Monday, October 19, 2020

JFK Virtual Conferences 2020

 JFK VIRTUAL CONFERENCES 2020 

Conferences on any topic are important. Books are usually two years behind what is known, and conferences give experts a chance to make presentations on what they know now. 

There was a major academic conference on Guatemala shortly before Operation Success, and there were two conferences on Cuba before the Bay of Pigs. 

My first conference on the JFK assassination was at the New York University (NYU) School of Law in the late 70s, where I met Penn Jones, Mae Brussell, Sylvia Meagher, Fletcher Prouty and other other early first generation critics of the Warren Report. 

Then there were two ASK conferences in Dallas promoted by a commercial company that got John Judge to say that we don't need to pay someone to make a profit off of us, we can produce our own conferences, so we had a little side bar lunch meeting on the last day of the conference at the West End Pub where about a dozen intrepid souls began what became COPA. COPA sponsored two major conferences in Washington DC, during one of which Professor George Michael Evica and Debra Conway called me over to their table against a wall and told me they were thinking of starting a new organization to educate the next generation of researchers, which became JFK Lancer. The more the merrier I thought, but decided to stay with COPA. 

After two decades of COPA vs. LANCER holding competing conferences in Dallas, two other conference sponsors emerged, Judyth Vary Beaker and Dennis Denton. While JVB is well known for professing to be Lee Oswald's New Orleans lover, Denton is a mid-west College professor whose academic interest in the assassination is offset by his friendship with a number of silly conspiracy theorists, who he gives stage presence to. 

In 2013 there was a very good conference at the Cyril Wecht Institute of Forensic Pathology and Law in Pittsburgh, and then the following year a major conference sponsored by the Assassination Archives and Research Center (AARC) at Bethesda in Washington D.C.  While I don't understand why, Professor Denton held a conference on the same topic at a hotel just outside Washington at the very same time. 

Dr. Wecht was asked to speak at both, and he did, much to the chagrin of those who told him he would be sharing the same stage with Professor Fetzer and other questionable characters. Wecht correctly called Fetzer and the others by an expletive, but kept his commitment and said that he did not endorse the beliefs of anyone else who shared the same stage with him, and that he talks to anyone who asks him. 

And that was just the beginning. With the death of John Judge and the dissolving of COPA, Dr. Wecht became chairman of CAPA - Citizens Against Political Assassinations, and began holding events in Dallas, but he also spoke at JVB's conference and visited Lancer, where Debra Conway asked CAPA to take over her November in Dallas Lancer conference in 2019, which they did. 

Now in 2020, with the Covid virus, racial riots and a presidential election, there will be four virtual JFK Conferences, and Dr. Wecht will be speaking at two of them - Denton's JFK/CSI Dallas,  which will be the first out of the gate, and CAPA. 

JVB and Lancer will also be holding virtual conferences as well, so there will be four.

Project JFK/CSI Dallas will hold their virtual webinar on November 14-15 - [ProjectJFK/CSIDallas.com] at a cost of $40 for students and $60 for Adults. 

Speakers include: David Denton, Casey Quinlan, Brian Edwards, David Knight, J. Gary Shaw, Dr. Michael Chesser, Dr. John Newman, Jimmy Langkop,  Larry Rivera, Bill Simpich, Dick Russell, Robert Groden, William Law, Jim Jenkins, and Dr. Cyril Wecht.

Lancer, Nov. 20-22, [ jfklancer.com v] has a student price of $34, conference only $65 and digital download for $119. 

So far they have announced Jim DiEugenio, Bill Simpich, Robert Groden, Russ Baker, Alan Dale, Larry Hancock, William Law, John Newman, Stu Wexler and a slew of others - David Boylan, Pamalaw McElwain-Brown, Johnny Cairns, Doug Campbell, Brent Holland, Pete Mellor, Chuck Ochelli, Scott Reid, Carmine Savastano, Mark Shaw, Mike Swanson, Greg Wagner, and Steve Roe, who I have been dueling with over the internet. 

Judyth Vary Baker's conference will be held Nov. 20-21-22 - via Zoom - costs $35, or attend in person  for a "virus-free mini-conference" in Dallas $135. While she has not yet announced those who will be making presentations, she has scheduled a tour of Dallas, a dinner with her, a continuation of the annual Grassy Knoll moment of silence, and she is selling her signed and numbered art work "Jackie With Betrayers at Dealey Plaza." 

CAPA will be doing something a little different this year. Instead of a regular conference with speakers making presentations, CAPA will be dedicating the first day - Friday, to students and teachers, and focusing on educating young people about the assassination. 

Saturday will be devoted to the Media and the JFK Assassination, with a  live round-table discussion on how the media covered - and still covers the assassination, with a number of special guests. 

Sunday will include individual presentations. 

All three days are free to CAPA members who have paid their $50 annual dues, or you can just join CAPA to view these events and presentations -  [ http://CAPA-US.org / Citizens Against Political Assassinations ]

GREETINGS FROM CAPA

We hope all of you are persevering through these most difficult times.

This is an update for CAPA’s virtual conference in November. We have changed the dates for the regular conference in order to have the student day of the conference on Friday the 20th. We thought it best to have the student day during the week when they are either in school or online for their classes rather than a weekend day. The attendees of the regular conference are invited to attend the student day as well. The new dates for the regular conference are 21-22 November.

Below is a recap of the presentations:

We are planning to have at least a half-day, and possibly longer, on the subject of “The JFK Assassination and the Media,” a topic that has not been discussed and investigated by the mainstream media. We will be showing a documentary by John Barbour entitled “The American Media & the 2nd Assassination of John F. Kennedy” and will also have a panel discussion on the issue. Dr. Cyril Wecht will be on the panel along with John Barbour, James Wagenvoord (who worked at Life Magazine in 1963), Russ Baker, and Mark Crispin Miller (Professor of media studies at New York University). Andrew Kreig will be the moderator of the panel.

Dr. Wecht will speak about his new book coming out next year entitled “JFK Assassination – Post-Mortem Dissection of Warren Commission Report.”

Tink Thompson (previously listed as a speaker) will not be able to participate. However, Gary Aguilar will speak in his place about the contents of Tink’s new book.

Judge Brandon Birmingham and Toby Shook will speak about the Ruby trial.

James Wagenvoord will speak about his experiences working at Life magazine in 1963. He spoke last year and has much more to share.

Russell Kent (who holds a BSc honors degree in physiology from the University of London and joined the Laboratory of Applied Physiology at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School), will speak about the House Select Committee on Assassinations Forensic Pathology Panel: how it was formed, how it worked and some of its conclusions.

David Denton will speak on the subject “The Newly Released Documents: What they say about William Harvey’s potential participation in the JFK murder and the faulty intelligence that JFK received about Vietnam.”

Dick Russell will be speaking (topic TBD).

Mark Crispin Miller will speak on the subject “The weaponization of the term ‘conspiracy theory’ from 1967 to 2020, drawing inferences from the attacks on JFK/Dallas investigators to the even more aggressive censorship and slander of those looking into other, later evident conspiracies.

Also, this year we are planning a special day-long conference for high school, college, and law school students to be held on Friday, November 20.  We want to get more young people interested in this tragic event that changed the course of our country and hopefully enlist them in our cause. We are planning a program that will give them the opportunity to see what President Kennedy was like as a person and a president and educate them about the truth of the assassination. The event will be free to students attending high schools, universities and law schools. I am attaching a special invitation to students. If you know any students who might be interested, please pass this on to them. I am sending invitations to institutions in and around Dallas. If any of you have suggestions for other universities/law schools/high schools to include in the invitations, please let me know and I will see that they receive it.

The registration fee for all attendees of the regular conference will include attendance for the student day. Below is the scheduled program:

John Barbour will introduce the program and speak about his life experiences which include how he came to be the creator of the first reality show on TV and his association with Jim Garrison (the District Attorney in New Orleans who brought the only case about the JFK assassination to court and who was the lead character of the Oliver Stone film, “JFK”).

Andrew Kiel, who spoke at our conference last year, is putting together a video collage of President Kennedy’s press conferences, inaugural address, missile crisis speech, and others.

The documentary “A President Betrayed” which illuminates the challenges JFK faced from his adversaries and from his own administration.

The documentary “JFK - The Case for Conspiracy” produced by Robert Groden will highlight the assassination and the deception and misinformation resulting in a cover-up by the Warren Commission. All the doctors who treated JFK at Parkland Hospital give their testimony about what they saw in Trauma Room One.

Two or three knowledgeable people will be available to answer questions from students.

(Tentative) We will also present a high school teacher, Stu Wexler, who will talk about how his history class helped write a bill that was introduced in congress that would push the federal government to expeditiously release records relevant to civil rights cold cases, thereby proving that it is still possible for citizens to make a difference.

Check out our video ad for the conference at:  http://iwebresults.com/c/capa-2020.mp4

We will provide further updates as we proceed closer to the date of the conference. Everyone who either joins CAPA or renews their membership for at least $50 will have free access to our online program this year. After you join/renew membership, a coupon will be emailed to you for the conference. New members will also receive free access to some of the videos of the 2019 conference which includes the following presentations: Court of Inquiry (Lee Harvey Oswald), Rolf Larsson (former CIA), Judge Birmingham (Ruby trial), Andrew Kiel (J. Edgar Hoover, LBJ and the Secret Service), John Newman (Turning Antonio Veciana’s Misdirection into a Roadmap), Oliver Stone (remarks), Dr. Cyril Wecht (keynote) “Post JFK, RFK, MLK Related Deaths – Circumstantial or Orchestrated?”

Please check our website - registration will be available in the coming week.

Thank you all for your support of CAPA and its worthy cause - Pursue the release of withheld records -  Find the Truth -  Seek Justice.

Best regards, Glenda de Vaney, CAPA Program Chair

STUDENT INVITATION TO CAPA 2020 JFK CONFERENCE

Learn about President John F. Kennedy – the man and the president and about his assassination which changed the course of our nation.

Join us for a virtual conference, specifically for students, about our 35th President and what happened when he was in office, one of the most perilous times in our country. 

His death was a tragic loss to the citizens of our country and, indeed, to the entire world which looked to  his leadership as a stabilizing force for good. 

You will see him at his press conferences, smart and witty. He was the first president to give routine press conferences. Before him, presidents only had a press conference when something important was going on. It was must-see TV for everyone. You will see clips from his inaugural address, his famous speeches, his address to the nation during the Cuban Missile Crisis and his speech in Berlin where thousands gathered to hear him. 

A documentary entitled “A President Betrayed” illuminates the challenges JFK faced, not only from foreign adversaries but from his own administration.

The documentary “JFK - The Case for Conspiracy” will highlight the assassination and the deception and misinformation resulting in a cover-up by the Warren Commission. All the doctors who treated JFK at Parkland Hospital give their testimony about what they saw in Trauma Room One. 

John Barbour, who was the creator of the first reality show on TV, will introduce the program and speak about his life experiences which include his association with Jim Garrison (the District Attorney in New Orleans who brought the only case about the JFK assassination to court and who was the lead character of the Oliver Stone film, “JFK”).

Knowledgeable experts on the assassination will be available to answer questions from the students. The conference will last approximately five hours including breaks.

The conference will be on Friday, November 20th and will be free to all students and teachers – entire classes may sign up. Please go to our website – www.capa-us.org  to register. If you have any questions regarding the conference, please contact Glenda de Vaney at visionsoffrance@cox.net

Video ad for the conference: http://iwebresults.com/c/capa-2020.mp4









MORE TO COME - Stay Tuned. 



















2 comments:

  1. Bill - regarding the CAPA session on the Media and the Assassination, I am in the middle of reading last year's book on this topic: "Burying the Lead: The Media and the JFK Assassination", by Sociology Professor Mal Jay Hyman. I have not finished it, but so far, it is quite good. Perhaps you should consider inviting him to the roundtable for this topic. You are in at least one of his footnotes.
    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39741611-burying-the-lead
    https://www.coker.edu/directory/mal-hyman/

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  2. I have been reviewing the subjects to be covered at different conferences and am very sadly surprised that the very important work by Sherry P. Fiester, Certified Senior Crime Scene Analyst, is not included. In her book, "Enemy of the Truth," she used forensic facts to determine the correct direction of the fatal head shot and it was not from the grassy knoll. Shots were fired from there but missed.

    If investigative journalists remain confident that the fatal head shot derived from the grassy knoll then there were TWO "Magic Bullets" that day. The magic bullet from the knoll allegedly entered the right temple, as JFK was facing down and away to his left. Instead of exiting the left side of his head, the bullet made a sharp leftward turn blowing out the right rear portion.

    Topics don't include any discussion of the throat entry wound or the direction of it's origin. There is no review of the windshield front entry hole or it's direction of origin. There's no mention of the painted yellow lines on the curb between which JFK was murdered. There is no follow up on how many other assassin teams, and their possible locations, were most likely present aside from the accepted three.

    I hope to attend future conferences where these topics are included.

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