I admire the manner in which you summon cool detachment from passionate commitment.
I am capable of same -- but not, apparently, when I cannot ascribe benign motive to de facto hostile actions by a once highly valued comrade.
You distill simple truth from complex brews.
Why a past master of our shared craft cannot do the same is a mystery that leads me to a Conan Doyle rationale: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
But that's only half of the famous quote.
"It is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you."
I'm many things, but "stupid" ain't one of them.
Ed,
We're at war with the killers of JFK. I find recognition of this truth to be consistent with my previously expressed plea: Until the life of the assassin is held to be as sacred as the life of the assassinated, the assassinations will continue.
Again, this is not a matter of "I'm OK, you're OK." As Phil and others clearly demonstrate -- and as I have attempted to explain elsewhere and in detail within these and other cyber-pages -- the "LBJ-as-mastermind" gambit is enemy action, pure and simple. Even if, as may be the case of Nelson's hideous literary excretion, it emerges initially as the product of a simpleton's reading of complex events.
In this instance, within the conscious choices to use and defend the usage of the word "mastermind" to promote False Sponsor status for LBJ in the JFK assassination, the game is given away.
To all appearances, Nelson is, at best, a fool.
Is he a witting tool? In the final analysis, if a friend chooses to shoot you in the forehead because he wants to cure your migraine, you end up just as dead as John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Jim Fetzer should know better. That he doesn't know better is beyond disturbing.
I'm not asking you or anyone else to make any sort of choice here. Except, that is, the choice between accepting our current shared circumstances as those attendant to a state of war or those that arise from debate over purely academic issues.
That the "LBJ-as-mastermind" gambit represents a danger that is close upon us is, for me, a fact beyond reasonable doubt. If you or anyone else choose to appreciate it as the honorable expression of an honest difference of opinion, you put yourself and others in the path of grave danger indeed.
Lyndon was not photogenic and, in the age of television, would have had a hard time reaching the top. He forced his way onto the ticket, later explaining that he was "a gambling man" and had discovered one in four occupants of the office did not live to the end of their terms. LBJ was ANYTHING BUT a "gambling man" who only acted on certainties. Have you read Phil's book? I have nothing but scorn for those who denigrate his research, which is thorough, meticulous, and compelling. During our two hour interview, by the way, I specifically invited him to explain his use of the term, "mastermind". In my opinion, he has it exactly right--and we have abundant corroborating evidence from Madeleine, Billy Sol, Barr and E. Howard Hunt. How anyone can casually dismiss the incriminating testimony of those who knew him best--"up close and personal"--is simply beyond me. Check out two interviews.
Jim
Phil Dragoo Wrote:E. Howard Hunt in Bond of Secrecy places LBJ at the top of the organizational chart. I posit this is a deathbed deflection by a career Company man.
Lyndon Baines Johnson announced April 23, 1963, that John F. Kennedy would have lunch in Dallas later in the year, but this did not require a mastermind.
The organization was officially established in 1947, and strengthened in 1949. This did not require Lyndon Johnson.
When Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex he was shaken to the core.
Kennedy fired Dulles for the lies involving the Bay of Pigs invasion. And what did Dulles do:
After the Bay of Pigs, Hunt became a personal assistant to Allen Dulles.[SUP][7][/SUP]Tad Szulc states that Hunt was asked to assist Dulles in writing a book, The Craft of Intelligence, that Dulles wrote following his involuntary retirement as CIA head in 1961.[SUP][8][/SUP] The book was published in 1963.
I don't think they were parsing paragraphs.
It was Angleton and the Mexico City crew who manipulated Oswald's file and legend.
Johnson was compromised and open to the bidding of others. In naming Helms DCI he was merely acknowledging the status quo post-1961, Helms not McCone being the sword and shield of CIA.
Johnson fretted and strutted his five years upon the stage and March 1968 the bully backed out.
The following month intelligence took down King; in June, Bobby. In November, Nixon ascendant.
The supposed heavy hitters of the assassination according to some: Hoover, Johnson, Nixon.
Helms sent Hunt, Sturgis, McCord et al to bring down Nixon with Watergate.
In 72 Hoover has his heart attack. In 73, Johnson, his. In 74 Nixon resigns August 8 and I suggest the minutes of tape too dangerous to transcribe concerned Nixon's knowledge of CIA guilt in the assassination of JFK as Haldeman writes in his book.
Ford names GHWBush DCI Jan 76 and the cleanup in the runup to the HSCA proceeds apace.
Mark Lane is lovely in his Last Word: My Indictment of the CIA in the Murder of JFK. To be sure it was not the CIA which was shattered into a thousand pieces and scattered to the winds but JFK's head.
Truman December 22, 1963 in the Washington Post sought to Limit CIA to Intelligence but we're in Afghanistan.
Regimes fall, heads of state are murdered, not because of Landslide Lyndon but because of the Sword and Shield of the National Security State.
The temporary occupants of the various posts are terra-cotta warriors not masterminds.
Lyndon was not photogenic and, in the age of television, would have had a hard time reaching the top. He forced his way onto the ticket, later explaining that he was "a gambling man" and had discovered one in four occupants of the office did not live to the end of their terms. LBJ was ANYTHING BUT a "gambling man" who only acted on certainties. Have you read Phil's book? I have nothing but scorn for those who denigrate his research, which is thorough, meticulous, and compelling. During our two hour interview, by the way, I specifically invited him to explain his use of the term, "mastermind". In my opinion, he has it exactly right--and we have abundant corroborating evidence from Madeleine, Billy Sol, Barr and E. Howard Hunt. How anyone can casually dismiss the incriminating testimony of those who knew him best--"up close and personal"--is simply beyond me. Check out two interviews.
An Open Letter to All For Whom the Truth Matters
In accepting at face value JFK "evidence" proffered by E. Howard Hunt, professional intelligence operative, master propagandist, known liar, and accessory to the murder of JFK, convicted criminal and LBJ associate Billy Sol Estes, and Madeline Brown, queen of the unsubstantiated, the esteemed Jim Fetzer presents us with a terrible choice: Is he cognitively impaired, complicit in the cover-up of JFK's murder, or both?
Further, Jim Fetzer equates proximity to a subject with ... what? ... insight? Truthfulness?
Utter balderdash!
Nelson's "research" is nothing more than the rehashing, regurgitation, and/or disfigurement of previously presented material. His conclusions reveal not a scintilla of deep political insight.
Other than simplemindedness, there is no innocent explanation for Nelson's witting use of the term "mastermind" to describe LBJ's role in the JFK assassination. He's either an idiot or an enemy agent. And no one -- not Jim Fetzer or any other alleged JFK assassination "authority" -- can defend said usage other than by the application of cheap rhetorical tricks, ad hominems, and/or logical fallacies. More on the latter in a moment.
But Nelson's worst offense -- by far -- is the manner in which, wittingly or otherwise, he aids and abets the cover-up of the truth in the JFK assassination by reinforcing the position of LBJ as a Sponsor of the crime.
The creation of False Sponsors -- as opposed to the proper identification of true Facilitators, a category into which LBJ surely falls -- remains one of the most effective, difficult to counter tactics in the overall cover-up strategy. An individual of Jim Fetzer's qualifications and accomplishments should be expected to A) understand this long-established truth, and B) fight tooth and nail against the agent provocateurs who engage in the False Sponsor gambit.
Yet Jim Fetzer embraces Nelson's depraved fantasies as holy writ. And again, we are forced to make a choice between equally distressing explanations of this behavior.
The best Jim Fetzer can do in defense of the indefensible Nelson is to make arguments from authority. It saddens me beyond measure to note that, because of the myriad frailties he exhibits throughout this sordid Nelson affair, it is now clear that Jim Fetzer's authority has been consumed by the fires of his own ego and enfeeblement.
Phillip Nelson adds his intellectual pop-gun to the weaponry being employed in the post mortem assassination of JFK. Jim Fetzer stands by his side, delivering escape-and-evade services.
Charles Drago Wrote:The best Jim Fetzer can do in defense of the indefensible Nelson is to make arguments from authority. It saddens me beyond measure to note that, because of the myriad frailties he exhibits throughout this sordid Nelson affair, it is now clear that Jim Fetzer's authority has been consumed by the fires of his own ego and enfeeblement.
Phillip Nelson adds his intellectual pop-gun to the weaponry being employed in the post mortem assassination of JFK. Jim Fetzer stands by his side, delivering escape-and-evade services.
Another shooting team has been identified.
He's hanging out with Hankey now as you can see. Not to worry chum I have a reply to that one in the pipes. But surely Nelson and Hankey? I wonder if we'll get the line Jim Douglas's book supports his work as well.
"In the Kennedy assassination we must be careful of running off into the ether of our own imaginations." Carl Ogelsby circa 1992
James H. Fetzer Wrote:Lyndon was not photogenic and, in the age of television, would have had a hard time reaching the top. He forced his way onto the ticket, later explaining that he was "a gambling man" and had discovered one in four occupants of the office did not live to the end of their terms. LBJ was ANYTHING BUT a "gambling man" who only acted on certainties.
I don't think it is honest to the facts to suggest Johnson, a corrupted Texas politician, was capable of penetrating the White House to the degree implied. The obvious thing here is you can't just force yourself onto a ticket without the assistance of the greater powers that were manipulating things at the time. I think we know who those greater powers were. Johnson "forcing" himself onto the ticket is no different than a woefully underqualified recent Texas Republican with even greater entrenched deep corruption ending up in charge. The way these statements grind against the more than obvious greater established realities involved should be obvious without explanation to any veteran Kennedy Assassination researcher. These are rogue twists right at the gate of the argument. Common sense and reality won't let any Assassination researcher allow himself to be so crudely forced through the wrong door. Johnson was obviously aided into the Vice Presidency by the same powers who aided him in the Assassination. He was put in there as a hedge against a Nixon loss in 1960. The only thing Johnson was gambling over was that his rogue criminal past would be concealed by those same powers that placed him into office.
I did learn something however. It is possible Johnson quit in 1968 because CIA wanted a new chief in their next move against the next threat to them - RFK. Nixon then served the same purpose Johnson did against JFK. If you have a finer tuned ear to the Assassination, this move right here tells you who was the mastermind. Any credible researcher should jump when Nelson blithely suggests Johnson thought up the plan and "CIA went along". That right there should make any credible researcher howl because any fool would realize a hack Texas politician doesn't get the world's most notorious machiavellian intelligence institution to go along with his impulses. I would no more suggest that than attend a serious JFK symposium with a toilet seat around my neck at the podium. Johnson represented the gut constituency of CIA power. However the thinking head that manipulated that constituency came from different precincts. The head is the mastermind not the gut.
Why we still allow CIA to exist I don't know. We're a democracy. We can vote those fascist bastards out of existence if we want.
During our two hour interview, by the way, I specifically invited him to explain his use of the term, "mastermind". In my opinion, he has it exactly right--and we have abundant corroborating evidence from Madeleine, Billy Sol, Barr and E. Howard Hunt.
From #13 above, from which let us discuss this distillation:
we have abundant corroborating evidence from . . . E. Howard Hunt
In 2008 I was very excited to hear Saint John Hunt discussing his new book with George Noory on the Coast to Coast AM program. I ordered the ebook of BOND OF SECRECY by Saint John Hunt, downloaded as a pdf file, printed it, punched it, put it in page protectors in its own three-ring binder.
I wrote Saint John Hunt a five-page Word Document email of which the better part of two pages was typographical corrections. I can sense the youthful exuberance and the personal history living the Miami Vice cum Scarface lifestyle of an earlier era.
I noted to Saint John Hunt and I have consistently maintained that E. Howard Hunt in BOND OF SECRECY makes a loyal deathbed deflection. The career Agency man attempts with his last breath to deflect blame from his mother Agency.
I had earlier read Mark Lane, PLAUSIBLE DENIAL: Was the CIA Involved in the Assassination of JFK? Published in 1991, it depicts a Hunt under oath failing to present a consistent and credible alibi for his whereabouts on November 22, 1963. Lane, an attorney, developed what I deem adequate detail to show Hunt to be dancing around an inconvenient fact.
In Mark Lane, LAST WORD: My Indictment of the CIA in the Murder of JFK, the attorney reprises relevant waypoints he's established between his RUSH TO JUDGMENT, 1966, and his latest work, this year, concluding with an indictment satisfying the requirements for a grand jury to be called.
I note that Hunt has written 41 novels, 24 under the name of Hunt, 3 under an RD, 3 under a PSD, 5 under a DSJ, 5 under a GD, and one under a JB nom de plume.
I submit that BOND OF SECRECY is another work of fiction by a career intelligence officer who has participated in regime change and assassination the whole of his career.
That his saying so is not "abundant corroboration" for anything beyond the fact that he can write.
In his GIVE US THIS DAY, 1973, he attempts to lay down a basis for rage at betrayal; in my view a rather truer line of reasoning for the assassination than his 2005 novel with its suggestion of French gunman on the Grassy Knoll and the interim position of Cord Meyer the cuckold.
Bay of Pigs--JFK was so angry at the CIA's lies he fired Allen Dulles after eight years of shaping the Agency, in the year JFK dedicated the new Langley headquarters for which Dulles had campaigned. Dulles reaction is to bring the novelist and operative close for the two-year project of a memoir punctuated with the death of the departing DCI's nemesis and the former's naming to the commission of inquiry.
LBJ's function was to create the Commission, a concept which did not arise with either Johnson or Hoover. To later name Helms the DCI, in 1966, though it was merely a public recognition of the status quo.
Hunt served Helms on the Watergate mission which sabotaged Nixon. Ford had served Hoover, and would bring in Rockefeller to protect CIA, then name GHWBush to DCI January 1976 for a year of preparation for the HSCA.
That this Bush was that referred to in Hoover's memo of November 29, 1963, is far more likely than that it was the low-level G. William Bush, the shore analyst 1963-4 who was deposed under oath stating no intelligence agency had briefed him on the Assassination.
After March 1968 when he imitated Duran's "No mas, no mas," Johnson was on the ash heap. He'd fallen for Cronkite's wailing following Tet, or he'd found a horse's head in the bedclothes. 1968, the year of sweeping out the obstacles to Nixon.
Why indeed did Nixon send Haldeman to Helms with the Bay of Pigs threat. Why the erased tape. Helms had the upper hand. Nixon did as Khrushchev did in October 1964 when Brezhnev said Doves were out of style, "I am old; I will go."
Hoover, Johnson, Nixon, the trip-wire for the Agency. The mob--that job was given to Blakey after Sprague got the treatment, the decade after FBI/CIA dispatched ten moles and four defense attorneys and a teletype machine to New Orleans, Helms inquiring about "our people down there."
Phil Dragoo Wrote:Hoover, Johnson, Nixon, the trip-wire for the Agency. The mob--that job was given to Blakey after Sprague got the treatment, the decade after FBI/CIA dispatched ten moles and four defense attorneys and a teletype machine to New Orleans, Helms inquiring about "our people down there."
Helms. CIA. "our people."
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Though I would say "Well said Dragoo old son". Sadly Phil I can imagine God bellowing.................
"Mortal scum! How dare you not include the blessed virgin Judyth".
"In the Kennedy assassination we must be careful of running off into the ether of our own imaginations." Carl Ogelsby circa 1992
Well, if you aren't going to consider the evidence--and I take NOTHING "at face value"--then of course you are not going to put together the big picture. James Douglass explained how JFK had antagonized the most powerful special interests in the country, including the CIA, the Joint Chiefs, the Mafia, the Eastern Establishment, and the Texas oil men. Lyndon has aspired to the presidency his whole life and was ruthless in its pursuit. He forced his way on the ticket using information about JFK's health and his dalliances and threatened to block any legislation he sent to Congress if he were not the VP nominee. But he and his allies were intent on making sure that Jack did not live out his term: this was no "gamble", it was a sure thing. Have you thought about what Jack Ruby said about the assassination? You might give it some thought, because there was only one man who was able to induce the Secret Service to set him up for the hit, the CIA to take him out and the military and the FBI to cover it up. I know you are infatuated with your structural analysis of sponsors, facilitators, and executioners, but Lyndon was the one and only person, as the successor to the dead president, who could insure that no one would be prosecuted for the crime. He was the privotal player and, as Phil has clearly explained, is the only one who deserves the title of "MASTERMIND".
Charles Drago Wrote:
James H. Fetzer Wrote:Phil,
Lyndon was not photogenic and, in the age of television, would have had a hard time reaching the top. He forced his way onto the ticket, later explaining that he was "a gambling man" and had discovered one in four occupants of the office did not live to the end of their terms. LBJ was ANYTHING BUT a "gambling man" who only acted on certainties. Have you read Phil's book? I have nothing but scorn for those who denigrate his research, which is thorough, meticulous, and compelling. During our two hour interview, by the way, I specifically invited him to explain his use of the term, "mastermind". In my opinion, he has it exactly right--and we have abundant corroborating evidence from Madeleine, Billy Sol, Barr and E. Howard Hunt. How anyone can casually dismiss the incriminating testimony of those who knew him best--"up close and personal"--is simply beyond me. Check out two interviews.
An Open Letter to All For Whom the Truth Matters
In accepting at face value JFK "evidence" proffered by E. Howard Hunt, professional intelligence operative, master propagandist, known liar, and accessory to the murder of JFK, convicted criminal and LBJ associate Billy Sol Estes, and Madeline Brown, queen of the unsubstantiated, the esteemed Jim Fetzer presents us with a terrible choice: Is he cognitively impaired, complicit in the cover-up of JFK's murder, or both?
Further, Jim Fetzer equates proximity to a subject with ... what? ... insight? Truthfulness?
Utter balderdash!
Nelson's "research" is nothing more than the rehashing, regurgitation, and/or disfigurement of previously presented material. His conclusions reveal not a scintilla of deep political insight.
Other than simplemindedness, there is no innocent explanation for Nelson's witting use of the term "mastermind" to describe LBJ's role in the JFK assassination. He's either an idiot or an enemy agent. And no one -- not Jim Fetzer or any other alleged JFK assassination "authority" -- can defend said usage other than by the application of cheap rhetorical tricks, ad hominems, and/or logical fallacies. More on the latter in a moment.
But Nelson's worst offense -- by far -- is the manner in which, wittingly or otherwise, he aids and abets the cover-up of the truth in the JFK assassination by reinforcing the position of LBJ as a Sponsor of the crime.
The creation of False Sponsors -- as opposed to the proper identification of true Facilitators, a category into which LBJ surely falls -- remains one of the most effective, difficult to counter tactics in the overall cover-up strategy. An individual of Jim Fetzer's qualifications and accomplishments should be expected to A) understand this long-established truth, and B) fight tooth and nail against the agent provocateurs who engage in the False Sponsor gambit.
Yet Jim Fetzer embraces Nelson's depraved fantasies as holy writ. And again, we are forced to make a choice between equally distressing explanations of this behavior.
The best Jim Fetzer can do in defense of the indefensible Nelson is to make arguments from authority. It saddens me beyond measure to note that, because of the myriad frailties he exhibits throughout this sordid Nelson affair, it is now clear that Jim Fetzer's authority has been consumed by the fires of his own ego and enfeeblement.
Phillip Nelson adds his intellectual pop-gun to the weaponry being employed in the post mortem assassination of JFK. Jim Fetzer stands by his side, delivering escape-and-evade services.
It is hardly surprising that Seamus Coogan would climb on this bandwagon. Here are samples of his "research" in case any of you may have missed them. None of this has anything to do with ego, Charles, unless you are projecting again. It has to do with logic and evidence, which are much in evidence on this thread, alas. I really think you ought to give this more thought.
(1) Coogan faults him for reporting 6 or 7 wounds
That there be no doubt of what Coogan is claiming, I will cite the specific passages vertatim:
18:43 Hankey tries to sell the idea that, in all, there were 6 wounds in Kennedy and Connally. Yet you may recall that at the time of 14:23 Hankey had already utilised the iconic courtroom clip from "JFK" in which Garrison (Kevin Costner) utilises Alven Oser (Gary Grubbs) and Numa Bertel (Wayne Knight) to demonstrate the trajectory of the 7 wounds in both Kennedy and Connally. Hankey somehow missed the fact that, most of the time, entrance wounds leave exits.
But JFK had an entry wound to his throat (#1), an entry wound to his back 5.5″ below his collar just to the right of the spinal column (#2), an entry at the back of his head in the vicinity of the external occipital protuberance (#3), and another entry in the vicinity of his right temple (#4), while Gov. John Connally was hit at least once in the back (#5) and perhaps as many as twice more, once in the right wrist (#6) and once in his left thigh (#7). While there is room to argue that (#7) may have resulted from (#6), even then there are 6 or 7 hitsplus we know that 3 other shots missed! The evidence can be found in Assassination Science (1998), Murder in Dealey Plaza (2000), and The Great Zapruder Film Hoax (2003), but more effortlessly in "Dealey Plaza Revisited: What happened to JFK?", for example, which is easily accessible on-line.
For Coogan to imply that Hankey is wrong strikes me as a rather important blunder. These shots were fired from in front, from the side, and from behind.
Lansdale walking past "the three tramps"
(2) Coogan assumes that the Zapruder film is authentic
In another passage, Coogan takes for granted that the Zapruder film is authentic as a resource:
You may be asking: "So what if Connally had used the incorrect term, and anyhow Hankey did eventually admit Kennedy slumped." Well actually it's quite an issue. Because Hankey uses the slump to launch into a diatribe about Connally seeing Kennedy 'choking on a bullet and being shot in the head' when there is no evidence for this on the Zapruder film. As adjudged by the Z film, everybody in the world except Hankey can clearly determine that Connally only gives Kennedy a brief glance. And he is clearly turning back around at the time of the fatal headshot.
But the proofs that the film has been reconstructed to remove the limo stop and conceal the blow-out to the back of JFK's head is abundant and compelling. I organized the first symposium on Zapruder film alteration at the Lancer Conference in Dallas in 1996 and have published a book and many articles about it, including "JFK: Who's telling the truth: Clint Hill or the Zapruder film?" and "US Government Official: JFK Cover-Up, Film Fabrication" on Veterans Today. The Zapruder camera used a 16mm strip of celluloid by shooting the "A" side and then flipping over to shoot the "B" side.
To be projected in an 8mm projector, it had to be split and spliced together. But an 8mm split film developed in Dallas was brought to NPIC in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, 23 November, while a 16mm unsplit film developed in Rochester was brought there the following day. There are five physical differences between the original and the extant version.
As though that were not enough, Clint Hill has been describing his actions that day the same way for 47 years, including rushing forward, climbing on the limo, pushing Jackie down and lying across their bodies while peering down into a massive, fist-sized hole in the back of JFK's head, then turning to his colleagues and giving them a "thumb's down" before the vehicle reaches the Triple Underpassyet none of this is in the extant film. Anyone who compares frame 374, in which that blow-out can be seen, with frames following 313 can determine for themselves that it has been blackened out in earlier frames.
And Connally also reported in his early testimony that he looked over his right shoulder to see what was going on, but then turned back to his left to get a better view when he felt a doubling-up in his chest from a shot fired from the side. Which means that Connally's own testimony provides another proof of Zapruder fakery. Those who write without understanding this much about these things appear to be either incompetent or dissembling.
(3) Coogan denies the body was secretly removed from the plane
The occurrence of body alteration has been established by the meticulous research of David S. Lifton, Best Evidence (1980), which has now been corroboratedin spades!by the ARRB, as Douglas Horne, who served as its Chief Analyst for Military Records, has demonstrated in his five-volume study, Inside the ARRB (2009). That, however, does not inhibit Coogan from taking Hankey to task over the prospect that JFK's body was secretly removed from Air Force One while the official, ceremonial bronze casket was being off-loaded under the glare of the bright lights of the national new media. He is thus moved to make observations such as the following:
Lansdale waiting to speak with Bush
I have to wonder how many people have ever watched the arrival of Kennedy's coffin? It's virtually impossible for anything to have gone on. Now while the runway suddenly goes black and there is mention of a power cut as the plane comes in, the plane is still very much in motion when the lights are restored making it pretty hard to disembark a ton worth of casket. What most authorities believe today is that there was post-autopsy fakery in the x-rays, and perhaps the photos. And clearly, some of the photos are missing. (See for example, Gary Aguilar's excellent essay in Murder In Dealey Plaza, pgs. 175-218)
But the throat wound, which was described as a small, round wound of entry by Malcolm Perry, M.D., three times during the Parkland Press Conference at Parkland Hospital, which I published as Appendix C in Assassination Science (1998) but was not provided to the Warren Commission, is very different than the large, ragged wound photographed during the autopsy at Bethesda Naval Hospital, as I display in The Great Zapruder Film Hoax (2003), page 14 (but also in my public presentations).
Perhaps the most stunning indication of the incompetence of Coogan, however, is his favorable citation of the chapter by Gary Aguilar in Murder in Dealey Plaza (2000). Aguilar's study is devoted to demonstrating consistency between the observations of the massive blow-out at the back of the head as it was observed at Parkland and the descriptions of the wound as they were reported from Bethesda. We know from Horne's work that Aguilar has exaggerated their consistency, since James Humes, USN-MC, who was in charge of the autopsy, actually took a cranial saw to the head to enlarge the wound.
More importantly, however, is that, if Aguilar were right, then the film has to have been altered, since the blow-out he documents is not visible in most of the film. As I have explained to others who have wanted to endorse Aguilar's work while denying that the film has been altered, you can't consistently do both. If Aguilar is right, then the film is fake; and if the film is authentic, then Aguilar is wrong.
There are other blunders in Coogan's critique, including his taking at face value Richard Nixon's contentions that he only learned of the assassination when he arrived in New Yorkof which he gave several versions, one of which was that "Nixon says he heard a screaming woman, stopped the cab, and wound down the window". But if the window was up, how could Nixon have heard the woman scream? And surely screaming is not so uncommon in New York that it would have attracted the attention of this very self-centered and devious man. Like Bush and LBJ, Nixon was also complicit in the assassination of JFK.
I am not saying that Seamus Coogan got everything wrong or that John Hankey got everything right. But I do believe that the role of George Herbert Walker Bush in the assassination of JFK is a subject that deserves a great deal more attention than it has received in the past and which, I must infer, it most certainly is not going to receive from Jim DiEugenio and Seamus Coogan. And this, in turn, makes me think that, when CTKA was being formed, my decision not to join was wiser than I could have known at the time.
I am increasingly disturbed by the role it has taken in suppressing what we know about the medical evidence, including the alteration of the body, and the Zapruder film, which has been massively revised. If those who run CTKA can't get even the most basic of our important scientific findings about the assassination right, then it is hardly surprising that they are going to trash those who are doing decidedly better than they are at pursuing the truth about JFK.
Seamus Coogan Wrote:
Charles Drago Wrote:The best Jim Fetzer can do in defense of the indefensible Nelson is to make arguments from authority. It saddens me beyond measure to note that, because of the myriad frailties he exhibits throughout this sordid Nelson affair, it is now clear that Jim Fetzer's authority has been consumed by the fires of his own ego and enfeeblement.
Phillip Nelson adds his intellectual pop-gun to the weaponry being employed in the post mortem assassination of JFK. Jim Fetzer stands by his side, delivering escape-and-evade services.
Another shooting team has been identified.
He's hanging out with Hankey now as you can see. Not to worry chum I have a reply to that one in the pipes. But surely Nelson and Hankey? I wonder if we'll get the line Jim Douglas's book supports his work as well.