Pat Speer on The Ochelli Effect

[Pat Speer]

FWIW, I spent Boxing Day chatting with Chuck Ochelli about the JFK assassination and the research community. After almost an hour of our grumblings, he decided to start recording, LOL. In any event, for those with an interest, our chat can be found here. 

 

https://ochelli.com

[Larry Hancock]

I would recommend giving it a listen, a couple of weeks ago I was doing my regular bi-weekly stint with Chuck and worked in some good stuff that Pat has on his site (which I happen to be referencing a good bit in some current work I'm doing...thanks Pat) and he said it was time for him to have another chat with Pat...guess he did, grin.

[Matt Allison]

BIG fan of Chuck here. Such a great show. Listened to Larry's latest segment just last night, which was excellent as usual! 

Very much looking forward to listening to yours, Pat!

[Pat Speer]

2 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

I would recommend giving it a listen, a couple of weeks ago I was doing my regular bi-weekly stint with Chuck and worked in some good stuff that Pat has on his site (which I happen to be referencing a good bit in some current work I'm doing...thanks Pat) and he said it was time for him to have another chat with Pat...guess he did, grin.

Thanks, Larry. And you are correct. Chuck contacted me a few months back and said he wanted me on the show, but I guess that fell onto the back burner until you mentioned me on your show. I listened to your show by the way and thought you sounded great, like maybe your best work was still ahead. 

[Larry Hancock]

Thanks Pat, maybe or maybe not great but I can safely say it will probably be controversial... it that sounds interesting drop me an email at larryjoe@westok.net...

Edited December 31, 2023 by Larry Hancock

[Gerry Down]

At 39 minutes Pat points out that around 1966 Life magazine and The New York Times were calling for a new investigation. Just goes to show that operation mockingbird was not as in control of media organizations as we are sometimes led to believe.

[Gerry Down]

Not to mention the Pentagon papers. I wonder how that one slipped by operation mockingbird.

[Larry Hancock]

Interestingly LIFE magazine did make an extended and highly confidential investigation on its own,  Wallace Millam researched that in detail after tracking down a number of leads and found the archives of its work in a small college library - in Tennessee I think.  He presented at length on the investigation at a Lancer conference years ago - the LIFE inquiry had focused a great deal on skepticism about the investigation of Oswald and leads that were not followed - at a Lancer conference.  I'm afraid I don't recall the details but it was driven by a senior LIFE editor and parts of it but certainly not all had reappeared in a LIFE retrospective on the assassination.  Pat may be able to provide details.  

Wallace did say there was  sign in log for the collection and he was surprised to see that years after it had been archived....after the death of the LIFE magazine manager who had led it....the only other name in the log was that of someone from the FBI.

[Pat Speer]

7 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

Interestingly LIFE magazine did make an extended and highly confidential investigation on its own,  Wallace Millam researched that in detail after tracking down a number of leads and found the archives of its work in a small college library - in Tennessee I think.  He presented at length on the investigation at a Lancer conference years ago - the LIFE inquiry had focused a great deal on skepticism about the investigation of Oswald and leads that were not followed - at a Lancer conference.  I'm afraid I don't recall the details but it was driven by a senior LIFE editor and parts of it but certainly not all had reappeared in a LIFE retrospective on the assassination.  Pat may be able to provide details.  

Wallace did say there was  sign in log for the collection and he was surprised to see that years after it had been archived....after the death of the LIFE magazine manager who had led it....the only other name in the log was that of someone from the FBI.

Good stuff. This investigation has been discussed by Tink on this forum, as I remember. I'll see if I can find the thread. 

[Gary Murr]

Larry/Pat:

"Wallace Millam researched that in detail after tracking down a number of leads and found the archives of its work in a small college library - in Tennessee I think."

You are correct on this, Larry. I was not in attendance at the Lancer Conference at which Wallace Millam presented his paper, but I do have a few hundred pages on this subject matter - the LIFE magazine inquiry - acquired from the Holland McCombs Papers, Corbitt Special Collection/University Archives, University of Tennessee at Martin. I believe I sent Tink Thompson some of this material several years ago and I do have a lengthy section on the role McCombs played in this effort in my original three volume, unpublished work on the wounding of John Connally. What is little known is that McCombs approached John Connally with some of his work in conjunction with a private/secret separate effort Connally was constructing [apart and different from his eventual LIFE article "A Matter Of Resonable Doubt] in rebuttal to initially the various critics of the Warren Commission, an effort that was expanded by Connally to combat the impending release of William Manchester's "Death Of A President." This effort on Connally's part was never finished and again I do have all of the rough notes and paperwork that was generated by Connally and his cohorts, which I acquired from the Connally papers resident at the LBJ Library, Austin, Texas. 

FWIW

[Pat Speer]

58 minutes ago, Gary Murr said:

Larry/Pat:

"Wallace Millam researched that in detail after tracking down a number of leads and found the archives of its work in a small college library - in Tennessee I think."

You are correct on this, Larry. I was not in attendance at the Lancer Conference at which Wallace Millam presented his paper, but I do have a few hundred pages on this subject matter - the LIFE magazine inquiry - acquired from the Holland McCombs Papers, Corbitt Special Collection/University Archives, University of Tennessee at Martin. I believe I sent Tink Thompson some of this material several years ago and I do have a lengthy section on the role McCombs played in this effort in my original three volume, unpublished work on the wounding of John Connally. What is little known is that McCombs approached John Connally with some of his work in conjunction with a private/secret separate effort Connally was constructing [apart and different from his eventual LIFE article "A Matter Of Resonable Doubt] in rebuttal to initially the various critics of the Warren Commission, an effort that was expanded by Connally to combat the impending release of William Manchester's "Death Of A President." This effort on Connally's part was never finished and again I do have all of the rough notes and paperwork that was generated by Connally and his cohorts, which I acquired from the Connally papers resident at the LBJ Library, Austin, Texas. 

FWIW

That's fantastic, Gary. I'd love to look through that stuff, if possible. I have a section on my website that tracks Connally's actions after the publication of the Life article, which shows that Johnson called him the morning of the press conference in which Connally defended the Oswald did it solution and attacked the research community. Presumably, Johnson had turned up the heat. 

From chapter 10 at patspeer.com:

What happened next is uncertain, but it appears that Johnson himself took the next step, and asked Governor Connally for his help. President Johnson's Daily Diary for 11-22-66 reflects that he talked to Governor Connally in the morning, and spent the entire evening with him at his presidential ranch in Texas. On 11-23, the very next day, Governor Connally, whose recent interview with Life Magazine helped fuel the crisis, called a press conference in which he read a prepared statement, reiterating his doubts about the single-bullet theory but nevertheless joining hands with the Johnson Administration by attacking the critics of the Warren Commission. A transcript of the statement published in the next day's New York Times reflects that he began by re-asserting his recollection of the shooting, in which the President and he were hit by separate bullets, but then added "I want to make It very clear, however, that simply because I disagree with the Warren Commission on this one detail does not mean that I disagree with the substance of their over-all findings." He then listed the members of the commission one by one, and described them as "men of unquestioned integrity of long and devoted service to their nation; men whose dedication to the tasks of seeking truth in these circumstances I would never question, and men whose patriotism has been manifested so many times in so many ways over such a long period that it now is somewhat shocking to me that in the backlash of tragedy, journalistic scavengers such as Mark Lane attempt to impugn the motives of these members individually, cast doubts upon the commission as a whole, and question the credibility of the government itself." He then pushed that rather than start a new investigation of "unfounded conspiracy theories" that is "neither warranted, justified, or desirable," "we (and by "we" he clearly meant members of the media, such as those working for Life Magazine and the New York Times, who'd proposed such an investigation) should turn our attention to doing a little research on and evaluation of the credentials of these self-appointed experts, who, with no new evidence, no new facts, nevertheless use distortion, inference, innuendo, in order to cast doubts and create confusion." He then offered "I suspect that a searching investigation into their own credentials will divulge that their motives have political overtones and that their views have been given prominence out of proportion to their value." 

One can only speculate as to the actual author of Connally's statement. The President's diary for 11-23-66, however, reflects that at 3:34 PM he once again talked to Connally. One might venture this was a discussion of the press conference, and perhaps an expression of gratitude. 

 

Edited December 31, 2023 by Pat Speer

[Larry Hancock]

Thanks Gary, its good to have validation of that memory of Wallace.  His presentation was extensive including an in depth study of McCombs career and his position in the LIFE magazine structure (regional editor I think, pretty high up in the pecking order).  As I recall the somewhat covert inquiry was pretty serious and explored a lot of leads which had been left loose and not followed in any depth including leads from New Orleans.  I don't recall the exact speculation on the motive for it, but McCombs may have suspected that LIFE had not gotten the story write and decided to assemble material for another series of articles - which certainly would not have been well received in one respect but could have had an explosive effect on the magazines sales and enhanced its reputation for real reporting (and yes as a reader in those years I can assure everyone it was respected for what was considered "embedded", in the field, type reporting from around the world no matter how much we scoff at it now). 

And LIFE did do some interesting stuff on the assassination, in one article it made an interesting case, with a graphic, that Oswald might have actually been on the way to Ruby's apartment after being dropped off at his rooming house.  That was a pretty big shock at the time given that nobody else was making much effort to connect Ruby to Oswald.

Wallace also went into some detail as to why the inquiry did not result in specifically that, including the internal politics, but I recall some of its work did go into later JFK stories.  I hope Pat get a chance to review your material as I think this is something that has been really ignored in more recent years in terms of the whole media story - it may even be that the collection still exists at the Corbitt Special Collection/University Archives at the University of Tennessee/Martin.  Sure glad you got what you did Gary.

[Robert Morrow]

16 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

At 39 minutes Pat points out that around 1966 Life magazine and The New York Times were calling for a new investigation. Just goes to show that operation mockingbird was not as in control of media organizations as we are sometimes led to believe.

1) Holland McCombs of LIFE Magazine ending up killing that "new investigation" into the JFK assassination - https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/1977/january/profiles-a-hedonist-with-no-regrets/

2) Over at the NYT, no new investigation of the JFK assassination occurred there either. As James "Scotty" Reston of the NYT climbed higher and higher there no new investigation of the JFK assassination occurred there either. James Reston was a CIA media asset and he was very close to former CIA director Allen Dulles. Reston was very high up at NYT from 1964 to 1974, a time when the NYT was especially militantly pro Lone Nutter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Reston

 

 

 

[Gerry Down]

37 minutes ago, Robert Morrow said:

1) Holland McCombs of LIFE Magazine ending up killing that "new investigation" into the JFK assassination - https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/1977/january/profiles-a-hedonist-with-no-regrets/

2) Over at the NYT, no new investigation of the JFK assassination occurred there either. As James "Scotty" Reston of the NYT climbed higher and higher there no new investigation of the JFK assassination occurred there either. James Reston was a CIA media asset and he was very close to former CIA director Allen Dulles. Reston was very high up at NYT from 1964 to 1974, a time when the NYT was especially militantly pro Lone Nutter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Reston

 

 

 

I understood Pat to mean the new York Times was calling for a new investigation as in a congressional investigation of some kind. But maybe I misunderstood what he meant.

[Ron Bulman]

Great thread, comments by Larry, Pat and Gary, why the forum is here.  Thank you, gentlemen, all, still, after all these years, educational for me.  Not to detract from the subject of the thread, but something I've wanted to ask for a long while.  It's new Years Eve so why not.  No disrespect intended, actually honor of a respected researcher.

I know from previous posts Larry's full name is Larry Joe Hancock.  Larry, I wonder if you have ever heard of another Larry Joe from south of the Red River who I also admire.  He draws about 50,000 a year now to his festival near Stephenville Texas every year.  As you I feel sure know my musical bent by now, and Pat was in the music industry, one of my favorite songs by him.  I've been to Padre in the off season, with nobody on the beach, and also spoken with him in Mingus, Texas.  Happy New year to all.