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2550 lines
164 KiB
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<xml><p>From: dona@bilver.uucp (Don Allen)
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Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
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Subject: JFK Text: Echoes of Conspiracy - INTRO
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<info type="Message-ID"> 1991Dec26.194623.19758@bilver.uucp</info>
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Date: 26 Dec 91 19:46:23 GMT
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Organization: W. J. Vermillion - Winter Park, FL
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Lines: 46</p>
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<p>-----------------------------------------------------
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JFK Text file: "Echoes of Conspiracy" INTRO
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-----------------------------------------------------</p>
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<p>All this continued discussion on Oliver Stone's movie, "JFK" has
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prompted me to look through my collection of text files and see
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what I could find. I found this piece, done by Paul L. Hoch in
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1986, which was on a Conspiracy Sig section of a BBS a few
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years back. It's being posted in 4 parts.
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I've glanced through it and am presenting it for your perusal,though
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I'm *not* making any claims as to it's conclusions. Rather, I leave
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it to you, the reader, to judge for yourself whether or not it has
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merit.
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Comments are welcome, flames to me are in-appropriate as I didn't write
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the article. Take it or leave it for what it's worth :-)</p>
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<p>File lengths (excluding header,sig and part designation):
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---------------------------------------------------------</p>
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<p>eoc1.txt - 41392 bytes
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eoc2.txt - 40344 bytes
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eoc3.txt - 39752 bytes
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eoc4.txt - 41050 bytes
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-----
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162538 bytes - Total </p>
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<p>---------------------------------------------------------
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Note: Thanks to jxxl@taurus.cs.nps.navy.mil (John),
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geb@speedy.cs.pitt.edu (Gordon Banks), and acm@ux.acs.umn.edu (Acm) Peter
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Kauffner for their lucid comments on this thread. I've enjoyed all
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of their postings. </p>
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<p>Happy Holidays to all!</p>
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<p>Don</p>
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<p>
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--
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-* Don Allen *- InterNet: dona@bilver.UUCP // Amiga..for the best of us.
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USnail: 1818G Landing Dr, Sanford Fl 32771 \X/ Why use anything else? :-)
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UUCP: ..uunet!tarpit!bilver!dona - Why did the JUSTICE DEPT steal PROMIS?
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/\/\ What is research but a blind date with knowledge. William Henry /\/\</p>
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<p>From: dona@bilver.uucp (Don Allen)
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Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
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Subject: JFK Text: Echoes of Conspiracy - EOC1.TXT
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<info type="Message-ID"> 1991Dec26.194825.19833@bilver.uucp</info>
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Date: 26 Dec 91 19:48:25 GMT
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Organization: W. J. Vermillion - Winter Park, FL
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Lines: 626</p>
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<p>*EOC1.TXT*</p>
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<p>------BEGIN PART 1/4---------------------------------------------------------</p>
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<p>ECHOES OF CONSPIRACY February 28, 1986
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Vol. 8, #1 Paul L. Hoch</p>
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<p><special>"Reasonable Doubt":</special>
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Henry Hurt's book should be in your local bookstore now, although it did
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not reach some of the big chains quickly. The official publication date was
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January 27. (Holt Rinehart Winston, 555 pp., $19.95)
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I am too close to the case (and to the book) to judge "Reasonable Doubt"
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as a whole, rather than by assessing each piece of evidence as new or old, and
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each argument as familiar or unfamiliar, persuasive or implausible.
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We will see what the reviewers and publicists do with a book which claims
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that it is not pushing a specific solution to the mystery of the JFK assass-
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ination. So far, I have seen no ads and only the reviews listed below.
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Hurt's reluctance to endorse a single solution is particularly under-
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standable in light of the history of his involvement in the case. Exposure to
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the legendary Ed Epstein and then to a volunteered "confession" could make
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anyone wary of anybody's solution. The beneficial result of that introduction
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is that Hurt was very willing to look at the work of critics who could provide
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hard facts and careful analysis. Even the jacket copy says nice things about
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the buffs, and nothing about who killed JFK.
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Understandably, Hurt is not optimistic about the chances for a resolution:
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"The seeds of neglected evidence sown across the landscape in the wake of the
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assassination have matured into a jungle of powerful contradictions. Nourished
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by solid information, each promising theme contends with other themes. The
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entanglement has become so impenetrable that no single theory, no final
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answer, can break free to stand unchallenged as a solution...." (P. 429)
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Hurt endorses Jim Lesar's suggestion of a special unit in the Justice Depart-
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ment, with specific Congressional funding, patterned after the anti-Nazi
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Office of Special Investigations.
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Since I don't think I know who killed Kennedy, Hurt's approach generally
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appeals to me. I think the book does a good job of reflecting the ambiguity of
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much of the evidence, and the variety of plausible explanations.</p>
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<p><special>A new perspective on the murder of J. D. Tippit:</special>
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Hurt's most striking new evidence, surprisingly, does go directly to the
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question of "who did it" -- but in the Tippit case. He does not overemphasize
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it, but it is a lead which raises the same kind of basic challenge to the
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integrity of the Dallas evidence as David Lifton's work does to the Bethesda
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evidence.
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Hurt persuaded me that Tippit was in Oak Cliff an hour after JFK was shot
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to take care of some very personal business. Hurt talked to a woman who had
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an affair with Tippit. She thought she was pregnant by Tippit; the timing
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suggests that she may have just learned this on November 22. This was a
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problem not only for Tippit, who was married, but also for the woman. She had
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recently been reconciled with her ex-husband, who was previously jealous
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enough to follow her and Tippit around Oak Cliff at night.
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Hurt's exposition reflects the kind of caution that lawyers would be
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expected to encourage. For example, he does not name the woman, whom I will
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refer to as Rosetta Stone. Her name is available to anyone with access to the
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HSCA volumes who can ignore a typo in Hurt's footnote and find the Tippit
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material in Vol. 12. (Or see "Coverups," 12/85) Her name has been known to
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some critics for years. Hurt credits Larry Harris with finding her, prompted
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by an anonymous 1968 letter to Jim Garrison which Gary Shaw obtained.
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(Rosetta was not named in that letter, but described as a waitress who worked
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with Tippit at Austin's Barbecue.)
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It is not clear if Hurt believes that he and Harris have discovered why
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Tippit was killed, or merely why he was in Oak Cliff. He seems persuaded by
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other evidence that Oswald did not do it.
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The jealous husband and Rosetta "both deny any knowledge of Tippit's
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death other than what is in the official account." (P. 168) Hurt does not go
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into detail, but I doubt that he accepted Mr. Stone's denial at face value.
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8 EOC 1 -2-</p>
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<p> Hurt does quote a retired DPD officer who "asserted flatly and without
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prompting that he believed Tippit was killed as a result of a volatile
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personal situation involving his lover and her estranged husband. He added,
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`It would look like hell for Tippit to have been murdered and have it look
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like he was screwing around with this woman.... Somebody had to change the
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tape.... Somebody had to go to the property room and change those [cartridge]
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hulls and put some of Oswald's hulls in there....'" Other DPD officers
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reportedly share these beliefs.
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The book contains a brief discussion of the implications of this account.
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"The purpose [of the alteration of evidence], perhaps, would be twofold:
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to seal the case against Oswald [in the JFK case] by showing irrevocably his
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capacity for violence and to wrap up the case of Tippit's murder without
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disgracing him, his family, and the unborn child. And, of course, there would
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be an outpouring of grief [and financial support - PLH] for a police comrade
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slain by the presidential assassin." (P. 168) I would emphasize that if such
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relatively innocent tampering can be confirmed, the question of tampering with
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the evidence against Oswald in the JFK case has to be raised with new intensity.
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This area seems ripe for additional investigation, official or unofficial.
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For example, what can we now make of the sighting (near the Tippit murder
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scene) of a license plate number traced back to a friend of Tippit, Carl
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Mather? (12 HSCA 37) The HSCA apparently failed to reach a conclusion, but if
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you ignore the claim that Oswald was in the car, the story -- and Mather's
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nervousness when interviewed by Wes Wise -- might be significant.
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Hurt reviews the familiar evidence on Tippit's problematic presence in
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Oak Cliff, and the radio instructions which sent him there. He interviewed
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R. C. Nelson, supposedly instructed to go to Oak Cliff at the same time, who
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seemed puzzled by Hurt's questioning and reluctant to talk. Dispatcher Murray
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Jackson "stoutly denied knowledge of any fraudulent manipulation of the tapes
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in order to provide an excuse for Tippit's being so far away from his assigned
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district at the time of his death," but his account seems unsatisfactory to
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me. (Pp. l62-3)
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Before I knew about Rosetta Stone, I argued that the messages in question
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didn't sound right. In November 1981, I raised this issue in a letter to Dr.
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James Barger. (#1986.1, 2 pp.) If tampering with any of the recordings could
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be shown, the timing problem in the acoustical analysis resulting from the
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"hold everything secure" crosstalk match might have to be reconsidered.
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I suggested that both the tone and wording of two key messages were in
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the "formal mode" which one would expect only in important messages -- or in a
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later re-creation. "You are in the Oak Cliff area, are you not?" seemed
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significantly more formal than "What's your location?", "Are you en route to
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Parkland, 601?", and similar inquiries recorded that day; it resembles "You do
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not have the suspect. Is that correct?", where the "formal mode" is expected.
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Similarly, "You will be at large for any emergency that comes in" contrasts
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with "Remain in downtown area, available for call" and "Stand by there until
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we notify you."
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This kind of analysis has been of evidentiary value in at least one other
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case, involving a tape (released by Larry Flynt) purportedly of a conversation
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between John De Lorean and FBI informant James Hoffman. Jack Anderson
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reported that psycholinguist Murray Miron was able to establish that the tape
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had been faked. (24 May 84, SFC, #1986.2) In addition to the anomalously
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unresponsive content of "Hoffman's" remarks, his "speech cadences... `are
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consistent with those to be expected from one who has rehearsed or is reading
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from a script.'" Anderson described Miron as a "longtime FBI consultant."
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The Justice Department should certainly sponsor that kind of analysis of the
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Tippit messages.</p>
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<p><special>JFK's physician believes in a conspiracy:</special>
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There is a second very provocative piece of new evidence, resulting from
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Hurt's 1982 phone call to Adm. George Burkley. He said "that he believed that
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8 EOC 1 -3-</p>
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<p>President Kennedy's assassination was the result of a conspiracy." He
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subsequently refused "to discuss any aspect of the case." (P. 49)
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As JFK's personal physician, and the only doctor present at Parkland and
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the Bethesda autopsy, Burkley was in an especially crucial position. He did
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not testify to the Warren Commission (which published his contemporaneous
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report containing basically no medical details, CE 1126.) He did give five
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interviews to William Manchester (the last one in July, 1966). Manchester
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recently told me that Burkley did not then believe there had been a conspi-
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racy. However, Hurt notes that in a 1967 oral history interview, Burkley was
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asked if he agreed with the Warren Commission on the number of bullets that
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hit JFK; he replied, "I would not care to be quoted on that." The HSCA
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interviewed Burkley at least once, generating in addition an outside contact
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report and an affidavit -- all unpublished and unavailable.
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Along with the Tippit evidence, the Burkley assertion of conspiracy calls
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for intense examination by the Justice Department and, I hope, by some
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reporters. (For my letters to Assistant AG Stephen Trott, ask for #1986.3
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[1 Feb 86, on Burkley] and #4 [2 pp., 4 Feb 86, on Tippit].)
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Hurt devotes only a few pages in a "grab bag" chapter to Lifton's thesis,
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but there is some interesting speculation in an area where Burkley might know
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crucial facts. (Incidentally, much of the "classical" critique of the single
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bullet theory and other aspects of the medical and physical evidence in Hurt's
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earlier chapters seems obsolete. The SBT is implausible but supported by a
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surprising amount of HSCA evidence; if it is wrong, tampering on a Liftonesque
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scale must have taken place, and we need to either pursue Lifton's argument or
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come up with another scenario. Studying the flaws in the official inves-
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tigations is not likely to produce progress in this area.)
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Hurt concludes that "Lifton builds a powerful case" that JFK's body was
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separated from the ceremonial motorcade, and that his "evidence is equally
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strong on the point that <special>something</special> happened to the wounds on the body between
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Dallas and Bethesda. However, his sinister interpretation of what might have
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happened does not have the strong supportive evidence found for his basic
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points." (P. 427)
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Hurt suggests that "the Secret Service and other powerful elements in the
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government might have felt an overwhelming necessity to examine the body for
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evidence at the soonest possible moment," given fears of a conspiracy. "It
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does not seem unreasonable that these circumstances could have coalesced into
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an overriding concern for national security that demanded the President's body
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be placed on an autopsy table as soon as humanly possible -- without awaiting
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the folderol of transporting the body through the streets with the family and
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public at hand. Moreover, it does not seem unreasonable that certain security
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people in the government were appalled that the official autopsy was going to
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be conducted at the whim of the family and by Navy brass with pitifully little
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experience in forensic pathology."
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When I saw this speculation in Hurt's draft of this section, it struck me
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as plausible and well worth pursuing. The perspective of people who realized
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that the body might provide conclusive evidence of a conspiracy should be
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taken into account (and I don't think it generally has been).
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Certainly an "innocent national security autopsy" does not explain away
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Lifton's evidence indicating changes to the wounds, and Lifton can discourse
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at great length (and with considerable persuasiveness) against such a hypo-
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thesis, which I raised with him in general terms long ago.
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At the very least, however, Hurt's analysis might lead us to new infor-
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mation about what key people really think happened to JFK's body before the
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Bethesda autopsy. I have assumed for years that there must be some expla-
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nation going around in official and family circles, and I was surprised that
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none surfaced after "Best Evidence" was published.
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Hurt's manuscript led me to check the record on the authorization of the
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autopsy. Is it possible, I wonder, that the record significantly minimizes
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Jacqueline Kennedy's opposition to an autopsy? If the opposition was very
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8 EOC 1 -4-</p>
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<p>strong or more prolonged than is generally assumed, I have no trouble
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believing that someone decided to go ahead with an "inspection" regardless.
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Burkley's own account noted that, while kneeling before Jackie, he
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"expressed [the] complete desire of all of us and especially of myself to
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comply with her wishes, stating that it was necessary that the President be
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taken to a hospital prior to going to the White House. She questioned why and
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I stated it must be determined, if possible, the type of bullet used and
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compare this with future material found." (CE 1126, p.6) This makes more
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sense if you insert a few words: "her wishes to go directly to the White
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House, but stating...." In his oral history interview, Burkley said that
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Jackie's decision to go to Bethesda was arrived at "after some consideration,"
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which might mean it took a while to convince her.
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It is not unfair to read Burkley's comments critically, with the
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suspicion that he was minimizing Jackie's reluctance to authorize an autopsy
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or even his own knowledge of alternative plans. As late as the 1967 oral
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history interview, he took the Kennedy family line on JFK's adrenal and back
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problems, describing JFK as an "essentially normal, healthy male," with above-
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average "vigor and vitality."
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Kenneth O'Donnell testified that "we didn't tell her [Jackie] there was
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to be an autopsy." (7 WCH 454-5) Evidently the matter was discussed with her
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in terms of going to a hospital to remove bullets.
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Restrictions during the Bethesda autopsy have been dealt with in some
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detail by both the HSCA and Lifton. The HSCA did not publish anything about
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earlier restrictions -- e.g., Jackie's resistance to the whole idea of even a
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limited effort to remove the bullets. The HSCA may well have gathered
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relevant evidence.
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One reason Hurt's hypothesis appeals to me is that concern for Jackie's
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feelings -- since her wishes were essentially bypassed -- might explain why
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there was no quasi-official detailed rebuttal to Lifton's book. I would be
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glad to share more of my thoughts on this hypothesis with reporters or anyone
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else in a position to work on it.</p>
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<p><special>More highlights of "Reasonable Doubt":</special>
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The chapters on Oswald in New Orleans and on the questions relating to
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intelligence agencies are particularly good.
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Neither the HSCA nor its case against the Mafia gets a lot of attention.
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I generally like Hurt's analysis of Garrison, but I am not impressed by his
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treatment of Blakey and the HSCA.
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The detailed citations, including many to unpublished FBI and CIA
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documents, add to the value of the book as an overview. There are also many
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references to Hurt's own interviews.
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Some interesting hypotheses were already familiar to me (and some got to
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Hurt through me), but I'm particularly pleased to see them in wider circulation.
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For example, Hurt explores the idea that Oswald was (or thought he was)
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working on behalf of Sen. Thomas Dodd's investigation of mail-order firearm
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sales. This was suggested by Sylvia Meagher ("Accessories," p. 194) and
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pursued in detail by Fred Newcomb. It might explain Oswald's peculiar weapons
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purchases. (P. 300 ff.)
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In this context, Hurt also reports some of my old analysis of a Klein's
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Sporting Goods ad in Oswald's possessions, torn from a magazine which was
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found in Adrian Alba's garage -- after a mysterious stranger, claiming to be a
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friend of Alba's, showed up on the morning of November 23rd to "borrow" some
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magazines. (P. 297)
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Hurt also reports Larry Haapanen's observations on the official concern
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about Commie influence in the Clinton civil rights drive, and its possible
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relevance to Oswald's alleged presence there. (See 3 EOC 7, pp. 3-5.)
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The book also includes quite a few interesting points which were
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completely new to me. For example:
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A Naval Intelligence officer at the Moscow Embassy says he thought that
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8 EOC 1 -5-</p>
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<p>Oswald was being handled for the CIA by someone in the Naval Attache's office.
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(P. 243)
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There is some new information from Hurt's old interviews (for "Legend")
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of some of Oswald's Marine associates. One such person told Hurt that he had
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been recruited for intelligence work when he left the Marines. (P. 243)
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SA Vince Drain believes the palmprint on the rifle was faked. (P. 109)
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There is a more-plausible-than-most story of a telephone warning by Ruby
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to Billy Grammer of the Dallas Police. Hurt notes that if Ruby was really
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under Mafia pressure to kill Oswald, it would make sense for him to try to
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abort the transfer with such a phone call. (P. 407)
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A technical examination done for Hurt suggested that the curbstone at the
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location of the Tague shot may well have been patched. (P. 138)
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Hurt interviewed alleged Marcello and Ruby associate Harold Tannenbaum,
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who was not as dead as the HSCA thought. He denied any Mafia connections.
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(P. 180)
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Billy Joe Lord, who shared Oswald's cabin on the boat to Europe, added
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little of substance about Oswald, but told of a peculiar interest in him by
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someone in France. Hurt suggests this could have been a KGB check to see if
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U.S. intelligence was talking to people who had been associated with Oswald.
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(P. 207)
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Louise Latham of the Texas employment office made some odd comments,
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suggesting that she sent Oswald out for a job more than once. Hurt seems
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suspicious of her husband's "post office" career. (P. 221)
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John Hurt's widow told Henry Hurt that he had admitted being drunk and
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trying to call Oswald in jail. (This should take care of that story.)
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(Pp. 244-5; cf. 2 EOC 7, p.5)
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Hurt speculates that the KGB's interest in the Oswalds may have been to
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establish Marina as a sleeper agent. (Might that explain the allegedly
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anomalous friendship between the Oswalds and the DeMohrenschildts?) (P. 240)</p>
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<p><special>And now for something completely different:</special>
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It's... Chapter 12, "The Confession of Robert Easterling."
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At least, I think it's completely different.
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I find Easterling's story too incredible to be worth summarizing here.
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Whenever I hear about meetings involving the speaker, Oswald, Ruby, Ferrie,
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and Shaw, I reach for my skepticism. In fact, any story involving Clay Shaw
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starts with two strikes against it. Hurt makes a point of the alleged
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uniqueness of Easterling's claim of direct involvement (pp. 348-9), but what
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strikes me is the similarity of so many elements in his story to others we
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have heard over the years.
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I do not believe Easterling's story has anything like the same level of
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plausibility as even the most speculative allegations elsewhere in the book.
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My impression is that this chapter fails to reflect the critical judgment
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which Hurt applied to the more familiar evidence in other chapters.
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The chapter both starts and ends with descriptions of Easterling as a
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psychotic, alcoholic, violent criminal. A long footnote (p. 351) describes
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aspects of his "confession" as "flagrantly preposterous" and delusional.
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Certainly Hurt can't be accused of hiding all the flaws in Easterling's story.
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Some of Hurt's justification for devoting a chapter to Easterling is mild
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enough. He grants that "By any standard, [he] is a terribly sullied witness."
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However, "in the absence of a full revelation of facts by government agencies,
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it would be irresponsible not to present Easterling's story." (P. 383) As a
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reader, I would have settled for an appendix or a long footnote.
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Fortunately, Easterling's name does not appear outside this one chapter.
|
|
But this confession is what got Hurt into his own research on the case, as he
|
|
explains in the introduction. (P. 7) It must have colored his approach to
|
|
the evidence he later encountered. His personal experience in dealing with
|
|
the FBI on this matter certainly contributed to his very negative evaluation
|
|
of the official investigations of the JFK case. That is, Hurt learned that
|
|
8 EOC 1 -6-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Easterling's was definitely not the best of the conspiracy allegations which
|
|
were not taken seriously.
|
|
The publisher's handout (#5, 5 pp.) does devote a paragraph to "the most
|
|
shocking revelation of all" in the book, alleging that "Easterling presents...
|
|
a convincing case that he could have been involved with a group that murdered
|
|
the president." As is all too common in a publisher's supplementary material,
|
|
the other specifics mentioned in this handout fail to reflect the general
|
|
coherence and scope of the book. They include some familiar questions which
|
|
the book does not claim to answer. (For example, why did Humes burn his
|
|
notes? The book just reviews the old evidence; Hurt called Dr. Humes about
|
|
Lifton's book, but he would not discuss details. [Pp. 42, 427]. Similarly,
|
|
"what government official permitted [Souetre's] deportation?" See p. 419;
|
|
Hurt doesn't seem to know.) Unfortunately, this handout may discourage
|
|
reviewers from focusing on the important new information.
|
|
It would be disappointing if many readers and reviewers dismiss the whole
|
|
book because of this one chapter. On the other hand, if any official
|
|
investigators, or many reviewers or EOC readers, seem to be taking Easterling
|
|
seriously, I will be glad to jump into any debate on the details.
|
|
One structural problem is that the bad Easterling story has the same
|
|
relationship to the rest of the book as the good story about Mr. & Mrs.
|
|
Rosetta Stone does to the Tippit chapter: each appears towards the end, each
|
|
is fairly heavily qualified (and many readers won't be able to tell how much
|
|
of the caution is <special>pro forma</special>), and there is not the detailed followup or
|
|
evaluation of the new material that I would like.
|
|
Disclaimers aside, there are signs that Hurt has taken Easterling very
|
|
seriously at some point. (Some of his language suggests that his conclusions
|
|
were rewritten and somewhat weakened.) For example, "In the end, [his]
|
|
claims... could not be substantiated to the point that no doubts about the
|
|
veracity of his confession remained." (Intro, p. 8-9) The chapter itself has
|
|
a slightly less disturbing formulation: "In the final analysis it is not
|
|
possible to prove that the Easterling confession is true." I think it is
|
|
possible to conclude, from Hurt's presentation, that the confession is false.
|
|
Hurt's fallback justification is more defensible, although I do not agree with
|
|
it: "However, it is possible to show that there is, at least, every reason
|
|
for the FBI to investigate Easterling's leads vigorously." (P. 389)
|
|
Another example of hedging which gives Easterling's account more support
|
|
than it deserves: "A careful reading of Easterling's account cannot lead to
|
|
any certain conclusion as to who killed John F. Kennedy. It is perhaps
|
|
significant, however, that when one considers those who may have wanted
|
|
Kennedy dead -- Cuban exiles, Fidel Castro, fanatical right-wing oil men,
|
|
renegade elements of the intelligence services, the mob -- they all play roles
|
|
in this remarkable story." (P. 390) I would turn this observation around:
|
|
almost all the plotters in the most popular conspiracy theories play roles in
|
|
Easterling's account.
|
|
Unfortunately, the section of this chapter entitled "A Final Assessment"
|
|
includes a recounting of some of the familiar old evidence which allows Hurt
|
|
not to dismiss Easterling entirely, but which in fact supports any number of
|
|
conspiracy theories. The existence of such evidence is indeed crucial to a
|
|
final assessment, but only in combination with a very skeptical approach to
|
|
Easterling.
|
|
My guess is that Easterling's alcohol-soaked brain became incapable of
|
|
distinguishing between what he remembered happening to him, and what he had
|
|
heard about the JFK case. I wonder if a psychiatrist familiar with the crim-
|
|
inally insane would tell us that this particular kind of delusion is common.
|
|
In any case, the omission of a professional psychiatric opinion of
|
|
Easterling's story, by someone familiar with the kind of details on the JFK
|
|
case which have been publicized, is a conspicuous deficiency in this chapter.
|
|
As noted in my comments on Blakey's book, there may well be no signif-
|
|
icance to a claim by Johnny Roselli that he "knew" there was a shot from the
|
|
8 EOC 1 -7-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>grassy knoll. (3 EOC 3, p. 3) I have no trouble believing that Roselli or
|
|
some member of his family (or Family) heard Mark Lane's lecture (if not
|
|
Garrison's scenario) and was convinced. (Everyone has heard Lane, it seems.)
|
|
Admittedly, it is a little harder to picture Easterling in a public library,
|
|
reading "Accessories After the Fact." Still, anyone living in Baton Rouge at
|
|
the time of the Garrison investigation would be exposed to a regular flow of
|
|
details about the mysteries of the case. (P. 379)
|
|
I think the most likely explanation for Easterling is not simply a hoax
|
|
but a basically genuine delusion, supplemented by the prospect of financial or
|
|
other benefits.
|
|
Hurt says that, if Easterling's confession is a hoax, "then there is a
|
|
fascinating story to be told about such an extraordinary scheme." (P. 351)
|
|
True enough, and even if it is a delusion which Easterling himself never
|
|
understood, there should be an interesting story about how and why Hurt (and
|
|
the Reader's Digest) took it seriously enough to pursue.
|
|
Hurt does not discuss the Digest's original interest in the project, or
|
|
its decision not to publish the book. (See 6 EOC 2, p. 6.) Hurt told me
|
|
that the new editor-in-chief was not completely persuaded that the thrust of
|
|
the book was correct. In fact, the book does not identify Hurt or the two men
|
|
to whom the book is dedicated as Reader's Digest employees. (Why, the reader
|
|
might wonder, was Hurt doing interviews for Epstein's "Legend"? [P. 7]) Was
|
|
the Digest ready to publish the Easterling story in one of the three excerpts
|
|
which were to appear starting in the June 1984 issue, using more of the
|
|
confession and fewer of the doubts? There may well be a story buried here.
|
|
Although it is hard to take the confession seriously enough to really
|
|
worry about its impact if the Digest had endorsed it, any allegations
|
|
involving Fidel or Raul Castro have a potential for serious mischief.
|
|
In 1974, the brother of Easterling's original Cuban contact showed him photos of
|
|
material "apparently... exhibited in Raul Castro's den." (Pp. 380-1) This
|
|
included photos of Easterling, Oswald, Ruby, Ferrie, and Shaw/Banister, with
|
|
X's over the faces of the deceased and a question mark for Easterling. Oh,
|
|
and also the Czech rifle which had been used, mounted, with a plaque reading
|
|
"Kennedy 1963." The best I can say about this fantasy is that Easterling
|
|
might have thought -- if he was thinking at all -- that the Reader's Digest
|
|
wanted to hear it.
|
|
I have many specific objections to Hurt's analysis. For example, he has
|
|
the same problem as the HSCA with the claim that Shaw was associating with
|
|
David Ferrie and Oswald. The stories (of Easterling, and of the Clinton
|
|
witnesses) are much more plausible if it was Guy Banister, not Shaw. The HSCA
|
|
wrote around the witness-credibility problem, concluding that Oswald had been
|
|
seen with "Ferrie, if not Clay Shaw." (HSCAR 145) Similarly, Hurt talks
|
|
about Easterling being with Ruby and the man he believed was Clay Shaw. (Why
|
|
not "Shaw and the man he believed was Jack Ruby"?) (Pp. 363, 381)
|
|
If I had any reason to find Easterling's story credible in the first
|
|
place, I would do a thorough search of published sources to see where similar
|
|
elements appear. For example, Hurt notes that Easterling's claim to have
|
|
driven Oswald from New Orleans to Houston fills in a gap in the official
|
|
account of his travels. I would start by testing the hypothesis that Easter-
|
|
ling read about this problem. I certainly would not treat this as "perhaps the
|
|
most significant point of confirmation for Easterling's story." (P. 369)
|
|
Likewise, what about the coincidence between Easterling's claim that he
|
|
was to wait for Oswald in Monterrey, Mexico, and the allegation by Donald
|
|
Norton that he delivered $50,000 to "Harvey Lee" in that city? (RD, p. 367;
|
|
Brener, "The Garrison Case," p. 195) Or the similarity between Easterling's
|
|
firing test (with coconuts!) and a test-firing scene at the beginning of
|
|
"Executive Action" (the book, if not the movie)?
|
|
Not surprisingly, the points which Hurt could even try to verify had
|
|
little direct connection to the assassination. Discovering (even with
|
|
difficulty) that there was a fire like one Easterling described does nothing
|
|
8 EOC 1 -8-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>to support his claim that he was picking up Oswald nearby. The story of Igor
|
|
Vaganov (Esquire, 8/67) is a useful reminder that there were many odd things
|
|
going on in Dallas in November 1963 which had nothing to do with the JFK
|
|
assassination.
|
|
Easterling may well have been up to something, perhaps criminal, perhaps
|
|
with some Cubans. Even it if could be established that he knew Ferrie or some
|
|
other person who has been named in the assassination controversy, which
|
|
in itself would not be unusual, the odds would still be high that his
|
|
"confession" was nothing but a delusion.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>Reviews of "Reasonable Doubt":</special>
|
|
6. 22 Nov 85 (Pub Wkly) Brief and mostly favorable. "The prose is a
|
|
bit breathless at times," but "the components of [the] mystery are laid out
|
|
with notable clarity." The theory of a "Cuban conspiracy" involving an Oswald
|
|
impostor "does not seem so outlandish after [Hurt] produces a likely candidate
|
|
[Thomas Eli Davis, I suppose] and a witness whose testimony, though `terribly
|
|
sullied,' provides an abundance of plausible detail."
|
|
7. 23 Feb 86 (NYT Book Review) "Oswald and others?" asks reviewer Adam
|
|
Clymer, a veteran reporter who is now an assistant to Abe Rosenthal. A fairly
|
|
short and quite positive review of Hurt's "compelling yet fundamentally calm
|
|
analysis." Clymer likes Hurt's critical analysis but non-conspiratorial
|
|
evaluation of the old investigations. "Original research is not what commends
|
|
this book," and the reviewer mentions none, except for the "psychotic drifter"
|
|
Easterling. He endorses the book's least credulous comments on that story:
|
|
"Hurt does not take this source as a touchstone. Instead, he argues that Mr.
|
|
Easterling's story ought to be given official attention."</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>More details about Oswald in Mexico:</special>
|
|
"The Lobster" has reprinted almost all of the Afterword from the U.S.
|
|
paperback edition of Tony Summers' "Conspiracy." Summers reported significant
|
|
progress in his search for Maurice Bishop, and prepared additional information
|
|
for articles in the London Observer. "Unfortunately," notes Steve Dorril,
|
|
"owing to continuing legal difficulties with David Phillips, they were never
|
|
officially published. Much of the material appears now in [the] Afterword and
|
|
the following notes (which are the responsibility of The Lobster.)" [#1986.8,
|
|
4 pp., from issue #10; the Afterword alone was previously listed as #1981.314]
|
|
Dorril's notes include much information which seems to come from a good
|
|
HSCA source, if not from the HSCA's Mexico City staff report (which, Summers
|
|
revealed in 1983, he had "had sight of"; see 6 EOC 1, p. 1). For example:
|
|
"We understand that the [HSCA] confirmed that [journalist Hal] Hendrix was a
|
|
CIA contract agent."
|
|
"A number of Phillips' colleagues... have indicated that the Phillips/
|
|
`Bishop' identity `holds water.' They include the Naval Attache in Cuba."
|
|
Incidentally, Gary Mack reports that Phillips has threatened to sue Hurt.
|
|
(Coverups, 12/85) So perhaps I should emphasize that, whether or not Phillips
|
|
was Bishop, I am not inclined to believe Antonio Veciana's story that he saw
|
|
him with Oswald.
|
|
Dorril gives the real names of "Ron Cross," "B. H.," and "Doug Gupton."
|
|
"Cross" allegedly helped set up the DRE (but not Bringuier's N.O. chapter).
|
|
The CIA man in charge of surveillance of the Cuban consulate in Mexico
|
|
City recently was the director of the Berlitz School in Madrid. (On Oswald's
|
|
alleged contact with Berlitz, see "Oswald in New Orleans," pp. 344 and 348,
|
|
and "Conspiracy," p. 318.)
|
|
"In a long memorandum or manuscript [Winston] Scott refers to `a photo of
|
|
Oswald.' Three CIA officers claim to have seen it [the memo? the photo?]
|
|
whilst two others claim to have heard of it." Phillip Agee is among the five,
|
|
all named. (I'll pass up the opportunity to list unfamiliar people here. Any
|
|
reporter who wants to make a test case out of those CIA names is welcome to do
|
|
so. I hear that "The Lobster" is developing a reputation in the U.K. for
|
|
8 EOC 1 -9-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>naming sensitive names.)
|
|
A named CIA officer "is believed to have told an untruth to the HSCA"
|
|
about the 1 Oct 63 photo of the mystery man. The 10 Oct 63 teletype to CIA
|
|
headquarters about this "was, in fact, doctored, according to evidence devel-
|
|
oped by the HSCA investigators." (This sounds like what Counsel Sprague was
|
|
going on about in 1977; I have still seen no evidence to support this claim.)
|
|
Virginia Prewett, a journalist whom Summers found from a clue provided by
|
|
Veciana, "was a CIA asset handled by Phillips." The five CIA "disinformation
|
|
agents" in Mexico City (four run by Phillips) and two other agents of Phillips
|
|
are named by "The Lobster."
|
|
This is clearly very important material, but I'm rating it only two stars
|
|
as a reminder to be careful: just the fact that the HSCA staff believed it
|
|
and it got locked up for fifty years doesn't make it all true.
|
|
In the case of Phillips-as-Bishop, at least, there is evidence that some
|
|
CIA people were trying to mislead the HSCA. As with the Nosenko case, the
|
|
HSCA may have bumped into issues of great sensitivity inside the CIA, where
|
|
selected facts were passed around for the purpose of making one faction or the
|
|
other look bad. (For example, one can be skeptical of the account of Angleton
|
|
making off with a photo of Oswald.)
|
|
Although I am inclined to trust the HSCA staffers who specialized in the
|
|
CIA investigation, I have many problems with what I know about the unpublished
|
|
and published investigation in other areas, and I know that some HSCA sources
|
|
doubt some conclusions of the Mexico City staff report.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>Jim Garrison -- on the bench and off the wall:</special>
|
|
In October 1985, Garrison told Ted Gandolfo that he was working on a new
|
|
book, entitled "A Farewell to Justice." He said that "there is no question in
|
|
my mind that it is the absolute and ultimate truth down to the last detail
|
|
about the Kennedy assassination," but that he can not get a publisher "because
|
|
they are controlled by the CIA." (This is from the first issue of Gandolfo's
|
|
newsletter, "Assassination U.S.A." Write him at 1214 First Ave., NYC 10021,
|
|
or ask me for information.)
|
|
Garrison sent a long letter to Louis Sproesser, a buff who inquired about
|
|
this book. [#9, 30 Dec 85, 3 pp.] The book is "completed" and being
|
|
considered by a publisher. Garrison has been working on it for four years.
|
|
Garrison's rhetoric has not softened over the years, and I'll be very
|
|
surprised if his critical attention to the facts has improved.
|
|
Judge Garrison asserts (on Court of Appeal stationery) that "Anyone who
|
|
wishes to understand the assassination, must appreciate at the outset that the
|
|
deep involvement of the Agency in the President's assassination requires that
|
|
it give the maximum reinforcement to the two major false sponsors which it has
|
|
created: Organized Crime and Fidel Castro.... If the author [of a book] so
|
|
much as infers that Organized Crime or Castro were behind what so plainly was
|
|
an <special>Agency project</special>.... then one has in his hand the typical product of one of
|
|
the Agency's stable of hungry scribes."
|
|
Garrison also disputes allegations that Organized Crime is behind him.
|
|
"While I lay no pretense to being the epitome of virtue, with regard to
|
|
connections with organized crime I think that you can safely place me as
|
|
having approximately the same such connections as Mother Theresa and Pope
|
|
Paul." Obviously the CIA's disinformation machinery is at work, he says.
|
|
(Is Garrison dropping a hint about various popes? And this "Mother Theresa,"
|
|
usually known as "Teresa" -- is she related to Vinnie Teresa?)
|
|
In particular, Garrison complains that a recent book "by a dashing
|
|
Englishman (one of the Agency's more accommodating prostitutes) refers to `a
|
|
secret meeting'" between Garrison and John Rosselli. "The `author's'
|
|
complicity in this attempted discreditation is underscored by his having had
|
|
the book published without ever troubling to learn that I have never even seen
|
|
John Rosselli in my life..."
|
|
The reference is to p. 498 of "Conspiracy," by Tony Summers (who is,
|
|
8 EOC 1 -10-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>indeed, sort of dashing), which accurately asserts that the CIA found such a
|
|
meeting "particularly disturbing." Summers quotes (but does not cite) an HSCA
|
|
staff report by Mark Flanagan, which in turn refers to an unpublished page of
|
|
the CIA Inspector General's Report. The allegation of a Garrison-Rosselli
|
|
meeting also appears on page 118 of the IG Report, which is published. (See
|
|
10 HSCA 190-1 (note 55), 4 HSCA 146-7.)
|
|
As usual, there is a trace of validity in Garrison's complaint. The IG
|
|
Report is obviously not an unimpeachable source, even if endorsed by an HSCA
|
|
staffer. But Garrison's overall certitude doesn't seem to need much anchoring
|
|
to reality.
|
|
Hurt's book includes a rather good discussion of the Garrison affair, and
|
|
of the subtleties of the interactions between Garrison, the real New Orleans
|
|
evidence about Oswald, and the vulnerability of Clay Shaw due to his
|
|
apparently irrelevant CIA links and homosexuality.
|
|
If any of you want to spring to Garrison's defense, here is my $64
|
|
question: at the time he arrested Clay Shaw, what serious evidence did he
|
|
have that he had in fact conspired with anyone to kill JFK?</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> <special>Subscription information:</special> There were only 3 issues of EOC last year.
|
|
The mimimum rate for a paid subscription is $0.05 per page plus postage, or
|
|
$1.96 for 1985 in the U.S. and Canada. For postage to Europe, add $0.48 per
|
|
issue; to Australia, $0.60. Payment must be in U.S. currency; please make any
|
|
checks payable to me, not to EOC.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> <special>Credits:</special> Thanks to S. Dorril (#8), G. Hollingsworth (6,7), H. Hurt (5),
|
|
R. Ranftel (7), and L. Sproesser (9).</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>More press coverage of Hurt's book:</special>
|
|
The following items arrived as this issue was being completed. They are
|
|
from the Chicago Sun-Times, 9 Feb 86. (Thanks to J. Gordon.)
|
|
10. "Who killed JFK? Not Oswald, book claims" [2 pp., with a big
|
|
page-one headline] Apparently based on an interview of Hurt by William Hines.
|
|
Castro "had ample reason to want Kennedy dead, Hurt said.... Revenge was
|
|
clearly Castro's motive to mount a counter-assassination campaign, and
|
|
organized crime in the U.S. was his avenue of attack." A Hurt quote is
|
|
singled out for emphasis in large type: "My feeling is that some combination
|
|
of Cuban interests and organized crime in this country pulled off the
|
|
assassination. How they did it, I don't know."
|
|
Is that reasonable? I doubt it. The book doesn't allege that, much less
|
|
make a case for it. Even if Castro was in control of Cubela, Hurt concluded,
|
|
"that does not yield a clear answer to the ultimate question of whether Castro,
|
|
as a desperate act of self-preservation, brought about the assassination.
|
|
Today, all that can be said is that whatever his connection, if any, Castro was
|
|
better served than any other leader in the world by [JFK's] death." (P. 345)
|
|
Mafia involvement in a Castro plot has been advanced from time to time,
|
|
notably by Roselli and by George Crile (who focused on the Castro-Trafficante
|
|
relationship; 5 HSCA 308-11). In their book, Blakey & Billings rejected this
|
|
theory, "because all the reasons that militated against Castro's striking at
|
|
Kennedy by himself could be applied to his doing it in conjunction with
|
|
gangsters." (P. 156) They also made the first of many obvious counter-
|
|
arguments: that Oswald, "a known leftist, pointed squarely at Castro."
|
|
11. "A Startling Confession" [3 pp.] A long article by Jim Quinlan.
|
|
"According to Hurt, the center of this historical storm was Robert Easter-
|
|
ling...." Except for a reference to Easterling's mental state, this article
|
|
applies no critical judgment to his account.
|
|
12. A photo of Hurt, and a sidebar on his secluded office in Redeye, Va.
|
|
13. Photos accompanying #11. [3 pp., routine]</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>*From Illumi-Net BBS - (404) 377-1141* [ Don's note: I doubt this BBS is
|
|
still up ].</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>---END-----------------------------------------------------------------------</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>--
|
|
-* Don Allen *- InterNet: dona@bilver.UUCP // Amiga..for the best of us.
|
|
USnail: 1818G Landing Dr, Sanford Fl 32771 \X/ Why use anything else? :-)
|
|
UUCP: ..uunet!tarpit!bilver!dona - Why did the JUSTICE DEPT steal PROMIS?
|
|
/\/\ What is research but a blind date with knowledge. William Henry /\/\</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>From: dona@bilver.uucp (Don Allen)
|
|
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
|
|
Subject: JFK Text: Echoes of Conspiracy - EOC2.TXT
|
|
<info type="Message-ID"> 1991Dec26.194933.19897@bilver.uucp</info>
|
|
Date: 26 Dec 91 19:49:33 GMT
|
|
Organization: W. J. Vermillion - Winter Park, FL
|
|
Lines: 617</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>*EOC2.TXT*</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>-----BEGIN PART 2/4-----------------------------------------------------------</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>ECHOES OF CONSPIRACY July 17, 1986
|
|
Vol. 8, #2 Paul L. Hoch</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>Quotation of the day:</special>
|
|
"An interesting theory can always outrun a set of facts," according to
|
|
psychologist A. Holliday, at a 1959 conference on LSD therapy chaired by Dr.
|
|
Paul Hoch, CIA consultant and "opinion leader."
|
|
From "Acid Dreams: The CIA, LSD, and the Sixties Rebellion," a new book
|
|
by Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain (Grove, $12.95). A fascinating social
|
|
history, particularly the chapters on the CIA's early interest in LSD.
|
|
("Funny and irreverent" - WP)
|
|
There are a few references to John and Robert Kennedy, but nothing new on
|
|
the Mary Pinchot Meyer story. If people like Meyer's friend Angleton knew of
|
|
her dabbling in drugs with Leary and apparently with JFK, did it matter? I
|
|
wonder, but the book avoids speculation along such lines. There is no mention
|
|
of "Did Lee Harvey Oswald Drop Acid?," the article co-authored by ex-AIB'er
|
|
Lee. (5 EOC 1, p. 4) (#1986.14: Publisher's press release, consisting of
|
|
advance comments by Ginsberg, Stockwell, Krassner, et al.)</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>Forthcoming TV coverage:</special>
|
|
In November, Showtime will present four hours of "The Trial of LHO," with
|
|
Vincent Bugliosi for the prosecution and Jerry Spence for the defense. (Ed
|
|
Bark, DMN, 21 Jun 86, reprinted in Coverups, 6/86 [#15].) An earlier report
|
|
by Jerry Rose identifies the producers as London Weekend Television. (See
|
|
2 3D 3.21; that is, The Third Decade, Vol. 2, #3 [Mar 1986], p. 21) Although
|
|
there are risks in having lawyers present the case, this should a good show.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>The 22nd anniversary:</special>
|
|
16. 22 Nov 85 (Fredericksburg, VA "Free Lance-Star") "JFK questions
|
|
persist" A summary of what has and hasn't happened since the HSCA report, by
|
|
guest columnist (and buff) Harry Nash. "The simple fact is that Justice, like
|
|
many agencies of government over the years, would like for the question to go
|
|
away. If you think the reason is just 'bureaucratic', think again. The
|
|
murders [of JFK and MLK] did not occur in a vacuum. William Faulkner (in
|
|
another context) said it best: 'The past isn't dead; it isn't even past.'"
|
|
This is the only anniversary article I recall which dealt with the
|
|
ongoing controversy over the assassination. Were there others? (I have the
|
|
original version of the widely publicized account of how the WC damaged the
|
|
Hoover-Warren relationship; it should be in the next EOC.)</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>The RFK case:</special>
|
|
17. 5 Mar 86 (LA Herald-Examiner) "RFK slaying report lacks all the
|
|
facts" [2 p.] Quotes Paul Schrade and Greg Stone, who said that "what is
|
|
important is the 97% of material which remains withheld." The commission
|
|
asked Mayor Bradley to form a committee to develop standards and a schedule
|
|
for release of the remaining material. This advisory panel has been set up.
|
|
People interested in encouraging fuller disclosure should get in touch
|
|
with Stone or Phil Melanson. There is much concern about the processing of
|
|
the remaining material. The summary report itself costs $150 ($0.10/page!)
|
|
plus postage, and is probably not worth it. For earlier coverage of the
|
|
release process, see 7 EOC 3, p. 1.
|
|
18. 5 Mar (NYT) "Summary of Report Released...." "Critics said the
|
|
commission's report contained nothing that was not published in [Robert
|
|
Houghton's] 1970 book...." Stone tells me that it is worse than that;
|
|
published information has now been deleted.
|
|
19. 5 Mar 86 (LAT) "Summary of Police Probe Says Sirhan Acted Alone"
|
|
[3 pp.] Page one, but hardly news. "Release of the 1,500-page summary [on
|
|
March 4] did little to mollify critics...." Schrade accused the police
|
|
commissioners of "arrogance" and challenged Chief Gates to explain the
|
|
trajectory of the bullet which struck him.
|
|
8 EOC 2 -2-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> 20. 5 Mar (SFX) "RFK murder probe is 'a P.R. gesture,' victim
|
|
complains" [2 pp.] Also quotes Prof. Melanson.
|
|
21. 4 Mar [25 pp.] Partial transcript of the board meeting, including
|
|
comments by critics.
|
|
Other March 5 reports, mostly from wire services: #22, USA Today
|
|
(incomplete copy); #23, AP; #24, Hartford Courant; #25, SFC (from LAT),
|
|
[2 pp.]; #26, Detroit News.
|
|
27. 6 Mar (LAHE) Editorial, "A call for public disclosure"
|
|
28. 9 Mar (Dubin, Phila. Inquirer) "RFK summary sharpens demands for
|
|
all files" [2 pp.] A rather good summary, including comments from Stone and
|
|
Schrade (whose doctor called it "crazy to think that Sirhan acted alone").
|
|
29. 16 Mar (Providence Journal) "Assassination and gun control: RFK
|
|
report puts spotlight on protection of president" [3 pp.] Primarily an
|
|
interview of Melanson.
|
|
30. 28 Mar (LAT) "Sirhan Denied Parole; Crime's 'Enormity' Cited"
|
|
A staff psychiatrist described him as "generally rehabilitated."</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>"Reasonable Doubt":</special>
|
|
31. 20 Apr 86 (Boston Herald) "JFK's death: Let's find the truth"
|
|
An op-ed piece by Henry Hurt, directed at Boston Congressional candidate
|
|
Joseph P. Kennedy. "The bond of silence that began with Robert Kennedy has
|
|
remained inviolate. Indeed, the members of this illustrious family are among
|
|
a tiny minority of Americans who have not vigorously debated this important
|
|
issue.... In a recent profile of Joe Kennedy in Life Magazine, he is quoted
|
|
as saying that it is time for his campaign 'to take the initiative on
|
|
something.'... If Joe Kennedy fully accepts the simplistic official version
|
|
of JFK's death, then let him say so." (Reprinted in 2 3D 4.4.)
|
|
32. (Same paper, same date) "Joe Kennedy urged to reopen JFK probe:
|
|
Author cites conspiracy theory" (but not Easterling) A page-two news story
|
|
based on an interview of Hurt. Joe Kennedy was not available for comment; his
|
|
campaign manager said he may make a statement. (As far as I know, he has made
|
|
none, and nothing has come of this.)
|
|
33. 16 Feb 86 (WP Book World) [2 pp.] Reviewer Anthony Lukas notes
|
|
that Hurt "is most convincing in his meticulous dissection of [the WC]
|
|
scenario," but "less persuasive when he seeks to assemble an alternative
|
|
scenario. Everyone in his story has a purpose.... There is little room for
|
|
chance.... And the only major piece of new evidence [Easterling's testimony]
|
|
is singularly unconvincing." Lukas concludes that, until there is access to
|
|
the secrets Hurt believes to be still locked up, "anything and everything is
|
|
possible." I don't think he is being sarcastic; perhaps Hougan's revisionist
|
|
analysis of Watergate, which Lukas took seriously (#1984.180), influenced his
|
|
perspective on the JFK case.
|
|
34. March 86 (3D) A nine-page "review essay" by Jerry Rose, positive
|
|
in general but with several points of disagreement. (You should have your
|
|
subscription copy, so I won't describe it further here.)
|
|
In response, Hurt has written a letter to Rose, challenging readers to
|
|
name another "detailed, on-the-record account of personal involvement in a
|
|
successful conspiracy." Perhaps such a distinction can be drawn, but in my
|
|
opinion the similarities between Easterling's story and many others far
|
|
outweigh the differences.
|
|
35. Mar 86 (Coverups) "Significant Doubt about 'Reasonable Doubt'"
|
|
Gary Mack considers the book "one of the most disappointing and misleading
|
|
'major' works" on the case. I disagree with some of the specific points Mack
|
|
disputes - e.g., the John Hurt phone call, and Harrelson as the tall tramp -
|
|
and I have no problem with the book leaving out the backyard photos, the
|
|
umbrella man, and even the acoustics. In any case, Mack's specifics do not
|
|
establish his most serious criticism, that the book was "very carefully,
|
|
cleverly constructed" to build a case that Castro did it, and to give the
|
|
8 EOC 2 -3-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>impression that it completely covers the major open questions. I didn't get
|
|
that impression from the book; if the Justice Department or many reviewers
|
|
were to respond that way, I would reconsider.
|
|
36. Jun 86 (Coverups) Reporter Johann Rush recounts his own
|
|
impressions of Easterling, who was trying to sell his story for money when
|
|
Rush talked to him in 1981-83. The records of the alleged "diversionary fire"
|
|
show no damage to the building, just a little to some furniture; no hydrant
|
|
was used, alleges Rush. [2 pp.]
|
|
37. 26 Jan 86 (Cincinnati Enq.) A "must read," but the reviewer
|
|
complains (with some validity) that Hurt ignored Dr. Lattimer's work on the
|
|
single-bullet theory and the head snap.
|
|
38. 9 Feb (St. Petersburg Times) "Another dubious conspiracy"
|
|
"The conspiracy theorists' main fault is that they, like Hurt, deprive Oswald
|
|
of personality."
|
|
39. 16 Feb (Baton Rouge Sun) A short review, mostly negative ("a
|
|
rehash"). "The Easterling chapter is riveting, but not worth the $19.95...."
|
|
40. 23 Feb (Richmond T-D) A mixed review by a retired member of the
|
|
Foreign Service. "The endless reporting on Easterling raises the question of
|
|
why a well-regarded journalist should have devoted so much time to 'Reasonable
|
|
Doubt.' The surest answer lies in the incredible divergence of the reports
|
|
from governmental investigations of the assassination."
|
|
41. Mar 86 (Village Voice Literary Supp.) A positive review - even
|
|
Easterling's story "compels attention" - consisting mostly of the reviewer's
|
|
favorite old anti-WC arguments. (Carl Oglesby is singled out among those who
|
|
have previously made "extremely plausible guesses" about the culprits.)
|
|
42. 3 Mar 86 (Pub. Wkly) "Challenge, Inc. Continues Two Libel Actions"
|
|
Also, David Phillips "is considering a suit" against Hurt "for allegations...
|
|
that he was 'Maurice Bishop,' CIA case officer for Lee Harvey Oswald."
|
|
43. 7 Mar 86 (SFC) "From Castro's Plot To the Botched Autopsy"
|
|
"Like the creature from the swamp in a C-grade movie, it [the case] won't be
|
|
put to rest." Tantalizing, but "conspiracy is not really explosive news at
|
|
this date unless you can name the conspirators," and Hurt's book, like the
|
|
HSCA report, "suffers from that deficiency."
|
|
44. 10 Mar 86 (Roanoke Times) "'Reasonable Doubt' a lesson for shuttle
|
|
investigation" (That is, "be thorough, get it right the first time," unlike
|
|
the Warren Commission.)
|
|
45. 12 Mar 86 My rough handwritten notes on Hurt's appearance on WWCN
|
|
radio, Albany. Does he think that "Mr. Stone" killed Tippit? Here, he says
|
|
that he has come up with the person "who probably did." Hurt thinks that JFK
|
|
would have "gotten Castro out of this hemisphere"; that LBJ thought Castro
|
|
killed JFK, and got the message, thus deciding to fight Communism in Vietnam
|
|
instead of Cuba. Given the evidence on JFK's involvement in Vietnam, and the
|
|
ongoing pressure against Castro under LBJ, this is too speculative for me.
|
|
46. 23 Mar 86 (Milwaukee Journal) "More doubt on JFK" Reviewer David
|
|
Wrone is critical of the Easterling chapter ("No cub reporter would turn in a
|
|
story like this") and of much more. The anti-WC chapters are "solid" but Hurt
|
|
"cannot evaluate witness testimony" and "is blinded by an anti-Communism"
|
|
which "enables him... to portray the murder as the work of Castro Communists
|
|
[and] the Mafia."
|
|
47. Apr 86 (Freedom) [2 pp.] A generally negative review, suggesting
|
|
that Hurt deliberately played down the possibility of government involvement.
|
|
(This monthly magazine, linked to the Scientologists, publishes investigative
|
|
reports on various important topics, but unfortunately a substantial part of
|
|
what it prints ranges from a bit overdone to quite silly indeed.)
|
|
48. 6 Apr 86 (Oakland Tribune) "Volume opens forum to more JFK
|
|
assassination theories" [2 pp.] A favorable review by Jonathan Marshall, now
|
|
the Trib's editorial page editor, focusing on Burkley, Tippit, and suppression
|
|
of evidence by federal agencies. "Worst of all, however, was the decision of
|
|
8 EOC 2 -4-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>the [HSCA] to put a 50-year seal on most of the thousands of pages of
|
|
documents it assembled. 'The irony of the situation... is clear,' noted
|
|
Berkeley-based assassination scholar Paul Hoch. 'The congressional
|
|
investigators who broke the JFK case wide open and reversed the official
|
|
government verdict have left us with more material withheld than ever
|
|
before.'" (4 EOC 5.1)
|
|
"The assassination deserves whatever study it still receives. For even
|
|
if the conspirators are never identified, much less caught, careful analysis
|
|
of the crime and its aftermath will continue to shed light on the many
|
|
political pathologies that rippled outward from the center of the
|
|
assassination itself."
|
|
49. 13 Apr 86 (Phila. Inquirer) A review by Jean Davison, author of
|
|
"Oswald's Game." (5 EOC 4) On the whole, she is not overly negative:
|
|
"Anyone who has followed the controversy will probably want to read the latest
|
|
round in the debate. Whether one agrees with them or not, conspiracy books
|
|
like this one are seldom dull."
|
|
"It is not unusual... for conspiracy theorists to make their attacks on
|
|
the Warren Report sound utterly convincing - until they try to explain what
|
|
<special>really</special> happened. Then some sticky questions inevitably arise. For instance,
|
|
why does all the physical evidence point to Oswald's rifle and to no other
|
|
weapon?... If a better rifle was used, where did its bullets go?... Hurt
|
|
provides a novel explanation.... Readers who prefer complex solutions to
|
|
simple ones will find much to admire in <special>Reasonable Doubt</special>." (She might be
|
|
wrong about any given area of evidence, but she does have a point.)
|
|
Easterling's confession "has the dreamlike quality of a delusion....
|
|
[He] seems to have been working for everyone on the conspiracy theorists' list
|
|
of Top Ten Suspects.... It seems not to have occurred to Hurt that Easterling
|
|
could have gotten many of his ideas from reading earlier books about Dallas."
|
|
(Hurt certainly did think about that explanation, but, indeed, you wouldn't
|
|
know that from the book itself.) "Sadly, Easterling's confession sounds like
|
|
an unconscious parody of the theories presented there."
|
|
50. 22 Apr 86 [3 pp.] A letter from Hurt to the Inquirer, defending
|
|
his handling of the neutron activation analysis and noting that Davison's book
|
|
was not, as the Inquirer said, "a critical examination of conspiracy theories"
|
|
but, in Davison's publisher's words, "an anti-conspiracy book about Oswald's
|
|
assassination of President Kennedy." Hurt also says "I accept Miss Davison's
|
|
attack on the credibility of Robert Easterling."
|
|
51. 19 Apr 86 (Montreal Gazette) A positive review by Brian McKenna,
|
|
who directed two CBC documentaries on the JFK case. He notes Hurt's work on a
|
|
report of Oswald handing out FPCC literature in Montreal, and regrets that
|
|
Easterling may have taken Hurt away from "more fertile trails." "In his
|
|
graceful and diplomatic treatment of the lonely work of the critics, Hurt
|
|
refrains from the poisonous backbiting that has so divided many of the best
|
|
ones over the years." (Reprinted in Coverups, June 1986)
|
|
52. (Same paper, date, and author) "How careers like Dan Rather's were
|
|
built on [the] JFK assassination" Rather told McKenna in 1978 that he
|
|
personally believed there was a conspiracy, but despite the HSCA he allegedly
|
|
continues to reflect the lone-nut view, and was among those who vetoed a
|
|
potential story by "60 Minutes" based on Lifton's evidence. Quite far out for
|
|
a sidebar (a far-out-bar?): "What this suggests is that like many high U.S.
|
|
officials in every branch of government, Rather's career and the official
|
|
story are welded together." McKenna's brings up Rather's erroneous
|
|
description of the Zapruder film, and the WC's "printing error" resulting in
|
|
transposed frames (both of which I accept as non-sinister mistakes).
|
|
53. 25 May 85 (Jackson, MS Clarion-Ledger & News) "Book explores
|
|
confession in Kennedy assassination" [2 pp.] Hurt, who used to work for the
|
|
Jackson News, met with two FBI agents "who had examined Easterling's file.
|
|
'The whole tone was, one of, "Listen, you're a fairly sensible fellow, how can
|
|
8 EOC 2 -5-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>you get taken in by this man?" And my position was I'm not being taken in by
|
|
him. I'm trying to find out the full story. I don't understand why you folks
|
|
haven't taken a more vigorous interest in the man,' Hurt said.... Attempts to
|
|
contact the FBI about Easterling's story were unsuccessful." (#53a: an
|
|
accompanying review, not noteworthy.)
|
|
There is some interesting information on Hurt (rather than on the case)
|
|
in the following articles from Virginia papers, which are mostly profiles
|
|
based in part on interviews:
|
|
54. 16 Feb 86 (Danville Register) [3 pp.; photo: #54A]
|
|
55. 9 Mar (Richmond T-D) [2 pp.]
|
|
56. 10-12 Mar (Lynchburg News) [5 pp.] Also quotes Ed Tatro.
|
|
57. 16 Mar (Roanoke Times) [2 pp.]
|
|
A few more reviews, short and/or not particularly noteworthy: #58 (19
|
|
Jan), Fort Wayne Journal; #59 (23 Jan), Macon, MS Beacon; #60 (16 Feb),
|
|
Anniston, AL Star; #61, Detroit News; #62 (24 Apr), Daily Express (UK).</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>More thoughts the murder of Officer Tippit:</special>
|
|
Several people have challenged me to explain how Tippit's affair might
|
|
have actually played a role in the events of November 22. Indeed, it would be
|
|
quite a coincidence if he happened to be the victim of a killer with a
|
|
personal grudge just when Oswald was in the vicinity. Such things do happen -
|
|
that's why they are called coincidences - and it is plausible that the DPD
|
|
would have used the dead Oswald to clear up an unsolved crime. But a more
|
|
complex scenario may make more sense. Joanne Braun speculates that Tippit's
|
|
problems may have caused him to go to some unsavory characters for help, for
|
|
example to get some money which his wife would not know about, and that he may
|
|
have gotten entangled with, and in debt to, some hypothetical conspirators,
|
|
who then set him up as they set Oswald up. Also, David Lifton reminded me of
|
|
the eyewitness evidence suggesting that Tippit had been waiting for someone
|
|
coming from the same direction as Oswald. (Ramparts, Nov 66) And of course
|
|
Tippit's affair might explain only why he was in Oak Cliff.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>Judge Garrison responds (and Hoch dissents):</special>
|
|
Ted Gandolfo sent Jim Garrison part of 8 EOC 1, and sent me a copy of
|
|
Garrison's reply. (Letter of 14 Apr 86 to Gandolfo, #1986.63; quoted almost
|
|
in full here.)
|
|
The Judge had "nothing to say concerning [Hoch's] comments about me.
|
|
Frankly, I found them to be incoherent."
|
|
"I cannot guess as to the origin of his emotional hang up [sic] about me.
|
|
In any case, I will not attempt to reply to him in a similar vein...." Some
|
|
of my earlier research on the assassination was "quite competent. Moreover --
|
|
in view of the solid front presented by the federal government in its cover-up
|
|
of the assassination -- it seems to me childlike for one assassination critic
|
|
to attempt to dis-credit another publicly." (I suppose calling Tony Summers
|
|
"one of the [CIA's] more accomodating prostitutes" doesn't count.)
|
|
"One statement of Hoch's, however, does concern me enough to require a
|
|
comment. He refers to the 'vulnerability of Clay Shaw due to his apparently
|
|
irrelevant C.I.A. links and homosexuality.' Mr. Hoch should go straight to
|
|
the bathroom and wash his mouth with soap."
|
|
"Throughout our trial, in everything I have ever written and in every
|
|
public statement I have ever made -- I never once have made any reference to
|
|
Clay Shaw's alleged homosexuality. What sort of human being is Mr. Hoch that
|
|
he is impelled to so gratuitously make such a reference in a newsletter which
|
|
he widely distributes to the public? For all his faults or virtues, Shaw is
|
|
dead and unable to defend himself from that kind of off the wall canard. No
|
|
matter how virtuously Hoch might couch it, a smear is still a smear."
|
|
I will let you decide if my reference (or Hurt's) was gratuitous. Out
|
|
here, referring to someone's homosexuality stopped being a canard years ago;
|
|
8 EOC 2 -6-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>at least, it's not as serious as charging someone with conspiring to kill JFK.
|
|
Does Garrison now think Shaw was involved in the conspiracy which led to
|
|
JFK's death? If so, the reference to "all his faults or virtues" is
|
|
remarkably mild.
|
|
In 1969, J. Edgar Hoover himself called me "a smear artist", for
|
|
suggesting that there may have been an undisclosed relationship between Oswald
|
|
and the FBI. [#64, 2 pp.] So Garrison is in good company.
|
|
As for my question in 8 EOC 1 about Garrison's case, asking what evidence
|
|
he had when he arrested Shaw: The most enthusiastic answer came from
|
|
Gandolfo, who said, "Did't you know that Shaw was connected with Permindex,
|
|
which just happens to be one of the most efficient assassination organizations
|
|
around?? Didn't you know that Shaw was CIA?" Also, Shaw's friend Ferrie was
|
|
CIA and there is Russo's testimony. That is, of course, exactly the sort of
|
|
evidence which I did know about but which does not relate to my question.
|
|
Gandolfo also promised to expose me as "just a CIA coverup bastard" in
|
|
his newsletter, to which I do not subscribe. Does anyone out there want to
|
|
send me a copy?
|
|
The best semi-serious answer came from Robert Ranftel and Jim Lesar, who
|
|
sent me an FBI letterhead memo dated March 2, 1967, the day after Shaw's
|
|
arrest. (#65, 2 pp.) The memo, discussed in Hurt's book (p. 281), notes that
|
|
one of Shaw's alleged homosexual contacts said on March 19, 1964, that Shaw
|
|
was into S&M. On February 24, 1967, two sources reported that they thought
|
|
Shaw had "homosexual tendencies," and two sources (possibly the same ones)
|
|
indicated that Shaw was Clay Bertrand, who allegedly contacted Dean Andrews on
|
|
Oswald's behalf. Unnamed FBI sources are not necessarily reliable, but in any
|
|
case none of this evidence even suggests that Shaw conspired with anyone to
|
|
kill JFK. Sorry, but the prize for my $64 question remains unawarded.
|
|
Incidentally, Lou Sproesser pointed out a problem with the Hurt-HSCA
|
|
hypothesis that Banister, not Shaw, was with Oswald and Ferrie in Clinton.
|
|
Marshall J. Manchester testified at the Shaw trial that he checked out the car
|
|
and that Shaw said he was from the Trade Mart. (NYT, 7 Feb 69, 2 pp., #66)
|
|
Manchester is not necessarily credible, but this shows that untangling the
|
|
Clinton story by believing just some of the testimony is not easy.
|
|
While I was in the mood to discredit my fellow critics, I came across a
|
|
letter from Garrison to "Freedom" (May 1986, #67) which is worth some
|
|
attention. It offers a rare opportunity to scrutinize Garrison's analytical
|
|
work in an area where the evidence is accessible and not crucial.
|
|
I think the buffs should keep in mind that what got many of us into the
|
|
case in the first place was the demonstrable inadequacy of the Warren Report -
|
|
for example, conclusions and summaries in the Report which did not even
|
|
adequately reflect the published evidence, much less what was not published.
|
|
In my own case, at least, the inference was that any investigation which was
|
|
so clearly unreliable on details could certainly not be trusted to get the
|
|
difficult and uncheckable answers right.
|
|
These days, assertions by Garrison and his ilk tend to get accepted into
|
|
the mythology of the case if they sound plausible, without much detailed
|
|
scrutiny. It is not easy to deal with most such claims. For example, no
|
|
matter how exaggerated Garrison's (or Sprague's) comments about the HSCA staff
|
|
and investigation under Blakey seem, and how implausible their conclusions
|
|
about what was behind the HSCA, most of the rebuttal evidence is known only to
|
|
HSCA people, and everyone who dealt with the HSCA knows their investigation
|
|
was inadequate in many ways - at least in many small areas. So, it is hard to
|
|
argue against the conclusions of Garrison or Sprague (either Sprague, in fact)
|
|
without seeming to defend certain indefensible aspects of the HSCA's work.
|
|
Likewise, when implausible things are said about Oswald in New Orleans
|
|
(by the HSCA) or about Cuban exiles, one may be reluctant to be properly
|
|
critical if one believes, as most of us do, that those areas probably are
|
|
central, and that someone might well have come up with new and important
|
|
8 EOC 2 -7-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>(but unverifiable) evidence.
|
|
So I have no qualms about taking a close look at Garrison's charge that
|
|
the Warren Commission may have relied on a CIA asset to solve one evidentiary
|
|
problem. Garrison wrote that an earlier "Freedom" article on Hemingway "may
|
|
have contributed to the identification of a possible CIA 'asset.'" In about
|
|
1961, Dr. Howard Rome, a Mayo Clinic psychiatrist, gave Hemingway shock
|
|
treatments. In September 1964, Rome gave the WC an analysis of Oswald, which
|
|
"would appear to have been obtained and inserted just prior to the printing
|
|
deadline in order to mask one of the major holes still remaining in the
|
|
official fiction: Oswald's motivation. The thrust of Dr. Rome's evaluation
|
|
was that Oswald's spelling problem was not inconsistent with his having
|
|
murdered the president of the United States." In Wesley Liebeler's words,
|
|
"the frustration which may have resulted [from Oswald's reading-spelling
|
|
difficulty] gave an added impetus to his need to prove to the world that he
|
|
was an unrecognized 'great man.'"
|
|
Garrison does qualify his factual conclusion (enough to make it
|
|
nonlibelous?): "One cannot ignore the fact that it is just possible that Dr.
|
|
Rome might have been functioning all along primarily as an agency 'asset.'"
|
|
Then he takes off again: "Those men who function clandestinely as CIA assets
|
|
will do anything and help destroy anyone for a share of the CIA's cornucopia.
|
|
To give but one example, consider how successful the media and 'journalistic
|
|
author' assets have been in giving life to the two remaining scapegoats in the
|
|
JFK assassination -- Fidel Castro and organized crime."
|
|
It is the jump to such a broad allegation which justifies attention to
|
|
Garrison's comments on the Rome matter. His analysis is, basically,
|
|
unsupported by the evidence Garrison himself refers to, and to some degree
|
|
contradicted by it. Some terse one-word assessments spring to mind, but I
|
|
don't want to be told again to wash my mouth out with soap.
|
|
The details are not interesting enough to reproduce here, but I'll send
|
|
my analysis to anyone who wants it, at no charge. (#68, 3 pp.) If very few
|
|
people ask for it, I'll probably draw some inferences from that.
|
|
One question for the third decade (and for Jerry Rose's journal as well)
|
|
is how to deal with the survival of myths about the assassination other than
|
|
the Warren Commission's. That is, what is the role of "scholarly research"
|
|
when many of the people still interested in the case are sure that the head
|
|
snap proves there was a shot from the front, that the single-bullet theory is
|
|
a joke, that the HSCA's primary goal was to hide the truth, or that Garrison
|
|
solved the case with the arrest of Clay Shaw?
|
|
The April and May 1986 issues of "Freedom" include a long article by
|
|
Richard E. (critic) Sprague and two "Freedom" staffers, "The Ultimate Cover-
|
|
up," focusing on the CIA, the HSCA, Ruby, and mind control. (There are also
|
|
parts of a long series by Fletcher Prouty on the CIA, dealing with the
|
|
assassination in the May issue.) Each issue is $1.50 from 1301 N. Catalina
|
|
St., Los Angeles, CA 90027. Certainly many of the details are correct, and
|
|
maybe some of the big charges are, but I do not think these articles
|
|
consistently meet essential standards of exposition and logical argument.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>The supporters and friends of Paulino Sierra:</special>
|
|
What follows is essentially the complete text of a letter I sent to the
|
|
Justice Department on May 13, 1986. Once again, an assassination lead brings
|
|
us back to the hidden history of the Kennedy administration's war against
|
|
Cuba.
|
|
In connection with the Justice Department review of the report of the
|
|
House Select Committee on Assassinations, I would like to bring to your
|
|
attention one area in which the report was incomplete. I believe that the
|
|
published information may be unfair to one of the named individuals, Paulino
|
|
Sierra Martinez.
|
|
Mr. Sierra is mentioned on page 134 of the HSCA report, which states that
|
|
8 EOC 2 -8-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>a certain "arms deal was being financed through one Paulino Sierra Martinez by
|
|
hoodlum elements in Chicago and elsewhere." A staff report on the organi-
|
|
zation he headed (JGCE, the Junta del Gobierno de Cuba en el Exilio) is
|
|
published in Vol. l0, pp. 95-103. This HSCA report appears to be based
|
|
entirely on a review of existing documents (mostly from FBI and CIA files).
|
|
The HSCA's information relating to Sierra is summarized in a book by HSCA
|
|
staff members Robert Blakey and Richard Billings, "The Plot to Kill the
|
|
President." The Sierra material takes up a substantial part of the chapter
|
|
entitled "Cuban Exiles and the Motive of Revenge."
|
|
Blakey and Billings said that a "background check [on Sierra] stimulated
|
|
our interest in a Cuban exile - Mafia connection that just might have had a
|
|
bearing on the assassination."
|
|
Sierra reportedly said that he had backers who would provide a large sum
|
|
of money - $30 million - to finance an invasion of Cuba. "Sierra was saying
|
|
publicly that it [the money] was being donated by U.S. corporations whose
|
|
assets in Cuba had been expropriated.... According to several sources, the
|
|
real benefactors were members of the underworld, whose gambling interests in
|
|
Cuba had indeed been expropriated by Castro.... There were other indications
|
|
that organized-crime figures were behind the Sierra plan...." By June 1963,
|
|
the FBI in Chicago concluded that Sierra was "a con artist."
|
|
Blakey and Billings said that they "were able to document in detail
|
|
Sierra's activities and his apparent connection, or that of his backers, to
|
|
organized crime," but that "the relevance to the assassination remained
|
|
undetermined." (P. 174)
|
|
My colleague Peter Dale Scott and I studied the HSCA's Sierra material in
|
|
some detail when the report was published. At first, Scott (like Blakey and
|
|
Billings) was interested in the apparent connections between Sierra and
|
|
various people whose names had become familiar in the JFK assassination
|
|
controversy. (For example, Antonio Veciana, Gerry Patrick Hemming, and Rich
|
|
Lauchli.) Scott found additional possibilities for links between Sierra's
|
|
associates and Lee Harvey Oswald.
|
|
Scott came to doubt Blakey's belief that organized crime was the dominant
|
|
force behind Sierra's Junta. Scott interviewed a number of the principals,
|
|
including Sierra. (Sierra's employer, William Browder, essentially supported
|
|
Sierra's account of the formation of the JGCE.) Sierra was displeased that
|
|
the HSCA had depicted him in such a sinister light, and that he had not been
|
|
interviewed by the Committee or its staff.
|
|
Sierra specifically objected to the implication that he was working in
|
|
opposition to the policy of the Federal government. According to Blakey and
|
|
Billings, "Sierra told the exile leaders that he spoke for a group of American
|
|
businessmen in Chicago who wanted to join forces with them to overthrow
|
|
Castro, with or without the approval of the U.S. government." (P. 174)
|
|
Scott found a published reference to Sierra which indicates that he was
|
|
indeed coordinating some of his actions with the U.S. government at a high
|
|
level.
|
|
In his biography of Robert Kennedy, Arthur Schlesinger discussed an anti-
|
|
Castro operation in Central America involving Manuel Artime. "Hal Hendrix of
|
|
the <special>Miami News</special> supposed [this operation was] managed either by CIA or, 'on a
|
|
hip pocket basis,' by the Attorney General [Robert Kennedy] himself." Luis
|
|
Somoza, "son of the thieving Nicaraguan dictator," tried to learn of the
|
|
attitude of the U.S. government toward that operation. Somoza "was soon
|
|
telling Carribean notables that he had received a 'green light' from Robert
|
|
Kennedy...."
|
|
Schlesinger noted that a State Department official said that Somoza had
|
|
not in fact gotten that approval, when Somoza's claims were repeated to him in
|
|
a meeting in August 1963.
|
|
Scott was able to obtain a memorandum concerning that meeting under the
|
|
Freedom of Information Act.... (Memo by John H. Crimmins, Coordinator of
|
|
8 EOC 2 -9-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Cuban Affairs in the State Department, August 17, 1963)
|
|
The man who repeated Somoza's claims was Paulino Sierra, who said that he
|
|
had been in touch with Somoza, who had offered him a site for a base. "Sierra
|
|
and Rivero said they had to know what truth there was in Somoza's assertion
|
|
about U.S. support for him before deciding whether to accept his offer or to
|
|
go it alone." (Crimmins memo, p. 2)
|
|
Sierra and his associate, Felipe Rivero, described themselves as
|
|
"[d]evoted... to the United States and conscious of the need to do nothing
|
|
that would run counter to U.S. policy." (P. 4) Sierra "emphasized again the
|
|
desire of his supporters not to operate contrary to U.S. policy." (P. 6)
|
|
Prior to the meeting, the Attorney General's office informed Crimmins
|
|
that "the Attorney General had been talking to Enrique Ruiz Williams and that,
|
|
as a result, Dr. Sierra would be calling [Crimmins] for an appointment."
|
|
Williams, also known as Harry Williams, is generally considered to have been
|
|
Robert Kennedy's principal liaison with the anti-Castro Cuban community.
|
|
In his phone call, Sierra apparently suggested that Williams was a "mutual
|
|
friend" of himself and Crimmins.
|
|
It is possible, of course, that this contact with the government was an
|
|
attempt by Sierra to provide a cover for his true motives. However, Scott
|
|
believes that the operations of the Junta may have been part of the policy of
|
|
"autonomous operations" against Cuba, which was formally approved in June
|
|
1963. While the Kennedy administration was openly cracking down on the most
|
|
prominent anti-Castro groups operating in the U.S., it was also encouraging
|
|
deniable operations abroad.
|
|
According to the HSCA, State Department counsel Walt Rostow "proposed a
|
|
'track two' approach to Cuban operations to parallel regular CIA-controlled
|
|
Cuban teams." The U.S. "would provide general advice, funds and material
|
|
support," but "would publicly deny any participation in the groups[']
|
|
activities." "All operations had to be mounted outside the territory of the
|
|
United States." (10 HSCA 77)
|
|
In contrast, Blakey and Billings emphasized that when Sierra came on the
|
|
scene in Miami just a month earlier, in May 1963, "the exile movement was in
|
|
disarray: the United States had just stopped funding the Cuban Revolutionary
|
|
Council; U.S. law enforcement agencies were cracking down on guerrilla
|
|
activities; and factions within the exile community were politically
|
|
polarized...." (P. 171)
|
|
Blakey and Billings noted that Sierra was "virtually unknown (his only
|
|
mark of public prominence was that he had formed a Cuban lawyers association
|
|
in Chicago)...." (P. l7l) After talking with Sierra, Scott concluded (with
|
|
support from documents at the Kennedy Library) that Robert Kennedy's office
|
|
was worried about the many Cuban exile professionals who were doing menial
|
|
work in the U.S., and directly encouraged the formation of such organizations.
|
|
That is, Sierra's previous public activity may be not an exception to his
|
|
relative obscurity but a clue to his key sources of support.
|
|
As Schlesinger noted, the record of the mid-1963 anti-Castro efforts
|
|
based in Central America "is unusually murky." Someone in the CIA got the
|
|
Crimmins memo, although its existence is not reflected in the CIA material
|
|
quoted by the HSCA. Blakey and Billings quoted a CIA memo dated two days
|
|
before the assassination of President Kennedy, whose author reportedly found
|
|
it "curious that Sierra had for so long managed to hold a position in the
|
|
exile hierarchy: 'Perhaps his mysterious backers are providing him with
|
|
sufficient funds to keep the pot boiling....'" (Pp. 173-4)
|
|
To improve the historical record, I think that the Justice Department
|
|
should at least perform a more complete file review than reflected by the
|
|
published HSCA material.
|
|
In addition, any surviving principals should be allowed to respond to the
|
|
HSCA's charge that the JGCE may have been a tool of organized crime.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>8 EOC 2 -10-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> 69. Excerpts from Schlesinger, "Robert Kennedy and his Times."
|
|
70. Crimmins memo, 17 Aug 63, 6 pp.
|
|
In an informal interview published in "Lobster" (#1985.99), Peter Scott
|
|
apparently gave Robin Ramsay his "three-hurricane theory" of the
|
|
assassination. That expression, from Mark Allen, derives from a powerful
|
|
alcoholic drink popular in New Orleans, after three of which any buff will
|
|
tell you what he <special>really</special> thinks happened in Dallas.
|
|
"I think that the Kennedys really had started a new type of Cuban exile
|
|
movement against Castro, the chief element of which was that there would be
|
|
money to go anywhere else they liked, in the Caribbean, to find their bases.
|
|
They would get money for training and they would get a green light, but it
|
|
meant the Cubans got out of the U.S.... And I think this operation was
|
|
penetrated from the very beginning. This may be the key to the assassination,
|
|
in fact. [Ramsay: Penetrated by whom?] First of all by the CIA because they
|
|
wanted to know what was going on, for a minimum. But this was another slap at
|
|
them: the Kennedys doing what they were supposed to do. And they, that is
|
|
the CIA, were being accused by Bobby Kennedy of having dealt with organized
|
|
crime people. And I think the first thing the CIA did was to get Cubans into
|
|
the operation who quickly turned round and started dealing with organized
|
|
crime figures. This was the so-called Junta.... The CIA files on this
|
|
operation, the Junta, make it look more and more like an organized crime
|
|
operation from beginning to end. The House Committee, rather foolishly,
|
|
without interviewing anybody, put the contents of this file into Vol. 10 of
|
|
its report as if it were all fact. Now, what a perfectly invulnerable vantage
|
|
point to have shot Kennedy from, if you used the assets of that operation to
|
|
kill him. That would explain Bobby's sense of paralysis, because it was his
|
|
operation."
|
|
Based on what I know at the moment (i.e., not counting all the material
|
|
from Scott which I have forgotten), the possibility of relevance to Oswald or
|
|
the assassination is intriguing, but it seems so tentative, indirect, and
|
|
speculative that I don't want to offer a further opinion at the moment.
|
|
In any event, the Sierra story says something interesting about the HSCA
|
|
investigation. Putting it as generously as possible, it suggests that
|
|
Blakey's expertise in finding organized crime links had the effect of a filter
|
|
in a case where obscure links also pointed in other directions. This problem
|
|
differed from those the HSCA faced with Oswald and Ruby, where most of the
|
|
alternative interpretations were well known in advance. I am not saying that
|
|
the organized-crime angle was definitely absent, but the actual situation
|
|
regarding Sierra was both more complicated and more interesting than the
|
|
Blakey & Billings version indicates.
|
|
Peter Scott's half of the unpublished 1980 book "Beyond Conspiracy" dealt
|
|
in part with the milieu of the Chicago Junta, and related matters. Although
|
|
the manuscript was set aside after Pocket Books decided not to publish it, we
|
|
have not forgotten about it and still hope to get the information out in due
|
|
course.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>Credits:</special>
|
|
This issue of EOC is dedicated to the memory of my mother, Dr. Cornelia
|
|
Hoch-Ligeti, who died in May at age 79, after a long career in medical
|
|
research. (WP, 31 May, p. B6)
|
|
Thanks to T. Cwiek (#49), T. Gandolfo (63), G. Hollingsworth (30),
|
|
H. Hurt (37-42, 44, 49-50, 53-60), F. Krstulja (19, 22), P. Lambert (19),
|
|
M. Lee (14), H. Livingstone (51-2), B. McKenna (51-2), G. Mack (15, 35-6),
|
|
J. Marshall (18, 20), P. Melanson (27, 29), J. Mierzejewski (26, 61), H. Nash
|
|
(16), R. Ranftel (33, 41, 65), M. Reynolds (41), J. Rose (34), M. Royden (62),
|
|
P. Scott (69-70), G. Stone (17-8, 21, 28), E. Tatro (31-2), and D. Wrone (46).
|
|
And thanks to L. Iacocca and Cheerios for the address labels.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>*From Illumi-Net BBS - (404) 377-1141* [ Don's note: I doubt this BBS is
|
|
still up ]</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>---END-----------------------------------------------------------------------</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>--
|
|
-* Don Allen *- InterNet: dona@bilver.UUCP // Amiga..for the best of us.
|
|
USnail: 1818G Landing Dr, Sanford Fl 32771 \X/ Why use anything else? :-)
|
|
UUCP: ..uunet!tarpit!bilver!dona - Why did the JUSTICE DEPT steal PROMIS?
|
|
/\/\ What is research but a blind date with knowledge. William Henry /\/\</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>From: dona@bilver.uucp (Don Allen)
|
|
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
|
|
Subject: JFK Text: Echoes of Conspiracy - EOC3.TXT
|
|
<info type="Message-ID"> 1991Dec26.195034.19962@bilver.uucp</info>
|
|
Date: 26 Dec 91 19:50:34 GMT
|
|
Organization: W. J. Vermillion - Winter Park, FL
|
|
Lines: 613</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>*EOC3.TXT*</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>---BEGIN PART 3/4-------------------------------------------------------------</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>ECHOES OF CONSPIRACY October 31, 1986
|
|
Vol. 8, #3 Paul L. Hoch</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>The acoustical evidence:</special>
|
|
One reason for questioning the authenticity of the DPD Dictabelt is the
|
|
presence of certain messages relating to Officer Tippit. Basically, the
|
|
following exchanges are suspect because of their content, the formal tone of
|
|
transmissions 590 and 592, and the apparent absence of the expected reaction.
|
|
(See 3 EOC 7.2. The message numbers and the transcriptions are from the
|
|
Kimbrough transcript.)
|
|
389. [Disp.] 87, 78, move into central Oak Cliff Area.
|
|
390. [78 (Tippit)] 78, I'm about Kiest and Bonnie View.
|
|
391. [87 (Nelson)] 87's going north on Marsalis on R. L. Thornton.
|
|
392. [Disp.] 10-4....
|
|
588-589 [Disp.] 78. [78] 78.
|
|
590. [Disp.] You are in the Oak Cliff area, are you not?
|
|
591. [78] Lancaster and Eighth.
|
|
592. [Disp.] You will be at large for any emergency that comes in.
|
|
583. [78] 10-4.
|
|
I sent my analysis to Prof. Murray Miron, a psycholinguist whose work on
|
|
another case was described in 8 EOC 1.2. The following is from a letter I
|
|
sent to the Justice Department on September 16, 1986, describing his
|
|
independent analysis, which provided some support for my own work:
|
|
"Prof. Miron... has not yet prepared a formal report, but he has provided
|
|
me with the following conclusions: 'Our preliminary findings... suggest that
|
|
the communications directed to Officer Tippit are anomalously at variance with
|
|
the other transmissions of the tape record.... The transmissions to Tippit
|
|
are quite stilted. They have the appearance of transmissions made more for an
|
|
audience's benefit than those for which the intent is to convey instructions.
|
|
The query regarding Tippit's current position is rhetorical rather than
|
|
questioning.'"
|
|
"Prof. Miron emphasized to me that his analysis does not preclude a quite
|
|
innocent explanation for the anomaly. The messages could have been added to
|
|
the recording after the fact, or they might have been made in 'real time' but
|
|
sound anomalous because the persons involved knew that something unusual was
|
|
going on."
|
|
"For example, if Tippit was taking time to attend to personal business
|
|
(as suggested by Mr. Hurt's book), a dispatcher might have covered for him by
|
|
assigning him to the Oak Cliff area, with his voice betraying his knowledge
|
|
that the assignment was not routine but somehow designed to keep Tippit out of
|
|
trouble. (This is clearly speculation, of course.)"
|
|
"Even alteration of the recording after Tippit's death could have been
|
|
motivated by nothing worse than a desire to protect his reputation."
|
|
"On the other hand, the rebuttal of the HSCA's acoustical analysis by the
|
|
Ramsey Panel rested in part on the belief that the police would not tamper
|
|
with important evidence."
|
|
The rest of this letter [#71; 4 pp., including my 1981 letter to Barger
|
|
on these messages] mostly repeats information from EOC (e.g., 7 EOC 2.2), with
|
|
one other new point:
|
|
"Mr. Todd Vaughan sent me a copy of a letter from the National Archives
|
|
to him, dated March 2, 1982. [#1986.72] In response to an inquiry about the
|
|
disposition of the Dallas Police Dictabelts, Mr. George Perros told Vaughan
|
|
that the Justice Department, since receiving that evidence from the HSCA, has
|
|
'returned it to the Dallas Police Department, according to an official of the
|
|
Justice Department.' I hope that you did keep copies; in any event I think
|
|
you really should get the originals back."
|
|
Unfortunately, it is very unlikely that anyone will do anything with
|
|
this; my letters to Justice are not even routinely acknowledged these days.
|
|
As far as I know, the JD has neither finished nor abandoned its long-overdue
|
|
review of the HSCA report.
|
|
8 EOC 3 -2-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>London Weekend Television program:</special>
|
|
73. 31 Jul 86 (NY Post) "23 year[s] later, Oswald goes on trial"
|
|
Twenty-five witnesses recently appeared before TV cameras (and a judge and
|
|
jury from Dallas) in London. They included medical, forensic, and ballistics
|
|
experts, and some eyewitnesses; several were not called by the Warren
|
|
Commission. The verdict is being kept secret. Edited highlights will be
|
|
shown on two nights, around November 22.
|
|
Harry Chandler, director of program development at Showtime, said that
|
|
some of the witnesses "had a real tough time on the stand. It was
|
|
fascinating. There were matters brought up which were not considered by the
|
|
Warren Commission, matters relating to the body of the President and his
|
|
wounds. The jury saw a version of the Zapruder film... which was enhanced...
|
|
and there was information in the stills I was unaware of."
|
|
"Said prosecutor [Vincent] Bugliosi: 'In the future, this is the
|
|
document that researchers into the assassination will want to get their hands
|
|
on.' Defense attorney [Gerry] Spence: 'It doesn't matter who won the case.
|
|
The American people are the winners here.'" Spence is good at dramatically
|
|
presenting the innocence and virtue of his clients - probably not the best way
|
|
to get at the historical truth about Oswald, but we'll see.
|
|
I hope that LWT will be able to make available any information which was
|
|
too complicated for TV but of potential value to researchers. Letters to
|
|
Showtime can't hurt.
|
|
74. 16 Jul 86 (AP) General comments by a LWT spokesman. The program
|
|
"would be 'a documentary exercise, not a dramatized reconstruction.'" It
|
|
"would be modeled on the company's recent mock trial of... King Richard III."
|
|
75. 16 Jul 86 (AP) Comments by U.S. District Judge Lucius Bunton (a
|
|
cousin of LBJ), who was to play the judge (trying the case under present
|
|
federal law, not 1963 Texas law).</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>Also on TV:</special>
|
|
I missed "Yuri Nosenko, KGB" on HBO in September. Would someone like to
|
|
give us more information than these clippings?
|
|
76. 31 Aug 86 (NYT) The story is told "from the perspective of the CIA
|
|
agent [in the Soviet Bloc Division, under Angleton] who virtually scuttled his
|
|
own career by insisting that Mr. Nosenko was a Soviet double-agent sent to
|
|
spread disinformation." British playwright Stephen Davis said he "spent six
|
|
months trailing around after people from the intelligence community who were
|
|
centrally involved."
|
|
77. 5 Sep (LAT) A very favorable review. Davis' best guess: Nosenko
|
|
was a disinformation agent whose "job was to be dangled in front of the CIA in
|
|
Europe, but... he was not supposed to defect.... The central mystery is why
|
|
the CIA went to such extraordinary lengths to rehabilitate Nosenko, as if he
|
|
had been trustworthy. I think the case is unresolvable."
|
|
78. 5 Sep (UPI) The 90-minute program is "fascinating... history."
|
|
79. Sep 86 (Cable Guide) [2 pp.] "Davis spent a year researching the
|
|
script with the help of Edward Jay Epstein." The Russian emigre actor who
|
|
played Nosenko thinks he was a real defector. Davis concluded that "every way
|
|
you turn it around you find it's like a Rubik's Cube that won't ever quite
|
|
work out." Not a bad analogy for the whole JFK case.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>Worthy organizations:</special>
|
|
If you did not get a letter from AARC in mid-August, please ask me for a
|
|
copy. (#80, 2 pp., no charge) This includes a "special plea for permanent
|
|
members" from Bud Fensterwald. The primary goal is not to get the membership
|
|
fees, but to demonstrate a substantial degree of public support when
|
|
approaching private foundations - the few which are willing to become involved
|
|
with such a controversial topic. Institutional memberships would be
|
|
particularly appreciated.
|
|
8 EOC 3 -3-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Item #80 also includes a progress report, dated August 1. Among other
|
|
things, Jeff Meek's massive index of (mostly) published JFK material has been
|
|
computerized. I am now on the Board of Advisors, not the Board of Directors.
|
|
"The Third Decade" (see 6 EOC 4.4) needs (and deserves) more subscribers.
|
|
I have a descriptive form letter from FAIR, "Fairness & Accuracy in
|
|
Reporting." [#81, Sep 86, 2 pp.] The director of this new progressive
|
|
counterpart to AIM is Jeff Cohen; fellow AIB veterans Marty Lee and Bob Katz
|
|
are also involved. FAIR has been involved "in the effort to expose and
|
|
counteract ABC's pending 12-hour miniseries, 'Amerika.'"</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>The saga of Earl and Edgar:</special>
|
|
A story on the Warren Commission got a lot of newspaper play on the day
|
|
after Thanksgiving last year - remarkable, even though that was, as usual, a
|
|
slow news day. As noted in the NYT's news summary (#82, 29 Nov 85), the WCR
|
|
"apparently ended a long political alliance between [Warren and Hoover],
|
|
according to Government documents just released. The commission criticized
|
|
the FBI for what it called its 'unduly restrictive view of its role in
|
|
preventive intelligence.' Mr. Hoover said the criticism was unjust."
|
|
The story itself appeared on page 32, with a Durham (NC) dateline, as a
|
|
"special to the NYT" with no authorship indicated. (#83, with photos) The
|
|
article seems rather unfocused. (It does not even specify what 1300-page file
|
|
had been released under FOIA; it was the FBI's file on Warren.)
|
|
Among other things, the dispute got Warren dropped from Hoover's list of
|
|
favored correspondents, although he had been there on a first-name basis.
|
|
The NYT story derived from an article in the Durham Morning Herald by
|
|
Durham lawyer Alexander Charnes (aided by a grant from the Fund for
|
|
Investigative Journalism). [#84, 24 Nov 85, 3 pp.] Experts quoted include
|
|
Harold Weisberg, who "believes that Warren knew that the FBI was withholding"
|
|
but "felt that it was his 'national duty to preserve tranquility,'... and
|
|
therefore... did not press the FBI." (Charnes noted that some of his
|
|
information came from previously released documents which Weisberg had.)
|
|
Warren biographer Edward White said that "the chief justice really believed,
|
|
given what they were investigating, that the FBI and CIA would cooperate with
|
|
the commission."
|
|
The rift is not news to us; it was mentioned in some of the press
|
|
coverage of the 1977 FBI release. Charnes' account emphasizes how closely
|
|
Hoover cooperated with Warren in previous years.
|
|
The topic of the FBI-WC interaction (expecially on the question of what
|
|
the FBI knew about Oswald) has long been a special interest of mine. It was
|
|
the subject of a draft manuscript which I put together in 1972, in those pre-
|
|
Watergate days when I thought what we had to do was persuade some people, with
|
|
detailed arguments based on WC documents, that just maybe the Warren
|
|
Commission (without being part of a conspiracy) had blown it. That manuscript
|
|
is quite out of date, of course. Now I often find myself trying to convince
|
|
people that the original investigation was not simply a complete and
|
|
deliberate coverup. The released FBI documents tend to support my original
|
|
analysis - although the FBI's hostility was far worse than I could infer from
|
|
the WC files. The manuscript did serve some purposes; among other things, I
|
|
think it led the HSCA to uncover much of the story of the deletion of the
|
|
Hosty entry from the FBI listing of Oswald's notebook. (HSCAR 186) If you
|
|
did not see that 1972 manuscript long ago, please let me know if you are
|
|
interested. (98 pages, each two reduced pages of double-spaced clean
|
|
typescript; index included; cost (including postage): $6 or less, depending
|
|
on the number of requests received by January 1, 1987.)</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>A break from clippings (for the rest of this issue, at least):</special>
|
|
Current clippings are generally less interesting than, e.g., old
|
|
8 EOC 3 -4-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>clippings and the HSCA volumes. What are people interested in reading about
|
|
in EOC, or getting copies of? (My Garrison analysis [#1986.68] generated just
|
|
one request for a copy.) What about new FBI and CIA documents, or my old
|
|
files of WC documents?
|
|
I would particularly like to hear from the people who have been helpful
|
|
by sending me clippings, especially if you feel I have incurred an obligation
|
|
to list them in EOC, or to otherwise preserve or disseminate them.
|
|
I just drifted into doing a newsletter; should I drift back to reading
|
|
documents, or to some other projects? Do we collectively have the computer
|
|
power, the time, and the interest to divide up work on indexes, lists of
|
|
clippings and documents, and chronologies? I would appreciate help with these
|
|
difficult questions. In the meantime, some documents, more or less from the
|
|
top of the pile on my desk.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>From the Warren papers:</special>
|
|
As noted in 7 EOC 3.10, some of Warren's files at the Library of Congress
|
|
have been released.
|
|
In March 1974, Alfred Goldberg (the WC's staff historian) interviewed
|
|
Warren about the Commission's work. The transcript [11 pp.] is #85;
|
|
correspondence about it is #86 [2 pp.] Warren took Goldberg up on his offer
|
|
to make changes; according to his secretary's letter, he "expressed
|
|
reservations to me about the wisdom of including the material concerning the
|
|
personal and political views of certain members of the Commission.... He has
|
|
never made any comment about the difficulties he may have encountered with the
|
|
other members, and after reading what he had told you he felt it would be
|
|
better if those portions were not included."
|
|
Of course, the passages marked for deletion are the most interesting.
|
|
"The Department of Justice sent a young man over to the Commission to act as
|
|
liaison with them. He was very critical of me from the time he came over to
|
|
us. Lee Rankin as Chief Counsel was in a very delicate position." This
|
|
reference is probably to Howard Willens (age 32), who was listed as liaison
|
|
with the Justice Department, and who can be rather difficult, I am told.
|
|
Warren may also have been thinking of Charles Shaffer (age 31), who (according
|
|
to John Davis' book) was detailed to the WC by RFK to keep an eye on Hoffa-
|
|
related leads.
|
|
There are other deletable tidbits on personnel matters, and other fairly
|
|
interesting comments. For example, Sam Stern's report on the SS and FBI was
|
|
not thought to be "objective or logical" (his work was actually quite good);
|
|
the story of Oswald in Alice, Texas, held up the Report (news to me, if true);
|
|
there were "no special problems from Hoover and the FBI"; and the testimony of
|
|
the autopsy doctors was the "best evidence" on the wounds.
|
|
Warren's files include a nonsubstantive response to Wesley Liebeler's
|
|
memo of November 1966, in which he recorded David Lifton's observation of the
|
|
"surgery of the head" remark in the Sibert-O'Neill report. (See "Best
|
|
Evidence," Ch. 10.) In a short note to Rankin, dated 12 Dec 66, Warren said
|
|
that what Rankin told "Liebler" in his letter of 1 Dec "was correct and in the
|
|
right tone. I believe that many people who were somewhat enamored by Lane and
|
|
Epstein are finally becoming disillusioned." (#87)
|
|
Speaking of the Warren Commission staff, "Professional men who wear bow
|
|
ties to the office are distrusted by almost everyone, says image consultant
|
|
John Molloy. Attorneys traditionally avoid putting a bow tie wearer on a jury
|
|
because they believe the wearer is not likely to be moved by sound argument."
|
|
(#88, UPI, 28 Dec 85)
|
|
Also from the Warren papers: a letter from the publisher of "Six Seconds
|
|
in Dallas" to John McCloy, urging him to do the right thing [#89, 5 pp.];
|
|
McCloy's draft response, saying that he was not impressed [#90, 16 Jul 69,
|
|
3 pp.], and an exchange of letters between McCloy and Warren [#91, 3 pp.], in
|
|
which Warren agreed with McCloy but suggested that he not send the letter.
|
|
8 EOC 3 -5-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>CIA interest in identifying the Mexico Mystery Man:</special>
|
|
Last November, the CIA released eleven documents to Bud Fensterwald in
|
|
connection with his FOIA request for records relating to efforts to identify
|
|
the Mexico Mystery Man (MMM), the man whose description (taken from Embassy
|
|
surveillance photos) was attached to Oswald in October 1963.
|
|
The new documents are among 54 which "relate to a theory explored in 1977
|
|
that a particular foreign national might be the 'unidentified man.' That
|
|
individual had been a target of CIA intelligence interest for many years for
|
|
reasons unconnected with the Kennedy assassination." (From #92, CIA to
|
|
Fensterwald, 29 Nov 85, 2 pp.)
|
|
The substance of this material interests me less than the fact of the
|
|
CIA's interest. The suspect's nationality is withheld, but I would guess he
|
|
is Russian or Cuban. I see no reason to assume that he was thought to be a
|
|
KGB or DGI covert operative, rather than (say) someone involved in "innocent"
|
|
diplomatic or technical activities of interest to the CIA.
|
|
The basic CIA analysis is a "memorandum for the record," dated April
|
|
1977. (#93, 12 pp., with much deleted) Oddly, the author seems to take
|
|
seriously the "Saul" story in Hugh McDonald's book, "Appointment in Dallas."
|
|
(Although I found little credible in that book, McDonald and his purported
|
|
friend, Herman Kimsey, were interesting people.) Over half of this memo
|
|
tallies "striking parallels between the backgrounds of 'Saul' as given in
|
|
McDonald's book and [deletion]." (Only the published half of these parallels
|
|
is not deleted.) After noting that "McDonald said he believes 'Saul' was
|
|
telling true story," the CIA author wrote "I do too."
|
|
This memo seems to have been prompted by the fact that "On 17 March 1977,
|
|
[deletion] recognized photographs of the unidentified man as [deletion]."
|
|
(#94 records a request of March 11 to show an MMM photo to an unnamed
|
|
subject.) McDonald's Indenti-Kit composite of Saul is said to "bear a
|
|
striking resemblance to the photos of [deletion]." (Speaking of striking
|
|
resemblances, anyone who is not convinced that they sometimes occur by
|
|
coincidence, not conspiracy, should have a copy of my #95, including a photo
|
|
of Zbigniew Brzezinski looking rather like the MMM. I will not entertain
|
|
conspiracy theories involving Brzezinski.)
|
|
Items #96 (25 & 29 May 77, 3 pp. in all) relate to a photographic
|
|
comparison which concluded that, within the limitations of poor photo quality,
|
|
the two subjects "could very likely be the same person."
|
|
Another memo, also dated only April 1977, seems to be a summary of the
|
|
theory. (#97, 3 pp.) Practically everything of substance is deleted.
|
|
This information may have been made available to the HSCA. Scott
|
|
Breckinridge was instructed to review this material and make it available to
|
|
Blakey and Gary Cornwell "if appropriate." (13 Jul 78, #98) The author of
|
|
this memo tried to maintain some distance from the theory. "Although the
|
|
material contained in the attached folder is entirely theoretical and does not
|
|
constitute an official file or position of this Division or Agency, it may be
|
|
of interest to... the HSCA." If made available, it would be "with the
|
|
understanding that it is a theoretical unofficial research undertaking." The
|
|
folder contains "informal and preliminary research based on a <special>theory</special> that
|
|
[deletion] might be identifiable with" the MMM.
|
|
What do we know about the CIA researcher who pursued this hypothesis?
|
|
Only that she "undertook to research the theory that [deletion] might be the
|
|
unidentified man as a result of the indepth study she conducted as the
|
|
[deletion] of this Division's efforts to determine if there could have been
|
|
Cuban complicity in the John F. Kennedy assassination." (From #98)
|
|
What an interesting effort for the CIA to undertake during the HSCA
|
|
probe. I assume it was not done to absolve Castro. Why was it done, at least
|
|
in part, "unofficially," and by someone who took the Saul story seriously?
|
|
What else did she and her colleagues believe? Can anyone tell us more about
|
|
this in-depth CIA study? I guess it was related to the Task Force Report
|
|
8 EOC 3 -6-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>prepared in response to the Schweiker Report. (HSCAR 108, 10 HSCA 156)
|
|
The memos, as released, do not say much about possible Cuban involvement.
|
|
The second April 1977 memo asks three questions, including "Could [deletion]
|
|
be 'Saul'?" and "Could [deletion], therefore, be mystery man who boarded plane
|
|
in Mexico City for Havana on 22 November 1963?" (Cf. HSCAR 117) (The third
|
|
question is deleted.)
|
|
Related released documents: #99, 4 pp. The CIA list of 40 documents on
|
|
this subject (dated 12/62 through 7/78, mostly withheld) is #100, 3 pp.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>Nazis and other anti-Communists:</special>
|
|
Former Justice Department official John Loftus made some noteworthy
|
|
comments in his House testimony on a GAO report on Nazi war criminals in the
|
|
U.S. (For more on Loftus, see 6 EOC 4.10.) In a list of 29 areas which he
|
|
could talk about only in executive session, he included "17. Nazi connection
|
|
with covert assassination programs" and "19. Warren Commission files
|
|
involving Nazi recruitment programs."
|
|
Does anyone know what this might be about? Larry Haapanen suggested that
|
|
CD's 597, 8l7, 1096, and 1544 might be related. CD 1096 (6 pp.) appears to be
|
|
a routine review of a French book entitled "Fascists and Nazis Today," which
|
|
speculated that right-wing Hungarian refugees were under close FBI
|
|
surveillance; this book came to the Commission's attention because it was
|
|
mentioned in the NYT. CD 597, described as a BND [West German Intelligence]
|
|
file, came to the WC from the FBI. According to CE 3107 (to which CD 1544
|
|
relates), CD 597 is a routine-sounding unsupported allegation of a pre-
|
|
assassination reference to Oswald. CD 597 could be the material forwarded by
|
|
the WC to the CIA, whose reply, CD 817 (CIA #660-833), was described (in the
|
|
uncensored CD list) as relating to allegations concerning Anton Erdinger. The
|
|
CIA indicated that the subject matter was so peripheral to the WC's work as to
|
|
call for no further investigation.
|
|
Loftus' testimony is #1986.101 [17 Oct 85, House Judiciary Committee
|
|
Serial 39, 8 pp.] Among other interesting points, he noted that several of
|
|
the most famous KGB moles in England were involved with Nazi immigration into
|
|
the U.S., and he said that "the Nazi groups which we imported from the British
|
|
[were] riddled with communist double agents." (P. 90)
|
|
Loftus also alleged that "in 1944, the Eastern European fascist leaders
|
|
began to defect back to the British and were reorganized into a new front
|
|
group called ABN (the Anti-Bolshevic Bloc of Nations)." (P. 89)
|
|
In 1959, the secretary-general of the American Friends of the ABN was
|
|
Spas T. Raikin. He is now a history professor at East Stroudsburg University,
|
|
in Pennsylvania; his letter on the history of the oppression of his fellow
|
|
Bulgarians recently appeared in the NYT. (#102, 10 May 86)
|
|
As a volunteer for Traveler's Aid, Raikin talked with the Oswalds on
|
|
their return from the USSR. (Peter Scott discovered Raikin's interesting past
|
|
connection to ABN; see "The Assassinations," p. 366, or "The Dallas
|
|
Conspiracy, p. II-23.) I know of no actual evidence that his contact with
|
|
Oswald was other than routine.
|
|
Raikin apparently was the conduit for a claim by Oswald that he went to
|
|
Russia with the State Department's approval, either to work as a radar
|
|
specialist or to serve with the Marine Corps at the Embassy. (CD 1230, p. 3;
|
|
26 WCH 12; Oswald's claim is erroneously reported as a fact known to HEW in CD
|
|
75, p. 461, and Summers, p. 217.)
|
|
Most probably Oswald himself was trying to mislead people about his stay
|
|
in Russia. I wonder, however, if Raikin might have had an interest in
|
|
portraying Oswald as an agent of the State Department, rather than (say) as a
|
|
loner, or as an agent of another intelligence agency? (Just speculating.)
|
|
.CP 6
|
|
8 EOC 3 -7-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>Book news:</special>
|
|
Kitty Kelley's new book on Frank Sinatra ("His Way," Bantam, $21.95) is
|
|
rather political, with quite a bit on the Kennedy-Exner-Giancana-Sinatra
|
|
nexus. I think there is some new information, much of it apparently based on
|
|
allegations by Peter Lawford (who would not talk about JFK's "broads").
|
|
For example, Lawford "formally approached his brother-in-law by making an
|
|
appointment to see the attorney general in his office at the Justice
|
|
Department. There Lawford begged Bobby to listen to Sinatra's pleas for
|
|
Giancana. Robert Kennedy intended to make Frank's mobster friend the Justice
|
|
Department's top priority in Chicago and curtly told Lawford to mind his own
|
|
business." (P. 293)
|
|
Notre Dame professor "Paul Blakey" (then a JD lawyer) told Kelley about
|
|
an opposing attorney who indicated an acquaintance with the then-Attorney
|
|
General, RFK; Blakey was told that, from electronic surveillance, it was known
|
|
that the attorney "had Sinatra's money in West Virginia and that it was mob
|
|
money." (P. 530(n))
|
|
"FBI records indicate that when in 1961 Carlos Marcello... had become one
|
|
of Bobby Kennedy's targets for deportation, the New Orleans don contacted
|
|
Santo Trafficante... who in turn called Frank to use his influence with 'the
|
|
President's father' on Marcello's behalf." (P. 295) This story has appeared
|
|
(with little emphasis) in the Blakey-Billings book (which does not specify
|
|
that a contact with Sinatra was made; p. 242) and at 9 HSCA 70 (which does not
|
|
specifically refer to JFK's father).
|
|
Years after the JFK assassination, "when [Sinatra] learned that Lee
|
|
Harvey Oswald had watched <special>Suddenly</special> a few days [sic] before shooting the
|
|
President, he withdrew the 1954 movie in which he played a deranged assassin
|
|
paid to kill the president. He also forbid the re-release of <special>The Manchurian
|
|
Candidate</special>." (P. 328; cf. 1 3D 6.13, noted at 7 EOC 3.9)
|
|
In a column prompted by the book, W. Safire called Reagan's award of the
|
|
Medal of Freedom to Sinatra "obscene." [30 Sep, #103] In 1975, Safire had
|
|
strong words about the Sinatra-Exner-Giancana story (Davis, pp. 740-1); I
|
|
don't know if the Church Committee took up his challenge to question Sinatra.
|
|
There is a provocative sentence in Dan Moldea's new book on Reagan, MCA,
|
|
and the Mafia, "Dark Victory." In a discussion of Joseph Hauser, "a convicted
|
|
insurance swindler who... allowed himself to be used as the hub of several FBI
|
|
sting operations... that yielded a pending indictment against [Trafficante]
|
|
and the bribery conviction of Carlos Marcello...," Moldea asserts that "Hauser
|
|
had also received thinly veiled admissions on tape from Marcello during...
|
|
BRILAB... that he had been directly involved in the assassination of John
|
|
Kennedy twenty years earlier." This unfootnoted claim is contrary to what I
|
|
recall from earlier reports, which were along the lines of Blakey's assertion
|
|
that even though Marcello admitted his Mafia membership, he "pointedly refused
|
|
to discuss" the assassination. (Blakey & Billings, p. 242)
|
|
Can anyone clarify this issue for us? One reason for my skepticism is
|
|
apparent overstatement in some other references to the JFK case. Moldea says
|
|
that Oswald "had close ties with the Carlos Marcello Mafia family in New
|
|
Orleans, particularly with Charles Murret, a top man in Marcello's Louisiana
|
|
gambling network. Oswald had also been seen by numerous witnesses meeting
|
|
with Marcello's personal pilot just days before he murdered the president."
|
|
While Murret's importance to Marcello and his closeness to Oswald are
|
|
debatable, the claim in the subsequent sentence is news to me. Also news to
|
|
me in part, and disputable in part: that "many of those on the panel [i.e.,
|
|
the Warren Commission] had been directly involved with the CIA in the CIA-
|
|
Mafia plots to murder Fidel Castro - which the Kennedy brothers had no
|
|
knowledge of until May 1962, at which time they ordered them stopped." Who on
|
|
the WC besides Dulles? (See Moldea, pp. 234-5, 338-9; #104 [2 pp.])
|
|
I have also read "Alias Oswald," by W. R. Morris and R. B. Cutler, and
|
|
"JFK: The Mystery Unraveled," from the Liberty Lobby's "Spotlight."
|
|
8 EOC 3 -8-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>(#105: ad from "Spotlight" for the book [107 pages for $6.95]; see #1985.102
|
|
for one chapter.) I would prefer not to have to say more about these books,
|
|
so I won't, at least in this issue.
|
|
I have some relatively routine reviews of the Hurt book, and a few of the
|
|
Davis book (which is now out in England, and will appear next March in a
|
|
German edition with new material on Marcello). The first part of "Best
|
|
Evidence" has been out in Japan for some time now, and you can have a sample
|
|
page to impress your friends. (#106, with drawings of the head wound)
|
|
If you are interested in the problems facing authors of serious
|
|
nonfiction, I recommend "Publishers wary of lawsuits: Libel Lawyers Wield
|
|
Blue Pencils on Books." (#107, LAT, 26 Jun 86, 3 pp.)</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>KAL 007:</special>
|
|
Three months after the KAL disaster, while the press was noting the
|
|
twentieth anniversary of the JFK assassination, the government was seemingly
|
|
commemorating it with a major coverup, arguably the biggest in twenty years.
|
|
On the occasion of the publication of Seymour Hersh's new book, "The
|
|
Target is Destroyed," Time magazine drew a different parallel: "Like the
|
|
Kennedy assassination, the KAL incident has created a cottage industry of
|
|
conspiracy theorists.... Hersh's explanations [excerpted] in the <special>Atlantic</special>
|
|
seem far more convincing. They involve no conspiracies or even any evil
|
|
intent on either side. Yet that is hardly reassuring. It is in some ways
|
|
more frightening to be reminded just how fragile sophisticated military
|
|
systems are and how frail their human operators can be." (#108, 1 Sep)
|
|
A valid enough conclusion, but I think it is a misreading of Hersh's book, and
|
|
even more so of his evidence, to call his account nonconspiratorial.
|
|
# 109 is a favorable review and good summary by J. Nance. (28 Sep, SFC)
|
|
Hersh's main point is "the mishandling of intercepted electronic intelligence
|
|
by the Reagan administration.... He paints a fascinating picture of how an
|
|
outraged government seized on the worst possible interpretation of the
|
|
earliest intelligence reports and jumped to the conclusion (without adequate
|
|
evidence) that the Russians had indeed indentified the target as a civilian
|
|
airliner," although Air Force Intelligence knew promptly that they had not.
|
|
There are indeed parallels to the JFK controversy. Hersh' appearance on
|
|
TV in SF was very deja vu, reminiscent of the Lane - Belli encounters of 1964.
|
|
Hersh was cast into the Belli role, arguing against allegations that KAL 007
|
|
was on a spy mission, partly with facts and partly by asking if people could
|
|
really believe that our CIA would send 269 people to certain death. The role
|
|
of Mark Lane was taken by Melvin Belli, of all people, who is representing the
|
|
families of some victims. Belli acted old and lawyerly. The direct
|
|
involvement and intensity supplied by Marguerite Oswald in 1964 was provided
|
|
by the mother of one of the victims. To my surprise, the studio audience was
|
|
very conspiratorial, and I found myself sympathizing with Hersh.
|
|
There is, of course, very little hard evidence available. The argument
|
|
about whether 007 could have been off course by accident is reminiscent of the
|
|
acoustical analysis. It is even more technical, and looks to me like an
|
|
argument among experts, unresolvable by laymen. For its flavor (with somewhat
|
|
out-of-date information), see the rather nasty exchange between M. Sayle and
|
|
D. Pearson (#110, NYRev, 25 Apr and 26 Sep 85, 27 pp.)
|
|
Hersh's Arlen Specter is airline pilot Harold Ewing, whose "single-bullet
|
|
theory" is a detailed reconstruction of the chain of errors and omissions
|
|
which could have put 007 on the course it took. Remember, I'm inclined to
|
|
believe the SBT, so that is not a putdown - but if you believe Ewing's account
|
|
you may never want to fly again.
|
|
Hersh's Angleton is General James Pfautz, the head of Air Force
|
|
Intelligence. He is not as peculiar as Angleton, but almost as heavy. The
|
|
book, however, does not speculate on the possible importance of the split
|
|
represented by someone of his rank going public with his dissent.
|
|
8 EOC 3 -9-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> One parallel drawn by "Time" and others is basically misleading - the
|
|
allegedly nonconspiratorial nature of Hersh's "innocent" explanation. Indeed,
|
|
Hersh seems to treat the ideology of Reagan and his crew as an external,
|
|
almost extenuating, factor. (They rushed to judgment "in what amounted to
|
|
good faith...." [P. 249]) The story of how the Air Force version was
|
|
discounted emphasizes normal inter-service bureaucratic infighting and
|
|
personal conflicts.
|
|
With the same facts, someone could make what happened sound like a very
|
|
substantial conspiracy. Hersh does tell us that a general requested a phony
|
|
report justifying provocative action against Russia, but was turned down
|
|
(p. 74), and that a hardline deputy to William Clark discussed military action
|
|
against Cuba (p. 122-3). The government's insistence on "look[ing] the other
|
|
way when better information became available" (p. 249) is arguably at least as
|
|
bad as planning a covert action which unpredictably failed. I don't find that
|
|
alternative as implausible as Hersh tried to make it sound when arguing with
|
|
the conspiracy buffs. The government's anti-Soviet campaign based on false
|
|
intelligence undeniably did endanger many innocent people, albeit obviously to
|
|
a lesser degree than using an airliner on an intelligence mission.
|
|
For a moderately conspiratorial view, see the book "Shootdown," by Oxford
|
|
professor R. W. Johnson. (#111 [2 pp.] is his own summary, from the London
|
|
Telegraph (18 May 86), as reprinted in Intelligence/Parapolitics.) Before
|
|
reading the Hersh book, I found "Shootdown" quite plausible in concluding that
|
|
KAL 007 was probably being used as a passive probe, in the reasonable
|
|
expectation that the worst that could happen was that it would be forced to
|
|
land. Hersh did not completely convince me that Johnson was wrong.
|
|
Johnson, in contrast to Hersh, is emphatic about how extreme - and how
|
|
besotted with covert operations and dubious information - the Reaganites are.
|
|
After all, they have given us the Contras, the plot against the Pope, Grenada,
|
|
Libyan hit squads, and Star Wars. Johnson's distance from an American
|
|
perspective is occasionally off-putting, but more often helpful.
|
|
Hersh's debunking of more conspiratorial accounts is often persuasive,
|
|
but not always. For example, his suggestion that the Russians planted a phony
|
|
black box, and that the crash site can be located in Russian waters from the
|
|
testimony of Japanese fishermen who turned up with gasoline-soaked notes more
|
|
than 30 days later, may be true, but the book doesn't deal with Johnson's
|
|
detailed arguments about the search for the black box.
|
|
Hersh has no indexed reference to the KCIA (whose alleged connections to
|
|
KAL get much attention from Johnson). More relevant to his own story, Hersh
|
|
does not (I think) refer at all to Korean COMINT capabilities, or to the
|
|
presence or absence of US COMINT facilities in Korea. In my mind, this leaves
|
|
a gap in his assertion that he came across no indication of any prior or real-
|
|
time knowledge of a mission involving KAL 007, and that he would have done so.
|
|
The book certainly doesn't give the impression that the story was in any
|
|
sense handed to Hersh, or that he is a friend of the intelligence community.
|
|
For example, he throws in an apparently gratuitous disclosure of the location
|
|
of some NSA facilities. (P. 47n) There are many other juicy details. But
|
|
one has to wonder if what he learned represents a major ongoing split within
|
|
the government. People talked to him, and he got things using FOIA. Was that
|
|
just because he is a good reporter?
|
|
The existence of dissenting positions in the intelligence community is
|
|
not a completely new story; some newspapers reported on it in 1983 (pp. 177,
|
|
265), and there was a bit of a flap when a witting Pierre Trudeau revealed
|
|
some of what he knew in October 1983.
|
|
I wonder about the timing of a decision by "a senior military
|
|
intelligence officer" to give Hersh his "first account" of the abuse of COMINT
|
|
in this case "late in 1984." [P. xi] Did the people in the intelligence
|
|
community who knew the story wait until the 1984 elections were out of the way
|
|
before spilling the beans? As with Watergate and Epstein's "Legend", the
|
|
8 EOC 3 -10-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>disclosure of important information may itself be a bigger part of the real
|
|
story than the casual reader (of "Time," and even of this book) would think.
|
|
This is in EOC because we all should be interested, not just because of
|
|
the parallels with the JFK case. The case is in the courts and will not just
|
|
go away. There seems to be a network of 007 buffs - are any EOC readers in
|
|
touch with them?
|
|
Readers of the Grassy Knoll Gazette are familiar with Bob Cutler's
|
|
analysis, according to which KAL 007 was not shot down by the Russians, but
|
|
destroyed by an on-board explosion at the same time the Russians shot down a
|
|
U.S. military plane. Cutler has published a book, titled "Explo 007." If you
|
|
are willing to keep Occam's Razor sheathed, and if you trust Cutler to have
|
|
convincingly eliminated all simpler explanations, you should read that book;
|
|
I haven't.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>Queries from readers:</special>
|
|
Q77. According to P. Maas' book on Ed Wilson, in 1964 the CIA helped get
|
|
Wilson a job as an advance man in Humphrey's VP campaign, in connection with
|
|
his assignment to "Special Operations." (P. 24, #112) On the assumption that
|
|
the capitalization is not a typo, can anyone tell us about such a CIA unit?
|
|
Q78. Can anyone provide a copy (or photocopy) of "Lucky Luciano," by
|
|
Ovid Demaris (Monarch Books paperback, 1960, 148 pp.)?
|
|
Q79. Does anyone have an FBI document describing a test, prior to
|
|
November 29, 1963, of the firing speed of Oswald's rifle?</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>Castro again:</special>
|
|
Speaking of theories of Cuban involvement (as we were on page 5): in his
|
|
March 16 speech on Contra aid, President R. Reagan closed with an anecdote
|
|
from Clare Booth Luce, who recently spoke of an encounter with JFK. She said
|
|
that history has time to give any great man no more than one sentence.
|
|
Kennedy asked what she thought his would be. "'Mr. President,' she answered,
|
|
'your sentence will be that you stopped the Communists - or that you did not.'
|
|
Tragically, John Kennedy never had the chance to decide which that would be."
|
|
(#113, NYT, 17 Mar 86)
|
|
It sounds like Reagan was just one word away from blaming the Communists
|
|
for JFK's death. ("Tragically" could have been "ironically" or "of course" or
|
|
"it is no coincidence that.") (See 6 EOC 3.6 for Reagan's 1979 suspicions.)
|
|
The case may not be quite as dead as it seems.
|
|
For a different perspective, see "One Thousand Fearful Words for Fidel
|
|
Castro," a pre-invasion 1961 poem by S. F.'s Lawrence Ferlinghetti. "It looks
|
|
like Curtains for Fidel/ They're going to fix his wagon/ in the course of
|
|
human events.... History may absolve you, Fidel/ but we'll dissolve you
|
|
first, Fidel." This copy [#114, 4 pp.] bears the rubber stamp of the S. F.
|
|
chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, with genuine phone and P.O. box
|
|
numbers.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>Late news:</special>
|
|
David Phillips is to receive "substantial" damages in a settlement of a
|
|
libel suit against the London Observer, over excepts from Summers' book
|
|
"Conspiracy." ("Challenge" press release and clips, #115, 2 pp.)</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>Credits:</special> Thanks to M. Ewing (#115), B. Fensterwald (80), J. Goldberg (73),
|
|
L. Haapanen (101), G. Hollingsworth (77-8, 105), M. Lee (81), D. Lifton (106),
|
|
P. McCarthy (83), J. Marshall (102), S. Meagher (84), J. Mierzejewski (79),
|
|
G. Owens (76), R. Ranftel (85-7, 89-94, 96-100, 107, 110), P. Scott (104,
|
|
112), E. Tatro (74-5), and T. Vaughan (72).</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>*From Illumi-Net BBS -- (404) 377-1141* [ Don's note: I doubt this BBS is
|
|
still up ]</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>---END------------------------------------------------------------------------</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>--
|
|
-* Don Allen *- InterNet: dona@bilver.UUCP // Amiga..for the best of us.
|
|
USnail: 1818G Landing Dr, Sanford Fl 32771 \X/ Why use anything else? :-)
|
|
UUCP: ..uunet!tarpit!bilver!dona - Why did the JUSTICE DEPT steal PROMIS?
|
|
/\/\ What is research but a blind date with knowledge. William Henry /\/\</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>From: dona@bilver.uucp (Don Allen)
|
|
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
|
|
Subject: JFK Text: Echoes of Conspiracy - EOC4.TXT (end)
|
|
<info type="Message-ID"> 1991Dec26.195226.20027@bilver.uucp</info>
|
|
Date: 26 Dec 91 19:52:26 GMT
|
|
Organization: W. J. Vermillion - Winter Park, FL
|
|
Lines: 618</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>*EOC4.TXT*</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>-----BEGIN PART 4/4-----------------------------------------------------------</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>ECHOES OF CONSPIRACY December 8, 1986
|
|
Vol. 8, #4 Paul L. Hoch</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>Showtime show trial:</special>
|
|
Among EOC readers, access to Showtime cable TV seems scarcer than
|
|
interest in the LWT production, "On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald." I was able to
|
|
see the program, so it seemed like a good idea to get this issue out as soon
|
|
as possible. It is less edited than usual; my allocation of space probably
|
|
does not accurately reflect the relative importance of the various witnesses,
|
|
or of the program as a whole.
|
|
The mock trial used real lawyers, real witnesses, and no script. Five
|
|
and a half hours were broadcast on November 21 and 22. (An additional 18
|
|
hours will reportedly be shown next January, or maybe it will be just 12 and a
|
|
half hours.) There were 21 witnesses in all - 14 called by prosecutor Vincent
|
|
Bugliosi, seven by defense lawyer Gerry Spence. There were nine "November 22"
|
|
witnesses (six who were in Dealey Plaza, two on the Tippit case, and one from
|
|
Bethesda); four people who knew or investigated Oswald and one who knew Ruby,
|
|
and seven people who testified to or participated in the HSCA and Warren
|
|
Commission investigations. Not much documentary material was used in the
|
|
trial, other than the Zapruder film and some 1963-64 film clips.
|
|
High points, in my opinion, for viewers already familiar with the case:
|
|
Ruth Paine talking about Oswald, Ed Lopez on his HSCA investigation of Oswald
|
|
in Mexico, Paul O'Connor on the circumstances of the autopsy.
|
|
Low points: the cross-examination of Ruth Paine, Jack Anderson as a
|
|
commentator, conspiracy witness Tom Tilson, Cyril Wecht's testimony on the
|
|
single-bullet theory, the trial as a fact-finding vehicle, and Gerry Spence
|
|
(who came across like Mark Lane imitating Sam Ervin).
|
|
Prior to the filming, I talked with (and consulted for) some of the LWT
|
|
people, primarily producer Mark Redhead and researcher Richard Tomlinson.
|
|
They had a good understanding of the subtleties of the case, and of the
|
|
limitations imposed by the trial format. Unfortunately, those limitations
|
|
were more apparent in the final program than the new insights and information
|
|
they developed. In real life, I am told, there is more of a fact-finding
|
|
process in the work of trial lawyers than the jury ever knows. The LWT effort
|
|
might look much more productive after we see the outtakes (or if there is a
|
|
book or long article - I have heard nothing about one.) LWT definitely got
|
|
some interesting comments from potential witnesses who were not even mentioned
|
|
in the final version.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>Summary and commentary:</special>
|
|
The first evening's segment (three hours) comprised the prosecution case.
|
|
It was the basic WC-HSCA evidence against Oswald, presented in a rather
|
|
straightforward way by Bugliosi.
|
|
Bugliosi's presentation included relatively little that offended me,
|
|
except for a few things like some comments in his opening statement about
|
|
Oswald as a Commie (which Spence pounced on). Bugliosi was much worse on
|
|
"People are Talking" in S.F. in mid-November, where he dredged up Joseph
|
|
Goebbels and the "big lie" to bash the critics with. Bugliosi's trial
|
|
presentation did tend to refer more to what "the critics" had said than to "my
|
|
opponent," and he tried to discredit Wecht by calling him "the darling of the
|
|
conspiracy buffs."
|
|
Opening statements followed a brief introduction by Edwin Newman,
|
|
including some stock footage. The stated aim of the show was to restore the
|
|
rights of Oswald to a trial, and of the American people to see justice done.
|
|
The London set looked like a courtroom, with a jury brought over from Dallas,
|
|
an apparently working court reporter, and an audience of actors.
|
|
Bugliosi's real record was one acquittal in 106 felony prosecutions, and
|
|
Spence had not lost a jury trial in 17 years; at some level these guys were
|
|
clearly playing for keeps. This may have led to strategies aimed at winning,
|
|
rather than at, say, coming up with newsworthy new evidence or good TV.
|
|
8 EOC 4 -2-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Bugliosi began his opening statement with negative comments about
|
|
conspiracy buffs. A frameup is a "preposterous" idea; Oswald was a "deeply
|
|
disturbed and maladjusted man" and a "fanatical Marxist."
|
|
Spence said that when he started work on this trial, he thought Oswald
|
|
(generally referred to as "Lee") was guilty, but he was now convinced that we
|
|
have been carrying a "national lie" with us. At the end of the trial, the
|
|
jury would still want to know why Bugliosi, representing "this huge polithera
|
|
[sic] of power in this country" had still not come forward with the whole
|
|
truth, and would therefore have to return a "not guilty" verdict.
|
|
By and large, the prosecution witnesses repeated their earlier
|
|
statements, often by saying "yes" to Bugliosi's leading questions. I suppose
|
|
that was like a real trial, and it certainly kept the proceedings from
|
|
dragging, but in many cases this limited the opportunity to judge the demeanor
|
|
of the witness. I'm not sure anything came out in direct testimony which we
|
|
didn't already know, but if it did, we would have trouble judging whether it
|
|
was a real subtlety or one introduced by Bugliosi's paraphrasing.
|
|
First witness: <special>Buell Frazier</special>, slightly graying. He lives "here in
|
|
Dallas." He said that Oswald was the only employee missing at a roll call.
|
|
Spence opened with a little joke, and bugged Bugliosi by mispronouncing his
|
|
name. He led Frazier to say that Oswald was nice, liked kids, was not a
|
|
madman, and had not previously lied to him.
|
|
The real issues involving Frazier, particularly his interrogations by the
|
|
police, did not surface. (LWT had been referred to Chapters 10 and 11 of
|
|
George O'Toole's book "The Assassination Tapes.") Of course, all my comments
|
|
about what was not done are subject to revision when we see the rest of the
|
|
testimony next year.
|
|
<special>Charles Brehm</special> described what he saw of the shooting. To Spence, he
|
|
conceded that he had called himself an expert on those few seconds. The
|
|
Zapruder film was shown, to make the jury experts too. Brehm argued a bit
|
|
when Spence described the head snap in exaggerated terms. Spence carried on
|
|
about the direction tin cans move in when hit by rocks, and he was reprimanded
|
|
for his theatrics. There's a mind-bender. If a witness misbehaved, would he
|
|
be cited for contempt of television? (And sentenced to watch "Dallas"?)
|
|
<special>Harold Norman</special> was led through his description of hearing the shots and
|
|
falling cartridge cases on the next floor up. Spence aptly noted that Norman
|
|
did not try to escape from the armed man in the building, and Spence
|
|
inscrutably suggested that what he heard could have been other metal objects
|
|
dropping. Norman seemed a bit evasive, or perhaps just understandably puzzled
|
|
by the whole exercise. Oddly, he indicated that he had resisted the efforts
|
|
of the FBI to put words in his mouth, on the question of whether what he heard
|
|
was "above" or "right above" him. Spence tried (inadequately) to clarify the
|
|
issue of when employees were freed to leave the building.
|
|
Sheriff <special>Eugene Boone</special> described the sniper's nest, and his discovery of
|
|
the rifle, saying that "Mauser" was used as a generic term. Typically, Spence
|
|
did not really cross-examine Boone about what he had said, but used his
|
|
testimony as a way of presenting his own speculation. Spence suggested that
|
|
the gun was meant to be found, and that the cartridge cases were found in
|
|
positions inconsistent with ejection to the right from the rifle.
|
|
As in a real trial, I guess, Boone didn't get to point out that
|
|
cartridges can bounce, and he played along with Spence's resurrection of the
|
|
old Mannlicher - Mauser identification problem. Boone conceded that he was
|
|
not able to identify the rifle as the one he found, just in the sense that it
|
|
did not have his marks on it. Having testified that he found no powder burns
|
|
on the foliage on the knoll, he conceded that there were none on the sixth
|
|
floor either.
|
|
Officer <special>Marrion Baker</special> described his encounter with Oswald on the second
|
|
floor. Spence emphasized that Oswald did not seem excited.
|
|
<special>Ted Callaway</special> told of seeing Oswald run past his used-car lot with his
|
|
8 EOC 4 -3-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>pistol, and of checking Tippit's pulse and calling in on his radio. On cross,
|
|
Bugliosi objected to Spence cutting off Callaway's responses, but was
|
|
overruled. I wonder if anyone got to sit down with these witnesses and have a
|
|
decent session of questioning without playing by legal rules, and if a record
|
|
of such conversations will ever become available. If not, that would be a
|
|
real loss.
|
|
About an hour into the show, there was the first exchange I found
|
|
potentially valuable. Callaway conceded that Capt. Fritz said before the
|
|
lineup that they wanted to wrap up the case on Oswald, and linked him to JFK's
|
|
murder, but Callaway said he had asked first. He continued to defend the
|
|
handling of the lineup (e.g., the clothing worn) and the validity of his
|
|
identification: "I could have made it, sir, if they had been 'nekkid.'"
|
|
Bugliosi called Frazier back, to identify Billy Lovelady standing in the
|
|
doorway a few steps in front of Frazier. Spence had gotten Callaway and Baker
|
|
to say that the man in the Altgens photo resembled Oswald. Spence tried to
|
|
make an issue of Frazier not having identified Lovelady before. This is a
|
|
good example of muddying up the facts on what really is a non-issue.
|
|
<special>Jack Brewer</special> (known to us as Johnny Calvin Brewer) told of seeing Oswald
|
|
outside his shoe store, and of his role in the capture of Oswald. Did we know
|
|
that the police briefly held a gun on him? Good testimony from a human-
|
|
interest viewpoint, but we did not learn how Brewer felt about jumping into
|
|
that dangerous situation. To Spence, he conceded that Oswald's odd behavior
|
|
was consistent with being a patsy, that a policeman struck Oswald, and that he
|
|
did testify that he heard someone say "Kill the President, will you" - but he
|
|
does not know who, or even if it was a policeman. (It did not come out that
|
|
he told David Belin that it was "some of the police," and that he thought he
|
|
"had seen him [Oswald] some place before. I think he had been in my store
|
|
before." [7 WCH 6, 4])
|
|
After a "break," during which Ed Newman retraced Oswald's route, <special>Cecil
|
|
Kirk</special> testified about his HSCA photo analysis, primarily of the Zapruder film
|
|
and the backyard photos. Kirk had better graphics capabilities this time -
|
|
stop action video, and a light pen (as used for play analysis in football
|
|
games). This production reportedly cost about $1 million; the HSCA spent only
|
|
about $5.5 million investigating the JFK and MLK cases.
|
|
Spence suggested, in a patronizing and artificial way, that the sudden
|
|
stop of the running girl (Rosemary Willis) may have been caused by her mother
|
|
- she presumably did have one, right? - calling her name. Spence tried to get
|
|
Kirk to admit that he could not detect a CIA or KGB fraud; he stood his
|
|
ground. I remain impressed by Kirk. I really believe that many of the HSCA
|
|
panelists would have been delighted to come up with evidence of conspiracy.
|
|
(That has been said about the WC staff too, but there I have strong doubts.)
|
|
An odd bit of role-playing: Bugliosi objected to the playing of a 1964
|
|
clip of Connally talking about the shots, when he must have realized that it
|
|
was good television and would not be passed up.
|
|
Dr. <special>Charles Petty</special> testified about the HSCA pathology panel, attributing
|
|
the head snap to a neuromuscular reaction. Cross-examination was dreadful -
|
|
did you ask the FBI or the CIA "to produce the brain of the President?" Even
|
|
expert witnesses don't get to talk. The HSCA public hearings were usually a
|
|
lot better than a real trial, imperfect as they were. (Remember "I just have
|
|
one more question, Mr. White. Do you know what photogrammetry is?" [2 HSCA
|
|
344]) Petty looked authentically and appropriately amused by the antics of
|
|
the lawyers.
|
|
Bugliosi and Spence seemed genuinely puzzled by the panel's observation
|
|
that the photos and X-rays contradicted the autopsy surgeons on the location
|
|
of the head entry wound. (7 HSCA 129) Spence erroneously introduced this as
|
|
a conflict between the photos and the X-rays, and the real issue here (which
|
|
the HSCA was unable to resolve) was totally obfuscated.
|
|
HSCA firearms expert <special>Monty Lutz</special> described a re-enactment he did for
|
|
8 EOC 4 -4-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Bugliosi this May, getting three hits in 3.6 seconds once, and two hits the
|
|
other four times. Spence noted that this was not an exact duplication. He
|
|
made this point in such an obnoxious way that his success with juries both
|
|
surprises and disturbs me.
|
|
<special>Vincent Guinn</special> testified about his neutron activation analysis. The
|
|
cross-examination (reproduced on p. 9) was in some ways typically awful.
|
|
Spence emphasized that Guinn had not examined 28 additional bullet fragments
|
|
which were "found" in the head. (In fact, they were "found" in X-rays.) The
|
|
erroneous implication that 28 other fragments were removed and then ignored
|
|
just slipped by. (Or was that my inference, not Spence's implication, as Mark
|
|
Lane used to say?) Guinn wasn't allowed to say what he knew on that point.
|
|
Insofar as there is a real inauthenticity issue, i.e. in the context of
|
|
Lifton's evidence, it was not pursued in any meaningful way on the air.
|
|
The next witness was a surprise to me, and a new face: former FBI
|
|
documents expert <special>Lyndal Shaneyfelt</special>. He gave straightforward testimony about
|
|
the Klein's order form for the rifle and Oswald's diary and letters, with a
|
|
reading of the sections indicating the most hostility to the U.S. Spence
|
|
played the innocent: "Well. Do you realize what you've been used for here,
|
|
doctor?... to smear my client, isn't that right?" Presumably used to this
|
|
sort of thing in real life, Shaneyfelt did little but answer the questions.
|
|
Reading from 8 HSCA 236, Spence noted the expert testimony that the diary was
|
|
written in only a few sittings. Shaneyfelt stood up to him on his use of
|
|
microfilm copies for analysis.
|
|
Spence suggested, hypothetically, that assuming Oswald was working for
|
|
"the CIA or for the Army Intelligence or for the Navy Intelligence," he might
|
|
establish his loyalty by sending anti-American letters through the censored
|
|
mail. A confused double hypothesis: an agent wouldn't ordinarily keep a
|
|
diary, but he wanted his to be read. Shaneyfelt conceded that it was a "fair
|
|
assumption" that the CIA and FBI can create good forgeries.
|
|
A bit of real-life drama emerged in the testimony of <special>Nelson Delgado</special>, now
|
|
a chef in Arkansas. He and Oswald were both "130%" pro-Castro in the Marines.
|
|
He agreed with Spence's description of his (previously reported) fears that
|
|
the FBI would get him, and Bugliosi wondered - without probing the reasons for
|
|
his fears - if Delgado didn't think that the FBI would have gotten him if they
|
|
really wanted to. Delgado said he was "just old news" now, and revealed that
|
|
he had indeed been shot in the shoulder.
|
|
The last government witness - on the stand for about 25 minutes - was
|
|
<special>Ruth Paine</special>. Wasn't this her first extended public appearance? It was
|
|
interesting to see her in person, but the constraints of the format were
|
|
overwhelming. She was trying to be precise, thoughtful, and fair, and
|
|
apparently found talking about Oswald a difficult experience; the lawyers were
|
|
busy acting like lawyers. For example, Spence asked if she were a CIA or KGB
|
|
agent, ridiculing her (as she noted) for laughing at the first question. He
|
|
badgered her about the coincidences involved in her studying Russian (to work
|
|
for US-USSR friendship), befriending Marina, having the gun in her garage, and
|
|
getting Lee the TSBD job - all, it seems, to make the point that she now knows
|
|
how Lee would have felt about being (falsely) accused. Dreadful. Why she sat
|
|
still for this, I don't know. She did say that she hoped to show "for the
|
|
historical record" that a "very ordinary person" like Lee "can kill the
|
|
President without that being something that shows on them in advance."
|
|
A discussion with Ruth Paine on her own terms could have been very
|
|
illuminating. There are many questions she has apparently not been asked -
|
|
about her previous interrogations, for example. I'm sure that even the buffs
|
|
with suspicions about her relationship with the Oswalds could come up with a
|
|
list of questions which could be asked in a productive and non-hostile manner.
|
|
I hope she doesn't think Spence is a typical critic; I think some of us should
|
|
write to her and apologize.
|
|
If Spence's whole case really were typical of what the critics have to
|
|
8 EOC 4 -5-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>offer, it would be time to retire. My reaction to Mark Lane in 1964 was that
|
|
all those little points must add up to something; my reaction to Spence is
|
|
quite the opposite. His ability and inclination to suggest doubts about
|
|
whatever a prosecution witness said told me less about what happened in Dallas
|
|
than about how lawyers work.
|
|
The first defense witness was <special>Bill Newman</special>, who described seeing Kennedy
|
|
and Connally hit. It was established that there was room for doubt in his
|
|
opinion of the direction of the shots, since (when he was excited and upset)
|
|
he signed a statement saying the JFK had stood up in the car.
|
|
Spence called <special>Tom Tilson</special> of the DPD to tell his story about someone who
|
|
looked just like Ruby (whom he knew) throwing something into a car just past
|
|
the knoll, right after the shooting. Tilson then followed him but the license
|
|
number he called in was apparently not pursued, and Tilson's copy was lost.
|
|
Sure. Bugliosi didn't get Tilson to recant on the stand, but his story
|
|
certainly didn't look plausible when he was done.
|
|
Earl Golz's article on Tilson does not suggest that he thought the man he
|
|
chased was Ruby. (#116, 2 pp., DMN, 20 Aug 78, just six days before the HSCA
|
|
interviewed Tilson; see also 12 HSCA 15-16, or "Conspiracy," p. 82.) Golz's
|
|
most provocative statement (given Hurt's account of funny business in the
|
|
Tippit case) is that Tilson was close enough to Tippit to be a pallbearer.
|
|
Of all the conspiracy witnesses around, why would Spence want this one?
|
|
I fear he really chose to suggest that Ruby was running around Dallas, on the
|
|
knoll with a gun and planting a bullet at Parkland. That is hardly a leading
|
|
hypothesis for a conspiracy involving Ruby; the only advantage seems to be
|
|
that one can exploit it, in a very naive way, to incorporate some of Seth
|
|
Kantor's testimony and at the same time cast doubt on Guinn's.
|
|
The testimony of Dr. <special>Cyril Wecht</special> generally resembled his HSCA appearance,
|
|
in tone as well as content. Wecht still takes a hard line on the question of
|
|
how he could be right and the rest of the HSCA panel wrong, suggesting the
|
|
"subconscious" influence of their government grants and appointments. In the
|
|
program's second gratuitous reference to nudity, Wecht asserted that he was
|
|
the only panelist with "the courage to say that the king was nude and had no
|
|
clothes on."
|
|
In response to Wecht's best point - the condition of CE 399 - Bugliosi
|
|
did not bring up the test firings by Dr. John Nichols (and later by Dr. John
|
|
Lattimer), where shooting this ammunition into a block of wood left the bullet
|
|
in good condition. (Lattimer, p. 271-2) That's not the same as a comparable
|
|
bullet from a real shooting, but it should be noted.
|
|
I cannot defend Wecht's use, in attacking the single-bullet theory, of
|
|
the same schematic diagram he presented to the HSCA (1 HSCA 341). It is an
|
|
unfair representation of what the government now claims CE 399 did. One can
|
|
debate the SBT trajectory, but one must now start with the results of the
|
|
HSCA's trajectory analysis. There may be minor errors on that work, but the
|
|
SBT path is clearly not as implausible as Wecht presented it. Bugliosi scored
|
|
a point by asking where the Kennedy bullet went if it did not end up in
|
|
Connally, but he did not bring up the HSCA's trajectory work.
|
|
Perhaps the most impressive defense witness was hospital corpsman <special>Paul
|
|
O'Connor</special>, one of the important Bethesda witnesses in Lifton's "Best Evidence."
|
|
He described the removal of JFK's body from a body bag, the "constant"
|
|
interference by Dr. Burkley (apparently on behalf of the family), and the
|
|
condition of the head, which left no need for the procedure he usually
|
|
performed to cut the skull and very little of the brain to be removed.
|
|
Bugliosi's cross-examination produced one dramatic moment. First he
|
|
established that the surgeons did "most of the mundane jobs" usually done by
|
|
the technicians, but O'Connor insisted there was no brain to remove. If this
|
|
was so shocking, Bugliosi wondered, why didn't he tell the HSCA? He seemed
|
|
genuinely surprised when O'Connor said he had been "under orders not to talk
|
|
until that time."
|
|
8 EOC 4 -6-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Unfortunately, issues relating to these orders were not pursued on the
|
|
air. O'Connor, who was nervous, referred to getting permission from the HSCA
|
|
to talk to Navy brass, and also indicated that the HSCA had not asked the
|
|
right questions. The sequence of events is unclear: Bugliosi referred to an
|
|
hour-and-a-half interview with the HSCA; I think the volumes cite only an
|
|
"outside contact report" (which was often based on a phone call) dated June
|
|
28, 1978, but that does not preclude an earlier interview. The 1963 orders
|
|
not to talk were not modified until March 1978, when permission to talk with
|
|
the HSCA was reluctantly given. (Best Evidence, p. 608)
|
|
The broadcast did not mention the Sibert-O'Neill report or the other
|
|
indications of head surgery. Spence seems to have used O'Connor's evidence
|
|
only to establish the absence of the brain, without much of a scenario to
|
|
explain it. O'Connor's interpretation was not brought out; Lifton's book said
|
|
he basically believed the Warren Report.
|
|
Spence also brought up the missing brain with Wecht and Petty, and in
|
|
connection with the Zapruder film. As with his version of a Ruby conspiracy,
|
|
the missing brain is representative of but not really central to the mysteries
|
|
of the medical evidence. Bugliosi's presentation of the HSCA investigation of
|
|
RFK's probable role in the post-autopsy destruction of a brain may have unduly
|
|
lessened the impact of O'Connor's testimony.
|
|
Former FBI SA <special>James Hosty</special> was called as an adverse witness. It was
|
|
valuable to see him, but I don't recall much new information in his testimony
|
|
on Oswald's note, the information "withheld" from him about Oswald's Mexico
|
|
trip, and other matters. (Spence's grasp of the evidence seemed imperfect; he
|
|
indicated at first that a page had been removed from Oswald's notebook
|
|
itself.) It was Bugliosi who got Hosty to say that he was not suggesting
|
|
Soviet consul Kostikov was involved in the assassination.
|
|
Hosty thinks the Mexico mystery man was assumed to be Oswald because
|
|
prior wiretap information suggested - at the time - that Oswald was going to
|
|
come over to pick up his visa. Where has this explanation been dealt with?
|
|
The next witness was HSCA researcher <special>Edwin J. Lopez</special>, barely recognizable
|
|
as a short-haired and properly attired lawyer, talking about Oswald in Mexico.
|
|
(His style during the HSCA investigation was informal; see p. 211 of Gaeton
|
|
Fonzi's article on the HSCA, 2 EOC 10.2.) Like O'Connor, Lopez did not
|
|
provide many facts the buffs did not already know, but he probably made quite
|
|
an impression on the viewing audience. His personal conclusions were that
|
|
Oswald was in some way associated with the CIA, and was a patsy.
|
|
Lopez concluded that there had been an Oswald impostor for all the
|
|
Embassy visits - partly on the basis of his review of CIA photos taken from
|
|
three sites. He specified that the surveillance was around-the-clock,
|
|
contrary to David Phillips. [The Night Watch, p. 124; cf. Summers, p. 384]
|
|
Spence noted that, in a real trial, Lee could have demanded production of the
|
|
still-classified 280-page HSCA report on Mexico. On cross-examination,
|
|
Bugliosi let Lopez talk a bit, and managed to effectively touch on some of the
|
|
evidentiary difficulties with his conspiratorial conclusions.
|
|
The final defense witness was <special>Seth Kantor</special>, whose testimony provided a
|
|
pretty good summary of the basic issues relating to Ruby, whom he knew.
|
|
Bugliosi raised some of the standard non-conspiratorial rebuttals. I don't
|
|
recall any facts which are not in Kantor's book on Ruby or the HSCA volumes.
|
|
In terms of factual information alluded to, Kantor, Lopez, and O'Connor
|
|
certainly deserve more space in EOC than all the prosecution witnesses put
|
|
together. However, we have not heard Lopez' evidence - he said he was still
|
|
bound by his secrecy oath. The fact that Lopez went public with his personal
|
|
conclusions is significant, in any case. On the whole, the evidence involved
|
|
in the defense case was better than Spence's presentation of it.
|
|
I am told that the taped testimony included three additional witnesses,
|
|
and that three more were flown to London but not used. (I do not know the
|
|
names of those witnesses.)
|
|
8 EOC 4 -7-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> Bugliosi's closing arguments were effectively delivered and generally
|
|
straightforward. He did not push a "no conspiracy" argument, but alleged that
|
|
Oswald was "guilty as sin." He could have been much worse; he cited Oswald's
|
|
defection to the USSR not as evidence of his serious political beliefs, but as
|
|
one indication that he was "utterly and completely nuts" and "bonkers," as one
|
|
must be to shoot the President. He noted that Spence kept his cowboy hat on
|
|
the table and didn't put it on anyone as a conspirator.
|
|
There were certainly holes in Bugliosi's argument - when he asked, for
|
|
example, if there was such a sophisticated conspiracy, why frame a poor
|
|
marksman who had a $19 rifle? That one can be answered. In general, I don't
|
|
think an uninformed viewer got a good sense of the political context of the
|
|
assassination. Bugliosi said Spence was too smart to say the FBI or CIA
|
|
killed JFK, which would sound "downright silly," and he asserted that neither
|
|
the CIA nor the Mafia had "any productive motive whatsoever" to do so.
|
|
Spence propped a photo of Lee in a chair, and said that Lee would
|
|
probably say he was scared and could not explain a lot of the evidence.
|
|
Spence would tell him to just trust the jury. Of course, he emphasized that
|
|
each juror had to dispel all his reasonable doubts. (Neither lawyer was about
|
|
to abandon successful techniques for this very special case, which is why
|
|
Spence had to argue with Kirk about the running girl, for example.) Spence
|
|
dragged up all the "coincidences" involving Ruth Paine, and various other
|
|
alleged coincidences. He said that the only firm truth in this case is that
|
|
the "closet" of hidden evidence is still locked.
|
|
Spence closed with a melodramatic metaphor in which a bird in a child's
|
|
hand represented Lee's fate in the jury's hands. The speech's distance from
|
|
the hard facts reminded me of Garrison. At this point, if I had been a juror,
|
|
Spence's style would have led to me decide that some of the doubts he had
|
|
planted were not really "reasonable" and could be ignored. One small
|
|
consolation is that the lawyers did not get a lot of money for appearing on
|
|
the program - just a lot of publicity.
|
|
While waiting for the verdict, we heard a discussion involving defense
|
|
lawyer Alan Dershowitz and two men who could well have been witnesses, former
|
|
AG Ramsey Clark and Jack Anderson.
|
|
Anderson's self-promoting remarks argued for a verdict of guilty as part
|
|
of a conspiracy. Among other things, he claimed that he began digging into
|
|
the CIA after the assassination, and that he found that the CIA had recruited
|
|
Mafia killers to get Castro. Oswald killed JFK "little over three [sic]
|
|
months" after Castro's "warning" interview with Daniel Harker of the AP, "and
|
|
we've had plenty of testimony showing [Oswald's] links to the Castro
|
|
movement." John Roselli was killed by Trafficante's people because he gave
|
|
Anderson details of Castro's involvement. Anderson also talked about an
|
|
immediate briefing of RFK by McCone. He also said that Hoover "made a public
|
|
statement" to the effect that he was "under pressure to finger" Oswald. As a
|
|
guide to Anderson's reliability, note that he referred to the acoustical
|
|
evidence as if the HSCA's results had not been seriously challenged.
|
|
Does Anderson have some sort of first-amendment immunity against being
|
|
properly questioned? His 1967 column suggesting that Castro had retaliated
|
|
against plots pushed by the Kennedys was certainly an event in the
|
|
controversy, not just a description of it. (Ed Newman, at least, did
|
|
challenge his Roselli story.)
|
|
If anyone wants to transcribe Anderson's comments, or other parts of the
|
|
program, I can provide an audio tape.
|
|
Among other things, Ramsey Clark suggested that the Castro-did-it theory
|
|
is CIA disinformation. He praised the Warren Commission for doing a
|
|
"marvelous job," and alleged that RFK had no doubts about FBI or CIA
|
|
involvement. The issue, he thinks, is how we can keep our idealism without
|
|
succumbing to "irrationality and to violence."
|
|
Dershowitz emphasized the importance of maintaining the integrity of the
|
|
8 EOC 4 -8-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>fact-finding process. Even more than Spence, he would have emphasized that
|
|
the process had been tampered with. Clark said that sort of thing happens all
|
|
the time. Dershowitz thought Spence got some new facts out, and showed the
|
|
advantages of the adversary process. Clark, correctly, disputed that.
|
|
Spence and Bugliosi made a few general remarks to the TV audience, mostly
|
|
on the value of the mock trial.
|
|
The jury's verdict: guilty. On the question of conspiracy: seven no,
|
|
three yes, two undecided.
|
|
There was also a telephone-poll verdict, provided by an unspecified
|
|
number of viewers who saw at least part of the defense case and thought giving
|
|
their opinion was worth fifty cents: 14% guilty, 86% not guilty in the West,
|
|
15% and 85% in the East. That is generally consistent with the 1983 Gallup
|
|
poll often referred to by Hurt, and with Fensterwald's poll of "experts."
|
|
(#1984.36, #1984.166-7) Newman thought the variance of the two verdicts was a
|
|
"remarkable" state of affairs. (For my sentiments about polls of the general
|
|
public, note item #126 below.) Newman said that the unavailable evidence, if
|
|
relevant, should be made public, in light of the "continuing disquiet."
|
|
How I would have voted? In a real trial, not guilty (unless the rest of
|
|
the jury was unanimously not guilty, in which case I might have taken the
|
|
opportunity to hang the jury and get some more facts out the next time
|
|
around); in a mock trial, based just on what was aired, guilty and conspiracy.
|
|
But, as with my limited real-life trial experience, my strongest opinion was
|
|
that at least one of the lawyers should be locked up. Despite my bias against
|
|
Bugliosi for his prior comparison of some buffs to Dr. Goebbels, I think he
|
|
did an acceptable and often persuasive job on the air.
|
|
The credits included special thanks to Tony Summers and Mary Ferrell.
|
|
The copyright is held by LWT.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><special>Clippings:</special>
|
|
117. For 15-16 Nov 86 (Seth Kantor, Cox papers and NYT service)
|
|
[3 pp.] "Despite the impact of the testimony, the realistic trial is
|
|
dominated by the hand-to-hand courtroom combat" of Spence and Bugliosi, who
|
|
"do not like each other, on and off camera." A good pre-broadcast overview,
|
|
with a few quotes from the witnesses.
|
|
118. 9 Nov 86 (LAT) "Oswald goes on trial" [4 pp.] An amusing account
|
|
by Bill Bancroft of Dallas, who worked as a researcher for the program.
|
|
Norman was hard to locate; Amos Euins was afraid to participate; a judge who
|
|
looked like one was not easy to find; some "jurors" (deliberately chosen to be
|
|
under 35) were (understandably) suspicious of the LWT offer. (One checked
|
|
Bancroft's credit rating.) There was much tension during the filming. "All
|
|
18 hours are scheduled to be shown on Showtime in 1987."
|
|
119. Nov 86 (Cabletime) This Showtime ad does not mention LWT, but
|
|
does use the dreaded "d" word: "Innocent or guilty? You decide after
|
|
watching this docu-drama of the controversy behind the Kennedy assassination."
|
|
120. 21 Nov 86 (SF Examiner) "Oswald inherits his day in court at
|
|
last; a goose teaches a boy to be a man" (Two separate items.) "In a curious
|
|
way, this massive program elevates the 'People's Court' genre while degrading
|
|
both the reality and the mythos behind legendary 'Inherit the Wind' court
|
|
battles." TV critic Michael Dougan is more generous to Spence than I can be:
|
|
he "transfixes the jurors (and, I suspect, many viewers) with his intense
|
|
magnetism, his down-home demeanor, his unflappability and confidence." But
|
|
Dougan sees the basic problem: "Where 'On Trial' disappoints is in the
|
|
implied promise that this may be a ground-breaking investigation, bringing
|
|
fresh evidence - or, at least, perspective - to the fore.... Alas, most of
|
|
the time is devoted to rehashing old arguments...."
|
|
121. 16 Nov (Schneider, NYT) "Bringing Lee Harvey Oswald to 'Trial'"
|
|
The "main weakness", Bugliosi said, was the time limitation on cross-
|
|
examination and closing statements.
|
|
8 EOC 4 -9-</p>
|
|
|
|
<p> 122. 19 Nov (AP) "Kennedy case put to a jury" [2 pp.] Researcher
|
|
Tomlinson said the program "produces no new evidence" and is not "the final
|
|
word on who killed Kennedy." O'Connor's "dramatic" testimony is noted.
|
|
123. 4 Nov (LA News in NY News) "TV gives Oswald his day in court"
|
|
Spence is "best known as the flamboyant lawyer who won a multi-million-dollar
|
|
verdict in the Karen Silkwood case." (I am told that the Law Enforcement
|
|
Intelligence Unit played a role in that case; to get some idea of why I am
|
|
interested in the LEIU, and the possibility that it knew about Oswald, see the
|
|
documents listed in EOC for 16 Jun 79.) "The lawyers were chosen not only
|
|
because of their visibility but also because... 'We wanted people who would
|
|
take this seriously.'" Bugliosi "combed through" the WC and HSCA volumes,
|
|
"and 'all the books by the conspiracy buffs.'" (Did he talk to any of us?
|
|
Not that I know of.)
|
|
124. 22 Nov (LAT) "Oswald Skeptics' Night in Court" "If the emotions
|
|
aren't genuine, then these witnesses are among the world's best amateur
|
|
actors. The posturing is by lawyers, not witnesses, proving that real people
|
|
telling real stories are far more compelling and believable than characters
|
|
speaking dialogue."
|
|
Speaking of flamboyant lawyers whose style didn't cut it in this case:
|
|
125. 23 Nov (Wice, Hartford Courant, in SFC) "The Botched Trial of
|
|
Jack Ruby" [3 pp.] "A lawyer less concerned [than Melvin Belli] with his
|
|
public image probably would not have gambled his client's life on an
|
|
implausible [epilepsy] defense." The press, prosecutor, and judge didn't do
|
|
so well either, making "a mockery out of due process of law."
|
|
126. 3 Nov (SFC) In a poll at four named colleges, 30% of the 1000
|
|
responding students said they believed that "aliens from outer space visited
|
|
Earth in ancient times." About the same fraction believe in Bigfoot and
|
|
Atlantis. More than half "said they are creationists." So let's not take our
|
|
85% in the JFK case too seriously.
|
|
127. 20 Nov 86 (Corry, NYT) A good critique of the lawyers' styles and
|
|
the witnesses' demeanor; quotable, but I'm short on space and time.</p>
|
|
|
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<p><special>An excerpt:</special>
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The entire broadcast cross-examination of Prof. Vincent Guinn:
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GS: Well, I'd rather cross-examine Mr. Bugliosi than the doctor, since
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he's the one that's given all the testimony. [Judge: But the doctor's on the
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stand.] Doctor, will you answer my questions, nice and simple, yes and no,
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like you did for Mr. Bugliosi?
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VG: Wherever that's possible, yes, sir.
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GS: Here's a picture of the skull, X-ray of the skull, of the President.
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And what we see are an artist's drawing of the fragments that were seen in the
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X-ray. I understand that you examined only two of the 30 fragments that were
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|
found in the skull; is that correct?
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VG: There were only two that were delivered to me, I'm not sure...
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GS: (Interrupting) Please, is that correct? [VG: That is correct.]
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You did two. [Yeah.] Only two. And do you know which two? [No.] And so do
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you know what the composition is of the other 28 fragments found in his brain?
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VG: Yes.
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GS: Have you checked them?
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VG: No, but I know what they are.
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GS: Well, have you examined them, put them through the neutron
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activation analysis?
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VG: They were not available, the other pieces.
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GS: Thank you. Now, doctor, did you analyze the large copper fragment
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that was found in the limousine?
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VG: No, this was only an analysis of bullet lead.
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GS: I'm gonna ask you once more, Dr. Guinn, did you analyze the large
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copper fragment that was found in the limousine? [VG: No.]
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8 EOC 4 -10-</p>
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<p> GS: Are you aware of the fact, doctor, that dishonest evidence can be
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honestly examined? [VG: Of course.]
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GS: That means that an honest examination can be made of evidence that's
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been manufactured or planted. [VG: It's always possible, yes.]
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GS: Your testimony isn't to be interpreted by the jury that you find
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|
that this is honest evidence, is it?
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VG: I cannot say; I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of the
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|
evidence; [VG ignored GS's interruption: No, but you can't say one way or the
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other, can you?] it came to me in the original FBI containers with their
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|
designations on them, and in all appearances the specimens matched what was in
|
|
the Warren Commission report description of them. I have no reason to doubt
|
|
that they are completely authentic; they were brought to me from the National
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|
Archives by a man of the National Archives.
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GS: I'm understanding that, sir, but you're not testifying to this jury
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|
that you can vouch for their authenticity, are you?
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VG: No, you never can do that, in any criminal case.
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GS: Your testimony isn't to be interpreted to mean that you know that
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|
the bullet parts that you examined actually came from the body of the
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|
President? [VG: No way, unless I were the surgeon.]
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GS: And you just examined what they gave you, isn't that true, doctor?
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VG: Correct. [GS: Thank you, doctor.]</p>
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<p><special>Postscripts relating to Tony Summers:</special>
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|
The "settlement" referred to at 8 EOC 3.10 did not involve any admission
|
|
or court ruling that Phillips had been libeled. It seems safe to assume the
|
|
the potential cost of going to trial resulted in a settlement. The Observer
|
|
conceded that the Summers extracts "could have been read to suggest that Mr.
|
|
Phillips was himself involved in a conspiracy relating to the assassination
|
|
and in the suppression of evidence about it," and "accepted that there was
|
|
never any evidence to support such a suggestion." The case involved not only
|
|
excerpts from "Conspiracy" but subsequent articles in the South China Morning
|
|
Post based on Summers' research, as distributed by the Observer.
|
|
"Goddess" is out in paperback (Onyx, $4.95), with a substantial new
|
|
chapter (45 pages) on various aspects of the Monroe-Kennedy story.</p>
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|
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|
<p><special>Queries and comments:</special>
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|
Q80. WBAI's anniversary program featured John Davis, David Lifton, and
|
|
Phil Melanson. Can someone provide a tape?
|
|
Q81. Investigations of Oswald's activities in New Orleans turned up
|
|
several references to Tulane (where some FPCC handbills were found, for
|
|
example) and (I think) one or two to Loyola. Does anyone know of any
|
|
references to LSU at New Orleans (now the University of New Orleans)? That
|
|
was the downtown public college, and at least as likely a place for Oswald to
|
|
do his work as the two major private colleges. (I know of only 10 HSCA 127,
|
|
which says that Guy Banister checked out Cuban students at LSUNO for the CRC.)
|
|
I have again gotten far behind in my correspondence, and I expect to
|
|
catch up now that the case is quiet again - unless someone comes up with a
|
|
photo of Col. North on the grassy knoll. (I'm being sarcastic only about the
|
|
tendency of a few conspiratorialists to link some of the mysterious old
|
|
evidence to whoever emerges in the newest scandal. Some aspects of the latest
|
|
disclosures certainly have roots in the Cuban issues of 1963, and we should
|
|
not be surprised if some of the newly prominent names can be linked to people
|
|
who have been mentioned in the assassination controversy. Peter Scott has
|
|
already come up with some interesting ideas along these lines.)</p>
|
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<p><special>Credits</special>: Thanks to B. Fensterwald (#116), J. Goldberg (127), G. Hollingsworth
|
|
(122, 124), S. Kantor (117), P. Melanson (118, 123), G. Owens (121),
|
|
R. Stetler, and G. Stone (118).</p>
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<p>*From Illumi-Net BBS - (404) 377-1141* [ Don's note: I doubt this BBS is still
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up ]</p>
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<p>---END OF ARTICLE---------------------------------------------------------------</p>
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<p>--
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-* Don Allen *- InterNet: dona@bilver.UUCP // Amiga..for the best of us.
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USnail: 1818G Landing Dr, Sanford Fl 32771 \X/ Why use anything else? :-)
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UUCP: ..uunet!tarpit!bilver!dona - Why did the JUSTICE DEPT steal PROMIS?
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/\/\ What is research but a blind date with knowledge. William Henry /\/\
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