Best book about the JFK assassination

[Tim Carroll]

Joan Mellen employs Hemming's assertion that RFK had a face-to-face meeting with Oswald in Florida in the summer of 1963. Waldrop and Hartmann employ Hemming's assertion that RFK had a face-to-face meeting with Johnny Rosselli.

My series of extremely "lengthy" narrative "tutoring" of Mellen [and witnessed by others -- and since reduced to sworn statements (Affidavits)] -- included that: RFK had "foolishly" presented himself before the "Road-Watcher" [NOT the "Shooter-Teams"] at either "Isolation-A" or "Isolation-B" -- or at both locales.... However, other sources also insist that RFK was NEVER face-to-face with LHO; but instead took with him, the "201 File" type Dossiers [not LHM or "302" FBI style] -- and later were kept at the Kennedy Compound in West Palm.

If Gerry Hemming's assertions to Joan Mellen have been "reduced to sworn statements (Affidavits)," it would be illuminating to be able to read them directly. I would personally find it very disturbing to provide information to an author, only to find it misstated in the resulting book in some fundamental way. Here we have Gerry very specifically and clearly asserting that the antecdote about an RFK-Oswald face-to-face was from a secondhand source and that "other sources also insist that RFK was NEVER face-to-face with LHO...." This is not the impression created by Professor Mellen, when she wrote:

"Without corroboration, offereing none, Hemming spins a story of Bobby choppering from Palm Beach to a training facility near Homestead Air Force base. There, Hemming imagines, Bobby met with Cubans, many of them Bay of Pigs veterans, who were part of his Special Group. According to Hemming, among the Cubans that day stood one Lee Harvey Oswald, even as independent corroboration does indeed place Oswald in Miami that summer of 1963." p. 201.

So, contrary to Gerry Hemming's post, Professor Mellen represents that he unqualifiedly said that Oswald was among the Cubans with whom Bobby met. Professor Mellen's very next line, following the previously quoted segment, said: "The story recalls the scene in the Oval Office witnessed by attorney F. Lee Bailey." I was unable to find anywhere in the book where a scene in the Oval Office was witnessed by F. Lee Bailey. I also know of no "independent corroboration" of Oswald being in Miami in the summer of 1963.

As for any meeting with Rosselli, that would have been under the same circumstances that Captain Bradley Ayers went into: With reference to folks "standing nearby" -- during either on ONE of RFK's visits to the Elliott Key CIA Base; or the visits to the Coral Gables-by-the-Sea safe house that Gray Lynch operated out of !! [Post-BOP with "Rolando" Martinez, et al.] The other "alleged-meeting" between RFK and "Hollywood Johnny" Rosselli NEVER happened, and was THE "intentionally-missed" encounter aboard the "Surfside-6" houseboat -- which was then tied up in front of the Fontainebleau Hotel on Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, FL.

Here we have Gerry saying that there may have been some RFK-Rosselli contact at Elliot Key or at the Coral Gables-by-the-Sea safe house, but that the meeting depicted in Ultimate Sacrifice, attributed to Gerry, "NEVER happened, and was THE 'intentionally-missed' encounter aboard the 'Surfside-6' houseboat...." This is very different from the impression given by the book:

"A former anti-Castro activist [Hemming], whose CIA and FBI files are extensive, claims that Bobby Kennedy actually met Johnny Rosselli on one occasion in Miami.... The setting for this historic meeting was the distinctive houseboat used as the setting for the briefly popular TV series Surfside Six. The houseboat would later become infamous as the place where Gianni Versace's murderer Andrew Cunanan was captured [found dead]." p. 408.

T.C.

[Gerry Hemming]

Joan Mellen employs Hemming's assertion that RFK had a face-to-face meeting with Oswald in Florida in the summer of 1963. Waldrop and Hartmann employ Hemming's assertion that RFK had a face-to-face meeting with Johnny Rosselli.

My series of extremely "lengthy" narrative "tutoring" of Mellen [and witnessed by others -- and since reduced to sworn statements (Affidavits)] -- included that: RFK had "foolishly" presented himself before the "Road-Watcher" [NOT the "Shooter-Teams"] at either "Isolation-A" or "Isolation-B" -- or at both locales.... However, other sources also insist that RFK was NEVER face-to-face with LHO; but instead took with him, the "201 File" type Dossiers [not LHM or "302" FBI style] -- and later were kept at the Kennedy Compound in West Palm.

If Gerry Hemming's assertions to Joan Mellen have been "reduced to sworn statements (Affidavits)," it would be illuminating to be able to read them directly. I would personally find it very disturbing to provide information to an author, only to find it misstated in the resulting book in some fundamental way. Here we have Gerry very specifically and clearly asserting that the antecdote about an RFK-Oswald face-to-face was from a secondhand source and that "other sources also insist that RFK was NEVER face-to-face with LHO...." This is not the impression created by Professor Mellen, when she wrote:

"Without corroboration, offereing none, Hemming spins a story of Bobby choppering from Palm Beach to a training facility near Homestead Air Force base. There, Hemming imagines, Bobby met with Cubans, many of them Bay of Pigs veterans, who were part of his Special Group. According to Hemming, among the Cubans that day stood one Lee Harvey Oswald, even as independent corroboration does indeed place Oswald in Miami that summer of 1963." p. 201.

So, contrary to Gerry Hemming's post, Professor Mellen represents that he unqualifiedly said that Oswald was among the Cubans with whom Bobby met. Professor Mellen's very next line, following the previously quoted segment, said: "The story recalls the scene in the Oval Office witnessed by attorney F. Lee Bailey." I was unable to find anywhere in the book where a scene in the Oval Office was witnessed by F. Lee Bailey. I also know of no "independent corroboration" of Oswald being in Miami in the summer of 1963.

As for any meeting with Rosselli, that would have been under the same circumstances that Captain Bradley Ayers went into: With reference to folks "standing nearby" -- during either on ONE of RFK's visits to the Elliott Key CIA Base; or the visits to the Coral Gables-by-the-Sea safe house that Gray Lynch operated out of !! [Post-BOP with "Rolando" Martinez, et al.] The other "alleged-meeting" between RFK and "Hollywood Johnny" Rosselli NEVER happened, and was THE "intentionally-missed" encounter aboard the "Surfside-6" houseboat -- which was then tied up in front of the Fontainebleau Hotel on Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, FL.

Here we have Gerry saying that there may have been some RFK-Rosselli contact at Elliot Key or at the Coral Gables-by-the-Sea safe house, but that the meeting depicted in Ultimate Sacrifice, attributed to Gerry, "NEVER happened, and was THE 'intentionally-missed' encounter aboard the 'Surfside-6' houseboat...." This is very different from the impression given by the book:

"A former anti-Castro activist [Hemming], whose CIA and FBI files are extensive, claims that Bobby Kennedy actually met Johnny Rosselli on one occasion in Miami.... The setting for this historic meeting was the distinctive houseboat used as the setting for the briefly popular TV series Surfside Six. The houseboat would later become infamous as the place where Gianni Versace's murderer Andrew Cunanan was captured [found dead]." p. 408.

T.C.

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Tim:

Said Affidavits are currently held by a law firm under "Attorney-Client-Privilege" !!

[These are just some of the documents which might find their way; as inclusions within pleadings styled as "Suggestions of Presentment" to more than one State and Federal Grand juries.] (Google or go to WestLaw for "Presentment")

While working with Russo on the Peter Jennings/ABC/Sy Hersh "Dark Side of Camelot" production; I had numerous interviews with the "inventor" of houseboats. He stated that the "Surfside-6" H/B was one of his first production models -- and was a SINGLE STORY manufactured-house, and thereafter welded onto a barge of his own design.

This guy recalled that: Indeed, while Larry King was using his houseboat (via a Louis Wolfson lea$e), that he was invited more than once to be onboard -- especially when certain "RFK" type personages would be visiting.

He declined to go further until he received absolute proof that this interview was being authorized by Peter Jennings of ABC; and moreover, that he would be given editorial rights as to the "final product" to be shown on TV !! [He wanted to have his attorneys and family review said film "footage/nexi & voiceovers" prior thereto]

As to the Versace case, this guy stated much later that THIS "long-since-sold" houseboat was: A 2-story model, and that he hadn't even kept track of it -- that is: Until the Miami Beach Police Detectives contacted his attorneys.

In the end, both Jennings and Hersh opted to strictly avoid the "Surfside-6" scenarios -- and most likely because Larry King is a multi-millionaire, and moreover: With access to bus-loads of shysters who might "warehouse-them-to-death" most rikky-tik and "toot-sweet" !!

Chairs,

GPH

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