Familiar Faces in Dealey Plaza

[Charles Drago]

Again -- and Jack White will understand this -- there is a third alternative to the Conein/Adams choice.

[Allan Eaglesham]

[quote=James H. Fetzer]You deserve far more s--t that I have dished out for this phony story that is
about as ridiculous as any I have ever encountered. When I found that you
plastered this hysterical note, "The man identified as Conein is not Conein",
on your web site, I contacted you about it--and you were unable to explain
how your source had reached this conclusion. Objective comparsions of the
images of Mainman and Adams suggest they are not the same person, which
of course makes your alleged "explanation" completely indefensible. I have
no idea why you dredged this up this fairy tail, but I can't think of a serious
student of JFK who would take it seriously. I'm sorry, but it has to be a joke.

[quote=Allan Eaglesham][quote=Jack White][quote=Allan Eaglesham]

Hysterical? I admit that I was wrong, and you interpret it as hysterics? That says much more about you, professor, than it does about me.

I don't doubt that you cannot think of a serious student of JFK -- I assume you mean of JFK's assassination -- who would take this seriously. Are any serious students of the JFK assassination still in contact with you? The fact is, a number of people whom I admire have contacted me to say thanks for clarifying the "Conein" issue, including James Richards.

You may have been an eminent professor -- with the accent on the word "may" -- but your conduct here shows you for what you are: a small person.

[Jack White]

Again -- and Jack White will understand this -- there is a third alternative to the Conein/Adams choice.

I agree, Charles...and perhaps many others.

Sometimes disinformation is so cleverly planted that even those
transmitting the information do not recognize it for disinformation.

Suppose I accused Charles Drago of being John Doe Number Two
in the bombing of the OKC federal building. Rather than be exposed
as McVeigh's partner, you are able to have fabricated a photo of
yourself in front of the Eiffel Tower purchasing a newspaper on that
date, with headlines of the bombing. Suppose then you had George
Michael Evica deliver that photo to me, showing you in Paris. GME,
convinced of your innocence, could easily persuade me that there
is no way you could be Doe Number Two. Such are the reflections
in the wilderness of mirrors.

Jack

[Charles Drago]

Bonjour, M. Blanc,

BOOM!

Au reservoir.

And you thought I didn't speak French!

[Jan Klimkowski]

Bonjour, M. Blanc,

BOOM!

Au reservoir.

And you thought I didn't speak French!

J'ai vu le soleil bas, taché d'horreurs mystiques,
Illuminant de longs figements violets,
Pareils à des acteurs de drames très-antiques.

From Rimbaud's Le Bateau Ivre

(Rimbaud, for his très-antiques sins, was turned into Rambo by a Canadian professor...)

En passant.

[Morgan Reynolds]

Jim Fetzer remains adamant that the Altgens photo in question shows CIA spook Lucien Conein rather than Robert H. Adams, the person Allan Eaglesham and I believe is pictured.

To help resolve this controversy, I called Frank Caplett, special ed teacher, the man who contacted Allan a few years ago with new information that convinced Allan the photo shows Adams, not Conein, whereupon Allan changed his "familiar faces" website identification from Conein to Adams. I hit if off with Frank in our conversation of nearly two weeks ago, partly because we both are Green Bay Packer fans with our respective Wisconsin connections, and I found him completely convincing. He supplied me with the photos he had of Adams and explained that in 1999 he embarked on an auto trip on Memorial Day weekend with Edith Ellis, a teaching colleague, and they stopped in Dallas to visit Edith's aunt, Imogene Adams, as part of their Texas itinerary. Frank recognized the famed, framed photo (not "plaque" as he initially mislabeled it) with "newspaper" caption on a wall in Imogene's house. Since Frank was a lifelong JFK assassination buff, he was excited at this discovery but waited to learn more while Edith and Imogene enjoyed their visit. In response to Frank's eventual question, widow Imogene replied, "Yes, that's my husband." After many years of marriage, Robert H. Adams died of lung cancer and Imogene never remarried. She is a retired nurse, 86 years old. She added, "His friends called him the next morning when they saw his picture in the paper."

Nine years later Frank happened to see Allan's website and contacted him about the mistaken identification of Conein for Adams, an innocent spectator on the day of the assassination who was on his lunch break from his postal job at the facility nearby. Convinced by the photos and story from Frank, Allan changed his website to account for the new information. So this account depends upon two "serendipity" events: 1) Frank's visit to Imogene Adams' home and unplanned discovery of the framed photo, and 2) discovery of Allan Eaglesham's website nine years later and motivation to initiate a correction of what he believed was a mistaken identification.

Yesterday I called Imogene Adams to hear what she had to say. She lives a few blocks from Love Field and is listed in the Dallas white pages, address and all. Initially she was suspicious about who I was and why I was calling. As the conversation rolled on, she relaxed. She confirmed the visit by Edith and Frank over a decade earlier and I asked if the framed photo with caption was on a wall in her house: "Yes, it was." What about the "newspaper" caption? She said it was a corrected caption to "mention my husband." So you made the caption? "Yes." What about the wrong day and date? "I did have the wrong date." Did you make the caption yourself? "I took it to a print shop and they made it for me." So this was a matter of family pride that your husband was in a famous newspaper photo at an historic event, the assassination of president Kennedy? "Yes."

Conclusion? It is Robert Adams in the Altgens photo by all common sense standards. I find Imogene Adams the most improbable conspiracist/Langley contract agent I can imagine.

I like Jim Fetzer and Jack White but must point out they are both "invested" if only mildly in the Conein picture misinterpretation. Perhaps an eagerness to prove CIA presence at the event has clouded their judgment and driven them to endorse a far-fetched conspiracy theory involving Imogene Adams. Such speculation aside, we find that on p. 65 of "The Great Zapruder Film Hoax" edited by James H. Fetzer, Ph.D., in an article authored by Jack White, ""Mysteries of the JFK Assassination: The Photographic Evidence from A to Z," pp. 45-112, the following:
"Lou Conein was famed for his CIA exploits in Southeast Asia...Prouty claimed that the JFK assassination had all the complex marks of being an operation planned by Conein. Records exist that Conein was in Fort Worth on 21 November. Prouty claimed that Conein was in Dealey Plaza the next day to see his plan in action.
It appears that Prouty was right. The Altgens photo above shows at the corner of Main and Houston a man who is the spitting image of Conein. He was not the only operative there to see the plan carried out."
White also mentions Conein in a boxed "W is for Whodunnit?...coup command" on p. 108 with eight individuals plus the CIA, etc.: Dulles at the top, then Johnson, Nixon and Hoover on the next line, then Phillips, Hunt, Lansdale and Conein. Mentioning Conein as a suspected perp is warranted but we can no longer rely on the Altgens photo for support.
Fetzer writes:
On The Deep Politics Forum, for example, I pursued the identification of Lucien Conein in comparison with an alternative, Robert Adams, whose credentials were bolstered by means of a faux plaque <http://www.deeppoliticsrforum.com/forums...-2191.html> given to him for appearing in a photograph in Dealey Plaza. Not only did a comparison by Jack White establish a closer degree of resemblance to Conein than to Richards, but the plaque includes a news clipping congratulating him for appearing in this image taken on "Thursday, 23 November 1963"! The weight of the evidence shifts perceptibly when you discover that the arguments for one candidate are shoddy, while those for the other are not. CIA documents proving that Conein was not in town at the time to provide an alibi are easy to produce. And the same is true for other ops working for the government.
http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com/2010/10/...or_22.html
And:
At about 1.5 hours into my presentation, a series of slides [attached: link here <http://religionandmorality.net/multimedi...Slides.ppt> ] was missed, where I explained that a controversy has arisen over the identification of a man in Dealey Plaza who has been IDed as Lucien Conein, a notorious assassin for the CIA. Allan Eaglesham <http://radiofetzer.blogspot.com/2009/02/...ation.html> , who has done good work on "Familiar Faces in Dealey Plaza <http://www.jfkresearch.com/faces.htm> ", had posted a notice that this person was not Conein but a local resident named Robert Adams, who allegedly had been presented with a plaque for having been in the photograph. Jack White <http://www.jfkstudies.org/> and I found this puzzling, so I asked him to study the images of these persons so see what he could determine. The facial features of Adams and the man were quite different, where Adams has a long face, a long chin, and his left ear top-in. Conein and the man, by contrast, both have a square face, short chin, and left ear top-out. He established further differences, including that the Adams supranasal ridge is twice as wide as that of the man and of Conein. The plaque turned out to be an obvious fake, which shows that promoting misinformation on JFK is alive and well to this day!
http://jamesfetzer.blogspot.com/2009/12/httpdotsub.html
And http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index....opic=16811

If Jim and Jack want to pursue this further, I suggest that Jack call Imogene Adams for a personal interview since he is less than an hour by auto from her house. Frank Caplett also lives in the DFW area east of Mesquite, so he would be easy to interview face-to-face.

The irony of all this to me is that CIA guy Hemmings IMO is in the background in the same picture yet goes overlooked. Of all the "familiar faces" photos in Dealey Plaza that morning, Hemmings is the "ringer" I would be most comfortable to ID as CIA before a jury of disinterested citizens, but that is another debate.

[Allan Eaglesham]

Morgan:

An excellent post.

Thank you.

Allan

[James H. Fetzer]

Morgan,

What I like about it the most is that you cite the evidence on both sides and not just one. The key argument for me, however, concerns their facial differences:

"I asked him [Jack] to study the images of these persons so see what he could determine. The facial features of Adams and the man were quite different, where Adams has a long face, a long chin, and his left ear top-in. Conein and the man, by contrast, both have a square face, short chin, and left ear top-out. He established further differences, including that the Adams supranasal ridge is twice as wide as that of the man and of Conein. The plaque turned out to be an obvious fake, which shows that promoting misinformation on JFK is alive and well to this day!"

We all agree that the "plaque" is phony and contrived, even including the wrong day of the week and date of the month. Even if we write that off to an excess of enthusiasm by his wife, Imogene, that does not change the features of his face. i find it difficult to understand how, when you know that their faces are so different, you can take for granted that the person in the photo is Adams and not Conein. I would also observe that Jack and I are willing to be proven to be wrong, but that, in this case, has not happened--nor, given these differences, would I expect it ever will.

Jim

Morgan:

An excellent post.

Thank you.

Allan

[Zach Robertson]

x

[Jack White]

Morgan,

What I like about it the most is that you cite the evidence on both sides and not just one. The key argument for me, however, concerns their facial differences:

"I asked him [Jack] to study the images of these persons so see what he could determine. The facial features of Adams and the man were quite different, where Adams has a long face, a long chin, and his left ear top-in. Conein and the man, by contrast, both have a square face, short chin, and left ear top-out. He established further differences, including that the Adams supranasal ridge is twice as wide as that of the man and of Conein. The plaque turned out to be an obvious fake, which shows that promoting misinformation on JFK is alive and well to this day!"

We all agree that the "plaque" is phony and contrived, even including the wrong day of the week and date of the month. Even if we write that off to an excess of enthusiasm by his wife, Imogene, that does not change the features of his face. i find it difficult to understand how, when you know that their faces are so different, you can take for granted that the person in the photo is Adams and not Conein. I would also observe that Jack and I are willing to be proven to be wrong, but that, in this case, has not happened--nor, given these differences, would I expect it ever will.

Jim

Morgan:

An excellent post.

Thank you.

Allan

Just to clarify, I made the observations which Jim mentions
but ALSO said that the comparisons were in my opinion
INCONCLUSIVE. I said that if forced to choose one or the
other I would choose Conein in the comparison because:

1. distance between eyebrows
2. distance between eyes
3. oval face compared to square face

My identification is not positive. It is more like Adams unlikely
and Conein more likely. In other words, inconclusive.

Jack