Copernicus Pans Showtime's Mafia Spies, Praises JFK Revisited

[W. Niederhut]

     Colorado astrophysicist, Philip Stahl, (pseudonym, Copernicus) panned the Showtime series, Mafia Spies, (and Gerald Posner) this week, contrasting the WCR propaganda with Oliver Stone's excellent historiography in JFK Revisited.

      This brilliant guy is one of my favorite bloggers on the internet, with weekly commentaries on everything from astrophysics, math, and history, to film and contemporary politics.

      Stahl's analyses are so much better than 99% of the dreck in the U.S. mainstream media that it's a pity his essays aren't more widely read.

Brane Space (brane-space.blogspot.com)

[Benjamin Cole]

Pursuant to your recommendation, I looked at Brane Space. The previous post was interesting.

Monday, July 22, 2024

What's With All The RNC Women Transfixed By Trump & Macho Apes In Milwaukee? Ans. MAGA Machismo + BSOs

 

 

                       Delirious white women mesmerized by Trump at RNC
                                                                        

              What these women walked into: MAGA Machismo on steroids

 

 

 

“These are people that complain about crime but paraded one criminal after another on to the stage in Milwaukee. It’s a party that talks about freedom but traffics in the language of Hitler and blood purity.  This was an eye-numbing assault on American values and American decency.” Jennifer Rubin on ‘Last Word’ Friday

"Folks care about looks, stride, and ATTITUDE! Trump understands that. At the RNC convention, he surrounded himself with glitter and big things that captured/shared attention and affected emotions. Even a big bandage. It was reality TV. He shares his space with big things and it works."- Male attendee at RNC

 

The white women drooling, tossing kisses and crying at the GOP convention reminded me of the women who also adulated People's Temple cult leader Jim Jones. (Especially in the new documentary 'The Women of the People's Temple') In that documentary too, one beheld troves of women - mainly white- mesmerized by Jim Jones' spiel to the extent they even helped him to prepare the cyanide-laced, purple Kool aid concoction that killed over 900 at Jonestown Guyana in November, 1978.

[W. Niederhut]

Ben,

     Why did you just cut-and-paste the wrong entry from Philip Stahl's Brane Space blog on the JFKA board?

     The blog content that you cut-and-pasted has nothing to do with the JFKA.

     Here's the correct JFKA reference I posted for this board.

     

Thursday, July 25, 2024

Showtime Docu-Series 'Mafia Spies' Ultimately Devolves To Propaganda Mush By The End

 

 

The new Showtime docuseries ('Mafia Spies') had me riveted for the first 5 2/3 episodes - then suddenly mutated into utter garbage and propaganda by the last 10 minutes of Episode Five ('The Showdown') for which one reads the following brief synopsis:

Conflict between the U.S. and Castro boils over when the CIA's actions in Cuba lead to a nuclear showdown with the Soviets; Roselli must contend with news of a national tragedy in Dallas.

But left out is the episode's fall back on the now discredited Warren Commission bunkum that "Oswald Dunnit'  - never mind the comprehensive clear evidence already disclosed in dozens of JFK assassination files he had nothing to do with it.  This in itself is kind of remarkable given Showtime barely 3 years ago had shown what many agree was perhaps Oliver Stone's best work at proving conspiracy and which  I had reviewed.

• 'JFK Through The Looking Glass' - A Superb Oliver Stone Documentary...

So why didn't the producers touch base with Stone first instead of relying on a two bit hack like Gerald Posner? Whose "fingerprints" were all over the last part of Episode 5 to do with Kennedy's assassination.  His slipshod research had already been exposed on one JFK website detailing a host of "Posnerisms", e.g.  

http://www.assassinationweb.com/twpos.htm

Those who take the time to read carefully the examples in the link will become aware of an unnerving lack of attention to detail and a penchant for what appears to be deliberate misrepresentation. Indeed, Posner’s entire case appears to be erected on a tissue of lies, misrepresentations, gross distortions and shoddy methodology, the mass of which can’t even redeem it as coincidental. 

This dissembling cretin couldn’t even get his facts straight in a July 23rd NY Times piece:

 

Opinion | Post-Trump Shooting, the Government Is Allowing Conspiracy Theories to Flourish - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Writing: 

In the early days following the Kennedy assassination, it was often said that the greatest marksmen in the world tried and failed to repeat what the government said Lee Harvey Oswald had done — fire three shots at a moving target in a very short amount of time. But it turned out that Mr. Oswald had plenty of time to get the shots off, and what he did has been replicated numerous times

Failing to note that the Warren Commission enlisted three master marksmen from the National Rifle Association to attempt to replicate the shots attributed to Oswald. [1]  And the team failed, even after rebuilding the alleged weapon to enable any shots to be fired. (An aspect Posner glosses over including that NO one has been able to replicate the alleged feat, likely because that Mannlicher-Carcano was never the weapon actually used. Nor the only one.)

Oswald was presumed to have fired from the 6^th floor of the Texas School Book Depository, so effectively six stories up or 60’ in altitude. However, the experts were allowed to fire from a tower only half this altitude (30’)[2]. In addition, while Oswald had to have fired at a limousine moving at 11 mile per hour, the experts fired at stationary targets[3].  The target area was also magnified for the experts, to the whole upper torso of the target prop’s body – while Oswald was limited to the head and neck.

 More to the point, the rifle was altered away from the one Oswald supposedly used, according to the WC.  The rifle sight itself was rebuilt and “metal shims were fitted to provide a degree of accuracy previously absent’. When Ronald Simmons, the Chief of the Infantry Weapons Evaluation Branch of the Army’s Ballistics Research Division was asked about this he replied: “Well, they could not sight the weapon in using the telescope”[4]. He added that the aiming apparatus had to be rebuilt by a machinist[5], with two shims added, one to adjust for the elevation, the other for the azimuth.

 

In other words, had they actually used the rifle in the same condition Oswald was alleged to have had it, then they’d likely not have hit the side of a barn.  Even so, just one of the three expert riflemen was able to get off three shots in under 5.6 seconds – the designated time interval for total shots declared by the Warren Commission. And most to the point: none of the total 18 shots fired struck the targets (ibid.). in the head or the neck. In other words, from a technical standpoint of duplicating Oswald’s alleged shots- this trio of experts failed. Another key aspect: for the duration of the 18 rounds, two of   the “master” riflemen were unable to reload and fire at the stationary target as rapidly as Oswald purportedly did for the moving limo! (The Mannlicher-Carcano had a bolt action recycling time of 2. 33 secs)

It wouldn't be until years later when Patricia Dumais - who suspected the rifle was a stage prop and wanted to see the internal control number - was informed by the National Archives (H.E. Livingstone, 1993,  'Killing the Truth', p. 204.):

'We cannot disassemble Lee Harvey Oswald's rifle because this action might be destructive to the object.’'

So all the Warren Commission followers have been 'had' for nearly 60 years by a colossal hoax. By my reckoning, the very inclusion of Posner in the series doomed it from the get-go, at least in terms of passing muster for serious JFK assassination researchers.

Prof. David R. Wrone, whose review of Case Closed appeared in The Journal of Southern History, notes:

"Posner often presents the opposite of what the evidence says. In the presentation of a corrupt picture of Oswald’s background- for example – he states that, under the name of Osborne, Oswald picked up leaflets he distributed from the Jones Printing Company and that a ‘receptionist’ identified him. She in fact said that Oswald did not pick up the leaflets as the source that Posner cites indicates. “

But the biggest disappointment to me was someone who ought to have known better, Peter Kornbluh, from the National Security Archive. He chimed in at various points in the first 5 episodes but seems to have acquired selective amnesia in the 5th. Also magnifying errors, apart from asserting Oliver Stone's ' 'JFK' was a "bunch of lies". When Stone always made clear (as on a subsequent Larry King CNN appearance) the film was designed as a "counter myth" to the myth of the Warren Commission.

But let's get clear here that Kornbluh for whatever reason, appears to have forgotten his earlier work reported in The Baltimore Sun, in 1999. ('Kennedy and Castro: What Might Have Been',  Aug. 22, 1999, p. 1C.)

 

Therein Kornbluh noted it was Washington lawyer William Attwood (not William Donovan) who had negotiated the release of the Bay of Pigs prisoners. Attwood was charged with becoming the first American emissary to secure Castro’s ear and trust. In particular, to show good will and good faith, Attwood arranged for $62 million in medicines and food aid as part of the prisoner deal. Why was Donovan mentioned and not Attwood? Has Kornbluh changed his mind? His conclusions? 

 Attwood was also continually active in the spring of 1963, securing the release of other prisoners, including three CIA operatives held in Cuban jails[6] .  Following each trip Attwood was debriefed by U.S. Intelligence officials, and he always described each meeting as “most cordial and intimate”.

An even more grotesque omission: JFK's efforts at rapprochement with Fidel Castro, then occurs before the last segment of episode 5,  targeting Oswald as the JFK assassin.  National Security Archive records show that starting in late 1962, JFK had begun a process of rapprochement through intermediaries. This portended a slow, deliberate effort to normalize all relations with Cuba. Indeed, as late as September 24, 1963, Robert Kennedy had informed then Deputy UN Ambassador Atwood, that JFK might be able to meet Castro to finalize the deals, but not in Cuba, suggesting Mexico as an alternative and a planned Mexico trip to enable a covert meeting[7].  

In the episode it seems to have totally escaped Kornbluh's notice that - given the CIA's intense efforts to assassinate Castro (seen in previous 3 episodes) - they would not regard such moves kindly at all. More than likely  Kennedy would be seen as treasonous, especially doing it sub rosa behind the agency's back as it were.   

The threats to Kennedy's life indeed would have magnified dramatically once the CIA learned that ABC News reporter Lisa Howard offered herself as an intermediary, and her apartment in New York as the venue, for the first bilateral talks between U.S. and Cuban officials[8].  Certainly, the Agency’s eyes and ears would’ve been turned (tuned?) toward Howard after she did a fairly sympathetic TV special on Castro in April, 1963.   Might they have bugged her apartment and listened in? 

None of this is mentioned by Kornbluh at the end of this critical episode which would have certainly shed light on why JFK could end up as the assassination target on November 22, 1963. Again, why the silence?  After all Kornbluh had written about all the connections and how Kennedy's intermediaries effected the process. Why the rapid retort of "lies" in reaction to Oliver Stone's film?  It doesn't add up. Did Posner get to Kornbluh - and David Corn? One wonders.

 Stone's depiction of a clandestine CIA operation mounted against Kennedy was also spot on.   What most infuriated the CIA was Kennedy's willingness - after the Bay of Pigs debacle  (planned and orchestrated by the CIA) -  to exclude them from critical roles,  oversight and assignments as well as reorganizing the agency, e.g.  from the available archive files on Kennedy's response:

"Kennedy went further, creating a Defense Intelligence Agency, responsible to him, and soon mandating all overflights of Cuba be done by the Strategic Air Command, not the CIA. He also defined a list of directives on what the CIA could and could not, do. By the end of 1961, JFK's 'Special Group' had no less than 17 recommendations for the "reorganization and redirection of the CIA"."

 

Stone's portrayal of Oswald as the patsy in the conspiracy was also spot on.  Most researchers who've delved into this in much more depth than superficial 'buffs' come away with the conviction Oswald was set up as part of ZR/Rifle. A classic decoy.   However,  with the plot now turned against Kennedy. Oswald was likely used as the dupe or decoy so the actual perps (likely Cuban exiles, and trained assassins - from the Army's Ft. Benning Assassin school) could escape .   We also know these assigned mechanics would have used the CIA Assassinations Handbook, available since Operation PBSuccess in 1954, see e.g. this document co-authored by who else?  Peter Kornbluh!

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB4/

As noted in Document 1:

"The idea of forming assassination teams ('K' groups) apparently originated with Castillo Arenas in 1952.  Adopting Castillo Arenas' concept the [  ] chief routinely included two assassination specialists in his training plans.  CIA training for sabotage teams in early 1954 also included creating a 'K' group trained to perform assassinations."

There is no doubt such a 'K' group was set to target Castro under ZR/Rifle (not 'Mongoose' in 1962), but could easily be redirected to target Kennedy in late 1963.  The proof in the pudding was the letter ‘D’ – on the cover sheet of Oswald’s 201 file – indicating a  CIA Staff D  SIGINT or signals intelligence operation run in concert with the National Security Agency or NSA. As pointed out by Peter Dale Scott (Deep Politics Quarterly, Jan. 1994): 

“In 1961, when William Harvey headed Staff D, he was assigned the task of developing the CIA Assassinations Project, ZR/Rifle.”

When ZR/Rifle was turned from targeting Castro to JFK- probably in late 1962 or mid 1963 -  it was all over except for the triangulation of gunfire that took the 35th president out.  Who would have done it? A professional team dispatched to Dallas and basically admitted by a former CIA Director in later hearings.

 

The (1975) Church Committee hearings and testimony were critical in establishing the existence of ZR/ Rifle.  Former CIA Director Richard Helms -in one session - spoke to the Committee at length about ZR/Rifle.  When pressed he even identified two hit team members by their code names: WI/ROGUE and QJ/WIN.  He described the former as "a stateless soldier of fortune and a criminal" (Church Committee Report, pp. 43-44).

He summarized the second in these terse terms (ibid.):

"If you needed somebody to carry out murder I guess you had a man who might be prepared to carry it out.”
 

 

More compelling still, a direct link of Richards Helms to William Harvey and QJ/WIN appears in a February 19, 1962 memorandum from Helms to Harvey obtained from the Assassination Archives in Washington, D.C.

Since the Assassination "K-Group" for ZR/Rifle would have had multiple members ('mechanics') it would perfectly fit Oliver Stone's portrayal of assassination using three teams in a triangulated crossfire.  So we are at liberty to ask on what planet are Kornbluh and David Corn (Mother Jones investigative reporter who also lashed out at the sort of conspiracy portrayed in 'JFK' ) living on?

 

Sadly, while the 4 earlier episodes were detailed and fairly solid in their information, CIA and Mafia backgrounds (as with the JMWave station in Miami, Zenith Technical Enterprises as a CIA front, and Operation Mongoose), the narrative broke down into sophomoric babble by the end of episode five where it begins exploring "Oswald's tortured childhood".  Such faux dramatics  are not needed in a serious look at the CIA and Mafia connections and especially to the JFK assassination. 

 

At the very minimum, if at all honest in its take on the assassination, the Showtime episode should have included the HSCA investigation which found for a "96 % probability" of conspiracy, see e.g. 

 

Frequently Asked Questions on the JFK Assassination: (Pt. 7): The HSCA Investigation 

 

I suggest Corn and Kornbluh check out the preceding as well as the link below,  to see why Oswald could not have been the assassin. Also the two end links to show how he was frames in the process called "sheep dipping" - which certainly ought to have been included in Episode 5. 

 

Frequently Asked Questions on the JFK Assassination (Pt. 5):The Bullets, Wounds

 

 Episode 6 ('Fallout') is not much better-  skirting over the actual reason for Johnny Roselli's slaying - trying to tie it to Roselli squealing about the CIA-Mafia plot to kill Castro.  In fact, Roselli was slain just before  the HSCA was formed (in Aug. 1976) and it planned to call him to testify about Jack Ruby and his murder of Oswald.

HSCA Investigator Gaeton Fonzi in his book 'The Last Investigation', p. 375, writes:

"In July, 1976, Roselli had disappeared and in August, the month before the Committee (HSCA) was established, Roselli surfaced in the shallows off the Intracoastal Waterway in North Miami. He had been smothered to death and shot, then cut open from chest to navel. His legs had been hacked off and stuffed with his torso into a 55-gallon steel drum which was wrapped with heavy chain and moored to a weight in the water. The mooring broke when the gases from Roselli's decomposing body forced the drum to float to the surface."

The killers – likely Cuban exile CIA contract hitmen -  wanted to make damned sure there were no flapping gums to contradict the fairy tale about Jack Ruby being the "noble JFK avenger". They wanted to ensure Roselli never talked about Ruby's role - or his connections - to do with  eliminating Oswald.  And especially before the first serious assassination commission, not the half-assed whitewash known as the Warren Commission. 

 History shows the killers succeeded beyond their wildest expectations. This is given so many in the wake of Roselli's murder have been snookered into buying the hog swill that Ruby was basically a decent guy shielding Jackie.  See e.g.

• The Southern Poverty Law Center: Still In Over Its Head On JFK Assassination...

  This Showtime Docuseries started out as an intriguing look at how the CIA enlisted the Mafia to take out Castro.  But by the end the basis of the previous episodes is ruined by falling back on the nonsense from the Warren Commission. (Which was in fact a 'creature' of LBJ and not a genuine independent government investigation.)  Clearly the Commission's Report underlies the narrative because it continues to represent the perfect vehicle for propaganda and manipulation given the patina of gravitas.  

 

Promoted by the likes of tools and PR mavens like Gerald Posner whose appearance in early episodes immediately served warning 'Mafia Spies' may not be telling the whole truth. Indeed, the Warren Report (described by some as “the largest book of fiction in most libraries”), should have garnered no attention or investment of intellect, given it was roundly trumped by the later (1978-79) HSCA investigation.  Sadly, this Showtime series has to come to terms with that deficit, and the fact it’s a pale shadow of Oliver Stone’s work as revealed in  'JFK Through The Looking Glass'.  Compared to which Posner's work is like a trite, propaganda cartoon.

 

 

Edited 1 hour ago by W. Niederhut

[Denny Zartman]

Good post, thanks @W. Niederhut. I did not know that information about CIA Staff D, which appears to show a solid connection between Lee Oswald and William King Harvey.