CAPA Conference Update

Conference Update - Pogo @ Dealey Plaza

As November 22 falls on a Friday this year, as it did when JFK was killed, there should be a certain astronomical affinity in the air, as if the planets are all alighned for something special to happen.  

And once again, as for the past few decades, there will be two conferences in Dallas that weekend.

As Walt Kelly’s Pogo once said: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

After months of hangling, meetings, conference calls, debates and a lingering antimosity, the CAPA November in Dallas Conference is finally set in stone.  Oliver Stone will be there, receive CAPA’s “Profiles in Courage” Award and address the post Conference dinner on Saturday night at the Courtyard Marriott on Houston Street, one block from Dealey Plaza.

Dr. Wecht will also address Judyth Vary Baker’s conference across town on Friday morning, while the CAPA legal committee will hold a mock Texas Court of Inquiry that will be observed by those who register for the conference.  

So far CAPA has had a National Press Club press conference that featured Judge John Tunheim, the former chairman of the Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB), a mock trail at the Texas School of Law in Houston, and a reunion of five Parkland doctors at the Old Red Courthouse at Dealey Plaza last November, so this conference and the mock Texas Court of Inquiry will be the fourth major event sponsored by CAPA, and the hardest to produce.

A Texas Court of Inquiry (TCI) is a legal venue unique to Texas that has only been invoked a few times. It cannot convict anyone, but can legally exonerate someone who has been wrongfully accused or convicted of crimes, and sometime after this dry run, the case will be tweeked, fine tuned and then presented before a Texas Municipal Court judge who will be asked to convene a real Texas Court of Inquiry.

While the CAPA legal committee wanted to make their case in private, before a Texas Municipal Judge who will be present at the Mock TCI, so as not to be interfered with or allow their unique approach to be obstructed by opposition, they were prevailed upon to permit those who register for the conference to attend and observe the proceedings that will also be filmed for review and posterity.

From the experience of the past few weeks, it isn’t the opposition we have to worry about, it’s us.

Much of the hangling was over the fact that CAPA’s chairman Dr. Cyril Wecht, was asked to make a presenation to Judyth Vary Baker’s (JVB) competing conference across town, as he did last year. He agreed, and they will present him with an award as well, much to the consternation of the legal committee, who complained that he was not only supporting a competing conference, but in effect, was endorsing a number of questionable characters who will also be attending and making presentations there.

These same people also held a conference outside of Washington D.C. the very same weekend that Jim Lesar’s Assassination Archives and Resarch Center (AARC) held a very important conference in Bethdsda a few years ago. While a part of the AARC event, Dr. Wecht left for a few hours in order to address the other conference, where he later said he was surprised to learn that his presentation was followed by Roger Stone, and later by Professor Jim Fetzer.

Dr. Wecht bristles at the idea that because he shared the same stage with them that he endorses their ideas. “Stone is a no good, dirty trickster and son of a bitch, and Fetzer is an asshole.”

“But when I’m in the middle of a serious battle,” he said in true Braveheart fashion, “I don’t look around the battlefield to see whose fighting on my side.”

As for JVB, Wecht says, “I don’t care if she slept with Oswald or not. That’s not my business. She organizes a large conference, twice as many people attend as anywhere else, so maybe we should hire her to organize our conference?”

I attended JVB’s conference for a few hours last year and listened to Bob Tannenbaum, Dr. Wecht, Dick Russell and Judge James Bothello, who was Oswald’s bunkmate at Atsugi in the Marines, four aces for you.

And I don’t know if she slept with Oswald either, and don’t really care, and don’t endorse her story, but she does have the official city permit for the 12:00-12:30 pm Memorial Service at Dealey Plaza, that will include remarks by Dr. Wecht.

After the Dealey Plaza memorial service and moment of silence, the CAPA conference will resume and continue through Saturday night, featuring – Dr. Wecht, Dr. Gary Aguilar, Professor John Newman, Bill Simpich, Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, Jim DiEugenio, Burt Griffin, Judge Brandon Birmingham, forensics expert Cliff Spiegelman, and oh, yea – Oliver Stone. Others will be added as the program is filled out. 

At some point in the proceedings I hope to give an update on the latest research on Valkyrie and Pathfinder at Dealey Plaza, an article on which may appear in the next issue of Garrison magazine, a slick new Deep Political publication that is making waves. 

I'm also going to push for a Congressional Briefing on the JFK Act to be held in Washington D.C. sometime early in the new year.  

Then there’s a panel of JFK records Archivists – Stephen Fagin of the Sixth Floor Museum, City of Dallas Archivist John Slate, Mary Goolsby from Baylor’s Poague Library and Britney Crawford, the Acting Director of the JFK Collection at the NARA. The Poague Library has a lot of JFK researcher's material, but then stopped accepting JFK material when the archivists changed hands. Now Mary Goolsby is in charge, and she wants to resume accepting JFK material, god bless her. 

Hopefully they will form a JFK Internet Consoritum of JFK assassination records with others - including the AARC and Mary Ferrell, and push for JFK Act Oversight Hearings in Congress.

Debra Conway of JFK LANCER, who has been presenting a conference in Dallas every November for the past two decades, will be manning the memorabilia, books and video store at the CAPA conference.   

The TCI and CAPA Conference will be filmed and recorded, and available for downloading with DVD packages available afterwards.

Live Streaming is being considered but the technical details have not yet been worked out. If you know how to live stream – be our guest to do it, if you can do it right.  

To support CAPA, donate to our cause or register for the conference, please go to our website  and click on the orange link “CAPA November in Dallas Conference.”

Join, donate or register for the Conference: https://capa-us.org/ 

Conference Video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uV0wsz2pnYM

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