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Disinfortmation Agents


Tim Gratz

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Most interesting, Tim. Always good to hear from you. Are you watching the show on "The Discovery Channel" that is on now?

I was watching the Magic Bullet show with interest. I enjoyed what seemed sincere attempts replicate the magic bullet's seven wounds through comparable tissue and emergence in a "pristine" state. Nevermind that the target was stationary. The graphic re-creations, the same ones used in Peter Jennings's special, were/are still maddenly disingenuous. With a nod to subjectivity I will strongly assert that Kennedy and Connally were not first hit by the same bullet. Even if the magic bullet did everything the program strived to prove, there was still the throat wound or some other impact on Kennedy to which Jackie can be seen reacting prior to JFK emerging from behind the Stemmons sign on the Zapruder film and Connally being hit.

Now back to the topic of this thread. I have been accused of many things on JFK forums, particularly including being a disinfo agent. I have been privately questioned about why I am supportive of Tim Gratz's expression of his Castro-done-it position. I have been informed that Josiah Thompson is a disinfo agent, that Mary Ferrell was actually CIA, and I have read High Treason II, in which Livingston goes on at length pathetically accusing his own co-author, Bob Groden, of the previous High Treason book to be deliberately promoting misunderstanding of the assassination. It's like a dysfunctional family having a bad turkey dinner on a drunken Thanksgiving. As of this moment, there is not a single forum participant I have ever seen on any site whom I consider to be a professional intelligence agent governmentally paid to interfere with forum discussion.

Ironically, disinformation may be one of the last potentially fruitful areas of investigation. As with Watergate, it's the cover-up that provides evidence to perpetrators. The provision of false autopsy photos, if proven and traced, is an example of such deliberate misinformation. The false reports out of Mexico City from an associate of David Phillips are significant evidence that it was not a Castro plot, but rather that it was an anti-Castro plot intended to look pro-Castro. The behavior of Joannides during the HSCA period, including the unusual fact that his background should have precluded that job in the first place, is indicative (a current issue unifying such diverse people as Blakey and Posner) of deliberate cover-up. Disinfo is an important area of investigation, but when applied as a forum name-calling tactic, comes off like the small-minded red-baiting of the McCarthy era.

Tim

Edited by Tim Carroll
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Thanks for this extremely acute post. The point just cannot be made with greater precision and power.

Most interesting, Tim. Always good to hear from you. Are you watching the show on "The Discovery Channel" that is on now?

I was watching the Magic Bullet show with interest. I enjoyed what seemed sincere attempts replicate the magic bullet's seven wounds through comparable tissue and emergence in a "pristine" state. Nevermind that the target was stationary. The graphic re-creations, the same ones used in Peter Jennings's special, were/are still maddenly disingenuous. With a nod to subjectivity I will strongly assert that Kennedy and Connally were not first hit by the same bullet. Even if the magic bullet did everything the program strived to prove, there was still the throat wound or some other impact on Kennedy to which Jackie can be seen reacting prior to JFK emerging from behind the Stemmons sign on the Zapruder film and Connally being hit.

Now back to the topic of this thread. I have been accused of many things on JFK forums, particularly including being a disinfo agent. I have been privately questioned about why I am supportive of Tim Gratz's expression of his Castro-done-it position. I have been informed that Josiah Thompson is a disinfo agent, that Mary Ferrell was actually CIA, and I have read High Treason II, in which Livingston goes on at length pathetically accusing his own co-author, Bob Groden, of the previous High Treason book to be deliberately promoting misunderstanding of the assassination. It's like a dysfunctional family having a bad turkey dinner on a drunken Thanksgiving. As of this moment, there is not a single forum participant I have ever seen on any site whom I consider to be a professional intelligence agent governmentally paid to interfere with forum discussion.

Ironically, disinformation may be one of the last potentially fruitful areas of investigation. As with Watergate, it's the cover-up that provides evidence to perpetrators. The provision of false autopsy photos, if proven and traced, is an example of such deliberate misinformation. The false reports out of Mexico City from an associate of David Phillips are significant evidence that it was not a Castro plot, but rather that it was an anti-Castro plot intended to look pro-Castro. The behavior of Joannides during the HSCA period, including the unusual fact that his background should have precluded that job in the first place, is indicative (a current issue unifying such diverse people as Blakey and Posner) of deliberate cover-up. Disinfo is an important area of investigation, but when applied as a forum name-calling tactic, comes off like the small-minded red-baiting of the McCarthy era.

Tim

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Tim, totally agree with Dr. Thompson. Great post.

The actual dissemination of "disinformation" may point toward the perpetrators. But slinging around the term to slur those with differing views of the assassination is quite analagous to McCarthyism. It also constitutes an ad hominem argument: when one cannot attack the substance of a person's argument, attack the person. As I am sure you know, an ad hominem argument is known as a logical fallacy in formal logic theory. It must be distinguished between an attack on a person's credibility when the person is making an assertion of fact.

I do want to make a slight quibble re what inferences can be drawn from the dissemination of disinformation. Would you agree that persons may have deliberately spread disinformation without being part of the conspiracy? For instance, the "Hunt letter" forged by the KGB does not, in itself, prove the KGB was a sponsor and may have just been another KGB attempt to dirty the CIA. Similarly people may have spread disinformation to attempt to link Castro to Cuba and prompt retaliation even though they were not part of the plot. They may have been simply trying to use the case to advance their anti-Castro agenda.

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The actual dissemination of "disinformation" may point toward the perpetrators.... I do want to make a slight quibble re what inferences can be drawn from the dissemination of disinformation. Would you agree that persons may have deliberately spread disinformation without being part of the conspiracy? For instance, the "Hunt letter" forged by the KGB does not, in itself, prove the KGB was a sponsor and may have just been another KGB attempt to dirty the CIA. Similarly people may have spread disinformation to attempt to link Castro to Cuba and prompt retaliation even though they were not part of the plot. They may have been simply trying to use the case to advance their anti-Castro agenda.

No need to "quibble;" I completely agree "that persons may have deliberately spread disinformation without being part of the conspiracy." The Hunt letter would be a good example of this. And we don't have to consider as mere possibility that disinformation was used to "prompt retaliation" against Cuba; we have sufficient data to support that fact - most especially the Mexico City information.

And even the disinformation that was disseminated prior to the assassination, portraying Oswald as pro-Castro, may have been generated by participants of an entirely different, Operation Northwoods-type plot. But timing is the key. Oswald's pro-Castro posturing during a period when all of his associations were anti-Castro points toward a plot of some sort. While allowing for the possibility that one plot was hijacked by another (which would explain alot of things), I can't imagine Guy Banister or David Ferrie being involved in anything non-malevolent toward the President.

Tim

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Disinformation agents tend to fit into two categories.

(1) People who were involved in the assassination or have a rough idea of what took place. This people admit that they have experiences that might give them knowledge of this events. For example, they were involved in the attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro. They then try to direct attention towards the wrong source of the assassination (KGB/Castro/Mafia). I would argue that people like Johnny Roselli, James Angleton, Robert Maheu and Frank Ragano fit into this category.

(2) People who are professional writers who are willing to be persuaded by the FBI and the CIA to write articles and books that suggest that the Warren Commission got it right or that the assassination was organized by the KGB/Castro/Mafia. I would put the following into this category: Dick Billings, Gerald Posner, Edward Epstein, Gus Russo, James Phelan, Jack Anderson, Priscilla Johnson, Hugh Aynesworth, John McAdams, Michael Eddowes, Dave Reitzes and Kenneth A. Rahn.

There are others like Tim Gratz who are also described as “disinformation agents”. However, to my mind Tim does not fall into the two above categories. He clearly was not involved in the events surrounding the assassination of JFK (although he can claim this for the Watergate Scandal).

Nor does he fit into the second category. Not only is he not a professional writer, he lacks the skills to be a good disinformation agent. His attempts to argue that JFK was assassinated by KGB/Castro are very badly done and has clearly been intellectually destroyed by people like Robert Charles Dunne on the Forum. If he is being paid by the CIA they should demand their money back.

Tim Gratz is just a right-winger who has an intense hatred for Fidel Castro and communism. He therefore wants to believe that the assassination was carried out by communists. Therefore he fits into the category of right-wing nuts such as Billy James Hargis, H. L. Hunt and William Buckley. I don’t think these people actually deserve to be called disinformation agents. I can definitely think of better words to use.

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Tim Gratz is just a right-winger who has an intense hatred for Fidel Castro and communism. He therefore wants to believe that the assassination was carried out by communists. Therefore he fits into the category of right-wing nuts such as Billy James Hargis, H. L. Hunt and William Buckley. I don’t think these people actually deserve to be called disinformation agents. I can definitely think of better words to use.

Even a plot emanating from the Pentagon would have required the kind of funding that H. L. Hunt could best provide, so in that sense, he's not off my list of possible overt conspirators.

Tim

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  • 2 weeks later...

John wrote:

Tim Gratz is just a right-winger who has an intense hatred for Fidel Castro and communism. He therefore wants to believe that the assassination was carried out by communists.

I have written more times than I care to count that I believe Castro killed Kennedy because the US was continuing efforts to kill him. Nothing whatsoever to do with whether he was a Communist. Trujillo, a right-wing dictator, would have had the same motivation.

My rationale is totally different from those who thought, right after the assassination, that Communists did it because Oswald had defected to the Soviet Union and proclaimed allegiance to Castro. In fact, I now believe that Oswald was probably working for the US.

Others who believe Castro did it are left-of-center, proving that the "Castro did it" scenario is not ideologically-driven. Contrast that with the fact that almost everyone who believes there was a vast government conspiracy has politics far to the left of center.

One can easily believe that a foreign leader slated by the US for assassination would retaliate, regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with the politics of the foreign leader. Killing in self-defense has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the strongest human desire for self-preservation.

It baffles me that John Simkin cannot understand that analysis. Then again, perhaps he does but he will not so acknowledge because it is easier to make an ad hominen attack on me than it is to refute the argument.

Edited by Tim Gratz
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  • 7 years later...

Thanks for this extremely acute post. The point just cannot be made with greater precision and power.

Most interesting, Tim. Always good to hear from you. Are you watching the show on "The Discovery Channel" that is on now?

I was watching the Magic Bullet show with interest. I enjoyed what seemed sincere attempts replicate the magic bullet's seven wounds through comparable tissue and emergence in a "pristine" state. Nevermind that the target was stationary. The graphic re-creations, the same ones used in Peter Jennings's special, were/are still maddenly disingenuous. With a nod to subjectivity I will strongly assert that Kennedy and Connally were not first hit by the same bullet. Even if the magic bullet did everything the program strived to prove, there was still the throat wound or some other impact on Kennedy to which Jackie can be seen reacting prior to JFK emerging from behind the Stemmons sign on the Zapruder film and Connally being hit.

Now back to the topic of this thread. I have been accused of many things on JFK forums, particularly including being a disinfo agent. I have been privately questioned about why I am supportive of Tim Gratz's expression of his Castro-done-it position. I have been informed that Josiah Thompson is a disinfo agent, that Mary Ferrell was actually CIA, and I have read High Treason II, in which Livingston goes on at length pathetically accusing his own co-author, Bob Groden, of the previous High Treason book to be deliberately promoting misunderstanding of the assassination. It's like a dysfunctional family having a bad turkey dinner on a drunken Thanksgiving. As of this moment, there is not a single forum participant I have ever seen on any site whom I consider to be a professional intelligence agent governmentally paid to interfere with forum discussion.

Ironically, disinformation may be one of the last potentially fruitful areas of investigation. As with Watergate, it's the cover-up that provides evidence to perpetrators. The provision of false autopsy photos, if proven and traced, is an example of such deliberate misinformation. The false reports out of Mexico City from an associate of David Phillips are significant evidence that it was not a Castro plot, but rather that it was an anti-Castro plot intended to look pro-Castro. The behavior of Joannides during the HSCA period, including the unusual fact that his background should have precluded that job in the first place, is indicative (a current issue unifying such diverse people as Blakey and Posner) of deliberate cover-up. Disinfo is an important area of investigation, but when applied as a forum name-calling tactic, comes off like the small-minded red-baiting of the McCarthy era.

Tim

God Bless Tim Carroll, who has since past away, but I thought I would bring back this thread now that Dave Reitzes has developed an interest in the subject, and wonders why him and John McAdams don't qualify as legitimate Dizinformation agents, while others - like Hugh Aynesworth, Gordon McLendon, Priscilla Johnson, Hal Hendrix and Joe Goulden do qualify.

I'm not accusing them of being Disinformation Agents Dave, I'm describing them as such because their CIA applications were released among the documents we obtained under the JFK Act, so they are certifiably so.

BK

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I believe it is too soon to tell for sure, but the "official" conspiracy theory for the 50th anniversary may have received some impetus from 2011's - Popular Crime: Reflections on the Celebration of Violence.

Bill James, the one and the same as the guru of the Bill James Baseball Historical Abstract & Sabremetrics, endorsed Menninger's pablum of the Secret Service agent accidentally shooting JFK as his favorite version of the Kennedy assassination. Apparently taking on the Kennedy assassination wasn't enough, he also embroiled himself in the Penn State - Paterno/Sandusky pedophile scandal, not exactly a good career move.

The LA Times review of his book stated

"Since high school, in addition to demolishing conventional wisdom with his annual "Baseball Abstract," James has apparently been inhaling true-crime books like, well, a maniac. The result, dressed up with the defensively cerebral title "Popular Crime: Reflections on the Celebration of Violence," may just be the hastiest book it ever took a man 20 years to write. "Reflections" is putting matters generously. "Observations" comes closer; "Jottings" would just about nail it."

And they call us conspiracy theorists......

Edited by Robert Howard
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