Who do you think your kidding Mr Fetzer?
(Sung to the theme of the BBC classic 'Dad's Army')
The big problem with Jim Fetzer's piece, (besides his illogical and deceitful criticisms) is that people unfamiliar with the JFK assassination don't realise that Fetzer is the resident 'heretic' of the research community. Not only that he has also been ousted from the 9/11 Truth Movement. I have to say that his outlandish views in no way speak for the share majority of people in both camps.
This of course doesn't sit well with the good professor. Mr Fetzer has a Caesar complex of massive proportions.
Thus it is to Jim DiEugenio's, Lisa Pease and CTKA's utmost relief, that Fetzer never joined the organisation. Jim and Lisa had no idea of the mans proclivity for attention seeking stunts. Nor did individuals like John Judge and Debra Conway. This is very significant, Judge and Conway run the two largest JFK conference organisations it's well known neither group see's eye to eye.
Yet both have banned JF from speaking at their conferences. Now here is the funny part. Mr Fetzer wrote this to a one Bill Miller on the Education Forum in June of this year.
"Why are you fixated on Lancer and COPA? If I wanted to speak there, I am sure it could be arranged. Since I haven't had the inclination, the question has not arisen."
This is utterly delusional. Fetzer has not spoken at either a COPA or Lancer event in over ten years. It is not a matter of inclination. It's a matter of being struck off the guest list.
What a Load of CITKA
Mr Fetzer has cleaned up his original piece from Veterans Today which contains a major error.
Unfortunately for Mr Fetzer's cover up, he failed to realise that a number of people copied his original article as can be seen below.
http://www.pakalertpress.com/2011/11/23/...on-of-jfk/
I find it bizarre that JF also spelt CTKA 'CITKA' continually in his article. Real winner we have here!
It appears that Mr Fetzer cannot even spell the initials of the organisation he is trying to attack. This sort of faux pas is deeply embarrassing.
Mr Fetzer also assumes much about CTKA in his critique. Possibly I am also to blame here. I have been rather 'clipped' in some observations in the past concerning aspects of Mr Fetzer's passions before. I personally find the work of Jack White, Dave Mantik, Paul Costella and Doug Horne concerning the Z film really interesting. Do I buy their ideas well no I'm much to conservative lol. But it's certainly not something I would totally mock. I also agree with JF the throat wound stuff is fascinating. But as his inept misquotations of myself will show, he quite clearly proves he never reads the articles on the site in full.
Thus the problems I really have with Fetzer here aren't really his opinions. We all now he and I will disagree. As said it is contextual.
Jim Fetzer: Photo Analyist
I have no real opinion on the Lansdale photo. I am prepared to go with it myself with some trepidation lol. What it means in the scheme of things I don't know. The Bush identity on the other hand and Bush meeting Lansdale in the open at Dealey Plaza is something JF and I will clearly disagree on. I think it insane. As quite clearly most forum members will. As for Hankey's new revelations. Well he's clearly refined what he has said over time, yet Hankey's argument is essentially old hat stuff. I see no real need to go over it. Bar one thing, at the very least Hankey unlike JF shows more caution than him on the issue of Bush being in Dealey Plaza.
Jim and Dirty Dick
This is a little appetizer. It appears my take on Nixon in Hankeys film clearly upset JF enough for him to badly misquote myself. He writes.
"There are other blunders in Coogan's critique, including his taking at face value Richard Nixons 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."
What's peculiar, is that Dr Fetzer seems to be using my own wording and my own arguments against Hankey here.
"Now Mr Nixon may well have made some diverse calls about when or where he heard word of Kennedy's death that day. Two of his stories involve a taxi cab. One in an August 1964, Readers Digest article in which Nixon says he remembers hearing word of the assassination while stepping out of the airport and into a waiting cab. The other was from Esquire magazine circa November 1973, in which Nixon says he heard a screaming woman, stopped the cab, and wound down the window. So what is he really guilty of? Well he seems to have embellished his story, and made it slightly more dramatic with the retelling. But that's really the sum of it. Furthermore the stark reality is that Nixon was in the air at the time of the shooting. He heard the word either on the plane or as he got off it. He sat down, and was photographed. Thus Nixon was not on the ground in Dallas, as is implied by Hankey, who throughout JFK 2 depicts Nixon with that ridiculous rifle in hand."
I think that any right minded person reading this would note I have not taken Nixon at face value. But let us now take a look now at my big three mistakes.
1) To Doubt Hankeys Editing Skill is to Doubt Conspiracy
Apparently, I am wrong here. I know not what for. Well in all honesty I do know (as you can see from the title) but I cannot bare to think why Mr Fetzer has gone so far. Nor once again do I suspect would any reasonable person who actually read mine Jims and Frank's articles/letters on Hankey. JF quotes my following statement from The Dark Legacy of John Hankey to somehow stop my-self from skipping on an issue I never avoided in the first place.
"8:43" 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.
JF then goes on to quote the number of wounds from a number of his publications. The problem here is resoundingly clear. Fetzer has only read the first paragraph. Three others follow it. None of which, are in contention with multiple shooters or multiple directions. A scenario of which, Fetzer wants the world to believe I do.
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.
By only using (get this folks) the first paragraph of four, JF takes it all grossly out of context. The 'blunder' is sadly his. What these other paragraphs discuss are the following.
A) Hankey by using Stones courtroom scene, then making up another number of shots clearly used contradictory information in his documentary. Would Fetzer himself make such a basic error?
B) Hankey, unbeknown to Fetzer has long glorified the likes of Tom Wicker, a person whom Fetzer no doubt also dislikes. Wickers report helped form one of the cornerstones of the Warren Commissions conclusions concerning Connally's shot.<br>
C) Further, in the cramped confines of the car, there may well have been a double up with the bullets. Fetzer in his treatise writes as if he agrees with me on either the 6th or 7th shot.
JF is clearly implying that by my questioning Hankey's faulty production methods in his horrifically cheap horror of a film, I renounce my belief in Kennedy being assailed by multiple shooters.
2) Coogan Assumes the Zapruder Film is Authentic
What the Professor scolds me for this time is my believing the Zapruder film is authentic. This is beside the fact that I never made a single comment about its authenticity (or not) in my piece on Hankey. At the time, Hankey made JFK II and Dark Legacy, it appears that he did not either. Hence singling me out is being slightly over selective. Fetzer, as before never bothers to mention too his readers that he himself altered the purpose of the below quote from paragraph 5 of Conspirator Connally: Caught In a Slump.
The cruel irony to all this, is that this was actually part of a subsection of my essay that I utilized in the context of Hankey himself altering footage changing Connallys comments to fit his own agenda.
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.
This is the following paragraph.
According to, Connally was placed in the limousine by the conspirators so he could lie about the direction of the shots and what went on in the car. Between 27:15 and 28:52 Hankey utilizes two of Connally's most known press conferences after the assassination: the aforementioned one on the 27th of November 1963 at Parkland Hospital, and the one he gave in 1964 after his testimony to the Warren Commission. This is to show that Connally had changed his story to fit the official version.
We don't know why Connally never mentioned seeing Kennedy forward in his second press conference. But Connally was adamant that he was not hit by the same bullet that hit Kennedy in the throat. This is made clear in both interviews. This testimony created all kinds of problems for the Commission. whom recall had earlier berated Peter Jennings for editing out bits of information contrary to his own angled story, now fades out Connally's statements made at the Washington press conference and also Connally's earlier interview at Parkland when he admitted yelling "My god! They're gonna kill us all" and mentions Jackie crying "They've murdered my husband they've murdered my husband." (Ibid, Argonsky)
Fetzer in his zeal to prove myself a rabid anti alterationist, clouded the real issue' that being Hankey, was...........
A) Lying about Connally actually seeing Kennedy choking.
B) The real question surrounding any form of alteration is Hankey's alone to answer.
C) As said before, why did Hankey feel the need to alter Connally's testimony? Why would JF want to associate with someone as dishonest as that? Mind you he still believes he will get invited back to Lancer and he hangs out with Nico Haupt. If I was John Hankey I would get the hell out of dodge.
3) The Coffin Caper.
Fetzers final point is perhaps his most interesting and he covers a lot of ground. Ground of which I am not totally averse to by any stretch. There was some hanky panky with the head and the brain. Not only that, like Mr Fetzer I also find the throat wound debate fascinating. The big problem is that as I said earlier, JF and I will never see eye to eye on the body alteration in the airplane idea. There's little sense in us boring the readers or the members of this forum with this debate.<br>
The problem I have with Mr Fetzer is again contextual. I wonder what version of JFK II he has seen. He writes
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:
Fetzer goes on to quote myself from the following statement.
"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)"
As said Mr Aguilar would strongly disagree with Mr Fetzer. But that's not the point here either. What is of concern to myself is that the comment I made below was preceeded by (and get this) some 9 paragraphs. Also what Mr Fetzer doesn't get, is had he seen JFK II Hankey clearly discusses the body being stolen while Bobby Kennedy and Jackie looked on at Washington.
This is a scenario that even Mr Fetzer would disagree with. Thus like you all I have to wonder what all the fuss is about, further that if indeed JF has actually bothered to watch Hankey's travesty.
"But Hankey seems to back Kennedy's body being secretly smuggled off of Air Force One for some posthumous surgery (a central tenet of body alteration scripture). But the long suppressed testimony of Richard Lipsey suggested that a decoy plan involving two ambulances was used to throw the media off of the scent. (Deborah Conway: Transcription of HSCA Interview with Richard Lipsey 1-18-78) The full transcript itself makes for some interesting reading."
In hindsight maybe I should have made my opinions a little more pointed. Giving a full and clear description of what Hankey had said.
Mr Fetzer likely won't tell you the reader, that I also give a brief rationale behind the Decoy amublances to and from Bethesda. Something I think is quite fascinating. Air Force One transcripts mention bringing a crane to the opposite side from where Jackie Kennedy and entourage disembarked. Now, decoys are understandable considering the incredible press generated by the public nature of the crime. As for the cranes, well as we know the Air Force One transcripts and recordings are notoriously incomplete and as one can clearly see from the grim footage of Air Force One's arrival in Washington it appears that only one crane was used.
So while I find Mr Fetzers critiques, understandable considering his positons on various issues. I am still scratching my head on precisely why he needed to bring me into all this and also why he felt a need to take my comments out of context. In so doing covering up for the errors Hankey made, not only that the lies he blatantly spun. As of yet Mr Fetzer has not shown up to discuss these points I have made. Sadly, I do not expect him to explain why he for all purposes lied about the contents of my original article. It's very hard to front up with anything less than an explanation or an apology. However, unlike myself when I make mistakes apologies of any sort are very much beneath our dear Mr Fetzer.
"In the Kennedy assassination we must be careful of running off into the ether of our own imaginations." Carl Ogelsby circa 1992
