Prayer Man More Than A Fuzzy Picture

[Micah Mileto]

On 9/29/2023 at 9:27 PM, James DiEugenio said:

 

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Edited October 13, 2023 by Micah Mileto

[Micah Mileto]

delete

Edited October 11, 2023 by Micah Mileto

[Pete Mellor]

43 minutes ago, Micah Mileto said:

I don't know if this means Buell Frazier, but on the subject of Buell, hasn't he already pretty much outed himself as a clown? I mean, claiming to have seen a guy behind the Depository running off with a rifle?

& there's more.

From Nancy Weiford's recent 'Dealey Plaza Echo' article she quotes from Frazier's 2021 autobiography 'Steering Truth' where he tells of leaving the front steps after the shooting to follow Shelley & Lovelady toward the railroad yards along the street directly in front of the Depository.  Without reaching the yards he decided to turn back, but before he could turn around, he suddenly was startled by a man walking east and holding a rifle.  

 

[Paul Jolliffe]

1 hour ago, Pat Speer said:

A timeline on the events following Oswald's death proves helpful. 

From Chapter 1 at patspeer.com

At 2:40 PM, in the Executive Office Building, President Johnson met with some of his top advisers. The schedule of this meeting notes that first to arrive were Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and that CIA Director John McCone, Ambassador to Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge, and Undersecretary of State George Ball soon followed. The topic of this meeting: the war in Vietnam. Although this meeting lasted less than an hour, it nevertheless marked a significant event in the history of that war, and of the world, as LBJ made it clear he was no JFK and would be willing to stomach what Kennedy had made clear he would not stomach--an increased American involvement in the war. 

It's clear then that, on 11-24-64, within minutes of his predecessor's assassin being assassinated on television, Johnson was moving on to bigger and better things. And he wasn't alone...

At 4:00 PM EST, LBJ aide Walter Jenkins created a memo for the record in which he quoted FBI Director Hoover on the shooting. It reads, in part: "Last night we received a call in our Dallas office from a man talking in a calm voice saying he was a member of a committee organized to kill Oswald. We at once notified the Chief of Police and he assured us Oswald would be given sufficient protection...However, this was not done...Ruby says no one was associated with him and denies having made the telephone call to our Dallas office last night...he guessed his grief over the killing of his President made him insane. That was a pretty smart move on his part because it might lay the foundation for a plea of insanity later. I dispatched to Dallas one of my top assistants in hope he might stop the Chief of Police and his staff from doing so damned much talking on television. They really did not have a case against Oswald until we gave them our information... Oswald had been saying he wanted John Abt as his lawyer and Abt, with only that kind of evidence, could have turned the case around, I'm afraid. All the talking down there might have required a change of venue...The thing I am most concerned about, and so is Mr. Katzenbach, is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin ...We have no information on Ruby that is firm, although there are some rumors of underworld activity in Chicago."

The Katzenbach mentioned by Hoover is Nicholas Katzenbach. Since Robert Kennedy has stepped aside to take care of his family, Katzenbach has assumed his duties as Attorney General.

And yet Katzenbach has expressed no interest in pursuing Kennedy's enemies--those who might have both a reason to kill Kennedy, and a relationship with Ruby. No, strange as it may seem, Katzenbach's primary concern is with the public's attitude towards Oswald. An 11-24-63 internal memo from Alan Belmont to Clyde Tolson of the FBI reflects that "At 4:15 PM Mr. Deloach advised that Katzenbach wanted to put out a statement, 'We are now persuaded that Oswald killed the President, however, the investigation by the Department of Justice and the FBI is continuing." According to Belmont, Deloach was opposed to the idea. In any event, no such statement was issued.

But that didn't stop Katzenbach from trying to rush something, anything, out before the public that might quiet the murmurs of conspiracy. Another Walter Jenkins memo from this date (this one to President Johnson and found in the Johnson Library) reflects that Katzenbach had begun calling up Johnson's allies (such as Congressman Homer Thornberry) and had begun petitioning them to ask the President that something be done. Jenkins reports: "Homer Thornberry called and said substantially as follows: 'I have talked with Nick Katzenbach and he is very concerned that everyone know that Oswald was guilty of the President's assassination. Oswald is dead and the newspapers are wanting to know if he was really the one that killed the President. Katzenbach recommended that consideration be given to appointing a Presidential Commission such as the ex-Supreme Court Justice Whitaker, former Court of Appeals Judge Prettyman and someone like Dewey, to make it non-partisan. The Presidential Commission would then study the evidence and make a finding. Katzenbach thinks this would be much preferable to a Congressional inquiry and I do too.' Homer called back a little later and said Katzenbach called him again to be sure that his message had been delivered and Homer thinks in the light of what all the commentators are saying now, prompt consideration should be given to some action. Homer says that Howard K. Smith and the others are now saying we don't know if Oswald really committed the crime and perhaps we will never know." 

Let's refresh. At the time of his death, Oswald had never confessed. In fact, he'd declared himself a patsy. No one could identify him as the shooter. The paraffin test of his cheek had come up negative. Several witnesses had stated that either shots were fired from someplace other than the school book depository where he worked or that men had raced out of the back of the depository building after the shots had been fired. The films of the assassination had not been studied. The First Lady, the Connallys, and some of the closest witnesses in the motorcade had not been interviewed. No motive for Oswald's purported act had been established. And there was something odd about his trip to Mexico... 

Even so, some of those tasked with investigating Kennedy's killing thought it time to call it quits. Captain Fritz was quoted as saying that, with Oswald's death "the case is cleared." An AP dispatch from this day found in the archives of assassination researcher Harold Weisberg is even more problematic. It reads: "DIST. ATTY. HENRY WADE SAID TODAY THAT HE WILL NOT DIVULGE ANY MORE OF THE EVIDENCE OFFICERS HAVE AGAINST LEE HARVEY OSWALD. OSWALD WAS ACCUSED OF KILLING PRESIDENT KENNEDY AND WAS HIMSELF SLAIN TODAY. POLICE REFERRED ALL SUCH INQUIRIES FOR RELEASE OF EVIDENCE TO WADE. ASKED IF HE WOULD MAKE THE COMPLETE EVIDENCE PUBLIC, WADE SAID: "NO. WE HAD PLENTY OF EVIDENCE TO CONVICT OSWALD. FINGERPRINTS AND EVERYTHING. BUT I'VE TOLD THE POLICE, AND THE POLICE HAVE COOPERATED VERY WELL, THAT THE OSWALD CASE IS MOOT NOW AND WE HAVE TO GET ON WITH THE RUBY CASE." 

Wade's refusal to go through the evidence, and pile even more dirt on the not-yet buried Oswald's corpse, however, was not appreciated by everyone. An 11-24 article by Anthony Lewis, found in the next day's New York Times, headlined "OFFICIALS DISTURBED," and reported "Federal officials, convinced that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin of President Kennedy, were considering tonight appropriate ways to let the public see the evidence."

Apparently, one of the ways deemed "appropriate" was to have the Dallas FBI go through the evidence against Oswald for the press, and misrepresent a fact or two. An 11-25 New York Times article recounting the evidence against Oswald reported that the paraffin tests showed "particles of gunpowder from a weapon, probably a rifle, on Oswald's cheek and hands." This, of course, was untrue. The results were negative for Oswald's cheek. Disturbingly, the Times article said this information came from Gordon Shanklin, Special Agent in Charge of the Dallas FBI.

Meanwhile, at Bethesda Naval Hospital, at 5:00 PM EST, Dr. James J. Humes turned in the final draft of the President's autopsy report. He'd concluded, after conferring with Dr. Perry the day before and discovering that a small throat wound had been obliterated by a tracheotomy incision, that one bullet entered the President's back and exited his throat, and that a second bullet entered low on the back of the President's skull, broke into pieces, and exited from the top of the right side of his skull. 

A short time later, during a 5:55 PM EST phone call with Whitney Young, Director of the National Urban League, President Johnson hatched a plan. After Johnson complained "Well, I've got to get this funeral behind me and I've got all these heads of state coming," Young suggested that in his upcoming statements Johnson should "point out that...with the death of President Kennedy...that hate anywhere that goes unchecked doesn't stop just for the week." This got Johnson thinking on ways he could exploit Kennedy's death. He told Young "Dedicate a whole page on Hate... hate international... hate domestic...and just say that this hate that produces inequality, this hate that produces poverty... that's why we've got to have a tax bill... the hate that produces injustice... that's why we've got to have civil rights... it's a cancer that just eats at our national existence." Apparently, the only conspirator Johnson seemed interested in pursuing was hate. 

Not everyone shared his disinterest. Oswald's brother Robert, who'd been taken into protective custody by the Secret Service, along with Oswald's wife, mother, and children, would later relate that in the immediate aftermath of the assassination: "I began to realize there was some difficulty between the Secret Service and the FBI...Gradually the reports and rumors from various sources seemed to fit together. As early as Friday night, I had heard some speculation about the possibility of a conspiracy behind the assassination of the President...On Saturday and Sunday there were rumors in Dallas that the "conspiracy" might involve some Government agency. By Sunday night, I realized that the agency under greatest suspicion was the FBI." (Lee: a Portrait of Lee Harvey Oswald by His Brother, published 1967)

Hmmm... Perhaps this suspicion had something to do with Johnson's decision to use the FBI as his private police department. A note from presidential aide Clifton Carter to Johnson on this evening reflects that he'd just spoken to Texas Attoney General Waggoner Carr, and that Carr had expressed a willingness to create a court of inquiry that "could be used to clear up any question about the Oswald case in Dallas. He said the FBI could conduct this hearing through him in any manner they cared to complete the record on Oswald." To this Johnson added: "Good idea, but purely a state matter. Can't say President asked for it." Well, this reveals both Johnson's desire to personally oversee the investigation of Kennedy's death, through the FBI, and his even greater desire to hide this desire from the public.

And this isn't just conjecture. Within Harold Weisberg's Archives, now housed at Hood University, are a number of Dallas FBI documents not initially sent to the National Archives, and never reviewed by the Warren Commission. These documents were provided Weisberg as a result of one of his many Freedom of Information Act lawsuits. Well, one of the documents provided Weisberg, and little noted by others, is an 11-24-63 memo to file by Inspector James Malley. Malley wrote: "At approximately 8:50 PM, this date, Assistant to the Director Belmont advised that the Director has talked to the President again and the President approved the idea that we make a report showing the evidence conclusively tying Oswald in as the assailant of President Kennedy. In addition, the President wants to make a report on the killing today of Oswald by Ruby...The Director stated that the President feels there will be considerable pressure on both of these matters in the next day or so, and consequently desired that both reports be furnished to the Dept. of Justice this Tuesday. The Director noted that this would be a burden, but that we would have to put as many men as possible on at this time." 

Feel free to get suspicious at this time...

Good stuff, Pat.

I might add a few caveats:

Whatever protocol of "the" autopsy Humes turned in at 5:00 pm on Sunday, may or may not be the autopsy report now in the National Archives.

Why?

Because the "official" autopsy report on President Kennedy has no date on it - we don't know when it was written. And there is good reason to suggest the version we now have was written months (months!) later, not even in 1963!

Nicholas Katzenbach sure was busy on Sunday afternoon, pressuring various Washington officials to put together an "independent commission". By my count, Katzenbach called Bill Moyers in the White House, Cartha De Loach at the FBI, and Homer Throneberry in Congress.

We also know that Yale Law School Dean Eugene V. Rostow was pressuring Katzenbach on that Sunday, but we don't (yet) know on whose behalf Rostow was working.

Katzenbach was merely the errand boy, sent to deliver the message: create an "independent commission" to report out to the public about the assassination. 

Hoover and Johnson resisted the idea for a bit, but then, within a couple of days, both men caved.

Who held the stick over Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover?

On whose authority were both Rostow and Katzenbach calling?

[Michael Crane]

3 minutes ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

Good stuff, Pat.

I might add a few caveats:

Whatever protocol of "the" autopsy Humes turned in at 5:00 pm on Sunday, may or may not be the autopsy report now in the National Archives.

Why?

Because the "official" autopsy report on President Kennedy has no date on it - we don't know when it was written. And there is good reason to suggest the version we now have was written months (months!) later, not even in 1963!

Nicholas Katzenbach sure was busy on Sunday afternoon, pressuring various Washington officials to put together an "independent commission". By my count, Katzenbach called Bill Moyers in the White House, Cartha De Loach at the FBI, and Homer Throneberry in Congress.

We also know that Yale Law School Dean Eugene V. Rostow was pressuring Katzenbach on that Sunday, but we don't (yet) know on whose behalf Rostow was working.

Katzenbach was merely the errand boy, sent to deliver the message: create an "independent commission" to report out to the public about the assassination. 

Hoover and Johnson resisted the idea for a bit, but then, within a couple of days, both men caved.

Who held the stick over Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover?

On whose authority were both Rostow and Katzenbach calling?

The original autopsy report had blood stains on it.

 

[Paul Jolliffe]

4 minutes ago, Michael Crane said:

The original autopsy report had blood stains on it.

 

Notes made at the autopsy table on Friday night had blood stains.

Not the final typed autopsy report. That was not even typed until days (weeks? months?) later. 

[Pat Speer]

45 minutes ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

Notes made at the autopsy table on Friday night had blood stains.

Not the final typed autopsy report. That was not even typed until days (weeks? months?) later. 

Elements of the report were shared with the Parkland doctors and leaked to the press within a few days of the shooting. So there's nothing to indicate it was changed afterwards. But we have every reason to suspect Humes' original draft was at odds with the single-assassin solution, and was tossed into the fire after Oswald's death. 

[Jean Ceulemans]

2 hours ago, Micah Mileto said:

I don't know if this means Buell Frazier, but on the subject of Buell, hasn't he already pretty much outed himself as a clown? I mean, claiming to have seen a guy behind the Depository running off with a rifle?

Isn´t it true that - at that time post shooting - there were officers running around with rifles in search for a shooter ?  Perhaps he noticed one of those ? 

Frazier also wrote that he noticed Oswald walking on the street away from the TSBD.  Whatever he said in his book is pretty much useless, by now that is, IMO.

What would we do if Marina now would come out with some story... same thing... you will always have believers and non-believers.      

Edited October 11, 2023 by Jean Ceulemans

[Paul Jolliffe]

18 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Elements of the report were shared with the Parkland doctors and leaked to the press within a few days of the shooting. So there's nothing to indicate it was changed afterwards. But we have every reason to suspect Humes' original draft was at odds with the single-assassin solution, and was tossed into the fire after Oswald's death. 

I agree that Humes' original draft was at odds with the single-assassin "solution".

But a number of bizarre and unexplained events occurred in the subsequent weeks and months about the "official" version of the autopsy. 

Here are just two:

1. The Secret Service attempted a reconstruction of the assassination on December 5, 1963, to determine how the president was shot in the front from behind.  (So said the New York Times on December 6, 1963. That reconstruction was not successful.)

Yet the Secret Service supposedly had a copy of the "official" autopsy report in hand (turned over to Robert Bouck of the Secret Service Research Section by the White House physician on November 26) when they made the reconstruction!

("One copy of autopsy report and notes of the examining doctor which is described in a letter of transmittal Nov. 25, 1963 by Dr. Gallaway")

Commission Document 371 - SS Work Papers of Doctors Conducting Kennedy Autopsy at Bethesda (maryferrell.org)

 

So, if the Secret Service really had the "official" (final?) version of the autopsy report from November 24th in hand (which claimed that the president had been shot from behind in the neck), then why was the Secret Service still trying to figure out how the president got shot from the front two weeks later on December 5?

DVP's POTPOURRI: 1963 SECRET SERVICE FILM, RE-CREATING JFK'S ASSASSINATION (dvp-potpourri.blogspot.com)

 

2. The FBI leaked their December 9, 1963 report on the assassination to the NYT on December 17, 1963. (Probably Cartha De Loach did it - he was in charge of leaking and propaganda for Hoover.)

The 12/17/63 NYT story revealed that one bullet had struck Kennedy where the right shoulder joins the neck and another had struck his right temple.

That's NOT what the now-extant version of the autopsy report claims!

How could the FBI have leaked that "wrong" information to the NYT on December 9, 1963, if they really had the now "official" version of the autopsy report in hand?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Pat Speer]

1 hour ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

I agree that Humes' original draft was at odds with the single-assassin "solution".

But a number of bizarre and unexplained events occurred in the subsequent weeks and months about the "official" version of the autopsy. 

Here are just two:

1. The Secret Service attempted a reconstruction of the assassination on December 5, 1963, to determine how the president was shot in the front from behind.  (So said the New York Times on December 6, 1963. That reconstruction was not successful.)

Yet the Secret Service supposedly had a copy of the "official" autopsy report in hand (turned over to Robert Bouck of the Secret Service Research Section by the White House physician on November 26) when they made the reconstruction!

("One copy of autopsy report and notes of the examining doctor which is described in a letter of transmittal Nov. 25, 1963 by Dr. Gallaway")

Commission Document 371 - SS Work Papers of Doctors Conducting Kennedy Autopsy at Bethesda (maryferrell.org)

 

So, if the Secret Service really had the "official" (final?) version of the autopsy report from November 24th in hand (which claimed that the president had been shot from behind in the neck), then why was the Secret Service still trying to figure out how the president got shot from the front two weeks later on December 5?

DVP's POTPOURRI: 1963 SECRET SERVICE FILM, RE-CREATING JFK'S ASSASSINATION (dvp-potpourri.blogspot.com)

 

2. The FBI leaked their December 9, 1963 report on the assassination to the NYT on December 17, 1963. (Probably Cartha De Loach did it - he was in charge of leaking and propaganda for Hoover.)

The 12/17/63 NYT story revealed that one bullet had struck Kennedy where the right shoulder joins the neck and another had struck his right temple.

That's NOT what the now-extant version of the autopsy report claims!

How could the FBI have leaked that "wrong" information to the NYT on December 9, 1963, if they really had the now "official" version of the autopsy report in hand?

 

 

 

 

 

 

The reporting on the wounds for the first few months in particular was atrocious. No official reports were released, so reporters simply wrote whatever they heard through the grapevine or whatever made sense to them. A classic example is the Boston Globe on 11-23.. The only wounds they knew about were on the back of the head and on the throat--the wounds discussed at Parkland. But they realized JFK was past the depository when shot. So they simply reported that the bullet entered the back of the head (in opposition to Clark's assertion this wound was not an entrance) and exited the throat (in opposition to Perry's description of the wound as an entrance.) They did this on their own. I have also found examples where articles were re-written between the morning and evening editions to accommodate something said by Connally. They were winging it. 

I did find some evidence suggesting there was government manipulation of the story. Beyond the FBI, that is. Even before the Life Mag article making out JFK turned around to receive his throat wound, newspaper articles had appeared claiming as much. These cited official sources. So someone in Washington wanted it out that although the throat wound was an entrance there was no cause for alarm. This wasn't the FBI because they had a different story--that the throat wound was the exit of a fragment. 

Edited October 12, 2023 by Pat Speer

[Paul Jolliffe]

16 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

The reporting on the wounds for the first few months in particular was atrocious. No official reports were released, so reporters simply wrote whatever they heard through the grapevine or whatever made sense to them. A classic example is the Boston Globe on 11-23.. The only wounds they knew about were on the back of the head and on the throat--the wounds discussed at Parkland. But they realized JFK was past the depository when shot. So they simply reported that the bullet entered the back of the head (in opposition to Clark's assertion this wound was not an entrance) and exited the throat (in opposition to Perry's description of the wound as an entrance.) They did this on their own. I have also found examples where articles were re-written between the morning and evening editions to accommodate something said by Connally. They were winging it. 

I did find some evidence suggesting there was government manipulation of the story. Beyond the FBI, that is. Even before the Life Mag article making out JFK turned around to receive his throat wound, newspaper articles had appeared claiming as much. These cited official sources. So someone in Washington wanted it out that although the throat wound was an entrance there was no cause for alarm. This wasn't the FBI because they had a different story--that the throat wound was the exit of a fragment. 

 

Pat,

All true about various media outlets, but it begs the question: why did the FBI and the Secret Service (both of which supposedly had the "official" autopsy report by the 26th) also act for weeks as if they did not know the "true" version of Kennedy's wounds?

[David Von Pein]

2 hours ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

How could the FBI have leaked that "wrong" information to the NYT on December 9, 1963, if they really had the now "official" version of the autopsy report in hand?

But it's very obvious from the verbiage found in the 12/9/63 FBI Report that the FBI (incredibly) didn't even glance at the autopsy report until at least the middle of January 1964.

More here....

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2010/06/12-9-63-fbi-report.html

 

Edited October 12, 2023 by David Von Pein

[Pat Speer]

17 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

But it's very obvious from the verbiage found in the 12/9/63 FBI Report that the FBI (incredibly) didn't even glance at the autopsy report until at least the middle of January 1964.

More here....

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2010/06/12-9-63-fbi-report.html

 

I believe you are correct, David.  

From Chapter 1b on my website:

on 12-18, the FBI's Alex Rosen, who was charged with investigating the physical facts of the assassination, wrote a memo in which he insisted the FBI's delay in seeking the autopsy report was because "the family of the President had requested the report from the U.S. Naval Hospital at Bethesda be kept as confidential as possible." This assertion is suspicious at best, as FBI Director Hoover was such a sensitive guy that when he called Robert Kennedy to tell him of his brother's death, he is reported to have blurted "the President's dead" and hung up. Hoover's hatred for Robert Kennedy was so great, in fact, that when Robert Kennedy was himself assassinated the FBI deliberately minimized the news coverage of his funeral by delaying the announcement of the arrest of Martin Luther King assassination suspect James Earl Ray for two whole days, and then announcing it during Kennedy's funeral. This assertion, by the way, comes courtesy Hoover's boss at the time, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

More to the point, this "oh, the Kennedys wouldn't let us" excuse presented by Rosen, which would be repeated by Warren Commissioner John McCloy and Junior Counsel Arlen Specter in the months and years to come, was ultimately rejected by Hoover himself. In June 1966, when Edward Epstein's book Inquest brought considerable attention to the FBI's failure to read the autopsy report, and embrace its findings, Rosen at first responded by denying there was a problem. He insisted that the FBI's initial reports were based upon the statements of the doctors during the autopsy, and that the 1-13-64 Supplemental report in which these early statements were repeated, weeks after the FBI had been supplied the autopsy report, was also not in error. Yes, incredibly, although the FBI had ignored in its Supplemental Report the official autopsy report then in its possession, and had offered up its own explanation for the throat wound (that it represented the exit of a fragment from the head shot), Rosen claimed, in a June 2, 1966 memo to Hoover's leaker-in-chief Cartha DeLoach, that the inaccurate statements in the Supplemental Report had been included to "point out the apparent conflict between the information originally furnished by medical authorities on 11/22/63 and the results of our Laboratory's examination of the President's clothing, which indicated a bullet had exited his body."

Well, of course. One always points out inconsistent information by leading the reader to an inaccurate conclusion, and then failing to quote from additional reports in which this inconsistent information has been clarified...

In any event, an October 7, 1966 memo from Rosen to DeLoach in which the increasingly desperate Rosen now acknowledged there had been some confusion about the president's wounds, but blamed this on the Kennedy family, received a terse response from Hoover, who obviously knew better. On the last page of the memo, Hoover scribbled: "The confusion... would never have occurred if we had obtained the autopsy report originally. The Kennedys never asked us to withhold it and if they had we should have disregarded it." (Hoover is absolutely right on this point. Many of the conspiracy theories he so despised would not have reared up if the government as a whole had not been so strangely secretive about the autopsy in the first place.)

Edited October 12, 2023 by Pat Speer

[Chris Davidson]

[Michael Crane]

Was there or was there not a autopsy report in that batch of missing material from the archives that included the brain & slides?