Discrediting Secret Service complicity in the elimination of JFK…

[Charles Drago]

You're very welcome.

Keep on keepin' on.

[Peter Lemkin]

Yes, CD got my point, but I think you failed to get it. While the executions were public the real shooters, the real means, the real magic tricks were done with deception and misdirection.

Ok, Pete, let's take that final sentence and interrogate it.

What does it mean? What are these "real magic tricks...done with deception and misdirection"? Isn't that just a rather fancy way of saying there was some elementary misdirection ie distractions shots? Supplemented, say, by some planted witnesses and some fake films? Is there not a real danger in using terminology which renders this an occult event, beyond the powers of mere human comprehension and description? We are, after all, dealing with the actions of men, not demons.

Almost everyone in DP was looking at JFKs limo.

Not according to the Z-fake...

RFK was shot in the kitchen where it was crowded and confused and few had their attention on him.

Isn't that a bit of a cheat? Everyone looks at the target when it suits, but doesn't when it doesn't? And isn't it true that things only became "confused" when the shooting began?

While it is not impossible to imagine a scenario of the driver doing it, I find NO evidence this happened and it being the most dangerous of possible plans.

Ok, let's have a look at that last sentence: Why is it most dangerous of possible plans? An assassin who controls the speed of his intended victim, as a driver-assassin does, is no small advantage. Shooting from within the car avoids a number of major potential pitfalls, from interposed pedestrians and motorcylists, to detection by accident. It also fixes the range of shot, and confines the target's movements. These are huge, practical advantages over any external shooter hypothesis.

By the way there is a book that posits a shot from the trunk, with the assassin in it....but both are IMO diversions from the real tricks that day.

I remember it, and bloody awful rubbish it was, too.

Paul

This is really a bee in your bonnet, isn't it. You don't think it is a bit too potentially dangerous [that others not in the know might see and tell] if the driver turns-around and summarily shoots JFK in the head? Where are the reports of such from any witnesses - some within inches of such an event? The only 'film' that shows anything of the kind is a much later doctored version of a previously doctored film...sort of wheels within wheels in order to, IMO, discredit researchers generally and film alternation, specifically. There were, the best I think the consensus can currently be set at, several shots from several different places - some missing - some hitting, but not from the driver [who may well have been complicit for his actions slowing down, and other events before and after. I still see no evidence that to me is credible - even if one can invent such a scenario. One could as well with Connelly or even Jackie as the assassin - or even the Babuska Lady. Let's stick with the evidence and the majority of eye and ear witnesses. The above, possible to imagine, but all with no supporting evidence and less tactical logic, IMO, all seem to fall into the 'assassin in the trunk [boot]' genre. Sorry. Precious few researchers buy this 'one', but if it is your reason d'etre....may you find some company on that lonely quest. It won't be me.

[Dawn Meredith]

I really hope that Paul moves on to something more constructive. It was really beginning to appear that the guy has too much time on his hands, or worse. I mean how many times or ways can you belabor the same point?
I was starting to feel that I was back at EF and dealing with Tim Gratz.
As for you CD, you should write a damn book. Or at least a paper and give a talk at COPA this year...
Or perhaps a film script..Hmmmmm

Dawn

I hope other areas of the assassination develop as much traffic as has this thread. My sole complaint about DPF is that there is too much posting of LONG articles and too little comment and interaction between members.
Otherwise we freaking rock!

[David Guyatt]

What I most like about the DPF is the tolerance we show to others with whom we might disagree. It's one of the main planks of the civilized and intelligent behaviour that we were founded to cater for.

Sure, we might be at a far remove from other posters perspectives but they are, of course, entitled to express their views here - even though they can understandably expect a rigorous examination on controversial ideas.

Paul has posted so much interesting and insightful material over the past - here and elsewhere - on a variety of subjects that he's always a must read in my book, and I look forward to more from him soon.

[Ed Jewett]

"Comment and interaction between members" with an expected "rigorous examination" is why I am here.

I don't "have a horse" :ridinghorse:in re: the issue in question, and I haven't been here long enough to know you folks in depth.

In other discussion forums, I've posted guidelines to the identification of misinformation, disinformation and fallacious argument, have objected to it when it masquerades as 'rigorous examination', and have also identified 'agents' at work. [As Yogi Berra once said, 'you can see a lot by just observing'. Time, back-checking, cross-checking, verification and research go a long way too.]

I consider DPF as comprised of a lot of folks more learned than I, with more experience, more knowledge, deeper file drawers and deeper connectedness to others with the same.

My own background includes meeting and symposia management, and I've already noted to Magda that I'd like to have you all over for dinner. A leisurely seven-course meal with aperitif and after-dinner cognac with you guys would be a symposium in itself.]

But since we are flung all over the far edges of the globe, dinner is likely to have to wait, as is a symposium -- unless someone finds funding or the keys to the teleportation machine.

But there are always online meetings or asynchronous discussion boards.

And here we are ..

working with words, links, rhetoric and logic -- and hopefully collegiality, tolerance, shared intent and passion.

The same battles occur on other boards too.

"It's been my experience that groups are more or less dysfunctional depending on the presence or absence of certain preconditions. The work of Dave Snowden and John Kotter supports this. These necessary preconditions for functional groups include:

1. a shared purpose;
2. a shared sense of urgency;
3. the presence among at least some in the group of each of 12 core capacities (I describe these in my book "Finding the Sweet Spot"): excellent instincts, critical thinking, imagination, creativity, attention, communication, demonstration, learning, collaboration and self-management skills, and a strong sense of responsibility and of intention;
4. sufficient information about the subject to have a context for learning and understanding (this is described in James Surowiecki's book "The Wisdom of Crowds"); and
5. a shared passion.

http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2009/07/07.html#a2404

[Jan Klimkowski]

David G, Ed - excellent posts.

Paul and I don't always agree, but I respect Paul as a thoughtful and intelligent researcher.

Equally, I understand and respect the comments of those who regard the Greer-did-it hypothesis as wrong.

It is unlikely that there will be a meeting of minds on this matter. However, the debate and the discussion was, imo, worthwhile.

Was it passionate? Yes.

Was it productive? Yes.

Was it absent the kind of deliberate disinformation, provocation and time wasting many of us have seen on other forums? Yes.

Charles, Dawn and Peter have specific matters on which they disagree with Paul's interpretation or attitude towards, say, Jim DiEugenio.

I am all for allowing all parties to continue to explore those differences, or to let sleeping dogs lie, now that those matters have seen the light of day.

Ed wrote:

"Comment and interaction between members" with an expected "rigorous examination" is why I am here.

Which absolutely works for me.

[Charles Drago]

And me.

[Helen Reyes]

the thread began with bill cooper not being the author of the greer-did-it theory.

the first thing i ever read by cooper was him saying everything he had written about UFOs was wrong and there was a massive dinsinfo campaign going on. as i recall, he acquired his special copy of Z from a man in the UFO movement who was later basically outed as a CIA agent/infiltrator. cooper took his vhs copy on the road playing auditoria and got quite upset when viewers didnt think his film proved the theory.

it seems to me there would have been multiple versions of Z for different audiences manufactured in 63/64.

ss obviously did stand down and totally ignored their own practices in advance sweeps, in not closing windows, in allowing last minute changes to the parade route and in allowing it to go forward after the route was published in dallas papers. further, local military intelligence was not used, neither for security nor for background checks on potential local threats. fletcher prouty talked about all this back in his guns of dallas.

it's not far-fetched to consider the ss actually pulled the trigger for the kill-shot.

to me the question has always been, who changed the route, who stood the ss down, who told the local military commander intelligence wouldn't be needed?

the sources for the orders have been called "white house staff" or "the white house." to me, that means lyndon johnson took care of setting the stage.

what is jackie doing crawling on the trunk of the continental? presumably this was after the pit stop was edited out of the Z. it's the only part of the film that looks untampered with, you can see her arm reflected in the dark chasis and the movements seem real. she says she doesn't remember. years ago the story was she had gone crazy and thought she could replace a piece of jfk's skull. her testimony later was that she hadn't seen jfk's head explode, so she wouldn't be looking for body parts. the ss agent gets her back in the backseat but doesnt make her keep her head down as they speed into the underpass past what appears to be a white private automobile, although the entire street was closed to traffic.

don't believe what you see, and only half of what you read, i guess.

[Myra Bronstein]

...
ss obviously did stand down and totally ignored their own practices in advance sweeps, in not closing windows, in allowing last minute changes to the parade route and in allowing it to go forward after the route was published in dallas papers. further, local military intelligence was not used, neither for security nor for background checks on potential local threats. fletcher prouty talked about all this back in his guns of dallas.
...
to me the question has always been, who changed the route, who stood the ss down, who told the local military commander intelligence wouldn't be needed?
...

And who took the SS guys to the Cellar to get them drunk and sleep deprived the night/morning before. I get the impression that this is not the only time the SS was drunk and disorderly when they should have been resting up to guard President Kennedy. Still, the Cellar episode just feels like part of the setup.

And why exactly did the SS hate JFK? I keep reading that they did but why? Just because they were (are?) a bunch of rednecks and JFK was becoming a civil rights president? Because he integrated the SS? Because some, like Emory Roberts, thought their careers would go better with LBJ at the helm? Was it ambition combined with hate?

I accept as a fact that the SS stood down and worse. But I don't understand why.

[Charles Drago]

Henry Rybka was a Secret Service agent assiged to JFK's Dallas detail. Given what we can see of his actions on 11/22/63, is anyone prepared to suggest that he was complicit in the president's murder?

My point is that we play into the killers' hand when we present blanket indictments of agencies.

The CIA didn't "do it" any more than the Secret Service "did it." Ditto "the Mob," "big business," "big oil," etc.

Individuals who were affiliated with those and other governmental agencies and business and criminal enterprises were indeed complicit in the crime. But we are obliged to be precise with our analyses and the words we choose to communicate conclusions drawn from them.