Tim Gratz: Evidence Needed

[Mark Knight]

Forgive my ignorance, John...

And then John, quoting Tom, who was quoting William Gibbs McAdoo, said:

"It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in an argument"

Your witness, counselor.

Edited November 9, 2005 by Mark Knight

[Tim Gratz]

Mark, truth be told the fact that all you and John can do is engage in ridicule only demonstrates the paucity of your arguments.

You remind me of a bunch of kindergardeners on the playground calling names.

I chose not to reply in kind. I will not stoop to your level, sorry.

You may amuse yourself with these postings but they bother me not the least and frankly all they do is make you and John look like a bunch of kids. But if it amuses you, suit yourself.

[John Simkin]

Mark, truth be told the fact that all you and John can do is engage in ridicule only demonstrates the paucity of your arguments.

You remind me of a bunch of kindergardeners on the playground calling names.

Why don't you answer the questions about this evidence you claim you have?

Have you seen Joan Mellen's comments about you misrepresenting her words in Farewell to Justice?

[Guest Stephen Turner]

Mark, truth be told the fact that all you and John can do is engage in ridicule only demonstrates the paucity of your arguments.

You remind me of a bunch of kindergardeners on the playground calling names.

I chose not to reply in kind. I will not stoop to your level, sorry.

You may amuse yourself with these postings but they bother me not the least and frankly all they do is make you and John look like a bunch of kids. But if it amuses you, suit yourself.

"I chose not to reply in kind" Tim read the above and tell me your joking.

BTW, do you intend to reply to the legitimate requests for evidence members have posted on this thread. Steve.

[Norman T. Field]

For month's now, I have been watching the same series of events occur repeatedly. A discussion is ongoing until a single member bombards the discussion with extraneous, irrelevant or outrageous arguments and comments. The discussion is then doomed to eventually degrade into the same one sided set of arguments back and forth.

This has the net effect of terminating the original discussions, which I suspect may be the goal of this one member. So, my question is:

Why do y'all continue to engage in this game? If nobody takes the posters bait, the strategy is doomed to failure.

Just wondering, ya know?

[Dawn Meredith]

[quote name='John Simkin' date='Nov 10 2005, 11:07 AM' post='44723']

Mark, truth be told the fact that all you and John can do is engage in ridicule only demonstrates the paucity of your arguments.

You remind me of a bunch of kindergardeners on the playground calling names.

Why don't you answer the questions about this evidence you claim you have?

Have you seen Joan Mellen's comments about you misrepresenting her words in Farewell to Justice?

John:

I have not seen Ms. Mellen's words. I have a jury trial on MOnday and two more in the next three weeks so have been too busy to keep up with the forum, except in passing. But I did read the last two chapters of Joan's book first based on what Gratz said she alleged. Would you post where her comments are, as I would love to see them. Thanx.

Dawn

[John Simkin]

John:

I have not seen Ms. Mellen's words. I have a jury trial on MOnday and two more in the next three weeks so have been too busy to keep up with the forum, except in passing. But I did read the last two chapters of Joan's book first based on what Gratz said she alleged. Would you post where her comments are, as I would love to see them. Thanx.

Dawn

See this thread for Joan Mellen's views on this topic.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5333

[John Simkin]

Gus Russo does not claim that Castro did it but he does not exclude the possibility and his book is replete with evidence re Castro's motive and possible DGI agents in Dealey Plaza. I cannot post his entire book here. I can only encourage members to read it. But many, like Dawn, exclude the possibility that Castro did it and refuse to read Russo's book.

Similar situation exists with Trento's book.

If people want to seriously evaluate the evidence of Cuban involvement, they should read Russo's book, Trento's book and Kurtz's book. I do not claim to have substantial evidence other than those sources. well, let me amend that. I also believe Trento's book because I think Angleton was correct about many things, including the Nosenko affair. Further evidence would be that Richard Nagell claimed that the GRU had pre-knowledge of the upcoming assassination.

Everyone ought to know that I try to read just about everything I can about the assassination and I do not exclude any scenario provided there is some evidence to suggest it. Anyone who is sincere in wanting to solve the assassination ought to be willing to follow the evidence where it leads, and that would then include reading Russo, Trento and Kurtz. It is fine if they read the books with an open mind and then decide to reject them. But I don't think anyone can state he or she is willing to follow the evidence and then refuse to read those books.

Consider the evidence of DGI agents in Dealey Plaza. Robert Charles-Dunne writes off all such evidence solely because it is contained in CIA reports. One report came from the aunt of one of the agents, so Robert then argued the aunt was not a good source. I guess Robert would only believe it if the report included statements by both of the Cuban's parents and each of his siblings, and then only after each family member had undergone a polygraph examination.

Russo, Trento and Kurtz all use the same evidence to suggest that Castro was in some way responsible for the assassination of JFK.

It is wrong to put Kurtz in the same camp as Russo and Trento. I rate his book, Crime of the Century: The Kennedy Assassination From a Historian's Perspective (1982), very highly. In fact, it is one of the few books on the assassination that has been written by a historian. Kurtz does not of course claim that Castro did order the assassination. Like anybody who knows anything about politics in 1963, Castro's motivation makes no sense at all. After all, JFK was in secret negotiations with Castro in 1963. JFK's attitude towards Castro had changed dramatically since the Cuban Missile Crisis. This is what concerned those who were really behind the assassination. Anyway, as Castro pointed out afterwards, why would he want JFK replaced by Lyndon Johnson. Also, any link between Castro and the assassination would have triggered a full-scale invasion of Cuba. It makes more sense that those violently opposed to Castro should want to set-up Castro in order to get the invasion that JFK refused to give them.

This is the evidence presented by Kurtz in his book:

The CIA knew that the Cuban government employed assassins and that it had actually carried out an assassination in Mexico. On 19 March 1964, the intelligence agency learned that a "Cuban-American" who was somehow "involved in the assassination" crossed the border from Texas to Mexico on 23 November, stayed in Mexico for four days, and flew to Cuba on 27 November. The CIA also received information that on 22 November, a Cubana Airlines flight from Mexico City to Havana was delayed for five hours until a passenger arrived in a private aircraft. The individual boarded the Cubana flight, and it left for Havana shortly before 11:00 p.m.

These occurrences clearly arouse suspicions of an assassination plot engineered by the Cuban government under Fidel Castro. Various items of information gleaned from the recently declassified FBI and CIA assassination files reinforce those suspicions. On 24 November 1963, for example, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sent an urgent telegram to the FBI legation in Madrid: "Spanish Intelligence possesses a report that attributes president's assassination to Castro and claims that Oswald was acting as Cuban agent." The CIA also received similar information from several sources. One claimed that the Chinese Communists and Castro had masterminded the assassination. Another source claimed that a "Miss T" heard Cubans talking about having the president killed. Yet another source in Spain told the CIA that local Cuban officials asserted that Oswald "had nothing to do with Kennedy's murder."

Russo and Trento have gone further than Kurtz and have actually named the people who were probably involved in the assassination. Both these men got their information from sources within the CIA. In "The Secret History of the CIA" Trento writes: "In Angleton's theory, agents Policarpo and Casas, plus a third man whom Angleton would not name, separately worked their way to Dallas, where they met up and carried out the assassination." (page 266)

For some reason Russo and Trento trust the CIA on this issue. What could be their motivation for lying? They do not entertain the possibility that the CIA was involved in the assassination and this was part of a disinformation campaign.

Gerry McKnight tells me that Michael Kurtz has written a new book on the assassination. It will be interesting if he still believes that it is possible that Castro was behind the assassination.

[Gerald McKnight]

I just reviewed a MS by Michael Kurtz that will be coming out this year under the University of Kansas Press label. His Introduction speaks to your question better than I have above and I recommend you keep your eye peeled for it.

By the way, I assume that this is the same Michael Kurtz who wrote "The Crime of the Century: The Kennedy Assassination from a Historian's Perspective"? If so, does he still think it is possible that the Soviets were involved in the assassination?

The Kurtz I mention is the one you suspected. But from his ms that I reviewed for the Kansas Press he is now of the view that JFK was a victim of CIA or rogue US elements. However, while he does not believe Oswald shot JFK, he does deem it probable that Oswald shot Tippit. Go figure.