Friday, November 30, 2018

TOP TEN JFK ASSASSINATION RECORDS - SMOKING DOCS

TOP TEN JFK ASSASSINATION RECORDS RELEASED UNDER THE JFK ACT

These are just my personal favorites. If you ask Peter Dale Scott, John Newman, Rex Bradford, Malcolm Blunt, Larry Hancock, Russ Baker, Jim Lesar or anyone who is actually reading these records, they will come up with their own Top Ten documents, and I hope someone will take the time to do that. 

1)      Higgins Memo.



1) The Higgins Memo - is the Number One Smoking Document released under the JFK Act for the following reasons:

THE KEY paragraph is (13) "He commented that there was nothing new in the propaganda field. However, he felt that there had been great success in getting closer to the military personnel who might break with Castro, and stated that there were at least ten high-level military personnel who are talking with CIA but as yet are not talking to each other, since that degree of confidence has not yet developed. He considers it as a parallel in history, i.e., the plot to kill Hitler, and this plot is being studied in detail to develop an approach.' 

D.C. attorney Jim Lesar, head of the Assassinations Archives and Research Center (AARC) and Dan Alcorn filed an FOIA request for that "detailed study" and the CIA apparently have lost it  


Other items of relevance include: 

a) It concerns a Joint Chiefs of Staff meeting at the Pentagon on a significant date - Sept. 25, 1963 a key time in the JFK Assassination Chronology as it occurs around the same time as some other key events, including:

1- the day Oswald left New Orleans for Mexico City,
2-  the estimated timing of the Odio incident, and
3- Michael Paine's wife Ruth Hyde Paine picks up Marina, the daughter and their belongings - including the rifle, and took them to Texas
4- after visiting Michael's mom - Ruth Forbes Paine Young - Mary Bancroft's close friend.
5-  It is also the day President Kennedy signs NSAM - National Security Action Memorandum on the advice of National Security advisor McGeorge Bundy approving "Four Leaves," - a secret military communications project.
6-  JFK then left on his "Conservation Tour," the first stop being the Northeast Pennsylvania home of the mother of Mary Pinchot Meyer, JFK's paramour who accompanied him.
7-  Oswald's name turns up on the list of those who visited the Tenn. nuclear museum and news cliips of the tour are found in a box at Oswald's rooming house.
8- Richard Case Nagel shot a gun in a bank in El Paso, Texas and waited to get arrested, ostensibly to be in federal custody at the time of the assassination.

So a lot of significant chronological events occurred in that 24 hour span.


b) Because Chef of Staff Gen. Maxwell Taylor was on a special mission to Vietnam, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Curtis LeMay chaired the meeting.

c) The author of the memo - Colonel Walter Higgiins was the adjunct of Gen. Victor Krulak (USMC), the director of the military detachment responsible for providing any assistance requested by the CIA in the course of their covert intelligence operations.

d) Desmond FitzGerald, the CIA officer who briefed the Chiefs on CIA covert operations against Cuba, had replaced William Harvey as chief of Task Force W - the Cuban project based in the basement of CIA HQ, and was the case officer for Dr. Rolando Cubella (AMLASH), a founder of the DRE who the CIA considered their  best bet to fit the disgrunted Cuban military officer who would lead the assassination attempt and coup.

e) Fitzgerald said this adaption of the plot to kill Hitler was considered a part of the Psychological Warfare area, which included David Atlee Phillips, George Joannides and the DRE agents who were arrested with Oswald in New Orleans.

f) LeMay also introduces an Air Force communications officer who had devised a way to influence radio communications that were to be adapted for use against Cuba.

g) The PENDELUM project is mentioned - and described as the code name of the Securitiy net that surrounded the covert Cuban projects they were operating.


h) The NSAM that JFK signed approving "Project Four Leaves" - a military communications system, is only mentioned once - in JFK's daily desk dirary at the JFK Presidential Library.

i) There is also mention of a textual letter that it so secret it could only be read and immediately returned to the messenger. This could possibly be a message from McGeorge Bundy regarding security for the Cuban operations then underway or being considered. 


2)  HSCA Interview w/ WC attorney Sam Stern (From Howard Weisberg’s Collection )



"I am less certain now that at the time we wrote the Report. Less certain that Oswald acted alone. Actually, I wasn't all that certain at the time. I thought the best evidence supported the final findings, and I agreed with them, but I wasn't tremendously firm or immovable in that, in my own mind. I just thought there were a lot of straws left.....I have become more skeptical about the Warren Commission findings and everything else that is a part of official life, I suppose. Everything has become discredited over the years since 1963. You don’t really believe in things the way you did back then."……

Mr. Stern stated that “at the outset we realized that there was no possible way to penetrate any official involvement in a cover-up or conspiracy if there was such complicity.” Stern stated that he and several of his Commission colleagues discussed what they regarded as “the fact that the agencies – the FBI and CIA – could formulate and maintain a cover-up which no one would ever penetrate. We of course did not believe that was so. And I still don’t. But we realized what we were dealing with, in the power of these agencies…

Stern stated that he had been told of FBI Agent Hosty’s allegedly threatening note received from Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the assassination, he “would have regarded it as greater identification of the possibility of potential danger in Oswald – of violence.” Stern stated that if the staff of the Commission had discovered that the Hosty note had existed and had been destroyed by the FBI in Dallas, that “if we had found out that happened, we would have gone to a full Commission meeting immediately, and would have made the big decision regarding any future relationship between the Commission and the FBI. It just would have gone to the heart of the whole relationship and the Bureau’s motivation. The destruction of that note would have resulted in the ultimate brouhaha.”

…Stern stated that had the Commission learned of the CIA-Mafia conspiracies to assassinate Fidel Castro, “we would have gone much more into Cuba, the CIA, and the Mafia. We would have had a whole host of new avenues calling for investigation. And we would have obviously had to develop some new sources of information – other than the agency.”

….When shown the CIA memorandum of November 1963 in which a CIA officer wrote that the Agency had once considered using Oswald for intelligence purposes, Stern stated that “I have never seen this. I was never given this, and we had asked for and were supposed to be given anything of relevance like this.” In reading the memo, Stern stated that “that would have definitely been relevant. If they (the CIA) were taking him that seriously, then you might think that others could or did also. If we found that had been withheld, that would have been a major explosion also.”

When shown a copy of the 1960-61 memos regarding “the possibility of an Oswald impostor,” Stern stated that he had never seen those three memos either, despite the fact that “they would have certainly been relevant. I was supposed to have been given all relevant Bureau information and files on Oswald in the pre-assassination period. They said I had everything.”

This leads us to the CIA document that was kept from the Warren Commission that indicated Oswald was considered for “operational use.”  

3) CIA Soviet Division memo – 104-10067-10212 – That says Oswald was once considered for operational use. Also known as the Cassin Memo.


Also see: The CIA Man who considered using Oswald:”


“25 November 1963. “…REDWOOD (CIA Soviet Division) had at one time an OI (Operational Interest) in Oswald….”  

4)  Secret Service Preventive Research Section File


Former Secret Service Agent Gerald Blaine, in his book “The Kennedy Detail” (Gallery Books, 2010, p.59) writes: “The first stop before any advance was always the PRS. Located in the Executive Office Building, next door to the White House, the PRS office were the nerve center for tracking threat cases. Any time there was a threat made against the president’s life – whether it was a written letter, a phone call, details gathered from an informant, field investigation, or an unstable person trying to get inside the Northwest Gate of the White House – an investigative report was initiated and a case file number is issued. A PRS agent would type the report on carbon paper so there would be multiple copies, noting the threat maker’s name, last known address, a synopsis of the threats made, a description of the person, and their medical history, if known. Cases are analyzed and categorized according to the seriousness of the threat.”

“The records room of the PRS office contained row and rows of gray metal four-drawer file cabinets that held thousands of threat suspect files, organized by case number. There were smaller file cabinets where index cards of each suspect were organized both geographically and alphabetically. The cards were cross-referenced to the case files. Thus if you knew either the name of the suspect or their last known location you go to the small index drawers, locate the card, which would have a case number on it, then go to the large filing cabinets to get the master file.”

(p.76) “…Win Lawson had checked PRS for threat suspect in Texas, specifically in the Dallas area, and had been pleasantly surprised to find that there weren’t any.”  More likely than "pleasantly surprised, he was incredulous, considering US Ambassador Stevenson had been physically assaulted a few weeks previous and known threats were coming in on a daily basis. 

5)  Collins Radio – 104-10107-10191 - ARRB considered “NBR” – Not Believed relevant


While this document seems unconnected to the assassination in any way, Collins Radio comes up again and again throughout the JFK assassination narrative, especially in regards to the Air Force One Radio Transmissions and the Tippit murder, as J.D. Tippit’s good friend worked at Collins Radio and his car was seen near the scene of Tippit’s murder, with a man resembling Oswald behind the wheel. This document, lawyer’s briefs for the taxing of American defense contractors working at a top secret ELINT base in Australia (Alice Springs), provides the proof that Collins Radio, LTV, General Dynamics et al, had a very close working relationship 

6)  Drew Pearson dinner with Khrushchev - 104-10003-10064 


Soviet Primer Khrushchev told Pierson and his wife over dinner that he disbelieved the Warren Report and criticized and suspected American intelligence agencies of involvement in the assassination. Rather than write a “Washington Merry-Go-Round” Column on this incredible scoop Pearson reported it to the FBI, who noted:  "Pearson repeated that the reaction of Chairman Khrushchev and his wife was one of flat disbelief and archtypical of the universal European belief that there was some kind of American conspiracy behind the assassination of President Kennedy and the murder of Oswald....(He) could not believe that the affair had happened as it apparently did and Mr. Pearson made no headway whatsoever in trying to change their belief that something was not on the level. Chairman Khruschev greeted Mr. and Mrs. Pearson's efforts with a tolerant smile..."   

7)  Jack Anderson on Jim Garrison – Tolson – DeLoach Memo of 4/4/67


Tolson (FBI): Pierson’s protégé also reported to the FBI rather than write a column after dinner with Jim Garrison According to the FBI report: “Jack Anderson came to see me at 11:55 a.m. today. He has just returned from New Orleans where, at the invitation of District Attorney Jim Garrison, he interviewed Garrison for approximately six hours at his home. Anderson and Garrison later had dinner at the Latin Quarter restaurant in New Orleans. Anderson stated that he went to New Orleans fully prepared to present a hostile viewpoint to Garrison. After listening to Garrison for approximately 90 minutes, he began to believe Garrison’s story. Anderson described Garrison as a very convincing talker who has considerable facts at his disposal. Anderson now believes there is some authenticity to Garrison’s claims and future plans. Garrison told Anderson that he will undoubtedly hold a full-scale trial within six months….Shaw at this point already had been approved by the CIA, through an appropriate cut-out, to enginner a plot that would result in the assassination of Fidel Castro…..I also told Anderson that, while we of course would accept any information that was voluntarily given to us, we at the same time would not take over Garrison’s ‘dirty laundry.’

Anderson told me that if the Bureau had any change of policy in the above regard he would appreciate knowing about it. I told him we would keep his offer in mind; however there would be no change of policy.
Anderson told me that he had discussed this entire matter with George Christian, the President’s Press Secretary, at the White House. He stated that Christian was also convinced that there must be some truth to Garrison’s allegations. Christian told Anderson to get in touch with the FBI. Anderson stated that he had already been planning to do this, but that he now especially wanted to advise us of the full facts because of Christian’s request.


8) The Rosselli Chronology File – RIF 157-10014-10236



Drew Pearson's protege Jack Anderson also interviewed John Rosselli immediately after he testified in secret Congressional hearing about his CIA Cuban activities, four plots to kill Castro and his case officer William Harvey. "The CIA has maintained throughout that the Oswald 201 file was a complete compilation of the material related to the assassination of President Kennedy. However, information relating to who Lee Harvey Oswald was, and what he was doing are not included in their files. The Oswald 201 file does not attempt to question Oswald's connection with both pro-Castro and anti-Castro groups or any of the AMLASH information. The most notable subject missing was information relating to CIA/U.S. Government attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro." 

Note: Anderson's story beings on page 27 and the Rosselli Chronology begins on page 38. Anderson: "So here is Rosselli's own account of a real-life 'Mission Impossible' - the attempt to kill Castro. It is a story of cash payments, poison pellets, high-powered rifles and powerboat dashes to Cuba."   

9) NSA Defectors Martin and Mitchel  - 104-10219-10088. 


Report from inside Russia on NSA defectors William H. Martin and Beron F. Mitchell, confirmed they went to Moscow via Mexico and Cuba, the same route Oswald wanted to take. It also shows how the CIA and NSA dealt with real defectors.  

10) NPIC PATHFINDER DOCUMENT – SECU122 SECURITY FILE ON FRANK STUGIS - Record Number 199308.05.14:42:12:750028 – JFK Record Series Agency Number 80T01357A  (BK Notes: I don’t know why this records doesn’t have a RIF # number. And Many thanks to Malcolm Blunt for providing me with document in 2013 - and I'm sorry it took me so long to recognize its significance. 


In this document, improperly inserted in the middle of Frank Sturgis’ Security File, it is noted that:

1)      On 19 March, Dino A. Brugioni, Chief, Western Geographic Division (NPIC), informed me (CIA Operational Division Chief) that three personnel assigned to his division had told him that while serving at JMWAVE, Miami, Florida or in the Imagery Analysis Service in Washington during the 1960’s, they had heard references to assassination plans on Fidel Castro.

2)      On 20 March, I met with the following NPIC personnel who had either served in the Imagery Analysis Service or at JMWAVE on Cuban related problems: Gordon Duvall, Earl Shoemaker, Tom Helmke, Bruce Barrett, Reyes Ponce, George Arthur, Eugene Lydon, and William Hanlon. The purpose of this meeting was to ascertain whether their participation was related to case officer generated materials or bona fide operations.  [ Note: that's eight witnesses, not three]. 

3)      There appeared to be two plans involving Fidel Castro and an incident that may have been related to Raul Castro…….

4)      The incident involving Raul Castro was not a formalized plan. It consisted of a paramilitary raid on Santiago de Cuba harbor. There was a rumor at JMWAVE that, while exiting the harbor, Raul Castro’s home had been fired upon by a paramilitary case officer named “Rip” Robertson. 

5)      To the best of my knowledge these facts represent the totality of any participation by our personnel in these matters. We have no further knowledge that the Fidel Castro operation ever advanced beyond the planning stage. 

SIGNED Edward S. Cates, Chief, Imagery Exploitation Group,  NPIC

While it may not have officially  “advanced beyond the planning stage” and was not implemented against the original target - Fidel Castro, Pathfinder was an off-the-shelf tactical plan that could have, and I believe was redirected to JFK at Dealey Plaza, and further analysis can prove me right or wrong,

It appears that “Rip” Robertson’s ride-by shoot up of Raul Castro’s home had already taken place, and the two Fidel Castro operations were formalized into distinct plans that, according to the Imagery Exploitation Group at NPIC, didn’t advance beyond the planning stage.

And there were plans to kill Castro known to the NPIC techs  – two of them specifically. According to this NPIC chief the plans involving Fidel, to the knowledge of our people were: 

(a)    A folder stored in the Photo interpretation area at JMWAVE contained materials relating to a plan to assassinate Castro in the Bay of Pigs resort area where he maintained a yacht and was known to vacation. The plan, possibly with the code word PATHFINDER, apparently had been disapproved and was not under active consideration at the time. Our people did not participate actively in the plan in any regard. 

(b)   While assigned to the Imagery Analysis Service, a number of our photo interpreters supported Carl Jenkins of the DD/P concerning a plan to assassinate Castro at the DuPont Varadero Beach Estate, east of Havana. Castro was known to frequent the estate and the plan was to use a high powered rifle in the attempt. The photo interpretation support was restricted to providing annotated photographs and line drawings of the estate. To our knowledge, this plan also was never implemented.

Bonus Doc. #11) In Response the CIA wrote (1993.08.05.14:4212;750028)

    
SUBJECT: Assassination Plans Against Castro
REFERENCE: Memorandum for the Record dated 21 March 1975 from Mr. Cates, NPIC 

1.      On receipt of reference memorandum, we reviewed the official folder on Mr. Carl Jenkins, a retired Agency employee, and asked the Directorate of Operations for any available information on PATHFINDER. Both efforts were fruitless – no one in the Directorate of Operations recognized the cryptonym PATHFINDER. 

2.      In our search of other files in connection with other staff activities, we came, just by chance, a reference to Pathfinder in an FBI memorandum dated 20 January 1961 concerning Frank Anthony Sturgis. We are unable to offer any speculation, reasonable or otherwise, on its significance in this memorandum or in the NPIC memorandum…..[End CIA Response]

Because these were "in house" agency communications between one division of the CIA and another, and was not shared with the Church Intelligence Committee, the "official folder on Mr. Carl Jenkins" that was reviewed was not subject to the JFK Act and is not in the JFK Collection at the National Archives and available to the public. And because Jenkins is still alive, it is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). But because Jenkins is still alive, we can and will try to interview him.


When the Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB) interviewed former NPIC secretary Velma Reumann, she said that RFK had ordered her to box the NPIC records on the assassination (apparently including the Pathfinder documents) and convey to them to the Smithsonian Institute rather than the NARA where they belonged. 

Bonus Doc. #13 Interview with NPIC Secretary: http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2017/02/smoking-doc-5-npic-records.html

So the missing Pathfinder operational records were intentionally misfiled at least three times – 1) At JMWAVE the NPIC employees said the Pathfinder files were kept in their section of the station instead of the Operational Files, where they belonged; 2) the NPIC memo to CIA officials calling attention to the Pathfinder files (#1) were misfiled in the middle of Frank Sturgis’ Security File instead of being passed on to the Church Intelligence Committee; 3) the NPIC assassination records were ordered by RFK to be sent to the Smithsonian instead of the NARA.

As we have seen here, the best records lead to new names, new events and new records 

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Bill Kelly's 2018 Dallas Presentation Synopsis

BILL KELLY’S 2018 JFK LANCER PRESENTATION - Synopsis

It’s an honor to be the first speaker and open the conference and I’m glad I’m not going after John Newman, because that will be a hard act to follow.

I think this may be a Last Hurrah, at least for me as I think that the emphasis on research and investigation should shift from Dallas to DC, as that’s where the evidence and records are at the Archives and where we should have a Congressional Briefing on the JFK Act and get Congress to hold official oversight hearings on the destroyed, missing and illegally withheld records.

I think Peter Dale Scott's Negative Template thesis is correct, and the most important records have been destroyed are missing or otherwise kept out of the JFK Collection at the Archives, but they don't even know what is significant to us today, and there are some very significant records being released. 

As for a brief history of the JFK assassination records, it might be best to start at the beginning, when the Warren Commission was wrapping up its work and their records were to be sealed for 75 years. When the mayor of Cedar Rapids, Iowa heard that he wrote a letter to President Johnson saying that the records should be released to the public or there would be a loss of confidence in the government, something that happened anyway.

Despite objections from Commissioner Allen Dulles and National Security advisor McGeorge Bundy, LBJ agreed and ordered the Warren Commission to release the 24 volumes of supporting documents, sparking Dulles to say, “Go ahead and release them, nobody will read them anyway.”

But some people did read them, and discovered that the Commission’s own records didn’t support their conclusion that the assassination was the work of one man alone, and produced important writings and books by the first generation of critics – Joshia Thompson, Sylvia Meagher (who also compiled an index to them), Mark Lane, Harold Weisberg, Howard Roffman, Fletcher Prouty and Penn Jones. 

Then, after the New Orleans Grand Jury and trail of Clay Shaw, there was a lull in the action until the Church Committee’s Schweiker-Hart subcommittee investigated the intelligence agency’s involvement in the assassination, when Gaeton Fonzi first got involved after being hired by Senator Richard Schweiker (R.Pa.). 

At the end of that limited investigation Schweiker said that “there are fingers of intelligence” all over the assassination story, and the cover-up was like “a house of cards” that would come tumbling down.
The Senate Church Committee’s report led to the establishment of the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) that was at first led by Philadelphia prosecutor Richard Sprague, who had previously prosecuted those responsible for the murder of the president of the United Mine Workers Union. Sprague tried to conduct a real murder investigation, and brought on New York City prosecutor Robert Tanenbaum to run the JFK investigation and hired Fonzi as well.

Unfortunately Congress didn’t want a real homicide investigation and because of the antics of Rep. Gonzales (D. Tx.), who was in the motorcade and took LBJ’s clothes and washed them before they were turned over for evidence. Sprague was fired, Tanenbaum resigned and Fonzi was marginalized. Instead of real investigation the second chief counsel G. Robert Blakey, who had established a center for the study of organized crime at Cornell, and wrote the RICO act used to prosecute mobsters, said that the job of the committee was to produce a report, which they did.

Then they sealed the HSCA records away for fifty years, with Blakey quoted in the press as saying, “I’ll rest on the judgment of historians in fifty years.”

The first chief counsel Richard Sprague took all of his personal files with him, so they are not, even today, among the records in the JFK Collection at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and open to the public as they should be.

While Blakey may have been satisfied with the judgment of historians in 2028, I wasn’t about to wait that long, so I co-founded the Committee for an Open Archives (COA) with my college mate John Judge, who first got me interested in the assassination as a subject of historical study in 1969 by giving me a copy of the Playboy magazine with the interview with Jim Garrison.

One day John and I visited the old original National Archives building on Pennsylvania Avenue, with the statute outside that reads: THE PAST IS PROLOGUE – a quote from Shakespeare.

There I asked to see some of the JFK assassination records and was introduced to Mr. Marion Johnson, the first curator of the Warren Commission records. I had previously sent a letter to the archives asking about George DeMohrenschildt’s 8 mm home movie of his walking trip through Central America that included a stop at the Guatemalan base where the CIA was training the anti-Castro Cubans for the Bay of Pigs. Johnson wrote back saying that film was not among the Warren Commission records, although there are references to it.

I asked Mr. Johnson why the HSCA records were sealed for 50 years? Why not 35 or 75? And he replied that, “Fifty years was the estimated amount of time that those individuals mentioned in the documents would be dead.”

Well then we wouldn’t be able to interview them and learn if the documents are accurate or not.

In addition, Mr. Johnson pointed out, Congress didn’t include itself as responsive to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, so that was not a legal recourse. The only way to get the HSCA records he said was to get an Act of Congress, a very difficult thing to do.

So our Committee for an Open Archives grew to a few dozen activists who met in Washington on occasion throughout the 1980s and visited all of the Congressional offices but failed to garner any interest in freeing the JFK assassination records. Nobody would even talk to us.

Then Oliver Stone produced his movie “JFK,” which was garnering a lot of mainstream media attention. One day, as a small group of researchers ate lunch in the Senate cafeteria after a public hearing, including John Judge, Jim Lesar, Peter Vea, John Newman, Peter Dale Scott, Gus Russo and Congressional investigator Kevin Walsh. Someone noted that at the end of the movie Executive Action, they ran a trailer that listed the strange deaths associated with the assassination. It was suggested if we could get Oliver Stone to run a similar trailer at the end of his movie, it could instigate public opinion to release the sealed HSCA records. And when John Judge and myself suggested that to Stone when we met with him, he said Kevin Walsh had already suggested it, and he agreed. And that it did.

Congressmen were so indulged by an avalanche of public outcry, wondering why the assassination records were sealed, that they called Senator Specter and G. Robert Blakey and had them write the JFK Act of 1992. But instead of just releasing the HSCA records, they expanded our request to ALL of the government records on the assassination be released to the public immediately, and those withheld for reasons of national security be released IN FULL within 25 years of the signing of the law, something we didn’t even anticipate. The law was passed unanimously by Congress – when does Congress do anything unanimously? And it was reluctantly signed into law by then President George H. W. Bush the first, but Bush added a rider to the bill that stipulated the president of the United States, and ONLY the president, whoever he or she may be on October 17, 2017, could continue withholding certain records indefinitely.

Well that day came and went and despite President Trump’s multiple tweets that he would release all of the assassination records, the CIA and his Chief of Staff General Kelly USMC, persuaded him to continue withholding tens of thousands of records in full and redacted.

Well, as the day of determination approached, the NARA released many thousands of documents in groups of batches that we are still going over, and while there are no “Smoking Guns” among the records released so far, there are many “Smoking Documents,” some of which I will mention in my list of the Top Ten Smoking Docs.

And now, despite the President’s continued withholding of records for at least another few years, I am more confident than ever that we will be able to solve the assassination of President Kennedy to a legal and moral certainty for a number of reasons.

For one, there is a new District Attorney in Dallas who appears to have an open mind and is open to persuasion, and is capable of convening a local Dallas Grand Jury.

For another, the House of Representatives is now controlled by Democrats, and the chairman of the House Oversight Committee can schedule a public hearing on the JFK Act that could investigate the destroyed, missing and wrongfully withheld records on the assassination.

And now, I will list my Top Ten Smoking Documents before my esteemed colleagues – Dr. John Neman, Malcolm Blunt and Bill Simpich will have a few words to say before they make their own presentations later in this conference.


NEXT: My Top Ten Smoking Documents 

Saturday, November 24, 2018

Four Days in Dallas - Day Four

FOUR DAYS IN DALLAS – DAY FOUR – Sunday, November 18, 2018 

By the fourth day in Dallas I was pretty beat, and didn’t make it for the final round of either conference, but ensured I met with those who spoke, especially Major Ralph P. Ganis, (USAF, Ret.), who appeared at early in the morning of the Lancer conference. While I missed Ganis’ presentation I did have a long talk with him, along with Dr. Mantik, and got a copy of his book that I will be reviewing soon. Ganis and his subject – Otto Skorzeny are extremely important to the latest JFK research, as it coincides with what Larry Hancock is finding with the names Gene Wheaton gives us.

Ganis did his talk at Lancer after Aldo Mariotto did a presentation on “The Texas Trip – Johnson’s Agenda.”
Ken Zeliker did a presentation on “A Photo Exhibit: The Evolution of the Plaza,” and indeed it looks much like it did when I first saw it decades ago, but much has changed.

Brian Edwards did a Walking Tour, then Lancer had a Memorial Ceremony at Dealey Plaza at 12:30 followed by a Brian Edwards Bus Tour of Dallas assassination sites to wrap up the last Lancer conference, as Debra Conway has announced that she will no longer be producing conferences, although she will continue other JFK Lancer enterprises, including publishing books and maintaining the web site and social media outreach.

Meanwhile over at the Doubletree, Damon Ise talked about “The Truth Behind the Death of John F. Kennedy, Jr.,” which may have had a bearing on Cartier watch of The Inheritance. JFK,Jr. apparently purchased the watch at a New York City auction for $1 million and said he was going to donate it to the National Archives. I have an inquiry into the Archives to determine exactly what became of that watch. In light of the news reports that indicate Christopher Fulton was involved in shenanigans involving another questionable watch, a case that also went to court, I will be compiling the documented provenance of JFK’s Cartier watch apart from what Fulton has said.

After Ise’s JFK,Jr. talk, Dr. David Mantik gave a presentation on “JFK’s Head Wounds and the Harper Fragment,” which was a large 3-4 inch piece of scull bone from the back of JFK’s head, that should have been evidence of a large exit wound to the back of the head, proof of a frontal shot, but that fragment was not found by a pedestrian the day after the assassination, was examined by a doctor and identified as to what part of the scull it came from, and was photographed before it disappeared.

Larry Rivera followed Mantik with his own discussion on “The Blender Program and the Harper Fragment” and “More Secrets Revealed.” Then they had a question and answer session on “Doorway Man,” with Rivera, who has intently studied the relevant photos, and should not be confused with “Prayer Man.”
Dr. William Warrick then did a talk on “RFK’s Autopsy: Anomalies and Problems,” which must have included the fact that the pathologist who prepared RFK’s autopsy noted that the fatal shot came to the back of the head from inches away, as there were gun powder burns around the wound to the head. This shot was impossible for Siran B. Siran to take as he was five feet in front of RFK, so he did not kill Senator Kennedy.
Dr. Warwick was followed by Paul Sshrade, who I had met at the 2013 Wecht conference in Pittsburgh. Now 93, Schrade was a close personal friend of RFK and the Kennedy family and was a witness to RFK’s murder in the Ambassador Hotel pantry. He continues to maintain that SBS did not kill RFK and that there was more than one gun firing at the time.

Jason Goodman (Crowsource The Truth) interviewed former CIA agent Kevin Shipp, “CIA and the Shadow Government – Yesterday and Today,” who acknowledge CIA participation in the assassination of JFK.

In keeping with Judyth Vary Baker and her cohorts, the bizarre Professor Dr. James Fetzer then talked about the CIA’s program to control the media – “Operation Mockingbird: Alive and Well Today.” And while Mockingbird is alive and well, as can be seen in the works of Latell, Shennan, Holland and others, it is the so-called “researchers” like Fetzer who seems to embrace every conspiracy theory that comes down the pike.

The MC Don Ratliff gave a talk on “My Journey to the Truth” before Karl Glovin talked about “Questioning HSCA’s Blakey at the Sixth Floor Museum.”  Now Glovin is a former Federal Border Guard who came out of no where to protest the continued withholding of JFK assassination records, actually picketing the JFK Center for the Performing Arts in a tux during a show. He stole the late Gene Case’s poster of a JFK Silver Dollar with a bleeding bullet hole to the head, made his own posters and buttons and continues to hold demonstrations at the JFK Center for the Performing Arts every November 22 and on JFK’s birthday in May.

While some wanna be researchers who were close to John Judge at the end of his life claim that we had a “falling out,”  we actually had a number of “falling outs” over different issues, the last being the support Judge and Rep. Cynthia McKinney expressed for Libyan dictator Quadafi, which went totally against the grain of what we supposedly believed in. John and I continued to have weekly telephone conversations up until the time of his stroke, the last one was when John called me to ask my advice on what to do about Karl Glovin. We both acknowledge that he had all the attributes of an agent provocateur and rather than attack him, I advised John to just ignore him.

While Lancer ended early, Judyth’s Doubletree conference continued well into the night.

Tyrel Ventura did a talk on “JFK and a New Generation’s Search for the Truth”

(Links: http://twitter.com/tyrel watching?lang=en and http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbiFt3UdxzX7LxferwDmuegO. )

After dinner Judyth Vary Baker read a deposition and signed copies of her book, S. T. Patrick, Jeff Worchester, Meredith Mantik, Ray Hale and Bonnie Faulkner did a panel discussion on “The Fight for Truth in Media – JFK’s Assassination a Core Issue,” and then they played some music and had a closing prayer before a “Pack Up Party” at 10 pm.

Meredith Mantik is the daughter of Dr. Mantik, and she is producing a documentary film on all of this, one that may be of value.

While all of this was going on, I slept late, and then met Michael Nurko for breakfast at what used to be the cafeteria next to the old Lawrence Hotel, which is now a New York Deli, with New York prices, though it was better than the hotel prices.

Michael then took a walk around Dealey Plaza, as I had done a few days before. We then packed our bags and met Peggy, a former COPA girl who gave us a ride to the airport instead of having to pay a $50 taxi ride. Peggy is good friends with Marty Bragg and T. Carter and the old COPA crew who used to hit the West End bars after the COPA conferences. She is now married to one of Madeline Brown’s sons, and his brother is a son of LBJ. Ah, it all comes full circle in the end.

But it’s not over yet. While COPA is caput, and Lancer will not be holding a conference next year, I’m sure Judyth will be organizing her troops together, and since November 22 falls on a Friday, as it was in 1963, it will be a good time to hold at least one more Last Hurrah, and hopefully some legitimate group will do so. As Bill Simpich said, there’s still a lot of work to be done in Texas, and some still living witnesses who should be properly questioned, and Texas is where a petition for a Texas Court of Inquiry must be introduced. So I have the feeling we will be returning to Dallas next year.

My Texas friends say I am a Good Yankee. When I ask what’s a Bad Yankee? They say its one who doesn’t go home.

Stay tuned, as I will be doing separate blog posts on Larry Hancock's report on Wheaton's names, Judge Bothello's recollections of Oswald the Marine, the provenance of JFK’s Cartier watch that he was wearing when he was killed, what became of Oval Office recordings and Cuban documents that Mrs. Lincoln kept in her personal possession, what was in the two unopened trunks that she left her Nebraska attorney, and the Otto Skorzeny Papers that Major Ralph Gainis (USAF, Ret.) purchased at auction. 

In addition, all of the programs - the CAPA "Last Surviving Witnesses," JFK Lancer and the Judyth Conference were video taped by the conference hosts and will be available to download and some on DVD in the very near future. Dr. David Mantik's daughter also filmed the CAPA doctors and Bethesda witnesses as well as parts of the Judyth conference and will be producing a documentary film based on what she filmed.







Four Days in Dallas - Day Three

FOUR DAYS IN DALLAS – Day Three– Saturday, November 17, 2018  

On Friday night I ventured into the West End, the old warehouse area behind the Texas School Book Depository that was developed into a shopping, bar and restaurant district that was very popular ten years ago, but is now not so much. I was disappointed that the West End Pub, where COPA held its first meeting after the second ASK conference, was closed and boarded up, and the Green Glass Café – a classic fifties brass and formica bar with booths, juke box and pool table was now a take-out liquor store. 

A word about the old Green Glass. It was owned by an old lady and her daughter, both of whom knew Jack Ruby, and she said when she bought it Ruby named the joint because the glasses were so dirty they were green. Porter Bledsoe, son of Oswald's rooming house owner Mary Bledsoe, used to hang out there after his shift at an all night motel. And I heard the story from an old patron about one of Jack Ruby's dancers, who was engaged to a Dallas policeman. He went out one night to get ice cream, or so the story goes, and when he returned home found her dead of drinking drano. I can't verify that account, but that's one of the things I learned at the old Green Glass. 

So I had a beer at a TGI Fridays, as Dallas is franchise city, and then went back to my hotel, the brand new Marriott Courtyard a block from Dealey Plaza and just across the street from the beautiful Union train station and Dealey’s Dallas Morning News.

At the roof top bar, overlooking the city’s brightly lit skyline, I met Marty Bragg, a former COPA associate, and her friend, and we talked over old times, the death of our mutual friend John Judge, and the demise of COPA, which sparked the establishment of CAPA. Unbelievably, many of the bars in Dallas, especially the hotel bars, close at 11pm, so our night was short lived.

The following day, Saturday, I got up early in order to catch Larry Hancock’s 8 am Lancer presentation on the “Wheaton Names,” – the individuals Gene Wheaton names in his video interview with William M. Law that I have been writing about. Larry’s hour long presentation was exceptional, and you can read his long monograph on line as it details much of what he had to say. That was the one presentation I wanted to hear and Larry didn’t disappoint, and provided even more lines of potential inquiry. As with John Neman’s talk, this one deserves a sidebar of its own.

After Larry Hancock’s talk on Wheaton’s name, CAPA attorney Bill Simpich and Larry Hancock gave a talk on “Dallas Police Department Suspects,” which convinced me that I was wrong in saying the emphasis should be shifted to Washington DC, as there is still a lot of work to do in Dallas, especially with the still living witnesses that have not been properly questioned.

Skipping Carmine’s talk on “RFK” in the break room – I can only solve on murder at a time, I took in Russ Baker’s “Hiding the Proof – We Want the Records.” Baker wrote an important book “Bush – Family of Secrets” and posts regularly at his web site “Who What Where Why.” Russ did a much more detailed report on the recently released records and the team of readers (led by Jimmy Fallon) who are going over these records in detail. Russ showed a number of examples of documents that had previously been released in full, but re-released in the latest batches redacted – that indicate exactly what they are redacting, an important lesson to those who are reading the most recently released records, and await the final release of them all in two years, if then.

Jim Jenkins and William Law then talked about their “Cold Shoulder of History” book on Jenkins’ experience at the Bethesda autopsy, the same one he gave at CAPA on Thursday and at JVB’s conference the day before. This is an example of why three such conferences are a waste of our time and we should work together and coordinate our efforts, but some stubborn people just want to do their own thing, and I’m sure if CAPA decides to hold a conference in Dallas next year, a competing conference will be put up against us.

Rex Bradford, of the Mary Ferrell Archives, was supposed to give a talk on the “Document Release Update,” but he was snowed in the Northeast and will present his talk via skype that will be added to the Lancer DVD. While I opened the conference on the same subject, and Malcolm Blunt, John Newman, Bill Simpich and Russ Baker all talked on the same subject, we didn’t repeat anything, and only complimented each other, and I’m sure Rex will add some new information that we left out.

I missed most of Saturday afternoon at the Lancer conference because I went over to the Doubletree to hear Dick Russell and Dr. Wecht.

According to the Lancer Program, I missed Gary Murr do a talk on “A Small Arms Dealer and the Death of the President,” Stu Wexler on MLK, Simpich and Hancock continue their talk on the Dallas Suspect, “Betrayal: JFK Honor Guards Speak Out,” and two that I wished I had time to see but will catch on the video – Malcolm Blunt and Alan Dale on CIA officer Pete Bagley and John Newman’s “The Kennedys, King and the Race Issue,” that Newman writes about in his third book in the JFK series that will be published and released this week.

Meanwhile over at the Doubletree, I wasn’t there but didn’t miss Ed Haslam update his “New Evidence Files and Dr. Mary’s Monkey,” Judyth Vary Baker on “The Secret Life of Lee Harvey Oswald,” Rick Russo on “A Closer Look at the Photo Evidence,” and Steve Cameron and Roger Craig, Jr. on Cameron’s film “The Deputy,” and Roger Craig, Jr. on his father, Dallas Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig. The former Sheriff of the year was disparaged for his testimony on the Dallas Sheriff’s order to stand down and not engage in the security of the president, as the Tampa sheriffs had supported the Secret Service a week earlier, manning the overpasses and high rise rooftops with shotguns and high powered counter-sniper rifles. It’s hard to believe that Craig, Jr. followed his father’s lead in becoming a Dallas deputy himself, and he must have had some interesting things to say. He repeated the performance at a luncheon on Monday afternoon with a number of other JFK researches.

When I got to the Doubleday I heard the last part of Edgar Tatro’s “Micromanagement and Damage Control in the Cover-up,” which focused mainly on the Dallas end of the cover-up of the conspiracy.

I then sat back at the CAPA table in the back of the room and listened to Dick Russell give his presentation on “Richard Case Nagell: The Newly Released Stasi Files & the Kennedy Assassination.” Since his bible sized book on Nagell – “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” and his personal journey covering the JFK assassination story – “On the Trail of the JFK Assassins,” Dick is one of the few real reporters who have kept on this case, and we had a nice chat in the lobby and are on the same page.

I told Dick about the recently released Secret Service Preventive Resarch Section (PRS) file on those subjects the Secret Service considered a threat to the President, that included Nagell, who was in a federal prison on November 22nd for entering a bank in El Paso, Texas, shooting a bullet into the ceiling and waited to be arrested, he said because he wanted to be in prison when JFK was killed.

After his presentation Dick Russell received the “Justice for JFK” Award, given to him by longtime friend and associate Robert Groden.

Former New York City prosecutor and House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) attorney Robert Tannenbaum talked about the CAPA Mock Trial in Houston last November, in which he said he was disappointed in the prosecution making the same, debunked case against Oswald they would have made in 1964, as if we haven’t learned anything since then. He then gave a run down on his experience on the HSCA, before he too was presented with an award.

CAPA chairman Dr. Cyril Wecht gave an interesting talk on how he was brought into the assassination arena, asked to give a presentation on the JFK assassination forensic pathology evidence at a national conference of pathologists. That got him hooked, and his life’s experience on this case – the first pathologist permitted to examine the autopsy evidence at the Archives, serving on the HSCA pathology panel, and continued work on this case is astounding.

While Dr. Wecht talked again at the Doubletree conference banquet and awards, and Pat Hall was the special guest at the Lancer banquet and awards, I skipped both and accompanied CAPA treasurer Michael Nurko and Tom Lyons to dinner at the West End. I flew into Dallas on the same plane as Mike and we were scheduled to leave together the next day, and both Mike and Tom were longtime former COPA members, it was kind of a nostalgic reunion. So we decided to have dinner at John Judge’s favorite Dallas restaurant the Spaghetti Factory, where we reminisced about the good old COPA days.

On the walk home, we passed an actual demonstration, protestors with posters chanting something I couldn’t understand, so I asked a nearby group of Dallas policeman what all the fuss was about, and they said they were protesting cruelty to animals – the carriage horses like those at Central Park in New York City.

I went up to one of the horses and he seemed ok, well fed, and with diaper, no wiping, and the carriage girl seemed to love him and all animals, so I told the protester in front of me I thought the horse had a good job, liked what he was doing, was trained to do what he was doing, and there was no animal abuse at all going on. There is plenty of animal abuse at shelters, where they kill animals they can’t give out for adoption, and there’s plenty of bad things worth protesting, but this isn’t one of them.

Then we stopped in front of the old Record Café, that hasn’t changed since the fifties, and where the local FBI agents ate breakfast, and one of the few establishments that was open in 1963 and still in operation today. Then we crossed the street and visited the old founders log cabin that dates to the 1850s, which is adjacent to the official JFK Memorial, a bizarre series of cement walls that enclose a slate slab with some writing on it, said to be a good place for mediating in the middle of the busy and loud city. They say the Kennedy family approved it, but it doesn’t seem appropriate.

Back at the Marriott we went up to the rooftop bar for a drink and met Dr. Gary Aguilar and a few conspiracy theorists arguing over something or other, so I went out to the balcony and looked over the brightly lit Dallas skyline, Reunion square, and Dealey Plaza.

When we were alone Dr. Aguilar mentioned that all of the West Coast researchers will be meeting over a meal at a San Francisco restaurant in mid-December, an invitation only affair, but one that appears to be building up to be a significant event with David Talbot, Tink Thompson, Bill Simpich, Peter Dale Scott, Paul Hoch, Jim DiEugenio, Lisa Pease and others in the West Coast loop. I would like to be there, but after this trip to Dallas, it doesn’t appear likely, though I look forward to learning what happens there. I’m sure it will make for interesting conversation, as well as a determination as to where we should go from here.