Thursday, February 26, 2015

Bob Sirkin checks in on O'Reilly's JFK Story

BK Notes - this message previously gave the wrong date -  it has been corrected. Also, since writing this Bob Sirkin has called to say that he was an associate to not an assistant to O'Reilly on the story and that O'Reilly was with  him in Florida before, during and after the suspicious dearth of George deMohrenschildt.

While Bob Sirkin does not know about the other questionable stories O'Reilly is being accused of exaggerating or fabricating, he was working with O'Reilly in Florida at the time of deMohrenschildt's death, though he wasn't with him at the time O'Reilly claims to have heard the shotgun blast that killed him.  Sirkin believes the Fonzi tape has O'Reilly calling Fonzi from Florida, not Dallas. He also notes they won award for the story they did - the Dallas Press Club's Katie ? Award.

I think this story is important - not because it may harm the reputation of O'Reilly but because the story is still relevant today and of the opportunity to present the intelligence associations of the accused assassin's best friend. Like Posner and McAdams before him - their fall from professional grace also derails their central thesis - that the president was killed by a deranged loner.


Subject: Re: Gaeton Fonzi Dead

Correction:  Haag dispatched O'Reilly and ME!   
On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 5:01 PM, 

Bob Sirkin wrote:

In the spring of 1977 at WFAA-TV Dallas, my boss, the legendary Marty Haag, disptached Bill O'Reilly and I to Palm Beach, Florida on a midnight Braniff Airlines flight.  Our mission; to find a missing Bishop College professor, a former Russian petrolium engineer and CIA operative, a white Russian Baron named George deMorenschieldt  A man who befriended Lee Harvey Oswald and wife Marina upon their return to Dallas from Russia. 

OReilly and I, along with WFAA-TV Reporter Doug Fox, had been on the trail of deMorenchieldt for weeks, since his suspicious disappearance from the campus of Bishop College, where deMorenschieldt taught and lived.  It was Doug Fox who dug up the fact that Bishop College, a small, black libreal arts school, had received funding from the C-I-A.    

Bill O'Reilly had been tipped by his friend, Gaeton Fonzi, Investigator for the House Committee on Assassinations (JFK and MLK) that deMohrenschildt was at the famous Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach being interviewed by author Edward Jay Epstein.  Epstein was writing a book on the JFK Assassination. 

Just hours after landing, O'Reilly and I, along with our cameraman, arrived at The Breakers.  We paid a bell hop $25 to get the number of Epstein's suite.   With camera rolling, I knocked on the door.  Epstein came to the door and went ballistic!  You could see deMohrenschildt, in the background, sitting at a dining room table.  Eptstein called hotel security.  Within moments, we were all bodily removed from the premises.   Just the beginning of our caper!

The next day, Gaeton Fonzi shows up in nearby Manalapan, Florida carrying a subpoena for deMohrenschildt to appear before the House Committee on Assassinations.   The Committee wanted to grill deMohrenschildt on his and Oswald's clandestine meeting with a CIA operative in Mexico City, about a month before the assassination.  But deMohrenschildt never appeared before the committee. 

Shortly after receiving his subpoena, deMohrenschildt retreated to a bedroom inside a mansion owned by a Mafia connected family from Arizona.  He was found dead from a massive shotgun wound to his head.  The cororner, to my recollection, couldn't say for sure that deMohrenschildt took his own life because of the length of the shotgun barrell placed in deMohrenschildt's mouth.  Some story...to say the least!

Before leaving Florida, O'Reilly and I made one more stop.  We drove to North Miami Beach, the Hallendale area.  About 10pm, we paid a visit to former convicted Watergate figure, E. Howard Hunt.  He too was the focus of the House Committee's investigation into the JFK Assassination.   When we rang Hunt's doorbell, he opened a small peephole.  In total darkness, I remember Hunt's eerie voice saying:  "I strongly suggest that you gentlemen leave RIGHT NOW!"   

We did and flew back to Dallas continuing to pursue the alleged cover-up to the assassination.  

Bill O'Reilly's contact; the late Gaeton Fonzi, made our award winning story.


Wednesday, February 25, 2015

The NFL at Dealey Plaza

The NFL at Dealey Plaza
By Bill Kelly 

                                                              JFK - goes out for a pass -

There’s plenty of wild conspiracy theories floating around, but I’ve found there’s also plenty of real conspiracies that aren’t theories, and in the most unlikely places.

In one of his books Max Holland notes that his wife suggested that he look for patterns in the history and I’ve found many patterns emerge from my study of political assassinations – not only in the course of investigating the forensic evidence but in the deep background of the social settings that includes music (1) and sports.

Sports for instance, includes the embattled NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who is the son of former New York Senator Charles Goodell, the Republican Governor Rockefeller picked to fill RFK’s seat when he was eliminated as a candidate (2), a tidbit that led me to think of a few more NFL connections to the JFK assassination that weren’t hard to find.

Lee Harvey Oswald the accused assassin was himself a football fan, listened to the games on the radio, watched football on television and threw the football around when off duty in the Marines (3), while his killer Jack Ruby reportedly placed bets on the games with his good friend radio station owner Gordon McLendon (4), who tried to enlist in the CIA and later joined David Atlee Phillips’ Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO). (5)

Oswald’s good friend George deMohrenschildt once worked for John Mecom, the wild cat oil man who co-founded the San Jacinto Fund  CIA front and whose son owned the New Orleans Saints (6) and was among the small association of multi-millionaire NFL club owners.

Carroll Rosenbloom, former owner of the Baltimore Colts, also owned the beach house where LBJ stayed during the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City. LBJ stayed there because he believed that his boardwalk hotel room was bugged by RFK. (7)

With JFK’s golfing partner Mike McLaney (8), Rosenbloom purchased the Hotel National casino in Havana from Meyer Lansky a few months before Castro took power, and lost their shirts (9). As detailed by Dan Muldea, who also wrote one of the first books blaming the Mafia for killing JFK (10), Robsenbloom’s mysterious drowning death on a Florida beach may have been murder (11).

If the devil is in the details Robert Oswald, the brother of the accused assassin, was represented before the Warren Commission by attorney William Mackenzie (12) whose law offices were in the Southland building, where Oswald reportedly met with CIA spymaster David Atlee Phillips. (13)

It is also the same law office that represents Clint Murchison, one of the owners of the Dallas Cowboys NFL team. (14) Murchison is reported to have hosted a much controversial party on the night before the assassination that included LBJ, J. Edgar Hover and a host of Orient Express suspects (15) with motives to kill the President.

Ruth and Michael Paine, the chief benefactors of the family of the accused assassin, lived in Irving, where Oswald stayed on the night before the assassination, and the same Dallas neighborhood where the Cowboy’s stadium was located.

In any case, the patterns are there, and while most of these associations are coincidental, there certainly are some suspicious things going on that are worthy of further and deeper examination.


                                                  The NFL Played on - November 24, 1963

NOTES:

4)      Ruby and McLendon – [http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKmclendon.htm   ]
5)      McLendon and CIA – [ http://www.ctka.net/2011/Journalists_&_JFK_3.html  ]
6)      deMohrenschildt and Mecom – [  http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKdemohrenschildt.htm [Also see “Family of Secrets” (Russ Baker, p 243].
7)      Mecom and Saints – [ http://www.neworleanssaints.com/team/history/key-moments.html      ]
9)      Rosenbloom and McLaney and Cuba – [http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2013/11/jfk-in-atlantic-city-what-might-have.html ]     
10)  Dan Muldea on Rosenbloom – [See: Interference: How Organized Crime Influences Professional Football By Dan E. Molde]

Thursday, February 19, 2015

A Nation Calls for Truth and Justice

"Much like the Kennedy assassination in the United States, suspicious deaths have become the staples of political debate in the region.." 

The Suspicious death of an Argentine prosecutor has riled a nation to call for truth and justice and the New York Times relates the events as similar to other suspicious deaths of important officials and the lengths taken to determine the truth.. Thanks to Dr. Wecht for calling attention to this important story. - BK 

New York Times – Argentina


AMERICAS | MEMO FROM ARGENTINA

Whodunit? In Obsessed Nation, Question Becomes Who Didn’t


FEB. 7, 2015

BUENOS AIRES — The president did it. No, it was the Argentine spymaster plotting against her. Maybe it really was a suicide, the tragic fall of a man whose case was coming undone. Or was it Iran, the Israeli Mossad, the C.I.A.? And what about the lingering influence of the Nazis who fled here afterWorld War II?
Ever since the fatal shooting of Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor who accused President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of conspiring with Iran to cover up responsibility for the bombing of a Jewish community center, this country has been awash in theories about who pulled the trigger, and why.

Whether in hushed conversations in cafes, at corner news stalls, or at a lonely beach town hot-dog stand, much of Argentina seems to have an idea about how Mr. Nisman ended up on his apartment floor with a gunshot wound to the head — the night before he was scheduled to testify about his accusations to lawmakers.

“It has to either be the armed faction of narco-Nazi-jihadist international terrorism, or it has to be the Jewish-Marxism mafia that also involves the C.I.A., Israel and the Mossad,” said Carlos Wiesemann, 65, a hot-dog vendor in the town of Pinamar, weighing his list of suspected forces while drinking whiskey with a friend.
Indeed, the obsession with Mr. Nisman’s death — and the expansiveness of the theories to explain it — has grown so intense that some Argentines are poring over the case in one of the country’s most intimate sanctuaries  the psychotherapist’s office.

“All my clients are talking about the case,” said María del Carmen Torretta, 67, a psychoanalyst who treats about 15 clients a week in Villa Ballester, a suburb of Buenos Aires. “People are tired and scared,” she said. “It’s a red-hot issue.”

Pollsters have even surveyed Argentines to see who they think is responsible. One recent poll by Rouvier showed that about 48 percent of people in 800 telephone interviews across Argentina thought that Mrs. Kirchner’s government was behind the prosecutor’s death. Nearly 20 percent said the opposite — that he was a victim of a conspiracy against the government — while 33 percent acknowledged that they just did not know. The survey’s margin of sampling error was plus or minus three percentage points.

The loss of Mr. Nisman is the latest installment in a Latin American tradition: landmark political deaths that spur an array of clashing theories, often for decades.

“Many people are in anguish over Nisman’s death and they’re grasping for ways to explain it,” said Diego Sehinkman, a psychologist and author here. “If Argentina were a patient, it would appear to have a disorder involving repetition compulsion over traumatic unsolved deaths.”

Much like the Kennedy assassination in the United States, suspicious deaths have become staples of political debate in the region, sometimes pushing the courts and the authorities to go to great lengths to resolve them.
In recent years, the body of President Salvador Allende of Chile was exhumed to determine whether he took his own life or was shot dead as troops stormed the presidential palace in an American-supported coup on Sept. 11, 1973.

The remains of Pablo Neruda, theNobel Prize-winning Chilean poet, were recently exhumed to figure out whether he died of cancer or foul play shortly after the coup in 1973. Investigators recently disinterred João Goulart, a Brazilian president deposed in a 1964 coup supported by the C.I.A., to see if he was poisoned by spieswhile in exile in Argentina.

And in a particularly dramatic event, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela had the sarcophagus of Simón Bolívar, the 19th-century aristocrat who freed much of South America from Spain, opened on national television to determine whether he died of arsenic poisoning instead of tuberculosis in 1830, as historians had long accepted.

In each of these cases, investigators failed to find evidence of foul play in the deaths.

Here in Argentina, many people said that Mr. Nisman’s death reminded them of another mysterious episode in the country’s history: the 1995 death of the son of Carlos Menem, Argentina’s president at the time.
After Carlos Menem Jr. died in a helicopter crash, his mother claimed that her son had been killed, prompting yet another exhumation. Mr. Menem, now 84 and a senator, officially contended as well last year that his son had been murdered.

Mrs. Kirchner made it clear in January that she believed Mr. Nisman, the prosecutor, had been killed, pointing to three previous episodes, two from 1998 and one from 2003, in which “cases of suicide were never cleared up.” Mrs. Kirchner and her inner circle have rejected Mr. Nisman’s accusations of wrongdoing and cast suspicion in his death on a range of figures, including the assistant who lent Mr. Nisman the gunand the ousted spymaster who worked with Mr. Nisman to compile the allegations against the president.

Though neither Mrs. Kirchner nor her government has accused anyone of murder directly, she has described Mr. Nisman’s death as part of a plot to smear her, saying, “They used him while he was alive and then they needed him dead.”

But given that Mr. Nisman’s 289-page criminal complaint accused Mrs. Kirchner of trying to reach a secret deal with Iran to derail his investigation into the 1994 bombing of the Jewish cultural center, which killed 85 people, many Argentines argue that her government is the logical place to look for suspects.

“This is a country where mafias can artfully make a murder look like a suicide,” said Ana Rosa Di Serio, 65, a newsstand operator who said she believed that government officials supporting Mrs. Kirchner had Mr. Nisman killed, though without the president’s knowledge.

Others reject that theory, siding with the government.

“It doesn’t suit the government to have a death in an election year,” said Claudia Rúmolo, 55, the owner of Mordisquito, a bar lined with bookcases in downtown Buenos Aires, referring to the presidential election later this year. “A rogue branch of the Intelligence Secretariat did it, responding to opposition sectors nationally or abroad.”

Confused yet? The theories get far more complex.

While investigators have still not ruled whether Mr. Nisman was killed or took his own life, few of the theories heard on the streets accept suicide as an explanation.

One claim involves a local assassin targeting the prosecutor with the help of Venezuelan spies. Some bloggers have cast suspicion on what they describe as the Chinese mafia. A rabbi here put forward a complex interpretation of the Torah, pointing to a codified reference to the surname “Nisman” to deduce that the prosecutor was pressured by others into killing himself.

“I don’t know who did it, but I’m sure we will never find out,” said Marcus Macias, 29, an attendant selling snacks and soft drinks at a kiosk while watching a zombie movie on a flat-screen television under the glow of neon lights.

“These things happen everywhere,” he said. “The Nisman case is just like Kennedy.”

Charles Newbery contributed reporting from Pinamar, Argentina, and Jonathan Gilbert and Frederick Bernas from Buenos Aires.

A version of this article appears in print on February 8, 2015, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Whodunit? In Obsessed Nation, Question Becomes Who Didn’t. Order ReprintsToday's Paper|Subscribe


President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina and Alberto Nisman in May 2013. Mr. Nisman had accused Mrs. Kirchner of conspiring to cover up responsibility for the bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, claims she has rejected. 


News about Argentina, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times.

CHRONOLOGY OF COVERAGE

FEB. 18, 2015
Argentinian Foreign Min Hector Timerman sends letter to Sec of State John Kerry, warning United States and other countries to stay out of nation's domestic issues, such as case of mysterious death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman.

FEB. 14, 2015
Buenos Aires prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita is seeking to charge Argentina's Pres Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and other officials of very accusations lodged against her by late Alberto Nisman--that of protecting Iranians from responsibility in 1994 bombing at Jewish center that killed 85 people; Nisman was found dead of gunshot wound one day before he was to voice his claims in Congress.

FEB. 10, 2015
Op-Ed article by author Uki Goni makes note of Argentina's long history of political 'suicides,' which are so common that special word has been invented for apparent suicides of politicians; notes this history does not bode well for truth in demise of Alberto Nisman; holds Nisman's death, who died one day before he was to give testimony against Pres Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, is a reminder of this history.

FEB. 8, 2015
Memo From Argentina; Argentinians are obsessed with puzzling case of death of Alberto Nisman, prosecutor who accused Pres Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of covering up for Iran in bombing of Jewish community center; speculation about who was behind Nisman's death has reached feverish pitch, and shows how his death is latest installment in Latin American tradition of landmark political deaths that provoke speculation and discussion for years.

FEB. 6, 2015
Argentina's former spy chief Antonio Stiusso is asked to testify in inquiry into death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who was investigating 1994 bombing of Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.

Fallout Over Argentine Prosecutor’s Death Draws International Tensions


By JONATHAN GILBERTFEB. 17, 2015

INTENDENTE ALVEAR, Argentina — Fallout from the mysterious death of a federal prosecutor raised diplomatic tensions between Argentina and the United States on Tuesday, on the eve of a controversial march in the prosecutor’s honor that has fueled unease between the government and parts of the judiciary.

In a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, Héctor Timerman, Argentina’s foreign minister, said the country should not tolerate being a “theater for operations of politics, intelligence or, even worse, more serious actions, because of conflicts that are completely unconnected with its history,” adding that Argentina had no strategic interests in the Middle East

Days before his death on Jan. 18, the prosecutor, Alberto Nisman, had accused Mr. Timerman and President Cristina Fernández de Kirchnerof trying to derail his investigation into the fatal bombing in 1994 of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires by conspiring to shield Iranians from his charges that they had planned the attack….

“Argentina is observing with great concern the increasing frequency with which many countries are used as stages for the intervention of other states to set out disputes in function of their own geopolitical interests,” Mr. Timerman wrote in the letter, which he read aloud at a news conference. “My country rejects these actions and tries to ensure they do not happen in its territory.” Mr. Timerman, who sent a near-identical letter to the foreign minister of Israel, reminded foreign diplomatic officials that they should not interfere in Argentina’s domestic issues.

In a phone call on Tuesday, Mr. Timerman said he would not elaborate on his written remarks. A spokeswoman for the United States Embassy in Argentina also declined to comment.

Responding to Mr. Timerman’s plea for the United States government to take up the issue of the 1994 bombing in its talks with Iran over nuclear issues, Jen Psaki, a spokeswoman for the State Department, said she was not aware of any plans to do so.

“There is a great paralysis in the government about how to resolve this institutional crisis,” said Carlos Germano, a political analyst in Buenos Aires. “It’s turning to the old saying that there’s no better defense than a good attack, and the United States is the easiest target,” he added, referring to tensions between the United States and Latin American countries.

Mr. Timerman has challenged the central premise of Mr. Nisman’s criminal complaint by pointing to an email from the former secretary general of Interpol that says Mr. Timerman never lobbied to lift international arrest warrants for the Iranians.

A prosecutor revived Mr. Nisman’s  complaint last week, seeking to charge Mrs. Kirchner and Mr. Timerman. The government said the revival of the complaint and a march planned for Wednesday in Mr. Nisman’s honor by a group of prosecutors amounted to a judicial coup. Members of the political opposition and other Argentines unhappy with the government plan to attend the march, leading Mrs. Kirchner’s supporters to denounce it as “political opportunism.”

In speeches Mrs. Kirchner delivered in Patagonia over the weekend, she did not explicitly mention the fallout from Mr. Nisman’s death.

But she did post comments on Facebook from a speech last week in which she spoke out against unspecified influences abroad, implying that they were meddling in Argentina’s affairs.

Investigators are still trying to establish whether Mr. Nisman, who was found dead of a bullet wound to the head, shot himself or was killed. Some Argentines believe the government had a hand in the events surrounding his death. But Mrs. Kirchner has cast suspicion on a rogue spymaster recently ousted from Argentina’s main intelligence agency. She has suggested that the spymaster, Antonio Stiuso, manipulated Mr. Nisman by feeding him misleading information for his case against her.

A version of this article appears in print on February 18, 2015, on page A5 of the New York edition with the headline: Argentine Case Draws International Tensions. 

Argentines March to Demand Answers About Dead Prosecutor

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESSFEB. 18, 2015, 5:34 P.M. E.S.T.


BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Tens of thousands of Argentines marched through the capital Wednesday demanding answers in the mysterious death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman exactly one month after he was found in his bathroom with a bullet in his right temple.

In a case that has posed one of the strongest challenges to President Cristina Fernandez, protesters waved Argentine flags and carried white signs with black letters that read "Justice!" and "Truth!" Many also carried umbrellas to repel a burst of summer rain.

Blanca Perez, 81, said she believed Nisman had been murdered and the government needed to account for what happened.

"If we don't have justice, we won't have liberty," she said. "The government has lost control of the situation."
Organized by several prosecutors, protesters walked from Congress to the iconic Plaza de Mayo in downtown Buenos Aires. Police didn't immediately provide a crowd estimate, but the 10-block stretch, plus many surrounding streets, burst with people, making it one of the biggest of several marches since Nisman's body was discovered Jan. 18.

Upon arriving at their destination, thousands stayed for more than an hour, chanting "Argentina!" and demanding action by the government. By late Wednesday, most were starting to disperse.

The 51-year-old prosecutor was found in a pool of blood the day before he was to detail to Congress his explosive accusations that Fernandez and top government officials orchestrated a secret deal with Iran to shield Iranian officials allegedly responsible for the 1994 bombing that killed 85 people at a Jewish community center in Argentina's capital.

Fernandez has denied the allegations, but her administration has struggled to confront the growing political crisis.

The president initially suggested Nisman had killed himself, then did an about-face a few days later, saying she suspected he had been slain. Authorities now say they are investigating the possibility of suicide or homicide.

Like many Argentines, lawyer Marcelo Lopez rejected the idea that Nisman killed himself.

"I'm worried about the future of my country," he said, holding a sign that read, "They can't 'suicide' us all."
In the lead up to the march, the main opposition parties said they planned to participate, making it a hotly contested political issue and adding to intensifying rhetoric from the government.

Fernandez has suggested Nisman was killed by rogue counterintelligence agents and have cast suspicions on Antonio "Jaime" Stiuso, who reportedly oversaw a vast wire-tapping operation before being removed by Fernandez in December.

Stiuso, who had worked with Nisman on his investigation, provided testimony on Wednesday, according to a statement from the office of Viviana Fein, the lead investigator in Nisman's death. No other details were provided.

Fernandez and other top administration officials also have suggested that the United States and Israel have meddled with Argentina, but have not provided details.

In a speech at nuclear power plant earlier Wednesday, Fernandez referred to letters that Foreign Minister Hector Timerman said he sent Tuesday to his counterparts in the United States and Israel. Timerman said the two countries should not get involved in Argentina's affairs, but did not provide specifics.

"Some people wanted to play dumb and look the other way," Fernandez said of the accusations. "I urge all compatriots to read every paragraph of those letters."

Fernandez, known for populist, fiery speeches, did not elaborate. But she did cast the apparent friction as a battle of economic interests and attempts by other countries to keep Argentina down.

"In reality, they prefer an Argentina without a nuclear plan, an Argentina that does not develop scientifically, an Argentina with low salaries and cheap labor," she said.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman declined to comment, instead referring to a State Department statement from Tuesday saying the United States had offered assistance in the Nisman investigation. A spokeswoman at the Israeli Embassy also declined to comment.


Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Dr. Wecht's Letter to the Editor NY Times


From: Cyril Wecht
Sent: Monday, February 09, 2015 12:07 PM
To: 'letters@nytimes.com'
Subject: Who dunit? In Obsessed Nation, Question Becomes Who Didn't
                                                                                                                                                    
February 9, 2015

Letters to the Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd Street
New York,  N.Y.  10036
RE:  “Whodunit? In Obsessed Nation, Question Becomes Who Didn’t
February 8, 2015

To the Editor:

                This fascinating “Memo From Argentina” about the mysterious fatal shooting of Alberto Nisman refers to exhumations of prominent political figures whose deaths remained the subjects of continuing significant controversy in their respective countries – President Salvador Allende and Nobel Prize-winning poet in Chili (1973); President Joao Goulart in Brazil (1964); Simon Bolivar in Venezuela (1830).  Two other exhumations of prominent leaders should be referred to in this context – President Zachary Taylor in the USA (1850), and PLO President Yasir Arafat in France (2004).

                While all these deaths involved varying puzzling features, none of them entailed as much hard-core forensic scientific controversy as the assassination of President John F. Kennedy; nor were the official governmental rulings as to who was responsible for those deaths rejected by such a large majority of their respective country’s population as that which exists in the United States after more than half a century.

                Would it not be beneficial to our nation to have the President’s body exhumed so that modern day forensic scientific technology and fresh eyes could be utilized to determine with indisputable finality whether the Warren Commission was correct?

Sincerely,

Cyril H. Wecht, M.D., J.D.
Forensic Pathologist
Past President, American Academy of Forensic Sciences
Past President, American College of Legal Medicine
Clinical Professor of Pathology University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Adjunct Professor, Duquesne University School of Law
Distinguished Professor of Pathology, Carlow University

Thursday, February 12, 2015

Parkland - the Movie - Reconsidered

Parkland - The Movie




Parkland the movie is surprising for a number of reasons, beginning with its unique perspective of participants on the ground - one that should be expanded on.

Another is its attention to detail and accuracy - right for the most part, and only promoting the provably false lone nut theory at the very end.

I was surprised because Parkland is said to be based on a chapter of the over weighted opinion laced book Reclaiming History by Vincent Bugliosi Reclaiming History, which promotes the preposterous idea that a deranged loner killed JFK all by himself and he was subsequently killed in police custody by another lone nut.


Bugliosi's New York literary agent is Peter Miller, whose father led the house band at Atlantic City's 500 Club, not an unrelated fact, as some scholars believe the mob was responsible for the assassination.

Parkland's producers include super star Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman, Nigel and Matt Sinclair and Billy Paxton, who as a young boy perched on his father's shoulders, saw JFK in Fort Worth shortly before he was killed.

Little Billy Paxton looks on as JFK says a few words at the Fort Worth hotel November 22, 1963


I understand there is also an ambitious project afoot to focus on a play or project to memorialize JFK's last night and morning on this earth.

Paxton also produced The Greatest Game, Hollywood's not so great movie and falsely depicted  version of the 1913 US Open golf championship.Read about the historical inaccuracies of "The Greatest  Game " at 
Kellys Golf History / Golf's Forgotten Legends: & Unforgettable Controversies - Jeff Gold - Google Books

I thought that crew Hanks, Paxton and Bugliosi would butcher the facts but screenwriter and director Peter Landesman seems to have avoided some pitfalls by taking the divorced witness approach - and it works, kinda.




                                                       James B. Dale as Robert Oswald 


Robert Oswald, played believingly by James Badge Dale, is clearly the only moral star of this drama, challenged only by Abe Zapruder, who cashes in his chips right away - for the security of his family, it is left to Oswald's wacky and opportunistic mother Marguerite to call the spade a spade - "My son was a government intelligence agent."

It's a shame she is the only one who bothers to express that notion because, as is clearly depicted in this film, the FBI with Ron Livingston as James Hosty and Secret Service Agent Forest Sorrels (played by Billy Bob Thorton) also came to a similar suspicion after a cursory review of the accused assassin's file that, as accurately portrayed in Parkland, was officially ordered deep sixed and flushed down the toilet in the FBI office.


For the most part however, Parkland sticks to the facts and presents them through a different perspective, and I didn’t detect any blatant propaganda until the very end when it is announced the untrue factoid that Robert Oswald always believed in his brother’s guilt.

As anyone who has actually read Robert Oswald’s book “Lee” – he comes right out and says that, as a former US Marine Corps sharpshooter, if his brother didn’t practice with that rifle and scope in the weeks and days before the assassination, then he didn’t kill the President.

In Robert’s exact words  [ http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2014/11/oswalds-brother-lee-did-not-fire-shots.html ]: “If Lee did not spend a considerable amount of time practicing with that rifle in the weeks and months before the assassination, then I would say that Lee did not fire the shots that killed the President and wounded Governor Connally.”