One Of Top Ten Books On The JFK Assassination - From Former British Intelligence Officer

Former British Intelligence officer Col. John Hughes-Wilson merits commendation for bringing an experienced and savvy eye to the JFK assassination. Unlike too many, he isn't fooled by the cesspool of disinformation that has mired many would be investigators. In the end, what he describes is a classic, military-style ambush in 'JFK - An American Coup  d 'Etat'. Interestingly, his take also has been supported by a long time (38 years) Swiss friend who served in the Spezialdienst (the Swiss equivalent of the CIA). According to him, "Hughes -Wilson nailed it"

What I found most compelling was Col. Hughes-Wilson 's devastating exposure  (Chapter 29) of the Warren Commission Report as a blatant, outright fraud perpetrated on the American people more than 50 years ago.  We are informed, for example, that Earl Warren (at 72), wanted no part of this "presidential blue ribbon" dog and pony show. Warren believed a Justice Department investigation was the proper approach. But then Robert Kennedy was the Attorney General and LBJ and cohort couldn't afford to have Bobby snooping around their nefarious business - contacts, leaving no stone unturned.

Twice Warren refused LBJ's entreaties until finally LBJ threatened the Chief Justice with exposure of his secret Hoover files disclosing "a little incident in Mexico City". As he related the story next day to his pal Richard B. Russell, LBJ couldn't help rubbing it in, as he chortled at how the elder man "cried like a baby" and said "he would do anything, just ask".

At that point, LBJ had his extorted name cachet  for his Potemkin commission. All he needed were Hoover's and Dulles cooperation to keep the fraud rolling, including deciding which witnesses to ignore and which to call, what evidence to ignore and what to inflate. In the latter, one must include the phony autopsy images.

Col. Hughes -Wilson astutely brings up Hoover's remark about the "real assassin" (p. 271) which effectively betrays his and LBJ's  intentions. Hoover writes of "being so concerned about Oswald having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the REAL assassin".

But, as Hughes -Wilson logically observes, Hoover "unwittingly gave the game away". Why indeed would one need to even interject the adjective real - unless it was actually the case Oswald WASN'T the real assassin?  (He was in fact a CIA confected "legend")  This would also explain why Parkland surgeon Charles Crenshaw grew increasingly concerned at LBJ's effort to try to get him to wring a "deathbed confession" from Oswald even as he worked on him.) See the sections in Crenshaw's book at link below:


http://www.krusch.com/books/kennedy/Conspiracy_Of_Silence.pdf

Col. Hughes -Wilson asserts (p. 256) that Crenshaw clearly had contradicted the findings of the Warren Commission, confirming that Kennedy had been shot twice from the front. Also, that Crenshaw confirmed LBJ telephoned the hospital while Dr. Crenshaw was working on Oswald and demanded a deathbed confession. Well, of course! Since as Hoover intimated they needed to show Lee Oswald was the REAL assassin! I.e. to protect the real assassins still alive and likely in CIA-NSA sponsored safe houses!

Hughes -Wilson  is no less sparing in his devastating criticism (pp.262-63) of how the coffins were switched.  Thus, the body "that arrived at Bethesda was in a different coffin from the one that left Dallas". Then we learn that during the flight to D.C. a "senior military aide" had radioed in advance for an ambulance to meet them to take the body to Walter Reed Hospital".  But the presidential party was greeted by two ambulances: a grey Navy ambulance accompanied Jackie and the bronze casket to the front door of Bethesda while a "black, civilian hearse -ambulance"  had unloaded the actual casket containing the dead body of JFK "20 minutes earlier".  All this was planned, of course, because it had to be to facilitate the manipulation of the head wounds which Charles Crenshaw knew had occurred once he was confronted with the phony Bethesda autopsy photos by Gary Shaw of the Sixth floor Museum.

As I noted in my Aug. 18th  post on the NOVA JFK brainwash special,  Dr. Crenshaw was incredulous, immediately spotting the fake and ascertaining  that the head had been "manipulated".  It was immediately evident to him that a conspiracy was at work, else why alter the massive frontal head wound to a rear one?  As to why Dr. Crenshaw kept silent for so many years, he makes clear in his book (p.. 6):

"We doctors who had worked on President Kennedy, whether out of respect or out of fear, had agreed not to publish what we had seen, heard, and felt. It was as If we were above that, as If what we knew was sacred, as If to come forward with our account would in some way desecrate our profession. To a degree, I think we were afraid of criticism."

Adding later:

"I was as afraid of the men in suits as I was of the men who had assassinated the President... I reasoned that anyone who would go so far as to kill a President of the United States wouldn't hesitate to kill a doctor."

As well he should have been given the mathematical-statistical evidence that's been provided by Richard Charnin, e.g.

http://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/jfk-witness-deaths-graphical-proof-of-a-conspiracy

Including in his book, Reclaiming Science- The JFK Conspiracy.

While some heads of the slower -grasping may "pop" at Hughes-Wilson's dual ambulances (one bogus,  for show)  it is eminently plausible, as much as using Lee Oswald as a decoy. This is apart from the fact that witnesses at Bethesda came forward to Gary Shaw as noted by Dr. Crenshaw (p. 11-12).

Then there is  Hughes-Wilson's startling disclosure (to some) that more than one type of Mannlicher -Carcano rifle exists as revealed on p. 187.  We learn, for example, that the weapon supposedly used by Oswald was "40 inches long, weighed 8 pounds and purchased from Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago". But....the Mannlicher-Carcano actually advertised in the magazine (from which Oswald allegedly ordered) was "a different model completely, a 36-inch, 5.5. pound carbine model". The latter in a more modern cast, was also likely similar to the version used by Luke Haag and son to perform the ballistics tests on the NOVA PBS special.  As I said, there is no way that they could have used the actual weapon housed in the National Archives and hit the side of a barn.

Even Hughes-Wilson is suspicious of the one attributed to Oswald noting (p. 188): " that Mannlicher-Carcano is supposedly the only one fired that day." (Referring to the clunky 8 lb. version 40 inches long and which Patricia Dumais wasn't allowed to touch at the National Archives.)

Hughes -Wilson then concludes from his own analysis (pp. 188-89) a total of TEN shots made on Nov. 22, 1963 - contrary to the Warren fiction of three. These are:


 Shot 1: Struck sparks behind JFK's limo, observed by Royce Skelton and Austin Miller

Shot 2: Struck curb on the north side of Elm and a fragment struck bystander James Tague

Shot 3: Struck across a manhole cover and embedded in the grass, later DPD officers photographed removing it. It never was assayed in official documents and supports Carl Oglesby's argument the Dallas police were conscripted to remove evidence.

Shot 4: Frontal shot struck JFK in the throat, and he's visible clutching his throat

Shot 5: Struck Kennedy in the upper back (in line with fifth thoracic vertebra) and came from a "relatively flat trajectory"

Shot 6: Misfire but struck limo - causing indentation in limo's windscreen

Shot 7: Bullet punched hole through Stemmons Freeway sign.("The bullet had punched through from the direction of the grassy knoll and blown the rim backwards")

Shots 8, 9: Two bullets struck Gov. John Connally: - Shot from the back that smashed into his chest and shot that shattered his wrist.

Shot 10: The fatal head shot from direction of grassy knoll.

Col. John Hughes-Wilson, a trained intel operative like my Swiss friend Rolf, never bought the fiction that one magic bullet created all the 7 wounds in JFK and Connally and emerged pristine. Both, again, could easily spot the hands of the spook propaganda teams. Maybe it takes a spook to see the handiwork of spooks.

Hughes-Wilson also concurs with former Justice Dept. agent Walt Brown ('Treachery in Dallas', Chapter 'Blue Death) ',and author James Douglass ('JFK and the Unspeakable') that the original plan was to knock off Oswald at the Texas Theater so there was no chance of his ever getting his say at a public trial Douglass (p. 292) makes it known that the Dallas cops approached Oswald (in his seat) "almost as if they were provoking the suspected police killer to break away from his seat ..which would have given Tippet's enraged fellow officers an excuse to kill him".

But Oswald did no such thing. Nor did he attempt to fire any shots. Lee clearly and obviously knew by now he'd been set up as the patsy and the last thing he wanted to do was make these Dallas cops his judge, jury and executioners. No, he wanted to have his trial and his say, and how and why he'd been set up. So, rather than mindlessly react he expressly said: "I am not resisting arrest! Police brutality!" He never said "It's all over now" - those words were put into his mouth by the WC's cavalcade of faux witness puppets and liars.

Hughes-Wilson cites his own source (p. 176) who overheard two Dallas cops talking about how Oswald was to have been killed before he ever arrived at the station. One, in a snarling voice, said to the other (ibid.) "You were supposed to kill Lee....you stupid son of a bitch, then you go and kill a cop". Referring to the shooting of officer J.D. Tippet.

So there were snafus along the way, even the best planned conspiracies can go awry, but in the JFK case the architects ensured there was always a back up plan. In this case, to recruit former Chicago mobster Jack Rubinstein, aka Ruby, to snuff Oswald. Mark North, using actual, released FBI files, documents many of Ruby’s Mob connections in his book, Act of Treason- including his reported “gangster connections in Dallas”, especially to Joseph Civello, the Mafia boss in Dallas. The same files disclose that Ruby, on October 26, 1963, “placed a 12 minute person to person call to Irwin S. Weiner at Weiner’s Chicago home”.

It is further noted that Weiner was:

“a prominent Chicago Mafia associate” and “instrumental in coordinating the flow of cash between the Teamsters and Las Vegas casinos." (North, op. cit., pp. 333-34).

All of this Col. Hughes-Wilson agrees with.

Note that a mistake (oversight?) made by some reviewers is that Col. Hughes -Wilson's book is simply a "regurgitation" of old facts. It is not, and this merely discloses that the complainants didn't read it carefully enough. Hughes -Wilson notes the then Dallas PD as part of a national security pact with the elements of the CIA, NSA orchestrated the strategy for compromising Kennedy. Hughes-Wilson cites the background details from a source (p. 142): "In the first week of November, three Corsican gunmen slipped across the Mexican border using Italian passports. They were ensconced in a CIA house by Dallas policeman Roscoe White, acting for the CIA".

The point is, if elements of the then Dallas PD were charged with hiding the JFK mechanics, they wouldn't also set up blockades after the events to apprehend them. This distrust of the then Dallas cops is also a theme that runs through Carl Oglesby's book, ('JFK - The Facts and the Theories', p. 94) Oglesby points out that there was NO chain of credible evidence connecting Oswald to the casings or the rifle found at the Book Depository. Neither proves Oswald fired from there- or fired at all, a point with which Col. Hughes-Wilson concurs. . Further, Oglesby himself suspects they were planted compliments of the Dallas PD. - a point that conforms with Walt Brown's take in his section 'Blue Death'. E.g. p. 125 (Brown):

"No crime scene involved in the assassination was ever truly sealed. They (Dallas police) rushed to the grassy knoll, stayed only long enough to take a cursory look and sniff gunpowder, to which they attached no significance. ...There was a pervasive pattern of not taking names and addresses as if they did not want to know. Certain witnesses were totally ignored. No impedimenta were placed in the way of potential fleeing assassins."

There are multiple points of consistency of other long time researchers (e.g. James Douglass, Walt Brown, Carl Oglesby) with Col. Hughes-Wilson's analysis.  Those who pass this work up on the basis of being 'recycled fluff" merely do themselves a great disservice - especially from a person with bona fide intelligence background.

Lastly, if you really want to know why so much noise and endless ambiguity keeps being generated in many forums where the assassination is discussed, go directly to Hughes-Wilson's Appendix, 'CIA Instruction to Media Assets, 1 April 1967, headed 'Concerning Criticism of the Warren Report' and CIA doc. 1035-960.  You will likely get more information than you want on why your paranoid fears concerning JFK media whitewashing (including using books like Gerald Posner's and Vince Bugliosi's) are very well founded. Especially as the CIA has itself driven the harassment and obfuscation, particularly with "Operation Mockingbird".

Lee Oswald Innocence Campaign - Long Overdue, But Welcome!

Lee Oswald assassinated by Jack Ruby, never received the right to a trial by jury. Assuming we still believe in our system of jurisprudence, he remains innocent - having never been proven otherwise.

        “I believe that irrefutable evidence shows conspirators, none of them Oswald, killed JFK. A mentally ill Jack Ruby, alone and unaided, shot Oswald. The federal inquiry knowingly collapsed and theorized a political solution. Its corruption spawned theorists who tout solutions rather than define the facts that are locked in the massively muddied evidentiary base, and released only by hard work.”

Prof.. David R. Wrone, in The Journal of Southern History(6), February, 1995, p. 188.

Bravo to the Lee Oswald Innocence campaign, e.g.

http://www.oswald-innocent.com/

For over fifty years now the family of  Lee Harvey Oswald- as well as the memory of the man himself - have been slandered in the corporate media (partly with the assistance of Operation Mockingbird assets - google the term) with no redress. Using first a fraudulent whitewash organ in the "Warren Commission", then the steady drumbeat of the media to repel all attempts to shed light on the actual facts of the case, the Oswald family has been left disconsolate as its name has been dragged through the mud by a determined security state.


That state has resolved that no other line of facts will emerge from the 53 year old case to expose what really happened and that Lee Harvey Oswald is totally innocent of anything to do with Kennedy death.  Author James Douglass ('JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died And Why It Matters') is owed a debt of gratitude by the JFK research community for being among the first to show the CIA had planned a hit on Kennedy almost 3 weeks before Dallas.

Douglass showed that Thomas Arthur Vallee, had been earmarked as the Chicago assassin for Kennedy’s proposed visit on Nov. 2, 1963. Vallee, like Oswald,   was sheep-dipped, and likely selected for patsy-hood using a false defector program that the ONI originally set up in 1959. Had JFK traveled to Chicago, we’d likely only have heard of  Vallee and never known a Lee Harvey Oswald. Thus, Vallee, another designated "lone nut" ( Thomas Beckham)  and Lee Oswald,  were simply interchangeable pieces on the CIA’s chess board for executive action.  Why didn't the plan go off? Douglass makes use of the telephone record disclosing a man named "Lee" had phoned in advance to alert the Chicago FBI  and blow up the scheduled hit (Op. cit., p. 206).

Thus, Oswald's disruption of the Chicago plot to kill Kennedy mutated to a Dallas plot to use Oswald instead as the go-to patsy. All that needed to be done were: 1) Paint him as a lone psycho commie and violent (setting up the Walker shooting to pin on Lee), and 2) Manipulate him into a job at the Texas School Book Depository (pegged to be the "official" location of the kill shot by the actual conspirators).

The first was accomplished by a process of framing Lee, see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-pre-assassination-framing-of-lee.html

And:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-pre-assassination-framing-of-lee_1807.html

The second was implemented thanks to the chicanery of Ruth Paine. Paine, who Warrenites seem to hold up as some kind of unquestioned paragon or model citizen, never acknowledged in any of her testimony that she withheld from Lee the news of a better paying job offer made on Oct. 15, 1963. This came by way of phone call to the Paine Residence from Robert Adams of the Texas Employment Commission. According to the documented materials presented by author James Douglass (op. cit., p. 171):

"Adams spoke with someone at the Paines' number about his being prepared to give Oswald referral for permanent employment as a baggage handler at Trans Texas Airways for a salary $100 a month higher than that offered by the Book Depository's temporary job".

Adams then left a message with whomever took his call for Lee to contact him about the job, but this was never done. Adams tried to phone Oswald the next day, and was told he "wasn't here". Why? Why wasn't the better paying job information passed on to Oswald? Given Paine's background, and her connections to CIA people like her sister (Sylvia Hyde Hoke)  and Allen Dulles, the obvious reason was to put the patsy in place.

These are important insights, make no mistake, because they bear on the will to use whatever subterfuge and ruse to kill Kennedy and deflect attention from the actual perpetrators and architects to a decoy.  That decoy was Lee Harvey Oswald.

Former Swiss Spezialdienst Rolf, a friend for over 38 years, makes no bones about the fact the Dallas hit on Kennedy was a "classic use of decoy to execute a head of state".  He ought to know, he's been more than familiar with similar hits on the continent (as part of Projekt 26 files.)  Those include the use of "doppelgangers" or doubles (like the multiply reported Oswald double) to misdirect the public and enable the security state's media assets to assist in portraying the patsy as unstable, as well as the only perp possible.

As I reported in my Nov. 20, 2014 post:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/09/switzerland-destination-for-kennedy.html

Rolf reported that the Oswald double, who he called "Leon",  hid in plain sight in St. Gallen 'for many years'  albeit using a false identity. The Swiss left him alone to preserve neutral relations with the U.S. (they knew of the CIA Staff D assassinations project and the pair's involvement under William Harvey and the NSA). Also they had no idea whether “Leon” was one of the actual killers or only played the role of a double to divert attention and implicate Oswald.  The SD leaned to the latter.


As for the illustrious Warren Commission, Rolf's take - as noted earlier- was it had been "little more than a PR job mainly done to cover Johnson’s ass "  LBJ put together a "commission"  all right, but it wasn't federal (that would've been the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA)   formed in 1978- which, incidentally, found for a conspiracy. Nor did Johnson politely "call on" then Chief Justice Earl Warren. He freaking threatened him with exposure of a past humiliating incident if he refused to cooperate.   Johnson needed the credibility of Warren so the media would accept the commission as a bona fide government entity as opposed to a creature of Johnson's whim and machinations. (Johnson’s first kneejerk reaction was to form a “Texas Commission” to look into the assassination, with staff entirely composed of Texans.).

 Anyway, Johnson's taped words to an aide were - after speaking to Warren (cf. Michael R. Beschloss, Taking Charge:The Johnson White House Tapes 1963-64, 1997, p. 72, as cited by Russ Baker, in 'Family of Secrets', p. 46):

"Warren told me he wouldn't do it under any circumstances...He came down here and told me 'No'...twice. And I just pulled out what[FBI Director} Hoover told me about a little incident in Mexico City....And he started crying and said: 'I won't turn you down...I'll just do whatever you say.'

Texas hogswill? Hardly. Not when seen in the context of other LBJ actions, e.g. going behind Kennedy's back to get back channel reports (from the CIA)  on the Vietnam situation. In fact, a character so warped that despite all the recent efforts at hagiography, there is little doubt LBJ helped plan the hit knowing the alternative was to be dumped from the 1964 ticket as a result of the Bobby Baker scandal (set to hit the presses Nov. 26 in a LIFE expose), then be prosecuted. Lest anyone believe this too far-fetched let's reference that Jackie Kennedy herself - in an interview with historian Arthur Schlesinger  in 1964 - expressed her belief that LBJ had her husband killed as part of a plot with Texas oilmen.

All of this in tandem points the finger of guilt clearly away from Lee Oswald, as well as the fact one is innocent until proven guilty and that had never been done. In other words, Lee Oswald was himself assassinated before his own trial (the only real venue for proving his guilt) and this was then replaced by a Potemkin trial in the name of the Warren Commission and its ensuing "report" (also a farrago of lies, distortions and omitted testimony from key witnesses). See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/11/frequently-asked-questions-on-jfk_14.html

Some innominate Wordpress bloggers are, of course, unhappy about the Oswald Innocence Campaign.  They are foursquare convinced he was the one and only assassin- and despite all the contrary indicators (as given above), and the failed WC  rifle tests (with 3 master marksmen unable to exactly replicate Oswald's alleged feat with the same rifle and conditions)remain convinced that Lee is guilty. In a sense this is cognitively dissonant and preposterous given in this country a man is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. Does the same not apply to Lee? Evidently not in the minds of the rush to judgement pro-Warrenites - convinced that fraudulent whitewash Commission did the job. It did not.


The innocence campaign objectors  also - in at least one case- have zoomed in on one piece of evidence offered, i.e., that Lee was outside the TSBD when the hit occurred and hence not on the 6th floor firing as the WC claims.

But this misses the boat. Clearly, Oswald's innocence doesn't pivot on one photograph (or many) of whether or not he was outside at the time of the shooting. Rather, it is  already predicated on the unimpeachable fact that he never received a jury trial and hence in its absence must be presumed innocent,  if we are faithful to our legal system.  Potemkin show trials and kangaroo courts held with Lee 6 ft. under do not count. Sorry!

Further, the entire constellation of indicators (of which I've given a subset in this post) clearly points away from him as the lone assassin, or as any co-assassin! Hence, Lee's innocence doesn't fall on one single prop and one would hope most researchers are intelligent enough to see that. Granted it would be a very unambiguous prop, but it's not the sole one, and as I said that "innocent until proven guilty" (by jury) presumption hangs hugely over any and all discussions.

The objective researcher who examines the files, transcripts,  images, and testimony (including that not given in the "official" perverted venue) must be at least clear that: a) Lee was not the one who killed JFK, and b) we have enabled (as James Douglass informs us) the actual conspirators to have completely escaped prosecution or any accountability.

In Douglass’ words:.

“Our collective denial of the obvious, in the setting up of Oswald and his transparent silencing by Ruby, made possible the Dallas cover-up. The success of the cover-up was the indispensable foundation for the murders of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy by the same forces at work in our government – and ourselves:

Hope for change in the world was targeted and killed four times over. The cover-up of all four murders, each leading into the next, was based – first of all –on denial. Not the government’s but our own- and the unspeakable was not far away.” .

Scott Aaronson: In Over His Head on JFK Assassination (Part Two - Rebutting His 20 Reasons for 'Oswald Dunnit')

I now examine Scott Aaronson's "20 Reasons" to assert Lee Oswald was the lone gunman in the JFK assassination, based on what he calls "general principles" but which I call out as slacker principles: do as little as possible- avoid any details, attend to the worst possible "investigators" (Gerald Posner), and in general let ignorance trump facts at every turn.  Basically, Aaronson brings to bear a smug laziness that he'd never use if he wanted to publish a paper, say in the Physical Review (one of its fine journals).  He does this because he treats JFK assassination research akin to a kiddie hobby or pastime.


1.   Conspiracy theorizing represents a known bug in the human nervous system. Given that, I think our prior should be overwhelmingly against anything that even looks like a conspiracy theory".

This is not a reason but an assertion, that needs to be proven, demonstrated. Aaronson really ought to know better than to trot such bollocks out for public consumption, as if he's even an expert in the human nervous system.  Where has this been published? (He puts out a link to a cartoon -as if any intelligent person would accept that)  In what peer-reviewed journal of neurobiology?  Further, the fact this is psycho-babble is patently clear by the fact he puts all possible conspiracy  examples under the same umbrella - from faked lunar landings to Joe Klein's example (in the recent TIME - see Part I) of the feds buying up ammo to raise the prices so gun owners can't afford it - to the JFK assassination. In this way, he demeans the event and insults the people who've done serious research including Peter Dale Scott, James Douglass ('JFK and the Unspeakable'), Mark Lane and many others. In this way he actually insults the memory of the 35th President.

2. The shooting of Oswald by Jack Ruby created the perfect conditions for conspiracy theorizing to fester. 

In fact, the shooting of Oswald showed most of us at the time, who had the intellect to see it, that whoever was in charge of the assassination made sure the one person who might shed light wouldn't live to say anything. Only much later (30 + years) did the file release from the JFK Records Act confirm out worst fears - that Ruby was commissioned to kill Oswald as part of ZR/Rifle and Staff D, the super secret assassination program run under spook William Harvey- assisted by James Jesus Angleton.  See e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-second-assassination-today-fifty.html

"Fester"? Well, yeah - the Operation Mockingbird disinformationists in the media had festered for years allowing the anti-conspiracy memes to spread far and wide! (Yet Aaronson doesn't seem to have even heard of Mockingbird). It wasn't until actual documents could finally be released (LBJ had originally sealed them until 2039)  under the 1992 JFK Records Act that headway could be made.

3. Other high-profile assassinations to which we might compare this one—for example, those of Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, RFK, Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, Yitzchak Rabin…—appear to have been the work of “lone nuts,” or at most “conspiracies” of small numbers of lowlifes.  So why not this one?

Because the EVIDENCE doesn't indicate it! Moreover, the evidence is now compelling that Martin Luther King was also assassinated in a conspiracy, as well as Robert Kennedy.

In the case of the King assassination, the breakthrough came with William F. Pepper's book Orders to Kill,  Pepper learned  that a film existed of the King assassination. It was in the hands of Army psyops (psychological operations) officers who had been in Memphis that day to take photographs of everything, everyone in the vicinity of the Lorraine Motel.  One of the officers, as Pepper noted - in his speech and in the book - just happened to spin his camera around on hearing the shot, toward the bushes in front of the motel.  The film held the clues Pepper needed and rather than do an injustice to the findings, I think blog readers need to get hold of the entire book, or at least avail themselves of this abbreviated account of Pepper's findings from the speech he gave on the subject 12 years ago:

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/WFP020403.pdf

The mechanics and basis  of the conspiracy for Robert Kennedy's assassination and using Sirhan B. Sirhan as another patsy was superbly described in Patrick Nolan's book,  CIA Rogues Killing Kennedys (Chapter 7 - 'Sirhan Bishara Sirhan - An Involuntary Pawn'.) Nolan's breakthrough came via released files and also managing to find security personnel at the Ambassador Hotel at the time and interviewing them. This also conforms with James Douglass' take (op. cit.) that all three were killed as part of the same extended plot masterminded by the national security apparatus.

The meme that all conspiracies are lone nut done is also stupid. For hundred of years - from the time of the Borgias - assassinations have occurred in Europe and few Europeans -whether German, Swiss or Italian, buy the codswallop they were done by lone nuts. As Rolf, a former Spezialdienst in Switzerland put it while we were in St. Gallen:  "Believing lone assassins were responsible for all the assassinations in Europe is to us like a child believing a single man - St. Nicholas- could deliver all presents around the world in a single night before Christmas. It's stupid!"

See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/06/germans-tom-hanks-wasting-his-time-with.html

Further point: Aaronson attempts to show that Clay Shaw, the subject of the Jim Garrison case, was innocent and his reputation was slandered by conspiracy freaks. He is totally wrong. Years later, with release of files under the JFK Records Act, it would become evident that Shaw was indeed a CIA Contract Agent. As CIA Doc. (JFK 1993: 6.28.16.07.26.560280) notes (Why couldn't Aaronson obtain this?) :

"A memorandum marked for files says that J. Monroe Sullivan, #280201, was granted a covert security  approval as of 10 December 1962 so he could be used in Project QKENCHANT [Clay L. Shaw has #402897]"

Under the CIA  banner QKENCHANT one is cleared for intelligence procurement. Such clearance meant you were a safe contact  for the Agency and hence could be used as a "cut out" , with the CIA giving you only a certain amount of information. Clay Shaw then, had the ability to recruit other agents, thereby granting them security approvals. From the available files disclosed long after Garrison's efforts ended, Shaw used his QKENCHANT clearance to "plan or coordinate CIA activities" as well as "initiate relationships with non-Agency persons or institutions." In this guise, Shaw was effectively part of the CIA's clandestine services with Covert Security Approval, working under cover. 

Again, why didn't Aaronson try to obtain the file instead of shooting from the hip with a red herring? The answer - as with his other questions - is he wasn't prepared to do the grunt work! It's easy to spin off nonsense from one's keyboard and not bother with niggling details!

4. Oswald seems to have perfectly fit the profile of a psychopathic killer (see, for example, Case Closed by Gerald Posner).

Citation of Posner's idiocy is one of the first markers the serious researcher uses to confirm a person writing about the assassination is on the wrong track. Assorted investigators have been able to  assess just how closely Posner adhered to the known facts in his book. One of the earliest scrutinizing efforts was The Posner Report- A Study in Propaganda: One Hundred Errors in Gerald Posner’s Case Closed – Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK by David Starks. Starks draws on the published reports and documents of true experts like Peter Dale Scott, Dr. Gary Aguilar and Martin Shackelford. The Report skewers Posner’s claims and effectively discloses a hack who made “hundreds of errors” in his pell-mell rush to judgment- likely part of the mandate first elucidated in CIA document 1035-960 * (which I doubt Aaronson even knows about).

The Electronic Assassination Newsletter which collates the research from most JFK Assassination experts documents twelve of the most serious “Posnerisms” here:

http://assassinationweb.com/twpos.htm

Those who take the time to examine, study the examples in the link will become aware of an unnerving lack of attention to detail and a penchant for what appears to be deliberate misrepresentation. Indeed, Posner’s entire case appears to be erected on a tissue of lies, misrepresentations, gross distortions and shoddy methodology

Meanwhile, Prof. David R. Wrone, whose review of Case Closed appeared in The Journal of Southern History, notes:

"Posner often presents the opposite of what the evidence says. In the presentation of a corrupt picture of Oswald’s background- for example – he states that, under the name of Osborne, Oswald picked up leaflets he distributed from the Jones Printing Company and that a ‘receptionist’ identified him. She in fact said that Oswald did not pick up the leaflets as the source that Posner cites indicates. “

He adds:   "No credible evidence connects Oswald to the murder. All the data that Posner presented to do so is either shorn of context, corrupted, the opposite of what the sources actually say, or non-sourced."

And further:

"Posner crowns his theory with the certainty of science by using one side of the computer-enhanced studies by Failure Analysis Associates of Menlo Park that his text implies he commissioned. The firm, however, lambastes his use as a distortion of the technology that it developed for the American Bar Association’s mock trial of Oswald where both sides used it.”

Not surprisingly, many ordinary researchers as well as professionals (e.g. Harold Weisberg) contend Posner is likely a disinformation hack, possibly for the CIA, and perhaps even part of its notorious “Operation Mockingbird” propaganda machine which infected the U.S. Media from the 1970s.

More to Come!

* CIA Document 1035-960

RE: Concerning Criticism of the Warren Report:

1. Our Concern. From the day of President Kennedy's assassination on, there has been speculation about the responsibility for his murder. Although this was stemmed for a time by the Warren Commission report, (which appeared at the end of September 1964), various writers have now had time to scan the Commission's published report and documents for new pretexts for questioning, and there has been a new wave of books and articles criticizing the Commission's findings. In most cases the critics have speculated as to the existence of some kind of conspiracy, and often they have implied that the Commission itself was involved. Presumably as a result of the increasing challenge to the Warren Commission's report, a public opinion poll recently indicated that 46% of the American public did not think that Oswald acted alone, while more than half of those polled thought that the Commission had left some questions unresolved. Doubtless polls abroad would show similar, or possibly more adverse results.

2. This trend of opinion is a matter of concern to the U.S. government, including our organization. The members of the Warren Commission were naturally chosen for their integrity, experience and prominence. They represented both major parties, and they and their staff were deliberately drawn from all sections of the country. Just because of the standing of the Commissioners, efforts to impugn their rectitude and wisdom tend to cast doubt on the whole leadership of American society. Moreover, there seems to be an increasing tendency to hint that President Johnson himself, as the one person who might be said to have benefited, was in some way responsible for the assassination.

Innuendo of such seriousness affects not only the individual concerned, but also the whole reputation of the American government. Our organization itself is directly involved: among other facts, we contributed information to the investigation. Conspiracy theories have frequently thrown suspicion on our organization, for example by falsely alleging that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for us. The aim of this dispatch is to provide material countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachments.

3. Action. We do not recommend that discussion of the assassination question be initiated where it is not already taking place. Where discussion is active [business] addresses are requested:

a. To discuss the publicity problem with [?] and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors), pointing out that the Warren Commission made as thorough an investigation as humanly possible, that the charges of the critics are without serious foundation, and that further speculative discussion only plays into the hands of the opposition. Point out also that parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by Communist propagandists. Urge them to use their influence to discourage unfounded and irresponsible speculation.

b. To employ propaganda assets to [negate] and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passing to assets. Our ploy should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (I) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (I) politically interested, (III) financially interested, (IV) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (V) infatuated with their own theories. In the course of discussions of the whole phenomenon of criticism, a useful strategy may be to single out Epstein's theory for attack, using the attached Fletcher [?] article and Spectator piece for background. (Although Mark Lane's book is much less convincing that Epstein's and comes off badly where confronted by knowledgeable critics, it is also much more difficult to answer as a whole, as one becomes lost in a morass of unrelated details.)

4. In private to media discussions not directed at any particular writer, or in attacking publications which may be yet forthcoming, the following arguments should be useful:

a. No significant new evidence has emerged which the Commission did not consider. The assassination is sometimes compared (e.g., by Joachim Joesten and Bertrand Russell) with the Dreyfus case; however, unlike that case, the attack on the Warren Commission have produced no new evidence, no new culprits have been convincingly identified, and there is no agreement among the critics. (A better parallel, though an imperfect one, might be with the Reichstag fire of 1933, which some competent historians (Fritz Tobias, AJ.P. Taylor, D.C. Watt) now believe was set by Vander Lubbe on his own initiative, without acting for either Nazis or Communists; the Nazis tried to pin the blame on the Communists, but the latter have been more successful in convincing the world that the Nazis were to blame.)

b. Critics usually overvalue particular items and ignore others. They tend to place more emphasis on the recollections of individual witnesses (which are less reliable and more divergent--and hence offer more hand-holds for criticism) and less on ballistics, autopsy, and photographic evidence. A close examination of the Commission's records will usually show that the conflicting eyewitness accounts are quoted out of context, or were discarded by the Commission for good and sufficient reason.

c. Conspiracy on the large scale often suggested would be impossible to conceal in the United States, esp. since informants could expect to receive large royalties, etc. Note that Robert Kennedy, Attorney General at the time and John F. Kennedy's brother, would be the last man to overlook or conceal any conspiracy. And as one reviewer pointed out, Congressman Gerald R. Ford would hardly have held his tongue for the sake of the Democratic administration, and Senator Russell would have had every political interest in exposing any misdeeds on the part of Chief Justice Warren. A conspirator moreover would hardly choose a location for a shooting where so much depended on conditions beyond his control: the route, the speed of the cars, the moving target, the risk that the assassin would be discovered. A group of wealthy conspirators could have arranged much more secure conditions.

d. Critics have often been enticed by a form of intellectual pride: they light on some theory and fall in love with it; they also scoff at the Commission because it did not always answer every question with a flat decision one way or the other. Actually, the make-up of the Commission and its staff was an excellent safeguard against over-commitment to any one theory, or against the illicit transformation of probabilities into certainties.

e. Oswald would not have been any sensible person's choice for a co-conspirator. He was a "loner," mixed up, of questionable reliability and an unknown quantity to any professional intelligence service. 

f. As to charges that the Commission's report was a rush job, it emerged three months after the deadline originally set. But to the degree that the Commission tried to speed up its reporting, this was largely due to the pressure of irresponsible speculation already appearing, in some cases coming from the same critics who, refusing to admit their errors, are now putting out new criticisms. 

g. Such vague accusations as that "more than ten people have died mysteriously" can always be explained in some natural way e.g.: the individuals concerned have for the most part died of natural causes; the Commission staff questioned 418 witnesses (the FBI interviewed far more people, conduction 25,000 interviews and re interviews), and in such a large group, a certain number of deaths are to be expected. (When Penn Jones, one of the originators of the "ten mysterious deaths" line, appeared on television, it emerged that two of the deaths on his list were from heart attacks, one from cancer, one was from a head-on collision on a bridge, and one occurred when a driver drifted into a bridge abutment.)

5. Where possible, counter speculation by encouraging reference to the Commission's Report itself. Open-minded foreign readers should still be impressed by the care, thoroughness, objectivity and speed with which the Commission worked. Reviewers of other books might be encouraged to add to their account the idea that, checking back with the report itself, they found it far superior to the work of its critics.

On Space Aliens, Scientology, Yeti - the JFK Assassination – And ‘Teaching Pigs to Whistle’

Should the Kennedy assassination and UFOs even be discussed in the same critical piece?

In an intriguing article (‘Black and White and Gray’) in the October/November issue of ‘Port of Call’ (Region VII Newsletter for Intertel) Dr. Steve Mason proposes the question:

“How do you determine if an individual has a reasonable grasp on reality?”

But, of course, many would opine it’s a loaded question and automatically respond: Well WHO is doing the testing? Does the person – in the matter of the question at hand – have his own grasp of reality  (especially knowledge) on the subject, or is he just fooling himself?  Is he merely a therp or psychologist, lacking knowledge or expertise on the specific matter? Then his assessment can’t be worth much. (Mason himself observes that “between Relativity and Quantum Physics there is a lot of gray”. Indeed! Particles behaving as waves, one electron passing through two diffraction holes at the same time, etc.)

In many matters, such as the belief in things like the Loch Ness monster, UFOs (as actual alien craft monitoring us 24/7), Scientology’s clearing of “engrams” and Abominable Snowmen (Yeti), it isn’t a matter so much of grasp of reality as distorted reality. Somehow the people invested in these beliefs (which mean, btw, accepting something as factual without evidence) have allowed their overall grasp of integrated reality to be distorted by an emphasis on a “one trick pony” (e.g. UFOs as alien craft) which robs their ability to profoundly grasp the rest of what’s going on in our world.  But I assign the same sort of distortion to those who never read books and only get their ‘news’ from comedy shows, or who have their nose stuck in smart phones tweeting nonsense all day long.

 The issue of who assigns “reality” is also key. And also, just what constitutes it?  Is it based on one type of perception, or multiple ones as well as reasoning in terms of those. Well, I have what I call an ‘integrated reality’ test which I will post next so people can see how they do. It isn’t predicated on asking nonsense questions for way out beliefs (whether in Yeti or 4” high fairies that speak Gaelic) but rather real world attention and response to real world issues – whether in economics, politics or basic science.

 In his article Dr. Steve notes that “for many years” it was his job to “judge the sanity of others”. He wrote that “if they said I was the one who was crazy then I knew for sure they were nutters” – which is a fair response. But then again, it depends on the issues being discussed. And rather than calling someone “crazy” a better question is: How well informed is the person regarding the issue under debate?

 Is what is referenced as a “nutball” issue really that, or is it purely a product of inattentive orthodoxy which – as author Curtis White noted in his book, The Middle Mind- is all about preserving a politically vanilla landscape which doesn’t tolerate challenges to the order paradigm. White's contention, well supported in his book, is that an entire government -corporate PR - academic specialist structure “exists to manage the public mind.” This is to ensure its collective thoughts don't veer too far off the orthodox path, or into realms that seriously question or challenge the powers-that -be. As he puts it (p.12):

"We have the lovely pretense of serious inquiry: no one gets hurt and no one has to worry that something undesirable might come of it. Like a demand for real thought. We are free to say anything we like so long as what we say does not suggest...that the ruling order has no right to rule"

     IF one then asserted JFK was murdered as part of a coup d'etat, to enable  a national security state elite takeover of the government, then this comes close to saying the same thing. 

 

Psychologists, as author Chris Hedges has warned ('Empire of Illusion', p. 129), bear particular scrutiny. As Hedges observes:

 

"Psychologists, in and out of government, have learned how to manipulate social behavior. "

 

He goes on to note that such manipulation has as its primary objective an adherence to conformity, especially of thought. (The cult of "positive psychology" is particularly involved in this, but psychologists are also part of the CIA's ongoing psych agenda, as first demonstrated in "Operation Mockingbird")

 

The dispassionate observer and especially those of us trained in deep politics also need to be wary of the conflation bogey which even Dr. Mason manifested in his Port of Call piece.. For example, while trotting out the clearly whacky beliefs such as Raelism,  Scientology and Yeti, he also drags in the JFK assassination while observing:

“There are those who believe the JFK assassination was a conspiracy involving LBJ, the CIA, the FBI and maybe even Lee Harvey Oswald – but the jury is out on the last one,.”

But it is exactly here where he crosses the line from a logical assessment of extreme fringe beliefs to a real world political case and for which an actual conspiracy has more than ample evidence to support it (based on files released since 1993). This also leads one to ask if he is really qualified to say anything about the event even peripherally or via invoking sarcasm. For example, I don’t take seriously anyone’s opinion if s/he can’t first pass a basic test to do with the actual constellation of accepted facts in the case, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/05/basic-test-on-kennedy-assassination-can.html

 The aim of the test is to expose the lack of actual knowledge concerning a real historical event, say as opposed to mere anecdotes or rumors concerning a mythical entity like the Yeti, Loch Ness monster or “Big foot”.  If then a person can’t even get at least 18 correct then he isn’t qualified to discuss the assassination – or even offer quips. And if he isn’t qualified to discuss the event then he’s not qualified to discuss a conspiracy pertaining to it.

 For example, Dr. Mason - as is usually the wont of JFK conspiracy skeptics or phobics (like Marilyn Elias of the SPLC)  indiscriminately bundles possible components together without any explanation or clarification.  Thus, when the untutored reader reads the passage highlighted above – with seemingly unrelated components (FBI, LBJ, CIA) muddied together, it appears that the whole conception of conspiracy is absurd. But that has been the intent of the 'Mockingbird' media for as long as I can recall.  (Google: “Operation Mockingbird”). Is Dr. Steve part of the Operation Mockingbird axis? Hardly. He’s just a specialist – like many others – probably unaware of it, because he hasn’t done enough investigation and research on his own. But this is precisely why HE is the one responsible here for distorting others’ perceptions regarding the JFK case.

If one intelligently grasps that the ones who actually carried out  the deed are separate from the architects, then he also sees it's egregious to conflate actors as if they are all distinct possible conspirators to the same degree and with the same objectives.  But had Steve Mason really done his  preliminary work (after deciding he’d interject a few lines on the JFK conspiracy) using texts such as Donald Gibson's 'Battling Wall Street - The Kennedy Presidency',   he'd have seen how the CIA, Oil, Banking, and the Military-Industrial Complex have been in bed together for decades.  He’d also have seen how close LBJ and Hoover (not the WHOLE FBI) were, and both had much to lose if JFK was re-elected. LBJ for his role in the Bobby Baker scandal and Hoover for his role in covering up the earlier (1962) assassination threats directed at JFK from Carlos Marcello (see Mark North’s excellent book, ‘Act of Treason’)

 As for LBJ,  no one - including me-  has said he was an active participant. But no one other than a dunderhead (like Vince Bugliosi) would deny he stood to gain immensely if JFK was knocked off - since Kennedy planned to dump him from the 1964 ticket on account of the political damage from the Bobby Baker scandal.  Knowing this, and there's little doubt he did, all LBJ had to do is nominally assent to an existing plan, probably made aware of it by Allen Dulles or Hoover. NO documents need have been signed, or actual vocal indications given.  What is the evidence? Look no further then all the material evidence (the limo with bullet-marked windshield, actually taken apart re-assembled, the suit coat, and a curb stone near where James Tague was struck)  “lost” or destroyed in the immediate aftermath – following Johnson’s swearing in and being in control of the Secret Service, the autopsy team at Bethesda (where JFK's brain oddly "disappeared")  etc.

 Mason next tries to skirt all these issues – after he’s basically knocked all  past and recent JFK researchers – by appealing to an old and tired meme: that all of us humans are “pre-disposed as hard-wired pattern seekers”. So the evolutionary instincts that served us long ago, i.e. seeing patterns in the bush betraying evidence for the presence of tigers or snakes, are now re-directed to searching for patterns of conspiracy or some form of outer control.

Of course this is bollocks. First, just because pattern perception was valuable once doesn’t mean it has ceased to be in certain cases (e.g. disturbed articles in rooms of one's home betraying an intruder's presence). And second, the assessing of a real conspiracy entails far more than perceiving a pattern. It also entails examination of hard evidence – such as the Warren fraud generated – and analyzing it using physics and human anatomy, see e.g. the approach used herein:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/11/frequently-asked-questions-on-jfk_15.html

 As I carefully showed in the above link, the uncovering of the fraudulent nature of the Warren Commission Report is step one in uncovering one branch  (the cover up) of the three-pronged conspiracy.. This was perhaps most crucial because it meant bending the minds – or trying to – of millions of Americans to the false conclusions of the Warren Commission, and that was ultimately Johnson’s creation. The two other prongs – as noted by deep politics researcher Peter Dale Scott were: 1) the framing of Lee Oswald, see e.g. the clear role of the CIA in laying the groundwork for Oswald to be the patsy:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-pre-assassination-framing-of-lee.html

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-pre-assassination-framing-of-lee_1807.html

And the actual assassination itself – carried out by at least three teams in a triangulation of cross fire. (As evidenced by the bullet numbers, trajectories and directions) That Oswald himself couldn’t have been involved has been demonstrated by the fact that his alleged rifle couldn’t even be operated  – couldn’t be tested properly in the aftermath, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/11/frequently-asked-questions-on-fhe-jfk.html

 Again, the above  rifle test trials aren’t based on simple “patterns” or perceptions of such, but actual physical tests of the purported rifle used, and carried out by a team of experts. No one who has thoroughly understood the consequences of the tests would remotely believe Lee Oswald was involved in the assassination, other than as a patsy. As for Peter Dale Scott, he's repeatedly warned of the media's role in conflating all three conspiracy legs when discussing the assassination, But this could likely be part of the Mockingbird disinformation plan.

 Mason ends his piece by somewhat lamenting the hyper-speculative, 'belief in anything' state of affairs, in terms of those who propose “fringe” entities and  conspiracies, but also likely those who've researched the JFK conspiracy, i.e. with LBJ, the CIA and Hoover involved at some level (clearly Steve has not):

“So what do you say to someone who tries to fill you in….Absolutely nothing. It’s like trying to teach a pig to whistle. It wastes your time and it annoys the hell out of the pig.”

Teaching pigs to whistle? (Bad analogy, Steve!) What Mason is getting at is that it’s futile to attempt to stop people from searching for patterns and applying them to real life, but often coming up with “unseen” jabberwocky like Alien anti-grav craft monitoring humans 24/7, or discharging engrams through Scientology or tracking Yeti in the Himalayas. 

 But what it doesn’t address is the uncovering (often by diligent work-research) of hard evidence in actual historical events such as the JFK assassination. What about confirmation bias? As a scientist I’m trained to always examine assumptions and facts brought to bear to ensure I am not merely confirming what I already suspect, or selectively extracting only evidence that comports with a hypothesis. I’ve faithfully practiced that not only in my past research into solar flares and sunspot morphology, but also in the JFK case. By such assiduous practice, as I noted in my recent book ‘The JFK Assassination – The Final Analysis’ ,  I have been able to eliminate the hypothesis that “Oswald dunnit” otherwise known as the “lone nut” hypothesis. It fails on so many counts that it doesn't even make the serious threshold and only a naïve or untutored person would accept it.

 Would that others (e.g. Marilyn Elias, Glen Garvin, Steve Mason etc)  could summon the same energy before commenting on a case they know little or nothing about – and especially conflating it with truly marginal or fringe beliefs, examples.  This  tactic confers little benefit in helping people distinguish ideas-beliefs- theories  of merit from those without, while also calling into question their own credibility.

See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/09/conspiracies-and-belief-separating.html

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/11/cam-americans-distinguish-conspiracy.html

and:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/11/even-liberals-can-be-victims-of.html

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-southern-poverty-law-center-still.html