His name was Clay Shaw. He was a wealthy, discreetly gay, businessman in New Orleans. He was indicted by District Attorney Jim Garrison for conspiring to kill JFK. When his case came to trial in 1969, Shaw was swiftly acquitted. He died in 1974. In Oliver Stone’s “JFK”, Shaw was played by Tommie Lee Jones.
In my view, there is no compelling evidence that Clay Shaw was involved in a conspiracy to kill the President Kennedy. Nonetheless, is is true that a CIA official later described Shaw as “a highly paid contract source” for the agency in the 1950s — something the agency stoutly denied when Shaw was on trial.
Now in 2015, straigh from the Washington Decoded blog comes an appreciative review of the very first biography of Clay Shaw, entitled Man of a Million Fragments. The book is written by Donald Carpenter.
Carpenter, rather than indict or exonerate Shaw for his actions in 1963, performs a useful service. He seeks to tell the story of Shaw’s life and let the event of 1963 fall into place.
In his review, Stephen Roy strives to put the case against Shaw in context. He identifies four key questions about the man
1) “Did he [Shaw] ever associate with David Ferrie and Lee Harvey Oswald?
2) Did he ever use the alias Clay Bertrand?
3) Did he ever work for the Central Intelligence Agency?
4) Did he commit perjury in testimony about these matters?”
For the rest of Stephen Roy’s review, click here.
Clay Shaw had an association with Charles Wight, President of Freeport Sulphur in such far flung places as Cuba and Indonesia.
From Lisa Pease, JFK, Indonesia, CIA and Freeport Sulphur (1996)
“1959: Copper Mountain
At this point, Freeport Sulphur entered the Indonesian picture. In July, 1959, Charles Wight, then President of Freeport-and reported to be fomenting anti-Castro plots and flying to Canada and/or Cuba with Clay Shaw (see Part I of this article)-was busy defending his company against House Committee accusations of overcharging the Government for the nickel ore processed at the Government-owned plant in Nicaro, Cuba. The Committee recommended that the Justice Department pursue an investigation. Freeport’s Moa Bay Mining Company had only just opened, and already the future in Cuba looked bleak……… by Jean Jacques Dozy. Hidden away for years in a Netherlands library during Nazi attacks, the report had only recently resurfaced. Dozy reported a mountain heavy with copper ore. If true, this could justify a new Freeport diversification effort into copper. Wilson cabled Freeport’s New York headquarters asking for permission and money to make a joint exploration effort with the East Borneo Company. The contract was signed February 1, 1960………
“Thirteen acres” meant 13 million tons of ore above ground. “Color appears dark” meant that the grade of ore was good. “Sextant” was code for the East Borneo Company. The expedition was over in July of 1960. Freeport’s board was not eager to go ahead with a new and predictably costly venture on the heels of the expropriation of their mining facilities in Cuba. But the board decided to at least press ahead with the next phase of exploration………
The operation proved technically difficult, involving newly invented helicopters and diamond drills. Complicating the situation was the outbreak of a near-war between the Dutch-who were still occupying West Irian…………By mid-1961, Freeport’s engineers strongly felt that the project should be pursued. But by that time, John F. Kennedy had taken over the office of President. And he was pursuing a far different course than the previous administration.
It seems that Vietnam Policy was not the only foreign policy change that changed after 11/22/63……………….
As others have noted, foreign policy changed rapidly after Kennedy’s death. Donald Gibson says in his book Battling Wall Street, “In foreign policy the changes came quickly, and they were dramatic.” Gibson outlines five short term changes and several long term changes that went into effect after Kennedy’s death. One of the short term changes was the instant reversal of the Indonesian aid package Kennedy had already approved. Hillsman makes this point as well:
One of the first pieces of paper to come across President Johnson’s desk was the presidential determination … by which the President had to certify that continuing even economic aid [to Indonesia] was essential to the national interest. Since everyone down the line had known that President Kennedy would have signed the determination routinely, we were all surprised when President Johnson refused.
Someone at Freeport was so pleased with Johnson’s behavior that he supported his presidential run in 1964: Augustus C. “Gus” Long.
Long had been Chairman at Texas Company (Texaco) for many years. In 1964, he and a bunch of other conservative, largely Republican business moguls, joined together to support Johnson over Goldwater. The group, calling themselves the National Independent Committee for Johnson, included such people as Thomas Lamont, Edgar Kaiser of Kaiser Aluminum, Robert Lehman of Lehman Brothers, Thomas Cabot {cousin of Michael Paine} of Cabot Corporation of Boston, and many other luminaries of the business world.
Long had two toes in the Indonesian fray-one for Freeport, one for Texaco. In 1961, Caltex-jointly owned by Standard Oil of California (Socal) and Texas Company (Texaco)-was one of the three major oil companies in Indonesia forced to operate under a new contract with Sukarno’s government. Under the new terms, 60% of all profits had to be given to the Indonesian government. So he had two reasons to be concerned by Kennedy’s support of Sukarno’s brand of nationalism, which threatened the interests of both companies in which he had a substantial stake.
In Part I, we mentioned that Long had done “prodigious volunteer work” for Presbyterian Hospital in New York, said by a former employee of their PR firm, the Mullen Company, to be a “hotbed of CIA activity.” Now we add that Long was elected President of Presbyterian Hospital two years running-1961 and 1962. In 1964, Long retired his role as Chairman of Texaco. He would be reinstated as Chairman in 1970. What did he do in the interim?
In March of 1965, Long was elected a director of Chemical Bank-another Rockefeller-controlled company.
In August of 1965, Long was appointed to the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, where he would approve and suggest covert activities.
Lisa Pease, JFK, Indonesia, CIA and Freeport Sulphur (1996)
http://www.thesecrettruth.com/freeport-indonesia.htm
In return for not signing the aid bill, in 1964 LBJ received support from both Augustus Long and Jock Whitney of Freeport Sulphur in his race against Barry Goldwater. In fact, Long established a group called the National Independent Committee for Johnson. This group of wealthy businessmen included Robert Lehman of Lehman Brothers and Thomas Cabot, Michael Paine’s cousin.
DiEugenio, James. Destiny Betrayed: JFK, Cuba, and the Garrison Case (p. 374).
It was interesting in a re-reading of that book to see Michael Paine’s name mentioned in Destiny Betrayed.
re: Shaw: watch the following video and note his reference, at .39, to “Harvey Lee Oswald.” Interesting on many levels, because that inversion of Oswald’s name has been posited by some as an Intelligence technique to avoid locating files and other references to an agent or asset; and tell me, can you think of ANY other public figure who, in the last 50 years, has made this ‘error’? Or is just another coincidence? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBb0UBLoDVQ
Is there a reliable book or film about Jim Garrison’s investigation and prosecution of Clay Shaw, or has Nicholas Lemann managed to piss down the back of the neck of every author and screenplay writer on that topic?
Four minutes long interview of Clay Shaw, seven months after his March 1, 1967 arrest. I cannot conceive of a better actor to play this particular part, if his arrest and prosecution were connected with a broader contrivance. Was he candid? He was emphatic. You decide.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VDgc3_Ci-w
vs.
In the issues being debated here both sides seem to have evidence to back up their points. The problem is that a lot of it wouldn’t be admissible in a court of law. I even found bits and pieces of evidence to suggest that Oswald did pick up the rifle but that solid proof i needed just wasn’t there. And it was the same for his putting the name Hidell on his post office box, concerning who had access to it. Often in the evidence I found, Lee even contradicted himself…..as to what he said before his arrest and after. I think sometimes we need to look at what everyone has “on the table”.
Admissibility in a court of law would only matter in a court proceeding. There’s no longer any question of a court proceeding. Oswald is dead. Ruby is dead. By now probably all members of the conspiracy are dead.
For history, all evidence is admissible. Some of it may be historically valueless, but, in every case, that is a matter for argument. There’s no reason to throw out any piece of evidence before considering it.
I think the best way to have a citizens’ commission would be to pass a federal statute giving citizens subpoena power.
In the following days, I’ll post the ten points made by Warren Commission counsel David Belin supporting their case against Oswald one at a time, along with my response. What I’m attacking is Belin’s case. I appreciated the responses by Anonymous and Jean, but if they addressed these issues I didn’t see it. Nor did Photon’s #1 didn’t address my response to Belin.
1. Scientific ballistic evidence proved that the hulls found at the southeast corner of the sixth floor of the TSBD building came from the 6th floor rifle.
The chief of the Dallas police crime lab, Carl Day, said he initialed all three hulls found on the sixth floor at about 1 pm on the afternoon of November 22.
When Day testified on 4/22/64 to the Warren Commission, he had to admit that he did not initial any of them during the time that they were found at the 6th floor of the book depository.
As the hulls are nondescript, initialing them is essential if anyone hopes to recognize such an item again. Detective Richard Sims wrote that after Day took pictures of the hulls, he picked up the “empty hulls”, Day held open an envelope, Sims dropped them in. Sims held onto an unsealed envelope with three hulls in it at 2 pm; at some point, homicide chief Will Fritz was given the envelope by Sims. Fritz later gave the envelope to a sergeant, who eventually brought one hull back to Fritz and the other two hulls back to Day.
Day admitted during his Warren Commission testimony that he only initialed the two hulls in the unsealed envelope when he got it back at 10 that night. Day passed the shells on to FBI agent Vince Drain in the early morning, and I am similarly unaware of any record of Drain initialing any of these materials before he passed them on to firearms expert Robert Frazier at the FBI lab. Frazier’s testimony doesn’t mention anything about these shells being initialed by either of these men.
These hulls should have been excluded based on the failure to have a reliable chain of custody. Photon, there are many cases based on the failure of a reliable chain of custody. It boils down to whether the judge thinks the chain is reliable or not.
My article has a photo of a bucket, 11/22/63, next to presidential limousine at Parkland Hospital.
The internet references supporting these points can be found at http://www.opednews.com/articles/How-the-Warren-Commission-by-Bill-Simpich-Assassination_Evidence_JFK_JFK-Assassination-141119-717.html
In the summer of 1962, while discussing with friends a political thriller entitled Seven Days in May, Kennedy said that he found this story of a military coup for control of the White House, credible:
“It’s possible. It could happen in this country,” he said, “if, for example, the country had a young President, and he had a ‘Bay of Pigs’.”
If this “Bay of Pigs” was followed by one or two other clashes with the generals, he added, “…the military would almost feel that it was their patriotic obligation to stand ready to preserve the integrity of the nation, and only God knows what segment of democracy they would be defending if they overthrew the elected establishment.”[xiii]
Kennedy did have a couple more “Bay of Pigs”. The second one resulted from the first one, for the failed Bay of Pigs invasion had convinced Fidel Castro to officially declare himself a communist and place his country under the protection of the Soviet Union. In October 1962, the CIA’s U-2 spy planes photographed in Cuba Soviet nuclear warheads pointed at the United States.
During a meeting of the National Security Council that lasted 13 days, Kennedy resisted the generals’ vehement requests for an immediate preemptive air strike against the Cuban missiles’ launch sites, an attack that would probably not destroy all missiles before they could be fired, and would amount to a declaration of war against the Soviet Union. Kennedy simply enforced “a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba,” and instructed his brother Robert to enter into talks with the Soviet Commander in Chief Nikita Khrushchev through his ambassador in Washington Anatoly Dobrynin.[xiv]
http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2013/11/17/230147who-killed-kennedy-cia-lbj-or-the-truly-unspeakable/
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I took a look at these comments because there were more than 300 hits. What I saw was researchers asking Anonymous, Jean and Photon to respond to their points. They wouldn’t respond, and it goes round and round. Willy Whitten asked twice for a response to my article: No response. So I’ll do it – can you address the ten points in my article, or not? Otherwise, please stop wasting everybody’s time.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/How-the-Warren-Commission-by-Bill-Simpich-Assassination_Evidence_JFK_JFK-Assassination-141119-717.html
Bill, perhaps Vanessa’s book club could launch a petition to request that those you have named either address these 10 points, point by point, or those who sign the petition boycott their comments? I’m only half joking here as I reflect on Vince Salandria’s admonition, “they will wear you down.”
Re: “What we need now is a citizens’ board with subpoena power,”
Bill, How does that manifest, legally? Does a DA or a Federal Attorney have authority or does it require the imprimatur of the Executive Branch?? Would a ” JFK Preservation of Evidence Act” advance this proposal?
“How does that manifest, legally? Does a DA or a Federal Attorney have authority or does it require the imprimatur of the Executive Branch??”~Leslie
I know you are asking Bill, but if I may…
As far as I know the rules on citizen grand juries altered dramatically sometime in the early 1900’s. It was up to the jury foreman to issue subpoena’s on the authority of the DA, but on the foreman’s own volition. When the issues of the monopolies and trusts came under fire by independent grand juries, the Corporatist money power bought changes in the legal structure, giving the District Attorney not only authority for the use of subpoena’s, but also the direction of the investigation.
This essentially hobbled the original concepts of an independent grand jury, bringing the corruptions that naturally follow in such situations.
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Hi Bill
I did reply where I could. Probably not the right kind of reply but I did try.
The first point I noted in the article was how Oswald kept declaring his innocence. What else would he do? He declared his innocence for the very short time he was there. One of the main interrogators for the Dallas police said he thought Oswald was on the verge of confessing. The transfer got in the way. Will try to find that quote. Many of those arrested or taken into custody will for awhile plead their innocence. All part of forensic psychology……it is called “consciousness of guilt”.
We can’t say for certain what his plea would have been once he had a lawyer or under more interrogation. Neither side can claim solid evidence in this matter.
We shouldn’t make Oswald an exception or use him in lone gunman or conspiracy theories at the expense of other people. It is very ordinary and normal for someone convicted of a crime and actually proven guilty in the end, to insist they are innocent in the beginning. We see this all the time. Possibly but not necessarily, Oswald fit this pattern. We will never know. According to those interrogating him, and there were more than a few from a variety of agencies, he told a few obvious lies. One was a lie about where he had lived. You might say he just forgot but the small lies continued. They say if you are innocent, there is no need to lie.
And if I apply the same standard to the US intelligence agencies’ obfuscation in this case, what conclusion should I draw?
Bogman
Of course they would fail too.
OK, I ‘ m game.#1 please quote a legal decision in the State of Texas that would confirm that this information would not be legally admissible.How nondescript would a 6.5 mm she’ll be lying on the sixth floor of the TSBD? What other shells were found there? # 2 any evidence that anybody but the S.S. touched the limo from the time it was parked at Parkland until it was flown back to D.C.? Obviously it was not cleaned enough to prevent evidence including bady parts from being found once they got back to D.C.
What legal decision that you can quote that would prove that the evidence found would not be admissible?
#3 are you claiming that no bullet that is not initialed can ever be admitted as evidence in a court of law? wright identified it as a .30-.30. The 6.5 mm Carcano round is unusual in that it has a rounded nose. Only two common rounds in 1963 has a similar appearance -the .30 M1 carbine round, and the very popular deer round used often in the first half of the 20th Century-the .30-.30. Again, what legal case decision can you quote that confirms your opinion that the evidence was not admissible in a court of law? #4 biggest myth- that Carcano was not an effective weapon.Was used for half a century, was major weapon used by Volkssturm during Battle of Berlin, was standard rifle of Italian rifle teams. Very robust,simple to use, functional with minimal maintainance . The sling was functional for stabilization purposes. The same source you quote says that the sling when used gave the shooter improved accuracy-as slings do for target purposes. Frankly what a couple of people who never saw a Carcano think what a guitar strap looks like is immaterial to a serious discussion of this weapon. I wonder what they would have thought of the M16 sling and how it was used. Of course if were have never fired an M16 at a range you might not appreciate how functional an unconventional sling can be. No such thing as a left handed sight-typical factoid that in reality is a myth.# 5 was Oswald’s fingerprint found on the bag or not? Did the diassembled rifle fit in the bag or not? Do you think Oswald would have carried it into the TSBD in broad daylight completely assembled? Frazier saw him bring the bag to work-told him it had curtain rods. How could Frazier have known that Oswald’s room already had curtains? # 6 the shells recovered at the seen certainly do match to Oswald’s pistol, the bullets recovered from Tippit could not be matched to Oswald’s pistol to the exclusion of all other weapons, but had sufficient markings proving that they could have been fired from that weapon. #7 The .38 automatic baloney became an issue when shells were found at the seen-an automatic ejects its shells after each shot-a revolver doesn’t. Of course if you want to ignore the witnesses seeing Oswald ejecting the spent rounds at the scene it is easy to maintain the fiction that a .38 Super was involved in any way.
Addition points. Your claim that a test exists that can determine if a rifle has been recently fired is a myth.
The claim that a sniff test can determine whether a rifle has been recently fired is a myth.
The facial paraffin tests were unreliable and test done later with the same weapon were both positive and negative. You neglect to mention that the first facial paraffin test that the DPD ever did was on L.H. Oswald. Really a common occurrence -right?
You state that traces of copper were found on JFK’s clothes, but you imply that without spectroscopic evidence that finding is meaningless.actually it is confirmatory that JFK was struck with FMJ rounds exactly like those fired from the Carcano.
Do you really want people to know all of the facts, or just your interpretation of them?
Suffice it to say that many questions regarding these
cases remain unanswered, and the negligent way this crucial evidence was handled completely destroyed the chain of possession—and, as such, this evidence would have been excluded if Oswald had come to trial.
This is also true of CE-399, the so-called “magic bullet”.
But David,what proof do you have that any of this evidence would not have been admissible ? This was pre-Miranda Texas in 1963. Most of the decisions by the Warren Court protecting the rights of the defendent had not even been contemplated, let alone decided. Look at the near contemporary Sam Shepard trial to see how much leniency the prosecution got in those days.
photon, educate me please: what does ‘protecting the rights of the defendant,’ the Miranda Law have to do with the rules of evidence including the chain of custody? Are they intertwined?
What evidence do you have in mind? The shell casings, Marina’s testimony, the paper ‘gunsack’, the Walker/Tippit incidents?
Hi Photon
Would you mind sharing with us any evidence supporting your claim of Wright describing CE 399 as a 30-30 bullet?
https://www.sierrabullets.com/images/bullets/2020.jpg
125 grain bullet for 30-30
http://media.midwayusa.com/productimages/880×660/Primary/261/261895.jpg
170 grain bullet for 30-30
http://www.jfk-lecomplot.com/doc_fichiers/CE399_Redim.jpg
CE 399, 162 grain bullet for 6.5mm Carcano
Prudhomme,
This is a bullet that Wright had in his desk that he said is the type of bullet found at Parkland. Wright said NOTHING about CE399 because he never saw nor handled such a bullet.
https://i0.wp.com/history-matters.com/essays/frameup/EvenMoreMagical/images/Slide4_thumb.jpg
Here is the link to the statements of Tomlinson, and OP Wright Concerning the Parkland Bullet:
http://history-matters.com/essays/frameup/EvenMoreMagical/EvenMoreMagical.htm
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Willy, I went around the bend on this issue with Tink Thompson on this blog about a year ago. Despite all of the hue and cry he couldn’t give me a single witness to corroborate this story-including Wright himself.
“Willy, I went around the bend on this issue with Tink Thompson on this blog about a year ago.”
~Photon
I was there during you going “around the bend” Photon. You seem to be of the delusional impression that Mr Thompson owes you a reply for your hysterical and arrogant responses on that thread.
The facts are that the major proofs of the break in the chain of custody from the Parkland Bullet to CE399 come from FBI documents themselves. If you had been paying attention you would know this.
Or you DO know this and you are being insincere… which would be my guess.
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Bill,
I’ve responded to a few of your points in other threads, but here’s one I’d like to bring to your attention. Under point 4 you wrote:
“There is no proof that the Mannlicher rifle was ever picked up by anyone at the Dallas post office. That would have meant having to deal with postal form 2162, which required the signature of the shipper or receiver of a firearm sent thru the US mail and that said documents be retained for four years (postal regulation 846.53a).”
Several years ago I was able to find this old postal regulation in Google Books. It shows that this form wasn’t required for rifles, only for handguns.
This link should take you to the top of page 48, where it says: “Form 2162, ‘Delivery Receipt, Firearms,’ on all mailings covered by this section”:
https://books.google.com/books?id=w_o6AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA47&dq=postal+AND+%22form+2162%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BkwMVZryKYaUNuzzgaAH&ved=0CEAQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=%22form%202162%22&f=false
Click on that page and scroll up to p. 47, which shows that “this section” is “125.5 Concealable firearms” — i.e., handguns. Form 2162 wasn’t required for Oswald’s rifle so its absence from the records doesn’t mean anything.
Nice explanation for yet another thorny issue with prosecution’s case against Oswald, Jean. Aside from there being no documented evidence, there also was no witnesses to claim anyone ever collected a rifle at PO Box 2915 in March 1963.
David,
No comment about postal form 2165, which numerous CT researchers have claimed was required but wasn’t?
There was no reason to expect a postal clerk or anyone else to remember a customer picking up a package seven months earlier.
Did anyone see Booth buy his pistol and ammo? Who saw O.J. purchase a knife?
The point being Jean, it’s another weak link that there is no proof whatsoever that anyone, let alone Oswald, collected a rifle at the PO Box in question. Did authorities even attempt to question employees there to see if anyone handed Oswald over the counter a package large enough to contain CE-141?
I don’t know of any information to indicate the murder weapons in the cases you mention above were ordered through the mail.
On top of that, the FBI concluded Oswald had not indicated on his application that others, including an “A. Hidell” would receive mail through the box in question.
WC Exhibit 2585, Pg 4 http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh25/pdf/wh25_ce_2585.pdf
Then it must still be at the post office, David.
Photon, you’re thinking of the mysterious package that went undelivered to ‘Lee Oswald’, found after the assassination containing a large paper bag.
Personally, I think there’s more physical evidence of government conspiracy than there is lone nut. It’s all there in living in the bright light of day, such as:
o the untraced bullet path through the back (while the doctors had already made the V-cut to remove internal organs), unheard of in any normal autopsy of a gunshot victim – conspiracy
o the long-hidden transcript of Hoover, the top domestic intelligence officer, telling the new President about the tapes of someone posing as the assassin in Mexico City- and neither does a damn thing about it – conspiracy
o the piece of skull Jackie obviously retrieves from the hood of the car and doctors said that she handed to them, proving a shot from the front – conspiracy
o the biggest piece of physical evidence of all – the Zapruder film showing the violent jolt of JFK towards what is supposed to be the direction of the shot – conspiracy
Now what entity does this physical evidence all point to? The same entity that has hid physical evidence for 52 years – a guilty faction of the govt covered up by other factions of the government for preservation of the state.
I agree, Bogman, but any pathologist will tell you it is the standard “Y” incision, not the “V.”
It is utterly amazing that Garrison connnected the dots he did in New Orleans.
It is a fascinating thing to re-read Garrison’s book On the Trail of the Assassins which I have done a few times.
On another note I have recently come across a picture of Oswald’s dissassembled gun.
Where did Oswald assemble the rifle he allegedly brought to work on 22/11/63?
There also was such a short time window to commit the Crime of the Century.
Six or so people working on the Sixth Floor stopped working a little before 12. One of them Charlie Givens goes back after 12 to retrieve cigarettes from his jacket left on the Sixth Floor.
Bonnie Ray Williams also went up after 12, and ate his lunch there hoping to watch the motorcade but changes his mind and goes down to the Fifth Floor.
Where was Oswald when Givens and Williams were on the Sixth Floor within 30 minutes of shots being fired.
I guess Oswald and/or others would have killed anyone who interrupted 12:20 – 12:30.
Timeline and Motive are very weak in the case against Oswald.
It defies reason that someone would try to kill someone at their workplace.
It is interesting to read here that Truly testified to the WC he brought a Mauser to work at the depository that same week.
“It is interesting to read here that Truly testified to the WC he brought a Mauser to work at the depository that same week.”~MDG
Bingo!
I am convinced that this is the rifle that was planted in the so-called “snipers nest”
I don’t think the ‘Oswald Carcano’ was ever physically in that building. The switch was made behind the scenes by the perpetrators in the DPD.
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MDG, are we talking about Wednesday, November 20 and the incident when TSBD tenant Warren Caster went shopping at lunch for rifles for his son’s birthday in anticipation of hunting season? When he returned, he and Truly inspected his purchases and Oswald was present? I’m searching for a reference that Truly had a Mauser with him that week. Maybe it was on another day but where is the testimony to that effect? tks.
Leslie,
About the Mauser;
We only have Truly and Caster’s testimony to rely on here.
Truly said Caster brought the rifle by after purchasing it. Caster said he took the rifle home at the end of the day.
The only certainty is that there was a Mauser in the TBDB on November 20, 1963. There is no firm evidence that Caster took the rifle when he left, there is no firm evidence that he did not.
The only certainty is the rifle being in the building two days before the shooting.
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Apologies Willy, again I wrote from memory without fact checking. Caster bought two rifles, for Christmas not birthday, a Remington and a Mauser. While I believe Truly was vital to the entire operation, I think it would be a mistake to gloss over Caster’s role with this rifle. He opted to keep an appt. at North Texas University rather than watch the Kennedy motorcade from the perfect ‘perch’ he had access to; his secretary also testified that she had no interest in seeing the president and went shopping at lunch time, arriving back in time to hear a shot.
“While I believe Truly was vital to the entire operation, I think it would be a mistake to gloss over Caster’s role with this rifle….”
Whatever happened to “innocent until proven guilty,” Ms. Sharp? That applies to Oswald only, not any of your numerous suspects?
Jean, I am not accusing Caster nor Truly of murder; you however have arbitrarily declared Oswald guilty of the crime. I am saying that Caster bringing two rifles into the TSBD 48 hours before the spectacular murder of President Kennedy should not be glossed over. Investigating Truly and Caster, is logical as they represent possible accessories to a crime. Caster brings rifles into the building including a model that was either identified or misidentified in the early minutes following the assassination and Truly to whom he was displaying the rifles on Wednesday was responsible for hiring Oswald just weeks before the crime, identifying him as being absent from the roll call (along with several other employees that apparently weren’t worth pursuing) and identified his address at the Paines.
Declaring Oswald guilty without considering all of the evidence, without the testimony of key witnesses is contrary to our legal system. Considering Truly and Caster as suspects is just that.
Jean Davison,
What expertise do you have in clinical psychology?
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Leslie,
When you say you “believe Truly was vital to the entire operation,” what operation would that be, if not JFK’s murder?
And Caster too “played a role”? A role in what?
“Declaring Oswald guilty without considering all of the evidence, without the testimony of key witnesses is contrary to our legal system.”
That’s silly. This is the internet not our legal system.
It’s simply my opinion that Oswald is guilty and I *have* considered all the evidence and the testimony of those you call “key witnesses.” We disagree, that’s all.
Jean, the operative word was “believe.” And yes, I believe that Truly was used in the conspiracy to assassinate. I do not believe he had full knowledge of the operation. I also believe that Caster played a role on the 20th, in the preparations for Oswald’s set up as patsy.
“Declaring Oswald guilty without considering all of the evidence, without the testimony of key witnesses is contrary to our legal system.”
I was speaking of the Warren Commission, Jean, not you personally.
Perhaps if you you occasionally prefaced a sentence with “if Oswald was the lone assassin, this is evidence to implicate him, or “I believe,” or “I think.” Rather, you infer “I Know.”
‘”That’s silly. This is the internet not our legal system.’
You well know that this site and other quality sites on the topic of the assassination affect public opinion, at least that of citizens who even care that democracy was assaulted on 11.22.63 and the subsequent cover up of the conspiracy. If Bill Simpich’s proposal is to take hold, it will require a groundswell of support. On that point, would you personally support bringing this case before a citizens’ board with subpoena power?
“It’s simply my opinion that Oswald is guilty .”
See above. I think this is the first time I’ve realized you admit to speculation. Maybe you could say that a bit more often.
‘ . . considered all the evidence and the testimony of those you call “key witnesses.”’
Can you cite where you have considered the actions and involvement of Bardwell Odum in the investigation, for instance? I was reviewing Sylvia Odio’s testimony before the WC in Dallas and see that Odum stepped into the hearing room briefly during her testimony having been one of two FBI agents who interviewed her months before. He was right there in the building and the WC didn’t say “hey, stick around we want to ask you about Sylvia’s interview, about the Paines who call you “Bob,” about Marina, about Marguerite, about the MC CIA photograph, about that FBI report naming you in the chain of custody of the magic bullet.”
“We disagree, that’s all.”
I’m comfortable with that.
Jean.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/How-the-Warren-Commission-by-Bill-Simpich-Assassination_Evidence_JFK_JFK-Assassination-141119-717.html
” . . . An 11-29-63 interview of Day reveals:”Lt. Carl Day, Dallas Police Department, stated he found the brown paper bag shaped like a gun case near the scene of the shooting on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building. He stated the manager, Mr. Truly, saw this bag at the time it was taken into possession by Lt. Day.” (Truly doesn’t mention it in his 11/23 affidavit)
(An aside: Although the evidence suggests Truly didn’t see the bag, he certainly heard Fritz’s first comment upon seeing the rifle, ” it looks like a Mauser”. That had to scare Truly to death, because he had been handling a Mauser inside the depository two days earlier. His prints were all over it.
Within minutes after the discovery of the rifle, Truly turned to Fritz and said that Lee Oswald was the only employee missing. Truly admitted later that he jknew that other employees were missing, and he In fact, the Commission’s affidavits show that at least 14 employees were missing! Truly’s statement was what got Fritz looking for Oswald in the minutes before he was captured at the Texas Theatre. When asked why he only noticed that Oswald was missing, Truly said “I cannot give an answer.”)”
Any thoughts?
One single fact remains. there was only one rifle seen, and by several witness in the TBDB before the assassination, a Mauser handled by Truly and Caster.
Add to this Deputy Craig’s testimony of being there when the rifle was first found stuffed between the boxes, and that this rifle was a German Mauser, and we have a pretty good case that the only rifle in the TBDB was a Mauser.
All this being said, I think the Mauser was just a prop, a plant. I don’t think a rifle was fired from that window, from the “snipers nest” – it too was just a theatrical stage.
I think the shots from the rear came from the DalTex Bldg.
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The statements of Williams and others on the 5th floor must be taken in context. They were Black people in the South in a traumatic situation in the early 60’s. They had been raised to say yes sir to white cops. They would have said what they were told to.
Ronnie, you are so right. Failing to consider the cultural context in any and all of the testimony clouds the significance. I hesitated in my previous comment about Caster and the rifle to suggest that had someone like Bonnie Ray Williams been known to have brought a rifle into the building 48 hours before the assassination, he might well be still behind bars. Mr. Caster however, a ‘respected’ citizen employed by South West Publishers, was an afterthought for the Warren Commission – just an untidy loose end that needed to be cleared up. That was the spirit of Dallas in 1963.
Ronnie Wayne
March 20, 2015 at 12:52 am
I started to make a similar statement a while back Ronnie.
You are certainly correct.
Just for clarification, Truly didn’t bring the Mauser into the building.
It is also interesting to hear Geraldine Reid testify that she was in the same room as Oswald when the shots fell.
Leslie, you are perhaps right or very close in your reasoning. Hosty complained that, although Hoover and the FBI were standing behind him, he felt the intelligence community was trying to make him a scapegoat. It could even be an actual case of gross negligence, a major mistake which they put in his lap,intendinging he be the scapegoat.
Max, of course that’s a possibility.
The whole thing smacks of set up, and by that I mean of both agencies; parties cognizant of the clumsy and inept day to day procedures; parties skilled in manipulating confusion and sleight of hand. Someone took advantage. Read the testimony of Goodpasture, read about Win Scott – the head of the station for God’s sake. This was NOT a tightly run intelligence agency, it was full of holes and bleeding internally. Kennedy knew that.
Very definitely agree, Leslie. Definitely not a tightly run intelligence agency and that applies to both CIA and FBI. There is far too much evidence to not realize this. I can see them being very busy with cover-ups, even if just to cover up their own mistakes. Someone, I’m sure, took advantage. A set up was certainly possible.
I just have to keep the record straight here before I leave. Never did I refer to Oswald as a lone “nut”…..not ever. In fact I did the opposite, calling him highly intelligent. Whether he did anything or not, I was left with the same impression. A very good impression. I would think I see him in a better light than you. His own brother, who knew him up close, found him guilty and he loved Lee. You wouldn’t want to refer to him, I’m sure, as a lone nut buff. Originally I came to this site for information for personal reasons, having no desire to prove a point. I’m sorry I got caught up in the rifle debate. But that rifle is in the national archives for all to see. And it was examined by a ballistics expert, a qualified man who was there in person, who handled the very item. I have no intention of being sarcastic but are you certain, and I mean certain, that a conspiracy theory advocate didn’t plant another rifle, a junk rifle, in its place? Much of conspiracy theory evidence hinges on that rifle and those backyard photos.
“are you certain, and I mean certain, that a conspiracy theory advocate didn’t plant another rifle, a junk rifle, in its place?”~anonymous
WTF??? There were no “conspiracy theory advocates” at the time that Carcano was placed in the national archives. It had been in the custody of the government from the time of the shooting…likely BEFORE the time of the shooting.
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There are just far too many rifles in the picture. Even two is one too many. The lone gunman advocates would have “0” reasons to plant a rusted, broken rifle. It would work against them in a big way. I realize this is something conspiracy won’t accept and I can respect that but Marina did say that Lee cared for the rifle. He would sit out on the porch with it. He also kept it wrapped in a blanket in the Paine’s garage. Both Ruth and Marina testified to that. In fact the ballistics experts that I trust but you don’t accept, found fibers from that blanket on the rifle used in the assassination. Again we are at a stalemate.
Please, please, please….
Mr. Garrison was not wrong about Clay Shaw, he simply could not have possibly grasped the scope of the entire matter given the knowledge available to him at that time.
Follow the course of the OSS, CIA, Permindex, The Trade Marts, Operation Gladio, anti-Communist fervor, Sicily in WWII, the Mafia, Executive Action plans, CIA/Mafia gun running and drug dealing, Louis Bloomfield and Division 5, etc., and the puzzle fits together like a glove….
People like Clay Shaw were “used” for the sake of plausible deniability, and at arms length, much like Ferenc Nagy, although his involvement was much more “official”….
Get your heads out of the sand and realize that life is seldom what it appears to be at face value, nor are it’s facilitators…
I see that a couple of people are actually suggesting that “conspiracy theorists” are responsible for faking those backyard photos alleged to be of Lee Harvey Oswald. I must say that’s given me some hearty chuckles at the start of a rather dull day. That, of course, would make Ruth Paine for the very first Conspiracy Theorist! Further proof that Lone Nut Buffs will say and do anything to distract people from just how little evidence there is supporting the notion that LHO pulled this off all by himself.
And just for the record, as I’ve said before, I’m an agnostic when it comes to those photos, which even if genuine, are proof of absolutely nothing.
I got a laugh out that one too. Oswald was shown the picture on the 22 or 23rd. Before any “theory” was developed. Maybe a lot of doubt, some speculation about the Soviets or Castro did it. So if they were faked it was don before his arrest or within 24 hours. The picture was what it was when “found”.
After all that has been said about the CIA on this website, most would agree that, if necessary, they would change, fake, destroy, alter anything caught on their surveillance that they might not want to be caught with. But not necessarily because of the assassination.
Let’s leave the rifle out of it, and look at the ammo.
Stephen Hunter, in “The Third Bullet” (8/13/14), adores Posner and Bugliosi. But he asks why the full metal jacket ammo, which is said to have caused 7 wounds and emerged pristine, would fragment like a frangible bullet in frame 313. Radius and Ulna are denser than cranial skull, right, Photon?
Did LHO mix up his ammo, planning the head shot for the third try?
And, Hunter asks, why would LHO go to the trouble of smuggling a 40 inch carbine into the TSBD and not bring his .38 revolver along? He didn’t remain at the scene; didn’t he expect some blowback after shooting the president? Or maybe he didn’t shoot the president, and discovered, at 12:31 pm, that he was, indeed a patsy?
ed connor
March 18, 2015 at 3:22 pm
Ed, I find it easier to accept that one bullet wounded both JFK and Connally and remained in good (not pristine) shape than I can explain what happened to the head shot bullet.
The 6.5 bullet was very stable. It shouldn’t have fragmented on the head shot.
The only thing I can think of is that bullets sometimes do strange things. Too many variables to duplicate gun shot wounds.
Bill, the problem is the LN group rests its case on the “elephant gun” or the “humanitarian rifle” (the Manlischer Carcano), because, when firing a full metal jacket bullet, it can pass through two men, pierce 4 feet of pine, etc.
It that is so, and if LHO is using Manlischer rifle and ammo, a cranial shot like 313 would not fragment, but pass through the victim undamaged.
That is obviously not what happened here.
ed connor
March 20, 2015 at 2:36 pm
That would also be my thinking, Ed. I can’t explain the bullet action of the head shot.
Now if Oswald had been using the M-16 I could understand it.
With one Lone Nut Buff posting raves about the Carcano rifle, I think people might find the link posted below to be of interest. Carcano manufactured a number of military rifles used by a number of armies in the first half of the 20th Century. The verdict on them is, at best, a mixed bag. Here’s what one army, to which Mussolini sent a large consignment of 7.35mm Modello 1938 rifles, thought of them:
“[T]he Finns disliked the rifle. With its non-standard 7.35 mm caliber, it was problematic to keep frontline troops supplied with ammunition, and its non-adjustable rear sight (fixed for 300 m) made it ill-suited for use in precision shooting at the varied ranges encountered by Finnish soldiers during the conflict. Soldiers also complained that the ammunition demonstrated excessive bullet dispersion on the target. Whenever possible, Finnish soldiers discarded the weapon in favor of rifles acquired on the battlefield, including standard models of captured Soviet-made Mosin–Nagant rifles. . . . By the outbreak of the Continuation War, Finnish Army headquarters had got the message. The remaining Mod. 1938 7.35 mm rifles were issued to the Finnish Navy, as well as anti-aircraft, coastal defense, and other second-line (home front) troops.”
In other words, it performed so poorly in the first (1939-1940) war against the USSR, that when the Soviets invaded Finland again in 1944, they were given only to troops who wouldn’t be expected to use them much. Mind you, the Finns were desperate during both of these wars for any weapons they could get their hands on.
Incidentally, that 7.35mm rifle was developed because the Italians had found the earlier models that used the 6.5×52mm cartridges didn’t do a good enough job in their wars in Libyan and Ethiopia.
After WWII, the Italians stopped using them entirely in favor of Lee-Enfields and M1’s. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for their quality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcano
Dave Emary
Chief Ballistic Scientist
Hornady Manufacturing Inc
Grand Island, Nebraska
SHOOTING THE 6
http://personal.stevens.edu/~gliberat/carcano/emary.html
This is an excellent article by an “expert” and not some Bubba’s letter to the editor in some guns and ammo magazine. Emary found the Carcano to be an excellent military weapon. The main fault was that the 6.5 round was too humane; being very stable it didn’t tumble easily and produced many through and through wounds.
Keep in mind that Emary was not using the rifle used by Oswald. Pardon me, I mean the rifle alleged to have been used by Oswald. There is a wide range in the quality of military surplus weapons. Some from the front lines have seen hard use and are in bad shape. Some from the rear area saw slight use and are in good shape. For the record I think Oswald’s weapon was a pile of junk. But a pile of junk can kill you.
Here is what Emary had to say about the 7.35; “In 1938 the Italians introduced the new M38 Series of rifles and carbines, as well as a new cartridge the 7.35 X 51mm”. The cartridge came about as a result of the desire for a flatter shooting more lethal round. The Italian Army planned to convert to the 7.35 X 51 caliber but stopped in 1940, not being prepared for the War to begin as soon as it did. They could not logistically support both calibers of weapons and could not build 7.35 mm rifles fast enough to meet the demand once the war began.” Not that we should be too concerned with the 7.35, Kennedy being shot with the 6.5 round.
For a more critical review of the Carcano see the testimony of Ronald Simmons; jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/simmons.htm. Simmons reports good accuracy but a very sticky bolt and very poor trigger pull.
Thanks Bill, that’s very interesting. I think it’s germane to point out that there is no record of anyone having seen Oswald do the sort of routine maintenance you have to perform in order to keep a rifle in good working order. Also, no rifle cleaning equipment was found at either the Paine house or his room in Oak Cliff. From what I understand, the rifle found in the TSBD was not well-maintained.
Fearfaxer
March 19, 2015 at 10:55 am
From what I understand, the rifle found in the TSBD was not well-maintained.
That is also my understanding. Plus I have always thought that the weapon was probably in bad condition when Oswald received it.
As a Marine Oswald knew how to maintain it and knew the importance of maintaining it. Why he didn’t I don’t know.
“As a Marine Oswald knew how to maintain it and knew the importance of maintaining it. Why he didn’t I don’t know.”~Bill Clarke
The most rational explanation is that Oswald didn’t own the weapon. That it was in fact not the weapon found/planted at the “snipers nest”. The chain of possession of said Carcano is not sound, as has been gone over here in great detail.
There is also the issue of the Magic Bullet and the squashed testimony of Joseph Dolce, M.D., who was in 1963 the US Army’s premier ballistics wound expert. Which I see that none of the Warren Commission cult has remarked upon.
You want to pretend that this bullet was not “pristine” while Joseph Dolce has given his professional opinion that it was as close to pristine as a bullet shot in cotton wadding – only a small protrusion coming out the end and a slight flattening of the bullet.
Are these issues to be handwaved yet again, just like anything inconvenient to the official narrative is continuously here?
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“There is also the issue of the Magic Bullet and the squashed testimony of Joseph Dolce, M.D., who was in 1963 the US Army’s premier ballistics wound expert. Which I see that none of the Warren Commission cult has remarked upon.”
No, Dolce has been discussed here before. Please tell me how you know Dolce was the Army’s “premier ballistics wound expert,” as you and others have often called him. Is there any evidence supporting this description?
Jean Davison asks about Dr Joseph Dolce’s expertise in gunshot wounds. In his letter to the HSCA, Dolce claimed that “I am the Chief Consultant for the US Army in wound ballistics at the Edgewood Arsenal and Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. I have been dealing with high velocity missiles for the Army for the past twenty-five years.”
Here is the relevant page:
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=99785&relPageId=4
In an interview with Chip Selby, Dolce claimed to have been “chairman of the Wound Ballistics Board [which] was made up of professors in the various specialities of surgery” (quoted in Harold Weisberg, Never Again, p.296).
There is no reason to doubt that Dr Dolce knew what he was talking about when it came to ballistics and gunshot wounds. He was adamant that the ‘magic bullet’, CE 399, had sustained far too little damage to have been the bullet which broke Connally’s rib and wrist bones. He wrote that “I am convinced that the one bullet theory is wrong, because of the fact that one bullet striking the President’s neck, the Governor’s chest and wrist, should be badly deformed, as our experiments at the Edgewood Arsenal proved.”
That isn’t to say that Dolce got everything right. He accepted without question the official doctrine that only three shots were fired, and that Oswald had fired all of them. In his own area of expertise, however, his opinions were well-founded and persuasive.
Jean Davison will enjoy finding out more about the Edgewood Arsenal tests, and about the Warren Commission’s disgraceful manipulation of the ballistics evidence, in chapter 8 of Gerald McKnight’s excellent book, Breach of Trust.
This link from above provided by bogman discusses Dolce.
http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Essay_-_Besmirching_History
Just before and after the first set of pictures. “it was in the Army rules that in case of an injury, a serious injury to any VIP in Congress [or] the administration, that I was to be called in to go over the case. I was not called, the Army and Navy took over.”
“Instead of Dr. Dolce, Arlen Specter called as his expert witness Dr. Alfred G. Oliver D(octor) (of) V(eterinary) M(edicine) and a supervisory research veterinarian at Englewood Arsenal”.
Dr. Dolce to Specter & Co. (r.e. CE399, the Pristine Magic Bullett): “This is impossible. It doesn’t work that way”.
Anonymous Contributor,
Dolce describes himself as Olivier and Dzimean’s “consultant” on the page you linked to. What is the “Wound Ballistics Board”? I can find no reference to it.
“There is no reason to doubt that Dr. Dolce knew what he was talking about when it came to ballistics and gunshot wounds.”
I strongly disagree. Your link points to a letter Dolce sent to the HSCA, which I hope everyone will read. The HSCA apparently ignored him. Its forensic and medical experts disagreed with his conclusions. Are there any experts who *do* agree with what he wrote in this letter?
For instance, Dolce contends that Connally’s wrist was hit by a separate bullet from Oswald’s rifle, yet there’s testimony that a direct hit would’ve damaged the bone much more severely than it was. He also argues that the bullet entered the wrist’s palm side, yet the evidence says otherwise (e.g., fibers from the coat carried into the wound).
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=99785&relPageId=4
Does anyone here agree with his 3-bullet shooting scenario on the next page, beginning with “The first bullet went through JFK’s neck and this is the so-called pristine bullet”? Are we supposed to assume that this bullet suddenly stopped without hitting anything and somehow ended up on a Parkland stretcher?
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=99785&relPageId=5
Ronnie,
I’ve learned not to rely on any secondary source when original testimony/documents are available. Why should I believe your link when the record shows that Olivier was in fact the Chief of the Wound Ballistics Branch at Edgewood Arsenal?
E.g., middle of this page:
https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?mode=searchResult&absPageId=16901
That’s true, Jean. Dolce wasn’t the chief at Edgewood. But he was a ballistics expert used by Edgewood in their investigation. And he told HSCA in a letter that the Edgewood officials’ WC testimony did not jibe with test results.
Go a page or two after your citation and you do see Dzieman saying that essentially a pristine bullet was NOT compatible with Connally’s wrist wound from the tests they conducted.
Specter, as usual when confronted with testimony he didn’t like, changed the subject to ask him to speculate about Connally’s lack of immediate reaction to the single bullet, of which Dzieman admitted he was no expert. He had also admitted earlier the commission had not even shown him the Zapruder film. Amazing oversight, eh?
Whatta bunch of BS. And if this was a court proceeding, my first objection would be regarding Specter characterizing JFK’s “neck wound”. Even placed at the highest point by the authorities – the third thoracic — that is medically speaking the back of the body, not the neck.
Specter did the shuck and jive for the govt and not that well, IMHO. But when the govt holds all the cards and no one can call them on it — when they are part of the state bureaucracy that perpetrated the crime — you can get away with it.
Bogman,
Dolce contended that “a pristine bullet was NOT compatible with Connally’s wrist wound from the tests they conducted,” but the tests he referred to involved firing a bullet directly into bone, which resulted in more damage to both the bullet and to the bone than was the case with CE 399, which hit bone at a reduced speed because it had passed through Kennedy’s neck. It has been demonstrated repeatedly that when the speed of an M-C bullet is reduced, a nearly “pristine” bullet can be the result. Several experiments have shown this, including this one by wound ballistics expert Martin L. Fackler. (This is a pdf file)
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/pdf/fackler.pdf
Photo of the bullet that resulted:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/bullet1.jpg
It appears to me that Dolce’s opinion is an outlier, definitely a minority view among wound ballistics experts. But CTs love him, obviously.
Dr. Charles Francis Gregory, a professor of orthopedic surgery who worked on John Connally’s wounds, told the Warren Commission that he doubted that it was likely that a single bullet that had passed through the chest would have had sufficient energy to smash the radius and then go on to penetrate the thigh.
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=34&relPageId=135
When asked if a single bullet could have passed through President Kennedy and caused all the wounds in Governor Connally, Dr. Charles Francis Gregory, a professor of orthopedic surgery who worked on John Connally’s wounds, said “it would have to be a remarkably powerful missile to have done so.” FBI firearms expert Robert A. Frazier described the rifle found on the sixth floor of the School Book Depository as having “a very low velocity and pressure”
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?absPageId=13913
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?absPageId=16622
“It has been demonstrated repeatedly that when the speed of an M-C bullet is reduced, a nearly “pristine” bullet can be the result. Several experiments have shown this, including this one by wound ballistics expert Martin L. Fackler.” ~Jean
This is transparent trickery at play here.
This hardly is representative the actual Magic Bullet. Simply reducing the speed and firing the bullet through a cadaver wrist, does not represent all the other chores the actual Magic Bullet went through to reduce the speed.
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Willy et al.,
Again I ask if any of you agree with Dolce’s shooting scenario:
1- Through JFK’s neck — “this is the so-called pristine bullet”
2- Through Connally’s chest and wrist — the “missing” bullet
3- The fatal head shot, with one fragment also hitting Connally’s thigh and the windshield
I can’t find anything about Dolce’s qualifications in wound ballistics except what he said about them. OTOH, Martin L. Fackler is a recognized expert in the field. There’s a brief Wikipedia article.
Dr. Gregory expressed doubts about the SBT but he also said, “I would have to yield to possibility. I am sure that those who deal with ballistics can do better for you than I can in this regard.” Who should I believe, Gregory or recognized experts who’ve said the SBT is possible?
Gregory operated on Connally’s wrist and said the bullet entered the back (dorsal)side, disagreeing with Dolce’s opinion. Who should know better about this?
“Again I ask if any of you agree with Dolce’s shooting scenario”~Jean
I agree with Dolce’s assertion that a bullet performing all the deeds attributed to the Magic Bullet could not possibly remain in such pristine condition. That is the basis of his findings. As per his theory beyond that I don’t buy it. He is attempting to fit within the Three Shot scenario. Anyone confining their analysis to this unproven assertion is going to have to come up with some imaginary scenario.
_______________________________
“I can’t find anything about Dolce’s qualifications in wound ballistics except what he said about them..”~Jean
You can’t find out about a majority of those doctors from 1963 in anything other than articles about the JFK assassination.
Now, a question for you Jean, asked before as well; what are your qualifications in psychological analysis?
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How can we be sure Oswald didn’t maintain the rifle? According to his wife he did. Used to sit out on the porch with it. Here, I’m allowing her to be a reliable witness despite what others have said. We also know from his wife and Ruth Paine that he kept that rifle wrapped in a blanket in the Paine’s garage. The carcano, when examined, was found to have fibers from that blanket on it. The same rifle found close to the sniper’s nest. Even in “used” condition it would maintain it’s integrity.
Years ago a researcher named Joel Grant interviewed Duncan MacPherson. MacPherson and Fackler are both cited as wound ballistic experts in this Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_gelatin
Grant asked MacPherson about CE399:
QUOTE:
G: Is it possible to deform a bullet the way CE399 is deformed by firing the bullet into water?
MacP: Probably not. Bullet 399 really isn’t deformed much, a point often made by those who dispute the “single bullet” conclusion. The bullets used in this assassination are much more resistant to deformation than most rifle bullets. The major effect in bullet 399 is “toothpasting”, i.e., a small amount of the lead core has been squeezed out of the jacket base like toothpaste from a tube. This probably occurred when the bullet hit Connally’s ribs at a high yaw angle after it had been considerably slowed by travel through soft tissue (a bullet in a reconstructed firing showed deformation similar to and slightly larger than bullet 399). The bullet would yaw in water, but probably would not “toothpaste” without contact with a hard object.
G: Is the deformation of CE399 inconsistent with its having caused all of JFK’s and JBC’s non-fatal wounds?
MacP: No. Reconstructions prove that bullet 399 is consistent with having caused all these wounds.
UNQUOTE
CE399 may seem like a “magic bullet” to the lay person, but these experts have no problem with it. Something to think about, isn’t it?
“What expertise do you have in clinical psychology?”
None. I don’t need any.
What expertise do you have in wound ballistics, Willy?
“What expertise do you have in clinical psychology?”
“None. I don’t need any.”~Jean Davison
Thank you for answering my question Jean.
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Jean,
Where is your evidence that Alfred G. Olivier and Arthur J. Dziemian were qualified to for the ballistic work requested done by them?
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Willy,
Olivier and Dziemian’s qualifications are described at the beginning of each man’s testimony.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/dziemian.htm
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/olivier.htm
And what is the evidence that Dolce was the Army’s “premier ballistics wound expert”?
That is just peachy Jean, I have read this testimony before.
The question remains; why wasn’t Dr Dolce called before the commission?
I think the answer is clear on that head, the commissioners already knew he disagreed with the other two doctors, and made points as to why their assessments were wrong:
“I am convinced that the one bullet theory is wrong, because of the fact that one bullet striking the President’s neck, the Governor’s chest and wrist, should be badly deformed, as our experiments at the Edgewood Arsenal proved.”~Dr Dolce
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Jean,
I challenge anyone to find reference to any of these doctors from 1963, outside of the JFK literature, including Dolce, Olivier, or Dziemian.
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Mark Twain has something to say that applies quite well to the theory of ‘The Magic Bullet’
“If it is a Miracle, any sort of evidence will answer; but if it is a Fact, proof is necessary.”~Mark Twain
>No chain of evidence for this bullet.
>A trajectory that is simply physically impossible.
>A bullet as ‘pristine’as one shot into cotton wadding.
>Direct testimony by the living victim of this fantasy bullet, that contradicts the assertion that Connally was hit by the same bullet.
>A trajectory that in fact defies the most up to date ballistics analysis, which proves it was fired from the front.
In Twain’s words, we are asked to accept that it was a Miracle that occurred on 11/22/1963.
The Magic Bullet story is preposterous.
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“I am disturbed as to why I was not asked by the Warren Commission to give final testimony, even though Doctors Olivier and Dzimean [sic], to whom I serve as their Consultant were called, to give final testimony. I had advised these doctors to conduct certain experiments at Edgewood — which they did — and their findings were not consistent with their testimony.
Dr. Olivier accepts Dr. Gregory’s impression of what was the entrance and what was the exit wounds of Connaley’s right wrist, in spite of the fact, that his experiments on ten (10) cadaver wrists proved just the opposite — yet, he is willing to accept the conclusions of Gregory, who has no wound ballistic experience. This is extremely important, as he then tries to fit the yaw and the tumbling effects to coincide with Gregory’s interpretations — this is wrong and this is the part of the investigation that has been criticized so bitterly in medical circles. Personally, I strongly believe that the wrist wound in a separate and distinct wound made by one of the shots by Oswald. Also — this bullet is not deformed and yet, the bullets that struck the cadaver wrists are badly deformed, and these same bullets did not go through a neck or through a chest wall. In the experiments on ten cadaver wrists, all the exit wounds are larger than the entrance wounds — this is a known fact — yet, Dr. Olivier chose to accept Gregory’s thoughts of Connaley’s wound as just the opposite.”~Dr Joseph Dolce
Note Dolce served as Olivier and Dziemian’s consultant, and he is the one who advised that these ballistic tests be performed.
He goes on to explain how their findings contradict the actual results of the tests.
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Is it possible that Lee did bring a rifle to the book depository with him in the bag that a witness described. Perhaps it wasn’t in the best of condition and perhaps it didn’t matter because it wasn’t going to be used in the actual assassination. Perhaps that mannlicher carcano was simply to be planted on the sixth floor, as false evidence and it was actually a mauser that killed JFK.This really doesn’t sound any more far fetched than other things suggested here. We could believe Ruth Paine and Marina Oswald when they said that Lee kept that rifle in the Paine’s garage wrapped in a blanket and that an expert who examined the rifle found fibers from that blanket on the rifle in question. That rifle was probably meant to be found. Who would leave the real weapon behind? If any planning was done at all, the real weapon would be removed from the scene. That would be a lot of evidence to leave behind. An assassin would know that. Leaving the rifle so close to the scene of the crime makes it look like someone did this on the spur of the moment with no or very poor planning.
The point I was making is, where the CT followers after their research found so many things wrong with the lone gunman theory, I after doing research found so many things wrong with the conspiracy theory. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong but then I would have to wonder why was it even possible that so many qualified experts would agree to lie and falsify results for such a tragic event, an event that would affect so many. It speaks very badly for so many people and for our country.
Why does anyone get excited about the posting of Photon. This person is not a judge or a jury. They do not demonstrate an open mind and do not encourage further enlightenment on the crime of the century.
On one point I am absolutely convinced WC defenders are right. It really is for reasons of National Security that there is a cover up. I believe the CIA are key protagonists in the cover up and their full exposure as undemocratic US decision makers has massive consequences for National Security. The HSCA failings can surely be put down to the wavering of the political will needed to face this issue.
There might have been national security reasons to fear the abolition of the CIA during the Cold War. But the Cold War has been over for a quarter of a century.
This is the best take down of LN POV in the fewest amount of words that I’ve ever come across:
http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/index.php/Essay_-_Besmirching_History
When the case is viewed from the POV of an immediate and massive cover-up by the feds, everyone’s actions and all the crazy incongruities start to make some sense.
No “mistakes” that wouldn’t happen in the inquest of a murdered bum on the street. There was purposeful, bold deceit.
The CIA and America’s Presidents » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/13/the-grand-illusion-about-terrorism/#.VQeE4CE4pDs.twitter
Willie,
Where were we when the hymn books were passed out?
Jean: “According to the HSCA, “…during 1959-63 upon returning from trips abroad, as many as 25,000 Americans annually provided information to the CIA’s Domestic Contact Division on a non-clandestine basis. Such acts of cooperation should not be confused with an actual Agency relationship.”
Photon: “And exactly how many other American businessmen with overseas business opportunities had exactly the same voluntary arrangement ?”
I’m going to guess if we go to Prof. McAdams’ data base, we will find numerous versions of this particular chorus.
I read about an interesting apparently recently released CIA document here:
Rocca, by the way, was Angleton’s second in command in CIA counterintelligence. They went all the way back together to OSS in Italy in 1944. Apparently, Shaw was also in Army Counterintelligence during World War II.
Can anybody find a link to the CIA document?
I didn’t find your document. But the name Wistar Janney seemed like I’d. Was he related to peter Janney, author of Mary’s Mosaic (which I’ve not read).
I did find Wistar, very interesting guy with a lot of connections.
Tried to post the link at spartacus but the copy icon did nothing.
Ronnie,
Yes Peter Janney is Wistar Janney’s son.
Peter Janney was also involved in propagating knowledge of ‘CIA Document 1035-960’ – the agency’s directive to turn Mockingbirds loose on “Conspiracy Theorists”, to defame the idea of a conspiracy and frame such researchers as “kooks, and nuts”.
We have our fair share of mini, perhaps self styled mockingbirds singing their salacious lullabies on these very threads.
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Facts – Shaw was CIA connected, the CIA took a strong pro-active interest in the case, Garrison was subjected(rightly or wrongly) to massive media attack in line with CIA guidence to its media assets, the Jury were not allowed to assess all evidence(rightly or wrongly) that linked Shaw to the alleged alias Bertrand.
These incontested facts do not make a case against Shaw, and they don’t make a case against the CIA. If you are open-minded they create unease. If you are willing to consider other elements of the case then unease turns to horror.
Well stated, Eddy.
Thanks Bill Clarke for your honest opinion on Military but the more i look at General Maxwell Taylor and VN Phoenix Program the code of ethics and officers been gentelman was very last thing on there agenda
gerald campau
March 16, 2015 at 8:08 am
Gerald, you have to remember that there is a large difference in killing communist and killing your commander in Chief.
JFK bought Taylor out of retirement and that was, I think, a mistake.
As for the Phoenix program, Ho began his back in the 1930s and it was still going strong when I left the country in 1971. You can’t have a nice war.
Autopsy at Parkland hospital? – the SS removed JFK’s body thereby avoiding any independent autopsy being carried out.
The question of the SS assault rifle raised in the WC – rifle omitted from any independent scrutiny by the SS’s refusal to disclose information or evidence, and rifle immediately removed from service. Cover up.
The presidential limousine? – washed shortly after arrival at Parkland; scant FBI post investigation of vehicle ballistic/pathology evidence; windscreen replaced/vehicle refurbished, thus vehicle removed and omitted as crime scene evidence. Cover up.
Autopsy at Bethesda? – pathology slides – unaccounted for. JFK’s brain – removed before any proper assessment could be carried out. Autopsy room over congested with people; too much chatter and noise during autopsy; accentuated by pressure brought about by Intelligence services to “hurry” up proceedings as though proper, conclusive findings were not required. The many instances of direct manipulation of autopsy staff and evidence by Intelligence staff at the autopsy has clear implications of cover up.
To understand the degree of cover up, omission, and or alteration of evidence by the WC, it would not be adequate to merely look at report alone. One must also look at the body of evidence that was ignored by the Commission. Evidence that did not support a lone nut theory was conveniently ignored.
Roger Craig, a deputy sheriff at the DPD who was on the ground on that faithful day, at approximately 12.40 pm saw a man run down the grassy knoll to a light green Rambler station wagon that drove away west on Elm St. Craig gave a detailed description of these events to someone claiming to be from the SS. Shortly afterwards, Craig attended the sixth floor SBD, where he witnessed a colleague find a rifle and who identified (with agreement from Fritz) that it was a German 765 Mauser. Someone ran up the stairs to report that a policeman had been shot – Craig looked at his watch noting it was 1.06 pm.
After learning of LHO’s arrest Craig provided details of his sighting earlier on the knoll. Fritz brought Craig over to see LHO. Craig confirmed that the man he saw running into the Rambler was in fact LHO. LHO confirmed it was him, and that the station wagon belonged to Mrs Paine.
In April 1964 WC’s Dave Belin interviewed Craig (Craig would later describe the interviewing style as both manipulative and selective, also that the standard formalities of seeking a signature from him to confirm his statement were not carried out properly).
In 1968 Craig saw a transcript of his WC statement and found that the statement had been altered in 14 different places. He had never been informed of or requested to make changes to his original statement. Cover up.
Craig’s evidence and timeline (particularly in respect of when a policeman was shot and how LHO could physically have been in the right location to carry out the shooting) did not match the fictitious one that the WC were constructing, thus Craig’s evidence was surplus to requirements of the LN conclusion, hence the consequent alteration and omission of his evidence. Cover up.
Craig’s evidence could not be admissible because it flew in the face of what the WC were trying to achieve, a predetermined conclusion, one of a lone nut assassination.
Craig was a witness who stood by his recollection of events despite suffering consequences for his honesty.
Some of you are responding to protein like you did to Mr McAdams. As if he is your little sister who thinks she has all of the answers to life’s problems. Good God, he wouldn’t ID himself, although Jim DiEugenio has previously. Like a kid sister, stop responding to her, she’ll go away and grow up and learn what her government did on 22Nov63.
Hi Bob
Actually Photon has told us he’s “Mother May’s Child” which confirms Mr Di Eugenio’s ID of him as Paul May (in my view anyway).
I’m interested in Photon producing evidence of his self-proclaimed expertise as he demands it of everyone else. I don’t think he should get a free ride on this issue.
@Photon- its hard for me to asses the veracity of your views without knowing your areas of expertise. Otherwise, your views are just opinions like everyone else. Though you do seem to parrot alot of what Bugliosi has written.
Ronnie, many of us probably do our best work at that time of night under those circumstances! I keep a CWUI sticker on my screen, “Commenting While Under the Influence” to remind me. Of course unlike this recent comment of yours which is an excellent summation, mine is usually incoherent.
Kidding aside, within this milieu you name there are not only verifiable shared financial interests, but deep common threads most of which are ideological running the gamut from moderate to extreme, all committed capitalists and neocolonialists. I consider that to be the dominant feature which superseded their pledge of allegiance to democracy. I have long argued that ‘they’ are the reason the assassination was never fully investigated. Had any of these powerful individuals, separately or as a group laid down the gauntlet and said, “We want to know exactly what happened, as long as it takes, no obfuscations, no omissions, no lies, and as few as possible unanswered questions,” the WC would not have closed their investigation until this power elite was satisfied. I would posit they were in fact totally satisfied with the WCR.
Leslie,
One of the major glitches in the so-called “Domino Theory” was that the fall of Vietnam would mean the ascendance of Red China over all of S E Asia. What is wrong with this scenario is that it was not Red China that was supporting North Vietnam with arms and equipment, it was the Soviet Union.
If one reads Antony Sutton’s work, one finds that the Soviet Union was supplying the North Vietnamese with what were essentially “Ford trucks” that were used in their major Tet offensive. At the same time the US was supplying high tech ‘know-how’ to the Soviets, the Soviets were using that ‘know-how’ against the US. When one analyses the whole picture, as Sutton does; one comes to the inescapable conclusion that this “war” was a charade, a boon for not only the US military industrial complex, but for the Soviet military industrial complex with it’s symbiotic relationship with the west.
Drawing back further I would contend that there is a Global Military Industrial Complex, and that as General Smedley Butler revealed long ago, “War is a Racket” – a global racket.
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Willy Whitten
March 15, 2015 at 9:58 pm
Leslie,
One of the major glitches in the so-called “Domino Theory” was that the fall of Vietnam would mean the ascendance of Red China over all of S E Asia. What is wrong with this scenario is that it was not Red China that was supporting North Vietnam with arms and equipment, it was the Soviet Union.
More disinformation from Willy and a rather big one. China supported Ho from the beginning to the end.
And these Ford trucks for TET is kinda funny too.
“And these Ford trucks for TET is kinda funny too.”
~Bill Clarke
. . . . .
The Soviet Military Truck Industry
Soviet civilian and military trucks are produced in the same plants and have extensive interchangeability of parts and components. For example, the ZIL-131 was the main 31/2- ton 6×6 Soviet military truck used in Vietnam and Afghanistan and is produced also in a civilian 4 x 2 version as the ZIL-130. Over 60 percent of the parts in the ZIL-131 military truck are common to the ZIL-130 civilian truck.
All Soviet truck technology and a large part of Soviet truck-manufacturing equipment has come from the West, mainly from the United States. While some elementary transfers-lines and individual machines for vehicle production are made in the Soviet Union, these are copies of Western machines and always obsolete in design.
Many major American companies have been prominent in building up the Soviet truck industry. The Ford Motor Company, the A. J. Brandt Company, the Austin Company, General Electric, Swindell-Dressier, and others supplied the technical assistance, design work, and equipment of the original giant plants…”
The Ford Gorki “Automobile” Plant
In May 1929 the Soviets signed an agreement with the Ford Motor Company of Detroit.
The Soviets agreed to purchase $13 million worth of automobiles and parts and Ford agreed to give technical assistance until 1938 to construct an integrated automobile-manufacturing plant at Nizhni-Novgorod. Construction was completed in 1933 by the Austin Company for production of the Ford Model-A passenger car and light truck. Today this plant is known as Gorki. With its original equipment supplemented by imports and domestic copies of imported equipment, Gorki produces the GAZ range of automobiles, trucks, and military vehicles. All Soviet vehicles with the model prefix GAZ (Gorki Avtomobilnyi Zavod) are from Gorki, and models with prefixes UAX, OdAZ, and PAZ are made from Gorki components.
THE BEST ENEMY MONEY CAN BUY By Antony C. Sutton
http://vho.org/aaargh/fran/livres10/SUTTONbest.pdf
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Some have dismissed the assertion that Kennedy was talking about “secret societies” in that famous speech to the National Press Club.
They assume without foundation that JFK was talking about ‘Communism’. This is belied by his opening remarks about secret societies. This was at the height of anti=Communist hysteria, and it is not the Soviet system he was talking about.
Kennedy was talking about Skull&Bones. He was talking about his worst enemy, the cult that was at the center of CIA.
“I am particularly glad to become a Yale man because as I think about my troubles, I find that a lot of them have come from other Yale men.”~John F Kennedy – Commencement Address at Yale University.
June 11, 1962
He had the grace and courage to face them and begin his remarks with a quip about a serious rift.
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Leslie that as a general rule is about my limit for posting under the influence. For one thing my proof reading pretty much goes in the toilet much beyond it. Somewhere around that same point I occasionally read a comment that makes me want to say BS and go on a rant. Either case can be cause for embarrassment although the BS rants are some times called for, even drinking coffee, tea or whatever. At least a couple of times (ok, probably more) I owe Jeff for NOT posting a comment.
Amen Proton! Those who are blind can not see!
@leslie- regarding the cleaning of the limo, what I tried to say (obviously ineptly) was that there is more than one conclusion that one can reasonably draw from that act. If the purpose was to remove evidence, they clearly did not do a good job since there was more evidence found later that night.
I think it could also be what it looks like. First, the car was in public view and they wanted to protect the president’s dignity by washing away the blood and brain tissue. they didnt want grusome photos ending up in the tabloids.
They were also putting the top on. The car was going to be sitting in a hot plane for an undetermined time and then had to be driven. The smell would have been awful. So they rinsed out what they could into the bucket.
Probably just as bad was tossing the water in the bucket. There probably was important forensic evidence in bucket.
Im not saying there was no conspiracy. Im also not saying the cleaning was not part of that plan. my point is that that is not the ONLY conclusion one can reasonably draw from that act. It was terrible decision made in an incredibly difficult time. But people often make stupid decisions more often than is commonly thought and especially under stress. that’s what keeps us lawyers gainfully employed 🙂
“Maybe yes, maybe no, but certainly maybe..” Yes indeed Larry, a profound legalistic argument.
At some point, one has to look at the real and legal fact that the limousine was part of a ‘crime scene’, and that the act of cleaning the car was technically ‘defacing evidence’ and thus an obstruction of justice.
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#2 of WC counsel David Belin’s ten points of proof on that Oswald killed JFK:
Scientific ballistic evidence proved that the two ballistically identifiable bullet fragments in the front seat of the Presidential limousine came from the 6th floor rifle.
My rebuttal: There are no records showing that the limousine was secured at Parkland Hospital as it was parked in the lot between 12:30 and 2:30. Motorcycle officer Stavis Ellis describes how reporters and others got close to take a look at it. (Larry Sneed, No More Silence)
A bucket was brought to the limousine to wash out the blood, severely compromising the crime scene and the blood spatter evidence.
There was absolutely no pressing reason for the Secret Service to fly the limousine back to DC at 3:41 pm, other than gaining control over the evidence.
The Secret Service had lost the President, and disciplinary actions could have easily followed. The Secret Service fled the scene rather than allow the Dallas police or the FBI to take a look at the evidence until they were good and ready. The Secret Service was not impartial, they had an inherent self-interest in not looking bad.
The limousine did not reach any zone of relative security until its 9 pm arrival at the White House garage.
Even then, security was lax. Bullet fragments were found inside the limousine at 10 pm, when deputy Secret Service chief Paul Paterni took it upon himself to conduct a “pre-inspection inspection”, ostensibly because bone and tissue was on the seats.
Nor was there a log kept of who was in the vicinity of the limousine prior to the 1 am inspection.
A judge would probably have excluded those fragments from evidence, given all these factors and the history of tampering evidence discussed later on.
I should add that recent scientific advances demonstrate that the “neutron activation test” used to verify the fragments in the limousine were a match to the bullet recovered in the TSBD is now considered to be technically unsupportable. Such tests are no longer used by the FBI nor admissible in court.
The references for the assertions above can be found here: http://www.opednews.com/articles/How-the-Warren-Commission-by-Bill-Simpich-Assassination_Evidence_JFK_JFK-Assassination-141119-717.html
Bill Simpich,
If I’m following the timeline and the evidence labeling correctly, SS Agent Orin Bartlett delivered what would become Q2 and Q3 to the FBI lab and Frazier at 11:50 p.m. Weren’t these the fragments from the limousine? Does that indicate that Bartlett was in DC by 9:00 pm? My understanding is that he was posted in New Orleans, at least at the time of the Adele Edison episode as he figured largely in that story. Perhaps he had been transfered, or he was made available immediately in DC as he acted as liasion between his agency and the FBI; otherwise why would he have been summoned within hours of the assassination? Could his role in New Orleans, a good relationship with the FBI in the city have played a part? This incident reminds me of how thinly FBI Agent Bardwell Odum was spread in the first 48 hours when in fact there were at least 39 other FBI agents in and around Dallas to assist in the investigation.
Hi Leslie,
Yes, it seems agreed that Bartlett delivered those items by 11:50.
http://www.history-matters.com/essays/frameup/FrazierSpeaks/FrazierSpeaks.htm
Has anyone bothered to get a blow up of DARK COMPLEXIONED MAN? In/on his right waving hand is an apparatus attached to the back of his hand and his hand is raised at the EXACT moment that JFK is hit in the throat with a bullet. If anyone cares to do this blow up work, they may also notice that there is, over this waving man’s knuckles on his right hand, what appears to be a muzzle for this apparatus…I could be wrong, but I have always suspected this person of being involved with the assassination. He is seen after the assassination walking toward the underpass/knoll area, with a short-wave radio (military/police issue) speaking to another person. This man, and the umbrella man, were seen sitting at a curb together. Tey were standing near the Stemmons Freeway sign acting suspecously at the hmoment JFK was shot.
Kennedy63,
Your post inspired me to look up a bunch of photos. There’s a good Jim Towner pic, unnumbered on the sites I saw, of Umbrella Man and Dark Complected Man. DCM (in a light jacket and a jaunty jalopy hat) is walking down the hill toward the Stemmons sign, an antenna-looking thing behind his head (could be a shadow in the background). That must be before the shooting.
Bronson 3, JFK’s limo is about 20′ from the sign, UM is right in front of the sign looking right at JFK with the umbrella just a little over his head. DCM is standing in the street! just off the curb. I’ve read somewhere that he was an ex-Cuban expressing revenge for the Bay of Pigs.
Bothun 4 has them sitting on the curb; DCM may be talking into a radio. Some pics of DCM show that he has a large beaky nose. He is one of the few people on the north side of Elm who has not been identified. UM has been ID’ed as Louis Steven Witt. He made a farce of an appearance at an HSCA hearing. The umbrella he brought looked like a cheapo he picked up that morning. All the VIPs yucked it up when it opened too much.
There were a few DCMs in Dealey that day. One was seen on the 6th floor of TSBD. One was seen by several witnesses driving the light-colored Rambler station wagon. Roger Craig took that driver for a black man.
I bet DCM was a New Orleans or Miami based Cuban refugee. That bunch had a lot more against Kennedy than the Bay of Pigs. The Pontchartrain “camp” had been shut down, and their multi-millions from the CIA was drying up. Losing that lucrative support was what really pissed them off.
@leslie- i dont agree with your conclusion about the “elite” having to pre-approve any attempt. It is very possible (and in my opinion quite likely) that the exiles killed him out of revenge for Bay of Pigs and also to stop the backchannel to Castro (which WAS stopped) and didnt care if anyone in power agreed with them or if they would be caught. They wanted the man dead and didnt care about the consequences…..
“They wanted the man dead and didnt care about the consequences…..” ~Larry Schnapf
What consequences were those Larry?
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Getting caught and convicted.
That was my point Larry. They were not caught and convicted. I would posit that this is because powerful political forces intervened to obstruct the discovery of the truth.
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no argument that there was a coverup from me. WC defenders dismiss claims that exiles or mafia killed JFK by saying that those parties could not have controlled the autopsy, etc.
My point was that those who planned the killing didnt care about getting caught since the sole objective was to get rid of JFK and stop the backchannel outreach to Castro.
The fact that the government then acted to hide the truth was an unanticipated bonus and no way diminished the likelihood that exiles perhaps funded by mafia killed JFK. They got their man and stopped the normalization with Cuba for 50 years……..
Larry, that is an interesting argument: courageous Cuban exiles decided to assassinate the president and let the chips fall. True patriots who let a kid take the fall for them for fifty years? Are you suggesting that these vengeful Cuban freedom fighters co-opted a former Marine, Russian defector who re-defected, and using the unwitting Ruth Paine to position him inside the TSBD, then exerted their influence over the Dallas welcoming committee to determine the parade route, relied on a botched DPD investigation of the crime scene, serendipitously capitalized on the murder of a police officer that facilitated the arrest of Oswald, and simply stood back to observe the success or failure of their operation, come what may?
Larry, and if that were the case given “the revenge of the Cubans” is the more popular theory to date, why are millions of fairly intelligent and presumably well adjusted Americans unwilling to accept that the case has been resolved . . . THE Cubans did it? Disgruntled Cuban freedom fighters are passionate – I have encountered members of the second generation whose families fled – but they were not capable of covering up the crime of the century on their own, they simply weren’t. Their revenge served as an ideal foil, in fact one might say they too were set up as patsies. Don’t forget how many US private corporations were deeply invested in Cuba, and that the island represented the jumping off place for all of Latin America, politically, ideologically and most significant, economically. By chance have you read much about Brandy Brandstetter and his work with Hilton?
How could the exiles control the parade route? How could the exiles frame Oswald?
If the government’s decision to cover up was made after the fact, how could it go into action within minutes?
Was Clay Shaw An Employee Of The CIA?
A CIA memorandum about Clay Shaw states that standard background information “is lacking because Shaw was a contact of the Domestic Contact Service” http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=42764&relPageId=2
A CIA memorandum about Clay Shaw documents thirty contacts between Clay Shaw and the New Orleans office of the Domestic Contact Service between 1949 and 1956. http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=42764&relPageId=4
A CIA memorandum about Clay Shaw reviewed a 1967 article that appeared in the Russian newspaper Pravda and states that “It appears that all of the Pravda charges are untrue except that there was a CIA-SHAW relationship.”
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=42764&relPageId=5
In 1996, the CIA revealed that Clay Shaw had obtained a “five agency” security clearance in 1949. http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/89801/DOC_0000904662.pdf
Shaw was a “contact of the Domestic Contact Service,” like thousands of others who traveled abroad and provided information to this non-clandestine arm of the CIA. That’s not the same as being an “employee” or an “agent.” Some of that is explained in the links you posted or in the HSCA materials online.
I would point out that there are few if any American businessmen that were in the same circumstances or had anything near the same means and sources as Shaw did.
It is not the same as being an agent? That is so, but it is also so that this type of contract work is known as a Cut-Out”. To say that he was “highly paid” but was not an “employee” is a waffle. I was a freelance artist most of my career. Although I was not considered an “employee” did not negate the fact that I served exactly the same functions as “employees” of the clients I worked for.
Go back and read the conversation between Dulles and Boggs in that infamous January 22, 1964 meeting of the Warren Commissioners. Therein is a key to who Shaw likely was to CIA.
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“I would point out that there are few if any American businessmen that were in the same circumstances or had anything near the same means and sources as Shaw did.”
How would you know that, Willy?
No, it’s not at all “the same as being an agent.”
According to the HSCA, “…during 1959-63 upon returning from trips abroad, as many as 25,000 Americans annually provided information to the CIA’s Domestic Contact Division on a non-clandestine basis. Such acts of cooperation should not be confused with an actual Agency relationship.”
You are posting the same info again Jean, repetition will not make your argument any stronger.
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And exactly how many other American businessmen with overseas business opportunities had exactly the same voluntary arrangement ?
I can assure you that similar arrangements were made with others with similar overseas opportunities even into the 1960s.
It was a cheap way to get general intelligence on political and economic conditions throughout the world.
Of course now they don’t need these ” spys” . They can watch CNN.
And if memory serves, when Shaw was discharged from the military he was immediately employed by Western Union. His espionage training probably began during those years.
If one dissects the list of contacts he carried, one gets an idea of the depth of his international access. If one studies the history of the World Trade Center of New Orleans, one understands how he achieved that access.
How does the fact that thousands of other Americans who traveled internationally and were willing to be debriefed weigh on this argument? photon, jean, that’s a rather adolescent defense: “everybody was doing it.”
Shaw was already working for Western Union in the 1930’s, before he joined the Army. In fact, he reached the rank of district manager in mid-city New York, where he oversaw some 40 branch offices.
lysias, thank you, and you are right. Apologies for the misstatement … working from memory here rather than rummaging around for my Shaw file. He returned from the war directly to the new Trade Mart scheme in NO.
If you have followed his story closely, I would be curious what you think of the list of Europeans, aside from the trade angle.
Willy, I believe we are in full agreement that the assassination was authorized by an elite and yet to be named group of “deciders.” No faction, and I would argue not even one headed by Dulles, Hoover and or Lyndon Johnson, would make such a decision without the blessing of those who could have and should have turned our country upside down privately and publicly in spite of attendant international repercussions had they been loyal to the commander in chief and to the democracy he swore an oath to defend.
I was speaking to the stepping stones to the pinnacle you define. My example is Joannides. Prior to his deliberate interference in the HSCA investigation, he was a virtual unknown. When Jeff Morley named him decades following 11.22.63, we had a new character in the scenario. Why are we so reluctant to continue in search of additional characters that Joannides might have been reporting to rather than forcing him into some speculative set of circumstances to prove who was behind the assassination – either THE CIA, THE FBI or LBJ to name but three. For instance, if Stephen Lehmann was indeed the paymaster for the CIA in New Orleans, might not Joannides have drawn funds from Lehmann? What is Lehmann’s history, to whom might he have been even more loyal to than the agency?
The case has not been solved because we have yet to draw a straight line to those who sanctioned the murder of Kennedy? This is ultimately about those individuals, and I agree with Willy, their interests were transnational and economic and would add ideological. I think a myopic and ‘Americentric’ view of the assassination has taken us in circles.
The Myth of America, covers the reality of Amerika
Thank you for your response Leslie, the following is a more panoramic view of what we both agree upon here. The reasoning of Salandria is sound, and if taken further, as I have in my studies on what I have termed the Public Relations Regime, that Salandria mentions early on in his remarks as to Wilson; “Wilson’s deceit included the propagandizing of our people through the first media-supported mobilization of U.S. and world public opinion. Congress by act of April 14, 1917 established the Committee on Public Information.[1] Wilson’s appointed chairman, George Creel, and his committee sought to mind-manipulate our people and the people of the world. Creel employed one hundred million pieces of written propaganda..” Two of the most important members of the Creel Committee were Edward Bernays [‘Propaganda’], and Walter Lippmann [Public Opinion].
‘The JFK Assassination: A False Mystery Concealing State Crimes’
by Vincent J. Salandria
For one half of my seventy years, from almost the very date of the assassination, I have been convinced that the killing of President Kennedy was a patent Cold War killing – the bloody work of the U.S. military-intelligence system and its supporting civilian power elite.
For us to allow thirty-five years to pass, while debate rages on the subject, is not only an abdication of the required work of a democratic citizenry, but the debate itself actively serves the interests of the assassins. Such debate masks the damage done to the constitutional structure by the extra-constitutional firing of the President.
To understand fully the nature of the assassination and its coverup one has to view it from an historical perspective. We must look back at least to the year 1898 to examine the militarizing of this country – a process which eventually led to President Kennedy’s assassination.
[…]
On November 23, 1963 I discussed the assassination with my then brother-in-law, Harold Feldman. I told him that we should keep our eyes focused on what if anything would happen to the suspected assassin that weekend. I said that if the suspect was killed during the weekend, then we would have to consider Oswald’s role to be that of a possible intelligence agent and patsy. I told him if such happened, the assassination would have to be considered as the work of the very center of U.S. power.
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/Unspeakable/COPA1998VJS.html
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From the same source: ” It was apparent to me that no legitimate leftist straddles so many fences in a fractionized American left.”
Salandria admits that his doubts were driven by ideology, not physical evidence.
As they were for most of the early prominent members of the CT movement.
Unfortunately those ideological convictions continue to drive much CT “research” with desperate attempts to link everybody involved in some way with the CIA, the Military Industrial Complex, the dark forces of “Them” in the bowels of the government,etc. And of course if there is any evidence that is incompatable this this view it must be faked.
“Salandria admits that his doubts were driven by ideology, not physical evidence.”~Photon
You are cherry-picking. Which is never a good idea when the source is available for anyone else to go to and read for themselves. In which case, the reader would discover that Salandria does in fact make use of what is known of the physical evidence.
I think it quite obvious that you are no less “driven by ideology” than anyone else. And certainly no less blinded by your doctrinaire ideology.
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Willy Whitten
March 15, 2015 at 10:15 am
Willy said; “You are cherry-picking. Which is never a good idea when the source is available for anyone else to go to and read for themselves”.
Willy, do you have any concept of how ironic I find your remarks here. Perhaps you did learn something in our NSAM 263 discussion after all.
Leslie, Willy, others, these elite deciders have been briefly touched on in other threads on this site. They are ill defined it seems. We speak at times of the Oil Barron’s of Dallas, the power brokers of Wall Street, the Military Industrial Complex among others. Where does one start, or conclude?
Dulles was mentioned. I’ve asked before who did he work for on Wall Street for years (and maybe still)? The Rockefeller’s and Co. Who along with Dulles disdained them as “New Money” among the east coast elite. They in turn include the “Bankers” and the Council of Foreign Relations. We have to remember Dulles still maintained loyal former employees in powerful positions and carried enmity for his firing by JFK. E.G Counter Intelligence head of the CIA James Jesus Angleton who carried his ashes at his funeral.
The Military Industrial Complex Eisenhower warned us of has to be broken down. JFK also in essence fired Chairman of the Joint Chief’s of Staff General Lyman Lemnitzer (refused him a second term, transferred to NATO in Europe) over Operation Northwoods, a plan to kill U.S. and Cuban citizens to incite war with Cuba. I’ve read of a “theory” of his orchestrating the assassination from afar through his “pet” Military-CIA liaison General Ed Lansdale. Then we have Air Force General Curtis Lemay of the JCS who also hated JFK and his policies.
Meetings of the JCS after JFK appointed General Maxwell Taylor were dominated by Lemay who had personally berated JFK during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It’s reported he was at, and possibly helped direct, JFK’s autopsy.
Should the MIC include the CIA?
The Industrial part of the MIC just in the Dallas area would include General Dynamics in Fort Worth (brand new contract for the F-??? Fighter via LBJ and corruption), Bell Hellicopter (Michael Paine, Nazi Dorenberger), Ling-Timco-Vaught (LTV)(partially owned by owner of the Texas School Book Depository, and employer of LBJ personal assassin Mack Wallace), and Collins Radio/Rockwell Communications/Texas Instruments. On a National basis there is JFK’s battle with the owners of the steel companies (including members of of the East Coast Establishment Bankers) for starters.
Then there are the Dallas oil millionaire’s. While the Rockeffer’s and Co. were (are) the world’s most powerful financial group, I’ve read at the time the world’s richest man was right wing extremist H. L. Hunt of Dallas. Who’s son partially paid for the Black Bordered “Wanted for Treason” ad in the 11/22/63 edition of the Dallas Morning News.
Included in this group from the Dallas Petroleum Club were Clint Murchison (friend of who paid for the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson’s annual vacation to a California horse race track, and stayed next door), George de Mohrenschilt (“suggested” by Dallas CIA agent in charge to contact Lee Harvey Oswald), and George H W Bush (Operation 40…).
Please excuse the rambling of an old guy on a Saturday night after 3 beers.
Thanks for your “ramblings” on the subject of the power elite and the deeper involvements of the JFK assassination.
What you have put forth above is a wonderfully detailed launching pad to go further up the ‘chain of command’, and that is the CFR, Rockefeller connections to the banking houses of the Rothschild’s in Europe. Again Quigley’s book, Tragedy & Hope, as well as the Antony Sutton books are essential reading to get to that level of discourse.
McGeorge Bundy, who we have discussed before here as per the Vietnam documents, is a illuminating case to lead to the larger picture. Here are some snippets from his bio:
. . .
“McGeorge “Mac” Bundy (March 30, 1919 – September 16, 1996) was an American expert in foreign and defense policy, serving as United States National Security Adviser to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 through 1966. He was president of the Ford Foundation from 1966 through 1979. He is known primarily for his role in escalating the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
After World War II, during which Bundy served as an intelligence officer, in 1949 he was selected for the Council on Foreign Relations. He worked with a study team on implementation of the Marshall Plan: Covert CIA side to the Marshall Plan – He was appointed as a professor of government at Harvard University, and in 1953 as its youngest dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, working to develop Harvard as a merit-based university. In 1961 he joined Kennedy’s administration. After serving at the Ford Foundation, in 1979 he returned to academia as professor of history at New York University, and later as scholar in residence at the Carnegie Corporation.
During World War II Bundy served as a U.S. Army intelligence officer.
Like his father, he was inducted into the Skull and Bones secret society, where he was nicknamed “Odin”. He remained in contact with his fellow Bonesmen for decades afterward.[5] He graduated Yale in the class of 1940.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGeorge_Bundy
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I can run down the Fortune 500 ,too but exactly does any of that have to do with shooting Kennedy, Connolly and Tippit? Why don’t you toss in every Amateur Radio operator who used Collins equipment. Oops-well there you can add Barry Goldwater to the conspiracy .
Or Joe DiMaggio-wasn’t he mad at JFK for his treatment of Marilyn? I mean, obviously every political opponent of JFK wanted to assassinate him. What evidence do you have that any of the ” wealthy elite” saw JFK as a threat to their fortunes or positions?
photon:
“What evidence do you have that any of the ” wealthy elite” saw JFK as a threat to their fortunes or positions?”
Justice Department anti-trust cases including the price fixing case against major oil companies heard before Judge Royce Savage in Tulsa who after throwing the case out, joined Gulf Oil to the extreme consternation of President John Kennedy.
Oil depletion allowance.
Steel monopoly.
US investments in Cuba including Freeport Sulphur & Hilton Hotels
. . . for starters.
One of the most intelligent things Marina Oswald has ever said was “follow the money”.
JFK’s printing of money by the U.S Treasury might have made the Federal Reserve, I.E. the bankers a little nervous.
Ronnie, many of us probably do our best work at that time of night under those circumstances!
Kidding aside, within this milieu you name there are not only verifiable shared financial interests, but deep common threads most of which are ideological running the gamut from moderate to extreme, all committed capitalists and neocolonialists. I consider that to be the dominant feature which superseded their pledge of allegiance to democracy. I have long argued that ‘they’ are the reason the assassination was never fully investigated. Had any of these powerful individuals, separately or as a group laid down the gauntlet and said, “We want to know exactly what happened, as long as it takes, no obfuscations, no omissions, no lies, and as few as possible unanswered questions,” the WC would not have closed their investigation until this power elite was satisfied. I would posit they were in fact totally satisfied with the WCR.
I would suggest as well Leslie, that this power elite transcends the false Left/Right paradigm.
Neo-Liberal/Neo-Conservative is a synthetic division.
Both go by the meme of “might makes right” and “practical politics” trumps the written law.
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Ronnie i would like to add Fred C. Koch who hated JFK about as much as his sons hate Obama http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_C._Koch
leslie sharp
if you our looking for a new character in the scenario, please try D W {Doc) Richardson. I feel he had important part in plot
http://www.baseballinwartime.com/player_biographies/richardson_don.htm
Concerning this from the top of the page:
“… a CIA official later described Shaw as “a highly paid contract source” for the agency in the 1950s…”
There’s no mystery about where this information supposedly comes from. The memo calling Shaw “highly paid” is a CIA report on a specific set of documents: “The HSCA collection (defined as all [CIA] records provided to that committee for its 1977-1979 investigation)…”
https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=7302&relPageId=2
So why didn’t the HSCA notice that Shaw was “highly paid” and comment? And why isn’t there a document saying this in what is apparently the very same collection of CIA files online:
https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/docset/getList.do?docSetId=1092
If it’s there, I can’t find it.
“So why didn’t the HSCA notice that Shaw was “highly paid” and comment?”~Jean
Because the HSCA was compromised by the covert control of the committee by CIA, via George E. Joannides.
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I think Robert Tannenbaum will agree to that. The HSCA medical panel was told that the autopsy showed enough so there was no use to call for the parkland doctors as witnesses. Remember the Harper fragment? Two doctors concluded while investigating the actual bone the day after the event, to be occipital. However, the medical panel found it was from the top of the head; without having more than a photo!And then they classified their findings!
“Concerning this from the top of the page:
“… a CIA official later described Shaw as “a highly paid contract source” for the agency in the 1950s…”~Jean
Yes concerning the original topic, I would say that Shaw’s association with Permindex has been ignored here. There is much there to be considered.
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Photon- what topics do you consider yourself an expert? I dont know you and want to understand your perspective better.
Larry, don’t ask him about CIA. He swore to secrecy when he signed up with that organization.
It’s a bit late for that, I’m afraid Nutrino. Photon has already admitted to being a ‘Company analyst’. So he was either an analyst for some company (which he won’t disclose because he was really doing actuarial tables or some such) or he was an analyst for The Company. He now provides consultancy services on national security issues to the government. He’s always taunting us with his knowledge of the Agency and it’s workings and claiming none of us could possibly have the knowledge he does because we don’t know any CIA personnel. In the past he has also defended the CIA tooth and nail although he now seems prepared to concede that they can make ‘mistakes’. So we have a new and improved, flexible and sensitive Photon to deal with instead of the old ‘not one step backwards’ model. So in conclusion, the totality of the ‘evidence’ is that he worked for The Company .
I only pursue this because he continues to reiterate that he is an expert on many issues (but refusing to provide any evidence of his expertise) while at the same time calling into question everyone else’s credentials.
I maintain that he won’t disclose his expertise or even what he has studied (!) because either i) he hasn’t got any expertise ii) it’s from a compromised source or iii) both (i) and (ii).
Is it possible that the research both past and present has been locked within a certain cast of characters? That would mean the investigation is still trapped in a circular and self defeating dynamic. Who is willing to venture outside the “obvious felons” to consider individuals who have thus far skirted close scrutiny? I think Jeff Morley did so when he identified Joannides, an unknown player until Morley exposed him. Why did he and why should we stop there?
“…why should we stop there?”~Leslie Sharp
Personally I do not stop there. But perhaps in a fashion that you do not have in mind in your comment. I think a real grasp of the architecture of modern political power reveals a structure wherein events as important as the assassination/coup in the US, had to have been given the nod from the pinnacle, the very top of the pyramid of power. That power is “transnational” and economic.
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With the available evidence the searchers of the truth are making progress. In a climate of obfuscation perpetuated by weak willed law makers, duplicitous government instruments, corrupt intelligence organisations, and a by and large acquiescent mainstream media, it is no wonder that experts differ in their views.
However, most people who are interested in the truth and are open minded, are prepared for the possibility their view of events might change with the availability of all the evidence (currently suppressed).
The myriad of views and degrees of difference for the most part is the result of the institutional obfuscation that has taken place for over fifty years. Without the dark cloud created by the WC non investigation, and the CIA/FBI/SS/Military/Congressional/white washers, much more in the way of credible investigation of events would already have taken place. Why, because most Americans and citizens of the world would support a independent, transparent, credible investigation of events.
I am somewhat mystified by the purpose of JFK Facts. It seems to be half enlightenment and half obfuscation about the assassination. On the one hand, Jeff exposes to the obvious lies of Bill O’Reilly’s recent reporting and then days later, Jeff “defends” O’Reilly as a good journalist. Now we read that Clay Shaw had nothing to do with the assassination, in spite of the overwhelming evidence of his ties to the CIA, David Ferrie, Guy Banister and Oswald in New Orleans in 1963. Jeff sends us to a book report written by Stephen Roy (Blackburst), a well known conspiracy denier who posts on several JFK sites. Stephen Roy claims to be an “expert” on David Ferrie and denies Ferrie’s connection to the assassination in spite of strong evidence that Ferrie was involved with both the CIA and with Carlos Marcello. Jim Garrison was very close to the solution and recognized the CIA’s obstruction of justice in his case. As Garrison said, “I knew I was dancing with the CIA.” Please read Jim DiEugenio’s excellent book, Destiny Betrayed, which reveals how the CIA met weekly to undermine the case against Shaw. Please watch the nine hours of the Garrison Tapes available on YouTube. I know that Jeff does not believe Judyth Vary Baker and agrees with John McAdams that she is a fraud. However, after years of studying this case, I would believe her take on Ferrie before I would believe “Blackburst.”
We need to stand firmly for truth in journalism if we are to survive as a country. Neither the left nor the right tell the truth about the coup of 63. A well-known female liberal journalist also claims that a “lone nut” killed Kennedy. Operation Mockingbird is still in effect today, 60 years after Allen Dulles said that all the CIA needed to control the press was to buy 400 journalists. We must accept this no longer.
The problem is that, while “JFK was killed by a coup” may sound persuasive to many of us, we simply don’t have an unimpeachable set of facts to back up that claim. What we do have is a long list of suspicious facts that both undermine the official account and suggest that U.S. intelligence was, somehow, involved. However, there are numerous ways in which those facts can be interpreted. The surest proof of that is the fact that every good writer on the case — along with Mr. Morley, I can think of David Talbot, Jim DiEugenio, and James Douglass — seems to have a slightly different view of what happened.
So, how to proceed? I think the only constructive way to approach a case this old and this complex is to approach it slowly. Question everything, keep an open mind, back everything up with solid sources. This isn’t just the best way to get other people to take the matter seriously; it’s also the approach that’s most likely to yield real results and get us closer to discovering the truth about what happened to JFK.
J.D.,
It has been over 51 years since the coup d’etat. The proofs of this fact are overwhelming. Not only the event itself but the pre-event history, and more compelling post-event situation of finding ourselves in an Orwellian Panoptic Maximum Security State; which has a clear historical arc from November 22, 1963 to the present.
Twiddling our thumbs awaiting the authorities themselves to confess is futile and naive in the extreme.
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>>>The problem is that, while “JFK was killed by a coup” may sound persuasive to many of us, we simply don’t have an unimpeachable set of facts to back up that claim.>>>
That’s what government-sponsored documentaries say in unison. In actuality, the evidence that JFK was shot at from least two directions and that his body was hit by at least 3 bullets (not 2) is rock-solid.
[1] Two videos show his body and his head thrown violently backward (the B.S. about “jet effect” and “we can never predict how a body would react to a bullet hit” would not convince a person familiar with physics or a homicide cop).
[2] JFK’s body, his jacket, and shirt have a bullet hole in the back, below the neckline. The Warren Report cannot explain this third wound.
[3] Several Secret Service agents (let alone cops and numerous ordinary witnesses) heard short from the front.
I would add that the often-cited “jet effect” in combination with the supposed shot from the back violates the law of momentum conservation. No amount of B.S. from dishonest experts can explain away the fact that a bullet hitting a melon that is resting on a surface will cause the center of gravity of the melon (i.e., the center of gravity of all its fragments) to move along the direction of the bullet. The center of gravity is calculated as the average of the locations of all fragments, taking into account their weight. Some fragments can move in the opposite direction, but the center of gravity (most of the mass of the melon) will move in the same direction as the bullet’s. The grainy videos posted on McAdam’s website are clearly fakes.
Again, misunderstanding of physical facts can only be explained by the evidence being “faked”.
Undermining the official account is already quite important enough.
Among other things, it implies we cannot trust what the government tells us about other things. Even important things. Like Pearl Harbor. Or 9/11.
“Suspicious facts” are not evidence, particularly if the have no verifiable association with a crime. “Suspicious facts” may not even be facts, as I have posted over and over here-with documentation.When confronted with those facts individuals like Ms. Fiester and Mr. DiEugenio head for the hills-or for the more friendly confines of conspiracy oriented sites where the uninformed will never challenge them and individuals with my orientation are banned.
I have participated on this site because it is a free and open forum for ideas-a forum in which hopefully facts and expert opinions have a chance to trump the 99% of conspiracy theories that our host has called bovine feces.
I must admit that I find some enjoyment in deconstructing the phony experts and pseudoscience at the heart of many conspiracy viewpoints.I actually am an expert in several topics that I comment on but I would much rather put forward recognized experts whose conclusions are usually challenged not on factual grounds, but on the emotional attachment to views that are simply incomparable with known facts. I have enough knowledge to know who a real expert is, unfortunately too many with the conspiracy viewpoint don’t. I find the lack of knowledge in regard to autopsies and forensic pathology ( and anatomic pathology for that matter) simply a symptom of the conspiracy viewpoint-if you don’t understand it, simply ignore it or claim that it is faked.
Oh Photon
If you really were an expert in all the fields you claim to be I am sure you would have told us exactly what your qualifications and experience are by now. And by ‘expert’ I mean qualified and accredited to the level you demand of others.
So you are either not an ‘expert’ as defined above or you are an informed, armchair expert like a lot of the rest of us on here. Even, dare I say it, a buff.
The only other alternative to the above is that you don’t wish to tell us your real qualifications and expertise because it will automatically identify you as coming from a group or organisation that is so compromised that it has no credibility at all when it comes to the JFK assassination.
So far you have admitted to 2 degrees, some psychiatric nurse assistance role and cardiac resuscitation training. You’ve also admitted to being a ‘Company analyst’ – that still doesn’t get you over the line as an expert in the fields you claim.
What are your degrees in? I’m predicting education and religion.
PS Can you please stop the constant slagging off of Ms Feister and Mr Di Eugenio. I don’t know Ms Feister’s work but Willy has ably defended her.
Mr Di Eugenio has absolute integrity as one of the leading researchers on the JFK assassination. His grasp of the details is encyclopedic. I would speculate that the only reason he is not on here anymore is because he is too busy doing actual research to be bothered with the likes of you.
Photon, you are exactly like a biblical fundamentalist. You start with a conclusion, that Oswald did it or the Bible is 100% factual, and work backwards. So some people think the world was created 6,000 years ago despite scientific evidence because otherwise they’d have to admit the Bible is not what they want it to be. You want Oswald to be the assassin, despite mounds of evidence that others were involved or complicit, and zero evidence that he pulled any triggers. Thus you are unable to actually process any facts contrary to your conclusion.
At least he honest and admit that there are a thousand aspects of this case that are suspicious. But, no, like a fundamentalist, you have an all-or-nothing mentality.
Photon – and what is the reason you are reluctant to tell us your alma mater? Is it because it is Marquette?
Wrong “M”.
Hi Photon
I cannot find any other Jesuit universities that begin with ‘M’. Unless it’s “Made Up” U. Even ‘Marymount’ is ‘Loyola Marymount’.
Can’t you give me a hint? 🙂
Still not willing to outline your expert qualifications or experience, I see. Is that because you haven’t any or because they are compromised?
Probably both.
I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours. 🙂
Okay here’s my next informed guess. St Mary’s in Rochester, Minnesota at the Mayo? And you did nursing.
There’s a few m’s in there.
I want to play, too.
Does it start with and M and end with ilitary?
Vanessa, for a lark, let’s try the monk.
Hi David 🙂
You got it in one – he’s previously admitted to a military career possibly the Navy. He comes from a long line of Navy personnel apparently.
Hi Leslie 🙂
The Monk? I’m not following you Leslie. Sorry, bit obtuse today.
A Navy career doesn’t necessarily disqualify. Douglas Horne is a retired naval officer. I myself am a retired lieutenant commander.
Hi Lysias
Do you mean disqualify him from CIA work? I agree with you his military career would have been a perfect precursor to any Agency work.
Although if we add up all the careers he claims to have had he must be about 100 years old by now.
Gone a bit quiet, haven’t you Photon? Did I get it right with nursing at St Mary’s?
You can call me Otis.
What happened to Tony Willams?
Otis Redding?
Otis Williams?
Otis Elevators?
Otis …..?
Which Otis?
I take your lack of a denial as confirmation that you did nursing at St Mary’s, Minnesota.
So where does the education study come in?
Otis?
http://mdocweb.state.mi.us/otis2/otis2.html
Navy could mean ONI.
Hi Lysias
Apologies I think I misunderstood you there. Did you mean his Navy career doesn’t disqualify him either as an expert or as being from a compromised source. I totally agree with that. And if his qualifications or expertise came from the Navy then I wish he would share it with us.
Obviously many who have posted here are do not understand the evidence. If in fact the evidence was “overwhelming” we wouldn’t be having this discussion. If the evidence was “overwhelming” there would not been two investigations and one review (Warren. Commission, HSCA, and ARRB) and numerous government related reviews of the autopsy. I am no more qualified to make a judgement as to the answer to “Who shot John?”, but I am qualified, I think, to evaluate evidence. Speculation is not evidence. I continue to believe that JFK’s death was the result of a conspiracy although I know that presently the evidence does not sustain my belief. Proton’s comments should not be derided.
Hi LRG
I agree that Photon’s comments should not be derided – and a lot of us have commented on his intelligence. What I am raising is his constant reference to himself as an expert (in many fields) without providing any information on his actual education qualifications or accreditation.
He is quite ruthless in requiring credentials from others and will use that tactic to attempt to discredit all and sundry. All I ask is that he abide by his own rules. At the moment he is asking us to take him on trust – which is not something that he would accept from anyone else.
Oh really, is that why you are here? Mind if I call you “kettle”?
Photon – February 1, 2016:
https://jfkfacts.org/assassination/comment-of-the-week-13/#comment-855510
I’ll explain, but I’ve given you adequate hints, if you were actually here for the reasons you offered.:
So what? You quoted a letter from Baldwin to Shaw fro 1967, supposedly from Shaw’s personal papers. There is a floating reference to the C.I.A-but no context, no complete sentence , literally nothing but a phrase. There is nothing else in regards to this letter-but you have assumed that it is an admission from Baldwin that he was in the C.I.A. Why? Do you think that Mellen would only cite a phrase if there was anything incriminating in the letter? I am skeptical of drawing conclusions only from a phrase.
Likewise, I simply can’t get excited about the various relationships between the New Orleans ( white) power elite. It was essentially a small town Protestant oligarchy grafted onto a moderately sized city with an emerging Black majority. Birds of a feather flock together-particularly in New Orleans, which has always seemed to me to be a metropolitan area distinct from the rest of the country.
Photon
I have a hard time accepting that your response addresses this. How much more obvious can I make
this before your reply comes into the vicinity of reasonable?
Do you actually not grasp that I found the crux of what was in Baldwin’s letter to Shaw more than a week ago, and have spent my time since attempting to find some mention of it elsewhere, because I could not accept that it could remain a secret that the Baldwin brothers’ mother (Mrs. Harry Raworth) was Garrison’s wife’s aunt, the sister of Garrison’s father-in-law, Harold Ziegler?
The man died 16 months after Shaw’s arrest, and an obit was published. Whose names appear in the obituary?
A reasonable person would have read what I wrote and asked what the hell happened here? Your reply
is as out of touch as this example, and there are indications it was a component of a performance.:
Edward M. Baldwin’s former law partner, Judge Malcolm V. O’Hara testified to Orlean’s Parish grand jury,
A reasonable person would be asking, how did this stay together for two years, between arrest and trial? Why did Shaw remain FOREVER silent about the contents of Baldwin’s March 2, 1967 letter?
How did this saga get made into a $41,000,000 movie? Why has this conflict remained buried, even
two years after author Donald H Carpenter published it? Why did Nicholas Lemann pen a “hit piece”
for GQ Magazine, disclosing no conflicts of interests? What was Garrison’s actual role? Was he
maneuvered in, but could not extricate himself? What did he actually tell his book editor, Zachary
Sklar in 1987-88? What did Garrison’s ex-wife (at the time, they reunited in 1991) say to Sklar or to Oliver Stone?
With all of these questions to consider are you really still pushing back about NARA documents describing David Baldwin’s CIA status? Why was author Carpenter so matter of fact about the
March 2, 1967 letter from David Baldwin? Until three weeks ago, his book on Shaw was the only source for any of (including the details of David Baldwin’s wife being stepsister of Stephen and Thomas Lemann) this.
So Garrison’s critics, and Garrison himself were all part of the conspiracy!
They were all in on it.
Amazing find, Tom.
“So Garrison’s critics, and Garrison himself were all part of the conspiracy!”~McAdams
This is hyperbole. They were all part of the same milieu. That is distinct from being in on a ‘conspiracy together’.
Suddenly “connections that surely couldn’t prove anything in themselves” – as you have been insisting for weeks, is now to be spun forcefully in the opposite direction to fit your agenda here.
Quite the fancy ‘Two-Step’ “professor”.
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What obligation was Shaw under to release a personal communication stating the obvious – that Garrison was engaged in prosecutorial misconduct?
What obligation was Nicholas Lemann under to reveal his uncle’s occupation? Did he try to hide it with false information?
A reasonable person would ask what does any of this nonsense have to do with the assassination of Jack Kennedy. There isn’t a single shred of any evidence linking Baldwin, Lemann, Shaw or anybody else in Garrison’s cast of characters to the assassination-in Shaw’s case proven in a court of law.
So what is the point?
I wonder if Photon is familiar with the British phrase, “Thick as a brick”?
Photon have you read Orleans Parish Grand Jury Testimony of Judge Malcom V. O’Hara?
If you would you would read that O’Hara described a conspiracy to ‘destroy Garrison’,by the people listed in Tom’s commentary.
O’Hara tacitly admits to being party to that conspiracy himself at the time of the trial, but wanted to ‘put it all behind him -let bygones be.’
But you Photon are stuck in Strawmanland bickering over whether Baldwin was CIA at the time. Baldwin had been CIA and we know that.
Is it so hard to understand that he was ‘sheepdipped’ rather than actually censored and came back to the US to mind the N.O. Trademart as ‘Agent in Place’?
Does ‘Eyewash’ suddenly fall between your ankles as you make your obviously ‘selective arguments’ here?
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Willy, why did the Times-Picayune call for Garrison’s resignation? Were they part of a conspiracy to destroy him? Or perhaps like much of the N.O. Establishment they were horrified by Garrison’s violation of the civil rights of Clay Shaw and the hit to the city’s reputation following Shaw’s acquittal .
He had nothing-even the jurors were surprised with the absence of any real evidence against Shaw. The case would never have gone to trial in any other city but N.O.
You are tone deaf Photon.
There was a conspiracy to destroy Garrison during the trial – BEFORE the verdict. This is clearly revealed in Judge O’Hara’s sworn testimony before a grand jury.
Get a tuning fork. Sing “do ray me fa so la ti do” to a piano. ‘Catch a clue’. ‘Be there or be square’. ‘A little dab will do ya’….etc.
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It has been approached Very slowly by our Government in particular. The CIA still rejects Jeff’s suit for some of the remaining files (some are not scheduled for release for many more years). Researchers have tried and pried many records loose, many are left.
Focus on the subject needs intensifying not slowing.
The original intent of keeping these records secret was not just “National Security”. Keeping them from the living public to prevent outrage was another IMHO.
I definitely agree to this approach. There have been too many assertions of guilty persons without enough evidence. I am myself a trained lawyer and I understand the importance of evidence which I have found many on both sides in the case being guilty of. It does not serve the case. Suspicions, yes; but from there the step to accuse anyone for a serious crime is very long, indeed.Therefore, I find this forum very valuable in giving people the opportunity to weather thoughts and information.
“the purpose of jfk facts” must be “evidence re President Kennedy’s assassination.” A mountain of circumstantial evidence makes a prima facie case. So there can be no doubt it was a massive plot.
A lot of the evidence is doubly incriminating because it was ignored, destroyed, or tampered with. A small sample:
—A great witness, Julia Ann Mercer, saw Jack Ruby, playing broke-down pickup truck, drop off a younger fella with a loaded rifle-case at the GK. Then her testimony was changed and her signature was forged.
—Another great witness, Jean Lollis Hill, saw and heard a lot. Heard 6 shots and saw Jack Ruby running hard from the direction of TSBD to behind the wooden fence, while everyone else was frozen in shock or hitting the dirt.
—Before a north-bound train blocked his view, the deaf and mute but acutely sighted Ed Hoffman saw men behind that stockade fence break down a rifle, put it in a railroad toolbag, and go their separate ways. Ed’s uncle, a deputy, warned him in no uncertain terms to keep his mouth shut.
—James Tague, 50 yards from the limo, was struck on the cheek by a chip of concrete from a bullet that struck the curb beside him. War Con and FBI didn’t want to hear about it for anything because that meant they had to say 2 bullets caused 7 non-fatal wounds, 5 on Connally and 2 on Kennedy, AND Lord knows how many head wounds on JFK, 4 by my count from 3 missiles, only one bullet exiting. Because there were several eyewitnesses and photos of the nick in the curb, War Con finally dealt with it around May. And soon after, the curb was patched, and sure enough, no one knew who did it or who ordered it.
—The Stemmons sign, with a fresh bullet-hole in it, was replaced within days. Again, no trail of responsibility.
—Several great witnesses saw Jack Ruby in different parts of Parkland, including reporter Seth Kantor. War Con took JR’s word for it and said he wasn’t there.
—Also at Parkland, the SS ordered a rag and bucket, then washed the limo left and rear of where the President was originally sitting, obliterating who knows how much of the crime-scene evidence.
—Earlene Roberts saw 2 men in JD Tippet’s police car, #10, and heard the horn beep twice quickly, softly. War Con denied it happened.
—War Con said Ruby had no significant mob connections, whereas he had nothing but mob connections from the age of 10.
—LHO was impersonated how many times? I lost track after 10.
—Witnesses murdered? Well over 100 before HSCA was done.
—Witnesses intimidated and testimony changed and falsified? In the thousands.
—Obvious tampering with the President’s corpse.
It’s not IF it was a conspiracy, it’s WHAT the continuing American conspiracy has done and will continue to do to keep us in this new Dark Age.
Nice compilation.
Nice compilation of JFK myths, I’d say.
But Jean, it doesn’t mention the most absurd myths of them all! That a single gunman shot JFK from the 6th floor of the TBDB with a piece of junk rifle when he was actually sitting eating lunch on the 1st floor.
That there are bullets that can perform magic feats and defy the laws of physics.
An the most persistent false myth of all, that you can trust authority to investigate itself.
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“That a single gunman shot JFK from the 6th floor of the TBDB with a piece of junk rifle when he was actually sitting eating lunch on the 1st floor.
That there are bullets that can perform magic feats and defy the laws of physics.”
Still more JFK myths! Thanks, Willy!
Is it also a myth that the bullet hit Kennedy in the back but that Humes told Arlen Specter it was where the Rydberg drawing depicted it to be?
Olle,
“Is it also a myth that the bullet hit Kennedy in the back but that Humes told Arlen Specter it was where the Rydberg drawing depicted it to be?”
The Rydberg drawing was a poor substitute for the x-rays and gory photos, which Warren didn’t want in the public record. Humes acknowledged its limitations:
HUMES. ….I must state these drawings are in part schematic. The artist had but a brief period of some 2 days to prepare these. He had no photographs from which to work, and had to work under our description, verbal description, of what we had observed.
Mr. SPECTER – Would it be helpful to the artist, in redefining the drawings if that should become necessary, to have available to him the photographs or X-rays of the President?
Commander HUMES – If it were necessary to have them absolutely true to scale. I think it would be virtually impossible for him to do this without the photographs.
UNQUOTE
In the Warren Report the wound’s location is described with the autopsy measurement(the Rydberg drawing doesn’t appear in the WR). As Humes told Specter:
“We ascertained physical measurement at the time of autopsy that this wound was 14 cm. from the tip of the mastoid process and 14 cm. from the acromion was its central point.”
Fourteen cm below the mastoid process is in the upper back. The measurement appears on the autopsy face sheet.
Burkley was also convinced there was a conspiracy:
In early 1977, Burkley’s attorney, William F. Illig, contacted HSCA counsel Richard A. Sprague. Sprague’s needlessly suppressed memo recounts that Burkley wanted to get some information to the Select Committee. Namely, as Sprague put it, that “although he, Burkley, had signed the death certificate of President Kennedy in Dallas, he had never been interviewed and that he has information in the Kennedy assassination indicating that others besides Oswald must have participated.”[378] Given Burkley’s central vantage point, this was a hot investigative prospect if there ever was one. The staff of the HSCA wasn’t interested. But it did more than just ignore the lead. It shielded its own forensic consultants from the existence of this contact.
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Who told you the HSCA ignored Burkley, Willy? They interviewed him in 1978 and he signed an affidavit:
https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=145280&relPageId=434
Jean – Humes, Specter and the Rydberg drawings have been brought up on this Forum multiple times and each time your portrayal of a “mistake” brought about because of an alleged aversion to put autopsy photos or X-rays into the public record has been demonstrated as somewhat naive. You persist in this portrayal – which is your privilege – but you do so by apparently consciously avoiding research which has examined this issue in detail.
Specifically, Gerald McKnight’s ‘Breach of Trust”discusses the Rydberg drawings, Humes and Specter over several chapters, revealing that Warren’s alleged concerns were an excuse not a finite directive. It is also noted that, while not prominent in the Warren Report, the Rydberg drawings were used extensively during the Hearings and medical discussions. As well, as has been pointed out to you several times, Humes himself lied on national television in 1967 when he claimed to Dan Rather that, based on review of the autopsy photos, the Rydberg drawings were accurate.
Finally, “14 cm. from the tip of the mastoid process” is not a reproducible measurement – as again has been pointed out many times – and so provides nothing to anyone’s understanding.
“Who told you the HSCA ignored Burkley, Willy? They interviewed him in 1978 and he signed an affidavit”~Jean
You should have noticed that not a word was said about Burkley having information that there were others besides Oswald being involved in the assassination – THAT is what was ignored.
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Jeffc,
If you think I’m naïve you may not understand my argument. It’s not that Humes and Specter wouldn’t lie. Anyone might lie. I’m arguing that there’s no motive for them to deliberately move the back wound higher because placing it in the neck would destroy a SBT trajectory — it would make the angle too steep to work. If that’s wrong, please illustrate that higher trajectory for me by showing the angle to the exit wound and backward to a shooter.
Here’s the last thread where this was discussed:
https://jfkfacts.org/assassination/the-core-logic-of-the-warren-commission/
Does McKnight explain how raising the wound affected the SBT trajectory? Not that I recall. It’s just *assumed* that “they” lied to make the SBT work, yet the opposite is true. Again, if I’m wrong, please show me.
The mastoid process measurement isn’t exact but the HSCA estimated a similar distance (13.5 cm) using the photograph. You can measure that on anyone and I doubt you’ll find a single person with a neck that long.
The best evidence about the location, though, is the autopsy photo:
https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=82&relPageId=95
“The best evidence about the location, though, is the autopsy photo:
https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=82&relPageId=95“~Jean
Yes do take a good look at this photo. Does anyone believe that Kennedy’s head would be pushed down in such a position normally, so that the rear of his neck resembles an accordion? If you look closely at the DRAWING – not photograph, you will notice that the relationship between his shoulder and scapula is compressed by pushing the head backwards and pulling the flesh of the back upward.
What other motive of shooting such a staged photo, and making an official drawing of it would there be, that to make it appear that the back wound was higher than it actually was?
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Jean,
You still have not addressed the issue of Dr Burkley having information that others were involved in the assassination/
You complained that he did indeed testify, but failed to address that the following issue was not mentioned at that session:
In early 1977, Burkley’s attorney, William F. Illig, contacted HSCA counsel Richard A. Sprague. Sprague’s needlessly suppressed memo recounts that Burkley wanted to get some information to the Select Committee. Namely, as Sprague put it, that “although he, Burkley, had signed the death certificate of President Kennedy in Dallas, he had never been interviewed and that he has information in the Kennedy assassination indicating that others besides Oswald must have participated.”
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Willy,
“You still have not addressed the issue of Dr Burkley having information that others were involved in the assassination…”
Yes, I have. The HSCA affidavit Burkley signed acknowledged that there were “criminal penalties for not telling the whole and complete truth.”
https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=145280&relPageId=437
By the late 1970s Burkley may have been influenced by conspiracy theorists, as were Marina and others, and told his lawyer that he believed “others besides Oswald must have participated.” The lawyer could have misunderstood that.
Roy, thanks for proving my point. How many of the “facts” that you have posted actually are true? How many of the witnesses that you name have serious issues with credibility and saw things that simply weren’t there-such as the Jack Ruby sightings at the murder scene when he was buying advertising at the same time someplace else?
Conspiracy factoids are rampant with such disinformation and frankly falsehoods. My little exercise the other day with the O’Reilly nonsense was to show precisely how this approach can prove anything-if you are willing to ignore factual physical evidence and accept as gospel witness testimony even if contradicted by the physical evidence.
I have it easy.I don’t have to come up with convoluted scenarios to explain the fact that my theory is based on the physical evidence. In 50 years there has not been a shred of physical evidence linking anybody to the assassination except Lee Oswald. In 50 years there has not been a single shred of evidence linking the CIA,the Mafia,Cuba or anybody else to the planning or execution of this assassination. The best that the CTs can come up with is that there ” might” be hidden records that ” could” show more interaction between these entities and Oswald-which on the surface seems totally illogical because many if not most of the current conspiracy theories out there claim Oswald is completely innocent.
Look at the current “JFK was going to pull out of Vietnam” fantasies.Even if everything that the advocates claim to be able to interpret about JFK’s future plans were true, how can anybody jump to the conclusion that anybody would want to kill him for that decision? There was no constituency for Vietnam at the time.
“Look at the current “JFK was going to pull out of Vietnam” fantasies.Even if everything that the advocates claim to be able to interpret about JFK’s future plans were true, how can anybody jump to the conclusion that anybody would want to kill him for that decision? There was no constituency for Vietnam at the time.”~Photon
“There was no constituency for Vietnam at the time.”?
Yes, I know you are serious when you make this absurd statement. It is because you are attempting to remove the obvious motivation for the Military Industrial Complex to get rid of Kennedy.
The constituency for Vietnam is clearly stated in NSAM #273.
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Willy, can you amplify exactly which component of the Military Industrial Complex in November of 1963 standee to gain from increasing American involvement in Vietnam? Most defense contractors and corporations were involved in supplying weaponry and logistical items oriented to Cold War issues-ICBMs, submarines, aircraft, communications, etc.-none of which had applicability to a guerrilla war enviorment. The Army didn’t want Vietnam -it diverted funds and material from the strategy to defend Europe from a conventional breakthrough through the Fulda Gap.
The Air Force didn’t want Vietnam- it diverted resources from Strategic air power and missile forces. There wasn’t a single aircraft in the Air Force inventory that was a satisfactory platform for countering the insurgent threat aside from slow,cheap already purchased propeller aircraft that nobody was building-or would build further.
The airmobile Calvery units that would use increased numbers of helicopters didn’t exist-and would not for months after the assassination.
In point of fact Vietnam involvement in Nov. of 1963 ran contrary to the economic interests of virtually every member of what could be considered the MIC-and the Armed Forces.
In the comparison with Berlin,Cuba,Europe and the Middle East Vietnam was devoid of strategic value. Nobody wanted it.
“can you amplify exactly which component of the Military Industrial Complex in November of 1963 standee to gain from increasing American involvement in Vietnam?”~Photon
The entirety of the Military Industrial Complex; retooling and expanded weapons manufacture is always profitable for the systems we speak to. The prospects of a quagmire that keeps on using such weapons systems up for years is even more of a windfall for these ghouls.
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photon, what about Heini Aderholt’s Helio Courier that he flew into Laos? did that come later? Do you see any connection with his involvement in the planning of the air campaign for the Bay of Pigs invasion and the subsequent acceleration of clandestine operations in Southeast Asia by the US Air Force?
http://www.amazon.com/Air-Commando-One-Aderholt-Smithsonian/dp/156098807X
Willy I think the big moves in Viet Nam where taking shape month before assassination with Diem Brothers death, positioning of Boris Pash underling Peer deSilva as CIA station chief in VN with the Phoenix Program, General Taylor pushing for ground trops and Deploying of Marine Helicopters to back up South VN Army
gerald campau – March 15, 2015 at 7:18 am
Gerald, sorry for not answering you sooner.
Yes I agree that the “big moves” were going on in Vietnam long before the Vietnam was even a place the US public knew the existence of. The US was involved supporting the French even during the colonial period.
It was only after Dien Bien Phu that the US took over the fight against the Viet Minh in earnest.
This was in support of “neocolonialism”, an Orwellian term, a euphemism for colonialism; because after all, the US is supposed to stand for rights and self-determination, not Machiavellian realpolitik.
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And career members of the military, especially officers, had a chance for much faster promotion during a war.
“It’s the only war we’ve got,” as was said at the time.
https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?5089-November-26-1963-LBJ-signs-NSAM-273-reversing-JFK-s-plan-to-withdraw-US-from-Vietnam
November 26, 1963: LBJ signs NSAM 273 reversing JFK’s plan to withdraw US from Vietnam
lysias
March 18, 2015 at 5:29 pm
While this is true I certainly don’t think it could be considered one of the “Big Moves” being discussed or even a secondary cause of our involvement in SVN.
I believe in this case it was more a by-product of military incompetence and the fact that they didn’t have near the number of Lieutenants and Captains to fill the demand.
One of my Aggie friends says he thinks the only reason they let us into Texas A&M and he know the only reason they graduated us out of A&M was the fact they were needing lots and lots of Lieutenants. I think he might be right.
gerald campeau
March 19, 2015 at 12:43 am
Willy Whitten posted this same reference (http://www.jfklancer.com/NSAM273.html) in the “Truth-Lies-and Mythmaking” Subject on 17 March at 7:59 pm. I replied on 18 March at 2:24 am. To save time I’m cutting and pasting my reply to Willy. Please remember I’m directing my comments to Willy here. The article is so much junk, including downright falsehoods, and is not one of Lancers finest moments.
Begin reply.
This treatment by Burham is pretty weak. Peter Dale Scott does a better job but draws the same false conclusions. Then we always have http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199209–.htm.
Part One: “The DRAFT”
“Perhaps the most powerful evidence indicating that select Senior Administration Officials and Senior Military personnel may have had foreknowledge of the plot to assassinate the 35th President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, is found in the DRAFT of National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) Number 273.”
So in the first sentence we know we are in for a biased snow job here. And Burham’s treatment doesn’t get much better.
“The first sentence is indeed quite revelatory of its dubious nature: “The President has reviewed the discussions of South Vietnam which occurred in Honolulu, and has discussed the matter further with Ambassador Lodge.” That is false.”
Yes, that is false because it was written in advance. No doubt JFK would have reviewed and discussed it with Lodge before signing it.
“7. With respect to action against North Vietnam, there should be a detailed plan for the development of additional Government of Vietnam resources, especially for sea-going activity, and such planning should indicate the time and investment necessary to achieve a wholly new level of effectiveness in the field of action. (Action: DOD and CIA) “
Please note Willy, it says, “Government of Vietnam resources”. Newman claims this gave us an order for American action in North Vietnam. It is to laugh if not so sad.
“As shown above, it could not have been the sitting president, JFK, as he was in Texas at the time.”
Wasn’t LBJ also in Texas at the time? So it could not have been LBJ either. Gee Willy, this is getting pretty weak.
“Again, consider the simplicity of NSAM 263 — JFK, after reviewing the McNamara-Taylor Report, approved only the recommendation to WITHDRAW. Done deal.”
This isn’t true and all one needs to do to confirm this is to read NSAM 263. I sometimes wonder, Willy, if you boys do read it before making these sweeping untrue statements about it.
“If you recall, the only part of the McNamara-Taylor Report that the President approved concerning US military policy is the section incorporated by direct reference in his National Security Action Memorandum Number 263 which called for the withdrawal of the bulk of all US Personnel by the end of 1965.”
This wasn’t true when you made the false claim and it isn’t true when Burham makes the statement. Again, all one has to do to see this is false is to read NSAM 263.
NATIONAL SECURITY ACTION MEMORANDUM NO. 263
TO:
Secretary of State
Secretary of Defense
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
SUBJECT: South Vietnam
At a meeting on October 5, 1963, the President considered the recommendations contained in the report of Secretary McNamara and General Taylor on their mission to South Vietnam.
The President approved the military recommendations contained in Section I B (1-3)* of the report, but directed that no formal announcement be made of the implementation of plans to withdraw 1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963.
After discussion of the remaining recommendations of the report, the President approved the instruction to Ambassador Lodge which is set forth in State Department telegram No. 534 to Saigon.
McGeorge Bundy
spacerCopy furnished:
Director of Central Intelligence
Administrator, Agency for International Development
cc: Mr. Bundy
Mr. Forrestal
Mr. Johnson
NSC Files
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“As shown above, it could not have been the sitting president, JFK, as he was in Texas at the time.”
Wasn’t LBJ also in Texas at the time? So it could not have been LBJ either. Gee Willy, this is getting pretty weak.”~Bill Clarke
It is only weak if you dismiss that there was a plan afoot to escalate the war in Vietnam by the military, who would want to get Kennedy out of the way.
This argument on NSAM 263 to NSAM 273 must be analysed in the context, not in the vacuum of the language of these documents being read outside of the larger picture. It is obvious to any honest researcher that Kennedy was seeking peace, that he would not escalate Vietnam and in fact was going to have the US out by 1965.
“At a meeting on October 5, 1963, the President considered the recommendations contained in the report of Secretary McNamara and General Taylor on their mission to South Vietnam.
The President approved the military recommendations contained in Section I B (1-3)* of the report, but directed that no formal announcement be made of the implementation of plans to withdraw 1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963.”
This was to be discrete, not bullhorned.
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Willy Whitten
March 19, 2015 at 2:23 pm
Here it is Willy. Section 1-B, paragraph 1, also approved by JFK as well as paragraph 2 and 3. Do you see any mention of withdrawal in paragraph 1? No, you don’t. Burham claimed that JFK “ONLY” approved the withdrawal recommendations of the McNamara/Taylor report. Paragraph 1 shows Mr. Burham to be wrong. Was he honestly mistaken, forgot or just simply lied to support his BS? Neither option should induce confidence in the reader.
And I must say, Willy, paragraph 1 looks more like someone digging in for a win instead of a cut and run. How does it look to your military mind?
http://www.jfklancer.com/NSAM263.html
[SECTION] 1: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
B. Recommendations.
We recommend that:
1. General Harkins review with Diem the military changes necessary to complete the military campaign in the Northern and Central areas (I, II, and III Corps) by the end of 1964, and in the Delta (IV Corps) by the end of 1965. This review would consider the need for such changes as:
a. A further shift of military emphasis and strength to the Delta (IV Corps).
b. An increase in the military tempo in all corps areas, so that all combat troops are in the field an average of 20 days out of 30 and static missions are ended.
c. Emphasis on “clear and hold operations” instead of terrain sweeps which have little permanent value.
d. The expansion of personnel in combat units to full authorized strength.
e. The training and arming of hamlet militia to an accelerated rate, especially in the Delta.
f. A consolidation of the strategic hamlet program, especially in the Delta, and action to insure that future strategic hamlets are not built until they can be protected, and until civic action programs can be introduced.
Willy Whitten
March 19, 2015 at 3:12 pm
Burham. “As shown above, it could not have been the sitting president, JFK, as he was in Texas at the time.”
Bc. Wasn’t LBJ also in Texas at the time? So it could not have been LBJ either. Gee Willy, this is getting pretty weak.”
ww. It is only weak if you dismiss that there was a plan afoot to escalate the war in Vietnam by the military, who would want to get Kennedy out of the way.
Bc. So, as I said, this is pretty weak.
ww. This argument on NSAM 263 to NSAM 273 must be analysed in the context, not in the vacuum of the language of these documents being read outside of the larger picture.
Bc. Save this for your fellow travelers. Now you are back to the old, “we are the only ones that know what Jack REALLY meant here”. It is so much crap. Bundy didn’t write in a vacuum. A brilliant man, no doubt he was aware of the context and larger picture when he wrote NSAM 263 and 273. NSAM 263 is very clear. It doesn’t need your help.
ww. It is obvious to any honest researcher that Kennedy was seeking peace, that he would not escalate Vietnam and in fact was going to have the US out by 1965.
Bc. Talk to me about honest researcher when you correct the false statement you made concerning NSAM 263. Kennedy did in fact escalate in Vietnam every year he was in office. He made a big jump in 1962 and a bigger one in 1963 with the removal of Ngo Dinh Diem. Now Willy, show me where JFK ordered the bulk of our troops out of Vietnam by 1965. You can’t and Mr. Burhman can’t. That is why you both made false statements about NSAM263
“ww. This argument on NSAM 263 to NSAM 273 must be analysed in the context, not in the vacuum of the language of these documents being read outside of the larger picture.
Bc. Save this for your fellow travelers. Now you are back to the old, “we are the only ones that know what Jack REALLY meant here”. It is so much crap. Bundy didn’t write in a vacuum. A brilliant man, no doubt he was aware of the context and larger picture when he wrote NSAM 263 and 273. NSAM 263 is very clear. It doesn’t need your help.”~Bill Clarke
I am not talking about Bundy not writing in a vacuum or not knowing the larger context of Kennedy’s plans for peace and his clear intent to be out of Vietnam by 1965. I say that Bundy was well aware of Kennedy’s plans and was intent on maneuvering around those plans, even to the point of being involved in plans for a coup to get rid of Kennedy.
The one I am saying is ignoring the larger picture is not Bundy, but you. You are the one interpreting these memorandums under the auspices that Kennedy would only withdraw under terms of victory. I think the larger historical record beyond these documents is Kennedy was going to move towards a negotiated peace with the cold war enemies in his desire to avoid larger conflict that might develop into a nuclear conflagration.
Your accusations that I and others are lying in our interpretations is grossly insulting. I won’t counter-sue on such terms. I won’t accuse you of being a liar, I will simply say that you are caught in your indoctrination and cannot see the forest for the trees.
I am finished with this conversation.
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Willy Whitten
March 19, 2015 at 9:43 pm
I am not talking about Bundy not writing in a vacuum or not knowing the larger context of Kennedy’s plans for peace and his clear intent to be out of Vietnam by 1965. I say that Bundy was well aware of Kennedy’s plans and was intent on maneuvering around those plans, even to the point of being involved in plans for a coup to get rid of Kennedy.
bc. You have no credible evidence that (a)the bulk would absolutely be withdrawn by 1965 and (b) that Mac Bundy had anything to do with the death of JFK. In fact Willy, I find your smear of Bundy as rather insulting. In short, you have nothing here.
The one I am saying is ignoring the larger picture is not Bundy, but you. You are the one interpreting these memorandums under the auspices that Kennedy would only withdraw under terms of victory.
bc. Negative. I’ve never said that and do not think that. You try to complicate or cloud the subject here. What I did was to quote NSAM 263 to show that what you claimed was false. It still is.
I think the larger historical record beyond these documents is Kennedy was going to move towards a negotiated peace with the cold war enemies in his desire to avoid larger conflict that might develop into a nuclear conflagration.
If you had said this to begin with we would never have had a problem. You are free to think whatever you wish. But that didn’t happen. Instead you made a false statement about NSAM 263. That is our problem Willy.
Your accusations that I and others are lying in our interpretations is grossly insulting.
Liar is an ugly word and I have been very careful not to use the word here. The fact remains you made a false statement about what NSAM 263 says. I found that to be insulting.
I won’t accuse you of being a liar,
Good because all I’ve done is to post parts of NSAM 263 which shows you to be….wrong. Mine was a cut and paste. Your statement was not!
I will simply say that you are caught in your indoctrination and cannot see the forest for the trees.
bc. And you and a small group are the only ones that can see the forest. I’ve heard it before Willy. Has it not occurred to you that your statement could be applied equally to you? It can, you know. In fact Willy, I stand on firmer ground because I don’t have to make up some crap about Mac Bundy or misquote NSAM 263 to support my position. You do. Without it you have nothing.
I am finished with this conversation.
bc. You were finished the day you made the false statement about NSAM 263.
Just before flying to Dallas, November 21, he read a report on the latest casualties, and commented to his Assistant Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff: “After I come back from Texas, that’s going to change. There’s no reason for us to lose another man over there. Vietnam is not worth another American life.”
~Nelson, LBJ: The Mastermind, op. cit., p. 271-80.
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Sure he did, Willy. I am sure that he was going to confide in a guy he had just FIRED.
That’s right, Willy. This was Kilduff’s last trip as asst. press secretary.
Willy Whitten
March 21, 2015 at 8:40 pm
Just before flying to Dallas, November 21, he read a report on the latest casualties, and commented to his Assistant Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff: “After I come back from Texas, that’s going to change. There’s no reason for us to lose another man over there. Vietnam is not worth another American life.”
~Nelson, LBJ: The Mastermind, op. cit., p. 271-80.
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First it was after JFK won his second term, now it is when he gets back from Texas. So Willy, which is it? Was the president’s statement picked up on the White House Tapes? I don’t believe it was.
Actually Willy the title is “LBJ; the Mastermind of JFK’s Assassination”. This didn’t even slightly tip you off as to which way the book would be running?
Here is part of a glowing recommendation “by Renowned author and philosopher James Fetzer* on LBJ: The Mastermind of JFK’s Assassination:”
http://www.lbjmastermind.com/Book.aspx
“LBJ-The Mastermind is a “Masterpiece. . .
“Nelson deliberately avoids going into scientific and forensic detail, without compromising his story.”
“Deliberately avoids going into scientific and forensic detail” is a code word for long on talk (BS) and short on evidence.
The Masterpiece is no NSAM 263.
The same Kilduff quote is given in this book:
Capitalism, Democracy and Emerging Christianity: An Essay by A Catholic Activist
By Stephen V. Riley
Bill Clarke asks if this is on the White House tapes and says he doesn’t think so. He doesn’t know but ASSUMES it isn’t.
He also intimates that Kennedy could actually go back to DC and pull out the troops in a day.
No it would have been on the 1965 schedule as has already been determined.
. . .
Also we have Photon claiming that Kennedy had fired Kilduff – giving no citation for this tidbit. And even if this were true, Kilduff was in fact still Assistant Press Secretary at the time.
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Photon, Kilduff was only one of a long list of Kennedy insiders to speak out of his intentions to not let Vietnam become an “American war”. He resisted calls throughout his term to commit combat troops and we now know, had secretly reached out to the Khrushchev in January 1963 to reach a peaceful settlement there.
How Kennedy Viewed the Vietnam Conflict http://nyti.ms/1yWDz2f
David Regan
March 22, 2015 at 10:52 am
Photon, Kilduff was only one of a long list of Kennedy insiders to speak out of his intentions to not let Vietnam become an “American war”.
bc. Really the list isn’t that long. You discount the overly devoted JFK fans propaganda and it becomes shorter. You take out those that say they don’t know what Jack would have done but they don’t think JFK would have sent troops like LBJ did and the list becomes even shorter.
bc. The “other list” might not be so long but it is strong. Do you really think JFK told everyone but Bobby and Rusk of his plans for Vietnam?
He resisted calls throughout his term to commit combat troops
bc. (a) the situation did not require our combat units during the time of JFK and (b) JFK had more than a few American troops involved in combat in Vietnam, especially from 1962 on.
and we now know, had secretly reached out to the Khrushchev in January 1963 to reach a peaceful settlement there.
bc. Khrushchev couldn’t have stopped the war plus if he tried that would have thrown Ho completely into China influence. So why didn’t JFK reach out to the Vietnamese communist? They were willing to cut a deal from the summer of 1963 until the fall of 1964. What A.J Langguth calls the “long year of 1964”. Instead JFK removes Diem, partly because we suspected Nhu is talking with the communist.
Bill Clarke, apologies for interrupting, but I’m working on timelines and wonder if you can cite or give me an educated guess when the Vietnam withdrawal, or non-withdrawal issue entered into the popular discussion prior to the assassination? I know Kennedy was making speeches around the country and alluding to peaceful solutions, but I’m wondering when the ‘hawks’ for lack of a better term and please don’t be offended as I would not count you in that faction, began to question whether or not Kennedy was committed to war in Southeast Asia? Was it as early as 1962? It surely wasn’t prompted solely by NSAM 263, in spite of whether or not that document has been misinterpreted? thanks, and I appreciate there most likely is not a simple answer. ls
leslie sharp
March 24, 2015 at 2:48 pm
I agree, Leslie. I think there is seldom a simple answer to these questions that are rather complex and complicated. I’m afraid I don’t have a good answer for you here.
1962 was a good year for Diem. That was the year JFK sent the aircraft and other equipment to SVN. Mainly the use of the helicopter units turned the tide of battle until the communist adjusted their tactics.
I think we rode that success into 1963 where things started going to hell in a hurry. No doubt any military not already complaining about JFK not doing enough begin to complain at this time. Back to your question of when the popular opinion went south I can’t say. Mostly I don’t think Vietnam had drawn that much attention at the time to influence the popular opinion.
In 64 and 65 LBJ feared the right wing hard line anti-communist Americans more than he did our left wing protesting the war. So I’d say the opinion had soured by this time at least.
I know this doesn’t answer your question but it is about all I’ve got. Sorry.
“Evidence” was mishandled and withheld from the Warren Commission and the public which continues to this day.
“Evidence” was in the hands of people and organizations that were compromised for some reason by this event.
The fact of a cover-up is EVIDENCE that more information has been withheld and continues to be withheld. Therefore the “evidence” itself, what remains after the cover-up, becomes suspect.
The Warren Commission was not an independent panel of experts but a political committee. They were supplied data by the FBI and CIA which we have EVIDENCE to show did not provide them with all the information they needed. A compromised group and compromised “evidence.” Therefore the conclusions of this group cannot be considered “official” in any way other than mere formality. They proposed a theory based on limited and manipulated data.
A reasonable person would question any conclusions reached by such a group in such a manner.
Based on the evidence of a cover-up some patterns emerge. It is from these patterns that alternate theories emerge. These theories are limited due to the cover-up itself. Had facts and “evidence” been open and free-flowing from the beginning we wouldn’t be having this discussion today.
Amen, Thomas.
And I realy have a difficult time believing the sincerity of LNers when they dont’t at least acknowledge the purposeful and PROVEN obstructiom of justice by the CIA, FBI, et al through the destruction and withholding and HIDING of relevant evidence.
The LNers try to trivialize this as CT paranoia when EVERY government lead in the case, from Sprague to Tannenbaum, agree the CIA withheld crucial evidence in this case. Angleton himself admitted as much during the WC, saying he would “wait out the commission” and truncating a true internal investigation by the agency.
Start by acknowledging all that subterfuge and then make your LNer case in that context, ie why all the secrecy if it’s simply a case of a nut shooting from a warehouse.
“from Sprague to Tannenbaum” It’s important to note here ultimate HSCA head Robert (the Mafia did It) Blakey has changed his tune a bit. “If we had known about Joannides…”
Thanks Jeff Morley for letting him know.
What more might we learn of him and others CIA files still withheld? FREETHEFILES.
Yes, was writing that too fast. I meant from Sprague to Judge Tunheim of AARB.
You can even count Howard Willens of the WC now for admitting he was “naïve” when it came to the CIA being forthright and honest.
O.K., Photon. Let’s look at the facts.
Let’s start with Siebert and O’Neill, the FBI agents assigned to observe the autopsy at Bethesda. “It was evident that surgery had been performed on the president’s head,” they wrote.
But no such surgery had been performed at Parkland.
Let’s talk about Parkland. ALL the physicians and nurses described a large defect in the occiput, consistent with a frontal shot.
Tip O’Neill claims Powers and O’Donnell also heard such a shot, as did some 47 eyewitnesses in the plaza.
Let’s look at the Zapruder film. Specifically the “blur” reflex evidence. The blur at 313 comes too soon for a 6th floor shot, but aligns perfectly with a frontal shot.
I won’t mention the motorcycle recording, since you don’t agree to its authenticity. But how about the embalmers at Gawler’s Funeral Home, where my family has been served for many years? They confirm that a large quantity of Plaster of Paris was used to reconstruct the large occipital defect in the president’s skull.
“No evidence?” You, like Posner and Bugliosi, are simply pushing your evidence and ignoring anything to the contrary. It’s an old prosecutor’s trick, but, with a fair jury and competent opposing counsel, it won’t work.
Photon and Jean:
There is a LOT of truth in what you say about the “myths” surrounding the evidence in this case. And, Photon, you are right that Mr. Morley has said 99% of the theories on the assassination are garbage. All of that is true. I think most rational people would agree that the Z-film is not a hoax, etc.
However, YOU are not being accurate when you talk about the “honesty” with which the CIA and the FBI worked on this case. To say these two agencies were at their finest before and after the assassination is disingenuous at best and an outright lie at worst. Take Mr. Morley, for instance. The same Mr. Morley, whom you correctly noted believes that 99% of the theories are BS, happens to have a LAWSUIT pending against the CIA, to release the documents that are being withheld. Photon, before you use the “national security” card, forget it. That is bogus and you know it. LHO was a “lone nut” and a “deranged lunatic” and had a “predisposition to violence.” If that is a national security issue, WE are all screwed because you have just described 15% of America’s population. The CIA has lied and lied about this case. Mr. Blakey said so in 2003, and although my friend Photon does not believe Mr. Blakey to be an “expert” on this case, HE had a much closer look at the ACTUAL investigation of the case than any of us have or will have. You simply CANNOT say that these two agencies did a credible job. That is NOT TRUE. And just like outrageous conspiracy theories being stupid, indicating the FBI and the CIA were “exemplary” in November of 1963 and since that time is just as STUPID. I could post for you conversations from your beloved WC where the members were complaining that the FBI wanted the case already settled and had already tried the case without collecting ALL of the facts. And Photon CERTAINLY knows he is full of it concerning the CIA in Mexico City.
So, in the interest of honesty, PLEASE consider being as judgmental about the work of the CIA and the FBI as you are about the conspiracy theories that are insipid. To do otherwise is simply blatantly FALSE and hypocritical. The American public does not even know about the documents that were destroyed after the assassination. The very least we deserve is a chance to view the documents that remain.
Steve,
I don’t mind responding to criticism of anything I’ve said here, but please quote it exactly. I don’t recall talking about either agency’s “honesty” (which you put in quotes) or claiming that the CIA or FBI “were at their finest.”
Photon:
The reason that the CIA is still withholding documents 51—let me repeat that, 51—years later is due to current “intelligence” operations. That is a line of BS and you know it. The CIA has plans in works today in 2015 that were hatched in 1963? That is blatantly false and you know it.
So, the CIA dumps papers back in 1992, but the ones left to be dumped involved actions that could not be revealed until 2017? What a load of crap that is, Photon. You know as well as I do if the movie JFK had not been made and viewed, the American public would not have the information we have today.
I have Shenon’s book, and I have read what he has said about Mexico City. However, you are asking people to describe what happened in 1963 that has no traceable evidence that exists today. How do we know what was said on the tape that was supposed to be Oswald when the tape has been destroyed? And you expect me to believe that the tape was destroyed as a matter of “routine practice?” Really? The CRIME OF THE CENTURY? And you destroy a piece of crucial evidence as a matter of routine practice. BS.
You are correct about one thing. The FBI made SEVERAL mistakes. You are also right about another thing. They were in a hurry to wrap up the case. What you FAILED to say is the reason WHY they wanted to wrap up the case: because they knew the rabbit holes that existed around Oswald and J. Edgar wanted NO part of getting into that madness.
Your turn: give me one piece of evidence that the FBI made a mistake on and then allowed an independent, unbiased agency/individual to look at what was collected and determine its validity. Can you do that? Because if you can’t, then what we have is the FBI investigating, screwing up, “re-investigating,” and then aligning the “facts” with the pre-established narrative.
Looking forward to hearing your response.
Photon:
Since you didn’t respond to my response to you over on the myth-making thread, I thought I would re-post it here so you can give me your thoughts. I would hate to think that you were “running away” as you often complain about the CT doing so on this site.
Photon:
I have to give you your due. This is the first time in our exchanges that you made an honest attempt to answer the questions put before you.
However, as my dad often said, there are no free passes in life. And I am not going to give you a free pass on the photo of Oswald being a “mistake.” That is bogus, and you know it, and you are being a hypocrite for saying so. When anyone from the CT side makes a claim as ludicrous as yours, the LN side foams at the mouth and then howls at the moon. Well, you can’t have it both ways. When the Fetzer group began the Z-film is a hoax talk, the LN crowd went nuts, and rightfully so. Or when it was suggested that a Secret Service agent shot the president, the LN crowd almost had to be rushed to a hospital.
There is NO way you can sit behind your computer and tell me that the CIA made a mistake in the CRIME OF THE CENTURY. You say the CIA is not an investigative body. They ARE an intelligence-gathering agency, which should be a MAJOR part of the criminal investigative effort. You expect me and everyone else to BELIEVE that the CIA is capable of toppling foreign governments—Iran and Guatemala for example—but they CANNOT be asked to produce a picture of Oswald in Mexico City? That is pure NONSENSE and you know it, and you probably have a hard time typing the word mistake.
The CIA has made NO attempt to clear up any of the deceit that happened in Mexico City. They erased tapes, said the photos have been destroyed as a matter of “routine practice,” Jane Roman said she was “signing off something she knew was not true,” cameras were not working that weekend, etc. I could go on, but you get the point. Mexico City, as you are well aware, was considered the “hotbed” of international spying and espionage. For ANYONE to suggest that the CIA was not KEENLY aware of what was happening down there should evoke the same reaction as the reaction that the Z-film is a hoax brings forth form the LN crowd. However, it doesn’t. That is hypocritical of YOU. It is also DECEITFUL. And most Americans that are free thinkers know it is a load of garbage.
Hoover was a phony. He was then and he is today. His “enemies list,” which included “threats” such as Dr. King, should have been grounds for termination 50 years ago. However, because he was smart enough to keep dirt on all of the people in power he was able to guarantee himself lifetime employment. It gives me great comfort knowing that our “top cop” was able to keep his job because he was able to keep photos of power brokers having sex with their girlfriends or call girls in his special “cabinet.”
I have previously stated that the CIA is not infallible and making a simple mistake about the identity of an unknown individual in a photograph is not impossible. The CIA made a colossal blunder for years in regards to the veracity of perhaps the most valuable double agent ever to defect to the West; compared to that this misidentification of an embassy surveillance photo is peanuts.
But alright-let’s just assume that the CIA purposefully put out this picture as Oswald. What would be the point-anybody seeing it would realize it wasn’t Oswald, so who would it fool? The Oswald double theory only fits if you can prove Oswald wasn’t in MC making a fit in the Cuban embassy, or if the Cuban security people had no idea who Oswald was and could be fooled by an imposter. Apparently you do not realize that at this time the Cuban State Security Service was essentially a department of the KGB ( its head was selected in MOCKBA, not La Habana) and that the embassy was told in no uncertain terms by the local KGB representative to get rid of him. Wouldn’t want a double to actually look like Oswald, not like a a pro football linebacker?
If you claim Oswald wasn’t in MC, why all of the documentation that he was-from both sides of the JFK assassination spectrum?
Leslie, Thomas, Photon,
“Incompetence” & “Blowback” are both revetments that fall under the umbrella of “Plausible Deniability”.
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Photon:
I have never claimed Oswald wasn’t in Mexico City. What I have said repeatedly is that I don’t know what happened down there. And despite your claims of all of these degrees and expertise that you say you possess but won’t divulge, YOU don’t know know what happened there either. As you and I have discussed all along, your sources of evidence are simply not credible. You CANNOT pick and choose which evidence you are going to use from either the FBI or the CIA, and then exclude those from those very same agencies who disagree with the official narrative. You can’t claim how great the FBI was and then say that Sibert and O’Neill were not objective or medically smart enough to record what Humes and his friends were saying. That is hypocritical of you and you jump all over any/all CT that do the same thing.
People who don’t believe the government are at a severe disadvantage. The only “evidence” that we have been given is from the government. It is a CRIME that this case was investigated by agencies that had their own agendas. LBJ was smart enough to use people he could bend to his will and have his buddies sit on a commission and write a report to give to the American people. Can you imagine what might have happened had LBJ used actual independent and impartial agencies/individuals? A report we could actually believe in maybe?
One more question before I head off to enjoy The Big Bang Theory. If the government was so sure of its report and its case against LHO—remember, it was an open and shut case—why do people like Weisberg and Morley have to sue the government for information through the FOIA act? If they have nothing to hide and they trust all of their conclusions, why does it take legal action for information to be released? That seems a little contradictory to me. Can you explain why if you are 100% sure, wouldn’t you put ALL of the information out for people to see your conclusions and how they were obtained? Using the FOIA act should not be necessary if you have an open and shut case.
One interesting detail is the police dispatcher at 12.45 giving a description of a “male person around thirty, slender built, 5 ft 8 and weighing around 130 pounds”. The explanation I have heard for this almost exact description was that it was based on the information of “the missing employee”. But in a public radio transmission just minutes later it was said that the description was based on a witness seeing Oswald at the shooting. Behind a half-open window; behind the barrel of a rifle, in the sixth floor; height; age and weight?
Olle,
You have just experienced the “LN sanctification of any WC witness that makes LHO guitly alone and without any help” process. It is good ol’ Howard Brennan, the man with the eyesight of an eagle until a sandblasting accident took it away in 1964. He was able, even though standing 100 feet away AND claiming that the shooter was standing up which as everyone knows was a physical impossibilty due to the window’s position, to look beyond the window and give as you just ably described LHO’s height, weight, hair color, age, and religious affliation.
ANY other witness that described ANYTHING else are kooks, loons, buffs, out to make money, want 15 minutes of fame, etc.
But please remember, as my dear friend has said, Mr. Brennan was the ONLY witness in the history of this case to be “scared.” ANYONE else that weekend or in the years after were kooks, loons, buffs, etc.
So Steve, what is your point about the Mexico City escapade?
If you don’t know what happened, I suggest reading Philip Shenon’s book. It has flaws, but it describes the Mexico City issues in detail.
There is frankly no ” there” there, but be my guest.
If you can’t trust the government to tell the truth, what is the point of trying to get documents if you can’t trust their source?
In regards to Sibert and O’Neill and the FBI in general they made several errors, probably in a rush to get out a report. Those errors were corrected when more information became available. Why that does not seem logical to me seems strange-do you think that every first report has to be completely accurate?
If you review the 2005 interview of Sibert on YouTube you will find several interesting issues. He explains the ” surgery of the head” comment as Humes reaction to finding a portion of the skull missing and assuming that it had been surgically resected. At the time he was not aware of the magnitude of the bullet wound itself. Unfortunately Sibert had a significant misunderstanding of the relationship between the back wound ( exactly where it was described in anatomical terms by Humes) and the throat exit wound. He could never get over the fact that cardiac “manipulation” ( his term) did not cause the back missile to fall out. He also makes several significant errors in regards to aspects of the case that he was not a party to-similar to other witnesses whose views are not in complete alignment with the Warren Report based on information told to them by others.
The Warren Commision was an attempt to go beyond a conventional law enforcement agency investigation. Not every member was a crony or friend of LBJ. Perhaps you have never heard of Johnson’s comment about how “Jerry Ford played too much football without a helmet”.Johnson had no great love for Warren, but he was seen as lending prestige and legitimacy to the Commission.
The reason that some documents are still confidential is that they contain information that if released could compromise current intelligence capabilities. Another dump is coming up in a couple of years.I suspect that the results will be the same as prior releases-essentially nothing actually pertaining to the assassination.
“The reason that some documents are still confidential is that they contain information that if released could compromise The reason that some documents are still confidential is that they contain information that if released could compromise current intelligence capabilities”~Photon
Hilarious Photon! After near 52 years the only compromise possible is that those “current intelligence capabilities” are the same as always; to deceive, lie, murder, and stonewall for as long as possible. Those paying attention already know that. “The cat’s out of the bag” on that one.
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Jean,
I must apologize. I was not criticizing you. I don’t know you are your position on all of the facts of the case, so I do not want you to think that I was criticizing or attacking you.
What I did mean was that to say is that the “evidence”—if we can even call it that—was collected or not collected or destroyed or not destroyed or changed or not changed by two agencies that deal in deceit. I want that point to be made. This case should have been investigated by independent/neutral agencies/individuals that had NO association with the government.
My apologies if I offended you. That was not my intention.
But the American people do need to made aware that the evidence surrounding JFK’s death was “gathered” by two agencies with dubious and distrustful legacies. Unfortunately, that is the best we have available to us in 2015.
Let me give you a quote to sum up my frustration uttered by Mr. Gunn of the ARRB board:
“The institution that had the opportunity to best get to the bottom of this, as much as it was possible, was the Warren Commission, and they didn’t do it,” he says. “Now it’s too late to do what should have been done originally.”
Photon:
Let us take one small and seemingly insignificant case where the FBI was at its best. You certainly have heard of James Tague and that he was hit by a chip of concrete from one of LHO’s bullets? And you have certainly heard that the curb that the bullet struck entered into the picture as a piece of evidence? Can you explain the following quote, please?
“The F.B.I. did everything possible to ignore the mark on the curb and when they couldn’t ignore it any longer, they patched it. It was in that condition when the F.B.I. cut out the chunk of curb and “tested” it. When Harold Weisberg filled a FOIA for the Spectrographic Analysis test results, he was told the test results had been thrown out. It really didn’t matter as the testing was done on the patch so any results showing metallic smears is pure BS. The F.B.I. knew this from the get go.”
1. Why did Mr. Weisberg have to file a FOIA to get these results? Based on what you have said earlier about the CIA and the FOIA requests, did this chunk of concrete have secrets it had to keep until a much later date?
2. How did the FBI “lose” the results of the testing? Did Humes have Ryberg draw it to scale until the photographs became available to “clarify” the results?
3. Why was this curb patched and who patched it?
You see, even in a TINY piece of evidence that should have been a routine examination and disclosure, your beloved FBI had to LIE. And yet, you continue to tell everyone on this site that both the FBI and the CIA—the “producers” of the “evidence” are to be believed and given credence?
Unfortunately, the American public in 1963 had no other course but to take this kind of crap from the government. That is no longer the case. We now know that both the CIA and the FBI are not to be believed UNLESS what they tell us can be verified by an outside source. It is too bad that the internet and the forums such as this one didn’t exist in 1963. If it had, the WC BS may have never made it into public record.
photon: “But alright-let’s just assume that the CIA purposefully put out this picture as Oswald. What would be the point-anybody seeing it would realize it wasn’t Oswald, so who would it fool?”
“Reclaiming History” Vincent Bugliosi, pg. 204
“As the meeting ends, Bardwell Odum, a senior agent on the criminal squad shows Hosty a surveillance photograph that had been flown up to Dallas in a two sea [navy] (does VB mean the color of the jet was navy blue??) fighter from Mexico City during the night. It was thought to be a photograph of Lee Oswald as he walked out of the Soviet embassy. Hosty takes one look and knows immediately it isn’t Oswald. Odum asks if it might be an associate of Oswald’s.
“Not so far as I know,” Hosty tells him.
“Well, I’ve been ordered to show this to Oswald’s wife,” Odum says.
“Bard,” Hosty replies, pointing to the background of the photograph, “you can’t show that photo to people outside the bureau. Look, you can see the doorway to the Soviet embassy.” Using a pair of scissors they crop out the doorway so one will know where the photo was taken. They don’t want the Soviets to learn that the Soviet embassy in Mexico City is under photographic surveillance, something, however that the Soviets had to assume.”
Clearly the photo didn’t pass muster with FBI Agent Hosty; however, it begs the question, how did Hosty know the Russian Embassy was in the background? How did he know that “they” didn’t want the Soviets to know about the surveillance program? Does he mean the CIA or his superiors in the FBI didn’t want the Soviets to know? If it was the former, how did he know about a top secret surveillance program, how did he know the CIA was concerned; if it was the latter, what was his own agency – the FBI – doing involved in a surveillance program outside the boundaries of the US? Seems to me that Bugliosi has been very sloppy in recounting this episode.
Thomas: “Based on the evidence of a cover-up some patterns emerge. It is from these patterns that alternate theories emerge. These theories are limited due to the cover-up itself. Had facts and “evidence” been open and free-flowing from the beginning we wouldn’t be having this discussion today.”
You have outlined the reasons the cover up was so successful and that because evidence was withheld, there has been a 52 year failure to pull the case together. I would add to your argument that evidence was also tampered with.
photon declares: “In 50 years there has not been a shred of physical evidence linking anybody … except Lee Oswald . . . a single shred of evidence linking the CIA,the Mafia,Cuba or anybody else ….”
I predict photon will not dare to address the points you bring to our attention. There has not been a shred of evidence linking anyone other than Oswald because the evidence has either been withheld, tampered with or contaminated including that at the crime scene on the 6th Floor within minutes of the assassination. The most obvious stage of the cover up began at that moment which is why I argue the focus of the investigation should return to the scene of the crime. The greater plan for cover up was initiated when Oswald was positioned as patsy. The fullness of the cover up was launched when Hal Hendrix issued Oswald’s legend to 26 major media outlets within hours of Kennedy’s death.
A smoking gun tucked away in CIA files? I fear those files will provide nothing other than a can to be kicked further down the road. Our only recourse is to prove Oswald was positioned as a patsy (strengthen the evidence implicating the Paines and those who used them), expose the deliberate contamination of the crime scene (identify the characters captured on film reenacting the shooting) including the kill zone that was opened to public traffic within hours after the assassination (identify who authorized that move), and to argue that the media participated in the immediate aftermath and subsequent five decades long cover up (self evident).
Re: photon’s second declaration, had not a cadre of researchers and authors locked their sights on the only documents they could access and from those limited documents determined that a cabal of “Cuban freedom fighters / the Mafia / THE CIA” were the perps, the deeper conspiracy might have been exposed years ago. The paper trail is full of gaps, and there is no way that those entities, separately or combined, could pressure the major media into covering up a deed they authorized for five plus decades. Toss LBJ and the Warren Commission per se into the mix and the cover up still comes up short. A responsible media would have asked questions. I suggest the evidence, including circumstantial, will eventually converge but for now I think many who are convinced there was a conspiracy are obsessed with a one legged bar stool.
Thank you Leslie. There can be no reasonable rebuttal and we are spending too much time going around in circles with the self-appointed spokesman for a narrow theory.
This is similar to the officials of the church who refused to look at Galileo’s telescope and preferred willful ignorance.
A more research-based paradigm is needed in looking at this issue. The Warren Report should no longer be seen as the “official” version but just a theory, a severely compromised theory, and anyone who does not see it that way is like an anti-Galileo extremist who chooses to ignore pertinent facts.
There are two major theories on the table that come from the government: the Warren theory and the HSCA theory. Neither are very helpful but both at least bring some data to the table.
The Warren version of the lone nut theory is too narrow to be correct. It is similar to the “universe revolves around the earth” theory in being advocated by central authority (the government in this case instead of the church) and remaining willfully blind to alternatives.
The HSCA conspiracy theory is too broad to be useful. The HSCA theory proposes there probably was a conspiracy to murder JFK but goes no further. This is like saying the universe probably doesn’t revolve around the earth but we’re not sure and we’re going to leave it at that.
Unfortunately, unlike the heliocentric issue, hard science won’t be able to answer the JFK question with so much evidence destroyed, lost, or distorted. We can keep moving forward as objective researchers in the hope that more data and information becomes available in the days and years ahead.
What would be interesting (if people had the money and time) would be convening a truly independent panel of noted experts who are neutral on this topic and presenting them with the wide array of evidence and theories in this case. To do this right might take several years. Then having them come to conclusions on the matter, however tentative the conclusions might be. This would help offset the two government sponsored theories and would help the many “fall-in-line” academic historians and political scientists come to grips with history in a more honest way.
Photon, to your two specific objections:
—Jack Ruby. Yes, he was at Dallas Morning News offices by 11:30, an hour before the gunfire in Dealey Plaza, which is ONE BLOCK north of DMN. He never did “buy advertising”; his famous, unlikely excuse: “his regular ad guy wasn’t there.” All but the newest secretary had gone to lunch or to see the parade by the time she lost track of him, no later than 12:15. How hard was it for JR, hopped up on the Preludin and other amphetamines he was addicted to, to hoof it the 2 blocks to the Elm-Houston corner? And no one at DMN saw him again until at least 12:45.
Jean Hill was only one of many witnesses who saw JR around TSBD right after the shooting. There are photos, Photon, of JR there, most famously one by Phil Willis that appeared in the WARren COmmisioN Report with most of his head cropped, so you can’t tell it’s him until you see the original. And Willis knew Ruby by sight, and said it was him.
Another post-gunfire Willis photo with the railroad bridge in it had the train removed from it. PW couldn’t make sense of that.
—Vietnam. The clarity of NSAM 263 vs. the gobbledygook of 273. Kennedy resisted using military force at every major crisis: Bay of Pigs (shoved down his throat by the outgoing DDE administration. 1950’s joke: “Hey did you hear Ike’s in a coma?” “How can they tell?”), Berlin Wall, Cuban Missile Crisis, Congo, Laos, Algeria (instrumental in convincing deGaulle to let them have their independence).
Nam before and after 1964 is night and day. I can’t believe any historians are arguing about it. Up is down and down is up.
“…that anybody would want to kill him for THAT decision,” (pulling out of Vietnam). JFK signed his death warrant a dozen times, a dozen ways.
One piece of physical or circumstantial evidence does not prove a case, but a thousand of them does. A few more:
—All the phony SS in DP with genuine credentials. Well, that one standing alone screams massive conspiracy.
—The Three (phony, Halloween, dress-up) Tramps. What are the odds that professional hit-man Charles Harrelson, credential-forger Chauncey Holt, and military intell and parenticide (Dahmer-style) Charles Rogers would be found hiding together in a boxcar? Lee Bowers had a tough time getting police to make a GOOD search, but they finally did, only to let them go soon.
—Wearing his fancy shooting gloves and signature black hat with white x’s on the band, career criminal Diamond Jim Braden/Brading was rousted from the Dal-Tex Building, questioned and let go because he changed the last two letters of his last name. You can see many photos of him afterwards in the milling crowd, keeping an eye on things, “helping out.”
Informative post Roy. I did not know Willis knew Ruby and ID’d him. Or of the train on the tracks/it being in then out of a picture. Seems it would be standard security procedure to have a railroad overpass the President passes under cleared when he does so. Although I know the workers were on it too.
Ronnie, thank you. You are exactly right. Major Phil Willis did NOT know Ruby, even by sight, before JR shot LHO in the DPD basement. Page 25 in Jim Marrs’ Crossfire quotes PW, “I also got a photo, taken immediately after [the shooting stopped] that shows Ruby standing in front of the Depository building. He was the only person there wearing dark glasses.[!] He was identified by people who knew him and no one else has been able to say it was someone else. Ruby made a big effort to show he was in the Dallas Morning News at the time, but it wouldn’t take five minutes to walk from the News [to Dealey Plaza].” This is from the 1992 edition of Crossfire; the new, revised is probably different. I haven’t broken down and bought it yet, to my everyday regret.
RE one of PW’s later photos that had the large train excised from it. PW took 25 photos in DP that day. (#5 is the famous one, 10-15 feet from JFK at exactly at the first shot.) He took pics all over, after the shooting stopped. That large train blocked Ed Hoffman’s view about a minute after the shooting, could’ve been a little longer, not much. On some video is where I heard PW complaining that the huge train was erased from one of his last pictures. I will find some source and get back to you. It’s really bugging me, but as the Thomas Dolby song goes, “My brain is like a sieve.”
I think the Corsican sniper team jumped on that huge train after leaving an abandoned boxcar at the far left end of the RR bridge, right above the South Grassy Knoll, not far from the Postal bldg., which is one large bldg north of the DMN.
Funny thing: Phil Willis was at Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941, and was the first to capture a Japanese combatant in WWII.
Thanks, Ronnie, for your good sense, memory, and big-picture view.
Appreciate the clarification on Ruby – Willis and the kind words. I should have known that, I’ve read it as I have the old and new Crossfires. That book and High Treason sort of set me free regarding my thought’s on the assassination. Beyond “the Mob did It” times.
If I understand your second post there was a train blocking Ed Hoffman’s view about a minute after the assassination. I don’t remember ever reading about a moving train over the triple underpass at that time.
That would be important.
Ronnie,
It could have been more than a minute, but not much more. A Wilma Bond photo shows the train through the pergola. That was taken about the time Willis took a later photo that he claims was doctored. I know I’ve seen pics of that train on the bridge soon after 12:31 p CST 11/22/63. A huge train, 3 or 4
locomotives I believe. They got word 10 or 15 minutes before that the parade was running late, “Slow ‘er down.”
The last few days, for a number of reasons, I’ve been looking at all the pics I can get my eyes on, and only that one Bond shows the train. Willis took 27 photos in Dealey that day, and nothing on the web (that I can find) goes past #7.
I’d be interested why you think that train is important.
That the train blocked ED Hoffman’s view is not in Crossfire, a fairly long account.
No boxcar off to the left of the RR bridge either (quaintly called the triple overpass in Dallasese, after the triple underpass). That’s what I’m most looking for. But the Corsican sniper team coulda rigged some kind of blind in that same area, and still hopped that train.
Well Roy, the same things allude to make it potentially important. It could have blocked the view of others escaping or provided a means of escape if it was passing through within a minute of the assassination. If, as Sherry Fister posits someone shot from the south knoll this train could have played a role in their getaway.
Photon
March 14, 2015 at 11:41 am
I don’t know how anyone could think the military could be mad at JFK after he had done all of this;
“In the past 3 years we have increased the defense budget of the United States by over 20 percent; increased the program of acquisition for Polaris submarines from 24 to 41; increased our Minuteman missile purchase program by more than 75 percent; doubled the number of strategic bombers and missiles on alert; doubled the number of nuclear weapons available in the strategic alert forces; increased the tactical nuclear forces deployed in Western Europe by over 60 percent; added five combat ready divisions to the Army of the United States, and five tactical fighter wings to the Air Force of the United States; increased our strategic airlift capability by 75 percent; and increased our special counter-insurgency forces which are engaged now in South Viet-Nam by 600 percent. I hope those who want a stronger America and place it on some signs will also place those figures next to it.” ——-John F. Kennedy, November 22, 1963.
Bill Clarke
Given all your research on the miitary i’m perplexed why you think the military was not behind assassination of Kennedy Brothers
He still had generals openly challenging him.
gerald campau
March 15, 2015 at 11:07 am
Gerald, perhaps my military research and experience is precisely why I don’t suspect the American military of killing JFK. Plus I see no credible evidence to support such a claim.
I’ve known or worked with a hand full of people that went on to make general, from one to four stars. To a man none would have ever considered killing their commander in chief. They might cuss him and complain but they would never harm him. To do so would violate their code of conduct and this is something not taken lightly by people that have devoted 30 years of their life to the country.
gerald campau
March 15, 2015 at 11:07 am
Sorry Gerald, I forgot you said “Kennedy brothers”. My own opinion is that there is much more reason to search for a conspiracy in Bobby’s assassination than there is JFK’s assassination. But again I see no evidence that our military had anything to do with it.
bogman
March 15, 2015 at 4:23 pm
Bogman, I don’t know if you are speaking of a specific incident or in general but I can’t recall any of the generals openly challenging JFK. By this I mean I don’t recall any general saying “screw you Mr. President.” Now LeMay had a smart mouth and belligerent manner but I don’t recall even him doing that.
If any general did in fact challenge the president it should have been his first and last time to do since he should have been relieved on the spot.
“They might cuss him and complain but they would never harm him. To do so would violate their code of conduct and this is something not taken lightly by people that have devoted 30 years of their life to the country.”~Bill Clarke
“Oh to live on Sugar Mountain, with the barkers and the colored balloons..” – grin
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Bill Clarke,
What you suggest about the ultimate loyalty level of military rank and file is probably correct in general.
But, you must have surely heard of Gladio, which had already matured in the aftermath of WWII, and was in full swing during the 60s.
Are you also suggesting that all clandestine Gladio operations were limited to foreign countries?
How exactly would you say the Kennedy assassination was any different than the countless assassinations performed by Gladio operatives elsewhere.
And, lastly, how informed would you say an average x-star general would be about these Gladio operations?
David Hazan
March 16, 2015 at 11:06 am
Are you also suggesting that all clandestine Gladio operations were limited to foreign countries?
Yes, David, I think so. The operations were designed to combat a Soviet invasion of the European countries; a stay behind force. Since the U.S. was not a European country and since we were not in danger of a Soviet invasion I see no reason these stay behind teams would be active in the U.S.
How exactly would you say the Kennedy assassination was any different than the countless assassinations performed by Gladio operatives elsewhere.
One was NATO sanctioned, one wasn’t. They were in a foreign country, JFK wasn’t. One was aimed at Russia, one was aimed at JFK.
And, lastly, how informed would you say an average x-star general would be about these Gladio operations?
On the average I’d guess they would know nothing to very little about Gladio.
David H.,
McGeorge Bundy certainly knew about Gladio, he was involved in setting it up under the covert auspices of “The Marshal Plan” – the CIA knew about it, how many regular military generals had a clue is hard to figure. But also, we don’t know how many “regular general officers” were actually like Landsdale, covert CIA officers.
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Bill,
I find your faith in declared missions, oversight, legal and organizational limitations a little misplaced and misguided, especially in the light of the five decades that have come to pass since the Kennedy assassination.
The secret, so called “stay-behind” armies of Gladio are no more Nato than a McDonalds in Paris is French. It is a purely US initiative, and the atrocities they have committed, even if not well known back in Nov ’63, are well documented, and the operations are still active throughout the world, including the U.S.
It seems to be very difficult for you to even entertain the idea that such a covert program, established to combat communism, can be used against a president perceived to be giving the “commies” concessions?
To be clear, my position is not necessarily that the assassination was a Gladio operation. I am simply objecting to your “US military would NEVER do that!” level of dismissiveness. Regretfully, even though a vast majority of the Armed Forces act within the confines of their mandated duties, a small, elite and covert portion of it commit atrocious, illegal and immoral acts all the time. And, I do mean ALL the time.
What about Condor? It’s not necessarily time sensitive, but a similar political and economic superiority prevailed regardless of official nomenclature, did it not? Who determined to overthrow Arbenz?
If Cuba was the epicenter of the investigation into the assassination of President Kennedy, where does this grand scheme converge with Gladio which was an East West operation.
I posit The Gehlen Org.
David Hazan
March 16, 2015 at 7:53 pm
You might be right here David. When I came home from Vietnam we were called rapist, baby killers and war mongers. It was hurtful as well as infuriating because me and my men had done none of those things. We took the rap for a rejected OCS lieutenant at My Lai and the phony crap of a man trying to jump start a political career; John Kerry.
So yes, I might be a bit too quick to defend our military.
But you need to understand the vast difference in killing the enemy and killing the president. Two different ball games here. And you need to understand that when the killing begins it is going to get dirty and ugly on both sides. It seems to me that many expect war to be like a nice game of country club tennis. It isn’t. Never has been and never will be.
So until evidence is produced showing our military took part in the JFK assassination we have a long history of our military not killing our president. There is a reason for this.
Bill Clarke,
Thank you so much for your tender reply.
After having followed your exchanges with Willy Whitten, and after I found out your military background and possible emotional ties to it, I was worried that you might have found what I was saying offensive(ish). Please know that no offense was intended.
(By the way, I see your point about the 263 vs 273, but I am afraid Willy does have a point about the significance of the differences between the two)
As for the issue of whether or not an American president can find himself in the crosshairs of a covert operation which uses foreign nationals to reduce the “loyalty factor”… I feel it is more a philosophical matter than a factual one. So, I will just agree to disagree, and won’t push this subject any further.
Thanks again for your thoughtful reply.
Leslie Sharp, (my JFKfacts hero)
You say tom-a-to, I say tom-uh-to…
Both Gladio and Condor are basically the same methodologies, same know-how, same training, and same objectives, and are both implemented by the Pentagon and the CIA:
Destabilization, assassination, covert operations, false flags, regime change…
Let’s go down that list to see which ones apply to the Kennedy assassination…..
I’d say check, check, check, check and check!!!
Bill Clarke: The military has its codes of honor, but it also has its own corruption. Trust me, my dad told me all about that, and he was in the Army in WW2. My dad told me that the only people who thought the military men were squeaky clean, who would never rape or steal or deliberately disobey orders—were the people who either had just enlisted or who stayed at home collecting tin and rubber tires.
JFK himself said to his old Navy buddy, Red Fey, that a military coup like Seven Days in May was possible, if the Commander-in-Chief “F-cked up” (JFK’s words) several times, and lost their respect as a leader. He worried that he had been seen as doing so with the Bay of Pigs Operation, and wanted to make sure it wouldn’t happen again. The military leaders were also mad at Kennedy for not attacking Cuba, just putting up a blockade and then secretly trading Jupiter missiles in Turkey for the Soviet withdrawal of missiles in Cuba, and they were further outraged that he passed the partial nuclear test ban treaty. LeMay even talked of openly confronting Kennedy. He hated JFK. It wasn’t like the nice history books in school. This was hatred, like that of General McClellan toward President Lincoln.
That’s all I will say. I think I make my point.
David Hazan
March 17, 2015 at 9:11 pm
No problem David and thanks for the reply. Nothing you have said was offensive to me and no offense was taken. In my old age I’ve learned that I can be wrong so I take no offense when someone disagrees with me. As long as they are civil about it that is, and you have certainly been a gentleman.
What you have to ask about paragraph 7 is was it a insignificant molehill or was it a major change in policy. In the draft paragraph 7 they are clearly speaking about the Oplan 34-A operations. Anyone familiar with the failure of these operations, under both presidents, spots this as an insignificant molehill. Paragraph 7 in the formal NSAM 273 doesn’t make it so clear that they are still talking about the SVG and Oplan 34-A. If they were, as many do, it is still and insignificant molehill. If instead they were talking about the American 1st Infantry Division then of course they were talking about a major change in policy. It can be argued either way I think. I’ll go out on a limb here and say that I believe most Vietnam historians I’ve read consider Paragraph 7 to be an insignificant molehill.
Not to push it, but I would suspect foreign nationals trying to kill our president before I would our own military. I have always thought of Cuba as a person of interest here.
Bill C — I think the record shows there were all kinds of crazy happening among the JCS during that time. For one, it’s clear they thought the Cuban missile crisis was a complete defeat. For another, they submitted a plan to JFK that recommended killing innocent American civilians as a set-up for invading Cuba.
Dr. Strangelove was much closer to the truth than anyone ever realized.
As another poster said, JFK had made clear he thought a military coup was possible in this country.
Another weird twist in this ever twisting rabbit hole of a case — Oswald said the same thing in his speech to Jesuits weeks before he allegedly killed the Commander-in-Chief.
David Hazan
March 17, 2015 at 9:14 pm
“Destabilization, assassination, covert operations, false flags, regime change…”
David, I’m sure you realize that your statement here could have come straight out of Chairman Mao’s “Little Red Book”. The communist used it well in Vietnam and probably every successful insurgency has used it as well. It has also been used well in behind the lines operations in conventional warfare. So it isn’t an American invention although I’m afraid we have used it promiscuously. That is why people south of the Rio Grande River don’t like us.
The United States did a lot of un-American things and blamed it on the Cold War. That was, of course, no excuse.
Sam
March 18, 2015 at 9:19 am
I didn’t stay home collecting tin and I hadn’t just enlisted when I went to Vietnam as an Armored Cavlary Officer to serve as a platoon leader. I salute your Dad’s service but neither of you can tell me anything about the American combat soldier in Vietnam. I was one.
I hope I didn’t claim they were all “squeaky clean” and don’t believe that I did. Over 2.5 million Americans set foot in South Vietnam. Of course you are going to have a criminal element in that large a group. It didn’t help that often a young civilian offender was given the choice between jail or the military. It didn’t help that you begin to think that you were 10,000 miles from civilization.
The way you handle this problem element is with leadership and I don’t have space to cover this on this forum. First you have to set a good example for them. Basically you let them know if they murder or rape they will do hard time. If you have a problem child, and I did, you keep a very close eye on him when in the field. Some problem people we didn’t even take to the field. The best way to not have an order disobeyed is to not give a damn fool order. Just many little things like that help keep the troops straight. They were mostly good kids in a very bad situation.
I trust I have made my point.
bogman
March 18, 2015 at 4:55 pm
Bill C — I think the record shows there were all kinds of crazy happening among the
Dr. Strangelove was much closer to the truth than anyone ever realized.
Hell Bogman, you might be right. I do think LeMay pushed the envelope.
“The United States did a lot of un-American things and blamed it on the Cold War. That was, of course, no excuse.”- Bill Clarke
When I was a kid, I used to put so much sugar in my tea that my dad would say “Just put some tea in the sugar bowl and get it over with”. There is certainly a threshold one crosses, when one paradigm transforms in to another.
You certainly have a point when you say what I described is not an American invention, and has been used by every power group, small and large.
However, I would add that the US, being the sole military superpower in much of the 20th century (and all of 21st so far), has taken the baton from the British in this respect and run with it… To the extent that what was seen as un-American back then has now become very “American” in the eyes of the world. Seems like it was a short journey from the the qintasential image of the liberating GI Joe handing out Wrigley’s chewing gum to the battered population of Europe… Sad… Very sad… But, true nonetheless.
Jean:
HUMES. ….I must state these drawings are in part schematic. The artist had but a brief period of some 2 days to prepare these. He had no photographs from which to work, and had to work under our description, verbal description, of what we had observed.
So Humes’ verbal description of what he had observed changed when the photographs were made available? Does that make him incompetent or just in a hurry?
And 2 days is a “brief period?”
“In 50 years there has not been a shred of physical evidence linking anybody to the assassination except Lee Oswald.”
LOL.
Okay, what shred of physical evidence is there linking anyone but Oswald to the assassination?
LOL (Lots of luck)
“Okay, what shred of physical evidence is there linking anyone but Oswald to the assassination?”
~Jean
>Ballistic proof that the shots that killed Kennedy came from the front.
>Lack of proper chains of custody for bullets, and weapons.
>The fact that a Mauser was discovered in the staged set referred to as “the snipers nest”
>Spoliation of crime scene evidence, at , the TSBD, the limousine, and Elm Street itself.
>The illegal removal of JFk’s body from the lawfully designated jurisdiction of the crime.
>The illegal removal of the presidential limousine from the lawfully designated jurisdiction of the crime.
…just for starters.
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Willy,
Hate to tell you, but you didn’t mention a single item of PHYSICAL evidence LINKING ANYBODY to the assassination except Lee Oswald.
Jean,
Every item listed is physical:
Bullets, and weapons, the Mauser, the staged “snipers nest”, JFk’s body, the presidential limousine.
“We don’t have any proof that Oswald fired the rifle, and never did. Nobody’s yet been able to put him in that building with a gun in his hand.”~Jesse Curry
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For Jean Davison: What about Malcolm Wallace’s fingerprint found on a box in the so-called sniper’s nest?
Willy, (I think I misspelled your name in a recent comment. Apologies.)
As I’m sure you recognize, Jean’s is a carefully constructed challenge … the taunt is nuanced, daring anyone to prove that anyone other than Oswald was involved. Those who have not engaged in protracted debate with Jean may read her positing a rational and reasonable challenge; to one who has confronted the shadow, I hear “see if you can break the code of the cover up.”
This is not about the physical evidence because if that were the case, we have listed numerous examples; and this is not even about whether or not the evidence can be linked to Oswald. Jean is raising the bar … we must now prove to whom the evidence CAN be linked, because if we cannot identify those characters, by default Oswald was the lone assassin.
What kind of legal system does this woman adhere to?
I do sense a glimmer of light streaming through chinks in the stone wall.
And Jean, this is nothing personal.
“What kind of legal system does this woman adhere to?”~Leslie
I don’t know what you would call it, but the word “kangaroo” comes to mind.
I am pretty up on rhetorical gamesmanship, and can recognize it well, especially when it rises it’s “holier than thou head”, wherein interpretation of language is framed as ‘false’ and one is essentially accused of being a liar.
I will say it is not surprising to find some skilled propagandists on a site such as this. Sunstein sunshine shines-on webways these days.
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MUCH more than shreds:
Many witnesses to shooting related activity behind grassy knoll.
Doctor reports of a shot from the front.
Jean,
I haven’t even mentioned the premier piece of physical evidence that proves the Warren Commission is a scam:
The Magic Bullet; CE 399.
Perhaps we need a whole new thread to take this item to court.
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Leslie,
“… the taunt is nuanced, daring anyone to prove that anyone other than Oswald was involved. Those who have not engaged in protracted debate with Jean may read her positing a rational and reasonable challenge; to one who has confronted the shadow, I hear “see if you can break the code of the cover up.””
What utter baloney. The wording wasn’t mine. I quoted exactly John Schrader’s remark:
“‘In 50 years there has not been a shred of physical evidence linking anybody to the assassination except Lee Oswald.’
LOL.”
I repeated that wording to ask in effect, If that quote is really laugh-out-loud funny, give me an example. Didn’t you get that?
“What kind of legal system does this woman adhere to?”
Unlike you, I recognize that the U.S. legal system is for living defendants not dead ones. This is a blog with posts, not a trial.
Is it okay with you if I say that Booth killed Lincoln, or is that forbidden in whatever legal system you adhere to?
“And Jean, this is nothing personal.”
Yeah, right.
Willy, let’s begin with the chain of custody; let’s methodically put all of the cards on the table including WC testimony, HSCA revisions; but first, let’s go back to the scene of the crime – in this instance the crime of cover up using that bullet at Parkland Hospital.
A Special Prosecutor friend insists it’s always about the cover up.