Brad Meltzer's Humbug

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

PopMatters Staff
www.popmatters.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What cheek!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Buddy Levy
http://buddylevy.com/

http://www.popmatters.com

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

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

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

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

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

The Tangled Web

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

Two Ozzies, Two Mommies

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

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

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

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

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

Oswald Here, There, And Everywhere

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where Does Everybody Go?

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

Endnotes

Although John Armstrong is meticulous in his research he does err in some places.  One place is the Carro Report, which was issued by Lee Oswald’s probation officer John Carro. It was written because of Lee going truant at PS #44 in 1953 during his New York phase and consists entirely of an interview with Lee’s mother Marguerite. In the interview Marguerite gets just about every fact regarding her life and family background wrong.  For example she lists her marriage to Lee’s father, Robert Sr. as the first marriage for both.  She is wrong– it’s the second marriage for both.  She gets Lee’s birthday off by a day; gets Robert’s age at time of death wrong; had the wrong number of years they were married; states that all three songs come from this marriage–not true, oldest son John Pic from the first marriage; lists the wrong church that Lee was baptized in and so on.  

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

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

Sources:

http://www.amazon.com  One copy of Harvey and Lee, currently priced at $195.00.

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

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

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

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

http://oswaldsmother.blogspot.com/2011/10/book-review-harvey-and-lee-how-cia.html

As Senator Richard Schweiker, a member of the Senate Intelligence committee once said, “Everywhere you look with him, there are fingerprints of intelligence.”  Indeed you can and it explains much, but we only have prints to go by.

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

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

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

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

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

JFK and UFOs

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

A great read. Check out out HERE.


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

No Black Helicopters Spotted Yet!

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

Bob Dylan
Dreamin’ of You

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

Richard Belzer

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

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

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

And I can do all of this from home!

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Visitors

.GOV

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

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

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

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

A Tale Of Two Presidents

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

Finian Cunningham

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

Jeff Wells

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Adjustment Bureau Just Might Be True

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

Philip K. Dick

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

Gerald R. Ford
Last Forward
The Warren Commission Report

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Top: Mauser. Bottom: Mannlicher-Carcano

Mauser Breech

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So when did the switcheroo take place?

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

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

There have been discovered bullet fragments and or spent hulls found in and around the Dealey Plaza area. Of note is a bullet fragment found in 1974 by Richard Lester near the triple overpass. It made its way to the FBI lab and there, they determined that while it was 6.5mm caliber, it was not a jacketed bullet so it was dismissed as being fired with Oswald’s rifle.  (Note that the bullet that glanced off the curb near James Tague, left no copper residue as determined by the same FBI lab.) Nevertheless, the bullet that struck Kennedy’s head shattered which no jacketed bullet, in theory, is supposed to do. So what was the fragment doing there? Are we supposed to believe that good ole’ boys were rambling around at night joy-shooting at street lamps and signs?

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

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

The End Game
The misidentification in this is epic. There is a thread running through this episode that speaks of intimidation. We know there were witnesses coerced into changing their testimony. Kennedy aide Kenny O'Donnell being a more well known casualty, so much so, he basically perjured himself at the Warren Commission. We never heard his account till House Speaker Tip O’Neil wrote of O'Donnell’s coerced testimony in his autobiography. He admitted to O’Neil he was under a lot of pressure from the FBI.

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

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

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


Addendum 5/29/13

Another Witness
Not widely reported in the annals of the Mauser controversy is the Warren Commission testimony of Malcolm Price.  On October 26, 1963 Price was at the SportsDrome Rifle Range in the next booth over from Lee Oswald and took note of the rifle he was using.  He reportedly talked to Oswald about the rifle and was allowed to handle it.  He identified the weapon as a German Mauser with a Tascosa brand scope.  Price said the scope was bright and sharp.  He also reported not seeing a serial number anywhere on the rifle (Armstrong, p.773).


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