The Bane Of My Existence, He Said...

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Magic Bullet Theory Finally Gets His Magic Bullet

The notorious Senator Arlen Specter, 80, finally met the end of his career path last night when lost his bid for reelection in a primary contest to Rep. Joe Sestak. The former lawyer, turned prosecutor, turned Senator made a name for himself working on the Warren Commission and helped them to solve a major problem with their lone gunman theory. He created the famous single bullet or “magic bullet” work-around. Which is basically, having one bullet pull double-duty inflicting all wounds on both President Kennedy and Governor Connally. Basically, too few shots to account for the many wounds. If not, there has to be an additional shooter and that means a conspiracy; waters the Commission dared not wish to sail in.

An investigation of Arlen Specter’s work display the work of a hired gun, as all lawyers are. Under the pretense of searching for the truth, Specter is working behind the scenes to make sure the truth never comes out. And at that, he succeeded greatly. I have the feeling though, that he is not working alone. I think somebody put him up to this. But who that would be is a matter of ongoing investigation. The idea that a ballistics argument is being used to solve the case from a non-ballistics expert, is a joke. It comes from a lawyer for Heaven’s sake!

Expert Witness Testimony Tossed
And why is that? Because Specter made sure expert witness testimony and evidence that contradicted the single bullet scenario would be presented. A good example was the hiring of two of the best experts on ballistic wounds: Drs. Joseph Dolce, and Friderick W. Light, Jr., both of the Biophysics Division of the Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland. Dr. Dolce had been chairman of the Army’s Ballistic Wounds Board and had been studying gunshot woods since the war. Using Oswald’s rifle fired by a top Army marksmen, they test fired bullets into the wrists of ten cadavers. Their results were conclusive—all of the 10 bullets fired were in Dolce’s words, “markedly deformed” showing the mushrooming shape that bullets display when striking dense objects such as bone. None of them resembled CE 399. It was their conclusion that a single bullet could not caused all of Governor Connelly’s wounds and come out looking that clean. Dolce reported this at an April 12 conference that included Dr. Light, some FBI agents, one Commission member, John McCloy, Drs. Shaw and Gregory (Connelly’s doctors at Parkland), and a host of Commission attorneys that included Arlen Specter. Dolce would later state that Specter lobbied the most vigorously for the single bullet at the conference. (As if he were the expert.)

Dr. Dolce was never subpoenaed to testify under oath for his findings nor was the evidence from his and Dr. Light’s experiment included in the 26 volumes of evidence. None of this was known till Dolce gave an interview in the 1980s. No following investigation, such as the HSCA, called him to testify either. At any rate, Arlen Specter made sure the Warren Commission would never hear from such a witness. This is just one of many instances of his machinations.

The Two FBI Agents
Two of the most compiling witnesses against the lone gunman theory are FBI agents James Sibert and Frank O'Neill. They were present for the duration of Kennedy’s autopsy at Bethesda. By all accounts it was a mess to conduct an procedure like an autopsy in. The operating room was filled with military brass from all military services, FBI agents, Secret Service agents, doctors, and various technicians.

Being trained observers Sibert and O'Neill took careful notes. Their FD 302 report reflected this: One, there was a massive blow-out to the rear, right of Kennedy's head. And two, his back wounds did not transit through the body exiting the front thorax. Obviously, a hot potato for Arlen Specter. As soon as he read the report he made sure they would not be asked to give testimony to the Commission and he also had their FD 302 report buried in the national archives so it would not appear in the 26 volumes of evidence and hearings. Of course you can read it now, online and see what Specter sought to cover-up.

Years later author William Law interviewed both Sibert and O'Neill for his book, In The Eye Of History. Both men stood by their earlier testimony. Both were annoyed with Specter and felt he had maligned their work and observations at the autopsy. Sibert complained that Specter in his book, Passion For Truth, made numerous errors from getting their surnames misspelled (Siebert and Oneal) to claiming the agents documented two bullets hitting Kennedy and one striking Connally. Sibert denied that and it is not in their report. He said Spector accused him of not taking notes at the autopsy. Not only is this not true, but Sibert still had his notes and read from them in his interview with Law. Specter also claimed that O'Neill made some notes but destroyed them. Also, not true.

Frank O'Neill and James Sibert have since passed on.  Needless to say, neither man believed in the single bullet theory because of their expert witnessing of the President’s wounds. Also, neither man had a high opinion of Arlen Specter. They were more than happy to testify to the Assassinations Records and Review Board in the late 1990s. They needed to set the record straight because of Specter’s disrespect.

Your comeuppance was long in coming Mr. Specter. But it finally arrived.


Sources
Law, William, In The Eye Of History; ARRB interviews; www.history-matters.com

Interview with James Sibert in 2005.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI8bbITdvsw

PBS Documentary Maintains The Faith: Roads to Memphis

While this is a primarily a JFK research site, I must differ a bit and consider the assassination of Martin Luther King. Last night was shown on the PBS show American Experience, a documentary, Roads To Memphis, about King’s assassination and paralleling the lives of Martin Luther King, the great civil rights leader and orator, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize (back when you had to do something to earn it), and James Ray, a down and out career criminal and general loser.

As usual, we get the same rehashed story of drifter Ray. You know the drill, he escapes from prison, goes here and there, and then somehow gets the bug to kill the MLK for the same reasons they claim Lee Oswald allegedly did--delusions of grandeur. After all, that is all the motive an under-achiever needs, right? So the story plays itself out as always in an endless loop of King appearing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, getting shot, and off Ray goes on a long journey that terminates with his capture in London. A speedy trial puts him away in the Big House for life, though he soon recants.

Too bad during the course of the show they never address what Ray thought and said and all of this. The experts they bring on to talk about him constantly psychoanalyze his thoughts and motivations without a reference to anything. They all talk of Ray as if they knew him personally, and of course, none of them did. They pretend to get in his head. And the point is, he did tell us about his thoughts and motives! He told his lawyer William Pepper. He told Dexter King, the slain civil rights leader’s son. He told his family. He told us under oath in sworn testimony to the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the late 1970‘s. Ray even told us in his book he had published in 1997. I can see why they took this approach. In their narrative they have to have James Earl Ray as King’s killer. And since Ray spent the last 30 years of life denying he did, it complicates the story they want to tell.

The most amazing thing about this documentary is how little new information is brought into play. If it has the feeling of, we’ve been down this path before, we have. There will be no new revelations here. As bad as these types of shows get, mainly seen on The History Channel and the Discovery Channel, they never get this boring. Please, give us a tidbit of new information after 40 years. The Roads To Memphis seems more like a vehicle to help the authors featured hawk their books.


The Talking Heads
Overall, most of the commentators shown basically speak for James Earl Ray. The only quote that emerges directly from him is when he supposedly referred to MLK as “Martin Lucifer Coon.” Everything else is speculation as to his motives. This is probably the most shallow investigative work you’ll ever see in a documentary of this type. It is not as if Ray died shortly after the assassination as Oswald did after JFK’s death and we have to ponder about motives and what made him tick. Ray told us. But the producers of Roads to Memphis don’t want us to see that. Once again, our mainstream media become so Orwellian in the way it deals with information it presents to the public. It is not the sins of commission but more the sins of omission.

Numerous commentators appear and I found them to be the most surprising bunch of “experts” one can dig up. Associates of King are few and far between; understandable since so many have passed on. Andrew Young makes an appearance but no Jesse Jackson? No members of King’s family? Is that because they believe in conspiracy in their father’s murder? Dexter King believes Ray was telling the truth when he said he didn’t kill his father. No wonder they don’t want to talk to him.

Conversely, no members of Ray’s family were shown interviewed either to build on what this man’s character was really all about.

Disgraced CBS news anchor Dan Rather makes an appearance to make numerous comments on what James Earl Ray was thinking and feeling at the time. As if he could actually know. Rather, with his dramatic broadcaster voice and a look of a man ready to jump through a plate glass window at any given moment, adds a surreal context to the proceedings. I watched declaring this and that, wondering what Rather has to do with the King assassination. Just because he was alive and reporting on it at the time? He has apparently written nothing of value about it. If the producers thought they were adding gravitas to the show by including him, they blew it. Dan Rather with mind reading skills is loopy to say the least.

Gerald Posner, who wrote one of the most vapid books on the Kennedy assassination, Case Closed, also wrote a book on King, Killing the Dream: James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., hence his appearance. Naturally, he is a lone gunman proponent. Apparently Posner’s comments was filmed before he got himself kicked off the Daily Beast, a news web site for plagiarism. He is also cited for plagiarized material in "Miami Babylon," his latest book. We want to believe what this guy tells us?

New to the game is Hampton Sides whose recently published book, Hellhound On His Trail (the title idea lifted from Robert Johnson’s delta blues classic; how original) just happens to coincide with the broadcast of this show. Sides’ declares his book is a “narrative history.” You can also see this style defined as “creative non fiction.” It’s the New Truth, you know? The book is made up conversations and even thoughts (!) of the various historical characters, some of which cannot be verified, especially the thoughts of people from forty years ago. Curiously, he refers to Ray via his various aliases and not his given name. Sides in an interview speaks of himself as a historian, and if so, the job of historian has changed greatly with the times. I can’t imagine Will and Ariel Durrant doing this sort of far-out speculation and presenting it as the truth. As one reviewer on Amazon intoned, if this book were a film it would be called a docudrama. Indeed! Hampton Sides comes off as another attractive talking head, though a stuttering one. His search for the truth and justice boils down to money and fame. Expect him to be the “new darling” such as Gerald Posner was with his JFK book, when anything about Martin Luther King comes up in the future.

Conspiracy?
Conspiracy, the new leper of modern discourse, is mentioned about 5 to 10 seconds in the Roads to Memphis. The mythos of the Lone Gunman returns as the boogieman that can’t do anything right but shoot straight at famous people. Mr. Sides has this to say about the issue from his Amazon interview:

“The CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, the Green Berets, President Johnson, the Memphis Police Department, the Memphis Fire Department, the Memphis Mayor’s Office, the Boy Scouts of America--everybody killed Martin Luther King! But as I got into it, it became clear that the evidence against James Earl Ray was overwhelming.”

The evidence is so overwhelming that the King family civil trial in 1999, which returned a jury verdict of conspiracy in the case, cannot even be mentioned one time! The reader will take note of the gentle mockery implied here by invoking the Boy Scouts. I don’t think Sides seriously looked into the matter. He can’t if he wants the mainstream media face-time. But note his most telling remark about theories: “They raise more questions than they address, they create more problems than they solve.”

Oh, then we should not go there, then! We like simple stories because they make us feel good! Really, it is not that conspiracy theories that create more problems than they solve; refer to the King family trial transcript and you’ll see the conspiracy angle is not that hard or too complicated to believe in at all. It certainly was not for the 12 people on the jury. Actually for people like Hampton Sides, conspiracy is an area repugnant to those that wish to bask in the limelight. Few wish to follow the trail of the assassins as it is a rough road to travel. (Just look at the two indictments Jim Garrison had to fight off.) No author will get a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly, as Sides did, if conspiracy is brought up. Look at Jesse Ventura’s hugely popular book, American Conspiracies. A New York Times best seller that has yet to get a review in any mainstream press, including, ironically, the New York Times.

Incredibly, and despite the silence, the PBS web site does feature a link to the King family trial transcript. Here, a conspiracy is laid bare. Numerous books are are listed and those include conspiracy related books. Good for them for doing so. It’s just odd that they didn’t want to deal with these issues on TV. But it keeps in line with the old media’s aversion to all things conspiratorial.

The Railroaded Man
Imagine for a moment that you have been arrested and indicted for the murder of a world-famous, Noble Prize winning, civil rights leader. Your lawyer, in this case, Percy Foreman, in handling your case, contacts a local Public Defender to defend you, under orders to work out a plea deal with the Prosecutor. To make matters worse, Foreman sold the rights of Ray’s story to author William Bradford Huie who would publish, He Slew the Dreamer, a book largely framing Ray for the crime. Percy Foreman made off like bandit with this deal, never asking James Ray if he had even shot Dr. King.

Huie is an interesting character in his own right. A WWII vet, he became an author and magazine editor who wrote many novels that were made into movies. Besides writing the book on the King assassination making sure that Ray was the guilty man to the American and world public, in 1974 Huie offered Ray a sum of $25,000 to admit he murdered King. When it was asked what would a man in prison for life do with the money, Huie offered him a pardon. Ray turned down the offer. (As if Huie actually had the power to arrange a pardon in the first place!)

You won’t see a shred of this mentioned in the Roads To Memphis. (Nor on Wikipedia either, the Internet mouth piece for the status quo.) Whatever, it all adds up to a huge miscarriage of the tradition we have of the accused getting a fair trial. Perhaps that is just an American myth we tell ourselves so we can think of our system as being more fair than other countries. It certainly wasn’t fair to James Earl Ray.

In Parting
I truly believe Martin Luther King was a giant of American history and his death a great tragedy. One of many in the 1960s. I believe it can be proven that James Earl Ray was a seedy character, a career criminal, and may or may not have been a racist. The King family proved, at least in their minds, and I concur, that Martin Luther King was killed as a result of a conspiracy. For PBS to produce a documentary on this subject and completely ignore this fact shows the producers were not aiming for the whole truth, just enough to be taken seriously by a few. I can’t say for certain what their motives are but dealing with the controversial bits of the case in this manner is an act of manipulation. It is not new. The media has been at this since the days of the Kennedy assassination when they saw the public was not believing the official story. Just read my article, How CBS Screwed Orville Nix, and you’ll see what they have been up to since then.

Ultimately, James Earl Ray is not allowed to tell his side of the story. This makes the Roads To Memphis a shallow and empty documentary to explain what happened. It’s propaganda. The same stuff we saw for years on CBS now moved over to PBS at tax payer’s expense.

Sources
Pepper, William, An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King; Posner, Gerald, Killing the Dream: James Earl Ray and the Assassination of Martin Luther King; Venture, Jesse, American Conspiracies; Ray, James Earl, Who Killed Martin Luther King Jr.?; ides, Hampton, Hellhound on his Trail; DiEugenio, James with Pease, Lisa (Editors), The Assassinations: Probe Magazine on JFK, MLK, RFK, and Malcolm X.

Web Sites
http://www.thekingcenter.org/KingCenter/Transcript_trial_info.aspx

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/memphis/


assassination

Put A Quarter In...Get a Dollar Back

Immediately after the assassination of the John F. Kennedy, several remarkable events happened in quick succession that were long held secret.

It is common knowledge that aides to President Lyndon Johnson quickly brought pressure to bare on all Texas law enforcement officials to hand over everything they had on Oswald to the FBI. The President, allied with the FBI Director conspired to countermand Texas State authority over the crime investigation, the evidence, and the body itself, getting it transferred to a military hospital (Bethesda Naval) for the autopsy. This amounted to total Federal control of the incident. Apparently somewhere along the way they uncovered major issues with the evidence and sought to manipulate it so their story of a long gunman would hold up. It was a hurried and sloppy affair and they left lots of clues in their wake.

Largely unknown for years afterward was the ceremonial gifting of the evidence collected by the Dallas Police to the FBI on November 26, four days after the assassination. Notice the word “ceremonial.” Because this was not the first transfer of evidence to the FBI. It was actually the second. The first occurs within 24 hours after the assassination. This is admitted to by FBI document specialist James Cardigan in a deposition he gave to the Warren Commission, unpublished in their 26 volumes of evidence, but finally released to the National Archives in 1992.

Here is what Mr. Cardigan had to say:

“Initially, the first big batch of evidence was brought into the laboratory on November 23 and this consisted of many, many items...It was a very large quantity of evidence that was brought in.”

He added:

“Time was of the essence and this material, I believe, was returned to the Dallas Police within two or three days.”

However, this created a host of problems. All evidence obtained by the Dallas Police was initialized by the officer that discovered it. The makes an item traceable to that officer should there be any questions. This also is known as the chain of evidence. Incredibly, the Dallas Police got back more evidence than they sent off! The innovatory list grew from 5 pages to 21 pages. Which raises the question of, where did the FBI get all of this extra stuff? And so fast after assassination? Dallas was Oswald’s final place of action; Dallas is the vector. The FBI apparently added on to the inventory list with things from Washington, as all items belonging to Oswald and all items from the crime scene were in Dallas as gathered and documented by the Dallas Police. Since no initials from the FBI agents are used on the things they submitted, there is no way of sourcing where the new evidence came from. Normally, FBI agents use a series of forms, depending upon use, for collecting evidence such as a D-504a (Chain of Custody), or a FD-597 (Receipt for Property Received, Returned, Released, Seized). None of this documentation has ever been found. Most likely these forms were not issued because the FBI wanted to make it look as if all evidence originated from the Dallas Police. But as we see, it did not! So it must be stated then, that the only reliable evidence recovered is that found by the Dallas Police Department because it can be traced.

And what is the point of this? To erase any doubt that Lee Oswald was involved in a conspiracy. What other reason would there be? It makes no sense otherwise. We see some of this in action with the Minox spy camera. The FBI brought pressure on the Dallas detective that properly identified it as a camera, wanting him to rename it a “light meter.” What light meter has a lens and film in it? Since it’s a tool of the intelligence trade, and the FBI knew this, it had to be covered up so that Oswald would not appear to be more deeply involved, either with the government or a conspiracy. (Mind you, this is coming directly from Hoover.) The detective didn’t budge and the FBI renamed it anyway, only admitting years later that it was indeed, a camera and releasing photos made with it. This is probably a glimpse of what went on behind the scenes at the FBI crime lab in Washington as they were sorting through, adding and deleting the evidence in their possession. If there was a conspiracy, evidence of it was taken out of play at this point.

Even more problematic is that the Dallas Police photographed all the evidence they collected. On the first pass-back by the FBI, a large number of negatives were not returned. Police Chief Curry contacted the FBI about this and he got a direct response from Hoover himself, stating that the photographs, some 196, were destroyed because they exhibited “faulty technique” by the Dallas Police photographer. Which of course, is nonsense. If he were that bad a photographer he couldn’t have kept his job ruining that many frames. The 196 negatives that were destroyed represents over half the photographs taken of the evidence. With so much evidence tampering going on one can see the need to make sure these images disappear. No telling what sort of conflicts would have arisen.

John F. Kennedy’s body is barely cold and already elements in the government are tampering with material evidence and committing a huge obstruction of justice. This series of acts broke the chain of evidence in the case. These devious actions on the part of Hoover and the FBI, of squirreling away evidence and then staging a show for the public, hint at a larger, darker, behind the scenes machinations of the investigation. If Oswald had not been killed by Jack Ruby it would have been a heck of a trial! Think of the evidence that would have to have been tossed due to this hanky-panky.

The Convergence
The more one digs into this case, the nastier it becomes. One begins to see laid bare a dark undercurrent of malfeasance and treachery that resemble Roman court intrigues. Even though Hoover is dead and gone it is as if his spirit still resides in the Bureau. This came to light a few years ago when the FBI denied it had found any of the black boxes from flights American 11 and United 175 that crashed on 9-11. Since then, New York City firefighter Nicholas DeMasi and volunteer Mike Bellone, have come forward to claim they were responsible for finding three of the four Flight Data Recorders and were told to keep quiet about it. They only came forward when they heard the FBI’s claims that no black boxes were ever found.

Seem familiar? It should. There were plenty of witnesses to the assassination that were told to shut their mouths too. However, It is good that men like DeMasi and Bellone are still around. Men that honor truth and seek justice. I just hope they are not crushed by the Beast that emerged from the ashes of Dealey Plaza.

Sources: Armstrong, John, Harvey and Lee; Douglass, James, JFK and the Unspeakable; www.ctka.net (Probe Magazine article archive); www.history-matters.com; Horne, Douglas, Inside the Assassination Records Review Board

assassination

Gerry Ford Beats a Dead Horse

I recently found a used copy of Gerald Ford’s A Presidential Legacy And the Warren Commission. Published back in 2003 for the 40th anniversary of Kennedy’s death, this 2007 edition of the Warren Report has a new forward by Ford, touted on the front cover as his “final thoughts” on the issue. Actually, they could have been his first thoughts! Nothing has changed in his world despite the numerous investigations that followed and thousands of documents released under the JFK Act. It’s all more of a rebuttal to the critics whom he calls, “armchair investigators” of which I suppose I am one. Which of course, this made me wonder what he thought he did in this whole mess except to say yea and amen.

With his poker face and humble demeanor Ford always came off as a regular Joe, a real nice guy from the upper midwest. Known for his go-along-to-get-along approach to just about everything in life and politics, this is the man that can blithely write, “Our conclusions have yet to be proven wrong,” and who knows, maybe he actually believed that. Ford was capable of saying things that beggar common sense and do so with a straight, or shall we say, poker face. Just as he did when caught years later moving bullet holes around (his own handwriting, first draft) and when asked responded that he was just trying to be more specific. Uh-huh. Well yes, if you are writing a novel, but this is supposed to be a search for the truth, not history as you go. The changing of body wounds on the victim is a misrepresentation of evidence in a murder investigation and presented to the public as a fact. And he seems not to get what he has done. I’m flabbergasted, really. I guess these political types swim in different waters than the rest of us.

Gerald Ford was not immune from getting into trouble with his relationship with the Commission. Shortly after the Warren Report was issued Ford decided to write his own book on the issue as the critics were getting too close for comfort. His publisher saw an initial draft of Portrait of the Assassin and advised Ford to spruce it up and spruce it up and he did--with information from Warren Commission executive sessions which were still classified at the time. He first denied it committing perjury under oath, then admitted it and said he was sorry. Six months after becoming President he signed an order declassifying the aforementioned documents. There were several other embarrassing slip ups such as this over the years that all point to Ford being out of his element in the big leagues.

Fordisms
Gerald Ford was capable of saying some amazingly odd things about the Kennedy assassination. I’ve dubbed these comments Fordisms. I’ve already mentioned one with the bullet wounds. Sometimes Ford acted like his grasp on the truth was tenuous at best, favoring ideas that were devoid of common sense. There are quite a number that caught my eye in his forward and I’ll start on the minor ones first.

The first was when Ford wrote, “There were no preconceived opinions or sacred cows.” Well, yes there were. There were plenty. Here is an example. One sacred cow was conceived at their very first meeting, behind closed doors on January 22, 1964, when they discussed the possibility of Lee Oswald being a government agent. It was decided if they looked any further and found out that he was, then the public may not believe the lone gunman theory. So they decided not to look any further into the matter. So far reaching was this decision that they decided to destroy all records of the meeting. But somehow, the stenographer’s tape wasn’t and made its way into the National Archives where researcher Harold Weisberg got it released under a FOIA lawsuit. This is all documented in great detail in Gerald McKnight’s Breach of Trust. This proves the fix was in early on to disavow any hint of John Kennedy’s death being the result of a plot and designating Lee Oswald as the lone assassin. This follows in line with J. Edgar Hoover’s thinking that Oswald was the lone shooter, something he hatched within 24 hours of the slaying. This was bolstered by the now famous Asst. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach memo to Bill Moyers shortly after the assassination (and before the 1/22/64 meeting) on how they would like to precede with the situation that stated:

“The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large; and that the evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial.”

Talk To Everybody?
Another point that grabbed me was when Ford stated the following: “...we cross-examined everyone.” Not so fast! There is a huge number of witnesses that were not interviewed by the Commission and in many cases not by the FBI either. Of particular note are those people that gave testimony of more than one shooter. Such as the two FBI agents Jim Sibert and Frank O'Neill who were witnesses at the autopsy and saw that Kennedy’s back wound was not transiting, and hence, implicating another shot from the front and spoiling the lone gunman scenario. Arlen Specter made sure their report was buried in the National Archives and they were never called to testify. Two of the most glaring examples were the President’s personal physician, Admiral George Buckley and Newman family. Dr. Burkley is an important witness as he was in the motorcade when the shots were fired, was present at the Parkland Hospital trauma ward as the doctors there tried to resuscitate the dying President, signed the death certificate (described the throat injury as an entry wound), accompanied the body back on Air Force One to Bethesda Naval for the autopsy, witnessed it and signed the autopsy face sheet. His testimony was never taken by the Commission and it was a major oversight but his documenting the throat wound as an “entry wound” made him persona non grata.

Bill and Gayle Newman can be seen in many films and photographs made seconds after the shots rang out lying on the grass covering up their children. As Bill Newman has said in many interviews through the years, he told the FBI that he heard the third shot coming from behind them, from the grassy knoll. Their natural reaction was to hit the ground and cover their children. The Warren Commission did not take their testimony; as Bill said they didn’t want anything to do with us. Incredible, considering they were the closest witnesses to the exact moment the kill shot happened (besides the occupants of the limo). So no, Mr. Ford, you didn’t cross-examine everybody.

(Ironically in the forward, Ford mentions the Newmans as witnesses to hearing shots from the knoll; however, he says their testimony was misrepresented by conspiracy theorists. Unbelievable! That anyone touting expert knowledge of the case would ignore the numerous filmed interviews the Newmans gave over the years, including the first one given on live TV a few hours after the assassination, in their own words and unencumbered by anyone. A true Fordism! This is one of those Ford moments when he’s in an alternate universe where he has the right to wave a magic wand and make everything right again. Very well then, why didn’t you depose them to find out what they really heard and experienced first-hand? But that was not done.)

Alex Hidell’s Guns
For some reason or other in his forward, Gerald Ford has to delve into the Tippet murder and issue of Oswald’s rifle and pistol. Here he makes a series of goofs on the ownership of the guns. In Ford’s words: “The JFK assassination weapon was mailed to a P.O. Box and alias used by Oswald--the very same alias and P.O. Box used for the revolver...” This goof-up is huge because Ford is contradicting the Warren Report itself! (Appendix X, pages 411&414.) The only time Oswald used the Alex Hidell alias for a P.O. Box address was in New Orleans in the summer of 1963, long after the guns were ordered as stated in the report. The rifle order was placed under his alias for his P.O. Box address in Dallas in March of 1963, as clearly shown on the order form. And, as I pointed in detail in my article, Who Bought The Guns?, this box was authorized for Lee Oswald only; his application in the evidence volumes verifies this. So the rifle would not have even gotten to him and the package would be stamped “return to sender.” There are a host of other problems with the ordering of the guns on both sides of this from buyer (Oswald) to seller (Klein’s Sporting Goods). Please refer to my article linked above for more details on this problematic area.

In regards to the pistol--it wasn’t even sent to Oswald’s P.O. Box address as Ford states because it was sent COD to the Railway Express Agency in Dallas, where the gun was allegedly picked up and paid for. This is Ford’s second major goof. I release he was old at the time and his mind probably not as sharp, but don’t these big publishing houses hire fact checkers? Also, no receipts or shipping notices exist for this, nor the required “certificate of good character” that was required under Texas State law for a handgun purchased by mail order. The truth fogs on the gun purchases and has the appearance of someone else buying and handling the guns. It would have been interesting to see all of this sorted out in court at Lee Oswald’s trial but that of course, will never be.

The Last Commissioner
As the last serving member of the Warren Commission Gerald Ford must have felt a need (or was it the need of the status-quo?) to write some final words on the work of the Warren Commission. It appears another attempt at reviving some credibility for its legacy since its critics have given such an effective thrashing in the woodshed over the years. Mr. Ford does his best but he writes like man lost in a fog hoping it will all go away. He’s trying to set the record straight for the up-tenth time and in the pursuit of this goal, contradicts the very report he help to create. The truth is out there but he meanders around it like a man flash-blinded. Sometimes men bury the truth to protect a greater need. The former model and college sports star was in the end a Company Man. He was rewarded in a way, by a fellow Company Man, George Bush Sr., who leveled a spirited broadside against us armchair investigators at Ford’s memorial service. The former President’s words were harsh and angry as a King would be at a bunch of impudent peasants. Well, I’m sorry if we don’t believe you, but we don’t. You only told us part of the story and then locked the rest away for safe keeping as you always do.

I really do want to like Gerald Ford. I think ultimately he was an average man, of average intelligence, caught up in things far bigger than him. He seemed vastly unprepared to participate in all the intrigue he found himself in. There is always a need in politics for the weak sister and Ford was a man the Establishment knew would tow the line. And he did so unto death.


Sources:
Ford, Gerald R., A Presidential Legacy And the Warren Commission; McKnight, Gerald, Breach of Trust; Armstrong, John, Harvey and Lee; www.history-matters.org

Bill and Gayle Newman interview.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi3hKo7dwt0


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Patterns, It’s All About Patterns

When Fox’s Fringe TV show first aired one of the plot themes involved looking for patterns. Since the first season they have seemed to have passed on that motif and moved on to other conspiracies involving alternate dimension themes. As with the Kennedy assassination, and for that matter other conspiracies, there are patterns flowing through them all. I’m currently reading American Conspiracies by Jesse Ventura with Dick Russell (author of excellent JFK book, The Man Who Knew Too Much). While Jesse deals with a smattering of his favorite conspiracies from JFK to Jonestown to 9-11, probably the most interesting thing to me are not the behind the scenes plots which he writes about but the patterns that can seen emerging in them.

It follows as thus: An attack, an assassination, or disaster like Waco happens. After the shock and outrage the government swoops in to investigate via a committee of political insiders often labeled as “Statesmen.” Actually, they are just a bunch of lawyers. From somewhere high up in the Establishment, the fix is already in. The Commission puts on a play called Investigation Theater and issues a report. The report will not differ from anything that was originally said 24 hours after the event occurred. Later, a well placed person in the mainstream press will issue a glowing article gushing over how well the Commission did its investigation. In the end there is no justice, the loose ends are never tied up, and the people are left in the dark. Any critics are dismissed as kooks and generally mocked by the very same shills in the press. Sometimes they end up with an untimely and suspicious demise.

You can see this pattern in every conspiracy that has ever gone down over the centuries. It really is amazing how little changes from the inception of the event, to the end results of the formal investigation. From the massacre of the MacDonald clan in Glencoe Scotland in 1692 to the devastating attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001 the first explanation remains the same. Just ask a member of the 9-11 Commission about one of the controversies in the case and he will give the same response a member of the Warren Commission would give: “We stand by our report.” Gerald R. Ford gave the same response over the years as did many other Warren Commission members. The basic heart of man never changes, especially the heart that conspires. It amounts to an endless cycle of history.

Most likely, the government has a connection to the event, hence the repeating of history which creates the pattern.

Another pattern over time is you find out the connections between the players. A lot more information is available in books and online for the average person sifting through the JFK assassination than the original investigators had. One thing you find out is a lot of the major players are not who they say they were. The political theater that is being played in the background is astonishing. Who knew, for example, that when Lee Oswald got into the altercation with the Cuban exiles on Canal street in the summer of 1963 that he was a player in cast of characters, all of whom were connected to government agencies? Of the three Cubans, two were FBI informants; the third had CIA connections. Oswald of course, as I have documented elsewhere here, did have linkage to the CIA and the FBI. Even the TV station photographer filming the incident was an FBI informant as well. Later, when Oswald is invited to a live radio debate with three others, they are all connected in one way or the other to the FBI and the CIA as well. Every team is represented and they all have players in action. What political theater this all represents! I long wonder how much more of this is still going on. Is everything we see going on around us like this? With secret goings on hidden from us? We’ll only know when the files are released, if ever.

So government agents seem to always be part of the pattern. They can often appear as average citizens, staff lawyers, or journalists. They all seem to fulfill the same role, to support whatever the government claims even if common sense dictates otherwise. It has been pointed out that most of the defenders of the Warren Report are in some way or other connected to the CIA. There is no evidence to support Arlen Specter being a government shill in the Warren Commission but he sure acts like it. I still don’t know who put him up to this or why he would care so in proving the government’s case. Maybe he felt it a part of the job. It should have been to find out the truth, but lawyers often do not settle for the truth--they settle for an answer that is politically acceptable to the powers that be, in other words, the Establishment. Specter starts out as a low level staff attorney and rises above the fray as a major player with his Magic Bullet tale. The lone bullet theory is now part of the lore and controversy of the case. One day, maybe a FOIA lawsuit will break something loose on him. All we can know is there are way too many lawyers involved and they are not truth seekers--their purpose is to take care of their clients--the government.

One alleged journalist that we know was allied with the government was Hugh Aynesworth. Starting out with the Dallas Morning News and later migrating over to Newsweek, he was instrumental in bedeviling Jim Garrison during the months of the Clay Shaw trial and grand jury investigation. Documents that have been released show him applying to the CIA although it is unclear if he was brought in as an agent. Never the less, he maintained strong contacts with them and the FBI and it is clear in his articles he had inside information into the inner workings of the Garrison investigation. Big Jim could not keep anything quiet with the huge amount of informants and spies infiltrating the investigation. This makes Aynesworth hardly an objective newsman but he was not the only one so tied in. Edward Epstein wrote a book mocking Garrison’s trial of Shaw called Counterplot. He later admitted to working closely with the CIA. In a well-known 1970’s article in Rolling Stone, Carl Bernstein reported that there were hundreds of journalists working with the CIA in order to further the federal government’s interests. No telling how many are there now.

It all about patterns. Keep an eye out. They are changing all the time.



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Huffington Post Censors Conspiracy Talk

Editor's Note: The Huffington Post's editorial policy, laid out in our blogger guidelines, prohibits the promotion and promulgation of conspiracy theories -- including those about 9/11. As such, we have removed this post.

Jesse Ventura, former pro wrestler and Minnesota governor, and now conspiracy researcher/author, recently had his article deleted from the Huffington Post news web site just a few hours after posting. His article, “What Really Happened on September 11?” was in regards to a group of architects and engineers that are challenging the government’s theory that a large commercial aircraft can crash into tall buildings and actually bring them down. All that is left behind is the comments section for a phantom article. The ironic part is if you read the article (HERE) there is little to nothing in regards to conspiracy or that the attacks were an inside job. It’s just a simple discussion of facts from engineers that contradict the official government line.

Of course any news organization is allowed to have its own editorial policy about what it publishes. In this case, Jesse Ventura, in his words, was lobbied for some time to post articles for the HP and told he could write about whatever he wanted. Then as soon as he posts the piece it’s yanked in a few hours. Ventura was none to pleased. “I don’t like it when people censor what I have to say.” He went on to say he would never write for them again. Perhaps we should follow suit and never read anything on their site again.

And what is really odd, is that actor/comic Richard Bessler is known to be pro conspiracy in regards to the death of JFK and has been allowed to publish articles on that subject there. Will he still be allowed to do so?

The Huffington Post seems to be a hip and progressive news web site. But to have a policy such as this, they show themselves to be old-school and as staid as the New York Times or the Washington Post which I am sure has similar policies. Do they not recall that the official tale of the 9/11 attacks is a conspiracy theory? It is as if the ways the Old Media are beginning to infiltrate down to the New Media. After all, when have you ever seen a critical analysis of the Warren Commission Report or for that matter any government investigation? Or for that matter, when was the last time a pro conspiracy book on the Kennedy assassination was reviewed in any major media outlet?

I guess we are all supposed to be good little sheep and go along with whatever the government says. Once again, the free press is as free as whoever owns a press. Or in the case, a web site. Apparently, Operation Mockingbird is still ongoing and the government is getting their shills in place in some parts of the New Media. I am sure those fellows in the National Security State were pleased to see the anti-conspiracy policy at the Huffington Post.

Shame on on Huffing Post and especially you Arianna Huffington. I guess free speech is as free as what you agree with, right?

American Conspiracies: Lies, Lies, and More Dirty Lies that the Government Tells Us, by Jesse Ventura and Dick Russell

Sources
Original Jesse Ventura article can be found here.
http://current.com/1ehbc4c

HP editorial policy and comment posts.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jesse-ventura/for-some-the-search-for-w_b_491504.html


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