Lifton on DiEugenio on JFK offering the Vice Presidential nomination to LBJ . . .

[James H. Fetzer]

This is a pretty strange post, even for Jim DiEugenio. I make the indisputable point that, in the study of historical events, we are attempting to determine the how and why--as well as the who and the what, of course--they actually occurred in their particularity as unique incidents in history. So I am agreeing with Charles that Lyndon was the pivotal player without whom it would not have occurred as it actually did occur!I just don't understand what there is to get excited about.

There are infinitely many ways an historical event MIGHT HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT had various conditions been different in the past. You might not have gone to see "True Grit" yesterday had a call come from a close friend just as you were about to depart for the theater. Reasoning about coulda/woulda/shouldas if x were the case can be valuable in contemplating alternatives and the importance of events. But our aim remains to discover what actually did happen, not what might have.

Oh really Jim?

And what if there had been no Mexico City? What would have been used to intimidate Warren into taking a job he did not want?

And what if RFK had not sat it out?

What if Rankin had not been the chief consul and Olney had? What role did LBJ play in dumping Olney? (McKnight, pgs. 41-42)

And if the WC was all a Johnson set up, then why did he have to be ramrodded into setting it up by Rostow and Alsop--against his will kicking and screaming. Which is proven by the transcripts in Don Gibson's magnificent article in The Assassinations. (p. 3 ff)

The WC cover up was executed by three men--McCloy, Dulles, and Ford. The other three--Boggs, Russell, Cooper--did not agree with them. Period. What is in the declassified record that shows those three men interacting with LBJ about the cover up they are enacting? I can find nothing. And recall, it was Alsop and Rostow who forced LBJ to set this thing up anyway. In other words, the actual cover up artists appear to work separate from LBJ in a official body Johnson never wanted created. The White House came under siege right after Oswald was killed by Rostow, Alsop and a third unnamed person. THey were determined to get LBJ on board with their contingency plan. If LBJ had been in on it from the start, why did he have to be brow-beaten into appointing the Warren Commission?

One last point: If Olney had been appointed, it really may have been different. Why? Because in studying the structure of the Commission--which clearly you have not done--Rankin took his orders from the Troika named above. (See part 8 of my Bugliosi series.) Much to the chagrin of the junior counsel, who--in a little known fact--did not buy Brennan, Marina Oswald, and Markham. Olney was an independent guy who did not like Hoover. So he would have taken his orders from no one. And without those three witnesses....?

Maybe, maybe not.

[Phil Dragoo]

I have the Jim Marrs Crossfire Carroll & Graf paperback 6th printing 1992 at 270:


By the early 1980s, Ford told this author he had studied literally thousands of genuine FBI documents and had slowly come to the conclusion that the Nixon-Ruby memo was probably legitimate.


I have a couple of email addresses for Jim Marrs.

[Jim DiEugenio]

Trowbridge:

Nice of you to completely leave out what I said about doing corrections in Probe. Which we did do when it was proved we were wrong or made a mistake.

Here we were not. That story was relayed to me by Ed, and backed up by Jim Marrs' notebooks.

You can say anything malicious you want to me. When you call up Jim and tell him his notebooks are wrong, and that he made a slight error, somehow either 1.) He was talking to Truby masquerading as you (boy this guy really had it out for you didn't he?), or 2.) he made it all up. Which really makes little or no sense. I mean especially since, according to you, he could have gotten the same info from that Prince of Darkness, Truby.

Again, let me know when you get Jim Marrs to retract.

[Jim DiEugenio]

[quote=James H. Fetzer]This is a pretty strange post, even for Jim DiEugenio. I make the indisputable point that, in the study of historical events, we are attempting to determine the how and why--as well as the who and the what, of course--they actually occurred in their particularity as unique incidents in history. So I am agreeing with Charles that Lyndon was the pivotal player without whom it would not have occurred [B]as it actually did occur!I just don't understand what there is to get excited about.

There are infinitely many ways an historical event MIGHT HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT had various conditions been different in the past. You might not have gone to see "True Grit" yesterday had a call come from a close friend just as you were about to depart for the theater. Reasoning about coulda/woulda/shouldas if x were the case can be valuable in contemplating alternatives and the importance of events. But our aim remains to discover what actually did happen, not what might have.
[/B]

Its only strange if you miss the point, which you do--quite often.

The WC cover up was not reliant on LBJ. It was executed by McCLoy, Ford, and Dulles. Anyone can see that who studies the inner workings, which you have not to any fine degree.

Now one can argue, well LBJ did appoint them right?

Here is the problem with that: It was not his idea to do the WC at all. He had to be dragged kicking and screaming to do it.

Does that bite size version make it easier to understand?

[Trowbridge H. Ford]

Thanks, Phil, but I have no interest at this late date in talking to Jim Marrs about his lies in CrossFire about my research as it is way too late for me to sue him, and get his publisher to make the appropriate corrections.

And Marrs can always claim that he had nothing to do with what Jim D wrote in his introductory letter to the special January 1996 issue, as Marrs is not even mentioned in it - something I would expect if he had told Jim D before about my alleged research on vast numbers of FBI memos, concluding that I said the Ruby-Nixon one was probably legitimate.

Don't forget that Jim D said that Paul Hoch had determined it a fake, and anyone with information about my claiming it was legitimate would have a clear case of my being maliciously out to get Nixon.

In case you have never seen or have forgotten what Jim D wrote, here is the linK

http://www.ctka.net/pr196-ltr.html

Jim D clearly makes up stuff about me as he goes along - as I have just shown in the case of Ed Trato on the blogs - and has never even suggested making a retraction or apology.

And this is no small matter as it was intended to explain away my murder - what almost happened on several occasions.

[James H. Fetzer]

And have you ever listened to the conversation between J. Edgar and Lyndon where Edgar had a hard time staying on the script? There were several absurdities in that one. He would later allow that he never believed that Oswald did it on his own. If you take all of this at face value, Jim, you will never begin to understand LBJ. By now, I would have thought you had a better handle on him. They had to cut off independent investigations that were popping up all over the place. Waggoner Carr had already found that Lee Oswald was working as an informant for the FBI, that he had informant number 179, and that he was being paid $200 a month right up to the time of the assassination. Has the thought ever occurred even to you that there must be some reason why the government has never produced his W-2 forms? Do you think the Warren Commission could not have obtained income tax returns for the alleged assassin of the president?

Lyndon strong armed Earl Warren into serving in a position where he had no business at all. Even you leave it unclear whether the idea is alleged to have originated with Rostow or with Alsop. But your claim that anyone "browbeat" LBJ into creating the commission is more than faintly absurd. Lyndon could browbeat anyone he wanted, but no one could have browbeaten him. By having someone else "suggest" the idea, it looked less as though it was under White House control. And look at the role players he chose. Not one was a JFK partisan. A more interesting question you might want to pursue is the obscure legal status of a presidential commission. It is ADVISORY TO THE PRESIDENT, right? So it LOOKS LIKE A BIG DEAL but its actual legal standing appears to be completely opaque. That might be a useful investment of your time and effort.

[quote=James H. Fetzer]This is a pretty strange post, even for Jim DiEugenio. I make the indisputable point that, in the study of historical events, we are attempting to determine the how and why--as well as the who and the what, of course--they actually occurred in their particularity as unique incidents in history. So I am agreeing with Charles that Lyndon was the pivotal player without whom it would not have occurred [B]as it actually did occur!I just don't understand what there is to get excited about.

There are infinitely many ways an historical event MIGHT HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT had various conditions been different in the past. You might not have gone to see "True Grit" yesterday had a call come from a close friend just as you were about to depart for the theater. Reasoning about coulda/woulda/shouldas if x were the case can be valuable in contemplating alternatives and the importance of events. But our aim remains to discover what actually did happen, not what might have.

[/B]

Its only strange if you miss the point, which you do--quite often.

The WC cover up was not reliant on LBJ. It was executed by McCLoy, Ford, and Dulles. Anyone can see that who studies the inner workings, which you have not to any fine degree.

Now one can argue, well LBJ did appoint them right?

Here is the problem with that: It was not his idea to do the WC at all. He had to be dragged kicking and screaming to do it.

Does that bite size version make it easier to understand?

[Trowbridge H. Ford]

Just more spin by the other Jim to scapegoat LBJ for what others, particularly Nixon, had done in Dallas.

As for who got LBJ to suspect that more than Oswald was involved in assassinating JFK, it is interesting to learn Hoover's certainty about Lee being the sole assassin simply evaporate, as Athony Summers wrote in The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover:

"Less than four hours after the shooting, Assistant Attorney General Norbert Schlei was astonished to hear the Director declare himself 'quite convinced that they had found the right party.' Yet called upon to brief the new head of state the next day, Edgar was less positive. Jotting down what Edgar told him, President Johnson wrote:

Evidence not strong...not strong enough to get conviction...." (p. 316)

What had happened to make the Director change his mind?

The publication of the half-page Algens photograph of LHO standing at the entrance of the TSBD just when the assassination was taking place on the first page of the WP's second section on November 23, 1963 - what even this Jim had said in Assassination Science, if true, would rule him out as a shooter, making his book just a collection of authoritative, false claims.

Case closed.

[Trowbridge H. Ford]

Another thing about the fake FBI memo, and Jim D's implying that I was the King of Darkness who used it to bring down Nixon, I just recalled my dealings with Randall Lynn, a high school teacher outside of Atlanta, who contacted me in Portugal, and asked if I would be willing to assist his students in their investigations of the Dallas assassination, sending along a tape to record whatever I had to say.

His students were most interested in any relationship between Jack Ruby and 'Tricky' Dick, though none of them mentioned what Jim Marrs had just stated about my having researched thousands of FBI memos, concluding that the 1947 one about HUAC was legitimiate - a most expected one under the circumstances

Of course, if anyone of the students had even alluded to it, I would have checked it out, resultinng in my suing Marrs and his publisher.

They were obviously hoping that I would volunteer and record how I brought the son-of-bitch down - as I would have loved to have done it legitimately - but I never so claimed as I never thought I had.

If I had taken the bait, and pushed my claims, especially on the tape, I would have been well on my way to jail for maliciously attempting to destroy the ultimate scumbag - what Jennifer Caplan, a source for federal prosecutors also in Georgia, was trying to cooborate in other ways.

Of course, the whole entrapment process collapsed when Nixon died, and then Jim D et al. set out to kill me, starting with President Clinton, Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, and DCIs Richard Helms and George Tenet.

If anyone wants more about this state-sponored killing, just let me know.