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".

The Skeptics Society Conspiracy Phobes - And Why They Discredit Themselves

Cover of new pamphlet received from the Skeptics Society,  purporting to expose conspiracy theories. 

Having just started reading Richard Charnin's new book, Reclaiming Science: The JFK Conspiracy, I can say I am already delighted on seeing the depth of the analyses to come, and the focus on science, making the book a nice complement to Prof. James Fetzer's Assassination Science. Because science is what we need here to counter the flood of disinformation that first arrived with the Warren Commission Report - not to mention the efforts of all its apologists to defend it.

"Reclaiming Science" is an apt title because it entails reclaiming the content that has hitherto been obfuscated and distorted under the specious science (or what I call pseudo-science) of the Warren Report as well as the apologists like Gerald Posner ('Case Closed') and Vince Bugliosi ('Reclaiming History') who have sought to reinforce that pseudo-science . I showed much of that in my FAQ (Part 5) addressing the bullets and wounds back  in in November of last year, e.g.

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

Today, the 51st anniversary of the JFK assassination,  is a good opportunity to re-examine the entrenched CT phobics, especially the more sophisticated ones that have surfaced in organizations like  The Skeptics Society. For example, via a little pamphlet (see cover image at top) put out recently - which I received in the post three days earlier. Perhaps 21 years ago I had a letter published in the journal of that organization wherein I warned that expressions of hyper-skepticism could backfire and were counterproductive. This was after the magazine took some initial critical shots at the claim for conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination - revealing like so many others before and since that they hadn't done their homework.

Before proceeding further let us remind ourselves of the definition of conspiracy (e.g. from the Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary):

“A treacherous, surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons”

Why this simple definition should cause so many heads to explode - especially in the US of A-   is frankly beyond me. It is elemental and has been demonstrated many times as I will show - hence, it's not as if we're talking or writing about ghosts, poltergeists, elves or fairies.

An easier question to address is: Why are so many would-be skeptical critics broken on the 'wheel' of the JFK assassination? Well, because they treat it frivolously - without the respect it is due  - more often conflating it with nonsense pseudo conspiracies (which shouldn't even be dignified by the name) such as the claim of the "faked Apollo Moon landing" or the UN seeking to take over the nation via black helicopters or the claim government agents are secretly using the Post Office to buy up all the ammo so gun owners can't get any. Each of these, by contrast to the JFK assassination, demonstrates ignorance or manifest paranoia.

Apart from the presumption of frivolity, without due diligence in approaching a controversial  political-historical topic, and with only uninformed, indiscriminate skepticism expressed - the whole exercise becomes one of merely academic pique, or "bullshit" in the parlance of Harry Frankfurt in his masterpiece, On Bullshit. According to Frankfurt:

"Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk (or write) without knowing what he is talking (or writing)  about. Thus, the production of bullshit is stimulated whenever a person's obligations or opportunities to speak(or write) about some topic exceed his knowledge of the facts relevant to the topic."

Such is the case with the contents of the Skeptics Society pamphlet.. What is the error that threads its way throughout the book? While the authors specifically target ALL conspiracy theories - as if these were a form of general mental disorder- they are implicitly attacking the reality of actual conspiracies! (Bear in mind once a conspiracy exists it is no longer "theory".) Logically, then, if ab initio  all conspiracy theories are false, foolish or invalid (meaning other explanations can suffice and the ones advanced are daffy) it means there can be no real conspiracies either!

But we know this to be false, because Watergate was certainly a real conspiracy,  exposed in Nixon's White House Tapes (get hold of them as I have and listen!) as was Iran-Contra. To refuse to label a crime, especially a political one,  a conspiracy -  is therefore to be dishonest in one's approach to historical or political knowledge and education. It is also to be guilty of spreading disinformation,

To fix ideas,  let me offer some perspectives on the Iran –Contra conspiracy which was implemented by Reagan cronies such as Oliver North, John Poindexter, Albert Hakim and Caspar Weinberger. (Reagan always denied any involvement, though it is incredible that such a plan could have unfolded without topmost authority. But, being generous, mayhap Reagan's Alzheimer's had already set in and someone like Poindexter was needed to oversee it!)

All the charges against the above-named characters and others are listed on page xiv of the Introduction to The Iran –Contra Report (1994) published by Random House at the behest of Independent Counsel Lawrence E. Walsh. (Note: Weinberger,  “charged with four counts of false statements and perjury,  was pardoned by George Bush” That would be George Senior).

The basic facts to take away concerning the  Iran-Contra conspiracy are these:

- Shipping Israeli Hawk and TOW missiles to Iran from 1985-86 to obtain the release of American hostages held in the Middle East. This was despite an embargo on such sales.

- The money from the sales of these arms was to be funneled into Nicaragua to support the Rightist “Contras’, a violation of the then Boland Amendment, and basically exposing the Reagan administration’s covert support for paramilitary activities conducted against the Sandinista government.


As noted in Walsh’s Introduction (p. xv):

“The Iran and Contra operations were merged when funds generated from the sale of weapons to Iran were diverted to support the Contra mission in Nicaragua.  Although this diversion may be the most dramatic aspect of Iran-contra, it is important to emphasize that both the Iran and contra operations, separately, violated United States policy and the law.”


Violation of policy thus was via the violation of the Boland Amendment, named for Rep. Edward Boland (D-MA).  The amendment restricted U.S. aid to the contras and “prohibited the use of U.S. funds for the purpose of overthrowing the government of Nicaragua.”

But even Rep. Boland likely couldn't have conceived of the dastardly lengths to which the Reaganites would go even before his amendment was in the public domain. I am referring, of course, to the “October Surprise” whereby Reaganites (known at the time also to be strongly supported by the Republican Heritage Council with Nazi links- see, e.g. Russ Bellant’s book: ‘Old Nazis, The New Right and the Republican Party’, 1991, pp. 41-44)) used back channels to make a secret deal with Iran to postpone release of the 52 American hostages in return for arms sales after the election.

Corroborating this, on July 18, 1981 the then USSR's TASS news agency reported the emergency landing near the USSR-Turkish border of an Argentine-registered transport aircraft leased and flown by Israelis, carrying a full load of US weaponry and military spare parts. The US Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East, Nicholas Veliotes, subsequently investigated this occurrence and concluded that the downed aircraft was on its third such flight in a series of shipments of US weapons to Iran which had been authorized by high officials in the Reagan Administration.

Before people start talking “tinfoil hats” let’s examine what was at stake and in particular the federal conspiracy law as it would relate to the later arms-for-hostages dealings of Iran-Contra. As noted on p. 56 of The Iran –Contra Report:


“The federal conspiracy statute, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 371, states that ‘it is a crime to conspire to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose’”

This would have been violated under three criminal actions by the perpetrators identified by Walsh (ibid.):

1) “Using government resources, the conspirators conducted an unauthorized covert program in support of the contras.”

2) “North and Poindexter used their Government positions to create a hidden slush fund under the exclusive control of the conspirators”

3) “By secretly pursuing their own ends, the conspirators outraged the Iranians they were attempting to persuade and thus jeopardized the success of the Iran initiative.”


In terms of the scale and scope of the deal, on p. 338 of the Iran-Contra Report we see: “3300 TOWs for hostages”, then on p. 339, we note: “In fact, 1,000 TOW missiles had been delivered to Iran between February 15 and 17, 1986.”

These facts are germane and important because they disclose the extent of the conspiracy as well as the people involved.  But this is the essential nature of all real conspiracies in the political realm - to somehow leverage power to the advantage of those seeking to impose their own agenda. It was applicable in the Iran-Contra conspiracy as it was in the Kennedy assassination conspiracy - the objective in the latter to implement a much larger national security state and permanent war state.

The authors of the Skeptic Society's pamphlet, meanwhile, step into reeking heaps of virtual 'doggy doo' as they go their merry way making wild generalizations about all claimed conspiracies and conflating them indiscriminately. This is in addition to plenty of dime store psychology meted out such as  citing a waste of paper called 'American Conspiracy Theories' in which it is claimed "researchers have found that inducing anxiety or loss of control triggers respondents to see non-existent patterns and evoke conspiratorial explanations."

Proving again that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing especially in subjective areas like  psychology and psychiatry (for an excellent exposure of the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual and all the psycho-malarkey within it, check out 'The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry')  Such psycho-babble also elicited the scorn and rebuke of my friend Rolf  (formerly a member of the Spezialdienst) when I emailed him a scan of the pertinent material. His rejoinder was that this anti-conspiracy crowd that relies on such babble  "needs their own heads examined".

In the case of the pamphlet, its lone (peripheral) foray into the Kennedy assassination occurs on page 4, under the header, 'Ingredients for Conspiratorial Thinking' (hmmmm.....was  Independent Counsel Lawrence E. Walsh guilty of "conspiratorial thinking" for pursuing Iran-Contra?) Therein, the authors  (Michael Shermer and Pat Linse) babble:

"Conspiracy theories connect the dots of random events into meaningful patterns (patternicity) and then infuse those patterns with intentional agency (agenticity). Add to this confirmation bias, the tendency to look for or find confirmatory evidence for what you already believe- and the hindsight bias (after the fact explanation for what you already know happened)  and we have the foundation for conspiratorial cognition."

Which is fulsome horse pockey. Indeed,  by the clever use of this pseudo-scientific,  dime store psychology template virtually any real conspiracy could be dismissed as nothing more then a combo of :  P (patternicity)+ A  (agenticity) + H (hindsight) + C (confirmation bias) nonsense!   

Think of it! In the case of the Iran-Contra conspiracy,  the shipping manifests revealing the assorted Hawk and TOW missiles  destined for Iran would be likened to "seeing a pattern".  This would then be "infused with agenticity"(sic)  because the missiles ended up with the Iranians - so someone had to be a bad guy in doing it- since the Iranians were bad guys holding American hostages.  The next step would be to accuse  Prosecutor Walsh of "looking for confirmatory evidence of what he already believed", i..e. the guilt of Oliver North, John Poindexter et al. because they "used their Government positions to create a hidden slush fund under the exclusive control of the conspirators”.  And finally, the coup de grace, Walsh would be accused of "hindsight bias" - advancing explanations after the fact for what he already knew happened. (Of course he knew, he uncovered the evidence in the course of his investigation!)

So, in other words, their bandying about of this pseudo-process is useless because it errs by proposing an excessively subjective and open-ended standard for parsing objective evidence. Hence, tying proof of conspiracy to sophisticated second guessing.

Shermer and Linse then move on to the Kennedy assassination (ibid.):

"Consider the Kennedy assassination: Knowing what we know now, film footage of Dealey Plaza from Nov. 22, 1963 seems pregnant with enigmas and ironies - from the oddly expectant expressions on the faces of the onlookers on the grassy knoll (What were they thinking?) to the play of shadows in the background (Could that flash of light have been on a gun barrel?) Each odd excrescence, every random lump in the visual texture, seems suspicious"

But here the authors invoke too much in the way of red herring, and not enough substance. Sure, there were random flashes and visuals appearing in the setting, i.e. in the Zapruder film as well as the Nix film. High tech investigation of one photo - from Mary Moorman- even disclosed the outline of a shooter behind the stockade fence on the grassy knoll, e.g.


This "Badgeman" photo above, compliments of Richard Charnin - from his blog- in contrast to the woolly speculations of the skeptic duo, was declared authentic by an MIT analysis team - as Charnin observes. (For the likely identity of 'Badgeman' see my Sept. 20th post: 'Switzerland: Destination for the Kennedy Assassins?' )

But even if one would claim to be so bleary-eyed or visually deficient as to see nothing peculiar in the image, or the evident outline of a gunman in the photo (including muzzle blast), the autopsy photos - fraudulent and real - shown below, ought to give pause. These are not based on random flashes or expectant expressions on living faces  but the stark consequences after the rifles were fired.
.
 These, along with the released CIA files about Oswald, seem to be what the hyper-skeptics have missed.
















And perhaps this is why these skeptics who fancy themselves informed and smart enough to take on the JFK assassination,  ought to back away and regard it instead as the "fire breathing dragon of American history" - in the words of one Truthdig journalist who interviewed Tom Hanks for a supposed series he had planned on HBO (later cancelled). Hanks was ultimately gobbled up by this fire-breathing dragon because in the end he was too flippant in his approach to the facts, as well as arrogant in seeking to  "do the American public a service" - because they "have been snookered into believing that Lee Harvey Oswald was framed."

These lessons,  which occur from time to time,  ought to also steer other presumptuous fools clear of this event in any future forays where they go after ALL conspiracies. Oh, they might wish to stay away from Iran-Contra, Watergate and BCCI too!

Btw, I have no problem - not one, if this pair, Pat Linse and Michael Shermer (or the entire Skeptics Society),  want to go after those who suggest the Apollo Moon landings were faked or that the Air Force is secretly hiding aliens somewhere in Area 51. But if you plan to try to skunk those of us who've seriously investigated the Kennedy assassination - conflating us with the nutsos above-  you had best be loaded for bear!

See also:

http://www.salon.com/2014/11/22/the_real_jfk_mystery_50_years_later_why_the_infamous_murder_must_be_reinvestigated/

Switzerland: Destination for the Kennedy Assassins?

A question posed to Rolf was whether he thought, believed (or knew) whether any of the JFK assassins had fled to Switzerland, or entered the country at any time after Nov. 22, 1963.  Much speculation, for example, had already abounded that the assassins had received  Swiss bank account numbers in exchange for their dastardly deed and fled the U.S. – assisted by having received assorted false identity papers, passports.  None of this would be at all odd or strange, since whoever the architects of the Nov. 22, 1963  Kennedy assassination,  they’d  have ensured that the killers were remunerated enough so they wouldn’t talk or blow their covers. Also, they’d be ensconced a long way from the US of A.

Me (left) and Rolf discuss the JFK assassination in St. Gallen.

Switzerland would be a natural choice of destination – if even temporary – given the hyper –confidentiality of Swiss bank accounts, the fact that numbers are the only identifiers, and the strict neutrality of the country. But as I noted in my Sept. 16^th  post, that neutrality is really armed neutrality. The Swiss aren’t prepared to allow any manjacks to cross their borders without knowing who they are and where. It thus seemed natural to discuss the issue with Rolf,  a former Spezialdienst  in the 1960s, and familiar with the workings of Projekt 26 – which aim was to keep Swiss security foremost in mind.

 Basically, from what I could glean while we were discussing it in St. Gallen, at least two Kennedy assassins made their way into Switzerland: one the notorious “Oswald Double” and the other the hired assassin Jean Souetre aka “Michael Mertz”, the “badge man” assassin who fired from behind the stockade fence of the grassy knoll. Like the Germans I referenced from a visit to Garmisch-Partenkirchen last year, e.g.

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

Rolf was well aware of the details, also that SD records indicated Mertz and the Oswald Double (who he referred to as “Leon”) were in St. Gallen at least temporarily. Mertz entered Switzerland from the south around Nov. 26th, via Italy (“likely from Domodossala”) and “Leon” via Konstanz, Germany and a small unregistered craft over the Bodensee ca. Nov. 29th. Rolf suggested “Leon” had taken a train from Stuttgart to Konstanz. The pair arrived mainly to ensure the opening of their Swiss bank accounts and the necessary collection mechanisms.  Both used aliases, bogus passports, IDs. The bottom line is the SD was not fooled and knew all along the entrants were CIA-assisted “mechanics” with “high cover”.

                         Jean Souetre - The grassy knoll assassin - left Switzerland by 11/29/63



"Leon" (Rolf's name for him), left side - and the actual Oswald (right),  showing dissimilarities.

 Rolf was also familiar with the background history of “Leon”. He knew, for example, from James Douglass' account ('JFK and the Unspeakable') that U.S. Air Force Sgt. Robert Vinson was trying to return  to Colorado Springs on Nov. 22, 1963 and en route encountered the Oswald look-alike. (Vinson in his official account claimed to have taken a bus to Andrews AFB in Washington, DC, and got on a C-54 - the first available flight to the Springs, but was informed it was about to depart for Lowry AFB near Denver instead.)

Vinson’s official account included a diversion to Dallas and the Trinity River area - where  two men boarded just after 3:30 p.m. central time:  one a "Latino", 6' or 6'1" weighing 180-190 lbs. and wearing a mustache, the other 5'7" to 5'9" and Caucasian, 150-160 lbs.  Only later, i.e. when press photos materialized did Vinson realize the latter guy was the spitting image of Lee Harvey Oswald.  

 None of this astonished Rolf who also knew the SD (and its affiliate Projekt 26)  readily exploited what they called “doppelgangers” for assorted tasks. He theorized other clandestine services also did this and a “doppelganger” might have played a role in the April, 18, 1990 assassination of Herbert Alboth. (He even half-joked that an aged “Leon” might have had a hand in it,  perhaps as the price of remaining in Switzerland.)

I also found it useful to pick Rolf’s brain, as an expert marksman. He assured me that Oswald’s rifle could never have made the shots attributed to him on Nov. 22, 1963 and that the Warren Commission Report was little more than a “PR job” mainly done to “cover Johnson’s ass”. Like me, he is convinced LBJ had a hand in orchestrating the hit, clearly to protect himself as he faced certain prosecution in the Bobby Baker scandal. He also offered that it was “sad” that no U.S. investigation had come near to the truth but “How could they if an agency of the government itself was involved?”  

Could Mertz have made the kill shot from a building? I asked Rolf (right). Yes, he replied, but he would have demanded the sure kill shot, i.e. from the knoll.

How long were these assassins in Switzerland? Rolf opined that “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 Mertz, they were prepared to grab him from a hotel in Lugano on Nov. 29^th but by then he’d fled the country. Rolf suspects he went to Croatia or Albania.  Rolf added that it was “well known” that Jean Souetre was a stone killer and the Swiss had no use for keeping such OAS trash within their borders.

 Did Mertz- Souetre  make the kill shot from a tall building?  Rolf assessed it and shook his head: “Nein”.   Instead he’d have wanted the sure shot with highest percentage of success: the kill shot – from the knoll. Not that he couldn’t have done it, Rolf assured me, it’s just that Souetre was more “a lone wolf”  and would have preferred to operate by himself. Rolf accepts Souetre likely made the kill shot while wearing a Dallas PD uniform – to “make the getaway much easier”.

Why would any of the assassins or mechanics want to stay in a place like St. Gallen? Rolf laughed: “A city! Easy to hide, to conceal oneself – also everyone coming here generally goes to the mountains, you know?”

Did he believe any of the assassins were still alive or living in Switzerland?

“Not likely. To close the wound after this many years it is better that all the remaining ones are killed – you know, permanent silence. And they’d be running out of money and that spells problems for those needing to preserve silence.”    

Who’d take care of such a job? Rolf smiled and replied: “Can’t you guess?”

After this heavy discussion, deliberately done on the streets of St. Gallen and in English, we began our sojourn to the Abbey of St. Gallen Library and its hidden medieval treasures. The JFK assassination was now in the “rear view mirror” to use Rolf’s apt term. He added: “If and when you write about this in your blog, please kindly no last names – or close in facial photos!”