Oswald's Mother

Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero

2012-02-02T20:02:00.000-08:00

Every so often I post a notice on good articles to be found elsewhere. Here is one by Jim DiEugenio at Consortium News called, “Why Mr. Hardball Found JFK Elusive.” A very good and concise review about Chris Matthews book, Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero.

As stated in the opening:

“For weeks, Chris Matthews has been flogging his book, Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero, driving it up the ranks of best-seller lists, but the biography is as superficial and clueless as the MSNBC pundit often is, missing Kennedy’s true complexity, writes James DiEugenio.”

A great read, not to be missed.

Find it HERE.

Ozzie In A Box

2012-01-17T18:21:00.000-08:00

One of the troubles with the Warren Report is that is so politicized much of it borders on mythology. Just reading it makes me wonder at their conclusions and after looking some of the compiled evidence in the 26 volumes it is apparent that much of the evidence collected contradicts the final report.

Some of this falls on the heads of the lawyers. Many JFK researchers have much criticism to bestow on members of the legal profession for their machinations conducted for the Warren Commission. However, I've known quite a number of lawyers and one in particular, the late James B. Clayton was a friend and mentor of mine. From Mr. Clayton I learned a great deal about lawyers and how they think and operate. Mr. Clayton told me many things. Once he said to me, "Always know the answer before you ask the question." Indeed, that is how one catches someone in a lie. It is in effect, the laying of a trap. It is the thinking of the moves ahead as in a game of chess. But one must know one's adversary well to succeed.

It seems to me a fundamental job of any attorney is to protect the interests of the client. Since they are in that mode, fundamental truths are not a priority. None of the staff lawyers working for the Warren Commission cared a wit about the truth. They couldn't possibly have. Not with all the scheming they had to do to hatch the fiction of a gunman acting alone. And the long gunman comes to us from another lawyer, John Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI. At this juncture, it becomes enshrined as the central myth of the inquest. In this instance, they were protecting the prestige of the government of the United States This becomes an endless cycle displayed repeatedly in every investigation that follows each major event from the Kennedy assassination, to the Oklahoma City bombing, to attacks of September 11, 2001 and everything that happens in-between.

From this, what we were told of Lee Oswald, the man, is fundamentally a myth.

Such as Oswald not being to drive a car. This is probably one of the most easiest of things to prove about him. Check out pictures of Lee Oswald's hair. It was closely cropped. Professionally cut. And where did he go? To Shasteen's barbershop in Irving, Texas. He was seen driving up in a station wagon similar to the one belonging to Ruth Paine (Armstrong pp. 581-582). Cliff Shasteen recalls having numerous conversations with Oswald and said he was fond of showing up at the shop often, sometimes every couple of weeks. For some mysterious reason, he liked to have his hair looking freshly trimmed.

Cliff Shasteen related this information to FBI agent Barnwell Odom (the same FBI SA involved with the controversy over the acquiring of the stretcher bullet, CE-399). Agent Odom told Shasteen how that just didn't fit in with what they knew.

Of course agent Odom can't have Oswald driving as it raises a host of other questions. Such as, where did he learn to drive? Does he have a driver's license? If Shasteen is seeing Oswald driving up in Ruth Paine's car then she is lying when she tells the FBI and the WC that she was giving Oswald driving instructions shortly before the assassination. This all starts taking place in the August. Oswald already knows how to drive. (It should also be noted here that Shasteen was not the only witness--so were the other barbers that worked in the shop.)

The next stop is the Sports Dome rifle range. There, employee Malcom Price sees Oswald driving up in a 1940's model Ford automobile at dusk in October of 1963 to have his rifle sighted (Armstrong p. 736). Oswald is seen multiple times arriving at the Sports Dome and he always seen by witnesses driving there. This raises the question of where did Oswald get the automobile? Since he didn’t own one, who would loan him a car?

Mixed into this is the famous incident of Lee Oswald showing up at the Downtown Lincoln-Mercury dealership to test drive a red Mercury Comet. He is remembered by the manager and two salesmen. One salesmen in particular, Albert Guy Bogard remembers his Oswald encounter vividly because he was the passenger in the car that Oswald test drove way to fast, 70 mph on a wet freeway. Oswald says he'll be back with $3500 to buy a car and never returns. Even Warren Commission cheerleader Vincent Bugliosi believes this happened and he is no fan of anything controversial in the case (Bugliosi, pp. 1030-1035).

Speaking of the driver's license, one witness claims to have seen it. That witness is Edward A. Brand, owner of an insurance company. He claims that Oswald came to his company on or around November 8, to inquire about car insurance and since he didn't own a car, Brand would not provide further information. He said that Oswald presented his driver's license in this encounter. Oddly it listed "Lee" as a surname. It should be pointed out that Oswald used a reversed name “O. H. Lee” for renting at the rooming house. This mixing up of Oswald's names is also used on many government documents relating to him (Ventura, Russell, p. 35).

The FBI classified Brand's account and it wasn't declassified till 1995 (Armstrong p. 756). Meanwhile, Bugliosi in his End Notes (#1035) says this cannot be true since Oswald had no license (lame rejoinder Vince). If that is true, then why did the FBI classify this information for 31 years? Because this old dog can still hunt!

So there you have it. A side of Lee Oswald's life that the government doesn't want the public to know. It's all out there. It's amazing the audacity these people to take the witness testimony to this fact, publish much of it in the 26 volumes of collected evidence, and then publish a report that says Oswald could not drive a car. Then have their shills call anybody a conspiracy nut for looking up the testimony of the contrary witnesses and read the other side of the story.

It's all part of the mythology that the government built for their case. Lee Oswald is the lone gunman so he has to be a loner. As many have pointed out, what loner has a wife and kids? As Jim Garrison remarked, not only was Oswald not the lone gunman he was never alone. Indeed.

Sources

Bugliosi, Vincent, Reclaiming History and End Notes; Armstrong, John, Harvey and Lee; Ventura Jesse, with Russell, Dick, American Conspiracies

JFK Act Oversight Hearings Petition

2012-01-02T08:40:00.000-08:00

Please sign on to influence Rep. Darrel Issa (R. CA) Chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee to hold hearings on the JFK Records Act which hasn’t been done in years. Many records are still withheld from the public and are yet to be released.

Link HERE.

End Note Follies

2011-12-27T06:37:00.000-08:00

To me, the most interesting part of Vincent Bugliosi's 1600-page Reclaiming History isn't in the reams of text but in the End Notes he has on the CD-ROM which accompanies the book. Some have said that this where where Bugliosi places the more difficult aspects of the Kennedy assassination in hope that the reader won't pay enough attention to go back there and look into what he has to say about it. Maybe so. I have a theory, and general feeling, that Bugliosi started out with the End Notes first and the rest of his book was fleshed out from them, or used as a guide for the various ghost writers he employed. Sometimes the End Notes offer additional information on a subject covered in the main text and in other places it's the same information with little elaboration. Or, even information that seems out of place such as the mini-bio on Che Guevara.

Never the less, Bugliosi's writing style is evident throughout the End Notes, filled with sarcasm, straw man arguments, vicious personal attacks on conspiracy oriented researchers and the hypocrisy of accusing others of what he routinely does, which mainly, is omitting facts to make his arguments work.

What follows is a look into some of Bugliosi’s commentary and theory in the End Notes and what lengths (i.e., skating on thin ice) he goes to in his defense of the Warren Commission.

A So Very Comprehensive Investigation
(End Notes, p.579, Note 1037)

"Because the Warren Commission’s investigation of the assassination was so very comprehensive, it even included a 'limited background investigation' of Officer J. D. Tippit and found nothing suspicious (CE 2985, 26 H 483–492)."

This of course is hilarious. The declarations that Bugliosi makes like this make wonder about the esteemed prosecutor's judgement. Or if he actually believes some this nonsense he comes up with.

The fact of the matter is, what the Warren Commission did was hardly what one would call a legitimate investigation. After all, they had no independent investors on staff and instead had to rely mainly on Hoover's FBI for the facts in the case. They were supplied with only the evidence that verified the lone gunman theory as espoused by Hoover, the early author of the lone assassin story and the man behind the curtain pulling the levers. So what the Commission did was an evaluation of what they were provided and the FBI did not provide them everything. Meanwhile, the staff lawyers established six major areas of inquiry and four were on Lee Oswald. The actual investigation of JFK's death was conducted by the FBI, with narrow latitudes (no conspiracy) and totally overseen by J. Edgar Hoover.

There many good books on the machinations of the Warren Commission and one of the best is Gerald McKnight’s Breach of Trust.

The Minox Camera
(End Notes, p.394, Note 793)

Lots of controversy surrounds this piece of evidence. In a nutshell: Dallas police discover a Minox camera in Oswald's belongings. It’s a popular tool among intelligence operatives. The FBI gets wind of it and asks the Dallas police detective to change the description of it from a camera to a light meter. He refuses. Later, the FBI will rename it a light meter anyway in their evidence inventory. It will remain so for many years.

As Bugliosi notes, researcher John Armstrong made a trip to the National Archives to examine and photograph Oswald's Minox camera. There, he found the camera was sealed up so it couldn't be opened and that there was no way of observing the Dallas Police officer that initialed it or examine the camera's serial number. Armstrong rightly thought this suspicious and as usual, Bugliosi does not. And instead of figuring out why this camera had obviously been tampered with, Bugliosi resorts to his tried and true method of mockery against John Armstrong, who admits owning a Minox camera and asking him, "By the way, John, where were you at 12:30 p.m. on November 22, 1963? What did you say, John? Tulsa, Oklahoma? Can you prove it?"

What an ass.

At least John Armstrong actually made the effort to travel to the National Archives and examine the thing and report what he found. Something Bugliosi obviously didn't bother with as he practices research from the confines of the California state border.

Also, the serial number for the camera is listed as 27259 by the FBI. However, a Minox Corporation spokesman said that only six digit serial numbers were used for cameras sold in the United States. It is not a valid number as spokesman Kurt Lohn said. Once again, Bugliosi does not comment on this discrepancy or seek to resolve the issue.

Howard Brennan's Oswald Standing And Shooting
(End Notes, p.531, Note 956)

Howard Brennan is one of those star witnesses that the lone nut crowd hang their hats on. Here is one of the few people that actually (or claimed to) see the rifle out the window. Brennan is not without controversy for not only his failure in being able to pick Oswald out of the line-up (claiming fears of personal safety) even after seeing him on TV, but one of his other claims is that he saw Oswald standing up while shooting. However, the window is so low to the floor that Oswald would have been shooting through the upper window glass if that were the case. This is of course, ridiculous. Bugliosi solves this by having Brennan's position on the ground looking up to the sixth floor giving him an altered perspective for a mistaken impression of a shooter standing at the window. How convenient.

His highly accurate assessment of Oswald’s height at 5’10” is another matter.

Bugliosi ponders: “I don’t believe Brennan was asked this question but we can assume that he estimated Oswald’s height by extrapolation from what he could see of Oswald’s upper body.”

The subject of an early description of Oswald’s height is an ongoing controversy as the source of this information is confusing. Bugliosi is saying that Brennan could accurately judge Oswald's height by seeing him from the waist up–only. I don't see how this is even remotely possible or how Bugliosi could make such a claim and expect it to be taken seriously. If Oswald is leaning on the box at the window shooting, he’s not even going to be seen from the waist up–more like the shoulder up. So it’s impossible to make such a determination from Brennan’s viewing angle.

Typical of Bugliosi to give Brennan a pass. If he were a witness contradicting the official story, Bugliosi would tear him or her to shreds for getting off script, such as he did to Acquilla Clemons who he calls a "kook" twice, with no citation, once in main text and again in the End Notes (p.52, Note 78). (Clemons claimed to have seen two men involved in the Tippet slaying, where most witnesses see only one suspect.)

So here is a witness who said he saw Oswald shooting from the six floor of the TSBD, saw no flash or recoil, couldn’t ID Oswald from the police line-up then later changed his mind and said it really was Oswald when under oath to the Warren Commission. It’s funny to read Bugliosi’s explanations for witnesses as weak as Howard Brennan and what lengths he has flay about to work out the kinks.

Mr. Bugliosi, you make a fine contortionist if you ever took up the trade.

Judyth Vary Baker Character Assassination
(End Notes, p.539, Note 978)

Bugliosi saves some of his best (or worst) drive-by character assassination for Judyth Vary Baker. Baker's story of being Lee Oswald's lover in the summer of 1963 is not without controversy. She is one of those figures in JFK research that polarizes the community into camps of true believers and true disbelievers. I have given her a book Me and Lee, a good review here, as she does seem to have a good grasp of the JFK case, and seems to fill in a lot holes in the story of Oswald’s life in the summer of 1963. But even I have my doubts about some elements of her story. She claims to be involved with important events yet nobody documents her being there. One such event is the Oswald scuffle with anti Castro Cubans when he was handing out FPFC pamphlets. She claims to have been there on the street as a witness but nobody else reports this and the TV film footage does not reveal her. Her story is a long and convoluted tale that goes off into all kinds of tangents and Bugliosi does give a good accounting of the various winding threads.

The basic story is, Judyth, a whiz-kid science geek and Lee become star-crossed lovers and along the way Judyth becomes aware that Lee is an undercover agent (CIA and FBI) and gets wrapped up in a plot to assassinate the president. His goal according to Judyth is not to back out but to stay in and hopefully defeat the plot. He obviously fails and is framed as the patsy.

Her accounting of Lee Oswald makes him appear as a heroic figure, one seldom seen in the annals of JFK assassination research. Though it seems strange for this unsung hero to enter a movie theater with a loaded .38, resist arrest, assault a police officer, and attempt to shoot said police officer in the face.

Bugliosi can't help himself with her. He saves some of his best/worst invectives for driving his nails into her coffin. He starts out calling her, "Judyth Vary (as in very silly) Baker. " He further states, "Judyth’s story is so absurd that it is not worthy of citations to sources..." So unworthy he then precedes to ramble on for 21 paragraphs about her.

I think it is well established and she and Oswald both worked at the same time at William B. Reily and Company, Inc., a coffee company. But not for Bugliosi who doubts she worked there and says in this Note that she never establishes this face, and his gives as proof, no check stubs with her name on it. However, in her latest book, Me and Lee, she does feature a Reily coffee company W2 form with her name on it. So she is there as an employee the same time Oswald is.

Never the less, Bugliosi can't just disagree with somebody with a story to tell, and in this case, an off-script story from the one the Warren Report relates. No, he has to be as ugly as possible about it. In this Note, he ridicules Judyth Baker with the same relish a twisted mind does when pulling the wings off a fly.

[Note: Currently Judyth Vary Baker has her own page and forum on Facebook. It’s basically queen Judyth holding court with her loving followers doting on her every word. I hate to say it but there is a preponderance of ignorance expressed by many of the posters there as well lack of maturity. Poor Martin Shackelford is trying to set the record straight and is being told, literally, to blow it “out of his ass.” It’s an uphill battle against an army of cultists and I don’t how he keeps it up. It’s like trying to herd cats. To his credit, he remains very civil. Keep up the good fight Martin!]

The Attack on Saundra Spencer's Credibility
(End Notes, pp. 264-268)

As Bugliosi states on p.268:
"We know she’s wrong when she says the photographs she saw show a 'blown-out chunk' in the center of the back of the president’s head. Why? Because apart from the observations of all three autopsy surgeons, the official autopsy photographs and X-rays conclusively, and without question, depict the body of President Kennedy at the time of the autopsy and show none of what Spencer described."

A strange response. Navy Photographic technician Saundra Spencer was responsible for processing the autopsy films. She said she saw a massive blow-out at the back of Kennedy's head in one of the processed images. However, the important point here, is that she is not the only witness to see this wound. In fact, it's one of the biggest, ongoing controversies in the annals of JFK assassination. Just about everybody that has close contact with John Kennedy's body saw the large rear head wound from all of the Parkland doctors and nurses, to the two FBI Special Agents, Sibert and O'Neil observing and taking notes, the two autopsy techs, Jenner and O'Conner, the many Dealey Plaza witnesses, to even the mortician who prepared Kennedy's body. And this is just a partial list of witnesses.

It comes down to this–the people with the responsibility to document the massive head wound, the three pathologists, Drs Humes, Boswell and Finck did not. This evokes a central mystery of the case. They were all military, so were they pressured to conform to the lone gunman theory early on? Some people think so. Basically, we are left with two camps of eminently qualified experts that don't agree. And frankly, there are more expert witnesses that saw the large wound to the back of Kennedy’s head than did not.

As far as autopsy photographs go, there is a lot monkey business going on there. Photographer John Stringer, when examining his photographs in the National Archives noted numerous problems. For example, he says the negatives he saw were not of the same brand-name film he used–which was Kodak. The film in the Archives is Ansco. Apparently, the negatives he was looking at are copies of the originals. And who would do that? My guess is the Kennedy family. After the autopsy they got their hands on all autopsy materials such as all film and tissue samples–yes the brain too. After negations, the returned back the films to the government as a deed gift but were allowed to keep the tissue samples I think they are the people who made the copies and have the originals locked away.

And on top of that, Stringer says there are photographs he took that are missing. Also, there other photographs he says he didn't take, such as the bottom of the brain. Who was the other photographer? At any rate, Stringer's experiences are just the beginning of the tampering of the photographic evidence in the case. Dr. David Mantik has a very good essay, "20 Conclusions After 9 Visits" where he uncovers the tampering of the X-ray films in the National Archives. Bugliosi has read it and knows what the implications are and does nothing about it. (Get the PDF HERE.)

Saundra Spencer is a highly credible witness to there being a large blow-out to the right rear of Kennedy's head. Bugliosi attempts to discredit her are weak and speaks of the desperate path he walks in defending the sloppy job that the Warren Commission did. Does he really believe what he writes?

Che Guevara Biography
(End Notes, p.998, Note 1345)
And what did the romanic communist revolutionary have to do with the JFK assassination? Answer: Absolutely nothing! This note is entitled "CIA’s attempt to murder Castro," though there is little written on that. Instead it ends up being a mini-biography of Che Guevara. This Bugliosi intellect works in mysterious ways that mere mortals can not begin to fathom.

For Now...
There are places where he doesn't expand on any knew information and repeats what is in the main text. Also, Bugliosi appears to have left the hard to suss out issues for the End Notes. Such as the controversy regarding Oswald's two wallets where he struggles with the issue and then concludes it was all a confusing mistake and the second wallet actually belonged to policemen Tippit. Or the lack of documentation for the bullet, the famous CE-399. Bugliosi thinks Special Agent Barnwell Odom simply forgot (a contention he denied to researchers when asked).

More End Notes follies coming. Stay tuned...

Interviewed on Black Op Radio

2011-12-22T10:10:00.000-08:00

George Bailey interviewed on Black Op Radio by Len Osanic. Listen here…LINK

Book Review: Last Word, My Indictment Of The CIA In The Murder of JFK by Mark Lane

2011-12-20T11:37:00.000-08:00

The grizzled veteran of many a battle with the Status Quo, attorney Mark Lane has authored a new book, Last Word, My Indictment Of The CIA In The Murder of JFK. In it he covers familiar ground from his personal interviews with witnesses to his trials in getting his first book, Rush to Judgement published, the first popular book to question the Warren Report's findings. From there on, he battles with government and the media, where he suffers many nasty personal attacks but also wins a few victories along the way.

Mark Lane has a tendency to interject himself in the case. This is not without merit. Lane knew John Kennedy personally, was involved with council to Marguerite Oswald, attempted to represent Lee Oswald's case before the Warren Commission, provided testimony to the Commission, and in 1966 published the first popular book critical of the Warren Report, Rush to Judgement. Probably Lane's most noted achievement was successfully defending Spotlight magazine's slander lawsuit filed by E. Howard Hunt, when the magazine accused Hunt of being involved in the Kennedy assassination.

Ultimately, Lane concludes the CIA is the main culprit in the assassination of John Kennedy and the purpose of this book is to build the case.

Only The Pioneers Get The Arrows
Mark Lane takes a break along the way to relate some personal experiences of his years researching the Kennedy assassination. One standout incident he relates is the time he was pillared by New York Times icon Anthony Lewis. The long time liberal intellectual for the Times, attacked Lane in an op-ed piece calling him a ghoul, a pitchman, a creature and unethical among other things. And it didn't end there. According to Lane, Lewis accused him of selling JFK assassination bumper stickers; charing outrageous fees for lecturing; and forecast evil omens of civil cases and potential charges pressed against Lane at his state’s Bar.

As Lane remarked, "Everything that Lewis said was untruthful and none of his fanciful predictions were realized."

Lewis acts as if he was on the Commission and got his labors criticized by Lane. It's such a nasty, slanderous personal attack--so extreme in vitriol--I fail to understand the hostility. But this much hate and insults belies that a nerve was struck; a nerve nobody knew was there. Sent in like a raging pit bull, Anthony Lewis may have overplayed his hand to a hidden master he is serving. As CIA Director William Colby told the Church Committee, every major figure in the press is owned. It's an open secret that the mainstream media is littered with government shills.

Obviously these evil words wounded. Lane notes the irony of Lewis going on a rampage, demanding editors not publish anything Mark Lane writes, or talk show hosts to block his appearances to speak, while at the same time, Lewis wins awards for his alleged commitment to free speech and support of the First Amendment, holding the prestigious James Madison chair at Columbia University's School of Journalism. Indeed, the hypocrisy is glaring and these institutions seem to care little about it. The Big Man of free speech is fine with it till he runs into free speech he doesn't like and then the rules change. All Lane did was have the guts to say he didn't believe the government's story on how John Kennedy was killed. And all of this erupts.

One thing I do admire about Mark Lane--he does not respond back in kind when injured with verbal slings and arrows.

There are other slurs along the way, but one catches enough wind with Anthony Lewis' remarks. Basically all of these attacks ultimately fail. Lane is still writing and publishing books. The majority of the people don't believe the official story. Neither side is ever going away as the battleground shifts to the Internet and beyond.

The Bugliosi Rebuttal
One of my favorite parts of Mark Lane's book is a much needed rebuttal to Vince Bugliosi's slanderous attacks in his book, Reclaiming History. Actually, Lane's rebuttal has been on the Web in an essay he wrote a few years ago. This chapter in Last Word is almost word for word of that essay.

Bugliosi's approach to critics of the Warren Commission is akin to an angry lab monkey slinging feces at anyone who draws near his cage. Every critic great and small gets insulted or else labeled a "conspiracy theorist"–even those people such as Dr. David Mantik, who do not craft theories. As with the Anthony Lewis attacks, I fail to see the rage. Simply saying the "Emperor has no clothes," supported with the facts, is not a cause for such nastiness. Unless of recourse, you are on the Emperor's staff (such as Max Holland is).

According to Mark Lane, everything Vince Bugliosi says of him is false. From being called a "fraud" to the most egregious–Bugliosi's false claim that Lane misrepresented himself as a police officer to get an interview with an important witness. That last issue is easily debunked by Lane since there is in existence, the original recording which was given to the Warren Commission in 1964. In the recording Lane clearly does not represent Capt. Fitz and only identifies himself in questioning Helen Markham's witnessing of the murder of Dallas police officer J. D. Tippet.

It's a strange blunder on Bugliosi's part, not to mention highly ill responsible. It's also odd that the publisher should have had a team of fact checkers employed to catch mistakes like this. Bugliosi's criticisms of Lane, besides being apparently erroneous, are also slanderous as impersonating a police office is a crime. But, it won't be the first time Bugliosi slandered someone. He was sued for slander by Herbert H. Weisel, his milkman, in the early 1970's and settled the case by agreeing to a $12,500 payment.

Mark Lane answered a question I have long wondered--why didn't he sue Bugliosi for character assassination? Lane's answer is that he didn't want to bring any greater publicity to Bugliosi and his book that flopped in the marketplace. I can understand that but winning a suit could also make a public disgrace of Bugliosi's faulty research and show who the real fraud is.

On the other hand, Lane has sent fair warning of a lawsuit to Tom Hanks and the producers are working with Bugliosi on a 10-part TV series for HBO to be broadcast for the 50th anniversary in 2013 should Bugliosi repeat his attacks on Lane for that show.

Top CIA Man Drops A Huge One
One of greatest admissions in the book is the one made by David Atlee Philips who is a legend in the CIA. He had his fingers in all the pies and knew where a lot of the bodies were buried from operations in Guatemala to Chile and beyond. He eventually rose to become the head of all CIA operations in the Western Hemisphere. Lane documents two incidents David Philips. One, is during the House Select Committee hearings on assassinations when Philips was caught red-handed lying about tape recordings of Oswald speaking which Philips said were erased. They had not been--Lane had gotten an FBI document via a FIOA request. Philips could have been indicted for contempt of Congress and perjury but the funding was cut and Philips skated free.

Secondly, at a USC debate a student asked Philips about Oswald in Mexico City and amazingly, the veteran intelligence officer volunteered that Oswald was never in Mexico City. It's an amazing admission and is documented by virtually no other researcher. Lane comments on how one Warren Commission supporter Bugliosi, who wrote a 1,600 book and never mentioned this fact in all of those pages. (And I should add, the book comes with 958 pages of End Notes on CD-ROM and it's not mentioned there either. At any rate Bugliosi can't because it contradicts the story he is telling.)

Lanes uses this information on Phillips to build his case that the CIA is behind JFK's murder.

Finishing Up
Towards the end of his book, Mark Lane builds a case for CIA wrongdoing. There are assassinations, overthrown governments, media manipulation, CIA run military operations (which still go on today) and wacky mind control experiments. No doubt a nefarious and Machiavellian organization. However, I don't see where Lane really pins down the CIA for John Kennedy's death. Yes, plenty of sins here to be sure. But there is still much that is not known, records still classified for reasons of "National Security" for a full case to be presented. Ultimately, big themes such as this must go conjectural in many respects.

Never the less, Mark Lane's, Last Word, is a lively and fast paced read with plenty of points to show that the Warren Report doesn't pass the smell test and more needs to be done. His response to Anthony Lewis and Vincent Bugliosi's ad hominem attacks makes for a satisfying rebuttal to bullies. Lane displays no bitterness, just an even keeled need to set the record straight.

Last Word, My Indictment Of The CIA In The Murder of JFK by Mark Lane
is available here: Link

Vinnie and the Doubles

2011-11-09T15:02:00.000-08:00

I decided to do something I hadn't in a long time. Crack open Vince Bugliosi's Reclaiming History, his massive 1600-page tome and see what he had to say on record about the Lee Oswald impersonations. Of course, I knew it was going to be a debunking of the whole thing but I wanted to see at what lengths he would go to quash it. As usual, that chapter is filled with his usual doses of invective, sarcasm, unfair dismissals, omissions and specious arguments.

Bugliosi Rips On Armstrong
Bugliosi starts out defining researcher John Armstrong as the leading proponent of the Oswald doppelganger theory. In Armstrong’s book, Harvey and Lee, he proposes that Oswald was being impersonated as young as the age of 13 and the CIA found a boy resembling him of Eastern European decent that spoke Russian well and blended the two personalities or boys into one identity. I know, a farfetched idea. Not only that, but if Oswald is being impersonated as a teenager then he has to have a mother impersonated as well. With Bugliosi’s keen legal mind and sharp wit, this appears to be easy pickings for him to debunk.

Bugliosi from his End Notes (CD-ROM), page 565:

"John Armstrong actually went on to publish a 983-page book in 2003 called Harvey and Lee: How the CIA Framed Oswald, in which he carries his fantasy about a double Oswald to such absurd lengths that not only doesn’t it deserve to be dignified in the main text of my book, but I resent even having to waste a word on it in this endnote."

Ironically, while Bugliosi states that Armstrong's book and theory doesn't "deserve" to get mentioned in his book, while in fact, he does mention John Armstrong's name and work numerous on pages 1021-1022 at the start of his
“The Second Oswald” chapter.

Hey Vinnie, next time check with your ghost writers so you know what is being written down and where!

Bugliosi does bring up a lot of good points showing gaping holes in Armstrong's doppelganger theory. Indeed, there are lots of loose ends with it. But just as Bug constantly vamps on conspiracy researchers for omitting facts to make their plots work out, Bug does exactly the same thing when dealing with just about every controversial issue and the Oswald doubles is no exception. (It's also funny how he harps on researchers for making dumb, embarrassing mistakes. Bugliosi has his fair amount as well. On page 239, he mentions Chet Huntley broadcasting JFK info on ABC–not! It's NBC. And this is just one of dozens of goofy errors he makes. Apparently, he has no shame.)

A case in point is Palmer McBride, who claimed to be fiends with Lee Oswald when they worked at Pfisterer Dental Laboratory in 1957-1958. From the official Warren Report account, during this time, Oswald is supposed to be in the Marines in Japan and later in Taiwan. Bugliosi pulls every trick out of his bag to make McBride look like an unreliable witness. And, most importantly, define him as the only witness. Actually, he is not and Armstrong documents other people that knew a Lee Oswald in New Orleans in this 1957-58 time period. These include numerous employees, members of the local amateur astronomy club and the president of Pfisterer (Armstrong, pg. 172-174, 184-186 and 188-189).

North Dakota Incident
Part of the Oswald dopplegagner legend is the mysterious account of him appearing as a teenager in a Stanley, ND trailer park (Armstrong, pg. 69-72) in the summer of 1953. Grungy looking, riding a beat-up bike, going by the name of Harvey and talking up Marxist ideology, this character tells a young William Timmer who befriends him, that he going to kill the President one day. It's a strange tale to say the least. If you don't believe it, I can understand. I don't know what to think about this story with its strange undercurrents. Under the official account, Oswald is living with his mother in New York as she works retail.

However, after Lee defects in 1959 he gives an interview with Aline Mosby for the UPI where in her article, he mentions living briefly in North Dakota. Bugliosi dismisses John Armstrong's account of this in Harvey and Lee (the definitive book on Oswald impersonations–see my review HERE) accusing him of not seeing that it's a typo in the published article and claiming Mosby has New Orleans, "N O" in her original notes.

Here is where Bugliosi launches into a full deception on this issue. What he omits, and what John Armstrong documents, is there are two sets of notes. One set is handwritten and one set is typewritten. The handwritten notes of which the article derives from has "N D" for North Dakota in them. The typewritten notes were made five years later upon request for the Warren Commission. They contain "N O" is in them. See how Bugliosi confuses the issue? The actual typo is in the newer, typed version, not in the published article or the handwritten notes.

I could say this is an example of Bugliosi at his worse, but he is far from done.

We are still left with the strange account of a teenaged Oswald peddling his bike around in a dusty, oil boom town trailer park. What would be the point of his impersonation at this point? To build a legend of Ozzie the Commie? Who knows...

The Hoover Memo
Here is the famous quote from FBI Director Hoover's June 3, 1960 memorandum:

"Since there is a possibility that an impostor is using Oswald's birth certificate, any current information the Department of State may have concerning subject will be appreciated."

This quote has really made the rounds over the years. It places the source of Oswald being impersonated in the bowels of the government itself, by Hoover's acknowledgment of the possibility. Bugliosi counters the conspiracy advocates by pointing out that they are ignoring the preceding paragraph were Hoover quotes some of Marguerite Oswald's concerns about her son's whereabouts. Bugliosi implies that Hoover gets the idea of Oswald being impersonated from his mother's worries (pg. 1025).

However, at no point in that paragraph does Marguerite state or imply that her son is being impersonated. Indeed, she is worried for his safety, saying he took his birth certificate with him, enrolled at a college in Switzerland and expresses concern about her letters to him being returned.

Bugliosi could dislocate his shoulder with this wacky stretch! I do not see how Hoover could have assumed impersonation from Oswald's mother's anxiety. Bugliosi backtracks a bit when he admits, "...it would appear that Hoover used rather loose language in speculating about the possibility of an impostor."

Whatever. I think it's quite possible that Hoover had learned of the impersonation of Oswald from other sources. In fact, I think that is what is implied in Hoover's statement. He is also asking for more information from the DOS–but does he ever get it? However, it's absurd that he could have gotten the idea from Oswald's mother not getting her letters to her son, or Lee's enrollment at Albert Schweitzer College in Switzerland where he never appears.

Her main concern is a mother’s concern–where is my son at?

The Furniture Store Incident
In another notorious event in the Oswald impersonator saga is when Lee, wife and daughters, show up for a visit to the Furniture Mart in Irving, Texas. According to store owner Mrs. Edith Whitworth, they entered because of a gun repair sign still in the window left there from the previous owner. Lee with rifle in hand is looking to have a part replaced. He is told about the misleading sign and eventually they leave (pg. 1029-1030).

The issue here is that this event occurs during a day in early November when Lee is at work. Once he starts on October 16 at the Texas School Book Depository, he never takes a day off. The clock is ticking down. This serves as the benchmark for the numerous Oswald sightings (outside of work) that will occur from then on till the day of the assassination.

This will give cause for Bugliosi to write off not only Mrs. Whitworth's account but also that of her friend Mrs. Gertrude Hunter, also a witness to Oswald and family appearing in the store that day. He will confidently state, "The likelihood of these women's story being true is practically nil."

Well, not if Oswald is being impersonated! And if it's happening, these two women are witnesses to the fact.

Marina says she never visited the store with Lee and kids. Bugliosi, as usual, treats Marina as a reliable source, above reproach, as he does all witnesses that follow the lone nut scenario. Only those that are at odds with the official story are put under the Bugliosi anal exam. He won't question her character or truthfulness as she lies her way through her Commission testimony. Actually, Marina contradicted herself so many times one of the staff lawyers wanted to put her under cross-examination. Too bad it wasn't done. And Marina today, has totally flipped and believes her late husband to be innocent.

Another important point here in this episode is that these two women are both witnesses to Oswald driving a car. That's a big no-no among the Defenders of the Faith. This gives another tidbit for Bugliosi to dismiss in their account because the Warren Report states that Oswald can't drive. There are however, numerous sightings of Oswald driving (Armstrong, pg. 752 ).

However, both women give their testimony to the Warren Commission and get a chance to meet Marina and the girls in person. They both easily identified. Marina stood out to them anyway, because she never spoke a word when they allege she was in the store. They apparently felt this odd.

Bugliosi, when he finds a witness he doesn't like tries to discredit them with any little thing. The best he could do here was dig up a sister-in-law of Mrs. Hunter that accused her of being prone to telling “tale tales.” Lame. Vinnie, I'm sure we can find somebody in your family that would say the same thing about you.

Mexico City
Nothing quite like "Oswald's Magical Mystery Tour" to Mexico City in the fall of 1963 to muddy the waters of the JFK assassination. Needless to say, it remains one of the more enigmatic events of Lee Oswald's short life. Too involved to go into here, Jeff Morley does a good job in his book, Our Man in Mexico. Check out John Newman’s Oswald and the CIA as well. If you want an even higher level of detail that ramps up the high strangeness, then check out John Armstrong's Harvey and Lee. There is also the Lopez Report, HERE.

In short, Oswald gets the bug to go back to Russia (unexplained) and for some odd reason needs to travel via Cuba to get there. (Interesting that he didn't have to do this the first time.) Many have speculated that his real mission was to be sent on an assassination attempt on Castro, but we'll never know for sure. Bugliosi never defines Oswald's purpose in Mexico either. At any rate, his attempts to get travel visas to either country fail and he soon returns to Texas.

Mexico City, I think, is the most easily proven of all of the Oswald impersonation accounts. Not for Vincent Bugliosi of course because if Oswald is being impersonated that means other people are aware of his movements and actions. He’s supposed to be a nobody. The lone nut supporters have to maintain Oswald's loner status at all costs. Never mind that the likes of J. Edgar Hoover and the Mexico City CIA station chief, Win Scott, both believed that Oswald was being impersonated.

There is a lot going on here, but basically, somebody calls the Russian embassy claiming to be Lee Oswald and speaks broken Russian asking questions about things that Oswald should already know the answers to. Oswald is known to be a very good Russian speaker so this is probably somebody else. A Lee Oswald calls the Cuban embassy asking questions speaking in good Spanish. Oswald is not known to speak Spanish at all. Both embassies are bugged and later, FBI agents will listen to the tapes and determine that it is not Oswald's voice they hear. Hoover is so convinced he tells Lyndon Johnson and he uses it as an argument to convince Chief Justice Earl Warren to chair the Commission. (Bugliosi wants us believe the tapes were destroyed in October of 1963. But Morley in his book says that Station Chief Scott kept a copy in his safe. Basically, for insurance. Mr. B is incorrect. The tapes were around long after the assassination, long enough for FBI agents to give them a listen.)

The Silvia Odio Incident
Yet another legendary story in the JFK assassination. In brief, a Cuban immigrant was staying with her sister when one day in September 26, three men came to the door–two Hispanic men (probably Cubans) 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 (former) wealthy Cuban businessman. Suspicious, she turned them away and a few months later recognized Lee Oswald on TV as the accused assassin, 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 and even Bugliosi begrudgingly accepts her story. Though he is clearly uncomfortable delving into it. His troubled mind rambles on for scads of pages. He issues numerous speculations, looks at moving dates around and all kinds of malarkey to ease his torment. The last straw, trying to find way to trash Odio’s character fails him so the esteemed prosecutor ultimately concludes she most likely was visited by Oswald and his Cuban friends.

And like most investigators, he totally ignores the fact that there is more than one witness here–Silvia’s sister Annie. It was her apartment, she opened the door to these men, saw them closely, and overheard the conversation. Bugliosi pretends she doesn’t exist, a serious omission of fact. Of course, a second witness gives more legitimacy to the story. (It should be pointed out that Annie Odio was never interviewed by the FBI, the Warren Commission, or the HSCA.)

The issue here is, that the same time that Oswald is at the Odio’s door the day of September 26, he is supposed to be on the bus in Mexico heading towards Mexico City. Of course Bugliosi is having nothing of this doppelganger business, fluffing that off as a wad of conspiracy theorist gaga.

The Warren Commission when dealing with issues like this usually resorts to ignorance. They state in the Report that Oswald’s bearings that day can, “...not strictly accounted for.” How’s that for an easy way out?

But no matter what, Lee Oswald visiting Silvia Odio with Cubans is not evidence of a conspiracy! Or so says Mr. B.

In Summary
Vincent Bugliosi, in Reclaiming History is an example of a bull in the China shop style of investigation. Most of the book is ghost written. Other researchers have pointed out it flaws. It’s funny and a tad embarrassing to see what Bugliosi puts himself through in order to prove the Government’s lone gunman theory. I guess when one is paid a million dollar cash advance, a guy’s gotta do what guy’s gotta do. The more he goes on, kicking over the straw men he props up to seemingly win his arguments, slicing and dicing conspiracy aligned researchers for nasty fun, the more he shows how shallow the Warren Commission’s case on Lee Oswald is.

Whether there was a double of Lee Oswald running about lose in the American landscape is a separate issue open to endless speculation and debate. I think Bugliosi is wrong to place the genesis of such theories in the minds of kooks and amateur investigators. As written previously, the impersonation issue is very familiar to powerful people in the FBI and the CIA who believe it possible, at least with the Mexico City episode.

A final point. The Warren Commission’s 26 volumes of collected evidence has two separate sets of educational records on Lee Oswald from the fall of 1953 with Oswald attending both schools at the same time–one set in New York and one set in New Orleans. He can’t be in two places simultaneously so he’s either being impersonated or else somebody is creating phony documents, the latter being a felony. These records not only contradict the Warren Report but the documents contradict themselves. The main point being, these records are coming from the government’s own investigation. Something is not right here and we can’t count on Vincent Bugliosi's closed mind to objectively find out what is going on.

Sources
Bugliosi, Vincent, Reclaiming History; Armstrong, John, Harvey and Lee; Morley, Jeff, Our Man In Mexico; Newman, John, Oswald and the CIA

The Lopez Report
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/contents/hsca/contents_hsca_lopezrpt_2003.htm

Brad Meltzer's Humbug

2011-10-31T13:05:00.000-07:00

“‘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.

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. 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

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

2011-10-14T08:52:00.000-07:00

"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 and even 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 piled up here in my house and not a single one of them mentions 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.

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.

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

JFK and UFOs

2011-10-10T08:55:00.000-07:00

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

No Black Helicopters Spotted Yet!

2011-09-30T12:48:00.000-07:00

Maybe they’ll get me, maybe they won’t. But whatever...it won’t be tonight.

Bob Dylan
Dreamin’ of You

"90% of the American people believe there was a conspiracy to assassinate John F. Kennedy. The other 10% work for the government or the media.”

Richard Belzer

Ever since I stated this blog in 2008 in order to share my thoughts on the assassination John F. Kennedy I was hoping it would not flounder and I would not become a voice crying in the wilderness. Readership has steadily grown over the intervening years and I have you kind folks out there to thank for that. My goal is to make it interesting for people and not just rehash the same facts over and over. I am a pattern hunter and there is lots of that to explore with so many intertwining connections. There is also a lot of strangeness that seems permeate everything associated with JFK’s death. Some of it is borderline supernatural but of course isn’t–but it’s all over the place and makes for an interesting investigation.

Of interest is the type of viewers that are showing up. Once I got tracking software installed on my page I could trace where everybody was coming from and some of the data is not just IP’s but web sites and search terms. It seems everybody is using Google and if not for them, then I guess I would have very few readers at all. So my thanks to them as well.

I don’t view myself as anybody important in the JFK research community. I’m just a regular guy cranking out essays and book reviews on the subject. Having said that, the tracking software after a while began compiling visits from government web sites. Then I noticed military web sites and government contractors as well. Numerous other corporations fill in the empty slots. In effect, this little blog has attracted the attention of the full phalanx of the Military-Industrial Complex and the various elements of the National Security State.

And I can do all of this from home!

About The Visitors
When I first started compiling my list of visitors I found only a few .gov sites. I thought at first maybe it was bored government employees or people doing their lunch breaks in their cubicles surfing the web on the side. I did it when I worked i worked in a cubical! But then I noticed a trend and over the past three years more and more government web sites appearing. Then came the military sites along with the web sites of government contractors. Of course there are plenty of educational sites and miscellaneous companies in the mix as well.

The list below may look unbelievable but it is all true. That many agencies of both the government and corporate America did stop by for a read. As I said above, it may just be employees killing time. On the other hand, a sign that people who question the government, its claims and policies, or catch it in a lie, get watched. Or in some of these cases, monitored. The DHS and DOJ visited my blog five times each, in 2010. They have visited several times this year as well but I haven’t counted up the tally as obviously, this year is not over yet. (Will update 1/2012.)

Having the CIA drop by was a surprise as they were so open about it. I remember it well, in last week of June as that was the week my mother passed away. I figured if they ever showed up it would be under an anonymous IP address, not so up front. I get a lot of hits from IP addresses located in Reston and Herndon, both towns in northern Virginia and loaded with CIA offices so I thought I might be getting a look-see. By being so open maybe they wanted me to know?

And speaking of anonymous IP address’s I have one that shows up on average three times a week, every week. The IP is 38.165.15.201 and it is located in Washington, DC. It or they are the most frequent visitor for my blog. Apparently some kind bot that is programed to monitor for new postings. Even if I do one post a month this IP bot will be checking–every week.

One agency that does use bots is the National Security Agency. They appeared one day under the ULR, www.ncsc.mil. The site is inaccessible. I did some checking and found out they had visited other web sites in this same manner. One was John Young’s Cryptome.org (linked here), a great site for listing recently declassified government documents. An article posted there detailed research which uncovered that ncsc.mil was in fact, an NSA bot. (For the geeks, www.ncsc.mil is actually an alias for romulus.ncsc.mil.)

Like I said jokingly above no black helicopter flyovers yet. And if you boys show up, try not to fly too low, okay? I don’t want you freaking out the cats. No I’m not concerned about any of this nor have I been a victim of any harassment. Well, there is that fact that every year since I started the blog, I’ve had my checked luggage searched by TSA when I fly. I know they do it as they leave a 3x5 card in my bag informing me of the search. No reason is stated. The Fourth Amendment apparently offers little protection here in the dying days of the National Security State’s security mania.

The Visitors

.GOV

CIA
DOJ
DOE
NSA (via NSA bot - ncsc.mil)
DHS
IRS
VA
FCC
SSA
IRS
NASA
PBGC
LANL (Los Alamos National Laboratory)
USPS
BOP
NPS
USDA
USBR
USCOURTS
GSA
LOC

.MIL
stratcom.mil (Strategic Command)
navy.mil
usmc.mil
uscg.mil (US Coast Guard)
centcom.mil (Central Command Iraq)
eucom.mil (U.S. European Command)
army.mil
dla.mil
af.mil

Government Contractors
ge.com
miltope.com
honeywell.com
fedex.com
raytheon.com
hga.com
cna.com (Insurance provider for .GOV contractors)
sra.com
utc.com
rockwellcollins.com
morselec.com
lmco.com (Lockhead-Martin)
hdsupply.com
arvaindustries.com (Canadian .mil contractor)
mcdean.com
ibm.com
boeing.com
cgojer.com
dow.com
northropgrumman.com

MISC
db.com (Germany’s central bank)
conocophillips.com
jnj.com (Johnson&Johnson)
milbank.com
cwico.com (Country-Wide Insurance Company)
bart.gov (Bay Area Rapid Transport)
NYC.gov
kroger.com
UPS.com
hasbro.com
eb.com
bankone.com
dpw.com (Law firm)
lswlaw.com (Law firm)
runyonandrunyon.com (Law firm)
brewsterlaw.com (Law firm)
bsjpc.com (Law firm)
sandlerandrosen.com (Law firm)
pjmlaw.net (Law firm)
akingump.com (Law firm)
lambertconstructionco.com
untd.com
disney.com
bankofamerica.com
hilton.com
tesoropetroleum.com
nbcuni.com (NBC Universal)
discovery.com
trb.com (Tribune Media)
belo.com (Media owner)
cbs.com
nytimes.com
pjmlaw.net
wellsfargo.com
kodak.com

A Tale Of Two Presidents

2011-09-15T14:43:00.000-07:00

“But many other more telling facts indicate that Obama is but a figurehead of an unelected government in the US. This unelected power of corporate elites – commercial, financial, military – governs with the same core policies regardless of who is sitting in the White House. Whether these policies are on social, economic or foreign matters, the elected president must obey the direction ordained by the unelected elite. That kind of untrammeled power structure conforms more closely in practice to dictatorship, not democracy.”

Finian Cunningham

“A supposedly transformative president normalizes the criminal perversions of his predecessor and appears to have the fight in him only to beat the legacy of FDR into an unrecognizable pulp.”

Jeff Wells

When one starts studying the political and corporate forces that John F. Kennedy skirmished with behind the scenes in the alley ways of government, one can get a sense of how great this silent and hidden struggle was. Kennedy’s battles are only now coming to light and add more credibility that there were many that would not mind seeing him dead. Just follow the trail and see who all benefited. Everybody has a motive here except the man credited with the crime.

From the military industrial establishment lusting for war in Southeast Asia, to the contractors positioning themselves for a piece of the action, to the independent paramilitary operations being conducted by the CIA, to the host of other power brokers tucked away in their fiefdoms, John F. Kennedy stands now as the lone man standing in opposition to them. In many ways he is the last authentic President the United States. He attempted to govern as if the buck really did stop with him. These corporate and political powers are the ones with the greatest motive to stop him and have a far greater motive to assassinate the President than the man credited with the crime.

JFK may have understood that not only would these hidden power brokers rule the People from a distance but might also control any future President.

Strange Days Have Found Us
Which brings to the modern era with Barack H. Obama, the most mysterious man ever elected President of the United States. In the past, the public has not been privy to various personal details regarding the lives of their leaders. Franklin Roosevelt was never seen in a wheelchair and the press conspired with him in this regard. John Kennedy’s dalliances with numerous women, were unknown till years later as was his Addison's disease; a serious illness that nearly took his life as a young man. His successor, Lyndon Johnson we know was one of the most amoral and uncouth human beings that ever lived. Other Presidents had issues only lately coming to light.

With Barack Obama, even is less is known and to the point of being a total mystery, his autobiography, Dreams of My Father, not withstanding. He’s a man who seemingly walked out of a fog. Other than having a wife and two daughters his experience with women is unknown. (Where are the girlfriends? All of these politicos are haunted by them.) The controversy over his birth records aside, there are virtually no existent records available on him. All educational records from Kindergarten through law school are sealed or not available; thesis papers do not exist; no Harvard Law Review articles, a requirement to be the editor which Obama briefly was, have ever been released except for a questionable six-page unsigned summary; medical records, never released; Chicago law practice records, never released; appointment calendar for service in the Illinois State Senate, never released (Corsi, Appendix, 316-328). Even more telling is the legal expense in the millions to make sure all of these records are never made known.

Consider this–there is more witness testimony of shots coming from the grassy knoll than there are witnesses or documentation that Barack Obama attended or graduated from Columbia University. There are no released grade transcripts, photos, and only a few people have come forward to say they knew him during the Columbia period (a Sohale Siddiqi has come forward but was not attending classes with him. See USA Today link HERE).

(And it does not end with Obama but extends to his mother and her parents. No records exist of Ann Dunham’s two marriages, her passport records–since destroyed–or her hospital records at the time of Barack's birth. Speaking of Obama’s birth records, there are none of his mother, her parents and grandparents. Other things abound–researchers found numerous instances of Ann Dunham using aliases. Also, her father’s military service records are not available.)

Even Barak Obama’s list of professions is dubious. His tenure as a law “professor” is a myth–he was a mere instructor and never held a tenured position either as a professor or as an associate professor. His colleagues thought little of him, this man whose charisma would in the future, blossom on the world stage. The law license he once held is gone too. There are two stories on this. One, that he voluntarily given up since he no longer needs it while conducting the duties of President. And two, the story that he had lied on his Illinois Bar exam on a question of whether he had ever used an alias. He had–Barry Soetoro–his Indonesian name from his adoptive father which he used, along with his Indonesian passport to travel to Pakistan in the early 1980’s. (Please read my UPDATE on this below.)

Lastly, there is the issue of his Social Security number. The initial story was that researchers have discovered that Obama’s SSN belongs to that of a woman born in in 1890 in Connecticut. SSN are single use numbers, retired at the death of the person issued the number. However, a search of the Social Security Death Index shows this to be apparently false. See HERE for a complete explanation of Obama’s SSN being legitimate. Despite that, other Social Security numbers have been discovered for variants of Obama’s name. Probably more so for an uncommon name like this and so many owners of SSN’s for that name.

It’s not perplexing that mainstream media doesn’t cover any of this. They are more or else useless as a public watch dog. It’s more the Courts. Third party investigators have routinely had their challenges tossed out with rulings of “no standing”. Even the latest law suit over the Connecticut Social Security number was recently denied. It’s a legal hot potato alright, and only independent critics have an interest in the issue it seems. The important factor though, is that all legal challenges have been dismissed.

Tight Leash
David Talbot in Brothers, describes John Kennedy’s behind the scenes battles with the CIA, the Pentagon and its Generals. Where Kennedy was his own man standing up to strongmen such as the cigar chomping General Curtis Lemay, the duplicitous CIA Director Allen Dulles, or even the head of the Federal Reserve, William McChesney Martin, Jr., when he issued the silver certificate notes which ate into the central bank’s profits, Obama doesn’t seem to have the spine for such heroics. He seems content in his ever expanding role of a puppet to them, as he parades around as a Roman Emperor to the rest of the world. One can almost see the strings attached to him. He knows that if he steps too far out of line what will become of him. He made a lot of promises as they all do to get elected, but with Obama, I don’t think he lied by not fulfilling many of them. His interaction with the machinery of government is tightly managed and all of the centers of power Kennedy wrestled with are still there, more numerous and as powerful as ever.

I harken back to comedian Bill Hicks’ routine on how a new President is handled. He’s taken into a darkened room, a screen comes down and he’s shown a film of the Kennedy assassination but from an angle no one has seen before. It’s the angle from the grassy knoll. When it’s finished, the lights come on, the screen goes up and the men there, the real power brokers, say to him, “Any questions?” And the President elect says, “What’s my agenda going to be?” A wisecrack, but I wonder if it really happens that way. I’m sure the speculation of it lingers like an unwelcome guest in every new President’s mind. As we know from other sources, people close in have their doubts. Why else would Bill Clinton have his friend and Attorney General Webster Hubble look into the assassination? He wanted to know more. He may have feared for his own life from the Men behind the curtain. Naturally, Hubble got nowhere.

Manchurian Candidate?
Most likely not. That would be too easy, too expected. However, Barack Obama’s path to power is guided by the rich and powerful. There may be intelligence connections running all thorough this, there usually is, but the blend is such it’s hard to tell who is who. All presidential hopefuls are in need of powerful benefactors, and even John Kennedy with all his money, charm and charisma needed his father’s mob connections to affect the outcome of the 1960 election. With Barack Obama, his climb to the top was an amazing thing to watch. Here is a man who spent his life as a nobody with no distinguishing achievements except for being elected to public office twice and not spending much time not doing much in either roles as State Senator and then as a member of the Federal Senate. He expressed no leadership skills in either position. Nor authored any legislation.

When a President has 5 or more hours to play golf that is President with not much to do. And you would think that job would have enough tasks going on to keep one busy 24 hours a day. Apparently, the heavy hitters are doing the real work. President Obama is called in to do the scripted public appearances when a situation is called for. After all, it’s all theater–it’s when he ad libs he is at his worse. Check out the old film clips online to see how good Kennedy was at handling impromptu press conferences and off the cuff quips. He always portrayed a commanding presence and seems at liberty in purpose and action to his modern counterpart who drifts ambivalently from one affair to the next, as if his steps are ordered and the outcome matters not.

Somebody once said that Barack Obama’s greatest fear is being found out he is a phony. Maybe so. Perhaps he is more afraid of the Puppeteers.

UPDATE:
Since posting this piece I’ve added some new links below and made a few corrections. Also, I’m a bit leery of using Snopes.com as a source. I have the feeling they are agenda driven. I have uncovered some strangeness with their version of the truth regarding Obama's law license.

For example, in their debunking the “myth” that Obama lost his license as a result of a disciplinary action through the Illinois State Supreme Court, on Snopes there is a page (HERE) supposedly showing a record from the IARDC showing that Obama voluntarily retired his law license. Interestingly enough, this page is mostly a graphics file. There is an iardc.org not link for this supposed page (HERE) so I went there. What loads are empty form fields. Curiously, there is a date of admission for an unnamed lawyer for 12/30/1899. And, the same thing appears for Michele Obama as well. Odd. So, the page on Obama (and his wife) as seen in the graphics file does not load the same information.

But there is a search so I typed in Obama’s full name. He is not listed as a licensed attorney for the state Illinois. As stated in the search results page: “Your search terms do not match the record of any lawyer licensed in Illinois.”

So it’s all very strange and this didn’t increase my trust in Snopes. I think something fishy is going on here. Snopes is posting a link on a graphic for a page that does not exist. And, they do it twice. Nevertheless, no real evidence that Barack Obama lost his law license due to fibbing about his using an alias. But no evidence against it either.

Sources
Talbot, David, Brothers; Corsi, Jerome, PHd., Where’s The Birth Certificate?; Barack, Obama, Dreams Of My Father; Mars, Jim, Crossfire

Finian Cunningham quote: “The US Dictatorship and its White House Servant ‘President’”. Link: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?aid=25853&context=va

Jeff Wells quote, “We Are The Monsters We've Been Waiting For”. Link: http://rigint.blogspot.com/

Barak Obama’s phony SSN debunked
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/birthers/ssn.asp

E-Verify 'Flags' Obama's Social Security Number
http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=0c63abc741fff5c4813d80e0a&id=3fce429d69&e=8b6f594bd3

Western Center for Journalism
http://www.westernjournalism.com/exclusive-investigative-reports/the-mystery-of-barack-obama-continues/

Barack Obama Columbia essay, Sundial.
http://www.politico.com/static/PPM116_obamaessay.html

Sohale Siddiqi, one of the few people to know Barack Obama during the Occidental College and Columbia University years. Mentions other friends and roommates as well.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2008-05-15-3144401415_x.htm

The Adjustment Bureau Just Might Be True

2011-09-02T06:11:00.000-07:00

"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them."

Philip K. Dick

“...we didn’t assume any answer, but investigated all possibilities and let the facts reveal the truth.”

Gerald R. Ford
Last Forward
The Warren Commission Report

Recently I saw the movie, The Adjustment Bureau based on the Philip K. Dick story. Simply, it’s a tale about a mysterious group of Gentlemen in suits and hats that go about tinkering with the thoughts and lives of individuals to change the course of history--both on a macro and micro level. The story takes off when the hero (Matt Damon) stumbles upon the Adjustment Bureau secretly at work and through them finds out that a woman he has recently met is not in the Plan and the Bureau is at work breaking up the relationship, supposedly, for the betterment of them both. Thus begins the classic narrative struggle, the lone man pitted against a powerful group. A story that commonly plays out in real life.

There is much to digest in this film and many mysteries abound. Such as, how does the Adjustment Bureau know enough about future events that their manipulations are going to get the end result? What is the true nature of a Free Will? In fact, Free Will is the main thread of the story.

There is a sense with the assassinations of the 1960’s that an Adjustment Bureau was at work in the deaths of those leaders. As if these men, The Kennedy's, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X–were going to bring about a future that a certain group of “others” did not desire. But then, how could they possibly know how the future would play out? Just because they feel it? One must assume they are not seers. Obviously the powerful never want to lose their position on the board so they make their moves. Apostle Paul defined faith as, “the evidence of things unseen...” Unseen maybe, but just as real or just as real as a threat. The perception of reality is a reoccurring theme in Philip K. Dick’s literary work.

Seemingly, if an Adjustment Bureau exists it has been successful in its attempts to manipulate the future. When JFK was killed they got their war in Viet Nam along with the profiteering. Lyndon Johnson, his successor overturns almost all of Kennedy’s policies except for the moon mission and ushers in the war on poverty and the hopeless Viet Nam bog-down.

And how different would America be if John Kennedy, and the other slain leaders had lived out their natural life spans? One can only speculate but how things could have been different if Kennedy had a second term to continue his attempt to rein in the various Fiefdoms that had grown up at the feet of the National Security State (and to a national extent, his brother’s prosecution of organized crime figures). His loss was our loss. Because now, the government of the Republic has grown into a massive criminal enterprise capable of high treason, unbridled greed, and departments that work as agents of oppression. The People have lost control of it. All one has to do is read the recent story of the government raid of the highly respected Gibson Guitar company, with armed Federal thugs shutting down all three of Gibson’s manufacturing facilities, detaining shop employees and demanding they answer questions without council present and with the added threat of imprisonment if they didn’t answer. A blatantly illegal and tyrannical act. The government goons rush in with loaded guns drawn as if they are raiding a back-alley meth lab. It boggles the mind that something like this could happen in America. But it is happening. The farmers producing raw milk have suffered identical raids too, guns drawn on these hapless men. In twelve states people are being arrested under wire tapping laws for videoing police.

I doubt seriously if JKF would approve of something like this, nor his brother Robert. Or for that matter, the Founders. But this is what we’ve come down to with Kennedy’s failure to rein in these Strongmen. As soon as John Kennedy was elected president he ran head-on into one of the main Strongmen–the Central Intelligence Agency. The Bay of Pigs fiasco was the result of a CIA run military operation that Kennedy decided not to go along with. At the same time, the CIA was controlling all military operations in Indochina. Even down to this very day, they are still running operations. The boys at Langley can fire missiles remotely from drones anywhere in the Middle East and kill whomever they want and do so with little oversight.

This brings to the fore, how does one prosecute the State for crimes? If elements of the government killed John F. Kennedy just as the Roman Senators killed Caesar, then how are any of them brought to justice? How about never? My point being, once the State could commit a crime of this magnitude and get away with it there are no boundaries left and the end result spins away to madness, tyranny and even bolder acts. To me, the Gibson raid is sign we’ve reached a new plateau in the march towards despotism and general loss of liberty. By doing this one act, the State has declared all of us to be its servants and the service to the People is of no consequence.

Philip K. Dick’s issue of the, “manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words” is accurate for the age we live in as it has been through human history. It’s a common technique of all politicians. Notice the follow up quote by Gerald R. Ford from his final revised Forward to the Warren Report. Former Warren Commission member Ford was apparently a pro at manipulating reality with words.

In my article, “Jerry Ford Beats A Dead Horse” I show the many contradictions in his final comments on the subject. He was so ensconced in the manipulation of words that he falters embarrassingly, to the point of appearing to be a tottering old fool. Ford was responsible for moving Kennedy’s back wound up five inches to his neck to add credence to the single bullet theory and has the effrontery to present this to the public as a fact. Ford would defend his actions years later by saying, "My changes were only an attempt to be more precise." Yes, precise if you are writing a novel but this is supposed to be a report of a criminal investigation into the homicide of a President. For Gerald Ford, a “fact” in the Kennedy assassination is whatever the main players say it is, real or imagined. Who knows, maybe he said it enough to believe it himself while dismissing the rest of us as “armchair investigators” for sticking to the real facts not filtered through politics. Ford acts as if the Adjustment Bureau agents from the movie waved their magic wand over his head and manipulated his thoughts but in ways that make little sense to anyone except to those also compromised.

And the Discovery Channel is into this as well. Their recent show on the Secret Service stated that the outfit is still “...haunted by Lee Harvey Oswald, the lone sniper that killed President Kennedy.” No, no... Lee Harvey Oswald is the alleged lone sniper that allegedly killed President Kennedy. This has been going on for years. Oswald’s guilt was never determined in a court of law. His case was never presented to a jury. It’s the repeating of lie over and over again till it doesn’t matter what the truth is. It’s another form of using words to change reality. I think Mr. Dick had it spot on.

If there is a real Adjustment Bureau, not the kind of the movie but an established cabal, good thing it can’t get to all of us. The Internet provides a buffer. Fortunately, some of us they can never get to.

Sources
Mars, Jim, Crossfire; The Warren Commission Report; Proudy, Fletcher, L., JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy; Proudy, Fletcher, L., The Secret Team; Bugliosi, Vincent, Reclaiming History

http://oswaldsmother.blogspot.com/2010/04/gerry-ford-beats-dead-horse.html

A Mauser, is a Mauser, is a Mannlicher-Carcano

2011-07-31T16:39:00.001-07:00

Top: Mauser. Bottom: Mannlicher-Carcano

Mauser Breech

The saga of three police officers finding a Mauser in the northwest corner of the room Lee Oswald allegedly killed the President of the United States from continues to attract attention. How could three police officers, all experienced with firearms and the identification of weapons, miss pinpointing this important piece of evidence? If indeed, they were wrong to begin with? The discovery of Oswald’s rifle and how it morphs from a German Mauser to an Italian Mannlicher-Carcano is an interesting study of either high confusion, or else men who were subjected to political pressure to recast their stories.

Discovered by Deputy Sheriff Eugene Boone in the northwest corner of the sixth floor, it was identified as a Mauser by him, Deputy Constable Seymour Weitzman, and Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig. Moments later, Capt. Fritz and Lt. Day show up to examine and take possession of the firearm. Wetizman would give testimony to the Warren Commission that the rifle found was a Mauser. HIs signed affidavit of the 23rd describes the rifle as a Mauser. Capt. Fritz said it was a Mauser as well and said so to the Warren Commission. Later, officers Boone and Wetizman, along with Fritz would recant their stories of finding a Mauser. However, Deputy Roger Craig never would.

Mauser Carbine
Not commonly reported, the Mannlicher-Carcano is basically an Italian copy of a German Mauser carbine. A carbine is a short barreled rifle that originated many years ago for use with cavalry. Since a long barreled rifle proved to be ungainly for soldiers on horseback a shorter barreled rife was developed. Years later, the carbine would again prove useful for paratroopers and their minimalist equipment and weight requirements. A carbine’s advantage is in close combat but offers poor long range accuracy due in part to lower bullet velocity. In the sample images provided here, one can see just how close the Italian version resembles the Mauser, particularly the trigger guard assembly, sights and the shape of the stock. It’s easy to see why the two could be mistaken.

If Lee Oswald did it, he must have been the first sniper to use a carbine. Because no real sniper uses that type of rifle. The only advantage gained would be the ability to sneak the weapon in undetected in the building that morning.

But Was It Mistaken?
As already stated, the first man to see the weapon was Deputy Sheriff Eugene Boone and he wrote two reports saying the rifle was a Mauser. He also said that Captain Fritz, who would show up to take possession of the rifle, thought it was a Mauser as well.

In a signed and sworn affidavit on the 23rd, Deputy Constable Weitzman reports the discovery of a 7.65mm, bolt-action Mauser rifle at approximately 1:22 P.M., on the day of the assassination. He would later give the same description in his Warren Commission testimony. The questioning attorney, Mr. Ball, never questions Weitzman in regards to the discrepancy to the weapon type, or how the Mauser later becomes known as a Mannlicher-Carcano. But later, the Warren Commission will decide that Weitzman and the other police officers were simply mistaken.

Roger Craig stated in a filmed interview that he was standing with the other officers and examining the rifle up close, within 6-8 inches and he saw “7.65 Mauser” stamped on the barrel. He further states that Weitzman saw it too and pointed it out.

On the other hand, Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano clearly is marked "MADE ITALY" on the shoulder stock, and "CAL 6.5" stamped on the side of the barrel. How could all of these men miss this? Only if they had a Mauser to begin with.

Eventually, Fritz, Boone and Weitzman would recant their stories and all would say they had been mistaken all along. How could this be? Here are men that had given numerous reports and testimony under oath, that the rifle they had discovered was a Mauser carbine. A weapon that Craig said Weitzman had examined up close. Did somebody get to these men?

Fritz, Boone and Weitzman all changed their stories and said they were mistaken and all went on to have normal careers in law enforcement. But Roger Craig, a rising star in the Dallas County Sheriff’s department, who never changed his story, went on to lose everything; his career, his health (including numerous murder attempts) and eventually taking his own life in 1975 at his father’s house.

Importantly, it should be pointed out here–that no signed or sworn affidavit by any police officer involved in the finding of the rifle listed it as a Mannlicher-Carcano–only as a Mauser.

So when did the switcheroo take place?

The Weapon Mess
As I have often documented here is how mucked-up everything surrounding Oswald obtaining his firearms really are. Even the most simple of efforts on Lee Oswald’s part to acquire the weapons is a weird journey down the rabbit hole. From the buying of the money orders, their processing through the banking system, to the shipment and delivery, to the actual make and model of the rifle and pistol–it’s all one contradiction after the other. And as we see here even the discovery of the rifle is fraught with controversy. Nothing is left alone and the waters are troubled. Like all things with this case nothing is simple and straight-forward.

Adding a new wrinkle is the obscure testimony of Frank Ellsworth, an agent for the ATF that was in the Texas School Book Depository building and participated in later searches, claimed the Italian rifle was found on the fourth floor and not the sixth. He theorized that Oswald, after shooting, ran down the stairs and dumped the Mannlicher-Carcano behind the boxes there on the fourth floor. That would imply another shooter with Oswald on the sixth floor. Ellsworth stuck by this story years later in a 1993 interview with authors Ray and Mary LaFontaine. I note this account here only as a possible explanation in finding a different model of rifle on the sixth floor. Regardless, Frank Ellsworth remains the only witness to this event. It’s an odd side trip to say the least.

There have various bullet fragments and or spent hulls found in and around the Dealey Plaza area. Of note is a bullet fragment found in 1974 by Richard Lester near the triple overpass. It made its way to the FBI lab that determined that while it was 6.5mm caliber, it was not a jacketed bullet so it was dismissed as being fired with Oswald’s rifle. Never the less, the bullet that struck Kennedy’s head shattered which no jacketed bullet in theory is supposed to do. So what was the fragment doing there? Are we supposed to believe that good ole’ boys were rambling around at night joy-shooting at street lamps and signs?

ARRB And The Envelope
The AssassinationsRecord Review Board (ARRB) in 1995 uncovered an FBI Field Office Dallas (89-43-1A-122) envelope. It was dated 12/2/63 and detailed the contents (since missing) of a 7.65mm shell found in Dealey Plaza after the assassination. This recovered evidence was unknown until the ARRB uncovered it. Unfortunately, it did not contain the 7.65mm shell and the outside of the envelope listed is as having no value and was destroyed. Destruction of material evidence by the FBI once again! Did they even bother take fingerprints off it? Or, were there in too big of a rush?

One can see from this 7.65mm shell affair how deeply entrenched the lone gunman dogma is at this juncture. Yes, dismiss the evidence if there is only one shooter. But if there is a conspiracy, with multiple shooters, then the recovered shell has greater implications for it. But they don’t think like that. Ironically, the spent cartridge is of the same caliber as the recovered Mauser. With these people the evidence doesn't matter as much as the carefully constructed narrative. Just like it didn’t matter when Gerald Ford moved Kennedy’s back would up to his neck and stated that lie as a fact to the American people.

The End Game
The misidentification in this is epic. There is a thread running through this episode that speaks of intimidation. We know there were witnesses coerced into changing their testimony. Kennedy aide Kenny O'Donnell being a more well known casualty, so much so, he basically perjured himself at the Warren Commission. We never heard his account till House Speaker Tip O’Neil wrote of O'Donnell’s coerced testimony in his autobiography. He admitted to O’Neil he was under a lot of pressure but not by whom.

There is no decent explanation why men so experienced with firearms, apparently of good vision and of good sense, could make such a blunder. Roger Craig read “Mauser” on the breach of a rifle and preserved that witness to his dying day. As stated earlier, he said he heard Weitzman identify the rifle as Mauser as well. Roger became the last man standing to the controversy after the others have retreated and he casts a mystery over the proceedings but he surely wasn’t the only witness with troubling testimony. Though he stood his ground the opposition found ways to isolate him and cast him in the wilderness. He lost it all but never his ability to ruffle the status quo. All you need is one voice that never quivers. There are few heroes in this jam but Roger Craig stands like a rock. (And more than just the finding of the rifle--Deputy Craig testified to seeing Lee Oswald in places he should not have been. Craig is no stranger to controversy in many areas of that fateful day.)

So were the police officers browbeaten into changing their account of the discovery of the rifle? I think they were. After all, look at what happened to Roger Craig by not going along with the script. In comparison, the other police officers were left alone. It would be understandable for somebody to say to them, “You want to end up like Roger?”

But if coerced then by whom? Figure that out we’ll know what really went down on November 22. We’ll find out a lot of things. Things they don’t want us to know.

Sources
Mars, Jim, Crossfire; The Warren Commission 26 Volumes; Dallas Police Online Archives; O’Neill, Tip, Man of the House; Talbot, David, Brothers.

Oswald Had The Wrong Weapons

2011-06-07T07:23:00.000-07:00

Certainly the wrong ones from what he allegedly ordered. Take for example the .38 Smith & Wesson pistol. The company it was ordered from, Seaport Traders, had two models available. An expensive one known as the S&W .38 Special Commando and another version that was ten dollars cheaper. All the paperwork on this from Seaport Traders, since none was found in Oswald’s things, has him ordering the cheaper model. But when he was arrested in the movie theater, he had on his person the more expensive, Special Commando model.

Conversely, the alleged assassination weapon, the Mannlicher-Carcano is the wrong model too. Oswald is supposed to have ordered the rifle from Kline’s Sport Goods in March of 1963. At that time Kline’s was only selling the 36” length model. But found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository building was the 40” model that Kline’s was no longer stocking.

With one weapon, say the pistol, one can chalk it up to a clerical error; obviously mistakes happen. But this happened with the purchase of both weapons? Note also that Oswald is never known to have visited any local gun shop and bought any bullets. (It should be noted that the rifle came with no clip–where did he acquire it?) In his personal effects there were no receipts for their purchase or spare ammo boxes. Very odd since all gun owners have boxes of ammo about. It is intriguing to consider that when visiting the shooting range Oswald was seen to have plenty of ammo to practice with. Yet when he supposedly did the “deed” he only used four bullets in a six round clip. Maybe not so much would be required of the patsy in this event. And when using the pistol to allegedly murder police officer Tippit, he was using different brands of bullets, as marked on the brass. Of course, they are not sold individually. They have to come in boxes. Yet he has none. No one ever saw him buy any.

(Another curious fact at the shooting range was that Oswald was seen collecting spent hulls and pocketing them. I’ve wondered if Oswald never fired a shot that day, evidenced by no nitrites in the paraffin test, and he just simply tossed the spent rounds from the range on the floor to make it appear he took the shots.)

So here is another mystery in and already puzzling affair. And this is just a tiny fragment in a much larger display of fragments in the case. The paperwork is a mess too. In another article of mine, Who Bought The Guns?, I go into greater detail all the problems with that. Once you start down the rabbit trail you see how problematic the assassination is and how strange it all gets. Probably the most strangest thing is in the most simplest of acts, such as Oswald buying a money order to purchase a rifle. This is fastened with a multitude of complications.

I think the only viable explanation is that Oswald was provided the guns. A phony paper trail was created, and not a very good one at that, as conspirators probably had established methods to control a future investigation. The good ones plan ahead but were eventually sloppy and could afford to be. As sloppy as using for proof, a money order lacking the routing stamps to show it had been processed through the banking system (all three were missing) and then presented this flawed item for verification. So bad, it’s devoid of the alleged shooter’s fingerprints. It’s later found in the National Archives and nobody explains how it got there as that is a place for important documents to be stored and in the March of 1963, Oswald’s money order was just another instrument in circulation (though apparently not in the proper circulation as it should have ended up in the postal facility in Kansas City). In this last bit, it is as if they were safely compiling evidence before the crime was even committed! I don’t fancy that but one does wonder about such curious events.

The important thing with the guns is this: They were both upgrades. Call it an order error, a simple twist of fate or whatever you will, but Oswald won better guns out of this deal. He got a better quality pistol and in regards to the rifle, a longer barrel provides improved accuracy and range. It’s a short barreled weapon anyway, as the Mannlicher-Carcano was an Italian copy of a German Mauser carbine, the sort of short-barreled weapon that harkens back to the days of cavalry.

While Lee Oswald may have been a bit player in Cold War theater, and this can be discerned through his many peculiar actions, it has never let up. It’s called “Psyops” now for psychological operations. We see it today in the actions of Adam Gadahn, the alleged “American Al-Qaeda” spokesman spewing forth internet videos calling for violence upon the West. (For some odd reason also called the American Taliban but there is no evidence he speaks for them.) None of the mainstream media will tell the public what a faker this guy is. Even the New Media such as the Huffington Post referred to him as “a highly influential al Qaeda figure born in America…” Real name–Adam Pearlman. He’s not Arabic but Jewish and his grandfather was on the board of the Anti-Defamation League. Highly influential? Says who, the U.S. government? Who in al Qaeda says that about him? Remember who founded al Qaeda–elements of the CIA and MI6.
Gadahn/Pearlman supposedly converted to Islam in 1995 at the age of 17 but that may have been as real as Lee Oswald playing a Marxist on TV in 1963. (These players start out young–Oswald had his purported interest in communism under way by this same age.) As usual, it all amounts to one big deception by the major players.

So the smoke clears and it’s the same old thing we’ll never know about for certain. But there sure are a lot of footprints around here.

Sources
Armstrong, John, Harvey and Lee; Mars, Jim, Crossfire; The Warren Report

http://oswaldsmother.blogspot.com/2009/11/who-bought-guns.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/03/adam-gadahn-urges-muslims-kill-americans_n_871190.html

Bugliosi Takes To The Airwaves

2011-05-16T09:15:00.000-07:00

Vincent Bugliosi is out hawking a new book, Divinity of Doubt: The God Question
and appeared recently on the Alex Jones show. The former LA prosector gained fame in the late 1960s for putting away Charlie Manson and his gang for the Tate-Labianca murders. Years later Bugliosi gained the ire of JFK conspiracy researchers with his 2007 book, Reclaiming History. Ever boastful, Bugliosi called this 1600+ book (plus over 900 pages on CD-ROM) his “Magnus Opus” on the JKF assassination and did so once again on Jones’ radio program. The book itself is rightly referred to as a door stop and it belly flopped in the marketplace. It is no longer in print.

There is something basically smarmy about Bugliosi with his high-pitched slick talking lawyer swag. His arguing style, and to a certain extent, his writing style about the assassination bare similarity to that of a stage magician with slight of hand tricks and a pretty leggy model on side. Throw in some straw men to shoot down, plus an added dose of vitriol towards naysayers (i.e., conspiracy theorists) and the naivety of an audience that might not be familiar the particulars in the case, and he comes off looking sharp and on-game. I’ve called him the “King of the cherry pickers” as he often picks the evidence that supports the Warren Commissions’s lone gunman conclusion and largely ignores (when not discrediting) any contrary evidence.

Alex Jones tried to get Bugliosi to talk some about other issues, particularly the Kennedy assassination, but it quickly became apparent that Bugliosi didn’t want to entertain the notion, stating the lack of time to properly get into the issue. Jones did get him to talk about the shots from the grassy knoll, getting the standard reply, “There is no evidence of anybody seeing a shooter on the grassy knoll.” More on that in a few paragraphs.

But take notice of Bugliosi’s modus operandi–he says there is nobody seeing a shooter on the knoll. But what about the witnesses that heard shots coming from the knoll? He ignores them using the classic Bugliosi pass. The fact is, there are over fifty people that heard shots from knoll; everybody from Abraham Zapruder making his famous film, to Phil Willis whose photographs appeared in Look magazine to Bill and Gayle Newman lying on the curb protecting their children from shots they say they heard coming from the knoll. As it happens, too many to mention here.

This very similar to how Bugliosi dismisses the whole idea of there being a shooter on the knoll at all. He does this by stating the shooter has the wrong angle and that the kill shot would have passed through Kennedy’s head from ear to ear, rather than laterally from the front to back. Seems reasonable upon first assessment and I have to admit I was taken in by this when I first read it. But there is a catch–Bugliosi places the shooter in the wrong position behind the picket fence to being with! He does not believe any witness testimony so invents this scheme. My grandmother used to call this, “Having your cake and eating it too.” Indeed. Beware of this man’s arguments as they appear well upon first glance, but fade when more light is focused upon them.

Going back to the witnesses that saw activity on the grassy knoll, Tip O’Neill, on page 178 in his book, “Man of the House” cites both Kennedy aides Dave Powers and Kenny O’Donnell as saying they saw smoke rising from behind the picket fence on the knoll. And most importantly, they both heard shots coming from behind the fence as well.

However, the Master Cherry Picker not need ponder such difficulties. The song and dance must go on.

Sources
YouTube links:

Bugliosi on Alex Jones, May 11.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LD46_HQtzM

Jim Marrs rebuttal, May 12.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ9clQ-QA4k

High Noon In Badville

2011-05-08T08:22:00.001-07:00

“Madmen in power always need a fictitious ‘evil’ enemy to keep the game of war going, and keep the money flowing. Government is only able to grow and become more powerful by scaring the people about an outside enemy that is almost always manufactured and hyped by the government itself.”

Saman Mohammadi
The Excavator

I’ll give the the group that bumped JFK off one thing–at least they stuck to their story, flawed though it is, down through the decades. With the Mob hit on Osama bin Laden the official story had changed so many times one can’t help but think of the great bulk of malfeasance at work. On the face of it, much worse than the Kennedy assassination cover-up and the lies the public were told about that. An ill fated attempt at closure was remedied, but eventually ground to a halt. That seems to be the attempt here but it is so bizarrely imposed to make one wonder what precisely they are thinking. Are the adults still in charge?

By now, all are familiar with the yarn. First there was a big shoot out at the OK Corral. Nope, there was only one guy shooting who was easily dispatched. Then the Boogie Man was using women as human shields and they were killed. No, he wasn’t; only one women was allegedly wounded in the foot. We were told he was shot in resistance. No, he was shot in the head execution style instead. The glorious mansion turned out to be a rundown, nondescript cinder block building.

Over on the winner’s side, the picture of President Obama huddled with cabinet watching the event live on TV was contrived as well.

Obviously, there are problems with the narrative here. But no one in the mainstream press dares compare it to a series of lies. They are just a bunch of Court Scribes at this point taking it all with ease. Never mind the inconsistency. In many ways, this is no different than the way they handled the Kennedy assassination from 1963 or any other major news event till now. The only difference is the real independent press and commentators are on the Internet now. The news will out as long as the Net remains free. For how long is anybody’s guess.

Sleep with the Fishes
I thought it unsatisfactory they dumped the body in the sea. The body is the Prima facie evidence of what occurred–in other words, an irrefutable exhibit of fact. Down through history when the mighty foe is slain, the body is always put on display. Here, no such thing happens. Even the death photos are not to be revealed.

Even more puzzling is that no autopsy was completed. Of course, if bin Laden, was really killed in the manner they say, we know what he died of. However, a documented and photographed autopsy forms a trail of evidence. Evidence the government could use to prove their case. Evidently, the criminal enterprise that our government has become has grown so great in its hubris, that it no longer considers it necessary to prove anything. Their word will suffice. Or so they think. But the people that really think about things are not fooled.

The sheer incompetence shown with this basic course of action boggles the mind. Even the Bolivian authorities did an autopsy of Che Guevara’s remains which included fingerprints and photographs. They made sure the world knew they got the right guy. The body was put on exhibition, complete with CIA operatives standing by. Notwithstanding, for a major world superpower (i.e., Empire) to transgress like this addresses the political nature of the undertaking and how much they need to conceal. And what would that be? Did the Boogie Man really die years ago as former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Dr. Steve Pieczenik said in an amazing series of disclosures recently on the Alex Jones show? Or did the Seals rush in and kill a doppelganger? What we know of evidence in this affair is fuzzy to the point of being ludicrous and strains our notion of common sense. Which of course, only encourages endless speculation. I guess they learned their lesson with the 26 volumes of collected hearings and evidence the Warren Commission published. Never again. In those books are stored facts that contradict the Warren Report.

Ultimately, there is not, nor will the ever be, any independent verification of what happened. That should disturb everybody interested in the truth.

Timmy, We Hardly Knew Ye...
Every player needs an alias and Tim Osman was Osama bin Laden’s in the glory days of fighting Russians in Afghanistan. And he got this alias from the intelligence agencies he worked with (CIA, MI6, others) that also founded Al-Qaeda, the terrorist organization that allegedly materialized 9-11. There is so much mythology, high strangeness and haze surrounding bin Laden I cannot cover it all here. If you want to learn more, Saman Mohammadi at his excellent blog, The Excavator, will fill you in. (Forget Wikipedia as it only serves as a government propaganda tool.) Nonetheless, virtually nothing you’ll read in the mainstream is true on the man just as not much is true about Lee Harvey Oswald, and others like him. Suffice to say, the government basically took down one of its former employees.

This reminds me a lot of what L. Fletcher Proudy said in his book, JFK, in regards to the CIA’s chosen puppets. Men like the Diem brothers or Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. The Agency supports them as allies, builds them up, falls out of favor with them and finally, guns them down. If one wants a long life, it’s best not to work with the Agency. Bin Laden found that out–Lee Oswald did too.

An Egyptian newspaper published Osama bin Laden’s obituary in December of 2001. Whatever happen to him, he was by all accounts suffering from stage five kidney disease, meaning kidney failure, requiring dialysis by July of 2001. One can live a long time having kidney dialysis done three times a week but it needs to be administered by heath care professionals and needs constant attention. It’s not something a person ever recovers from. The “official” story ignores this important detail. So far, no reports of dialysis equipment being recovered.

High Noon In Badville
Not only were the 9-11 attacks one of the most tragic events in American history it was also one of the weirdest. There is so much going on with it, after a while the mind dulls to the relentless onslaught of particulars, each fact building on another to a huge pyramid of anomalies and seemingly unthinkable incidents. Everything from cell phones working at over 30,000 feet (impossible) to half a million tons of concrete and steel crashing to the ground with little notice on seismographic markers, to the put options being placed on airline stock of the exact hijacked airliners where a reported $100 million dollars were made, the evidence of the transaction located on the hard drives of the computers located in the Twin Towers. This rolling wreck never stops tumbling.

I’ve always been fascinated with how quickly they pinned this ghastly crime on bin Laden and Al-Qaeda within a few hours of the attacks before any investigation started. And nothing ever changed from that day forward, no matter how much investigating they did. The end result was–he’s guilty–that’s our story and we’re sticking to it. This is similar to Lee Oswald being apprehended within an hour of the assassination with the crime accredited to him which never changed either. In fact, a signed Dallas Police affidavit lists Oswald as President Kennedy and officer Tippit’s killer, dated at 1:40 PM that day. How is that for innocent till proven guilty?

Be that as it may, Osama bin Laden looks more and more like a patsy. The story of the former Company man gone rogue wears thin in places just as Lee Oswald, the Commie Marine, does. Oswald always had a cover and so did bin Laden. It’s called Legend building in the grand game; the old misdirection ploy stage magicians know so well. The cover is exposed a bit when bin Laden is in the Sudan using his wealth to rebuild some of the infrastructure there. Bad guys aren’t supposed to do that just as loners are not supposed to have a wife and kids and friends.

I guess only in a town as unlucky as Badville, where nothing is as it seems, can the outlaw die and return to be killed all over again. The truth is a mirage.

Sources:
Prouty, Fletcher L., JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy; Marrs, Jim, The Terror Conspiracy

Link:
http://disquietreservations.blogspot.com/

Book Review: Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery by Norman Mailer

2011-04-22T20:10:00.000-07:00

“Mailer, after all, was the sort of author who could both dazzle and infuriate, often within the space of a single paragraph. He was a major talent who could not keep himself from reminding you that he was a major talent, an astute observer of his moment, who tended to operate as if that moment were entirely his.”

David L. Ulin, LA Times Staff Writer

The trouble with reading books by Norman Mailer is there is too much of Norman in them. Such a dominating character in American literary art, to read him is to sense he is trying to dominate the reader as well. To “dazzle and infuriate” as David Ulin says above. His foray into the mysterious nature and ways of Lee Oswald in his Oswald’s Tale is a prime example of that. There are some new tidbits scattered about and his foray into Russia seeking new information regarding Oswald’s time there which is informative, but Mailer is sticking to the script. The Lone Gunman is staying alone. Much of the book features Warren Commission interview transcripts and abundant sections of written work by other authors (largely, Priscilla Johnson McMillan, interviewer of Oswald in Moscow in 1959 and Marina Oswald’s biographer and also, a known CIA dabbler which is never admitted to in this book.) Occasionally, Mailer throws in tasty little morsels of his own to consider.

Mailer back in the day, was a conspiracy believer and then at some point decided the evidence did not merit that view and joined up with the Lone Nut purists where he stayed during his final days. That influence can seen throughout the book. Mailer takes a conventional view of the life of Lee Oswald, though he seems fascinated with forays into his personal habits, idiosyncrasies and sex life. Ironic that Mailer explores Oswald’s sexual habits in detail while ignoring more celebrated topics, such as, was he an intelligence agent as his mother claimed? There are so many controversies here that Mailer never addresses as if he doesn’t want to dirty his hands with the thing.

How Mailer Deals With Controversy
Mailer resorts to the same parsing of selective evidence as Posner, Bugliosi, and a host of other Warren Report defenders do. That of course, comes as no surprise.

A case in point his how his handles Oswald’s street scuffle with DRE member Carlos Bringuier while handling out pamphlets for the pro-Castro FPCC which has Oswald arrested, provides him local media time and establishes his persona as a communist in the public’s eye.

But along the way something odd happens that lets us know there is more here than meets the eye. Because Oswald mails a letter to the FPCC headquarters in New York vaguely describing the altercation. The trouble is, it was postmarked before the scuffle took place. This one little thing casts doubt on this street tussle being a spontaneous affair and implies it was a preplanned event. In CIA parlance, Oswald was being built a Legend. A common procedure of spy-craft.

And how does our great American literary figure handle this? Mailer recruits cabalist traditions and Classical Hebrew, with notions of calling things into being so as to create one’s future. In Mailer’s words, “To say, therefore, that you have done something that you have not yet done becomes the first and essential step in shaping the future.”

Sure, sure. Mailer resorts to metaphysics while missing the obvious–that Oswald mailed the letter too early for what was apparently a contrived event. Earlier, Oswald had approached the DRE to offer his Marine experience to Carlos Bringuier to train them. He offered them a donation as well and was rebuffed on both counts. It should be pointed out here, that the all Cuban DRE was being trained and financed by the CIA. A fact that Mailer never points out to his readers. Evidently, Oswald was on a fishing expedition, doing the labor of a “dangle” for somebody or some agency.

Frankly, I am perplexed as to why he would resort to this. It’s Mailer the novelist speaking here, not Mailer the seeker of the truth. I find it hard to believe that he even has confidence in these words. It is an odd way to brush off the controversy and it just doesn’t work on many levels. For a man so brilliant to revert to this weirdness is absurd but Mailer does so with no shame at all.
I guess when the mind is made up that there can’t be a conspiracy; that Lee Oswald is only lurching from one delusion and flight of fancy to the next, with no greater cause in effect.

KGB Transcripts
While investigation Lee Oswald’s Russian period, Mailer gets access to KGB transcripts taken from bugs that were placed in Oswald and Marina’s apartment. Ample sections of these are reproduced in the book. Basically, I found them not to add much light on Oswald’s character and it all amounts to a lot of bickering between a newly married couple. It’s essentially boring.

However, one item stands out, and it’s another thing Mailer omits–and that is what language are they speaking in? While it is known that Oswald was an excellent Russian speaker, it is also known that during his time in Russia he didn’t show off that skill that much. He apparently did upon meeting Marina, who thought at first he was a local as he spoke with a Baltic accent. But when socializing with the Ziger family, they report he never spoke Russian in front of them, only in English to their father who understood English. Fearing being arrested for being spy, which he most likely was, Oswald never wanted this skill to be known to those who were listening in on him. It would denote a swift arrest for espionage.

Conversely, his wife Marina was apparently a very good English speaker but spoke little of it when she emigrated over to the United States. John Armstrong in his book, Harvey and Lee, states that he saw Marina’s handwritten notebooks in the National Archives and they were all in English. Lee wrote Marina letters in English to her while living in Russia and those are in evidence. Even mother Marguerite reveals in her Commission testimony detailed conversations she had with her daughter in law–conversations in English, without anyone to render in Russian. Yet Marina needs a translator to give her sworn testimony to the Warren Commission in 1964. What is going on here? Evidently, she was under similar pressures in America as Lee was in Russia. Which of course, would fashion her an operative as well. At any rate, both were in a Cold War contest to not reveal too much of who they are and what they know to the Big Players.

And all of this interesting stuff Mailer ignores to create his vision of Lee Oswald as Walter Mitty, with his visions of greatness, constantly encountering dead ends, seeing his destiny smothered before his eyes. The other Oswald, the one that was a shadow warrior for the Home Team, which would explain a lot of his mysterious undertakings, has no place in the narrative, Mailer’s narrative.

The Pay Off
So when the smoke clears we’ve got our lone gunman solely responsible for the act and it’s time to move along. It’s all a sad dream anyway. As I was reading this work, I kept getting the feeling that Mailer would rather have jotted this all down as a novel. After all, he considered the novel to be the apex of literary art, and art he had a gift for. He at times uses the same devices one does in fiction writing and those devices seem out of place, like when invents the metaphysical reason for Oswald’s forecast of a scuffle in a letter before the event happens to work his way out of that mess. This is what a fiction writer does–gives his character some luck out of nowhere to extract himself from a crisis. When Mailer doesn’t wish to deal with something troublesome, he ignores it. At times he seems set on exposing a deep truth and then veers off of it as it if the whole scene got too hot. Towards the end he refers to Lee Oswald as a ghost; the First Ghost he says. As if there are not hundreds of other ghosts haunting the American historical landscape. Once again, a metaphor better suited in fiction.

Oswald’s Tale takes off like it’s going to be an interesting, groundbreaking book, but that never happens as it fades into the same old thing for those of us familiar with the Oswald story. There are lots of fields left fallow, as Mailer never wants to deal with any of the major controversies in the case. After all, that might muddy up the nice, clean story being presented. Even at this late stage in JFK assassination research, by hundreds of researchers, Mailer still thinks the men selected to be a part of the commission were honorable and above reproach. You can still think that so long as your ignore their histories as Mailer does. Like many of his ilk, the Warren Report stands as the final authority on what happened and the House Select Committee on Assassinations, the last official government investigation conducted in the late 1970s, which concluded in its report there was a probable conspiracy, is given no consideration at all.

Oswald’s Tale is really the same account of Lee Oswald’s life the Warren Report told us, just with better prose.

The Sum Of All Things

2011-04-03T10:14:00.001-07:00

"The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The committee is unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy."

HSCA, Final Report, 1979

From the very beginning, the Powers that Be have treated the Warren Report as if it is the word of God, come down from on high, etched in stone. In the picture above, that big book almost looks like a stone tablet. Why, it might was well be Moses himself placing it in Lyndon Johnson’s awaiting hands. Later, he would tell Walter Cronkite that he never believed in the lone gunman theory. After second thoughts he asked CBS is delete the comment, under the grounds of National Security. A moment of candor we are not supposed to know about.

In a 1999 doctoral dissertation by Ross Frank Ralston, he relates an important concept in the study of the JFK. It is the principle of "hegemony" in the media. In other words, the ability of the certain players in the media to dominate others. According to Ralston, those main players are CBS and Time-Life in the way they presented the government’s case in the assassination. And early on, they set the standard as to how the assassination would be relayed to the public after the Warren Report was published in late 1964. The Warren Report, as Ralston summarizes is, "a man in a building shot a man in a car..."

However, there is more than one theory of what happened because there was another, and final, investigation launched in 1977 to become known as the House Select Committee on Assassinations. In this case they explored both the deaths of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Despite political infighting and government agencies lacking in openness and outright lying to the Committee (i.e., CIA) they final report published in 1979 concluded there was a possibility of a conspiracy in the deaths of Kennedy and King but they didn't have the means to continue any further investigation.

So we are left with two official government investigations both with different outcomes. The first, a lone gunman with no confederates; and the last, more than one gunman with a conspiracy in play.

What Ralston concentrates on in his dissertation is how the media focuses on the former, ignoring the latter, and extending into every possible area of the media from print to TV. In effect, the Warren Report becomes the sum of all things.

The Watch Dog Became The Lap Dog
The way the "Fourth Estate" functions with the Kennedy assassination has long been the fly in the ointment. It is a frustrating issue to examine. Where they should question, they accept without comment. Isn't one of the aims of journalism to research what the facts are? Research what you are told? After all, we are not living in Nazi state, right? In many ways the American press operates like a propaganda arm of the government. Joseph Goebbels never had it so good! One can view this behavior in the way they cover the official government investigations from JFK, to Watergate, to 9-11.

And therein lies the disconnect. The public will question what the are told; the mainstream press, largely, will not. The Watch Dog became the Lap Dog. No one in the American Press ever did a critical analysis of the Warren Report, the 26 volumes of collected evidence and hearings, from then till now. It is as if they wanted to prove the Government's story of what happened. And why? Probably because press independence is a thing of the past. Plus, there are many connections between the government and press at this point. As Carl Bernstein reported in a piece for Rolling Stone magazine in 1976, he found at least 400 CIA operatives in the press, either as volunteers or paid agents.

The internet itself has been a great boon to critical thought on JFK’s assassination. No other media outlet comes close. True, there is a lot of junk out there, misinformation out there from both sides of the issue. One ultimately needs to do their own research to filter out the nonsense. And as I have found in my own research, a careful examination of the evidence paints a totally different picture of the assassination and the surrounding events. Well, back in the day when there only three networks reporting the news it was easy to play cover for the Ruling Class. Or for that matter, cover up anything that status quo wanted. Of course they have their own shills in operation on the Internet now as well, but they are all just voices–their impact is diminished as there are so many more voices in opposition.

Various Machinations
Ross Frank Ralston does a good job at accounting the various machinations of CBS, Time and Life. It’s the standard mishmash of cherry picked evidence, straw man arguments, and slight of hand, misdirection ploys. These guys are good! And run this same game now. Just watch any History Channel or Discovery Channel documentary on the assassination of Kennedy and you’ll see the Warren Commission’s conclusion verified every time. If you take note of any of these documentaries, they aim is to support the government’s theories and claims on everything from assassinations to terror attacks. While there are too many to document in this post, you can download the PDF HERE (about 7.9 megs in size).

I would however, like to point out a few discrepancies that Ralston chronicles regarding the 1967 CBS Kennedy assassination documentary since so much malfeasance occurred masquerading as a legitimate journalistic investigation.

Such as, when they tell us that Oswald’s rifle, utilized by an expert could recycle the weapon in 5 seconds. (The Warren Report settled on 4.8 to 5.6 seconds.) Sounds reasonable, of course. The trouble is, they never alert the viewers that Oswald was never an expert rifleman and barely qualified on his last of three marksmen tests. Nor do they mention the three metal shims used to properly align the telescopic site, or a host of other problems with the lone gunman scenario. (And I might add, you can read about this and a lot more here on this blog.) And since then, a FOIA request has uncovered a CIA document that their own photographic analysis department concluded a time span of just 1.6 seconds, obviously far too fast for anybody to work the bolt manually.

Never the less, it’s interesting to see how they manipulate the facts so the man in the building is forever shooting at the man in the car. The Lone Gunman is an ever present character in documentaries like this since he’s the fall-guy to quash conspiracy. In CBS ballistics tests done with a Mannlicher-Carcano, which by the way, is a model they acquired, not Oswald’s original weapon, they used it to shoot up masonite and gelatin dummies to simulate bone and flesh. Their conclusion? Yep, one bullet could do all that damage on two men. The trouble is, they never showed what the spent bullets looked like. Did they resemble CE399, the so-called pristine bullet? We’ll never know for sure but my hunch is that it did not. It certainly didn’t at the Edgewood Arsenal test where experts fired at the radial bones in 10 different cadavers and all ten bullets were, as Dr. Joseph Dolce said in his report, “markedly deformed.” He was never called to testify for the Commission and his report was concealed.

One thing Ralston left out, which I think is particularly egregious of CBS, is the way they treated Orville Nix in this show. He, of the Nix film and a witness to shots coming from the grassy knoll was interviewed in such a way so they could edit the tape later so he was heard saying the shots came from the school book depository building. This bit of tomfoolery is what they Nazis used to make propaganda films showing Jews in the ghetto, living happily. Years later, another TV producer would pull the same stunt on Jim Garrison making him look like a nut saying there were 33 gunmen in Dealey Plaza. When actually, he was referring to the number of people involved in a conspiracy. Garrison thought only six gunman were involved in the slaying, which were cut out of the final broadcast in order to make him look like a fool. This is an example of the nasty games these people play under the guise of “journalism.” Yes, journalism for their Masters.

And this is why the Internet so great. They can’t do this now. It would be posted somewhere on the web. One can see why the Ruling Class despises this new medium so much and are constantly floating ways of controlling it. As we used to say, “The free press is free for whomever owns one.” Now we all do.

Epilogue
Look at the lengths the government goes to quash a conspiracy in the death of John F. Kennedy? If this case is so strong and so true, why go to all the trouble to manipulate witness testimony as the CBS did with Orville Nix, or Life Magazine’s notorious shuffling of the Zapruder film frames in order to fool the public in thinking all the shots came from the rear? What do they have to fear? Why do they want us to believe this myth they created, so strongly?

Probably because there is official history and there is what actually happened. They fear the truth and the public’s lack of confidence in them and their seat of power. Finally, they failed. The Majority do not believe the official fiction of what happened. They fail every time they have to resort to Nazi-style propaganda techniques in order to present their case, and by doing so, show us how weak their case really is.

Sources:
Fonzi, Gaeton; The Last Investigation; Law, William In The Eye of History; HSCA Report, 1979; Warren Report, 1964

Link:
http://www.geoarts.com/docs/jfk_dissertation.pdf

And Then Harvey Rode Into The Trailer Park

2011-03-14T08:20:00.000-07:00

“Harvey enters the duller reaches of the world, as if to add color to it by bringing forth sinister premonitions of future doom.”

William Henry Timmer has a childhood experience that while not too unusual at the time, though it would later become that. One summer day 1953 in an oil boom town of Stanley, North Dakota, a new kid showed up in his neighborhood. Scruffy, riding a beat-up bike with no chain guard, he hailed from New York and regaled Timmer and the other boys with stories of street gangs and razor fights. They were all impressed with this older, big city kid who went by the name of Harvey. Harvey Oswald.

But Timmer noticed there wasn't something quite right with this kid. He was older than the other boys in the neighborhood. Timmer saw that he carried with him Marxist literature. One odd thing was Harvey didn’t want to be seen by adults. When Timmer told Harvey and the other kids about some rabbits they had in a hutch and invited them all over to view them in his grandmother’s yard, Harvey came along till he saw Timmer’s mother appear out of their trailer. He then wheeled his bicycle around and rode off without saying a word or staying to see the rabbits.

Later, William Timmer reports, Harvey told him he was going to kill the president of the United States one day. When Timmer related this to his mother she told him not to ever associate with the boy again. He did not. Nor did he know where this boy lived, only that he came to their trailer park from somewhere south. He never saw Harvey after that summer or in the following years before they moved to Arizona in 1957.

Shortly after the assassination, Timmer’s mother, Mrs. Leslie Cole, sent him some newspaper clippings of Lee Oswald following his arrest for the murders asking him if this is the boy he met in Stanley ten years earlier. Timmer identified the man in the pictures as Harvey and his mother preceded to write President Lyndon Johnson a letter describing how her son met Oswald ten years earlier. This letter was forwarded to the Secret Service and from there to the FBI.

Both William Timmer and his mother were interviewed about this incident by the FBI. As with many controversial witnesses, they were never called to testify to the Warren Commission about this encounter with Harvey (Lee?) Oswald. Why? Conflicting records and timelines.

(FBI Special Agent, James Hosty, in his book Assignment: Oswald, tells of meeting Marguerite Oswald and asking her if she and Lee ever lived in South Dakota. She laughed it off, denying ever having lived there. Odd that Hosty got the wrong state in questioning her. It also shows how fast the ND story flashed around as Hosty’s question was posed just five days after the assassination.)

New York City, 1953
Marguerite Oswald moved herself and Lee New York for the purpose of being closer to her son form her first marriage, John Pic. All existing records indicate that Marguerite Oswald was employed for most of 1953 a various department and hosiery stores in New York. Meanwhile, Lee Oswald’s school records have him enrolled in PS #117 and later, PS #44. It was #117 that he was largely truant from, and court proceedings were launched to place Lee Oswald in The Youth House, a home for delinquent boys. Subsequent events had Oswald evaluated for the first and only time by a psychiatrist and interviewed by a probation officer.

The year of 1953 was filled with discrepancies in records and witness testimony. John Armstrong in his book, Harvey and Lee, documents in exhaustive detail the conflicting witness testimony and the disappearance of records pertaining to this and many other phases of Lee Oswald’s life. Take for example, Louise Robertson, who states she was employed by Marguerite Oswald as a housekeeper for six weeks to take care of their one bedroom apartment. Never mind the strangeness of hiring a maid for small apartment when Marguerite is supposed to impoverished, but Mrs. Robertson claims her employment ended as a result of Marguerite and Lee moving out of New York in the summer of 1953. However, the FBI obtain employment records from the Lady Orva Hosiery store which has Marguerite Oswald employed there from May to December of 1953. So she and Lee can’t be living in ND during this time, contradicting not only William Timmer and his mother, but Louise Robertson’s account of the Oswald’s leaving in the summer of that year.

This mess expands even larger than what I can describe here as there all kinds of strange happenings with all of this. John Armstrong documents how all of the family court records regarding Oswald in New York were placed in the FBI’s custody in December of 1963 by Judge Florence Kelley, for the sole purpose of being relayed to the Warren Commission. The FBI claims they were but only copies of the originals were sent. Subsequent attempts by later investigations, such as the ARRB (Assassination Records and Review Board) in the 1990’s, were unable to determine where the originals. No detailed list of the files has been found to make sure everything in Judge Kelley’s order was sent. And apparently something is missing because there are no report cards or school pictures from Oswald’s school days in New York.

So, all of Oswald’s school records are copies of the files and not originals. This is a common occurrence in the case. In fact, Armstrong goes on to state that all the records that the FBI turned over to the Warren Commission, regarding everything with Lee Oswald’s life were copies–never originals. Safe to say, find a copy of John Armstrong’s book to read the seemingly endless details on this and a lot more, as this pattern extends throughout Lee Oswald’s life.

Back To North Dakota
I found William Timmer and his mother’s account of what happened in ND in 1953 to have a ring of truth to it, despite the contradictions. After all, they are describing an Oswald we already know, complete with Marxist reading material. They are not publicity hounds seeking fame, nor did they ever try to make any money off their experiences. Besides that, there are quite a number of people that knew Oswald that report he hated being called Lee and preferred being called Harvey instead. All events like this, from assassinations to huge disasters like 9-11 reveal weird incidents with murky undercurrents. Spooky Harvey showing up in a way-out place like a trailer park in North Dakota carries with it a creepy, dislocated feeling. At least to me. This older kid hanging out with younger boys, playing the role of the tough guy, mouthing off about disquieting threats, builds to a collective whole. Harvey enters the duller reaches of the world, as if to add color to it by bringing forth sinister premonitions of future doom.

All of this has the hint of the doppelganger playing with us again. Either by a tease or just some higher-up agency manufacturing phony files to lead future investigators astray. Though this Harvey interlude has a tinge of the supernatural to it. Or maybe not that. Just sort of a borderline mysterious event with dubious meaning. Such as a few years ago when clowns were spotted around the country in vans offering children candy, bidding them to enter. Apparently, they never got any takers and then vanished from the American landscape. Just like Harvey did on his junky bike.

As former CIA director Richard Helms once said, “No one will ever know who or what Lee Harvey Oswald represented.” Maybe not, but somebody, somewhere, knows. Maybe that is why Marguerite cackled at Agent Hosty’s inquiry about living in South Dakota. Hey, you boys are so out of the loop you can’t even get the state right.

Sources
Armstrong, John, Harvey and Lee; Hosty, James, Assignment: Oswald

Book Review: JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy by L. Fletcher Prouty

2011-03-08T18:57:00.000-08:00

The hidden history of the Vietnam War

“We do not have precise answers as to why we gave U.S arms to Ho Chi Minh in 1945 and then a few years later provided Ho’s enemy, the French, with $3 billion of our arms. The situation is not supposed to be clear.”

L. Fletcher Prouty

The tile to L. Fletcher Prouty’s second and last book is a bit misleading. While Prouty does cover the JFK assassination and provides a good rationale for his murder by a gang of plotters, he spends a great deal of time in an area he knows very intimately–Vietnam. During his stellar career in the Air Force he was involved with clandestine operations there, going back to the early 1950’s when the French were still there and involved in a ground war with Ho Chi Minh’s army. Prouty provides the proper historical context the launched the war and why the Untied States got involved in the first place. And in Prouty’s view it started with the CIA’s involvement there. John Kennedy early on saw what the CIA was capable of doing behind his back with the Bay of Pigs fiasco. He saw the ramping up for war in Indochina and his attempts to thwart it by his signing of National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) #263 which would have gotten our forces out of Vietnam by 1965.

But Kennedy died, his successor Lyndon Johnson signed a NSAM of his own countermanding the order, and the rest is sad and tragic history.

The CIA and Vietnam
The final role towards the end of Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty’s military career was as liaison officer between the Joint Chiefs at the Pentagon and the CIA. He covers this in great detail in his book, The Secret Team, an excellent look into how the military-industrial-intelligence establishment works within the confines of the National Security State. In that book, Prouty shows the barrier between intelligence and the military becomes so blurred it’s hard to tell where one begins and the other ends. While The Secret Team may appear to be a dull read for some, but if you can pay attention long enough, the reader will be awarded with some amazing anecdotes and a glimpse of the behind the scenes maneuvering of intelligence operations.

The CIA under Allen Dulles went from being a “quiet arm of intelligence” for the president and expands instead into a covert action agency capable of overthrowing democratically elected governments and installing puppets that will be more friendly towards United States interests, mainly business. The Cold War against communism is the stated outward goal but there is a lot more going on out of sight which amounts to a high stake, deadly poker game.

One thing I found surprising was to learn is that the CIA was in control of all United State’s military operations in Vietnam from 1954 to 1965, when the Marines officially took over. You will not read that in most history books. You will not see that on any documentaries about the Vietnam War on TV. It’s part of the hidden history that every so often gets out. And our meddling there actually goes as far back to 1945 when the Japanese withdrew and the French, who had long been there using it as a colony moved back in to a people that thought their time for independence had come. Not exactly a view shared by the French and their business interests. From then to 1975, Indochina existed in a state of war in one form or another.

Of course, this all raises other questions. For example, when and how did the CIA get the authority, obviously not Constitutional, to conduct military operations using military personnel around the world as they saw fit? Col. Proudy tells us. The other secretive agency, the National Security Council didn’t want the military to have the responsibility of doing covert operations. So it was handed to the CIA in the NCS 10/2 Directive. However, they didn't have the men for combat operations so that gave birth to Special Forces, such as the Green Berets and the other outfits that followed.

Prouty tells us that Eisenhower was leery of this arrangement and he wrote the following note on the 10/2 Directive:

“At no time will the CIA be provided with more equipment, etc., than is absolutely necessary for the support of the operation directed and such support will always be limited to the requirements of that single operation.”

Well, that sounds reasonable even though Eisenhower might as well jotted down his desires to Santa Claus. Things went to hell by the time the Bay of Pigs invasion crashed and burned. And it’s gotten no better over time. It’s mirrored in the early combat operations conducted after the 9-11 attacks in Afghanistan which were operated by the CIA. The ongoing drone missile attacks are a further extension of that. It is now known they are running their own prisons in foreign countries. What is the legal and Constitutional basis for this? Because they can? Yes, of course–because they can. And Lord knows who are in this prisons and what treatment they are getting, or how many have died there, or what their faces look like.

Going back to Vietnam, Prouty views it as two-sided civil war. One side is the communists waging war against the non-communists. The second side is the forced relocation (from a Geneva peace accord) of the northern people, the Tonkinese Vietnamese, 1.1 million strong to south Vietnam. A different people with a different culture and religion (Catholic as opposed to the southerns that were Buddhist), they over whelmed the infrastructure of the south. Prouty sees this as one of the major causes for the war in Vietnam. From this, the Viet Kong guerrilla army emerges. And not because they start out being communists, but because they fear being pushed out by the Northerners and took up arms against them in order to survive. Into this cauldron is sent the young blood of this nation to be shredded. First with special forces and later the Marines.

L. Fletcher Prouty wants us to know it’s a war the CIA got us into. And John Kennedy saw it coming by issuing NSAM #263 which Proudy says he helped coauthor.

The End Result
Despite being such a good chronicler of the entanglement of the Vietnam war
and John Kennedy’s behind the scenes struggles with power brokers, L. Fletcher Prouty stumbles a bit here and there. For example, he lists one of the ships involved in the Bay of Pigs invasion listed as the Zapata, but none where. Look at the declassified CIA memo HERE to see the ships involved. In another section I found odd was the account of Richard Nixon and where he was on the day of the assassination. It’s quite well documented that he was in Dallas the night before, for a Pepsi bottler’s convention, Nixon being the lead council, and flew out the day of, at 9:00 A.M. Yet Prouty insists that Nixon was in Dallas at the moment of the assassination which would put him there at past noon. It simply can’t be from everything that has been published on the case. True, Nixon does change his story many times in regarding to his actions on that day. So I was mystified as to why Prouty would get this wrong since he is generally spot-on with the other issues he deals with. Basically, I get the feeling he is more versed with the issues he dealt with personally in his military career, both as a participant and an observer. Never the less, it is odd he makes these sort of mistakes in his accounting as he seems spot on with everything else.

Though the book has “JFK” in the title and his picture on the cover, there is not much here in regards to his death or a conspiracy. You’ll read more about that in Oliver Stone’s forward (the director of JFK would model the Mr. X character after Prouty).

L. Fletcher Proudy comes off as the honest insider. Everything he says that he has experience with and first hand knowledge of, has a ring of truth to it. And you can be sure it’ll be something you never read anywhere else or thought of before.

Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing (November 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1602397317
ISBN-13: 978-1602397316
Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches

Errata
The latest version of JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy has a new and additional forward by Jesse Ventura.

The Secret Team
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1602392293/ref=rdr_ext_sb_ti_sims_1

The Blabber Mouth Theory

2011-02-26T08:50:00.000-08:00

“Probably no one seriously involved in investigating UFO reports has escaped the hydra-headed debunking machine and its many busy attendants.”

Bud Hopkins

“In Washington they say, if two people know, it can’t be a secret.”

John B. Alexander

Though I only have a casual interest in the UFO phenomena I was intrigued with a recent broadcast (2/20/11) on Coast to Coast AM, hosted by George Knapp with retired Colonel John B. Alexander and his new book, UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities. A lot of his comments reminded me of the Warren Commission’s defenders and their arguments against conspiracy. Col. Alexander, a career military officer, was involved with intelligence and many esoteric endeavors such as the “men staring at goats” experiment and other government program weirdness. Along the way, he got an interest in UFOs and was allowed to launch a study group. Yes, the Army version of the X-Files! He interviewed everybody within the National Security index and those in the military-industrial side as well. Alexander comes across as affable, very knowledgable and sincere, open minded with an air of authority on which he speaks.

However, his conclusions are forgone; while Alexander admits there are solid cases such as the Phoenix Lights and Rendlesham Forest incident he says there is no formal government policy to cover-up the UFOs. (I wonder if he would assume the same about conspiracy with JFK’s death?) When it comes to the realities, the main stories of the lore are the myths. There is no perceived threat to National Security so no need to get involved. In other words, I’ve looked into it and there is nothing to it–trust me–don’t worry your little head over it.

A closer examination of his statements reveals him to be another servant of the National Security State with the same old flat arguments. In many ways he maneuvers like any Kennedy conspiracy debunker, though a more gentlemanly version of one. He doesn’t resort to Bugliosi-style sarcasm and verbal abuse. Gosh, it would be nice to see a JFK anti-conspiracy debunker with this much class and seemingly fair mindedness. He portrays the man of the Open Mind though all the while, we know he’s not going to go along with any major assertions. The Phoenix Lights event he’ll acknowledge is a real phenomena but ultimately a mystery requiring more investigation. The major cannons of UFOlogy, such as the MJ-12 docs and the Roswell crash, are dismissed as hoaxes. Come what may, virtually no Warren Commission supporter will walk this fine a line. It’s all or nothing with that gang.

Everything In Washington Leaks
“Everything in Washington leaks,” says Alexander. Here is ground that has been plowed too many times. The good Colonel resembles a Warren Commission acolyte. How many times has this slogan been trotted out? Okay, how does the CIA, NSA, DIA, ONI and many other agencies stay in business? They should be gone by now if they had this many leakers. This old, tired, “nobody can keep a secret” nonsense is the classic argument against these controversies and has long been used against the JFK conspiracy researchers. Ironic that it comes from Colonel Alexander, himself being an intelligence officer with access to classified information. Has he blabbed anything? How insulting a question! That is wrong in so many different ways I could write a whole blog posting on that issue alone.

In the National Security State secrecy is the foundation of the security. In Colonel L. Flecher Prouty’s books, The Secret Team and JFK, compartmentalization is the key to containing and maintaining secret operations. Prouty would be in the loop since he was the liaison officer between the CIA and the Joint Chiefs at the Pentagon. He’s one of the insiders that let us know how the National Security State functions. One can see quite a difference between the two Colonels and how they view this issue. Prouty on one hand illustrates the need for concealment of information and operations and the processes and procedures that make it work; Alexander acts like there are no methods or procedures in place at all or if there are, they are useless. Because of this, I sense a great deal more truthfulness with Prouty. Alexander acts like these things are boring and ho-hum, striped of mystery and intrigue. He knows better.

The Blabber Mouth Theory
Another issue Col. Alexander breaches is that there isn’t any secrets that are “Above Top Secret” that the President as Commander in Chief isn’t privy to. There is if you simply don’t tell him! Kennedy ordered the CIA to stand down on assassination attempts on Castro but they didn’t–nor did they tell Kennedy anything about their ongoing operations against Cuba or for that matter what they were doing in running all military operations in Vietnam until the Marines took over in 1965. And most telling is when Jimmy Carter asked for the CIA’s UFO information and the director, at the time George Bush, told him to go to Congress. In brief, he was dead-ended. So was Bill Clinton’s early AG, Webster Hubble which Mr. Clinton asked him to look into the Kennedy assassination. He ran into the wall too. Alexander makes no mention of Carter’s run-in with the Secret Team as he wants everything to be normal to the point of dullness. Of course it’s not.

I once worked with a guy once that worked in the inner halls of government. He knew everybody from Ronald Reagan to Linda Tripp. And he admitted there were levels of classification so high the President wasn’t privy to them. He thought it was a good thing. I of course, did not. To witness Alexander deny this is quite telling and lends plausibility to his critics that he is a disinformation agent.

Col. Alexander was so adamant about people not keeping secrets George Knapp asked him, “So you’re of the belief that nobody can keep a secret...even by the military?” That’s when Alexander responds with the quote above about two people knowing something then it’s no longer a secret, which is ridiculous. One of the main jobs of intelligence operatives, both military and civilian, is the collecting and keeping of secrets. He knows it and backpedals a bit by saying that a secret can be kept for a “short period of time.” Perhaps he thought better of impugning the integrity of those people working in intelligence that work hard at keeping information under wraps and in some cases put their lives on the line to do so.

Besides, there is a certain prestige associated with keep information concealed. I’ve signed three nondisclosure agreements in the course of my professional life. I’ve never spilled the beans on any of them, even now with two of those projects no longer operational. In the military there is little prestige as violating a signed oath is rewarded with prison time, as the Navy enlisted men found out after the John Kennedy’s autopsy. They all had to sign nondisclosure agreements and were all read the riot act if they ever breathed a word of what they saw and experienced that night. (Fortunately, those former Navy personnel that were interviewed for the ARRB in the late 1990s were given a waiver. That’s how we know about the ordering of the signed secrecy agreements.)

Be that as it may, the Blabber Mouth Theory holds no value and is a weak argument that is constantly used against conspiracy advocates. People do conspire, that is why it’s criminalized.

The Debunking Way
UFO investigator Bud Hopkins in his article, Deconstructing the Debunkers: A Response, made the following point: 

“It’s long been understood that debunking and skepticism are two very different things, the former, an artifact of rigid ideology and the latter an objective, scientifically-inclined position.”

That is what it appears. Though over time it seems that both debunking and skepticism has involved into the same thing. A rigid mindset whose purpose is to scoff, downplay and discredit controversial claims and beliefs. In this case, controversial since it doesn’t go along with the flow. Such as when people don’t believe what government investigators tell them about a plane crash (flight 800), an assassination (JFK, RFK, MLK, MX), a bombing (Murrah Building) and a terrorist attack (9-11). The Ruling Class does not like us exposing their deceit. So on the offensive they go, either from volunteers or paid shills. People like skeptic Michael Shermer publish a magazine to support the status quo and make a career out of it. Whatever the government says is the gospel for these people. Only the critics get scanned for their claims or errors. And of course to the Shermer crowd, the critics are always wrong.

So debunking and skepticism is really a means to an end. The way the Ruling Class defends its turf. Just say the words, you don’t have to mean them. They will sound good. In the mix, real history and what actually happened gets lost in a maze of trails. It’s lensed through the words of the winners and the losers have to fight for shelf space. With the rise of the Internet everybody has the ability to self-publish and self-broadcast. Now both sides can square off and do battle for what represents the truth. One good thing is they will no longer be able to edit the tape so Orville Nix is heard saying that he heard shots coming from the building and not the grassy knoll–and it was the knoll he heard shots from–and he is left with no platform to refute the deception.

It’s so nice to be truly free. While it lasts.

Sources
Prouty, L, Fletcher, The Secret Team and JFK; Marvin, Daniel, Expendable Elite

Coast To Coast AM Radio Show
http://www.coasttocoastam.com

Bud Hopkins, Deconstructing the Debunkers: A Response
http://www.intrudersfoundation.org/Deconstruct.html

It’s All In The Theater!

2011-02-23T08:13:00.000-08:00

“Is everything a conspiracy? No. Only the important stuff.”

Jeff Wells, Rigorous Intuition

People often lose sight of the irony of Lee Harvey Oswald, a man arrested in a theater, in essence spent his time on earth playing a form of real theater--Cold War Theater. Inspired by the TV show, I Led Three Lives, Oswald now plays it out in real life. He plays such roles as the malcontent, the loser, the loner, the friend, the Marine, the Marxist, the jerk, the family man, the Cold War spy, and finally the assassin, all rolled up in one. And very few of these roles are real. In this light we see the maze of a contradictory life coming together in one almost cohesive whole. It’s still disorderly, with mysteries forever abounding, but at least get a glimpse of what played out, those very things they don’t want us to ever know, as our history becomes one massive National Security Secret.

Marine Days
It starts out in the Marines when Oswald’s medical records indicate he was treated for contracting gonorrhea. As the record states, “In line of duty, not due to own misconduct.” The phrase itself is fascinating. Nothing more heroic as catching the clap in service to one’s country. Where did the doctor get the nerve to write such a thing? He was most likely ordered to as contracting an STD is normally grounds for dismissal from the service at that time. Apparently somebody needed him to do more than just operate a radar station and gave him a pass on these indiscretions. Like they did with his two court marshals.

More peculiarities abound because when he was being diagnosed and treated for gonorrhea. His health records state he was treated seven times in September and early October by the medical staff at Atsugi–only his Marine unit diary says he was not there, but on a ship steaming to Taiwan.

Some have speculated that he may have been flown back and forth but that is highly unfeasible. The records could have been falsified to provide cover for Oswald’s other activities. He has a pattern of taking cover jobs to go about doing other things. And these things leave trails–conflicting and often confusing trails. After all, there are false records in his SIG 201 file at the CIA. Numerous documents in other government agencies play Scrabble with his name in various variations of Oswald Lee, Harvey Oswald, and so on. He has a pattern of “fronting” which leads to doppelganger speculations.

Oswald’s Marine medical records also state that he is given a course of penicillin for tonsillitis. Yet his childhood medical records state he had his tonsils removed at the age of six. It may very well be cover for another infection of gonorrhea. If so, yet again, he’s given another pass and the doctor can’t write the same excuse with a straight face again without being called out.

At times Lee Oswald appears to be not so much a person but a Project.

In Russia
Theater apparently plays well in Russia. Lee Oswald’s journey there, his years there, and his return home are but many segments of the play. While an involved subject I’ll mention only several instances here. One could write a whole book on the Russian defection phase of Oswald’s life.

First is Oswald’s dumping of his U.S. citizenship. He does so by writing an undated later renouncing it. Actually, to legally surrender U.S. citizenship one must fill out a “Certificate of Loss of Nationality.” Which Oswald never did. His passport files at the State Department would have been flagged. They were not. The handwritten letter meant nothing legally. It’s all for show. This way, should he decide to come back to the United States, or perhaps ordered to do so, he could. And he did. And ultimately, the main decider of who is legally a citizen is the Attorney General. Which of course, was Robert Kennedy.

When his mother asked him why he came back he replied, “Mother, not even Marina knows why I came back.” Well, that’s weird. I guess he couldn’t tell her he was ordered to come back by whoever his handlers were.

(Filling the Certificate of Loss of Nationality, established in 1907, was free till just recently; now the government charges around $400 because so many people started doing it to avoid paying taxes. Also, it is wise to arrange for a passport affiliated with another country should one try something like this.)

Secondly, Oswald vows to spill everything he knows about being a radar operator at the Atsugi airbase in Japan. This is the base where the U2 spy planes were flying out of, where Francis Gary Powers was stationed, and was basically a CIA run operation. It’s been debated about how much Oswald knew while stationed there and how high his security clearance was. In the long run it doesn’t matter–whatever he knew the military had to change out all of their codes upon the news of this landing. A safe move even if Oswald knew nothing.

However, admitting to releasing this information to an arch enemy at the height of the Cold War is a breach of National Security and something that could of gotten Oswald arrested; either at the American Embassy in Moscow or upon his return to the United States. Once again, nobody seems to care.

And when he gets back home they continue not to care when Oswald lands a job at Jagger-Chiles-Stovall, a photography and mapping company that specialized in classified government and military work. Peculiar to the outsider of such things but most likely not if you are a dangle out fronting.

New Orleans
Oswald’s Cold War theater hits its stride in the summer of 1963. By this time the Kennedy administration had survived the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961 and the 1962 stand-down with the Soviets over the missiles in Cuba. Lee Oswald has begun his main acting job in the town of his birth. He takes a job at the Reily Coffee Company. According to Judyth Baker, former co-worker, alleged lover and author of Me and Lee, Oswald’s job at the Reily Coffee Company was a cover, with her faking his time cards with the owner’s consent so Lee cold run “ops.” The time cards are in reprinted in her book with her “J” on them. Sounds a bit of a stretch, but Hunter Leake, the second highest CIA official in the New Orleans station gave an interview in the early 1980’s where he said he hired Oswald out as a low level currier and that his presence in New Orleans in the summer of 1963 was at the behest of the CIA. Leake further states that after the assassination he was ordered to collect all files on Oswald and personally deliver them to Langley. The cover up was on.

The Fair Play for Cuba Committee drama was the apex of Oswald’s activities durning this period. Using his alias, Alek Hidell, Oswald becomes the one-man branch of the outfit. Just about everything going on with this is phony. He’s seen all over the place handing out pamphlets, some with addresses of people such as Guy Bannister, staunch anti-communist, and some with no addresses at all. No fellow travelers are going to be able to get in touch with him by doing this. He contacts Carlos Bringuier, of the DRE, the Cuban anti-Castro organization (financed and directed by the CIA) and offers his services as a former Marine to help them in their training. He gets rebuffed. Later, he mets up with Bringuier and two other Cubans (all three, being FBI informants) and engages in his famous street scuffle on Canal Street which gets him arrested with press coverage to establish his public credentials of being a communist. This will be blazed to the world after the assassination. His trip to the DRE appears to be a fishing expedition; after all, what pro-Castro guy would want to help out the very group that is out to overthrow his man? To add to the fakery he writes a letter to the FPCC headquarters in New York relating the incident. However, the letter is postmarked 5 days before altercation takes place. Oops! Nothing like having your own secret agent man with hidden psychic powers!

Later, Oswald will appear on a radio debate program, Conversation Carte Blanche, with Carlos Bringuier, Bill Stuckey and Edward Butler (all three men are affiliated with the government in some capacity). Bringuier gave Oswald a hard time about his years in Russia and his communist background. In a major “oops” moment he blurted out the following: “I was under the protection of the....that is to say, I was was not under the protection of the American government.” In the transcript of this in the Warren Commission evidence volumes, the part above in bold is edited out. It’s only in listening to the original recording can this be heard.

Sometimes the truth outs. Oswald’s misspoken comment and quick turn-around is reminiscent of Secretary of Defense William Rumsfeld’s blurting out at a press conference that indeed, the plane that crashed in Shanksburg was shot down. It’s a quick peek behind the curtain. Was it a Freudian slip or was it real?

The Long Road Beyond
There are many more instances of Lee Oswald being an actor, albeit a small one on a much larger stage in the 1960s and on two continents. From Russia, to New Orleans, to the mysterious trip to Mexico, Oswald’s seemingly haphazard life does feature hints of direction. His actions in the summer of 1963, while appearing devoid of purpose and at times batty, is the window dressing. In his things after the assassination was found a rough draft of a speech. It’s decidedly anti-communist. A curious find for someone so ideologically bent against capitalism and the free enterprise system. Is that crudely drafted speech a glimpse of the real man behind the curtain?

It’s all a collection of footprints in the sand. Follow the trail.

Sources
Bugliosi, Vincent, Reclaiming History; Mars, Jim, Crossfire; Baker, Judyth, Me & Lee; Armstrong, John, Harvey and Lee; Garrison, James, On the Trail of the Assassins

A Long Road From Kilgallen To Casolaro

2011-02-09T18:59:00.000-08:00

“The Octopus – Eight people who changed the course of the world, a real life “Mission Impossible” team whose gifts exploited the secret empires of rouge spy networks, big oil and organized crime.”

Handwritten note of Danny Casolaro

"That story isn't going to die as long as there's a real reporter alive, and there are a lot of them alive."

Dorothy Kilgallen

“What very few historians or other people have grasped is that intelligence has been institutionalized in our country. When the CIA was invented in 1947, we began to encrypt our history. The CIA charter said it shall be an ‘engine of conspiracy...’ ”

Jim Hougan, noted expert on Intelligence

As always, there is a pattern to the way things work in the world. When you focus not so much on events and deep politics, and on the investigators themselves, another pattern emerges. The pattern of those people that get too close to the truth. And two such people were national columnist and What’s My Line regular Dorothy Kilgallen and journalist Danny Casolaro. Both died under mysterious circumstances, Kilgallen from an alleged accidental drug overdose and Casolaro from an alleged suicide. Both said shortly before their deaths they were on the verge of big breakthroughs in their investigations. For Kilgallen, it was her research into the death of John Kennedy. For Casolaro, he was deep into investigating the theft of Inslaw’s PROMIS software. Both received warnings and death threats for their involvement with these investigations.

You Can’t Know Everybody’s Business
For many years the CIA issued an assassination handbook to each new intelligence officer. (It is unknown if it is still issued.) It mentioned various methods, guns, knives, stealth and so on. It also had sections on making the assassination look like an accident. Simulated suicide of a victim is not mentioned though seems like a viable method along with many mentioned in the manual. As stated in section #2, Accidents:

“For secret assassination, either simple or chase, the contrived accident is the most effective technique. When successfully executed, it causes little excitement and is only casually investigated...”

The key point is “casually investigated.” And that was certainly the case in Kilgallen’s death. The NYPD never interviewed the hairdresser that discovered her body. Suicides and accidental drug overdoses more than anything else provide cover. But, nothing is perfect and loose ends generally abound. Such as the suicide victim that is left handed but the gun is found in the right hand. Or in Danny Casolaro’s case, an aversion to blood and then found almost drowning in it.

So you can’t completely know everybody’s business, their personal habits, likes and dislikes. So if you wanted to off somebody and make it look like an accident or a suicide there are always going to be something out of place.

Two Bodies, Two Paths, Same Trail
Danny Casolaro was found in a Sheridan Hotel room tub filled with his own blood, his wrists deeply slit in August of 1991. His brother Tony, a doctor, pointed out that Danny was terrified of blood or anything to do with it. To take his own life that way and perish in his own blood is unconscionable. Oddly, his body was quickly embalmed without the Casolaro family’s consent. An autopsy was performed and traces of two antidepressants, Hydrocodone and Tricyclic were found in his system. Danny was never known to use drugs of this nature. They never found any prescriptions for them or medicine bottles for such drugs. No other drugs were found in his system. The only health problem discovered were Multiple Sclerosis lesions found on the brain. There was no past indication of any mental health issues. Being a writer there was nothing in his notes of having such issues.

On the other hand, if the death of Dorothy Kilgallen was a faked overdose of alcohol and barbiturates, it was done by people that had little knowledge of her or her personal habits. Dorothy’s body was discovered by her hairdresser, Marc Sinclaire on the morning of November 8, 1965. Immediately he knew things were wrong when he discovered her in the third floor bedroom of the townhouse–normally she slept in the fifth floor bedroom. She was found sitting up in bed, still wearing her make-up, false eye lashes, false hairpiece and earrings from the previous night’s TV show. Normally, she would never go to bed in this state. She was not wearing her regular pajamas, but instead a blue matching peignoir and robe. A book was on her bed, but upside down, a book she finished reading two weeks earlier. Her reading glasses were nowhere nearby. The air conditioning was on though there was no need for it being a crisp fall morning in Manhattan.

The autopsy showed her to be in overall good health, but tests found her to be over the legal limit for alcohol consumption. The cause of death would be ruled as "acute ethanol and barbiturate intoxication, circumstances undetermined." However, in 1968, a newer method of chemical detection was developed and using Kilgallen’s saved tissue samples, proved that she died of a lethal mix of three barbiturates: secobarbital, amobarbital and pentobarbital. Acute barbiturate intoxication indeed! It should be noted her favorite drink included the ingredient, quinine, which can be used to mask the taste of barbiturates. Never the less, these drugs were never found in her home and like Casolaro, there were no prescriptions or pill boxes for these drugs.

Even more peculiar was the name of the pathologist that appeared on the death certificate. Dr. James Luke, a New York City medical examiner, did the autopsy. However, another physician, Dr. Dominick DiMaio had his name signed on the death certificate. When questioned about this Dr. DiMaio said he didn’t know why his name was signed there as he was not working out of Manhattan. As he said in a 1995 interview in Midwest Today magazine, “I was in Brooklyn. Are you sure I signed it? I don't see how the hell I could have signed it in the first place. You got me." If this is true, his name was forged.

Missing Files
Incidentally, upon their deaths, both people had their research papers and files disappear. It’s odd because there is no reason to it. If Casolaro did commit suicide, then what did he do with his briefcase that he always carried with him? (While his briefcase may have vanished, his other files and notes were at his apartment not bothered. His family retrieved them.) The disappearing of documentation is suspicious as it’s unrelated to the event but too important a piece of evidence just to fade into nothing. If he was not murdered and made to look like something else, such as an accident or a suicide, then why do these important things go missing?

With Kilgallen her death is considered an accidental drug overdose. If that is so, then why does her JFK research file disappear upon her death? It was unknown what it contained but she did the last known interview with Jack Ruby and her file most likely contained the notes of that interview. The FBI has shown an interest when they found out her son was searching for the file in 1975, ten years after her demise. They inquired of him if he had found it yet; he had not and evidently never did. Notice the FBI, supposedly having solved the case within 24 hours in 1963, still has an interest in her files. What more could they possibly learn from that?

With Casolaro there is the cut wrists, the razor blades and the suicide note. The cause of death and the resulting evidence looks straight forward despite several kinks. The same with Kilgallen in how her body was found. It all comes down to the missing documents. The missing files are the most suspicious part of this type of event and create an air of intrigue, a sense that there is more going on than meets the eye. If the files had not gone missing there is nothing to ponder save the tragedy of the event.

Convergence
Wikipedia, in their entry on Danny Casolaro states his investigation of the Octopus is a “conspiracy theory.” Seems to me, a theory can’t get you killed or cause your things to vanish. Wikipedia, while a good source for quick information is a New Media online outlet that in many ways operates like the Old Media did, or what is left of it still does. Read what you will about JFK, 9-11, or the Octopus with caution. You will only get part of the story from whomever the anonymous posters are.

Cheri Seymour, author of the The Last Circle, probably the best book on the Casolaro/Octopus/Inslaw affair, chronicles just how deep a conspiracy it really was and how deep it runs and branches out into so many other areas of lawless activity. She interviewed many of the same people as Casolaro did and gathered much of the same facts and documentation, if not more. To try and put this complicated story simply, the Inslaw company developed a database program called PROMIS which through a series of maneuvers, was pirated by the Department of Justice, reengineered with a backdoor and sold by the government to spy on other governments around the world, friends or not. Seymour eventually shows how PROMIS could be used for international money laundering from illegal drug trafficking. Sounds pretty wacky, huh? Just read it and check out her documents in the back. If you can read her book and not see a criminal conspiracy in operation here, then you can’t handle the truth of the way the world actually works.

Dorothy Kilgallen on the other hand seems to get better treatment though they have to use the John McAdams as a source, which leads to an article by an McAdams’ acolyte, Eric Paddon. Staying in style, it presents just enough information to make a Warren Commission critic appear to be a kook, in this case, Kilgallen, which is easy to do by selectively editing the facts as Paddon does. That is the M.O. of these guys whether it is McAdams, Paddon, Bugliosi and Posner–they are all cherry pickers of the evidence. They have to be in order to make it all work out right. Too bad they don’t put the government’s claims under the same withering inspection. I won’t go into the Kilgallen piece here, not because the evidence presented is so damning–but more of an issue of why bother haggling with such closed minds that use selective fact checking to build a case on something. Never the less, most of the controversial things I’ve mentioned here you won’t read on Wikipedia about this case.

By and by, Wikipedia serves to enforce the views of the status quo on the Internet under the guise of the free flow of information.

Summary
In Kilgallen and Casolaro we have two diligent and brave truth seekers that both met untimely deaths just as they were about to pull the covers off of closely held secrets and there is much here to tie them in a pattern. It is more or less the same pattern investigators of high crimes and deep politics stumble into. I just don’t understand why people in this line of work, when playing ball with the Big Boys, don’t find better ways of protecting themselves. At least have a can pepper spray available if you are not going to carry a gun. Bad people know there are lines the good people won’t cross–and they use that to their advantage.

Whether both were murdered or not is still a matter of speculation. One can never know for sure till new witnesses come forward or new evidence is discovered. However, if they were both murdered it was of no use in the long run as killing journalists does not stop the pursuit of the truth. As Dorothy Kilgallen wrote about the assassination of JFK, "That story isn't going to die as long as there's a real reporter alive, and there are a lot of them alive."

Amen! Indeed. It goes on forever.

Sources
Seymour, Cheri, The Last Circle; Proudy, Fletcher, L, The Secret Team; Gordon, Thomas, Secrets and Lies

CIA Assassination Manual Online
http://www.frankolsonproject.org/Documents/Assassination%20Manual.html

A Tour of the Dallas Police Department Archives

2011-01-16T20:43:00.001-08:00

Dallas Police Department Files Reveal Their Secrets...And Mysteries

Ever since it was announced that the Dallas Police Department was going to be placing their JFK evidence online (link HERE), I’ve been meaning to go through it and finally did. It’s a rather tedious task. The layout of the web page is certainly last century; there is no search though an index is provided. The links on the page are listed as boxes, and clicking those links takes one to another page filled with links for the scanned documents in GIF format. There is a code number for each GIF supposedly related to each box. But that is so jumbled up that some files that should be in Box 10 are actually in Box 15. The photographs are the worst part; they are badly scanned and for all purposes, unusable. For much better copies of the photos you have to go the online archive at The Portal to Texas History web site (linked HERE). Some of the other scanned documents are unreadable, some are blank pages, and many are a rambling series of seemingly unnecessary duplicates. Never the less, even a blind hog can find an acorn and there are quite a few to be found here.

So, after plodding through most of them during the holidays I have created this post as list of the highlights. Some of this is trivia, some a new take on old evidence and other items are just flat-out mysterious. Who knows, maybe some of this stuff is only of interest to me, but I’m hoping some of the information presented here will be of some enlightenment to readers and researchers.

J. D. Tippet’s Personnel File
Officer Tippet’s personnel file makes for an interesting read. Just about everything is listed in Box 8 and also Boxes 16-17. He joined the Dallas Police Department in 1952.

First off is J. D. Tippet’s Rorschach evaluation conducted by H. M. Chapman. Here it is in full:

“This man appears to be wholly devoid of any imaginative facilities. His percepts are predominantly the most common. His range of interest and achievements is quite limited, seen in his very narrow associational content. He takes little note of rare and unusual stimuli in his environment. His mental functioning is highly stereotyped. In conformity, he is within the limits of the average in that his thinking corresponds with that of the community at large. However, he proceeds occasionally with alogical reactions.

His grip on reality is below the average. Errors of judgment may be expected.

On two occasions he resorted to edging while handling the cards. This is a very unhealthy sign.

Only a single overt expression of feeling is revealed. This, however, is at the stable level and gives a slight indication of warm social contact.”

It starts out harsh but ends on one final, positive sentence. The “Errors of judgment may be expected...” did indeed happen. See below for those instances. Tippet did display courage in life threatening situations many times during the course of his law enforcement career although this psych test seems to be little concerned with that attribute.

Officer Tippet suffered many injuries as a policeman. This includes such injuries as a dog bite, an ice pick in the knee (ouch!), and a punch in the eye while trying to arrest a suspect. The most life threatening occurred on September 2, 1955, at 12:30 A.M., when Tippet and a fellow officer confronted a very drunken Leonard Garland outside of a club. Garland pulled a semi-automatic pistol, stuck it in Tippet’s face and said, “Stick’em up.” He didn’t and Garland attempted to fire his pistol but he had the safety on. This error allowed Tippit and his partner to draw their service revolvers and fire, killing Garland. The records indicate no internal investigation for this incident and in fact, Tippet was nominated for a departmental award. Quite a change from the way things are handled today! It was of course, an action of self defense and Tippet was protecting the life of his partner as well. It was later discovered that Leonard Garland was wanted by the FBI.

Reports indicate that J. D. Tippet was reprimanded several times. He accidentally missed two court appearances in a row and was suspended for one day without pay. He had other minor incidences such as losing his police ID and his driver’s license (along with a warrant) and did have a shotgun stolen out of an unlocked squad car. To be fair, his file contains many notes of praise for his work, helping to return stolen items, being courteous and professional, etc. Overall, J. D. Tippet’s records indicate he was a good police officer, and most certainly among the very brave.

The Mauser Rifle Report
Box 2 features the signed and sworn affidavit of Deputy Constable Seymour of the discovery of a 7.25mm, bolt-action Mauser rifle at approximately 1:22 P.M., on the day of the assassination and his resulting report on it.

An old story in the annuals of the Kennedy assassination, the discovery of a different rifle than Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano launches into one of the many controversies in the case. Discovered by Deputy Sheriff Eugene Boone in the northwest corner of the sixth floor, it was identified as a Mauser by him, Deputy Constable Seymour Weitzman, and Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig.

What is striking is officer Weitzman’s detailed account of what the rifle looked like. He specifically mentioned the power of the scope as being 4/18 in optical range, the same as Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano scope. He also mentioned it has a thick sling attached to it. He and Deputy Sheriff Eugene Boone found the rifle between some boxes in the northwest corner of the sixth floor. Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig was there and also identified the rifle as a Mauser. Deputy Boone executed a signed affidavit (not included with the Dallas files) that the rifle was a Mauser as well. Weitzman said he handed the weapon over to Captain Fritz who then ejected a live round from the gun and for a while, publicly stated the gun found was a Mauser. (Later, this story would be changed to ejecting a live round from a Mannlicher-Carcano.)

Later, this whole story evolves into Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano with three spent 6.5mm spent hulls on the floor. It is a mystery as to why. All three of these police officers in their Warren Commission testimony mention finding a Mauser.

Officer Seymour Weitzman ran a sporting goods store on the side and was very experienced with firearms. It’s hard to believe he would so badly misidentify a firearm like this, a firearm he had probably seen before. Roger Craig said it had “Mauser” stamped on the barrel near the breach. Hard to get that wrong. Also, the affidavit of Weitzman is created on 23rd, the day after the assassination; nobody had gotten to him to have him change his account. He would later give the same description in his Warren Commission testimony. Check out the line of questioning HERE. You’ll notice that the attorney, Mr. Ball, never questions Weitzman in regards to the discrepancy to the weapon type, or how the Mauser morphs into a Mannlicher-Carcano. But later, the Warren Commission will decide that Weitzman and the other officers were simply mistaken.

The bottom line–there is no signed or sworn affidavit by any police officer in the Dallas Police archive that documents finding a Mannlicher-Carcano.

Jack Ruby’s Arrest Records
Box 8 and 15 have Jack Ruby’s prior arrest records. This amounted to minor brushes with the law such as selling booze on Sunday (12-5-54). The more serious encounter involved a handgun. In July 26, 1953 Ruby was spotted with a snub nosed .38 in his pocket. At the time, a businessman was allowed to carry a firearm without a permit so long as he was carrying money derived from his business; the firearm being used for protection from robbery. He was arrested by detective C. W. Deloney. Ruby’s excuse was that simply forgot he had the gun on his person. He bonded out of jail and that was the end of it.

Apparently, the snub nosed .38 was the same S&W pistol he would use to kill Lee Oswald with on live TV on November 24, 1963.

Big Man Seen With A Gun
Also included in the Dallas Police files are files from other departments and in this case, the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department. An affidavit dated 11-22-63, and signed by the witness, Philip Ben Hathaway (Box 15), reports of seeing a man with a gun shortly before the assassination. According to Hathaway, him and three friends were taking off from work to see the parade and were walking up Akard street towards Main, when they saw a large man, dressed in a suit, estimated to be 6’6” or 6’7” and over 250 pounds and walking by headed towards Commerce street. Hathaway said he saw the man carrying what he described as a gun case. He assumed there was a rifle in it as it was of cloth and leather construction and would have been limp without containing anything–he never saw the actual rifle though implied the barrel made an impression against the cloth casing. He also noted how weighty it appeared as the man carried it. A friend remarked to Hathaway that possibly the man was a Secret Service agent. The time this man was seen was 11:50 A.M.

Hathaway’s friend, John Stevens R. Lawrence, also present, gave his sworn and signed affidavit to witnessing this individual as well (Box 15).

The Secret Service has long maintained they had no agents in Dealey Plaza, only in the follow-up car. So was this the eye witness account of another shooter? Or another sighting of a phony Secret Service agent?

Report on Michael and Ruth Paine
Box 13 features a background report on Michael and Ruth Paine, written by W. S. Biggio a detective with the Dallas Police Criminal Intelligence Division. It’s stated in the report that the Paine’s moved to Irving, Texas from Malvern, PA in 1959 so Michael could work as an engineer for Bell Helicopter Corp. Prior to moving in 1959 Michael Paine is listed by informant T-1 (FBI) as a self-employed farmer and Ruth Paine as a housewife. Probably no one has made a
smoother career shift from farming to aeronautical engineering than Michael Paine!

Interestingly, It should also be noted that the Paine’s tax returns from 1956 to 1958 are classified. Mostly likely they would be doing the farming/housewife gig during this time period. Why would the government classify the tax returns of mere farmer and his wife? What were they really up to?

The Curtain Rods
The most curious piece of evidence listed was a series of small cards in Box 12 documenting attempts to get finger prints off curtain rods. The curtain rod story is supposed to be a total fabrication Lee Oswald allegedly told to Buell Wesley Frazier, his fellow co-worker that drove him to work that morning. Frasier, curious of the package Oswald had with him was told it was curtain rods to be used in his room at the boarding house. It was later concluded that the package contained a disassembled rifle that Oswald allegedly snook into the building that morning for the assassination of President Kennedy. (Please note that the main witness to all of this is Buell Wesley Frazier, and he flunked his polygraph examination, the night of the 22nd. His sworn statement about the rods in Box 2.) Never the less, the story of Lee Oswald lying about the contents of the package, takes root.

So it’s quite odd to have in the Dallas Police evidence archives, not only documenting attempts to check for fingerprints, but also vague photographs of the rods with the prints as well. Nothing much is said about it either, just that they took some prints. So it’s a mystery as to where the curtain rods are from, where they were found or for that matter, what happened to them. It’s all just a great big zero.

Maybe Oswald was telling the truth after all?

(Good quality photographs of the prints from the curtain rods can be seen HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.)

Long Term Interest
One thing of note that is evident in the archives is the Dallas Police Department maintained their JFK file long after the assassination. There are various documents spread about involving various investigations and requests for documents not only from the lawyers of the Warren Commission but also later from the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the late 1970s. There is an apparent long-held interest by people such as Chief Curry as he contacts sources, such as the editor of Playboy magazine for a copy of Mark Lane’s 1967 interview. Ironically, for the members of the public that try to contact the Dallas Police Department, with new or interesting information or questions, they basically get the standard brush off. One such individual was Emory Brown, Jr. (Box 8) who got the standard reply from various Dallas Police officials to J. Edgar Hoover himself that stated there was, “a prompt, intensive, objective and thorough investigation of the assassination of President Kennedy.” No conspiracy for them, yet they maintained conspiracy-oriented files such as Lane’s interview with Playboy or other documents in regards to Jim Garrison’s conspiracy angle in the trial of Clay Shaw. Not to mention all of the correspondence, to and from, people like Emory Brown.

Miscellaneous Files

Box 1 contains a five-page report from the FBI lab in Washington, analyzing some early evidence that the DPD submitted for examination within 24 hours of the assassination. This includes such items as the rifle, the magic bullet (CE399), various bullet fragments both found and taken out of victims, the blanket, bag, and so on. John Armstrong states in his book, Harvey and Lee, that all of the evidence collected in Dallas by the police was submitted to the FBI within 24 hours, examined by them, returned to the DPD, and then “officially” given back to the FBI four days after the assassination. This implies a lot of hanky-panky going on with the evidence. I don’t doubt the chain of evidence was broken in the case but this five-page report shows a less than sinister motive for tampering. In this situation some evidence was handed over rapidly to the FBI but not all. James Hosty in his book Assignment: Oswald, was involved with collecting evidence and boxing it up. He reports none of the shipping back of forth going on. Evidently, some evidence was sent off early to the FBI but not all of it.

Box 2 features a report on the Jack Ruby’s rectal probe. Yes, three inches up the wa-zoo of Ruby’s lower G.I. Ouch! The document shows it was ordered by both the DPD and the FBI. That’s what you get for murdering a government operative on live TV, bud.

Box 8 has a Report dated 4-20-54 to Chief J. E. Curry from J. H. Sawyer, Inspector of the Police, which features his interview with Mrs. Eva Grant, Jack Ruby’s sister. Apparently she had gotten a copy of a police report, the contents of which she claimed would help her brother, showing Dallas Police officers perjuring themselves in the case. Also of note is she claimed the FBI and the DPD had tapped her phone. Inspector Sawyer tried to dissuade of her this idea but as she said replied, “How else did you know about my getting ahold of this report?” Busted!

Box 13 has lists testimonies of numerous employees of the School Book Depository Building. Noted here because Russ Baker on page 112 of his book, Family of Secrets, says the building was empty of tenets six months before the assassination. Not so according to these files which feature up to six long-term employees. One witness, Mrs. Geneva L. Hines had been employed in the building over over six years.

Sources

Dallas Police Department Archives:
http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/

Evidence Photographs - The Portal to Texas History - Dallas Municipal Archives:
http://texashistory.unt.edu/explore/partners/DSMA/browse/?start=0&fq=untl_collection%3AJFKDP

Seymour Weitzman WC Testimony:
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh7/html/WC_Vol7_0058b.htm

Assignment: Oswald by James P. Hosty, Jr.

2011-01-06T20:41:00.000-08:00

Former FBI Agent’s Book Reveals Some Surprises

I’ve read that FBI Special Agent James P. Hosty’s book, Assignment: Oswald, published in 1996 and now out of print, offers some surprising background details on the early turbulent days of the FBI’s investigation of the Kennedy and Tippet murders. Hosty’s account spares no one in this frank description of the events and personalties that shaped the early days of the JFK assassination investigation. James Hosty does a good job at recounting the chaotic scenes in the Dallas FBI headquarters and later, the Dallas Police Department with the gaggle of photographers and newsmen, the chain smoking, coffee swilling detectives, the banging and clanging of the teletype machines and typewriters, to the short fuses of overworked men enduring sleepless nights fueled by caffeine and adrenaline.

Early on Hosty makes this sobering assessment of being in the FBI:

“With time, my idealism waned, and I accepted the hard fact that law enforcement is basically gray. I also came to understand that one of our jobs was to protect the Bureau’s image at all costs, even if it ran roughshod over individuals or principles.”

A candid disclosure to say the least. And therein, lies the problem with the FBI investigating crimes. Their approach will have political angle to it. Hosty clearly illustrates this later when his boss Gordon Shanklin, who he describes as a “damn good man” orders him to destroy evidence in the case. Not once but twice, with a third time implied. And why? So as to eliminate any embarrassment to the prestige of the FBI and hence, J. Edgar Hoover since both were viewed as one and the same at the time. It should also be noted that Hoover’s early comments immediately after the assassination were that the FBI had no foreknowledge about Oswald, but in fact, they had a file on him starting the year of his defection to the Soviet Union in 1959. They kept him under tight surveillance by the time he landed back in America in June of 1962 to just a few days before the assassination in 1963.

The Destruction Of Evidence
As stated above, when Hosty reflects that part of his job was to “protect the Bureau’s image at all costs, even if it ran roughshod over individuals or principles...” he more than prove that the destruction of a note passed to him from Lee Oswald, apparently annoyed at Hosty for interviewing his wife. As stated previously Hoover had said the FBI had no previous interaction or knowledge about Oswald–and obvious lie–and with Hosty keeping him under surveillance the note, though unsigned, becomes a problem. Embarrassing Hoover was a one-way ticket to Nowhere Land or early retirement. Hosty was ordered by Gordon Shanklin to destroy the note and the memo that went with it. And he did so. That is of course, a felony and destruction of material evidence in a murder investigation.

Which of course, makes one wonder what else they destroyed...

The second time came when Shanklin orders Hosty to destroy Oswald’s rough draft letter to the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C. According to Hosty, Shanklin was not in his right mind from the long, stressful hours and irrationally blew up at him, demanding that Oswald’s draft and Ruth Paine’s updated copy to be destroyed. Hosty, more cautious this time, decided instead to create an FD-302 report and file the letters away in a standard evidence folder. Later, in a better state of mind, Shanklin thanked Hosty for filing it away and preserving this important piece of evidence. The second felony is thus, avoided.

The third time, implied was when Hosty was sent to retrieve evidence at the Dallas Police headquarters. This included Oswald’s wallet which will be mentioned later but more importantly, Oswald’s notebook, which featured one page with Hosty’s name, car license number, and office location in it. When he returned the items he got what he described a funny look from Special agents Shanklin and Malley. Later, he asked a colleague, Emory Horton about this, who tells Hosty they were hoping he would rip the page out the notebook with his name in it! Hosty apparently never thought of doing such a thing, nor was ever ordered to do so. Once again, more potential embarrassment for Hoover.

When giving his Warren Commission testimony, James Hosty is never asked about the destruction of Oswald’s note to him. Nor is he asked about why he is listed in Oswald’s notebook. That is probably because when the FBI transcribed the notebook for the Warren Commission they intentionally left out the Hosty page.

The destruction of Oswald note would follow James Hosty down through his career, resurfacing from time to time, and be embellished to include a bomb threat. According to Hosty, the other players in this drama, including Gordon Shanklin would be playing a game of “cover the ass.” Hosty believes that justice was served in the case since one, he never lied under oath to the WC about the note as he was never asked about it; two, he didn’t commit Obstruction of Justice because there was no pending trial or hearing when the note was destroyed; and finally, no getting him for destruction of government property as the note was not officially entered in as evidence as it was considered an unsigned personal letter.

All technicalities of course. Never the less, Hosty does admit to doing wrong in destroying the note. Even though he was disciplined twice by Hoover, which included a month’s suspended pay, he was reimbursed for it years later. In the end all he has to do is worry over it because there will be no legal ramifications from his actions.

The Origin Of The Second Wallet
Long considered a conspiracy wacko theory by the Lone Nut gang, the story of the two wallets, both owned by Oswald, which I have covered before, has its real genesis in the comments made by FBI Special Agent, Robert Barrett to James Hosty who documents the event in book. So to be clear, this doesn’t originate with nuts looking for a plot; it comes to us from law enforcement officials.

According to Barrett, he came upon the Tippet murder scene to be shown a wallet by Captain W. R. Westbrook of the Dallas Police. Barrett is asked if he knows a Lee Oswald or an Alex Hidell, which he does not. Even more remarkable is the billfold is seen being examined by Capt. Westbrook and two other Dallas Police officers on newsreel footage (no audio) shot by Ron Reiland of WFAA-TV. Interesting enough, nobody, either the Dallas Police officers present at the crime scene nor Barrett, documents this evidence find in their official reports.

The confusion builds with Oswald being arrested with a billfold on him. Two wallets? Who runs around with two on them? This leads to theories of Oswald being framed for the Tippet murder and hence, a conspiracy. Robert Barrett firmly believed the murder of Tippet was a shut case, a “slam-dunk” as he said. Why? Partly because he saw the wallet with Oswald’s ID in it at the Tippet murder site. As stated above, when Hosty is sent to the Dallas Police to retrieve evidence he signs a receipt for a wallet and he neatly writes the whole thing off as being the one taken off Oswald shortly after his arrest. The point being, Oswald already had a wallet on him. So they take the billfold from the Tippet murder scene and imply it fell out of his pocket there? I think not. As they stated at the time, the police didn’t search Oswald before they placed him the squad car and sped away to book him. It is documented that a wallet was found in his left back pocket when they did search him.

As one can see, the two billfolds does make for a confusing episode. Warren Commission supporter Dale K. Myers simply says the second wallet has “no pedigree” and “To date, the wallet’s origin and owner remain unknown.” Another defender of the WC, Vince Bugliosi, in the End Notes to his book Reclaiming History simply concludes that the errant wallet is Tippets. But that is not what SA Robert Barrett told James Hosty! The Dallas Police officers seen handling a wallet on film–they never said it was Tippets. And besides, Tippet’s wallet is documented to have been found with his belongings at the hospital. The last known person to have the wallet in hand was officer Westbrook. After that, it’s lost in the fog.

Other Revelations, Tampering of a Personnel File
Probably Hosty’s most interesting revelation is that his own personnel file was tampered with containing altered documents to make him out to be derelict in his duties. After an internal investigation of Hosty’s handling of the case, Gordon Shanklin and Jim Malley questioned Hosty about what he knew, typed it up and placed it in his file. Years later when turned down for a promotion he inquired about it and found out that he had been blacklisted by the second in command of the FBI, Clyde Tolson (Hoover’s roommate). After he got access to his file, he found to his shock that the answers to the questions had been changed to make him look at fault and negligent in his investigation of Oswald. Hosty had wisely made a copy of the original questions and answers. He also photocopied the new documents that had been altered. He has no proof but speculated it was Shanklin and Malley that made the alterations.

Here’s a list of more allegations and events:

Robert Oswald was found to be in the room when Marina Oswald was being questioned. Hosty was there and thought Robert was a Secret Service agent. This is a violation of procedure in the questioning a witness.
Marina Oswald’s phone was tapped. One time she is heard saying that the American people were suckers to send her any money. Hosty reports a total of $70,000 initially came in.
Hosty apparently never knew that Marina could speak, read, and write in English. Lee mailed her letters written in English while they were still living in Russia. It is of note that Hosty apparently never saw this evidence or Robert Oswald’s statements to the FBI that Marina spoke to him numerous times in English.
The bullet retrieved from the Gen. Walker shooting was a “tentative match” by the FBI lab for Oswald’s rifle. Only a 5-point match and the FBI required a 7-point match. So, the Warren Commission sent the bullet off for testing by the New York State Police lab. They only required a 5-point match and of course they got it.

In Closing
James P. Hosty is like a lot of guys. Your average, honest working stiff that starts out gung-ho and then runs into the Wall. Where politics crush justice, truth, and morals. The Long Knives arrive to stab you in the back for the things they did. That’s why Hosty remarked, “I also came to understand that one of our jobs was to protect the Bureau’s image at all costs...” and he flung head-long into it when things transpired to embarrass Hoover who punished him in certain ways, unjustly.

There is a lot of irony here too. Hosty take his swipes at the “conspiracy buffs” for coming up with nonsense involving the assassination but his focus is narrow. He only centers on his end of it and the work he did. He seems to have no other interest in areas that conflict with the official account as revealed in the Warren Report. He goes along with it all being a Company Man. Yet his account of the machinations of his fellow FBI agents behinds the scenes, being ordered to destroy documents, his own personnel file being tampered with containing altered documents to make him the fall-guy, is one broad reaching account of conspiratorial activity. How then, are these men to come to an honest investigation into the death of the President? Or for that matter, in our century, when the September 11 attacks occurred? Can we ever trust these people?

Assignment: Oswald makes a good addition to any researcher’s library. James Hosty’s frank account of his experiences as an FBI agent, warts and all, is an honest and down-to-earth account of those early days of the Kennedy assassination.

Sources
Assignment: Oswald by James P. Hosty, Jr. with Thomas C. Hosty, Arcade Publishing, 1996, photographs, 328 pages. Out of print. Available used from various online sources. Price varies.

James P. Hosty’s Warren Commission testimony
http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh4/pdf/WH4_Hosty.pdf

2010, A Year End Review

2010-12-31T05:34:00.000-08:00

2010 has proved to be an awesome year for me and this place I have for writing and pondering one of the monumental events in American history, the assassination President John F. Kennedy. I’m thankful for the internet and web sites such as Blogspot.com that give me the chance to publish my thoughts. Thanks also to numerous sites that now link this blog. On Facebook I’ve met up with numerous fellow researchers to discuss ideas and that’s been great for debating the facts without the general rudeness ones finds on forums. And most of it all, all of you readers have made it all worthwhile, with a banner year for site traffic. The best year ever! Thank you! Most grateful.

Here, in the final winter days of 2010 we see the monumental forces that JFK was trying to wrestle power from, those “entrenched interests of enormous strength” as L. Fletcher Prouty wrote and which ultimately Kennedy lost to, come to fore with a steady erosion of our Constitutional rights. The rude and outrageous harassment of women and children to simply board a plane; the FCC under the guise of “Net Neutrality” attempts to fix something that is not broke so as to affix its talons into it for greater control; The DHS, not content with No Fly Lists is now working towards a No Work List as well, where a citizen has to pass through a security hoop so as not to be considered a threat to the Homeland; The HDS has also been granted the authority to shut down web sites that they suspect of committing copyright infringement, something that should be under the control of the FBI and in the past would need a judge to sign off of on; the government now says it can examine credit card transactions without a warrant–something that would be a felony if you or I did that; the TSA views all air passengers as criminals and inspects people as if they were cattle while placing critics on watch lists. The catalog of outrages and humiliations could go on for many pages. It is all just a lot of little steps towards one big tyranny. I view 2010 as the year of many lost liberties.

Our government, established on a Constitutional Republic, has now grown into a vast, criminal enterprise where the People are expected to serve it and not the other way around, as it grows in power and avarice. We now live in a National Security State where everybody, young and old, are considered a threat and have to be vetted. If John Kennedy had lived, or simply survived that ruinous day in Dealey Plaza, I think he could have thwarted a lot of what we are experiencing now. That was certainly where he was headed in his final days on earth. Certainly Vietnam would have turned out differently because after 1961 and the Bay of Pigs disaster he knew who and what he was up against. He was the last President to confront these unseen powers. And a sad note that is...

I hope we don’t became a people such as what Bruce Springsteen sang about in Jungleland. “The poets down here right nothin’ at all–they just stand back and let it all be.”

The Politics and Unexpected Things
It’s amazing sometimes what kind of things you can get into just simply trying to write about subject. I’ve had people contact me from well known writers and searchers, impostors, to people on the kooky fringe. One guy emailed me with the idea that the grassy knoll shooter was a diversion; the real kill shot came from Jackie. I don’t respond back to people with this sort of nonsense–how can you? I want nothing to do with them and certainly no email trail between us.

The big uptake in traffic has resulted in a large surge in attention from various agencies of the government, military, and those corporations that profit from them. The full litany of the military industrial complex that President Eisenhower has stopped by. It spoke to me how deep all of this runs even now, almost 50 years as the assassination of John F. Kennedy. This has also launched a host of commentary on various forums. As they say, you know you are getting somewhere when you start getting your character trashed on the Internet! They also say that any publicity is good publicity. Okay, not really, but at least people can come to my blog, read the articles, and see that I am trying to be reasonable and fair in dealing with the facts. They can decide for themselves what the truth is for them. Anyway, I am fully aware that this endeavor is not about me–it’s about finding the truth.

Another factor is the little things that happen along the way. For example, I only fly once a year and each time, since I started this blog, I’ve had my luggage searched by the TSA. Which means three times so far. It’s easy to tell–they leave their calling card in my bag. This is of course a violation of my 4th Amendment rights for undue search but under the Homeland Security mania anything goes. Note that I have no arrest or criminal record as a juvenile or adult, nor have I ever been a member of a any subversive group. So is it because I’m a government critic through my writing about JFK? I don’t know but it could be with other critics being placed on government lists (not that I fancy myself of any importance to be placed on one). Ironically, my Congressman John Mica, is one of the sponsors of the bill that launched the TSA. I’ll be sending him a written complaint with a host of questions in the coming year.

Books
As usual, another good year for JFK conspiracy-oriented books. In fact, I know of no book supporting the lone gunman theory that was published in 2010. Of all that were published, Me and Lee by Judyth Vary Baker (see my review HERE) was the most informative and with much ground-breaking material not ever seen before. What makes it an important book is that it offers first-hand account of someone that knew Lee Oswald personally–to the point to being, according to her words, the lover of Oswald during the summer of 1963 in New Orleans. It’s a far more detailed narrative than Oswald’s widow Marina, ever told and it’s rich with the personalities of the period. It often reads like a who’s-who of JFK conspiracy characters and events. As I read it I thought, too bad that Jim Garrison didn’t have Judyth Baker as a witness! As she connects all the major figures together–Oswald, Ruby, Ferrie, Shaw and Banister into a cohesive group of which she claimed to have met and interacted with. Her story makes sense and I think overall, adds much to the history of the days leading up to the assassination. It’s a familiar story that reads fresh. The details of Lee Oswald’s personality and work in New Orleans in the summer of 1963 are fleshed out in such a way to fill in most of the mysterious areas of his life. You’ll never read or think about Oswald the same again. It’s a truly thought provoking read.

And one interesting aside. The TV show 60 Minutes launched a 14-month long investigation of Judyth Vary Baker’s allegations which unfortunately, and mysteriously, was never aired. They either found out her story was bogus or else they found it was true and knew they could never air it. Mostly likely the latter is the case. After all, the mainstream media (other than the History Channel one time) has never presented anything on the JFK assassination that was pro-conspiracy or for that matter, entreated the possibility of a conspiracy as being a legitimate area of inquiry.

A Look Ahead To 2011
I hope to eventually get a book published featuring the “best of” blog articles. I’ll be updating each article with the latest information or new discoveries along the way. Podcasting. I hope to get that started as there are few JFK podcasts out on the web. And of course, the writing and research continues.

As we move into a new year I leave you with these words from Fredrick Douglass:

“Those who profess to favor freedom, yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

John Wilkes Booth vs Lee Harvey Oswald

2010-12-27T08:17:00.000-08:00

(Update from previous article.)

Over the years you all have most likely read the list of amazing coincidences between Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy’s lives and deaths. Lincoln’s secretary was a Kennedy and Kennedy’s secretary was a Lincoln, and so on. However, after reading Michael Kauffman’s American Brutus I am convinced that there are more coincidences between their alleged killers, John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald than the Presidents themselves. American Brutus is an excellent book on the Lincoln assassination, focusing on the life of John Wilkes Booth and the resulting plot. I recommend it for students of the Kennedy assassination as well as it accurately plots how conspiracies operate and how to keep coconspirators quiet. While reading it I began to notice a trail of coincidences between the lives of Booth and Oswald that parallel one another to an amazing degree.

Coincidences like this are interesting to ponder but ultimately lead to nowhere. Maybe just mathematical flukes, or maybe the nature of reality is different than what we know. One can have the sense that these trivial deeds are signposts—markers—to history. The assassinations of Lincoln and Kennedy were pivotal in American History. But why are the events and deeds of Booth and Oswald so similar? Could assassins have a similar psychological makeup, allowing them to have similar life experiences? Quite possibly so. Maybe it all looks significant and really is not, just a way our brains organize data and patterns we discover in the world. It remains an interesting mystery, never the less.

Born 100 years apart. John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald were both born 100 years apart (1839-1939).

Arrest records. Prior to their famous deeds, both Booth and Oswald were arrested and jailed for pity crimes. In early 1863 a provost marshal in St. Louis arrested Booth for making anti-government remarks, briefly detained, paid a fine and let go. In the summer of 1963, Oswald was arrested for a scuffle on the streets of New Orleans, briefly detained, posted bail, and let go.

Undelivered speeches. In Booth’s day the main debate was over slavery. Booth wrote a speech on the issue, a rough draft with spelling errors, which he never delivered. Oswald’s issue for his time was communism. He also wrote a speech about it. It was a rough draft, with spelling errors, which he also never gave.

Both men accidentally shot themselves. As Booth was examining his stage manager’s pistol, he noticed some rust on the barrel. When he went remove it with a pocketknife, the gun accidentally discharged wounding Booth in the thigh, narrowly missing an artery. He took weeks to recover. While in the Marines, Oswald accidentally shot himself in the upper left arm with an unauthorized .22 pistol. This resulted in the first of his two court-martials he would receive. (The second being an altercation he had with the sergeant that turned him in for the accidental shooting.)

Scars on necks. Booth had a tumor removed off his neck shortly before the assassination. Oswald had a mastoid operation as a child which left a three inch scar on the left side of his neck.

Both men used aliases. Booth used John Boyd while on the run after the assassination; Oswald used Alek Hidell and had a Hidell ID in his wallet at the time of his arrest.

Both men spent their last days living alone. And estranged from the women in their lives. Booth in a hotel away from his girlfriend; Oswald in a rooming house separated from his wife and children.

Booth and Oswald were both killed by a single gun shot. Booth by a rifle shot to the neck. Oswald by a pistol shot to the abdomen.

A "junior" in the family. Booth had a brother named Junius after their father. Oswald had a brother named Robert after their father. Both of them were older brothers.

Autopsy Photographs. Booth and Oswald’s bodies were autopsied; both were photographed. Booth’s autopsy photos have never been released.

Family member named June. Booth had brother named Junius but he was called in the family by his nickname, June. Oswald’s first daughter is named June.

Miscellaneous: Both men were southerners. Both have six letters in their middle names. Both have a total of 15 letters in their three names. Their middle names are derived from relatives. Both were mortally wounded before their trials. Both men were involved in assassinations of Presidents on a Friday. Both were survived by their mothers. Both were in their 20‘s. Both had their fathers die when they were young. Both were widely traveled.

Sources:
Kauffman, Michael, American Brutus; Bugliosi, Vincent, Reclaiming History; Armstrong, John, Harvey and Lee; Baker, Judyth, Me and Lee, The Warren Report

Dale Myers Takes A Stab At Book Reviewing (And Conspiracy Theorist Bashing)

2010-12-21T06:35:00.000-08:00

The first time I wrote about Dale K. Myers was in my piece, Dale Myers and Pat Speer Duke it Out. Researcher and critic Pat Speer has an online book on the Kennedy assassination that is an excellent research tool. As Speer said of Myers’ work, “...his depiction of the single-bullet theory is so incredibly misleading.” He took on Myers in a series of online debates regarding Myers’ computer simulations of the Kennedy murder that have been featured on various TV documentaries. He started out years ago using crash-test dummies before moving on to computerized simulations and he’s made a lot of variations on them. After a lot of exchanges between the two, Myers retired from the field of battle after getting his nose bloodied by Speer. You can read my piece HERE and for much greater detail on Pat Speer’s site HERE.

Dale Myers recently posted a review of a newly published book on the Tippit murder from Donald Byron Thomas called, Hear No Evil: Social Constructivism and the Forensic Evidence in the Kennedy Assassination. It’s quite a screed filled with insults towards the author and plenty of good ole’ fashion Bugliosi style conspiratorialist bashing calling Warren Commission critics, conspiracy nut-jobs and boobs. Oh, and throw in a little sarcasm as well to salt the wounds. In the process, Myers comes off as a jerk. But hey, whatever the government says is okay with people like this. After all, the Feds never lie do they?

Myers starts off by dissing the author, Donald Byron Thomas, a Ph.D Entomologist (study of insects–the doctorate degree is never mentioned in the review). Says Myers: “To say that Mr. Thomas, an entomologist by profession, is way out of his league pontificating on the Tippit case would be an understatement devoid of description.” Because he studies bugs? I guess Myers considers himself more immanently qualified to research the Kennedy assassination with his background as a computer geek animator. Amazing. The haughty Myers in a huff! As if producing digital recreations of the discredited Magic Bullet theory gives one total credibility in researching the JFK case. Perhaps he is envious of a book on this subject since he wrote one as well, With Malice: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Murder of Officer J.D. Tippit. A book that is out of print and priced at over a $100 used. (He links it to Amazon, but there is only one new copy there and it’s priced at $169.95! The current cheapest used price is $114.03 and if one has some cash to burn, the most expensive is $1,289.79 from some dude in Germany. Other used books sellers online also price it over $100 as well. While Myers constantly references his book but never alerts the reader of its hefty cost. Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #872,807. Oi!)

Early on, Myers’ opines about Hear No Evil: “Thomas’ take on the Tippit murder is the most outrageous, error-riddled, load of crap I’ve read in a long time. It’s hard to believe that anyone with an ounce of sense would believe such nonsense, but hey, if you don’t know what really happened I guess anything – even the kind of bull droppings that Thomas is hawking – can sound plausible.”

He could have ended the review there, but no, no, no. The Emmy award winning animator is not done slinging insults by a long shot. The review is so long I placed it in Word at 12 point type and it stretched on for 38 pages! And that doesn’t include the pages of Errata and end notes. All this babbling for a book he says is a load of crap, filled with half-truths and outright fabrications. But Myers, the Warren Commission’s defender of Truth and Logic must soldier on refuting many of the facts mentioned in the Dr. Thomas’ book both major and petty. For example, he starts out with the initials “J. D.” and says Thomas can’t get the name right alleging that the initials meant nothing. However, researcher, Thomas H. Purvis, who has copy of a Tippet insurance form says he lists his full name as Jefferson Davis Tippit. Purvis also says it was common in the Tippit family to have names of noted leaders.

Myers takes to beating on Dr. Thomas even if he has to use a feather.

To be fair to Myers, he does appear to have found some serious flaws in the research as it’s presented in Hear No Evil. For example, Thomas’ claim that Tippet’s autopsy report had been suppressed or that Tippet suffered three wounds instead of four; the placement of a gas station at a corner where there was none; or that Tippet was shot with different types of bullets rather than different brands. Though I think he errs greatly on the issue of the wallets.

That Pesky Wallet
One of the mainstays of JFK assassination controversy has been the wallet found at the scene of the Tippet murder with Oswald’s ID cards in it. Myers touches on this issue for another opportunity to rip on Thomas and conspiracy theorists in general, but the fact of the matter is that the whole issue is revealed in the first place in FBI agent James Hosty’s 1966 (reprinted in 1996) book, Assignment: Oswald. Further adding credence to the episode is the wallet which is being examined by Dallas Police officers is being filmed. Not so easy to dismiss witness testimony this time around. Myers is reduced to a pitiful declaration, “...the pedigree of the wallet is unknown. It remains to this day, unknown.” Sure, sure...

This is a favorite subject of mine to explore and I wrote about it in The Tale Of The Two Wallets. The genesis of the story is when an unnamed witness hands a black wallet to a Sargent Calvin Owens who in turn brings it to the attention of Captain W. R. Westbrook of the Dallas Police. This examining of the wallet is captured on film (no audio) by Ron Reiland of WFAA-TV. Allegedly Lee Oswald’s ID and one for his alias, Alex Hidell were found in it. Along comes FBI SA Robert Barrett and Capt. Westbrook asks him if he knows the individuals on the IDs, as if Barrett would know, and he does not. Eventually the story of this incident makes it way into FBI agent James Hosty’s, Assignment Oswald, where agent Barrett relates the story to him for the book. (Attempts were made to interview officers Westbrook, Owens, and a third officer seen on film, Captain George Doughty, but were unsuccessful.)

The tricky part is that when Oswald is arrested at the movie theater, there is a wallet in his left pocket on him! So, two wallets in play and that makes a frame-up and hence, a conspiracy. In my view, this is why Myers leaves the wallet a mystery, without pedigree, because either the second wallet story is true, or somebody is lying here. Agent Hosty wrote that fellow agent Barrett told him that an Oswald wallet was found at the Tippit crime scene. Agent Barrett believed without a doubt the case against Oswald being Tippet’s murderer was a “slam-dunk” because the wallet with Oswald’s ID in it was found at the murder scene! Obviously, that is a lie if Barrett’s allegation is false. But why would he lie about such a thing? The lofty Myers has no say on that point.

After all, there can’t be a second wallet as that indicates a frame-up of Oswald for the Tippet murder.

According to Myers, “To date, the wallet’s origin and owner remain unknown.” Not to FBI agent Barrett! Or for that matter, three Dallas Policemen seen with it. Myers furiously typed, “But that doesn’t stop Thomas from turning the wallet episode into some half-baked conspiracy theory like all of his brethren before him.” Gosh, we are all in lock-step here? Does he know the source of this? Which is an FBI agent, right? And apparently Hosty believed it as he included the incident in his book.

What it comes down to is Myers doesn’t want to find out who it belongs to and concedes it is all a mystery. I am sure it would have been so much easier for him if the whole wallet scene had not been filmed! He inserts there is no proof it was Oswald’s yet can’t or won’t attribute it to Tippet–or anybody else. But it has to belong to somebody. Bugliosi had the same problem in Reclaiming History and sent the issue to his End Notes on disc where he finally concluded it was Tippet’s billfold that had fallen out of his trouser pocket. (At no point has anyone at the murder scene, police, FBI, or the ambulance crew said this was the case.) At least Bugliosi could make a decision on the issue unlike Myers, who would rather have it all go away.

Also of note: Neither SA Barrett or Capt. Westbrook, Sargent Owns, or Capt. Doughty wrote up the discovery of the wallet in their official reports. Captain Westbrook apparently never turns it over to the Homicide department. It vanishes. And if it’s a second wallet belonging to Oswald, then it has to, right?

Just Too Much Thinkin’ Goin’ On Here
Not be undone Dale Myers also has J.D. Tippet web site to refute critics. On it Myers heroically claims:

“As long as my health permits, I will continue to be alert for false and misleading information being publicized about the JFK assassination investigation. I will utilize whatever resources are available to refute such information. Future generations deserve to know the truth. During the past forty-one years there has been far too much fiction.”

He’s right. There has been too much fiction and it begins with the Warren Report! Oh well, nothing like being a guiding light of reason against those unruly, superstitious peasants that have the audacity not to believe what their “betters” tell them! Actually, it’s just defending the honor of the status quo since a large majority of the public doesn’t believe them, not matter how many shills they have in place; no matter the mainstream media’s blackout of JFK conspiracy related books, videos, magazines and web sites. After a while it’s just as much a political exercise as it was for the Warren Commission and the government sanctioned investigations that followed.

In Dale Myers’ Lone Nut world everybody tells the truth. Nothing is suspicious at all– it’s all random chance, coincidence, simple little errors that don’t mean anything. Any witness that has something controversial or even hints at conspiracy has to come under close scrutiny. Vince Bugliosi does the same thing in Reclaiming History, and in fact, Myers worked on part of it till they had a parting of ways. So one can see the modus operandi at work here, such as with lead witness Helen Markham with her scatter brained testimony being fully acceptable as opposed to Roger Craig, who defies all the main dogmas of the case and is in turn, treated like the bastard at the family reunion. (Another example is cab driver William Whaley that dropped Oswald off at certain street only to change the address numerous times over the years. But that is okay with these cherry pickers so long as Oswald comes out guilty every time.)

Unfortunately, Myers’ review sets a nasty tone. Laced with insults, sarcasm, condescension and slander, it’s hard to fathom where all the hate comes from. If author Donald Byron Thomas is wrong in his analysis of the facts then say so. It’s a noble enterprise to combat disinformation in the case but this screed ramps up the nastiness to John McAdams levels. Generally, it seems most of the vitriol comes from the Lone Nut believers. Most of their focus seems to be on the critics and not the original source of the controversy to begin with–the Warren Commission and its report. Why such a fevered drive to prove what the Commission was saying as opposed to breaking it all down and really finding something out?

Errata 12/22/10
The Amazon book prices have changed again. Now the latest used price for Dale Myers’ With Malice is $149.99. The latest new price is, incredibly, $1,289.78!

Sources
The Warren Report; Hosty Jr., James, Assignment: Oswald; McKnight, Gerald, Breach of Trust; Armstrong, John, Harvey and Lee; Mars, Jim, Crossfire; Bugliosi, Vince, Reclaiming History

Thomas H. Purvis
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=2594

Dale Myers and Pat Speer Duke it Out
http://oswaldsmother.blogspot.com/2008/12/dale-myers-and-pat-speer-duke-it-out.html

Pat Speer analysis of Myer’s animation
http://www.patspeer.com/chapter12c%3Aanimania

Where The JFK Assassination Sent Us

2010-12-11T11:07:00.000-08:00

"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.”

Ayn Rand

“Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?”

Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

I think by now we all know that the death of John F. Kennedy changed America forever and was a pivotal event in American history of the twentieth century. It’s a long and winding road from Dealey Plaza to where we are now. When he died it showed us the true nature of our Republic. That while we cherish the Founders, and our rule of law, we are not ever far from the Night of the Long Knives. No matter what we think of ourselves, the Kennedy Administration was ended by bullets and not ballots. Checks and balances be damned–the fiefdoms that arose since the founding of the National Security State in 1947 came to the fore and made their play. Van Jones, in discussing his time in government service called them the “informal systems of power.” He could have been echoing Eisenhower’s final address to the American public.

Since then the increasing power of the Federal Government has been in its ascendency since 1963 and was accelerated as the result of the attacks on 9-11. Don’t think the Patriot Act was created as a result–the legislation has its genesis in the 1990’s. It was lying in wait for a major event to make it more palatable to the public.

Parallel to this has risen the other beast in the Secret Team, the CIA, NSA and numerous other three-letter agencies with their hidden cloak and dagger empires and its multi-billion dollar black budgets and hidden political and foreign policy agenda. It is probably more insidious than the Federal behemoth but its ways are mysterious and the fruit it bares is not known till afterward. Under the cloak of National Security it can cover up all of its deeds both good and bad.

It all happens gradually as the Germans experienced under Hitler. They took away just enough liberty each time, but not enough to fight about. Till finally, one morning they all woke up in a Fascist state. There was nothing left to do but submit. The population was conditioned to accept a totalitarian state. Just as we are today, being conditioned by being forced to take off our shoes to get on a commercial aircraft or have the most private areas of one’s body touched as if we are one large nation of criminal suspects, both young, old, and handicapped.

Now we now live in state of Security Mania. It’s not enough to treat the average person a potential criminal to board a commercial aircraft. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has started a “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign. Getting national retailer Walmart to play along, monitors are being set up in stores near cash registers to broadcast the government message to the public encouraging them to spy on their fellow citizens (and fellow shoppers) for the National Security State. Orwellian? You bet!

Internet
The Wikileaks document dump is another part of the roundabout. What the WikiLeaks-Assange leaks have shown is just what a vast, criminal enterprise the Federal government has become. It is such a great stretch to say the assassination of John Kennedy, let alone his brother and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, were killed by this cabal? Some have suggested it’s a 9-11 event against Internet free speech and the free dissimulation of information. Maybe so.

Paul Craig Roberts recently wrote that what the WikiLeaks document dump means:

“The media, not merely in the US but also throughout the English speaking world and Europe, has shown its hostility to WikiLeaks. The reason is obvious. WikiLeaks reveals truth, while the media covers up for the US government and its puppet states.”

Amen. And the truth is always the enemy of the totalitarian state. They hate the Internet with a passion as too much information is being discovered, spread, read, and published (republished) by the masses. (I’ve already published more facts on the JFK assassination from a conspiracy perspective than you’ll ever read in the mainstream corporate press. Yet they show up here to read it. Hear me CBS? NY Times? CBC? Tribune Corp?)

Contrary to what some might say, the leaks having nothing to do with National Security, but rather Nation Insecurity. All the documents do is embarrass and humiliate the ruling class. And more importantly, is shows how conspiratorial they all are. It shows what they were, and are, doing behind the people’s back and it’s a nasty business. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton is shown in a signed document, encouraging spying on UN bigwigs. Did this come from the top? Mrs. Clinton’s reputation for blackmail and digging up dirt on political opponents is well known. Yet the American media is so sidetracked it can’t deal with the how and why of this. She has since declared she will retire from public life. Was it because of Wikileaks? We shall see.

Everything Surveilled
In an excellent piece of independent investigative journalism, researcher Christopher Soghoian at his site, paranoia.dubfire.net, describes a successful FOIA request that netted a ten page document related to DOJ spying of financial records particularly credit card transactions with just a simple subpoena. This can be viewed on his site. As he states:

“As the document makes clear, Federal law enforcement agencies do not limit their surveillance of US residents to phone calls, emails and geo-location information. They are also interested in calling cards, credit cards, rental cars and airline reservations, as well as retail shopping clubs.”

Notice the mention of geo-location. That is satellite technology to monitor the citizenry. Soghoian goes on to the salient part:

“The document also reveals that DOJ's preferred method of obtaining this information is via an administrative subpoena. The only role that courts play in this process is in issuing non-disclosure orders to the banks, preventing them from telling their customers that the government has spied on their financial transactions. No Fourth Amendment analysis is conducted by judges when issuing such non-disclosure orders.”

So there you have it. DOJ is going through your financial records without your knowledge or consent in violation of your 4th Amendment rights. This would normally be considered a felony but the government apparently has no need to obey its own laws anymore. Evidence of paranoid state apparatus that fears its citizens.

So Here We Are
In the last days of 2010 we faced a year of outrageous and unnecessary
treatment of air travelers-as-criminals, hints that the same maltreatment is headed for the bus and the train travel industry, more legislation that restricts our liberty, and a huge document dump that has a potential of restricting the public’s liberty online. A relentless pounding. It’s as if it’s all been fast-tracked. In 2011 watch for more of the same or more intense than what we just had. It can be prevented if we do what Solzhenitsyn suggested–simply, fight back. But the People seem to have no fight left in them. What will it take?

So in the final consideration–yes–John Kennedy’s death set us on the path we are on to a what amounts to a police state. Kennedy was in formal opposition to almost all of the “informal systems of power” behind the curtain. They have been in operation a long time and their power is unabated to this day. When full frontal tyranny comes it will be from them and hidden in the guise of security. What history, it’s always the same. John F. Kennedy was the last president to govern as if he was the main man in charge, the sole leader. But as he tragically found out, there is more than one King in Camelot.

Sources
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr I., The Gulag Archipelago; Proudy, R. Fletcher, The Secret Team

Paul Craig Roberts: http://www.vdare.com/roberts/101201_wikileaks.htm

Christopher Soghoian:
http://paranoia.dubfire.net/2010/12/dojs-hotwatch-real-time-surveillance-of.html

Web site: Wikileaks.com (if up)

Book Review: Me & Lee: How I Came To Know, Love and Lose Lee Harvey Oswald

2010-12-03T07:14:00.000-08:00

“No one will ever know who or what Lee Harvey Oswald represented.”

Richard Helms, former CIA director

Here is how it all goes down. A cute, high school whiz kid Judyth Vary, gets interested in cancer research from the death of her grandmother and develops a series of science projects that quickly garners the attention of powerful people in science, the military, and politics. She gets publicity, supplies, and lab space do her ever expanding research. Not lacking in moxie, she later crashes an important scientific conference in Tampa and meets one of the prime movers in cancer research, Dr. Alton Ochsner, who flies down to personally meet her. Impressed with her work, he invites her to New Orleans to work on cancer research and continue her education at Tulane. Sounds like a fairy tale come true! A true Cinderella story for a 19 year old.

But things are not what they seem. It actuality she brought in not to work on a cure for cancer but a clandestine project to find and isolate a cancer causing virus for the purposes of assassinating American’s number one Cold War boogie man, Fidel Castro. In the process she comes into contact with every major figure of JFK assassination lore: David Ferrie, Jack Ruby, Clay Shaw, Guy Banister, Drs Ochsner and Sherman, and finally, Lee Oswald who becomes her lover. However, when they decide they want to test the cancer virus on human subjects, mental patients, Judyth balks and in the process sacrifices a promising career in medical research. She takes on the life of a wife and mother, lying low and eventually seeking political asylum in Europe where she now resides.

It’s an easy going narrative that quickly thrusts the reader into the hot, humid summer of 1963 New Orleans; a backdrop of Cold War intrigue and shadowy characters loaded with the sights, sounds, and smells of the era. Judyth puts the reader in the here and now. There is no, “I remember when...” It is a constant beat of events as if they are happening now, not nearly 50 years ago.

And probably the most surprising thing one can take away from this work is her account of Lee Oswald himself. In this portrayal, he is no longer a stranger in a strange land, the disgruntled ex-Marine living on the fringe of society unable to get along. Instead, we glimpse a warm, carrying and even compassionate man. A patriot that loves his country and willing to make any sacrifice to preserve the Republic. It takes a while for this to settle in. It’s like waking up from a dream or being told that Hitler or Stalin were really nice guys after all–just misunderstood. To say this book shows a completely different side of Lee Oswald is a major understatement. He is totally different!

It’s In The Details
Probably the most striking thing about the book is attention to detail. It’s both a blessing and a curse. The details of early 1960’s New Orleans are astoundingly revealing, but borders on being too much so. Apparently, this lady rarely throws anything away. There are photos of matchbook covers, trolly car tickets, newspaper clippings, letters, birth certificates, and check stubs. It is amazing what is retained. Everything is here but a love letter between the two, or a picture of them together. Even a fateful event, such as Judyth and Lee both getting employed at the Reily Coffee company has proof. She still has the original job wanted ad, with the jobs both of them got, circled. Who retains this kind of stuff? Perhaps she realized she was in over her head dealing with these spooky characters working on clandestine medical experiments and sought to protect herself in saving every scrap of paper associated with this world. And many of these events Judyth relates are so far-out that having those scraps of paper helps verify what she is saying.

Even more amazing is the attention to detail in the conversations. How anyone could retain this much dialogue from so long ago is hard to believe and my main uneasiness I have about her book. There are dozens of detailed exchanges recorded here. For example in her first meeting with Dr. Mary Sherman at her apartment (which included David Ferrie) the conversation flows on for seven and half pages as if there was a stenographer in the room to record it all. Obviously not–perhaps she was keeping a journal at the time to retain these discussions and that is hinted at with a photo of a typed diary page. I cannot say in good faith these numerous chats noted in the book (and there are dozens) are the result of literary invention. I simply don’t know and I find it troublesome.

What We Know Of Oswald
Studying what we know of Lee Oswald from a variety of sources and books, her account does not contradict what is known and overall, is quiet accurate. The other events surrounding the assassination are also well researched and presented. Judyth Vary Baker reveals herself as being well versed and knowledgeable on all subjects mentioned. I would endorse her as an expert on the case.

John Armstrong is the author of Harvey and Lee, the main book on the Oswald as doppelganger theory. Even if you don’t agree with Oswald being doubled by the CIA for clandestine service, its 900+ pages make a great source book for all things involving the Kennedy association. There are things in this one book you will not read elsewhere. A meticulous researcher, Armstrong lists hundreds of people that have came into contact with Lee Oswald throughout his life and especially the many people that encountered him in the summer of 1963 in New Orleans. Judyth Baker is not one of them; she is never mentioned once. Yet in Judyth’s account she and Lee were all over town, dining out often, hanging out in Ferrie’s apartment, having dinners with Jack Ruby, visiting Guy Banister’s office on Camp Street, among many other happenings of this nature. There is in effect, only one witness, Anna Lewis, that places her with Oswald in these other places outside of the Reily Coffee Company. There is no other researcher/author that has her with him outside of Reily Coffee either (there is Ed Haslam but he just repeats her story in Dr. Mary’s Monkey). Ultimately, it all lies in her version of the events. We have to trust her.

What Judyth Vary Baker succeeds at is making her amazing story ring true. She bluntly tells all including her own personal failings, such as cheating on her difficult, distant husband. She is as hard on herself as anyone else mentioned in the narrative. In regards to Lee Oswald her take is that he is a behind the scenes player, creating multiple false trails to cover his true identity, willing to do anything and sacrifice all for his country. Judyth also succeeds in filling in the missing bits of Oswald’s mysterious dealings in a logical sequence of events. The FPFC phase was nothing more than theater. Judyth tells us why, in a manner than makes sense with this and other phases, filing off the rough bits.

Of course love blinds. So her portrayal of Oswald in Me & Lee is sifted through those feelings of love, lust, and lost. It’s a romanticized vision. If the Oswald we experience here is totally different than the one we are accustomed to, it’s because he comes off as the noble hero out to slay the forces of evil as a warrior of the shadows, not the misfit alleged slayer of a famous man of power and prestige. Other than the admission of wife beating and forcing himself on Marina because she mocked his manhood, he has no obvious flaws in her description of him. (Ironically, these disgusting acts did not stop Judyth from falling madly in love with him either. But to her credit, she claims to have extracted a promise from Lee never to do this abuse again.)

Despite all that is written here about his character and the hundreds of words of conversations Judyth allegedly has with him I don’t really feel I know this version of Lee Oswald any better than the Warren Commission version. There is still much mystery in this man. But at least we have two full versions to think about.

Mission Improbable
I do think Judyth Vary Baker proves her early life as a science whiz, the attention she garnered, and the contacts she made that sent her to New Orleans. I think her evidence she provides frames this early period of her life truthfully. All events that we can double-check are well written and accurate which I think adds credibility to her story. Her meeting of Lee Oswald and her many moments spent with him, her interaction with all of the main characters and the behind the scenes skulduggery, one has to accept on face value or not. There are revelations here such as Jack Ruby telling her that he knew Lee Oswald from when he was a boy; Oswald receiving $200 a month in salary from the CIA; he maintains two apartments in New Orleans for use in operations; Lee states that his alias, Alek Hidell, was a “project name” used by other operatives. The list goes on and on and makes for fascinating reading but many of these disclosures are not documented, they are just what Judyth gleamed from conversations with others.

Probably the most striking thing about her book is that to the last page, it all makes sense. Despite so many improbable incidents, overall, her story has a ring of truth to it.

Perhaps Richard Helms was wrong. Perhaps we can know what Lee H. Oswald represented through this one book.

Unexplained Mysteries Of The JFK Assassination

2010-11-27T16:22:00.001-08:00

Actually, the killing of John F. Kennedy is one long, drawn out mystery. Because something happened here that was so far out of normalcy. Every single thing involved with it is problematic; even the simple things like Oswald buying a money order to purchase a mail order rifle is rife has problems. Conspiracy can be debated forever, but one thing is for certain–the reasons regarding the death of President Kennedy were covered up by a multitude of government agencies both Federal and State, the military, and the media. But why? Either they did it, or else somebody else did and they never could find out what happened and couldn’t tell the public they couldn’t figure it out.

Never the less, there was a swift rush to judgement to the point where Lyndon Johnson was being told by Joint Chiefs on the flight back to Washington that there was no conspiracy and the lone gunman was in custody. Amazing! How could they have known that so quick just hours after the event? Before any investigation had taken place? The Dallas police were still in the process of collecting evidence. This appears to be standard operating practice as this modus operandi would be repeated many times later, most notably the September 11 terror attacks where within hours of the disaster the government was relaying through the cable news networks that the crime was perpetrated by Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda organization. Once again, no investigation had started, nor any evidence collected from the smoldering crime scene to arrive at this conclusion. But somehow, they came forward with this no matter how strange this looks. Then years later, when they had the official government investigation, they issue a report arriving at the same conclusion they established on the day of the disaster, within hours of it happening. Nothing changed! The exact same thing occurs on November 22, 1963. Perhaps this nonsense is an easier sell within moments of a national tragedy than days or weeks later. However, it’s a recurring pattern that occurs over and over again.

This is just one of many mysteries of the JFK assassination. Although there are enough to fill, and have filled, many volumes of books, what follows are a few more to consider.

Oswald’s Money Order
As with all things Oswald, this one episode is fraught with trouble too. In my article, Who Bought The Guns?, I chronicle the strange ends and outs of obtaining his guns. The problem is the money order he used for ordering the Mannlicher-Carcano from Kline’s Sporting Goods of Chicago is missing important routing codes. The routing codes are important as they trace the instrument through the banking system, insuring that each institution is only paying once.
Only the endorsement stamp of Klein’s is visible. Missing are the stamps from the First National Bank of Chicago, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and finally, the Federal Postal Money Order Center in Kansas City where all good MO’s go for their final resting place. However, the money order was not found there in the but in the National Archives in Virginia.

Mystery: Why are the routing stamps missing? Where are Oswald’s fingerprints on the money order and the order form? Why was the money order purchased at one post office and then mailed from a different one miles away? How did Oswald’s MO arrive in the Federal Records Center in Alexandria, VA? Or for that matter, who thought to look for it in the National Archives in the first place?

The Otepka Incident
Otto Otepka, a successful security analyst for the Department of State’s Office of Security, had his career destroyed by Lee Harvey Oswald. Or rather, his interest in the man. One day in June of 1960, while viewing a routine security file on defectors to the Soviet Union, Otepka noticed that one of defectors was listed as a tourist. The man’s name was Lee Oswald. Curious, Otepka contacted both the CIA and the FBI requesting more information on the man. After all, it was odd to see a defector listed as a tourist. He also was interested in uncovering if this man was really a defector or possibly, someone working for intelligence.

This all sent ripples through the upper echelons of the government bureaucracy.
What Otto Otepka did was look too closely at an individual that was under a national security blanket. This resulted in John Francis Reilly being placed in charge of the Office of Security in 1962. He would later state under oath that Robert Kennedy had placed him there. In essence, Reilly was to keep an eye on Otepka who by then had started his own file on Oswald. By 1962 he had his office phone tapped. In June of 1963 Otepka’s office safe was broken into and guess what file got stolen? Of course, the Oswald file. In the same month he was removed from his job. By September he had ten criminal charges brought against him which he was eventually successful in fighting off.

However, this all has a genesis in Otto Otepka’s first and only meeting with Robert Kennedy which occurred in December of 1960. One of Otepka’s duties was issuing security clearances. There were several Kennedy appointees that he had denied. Bobby showed up late and agitated. Otepka calmly gave his reasons for denying the appointees and Bobby exploded. Otepka held his ground and Bobby, seeing this man was not easily rolled, left in a huff. For many years Otepka thought his troubles with Bobby began with the security clearances. Doing his own research years later he came to believe it was his curiosity in Lee Oswald that destroyed his career in government service. More powerful figures didn’t want him snooping around there and apparently, Robert Kennedy was one of them. By sending out inquires to other agencies Otepka inadvertently brought attention to himself–by those in the loop and those not in the loop. And he believed the Attorney General was behind it all.

Mystery: So what did Robert Kennedy know about Lee Oswald and when did he know it? As early as 1960-61? Certainly by 1962 to have sent his people in to keep an eye on Otepka. What is the basis of the interest in Oswald at this early date? And what brought this to Bobby’s attention? Who learned of Otepka’s Oswald file? Did Bobby not want Otepka researching Oswald? And to what end?

Multiple Oswalds
If you are a steady reader of this blog you will know I’ve done done a lot of writing on the Oswald as doppelganger theory. It’s an interregnal part of JFK assassination lore and possibility of Lee Oswald being impersonated runs deep. It is something that can be viewed as a fringe subject but a careful investigation of witness testimony and documents collected by the Warren Commission shows a wealth of loose ends and conflicts. There is a disparity in employment records, tax forms, school records, and medical records. Even his autopsy face sheet has conflicts. There are not a handful of people that interacted with Oswald when he should have been somewhere else. There are dozens of these encounters ranging from New Orleans to Montreal. Some of these loose fragments are tied up with having another Oswald in play but that by no means solves all the problems encountered here with this subject. Namely, who is running this and what happens to the other Oswald after the assassination?

As John Armstrong (Harvey and Lee) discovered through his research that if Lee Oswald is being impersonated the it starts as early as the age of 13. If he was impersonated that young, then his mother Marguerite must be impersonated as well. Suddenly things are greatly entangled–two moms and two sons. And both sets have to resemble each other, a seemingly impossible task. Add to that two more sons from previous marriages and a frightening path lies ahead for anybody wanting to develop this as an intelligence operation. And to what end? To be involved with an assassination somewhere down the road? Indeed, high strangeness is all over this. Indeed, I can see why many would dismiss this doppelganger legend outright.

However, the trail of this enigma does not start out with what Gerald Ford called “armchair investigators” but in the highest echelons of the government itself. J. Edgar Hoover sent a memo in 1960 to the State Dept. with a warning that a Lee Oswald was possibly being impersonated. In 1961 a State Dept. official sent 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. The possibly of a second Oswald had apparently made the rounds. In September of 1963 Lee Oswald makes his fabled trip to Mexico City. CIA station chief Winston Scott believed that Oswald being impersonated after examining the tapes from the bugged Soviet and Cuban diplomatic compounds. Hoover had his agents, seven of them, review the tapes and they determined the man speaking on the telephone calls is not Oswald. 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. Those in the loop knew Oswald was being impersonated from 1960 to 1963. And they kept this information to themselves. He was apparently more than just a malcontent with a delusions of grandeur. Other people were keeping track of him and his business for years.

Lee Oswald remains the biggest enigma of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. A mystery in life he as well in death as uncovered by Dr. Earl Rose when he did the autopsy. His report of the autopsy leaves out numerous scars which the body of the real Oswald should have had. Such as the three inch long mastoid scar on the left side of the neck, the two wounds in his left arm from the accidental shooting in the Marines, and his small pox vaccination scar. Later, mortician Paul Groody who prepared Oswald’s body for burial was contacted twice by the Secret Service in regards to Oswald’s left arm and twice he told them he did not see any scars just as Dr. Rose had not documented them either.

Mystery: If Lee Oswald is being impersonated then what happens to the other “Lee” after the assassination? Or for that matter, his other mother? Are they put in safe houses or executed? Did the other Lee do the shooting leaving the real Oswald to be the patsy? Is this one of the fundamental secrets of the assassination and hence, the cover up?

Classified Files
One thing all investigations into the JFK assassination have in common is not what they uncover, rather, what they cover. They all add to the classified evidence pile. From the Warren Commission through the Clark Panel, the Rockefeller Commission, and lastly the House Select Committee on Assassinations, they all take information and classify it so the general public can never see it. The Warren Commission supporters come along and say, “See? They did all these investigations and they uncovered nothing new. The Warren Report stands.” I hear you Mr. Bugliosi.

Not really. New information is uncovered, it’s just buried through classification. Every so often a researcher will obtain documents through a FOIA request and it’s apparent why the files were classified to begin with. Researcher Harold Weisberg uncovered such gems as the 1/22/63 closed-door meeting where the Commissioners decided not to pursue any leads on Oswald being a government informant/agent (despite what they said to the contrary) and the CIA’s National Photographic Intelligence Center report, #1641-450, that examined the Zapruder film to determine the timing between shots one and two, which they determined to be a period of 1.6 seconds, which are impossible to do on a bolt action rifle.

To fire off shots that fast would require a second shooter and hence, a conspiracy. So one can understand why these records are kept secret. Any evidence that leads away from the Lone Gunman is to be covered up by any means. And classification does that.

After all of this time files are still classified from the beginning. Marguerite Oswald's tax returns from 1956 to 1962 are still sealed. They are marked, "referred...postponed in full." Of course many files on Lee Oswald are still withheld. Oddly, there is a John and Minnie Smith from the same exact time period, 1956-62 that are also classified and nobody knows who they are! Michael and Ruth Paine’s returns from 1956 to 1958 are classified as well, at time in their lives when they were listed as being employed as a farmer ad a farmer's wife. Lee’s cousin Marilyn Murret had all 23 pages of her testimony to the HSCA in 1977 classified. The list of classified information could fill many volumes–and goes deep in the belly of the Beast.

But don’t be surprised. The government has yet to release the autopsy photos of John Wilkes Booth, held in storage for 145 years.

Mystery: What is being covered up here? Could the tax returns being still being withheld from the public show just who Lee Oswald was working for during the 1956-62 period? Such as maybe the FBI, ONI, or the CIA? He’s in the Marines from 1956-59. So why hide his income from that? Also, many tax and employee documents on Lee Oswald are missing or withheld for various reasons. Just want kind of threat to National Security is there if Marguerite Oswald’s tax returns were released?

Collins Radio
The connections to the Collins Radio corporation has threads that run throughout the JFK assassination. A major defense contractor, journalist William E. Kelly wrote the following about them:

“Collins Radio supplied and maintained the equipment used by the Voice of America, all manned NASA space flights, the Strategic Air Command (SAC), as well as all equipment used for the CIA’s Guatemalan and Cuban operations. Most significantly, Collins Radio was responsible for installing and maintaining all radio equipment aboard Air Force One, Air Force Two and the Cabinet’s plane."

Kelly further adds, “Collins Radio not only installed and maintained the radios aboard most military and executive branch planes, they also operated the station known as ‘Liberty’ at their Cedar Rapids, Iowa headquarters, which served as a relay station for all radio communications between the White House, the Pentagon, Air Force One, Air Force Two, the Cabinet plane and Andrews AFB in Washington.”

In one of the more stranger incidents recorded in the history of the assassination, mechanic T. F. White noticed a man sitting in 1958 two-tone Plymouth sedan. To White, he was acting suspiciously as the man watched a flurry of police cars speeding to the murder scene of Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit. White exchanged glances with the man, who drove off. White wrote down the license tag number: PP4537. Later, as Lee Oswald’s image was broadcast on TV, White recognized him at the man in the Plymouth. Later, authorities would trace down the tag to a car belonging to Collins Radio employee Carl Mather of Garland, Texas. When contacted, Mather’s wife responded that her husband was at work the day of the assassination. The important point to consider here is that T. F. White says he saw a man resembling Oswald occupying and driving off in Mather’s car. It should be added that Mather was a close friend of J.D. Tippit and later that afternoon drove to the Tippit residence to offer condolences.

Even more peculiar, the FBI interviewed mechanic T. F. White later for additional details about his sighting but but do not interview Carl Mather. Even stranger, years later, The House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) offered Mather immunity then never do question him under oath. It has since been uncovered through the JFK Records Act that investigators did talk to Carl Mather and discovered that he was responsible for installing the radio gear in Air Force Two, the Vice President’s aircraft. Nevertheless, this is basically a great lead that is never followed through on or adequately sussed out. Why? I think it is safe to assume that Mather possessed a high level security clearance for his work. I am not saying that Mather was a government informant but he does get the kind of coddling that an informant usually receives in an investigation.

Collins Radio’s involvement in Military-Industrial Complex and National Security State operations, runs deep. Everything from hiring Paper Clip Nazis to leasing a ship, the Rex, that was used to place assassins on the shores of Cuba to assassinate Fidel Castro. Lee Oswald, upon returning to America was introduced to a Collins Radio executive by Russian emigrant George de Mohrenschildt for possible employment. Though trivial, Oswald’s widow, Marina married a former Collins Radio employee, Kenneth Porter.

Mystery: What is the true Collins Radio link to the assassination, if any? Did T. F. White really see Lee Oswald in Carl Mather’s car? Did Mather know Oswald and loan him his car? The timeline is off–did White encounter an Oswald impostor? Why is Carl Mather treated so lightly to the point of being virtually ignored by investigators?

The Kennedy Family
One has the feeling at Kennedy family gatherings the death of John is the ghost in the room. Publicly, they support the Warren Commission’s conclusion. Privately, apparently not. David Talbot in Brothers, calls Robert Kennedy the first conspiracy theorist in the death of Presidential brother and told family confidants so. He did not believe in the Warren Report’s conclusion. In examining mysteries of the assassination I find nothing more mysterious than this large Irish-Catholic family’s silence on the issue. You would think somebody over time would break the hush. But so far, none have. It’s the job of the independent investigator to probe the depths of this thing. There is something deeply buried here that has insured their alliance to the myth. They won’t even speak up with John F. Kennedy is having his character trashed. Yes, Bobby okayed the wire taps on Martin Luther King. Yes, he was involved with the assassination plots on Fidel Castro. Bobby was very much involved with thwarting Garrison’s trial of Clay Shaw and had family henchman Walter Sheridan involved with all kinds of dirty business with that. One can only assume Bobby wanted to uncover the truth his way and on his timeline. Talbot in Brothers thinks it would be in another Kennedy administration in the oval office and hence Bobby’s fateful run.

In a way Ted Kennedy sort of strikes back by his involvement with the Freedom of Information Act legislation which resulted in a number of revealing files being released. And that is about all we’ll ever get out of the Kennedys. Perhaps that is enough since the FOIA could break the case open one day.

Mystery: What insures the Kennedy family silence to this day?

Epilogue
This is just a small sampling of mysteries in the Kennedy assassination. There simply is not enough space to list them all. I selected a few of my favorites. There are three main phases in the life of Lee Oswald: The Russian phase, the New Orleans phase, and the trip to Mexico City. Any one of these episodes have enough intrigue and weirdness to leave the mind wondering just what was this former Marine really up to? I think the intelligence angle is valid one and I return to it often in my research. Every single thing in the case gets more troublesome the deeper one delves in which makes it so difficult to decipher what is really going on here. No wonder, almost 50 years afterward, the search for the truth continues.

Sources
McKnight, Gerald, Breach of Trust; Proudy, R. Fletcher, The Secret Team; Armstrong, John, Harvey and Lee; Garrison, James, On the Trail of the Assassins; Mars, Jim, Crossfire; Bugliosi, Vince, Reclaiming History; Mellen, Joan, Farewell To Justice; Talbot, David, Brothers

Collins Radio Connections, by William E. Kelly
http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2010/01/collins-radio-connections.html

November 22 Once Again

2010-11-22T08:33:00.000-08:00

I entered the 47th anniversary of John Kennedy’s assassination by not being able to sleep. Not because I was pondering the events that happened on that day that changed America forever, but instead a long night of waiting for sleep to come. So I got up, turned on the radio to the listen to the late night show, Coast To Coast AM as I knew Edward Haslam author of Dr. Mary’s Monkey was going to be on and would also feature a live interview with Judyth Vary Baker whose new book, Lee And Me, has been recently published and I’ve just started reading. She claims to have been Oswald’s lover for a few months in 1963 and so far, her story, while seemingly improbable is surprisingly well documented and filled with insights not documented before.

Judy’s voice are clear and familiar sounding. A bit feisty, but never rude, she recounted bits of her life as Lee Oswald’s lover and what it was like to see somebody she claims to have loved killed on live TV. She described Oswald as a patriot that loved his country and was knowingly set up to be the patsy and vilified afterward. To add to the intrigue she was calling from an undisclosed location in Europe and using something other than a phone (never defined). When asked by host George Knapp about the death threats she said she has gotten, she never gave a straight answer and laughed it off. I wish she had been more forthcoming on the threats and how they were delivered.

I think what stood out for me the most is when Judyth said that Lee knew what was going down and that he was going to be made the patsy. She says he stuck it out hoping to thwart the conspiracy. Well, that certainly is a new take on the assassination! I’ll have to study more on this and read more of her book before I can form a deeper opinion on that.

Also of note is that Edward Haslam spent a lot of time on the show last night discussing Judy and the assassination. Ed is a bit...out there. When a caller made some comments about the deadliness of the Mannlicher-Carcano, Haslam corrected him and said it was a Mauser that was fired and uncovered and the Mannlicher was not “discovered” until two days later. I was surprised he would say something that far off from the known facts. While there is an ongoing debate on numerous rifles discovered in the sixth floor it’s quite evident from police reports and numerous photographs and films that a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle was recovered within a few hours of the assassination. Frankly, I’m disappointed in Haslam for the inaccuracy here. I’m all for a divergence of thought on what happened but this is just plain wrong.

I’ll post a more detailed review of Me and Lee later. Judyth Vary Baker presents a unique take on the Kennedy assassination with more details then ever exposed before on who Lee Oswald was, who of course, remains the ultimate enigma of the case.

The Lonesome Gunman Blues

2010-11-07T08:52:00.000-08:00

As any SWAT Team or military sniper would say, good marksmanship requires constant practice. Oswald made many documented trips to the Sports Dome Rifle Range outside of Dallas in early November of 1963. Like all things Oswald it is bound in controversy as he is seen driving up when is supposed to have not known how to drive and should have been at Ruth Paine’s house at that time. Later, he’ll be seen arriving in the company of other men and doing annoying things such as shooting at other people’s targets. Whatever is going on here, he never practiced shooting at moving targets. Either in the Marines or in civilian life prior to the assassination. Any professional marksmen or even a deer hunter, will tell you that shooting at a moving target is the hardest thing to do. It requires fast tracking with little leeway for error.

I don’t claim to be a ballistics expert but I grew up around guns and my dad, grandfather, and uncles were gun collectors and hunters. I’ve personally shot various rifles, both bolt-action and semi-automatic with calibers ranging from 30.06, 7.62, 45.70 and .222. I have shot rifles with scopes on them and experienced a determining factor in firearms targeting–recoil. Or, how much the gun kicks once a round is fired. Recoil throws off the sighting of the target. This is extremely important as the target has to be acquired and in Oswald’s case, very quickly, within a fraction of a second. it’s hard enough with a static target let alone one that is moving. You have to sight by the naked eye first and then line up the scope in the general area. As we shall see, this is just one of many problems he faced in trying to accomplish his alleged mission.

Unbeknownst to us at the time, CIA Director McCone had the Zapruder film analyzed by the Agency’s National Photographic Intelligence Center (NPIC) in early 1964. The report was classified until legendary researcher Harold Weisberg obtained a copy of it through his 1982 FOIA suit. In the report (Labeled, 1641-450), the NPIC determines that at frame Z210 the first shot occurs. The second shot occurs at frame Z242. A time period of 1.6 seconds. Even if Ozzie was feeling lucky that day he would not have been able to shift the bolt on his junky Mannlicher-Carcano that fast. Experts take 2.4 seconds to cycle the weapon and that’s being generous. And as I just mentioned, recoil comes in to play, further adding to the time needed to reacquire the target, a target that has already moved out of position and has to be found through what amounts to be a peep-hole in a hotel room door. (Oddly, the scope is found later not to be properly sighted-in. It might have been thrown off since it had to be disassembled in order to get it into the building that morning.) At any rate, the only solution to this mystery is that there was another shooter. Something the Warren Commission would not ever consider. A second shooter is a conspiracy. And remember, we are told time and time again, there is no evidence for this! You can see why this report was buried for 18 years.

(As Gerald McKnight stated in Breach of Trust, relating this matter, it is unclear if the CIA ever mentioned anything from the NPIC report to the Warren Commission. I think it’s a good bet they never did. It would cause insurmountable problems for the Lone Gunman theory.)

A lot of factors affect a bullet’s flight. Cold produces drag on a bullet and will effect the trajectory. Wind and barometric pressure have their effects as well. Gravity produces a noticeable bullet drop even if the marksmen is lying flat on the ground and even more so if shooting from Oswald’s position 60 feet up. Combine all of these factors with a scope that is not properly sighted, and the task at hand is vexing. As Vietnam sniper Craig Roberts, who had an opportunity to look out the sixth floor window said that Oswald’s best angle was Houston street that lead directly to the shooter’s window. Roberts thinks Oswald could have shot up the car with a handgun, the limousine close and braking as it turned slowly on to Elm Street.

So could Oswald have made the shot? Sure, anything is possible. Never the less, it’s a curious thing–half of the evidence is there for a shooter being at the sixth floor window of the school book depository building and shooting. And the other half of the evidence refutes it. Yes, there was a sniper’s nest with stacked boxes, a discarded rifle, a paper bag, spent shells, and people seeing the gun barrel stuck out the window. No, the paraffin test proved negative for nitrates on Oswald’s cheek. (All who test fired the rifle tested positive I might add.) The bolt, trigger, scope, clip, and spent cartridges–none of these things had Oswald’s prints on them. Nobody sees him going down the flights of stairs to get to the first floor. When interrogated by authorities he is able to identify people that were on the first floor at the time of the shooting and even few moments afterwards. It’s like the table is set for dinner–but nobody is home.

I love how Vince Bugliosi in Reclaiming History relates that if Oswald is in a conspiracy why is he doing nothing related to a plot, such as having clandestine meetings with fellow conspirators and so on. As with all things Bugliosi, his arguments seem devastating till you take time to think about it. It’s a good point till one considers the opposite of the argument–what Oswald would have to do to be an assassin. Other than purchasing some guns (and that is problematic too. See my piece, Who Bought The Guns?) and a few trips to the firing range, what is he doing to be good at this? As any SWAT Team or military sniper would say, good marksmanship requires constant practice. Remember that he scored passing grades to qualify as a marksmen in the Marines. First time, pretty good; second time passable; third and last time, barely qualified. He did not belong to an elite sniper unit because his skills were not good enough. Before the assassination, he apparently never did any research, no development of skills, wind tests, shooting from a high elevation to test bullet drop, besides supplying himself with inferior equipment. He just showed up one day and sticks a gun out of the window and goes BANG, BANG, BANG! And the rest is history. Move along now.

So How Does A Loner Have A Wife And Two Kids?
One of the myths that came out of this was that if you are a lone gunman then you must be a loner. It is as if one has to associate with the other. Jim Garrison remarked, not only was Oswald not the lone gunman, he was never alone. Really, James Earl Ray fits the profile of a lone wolf on the outer fringes of society than Oswald ever could. The Warren Commission supporters have so pigeon-holed him as a loner that they have a hard time accepting that he associated with other people besides his wife and Ruth Paine. Just look at the many photos of the parties he attended in Russia. They all feature a content looking young man surrounded with lots of other people. He’s a regular social butterfly with pictures to prove it. When returning to the United States, he and his wife Marina were befriended by the White Russian community in Dallas. Lots of socializing went on there. He had friends in school and on most of the jobs he had, mingling with them outside of work.

I think another reason the Lone Nut crowd must have Oswald isolated from society is based on who he is known to have associated with. There are plenty of good witness accounts of Oswald in the company of everybody from CIA officer David Atlee Philips to the other lone gunman, Jack Ruby. Entertainers, from strippers to comedians, to customers of Ruby’s Carousel club recall seeing Oswald there in association with Ruby on many occasions. But it goes deeper as Oswald had associations with a lot of nefarious characters including
notorious spooks such as David Ferrie and Clay Shaw. Suspicious to say the least. Remember, Oswald is the loner–he’s not supposed to be this sociable. And hanging with this many government operatives? Oh man, so it ain’t so! This is a long and twisting road filled with mysteries and not for the faint of heart. Trying to make sense of it all can trouble the mind.

Actually, the only thing Lee Oswald is anti-social about his affiliation with other Marxist groups. He never does hook up with any of them. While being a Fair Play For Cuba pamphleteer, he was the only member of the New Orleans branch. And the pamphlets he was handing out either were addressed to the office of the staunch anti-communist Guy Banister (another Oswald contact which the LN crowd denies) or had phony addresses so that no one could contact him at all. The end result is that nobody could join him. It was all Cold War theater.

And the famous backyard photo of him with guns and Marxist newspapers show two divergent groups, one Stalinist and the other Trotskyite. Both are blood enemies of each other. You either belonged to one and not the other. He might as well be holding up a Bible and a Koran. What he was apparently doing was showing how disconnected he was from mainstream Communists in America at the time. In his things after the assassination was found a rough draft of a speech he never gave that was pro-capitalism. I sometimes wonder if the photograph was done for protection. To let everybody know what team he was playing for. That one image, FPCC literature, and the left behind speech contradict the legend of Oswald the commie.

Going It Alone
Could Lee Oswald have done it alone? Or for that matter, could anybody have assassinated John Kennedy alone? One would think the logistics for such an operation are too great for one man to handle if it was his desire to cut down a high profile figure such as a President. As has been pointed out in this piece, the CIA’s own photography analysis group determined the time between the first and second shot was too brief for Oswald to accomplish with a manually operated firearm. It begs for a second shooter. Military snipers operate in a team of one rifleman paired with a spotter. There should be in an operation such as this, besides a highly trained and experienced marksmen, intelligence gathering, operational knowledge of the intended target’s security detail, perhaps an inside man or two, and a backup plan among a myriad of other details. Can a lone individual complete all of these tasks? Not with Lee Oswald working 9 to 5 and visiting his wife and kids on the weekends. Maybe this is why we don’t see much in the way of targeted assassinations, at least in this country, since the 1960’s. Today, the Secret Service employs their own team of snipers on rooftops. An ironic turn of events.

Sources
McKnight, Gerald, Breach of Trust; Proudy, R. Fletcher, The Secret Team; Armstrong, John, Harvey and Lee; Garrison, James, On the Trail of the Assassins; The Warren Commission Report; Mars, Jim, Crossfire; Bugliosi, Vince, Reclaiming History

Cryptome.org for pictures of the President’s security detail.

Nested Conspiracies

2010-10-04T13:18:00.001-07:00

The two words “conspiracy theory” are often seen together. However, conspiracy is not a theory, it’s a crime. A felony. Apparently so rampant that our legal system had to criminalize it as it is an integral part of any criminal enterprise.

Listening to the Rollye James Show (XM-158) the other night a caller made an excellent point about about conspiracy–that there is often more than one going on at the same time. He said several of his relatives had been involved in the Bay of Pigs operation and he described the outward and then behind the scenes workings around the event. It’s multi-layered. That is why it makes it hard to sort out why things happen as they do in major events like assassinations or terror attacks and why so many theories are spawned to try and explain them.

This in turn, reminded me of my web programming days and when we using nested style sheets. These were pages of code for often repeated things such as headers, footers, or graphics of the same style. It made coding easier and more organized for a web developer, particularly when a lot of pages were involved in a large corporate web site. However, for an event like an assassination, these multiple layers of plots can sometimes be operated by different players, or sometimes not. But they do qualify as being nested. A nested conspiracy makes nothing easy and in fact, often complicates the event. No wonder we still argue over how many shots were or were not fired in Dealey Plaza in November of 1963.

A nested conspiracy is an example of multiple operations in action. Since there are multiple theories on the assassination, many seem plausible; from LBJ being involved to the CIA or the Texas Oilmen. Everybody has something to hide and classify under the grounds of National Security. (Or should that be National Insecurity?) At any rate, these operations may be in tandem with each other or separate functions from various factions. Like it is widely suspected that the CIA in staging the coup in Chile had President Salvador Allende assassinated and made to look like a suicide. But William Buckley, a former CIA Beirut station chief who would one day be kidnapped, tortured, and killed by Hezbollah told a journalist that it wasn’t the Agency that did it. Somebody else killed Allende but they never found out who.

The Nested Conspiracy of Watergate
Another example of a nested conspiracy is Watergate. Much has been written about the greatest political scandal of 20th century, the seemingly obscure break-in of Democratic party headquarters in the Watergate Hotel that ultimately led to the downfall and the first ever, resignation of a sitting President, Richard Nixon. The official story on this scandal from the mainstream media was that Nixon was a big liar and a crook. The Washington Post concentrated on him to the exclusion of all else that was in orbit around the affair. But time reveals a lot of secrets.

But only one author Jim Hougan in his book, Secret Agenda, has written about the other side of the conspiracy–that which involves the CIA. At the time all the energy for the scandal revolves around Nixon and his aides and there was largely little focus on the five arrested burglars being active CIA agents (and all former active in the Bay of Pigs operation). Hougan suggests that the CIA’s involvement was not a take down of Nixon but more of a fishing expedition for blackmail material through the call girl ring operating out of the Watergate hotel. It was the CIA that offered technical help, the agents, safe houses for meetings, disguises, even the graphics that G. Gordon Liddy used for his famous Gemstone presentation to AG John Mitchell. Whatever the case, they did a great job at shielding themselves from being portrayed as participants in the affair–which according to Hougan they were.

Conversely, authors Lee Colodny and Robert Gettlin in Silent Coup head off in a different direction pinning most of the scandal on White House lawyer John Dean. The authors point out conclusively that Dean’s future wife’s name (Mo Biner) was found on a list of women that were part of the call girl ring operating out of the Watergate hotel. Dean then seeks to quash any information on this and is responsible for running his own clandestine intelligence operation behind Nixon’s back and then when it all blew up orchestrated the cover-up which Nixon took on and ran with. It is apparent that Dean was instrumental in setting Nixon up with his perjured testimony in front of Congress and in the many trials to follow. To be fair, Nixon had a proclivity towards intrigue to begin with which led him down his disastrous path. However, Colodny and Gettlin portray John Dean as the biggest liar in the whole affair, which may come as a shock to some people who lived through the Watergate scandal at the time.

So Watergate ends up with four forces at work here: The CIA on one hand digging for dirt and making sure their real aim is not revealed; the Washington Post and Woodard-Bernstein focused on Nixon to exclusion of all else; John Dean’s machinations behind the scenes as a one-man wrecking ball; and finally, Nixon and his aides doing cover-up for their crimes they so easily drifted into.

And maybe this is how it’s understood. But who can say for sure?

JFK and The Nested Conspiracy
How many nested conspiracies converge at Dealey Plaza? Author Philip F. Nelson in LBJ: The Mastermind of JFK's Assassination, provides a reasonable scenario for Lyndon Johnson setting up a conspiracy to have John Kennedy killed as outlandish as it might seem to our American sensibilities–our sense of American Exceptionalism–that we don’t do this sort of thing because of our special place in the world. In many ways it’s a hard thing to confront. It’s like reading about the Franklin child sex ring scandal. We know there is corruption in high places but it’s shocking to get a glimpse of how cold the evil really is. It sends chills down to the bone. Nevertheless, Johnson did all he could have done to set up a kill-zone for Kennedy. He was the architect behind the trip in the first place, a trip Kennedy didn’t want to take. His aides made sure the Secret Service were given detailed instructions on what JFK desired for his security whether it was true or not (it wasn’t). Kennedy never talks to the Secret Service because he is trusting them to protect him; conversely, the Secret Service never asks Kennedy what he wants as they are assuming Johnson and his aids are telling the truth. Afterwards the blaming starts from the Johnson camp to distance themselves from the disaster and deflect any inquiry. And it worked. The Warren Commission nor any investigative body that follows ever does a complete investigation into the security failures of the Secret Service. If they did, many of the roads would mostly likely lead to LBJ.

However, with the LBJ scenario seems to require a lot of helpers on the side. The CIA, always comes up as a culprit via guilt through association with numerous illegal and deadly clandestine affairs. Since one of their guys, Lee Oswald was mixed up in the affair it behoves them to play Cover One. (Not to mention that too much investigation would reveal too much about their operations.) We know there was a false defector program to the Soviet Union of which Oswald was most likely involved in. CIA documents feature an agent interviewing a former marine that re-defects back. Who seems very familiar to Oswald. The CIA opens a SIG 201 file on him in 1960, a file that is only opened on agents. Then you have the whole business of Oswald actions in New Orleans and later in Mexico City which bely a man conducting field theater, i.e., operations. The CIA has a lot to cover for here.

Cover Two is played by J. Edgar Hoover at the FBI. Hoover has to lie about what they knew about Oswald since the Bureau took notice of his defection in 1959 (memos on the defection were sent to all branches of the military and all major government agencies) and Hoover had been amassing weekly reports on Oswald from 1960 onwards. Plus, Hoover established the lone gunman theory within twenty-four hours of Oswald’s arrest which served to head off any inquiry into a conspiracy, along with Johnson’s aides pressuring every Texas law official into going along with the scheme. Then later, LBJ forms the Warren Commission to further head off any independent investigations that were brewing in Texas and in the Congress. Ultimately, Hoover leans on the Warren Commission enough along with LBJ (and the weak sister, Earl Warren) to direct it towards the true goal–lone gunman with no plot.

There were many other investigations to follow, each one never satisfying the public’s distrust of the official story. Each one ends up adding more levels of secrecy, with a never ending load of classified (concealed) evidence.

The Media Layer
And the mainstream press is there to add the final layer. Journalist Mike Golden has an excellent article, Assassination By Omission: Another Look At Serial Plagiarist Gerald Posner, where he describes how he ran head-on into it in 1998 when he scored the last interview with Dr. Martin Luther King’s alleged assassin, James Earl Ray in April of that year. He was preparing an article for Vibe magazine, a publication with a mainly black readership when the Editor-in-Chief Danyel Smith pulled the plug on the project without explanation. In fact, nobody in the media wanted anything to do with this. It was radioactive.

In Golden’s words:

“Every other mainstream publication I approached refused to even listen to the tape, much less read the transcript of the interview, for fear, I suppose, of possibly having to reveal information that could get them into deep trouble. With who and for what, I can’t tell you. After all this time, I still can’t put names behind who was calling the shots or what they were afraid of hearing come out of Ray’s mouth. But whoever they were, they were pretty high up the old totem pole, and they know more than you or I...”

Isn’t this a conspiracy going on here? Anyway, this is not unusual. John Barbour, creator of the popular Real People television show once had a popular radio program in the Los Angeles market. Just as he was getting ready to have Jim Garrison on for an live interview, his program was quickly pulled off-air. No explanation. He was finished in that radio market. Later he was doing a show, Speak Up America. He got in contact with Jim Garrison again and arranged for a three-hour taped interview. When it was broadcast it was edited to make Garrison look like a kook, with Garrison saying there were 32 shooters in Dealey Plaza when the unedited version he states there were three teams of two shooters per unit. A classic case of libel. The same thing was done to assassination witness Orville Nix (See my article, How CBS Screwed Orville Nix, HERE). John Barbour was appalled and complained to the producer. After that he was let go of Real People and the show went downhill from there.

Shades of Chuck Harder’s velvet hammer.

The Nested Conspiracy Forever
The Kennedy assassination is probably not the first nested conspiracy ever to be put into action but certainly is a good example of a modern one. All the ones that follow copy it to some degree. Just look at the controversy of the 9-11 attack. It’s the 21st Century version of the Kennedy assassination complete with bloodshed, never ending controversy, destruction of evidence, a resulting war, tons of new evidence to classify, a shoddy investigation with a shoddy report, and two camps of independent investigators slinging mud at each other.

In regards to the investigators, many can be highly educated, degreed people that make perfect sense in their arguments but then certain details don’t fit. Such as Dr. Steven Jones and his thermite research. When Dr. Judy Wood asked Jones where is thermite ever used to demolish a building he does not reply to her. Answer? It never is according to Dr. Wood (who is a proponent of an exotic technology being used instead of conventional explosives). Yet Dr. Jones’ research has a large following and his work has been peer reviewed. And the 9-11 research community is rife with this sort of goings on as are other research groups such as those in the Kennedy assassination crowd. There is disinformation going on here but from whom?

There are so many operations in effect there to even begin to write about it would probably cover many volumes. You start out with the Arab terrorists hijacking commercial airliners. Coinciding with the hijacking is a Pentagon simulation of a hijacking of said commercial airliners. Then you have Mossad agents filming the towers being attacked and falling down (their interrogation and film classified). Meanwhile, you have the destruction of large amounts of financial records that were stored in the buildings. The FBI is another player stating there were no black boxes found at Ground Zero, that is later contradicted by two firemen who say they found the recorders.

With so many players involved with so many controversial events, be they individuals and or government or corporate agencies, all serve to lead people astray. How can one sort any of this out with so many players involved? It’s extremely difficult if not impossible. Because it’s all nested. Everybody can write their books and post on their web pages in the hunt for an angle. And nobody is going to get close. Because it’s all nested.

Sources
Nelson, Philip, LBJ: The Mastermind of JFK’s Assassination; Hougan, Jim, Secret Agenda; Colodny, Lee and Gettlin, Robert, Silent Coup; Prouty, Fletcher, The Secret Team, McKnight, Gerald, Breach of Trust

John Barbour, Coast to Coast AM radio interview, 5/31/09.

Mike Golden
http://exiledonline.com/assassination-by-omission-another-look-at-serial-plagiarist-gerald-posner/

Dr. Judy Wood
http://www.drjudywood.com/

Rollye James Show
http://www.rollye.net/

The Oops! Moment

2010-09-25T08:17:00.000-07:00

They tell us that Lee Harvey Oswald pulled the trigger that killed the President of the United States. Too bad he didn’t bother to leave his fingerprint on the trigger.

Oops!

They tell us that the final kill-shot to the back of President Kennedy’s head was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald as he fired his rifle from the sixth floor of the School Book Depository Building. Too bad there was a live oak tree blocking the view.

Oops!

Lee Oswald allegedly snuck his rifle, dissembled, in a long paper bag he allegedly made. It was found in the so-called sniper’s nest on the sixth floor. Two weeks after the assassination, in the Dallas Post Office’s dead letter department, was found a package addressed to Lee Oswald but with the wrong street address on it. It featured no return address and was .12 short on the postage. When opened it was found to contain a second paper bag of the same make and dimensions of first bag. Two bags for one rifle?

Oops!

Some people think Lyndon Johnson was behind a conspiracy to have John Kennedy assassinated. The two apparently argued about having John Connolly ride in the Presidential limousine for the trip through Dallas. But did LBJ let the cat out of the bag when he tried to talk JFK out of having Jackie ride in the limousine with him too?

Oops!

When Lee Oswald was appearing in a radio debate program, Conversation Carte Blanche, with Carlos Bringuier, Bill Stuckey, and Edward Butler, he was given a hard time about his time in Russia and his communist background. He blurted out the following: “I was under the protection of the...that is is to say, I was was not under the protection of the American government.”

Major Oops!

Lee’s Russian wife Marina’s understand of English was supposed to be so bad that she needed a translator when testifying for the Warren Commission. However, during contract negotiations (see next Oops) Marina spoke privately without a translator to her brother in law Robert Oswald, in English, about why her agent’s commission had gone up. Lee wrote her letters when they were living in Russia and many were in English. She could read it but not speak it?

Oops!

Marina Oswald signed a contract with Tex Italia Films for them to do a film about her in the spring of 1964. She was paid a flat fee of $132,350. Shortly thereafter Tex-Italia Films went out of business and no film was ever made. Disappeared. Kaput. The three men running Tex-Italia Films were kicked out of their office for non-payment of rent. The FBI checked out their backgrounds and found nothing on them. They could pay Marina $132,350 but they couldn’t pay their rent? Why, we don’t have a key Warren Commission witness being bribed here do we?

Oops!

Gerald Posner, author of the pro lone gunman book, Case Closed, used to say he had documents that proved that Lee Oswald and David Ferrie were not in the Civil Air Patrol together in the mid-1950’s. Then the famous CAP bivouac photo was shown on a PBS Frontline special showing David Ferrie and a teenage Lee Oswald at camp.

Oops!

When Lee Oswald ordered the 36” model of the Mannlicher-Carcano. The rifle found hidden in the boxes of books on the sixth floor was the 40” model that was no longer for sale at Klein’s Sporting Goods at the time Oswald allegedly ordered it.

Oops!

The postal money order that Oswald allegedly used had the following batch number printed on it: #2,202,130,462. As researcher John Armstrong discovered, that was from a batch that should have been for sale in late 1964 or early 1965. The money order was also missing three of the four routing stamps, did not have have Oswald’s fingerprints on it, and was not found in the final resting place, the Federal Postal Money Order Center in Kansas City. It was in fact, found in the Federal Records Center in Alexandria, VA. Who thought to look for it in the National Archives? This is another...

Oops!

Philip Willis and his family were in Dealey Plaza the day of the assassination. Phil shot pictures using 35mm slide film that were soon after published in Look magazine. Shortly thereafter, the FBI requested the slides to study them. Years later they got them back though they noticed there was one slide that didn’t look right. It featured an image that was published in Look. Upon comparison from the transparency to the image published in the magazine they found the problem. The train visible in the Look magazine image was missing from the slide. While in Federal custody somebody had airbrushed out the train from the original transparency. Destruction of material evidence is a crime should you and I do it. Can you say...

Oops!

Dallas on 11.22.63 was also the convergence of three men that would one day be President of the United States. They were, Lyndon Jonson, Richard Nixon, and George Bush Sr. Nixon in particular was in town for a bottlers convention being a lawyer for the Pepsico Company and flew out that morning. Initially, Nixon denied even being in Dallas the day of the assassination. But later he was reminded of statements made to the Dallas Morning News of his prediction that John Kennedy planned on dumping Lyndon Jonson off the 1964 ticket. He then had to say...

Oops!

When former counter intelligence chief James Angleton was giving his testimony to Congress, he was asked about the memoirs of Mexico City station chief Winston Scott. Angleton denied the memoir was fact, instead insisting it was fiction and also denying there was a chapter on Lee Oswald. Scott’s son Michael battled with the CIA for years to get a copy of his father’s book. When he finally got it most of the pages were redacted. Of the 221 pages, only 90 were readable, the rest classified. Of course that includes the blacked out chapter on Lee Harvey Oswald.

Oops!

2010-08-22T06:20:00.000-07:00

BOOK REVIEW: The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Accent to Power, Means of Assent, and The Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro

Trying to define Lyndon B. Johnson in one phrase is about as difficult as trying to insult a lawyer. On one hand, he did do good things for the poor people of Texas hill country. He made sure they had paved roads and electrical power. He was instrumental in placing himself in positions to award jobs to the jobless during the Great Depression. On the other hand, he embodies the worst of human behavior. The hard scrabble upbringing forged a man that would do anything (literally) to be successful in life and avoid the failures of his father, Sam Johnson, a former State legislator who went on to become a failed businessman whom the younger Johnson resented. Growing up the laughing stock because your daddy owed everybody money in town with a do-nothing mother altered a mind that was ripe for the picking. Or so they say, as one can never really know what made Lyndon Johnson that ogre that he become.

I got into reading Robert Caro’s three volume biography (a fourth being written) on LBJ because I wanted a closer look at the man that benefited the most from John Kennedy’s death. And, who has often been viewed as a suspect in the crime. A study of Johnson’s life and character is decent into darkness but also political genius. An astuteness that let him anticipate situations and deftly work around them or deflect an oncoming blow. He laid down a course of action and never veered from it. A man that knew no shame in anything he did from stabbing his friends in the back to cheating on his wife (sometimes in their own home, with her there). And underneath it all was that drive to be the top dog because from an early age he wanted the top job–the Presidency of the United States. Then he wouldn’t be like that man, his father. The man that went from wearing suits and ties to the dirty clothes of a road crew foreman. The man that lost the family farm and dishonored the family name.

The Man
As I read through these volumes I was left with the dread that maybe monsters really do exist. After reading these books I felt dirty–as if I had spent too long playing the mud. It’s amazing how long he kept up so much criminal activity for so long with nobody finding out out about it.

Johnson’s treatment of people was two-fold. First, he brown-nosed his career path with those in power; flattery and sweet words for older men whose power was on the wain and only had their memories of past victories to comfort them as they slowly faded into background noise. It served Johnson well on his climb as it was something nobody else would venture to do. He did it everywhere from the college dean, past Sam Rayburn in the Congress, to Richard Russell in the Senate, to Franklin Roosevelt in the Oval office.

Secondly, his treatment of people below him was beyond the pale and showed a sadistic streak. Fundamentally, a man with no empathy for his subordinates. In his early days he drove those that worked under like slaves, working them long hours till late a night, day after day, 7 days a week, with only allowing short breaks. Once a Johnson man, you belonged to him for life. His ability to dominate even the strongest opponent and make him submit to his will was his most remarkable trait. The trait of turning people into obedient, mind numbed slaves. A psychic vampire. Those that worked for him lived in fear of his wrath. Though as Robert Caro points out, an intelligent, independent person would not last long with Johnson and would move on. A farmer wouldn’t treat his cows this badly and expect them to produce milk, but LBJ did and got the milk too. And this abusive nature never changed from the time he was a Congressional aide, to NYA director, to Congressman, to Senate Majority Leader.

Nettie Connally, wife of John and who would one day be in the crosshairs at Dealey Plaza, was Johnson’s secretary for a few years. Once, when she didn’t answer the phone quickly enough he threw a book at her. She got off easy. Another secretary accidentally handed Johnson the wrong decanter of whisky. He accused her of poisoning him and threw it across the room shattering it. She had to clean up the mess. If somebody had an insecurity, Johnson took cruel pleasure in exploiting it. Once, when a newly divorced secretary delivered coffee he didn’t like, he told her it was no wonder she couldn’t keep a husband making such lousy coffee.

His wife, Lady Bird (Claudia Taylor) probably had the worse burden to bear and did so with a great deal grace and charm. She was the the number one slave, making sure master had breakfast in bed, his pen and wallet in his pockets and his clothes properly laid out in the morning. She would be required to have meals ready to eat at anytime of the day or night as Johnson was always bringing people over. And she would, graciously greeting all who entered their home with a warm smile. And, of course, there were all of her husband’s infidelities to deal with which somehow she ignored through that brain-dead love of hers for him. The man would not only grope women in front of her, but carry on with them in their own house at night, with her there. Robert Caro said he never understood her and one can see why. She is an interesting character in regards to how much abuse she endured and still remained faithful and loving to the end.

Of course we are familiar with Johnson’s habit of discussing policy with Senators, talking to reporters, and giving dictation while sitting on the toilet. Once again, another trait started early in his career. But it was far worse than that. This is man that would proudly display his penis to other men in public restrooms and ask the question, “Ever seen anything this big before?” Not easily embarrassed, Johnson had no qualms about public urination in the House parking lot. While other men may hide behind a car or bush, not so with LBJ. He didn’t mind if the secretaries walking by witnessed him watering the lawn or not. Just as he didn’t care if people saw him walking around Capital Hill hand-in-hand with Congresswoman Helen Douglass when he was having an affair with her.

The Assassination of Leland Olds
In all three books some truly awful deeds are recorded on Lyndon Johnson. Nothing really top his maneuvers to nix the reappointment of Leland Olds, the chairman of the Federal Power Commission. Olds had been an effective Chairman but his regulation ran afoul of the Texas Oilmen who hated the restraints and Johnson saw a way to ally with them as he would need their financial help in the years ahead (and to gain their trust). Like all things LBJ this take-down was over the top and beyond the pale in viciousness. Poor, Leland, he never saw the ambush coming.

Johnson started by delaying the reappointment hearings for months. That gave his associates time to dig up dirt, in this case, articles Olds had published years earlier in liberal publications. For the hearing itself they brought him people to attack Olds’ character, calling him such names as, punk, jackass, traitor, and other baseless charges. These people were given as long as they wanted to trash Old’s character while the witnesses for him were given short shift, and rushed along with Johnson displaying a huge watch to time them. The Senators, including Johnson, badgered Olds in testimony, constantly interrupting him, with accusations against him and his work as FPC chief and questions about articles he had written that he had little memory of.

If Clarence Thomas thought that he had experienced a “hi-tech lynching” in front of a Senate committee, that was mild in comparison to the vicious character assassination that befell Leland Olds. The ugliness on display probably wouldn’t be shown in front of TV cameras today. Politicians, ever careful about appearance, would shy away from these tactics as they had to when they sought to rake Oliver North over the coals at the Iran-Contra hearings. A huge public backlash forced them to retreat.

As usual, after the smoke cleared, Lyndon Johnson got his way and another free, first class ticket to Hell–as if he needed another one. Leland Olds was destroyed and his life and career in public service never recovered. His replacement, a do-nothing crony let regulations lapse, much to the delight of the Oilmen.

In an ironic moment, typically Johnsonian, during a recess in the hearing, LBJ walked passed Leland Olds in the hall and remarked to him how it all was nothing personal, just politics, and...could we still be friends? Obviously, the words of a man that had no thought, no inkling, living in total oblivion of the pain of others.

Nobody Likes Cheaters
Once again, all of Johnson’s early character traits he exhibited early on. The stealing of the 1948 Senate election from Coke Stephenson wasn’t the first time he did that. In college, his group the White Stars (the Black Stars didn’t like him and wouldn’t let him join) so he rigged the student council elections to get his people into the choice spots. The Black Stars never knew what hit them as Johnson got himself and his people in charge of student government. Later, when a Congressional aide, he took the Little Congress, a social club of aides and turned it into a political organization to benefit himself. Stuffing the ballot boxes worked till he was called on it.

Means of Accent, the second book of The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Caro documents in great detail the corrupting of the voting process that allowed to stealing of the 1948 election. For Johnson, it was his last chance to advance his political career towards his final goal as President, and it was hang fire or nothing. As Caro points out, Johnson’s crookedness shocked even the old-timers in how brazen and blatant it was, as if he had no higher authority to answer to.

It’s my favorite of the three books. Its’s a great contrast between the personalities. Coke, former Texas Governor and a man of honor and ethics from the old school, where a man’s word was his bond. And Lyndon, a man with no scruples about anything, whose word was whatever it meant to whomever he was talking to at the time. Robert Caro does a great job in chronicling the event, probably the best ever, in rich detail. One remarkable scene is when he places the reader in the dusty streets of Alice, Texas just after the election as Coke and former Texas Ranger Frank Hamer go to investigate the ballot boxes. Hamer, who legendary career included gunfights killing 53 men and sported the 17 scars of those gun battles. (His most famous case was the ambush on Bonny and Clyde after a 102 day hunt.) A dangerous scene ensued with armed goons blocking the way to the bank were the election records were being kept. Marching straight ahead, Frank Hamer never broke his stride and they fell away in his wake. The goons attempted to enter after Coke, but big Frank stood in the doorway eyeing them down with his hand resting on his holstered gun, keeping them at bay, while Coke and his attorneys viewed the voter’s tally sheet and poll list. They found the evidence of fraud but were never able to deliver on it in court. Johnson’s attorneys delayed the release of the afore mentioned voter records and contents of ballot box 13, just long enough for Supreme Court Justice Black to pull the plug, fearing a violation of state’s rights issues. (Those records have since long disappeared as has ballot box 13; but not the photograph of it.) Johnson walks away with a steal.

A tragic story as the bad guys wins. But there is a happy ending. Coke Stephenson retires to a quiet life of a Texas rancher, marries a lovely woman he loves dearly, and she gives him the delight of his life, a daughter. Lyndon Johnson gets his comeuppance in the 1960s as his Presidency is bogged down in an unpopular war, sapping the life out of his blood. He gets to the mountain top and finds it a lonely destination. The lapel grabbing, chest pointing, space invader can’t do a damn thing. Meanwhile, the 1948 theft is never far behind and follows him wherever he goes adding to the public’s distrust of the man. It stares him in the face on the mountain top. He dies a crazy loon, the respect he so craved departed far from him.

Robert Caro’s Hot Potatoes
Probably the most ironic thing about this series of excellently written throughly researched books is what is missing. Apparently, there are areas of investigation that are too seedy even for Caro to venture into. Over two-thousand pages and he cannot mention Madeline Brown one time though he has no problem mentioning Johnson’s other lovers. And it was in known in Texas that she was Johnson's favorite with an affair that is supposed to have lasted 21 years and produced one child, a son. Mac Wallace, another character widely known to have worked for Johnson as a thug, a man with a murderous past, makes no appearance either. Even a pivotal figure, such as Edward Clark, Johnson’s personal attorney for many years, is portrayed as a minor player in Johnson’s life. In fact, I don’t recall Caro ever mentioning that Clark was Johnson’s attorney or took care of so much of his business. Yet according to Bar McClellan, who started working in Clark’s law firm in 1966 (author, Blood, Money, And Power), it was Clark that helped Johnson cover up his many crimes, which includes the stealing of the 1948 senate election. Clark and Johnson according to McClellan, made good foils for one another, the corrupt lawyer paired with corrupt politician. Caro interviewed Clark but was cut off after Means of Accent was published. I think Caro, wanting to be taken seriously by his fellow peers and the mainstream media, decided to leave these sleeping dogs to snooze. He seems far more interested in the intricacies of Johnson’s political maneuvering, which is well explained and fascinating to learn, rather than traversing even greater conspiracies such as the wasteland that lies on the horizon of the JFK assassination.

Unfortunately, we get two histories out of this business. The “official” one from the likes of Caro, Dallek, Goodman, Manchester, and so on. And then there is what actually happened which lives on the Internet and is investigated by that other tier of writers–those souls toiling away who will never win the Pulitzer Prize for their efforts, but add much to the total picture of what happened. Anyway, the official history gives us the official characters of the narrative–the other stuff that went on you are not supposed to know. It’s all strained through a political filter. This is why we need Net Neutrality to stand so the other side of the story gets told. Because people like Caro just don’t have the spine for it. He’s Hero-Lite.

The End Game
The final book in the series, The Master of the Senate, Lyndon Johnson is positioned for his final drive to the presidency. All that work and years of scheming; he had the path clear by 1958-59. He made a stab at the 1956 convention just to be beaten out of by another man he hated, Adlai Stevenson. And then that charming Kennedy boy comes along and takes it away from him in 1960. Did it anger him enough to have JFK taken out? We need more evidence of Lyndon Johnson’s murderous intent, if there was one, to resolve that. He wasn’t happy, we know that for certain. As Caro says of his character: “...the utter inability to comprehend the questions of morality or ethics raised by his actions, an utter inability to tell that there was even a possibly that he had violated accepted standards of conduct and might be punished for that violation.”

And that was just it–he was never punished for his violations of the accepted standards of conduct. He didn’t lose his wife by cheating on her, even when he did it in her face. He had political operatives stuff a ballot box and write up phony voter tally sheets. There was nobody there to indict him of fraud, conspiracy, and bribery that it took to get that done. He wasn’t ever reprimanded for anything he did that was wrong. It only ended when he achieved his goal. The payback was a bitch on wheels.

Never the less, a great read for what it is. If you think LBJ had JFK murdered there is a great deal of back-story here detailing with Johnson’s amoral personality and his criminal, conspiratorial life that will add fuel to the fire. I think Robert Caro will have a hard time with the next book. He’ll have to decide what he leaves out of the events surrounding JFK’s death. And that could be quite a bit.

LBJ And The Texas Long Reach

2010-08-06T20:50:00.000-07:00

Currently being revised.