G. Robert Blakey Debates Howard Willens: HSCA vs. WC

[Michael Griffith]

This is the video of the 2018 debate between former HSCA chief counsel G. Robert Blakey and former WC assistant counsel Howard Willens held at the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas, Texas. Those pro-conspiracy researchers who view Blakey as the enemy, a traitor, a saboteur, etc., may have second thoughts about their opinion of Blakey after watching this debate.

LINK TO VIDEO

Among other things, Blakey does the following:

-- He notes that surveillance and informant accounts show that Mafia kingpins Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante admitted to being involved in the JFK assassination, and that Marcello revealed that Ruby was used to silence Oswald.

-- He presents a strong defense of the eyewitness accounts of gunfire from the grassy knoll, and he insists there was a gunman on the knoll. 

-- He stoutly and capably defends the HSCA acoustical evidence.

-- He discusses and criticizes several WC failures and errors.

-- He argues that Oswald was manipulated and misled by the conspirators.

-- He says there was more than one criminal person on the grassy knoll involved in the assassination. 

-- He says the CIA misled and withheld information from the WC.

-- He says the CIA misled and withheld information from the HSCA.

-- He says J. Edgar Hoover pressured FBI agents to do a hurried, incomplete investigation, and that some FBI agents said they would have investigated differently if they had been given more time and more latitude. 

Now, yes, you will have to hold your nose when Blakey defends the SBT, when he argues that only two shots hit JFK, and when he says that both hits came from the sixth-floor window. But, notice how upset Willens becomes over Blakey's arguments, and notice how angrily Willens attacks Blakey. 

Willens is downright comical at times, in addition to being dour and unfriendly much of the time. This debate was held in 2018, but Willens talks like the debate was held in 1965. He insists the WC got it right and denies that anyone has found any major errors in the WC's conclusions. 

Edited June 23, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Michael Griffith]

As I said, Blakey "capably" defended the HSCA acoustical evidence in the debate. He did a credible job. I would give him a C+. But, he could have done better if he had been better versed in the evidence. Here are some things he could have mentioned that would have greatly bolstered his case:

The HSCA acoustical experts found remarkable timing-movement correlations between the five suspect dictabelt impulses and five Dealey Plaza test shots. Not only do they match in sequence, a remarkable correspondence all by itself, but they also match in spacing and distance. The sequence match alone is impressive, given that there are 120 ways to order five events. The odds of randomly ordering five events in the correct sequence are 1 in 120, or less than 1%, and this is not considering the correlations in spacing and distance. Even the NRC panel obliquely admitted that their own calculations showed that the odds that these correlations resulted from chance were only 7%.

Or, take the fact that N-waves, muzzle blasts, and muzzle-blast echoes are recorded on the dictabelt. The N-waves only occur among the identified gunshot impulses and only when the motorcycle's microphone was in position to record them. Moreover, the N-waves, muzzle blasts, and muzzle-blast echoes occur in the correct order and in the correct interval, soundly debunking the amateurish suggestion that these sounds were made by human speech. Some microphone in Dealey Plaza must have recorded those sounds, because N-waves, muzzle blasts, and muzzle-blast echoes do not just magically appear on recordings out of thin air, much less in the correct order and interval.

The BBN experts knew that if they were dealing with impulse patterns caused by gunfire, each of the sounds would come in a specific order: they knew that the N-wave would come first, followed by the muzzle blast, followed by echoes of the shock wave and the muzzle blast. They also knew that the presence of these patterns would depend on whether the microphone was in position to record them. 

The BBN scientists screened all of the impulse patterns on the police tape for N-wave-like characteristics. They did not have the test-firing data yet, but, being acoustical scientists who had dealt with gunfire cases before, they understood the general characteristics of N-waves and how they would appear on an oscillogram printout of a recording. And they found that the N-waves, muzzle blasts, and muzzle-blast echoes only occur among the identified gunshot impulse patterns, and that they occur in the correct order and interval. The NRC panel did not lay a finger on this impressive evidence.

Or, consider the remarkable windshield distortion correlations. The HSCA experts tested for the effect of windshield distortion. They found that windshield distortions occur in the dictabelt's gunshot impulse patterns when they should occur, i.e., when the motorcycle was in position to allow them to occur, and do not occur when they should not occur. The NRC panel did not even attempt to explain these correlations.

Or, consider the fact at least four of the gunshot impulses on the dictabelt recording have echo patterns that are unique to Dealey Plaza. This is why acoustical expert Aschkenasy said that if the police microphone had in fact been recording in a different location, that location would have had to be an exact replica of Dealey Plaza.

Or, consider the fact that the echo of the shot identified as the grassy knoll shot had distortion and transmission traits that were unique to the grassy knoll. When Congressman Edgar asked Dr. Weiss if the third and fourth dictabelt shots were really just an acoustical mirage from one muzzle blast, Dr. Weiss said this was impossible because every echo predicted from the dictabelt’s grassy knoll shot (the third shot) corresponded to an echo from the grassy knoll recorded during the test firing. He explained that for the third and fourth shots to be an acoustical mirage of one shot, the sound of the muzzle blast would have had to be transported “to the location of the grassy knoll area, and there emitted as if it had originated from that point,” because every echo has “its own peculiar distortion, transmission characteristics."

And we should remember that the sonar analysis enabled Weiss and Aschkenasy to reduce the acceptance window for matching a dictabelt impulse with a test-firing shot from 6 milliseconds down to 1 millisecond, a 500% narrower window, which vastly reduced the possibility of a false match. 1 millisecond is one one-thousandth of a second. To be counted as a match, a dictabelt impulse and a test-shot echo pattern had to correspond to each other within the incredibly short timeframe of 1 millisecond

As for the Decker "hold everything" crosstalk transmission, it is not a determinative time indicator. The time offsets alone indicate that the "hold everything" transmission is not a reliable time marker. Other transmissions are far more compelling time markers, and they show that the shots occurred at the correct time.

For example, Chief Curry’s “triple underpass” transmission occurs 6 seconds before the 12:30 time notation on Channel 2 and 2 seconds after Deputy Chief Fisher’s “I’ll check” crosstalk (which occurs 8 seconds before the 12:30 time notation). Chief Curry’s “triple underpass” transmission and the first dictabelt gunshot occur virtually at the same time. Curry’s “to the hospital” transmission occurs 12 seconds after the 12:30 time notation on Channel 2. This is key evidence because we know that Curry made the “to the hospital” transmission while still in Dealey Plaza, just after he heard gunfire. 

I think the tests that Josiah Thompson arranged to have done at BBN prove once and for all that the Decker "hold everything" crosstalk is not a valid time indicator but is a meaningless anomaly. Thompson discusses these tests and their results in great detail in his recent book Last Second in Dallas.

Edited June 23, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Karl Kinaski]

To add to the confusion: HSCA-Blakey and WC-Belin discussing the fact that their two official taxpayer-funded reports don't fit. Host: Howard Hunt protegee William Buckley jr. 

 

Edited June 24, 2023 by Karl Kinaski

[Lawrence Schnapf]

@Michael Griffith there is alot of important information in the HSCA report and Blakely's book pointing to the mafia being behind the assassination. Rankin tried to investigate this area in March 1964 but was shutdown/obstructed by Hoover.  

[Benjamin Cole]

In the video, Blakey also ID's Eladio Del Valle and Hermininio Diaz as possible suspects in the JFKA. 

Both would be dead within three years of the JFKA 

Blakey was a professional mob-hunter, a very worthy pursuit at the time, and an earnest civil servant. He trusted the CIA, as fellow civil servants. 

That may have colored Blakey's conduct during the HSCA, and Blakey, of course, later repudiated his trust in the CIA. 

Interesting topic.

 

Edited June 24, 2023 by Benjamin Cole

[Karl Kinaski]

Howard P. Willens, another character appearing in the video linked in the first post wrote as far as I know the last Warren Commission Whitewash book. It is called HISTORY WILL PROVE US RIGHT. 

Willens was directly involved in the intensive FBI surveillance of Mark Lane. He considered "full surveillance" of Lane in the letter to Rankin wich I can' t attach because of the limited upload-size. 

 

 

[Lawrence Schnapf]

Bert Griffin just published his book

[Michael Griffith]

23 hours ago, Lawrence Schnapf said:

@Michael Griffith there is alot of important information in the HSCA report and Blakely's book pointing to the mafia being behind the assassination. Rankin tried to investigate this area in March 1964 but was shutdown/obstructed by Hoover.  

Yes, and I might add that Mafia involvement does not mean that rogue-but-powerful CIA elements were not also involved. It just so happens that our strongest evidence regarding suspects points to the Mafia, but there is also evidence of CIA involvement, though this evidence is not as strong as the Mafia evidence.

I think we should remember, too, that the CIA sometimes used the Mafia when it wanted to assassinate someone. It is entirely plausible that this is what happened in the JFK assassination, that the CIA employed the Mafia as its "tip of the spear," so to speak.

However, I think it is also possible that the CIA did not use the Mafia to kill JFK but allowed or green-lighted the Mafia to do the hit. I can envision a scenario where certain CIA elements learned of the Mafia plot or were advised of the plot by their Mafia contacts and then either allowed it to happen or assured the Mafia they would not interfere.  

It is unfortunate that some researchers dismiss the Mafia evidence because they want to pin all the blame on the CIA.

[Lawrence Schnapf]

@Michael Griffith entirely agree- as i generally do with your thoughts. it was hard to determine where the CIA rogues (operational level)/CIA-trained exiles ended, and where mafia began. I dont think the CIA "suits" (upper CIA management) had anything to do the the planning but helped orchestate the coverup.  But i would not be surprised if Roselli tipped off Harvey about agitation/threats among the exiles or mafia. they talked alot and Roselli knew alot.

[Pat Speer]

On 6/22/2023 at 10:24 AM, Michael Griffith said:

This is the video of the 2018 debate between former HSCA chief counsel G. Robert Blakey and former WC assistant counsel Howard Willens held at the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas, Texas. Those pro-conspiracy researchers who view Blakey as the enemy, a traitor, a saboteur, etc., may have second thoughts about their opinion of Blakey after watching this debate.

LINK TO VIDEO

Among other things, Blakey does the following:

-- He notes that surveillance and informant accounts show that Mafia kingpins Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante admitted to being involved in the JFK assassination, and that Marcello revealed that Ruby was used to silence Oswald.

-- He presents a strong defense of the eyewitness accounts of gunfire from the grassy knoll, and he insists there was a gunman on the knoll. 

-- He stoutly and capably defends the HSCA acoustical evidence.

-- He discusses and criticizes several WC failures and errors.

-- He argues that Oswald was manipulated and misled by the conspirators.

-- He says there was more than one criminal person on the grassy knoll involved in the assassination. 

-- He says the CIA misled and withheld information from the WC.

-- He says the CIA misled and withheld information from the HSCA.

-- He says J. Edgar Hoover pressured FBI agents to do a hurried, incomplete investigation, and that some FBI agents said they would have investigated differently if they had been given more time and more latitude. 

Now, yes, you will have to hold your nose when Blakey defends the SBT, when he argues that only two shots hit JFK, and when he says that both hits came from the sixth-floor window. But, notice how upset Willens becomes over Blakey's arguments, and notice how angrily Willens attacks Blakey. 

Willens is downright comical at times, in addition to being dour and unfriendly much of the time. This debate was held in 2018, but Willens talks like the debate was held in 1965. He insists the WC got it right and denies that anyone has found any major errors in the WC's conclusions. 

 

I had a number of friendly exchanges with Willens around the time his book was released. He came across as sincere and even admitted his mistake when he called the back wound a wound on the back of the neck in a TV appearance while defending the single-bullet theory. At the time, I was combing through a few hundred Warren Commission memos and related items (not available on the Mary Ferrell site) that Willens had put up on his own site. Among these was a journal he'd kept during the WC investigation, which had formed the basis of his book. We had a bit of an argument, as I recall, over one of the posts in his journal. He made out that no one saw the back wound photo until after the May 24, 1964 re-enactment, when Specter had long admitted he'd viewed the photo on that date. When I pressed him to admit Specter, as well as Warren, knew the Rydberg drawing was inaccurate and should have not allowed it to be published, he made out that the higher location for the back wound in the drawing when compared to the back wound photo was not really important, and that I was making a mountain out of a molehill. He then said we had nothing more to talk about. Shortly thereafter, after I brought a section of Willens' journal, in which he admitted the WC had prevailed upon the archives to hold back problematic material from the public for a decent interval (in which the WC could sell their conclusions to the public), to the attention of others via Jeff Morley's site, Willens' removed his WC-related material from his website. 

So, yeah, he's out to defend the WC--by whitewashing the whitewash. 

[Michael Griffith]

3 hours ago, Lawrence Schnapf said:

@Michael Griffith entirely agree- as i generally do with your thoughts. it was hard to determine where the CIA rogues (operational level)/CIA-trained exiles ended, and where mafia began. I dont think the CIA "suits" (upper CIA management) had anything to do the the planning but helped orchestate the coverup.  But i would not be surprised if Roselli tipped off Harvey about agitation/threats among the exiles or mafia. they talked alot and Roselli knew alot.

Yes, whatever its involvement in the hit, the CIA was neck-deep involved in the cover-up involving the photographic evidence, as Doug Horne has documented. Also, soon after JFK was dead, powerful elements of the CIA began trying to exploit Oswald's pro-Castro posturing to provoke an invasion of Cuba. 

@Pat SpeerPat, that was a very interesting and revealing post about Willens. Thanks for sharing.

[Michael Griffith]

It is often overlooked that when the BBN acoustical scientists began their analysis of the dictabelt recording, they did not know that the speed of the motorcycle with the open mike matched the speed of the motorcade. They only realized the speeds matched after they asked the HSCA for the speed of the motorcade. We learn this from Dr. Scott Robinson, one of the BBN experts:

          We didn’t know what the speed of the motorcade was. And he [Dr. Barger] called somebody at the select committee and asked them to tell him what the speed of the motorcade was. And they looked in their records and told him. And it turned out the speeds matched. And that’s when things got pretty convincing. (LINK, 2:25-3:20)

We should also keep in mind that when Weiss and Aschkenasy first heard the dictabelt recording, they strongly doubted that it contained gunfire:

          Mr. WEISS. We had no preconception as to what we were going to find. If anything, when we first heard the tape recording and first began to examine the data, our initial reaction was, somebody has got to be kidding; this can't be gunshots. But as we examined the data more carefully, subjected it to all the tests that we have described, the procedures that we have described, the results of the analyses themselves convinced us of where we were heading. Obviously, we did not have any plan or any objective other than to do the best we could to find out what really these data represent.

          Mr. ASCHKENASY. If I may--

          Mr. FITHIAN . Yes, Sir; go ahead.

          Mr. ASCHKENASY. If I may say just one line, it's that the numbers could not be refuted. That was our problem. The numbers just came back again and again the same way, pointing only in one direction, as to what these findings were. There just didn't seem to be any way to make those numbers go away, no matter how hard we tried. (5 HSCA 593)

Edited June 25, 2023 by Michael Griffith

[Lawrence Schnapf]

@Pat Speer i was wondering why Willens had taken down his materials from his website. They were very useful. Luckily, I downloaded most of them. I'm not surprised he continues to defend the WC. It takes a big man to admit that a major assignment of his career was deficient or flawed.   

[Benjamin Cole]

9 minutes ago, Lawrence Schnapf said:

@Pat Speer i was wondering why Willens had taken down his materials from his website. They were very useful. Luckily, I downloaded most of them. I'm not surprised he continues to defend the WC. It takes a big man to admit that a major assignment of his career was deficient or flawed.   

LS--

I disagree with you that the JFKA was a mob op. My guess is intel state-Cuban exiles, mercs. Very small op. 

But there is an interesting question: Suppose the perps were Eladio Del Valle and Hermininio Diaz, as suggested by Robert Blakey. 

If the pair had feet in both camps, mob and CIA....

Still, I would classify the JFKA as an intel-state op. The national security state likely could have halted the op if they had put their minds to it. The converse is not true---the mob does not have the resources to halt a CIA hit. 

Just IMHO

 

 

 

[Michael Griffith]

10 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

LS--

I disagree with you that the JFKA was a mob op. My guess is intel state-Cuban exiles, mercs. Very small op. 

But there is an interesting question: Suppose the perps were Eladio Del Valle and Hermininio Diaz, as suggested by Robert Blakey. 

If the pair had feet in both camps, mob and CIA....

Still, I would classify the JFKA as an intel-state op. The national security state likely could have halted the op if they had put their minds to it. The converse is not true---the mob does not have the resources to halt a CIA hit. 

Just IMHO

I think we can all agree that the cover-up clearly was not a Mafia operation. The Mafia may have silenced some of the witnesses, either on their own or at the request of their intelligence liaisons, but the Mafia could not have chosen the autopsy doctors, influenced the conduct of the autopsy, altered and suppressed medical evidence, suppressed evidence of an extra bullet found in the limo, etc.