04-05-2010, 09:44 PM
Jack,
Here is my post about DiEugenio's review of the first volume of INSIDE THE ARRB (2007). You can
find it on page 9 at the bottom, where perhaps by now it is even at the top of page 10. I take it you
have not read the book. If you had, you would not be making some of the silly remarks you make here.
I was, of course, talking about Horne's book rather than the official stance of the ARRB, which is that it
was not conducing an investigation of the assassination but only releasing JFK documents and records.
Those documents and records have proven to be extremely revealing and substantiate the core views
advanced by David Lifton in BEST EVIDENCE. I certainly hope that you will find time to actually read it.
My suggestion is that you pull back your horns and accept that there is more in heaven and earth than
is dreamt of in your philosophy, which includes the existence of Judyth Vary Baker as "the real deal".
Jim
P.S. Pat Speer pointed out to me that Armstrong had the date of the formation of the commission wrong
in the following post. I was so intent on copying it that it had slipped by me. He is, of course, correct.
Inside the ARRB, Vol. I, by Doug Horne
CITKA review by Jim DiEugenio
Apr 10 2010, 03:40 AM
Some participants on the post about Costella's review of Horne berated me for posing this on that
thread. So I am creating a separate thread to make the points I would like to make here instead.
Michael,
You make some nice points, where not only has Costella missed the boat completely but DiEugenio
in a different way. It seems to me that Jim is very good on the trees, not so good on the forest. I
offer this early paragraph as an illustration of what I mean, where he, too, has something wrong:
All the above introductory material is necessary to understand my decidedly mixed feelings about
Inside the ARRB. There seem to me a lot of good things in Horne's very long work. And I will discuss
them both here and later. But where the author gets into trouble is when he tries to fit the interesting
facts and testimony he discusses into an overarching theory. Because as we will see, although Horne
has revised Best Evidence, he still sticks to the concept of pre-autopsy surgery, and extensive criminal
conduct by the pathologists. And as Lifton clearly suggested in his book, Horne will also argue that the
Zapruder film was both edited and optically printed. (Lifton pgs. 555-557)
Unless DiEugenio is writing his reviews as he goes and does not realize what unexpected findings await
him, the fact of the matter is THERE WAS PRE-AUTOPSY SURGERY and EXTENSIVE CRIMINAL CONDUCT
BY THE PATHOLOGISTS, including lying to the HSCA and to the ARRB. And, of course, as he demonstrates
quite decisively, the arguments against film alteration advanced by ROLLIE ZAVADA, by DAVID WRONE,
and by JOSIAH THOMPSON have been thoroughly demolished in the course of Doug's extensive studies.
Egad! Somewhere DiEugenio expresses his preference for the physical evidence over the medical and
photographic, as though he did not understand that ALL OF IT has been planted, fabricated, or faked.
NOTE: DiEugenio should read the first few pages of HARVEY & LEE, in which John Armstrong observes:
Chief Curry turned the physical evidence over to the FBI and it was immediately taken to FBI Headquarters
in Washington, D.C. FBI Agent James Cadigan told the Warren Commission about receiving the evidence
(Oswald's personal possessions) on November 23rd, the day after the assassination. But when Cadigan's
testimony was published in the Warren volumes, references to November 23 had been deleted. Neither
the FBI nor the Warren Commission wanted the public to know that Oswald's personal possessions (phys-
ical evidence) had been secretly taken to Washington, DC, and quietly returned to the Dallas police.
During the three days that Oswald's possessions were in FBI custody many items were altered, fabricated,
and destroyed. The "evidence" was then returned to the Dallas Police on November 26th, and used by the
FBI and Warren Commission to help convince the American people that Oswald was the lone assassin.
As the physical evidence was undergoing alteration FBI officials prepared a 5-volume report, completed
within 48 hours of the assassination, that named Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone assassin. This report
was released several days before the FBI took over the investigation, before they "officially" received the
"evidence" from the Dallas poice, before they interviewed the vast majority of witnesses, two weeks before
the Warren Commission was formed, and many months before their investigation was complete.
. . .
On November 26 the FBI secretly returned the physical evidence (Oswald's possessions) to the Dallas Police
where it was "officially" inventoried and photographed. When the Dallas Police received t he evidence they
were unaware that many of the items had ben altered, fabricated, and/or destroyed. President Johnson soon
announced the FBI was in charge of the investigation and, a short time later, Bureau agents arrived at Dallas
Police headquarters.
As television cameras recorded the historic event FBI agents collected the evidence, loaded it into a car, and
drove away. The public was unaware that the FBI had secretly returned the same "evidence" to the Dallas
Police earlier that morning.
Here is another--and closely related--defect in DiEugenio's understanding. He spends a lot of time with
denigrating BEST EVIDENCE, which is surely one of the most brilliant and insightful studies published in
the history of the case. Lifton was first to suspect body alteration of the cranium and also alteration by
changing the throat wound, along with the falsification of the X-rays and the substitution of another brain
for that of JFK--not to mention the substitution of another film Sunday night after bringing the original to
the NPIC the night before--but DiEugenio does not seem to understand that is how all of this was done.
The multiple casket entries, which Lifton originally discerned, has also been borne out by Horne's research:
In spite of all the above, Horne still genuflects to Best Evidence. To the point that he essentially admits
that the main reason he joined the ARRB was to prove or disprove Lifton's thesis. (p. lxviii) Sealing and
qualifying this emotional bond is the following statement: "David Lifton's work has been a great inspiration
to me over the years, and he and I eventually became very close personal friends, as well as fellow travelers
on the same intellectual journey." (p. lxix) In light of the warm feelings betrayed in that statement, it is hard
to believe that Horne expended a lot of time on disproving Lifton's thesis. In fact, I feel comfortable in writing
that if Horne had never read Best Evidence, he would never have written his series or joined the ARRB.
Given what Horne has discovered, I cannot imagine what motivates DiEugenio to shortchange Lifton.
I think that the only one who finds anything "extreme" here are those unfamiliar with the evidence,
which I had not expected to included the author of this review. If he doesn't know better, something
is terribly wrong, but it has nothing to do with Horne's research and everything to do with DiEugenio's
apparently partial state of knowledge. And you don't have to have read THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM
HOAX to understand these things. The review I [have now published--below] should actually suffice.
NOTE: US Govenment Official: JFK Cover-Up, Film Fabrication
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/...5772.shtml
Jim
[quote name='Michael Hogan' post='189057' date='Apr 7 2010, 03:27 AM'][quote name='Pat Speer' post='189044' date='Apr 6 2010, 06:54 PM']
While I am not a fan of Horne's book, I would agree that Costella's review read more like a rant, a rant I can relate to, by the way.[/quote]
Not an unexpected response. One can conclude that "not a fan" might be an understatement. The urge to rant is strong when one feels that they, their work, their intelligence, or their opinions are in some way, shape or form being challenged, questioned, diminished, etc. Pat Speer has spent a considerable amount of time and effort in researching the medical (and other) evidence.
Horne's five volumes cut a wide swath through the evidentiary landscape. While constantly adding caveats that the evidence has never come together, he nevertheless takes very strong and opinionated stands about what he thinks or speculates really happened. Writing a bible or Rosetta Stone about the Kennedy murder is, and always will be, an impossible task.
Probably the more one has studied President Kennedy's murder, the more likely they are to question Horne's research and some of his conclusions. But the ultimate value of Horne's book is certainly not that it explains everything. The value comes from being able to glean new information or possibly being persuaded to think about certain things in a different way. I challenge anyone to read Horne and not find many things with which they either concur or vehemently disagree. By design, it's an extremely controversial work.
I don't think Horne's work should be studied and reviewed as if it were a textbook, or even a compendium of the medical evidence, although it comes closer to the latter. I view it simply as one man's personal odyssey through the ultimate murder mystery labyrinth, written from his own unique perspective.
Over the years, David Lifton's findings were written about and debated extensively. Regardless whether or not one accepts his major conclusion, much of what Lifton discovered remains important as evidence. His research helped make this major episode in Horne's life possible.
Weisberg, Lane, Meagher, Thompson, Summers, Marrs, Fonzi, Hancock, Russell (and so many others I'm leaving out) did not solve the case. They advanced it, as researchers that followed them so readily admit.
If Horne advances the case, that is enough. Pointing out weaknesses in his arguments or errors in his information is certainly fair game. However, the largely unnecessary tone and content of Costella's rant caused me to lose a certain amount of respect for him.
[/quote]
[quote name='Pat Speer' post='191668' date='May 4 2010, 08:54 AM']
[quote name='James H. Fetzer' post='191649' date='May 4 2010, 03:07 AM']
JIM RESPONDS TO JIM DIEUGENIO COMING FROM OUT OF LEFT FIELD
Well, I embarrassed DiEugenio on another thread and I take it this is his form of retaliation. I suppose he does not mention the dates when this purported "research" was done, because it would reveal the distance in time between the original reports and testimony in relation to the Garrison trial and this (virtually irrelevant) effort expended not long before Reeves Morgan died. There is a natural decay in recollections, which in this case has obviously been exacerbated by deliberate corruption and quite possibly by witness intimidation. Most strikingly, he does not understand that there were two visits and two cars, one of which was a black Cadillac driven by Clay Shaw himself. Judyth, no doubt, will say more. When research is done properly, early testimony when memories are fresher is preferable to later. Just as this guy excoriated Horne for his admiration of David Lifton's work--apparently oblivious that the ARRB had found that there was surgery to the skull and that body alteration had taken place and that there were multiple casket entries, which meant that the key claims of his early work, BEST EVIDENCE, had been vindicated, which Horne was reporting--producing one of the most peculiar reviews I have ever read, where the reviewer apparently wrote the first part of his review completely unaware of the actual findings that would be established during the rest of its pages. This also extends to the issue of Zapruder film alteration, where DiEugnio has declined to take a stand on the ground that the research that would be involved would be too taxing! But that means he has probably not read ASSASSINATION SCiENCE, MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA, or THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX, which don't leave much room for hope by anti-alterationists. Even more peculiar, he apparently doesn't know what is coming in the appendix to INSIDE THE ARRB, Vol. IV, which I summarized in "US Government Official: JKF Cover-Up, Film Fakery". I would say that his positions about the events in Jackson are on a par with his review of Horne, which was grossly incompetent. File trails are frequently distorted and incomplete, as the very post on which he is commenting convincingly demonstrates. As a friend of mine likes to say, "How dumb is that?" I used to think he was a serious scholar, but I am now persuaded that, his review of Bugliosi notwithstanding, his work should not be taken at face value. I will invite Judyth to comment in greater detail, but the thought that he and his "brain trust" are more competent and reliable than Howard Platzman or Judyth herself, in view of these considerations, is not merely a stretch but quite ridiculous. The earlier testimony of Lea McGehee, Reeves Morgan, and Mary Morgan is obviously the more reliable.[/quote]
Jim, the highlighted section above is just not true. The ARRB made NO conclusions. None of the members of its board came out of their experience as supporters of Lifton's theory of body alteration. The only ARRB employee, to my knowledge, who came out of his ARRB experience a committed alterationist was Horne, who went in as a committed alterationist. Jeremy Gunn, Horne's boss, has claimed in year's past that the only thing he learned for sure about the medical evidence was that one can't trust the thirty-year old memories of old people, or something like that. Horne has spent the last decade trying to weave all the conflicting stories into a convincing whole.
But it's more like an unconvincing hole, IMO.
FWIW, IMO, you need to take your lumps and just let the Judyth story drop, if only for a while. While you may have a valid point to make, and where Judyth and her story--as improbable as it sounds--may have something to it, you have let it become personal, and about YOU. You are hurt that men you considered friends fail to trust your judgment re Judyth. You are now claiming DiEugenio has it in for you, when he is simply sharing his own impressions based on actual conversations he has had with actual witnesses.
It's not about you.
Take care.
[/quote]
Here is my post about DiEugenio's review of the first volume of INSIDE THE ARRB (2007). You can
find it on page 9 at the bottom, where perhaps by now it is even at the top of page 10. I take it you
have not read the book. If you had, you would not be making some of the silly remarks you make here.
I was, of course, talking about Horne's book rather than the official stance of the ARRB, which is that it
was not conducing an investigation of the assassination but only releasing JFK documents and records.
Those documents and records have proven to be extremely revealing and substantiate the core views
advanced by David Lifton in BEST EVIDENCE. I certainly hope that you will find time to actually read it.
My suggestion is that you pull back your horns and accept that there is more in heaven and earth than
is dreamt of in your philosophy, which includes the existence of Judyth Vary Baker as "the real deal".
Jim
P.S. Pat Speer pointed out to me that Armstrong had the date of the formation of the commission wrong
in the following post. I was so intent on copying it that it had slipped by me. He is, of course, correct.
Inside the ARRB, Vol. I, by Doug Horne
CITKA review by Jim DiEugenio
Apr 10 2010, 03:40 AM
Some participants on the post about Costella's review of Horne berated me for posing this on that
thread. So I am creating a separate thread to make the points I would like to make here instead.
Michael,
You make some nice points, where not only has Costella missed the boat completely but DiEugenio
in a different way. It seems to me that Jim is very good on the trees, not so good on the forest. I
offer this early paragraph as an illustration of what I mean, where he, too, has something wrong:
All the above introductory material is necessary to understand my decidedly mixed feelings about
Inside the ARRB. There seem to me a lot of good things in Horne's very long work. And I will discuss
them both here and later. But where the author gets into trouble is when he tries to fit the interesting
facts and testimony he discusses into an overarching theory. Because as we will see, although Horne
has revised Best Evidence, he still sticks to the concept of pre-autopsy surgery, and extensive criminal
conduct by the pathologists. And as Lifton clearly suggested in his book, Horne will also argue that the
Zapruder film was both edited and optically printed. (Lifton pgs. 555-557)
Unless DiEugenio is writing his reviews as he goes and does not realize what unexpected findings await
him, the fact of the matter is THERE WAS PRE-AUTOPSY SURGERY and EXTENSIVE CRIMINAL CONDUCT
BY THE PATHOLOGISTS, including lying to the HSCA and to the ARRB. And, of course, as he demonstrates
quite decisively, the arguments against film alteration advanced by ROLLIE ZAVADA, by DAVID WRONE,
and by JOSIAH THOMPSON have been thoroughly demolished in the course of Doug's extensive studies.
Egad! Somewhere DiEugenio expresses his preference for the physical evidence over the medical and
photographic, as though he did not understand that ALL OF IT has been planted, fabricated, or faked.
NOTE: DiEugenio should read the first few pages of HARVEY & LEE, in which John Armstrong observes:
Chief Curry turned the physical evidence over to the FBI and it was immediately taken to FBI Headquarters
in Washington, D.C. FBI Agent James Cadigan told the Warren Commission about receiving the evidence
(Oswald's personal possessions) on November 23rd, the day after the assassination. But when Cadigan's
testimony was published in the Warren volumes, references to November 23 had been deleted. Neither
the FBI nor the Warren Commission wanted the public to know that Oswald's personal possessions (phys-
ical evidence) had been secretly taken to Washington, DC, and quietly returned to the Dallas police.
During the three days that Oswald's possessions were in FBI custody many items were altered, fabricated,
and destroyed. The "evidence" was then returned to the Dallas Police on November 26th, and used by the
FBI and Warren Commission to help convince the American people that Oswald was the lone assassin.
As the physical evidence was undergoing alteration FBI officials prepared a 5-volume report, completed
within 48 hours of the assassination, that named Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone assassin. This report
was released several days before the FBI took over the investigation, before they "officially" received the
"evidence" from the Dallas poice, before they interviewed the vast majority of witnesses, two weeks before
the Warren Commission was formed, and many months before their investigation was complete.
. . .
On November 26 the FBI secretly returned the physical evidence (Oswald's possessions) to the Dallas Police
where it was "officially" inventoried and photographed. When the Dallas Police received t he evidence they
were unaware that many of the items had ben altered, fabricated, and/or destroyed. President Johnson soon
announced the FBI was in charge of the investigation and, a short time later, Bureau agents arrived at Dallas
Police headquarters.
As television cameras recorded the historic event FBI agents collected the evidence, loaded it into a car, and
drove away. The public was unaware that the FBI had secretly returned the same "evidence" to the Dallas
Police earlier that morning.
Here is another--and closely related--defect in DiEugenio's understanding. He spends a lot of time with
denigrating BEST EVIDENCE, which is surely one of the most brilliant and insightful studies published in
the history of the case. Lifton was first to suspect body alteration of the cranium and also alteration by
changing the throat wound, along with the falsification of the X-rays and the substitution of another brain
for that of JFK--not to mention the substitution of another film Sunday night after bringing the original to
the NPIC the night before--but DiEugenio does not seem to understand that is how all of this was done.
The multiple casket entries, which Lifton originally discerned, has also been borne out by Horne's research:
In spite of all the above, Horne still genuflects to Best Evidence. To the point that he essentially admits
that the main reason he joined the ARRB was to prove or disprove Lifton's thesis. (p. lxviii) Sealing and
qualifying this emotional bond is the following statement: "David Lifton's work has been a great inspiration
to me over the years, and he and I eventually became very close personal friends, as well as fellow travelers
on the same intellectual journey." (p. lxix) In light of the warm feelings betrayed in that statement, it is hard
to believe that Horne expended a lot of time on disproving Lifton's thesis. In fact, I feel comfortable in writing
that if Horne had never read Best Evidence, he would never have written his series or joined the ARRB.
Given what Horne has discovered, I cannot imagine what motivates DiEugenio to shortchange Lifton.
I think that the only one who finds anything "extreme" here are those unfamiliar with the evidence,
which I had not expected to included the author of this review. If he doesn't know better, something
is terribly wrong, but it has nothing to do with Horne's research and everything to do with DiEugenio's
apparently partial state of knowledge. And you don't have to have read THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM
HOAX to understand these things. The review I [have now published--below] should actually suffice.
NOTE: US Govenment Official: JFK Cover-Up, Film Fabrication
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/...5772.shtml
Jim
[quote name='Michael Hogan' post='189057' date='Apr 7 2010, 03:27 AM'][quote name='Pat Speer' post='189044' date='Apr 6 2010, 06:54 PM']
While I am not a fan of Horne's book, I would agree that Costella's review read more like a rant, a rant I can relate to, by the way.[/quote]
Not an unexpected response. One can conclude that "not a fan" might be an understatement. The urge to rant is strong when one feels that they, their work, their intelligence, or their opinions are in some way, shape or form being challenged, questioned, diminished, etc. Pat Speer has spent a considerable amount of time and effort in researching the medical (and other) evidence.
Horne's five volumes cut a wide swath through the evidentiary landscape. While constantly adding caveats that the evidence has never come together, he nevertheless takes very strong and opinionated stands about what he thinks or speculates really happened. Writing a bible or Rosetta Stone about the Kennedy murder is, and always will be, an impossible task.
Probably the more one has studied President Kennedy's murder, the more likely they are to question Horne's research and some of his conclusions. But the ultimate value of Horne's book is certainly not that it explains everything. The value comes from being able to glean new information or possibly being persuaded to think about certain things in a different way. I challenge anyone to read Horne and not find many things with which they either concur or vehemently disagree. By design, it's an extremely controversial work.
I don't think Horne's work should be studied and reviewed as if it were a textbook, or even a compendium of the medical evidence, although it comes closer to the latter. I view it simply as one man's personal odyssey through the ultimate murder mystery labyrinth, written from his own unique perspective.
Over the years, David Lifton's findings were written about and debated extensively. Regardless whether or not one accepts his major conclusion, much of what Lifton discovered remains important as evidence. His research helped make this major episode in Horne's life possible.
Weisberg, Lane, Meagher, Thompson, Summers, Marrs, Fonzi, Hancock, Russell (and so many others I'm leaving out) did not solve the case. They advanced it, as researchers that followed them so readily admit.
If Horne advances the case, that is enough. Pointing out weaknesses in his arguments or errors in his information is certainly fair game. However, the largely unnecessary tone and content of Costella's rant caused me to lose a certain amount of respect for him.
[/quote]
[quote name='Pat Speer' post='191668' date='May 4 2010, 08:54 AM']
[quote name='James H. Fetzer' post='191649' date='May 4 2010, 03:07 AM']
JIM RESPONDS TO JIM DIEUGENIO COMING FROM OUT OF LEFT FIELD
Well, I embarrassed DiEugenio on another thread and I take it this is his form of retaliation. I suppose he does not mention the dates when this purported "research" was done, because it would reveal the distance in time between the original reports and testimony in relation to the Garrison trial and this (virtually irrelevant) effort expended not long before Reeves Morgan died. There is a natural decay in recollections, which in this case has obviously been exacerbated by deliberate corruption and quite possibly by witness intimidation. Most strikingly, he does not understand that there were two visits and two cars, one of which was a black Cadillac driven by Clay Shaw himself. Judyth, no doubt, will say more. When research is done properly, early testimony when memories are fresher is preferable to later. Just as this guy excoriated Horne for his admiration of David Lifton's work--apparently oblivious that the ARRB had found that there was surgery to the skull and that body alteration had taken place and that there were multiple casket entries, which meant that the key claims of his early work, BEST EVIDENCE, had been vindicated, which Horne was reporting--producing one of the most peculiar reviews I have ever read, where the reviewer apparently wrote the first part of his review completely unaware of the actual findings that would be established during the rest of its pages. This also extends to the issue of Zapruder film alteration, where DiEugnio has declined to take a stand on the ground that the research that would be involved would be too taxing! But that means he has probably not read ASSASSINATION SCiENCE, MURDER IN DEALEY PLAZA, or THE GREAT ZAPRUDER FILM HOAX, which don't leave much room for hope by anti-alterationists. Even more peculiar, he apparently doesn't know what is coming in the appendix to INSIDE THE ARRB, Vol. IV, which I summarized in "US Government Official: JKF Cover-Up, Film Fakery". I would say that his positions about the events in Jackson are on a par with his review of Horne, which was grossly incompetent. File trails are frequently distorted and incomplete, as the very post on which he is commenting convincingly demonstrates. As a friend of mine likes to say, "How dumb is that?" I used to think he was a serious scholar, but I am now persuaded that, his review of Bugliosi notwithstanding, his work should not be taken at face value. I will invite Judyth to comment in greater detail, but the thought that he and his "brain trust" are more competent and reliable than Howard Platzman or Judyth herself, in view of these considerations, is not merely a stretch but quite ridiculous. The earlier testimony of Lea McGehee, Reeves Morgan, and Mary Morgan is obviously the more reliable.[/quote]
Jim, the highlighted section above is just not true. The ARRB made NO conclusions. None of the members of its board came out of their experience as supporters of Lifton's theory of body alteration. The only ARRB employee, to my knowledge, who came out of his ARRB experience a committed alterationist was Horne, who went in as a committed alterationist. Jeremy Gunn, Horne's boss, has claimed in year's past that the only thing he learned for sure about the medical evidence was that one can't trust the thirty-year old memories of old people, or something like that. Horne has spent the last decade trying to weave all the conflicting stories into a convincing whole.
But it's more like an unconvincing hole, IMO.
FWIW, IMO, you need to take your lumps and just let the Judyth story drop, if only for a while. While you may have a valid point to make, and where Judyth and her story--as improbable as it sounds--may have something to it, you have let it become personal, and about YOU. You are hurt that men you considered friends fail to trust your judgment re Judyth. You are now claiming DiEugenio has it in for you, when he is simply sharing his own impressions based on actual conversations he has had with actual witnesses.
It's not about you.
Take care.
[/quote]