Vincent Salandria, a lawyer and JFK conspiracy theorist par excellence, sits down to break bread with his lifelong antagonist Arlen Specter, the inventor of the Single Bullet Theory.
It’s a fascinating story, told with restraint by Robert Huber in his article “Vince Salandria: The JFK Conspiracy Theorist” in Philadelphia magazine,
A visit to Dealey Plaza
And Huber tells this amazing story about the second time Salandria visited Dealey Plaza with fellow researcher Shirley Martin in 1965.
“They drove all night, making it to Dealey Plaza in Dallas at about 6:30 the next morning. As they walked around the site of the assassination, a big man with a beard, wearing sandals, probably in his mid-50s, came out of a building and approached them.
“’How’s Mark Lane?’ he said to Vince. Lane, who would become well-known for his assassination research, had already written a few magazine pieces questioning the Warren Commission. Salandria and Lane had exchanged information.
Vince didn’t answer the man.
“‘Do you know what this is?’ the man said, gesturing to the buildings around them. ‘It’s a WPA project. Tell Mark Lane to put in his next article that President Kennedy, a socialist president, was killed in a socialist plaza.”
“The man moved off, leaving Vince with no idea how he’d known who Vince was.”
Note where Mr. Salandria hangs his hat now………. at Dr. Cinque’s OIC Headquarters. If you read every one of his journal entries, you’ll never be the same again.
I love your website, I check it on a daily basis. I too think there was some type of conspiracy, whether it was the government, CIA, Mafia, etc…
My question is, what happens when the truth is ever found out? What if the government was behind it, does the nation revolt against the government and storm the White House? what if Castro was behind it do we attack Cuba? what would really happen when the truth finally comes out, that to me is a frighting thought.
Keep up the great work.
“an unhinged fanatic.” – Very insightful, but I thought he article was more of a hatchet job. Jonathan…
Who needs the NSA ( https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/ ) when you have the The New York Times sneering in 2007:
“These people should be ridiculed, even shunned,”. “It’s time we marginalized Kennedy conspiracy theorists the way we’ve marginalized smokers.”
Marguerite Oswald probably smoked:
“Specter threatened to make her seem as crazy as Marguerite Oswald”
Mrs. Oswald seemed lucid when she contacted Lane and asked him to represent her dead son before the commission:
“When Lane hesitated: the obstacles before him, principally a lack of money, seemed too great. “He’s being tried by the Warren Commission,” Marguerite Oswald countered. “He has no lawyer. Will you represent his interests or didn’t you mean what you wrote?” Lane agreed to do what he could.”
http://www.ctka.net/2013/critics.html
Mrs. Oswald also seemed lucid when she met with Salandria:
“Media accounts had prepared them for a belligerent, uncooperative woman. What I heard instead, was a pleasant ladylike welcome – not a trace of cautious ambiguity, not a second of hesitation in the warm courtesy that carried within it only a faint suggestion of loneliness.” . Salandria met with Mrs. Oswald over the next several days, and Marguerite even had them as overnight guests in her Fort Worth home…Mrs. Oswald escorted the volunteer investigators to some of the key sites in the case. ”
“…Vince picked up Shirley Martin up in his 1955 Buick one night, in the summer of 1965, to make his second trip to Dallas…”
Sounds impulsive , but the “unhinged” , Vince Salandria , might have been working with Mark Lane:
“Lane formed an organization called the Citizens’ Committee of Inquiry to coordinate an independent investigation into the assassination. From its New York office, the CCI recruited a small army of volunteer investigators, some of who were dispatched to Dallas to interview assassination witnesses on Lane’s behalf…Among these volunteers were Vince Salandria”
http://www.ctka.net/2013/critics.html
Specter was looking for absolution from his most vociferous critic. Doesn’t sound like Solandria obliged.
The article shows Specter to be exceedingly tolerant and patient with Salandria, who could often be an unhinged fanatic.
Fortunately, that comment has little bearing — if any — on the subject at hand, even if it is true.
“The article shows Salandria, could often be an unhinged fanatic.”
Very insightful, but I thought he article was more of a hatchet job. Jonathan Kay couldn’t have done better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QMS0dMRz-o
“The article shows Specter to be exceedingly tolerant and patient with Salandria”
Also very insightful:
…after 40 minutes or so, Arlen Specter came out and found him.
Specter was taken aback, though he remained calm.
Specter was smiling; listened; pleasant; didn’t respond; was quiet; remained pleasant.
Specter listened; took this in without comment.
Then Specter said: “You charged me then, at that meeting, with fraud.” That was true.
Specter had no reaction to that, just as he hadn’t reacted to anything else Vince said.
Arlen Specter had no reaction to that, either, and remained pleasant to the end
…
“an unhinged fanatic.”
“Salandria says, strange things began to happen to him….Pearl Harbor was orchestrated by the American government…
There was no one sitting near them.
Vince started talking, and kept talking.
He has an impish smile
…their 1964 confrontation at the bar association event in Specter’s honor.
Though really, his questions were more like statements.
He looked like a madman
Vince handed Specter a copy a book. The book is dedicated to Vince…
I read Salandria’s account of his lunch with Specter and I came away displeased. Displeased because Salandria “forgave” Specter. As if Salandria’s act of forgiveness had some universal quality to it.
Salandria has been a great researcher and advocate. That he so-called forgave Specter suggests more about him as a person at a time in his life than it does about Specter. In fact, Specter never showed the slightest remorse, the slightest twinge of conscience for what he did. Specter is, has been, and always will be additional proof to me that psychopathology is sometimes greatly rewarded in the public sphere.
I’m not sure Salandria forgave him so much as he acknowledged what Specter looked to be trying to suggest’ wich was he made a mistake, however he with his enormous ego clearly didn’t have the “Chops” to fully admit he had been wrong.
Salandria to his credit had the decency to be respectful towards Specter.
Great Article! It is my firm belief that each and every person associated with the Warren Commission( with the exception of Allen Dulles )
took with them a some form of shame and disappointment in they’re involvement in the Warren Report to the grave.
I say with the exception of Allen Dulles for obvious reasons he clearly was the fear monger in the group there to remind those who didn’t fall inline that if they (the assassins) could get to the president none of them or they’re family’s could ever be safe.