Truth Behind Robert K. Tannenbaum’s “Corrupton of Blood”

Robert K. Tannenbaum’s “Corrupton of Blood” (Signet, 1992) Reconsidered.

As the former NYC prosecutor who led the last official investigation into the assassination of President Kennedy by House Select Committee on Assassination,

I was at first glad to learn that Robert K. Tanenbaum wrote a book, since he certainly had an important story to tell.

But I was disappointed when he told me - at the 1992 COPA national conference in DC, that the book was a fictional novel rather than an accurate and historical account of how that investigation was co-opted by co-opted politicians and the CIA.

Because I could not cite it as a reliable research source in my work, my copy of Tanenbaum’s “Corruption of Blood” (Signet 1992) sat on the book shelf for years, and I only recently got around to reading it and finding it worthwhile to comment on.

At first I thought “Corruption of Blood” was the title assigned to the book by a publisher’s assistant who had a list of such titles that novels could be written around, but according to Tanenbaum it comes from the United States Constitution (Article 3, Section 3) which is said to read: “The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attained.”

Now is that the fictional part or does the Constitution really say that, and if so, what does it mean?

In the short acknowledgements, Tanenbaum credits Michael Graber as being his ghost writing collaborator and others were apparently used in other similar novels, but the “Corruption of Blood” is clear in that it is one of a series of “Butch Karp” novels by Tanenbaum, “the master of the judicial system thriller,” including “Justice Denied,” “No Lesser Plea,” “Immoral Certainty,” “Depraved Indiference,” “Reversible Error” and “Material Witness,” most based on his experiences as a New York city homicide prosecutor.

In his Author’s Note, Tanenbaum wrote: “Since it is a matter of record that the author was at one time counsel to the House of Representatives’ Select Committee on Assassinations, and charged with investigating the assassination of President Kennedy, the reader may wish to know whether the present volume tells, at last, the real story.”

“As is inevitable with a work of this type, the answer must be ambiguous. On the other hand, much of the documentary evidence mentioned here actually exists, or did exist at one time. The author observed it with his own eyes. Also of course, some of the characters mentioned are historical personages, either identified by name or thinly disguised, although they may not have done or said the things attributed to them herein. The reconstruction of the assassination itself, as given here, accords with the facts as known to the author and available in the public record, although not necessarily with the conclusions of the Select Committee.”

“On the other hand, obviously no one named Butch Karp was ever involved in the work of the House Select Committee in 1976. Despite superficial similarities, the author is a real person, while Mr. Karp is not. As to the real story of the assassination of President Kennedy, the author remains unsure, as are we all, as, in all probably, we shall ever be. The assassination has receded into mythology, and has become - like the tales of the Old West and the lives of secular saints like Washington and Lincoln - fair game for the fabulist, the moralist, and the entertainer.”

“Thus, in the present work, the shadows thrown by various culprits which we perceived vaguely through a fog of deception nearly twenty years ago, have been resolved into sharp focus by artifice. In short, what you are about to read is, merely and entirely, a work of fiction, based on a real event, like the Warren Report…in my opinion, of course!”

When I first met Tanenbaum, and he told me how he fictionalized his experiences, I looked at him - a six foot six inch tall athlete with chiseled face - the Mayor of Beverly Hills and author of  the Butch Karp novels - and wondered how come they don’t make this book into a movie?  They could get Tanenbaum to play himself, and develop it into a cable TV series like the Sopranos or Boardwalk Empire, but no, instead Hollywood makes lone-nutter movie instead.

Mixed in with the obvious fictional parts, there are a number of vivid descriptions of circumstances that ring true and appear to based on reality, including how Tanenbaum was hired by Richard Sprague, the first chief counsel to the Congressional Committee, how they were given important and significant documents by a senator from the Church Intelligence Committee, how the committee was compromised by the CIA and co-opted by Congressman (Gonzales and Dodd), how Soviet defectors fit into the picture and how Sprague’s loyal and diligent secretary saved his records from being confiscated by Gonzales.

“Corruption of Blood” features Tanenbaum as Butch Karp, the crusading senior New York City prosecutor who is recruited by the newly appointed chief counsel to the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) - Bert Crane, a thinly disguised Richard A. Sprague, the high powered Philadelphia attorney who previously prosecuted the head of the United Mine Workers for the murder of a union rival.

The fictional Butch Karp’s fictional wife Marlene, “regarded Karp’s trip to Philadelphia as merely a good excuse for a day off and had asked him to bring home a cheese-steak and a Liberty Bell piggy bank. Karp was scarcely more enthusiastic as he rode the elevator up to Crane’s Market Street office. The car was done in dark, gold-flecked mirrors, with shinny baroque brass rails and trim. A fancy building, and a fancy office, he observed when he got there: dark wood panels set off the shine of the mahogany furniture and the blonde receptionist.”

“Crane had a huge corner office with a good view of Ben Franklin hanging in the cloudy sky…They left immediately for lunch, which was taken in one of those expensive, dark, quiet, saloon-restaurants that thrive around every major courthouse in the nation by purveying rich food and large drinks to lawyers and politicians and providing a comfortably dim venue for deals.”

“Crane was a good sized man in his early fifties, who exhibited the perpetual boyishness that seems to go with being a descendant of the Founding Fathers and rich. He had a sharp nose, no lips to speak of, light blue eyes, and a graying ginger hair, which he wore swept back from his high, protuberant brow.”

Crane: “First, some background. What do you know about the JFK assassination? All right, let me say this. If the victim had been a minor dope dealer, and you had Lee Harvey Oswald in custody as a suspect, and the cops brought the evidence presented to the Warren Commission to you as a homicide case, you would’ve laughed in their faces and given Oswald a walk. You wouldn’t have even taken that trash to a grand jury. And they served this up on the most important homicide in American history.”

So Tanenbaum, aka “Butch Karp,” is recruited to lead the Congressional investigation of the assassination of President Kennedy by Richard Sprague, aka “Bert Crane,” who is also supervising a similar investigation of the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., as part of a temporary Congressional Committee led by Congressman Henry Gonzales (“George Flores”) and Pat Dodd (aka “Henry Hank Dobbs). 

Crane (Sprague): “…’It’s never been any big secret. As a result, almost from the start the Warren Commission has been under fire (for) three main reasons.’ He held up a big, freckled hand and counted on his fingers.”

“’One, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that even if the conclusions of the commission happened to be correct, no legitimate case had been presented. The chain of evidence for critical material was a hopeless mess. The autopsy was a joke. There was no follow-up on possibly critical witnesses. Two: The conclusions are inherently implausible. The existing amateur film of the actual assassination locks in the time sequence of the shots striking Kennedy, which means that if you want all of the shots to come from Oswald’s rifle you have to make some fairly hairy assumptions about what happened to the three shots Warren assumed that Oswald got off. The magic bullet and all that - you remember the magic bullet? Also, ‘assumed’ is a word I don’t like hearing around homicide investigations, but that’s nearly all Warren is made of. Look - you know and I know that crazy things can happen to bullets. I wouldn’t want to rule anything out a priori. But you also know that if you’re going to make a claim that a missile did a bunch of things that no missile is likely to have done, then your ballistics and your forensics have to be immaculate. Which in this case they are distinctly not. Three - and this is the tough one. It wasn’t some junkie who got killed - it was the president of the United States, a man with important political enemies, some of whom may have been involved in the investigation itself. Then we have the supposed assassin, who is not our garden-variety nut, but a former radar operator with a security clearance who defected to the Soviet Union, who was involved with Cuban weirdos, who had a Russian wife, and who was killed in police custody by a guy who had close ties with organized crime.’”

“Crane was grinning broadly now, ‘This is just the attitude I want. Look - ….I want you because you’re a professional homicide prosecutor, and not a politician or a bureaucrat. You’ve been in charge of hundreds of homicide investigations. The whole Kennedy material has never been approached from that perspective by a real pro, ever. That’s what was wrong with the Warren operation.’”

“’…Anyway, the fact that you’re not interested in political wheeling and dealing is a big plus as far as I’m concerned. That’s what I’m for: I’ll run interference while….you do the real investigative work. Now, as to the possibilities for really doing something: I think they’re good. The journalist material has reached a critical mass. That stuff has to be examined by a professional team, and either tossed out for good or confirmed. And the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Church Committee, has come up with some amazing stuff. I think that’s part of what’s triggering the House investigation.’”

“In the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia, a small group of men is sorting through stacks of paper. The paper has been removed from the filing cabinets throughout the Agency in response to a subpoena duces tecum from the Church committee, a body established by the United States Senate to investigate certain suspected excesses of the CIA. They are obliged by law, and as federal employees, to comply with this order to yield documents, and they are complying, if reluctantly. The men have been trained in strict secrecy since early adulthood, and more than that, they have been trained to be judges of what must remain secret in order to protect national security, and more than that, they have come to believe that they themselves are the best judges of what the national security is.”

“Two of the men are working with ink rollers and thick markers, blotting out the sections of these documents deemed too sensitive for the eyes of United States senators. Some documents have had nearly everything but the addresses and the letterhead blotted out in this way. They have done this many times before and are good at it.”

“One man walks among the desks, picking up piles of finished documents, indexing their reference numbers, and placing them in a carton for delivery to the Senate. It grows late, but the CIA is, of course, a twenty-four-hour, seven-day-a-week operation. Nevertheless, these are all senior employees and not as young as they were once were, when several of them were actual spies. They are anxious to see their suburban beds.”

“The man picking up the documents yawns, shares a slight joke with one of the men at the desks, and picks up by mistake the wrong pile, a thin stack of paper comprising four brief documents that were by no means ever intended to be seen by senators without being reduced to illegibility. He indites their numbers on his list, tosses them into the carton on the floor and moves on.”

At the DC offices of the HSCA: “…He realized of course, that Bea Sondergard was one of the anonymous, self-effacing, and ruthlessly efficient people, almost always women, almost always in their middle years, who hold the fabric of modern civilization together by sheer force of will. There must be at least one in every organization, and in ordre to have any sensible interaction with bureaucracy, the first step is to find out who she is. Bea Sondergard was the one in Crane’s outfit.”

“…He observed as much to Crane, who chuckled, ‘Those are congressional staff, not human beings. Congressional staff have the worst working conditions and longest hours of anybody in the country. The whole place is one huge sweatshop. The laws of this great nation are written by twenty-five-year-olds in the last stages of exhaustion, breathing the farts of their neighbors. That’s why the government works so well.’”

“…This Kennedy thing is a can of worms, with no real political payoff for anyone. The House leadership launched into it very reluctantly….My own theory was that it was a payoff to the black caucus in an election year. Launching a King investigation is something they can sell at home, and its kind of hard for the House Democrat leadership to buck something having to do with King. One you’re looking into King, Kennedy kind of follows. Plus the stuff about federal agencies not being forthcoming with Warren, the stuff that’s turning up in the Church Committee’s work. And the assassination nuts keep yawpling at their heels. A lot of people believe it and it has to be answered. O’Neil’s the key player, of course, and he hates this kind of thing, and consented very reluctantly. Warren is gospel with Tip. The old ‘protecting the family business.’”

Henry “Hank” Dobbs (D. Conn.): “…One assumption some people have is that the mystery behind JFK is a Dallas mystery. Oswald’s life there. Ruby and the cops. What really happened in the half hour or so after the first shots. George (Rep. Henry Gonzales) is connected to the people who run Dallas, and to the extent that the investigation might affect them, especially in a negative way, George has got to be on top of it. Does that make sense?”

“Two things interest him (Gonzales), Hispanic affairs and migrants - to his credit he’s sincere about helping his people - and energy, because he’s in the oil patch down there and that’s how he gets elected. His interest in the Kennedy thing is two fold: first, if you do come up with something rich, it’ll get him on TV in Dallas…”

Dobbs: “…My constituents. The people of the great state of Connecticut are mainly interested in keeping the insurance industry happy and making sure that when ships and weapons get built, they get built in the great state of Connecticut, as a result of which I spend most of my time in the Banking and the Armed Services Committees.”

“…I think practically everyone understands that when Kennedy was assassinated, the country started on a downward slope. I think it had more of an effect on the country than Lincoln’s did, because Lincoln had mainly finished his work and Kennedy had barely started his. Not that I’m comparing Kennedy to Lincoln - that’s not the point. The point is that the country was tipped out of one track and into another, which we’re still on and which is no good….Actually, as much as I morn his loss, …It was mainly because of what happened afterward. The government didn’t tell the truth about what happened. Some people decided that a higher national purpose would be served if the facts about the assassination were bent to prove a point….Have you read the (Warren) report?...That lie was the forerunner of the lies in service of a higher national purpose that got us into Vietnam, and kept us there until the army and the country was nearly wrecked. It was the premise for all the stuff that Nixon’s cronies did. The good of the country, as any bozo wants to define it, is more important than the truth….After a while the people stop believing anything the government says…And it all started in Dallas, and what we made of it in the Warren Report. If we’re ever going to get the country back on the right track, we have to go back to the point when we ran off the rails. That’s why I’m pushing this investigation, my little favor…for the United States of America…

“…The Senate Intelligence Committee investigation. Church is the chair, but Dick Schaller is the leading light. They subpoenaed a shitload of stuff from the CIA and most of it was either trash or blanked out - par for the course with the spooks - but there was one incredibly juicy little package that came through untouched. Some of it bears heavily on the JFK assassination…my guy says it’s dynamite…..The(ir) investigation is finished, the report is out. The last thing he needs is to be sitting on something this big that he didn’t use.”

“Document A appears to be an internal CIA report from the winter of 1962 describing the composition and capabilities of a Cuban émigré group called Brigada Sixty-one (Alpha 66) and its involvement in Operation Mongoose....which was designed to launch guerrilla raids on Cuban targets and which included a plot to kill Fidel Castro. The burden of the report is that even though President Kennedy had ordered the end of such attempts as part of the Cuban missile crisis deal with the Soviets, Brigada Sixty-one, with the help of the CIA, or some parts of it, had continued to try to infiltrate Cuba and do the regime some damage. The key section for our purposes is a list of CIA contract agents working with Brigada Sixty-one, among whom we find the name of ‘Lee Henry Oswald.’ Also mentioned in this report is the name of the project’s CIA handler, somebody named Maurice Bishop, and the name of a Cuban banker named Antonio Veroa…”

“Document B appears to be an after-action report, to the same Bishop, in which an actual attempt on Castro’s life by Veroa and a gentleman named Guido Mosca, with some others, is described. This is in 1961. Apparently Mr. Veroa was able to rent, in his mother-in-law’s name, an apartment in Havana overlooking a plaza where Castro was scheduled to give a speech and was able to install Mosca and the others there with a hunting rifle, a machine gun, and a rocket launcher. The attempt failed…”

“Documents C and D are two-page memoranda on CIA letterhead. C is dated November 30, 1963 from Richard Helms to a group of CIA senior staff, directing them, in so many words, to stonewall the Warren Commission about any connection between Oswald and the Cubans working for the CIA and about any connection between anyone that turns up in the assassination investigation and Mongoose or any later CIA operations against Cuba. D is dated June 12, 1968, from….a special assistant in the office of the director of Central Intelligence at the time, to a group of senior CIA personnel, directing them to harass certain witnesses being called by Jim Garrison for the Clay Shaw trial.”

“The last one, E….is a transcription of an interview conducted by one of Schaller’s investigators…during an early meeting of the Warren Commission, Allen Dulles informed Warren that he had evidence that Oswald was a Soviet agent, and that if this got out, the American people would demand a retaliation that would certainly lead to thermonuclear exchange. The other item is a report of a colloquy between old Earl and some of the senior commission staff. The staffer was objecting to taking at face value the CIA’s assurance that Oswald had no intelligence connections. Were they justified in ruling out conspiracy so early in the investigation? Warren replied that there was to be no investigation in that area and that, quote, ‘Our purpose is to assure the American people that the president was killed by a single man acting alone.’”

“…This whole cover-up is designed to do just two things: one, make it impossible to determine exactly how and why and by whom JFK was shot, and two, to obscure who and what Oswald was. The things’re connected, and they’re connected through the CIA….”

“…’Assassinating the president is not treason…Even a coup is not treason. Treason shall consist in levying war against the United States and giving aid and comfort to its enemies. It’s in the Constitution, the only crime defined in the Constitution. So forget treason. Conspiracy to commit murder, interfering with an investigation, tampering with and withholding evidence - that’s different, and we may have found evidence of all of that. It’s enough.’”

“…At four-thirty, Bea Sondergard bust into Karp’s office without knocking. She was pale and wide eyed. ‘Flores (Gonzales) sent the cops. They want Bert (Sprague) out by close of the business. They say they have orders to seal his files.’….Two men in the uniform of the Capital Police, the security force that answers to Congress, came striding purposefully down the hall. They stopped in front of him, and one of them, a large moon-faced man of about fifty, said,… ‘We got orders to remove him and take charge of all government material in his possession.’”

“’No,’ said Karp,…’the full committee rescinded Mr. Flores’s orders a few hours ago…’”

“…After a tense half-minute, the cop said, ‘I’ll have to check with headquarters,’…

Disrali Gears -Truth in Action

Disrali Gears - Truth in Action - The Legal Imperatives in the Case of the Murdered President

By William E. Kelly, Jr

The fiftieth anniversary of the assassination presents of President Kennedy is the last chance for truth and justice for JFK, as witnesses die, the public loses interest and the case slowly fades from a cold case homicide to an historical anomaly that may remain unsolved and justice never served.

One of the main characters in the JFK assassination drama, David Atlee Phillips, besides writing his autobiography “Nightwatch - 25 Years of Peculiar Service,” also wrote a spy thriller novel called “The Carlos File,” and “Money, Sex, Scandal,” a work of non-fiction on the true-crime Cullen Davis murder case.

As a  Fort Worth, Texas native, it was like a homecoming for Phillips to return to Texas to write about the trial, and he sought out the counsel of an old family friend who he refers to as “the Old Judge,” and quotes saying: 

“Knowing (who) is innocent or guilty would only resolve another murder case,” he quotes the judge as saying. “The thing that matters … is the integrity of the law, the conduct of the process. That’s what matters! Disraeli defined justice as truth in action, and I’m still trying to locate the truth in action…” 

-         David Atlee Phillips – Quoting “The Old Judge” in “Money, Sex, and Scandal – the Great Texas Murder Trials – A Compelling Account of the Sensational T. Cullen Davis Case.

“Knowing who is innocent or guilty would only resolve another murder case. The thing that matters is the integrity of the law, the conduct of the process....justice as truth in action.”

When it comes to the assassination of President Kennedy, the integrity of the law has been ignored, the conduct of the process violated, justice avoided and truth lost, and no one seems to want to rectify the situation.

As every official inquiry has shown, the government does not want to know the truth in the assassination, and therefore refuses to follow the constitutional requirements to resolve such a crime - dishonors the integrity of the law, and neglects to put the truth into action.

Rather than a third class crime that can be legally ignored with the words of a falsified official report, the murder of the president must be considered a terrorist act against the office of the presidency, and all of the powers available must be put to use to resolve the crime.

Today, the assassination of any public official would be met with a Joint Agency Task Force, a special prosecutor assigned to handle the case, a special grand jury convened to examine the evidence and witnesses and in Obama’s words, “the full weight of the government” should be pressed against those who committed this crime. 

If those individuals responsible for the actions of the government today refuse to do it, then it must be done by private individuals on the their own - and in this time and place, it can be.

Towards that end,.....

COP OUT on Political Assassinations

COP OUT – Texas DA Quits Prosecution of ABT in Fear

Now Who Isn’t Afraid To Go After President’s Killers?

 

By William E. Kelly, Jr.

The federal prosecutor who quit the racketeering case against the Aryan Brotherhood in Texas reflects the failures of all those in positions of authority who chose not to enforce the constitution and pursue those who kill policeman, prosecutors and presidents out of fear for their own careers and personal safety.  

According to news reports from Texas, “Two days after a Kaufman County District Attorney and his wife were gunned down in their home, a federal prosecutor withdrew from a racketeering case against the white supremacist group, reportedly citing security fears.” 1).

The Ayran Brotherhood Texas (ABT) unlike most criminals, don’t abide by the rules laid down by the organized crime syndicate’s Commission that made killing cops against the rules – the rules maintained among the criminal underground, mainly because killing a cop brings down more and unnecessary heat on all criminals and increases the determination of some law enforcement authorities to jail them all. 2).

Such political assassinations does achieve the goal all terrorists aspire of intimidating those legally responsible for upholding the law, instilling a fear of retaliation – ala the Gregory Peck film “Cape Fear,” in which a convict released from prison gets revenge against the family of the lawyer who put him behind bars.

In this case the federal district attorney placed his own personal safety and security above that of the Constitution he had sworn to uphold, which is understandable to some, and according to the Constitution, he is duly replaced by someone who is not deterred by threats to his personal safety or job security, or accepts those threats as part of the job.

For the same reasons, in the wake of the assassination of President Kennedy, those in a position of authority chose not to challenge the Warren Commission’s report’s false conclusion that the president was the victim of a deranged lone assassin, and follow the evidence that indicates the accused assassin was set up as a patsy and the President was murdered by a conspiracy of his enemies.

Why is the government so reluctant to do what it does in almost every other case of a suspicious death and conduct a grand jury inquriy? Why?

Their motives may be the same as the DA in Texas who resigned in fear of criminal retaliation, or they may just want to maintain job security and personal and family safety, especially from criminals who are powerful enough to kill a Dallas Policeman and the President of the United States and got away with it.

But we do know how they did it. They’ve managed to keep the case of the murdered president out of court by keeping the evidence and witnesses from a grand jury and by keeping the pubic debate going vigorously, for as long as the debate over the single-bullet theory, the Zapruder film’s authenticity and other such details continue, the Constitutional directive is conveniently ignored, the real killers go unpursued and there is no justice.

As E. Martin Schotz so eloquently puts it, “All of this brings us to the real cover-up over all these years, which was not ‘Oswald’ per se but rather ‘the debate over Oswald.’ In this process we see…the principles of intelligence agency assassination and cover-up as outlined by Isaac Don Levine, an associate of Allen Dulles, in his analysis of the assassination of Leon Trotsky by the Soviet Union’s NKVD. As Levine revealed, the classic manner by which an intelligence agency attempts to cover itself is by the use of confusion and mystery. The public is allowed to think anything it wants, but is not allowed to know, because the case is shrouded in supposed uncertainty and confusion. This was and is the big lie, that virtually no one is sure who really killed President Kennedy or why.”

“Of course over the years” Schotz continues, “the terms of the ‘debate’ have been shifted as the public has learned more and more about the case. Thus initially the phony debate was organized around the question of whether the Warren Report was accurate or not. In other words, the public was supposed to debate whether there was or wasn’t a conspiracy. As this position was gradually eroded and it became evident that more and more of the public did not believe in the lone assassin theory, another aspect of the debate was developed. The first fallback position of the government was to acknowledge that perhaps or more than likely there was a conspiracy, but if there was, the chief suspects were Fidel Castro, the KGB, or the Mafia. And while these theories were pushed, it was argued that the Warren Commission, acting in haste, had perhaps erred in missing an assassin here or there. But all this was framed as honest error.”

Shotz wrote, “In order to bolster the government’s credibility, the government always needed some writers who would argue that the Warren Report in fact had been true, that Oswald was the lone assassin after all. Thus the ‘debate’ was broadened and complicated, but the honor of the members of the Warren Commission was never conceded by the government. It is important to understand that for the purposes of the government it was not necessary that anyone actually be convinced that these defenders of the Warren Report were correct. It was only necessary that people believe that their writings were debatable, i.e., that there was some substance to their arguments that Oswald was the lone assassin. If that point could be debated, then the government was safe, because the criminal conspiracy of the government of the United States to shield the assassins after the fact was obscured.”

Thank you for setting us straight on that point Martin.

And so the debate continues and there is no Justice for JFK, at least there is none in the Department of Justice of the government of the United States.

The same fear exhibited by the resignation of the Texas DA is personified by the Justice Department officials who refuse to abide by the Constitution, follow the evidence where ever it leads and prosecute those suspected of having committed crimes related to the assassination of President Kennedy.

“As a general policy,” former Justice Department official Ben Civiletti testified before the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in its last session, “the Department of Justice seldom turns down at least exploring, or reviewing a petition or reasonable request,…(and)…to some extent it becomes a matter of public will…but also a matter of judgment that falls within the duties of any particular department or agency of government…as to how far questions…can be explored to a useful or fruitful purpose.”

When John T. Orr, Jr.  Chief of the Anti-Trust Division’s Atlanta Office, received the Distinguish Service Award from the Attorney General he presented a paper that called attention to the fact that the bullet fragments from the floor of President Kennedy’s limo had not been tested for DNA, and he vigorously pushed for it and got it! (That deserves an exclamation point)

According to an official DOJ memo, “We met with Mr. Orr, while he was in Washington to receive a Distinguished Service Award from the Attorney General, and we have since reviewed the report which he prepared. It is our opinion that Mr. Orr’s observations justify the performance of certain modest preliminary investigative measures to test the foundation of his assassination conspiracy theory.”

“Jurisdiction. Federal criminal statutes covering the assassination of the President and assaults against federal officials generally were enacted after 1963. Accordingly, the criminal statutes of Texas represent the best, and probably only viable, mechanism for prosecution of any living person determined to have been involved in the assassination of President Kennedy. Despite the lack of apparent federal prosecutorial jurisdiction over the November 1963 assassination of President Kennedy, Congress and the Executive Branch have historically recognized Department of Justice investigative jurisdiction over the matter, concurrent with Texas investigative jurisdiction. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been deemed the appropriate federal investigative agency for this matter, partly in recognition of the potential appearance of a conflict of interest which the Secret Service, as the protective force at the time of the assassination, would confront.”

“...It is our view that the Department has retained investigative jurisdiction over the assassination, though such investigation is restricted to activities which are not based upon the expectation of an eventual federal prosecution. Thus, the examination of evidence in federal possession is seemingly appropriate, while obtaining evidence by grand jury subpoena would likely be inappropriate. This position was adopted by the Division and endorsed b the Office of the Deputy Attorney General when we declined to seek a court order for exhumation of former Governor Connally’s body following allegations that bullet fragments remaining in his body from the incident would reveal, by weight or composition, the existence of additional bullets.” 

So the Department of Justice “retains investigative jurisdiction over the assassination, but restricts activities which are not based upon the expectation of an eventual prosecution,” and that’s even if they develop evidence of conspiracy or crimes related to the assassination.

And more than anything else, they think a grand jury, the one legal avenue the Constitution lays out to accept evidence in a murder "would be inappropriate."

 

1) NEW YORK DAILY NEWS  THURSDAY, APRIL 4, 2013  A federal prosecutor in Texas has quit a major case against the Aryan Brotherhood allegedly over fear for his life after the targeted slayings of two other prosecutors, the latest of which occurred on Saturday. [ http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/texas-prosecutor-quits-case-aryan-brotherhood-citing-security-article-1.1307426   PHILIP CAULFIELD / 

2) See: 1929 Atlantic City Mob Convention.

http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2012/07/1929-atlantic-city-organized-crime.html

3) Civilitti, Benjamin. HSCA Testimony

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/docset/getList.do?docSetId=1001

4) Schotz.  History Will Not Absolve  Orwellian Control, Public Denial,
and the Murder   of President Kennedy   by E. Martin Schotz 

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/HWNAU/index.html

The Pseudo-Debate  http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/HWNAU/contents.html

5) Orr Test Request of WCE-567

http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2012/03/re-wc-ce-567-bullet-fragment-found.html

http://www.jfklancer.com/LNE/fragments/frag_article_a.html

http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2012/03/re-wc-ce-567-bullet-fragment-found.html

Basis for Legal Action in the Assassination of President Kennedy

THE JFK ASSASSINATION – BASIS FOR LEGAL ACTION

It is a myth that the assassination of President Kennedy will always remain an enduring mystery. Though justice may never be served, the murder of John F. Kenney is not an unsolvable crime, but rather a homicide that can be solved to a moral and legal certainty by traditional detective work.

To keep people questioning, to allow multiple theories to abound, to let time slip away and drag on before applying the basic and routine legal procedures for investigating and solving such a crime is only a reflection of the institutional unwillingness, resistance and refusal to challenge the powers that took over the government on November 22, 1963.

The feeling of citizen helplessness is reflected in the subtitle of the book by one of the living victims of the same criminals – James Tague, whose book is called The Truth Withheld – A Survivor’s Story – Why We Will Never Know the Truth About the Assassination. But those responsible for JFK’s murder win and go free only if they die before being exposed, and escape justice.

The reason for the Congressional law that established the “50 year rule” on the classification of all Congressional documents is that is the amount of time it is estimated for the people mentioned in the documents to be dead. Since it is not yet 50 years after the assassination of President Kennedy, some of those suspects are therefore still alive.

It is simply not true that the murder of JFK will forever remain a mystery, and we’ll never know the truth, since thanks to the JFK Act, we have most of the evidence, the documentary records and witness testimony in the public domain.

Despite the institutional unwillingness to make the effort to solve the crime, a strong regiment of independent researchers, determined investigators, honest witnesses and ordinary citizens have taken upon themselves to determine the truth and solve the crime, but justice has yet to take its course.

“We need not accept (the) view that mankind…..is doomed,” JFK said in his landmark June 10, 1963 ‘Peace Speech’ at American University. We need not accept, “that we are gripped by forces we cannot control…Our problems are manmade – therefore, they can be solved by man….No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable – and we believe man can do it again.”

American political assassinations are murders that were committed by men, and therefore can be solved by men, if only the effort is made to do it. However belatedly, there is a new trend to at least attempt to resolve the civil rights and political murders of the 1960s, with the assassination of Medgar Evers, the murders of the Philadelphia, Mississippi Freedom Riders, the York, Pennsylvania race riot killings, the MLK assassination civil trial, and the passage of the Emmett Till Bill to establish a permanent department dedicated to such murders and assassinations all utilized the judicial system to solve crimes that were thought to be untouchable a decade ago. 

Whether the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman, as the official report alleges, or was a patsy as he claimed, he was a former U.S. Marine who worked at a U2 base in Japan, was trained in the Russian language, defected to the USSR, returned with a Russian wife, reportedly took a shot at General Walker, participated in covert Cuban operations in New Orleans and Mexico City, and fits the covert operative profile that makes the assassination a covert intelligence operation. As former Senator Richard Schweikder (R. Pa.) put it, the case has “the fingerprints of intelligence,” and it must be properly investigated as such.

Just because covert operations are designed to conceal the actual perpetuators doesn’t mean that they can’t be exposed, identified and brought to justice, just as other, similar covert crimes have been exposed – Watergate, Iran-Contra, the assassination of the former Chilean ambassador to the U.S. in Washington, and more recent mob and terrorist conspiracies.

How can ordinary citizens force the hand of an entrenched judicial system? The system is changing, and a new guard are now at the ramparts, working on behalf of the taxpayers and citizens instead of the old political machine. There are examples of how other such political assassinations were solved through the system, and despite the system.

An examination of how the assassination of Medgar Evers and the other civil rights murders of the 1960s were resolved after decades presents a road map to follow, and one of the first stops on the way to justice is the grand jury.

“As a general policy,” former Justice Department official Ben Civiletti testified before the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) in its last session, “the Department of Justice seldom turns down at least exploring, or reviewing a petition or reasonable request,…(and)…to some extent it becomes a matter of public will…but also a matter of judgment that falls within the duties of any particular department or agency of government…as to how far questions…can be explored to a useful or fruitful purpose.”

Getting questions answered, getting questions answered honestly and under oath is one thing, getting the proper questions asked in a proper legal venue is another thing all together.

Besides determining the truth and seeking justice, it would be useful and fruitful to determine who killed President Kennedy, why they did it, and how they accomplished it, so such a thing can never happen again.

If the assassination of Medgar Evers was immediately pursued properly and justice resolved, President Kennedy would not have been killed in the same way, and if JFK’s assassination was properly resolved immediately, RFK and MLK would never have died the way the did. It is only because such murders are not properly and legally resolved that makes it viable to happen again.

Political assassination remain an effective tool for controlling public and political policy only because the true perpetuators of these crimes are permitted to remain hidden in the background, pulling the strings of the puppets and moving the pawns as they have for decades.

The assassination of President Kennedy has maintained its watershed mark as the single most significant political event of the past century because it remains unresolved.

Despite the tremendous amount of information that is now available, it remains an unresolved enigma and unsolved cold case homicide because there is no institutional willingness, motive or desire to simply solve it.

Unsolved cold cases, especially homicides, are usually reviewed every few years, sometimes by a new detective who looks over old evidence to see if there is anything that has been overlooked, or if there is any previously unknown evidence or witnesses, or recently developed scientific tools that could be used to help solve the crime.

There is no statute of limitations on murder, and under the rules of criminal procedure, homicide is given precedence over all other crimes, and once accumulated, the evidence in a homicide is presented to a grand jury by a prosecutor or district attorney, who represents the people. The People versus the Criminal Suspects.

Independent researchers, journalists and ordinary citizens can identify evidence, uncover conspiracies and witness crimes, but if there is no investigation, no case, no grand jury, no place to present the evidence, then there is no justice. As Mr. Civiletti explained to the HSCA, the DOJ “seldom turns down exploring at least, or reviewing a petition or reasonable request…”

Towards the development of a legal case, the grand jury Petition-Request is a citizen’s petition to a District Attorney responsible for prosecuting offenders to request a grand jury be convened to review the facts of a case and determine if there is enough evidence to indict someone for a crime.

A grand jury is asked to decide, not guilt or innocence, but whether there is enough evidence to have a person brought to trial for a crime. The grand jury only hears evidence of guilt, but does not render a verdict. Its decision is whether to indict, which is merely an accusation, or not to indict. Guilt or innocence is determined in a court of law; where the rules of evidence preclude hearsay evidence and allows the defense attorney the opportunity to cross-examine witnesses. Before a grand jury, hearsay is allowed, and witnesses must testify without counsel, as all attorneys, other than the prosecutor, are not permitted in the grand jury room.

If the grand jury determines there is enough evidence, they vote a “True Bill” and indict someone for a crime.

The DA can simply ignore such a citizen’s petition and request and not present the evidence to a grand jury, or even if a grand jury votes to indict, it is still up to the DA to issue the indictment and decide whether or not to proceed and take the matter to court.

The Grand Jury process, which stems from English Cannon law, has been refined by the United States Constitutional system as an extension of the prosecutor’s will, though historically the grand jury can investigate official corruption, review and develop evidence, attempt to answer questions, subpoena records and witnesses, order forensic autopsies and specialized tests and follow the evidence where ever it leads.

While grand juries composed of ordinary American citizens do not have the knowledge of the history and powers of a grand jury, and are often merely tools of the prosecutors, and do what the DA instructs them to do, sometimes a prosecutor will lose control of a grand jury. That happens when some grand jurors begin to ask questions and make requests of its own. Such a grand jury is called a “Runaway Grand Jury,” and often goes beyond the original intent of the prosecutors, such as the Rocky Mountain Flats Runaway Grand Jury. When the Colorado prosecutors refused to issued the indictments against major defense contractors for environmental contamination, the grand jury leaked its report to the press [See: Westword Rocky Mountain Flats ]

The previous reluctance of district attorneys to prosecute political assassinations, especially decades-old crimes, is being overcome by new, young and diversified blood in official positions of authority. Although those District Attorneys at the top of their profession know that investigating political assassinations is detrimental to furthering their careers, and witness what happened to New Orleans DA Jim Garrison, there is a younger generation of assistant prosecutors who look upon solving such major crimes as an achievement that will advance their future careers.

Former HSCA attorney, Dean Browning Webb, Esq., who specializes in RICO litigation, said that such indictments are possible and that, “I am especially interested in developing an approach to seek indictments of those who conspired to murder the President.”

“I believe that a prosecution is feasible,” says Webb, “especially when invoking the Pinkerton Doctrine,” which holds that “a person associated with a conspiracy culpable for any criminal act committed by a co-conspirator if the act is within the scope of the conspiracy and is a foreseeable result of the criminal scheme.” Agency theory holds that “all conspirators act as the agent or represent the other conspirators involved in the criminal scheme, and are liable for all criminal acts committed by the other conspirators.”

Another reason that District Attorneys are reluctant to investigate and prosecute political assassination, besides opposing the powerful cabal behind the murder, is the effort and manpower it takes to solve it, which takes away from the normal, day-to-day operations for which the District Attorney is also responsible.

This can be compensated by compiling the evidence accumulated by independent researchers and investigators over the past years and including the most significant facts, documents and witnesses (including their contacts), and detail the outstanding questions with the Petition-Request, thus laying out the case and reducing the work of the prosecutors. Such a convincing attachment would also help persuade a prosecutor to accept the case and take it to a grand jury.

It will only take one such JFK grand jury, and there are a number of potential jurisdictions, with Federal, State and County grand juries, each with many assistant district attorneys who work under the District Attorney, providing dozens of individuals in which to present the Petition Request. And only one needs to be convinced.

Establishing jurisdiction in any particular district will not be difficult. Although some will argue that it was not a federal crime to kill the president in 1963, it was a federal crime to conspire to kill a federal employee, whether it is a postman or a president, and if conspiracy can be demonstrated, a federal grand jury can handle it.

Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins, when he assumed office, found a cache of assassination records from former D.A. Henry Wade. Watkins also worked with the Innocence Project, which used DNA and new evidence to free those who were wrongfully convicted. If those convicted were innocent, then someone else must have committed those crimes. Watkins should have one assistant DA or a small team of lawyer, detective, investigator, researcher to reinvestigate such unsolved cold cases, including the still unsolved murder of Dallas Policeman J.D. Tippit. While Lee Harvey Oswald, killed while in Dallas Police custody, is blamed for the crime, it is clear that Oswald was frequently a victim of mistaken identity, sometimes apparently intentional, and the case against him in the Tippit murder is shaky, and new witnesses have come forward who should be required to testify before a grand jury to see if there is evidence enough to indict some living suspect for the crime, or one related to it – perjury, tampering with evidence, destruction of evidence, obstruction of justice and conspiracy.

Besides the local Dallas county district jurisdiction, there are Texas State grand juries, as well as the North Texas Federal District court, which is located in Dallas. The reluctance of any Dallas or Texas official to investigate the assassination will probably make other jurisdictions more inviting.

Of the dozens of the potential jurisdictions, it will be easiest to convene a Special Federal Grand Jury in Washington D.C., where most of the original evidence is located at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), and the body of the victim can be exhumed for a proper forensic autopsy using the latest scientific equipment and knowledge.

Although conspiracy and homicide are the crimes being investigated, once the grand jury begins to subpoena records and require the sworn testimony of witnesses, other crimes, such as perjury, destruction of evidence, obstruction of justice come into play, and help persuade witnesses to tell the truth.

One aspect of the grand jury proceedings is their secrecy, which prevents the testimony from being made public before a trial. If there are no indictments, and there isn’t a trial, the grand jury could issue a report explaining what it learned and the reasons behind its action or inaction.

Historically, traditionally and legally, according to the Constitution of the United States, the evidence in a homicide is presented to a grand jury, which is where the evidence in the murder of John F. Kennedy must go before there can be justice.

“That we live as a nation of laws, and are not a ‘Banana Republic,’” said Warren Commissioner John McCloy, “requires us as individuals and as a society, to purse truth and justice, ‘even if the heaven’s may fall.’”

It is not too late now, but soon, this case will slip slowly from an unsolved homicide to an historical mystery, unless we act now, and present the best evidence in a Petition-Request to convene a special JFK Grand Jury, and let the legal take its course, wherever it may go.

Grand Jury Petition.

Federal Grand Jury Petition (Request) to evaluate the existing evidence and investigate the homicide of John F. Kennedy, the attempted murder of John B. Connolly, the wounding of James Tague and the murders of J. D. Tippit and Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas in Nov. 1963.

[Note: Although the assassination of the President was not a federal crime in 1963, it was a federal crime to conspire to kill a federal official in the line of duty. Therefore we are submitting this petition, with evidentiary exhibits of conspiracy to Special Federal Grand Juries in the Northern District of the State of Texas, in New Orleans Parish in Louisiana and Washington D.C. requesting that a Special Federal Grand Jury be convened especially for these particular cases, guided by a Assistant U.S. Attorney and assisted by a Task Force of independent researchers, professionals, investigators, law enforcement officers and judicial officials.]

To: Richard B. Roper, U.S. Attorney for Federal District of North Texas, Earle Cabell Federal Building, 1100 Commerce St., 3rd Floor, Dallas, Texas, 75242-1699


We citizens of the United States of America do hereby petition you Richard B. Roper [U.S. Attorney for Federal District of North Texas] to fulfill your obligations [Under U.S. Code : Title 18, Section 3331(Summoning and term) –3332 (Powers & Duties) & 3331 (Reports); Or appropriate statute for correct jurisdiction]; See: Documentary Exhibits #1 (a), (b), (c)] and carry out your duties to convene a grand jury of American citizens to “operate as an investigative agency…in cases of civic corruption or misconduct by public officers….to look into the criminal conduct prior to the arrest of any suspect … (since) … the inquisitorial power of the grand jury may operate to develop evidence against civic corruption, organized crime, or a broad array of criminal activity.”

This request is being submitted for the purposes of:

1) Completing previously impeded official investigations; by the Dallas Police, Texas State, Secret Service, FBI, the Warren Commission, Church Intelligence Committee, Rockefeller Commission, Pike Committee, House Select Committee on Assassinations, Assassinations Records Review Board; Justice Department of the United States;

2) To determine the disposition and establish the provenance of all relevant evidence, records and witnesses;

3) To answer all outstanding questions that can be reasonably answered by basic inquiry and independent investigation (and not by agencies or departments of the government that have been implicated in the crime);

4) To have qualified experts review the available acoustic, ballistic, medical and autopsy evidence and to order new, independent studies and tests you deem necessary, including proper forensic autopsies of victims;

5) To review the available documentary records and hard evidence, subpoena witnesses, take their testimony, determine what crimes have been committed and whether there is enough evidence to indict those individuals responsible for crimes related to the assassination, including but not limited to conspiracy, homicide, treason, destruction of evidence, obstruction of justice and perjury;

6) To conduct a thorough oversight review of how and why this case was permitted to go unresolved for so long and to determine the national security implications;

7) To help restore public confidence in government, the law and the legal and
judicial systems of this country; The public confidence in the government of the United States is lower now than ever before and began to decline, according to public opinion polls, in December, 1963, directly as a result of the assassination of the President, and has never been regained, and will not be regained until the remaining questions are properly answered.

We citizens of the United States hereby present you with this petition, along with the relevant discovered evidence, records and exhibits, and respectfully request that you carry out your responsibilities under the law to convene and present them to a grand jury.

When you are finished we ask you to publicly report [Under Sec. 3333] what steps you have taken, what you have discovered and whether you have determined if indictments should be brought against any individuals for crimes related to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States.

Attached: Evidence List; Exhibits; Living Material Witness List; Living Expert Witness List; Outstanding Questions; List of Related Crimes;

William E. Kelly, Jr. –

List of names of co-signers to petition.
To have your name added to petition email: Bkjfk3@yahoo.com

Petition on line: 

JFK Grand Jury Petition

http://www.petitiononline.com/jfkgjury/petition.html

Previous Legal Actions Taken in the Assassination of JFK

Previous Legal Actions Taken in the Assassination of President Kennedy

 

1-         JFK’s body removed from Parkland Hospital and Dallas before an autopsy. This was reportedly settled when the Dallas Coroner recognized the President’s physician Dr. Burkley as maintaining the chain of possession of the body if he stayed with it until the autopsy was done. (He didn’t, he left the body for the swearing in aboard AF1)

2-         Oswald charged with the murder of JD Tippit.

3-         Oswald charged with the murder of the President

4-         Jack Ruby Charged with the murder of Oswald

5-         There may have been a grand jury indictment of Ruby since Ruth S. of the Dallas Committee on the 50^th reportedly served on this grand jury even though her family knew Ruby.

6-         Congressional Investigation threatened or began but was put off by:

7-         Executive Order establishing the Warren Commission, which was responsible fore issuing a report on the assassination.

8-         Warren Report Issued – Sept. 1964

9-         New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison convenes grand jury that indicts Clay Shaw.

10-         Clay Shaw trail in New Orleans ends in acquittal of Shaw

11-         Shaw indicted for perjury by Garrison, which was dismissed.

12-         Executive Order establishing the Rockefeller Commission, responsible for issuing a report on post-Watergate intelligence agency abuses.

13-         Congressional investigations sparked by the Watergate scandal included a number of significant congressional inquiries including

14-         Pike Committee - House of Representatives                     

                                                    

15-        Senate Church Committee Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Activities (SSCIA)

16-         Schweiker-Hart Subcommittee of Church Intelligence Committee SSCIA

17-         House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) 1977-78

18-         Association of Former Intelligence Operatives (AFIO) David Atlee Phillips files libel suites against Liberty Lobby (Mark Lane), Washingtonian Magazine (Fonzi) and in UK against Anthony Summers. Not all cases carried out in court.

19-         JFK Act of 1992 established the temporary agency ARRB

20-         Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) 1994-95

21-         Congressional Oversight Hearing on JFK Act extended life of ARRB by one year. 1996

 

(Let me know if I forgot anything - bkfjk3@yahoo.com0

Legal Options on the Case of JFK Today

Possible Legal Options on the Case of JFK

1)      FOIA. FOIA requests are made daily and denials have been challenged in court, some cases lasting over a decade (ie. Morley v. CIA), and this option is continuing on many fronts. (Lesar, Zaid, Holland, et al), but it only leads to more records and not justice for JFK.

2)      Congressional Oversight Hearings could call attention to the lack of enforcement of the JFK Act, identify the records that have been intentionally destroyed since the law was passed, require the testimony of those who destroyed the records and investigate the failure of various agencies to abide by the JFK Act. Although this is the easiest road to take, Congress is reluctant to do anything let alone oversee the JFK Act.

3)      Congressional Briefing. If Congress won’t hold an official public hearing, a Congressional Briefing could be organized and presented in a Congressional setting that could influence interested Congressman, their aides and the media and drum up support for #1 – a real Congressional Oversight Hearing on the JFK Act.

4)      Dallas County Grand Jury. Under Dallas D.A. Craig Watkins, the Innocence Project has reviewed the cases of those convicted for crimes and utilizing DNA and other modern techniques, freed many wrongfully convicted persons. It may be possible to show that there are sufficient questions concerning the circumstances of the murder of Dallas policeman J.D. Tippitt, some that exonerate Oswald. There are also a number of new witnesses that could call for a local grand jury be convened to review the evidence and take the new testimony to determine if there is enough to bring any living suspect to trail.

5)      Although it was not a federal crime to kill the president in 1963, it was a federal crime to conspire to kill a federal employee, and if conspiracy can be established a special federal grand jury could be convened to review the evidence. It is also possible to convene a special federal grand jury in Washington D.C. to consider the crimes related to the assassination, including perjury, destruction of evidence and records, obstruction of justice and conspiracy.

6)      Federal Task Force. In order to handle complex cases that cross state and national bounds, a Federal Task Force is formed that includes representatives from each of the major federal investigatory agencies. Such a Task Force could coordinate the investigation of related unsolved homicides such as President Kennedy, John Rosselli, Sam Giancana, et al. The US government however, refuses to properly investigate the civil rights murders of the 60s so it is unlikely they will want to solve any political assassination.

7)      Civil RICO – The RICO statutes were established to prosecute complex conspiracies like mob and mafia controlled gambling rings, prostitution and drug trafficking and organized crime murders. While the Department of Justice will not make the assassination of JFK a RICO prosecution, it could be done in civil court, similar to the Christic Institute’s RICO case against the Iran-Contra network. While there are lawyers with RICO experience interested in pursing this tact, the Christic Institute’s failure in court has stymied any further attempts to use it.

8) Civil Libel Case. The Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) founded by David Atlee Phillips unsuccessfully sued Liberty Lobby (defended by Mark Lane), Washingtonian Magazine (Fonzi) and UK Anthony Summers. Another libel case is possile if someone can be baited into suing someone.

9) Civil Case of personal injury. Dealey Plaza bystander James Tague was hit in the face by a piece of concrete from a curb hit by a bullet or a bullet fragment shot by the same person who killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally. Tague’s wound drew blood, which would have earned him a purple heart in combat, and it makes him a victim of the same person who killed the President. He could bring a civil suit, but most such personal injury civil suits are based on loss of money or work. Tague could possibly argue that he represents those who feel that the loss of democratic process is just as significant an injury as loss of revenue.

10)      Inquest. The JFK Truth Project is advocating an inquest and has even set a date for one to take place in Washington DC in September, 2014, the anniversary of the release of the Warren Report. Usually an inquest is held by an official coroner, who determines the cause of death, and if found suspicious, criminal prosecution may follow, and suspects are able to defend themselves there.

11)  Other? Have I missed any legal avenue that can be used? If so let’s hear about it.

A Few Good Men - From Philly to Gitmo

A Few Good Men from Philly to Gitmo

 

Two Philly guys at Guantanamo – Can You Handle the Truth!

By William Kelly

Originally Posted  http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2009/04/few-good-men-from-philly-to-gitmo.html

The real story is actually more incredible than the movie or the play.

The play “A Few Good Men,” was recently performed and has called renewed attention to that still sensitive Guantanamo Bay prison issue that just won’t go away.

As an arch typical military court room drama, the story focuses attention on two attorneys defending two Gitmo Marines charged with second-degree murder in a hazing incident gone wrong.

The 1992 film “A Few Good Men,” directed by Rob Reiner and starring Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon and Jack Nicholson, is a classic of its genre that spawned the JAG TV show, and coined the phrase “You can’t handle the truth!” as a modern cliche.

However exciting Aaron Sorkin’s fictional film and the dramatic Shakespieriean theatrical play may be, the real story of two Philadelphia guys at Guantanamo is even more incredible, the details of which stretch imagination and their entanglements with the assassination of President Kennedy.

While the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo is now infamous, it was hardly an afterthought in anyone’s mind until after April, 1961, when the failed Bay of Pigs invasion made the contract ional lease of the Guantamano naval base a point of contention.

For William Szile and John Gordon it was a pivotal point in their respective military careers, and for Szile, continues to haunt him up to and including today.

Their stories sound pretty close to the fictional incident of the movie and play, as Szile was in charge of the USMC prison at Guatanamo when he was ordered to remove the body of a Cuban national, suspected of being a spy, who died suspiciously on the base. It probably would have been an open and shut case against Szile except for the fact that the other marine accused with him was a Medal of Honor recipient.

Szile was a home grown Philadelphia boy who lived not far from John Gordon, a Harvard educated navy officer assigned to the Pentagon.

Just after the disastrous Bay of Pigs fiasco, ONI assigned John Gordon to Guantanamo where he was to direct the efforts of a Cuban national in an attempt to assassinate Castro. He ended up in the Navy psychiatric ward.

Among the records relapsed under the JFK Assassinations Records Act (of 1992) is a Congressional committee report from Mason Cargill; Subject: JOHN GORDON, which reads: "The following is Gordon’s story. A few days after the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, Gordon was told he was being transferred from his job in the Office of Chief of Naval Operations to the Navy base at Guantanamo as Base Intelligence Officer. He was briefed by several agencies including the CIA before heading for Guantanamo."

"At one briefing by officers from a certain office within the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), he was told that there was a Cuban national who lived on our base at Guantanamo and was an employee of the Navy who was willing and able to assassinate Fidel Castro. His name was Alonzo Gonzalez. One of the officers who told him this was Lt. James Carr. Another’s name was Day, although Gordon does not remember his first name or rank."

"Gordon arrived in Guantanamo about the first of June 1961. He began working with certain Cubans on the base including Gonzalez in a program of guerilla activities within the surrounding Cuban territory. The Cubans would surreptitiously leave the base to engage in sabotage and espionage operations and then return to it. Gonzalez was one leader within this Cuban group. Gonzalez during the month of June and during the month of July spoke several times with Gordon about the possibility of assassinating Castro. Gordon however, came to believe that Gonzalez was a double agent. One reason for this was that a certain cache of weapons outside the base of which Gonzalez had knowledge was discovered by Castro agents only an hour or so after it was placed there. Another reason was that he discovered that Gonzalez was teaching his servant how to fire small-arms."

"Sometime, in July 1961 Gordon discovered that dynamite had been brought into the base surreptitiously. He suspected Gonzalez of doing this and immediately telephoned the base commander to suggest that Gonzalez be arrested. According to Gordon, less than one hour after his telephone call to the base commander he himself was arrested by the Shore Patrol and placed in the psychiatric ward of the base hospital. After several days at this hospital he was transferred to Charleston Naval Hospital and then to Philadelphia Naval Hospital, finally being discharged from the hospital in October 1961. He said he was characterized as having a problem of situational adjustment. After being discharged from the hospital, he was sent to the Fourth Naval District Headquarters in New Orleans as an intelligence officer. He heard nothing of Gonzalez until approximately 1966 when he saw something in the Philadelphia newspaper that Gonzalez had been arrested by Castro within Cuba."

"In 1969, Gordon says he wrote to the new Secretary of the Navy requesting an appointment to inform him of the Gonzalez episode. Shortly after writing this letter, Gordon was confined to the Bethesda Naval Hospital for an alleged psychiatric problem. After release from this hospital Gordon retired from the Navy in 1969. Gordon admitted that the only evidence of any CIA connection to Gonzalez, his activities, or the actions on the part of Naval officials in hospitalizing Gordon was the fact that officers in Washington who initially informed him of Gonzalez had responsibility for liaison between ONI and the CIA."

"He also admitted that he had no evidence that any domestic CIA activities were involved in this affair. We advised him that as a result this matter did not appear to be within the jurisdiction of this Commission and suggested that he might get in contact with the Senate Select Committee. About one half hour after Gordon left our office, I received a call from Fritz Schwartz of the Senate Committee Staff stating that Gordon had called him requesting an appointment. I briefly described what Gordon had told us and said that the Senate Committee Staff might want to interview him, although Gordon’s story seemed a little incredible to us. Schwartz said they would probably talk to him today."

Mary Ferrell, who maintained files on JFK assassination subjects, Comments: "DOB: 8/19/21. POB: Philadelphia (Upper Darby), PA. Son of Irwin Leslie Gordon who was Naval Intelligence. Gordon's first job was with Reading Railroad. His grandfather had been an executive with Reading Railroad. Social Security Number 726-09-1554 (issued by railroads in lieu of social security numbers - called Railroad Retirement Number). Attended William and Mary 1948-1953. Graduated from Harvard. Joined Navy. Service Number 52-28-50. Married Edna Cox North (granddaughter of Lord and Lady Beckwith), of Leeds, England, March 1954. Gordon was in Pine Beach, NJ, on Mill Creek Road, in 1964. In Morocco in 1956. At Pentagon in 1959 and lived on Dogwood Drive in Alexandria, VA. 1961 at Guantanamo Naval Base. Hospitalized during 1961. 1961 and 1962 at Naval Ship Yard in Philadelphia. 1963 - at Pentagon. 1964 - St. Petersburg, FL. 1965-1967 at 8th Naval District, New Orleans, LA, as Naval Intelligence Officer. 1968-1976 at Framingham, Massachusetts. From 1976 until death at Georgetown, SC. He taught at Coastal Carolina College, a subsidiary of University of South Carolina. Gordon died September 27, 1987...

Since Gordon approached the wrong committee with his information, it doesn't appear anything was done, despite Gordon's attempt to seek redemption.

Szili, William A. – USMC.

Szili's story is even more bizarre, if that's possible.

Guantanamo prison, Cuba, spies, interrogations, torture, executions, death and denials. Everywhere you go – television, radio, newspapers, internet, Guantamano is the story that won’t go away, a message the meaning of which is still being debated.

Bill Szili is tired of hearing about it, and it irks him that it seems we haven’t learned anything from history.

On September 30, 1961, at the height of the Cold War, Bill Szili USMC, was months away from retirement after a distinguished 12 years of service when he was suddenly awaken at his Guantanamo, Cuba barracks. As the officer in charge of the base's prison, Szili was being called upon to engage in an act above and beyond the call of duty.

Szili’s company commander, Captain Arthur J. Jackson, shot and killed a Cuban while escorting him off the base for being in a restricted area, an ammunition dump. The Cuban, Ruben Lopez, a bus driver on the base, who commuted to his job from nearby Guantanamo City, Cuba, was said to be No. 16 on a list of Cuban spies operating on the base. After being warned against visiting restricted areas, Lopez was caught near the ammunition dump and personally escorted to the gate by Capt. Arthur J. Jackson.

Jackson said that after being escorted from the base, Lopez “lunged” at him, and was shot by Jackson - the impact of the blast sending Lopez over a cliff to a rocky beach 25 feet below. The following day Jackson and Szili returned to the scene of the shooting, with Jackson descending to the beach and covering the body. Two or three days later, after numerous trips to check on the body, they decided it should be buried. At this point, two other officers and three enlisted men became embroiled in concealing the murder. One officer supplied nylon rope to haul the body up the cliff face, another dug a shallow grave on the base side of the fence, while the enlisted personnel helped with the moving of the body.

Arthur J. Jackson wasn’t just another USMC Captain, he had earned the Congressional Medal of Honor in combat during World War II, and was one of the most highly regarded soldiers in the military service.

                                            JACKSON, ARTHUR J.

Rank and organizations: Private First Class, U.S. Marine Corps, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division. Place and date: Island of Peleliu in the Palau group, 18th September 1944. Entered service at: Oregon. Born: 18 October 1924, Cleveland, Ohio. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving with the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese forces on the Island of Peleliu in the Palau group, 18 September 1944. Boldly taking the initiative when his platoon’s left flank advance was held up by the fire of the Japanese troops concealed in strongly fortified positions, Pfc. Jackson unhesitatingly proceeded forward of our lines and, courageously defying the heavy barrages, charged a large pillbox housing approximately 35 enemy soldiers. Pouring his automatic fire into the opening of the fixed installation to trap the occupying troops, he hurled white phosphorus grenades and explosive charges brought up by a fellow marine, demolishing the pill box and killing all of the enemy. Advancing alone under the continuous fire from other hostile emplacements, he employed similar means to smash 2 smaller positions in the immediate vicinity. Determined to crush the entire pocket of resistance although harassed on all sides by the shattering blasts of Japanese weapons and covered only by small rifle parties, he stored 1 gun position after another, dealing death and destruction to the savagely fighting enemy in his inexorable drive against he remaining defenses, and succeeded in wiping out a total of 12 pillboxes and 50 Japanese soldiers. Stouthearted and indomitable despite the terrific odds, Pfc. Jackson resolutely maintained control of the platoon’s left flank movement throughout his valiant 1-man assault and, by his cool decision and relentless fighting spirit during a critical situation, contributed essentially to the complete annihilation of the enemy in the southern sector of the island. His gallant initiative and heroic conduct in the face of extreme peril reflect the highest credit upon Pfc. Jackson and the U.S. Naval Service.

When the details of the incident concerning the violent death of a Cuban spy at Guantanamo came to light, Jackson resigned from the Marines Corp and two other officers (Pruitt and Steiner), along with the enlisted men, were forced out. Szili was ousted under a law which "permitted the revocation of the commission of an officer with less than three years active service on the active list."

Before leaving the service however, both Jackson and Szili had been held under guard in the psychiatric ward of the base hospital and likewise later at Camp Lejeune, NC, and were required to sign statements verifying they understood that if they ever spoke about the incident, they could face fines of up to $10,000 and 10 years imprisonment under the Espionage and Sabotage Act.

In the end, none appeared before a military or civil court (the shooting having occurred outside the base) and all left with honorable discharges, with Szili being the only one to eventually speak out.

Jackson became a mailman in San Jose, California. On May 1st, 1963, the White House announced 324 Medal of Honor winners would attend Kennedy's annual military reception the following day. On April 30, Jackson sent a telegram to the President declining the invitation on the grounds that his presence "might possibly be an embarrassment." This was a reversal of a previous acceptance made before the Gitmo story broke. Salinger, on behalf of Kennedy, replied through a press conference that "We respect his decision. Capt Jackson and his wife will always be welcome at the White House." Jackson never surfaced publicly again.

Szili returned home to Philadelphia, where he contacted his Congressman, Senator Richard Schweiker, in an attempt get reinstated in the Marines. Schweiker, a Republican Senator, called for hearings on the matter, but after a secret briefing in April, 1963 involving military officers, Navy Secretary, Fred Korth, Marine Commandant General, David Shoupe, and the Chairman of the Congressional Armed Services Committee, the hearings were cancelled.

Szili was working for Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company at the time the story broke in the media (Apr/May '63). According to newspaper accounts, Szili left the Marines in March, 1962.

In a telephone interview with Bill Kelly [10pm – Friday, August 25, 2006] William “Bill” Szili said he was a former Marine stationed at Guantanamo. "Yea, I was the brig warden. I was the brig warden there before I got commissioned. I ran the prison."

Does he see the irony today? "Yes I do (Laugh). Oh, yea. My first tour of duty at Guantanamo I was a staff sergeant and Castro was still in the mountains and Batista was in power. And then I went and got my commission and went back later."

As for Castro, Szili says, "He’s giving, six, seven, eight presidents a hard time."

Concerning Schweiker's cancelation of the scheduled committee hearing on his case, Szile said, "I don’t know. Schweiker was just an opportunist. Hell no, he didn't help at all. All he did was to take over the Armed Services Committee when he became a Senator. He just made sure he got in print."

"I got an honorable discharge, but, yea, I didn’t want to leave. All they wanted to do was to hide this thing. And that’s exactly what they did."

Having kept it under wraps all this time, I asked Szili if he was still upset about it, to which he responded, "Well, the Commandant at the time was David Shoup and he said, “Time heals all wounds,” and he’s full of shit too." (Laugh)

What about Fred Korth, the Secretary of the Navy?

"Nobody went to bat for us. I have no idea what happened to anybody. I was held incommunicado for quite awhile. Everybody kind of disappeared. After I left the corps, I...I tried to...keep the family together, you know, took jobs here and there, and finally got into country club management."

There at Guantanamo in the heat of the Cold War, suddenly his story is actually relevant, "We never learn. We haven’t fought a war to win since World War II." And Szile says that he has no problem talking about it today. "Anything that gives someone a kick in the ass, I’m all for it."

Now can you handle that?


[Thanks to Greg Parker and Robert Howard for research assistance on this story]