Josiah Thompson shows his true colors . . .

[James H. Fetzer]

A very curious interview with Mary Moorman who seems to have fallen out with Jean Hill,

http://www.conspiracy.co/forums/main-wal...lence.html

An even more peculiar interview with Tink in The New York Times on the Umbrella Man,

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/opinio...a-man.html

OP-DOCS
The Umbrella Man': A video interview with the author of SIX SECONDS IN DALLAS (1967)

The Umbrella Man: On the 48th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Errol Morris explores the story behind the one man seen standing under an open black umbrella at the site.
By ERROL MORRIS
Published: November 21, 2011

COMMENTS (254)

For years, I've wanted to make a movie about the John F. Kennedy assassination. Not because I thought I could prove that it was a conspiracy, or that I could prove it was a lone gunman, but because I believe that by looking at the assassination, we can learn a lot about the nature of investigation and evidence. Why, after 48 years, are people still quarreling and quibbling about this case? What is it about this case that has led not to a solution, but to the endless proliferation of possible solutions?

Years ago, Josiah Thompson, known as Tink, a young, Yale-educated Kierkegaard scholar wrote the definitive book on the Zapruder film "Six Seconds in Dallas." Thompson eventually quit his day job as a professor of philosophy at Haverford College to become a private detective and came to work with many of the same private investigators I had also worked with in the 1980s. We had so much in common philosophy, P.I. work and an obsessive interest in the complexities of reality. But we had never met.

Last year, I finally got to meet and interview Tink Thompson. I hope his interview can become the first part of an extended series on the Kennedy assassination. This film is but a small segment of my six-hour interview with Tink.

Errol Morris is an Academy Award-winning filmmaker ("The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara") and a recent New York Times best-selling author ("Believing Is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography"). His first film, "Gates of Heaven," is on Roger Ebert's list of the 10 best movies ever made, and his latest, "Tabloid," has just been released on DVD. Mr. Morris has received five fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a MacArthur fellowship. In 2007, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He lives in Cambridge, Mass., with his wife and two French bulldogs.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 22, 2011 An earlier version of this article incorrectly described Josiah Thompson's career. He left his job as a professor at Haverford College to become a detective not to write "Six Seconds in Dallas," which had been written earlier.

where this reader's comment (and there are more than 250) speaks volumes about Josiah:

23. HIGHLIGHT (What's this?)
Mark M
New York, NY
November 22nd, 2011
6:16 am
This was wonderful. The best - and most convincing - debunking of any and all conspiracy theories I have ever seen, and in just 6 minutes too.

Here is what I have submitted, but if the Times is running performance art like this from Josiah, it is not likely that they are going to publish it:

Your Submitted Comment
Display Name
James H. Fetzer
Location
Oregon, WI
Comment
How can Josiah Thompson have written "the definitive book" on the Zapruder film when its fabrication has been proven beyond reasonable doubt? The limo stop was removed, the wounds were changed, and, having reduced the time frame, Clint Hill's activities--about which he has been consistent for more than 47 years--contradict what we see in the extant film. See, for example, "JFK: Who's telling the truth: Clint Hill or the Zapruder film?" For more on how it was done, see "US Government Official: JFK Cover-Up, Film Fabrication". For a tutorial on some of the ways we know the film we have is not the original, see John Costella, "The JFK Assassination Film Hoax", http://assassinationscience.com/johncostella/jfk/intro/ I dismembered Josiah's feeble defense of the authenticity of the film in THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX (2003). Check it out. The American people are entitled to the truth about the assassination of our 35th president. It isn't a close call.

I hate to say "I told you so", but I nailed Tink as an op a long time ago and was attacked for doing so. I also observed earlier that he was setting himself up to proclaim that there was no conspiracy, after all. Here's a quiz for JFK scholars: How many falsehoods and misrepresentations does Josiah Thompson make in this six minute video?

Jim

[Peter Lemkin]

Jim, Sorry, but I don't see the link to Tink's interview on TUM. As I said on the EF [and with all my posts there, was erased] SSID was the very first book that really brought me to start my own research and it saddens me no end that someone once [apparently] on the side of determining the truth now seems [apparently] to be part of the effort to obscure the truth.

[Dawn Meredith]

Jim, Sorry, but I don't see the link to Tink's interview on TUM. As I said on the EF [and with all my posts there, was erased] SSID was the very first book that really brought me to start my own research and it saddens me no end that someone once [apparently] on the side of determining the truth now seems [apparently] to be part of the effort to obscure the truth.

I have a hard time believing he was ever really on the correct side. How do you just "switch"? Lots of "researchers" do some good work first gain entrance into the community then show their real colors. Jay Epstein is another example.
Yesterday I watched (online) the second of TMWKK series, with Gary Mack introducing Badgeman. He was -or seemed -so sincere, yet look at him now? It is hard for me to believe that it is only money that motivates creeps like this. Especially in Mack's case. It's something far more sinister. I did not bother to see the Tink vid. Erick told me it was in the NYT and that was all I needed to know.

Dawn

[Bernice Moore]

Message body

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/11/2...MAN&st=cse


HERE IS THE LINK TO THE VIDEO, IT DID TAKE A BIT OF A SEARCH TO FIND ALL........I THINK TINK IS SHOWING HIS WRINKLES AND IS SHRINKING, BUT I GUESS WE ALL ARE.:gossip:..IF THIS WEE VIDEO IS THE BEST ED MORRIS CAN FINALLY DO IN PRODUCING A MOVIE ON THE JFK ASSASSINATION, I THINK HE HAD BETTER KEEP HIS DAY JOB..:fullofit:..DAWN, I THINK A LARGE PART OF IT WITH THE GARY POO,PERHAPS IS THE KUDOS, AND THE :pointlaugh::pointlaugh:APPEARANCE OF BEING AT THE TOP OF THE DOG HEAP WHERE HE THINKS HE IS,BUT OH THE SMELL..:cleanears:.AS HE TRIES TO CATCH EACH NEWBIE, IT HAS APPEARED THROUGH THE YEARS ON THE WEB AND TUTOR THEM AS ONLY HE CAN DO WITH HIS LOVE NOTES, HOPEFULLY FOR CONVERSION,AND THEN OF COURSE TO KEEP BUILDING HIS SO CALLED FOLLOWERS, JUST CALL THEM THE BRAINWASHED UNWASHED MINIONS......:o THERE IS MUCH AAM ( all about ME )DESEASE THAT GOES AROUND IN THEM THAR CIRCLES IT APPEARS, IMO.....AND IT HAS BEEN CATCHY TO SOME, OF THE..BRAIN WASHED AND PERHAPS ALSO FOR MORE PERKS THAN WE CAN POSSIBLEY THINK OF.....LIKE A POSSIBLE THEIR OWN SITE, PAID FOR, OF COURSE, THE GIFT OF INFORMATION, DOCUMENTS, PHOTOS WHATEVER TO ANOTHERS TRY AT THE TOP OF THE HEAP, WITH SOME IT DOES NOT TAKE NEAR AS MUCH, JUST SOME THOUGHTS, BUT I DOUBT THEY DO IT, FOR NOTHING, NOR OUT OF LOVE......HAVE A GREAT THANKSGIVING ALL YOU YANKS, :cleanears:AND TAKE CARE.BEST B PLEASE EXCUSE THE CAPS..

[Bernice Moore]

Dawn, anyone, ??? How many think that during the DALLAS motorcade, JFK had on his mind, or would have at the first site of an open umbrella, his FATHER joe, and immediately tie it to Chamberlain,,???......SORRY BUT I JUST DO NOT BUY them apples, there is a worm somewhere.....:angeldevil:b yet supposedly. that is THEIR reasoning.??????

[Albert Doyle]

You would think Moorman's saying she thought the government did not tell the whole truth on what happened to be worth a mainstream media news story. She's a little too neutral on Hill's accounts.

[James H. Fetzer]

Posted Today, 07:06 PM
Most of those who pass for students of JFK have no idea how to sort out even a case as simple as this.

(1) Tink assumes that the Umbrella man was Louie Steven Witt. But that is a conclusion that requires
evidence. In logic, this is called "begging the question" by assuming what requires independent proof.

(2) The umbrella he presented is not the umbrella held by the Umbrella man, since it has the wrong
number of spokes. So in claiming it was the same, Witt was lying and demonstrating he is a fraud.

(3) Josiah exaggerates the role of the Umbrella man to make it easier to attack by suggesting that
critics believe he had some kind of weapon cloaked inside the umbrella. This attacking a straw man.

(4) He treats the Umbrella man as though he were separate and apart from the Cuban, who raises
his fist in an apparent gesture to Greer to bring the limo to a halt, which is what Green then did.

(5) Presenting only part of the evidence (known as "special pleading"), Tink does not report that
this person was pumping the umbrella up and down in an apparent signal to "continue firing".

(6) He does not acknowledge that they were clearly together and remained seated on the curb for
some time, where they were photographed, before they stood up and walked in opposite directions.

(7) He ignores that more reasonable identifications would be of the Cuban as Felipe Vidal Santiago,
a committed anti-Castro Cuban, and of Roy Hargraves, who fit the photos and the scenario to a "t".

(8) The very idea that he would offer this fantastic story about Joe Kennedy, which is preposterous
on its face, as though it was "so extraordinary and unbelievable it must be true", is clearly absurd.

(9) It is far more likely that he was signaling to the assassins that JFK was still alive, which makes
sense, rather than an obscure historical allusion that no one, including Jack, would have grasped.

(10) And remarking that there are always alternative explanations may be true, when you isolate
one element of a complex picture, a technique used here that is known as "divide and conquer".

(11) If all you knew were what Tink presents in this little clip, then you might easily be taken in;
once you consider the other evidence we have available, his scenario is not remotely plausible.

(12) That so many on a forum would be taken in by a blatant display of disinformation is beyond
me. It reinforces my belief that most who post here don't have even a clue about what's going on.

James H. Fetzer, on 24 November 2011 - 05:39 AM, said:
A very curious interview with Mary Moorman who seems to have fallen out with Jean Hill,

http://www.conspirac...er-silence.html

An even more peculiar interview with Tink in The New York TImes on the Umbrella Man,

http://www.nytimes.c...brella-man.html

OP-DOCS
The Umbrella Man': A video interview with the author of SIX SECONDS IN DALLAS (1967)

The Umbrella Man: On the 48th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Errol Morris explores the story behind the one man seen standing under an open black umbrella at the site.
By ERROL MORRIS
Published: November 21, 2011

COMMENTS (254)

For years, I've wanted to make a movie about the John F. Kennedy assassination. Not because I thought I could prove that it was a conspiracy, or that I could prove it was a lone gunman, but because I believe that by looking at the assassination, we can learn a lot about the nature of investigation and evidence. Why, after 48 years, are people still quarreling and quibbling about this case? What is it about this case that has led not to a solution, but to the endless proliferation of possible solutions?

Years ago, Josiah Thompson, known as Tink, a young, Yale-educated Kierkegaard scholar wrote the definitive book on the Zapruder film "Six Seconds in Dallas." Thompson eventually quit his day job as a professor of philosophy at Haverford College to become a private detective and came to work with many of the same private investigators I had also worked with in the 1980s. We had so much in common philosophy, P.I. work and an obsessive interest in the complexities of reality. But we had never met.

Last year, I finally got to meet and interview Tink Thompson. I hope his interview can become the first part of an extended series on the Kennedy assassination. This film is but a small segment of my six-hour interview with Tink.

Errol Morris is an Academy Award-winning filmmaker ("The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara") and a recent New York Times best-selling author ("Believing Is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography"). His first film, "Gates of Heaven," is on Roger Ebert's list of the 10 best movies ever made, and his latest, "Tabloid," has just been released on DVD. Mr. Morris has received five fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a MacArthur fellowship. In 2007, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He lives in Cambridge, Mass., with his wife and two French bulldogs.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 22, 2011 An earlier version of this article incorrectly described Josiah Thompson's career. He left his job as a professor at Haverford College to become a detective not to write "Six Seconds in Dallas," which had been written earlier.

where this reader's comment (and there are more than 250) speaks volumes about Josiah:

23. HIGHLIGHT (What's this?)
Mark M
New York, NY
November 22nd, 2011
6:16 am
This was wonderful. The best - and most convincing - debunking of any and all conspiracy theories I have ever seen, and in just 6 minutes too.

Here is what I have submitted, but if the Times is running performance art like this from Josiah, it is not likely that they are going to publish it:

Your Submitted Comment
Display Name
James H. Fetzer
Location
Oregon, WI
Comment
How can Josiah Thompson have written "the definitive book" on the Zapruder film when its fabrication has been proven beyond reasonable doubt? The limo stop was removed, the wounds were changed, and, having reduced the time frame, Clint Hill's activities--about which he has been consistent for more than 47 years--contradict what we see in the extant film. See, for example, "JFK: Who's telling the truth: Clint Hill or the Zapruder film?" For more on how it was done, see "US Government Official: JFK Cover-Up, Film Fabrication". For a tutorial on some of the ways we know the film we have is not the original, see John Costella, "The JFK Assassination Film Hoax", http://assassination...ella/jfk/intro/ I dismembered Josiah's feeble defense of the authenticity of the film in THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX (2003). Check it out. The American people are entitled to the truth about the assassination of our 35th president. It isn't a close call.

I hate to say "I told you so", but I nailed Tink as an op a long time ago and was attacked for doing so. I also observed earlier that he was setting himself up to proclaim that there was no conspiracy, after all. How many falsehoods and misrepresentations does Josiah Thompson make in this six minute video?

Jim

Josiah Thompson, on 24 November 2011 - 06:14 PM, said:

On Thanksgiving morning, there is nothing like the smell of vitriol in the air.

When Professor Fetzer loses an argument he calls the other party an "op" or stupid. Since he's lost numerous arguments to me over the years, his claim is old and tired. In the good professor's infinite wisdom, he also claims to know what I am going to do in the future. This too is a bit old and tired. According to him, I'm going "to proclaim there was no conspiracy after all."

Thank you, Professor. Once again you've given me the opportunity of proving you categorically, irredeemably WRONG!!

For the last six months, I've been working on a new manuscript. I found in Washington at the AARC all my old transcripts of Dallas witnesses. They are quite wonderful. In addition, I went to Dallas and spent two afternoons looking at the MPI transparencies. They too are quite wonderful. The consequence of this work is that I think I can now correct some mistakes I made forty years ago. JFK's head did not dramatically move forward between 312 and 313 and that means we are seeing the impact of a bullet from the right front, not the exit of a bullet from the rear. The last forty years have made certain aspects of the assassination much clearer. Although I cannot as yet come up with a complete reconstruction of what happened, I think I've made good progress on part of it. It's appearance will prove once again that the Professor is not just wrong but silly. So what else is new.

I've come to have great respect for the knowledge and acuity of many who post on this forum. I've also come to recognize that I don't know all the answers and don't even know where to look for the answers. I mention this because I look forward to raising research questions on this forum and asking for your help.

Let me ask one now. It's much more useful than jousting with Fetzer.

I've read at some point or other that Dallas policemen who ran into the knoll area encountered railroad men who told them they saw smoke. We know that several men standing with S.M. Holland on the overpass saw smoke near the stockade fence. The fact that Dallas police officers submitted reports or said they encountered such individuals gives even more credence to their claims. Can anyone direct me to these reports by Dallas police officers? Thanks.

JT

Dawn, anyone, ??? How many think that during the DALLAS motorcade, JFK had on his mind, or would have at the first site of an open umbrella, his FATHER joe, and immediately tie it to Chamberlain,,???......SORRY BUT I JUST DO NOT BUY them apples, there is a worm somewhere.....:angeldevil:b yet supposedly. that is THEIR reasoning.??????

[James H. Fetzer]

From an earlier thread here, "Umbrella Man", circa 2007, which I believe was composed by Jack White:

[James H. Fetzer]

Here is what John McAdams has to say about the Umbrella man at http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/dealey.htm. Isn't it curious that Josiah is sounding more and more like a McAdams clone? And, as I previously observed, he is denying the most important proofs of conspiracy in his book, including, especially, the double-hit theory, which was its strongest and most scientific contribution, to set up his denial of any conspiracy, which is most certainly coming; indeed, this sequence may well conclude with his renunciation in The New York Times, where Carl Bernstein, "The CIA and the Media", ROLLING STONE (1977), reported officials of the CIA had acknowledged as one of their greatest successes:

The Umbrella Man

Was this fellow, standing in Dealey Plaza with an open umbrella and no rain in sight part of some conspiracy? The House Select Committee on Assassinations located the Umbrella Man -- a fellow named Louis Witt who was engaged in a somewhat obscure form of political protest. Here are two graphics, one showing Louis Witt's umbrella being opened before the House Select Committee on Assassinations, to the general merriment of all assembled. The second shows the Umbrella Man's umbrella in the Zapruder film in Dealey Plaza. Both of these images are video captures from the NOVA documentary. Here is the first one, and here is the second. Some conspiratorialists claim that the umbrellas are different, having a different number of spokes. Decide for yourself.

What was the point of the umbrella in Dealey Plaza? Apparently it was an attempt to heckle Kennedy with a reminder of the appeasement policies of British Prime Minister Nevill Chamberlain, whose weak posture toward Hitler was supported by Kennedy's father. Sounds pretty obscure to us today. But this 1930s British cartoon links the umbrella (Chamberlain's trademark) with weakness toward Nazism.

One of the more bizarre theories about The Umbrella man comes from Robert Cutler. Cutler claimed that the umbrella was a weapon firing a flechette (poisoned dart) that hit Kennedy in the throat, paralyzing Kennedy to set him up for the head shot. Here is Cutler's drawing of this concept.

[Phil Dragoo]

Jim

Nice combo with the fist signalling Greer to hit the Lincoln's power brakes, brake lights, throwing the folks forward, seen by Palamara's 59 Witnesses: Delay on Elm Street.

Witt being of course a nitwit stooge of the Langley crew.

The pumping being the fail-safe for the radio net with the teams.

And fist-pumper has that milk-carton walkie-talkie.

Chicago police still used those for SDS Days of Rage October 8-11, 1969.

Two men acting out on the sidewalk as the most dramatic domestic event of the Twentieth Century unfolds in a matter of seconds.

Nothing to see here.