Harry Dean: Memoirs

[Paul Trejo]

<snip>

Robert Welch made the following comments to the first meeting of the JBS National Council (January 1960) in Chicago:

“Today, gentlemen, I can assure you, without the slightest doubt in my own mind that the takeover at the top is, for all practical purposes, virtually complete. Whether you like it or not, or whether you believe it or not, our Federal Government is already, literally in the hands of the Communists."

<snip>

This quotation from Robert Welch, only months after General Edwin A. Walker joined Welch's so-called John Birch Society, adequately proves that Welch was a traitor to the USA, and should have been arrested and tried as a traitor during the Cold War.

Eisenhower's failure to silence Welch, and JFK's failure to silence Welch, enabled a grass-roots groundswell in the USA that encouraged the true-believers in Welch's claptrap to successfully assassinate JFK.

Sincerely,

--Paul Trejo

Paul, you obviously have no understanding of American law or political values. We do not criminalize political thought in our country--no matter how obnoxious or disgusting.

However, if one wanted to scour every statute ever written in an effort to find something to bring Welch to trial, the only plausible possibility would be sedition (not treason) as was attempted during the 1940's during what became known as the Mass Sedition Trial. However, the basis (at that time) for the charge was a conspiracy to undermine the morale of troops during wartime and cause armed revolt. Significantly, even that farce was recognized in time for what it was and charges against the "conspirators" were ultimately dropped.

You take everything so literally, Ernie. My exclamation about the veritable treason of Robert Welch and his followers was clearly a cry of anguish, and not a historical treatise.

I fully understand the dynamics of the First Amendment in this case -- yet I also know that tolerance of cantankerous speech only encourages it. It is my own right to Free Speech that allows me to call Robert Welch a traitor who should have been hanged -- and to exclaim that ex-General Edwin Walker should have spent the rest of his life in military prison for his leading role in the deadly riots at Ole Miss in 1962.

Sincerely,

--Paul Trejo

Edited December 7, 2013 by Paul Trejo

[Ernie Lazar]

<snip>

In 1964 (with LBJ now in control), the JBS told its membership that "Communist influence and control" of the U.S. Government increased to 60-80%.

In addition, the JBS position was that the war in Vietnam was being controlled "on both sides" by Communists and the JBS described our civil rights movement as follows:

"For the civil rights movement in the United States with all of its growing agitation and riots and bitterness, and insidious steps toward the appearance of civil war, has not been infiltrated by the Communists, as you now frequently hear. It has been deliberately and almost wholly created by the Communists patiently building up to this present stage for more than thirty years."

Robert Welch recommended a JBS-published book about the civil rights movement entitled "It's Very Simple" -- and that book's essential predicate was that our "civil rights movement was not only planned by the Communists, but was begun, is staffed, and is conducted by the Communists—and has only one real purpose: the destruction and communization of America.”

So -- obviously, from the point of view of the extreme right in our country, murdering JFK had no beneficial impact of any kind. If anything, the objective situation became exponentially worse!

Sloppy logic, Ernie. Obviously the JBS in 1963 would have no idea that life under LBJ would be even more liberal. So LBJ's term cannot be used as an argument of what that JBS was thinking in 1963.

Further, their whipping up hatred for JFK at every turn was the motor that energized the more radical rightists like the Ku Klux Klan, the Minutemen and the mercenaries that ultimately supported ex-General Walker -- a radical leader among the JBS.

The JBS-inspired murderers of JFK were dreamers -- they were true-believers -- they were convinced that by killing JFK and blaming a Communist, that America would immediately invade Cuba and kill Fidel Castro.

We cannot ascribe foreknowledge to them about LBJ's term. They probably thought LBJ would have to follow the American people in their demand for Fidel's head. They were wrong -- and they lost their fevered bid for power.

The main consequence was that most Americans didn't immediately assume it was Fidel Castro. They waited for the FBI to tell them what happened. When Hoover told them it was a Lone Nut, everybody breathed a sigh of relief -- Fidel Castro, of course, but also the John Birch Society, because many Americans correctly suspected them in late November 1963.

Sincerely,

--Paul Trejo

Entirely false predicate Paul -- which is how you then create your self-sealing circular arguments.

The JBS knew EXACTLY what would come after JFK. They knew it would be LBJ. They also knew that LBJ was an ardent devotee of FDR's New Deal. They also knew what LBJ's behavior was like during his term as Senate Majority Leader starting in 1955. They knew, for example, that it was Senate Majority Leader Johnson who refused to sign the so-called Southern Manifesto urging massive resistance to school integration after the 1954 Supreme Court decision. They also knew it was Senate Majority Leader Johnson who was able to cajole and manipulate his slim majority into supporting President Eisenhower's tough civil rights bill in 1957.

And, most of important of all, the JBS knew that

(1) the Democratic Party already had a solid majority in both houses of Congress and the death of Kennedy would certainly produce an even larger majority if only out of sympathy and grief over the death of a very popular President. [see my previous message where I presented the actual statistics which prove my point.] AND

(2) JFK loyalists controlled the entire federal bureaucracy and state Democratic Party political machinery AND

(3) the American public had a severely negative opinion of everything which the JBS (and the extreme right generally) stood for and was promoting

With respect to your comment about the KKK and Minutemen --- yes they were energized but, even in combination, they were a very small number of people and, incidentally, there were many personality conflicts and internal disputes within those groups which is why they so often splintered into new (even smaller) groups.

With respect to this comment by you:

"The JBS-inspired murderers of JFK were dreamers -- they were true-believers -- they were convinced that by killing JFK and blaming a Communist, that America would immediately invade Cuba and kill Fidel Castro."

EVEN IF that was on their mind -- it STILL would not address the much larger and infinitely more important grievance which motivated the extreme right in our country -- i.e. the perception that our entire federal government was in the hands of Communist traitors and their agents. An invasion of Cuba, even if successful, would not replace Warren as Chief Justice and would not eliminate the Democratic Party super-majority in Congress which was intent upon enacting all sorts of legislation that was anathema to the extreme right and it would not have done anything whatsoever to undo or neutralize the objectionable domestic and foreign policies which groups like the Birch Society bitterly complained about.

12/8/13 ADDENDUM:

As a brief postscript to my message above, I should have also mentioned the JBS role in promoting and selling J. Evetts Haley's self-published 1964 book, A Texas Looks At Lyndon. Haley was with Edwin Walker in Oxford MS in 1962 and he endorsed Walker for Governor of Texas in 1962.

Keep in mind that the basic predicate of Haley's book was that LBJ was both a Communist and a tool of big business. Haley even suggested that LBJ was behind the murder of JFK!

So, for Paul Trejo to pretend that, somehow, the Birch Society had no clue about what sort of President LBJ would be or that we cannot "ascribe foreknowledge to them about LBJ's term" is such a preposterous statement that it brings into question Paul's intellectual honesty (again).

BTW - I do not have access to all my notes right now -- but I think Bircher Mary Surrey did research for Haley on his book - by chasing down and repeating every defamatory rumor about LBJ!

Edited December 8, 2013 by Ernie Lazar

[Ernie Lazar]

Ernie - thanks for the response. I understand your argument about exceptionalism, and I agree that my choice of the word 'conventional' wasn't a good one. A question for you - do you think all conspiracies to commit murder are discovered? Of course many murders go unsolved, but they might or might not be conspiracies. Many murders are called suicide when the evidence suggests otherwise. One prominent example pertinent to this discussion is Henry Marshall. His death was ruled a suicide, but many believe that Mac Wallace, at the behest of LBJ, murdered Marshall. When I look at all the parameters of that case, I come to the conclusion that Marshall was murdered by a conspiracy of at least two, and possibly more, since it is unlikely that LBJ called Mac Wallace and said 'do this for me'. LBJ had guys like Cliff Carter to do that kind of thing for him. At least that's my take. If Henry Marshall was murdered, it was a conspiracy, one that remains hidden from officialdom.

I think this goes to the heart of your dispute with Paul T regarding FBI files. We can never be sure we are getting the whole story, no matter how many documents they send us. So we are left having to read between the lines, or accept what files we see at face value. That's why I wish you would read a few books by authors who have gone to incredible lengths to decipher CIA files and who are very careful in their analyses. Its eye opening.

I think the argument that the JFK conspiracy could not have been large because it would have fallen apart, or because the planners would have known it was dangerous to their longevity to involve too many people and therefore would have kept it small, may in this case be wrong despite your arguments and the weight of official history. We cannot know for sure how many large conspiracies go uncovered. We only know the ones that break down. And when you add up the dozens of suspicious deaths and the people that did talk on their deathbeds or to their children or wives... Is there a point when too many coincidences add up to something other than coincidence? If there is one thing most of us on this board share, its the belief that too many coincidences equals conspiracy.

In American law, a criminal conspiracy is "an agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime at some time in the future".

Obviously, given that definition, there are probably thousands of "conspiracies" which are never discovered because they existed solely in the minds of two or more individuals who never got past the abstract "let's consider doing this" phase.

With respect to your "read between the lines" observation -- I would have to know what methodology you use to separate fact from fiction. Anybody can fabricate a story. Fiction writers do that every day of their lives. If you accept as valid anything which seems "reasonable", then you leave yourself open to lowest-common-denominator reasoning which leaves you exceptionally prone to believing falsehoods.

There are different standards of evidence or proof. In American jurisprudence, they are (from highest to lowest)

1. Beyond reasonable doubt

2. Clear and convincing evidence

3. Preponderance of evidence

4. Substantial evidence

5. Some credible evidence

6. Probable cause

7. Reasonable suspicion

If you are suggesting in your comments that we should adopt the lowest forms of "proof" (5, 6, 7), then I hope you understand the practical consequences of dumbing-down our standards.

FBI FILES (OR ANY OTHER AGENCY FILES):

It is, of course, essential for ALL conspiracy arguments to assert that (as you wrote) we "can never be sure we are getting the whole story". This is the one "sine qua non" underlying every conspiracy argument.

My question for you is this: Do you ever apply that criterion to your own beliefs AND to the stories which people you admire/respect are presenting? OR is your suspicion reserved exclusively for government agencies -- particularly if their files do not provide adequate support for something you currently believe?

Obviously, I can never prove a negative. However, consider the profound difference between government agency behavior and its records/documents versus behavior and documents of private persons.

Government agencies are huge bureaucracies. Let's focus upon the FBI for a moment, Since 1909, the FBI probably has employed a total of something like 75,000 Special Agents and perhaps 100,000 or more professional staff (including clerical employees).

From its beginnings, the FBI created a massive records-keeping system. In 1980-1981, when the National Archives acting under a court order examined in detail the existing records and records-keeping practices of the FBI, it was determined that (at HQ) there were 65,500,000 3x5 cards in the FBI HQ General Index (on people and organizations and general subject matters plus cross-references). There were other separate HQ filing systems used for ultra-sensitive material (as I mentioned in a previous message to Paul T.). I'm not sure if anybody has ever calculated how many records existed at FBI field offices. Nor has anybody ever calculated how many documents (memos, reports, etc) were sent from the FBI to other government agencies or individuals.)

All bureaucracies possess what you might describe as an anal-retentive personality. They are meticulous about documenting everything (often in duplicate, triplicate, quadruplicate). In addition there are literally tens of thousands of employees who are assigned to keep track of all that information --- not to mention the thousands (over time) of politicians serving on oversight committees and courts which have occasion to review agency records.

By contrast -- what systems are in place by private parties to save and organize their records? Who monitors their record-keeping practices? Who creates their indexing systems? Who compels them to testify about their behavior, activities, and practices?

How do we know (to use your phrase) that we are getting "the whole story" in whatever they decide to share -- such as when private parties donate their private papers to an institution OR when (as in the case of Harry Dean) -- they decide to self-publish a memoir OR answer questions during an interview on radio or TV or by a newspaper?

What system do YOU use to determine what is accurate, truthful and factual when private parties "share" their recollections about their own lives?

[Ernie Lazar]

<snip>

Robert Welch made the following comments to the first meeting of the JBS National Council (January 1960) in Chicago:

“Today, gentlemen, I can assure you, without the slightest doubt in my own mind that the takeover at the top is, for all practical purposes, virtually complete. Whether you like it or not, or whether you believe it or not, our Federal Government is already, literally in the hands of the Communists."

<snip>

This quotation from Robert Welch, only months after General Edwin A. Walker joined Welch's so-called John Birch Society, adequately proves that Welch was a traitor to the USA, and should have been arrested and tried as a traitor during the Cold War.

Eisenhower's failure to silence Welch, and JFK's failure to silence Welch, enabled a grass-roots groundswell in the USA that encouraged the true-believers in Welch's claptrap to successfully assassinate JFK.

Sincerely,

--Paul Trejo

Paul, you obviously have no understanding of American law or political values. We do not criminalize political thought in our country--no matter how obnoxious or disgusting.

However, if one wanted to scour every statute ever written in an effort to find something to bring Welch to trial, the only plausible possibility would be sedition (not treason) as was attempted during the 1940's during what became known as the Mass Sedition Trial. However, the basis (at that time) for the charge was a conspiracy to undermine the morale of troops during wartime and cause armed revolt. Significantly, even that farce was recognized in time for what it was and charges against the "conspirators" were ultimately dropped.

You take everything so literally, Ernie. My exclamation about the veritable treason of Robert Welch and his followers was clearly a cry of anguish, and not a historical treatise.

I fully understand the dynamics of the First Amendment in this case -- yet I also know that tolerance of cantankerous speech only encourages it. It is my own right to Free Speech that allows me to call Robert Welch a traitor who should have been hanged -- and to exclaim that ex-General Edwin Walker should have spent the rest of his life in military prison for his leading role in the deadly riots at Ole Miss in 1962.

Sincerely,

--Paul Trejo

Yes, Paul, when you declare that somebody should be subject to a criminal trial for a capital crime (treason is a capital crime), I do think such comments deserve exceptional scrutiny because it reveals more about you than it does about the person who is the target of your animus.

I'm sure you are familiar with the comment "what goes around, comes around". IF, as a society, we were to adopt your "cry of anguish", and seek out people like Welch and Walker to punish for their political beliefs, then there is nothing to prevent somebody on the opposite side of your beliefs from creating a comparable argument ABOUT YOU as well as people who think like you.

Adopting YOUR argument would mean, in effect, that we would accept as valid the argument which Robert Welch employed in his comment about the U.S. Senators he listed, i.e. Welch stated his belief that it was "utter folly" to think of them "as just liberals. Every one of those men is either an actual Communist or so completely a Communist sympathizer or agent that it makes no practical difference..."

That "no practical difference" comment is what Paul T. wants us to adopt and apply as a formula for evaluating his particular villains -- in the context of using a charge of "treason" as a method to deal with them.

This is typical of how political extremists operate. They claim to be on opposite sides politically and many people suggest that they should be considered polar opposites on a political spectrum -- but as Paul Trejo just illustrated, they think alike.

The only substantive difference is their determination regarding the specific identity of which particular villains they propose to vanquish, punish, and render impotent.

Edited December 7, 2013 by Ernie Lazar

[Paul Trejo]

<snip>

My question for you is this: Do you ever apply that criterion to your own beliefs AND to the stories which people you admire/respect are presenting? OR is your suspicion reserved exclusively for government agencies -- particularly if their files do not provide adequate support for something you currently believe?

<snip>

Ernie, as a matter of fact I do apply critical criteria to my own theories, and to the evidence that I accept and reject.

For one thing, I use the term "theory" to describe my own beliefs -- I realize that I don't yet have the proofs I need to draw a firm conclusion -- just as my critics don't have the proofs they need, either.

For another thing, it took me several years before I decided to look deeper into the account offered by Harry Dean. At first his story appeared to me just like one more story in a large pile of stories. It wasn't until I took two college courses from a well-known historian of the Cold War USA (namely, H.W. Brands) and carefully explored the personal papers of ex-General Edwin A. Walker (which are stored at UT Austin's Briscoe Center for the Study of American History) that it dawned on me that Harry Dean has been telling the truth for 48 years, and has been taking it in the teeth the whole time.

Finally, my criteria for deciding which accounts to accept and which to reject with regard to the JFK assassation, are plain and simple. My first criterion is logic -- and by that I mean the law of contradiction.

My second criterion is "benefit of the doubt." That is, I will accept every sworn statement by every witness in the Warren Commission and HSCA records, until and unless I catch them in a blatant self-contradiction. By refusing to yield to the temptation of calling this or that witness a "xxxx," I will make every effort to include all witnesses as valid, and attempt to construct a composite portrait by including as many witnesses as possible. (Certainly it is not possible to include every single witness, but I struggle with all my might before I reject anybody.)

Furthermore, I am extra-lenient in cases of extreme pressure, e.g. I accept all the sworn testimony of Marina Oswald, and I realize that she at one time insisted that Lee Oswald was innocent, and later said he was guilty, and later said he was only partly guilty.

In her first statements of Oswald's innocence, Marina was under extreme pressure by overwhelming American outrage through the mass media, obviously. In her second statements of Oswald's guilt, Marina was under some pressure from the FBI and from the time constraints of the Warren Commission as they presented her with hundreds of photographs and Oswald property artifacts for her immediate explanation. She openly said that 'based on what she was shown' she had to conclude that Lee Oswald was guilty of killing JFK, but even then she suspected that she was not shown everything. In her third statements which concluded that Oswald did not act alone, she spoke later in life, without extraordinary pressures, after having perused many books by many researchers on the topic.

In other words, given the context of her life circumstances, the contradictions in her testimony can be explained so that with reason and discernment one can accept her sworn testimony as essentially honest -- and I do.

I realize that some JFK researchers completely reject Marina's testimony, as some believe she was part of a KGB plot to kill JFK, and some believe she was bought off by the FBI to say whatever they wanted her to say, and so on. I don't accept those interpretations because they lack substance and empirical evidence.

I began with skepticism about Harry Dean's account. Yet Harry, without trying to do so, and without changing his story over 48 years, confirmed many details of facts known about ex-General Walker and Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963. Also, Harry confirmed many details of facts known about Loran Hall in 1963. This cannot be a coincidence.

Harry's many attempts to tell the FBI what he knew, and his eventual frustration with the FBI because they treated him like -- well, like you treat him -- have been amply confirmed by the many FBI records that keep streaming forth about Harry Dean.

Yet at the same time, the FBI continues to keep "secret" files about the JFK assassination and about Lee Harvey Oswald. Nobody -- not me and not you -- can draw final conclusions about the JFK murder without seeing those files. I realize that everything can change once those FBI files are finally released and we have the final answer about the JFK assassination.

Heck, it might actually turn out that James Jesus Angleton, David Atlee Phillips, E. Howard Hunt, David Morales, Fred Crisman, Ed Lansdale, David Christ, Loran Hall, Larry Howard, Eladio Del Valle, Anne Goodpasture, George Joannides, Chilo Borja and Jean Rene Souetre were all in Dallas on that day -- I have no proof in my hands -- and neither do you.

Sincerely,

--Paul Trejo

<edit typos>

Edited December 8, 2013 by Paul Trejo

[Ernie Lazar]

<snip>

My question for you is this: Do you ever apply that criterion to your own beliefs AND to the stories which people you admire/respect are presenting? OR is your suspicion reserved exclusively for government agencies -- particularly if their files do not provide adequate support for something you currently believe?

<snip>

Ernie, as a matter of fact I do apply critical criteria to my own theories, and to the evidence that I accept and reject.

For one thing, I use the term "theory" to describe my own beliefs -- I realize that I don't yet have the proofs I need to draw a firm conclusion -- just as my critics don't have the proofs they need, either.

For another thing, it took me several years before I decided to look deeper into the account offered by Harry Dean. At first his story appeared to me just like one more story in a large pile of stories. It wasn't until I took two college courses from a well-known historian of the Cold War USA (namely, H.W. Brands) and carefully explored the personal papers of ex-General Edwin A. Walker (which are stored at UT Austin's Briscoe Center for the Study of American History) that it dawned on me that Harry Dean has been telling the truth for 48 years, and has been taking it in the teeth the whole time.

Finally, my criteria for deciding which accounts to accept and which to reject with regard to the JFK assassation, are plain and simple. My first criterion is logic -- and by that I mean the law of contradiction.

My second criterion is "benefit of the doubt." That is, I will accept every sworn statement by every witness in the Warren Commission and HSCA records, until and unless I catch them in a blatant self-contradiction. By refusing to yield to the temptation of calling this or that witness a "xxxx," I will make every effort to include all witnesses as valid, and attempt to construct a composite portrait by including as many witnesses as possible. (Certainly it is not possible to include every single witness, but I struggle with all my might before I reject anybody.)

Furthermore, I am extra-lenient in cases of extreme pressure, e.g. I accept all the sworn testimony of Marina Oswald, and I realize that she at one time insisted that Lee Oswald was innocent, and later said he was guilty, and later said he was only partly guilty.

In her first statements of Oswald's innocence, Marina was under extreme pressure by overwhelming American outrage through the mass media, obviously. In her second statements of Oswald's guilt, Marina was under some pressure from the FBI and from the time constraints of the Warren Commission as they presented her with hundreds of photographs and Oswald property artifacts for her immediate explanation. She openly said that 'based on what she was shown' she had to conclude that Lee Oswald was guilty of killing JFK, but even then she suspected that she was not shown everything. In her third statements which concluded that Oswald did not act alone, she spoke later in life, without extraordinary pressures, after having perused many books by many researchers on the topic.

In other words, given the context of her life circumstances, the contradictions in her testimony can be explained so that with reason and discernment one can accept her sworn testimony as essentially honest -- and I do.

I realize that some JFK researchers completely reject Marina's testimony, as some believe she was part of a KGB plot to kill JFK, and some believe she was bought off by the FBI to say whatever they wanted her to say, and so on. I don't accept those interpretations because they lack substance and empirical evidence.

I began with skepticism about Harry Dean's account. Yet Harry, without trying to do so, and without changing his story over 48 years, confirmed many details of facts known about ex-General Walker and Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963. Also, Harry confirmed many details of facts known about Loran Hall in 1963. This cannot be a coincidence.

Harry's many attempts to tell the FBI what he knew, and his eventual frustration with the FBI because they treated him like -- well, like you treat him -- have been amply confirmed by the many FBI records that keep streaming forth about Harry Dean.

Yet at the same time, the FBI continues to keep "secret" files about the JFK assassination and about Lee Harvey Oswald. Nobody -- not me and not you -- can draw final conclusions about the JFK murder without seeing those files. I realize that everything can change once those FBI files are finally released and we have the final answer about the JFK assassination.

Heck, it might actually turn out that James Jesus Angleton, David Atlee Phillips, E. Howard Hunt, David Morales, Fred Crisman, Ed Lansdale, David Christ, Loran Hall, Larry Howard, Eladio Del Valle, Anne Goodpasture, George Joannides, Chilo Borja and Jean Rene Souetre were all in Dallas on that day -- I have no proof in my hands -- and neither do you.

Sincerely,

--Paul Trejo

<edit typos>

Paul, by your own words in your messages posted here, it is self-evident that you do not have a genuine "theory". By definition, a theory is very tentative and subject to falsification. It is based upon suppositions which one explicitly acknowledges. But my reading of your messages here and in your eBook narrative is that you have formed hard conclusions. Yes, there may be a few specific matters which you do not currently have specific conclusions about but the overall narrative is fixed and established in your head.

More importantly, your instant dismissal of contradictory documentary evidence does not give a sense that you approach the matters we have discussed as though you possessed a theory. The universe of data which you consider important seems to be limited in scope to whatever conforms to your "theory" which means, of course, that your argument is self-sealing.

When you say that you "looked deeper into the account offered by Harry Dean" -- I do not know what you mean. What, specifically, did you find in the personal papers of Walker that supported Harry's narrative? If there was something there, it seems like you would have copious footnotes in your eBook to demonstrate how Walker's documentary evidence supports Harry's recollections. Did I miss something important?

Discovering truth is a long and often never-ending process. It does not come from taking "two college courses" although it certainly is true that specific courses can dramatically improve a researcher's awareness of resources available for discovering further evidence.

I am struck by your comment about the Walker papers because you seemed to have started and stopped with them. One wonders what other personal papers you have researched or what effort you have made to discover and review documentary evidence or conduct oral interviews about matters mentioned by Harry?

I have previously mentioned my friend who wrote his doctoral dissertation on the FBI's COINTELPRO program against White Hate Groups. After that, he got married and moved to Turkey and became a professor of U.S. history at a university there (his wife was also a university professor there) but every summer he returned to the United States for several months to do more research. Twice he visited me and poured over FBI files in my collection. On other occasions, he went to New York and Oregon and Georgia and Alabama to do research in university collections which pertained to various white supremacy groups and leaders. He also was interested in finding documentary evidence about DePugh's Minutemen. Unfortunately he died of thyroid cancer before he was able to finish the book he wanted to write. But I know how meticulous his research was and how much time and effort he put into it.

I don't get a sense of that kind of research commitment from you. As previously noted, you did not even have the natural curiosity to pursue FOIA requests about Harry or about any other person or organization which Harry mentioned. And I don't mean that you have to accept evaluations made in FBI documents. What many people do not know is that the FBI files often contain an enormous archive of primary source material -- such as now defunct publications (newspaper/magazine articles, organization newsletters, transcripts of interviews or speeches or testimony, etc.) which are not available in any library In one of my messages here, I mentioned how I ultimately received an 1800 page file pertaining to Kent and Phoebe Courtney's publications (Independent American newspaper and their Tax Fax pamphlets and other material --- all of which is VERY difficult to find -- and, incidentally, they published a lot of stuff on Walker. But, like I say, I don't get a sense that you care about anything if you think it may not support your current "theory" or might diminish Harry's story.

With respect to this comment by you:

"Finally, my criteria for deciding which accounts to accept and which to reject with regard to the JFK assassation, are plain and simple. My first criterion is logic -- and by that I mean the law of contradiction."

"My second criterion is 'benefit of the doubt.' That is, I will accept every sworn statement by every witness in the Warren Commission and HSCA records, until and unless I catch them in a blatant self-contradiction. By refusing to yield to the temptation of calling this or that witness a "xxxx," I will make every effort to include all witnesses as valid, and attempt to construct a composite portrait by including as many witnesses as possible. (Certainly it is not possible to include every single witness, but I struggle with all my might before I reject anybody.)"

"Logic" as a "first criterion" seems problematic to me because none of us knows what principles of logic you accept and apply. For example, when you come across two statements or assertions, each of which is made by someone you normally think is a reliable witness but their statements conflict, how do you apply "logic" to resolve the discrepancy?

"Logic" can be a very subjective process by which you discard or de-value data which contradicts your theory. I suspect that if you asked every person in history who has made a huge mistake in judgment and analysis, they would assure you that they arrived at their mistaken conclusion by employing flawless "logic". For example, Hitler and the German military was absolutely certain that the Allied invasion of Europe would take place at the Pas de Calais -- because it was the most "logical" choice.

"Benefit of the doubt" is NOT a principle which is recognized by scholars and researchers for discovery of truth. So I am clueless regarding why you present that as a "criterion" for your research. Actually, the OPPOSITE, is the more likely criterion, i.e. skepticism.

One cannot possibly begin a search for truth by believing that "all witnesses are valid" or that your objective is to "construct a composite portrait". If you are reviewing statements made by "a", "b", and "c" --- and ALL of them contain very serious material flaws -- then constructing a "composite portrait" of their testimony only means that you have created a more succinct but defective argument. So, for example, if persons "a", "b", and "c" each identify Paul Trejo as the person whom they think comes closest to matching the person who committed a crime, then a "composite" of their statements means that all attention and suspicion will be focused exclusively upon Paul Trejo. But if detectives then determine that Paul Trejo was nowhere near the scene of the crime -- then, obviously, the "composite portrait" was not only worthless but dangerous because it was based upon inaccurate assumptions or flawed perceptions made by 3 persons.

So what is the alternative? YES, you begin with taking statements from eyewitnesses. But you do not give them "benefit of the doubt" or assume that all their information is of equal importance or has equal validity. You start with skepticism -- and you proceed with a process of discovery. In the context of what we are debating, you look for documentary evidence, i.e. something which is indisputable. If a particular eyewitness presents a narrative with lots of detailed information, then you attempt to confirm each individual assertion or statement. This normally means interviewing numerous individuals (by phone, by mail, in person, or researching personal papers). If important details of a story cannot be confirmed through interviews and research -- then one cannot give the "benefit of the doubt" to someone's assertions. Instead, one has to candidly acknowledge that it is not possible to confirm their narrative.

With respect to this comment by you:

I began with skepticism about Harry Dean's account. Yet Harry, without trying to do so, and without changing his story over 48 years, confirmed many details of facts known about ex-General Walker and Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963. Also, Harry confirmed many details of facts known about Loran Hall in 1963. This cannot be a coincidence.

Since you are not specific, there is no way to interpret your comment. What "details of facts" are you referring to? Are they so unique that nobody could know them except a participant in a murder plot? Are they details which anybody who has done cursory research would know? Or perhaps details which many different people would be aware of?

With respect to this comment by you:

Harry's many attempts to tell the FBI what he knew, and his eventual frustration with the FBI because they treated him like -- well, like you treat him -- have been amply confirmed by the many FBI records that keep streaming forth about Harry Dean.

This is a perplexing comment because Harry reported favorable comments about the FBI in his letter to JFK but now you want to claim that the FBI treated him badly. You have presented not one iota of verifiable factual evidence to support your conclusion that the FBI treated Harry poorly. All that we know (for certain) is that in 1961, the FBI told Harry that his assistance was no longer required because (as Harry acknowledged in writing), the FBI had completed a background check on Harry and did not want to associate the Bureau with him after that time. What Harry reported conforms to standard Bureau procedure with respect to ANYBODY who wants to provide information to the Bureau on an ongoing basis or whom the FBI initially is considering as a potential informant. IN FACT, in what specific year do you contend that Harry began claiming that the FBI treated him badly?

With respect to this comment by you:

Yet at the same time, the FBI continues to keep "secret" files about the JFK assassination and about Lee Harvey Oswald. Nobody -- not me and not you -- can draw final conclusions about the JFK murder without seeing those files. I realize that everything can change once those FBI files are finally released and we have the final answer about the JFK assassination.

One can make a plausible argument that nobody should draw final conclusions about the murder of JFK until all remaining documents are released, but I don't think it is unreasonable (based upon all currently available empirical evidence) to make conclusions about Harry's relationship with the FBI and CIA.

With respect to this comment by you:

Heck, it might actually turn out that James Jesus Angleton, David Atlee Phillips, E. Howard Hunt, David Morales, Fred Crisman, Ed Lansdale, David Christ, Loran Hall, Larry Howard, Eladio Del Valle, Anne Goodpasture, George Joannides, Chilo Borja and Jean Rene Souetre were all in Dallas on that day -- I have no proof in my hands -- and neither do you.

Have you, or any other JBS-plot theorist, ever bothered to interview any of these folks? Or interview their relatives, friends, business associates? Or attempt to re-construct their whereabouts in November 1963? Or review any personal papers they may have?

In fact, other than Edwin Walker's papers, have you (or any other JBS-plot theorist) ever done any research into JBS-related papers which are archived at various universities or other institutions? Or interviewed any of the presumed principal actors (Rousselot, Welch. Galbadon, et al) or spoken to or communicated with their friends, relatives, business associates, etc?

One of my pet peeves about the JBS (which I constantly remind them about) is that they make absolutely horrific conclusions about the character, integrity, and morals of prominent individuals without ever lifting a finger to talk to those purported villains and without ever doing any research into their personal papers or interviewing their friends and associates, etc. I usually describe this as long-distance defamation. It is easy and risk-free to arrive at pejorative conclusions about somebody you already hate but it is VERY difficult to invest the time and resources necessary to produce an objective fact-based portrait of someone you despise.

[Ernie Lazar]

What is always fascinating about ALL conspiracy literature and arguments, is how very intelligent and competent researchers usually discover some particular evidence which they elevate to supreme importance and weave into their conspiracy theory. This is the process which Paul describes as "connecting the dots" --- and, incidentally, that exact phrase is used in the following review article that was posted on the History Discussion Network website several years ago.

I copy this review article below because, it reveals something which addresses Paul Trejo's previous reply to me. Just like Paul insists that we recognize his meticulous use of "logic" and his ability to sift through mountains of evidence to arrive at unique "connect the dots" insights -- so, too, does the author of "Programmed To Kill" (below) -- although he comes to radically different conclusions from those proposed by Paul Trejo.

It becomes immediately self-evident that Paul Trejo's "JBS-plot theory" is totally irreconcilable with the evidence presented in the article copied below. But both Paul and the author mentioned below rely upon the recollections of persons who are described as uniquely insightful -- and readers are left with the problem of deciding whom to believe.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ion Mikai Pacepa. Programmed to Kill: Lee Harvey Oswald, the Soviet

KGB, and the Kennedy Assassination. Lanham Ivan R. Dee Publisher,

2007. 416 pp. $28.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-56663-761-9.

Reviewed by Stan Weeber (McNeese State University)

Published on H-1960s (October, 2009)

Commissioned by Jessica Kovler

A New Paradigmatic Work on the JFK Assassination

Given the thousands of books, research reports, and articles that

have been written about the tragic events of November 22, 1963,

today's reader has every right to ask this question: do we really

need another book about the assassination of President John F.

Kennedy? Two expensive federal investigations produced two summary

reports and a combined thirty-eight volumes of evidence; at least

four books have already promised "definitive" answers to the

assassination's mysteries; one book "closed" the case; and others, by

the massive weight of their bound volumes, suggested that final

solutions had been found to the unanswered questions surrounding

Kennedy's death.[1]

For a book to stand out in this sea of scholarship, the author must

bring specialized skills or backgrounds to the table, which enables

the writer to provide strikingly new insights into the Kennedy case,

or to reinterpret old evidence in provocative fresh ways. Ion Mikai

Pacepa's book delivers these essentials in a way that exceeds

expectation. _Programmed to Kill_, simply put, is a new paradigmatic

work on the assassination of President Kennedy. It has the potential

to become a revolution in terms of how we perceive the assassination,

the questions we ask, and the kinds of solutions we seek as academic

work on one of history's darkest days moves forward.

Lieutenant General Pacepa is the highest-ranking intelligence

official ever to defect from the Soviet Bloc. He spent fifteen years

of his previous life at the top of a Communist intelligence effort

designed to cast the blame for Kennedy's death on forces within the

United States. He is the only investigator of the assassination who

had direct knowledge of the KGB's ties to Lee Harvey Oswald.

Pacepa contends that the Soviet PGU (the first chief directorate of

the KGB) recruited Oswald in 1957 while he was serving as a marine in

Japan. Brought back to Moscow in 1959 to be debriefed and readied for

a new intelligence assignment in Europe, Oswald provided information

that enabled the Soviets to shoot down an American U-2 spy plane on

May 1, 1960. With prodding from the Soviets, Oswald was persuaded to

leave Japan to return to the United States on a temporary mission to

assassinate President Kennedy, whom Nikita Khrushchev had come to

despise. Oswald was taken over by the PGU component for assassination

abroad (the Thirteenth Department), given a Russian wife, and sent

back to the United States in June 1962. The Thirteenth Department

also dispatched Oswald's case officer, Valery Kostikov, as a diplomat

to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City, to be available for secret

meetings with Oswald. At the time, Mexico was the most desirable

place for contact with the Soviet Bloc's important agents in the

United States. Pacepa documents that Oswald and case officer Kostikov

met there at least once, and probably twice.

In the fall of 1962, after a public trial in West Germany accused

Khrushchev of personally ordering two political killings there, all

foreign assassinations throughout the Soviet Bloc were called off.

Oswald proved obstinate and determined to kill Kennedy despite the

PGU's frantic efforts to deprogram him, including at least two direct

and clear orders to stand-down and abort his mission. Oswald then

stubbornly proceeded on his own--as a lone gunman--believing that

afterward he could return to a hero's welcome in Moscow. To

demonstrate his readiness for such a heroic ask, he took a shot at

the right-wing American Army General Edwin Walker, narrowly missing

him.

With Oswald's noncompliance, contingency plans were engaged for

silencing him should he commit the unthinkable. Two days after he did

just that, without PGU help or blessing, Oswald himself was killed by

Jack Ruby, as arranged by the PGU with Cuban intelligence help. When

Ruby was about to be released from jail in 1967, the PGU apparently

had him killed by cancer--causing irradiation.

The search for a new paradigm in any field begins with anomalies that

prior research could not satisfactorily explain. There are scores of

such anomalies that are newly explained in this book; let me cite but

one as an example. Oswald's trip to Mexico City in September and

October 1963 has been shrouded in controversy for years. The Warren

Commission's narrative stated that Oswald was seeking a transit visa

to Cuba, but was refused when the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City would

not immediately approve a visa to the Soviet Union, a prerequisite

for the prized Cuban visa. Pacepa notes that a first draft of

Oswald's letter to the Soviet Embassy in Washington DC dated November

9, 1963, indicated that he had met with his case officer "Comrade

Kostikov" in Mexico City. Thus, his true purpose in going there was

to meet with his Thirteenth Department case officer. Significantly,

records later showed that Oswald's letter, after arriving at the

embassy, was signed off by Vitaly Gerasimov, a PGU officer assigned

under diplomatic cover in the United States, whose signature appears

on most of Oswald's correspondence with the Soviet Embassy in

Washington.

New paradigms are by nature not yet perfect; they need further

investigation to actualize their potential as models to guide

research for a period of time. I can foresee at least one area where

such elaborative research is needed. Pacepa gives fairly short

consideration to Oswald's "Historic Diary," basically writing it off

as a trail of disinformation whose purpose was to cover Oswald's

tracks in Russia with a timeline that snugly fits Russia's cover

story about Oswald's time spent there. But Pacepa does not read far

enough: in the diary, there is also a statement of Oswald's political

philosophy, one that combines the best aspects of capitalism and

communism, and is revolutionary and unprecedented. In it, Oswald

foresaw a great confrontation between the superpowers, and after

that, a chance to rebuild the world based on the new utopia he had

constructed. Seeing the arc of Kennedy's (and Khrushchev's) rhetoric

leading toward détente in the fall of 1963, might Oswald have killed

Kennedy to spark the great nuclear confrontation that the Cuban

Missile Crisis did not produce?[2] This personal and political motive

to assassinate Kennedy might have prevailed over the KGB's orders for

Oswald to draw back and abort.

Interestingly and in spite of the book's title, Pacepa presents no

evidence that Oswald was a behaviorally programmed "Manchurian

Candidate" sent to kill Kennedy. Oswald received only the routine and

usual ideological indoctrination needed for any of the agents in the

Thirteenth Department. Despite this, the fictitious idea of a

scientifically programmed Oswald would have fit well with the real

narrative Pacepa writes; the programming of the disgruntled American

GI might have been so good that the assassin could not be stopped.

When successful, a new paradigm essentially connects the dots of the

evidence in an extraordinary way to paint a new picture. Pacepa

exceeds all prior expectations in this regard. His appendix entitled

"Connecting the Dots" provides a timeline of Oswald's life along with

Pacepa's parenthetical commentary showing how his book has

illuminated the facts of the Kennedy case. This allows the reader to

compare what the author has contributed alongside what is already

known; in the process, the reader can compare Pacepa's thesis with

their own pet theory.

_Programmed to Kill_ is a superb new paradigmatic work on the death

of President Kennedy. Over time, Pacepa's portrait of what happened

in Dallas on November 22, 1963, may evolve into a revolutionary new

lens for perceiving the event and its aftermath. From the most casual

reader to the serious student preparing his or her own magnum opus,

this book is a "must read" for everyone interested in the

assassination of President Kennedy.

Notes

[1]. President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F.

Kennedy, _The Warren Report: Report of the President's Commission on

the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy_ (New York: Associated

Press , 1964); and U.S. House of Representatives, Select Committee on

Assassination, _Final Report of the Select Committee on

Assassination_, 95th Cong., 2d sess. (Washington DC: U.S. Government

Printing Office, 1979).

[2]. See Leland M. Griffin, "When Dreams Collide: Rhetorical

Trajectories in the Assassination of President Kennedy," _Quarterly

Journal of Speech _20, no. 2 (1984): 111-131.

Citation: Stan Weeber. Review of Pacepa, Ion Mikai, _Programmed to

Kill: Lee Harvey Oswald, the Soviet KGB, and the Kennedy

Assassination_. H-1960s, H-Net Reviews. October, 2009.

URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=25348

[Paul Brancato]

It must be maddening for Paul T to see his work compared to that of Ion Mihae Pacepa, whose point of view about the JFK stuff is easy to see through. But thanks for mentioning him, as I had not heard of him, and found his life story interesting. Quite a disinformation specialist, at least since his defection, and possibly for a long while before that. The whole Wiki article reads like a propaganda piece. Singlehandedly he brings down the Ceaucescu government and then goes on to claim the KGB was behind the JFK hit, and that the Soviets are behind the scenes funding terrorism, the Occupy movement, Saddam's WMD's. And of course he is wanted for death so the KGB sends Carlos the Jackal after him, who ends up bombing RFE headquarters instead.

I realize that you weren't touting his work Ernie, but rather trying to show how is connecting of the dots is just as flawed as Paul Trejo. But you chose a terrible example.

[Paul Brancato]

Paul T - Here's one for you. Why on earth would the JBS Walker group think that LBJ would suddenly become something other than the Communist they thought he was? In their wildest dreams they could not have imagined LBJ would bomb Cuba or hit the USSR, unless their stated views on LBJ did not represent their real beliefs. LBJ did not give them what they wanted, though it is clear that the money boys got it all in spades. One thing for sure, no denying, that whoever killed JFK knew that they were putting LBj in the White House, and I think its fair to assume that the plotters were happy with that idea.

[Paul Trejo]

Paul T - Here's one for you. Why on earth would the JBS Walker group think that LBJ would suddenly become something other than the Communist they thought he was? In their wildest dreams they could not have imagined LBJ would bomb Cuba or hit the USSR, unless their stated views on LBJ did not represent their real beliefs. LBJ did not give them what they wanted, though it is clear that the money boys got it all in spades. One thing for sure, no denying, that whoever killed JFK knew that they were putting LBj in the White House, and I think its fair to assume that the plotters were happy with that idea.

Good question, Paul B. Yet, I think your premise is hasty, i.e. you presume that the JFK-plotters were happy with the idea of putting LBJ in the White House.

In my humble opinion, I don't think that LBJ was anywhere near the top of their agenda. This point was already addressed by both Jim Garrison and Fletcher Prouty, who commented that the bullets that killed JFK were only one car-length away from LBJ. It was also a message to LBJ about who was really in charge.

I'm reminded of the debate over Madeleine Brown between myself and Robert Morrow (who kindly advocated my membership on this Forum two years ago). Robert and I agree that the eye-witness account of Madeleine Brown is 100% believable and valuable -- but we don't agree about how to interpret it. She said that LBJ was invited to a meeting of wealthy members of the JBS in Dallas, and that when LBJ emerged from that meeting he told Brown, "After tomorrow, I'll never have to worry about those damn Kennedys again."

I accept that witness, and Robert Morrow accepts it. However, like many JFK researchers, Robert takes this to mean that LBJ was a leader in the plot to kill JFK. My view, more in line with Jim Garrison and Fletcher Prouty, is that LBJ was being told what the money boys were going to do, and that he had better tow the line. Both interpretations are possible outcomes of Brown's believable eye-witness story.

You can see how this answers your question. The JBS-Walker group, in all their arrogance, would not care two-cents what LBJ thought or did, because he would be totally bought and paid for -- totally under their control -- as far as they were concerned.

Also, Paul B., I disagree when you say that "in their wildest dreams they could not have imagined LBJ would bomb Cuba." I think that was very much an open question -- one only needs to examine the Gulf of Tonkin incident to witness what LBJ would dare to do in the international scene.

It is true that when LBJ was put into the position of making a decision, he decided that it was in the best interest of the American people to let Cuba remain Communist and to let Fidel Castro live. To this very day, Cuba is Communist and Fidel Castro lives. But that is certainly not, like the JBS stupidly thought, because LBJ was a Communist. LBJ was able to sell his ideas to the Dallas money boys -- and that's all that really mattered.

Now - it is quite true that the GROUND-CREW, who acted out of ideology, and only wanted to invade Cuba and kill Fidel Castro, totally failed to get what they most wanted.

Yet you yourself admitted that "the money boys got it all in spades." We cannot forget that Madeleine Brown named H.L. Hunt as a major player in all these JBS affairs. She said, for example, that H.L. Hunt was *personally* handing out "Wanted for Treason: JFK" handbills in the week before the JFK visit.

Furthermore, we know from Warren Commission hearings that wealthy John Birch Society members purchased the full-page ad in the Dallas Morning News on 22 November 1963, saying, "Welcome Mister Kennedy: To Dallas".

My point is that the "money boys" were getting what they wanted -- and that was their main goal.

Finally, on 22 November 1963, the JBS-Walker plotters could have no actual idea what LBJ would do or wouldn't do with regard to Cuba, except that he would do anything to get elected, and if the Voters demanded an invasion of Cuba and Fidel Castro's head on a silver platter, then LBJ would have certainly obliged them.

The JBS-Walker plotters made their biggest miscalculation about the American people. We are more orderly and more democratic than they imagined. Instead of reacting like children, we looked to our leaders for decisions based on a careful examination of all the evidence and information.

When LBJ, J. Edgar Hoover, Allen Dulles and Earl Warren surveyed the USA on the evening of 22 November 1963, they recognized the possibility of a new Civil War in the USA, if the truth ever came out about the JBS-Walker plot. A Civil War in the middle of a Cold War could easily have led to World War Three. So, in the interest of National Security, they refused to push the Oswald-KGB myth any further -- he was forever a Lone Nut. That was Hoover's instantaneous insight, and LBJ loved it.

The 'money boys' would not get Cuba; but they did get other concessions. The GROUND-CREW got nothing. They ran and hid like the moral cowards they always were -- and were hardly seen or heard from again. Ex-General Walker would appear once more as a harried witness in the Warren Commission hearings, and one final time as Earl Warren reversed all his winnings for all his court cases against American newspapers that told the truth about him at Ole Miss in 1962.

The rest of the GROUND-CREW scattered like school children playing baseball and breaking a neighbor's window. Loran Hall turned to drug dealing, allegedly. So did Gerry Patrick Hemming, allegedly. Jim Garrison chased a few culprits around the block, but caught nobody. Anybody with information about them could suddenly wind up dead -- stabbed in the back, so to speak.

Yet one plotter had the courage to speak out in 1965, and has been speaking out ever since -- and that is our own Harry Dean.

Best regards,

--Paul Trejo

<edit typos>

Edited December 10, 2013 by Paul Trejo

[Paul Brancato]

Paul - I don't buy most of your post. But just to be clear, despite my misgivings about your logic, and despite Harry Dean not having convinced me of his bonafides, I still consider Walker a prime suspect in the plot.

I did not know that Madeline Brown claimed that LBJ met with local JBS leaders the night before the assassination. I am not able to access the thread on Brown here. I'll do some more looking.

[Ernie Lazar]

I copy below an excerpt from an article regarding the perils of relying upon "witness memory" -- which is a useful reminder....

======================================================================================================================

Problems with Witness Testimony

Tricks Memory Plays

The first psychological issue with witness testimony is "perception" — the question of whether external events are copied into memory accurately. The second is "memory" — the issue of whether initial perceptions, accurate or inaccurate, remain unchanged in the mind. If human perception is questionable, human memory is at least equally questionable.

The tempting simple assumption is that people have "Flashbulb Memory." That just as a flashbulb fires and imprints an image permanently on film, an event is emblasioned on human memory and remains there unchanged. Alas, that's not the case.

In the first place, people can "remember" things that they could not have possibly seen. One example comes from Daniel Schacter's book Seven Sins of Memory, and concerns the 1992 crash of an El Al cargo plane into an apartment building in the Netherlands.

People throughout the country saw, read, heard, and talked about the catastrophe.

Ten months later a group of Dutch psychologists probed what members of their university communities remembered about the crash. The researchers asked a simple question: "Did you see the television film of the moment the plane hit the apartment building?" Fifty-five percent of respondents said "yes." In a follow-up study, two-thirds of the participants responded affirmatively.

They also recalled details concerning the speed and angle of the plane as it hit the building, whether it was on fire prior to impact, and what happened to the body of the plane right after the collision. These finding are remarkable because there was no television film of the moment when the plane actually crashed.

The psychologists had asked a blatantly suggestive question: they implied that television film of the crash had been shown. Respondents may have viewed television footage of the postcrash scene, and they probably read, imagined, or talked about what might have happened at the moment of impact. Spurred on by the suggestive question, participants misattributed information from these or other sources to a film that they never watched. [p. 112]

Thus witnesses have not conjured up these "memories" from nothing. But neither had they seen what they claimed to have seen. Witnesses can distinctly "remember" things that logically must have happened, but which they in fact didn't see. Consider the following:

As slide shows go, it wasn't even in the same league as your aunt's vacation snapshots, but the audience was paying close attention: there was going to be a quiz. In one sequence a student sitting in a packed lecture hall topples onto the floor. In others, a hand retrieves oranges that have rolled all over a supermarket, and a woman picks up groceries scattered across a floor. Between 15 minutes and 48 hours later the Boston University undergrads — volunteers in this psychology experiment — scrutinize more photos and, for each one, decide whether they ever saw it before. Yup, saw the student carelessly leaning back in his chair. Yeah, also saw the guy stupidly tab an orange from the bottom of the pile. Uh-huh, saw the grocery bag rip. In all 68 percent of the time the students remembered seeing the "cause" picture (a ripping bag) whose effect (spilled groceries) had been part of the show.

There was only one problem. The slides did not include a single such cause photo. "When people saw the effect photo but not the cause photo, they "filled in the blank by saying they had seen the cause with their own eyes," says psychologist Mark Reinitz of the University of Puget Sound. Writing in the July [2001] issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology, he and Sharon Hannigan of Bard College conclude that the mind's drive to infer causes can fool people into "remembering" something they never saw. In other words, says Reinitz, 'memories can be illusions." (Sharon Begley "Understanding absent-mindedness," nation-online.com, July 18, 2001)

When one encounters witnesses like Jean Hill and Ed Hoffman, both of whom claimed to see a Grassy Knoll shooter, it is tempting to conclude that they are simply lying. Hill's story changed between the day of the assassination — when she said she didn't see any shooter, and the 1980s, when she started describing seeing one. Hoffman's story has changed too, and has demonstrably picked up some conspiracy book factoids. It is also flatly contradicted by several other witnesses who would have seen the shooter and the "Railroad Man" who disassembled the rifle — if such men existed.

Resources on Memory

The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers, by Daniel L. Schacter

Eyewitness Testimony by Elizabeth F. Loftus

These two volumes present a good overview of the current academic view of perception and memory, and reflect the academic consensus that witness testimony is less reliable than people think. The material here should be remembered when conspiracists insist that their favorite witnesses "were there" and "wouldn't have any reason to lie."

But there is a distinct possibility that, as both came to believe that there was a Grassy Knoll shooter, their memories "filled in the blanks" and came to include things that logically should have been there. ...

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Assassination Records Review Board

While the House Select Committee was interviewing witnesses 15 years after the assassination, the Assassination Records Review Board was taking their testimony a more than three decades after the event. Thus it's no surprise that they uncovered a mother lode of testimony that contradicted the "official story" about the medical evidence. What they didn't uncover, however, was any consistent pattern of evidence pointing to an alternative account of the wounds. Rather, the testimony was "all over the place." For example:

The Board interviewed Robert Kundsen's widow, and she repeated her husband's claim to have photographed the autopsy. She also recounted that he said that the existing autopsy photos — which he had been shown by the House Select Committee — didn't correspond to the ones he had shot at the autopsy.

Saundra Spencer, a photo lab technician, remembered processing photos of Kennedy's body, but they showed a body much less mangled and gory than the autopsy photos now in the Archives.

John Stringer, autopsy photographer, viewed the pictures of Kennedy's brain now in the Archives and said they didn't look like the ones he took.

Based on the claim of Francis O'Neill, an FBI agent present at the autopsy that the brain he saw at the autopsy was much smaller than that in the current photos, and a disagreement among the autopsists as to when the supplemental examination of Kennedy's brain occurred, an ARRB staff member concluded that there were "two brains."

None of this, of course, makes much sense. Why conspirators would want a more "presentable" set of photos of the dead president is a mystery. Spencer speculated that perhaps, if the photos had to be made public, the Kennedy family wanted to release a set less gruesome than the real set. Not only does this not imply any "coverup" of an assassination conspiracy, there is no evidence whatsoever to corroborate Spencer's claim. John Stringer expressed doubt about the photos of the brain when he talked to the ARRB in 1996, but on November 10, 1966, he signed a statement saying that the photos in the Archives are the ones he took. And why conspirators would want "two brains" is a mystery. One could posit that the real "autopsy brain" showed a conspiracy, and had to be replaced by an "post-autopsy brain" that didn't. But Kennedy's head was x-rayed before the brain was removed from his cranium, and the pattern of bullet fragments supports his head being hit by a single shot from behind. And why did conspirators supposedly take Kennedy's brain from the National Archives if a safe, "no conspiracy" brain had been substituted for his real brain?

Further, no other witness supports O'Neill's "small brain" testimony, and this includes Stringer, who questioned only the angles from which the brain had been photographed, and not its size in the photos.

Another example of how conspiracist authors will quote mutually contradictory testimony to try and impeach the "official version" is found in Mike Griffith's essay "Historic New Information on the JFK Assassination." Griffith cites the testimony of Stringer as follows:

We can add John Stringer, who was a photographer at the autopsy, to the list of witnesses who saw an entrance wound right next to the external occipital protuberance (EOP), near the hairline. We read in the recently released ARRB medical interviews that Stringer told the ARRB that the rear head entrance wound was where the autopsy doctors said it was, i.e., near the hairline, next to the EOP, and that the supposed image of a higher entry wound on the skull was not the entrance wound he saw on the night of the autopsy (indeed, Stringer denied this image is that of a bullet wound) (Deposition of John T. Stringer to the ARRB, July 16, 1996, pp. 193-196). This is important because this is further evidence that the rear head entrance wound could not have been caused by a bullet from the so-called "Oswald sniper's window." In other words, Oswald could not have fired the missile that struck the back of President Kennedy's head.

The problem here is that Griffith, in this same essay, has quoted other witnesses who remember a large exit wound in the back of Kennedy's head. Yet Stringer remembered no such wound, but only a small entrance wound. Both Griffith's "back of the head" witnesses and Stringer's "entrance wound near the EOP" testimony contradict the "official version," but unfortunately they also contradict each other.

"Profoundly Unreliable"

The contradictions that litter the testimony caused Dr. Jeremy Gunn, Executive Director and General Counsel of the ARRB to conclude the following in a speech at Stanford:

The last thing I wanted to mention, just in terms of how we understand the evidence and how we deal with what we have is what I will call is the profound underscore profound unreliability of eyewitness testimony. You just cannot believe it. And I can tell you something else that is even worse than eyewitness testimony and that is 35 year old eyewitness testimony.

I have taken the depositions of several people who were involved in phases of the Kennedy assassination, all the doctors who performed the autopsy of President Kennedy and people who witnessed various things and they are profoundly unreliable.

Likewise, the Final Report of the ARRB stressed the problems with witness testimony:

The deposition transcripts and other medical evidence that were released by the Review Board should be evaluated cautiously by the public. Often the witnesses contradict not only each other, but sometimes themselves. For events that transpired almost 35 years ago, all persons are likely to have failures of memory. It would be more prudent to weigh all of the evidence, with due concern for human error, rather than take single statements as "proof" for one theory or another.

This, of course, is good advice not just for the medical testimony but for assassination testimony generally and indeed for all historical inquiry. As critic Dennis Ford, Ph.D. has observed:

Researchers do not give enough consideration to memory factors. Often there is a naive belief that witnesses saw what they saw pure and simple. If skepticism is applied to eyewitness accounts, it is only to dissenting witnesses. Yet memory research has shown that memory is not a copy of an event but a reconstruction. Eyewitness reports are unreliable; contrary to common sense, stress constricts the focus of attention and reduces memory. People remember what they want. People remember what is plausible. People remember a blend of observation and conversation about the observation. People remember what interviewers put in their heads. ("Assassination Research and the Pathology of Knowledge," The Third Decade, July 1992, p. 13, emphasis in original.)

In real world criminal investigation, this means that what counts most is the hard physical evidence — ballistics evidence, photographic evidence, handwriting analysis, and so on. But in the topsy-turvy world of the conspiracy books and videos, all of that is believed to have been faked, forged, or tampered with. Thus conspiracists are left to make their case from witness testimony. In this, as in all forms of inquiry, the conclusions can't be better than the premises, and the premises are witness observations from quite normal, and therefore quite fallible, people.

[Ernie Lazar]

By any chance does anybody have any specific biographical info (i.e. birthdate and/or death info if applicable) on the following individuals?

* Ray Fleishman (Whittier CA) and David Robbins (Fluor Corp) -- both of whom supposedly were involved with DACA and the aborted 1962 "Mexico plot"?

* Ed Peters or Ed Butler (JBS Covina CA chapter members)

[Ernie Lazar]

It must be maddening for Paul T to see his work compared to that of Ion Mihae Pacepa, whose point of view about the JFK stuff is easy to see through. But thanks for mentioning him, as I had not heard of him, and found his life story interesting. Quite a disinformation specialist, at least since his defection, and possibly for a long while before that. The whole Wiki article reads like a propaganda piece. Singlehandedly he brings down the Ceaucescu government and then goes on to claim the KGB was behind the JFK hit, and that the Soviets are behind the scenes funding terrorism, the Occupy movement, Saddam's WMD's. And of course he is wanted for death so the KGB sends Carlos the Jackal after him, who ends up bombing RFE headquarters instead.

I realize that you weren't touting his work Ernie, but rather trying to show how is connecting of the dots is just as flawed as Paul Trejo. But you chose a terrible example.

Paul B.: There is nothing particularly "terrible" about using a review of Pacepa's book by an academic to present a different "paradigm" re: the JFK murder.

Often, conspiracy adherents propose that we accept as reliable witnesses two or more sources which not only contradict each other but, in some cases, one of those sources accuses the other of being a disinformation agent. For a more detailed example, see my webpage re: Anatoli Golitsyn. https://sites.google.com/site/ernie124102/golitsyn

Consequently, one has to ask and answer basic first-principles questions such as what methodology is being proposed for resolving disputed evidence? AND

What premises does a conspiracy narrative require us to accept -- even when the predicates contained within those premises are not proven?

[Paul Trejo]

By any chance does anybody have any specific biographical info (i.e. birthdate and/or death info if applicable) on the following individuals?

* Ray Fleishman (Whittier CA) and David Robbins (Fluor Corp) -- both of whom supposedly were involved with DACA and the aborted 1962 "Mexico plot"?

* Ed Peters or Ed Butler (JBS Covina CA chapter members)

Ernie, I spoke personally with David Robbins from Southern California in 2011. I sought him out because Harry Dean said he might still be alive. In 2011 Robbins was indeed alive and well in Southern California, and I believe he is still alive and well today, because he maintains a web site of a Christian nature, and his web site is still operational and it shows a current photograph of David.

David Robbins confirmed with me many aspects of Harry Dean's story -- before I told him that I was working with Harry Dean. Then he cut off our conversations. Yet Harry had shared with me many details about David Robbins' personal history, family life and relationships, and Robbins confirmed them all.

For just one example, Robbins was indeed a coordinator of John Birch Society meetings in 1961-1963 for his employer at Fluor Corporation. He did book many speakers for those many meetings, and those speakers included Robert Welch, ex-General Edwin Walker, Guy Gabaldon, Loran Hall and Harry Dean himself.

Also, Robbins confirmed that he was close to Guy Gabaldon, and often suggested to Gabby that he quit smoking, so that he could live longer to support the JBS cause. Harry told me about that, and David Robbins confirmed that with a chuckle.

Also, Robbins confirmed that he was close to Gene Bradley, through his church, and that he and his wife would often visit Bradley's home. (Many remember Bradley as a person of interest to Jim Garrison in 1967.) Robbins explained to me that Gene Bradley had a copy of the Zapruder film that he would show in his home, to try to convince people that JFK's limo driver was the real shooter.

Also, Robbins confirmed with me that he was a close, personal friend of Congressman John Rousselot, and they worked closely together in administrative functions for these John Birch Society meetings and book sales. Congressman Rousselot, a Southern California landlord, owned the building in which the John BIrch Society would hold regional headquarter meetings. According to Robbins, he himself was Rousselot's closest companion when Rousselot died.

What was odd about our interviews, which occurred over several weeks, was that David Robbins initially confirmed with me that he spoke with ex-General Walker in the context of his various speeches at the Fluor Corporation gatherings, and he was willing to talk with me at length about General Walker. (This was topical because I was writing my first paper on ex-General Walker for Dr. Brands.) However, after I clarified that I was currently in communication with Harry Dean, the talkative David Robbins changed his tone, changed his mind, and said that he could not remember any conversations with Walker, or even if he ever met the man face to face. Robbins refused to talk more about that topic, and began to energetically promote his Christian web site to me.

Sincerely,

--Paul Trejo

P.S. I don't know where you got your notion that David Robbins was allegedly involved with Gabaldon's DACA "and the abortive 1962 Mexico plot," but Harry Dean never claimed that David was involved in any "abortive 1962 Mexico plot." Perhaps you got your notion from W.R. Morris -- even though you've been repeatedly advised to stop using that fantasy fiction.

Edited December 11, 2013 by Paul Trejo