Priscilla L. Johnson

[William Kelly]

In her HSCA interview, PJM says

That her first job was with JFK. She then worked for the Current Digest of Soviet Press (1953-58), out of Columbia University, which she says "operated on funds from the American Council of Learned Societies," Reporter Magazine, NANA (1958-60), Progressive Magazine, and with Archibald Cox, identified as on JFK's speech writing staff. Harpers. Russian Research Center, Harvard.

In USSR three times as reporter. Covered Thomas Hagherty USA/USSR wedding in Lenningrad, and was questioned about the use by reporters of the embassy diplomoatic pouch for personal reasons.

Knew Bob Martin (Am. Embassy before Snyder), Ali Eliav (Israli), Truman, Roosevelt (NANA), Steve Washenko, Ricahrd Harmstone (Harvard), didn't know Snyder other than having attended a dinner with him, Lewis Bowden, Korensold (UP), Henry Shapiro, and John McVicker, who was from Cold Spring Harbor, near PJM's hometown.

Although she didn't know Dr. Alex Davison in USSR, she did visit his mother in Atlanta and became friends later on, but never mentioned the Penkovoski affair, as she thought it would embarras him.

McVicker, who steered PJM to Oswald, met with her afterwards and at some point he said, "Remember you are an American."

Others include Bud Cornsold (UPI), Robert Webster and Alene Mosby, Mr. Thompson of the NYC office (NANA), Paul Niven (CBS). Her book was commissioned with Harper and Row (H&R), under John Leggett, who then went to the Iowa Writers Workshop and he replaced by M.S. Wyeth.

H&R/Leggett had a deal for a book on Soviet dissident writers but at the suggestion of a close friend at Cambridge, a Harvard professor of Soviet Studies, she made a pitch for the Marina & Lee book and H&R sent her to Dallas to make a deal with Marina. The book took so long to get published because the publisher was apparently in no hurry and PJ became PJM, married to a college professor who taught at black schools in the south.

She wouldn't name the professor however, and also went off the record to decide not to reveal the details of the deal between H&R and her and Marina, but it had something to do with McKenzie, the lawyer. In discussing whether Marina was being truthful or not, or was just confused about some things, McKenzie is quoted as saying Marina is "more truthful than we are," which says a lot.

Among the things PJM says she left out of her book is the fact that Oswald sent a letter to Radio Liberty in Munich, Germany, saying that he could get their signal in Minsk, an interesting tidbit given the fact that Mrs. Paine met Lee and Marina at a party at the home of the son of a Radio Liberty broadcaster.

She also quotes Oswald as saying that it took him two years to find out how to defect, but she doesn't know how he knew to to via Helsinki.

In addition, Marina quoted Oswald as saying, "Your accomplice is your enemy for life, you know, he could always inform on you."

As for how Oswald's Diary got out, PJM says that Hugh Aynesworth was friends with Marina's lawyer John Thorne, and money changed hands.

As for whether she was associated with the CIA in any way, its an EMPHATIC NO, even though her CIA file, which she had not read by her lawyer had, shows her meeting with a CIA contact, and then having to switch contacts after awhile, as one was promoted or transferred.

She says she applied for a job with CIA in 1952, but then when she realized she didn't "want to be in intelligence" she with drew the applicaiton, but later learned that the background check by FBI continued, and in 1953 she was denied a clearance because of her activities with the League of Industrial Democracy.

She did get a job with the Joint Press Reading Service of the State Department, and the Russian Research Center at Harvard.

Come to think about it, they didn't ask her about her year of studies in Philadelphia.

The HSCA did get a letter from the CIA saying that they had no problem with her talking openly, and she denied ever signing a secrecy oath for the CIA or anyone.

They asked her if she thought Oswald could have been an agent.

"You don't think he could have been an agent?"

PJM: "No."

"Do you presently have any releationship with the CIA?"

PJM: "No."

"Ever have?"

PJM: "No."

"I don't have anythhing to be secret about."

While she was flustered about the details of her CIA file being released, the one thing that she seemed most embarrased about was knowing and working with a guy "Victor Louie," who is identified as a notorious double-agent who worked for NANA and London Evening Standard. It wasn't made clear however, who he was doubling for and against.

Overall, there's a lot there in PJM's testimony, but its also clear she wasn't asked about her father, Stalin's daughter, the Philadelphia school she attened, her association with the World Federalists, whether she knew the Youngs via WF, and her good friend and neighbor Cord Meyer, the founder of WF.

Now it would be nice to be able to get PJM to sit down again with a tape recorder going and someone asking her some additional questions.

Maybe John could ask her to join the forum?

BK

[John Kelin]

Presented for what it's worth:

I came across something odd about Priscilla Johnson a few years ago.

In 1956, Truman Capote published a book called The Muses Are Heard, a nonfiction account of an all-black American cast of Porgy and Bess visiting the Soviet Union. On page 102, Capote describes how, as part of the American entourage, he and several others, including the widow of composer George Gershwin, went to the ballet one night -- in Leningrad, I think.

<quote>

Sitting in the row ahead, there was one girl whose hair was neither plaited nor a sour bundle of string; she had an urchin-cut, which suited her curious, wild-faun face. She was wearing a black cardigan, and a pearl necklace. I pointed her out to Miss Ryan.

"But I know her," said Miss Ryan excitedly. "She's from Long Island, we went to Radcliffe together! Priscilla Johnson," she called, and the girl, squinting near-signted eyes, turned around. "For God's sake, Priscilla. What are you doing here?"

"Gosh. Gee whiz. Nancy," said the girl, rubbing back her tomboy bangs. "What are you doing here?"

Miss Ryan told her, and the girl, who said that she too was staying at the Astoria, explained that she had been granted a lengthy visa to live in the Soviet Union and study Russian law, a subject that had interested her since Radcliffe, where she'd also learned the Russian language.

"But, darling," said Mrs. Gershwin, "how can anyone study Russian law? When it changes so often?"

"Gosh. Ha ha," said Miss Johnson. "Well, that's not the only thing I'm doing. I'm making a kind of Kinsey report. It's great fun, gosh."

"I should think," said Miss Ryan. "The research."

"Oh, that's easy," Miss Johnson assured her. "I just keep steering the conversation toward sex; and gee whiz, you'd be surprised what Russians think about it. Gosh, Nancy, the number of men who have mistresses! Or wished they did. I'm sending articles to Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. I thought they might be interested."

"Priscilla's a sort of genius," Miss Ryan whispered to me, as chandeliers dimmed and the orchestra conductor raised his baton. The ballet, in three acts with two intermissions, was called Corsair...

<end quote>

Capote died in 1984. A few years before his death there was a book out called Conversations with Capote, a series of interviews conducted by a guy whose name I can't recall. By then Capote was in the last stages of drinking himself to death, but I seem to recall that he claimed having known both Jackie Kennedy and George DeMohrenschildt -- can't recall whether he mentioned PJM.

But gosh. Gee whiz. Very curious.

In her HSCA interview, PJM says

That her first job was with JFK. She then worked for the Current Digest of Soviet Press (1953-58), out of Columbia University, which she says "operated on funds from the American Council of Learned Societies," Reporter Magazine, NANA (1958-60), Progressive Magazine, and with Archibald Cox, identified as on JFK's speech writing staff. Harpers. Russian Research Center, Harvard.

In USSR three times as reporter. Covered Thomas Hagherty USA/USSR wedding in Lenningrad, and was questioned about the use by reporters of the embassy diplomoatic pouch for personal reasons.

Knew Bob Martin (Am. Embassy before Snyder), Ali Eliav (Israli), Truman, Roosevelt (NANA), Steve Washenko, Ricahrd Harmstone (Harvard), didn't know Snyder other than having attended a dinner with him, Lewis Bowden, Korensold (UP), Henry Shapiro, and John McVicker, who was from Cold Spring Harbor, near PJM's hometown.

Although she didn't know Dr. Alex Davison in USSR, she did visit his mother in Atlanta and became friends later on, but never mentioned the Penkovoski affair, as she thought it would embarras him.

McVicker, who steered PJM to Oswald, met with her afterwards and at some point he said, "Remember you are an American."

Others include Bud Cornsold (UPI), Robert Webster and Alene Mosby, Mr. Thompson of the NYC office (NANA), Paul Niven (CBS). Her book was commissioned with Harper and Row (H&R), under John Leggett, who then went to the Iowa Writers Workshop and he replaced by M.S. Wyeth.

H&R/Leggett had a deal for a book on Soviet dissident writers but at the suggestion of a close friend at Cambridge, a Harvard professor of Soviet Studies, she made a pitch for the Marina & Lee book and H&R sent her to Dallas to make a deal with Marina. The book took so long to get published because the publisher was apparently in no hurry and PJ became PJM, married to a college professor who taught at black schools in the south.

She wouldn't name the professor however, and also went off the record to decide not to reveal the details of the deal between H&R and her and Marina, but it had something to do with McKenzie, the lawyer. In discussing whether Marina was being truthful or not, or was just confused about some things, McKenzie is quoted as saying Marina is "more truthful than we are," which says a lot.

Among the things PJM says she left out of her book is the fact that Oswald sent a letter to Radio Liberty in Munich, Germany, saying that he could get their signal in Minsk, an interesting tidbit given the fact that Mrs. Paine met Lee and Marina at a party at the home of the son of a Radio Liberty broadcaster.

She also quotes Oswald as saying that it took him two years to find out how to defect, but she doesn't know how he knew to to via Helsinki.

In addition, Marina quoted Oswald as saying, "Your accomplice is your enemy for life, you know, he could always inform on you."

As for how Oswald's Diary got out, PJM says that Hugh Aynesworth was friends with Marina's lawyer John Thorne, and money changed hands.

As for whether she was associated with the CIA in any way, its an EMPHATIC NO, even though her CIA file, which she had not read by her lawyer had, shows her meeting with a CIA contact, and then having to switch contacts after awhile, as one was promoted or transferred.

She says she applied for a job with CIA in 1952, but then when she realized she didn't "want to be in intelligence" she with drew the applicaiton, but later learned that the background check by FBI continued, and in 1953 she was denied a clearance because of her activities with the League of Industrial Democracy.

She did get a job with the Joint Press Reading Service of the State Department, and the Russian Research Center at Harvard.

Come to think about it, they didn't ask her about her year of studies in Philadelphia.

The HSCA did get a letter from the CIA saying that they had no problem with her talking openly, and she denied ever signing a secrecy oath for the CIA or anyone.

They asked her if she thought Oswald could have been an agent.

"You don't think he could have been an agent?"

PJM: "No."

"Do you presently have any releationship with the CIA?"

PJM: "No."

"Ever have?"

PJM: "No."

"I don't have anythhing to be secret about."

While she was flustered about the details of her CIA file being released, the one thing that she seemed most embarrased about was knowing and working with a guy "Victor Louie," who is identified as a notorious double-agent who worked for NANA and London Evening Standard. It wasn't made clear however, who he was doubling for and against.

Overall, there's a lot there in PJM's testimony, but its also clear she wasn't asked about her father, Stalin's daughter, the Philadelphia school she attened, her association with the World Federalists, whether she knew the Youngs via WF, and her good friend and neighbor Cord Meyer, the founder of WF.

Now it would be nice to be able to get PJM to sit down again with a tape recorder going and someone asking her some additional questions.

Maybe John could ask her to join the forum?

BK

[William Kelly]

Thanks for that one John,

I had missed it.

It made me think of Ian Fleming's description of his CIA sidekick Felix Leiter, who ostensibly reviewed an all black production of Hamlet.

I would think that it would be easy enough to identify the Russian professor at Harvard who first suggested to PJM that she approach her publishers with a Marina & Lee book idea.

BK

[William Kelly]

Priscilla Johnson's friend Victor Louie, the notorious double-agent she's embarrased to have known. - BK

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...754C0A964958260

REUTERS Published: July 20, 1992Victor Louis, a Russian journalist who for many years watched the ins and outs of Kremlin politics for the Western press, died here on Saturday, his family said Sunday. He was believed to be 64 years old.

Mr. Louis died in a hospital from a heart attack after surgery.

To many who read him and observed his work, Mr. Louis often seemed as if he led a curious professional double life.

Working as a Moscow-based freelance reporter for European newspapers, he provided news about the Soviet leadership, stories that foreign correspondents found inaccessible. Two of his best-known exclusive accounts broke the news of the fall from power of Nikita S. Khrushchev in 1964 and the death of former Prime Minister Ale ksei N. Kosygin in 1980. Denied an Official Role

Mr. Louis had close official connections, and this led some in the West to suspect that he in fact functioned as an agent of official Soviet policy, circulating to Western audiences that information from the tightly controlled world of Moscow that Kremlin leaders wanted to be spread abroad.

He was accused of being a Soviet mouthpiece, even a Soviet agent -- pursuits that he repeatedly and strenuously denied.

An obituary of Mr. Louis today in The Times of London noted that he remained a puzzle to his colleagues despite his long association with Western journalists. Recalling comments by Churchill, the paper said:

"Winston Churchill's remark about Russia being a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma might equally apply to Victor Louis. A mild-mannered man with a sardonic sense of humor, he dabbled in journalism when it suited him or when the lobbies of the Soviet system, including the K.G.B., demanded it." Sent to Siberia

Mr. Louis was born in Moscow in 1928 and was educated at a university there. However, he ran afoul of the Stalinist purges and was sent to Siberia and Kazakhstan on charges of spying for the West and black-marketeering.

He survived this, and returning to Moscow, got a job in 1956 working for Edmund W. Stevens, Moscow correspondent for The Sunday Times of London, who died in May.

Mr. Louis branched out on his own, gaining a reputation for journalistic firsts, whether through Kremlin public relations or his own endeavors. His fluent English won him freelance work with a series of Western newspapers, including The Daily Express of London and Bild Zeitung, a major German daily. Later, he became an expert on stories about Soviet dissidents and is crediting with bringing the manuscript of "The Cancer Ward" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to Western attention.

In the latter part of his life, he lived in considerable style with his English-born wife, Jennifer, at a dacha outside Moscow, but came to Britain for medical treatment, where he had a liver transplant several years ago.

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

These documents about Priscilla L. Johnson might already be on this thread, Im not sure. They are from Lisa Pease's site

and come with nice highlighting!

http://www.webcom.com/lpease/collections/a...m#Document%20#2

[William Kelly]

These documents about Priscilla L. Johnson might already be on this thread, Im not sure. They are from Lisa Pease's site

and come with nice highlighting!

http://www.webcom.com/lpease/collections/a...m#Document%20#2

Thanks for that Nate, Lisa,

Does anyone have any suggestions as to the identity of the Harvard professor of Soviet Russia who suggested that PJM do the Lee & Marina book?

BK

[James Richards]

These documents about Priscilla L. Johnson might already be on this thread, Im not sure. They are from Lisa Pease's site

and come with nice highlighting!

http://www.webcom.com/lpease/collections/a...m#Document%20#2

Thanks for that Nate, Lisa,

Does anyone have any suggestions as to the identity of the Harvard professor of Soviet Russia who suggested that PJM do the Lee & Marina book?

BK

Bill,

No definitive proof but I think it was ex State Department Information Officer Marshall D. Shulman. He died only a few months ago.

James

[Terry Mauro]

These documents about Priscilla L. Johnson might already be on this thread, Im not sure. They are from Lisa Pease's site

and come with nice highlighting!

http://www.webcom.com/lpease/collections/a...m#Document%20#2

*************************************************

As far as her statements to the HSCA goes, this woman is committing outright perjury with her stunning lack of recall faculties. Premature Alzheimers' perhaps?

And, this pitiful act of concern for what poor little PJM considers to be the "truth," which the CIA is all but mockingly depicting in that memo of theirs, is worse than wretched. They inaccurately, and most likely purposely, portray her as if she's some ridiculously "coercible" American journalist/reporter, "just as long as you don't allow her to suspect she's being manipulated." In a pig's eye!

Seems as if she was considered to be a viable, and all but willing, agent for them as far back as 1956, long before the truth about her real affiliations would be made known to the rest of the world. How very convenient for all concerned parties!

Thank you, Lisa, Bill, Nate, and James, for this little gem.

[William Kelly]

These documents about Priscilla L. Johnson might already be on this thread, Im not sure. They are from Lisa Pease's site

and come with nice highlighting!

http://www.webcom.com/lpease/collections/a...m#Document%20#2

Thanks for that Nate, Lisa,

Does anyone have any suggestions as to the identity of the Harvard professor of Soviet Russia who suggested that PJM do the Lee & Marina book?

BK

Bill,

No definitive proof but I think it was ex State Department Information Officer Marshall D. Shulman. He died only a few months ago.

James

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/23/nyregion/23shulman.html

xxxx

June 23, 2007

Marshall D. Shulman, 91, Dies;

Expert on Soviet Union

By DOUGLAS MARTINMarshall D. Shulman, who devoted his life to understanding the Soviet Union as a leading scholar, a policymaker and a principal builder of Columbia University’s Russian studies program, died on Thursday at his home in Sherman, Conn. He was 91, meaning that he was born before the Soviet Union and outlived it.

His wife, Colette, announced the death. The couple also shared a home in Manhattan.

Dr. Shulman was the longest serving director of the Russian Institute at Columbia, which became the W. Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union in 1982, after Dr. Shulman persuaded Mr. Harriman and his wife, Pamela, to endow the institute with $11.5 million.

He also held the rank of ambassador as the principal adviser on Soviet matters to Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance in the Carter administration and was a speechwriter for Secretary of State Dean G. Acheson in the Truman administration. As a private citizen, he helped organize meetings between scientists and others from the United States and Russia that many believe helped ease cold war tensions.

His best known book, “Stalin’s Foreign Policy Reappraised” (1963), was a staple in Soviet studies for many years, and his 1966 book of lectures, “Beyond the Cold War,” foreshadowed the détente between the Soviet Union and the United States that occurred during the Nixon administration.

Marshall Darrow Shulman was born in Jersey City on April 8, 1916, a year before the Russian revolution. His first passion was the violin, but when he was 6 or 7, he heard Yehudi Menuhin, who was almost exactly the same age, play. His wife said he never touched a violin again.

After graduating from the University of Michigan in 1937, he succeeded in his next ambition, to be a journalist. He worked as a reporter for The Detroit News for two years, covering the sometimes bloody confrontations surrounding the birth of the United Automobile Workers union.

For the next few years, he began graduate studies in government and economics at the University of Chicago and in English literature at Harvard, and worked in several writing and public affairs jobs. During World War II, he served as a glider pilot in the Army Air Forces, receiving the Bronze Star.

At the end of the war, while recovering from pneumonia in a hospital in the Philippines, he concluded that the major postwar issue would be Soviet-United States relations.

“I didn’t know anything about it,” he said in an interview with The New York Times in 1986. “I didn’t even know the language.”

He enrolled in the first class of the new Russian Institute at Columbia, earning a master’s degree in 1948 and a doctorate in 1959. In 1954, he was recruited to be associate director of the Russian Research Center at Harvard. He next taught at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University from 1961 to 1967.

He then went to Columbia as director of the Russian Institute. He became very involved in what came to be called “second-track” diplomacy, meaning meetings between scientists and other experts, often on arms control issues.

“He was the guy who could find some kind of common ground between the two parties,” said Robert Legvold, the Marshall D. Shulman professor of political science at Columbia and, in 1986, Dr. Shulman’s successor as head of the institute.

Secretary of State Vance recruited Dr. Shulman to be his principal adviser on Soviet affairs, but Dr. Shulman grew frustrated about the deterioration in Soviet-American relations in the late 1970s. He said in an interview with The Times in August 1980 that the possibility of nuclear war “is likely to increase rather than to diminish.”

A month earlier, The Times quoted a friend of Dr. Shulman in the State Department as saying that Dr. Shulman experienced “success in modest ways, but failure in the great sweep of things.”

Dr. Shulman said, “I couldn’t characterize it any better than that.”

Dr. Shulman’s first wife, Elizabeth Van Anda Thomson, died in 1956. He is survived by his wife, the former Colette Schwarzenbach, and two children from his first marriage, Lisa Rubenstein of Winchester, Mass., and Michael of Jamaica Plain, Mass.

Dr. Shulman did not believe he could write a sentence without wearing a green eyeshade. He was buried with one. His sly wit was evident after Secretary of State Edmund S. Muskie, who succeeded Mr. Vance, praised him profusely at a surprise award ceremony.

“My father would have liked it,” Dr. Shulman said at the time. “My mother would have believed it.”

[William Kelly]

John Judge, and other inquiring minds want to know if this is our Priscilla?

THE RUIN OF J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER

Priscilla J. McMillan, author of the well-received 2006 book "The Ruin

of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Birth of the Modern Arms Race," has

opened up some of her personal archives relating to Oppenheimer and

posted them online.

Dozens of primary source documents that were uncovered by Ms. McMillan

in the course of her research on Oppenheimer, along with related

resources, can now be found on this site:

http://h-bombbook.com/index.html

The author has a new blog here:

http://blog.h-bombbook.com/

[Greg Parker]

John Judge, and other inquiring minds want to know if this is our Priscilla?

Yep.

http://h-bombbook.com/author.html

THE RUIN OF J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER

Priscilla J. McMillan, author of the well-received 2006 book "The Ruin

of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Birth of the Modern Arms Race," has

opened up some of her personal archives relating to Oppenheimer and

posted them online.

Dozens of primary source documents that were uncovered by Ms. McMillan

in the course of her research on Oppenheimer, along with related

resources, can now be found on this site:

http://h-bombbook.com/index.html

The author has a new blog here:

http://blog.h-bombbook.com/

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Priscilla's latest theory in today's Boston Globe: Assassination is contagious.

And she has finally found what inspired Lee Oswald to become an assassin - he wanted to emulate the guy who shot Medgar Evers .

For Oswald, another suggestive event appears to have occurred on June 12, 1963, when civil rights leader Medgar Evers was slain by a sniper outside his home in Jackson, Miss., a city close to New Orleans, where Oswald by then was living.

and he specifically wanted to kill JFK because

Oswald was attracted by Kennedy's youth and the spirit of hope he conveyed.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editoria...aboo/?page=full

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

I found it very interesting that the PBS special Oswalds Ghost-- in which CIA friendlies Prscilla L. Johnson and Hugh Aynesworth are featured prominantly-- was presented in a left-liberal framework i.e. how "conspiracy theorists" had

stunted the gowth of the left. etc.

In the book The Assassinations, Pease and James DiEugenio compile quite a nice group of quotes from these authors showing

their complicity with the CIA.

If one wanted some counterhegemonic action, one could do worse than spread these articles-- or quotes from them-- on so-called left sites, asking, in effect, why are such CIA friendlies being invited to contribute so abundantly in a movie that pretends to be left-liberal.

Edited June 4, 2008 by Nathaniel Heidenheimer

[Greg Parker]

I found it very interesting that the PBS special Oswalds Ghost-- in which CIA friendlies Prscilla L. Johnson and Hugh Aynesworth are featured prominantly-- was presented in a left-liberal framework i.e. how "conspiracy theorists" had

stunted the gowth of the left. etc.

In the book The Assassinations, Pease and James DiEugenio compile quite a nice group of quotes from these authors showing

their complicity with the CIA.

If one wanted some counterhegemonic action, one could do worse than spread these articles-- or quotes from them-- on so-called left sites, asking, in effect, why are such CIA friendlies being invited to contribute so abundantly in a movie that pretends to be left-liberal.

It was after chairing a seminar at Harvard in the spring of '82 that Loren Graham found himself beside Priscilla Johnson McMillan. Knowing she was the biographer of Marina Oswald, and trying to make what he thought was just small talk, he recounted the story of meeting an Embassy official at a Moscow wedding reception, and how the official had told them of his attendance at the Oswald wedding.

Though McMillan's strong response could have been accurately forecast by anyone who has studied this case, to Graham, her questioning his memory of it was entirely unexpected. He nevertheless assured her he was certain of what he'd been told, and the circumstances in which the conversation had taken place. McMillan replied that she hoped the "believers in conspiracy never get hold of this", explaining that there had been speculation about Oswald meeting with American officials while in the USSR, but that the Warren Commission, based on what it had learned from government personnel, had concluded nothing of the sort had taken place. For good measure, she added that Marina had said nothing of any Embassy official being at her wedding.

A Marriage of Connivance?

[J. Raymond Carroll]

A Marriage of Connivance?

Even if this is all true, and even if the guy's memory is accurarate (he does not recall the name of the important man he actually met and spoke to, but he DOES recall the name of the nobody HE had NEVER MET but whose name just supposedly happened to be mentioned in conversation -- go figure) how does it constitute evidence of connivance and who is supposed to be conniving with whom, and for what purpose?