Tidbits from Mailer's "Oswald's Tale"

[Drew Phipps]

Ruth Paine lies to the Warren Commission? Ruth Paine tells the Warren Commission that when the initial officers from DPD and Irving PD show up at her house, she answers the door.

"Jenner: Did you say anything?
Paine: I said nothing. I think I dropped my jaw...That is the first I had any idea that Lee might be...in any way involved..."

Yet we know that the officers tell a different story; Ruth Paine tells them, "We've been expecting you."

And this bit from 1999, Paine writes: "There was a telephone call between Michael and me the afternoon of Nov. 22. It was before we had any idea that Lee was involved. We both assumed, as did much of Dallas, that someone from the radical right wing had fired at the president." Yet we know from the FBI "informant" that "overheard" the long distance call between Bell and the Paine residence that the male caller said he "felt sure that Lee Harvey Oswald killed the President." (Since Ruth and Marina spent the rest of the day, after the PD knocked on the door, at the police station being interviewed, any such call must have been before they arrived.)

***

Chief Stevenson dispatches his lead homicide investigator to Parkland Hospital?

"Fritz: Chief Stevenson...asked me to go to the hospital, [but] I felt we were going to the wrong place, we should go to the scene of the crime, and he said, "Well, OK.""

Seems completely wrongheaded to order your lead investigator to guard the hospital and let less experienced men secure and investigate the crime scene. The Warren Commission claims it was Ofc. Mooney that found the shells, but as I recall, there was another officer that looked out that window and waved... DPD Gerald Hill.

[Dawn Meredith]

What a sell out Mailer became with this book. In the late 70's Mailer had a HUGE party at his NY home to raise money to see that HSCA continued. I was there with my then boyfriend Harvey Yazijian and the rest of the AIB (Assassination Information Bureau). Most of the well known researchers were in attendance. The next day he had the AIB and girlfriends back for a long lunch. He seemed very dedicated to the truth of this case. But then sold out to pay off IRS debt. I would never read this book.

Dawn

[Drew Phipps]

Mailer seems convinced, and makes a good case for, Oswald's death being a Mob hit. However, according to Mailer, that doesn't mean that the Mob actually carried out the JFK assassination. He thinks Oswald was a shooter, if not the only shooter. Mailer posits 2 scenarios:

One, that the Mob, or Marcello/Trafficante, may have actually ordered/authorized the assassination without a specific time frame or location. When Oswald is arrested, and is the nephew of Dutz Murret, bookmaker and Marcello associate, the Mob decides it can't risk a trial or a thorough investigation, and orders Ruby to make the hit.

Two, that Marcello/Trafficante take credit for the assassination in an attempt to get Jimmy Hoffa to "loan" them Teamster funds as a payoff for the contract. When Oswald survives arrest and starts talking, he has to be silenced to keep the scamming of Hoffa under wraps, so they order Ruby to make the hit.

I would never read this book.

Now you don't have to.

Of those two scenarios, Two seems less likely, due to the short period of time between the assassination and Oswald's arrest. I would not expect clever mobsters to precipitously claim credit in such a short interval and with all the ensuing confusion.

It certainly seems to me, if Oswald's death was a Mob hit, then there was some obvious (to the Mob) risk that the Mob might be damaged by Oswald talking, which outweighed the risk of murdering Oswald in broad daylight on national TV. I can only think of one thing which would outweigh that one.

The new material in this book appears to me to be the interviewing of Russian witnesses to Oswald and Marina. If you have no interest in that time period, you can safely skip this book.

[Magda Hassan]

Mailer is just an arsehole who has always had a questioable grip on reality.

[Richard Coleman]

I never forgave Mailer for his role in the Jack Abbott matter. I don't recall Mailer ever making any statements of regret or sympathy for the victim's wife or family. Ugh.

[Joseph McBride]

I never forgave Mailer for his role in the Jack Abbott matter. I don't recall Mailer ever making any statements of regret or sympathy for the victim's wife or family. Ugh.

And Mailer stabbed his second wife, Adele Morales, twice with
a penknife at a party and got off lightly. In today's political climate,
that would qualify him to run for president as a Republican. Ben Carson
is actually bragging about how in his youth he tried to hit his mother over the head
with a hammer and tried to stab a relative or friend (the stories vary).
He complains the media and the voters don't give him enough credit
for those episodes (sic). This makes little sense until you factor
in what that vastly overrated historian Doris Kearns Goodwin said recently, that the American people
want to vote for a "killer" for president. I don't think she was being
ironic; she loved LBJ and still seems to do so.