Rob Reiner's Who Killed JFK: My Belated Review

[James DiEugenio]

I should have mentioned this in my review.

In all fairness to the program, they did seem to have some effect on Blakey.

He said a couple of things that I did not recall him saying before.

First, he said that the JFK murder set up Oswald as a false flag creation.

Secondly, he said that Harvey likely worked with Roselli on the hit plan.  If one combines that with what he said previously about the Cuban exile  Diaz Garcia, what he has come to now is a CIA/Mob/Cuban exile conspiracy.  Which is a big improvement over what he thought back in 1979.

So congrats to Rob for that. 

Edited April 21 by James DiEugenio

[Benjamin Cole]

13 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

I should have mentioned this in my review.

In all fairness to the program, they did seem to have some effect on Blakey.

He said a couple of things that I did not recall him saying before.

First, he said that the JFK murder set up Oswald as a false flag creation.

Secondly, he said that Harvey likely worked wiwth Roselli on the hit plan.  If oen combines that with what he said previosuly about the cuban exile and Diaz Garcia, what he has come to now is a CIA/Mob/Cuban exile conspiracy.  Which is a big improvement over what he thought back in 1979.

So congrats to Rob for that. 

The evolution of Robert Blakey is probably worth a separate story. It would make a great magazine article. 

Yes, in 1979 Blakey was entirely in the "Mob did it maybe" camp, deeply suspicious of Marcello, but he ID'ed LHO as the lone gunsel, and exonerated the CIA.

Blakey's background was as a mob-hunter for the Justice Department. He was an earnest civil servant, and likely the worst man for the job of HSCA chief counsel because of that. (Blakey literally wrote the RICO Act, among other items). 

I suspect Blakey got the chief counsel job after Sprague was railroaded, but only after Blakey first signed onto the "CIA not involved" platform after confidential assurances from CIA'ers.  Blakey, too honest, also believed the CIA'ers were earnest civil servants. And maybe the CIA'ers who delivered the message to Blakey were in fact earnest, but did not know the facts themselves. 

Blakely would later say he would never again believe anything the CIA said, that could not be independently verified. 

In 2018 Blakey said he suspected Eladio Del Valle and Herminio Diaz of the JFKA, both Cuban exiles but perhaps in the drug biz too. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juyYn9eDSHg

I did not know Blakey now is open to the idea that LHO was involved in a false flag op. That is my suspicion as well. 

CIA'er Bill Harvey, btw, said he would routinely file false paperwork to obscure or disguise CIA ops.  I assume other files were destroyed or never filed, so to speak. 

People who met Harvey seem to think he was capable of perping the JFKA. 

I exchanged e-mails with Blakey about one year ago, maybe more. He may be on his last legs. I hope someone can interview Blakey and write about how even Blakey now harbors convictions that the JFKA was no LN job. 

[Charles Blackmon]

3 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

 

I did not know Blakey now is open to the idea that LHO was involved in a false flag op. That is my suspicion as well. 

 

My suspicion as well. It would explain so much but most especially Oswald's possible involvement. I firmly believe LHO was put in that job at the TSBD for a reason.

Edited April 21 by Charles Blackmon

[James DiEugenio]

Blakey I think was really chagrined about two things that he fell for as chief counsel:

1. Guinn's "junk science" about the NAA testing which has been exposed today as being completely unreliable by two separate teams.

2. How the CIA lied to him about Joannides not being involved in the JFK case in 1963.

Those are two strikes against his inquiry.

Ben: he sounded seriously ill to you? The last time I saw him he needed a cane to get around with.

Edited April 21 by James DiEugenio

[Benjamin Cole]

5 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Blakey I think was really chagrined about two things that he fell for as chief counsel:

1. Guinn's "junk science" about the NAA testing which has been exposed today as being completely unreliable by two separate teams.

2. How the CIA lied to him about Joannides not being involved in the JFK case in 1963.

Those are two strikes against his inquiry.

Ben: he sounded seriously ill to you? The last time I saw him he needed a cane to get around with.

JD---

Well, I only communicated by e-mail. I had prepared an op-ed for him on the JFKA 60, with his permission. 

His review and editing reminded me of my elderly parents, in their e-mails of their last years. You notice things slipping, like typos, wandering sentences. 

Maybe Blakey had an off day. Maybe he was rushed while responding to the e-mail. 

I hope for the best for Blakey. Yes, his performance at the HSCA was mixed at best. But I also think his good nature was taken advantage of. He just could not believe other civil servants would shake his hand and lie to his face. 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

11 hours ago, Charles Blackmon said:

My suspicion as well. It would explain so much but most especially Oswald's possible involvement. I firmly believe LHO was put in that job at the TSBD for a reason.

Possibly. 

My take on that is that the CIA had literally thousands of assets in the US at the time, due to the Cold War-Cuba situation. Mercs, Cuban exiles, Eastern Europeans, former Nazis. 

I wonder if LHO happened to be in the right place, and the CIA (or fragments thereof) took advantage of his location.

If the deed had been done in Miami, or Chicago...no LHO. 

It sure seems like strings were pulled to get LHO into his job at the Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall facility, and "keep him on the shelf" until he was needed for any mission, JFKA or otherwise. But LHO could never hold down a job.  

I am agnostic on Ruth Paine. She may have been a handler of sorts. Or maybe she was do-gooder of a type hardly seen anymore. A New England Quaker. You have to be an oldie to know about the New England do-gooders of yesteryear, joining the Peace Corps, and holding church meetings on the woes of people on far-flung continents, the woes of America's poor, and exchanging pamphlets. 

It is worth pondering why the Biden Administration has done what looks like a permanent snuff job on the records of George Joannides' work in New Orleans in the summer of 1963. Was Joannides animating LHO in NO? 

Or, are records on Paine being buried as well? 

Just IMHO. 

 

 

Edited April 22 by Benjamin Cole

[Robert Morrow]

2 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

It is worth pondering why the Biden Administration has done what looks like a permanent snuff job on the records of George Joannides' work in New Orleans in the summer of 1963. Was Joannides animating LHO in NO? 

 

 

 

I think that the George Joannides' files will show something EXTREMELY TOXIC to the official narrative of the JFK assassination. Something like indirect proof that Oswald was a governmental operative or indirect proof that George Joannides was a handler of Oswald. Something really really discrediting to the U.S. government must be in there. Jefferson Morley is right to be hound on this.

Joannides and Oswald were very likely working in the same CIA program to undermine/discredit the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.

[Benjamin Cole]

4 hours ago, Robert Morrow said:

I think that the George Joannides' files will show something EXTREMELY TOXIC to the official narrative of the JFK assassination. Something like indirect proof that Oswald was a governmental operative or indirect proof that George Joannides was a handler of Oswald. Something really really discrediting to the U.S. government must be in there. Jefferson Morley is right to be hound on this.

Joannides and Oswald were very likely working in the same CIA program to undermine/discredit the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.

RM--

My guess is you are right on this score. Joannides, despite working in the Miami Station of the CIA, had leased a house in NO in the summer of 1963.