Monday, June 28, 2010

How Conservative Talk Radio Defends the Status Quo On JFK

One thing that stands out for me in listening to conservatives on the radio is how they are constantly telling their listeners how they can’t trust the government. It’s the liberals in there, they say, with their socialist agenda. They only thing they think government does well is the military through the Pentagon and the CIA. Maybe NASA when they have the money. They all seem to have some kind of affinity for the CIA as well. I’ve lost track of the number of times Rush Limbaugh has railed against the Church Committee investigation of the CIA in the mid-70’s, claiming how the Democrats “destroyed” the CIA’s ability to properly function. Which of course, is utter rubbish. Limbaugh never takes the time to comment on what this Congressional Committee uncovered during the course of the investigation. Such as the CIA’s assassination activities against foreign leaders, working in tandem with the Mob in the aforementioned murder plots and in other nefarious activities, committing LSD experiments on unwitting persons through the MK-ULTRA project, violating its own charter not to spy on citizen’s of the United States (which they did and still do), among many other things. In fact, I know of no conservative radio talk that criticizes the CIA in any way or ever has. If anything, they are often repeat defenders of the Agency. (To be fair, the mainstream media has never examined the CIA’s role in the Watergate scandal despite the fact that all five of the arrested burglars were CIA agents.) Which makes one wonder why? Why be so beholden to them? Or for that matter to any of their other sacred cows, the two main ones being Israel and Halliburton.

(Recently one poor sap called in to the Mark Levin show and dared to mention the “H” word and it was like throwing gasoline on a fire. Levin went all off on this poor guy and before he cut him off calling him a dummy. Halliburton was originally known as Brown and Root, a contractor that benefited finically after John Kennedy’s death as the Vietnam war escalated. They’ve been around a long time and are most famous for their no-bid contracts. They are big-time contributors to both political parties. Practically all conservative radio hosts will defend them to the hilt, as I have heard Rush Limbaugh do on numerous occasions. Why is the defense so zealous? Perhaps ones feeds the other? Halliburton without a doubt is a major component of the military-industrial complex and instrumental in building its infrastructure.)

For the most part the Kennedy assassination is a non-topic on conservative talk radio. Conspiracy in general isn't unless the Democrats say or do anything--then it’s okay to hatch plots for their motives and activities. Anybody that calls into the Rush Limbaugh show and dared mention any unsanctioned conspiracy (such as the Bilderbergs) was mocked by Limbaugh as a member of the “black helicopter crowd.” This is getting harder to do now with so much information being published on the web regarding the secretive Bilderberg meetings, a cause for much conspiratorial speculation in the past.

Mark Levin Takes A Shot
Conservative talk shouter Mark Levin on his 6/24/10 broadcast went on a long rant on film director Oliver Stone, mainly over his support Hugo Chavez. He then went after Stone’s movies saying that anybody that watches them is a “fool” and that Stone creates conspiracy movies that are hate, directed at America. This from a man who admits never having seen a Stone movie but somehow, is all-knowing in regards to this subject. This is quite telling as the only conspiracy movie I know of made by Oliver Stone is JFK, a film that supports conspiracy in the death of President Kennedy, a belief held by a large majority of Americans.

Of course, this is not to say that noted liberals, such as Noam Chomsky and Alexander Cockburn scoff at the idea of conspiracy in the death of JFK, because they do. In many ways both sides of the political spectrum have joined ranks on this affair to shut down speculation on conspiracy answers for John Kennedy’s death. As if conspiracy never happens. The conservative talkers are big believers in the conspiracy alright, constantly harping on how President Obama is out do destroy the economy, our liberty, and so on. They just don’t go near that other conspiracy.

There is however, one conservative talk host that does like to repeatedly invoke the subject of John F. Kennedy being killed by a long gunman and that is Bill Cunningham.

The Worst Offender
Conservative Bill Cunningham, who gained fame in 2008 at a John McCain rally for referring to front runner Barack Obama as Barack Hussein Obama. This annoyed McCain who had nothing more to do with him. Cunningham, who resembles a human version of Howdy Doody without the lines down his chin broadcasts on the former Matt Drudge slot on Sunday night at Sirius-XM. He is, for some odd reason, a constant defender of the Warren Commission. I find it peculiar that he does this so much. He uses call screening and thus a good idea what people are going to say when they appear live on-air. So when the Warren Commission doubter comes on to state conspiracy in the death of Kennedy, Cunningham is quick to shoot them down. One night he referred to one man as an idiot, all for simply doubting that Oswald was a lone gunman. For a man that constantly tells his listeners how incompetent government is he seems to have no issue with the Warren Commission’s actions, which in essence, was not an investigation of the normal type, but an evaluation of what they were provided. And they were not provided everything! The Warren Commission did not field it’s own investigators. It basically did Investigation Theater to calm the masses, with Commissioner Allen Dulles arrogantly assuming the public would never be interested in examining the 26 volumes of evidence they published. (A lot of which, ironically, contradicts their final report.)

Cunningham riffs on the same old themes against a conspiracy: Oswald was a nut and loser; if there was a conspiracy it would have outed because people can’t keep secrets; the Warren Commission did a thorough job, and so on. The argument that he uses that annoys me the most is the old, retreaded line on how people can’t keep secrets. And just how much does get out? What really is going on at Area 51 right now? Or the Skunkworks? Or the CIA headquarters at Langley? Remember all of those banks the Federal Reserve propped up? We still don’t know who got the Fed (tax payers) money because when the Congress asked the Federal Reserve and they refused to tell them anything. Any number of secretive government agencies with multi-million dollar black budgets do a pretty good job at keeping their operations under deep cover. Forcing people to sign non-disclosure agreements (as all personnel at Kennedy’s autopsy had to) doesn’t hurt either. People certainly kept quiet in the Manhattan Project where thousands were involved with one of the top secrets of the war that was not revealed to years later.

Probably the most annoying thing about Bill Cunningham is how ignorant he is on this issue while he speaks with such an imperious and knowledgeable tone. It is almost as if he takes his cue from the Vince Bugliosi school of Straw Man arguments. I just fail to understand why he is so often on the issue, constantly reinforcing the Warren Commission’s flawed conclusion, which a careful study of shows deception and a lack of serious inquiry; a rubber-stamping of the original lone gunman theory formed only a few hours after the tragedy took place.

Think about it...how can you have an honest investigation with dishonest people in charge? Many of whom, hated the man whose death they were pretending to investigate? Believer’s in the Warren Commission theory of a lone nut never seem to deal with this troubling aspect of the case. Bill Cunninghams of world do not. As Alex Jones said, he was vetted and offered a job being the next Rush Limbaugh but he would have to compromise his beliefs and reporting on conspiracy issues to achieve that position. He turned it down but not without eventually having his own success in developing a following. For years Jones could only be heard on shortwave or the Internet. Now he is Sirius-XM six days out of the week. The experience of Alex Jones may be a peek into how things work in the talk radio industry. Compromise and sail--remain independent and sink or flounder. Talk on-air about how liberals control everything and never mention government paid shills (as in the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird) having a controlling influence and what we see and hear in the Big News and you rise to the top.

So we must be careful what we hear from these people as they pat themselves on the back, called each other “good Americans” and leave the Man behind the curtain alone.


Sources
Douglass, James, JFK and the Unspeakable; The Warren Commission Report; Venture, Jesse, American Conspiracies; McKnight, James, Breach of Trust; Proudy, Fletcher, The Secret Team; Hougan, Jim, Secret Agenda; www.history-matters.org

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Will The Real Doppelganger Please Stand Up?


When I first started researching the Oswald-as-double I considered it to be the farthest out I was willing to go in the annuals of the Kennedy assassination. The are wilder theories out there such as Oswald being an MK-ULTRA mind control assassin. (Hmm...would a lone nut gunman also apply here?) The idea of multiple assassins resembling each other running loose remains a troubling issue and adds a strange aura to the tragic event. It is one area that only a hand full of JKF researchers wish to examine as it is viewed as a far-out topic, one worthy of a Moulder and Sculley investigation in the the X-Files.

However, one surprising fact is the actual genesis of Lee H. Oswald as a doppelganger starts out in the highest level of government and in the upper echelon of Federal criminal investigation. Namely, J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI. It was Hoover, in his 1960 memo to the Office of Security, Department of State, that basically sent a warning that there existed a “possibility” that the ex-marine defector to the Soviet Union was being impersonated and someone was using his birth certificate to do so. He doesn’t state his evidence for this nor add any additional details in the memo. In those days, Hoover’s word was etched in stone. Later, in 1961, a State Dept. official will send a memo to another, warning that the next time Lee Oswald is issued a passport, make sure he gets it personally; that way the right Oswald gets the right passport as it was suspected he was being impersonated. Again, no qualifiers for this. Apparently, it was something that was known and treated with great seriousness, at this level. The word at this point, is making the rounds.

By the June of 1962 Lee Oswald and family are back in the United States. When he returns back to Dallas as his ill-fated trip to Mexico City (known as Oswald’s Magical Mystery Tour) in the September of 1963 the CIA is recording all telephonic traffic in and out of the Russian and Cuban embassies. CIA station chief Winston Scott believed that Oswald being impersonated after examining the tapes and kept a back-up copy in his private safe. Hoover had his agents, seven of them, review the tapes and they determined the man speaking on the telephone calls is not Oswald. This man is speaking broken Russian to the Russians, and speaking excellent Spanish to the Cubans. A total reversal of Oswald’s known language skills. Shortly after the assassination, Hoover related this information to Lyndon Johnson. The new President in turn, used this for the final arm twisting of Earl Warren to get him to serve on the Commission.

So while one might consider the doppelganger or impersonator to be a nutty idea, it’s apparently not considered that at all by various authorities within the government. Far from being fringe subject matter, it is accepted as fact in these inner circles. Oswald is being impersonated but by whom is not known, at least by Hoover. Or maybe Hoover did know, just kept it to himself. Sometimes methods and practices have to be concealed so those being surveilled do not become aware of the operations directed against them. Never the less, it was important enough for Hoover to leave a paper trail on this issue warning other departments as did others in the bureaucracy. The President himself knew. Earl Warren knew and made sure it was not a topic that would be investigated later.

Lee Oswald now becomes a far more important figure that first told. After all, who wants to impersonate a nobody?

The Lone Senator And The Lone Gunman
The Senator from Georgia, Richard Russell was the odd man out on the Warren Commission. He has the distinction of being the member with the fewest amount of appearances at Commission meetings. Many people have taken him to task for this but the fact of matter was, he discovered early on that this was not going to be an outfit that was going to get to the bottom of the Kennedy assassination. He knew it was going to be “investigation theater” from there on after reading the initial, and wholly inadequate, FBI report and seeing how Earl Warren was going to conduct the whole affair. He was so disgusted with the proceedings he wrote a letter of resignation, dated February 24, 1964, but never forwarded it to President Johnson.

Senator Russell’s most important act being on the Commission was not what he did there, which was not much, but in leading his own personal inquiry into what happened. He enlisted the expertise of Colonel Philip Corso, an expert in military intelligence to research the issue. (Those of you familiar with a certain late night radio talk program that deals in the paranormal and especially UFOs will be familiar with the name of Philip Corso!) He uncovered two things; one, that there were two different birth certificates for Lee Harvey Oswald and they had both been used by two different people. Secondly, there were two different passports issued to a Lee Harvey Oswald and both had been used by two different people.

Colonel Corso’s final conclusion was there was a conspiracy, the plot leading to directly to Lyndon Johnson, allied with rogue elements of the CIA and the anti-Castro Cubans. Remember, this is 1964; it’s startling how this idea, with this limited amount of inquiry except by one man, had been fully realized at this early date. Unfortunately, there is only circumstantial evidence for many of these conclusions but many other researchers have since come to this idea of rouge government agents in a plot to kill Kennedy, especially the CIA with Kennedy vowing to scatter them to the winds. The Cubans could be counted on as well, still smarting over Kennedy not committing air support for the Bay of Pigs invasion. Never the less, Senator Russell agreed with Corso’s conclusion knowing he could never convince the other members of the Commission for this scenario. His hunch that things were fishy here with the official story and there was more to it, proved out. Years later, he would become one of the Commission’s biggest critics along with fellow Warren Commission member Hale Bogs.

The Final Phase
As we have seen, the idea of Lee Oswald having a double comes not from conspiracy theorists, or “armchair investigators” as Gerald Ford put it, but from government insiders at the FBI, CIA, Department of State, and so on. And not only Federal but State documents also confirm this. Such as a form from the Texas Employment Commission which documents a series of aptitude tests Lee Oswald completed that starts in April of 1962. As stated earlier, he and his wife and daughter did not return to the United States till June of 1962. In April, he is known to still be in Russia working at the radio factory in Minsk. A lot of documents are missing but every so often a gem like that appears to add new dimensions to the Kennedy assassination and further our knowledge on Oswald and whoever he was.

With the publication of John Armstrong’s Harvey and Lee in 2003, a new layer is added to the matter. Namely, his research showing Lee Oswald being impersonated as young as 13 years old. He contends that this was a long running CIA project most likely operated through the CIA’s Counter Intelligence division under the direction of James Angleton. Adding more fuel to the fire is that if Oswald was being impersonated as a teen, then he has to have a mother that is an impostor as well. To make matters more complicated one of the mothers has two additional sons. It’s seems an impossible fit. If you are running this as a long term intelligence operation, how do you pull this off without the two sons, John Pic and Robert Jr. ever finding out about this?

Nevertheless, researcher Armstrong has documents and witness interviews to show plenty of discrepancies in the life of Lee and his mother Marguerite. High strangeness abounds and it could mean anything. Documents could be faked to make it look like Oswald is being doubled, or not. Ultimately, Armstrong leaves many issues unresolved such as what happens to both doubles, mother and son, in the long run. Also, Armstrong has the notion of both Oswalds being in the same place at the same time; same schools, same naval base, even both in the building the day of the assassination. That is too far out for my inquiry. You can have a pair of twins at school, but both with the same name? I doubt it. That would out to easily. But once again, when one returns to the witnesses and the documents a crazy winding path is laid.

Overall, the Lee Oswald doubles are one of the most problematic areas of investigation. There is a general hint of how things went but nothing can be resolved. Namely, who was Lee Oswald and what was he really up to?

Or for that matter, what has our government become and what are they up to?

Sources
McKnight, Gerald, Breach of Trust; Armstrong, John, Harvey and Lee; www.history-matters.org; www.ctka.net (Probe Magazine article archive)

Friday, June 4, 2010

The Bane Of My Existence, He Said...

The title to this piece is a quote taken from a caller to George Noory’s Coast To Coast AM show from Thursday night that featured Linda Moulton Howe discussing various topics for the late night UFO crowd. The caller claimed to be the son of a Dallas medical examiner that served from 1969 to 1973 and also did work for the House Select Committee on Assassinations. He said his father knew Lee Oswald’s wife and mother. The caller seemed to be hinting of inside information into the JFK assassination and he used his insider approach to critique the JFK movie and cast doubts on the grassy knoll shot. (He brought up Kennedy’s back brace to limit the President’s movements for instance.) And for a while, he claimed, he was thusly involved with studying the death of Kennedy.

Overall, a good example of a disinformation agent (yes, I’m assuming this but just look up Operation Mockingbird) calling in to a talk show to sway the public because his information he provided, ultimately added nothing new to what actually happened. Even if the caller’s father was a medical examiner from the time he said, what new light could he possibly shed on the subject? It all went down in 1963. The autopsy was not done in Dallas, but at Bethesda Naval, a military instillation. If the Feds had obeyed Texas state law, Dr. Earl Rose would have done the autopsy. But that was not meant to be. So all evidence, including records, are whisked off to Washington to end up in the National Archives. There should be nothing of value left in Dallas for a later pathologist find out. Look at how much knowledge Dr. Rose did not have access to from being denied an investigation of Kennedy’s wounds. As if some Johnny-come-lately will? There is nothing the caller’s father could have known or added to what happened; he is too far out of the loop in time and geographical distance. Who would he know in the Coroners Office that would have anything additional on the subject since they didn’t do the autopsy?

And let me state for the record there is nothing wrong or suspicious with somebody having a differing opinion on the Kennedy assassination; but it gets my back up when someone calls into a radio program and starts making misleading statements . These disinformation agents (and those that disperse them) are banking that a person speaking authoritatively, while claiming deep connections, can shift the facts around for people who might have a basic knowledge of the subject. I admit, this guy was pretty good. Better than most. And the caller wasn’t done there; he then brought out his ballistics expertise not only of himself but his father as well. (Gee, these guys know how to cover all the bases!) He gave no qualifiers about the alleged ballistics knowledge. My whole point here is that he gave an account that was misleading on many levels and flat-out inaccurate on others. The story of his father simply doesn’t wash; we have no name to investigate further. So I must conclude it is another attempt to sway public opinion on a radio program that is heavy into conspiracy to begin with and is basically critical of most of the propaganda that the Federal government regurgitates.

And as usual they are very annoyed with Olivier Stone’s JFK movie. The caller took time to dismiss that as well, claiming that what people know about Kennedy’s fatal head wound they came from that movie. Never mind the Zapruder film is the true source, besides the multitude of witness testimony.

So ultimately, it is the “bane of existence” for the Government, via the National Security State, to keep the truth of the Kennedy assassination in deep cover. You would think they would give up over the years or cease talking about it but it is never ending. It is as if Hoover, Helms, Rankin, and other characters are still alive working the cover on this. Doubters are still called names and are still being marginalized. Old hacks like Vincent Bugliosi are hired to defend the Warren Commission with fat books of straw man theories and insults. They can’t even come up with new put-downs. They still use the “flat earth/tin foil hat” mockery.

So let us seekers of the truth continue the quest. I bet there is more buried here than a slain president. More than the truth. I bet it's something really far out.