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<h2>taking</h2>
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<p>Path: ns-mx!hobbes.physics.uiowa.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!spool.mu.edu!olivea!sgigate!odin!ratmandu.esd.sgi.com!dave
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From: dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
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Newsgroups: alt.activism,alt.conspiracy.jfk,alt.conspiracy
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Subject: Book Intro: "The Taking Of America, 1-2-3"
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Summary: we were robbed of our capability of electing a president we wanted
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Keywords: our electoral system was taken away from us starting in 1963
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<span class="Message-ID"> 1992Jun4.223739.17980@odin.corp.sgi.com</span>
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Date: 4 Jun 92 22:37:39 GMT
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Sender: news@odin.corp.sgi.com (Net News)
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Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
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Lines: 244
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Xref: ns-mx alt.activism:27137 alt.conspiracy.jfk:1493 alt.conspiracy:15372
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Nntp-Posting-Host: ratmandu.esd.sgi.com</p>
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<p> This is an introduction to the book "The Taking of America, 1-2-3,"
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by Richard E. Sprague, self-published by the author first in 1976,
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revised in 1979, and updated in 1985. There will be eleven posts
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following this one that will comprise the complete 1985 updated
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third edition which I will be sending out with the permission of
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the author. From the book's own introduction,</p>
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<p> This book is not about assassinations, at least not
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solely about assassinations. It is not just another book
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about who murdered President Kennedy or how or why. It is a
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book about power, about who really controls the United
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States policies, especially foreign policies. It is a book
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|
about the process of control through the manipulation of the
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American presidency and the presidential election process.
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|
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
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|
this control process. They have been important only in the
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|
sense that they are the ultimate method used in the control
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of the election process. Viewed in this way, an
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understanding of what happened to John or Robert Kennedy
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becomes more important because it leads to a total
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understanding of what has happened to our country, and to
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us, since 1960. But the important thing to understand is
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the control and the power and all of the clandestine methods
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put together.</p>
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<p> Two men named Richard Sprague have been involved in examining the
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assassination of John F. Kennedy and its ensuing cover-up through the
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years. Richard A. Sprague, the former district attorney from
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Philadelphia, and the fearless prosecutor of the Yablonski murderers,
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was named on October 4, 1976, by Congressperson Thomas Downing, to be
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chief counsel of the just-then forming House Select Committee on
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Assassinations. Richard E. Sprague was a pioneer in the field of
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computers starting in the 1940s. His involvement studying the
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photographic evidence in the assassination of President Kennedy goes
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back to 1966:</p>
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<p> From the day it happened I was skeptical about what was
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being said on the TV and radio with regard to how the
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president was killed. But when the "Warren Report" was
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issued I became non-skeptical and accepted it pretty much as
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it was. However, when the 26 volumes became available in
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late 1964 and I started reading through them, I became
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skeptical again because I could not find confirmation of
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most of the so-called facts presented by the "Warren Report"
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and purported to be backed up by the evidence in the 26
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volumes, or any other evidence.
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So I started work again, which caused me to need an index
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to the 26 volumes. This in turn lead to my contacting
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Sylvia Meagher and asking where I could get her index having
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discovered that she had created and published one that the
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Warren Commission hadn't seen fit to provide. She told me
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where I could get it and suggested we have lunch. This was
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in early November, 1966. She asked, "Why don't you do some
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real research?" and I said, "like what?" and she responded
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"how about the photographic evidence? A couple of people
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have started work on it but haven't finished." I asked her
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who and she said "Harold Weisberg and Ray Marcus." I
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contacted both men and that's more or less how I stuck my
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foot in the quicksand.
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At the time the 26 volumes became available there were
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only 8000 copies printed for the whole country. The time I
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managed to get hold of one of these sets of all 26 volumes
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was when I had moved to the University Club in New York City
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and they had a complete set donated to the University Club
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by non other than John J. McCloy. So I was using John J.
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McCloy's personal copies for the beginnings of my research.
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Now, the most important thing initially that happened in
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finding the photos was discovering a number of photographs-
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-films and still photos--that showed the sixth floor window
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empty with nobody in it. This is what originally convinced
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me that we had a different sort of conspiracy going than one
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involving Lee Harvey Oswald, because if he wasn't in the
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window--and nobody was in the window--then what happened?
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Who fired the shots? And where from?
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Confirming that the films and photographs I was looking
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at were taken at the critical time the shots were fired, or
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immediately before or after that, involved a lot of work:
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work with plat maps, other photos, and other materials. I
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got hold of a map made by the surveyor for Dealey Plaza (I
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believe his name was Clarence West) which was drawn to
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scale, and Bob Cutler helped me draw onto it all of the
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various things that happened including all the vehicles that
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were moving through. And I managed to lay a set of films
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end-to-end starting with one rounding the turn onto Houston
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Street all the way through Dealey Plaza so I could track any
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vehicle that was in view eighteenth-of-a-second by
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eighteenth-of-a-second (<span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> film speed) all the way
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through Dealey Plaza. This enabled me to determine where
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Kennedy was at all times and where anybody else was that
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showed up in any of the photos--particularly moving
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pictures--at times Kennedy was at spot so-and-so or spot
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such-and-such.
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By doing this, with some triangulation, I was able to pin
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down the exact timing of two particular sets of photos: a
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film--the Hughes film--the last frame of which shows the
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sixth floor window empty and ends 5.7 seconds ahead of the
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first shot--the first shot being fired/tied down at frame
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189 of the <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> film; and two photos taken after the
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shots were fired by Dillard and, believe it or not, an
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intelligence man from Navy intelligence named Powell.
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Powell's and Dillard's photos were taken almost at the same
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time, 3.5 seconds after the fatal and last shot (Z-313).
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So that total time span is less than 17 seconds--if you
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add up the 5.7 seconds after the end of the Hughes film,
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plus the 6-plus seconds while the shots were being fired,
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plus the 3.5 seconds before Dillard and Powell's photos were
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taken--of blank, non-coverage of that window and there's no
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way Oswald could have gotten into the window, aimed, fired
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three shots, and gotten out of the window so you that
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couldn't see him in 17 seconds.
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But anyway there was another film taken by Beverly Oliver
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otherwise known as the Babushka lady that was confiscated by
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News Orleans FBI agent Regis Kennedy, and a still photograph
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taken by Norman Similas, confiscated by the Royal Canadian
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Mounted Police from "Liberty" magazine (which was going to
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publish the photo), who then turned the photo and its
|
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negative over to the FBI. I interviewed Similas and the
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"Liberty" magazine editor both of whom told me they had
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carefully examined the photograph and had seen no one in the
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photograph appearing in the eastern-most sixth floor window,
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which I calculated had been taken about half-way into the
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17-second interval.
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I made two attempts soon after the Freedom of Information
|
|
Act "viewing room" in the FBI office in Washington, D.C. was
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created, to request to see the Similas photograph and
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Beverly Oliver film, but each time the FBI person assigned
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to me was not able to find these photograhs. But the
|
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testimony of the people involved was good enough for me to
|
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conclude that there was nobody in that window ever.
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Once I got to that point I started looking for other
|
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evidence that would show where the shots did come from and I
|
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started finding all kinds of evidence of shots from the
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grassy knoll, and from the Dal Tex building, and from the
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roof or the seventh floor of the western end of the
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depository building--both photographs as well as witness
|
|
testimony--and that lead me to decide that this was a
|
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powerful conspiracy which had involved at least four gunmen
|
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firing shots. This then lead me to decide that I should
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pursue the whole pattern of conspiracy including,
|
|
eventually, the Martin Luther King assassination, the Bobby
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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
|
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been taken from us. Us being the citizens of the United
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States as of 1963, and any time after that, by robbing us of
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|
our capability of electing a president we wanted for at
|
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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
|
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have been a lot further along than we are 13 years later.</p>
|
|
<p> -- phone interview with the author, June 3, 1992</p>
|
|
<p> 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 25000.
|
|
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 <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> film, which
|
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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
|
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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.
|
|
[.....]
|
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Because the professionals used movie cameras of professional
|
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quality, their films are exceedingly revealing and valuable as
|
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primary evidence. The Warren Commission looked at none of these
|
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films.
|
|
During the past several years, I have collected copies of over 200
|
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of these photographs, and I have looked at and taken notes of another
|
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200 of these photographs, without obtaining copies of them. Some of
|
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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
|
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show. Or they have been locked up by the FBI, who have either placed
|
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them in files inaccessible to the public or possibly have destroyed
|
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them.</p>
|
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<p> from, "The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy:
|
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The Application of Computers to the Photographic
|
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Evidence" Richard E. Sprague, "Computers and
|
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Automation," May, 1970, p. 34.</p>
|
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<p> for those interested, i have created a raw PostScript version of this
|
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complete book which can simply be lp'd to a PostScript laser printer
|
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for "prettified" hardcopy output. the combined size of the two
|
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PostScript files comprising the book is 1055954 bytes (1007753 and
|
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48201 bytes for the main portion and appendix respectively).</p>
|
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<p>--
|
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daveus rattus </p>
|
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<p> yer friendly neighborhood ratman</p>
|
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<p> KOYAANISQATSI</p>
|
|
<p> 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" (1/11)
|
|
Summary: we were robbed of our capability of electing a president we wanted
|
|
Keywords: part 1 of 11: beginning thru chapter 3
|
|
<span class="Message-ID"> 1992Jun5.142954.8850@odin.corp.sgi.com</span>
|
|
Date: 5 Jun 92 14:29:54 GMT
|
|
Sender: news@odin.corp.sgi.com (Net News)
|
|
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
|
|
Lines: 1113
|
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Xref: ns-mx alt.activism:27177 alt.conspiracy:15386 alt.conspiracy.jfk:1506
|
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Nntp-Posting-Host: ratmandu.esd.sgi.com</p>
|
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<p> THE TAKING OF AMERICA, 1-2-3</p>
|
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<p> by Richard E. Sprague
|
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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.</p>
|
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<p> Richard E. Sprague 1976
|
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Limited First Edition 1976
|
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Revised Second Edition 1979
|
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Updated Third Edition 1985</p>
|
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<p> About the Author</p>
|
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<p> Publisher's Word</p>
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<p> Introduction</p>
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<p> 1. The Overview and the 1976 Election</p>
|
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<p> 2. The Power Control Group</p>
|
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<p> 3. You Can Fool the People</p>
|
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<p> 4. How It All Began--The U-2 and the Bay of Pigs</p>
|
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<p> 5. The Assassination of John Kennedy</p>
|
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<p> 6. The Assassinations of Robert Kennedy and
|
|
Dr. Martin Luther King and
|
|
Lyndon B. Johnson's Withdrawal in 1968</p>
|
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<p> 7. The Control of the Kennedys--Threats & Chappaquiddick</p>
|
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<p> 8. 1972--Muskie, Wallace and <span class="PERSON">McGovern</span>
|
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</p>
|
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<p> 9. Control of the Media--1967 to 1976</p>
|
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<p> 10. Techniques and Weapons and 100 Dead Conspirators
|
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and Witnesses</p>
|
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<p> 11. Nixon and Ford - The Pardon and the Tapes</p>
|
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<p> 12. The Second Line of Defense and Cover-Ups in 1975-1976</p>
|
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<p> 13. The 1976 Election and Conspiracy Fever</p>
|
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<p> 14. Congress and the People</p>
|
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<p> 15. The Select Committee on Assassinations, The Intelligence
|
|
Community and The News Media</p>
|
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<p> 16. 1984 Here We Come--</p>
|
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<p> 17. The Final Cover-Up: How The CIA Controlled
|
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The House Select Committee on Assassinations</p>
|
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<p> Appendix</p>
|
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<p> About the Author</p>
|
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<p> 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 <span class="PERSON">Northrup</span>
|
|
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
|
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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 <span class="GPE">Canada</span> (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, <span class="PERSON">RFK</span>,
|
|
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.</p>
|
|
<p> Introduction</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Richard E. Sprague</p>
|
|
<p> Hartsdale, New York
|
|
July 4, 1976</p>
|
|
<p> Publisher's Word</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Rush Harp
|
|
Barbara Black</p>
|
|
<p> THE TAKING OF AMERICA, 1-2-3</p>
|
|
<p> Chapter 1
|
|
The Overview and the the 1976 Election</p>
|
|
<p> 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:</p>
|
|
<p> 1. Assassinated John F. Kennedy;</p>
|
|
<p> 2. Controlled Lyndon B. Johnson as president;</p>
|
|
<p> 3. Forced LBJ out of the presidency;</p>
|
|
<p> 4. Assassinated Robert F. Kennedy, assuring Nixon's
|
|
election in 1968;</p>
|
|
<p> 5. Assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King;</p>
|
|
<p> 6. Eliminated Ted Kennedy as a contender in the 1972
|
|
elections by framing him at Chappaquiddick and
|
|
threatening his children;</p>
|
|
<p> 7. Stopped George Wallace's campaign, assuring Nixon's
|
|
election in 1972;</p>
|
|
<p> 8. Knocked Edmund Muskie out of the 1972 election campaign
|
|
by using dirty tricks;</p>
|
|
<p> 9. Covered up all of the above;</p>
|
|
<p> 10. Controlled the 15 major news media organizations;</p>
|
|
<p> 11. Made Gerald Ford vice president and then president;</p>
|
|
<p> 12. Insured continuity of the cover-ups by forcing Ford to
|
|
pardon Nixon;</p>
|
|
<p> 13. Murdered about 100 witnesses and participants in the
|
|
three assassinations and one attempted assassination;</p>
|
|
<p> 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;</p>
|
|
<p> 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);</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span>
|
|
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, <span class="PERSON">RFK</span>, <span class="PERSON">MLK</span> 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."</p>
|
|
<p> Chapter 2
|
|
The Power Control Group</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span>s 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 <span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span>). 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
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span> Commission was also split. <span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p>____________________</p>
|
|
<p> [1] "Nomenclature of an Assassination Cabal", Torbett, 1968 (Copeland
|
|
Document)</p>
|
|
<p> Chapter 3
|
|
You Can Fool the People</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> You Can Fool the People</p>
|
|
<p> 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</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="NORP">African</span> 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 <span class="ORG">ABC</span> 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. <span class="PERSON">McGovern</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 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:</p>
|
|
<p> 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</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span>,
|
|
Life Magazine, and "The New York Times."</p>
|
|
<p> The sixteen media organizations are:</p>
|
|
<p> 1. NBC-TV and Radio
|
|
2. <span class="ORG">CBS</span>-TV and Radio
|
|
3. <span class="ORG">ABC</span>-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. <span class="PERSON">North</span> American Newspaper Alliance
|
|
16. Gannett News Service</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> THE FIVE BIG <span class="EVENT">EVENTS</span>. 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="PERSON">McCarthy</span>, 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 <span class="PERSON">McGovern</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 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:</p>
|
|
<p> Kent State:</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Mylai:</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Communism:</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Pentagon Papers:</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Assassinations:</p>
|
|
<p> 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.)</p>
|
|
<p> Watergate:</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Democracy and Freedom:</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p>____________________</p>
|
|
<p> [1] "Nixon and the Mafia" -- Jeff Gerth, "<span class="LOC">Sundance</span> Magazine," December
|
|
1972. Charles Colson interview, by Dick Russell - "Argosy Magazine,"
|
|
March 1976</p>
|
|
<p> [2] "Why Was Martha Mitchell Kidnapped?" -- Mae Brussell, "The Realist,"
|
|
August 1972</p>
|
|
<p> "The June 1972 Raid on Democratic Party Headquarters -- Part 1" --
|
|
R.E. Sprague, "Computers & Automation," August 1972</p>
|
|
<p> "The Raid on Democratic Party Headquarters -- The Watergate
|
|
Incident -- Part 2", Ibid.</p>
|
|
<p>--
|
|
daveus rattus </p>
|
|
<p> yer friendly neighborhood ratman</p>
|
|
<p> KOYAANISQATSI</p>
|
|
<p> 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
|
|
<span class="Message-ID"> 1992Jun8.134947.25406@odin.corp.sgi.com</span>
|
|
Date: 8 Jun 92 13:49:47 GMT
|
|
Sender: news@odin.corp.sgi.com (Net News)
|
|
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
|
|
Lines: 969
|
|
Xref: ns-mx alt.activism:27281 alt.conspiracy:15429 alt.conspiracy.jfk:1550
|
|
Nntp-Posting-Host: ratmandu.esd.sgi.com</p>
|
|
<p> Chapter 4
|
|
How It All Began - The U-2 and the Bay of Pigs</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="NORP">Cuban</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">McGovern</span>. Bernard Barker stated the group's
|
|
collective belief when he said after his arrest that, "We believe
|
|
that an election of <span class="PERSON">McGovern</span> 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:</p>
|
|
<p> Nixon's Statements in "Six Crises"</p>
|
|
<p> Richard Nixon stated in "Six Crises": "The covert training of
|
|
<span class="NORP">Cuban</span> 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]</p>
|
|
<p> E. Howard Hunt</p>
|
|
<p> Everette Howard Hunt, Jr. was in charge of the actual invasion.
|
|
He used the code name, "<span class="PERSON">Eduardo</span>." 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]</p>
|
|
<p> Kennedy-Nixon Debates, 1960</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="NORP">Cuban</span>s 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 <span class="NORP">Cuban</span>
|
|
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.</p>
|
|
<p> Attack on Kennedy by Lying</p>
|
|
<p> 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 (<span class="ORG">ABC</span>) 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Protection of Hunt and Co.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p>____________________</p>
|
|
<p> [1] "Six Crises," Richard M. Nixon, Doubleday, 1962.</p>
|
|
<p> [2] "The Invisible Government," Wise & Ross, Random House, 1964.</p>
|
|
<p> [3] Ibid.</p>
|
|
<p> [4] Brother of Earl Cabell, mayor of Dallas when Kennedy was assassinated.</p>
|
|
<p> [5] Ibid.</p>
|
|
<p> [6] "New York Times" articles on Watergate, June 18 to July 2, 1972.</p>
|
|
<p> [7] "Time" magazine, September 8, 1972.</p>
|
|
<p> [8] This episode is related in detail in "The Invisible Government."</p>
|
|
<p> [9] "Six Crises".</p>
|
|
<p>[10] "The Invisible Government."</p>
|
|
<p>[11] "400000 Dollars Pour Abattre Kennedy a Paris," Camille Giles, Julliard
|
|
Press, Paris 1973.</p>
|
|
<p> Chapter 5
|
|
The Assassination of John Kennedy</p>
|
|
<p> 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
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> How It Began</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="NORP">Cuban</span>s.
|
|
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.</p>
|
|
<p> Oswald's Role</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Mexico City</p>
|
|
<p> 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
|
|
<span class="NORP">Cuban</span> invasion projects in the Florida Keys). Fred Lee Crisman,
|
|
Jim Hicks and Jim Braden (alias Eugene Hale Brading) were also
|
|
recruited at this point.</p>
|
|
<p> Oswald, the Patsy</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Financial Support</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Plans for Three Cities</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> CIA Support</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span>
|
|
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.</p>
|
|
<p> Dallas</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="NORP">Cuban</span>s to be used at a location near the International
|
|
Trade Mart in the event something went wrong at Dealey Plaza.</p>
|
|
<p> Where the Teams Stayed</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="NORP">Cuban</span> acting as a radio man.</p>
|
|
<p> Framing Oswald</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Dallas Policemen Involved</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="PERSON">McDonald</span>; Lieutenant
|
|
Montgomery; Lieutenant Johnson; and Lieutenant Batchelor, who
|
|
escorted Jack Ruby into the jail to murder Oswald.
|
|
<span class="PERSON">McDonald</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Other Persons Involved in Framing Oswald</p>
|
|
<p> 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.)</p>
|
|
<p> Dealey Plaza</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> The Shots</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Oswald's Actions</p>
|
|
<p> 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!</p>
|
|
<p> Jack Ruby</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Planted Evidence</p>
|
|
<p> 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 .</p>
|
|
<p> Escape Plans</p>
|
|
<p> As mentioned before, plans were made for the team to escape by
|
|
car, train, and airplane. Evidence shows:</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 4. A police car stopped in front of Oswald's rooming house
|
|
and honked twice around 1:10 p.m.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Escape Routes</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="PERSON">North</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Tippit Shooting</p>
|
|
<p> David Belin of the Warren and <span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Comments and Congressional Actions Needed</p>
|
|
<p> The above scenario comes much closer to explaining what happened
|
|
to John Kennedy than either the Warren Commission Report or the
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span> 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:</p>
|
|
<p> (1) The Senate;</p>
|
|
<p> (2) The House Special Committee on Intelligence;</p>
|
|
<p> (3) Thomas Downing, Representative from Virginia, who
|
|
introduced House Resolution 498 to reopen the JFK
|
|
assassination investigation;</p>
|
|
<p> (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.</p>
|
|
<p> The Two Documents</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Dramatis Personae</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="NORP">Cuban</span>
|
|
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 <span class="GPE">Montreal</span>, <span class="GPE">Canada</span>. 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. <span class="PERSON">McDonald</span> - 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 - <span class="NORP">Cuban</span> 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 <span class="NORP">Cuban</span>. 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 <span class="NORP">Cuban</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p>____________________</p>
|
|
<p>[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.</p>
|
|
<p>[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.</p>
|
|
<p> Also "Postmortem," by Harold Weisberg, page 266, the missile receipt.</p>
|
|
<p>[3] As mentioned earlier, it is also possible that one of the team called
|
|
him from a telephone inside the TSBD.</p>
|
|
<p> * * * * * * *
|
|
--
|
|
daveus rattus </p>
|
|
<p> yer friendly neighborhood ratman</p>
|
|
<p> KOYAANISQATSI</p>
|
|
<p> 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
|
|
<span class="Message-ID"> 1992Jun9.161556.23157@odin.corp.sgi.com</span>
|
|
Date: 9 Jun 92 16:15:56 GMT
|
|
Sender: news@odin.corp.sgi.com (Net News)
|
|
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
|
|
Lines: 632
|
|
Xref: ns-mx alt.activism:27381 alt.conspiracy:15473 alt.conspiracy.jfk:1570
|
|
Nntp-Posting-Host: ratmandu.esd.sgi.com</p>
|
|
<p> Chapter 6
|
|
The Assassinations of Robert Kennedy and
|
|
Dr. Martin Luther King and
|
|
Lyndon B. Johnson's Withdrawal in 1968</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="GPE">Montreal</span> for smuggling drugs into the
|
|
U.S. from Mexico and <span class="GPE">Canada</span>. 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 <span class="PERSON">McCarthy</span>
|
|
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 <span class="PERSON">RFK</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">RFK</span> 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]</p>
|
|
<p>____________________</p>
|
|
<p>[1] "The Fourth Force" -- L. Fletcher Prouty -- "Gallery Magazine" --
|
|
December, 1975</p>
|
|
<p>[2] "Frame Up: The Martin Luther King/James Earl Ray Case" -- Harold
|
|
Weisberg -- E.P. Dutton -- 1971</p>
|
|
<p> "The Assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr." -- R.E.
|
|
Sprague -- "Computers & Automation," December 1970</p>
|
|
<p> "The Assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. -- Parts I to
|
|
II" -- Wayne Chastain -- "Computers & Automation," December 1974.</p>
|
|
<p>[3] Most of the above information has been published in a series of
|
|
articles and in two books and one movie.</p>
|
|
<p> "The Assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy" -- R.E. Sprague --
|
|
"Computers & Automation" -- September 1972 and October 1970</p>
|
|
<p> "<span class="PERSON">RFK</span> Must Die" -- Robert Blair Kaiser -- 1970</p>
|
|
<p> "The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, A Searching Look at the
|
|
Conspiracy and Cover-Up 1968-1978" -- William Turner and John
|
|
Christian -- 1978</p>
|
|
<p> "The Second Gun" -- Documentary Movie -- Ted Charach -- American
|
|
Films -- Beverly Hills</p>
|
|
<p> Chapter 7
|
|
The Control of the Kennedys - Threats & Chappaquiddick</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="PERSON">RFK</span> 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 <span class="LOC">Hyannisport</span> 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 <span class="LOC">Hyannisport</span> 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]</p>
|
|
<p>____________________</p>
|
|
<p>[1] "The fabulous Jackie" -- Christian Cafarakis -- Productions de Paris
|
|
-- 1972</p>
|
|
<p>[2] "You the Jury" -- Robert Cutler -- Self Published -- 1974</p>
|
|
<p>[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.</p>
|
|
<p>[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.</p>
|
|
<p>[5] On page 121, "White House Tapes," Paperback Edition, published by New
|
|
York Times</p>
|
|
<p> Chapter 8
|
|
1972 - Muskie, Wallace and <span class="PERSON">McGovern</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p> 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
|
|
<span class="NORP">Indiana</span> were going for Wallace. He was eating into Nixon's
|
|
southern strength. In April the polls showed <span class="PERSON">McGovern</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">McGovern</span>, but then the Democrats might come up
|
|
with Hubert Humphrey or someone else even more dangerous than
|
|
<span class="PERSON">McGovern</span>. Nixon's best chance was a head-on contest with <span class="PERSON">McGovern</span>.
|
|
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 <span class="GPE">Milwaukee</span>. 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 <span class="PERSON">McGovern</span> 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. <span class="PERSON">McGovern</span>, 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. <span class="PERSON">McGovern</span> 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 <span class="GPE">Milwaukee</span> 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 <span class="GPE">Milwaukee</span>
|
|
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 <span class="GPE">Milwaukee</span> 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 <span class="GPE">Milwaukee</span>, 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span>-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. <span class="ORG">CBS</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p>____________________</p>
|
|
<p>[1] "Report of an Investigation" by William Turner for the Committee
|
|
on Government Intelligence.</p>
|
|
<p> References:</p>
|
|
<p> "Bremer Wallace and Hunt", The New York Review of Books -- Gore
|
|
Vidal -- December 13, 1973.</p>
|
|
<p> "The Wallace Shooting" -- Alan Stang -- "American Opinion" --
|
|
October, 1972.</p>
|
|
<p> "Why Was Wallace Shot?" -- R.F. Salant -- Self Published --
|
|
Monsey, N.Y.</p>
|
|
<p> "Interview With Charles Colson" -- Dick Russell -- "Argosy" --
|
|
March, 1976.</p>
|
|
<p>--
|
|
daveus rattus </p>
|
|
<p> yer friendly neighborhood ratman</p>
|
|
<p> KOYAANISQATSI</p>
|
|
<p> 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
|
|
Received: from pl122c.eecs.lehigh.edu by ns-mx.uiowa.edu (5.64.jnf/920408)
|
|
on Wed, 10 Jun 92 10:08:44 -0500 id AA10332 with SMTP
|
|
Received: from SGI.COM by PL122c.EECS.Lehigh.EDU (5.61/1.34)
|
|
id AA15979; Wed, 10 Jun 92 10:53:16 -0400
|
|
Received: from [192.102.132.11] by sgi.sgi.com via SMTP (911016.SGI/910110.SGI)
|
|
for PML3@PL122C.EECS.LEHIGH.EDU id AA02901; Wed, 10 Jun 92 07:55:47 -0700
|
|
Received: by ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (920110.SGI/920502.SGI.AUTO)
|
|
for @sgi.sgi.com:PML3@PL122C.EECS.LEHIGH.EDU id AA02416; Wed, 10 Jun 92 07:55:45 -0700
|
|
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 92 07:55:45 -0700
|
|
From: dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
|
|
<span class="Message-ID"> 9206101455.AA02416@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com</span>
|
|
To: PML3@PL122c.EECS.Lehigh.EDU
|
|
Subject: "The Taking of America, 1-2-3" (4/11)
|
|
Status: RO</p>
|
|
<p>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</p>
|
|
<p> 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</p>
|
|
<p> Chapter 9
|
|
Control of the Media</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span>-TV & Radio, <span class="ORG">ABC</span>-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 <span class="PERSON">North</span>
|
|
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," <span class="PERSON">North</span> 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, <span class="ORG">CBS</span>, <span class="ORG">ABC</span>, Time-Life, "The New York Times," "Newsweek," Associated Press, United
|
|
Press, "Saturday Evening Post," Capital City Broadcasting, and
|
|
<span class="PERSON">North</span> 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span>-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.</p>
|
|
<p> Time-Life</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> movie from Abraham <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span>
|
|
on the afternoon of the assassination for about $500000. The
|
|
first negative action took place when "Life" and <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> began
|
|
telling the lie that the price was $25000 (which <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span>
|
|
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 <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> 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:</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="ORG">ABC</span>
|
|
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</p>
|
|
<p> (See "Computers and Automation," May 1970)</p>
|
|
<p> 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
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> film or
|
|
slides met the same stiff opposition. In 1971 "Life"
|
|
representatives indicated they might be interested in selling
|
|
rights to the <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> film for a sum in the neighborhood of a
|
|
million dollars.</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span class="ORG">CBS</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p> The American public is aware of the editorial policy adopted by
|
|
the <span class="GPE">Columbia</span> 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span> 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. <span class="ORG">CBS</span> 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span> people might help to
|
|
shed a little light on the subject.
|
|
The discussion with all of the <span class="ORG">CBS</span> people always centered on
|
|
evidence of conspiracy and the <span class="ORG">CBS</span>-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.
|
|
<span class="ORG">CBS</span> 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span> 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span> 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. <span class="ORG">CBS</span> 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span> 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span> 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
|
|
<span class="PERSON">North</span> 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span> had done. He
|
|
approached his father with the idea that <span class="ORG">CBS</span> 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span> 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span> is as deep
|
|
as it ever was.
|
|
Since June 1967, <span class="ORG">CBS</span> 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span> 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span> is an
|
|
accessory after the fact.
|
|
<span class="ORG">CBS</span> 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span>. 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span> management, asking that
|
|
his remarks be deleted.
|
|
Someone at <span class="ORG">CBS</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> "The New York Times"</p>
|
|
<p> The record of the "Times" through the 1969-1971 period follows
|
|
the same pattern as <span class="ORG">CBS</span> 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 <span class="LOC">Sunday</span> 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]</p>
|
|
<p> NBC</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="PERSON">Owens</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span class="ORG">ABC</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p> Of the three major television networks, <span class="ORG">ABC</span> 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, <span class="ORG">ABC</span> was
|
|
giving Garrison a free chance to express his views without
|
|
interruption on their <span class="LOC">Sunday</span> 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 <span class="ORG">ABC</span>. The man heading the brief
|
|
investigation was stopped and sent to Vietnam. The man at <span class="ORG">ABC</span> 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 <span class="ORG">ABC</span> 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
|
|
<span class="ORG">ABC</span> 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 <span class="ORG">ABC</span> 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 <span class="ORG">ABC</span> (late
|
|
1971), the three-shot ballroom sequence had been cut.</p>
|
|
<p> United Press International</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> 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
|
|
<span class="ORG">CBS</span> is that no drastic reversal of management policy took place at
|
|
UPI.</p>
|
|
<p> AP</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> "Newsweek"</p>
|
|
<p> "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.</p>
|
|
<p> "Saturday Evening Post"</p>
|
|
<p> 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 $200000-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.</p>
|
|
<p> Capital City Broadcasting</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span class="PERSON">North</span> American Newspaper Alliance</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="PERSON">North</span>
|
|
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 <span class="PERSON">North</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p>From dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com Thu Jun 11 08:37:11 1992
|
|
Received: from pl122c.eecs.lehigh.edu by ns-mx.uiowa.edu (5.64.jnf/920408)
|
|
on Thu, 11 Jun 92 08:37:01 -0500 id AA02015 with SMTP
|
|
Received: from SGI.COM by PL122c.EECS.Lehigh.EDU (5.61/1.34)
|
|
id AA17732; Thu, 11 Jun 92 09:22:19 -0400
|
|
Received: from [192.102.132.11] by sgi.sgi.com via SMTP (911016.SGI/910110.SGI)
|
|
for PML3@PL122C.EECS.LEHIGH.EDU id AA19154; Thu, 11 Jun 92 06:24:54 -0700
|
|
Received: by ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (920110.SGI/920502.SGI.AUTO)
|
|
for @sgi.sgi.com:PML3@PL122C.EECS.LEHIGH.EDU id AA04892; Thu, 11 Jun 92 06:24:51 -0700
|
|
Date: Thu, 11 Jun 92 06:24:51 -0700
|
|
From: dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
|
|
<span class="Message-ID"> 9206111324.AA04892@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com</span>
|
|
To: PML3@PL122c.EECS.Lehigh.EDU
|
|
Subject: "The Taking of America, 1-2-3" (5/11)
|
|
Status: RO</p>
|
|
<p>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</p>
|
|
<p> Dallas Newspapers</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Fort Worth "Star Telegram"</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> TV Station WFAA</p>
|
|
<p> The second shining light in Texas was TV station WFAA, an <span class="ORG">ABC</span>
|
|
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.</p>
|
|
<p> WBAP -- Ft. Worth</p>
|
|
<p> The NBC affiliate in Ft. Worth, WBAP, was less cooperative.
|
|
Even though public statements were made that viewing of Dan <span class="PERSON">Owens</span>
|
|
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.</p>
|
|
<p> KTTV -- Dallas</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> New Orleans Newspapers</p>
|
|
<p> 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, <span class="ORG">CBS</span>, <span class="ORG">ABC</span>, 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]</p>
|
|
<p> WDSU-TV -- New Orleans</p>
|
|
<p> 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?</p>
|
|
<p> Conclusions</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span>
|
|
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."</p>
|
|
<p> 1976</p>
|
|
<p> 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, <span class="ORG">CBS</span>, <span class="ORG">ABC</span>, 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.)</p>
|
|
<p> What is the Evidence?</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="PERSON">RFK</span>
|
|
assassinations, we still find the 15 organizations concluding there
|
|
were lone, demented gunmen in the two cases.
|
|
For example, <span class="ORG">CBS</span> 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span> handled it. (He now
|
|
manages his own film-making company, Richter-McBride, in New York.)
|
|
Richter's opinion about the 1967 <span class="ORG">CBS</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Hard Evidence Never Mentioned</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> The Forces of Good vs. the Forces of Evil:</p>
|
|
<p> A Life and Death Struggle</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> "I've Seen No New Evidence"</p>
|
|
<p> 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]</p>
|
|
<p> Pure Coincidence?</p>
|
|
<p> 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" <span class="LOC">Sunday</span> 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]</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span class="ORG">CBS</span>. Cover-Up Broadcasting System</p>
|
|
<p> The Belin appearance on the <span class="ORG">CBS</span> show, "Face the Nation", was no
|
|
doubt timed to coincide with the first two parts of the new <span class="ORG">CBS</span>
|
|
whitewash series. (The new name for <span class="ORG">CBS</span> 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Too Perfect Timing</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span class="ORG">CBS</span> and the "New York Times" are sometimes simultaneously
|
|
orchestrated by the evil forces. One example was the <span class="ORG">CBS</span> 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, <span class="ORG">CBS</span> News is less sensational but
|
|
more telling." This was in reference to David Susskind and Geraldo
|
|
Rivera on Channel 5 in New York, and <span class="ORG">ABC</span>, 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span>
|
|
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.</p>
|
|
<p> "Newsweek" Editorial Position:
|
|
Schweiker, Hart and Gonzalez Misled by Kooks</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Eliminate Areas of Doubt</p>
|
|
<p> 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."</p>
|
|
<p> UPI: Accessory After the Fact in the JFK Conspiracy Cover-Up</p>
|
|
<p> 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 "<span class="GPE">Columbia</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> "Expert" Opinions</p>
|
|
<p> Itek: Itek is still at work helping out their friendly
|
|
employers, the U.S. government and the CIA. Itek analyzed the
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> film and the Hughes film on the <span class="ORG">CBS</span> 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 "<span class="GPE">Columbia</span> 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span> needed help, all they had to do was call
|
|
upon good old Itek and Howard Sprague. (Frank Lindsay has since
|
|
departed.)</p>
|
|
<p> AP: Faithful to the White House and CIA</p>
|
|
<p> Associated Press has been editorially silent since 1969. They
|
|
have faithfully broadcast all of the White House-CIA cover or
|
|
planted stories without comment.</p>
|
|
<p> Keeping the Lid On</p>
|
|
<p> "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 <span class="PERSON">RFK</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> Film Broadcast on Two Occasions</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> film, the
|
|
<span class="ORG">ABC</span> 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 <span class="ORG">ABC</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> "Conspiracy Fever"</p>
|
|
<p> "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.</p>
|
|
<p> A Straight News Story</p>
|
|
<p> "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.</p>
|
|
<p> A Breath of Fresh Air</p>
|
|
<p> "Saturday Evening Post:" Like a breath of fresh air from the
|
|
heartland of America in <span class="NORP">Indiana</span>polis, <span class="NORP">Indiana</span>, 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.</p>
|
|
<p> CIA Operatives Are Serving as Journalists
|
|
For News Organizations Abroad</p>
|
|
<p> "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.</p>
|
|
<p> Conclusions</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span> 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
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Postscript</p>
|
|
<p> 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
|
|
(<span class="ORG">CBS</span>); George Love (Time, Inc./"Life"); Walter Sheridan (NBC);
|
|
Lewis Powell, lawyer (<span class="ORG">ABC</span>); and Benjamin Bradlee ("Washington
|
|
Post").</p>
|
|
<p>____________________</p>
|
|
<p> [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. </p>
|
|
<p> [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.</p>
|
|
<p> [3] Samuel Thurston, "The Central Intelligence Agency and 'The New
|
|
York Times,'" "Computers and Automation," July, 1971.</p>
|
|
<p> [4] <span class="ORG">CBS</span>-TV Special on the Assassination of John Kennedy -- June 25,
|
|
26, 27 and 28, 1972.</p>
|
|
<p> [5] "Computers and Automation," July, 1971</p>
|
|
<p> [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.'"</p>
|
|
<p> [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.</p>
|
|
<p> [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.</p>
|
|
<p> [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."</p>
|
|
<p>[10] Prouty, L. Fletcher, "The Secret Team," Prentice Hall, 1973.</p>
|
|
<p>[11] Policoff, Jerry, "The Media and the Murder of John Kennedy", "New
|
|
Times," October, 1975.</p>
|
|
<p>[12] "Who Killed JFK? Just One Assassin," "Time" magazine, November
|
|
24, 1975.</p>
|
|
<p>[13] "Up Front -- Did One Man With One Gun Kill John F, Kennedy?
|
|
Eight Skeptics Who Say No," "People," November 3, 1975.</p>
|
|
<p>[14] Author's discussion with Jerry Policoff, November 29, 1975.</p>
|
|
<p>[15] "Warren Panel Aide Calls for 2nd Inquiry Into Kennedy Killing",
|
|
"New York Times," November 23, 1975, p. 1.</p>
|
|
<p>[16] Transcript of Gerald Ford Press Conference "New York Times,"
|
|
November 27, 1975.</p>
|
|
<p>[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.</p>
|
|
<p>[18] Phelan, James R., "The Assassination," "New York Times Magazine
|
|
Section," November 23, 1975.</p>
|
|
<p>[19] Thurston, Samuel F. (psuedonym for Richard E. Sprague), "The
|
|
Central Intelligence Agency and 'The New York Times'" "Computers
|
|
and Automation," July, 1971.</p>
|
|
<p>[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.</p>
|
|
<p>[21] Based on a discussion among the author, Dan Rather, and Robert
|
|
Richter at <span class="ORG">CBS</span> in Washington, D.C., approximately ten days before
|
|
the first Cronkite-<span class="ORG">CBS</span> section of the 1967 four-part series on
|
|
the JFK assassination.</p>
|
|
<p>[22] O'Conner, John J., "TV: <span class="ORG">CBS</span> News is Presenting Two Hour-Long
|
|
Programs on the Assassination of President Kennedy", "New York
|
|
Times," November 24, 1975.</p>
|
|
<p>[23] "Dallas: New Questions and Answers," "Newsweek," April 28, 1975.</p>
|
|
<p>[24] Schonfeld, Maurice W., "The Shadow of a Gunman," "<span class="GPE">Columbia</span>
|
|
Journalism Review," July-August, 1975.</p>
|
|
<p>[25] Cohen, John, "Conspiracy Fever," "Commentary," October, 1975.</p>
|
|
<p>[26] "Saturday Evening Post," September, October, November and
|
|
December, 1975 issues.</p>
|
|
<p>[27] "D.C. Digs Deep Into TV News Ties With CIA," "Variety," November
|
|
12, 1975.</p>
|
|
<p>[28] Prouty, L. Fletcher, "The Fourth Force," "Gallery," November,
|
|
1975.</p>
|
|
<p>[29] "CIA Will Keep More Than 25 Journalist-Agents," "New York Times,"
|
|
April 27, 1976, p. 26.</p>
|
|
<p>--
|
|
daveus rattus </p>
|
|
<p> yer friendly neighborhood ratman</p>
|
|
<p> KOYAANISQATSI</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p>From dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com Fri Jun 12 09:16:33 1992
|
|
Received: from pl122c.eecs.lehigh.edu by ns-mx.uiowa.edu (5.64.jnf/920408)
|
|
on Fri, 12 Jun 92 09:16:18 -0500 id AA05588 with SMTP
|
|
Received: from SGI.COM by PL122c.EECS.Lehigh.EDU (5.61/1.34)
|
|
id AA19548; Fri, 12 Jun 92 09:59:36 -0400
|
|
Received: from [192.102.132.11] by sgi.sgi.com via SMTP (911016.SGI/910110.SGI)
|
|
for PML3@PL122C.EECS.LEHIGH.EDU id AA20770; Fri, 12 Jun 92 07:02:12 -0700
|
|
Received: by ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (920110.SGI/920502.SGI.AUTO)
|
|
for @sgi.sgi.com:PML3@PL122C.EECS.LEHIGH.EDU id AA14133; Fri, 12 Jun 92 07:02:10 -0700
|
|
Date: Fri, 12 Jun 92 07:02:10 -0700
|
|
From: dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
|
|
<span class="Message-ID"> 9206121402.AA14133@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com</span>
|
|
To: PML3@PL122c.EECS.Lehigh.EDU
|
|
Subject: "The Taking of America, 1-2-3" (6/11)
|
|
Status: RO</p>
|
|
<p>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</p>
|
|
<p> Chapter 10
|
|
Techniques and Weapons and 100 Dead Conspirators and Witnesses</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="NORP">Cuban</span> 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 <span class="LOC">Mooney</span>, 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, <span class="PERSON">RFK</span>, <span class="PERSON">MLK</span>, Mary Jo Kopechne, Lee Harvey Oswald, David Ferrie,
|
|
Ruby and Clay Shaw) numbers over a hundred. Here is a partial
|
|
list:</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="PERSON">McDonald</span>
|
|
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 <span class="PERSON">Reynolds</span>
|
|
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</p>
|
|
<p> 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).</p>
|
|
<p>____________________</p>
|
|
<p> [1] "Forgive My Grief" Volumes I, II, III, IV, Penn Jones, Jr., Self
|
|
Published, Midlothian, Texas.</p>
|
|
<p> [2] "Accessories After the Fact," Sylvia Meagher, Scarecrow Press,
|
|
N.Y., 1976</p>
|
|
<p> [3] "Miami Herald," March, 1976.</p>
|
|
<p> [4] "The Mysterious Death of Clay Shaw," Richard Russell, "True
|
|
Magazine."</p>
|
|
<p> [5] "The Umbrella Man," R.B. Cutler, & R.E. Sprague, "Gallery
|
|
Magazine," June, 1978.</p>
|
|
<p> [6] "New York Times," September 19, 1975.</p>
|
|
<p> [7] "<span class="PERSON">RFK</span> Must Die!," Robert Kaiser, E.P. Dutton & Co. Inc., N.Y.C.,
|
|
1970.</p>
|
|
<p> [8] (a) Self published article by Gary Schoener -- Minneapolis,
|
|
Minn. Researcher.</p>
|
|
<p> (b) Assassination Information Bureau (AIB), Cambridge, Mass,
|
|
Research project and article.</p>
|
|
<p> Chapter 11
|
|
Nixon and Ford -- The Pardon and the Tapes</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="NORP">Cuban</span> 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 <span class="NORP">Cuban</span>s 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. <span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span> 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:</p>
|
|
<p> 1. Nixon was White House action officer on <span class="NORP">Cuban</span> invasion
|
|
plans in 1960.</p>
|
|
<p> 2. Nixon was in contact with Hunt and others during the
|
|
Bay of Pigs planning.</p>
|
|
<p> 3. Nixon lied to the American people by his own admission
|
|
about the Bay of Pigs during his TV debates with
|
|
Kennedy in 1960.</p>
|
|
<p> 4. Nixon was financially linked to the Mafia and to <span class="NORP">Cuban</span>
|
|
casino operations before Castro took over.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 6. Hunt, Baker, Sturgis and Socarras were connected with
|
|
the assassination group in the murder of JFK.</p>
|
|
<p> 7. Nixon was in Dallas for three days, including the
|
|
morning of the JFK assassination. He was trying to
|
|
stir up trouble for Kennedy.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 10. Research indicates that Nixon either knew in advance
|
|
about assassination plans, or learned about them soon
|
|
after the assassination.</p>
|
|
<p> 11. Nixon proposed to Lyndon Johnson that Gerald Ford serve
|
|
on the Warren Commission.</p>
|
|
<p> 12. Ford led the Commission cover-up by controlling the
|
|
questioning of key witnesses and by several other
|
|
means.</p>
|
|
<p> 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."</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 18. John Mitchell and J. Edgar Hoover joined Nixon and the
|
|
lower level members of the PCG in covering up the <span class="PERSON">RFK</span>
|
|
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.</p>
|
|
<p> 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).</p>
|
|
<p> 20. J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Helms were aware of who
|
|
killed John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. They helped
|
|
cover-up both conspiracies.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 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".</p>
|
|
<p> 23. Nixon and Mitchell discussed the assassinations and the
|
|
attempt to assassinate George Wallace. Mitchell
|
|
executed orders to suppress the truth about these
|
|
events.</p>
|
|
<p> 24. Gerald Ford had possession of the most critical tapes
|
|
on which assassinations and cover-ups were discussed.</p>
|
|
<p> 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, <span class="PERSON">RFK</span>, George Wallace).</p>
|
|
<p> 26. Hunt was taken care of and will keep silent. He had
|
|
been out of jail and living on a beautiful $100000
|
|
estate in Florida with plenty of money, across the
|
|
street from his Bay of Pigs friend, Manuel Artime.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 30. Richard Russell, Hale Boggs and Cooper believed there
|
|
was a conspiracy in the JFK assassination. Russell and
|
|
Boggs both said so publicly.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 32. Ford and the PCG contemplated pardons for Mitchell,
|
|
Haldeman, Ehrlichman and possibly others who know the
|
|
number one secret.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p>____________________</p>
|
|
<p> [1] Evans & Novak column -- September 12. 1974.</p>
|
|
<p> [2] "Paris Herald Tribune" -- September 12, 1974.</p>
|
|
<p> [3] "Compulsive Spy," Tad Szulc, Viking Press, 1974.</p>
|
|
<p> [4] "Nixon and the Mafia," Jeff Gerth, "<span class="LOC">Sundance</span>," December, 1972.</p>
|
|
<p> [5] "My Six Crises," Richard M. Nixon.</p>
|
|
<p> [6] "Compulsive Spy."</p>
|
|
<p> [7] "Nixon and the Mafia."</p>
|
|
<p> [8] "Nixon, Bay of Pigs & Watergate," -- R.E. Sprague, "Computers and
|
|
Automation," January, 1973.</p>
|
|
<p> [9] "Nixon, Bay of Pigs & Watergate."</p>
|
|
<p>[10] Trowbridge Ford, Holy Cross College, Boston, MA, Several papers and
|
|
articles.</p>
|
|
<p>[11] Warren Commission Hearings & Exhibits -- Vol. 23, Pages 941-943.</p>
|
|
<p>[12] Nixon Transcript of June 23 1972 tape -- "New York Times," August
|
|
6, 1974.</p>
|
|
<p>[13] Trowbridge Ford -- Article on Gerald Ford & Warren Commission.</p>
|
|
<p>[14] Ibid.</p>
|
|
<p>[15] Gerald Ford "Lee Harvey Oswald: Portrait of the Assassin."</p>
|
|
<p>[16] "The Framing of Jim Garrison", R.E. Sprague, "Computers and
|
|
Automation," December, 1973.</p>
|
|
<p>[17] "The CIA and the Kennedy Assassination" -- Unpublished article by
|
|
R.E. Sprague.</p>
|
|
<p>[18] Nixon tape, June 23, 1972.</p>
|
|
<p>[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.</p>
|
|
<p>[20] "Washington Watch" and Triss Coffin newsletter, August 10, 1974.</p>
|
|
<p>[21] Zodiac News Service release -- August 20, 1974.</p>
|
|
<p> Chapter 12
|
|
The Second Line of Defense and Cover-Ups in 1975 and 1976</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span> 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 <span class="ORG">ABC</span>, Tom Snyder
|
|
of NBC, Mort Sahl and others. They managed to have the <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span>
|
|
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 <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> 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
|
|
<span class="GPE">Pennsylvania</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span> Commission. Ford admitted that Belin in
|
|
his <span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> 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
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span> Commission Report
|
|
himself. It formed a base for controlled media presentations of
|
|
the lone assassin scenario. <span class="ORG">CBS</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> film on <span class="ORG">ABC</span>, NBC or <span class="ORG">CBS</span>; 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 <span class="PERSON">RFK</span>,
|
|
<span class="PERSON">MLK</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">MLK</span> 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 <span class="LOC">Hyannisport</span>.
|
|
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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span>, "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.</p>
|
|
<p>--
|
|
daveus rattus </p>
|
|
<p> yer friendly neighborhood ratman</p>
|
|
<p> KOYAANISQATSI</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p>From dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com Mon Jun 15 08:55:21 1992
|
|
Received: by icaen.uiowa.edu ( 5.52 (84)/1.1) id AA02287
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on Mon, 15 Jun 92 08:55:17 CDT.
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Received: by ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (920110.SGI/920502.SGI.AUTO)
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for @sgi.sgi.com:PML3@PL122C.EECS.LEHIGH.EDU id AA01518; Mon, 15 Jun 92 06:45:54 -0700
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Date: Mon, 15 Jun 92 06:45:54 -0700
|
|
From: dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
|
|
<span class="Message-ID"> 9206151345.AA01518@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com</span>
|
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To: PML3@PL122c.EECS.Lehigh.EDU
|
|
Subject: "The Taking of America, 1-2-3" (7/11)
|
|
Status: RO</p>
|
|
<p>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</p>
|
|
<p> Chapter 13
|
|
The 1976 Election and Conspiracy Fever</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p>____________________</p>
|
|
<p>[1] "Conspiracy Fever" is derived from an article with that title by
|
|
Jacob Cohen, a psychologist, in "Commentary" magazine, October,
|
|
1975.</p>
|
|
<p> Chapter 14
|
|
Congress and the People</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span>, NBC, <span class="ORG">ABC</span>, 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Addendum to Chapter 14</p>
|
|
<p> 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--<span class="PERSON">Dodd</span>
|
|
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.</p>
|
|
<p>____________________</p>
|
|
<p>[1] House Resolution 204 -- Henry Gonzalez
|
|
House Resolution 498 -- Thomas Downing</p>
|
|
<p>--
|
|
daveus rattus </p>
|
|
<p> yer friendly neighborhood ratman</p>
|
|
<p> KOYAANISQATSI</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p>From dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com Tue Jun 16 09:54:48 1992
|
|
Received: by icaen.uiowa.edu ( 5.52 (84)/1.1) id AA04897
|
|
on Tue, 16 Jun 92 09:54:42 CDT.
|
|
Received: from pl122c.eecs.lehigh.edu by ns-mx.uiowa.edu (5.64.jnf/920408)
|
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on Tue, 16 Jun 92 09:56:09 -0500 id AA14283 with SMTP
|
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Received: from SGI.COM by PL122c.EECS.Lehigh.EDU (5.61/1.34)
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id AA25477; Tue, 16 Jun 92 10:39:31 -0400
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|
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for PML3@PL122C.EECS.LEHIGH.EDU id AA17886; Tue, 16 Jun 92 07:42:10 -0700
|
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Received: by ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (920110.SGI/920502.SGI.AUTO)
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for @sgi.sgi.com:PML3@PL122C.EECS.LEHIGH.EDU id AA00714; Tue, 16 Jun 92 07:42:08 -0700
|
|
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 92 07:42:08 -0700
|
|
From: dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
|
|
<span class="Message-ID"> 9206161442.AA00714@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com</span>
|
|
To: PML3@PL122c.EECS.Lehigh.EDU
|
|
Subject: "The Taking of America, 1-2-3" (8/11)
|
|
Status: RO</p>
|
|
<p>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</p>
|
|
<p> Chapter 15
|
|
The Select Committee on Assassinations,
|
|
The Intelligence Community and the News Media</p>
|
|
<p> Part I</p>
|
|
<p> The Top Down vs. The Bottom Up Approach
|
|
To Assassination Investigations</p>
|
|
<p> 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, <span class="PERSON">RFK</span>, 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.</p>
|
|
<p> The Power Control Group</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Hard Evidence of Conspiracy</p>
|
|
<p> 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, <span class="PERSON">RFK</span> and <span class="PERSON">MLK</span>, 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
|
|
<span class="PERSON">RFK</span> and <span class="PERSON">MLK</span> 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".</p>
|
|
<p> The Bottom Up Approach</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="PERSON">MLK</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> The Events of 1976 and 1977</p>
|
|
<p> 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:</p>
|
|
<p> 1. To block and eliminate the Select Committee on
|
|
Assassinations in the House of Representatives.</p>
|
|
<p> 2. To firmly implant the idea that the JFK assassination
|
|
was a Castro plot.</p>
|
|
<p> 3. To block any Congressional attempts to investigate the
|
|
four assassination cases.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> The 1977 activities of the PCG lent themselves to a new
|
|
approach, the "top down" approach to exposing the truth.</p>
|
|
<p> Exposing the PCG</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> The Justice Department King Report</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Leaking the Justice Department Report on the King Case</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Releasing the Report</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span>
|
|
program, "Face the Nation" on the <span class="LOC">Sunday</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Michael Shaheen -- PCG Member</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Ignoring or Suppressing Conspiracy and Framing Evidence</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="GPE">Montreal</span>. 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.</p>
|
|
<p> The PCG's Tactics With the Select Committee</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="PERSON">MLK</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> PCG Control of Prior Investigations</p>
|
|
<p> 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:</p>
|
|
<p> 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
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Maxwell</span>.
|
|
|
|
5. 1975--Pike Committee in House. People unknown.
|
|
|
|
6. 1976--Senate Intelligence Committee under Daniel
|
|
Inouye.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> PCG Strategy</p>
|
|
<p> Faced with the new committee and Sprague's staff, the PCG had
|
|
devise a strategy that included:</p>
|
|
<p> 1. Attacking Dick Sprague to discredit him with dirt and
|
|
print it in the media.</p>
|
|
<p> 2. Using the media to spread PCG propaganda and control
|
|
the sources of all stories concerning the Select
|
|
Committee.</p>
|
|
<p> 3. Using PCG Congressmen to provide biased, distorted
|
|
quotes to the media for its use.</p>
|
|
<p> 4. Trying to discredit the entire committee by making it
|
|
appear to be disorganized and unmanageable.</p>
|
|
<p> 5. Controlling the voting and lobbying against the
|
|
continuation of the committee in January and February.</p>
|
|
<p> 6. Influencing members of the House to vote against the
|
|
Committee through a massive letter and telegram
|
|
campaign.</p>
|
|
<p> 7. Exaggerating the emphasis placed on the size of the
|
|
budget requested by Sprague without considering the
|
|
need for such a budget.</p>
|
|
<p> 8. Demanding that the committee justify its existence by
|
|
producing new evidence.</p>
|
|
<p> 9. Splitting the committee and attempting to create
|
|
dissension; creating a battle between Henry Gonzalez
|
|
and Richard Sprague and between Gonzalez and Downing.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 11. Trying to insert their own man at the head of the
|
|
staff.</p>
|
|
<p> 12. Brainwashing Henry Gonzalez into believing that Sprague
|
|
and others were agents.</p>
|
|
<p> 13. Sacrificing Henry Gonzalez when it became obvious the
|
|
PCG could not control him as their chairman.</p>
|
|
<p> 14. Leaking stories that seemed to make the committee's
|
|
efforts unnecessary.</p>
|
|
<p> Media Control</p>
|
|
<p> 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., <span class="ORG">CBS</span>
|
|
(with Eric Sevaried, Dick Salant and Leslie Midgeley), NBC (with
|
|
David Brinkley), and <span class="ORG">ABC</span> (with Bob Clark and Howard K. Smith) all
|
|
went on the attack. The overall theme was that the committee would
|
|
soon die out.</p>
|
|
<p> Media Tactics</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> The Vote to Continue</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> The New Tactic</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Tactic Backfires</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Next Tactic -- Death By Acclamation</p>
|
|
<p> 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, <span class="PERSON">RFK</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Exposing the PCG</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Who Are The PCG Members</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Part II</p>
|
|
<p> "Hard" and "Soft" Propaganda in 1977</p>
|
|
<p> 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."</p>
|
|
<p> Evidence of Media Control by the CIA</p>
|
|
<p> 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
|
|
<span class="ORG">CBS</span>, 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:</p>
|
|
<p> "Louisville Courier Journal"--Barry Bingham, Sr.
|
|
NBC--Richard Wald
|
|
<span class="ORG">ABC</span>--Sam Jaffe
|
|
Time, Inc.--Henry Luce
|
|
Copley News Service--James Copley
|
|
Hearst--Seymour Freiden</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="ORG">CBS</span>, NBC, <span class="ORG">ABC</span>, 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Proof of CIA Efforts to Discredit Researchers</p>
|
|
<p> 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).</p>
|
|
<p> The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald</p>
|
|
<p> The top level media control was demonstrated by the <span class="ORG">ABC</span>-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 <span class="ORG">ABC</span> 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 <span class="ORG">ABC</span> 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 <span class="LOC">Sunday</span> 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 <span class="ORG">ABC</span>-TV could
|
|
have done that on their own. More than 80% of the people believe
|
|
there was a conspiracy: why wouldn't <span class="ORG">ABC</span> go along with the 80% of
|
|
their viewers and portray the truth? The answer again is simple:
|
|
<span class="ORG">ABC</span> is controlled from the very top, probably much higher than the
|
|
Sam Jaffe level, by the PCG and the CIA.</p>
|
|
<p> Other TV Shows</p>
|
|
<p> Both NBC and <span class="ORG">CBS</span> are planning major TV specials on the
|
|
assassinations. <span class="ORG">CBS</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Priscilla McMillan--CIA Agent</p>
|
|
<p> 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 (<span class="ORG">ABC</span>),
|
|
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.</p>
|
|
<p> Fensterwald's Book</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> The de Mohrenschildt Murder</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Donald Donaldson's Disappearance</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Attacks on the Select Committee</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="LOC">Sunday</span> "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.</p>
|
|
<p>____________________</p>
|
|
<p> [1] Power Control Group (PCG) defined in prior articles and one book
|
|
by the author, as follows:</p>
|
|
<p> 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:</p>
|
|
<p> John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, George
|
|
Wallace and Mary Jo Kopechne.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> [2] The author's contentions about media control by the PCG have
|
|
appeared in one self-published book and several articles:</p>
|
|
<p> (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.</p>
|
|
<p> [3] The two official investigations of the Kennedy assassination
|
|
referred to here are:</p>
|
|
<p> (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.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> [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.</p>
|
|
<p> [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."</p>
|
|
<p> [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."</p>
|
|
<p> [7] "The Scavengers and Critics of the Warren Report," Lawrence
|
|
Schiller, Dell Publishing Co., New York, 1967.</p>
|
|
<p> [8] "The Big If," "London <span class="LOC">Sunday</span> Times," September 18, 1977.</p>
|
|
<p> [9] "Marina and Lee," Patricia McMillan, Harper & Row, 1977.</p>
|
|
<p>[10] A review of the McMillan book appeared in the "<span class="LOC">Sunday</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p>[11] "Coincidence or Conspiracy," Bernard Fensterwald, Jr., Zebra
|
|
Books, New York, 1977.</p>
|
|
<p>[12] (a) "The Taking of America, 1-2-3," Richard E. Sprague,
|
|
self-published, 1976.</p>
|
|
<p> (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.</p>
|
|
<p>[13] "Appointment in Dallas," Hugh C. <span class="PERSON">McDonald</span>, Zebra Books, New York,
|
|
1975.</p>
|
|
<p>[14] "George de Mohrenschildt," Willem Oltmans, Published in The
|
|
Netherlands, Unpublished in the United States.</p>
|
|
<p>[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)</p>
|
|
<p>--
|
|
daveus rattus </p>
|
|
<p> yer friendly neighborhood ratman</p>
|
|
<p> KOYAANISQATSI</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p>From dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com Wed Jun 17 07:55:35 1992
|
|
Received: by icaen.uiowa.edu ( 5.52 (84)/1.1) id AA07136
|
|
on Wed, 17 Jun 92 07:55:31 CDT.
|
|
Received: from pl122c.eecs.lehigh.edu by ns-mx.uiowa.edu (5.64.jnf/920408)
|
|
on Wed, 17 Jun 92 07:57:09 -0500 id AA07930 with SMTP
|
|
Received: from SGI.COM by PL122c.EECS.Lehigh.EDU (5.61/1.34)
|
|
id AA29041; Wed, 17 Jun 92 08:43:40 -0400
|
|
Received: from [192.102.132.11] by sgi.sgi.com via SMTP (911016.SGI/910110.SGI)
|
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for PML3@PL122C.EECS.LEHIGH.EDU id AA13139; Wed, 17 Jun 92 05:46:23 -0700
|
|
Received: by ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (920110.SGI/920502.SGI.AUTO)
|
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for @sgi.sgi.com:PML3@PL122C.EECS.LEHIGH.EDU id AA07406; Wed, 17 Jun 92 05:46:21 -0700
|
|
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 92 05:46:21 -0700
|
|
From: dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
|
|
<span class="Message-ID"> 9206171246.AA07406@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com</span>
|
|
To: PML3@PL122c.EECS.Lehigh.EDU
|
|
Subject: "The Taking of America, 1-2-3" (9/11)
|
|
Status: RO</p>
|
|
<p>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</p>
|
|
<p> 1979: The House Select Committee (1)</p>
|
|
<p> Chapter 16
|
|
1984 Here We Come</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="PERSON">MLK</span>
|
|
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 <span class="PERSON">MLK</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">MLK</span>
|
|
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 <span class="GPE">Columbia</span>,
|
|
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 <span class="GPE">Columbia</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">MLK</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span>
|
|
Commission or the Justice Department and the courts have been in
|
|
the <span class="PERSON">MLK</span> 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 41978.</p>
|
|
<p> "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</p>
|
|
<p> "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 <span class="NORP">Cuban</span>
|
|
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 <span class="GPE">Montreal</span> 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 & <span class="PERSON">MLK</span> 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 <span class="LOC">Sunday</span> 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 (<span class="PERSON">MLK</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p>____________________</p>
|
|
<p>[1] "New York Daily News" -- Tuesday, December 12, 1979.</p>
|
|
<p>[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.</p>
|
|
<p>[3] See copies of this correspondence in the Appendix.</p>
|
|
<p>[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.</p>
|
|
<p>[5] Giancana actually died in 1975 before testifying to the Schweicker
|
|
JFK assassination subcommittee of the Church Committee.</p>
|
|
<p>--
|
|
daveus rattus </p>
|
|
<p> yer friendly neighborhood ratman</p>
|
|
<p> KOYAANISQATSI</p>
|
|
<p> 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 Thu Jun 18 09:38:16 1992
|
|
Received: by icaen.uiowa.edu ( 5.52 (84)/1.1) id AA10172
|
|
on Thu, 18 Jun 92 09:38:11 CDT.
|
|
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|
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Received: by ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (920110.SGI/920502.SGI.AUTO)
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for @sgi.sgi.com:PML3@PL122C.EECS.LEHIGH.EDU id AA10904; Thu, 18 Jun 92 07:28:15 -0700
|
|
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 92 07:28:15 -0700
|
|
From: dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
|
|
<span class="Message-ID"> 9206181428.AA10904@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com</span>
|
|
To: PML3@PL122c.EECS.Lehigh.EDU
|
|
Subject: "The Taking of America, 1-2-3" (10/11)
|
|
Status: RO</p>
|
|
<p>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</p>
|
|
<p> 1985: The House Select Committee (2)</p>
|
|
<p> Chapter 17
|
|
THE FINAL COVER UP: How The CIA Controlled
|
|
The House Select Committee On Assassinations</p>
|
|
<p> Introduction</p>
|
|
<p> 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
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span> Commission, the Garrison Investigation, the
|
|
Schweiker/Hart Committee[2] and the efforts of independent
|
|
researchers.</p>
|
|
<p> The Situation in 1976</p>
|
|
<p> 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, <span class="PERSON">MLK</span>, 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 <span class="NORP">Cuban</span>s 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.</p>
|
|
<p> The CIA's problem</p>
|
|
<p> 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
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Rockefeller</span> 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:</p>
|
|
<p> 1. Get rid of Richard A. Sprague.</p>
|
|
<p> 2. Get rid of Henry Gonzalez.</p>
|
|
<p> 3. Get rid of Sprague's key men or keep them away from CIA
|
|
evidence or keep them quiet.</p>
|
|
<p> 4. Install their own chief counsel to control the
|
|
investigation.</p>
|
|
<p> 5. Elect a new HSCA chairman who would go along, or who
|
|
could be fooled.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 7. Keep the committee members from knowing what was
|
|
happening and segregate the investigation from them.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 9. Control the committee staff in such a way as to keep
|
|
any of them from revealing what they already knew about
|
|
CIA involvement.</p>
|
|
<p> 10. Control committee consultants in the same way, and
|
|
staff members who might leave or who might be fired.</p>
|
|
<p> 11. Continue to control the media in such a way as to
|
|
reinforce all of the above.</p>
|
|
<p> 12. Continue to murder witnesses or assassins in emergency
|
|
situations if necessary.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> How The CIA Did It</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> The Nondisclosure Agreement</p>
|
|
<p> 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?</p>
|
|
<p> Examples of CIA-Control</p>
|
|
<p> Some specific examples will serve to illustrate how well the CIA
|
|
techniques have worked and are still working.</p>
|
|
<p> Garrison Evidence and Witnesses Example</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="NORP">Cuban</span> murdered in
|
|
Miami; and Carlos Prio Socarras, former <span class="NORP">Cuban</span> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Frenchy Example</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Nagell, Dean, Novel, and Augustinovich</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> The Umbrella Man</p>
|
|
<p> 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 <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span> 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 <span class="PERSON">Zapruder</span>
|
|
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?</p>
|
|
<p> Goal Number Eight</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Summary</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p>____________________</p>
|
|
<p>[1] Chaired by Prof. Norman Ramsey of M.I.T.</p>
|
|
<p>[2] Senators Richard Schweiker of Penn. and Gary Hart of Colo. formed
|
|
a sub-committee of the Church Committee.</p>
|
|
<p>[3] The author became an advisor to Richard A. Sprague as soon as he
|
|
was appointed counsel to the HSCA.</p>
|
|
<p>[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.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p>[5] In his book, "Six Seconds in Dallas," Thompson showed photos of
|
|
TUM.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> --- Abraham Lincoln (quoted in Jack London's "The Iron Heel").</p>
|
|
<p>From dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com Fri Jun 19 09:59:20 1992
|
|
Received: by icaen.uiowa.edu ( 5.52 (84)/1.1) id AA12962
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|
on Fri, 19 Jun 92 09:59:15 CDT.
|
|
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|
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for PML3@PL122C.EECS.LEHIGH.EDU id AA21909; Fri, 19 Jun 92 07:47:33 -0700
|
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Received: by ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (920110.SGI/920502.SGI.AUTO)
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for @sgi.sgi.com:PML3@PL122C.EECS.LEHIGH.EDU id AA14482; Fri, 19 Jun 92 07:47:30 -0700
|
|
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 92 07:47:30 -0700
|
|
From: dave@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com (dave "who can do? ratmandu!" ratcliffe)
|
|
<span class="Message-ID"> 9206191447.AA14482@ratmandu.esd.sgi.com</span>
|
|
To: PML3@PL122c.EECS.Lehigh.EDU
|
|
Subject: "The Taking of America, 1-2-3" (11/11)
|
|
Status: RO</p>
|
|
<p>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</p>
|
|
<p> Appendix</p>
|
|
<p> The Secrecy Oath the Author signed after Robert Blakey took over
|
|
the HSCA, and correspondence between the author and various
|
|
committee members.</p>
|
|
<p> Exhibit A
|
|
____________________________________________________________</p>
|
|
<p> 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 $5000 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 <span class="GPE">Columbia</span>, 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 <span class="GPE">Columbia</span>
|
|
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.]</p>
|
|
<p> Exhibit B
|
|
____________________________________________________________</p>
|
|
<p> 193 Pinewood Road
|
|
Hartsdale, NY 10530</p>
|
|
<p> February 10, 1978</p>
|
|
<p> 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</p>
|
|
<p> Exhibit C
|
|
____________________________________________________________</p>
|
|
<p> LOUIS STOKES, OHIO, CHAIRMAN</p>
|
|
<p>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</p>
|
|
<p> Select Committee on Assassinations
|
|
U.S House of Representatives
|
|
3331 HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, ANNEX 2
|
|
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20515</p>
|
|
<p> MAR 16 1978</p>
|
|
<p> Richard E. Sprague, Esq.
|
|
193 Pinewood Road
|
|
Hartsdale, New York 10530</p>
|
|
<p> Dear Mr. Sprague:</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> Sincerely,</p>
|
|
<p> [Louis Stokes]</p>
|
|
<p> Louis Stokes
|
|
Chairman</p>
|
|
<p> LS:jwc</p>
|
|
<p> Exhibit D
|
|
____________________________________________________________</p>
|
|
<p> 193 Pinewood Road
|
|
Hartsdale, NY 10530</p>
|
|
<p> April 5, 1978</p>
|
|
<p> 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]</p>
|
|
<p> Exhibit E
|
|
____________________________________________________________</p>
|
|
<p> LOUIS STOKES, OHIO, CHAIRMAN</p>
|
|
<p>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</p>
|
|
<p> Select Committee on Assassinations
|
|
U.S House of Representatives
|
|
3331 HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, ANNEX 2
|
|
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20515</p>
|
|
<p> May 15, 1978</p>
|
|
<p> 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</p>
|
|
<p> Exhibit F
|
|
____________________________________________________________</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
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.</p>
|
|
<p> Exhibit G
|
|
____________________________________________________________</p>
|
|
<p> LOUIS STOKES, OHIO, CHAIRMAN</p>
|
|
<p>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</p>
|
|
<p> Select Committee on Assassinations
|
|
U.S House of Representatives
|
|
3331 HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, ANNEX 2
|
|
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20515</p>
|
|
<p> October 10, 1978</p>
|
|
<p> 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</p>
|
|
<p> Exhibit H
|
|
____________________________________________________________</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
|
|
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</p>
|
|
<p> Exhibit I
|
|
____________________________________________________________</p>
|
|
<p>
|
|
|
|
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
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|
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</p>
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|
<p> Exhibit J
|
|
____________________________________________________________</p>
|
|
<p> LOUIS STOKES, OHIO, CHAIRMAN</p>
|
|
<p>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</p>
|
|
<p> Select Committee on Assassinations
|
|
U.S House of Representatives
|
|
3331 HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, ANNEX 2
|
|
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20515</p>
|
|
<p> December 4, 1978</p>
|
|
<p> 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</p>
|
|
<p> Exhibit K
|
|
____________________________________________________________</p>
|
|
<p> LOUIS STOKES, OHIO, CHAIRMAN</p>
|
|
<p>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</p>
|
|
<p> Select Committee on Assassinations
|
|
U.S House of Representatives
|
|
3331 HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, ANNEX 2
|
|
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20515
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p> JAN 16 1978
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p> 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</p>
|
|
<p> Exhibit L
|
|
____________________________________________________________</p>
|
|
<p> 193 Pinewood Road
|
|
Hartsdale, NY 10530</p>
|
|
<p> August 3, 1978</p>
|
|
<p> 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</p>
|
|
<p> 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.</p>
|
|
<p> --- Abraham Lincoln (quoted in Jack London's "The Iron Heel").</p>
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