Monday, October 31, 2011

Brad Meltzer's Humbug


“‘Decoded’ is likable, but goofy. There are interesting facts and factoids here, but they are largely smothered under layers of pseudo-drama and faux research.”
PopMatters Staff
www.popmatters.com


I've been watching Brad Meltzer's Decoded on the History Channel since it first aired in December of 2010. An entertaining show with best selling author Brad Meltzer sending out a team of experts to explore and solve mysteries. The show has a lively "you were there" style as the viewer follows the three experts from location to location taking witness testimony and solving puzzles. Conspiracy is going to be a constant theme especially in dealing with such diverse subject matter involving Free Masons, wealthy men cavorting at Bohemian Grove, and John Wilkes Booth possibly escaping death by using a stand-in. But there is always a hint that a conspiracy, no matter how reasonable or plausible, will be shot down. In other words, let no conspiracy take root and none does in any of the shows I've watched so far.

While presented as a serious investigative show there are moments where the research and methodology appears questionable. Some experiments done to test theories are hardly scientifically based and the testing conditions are skewed. Thing aren't helped much when the team of experts question witnesses, and then react to a comment with mock shock as they roll their eyes and give each other appalled looks.

I assume eventually, they will get to the JFK assassination or some odd angle on it. I would bet–if I were a betting man–that whatever the theory is, it won't hold water. It will be debunked.

The Experts
Brad Meltzer's three roving investigators are author/historian Buddy Levy, attorney/former prosecutor Scott Rolle, and mechanical engineer Christine Mckinley. There seems to be little to complain about here in regards to the abilities and career paths of the experts with the exception of McKinley, who apparently does little work as an engineer and has a career more oriented towards being a singer/songwriter. A Google search pulls up her web site where she promotes here CD and concert appearances (besides Decoded air dates). Besides that, does one really need an engineer to uncover if Booth survived the tobacco barn fire?

It is a bit amusing that on The History Channel's web site there is currently a picture of Levy, Rolle, and McKinley together (see above) and they are all the same height. The picture below is an earlier one that is no longer on the site. One can see that Rolle is the shortest member of the team with Levy being the tallest and McKinley in the middle. One could say this is a pictorial metaphor for the fakery this show can produce.

Target Patton
This episode caught my attention as it is a good example of how
anti-conspiratorial Decoded can get it as they pretend to conduct an objective investigation. The Patton episode aired on October 25 involves the conspiracy theory that General George S. Patton, instead of dying as a result of injuries sustained in an auto accident after the close of the war, was instead assassinated by a auto crash combined with a sniper. This idea has been floating around a long time and started soon after the legendary General's death. Like anything involving conspiracy, the Decoded team will in the end, drive a stake through it.

Numerous experts were interviewed for the show and the lead-off was author Robert K. Wilcox who wrote Target: Patton. This is probably the premier work on the subject. I decided to get this book as I had the feeling there is more to it than the TV show made note of. I was right. I found the book to be well researched and footnoted. Wilcox claims that a former OSS (Office of Strategic Services) officer, Douglas Bazata of whom he met and interviewed, admitted to being involved with the death of Patton and granted him open access to his numerous diaries and letters, to back up an incredible story of intrigue and high treason. (Decoded makes no mention of this level of documentation or that Bazata passed a polygraph examination in regards to his claims.)

Like JFK, General Patton had cultivated a large group of enemies and also like JFK, he was the odd man out with the other power brokers. The allies had decided to carve up Europe and let the Russians have their half. Patton was the only post-war leader who opposed this and wanted to wage war to send them back to their original borders. He was not one for politics, nor was he a man that cared about the Big Picture as the allied governments and top military leaders such as Eisenhower and Marshall had thrown together.  He also was appalled at the treatment of the defeated German soldiers and the surviving German citizens.

Douglas Bazata’s Background
Joining the Marines in the 1930's, Douglas Bazata worked his way up to eventually be sent out on secret assassination missions. These missions started before the WWII and according to Bazata, extended well after it. His missions didn't only include taking out enemies but also friendlies as well. Anybody that was suspected of being a spy or just some guy who talked to much. A nasty business that left him haunted with moral questions for the rest of his days.

Bazata claimed to have direct contact with the OSS director William Donovan where he says he was given the kill order directly from Donavan. Of course, this allegation will most likely never be proven but author Robert K. Wilcox found a declassified file, an order from Donovan, calling for a meeting with agents that Bazata did attend (pg. 92). Since he was being designated as an independent operator, he was given the freedom to set up a kill, or "weeding" as he called it, as he saw fit.

Once again, Decoded makes no mention of these details and offers little background on Bazata–a curious development because if his story is true, he is one of the major players to a plot.  So there is no context in the story by ignoring a major player in it.  They marginalize his role. Perhaps there was too much here to deal with, too much to dig through. Bazata has a great deal to his story that rings true and many events he notes are accurate.

The Set Up And The Fall
According to Douglas Bazata, his plan was to set up a seemingly impossible set of events, arranging an automobile crash coupled with a rifle shot to Patton as his car drove by. The rifle was to be a special-made air rifle that was capable of firing anything–which included rocks or metal fragments of odd shapes and sizes. Being air powered it was silent and left no standard ballistics evidence behind. On the other hand, it was a one-shot deal and at a moving target, the most difficult thing to accomplish with a firearm.

Bazata also laid claim to another act, probably the most difficult and improbable, of tampering with the car's passenger window to it would remain partially open a few inches to have a clean shot Patton. The admission could almost discredit his story except that a lot of it backed up by a polygraph exam of which he passed. It's unusual that Decoded passed on mentioning this claim in its debunking as it is something that could have stuck.

Ultimately, it all went down as plan except for Patton dying in the accident. Days later Patton would die from a lung embolism, something he had experienced earlier in his life. It should be noted that Patton suffered, besides a fractured vertebra which left him partially paralyzed, a severe Y-shaped cut to his face from the bridge of the nose to his forehead, which was never fully explained. Bazata claimed his shot hit Patton in the face but considered it a botched job–since it he didn't get a kill. It should also be noted that the other passengers, driver Horace Woodring and General Gay, seated by Patton in the rear seat, were not injured.

The Decoded Shooting Experiment
One of the most absurd parts of Decoded happened when Scott Rolle was tasked with seeing if a sniper with an air rifle could take a shot at a moving car, striking the occupant. The trouble with the test is there nothing scientific about it nor does it replicate anything about the alleged event. Rolle's experience with firearms and ballistics testing is unknown. I take it, not much in either. In the test, he does not use an original version, nor a copy, of a military air rifle from that period–a modern rifle is used instead; there is no accounting for weather, windage, range, temperature or recreating the alleged shooter's environment; no examination of shooting angles or positioning; and lastly, no accurate accounting for the speed of Patton's car in the moving part of the shooting test. (The target is hand-pulled on a small cart.)

Not only all of this, but Bazata claims to have used a small square piece of metal for a projectile (pg. 62 ). For the test, Rolle uses what appears to be a rubber object. To be fair, they had to use a rubber projectile since the weapon used for the test couldn't fire anything made of different materials or odd shapes as described by Bazata. They painted themselves in a corner even before the test takes place.

All of this together makes the Decoded ballistics test a joke. If there is an assassin firing at Patton, the experiment simulates nothing that could have been occurring in the actual event from the environmental conditions to the weapon used. This is an example of TV investigative fraud. Nothing about the test is accurate. Even Bazata told Wilcox he was aiming for Patton’s head but the Decoded team insisted he was shooting at the neck. Based on what? Nothing.

In this case, they got the result they wanted, which was to disprove an air powered rifle could be an effective weapon for assassination. And then settle it all by concluding the assassination attempt using an air rifle is now debunked.

What cheek!

In The End (thankfully...)
The Decoded team will wrap up the General Patton assassination affair as a neat and tidy event of a car accident coupled with a lethal lung embolism. Nothing suspicious here, just move along please! The Kennedy assassination is a model of similar events. The Warren Commission swoops in to give the public a similarly clean and uncluttered account of a presidential assassination that was anything but well-ordered. (And ironically, Patton’s car was rushed off to the junkyard as quickly as JFK’s limo was shipped off to Detroit for a rapid make-over. Also, Wilcox discovered that the Cadillac in the Patton museum is not the original vehicle. Decoded makes no mention of this or looks into the mystery.)

The many missing records, conflicting testimony of those involved, Patton's odd head injury, and a host of strange events and disappearing witnesses are never investigated in the show. I know there are time limitations in a one hour (40 minutes without ads) format network program such as this, but the focus is so hell-bent on shrugging off a conspiracy that many important facts are paid no attention to.

As mentioned earlier, the testimony and documentation of Douglas Bazata, a significant player in the book, Target: Patton, is largely ignored and made into a marginalized figure. Even worse, they totally ignored army Intelligence officer Stephen Skubik’s investigation of Patton’s death where Skubik found evidence from reliable Soviet sources of a plot to assassinate Patton. He also believed that Bazata was involved. If Patton were murdered by a plot, Decoded takes the wrong path in determining the truth, if they were even in the hunt for it to begin with. I don’t think they were.

As always I find it amazing that a man can have such a large host of enemies as George S. Patton did, both foreign (Russian, NKVD) and domestic (you-know-who) and can just happen to die in an automobile accident–his enemies are left to celebrate their luck! By denying a possible assassination plot in the death of General Patton it shows how difficult it is for organizations like TV networks to deal with such an event. After all, we are the exceptional People with our Constitution and our Bill of Rights. We don't do "I, Claudius." Or do we?

Brad Meltzer's Decoded is an entertaining show for what it is. Just don’t take its investigations as seriously as the producers want you to. It's entertainment masquerading as investigation.

I can’t wait for the JFK show! What a hoot that will be.

UPDATE: DECODED - Did they read my book?” Robert K. Wilcox’s rebuttal to Decoded’s phony investigation regarding Patton’s death. Read his enlightening and full rebuttal HERE.

Sources:
Wilcox, Robert K., Target: Patton - The Plot to Assassinate General George S. Patton.

Robert K. Wilcox
http://www.robertkwilcox.com

Scott Rolle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Rolle

Christine McKinley
http://mckinley-music.com/

Buddy Levy
http://buddylevy.com/

http://www.popmatters.com

Friday, October 14, 2011

Book Review: Harvey and Lee - How the CIA framed Oswald by John Armstrong


"We do know Oswald had intelligence connections. Everywhere you look with him, there are fingerprints of intelligence." -Republican Senator Richard Schweiker, member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (Village Voice: 12/15/75)


For a long time I considered the idea of Lee Oswald having a double to be out there in Fringe Land.  I’m still wondering if it could really be true that he was being impersonated.  The book, “Harvey and Lee - How the CIA framed Oswald” by John Armstrong is the definitive book on the subject.  Armstrong’s research is solid and exhaustive in detail since he made his fortune in the oil business and thereafter had the time and money to the pursue the research.  If you don’t agree with the book’s main theme, that Lee Oswald was impersonated from the age of 14 on and was used as a CIA project, it remains a tremendous source book for JFK researchers.  There are facts in this book you will not find anyplace else.  I have over 30 JFK books in my ever growing collection and not a single one of them mentions such details as the second paper bag, the issues with the money order used to purchase the rifle, or Marina Oswald’s suspicious financial dealings with Tex-Italia Films, or any number of obscure facts on the case that point towards conspiracy.  Facts that many in the pro-conspiracy JFK community could and should use in their books and presentations and for whatever reason, do not.

Coming in at 983 pages, Harvey and Lee is almost as heavy of tome as Vince Bugliosi’s Reclaiming History (over 1600 pages). But unlike that book, it’s more manageable to hold and read. It includes a CD full of photos and declassified documents and is well sourced with chapter notes and index. Unlike Bugliosi’s work, it’s hard to find for a book that is not out of print and prices can be as high as $100 or more. I paid $77 for mine and consider myself lucky!

The Tangled Web
Untangling the tangled web of Lee Oswald’s life is a bewildering task. Do not think you can sally forth and easily figure this guy out. And it all starts early on in his life. His ways are mysterious but if one filters his actions through Cold War espionage one gets a glimpse of who he was and what his mission was. I can see why the Warren Commission chose early on to downplay that part of the investigation and quickly come to a conclusion of a lone shooter not affiliated with anybody in a plot. If they dug too deeply they knew they would blow open a hornet’s nest of behind the scene government and military operations (see Breach of Trust, Gerald McKnight).

Two Ozzies, Two Mommies
The Oswald-as-doppelganger theory has been around a long time. Jim Mars made note of it in his book, Cross Fire. Surprisingly, this is not an idea issued from kooky conspiracy buffs as the lone nut crowd may suggest, but directly from the government. The first instance is a June, 1960 memo from FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover to the Dept. of State warning them that somebody has accessed Oswald’s birth certificate and may be impersonating him. Hoover, the King of the FBI, never states his sources or evidence for this. But the ship is launched.

What John Armstrong brings to the table is his contention that Lee Oswald is being impersonated as young as 14 years old. There is a lot he brings forth on this, but the most telling comes from the Warren Commission’s 26 volumes of collected evidence. There are in those volumes, two sets of educational records from the fall of 1953. One set has Oswald enrolled in PS #44 in New York. The other set has him enrolled in Beauregard Junior High in New Orleans also in the fall of 1953.

Rapidly apparent is that obviously, Oswald can’t be in two places at the same time. He could be impersonated, or some of these records could be false. Armstrong rarely raises the issue of these documents being forged as an explanation for this curious development. Of course, that raises other questions as well, such as, if Oswald is just a lone gunman then why make up phony records to add to his perceived guilt? This is supposed to be a clear-cut case, right? (I call this the framing of the guilty man. A recurring theme if you watch for the pattern.)

Another factor to consider: With Lee being impersonated at this young age, there would need to be a second mother as well for the other boy. Things have suddenly gotten complicated and the theory is to the breaking point. I can’t imagine a more difficult situation to work out if this is supposed to be part of a clandestine operation. However, this doesn’t seem to concern the author in the slightest, and he makes no mention of how freaky this situation has become. Basically, for this to work, one would need one woman and her son, another woman and her child and everybody has to resemble each other. Amazing! And don’t forget, one of the moms has two sons from a pervious marriage. Imagine what a mess the holidays could become!

Intertwined with this is how both pairs look and act. According to various records, photographs, and witness accounts collected by Armstrong, some people experienced a tall Lee and a short Lee (who wanted to be called by his middle name, Harvey). With the mothers some people knew a tall Marguerite and some knew a short Marguerite. The resulting theme then is a tall son and mother and a short son and mother. And it carries down to their personalities as well. The tall pair are attractive, social, and well liked; the short pair are just the opposite. All too convenient it seems and it’s the element of this story that is tidy.

Oswald Here, There, And Everywhere
Probably the most striking thing about John Armstrong’s research is the numerous sightings of Lee Oswald at times and places that he shouldn’t be. The most striking account is that of Palmer McBride, who claims to have worked with Oswald at the Pfisterer Dental Lab. More than just coworkers, they hung out at each other’s homes, double dated, and Oswald was a member the local astronomy club where he impressed everybody by touting the abilities of the communist system in the launch of the Sputnik. McBride said he knew Lee Oswald during the years of 1957 through early 1958 when Oswald is supposed to have been stationed at the U2 base in Atsugi, Japan. Conversely, his best friend in the Marines stationed with him there was Zack Stout. Stout describes Oswald as regular guy that never discussed politics or had an interest in communism or the Russian language and didn’t mind having a beer with the boys.

So in Armstrong’s narrative one Lee is in Japan the other Lee is in New Orleans. Then, as the Lee in Japan boards a ship with his fellow Marines to head off to Taiwan, the Louisiana bound Lee travels to Japan to reside at the Atsugi base. Armstrong bases this on medical records showing Oswald being treated for various infections at Atsugi. This is a bit of stretch and Armstrong once again does not mention the possibility of false documents being rendered to provide a fabricated trail for enemies (or future investigators) to pursue.

The main part of Harvey and Lee precedes along this theme of Oswald being two places, or more, at once. There is such a huge selection of sightings and encounters it’s almost as if there is a whole clone army of Oswalds rummaging about the countryside. It seems to build expansively towards the last few months leading up the assassination with Oswald encounters becoming almost frenetic in pace. It gets to the point where Armstrong implies that both are together at the same place, such as both being in the same school (building) at the same time, both in the Marines simultaneously or both in the School Book Depository Building at the moment of the assassination. And nobody is going to notice? That's quite a stretch and I think Armstrong starts losing control of the narrative at these junctures. It adds a degree of kookiness to something that could otherwise be feasible.

Another thing I take issue with is how the doubles are utilized. Armstrong details over and over again that while one Lee is at work the other is out and about and in some situations, drawing attention to himself. A case in point–the Dobbs House Restaurant incident on the morning of November 20, two days before the assassination (pg. 781). This Oswald is having a hissy fit over his eggs not being cooked right and making such a fuss, that many there took note it. This is supposed to have occurred at 10:00 A.M., the same time Oswald, according to his work records, is filling out book orders. Shouldn’t the other Oswald be keeping a low profile? Or maybe it’s the proper thing so as to create confusion and cover later on down the road, in the advent that someone raises the doppelganger issue? Then the investigator gets called a crackpot for daring to broach the subject.

(Also intriguing with this incident is Dallas police officer J. D. Tippet is in the restaurant the same time Oswald is noticing the fuss taking place. Was he there to observe Oswald?  Who knows...)

Despite my misgivings, there is enough interesting stuff here to certainly make a strong case for Lee Oswald being a impersonated. There is a huge amount of witness testimony that does makes sense. Not everybody can be lying or mistaken. One can also see the hand of the authorities (i.e., FBI, CIA, WC) to manage this testimony so the truth does not air.

A case in point is the famous Silvia Odio incident (pg. 623). In brief, a Cuban immigrant was staying with her sister when three men came to the door–two hispanic men and one caucasian, who was introduced as Leon Oswald. They were seeking financial help to fund a take-down of Castro as they knew her father was once a wealthy Cuban businessman. Suspicious, she turned them away and a few months later recognized Lee Oswald, the accused assassin, as the same man who had appeared at her door as “Leon.” Her story was fluffed off by the Warren Commission but later accepted by the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the late 1970s. Her account of meeting Oswald is widely accepted among researchers, even some lone nut supporters. (It should be pointed out that Odio is not the only witness to seeing Oswald–so was her sister Annie who first answered the knock at the door and overheard the conversation. She was never interviewed by FBI or the Warren Commission.)

However, at the time Oswald appears at the Odio apartment in late September of 1963 he is also supposed to be on the bus in Mexico in route to Mexico City. Oops! And interestingly, I've seen few researchers, even pro-conspiracy ones, point this fact out. I can partially see why, as it leads one to some rough patches on the rabbit trail. Not everybody wants to deal with it. Armstrong documents this, and many other instances of reliable and multiple witness encounters with Oswald at places and times only an impostor could appear at.

Where Does Everybody Go?
It's the main unfinished business of Harvey and Lee. We know what happens the real Lee Oswald, but what happens to his double, if he has one? Or for that matter, his doppelganger mother? Armstrong simply doesn't tell us. The trail has grown cold and he seems not to care. I would think this is an important thing to resolve, but to be fair, I don't know how this part of the story could be resolved. There are few witnesses to Oswald impersonators after the assassination and basically no records of any kind that have been released on the subject.

There has been a book published in recent years called, “Flight from Dallas: New Evidence of CIA Involvement in the Murder of President John F. Kennedy”. It relates the story of an Air Force Sergeant, Robert G. Vinson and his flight home on the day of the assassination. He claims the transport plane he took that day makes an unannounced stop at an airstrip outside of Dallas and two men emplane in yellow coveralls and one of the men resembles Oswald. You can see this man's account told on YouTube. The final designation is the airbase at Roswell, New Mexico where the yellow clad Oswald departs never to be seen again. An interesting story but we still don’t know what happens to this other Oswald providing this account is even true.

Conclusion
Harvey and Lee stands as probably the most meticulously detailed account of Lee Oswald's life written to date. Not even Norman Mailer's Oswald's Tale comes close to John Armstrong's research and pales in comparison. I have sympathy for any future biographer of Lee Oswald because he or she will have to wade through all of this doppelganger business with the many conflicting witnesses and documents and the "fingerprints of intelligence" as Senator Schweiker remarked, ever present. It'll be interesting to see if they will want to go this deep into it. I bet many won't.

Whether this is a conspiracy or not, the JFK assassination is loaded with cover-ups. Perhaps Oswald being impersonated is the biggest cover-up of them all, possibly bigger than a conspiracy for a presidential assassination. As a result, Oswald appears even more of a mysterious figure. We still don't get close to who he was or why he would be a part of this, or if he even knew he was a part of something this huge. He was most likely played and he seems far too intelligent and self-aware for that kind of game. He remains a true International Man of Mystery who passed his secrets on to no one. Oh, what a fascinating trial this would have made!

Even if you don't go for the doppelganger theory in Harvey and Lee, there is a tremendous amount of facts on the Kennedy assassination that you won't find anywhere else. I peruse this book often and find something new every time. It makes a great source book for JFK researchers.


Addendum
Although John Armstrong is meticulous in his research he does err in some places.  One place is the Carro Report, which was issued by Lee Oswald’s probation officer John Carro. It was written because of Lee going truant at PS #44 in 1953 during his New York phase and consists entirely of an interview with Lee’s mother Marguerite. In the interview Marguerite gets just about every fact regarding her life and family background wrong.  For example she lists her marriage to Lee’s father, Robert Sr. as the first marriage for both.  She is wrongit’s the second marriage for both.  She gets Lee’s birthday off by a day; gets Robert’s age at time of death wrong; had the wrong number of years they were married; states that all three songs come from this marriagenot trueoldest son John Pic from first marriage; lists the wrong church that Lee was baptized in and so on.

Where  Armstrong errs is in listing issues which are not in the Carro Report.  Two examples are the claim that Marguerite lists family property in Corning Texas, a town that does not exist in the state and Marguerite not knowing what her married sister’s surname.  Neither of these issues is listed in the report.  I don’t know if Armstrong read a different report in the National Archives but does list in the chapter notes several interviews with John Carro in other publications.  Perhaps Carro stated those things in other interviews and did not include them in his report.  At any rate, Marguerite Oswald’s discrepancies are strange enough without adding to it and I fail to understand how Armstrong messed this up as his overall research is quite accurate.

Carro Report:  http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/jfkinfo3/exhibits/carro1.htm


Sources:
http://www.amazon.com. At this writing, one copy of Harvey and Lee priced at $195.00.

Flight from Dallas: New Evidence of CIA Involvement in the Murder of President John F. Kennedy by James P. Johnston and Jon Roe.

http://www.amazon.com/Flight-Dallas-Evidence-Involvement-President/dp/1412072360/ref=pd_sim_b45

Also see: W. Tracy Parnell’s lame attempt to debunk Armstrong’s work. (Which by the way does not reference the book, only Armstrong’s published reports.)

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/parnell/h&lmain.htm

Monday, October 10, 2011

JFK and UFOs

At last, a good piece of reporting on the issue of JFK and what, if ever, he had to do with UFOs has been completed by Seamus Coogan at CTKA.net. Called, “JFK and the Majestic Papers: The History of a Hoax”, Coogan creates a comprehensive set of essays exploring the subject and exposing the mythology and history of ufology and what President John Kennedy’s interaction was with the phenomena. Not to spoil it for readers, but let’s just say JFK had other pressing matters as Head of State. The essay(s) made up of an Introduction, two Preambles, six Parts and a Conclusion, leave no stone left unturned.

A great read. Check out out HERE.


Sources
http://ctka.net/2011/MJ%2012%20intro_Alien%20Dulles.html