10 Disturbing Parallels Between John Lennon’s Assassination and JFK, RFK and MLK

[Paul Rigby]

On 5/5/2023 at 2:53 PM, David Whelan said:

The ten disturbing parallels between John Lennon’s assassination and the assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK.

https://davidwhelan.substack.com/p/10-disturbing-parallels-between-john

11. Hyperbolic Cinematic Similes & Metaphors (HCSMs)

In the wake of at least three high-profile assassinations, American intelligence bureaucracies have selectively deployed HCSMs when substituting fabricated eyewitness (or, in one instance, eyewitness-participant) testimony for original statements adjudged significantly inconvenient. Three examples follow, from assassinations in 1963, 1968 and 1980, respectively. In each instance, we find the original testimony unmentioned, thus denying the casual reader the ability to compare and contrast; and the import of the fictional testimony, to reinforce the official narrative.

HCSMs are used to bolster the credibility of the falsifications by suggesting that the selected eyewitnesses’ refashioned recollections are to be relied upon because their memories functioned as if a camera loaded with film. That such an absurdly mechanical conception of how human memory works*, a proposition ordinarily anathema to opponents of Zapruder film alteration, has not, to the best of my knowledge, encountered a single objection from this source, suggests HCSMs also function as a sign to intelligence assets within research communities to refrain from offering the standard objections to eyewitness testimony.

a) JFK, 1963: Norman Similas

In mid-1964, the CIA used two editions of a short-lived magazine Canadian magazine – entitled, with characteristic irony, Liberty - to rewrite the eyewitness testimony of an Elm Street eyewitness called Norman Similas. His initial testimony had appeared in late editions of the Toronto Star on the evening of November 22. The original follows. It bore no relation whatever to the Liberty version.

“More than seven months have passed since the horrors of Dallas. Never a day passes but what the projector has not flipped in my mind, and the scenes tumble out in sequence after sequence…There is a fade out and I’m next standing…”

[Extracts from Norman Similas, as told to Ken Armstrong, “The Dallas Puzzle: Part 1,” Liberty, July 15, 1964, p.20, as reproduced in Harold Weisberg’s Photographic Whitewash: Suppressed Kennedy Assassination Pictures (Self-published: Frederick, Md., 1976, 226)]

Quote

 

‘I saw president fall’ – Willowdale man

By Norman Similas

Toronto Daily Star (All Star Night edition), Friday, 22 November 1963, 1 & 13

(A Willowdale man was only 10 feet from the president’s car when he heard three shots ring out and saw Kennedy fall to the floor. Norman Similas, 34, of Sheppard Ave., phoned The Star to tell what he saw.)

I was in Dallas on a convention and I decided to snap a picture of the president as the motorcade rolled by.

The crowds had thinned out just past an overpass near the Trade Mart, so I had a good position when the motorcade came by at about eight miles an hour.

Then I suddenly heard a sharp crack. The first thing that came to my mind was that someone was letting off firecrackers. I turned away from the president’s car and looked back to where the noise seemed to come from.

Then somebody, I don’t (See WITNESS, page 13) know who it was, yelled: “The president’s been shot!”

I swung back to look at the car. A secret service man ran up with his gun drawn. A policeman beside me drew his revolver and his eyes searched the crowd.

Slumped to floor

Then another shot rang out and a third almost immediately on top of it.

I was still staring at the car. The secret service man opened the car door and I saw the president slumped to the floor and falling towards the pavement.

Jackie Kennedy was sitting on the left side of the car and Governor Connally on the president’s right.

I could see a hole in the president’s left temple and his head and hair were bathed in blood.

The agent looked in and gasped “Oh My God, he’s dead.” 

 

b) RFK, 1968: Nina Rhodes

A particularly fine specimen is to be found in the FBI version of the testimony of Nina Rhodes, an eyewitness to the murder of RFK. Interviewed on July 8, 1968, Rhodes only discovered in 1992 the extent to which her G-man interlocutor had falsified her observations. In amongst the fabrications, we find this little gem:

“Everything appeared to her like still frames in a stop-action movie…”

“When shown her FBI summary in 1992, Nina Rhodes took issue with no fewer than 15 items as stated in the report, some minor, some not. Most relevant, Rhodes claimed in writing : “ I never said I heard 8 distinct shots. From the moment the tragedy began I knew that there was at least 10-14 shots and that there had to be more than one assailant. The shots were to the left and [emphasis added] right from where I was.”

[William Klaber & Philip H. Melanson. Shadow Play: The Untold Story of the Robert F. Kennedy Assassination (NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), p.127]

 

c) John Lennon, 1980: Mark Chapman

“In 1992, Mark Chapman gave further insight into the murder to the mysterious journalist, Jack Jones, for his Chapman book, Let Me Take You Down:

‘I aimed at his back. I pulled the trigger five times. It was like everything had been stripped away. It wasn’t a make-believe world anymore. The movie strip broke. I took the Catcher in the Rye book out and started reading it…I tried to read the book, but the words were crawling all over the pages. Nothing made any sense. I just wanted the police to come and take me away from there.’”

[Dave Whelan, Mind Games: The Assassination of John Lennon, Orwell Books, 2023, 131-132]

*Dr James Orr, a psychologist at the University of Portsmouth: “Memories are not like videotape you can rewind and replay for perfect recall,” K Hilpern, Is your memory playing tricks on you? (The Guardian, G2, 16 September 2008, 19)

[Pamela Brown]

I have just received David's book.  I am looking for the section on the limousine.  I am sure, when I find it, that it will delve into the mysteries of just who was driving the Lennons that night and why they did not make sure to drive them into the center courtyard of the Dakota, where they could have safely disembarked...

It is not out of the question (positing that Chapman was a man can) that the limo driver was intentionally negligent...

Edited December 24, 2023 by Pamela Brown

[Pamela Brown]

I have just spent a fortnight with this book, and I am more confused now that before I began to read it...

Here we have Chapman psychoanalyzing himself...enough psychobabble to fill a number of garbage pails..

https://www.amazon.com/Let-Me-Take-You-Down/dp/0812991702

What do we learn of Chapman's motive? Depends on the hour...

Did he act alone or was he being goaded into this by someone else? 

Was there some sort of deal in regards to his decision to plead guilty? A deal that fell through, and has left him in prison (not a mental hospital) for all this time?

I don't see those issues being dealt with...

For starters...

However, I'm hoping David will...

Edited December 24, 2023 by Pamela Brown

[Pete Mellor]

17 hours ago, Pamela Brown said:

I have just received David's book.  I am looking for the section on the limousine.  I am sure, when I find it, that it will delve into the mysteries of just who was driving the Lennons that night and why they did not make sure to drive them into the center courtyard of the Dakota, where they could have safely disembarked...

It is not out of the question (positing that Chapman was a man can) that the limo driver was intentionally negligent...

Who was driving Lennon that night remains a mystery.  However, I've read that the Dakota driveway is too tight for a large limo's easy ingress & egress.

I've stood outside the Dakota myself in the 90's and seen the arrival of people exiting a limo on the street & walking across the sidewalk into the entranceway, so it's probably the usual thing, then and now. 

[Pete Mellor]

17 hours ago, Pamela Brown said:

I have just spent a fortnight with this book, and I am more confused now that before I began to read it...

I reckon that's the idea.  Jack Jones' book is a waste of paper.

[Pamela Brown]

7 hours ago, Pete Mellor said:

Who was driving Lennon that night remains a mystery.  However, I've read that the Dakota driveway is too tight for a large limo's easy ingress & egress.

I've stood outside the Dakota myself in the 90's and seen the arrival of people exiting a limo on the street & walking across the sidewalk into the entranceway, so it's probably the usual thing, then and now. 

With all due respect, I disagree. I have spent time at the Dakota as well.  There was plenty of room for the limo in the Dakota driveway and courtyard and it would have been the logical place for them to exit, especially at night...  

This was also told to me by a garage attendant I spoke with who was there that afternoon and evening.  In addition, there is a statement by 'audio' on the Steve Hoffman forum that says the same thing:

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/lennons-death-lingers-for-witnesses.66941/

I think it was common knowledge that the limo drove into the Dakota courtyard for the Lennons to exit. They did not have their regular driver, and what happened the night of Dec. 8, 1980 was an anomaly....

Edited December 25, 2023 by Pamela Brown

[Pamela Brown]

13 hours ago, Pete Mellor said:

I reckon that's the idea.  Jack Jones' book is a waste of paper.

It is such a disappointment.  Surely a smokescreen...

But why? Just what is there that must be covered up? Or protected?

Edited December 26, 2023 by Pamela Brown

[Pamela Brown]

Regarding the position of the gunshots in the wood and glass windbreak, Goldman, of all people, has an answer...

The first two shots caught Lennon in the back and spun him around. (p684)

I find David's explanation falling prey to the fallacy of false alternatives, when he says, on p187 'h bullet holes in the glass panel ...were simply in the wrong place.'

The bullet holes are in the 'right' place.  

Edited December 25, 2023 by Pamela Brown

[Pamela Brown]

David pontificates far and wide, imo, in his distress over John having been rushed to cremation, and cremated at all, as that was against John's wishes...without, however, mentioning where the cremation took place...pp 176-178

Also, in David's 'recap' on pp 186-187 he mentions the rush to John's cremation without citing just where it took place...

Why is that?

Is David being intentionally vague, or does he not know?

Would revealing the location give us information he does not want his readers to have?

If so, why?

 

Edited December 27, 2023 by Pamela Brown

[Pete Mellor]

16 hours ago, Pamela Brown said:

With all due respect, I disagree. I have spent time at the Dakota as well.  There was plenty of room for the limo in the Dakota driveway and courtyard and it would have been the logical place for them to exit, especially at night...  

This was also told to me by a garage attendant I spoke with who was there that afternoon and evening.  In addition, there is a statement by 'audio' on the Steve Hoffman forum that says the same thing:

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/lennons-death-lingers-for-witnesses.66941/

I think it was common knowledge that the limo drove into the Dakota courtyard for the Lennons to exit. They did not have their regular driver, and what happened the night of Dec. 8, 1980 was an anomaly....

Thanks for that Pamela.  It's interesting that at 17:30 the Lennon's limousine failed to turn up to take them to the Record Plant, so they had to share a cab with others.  This is when Chapman got his copy of Double Fantasy signed, photographed by Paul Goresh.  David's book just states that the driver of the limo back from the Record Plant is unknown.

Also interesting in that Hoffman piece is this:-"Where's Lennon?" Cullen asked. The rock star was crumpled inside a nearby vestibule, blood pouring from his chest. There were bullet holes in the glass; Cullen went to Lennon's side as Spiro cuffed the gunman.

That is not where Lennon was according to David's book....in the back office of the concierge area, with testimonies and photographs showing blood on the floor.  It remains strange that hollow points were causing entry & exit wounds.

Whatever went on at the Dakota, I find 'Mind Games' the best publication to date on Chapman's biography, pre and post December 1980.

[Pete Mellor]

16 hours ago, Pamela Brown said:

Regarding the position of the gunshots in the wood and glass windbreak, Goldman, of all people, has an answer...

The first two shots caught Lennon in the back and spun him around. (p684)

I've never read Goldman, so my only comment would be, how does he know the first two shots caught Lennon in the back and spun him around.  The Roosevelt surgeon & nurses describe 4 entries from the front from relatively close range, upper left chest.  Are those bullet holes in the vestibule glass too low.  With these doors opening inwards I wonder how Chapman's shot position could cause these holes.

The kicker is that this was another open and shut case, the perp admitted his guilt on site and so it seems the NYPD didn't require any detailed follow up investigation.  Hence the anomalies and confusions today.

[Pamela Brown]

9 hours ago, Pete Mellor said:

I've never read Goldman, so my only comment would be, how does he know the first two shots caught Lennon in the back and spun him around.  The Roosevelt surgeon & nurses describe 4 entries from the front from relatively close range, upper left chest.  Are those bullet holes in the vestibule glass too low.  With these doors opening inwards I wonder how Chapman's shot position could cause these holes.

The kicker is that this was another open and shut case, the perp admitted his guilt on site and so it seems the NYPD didn't require any detailed follow up investigation.  Hence the anomalies and confusions today.

I am taking Goldman's description as a suggestion...

The bullet holes in the vestibule glass are where they are...it is up to us to determine why...

[Bill Fite]

The first reason is that John Lennon was a man of peace.

A couple of questions about that -

• Why is it so important that he was a man of peace in 1980, what was the military action of concern?  ---- the war in Vietnam has been over for 6 years.
• What political influence did John Lennon have in 1980?  --Imagine, Give Peace a Chance and So this is Christmas are 9-10 years in the past.  Lennon's time in the spotlight was over.
• A possible common motive for the murders of JFK, MLK, RFK and Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, Medgar Evers was their support of civil rights -- I don't remember Lennon being an outspoken supporter of civil rights although I don't doubt that he did support them.
• By 1980, the left had been decapitated by the murders noted above -- why worry about Lennon?  .
• Wouldn't the murder / attempted murder that is most comparable be the attack on George Harrison? -- who is not controversial at all.

[Anthony Venturella]

3 hours ago, Bill Fite said:

The first reason is that John Lennon was a man of peace.

A couple of questions about that -

• Why is it so important that he was a man of peace in 1980, what was the military action of concern?  ---- the war in Vietnam has been over for 6 years.
• What political influence did John Lennon have in 1980?  --Imagine, Give Peace a Chance and So this is Christmas are 9-10 years in the past.  Lennon's time in the spotlight was over.
• A possible common motive for the murders of JFK, MLK, RFK and Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, Medgar Evers was their support of civil rights -- I don't remember Lennon being an outspoken supporter of civil rights although I don't doubt that he did support them.
• By 1980, the left had been decapitated by the murders noted above -- why worry about Lennon?  .
• Wouldn't the murder / attempted murder that is most comparable be the attack on George Harrison? -- who is not controversial at all.

Bill, these were my questions. Here's the answers I found, although somewhat unsatisfying:

• Lennon was murdered one month before Reagan took office;
• Lennon had been silent for five years raising Sean, but was making a comeback in 1980.
• Lennon had been on Nixon's enemies list, was vilified for his Happy Xmas/War is Over billboards.
• The government's repeated efforts to deport him failed, and he was granted permanent residency.
• Appears he was deemed a threat when he resurfaced in 1980 and was here to stay.
• Apparently the national security apparatus did not want him around writing songs and buying billboards during the new administration's efforts in illegal clandestine activity (Iran-Contra, etc.).

I plan to get David's new book.

Edited December 28, 2023 by Anthony Venturella

[Bill Fite]

10 minutes ago, Anthony Venturella said:

Bill, these were my questions. Here's the answers I found, although somewhat unsatisfying:

• Lennon was murdered one month before Reagan took office;
• Lennon had been silent for five years raising Sean, but was making a comeback in 1980.
• Lennon had been on Nixon's enemies list, was vilified for his Happy Xmas/War is Over billboards.
• The government's repeated efforts to deport him failed, and he was granted permanent residency.
• Appears he was deemed a threat when he resurfaced in 1980 and was here to stay.
• Apparently the national security apparatus did not want him around writing songs and buying billboards during the new administration's efforts in illegal clandestine activity (Iran-Contra, etc.).

I plan to get David's new book.

Thanks.

I guess part of my skepticism is that in my memory Lennon's big song at the time was Watching the Wheels.  

In it he basically says he has withdrawn and is satisfied to sit back and watch and that he just had to let it go.

It's hardly a call to action.