John Judge’s Coalition on Political Assassinations has opened registration for its conference in Dallas on the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination. Among the confirmed speakers, Read more
Archive for December 2012
What has been learned about the JFK story in recent years?
In this balanced, if breathless, 1998 History Channel video entitled “Missing Files,” we learn what the government sought to hide from public view. The approach is skeptical without crazy conspiracy mongering.
Fifty more signatures for JFK records petition
Since I last checked three weeks ago, more than 50 more people have signed the petition calling on the Obama administration to do its job and enforce the JFK Records Act by ordering the review and release of 1,100 CIA documents related to JFK’s assassination.
“This has been important to me since the summer of 1964,” wrote Theresa Mauro of Culver City, California, “when the Warren Commission Lie tried to pass off those stick figure drawings of the bullet’s trajectory, and I got this chilling feeling that I was being lied to by the Government of the United States, which was supposed to be guiding and protecting me.”
Thanks to the National Archives, we know specific details about
Deputy AG: “I’d almost bet on the anti-Castro Cubans”
“I’m as certain as one can be that there was no other gun shot…..But it’s not silliness to speculate that somebody was behind Oswald…..I’d almost bet on the [anti-Castro] Cubans.” Read more
Fact check: Nitpicking JFK point
Another nit to pick with Wedneday’s JFK story in the WSJ, by Anna Campoy. Read more
Dilemma in Dallas: Free speech tensions occupy Dealey Plaza
The original story of gunfire that was abandoned.
The commemoration of a catastrophe is a tricky business, we learn from today’s Wall Street Journal.
With the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination approaching in November 2013, Dallas mayor Mike Rawlings has boldly come out in favor of observing the event without talking about its causes.
“For 40 minutes, we need to be focusing on the man, not the moment 50 years ago,” he said.
Welcome to JFK at 50. The moment has come not to talk about the moment. This is a dilemma in Dallas.
Fact check: WSJ errs on the ‘grassy knoll’
In her story today on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, WSJ reporter Ana Campoy makes a common mistake that deprives readers of needed context and detail. Read more
Dec 24, 1963: Top CIA official seeking to investigate Oswald is ‘sandbagged’ by his bosses
The spy who sang
John Whitten is a rare hero of the JFK story. He was a senior CIA official who sought, behind the scenes, to conduct an honest investigation of what the agency knew about accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, before President Kennedy was killed.
But at a meeting on Christmas Eve 1963 deputy director CIA Richard Helms and counterintelligence chief Jim Angleton shut down Whitten’s efforts to investigate Oswald’s contacts among pro- and anti-Castro Cubans and relieved him of his responsibilities for investigating JFK’s assassination.
Whitten’s story, which I first reported in the Washington Monthly in 2003, illuminated the inner workings of the CIA in the days and weeks after JFK was killed. It is the story of a “good spy” whose pursuit of the truth about JFK’s death cost him his career. Read more
JFK Lancer announces 50th anniversary conference
“It’s Time To Take Another Look,” will be the theme of JFK Lancer’s conference on the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination on Nov. 21-24, 2013. Read more
Dec 22 1963: After JFK assassination, Truman called for abolition of CIA
Truman’s complaint
“For some time I have been disturbed by the way the CIA has been diverted from its original assignment,” wrote former President Harry Truman on the one-month anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination. “It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government. This has led to trouble and may have compounded our difficulties in several explosive areas.”
Truman never linked JFK’s death to the clandestine service but the timing of his piece, published in the Washington Post, was suggestive. Already Soviet bloc news outlets were speculating Kennedy’s murder–and the murder of the only suspect while in police custody–pointed to U.S. government involvement in the assassination.
“This quiet intelligence arm of the President has been so removed from its intended role that it is being interpreted as a symbol of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigue–and subject for cold war enemy propaganda,” Truman wrote. Read more
JFK Memory: “I cheered when Ruby shot Oswald.”
I remember how Mr. Hayek’s voice broke when he told my 5th grade class that President Kennedy had been killed.
Two days later I cheered when Ruby shot Oswald.
Efron to play doctor who saw JFK’s disputed throat wound
Zac Efron MD
In reporting on Zac Efron’s upcoming role in Tom Hank’s upcoming JFK movie Politico says, “No word on whom Efron will play.”
Not true. According to multiple Hollywood sources, Efron is slated to play Dr. Charles Carrico, a 28-year old resident surgeon who was the first doctor to examine JFK when he was brought to the hospital.
The movie, called Parkland, promises a dramatic and controversial role for the rising young star because Carrico’s cameo in history landed him in the heart of the debate about the nature of JFK’s wounds.
Since the Parkland screenplay is based on Vince Bugliosi’s book “Reclaiming History,” which makes mistakes about the evidence on some key points, it is worth asking, What are the facts?
Latest JFK scholarship: Wrone on the ‘fairy tale’ of Dallas
In this C-SPAN video, historian David Wrone, emeritus professor at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, describes the theory that Oswald acted alone as ”the fairy tale of Dallas.” He argues that evidence from the crime scene points to a conspiracy by perpetrators who have yet to be identified.
The strength of his presentation is its focus on the rapidity with which Oswald emerged as a suspect and the modesty of his conclusions. Wrone does not theorize. He describes evidence, allowing viewers to draw their own conclusions.
JFK Memory: Seeing Oswald shot on TV
I was 11 years old, and sitting in Mr. Lobdell’s 6th grade classroom when the teacher came walking into the room and said we were being sent home because the President had been shot and killed. He looked so grim and worried.
The thing I remember about JFK was he was the first President I was really aware of and looked up to. And he could be funny. Read more
Can Zac Efron save the Warren Commission?
Hollywood heartthrob Zac Efron has joined the cast of Tom Hanks’ forthcoming JFK flick, Parkland, along with fellow A-listers Paul Giamatti and Billy Bob Thornton.
Student of the Warren Commission?
With its all-star cast and reassuring agenda, Parkland is shaping up as the feel-good event of 2013 for those who don’t want you to worry about the legacy of the American national security state. Pre-production publicity makes clear that Parkland (the hospital where JFK was declared dead) aims to breath new life into the government’s old theory that the violent removal of the liberal president from office in 1963 was a meaningless deed committed for no reason by a lunatic. Matinee message: eat your popcorn and swallow the “tragic absurdity of life.”
Is this a movie anyone really wants to see?