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From: dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
Newsgroups: alt.activism,alt.conspiracy.jfk,alt.conspiracy
Subject: Book Intro: "The Taking Of America, 1-2-3"
Summary: we were robbed of our capability of electing a president we wanted
Keywords: our electoral system was taken away from us starting in 1963
This is an introduction to the book "The Taking of America, 1-2-3," by Richard E. Sprague, self-published by the author first in 1976, revised in 1979, and updated in 1985. There will be eleven posts following this one that will comprise the complete 1985 updated third edition which I will be sending out with the permission of the author. From the book's own introduction,
This book is not about assassinations, at least not solely about assassinations. It is not just another book about who murdered President Kennedy or how or why. It is a book about power, about who really controls the United States policies, especially foreign policies. It is a book about the process of control through the manipulation of the American presidency and the presidential election process. The objective of the book is to expose the clandestine, secret, tricky methods and weapons used for this manipulation, and to reveal the degree to which these have been hidden from the American public. Assassinations are only one of many techniques used in this control process. They have been important only in the sense that they are the ultimate method used in the control of the election process. Viewed in this way, an understanding of what happened to John or Robert Kennedy becomes more important because it leads to a total understanding of what has happened to our country, and to us, since 1960. But the important thing to understand is the control and the power and all of the clandestine methods put together.
Two men named Richard Sprague have been involved in examining the assassination of John F. Kennedy and its ensuing cover-up through the years. Richard A. Sprague, the former district attorney from Philadelphia, and the fearless prosecutor of the Yablonski murderers, was named on October 4, 1976, by Congressperson Thomas Downing, to be chief counsel of the just-then forming House Select Committee on Assassinations. Richard E. Sprague was a pioneer in the field of computers starting in the 1940s. His involvement studying the photographic evidence in the assassination of President Kennedy goes back to 1966:
From the day it happened I was skeptical about what was being said on the TV and radio with regard to how the president was killed. But when the "Warren Report" was issued I became non-skeptical and accepted it pretty much as it was. However, when the 26 volumes became available in late 1964 and I started reading through them, I became skeptical again because I could not find confirmation of most of the so-called facts presented by the "Warren Report" and purported to be backed up by the evidence in the 26 volumes, or any other evidence. So I started work again, which caused me to need an index to the 26 volumes. This in turn lead to my contacting Sylvia Meagher and asking where I could get her index having discovered that she had created and published one that the Warren Commission hadn't seen fit to provide. She told me where I could get it and suggested we have lunch. This was in early November, 1966. She asked, "Why don't you do some real research?" and I said, "like what?" and she responded "how about the photographic evidence? A couple of people have started work on it but haven't finished." I asked her who and she said "Harold Weisberg and Ray Marcus." I contacted both men and that's more or less how I stuck my foot in the quicksand. At the time the 26 volumes became available there were only 8,000 copies printed for the whole country. The time I managed to get hold of one of these sets of all 26 volumes was when I had moved to the University Club in New York City and they had a complete set donated to the University Club by non other than John J. McCloy. So I was using John J. McCloy's personal copies for the beginnings of my research. Now, the most important thing initially that happened in finding the photos was discovering a number of photographs- -films and still photos--that showed the sixth floor window empty with nobody in it. This is what originally convinced me that we had a different sort of conspiracy going than one involving Lee Harvey Oswald, because if he wasn't in the window--and nobody was in the window--then what happened? Who fired the shots? And where from? Confirming that the films and photographs I was looking at were taken at the critical time the shots were fired, or immediately before or after that, involved a lot of work: work with plat maps, other photos, and other materials. I got hold of a map made by the surveyor for Dealey Plaza (I believe his name was Clarence West) which was drawn to scale, and Bob Cutler helped me draw onto it all of the various things that happened including all the vehicles that were moving through. And I managed to lay a set of films end-to-end starting with one rounding the turn onto Houston Street all the way through Dealey Plaza so I could track any vehicle that was in view eighteenth-of-a-second by eighteenth-of-a-second (Zapruder film speed) all the way through Dealey Plaza. This enabled me to determine where Kennedy was at all times and where anybody else was that showed up in any of the photos--particularly moving pictures--at times Kennedy was at spot so-and-so or spot such-and-such. By doing this, with some triangulation, I was able to pin down the exact timing of two particular sets of photos: a film--the Hughes film--the last frame of which shows the sixth floor window empty and ends 5.7 seconds ahead of the first shot--the first shot being fired/tied down at frame 189 of the Zapruder film; and two photos taken after the shots were fired by Dillard and, believe it or not, an intelligence man from Navy intelligence named Powell. Powell's and Dillard's photos were taken almost at the same time, 3.5 seconds after the fatal and last shot (Z-313). So that total time span is less than 17 seconds--if you add up the 5.7 seconds after the end of the Hughes film, plus the 6-plus seconds while the shots were being fired, plus the 3.5 seconds before Dillard and Powell's photos were taken--of blank, non-coverage of that window and there's no way Oswald could have gotten into the window, aimed, fired three shots, and gotten out of the window so you that couldn't see him in 17 seconds. But anyway there was another film taken by Beverly Oliver otherwise known as the Babushka lady that was confiscated by News Orleans FBI agent Regis Kennedy, and a still photograph taken by Norman Similas, confiscated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police from "Liberty" magazine (which was going to publish the photo), who then turned the photo and its negative over to the FBI. I interviewed Similas and the "Liberty" magazine editor both of whom told me they had carefully examined the photograph and had seen no one in the photograph appearing in the eastern-most sixth floor window, which I calculated had been taken about half-way into the 17-second interval. I made two attempts soon after the Freedom of Information Act "viewing room" in the FBI office in Washington, D.C. was created, to request to see the Similas photograph and Beverly Oliver film, but each time the FBI person assigned to me was not able to find these photograhs. But the testimony of the people involved was good enough for me to conclude that there was nobody in that window ever. Once I got to that point I started looking for other evidence that would show where the shots did come from and I started finding all kinds of evidence of shots from the grassy knoll, and from the Dal Tex building, and from the roof or the seventh floor of the western end of the depository building--both photographs as well as witness testimony--and that lead me to decide that this was a powerful conspiracy which had involved at least four gunmen firing shots. This then lead me to decide that I should pursue the whole pattern of conspiracy including, eventually, the Martin Luther King assassination, the Bobby Kennedy assassination and the George Wallace attempt. And that led to the book. Through all of this, I just know I never would have concluded that it was a powerful and well-planned conspiracy if I had not determined that Oswald wasn't in that window-- nobody was in that window. That was the first key. There's one other thing I'd like to point out. The title of the book has more than just simple significance and it shows up in all the chapters that link all these assassinations and their cover-ups. Namely, our country has been taken from us. Us being the citizens of the United States as of 1963, and any time after that, by robbing us of our capability of electing a president we wanted for at least three, and more likely four, elections. One way of taking the country away, is to control the elections and that's really, at least part of the essence of the book. It's close to what Henry Gonzalez proposed in his original bill. He wanted the Congress to look into all four of the major assassinations--the fourth being the attempted assassination of George Wallace--and find the links between and among them, and the cover-ups, and particularly the links between the intelligence agencies and the cover-ups that he was sure were involved in all of them. And if we had had a committee which had done that, well then, we'd have been a lot further along than we are 13 years later.
-- phone interview with the author, June 3, 1992
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy was the most photographed murder in history. Approximately 75 photographers took a total of approximately 510 photographs, either before or during or within an hour after the events in Dealey Plaza, and either there or nearby or related to those events. The word "photograph" in this context includes both still photos and movie sequences. The number of frames in a movie sequence ranges from about 10 to about 500; and in the count of 510 photographs, given above, the 10 to 500 frames of a single movie sequence are counted just as *one* photograph. The total number of frames is over 25,000. The Warren Commission examined 26 photographs, about 5 percent of the 510. The FBI examined about 50 photographs, or about 10 percent. The most famous of all the photographs is the Zapruder film, which had over 480 frames. Many of the photographs were taken by professional photographers. About 30 of the photographers were professionals who worked for newspapers, television networks, and photographic agencies. The Warren Commission did not interview a single one of the professional photographers, nor did the Warren Commission see any complete, uncropped copies of their photographs. Fifteen of these professionals were actually in the Kennedy motorcade, no further than 6 car lengths behind the Kennedy car. Five of these photographers were television network cameramen. The Warren Commission looked at none of their photographs. [.....] Because the professionals used movie cameras of professional quality, their films are exceedingly revealing and valuable as primary evidence. The Warren Commission looked at none of these films. During the past several years, I have collected copies of over 200 of these photographs, and I have looked at and taken notes of another 200 of these photographs, without obtaining copies of them. Some of the remaining 100 have either not been found or have been locked up or destroyed by the owners, who are fearful of the information they show. Or they have been locked up by the FBI, who have either placed them in files inaccessible to the public or possibly have destroyed them.
from, "The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: The Application of Computers to the Photographic Evidence" Richard E. Sprague, "Computers and Automation," May, 1970, p. 34.
for those interested, i have created a raw PostScript version of this complete book which can simply be lp'd to a PostScript laser printer for "prettified" hardcopy output. the combined size of the two PostScript files comprising the book is 1055954 bytes (1007753 and 48201 bytes for the main portion and appendix respectively).
-- daveus rattus
yer friendly neighborhood ratman
KOYAANISQATSI
ko.yaa.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi Language) n. 1. crazy life. 2. life
in turmoil. 3. life out of balance. 4. life disintegrating.
5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.
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From: dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
Newsgroups: alt.activism,alt.conspiracy,alt.conspiracy.jfk
Subject: "The Taking of America, 1-2-3" (1/11)
Summary: we were robbed of our capability of electing a president we wanted
Keywords: part 1 of 11: beginning thru chapter 3
THE TAKING OF AMERICA, 1-2-3
by Richard E. Sprague Reprinted here with permission of the author. Permission to distribute this book is freely given so long as no modification of the text is done.
Richard E. Sprague 1976 Limited First Edition 1976 Revised Second Edition 1979 Updated Third Edition 1985
About the Author
Publisher's Word
Introduction
1. The Overview and the 1976 Election
2. The Power Control Group
3. You Can Fool the People
4. How It All Began--The U-2 and the Bay of Pigs
5. The Assassination of John Kennedy
6. The Assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King and Lyndon B. Johnson's Withdrawal in 1968
7. The Control of the Kennedys--Threats & Chappaquiddick
8. 1972--Muskie, Wallace and McGovern
9. Control of the Media--1967 to 1976
10. Techniques and Weapons and 100 Dead Conspirators and Witnesses
11. Nixon and Ford - The Pardon and the Tapes
12. The Second Line of Defense and Cover-Ups in 1975-1976
13. The 1976 Election and Conspiracy Fever
14. Congress and the People
15. The Select Committee on Assassinations, The Intelligence Community and The News Media
16. 1984 Here We Come--
17. The Final Cover-Up: How The CIA Controlled The House Select Committee on Assassinations
Appendix
* * * * * * *
About the Author
Richard E. Sprague is a pioneer in the field of electronic computers and a leading American authority on Electronic Funds Transfer Systems (EFTS). Receiving his BSEE degreee from Purdue University in 1942, his computing career began when he was employed as an engineer for the computer group at Northrup Aircraft. He co-founded the Computer Research Corporation of Hawthorne, California in 1950, and by 1953, serving as Vice President of Sales, the company had sold more computers than any competitor. In 1960, he became the Director of Computer Systems Consulting for Touche, Ross, Bailey, and Smart. He became a partner in that company in 1963, and started its Advanced Business Systems Department in 1964 where he stayed until 1968. In 1968 he established Sprague Research and Consulting for Computer Information Systems Consultation. He is currently also Consultant to the President's Commission on EFTS and full time consultant to Battelle Memorial Institute of Frankfurt, Germany. In 1966, Mr. Sprague commenced an intensive program of research into the photographic evidence associated with the assassination of John Kennedy. He served a year as photographic expert advisor in the investigations conducted by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison and had amassed and analyzed a majority of the known evidence on film by 1968 when he co-founded the Committee to Investigate Assassinations. He served with CTIA as an active researcher, board member and Secretary from 1968 to 1974. Following numerous radio and television appearances and extensive lecture tours of the United States and Canada (where slides and films were used to demonstrate the basic evidence of conspiracy), he began, in 1974, working toward a Congressional investigation of all four major political assassinations and the cover-ups and links among these interrelated events. He was an advisor to Representative Henry B. Gonzales (D-Texas) on House Resolution 203 which proposed the appointment of a committee to investigate the circumstances surrounding the deaths of JFK, RFK, Martin Luther King and the attempt upon the life of Presidential Candidate George Wallace. He served as a consultant to Richard A. Sprague and G. Robert Blakey, the first and second General Counsels of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, and served through the end of the Committee's existence. He is author of "Electronic Business Systems" (Ronald Press) 1962, "Information Utilities" (Prentice Hall) 1969, and a celebrated series of articles which appeared in "Computers & Automation" Magazine beginning in 1970. He is also co-author with Dick Russell of "In Search of the Assassins" which is scheduled for publication by the Dial Press in 1977. The materials presented in this book are drawn from an analysis of the photographic evidence, personal knowledge and records of the Garrison investigation, research files of the Committee to Investigate Assassinations and Congressional Committees.
* * * * * * *
Introduction
This book is not about assassinations, at least not solely about assassinations. It is not just another book about who murdered President Kennedy or how or why. It is a book about power, about who really controls the United States policies, especially foreign policies. It is a book about the process of control through the manipulation of the American presidency and the presidential election process. The objective of the book is to expose the clandestine, secret, tricky methods and weapons used for this manipulation, and to reveal the degree to which these have been hidden from the American public. Assassinations are only one of many techniques used in this control process. They have been important only in the sense that they are the ultimate method used in the control of the election process. Viewed in this way, an understanding of what happened to John or Robert Kennedy becomes more important because it leads to a total understanding of what has happened to our country, and to us, since 1960. But the important thing to understand is the control and the power and all of the clandestine methods put together. Much of the information in the book has been published before in the magazines "Computer and Automation" and "People and the Pursuit of Truth," both edited and published by Edmund C. Berkeley, Newtonville, Mass. The material on assassination and other events covered is based on evidence collected by the author individually or through the Committee to Investigate Assassinations. References to documentation of this evidence are given throughout the book. I am indebted to the following people for assistance in the research work involved and the preparation of the book itself: Special thanks go to Mary Ferrell who typed the original of the book. Jerry Policoff, Mark Lane, Ed Berkeley, Bob Cutler, Jim Garrison, Bill Turner, Wayne Chastain, Bob Richter, Gary Shaw, Fletcher Prouty, Rush Harp, Jones Harris, Bob Saltzman, Penn Jones, Larry Harris, Sylvia Meagher, Ray Marcus, Harold Weisberg, Hal Dorland, Paris Flammonde, Tink Thompson, Bob Katz, Joachim Joesten, Peter Downay, Harry Irwin, Dick Billings, Jim Lesar, Fred Newcomb, Lillian Castellano, Dick Russell, Tris Coffin, Mae Brussell, Bill Barry, Gary Roberts and most of all to my wife Gloria whose hard work and infinite patience made it all possible. The book is dedicated to Representative Henry B. Gonzalez for his singular courage in standing against the forces of evil.
Richard E. Sprague
Hartsdale, New York July 4, 1976
* * * * * * *
Publisher's Word
We published "The Taking Of America 1 2 3" during the winter of 1976-77. It was typed under the guns in Dallas, Texas, and offset printed in Woodstock, N.Y. A few weeks later--five hundred copies in all, 24 of which were fired off to the two House Committees involved in the investigation of the assassinations. Our elation with this `coup-de-truth' evaporated as we saw the committee destroyed at the starting line. The following summer, while motoring across our sadly taken America, I experienced a tremendous synchroneity of events which lead to my discovering the Power Control Group's secret team of murderer's and their patsies. This knowledge caused me to come out in the open even further and place a sign on route 28 enroute to Woodstock. "Who Killed J.F.K., R.F.K., M.L.K., M.J.K.?" in reflecting letters on a blood-red field. The Modjeska Sign Studios estimated 1.2 million sightings per month. And we then watched the committee suppress and muddle the evidence while chanting the Katydid like cry, of the tremendous big lie--Oswald did it, Oswald did it, Oswald did it, did it, did it. So we are bringing our knowledge up to date with the closing of the new "Warren Report" which now, due to The Witness They Could Not Kill (the sound tape that proved conclusively that more than one gun was involved in the president's assassination), at last admits conspiracy. Where do we go from here? We reach out now for a courageous commercial publisher to spread these truths that we hold self-evident out to our duped, betrayed, and steadily lied-to Americans.
Rush Harp Barbara Black
* * * * * * *
THE TAKING OF AMERICA, 1-2-3
Chapter 1 The Overview and the the 1976 Election
The taking of America has been both a simple and a very complex process. It has not been the result of a coup d'etat, although some aspects of the process resemble a coup. It has not been a process similar to the dictatorship takeovers in Germany, Italy and other fascist regimes. It has not been a process like the Communist "uprisings" in Russia, Hungary and other Eastern European countries. The taking of America has been a process unique in the history of the world. The one feature that makes it unique is that what was once the greatest democracy in the world has been taken over by a power control group without the knowledge of most of the American people, their congressional representatives, or the rest of the world. The group has taken America in this fashion because manipulation of the American presidency and the presidential electoral procedure is enough to control America. Two fiendishly clever stratagems were used to keep the fact that control had been seized from being obvious to the people. The first of these was control of the established media in the dissemination of both true (blocking) and false (flooding) information. The second was the use of clandestine and secret weapons and techniques developed during World War Two and perfected during the Korean and Viet Nam wars. These techniques are so new and unusual as to be unbelievable to most citizens. Thus, the incredibility of such weapons as hypnosis, brainwashing and "programming" of patsies as assassins became a psychological tool in the bag of techniques of the power control group. The average American has shrugged off the possibility of the takeover with the belief that, "That's not possible here." The use of such weapons, coupled with a tremendous campaign through the controlled media that both whitewashes any signs of conspiracies and spreads disinformation throughout the country, has successfully blocked any serious or official attempts to get at the truth. Unofficial investigators, private researchers, and even Congressional representatives have been ridiculed and completely blocked by both the power control group and their media allies. To take over a real democracy without letting the people know it has been taken over is a fantastic achievement. A list of the accomplishments of the power control group illustrates the point. Since 1963, they have:
1. Assassinated John F. Kennedy;
2. Controlled Lyndon B. Johnson as president;
3. Forced LBJ out of the presidency;
4. Assassinated Robert F. Kennedy, assuring Nixon's election in 1968;
5. Assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King;
6. Eliminated Ted Kennedy as a contender in the 1972 elections by framing him at Chappaquiddick and threatening his children;
7. Stopped George Wallace's campaign, assuring Nixon's election in 1972;
8. Knocked Edmund Muskie out of the 1972 election campaign by using dirty tricks;
9. Covered up all of the above;
10. Controlled the 15 major news media organizations;
11. Made Gerald Ford vice president and then president;
12. Insured continuity of the cover-ups by forcing Ford to pardon Nixon;
13. Murdered about 100 witnesses and participants in the three assassinations and one attempted assassination;
14. Blocked efforts by private citizens and organizations to reveal the take-over; discredited, ruined or infiltrated these individuals or groups; murdered or were accomplices to the murders of the operating assassins;
15. Blocked efforts by members of the Senate and House to initiate investigations of the assassinations and attempted to whitewash, ridicule or eliminate these efforts (their influence and infiltration has been particularly effective in the Church Committee and in the House Rules Committee);
16. Controlled the presidential election procedure since 1964 by eliminating the candidates who might expose the truth and insuring the election or appointment of candidates already committed to covering up the truth about the take-over.
The question for 1976 was: Could the power control group continue the take-over during that year's elections? Would they be successful in blocking efforts to expose the take-over by congress? Would they be able to fool the American public again, control the media, and eliminate the contenders for the presidency in 1976 who might have threatened their secure position? The answer to these questions was "Yes." The candidates on the scene during the 1976 primaries fell into three categories according to the control group's point of view. Category 1 included candidates that would continue the cover-up of the take-over. Gerald Ford led this group with Ronald Reagan not far behind him. Henry Jackson was a probable ally because of his backing of the CIA, an important organization in the cover-ups and the takeover. Category 2 included those candidates who would probably try to expose the take-over and the power control group if elected. Morris Udall, Fred Harris and George Wallace fell into this category. The third category included candidates whose intentions were not clear, or unknown at the time. Jimmy Carter, Franck Church and Hubert Humphrey remained in this group, and Sergeant Shriver and Birch Bayh were also in this category before they dropped out of the race. Efforts would have been made to eliminate Udall, Harris or Wallace if any one of them was nominated at the Democratic convention. Carter must certainly have been put to some kind of loyalty test before being permitted to continue as the Democratic nominee. Reagan and Ford were, no doubt, already "safe" candidates for the control group because of their demonstrated cover-up performances. Ford had cooperated fully in at least four ways. He was on the Warren Commission and played a leading role in the cover-up. He wrote the cover-up book "Portrait of the Assassin." He pardoned Nixon and protected the Nixon tapes. And he formed the Rockefeller Commission, appointing David Belin as head of the staff to continue the cover-up of the JFK conspiracy. Reagan had cooperated in at least three ways. He protected important witnesses from extradition from California between 1967 and 1969 for testimony before the grand jury in New Orleans and at the trial of Clay Shaw. He assisted Evelle Younger, then district attorney in Los Angeles and later California state attorney general, in covering up the assassination conspiracy in the Robert Kennedy case. And he has consistently supported the foreign and domestic clandestine activities of the CIA, FBI and other intelligence agencies both nationally and in California. A later chapter will describe just how the Democratic candidate may be eliminated and when. Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez from San Antonio, Texas, who introduced House Resolution 204 to reopen the two Kennedy assassination cases, the Dr. King case and the George Wallace shooting, took a public position on the possibility that the 1976 election was controlled. Gonzalez said "If we find the answers--the truth--to the questions I have raised (about the assassinations of JFK, RFK, MLK and the Wallace attempt), as well as those many others have raised, will the truth make us free? Yes, it will, for the truth will make us free to pursue democracy- -our system of government--through the ballot box, and we will not be subject to government by bullets. The truth will enable us to prevent such a series of events from happening again. Some of the supporters of the investigation have written to me recently of their hope that the investigation will get underway right away (March 1976) because they are concerned that there is great danger in store for the Democratic nominee for the President, whoever he turns out to be. I hope very much that these fears do not turn out to have a basis in fact."
* * * * * * *
Chapter 2 The Power Control Group
Just who and what is the Power Control Group? Some have said it's the military industrial complex. Some prefer to put the blame on the Rockefellers and the Council on Foreign Relation. Others have talked about control shifting from the "Yankees" to the "Cowboys" and back again. The term "The Cabal," first used in an obscure paper by an unknown author in 1968,[1] described a high level conspiracy group that planned, financed and carried out the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The word Cabal has been used since then by some authors and researchers and applied to all of the major domestic assassinations. The idea of a Cabal raises more questions than it answers. Who is in the Cabal? Was the same Cabal behind the planning and financing of all five (Chappaquiddick being the fifth) major eliminations? Or are there several interlocking Cabals? What about the Warren and Rockefeller Commissions? Were they part of the Cabal? Which Cabal controls and infiltrated the media and organized the disinformation that poured forth in 1975 and 1976? Was Ford a Cabal member? Was Nixon? How about Johnson and Kissinger? Has one Cabal commanded the executions of the 100 witnesses and lower level participants? The mistake made by researchers in postulating higher level groups is that they simplify a very complex situation. To draw a distinct line between those involved in an overt conspiracy to assassinate a leader and those involved afterward in covering up the first group's actions is a mistake. The cover-ups are far more important than the original assassinations. Each assassination or attempted assassination, or other form of elimination of a leader, is only part of a greater whole. The 16 accomplishments of the power control group listed in Chapter 1, plus those now taking place and those scheduled for the future, should be considered as a continuum. The control group membership may contain individuals in various categories, some of whom planned assassinations, some of whom knew about the assassinations, and some of whom did not know about assassinations in advance. Some may have been on the firing line but have had nothing to do with the cover-ups. Some of them are victims of later eliminations. Somewhere in the power control group's hierarchy is a sub-group or perhaps several sub-groups that have been responsible for the attempted assassinations of presidential candidates, earlier assassins, witnesses, and earlier middle-to-higher level members in the power control group. These sub-groups might be thought of as intelligence-style task forces or mini-Cabals. There is little question that many of the individuals in these task forces are from organized crime and from the intelligence community, or both. They have had access to intelligence techniques and weapons that have frequently been used in the the elimination process. A second mistake made by some researchers is to assume that the Cabal's shape remains static through time. Evidence shows that the Power Control Group has been a living organism that both shrinks and grows as a function of time. The shrinkages take place through eliminations and a few natural deaths. The growth takes place for several reasons. It is necessary to use new techniques and new people for the group's activities as time passes in order to continue effective control of the media and to continue to fool the people and Congress. It's also necessary to bring new high level people into the group from time to time. Candidates for president acceptable to the group must be sworn in and must agree to continue the cover-ups. New media lackeys or new special committees or commissions are also needed. Once in a while an individual blackmails his way in. Some come in on a de facto basis. (Protectors of the Kennedys and their children fall into this category.) The very nature of the cover-up procedure has made it necessary to expose at least some of the truth to vice presidents and vice presidential candidates, in addition to presidents Johnson, Nixon, and Ford. Each vice president elected or appointed since 1963 has had to know the truth about the cover-ups in the event he became president (Humphrey under Johnson, Agnew under Nixon, and then Ford and Rockefeller). Ford was the most important of these since he had to agree to pardon Nixon and to protect the tapes. The heads of the FBI and CIA, selected trusted second-level men, and the deputy director of plans (DDP) in the CIA have all had to know some of the truth. The members of the 40 group and their successors who presumably know all intelligence secrets of the country are, no doubt, brought into this "inner circle" of knowledgeable people. The Warren Commissioners were split. Warren, Dulles McCloy and Ford all knew the truth; Cooper, Boggs and Russell did not. The Rockefeller Commission was also split. Rockefeller certainly knows and so does Ford's man on that Commission, David Belin. Kissinger must have known the truth; so must have the officers in the Department of Defense. Then there are the Secret Team members, planted in the various media organizations, who know the truth. A later chapter will describe who they are and how they lead the media cover-up and disinformation mill. This living organism view of the Power Control Group can best be constructed and proven by starting with the cover-up efforts and the control of the media, as opposed to examining the conspiracies to assassinate each leader. It is much easier to show how Gerald Ford, for example, led the cover-up in the JFK conspiracy than it is to determine who the members of the Power Control Group were who planned and financed the assassination. It is difficult to show evidence of higher level participation in the assassinations of Robert Kennedy, Dr. King and in the attempted assassination of George Wallace. It is not difficult to prove that many high level individuals conspired to cover-up the conspiracies in each of the three cases. It is not difficult to prove that they helped frame at least one of the patsies (James Earl Ray). Much of the content of this book will show evidence of the cover-ups and discuss the actions that are still taking place that protect the Power Control Group. Only summary information is included on the original conspiracies, except where there is a lack of published data.
____________________
[1] "Nomenclature of an Assassination Cabal", Torbett, 1968 (Copeland Document)
* * * * * * *
Chapter 3 You Can Fool the People
One of the questions always asked by the beginning student of America's political assassinations is, "How is it possible that all of this could be happening in our country without our knowing about it?" The "It couldn't happen here" belief has been extended to, "It couldn't happen here without our knowing about it." This is usually buttressed by such arguments as, "The Kennedys would have done something about it, if it were true", or "Such a giant conspiracy would have been exposed by someone within the conspiratorial group", or "The news media would have found out about it and told all of us by now." The fact that it is possible to fool a majority of the American people for a long period of time and to cover-up a high level conspiracy involving many, many individuals, can easily be demonstrated by using Watergate as an example. In fact, some published articles[1] show that the entire truth about Watergate has yet to be revealed. We do know now about the cover-up of the original crimes in Watergate and the cover-up of the cover-up. We tend to forget the attitude of the majority of the American people, the Congress and the media, toward Richard Nixon and the Nixon administration during the period between the June 1972 Watergate break-in and the November 1972 election and beyond into 1973. Long before Woodward and Bernstein and others began the Watergate expose, a few researchers were calling the Watergate conspiracies to the attention of a small portion of the public.[2] It was not until late 1973 that the research done by these researchers and their hypotheses about high-level conspiracies were proven correct and were generally accepted. How did it happen that for more than a year a majority of the American people were not only fooled by Mr. Nixon and his friends, but also re-elected him? Some of the same ingredients present in that situation were like those used in the taking of America. We can all learn a lot by observing what they were. What follows is a reproduction of an article by the author. (Because the article was written in l972, some of the material in it is now obsolete. However, it is reproduced here without changes to illustrate the situation and attitudes of the pre-Watergate revelation era.) It was originally written during the Watergate cover-up era (late 1972), after Nixon was re-elected and before Bernstein and Woodward were noticed by anyone. It should be noted that even in 1976, Mr. Nixon still had his vehement supporters who were blind to the ingredients required to fool the people.
You Can Fool the People
You can fool all of the people some of the time You can fool some of the people all of the time But you can't fool all of the people all of the time. Abraham Lincoln, 1864
The decade of 1963 to 1973 in the United State of America will go down in history for many things. In the long run it will be known through the world as the period which demonstrated that it is possible to fool most of the people all of the time. Adolph Hitler didn't fool very many people. He cowed them, frightened them, and killed them. But most Germans knew what was happening even though they chose to do nothing about it until it was too late. The exercise of power to control what happens and to restrict liberties is much more difficult in a Democracy or a Republic. The United States is always held up as the model case in which the guaranteed election of the president every four years and the two-party system, will prevent the country from being run by dictators. The people are represented by the Congress and also elect the President. A person or a group planning a coup d'etat in the U.S. would have a completely different job on their hands than Germany in the 1930's, South American or African countries in the twentieth century, or France in the 1890's or Russia in 1918. It would be necessary to fool a majority of the American people into believing that they were well represented, and that a democracy still existed, while at the same time the coup group were in reality changing the country to suit their own tastes. It is the contention of the writer that this is exactly what has happened over a period of time following World War II. The methods used to fool the American people, certainly since 1963 and to some extent also since the end of World War I, have varied slightly as administrations changed. The main thrust however has been a constant erosion of civil rights, and a swing of government away from the best interests of the people and toward big companies, banks, the military and rich individuals and families. The trend was slowed down only briefly between 1960 and 1963 when Jack Kennedy attempted to alter the situation. He was assassinated because he did so. To fool the American people is not easy. It requires immense capabilities, tricky, secret methods, hidden resources, great wealth and the equivalent of brainwashing or mind control on a grand scale. Yet that type of resource is precisely what has accomplished the deed. It is probable that, like Germany, the American people will awaken to what has been happening to them and to who has been doing it. It is also very likely, now that the Nixon administration has been restored for four more years, that by 1976 it will be too late, in spite of Watergate. George McGovern's speech on ABC Television, the evening of October 25, 1972, was a warning for those citizens who were awake, that "it can happen here." It's happening here, was his basic message. Yet, unlike Germany, the people were silent, and fooled. They didn't believe him when he said, "Your liberties are being removed, one by one." The Supreme Court by 1976 will be so packed with Nixon appointees that we will never get our liberties back. McGovern covered most of the areas in which the people have been fooled. The major area he didn't cover was that of assassination. This tool represents only the end of the spectrum of techniques used by those in control to remain in control. It has been used four times very effectively, on both Kennedys, on Martin Luther King, and in the attempt on George Wallace. In the case of Wallace, crippling was sufficient to change the political outcome in 1972.
More important than the use of assassinations has been the ability to fool the American people into believing there were four lone madmen involved--and no conspiracies. The techniques involved in fooling people are more complex and subtle than those involved in the crime itself. In the Watergate case, the original crime was the use of every trick and technique necessary to re-elect Nixon. The people had to be fooled into believing that Nixon and the CIA had nothing to do with Watergate and the broader plan of which it was part. That the fooling part turned out to be so easy is due to a long series of conditioning steps taken with the American news media and the people over the preceding years. The Pentagon Papers case reveals how the people were fooled by several (successive CIA) administrations over a long period of time. Efforts against Ellsberg and the press continued in order to prevent further decay of the fooling process. How is it possible in the 20th century USA--with TV and high levels of communication, with freedom of the press, freedom of speech--to fool most of the people all of the time? Here is how it is done. Five ingredients are required.
INGREDIENT 1. A PATRIOTIC ISSUE. A fundamental issue permeating nearly all conditions of life in the U.S. is needed, around which the rest of the fooling can be constructed. The perfect issue since 1947 has been "The Red Menace," or "Communism" or "The Radical Communist Left Conspiracy." No one is more adept at using this issue than Richard Nixon. The people, to be fooled, have to really believe in the issue, from the heart, from the gut. In a democracy this is the most essential ingredient. In the U.S. many, many people believe it. Some believe it because they have never heard or read anything other than "The Communists are going to take over." Others believe it because they or their parents or relatives came from Europe and "know what it's like to live under Naziism or Communism." (They don't distinguish.) Some believe because they are religious, and somehow religion is always linked to anti-communism. Others aren't sure, but they think "radical" groups might be Communist controlled. The flag waving, the national anthem, the American Legion, our prisoners of war, the draft of the past--all of these symbols are linked to the one big issue of "Communism." There can be several sub-issues of lesser significance than the fundamental issue. Some of these might be related to the main issue. Others may be unrelated. Some are used to appeal to certain segments of the population. They can be carefully exploited and added together with the main issue in a way which enhances it. Some are useful with low-intelligence-level people. Others appeal to bigots. Some are fearful issues which people would rather avoid. Others hit the individual right in his pocketbook or his security. If played one against the other, very carefully, many of these sub-issues can be blamed on Communism. Archie Bunker, of the TV series, "All In The Family", was not exaggerating when he blamed his white niece's dancing with a black neighbor boy on "a Communist plot." Examples of sub-issues used by those controlling Nixon administration to fool the people include:
The black-white issue The busing issue The young radical issue The law and order issue The national security issue The old-fashioned American work ethic versus poverty and welfare issue
INGREDIENT 2. REACHING THE MINDS OF THE PEOPLE. To fool a majority of the people all of the time it is necessary to reach into their minds over a relatively long period of time. Make an analysis of what you, the reader, believe today or disbelieve, along with the mental condition you are in when you enter a polling booth, or write a letter to your Congressman. After some thought list all of the ways in which information might reach you today. You will list all of the environmental factors, self images, motivations, ego factors and acquired beliefs that make you do what you do, and make you think what you think. You will realize that your heritage, your schooling, your life's experience, and the present bombardment of information have an impact on how you vote. If your father and grandfather before you were strong Republicans or Democrats, you may well vote the same "pull one lever" way. You might close your mind to any messages of imminent disaster, and think, "I'm better off not knowing and just voting straight Republican." (In 1972) You might have strong faith in the "American way of life" and pay no attention to the people who go around claiming that John Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were all murdered by elements of an invisible government to keep the U.S. on the military, wealthy, conservative track. You might ignore solid evidence regarding Lee Harvey Osward's, James Earl Ray's or Sirhan Sirhan's actions and instead rely on a long-term, well engineered faith that something like that "couldn't happen here." Go back in time to 1935, if you are over 50, or go back to 1945, if you are over 40, or back to 1955, if you are over 30. Examine your general overall attitudes, beliefs and prejudices as developed over that period of time between then and now. You will discover that your political beliefs about the U.S., the Presidency, foreign policy, wage and price controls, and your own economic conditions, etc., have been strongly influenced by the various news media.
INGREDIENT 3. CONTROLLING THE NEWS MEDIA. In Chapter 9, the author proves that it has been possible for a very small group of people in power to control or fool nearly all of the major news media in the U.S. about the assassination of John F. Kennedy and subsequent investigations conducted by groups other than the sources of power (Warren Commission, FBI, Secret Service, CIA, Justice Department, the President). According to polls taken between 1963 and 1970, 50% to 80% of the public at one time or another during this period believed there was a conspiracy. Nevertheless, the major news media took the opposite position. A poll conducted today would, no doubt, show about one-half of the people believing there was no conspiracy. How did this happen? Is it conceivable that the power sources of two succeeding administrations (Johnson and Nixon) fooled or controlled the news media to that extent? The problem is not so difficult as it seems. Only sixteen media organizations are involved. These sixteen provide each of us with nearly all of the news we either read, see or hear. It is only necessary to control the sixteen men at the very top and that is exactly what happened. The proof contained in Chapter 9 contains specific facts about what happened inside of eleven of the sixteen organizations. Some of them maintained an editorial position oriented toward the possibility of conspiracy for several years. The last ones to convert because of high level command decisions (at the *owner* level--not the editorial level) did not do so until 1969, 5 1/2 years after the assassination. Several of the eleven conducted their own independent investigations and discovered conspiracy evidence sufficient to take that stand. Among these were CBS, Life Magazine, and "The New York Times."
The sixteen media organizations are:
1. NBC-TV and Radio 2. CBS-TV and Radio 3. ABC-TV and Radio 4. Associated Press 5. United Press International 6. Time-Life 7. McGraw Hill - Business Week 8. Newsweek 9. U.S. News and World Report 10. New York Times and their news service 11. Washington Post and their news service 12. Metromedia News Network TV and Radio 13. Westinghouse Radio News Network 14. Capital City Broadcasting Radio Network 15. North American Newspaper Alliance 16. Gannett News Service
Controlling the news media to that extent in order to fool the people is an extreme act. It is a last resort in an extremely serious situation. Such a situation arose when it became obvious to those in power that Jim Garrison was going to expose the truth about the assassination in court. He had to be destroyed, and he was, by fooling the news media as well as the people. Control of the press by the power group slipped a little with the Pentagon Papers, the Mylai episode, the Green Berets, the FBI use of spying, and the Watergate caper. But effective control over the fooling of the people nevertheless remains. With Watergate, people fooling shifted from controlling the news media, which suddenly awakened a little too late, to the control of the the legal system.
INGREDIENT 4. CONTROLLING THE LEGAL SYSTEM. Perhaps the most important long-range ingredient in fooling the people of America is the control and influence over the legal system. The U.S. in the post-war era has reached the stage where, in case of doubt on a major issue, the people will wait to see how it is resolved by the courts. The American people in general have always had tremendous faith in their own legal system. With the exception of the South taking issue with the Warren court over black rights, the American people tend to believe that the Supreme Court will eventually right any wrongs. The faith goes much further than adjudication of crimes or disputes. People have come to rely on the legal system to tell them where the truth lies on a major issue when two sides differ completely on the facts. They believe that the adversary procedure and the perjury penalty system will ferret out the truth. Thus, to fool the people, and make them believe lies, it is essential to control the legal system. The Nixon and Johnson administrations and the Invisible Government lying underneath or off to one side of both administrations became very adept at controlling the legal system. It can be done, and has been done in several ways. Nixon, of course, loaded the Supreme Court. That is important. The complete control of the Justice Department and the FBI is also obvious. Not so obvious is the need to control Federal judges throughout the land. Truth might leak out in a trial at a local level, so U.S. courts in each area must be controlled. The Federal grand jury scheme worked out by Nixon, Mitchell and Robert Mardian is a beautiful way to guide, direct and control the legal system. It more than proved its worth in fooling the people in cases involving classified documents, the Black Panthers and other situations where the truth had to be obscured. Control over the American Bar Association and individual lawyers and district attorneys is another method used. And finally, it is often useful to control local and state police, either individually or in groups. The exercise of control is important. It may be desirable to suppress truth in a court situation during a trial or hearings. The judge can do this very effectively. It may also be desirable to delay a trial or a hearing in which the truth might be exposed. Judges and lawyers can do this quite easily. It may be desirable to entirely shut off a trial or an appeal where truth could be exposed. Nixon was able to do this to perfection. Lies and fake cases may be presented as truth in court while truth is attacked as being falsehood. This technique has been very successful. All of this takes both money and power. Judges and lawyers, must either be paid a lot of money, or frightened about their career and health. The CIA conduits used for espionage financing have been used extensively in controlling the legal system. Power has been used to control lower courts and local police or district attorneys from the highest source of power in America, the invisible government. A few examples will suffice to demonstrate how the legal system is used to fool the people. The 1972 election demonstrated that two-thirds of the people either did not associate Mr. Nixon with the Watergate affair and the Chapin-Segretti sabotage project, or else they didn't know about it or didn't care. Surely, you say, a traditional American patriot would not vote for a man who did all of the things the Watergate 7 and Chapin- Segretti and company did. But wait! The situation as of January 1973 had not yet reached the courts. Except for Bernard Barker's conviction for falsely using his notary public seal to stamp a check from Kenneth Dahlberg in Florida, no court actions had taken place. Wasn't that lucky for the Republicans, you say. It wasn't luck. The Watergate arrests took place in June 1972. By successfully delaying a whole series of trials and court actions, Mr. Nixon, through control of the courts, kept the truth away from the people until after the election on November 7. Perhaps some of the people who voted for him had doubts, but if court cases had been conducted before November 7, and conducted fairly by uncontrolled judges, the truth would have been exposed in all of its glory. Now that he had a powerful mandate from the people, it was likely that other forms of control would be used to continue fooling the people about Watergate. Some of these were covered in the prior chapters. Executive privilege has been used to a major extent. Clay Shaw was actually defended and Garrison, in effect, was put on trial, through CIA money and CIA lawyers. Garrison's attempts to bring Shaw to trial for perjury were successfully blocked by Federal courts and judges. Sirhan Sirhan's trial for the murder of Robert Kennedy was controlled by the Nixon administration in order to hide the truth from the people. The case involved controlling the judge at the trial, the district attorney, the lawyers for Sirhan, the Los Angeles police, the FBI, and some of the officials of the state of California. The control exercised has continued to prevent Sirhan from receiving a new trial based on new evidence of what happened in the assassination.
THE FIVE BIG EVENTS. The five events since World War II about which the power control group must continue to fool the American people about are the assassinations of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King; the attempted assassination of George Wallace; and the Watergate episode. (In 1973, the truth about Chappaquiddick and its importance, together with the threats against Jackie Kennedy, Ethel Kennedy, Ted Kennedy and all of the Kennedy children, had not been exposed. Chappaquiddick is the sixth big event.) All other things this group has done since 1947 fade into insignificance compared to these five. The reason is that the American people may accept such things as the Pueblo incident, the Gulf of Tonkin fake, the Mylai incident, the Pentagon Papers, the Kent State killings, the frame-ups of the Black Panthers and their murders, and even the whole Viet Nam war, but they would rise up in wrath if the truth about any one or all of those five events were exposed. Thus, Mr. Hanson for Sirhan, Mr. Fensterwald for James Earl Ray, Mr. Lawrence O'Brien and the Watergate suit--anyone opposing the findings of the Warren Commission with national prominence and success--and anyone who begins to pry too much into George Wallace's brush with death will be opposed with all the power those in control can muster. Each will be dealt with if he comes too close, just as Jim Garrison was dealt with by both the Johnson and Nixon administrations. Garrison managed to beat out the Nixon- controlled Justice Department in his own trial in September 1973. The jury in New Orleans found him innocent in spite of the fact that the prosecuting attorney, the judge, the key witness, Pershing Gervais, and the news media were all controlled by Nixon and Mitchell. By late 1973 it was becoming a little more difficult to fool the people.
INGREDIENT 5. PAID COLUMNISTS OR LACKEYS. Control of the news media includes controlling or hiring selected columnists, newsmen, commentators, and lackeys. Sometimes these people are called "spokesmen for the administration." Many of them are supposedly independent. Their importance in the process of fooling the people has increased as the number of independent news media organizations has decreased and the number of organizations relying on syndicated, national columnists or commentators has increased. The Nixon administration managed to corral a great many more of these types than did the administrations of Johnson, Kennedy, or Eisenhower. In the newspaper field, there were four to five times as many columnists writing "fool the people" type news for Nixon as against Nixon. Alsop was at one extreme. More subtle were writers like C.L. Sulzberger in the "New York Times" and Gary Wills in various conservative papers. On radio, the Westinghouse network used four commentators who appeared to be liberal at first glance, but who adhered to the party line when the time came to get at the truth about the five key events mentioned earlier. These four were Peter Lisagor, Rod McCleish, Simeon Booker and Irwin Cannon. William Safire, Evans and Novak, Mary McCarthy, and occasionally Jack Anderson also fall into the "fool the people" column. The impact of these columnists on the American people has not really been measured. Alsop's and Evans and Novak's columns appear in Republican and right-wing newspapers all across the U.S. The election poll that indicated over 700 newspapers supported Nixon while fewer than 50 supported McGovern provides some estimate of how influential these papers and columnists can be. With the exception of two or three stories by Jack Anderson about Robert Kennedy and plots to assassinate Castro, none of the evidence about the truth pertaining to the assassinations has ever appeared in any of these columns. Yet the American people read these columns more faithfully than they read the front page.
HOW THE PEOPLE HAVE BEEN FOOLED. Now that the ingredients for fooling the people have been discussed, let's examine the net results over the past twenty-five years. Between 1957 and 1972, there was a culmination in the use of these ingredients, many of which were developed with the end of World War II. Through a succession of presidencies and political party administrations from Truman to Nixon a mixture of wealthy, military and espionage individuals developed a power base and used the five ingredients to fool the people. Except for John Kennedy, none of the presidents tried very hard to resist this power. The book "Farewell America" (by James Hepburn--a pseudonym--Frontiers Press), which has been reprinted in sections in "Computers and Automation" (1973) shows clearly what kind of power JFK tried to resist and how it resulted in his death. The American people aren't familiar with this book any more than they are familiar with a movie made from the book, with the same title. And as long as the group remains in power, the book and movie will be banned from the United States, just as "Z" was banned in Greece. The people of America were fooled into believing each of the following untruths:
Kent State:
The National Guard fired under intense pressure and attack by a bunch of hoodlums at Kent State University. The various grand juries have vindicated the Guard. There was no White House influence involved in the killings, or in the aftermath.
Mylai:
Calley was justified in shooting the civilians at Mylai because those were his orders. You can't tell a "gook" from a Viet Cong and, after all, war is war.
Communism:
The greatest threat to American freedom is still a world- wide Communist take-over. The domino theory may or may not be correct, but we must never give up a fight. "Peace with honor" was essential in Viet Nam.
Pentagon Papers:
Few people have taken the time to read the Pentagon Papers and have understood their significance. The two-thirds majority who elected Nixon in 1972 may have been puzzled by the papers or they may not have cared. No doubt, most of them believed Ellsberg a traitor and worthy of jail. It is very unlikely they will ever believe they were duped by Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon and most particularly by the CIA and allies in matters pertaining to the cold war and Communism. The fundamental, gut issue of the Communist conspiracy overrides any other revelation in this field.
Assassinations:
In spite of polls and uneasy feelings, at least half and perhaps a majority of the American people still believe that John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan and James Earl Ray, respectively, and that the assassination attempt on George Wallace was solely Arthur Bremer's doing. They believe these men acted alone and that they were madmen. (This statement pertains to the period of 1972-73.)
Watergate:
Prior to the election in November 1972, a majority of the American people believed that Richard Nixon, John Mitchell, Maurice Stans and everyone else of importance in the White House had nothing to do with the Watergate affair or the activities of Donald Segretti and others prior to the election. Almost no one believed that the CIA was involved in setting up Nixon so as to capture and control the executive to an even greater degree.
Democracy and Freedom:
By the end of 1973 a relatively large percentage of the American people still did not relate any of the foregoing incidents or situations to their own individual liberties. They believed patriotically in America; they believed we still had a democracy; they believed that President Nixon, with his wise ways and business experience would pull us out of whatever problems we had. From the time he nailed Alger Hiss and the day he won the great kitchen debate with Kruschev, Nixon was believed to be the leader who would secure our eventual victory over Communism. The people refuse to consider the possibility that unknown forces have seized control over the U.S. for the last fifteen years and that our liberties and democracy are fading away.
____________________
[1] "Nixon and the Mafia" -- Jeff Gerth, "Sundance Magazine," December 1972. Charles Colson Interview, by Dick Russell - "Argosy Magazine," March 1976
[2] "Why Was Martha Mitchell Kidnapped?" -- Mae Brussell, "The Realist," August 1972
"The June 1972 Raid on Democratic Party Headquarters -- Part 1" -- R.E. Sprague, "Computers & Automation," August 1972
"The Raid on Democratic Party Headquarters -- The Watergate Incident -- Part 2", Ibid.
-- daveus rattus
yer friendly neighborhood ratman
KOYAANISQATSI
ko.yaa.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi Language) n. 1. crazy life. 2. life
in turmoil. 3. life out of balance. 4. life disintegrating.
5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.
Path: ns-mx!hobbes.physics.uiowa.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!spool.mu.edu!olivea!sgigate!odin!ratmandu.esd.sgi.com!dave
From: dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
Newsgroups: alt.activism,alt.conspiracy,alt.conspiracy.jfk
Subject: "The Taking of America, 1-2-3" (2/11)
Summary: we were robbed of our capability of electing a president we wanted
Keywords: part 2 of 11: chapter 4 thru chapter 5
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Chapter 4 How It All Began - The U-2 and the Bay of Pigs
To understand the origins of the Power Control Group, it is necessary to return to the last years of the Eisenhower administration and examine what was going on in the Cold War. Eisenhower had suffered several strokes and a heart attack. He was partially immobilized, and entrusted a major share of the coordination of clandestine activities being conducted by the CIA against the "Red Menace" to Richard Nixon, his vice president. While Ike was warning against the military-industrial-complex's domestic influence, and attempting to move toward detente with the Soviets through a summit meeting, he was being sabotaged by the plans section of the CIA and by Richard Nixon. A part of the CIA arranged for a U-2 with Gary Powers as pilot to go down over Russia, thus giving Khrushchev a chance to expose American spying and to cancel the summit meeting. This was one of the earliest moves of the nucleus of what later evolved into the Power Control Group. In the spring of 1960, with Ike nearly senile and pressured by Nixon, he approved the plan for the invasion of Cuba and the assassination of Castro. Nixon was the chief White House action officer for what later became the Bay of Pigs invasion. The Power Control Group was beginning to organize itself with Nixon as part of it. The cold warriors and strong anti-Communist "patriots" in the Plans or Operations part of the CIA formed the original nucleus. Their plan was to make Nixon president in 1961 and to launch a successful takeover of Cuba. John Kennedy came along to upset the plan. Not only did he make the takeover impossible but he soon discovered the evils lurking in the hearts and minds of the CIA clandestine operators and laid his own plans to destroy them. The assassination of John Kennedy essentially became an act of survival for some of these individuals. Many citizens of America have forgotten that Richard Nixon was Vice President of the United States in 1959 and 1960. As an old anti-communist from the Alger Hiss and Khrushchev debating days, Nixon was in the forefront of pressure for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. What is also forgotten is that Nixon was largely responsible for the covert training of Cuban exiles by the CIA in preparation for the Bay of Pigs. (He stated this in his book, "Six Crises".) NIXON'S LIES--OCTOBER 1960. Mr. Nixon's capacity for truth is nowhere more clearly demonstrated than by the deliberate lies he told during the election campaign on national TV on October 21, 1960. He said in his book that the lies were told for a patriotic reason--to protect the covert operations planned for the Bay of Pigs at all costs. The significance of this is that Mr. Nixon considers patriotism to be, in part, the protection of plans and actions of individuals that he considered to be working for the United States' best interests. The similarities between the actions of Everette Howard Hunt, Jr., James McCord, Bernard Barker, Frank Sturgis, and others in the 1960 planning for the Bay of Pigs invasion and in the 1972 planning for the re-election of Richard M. Nixon are very striking. In both cases, what the plotters themselves considered to be patriotic, anti-Communist actions were involved. In 1960 the actions were directed against Fidel Castro, a man they hated as a Communist. In 1972 the actions were directed against Edward Kennedy, Edmund Muskie and George McGovern. Bernard Barker stated the group's collective belief when he said after his arrest that, "We believe that an election of McGovern would be the beginning of a trend that would lead to socialism and communism, or whatever you want to call it." Nixon admitted lying to the American people to protect Hunt, Barker, Sturgis, and McCord in 1960. The likelihood that he lied to protect them again in 1972 seems to be quite good. There is some likelihood that he actually hired the same old crew he trusted from the Bay of Pigs days for the 1972 Watergate and other espionage activities. Here are the facts:
Nixon's Statements in "Six Crises"
Richard Nixon stated in "Six Crises": "The covert training of Cuban exiles by the CIA was due in substantial part, at least, to my efforts. This had been adopted as a policy as a result of my direct support."[1] "President Eisenhower had ordered the CIA to arm and train the exiles in May of 1960. Nixon and his advisors wanted the CIA invasion to take place before the voters went to the polls on November 8, 1960."[2] While the Bay of Pigs operation was under the overall CIA direction of Allen Dulles, Richard M. Bissell, Jr. was the CIA man in charge, according to Ross & Wise.[3] Charles Cabell,[4] the deputy director of the CIA, and a man with the code name Frank Bender, were also near the top of the operational planning.[5]
E. Howard Hunt
Everette Howard Hunt, Jr. was in charge of the actual invasion. He used the code name, "Eduardo." Bernard L. Barker, using the code name "Macho," worked for Hunt in the CIA Bay of Pigs planning. James McCord was an organizer for the invasion and was one of the highest ranking officials in the CIA. Frank Sturgis, alias Frank Fiorini, was also involved in the Bay of Pigs operations. Virgilio Gonzales was a CIA agent active in the Bay of Pigs. So was Eugenio Martinez. Charles Colson was a former CIA official who knew McCord and Hunt during the Bay of Pigs period.[6] Hunt, Barker, McCord, Sturgis, Gonzales, and Martinez were under indictment for the Watergate affair. Colson was Nixon's special counsel who handled "touchy" political assignments. According to "Time" magazine, Colson brought all of the others into the re- election committee espionage project at the request of Nixon.[7] In other words, it was basically the same group who worked for Nixon, Bissell and Co. in 1960 and who worked for Nixon, Colson and Co. in 1972. They were all loyal, patriotic, anti-Communist, and anti-Castro CIA agents with covert (black) espionage training. They needed Nixon's protection in 1960 and 1972, and they received it both times. Here is how Nixon protected them in 1960.[8]
Kennedy-Nixon Debates, 1960
John Kennedy and Richard Nixon engaged in a series of national TV debates during the 1960 campaign. Kennedy was briefed by Allen Dulles, head of the CIA at Eisenhower's request, on secret CIA activities and international problems on July 23, 1960. Nixon was not aware of the briefing contents and was not sure whether Dulles told Kennedy about the Bay of Pigs plans. As it turned out Dulles had not mentioned the plans but had kept his remarks about Cuba rather general. On October 6, 1960, Kennedy gave his major speech on Cuba. He said that events might create an opportunity for the U.S. to bring influence on behalf of the cause of freedom in Cuba. He called for encouraging those liberty-loving Cubans who were leading the resistance against Castro. Nixon became very disturbed about this because he felt Kennedy was trying to pre-empt a policy which he claimed as his own. Nixon ordered Fred Seaton, Secretary of the Interior, to call the White House and find out whether Dulles had briefed Kennedy on the Cuban invasion plans. Seaton talked to General Andrew Goodpaster, Eisenhower's link to the CIA, who told Seaton that Kennedy did know about the Bay of Pigs plans.
Attack on Kennedy by Lying
Nixon became incensed. He said, "There was only one thing I could do. The covert operation had to be protected at all costs. I must not even suggest by implication that the U.S. was rendering aid to rebel forces in and out of Cuba. In fact, I must go to the other extreme: I must attack the Kennedy proposal to provide such aid as wrong and irresponsible because it would violate our treaty commitments."[9] So Richard M. Nixon actually went on national TV (ABC) on October 21, 1960, knowing we were going to invade Cuba, and lied. During the fourth TV debate, Nixon attacked Kennedy's proposal as dangerously irresponsible and in violation of five treaties between the U.S. and Latin America, as well as the United Nations' Charter.[10] On October 22 at Muhlenberg College, Nixon really turned on the fabrication steam. He said, "Kennedy called for--and get this--the U.S. Government to support a revolution in Cuba, and I say that this is the most shockingly reckless proposal ever made in our history by a presidential candidate during a campaign--and I'll tell you why . . ." The reason we should have taken with a grain of salt whatever words Nixon uttered about Watergate and Donald Segretti's espionage is clearly demonstrated in that October 22, 1960 speech. He fiercely attacked John Kennedy for advocating a plan that he, Richard Nixon, secretly advocated and claimed as his own creation. He later had the sheer gall to brag about it in his own book as a very patriotic act.
Protection of Hunt and Co.
How was Nixon protecting Hunt and company in 1972? He was using the Justice Department and the Republican Congressmen, among others, to delay and dilute the prosecution of the Watergate seven. He had slowed down, suppressed, and all but stopped six separate investigations, suits, and trials of the affair. Included were Wright Patman's House Banking Committee investigation, the FBI- Justice Department investigation, a White House investigation by John Dean, a General Accounting Office investigation, a suit by the Democratic Party, and a trial in criminal court of the seven invaders. Only two trials or investigations had a chance of exposing the truth at that time. One of these, a trial of Bernard Barker in Florida was not much help. The other was an investigation promised by Senator Edward Kennedy and his Senate subcommittee. It never occurred. The action for impeachment came much later. Thus, the stage was set in 1961 for the group of powerful individuals who had planned the Bay of Pigs to gain revenge on John Kennedy who tried to change the overall direction of the U.S. battle against Communism. After JFK refused to approve overt U.S. backing of the Bay of Pigs invasion, various individuals in the clandestine CIA forces vowed their revenge. In the spring of 1961, evidence had appeared indicating that Helms, Hunt, Sturgis and Barker tried to have JFK assassinated in Paris.[11] When the attempt failed, a number of other plots and sub-plots developed through the next two years. After JFK's blockade strategy against Castro during the missile crisis in 1962 was implemented, some of the high-level CIA and armed forces people wanted even more to get him out of the White House. They had favored a direct invasion or bombing of Cuba. And finally, when JFK found out about the CIA's plans for another invasion of Cuba in the spring and summer of 1963 and stopped them, they began in earnest to plan his death.
____________________
[1] "Six Crises," Richard M. Nixon, Doubleday, 1962.
[2] "The Invisible Government," Wise & Ross, Random House, 1964.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Brother of Earl Cabell, mayor of Dallas when Kennedy was assassinated.
[5] Ibid.
[6] "New York Times" articles on Watergate, June 18 to July 2, 1972.
[7] "Time" magazine, September 8, 1972.
[8] This episode is related in detail in "The Invisible Government."
[9] "Six Crises".
[10] "The Invisible Government."
[11] "400,000 Dollars Pour Abattre Kennedy a Paris," Camille Giles, Julliard Press, Paris 1973.
* * * * * * *
Chapter 5 The Assassination of John Kennedy
The assassination of President Kennedy can be considered one of a series of acts by the Power Control Group to regain the control they had lost when Nixon was defeated in 1960 and Kennedy threatened their existence. The evidence pointing toward intelligence involvement and the use of a variety of intelligence techniques in the assassination is substantial. Until and unless an investigation is conducted by a group with power and money equivalent to that of the Power Control Group, with the power to issue subpoenas and to protect witnesses, it will be very difficult to draw a completely accurate picture of the conspiracy to assassinate JFK. As a substitute, this chapter is a "probable reconstruction"--a scenario--about who killed John F. Kennedy. Unlike the Warren Commission Report (another scenario), this report does not contain any physically impossible events, such as those connected with Commission Exhibit 399, the so-called "magic bullet." This scenario is based on (1) evidence gathered between 1968 and 1975 by the Committee to Investigate Assassinations, Washington, D.C. and (2) evidence gathered between 1962 and 1975 by the author. The purpose of this scenario is as a starting point for study and verification by researchers, by Congressional Committees, and by their members and staffs. This should be considered as a beginning hypothesis and scenario in contrast to the Warren and Rockefeller Commission scenarios. The best evidence available indicates the following events occurred in the summer and fall of 1963 and culminated in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The basic evidence has been summarized in various articles published in "Computers and People" (formerly "Computers and Automation") since May 1970.[1] This can be considered as a guideline scenario which adheres to and explains all of the known factual evidence.
How It Began
The conspiracy to assassinate John Kennedy began in a series of discussions held in New Orleans in the summer of 1963. The men in the discussions were extremely angry that Kennedy had stopped plans and preparations for another invasion of Cuba (scheduled for the latter part of 1963.) One of the instigators was David Ferrie, a CIA contract agent who had been training pilots in Guatemala for the invasion. Meetings held in Ferrie's apartment in New Orleans were attended by Clay Shaw, William Seymour and several Cubans. Plans for assassinating President Kennedy developed out of those early meetings. Others whose support was sought by the group included Guy Banister, Major L. M. Bloomfield, Loran Hall, Lawrence Howard, Sergio Arcacha Smith and Carlos Prio Socarras.
Oswald's Role
During this period in the summer of 1963 Lee Harvey Oswald was working for Guy Banister on some anti-Castro projects and used the Communist cover of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Oswald attended some of the meetings where JFK's assassination was discussed. Oswald either approached the FBI or they approached him in the later summer of 1963, and he began to tell the FBI about the plans of the group to assassinate JFK. Oswald had been a secret informant for the FBI since mid-1962.
Mexico City
In September, the group moved the scene of their planning to Mexico City. There they solicited the assistance of Guy Gabaldin, a CIA agent. Meetings were held in the apartment of Gabaldin, attended by Shaw, Ferrie, Seymour, Gabaldin and Oswald on at least three occasions. Others were brought into the conspiracy at this point. These included John Howard Bowen (alias Albert Osborne), Ronald Augustinovich, Mary Hope, Emilio Santana, Harry Dean, Richard Case Nagell, and "Frenchy" (an adventurer who had been working with Seymour, Santana, Ferrie, Howard and others on the Cuban invasion projects in the Florida Keys). Fred Lee Crisman, Jim Hicks and Jim Braden (alias Eugene Hale Brading) were also recruited at this point.
Oswald, the Patsy
Oswald continued to inform on the group to the FBI in Dallas. In mid- to late September the assassination group decided to make Oswald the patsy in the murder. They had discussed the need for a patsy in the earliest meetings in New Orleans. Billy Seymour, who resembled Oswald, was selected to use Oswald's name and to plant evidence in New Orleans, Dallas and Mexico, which could later be used to frame him. In addition, another man under CIA surveillance in Mexico City also used Oswald's name in a probable attempt to make it appear that Oswald was headed for Cuba. His name may have been Johnny Mitchell Deveraux. His picture appears in the Warren Commission Volumes as CE 237.
Financial Support
The team needed financial support for the assassination. They received it from Carlos Prio Socarras in Miami, who brought more than 50 million dollars out of Cuba. They also received money from Banister, and from three Texas millionaires who hated Kennedy: Sid Richardson, Clint Murchison, and Jean DeMenil (of the Schlumberger Co.). The Murchison-Richardson contribution also included soliciting the assistance of high-level men in the Dallas police force. They were powerful members of the Dallas Citizens Council that controlled the city at that time.
Plans for Three Cities
The group in Mexico City planned to assassinate JFK in Miami, Chicago or Dallas, using different gunmen in each case. The Miami plan failed because the Secret Service found out about it in advance and kept JFK out of the open. The Chicago plan backfired when JFK cancelled his plans to attend the Army-Navy game at Soldiers Field in early November. The group set up two assassination teams for Dallas. One was in Dealey Plaza; the second was near the International Trade Mart where JFK's luncheon speech was to be delivered.
CIA Support
The best evidence of CIA (Deputy-Director of Plans) involvement is the fact that the majority of the known participants were contract agents or direct agents of the CIA. In Mexico City, the meetings were held in the apartment of Guy Gabaldin, a CIA (DDP) agent, working for the Mexico City station chief. Others attending the meetings who were CIA (DDP) contract or direct agents included Clay Shaw, David Ferrie, Albert Osborne, Harry Dean, Richard Case Nagell, Ronald Augustinovich, William Seymour, Emilio Santana and Fred Lee Crisman. It is likely (but not yet provable by direct evidence) that the group sought and obtained from the acting or permanent CIA station chief in Mexico, assistance or approval to go ahead with assassination plans. Tad Szulc claims that a CIA source can prove that E. Howard Hunt was acting station chief in Mexico City at the time of the Gabaldin apartment meetings (August and September 1963). Hunt has denied under oath before the Rockefeller Commission that he was in Mexico. In 1967 Richard Helms told a group of CIA officials, including Victor Marchetti, that both Clay Shaw and David Ferrie were CIA (DDP) contract agents and that Shaw had to be given CIA protection and assistance in his New Orleans trial. This is a strong indication that Hunt and Helms gave "turn of the head" approval to the Shaw-Ferrie assassination plan as a minimum form of support.
Dallas
The assassination group, having failed in Miami and Chicago, moved an operational team into Dallas during the second week in November of 1963. Shaw, Ferrie, Gabaldin and other high-level plotters travelled in other directions, establishing alibis as planned. On November 22, Gabaldin was in Mexico City, Shaw was in San Francisco, and Ferrie was in New Orleans. The team moving into Dallas included Albert Osborne, William Seymour, Emilio Santana, Frenchy, Fred Crisman, Jim Hicks, Jim Braden, and a new recruit from Los Angeles, Jack Lawrence. There was also a back-up rifle team of Cubans to be used at a location near the International Trade Mart in the event something went wrong at Dealey Plaza.
Where the Teams Stayed
The teams stayed at two locations in Dallas for two weeks. One was a rooming house run by a woman named Tammie True. During this period final preparations for the assassination in Dealey Plaza were made. These included the collecting of and planting of evidence used to frame Oswald, the recruiting of the Dallas police participants, and the plans for the escape of the team members by car and by train. The riflemen selected were William Seymour in the Depository Building, Jack Lawrence and Frenchy on the grassy knoll, and Emilio Santana in the Dal Tex building. Jim Hicks was set up as radio coordinator and a man with each of the riflemen had a two-way radio. They were Jim Braden, Dal Tex; Fred Crisman, knoll; unidentified American (tall tramp), knoll; and a man in the TSBD Building. Osborne was in overall charge of the Dallas teams, but he did not go to Dealey Plaza. A fifth gunman, known to researchers as the umbrella man, was stationed on the street with an umbrella weapon furnished by the CIA. He was accompanied by another Cuban acting as a radio man.
Framing Oswald
The people involved in framing Oswald included Seymour (who used his identity), someone who posed for two pictures holding a rifle, a photographer who took the pictures and someone who superimposed Oswald's head on the two negatives. Also, someone who took Oswald's rifle from his garage and his pistol from his room, taking several bullets and shells with the pistol, fired three shells and one bullet through the rifle, and planted the rifle and rifle shells on the sixth floor of the TSBD and a rifle bullet at Parkland Hospital. The pistol shells were given to William Seymour for planting later on. The photographers also planted photos of General Walker's house and driveway to implicate Oswald in the Walker shooting.
Dallas Policemen Involved
The policemen involved were J. D. Tippit, who was to drive two of the assassins, Seymour and his radio man, away in his police car; Bill Alexander; Jerry Hill; Sergeant McDonald; Lieutenant Montgomery; Lieutenant Johnson; and Lieutenant Batchelor, who escorted Jack Ruby into the jail to murder Oswald. McDonald was assigned to kill Oswald upon his arrest in the Texas Theatre. Jerry Hill was involved in that event as well as in the planting of evidence against Oswald in the TSBD Building. Montgomery and Johnson were involved in planting the paper bag as evidence against Oswald. Alexander and Batchelor were primarily responsible for making sure that Jack Ruby assassinated Oswald and that he didn't talk about it afterward. Alexander was present on every occasion when Ruby was questioned or interviewed in the jail, in spite of Ruby's efforts to have him removed.
Other Persons Involved in Framing Oswald
Also involved in framing Oswald were Marina Oswald; her lawyer, James Martin; and someone in the Dallas police force. She was talked into three points of false testimony: she said she took the two fake photos of Oswald with a camera she claimed was his. She fabricated, or was handed, the false story about Oswald's attempt to shoot General Walker and taking two pictures of Walker's house with the same camera. (Oswald did neither.) She told a false story about a falling out she and Oswald supposedly had and exaggerated his mean treatment of their children. There are good indications that these moves were made by the CIA operatives in the group who threatened to send Marina back to Russia. (Marina's uncle was a high-level officer in the KGB.)
Dealey Plaza
On the day of the assassination four men with rifles, accompanied by their radio men and several other team members, moved into Dealey Plaza. Seymour and a radio man entered the TSBD Building through the freight entrance and worked their way to the roof. Santana and Braden went into the Dal Tex building through the freight entrance on Houston St. and up a back staircase to the second floor. Lawrence, Frenchy, Crisman and the tall tramp took up two positions on the grassy knoll. Lawrence was inside the westernmost cupola after parking his car in the parking lot behind the knoll. Frenchy, Crisman and the tall tramp were near the fence. Jim Hicks was in the Adolphus Hotel a few blocks away, testing the two-way radio communication with the four radio men, until he proceeded to the Plaza and mingled with a large crowd (near the corner of Houston and Elm Streets). The umbrella man stood near the Stemmons Freeway sign on Elm Street accompanied by his radio man. The other team members stationed themselves in the crowd (along Elm Street). After the shots were fired, they circulated through the crowd in front of the TSBD on Elm Street, on the grassy knoll, and behind the TSBD Building, identifying themselves as Secret Service agents and asking witnesses and officials questions to find out whether the assassins had been detected. There are clear photos of one of these men. One other man was at the corner of the wall on the grassy knoll.
The Shots
Upon a visual and oral signal from the man at the wall and upon a radio command from Hicks, the team fired its first round of shots. Crisman received the command from Hicks and caused Frenchy to fire a shot from a position behind the fence on the knoll, about twenty feet west of the corner of the fence. This shot missed. The umbrella man fired a shot using his small-bore umbrella gun. When this shot struck JFK in the throat, the dart paralyzed JFK and later presented by Commander Humes to the FBI.[2] The shot was fired at Zapruder frame 189: JFK was behind a large oak tree, hidden from the sixth floor window of the TSBD Building. On command from Braden, Emilio Santana fired his first shot two seconds later from the second floor window of the Dal Tex building at Z 225 after JFK came out from behind the sign in Zapruder's film. The shot struck JFK in the back about 5 3/4" down from the collar line, penetrated to a depth of about two inches and stopped. The bullet fell out of JFK's back somewhere in or at the Parkland Hospital, or perhaps travelled down inside the body of the President, and was never recovered. William Seymour fired his shot from the west end of the TSBD Building upon command from his radio man between Z 230 and Z 237, after Santana's shot. He used a Mauser rifle with no telescopic sight. While he was aiming at JFK, he fired high and to the right, hitting John Connally in the back. The bullet travelled through Connally's chest and then entered his left thigh. The bullet fell out of his thigh in or near Parkland Hospital and was never recovered. Governor Connally's wrist was not hit at that time. Jack Lawrence did not fire a shot in the first round because from his cupola position he did not have a clear shot. Hicks gave a second radio command for another round of shots as JFK passed the Stemmons Freeway sign. Emilio Santana fired his second shot between Z 265 and Z 275. The bullet narrowly missed JFK, passed over the top of his head and over the top of the limousine's windshield. It travelled on to strike the south curb of Main Street, breaking off a piece of concrete which flew up and hit James Tague. The bullet either disintegrated or flew into the area beyond the overpass. It was not found. William Seymour may have fired a second shot which may have struck JFK in the upper right part of his head at Z 312. That bullet disintegrated. Upon command from his radio man, Jack Lawrence fired his first shot from a pedestal on the west side of the south entrance to the western cupola on the grassy knoll. The shot may have hit Connally's wrist. Frenchy fired the fatal shot through the trees from his position behind the fence. The Lawrence shot or possibly the second Seymour shot produced a bullet fragment that passed through Connally's right wrist at Z 313. At that time his wrist was elevated and nearly directly in front of JFK's head, in such a position that Connally's right palm was facing JFK as the governor fell into his wife's arms. The fragment entered the front of his wrist and exited from the back.
Oswald's Actions
Lee Harvey Oswald started November 22, 1963 with the knowledge that there might be an attempt on JFK's life during the day. He had reported this possibility to the FBI in his informer's role five days earlier; he undoubtedly thought the FBI and Secret Service would be protecting the President. His communications with the assassination team had prepared him to meet with them in the Texas Theatre if anything happened that day. There is also a possibility he received a telephone call immediately after the shots, telling him to go to the theatre. He had gone to his and Marina's rooms in Irving to pick up curtain rods for his bare windows in his Oak Cliff room. He carried the curtain rods in a paper bag on his way to work that morning with Wesley Frazier. He worked on the sixth floor of the TSBD as well as on the other floors that morning. He helped a crew of men lay a new floor on the sixth floor, move a large number of book cartons and school supplies over to the eastern side of the floor, including some cartons near the southeastern window that faced Elm Street. Oswald went to the first floor of the building at approximately 12:15 p.m. and returned to the second floor lunchroom just before 12:30. He was drinking a coke there at 12:31 when Officer Baker and Mr. Truly, the building manager, encountered him while rushing up the stairs from the first floor. At the sight of Baker's gun drawn and seeing the commotion outside, he no doubt realized what had happened.[3] He immediately left the building via the freight platform entrance on the northeast side and travelled to his rooming house via bus and taxi. He picked up his pistol there and went directly to the Texas Theater where he met two of the assassination team and was sitting with them in the theatre when the police arrived. One of these men may have been William Seymour. The Dallas police members of the team planned to shoot Oswald in the theatre while arresting him. When he was arrested he did not realize at first that he had been framed. When this began to become clear to him on Saturday, November 23, he remained confident that the FBI would get him out of the situation. After all, he worked for them!
Jack Ruby
Jack Ruby, in addition to his Mafia involvements and other criminal activities, was also running guns to Cuba and carrying payoff money to other anti-Castro groups on behalf of various CIA- backed projects. His involvement in the assassination of JFK appears to have been minor, even though he knew about it in advance. In his night club Ruby met on several occasions with Clay Shaw, David Ferrie, and William Seymour. The group decided to assassinate Oswald in jail after the police failed to kill him in the Texas Theatre. Alexander made arrangements to have Batchelor escort Ruby into the jail when it was known Oswald was being moved. They arranged an audible signal (an auto horn) to let Batchelor and Ruby know when Oswald was coming down an elevator into the garage. They came down an elevator opposite the one carrying Oswald. Clay Shaw gave Ruby his instructions to shoot Oswald through Breck Wall. Shaw telephoned Wall from San Francisco and Wall called Ruby. He was told it was an official CIA-sponsored act, in the best interests of the United States, and that he would be out of jail in a few days after his capture.
Planted Evidence
The planting of the evidence against Oswald first began with William Seymour, who used Oswald's identity during September and October, 1963. Next, the faked photographs of Oswald were created. Two of the team members used a camera of their own to take the two pictures of General Walker's house and the two shots of one of the men supposedly in Oswald's back yard. They planted the pictures in Oswald's garage. Next, they stole Oswald's rifle from the garage prior to November 22, fired several shots from it, and preserved three shells, one bullet, and several bullet fragments. They planted the rifle, the three shells, the bullet (399) and the bullet fragments in the TSBD, the hospital and the JFK limousine on November 22. They also took Oswald's pistol at some time prior to November 22, fired several shots from it and saved the shells. William Seymour, after shooting policeman Tippit, ran away in such a manner as to attract attention, throwing the shells from Oswald's gun into the air as he ran so that witnesses would see them. (The shells matched Oswald's pistol. None of the bullets matched.) All of the work with Oswald's rifle, pistol, and the fake photos was probably done at the same time. The rifle, pistol and Communist newspapers had to be available together for the backyard photos. The faking of the photographs, the firing of rifle and pistol, the retrieval of the shells from rifle and pistol and of bullet 399 and the bullet fragments from the rifle all required enough time that the event occurred well in advance of the assassination .
Escape Plans
As mentioned before, plans were made for the team to escape by car, train, and airplane. Evidence shows:
1. A white car was parked straddling a log barrier behind the western cupola on the grassy knoll. It left that spot one minute after the shots were fired and drove eastward on the Elm Street extension in front of the TSBD.
2. A white station wagon driving west on Elm Street stopped at the foot of the grassy knoll at 12:40 p.m., ten minutes after the shots were fired. It picked up a man who looked like Oswald and drove under the triple overpass.
3. A railroad train carrying three "tramps" began to leave the freight train area west and north of the TSBD at around one o'clock, thirty minutes after the shots. The train was under the tower control of Lee Bowers and was stopped by him. The tramps were arrested.
4. A police car stopped in front of Oswald's rooming house and honked twice around 1:10 p.m.
5. Policeman Tippit's patrol car was far out of position in the Oak Cliff area near Ruby and Oswald's rooming houses. Tippit was shot by two men, one of whom was Billy Seymour.
6. A small airplane was sitting at the Redbird Airport, a location in the same direction as Oak Cliff, a little further out from Dealey Plaza. Its engines were running. It was ready for takeoff at 1 p.m.
7. David Ferrie went to Houston, Texas on the afternoon of November 22, driving at high speed through bad thunderstorms to get there. He was positioned at a pay telephone at an ice skating rink near the Houston airport, until receiving a phone call there. After that he returned to New Orleans.
Escape Routes
These escape plans were modified after the assassination. It became unnecessary for any of the Dealey Plaza participants to escape by airplane. The framing of Oswald and the failure of the Secret Service or FBI to detect any of the escaping gunmen or their assistants permitted these changes. One of the men in the Dealey Plaza--probably pretending to be a Secret Service agent--reported an "all clear" situation to Shaw in San Francisco. Shaw notified Ferrie that they didn't need an airplane to escape with while Ferrie was waiting in Houston. Ferrie changed his plans and drove back to New Orleans. The gunmen who did escape followed these routes: Jack Lawrence got into his car parked behind the cupola and either drove or was driven back to his cover job location at the automobile agency. He left almost immediately afterward and travelled to North Carolina. Frenchy ran back to the freight car area and climbed into one of the box cars sitting on a siding northwest of the TSBD. He was arrested at 1 p.m. by Officers Harkness, Bass and Wise, but was released by Sheriff Elkins later in the afternoon. Santana walked out the back entrance of the Dal Tex building and may have joined Seymour in a white station wagon on Elm Street at 12:40 p.m. Seymour left the roof of the TSBD via a back stairway, exited from the freight entrance in the rear of the building, and walked on Houston Street past the Elm Street extension. He walked down the grassy knoll to Elm Street where he was picked up at 12:40 p.m. by the white station wagon. The other Dealey Plaza participants, Crisman, a tall tramp, Braden and Hicks escaped by various means. Braden was arrested and released. Hicks drove home. Crisman and the tall tramp followed Frenchy's route into the box cars.
Tippit Shooting
David Belin of the Warren and Rockefeller Commission is fond of saying, "Lee Harvey Oswald killed policeman Tippit. Since the case against Oswald for the Tippit slaying is so strong, it follows that Oswald also shot the President." The case against Oswald in the Tippit murder is as weak as the case against him in the JFK assassination. The most important evidence showing that Seymour and another one of the assassination team shot Tippit is the fact that six witnesses, ignored by the Warren Commission, saw two men shoot Tippit. One of them resembled Oswald. They ran away from the scene in opposite directions. Seymour ran toward the Texas Theater, throwing the planted shells up in the air so that witnesses would see and recover them. (This act would convince most people that Oswald did not shoot Tippit.) The other assassin ran in the opposite direction. There is some indication that Seymour entered the theater in a manner to draw attention and then left before the Oswald arrest. While the shells recovered were found to match Oswald's pistol, none of the bullets recovered from Tippit's body matched.
Comments and Congressional Actions Needed
The above scenario comes much closer to explaining what happened to John Kennedy than either the Warren Commission Report or the Rockefeller Commission report. It matches the known evidence from the two prime sources, the Warren Commission files in the National Archives, and the evidence produced by the Garrison investigation (most of which was turned over the the Committee to Investigate Assassinations, Washington, D.C.). However, without subpoena power, and with extremely limited resources, no group of citizens such as the Committee or Mark Lane's Citizens Commission can determine the ultimate truth about the assassination. Only a properly constituted Congressional committee or group with resources and subpoena power, and with the power and courage to combat the Power Control Group involved in the assassination and its cover-up, whoever they may be, can reach the truth. This chapter has been prepared as a guideline for such a committee, rather than as the ultimate solution. It should be utilized in conjunction with two other documents already submitted to the four Congressional groups interested in the case. The groups are:
(1) The Senate;
(2) The House Special Committee on Intelligence;
(3) Thomas Downing, Representative from Virginia, who introduced House Resolution 498 to reopen the JFK assassination investigation;
(4) Henry Gonzalez, Representative from Texas, who introduced House Resolution 204 to reopen the assassination inquiries on John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and George Wallace.
The Two Documents
1. "Recommendations for the Senate and House Committee's Investigations of Illegal and Subversive Domestic Activities of the CIA and FBI," memorandum by Richard E. Sprague (submitted to them). 2. "The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: the Involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Plans and the Cover-Up," by Richard E. Sprague, in "People and the Pursuit of Truth," May, 1975.
Dramatis Personae
Bill Alexander - Assistant to District Attorney Wade, Dallas County. Ronald Augustinovich - CIA agent. Participated in Mexico City meetings. Officer Marion Baker- Dallas motorcycle police officer entering Texas School Book Depository after shots. Guy Banister - Head of clandestine CIA station in New Orleans - ran Banister Detective Agency. Front for anti-Castro Cuban groups. Former FBI agent and member of New Orleans police. Died of "heart attack" June 1964. David Ferrie worked for him. Oswald used his office and address. Officer Billy Bass - Dallas police officer; arrested "tramps" in Dealey Plaza. Lt. Batchelor - Dallas police lieutenant. David Belin - Warren Commission lawyer. Major L. M. Bloomfield - Resident of Montreal, Canada. Member of board of Centro Mondiale Commerciale, CIA front-organization in Rome. Visited by Ferrie and Shaw in fall 1963. John Howard Bowen - CIA agent. Alias Albert Osborne. Long clandestine record. On bus to Mexico with Oswald. Participated in Mexico City meetings. Lee Bowers - Railroad tower control operator, Dealey Plaza. Died in curious accident. Jim Braden - Alias Eugene Hale Brading. Mafia hoodlum and CIA contract agent. Acted as radio man in Dealey Plaza. CIA - Central Intelligence Agency. Fred Lee Crisman - OSS and CIA domestic agent from Tacoma, Washington. Participated with Frenchy and others as radio man in Dealey Plaza. Harry Dean - CIA operative in Mexico City. Jean DeMenil - Louisiana and Texas industrialist. Johnny Mitchell Deveraux - CIA agent, Mexico City. May have impersonated Oswald in Mexico. Sheriff Harold Elkins - Dallas County Deputy Chief. FBI - Federal Bureau of Investigation, then headed by J. Edgar Hoover. David Ferrie - Resident of New Orleans French Quarter. Pilot for Eastern Airlines. Bay of Pigs, CIA contractor for pilot training and clandestine flights. Associate of Clay Shaw, Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby; murdered Feb. 1967; death termed "suicide" by officials. "Frenchy" - Real name(s) not yet determined. French Canadian adventurer. CIA contract agent. Training for second invasion of Cuba in Florida Keys. Knew Howard, Hall, Seymour, Hemming, and Santana. Fired shots. Also involved in King assassination. Guy Gabaldin - Former OSS operative and CIA agent in Mexico City. Movie made about his World War II exploits, Jeffrey Hunter played Gabaldin role. Assassination planning done in his Mexico City apartment. Loran Hall - Anti-Castro adventurer from southern California. One of three men who visited Sylvia Odio and said JFK would be assassinated. Close friend of Lawrence Howard, William Seymour and other no-name key adventurers. Raising funds for them in 1963. Sgt. Harkness - Dallas police sergeant. Richard Helms - Deputy Director - Plans, CIA, in 1963. Jerry Patrick Hemming - CIA agent and trainer of mercenaries at no-name key. Jim Hicks - Radio specialist from Dallas. Was radio communications coordinator in Dealey Plaza. Placed in mental hospital run by the military. Jerry Hill - Police sergeant, Dallas. Mary Hope - Friend of Augustinovich. Participated in Mexico City meetings on the assassination. Lawrence Howard - Anti-Castro adventurer. No-name key group. Friend of Loran Hall and William Seymour. Visited Sylvia Odio. Kept no-name key photo album. Provided Garrison with pictures. E. Howard Hunt - CIA agent. Acting station chief CIA clandestine station in Mexico City in 1963. Lt. Johnson - Dallas police lieutenant. Jack Lawrence - Resident of West Virginia and southern California. Minuteman and adventurer. Fired shots. James Martin - Marina Oswald's business manager. Sgt. McDonald - Police sergeant, Dallas. Lt. Montgomery - Dallas police lieutenant; helped frame Oswald . Clint Murchison - Texas oil millionaire. Richard Case Nagell - CIA operative in Mexico City; testified before Congressional Committees. OSS - Office of Strategic Services. Lee Harvey Oswald - Dallas and New Orleans resident. CIA and FBI agent and informer. Patsy in assassination. Marina Oswald - Wife of Lee Harvey Oswald. Helped to frame her husband. Sid Richardson - Texas oil millionaire. Jack Ruby - Mafia connections. Anti-Castro CIA contracts. Owner of Dallas night club. Recruited to shoot Oswald. Emilio Santana - Cuban adventurer. Anti-Castro, in no-name key group. Was in Dealey Plaza firing shots. William Seymour - Mexican-American adventurer and hired killer. On no-name key training for second invasion of Cuba in 1963. Impersonated Lee Harvey Oswald and resembled Oswald. Fired shots in Dealey Plaza. Killed Officer Tippit. Clay Shaw - New Orleans French Quarter resident. Manager International Trade Mart, CIA contract agent, member board of directors of CIA organization, Centro Mondiale Commericale. Murdered in 1974. Living double life as Clay Bertrand, friend of David Ferrie. Sergio Arcacha Smith - Anti-Castro Cuban. Devoted to overthrowing Castro. CIA contract agent. Close to Guy Banister, Ferrie, and New Orleans CIA operations. Fled to Texas, escaped Garrison subpoena. Protected by Governor John Connally from extradition. Carlos Prio Socarras - Former premier of Cuba. Violent Anti-Castro millionaire. Backed Cuban invasion plans and CIA efforts. Lived in Miami area. Murdered in 1977. James Tague - Spectator in Dealey Plaza, hit by piece of curbing thrown up by bullet striking near him. J. D. Tippit - Dallas policeman, shot on November 22, 1963. Co- conspirator in assassination, Mafia and CIA functionary. Tammie True - Owner of CIA safe house in Dallas. Roy Truly - Manager of Texas School Book Depository. TSBD - Texas School Book Depository Building in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, from which Oswald was supposed to have fired shots at President John F. Kennedy. General Walker - Right-wing former Army General. Resident of Dallas. Supposedly shot at by Oswald. Breck Wall - Friend of Clay Shaw and Jack Ruby. Marvin Wise - Dallas police officer, arrested "tramps" in Dealey Plaza.
____________________
[1] For a complete listing of articles on political assassinations in the United States, published in "Computers and People" (formerly "Computers and Automation"), see the issues of "People and the Pursuit of Truth," May 1975, p. 6, and June, 1975, p. 5, published by Berkeley Enterprises, Inc., 815 Washington St., Newtonville, Mass. 02160.
[2] "1978 Los Angeles Free Press" - Special Report No 1, page 16, copy of receipt given to Commander James J. Humes MC, USN "for Missile removed on this date (Nov. 22, 1963)," signed by Francis X. O'Neill, Jr., James W. Sibert, FBI Agents.
Also "Postmortem," by Harold Weisberg, page 266, the missile receipt.
[3] As mentioned earlier, it is also possible that one of the team called him from a telephone inside the TSBD.
* * * * * * * -- daveus rattus
yer friendly neighborhood ratman
KOYAANISQATSI
ko.yaa.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi Language) n. 1. crazy life. 2. life
in turmoil. 3. life out of balance. 4. life disintegrating.
5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.
Path: ns-mx!uunet!olivea!sgigate!odin!ratmandu.esd.sgi.com!dave
From: dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
Newsgroups: alt.activism,alt.conspiracy,alt.conspiracy.jfk
Subject: "The Taking of America, 1-2-3" (3/11)
Summary: we were robbed of our capability of electing a president we wanted
Keywords: part 3 of 11: chapter 6 thru chapter 8
* * * * * * *
Chapter 6 The Assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King and Lyndon B. Johnson's Withdrawal in 1968
The Power Control Group faced several dangers in 1968. While President Johnson had cooperated fully with their desires in Viet Nam and in other parts of the world, he had not met their requirements in other areas. He had gone too far in appeasing the blacks and had shown some signs of giving in to the young people in America in early 1968. Through threats to expose his role in covering up the truth about the JFK assassination or personal threats to the safety of his family, the Group forced his withdrawal from the 1968 election race. Their plan now was to install Richard Nixon as president at all costs. Robert Kennedy and Dr. King posed real threats to this plan. Dr. King was beginning a movement in the direction of a coalition with Malcom X followers and other black militant groups. He was speaking out against the Viet Nam war. His influence might help defeat Nixon at the polls. So the Power Control Group created an environment in which he could be assassinated by his arch enemies. The FBI and J. Edgar Hoover had become a vital part of the Power Control Group by 1968. Hoover had no love for King and was harrassing him in several ways. The Power Control Group undoubtedly let Hoover know that it wouldn't be a bad idea to have King out of the way before the election campaigns really warmed up. They also passed the word along to some of the groups who were out to murder King that the crime would probably not be stopped. Fletcher Prouty has described this approach in some detail.[1] The net result of these actions was the assassination of Dr. King by a group of wealthy white bigots who employed two of the intelligence community's own expert assassins. One of these men, Frenchy, had fired shots at JFK. The other, Jack Youngblood, was a soldier of fortune and CIA contract killer. They recruited James Earl Ray and set him up as a patsy. The FBI removed King's protection in Memphis and after the assassination they took the case out of the hands of the local police to control and suppress the evidence of conspiracy. Hoover did not know exactly who was going to assassinate King or where. He did not know in advance who the patsy was supposed to be. The best evidence in support of this is that from April to June 1968 the identity of the patsy was a mystery, first unidentified, then identified as Eric Starvo Galt, then as Raymond Sneyd, and finally as James Earl Ray. If Hoover had been in on the plan, Ray's identity would probably have been revealed immediately. In fact, the scenario might have been similar to the JFK case, with Ray being killed in a shoot-out. After Ray was identified and arrested in London, Hoover and the Justice Department had to manufacture some evidence to get Ray back to the U.S. They had no qualms about bribing one witness, Charlie Stevens, to do this. They forced him to say he had seen Ray. Then a new problem arose. Ray began telling the truth to his lawyer and a writer, William Bradford Huie. He almost revealed Frenchy's true identity. The Power Control Group, led by J. Edgar Hoover, solved this problem by getting rid of Ray's lawyer, Arthur Hanes, and they hired Percy Foreman to keep Ray quiet. They also were forced to pay off or frighten off author Huie who had by then become convinced Ray was telling him the truth. Huie had found several witnesses who had seen Ray and Frenchy together. The group got Foreman to talk Ray into pleading guilty and Huie to retract his conspiracy talk and publish an article and a book claiming Ray was the lone assassin. Ever since Ray was put away for 99 years, the FBI and the Power Control Group have been hard at work covering up the truth, bribing or influencing judges who have heard Ray's appeals for a trial, publishing disinformation like Gerold Franck's book, "An American Assassin," suppressing evidence, and placing key witnesses in psychiatric wards. It is still going on. They have killed at least one reporter--Louis Lomax--who was getting too close to the truth. The local D.A., Phil Canale, was brought into the conspiracy along with Percy Foreman, Judge Battle, Fred Vinson (who extradited Ray, using Stevens' false affidavit), and local authorities who committed Grace Walden Stevens to a mental institution because she knew Charlie had been dead drunk and saw nothing. The mechanics of the assassination are as follows: Youngblood and Frenchy recruited Ray in Montreal for smuggling drugs into the U.S. from Mexico and Canada. They recruited him in the assassination plan in such a way as to make him believe they were smuggling guns to Cuba. Frenchy (Ray knew him as Raoul) set up Ray as a patsy by planting evidence with Ray's prints on it near the fake firing point. He persuaded Ray to rent a room opposite Dr. King's motel, to buy a rifle with telescopic sight, and a white Mustang, and park the Mustang outside the rooming house to wait for Frenchy to come out. Youngblood stationed himself on a grassy knoll beneath the rooming house where Frenchy was located. When King came out on his balcony, Youngblood killed him with one shot fired at an upward angle. Frenchy ran from his perch overlooking King's balcony. He made plenty of noise to attract attention, and dropped a bag full of items with Ray's prints on them in front of an amusement parlor next door to the rooming house. Frenchy must have had some anxious moments then because Ray had driven the Mustang to a gas station a few blocks away to have a low tire pumped up. Three witnesses remember his being there. When Ray returned, not yet knowing what had happened, Frenchy told him to drive away toward the edge of town where Frenchy got out of the back seat. Ray drove on to Atlanta with the intention of meeting Frenchy there. Meanwhile, Youngblood mingled with the crowd under King's balcony and then faded away. A false trail was created by another member of the team who drove away in a second white Mustang and then created a fake auto chase on the police band radio. Youngblood was tracked down by various reporters in early 1976 and began negotiating to tell his story for a very high price. Meanwhile, judge after judge and court after court keep turning down Bernard Fensterwald and James Cesar, Ray's new lawyers, who appealed for a new trial. All of the information above has been reported with factual evidence backing it up in several articles, one book, and at Ray's legal hearing for a new trial in Memphis in 1975.[2] After Dr. King was eliminated, the Power Control Group faced a much greater threat. Robert Kennedy began his quest for the presidency. There was little doubt in the minds of anyone in the Group that Kennedy would be nominated as Democratic candidate at the convention, and would have a very good chance of defeating Richard Nixon. This would be a near certainty if Eugene McCarthy decided to drop out and support Senator Kennedy. Robert Kennedy represented a double threat to the Group in that he would undoubtedly expose them after becoming president and seize control. The plan they adopted was again to create an environment in which it would be easy for an enemy like the Minutemen or the Mafia or certain local hate groups in California to assassinate RFK and get away with it by setting up another patsy. Available at the time was a CIA agent planted inside the Los Angeles police department. Strong influence was brought to bear on chief of police, Ed Davis, to remove all official protection for Senator Kennedy in the Ambassador Hotel. Arrangements were made for the Ace Guard Service to supply three extreme right wing, militant guards at the hotel to guard the Senator after his victory speech. One of these was Thane Eugene Cesar, a known Kennedy hater and friend of a group of Southern California Minutemen. He was also almost certainly a CIA contract agent or "blind" assassin. At the same time another group was recruited to hypnotize Sirhan Sirhan and to program him for firing some shots in Robert Kennedy's direction. Two hypnotists and at least three other people were involved in the framing of Sirhan. Cesar killed Robert Kennedy from behind while Sirhan was firing under hypnosis from in front of the Senator. His programmed signal was given by a girl in a polka dot dress and another young Arabic man with them in the pantry. After the crime, the FBI, the CIA agent (Manny Pena), the District Attorney's office (Evelle Younger and Joseph Busch) and the Los Angeles Police Department (Ed Davis, Robert Houghton and others), knowing the truth, all teamed up to suppress all other evidence except that which was aimed at framing Sirhan. The Power Control Group has since wielded its influence to keep the RFK case under wraps. They pushed legislation through the California legislature to lock up the evidence. They put Thomas Noguchi, the L.A. County Coroner who wouldn't keep quiet about the autopsy evidence which proved conspiracy, in an insane asylum. They arranged for the FBI report on the assassination to be classified and locked up. They killed at least one person who knew what had happened. They controlled the media on the subject, especially the "Los Angeles Times" through its owner, Norman Chandler, and his friend Evelle Younger, who became California State Attorney General. After Al Lowenstein, Jerry Brown, Paul Schrade, Vincent Bugliosi, Robert Vaughn, Tom Bradley and others began to try to expose the truth, the Group fought back by setting up their own expert ballistics panel and buying or frightening them into distorting the evidence proving there were two guns fired. The Group is certainly not through yet. More planted disinformation can be expected and more bribing of judges and expert witnesses. There may be more killings. Cesar's life and the lives of the two hypnotists won't be worth much if they ever start talking.[3]
____________________
[1] "The Fourth Force" -- L. Fletcher Prouty -- "Gallery Magazine" -- December, 1975
[2] "Frame Up: The Martin Luther King/James Earl Ray Case" -- Harold Weisberg -- E.P. Dutton -- 1971
"The Assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr." -- R.E. Sprague -- "Computers & Automation," December 1970
"The Assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. -- Parts I to II" -- Wayne Chastain -- "Computers & Automation," December 1974.
[3] Most of the above information has been published in a series of articles and in two books and one movie.
"The Assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy" -- R.E. Sprague -- "Computers & Automation" -- September 1972 and October 1970
"RFK Must Die" -- Robert Blair Kaiser -- 1970
"The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, A Searching Look at the Conspiracy and Cover-Up 1968-1978" -- William Turner and John Christian -- 1978
"The Second Gun" -- Documentary Movie -- Ted Charach -- American Films -- Beverly Hills
* * * * * * *
Chapter 7 The Control of the Kennedys - Threats & Chappaquiddick
Through the years the most common question of all has been: "If there was a conspiracy in the JFK assassination, why didn't Robert Kennedy find out about it and take some action? And if there was a conspiracy in the RFK assassination why haven't Ted Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy done something about it?" No one except the Kennedys know the answers to these questions for sure. However, there are plenty of clues and some other Power Control Group actions to provide the answers to us. First of all, thanks to Jackie Kennedy Onassis' butler in Athens, Greece, Christain Cafarakis, we know why Jackie did nothing after her husband's death. In a book published in 1972, Cafarakis tells about an investigation Jackie had conducted by a famous New York City detective agency into the assassination of JFK in 1964 and 1965.[1] It was financed by Aristotle Onassis and resulted in a report in the spring of 1965 telling who the four gunmen were and who was behind them. Jackie planned to give the report to LBJ but was stopped by a threat from the Power Control Group to kill her and her children. Ted, Bobby and other family members knew about the report and the threat. The second clue is Chappaquiddick. A careful examination of the real evidence in this event shows that Ted Kennedy was framed in the killing of Mary Joe Kopechne and then his life and his children's lives threatened if he ever told the truth about what happened. The facts in the case and the conclusions that can be drawn from them are contained in a book by Boston researcher Robert Cutler.[2] The third clue is Ted's withdrawal from the presidential race in November 1975. It is a fact that all of his and Robert's children were being protected by the Secret Service for five days in November 1975. A threat had been made against the children's lives unless he officially announced his withdrawal. He made the announcement and has stuck to it ever since. The Secret Service protection ended the day after he made the announcement. It does not seem likely that Senator Kennedy would withdraw from the race because of a threat from a lone nut or from some obscure group. He remembers the 1965 threat and Chappaquiddick very well. He knows about the Power Control Group and he knows their enormous capability. He knows what they did to his brothers. He has no choice but to hope that somehow, sometime, the Group will be exposed. But he dares not let them believe he would ever have anything to do with it. Publicly he will always have to support the Warren Commission and continue to state that he will not run for president. Privately he is forced to ask his closest friends and his relatives not to get involved with new investigations, and to help protect his children. Some of them know the truth. Others do not, and are puzzled by his behavior. They go along with it under the assumption that he has good and sufficient reasons not to open the can of worms represented by the conspiracies in his brother's deaths. The Power Control Group faced up to the Ted Kennedy and Kennedy family problem very early. They used the threat against the Kennedy children's lives very effectively between 1963 and 1968 to silence Bobby and the rest of the family and friends who knew the truth. It was necessary to assassinate Bobby in 1968 because with the power of the presidency he could have prevented the Group from harming the children. When Teddy began making moves to run for president in 1969 for the 1972 election, the Group decided to put some real action behind their threats. Killing Teddy in 1969 would have been too much. They selected a new way of eliminating him as a candidate. They framed him with the death of a young girl, and threw sexual overtones in for good measure. Here is what happened according to Cutler's analysis of the evidence. The Group hired several men and at least one woman to be at Chappaquiddick during the weekend of the yacht race and the planned party on the island. They ambushed Ted and Mary Jo after they left the cottage and knocked Ted out with blows to his head and body. They took the unconscious or semi-conscious Kennedy to Martha's Vineyard and deposited him in his hotel room. Another group took Mary Jo to the bridge in Ted's car, force fed her with a knock out potion of alcoholic beverage, placed her in the back seat, and caused the car to accelerate off the side of the bridge into the water. They broke the windows on one side of the car to insure the entry of water; then they watched the car until they were sure Mary Jo would not escape. Mary Jo actually regained consciousness and pushed her way to the top of the car (which was actually the bottom of the car--it had landed on its roof) and died from asphyxiation. The group with Teddy revived him early in the morning and let him know he had a problem. Possibly they told him that Mary Jo had been kidnapped. They told him his children would be killed if he told anyone what had happened and that he would hear from them. On Chappaquiddick, the other group made contact with Markham and Gargan, Ted's cousin and lawyer. They told both men that Mary Jo was at the bottom of the river and that Ted would have to make up a story about it, not revealing the existence of the group. One of the men resembled Ted and his voice sounded something like Ted's. Markham and Gargan were instructed to go the the Vineyard on the morning ferry, tell Ted where Mary Jo was, and come back to the island to wait for a phone call at a pay station near the ferry on the Chappaquiddick side. The two men did as they were told and Ted found out what had happened to Mary Jo that morning. The three men returned to the pay phone and received their instructions to concoct a story about the "accident" and to report it to the police. The threat against Ted's children was repeated at that time. Ted, Markham and Gargan went right away to police chief Arena's office on the Vineyard where Ted reported the so-called "accident." Almost at the same time scuba diver John Farror was pulling Mary Jo out of the water, since two boys who had gone fishing earlier that morning had spotted the car and reported it. Ted called together a small coterie of friends and advisors including family lawyer Burke Marshall, Robert MacNamara, Ted Sorenson, and others. They met on Squaw Island near the Kennedy compound at Hyannisport for three days. At the end of that time they had manufactured the story which Ted told on TV, and later at the inquest. Bob Cutler calls the story, "the shroud." Even the most cursory examination of the story shows it was full of holes and an impossible explanation of what happened. Ted's claim that he made the wrong turn down the dirt road toward the bridge by mistake is an obvious lie. His claim that he swam the channel back to Martha's Vineyard is not believable. His description of how he got out of the car under water and then dove down to try to rescue Mary Jo is impossible. Markham and Gargan's claims that they kept diving after Mary Jo are also unbelievable. The evidence for the Cutler scenario is substantial. It begins with the marks on the bridge and the position of the car in the water. The marks show that the car was standing still on the bridge and then accelerated off the edge, moving at a much higher speed than Kennedy claimed. The distance the car travelled in the air also confirms this. The damage to the car on two sides and on top plus the damage to the windshield and the rear view mirror stanchion[3] prove that some of the damage had to have been inflicted before the car left the bridge. The blood on the back and on the sleeves of Mary Jo's blouse proves that a wound was inflicted before she left the bridge.[4] The alcohol in her bloodstream proves she was drugged, since all witnesses testified she never drank and did not drink that night. The fact that she was in the back seat when her body was recovered indicates that is where she was when the car hit the water. There was no way she could have dived downward against the inrushing water and moved from the front to the back seat underneath the upside-down seat back. The wounds on the back of Ted Kennedy's skull, those just above his ear and the large bump on the top indicate he was knocked out. His actions at the hotel the next morning show he was not aware of Mary Jo's death until Markham and Gargan arrived. The trip to the pay phone on Chappaquiddick can only be explained by his receiving a call there, not making one. There were plenty of pay phones in or near Ted's hotel if he needed to make a private call. The tides in the channel and the direction in which Ted claimed he swam do not match. In addition it would have been a superhuman feat to have made it across the channel (as proven by several professionals who subsequently tried it). Deputy Sheriff Christopher Look's testimony, coupled with the testimony of Ray LaRosa and two Lyons girls, proves that there were two people in Ted's car with Mary Jo at 12:45 PM. The three party members walking along the road south toward the cottage confirmed the time that Mr. Look drove by. He stopped to ask if they needed a ride. Look says that just prior to that he encountered Ted's car parked facing north at the juncture of the main road and the dirt road. It was on a short extension of the north-south section of the road junction to the north of the "T". He says he saw a man driving, a woman in the seat beside him, and what he thought was another woman lying on the back seat. He remembered a portion of the license plate which matched Ted's car, as did the description of the car. Markham, Gargan and Ted's driver's testimony show that someone they talked to in the pitch black night sounded like Ted and was about his height and build. None of the above evidence was ever explained by Ted or by anyone else at the inquest or at the hearing on the case demanded by district attorney Edward Dinis. No autopsy was ever allowed on Mary Jo's body (her family objected), and Ted made it possible to fly her body home for burial rather quickly. Kennedy haters have seized upon Chappaquiddick to enlarge the sexual image now being promoted of both Ted and Jack Kennedy. Books like "Teddy Bare" take full advantage of the situation. Just which operatives in the Power Control Group at the high levels or the lower levels were on Chappaquiddick Island? No definite evidence has surfaced as yet, except for an indication that there was at least one woman and at least three men, one of whom resembled Ted Kennedy and who sounded like him in the darkness. However, two pieces of testimony in the Watergate hearings provide significant clues as to which of the known JFK case conspirators may have been there. E. Howard Hunt told of a strange trip to Hyannisport to see a local citizen there about the Chappaquiddick incident. Hunt's cover story on this trip was that he was digging up dirt on Ted Kennedy for use in the 1972 campaign. The story does not make much sense if one questions why Hunt would have to wear a disguise, including his famous red wig, and to use a voice-alteration device to make himself sound like someone else. If, on the other hand, Hunt's purpose was to return to the scene of his crime just to make sure that no one who might have seen his group at the bridge or elsewhere would talk, then the disguise and the voice box make sense. The other important testimony came from Tony Ulasewicz who said he was ordered by the Plumbers to fly immediately to Chappaquiddick and dig up dirt on Ted. The only problem Tony has is that, according to his testimony, he arrived early on the morning of the "accident", before the whole incident had been made public. Ulasewicz is the right height and weight to resemble Kennedy and with a CIA voice-alteration device he presumably could be made to sound like him. There is a distinct possibility that Hunt and Tony were there when it happened. The threats by the Power Control Group, the frame-up at Chappaquiddick, and the murders of Jack and Bobby Kennedy cannot have failed to take their toll on all of the Kennedys. Rose, Ted, Jackie, Ethel and the other close family members must be very tired of it all by now. They can certainly not be blamed for hoping it will all go away. Investigations like those proposed by Henry Gonzalez and Thomas Downing only raised the spectre of the powerful Control Group taking revenge by kidnapping some of the seventeen children. It was no wonder that a close Kennedy friend and ally in California, Representative Burton, said that he would oppose the Downing and Gonzalez resolutions unless Ted Kennedy put his stamp of approval on them. While the sympathies of every decent American go out to them, the future of our country and the freedom of the people to control their own destiny through the election process mean more than the lives of all the Kennedys put together. If John Kennedy were alive today he would probably make the same statement. John Dean summed it up when he said to Richard Nixon as recorded on the White House tapes in 1973: "If Teddy knew the bear trap he was walking into at Chappaquiddick. . . ."[5]
____________________
[1] "The fabulous Jackie" -- Christian Cafarakis -- Productions de Paris -- 1972
[2] "You the Jury" -- Robert Cutler -- Self Published -- 1974
[3] A rope attached to the stick which held the Oldsmobile throttle wide open caught the drivers rear view mirror and tore it loose so that it was hanging by the rear bolt. There was no other mark on the left side of the car.
[4] A sliver of glass from two broken windows no doubt caused this bleeding since Mary Jo was already face down and unconscious in the rear seat. Since there was no autopsy this clean cut went unnoticed by the embalmers.
[5] On page 121, "White House Tapes," Paperback Edition, published by New York Times
* * * * * * *
Chapter 8 1972 - Muskie, Wallace and McGovern
In 1972 the Power Control Group was faced with another set of problems. Again the objective was to insure Nixon's election at all costs and to continue the cover-ups. Nixon might have made it on his own. We'll never know because the Group guaranteed his election by eliminating two strong candidates and completely swamping another with tainted leftist images and a psychiatric case for the vice presidential nominee. The impression that Nixon had in early 1972 was that he stood a good chance of losing. He imagined enemies everywhere and a press he was sure was out to get him. The Power Control Group realized this too. They began laying out a strategy that would encourage the real nuts in the Nixon administration like E. Howard Hunt, G. Gordon Liddy and Donald Segretti to eliminate any serious opposition. The dirty tricks campaign worked perfectly against the strongest early Democratic candidate, Edmund Muskie. He withdrew in tears, later to discover he had been sabotaged by Nixon, Liddy and company. George Wallace was another matter. At the time he was shot, he was drawing 18% of the vote according to the polls, and most of that was in Nixon territory. The conservative states such as Indiana were going for Wallace. He was eating into Nixon's southern strength. In April the polls showed McGovern pulling a 41%, Nixon 41% and Wallace 18%. It was going to be too close for comfort, and it might be thrown into the House - in which case Nixon would surely lose. There was the option available of eliminating George McGovern, but then the Democrats might come up with Hubert Humphrey or someone else even more dangerous than McGovern. Nixon's best chance was a head-on contest with McGovern. Wallace had to go. Once the group made that decision, the Liddy team seemed to be the obvious group to carry it out. But how could it be done this time and still fool the people? Another patsy this time? O.K., but how about having him actually kill the Governor? The answer to that was an even deeper programming job than that done on Sirhan. This time they selected a man with a lower I.Q. level who could be hypnotized to really shoot someone, realize it later, and not know that he had been programmed. He would have to be a little wacky, unlike Oswald, Ruby or Ray. Arthur Bremer was selected. The first contacts were made by people who knew both Bremer and Segretti in Milwaukee. They were members of a leftist organization planted there as provocateurs by the intelligence forces within the Power Control Group. One of them was a man named Dennis Cossini. Bremer was programmed over a period of months. He was first set to track Nixon and then Wallace. When his hand held the gun in Laurel, Maryland, it might just as well have been in the hand of Donald Segretti, E. Howard Hunt, G. Gordon Liddy, Richard Helms, or Richard Nixon. With Wallace's elimination from the race and McGovern's increasing popularity in the primaries, the only question remaining for the Power Control Group was whether McGovern had any real chance of winning. The polls all showed Wallace's vote going to Nixon and a resultant landslide victory. That, of course, is exactly what happened. It was never close enough to worry the Group very much. McGovern, on the other hand, was worried. By the time of the California primary he and his staff had learned enough about the conspiracies in the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King that they asked for increased Secret Service protection in Los Angeles. If the Power Control Group had decided to kill Mr. McGovern the Secret Service would not have been able to stop it. However, they did not, because the election was a sure thing. They did try one more dirty trick. They revealed Thomas Eagleton's psychiatric problems, which reduced McGovern's odds considerably. What evidence is there that Bremer's attempt on Wallace was a directed attempt by a conspiratorial group? Bremer himself has told his brother that others were involved and that he was paid by them. Researcher William Turner has turned up evidence in Milwaukee and surrounding towns in Wisconsin that Bremer received money from a group associated with Dennis Cossini, Donald Segretti and J. Timothy Gratz. Several other young "leftists" were seen with Bremer on several occasions in Milwaukee and on the ferry crossing at Lake Michigan. The evidence shows that Bremer had a hidden source of income. He spent several times more than he earned or saved in the year before he shot at Wallace. Bremer's appearance on TV, in court and before witnesses resembled those of a man under hypnosis.[1] There is some evidence that more than one gun may have been fired with the second gun being located in the direction opposite to Bremer. Eleven wounds in the four victims that day exceeds the number that could have been caused by the five bullets Bremer fired. There is a problem in identifying all of the bullets found as having been fired from Bremer's gun. The trajectories of the wounds seem to be from two opposite directions. All of this--the hypnotic-like trance, the possibility of two guns being fired from in front and from behind, and the immediate conclusion that Bremer acted alone--sounds very much like the arrangement made for the Robert Kennedy assassination. Another part of the evidence sounds like the King case. A lone blue Cadillac was seen speeding away from the scene of the shooting immediately afterward. It was reported on the police band radio and the police unsuccessfully chased it. The car had two men in it. The police and the FBI immediately shut off all accounts of that incident. E. Howard Hunt testified before the Ervin Committee that Charles Colson had asked him to go to Bremer's apartment in Milwaukee as soon as the news about Bremer was available at the White House. Hunt never did say why he was supposed to go. Colson then said that he didn't tell Hunt to go, but that Hunt told him he was going. Colson's theory is that Hunt was part of a CIA conspiracy to get rid of Nixon and to do other dirty tricks. Could Hunt and the Power Control Group have had in mind placing something in Bremer's apartment rather than taking something out? The "something" could have been Bremer's diary, which was later found in his car parked near the Laurel, Maryland parking lot. Hunt did not go to Milwaukee, because the FBI already had agents at the apartment. Perhaps Hunt or someone else went instead to Maryland and planted the diary in Bremer's car. One thing seems certain after a careful analysis of Bremer's diary in comparison to his grammar, spelling, etc., in his high school performances in English. Bremer didn't write the diary. Someone forged it, trying to make it sound like they thought Bremer would sound given his low I.Q. One last item would clinch the conspiracy case if it were true. A rumor spread among researchers and the media that CBS-TV had discovered Bremer and G. Gordon Liddy together on two separate occasions in TV footage of Wallace rallies. In one TV sequence they were said to be walking together toward a camera in the background. CBS completely closed the lid on the subject. The best source is obviously Bremer himself. However, no private citizen can get anywhere near him. Even if they could he might not talk if he had been programmed. Unless an expert deprogrammed him, his secret could be locked away in his brain, just like Sirhan's secret is locked within his mind.
____________________
[1] "Report of an Investigation" by William Turner for the Committee on Government Intelligence.
References:
"Bremer Wallace and Hunt", The New York Review of Books -- Gore Vidal -- December 13, 1973.
"The Wallace Shooting" -- Alan Stang -- "American Opinion" -- October, 1972.
"Why Was Wallace Shot?" -- R.F. Salant -- Self Published -- Monsey, N.Y.
"Interview With Charles Colson" -- Dick Russell -- "Argosy" -- March, 1976.
* * * * * * *
-- daveus rattus
yer friendly neighborhood ratman
KOYAANISQATSI
ko.yaa.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi Language) n. 1. crazy life. 2. life
in turmoil. 3. life out of balance. 4. life disintegrating.
5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.
From dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com Wed Jun 10 10:08:58 1992
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Date: Wed, 10 Jun 92 07:55:45 -0700
From: dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
Subject: "The Taking of America, 1-2-3" (4/11) Summary: we were robbed of our capability of electing a president we wanted Keywords: part 4 of 11: first half of chapter 9 Lines: 995
chapter 9 stands out as one of the most detailed explorations i've ever read *anywhere* concerning the media's culpability in the cover-up of the assassination of the president. the major media's collusion in covering-up the truth of the assassination is one of the most tragic *and* revealing indicators about just how far this nation has moved away from *some* kind of representative democracy to, what, totalitarian "democracy"? until we the people confront such crimes as the cover-up, perpetrated and perpetuated by "the official reality consortium," we will continue to experience an evermore expanding strangulating oligarchy and ever decreasing accountability. --ratitor
* * * * * * *
Chapter 9 Control of the Media
As mentioned in Chapter 1, one of the two clever strategies used by the Power Control Group in the taking of America has been the control of the news media. For those American citizens who steadfastly refuse to believe that all of the American establishment news media could be controlled by the CIA and its friends in the White House, the continuing support of the Warren Commission's lone assassin conclusion by virtually all of the major news media organizations in November, 1975, twelve years after the event, must have been very puzzling indeed. Since 78% of the public believe that there was a conspiracy in the case, there must be a series of questions in the minds of the most intelligent of the 78% about the media's position on the subject.[1] This Chapter is intended to enlighten readers and to remind them of the control exercised by the intelligence community and the White House over the 15 organizations from whom the public gets the vast majority of its news and opinions. Let's begin with 1968-1969. By 1973 the American public had begun to develop a skepticism toward information they received on television or radio. Various news stories appearing in our national news media through those years had brought about this attitude. Some examples are: the Songmy-Mylai incident, the Pueblo story, the murder of Black Panther Fred Hampton, the Pentagon Papers, the Clifford Irving hoax, the Bangladesh tragedy and the India-Pakistan war, Hoover & FBI antics, the Jack Anderson papers, and IT&T and the Republican National Convention. The general reaction was bound to be, "Don't believe everything you read, see or hear, especially the first time around, and more especially if the story comes from Washington." In the case of the Pentagon Papers, things we all had taken as gospel for nearly two decades suddenly seemed to crumble. To what extent can the national news media be held responsible for this situation? What has happened to the inquiring reporter and the crusading editor who are both searching for and printing the truth? If a government or a president lies or keeps secrets, can the American news media really find out about it? And if they do, what moral, ethical, political or other criteria should they use in uncovering the lies and presenting them to the public? Vice President Agnew would have said, "The press is already going too far." Members of the press would have said, "We must remain independent and maintain the freedom of speech." Just how independent is the news media? Is it controlled to some extent by Washington? The answer to some of these questions can be found by taking an inside look at the major national news media organizations during 1968 and 1969 and how they treated the most controversial news subject since World War II. The assassination of John F. Kennedy and its aftermath is an all-pervading, endless topic. It has yet to reach the Pentagon Papers, Anderston papers, or Mylai stage of revelation. Precisely because it is still such a controversial subject, verboten for discussion among all major news media (unless the discussant supports the Warren Commission), it serves as an excellent case study. A categorical statement can be made that management and editorial policy, measured by what is printed and broadcast in all major American news media organizations, supports the findings of the Warren Commission. This has been true since 1969, but it was not true between 1964 and 1969. Of significance in this analysis and what it implies about the American public's knowledge about the assassination and its aftermath is a definition of "major American national news media." It can be demonstrated that an overwhelming mass of news information reaching the eyes and ears of Americans comes from about fifteen organizations. They are, in general order of significance: NBC-TV & Radio CBS-TV & Radio, ABC-TV & Radio, Associated Press, United Press, "Time-Life-Fortune-Sports Illustrated," McGraw Hill "Business Week," "Newsweek," "U.S. News & World Report," "New York Times" News Service, "Washington Post" News Service, Metromedia News Network, Westinghouse Radio News Network, Capital City Broadcasting Radio Network, the North American Newspaper Alliance, and the "Saturday Evening Post" (the "Post" is, of course, now defunct.) There are some subtle reasons for this, not generally appreciated by the average citizen. Television has, of course, become the primary source of information. For any nationally circulated news story, local stations rely heavily on film, videotape and written script material prepared and edited by the three networks. Once in a while Metromedia may also send out TV material. In effect, this means that editorial content for a vast majority of the television information seen by American citizens everywhere originates not only with three or four organizations but also with a very small number of producers, editors and commentators in those networks. A large majority of any national news items printed by local newspapers originates in a small number of press-wire services. AP and UP dominate this area, with selected chains of papers subscribing to a lesser extent to new services of the "New York Times," "Washington Post," North American Newspaper Alliance, and a very small percentage receiving information from papers in Los Angeles, Chicago and St. Louis. In a national news story of major significance such as the assassination of John Kennedy, the smaller local papers rely almost exclusively on their affiliated news services. Economic reasons dictate this situation. The small paper can't afford to have reporters everywhere. The major newspapers might send a man to Dallas for a few days to cover the assassination, or they might send a man to New Orleans to cover the Clay Shaw trial. But even the major papers can't afford to cover every part of a continuing story anywhere around the world. So they too rely on UP and AP for much of their material. They also rely on AP, UP and Black Star[2] for most of their photographic material. In the case of news magazines, the holding corporations become important in forming editorial policy in a situation as controversial as the assassination of JFK. Time Inc. and "Life," "Newsweek" and the "Washington Post," "U.S. News," and McGraw Hill managements all became involved. Fifteen organizations is a surprisingly small number, and one is led to conjecture about how easy or difficult it might be to control or dictate editorial policy for all of them or some appreciable majority of them. An article in "Computers and Automation"[3] reprinted a statement by John R. Rarick, Louisiana Congressman and an entry made in the "Congressional Record" bearing on this subject. In the reprint, the "Government Employees Exchange" publication is quoted as stating that the CIA New Team used secret cooperating and liaison groups after the Bay of Pigs in the large foundations, banks and newspapers to change U.S. domestic and foreign relations through the infiltration of these organizations. The coordinating role at "The New York Times" was in the custody of Harding Bancroft, Executive Vice President. A useful analysis consists of examining what happened organizationally and editorially inside each of the fifteen companies following the assassination of President Kennedy. My personal knowledge, plus information available from a few sources connected with the major news media, permits such an analysis to be made for eleven of the fifteen. They are: NBC, CBS, ABC, Time- Life, "The New York Times," "Newsweek," Associated Press, United Press, "Saturday Evening Post," Capital City Broadcasting, and North American Newspaper Alliance. In addition, the performance of nine local newspapers and TV stations directly involved in the events in Dallas and New Orleans will be analyzed. These include: "Dallas Times Herald," "Dallas Morning News," Fort Worth "Star Telegram," Dallas CBS-Affiliate WBAP, "New Orleans Times Picayune," "New Orleans Times Herald," and New Orleans NBC-Affiliate WDSU-TV. Most of these organizations had reporters and photographers in Dallas at the time of the assassination or within a few hours thereafter. Most of them had direct coverage available when Jim Garrison's investigation broke into the news in 1967 and during the trial of Clay Shaw in New Orleans in 1969. For many of them the Shaw trial became the running point in the changing of editorial policy toward the assassination. For a few, the Garrison investigation and the Shaw trial took on the aspect of waving a red flag in front of a bull. They became directly involved in a negative way and thus not only reported the news, but also biased it. Immediately following the assassination the media reported nearly everything that had obviously happened. All was confused for the first few days. The killing of Oswald by Ruby on live television produced even greater confusion. For one year the major media reported everything, from probable Communist conspiracies to the lone assassin theory. The media waited for the Warren Report, and when it was issued in October of 1964 many of the major media fell into line and editorially backed the Commission's findings. Some questioned the findings and continued to question them until 1968 or 1969. "The New York Times" and "Life" magazine fell into this category. But by the time the Shaw trial ended in March 1969, every one of the fifteen major news media organizations was backing the Warren Commission and they have continued to maintain this editorial position since. The situation would perhaps not be so surprising had not the internal assassination research teams in several of these organizations discovered the truth about the Kennedy killing between 1964 and 1968. These teams examined the evidence and thoroughly analyzed it. No one who has ever taken the trouble to objectively do just that has reached any conclusion other than conspiracy. In each and every case the internal findings were overruled, suppressed, locked up, edited and otherwise altered to back up the Warren Commission. Management at the highest editorial and corporate level took the action in every instance. Before drawing any further generalization about the performance of the media in the JFK case, it will be revealing to examine what happened and specifically who took what actions in the case of the eleven national organizations and the nine local ones listed earlier.
Time-Life
The Time Inc. organization let "Life Magazine" establish its editorial policy while "Time" published more or less standard "Time-Life" stories. "Life" became directly involved in the assassination action and evidence suppression from the very beginning, on November 22, 1963. "Life" purchased the famous Zapruder movie from Abraham Zapruder on the afternoon of the assassination for about $500,000. The first negative action took place when "Life" and Zapruder began telling the lie that the price was $25,000 (which Zapruder donated to the fund raised for the widow of Dallas policeman, J. D. Tippit, who had also been murdered that day). Apparently, both "Life" and Zapruder were ashamed that he profited by the event. He lived in fear that the true price would be revealed until the day he died. As many readers know, the Zapruder film (viewed in slow motion) proves there was a conspiracy because of the backward motion of the President's head immediately following the fatal shot. It proves the shot came from the grassy knoll to the right and in front of the president while Oswald's purported position was very nearly directly behind him. The film also helps establish that five, and not three shots, were fired, and that one of them could not have been fired from Oswald's supposed sniper's nest because of the large oak tree blocking his view. "Life" magazine never permitted the Zapruder film to be seen publicly and locked it up in November 1968 so that no one inside or outside "Life" could have access to it, automatically becoming an "accessory after the fact". "Life" helped protect the real assassins and committed a worse crime than the Warren Commission. In answer to those defenders of "Life" who will say, "But `Life' turned over a copy of the Zapruder film to the Warren Commission, and it is available in the National Archives," let's look at the facts. "Life" did not supply the copy of the film now resting in the Archives. That copy came from Zapruder's original to the Secret Service to the Warren Commission to the Archives. It is available for viewing by the few people fortunate enough to visit the Archives. It can not be duplicated by anyone, and copies can not be taken out of the Archives or viewed publicly in any way. The Archive management responsible for the Kennedy assassination records state that the "Life" magazine ownership of the Zapruder film is what prevents copies from being made available outside the Archives. The Warren Commission did not see the film in slow motion. Nor does the average Archives' visitor get to see it in slow motion or stop-action. Yet the most casual analysis of the film in slow motion convinces anyone to conclude there was a conspiracy. Thus "Life" magazine is an important part of the efforts to suppress evidence of conspiracy. "Life" was involved in several other ways as an accessory after the fact. The organization began its efforts to discover the truth about the assassination in 1964 when it assigned Ed Kern, an associate editor, to investigate. By the fall of 1966, Kern had become convinced that the basic evidence pointed to conspiracy. "Life" management was also apparently convinced; they published articles in November 1965 and November 1966 questioning the Warren Commission's conclusions. In the fall of 1966 "Life" transferred Richard Billings from their Miami office to headquarters in New York. His assignment was to take over the investigation of the Kennedy assassination, and to head a team of several people working full time on it. One of Dick Billings' objectives was to search for and acquire as much of the missing photographic evidence as possible. This author initiated a similar search, independent from "Life" magazine, in September 1966. As often happens, people with common objectives decided to work together. Billings and the author arrived at a tacit understanding that any JFK assassination photographs, including TV films or private movies, found by either would be brought to the other's attention. In exchange for access to "Life"'s photographic collection (including the Zapruder film and slides), the author agreed to give "Life" the results of any analyses of the photographic evidence. In cases where the author could not afford to acquire some new piece of evidence, "Life" would offer to purchase the materials from the owners and supply copies to the author. In this manner the author discovered and helped "Life" magazine acquire the largest collection of photographic evidence of the JFK assassination, outside of the author's personal collection and the collection now located at the headquarters of the Committee to Investigate Assassinations in Washington, D.C. Among the photos discovered were:
The Dorman movie Private The Wilma Bond photos Private The Robert Hughes movie Private The David Weigman TV footage NBC The Malcolm Couch TV footage ABC The Jack Beers photos "Dallas Morning News" The William Allen photos "Dallas Times Herald" The George Smith photos Ft. Worth "Star Telegram" The John Martin movie Private Hugh Betzen's photo Private
(See "Computers and Automation," May 1970)
Many of these were important in proving conspiracy and some showed pictures of the real assassins. The "Life" team headed by Billings was in the process of discovering a great deal about the conspiracy during the 1966-1968 period. While editorially not taking a strong position favoring conspiracy, "Life" did take a position that favored a new investigation by the government. This was editorially summed up in a lead cover story on the fourth anniversary of Kennedy's death in November 1967 with the title, "A Matter of Reasonable Doubt". In that issue, John Connally and his wife were shown examining the Zapruder film's frames and concluding that he had been hit much later in the film than the Warren Commission claimed. This meant that two bullets struck the two men and, by the Commission's own admission, pointed automatically to the conspiracy. The government naturally did not respond to "Life"'s suggestion for a new investigation, so nothing ever came of that editorial policy. Billings, however, continued his team's efforts and in October 1968 was preparing a comprehensive article for the November anniversary issue. The author continued to work with him and continued being given access to the photos right up to October 1968. It was at that point in time that a drastic change in management policy occurred at "Life" magazine. Dick Billings was told to stop all work on the assassination; his entire team was stopped. All of the research files, including the Zapruder film and slides and thousands of other film frames and photographs, were locked up. No one at the magazine was permitted access to these materials and no one (including the author) was ever allowed to see them again. Simultaneously, editorial and management policy toward the assassination changed to complete silence. Billings and crew were not allowed to discuss the subject at "Life," let alone work on it. In November 1968 the article Billings had been working on was turned into a non-entity. A few of the hundreds of photographs collected by the author and purchased by "Life" were published in the article, along with an innocuous commentary. Credit for discovering the photos was given to a number of people at "Life" magazine in New York and Dallas, not to the individuals who actually found them. That article, published nearly nine years ago, was the last word "Life" has ever uttered about their extensive research probe and their feelings about a conspiracy. Dick Billings moved to Washington, D.C. to become editor of the Congressional Quarterly and is a member on the board of directors of the Committee to Investigate Assassinations (CTIA). Who made the policy change decision at "Life" and why? Various high-level conspiracy enthusiasts claim that the cabal behind the assassination of the President brought extreme pressure to bear upon the owners and management of Time Inc. to silence all opposition to the Warren Commission findings. Others conclude it had something to do with the CIA's control of "Life"'s editorial policy from inside. This author takes no position on why. Dick Billings knows only that the decision was made at high levels and passed downward and that it was irrevocable. Repeated attempts by the CTIA and several independent assassination researchers to break loose the basic evidence in "Life"'s possession, such as the Zapruder film, the Hughes film, and the Mark Bell Film, met with total opposition and a stone wall. Attempts to break loose the Archives' copy of the Zapruder film or slides met the same stiff opposition. In 1971 "Life" representatives indicated they might be interested in selling rights to the Zapruder film for a sum in the neighborhood of a million dollars.
CBS
The American public is aware of the editorial policy adopted by the Columbia Broadcasting System toward the Kennedy assassination because of a special four-part series with Walter Cronkite which was broadcast on network TV in prime time in the summer of 1967.[4] That series, while taking issue with some of the work of the Warren Commission *and criticizing the Dallas police*, the FBI and the Secret Service, nevertheless backed all of the basic Warren Commission conclusions. Anyone watching the Cronkite series might have wondered why the basic evidence presented by CBS in an itemized format for each of several areas in the case, did not always seem to point to the conclusion reached at the end of each section. The conclusion always agreed with the Warren Commission's comparable conclusion. Some viewers may even have noticed Cronkite's double-take after reading through the basic evidence and then reading the phrase, "and the conclusion is!" It seemed as though he didn't believe the conclusion and hadn't seen it until he came to it in the script. Actually, that is exactly what happened. CBS management caused the entire script to be changed from one concluding conspiracy to a script supporting the Warren Commission in the last week before the first part of the series went on the air. Cronkite had not seen the entire script until the program went on. Time had not permitted changing all of the points of evidence, so in most cases they were unchanged and only the conclusion was changed. How did this come about? Who decided to change the script at the last moment and why? Again there are control theories extant, but the author's personal relationships to CBS people might help to shed a little light on the subject. The discussion with all of the CBS people always centered on evidence of conspiracy and the CBS-TV film footage taken at the assassination site. Bob Richter was the most knowledgeable of all the aforementioned people on the basic evidence and he was firmly convinced there was a conspiracy. Bernie Birnbaum was convinced that a new investigation was desirable and his wife was convinced there had been a conspiracy. Dan Rather believed there was a conspiracy and so did Wes Wise. CBS photographers Sandy Sanderson, Tom Craven, and Jim Underwood had taken movie-TV footages showing evidence of conspiracy. Craven's footage, for example, showed the assassin's get-away car driving away from the parking lot area behind the grassy knoll about one minute after the shots were fired. Sanderson filmed one of the assassins being arrested in front of the Depository building about 30 minutes after the shots. Most of this footage was either lost or locked up in the CBS archives vaults in New Jersey. Wes Wise so strongly maintained his opinion about conspiracy that he broadcast appeals for new photographic evidence over the KRLD local TV shows. This was done against the orders of Eddie Barker. Wes became Mayor of Dallas, elected in 1971 and defeated the Dallas-established oligarchy. He actually received a new piece of photographic evidence based on his TV appeal from a Dallas citizen named Bothun, who had taken a picture of the grassy knoll a few moments after the shots. The script for the Cronkite series was being edited and was going through its final preparation stages in May and early June. The author was in constant touch with Wise, Birnbaum and Richter during this period and was informed about the basic thrust of the script toward conspiracy and recommendations for a new investigation. On May 8 a dinner meeting took place at the author's New York club with Mr. and Mrs. Birnbaum. There, Mrs. Birnbaum and the author tried to convince Bernie that he should take a stronger position on a new investigation. On May 18, Bob Richter and one of Jim Garrison's investigators met in the National Archives with the author and reviewed the evidence of conspiracy. On June 2, 3 and 4 in Dallas, the author showed Bernie Birnbaum and Wes Wise a film taken by Johnny Martin that showed three of the assassins and their cohorts on the grassy knoll running toward the parking lot a few seconds after firing two shots. Wise and Birnbaum tried to interest Barker and others in taking a look at the film. On June 14 Bob Richter invited the author to meet Midgely, Lister and Wallace at CBS in New York where an interview was being taped with Jim Garrison for use in the series. At that time Garrison, Richter and the author spent some time with the producer and his assistant discussing the evidence of conspiracy. Finally, on June 20, just five days before the program was to go on the air, the author met with Richter and Dan Rather in the Washington, D.C. CBS studios. The script was reviewed by Richter and Rather in the author's presence. The gist of the conversation was that Rather and Richter agreed that the conclusions stating conspiracy had to be made even stronger than they were at that time. The day before the program was aired, Bob Richter assured the author that the theme would point to conspiracy and demand a new investigation. The author telephoned Richter immediately after the first broadcast and asked what had happened. Richter was devastated. He could not understand what had happened. From that time forward his course paralleled that of Dick Billings. He resigned from CBS in disgust and formed his own company, Richter- McBride, in New York. It was his original intent to make a film about the JFK assassination based on his own research and the films he could obtain. However, the massive suppression of the assassination, especially the suppression of the Zapruder film by Time-Life films, cancelled Richter's plans for a film. Correspondence with Cronkite and others determined that the decision to change the script, distort and hide CBS's own findings and back up the Warren Commission to the hilt came from Midgely and Lister. How much higher did the decision go? Richard Salant was head of the CBS News Division then and, of course, William C. Paley was (and still is) chairman of the board. By an odd coincidence, in a sequel to the above CBS story, the author had an opportunity to learn a little more about Mr. Paley's knowledge. Jeff Paley, William Paley's son, returned to the United States from Paris in the winter of 1967-1968, where he had been writing news stories and a news column for "L'Express" and for the North American Newspaper Alliance, a group serving small papers in the United States. Jeff had become convinced there was a conspiracy in the JFK case and came to interview Garrison and others and to do a story for French papers. (European papers and magazines always believed and still do believe in the JFK assassination conspiracy.) He met at length with Richter and the author and became quite disturbed at what CBS had done. He approached his father with the idea that CBS had been wrong in the Cronkite series and that something should be done to rectify the situation. Bill Paley told his son that he knew nothing about the details of the programs or the work lying behind the conclusions. He said Midgely had been responsible for the entire production. He told Jeff that if he could show proof that the CBS conclusions were wrong and there had been a conspiracy, that he would fire Midgely and all the rest of the team and do the whole thing all over again under new management. Needless to say, this did not happen and the mystery about where the decision to suppress the truth came from within CBS is as deep as it ever was. Since June 1967, CBS has remained editorially silent on the subject of the JFK assassination. The photographic evidence of conspiracy in their possession remains locked up and suppressed. The Craven sequence--film footage by the CBS photographer (who had been in the parade's camera car # 1) of a car driving out of the Elm Street extension (left-to right in front of the Texas School Book Depository) within 20 seconds of the assassination--was seen by the author and Jones Harris in New York, but was cut out of the film where it appeared prior to the time the author and Richter began searching for it. There is little question that CBS is an accessory after the fact. CBS edited out one other important piece of TV film. In November 1969, Walter Cronkite conducted a three-part interview with Lyndon B. Johnson at his ranch in Texas. The series was broadcast in the spring of 1970 and on the first program an announcement was made that portions of the taped interview had been deleted at Lyndon Johnson's request, "for reasons of national security." What actually happened and what Johnson had said six months earlier was made public due to a leak at CBS. The story appeared in newspapers all over the U.S. several days before the broadcast. Johnson told Cronkite that there had been a conspiracy in the assassination of President Kennedy, that Oswald was not a lone madman assassin, and that he, Johnson, had known it all along. Johnson reviewed the tapes a week or so before the program was to go on the air and then called up the CBS management, asking that his remarks be deleted. Someone at CBS who was very disturbed by this called a member of the Committee to Investigate Assassinations and told him what had been deleted. This led to the story being printed in the newspapers.
"The New York Times"
The record of the "Times" through the 1969-1971 period follows the same pattern as CBS and "Life" magazine editorial policies. The early editorials following the Warren Report supported the Commission. The "Times" cooperated by publishing much of the report in advance. In 1965, however, editorials began to appear that questioned the Commission's findings and suggested a new investigation. In 1964 the "Times" formed a research team headed by Harrison Salisbury to investigate the assassination. The team of six included Peter Khiss and Gene Roberts. Their conclusions were never made public by the "Times" but indications point to their finding evidence of conspiracy. Khiss, in particular, through the 1966-1968 period in several meetings and discussions with the author, expressed doubts about the Warren Report and questioned the lone madman assassin theme. When the Garrison investigation made the news, the "Times" began a regular campaign to undermine Garrison's case, to support the Warren Commission, and finally (during the Clay Shaw trial) to completely distort the news and the testimony presented. Martin Waldron was the reporter sending in the stories from the Shaw trial, but someone in New York edited them to completely change their content. The author saw the story written by Waldron on the first day of the trial and the final version appearing in the "Times." The two were completely different, with Waldon's original following the actual trial proceedings very closely. The author, writing under the pen name of Samuel B. Thurston, postulated the possibility that "The New York Times," on selected subjects, including the JFK assassination, was controlled by the CIA through their representative among top management, Mr. Harding Bancroft.[5] In the summer of 1968, the author discovered a remarkable similarity between the sketch of the assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King and one of the three tramps arrested in Dealey Plaza following the assassination of President Kennedy. Peter Khiss wrote a story about this and it was published by the "Times" in June, 1968. Apparently that was the final straw for the "Times" management as far as Khiss was concerned. He was not allowed to do any more research on assassinations or to discuss the subject at the "Times." As he told the author in 1969, he doesn't attend any press conferences about assassinations because he doesn't like it when people in "Times" management say, "Here comes crazy old Pete Khiss again with his conspiracy talk." The apex of "The New York Times" actions and editorial positions on the JFK assassination came in November and December 1971. They published three items supporting the Warren Commission eight years after the assassination, at a time when it seemed on the surface to be a dead issue. The first was a story about Dallas eight years later by an author from Texas who wrote his entire story as though it were an established fact that Oswald was the lone madman assassin firing three shots from the sixth floor window of the Depository building and later killing police officer Tippit. The second was an Op-Ed page guest editorial by none other than David Belin, a Warren Commission lawyer. He defended the Commission and attacked the researchers. The third was a story by Fred Graham about the findings of Dr. Lattimer, who was allowed to see the autopsy photographs and x-rays of John Kennedy. Graham actually wrote most of his story, which solidly backed up the Warren Commission due to Lattimer's claims that the autopsy materials proved no conspiracy, before Lattimer ever entered the Archives. In other words, it appears that Graham knew what Lattimer was going to find and say in advance. Either that or someone in Washington, D.C. gave someone at the "Times" orders in advance to prepare the story for the first page, upper left-hand corner, of the paper. It really didn't make any difference whether Dr. Lattimer ever saw the x-rays and photographs. The concerted campaign on the part of the "Times" management could have been timed to prevent a discovery of new evidence of conspiracy in the autopsy materials. The reason for this possibility developing in the November 1971 period is that the five-year restriction placed on the autopsy evidence by Burke Marshall, a Kennedy family lawyer, expired in November of 1971. Four well-known and highly reputable forensic pathologists, Dr. Cyril Wecht of Pittsburgh, Dr. John Nichols of the University of Kansas, Dr. Milton Helpern of New York City and Dr. John Chapman of Detroit had already asked permission to examine the x-rays and photos upon the expiration of the five-year period. All four were known to question the Warren Commission's findings. What better way to freeze them out of the Archives than to select a doctor who could be trusted to back up the Commission (Lattimer had published several articles doing just that), commission him to go into the Archives, and then persuade "The New York Times" to publish a front page story in its Sunday issue demonstrating that no one else need look at the materials because they supported the Warren Commission's findings. All attempts by researchers to convince "Times" management that the other side of the story should be told have been completely ignored. Lattimer's findings, if correct, actually prove conspiracy. The "Times" has been informed of this but they have shut off all discussion of the subject. The complete story of the complicity of the "New York Times" in the crimes to which they have become an accessory would take up an entire volume.[6]
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company became an active participant in the government's efforts to protect Clay Shaw and to ruin Jim Garrison. Two of NBC's high-level management people, Richard Townley of NBC's affiliate in New Orleans, WDSU, and Walter Sheridan, executive producer, became personally and directly involved in the Shaw trial. They were indicted by a grand jury in New Orleans for bribing witnesses, suppressing evidence and interfering with trial proceedings. NBC top-level management backed Sheridan and Townley. NBC produced a highly biased, provably dishonest program personally attacking Garrison and defending Shaw prior to the trial. Frank McGee, who acted as moderator, later had to publicly apologize for lies told on the program by two "witnesses" whom NBC paid to give statements against Garrison. The FCC ruled that NBC had to give Garrison equal time because the program was not a news program but a vendetta by NBC against Garrison. NBC did give Garrison 30 minutes (compared to their one-hour attack) to respond at a later date. Sheridan was the producer of the one-hour show. With Sheridan and Townley so deeply involved, and with such an extremely strong editorial position favoring the Justice Department, the Warren Commission, and the lone assassin stance, suspicions were raised about NBC's and RCA's independence.[7] At one point in 1967 the president of NBC, according to Walter Sheridan, helped in the bribery efforts by calling Mr. Gherlock, head of Equitable Life Insurance Company's New York office, and asked for assurance that Perry Russo, who worked for Equitable, would cooperate with NBC. NBC is also the owner of several important pieces of photographic evidence. A TV film taken by NBC photographer David Weigman was suppressed by NBC and not made available to researchers. It shows the grassy knoll in the background just a fraction of a minute after the shots. Some of the assassination participants can be seen on the knoll. Fortunately for researchers, NBC sold the Weigman film to the other networks and to the news film agencies before realizing its importance. The author was able to purchase a copy from Hearst Metrotone News. NBC's affiliate, WBAP in Fort Worth, has several important film sequences. James Darnell took several sequences on the grassy knoll and in the parking lot which should contain important evidence. Dan Owens took TV movies in and around the Depository building which should show how the snipers' nest was faked on the sixth floor, and one of the assassins in front of the building.
ABC
Of the three major television networks, ABC has remained more objective and appears to be less under the thumb of the government than the other two. For example, when NBC was busy defending the Warren Commission and Clay Shaw and attacking Jim Garrison, ABC was giving Garrison a free chance to express his views without interruption on their Sunday program, "Issues and Answers." They have never taken an editorial position one way or another on conspiracy. However, in the Robert Kennedy assassination case, the investigation was suppressed at ABC. The man heading the brief investigation was stopped and sent to Vietnam. The man at ABC who called the shots in stopping the investigation and in suppressing evidence in ABC's possession was a lawyer named Lewis Powell. The evidence owned by ABC is a video tape of the crowd in the Ambassador Hotel ballroom before, during and after the shots were fired in the kitchen. The ballroom microphones, including ABC's, picked up the sound of only three shots above the crowd noise. Since Sirhan fired eight shots, or certainly more than three, and since Los Angeles police tests proved that Sirhan's gun could not be heard in the position of the microphones in the ballroom, the ABC film and soundtrack is important evidence of three other shots. The sequence was originally included in the TV film of Robert Kennedy's 1968 campaign and assassination entitled, "The Last Journey." Following a meeting at ABC when the management learned what the film showed, the next TV broadcast of "The Last Journey" (scheduled for the following week) was cancelled without any logical explanation. The next time the film appeared on ABC (late 1971), the three-shot ballroom sequence had been cut.
United Press International
Of all the fifteen major news organizations included herein, UPI has come closest to really pursuing the truth about the JFK assassination. Yet they, too, have suppressed evidence, have not had the courage of their convictions in analyzing conspiratorial evidence, and by default have become accessories after the fact. Two different departments at UPI became involved in the photographic evidence of the JFK assassination. The regular photo news service department, which receives wire photos and negatives from many sources all over the world, accumulated a large collection of basic evidence both from UPI photographers and by purchasing wire service photos from newspapers, Black Star, AP and other sources. This department has made all of its photographs available to anyone at reasonable prices ($1.50 to $3.00 per print). UPI photographer Frank Cancellare was in the motorcade and snapped several important photographs. In addition, five other photographs at UPI, taken by three unknown photographers, are significant. All of these were purchased by the author from UPI. The other department has not been as cooperative. Within the news department at UPI, Burt Reinhardt and Rees Schonfeld have varied in their attitude and performance. UPI news purchased the commercial rights to two very important films shortly after the assassination. These were color movies taken by Orville Nix and Marie Muchmore (private citizens). Both show the fatal shot striking the President, and both show evidence of conspiracy. In the Nix film, certain frames (when enlarged) show one of the assassins on the grassy knoll with a rifle. Both movies show a puff of smoke generated by another one of the men involved in the assassination. UPI, under the direction of Burt Reinhardt, did several things with the Nix and Muchmore films. They produced a book, "Four Days," including several color frames from the movies. They made a composite movie in 35mm from the original 8mm movies. The composite used the technique of repeating a frame several times to give the appearance of slow motion or stop action during key sections of the films. Reinhardt, Schonfeld and Mr. Fox, a UPI writer, made the composite movie available to researchers at their projection studio in New York in 1964 and 1965. Fox and Schonfeld wrote an article for "Esquire" in 1965 which portrayed the Nix film as proving the conspiracy theories about assassins on the grassy knoll to be false. This was deemed necessary by UPI management because a New York researcher and a photographic expert, after seeing the Nix film at UPI, claimed it showed an assassin with a rifle standing on the hood of a car parked behind the knoll. The research team had used a few frames from the film in color transparencies and enlarged them in black and white to show the gunman. In 1964, UPI gave the Warren Commission copies of both the Nix and Muchmore films for analysis. The films were later turned over to the National Archives under a special agreement between UPI and the Archives. This agreement reminds one of the agreements between the Archives and the Kennedy family on the autopsy materials, and the obscure one between "Life" magazine, the Commission, the Secret Service and the Archives on the Zapruder film. The UPI agreement prevents anyone from obtaining copies of the Nix and Muchmore films or slides of individual frames for any purpose. The agreement is just as illegal as the other two, yet it has been just as effective in suppressing the basic evidence of conspiracy. In 1967, UPI, apparently still not sure they would not be attacked by researchers on what the Nix film revealed, employed Itek Corporation to analyze the film. (At least it would appear on the surface that UPI did the hiring.) Itek Corporation, a major defense contractor, did an excellent job of obscuring the truth. In an apparently highly scientific analysis using computer-based image enhancement, they "proved" that not only was there no gunman on the grassy knoll, but there was no person on the knoll at all during the shooting. The final Itek report was made public and highly publicized by UPI. It looked as though the UPI earlier claim of no gunman had been scientifically substantiated. As a by-product, Itek got some great publicity for their commercially available photo-computer image enhancement system. What the public did not know was that UPI gave Itek only 35mm enlarged black and white copies of selected frames from the Nix film. The great amount of detail is lost in going from 8mm color to 35mm black and white. And UPI gave Itek carefully chosen frames from the Nix film that did not show the gunman on the knoll. UPI and Itek defined "the grassy knoll" in a very limited and carefully chosen way so as to exclude five people (in addition to the fatal-shot gunman) on the knoll who appear in the Nix film as well as in every other photograph and movie taken of the knoll at the time the shots were fired.[8] In addition, man No. 2, who had ducked down behind the stone wall during the Nix film, could not be detected by Itek because they only had the Nix film. Three men standing on the steps of the knoll, and two men behind the picket fence, were completely ignored or overlooked. The author began to contact Schonfeld and Reinhardt in early 1967, viewed the two films both at UPI and in the Archives, and requested copies of the original 8mm color films or color copies of individual frames. The response to the requests were negative for more than four years. During this time, however, the author, a New York researcher, and a photographic specialist, enlarged in color the correct frames from the Nix film. The enlargements clearly show the gunman, not on top of a car but in front of a car, with his rifle poised. He is standing on a pedestal protruding from the eight-sided cupola behind the stone wall on the knoll. The car is parked behind the cupola and can be seen in several other photographs and movies. Unfortunately, UPI's agreement with the researcher prevents making public the color enlargements. UPI has consistently suppressed this evidence. In 1971, they offered to make the film available for a very large sum of money, but they have never agreed that it shows anyone on the knoll and they will not make copies available for research. The UPI editorial position (in articles, the book "Four Days," letters and news releases) has supported the Warren Commission through the years. The major difference between UPI and "Life" or CBS is that no drastic reversal of management policy took place at UPI.
AP
Associated Press became an accessory after the fact by taking an action unprecedented for a news wire service. It published a three-part report by three AP writers in 1967, completely supporting the Warren Commission. The report was transmitted by wire to all AP subscribers over a three-day period and it occupied a total of nine to ten full pages of the average newspaper. It was not news, but editorial policy and took a position supporting the Warren Commission and the official government propaganda about the assassination of John Kennedy. Most small newspapers rely on UP and AP for their news stories. The three-part AP report ran in hundreds of papers across the United States without opposition commentary. For many this was the gospel at the time. What more could the conspirators and their government protectors have asked? AP photographers were on the scene in Dallas during the assassination. James Altgens, one of AP's men assigned to Dallas, took seven important photographs in Dealey Plaza. Henry Burrows, an AP photographer from Washington, D.C., was in the motorcade and snapped two pictures. Four other AP photographers took ten important photographs. AP's photo department and Wide World Photos in New York purchased many other photographs taken in Dealey Plaza. Meyer Goldberg, manager of Wide World Photos, set a policy early in the 1966-1967 period which placed AP in the position of partially suppressing basic photographic evidence. The policy contained several parts. First, Goldberg made it extremely difficult for anyone to obtain access to the photographic evidence, particularly the negatives. Second, he set a high enough price on copies of photographs ($17.50 for one 8x10 black and white print) to freeze out all but commercially-financed interests. Third, when an original negative was discovered, the print order, when cleared by Wide World, was always cropped. (Full negative prints showing important details in the Altgens photographs were nearly impossible to purchase.) Whenever any suggestion was made to Wide World that their photographs contained basic evidence of conspiracy, Goldberg and AP management turned blue with anger and literally refused to discuss the subject or permit research in their files. Various researchers, including Josiah Thompson, Raymond Marcus and the author met this type of stiff opposition, but after many visits discovered ways around it. The staff at Wide World in charge of the photographic files was more cooperative, and at least one staff member was completely convinced there was a conspiracy in the JFK assassination. Nevertheless, the broadly announced editorial policy and stance of Associated Press between 1964 and 1972 fully supported the Warren Commission and the lone assassin fable.
"Newsweek"
"Newsweek"'s editorial policy and coverage of the assassination and its aftermath was largely the doing of one man, Hugh Aynesworth. Aynesworth was the Dallas-Houston correspondent for "Newsweek" following the assassination. He was in Dealey Plaza when Kennedy was killed, and he turned in several stories during the days and weeks following November 22, 1963. His point of view was always closely allied with that of the Dallas police, the district attorney and the FBI. He wholeheartedly supported the Warren Report. However, in May of 1967, after Garrison's investigation hit the news, Aynesworth wrote a violent attack on Garrison's investigation, and it was published in "Newsweek." Aynesworth accused Lynn Loisel, a Garrison staff member, of bribing Al Beaubolf to testify about a meeting to plot the assassination. Beaubolf later denied this accusation in a sworn affidavit and proved Aynesworth and "Newsweek" to be fabricators of information.
"Saturday Evening Post"
The position of the "Saturday Evening Post" solidified after the Garrison probe became public. It was based in large part on the reporting of one man, James Phelan. Phelan wrote a blistering article for the "Post" published on May 6, 1967. He attacked Garrison and Russo, and claimed that Russo's original statement to Assistant D.A. Andrew Sciambra differed from his later testimony. In view of the earlier editorial position of the "Post" when Lyron Land and his wife questioned the Warren Commission findings, the Phelan article came as somewhat of a surprise. In fact, the "Post" had taken a strong conspiracy stand when in 1967 it published a long article excerpted from Josiah Thompson's book, "Six Seconds in Dallas," and featured it on the magazine's cover. The Garrison investigation, however, turned the "Post" around. Phelan became directly involved in the case, and in a sense was more of an accessory than Walter Sheridan or Richard Townley. He travelled to Louisiana from Texas, spent many hours with Perry Russo and other witnesses, and generally obfuscated the Shaw trial picture. Phelan joined the efforts to persuade Russo to desert Garrison and to help destroy Garrison and his case. According to a sworn Russo statement, Phelan visited his house four times within a few weeks. Phelan told Russo he was working hand-in-hand with Townley and Sheridan, that they were in constant contact, and that they were going to destroy Garrison and the probe. Phelan warned Russo that he should abandon his position and that Russo would be the only one hurt as a result of the trial. Phelan claimed Garrison would leave Russo alone, standing in the cold. Phelan offered to hire a $200,000-a-year lawyer from New York for Russo if he would cooperate against Garrison. He asked Russo how he would feel about sending an innocent man (Clay Shaw) to the penitentiary. Phelan left New Orleans and Baton Rouge and returned to New York, only to telephone Russo several times and offer to pay Russo's plane fare to New York to meet with him and discuss going over to Clay Shaw's side. Phelan was subpoenaed by Shaw's lawyers during a hearing in 1967 because his article attacked Garrison. Sciambra welcomed the opportunity to cross-examine Phelan on the stand. He described the article as being incomplete, distorted and tantamount to lying. Sciambra said, "I guarantee that he (Phelan) will be exposed for having twisted the facts in order to build up a scoop for himself and the `Saturday Evening Post.'" Sciambra went on to say that Phelan had neglected the most important fact of all in his article. It was that Phelan had been told by Russo in Baton Rouge that Russo and Sciambra had discussed the plot dialogue (to assassinate JFK) at their initial meeting.
Capital City Broadcasting
This organization owns several radio stations in the capitol cities of various states and in Washington, D.C. Their interests in the JFK assassination increased in 1967 and 1968 when the Garrison-Shaw case made headlines. A producer at Capital City, Erik Lindquist, decided to do a series of programs designed to ferret out the truth. The author furnished various evidence for scripts to be used in the programs. After several months of work the project was cancelled, presumably by top management, and the broadcasts never took place.
North American Newspaper Alliance
This newspaper chain, with papers affiliated in small communities through the northern and eastern U.S., supported the Warren Commission findings as did all the other major newspaper services and chains. The Alliance also became involved in the Martin Luther King case and it circulated the syndicated column by the black writer and reporter, Louis Lomax, who had taken an interest in finding out what really happened in the King assassination. Lomax located a man named Stein who had taken a trip with James Earl Ray from Los Angeles to New Orleans. The two retraced the automobile trip of Ray and Stein, beginning in Los Angeles and heading through Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. They were trying to find the telephone booth from which Ray had called a friend named Raoul in New Orleans somewhere along the route. Raoul, according to Ray, was the man who actually fired the shot that killed King. Stein remembered that Ray told him he was going to meet Raoul in New Orleans and that Ray phoned Raoul at someone's office. Stein couldn't remember exactly where the phone booth was because he and Ray had been driving non-stop day and night. Lomax wrote a series of articles depicting Raoul as the killer and Ray as the patsy. He sent them to the Alliance, a column each day, from the places along the retraced trip he and Stein took. Finally, Lomax's column announced they had found the phone booth at a gas station in Texas and that he was going to obtain the phone number Ray had called in New Orleans. He presumably was planning to visit the local telephone company office the next morning and obtain the number. That was the last Lomax column ever to appear in the North American Alliance papers. He seemed to disappear completely. The readers were left hanging, not knowing whether he obtained the phone number or whether he discovered who it belonged to. The Committee to Investigate Assassinations located Lomax several months later and asked him what had happened. He said he had been told by the FBI to stop his investigation and not to publish or write any more stories about it. He said he found the phone number and where it was located in New Orleans. He gave the number to the Committee to Investigate Assassinations. He said he was afraid he would be killed and decided to stop work on the case. Whether North American Newspaper Alliance management knew about any of this remains unknown. What is known, however, is that Louis Lomax died in a very mysterious manner in 1970. He was traveling at a very high speed and was found dead in a car crash, according to the State police report. Lomax's wife says he was a very careful driver and never drove at high speeds.
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From: dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
Subject: "The Taking of America, 1-2-3" (5/11) Summary: we were robbed of our capability of electing a president we wanted Keywords: part 5 of 11: second/last half of chapter 9 Lines: 908
Dallas Newspapers
The two newspapers in Dallas, "The Times Herald" and "The Morning News," became accessories after the fact. They suppressed evidence of conspiracy and evidence concerning the Dallas police role in framing Lee Harvey Oswald. It was not immediately established that the management policy of both papers supported the official positions taken by the Dallas police and district attorney, the FBI and the Warren Commission. During the first few days immediately following the assassination, both newspapers printed anything that came along. The editions on November 22 through 25 make very interesting reading for the researcher because the stories were printed before anyone had any idea what to suppress. (For example, there are stories about other people being arrested, about other rifles being found near Dealey Plaza, and about Oswald's rifle being a Mauser and a British 303 model.) Editorial and management policy took over within a couple of weeks and the lone assassin story received all the attention from then on. The two papers have not since made any independent inquiries, have not been interested in any conspiratorial discussions, and have remained completely faithful to the official governmental position. There were some inquiring reporters around (like Ronnie Dugger, for example, or Lonnie Hudkins), but they were eventually silenced by management or the FBI and Dallas police. Photographers at the two papers left town or were frightened out of talking about the case or their photographs. Some of these photographs showed evidence of conspiracy, including pictures of three conspirators under arrest in Dealey Plaza. Other photographs proved that members of the Dallas police planted evidence in the Depository building to frame Oswald. Between the assassination and 1967, the management and owners of the "Herald" and "News" were not completely aware of the significance of some of the evidence in their files. Nor were they attempting to control their reporters and news staff. For example, Hudkins found that Oswald had been a paid informer for the FBI. He even found what his pay number had been (S172). He took the information to Waggoner Carr, Texas Attorney General, in January of 1964. Carr brought it to the attention of the Warren Commission. Hoover denied it, and the matter died in secret executive sessions of the Warren Commission. Several photographs taken by "Dallas Morning News" photographer Jack Beers proved that the police created the so-called "sniper's nest" from which Oswald allegedly fired the shots. The pictures show the positions of cartons in the sixth floor window before the police moved them. Beers's photographs also indicate that the police made the large paper bag found inside the Depository building. Beers was permitted to use his photographs commercially in a book that he published jointly with R. B. Denson, called "Destiny in Dallas." If it were not for that event, researchers would probably never have seen Beers's photographs. Once the "Morning News" editor, Mr. Krueger, discovered that the photographs demonstrated both conspiracy and the complicity of some of the Dallas police force, he locked them up. The pictures remain suppressed to this date. The "Times Herald"'s record is not much better. Through 1967 John Masiotta, the man in charge of the assassination photographs taken by William Allen, made copies available on a very limited basis. The basis in the author's case was that a total of twelve pictures out of seventy-three taken by Allen could be purchased. The author was allowed to examine 35mm contact prints (about 3/4 X 1/2 inches) of the rest, and the selection decision was extremely difficult. Three of Allen's photographs showed the "tramps" under arrest who were part of the conspiracy. In 1968 the "Times Herald" management realized the implications of some of Allen's pictures in pointing out the real assassins, and locked their files. To date they have not permitted anyone to see the photos again or to purchase copies. One photograph taken by "Dallas Times Herald" photographer Bob Jackson was so obviously in opposition to the official police position that it was suppressed by late 1966. Jackson was riding in one of the news photographer's cars in the motorcade with "Dallas Morning News" photographer, Tom Dillard. As Jackson's car approached the Depository building and travelled north on Houston Street, between Main Street and Elm Street, Jackson snapped a picture (see map in May 1970 "Computers & Automation" article). At the time, the Kennedy car was already on Elm Street and was probably close to the position where the first shot was fired. Jackson's car was eight cars behind Kennedy's (about twenty car lengths). Jackson can be seen taking this picture in the Robert Hughes film and in some of the TV footage taken by other photographers. He also testified that he took the picture. When the author asked Masiotta about the Jackson photo in early 1967, he became very flustered and claimed to know nothing about it. Jackson himself was finally located and, when asked about it, became very angry and denied taking a picture. That photograph has never been seen by anyone outside of the "Times Herald" staff. It's not difficult to speculate about what it probably showed, since the Hughes film, the Weaver photo, the Dillard photo and the Tom Alyea TV sequence all show the same thing. Jackson's photo, without doubt, showed "Oswald's window" in the Depository building empty when Oswald should have been in it--an embarrassing counterpoint to Jackson's testimony that he saw someone in that window with a rifle. If Jackson's photo (or anyone else's for that matter) showed Oswald in the sixth floor window, the whole world would have heard about it on November 22, 1963.
Fort Worth "Star Telegram"
The Fort Worth "Star Telegram" shines like a light in the Texas darkness. It made photographic evidence from five of their photographers, Joe McAulay, Harry Cabluck, Jerrold Cabluck, George Smith and William Davis available to everyone. Even though the "Telegram"'s editorial stance was eventually pro-Warren Commission, the photographers, editors and the woman who ran the photo files were all cooperative. George Smith's photos showed the three members of the assassination team under arrest. Jerrold Cabluck's aerial photos were instrumental in establishing Dealey Plaza landmarks and topography. Joe McAulay's photos of a man arrested in Ft. Worth in connection with the shooting might yet become valuable.
TV Station WFAA
The second shining light in Texas was TV station WFAA, an ABC affiliate. WFAA was very cooperative (albeit expensive) in providing copies of all their photographic evidence. TV sequences by Tom Alyea, Malcolm Couch, A. J. L'Hoste and Ron Reiland were made easily viewable and the copies made available. Much of this evidence demonstrating conspiracy was also sold to TV networks and newsreel companies.
WBAP -- Ft. Worth
The NBC affiliate in Ft. Worth, WBAP, was less cooperative. Even though public statements were made that viewing of Dan Owens and Jim Darnell's footage was possible, many roadblocks were thrown into the path of researchers. As mentioned in the section on NBC, Darnell's footage of the knoll and parking lot is very important. It has remained unavailable at WBAP.
KTTV -- Dallas
Independent TV station KTTV in Dallas also suppressed, or lost, valuable evidence of conspiracy. Don Cook's TV footage contained twelve important sequences. One is a sequence of a man being arrested in front of the Depository building at about 1:00 p.m. From other evidence it is possible to determine that the man may be William Sharp, participant in the assassination. Cook can be seen in a picture taken by Phil Willis pointing his 16mm TV film camera directly at the man from about ten feet away. Willis' photo does not show the man's face. For this reason, Cook's close-up footage is very important. In 1967 the author interviewed Cook in Dallas and found that his film had been turned over to the editor at KTTV. A phone call to the station resulted in a statement being made to the author that Cook's footage had been lost "on the cutting room floor" and was not available for viewing. No further efforts have even been made to open up KTTV's evidence in the assassination.
New Orleans Newspapers
The only two publications in the United States that printed the truth about the Clay Shaw trial were the New Orleans "Times Picayune" and the New Orleans "Times Herald." Between 1963 and 1967 both New Orleans newspapers used AP and UP stories on most of their coverage of the Kennedy assassination. Suddenly, the papers found themselves deeply involved in the middle of the sensational Garrison investigation, and in 1969 they reported on the Shaw trial. The papers took no editorial position on Jim Garrison, the trial, the investigation, the assassination, or the guilt or innocence of Shaw until after the final verdict was delivered by the jury. Then both papers savagely attacked Garrison on the editorial page. Off the record, the reporters and others at both papers supported Garrison. This was reflected in a book published by the two "Herald" reporters, Rosemary James and Jack Wardlaw, called "Plot or Politics." The management and editors of the newspapers evidently paid more attention to forces from Washington and New York than they did to New Orleans citizens or the testimony at the trial. But the verbatim proceedings at the Shaw trial, as well as all of the detailed events for the two years that the Federal Government successfully delayed the trial, were faithfully printed in both the "Herald" and the "Picayune." While you and I, dear reader, were treated to a highly biased account for three years concerning events in New Orleans by "Time" magazine, "Newsweek," "U.S. News," "The New York Times," NBC, CBS, ABC, UP, AP, etc., the average New Orleans citizen was well aware that the Justice Department, under both Ramsey Clark and John Mitchell, was responsible for continually delaying the trail. (You and I were fed the impression that Garrison delayed the trial.) Mr. New Orleans citizen, let's call him Joe, knew that Shaw's lawyers were paid by the CIA. You and I were told that Shaw paid his lawyers a lot of money and suffered financially because of it. Joe knew that the FBI was looking for Shaw under his alias, Clay Bertrand, before lawyer Dean Andrews ever mentioned the name associated with Lee Harvey Oswald just before he was killed by Jack Ruby. You and I were told that Andrews fabricated the name Clay Bertrand out of whole cloth, and no mention was made to us of the FBI's search. Joe knew that twelve people saw Clay Shaw together with Oswald and David Ferrie on many occasions, exchanging money on two occasions. You and I were led to believe by "Time" and "The New York Times" that only three people saw them together and that the three were not credible witnesses. Joe knows how Garrison was hounded and framed by the Justice Department in a fake pinball rap. More importantly, he knows the government did not want Regis Kennedy, FBI agent, and Pierre Finck, Army doctor at the JFK autopsy, to testify at the trial. Finck's testimony, however, was printed in the "Times Picayune" but not in "Time" magazine. He said that an Army general gave orders during the autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital. The unidentified general told Finck and the other doctors not to probe the President's neck wound. We did not read about this or hear about it. The "Times Picayune" record of the Shaw trial was especially accurate. The "Herald"'s record was reasonably accurate, but because the paper was printed by 3:00 p.m., the paper missed some of the longer sessions.[9]
WDSU-TV -- New Orleans
As mentioned in the section on NBC, WDSU became directly involved in the JFK assassination aftermath because of Rick Townley and Walter Sheridan. Both were under indictment by Garrison for bribing witnesses and tampering with evidence. Townley, on the staff of WDSU, was close to the action with Garrison, Shaw, Andrews, Ferrie, Perry Russo, Layton Martens, Gordon Novel, Sergio Arcacha Smith, David Lewis, David Llewelyn, Guy Banister, and many other participants in the drama. According to accounts in the New Orleans papers and repeated in Paris Flammonde's book "The Kennedy Conspiracy," Townley tried to get Perry Russo, Garrison's prime witness at the Shaw trial, to change his testimony at the upcoming trial to make it seem that Garrison had hypnotized him and then asked leading questions to get Russo to testify against Shaw. Townley went to Russo's house twice, threatened to discredit him and perhaps have him fired from his job, and offered him a chance to work closely with NBC in their efforts to "destroy Garrison and his case". Townley told Russo he could get Shaw's lawyer, F. Irving Dymond, to go easy on him if he would alter his testimony. He assured Russo that his employer, Equitable Life, had promised the president of NBC that no retaliation would be taken against Russo if he cooperated with WDSU and NBC. Walter Sheridan told Russo that NBC and WDSU could set him up in California (where Russo always wanted to live) if he helped break the Garrison probe's back. NBC would pay his expenses there, protect his job, obtain a lawyer for Russo and guarantee that Garrison would never extradite him to Louisiana. Sheridan told Russo that NBC had flown Gordon Novel out of Louisiana to McLean, Virginia (home of the CIA) and had given Novel (an important witness for Garrison's case) a lie detector test. Sheridan said NBC would make sure Novel would never be extradited to Louisiana to testify. (Novel never was extradited.) Townley also tried to influence Marlene Mancuso, former wife of Gordon Novel, and an important Shaw trial witness. He told her that she should cooperate with WDSU and NBC because Garrison was going to be destroyed and that NBC was not merely willing to discredit the probe: he said Garrison would go to jail. On July 10, 1967, Richard Townley was arrested and charged with attempted bribery and two counts of intimidating two witnesses. He was also accused of serving as an intermediary to influence cross- examining trial attorneys that the character and reputation of Perry Russo not be damaged. Sheridan was arrested on July 7 on the counts of intimidating witnesses and attempted bribery. Both posted bond. Townley's statements, however, did come true. The Federal Government, aided and abetted by WDSU and NBC, did crucify Garrison. The author's belief is that this kind of behavior in the face of all the evidence gathered by the staffs of their own organizations, on the part of 15 to 24 major news media management groups is highly suspect. It might be that each major news organization shut up about the Kennedy assassination because each was afraid of losing face or influence, FCC licenses, business or advertisers, or Government favors of one kind or another. This theory is perhaps best exemplified by a story told by Dorothy Kilgallen, before she died, to a close friend. Kilgallen was writing several articles about the JFK assassination for the newspapers who published her column. She strongly believed there had been a conspiracy that included Jack Ruby. She interviewed Ruby alone in his jail cell in Dallas (the only person outside of the police who had this opportunity). She told her friend shortly afterward that she was planning to "blow the case wide open" in her column. She said the owner of the New York newspaper where her column appeared refused to let her print stories in opposition to the Warren Commission. When the friend asked her why, Dorothy said, "He's afraid he won't be invited to White House parties any more". Of the three possible motives for suppression in the news media, the influence from the top and from high government places seems the most probable. When will we, as Americans, learn the truth about influence in the case of the Kennedy assassination?
Conclusions
The pattern of internal knowledge of conspiracy followed by the complete suppression of such information is too strong to ignore. Two conclusions suggest themselves as one reviews the evidence regarding suppression and secrecy. The first is that our national news media are controlled on the subject of the assassination by some very high level group in Washington. The orders to cease, desist, and suppress came from the top in each case. To influence the very top level of all fifteen major news media organizations would have taken a great deal more than money, power, or threats. In fact, the only kind of appeal which seems likely to have had a chance of shutting everyone up is a "highly patriotic, national security," kind of appeal. It was probably just such an argument that worked with the Warren Commission. Judging by the fact that Lyndon B. Johnson told Walter Cronkite there was a conspiracy and then successfully persuaded CBS to edit this out of his remarks "on grounds of national security," this kind of an appeal obviously does work. The second possibility, rather remote from a probability standpoint, should nevertheless be considered. It is that all 15 to 24 news organizations reached a point of exasperation and disbelief in 1968-1969. It's possible the top managers of these 24 organizations reached this exasperation point independent of one another. Within a two to three-year period, culminating in the Shaw trial and discrediting of Jim Garrison, every one of these managers might finally have said, "Stop, cease, desist, lock the files, you're fired, shut up, I don't want to hear another word about it."
1976
How, one may ask, could all of this have happened in the world's greatest democracy? What has become of the principles of the Founding Fathers, Horace Greeley, Will Rogers and others, in which the "free" press is supposedly our best protection from the misuse of governmental power. Didn't things change with Watergate? What about the "New York Times" and the "Pentagon Papers," the "Washington Post," Bernstein and Woodward, Watergate, NBC's white paper on Vietnam, Sy Hersh and the CIA stories in the "New York Times"? The actions taking place in November-December, 1975 and on into 1976, proved the media were still influenced and controlled by the same forces that controlled the media in 1968 and 1969. Some of the names of the players were different: Ford for Nixon, Colby for Helms, Kelley for J. Edgar Hoover. But the forces were the same. The chairmen of the boards and presidents of NBC, CBS, ABC, Time, Inc., "Newsweek"-"Washington Post," "Los Angeles Times," "Chicago Tribune," UPI, AP, and the rest, were still very much controlled and influenced by the White House and the Secret Team. Some of the influence was by infiltration, as Fletcher Prouty so aptly demonstrated.[10] The Secret Team members were to be found everywhere at or near the top. Other influence came from the Ford administration through direct or indirect pressure. The FCC, the IRS, the Department of Commerce, the military and other government agencies had some control over the media or the personal lives of the top managers. (It must be remembered that Gerald Ford was and is one of the cover-up conspirators in the JFK case.)
What is the Evidence?
What is the evidence for this? One measures the influence by results. In an era when all who have really examined the basic evidence know there were conspiracies in the JFK and RFK assassinations, we still find the 15 organizations concluding there were lone, demented gunmen in the two cases. For example, CBS broadcast a two-part special on November 25 and 26, 1975, once again reinforcing their stand that Oswald acted alone. Except for the substitution of Dan Rather as chief narrator in place of Walter Cronkite, the cast was the same as in the 1967 four-part series. Leslie Midgely was the producer, Bernie Birnbaum, the associate producer, and Jane Bartels, Birnbaum's girl-Friday. Eric Sevareid and Eddie Barker were missing. So was Bob Richter, another 1967 associate producer who had discovered the truth about the conspiracy and the way CBS handled it. (He now manages his own film-making company, Richter-McBride, in New York.) Richter's opinion about the 1967 CBS four-part special, as expressed in an interview with Jerry Policoff published in "New Times" magazine in October 1975,[11] barred him from becoming a consultant to Midgely on the November 25 and 26 programs.
Hard Evidence Never Mentioned
Time, Inc., in their November 17, 1975 issue supported the lone assassin myth as they have since 1964.[12] Since "Life" was no longer in existence, Time management used "Time" and "People" magazines to further the causes of the White House and the CIA in the cover-up of the cover-ups. The November 3, 1975 issue[13] of "People" magazine hand-picked a group of "researchers" and portrayed them as obvious maniacs who believed in and furthered the conspiracy theories being bandied about. One of the favorite tricks of the media throughout the years has been to couple the words "conspiracy" and "theory" together; never once did the major media mention any of the hard evidence pointing to conspiracy in any of the four major cases. The "Time" policy and article, according to Jerry Policoff, was commanded from the very top, above Hedley Donovan's level.[14] The fine hand of David Belin can be traced in the "Time" article. All of the 1964 arguments against conspiracy were aired once again, as though they were brand new.
The Forces of Good vs. the Forces of Evil:
A Life and Death Struggle
David Belin: Belin shows up in several places. He constructed a new CIA-White House base on behalf of his superiors by personally writing most of Chapter 19 of the Rockefeller Report on the CIA and the FBI. That material was used by Belin and others to try and shore up the Warren Commission defenses. The reader may ask, "Why did Belin appear on `Face the Nation' on November 23, 1975 and get himself on the front page of the `New York Times' on the same day by proposing the reopening of the JFK case?"[15] The answer lies in Belin's own explanation. He wants America to see that a new investigation will confirm the findings of the Warren Commission, thereby strengthening the country's faith in its government. Just how did Belin manage to get on "Face the Nation" and on the first page of the "New York Times?" To answer that you must analyze the life and death struggle that is going on between the forces of evil who want to continue the cover-ups, and the forces of good who want to expose the truth. Senators Richard Schweiker and Gary Hart and the Church Committee's subcommittee looking into the JFK assassination were not the push-overs that Mark Lane, Harold Weisberg and others once were. There were also Henry B. Gonzalez and Thomas Downing and their new resolutions in the House, not to mention Don Edwards' subcommittee and Bella Abzug's subcommittee. The evil forces needed to muster the strongest counterattack possible at this stage. For them it was a matter of life and death. So they rounded up David Belin, Joseph Ball, Wesley Liebeler, John J. McCloy, Dr. John Lattimer, the old Ramsey Clark panel of doctors who secretly went into the Archives in 1968, and some of the coterie of writers who were in their camp in the 1960's.
"I've Seen No New Evidence"
Any doubts about Belin's recruitment by Ford and the White House disappeared with Gerald Ford's press conference on Wednesday, November 26, 1975. A reporter asked Ford whether he would support reopening the JFK investigation.[16] He said, "I, of course, served on the Warren Commission. And I know a good deal about the hearings and the committee report, obviously. There are some new developments--not evidence--but new developments that, according to one of our best staff members (David Belin), who's kept up to date on it more than I, that he thinks just to lay those charges (of conspiracy) aside that a new investigation ought to be undertaken. He, at the same time, said that no new evidence has come up. If those particular developments could be fully investigated without reopening the whole matter that took us 10 months to conclude, I think some responsible group or organization ought to do so. But not to reopen all of the other aspects because I think they were thoroughly covered by the Warren Commission." Thus Ford, in one of his own inimitable paragraphs, tried to give the impression that he was following the lead of David Belin- -rather than the other way around--in the continued cover-up efforts. Earl Warren was always saying, "I've seen no new evidence." Ford, Belin and the rest were forced to echo this refrain, as though all of the things that have been learned since 1964 about the real assassins of John Kennedy and their planners and backers, were false rumors or stories and theories created out of whole cloth by the researchers and later by Congress.[17]
Pure Coincidence?
One CIA-White House lackey is James Phelan, formerly a freelance writer for the old "Saturday Evening Post." Phelan was brought out of mothballs to do a pro-Warren Commission piece in the "New York Times" Sunday magazine section.[18] By pure coincidence, it happened to appear on the same day that Belin's arranged interview was found on page one. The "Times" is one of the worst, if not the worst, news media organization on the evil side of the battle. An article in the July 1971 issue of "Computers and Automation"[19] shows that the CIA control of the "Times" had for years been directed through Harding Bancroft, the Secret Team member there. He controlled all stories and editorial positions on domestic assassinations. He undoubtedly arranged for both stories to appear on the same day.[20]
CBS. Cover-Up Broadcasting System
The Belin appearance on the CBS show, "Face the Nation", was no doubt timed to coincide with the first two parts of the new CBS whitewash series. (The new name for CBS is "Cover-Up Broadcasting System".) The men at the top made the decisions in 1967 and 1975 to support the Warren Commission, and Leslie Midgeley carried them out. In 1967 the entire program format was changed by top management from pro-conspiracy to pro-Warren Commission in the last ten days before the first show went on the air.[21] By 1975 there wasn't any doubt about the conclusions. Midgeley and Co. started out with the lone assassin thesis and, as the Warren Commission did, merely sought witnesses, experts and explanations that would back it up, while they totally ignored everything else. The CIA's man at CBS who controlled this policy is not known. Personal experiences and contacts within the organization by the author have led to the conclusion that it is someone below the level of William C. Paley and above the level of Midgeley. That leaves Richard Salant and one or two other possibilities. Salant is known to have had intelligence connections through the decades since World War II.
Too Perfect Timing
CBS and the "New York Times" are sometimes simultaneously orchestrated by the evil forces. One example was the CBS show preview by the "Times" on November 24 (the show was scheduled to appear on November 25 and 26).[22] The article, written by John J. O'Connor, was a reverse-psychology strategy by the top managements of both organizations and was used to reinforce their pro-Warren Commission policies. To quote O'Connor, "In bringing some facts to bear on the feverish speculation, CBS News is less sensational but more telling." This was in reference to David Susskind and Geraldo Rivera on Channel 5 in New York, and ABC, who the "Times" believed provided no facts in disputing the lone assassin conclusion. How did O'Connor and the "New York Times" take a look at the CBS shows *two days in advance* while other publications and reviewers had to wait and watch it with the rest of us? There goes the orchestration again.
"Newsweek" Editorial Position: Schweiker, Hart and Gonzalez Misled by Kooks
The "Washington Post"-"Newsweek" situation is a little more mystifying. It is difficult to believe that Katherine Graham, owner of both publications, is a Secret Team member. The "Newsweek" story on the JFK assassination, published in the issue of April 28, 1975[23] was not as blatantly pro-Warren Commission as the "Time" article. Yet it left the impression with the readers of "Newsweek" that editorial position regarded the researchers as kooks who misled or talked Senator Schweiker and Representatives Gonzalez and Downing into the wrong attitudes. "Oswald did fire the shots" is the "Newsweek" message. Individuals at "Newsweek" like Evert Clark did not really believe this. So where did the pressure come from? Mrs. Graham herself, or Benjamin Bradlee at the "Post," or someone else near the top of "Newsweek?" With reporters like Bernstein and Woodward, and Haynes Johnson who later moved into management, it is strange that the "Post" supported the Warren Commission. Yet that has been the "Post"'s editorial stance since 1964. It remains adamant in its continuing contention that lone madmen assassinated our three leaders and attempted to assassinate Wallace.
Eliminate Areas of Doubt
Researcher Jim Blickenstaff, disturbed by a "Newsweek" article in April of 1975, wrote to the editors. Madeline Edmundson replied for them. "It was certainly not our aim to discredit those who doubt the conclusions of the Warren Commission or to express opposition to a reopening of the investigation of John F. Kennedy's assassination." Yet, "Newsweek" did exactly that and, in effect, took the same editorial position it had taken in May, 1967, when CIA lackey Hugh Aynesworth was doing their dirty work. (Aynesworth later did the CIA's dirty work and supported the Warren Commission for the "Dallas Times Herald.") The new position in favor of reopening the investigation was the one taken by Belin. It was expressed best by Harrison Salisbury, the man at the "New York Times" who knew better. Salisbury was quoted in "Newsweek" saying, "A new investigation is needed to answer questions of major importance. We will go over all the areas of doubt and hope to eliminate them."
UPI: Accessory After the Fact in the JFK Conspiracy Cover-Up
AP and UPI have not repeated their 1967-1968 performances recently in which they sent out the longest stories ever broadcast over their news service wires. They were so long that they were divided into installments. The stories backed up the Warren Commission and attacked the researchers, especially Jim Garrison. UPI, of course, became an accessory after the fact in the JFK conspiracy cover-up by suppressing the original 8mm color films by Marie Muchmore and Orville Nix. It went even further by employing Itek Corporation to prove there was no one on the grassy knoll. In July of 1975 a UPI alumnus, Maurice Schonfeld, published an article in "Columbia Journalism Review"[24] that subtly contended one of the riflemen on the knoll as seen in the original Nix film was either an illusion or a man without a rifle.
"Expert" Opinions
Itek: Itek is still at work helping out their friendly employers, the U.S. government and the CIA. Itek analyzed the Zapruder film and the Hughes film on the CBS program aired in November of 1975, giving its "expert" opinion that all shots fired in Dealey Plaza came from the sixth floor window of the TSBD Building. Maurice Schonfeld, perhaps unwittingly, did a favor for researchers in his "Columbia Journalism Review" article that revealed that two officials of Itek, Howard Sprague and Franklin T. Lindsay, were CIA Secret Team members. So when Ford, Belin and Salant or whoever at CBS needed help, all they had to do was call upon good old Itek and Howard Sprague. (Frank Lindsay has since departed.)
AP: Faithful to the White House and CIA
Associated Press has been editorially silent since 1969. They have faithfully broadcast all of the White House-CIA cover or planted stories without comment.
Keeping the Lid On
"Los Angeles Times:" "The Los Angeles Times," controlled by Norman Chandler who was strongly influenced by the Ford administration, the CIA and Evelle Younger (the Attorney General of California), produced a complete cover-up effort in the Robert Kennedy assassination conspiracy. Younger, of course, was D.A. in Los Angeles County when RFK was killed. He and Ed Davis, L.A. Police Chief, teamed up with Joseph Busch, assistant D.A., to cover up the conspiracy evidence. The "Times" for a short, unguarded period allowed reporter Dave Smith to publish the truth about the assassination. This stopped in 1974, after Al Lowenstein stirred Vincent Bugliosi, Baxter Ward, Thomas Bradley, and finally Governor Pat Brown, Jr. to take a new interest in the case. Younger influenced Chandler to shut off the flow of information through the "Los Angeles Times." Chandler, who contributed to the Nixon campaign, undoubtedly was strong-armed by both Nixon and Ford (or the CIA) to support the position of the Los Angeles police and the D.A.'s office. Ronald Reagan and his immediate deputy at the time also helped sway Chandler and others in California to keep the lid on.
Zapruder Film Broadcast on Two Occasions
The American Broadcasting Corporation was the first of the television networks to seemingly break away from CIA-White House control. In the spring of 1975, after Robert Groden, Dick Gregory, Ralph Schoenman and Jerry Policoff decided to release and publicize a clear, enlarged, stop-action color copy of the Zapruder film, the ABC show hosted by Geraldo Rivera, "Good Night, America," showed the film on two occasions. Rivera might have made this move against the wishes of top ABC management. Rumor had it during the summer months that he was in hot water with high level people. All doubts about ABC's position disappeared when they broadcast an assassination special during the week of November 17, 1975 that supported the lone assassin theory.
"Conspiracy Fever"
"Commentary:" One surprising newcomer to the cover-up conspiracy group is "Commentary." The liberal, open-minded, non- government magazine "Commentary" broke their pattern in the October 1975 issue[25] when it published an article by Dr. Jacob Cohen from Brandeis University which attacked the researchers as paranoid conspiratorialists. Cohen has been writing these defenses for the Warren Commission for over ten years. This article was republished in several other places in November, 1975, as part of the orchestrated campaign by the CIA-White House.
A Straight News Story
"U.S. News and World Report:" "U.S. News" may be one of the few media publications to change positions. On September 15, 1975 they ran a story entitled, "Behind the Move to Reopen the JFK Case". It was a straight news story about Senator Schweiker's efforts and list of uncovered evidence raising new questions. The article closed with: "Numerous Americans who long have doubted the Warren Commission conclusions will be watching what the Senate does with his (Schweiker's) idea." That is as close as any of the fifteen organizations came to saying they believe the Warren Commission was wrong.
A Breath of Fresh Air
"Saturday Evening Post:" Like a breath of fresh air from the heartland of America in Indianapolis, Indiana, the revived "Saturday Evening Post" (Bobbs Merrill subsidiary) took an editorial stance. The "Post" not only published several strong articles on the assassinations but also called for reopening all of the cases, supported the Gonzalez-Downing resolutions, and offered a sizable reward for information leading to conviction of the murderers of John F. Kennedy.[26] Thus the "Post" joined the ranks of the "National Enquirer," "National Tattler," "National Insider," "Argosy," "Penthouse," "Gallery," "Genesis" and other publications of this type, plus nearly all the "underground newspapers" in calling for new investigations.
CIA Operatives Are Serving as Journalists For News Organizations Abroad
"Variety:" On November 12, 1975, "Variety" published an article on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees' suspicions about relationships between the CIA and broadcasting organizations.[27] "Variety" said the committees were probing the CIA's influence on the media organizations, particularly management connections, and commented, "A central issue in the investigations is reports of financial dealings with the CIA and media firms with extensive overseas staffs." William Colby admitted that CIA operatives were currently serving as journalists for news organizations abroad, and that "detailmen" were assigned abroad to news organizations, often without the knowledge of management. Ronald Dellums, California representative asked Colby in an open session of a House hearing if the CIA had ever asked a network to kill a news story. Colby would not answer specifics in open session, so the panel went immediately behind closed doors to grill him for several hours.
Conclusions
It is to be hoped that all committees in the House and Senate will investigate the Secret Team members in the 15 media organizations and their influence and control over editorial policies on domestic assassination conspiracies. It is also to be hoped that the committees will investigate the role of then- president Gerald Ford and his working relationship to various CIA people in the original cover-up of the John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy. Certainly, David Belin's relationship to the CIA and to Ford in the media cover-up campaign needs be investigated. Fletcher Prouty claimed in his November, 1975 article in "Gallery Magazine," "The Fourth Force,"[28] that Belin is a CIA operative. Prouty says, "The Rockefeller Commission did not look into this (the Fourth Force-CIA) because it had been penetrated on behalf of the CIA by David Belin, its chief counsel and former counsel of the Warren Commission. In fact, Belin still reports to the CIA." If this is indeed true, it explains every move Belin has made since 1964 and it also explains the mysterious way he appeared and reappeared on the front pages and editorial pages of various major newspapers, on choice television shows, and on the Rockefeller Commission. If the Congress leaves the media-government-CIA link untouched- -more serious than any of the other problems raised by the assassination conspiracies and their cover-ups--the United States might, in fact, be headed for the real 1984.
Postscript
On April 27, 1976 "The New York Times" published a story on the Senate Intelligence Committee revelation that the CIA would be keeping twenty-five journalist agents within the news media.[29] The Committee disclosed that George Bush planned to keep these people in the media positions that they had occupied for a long time. The significant point about the story was a statement by a Committee staff member that many of the individuals were in executive positions at American news organizations. Bush had directed that the CIA stop hiring correspondents "accredited" by American publications and other news organizations. The "Times" recognized that the pivotal word in Bush's directive was "accredited." "Executives who do not work as correspondents are apparently not covered by Mr. Bush's directive, nor are freelance writers who are not affiliated with a specific employer." The article also said that in most cases the media organization was not aware of the individual's CIA connection. This was yet the best confirmation that the CIA had its Secret Team members planted at the top of the media. Only one executive is required at the top of a media organization to control it when needed. Since the CIA had twenty-five executives planted, that figure is more than enough to control the fifteen media organizations mentioned in this chapter. Who are they? The answer can be supplied by watching where the decisions come from to halt or change the news about domestic political assassinations. The indications from the analysis in this chapter are that the following media executives are among the twenty-five retained by the CIA: Harding Bancroft, Jr. ("New York Times"); Richard Salant (CBS); George Love (Time, Inc./"Life"); Walter Sheridan (NBC); Lewis Powell, lawyer (ABC); and Benjamin Bradlee ("Washington Post").
____________________
[1] "Accessories After the Fact" is the title of a book by Sylvia Meagher, published by Bobbs Merrill in 1967, accusing the Warren Commission and the various government agencies of covering up the crime of the century. This book accuses the national news media of the same crimes.
[2] Black Star is a New York based organization made up of free- lance photographers, called stringers, in every major city. They do contract work for news media with Black Star acting as contracting agent.
[3] Samuel Thurston, "The Central Intelligence Agency and `The New York Times,'" "Computers and Automation," July, 1971.
[4] CBS-TV Special on the Assassination of John Kennedy -- June 25, 26, 27 and 28, 1972.
[5] "Computers and Automation," July, 1971
[6] For a more detailed analysis of the "Times"' culpability and selective bias in reporting the facts of the assassination, see Jerry Policoff's October 1972 article in "The Realist:" "How All the News About Political Assassinations In the United States Has Not Been Fit to Print in `The New York Times.'"
[7] A detailed review of NBC's performance and Walter Sheridan's and Richard Townley's involvement is given in "The Kennedy Conspiracy" by Paris Flammonde.
[8] Those interested in more detail are referred to the map in the May 1970 issue of "Computers and Automation" on the JFK assassination. The UPI definition of "the grassy knoll" was the area bounded by the picket fence, the stone wall, the top of the steps on the south, and the cupola.
[9] For a comparison of New Orleans newspapers and all other media coverage of the Shaw trial, see the author's unpublished book "The Trial of Clay Shaw -- The Truth and the Fiction."
[10] Prouty, L. Fletcher, "The Secret Team," Prentice Hall, 1973.
[11] Policoff, Jerry, "The Media and the Murder of John Kennedy", "New Times," October, 1975.
[12] "Who Killed JFK? Just One Assassin," "Time" magazine, November 24, 1975.
[13] "Up Front -- Did One Man With One Gun Kill John F, Kennedy? Eight Skeptics Who Say No," "People," November 3, 1975.
[14] Author's discussion with Jerry Policoff, November 29, 1975.
[15] "Warren Panel Aide Calls for 2nd Inquiry Into Kennedy Killing", "New York Times," November 23, 1975, p. 1.
[16] Transcript of Gerald Ford Press Conference "New York Times," November 27, 1975.
[17] For a summary of the evidence and scenario about what it shows the reader is referred to two articles in "People and the Pursuit of Truth:" "The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy the Involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Plans and the Cover-Up," May 1975, and "Who Killed JFK?," October, 1975. Both by the author.
[18] Phelan, James R., "The Assassination," "New York Times Magazine Section," November 23, 1975.
[19] Thurston, Samuel F. (psuedonym for Richard E. Sprague), "The Central Intelligence Agency and `The New York Times'" "Computers and Automation," July, 1971.
[20] Bancroft retired in early 1976. A successor has undoubtedly been groomed by the CIA. However, Bancroft still has a strong influence at the "Times" on the subject of assassinations.
[21] Based on a discussion among the author, Dan Rather, and Robert Richter at CBS in Washington, D.C., approximately ten days before the first Cronkite-CBS section of the 1967 four-part series on the JFK assassination.
[22] O'Conner, John J., "TV: CBS News is Presenting Two Hour-Long Programs on the Assassination of President Kennedy", "New York Times," November 24, 1975.
[23] "Dallas: New Questions and Answers," "Newsweek," April 28, 1975.
[24] Schonfeld, Maurice W., "The Shadow of a Gunman," "Columbia Journalism Review," July-August, 1975.
[25] Cohen, John, "Conspiracy Fever," "Commentary," October, 1975.
[26] "Saturday Evening Post," September, October, November and December, 1975 issues.
[27] "D.C. Digs Deep Into TV News Ties With CIA," "Variety," November 12, 1975.
[28] Prouty, L. Fletcher, "The Fourth Force," "Gallery," November, 1975.
[29] "CIA Will Keep More Than 25 Journalist-Agents," "New York Times," April 27, 1976, p. 26.
* * * * * * *
-- daveus rattus
yer friendly neighborhood ratman
KOYAANISQATSI
ko.yaa.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi Language) n. 1. crazy life. 2. life in turmoil. 3. life out of balance. 4. life disintegrating. 5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.
From dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com Fri Jun 12 09:16:33 1992
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From: dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
Subject: "The Taking of America, 1-2-3" (6/11) Summary: we were robbed of our capability of electing a president we wanted Keywords: part 6 of 11: chapter 10 thru chapter 12 Lines: 1057
* * * * * * *
Chapter 10 Techniques and Weapons and 100 Dead Conspirators and Witnesses
As Chapter 1 made clear, one of the two fiendish stratagems used by the Power Control Group to cover-up the truth and to fool the people was the use of various intelligence techniques and weapons. The use of such techniques in assassination and murder completely conceals the real killer's presence or the real cause of death. From the moment the crime occurs the public is led to believe that there is either one lone madman assassin or that the death was accidental, due to natural causes, or committed by natural enemies of the victim. Some of the techniques are so unique that they are nearly impossible for the average American to believe. The intelligence forces of the United States as well as those of other countries have out-Bonded James Bond. The development of sophisticated murder methods and the control of humans for warfare and spying in other countries came home to the United States, effectively used by the Power Control Group. Penn Jones, Jr. published a list of "mysterious deaths" in his series of four volumes, "Forgive My Grief."[1] Sylvia Meagher published facts about the first eighteen witnesses at Dealey Plaza murdered through the use of these techniques in the book, "Accessories After the Fact."[2] Very few people other than researchers pay any attention. Two movies with somewhat wider circulation, "Executive Action" and "The Parallax View," covered the techniques fairly well, but they were considered to be fiction by most viewers. So the PCG goes on murdering where and when it is necessary, and it covers up the murders where necessary. In 1974 and 1976, two murders became necessary. Rolando Masferrer, mentioned as a JFK conspirator, became dangerous to the PCG, and he was eliminated in early 1976 with a non-sophisticated weapon. A bomb was planted in his car in Miami. The cover-up in this case merely involved planting an informer who claimed Masferrer was killed by a rival anti-Castro Cuban faction in Florida.[3] Clay Shaw became quite nervous in 1974 after Victor Marchetti's statements to the press earlier that year made it known that Shaw was a CIA contract employee and that the CIA gave him assistance and protection before his trial in New Orleans and after Jim Garrison arrested him. Shaw was murdered in New Orleans by the PCG and the murder covered-up by simply controlling his embalming and burial and blocking any local investigation.[4] The reason for his murder was to keep him from talking and from returning to the public eye. The techniques and weapons fall into several classes. First, there are sophisticated weapons developed by the CIA. An example of this is the umbrella poison dart gun used in Dealey Plaza to shoot JFK in the throat. Such a weapon was postulated by Robert Cutler and the author in mid-1975 as the one that fired the first shot from near the Stemmons Freeway sign.[5] This seemed incredulous to most observers and so wild an idea that the author and Cutler did not discuss it with many researchers. Then Mr. Charles Senseney, a CIA weapon developer at Fort Detrick, Maryland, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee in September 1975 and described an umbrella poison dart gun he had made.[6] He said it was always used in crowds with the umbrella open, firing through the webing so it would not attract attention. Since it was silent, no one in the crowd could hear it and the assassin merely would fold up the umbrella and saunter away with the crowd. (That is almost exactly what happened in Dealey Plaza. The first shot had always seemed to have had a paralytic effect on Kennedy. His fists were clenched and his head, shoulders and arms seemed to stiffen. There was a small entrance wound in his neck but no evidence of a bullet path through his neck and no bullet was ever recovered that matched that small size.) Senseney testified that his Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick had received assignments from the CIA to develop exotic weaponry. One of the weapons was a hand-held dart gun that could shoot a poison dart into a guard dog to put it out of action for several hours. The dart and the poison left no trace so that examination would not reveal that the dogs had been put out of action. The CIA ordered about 50 of these weapons and used them operationally. Senseney said that the darts could have been used to kill human beings and he could not rule out the possibility that this had been done by the CIA. He said he had developed a dart- launching device that looked like an umbrella. A special type of poison developed induces a heart attack and leaves no trace of any external influence unless an autopsy is conducted to check for this particular poison. The CIA revealed this poison in various accounts in the early 1970s. Among the witnesses, important people and conspirators who might have been eliminated this way are: Clay Shaw, J. Edgar Hoover, Earlene Roberts (Oswald's land-lady) and Adlai Stevenson. A second category, already discussed in the Robert Kennedy and George Wallace shootings, is the use of a "programmed" assassin. The Manchurian Candidate always seemed to be a science fiction story. It is now well known that the CIA has used hypnosis and "programming" to achieve a number of objectives, including murder. Certainly there is little doubt that Sirhan Sirhan was under hypnosis when he wrote in his diary and when he fired the shots in the general direction of Robert Kennedy.[7] There is also evidence that Arthur Bremer was "programmed" to shoot at George Wallace. It is conceivable that one of the assassins in Dealey Plaza could have been "programmed". A man surfaced after 1975 who--under deprogramming--remembered a firing situation resembling Dealey Plaza. However, it is much less likely that the PCG had to use hypnosis in the JFK murder. It is completely untrue that Oswald was programmed, as the book "Were We Controlled?" by Lincoln Lawrence (an alias for radio commentator Art Ford) postulates. The evidence shows Oswald didn't fire a shot, that he was on the second floor of the TSBD Building at the time of the shots, and that he was very calm until Patrolman Baker pointed a gun at him. Strangely enough, Ford's thesis is true. We were controlled by the PCG, although he had the details wrong. A third popular technique is, of course, the patsy. The PCG has developed this to the level of a real science. The assassination is allowed to be obvious, but the assassin is presented as a single madman or criminal who acts alone. Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby, James Earl Ray, Sirhan Sirhan and Arthur Bremer have all been patsies. They are not all exactly alike, nor is the way in which they were used the same in each case. For example, Oswald and Ray did not fire any shots, while Sirhan, Ruby and Bremer did. Sirhan and Bremer were "programmed", whereas Ruby was talked into killing Oswald by his friends in the PCG. Four of the five men were framed; a lot of evidence was manufactured and planted to implicate them, including fake diaries, fake photographs, planted guns, bullets and shells, and men using their identities. The one who did not fit this category was Ruby. It was not needed in his case because he killed Oswald before live television and believed until the day he died of cancer that his friends were going to get him out of jail in exchange for his "patriotic" act. The use of "seconds", men who looked like the patsy and who used his name (true of Oswald, Ray and Sirhan) is a common intelligence technique. The planting of fake photos in the case of Oswald required some relatively special photographic facilities, but the job was not done well enough to avoid detection. A fourth technique is the "accidental" death. Many witnesses and conspirators have been murdered in this way. Lee Bowers, the railroad yard control tower man who saw the real assassins behind the picket fence in Dealey Plaza, was killed when his car rammed into a concrete abutment in Dallas (it was traveling at high speed). The doctor who examined Bowers prior to his removal from the car, stated that he probably received an injection of some kind prior to the crash. Louis Lomax, the black author who was getting close to the truth in the Martin Luther King case, was killed in Arizona when his car was forced off the road after he was made to drive at high speed. Hale Boggs disappeared in an airplane crash that left no trace of the plane. And of course the classic "accident" occurred at Chappaquiddick. A fifth technique is an induced death that produces another finding of the cause either by disguising the true cause or by controlling the coroner or those in charge of burial. Examples are: David Ferrie's murder by means of a karate chop to the back of his head, disguised as an embolism of the brain, Clay Shaw's murder by means unknown because there was no autopsy and complete control of his removal and burial; Jack Ruby's supposed death by cancer in jail (real cause unknown because he was never out of the PCG's hands until he was under ground). Then there is a favorite sixth technique: mock suicide. Examples of PCG murders that somehow became suicides are: Hank Killam, a husband of one of Ruby's dancers, who committed suicide by throwing himself through a plate glass window off the street in Miami; Betty Mooney, one of Ruby's girls who hung herself in her jail cell by using her leopard-skin tights; Roger Craig, who shot himself; Jesus Crispin, who knew Sirhan, supposedly killed himself in his jail cell; Grant Stockdale, who threw himself off the top of a tall building in Miami. There are some on the list who were admittedly murdered, but supposedly not by the PCG. These include Robert Perrin, Nancy Perrin's husband; Buddy Walters, deputy sheriff under Sheriff Decker, shot by a man he was trying to arrest; Eladio Del Valle, a cohort of Ferrie, killed in Miami by an axe on the same day Ferrie was murdered; Rolando Masferrer, blown up in his car; Eddy Benevides, shot by an unknown assailant (he recovered). The cover-ups in each of these cases were put into effect by controlling the investigation or simply by not having one. The complete list of deaths, including the eight major ones (JFK, RFK, MLK, Mary Jo Kopechne, Lee Harvey Oswald, David Ferrie, Ruby and Clay Shaw) numbers over a hundred. Here is a partial list:
1. John Kennedy 2. Robert Kennedy 3. Martin Luther King 4. Mary Jo Kopechne 5. Lee Harvey Oswald 6. David Ferrie 7. Jack Ruby 8. Clay Shaw 9. Buddy Walthers 10. Roger Craig 11. Eladio Del Valle 12. Rolando Masferrer 13. Hank Killam 14. Rose Cherami 15. Hale Boggs 16. J. Edgar Hoover 17. Louis Lomax 18. Lee Bowers, Jr. 19. Jesus Crispin 20. Jim Koethe 21. Bill Hunter 22. Tom Howard 23. Earlene Roberts 24. Betty McDonald 25. Eddy Benevides 26. Robert Perrin 27. Gary Underhill 28. Bill Chesher 29. Dorothy Kilgallen 30. David Goldstein 31. Levens (first name unknown) 32. Teresa Norton 33. Warren Reynolds 34. Harold Russell 35. Marilyn Moore Walle 36. William Whaley 37. James Worrell, Jr. 38. Captain Frank Martin 39. Mrs. Earl T. Smith 40. Karyn Kupcinet 41. Albert Guy Bogard 42. Hiram Ingram 43. Nicholas Chetta 44. Mary Bledsoe 45. Jude Preston Battle 46. John M. Crawford 47. Richard Carr 48. Kathy Fullmer 49. Clyde Johnson 50. Reverend A. D. W. King 51. Carole Tyler 52. Dr. Mary Sherman 53. Grant Stockdale 54. J. A. Milteer 55. Hugh Ward 56. Perry Russo 57. Maurice Gatlin, Sr. 58. W. Guy Banister 59. Charles P. Cabell 60. Dorothy Hunt 61. Michelle Clark 62. John Roselli 63. Sam Giancana 64. Fred Lee Crisman 65. Carlos Prio Socarras 66. Charles Nicoletti 67. Jimmy Hoffa 68. George De Mohrenschildt 69. General Donald Donaldson 70. Lou Staples 71. William C. Sullivan 72. James Chaney
The large majority of these murders eliminated witnesses to, participants in, or investigators of one of the assassinations. People involved with the participants in one of the assassinations or cover-ups were also listed above. The participants were: Jack Ruby, David Ferrie, Clay Shaw, Rolando Masferrer, J. Edgar Hoover (in the cover-up), and Robert Perrin. There were four investigators: Jim Koethe, Louis Lomax, Dorothy Kilgallen and Hale Boggs. The rest were witnesses or associates. Two articles[8] written in 1976 analyzed some of these deaths and concluded that they were not accidents unconnected with the assassinations of our leaders. Another analysis by the authors demonstrated that fifty of the first seventy murders met three criteria for proving death by foul means. All involved people directly or indirectly linked to the major assassinations. All met death under violent or very strange circumstances. No autopsies were performed in any of these murders. The Charles Senseney dart weapon might have been used in some of the murders. The injection given Lee Bowers produced such a paralytic and terrorized expression on Bowers' face that the doctor examining his body exclaimed he had never seen such before. Grant Stockdale was found to have died of a heart attack on his way to the street from the top of a building (a dart might have killed him).
____________________
[1] "Forgive My Grief" Volumes I, II, III, IV, Penn Jones, Jr., Self Published, Midlothian, Texas.
[2] "Accessories After the Fact," Sylvia Meagher, Scarecrow Press, N.Y., 1976
[3] "Miami Herald," March, 1976.
[4] "The Mysterious Death of Clay Shaw," Richard Russell, "True Magazine."
[5] "The Umbrella Man," R.B. Cutler, & R.E. Sprague, "Gallery Magazine," June, 1978.
[6] "New York Times," September 19, 1975.
[7] "RFK Must Die!," Robert Kaiser, E.P. Dutton & Co. Inc., N.Y.C., 1970.
[8] (a) Self published article by Gary Schoener -- Minneapolis, Minn. Researcher.
(b) Assassination Information Bureau (AIB), Cambridge, Mass, Research project and article.
* * * * * * *
Chapter 11 Nixon and Ford -- The Pardon and the Tapes
As the Power Control Group grew larger and the number of murders increased through the years, it became more and more difficult to keep the veil of secrecy surrounding the takeover intact. As Nixon's instability increased, the danger of revealing the secret superstructure to the American people increased. Watergate and Nixon's resignation from office nearly ruined everything for the Power Control Group. A splinter faction in the CIA began showing strength and all of the dirt might have been leaked to the press and to the people. Nixon himself had pulled the most dangerous boner in the history of the PCG. He installed a secret tape recording system that recorded a number of conversations about the PCG's murders, assassinations and dirty tricks. Even worse, Nixon did not destroy the tapes before the Congress found out about them and went after them. As soon as it became obvious that Nixon would be forced to resign, the PCG had to use a desperation strategy. Gerald R. Ford pardoned Richard M. Nixon on September 8, 1974: such was the PCG's strategy. Many skeptical U.S. citizens nodded their heads knowingly and assumed Nixon had made his "deal" with Ford when he nominated him for the vice presidency. Evans and Novak[1] assumed that Julie Nixon Eisenhower talked Ford into the pardon on grounds that Nixon's health was poor. The Ford's fears for Nixon's health didn't seem to convince very many news media people who saw a rosy-cheeked, apparently robust ex-president in San Clemente.[2] The pardon seemed to most Americans and news editors a gross error in judgment and a miscarriage of justice. But once again the United States was fooled. This time, the PCG, Nixon and Ford managed to pull the wool over the eyes of the public and to narrowly escape revealing what can be called "the entire rotten crust at the top of American power." Any reasonable hypothesis about what actually happened, based on the evidence at hand, had not been even remotely suggested by either Congress or the media by 1976. Any explanation of the situation leading to the pardon begins with the relationship between Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon. It goes back to 1960, the year Mr. Nixon planned the overthrow of Castro's Cuba. As earlier chapters have made clear, the U2 incident and the Bay of Pigs was the beginning. In 1960, Nixon and the White House action officer worked on the plans for what was later called the Bay of Pigs invasion.[3] Prior to that time the PCG and Nixon had accumulated plenty of reasons to want Castro overthrown. The anti-Communist attitude was the superficial reason. Beneath it were Nixon's connections with the Mafia and his friendships and financial holdings that were greatly damaged when Castro closed the casinos run by the mob in Havana.[4] When Nixon and Kennedy debated about the Cuban situation in the 1960 campaign, Nixon purposefully lied to the American people about U.S. plans for an invasion.[5] When he narrowly lost to Kennedy, it created a deep wound, and he and the PCG spent much of the next three years planning revenge. Nixon became a tool of a number of Cubans and Americans, both inside the CIA and outside, who agreed with him that casting out Castro was highly desirable. One of these men was E. Howard Hunt.[6] Another was Bernard Barker.[7] A third was Carlos Prio Socarras.[8] Richard Bissell, Richard Helms and Allen Dulles were the three higher level men in the PCG. These Nixon cronies and financial partners became involved with the PCG. They murdered John Kennedy.[9] Whether Nixon was directly involved in the PCG's planning for the assassination is still open to question, although one researcher believes that he was.[10] There certainly is substantial evidence that Nixon was out to at least politically sink Kennedy and Johnson, and aimed to do so in Dallas immediately before Kennedy was killed. (See section on evidence).[11] Whether Nixon was directly involved in planning the assassination of President John F. Kennedy does not have to be settled here. What is important is that Nixon was directly involved in covering up the truth about who did kill Kennedy. Evidence from the Nixon-Haldeman tapes of June 1972 indicated that Nixon knew the truth about the assassination when he suggested Gerald Ford be part of the Warren Commission.[12] A close personal friendship had developed between Ford and Nixon during their days together in the Congress, when both were strong, ultra-conservative, "red, white and blue", anti-Communist, "religious" members who thought and talked alike. When Nixon realized that John Kennedy had been killed almost under his nose in Dallas by some of his Bay of Pigs friends, the PCG convinced him he had to do everything in his power to cover it up and to bide his time until his powerful military and intelligence friends could place him in the White House. It took one more murder by the PCG (Robert Kennedy) to get him there, and still another attempted murder to keep him there (George Wallace). Control over the investigations of these murders was essential for Nixon and the PCG. In order to guide a presidential commission away from the truth, the closed small circle of people in the PCG who knew what had happened to John Kennedy had to be enlarged. Allen Dulles was no problem. He knew the cause was an intelligence/military one from the day it happened. Earl Warren was a different matter. He had to be fooled and later talked into remaining silent "for the good of the country." A ringleader inside the Warren Commission was crucial. It had to be someone the PCG and Nixon could trust, one who had an honest and trustworthy appearance. Nixon called on Gerry Ford, and he convinced LBJ that Ford should be on the Commission.[13] Nixon told Ford at some point prior to January, 1964 who killed JFK and why. He convinced Ford that every effort should be made to make sure Oswald was found to be the lone assassin. Ford did an excellent job. He not only steered the Commission away from the facts[14] whenever a key witness was interviewed or an embarrassing situation developed, but he also nailed Oswald's coffin shut personally by publishing his own book on Oswald.[15] This, coming from the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, served to firmly plant in the American mind the idea that there was no conspiracy, that Oswald was the lone assassin, and that the Warren Commission had done a good job. From the day Ford's book was published, Nixon and Ford became totally beholden to each other. They also both became totally beholden to the members of the PCG who were at or near the top of things and who were part of the small knowledgeable circle. Other members of the PCG's inner circle included J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Helms. No one could be permitted by the PCG to come into power in the White House, the CIA, the Justice Department or the FBI unless they were part of the PCG and willing to keep quiet and help suppress the truth about the JFK assassination. The PCG's membership widened, of necessity, when Robert Kennedy was killed and Nixon became president. The people involved in killing Robert Kennedy and Nixon's top aides had to be told the truth. This included Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Kissinger, Mitchell (who had the job of controlling Hoover's successors in continuing the cover-ups) and possibly others. Mitchell was instrumental in stopping Jim Garrison's investigation of Clay Shaw and other PCG members and in totally discrediting Garrison.[16] He was aided by Richard Helms and others in the PCG through CIA support in the Clay Shaw trial cover-up efforts.[17] The White House plumber section of the PCG decided in 1972, with or without Nixon's knowledge and approval, to assassinate George Wallace, so that Nixon would be assured of the conservative vote. The PCG and its debts once again grew. E. Howard Hunt and Charles Colson, along with Tony Ulasewicz, Donald Segretti and others, were in a position to make demands in exchange for their silence. The Hunt million-dollar blackmail threat to reveal "seedy things" or "hankypanky" was never explainable in terms of Watergate or the Ellsberg break-ins. But three assassinations would certainly be worth a cool million to keep Hunt silent. Again, the Haldeman- Nixon June 23, 1972 tapes are revealing.[18] When the Watergate crisis occurred, Nixon was trapped by his own tapes, and the PCG was in grave danger. Discussions with Haldeman, Mitchell and others mention the Kennedy assassination conspiracy and the Wallace murder attempt on tape. The PCG was suddenly threatened as a group. The tapes couldn't all be destroyed because too many Secret Service people knew about them. Haldeman and Nixon managed to erase one revealing 18 1/2 minute section about the assassinations, but who could remember exactly what telephone calls or Oval Office conversations might have mentioned the truth about the three murders? The PCG and Nixon again sensed the need for a successor who would keep quiet. They called on Gerry Ford when Agnew was forced out. Ford and Nixon, bound inextricably together by their mutual cover-up of the assassinations, worked out a deal. Nixon nominated Ford to be his Vice President. The Senate, completely bamboozled by Nixon and Ford, never asked Ford any important questions about the assassinations nor his performance on the Warren Commission. When they asked Ford about his book, he committed perjury twice before the Senate (see item # 15 in the list ennumerated below). Nixon and Ford agreed that Ford would keep quiet if Nixon remained silent and that Ford would succeed Nixon if he were forced to resign or be impeached. They agreed to a pardon afterward. But the most critical part of the arrangement was that those tapes revealing the truth about the assassinations be kept out of circulation. When the Supreme Court ruled that the tapes must be turned over, it was then time to implement their agreed-upon strategy. In addition, Jaworski, Colson, Mitchell, Kissinger, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, the Warren Commission, Hunt, Helms, Shaw and anyone else in the PCG had to be bought off, pardoned, protected or killed to insure their silences. Leon Jaworski resigned. People asked why. The real answer was buried in the fact that Jaworski knew what had been going on. He knew because of information passed on to him by the Ervin Committee and Cox regarding the assassination and the cover-up. He was also personally involved in 1964 in the JFK cover-up. Jaworski could have been a problem, even though he helped with the JFK cover-up from the beginning.[19] Hunt was taken care of by getting him out of jail, buying him a large estate in Florida and paying him a lot of money.[20] Helms could be counted on. Kissinger may have been a problem, but he finally agreed. His wiretaps were ordered to find out who knew about the assassinations. Hoover was dead. Clay Shaw was murdered.[21] Warren was dead. Richard Russell was dead. John Sherman Cooper was bought off (he received an important ambassadorship). John J. McCloy was too old to worry about. That left Colson, Mitchell, Haldeman, and Ehrlichman, plus some other small fry. The PCG strategy as planned with these men involved pardons for all of them in exchange for their silence, especially Haldeman and Mitchell, who not only knew what happened to JFK, but who also took overt actions to cover-up. (Haldeman erased the 18 1/2 minutes of tape and Mitchell nailed Jim Garrison.) Newer members of the PCG may cause some problems. They all have to know the truth by now. Rockefeller and Alex Haig must know. George Bush, William Colby, Edward Levi and Clarence Kelly knew because of their access to the records, and they must have agreed to cover-up continuance. Ford and his cronies in the House had to continue to knock out any efforts by Henry B. Gonzalez of Texas to start a new House Committee investigation of the JFK assassination. They were very successful in their control of the House Rules Committee. Haig seemed to have been bought off with the promise of a top NATO post in exchange for his silence. And control over Frank Church and the Senate Intelligence Committee was necessary. Gerald Ford remained committed to the PCG and to Nixon. The tapes had to be controlled and edited at all costs. Nixon no doubt required help in listening to the tapes after Haldeman left and in sorting out those in which assassinations and cover-ups were discussed. General Haig was undoubtedly the man he selected to do the dirty work. It was almost certain that no tapes would be turned over to Judge Sirica or to Jaworski with any assassination references left on them. One of the tapes demanded by Jaworski had such references. This is the recording made on June 23, 1972 in which Nixon and Haldeman are discussing Watergate just six days after the break-in. The Nixon transcript of that tape turned over to Judge Sirica upon orders of the Supreme Court showed many sections labelled "unintelligible." It is a near certainty that the critical sections were edited out by Nixon and General Haig before they were turned over to Sirica and prior to their transcription. Judge Sirica was the only person in the chain of possession of that tape who could have been counted on to make a scientific analysis of the tape to see whether it was tampered with before he received it. His near brush with death in 1975 must be viewed in that light and in the light of the PCG's use of weapon-induced heart attacks. The rest of Nixon's tapes that were still in Gerald Ford's possession and control might have contained many references to assassinations and cover-ups. Rather than go through all of them and edit or erase the critical material, it was more likely that Ford would either turn them over to Nixon for total destruction or sit on them as long as he was president. The evidence for the Power Control Group's and Ford/Nixon's strategy is as follows:
1. Nixon was White House action officer on Cuban invasion plans in 1960.
2. Nixon was in contact with Hunt and others during the Bay of Pigs planning.
3. Nixon lied to the American people by his own admission about the Bay of Pigs during his TV debates with Kennedy in 1960.
4. Nixon was financially linked to the Mafia and to Cuban casino operations before Castro took over.
5. Nixon was acquainted with Hunt, Baker, Martinez, Sturgis, Carlos Prio Socarras, and other Watergate people and anti-Castro people in Florida, and he was financially linked to Baker, Martinez and Socarras.
6. Hunt, Baker, Sturgis and Socarras were connected with the assassination group in the murder of JFK.
7. Nixon was in Dallas for three days, including the morning of the JFK assassination. He was trying to stir up trouble for Kennedy.
8. Nixon went to Dallas under false pretenses. There was no board meeting of the Pepsi Cola Company as he announced his law firm had had to attend.
9. Nixon did not admit being in Dallas on the day Kennedy was shot and did not reveal the true reason for his trip. He held two press conferences on the two days before the assassination, attacking both Kennedy and Johnson and emphasizing the Democratic political problems in Texas.
10. Research indicates that Nixon either knew in advance about assassination plans, or learned about them soon after the assassination.
11. Nixon proposed to Lyndon Johnson that Gerald Ford serve on the Warren Commission.
12. Ford led the Commission cover-up by controlling the questioning of key witnesses and by several other means.
13. Ford helped firmly plant the idea that Oswald was the only assassin and that there was no conspiracy by publishing his own book, "Lee Harvey Oswald: Portrait of the Assassin."
14. Ford purposefully covered up the conspiracy of the PCG in the JFK assassination and also covered up the fact that Oswald was a paid informer for the FBI. He did this by dismissing the subject in his book as worthless rumor and by keeping the executive sessions of the Commission (where Oswald's FBI informer status was discussed) classified Top Secret.
15. Ford continued the cover-up when he was questioned before being confirmed by the Senate as Vice President. He lied under oath twice to the Senate Committee. He stated that he had written his book about Oswald with no access to classified documents. He lied about this because his book used classified documents about Oswald's FBI informer status. He lied when he said that the book was entitled, "Lee Harvey Oswald: Portrait of *an* Assassin." This was significant in 1973 because the public by then had become very skeptical about a lone assassin. By changing one word in the title, Ford made the book seem a little less like what it actually was--an effort to make Oswald the assassin.
16. Jaworski aided in the JFK cover-up by sitting on evidence of conspiracy accumulated by Waggoner Carr, Texas Attorney General, who he represented in liaison with the Warren Commission. He also stopped the critical testimony of Jack Ruby when he testified before the Warren Commission, and diverted attention away from Ruby's intent to reveal the conspiracy to kill both Kennedy and Oswald.
17. Nixon became president in 1968 only because Robert Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy. Nixon was well aware of the conspiracy whether or not he approved of it in advance.
18. John Mitchell and J. Edgar Hoover joined Nixon and the lower level members of the PCG in covering up the RFK murder conspiracy. They classified the evidence "Top Secret" and murdered several witnesses, controlled the judge in the Sirhan trial and the district attorney and the chief of police in Los Angeles during and after the trial. They still control these people and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Clarence Kelly also became involved.
19. The plumbers group ordered the assassination of George Wallace in 1972 to insure Nixon's election by picking up Wallace's vote (about 18%, according to polls).
20. J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Helms were aware of who killed John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. They helped cover-up both conspiracies.
21. John Mitchell controlled the trial of Clay Shaw and the Garrison investigation and discredited Garrison by framing him in a New Orleans gambling case.
22. Nixon and Haldeman discussed the assassination of John Kennedy, the conspiracy, Hunt's involvement, the possibility that Hunt might talk, the cover-up, the Bay of Pigs relationship between Nixon, Hunt and the other PCG members, and the briefing Nixon might have had to give anyone running against him in 1972, on matters of "national security".
23. Nixon and Mitchell discussed the assassinations and the attempt to assassinate George Wallace. Mitchell executed orders to suppress the truth about these events.
24. Gerald Ford had possession of the most critical tapes on which assassinations and cover-ups were discussed.
25. Jaworski could be counted on to keep the assassination material under wraps even after his resignation. He was aware of the conspiracy evidence and cover-up in all three cases (JFK, RFK, George Wallace).
26. Hunt was taken care of and will keep silent. He had been out of jail and living on a beautiful $100,000 estate in Florida with plenty of money, across the street from his Bay of Pigs friend, Manuel Artime.
27. Clay Shaw was murdered by the PCG, undoubtedly to keep him from talking once the truth about his CIA position was revealed by Victor Marchetti. He was embalmed before the coroner could determine the cause of death. Evidence indicates he was killed somewhere and then brought back to his apartment.
28. Hale Boggs, a Warren, Commission member, was possibly killed by the PCG. Bogg's airplane disappeared in Alaska. No trace of it was ever found and no explanation of how the plane could have crashed has ever been given. Mrs. Boggs has expressed doubts about it being an accident.
29. Four of the seven Warren Commission members are dead: Warren, Dulles, Russell and Boggs. Of the remaining members, Ford was President, John McCloy is retired and living in Connecticut, and John Sherman Cooper was made ambassador to East Germany.
30. Richard Russell, Hale Boggs and Cooper believed there was a conspiracy in the JFK assassination. Russell and Boggs both said so publicly.
31. Haldeman erased 18 1/2 minutes of a taped discussion with Nixon. This tape undoubtedly contained "national security" matters. The fact that Haldeman did the erasing can easily be determined by tracing the trail of possession of the tape from the day it was taken out of the vault to the day the gap was discovered. Haldeman had the tape with the recorder alone for nearly 48 hours. No one else had the tape alone long enough to do the erasing.
32. Ford and the PCG contemplated pardons for Mitchell, Haldeman, Ehrlichman and possibly others who know the number one secret.
33. Ford's statements to the sub-committee of the House Judiciary Committee concerning his pardon of Nixon dodged the real issue. Only Elizabeth Holtzman asked questions coming close to the number one secret. When she asked about a prior agreement, Ford said, "I have made no deal, there was no deal, *since I became Vice President*." Those last few words were not reported by the press, but a large number of Americans watched and heard him say them. Of course he spoke truthfully because the "deal" was made *before* he became Vice President.
____________________
[1] Evans & Novak column -- September 12. 1974.
[2] "Paris Herald Tribune" -- September 12, 1974.
[3] "Compulsive Spy," Tad Szulc, Viking Press, 1974.
[4] "Nixon and the Mafia," Jeff Gerth, "Sundance," December, 1972.
[5] "My Six Crises," Richard M. Nixon.
[6] "Compulsive Spy."
[7] "Nixon and the Mafia."
[8] "Nixon, Bay of Pigs & Watergate," -- R.E. Sprague, "Computers and Automation," January, 1973.
[9] "Nixon, Bay of Pigs & Watergate."
[10] Trowbridge Ford, Holy Cross College, Boston, MA, Several papers and articles.
[11] Warren Commission Hearings & Exhibits -- Vol. 23, Pages 941-943.
[12] Nixon Transcript of June 23 1972 tape -- "New York Times," August 6, 1974.
[13] Trowbridge Ford -- Article on Gerald Ford & Warren Commission.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Gerald Ford "Lee Harvey Oswald: Portrait of the Assassin."
[16] "The Framing of Jim Garrison", R.E. Sprague, "Computers and Automation," December, 1973.
[17] "The CIA and the Kennedy Assassination" -- Unpublished article by R.E. Sprague.
[18] Nixon tape, June 23, 1972.
[19] Warren Commission Exhibits -- Testimony of Jack Ruby, Vol. V, Pages 181-213 and Vol. XIV, pages 504-571. Also Trowbridge Ford article on Jaworski.
[20] "Washington Watch" and Triss Coffin newsletter, August 10, 1974.
[21] Zodiac News Service release -- August 20, 1974.
* * * * * * *
Chapter 12 The Second Line of Defense and Cover-Ups in 1975 and 1976
The mini-war waged by assassination researchers and a few Congressmen from 1964 to 1976 to reopen the major assassination inquiries never really disturbed the Power Control Group. But in 1975, simultaneous with the revelations about all of the terrible things the CIA and the FBI did, the researchers and a few of their friends in the media and in Congress began to draw more attention than was comfortable for the PCG. A special renewed effort became necessary to extend the cover- ups. Part of this effort was a program to bring the media back under control and to reinforce media support of the cover-ups. This has been discussed in some detail in Chapter 9. Another part of this effort was the expansion of the Rockefeller Commission's assignment to reinforce the cover-up of the JFK assassination conspiracy. Separate new efforts were necessary to control the courts and lawyers and other public officials in the King and Robert Kennedy assassination conspiracies. These were brought about by appeals for new trials by James Earl Ray and Sirhan B. Sirhan. The appeals were accompanied by new revelations. New publicity was given to demands for an investigation into the Wallace shooting by prominent people, including Wallace himself. A minor success in the JFK case was scored by researchers with the assistance of Dick Gregory, Geraldo Rivera of ABC, Tom Snyder of NBC, Mort Sahl and others. They managed to have the Zapruder film and other photographic evidence of conspiracy shown on local and national television. No one of any intelligence outside the PCG who has even seen the Zapruder film questions the fact that shots came from two different directions in Dealey Plaza. This breakthrough after eleven years of effort put new public and Congressional pressures on the PCG. It was closely followed by a grass roots campaign conducted by Mark Lane's Citizens Commission of Inquiry to reopen the JFK case. Pressure was brought to bear on Congressmen by their local constituents as a result of this campaign. Henry Gonzalez from Texas and Thomas Downing from Virginia introduced resolutions in the House of Representatives calling for the reopening of all four cases and the JFK case, so the public and Congress had a formal base to work with and a goal to reach. New revelations were made in 1975 about the FBI's and the CIA's information withheld from the Warren Commission. From Dallas came the admission that Oswald had been in closer contact with the FBI than believed and that Jack Ruby had been an FBI informer. Perhaps the most dangerous development for the PCG was the creation of a sub-committee under the Church committee to investigate the JFK assassination. This two-man subcommittee formed by Senator Gary Hart of Colorado and Senator Schweiker of Pennsylvania became a real threat when it was given authority by the full Senate Committee on Intelligence to conduct their own independent investigation with a staff of nine people. It would be harder to control their efforts than to control the Church committee, where the PCG had several strong allies, including Senators Goldwater and Tower. Gerald Ford, William Colby, Richard Helms (from his faraway post in Asia) and the other PCG members developed a three-prong strategy for the JFK case in order to cope with all of these new problems. First came the reinforcement of the lone-assassin Warren Commission scenario. Ford selected David Belin to be chief of staff of the Rockefeller Commission. Ford admitted that Belin in his Rockefeller Commission role--as well as in his advocacy to reopen the JFK case in order to prove the Warren Commission findings correct--was acting as "one of our best staff members." This was necessary so that the Rockefeller Commission could add a new assignment to its original charter and investigate the CIA and FBI. The new assignment was to prove that all of the new questions about the Zapruder film and the evidence for assassins on the grassy knoll were answerable in support of Warren Commission conclusions. The former Warren commissioner now President, who led the cover-up and pardoned Nixon, nominated the Warren Commission staff lawyer who led the cover-up at the working level as the new Rockefeller Commission chief of staff. Belin did his job like a faithful dog. He personally called in the most dangerous researchers, including Cyril Wecht and Dick Gregory's cohorts, Ralph Schoenman and Robert Groden, who had been making all of the noise on television. With the help (and possibly the knowledge) of only one other staff man, Belin interviewed these witnesses briefly, almost casually: then he misquoted them, edited their statements, or left them out of the Rockefeller Report. He purposefully did not call any researchers other than Wecht who might have presented some embarrassing evidence of conspiracy. He instead called a number of "experts" from the stable of PCG people, including some of the Ramsey Clark doctors panel that had examined the medical evidence in 1968 to back up the Warren Commission during the Garrison investigation and the Clay Shaw trial. He also called on reliable Dr. Lattimer, the urologist, to testify again about the bullet wounds above the navel. Belin wrote the chapter of the Rockefeller Commission Report himself. It formed a base for controlled media presentations of the lone assassin scenario. CBS used much of the basic material in its series in 1975. Others quoted liberally from the favorite misquotes of Cyril Wecht and the statements of the CIA doctors concerning the fatal shot at frame 313 of the Zapruder film. That had always been a sticky point with Belin and the other Warren Commission defenders and technical cover-up artists in the PCG. Belin was nearly driven to distraction at times, trying to avoid any discussion of the back-to-the-left acceleration of JFK's head following the Z313 shot. He was therefore delighted to be able to produce a medical opinion that the back-to-the-left motion was consistent with a shot directly from the rear. The fact that no ballistics experts or physics experts were called to testify about Newton's second law of motion and what happens to an object when struck by a rifle bullet traveling at twice to three times the speed of sound was never questioned by the Rockefeller panel or the media. Belin easily eliminated the assassins on the grassy knoll simply by persuading the FBI to say the assassins weren't there at all. Over a period of several months in the second half of 1975, the PCG (through its control agents in the 15 media organizations, and by using Belin's creation) hammered away again at the lone assassin thesis. They caused the wave of excitement and furor created by Gregory, Lane, Groden, Schoenman and their friends to die out. Lectures on university campuses, discussions on FM radio talk shows late at night, and conspiracy books and articles in underground newspapers appeared as always. But there was no more showing of the Zapruder film on ABC, NBC or CBS; nor was there any talk of conspiracy in any of the major fifteen national news media organizations. The second part of the strategy was to create a fall-back, or second line of defense in the JFK case. If necessary the same idea could also be applied in the other three cases when the situation became too dangerous. There was less danger in 1975 in the RFK, MLK and Wallace cases because the researchers and the media had not yet consistently begun to tie in the CIA, FBI and other PCG high level people. In 1976 a danger emerged in the MLK case when it was revealed that J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI might be linked and that Hoover attempted to get King to commit suicide. However, that development occurred several months after the implementation of the strategy began in the JFK case. Of course there had never been any danger with the Chappaquiddick crime, because few researchers realized what the PCG had accomplished in that event. No suspicions existed in Congress either, beyond some curiosity about Tony Ulasewicz and E. Howard Hunt's strange visits to the island and to Hyannisport. There may be several second lines of defense positions already prepared for the JFK case. The one that has been implemented in 1975 and 1976 is the "Castro did it in revenge" position. The PCG realizes that while the media will behave like slaves to present the first line of defense (Oswald did it alone), the public isn't buying it any more. In 1969, shortly after the Clay Shaw trial ended, the percent of people disbelieving the lone assassin theory fell to its all-time low of just over 50%. By 1976 it had risen to 80%, despite the faithful efforts of CBS, "Time," "Newsweek," et al. More importantly, Richard Schweiker, Gary Hart, Henry Gonzalez, Thomas Downing, and a very large part of the House and Senate weren't buying the lone assassin story any more either. So, a good second line of defense story was needed. It had to be one that the House and Senate and Schweiker, Church, Downing and hopefully Gonzalez would buy. It had to be one which could be created out of existing facts and then shored up by planted evidence, faked records, dependable witnesses lying under oath, and once again, the control and use of the media. The "Castro did it in revenge" story met these requirements. The media had already helped to some extent by publishing information from Jack Anderson, Lyndon B. Johnson and others about Castro's turning around various CIA agents or sending agents of his own, including Oswald, to assassinate JFK. Perhaps even more importantly, Senator Schweiker said he believed Castro might have been behind the assassination and that this possibility should be investigated. The Castro story strategy was implemented in 1975. Gradually at first, a story appeared here or there in the press about the assassins assigned to kill Castro. Then the media began to reprint the Jack Anderson story about Castro's turning around of some of these agents. New authors of the story appeared. Anderson's original story seemed to be forgotten. These articles never seemed to have an identifiable source or any proof. Hank Greenspun of the Las Vegas newspaper circuit and the man involved with Howard Hughes, Larry O'Brien, released a story to the "Chicago Tribune." He said his information came from reliable sources. The momentum began to build. More and more "leaked" information about Castro and assassins and Oswald being a pro-Castroite hit the establishment media. The stories and the sequence of events began to be predictable, if a researcher had understood the PCG and their fight for survival in 1975 and 1976. Then the Church committee and the Schweiker sub-committee issued statements that they were going to investigate the "Castro did it" theory. The PCG began feeding them information in various forms and various ways that would back up the idea. The JFK sex scandal was released by Judith Exner. The PCG provided her with an incentive to spice up the "Castro did it" theory with a little sex involving JFK and one of the assassins assigned to Castro, John Roselli. The PCG realized they had the double advantage of drawing attention to Roselli and Castro and the turn-around assassin idea, while at the same time gnawing away at JFK's image. There was press speculation that Exner was a Mafia plant in the White House to find out how much JFK knew about the Castro assassination plans. Since Frank Sinatra had introduced Judith to both JFK and Roselli, there was speculation about Sinatra's Mafia friends linked to the rat pack, to Peter Lawford, to JFK's sister and to JFK himself. All of this was meat for the PCG's grinder. It certainly drew Schweiker's attention away from Helms, Hunt, Gabaldin, Shaw, Ferrie, Seymour and all of the other operatives involved in JFK's murder. In fact, the Schweiker staff, which had the names and locations of several participants and witnesses that could pinpoint the Helms-Hunt-Shaw-Gabaldin group as the real assassins as early as September, 1975 did not interview more than one or two of them and did not follow up on the rest at all. Their attention was diverted by the second line of defense strategy and they were also influenced by infiltration by the PCG. Part three of the strategy was the control of the Congress and the committees in the House and the Senate concerned with investigations of the intelligence community and the JFK assassination. This subject will be covered in depth in Chapter 14. Suffice it to say here that the PCG planted people on the staffs of the Church committee and the Schweiker sub-committee. They exercised control over the other committees in the House and Senate (Abzug, Don Edwards, Pike committees) and they controlled the House Rules committee, which effectively blocked the Gonzalez and Downing resolutions for over a year. The CIA has always had its supporters in both House and Senate. So has the FBI. So did J. Edgar Hoover (sometimes through blackmail) and Richard Helms. There was a story published in the "Washington Post" about a dinner party given by Tom Braden, former CIA man, at which all of Richard Helms' old buddies rallied to his defense. Several well-known Congressmen were there and Senator Symington gave a rousing speech supporting Helms in his hour of need. Gerald Ford, of course, as then titular leader of the PCG, had many old friends in the House. Nixon had many supporters in both House and Senate and still has to this day. Thus, control by the PCG over Congress and committees is not all that difficult. Specific examples will be given in Chapter 14 of how this really works. So the cover-ups continue. The PCG is still in the driver's seat. The three parts of their strategy work very well. The lone assassin story is repeated at least once a month in some media source or other. The "Castro did it" story will no doubt make its official appearance again. The Congress is under control. Gonzalez was not under control, nor was Downing. But they couldn't do much without the Rules Committee, which was controlled. The people are left with no effective way of doing anything about the PCG and their crimes. What is worse, there is no way the people can elect the man of their choice.
-- daveus rattus
yer friendly neighborhood ratman
KOYAANISQATSI
ko.yaa.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi Language) n. 1. crazy life. 2. life in turmoil. 3. life out of balance. 4. life disintegrating. 5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.
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From: dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
Subject: "The Taking of America, 1-2-3" (7/11) Summary: we were robbed of our capability of electing a president we wanted Keywords: part 7 of 11: chapter 13 thru chapter 14 Lines: 326
* * * * * * *
Chapter 13 The 1976 Election and Conspiracy Fever
To dramatize what might happen and probably did happen in 1976, this chapter has been prepared by assuming the attitude typical of today's innocent Americans. A new disease is sweeping America. No, it's not the flu; it's conspiracy fever.[1] People afflicted by the disease imagine conspiracies everywhere. They believe, for example, that the CIA arranged for the takeover in Chile and the assassination of Salvador Allende. They even think Henry Kissinger had something to do with it. These poor feverish devils have the strange idea that J. Edgar Hoover was a fiend rather than a public hero. They imagine that he ordered a vicious campaign against Dr. Martin Luther King and a conspiracy against most of young America called Cointelpro. Some even think Hoover had King killed. There are some Californians with the west coast strain of this bug who imagine that the FBI and the California authorities created a conspiracy in San Diego and Los Angeles against black citizens. The California group also think there was something strange about Donald DeFreeze and the Symbionese Liberation Army. They suspect an FBI or California state authority conspiracy, complete with police provocateurs, double agents, faked prison breaks, and a Patty Hearst, alias Tania, all thrown in by our own government to create a climate that would make the public accept the prevalence of terrorism and demand a police state. The disease spread to Congressmen as well. It does not seem to be limited, as it was before Watergate, to people under the age of 30. There are even Congressmen with a more virulent form of the malady who are convinced their telephones are still being tapped. They, along with thousands of others who suffer, no doubt reached this conclusion just because they were told by a CIA-controlled media that hundreds of telephones were tapped a few years ago. Early forms of conspiracy fever are no longer considered to be dangerous. For example, all those sick citizens who imagined conspiracies in the incidents at Tonkin Gulf, Songmy, Mylai, the Pueblo and the Black Panther murders are now considered to be more or less recovered, since it turns out it was not their imaginations working overtime after all. Even the special variety of the fever which caused the impression that the CIA murdered a series of foreign heads-of-state is no longer on the danger list. There is still one form of the illness, however, that is officially considered to be very dangerous, virulent, and to be stamped out at all costs. It is the version producing the illusion that all of America's domestic assassinations were conspiracies. Those infected believe the conspiracies are interlinked in a giant conspiracy to take over the electoral process in the United States and to conceal this from the American people. Some citizens are known to have this worst form of the fever. They include a Congressman or two. Others have come down with a milder form in which they imagine separate conspiracies in four assassination cases (John and Robert Kennedy, Dr. King, and the attempted assassination of George Wallace). Members of the Ford Administration, particularly David Belin, Mr. Ford's staff member on the Rockefeller Commission, went along with an analysis made by Dr. Jacob Cohen, a professional fever analyst, that the disease has been spreading rapidly because of a small group of "carriers" traveling around the country who are infecting everyone else. Some of these carriers, called assassination "buffs", were thought to have contracted the fever as many as twelve years ago. In the disease's worst form, the patient imagines that there exists a powerful, high level group of individuals, some of whom have intelligence experience. The highest level of fever in these patients produces the idea that this high level group, usually called the PCG, will eliminate presidential candidates not in their favor or under their control. Others imagine that Jimmy Carter has been brought into the PCG by threats against his children and careful briefings by George Bush. It is worth analyzing the sick people with this domestic assassination conspiracy fever to see how far their imaginations take them. They calculate that the PCG, fearing exposure if any president is not under their control and influence, will go to whatever lengths are required to insure the election of the man they do control. The idea is that Gerald Ford was nicely in the PCG's pocket because he has been covering up for them ever since 1964. He has continued to help them through 1975 and 1976 by maintaining a steady cover-up effort on all four cases. Jimmy Carter was perhaps brought under control. The feverish "buffs" figure that the PCG would have been sure to eliminate Jimmy Carter unless he could be controlled. The scenario continues into the future. The more control exercised by the PCG, the stronger they become and the more people in the executive branch become beholden to them to continue covering up the cover-ups. So, wake up America. Wipe out this disease. It's just as dangerous as Communism, if not more so. Like the general in "Z", Americans must realize that such a disease has to be eliminated whenever and wherever it appears.
____________________
[1] "Conspiracy Fever" is derived from an article with that title by Jacob Cohen, a psychologist, in "Commentary" magazine, October, 1975.
* * * * * * *
Chapter 14 Congress and the People
The last hope of the people to take back their government from the PCG is through Congress. The executive branch is a captive of the PCG. The legislative branch has no power in the situation. Where courts or judges do have some small measure of power, as in the hearings and appeals for a new trial for James Earl Ray, they have been controlled by the PCG. The ruling of the judge in the Ray appeals case, for example, was obviously a decision made for him by someone higher up. He ruled that Ray could not have a new trial after hearing a vast amount of evidence of conspiracy and solid evidence that Percy Foreman had duped Ray into pleading guilty. Unless a people's revolution comes along, and that hardly seems likely, the only possibility left is to hope that Congress can do it. What are the odds? From what has been pointed out so far, it is obvious that if Congress is to expose the PCG, throw the rascals in jail, and wipe the slate clean to seize the country back for the people, a tremendous battle will be required. All of the forces of the PCG, including their friends in the House and Senate, will be focussed on preventing this from happening. A power base within both houses would have to be created that could not only do battle with the PCG but that would not be fooled by their myriad of fiendishly clever techniques, methods and stratagems. It would have to be a power base that protected itself from infiltration and usurpation of its own resources. It would have to somehow conquer the media control problem; otherwise, no American citizen would know what it was doing or what the battle was about. How would such a battle start and such a power base be constructed? An important step would be to purify the special committee created by either resolution and to purify the staff. Preventing infiltration of staff by the PCG is especially important. As mentioned in Chapter 12, the Church Committee staff and the Schweiker sub-committee staff were infiltrated by the PCG, and specifically the CIA. A leading assassination researcher and former intelligence officer in the Defense Intelligence Agency who knew many, many CIA agents discovered two of them in the Church Committee staff offices in the fall of 1975. The other staff members had not been aware that these two men were CIA agents because they were "deep cover" agents. This problem is rather complex because there is always great pressure from the House or Senate to create a balance on any appointed committee. Thus the Church committee was hamstrung by several of the Senators appointed to be on it: they were close friends and supporters of the CIA and FBI. Senators Goldwater and Tower, for example, fought very hard to block any efforts to have the entire committee investigate potential CIA or FBI involvement in domestic assassinations. This does not necessarily mean that Goldwater and Tower are members of the inner circle of the PCG. But it does mean that PCG members who know who killed John Kennedy and why can influence Goldwater and Tower to block such efforts. The first step in the House or Senate might be floor voting because of the tight control exercised by the PCG over the committee procedure on resolutions. In the House, for example, the Rules Committee is all-powerful in determining which resolutions are brought to the floor. Henry Gonzalez introduced his resolution HR204 in 1975 and sent it to the rules committee. Nearly a year passed. On March 18, 1976 Mr. Gonzalez, together with Mr. Downing, was tired of waiting for some action by Chairman Madden and they took the issue to the floor of the House for discussion.[1] By this time the two representatives had 125 co-sponsors for their two resolutions (an unusually large number). Gonzalez and Downing had taken over the floor of the House for two hours and had several supporting speakers. No one rose in opposition. Prior to that time, Representative Sisk from California and Representative Bolling from West Virginia had been vehemently outspoken in the Rules Committee against both resolutions. Madden, Sisk and Bolling all left the House before Downing and Gonzalez started speaking. As a result of Gonzalez's and Downing's efforts, Madden was forced by Speaker Albert and other members of the House and by some of his own constituents to hold a formal hearing on the two resolutions on March 31, 1976. The PCG controlled the hearing through Sisk, Bolling and Lott. The resolutions were tabled, subject to future recall by the chairman. The vote was nine to six. Representative Bolling was called into the hearing from the House floor to cast the ninth vote at the last minute. He heard none of the arguments. He didn't have to. The PCG had instructed him on how to vote. This event is described to illustrate how difficult it would be to overcome the control advantages on the side of the PCG. Only on the Senate or House floor might it be possible to equalize things. The two events, the two hour discussion on the House floor on March 18, reported by the "Congressional Record," and the hearing by the rules committee on March 31 illustrate another problem Congress has combatting the PCG. Not one of the major news media organizations reported either event. Two hours on the House floor is an incredibly long time for any subject. There were many reporters present from television, radio, newspapers and press services. Mark Lane saw to that. But nothing appeared on CBS, NBC, ABC, or in "Time," "Newsweek," or the "New York Times." Why? The answer is obvious. Very tight control over the news from the House is exercised by the PCG. The larger implication is there for all to see who want to open their eyes. Seeing it and believing it are two different things. For nearly all Congressmen who still have faith in America, the whole point of this book, and the existence of a Power Control Group which included Ford, Nixon, Kissinger, the CIA, the FBI, the fifteen major news media management level people, plus nearly anyone else of importance in the executive branch and many Congressmen, is too much to swallow. They would rather have the whole thing go quietly away than face up to something that gigantic. And that is the real source of the PCG's strength, the unbelievability of it all.
Addendum to Chapter 14
Several truly historic and highly encouraging events occurred in the months of September and October, 1976 that could indicate a change in the tide and power and control described in earlier chapters. First, on September 15, a coalition of representatives from the Black Caucus, Henry Gonzalez and Thomas Downing managed to get Resolution H1540 through the House Rules Committee. Mark Lane, Coretta King and others were responsible for creating pressures that finally convinced Speaker Carl Albert, Chairman Tom Madden of the Rules Committee and others that this was necessary and desirable. The new resolution, made up of parts of the Downing and Gonzalez resolutions plus input from Representative Walter Fauntroy from the Black Caucus called for a special 12-person committee to reopen the JFK and Dr. King cases and any other deaths that the committee might decide to investigate. The Rules Committee voted nine to four in favor. Representative Bolling, who perhaps unknowingly had lent his support to the opposition in the earlier vote, was an important swing vote and actually introduced the resolution in the meeting. The position of the nine who voted for the resolution was more than vindicated two days later, when the House, by the extraordinary vote of 280 to 64, passed the resolution. History was made. On that day cheers should have gone up from several hundred dedicated researchers around the world, and the Power Control Group should have begun looking for rocks to crawl under. The real war was only beginning, however. The "New York Times" barely reported the event, did not mention the vote, and buried the story in the middle of another story with one-half inch in one column. The "Washington Star" and "Post" carried larger stories and the "White Plains Reporter Dispatch" made it a first page headline story. The PCG's media control slipped a bit. The next hurdle was for Downing, Gonzalez and Fauntroy to convince Albert that the chairman of the new committee for 1977 should be Mr. Gonzalez since Mr. Downing had announced his retirement. Because elections were being held in November, Mr. Albert named Mr. Downing as chairman for the balance of 1976, with Mr. Gonzalez as next in line. He also let it be known to the press that Mr. Gonzalez would be the best choice to head the committee next year. Mr. Albert then named ten other members of the committee for the 1976 period. Four of them, Fauntroy, Burke, Stokes and Ford, were members of the Black Caucus. Stewart McKinney, Representative from Connecticut, is a well known supporter of the truth. Those five, together with Downing and Gonzalez, could probably be counted on to try to arrive at the truth. The other five representatives--Dodd from Connecticut, Preyer from Tennessee, Devine from Ohio, Thone from Nebraska and Talcott from California--were unknown quantities. If the PCG theory holds up, at least one of them, and perhaps two, will turn out to be PCG representatives. The next event of significance occurred on October 4 when Mr. Downing named Richard A. Sprague, former district attorney from Philadelphia and fearless prosecutor of the Yablonski murderers, as executive director of the committee's staff. The main significance of this event was who was not named. Bernard Fensterwald, Jr., was in strong contention, but he was not selected because of suspicions that he might be a CIA agent and also because of conflicts of interests among his clientele. Fensterwald represented Otto Otepka, James McCord, James Earl Ray and Andrew St. George, among others. There is certainly a strong CIA flavor and PCG influence among his clients. Whether or not Bud Fensterwald himself works for the CIA or the PCG, his rejection as executive director was a healthy sign that the committee might be able to go through the purification process described as essential in Chapter 14. Richard A. Sprague had his hands full attempting to separate PCG applicants for staff positions from non-PCG members. The PCG, during the same time period (September and October) these historic events were taking place, was very active in spreading its second line of defense information. "Castro did it in revenge" stories began popping up everywhere. Jack Anderson was revived to back up the strategy by publishing another of his "Castro did it" columns.
____________________
[1] House Resolution 204 -- Henry Gonzalez House Resolution 498 -- Thomas Downing
* * * * * * *
-- daveus rattus
yer friendly neighborhood ratman
KOYAANISQATSI
ko.yaa.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi Language) n. 1. crazy life. 2. life in turmoil. 3. life out of balance. 4. life disintegrating. 5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.
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Date: Tue, 16 Jun 92 07:42:08 -0700
From: dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
Subject: "The Taking of America, 1-2-3" (8/11) Summary: we were robbed of our capability of electing a president we wanted Keywords: part 8 of 11: chapter 15 Lines: 1172
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Chapter 15 The Select Committee on Assassinations, The Intelligence Community and the News Media
Part I
The Top Down vs. The Bottom Up Approach To Assassination Investigations
Two vastly different views have been held by both assassination researchers and members of Congress during the last three years about the best way to arrive at the truth concerning political assassinations in the United States. The conservative view dictates we must build an investigative base from the ground upward, beginning with the JFK assassination, and use "hard" evidence in each assassination case. This view assumes that any grand, overall conspiracy to cover up the cover-ups would be detected and made public following exposure of the first layer of cover-ups. The less conservative view holds that the political processes underlying the original assassinations and the massive cover-up superstructure should be attacked and exposed simultaneously. The resolutions to establish a Select Committee to Investigate Assassinations, introduced by Thomas Downing and Henry Gonzalez in the House of Representatives in 1975, were somewhat related to both views. The conservative Downing resolution called for a sole investigation of the JFK case. Gonzalez's resolution called for the reopening of all four major cases--JFK, RFK, Dr. King and George Wallace--and more importantly, it called for an investigation of the possible links among all four. Gonzalez stated that he believed the country might be experiencing an assassination-controlled electoral process. His approach was clearly allied with the less conservative view. Research groups, such as Mark Lane's Citizen's Commission of Inquiry (CCI), Bud Fensterwald's Committee to Investigate Assassinations (CTIA), and Bob Katz's Assassination Information Bureau (AIB) were also divided in their views. CCI and CTIA took the bottom-up approach and tended to support Downing. AIB took the overview political approach and tended to support Gonzalez. The Black Caucus, Coretta King and others were primarily interested in a broad overview of the King assassination. The coalition formed by Downing, Gonzalez and the Black Caucus finally brought about the creation of the Select Committee on Assassinations in the House, which represents a mixture of these views and approaches. The work of the Select Committee will produce results if it is recognized that the bottom-up approach alone cannot be used successfully against the group of powerful individuals that currently controls the environment in which any investigation attempts are to be made. The best way the Select Committee can succeed against this group is to use what will be labelled the "top down" approach to investigating and exposing the truth as a supplement to the bottom up approach.
The Power Control Group
The earlier part of this book described a group of individuals in the United States and labelled them the "Power Control Group." The PCG is that group of individuals or organizations that knowingly participated in one or more of the assassination conspiracies or related murders or attempted murders, plus the individuals who knowingly participated or are still participating in the cover-ups of those conspiracies or murders. The PCG includes any people in the CIA, FBI, Justice Department, Secret Service, local police departments or sheriffs offices in Los Angeles, Memphis, Dallas, New Orleans or Florida, judges, district attorneys, state attorneys general, other federal government agencies, the House of Representatives, the Senate, the White House, the Congress, or the Department of Defense as well as any people in the media who are under the influence of any of the above, who participated or are participating in the cover-ups or the cover-ups of the cover-up. There are indications that people in every one of the above organizations or groups belong to the PCG.
Hard Evidence of Conspiracy
Anyone who has honestly and openly taken the time to examine a few pieces of hard evidence in any one of the four major cases has no trouble deciding there were individual conspiracies in each. In the face of this situation, the layman wonders why the Congress continually demands hard evidence of conspiracy. Statements continue to appear in the media to the effect that, "I've seen no evidence of conspiracy." Or, "We are not sure whether there were others involved in addition to Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan, James Earl Ray or Arthur Bremer." These statements are made in spite of the fact that even the most casual analysis clearly shows that Oswald, Sirhan, and Ray did not fire any of the shots that struck JFK, RFK and MLK, and that they were all patsies. Bremer fired some of the shots in the Wallace case, but there is evidence that another gun was fired. The hard evidence is all old evidence. It goes back at least to 1967 and 1968 in the JFK case, and back to 1970 through 1972 in the RFK and MLK cases. The Wallace evidence is a little fresher, but nevertheless convincing. The people who demand new evidence are either members of the PCG, or they are brainwashed by the media members of the PCG into ignoring the old evidence. They do not choose to see or to hear the old evidence, even when it is literally placed before their very eyes and ears. Thus the words "hard evidence" are merely substitutes for the words "no conspiracy".
The Bottom Up Approach
The bottom up approach is doomed to failure no matter how the Select Committee tries and no matter how much effort any official body puts into attempts to offer that "bombshell" that Tip O'Neill and others look for to prove conspiracy in the JFK and MLK cases. The PCG is in complete control of the situation. It controls the media and the media controls the minds of most citizens and the Congress. The PCG is a living, dynamic body right now. They can eliminate an investigation or investigators right now. They can eliminate a member of the House or a member of the Select Committee right now. The bottom up approach will never get off the ground because the PCG will not allow it. As long as the PCG controls all the sources of evidence that might contain the hard evidence in the FBI, CIA and local police files, as long as it controls the courts, and as long as it controls the media, no one will be allowed to prove hard evidence before the House, the Senate, the President, or any one in the Executive Branch.
The Events of 1976 and 1977
That the PCG's control exists is more clearly evident now than it has ever been before. The PCG is operating in an almost blatant fashion. Any observer who keeps his eyes wide open and assumes that such a group exists, can see it operate almost every day. The prime objectives of the PCG in 1976 and 1977 were:
1. To block and eliminate the Select Committee on Assassinations in the House of Representatives.
2. To firmly implant the idea that the JFK assassination was a Castro plot.
3. To block any Congressional attempts to investigate the four assassination cases.
4. To control the Carter Administration in such a way as to permit only an executive branch investigation that will conclude there was a Castro-based JFK conspiracy and no conspiracy in the other cases.
The 1977 activities of the PCG lent themselves to a new approach, the "top down" approach to exposing the truth.
Exposing the PCG
The top down approach obviously begins with exposing the PCG's immediate, present activities. The following examples are illustrative. The Select Committee is certainly in a better position to know which individuals and actions taken by the PCG since the formation of the Committee in September, 1976 would be most easily attacked. The first example is the leaked Justice Department report on the King case.
The Justice Department King Report
The PCG members' actions were leaked in the February 2, 1977 King report and released a few weeks later. To review the list of PCG members involved in the cover-up of the King case: J. Edgar Hoover, the Memphis FBI, Phil Canale (Memphis D.A.), Fred Vinson (State Department), Judge Battle, Percy Foreman, William Bradford Huie, Gerald Frank (author), Frank Holloman and other members of the Memphis police and judges at the state and federal court levels. One of the judges who became a PCG member in later years was Judge McCrea. He heard James Earl Ray's plea for a new trial. Solid evidence of the conspiracy to frame Ray was introduced at that hearing. Everyone who read or heard the evidence, with the exception of Judge McCrea and his law clerk, reached the conclusion that Ray was framed and that his lawyer, Percy Foreman, deliberately mishandled the case. Nevertheless, McCrea decided that Ray would not get a new trial. The case was appealed all the way to the Supreme Court with no reversals of the decision.
Leaking the Justice Department Report on the King Case
Attorney General Levi some years later ordered a review by the Justice Department of the King assassination and the FBI's handling of its investigation. A report was prepared by Michael J. Shaheen, who did most of the Justice Department work. No public announcement was made in 1976 upon completion of the report. Suddenly, on the exact day that the House was debating whether to reconstitute the Select Committee (February 2, 1977), the King report was leaked to the Republican minority leader of the opposition, Representative Quillen of Tennessee. He announced he had a copy of the report. Representative Yvonne Burke from California, a member of the Select Committee and also a member of the House Committee responsible for oversight of the Justice Department, took strong issue with Quillen over the leak. She said she had unsuccessfully tried to obtain the report that day from the Justice Department. Quillen stated at first he did not have the report, but had an Associated Press release describing the report. About an hour later, he said he had received a copy of the report. Burke stated that was very strange; not even the proper committee of the House had received a copy. The report was quoted to say that the Justice Department had closed the King case and concluded James Earl Ray was the lone assassin. Placed in the hands of the opposition to the Select Committee, the statement was strategically useful. Quillen argued against continuing the Committee on the strength of the conclusions reached in the report.
Releasing the Report
On February 19, 1977, the King report was released by the Justice Department. Blaring headlines again emphasized no conspiracy and exonerated the FBI's conduct in their investigation. A showdown meeting was scheduled for February 21 between Henry Gonzalez and Tip O'Neill, to be followed the same day by a meeting of the Select Committee to determine whether they would continue with Richard A. Sprague as chief counsel. The absurd report was published in the "New York Times" on February 19, 1977. The PCG 's tactics became somewhat obvious on that date. Attorney General Griffin Bell, having inherited the report from Mr. Levi, let slip an important opinion on the CBS program, "Face the Nation" on the Sunday before the report was described as "still secret" by the UPI news release quoting Mr. Bell. Bell said he believed there were questions the report did not answer. Bell clarified his concerns after the February 19 release of the report by stating on the 24th that he might want to interview Ray to find out where Ray obtained all of the money he had before and after King was shot, and whether anyone helped him obtain false passports or make travel arrangements. Perhaps Bell was troubled by one of the report's conclusions--that one of Ray's motives in killing King was to make a "quick profit." This indicates that Mr. Bell, and presumably Mr. Carter, are not members of the PCG cover-up on the King case. It also seems obvious that Mr. Levi and the people preparing the report and conducting the review had become members of the PCG. The timed release and leaking of that report and the total whitewash of the King conspiracy are too patently obvious to be coincidental. This is one area in which the Select Committee has an excellent chance to expose a raw nerve of the PCG.
Michael Shaheen -- PCG Member
A key PCG member in the situation would appear to be Mr. Shaheen, Judge McCrea's law clerk mentioned earlier in the PCG cover-up in Memphis. Shaheen was deeply involved in the old cover-up as well as the new cover-up. He is from Memphis and part of that closed circle of people in Tennessee who know very well what happened to Martin Luther King and how Ray was framed. Mr. Shaheen is now planning to become a judge in Memphis with the help of all his co-conspirators and PCG members. Who called the shots in this Justice Department effort? Was it Levi? Was it the PCG members left over from the Nixon-Ford administration? Was it members of the PCG still in the FBI? Was it the Tennessee wing of the PCG that includes Judge McCrea, Phil Canale, Howard Baker, Mr. Quillen and Bernard Fensterwald, Jr.? The Select Committee should find out. The report itself is easily attacked. It quotes the fake Charlie Stevens testimony all over again, as if no one knew he had been bought off by Hoover to identify Ray. Stevens was dead drunk and saw nothing on the day of the King assassination.
Ignoring or Suppressing Conspiracy and Framing Evidence
Shaheen's review did not touch upon any of the evidence regarding the framing of Ray that was introduced at the hearing that Judge McCrea and Shaheen knew so very well. The witnesses who had seen Ray at a gas station several blocks from the assassination site when the shot was fired were ignored. Grace Walden Stevens saw Frenchy (Raoul) in the rooming house, identified Frenchy as the man she saw, and knew Charlie had seen nothing. She had to be ignored. The witnesses who saw Jack Youngblood move away from the bushes from which he had fired the shot had to be ignored. Hoover and Fred Vinson's use of Stevens's false testimony to extradite Ray from London had to be ignored. The FBI's role in Memphis, including its instructions to the witnesses who had seen Frenchy to keep quiet was to be kept a dark secret. The similarity between Frenchy's photograph and the sketch of Raoul and Ray's subsequent identification of Frenchy as Raoul had to be kept quiet. More ignored evidence was turned up by Huie. He found three witnesses who had seen Ray and Frenchy-Raoul together both in Atlanta and Montreal. They confirmed Ray's claim that he was framed. All of the evidence involving Youngblood and Frenchy, uncovered by Robert Livingston and Wayne Chastain and published in "Computers and People" in 1974, was omitted. Livingston was Ray's attorney in Tennessee. Chastain is a Memphis reporter. Livingston and Chastain's sighting of Frenchy- Raoul at the Detroit airport during a meeting between Livingston, Chastain, Bud Fensterwald and the intermediary representing Frenchy (in an attempt to obtain immunity for him in exchange for revealing the identity of the Tennesseans and Louisianians who had hired him) was ignored. Exposure of this segment of the PCG would have done more to bolster the 1977 efforts of the Select Committee than any presentation of conspiracy evidence in the King case itself.
The PCG's Tactics With the Select Committee
In the early days of the formation of the Committee in September 1976, the PCG might have taken the Committee very lightly. The PCG's efforts to stop an investigation from beginning in the spring of 1976 through its control of the Rules Committee had been successful. Downing and Gonzalez had given up. But when the three-way coalition suddenly brought about a reversal of their earlier Rules Committee vote, and the House quickly and overwhelmingly passed a resolution to set up the Committee, the PCG was forced to go back to the drawing boards for retaliation. Before the PCG had time to react, Downing and Gonzalez hired Dick Sprague as chief counsel. Sprague very rapidly hired the equivalent of his own FBI. He sensed from the start that he might be up against both the FBI and the CIA, so he carefully screened his investigators, lawyers, researchers and other personnel to prevent intelligence penetration of the staff. However, some personnel were "handed" to him by both Gonzalez and Downing. It goes almost without saying that the PCG would have tried to infiltrate the staff. What they learned by their early infiltration was that Sprague and his crack team were not only on the right track in both the JFK and MLK investigations, but also that the tactics used by the PCG in those weeks were making the staff and some of the committee members suspicious about the PCG itself.
PCG Control of Prior Investigations
It became imperative for the PCG to either eliminate the entire Committee or to gain control of it and to rid it of Dick Sprague and the senior staff people who were loyal to him. It was no longer possible to turn the investigations around and bury the information that had been gathered as the PCG had done with six prior Congressional investigations. In each of the prior investigations (five Senate investigations and one House investigation of the JFK assassination) the PCG had controlled the results, disbanded the staffs and buried the evidence. The six groups were:
1. 1968--A Senate subcommittee under Senator Ed Long of Missouri conducted a JFK investigation. Bernard Fensterwald, Jr., was in charge of a six-person team. 2. 1974--The Ervin Committee investigated the JFK case during the Watergate period. Samuel Dash headed a team of four that included Terry Lenzer, Barry Schochet and Wayne Bishop. 3. 1975--The Church Committee. A six-person team reported to FAO Schwartz III. It included Bob Kelley, Dan Dwyer, Ed Greissing, Paul Wallach, Pat Shea and David Aaron. 4. 1975--The Schweiker-Hart subcommittee under the Church Committee had a team headed by David Marston, that included Troy Gustafson, Gaeton Fonzi, and Elliott Maxwell. 5. 1975--Pike Committee in House. People unknown. 6. 1976--Senate Intelligence Committee under Daniel Inouye.
In addition, both Howard Baker and Lowell Weicker conducted their own investigations of the JFK case during the Watergate period. Sprague and his senior staff people are professionals compared to the amateurs listed above. Wayne Bishop was the only professional investigator in all of the staff groups. It was easy for the PCG to cut off or alter the directions of the prior investigations. Thus, the one with the greatest hope, the Schweiker subcommittee, wound up not mentioning any of the important evidence uncovered in Florida and elsewhere in their final report. The Congress and the public were left with the impression that there might have been a Castro conspiracy to assassinate JFK.
PCG Strategy
Faced with the new committee and Sprague's staff, the PCG had devise a strategy that included:
1. Attacking Dick Sprague to discredit him with dirt and print it in the media.
2. Using the media to spread PCG propaganda and control the sources of all stories concerning the Select Committee.
3. Using PCG Congressmen to provide biased, distorted quotes to the media for its use.
4. Trying to discredit the entire committee by making it appear to be disorganized and unmanageable.
5. Controlling the voting and lobbying against the continuation of the committee in January and February.
6. Influencing members of the House to vote against the Committee through a massive letter and telegram campaign.
7. Exaggerating the emphasis placed on the size of the budget requested by Sprague without considering the need for such a budget.
8. Demanding that the committee justify its existence by producing new evidence.
9. Splitting the committee and attempting to create dissension; creating a battle between Henry Gonzalez and Richard Sprague and between Gonzalez and Downing.
10. Hamstringing the staff so they could not receive salaries, could not travel, did not have subpoena power, could not make long distance telephone calls; blocking access to the key files at the FBI, Justice Department, CIA and Secret Service.
11. Trying to insert their own man at the head of the staff.
12. Brainwashing Henry Gonzalez into believing that Sprague and others were agents.
13. Sacrificing Henry Gonzalez when it became obvious the PCG could not control him as their chairman.
14. Leaking stories that seemed to make the committee's efforts unnecessary.
Media Control
The primary technique used by the PCG is its nearly absolute control of the media. This is not as difficult to achieve as one might imagine. Since most of the stories about the committee originate in Washington under rather tightly-knit conditions, it is necessary to control only a small number of key reporters and their bosses. The rest of the media follow along like sheep. The PCG trotted out some of their old-timers in the media to initiate the public and congressional brainwashing program against the committee. They used the same tactic against Jim Garrison between 1967 and 1969. The old-timers included Jeremiah O'Leary, George Lardner, Jr., and David Burnham. Jeremiah O'Leary of the "Washington Star" was on the CIA's list of reporters exposed the year before. George Lardner Jr. had been in David Ferrie's apartment until 4 AM on the morning he was murdered. Lardner was a PCG member in 1967, while he worked as a reporter for the "Washington Post" (he is still with the "Post"). David Burnham at the "New York Times," one of the several reporters in Harrison Salisbury's and Harding Bancroft, Jr.'s stable of PCG workers, was called upon to carry the brunt of the "Times"' attack. There were, of course, others. As in 1967 and at other times during the first decade of media cover-ups, the major TV, radio, wire service, magazine and newspaper media acted as a cover-up unit. Ben Bradlee, the PCG chieftain at the "Washington Post," made sure that "Newsweek" did their hatchet jobs. Time, Inc., CBS (with Eric Sevaried, Dick Salant and Leslie Midgeley), NBC (with David Brinkley), and ABC (with Bob Clark and Howard K. Smith) all went on the attack. The overall theme was that the committee would soon die out.
Media Tactics
The tactics first used were to create the impression that the Committee was not going to find anything of importance. Then Dick Sprague became the chief target. One of the dirty tricks used against him portrayed him as arrogant, flamboyant, power-mad, and as a man who usurped the powers of the Committee. The writers and editors of the PCG are very good at this sort of thing. The "New York Times," with Burnham writing and Salisbury and Bancroft directing, did a real hatchet job on Sprague. These techniques convinced congressmen and much of the public. Sqrague was forced to stay very quiet and away from reporters and cameras. That did not deter the PCG people. Once an image of a man has been created by the media, it is not necessary for him to appear in public. He could even disappear for several weeks, but the flamboyant, noisy image would go on uninterrupted. This technique is much less obvious than murder, but it works nearly as well. When the time comes to destroy or eliminate the man, all the PCG has to do is create an image.
The Vote to Continue
The man chosen to eliminate Sprague was the new chairman of the Select Committee, Henry Gonzalez. Before setting up a classic "personality conflict" between Gonzalez and Sprague, the PCG used another tactic. It attempted to kill the Committee with a vote not to continue it in the 1977 Congress. The House and media PCG members overemphasized the large budget requested by Dick Sprague, the use of the polygraph, the use of the psychological stress evaluator and the telephone monitoring equipment. Rather than telling the truth about the budget, describing how the money would be spent, and describing why and how the equipment was going to be used, the media (aided and abetted by PCG members in the House itself) made it seem as though the budget was totally out of line and that citizen's rights would be violated by the use of such equipment. The PCG planted false information that led Don Edwards of California to play into their hands on the equipment issue. The year-end report of the Committee, which they and the staff hoped would make these subjects clear, countered the media attacks. *But*, of course, the PCG controls the media, and the report was completely blacked out. Most citizens do not even know it exists. Almost every U.S. citizen has heard and seen Dick Sprague called a rattlesnake and an unscrupulous character. However, the PCG lost the vote against continuing the Committee and used a new method to try to kill it.
The New Tactic
The PCG decided to use Gonzalez to control the Committee. The stage was set for the PCG to knock off Sprague and to install one of their own men. The plan was to do this by brainwashing Henry Gonzalez into distrusting Sprague and selected members of the Committee and the staff. The idea was to use Gonzalez in this way to install a PCG man (the fact that he was a PCG man was unknown to Gonzalez) as chief of staff. Gonzalez would fire Sprague and the key staff members, first blocking their access to important files and witnesses. The PCG would then have been in a position to either fold up the Committee by March 31, or to direct its efforts toward finding a Castro-did-it conspiracy in JFK's case and no conspiracy in the King case.
Tactic Backfires
The PCG did not forecast one important effect their tactics would have. By the time Henry Gonzalez became chairman, the other eleven members of the Committee and its staff had begun to smell a rat. They noted with curiosity all of the strange coincidences that occurred. During the floor debate on February 2, 1977 over continuing the Committee, Representatives Devine, Preyer, Burke and Fauntroy let the rest of the House know that they believed something peculiar was happening to them. The appearance of the Justice Department report on that same day disturbed them very much. The attacks on Sprague upset them also. The staff were even more disturbed. Most of them had assumed they were being asked to conduct a thorough and unbiased investigation of two homicides. The power of the PCG became obvious to them over a period of several weeks. The effect of this on both the Committee and its staff was to drive all eighty-four people (73 staff and 11 Committee members) into a solid block (the only exceptions were Gonzalez's people on the staff), more determined than ever to get at the truth. Some staffers began using their own money for travel. All of them took pay cuts. Many of them decided they would work for nothing if necessary to keep going. The PCG's strategy had backfired. The eighty-four loyal people were like one giant lion backed into a corner, spurred on to greater heights to fight back. For this reason, the PCG tactic to use a brainwashed Henry Gonzalez failed. The eighty-four people resisted that manuever by threatening to resign en masse. Tip O'Neill and others were forced to go against Gonzalez. Gonzalez resigned. The House voted by a large majority to accept his resignation and Tip O'Neill appointed Louis Stokes as the new chairman. At this point, the PCG decided to abandon Gonzalez and to try another tactic, signalled by an article in the "Washington Star" on March 3, 1977. Written by "Star" staff writer Lynn Rosellini, the article was entitled, "Gonzalez' Action Stuns Panel but Not the Home Folks." It was manufactured by the PCG to discredit Gonzalez and his final demise. (It was the first anti-Gonzalez article to appear.) The PCG had obviously decided to throw Gonzalez to the wolves. The significant quote was supposedly from a "source familiar with Gonzalez' career" that said "Henry focuses in on conspiracies, the weird angle of things. Once he gets involved in something, he shakes it by the throat until it's dead." That was a dead giveaway that the PCG no longer wanted Henry around.
Next Tactic -- Death By Acclamation
The PCG's next tactic was to convince a majority of the House that the Committee had had it because of the feuding as portrayed in the press. They hoped to either eliminate the Committee altogether or eliminate the JFK investigation or to force Sprague to resign. (After all, the King conspiracy can always be blamed on J. Edgar Hoover, if it comes down to that. There is no particular spillover from the King case into JFK, RFK or Wallace, provided Frenchy can be kept out of the limelight.) It might have been possible for the PCG Congressmen to propose dropping the JFK case or to propose postponing it in favor of continuing just the King case with a reduced budget. Prior to March 31, a House floor vote or a vote in the Rules Committee could have been proposed that might have limited the investigations and the authority of the Select Committee in this way. The rules under which the Select Committee would operate were not passed by the Committee due to the conflict between Henry Gonzalez and the rest of the members, so the proposal could have included restrictive rules. The PCG media could have boosted this idea with the PCG loyalists in the House. Jim Wright appeared to be the new leader of the opposition to kill the Select Committee. More ground was being laid every day for a negative vote on continuation. The hint was that the Committee must come up with a bombshell or that it will die. The Committee fought off this tactic by diverting the attention of the media through a series of very rapidly developing activities and a substantial reduction in the proposed budget, which plummeted to 2.8 million for the remainder of 1977. The House finally voted to continue the Committee by a very narrow margin, with a swing of 25 votes determining the result. The final weapon used to obtain a vote to continue the Committee on March 30 was the resignation of Dick Sprague.
Exposing the PCG
The best way to expose the PCG is to demonstrate that it has been influencing or controlling the media and attempting to control Congress. How can this be done? It will be necessary to show who the PCG members are in the House and the media and exactly what they have been doing while they are doing it. Getting this kind of information out to the public will be very difficult, since the entire media group seems to be controlled. Live TV is not easily controllable. If unannounced exposures of PCG members are made on live TV there would be no way for the PCG to stop it. About the only way to set up such a situation would be to hold public hearings with live TV coverage. Exposing the PCG to Congress might be accomplished on the floor of the House. Evidence of the clandestine activities of PCG members in the tactics described above could be introduced on the floor without media coverage. This happened to a minor extent on March 30 when some of the Committee members began to accuse the media of improper influence.
Who Are The PCG Members
The PCG members presently attempting to control the Select Committee must be clearly identified.[1] There are, no doubt, some media people and Representatives who sincerely believe that there were no conspiracies and who have been playing into the hands of the PCG without realizing it. Other Representatives, and media people by the definition of the term PCG, are purposefully controlling the situation. It may be difficult to distinguish between these two groups without tracing back some PCG connection of the culprits. Any CIA or FBI clandestine relationship or any direct connection with any of the assassination cases would be a tip. An example of this is George Lardner, Jr.'s direct connection with the JFK case ten years ago. (Lardner was in David Ferrie's apartment for four hours after the midnight time of death estimated by the New Orleans coroner. Ferrie was killed by a karate chop to the back of his neck.) Jim Garrison interrogated Lardner at some length, but he never received a satisfactory explanation of what he had been doing there. While it may be difficult to tell which congressmen are sincere and which are knowingly trying to extend the cover-ups, the Select Committee must turn its attention to any member of the House who throws up roadblocks or who speaks out strongly against the continuation of the investigations. On this basis, one must suspect every one of the Representatives cited below. Many questions should be asked of this group. For example, who encouraged Mr. Bauman during that autumn and on March 30, Mr. Sisk last spring and Mr. Quillen in February to suddenly become so vehement about stopping investigations of the assassinations? Their stated reasons were that the Kennedys were opposed, costs, the lack of new evidence, the Warren Commission, etc. But these reasons can no longer be their own true beliefs. On whose behalf were they acting? How did Trent Lott find out that the Committee staff made a telephone call to Cameroon, which he discussed on March 28 at the Rules meeting? Who talked Frank Thompson into a campaign to shut off the Select Committee's financial resources? (The Thompson efforts cannot be explained away by the ordinary controller's motivations.) Who convinced Jim Wright that the Committee was doomed and that he should personally intervene in the Gonzalez, Sprague and Committee members' battle? And, most importantly, who brainwashed both Henry Gonzalez and Gail Beagle into mistrusting the people they had always trusted? Answer these questions and publicize the answers, and the top-down approach to exposing the PCG and solving the assassination conspiracies will be well along the path to success.
Part II
"Hard" and "Soft" Propaganda in 1977
When the time approached for the Select Committee on Assassinations to ask the House of Representatives for its 1978 budget, it was interesting to once again examine the PCG's control over the American news media and the Congress. To those who observed the assassination scene with blinders removed, it was patently obvious that the December 1977 date for the Select Committee's budget approval was a target. The PCG attempted to defeat the Committee's efforts to get at the truth underlying the John Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations and the cover-up crimes associated with them. An all-out effort was mounted by the PCG to influence the thinking of citizens and the votes of the members of the House. This effort manifested itself in the major news media--over the three TV networks, the "New York Times," "Washington Post," "Newsweek," "Time," book publishers, book reviewers, TV talk shows, etc. This massive campaign is a useful test to prove the validity of contentions made by this author and others in 1976 and 1977 concerning the relationships between the Power Control Group and the American news media, as utilized in the continuing cover-ups of the domestic assassinations, and in the PCG's efforts to destroy the reputations of assassination researchers[2] and the two official investigations of the John Kennedy assassinations.[3] New evidence surfaced in 1977 to support these contentions: a CIA document released under the Freedom of Information Act and an article by a new potential ally for assassination truth seekers, Carl Bernstein. Both of these documents were provided to the author by Ted Gandolfo in New York, who now has his own weekly cable TV show on Friday nights on Manhattan TV entitled, "Assassination USA."
Evidence of Media Control by the CIA
Carl Bernstein wrote an article exposing the CIA's methods of controlling the news media.[4] The basic technique dictates planting a Secret Team member at the top of each major media organization, or obtaining tacit agreements from the top man to use reporters working for the CIA, and to use CIA people, stories, and policies on the inside of the organization. Bernstein named men above the level named by this author as CIA people in certain organizations. For example, the author's claim was that Harding Bancroft, Jr. has been the CIA control point at the "New York Times." Bernstein named Arthur Hays Sulzberger, the owner of the "Times" and Bancroft's boss, as the CIA's man at the "Times." At CBS, the author named Richard Salant. Bernstein names William C. Paley. At the "Washington Post" and "Newsweek" Bernstein names Philip Graham, Katherine Graham's husband, former owner of the "Post" and "Newsweek," and by inference, Mrs. Graham since her husband's death. The author named Ben Bradlee. But Bernstein's information confirms the author's contention that the CIA controls the 15 news media organizations in the U.S. The other CIA top level individuals named by Bernstein are as follows:
"Louisville Courier Journal"--Barry Bingham, Sr. NBC--Richard Wald ABC--Sam Jaffe Time, Inc.--Henry Luce Copley News Service--James Copley Hearst--Seymour Freiden
The PCG, through their prime intelligence members, are today still controlling what the media do and say about the subject of assassinations and the Select Committee on Assassinations.[5] They do this by influencing the heads of each organization who determine media editorial policies that are carried out by their subordinates. In some cases, however, lower level people are also planted as reporters, editors or producers to execute the policies, write the stories, produce the programs, review the books, or write or publish the books. The CIA also owns and controls many publishing houses, freelance writers or reviewers who can also be used in this massive campaign. However, the reader should not immediately jump to the conclusion that all of the media people knowingly continue to cover-up of the assassination conspiracies. It is only necessary that they actually believe the CIA's stories and positions against conspiracies. For example, Anthony Lewis at the "New York Times" participates in this entire fraud, actually believing that Oswald was the lone madman assassin. It is inconceivable, however, that men intelligent enough to rise to the top of CBS, NBC, ABC, the "New York Times et al." could actually believe that Oswald was the lone assassin. Some or most of them must be cooperating fully in the PCG cover-up efforts.
Proof of CIA Efforts to Discredit Researchers
A recently released CIA document[6] was a dispatch issued from CIA headquarters in April 1967 to certain bases and stations to mount a campaign through media contacts (called assets) against certain assassination researchers. The targets included Mark Lane, Joachim Joesten, Penn Jones, Edward Epstein and Bertrand Russell. The document describes an entire program to be used to discredit the "critics." Many of the exact expressions that were used by the CIA-controlled media to attack the researchers can be found in this document. One example is: "The CIA should use this argument in general. Conspiracy on the large scale often suggested (by critics) would be impossible to conceal in the United States, especially since informants could expect to receive large royalties, etc." Another argument suggested is: "Note that Robert Kennedy, Attorney General at the time and John F. Kennedy's brother, would be the last man to overlook or conceal any conspiracy." How many times did we hear that between 1967 and 1969? The document also suggests using an article by Fletcher Knebel to attack Ed Epstein's book and to attack it rather than Mark Lane's book because "Lane's book is much more difficult to answer as a whole, as one becomes lost in a morass of unrelated details." The timing of this document is particularly important. April 1, 1967 was approximately two months after Jim Garrison's investigation surfaced, and only shortly after Garrison found David Ferrie murdered in his own apartment and had Clay Shaw arrested. Since we now know that both men were contract agents for the CIA and that the CIA went to great lengths under Richard Helms' direction to protect Clay Shaw and to keep his true identity from being revealed, the chances are good that this document was triggered by Garrison's investigation. The names of the authors of the document have been blacked out of the copy that was released. Further research might reveal who actually wrote it and "pulled it together" (as a note in hand print at the top states).
The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald
The top level media control was demonstrated by the ABC-TV program, "The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald", whose co-director, Lawrence Schiller, had to have been selected at the suggestion of the PCG. Schiller, one of the worst people in the PCG's stable of freelancers, is best known for his book supporting the Warren Commission and attacking the researchers, called "The Scavengers."[7] Schiller is perhaps the biggest scavenger ever created. He supposedly obtained a "deathbed" statement from Jack Ruby by illegally and unethically sneaking a tape recorder into his hospital room. He then parlayed this into a wide-selling record with distasteful and untruthful propaganda. More recently he seized the opportunity to interview Gary Gilmore before his execution, practically holding a mike to his mouth while the commands were being given to the firing squad. How, the reader may ask, could Schiller become a co-producer of a major ABC television show? The answer is simple. He is available to attack and ridicule the assassination researchers and reinforce the no-conspiracy idea for the PCG. The ABC production crew had the full cooperation of the Dallas police in re-enacting the assassination event in Dealey Plaza. There is no way that could have happened without PCG influence. The Dallas police, quite guilty of cover-up in the case and having some individual members on the assassination team, would not permit anyone to film a reenactment of the assassination showing conspiracy or the truth. The PCG had to assure them that the program's editorial position would be anti-conspiracy. The "Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald" was given extensive publicity on TV, in magazines, in newspapers. In England, a special article about it appeared in the Sunday magazine section of a London newspaper complete with photographs from the shooting sequence as filmed.[8] The PCG spent an enormous amount of money on the program and a publicity campaign. There is no way ABC-TV could have done that on their own. More than 80% of the people believe there was a conspiracy: why wouldn't ABC go along with the 80% of their viewers and portray the truth? The answer again is simple: ABC is controlled from the very top, probably much higher than the Sam Jaffe level, by the PCG and the CIA.
Other TV Shows
Both NBC and CBS are planning major TV specials on the assassinations. CBS is planning a show on Ruby and Oswald. The theme will be that the Warren Commission was right and that both Oswald and Ruby were lone nuts. Mr. Paley and Mr. Salant are the PCG people calling the shots. NBC is planning a show on Martin Luther King which will have a section on the assassination. Even though Abbey Mann is directing the show and he would like to bring out some of the facts, it is certain that the PCG members of NBC, including Richard Wald, will not permit any conclusions about Ray's innocence or information about Frenchy-Raoul or Jack Youngblood (the real assassins) to be included.
Priscilla McMillan--CIA Agent
One of the more remarkable things about the massive 1977 campaign of the CIA and the PCG is their blatant use of freelance writers and news reporters who are well known CIA agents to nearly anyone who has taken the time to pay attention. Three agents are Priscilla McMillan and her husband, George McMillan, and Jeremiah O'Leary of the "Washington Star." Priscilla (in particular) is so obviously an agent that even Dick Cavett indirectly accused her of being one when she appeared on his show with Marina Oswald to plug her new book. The CIA decided the perfect time to publish McMillan's book[9], which had been completed for several years. A publisher under CIA control was selected, and the book was published in time for the December committee budget vote. The CIA arranged that Marina appear with Pat on several national TV shows. Priscilla had Marina well rehearsed for these shows--she even retold the old lies about Oswald shooting at General Walker. The commentators selected to interview both women, including Dick Cavett, David Hartmann (ABC), and Tom Snyder (NBC) had their orders to deal delicately with them and not to ask any embarrassing questions. Cavett came closest with his essentially accusatory question about whether Priscilla was a CIA agent. No one asked Marina the one embarrassing question she would have had the greatest difficulty answering regarding the picture of Oswald holding the rifle and the communist newspaper that Marina claimed she took of him: "How was it possible for you to have taken a photograph that since has been demonstrated to be a composite of three photographs, with your husband's head attached to someone else's body at the chin line?" (flashing on the screen Fred Newcomb's slide showing the chin level discontinuity). Cavett actually flashed the fake photograph on the screen at the beginning of his show, but he never mentioned it. This monumental PCG effort that involved controlling at least three TV networks, a CIA publisher, Marina Oswald, a CIA agent, Priscilla McMillan, an enormous amount of time and money, and a special book review by the "New York Times"[10] demonstrates how much power the PCG has. Some of those people who watched "Good Morning America" and the "Tomorrow Show" and the "Dick Cavett Show" (three different types of national viewing audiences) who believe the lone assassin theory and the Warren Commission had those beliefs reinforced by Priscilla McMillan and Marina Oswald. It is wise for researchers, the Select Committee on Assassinations and others who know what is really going on, not to underestimate this power of the PCG.
Fensterwald's Book
A book by Bud Fensterwald appeared in 1977 under the sponsorship of the PCG.[11] This clever effort on the part of one of the CIA's best agents was designed to throw people off the track who have a somewhat deeper interest in the JFK assassination. It was meant to divert attention away from the CIA by omitting at least twelve of the CIA conspirators who were in the files of the Committee to Investigate Assassinations (co-founded by Fensterwald and the author in 1968). No excuse can be given for leaving these key people out of the book, because the CIA had extensive files on most of them. Bud Fensterwald even had a personal correspondent relationship to the key informant of the group, Richard Case Nagell. The twelve are: William Seymour, Emilio Santana, Manuel Garcia Gonzalez, Guy Gabaldin, Mary Hope, Richard Case Nagell, Harry Dean, Ronald Augustinovich, Thomas Beckham, Fred Lee Crisman, Frenchy, and Jack Lawrence. All of them were included in a description of the details of the assassination team earlier in this book and in an article by the author.[12] Zebra Books, the publisher of Fensterwald's book, is a CIA- controlled organization that has also published another disinformation book, "Appointment in Dallas," by Hugh MacDonald.[13] In both cases, the PCG intended to misdirect attention away from the CIA participants while at the same time admitting conspiracy. There is no way the story in MacDonald's book can be true. It maintains that Oswald at least planned to fire from the sixth floor window of the TSBD Building. As all good researchers know, the photographs of the window, inside and outside, prove there was no one firing from that window that day.
The de Mohrenschildt Murder
The Murder Inc. branch of the PCG killed George de Mohrenschildt when he became too dangerous for them. The media branch of the PCG then undertook a campaign to discredit Willem Oltmans and NOS-TV (in Holland) who happened to be in possession of a series of video and audio tapes of de Mohrenschildt that will be very damaging for the PCG. The de Mohrenschildt murder has so far been concealed by the PCG with the help of the media and portrayed as the suicide of a man who had become insane. As Willem Oltmans' book clearly demonstrates[14] de Mohrenschildt was quite sane when he disappeared from Belgium. He was in the process of giving Ed Epstein a story about his involvement in the JFK assassination when he was murdered in Florida.
Donald Donaldson's Disappearance
General Donald Donaldson, alias Dimitri Dimitrov alias Jim Adams, was intimately acquainted with the CIA people who planned JFK's assassination. He was in Holland to tell his story to NOS-TV and Willem Oltmans. He told Oltmans that Allen Dulles was the key CIA man in planning JFK's assassination. (Donaldson had been brought to the U.S. as a double agent during World War II by Franklin Roosevelt.) He held back his knowledge of the assassination conspiracy until the Church Committee was formed. He then took his information to Church, who brought him to President Ford rather than having him questioned by the Church Committee or the Schweiker sub-committee. Ford, Church and Donaldson had a meeting in which Ford talked both of them into keeping Donaldson's information under wraps. When de Mohrenschildt was killed, Donaldson decided it was time to make his information public and to offer it to the Select Committee. He approached Oltmans, asked that his identity be kept secret, told NOS his story, and then remained in Holland while Oltmans attempted to tell the story to President Carter. Oltmans revealed Donaldson's identity on American TV and to the Select Committee when Carter refused to listen to the story. Donaldson then moved to England, and subsequently disappeared from a London hotel, leaving large unpaid bills at both his London and Amsterdam hotels. The possibility is very good that he has gone the same route as de Mohrenschildt, murdered by the PCG.
Attacks on the Select Committee
One of a series of attacks on the Select Committee in November and December, leading up to the December vote on the 1978 budget, took place in the form of an article by probable CIA agent George Lardner, Jr., one of the Select Committee's biggest enemies. He is one of the PCG's stable of reporters. Lardner wrote an article for the Sunday "Washington Post" on November 6, 1977, portraying the Committee as engaging in random, uncoordinated activity, interrogating witnesses from the Garrison investigation (which Lardner labelled, "the zany Garrison investigation", and "the fruitless investigation"). The "New York Times," "Washington Star" and other media can be expected to open up all barrels under PCG direction. The general theme will no doubt be that the Committee has done nothing at all and that Oswald acted alone.[15] If Council Blakey or Chairman Stokes, or JFK subcommittee Chairman Preyer try to respond to these attacks they will be ripped to shreds by the PCG's media people. As the author pointed out in part I of this chapter, the only chance the Committee and the House have to keep the investigation going is to expose the PCG and their media control, from the top down. Otherwise the Committee cannot win the battle.
____________________
[1] Power Control Group (PCG) defined in prior articles and one book by the author, as follows:
The PCG includes all organizations and individuals who knowingly participated in any of the domestic political assassinations or attempted assassinations, or in any of the efforts to cover-up the truth about those assassinations. This includes a large number of murders of witnesses and participants. The assassinations involved include, but are not necessarily limited to the following:
John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, George Wallace and Mary Jo Kopechne.
The PCG is a much larger group than just the clandestine parts of the CIA and the FBI, or the Secret Team as defined by L. Fletcher Prouty. It would however, include all those members of the Secret Team or the CIA or the FBI falling under the definition.
[2] The author's contentions about media control by the PCG have appeared in one self-published book and several articles:
(a) Book: "The Taking of America, 1-2-3," R.E. Sprague, self-published, Hartsdale, N.Y., 1976. (First Edition. This Third Edition contains chapters 15-17 plus the Appendix which were written after 1977. --Editor) (b) Articles: "The American News Media and the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: Accessories After Fact," R.E. Sprague, "Computers and Automation," June, July, 1973. (c) "The Central Intelligence Agency and the `The New York Times,'" R.E. Sprague. (Using pseudonym Samuel F. Thurston) "Computers and Automation," July, 1971. Republished in "People and the Pursuit of Truth," May, 1977. (d) "Congressional Investigation of Political Assassinations in the United States: The Two Approaches: From the Bottom Up vs. From the Top Down," R.E. Sprague, "People and the Pursuit of Truth," May, 1977.
[3] The two official investigations of the Kennedy assassination referred to here are:
(a) The investigation by the office of the district attorney of Orleans Parish, New Orleans, La. 1966 to 1969 (Jim Garrison). (b) The investigation by the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives 1976-1977.
The investigations by the Schweiker-Hart subcommittee of the Church committee and the Ervin Watergate committee were never really approved by Congress, and so lacked the power and influence to become a threat to the PCG.
[4] "The CIA and the Press," Carl Bernstein, "Rolling Stone," October 4, 1977. A copy of the full unedited manuscript of this article was also made available to the author. The "Rolling Stone" version had selected names omitted.
[5] Bernstein's article also describes the CIA influence over several other media organizations without naming the top executives. These are: "New York Herald Tribune" "Saturday Evening Post" "Scripps Howard Newspapers" "Associated Press" "United Press International" "Reuters" "Miami Herald" And a CIA official told Bernstein, "that's just a small part of the list."
[6] The CIA document was obtained by Harold Weisberg under the Freedom of Information Act. It is dated 4/1/67 and labelled "Dispatch to Chiefs, Certain Stations and Bases." Document Number 1035-960 for "FOIA Review" on September 1976. Object: Countering Criticism of the "Warren Report."
[7] "The Scavengers and Critics of the Warren Report," Lawrence Schiller, Dell Publishing Co., New York, 1967.
[8] "The Big If," "London Sunday Times," September 18, 1977.
[9] "Marina and Lee," Patricia McMillan, Harper & Row, 1977.
[10] A review of the McMillan book appeared in the "Sunday New York Times" book review section on November 6, 1977. It praised the book to the skys, backed up the Warren Commission, and severely attacked the researchers and the Select Committee.
[11] "Coincidence or Conspiracy," Bernard Fensterwald, Jr., Zebra Books, New York, 1977.
[12] (a) "The Taking of America, 1-2-3," Richard E. Sprague, self-published, 1976.
(b) "The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: The Involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Plans and the Cover-Up", Richard E. Sprague -- "People and the Pursuit of Truth," May, 1975.
[13] "Appointment in Dallas," Hugh C. McDonald, Zebra Books, New York, 1975.
[14] "George de Mohrenschildt," Willem Oltmans, Published in The Netherlands, Unpublished in the United States.
[15] This chapter originally appeared as the article "Congressional Investigation of Political Assassinations in the United States: The Two Approaches: From the Bottom Up vs. From the Top Down," by the author in "People and the Pursuit of Truth," May, 1977. Since the original article was written, in November 1977 the Select Committee decided that the budget money approved in 1977 was sufficient to carry over a few months into 1978. No budget request was made in December 1977. The PCG can now be expected to continue its attacks until the spring of 1978 when the budget request will be made. (January 4, 1978)
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-- daveus rattus
yer friendly neighborhood ratman
KOYAANISQATSI
ko.yaa.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi Language) n. 1. crazy life. 2. life in turmoil. 3. life out of balance. 4. life disintegrating. 5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.
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From: dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
Subject: "The Taking of America, 1-2-3" (9/11) Summary: we were robbed of our capability of electing a president we wanted Keywords: part 9 of 11: chapter 16 Lines: 867
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1979: The House Select Committee (1)
Chapter 16 1984 Here We Come
George Orwell undoubtedly did not realize how accurate his 1984 scenario would be by the year 1979. As 1978 drew to a close, events in America made Orwell's descriptions of such concepts as Newspeak and a supposedly open but actually closed society, very close to reality. By 1984, now only five short years away, Orwell's scenario will apparently be right on the nose. Any doubts about who is in charge of America and how effective they have become in creating our actual version of Newspeak, disappeared as the Carter administration, congress, the courts, and the media, all combined their coordinated efforts to cover up and distort our current history. The hopes of thousands of Americans that their only true representatives in government, the members of the House, would expose the fabric of lies about our recent history and the Power Control Group's activities were dashed to smithereens by the House of Representative's Select Committee on Assassinations. The hopes that Carter might be on our side, faded away in 1978 and the intentions of the executive branch were made quite clear by the new directors of the FBI and the CIA. The murder incorporated group within the Power Control Group continued to murder people in 1978, with efficiency and dispatch. The presidential race in 1980 has been foreclosed to Ted Kennedy for a long time, but the chances that any candidate, not willing to extend the assassination cover-ups, could be nominated and elected, are close to zero. The American people, by and large, do not understand or appreciate very much of this. The Select Committee teamed with the media and by holding public hearings with almost no live coverage they convinced the majority of Americans that there was no conspiracy in the JFK case and that James Earl Ray shot Martin Luther King although he might have had help from his brothers. The public has never heard of most of the eight men assassinated in 1977 and 1978 by the PCG, nor do they appreciate the fact that future assassinations will be carried off by the same bunch. How the hell did the PCG control Congress and the Select Committee? It wasn't easy and they very nearly didn't. There may also be another explanation about the committee's actions in which the word "control" is too strong. Influence, intimidation by throwing out implied warnings or threats, or just plain making it obvious that personal danger could be involved, might have been used. The process was very involved and it made use of a number of techniques and approaches, including some we can only guess at in 1979. However, a number of the PCG's methods are known and will be described herein. The executive branch control by the PCG was exposed even before Carter's election by those whose eyes were open wide enough to see it. This author frankly admits to partially closed eyes until 1978. The significance of the Bilderberg Society and the Trilateral Commission was not obvious until Carter had been in office for a couple of years. Now, it is very obvious that he is under the complete domination of the men who really run the U.S.A., and that he will never do anything to expose the truth about the political assassinations or their cover-ups. The latest indication of where the Carter administration stands was the testimony given by FBI director William H. Webster to the Select Committee on December 11, 1978. He said that the FBI would freeze the scene and take full immediate control of the investigation of any future presidential assassination or that of any other elected U.S. leader. In case anyone has any doubt about what he meant by "freeze the scene", Webster went on to say, "One purpose of the FBI investigation would be to lay to rest untrue conspiratorial questions that have a way of rising, and avoid the sort of mistakes that followed the assassination of President Kennedy."[1] In other words, the FBI will suppress or destroy any evidence of conspiracy even if they were not involved in the assassination itself. One such "mistake" in the Dallas murder surfaced in December 1978 when Earl Golz of the "Dallas Morning News" found a movie that the FBI failed to "freeze". It was taken by a man named Bronson and it shows two men, not one, in the sixth floor window of the TSBD just five minutes before the shots were fired. One of the men is wearing a red shirt. That filmed evidence matches the still photo taken by an unknown photographer earlier that morning, and developed at a Dallas photo lab by Ed Foley, the lab owner. The author found the photo and obtained a print of it in 1967. The Foley photo, as it became known, shows two men in the sixth floor window, one with a black shirt and one with a bright red shirt. Mr. red shirt matches the description of the man in the Bronson film. He is not Lee Harvey Oswald. Neither is the man in the black shirt. He was most probably Buel Wesley Frazier, the man who drove Oswald to work on November 22, 1963. The facial profile and black shirt match photos of Frazier and another man entitled to be on that sixth floor, were there around 10 AM and at 12:25, five minutes before the shots were fired. Mr. Webster has in mind rounding up all such evidence and destroying it right away in the next assassination. The evidence discussed in earlier chapters of this book, also not "frozen" by the FBI, proves that the "snipers nest" was no snipers nest at all, but just an area where workers on that floor were piling cartons to allow the floor laying crew at the west end of that floor to do their job. Webster would like the FBI to grab such evidence the next time, and destroy it before "conspiracy rumors" get started. The FBI came much closer to doing this in Memphis, but after all, they were involved directly in the planning and execution of the assassination of Dr. King. They had a much greater incentive for cover-up in that murder. William Sullivan's Division Five, at the behest of J. Edgar Hoover, carried out the King assassination using Raoul and Jack Youngblood plus others. Returning to the Select Committee, I must switch over to a more personal tone because of my direct involvement with the group from its inception. I helped Henry Gonzalez in the early days of 1975 and 1976 when the committee was just a wild dream for most people. I made a presentation to Thomas Downing's staff members who eventually became part of the Select Committee staff. Mark Lane arranged that in the summer of 1976. The photographic evidence of conspiracy in the JFK case was as overwhelming to them and to Henry as it was to anyone who has taken the five or six hours or so to look at it. I then became an advisor to Richard A. Sprague and Bob Tanenbaum when the committee was formed and spent the months from November 1976 to July 1977 helping them with the photographic evidence and with evidence collected by the Committee to Investigate Assassinations including Jim Garrison's evidence. If Henry Gonzalez or Richard A. Sprague, or Thomas Downing had stayed with the committee their work would not have been controlled. Sprague's loyal deputy counsels, Bob Tanenbaum, in charge of the JFK investigation and Bob Lehner in charge of the MLK investigation had already begun to get at the real evidence of the Power Control Group and the FBI and CIA's involvement in the two cases and in the cover-ups. The committee members were already becoming very suspicious of the two agencies. Walter Fauntroy, chairman of the MLK sub-committee, even dared to speak out about the CIA's influence. He was beaten into the ground by the PCG's members in the House. So Gonzalez, Sprague, Tanenbaum, Lehner and others who dared take on the intelligence portions of the PCG, had to go. They were forced out by one of the ancient techniques employed by the Romans known as divide and conquer. Once Henry Gonzalez became convinced that Richard A. Sprague was working for the CIA and the PCG, he attacked Sprague bitterly. Henry knew there was a PCG and he knew who had murdered John Kennedy and why. Henry had to go. He was made to look like a paranoid fool and forced out by the key PCG members of the House. Two PCG agents, Mr. Z and Harry Livingstone, helped convince him that Sprague was a CIA man. Mr. Z was brought in by Henry as a lawyer for his committee and worked on Henry's beliefs about Richard A. Sprague. Over some weeks he convinced Henry that Richard A. Sprague was a CIA operative. He was supported in this activity by Harry Livingstone (later author of "High Treason"). Harry Livingstone engaged in various plagiaristic activities and scams, and over quite a period of time he worked on Henry to convince him that Richard A. Sprague was a CIA operative. At the same time Henry was developing his beliefs with the help of Mr. Z and Mr. Livingstone, Richard A. Sprague and his staff were developing skepticism about Henry's integrity. The net result was both men resigned. In the next year, 1978, the author appeared with Richard A. Sprague on a cable television broadcast hosted by Ted Gandolfo in New York City, named "Assassionation USA," and the three of them had a detailed discussion about Sprague's reasons for resigning from the Committee. To some extent his thinking was influenced by his skepticism about Henry Gonzalez's integrity. Once Louis Stokes took over as chairman, Sprague's men were gradually calmed down, and the so-called search for the right chief counsel was underway. It is difficult to detect what was going on during that spring of 1977. Suffice it to say that the PCG was undoubtedly pulling out every stop to get their own chief counsel into the committee and to build up the case for getting rid of Tanenbaum, Lehner, Donovan Gaye, and others who knew too much or who had the gall to go up against the agencies. The result of all this hard work by the PCG was the installation in July 1977 of Dr. Robert Blakey as chief counsel. Tanenbaum resigned almost immediately, making Blakey's job a little easier, but Lehner and Gaye had to be fired by Blakey. Many others were also weeded out. We may never know exactly what they all knew or how they were forced out, because of the use of one of the PCG's cleverest techniques and one of the most insidious. Each committee staff member, each consultant and each committee member was required to sign, as a condition of continuing employment or membership on the committee, a nondisclosure agreement. Now, nondisclosure agreements are nothing new, especially in classified situations or in sensitive or patent or copyright situations. The committee's nondisclosure agreement was however, very unusual. Many well-known attorneys have pronounced it illegal. Richard A. Sprague saw it and said he would absolutely never have required the staff to sign anything like it. He said it was illegal and unenforcable in several of its clauses. The worst thing about it, or the best thing, from the viewpoint of the PCG, are the paragraphs giving control over the committee to the FBI and the CIA.[2] The committee, under Sprague, planned to investigate the FBI and the CIA in regard to both assassinations and the cover-ups. In fact, Sprague had put both agencies on notice to that effect. Subpoenas were being prepared for access to all of their withheld information. Investigations of the CIA's role in the Mexico City part of the assassination conspiracy, as well as Oswald's and Ruby's connections with both agencies were under way. The Blakey agreement automatically put a stop to all of that. Here is one excerpt from the agreement. "I (the staff member, committee member, or consultant) hereby agree never to divulge, publish or reveal by words, conduct or otherwise, . . . any information pertaining to intelligence sources or methods as designated by the Director of Central Intelligence, or any confidential information that is received by the Select Committee or that comes into my possession by virtue of my position with the Select Committee, to any person not a member of the Select Committee, or, after the Select Committee's termination, by such manner as the House of Representatives may determine or, in the absence of a determination by the House, in such manner as the Agency or Department from which the information originated may determine." In other words if the committee or an individual staff member, or a consultant discovered that the CIA or part of it, was involved in the assassination of John Kennedy, or that the FBI was in part or in whole responsible for the death of Martin Luther King, or that either agency was guilty of covering up the conspiracies in both cases, the CIA and the FBI would have the right to prevent these findings from being revealed to anyone outside the committee. Furthermore, those agencies are still in existence today while the Select Committee is not, so that the nondisclosure agreement which goes on in perpetuity, gives both the FBI and CIA continuing complete control over the individuals who signed it. Another excerpt reads as follows: "The Chairman of the Select Committee shall consult with the Director of Central Intelligence for the purpose of the Chairman's determination as to whether or not the material (any material obtained by the signer of the agreement) contains information that I pledge not to disclose." If that sounds like Catch-22, it is. The interpretation that could be placed on that clause is that the CIA has the right to decide what evidence in the JFK and MLK assassinations should be withheld on grounds that the CIA itself determines. How could the committee possibly have investigated the CIA under those terms and conditions? The answer is, they could not and did not. Can anyone doubt that the PCG prepared the agreement, implanted Blakey, and coerced or blackmailed or threatened the Chairman and the rest of the committee until they agreed to have everyone sign it! The most insidious part of the agreement is the clause that could be described as the threat, or blackmail clause. It is perhaps this clause that has closed the mouths and pens of all the ex-staff members who knew what was going on, but who signed the agreement. That clause reads as follows: "In addition to any rights for criminal prosecution or for injunctive relief the United Stated Government may have for violation of this agreement, the United States Government may file a civil suit in an appropriate court for damages as a consequence of a breach of this agreement. The costs of any civil suit brought by the United States for breach of this agreement, including court costs, investigative expenses, and reasonable attorney fees, shall be borne by any defendant who loses such suit." . . . "I hereby agree that in any suit by the United States Government for injunctive or monetary relief pursuant to the terms of this agreement, personal jurisdiction shall obtain and venue shall lie in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, or in any other appropriate United States District Court in which the United States may elect to bring suit. I further agree that the law of the District of Columbia shall govern the interpretation and construction of this agreement." Those readers who have followed the performance of the U.S. courts in the JFK and MLK cases through the years, will recognize the trap in those last two sentences. Any ex-staffer or consultant, or even a Congressman would have about as much chance against a CIA/FBI-directed suit in a court of their choice, as the man in the moon. The United States Government, in this clause, is not your government or mine. It is the Power Control Group. You can bet they would select a court already programmed for decision. The clause is incredible on the face of it. This was a mighty powerful weapon and the committee used it to a maximum extent in carrying out a masterful job of continuing the two cover-ups. It was masterful in the sense that they were not as bold and bald about it as the Warren Commission or the Rockefeller Commission or the Justice Department and the courts have been in the MLK case. Their conclusions are inconclusive; sort of. They say that to determine whether or not there really were conspiracies in the two cases was beyond their means and the time they had available. Nevertheless, the preponderant weight of the public testimony before the committee was toward no conspiracy in the JFK case and a, "Ray shot him, but might have been helped," conclusion in the King case. But the hold they exercised over the staff and consultants in directing their investigations away from conspiracy was very smoothly done, with the nondisclosure agreement always lurking in the background as a possible threat. The agreement was used as an excuse by the committee to avoid answering questions. For example, I wrote to Louis Stokes on April 5, October 30, and November 24, 1978 asking why the committee had not called several important witnesses in the JFK case, including Richard Case Nagell. Stokes had told me in a letter written on May 15, 1978, that the suggestion that Nagell be called was being followed and that the staff was being alerted about him. Blakey took no action and did not contact Nagell or Richard Russell, the only person who knew where Nagell was to be found.[3] Stokes sent me this reply to my inquiries about the witnesses on December 4,1978.
"Dear Mr. Sprague: Thank you for your letter of November 24, 1978. I am aware of the amount of time you have spent analyzing the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and your interest in the work of the Select Committee on Assassinations since its inception. However, I regret that *under our Rules*, it is impossible for us to respond to your letter in a manner which would reveal the substance or procedure of our investigation, or the names of those persons who will be called to testify before the committee. The committee is, of course, grateful for your suggestions and those of the many other concerned citizens who have taken the time to write." (Underlining for emphasis is the author's) Sincerely, Louis Stokes Chairman
"The Rules" Stokes refers to include the nondisclosure agreement. This letter implies that subsequent to December 4, 1978, the committee might be calling more JFK witnesses. Of course, that didn't happen. Except for some high level FBI, Secret Service and other government officials testifying about Presidential safety and future assassination investigations, the committee's show was already over, and Louis Stokes was well aware of that. I'm sure Louis Stokes had his own personal reasons, not necessarily sinister, for making that reply. The committee had no intention of risking the appearance of any of the more knowledgeable or involved witnesses whose names I had given them in October 1978 as well as in May 1978 and November 1978. A list of these names appears later in this chapter. The Warren Commission proved how easy it is to avoid finding a conspiracy if you don't look for one, even one that seems to jump up and smack you in the face. The Select Committee did this in spades. The procedure was orchestrated by Robert Blakey by various means. One of his methods was to split up the hard core Dealey Plaza evidence and investigations into sections. He formed an advisory panel of outside "experts", for each section; one on medical evidence, photographic evidence, ballistics evidence, trajectory evidence, etc. Then he made sure there was almost no coordination, cross talk, or feedback among the panels or even among the staff members assigned to each section, except at his level. There was a great amount of internal complaining about this, but to no avail. Again, the nondisclosure agreement worked wonders. An investigating team, in New Orleans and Dallas, headed by the JFK task force leader Cliff Fenton, was never allowed to surface either publicly or internally to other staff people or the committee. Their findings alone would have blown Dr. Blakey and his CIA/FBI friends right out of the water. They spent a lot of time with Jim Garrison, and with many of the witnesses and the assassination participants described in Chapter 5 of this book. The public does not even know who these staffers are, and undoubtedly will not hear or see what they discovered either in the committee's final report or in the public hearings. The separation of assignments worked wonders in explaining away much of the hard evidence of conspiracy. Some of it during the public hearings was like watching a magic show, for knowledgeable researchers. For example, the medical panel and staff members determined that the path of bullet 399 through JFK's body rear to front was slightly upward, given that he was sitting erect. But since the medical panel and the photographic panel were never permitted coordination, the medical panel never realized that JFK was sitting erect at the time bullet 399 supposedly struck. Neither panel was allowed to communicate with the trajectory panel, so that their representative Thomas Canning testified that bullet 399's trajectory backward from JFK's body, passed through the TSBD sixth floor window. That erudite gentleman, a government employee from NASA, was forced to make up his own medical evidence, which he proceeded to do. He merely moved the exit wound in JFK's throat down somewhat and the back of the neck wound up somewhat from where Dr. Baden of the medical panel had placed them. He then tilted JFK forward at about 17 or 18 degrees based on his personal observation of one photograph, rather than on the photographic panel's conclusions. Presto; the trajectory tilted upward and leftward enough to pass through the sixth floor window. Another bit of magic was presented by Canning to support the single bullet theory. He drew a straight line between governor Connally's back entry wound position and JFK's back entry wound position and found that the line also passed through the sixth floor window. To do this he moved Connally on the seat to his left and JFK to his right, and lifted JFK up a bit on the rear seat. Again he did this without consultation with the photographic panel. Some hard evidence was not dealt with at all and other hard evidence of conspiracy was presented without identifying it as such and then just left dangling. An example of the former is all of the photographic evidence cited earlier in this book and in my "Computers and Automation" magazine articles, showing that the sniper's nest was not a sniper's nest, that no one was in the window, and that no one could have fired shots from that position that day. I showed pictures of the nest from the inside and the window from the outside to the JFK sub-committee in July 1977 and I reviewed them at length for their evidenciary value with the JFK staff, notably Ken Klein, Cliff Fenton, Bob Tanenbaum, Jackie Hess, Donovan Gaye, Pat Orr, Chellie Mason, and Richard A. Sprague. So the Committee cannot claim they didn't know about these photos. They saw the Foley photo over a long period of time, and were no doubt quite embarrassed by the unexpected appearance of the Bronson film. Not one word about the sixth floor window, the cartons, the planted shells, the planted rifle, and the extra rifle found on the roof, the impossible shot, no one in the window when the shots were fired; not one word was mentioned in the public hearings about the photos and other evidence. Where was the photographic panel? Asleep? Frightened by the agreement they signed? An example of evidence of conspiracy left dangling was the testimony given by the photographic panel spokesman, Calvin S. McCamy. The panel examined all of the photos of JFK during the early part of the shot sequence, and took a vote on when the first shot struck the President. It came out as around Z189 to Z196. Perfect. That matches. But no one asked the trajectory panel or the ballistics spokesman how Oswald was able to fire bullet 399 right through the center of that big oak tree at Z189-Z196. Not even the Warren Commission would make that claim, preferring to put the timing at Z210 or later after JFK came out from behind the tree. There were some anxious moments for the Select Committee, even as well orchestrated as the whole farce was. Dr. Cyril Wecht was his usual grand self. He blasted the committee. They said he was part of the medical panel and therefore was asked to present a minority view. Cyril said they weren't planning to call him until he demanded to be allowed to testify. They tried to bamboozle him, to discredit him (a tough assignment), to attack him and to knock down his testimony. Lawyer Gary Cornwell was particularly obnoxious in his questioning of Dr. Wecht. Favorable witnesses testifying to no conspiracy were handled with kid gloves and treated politely or dragged through an obviously rehearsed series of questions. It was the Warren Commission revisited. Two witnesses they couldn't mistreat were Governor and Mrs. Connally. They politely and calmly presented believable testimony destroying the single bullet theory. That didn't bother the committee any more than it bothered the Warren Commission. They resurrected the theory a few days later when the trajectory panel testified. Dr. Barger of Bolt Baranek & Newman shook them up a little with his acoustical analysis of the police radio tape that reveals the sounds of four, not three, shots. If Dr. Barger had been given all of the facts initially, he probably could have helped prove where the shots came from. Except for the grassy knoll position behind the fence and the sixth floor TSBD window, he was not told about any other possible firing points. For example, he knew nothing about the Dal Tex building, the west end roof or high floor of the TSBD, or other positions on the grassy knoll. In fact, Barger did not know the location of the motorcycle where the microphone had been left open, picking up the sound of the shots. His assignment included a determination of where the motorcycle was, from the sounds on the tape and sounds made during a re-enactment of the firing in Dealey Plaza. The only test shots Barger had fired were from the TSBD sixth floor window and from behind the grassy knoll fence. The net result was that he decided the motorcycle was trailing the Presidential limousine by 120 feet. No one on the committee or the photographic panel ever showed Barger the Altgens photo, the Hughes film, the Martin, Nix, Couch, Weigman, Bell or Muchmore films or any other pictures showing there was no motorcycle anywhere near 120 feet behind the limousine.[4] Again, Blakey divided and conquered. Barger told me that if he had known about the motorcycle trailing the limousine by a few feet, driven by policeman D.L. Jackson, who disappeared completely after the assassination, he could have altered his analysis completely. The sounds of the last two shots may well have been from the knoll behind the wall, and from the TSBD roof or the Dal Tex second floor. Barger's analysis shows that the last shot sound, made by a rifle occurred just a faction of a second after the next to the last shot, possibly made by pistol. This would fit a pistol shot from behind the fence fired almost simultaneously with a rifle shot from either the TSBD west end or Dal Tex. The delay of the sound traveling from Dal Tex is about right so that the Dal Tex shot would strike at Z312 and the pistol or rifle shot from the right front would strike at Z313. Prof. Mark Weiss of Queens College and Barger were called into an executive session on December 20 after the hearings were finished. They testified that there were definitely four shots fired, at least one of which was from the knoll. This new analysis was conducted by Weiss independently from the one done by Bolt Baranek and Newman. Weiss said that his work proved to a 95% certainty that the third shot was a rifle shot from a position on the knoll. He said the data pinpointed the position to within two feet. The position was behind the fence, which eliminates man number two at the corner of the wall and also eliminates a pistol. However, the photos show man number two did make a puff of smoke, whether or not he fired a shot. Congressman Sawyer broke the news about Weiss' testimony during a radio broadcast in Michigan, his home state. A furor broke loose. The committee went into an executive session Friday December 22 to discuss what to do since there were only nine days left to the end of their existence. The radio tape and the Bronson film seemed to shake them up considerably. Or was it all rehearsed and planned this way by the committee. It seems incredible that the 12 members of the committee would be shaken by the sounds from a tape when they weren't bothered at all by photos of the Oswald window showing that no one was there when the shots were fired. The committee members could see those photos with their own eyes. They had to take the word of experts about the sounds on the tape, which cannot be heard because of the noise of the engine of the policeman's cycle where the microphone was stuck open.[4] This was the most blatantly dishonest stunt pulled by the Committee during the Blakey period. Yet, the research community cannot complain too much because it did produce a conspiracy conclusion. The committee's distortions and omission respecting the hard Dealey Plaza evidence is overshadowed by the key witnesses that the committee did not call. None of the players listed in Chapter 5 were called, nor ever mentioned. One key witness, James Hosty, insisted that he testify about Oswald's FBI involvement, but was turned down. Hosty told the "Dallas Morning News," "They don't want to hear what I have to say." He might have told them the same story he told the author, through an intermediary in 1971. Namely, that Oswald was reporting to Hosty on the assassination plans of the CIA group based in Mexico City. FBI agent witness, Regis Kennedy might have given private interview evidence, but he was killed the day before he was to meet with the committee. Gordon Novel, Ronald Augustinovich, Richard Case Nagell, Mary Hope, Guy Gabaldin, Manuel Garcia Gonzalez, William Seymour, Emilio Santana, Victor Marchetti, Jack Lawrence, Major L.M. Bloomfield, Frenchy, Sergio Arcacha Smith, Harry Williams, James Hicks, Sylvia Odio, Jim Braden, James Hosty, Warren Du Brueys, Louis Ivon, E. Howard Hunt and Jim Garrison were not called and no interest was shown in having them as witnesses. Some key witnesses who were called were not asked any important questions, or cross examined at all. Marina Oswald Porter was one of these. Another was Gerald Ford. Richard Helms told his standard lies, and no one asked him about Victor Marchetti's statement about Helms protecting Clay Shaw, or about E. Howard Hunt and Guy Gabaldin in Mexico City in October, 1963, or about Harry William's statement that he, Helms, Hunt, and Lyman Kirkpatrick were reconsidering another Cuban invasion at the moment JFK was shot, in a Washington, D.C., CIA location. With respect to the assassination of Dr. King, the committee also performed admirably for the PCG, in this case, the FBI wing. They failed to deal with the important evidence of conspiracy, failed to call the prime witnesses, and distorted or omitted evidence. They spent a great amount of time trying to prove, rather unsuccessfully except for media accounts, that James Earl Ray was guilty and that he had help from his family and was possibly financed by some wealthy sountherners. Briefly, here is the evidence they did not cover. The witnesses who saw a man in the rooming house--all of whom said it was not James Earl Ray--were not called. Charles Stephens, who was bribed and coerced by the FBI into identifying the man as Ray, but who was dead drunk, and saw nothing, was not put on the stand with his common law wife Grace and a cab driver who saw how drunk he was. Confronting his testimony by cross examination and by using counter witnesses should have been done. The three bar maids in Montreal and Atlanta who saw Ray and Raoul together were not called. William Bradford Huie found them and Ray knew where they were. The committee didn't look for them. Huie and Foreman were not put on the stand and asked all of the key questions about why Huie changed his entire approach toward Ray as soon as I showed him the Raoul-Frenchy photos. Foreman's role was never explored under fierce cross examination as it would be if Mark Lane were able to get a new trial for Ray. He should have been asked why he told Ray he got the Frenchy photos from the FBI when he actually got them from me! The Frenchy-Raoul sketch comparison, made by Bill Turner and I in the summer of 1968, should have been produced and shown to Foreman, Huie, Ray and other witnesses. The complete list of witnesses who saw Ray and Raoul together, as well as the complete list who saw Ray at the gasoline station a few blocks away from the crime at the time the shot was fired, were not called. The committee adopted the stance that it was up to Mark Lane and Ray to produce those witnesses, as though the investigation of the King killing was a trial instead. The committee, not Ray, had the responsibility of investigating and locating those witnesses. Bob Lehner wanted to do that, but he was fired. The evidence about the rooming house bathroom window as an impossible firing point, presented so well in Harold Weisberg's book "Frame-Up: The Martin Luther King/James Earl Ray Case," was either ignored or distorted. The evidence about the trajectory of the shot was completely distorted. The ballistics, medical and trajectory panels discussed the vertical angle of difference between the "grassy knoll" firing point and bathroom window firing point trajectories to the Lorraine Motel balcony. They stated that the differential angle between the two trajectories was too small to determine, from the medical evidence, whether the shot came from the window or the knoll. But, they failed to discuss the horizontal differential angle between the two trajectories which was much larger, large enough to determine the firing point. They also failed to present a number of witnesses who saw the actual assassin, Jack Youngblood, both before and after he fired from the knoll. Wayne Chastain should also have been called to testify about this evidence and those witnesses. The evidence concerning who Jack Youngblood and Frenchy-Raoul worked for, and their involvement, was not dealt with at all. The committee should have presented the photographic evidence showing Raoul was Frenchy, and should have asked Ray and the witnesses who saw Raoul to identify him from the Frenchy photos. Jeff Paley actually showed Frenchy's photo to witnesses in 1968 while Raoul's face was still fresh in their minds. They recognized the face. They certainly should have since the sketch of Raoul was made from their recollections. They should have called Frenchy as a witness in both JFK & MLK cases. I know from an inside source on the committee that they found Frenchy alive in 1978. They certainly knew about Jack Youngblood because they read Wayne Chastain's series of articles in "Computers and People." In summary, the Select Committee performed reasonably well on behalf of the PCG. There are no public outcrys over what they did because the media wouldn't air them. Mark Lane held a number of press conferences during the committee's life span, and no media organization reported on any of them. The media, of course, were quite willing servants of the PCG, as they always have been since 1963. The combination of the PCG, the CIA, the FBI, the Select Committee, the House spokesmen for the PCG and the cooperative media is really nearly unbeatable. Some researchers hoped against hope that the Select Committee, under Stokes, Blakey, Preyer and Fauntroy, would still unveil the truth, as the public hearings began in August. The hopes disappeared during the first week of hearings on the King case as the committee demonstrated quite clearly that they were going to continue the cover-ups and to get James Earl Ray and Mark Lane in the bargain. Still, the hopes would not quite die. The letters I wrote to Louis Stokes in the fall of 1978, expressed the last ditch thought that maybe they were conducting a charade designed to fool the FBI, CIA and the rest of the PCG into believing they were going to cover-up the truth. It turned out be for real, no charade. The eight people assassinated by the PCG in 1977-78 during the Select Committee's life span are probably the best proof of who is in charge of the U.S. and what their intentions are. The murders are all part of the cover-up efforts and were all successfully carried out, a la The Parallax View, with very few suspicions raised on the part of the American media or the public. They included William Sullivan, Regis Kennedy, George de Mohrenschildt, Sam Giancana,[5] John Roselli, Carlos Prio Socarras, Thomas Karamessines, Rolando Masferrer, and an attempt on the life of Larry Flynt. Each of these murders was carried out with great success and for varying reasons. One common thread connects them all. Each man knew too much about the assassinations of President Kennedy or Martin Luther King and the subsequent cover-up conspiracies. All but Flynt were witnesses to be called by the Select Committee or ones that had given some information and were scheduled to give more. Of the nine people including Flynt, the two most important were William Sullivan and Regis Kennedy. Regis Kennedy was one of two FBI agents in New Orleans assigned as contact men for Lee Harvey Oswald in his role as FBI informer. The other agent was Warren du Brueys. James Hosty was his contact agent in Dallas. Kennedy knew a lot, but was under strict orders from the FBI not to reveal any of it. He was called as a witness at the trial of Clay Shaw and asked by Jim Garrison whether he hadn't been searching for Clay Shaw under the name Clay Bertrand, before it was known that Clay Bertrand wanted to hire a lawyer for Lee Harvey Oswald. Kennedy took executive privilege, a popular dodge at that time with the Nixon administration. When the judge pressed him, he said he would have to check with the FBI and the attorney general, John Mitchell, in Washington, D.C. Word came through that he could answer that one question, so he said yes it was true. He went no further however. The significance is that the FBI knew all about Clay Shaw's involvement in the assassination because Oswald was reporting back to them as a paid infiltrator of Shaw's team. There is a distinct possibility that Kennedy was sent by Hoover and Sullivan to Dallas immediately after the assassination, to help coordinate the FBI/CIA cover-up. Beverly Oliver, the Babushka lady, whose film was confiscated by three government agents on Sunday November 24, 1963 at the Carousel Club owned by Jack Ruby, made a tentative identification of Regis Kennedy from his photograph as one of those three agents. The film has never surfaced. It should show the assassins on the grassy knoll quite clearly since Beverly was much closer than either Orville Nix or Marie Muchmore and had her camera trained on JFK all the way down Elm Street. Kennedy died of a supposed heart attack the day before he was to meet with the Select Committee staff. Heart attacks, as most Americans know by now from watching the Church Committee hearings, and seeing the Parallax View, are easily induced by a CIA-developed pill, which leaves no trace in the autopsy, if there is one. William Sullivan was eliminated by a clever, but simple technique. The PCG agents who killed him knew about his hunting haunts in New England. They also knew about a teenage son of a state policeman living near Sullivan's country place who liked to hunt in the same area. Two of them intercepted Sullivan early one morning as he set out for a walk in the woods. They shot him with a deer rifle and took his body to a spot in the woods where they knew the boy would be. They carried a decoy inflated to the shape resembling a deer and probably acted like one. The boy shot at him and thought he hit a deer. The agents dropped Sullivan's body at that spot and left. They accidentally left the pair of gloves one of them was wearing. The boy went over to the spot in the early morning semi-darkness, found Sullivan's body, and thought he had killed him by mistake. He still thinks so. There was no investigation and no questions asked. Why was Sullivan killed? As mentioned before, William Sullivan was J. Edgar Hoovers' right hand man in charge of Division Five, the FBI's clandestine domestic operation that included an assassination squad. Every likelihood exists that Hoover ordered Sullivan's division to kill King and that Sullivan used Frenchy/Raoul and Jack Youngblood to do the job. Sullivan was also due to meet with the Select Committee within a day or two after the day he was shot. Whether he would have talked or not probably makes little difference. The PCG couldn't take the chance. Thomas Karamessines died of an apparent heart attack at the age of 61 on September 4, 1978 at his vacation home in Grand Lake, Quebec. He headed the covert operations part of the CIA after Richard Helms was promoted from that position to head of the CIA. David Phillips, the CIA dirty tricks operative who is making public speeches supporting the Deputy Director of Plans (dirty tricks) function, worked for Karamessines. His knowledge of the JFK assassination and the CIA's cover-up role was undoubtedly complete since he inherited the whole thing from Helms. The other dead people were bumped off figuratively, on the very doorstep of the committee. Roselli was killed and dumped into Miami Bay. Giancana was shot full of holes in his Chicago residence. De Mohrenschildt was shot with a shotgun in his daughter's friends house in Florida. All three were scheduled to meet with the committee. Socarras was killed in a garage in Florida. Masferrer was blown up in his car in Florida. Flynt was shot on the street in Georgia. Florida. Why does it keep popping up in these cases? Bay of Pigs, No Name Key Group, anti-Castro forces, Mafia operations; it all fits together somehow. Jim Garrison's first real breakthrough came when he found Masferrer in Florida through Manuel Garcia Gonzalez. That led him and the District Attorney in Dade County, Florida, to William Seymour, Emilio Santana, Howard, Hall, Hemming and Frenchy, all part of Socarras' and Banister's Florida-based, No Name Key anti-Castro operations. It figured that some of them would die in their own backyard when the committee was getting too close. Gaeton Fonzi can personally vouch for that. He was the committee's Florida investigator. Why wouldn't men like Fonzi, Fenton, Fauntroy, Stokes, Preyer, and a woman like Yvonne Burke, tell us the truth. I spent a lot of time with all of them and got to know some of them very well. They all impressed me as being very honest and dedicated people. There may be another explanation, as I mentioned in the beginning of this last chapter. A committee, is, after all, made up of a bunch of individuals. So is a staff. Now, except for Cliff Fenton, Ed Evans (MLK investigator) and one or two others, these people were not professionals in the investigations and certainly none of them had been involved in the really big game of espionage and clandestine operations. They were, and still are, ordinary mortals, like you and me, with fears and cautionary attitudes toward personal safety and danger. They also have families. Not even Cliff Fenton had ever been involved with the kind of monstrous game played by the spooks of the world. It is a game for keeps, of life and death, mostly death. Let's look at it from the viewpoint of Louis Stokes, just to take an example. He took over the chairmanship of the committee with the following knowledge. He suspected there was a conspiracy in the JFK case and at least wanted to find out whether the CIA and FBI were involved in covering it up. He may not have known all of the details, but he was aware of the fact that many people had died. He knew that Henry Gonzalez had nearly been killed by a rifleman while driving through a Texas desert with his wife. This occurred just after Henry made public statements about all four political assassinations being related and the intelligence agencies possibly being involved. Stokes saw how the PCG swung their weight around in the Rules Committee and on the floor of the House when the Select Committee in January and February 1977, asked for a new budget and a reconstituted authority to subpoena records and continue the investigation. He also knew that something strange had happened to Henry Gonzalez. He told me so in a luncheon meeting on May 10, 1977. He said Henry had cut off all communications with him and other committee members just as he had with me. I told Louis that I believed Henry had purposefully been fed information by the PCG that I, Richard A. Sprague, and some of the committee members were working for the CIA. Otherwise, why would he have instructed the CIA and FBI to close access to their files to the committee staff, just after he had won the fight he fought so hard to get the subpoena power back. Stokes agreed it must have been something like that. Stokes also must have had a frightened reaction during 1977 and 1978 to these eight bodies dumped on his doorstep. As in the scene in "The Godfather", it only takes one horse's head in your bed to get the idea you should keep your mouth closed and play it cool. Given all of this, each committee member may have reached his or her decision that this game was not for congressmen. In April 1977 it is possible that all of those executive sessions the committee held were partially devoted to a discussion of the personal safety of each member, each staffer, and all of their families. They may have reached unanimous agreement that the only safe approach would be to avoid sensitive areas, and not to attack the CIA or FBI, and certainly to avoid going after any of the dangerous guys in both assassination cases. Yet, to keep an honest approach going they would have to listen to any credible hard evidence of conspiracy, comment on it, but refrain from taking a stronger course than just listening. As Dr. Blakey told me more than once, "I'm just going to let the facts speak for themselves." This is somewhat like the position the Warren Commission took when Richard Russell, Hale Boggs and John Sherman Cooper refused to sign the draft of the Warren Report until a qualifying statement was inserted. The statement read, "Because of the difficulty of proving negatives to a certainty the possibility of others being involved with either Oswald or Ruby cannot be established categorically but if there is any such evidence it has been beyond the reach of all the investigative agencies and resources of the United States and has not come to the attention of this Commission." The committee has, in its final report, taken a stronger position than that by saying, in effect, that new evidence of conspiracy has surfaced and that the Congress should turn the job of pursuing that evidence and a continuing investigation over to the executive branch. The recommendation is for the Justice Department to determine whether further investigations are warranted. Thus the Committee members would be off the hook and, more importantly, still alive and safe. They can claim that the funds they had and the time they had were not enough. Whose fault was that? Certainly not the committee's, they can claim. This scenario, if true, is really the only hope, though very slim, any of us have left. All other avenues have been closed.
____________________
[1] "New York Daily News" -- Tuesday, December 12, 1979.
[2] See the letters in the Appendix for a copy of the nondisclosure agreement itself as well as correspondence between the author and Louis Stokes.
[3] See copies of this correspondence in the Appendix.
[4] Following the December 22 executive session a public hearing was held on December 29, the last weekday of the Committee's existence. Weiss and Barger presented the acoustical evidence proving four shots, one from the knoll, thereby causing the Committee to conclude there was a probable conspiracy. But, the fact that the Couch and Weigman films prove the acoustical analysis was incorrect because there is no motorcycle where there was supposed to be one, was completely covered-up by the Committee staff. Why? The answer obviously is that the Committee wanted to close shop with a conspiracy conclusion but one that wouldn't shake up the intelligence community and the PCG too much. If the correct acoustical analysis had been presented, with the motorcycle directly behind the presidential limousine, the net result would have been the elimination of that 6th floor window as the source of the shots. Eliminate that window and you eliminate Oswald and open up a can of worms with a completely different kind of conspiracy. One with a patsy and intelligence ramifications, written all over it. So Cornwell and Blakey, and perhaps the entire Committee decided to prove by implication that the motorcycle was 120 feet behind the JFK car at the time of the shot from the knoll. They showed publicly frames from the Hughes film which shows the motorcycle they fudged, somewhat more than 120 feet behind the limousine. But the Hughes film ends with the cycle on Houston Street. The cycle can be seen in the Hughes film trailing Couch's camera car. Couch took film all the way down Houston and around the turn onto Elm Street. The limo can be seen in all of this footage. The cycle can not. The cycle finally catches up to Couch and passes him after the limo is beyond the triple overpass. Couch is, at all times including the time of the knoll shot, more than 200 feet behind the limousine. Ergo, the cycle is more than 200 feet behind at the critical point. Cornwell presented the cop driving the Houston Street cycle and attempted to elicit testimony from him that it was his microphone that was open.
[5] Giancana actually died in 1975 before testifying to the Schweicker JFK assassination subcommittee of the Church Committee.
* * * * * * *
-- daveus rattus
yer friendly neighborhood ratman
KOYAANISQATSI
ko.yaa.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi Language) n. 1. crazy life. 2. life
in turmoil. 3. life out of balance. 4. life disintegrating.
5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.
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From: dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
Subject: "The Taking of America, 1-2-3" (10/11) Summary: we were robbed of our capability of electing a president we wanted Keywords: part 10 of 11: chapter 17 Lines: 769
* * * * * * *
1985: The House Select Committee (2)
Chapter 17 THE FINAL COVER UP: How The CIA Controlled The House Select Committee On Assassinations
Introduction
The final report of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), issued in 1979, concluded that a conspiracy existed in the assassination of President Kennedy. This news should have delighted hundreds of researchers who had disagreed with the no- conspiracy finding of the Warren Commission. The fact that it did not, is due to the HSCA conspiracy being a simple one, with Lee Harvey Oswald still firing all but one of the shots from the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository Building. The existence of another shooter and another shot, from the grassy knoll, was "proved" by the HSCA, based primarily on acoustical evidence presented in the very last month of their public hearings. Dr. Robert Blakey and Richard Billings, chief counsel and report editor for the HSCA, co-authored, in 1981, a book, "The Plot to Kill the President," following the publication of the HSCA's final report. The book claimed that the other shooter and Oswald were part of a Mafia plot to kill JFK. To over simplify the current (1985) situation, most JFK researchers feel that the American public had been deceived once again. The HSCA reaffirmed all but one of the Warren Commission's findings, including even the famed single bullet theory. The simplified conspiracy finding is now subject to review by the Justice Department and the FBI because it is based on very questionable acoustical evidence. Justice commissioned the so- called Ramsey Panel[1] to review this evidence, in 1981, under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences. It found no evidence from the acoustics that a grassy knoll shot was fired. So, we are back to no-conspiracy and Oswald being the lone assassin. And even if there was a conspiracy, Blakey claims it involved the Mafia and not the CIA. The HSCA report and all of its volumes of evidence omitting any reference to CIA involvement, concluded that the CIA was not involved, and did not reveal any evidence that the HSCA staff had collected showing that CIA people murdered JFK, and that the CIA has been covering up that fact ever since. Any followers of CIA activities connected with the JFK assassination, since 1963, must ask the question, how did they do it? How did the CIA turn things completely around from the 1976 days when Henry Gonzalez, Thomas Downing, Richard A. Sprague, Robert Tanenbaum, Cliff Fenton and others were pursuing the truth about the assassination, to essentially the same status as when the Warren Commission finished its work? How did they produce the final cover-up? The answer is that the CIA controlled the HSCA and its investigation and findings from the early part of 1977, forward. The methods they used were as clever and devious as any they had used previously to control the Warren Commission, the Rockefeller Commission, the Garrison Investigation, the Schweiker/Hart Committee[2] and the efforts of independent researchers.
The Situation in 1976
In 1976, Henry Gonzalez, member of the House from Texas, and Thomas Downing from Virginia, were both convinced there was a massive conspiracy in the JFK assassination. They introduced a joint bill in the House which resulted in the formation of the HSCA and an investigation of the JFK and King assassinations. Gonzalez believed there were at least four conspiracies in the assassinations of JFK, MLK, Robert Kennedy and in the attempted assassination of George Wallace. He introduced an original bill to have the House investigate all four and the cover-ups and links among them. Downing was primarily interested in the JFK case and his original bill dealt only with that conspiracy. Mark Lane and his committee members and supporters around the country joined forces with Coretta King and the Black Caucus in the House to pressure Congressmen and Tip O'Neill to investigate the King and John Kennedy assassinations. The net result was a merging of the Gonzalez and Downing bills into a Final HSCA bill dealing with only two of the cases. In the fall of 1976, with Downing as chairman, the HSCA selected Richard A. Sprague, from the Philadelphia District Attorney's office, to be chief counsel. Sprague hired four professional investigators and criminal lawyers from New York City. They were very good and completely independent of the CIA and FBI, having been trained by one of the best professionals in the business, D.A. Frank Hogan of New York. Sprague and his JFK team, headed by Bob Tanenbaum, attorney, and Cliff Fenton, chief detective, were going after the real assassins and their bosses, whether this led them to the CIA or FBI or anywhere else. Sprague had already made it clear to the HSCA that he would investigate CIA involvement, and subpoena CIA people, documents and other information, whether classified or not. He had also had meetings with several researchers, including the author, and made it known privately that he was going to use the talent and knowledge of every reliable researcher on a consulting basis. He had contacted Jim Garrison in New Orleans and informed him he would be following up on all of his information and leads. He had initiated an investigation of the CIA activities in Mexico City connected with the JFK assassination, including information supplied to Sprague by the author.[3] R.A. Sprague and Tanenbaum were aware of the CIA connections of the individuals involved in the JFK assassination in Dealey Plaza, in Mexico City, in New Orleans and in the Florida Keys. They had, in November 1976, exposed the entire HSCA staff to all of the photographic evidence showing these people in Dealey Plaza and elsewhere. They were aware of the assassination planning meetings held by CIA people in Mexico City and knew who the higher level conspirators were. They had initiated searches for the real assassins; Frenchy, William Seymour, Emilio Santana, Jack Lawrence, Fred Lee Crisman, Jim Braden, Jim Hicks, et al. They were planning to interview CIA contract agents, Richard Case Nagell, Harry Dean, Gordon Novel, Ronald Augustinovich, Mary Hope and Guy Gabaldin. Cliff Fenton had been appointed head of a team of investigators to follow up on the New Orleans part of the conspiracy which had included CIA agents and people; Clay Shaw, David Ferrie, Guy Banister, Manuel Garcia Gonzalez, Sergio Arcacha Smith, Gordon Novel and others. They were going to contact people who had attended assassination planning meetings in New Orleans. From the photographic evidence surrounding the sixth floor window, as well as the grassy knoll, Sprague, Tanenbaum and most of the staff knew Oswald had not fired any shots, knew no shots came from the sixth floor window, and knew there had been shots from the Dal Tex Building and the knoll. They knew the single bullet theory was not true, and knew there had been a well-planned crossfire in Dealey Plaza. They were not planning to waste a lot of time reviewing and rehashing the Dealey Plaza evidence, except as it might lead to the real assassins. They had set up an investigation in Florida and the Keys, of the evidence and leads developed in 1967 by Garrison. Gaeton Fonzi was in charge of that part of Sprague's team. They were going to check out the people in the CIA that had been running and funding the No Name Key group and other Anti-Castro groups. Seymour, Santana, Manuel Garcia Gonzalez, Jerry Patrick Hemming, Loran Hall, Lawrence Howard, Frenchy and Cubans Rolando Masferrer and Carlos Prio Socarras were to be found and interrogated. Tanenbaum and his research team had seen the photo collection of Dick Billings from "Life Magazine" which was, by 1976, deposited in the Georgetown University Library's JFK assassination collection. The No Name Key people and others showing up in Garrison's investigation appeared in these photos with high level CIA agents. In 1977, Henry Gonzalez, who was far more supportive of a CIA conspiracy idea than Tom Downing, was to become chairman of the HSCA. Downing did not run for re-election in 1976 and was retiring. At that point, December 1976, Gonzalez and Sprague were of the same mind and getting along fine. Researchers were very pleased with the way things were going and believed Sprague would expose the CIA's involvement in the JFK cover up.
The CIA's problem
Given this background of the HSCA status in late 1976, it can easily be seen that the CIA was up against much more serious opposition than it ever had been before in the JFK murder and cover-up. They had ruined Jim Garrison's reputation and curtailed his investigation by various dirty trick means. They had been in solid control of the Warren Commission by the simple expedient of having four of the Commissioners belonging to them; Dulles, Ford, McCloy and Russell. They were also able to kill enough people who knew the truth, to slow down any truth-seeking that might have taken place. They also hid documents, destroyed and altered evidence, lied about other evidence, and bald facedly (Dulles) admitted that they wouldn't tell the President or the Commission if Lee Harvey Oswald had been a CIA agent (which he had been). In the Rockefeller Commission situation they were in complete control of that attempt to reinforce the Warren Commission's findings. And in the Church Committee investigation, the Schweiker/Hart subcommittee on the JFK case was very limited and controlled in what they could do. But in the new situation, in Richard A. Sprague and his professionals with so much knowledge of the CIA's role in the murder and the cover-up, they faced a crisis. They knew they had to do several things to turn it around and to continue to keep the American public from realizing what was happening. Here is what they had to do:
1. Get rid of Richard A. Sprague.
2. Get rid of Henry Gonzalez.
3. Get rid of Sprague's key men or keep them away from CIA evidence or keep them quiet.
4. Install their own chief counsel to control the investigation.
5. Elect a new HSCA chairman who would go along, or who could be fooled.
6. Cut off all Sprague's investigations of CIA people. Make sure none of the people were found or bury any testimony that had already been found, or murder CIA people who might talk.
7. Keep the committee members from knowing what was happening and segregate the investigation from them.
8. Create a new investigative environment whose purpose would be to confirm all of the findings of the Warren Commission and divert attention away from the who-did- it-and-why approach.
9. Control the committee staff in such a way as to keep any of them from revealing what they already knew about CIA involvement.
10. Control committee consultants in the same way, and staff members who might leave or who might be fired.
11. Continue to control the media in such a way as to reinforce all of the above.
12. Continue to murder witnesses or assassins in emergency situations if necessary.
The CIA successfully did all twelve of these things. The techniques they used were much more subtle and devious than those they had used before, although they did continue with murders of potential HSCA witnesses and with media control.
How The CIA Did It
The first step taken by the CIA was to use the media they control, along with some members of Congress they control, and two planted agents on the staff of and consulting for, Henry Gonzalez, to get rid of both Henry and Richard A. Sprague. In taking this step, they used the old Roman approach of divide and conquer. They made Gonzalez and his closest staff assistant, Gail Beagle, believe that Sprague was a CIA agent and that Gonzalez must get rid of him. They also made Gonzalez believe that some of his other associates, both in the HSCA and outside, were CIA agents. At the same time, they used the media to attack Sprague mercilessly. The key people in doing this attack on Sprague were three CIA reporters, George Lardner of the "Washington Post," Mr. Burnham of "The New York Times," and Jeremiah O'Leary of the "Washington Star." In all HSCA committee meetings and in Rules Committee and Finance Committee meetings, these three reporters sat next to each other, passed notes back and forth, and wrote articles continually attacking and undermining both Sprague and Gonzalez, as well as the entire committee. The CIA had the support of top management in all three news organizations in doing this. Gonzalez eventually tried to fire Sprague, was over-ruled by the committee, and then resigned from the committee. Sprague eventually resigned, because it became obvious that the CIA controlled members of the Finance and Rules Committees and other CIA allies in the House, were going to kill the committee unless he resigned. There are many more details to this story, which requires a book to describe. Suffice it to say, the CIA accomplished their first two goals by March 1977. The next steps were to install a CIA-controlled chief counsel and to get a chairman elected who could be fooled or coerced into appointing such a counsel. Lewis Stokes was a perfect choice for chairman. He was, and probably still is, a good and honest man. But he was completely bamboozled by what the CIA did and is still doing. The selection and implementation of a CIA man as chief counsel had to be done in an extremely subtle manner. It could not be obvious to anyone that he was a CIA man. Stokes and the other committee members had to be fooled into believing *they* had made the choice, and had picked a good man. Professor Robert Blakey, an apparently scientifically oriented, academic person, with a history of work against organized crime, was the perfect CIA choice. Once Dr. Blakey took over as chief counsel, he accomplished goals numbered 3, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 very nicely. The fourth and fifth goals having been achieved, Blakey set about the other parts of his assignment very rapidly after he arrived. For Goal 3, he fired Bob Tanenbaum, Bob Lehner, and Donovan Gay, three loyal Sprague supporters, quickly.
The Nondisclosure Agreement
The most important weapon used by the CIA and Blakey to pursue goals 9 and 10 was instituted within one week after Blakely arrived. It is by far the most subtle and far reaching technique used by the CIA to date. It is called the "Nondisclosure Agreement" and it was signed by all members of the committee, all staff members including Blakey, all consultants to the committee, and several independent researchers who met with Blakey in 1977. Signing the agreement was a condition for continued employment on the committee staff or for continuing consulting on a contract basis. The choice was, sign or get out. The author signed the agreement in July 1977, without realizing its implications at the time, in order to continue as a consultant. The agreement is reproduced in full in the Appendix and is labelled "Exhibit A." The author's consulting help was never sought after that and the obvious objective was to silence a consultant and not use his services. This CIA weapon has several parts. First, it binds the signer, if a consultant, to never reveal that he is working for the committee (see paragraph 13). Second, it prevents the signer from ever revealing to anyone in perpetuity, any information he has learned about the committee's work as a result of working for the committee (see paragraphs 2 and 12). Third, it gives the committee and the House, after the committee terminates, the power to take legal action against the signer, *in a court named by the committee* or the House, in case the committee believes the signer has violated the agreement. Fourth, the signer agrees to pay the court costs for such a suit in the event he loses the suit (see paragraphs 14 and 15). These four parts are enough to scare most researchers or staff members who signed it into silence forever about what they learned. The agreement is insidious in that the signer is, in effect, giving away his constitutional rights. Some lawyers who have seen the agreement, including Richard A. Sprague, have expressed the opinion it is an illegal agreement in violation of the Constitution and several Constitutional amendments. Whether it is illegal or not, most staff members and all consultants who signed it *have* remained silent, even after three and a half years beyond the life of the committee. There are only two exceptions, the author and Gaeton Fonzi, who published a lengthy article about the HSCA cover-up in the "Washingtonian" magazine in 1981. The most insidious parts of the agreement, however, are paragraphs 2, 3 and 7, which give the CIA very effective control over what the committee could and could not do with so-called "classified" information. The director of the CIA is given authority to determine, in effect, what information shall remain classified and therefore unavailable to nearly everyone. The signer of the agreement, and remember, this includes all of the Congressman and women who were members of the committee, agrees not to reveal or discuss any information that the CIA decides he should not. The chairman of the committee supposedly has the final say on what information is included, but in practice, even an intelligent and gutsy chairman would not be likely to override the CIA. Lewis Stokes did not attempt any final decisions. In fact, the CIA did not have to do very much under these clauses. The fact that Blakey was their man and kept nearly all of the CIA sensitive information, evidence, and witnesses away from the committee members was all that was necessary. Stokes never knew what he should have argued about with the CIA director. It is this document which proves beyond doubt that the CIA controlled the HSCA. The author attempted to point out to Stokes in a letter dated February 10, 1978, "Exhibit B," the type of control the agreement gives the CIA over the HSCA. Stokes replied in a March 16, 1978 letter, "Exhibit C," that he retained ultimate authority and was not bound by the opinion of the Central Intelligence Director. He also claimed that paragraphs 12 and 14, on extending the agreement in perpetuity and giving the government the right to file a civil suit in which the signer will pay all costs, were legal. He said in the letter that the purpose of the agreement was to give the HSCA control over the conduct of the investigation including *control over the ultimate disclosure of information to the American public*. That is a key admission about what has actually happened. The only question is, who is controlling the information in the heads of the staff investigators who discovered CIA involvement? Was Louis Stokes working for the public or for the CIA?
Examples of CIA-Control
Some specific examples will serve to illustrate how well the CIA techniques have worked and are still working.
Garrison Evidence and Witnesses Example
As mentioned earlier, when Blakey arrived, an investigating team headed by Cliff Fenton, reporting to Bob Tanenbaum, had already been hard at work tracking down leads to the CIA conspirators generated by Jim Garrison's investigation in New Orleans. This team eventually had four investigators, all professionals, and their work led them to believe that the CIA people in New Orleans had been involved in a large conspiracy to assassinate JFK. As Garrison told Ted Gandolfo, a New York City researcher, the Fenton team went much further than Garrison, in locating witnesses and other evidence of assassination planning meetings held in New Orleans, Mexico City and Dallas. In fact, they found a CIA man who attended those meetings, and who was willing to testify before the committee. The evidence was far more convincing than the testimony presented at the trial of Clay Shaw. In the Shaw Trial, CIA people were involved in meetings in addition to the one brought out in the trial. Clay Shaw, David Ferrie, William Seymour and others were involved. Fenton's team discovered a lot of other facts about how the CIA people planned and carried out the assassination. Their report about the conspiracy was solid and convincing and they were convinced. The CIA, through Robert Blakey, buried the Fenton report. Committee members were not told about the team's findings. The evidence was not included in the HSCA report, nor was it even referred to in the volumes. The witnesses in New Orleans were never called to testify. That included the CIA man at the meetings. Fenton and the other three members of his team, having signed the nondisclosure agreement, were legally sworn to secrecy, or at least they thought so. To this day they refuse to discuss anything with anybody. There may also have been threats of physical violence against them. There is no way to determine this. However, Fenton and the others are well aware of the witnesses that the CIA murdered just before they were about to testify before the HSCA. These included: William Sullivan, the FBI deputy under J. Edgar Hoover, who headed Division V, the domestic intelligence division; George de Mohrenschildt, Oswald's CIA contact in Dallas; John Roselli, the Mafia man involved in the CIA plots to assassinate Castro; Regis Kennedy, the FBI agent who knew a lot about Clay Shaw, alias Clay Bertrand, in New Orleans and who was one of Lee Harvey Oswald's FBI contacts; Rolando Masferrer, an anti-Castro Cuban murdered in Miami; and Carlos Prio Socarras, former Cuban premier, killed in his garage in Miami. With the knowledge of these murders, Fenton and his team would not have required any more than a gentle hint, to keep quiet.
Frenchy Example
The "tramp," Frenchy, who appears in seven photos taken in Dealey Plaza, is one of the most important CIA individuals in the JFK assassination. Researcher Bill Turner discovered that Frenchy had been in the Florida Keys working with CIA sponsored anti-Castro groups. Richard A. Sprague and Bob Tanenbaum knew about his role, and intended to go after him when the HSCA restored its subpoena power and obtained enough money. They were aware of the evidence that Frenchy fired the fatal shot from the grassy knoll. They had assigned a team of investigators to follow a lead to Frenchy provided by the author in the early part of 1977. Unfortunately, the CIA managed to keep both the subpoena power and the funds away from the committee until after they had forced the resignations of Gonzalez, Sprague and Tanenbaum. The power and funds were restored after Stokes was elected and after they installed their own man, Blakey. The investigative team remained, however, and they did search for and find Frenchy. But Blakey and the CIA suppressed that fact, and suppressed anything they may have learned from Frenchy. He is not mentioned in the report and was not called as a witness. The author dares not reveal the source of the above information because of the danger to staff people from the nondisclosure agreement.
Nagell, Dean, Novel, and Augustinovich
The Garrison investigation and a subsequent series of investigations by the author and other members of the Committee to Investigate Assassinations in 1967 to 1973, turned up several witnesses who were willing to talk privately about the CIA assassination team that murdered JFK. Harry Dean and Richard Case Nagell had been Lee Harvey Oswald's CIA contacts while he was in Mexico City and knew about assassination planning meetings held in Guy Gabaldin's apartment. Dean knew about William Seymour, CIA contract agent, attending those meetings and how Seymour had been pretending to be Oswald on many occasions. Gordon Novel knew how the CIA had covered up the truth about the assassination and how they went to extreme lengths to ruin Jim Garrison and his investigation. Novel had been employed by the CIA in this effort. Ronald Augustinovich and his friend, Mary Hope, had attended some of the Mexico City meetings. Richard Russell and the author tracked down all four of these witnesses prior to the arrival of Robert Blakey at the HSCA. Russell interviewed them and knew they would be willing to talk, given protection and some form of immunity. The author presented their names and their involvement to Richard A. Sprague, Henry Gonzalez, Lewis Stokes and Robert Tanenbaum in the fall of 1976. This was done as part of the author's consulting assignment for the HSCA. The names were in a memorandum to Sprague, which outlined the overall JFK conspiracy and the CIA's role, along with a recommendation of the sequence in which witnesses should be called. The idea was to base each witness interrogation on what had been established from interviewing prior witnesses, working slowly from cooperative witnesses, to non-cooperative witnesses, to actual assassins, to higher level CIA people.[4] The highest level people, E. Howard Hunt and Richard Helms, would be faced with accusers. As indicated earlier, Sprague and Tanenbaum could do nothing and did nothing up to the day they left. By early 1978 it became obvious that Blakey had done nothing about calling these CIA witnesses. The author initiated a series of letter exchanges with Blakey and Stokes, reminding them of these witnesses, and the possibility that their lives could be in danger prior to their being interviewed by HSCA. Dick Russell had obtained an agreement from Nagell to meet with the committee, but no contact had been made up to April 5, 1978, the date of the author's first letter to Stokes on this subject, "Exhibit D." Nagell was hiding in fear of his children's lives, not so much his own life. He was a real CIA agent and knew how they operated. Russell was the only person who knew where Nagell was. In the April 5th letter, a recommendation was given to Stokes that the committee contact Nagell through Russell, and contact the other witnesses on the original list. Stokes wrote on May 15, 1978, "Exhibit E," that the Nagell matter had been referred to Blakey for follow-up. Blakey never mentioned it by telephone or by letter. By September 1978, when the public hearings had begun, there was no indication that Blakey was going to call the CIA witnesses. Nagell was standing by but had not been contacted. The published, intended witness list did not contain any of these CIA names. The author wrote to Stokes and Representative Yvonne Burke on September 22 and 23, 1978, "Exhibits F," expressing dissatisfaction with the committee's failure to call the CIA witnesses, and suggesting that if they did not not, history would eventually catch up with them. The names were repeated in the letter to Burke, and specific mention made that the committee had never contacted Richard Case Nagell. Louis Stokes sent back a letter dated October 10, 1978, "Exhibit G." It is what one might call a non-answer, stating "that the committee will make every effort to tell the whole story to the American people." Seven years later (1985) it can be said that the committee did not make an effort to call the most important witnesses and therefore did not tell the whole story. Nor did their report even mention these witnesses or any of the evidence exposed earlier by the CTIA or Jim Garrison. Louis Stokes was either totally fooled or he is part of the CIA's cover-up. The author responded to Stokes' non-answer letter of October 10th with two more letters, dated October 30, 1978 and November 24, 1978, "Exhibits H & I." Stokes finally answered them on December 4, 1978 with another non-answer letter, "Exhibit J." He says the committee cannot reveal the procedure of the investigation or the names of those persons who will be called to testify before the committee. This implies they were planning to call more witnesses in December 1978. The committee's life ended on January 1, 1979. The CIA witnesses were never called nor ever mentioned right up to the very end and the report was silent about them.
The Umbrella Man
One last example illustrates the way the CIA and Blakey worked together to cancel-out any evidence linking the CIA people and/or techniques used in the JFK assassination. For may years, various researchers, including Josiah Thompson[5] and the author, had speculated about the role of a man appearing in the photographs in Dealey Plaza with an open umbrella. He became known as "The Umbrella Man," or TUM for short. Thompson speculated that TUM had been giving the various shooters in Dealey Plaza visual signals with the umbrella, and the author agreed this could have been true. In *1976*, the Church committee took the public testimony of Charles Senseney, a CIA contract weapons employee at the Army Chemical Center in Ft. Detrick, MD. Senseney described a system used by the CIA in Vietnam and elsewhere, for killing or paralyzing people with poisons carried in self-propelled Flechette darts. The darts were self-propelled like solid fuel rockets and launched silently and unobtrusively from a number of devices, including an umbrella. A CIA catalog of available secret weapons shows a photograph of the umbrella launching device and photos of the Flechettes which were self-propelled from one of the hollow spokes of the umbrella. They could even be launched through soda straws. Researcher Robert Cutler, former Air Force Liason officer, L. Fletcher Prouty, and the author did some additional research on the photographic evidence and the weapon system, especially research on the movements of JFK in the Zapruder film and various photos of TUM and a friend he had with him in Dealey Plaza. The friend had a two-way radio device. As a result of this research, an article was published in "Gallery" magazine in June, 1978. The article presented the hypothesis that TUM launched, from his umbrella, a poison Flechette at JFK, which struck him in the throat at Zapruder frame 189, causing complete paralysis of his upper body, hands, arms, shoulders and head, in less than two seconds. The photos show this paralysis and the timing matches the testimony given by Senseney about how fast the CIA poison works and what its paralyzing effects look like. Whether one agrees with this hypothesis or not is incidental to what Blakey and the HSCA did in reaction to it. Until the summer of 1977, official investigators for the HSCA, or any of its predecessors, had shown no more than passing curious interest in TUM. They just paid no attention and did not take the researcher's ideas seriously. On August 8, 1977, the author informed Robert Blakey, in a letter of that date, about the TUM hypothesis. The letter concerned a discussion the author and Blakey had on July 21, 1977, two days after the nondisclosure agreement had been signed. Blakey had said that if there was a conspiracy it would not have involved a very large number of people. He was probably already laying the foundation for a small, Mafia type, conspiracy involving Oswald and a Mafia friend, backed by a few Mafia Dons. The August 8th letter maintained that the CIA had been involved and that it had been a massive intelligence operation, rather than a conspiracy in the sense Blakey was using the term. The CIA Flechette, umbrella launching weapons system, if indeed it had been used by TUM, the letter pointed out, would be solid proof of high level CIA involvement, since that system would not have been available to lower level agents or contract people. Blakey did not respond right away to this letter and the author decided to make the TUM hypothesis public by publishing it with Cutler as co-author, in the spring of 1978, in "Gallery" magazine. Contact was also made with Senator Richard Schweiker who had been the member of the Church Committee responsible for interrogating Charles Senseney. Schweiker agreed to try and find out from Senseney what had happened to the umbrella launchers he had constructed for the CIA; that is, who in the CIA had had access to a launcher. The information to be published in "Gallery" had been generated by Bob Cutler and the author independently of any information obtained from the HSCA, but the safest approach seemed to be an application to them for permission to print the article under the terms of the nondisclosure agreement. So, on January 9, 1978, the author submitted a draft of the "Gallery" article to Blakey and, on January 16, 1978, he wrote back stating that publishing the article would not violate the terms of the nondisclosure agreement, "Exhibit K." The article was published in the June 1978 issue of "Gallery" which actually appeared in May 1978. Blakey knew in advance when it would appear. On August 3, 1978, the author wrote to Blakey stating that photographic evidence showed a high probability that TUM was actually Gordon Novel, the CIA contract agent from New Orleans, who had been hired to ruin the Garrison investigation, "Exhibit L." The reason that some new photo evidence was just then coming to light was that the committee had discovered a never-before seen film of TUM and had released a frame from this film to the press in July 1978. Shortly after the TUM photo was released by the HSCA, with an appeal to him to come forward, an unknown caller contacted Penn Jones in Texas to tell him he knew who TUM was. Penn visited Louis Witt, having been given his address, and upon seeing him, jumped to the conclusion that he *was* TUM. This led to Mr. Witt appearing before the committee in their televised hearings and making the claim he was TUM. He showed the umbrella on TV that he claimed he used. It was immediately obvious to Bob Cutler and the author that Witt was not TUM. He displayed the umbrella he said he had used in Dealey Plaza and *it contained the wrong number of spokes*. His height, weight and facial appearance did not match TUM's, and his description of his actions did not match at all the actions TUM took, as shown in the photos. On November 24, 1978, the author wrote to Stokes telling him he had been fooled by a CIA plant, or by his own staff, planting Mr. Witt, and that he should call Gordon Novel as a witness because it was likely that Novel was TUM. HSCA never did call Novel as a witness. Novel had visited the HSCA during the days Richard A. Sprague was still there, but he had not mentioned being in Dealey Plaza or that the CIA had hired him to ruin Garrison. Blakey and Stokes avoided contacting Novel. Now, the important thing to focus on, in this example, is the sequence of events. The HSCA had done nothing about TUM until they were faced with the possibility of a public article linking TUM to the CIA through a CIA weapons system and through Gordon Novel. They also found out that Senator Schweiker was looking into the CIA end of it. At about the time the "Gallery" article was being widely read, the HSCA suddenly released to the press a photo of TUM and asked that people identify him or that he come forward. The photo did not show his umbrella or where he was sitting in Dealey Plaza, nor did the release mention the umbrella or the theories about it. Just his photo. An earlier photo used by Cutler and the author to identify Novel as TUM was not released. In a surprisingly short time after the photo appeared, an unknown person calls a well-known researcher and leads him to Louis Witt. Witt in turn lies about who he was and where he was, by claiming to be TUM. Blakey and the committee put Witt on center stage as though it was a play, and eliminate the TUM problem by pulling off a charade. The fine hand of the CIA can be seen in this whole series of linked events. Blakey had to have known what was going on, and he knows today that Witt was not TUM and the high probability that TUM was Gordon Novel, CIA agent. The extreme lengths that the CIA and Blakey went to in this charade, made one believe that the umbrella probably *was* the Charles Senseney weapon. Otherwise, why bother with TUM?
Goal Number Eight
What has been presented so far in this article represents direct actions by the CIA to cover-up CIA involvement. Blakey played another important role and that was to achieve the eighth goal on the list, namely to change the public impression of HSCA's main effort. Researchers who concentrated on attacking the Warren Commission's Dealey Plaza or Tippit shooting findings had created a big problem. If Oswald had fired no shots, then he must have been framed. If Oswald was framed, the evidence against him was planted, and multiple gunmen were involved. All of this line of reasoning would point to a very well-organized and very well- planned conspiracy, which would in turn point to an intelligence style involvement. So, Blakey set out from the beginning to create an investigative environment and image that appeared to be based on a *highly scientific, objective study of the Dealey Plaza evidence*. The overall objective of this approach was to prove "scientifically" that the Warren Commission was right, and that Lee Harvey Oswald fired all the shots that had struck John Kennedy, Governor Connally and policeman Tippit. That required scientific proof of the single bullet theory, among other things. Blakey did just that. Right up to the moment when the acoustical evidence on the Dallas police tape reared its ugly head, only one month from the end of the life of the committee, Blakey managed to control and manipulate the Dealey Plaza evidence to back up the Warren Commission completely. The author described how Blakey did this in chapter 16. One of his "magical" methods was to split up the scientific work into subcommittees or panels of advisors, and various staff groups, and keep them all from communicating with each other. *Thus, even though the medical panel gave testimony showing an upward trajectory of the single bullet (399) shot*, the trajectory panel turned it into a downward trajectory. The photographic panel was so isolated they never did see the most important evidence of the sixth floor window, inside and outside. The photo panel had a number of government and military people on it, as did all of the other panels. Thus it was not surprising that they testified that the fake photos of Oswald holding a rifle were not fakes. Blakey rode roughshod over the evidence that these photos were fakes, presenting only one witness, Jack White, to show why they were fakes, and giving him a very rough time. Other researchers, like Fred Newcomb and the author, who had done a lot of work on the fake photos, were not called and not consulted by the photo panel or Blakey and his staff. There are many more examples of how Blakey managed this magic show on public TV, too numerous to describe here. One important result of this drastic change of investigative environment compared to that existing under Richard A. Sprague, was to draw the attention of the public during the hearings away from the evidence and the witnesses pointing to the real assassins, and to the fact that Oswald was framed and did not fire any shots. It thus provided an additional shield for the CIA and in effect, completed the cover-up.
Summary
Now, in the spring of 1985, the CIA appears to have under control the final cover-up engineered by Robert Blakey with the support of a few murders of key witnesses and the existence of the insidious, illegal, nondisclosure agreement silencing the HSCA staff, committee members, and consultants. The situation for the American public appears to be hopeless. The CIA effectively controlled all three branches of government when the chips were down, and have had no problems controlling the fourth estate, the media, or the independent researchers. By what means could the American public combat this awesome power? It is hard to see that there is any means available. And we have now reached and passed 1984. Would an election of Edward Kennedy to the presidency in 1988 change anything? If he lived through a presidency following an election campaign, it probably would. Most Americans react to that by saying, "he would be assassinated." Somehow they have received the messages about what has gone wrong with the United States.
____________________
[1] Chaired by Prof. Norman Ramsey of M.I.T.
[2] Senators Richard Schweiker of Penn. and Gary Hart of Colo. formed a sub-committee of the Church Committee.
[3] The author became an advisor to Richard A. Sprague as soon as he was appointed counsel to the HSCA.
[4] The names of the witnesses in the memo were: Cooperative Witnesses: Louis Ivon (Jim Garrison's chief investigator), Richard Case Nagell, Harry Dean, James Hosty, Carver Gaten, Warren du Bruys, Regis Kennedy, Victor Marchetti, Gordon Novel, Manuel Garcia Gonzalez, Harry Williams, Jim Garrison, George de Mohrenschildt, Charles Senseney, Mary Hope and Jim Hicks.
Non-Cooperative Witnesses or Assassins or Planners: Ronald Augustinovich, Guy Gabaldin, Frenchy, William Seymour, Emilio Santana, Jack Lawrence, Jim Braden, Sergio Arcacha Smith, Fred Lee Crisman, William Sullivan, Carlos Prio Socarras, Rolando Masferrer, Major L.M. Bloomfield, E. Howard Hunt, and Richard Helms.
[5] In his book, "Six Seconds in Dallas," Thompson showed photos of TUM.
* * * * * * *
--
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.
--- Abraham Lincoln (quoted in Jack London's "The Iron Heel").
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Subject: "The Taking of America, 1-2-3" (11/11) Summary: we were robbed of our capability of electing a president we wanted Keywords: part 11 of 11: Appendix Lines: 1151
* * * * * * *
Appendix
The Secrecy Oath the Author signed after Robert Blakey took over the HSCA, and correspondence between the author and various committee members.
Exhibit A ____________________________________________________________
Select Committee on Assassinations Nondisclosure Agreement [Richard E. Sprague] I, ____________________, in consideration for being employed by or engaged by contract or otherwise to perform services for or at the request of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, or any Member thereof, da hereby make the representations and accept the obligations set forth below as conditions precedent for my employment or engagement, or for my continuing employment or engagement, with the Select Com- mittee, the United States House of Representatives, or the United States Congress. 1. I have read the Rules of the Select Committee, and I hereby agree to be bound by them and by the Rules of the House of Representatives. 2. I hereby agree never to divulge, publish or reveal by words, conduct or otherwise, any testimony given before the Select Committee in executive session (including the name of any witness who appeared or was summoned to appear before the Select Committee in executive session), any classifiable and properly classified information (as defined in 5 U.S.C. Section 552(b)(1)), or any information pertaining to intelligence sources or methods as designated by the Director of Central Intelligence, or any con- fidential information that is received by the Select Committee or that comes into my possession by virtue of my position with the Select Committee, to any person not a member of the Select Committee or its staff or the personal staff representative of a Committee Member unless authorized in writing by the Select Committee, or, after the Select Committee's termination, by such manner as the House of Representatives may determine or, in the absence of a determination by the House, in such manner as the Agency or Department from which the information origin- ated may determine. I further agree not to divulge, publish or reveal by words, conduct or otherwise, any other information which is received by the Select Committee or which comes into my possession by virtue of my position with the Select Committee, for the duration of the Select Committee's existence. 3. I hereby agree that any material that is based upon or may include information that I hereby pledge not to disclose, and that is contemplated for publication by me will, prior to discussing it with or showing it to any publishers, editors or literary agents, be submitted to the Select Committee to deter- mine whether said material contains any information that I hereby pledge not to disclose. The Chairman of the Select Com- mittee shall consult with the Director of Central Intelligence for the purpose of the Chairman's determination as to whether or not the material contains information that I pledge not to disclose. I further agree to take no steps toward publication until authorized in writing by the Select Committee, or after its termination, by such manner as the House of Representatives may determine, or in the absence of a determination by the House, in such manner as the Agency or Department from which the information originated may determine. 4. I hereby agree to familiarize myself with the Select Committee's security procedures, and provide at all times the required degree of protection against unauthorized disclosure for all information and materials that come into my possession by virtue of my position with the Select Committee. 5. I hereby agree to immediately notify the Select Com- mittee of any attempt by any person not a member of the Select Committee staff to solicit information from me that I pledge not to disclose. 6. I hereby agree to immediately notify the Select Committee if I am called upon to testify or provide information to the proper authorities that I pledge not to disclose. I will request that my obligation to respond is established by the Select Committee, or after its termination, by such manner as the House of Representatives may determine, before I do so. 7. I hereby agree to surrender to the Select Committee upon demand by the Chairman or upon my separation from the Select Committee staff, any material, including any classified information or information pertaining to intelligence sources or methods as designated by the Director of Central Intelligence, which comes into my possession by virtue of my position with the Select Committee. I hereby acknowledge that all documents acquired by me in the course of my employment are and remain the property of the United States. 8. I understand that any violation of the Select Committee Rules, security procedures or this agreement shall constitute grounds for dismissal from my current employment. 9. I hereby assign to the United States Government all rights, title and interest in any and all royalties, remunera- tions and emoluments that have resulted or may result from any divulgence, publication or revelation in violation of this agreement. 10. I understand and agree that the United States Government may choose to apply, prior to any unauthorized disclosure by me, for a court order prohibiting disclosure. Nothing in this agreement constitutes a waiver on the part of the United States of the right to prosecute for any statutory violation. Nothing in this agreement constitutes a waiver on my part of any defenses I may otherwise have in any civil or criminal proceedings. 11. I have read the provisions of the Espionage Laws, Sections 793, 794 and 798, Title 18, United States Code, and of Section 783, Title 50, United States Code, and I am aware that unauthorized disclosure of certain classified information may subject me to prosecution. I have read Section 1001, Title 18, United States Code, and I am aware that the making of a false statement herein is punishable as a felony. I have also read Executive Order 11652, and the implementing National Security Council directive of May 17, 1972, relating to the protection of classified information. 12. Unless released in writing from this agreement or any portion thereof by the Select Committee, I recognize that all the conditions and obligations imposed on me by this agreement apply during my Committee employment or engagement and continue to apply after the relationship is terminated. 13. No consultant shall indicate, divulge or acknowledge, without written permission of the Select Committee, the fact that the Select Committee has engaged him or her by contract as a consultant until after the Select Committee has terminated. 14. In addition to any rights for criminal prosecution or for injunctive relief the United States Government may have for violation of this agreement, the United States Government may file a civil suit in an appropriate court for damages as a consequence of a breach of this agreement. The costs of any civil suit brought by the United States for breach of this agreement, including court costs, investigative expenses, and reasonable attorney fees, shall be borne by any defendant who loses such suit. In any civil suit for damages successfully brought by the United States Government for breach of this agreement, actual damages may be recovered, or, in the event that such actual damages may be impossible to calculate, liquidated damages in an amount of $5,000 shall be awarded as a reasonable estimate for damages to the credibility and effectiveness of the investigation. 15. I hereby agree that in any suit by the United States Government for injunctive or monetary relief pursuant to the terms of this agreement, personal jurisdiction shall obtain and venue shall lie in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, or in any other appropriate United States District Court in which the United States may elect to bring suit. I further agree that the law of the District of Columbia shall govern the interpretation and construction of this agreement. 16. Each provision of this agreement is severable. If a court should find any part of this agreement to be unenforceable, all other provisions of this agreement shall remain in full force and effect. I make this agreement without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and I agree that it may be used by the Select Committee in carrying out its duty to protect the security of information provided to it. [July 19, 1977] [Richard E., Sprague] Date: _____________________ _________________________________ [ I am submitting a list of material and information which has already been _________________________________ given to the committee, LOUIS STOKES, Chariman or which I intend to Select Committee on Assassinations give to the committee in the near future. I intend to publish some of this information.]
Exhibit B ____________________________________________________________
193 Pinewood Road Hartsdale, NY 10530
February 10, 1978
Mr. Louis Stokes Chairman, Select Committee on Assassinations U.S. House of Representatives Washington, D.C. 20515 Dear Louis: As I am sure you know, I signed a non disclosure agreement for the Select Committee, given to me on July 19, 1977 by Robert Blakey. Not being a lawyer, I did not really appreciate some of the provisions of that agreemont at the time I signed it, even though some things in it seemed strange to me. In the last fow months I have gone over the agreement several times, with particular attention to those strange portions. The more I re- read the agreement, the more puzzled I have become. I was finally triggered into writing you this letter by a conversation I had with Richard A. Sprague. As you may recall I helped him and Bob Tanenbaum from November 1976 forward with the photographic evidence in the JFK case, and several other areas derived from my relationship with Jim Garrison and the Committee to Investigate Assassinations. I had no written agreement with the Committee at that time and did not ask for compensation for the work I had been doing. I had signed no non dis- closure agreement and such an agreement had never been mentioned. The first time I had any idea that the Committee would want to pay me for my assistance was some time after Dick Sprague resigned, when Mr. Blakey approached me about it through Bob Tanenbaum, shortly before Bob resigned. My recent meeting with Dick Sprague naturally led to discussion about my continuing work for the Committee. He raised the subject of the non disclosure agreement signed by each staff member, saying that he would never have enforced such a document while he was chief counsel because he believes it gives the CIA and other agencies too much power to control the activities of the Committee. It was because of that statement that I read the agreement again in the light of what he said. I know that you had a lot of faith in Richard A. Sprague and did not personally want him to resign. For that reason I'm writing to you rather than Mr. Blakey, seeking answers to my questions. Encloged is a copy of the agreement with my signature. I have circled on it the paragraphs in question, and underlined the key words. My questions, Mr. Stokes are as follows: 1. Are paragraphs 2, 3 and 7 inserted for the purpose of giving the CIA power over the Select Committee to investigate the CIA's role in the assassinations or the cover up crimes following the assassinations of President Kennedy or Dr. King? I believe those paragraphs could be so interpreted, especially if each committee member and each staff member signed a similar agreement. 2. If the purposes of paragraphs 2, 3 and 7 are not as questioned above, then how can the Select Committee, its staff or its con- sultants, *ever* discover whether the CIA was involved in the assassinations or whether the CIA, as I maintain, is *still* involved in covering up the conspiracies? For example, paragraph 3 states that you as chairman, shall con- sult with the Director of Central Intelligence--to determine whether or not the material I might receive contains information that I pledge not to disclose. Assuming that all committee staff people signed that paragraph, it would seem to me that you would really be hamstrung in investi- gating the CIA's possible role. Your staff could not be working with any documents or other materials pointing toward CIA agents' involvement in the assassinations, without you personally having to show those documents to the Director of Central Intelligence and to obtain his agreement to disclose the information to the public. The CIA Director has the power of judging what can be released. Obviously, anything incriminating to the CIA, especially higher level people who may have been involved, would be judged unreleas- able. None of this would take on the significance that it does, were it not for my belief that the CIA itself has continued to cover up the original conspiracy and that several CIA agents or contract employees carried out the murder. 3. Is paragraph 12 really logical, or even legal? Can an agreement with a body be extended ad infinitum after the body has dissolved? 4. Paragraph 14 bothers me. It seems to say that I agree to allow the government to sue me and to bear the expenses of such a suit. Is it really legal to ask me to agree to be sued as a condition of my consulting contract? Couldn't the government sue me and collect expenses anyway if I did something wrong, without such a clause? Paragraph 16 seems to anticipate that Paragraph 14 may not stand up in court. (Or some other paragraph.) I want to make it clear that my concerns in this matter are not related to any obligation I may have. Rather, I am concerned about the purposes of those clauses in the agreement, as they affect the investigations. I believe every staff member signed them. I would appreciate hearing directly from you on these questions Mr. Stokes, rather than referring this letter to Mr. Blakey. Yours sincerely, Richard E. Sprague
Exhibit C ____________________________________________________________
LOUIS STOKES, OHIO, CHAIRMAN
RICHARDSON PREYER, N.C. SAMUEL L. DEVINE, OHIO WALTER E. FAUNTROY, D.C. STEWART B. MCKINNEY, CONN. YVONNE BRATHWAITE BURKE, CALIF. CHARLES THONE, NEBR. CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, CONN. HAROLD S. SAWYER, MICH. HAROLD E. FORD, TENN. FLOYD J. FITHIAN, IND. ROBERT W. EDGAR, PA. ------------ (202) 225-4624
Select Committee on Assassinations U.S House of Representatives 3331 HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, ANNEX 2 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20515
MAR 16 1978
Richard E. Sprague, Esq. 193 Pinewood Road Hartsdale, New York 10530
Dear Mr. Sprague:
In response to your letter of February 10, 1978 concerning the non-disclosure agreement which you signed with the Committee, I wish to first remind you that the agreement was explicitly explained to you provision by provision by Mr. Blakey, and that you were given the opportunity to ask any questions that you desired prior to your signing the agreement. I want to assure you that the intent of the agreement is not to prevent information from ultimately being disclosed to the American public. The non-disclosure agreement only governs the timing of disclosure of information to the public. In response to your specific questions: I. Paragraphs 2, 3 and 7 obviously are not for the purpose of giving the CIA power over the Select Committee to investigate the CIA's role in the assassination. If you read these paragraphs carefully, they clearly provide that the Select Committee, during its existence, will be in full control and have access to all information. The paragraphs do prevent you from disclosing the information, without the authorization of the Select Committee. Paragraph 3 does state that I, as Chairman, will consult with the Director of Central Intelligence to determine whether or not material contains information which you pledge not to disclose. I, however, retain ultimate authority and I only consult with the Director of Central Intelligence - I am not bound by his opinion. II. Paragraphs 12 and 14 are indeed legal. Should you have any specific questions concerning the legality of any of the provisions, I suggest you consult your own attorney.
I assure you that the very purpose of the non- disclosure agreement is to give the Select Committee full control over the conduct of the investigation, including the ultimate disclosure of information to the American public. In no manner should it be construed as the Committee being restricted in its investigation by the CIA or any other federal agency or department. In closing, I remind you of paragraph 13 of the non-disclosure agreement which provides that you may not "indicate, divulge or acknowledge" the fact that you have been retained as a consultant until after the Select Committee has been terminated. I have seen a press release concerning yourself issued by Mr. Altmans in conjunction with a new article in Gallery magazine. I note that while you technically did not violate the non-disclosure agreement which you signed, by carefully wording the release to describe the work you had done for the Committee in the past, this is the exact kind of exploitation of a consultant relationship that the Committee desires to avoid during its existence. If you have any other questions or comments on the non-disclosure agreement, they should be addressed to Mr. Blakey as Chief Counsel.
Sincerely,
[Louis Stokes]
Louis Stokes Chairman
LS:jwc
Exhibit D ____________________________________________________________
193 Pinewood Road Hartsdale, NY 10530
April 5, 1978
Representative Louis Stokes U.S. House of Representatives Raybur House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 Dear Louis, Thank you for your most reassuring letter of March 16, 1978. As you know I have great faith in your own personal integrity and your goals as discussed with you at lunch nearly a year ago. I understand the necessity for non disclosure and sensitive discretion in the way the Select Committee is pro- ceeding. I believe I understand it more than most researchers because of my close working relationship with the staff and the committee ever since it started. You can rest assured that it is my intention to continue to assist you and to support your efforts right up to the finish line. I want to avoid as much as you do any exploitation of my relationship to the committee that would cause problems for you or for me, especially with the media. In this regard, the press release you mentioned in your letter from Gallery magazine was initially prepared by their public relations department, and included a statement taht I am a consultant to the Select Committee. I asked them to delete the statement and they insisted on retaining something about my assistance to the committee in order to help establish my credibility with their readers. After some discussion I was able to get them to modify the statement to apply to the past work for Richard A. Sprague and Henry Gonzalez. There will be another article in the June 1978 issue using this same statement. I believe I mentioned the article to you several months ago. It is about the CIA weapon system developed by Charles Senseney at Fort Detrick, Maryland using rocket propelled flechettes carrying paralyzing poison launched by an umbrella. I described in the article the evidence pointing toward the use of this weapons system in Dealey Plaza. The article will appear on May 2 on the newsstands. I read your March 16 letter, on March 22, upon my return from a trip to Japan and a vacation. I contacted Gallery asking them to delete entirely the statement about me and the Select Committee. They told me it was too late, that the issue had already gone to press. However, they did agree to delete the statement from any [the remainder of this letter was missing from the copy of the edition used to make this on-line version. --Editor]
Exhibit E ____________________________________________________________
LOUIS STOKES, OHIO, CHAIRMAN
RICHARDSON PREYER, N.C. SAMUEL L. DEVINE, OHIO WALTER E. FAUNTROY, D.C. STEWART B. MCKINNEY, CONN. YVONNE BRATHWAITE BURKE, CALIF. CHARLES THONE, NEBR. CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, CONN. HAROLD S. SAWYER, MICH. HAROLD E. FORD, TENN. FLOYD J. FITHIAN, IND. ROBERT W. EDGAR, PA. ------------ (202) 225-4624
Select Committee on Assassinations U.S House of Representatives 3331 HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, ANNEX 2 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20515
May 15, 1978
Mr. Richard Sprague 193 Pinewood Road Hartsdale, NY 10530 Dear Mr. Sprague: Thank you for your thoughtful letter of April 5 and I hope that you will excuse my delay in responding. I appreciate your expression of confidence in me and your reassurance of your continued support. With regard to the matter of the press release, I understand your situation and it was most thoughtful of you to advise me in advance about the article in the June issue of Gallery magazine. Your letter has been sent on to the Committee staff in order that they might share your recommendations about Richard Case Nagell. Thank you again for your continuing support. Sincerely, [Louis Stokes] LOUIS STOKES Chairman LS:thn
Exhibit F ____________________________________________________________
193 Pinewood Road Hartsdale, New York 10530 September 22, 1978 Representative Yvonne Burke U.S. House of Representatives Washington, D.C. 20515 Dear Mrs. Burke: I don't know whether you recall our meeting on July 21, 1977 when Jack White, Robert Groden and I made presentations to the J.F.K. subcommittee of the Select Committee on Assassinations. You may remember my showing a summary of photographic evidence of conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination. You asked some very pertinent questions which I answered about how to obtain films and photos from media organizations that were stonewalling at the time. I am truly sorry that you have missed the first three weeks of the J.F.K. hearings because I feel that your presence would have created at least a minority of one against the carefully orchestrated cover up that is now takinq place. I had great faith in the committee, especially after a luncheon meeting with Louis Stokes in 1977 and after the presentation to you. I want you personally to know that I have now lost all of that faith. The farce that is going on is really almost unbelievable to an honest researcher. All witnesses (except Cyril Wecht), all panels employed by the committee, the staff and the committee members doing the questioning, obviously made up their minds a long time ago that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin, that there was no conspiracy and that the Warren Commission was right. I cannot understand how this came about. As the most likely committee member to still keep an open mind, I would like to ask your opinion. How did the committee staff ignore all of the evidence of conspiracy. I am speaking not only about the photographic evidence, but about the information that Clifford Fenton and his team uncovered in New Orleans. I know you know about that from my conversations with Ted Gandolfo and Jim Garrison. Do you believe there was a conspiracy? If you do, will you say so when you return to Washington? Will you insist that the committee hear from the important New Orleans witnesses as well as the others I recommended long long ago. Specifically, will you insist that the committee call as witnesses: James Hosty, Warren du Bruys, Regis Kennedy, Richard Case Nagell, Harry Dean, Ronald Augustinovich, Mary Hope, Guy Gabaldin, Frenchy, William Seymour, Emilio Santana, Jack Lawrence, Jim Braden, E. Howard Hunt, Richard Helms and the others listed in the document I gave Louis Stokes in 1977. If you can't or won't, God help this country. Yours sincerely, Richard E. Sprague P.S. In the case of key witness Richard Case Nagell, Mr. Stokes assured me this spring that the committee would contact him. As of this date, he has never been contacted. He knows who killed President Kennedy.
Exhibit G ____________________________________________________________
LOUIS STOKES, OHIO, CHAIRMAN
RICHARDSON PREYER, N.C. SAMUEL L. DEVINE, OHIO WALTER E. FAUNTROY, D.C. STEWART B. MCKINNEY, CONN. YVONNE BRATHWAITE BURKE, CALIF. CHARLES THONE, NEBR. CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, CONN. HAROLD S. SAWYER, MICH. HAROLD E. FORD, TENN. FLOYD J. FITHIAN, IND. ROBERT W. EDGAR, PA. ------------ (202) 225-4624
Select Committee on Assassinations U.S House of Representatives 3331 HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, ANNEX 2 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20515
October 10, 1978
Mr. Richard Sprague 193 Pinewood Road Hartsdale, New York 10530 Dear Mr. Sprague: I was greatly disturbed by your letter of September 23, 1978 in which you stated that, "I have one last hope that what we are witnessing in your hearings is a charade meant to fool the FBI and the CIA. If it is, you have fooled me. If it is not, your statements to me over the past year about getting at the truth were all meaningless. I have lost all faith in you and the committee." I must say that I deeply regret the fact that you have lost faith in the performance of my committee. We have attempted to do a thorough, competent and professional job which would be a source of pride for you and other concerned Americans. I should state here for the record, Mr. Sprague, that I find nothing inconsistent in my statements to you over the year indicating that the committee would be seeking the truth and nothing but the truth during the course of the investigation and the testimony that the committee has received during its public hearings. Perhaps you are confused because I did not explicitly state that the truth the committee is seeking is not your truth or my truth, but truth supported by the weight of the evidence. Thanks again for your past and current concerns. I assure you that the committee will make every effort to tell the whole story to the American people. Sincerely, [Louis Stokes] Chairman LS: icmj
Exhibit H ____________________________________________________________
193 Pinewood Road Hartsdale, NY 10530 October 30, 1978 Representative Louis Stokes Select Committee on Assassinations U.S. House of Representatives 3369 House Office Building, Annex 2 Washington, D.C. 20515 Dear Louis: I appreciate your responding to my September 23 letter. I am truly sorry to be so disturbing to you concerning the committee's hearings. I wish I could be more complimentary and positive about your work. I could not agree with you more that the "truth supported by the weight of the evidence" is what we are all after. I'm enclosing for your information one more copy of the document I gave to Henry Gonzalez, Richard A. Sprague, Bob Tannenbaum, and you in 1976 and 1977. Unless you call the witnesses listed on pages 4-6 of this document, Louis, you have not dealt with the most impor- tant evidence of all. How can you possibly claim to have unearthed anything approximating the truth, unless you and the rest of the committee interrogate with strength, the following important witnesses that you missed: Richard Case Nagell, James P. Hosty, Louis Ivon, Victor Marchetti, Gorden Novel, Ronald Augustinovich, Mary Hope, Manuel Garcia Gonzalez, William Seymour, Emilio Santana, Guy Gabaldin, Major L.M. Bloomfield, Harry Williams, Sylvia Odio and Jim Garrison. The document explains how each of these witnesses was involved in the assassination of investigations of it. It is based, not just on my research, but on painful hours of investigative efforts of many, many people, including Jim Garrison's professional staff, the Committee to Investigate Assassinations and others. I understand that James P. Hosty is finally ready to tell his real story, at the risk of physical harm to himself and his family. You have not called him. Richard Case Nagell has been ready to testify for a long time. Despite my requests to Dr. Blakey and to you, he has not been called and no effort has been made to locate him through the only person who knows where he is, Dick Russell. If you will pardon my saying so Louis, something about just those two failures stinks, not to mention all of the others. It is not too late to save your reputations. You can still call those witnesses in December. I hope you do. Yours Sincerely, Dick Sprague
Exhibit I ____________________________________________________________
193 Pinewood Road Hartsdale, NY 10530 November 24, 1978 Representative Louis Stokes Select Committee on Assassinations U.S. House of Representatives 3369 House Office Building, Annex 2 Washington, D.C. 20515 Dear Louis: I am still waiting for a reply to my letter of October 30, 1978. I thought I should write again to remind you that the witnesses you should call in December are not going to be around much longer. I'm afraid that Gorden Novel, Richard Case Nagell, James Hosty and Warren de Brueys, in particular may go the same way that Regis Kennedy, William Sullivan, and George de Mohrenschildt went. You really must call them before they die. Regis Kennedy reportedly died of natural causes the day before you were to talk with him. I do not believe that. How many more key witnesses have to die before you would be convinced? Kennedy, du Brueys and Hosty were Oswald's points of contact in the FBI, receiving his reports on the conspiratorial group planning JFK's assassination. I have known this since 1971 directly from Hosty's own lips via Carver Gaten and Jim Gochenaur. Regis Kennedy also knew why the FBI was searching for Clay Shaw under his alias Clay Bertrand in New Orleans, *before* Dean Andrews received that phone call from him about defending Oswald. Kennedy may also have been one of the three agents who took the Babushka lady's film away from her. At least she told me he was one of them from his photo. So Regis Kennedy had to die. So do Warren du Brueys and James Hosty. If they die of "natural causes" in the next month or two, don't say I didn't warn you. Nagell and Novel are in even greater danger. Nagell may now be safe. He fled the country recently. However, the CIA has tentacles everywhere, so he will not really be safe wherever he is. Novel could easily be killed, since he is in prison. That is one of the easiest places for the death squad to catch up with him. As I have had told you in previous letters, the reason you *must* call Novel is that there is a very strong possibility that he is the umbrella man. If you laugh at that and try to tell me that you found the umbrella man, Mr. Witt, I'll laugh right back at you and tell you that farce you put on for the American public didn't fool anyone with his eyes even half way open. In addition to the obviously planned sequence of events and the way in which Mr. Witt surfaced, his umbrella was certainly not the one used in Dealey Plaza. It was the wrong size, had the wrong number of ribs, and was missing the two round white bulbs on either end when folded up. No, Louis, Mr. Witt was either planted upon you or else your staff planted him. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt for the moment and assume that you do not know he was a plant. If you let it go as is, you and Mr. Preyer and the rest of the committee are going to look pretty silly. You absolutely must call as witnesses, Gorden Novel, and at the other end, Charles Sensenay and the CIA people asso- ciated with Fort Detrick, Maryland, where that umbrella launching system was made. Incidentally, two Bulgarian intelligence agents have recently been assassinated in England with an umbrella weapon using poison flechettes, very similar to the one used on JFK. I would appreciate a response to this letter telling me what you plan to do about those witnesses. Best regards, Dick Sprague
Exhibit J ____________________________________________________________
LOUIS STOKES, OHIO, CHAIRMAN
RICHARDSON PREYER, N.C. SAMUEL L. DEVINE, OHIO WALTER E. FAUNTROY, D.C. STEWART B. MCKINNEY, CONN. YVONNE BRATHWAITE BURKE, CALIF. CHARLES THONE, NEBR. CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, CONN. HAROLD S. SAWYER, MICH. HAROLD E. FORD, TENN. FLOYD J. FITHIAN, IND. ROBERT W. EDGAR, PA. ------------ (202) 225-4624
Select Committee on Assassinations U.S House of Representatives 3331 HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, ANNEX 2 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20515
December 4, 1978
Mr. Dick Sprague 193 Pinewood Rqad Hartsdale, New York 10530 Dear Mr. Sprague: Thank you for your letter of November 24, 1978. I am aware of the amount of time you have spent analyzing the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and your interest in the work of the Select Committee on Assassinations since its inception. However, I regret that under our Rules, it is impossible for us to respond to your letter in a manner which would reveal the substance or procedure of our investigation, or the names of those persons who will be called to testify before the committee. The committee is, of course, grateful for your suggestions and those of the many other concerned citizens who have taken the time to write. Sincerely, [Louis Stokes] LOUIS STOKES Chairman LS:jl
Exhibit K ____________________________________________________________
LOUIS STOKES, OHIO, CHAIRMAN
RICHARDSON PREYER, N.C. SAMUEL L. DEVINE, OHIO WALTER E. FAUNTROY, D.C. STEWART B. MCKINNEY, CONN. YVONNE BRATHWAITE BURKE, CALIF. CHARLES THONE, NEBR. CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, CONN. HAROLD S. SAWYER, MICH. HAROLD E. FORD, TENN. FLOYD J. FITHIAN, IND. ROBERT W. EDGAR, PA. ------------ (202) 225-4624
Select Committee on Assassinations U.S House of Representatives 3331 HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, ANNEX 2 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20515
JAN 16 1978
Richard E. Sprague, Esq. 193 Pinewood Road Hartsdale, New York 10530 Dear Mr. Sprague: In response to your letter of January 9, 1978, I have reviewed your proposed article "The CIA Weapon System Used in the Assassination of President Kennedy." It is my opinion that the article is derived from your own sources of information, and contains no information that has come into your possession by virtue of your consulting work with the Committee. Accordingly, your proposed publication of the article does not violate the terms of your non- disclosure agreement. As I am sure you can appreciate, further comment by myself upon the article or its proposed publication would be inappropriate, and consequently I decline to express any review or comment upon it. Thank you for your continuing cooperation with the Select Committee. Sincerely, [G. Robert Blakey] G. Robert Blakey GRB:jwc
Exhibit L ____________________________________________________________
193 Pinewood Road Hartsdale, NY 10530
August 3, 1978
Mr. Robert Blakey Select Committee on Assassinations U.S. House of Representatives Washington, D.C. 20515 Dear Bob: Following our telephone conversation on Tuesday August 1, I checked with Bob Cutler, my co-author on the Umbrella Weapon System article in Gallery June 1978. Bob told me he left with Mr. Preyer and with you, photographic material showing that The Umbrella Man (TUM) was quite probably J. Gordon Novel. Your news photo of him reinforces that belief for both of us. I did not have that portion of the Couch film from WFAA and so had never seen TUM's face as clearly as it appears there. The Bothun photo of him has a light reflection around his nose, as I'm sure you know. We have a 1962-3 photo of Novel taken from the same angle as the Couch, film of TUM and a photo comparison convinces us more than ever that Novel is TUM. Mr. Preyer no doubt told you back in April that Novel is in a jail in Georgia, framed for a crime he and Jim Garrison, his former lawyer, both claim he didn't commit. Best regards, Dick Sprague DS/mc P.S. I am still waiting for a response to my letters to Louis Stokes about attending the hearings beginning August 14. cc: L. Stokes R. Cutler
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I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.
--- Abraham Lincoln (quoted in Jack London's "The Iron Heel").