Category: Popular

JFK author Mary La Fontaine passes

Oswald TalkedComes the sad news that Mary La Fontaine has died. I first met Mary and her husband Ray in 1993 after reading a maunscript version of their book Oswald Talked. I was impressed with their writing for many reasons: its witty tone, its use of original sources,and  its granular depiction of a subject oddly ignored by JFK researchers: Cuban exiles in Dallas.

It was the LaFontaines who highlighted me to the role of the Cuban Student Directorate (DRE) in the JFK story, a hunch that was amply confirmed by my subsequent reporting. Without the LaFontaines, I might never have discovered the curious case of George Joannides.

Brian Latell indicts Fidel again

Former CIA analyst Brian Latell thinks Fidel Castro was behind JFK’s assassination, a self-serving theory for a former employee of an agency that conspired to assassinate Fidle Castro 634 times. His is one of many JFK conspiracy theories which I doubt. Latell  also thinks Fide Castro is a hypocritical dictator, which I can believe.

In his book review, An appalling indictment of Fidel, in the MIami Herald,  Latell writes: …

The fractured reality of JFK art

“Fort Worthian Leslie Lanzotti describes her painting style as ‘fractured reality.’ Fitting then that one of her favorite subjects is shrouded in mystery.

“And not just any big question but one of the biggest in the history of the United States.

“Painter Dennis Blagg, her friend and the curator of her current show at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center, was 12 years old and living with his family in Dallas at the time of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

““This was something that always stuck with me,’ the Fort Worth naturalist master said, ‘and there are a lot of questions that just begged to be answered … As a child, I was deeply horrified.’”

Ignorance goes viral: Discredited JFK hoax spreads around the world

Malcolm Gladwell is not alone in endorsing a dumb JFK conspiracy theory.

The just-announced Reelz Channel JFK documentary, which peddles the long-since debunked conspiracy that a Secret Service man shot President Kennedy, is getting credulous attention from factually challenged news sites around the world.

Even the usually reliable Associated Press managed to report the bogus speculation without consulting with a single historian, journalist or former investigator of JFK’s assassination, any number of whom could have pointed out that there is NO photographic, eyewitness, or forensic evidence to support the fiction that a Secret Service agent named George Hickey Jr., now deceased, shot JFK.

CIA viewed modern art as a ‘weapon’ in the Cold War

Jackson Pollak’s Cold War

First, came convincing proof that the the University of Iowa creative writing program benefited from funding by the CIA.

Now, says the U.K. Independent, modern art was a “weapon” deployed by the agency, and interviews with a couple of retired CIA men confirm the claim.

“Would Abstract Expressionism have been the dominant art movement of the post-war years without this patronage? The answer is probably yes. Equally, it would be wrong to suggest that when you look at an Abstract Expressionist painting you are being duped by the CIA.”

JFK Facts Top 5: Stories about evidence find favor

U.S Attorney Ron Machen changes the government’s story.

The story of how the U.S. Attorney in Washington DC made a small but significant change to the government’s accounting of the whereabouts of undercover CIA officer George Joannides in 1963 was the most viewed JFK Facts story for the week of March 6-13.

That story, like popular stories about Douglas Horne’s take on the medical evidence and sound engineer Ed Primeau’s work on the Air Force One tapes, is based on granular examination of facts and their pattern.

It seems that readers want evidence, not theories.

Most viewed JFK Facts stories of the week

These were the best read JFK Facts stories in the week of Feb. 7-13

David Talbot

1) Ex-flame says Jack Ruby ‘had no choice’ but to kill Oswald (March 21, 2013)

2) Belzer misses the mark with ‘Hit List’ (Feb. 3, 2014)

3) Top 6 Washington insiders who suspected a JFK plot (Feb. 6, 2014)

4) Is ‘Badgeman’ for real? (Feb.9,  2014)

5) David Talbot’s top 7 JFK books (Feb. 11, 2014)

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