regarded him as a good employee, while not so at the Reilly Coffee Co. LHO had marital difficulties, but their true nature is unknown. LHO got through Marine boot camp at age 17, and was then assigned skilled work at Atsugi Air Base. LHO appeared on contentious radio shows and handled himself well, not so easy to do (even if you disagree with his views on those shows, which I do). 

From this, you can sketch any version of LHO you want. 

IMHO, LHO's personality is a dead end for analysis.

I contend that too many shots were fired at JFK in too-rapid a sequence to have been fired by a lone gunman, armed with a single-shot bolt action rifle.

That does not exonerate LHO. No one knows where he was when shots rang out, and he appeared to have ties to US intel agencies, and was likely a witting asset.  

Hi

Edited February 15, 2023 by Lance Payette

[Pat Speer]

14 minutes ago, Lance Payette said:

I don't know whether you are dishonest, incompetent, delusional or some combination of the foregoing, but I am reporting this post. NEVER in my 40 years of practice as a CIVIL attorney was I involved in any way in a "drug case." NEVER in my 40 years did I "advise the law authorities" on how to "handle evidence in drug cases," let alone how to "avoid challenges by the defense." I know precisely NOTHING about these matters.

As with so many of your authoritative pronouncements about the assassination, you are talking through your uninformed hat. LET'S SEE YOUR RESEARCH, BECAUSE IT CAN'T POSSIBLY EXIST.

For the record, I was once named, to my astonishment, "Drug Prosecutor of the Year" in Arizona notwithstanding the fact that I have never been a prosecutor in my life and never had the slightest involvement in a drug case in my life. I was nominated for the award by a publicity-hound County Attorney only because the application I wrote for our county to be designated a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area was described by the U.S. Department of Justice as the best they'd ever seen.

For that matter, if someone HAD advised law enforcement about how to handle drug evidence so as to withstand defense challenges in court, would this somehow reflect poorly on the individual in your bizarre corner of Conspiracy World? If so, what does THAT say about YOU?

Take a chill pill. There's more than enough of this all caps anger elsewhere on the internet; we don't need it here. If Jim misrepresented your background, your asking for an explanation or retraction would suffice. As for the facts...I took Jim's point to be that you were a competent attorney--which I think most would agree is a good thing--and this led him to wonder how you could fail to note that the case against Oswald was badly handled. 

Is that so awful? I don't think so. So please take it down a notch. Perhaps you can satisfy Jim by listing what you agree were problems with the DPD's or FBI's or WC's approach to the evidence. You know, find some common ground. Or perhaps you could make a post laying out the case against Oswald and why you don't believe problems with the chain of evidence matter, or some such thing. You know, lawyer stuff. 

I'm sorry to interfere, but I've seen enough of these campfires get out of control, and I think it would be better for all of us if you would take a breath and stick to the facts. 

[Guest]

On 12/12/2022 at 6:33 PM, Pat Speer said:

Let's be clear. The problematic FBI reports--in which the statements of a number of railroad workers were quite obviously sculpted to hide that the recollections of these men supported S.M. Holland's 11-22 statements re smoke on the knoll--were written in March, 1963, well after the FBI had completed its investigation, and long after the Warren Commission had presented its staff with an outline indicating Oswald acted alone. So I tend to agree with your final statement--that the agents tasked with writing these reports did not "know" there was a conspiracy, only that they were in clean-up mode, and were not to add to the mess. 

It should be added, moreover, that these interviews were conducted only after James Simmons came forward and asked why he and a number of other witnesses had not been interviewed. It follows, then, that if anyone is responsible for corralling up these witnesses it would be Simmons, and not Lane. Now, It should be noted as well that most of the railroad men who would subsequently confirm Holland's impression he saw smoke told this to Stewart Galanor, and not Lane. 

 

So the "Lane was a boogey man who scared all these big tough railroad men into saying cwazy things" argument doesn't hold water. It's nonsense. 

 

 

On 12/12/2022 at 6:33 PM, Pat Speer said:

Let's be clear. The problematic FBI reports--in which the statements of a number of railroad workers were quite obviously sculpted to hide that the recollections of these men supported S.M. Holland's 11-22 statements re smoke on the knoll--were written in March, 1963, well after the FBI had completed its investigation, and long after the Warren Commission had presented its staff with an outline indicating Oswald acted alone. So I tend to agree with your final statement--that the agents tasked with writing these reports did not "know" there was a conspiracy, only that they were in clean-up mode, and were not to add to the mess. 

It should be added, moreover, that these interviews were conducted only after James Simmons came forward and asked why he and a number of other witnesses had not been interviewed. It follows, then, that if anyone is responsible for corralling up these witnesses it would be Simmons, and not Lane. Now, It should be noted as well that most of the railroad men who would subsequently confirm Holland's impression he saw smoke told this to Stewart Galanor, and not Lane. 

 

So the "Lane was a boogey man who scared all these big tough railroad men into saying cwazy things" argument doesn't hold water. It's nonsense. 

 

Hi

Edited February 15, 2023 by Lance Payette

[Guest]

On 12/12/2022 at 6:46 PM, Pat Speer said:

Take a chill pill. There's more than enough of this all caps anger elsewhere on the internet; we don't need it here. If Jim misrepresented your background, your asking for an explanation or retraction would suffice. As for the facts...I took Jim's point to be that you were a competent attorney--which I think most would agree is a good thing--and this led him to wonder how you could fail to note that the case against Oswald was badly handled. 

Is that so awful? I don't think so. So please take it down a notch. Perhaps you can satisfy Jim by listing what you agree were problems with the DPD's or FBI's or WC's approach to the evidence. You know, find some common ground. Or perhaps you could make a post laying out the case against Oswald and why you don't believe problems with the chain of evidence matter, or some such thing. You know, lawyer stuff. 

I'm sorry to interfere, but I've seen enough of these campfires get out of control, and I think it would be better for all of us if you would take a breath and stick to the facts. 

Hi

Edited February 15, 2023 by Lance Payette