Article on JFK researchers in the UK in the Times (18/11/2006)

[John Simkin]

Hopefully you will find the article here online:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/uk/

[Greg Parker]

No, but it seems to be people who hold conservative views on politics.

A favourite ploy of conservative groups.

Hopefully you will find the article here online:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/uk/

No luck, John, either by browsing the site, using the site search engine, or using key words in google news.

[John Simkin]

The article and photographs appears on pages 40-44 of The Times Magazine. It is some good publicity for the Dealey Plaza UK group. It has so far not been put online. If that does not happen, I will arrange for non-UK residents to see a copy.

[John Simkin]

No luck, John, either by browsing the site, using the site search engine, or using key words in google news.

Today's paper can be found here.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/section/0,,175,00.html

It seems the magazine section is not put online. However, I have heard from the author of the article that a phone call he received this morning could have exciting consequences.

[John Simkin]

Here is the article that appeared in The Times yesterday by Chris Lightbown. I have also added the main photograph. Each of the boxes included a photograph of the person being interviewed:

While few may accept the official version of events – that Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, a glory-hunting Marxist – even fewer retain faith in a more credible explanation emerging. Instead, the prevailing image is of a ragbag of ageing leftists and conspiracy lovers, pumping out increasingly bizarre theories from the wilder shores of the internet.

But like so much in the Kennedy assassination, this image does not match the reality. The hunt for President Kennedy’s killers has never relented, courtesy of a small army of amateur researchers who, far from coming up with weird theories, have reached a broad consensus as to who the killers and their backers were. A surprising number of the assassination researchers are British and they are not who you might expect. The people in our picture, above, range in age from 15 to 67 years old. Only four are old enough to remember where they were when Kennedy was killed and not all are enamoured of his personality or politics.

The efforts of these amateur sleuths and those of the British writer, Matthew Smith, have contributed greatly to the cogent picture that is gradually emerging of what really happened in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

“Americans admire our being able to take the truth if we hear it, however harsh it is,” says Barry Keane 56, a bus driver from south London. “That’s why many tend to open up more to Brits than to each other.”

John Geraghty, a 21-year-old student from Canterbury, is one of the few to have elicited a response from Charles Harrelson, widely suspected of being one of three mysterious “tramps” found in a freight train parked just behind the notorious grassy knoll after the shooting. Harrelson – the father of the actor Woody Harrelson – has both confessed to and denied any involvement in the assassination over the years. When Geraghty wrote to him in the maximum security prison in Colorado where he is serving a life sentence for killing a Federal Judge, Harrelson initially welcomed the contact but backed off when, as Geraghty puts it, “I started pushing too hard about exactly what he knew. I needed more experience of questioning people before I did that.”

But Russell Kent, a 44-year-old management consultant from Cambridge, says he had beginner’s luck when he met Dr Lattimer, an authority on the single bullet theory. “It seemed Americans rarely questioned his work and when I did, Lattimer admitted he hadn’t had time to do his research scientifically. I was amazed. Here was one of the biggest authorities behind the ‘Oswald did it’ argument readily saying he hadn’t done his work properly. Being British, even if you are an amateur, seems to open doors on the assassination.”

Fair enough, but all this begs the only question that matters: who did it? The short answer, the British researchers believe, is a combination of all of the usual domestic suspects. Kennedy alienated a battery of deeply intertwined interests, including military chiefs who had wanted to invade Cuba during the missile crisis, financial interests threatened by Kennedy’s intention, post missile crisis, to slash military expenditure, anti-Castro Cubans who felt he had blown their last chance to recover their homeland, mafia bosses who he was ruthlessly hounding, oil barons whose tax-free revenue Kennedy was proposing to cut and large swaths of the CIA, whom he had vowed to smash into a thousand pieces for failing to warn him of the hopeless nature of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.

“These were not the usual political interest groups, muttering into their beer about whoever was in office,” says John Geraghty. “These were armed and well-financed groups with a track record of working together, particularly in Cuba. Kennedy was playing with fire by taking on so many of them at the same time.”

The consensus is that the actual gunmen were anti-Castro Cubans, originally trained to assassinate Castro. Just before he died, Lyndon Johnson, Kennedy’s successor, told a confidante that “the CIA and the Texas oil men” sponsored the assassination and given the connections between senior renegade CIA officers and other interest groups Kennedy had offended, most British researchers concur.

Another motivation for their research though, is the feeling that the implications of Kennedy’s assassination cut across boundaries of time and nationality.

“Governments perpetually try to keep secrets from the public” says John Simkin. They call it national security but in reality, it’s an attempt to cover up illegal or immoral activities. I’m just being an active citizen. I don’t like being misled and the Kennedy assassination is an incredible case of the public being misled.”

Information in Boxes:

John Geraghty

For John Geraghty, student, 21, the inspiration was JFK, the Oliver Stone film. “It made such an overwhelming case for Oswald’s innocence and there being a conspiracy that I immediately wanted to get to the bottom of it.” Geraghty bought some of the hundreds of books on the assassination, wrote to people involved in the case and has just returned from working as a Congressional intern, which enabled him to study assassination-related documents first-hand. “I believe that research into the Kennedy assassination is best done by people who don’t idolise the man. He was the first TV President with an image moulded by his wife, staff and the faith people had in government in 1963. People forget that he was very reluctant to do anything about things like civil rights until he was forced to. Kennedy was actually quite a conservative politician.”

Russell Kent

Russell Kent, management consultant, 44, was drawn to the case by what he calls “the sheer illogicality” of the single bullet theory, the essence of the American government’s conclusion that Oswald acted alone, which would mean that one bullet caused seven diverse wounds in the President and Governor Connally of Texas, who was wounded in the assassination. If the single-bullet theory is disproved, all sides of the argument accept that there must have been two shooters – and hence, a conspiracy. After hundreds of hours studying the evidence, Kent, who has a medical background, went to a conference in Philadelphia to try and talk to Dr John Lattimer, one of the main medical authorities behind the single bullet theory. “I had little interest in Kennedy, as such. It was that the theory broke all the laws of science and common sense and I just couldn’t accept an important historical event being explained by such poor logic.”

Barry Keane

Barry Keane, 56, has a different motivation. Keane was 10 when Kennedy became President and was “electrified” by his inauguration speech. “I was just starting to take an interest in current affairs when this incredible speech put into words things I was struggling to understand. When Kennedy died, I realised the world would never be the same. I was just a lad in south London but I felt driven to do something about it.” Keane corresponds with Skip Rydberg, the autopsy artist charged with drawing Kennedy’s wounds for the Warren Commission, who told Keane that all standard autopsy procedures were violated and he was effectively manoeuvred into creating drawings which proved Oswald did it.

Kezia Lock

A small but growing number of schools run GCSE courses on Kennedy and the assassination. Some of the courses pull no punches. Kezia Lock, 15, of Holbrook School in Ipswich says she was initially appalled to learn of Kennedy’s womanising and use of drugs. But after watching some episodes of The Men Who Killed Kennedy, a British TV series about the assassination, her opinion changed. “He was a much better man than I first realised and there was obviously much more to the assassination than anybody realised at the time. Our generation is lucky to have information that wasn’t available then.”

Ian Griggs

Ian Griggs, a retired policeman, is 67 and has been researching the assassination for 36 years. He has written two books about it, given talks with Oswald’s widow, Marina and found compelling evidence that Howard Brennan, the only witness to identity a figure in the 6th floor window from where the shots allegedly came, did not attend the identity parade where he supposedly picked out Oswald. Griggs has also become an authority on the ageing World War Two rifle claimed to be the murder weapon and shown that it was impossible for Oswald to have smuggled it into the building in the manner the government claimed. “Unravelling the Kennedy case is a tortuously slow job and it requires talking to people who were involved, which is getting harder as time passes. But it’s morally right to do it.”

John Simkin

John Simkin, 61, runs Spartacus Educational, one of the most authoritative Kennedy assassination forums in the world. Contributors have included active and retired CIA officers, senior American government officials involved in assassination research, secret service agents from several countries, and most of the credible authors who have written about the Kennedy assassination. Its contributors have given detailed case histories of foreknowledge of the assassination, names of possible gunmen and their sponsors, as well as links between some American security agencies and mafia figures which pre-date Kennedy’s assassination by decades.

Mark Bridger

Mark Bridger, 43, is one of several researchers who has traced numerous links between anti-Castro Cubans and American intelligence officers. He has also uncovered evidence of Oswald being systematically impersonated in the run-in to Kennedy’s Dallas trip and strong indications that attempts on the President’s life were called off at the last minute in trips he made to Chicago and Tampa, shortly before Dallas. “They were going to get Kennedy, whatever it took,” Bridger says. “There’s a darkness in some American institutions that we are much better placed to see than most Americans.”

Tony Basing

Tony Basing, 55, has met and interviewed Gerry Hemming, a man with deep connections in the intelligence world who claims he was offered a contract to kill Kennedy by wealthy Texas oil barons in July 1963. Hemming says he rejected the contract but believes that some of his associates – mainly renegade CIA officers and anti-Castro Cubans – probably accepted it.

Lindsey Craig

Lindsey Craig, a local government trainee, 23, developed an interest in both Kennedy and his assassination through “an inspirational lecturer” at University and pursued her interest thereafter. She wonders “how something so obviously planned and criminal on a large scale can go undetected for so long. It resonates down the years. It is such a threat to democracy that Kennedy’s assassination remains unsolved. We must solve it.”

Hannah Byrne

Hannah Byrne, 27, became interested in Kennedy after taking a course in American history at university and her work with secondary schoolchildren now includes a course on why Kennedy is remembered so positively. “You have to let children make up their own minds, whatever your own feelings. I always take care to present information on the assassination from both sides of the argument but once the children have overcome any tendency to believe in conspiracies, I still find that about 75% of them believe Kennedy’s death was a conspiracy.”

Paul Lee

Dr Paul Lee, 34, is a software engineer who, like many people, was drawn into the case by The Men Who Killed Kennedy, a British TV series, still being updated but originally produced for the 25th anniversary of the assassination in 1988. Even so, Lee thought he “was the only person in Britain interested in Kennedy’s assassination” until he discovered Dealey Plaza UK, a group that co-ordinates British research efforts. “Perhaps a generation of younger Senators in the states will create a more open-minded attitude that will lead to

Carly Spreadborough

Carly Spreadborough is a 23 year old nursery assistant who, as part of her history degree, wrote a dissertation on the way the Warren Commission handled the assassination evidence. “They were very sloppy and inconsistent, to put it mildly. I was quite shocked at the un-professionalism of it all. I feel that the case needs to be re-opened and an independent investigation carried out.”

[Mark Stapleton]

John,

It's great to see an article like this in the mainstream media. It's long overdue.

I'm not part of the consesus which believes the gunmen were anti-Castro Cubans. Connections with intelligence agencies doesn't prove they were the gunmen, IMO.

[Greg Parker]

John,

It's great to see an article like this in the mainstream media. It's long overdue. - MS

Mark, couldn't agree more.

Here is the article that appeared in The Times yesterday by Chris Lightbown. I have also added the main photograph. Each of the boxes included a photograph of the person being interviewed: JS

John, thanks for posting the article. Much appreciated.

It seems the magazine section is not put online. However, I have heard from the author of the article that a phone call he received this morning could have exciting consequences. JS

Hopefully you can fill us in at an appropriate time.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Here is the article that appeared in The Times yesterday by Chris Lightbown:

Ian Griggs

Ian Griggs, a retired policeman......found compelling evidence that Howard Brennan, the only witness to identity a figure in the 6th floor window from where the shots allegedly came, did not attend the identity parade where he supposedly picked out Oswald.

I believe Ian is a member of this forum, and I would appreciate his comments. Am I correct in thinking that the reporter either misheard or misunderstood Ian on this issue? The Dallas police files and the testimony of Forrest Sorrels show that Brennan DID attend a witness lineup on Friday night, but "failed to identify" anyone. Lee Oswald was in that lineup, according to Sorrels and Dallas police records.

BTW, quite a photogenic bunch, and the photo has just the right look and feel for a group investigating the world's greatest murder mystery. I recognize Ian's trademark moustache, but perhaps John Simkin would identify the other researchers in the photograph.

[John Simkin]

BTW, quite a photogenic bunch, and the photo has just the right look and feel for a group investigating the world's greatest murder mystery. I recognize Ian's trademark moustache, but perhaps John Simkin would identify the other researchers in the photograph.

From left to right: Carly Spreadborough, Paul Lee, Mark Bridger, Lindsey Craig, John Simkin, Ian Griggs, Kezia Lock, John Geraghty, Tony Basing, Barry Keane, Russell Kent and Hannah Byrne.

There were other UK researchers we wanted in the picture but unfortunately they could not make London that time of day.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

]

From left to right: Carly Spreadborough, Paul Lee, Mark Bridger, Lindsey Craig, John Simkin, Ian Griggs, Kezia Lock, John Geraghty, Tony Basing, Barry Keane, Russell Kent and Hannah Byrne.

There were other UK researchers we wanted in the picture but unfortunately they could not make London that time of day.

Maybe there is a higher reason why the others were not destined to be present. This photo was meant to be named THE TWELVE APOSTLES.

[Ian Griggs]

Here is the article that appeared in The Times yesterday by Chris Lightbown:

Ian Griggs

Ian Griggs, a retired policeman......found compelling evidence that Howard Brennan, the only witness to identity a figure in the 6th floor window from where the shots allegedly came, did not attend the identity parade where he supposedly picked out Oswald.

I believe Ian is a member of this forum, and I would appreciate his comments. Am I correct in thinking that the reporter either misheard or misunderstood Ian on this issue? The Dallas police files and the testimony of Forrest Sorrels show that Brennan DID attend a witness lineup on Friday night, but "failed to identify" anyone. Lee Oswald was in that lineup, according to Sorrels and Dallas police records.

BTW, quite a photogenic bunch, and the photo has just the right look and feel for a group investigating the world's greatest murder mystery. I recognize Ian's trademark moustache, but perhaps John Simkin would identify the other researchers in the photograph.

Ray,

You will find the answer(s) to your query about Brennan's non-attendance at any Oswald lineup in my book "No Case To Answr" (published by Lancer, 2005). The whole of Chapter 10 (24 pages) is devoted to it. Ironically, I have used published extracts from the 26 Volumes as my sources. We were very pushed for space in the article. I would llove to have expanded on it.

Regards,

IAN

[Myra Bronstein]

Isn't it interesting the way that people who are rhetorically all in favour of 'freedom' turn out to be so controlling and censorious, when faced with freedom in practice …

They like to appeal to the best qualities in humankind to bring out the worst qualities in society, for their own financial gain of course.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

You will find the answer(s) to your query about Brennan's non-attendance at any Oswald lineup in my book "No Case To Answr" (published by Lancer, 2005)

Regards,

IAN

Thank you Ian. I am looking forward to getting NO CASE TO ANSWER no later than the Christmas Holidays. It will be my Christmas gift to myself, and maybe I'll be able to get it autographed next time we meet.

Regards,

Ray

[John Simkin]

It has been noted that this article appeared in a newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch. Luckily, Murdoch was not consulted about the article. It is true that he dictates what is in the editorials of his 179 newspapers, some interesting left-wing articles sometimes appear in his newspapers.

For all his faults, and he has many, he is a Republican and his newspapers have done much to undermine the image of the monarchy in the UK.

[James Richards]

It has been noted that this article appeared in a newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch. Luckily, Murdoch was not consulted about the article. It is true that he dictates what is in the editorials of his 179 newspapers, some interesting left-wing articles sometimes appear in his newspapers.

For all his faults, and he has many, he is a Republican and his newspapers have done much to undermine the image of the monarchy in the UK.

An Australian undermining the image of the Monarchy? I'm shocked and can't believe that such a thing is possible.

James