JFK and RFK: The Plots that Killed Them, The Patsies that Didn't

[James H. Fetzer]

JFK and RFK: The Plots that Killed Them, The Patsies that Didn’t
http://www.voltairenet.org/article165721.html

by James Fetzer*

Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated 42 years ago in the midst of his campaign for the U.S. presidency. Largely overshadowed by the death of his brother, President John F. Kennedy, the official account of RFK’s tragic end, allegedly shot down by a lone gunman, like his brother, has received vastly less attention. In both instances, we are looking at staged events that fit into a recurrent pattern in U.S. and world history where innocent individuals (or “patsies”) are baited and framed for cover-up purposes. Professor James H. Fetzer, an expert in the scientific study of assassinations, provides a sketch of how we know what happened to them and why, where RFK’s assassination was in part intended to prevent a reinvestigation into his brother’s death.

Introduction

A persistent myth of American history is that lone assassins were responsible for the deaths of Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert Francis Kennedy. But four of the Lincoln conspirators were hanged from the same gallows at the same time [1]. On June 5, 1968, after RFK won the Democratic primary in California, he was shot down as he passed through the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel. The official account maintains that he was taken out by a lone, demented gunman, Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian who had written, “RFK must die!”, over and over in a notebook. Like the lone, demented gunman accused of assassinating his brother, John, both murders were products of conspiracies, where Sirhan Sirhan, like Lee Harvey Oswald, was designated as the patsy.

In spite of their history, most Americans continue to believe that their nation is “an exception” and that, while conspiracies occur elsewhere, including Europe and the Middle East, especially, they do not occur at home. The truth, of course, is that conspiracies are as American as apple pie. All that they require is collaboration between two or more individuals to bring about an illegal end. Most American conspiracies are economic, but many are political, too. Franklin Delano Roosevelt observed long ago that, if something important happened in politics, you could bet it was not by accident. And that is certainly the case regarding the brothers.

The assassinations of RFK and JFK were both conspiracies. Both involved the destruction of evidence. Both involved the fabrication of evidence. Both involved framing their patsies. Both involved complicity by local officials. Both involved planning by the CIA. Both were used to deny the American people of the right to be governed by leaders of their own choosing. My purpose here is to outline how these things are done, because the agencies responsible for these events continue to employ the same techniques, not only of killing their targets but of covering them up. The more we understand how these things are done, the less likely we are to be deceived again.

Some basic facts

RFK:

* More bullets were fired in the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel than could have come from Sirhan Sirhan’s gun.

* RFK was shot behind the right ear from about 1.5 inches, but Sirhan was never that close and always in front of him.

* The coroner’s report did not support the Los Angeles’ Police Department’s assassination scenario.

* The Los Angeles Police Department engaged in massive destruction of evidence from the pantry of the hotel because "it would not fit into a card file".

JFK:

* The weapon Oswald is alleged to have used cannot have fired the bullets that killed JFK.

* The “magic bullet” theory is provably untrue and was not even anatomically possible.

* JFK was hit four times - in the throat from in front, in the back from behind and in the head from in front and behind

* X—rays were altered, a brain was substituted, and photos and films were faked to conceal the true causes of his death.

The assassination of RFK completed the decapitation of the left wing in the United States, which had begun with the termination of JFK’s presidency but continued with the gunning down of Malcolm X, who was the most progressive voice on the far left. With the deaths of Martin Luther King (April 4, 1968) and Robert F. Kennedy, the country shifted strongly to the right, in part from the despair induced by the loss of inspiring leaders.

The conditions required for movements capable of historic changes include intelligent, charismatic, and inspirational leaders, of whom there are very few like these. While the execution of Czar Nicholas II and his family in Russia and of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in France meant there was “no turning back”, removing liberal leaders cements the status quo with its distribution of wealth and power.

RFK: The Ambassador Hotel

The weapon removed from Sirhan Sirhan was a .22 caliber, eight-round revolver, with serial number H-53725 [2]. Sirhan emptied his weapon from a location in front of Bobby Kennedy. The autopsy performed by Dr. Thomas Noguchi, however, showed RFK was hit by four bullets, all of which were fired from behind at upward angles. And five others were wounded by separate shots [3].

Bullets were removed from holes in the walls and ceiling of the pantry. Since there were as many as thirteen shots—some of which even hit the ceiling behind his location—Sirhan could not have fired them all. And with more than one shooter, a conspiracy had to have been involved [4]. Autopsy reports are usually “the best evidence” about a crime of this kind.

Dr. Noguchi’s medical report, however, did not agree with the Los Angeles Police report. The evidence did not point to Sirhan as the killer [5]. In particular, the fatal shot entered behind his right ear from about an inch and a half away, but Sirhan had not been closer than several feet in front of RFK.

Although Sirhan cannot have fired the bullets that killed Kennedy, his defense attorney, Grant Cooper, did not defend him on the ground that he wasn’t guilty but argued instead for “diminished capacity” [6]. Another witness, DeWayne Wofler, even testified that the bullets fired at RFK had come from an entirely different gun [7].

As it happened, a security guard named Thane Eugene Cesar had a weapon with the same caliber and was right behind RFK when the shooting began. Remarkably, even though he admitted having drawn his gun and many witnesses reporting hearing shots from more than one weapon, no one ever asked to examine his gun [8].

Acoustics expert Van Praag tested an H&R 922 of the kind Cesar had and determined that an H&R 922 had been fired at the same time as Sirhan’s [9]. Further indications of conspiracy extended to a couple, including a woman in a polka dot dress, who rushed away from the scene shouting, “We shot him! We shot him! We shot Kennedy!” [10].

RFK: Evidence of Conspiracy

William Turner and Jonn Christian [11] have produced a powerful case indicting Cesar for the crime. They concluded that Sirhan may have been firing blanks, which they support on the basis of witness testimony that his shots created long, visible flames, which are commonly produced by blanks, to insure that those in his field of fire — who actually killed Kennedy — would not be hit by a stray bullet.

That would mean that none of the bullet holes were made by shots from Sirhan’s gun and, indeed, at least one witness reported seeing yet a third shooter in the pantry, perhaps as a back-up if Cesar failed. And the LAPD was very accommodating in destroying evidence that might have exposed those who shot him.

In fact, there are multiple indications that the CIA was involved. A hypnotist named William Joseph Bryan, was on the radio suggesting the assassin was probably “mind controlled” before Sirhan had been identified as a suspect. Bryan later boasted to several hookers that he worked for the CIA and had hypnotized Sirhan [12].

Sirhan’s defense attorney, moreover, had just finished representing the CIA’s contact with organized crime, Johnny Roselli, which may have been why he was so accommodating with
respect to his client’s guilt [13]. One way to insure a patsy will be convicted is to have your own man represent him.

Cesar himself had worked at Lockheed and Hughes Aircraft, both of which have extensive connections with the agency [14]. And even more strikingly, three prominent CIA officials—George Joannides, David Sanchez Morales, and Gordon Campbell—have been identified as present at the Ambassador.

Bradley Ayers, an Army captain assigned to the CIA at JM/Wave in Miami from May 1962 to December 1964, had met all three and identified them in film footage from the Ambassador [15]. Gordon Campbell had even been Ayer’s case officer while he was working for the agency.

Wayne Smith, who served as an ambassador with the Department of of State from 1957-1982 with JFK’s Latin American Task Force, also knew Morales [16]. When he viewed the same footage as Ayers, he immediately recognized Morales. As he later told Shane O’Sullivan, “Bobby Kennedy is assassinated [and] David Morales is there? The two things have to be related” [17].

RFK: The Cover-Up

Ayers and Smith both confirmed the person in the film as Morales [18]. They were both emphatic. Ayers noticed his body language (his way of moving). James Richards, an expert on the CIA, provided me with a photo of Morales, who looks exactly like the Morales-look-alike at the Ambassador. I don’t even think it’s a difficult call [19] [20].

The George Joannides figure seems to be wearing a wig. Richards also sent me a photo of Joannides, which makes it obvious why he would have been wearing one: the man was virtually bald! While it has been claimed that Cambell died on September 19, 1962, he was Ayers’ case officer from 1963-1964. Faking a death certificate would be far easier for the CIA than having an impostor working with Ayers.

The LAPD was not subtle in the destruction of evidence related to the crime. It destroyed the ceiling panels and door frames from the pantry on the ground they were “too large to fit into a card file” and burned some 2,400 photographs, including those taken by 15-year old Scott Enyart, who was standing on a table and took three roles of film [21].

When the department created a Special Unit Senator (SUS) to look into the case, it chose two officers who had ties to the CIA. They badgered witnesses who did not support the official line. One, Manuel Pena, had worked in Special Ops for the CIA. He was responsible for approving SUS interviews [22].

The Shadow of Dallas

David Sanchez Morales also appears to have been involved in the assassination of his brother, John, on November 22, 1963. He said to friends while drinking heavily that he had been in Dallas (“We took care of that son-of-a-bitch!”) and in Los Angeles (where “We got the little bastard!”) [23].

His involvement was confirmed by E. Howard Hunt, who told his son, St. John, that those who were responsible for the assassination of the 35th president included LBJ and CIA officials Cord Meyer, David Atlee Philips, William Harvey, and Morales [24]. Others who knew Lyndon well have also implicated him [25] [26]. And high-level involvement by the government has been confirmed by multiple lines of investigation.

There are more than 15 indications of Secret Service complicity in setting JFK up for the hit [27]. Two agents assigned to the limousine were left behind at Love Field. The flat-bed truck for reporters to that should have preceded the limo was cancelled. The motorcycle escort was cut down to four and was instructed not to ride ahead of the rear wheels. Open windows were not covered, the manhole covers not welded, and the crowd was allowed to spill into the street.

Most strikingly, the vehicles were in the wrong order, with the Lincoln first, when it should have been in the middle. This was such a blatant violation of protocol that any security expert could have detected it, which is undoubtedly why, when the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) asked for the Presidential Protection Records for other JFK motorcades, the agency, instead of providing them, destroyed them [28].

The route was changed just days before the event and included a turn of more than 90°, in violation of Secret Service protocol. After bullets began to be fired, the driver, William Greer, pulled the limo to the left and to a halt [29]. At Parkland Hospital, agents got a bucket of water and a sponge and washed brains and blood from the crime scene [30].

The limousine was taken back to Ford and on Monday, November 25, the day of the formal state funeral, it was stripped to bare metal and rebuilt, including replacing the windshield, which had a through-and-through bullet hole, which spectators had noticed at Parkland and the Ford official responsible for its replacement confirmed, where the Secret Service would later produce yet a third windshield which had only interior cracks [31].

JFK: The “Magic Bullet”

Two wounds were widely reported on radio and television that day, a wound to the throat and a massive wound at the back of the cranium, which was caused by a shot that entered his right temple [32]. Both wounds were observed by many experienced physicians at Parkland Hospital. Charles Crenshaw, M.D., who closed JFK’s eyes before he was placed into the bronze ceremonial casket, sent me drawings of the wound to the throat and of the exit wound to the head [33].

Malcolm Perry, M.D., who had made the incision, described the throat wound as a “wound of entry” three times during the Parkland press conference, which began at 2:16 PM [34]. The Warren Commission would cope with these problems by simply reversing the trajectories, turning the throat wound into a wound of exit, where the damage to the cranium was altered to make it look more like the effect of a bullet fired from above and behind [35].

The greatest problem arose from the discovery that, of the three shots it claimed to have been fired, one had missed and injured a bystander named James Tague. The FBI and Secret Service had concluded that each of the alleged shots had hit: that JFK had been hit in the back, that Texas Governor John Connally had been hit in the back, and that JFK had been hit in the head, which killed him.

Since one shot had missed, the commission now had to create an alternative explanation, claiming the bullet that hit JFK in the back had passed through his neck and exited from his throat, then entered the back of Connally, shattering a rib, existing his chest, damaging his right wrist and finally embedding itself in his left thigh, a most unlikely scenario that is known as the “magic bullet” theory [36].

To make the “magic bullet” theory remotely plausible, Gerald Ford (R-MI), a member of the commission, had the description of the wound to the back changed from “his uppermost back”, which was already an exaggeration, to “the back of his neck”, which would not become known to the public until the first releases from the ARRB [37].

Even The Warren Report (1964) located the hole in the jacket 5 3/8” below the collar and 1 1/8” to the right of its center seam and the hole in the shirt was 5 ¾” below the collar and 1 1/8” right of its center seam [38] — a location that corresponds to an autopsy sketch, an FBI sketch, the death certificate by the president’s personal physician and even reenactment photographs by the commission’s own staff.

JFK: The Cover-Up

A downward bullet at this location means that the throat wound and Connally’s had been caused by other shots and other shooters [39]. Michael Baden, M.D., who chaired the medical panel for the the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), when it reinvestigated the crime in 1977-78, said, on the 40th observance of the assassination, that if the “magic bullet” theory were false, then there had to have been at least six shots from three directions [40].

It is not only false and provably false but turns out to be anatomically impossible, since cervical vertebrae intervene [41]. David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D., has shown JFK was hit four times—in the throat from in front, in the back from behind, and twice in the head both from in front and behind [42]. Connally was hit at least once from the side — as he was turning to the left — and at least one shot had missed. So Baden was right for the wrong reasons.

Mantik, moreover, studied the autopsy X-rays using the method of optical densitometry to determine the relative density of the objects whose exposure to X-rays had created the images [43]. He found an area at the back of the head that had been “patched” using material that was too dense to be human bone and that a 6.5mm metallic slice had been added to other X-rays in an apparent effort to connect the shooting with an obscure Italian weapon Lee Oswald was alleged to have used.

Ironically, while the death certificates and the autopsy report state that JFK was killed by high-velocity bullets, the Mannlicher-Carcano only has a muzzle velocity of 2,000 fps [44]. Since high velocities are above 2,600 fps, the Mannlicher-Carcano does not qualify [45]. So the weapon that Oswald is alleged to have used cannot have fired the bullets that killed JFK.

JFK: The Controversy Endures

Even if the weapon had been far better, such as the M-1 on which he had been trained, the shots themselves were highly improbable. The interactive internet game, “JFK: Reloaded”, which used a superior weapon with a properly aligned sight, a smooth trigger action, and no recoil and allowed endless practice sessions before attempting to hit the target, was won by a shooter who scored only a .782 out of 1.000, so he only scored a "C+" in attempting to replicate the shots [46].

That the simple expedient of locating where the bullet hit JFK’s back is enough to establish the existence of a conspiracy has not inhibited those who want to obfuscate the facts. A controversy over neutron activation analysis persisted for years, as if discovering that bullet fragments found in the car had come from the same lot as those used by the alleged “assassination weapon” would show either the location from which they were fired or the identity of who had fired them [47].

One pseudo-documentary after another continues to be broadcast over the major networks based upon a film whose revision makes it impossible to reconstruct what actually happened in a determined effort to persuade the public that JFK was killed by a lone, demented gunman, even though the authentic evidence, once separated from the fabricated, refutes it [48], [49], [50] and [51]. The demise of the “magic bullet” alone establishes conspiracy.

What it means

Creating a false photographic record of the assassination was crucial to the cover-up. Had JFK been killed in a non-public setting, no one would have believed he had not been taken out by a conspiracy. As much thought was given to concealing the truth from the public as was given to executing the assassination itself. By removing some events and adding others, the home movie known as the Zapruder film became the backbone of the cover-up [52]. As long as it was taken to be authentic, it would be impossible to reconstruct the crime.

Among the most important reasons for recreating the film—which was done using original footage and sophisticated techniques of optical printing and of special effects—was removing the limo stop, which was such an obvious indication of Secret Service complicity. There were conflicts with the film from the beginning [53]. Today, evidence of fabrication is simply overwhelming [54], [55] and [56].

These discoveries have considerable impact on alternative theories of the assassination. The Mafia, which no doubt put up some of the shooters, could not have extended its reach into the Bethesda Naval Hospital to alter X-rays under the control of medical officers of the US Navy, Secret Service agents, and the president’s personal physician.

Neither pro- nor anti-Castro Cubans could have substituted the brain of someone else for that of JFK. And even if the KGB had an ability to alter films equal to that of the CIA and Hollywood, it had no way to gain access to the Zapruder film. Nor could these things have been done by Lee Harvey Oswald, who was incarcerated or already dead.

Political implications

As Martin Shotz has observed, the purpose of the disinformation operation in the death of JFK is not really to convince the public of the official account but to create enough uncertainty that everything is believable and nothing is knowable [57]. The reasons are not difficult to discern for those who understand why he was taken out. He had evolved in office from a traditional cold warrior into a statesman for peace, which threatened the status quo.

JFK was threatening to cut the oil depletion allowance, which the Texas men regarded as their divine right. He had not invaded Cuba against the unanimous recommendation of the Joint Chiefs. He had signed an above ground test ban treaty with the Soviets against their unanimous opposition. And he was initiating the removal of American forces from Vietnam, where the chiefs believed that a stand had to be taken against the expansion of communism.

Bobby, JFK’s Attorney General, was aggressively cracking down on organized crime. Jack was going to reform or abolish the Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) and, perhaps most of all, he was going to shatter the CIA into a thousand pieces. Lyndon wanted to be president of all the people and J. Edgar Hoover wanted to stay on as Director of the FBI. No one could have explained all of this as well as has James Douglass [58].

The policies he represented would have brought about significant change in the distribution of wealth and power, which they were unwilling to accept [59]. Once committed to the crime, they were intent that no one should ever pay for it, lest the public learn the truth about the institutions of their own government. When Bobby allowed that he was going to use the powers of the presidency to uncover the truth about his brother [60], it sealed his fate. And the lies continue.

James Fetzer

McKnight Professor Emeritus in the philosophy of science at the University of Minnesota Duluth; he taught logic, critical thinking and scientific reasoning for 35 years; founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth.

References

[1] Jesse Ventura (with Dick Russell), American Conspiracies, Skyhorse Publishing, 2010.
[2] Shane O’Sullivan, Who Killed Bobby?, Sterling Publishing, 2008.
[3] Jim DiEugenio and Lisa Pease, eds., The Assassinations, Feral House, 2003.
[4] Jesse Ventura (with Dick Russell), Op. cit.
[5] Robert Geringer, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.
[6] Jim DiEugenio and Lisa Pease, eds., Op.cit.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Jesse Ventura (with Dick Russell), Op. cit.
[10] Jim DiEugenio and Lisa Pease, eds., Op. cit.
[11] Jonn Christian and William Turner, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1978.
[12] Jim DiEugenio and Lisa Pease, eds. Op. cit.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Robert F. Kennedy, Spartacus Educational.
[15] Bradley Earl Ayers, The Zenith Secret, Vox Pop, 2006.
[16] Shane O’Sullivan, Op. cit.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Shane O’Sullivan, RFK Must Die: The Assassination of Bobby Kennedy, DVD (2007).
[19] David Sánchez Morales, Spartacus Educational.
[20] Bradley Ayers, Spartacus Educational.
[21] Jesse Ventura (with Dick Russell), Op. cit.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Noel Twyman, Bloody Treason, Laurel Publishing, 1997.
[24] Erik Hedegaard, The Last Confessions of E. Howard Hunt, rollingstone.com, April 5, 2007.
[25] Madeleine Duncan Brown, Texas in the Morning, Conservatory Press, 1997.
[26] Billie Sol Estes, A Texas Legend, BSE Productions, 2005.
[27] James H. Fetzer, ed., Murder in Dealey Plaza, Open Court, 2000, “Prologue”.
[28] Final Report of the Assassination Records Review Board, 1998.
[29] Vince Palamara et al. in Murder in Dealey Plaza, A Book Review, 2000.
[30] Richard Trask, Pictures of the Pain, Yeoman Press,1994.
[31] Douglas Weldon et al. in Murder in Dealey Plaza, 2000; and James H. Fetzer, ed., Assassination Science, Open Court, 1998.
[32] "NOVEMBER 22, 1963: The Kennedy Assassination", NBC News DVD, Parts 1 and 2.
[33] Charles Crenshaw, M.D., in Murder in Dealey Plaza, 2000, Appendix A.
[34] Malcolm Perry, M.D., Ibid, Appendix C.
[35] The Warren Report, Government Printing Office, 1964; and Douglas Horne, Inside the ARRB, 2009.
[36] The “magic bullet” is lampooned in Oliver Stone’s film, “JFK”.
[37] Ford Made Key Change in Kennedy Death Report, The New York Times (3 July 1997), p. A8.
[38] The Warren Report, Op. cit., page 92.
[39] James H. Fetzer, Reasoning about Assassinations, International Journal of the Humanities 3, (2005/2006).
[40] Beyond Conspiracy, ABC documentary, 2003 (YouTube).
[41] David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D., in Stewart Galanor, Cover-Up, Kestrel Book, 1998.
[42] David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D., et al. in Murder in Dealey Plaza, 2000.
[43] David W. Matiik, M.D., Ph.D., in Assassination Science, 2000.
[44] As even Gerald Posner, Case Closed, Random House, 1993, Appendix A, has acknowledged.
[45] See, for example, Bullet Trajectory: Fact and Myth, by Mike Nelson.
[46] JFK: Reloaded, Wikipedia.
[47] Single Bullet Story, Wikipedia.
[48] James H. Fetzer, Distorting the Photographic Record: Death in Dealey Plaza, in The Great Zapruder Film Hoax (2003).
[49] David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D., and James H. Fetzer, Another Attempted Reenactment of the Death of JFK, November 21, 2008.
[50] David S. Lifton, in Moorman in the Street Revisited, Appendix, January 2009.
[51] James H. Fetzer, Dealey Plaza Revisited: What Happened to JFK?
[52] James H. Fetzer, ed., The Great Zapruder Film Hoax, Op. cit., “Prologue”.
[53] See, for example, Jim Marrs, Surveyor: More than 1 man shot Kennedy, Fort Worth Star-Telegram (14 April 1978).
[54] John P. Costella, The JFK Assassination Film Hoax: A Tutorial.
[55] James H. Fetzer, Zapruder JFK Film impeached by Moorman JFK Polaroid, March 28, 2009.
[56] James H. Fetzer, US Government Official: JFK Cover-Up, Film Fabrication, April 7, 2010.
[57] E. Martin Schotz, History will Not Absolve Us, Kurtz, Ulmer, and DeLuca Book Publishers, 1996.
[58] James Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why he Died and Why it Matters, Abis Books, 2008.
[59] Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, University of California Press, 1996.
[60] David Talbot, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, The Free Press, 2007.

[James H. Fetzer]

This post has disappeared, not only from The Deep Politics Forum, but from The Education Forum as well, together with the comments that were posted about them. I find this rather stunning. If anyone knows what's going on, I would like to know. This cannot be a coincidence.

[Phil Dragoo]

http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/...php?t=4163

If Stephen Hawking has not been deleted, please advise explanation in layman's terms.

[James H. Fetzer]

RFK: Outing the CIA at the Ambassador*

Jim Fetzer


In a recent article (voltaire.net, “JFK and RFK: The Plots that Killed Them, The Patsies that Didn’t”), I cited the identifications of three officials of the CIA at the Ambassador Hotel when Bobby was shot, by Bradley Ayers, who knew all three, and by Wayne Smith, who knew one of them very well. Objections have been raised to these identifications by Jefferson Morely and David Talbot, who claim that they have disproven them. Their argument is based upon a fallacy known as “special pleading” by only citing part of the evidence, which does not satisfy the requirement of total evidence, which insists that reasoning be based upon all of the available relevant evidence. Moreover, since they fail to identify the parties in question, they did not actually disprove Ayers and Smith but, at best, have only raised doubts about them.

As more and more of the witnesses’ testimony is taken into account and subjected to a systematic assessment, the strength of support for the identifications by Ayers and Smith becomes increasingly stronger and the evidence against weaker. Ironically, Shane O’Sullivan, who was largely responsible for uncovering the evidence that the three officials of the CIA were at the Ambassador, eventually concluded that at least two of them were Bulova Watch Company employees. That inference is substantially overridden by the weight of the evidence, however, where the only mistake that he appears to have made was drawing the conclusion that he had initially been wrong.

Background

In my article on Voltaire.net, I reported that three prominent CIA officials—George Joannides, David Sanchez Morales, and Gordon Campbell—had been identified as present at the Ambassador. Bradley Ayers, an Army captain assigned to the CIA at JM/Wave in Miami from May 1963 to December 1964, had met all three and IDed two of them—Morales and Campbell—in video from the Ambassador [1]. Gordon Campbell had even been Ayers’ case officer while he was working for the agency.

Wayne Smith, who served as an ambassador with the Department of State from 1957-1982 with JFK’s Latin American Task Force, also knew Morales [2]. When he viewed the same footage as Ayers, he immediately recognized Morales. As he later told Shane O’Sullivan, “Bobby Kennedy is assassinated [and] David Morales is there? The two things have to be related” [3]. So they both confirmed the person in the video as Morales and they were both emphatic, as can be seen in Shane’s DVD [4].

Ayers and Smith both remarked upon his body language, his stance and his way of moving, where videos provide enormously more information for identifications than do single photographs, whether candid or staged [5] [6]. Brad explains in “RFK Must Die!” that the Joannides figure seemed familiar to him, but he could not ID him at the time. He subsequently told me over several conversations that he had seen him intermittently at JM/WAVE in professional matters and only later learned his name.

He was quite certain about his identification of Campbell, whom he knew extremely well. When I wrote in “JFK and RFK” that “Bradley Ayers, an Army captain assigned to the CIA at JM/Wave in Miami from May 1963 to December 1964, had met all three and identified them in film footage from the Ambassador”, I was basing my remark in part on knowledge I had acquired directly from him in relation to Joannides. One reason I wanted to publish this sequel, therefore, is to clarify this point but also to explain how much more evidence we have supporting his and Smith’s identifications.

Gordon Campbell

In their two-page article, “The BBC’s Flawed RFK Story”, David Talbot, the author of BROTHERS (2007), who is also the founder of Salon.com, and Jefferson Morley, who is a Washington journalist of some acclaim [7], however, insist that that Campbell died on September 19, 1962, which is very peculiar, since he served as Brad Ayers’ case officer from 1963-1964. They even post an alleged “death certificate” and also quote one Rudy Enders, a retired CIA official, who claims that he was present when Campbell died. They have published a photograph of the “alleged” Gordon Campbell from the Ambassador Hotel side-by-side with a copy of Campbell’s death certificate.

According to Talbot and Morley, he was “not the deputy station chief in the CIA’s Miami operation, as O’Sullivan reported. He was a yachtsman and Army colonel who served as a contract agent helping the agency ferry anti-Castro guerillas across the straits of Florida, according to Rudy Enders, a retired CIA officer, and two other people who knew him.” He could not have been at Bobby’s assassination because he was, according to them, already dead. They provide no photo of “Gordon Campbell” and offer no response to O’Sullivan’s suggestion that the CIA might have used his name for another agent, since the use of aliases is common practice by the agency.

The likelihood of Ayers being wrong about the identity of his own case officer at JM/WAVE is extremely low, while forging documents is among the CIA’s principal pastimes. Faking a death certificate for some “Gordon Campbell” would probably have been simpler than any other technique for coping with Ayers’ identification. Brad has one of the best memories for detail of anyone I have ever known and my guess is that it’s a fake. But, even if we were to take it at face value, the question would become, Who was the man with whom Brad Ayers worked from May 1963 to December 1964 whom he identified in the video footage from the Ambassador? We know the man in the photo cannot be someone who died in 1962. So who was he?

Other “Disproofs”

Although Talbot and Morley claim, on the basis of six weeks of research, that they have disproven the identifications made by Brad Ayers and by Wayne Smith, their “disproof” of Brad’s identification of Campbell does not inspire confidence. In a day and age of identify theft, their failure to pursue Shane’s suggestion raises serious questions about the integrity and intent of their “investigation”. Unlike Ayres and Smith, moreover, neither Talbot nor Morley knew Morales, Campbell or Joannides personally. They were therefore dependent on the information they were given by various sources, whose credibility they do not seem to have seriously assessed.

Indeed, one of the most glaring inadequacies of Morley and Talbot’s article is that they also minimize the number of persons who identified Morales, Joannides, and Campbell. They mention exactly four sources for these identifications, each of whom they acknowledge as having identified exactly one of the three men in the footage from the Ambassador. In their piece, they acknowledge the following identifications:

* Wayne Smith identified one of them as David Morales

* David Rabern identified the same person as Morales

* Brad Ayers identified one of them as Gordon Campbell

* Ed Lopez identified one of them as George Joannides

But Brad had also identified Morales, and David Rabern, a professional investigator, who was present at the Ambassador, had personally observed Campbell interacting with Morales, even though he did not know either man by name. Footage shows Campbell interacting with Joannides, as “RFK Must Die!” records [9]. Shane noticed three others—presumably, subordinates—who were interacting with them. Thus, a list of identifications, at the very least, should obviously also include these additions:

* Brad Ayers identified another man as David Morales

* Rabern observed Morales interacting with Campbell

* Footage shows Campbell interacting with Joannides

Remarkably, Rabern told Shane that he had also observed the man others identified as Campbell in and around the LA Police Department “probably half a dozen times” prior to the assassination of RFK, usually in the company of two other men and a woman, as Shane reports in WHO KILLED BOBBY? [10] (page 441), which raises obvious questions about collusion between the CIA and the LAPD in Bobby’s death.

WHO KILLED BOBBY?

Talbot and Morley not only suppress Ayers’ identification of Morales, but they also ignore two other witnesses, Dan Hardway (page 458) and Tom Polgar (page 459), who also identified Joannides, lending further support to Ed Lopez’ identification:

* Dan Hardway identified one of them as George Joannides

* Tom Polgar identified the same man as George Joannides

Hardway and Lopez were congressional investigators for the House Select Committee on Assassinations and Polgar had been Joannides CIA station chief in Saigon. After initially confirming his identity, according to Talbot, Polgar later decided he had been wrong. Given how well Polgar knew Joannides, however, it is difficult to imagine why he would have withdrawn his identification—unless he had been pressured to do so.

Talbot discounts Polgar in a note to O’Sullivan, but his identification seems more credible than his denial. Moreover, when Joannides' daughters were asked if their father was in the videos, they responded with, "No comment!" (page 447), which suggests that they, too, recognized their father. If it wasn’t him, after all, surely they would have simply asserted, "No!" That they did not deny the ID should also have been reported:

* Joannides’ daughters did not deny the identification

And Robert Walton (page 436), who had been Morales’ lawyer in the 1970s, and Ruben Carbajal (pages 426-427), who had been his best friend since childhood, reported that David Morales himself had implied he was involved, which counts as further, albeit indirect, evidence that at least he, among the three, had been there:

* Robert Walton reported Morales had said he was there

* Rube Carbajal partially supported what Walton reported

Carbajal confirmed Walton’s statement that Morales had told them, “Well, we took care of that son of bitch, didn’t we?”, while speaking of JFK, and told Shane that the “we” referred to the CIA (page 427). But while Walton reported that Morales added, “I was in Los Angeles when we got Bobby”, to whom Morales also refers as “the little bastard” (page 438)—a claim which previously appeared in Noel Twyman, BLOODY TRESON [11] (page 471)—Carbajal, as O’Sullivan phrases it, “had gotten used to Morale’s involvement in Dallas, but he wasn’t ready to finger [his friend] for another Kennedy assassination” (page 427). Bradley Ayers, who got to know Carbajal well in the course of his investigations, also believed he knew far more than he was telling.

And there is more. In his video, "RFK Must Die!", Shane also interviews “Chilo” Borja who confirmed the identity of George Joannides. We must therefore add his name:

* “Chilo” Borja identified another as George Joannides

Instead of the original list from Talbot and Morley, which included four witnesses making one identification apiece (two of whom, Smith and Rabern, identified the same person, Morales), there turn out to be seven witnesses who directly identify them, where Smith, Rabern, and Ayers identify Morales (which Walton and Carbajal indirectly confirm); Lopez, Hardway, Polgar, and Borja identify Joannides (which is an identification his own daughters did not deny); while Ayers identified Campbell, Rabern personally observed Campbell and Morales interacting, and Rabern, rather cryptically, tells Shane that he believes Campbell is still alive—without elaborating.

DiEugenio’s Defense

If the evidence that supports the IDs of Morales, Joannides, and Campbell at the Ambassador is actually much stronger than Talbot and Morely acknowledged, the evidence to the contrary appears to be much weaker than others have claimed. On “The Education Forum”, for example, Jim DiEugenio, who with Lisa Pease co-edited THE ASSASSINATIONS (2003), [David Talbot : Gordon Campbell, 19 August 2010] advances various arguments intended to support Talbot and Morley, where I shall comment on (1) the reliability of photographic identifications; (2) the significance of his family’s rejection of the identity of Morales and of a second family’s affirmation of an alternative identification in place of Campbell’s; and (3) the plausibility of the presence of CIA officials at the hotel, even though it was possible—even probable—that they would be photographed there.

(1) On photographic Identifications

First, DiEugenio reports what Anthony Summers, author CONSPIRACY, said, when this story first broke, which is that photographic identifications are very “iffy”. Unless you have a very good close up shot, and preferably also full shots for height and weight comparisons, they (Summers and DiEugenio) would rather stay away from them. And he mentions several examples involving E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis, Charles Harrelson, Lucien Conein, and Joseph Milteer that he assumes demonstrate false identifications based upon photographs. But at least three of the five IDs (Harrelson, Conein, and Milteer) appear to have been correct, when the evidence is pursued far enough. These conflicts are often resolvable, as I have found myself.

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 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.

Even in cases like those DiEugenio cites, it may be possible to sort things out. We are not dealing with staged photographs here but with videotape, which shows the parties in question moving, talking, and interacting, where their images were only discovered after extended study. When you have experts like Ayers and Smith who knew them personally over extended periods of time, the situation is not comparable to the situation Summers described, where you might even want to have front-and- side photos for comparison. Nothing about the identifications by Ayers and Smith, who remain confident of them to this very day, seems “iffy”. Quite the opposite.

(2) The role of the families

DiEugenio claims that eight persons said it was not David Morales in the video from the Ambassador without bothering to take into account whether they might have had motives for denying the identity. They even include his daughters! I can't imagine anyone who would have a stronger motive for denying that the man in the footage was their father! He cites Luis Fernandez and Manuel Chavez, who worked with Morales, but are also not credible. Fernandez, for example, says "definitely that is not Dave Morales" when many others who knew him well have said the opposite.

O’Sullivan reports that Fernandez said there were differences between them: “This person seems taller, more slender and lighter color. David was fat, round faced and darker complexion, like a true Mexican Indian, whereas those of the man in the DVD are of an African-American” (page 456). The disadvantage of those like DiEugenio and O’Sullivan is that they did not know Morales and were not in position to know. I didn’t know him, either, but the testimony of serious men like Bradley Ayers, Wayne Smith, and David Rabern surely overrides it, not to mention that he had told others he was there when they got “the little bastard”! Sullivan claims that he was 5’10” tall (on page 426), but Brad has written that Morales was at least 6’ tall, which is consistent with images at the Ambassador and nickname of “El Indio” (“Big Indian”).

When Tom Clines, one of Morales’ closest associates at the agency, says both "It looks like him but it's not him" (page 450), then a definitive rejection, like that of Fernandez, is not a reasonable response. Shane observes about Clines, who tries to minimize Ayers’ competence on the ground that he wasn’t at JM/WAVE “very long”, when he was there for more than a year and a half, and Ed Wilson, who also did not identify him in a 1959 photo, both appeared to have motives to protect Morales that Ayers and Smith did not. (Brad has also told me that Clines once remarked to him that Campbell had returned to Canada after the breakup of JM/WAVE.)

DiEugenio also buys O’Sullivan’s report that the person Brad identified as Campbell was actually “Michael Roman” and that Joannides was “Frank Owens”, two Bulova Watch executives who are supposed to have been mistaken for CIA officials. When shown images from the Ambassador, however, the Roman family was actually quite equivocal. On page 473 of WHO KILLED BOBBY?, for example, we learn that Roman’s son himself initially wasn't at all sure it was his father and that one of his daughters also questioned his appearance. The one photo of Roman that appears toward the end of "RFK Must Die", moreover, does not look like to me like the Ambassador man: too much hair and the shape of his face is different. Their interest in hanging around after the assassination is not behavior that we would expect from Bulova executives.

(3) The plausibility of their presence

DiEugenio also suggests that, in an operation like this, “you would not have CIA higher ups in plain view of still cameras and motion picture cameras. It makes no sense, and this is what I told Talbot at the beginning. Further, Joannides was not an action officer. He is a desk guy who was in Athens at the time.” But this is one of those cases where his gullibility is showing. How could he possibly know? The CIA, after all, specializes in plausible deniability, which can be implemented effortlessly by the creation of fake documents and phony records. It is extremely painful to read that Jim DiEugenio would so naively accept an easily fabricated CIA alibi like this.

Similar sentiments were expressed by his co-editor, Lisa Pease, who even wrote in her blog that she could not believe the CIA would send those who were involved in his brother’s murder to assassinate Bobby. But since Bobby had said he intended to reopen the JFK investigation, their self-interest would have been great. In response to Brad’s Ambassador identifications, she suggests that he has been seeing things that he wants to see in his desire to solve the case. She says she has met Brad and that she thinks he has to have been “gullible to join up with the CIA and think they were the good guys, right?” But, as someone who has known Brad for 15 years, I cannot think of anyone I have ever known I regard as less gullible than Brad Ayers.

Lisa might want to consider that, from their point of view as agents of assassination who harbored a visceral hatred for Bobby, they would have wanted to be there. Like the “familiar faces” at the corner of Houston and Main on 22 November 1963, these men find events like these self-affirming—not unlike the adrenaline rush that they may have experienced as their targets were taken out. Amoral killers such as David Morales took pride in their work at a brute, animalistic level. He was present when Che Guevara was killed and reputedly severed his head from his body and kicked it away to insure there would be no stories of Che’s “survival”. They were there to guarantee nothing went wrong with their plan to kill a man who threatened them.

Weighing the Evidence

The kind of a priori thought about evidence by DiEugenio, especially, has shaken my confidence in his ability to think things through. No one would think those who were responsible for framing Lee Oswald would plant a weapon that could not have fired the bullets that killed JFK, either. But it happened. We have to follow the evidence where it leads and not confine ourselves to our own subjective expectations. When Shane O’Sullivan concludes the men identified as “Gordon Campbell” and as “George Joannides” were salesmen for Bulova Watch Company, moreover, he appears to be deceiving himself based upon flimsy evidence. Since Campbell was interacting with Morales, was Morales a Bulova Watch man, too? He visited the family of one of those men but simply takes their word for the identification of the other. He was taken in.

When I asked Brad whether it might have been possible for the CIA to fabricate a family to identifying Michael Roman as the man he had identified at the Ambassador to discount the possibility that it was Gordon Campbell, it was a question for which the answer was obvious: “Of course!” That would be child's play for the agency, yet it appears to be a possibility lying beyond the realm of DiEugenio’s imagination. The son and daughter weren’t sure the man at the Ambassador was their father. That should have signaled to Shane that, if there was this much uncertainty from his son and one of his daughters, the probability that this really was their father was low.

Conclusions in a case of this kind are going to be probable rather than definitive, but the weight of the evidence favors Ayers and Smith’s identifications. As in the case of Lucien Conien, the evidence supporting them is strong, while that for Robert Adams is weak. Most importantly, what is the probability of the presence of Bulova Watch Company executives who strongly resemble these CIA officials who are present at the location of the assassination of RFK, just as he has claimed victory in a primary that was expected to catapult him to the nomination of his party for President? The probability has to be extremely low, especially when you consider that Morales was interacting with Campbell and that Campbell in turn was interacting with Joannides.

James Richards, who is an expert on the CIA, observed during a conversation that those three were the ones most likely to be present if an assassination had been in the works. It is not only unsurprising that they would be there, but the arrogance of the agency is such that it doesn’t seem to care who knows, as long as the general public does not catch on. Thus, a group of CIA officials was captured in photographs as the intersection of Main and Houston during the assassination of JFK in Dealey Plaza, as most students of his death are aware. If you exercise nearly absolute control over law enforcement authorities, including the police and the sheriff’s departments, the Secret Service, and even the FBI, the fear of exposure is nil.

Assessing the Players

If we weigh the evidence using likelihood measures, where the likelihood of an hypothesis h is equal to the probability of the evidence e, if hypothesis h were true, then the likelihood that those who were present at the Ambassador were Morales, Campbell, and Joannides appears to be very high. The evidence cited to weaken that hypothesis, including the rejections by close friends and family, is more readily explained by the desire to cover up than to establishing the truth. The likelihood they were actually Bulova executives who happened to resemble them is extremely low. Those with the least axes to grind support the identifications, while those with the most at stake deny them. There is a pattern here that none of us should ignore.

My take on the participants varies from case to case. Jim DiEugenio and Lisa Pease have done good work, especially in authoring many of the articles they brought together in THE ASSASSINATIONS. But it seems to me that they lost their way in dealing with this case. They were far too willing to engage in a priori reasoning, where their intuitions (or appeals to “common sense”) are unreliable and unworthy of belief. DiEugeio and Pease would do better to track the evidence more closely and follow it where it leads. I am sorry to say that this is not either of their best work.

Shane O’Sullivan, I think, was simply overwhelmed by the criticism he received for his efforts to expose the truth. He confronted the kind of retaliation that many of us have encountered, where powerful mechanisms are in place to suppress the truth, especially in a situation with the potential of this one—within our visually-oriented culture—to expose CIA complicity. It had to be thwarted, at all costs. What Shane takes to be the most persuasive indication that his counterpart at the Ambassador was not Morales was the description of alleged differences between Morales and the Ambassador man from Luis Fernandez. But he was not justified in assuming that Luis was not dissembling. Luis appears to have been doing his best to protect his friend.

Like Jefferson Morley and David Talbot, Shane O’Sullivan did not know any of them. The weight of the evidence from those who weren’t shading their testimony strongly suggests he was being misled. That he fumbled the ball over “Roman” and “Owens”, moreover, is difficult to deny. Recall that Rabern told Shane he had also observed the man others identified as Campbell in and around the LAPD “probably half a dozen times” as Shane reports in WHO KILLED BOBBY? [10] (page 441). But, on page 454, he also observes (in relation to his DVD, “RFK Must Die”) that, “At 12:47, ‘Morales’ emerged from the pantry [where Bobby had been shot at 12:15] and walked into the ballroom among a group of police officers.” At 1:03, ‘Morales’ is observed comparing notes with someone who looks like a plainclothes detective, though, according to the LAPD, no police were present at the time RFK was shot. If Joannides, Campbell and Morales were Bulova executives, they did not act as if they were Bulova executives.

Concluding Reflections

The strength of the case for the identifications of Morales, Campbell, and Joannides can be seen in the presentations on the BBC program that Talbot and Morley dispute. In “CIA Agents killed Robert Kennedy—Part 1” on YouTube [11], for example, Brad Ayers identifies both Morales and Campbell and Wayne Smith identifies Morales. In “Part 2” [12], David Rabern identifies Morales and Ed Lopez identifies Joannides. These IDs, as I have explained, are supported by those of many others, including even (indirectly) by Morales himself, where the evidence against them is weak. The CIA had the motive, the means, and the opportunity to remove a threat it feared—and it took it. What is there not to understand? The rest is just smoke and mirrors.

Rabern asks why CIA involvement was never pursued but, as I observed in [13], my earlier article, the LAPD officials assigned to handle the investigation had ties to the CIA! So it was a nice "closed loop" where the agency was in control. O’Sullivan has written to me that he remains convinced that “Gordon Campbell” was in fact Michael D. Roman, in spite of the points I made about the family’s equivocal identifications. But, if Shane is right, then logic requires that we conclude that Campbell and Roman are one and the same, where his life as a Bulova Watch Company executive was his cover, where even he (page 470) acknowledges that that may have been the case.

The conduct of David Talbot and Jefferson Morley, by comparison, appears to be far more serious. They have repeatedly minimized both the strength and variety of the evidence supporting these identifications. They have exaggerated the weight of the evidence against them, even including the claim to have disproven them, when they did no such thing. They did not even attempt to identify those whom they claimed had been mistaken for them. Such doubts as they have raised, in my opinion, are overcome by the weight of the evidence, where their cavalier treatment of Brad’s identification of Campbell was especially egregious and irresponsible. They adopt a highly self-congratulatory attitude about “bad JFK stories driving out good ones”. But there is nothing about their performance that warrants any pats upon their backs.

As most students of JFK are aware, Joannides was even brought out of retirement to coordinate interaction between the CIA and the HSCA when it took up the case in 1977-78. The agency has refused to grant access to his files even when the ARRB was entitled to have them. In my view, the conduct of Talbot and Morley has been inexcusable to the extent that one could reasonably infer that they were suppressing evidence. The most appropriate response they could make to offset that impression would be to acknowledge that, given the evidence presented here, they were clearly wrong, and thus remove the cloud of uncertainty that obfuscates the clarity of truth.

As I previously explained (voltaire.net, “JFK and RFK: The Plots that Killed Them, The Patsies that Didn’t”), the LAPD officers assigned to handle the investigation of Bobby’s death had ties to the CIA. They badgered witnesses who did not conform to the “official account”. The most probable killer, Thane Eugene Cesar, had worked with companies that also had links to the agency. The hypnotist, William Joseph Bryan, was on the radio suggesting that the assassin was probably “mind controlled” even before Sirhan had been identified as a suspect. Bryan later boasted to several hookers that he worked for the CIA and had hypnotized him. Given the weight of the evidence, there is scant room for doubt that Sirhan was a “patsy” set up by the CIA.

14 October 2010

* Special thanks to Brad Ayers, Shane O’Sullivan, and Kenneth Watson for feedback.

References
[1] Bradley Ayers, The Zenith Secret, Vox Pop, 2006.
[2] Shane O’Sullivan, Who Killed Bobby?, Sterling Publishing, 2008
[3] Ibid.
[4] Shane O’Sullivan, RFK Must Die: The Assassination of Bobby Kennedy, DVD (2007).
[5] David Sánchez Morales, Spartacus Educational.
[6] Bradley Ayers, Spartacus Educational.
[7] Jefferson Morley and David Talbot, “The BBC’s Flawed RFK Story”, The Mary Ferrell Archives (July 2007).
[8] Jefferson Morley, Spartacus Educational.
[9] O’Sullivan, RFK Must Die.
[10] O’Sullivan, Who Killed Bobby?
[11] “CIA Agents killed Robert Kennedy—Part 1” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0eh0hRlf...re=related
[12] CIA Agents killed Robert Kennedy—Part 2” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cw-6SrVs0...re=related
[13] “JFK and RFK: The Plots that Killed them, The Patsies that Didn’t” http://www.voltairenet.org/article165721.html
Jim Fetzer, McKnight Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota Duluth, has chaired or co-chaired four national conferences on the death of JFK and has published three books about it. He co-edits http://assassinationresearch.com with John P. Costella.

[Jack White]

This post has disappeared, not only from The Deep Politics Forum, but from The Education Forum as well, together with the comments that were posted about them. I find this rather stunning. If anyone knows what's going on, I would like to know. This cannot be a coincidence.

It appears that the original post has now reappeared.

Jack

[James H. Fetzer]

Apparently, I posted it in the "Political Assassinations" section rather than the "JFK Assassination" I did a search and it wasn't there because I was in the wrong search space. The joke is on me! But there's still the EF! I suppose that it was missing there primed me to miss it here. Jim

This post has disappeared, not only from The Deep Politics Forum, but from The Education Forum as well, together with the comments that were posted about them. I find this rather stunning. If anyone knows what's going on, I would like to know. This cannot be a coincidence.

It appears that the original post has now reappeared.

Jack

[James H. Fetzer]

Very interesting, Albert. I like the way you are reasoning this through. Excellent! Jim

I just realized that Roman might be a real and traceable person who actually held an executive position at Bulova. In order for Campbell to be his double there would have to be some kind of arrangement the permutations of which are numerous - but possible. Perhaps O'Sullivan found out there was a real Mr Roman and backed-down right there? But that doesn't preclude there being some kind of arrangement where Campbell shifted in as Roman when needed. The rest follows suit as written above. Once you get some kind of knowing cooperation by Roman in all this the rest becomes easy.

The shame of this is not having done this in 1969 or so and get a microphone under Roman's mouth.

[Albert Doyle]

It kind of boggles the mind to think CIA would think way outside the box and configure a strategy where they went out and sought look-a-likes for Campbell or others and then formed the phony Bulova executive arrangement around this plan.


Another thing that would work as strategy would be using Sirhan Sirhan to draw animosity towards the Palestinians - a group that just so happened to be the "enemy" of a foreign government our government was backing at the time and using as justification in a new front against the Soviets in the Middle East. I'm not so sure how much Bobby was a symbol of anti-Palestinian powers. And don't forget Sirhan was a christian. By installing maniacal hate in Sirhan through hypnosis CIA could kill three birds with one stone by using it to drive him towards shooting Bobby. I'm not sure if Bobby threatened the Palestinians as much as those who opposed them. In any case we can clearly see the typical modus operandi of a certain organization fleshing-out here. One that was already well practiced at sheep dipping and creating agent provocateurs like Oswald and people who weren't what they seemed they were.

[James H. Fetzer]

You are surely right about selecting Sirhan in part because he looks like and would be taken to be a Palestinian, promoting a sub-conscious bias against those who kill our most admired leaders. This was replicated on 9/11 by adopting 19 Islamic fundamentalists and a guy off in a cave in Afghanistan as the "patsies" extending that pattern. Take a look at my London lecture, "Are wars in Iraq and Afghanistan justified by 9/11?", http://noliesradio.org/archives/21621/ on the "dancing Israels", for example. According to John Armstrong, of course, the agency has gone much further by having two young men lead parallel lives for the sake of one ("Harvey") serving as the patsy, in part for acts taken by the other ("Lee"). As I have elsewhere explained on this forum, I have my own doubts about the adequacy of his research, but it is fascinating that at least one serious student of JFK has suggested the agency would go to even greater extremes to promote its own nefarious schemes.

It kind of boggles the mind to think CIA would think way outside the box and configure a strategy where they went out and sought look-a-likes for Campbell or others and then formed the phony Bulova executive arrangement around this plan.


Another thing that would work as strategy would be using Sirhan Sirhan to draw animosity towards the Palestinians - a group that just so happened to be the "enemy" of a foreign government our government was backing at the time and using as justification in a new front against the Soviets in the Middle East. I'm not so sure how much Bobby was a symbol of anti-Palestinian powers. And don't forget Sirhan was a christian. By installing maniacal hate in Sirhan through hypnosis CIA could kill three birds with one stone by using it to drive him towards shooting Bobby. I'm not sure if Bobby threatened the Palestinians as much as those who opposed them. In any case we can clearly see the typical modus operandi of a certain organization fleshing-out here. One that was already well practiced at sheep dipping and creating agent provocateurs like Oswald and people who weren't what they seemed they were.

[Peter Lemkin]

Look-alikes is a very old trick of the intel community - dating back hundreds if not thousands of years....along with multiple people impersonating each other; even sharing names and ID et al. The modern assassinations are just other examples. Look at how difficult it is just to pin down who the 'tramps' were in Dallas...that was all pre-planned and then honed through the years....ditto Lee and many others. Think of all the 'faces' of Oswald.....and all the people impersonating and setting him up....if not one being his life double. All magician's tricks really....to have you [the audience] focus on one thing while the real action is happening somewhere else...and you don't see it, because you were distracted and/or confused. :bandit: Leaders throughout history had doubles to stand in for them to prevent the real leader's assassination. Military and Intel types are always looking for doubles or creating them.