James DiEugenio's 1999 Essay on the Rose Cheramie Story

[Robert Morrow]

15 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

Robert, just to be clear, in SWHT I devote two chapters to discussing a scenario regarding how LBJ was potentially co-opted and given a minimal pre-assassination  message that his huge pending Congressional investigation problem (supported by JFK and RFK) was going to go away - but he best be prepared to manage the situation and ensure no through conspiracy investigation.

I detail the scandal, the specific Baker related information Roselli had on Johnson which would have sealed Johnson's fate in Congress and how Roselli would have gotten the word to Johnson.  I also micro detail the day by day chronology of Johnson's activities related to that including the dramatic change in Johnson's behavior in October.

As with most things I can't prove it, its speculation - but I believe the most coherent way to explain most of Johnson's actions including his high pressure and immediate move to ensure there was not real criminal investigation of conspiracy.   Hard to believe I spent so much time doing that and apparently nobody reads it...

 

 

I stand corrected. You believe LBJ was given a minimal pre-assassination message that JFK was going to be killed. Perfectly fine. I believe Lyndon Johnson was screaming at the top of his lungs for someone to blow out JFK's brains just as soon as it could be done.

Larry, in the words of John Kennedy, "Lyndon Johnson knows every reporter in town." LBJ was fully and acutely aware that the Kennedys were running a "destroy LBJ" campaign that was designed to not merely remove him from the 1964 Democratic ticket but to get LBJ to resign the presidency ASAP. LBJ's state of mind was enraged, agitated, and obsessed with what the Kennedys were doing to him. (I wonder how LBJ would have reacted to this? Ask Sam Smithwick 1952, Henry Marshall 1961, Billie Sol Estes' accountant and the crew members of the USS Liberty (1967) what they think.)

LBJ did not need Johnny Roselli to tell him what was going on. See the Horace Busby link below - LBJ knew because over 40 (!!!) reporters were descending like a SWAT team into Texas to dig up dirt in a coordinated effort (ringleaders JFK and RFK) to get rid of Johnson. By November 4th, while he was in Europe, LBJ was acutely aware the Kennedys were doing everything in their power to utterly destroy him. See Horace Busby on this point.

This was being done while President JFK was publicly stating and lying that they were going to keep Johnson on the ticket for 1964. Pro tip: politicians lie all the time.

And furthermore, the immediate and absolute #1 suspect by the Kennedys and their aides was LYNDON JOHNSON in the immediate aftermath of the JFK assassination. "Lyndon Johnson did it," as Jackie told Pamela Turnure on the ride back from Dallas. Sen. John Sherman Cooper - while he was in the Warren Commission - was convinced that LBJ had just murdered JFK. The source on this is Morris Wolff, a close aide of Sen. Cooper and who just wrote his memoirs a few years ago. Sen. John Sherman Cooper and his high class wife were longtime personal friends of JFK and Jackie: they did a lot of double dating in the 1950s. And let us not forget Abraham Bolden who on June 29, 1961 witnessed an argument in the Oval Office between the Kennedys and LBJ that was so hateful and so volcanic that Bolden reported Lyndon Johnson as a security threat to the life of John Kennedy to his superior Secret Service chief Urbanus Baughman (source: multiple Abraham Bolden interviews in the past few years). Btw, I have never seen "Secret Service expert" Vince Palamara ever mention this last, incredibly important Bolden anecdote about Lyndon Johnson, a man who was known to fly into rages.

Here are some web links on the LBJ-Kennedys sub rosa war in November, 1963 that I often post:

LBJ top aide Horace Busby strongly implies that Lyndon Johnson was acutely aware by Nov. 4, 1963 that the Kennedys had sent a SWAT team of over **FORTY** national reporters to Texas to utterly destroy him  https://robertmorrowpoliticalresearchblog.blogspot.com/2020/07/lyndon-johnson-was-acutely-aware-by-nov.html  I wonder how LBJ would’ve reacted?

(Most people with an IQ over 60 know exactly who Busby is referring to when he obliquely refers to the people who were working to destroy LBJ in the fall of 1963 - the names who must not be mentioned. Yes: them.)

Burkett van Kirk (GOP Senate Rules Committee counsel) and James Wagenvoord (Life Magazine assistant editor) prove the Kennedys were out to destroy LBJ in November of 1963 http://robertmorrowpoliticalresearchblog.blogspot.com/2021/08/senate-counsel-burkett-van-kirk-and.html

National Review’s Phil Brennan knew in real time all about the Kennedys’ ongoing plan to destroy LBJ with the media in fall of 1963: https://www.newsmax.com/Pre-2008/Some-Relevant-Facts-About/2003/11/18/id/677423/

The 1982 Doug Thompson interview of John Connally is helpful as well:

John Connally (in 1982 to Doug Thompson): "You know I was one of the ones who advised Kennedy to stay away from Texas," Connally said. "Lyndon (Johnson) was being a real asshole about the whole thing and insisted."

Web link:

https://www.opednews.com/populum/page.php?f=opedne_doug_tho_060330_is_deception_the_bes.htm

 March 29, 2006

Is deception the best way to serve one's country?

By Doug Thompson for Capitol Hill Blue

John Connally told Doug Thompson over dinner in 1982: "You know I was one of the ones who advised Kennedy to stay away from Texas. Lyndon [Johnson] was being a real asshole about the whole thing and insisted."

            Doug Thompson: "Connally's mood darkened as he talked about Dallas. When the bullet hit him, he said he felt like he had been kicked in the ribs and couldn't breathe. He spoke kindly of Jackie Kennedy and said he admired both her bravery and composure.

 I had to ask. Did he think Lee Harvey Oswald fired the gun that killed Kennedy?

 'Absolutely not,' Connally said. 'I do not, for one second, believe the conclusions of the Warren Commission.'

 So why not speak out?

 'Because I love this country and we needed closure at the time. I will never speak out publicly about what I believe.'"

 

 

 

Edited 15 hours ago by Robert Morrow

[Greg Doudna]

Larry, I have gone back into SWHT, your chapters 15 and 16, on the Bobby Baker scandal and LBJ and so on, and found your reference on p 257, possibility of an LBJ contact with Rosselli via Fred Black. The suggestion seems to be that LBJs behavior indicates he was witting to the assassination and may have been promised benefits from it in terms of resolution of legal and scandal difficulties, although LBJ was not an instigator or prime mover of it. It seems you suggest from study of phone calls and actions that about the end of Oct LBJ was calmer as if knowing what was coming. I realize you identify it as conjecture.

As many names and leads as you discuss, it’s not quite obvious to me who a possible Mr Big might have been in your envisioning or conjecture. I’m having difficulty seeing plausibility for any one individual in CIA for example being a Mr Big. Take Angleton for example. He’s more Man With A Plan type than a Mr Big type. Dulles, same comment.

If there had been, say, following the 2020 presidential election a conspiracy designed to keep an incumbent in power despite losing the election, through intimidating and violent and illegal means, who works as a Mr Big in such a scenario? 

I’m influenced by the analogies of Trump as a Mr Big type, to LBJ as a Mr Big type. Trump is not working for anyone, a Mr Big type. Seems like an analogy to LBJ. 

It’s just hard to see a non-LBJ domestic Mr Big audacious enough to assassinate an American president in 1963. And it’s hard to imagine any committee of equals taking a vote as an alternative to a Mr Big. Just as a Jan 6 conspiracy would not have happened without Trump as Mr Big, by analogy it’s almost hard to imagine any Mr Big on JFK other than the parallel to Trump in standing and motive, LBJ. But I don’t know. 

[Robert Morrow]

5 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

I'm afraid I was unclear, the scenario I lay out is one in which LBJ was compromised and managed to ensure no effective conspiracy investigation occurred.  That was his only role.  He was compromised by the same nexus of individuals - Roselli/Harvey/Morales who instigating the operational side of the attack in Dallas. He willingly cooperated, happy to have saved his career and reputation from a Congressional inquiry that was posed to gut him. Indeed his primary concerns the night of the assassination were demonstrably political and of how to neuter what had been coming to a head in Congress.

I'd be happy to discuss the details I lay out in several chapters of SWHT in terms of he he likely was compromised and how he carried out his tasking, but you really need to read that first.  Sorry, I put  years into that, not starting fresh again...grin.  And for that matter I decided to check his actions again as to whether they and the national security response was anomalous, that was the genesis of all the work that went into Surprise Attack.

 

Okay, that is all very interesting. Who compromised LBJ? You say it was Roselli/Harvey/David Morales? How did they compromise LBJ? Specifically how? And they did this so Lyndon Johnson would cover up the JFK for those folks, the people like Roselli/William King Harvey/David Morales who were actually at the top of the pyramid of the JFK assassination?

Am I understanding you correctly? And btw, I am not being sarcastic; I am merely trying to get your precise current take on the JFK assassination.

Lyndon Johnson's net worth was $25 million in 1963/1964. That is the equally to a whopping, mind blowing $250 million in 2024 dollars. There was an absolute MOUNTAIN of compromise on LBJ from all sorts of directions - all the many people who had illegally shoved buckets of dirty money down this greedy monster's throat over the decades. All the Kennedys needed was just a little bit of this spaghetti to stick to the wall in order to bring down LBJ (get him to resign the Vice Presidency was goal #1). I don't think the Kennedys care whether it was the LBJ/Bobby Baker scandal or the LBJ/Billie Sol Estes scandal or 10 other separate scandals that infected LBJ. Caro actually writes that LBJ took another $50,000 bribe from someone while he was Vice President. ($500,000 in 2024 dollars.)

Yes sir folks, LBJ was the VICE president; he was in charge of vice.

The source for LBJ's net worth being $25 million was LBJ's longtime advisor crook lawyer, Texas power broker Ed Clark who told this to Robert Caro.

Robert Caro:

QUOTE

The author asked Clark the worth of those interests at the time Lyndon Johnson became President. Several days later he replied, after apparently checking his firm’s records: “It would have been – you mean his net worth – about $25,000,000 at the time.”

UNQUOTE

[Robert Caro, The Path to Power, p. 788]  

 

[Robert Morrow]

10 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

Larry, I have gone back into SWHT, your chapters 15 and 16, on the Bobby Baker scandal and LBJ and so on, and found your reference on p 257, possibility of an LBJ contact with Rosselli via Fred Black. The suggestion seems to be that LBJs behavior indicates he was witting to the assassination and may have been promised benefits from it in terms of resolution of legal and scandal difficulties, although LBJ was not an instigator or prime mover of it. It seems you suggest from study of phone calls and actions that about the end of Oct LBJ was calmer as if knowing what was coming. I realize you identify it as conjecture.

As many names and leads as you discuss, it’s not quite obvious to me who a possible Mr Big might have been in your envisioning or conjecture. I’m having difficulty seeing plausibility for any one individual in CIA for example being a Mr Big. Take Angleton for example. He’s more Man With A Plan type than a Mr Big type. Dulles, same comment.

If there had been, say, following the 2020 presidential election a conspiracy designed to keep an incumbent in power despite losing the election, through intimidating and violent and illegal means, who works as a Mr Big in such a scenario? 

I’m influenced by the analogies of Trump as a Mr Big type, to LBJ as a Mr Big type. Trump is not working for anyone, a Mr Big type. Seems like an analogy to LBJ. 

It’s just hard to see a non-LBJ domestic Mr Big audacious enough to assassinate an American president in 1963. And it’s hard to imagine any committee of equals taking a vote as an alternative to a Mr Big. Just as a Jan 6 conspiracy would not have happened without Trump as Mr Big, by analogy it’s almost hard to imagine any Mr Big on JFK other than the parallel to Trump in standing and motive, LBJ. But I don’t know. 

Read Horace Busby, an inner circle LBJ aide who knew LBJ intimately from 1948 to his death in 1973. Was Lyndon Johnson calm when he found out in Europe on Nov. 4, 1963 that over 40 national reporters were combing Texas trying to find enough dirt to slit his throat? Then read what George Reedy had to say below - he was a 15 year aide and intimate of LBJ.

You tell me: calm?

LBJ top aide Horace Busby strongly implies that Lyndon Johnson was acutely aware by Nov. 4, 1963 that the Kennedys had sent a SWAT team of over **FORTY** national reporters to Texas to utterly destroy him  https://robertmorrowpoliticalresearchblog.blogspot.com/2020/07/lyndon-johnson-was-acutely-aware-by-nov.html  I wonder how LBJ would’ve reacted?

 

"That other man had to be Robert Kennedy, whom he regarded as the focal point for all the forces who sought the downfall of Lyndon Johnson."

[George Reedy, Lyndon B. Johnson: A Memoir, p. 6]

 

"This occurred when he was vice president and obsessed with the idea that Bobby Kennedy was directing an anti-LBJ campaign. His elevation to the presidency made absolutely no difference. Brush after brush took place with the journalists who, in the early days of his administration, accepted him as a miracle worker to be treated with downright reverence. Eventually, however, his conviction that they were opposed to him created an opposition- always the outcome of paranoia. He did not attribute this to his own shortcomings but to the machinations of the man he regarded as his arch foe. At this stage of the game, Bobby was helpless to do him much mischief but LBJ still believed that there was a plot for which the press was the principal instrument."

[George Reedy, Lyndon B. Johnson: A Memoir, p. 70]

 

"I never fully understood this or other similar episodes. In the back of his mind, it is possible that he believed these visits were inspired by Bobby Kennedy as part of a "plot" to delete the name LBJ from the ticket in 1964. This had become an obsession with him- a conviction that peopled the world with agents of the president's brother all seeking to do him in. Someone- I never found out who- very actively fed this belief and kept him in a perpetual state of anxiety. This reached major proportions with the outbreak of the Billy Sol Estes and Bobby Baker scandals....

There was absolutely nothing to keep Johnson's name in the Billy Sol Estes story except the LBJ refusal to deal with the press. He covered up when there was nothing to cover and thereby created the suspicion that he was involved somehow. His reasoning was simple: The whole thing existed as a Bobby Kennedy plot and to talk about it to the press was to help Bobby Kennedy.

About the same thing happened in the Bobby Baker scandal except that in this instance he was really close to the central figure in the expose. He had considered Bobby as virtually a son and succeeded in promoting him to be secretary of the Senate Majority at an age when Bobby should have been in knee britches."

[George Reedy, Lyndon B. Johnson: A Memoir, pp. 134-135]

 

"But Johnson refused to accept the obvious explanation. He insisted that it stayed in the press because of conscious pressure from Bobby Kennedy, who, he claimed, was holding daily briefings with the sole purpose of knifing LBJ in the back. He was so convinced of the existence of these meetings that I made a personal effort to check on them myself. There was not the least bit of evidence that they were taking place or had taken place. I am not a master spy but it is hardly likely that during that period the attorney general of the United States could have engaged in such an organized effort without one of my newspaper friends tipping me off.

This viewpoint did not impress Johnson in the slightest. He merely said I was "naive" and that he would demonstrate the truth to me. The next time the two of us were together with a correspondent, he lectured the man on how wrong it was to ask stooge questions and then said: "I know all about those briefings downtown." It became apparent at once the correspondent did not know not know about them but that did not stop LBJ. He continued his lectures to other correspondents- a practice that led to some speculation as to his mental stability. Fortunately, the speculation did not appear in print.

These episodes were merely ludicrous. Much more serious was his interpretation of all his relations with the administration as involved with "plots." He resisted- to the point of hysteria- the round-the-world trip which later became famous for his discovery of Bashir, the camel driver, in Karachi.... He raved, at least to me, that Bobby Kennedy was trying to set him up.

[George Reedy, Lyndon B. Johnson: A Memoir, pp. 136-137]

 

[Ron Bulman]

Hi Larry, you made me look again at SWHT, years since I have in depth.  You may have well influenced my thoughts on LBJ and the JFK assassination.  My copy is filled with folded corner pages, post it notes sticking up, as well as old envelopes sticking up, retirement statement 2016, bankruptcy action on a property we owned in 2015, a 2017 hernia.

Pg 222 Jack Russel Smith, w/ Mc Cone, LBJ, no interest in being debriefed on 11/22/63, 9:00 AM.

Pg 223, FBI, 11/22/63, it was Oswald, return to normal duty.

Pg 239, Don't Ask Don't Tell.  LBJ orders Bethesda gag order.

Cliff Carter calls Wade, Curry and Carr, No conspiracy on behalf of LBJ.

LBJ gag order on Bethesda. 

LBJ calls Parkland during Oswald treatment demanding a confession.

LBJ gives presidential immunity to FBI agent Regis Kennedy in the Shaw trial.

Pg 242.  Did someone get to him?  I think so.

Likely a long time associate, Dulles, McCloy or even across the street neighbor and Sunday barbecue buddy Hoover told him in his own words, if you want to go along you gotta get along. 

[Robert Morrow]

1 hour ago, Ron Bulman said:

Hi Larry, you made me look again at SWHT, years since I have in depth.  You may have well influenced my thoughts on LBJ and the JFK assassination.  My copy is filled with folded corner pages, post it notes sticking up, as well as old envelopes sticking up, retirement statement 2016, bankruptcy action on a property we owned in 2015, a 2017 hernia.

Pg 222 Jack Russel Smith, w/ Mc Cone, LBJ, no interest in being debriefed on 11/22/63, 9:00 AM.

Pg 223, FBI, 11/22/63, it was Oswald, return to normal duty.

Pg 239, Don't Ask Don't Tell.  LBJ orders Bethesda gag order.

Cliff Carter calls Wade, Curry and Carr, No conspiracy on behalf of LBJ.

LBJ gag order on Bethesda. 

LBJ calls Parkland during Oswald treatment demanding a confession.

LBJ gives presidential immunity to FBI agent Regis Kennedy in the Shaw trial.

Pg 242.  Did someone get to him?  I think so.

Likely a long time associate, Dulles, McCloy or even across the street neighbor and Sunday barbecue buddy Hoover told him in his own words, if you want to go along you gotta get along. 

Let's not forget Lyndon Johnson PERSONALLY CALLING Dallas chief Detective Will Fritz to tell him to STOP QUESTIONING OSWALD. This call may have occurred on Saturday afternoon, but more likely it occurred on Sunday morning not long before Oswald is being shot in the belly by Jack Ruby at 11:21AM on 11/24/63.

Lyndon Johnson personally told Dallas Police Detective Capt. Will Fritz to STOP questioning Oswald

The time of the LBJ call must have occurred on Sunday morning 11/24/1963 because Oswald was questioned by Dallas police as late as just before 11:15AM Sunday morning

The questioning of Oswald was on Saturday at 10:35AM, then12:35PM and 6PM. At 11:15AM the transfer party leaves Fritz’ office after a final round of questions.

 There is an extremely important passage in Noel Twyman's Bloody Treason; it is on pages 792 to 803 of the hardback version. Twyman details and confirms Lyndon Johnson PERSONALLY calling Will Fritz late on Saturday 11/23/63 and telling him to QUIT interrogating Oswald.

 The fix had been in on Oswald since 14 minutes after the JFK assassination when Marguerite Oswald’s 1960 physical description of him to the FBI was broadcast all over the Dallas police radio five times within 24 minutes.

Author Noel Twyman spoke to 2 people: Frank B. Harrell and Jim Leavelle. Here is what Twyman says about his meeting with Harrell:

"He was very cooperative. He remembered the lunch and confirmed that Captain Fritz told that story, that Lyndon Johnson had called and ordered Captain Fritz to pull off questioning Oswald."

 [Noel Twyman, Bloody Treason, p. 794]

"Harrell says that Fritz was 'pulled off because he was getting too close.' He said that in 'a couple of more hours he'd have broken Oswald, but they pulled Oswald out.'"

[Noel Twyman, Bloody Treason, p. 794]

 It is just another example of Lyndon Johnson being so swift and furious with the cover up of the JFK assassination; remember the day before he was telling two people a Dallas cop and Gen. Godfrey McHugh that there was an "international conspiracy."

 Sandy Larsen 4/24/24 Education Forum post on Will Fritz interviewing Oswald on Sunday morning 11/24/1963

 Under Cover of Night - Page 3 - JFK Assassination Debate - The Education Forum (ipbhost.com)

 If that is true, Captain Fritz ignored LBJ's order.

Excerpted from the report of the Oswald interrogation that took place in Fritz's office on 11/24/1963 at 9:30 AM:

This interview started at approximately 9:30 a.m. on Sunday, November 24, 1963. The interview was conducted in the office of Captain WIll Fritz of the Homicide Bureau, Dallas Police. Present at the interview in addition to Oswald were Captain Fritz, Postal Inspector Holmes, SAIC Sorrels, Inspector Kelley and four members of the Homicide Squad. The interview had just begun when I arrived and Captain Fritz was again requesting Oswald to identify the place where the photograph of him holding the gun was taken. Captain Fritz indicated that it would save the Police a great deal of time if he would tell them where the place was located. Oswald refused to discuss the matter. Captain Fritz asked, "Are you a Communist?" Oswald answered, "No, I am a Marxist but I am not a Marxist Leninist." Captain Fritz asked him what the difference was and Oswald said it would take too long to explain it to him. Oswald said that he became interested in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee while he was in New Orleans; that he wrote to the Committee's Headquarters in New York and received some Committee literature and a letter signed by Alex Hidell. He stated that he began to distribute that literature in New Orleans and it was at that time that he got into an altercation with a group and he was arrested. He said his opinions concerning Fair Play for Cuba are well known; that he appeared on Bill Stukey's television program in New Orleans on a number of occasions and was interviewed by the local press often.

He denies knowing or ever seeing Hidell in New Orleans, said he believed in all of the tents of the Fair Play for Cuba and the things which the Fair Play for Cuba Committee stood for, which was free intercourse with Cuba and freedom for tourists of both countries to travel within each other's borders.

Among other things, Oswald said that Cuba should have full diplomatic relationship with the United States. I asked him if he thought that the President's assassination would have any effect on the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. He said there would be no change in the attitude of the American people toward Cuba with President Johnson becoming President because they both belonged to the same political party and the one would follow pretty generally the policies of the other . He stated that he is an avid reader of Russian literature whether it is communistic or not; that he subscribes to "The Militant," which, he says, is the weekly of the Socialist party in the United States (it is a copy of "the Militant" that Oswald is shown holding in the photograph taken form this effects at Irving Street). At that time he asked me whether I was an FBI Agent and I said that I was not that I was a member of the Secret Service. He said when he was standing in front of the Textbook Building and about to leave it, a young crew-cut man rushed up to him and said he was from the Secret Service, showed a book of identification, and asked him where the phone was. Oswald said he pointed toward the pay phone in the building and that he saw the man actually go to the phone before he left.

I asked Oswald whether as a Marxist he believed that religion was an opiate of the people and he said very definitely so that all organized religions tend to become monopolistic and are the causes of a great deal of class warfare. I asked him whether he considered the Catholic Church to be an enemy of the Communist philosophy and he said well, there was no Catholicism in Russia; that the closest to it is the Orthodox Churches but he said he would not further attempt to have him say something which could be construed as being anti-religious or anti-Catholic.

Capt. Fritz displayed an Enco street map of Dallas which had been found among Oswald's effects at the rooming house. Oswald was asked whether the map was his and wheter he had put some marks on it. He said it was his and remarked "My God don't tell me there's a mark near where this thing happened." The mark was pointed out to him and he said "What about the other marks on the map?I put a number of marks on it. I was looking for work and marked the places where I went for jobs or where I heard there were jobs."

Since it was obvious to Captain Fritz that Oswald was not going to be cooperative, he terminated the interview at that time.

 J.J. Anderson email to Robert Morrow on 5/27/2024 – Maybe Will Fritz was taking the phone call from LBJ while Secret Service’s Forrest Sorrels was talking with Oswald on Sunday morning Nov. 24, 1963

 J.J. Anderson:

 QUOTE

 This account, by Forrest Sorrels, tends to suggest that his little chat re the niceties of Marxism/Leninism with Lee may have occurred while Fritz was absent (possibly taking LBJ's call?)  It's all so totally abstract and irrelevant, isn't it?  Just like the pre-digested TV interview.  Sounds like he is killing time, a conversation which deliberately has nowhere to go -- and which does not suggest in any sense that Lee is reluctant to talk.  The interview as recorded indicates a short one, so possibly before 11am?

 Now, at 11 am, why would Fritz come back to the interview to show Lee a map -- this must have been earlier.  Fritz has to arrange transport for Lee to the County Jail - the prison truck doesn't fit into the underground parking, and has to be reversed onto the street.  Will Fritz has to summon his car, and arrange for it to be reversed in from the opposite entrance.  At this time Jack Ruby is making his way from the Post Office, in through a side entrance where he is not apparently seen.  As he enters the car park, whoever is driving Fritz's car is blowing the horn - there is a camera crew in the way -- or as a signal to Fritz.  So who was driving Fritz's car?

 UNQUOTE

 

 

Edited 14 hours ago by Robert Morrow

[David Von Pein]

Here is a four-page excerpt from Vincent Bugliosi's book, "Reclaiming History", devoted to the subject of Rose Cherami:

 

Edited 10 hours ago by David Von Pein

[Larry Hancock]

Well let's see, to simplify with one post.  For Robert,  yes I know your position and I studied Johnson deeply for several years, once wrote a manuscript with him as the prime mover and ultimately tore it up because once it was all together I found it had too many holes in it and was pretty much all built around his simply being a horrible human being rather than a solid operational case. That was during my Madeleine Brown period when I helped fund her book....  I don't want to argue or debate the Johnson association; I just wanted to point out that I saw a scenario in which he had some involvement and it explained his really strange behavior both before and after the assassination.

For Greg, I don't see a Mr Big scenario at all in the JFK assassination, nor do I see it being simplistic in terms of a single order given. I see it as evolutionary over the better part of 1963, instigated by senior CIA figures and operationalized using well trusted surrogates.  But I've spelled out my views on that in NEXUS and Tipping Point and haven't changed my take on either so you know where I stand on that - no single "Mr Big", something much more real world with multiple agendas - as Martino implied, the ones who went to Dallas had one goal, but later realized that at least some ones who had caused them to go had their own and they had been liked too....hence the ultimate fates of both Morales and Roselli.

And for Ron, yes the timeline you laid out absolutely suggests to me that the fix was in with Johnson and he was doing a series of fairly knee jerk (and in retrospect suspicious) things to quash the chance that what had happened would be seriously investigated. Of course others like the CIA (which did its own internal investigation in Miami and then buried it as too dangerous) had things to bury too but Johnson was certainly the 'Mr Big' in establishing it as a 'lone nut' crime...in my view at least.

[Greg Doudna]

It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the idea of a conspiracy to murder a head of state without anyone responsible for deciding it and authorizing having it done. 

If there’s a conspiracy to murder there is going to be a hidden hand or a Mr Big somewhere, unless one goes the route of a hidden voting committee of equals as the hidden hand with no one being “first among equals” (not too likely), or a wildcat low-level operative organizing a low-level conspiracy on his own which got lucky and succeeded, the rogue low-level idea, a little Mr Big so to speak, not too likely in the JFK case for various reasons, chief being the lack of full pursuit and punishment of such if it were actually so). 

But I don’t know.

[Greg Doudna]

In other words, who hatched the idea that JFK should be killed who had the ability to cause that to be done, who was not working for someone running him who approved and greenlighted him? 

If it was a group (eg businessmen, military as in classic coup, etc), who is the “first among equals” in that group? 

Maybe LBJ was somebody else’s pawn, could be, but who in that case? I doubt Trump is anybody’s pawn. That’s the analogy to me, but I don’t know. 

[Larry Hancock]

Greg, I'm sure you have read Tipping Point where I give my scenario of exactly how such a thing could have happened?  I'd be happy to discuss why you think its not reasonable but it does give my best effort to describe how I think such conspiracy jelled, what drove it and who did what so I'll just leave it at that.

I will say its very much modeled on how many CIA assassination actions did begin in the real world (there were conversations, discussions of how dangerous an individual was, something had to be done, no specific order given or written down and everybody understood what was expected). I researched and wrote NEXUS to illustrate that process with actual examples, primarily under Barnes and Bissell - but later under Harvey as well (although he did make personal notes and asked Angleton for advice on how to outsource such things).

I gave up the idea of trying to argue anyone into my views a long time ago so it out there for the taking - or not...grin.  

[Greg Doudna]

Well that’s the rogue op model. I will restudy your Tipping Point, but such rogue op on a U.S. president is so very risky, so extremely risky if caught and exposed, so very very illegal and unprecedented, about the only thing that would make that plausible is pure vengeance motive not caring if the risk was suicidal. At higher levels someones signaling “he is a problem…something needs to be done…” that’s Mr Big talk territory, not inconsistent with all the lower level stuff and actors greenlighted or subtly signaled go ahead but don’t tell us if so… but I’ll reread. 

[Greg Doudna]

All that needs to be supposed is an LBJ CIA nexus and that could pretty much explain the major things needing explained. But if so it would be LBJ in lead position and CIA supporting rather than vice versa. 

CIA has already conceded a benign JFKA CIA coverup conspiracy carried out by a rogue bad apple director of the Agency. 

I can see 50 years from now it being conceded the JFKA was carried out by a rogue bad apple vice-president who became president. Covered up at the time for the most noble of reasons like no family wants its skeletons aired to the world. Just hasn’t happened yet maybe? Who knows.

[Greg Doudna]

And physical evidence: two experienced fingerprint examiners, in blind analysis, positively identified Malcom Wallace’s fingerprints on snipers location boxes. Mistakes on positive identifications occur less than 1% incidence for only single examiners, and this was two independently. The FBI and another examiner later said, in the FBIs case without a named responsible person attribution, that nothing to see there there was no match (negative exclusion identification which has a high error rate of ca 7% and that’s when blind without motive or bias which neither of these reported negative exclusions were). One of the two who positively ID’d Malcom Wallace retracted (to claim of uncertainty, n.b. not a negative exclusion), after learning how incendiary his blind finding was, therefore the retraction can be dismissed and the blind finding has greater weight. 

Malcom Wallace was an LBJ man and killer. 

Three possibilities: two experts got it independently wrong at less than 1% chance either would; the prints were planted; Malcom Wallace was there on or within a couple of days of the assassination even though he was not a TSBD employee.

Just naming the three possibilities, pick one. I don’t know which I pick. 

Edited 3 hours ago by Greg Doudna

[Miles Massicotte]

1 hour ago, Greg Doudna said:

And physical evidence: two experienced fingerprint examiners, in blind analysis, positively identified Malcom Wallace’s fingerprints on snipers location boxes. Mistakes on positive identifications occur less than 1% incidence for only single examiners, and this was two independently. The FBI and another examiner later said, in the FBIs case without a named responsible person attribution, that nothing to see there there was no match (negative exclusion identification which has a high error rate of ca 7% and that’s when blind without motive or bias which neither of these reported negative exclusions were). One of the two who positively ID’d Malcom Wallace retracted (to claim of uncertainty, n.b. not a negative exclusion), after learning how incendiary his blind finding was, therefore the retraction can be dismissed and the blind finding has greater weight. 

Malcom Wallace was an LBJ man and killer. 

Three possibilities: two experts got it independently wrong at less than 1% chance either would; the prints were planted; Malcom Wallace was there on or within a couple of days of the assassination even though he was not a TSBD employee.

Just naming the three possibilities, pick one. I don’t know which I pick. 

I have not read Mellon's book myself or studied this issue at all so I can't speak to it personally, but I do remember reading this for what it is worth. Source: https://jfkfacts.org/new-look-lbj-joan-mellen-debunks-mac-wallace-myth/

"Mellen kills the legend. She points out that the two 'experts' who said that fingerprint came from Wallace were not certified identification experts at the time of their claims. They also used a faulty image of the fingerprint. She notes that the JFK authors who repeated the story of the Mac Wallace fingerprint often used identical language without ever bothering verify the claim.

By contrast, Mellen did the due diligence. She obtained a quality fingerprint image from the National Archives and showed it to an accredited expert, Robert Garrett, without disclosing the issue at stake. Garrett stated, without qualification, that the fingerprint does not match Wallace’s. Mellen reproduces his methodology. The Mac Wallace fingerprint myth has now been definitively debunked."