Four Days in Dallas - Day Two

FOUR DAYS IN DALLAS – DAY TWO – Friday, November 16, 2018

I thought I was to open the JFK Lancer Conference at the Lorenzo Hotel at 9 am, so I caught a cab from my hotel at 8:30 but when I arrived I was told the conference didn’t start until noon, so I went into the restaurant for breakfast and was invited to sit with Alan Dale of the Assassination Archives and Research Center (AARC) in DC, Sir Malcolm Blunt the brilliant British researcher who has spent more time in the Archives than anyone I know, and professor John Newman, who was dressed in his master yoga outfit.

They were discussing Newman’s presentation on “Framing RFK in the Castro Assassination,” focusing on how much of the published literature on that subject can be traced back to Sam Halpern, who lied. I added my two cents, in that Halpern was having lunch at an exclusive, private club in Georgetown with Desmond FitzGerald, who had taken over the Cuban Task Force W when William Harvey was fired. As they left Halpern quotes FitzGerald wondering aloud if his Cuban commandos out of JMWAVE were involved. And I think we should be wondering that too, a subject that Larry Hancock would address at the same conference the next day.

I was surprised to see a Facebook entry by someone I didn’t know, who was apparently sitting next to us, who named the four of us at the breakfast table and commented on what a fascinating conversation we had. I suppose there were other interlopers as well.

When the conference got underway JFK Lancer director Debra Conway announced that this will be her last conference, but she would continue other Lancer activities, including book publishing and social media networking. Alan Dale, the DC jazz drum master was the Master of Ceremonies who introduced me as the first speaker.

Sitting behind me on the platform were Dr. Newman, Malcolm Blunt and CAPA attorney Bill Simpich, all of whom would also comment on my subject, the JFK Act and the recently released records.

I will produce a transcript or a synopsis of my talk as a sidebar to this, but did say that I was honored to open this conference, and was glad I wasn’t following John Newman, as he would be a hard act to follow. I then went into a brief history of the JFK assassination records and the government’s secrecy, beginning with the Warren Commission, the Church Committee, and the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA). How Oliver Stone’s movie “JFK” led to the JFK Act of 1992, and how that law was subverted by President Trump, and where we are today.

I then listed my Top Ten records released under the JFK Act, including the most recently released records.

After my talk John Newman, Malcolm Blunt and Bill Simpich – three aces in my deck, all gave short five minute presentations, though they all also gave longer presentations later.

When they were done, the program called for Dr. David Mantik and Chesser to give a report on “JFK X-Rays and Wound Interpretation,” and then former Justice Dept. John Orr and CAPA attorney Larry Schnapf did their presentation on “CE399 material studies Dealey Plaza.”

John Currington, H.L. Hunt’s right hand man, whose book “Means and Motive” I reviewed at my blog, gave a talk on H.L. Hunt, though the program mistakenly says “Howard Hunt.”

After Stephen Krishna Sheney did his presentation on the Sixth Floor Museum Archives, which include a massive and important Oral History section that has yet to be mined, Stu Wexler and Larry Hancock gave a fitting memorial tribute to the late researcher John Hunt, who I also knew and admired.

Since I wasn’t interested in the X-Rays, that I just don’t understand, knew of Orr’s work and read and reviewed Currington’s book, I grabbed a cup of coffee and went for a walk outside, but there was no place to go, no neighborhood to walk around. But then a car pulled up and in the back seat were Dick Russell and Malcolm Blunt, who asked me to join them for a ride to the Doubletree Hotel where the other conference was underway and where Dick was speaking.

This is the “Judyth Baker Conference,” hosted by the women who worked with Lee Harvey Oswald at Reiley Coffee in New Orleans in the seminal summer of 1963 and wrote a book about it “Lee and Me,” in which she alleges an affair with Oswald and still professes her love for him. She sought donations for flowers for Oswald’s grave, wants to buy the burial plot next to him so she can be with him for eternity, and said she was going to stay in Dallas the week in order to be there for the 12:30 pm memorial service at the Grassy Knoll on November 22, Thanksgiving Day.

While I missed David Neal and Randy Benson’s tributes to RFK and MLK, which included music by Neil and Jim Glover, and Glover’s presentation on Operation Chaos, the CIA’s war against Sixties radicals like Glover’s college roommate Phil Ochs, I had researched and wrote about Glover and Ochs and went to lunch with Glover, one of the most interesting characters I know.

[ JFKcountercoup: Phil Ochs at Dealey Plaza? ]

I’m sorry I missed my friend Richard Bartholomew’s presentation on “Texas and the Deep State,” and didn’t really care much about the panel discussion on Madeleine Brown by Robert Groden, Gary Severson and Dr. John Williams, but did take in Larry Rivera’s discourse on anamolies in the Atkins 6 photo, including the cropping of the crowds and the editing out of two women in the crowd, including one who appears to be holding a camera.

One of the most important and significant presentation I heard all weekend was given by Judge James Botelho, Oswald’s USMC roommate at Atsugi and Southern California bases where Botelho’s recollections of Oswald contrasted starkly with the government’s portrayal of him. After his talk I got Botelho’s contact info as I intend to follow up his presentation with some questions of my own and a profile of the retired Judge.

I then went back to the Lorenzo Hotel for a CAPA Board Meeting where we discussed the possibility of holding a conference in Dallas next year, since Lancer will not be holding one, and November 22 falls on a Friday, the same day as 1963.

Following that meeting John Newman gave his exceptional talk on “Framing RFK in the Castro Assassination,” an integral part of the Dealey Plaza operational plan that blackmailed RFK to checkmate him as Attorney General and keep him from pursing the assassins of his brother. That is a talk that deserves an article of its own that I will compose ASAP.

Newman’s talk was followed by Carmine Savastano on other suspects in the RFK assassination, and a final panel for the day with Savastano and Larry Hancock on RFK.

Meanwhile back at the Doubletree, Thom Whitehead and Sydney Wilkinson came in via skype and their film on close examination of Z-film frame enhancements by Hollywood movie experts seems to indicate tampering by the placement of a black blotch on the back of JFK’s head during the fatal head shot, apparently to hide the large exit wound that the Parkland doctors and SS Agent Hill clearly saw. This was previously shown at the CAPA event the previous day.

Since I wasn’t there, the program says that Phil Nelson gave a talk on “The Stalking and Death of Martin Luther King,” and William M. Law, Hubert Clark and James Jenkins discussed Law’s book “On the Cold Shoulder of History : What Happened at JFK’s Autopsy?”

Day two was long and excruciating, and what bothered me the most was that there were two conference miles apart and people had to take cabs or shuttles to get from one to the other. It doesn't seem like the conferences can be confined to the same area so people can go back and forth between them. In any case, it seems like there will always be competing conferences. 

And how this year, when CAPA planned its one day symposium on “Last Living Witnesses” on Thursday so as not to compete with the other two conferences, Judyth decided to expand her program to Thursday just to keep her people from attending the CAPA conference, a very spiteful decision. And what was her program?  From her program: “Marc Hackel, professional translator, reads Classical Russian Love Poetry in Russian!,” “One-on-one Time with JUDYTH VARY BAKER (special time to talk personally to early arrivals! Also: see unique piece of evidence from Lee Oswald’s childhood!” and “Judyth will have a live interview” with “Conspiracy Café” host George Freund – a National News Program.

I guess it was a difficult decision as to whether to attend JVB’s expanded program or CAPA’s “Last Living Witnesses.”