Nelson's LBJ Mastermind book

[James H. Fetzer]

The astounding varieties of fallacies--mostly straw men, ad hominems, and special pleading--being committed here simply astonishes me. When I have the time and the game is not looming, I will inventory some of them. DiEugenio has exaggerated my position at least a half dozen times in these exchanges, which suggests scant regard for the truth and a willingness to engage in unscrupulous tactics when the evidence is against him. And to discount what Billy Sol or E. Howard Hunt has to tell us on the grounds that they are criminals or crooks is as blatant a form of the ad hominem as it gets. We have to consider what they have to tell separate from our preconceptions of the source in relation to what else we know about the case. That handicaps the DiEugenios, who know neither the medical, the ballistic, or the photographic and film evidence. Has none of you bothered to consider my arguments about what the cover-up tells us about the case? Who could have had the limo sent back to Ford and be completely rebuilt? The Mafia could not have extended its reach into the Bethesda Naval Hospital to alter X-rays under the control of agents of the Secret Service, medical officers of the US Navy, and the president's personal physician. Neither pro nor anti-Castro Cubans could have substituted another brain for that of JFK. And even if the KGB had the ability to recreate films comparable to the CIA and Hollywood, it could not have got a hold of a copy of the Zapruder. These aspects of the cover-up had to involve complicity of officials at the highest level of the American government, surely either J. Edgar Hoover or Lyndon Johnson himself. Drago and DiEugenio do not seem to me to have thought all of this through.

Madeleine, Billy Sol, Barr and E. Howard Hunt knew the man "up close and personal". Discounting their reports because you don't trust them or don't like them or whatever is to abandon serious research for the disreputable tactics of con-men, not scholars. As Robert Morrow has observed, what kind of people do you think LBJ was associating with? EGAD! HE HAD HIS OWN PERSONAL HITMAN. From persons like Drago and DiEugenio, this is not simply disappointing but seriously disconcerting. Not too put too fine a point on it, but I have asked Charles several times in the past whether he had read Phil's book, which he studiously avoided answering. Having you answer it instead is not very reassuring. I therefore ask Charles, when did you obtain Phil's book and when did you read it? Because I have seen no indication that you know any more about this book than it's title, where you have beaten the solitary word "mastermind" repeatedly and mindlessly, even though I have explained exactly what I mean by LBJ as "the pivotal player" many times now. That did not require reading the book, and I doubt that you have even now. I am troubled that others who appear to know no more about LBJ would pick up the banner that Charles is pushing and wave it over and over and over again. IT IS ABSURD TO DISCOUNT LBJ'S PIVOTAL ROLE on the grounds that he wasn't taking pesonal control of every minute detail! That is about as pathetic an appeal to the straw man as I have ever encountered in (what is supposed to pass for) serious discourse. I really expected more serious research here than has been displayed on this thread. If I have to go through all of this to sort out the rubbish, then I will. But you are going to have to forgive me if I only offer a random sample. So much is being dumped here that I am simply overwhelmed.

Enjoy the game. I look forward to your response to CD's points. And he has read the book. Which makes him the perfect person to critique it here.
Dawn