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 a challenge.  On one hand, he did 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 owes 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 became.

I got into reading Robert Caro’s three volume biography 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 lets 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 about it.

Johnson’s treatment of people was two-fold. First, the brown-nosed his career path with those in power; flattery and sweet words for older men whose power was on the wane 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 at 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 worst burden to bear and did so with a great deal of grace and charm. She was the number one slave, making sure the 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 any time 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 a 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 Capitol 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. vNothing really stopped his maneuvers to nix the reappointment of Leland Olds, the chairman of the Federal Power Commission. vOlds 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 shifts, 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 past 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, as 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 the 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. It'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, whose 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 where 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 evidence of fraud but were never able to deliver on it in court. Johnson’s attorneys delayed the release of the aforementioned 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 win. 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 thoroughly 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 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 politicians.  Caro interviewed Clark but was cut off after Means of Ascent 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. 

The End Game

In the 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 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 possibility 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 their own home with her sleeping alone. 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. In his last days he was left alone and broken.

Nevertheless, a great read for what it is. If you think LBJ had JFK murdered there is a great deal of back-story here detailing Johnson's amoral personality and his criminal, conspiratorial life that will add fuel to the fire. There is actual sowing and reaping and Lyndon Johnson reaped at the end of his life.

And lastly, for those that dismiss vote rigging as being possible, Lyndon Johnson was a living example of it.

LBJ And The Texas Long Reach

Currently being revised.

Heroes and Villains

I’ve been wanting to do a Heroes versus Villains list for some time now. My main concern was collecting to many villains. In the end, I decided to let the chips fall where they may. But at least there are some good people there striving for the good fight and fair play. But I guess that is what makes them heroes. Continuing the quest and usually alone.

I wrested with who to leave off the list of villains. There are so many! Ultimately I settled for the best of the best and the worst of the worst. And some are neutral though I think Gerald Ford, the most benign member of the Warren Commission, was the most damaging with his moving of the President’s back wound up 5 inches to the neck to make the single bullet theory work. This is the misrepresentation of evidence in a murder investigation and clearly an obstruction of justice. It makes one wonder why an otherwise good man would do such a thing. Quite often politicians live in a world of denial about everything they do, especially those things they screw up. Never mind how out of touch it makes them look with the public at large.

The are other characters such as the ragged-eared old dog E. Howard Hunt, the veteran of many black-ops who upon his deathbed confession said he was a bench warmer in the whole thing. Maybe there is much more there but that will be hard to suss out. In fact, there is a whole litany of CIA men that could have been added to the list: The ever creepy Counter Intel chief James Angleton, the snooty and prickish Richard Helms, and David Morales, the hit-man, among many others. There isn’t enough evidence to pin them to any plots so they remain distant, though viable conspirators. Then there is Robert Blakey, chief council for the House Select Committee on Assassinations. The inside man to assure the “Investigation Theater” of the Warren Commission continued. The man who expressed shock at being lied to by the CIA and years later cast the assassination at the feet of Mob. In the end, he turns out to be a kinder, more gentler and certainly less devious version of Lee Rankin (see below).

And the list goes on and on between numerous individuals and organizations, both corporate (CBS, Newsweek, New York Times, Federal Reserve) to government (CIA, FBI, the Pentagon). There there are the various government investigations, all hung up in one way or the other, contradicting themselves in often cosmical to absurd ways. There are plenty of shills out there from authors (Vince Bugliosi, Gerald Posner) to the various disinformation agents such as John McAdams and Edward Epstein, Gary Mack (real name, Larry Dunkel), Dave Perry, and many others.

Conversely, I also struggled, but not as much, who to leave off the Heroes list. There were not that many so the struggle was brief. However, there were two pairs of men that deserve attention and all four were present at President Kennedy’s autopsy and they need to be mentioned as a group. They were FBI agents James Sibert and Francis O’Neill, and autopsy technicians James Jenner and Paul O’Conner. All four men are witnesses to facts that contradict the Warren Commission and every other investigation that followed. All report seeing metal probes (sounding rods) inserted in Kennedy’s back that only went in a few inches and downward--not upward transiting through the neck wound. Hence, Sibert and O’Neil’s FBI report contradicts the autopsy report, so it was not mentioned in the Warren Commission Report or the 26 volumes of collected evidence. Arlen Spector made sure of that (see below). All of these men report seeing a massive blow-out on the back of the President’s head as all of the doctors and staff at Parkland Hospital in Dallas saw. None of them were ever called to give testimony in any of the investigations that followed. None of them ever wavered in their eye witness accounts of what they saw and experienced. These men are the unsung heroes of the investigation. And there are probably many more we’ve never heard about.


Heroes

John F. Kennedy
A hero because he boldly held firm against the status quo of his day, the military/intelligence nexus, military contractors, the oil depletion allowance of the oil barons, the bankers at the Federal Reserve, among many other fiefdoms. It must be noted that his death was a game changer, for most of his policies were scattered to the wind by his replacement, Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson signed the Executive Order that took the silver backed money out of circulation to be sent to the burn furnaces of the Federal Reserve. He next ordered a major ramping up of military resources to the Vietnam reversing Kennedy’s policy of scaling it down, for the war which in a few years would ruin his Presidency. It seems if only NASA was left alone. Oh, what could have been, should have been, as John Kennedy labored behind the scenes for peace and not the military’s mutually insured destruction. Let it not be forgotten that there is plenty of motive here. For every door John Kennedy locked was unlocked upon his death.

Mary Ferrell
Founder of the Mary Ferrell foundation, the best online resource for researchers featuring hundreds of thousands of declassified government documents, magazine articles, and various reports. Mary was just an ordinary wife and mother that took an interest in the Kennedy assassination while living in Dallas at the time the tragedy took place. Starting out with newspaper clippings, over the intervening years she amassed a huge collection of documents and eventually took steps to set up a foundational archive on the Internet to make this information available for all. A great hero for that work alone. RIP, Mary.

Senator Richard B. Russell
Normally, a white supremacist who repeatedly blocked and defeated civil rights legislation via use of the filibuster and had co-authored the Southern Manifesto in opposition to civil rights would not be on anybody’s hero list. However, he did do the right thing when it came to the Warren Commission. Richard Russell was
the only member of the Warren Commission that sat on the fewest of the commission hearings. Normally, not a badge of honor. But in this case it is, as Russell knew early on what a dog and pony show he had gotten himself snookered into. The senator from Georgia launched his own private, one-man investigation at the same time, through a Cornel Philip Corso who uncovered connections to rouge CIA agents partnered with anti Castro Cubans in a conspiracy to kill the President. Not to mention the shocking finding of Lee Oswald being impersonated through two separate birth certificates and passports. Russell eventually found this a viable explanation of what happened but also knew that he could not convince the others on the Commission of this. He tried and failed to get a dissenting opinion published in the final report but was prevented from doing so by the deceptions of lead counsel Rankin (see below). In this instance, a hero for desiring to know the truth and a willingness to go against the grain to found it.

James Garrison
The New Orleans DA that almost broke the Kennedy assassination case wide open with his trial of businessman (with long-term, CIA links) Clay Shaw. This one, single state trial scared the hell out of the National Security State so bad they had to pull out everything to quash it and they did. As Big Jim said, for the feds it was like shooting fish in barrel. With the phones tapped, informants all over the place, shills in the media to impugn Garrison’s character, and DOJ attorneys coaching witnesses at tax payer expense, Clay Shaw walked free. Garrison went on to survive two federal indictments and a host of other indignities that continued for years afterward. A hero for just standing up to The Man.

Dorothy Kilgallen
The popular columnist and What’s My Line? TV personality was investigating the assassination and boasted of breaking the case wide open after her interview with Jack Ruby. Then her untimely death occurred and her JFK research file disappeared. Billed a drug overdose, it was later discovered that she had three powerful barbiturates in her system; none of where were found in her townhouse medicine cabinet. That, along with oddities found at the scene, such being found in the wrong bedroom (third floor and not the fifth), not wearing her usual night gown, still wearing her eyelashes and makeup, a book by side that she had finished reading two weeks earlier, no reading glasses nearby, all add up to a highly suspicious vibe to the whole scene. Particularly with her research files gone missing. For years all new CIA agents were given a handbook on assassination and one preferred method was to make it look like an accident. A problem arises in that one can’t ever know enough about a person’s private habits and routines and that leaves too many out of place things in its wake. And if Dorothy was done in, they should have known that no woman goes to bed with make-up on.

Roger Craig
A rising star in the Dallas Police department, Roger Craig’s story of what he witnessed that day of President Kennedy’s murder quickly become a thorn in the side of the status quo. At first, his claims were dismissed, but can no longer, with the release of photographs and film clips that back up his side of things and various locations in Dealey plaza. Craig’s two main accounts were, he saw Oswald leave the scene in a station wagon with another man when he is supposed to be taking public transportation to get away; and two, while in custody, heard Oswald admit to having his “cover” blown. Craig claimed that transcripts of his testimony at the Warren Commission was altered numerous times. He also said there was a second rifle found and in a murky piece of tape one can actually be seen leaning up against a box of books (check out youtube.com). Of course his testimony is at large with the official version of events and sticking up for his version led him to a life of hardship, losing his job, and receiving numerous murder attempts on his life. He died in obscurity allegedly of his own hand. Another hero whose life was ruined by not towing the line.

R. Fletcher Proudy
A colonel in the army, R. Fletcher Proudy achieved the position of liaison between the Pentagon (JCS) and the CIA. From there he learned how this system of military operators and behind the scenes spooks functions within a symbiotic relationship with often, the lines blurring between the two. His classic book, The Secret Team explores this fully. Proudy is a true patriot for giving us this insider’s look into how the National Security State actually functions.

Harold Weisberg
Legendary JFK researcher Harold Weisberg opened a lot of doors for the rest of us. An early critic he was relentless in his pursuit of the truth which he long felt we were all denied. Once the Freedom of Information Act was passed (ironically with the help of the slain President’s brother) Weisberg used it as a sword to peal back hidden layers of withheld facts. One of his highlights was his FOIA suit that succeeded in getting the transcript of the WC Executive session meeting of January 22, 1964, where the Commissioners decided to forego any research into Lee Oswald’s background as a possible government agent. So explosive was this session that it was ordered no transcript or any record should survive. Incredibly, the stenographer's tape was not destroyed and was actually residing in the National Archives. An amazing find as it showed the depths of which the Warren Commission members went to deceive the public as they stated upfront they were leaving no stone unturned, and behind closed doors doing the opposite. One good thing. All of Harold Weisberg files he collected over the years are now online for easy researching. Link below.


Villains

Edgar Hoover
Just as we’ll probably never know for certain the names of other assassins, we’ll probably never know what the first Director of the FBI had in taste for ladies fashions. Prints or sold colors? Skirts or dresses? Ruffles, maybe? Flats or pumps? And so with Hoover’s help we’ll probably never know what really happened in Dealey Plaza with his bullheaded rush to make sure one man was guilty of the crime within 24 hours of the event. (Actually, more like 2-4 hours. Several roads of the government crossed at the Oswald intersection; a detour was quickly needed.) Hoover alone had the most responsibility in formulating this idea and he saw it through, never changing as events unfolded or as new evidence appeared. Evidence, after all, is like weeds--you can mow them down or ignore them. Usually in a case like, with a murder of an important powerful person, no stone is left unturned. Here, the stones were left to bleach in the sun.

Being a serial hater of the Kennedy's along with Johnson, Bobby always felt that Hoover relished ringing him that afternoon to inform him that his beloved brother was dead. According to Bobby, he delivered it pretty blunt. Hoover was a petty, corrupt, vindictive man and maybe he did enjoy twisting the knife in a little. After all, he had no qualms years later in blackmailing Dr. King, providing the dirt to his wife, and then advising him to commit suicide. At any rate, Hoover’s relentless pressure on the Warren Commission to follow through with the lone gunman scenario (along with LBJ) was successful in the end.

J. Edgar Hoover received his pay-off from his partner-in-crime (see below) by being allowed to by-pass Federal retirement regulations via Executive Order to stay on as FBI Director for life. He died in his sleep in 1972. Lyndon Johnson died a year later. The nation survived them both.

Lyndon B. Johnson
Many have speculated that Johnson was in on the assassination plotting but we’ll never really know for sure. Kennedy’s secretary Evelyn Lincoln when asked in a letter by a school teacher for his class, responded that she thought it was Johnson. Hunt in his deathbed confession lists Johnson as a coconspirator but if he is then he’s got to have a lot of help. And would the Secret Service, CIA, FBI and so on, provide said help? Maybe the FBI. After all, Johnson and Hoover met once a week for a power lunch. You want a conspiracy? Put the alpha ape from Texas and the cross dressing bull dog behind closed doors and see what they cook up. Those two old boys could have paved a section of the highway to Hell and probably did. It was Hoover that did the mad rush to a verdict on Oswald being the lone assassin so early in. Meanwhile, Johnson was firing on all cylinders. He blitzed through a Warren Commission assembly to ward off other investigations percolating, particularly in Texas where the murder was a state crime. He doubled up with his aides calling all Texas law officials to make sure they were all towing the hush-hush no conspiracy line; had the Secret Service whisk off Kennedy’s body to Washington for a military autopsy, violating Texas state law; had the limousine, itself a moving crime scene, and sent off to Detroit for refurbishing losing valuable crime evidence. Lyndon Johnson was a man on fire, feverishly putting it all together one brick at a time. The quick assembly of the Warren Commission was a masterstroke. Have a commission established that is designed to do an evaluation of the evidence rather than a true investigation and have henchman Hoover in the wings to make sure they don’t get all the stuff to look at. The CIA does the same. So do all the other players. Highway to Hell? Ha! Make it a freeway.

Long haired, depressed, and nearly out if his mind in his later days as the chickens came home to roost, Lyndon Johnson never could shake the murmur that he was somehow responsible for the young usurper’s death. The man he hated, that handsome literary yankee of privilege and class, irked the hell out of the rough as a corncob Texan who thought of himself the rightful heir to the throne. The throne he had lusted after all his life, at one time in 1929 telling a classroom full of poor Mexican kids they were looking a future President. The man who groped women in front of his wife, got even with anybody that crossed him, got his start rigging student council elections in college before he does it again in 1948 to steal a Senate seat, gets tagged “Lying Lyndon” and “Bull (bullshit) Johnson” as he rampaged his way to the top just to fall on his own petard, bogged down in an unending war, unloved by the people. That was his reward for serving the lusts of the flesh--unbridled power to dominate and not serve, and playing along with the National Security State and their supplying corporations for war and war profiteering. Karma really does work on some guys. And maybe not just for Camelot’s death if he was involved, but for all the other bad things he had done. They were legion.

Arlen Specter
Probably one of the most dastardly characters of this whole drama. There is not enough space here to document Arlen Specter’s nastiness, his malfeasance and treachery in the case. His main role was playing cover-up for the official story. Here are basics: Early on the Warren Commission had a major problem; too many wounds and not enough bullets. Hired as a staff attorney, Specter gained fame by saving the Commission’s honor by the invention of the SBT--single bullet theory. Also known mockingly as the Magic Bullet Theory and even better as the Magic Bullshit Theory. The Army’s chief ballistics wounds expert, Dr. Joseph Dolce, disproved Spector’s fabrication when he had Oswald’s rifle fired into 10 cadaver wrists, all 10 bullets coming out “markedly deformed” and nowhere near as sweet as CE399’s appearance. Specter was having none of this and made sure Dr. Dolce was blocked from giving testimony to the Commission. As mentioned above, he did the same thing to FBI agents Sibert and O’Neil whose report contradicted the single bullet theory, clearly stating that Kennedy’s back wound was non-transiting. Spector made disparaging comments (i.e., lies) about both men, and there was no love lost between the agents and the lawyer. Such that they were happy to volunteer their testimony under oath, to the Assassination Records and Reviews Board to set the record straight.

So here is the main ballistics theory of the case, being invented out of thin air by a lawyer. Heaven help us all.

But it doesn’t end there. Arlen Specter wasn’t beneath witness intimidation. In the 1990’s when a group of Parkland doctors were giving their testimony to the ARRB they were asked by Jeremy Gunn had anybody tried to get them to alter their accounts of what they saw. Dr. Ronald C. Jones spoke up and said that after being interviewed by Specter and giving his description of the throat wound and his opinion that it was an entry wound, Specter followed him out in the hall and said to him: “I want to tell you something that I don't want you to say anything about. We have people who will testify that they saw the President shot from the front. You can always get people to testify about something. But we are pretty convinced he was shot from the back."

In other words, we can alter this at will and it doesn’t matter what you say. If we say Kennedy was shot from the back, then he was. Specter at his best, or in the case, the worst, at covering up the truth with his despicable behavior.

J. Lee Rankin
Warren Commission lead council J. Lee Rankin. It’s hard to tell between him, and Arlen Spector who is the worst snake in a tweed suit. Both are fairly cunning and operate in that lawyerly world of situational ethics. His juggling act of covering up the truth and deception would make a good thriller as his actions are a conspiracy in itself. Like his fellow snake, too many incidents to go into here. However, I’ll give you two examples.

Rankin’s first act of deceit was to arrange a secret meeting on January 24, 1964 with Texas law officials and Earl Warren to determine if Lee Oswald was a government agent or informant. An issue Rankin called a “dirty rumor.” No Commission members were informed of the meeting nor were the staff lawyers. There were no records kept but for a memo written by Rankin. The discussion centered on Lee Oswald being either an FBI or CIA informant with code numbers bandied about. Rankin with Earl Warren decided to do a reveal of what they learned on a January 27 to the other Commission members. However, Rankin only revealed a bogus FBI informant number (179) that was not consistent with their numbering system. A CIA number, 110669 which is consistent with the CIA’s system was never revealed. Oddly, Earl Warren went along with this charade and kept his mouth shut. In the end, they all decided to leave this sleeping dog to snooze and dream. No further pursuit of Lee Oswald being a government agent or informant for any branch of the government was going to be pursued. If he was out there, he can stay out there.

Rankin also participated in the deception of Commission members who wished to voice a dissent in the single bullet theory, such as Richard Russell who was shocked years later to be given this information by legendary researcher Harold Weisberg. Rankin had hired out a phony secretary to be the stenographer so no transcripts of the meeting exist as none were recorded. This way, the Commission’s conclusion of the long gunman would look unanimous and no dissension recorded as a footnote in the final report. Needless to say, Sen. Russell was incensed, particularly since Rankin had promised him a dissenting opinion in the final report. A lawyer lies, fancy that.

Allen Dulles
Former World War II OSS spy and the second director of the CIA, Allen Dulles was a duplicitous individual resembling a grandfatherly college professor complete with pipe in hand. But don’t let this dapper image fool you; underneath this exterior lurked the blackest heart ever to serve in government, dishing up coups all over the world from Iran to Guatemala. He transformed the CIA from intelligence gathering to paramilitary black-ops, the ends justifying the means in the fight to contain communism, though keeping American corporate interests viable was a high priority as well, perhaps even higher. Kennedy, smart enough to see Dulles attempting to paint him in a corner over Cuba, fired him and other top officials over the Bay of Pigs fiasco, probably sealing his own fate. Ironic that Dulles would end up on the Warren Commission investigating the death of the man he despised, but none, including the Kennedy family, strangely, found this a conflict of interest. (Certainly not like the 9-11 victim’s families did when Henry Kissinger poked his nose in the tent for that Commission of inquiry and the protest went up.) He was the lone Commissioner to attend the most meetings; probably to protect the interests of the CIA and keep their sins covered up and skeletons in the closet. Dulles, along with cohorts Gerald Ford and John J. McCloy formed a powerful block that controlled the Commission’s agenda, the drive towards the lonesome gunman. Although no longer employed by the Agency, he managed to spend the day of Kennedy’s assassination in one of their top secret installations called the “Farm.” Once a spook, always a spook?

Allen Dulles once said spitefully that John Kennedy considered himself a god. As if Dulles wasn’t a king maker in the shadows, overthrowing democratically elected governments and replacing them police states that killed and tortured thousands of their own people such as what happen in Guatemala. And for what? So our corporations there would remain profitable. At any rate, his stand on the Commission was his last hurrah to settle a few scores. Nothing quite like rubbing it in the face of one’s enemies, no?

Hugh Aynesworth
Journalist, one-time hopeful CIA agent, and FBI/Dallas Police informant. He’s all over the place in the early moments of the JFK assassination, being the first reporter at the murder scene of Dallas Police officer J. D. Tippet, and later, at the movie theater for Lee Oswald’s arrest. Also the first reporter to interview Marina Oswald. Aynesworth, along with pal James Phelan bedeviled DA Jim Garrison during his trial of Clay Shaw firing off one hit piece after the other. It has since been discovered that he was working directly with Clay Shaw’s defense team. But Aynesworth went farther than that, informing to the FBI and the White House. So much for objectivity! And people decry the state of journalism now with Internet Bloggers typing away! I guess the

It gets worse. In a 1967 Newsweek article Aynesworth coughed up a whopper that Garrison offered a witness a $3,000 bribe to fill in facts for a JFK assassination plot. The witness, Alvin Beaubeouff, told Garrison he never related anything of the sort to Aynesworth. Perhaps the word “journalist” is not the appropriate descriptor here! You can dear reader, can fill in the blank.

The old goat never quits. When Oliver Stone’s JFK was released in 1991 he appeared on a major network show in which he claimed he saw, actually saw, Jim Garrison trying to bribe someone. The show’s host never demanded any facts for this ridiculous allegation. Notice the bribe motif still at work after all these years. Well, hacks don’t offer much in original thought. All these years later, the nearly 80 year old Aynesworth is still plugging away, hawking a script on the trial of Clay Shaw but of course from a more favorable perspective. We know from various document releases that Clay Shaw was no saint, perjuring himself on the witness stand saying he was not associated in anyway with the CIA. He lied again in a 1967 CBC interview. Documents show that Shaw did a lot of work for the Agency.

It appears that character assassination of Jim Garrison has no bounds over space and time by the villains.

Lee H. Oswald
If you believe in the Lone Nut theory of the Warren Commission then Oswald is a villain. If true, that is agreeable. He doesn’t come off as that villainous a character if one examines his whole life. There is the alleged attempt on Gen. Walker’s life but for eight months the Dallas Police did not consider Oswald a suspect, not to mention the caliber of bullet retrieved didn’t match Oswald’s rifle. Even if he is the patsy in this drama then he is no innocent patsy being in deep-cover with government agencies for most of his adult life. After all, what decent person goes to movie theater carrying a loaded gun? The events surrounding the assassination he is acting both innocent and suspicious. One must recall under questioning his repeated denials, denials on everything, including using Alex Hidell as an alias. He most certainly lied about that. He was a mysterious individual and probably the most mysterious element of the whole thing. But his greatest fault is being too trusting of his handlers. In the end, they led him astray and hung him out to dry.

Sources
McKnight, Gerald, Breach of Trust; Proudy, R. Fletcher, The Secret Team; Talbot, David, Brothers; Garrison, James, On the Trail of the Assassins; Douglass, James, JFK and the Unspeakable; The Warren Commission Report; Armstrong, John, Harvey and Lee; Mars, Jim, Crossfire; Law, William, In The Eye Of History

Web
More info on Hugh Aynesworth at: http://www.ctka.net/aynes.html;
www.history-matters.org; www.ctka.net (Probe Magazine article archive)

How Conservative Talk Radio Defends the Status Quo On JFK

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Will The Real Doppelganger Please Stand Up?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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