"A Terrible Mistake" by H. P. Albarelli, Jr. - JFK Assassination

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

(I really appreciate the James Lee Burke quotes. He's one of America's finest novelists.)

Burke could not have described Lee Harvey Oswald with more precision and poetry if he had set out to do so.

As for Morales: His pathologies intrigue me. As do the rest of his psychic drive®s. The fictive construct that was, in the main, Gerald Patrick Hemming seems modeled on DSM. And I mean quite literally modeled.

I can think of no more novelistic or otherwise intriguing and potentially revelatory figure within our area of study -- with the possible exception of the aforementioned Mr. (Messrs.?) Oswald. In so many ways they are presented in profound counter-balance.

I agree -- completely. I spoke with and interviewed Jerry Hemming a number of times before his death. I even went up to North Carolina to see him once when he was pretty ill. Men like Hemming, and Morales, are cut from different cloth than most folks are. Oswald also, but perhaps in different sorts of ways. Hemming and Morales were grounded in their extreme form of belief and country and anti-Communism, but Oswald, to me, seemed ungrounded and a bit lost at times, or put another way, a patsy.

Hank,

On a soon-to-be-originated thread I'll go into some detail about my personal experiences with Hemming.

For now -- and with all deference to his certifiable history as a deep political player -- I submit that there is as much substantive difference between GPH and DSM as there is between either of them and LHO.

Hemming to me in the main was -- I'll use the term again -- a fictive construct. If you prefer, he was a character created to confuse and otherwise misdirect. The disconnect between, on one hand, his threatening physical presence and overt homicidal curriculum vitae, and on the other his erudition and refined storytelling skills leads me to conclude that his ultimate mission was to deflect our attention from the likes of Morales (and perhaps even "Buffalo").

Oswald was indeed a patsy -- and something less, and something more.

I'm prepared to argue that in the fullness of time we will appreciate the historic LHO as -- for lack of a better term -- a more highly evolved Frank Olson.

But a quick posting on an Internet site -- even one as sublimely advanced as the DPF (!) -- cannot do justice to the portrait I wish to paint.

So ... Hemming and Morales v. Oswald ...

Cut from different cloth?

I'd place Morales and Oswald at extreme ends of the same human fabric, and Hemming between them, if not precisely in the middle.

Put another way: In terms of the Morales/Oswald-symbolized conflict, Hemming is a bit player.

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Hemming to me in the main was -- I'll use the term again -- a fictive construct. If you prefer, he was a character created to confuse and otherwise misdirect. The disconnect between, on one hand, his threatening physical presence and overt homicidal curriculum vitae, and on the other his erudition and refined storytelling skills leads me to conclude that his ultimate mission was to deflect our attention from the likes of Morales (and perhaps even "Buffalo").

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Charles good point. He sure had a way with words, but it was too romantic and in character all the time. Almost designed to appeal as the "Other" to people who spend a lot of time on the internet. Was he the first Renaissance Assassin or somebody paid by the word?