"The good ol' days..." on JFKresearch Assassination Forum

[Greg Burnham]

I selfishly wish that several prominent members of the DPF had not been kicked out of the EF.
I sometimes miss the support that I once enjoyed from Rich DellaRosa, Jack White, Phil Guilliano,
Scott Myers, Doug Weldon, John Ritchson, Nick Prencipe, Stan Wilbourne, Len Osanic, Vince Palamara,
Adele Edison, Bernice Moore, Terry Mauro, Robert Morningstar... and yes, even Jim Fetzer, among
others upon whose input I learned to depend for many years.

Several have since passed. Several are now either truly impaired or are making a good show of it.
Some have other things to do--and who can blame them?

Still, it is helpful to receive invaluable feedback from trustworthy "comrades in arms" now and again.

[Adele Edisen]

I'm with you, Greg. And they were good ol' days, with all kinds of ineresting ideas and news about the assassinations and related topics. There was a lot of sharing and just plain old friendliness in the common search for truth. It's sad that the Educ. Forum has allowed ad hominem attacks to escalate, causing a toxic atmosphere that's counterproductive to the goals of a discussion forum. That Forum began with good intentions...

Adele

[Greg Burnham]

Thanks Adele. I sure wish I'd been around to see Charles et al battle those on EF. Must've been a sight to behold!

[Dawn Meredith]

Thanks Adele. I sure wish I'd been around to see Charles et al battle those on EF. Must've been a sight to behold!

That it was.

However re the so called "good old days" for me are not that good. I have been involved in this since 1973 and many in the critical community have been involved in infighting, ego back biting, and the like since then.
Read John Kelin's Praise From A Future Generation and you will see that this has always been the case. I suppose all groups are filled with divergent views and pet theories, but the ugliness between so many researchers is so characteristic of the critical commnuity that one has to question the sincerity of some. By which I mean is not the truth more important than your cause?

Dawn

[Jan Klimkowski]

I sure wish I'd been around to see Charles et al battle those on EF. Must've been a sight to behold!

Greg - you probably missed it because it became a sight quite literarally impossible to behold.

Whenever a telling blow was landed by one of us, the Military Censor would render it invisible claiming some minor breach of forum rules.

This is why the behaviour, indeed the regular AWOL status, of the Military Censor in the Fetzer/Cinque thread is so revealing. Bear in mind that not all Swamp mods are created equal, and nor do they have equal power to place members on moderation.

[Charles Drago]

My fondest EF memories include making the cyber-acquaintances of Jan, David Guyatt, Magda, Dawn, Terry Mauro, Peter Lemkin, among a small group of enlightened thinkers/writers/researchers.

I also thoroughly enjoyed a prolonged, enlightening exchange of divergent views with Robert Charles-Dunne on some arcane JFK-related subject.

My outing of the "Colby" entity, accomplished by spotlighting wide variances in the literary qualities (or lack thereof) of "his" posts, and of the historic Colby's father, a Big Tobacco scientist who, based on the record, likely bears a huge responsibility for the leafy holocaust, were particularly satisfying.

My all-time favorite activity in the Swamp was engaging Andy "Nine-Iron" Walker in a battle of wits; contrary to popular opinion, I do so enjoy engaging an unarmed enemy. (The "Nine-Iron" nickname originated with my speculation as to which club that avid golfer prefers to shove up his arse.)

For a brief time, John Simkin and I carried on a private e-mail correspondence; it happened during a very sad period in John's life, and in its wake I actually came to believe that he was basically on the side of the angels.

If memory serves, it was in the immediate aftermath of my "Colby" exposure that my access to the Swamp was cut off and then, for a time, restored. Nine-Iron lied about it -- repeatedly. At its height, during an "on" period, he sent a private e-mail to me -- a one word response to my repeated calls for an explanation: "Think."

I saved many of the exchanges, which now reside on a preserved computer hard drive.

I may have some of them readily available for review: if so, I'll check them out and, if appropriate, repost on this thread.

[Charles Drago]

I found my record of the aforementioned exchange with RCD. It runs to 27 breathless pages, including commentary from ringside observers.

You'll find my lead-off comment and his response (in red) below.
______________________________________________________________________________________________

The "Castro did it" gambit was not affected in the slightest by LHO's capture. Its sole purpose was to hinder investigation by promulgating the fear, as expressed by Earl Warren and others, that getting to the bottom of the hit inevitably would lead to nuclear holocaust.

Don't forget the function of the Kostikov incident. Soviet as well as Cuban involvement in the assassination was "documented" early on for anyone too eager to get to the bottom of things. Or to the top, if you prefer.

(Castro was then, and is now, an indispensable enemy. Like bin Laden. If eliminated, their value to the war machine is nil. No control, no excess, without threat.)

Under no circumstances could evidence of multiple gunmen be hidden from honest investigators -- hence the presentation of Oswald acting alone becomes the essential, viable fallback position. Recall the scene in JFK when one of Garrison's investigators is approached by an FBI agent and told that of course we know it was a conspiracy.

What then of the anti-Castro boys? How would they be controlled when it became obvious that a retaliatory invasion of Cuba would not take place?

Bribery, blackmail, and mortal threat.

There was one, and only one, target on November 22, 1963.


1. Castro's value to the assassination's prime movers and their surrogates -- or, if you will, to the Great Game -- is ZERO if he's gone.

2. Not even a botched LHO murder would have been enough to nullify a full-fledged plan to invade Cuba after a Castro patsying.

To me, no other explanation makes sense.

And yes, it is fair to note that I'm in agreement with Professor Scott on this issue.


The Mob's Cuban businesses (gambling, prostitution, infrastructure control, etc.) in the agregate were small potatoes compared to the international drug trade that was threatened by JFK's telegraphed intentions to withdraw from Southeast Asia and thus likely eliminate the Golden Triangle from the game board. Recall that in the time period under scrutiny Trafficante and others were working to eliminate the Corsican middle men and deal directly with Asian principals (see The Great Heroin Coup as a worthy primer).

Such a paradigm shift would bring about major changes at all levels of the drug operation.

Castro's value, then, as a diversionary bogeyman is enhanced. And we cannot dismiss the possibility that powerful elements within the Cuban government may have been complicit in the development and/or protection of Caribbean smuggling routes that would play immensely significant roles in the new system.

Your question about the intentions of the CIA raises a very important issue. We appreciate KUBARK as a monolithic entity and as a policy setter at our peril. The most influential criminal factions within the agency were/are never more than highly paid tools of the institutions (catch me in the right mood and I'll use the word "families") that had most to gain by maintenance of the Cold War and its multiple profit-generating, power-preserving aspects.

Helms, Angleton, King, Shackley, Meyer, Dulles ... Do you think they would break wind without first clearing it with their bosses?

Were aspects of the post-hit plot improvised in response to unforseen circumstances? I'd be shocked if they weren't. Maybe this metaphor works:

The basso continuo, or figured bass, is a key element in Baroque music, much of which was written with a melody line and with simple bass line figures under it.

The keyboardist would have to play that line and improvise harmony based on the figures.

I'm ham-handedly trying to indicate that an assassination plot of immense complexity by definition would anticipate and provide for the addressing of the unanticipated.

The plotters went for Baroque, and scored.


[COLOR="#FF0000"]RCD - I am among those who contend Oswald was not supposed to be captured alive, but am not among those who suspect he was to be killed "while resisting arrest," or anywhere near the crime scene.

If we comb through the fragments on display in the official documentary record, we find residual traces of what I contend was the intended plot, which was in some ways markedly different from events that actually transpired.

Oswald's dalliance with the FPCC culminated in precisely the result that was intended. He was identified in the media at the time as a pro-Castro firebrand, trying to do the unthinkable by recruiting FPCC supporters in New Orleans. Had it been a genuine effort on his part to actually recruit members, he presumably wouldn't have listed incorrect addresses on the recruiting leaflets. On the occasion he distributed those leaflets without being arrested, he did so only for about 15 minutes, just long enough to be photographed and noticed. On the occasion he distributed those leaflets and was arrested for clashing with Bringuier and his cohorts, even the arresting officer opined that the fracas had been staged. Rather than represent the FPCC, Oswald disobeyed every legitimate direction received by him from the NYC FPCC HQ. Instead of building a local chapter, his only achievement was registering on the local media radar, including filmed TV footage and a radio debate.

Leaving aside questions of impersonation for a moment, Oswald's approaches to the Cuban and Soviet embassies in Mexico City were equally fraudulent and self-defeating. According to the testimony taken from staff at each, Oswald seemed wholly ignorant of travel restrictions imposed on US citizens traveling to either country. Yet the real Oswald was well aware of all the bureaucratic red tape that this entailed, for he had already experienced same in his travels to the USSR, and in his repatriation. To bolster his eligibility for a travel visa, the Mexico City Oswald purportedly presented a brand new CPUSA membership card [LHO was not a member], which embassy staff found odd, since special allowances were made for CPUSA members, none of whom had ever needed to brandish a card to receive that special consideration. Oswald also allegedly presented a New Orleans newspaper article with a photograph of him being arrested. No such genuine newspaper article was ever published, according to the extant record. Again, this was not a genuine attempt to receive a travel visa; it was merely an opportunity to register him as a visitor to enemy embassies, and during once such visit to meet with a Soviet named Kostikov who would only later be "unmasked" as an expert in assassination and murder.

The incidents at Redbird airport in Dallas were staged for a purpose. An "Oswald" was sighted there prior to the assassination, as part of a group seeking to charter an airplane for 11/22/63. A plane sat idling for an hour or more on the Redbird tarmac in the early afternoon of 11/22/63, then eventually left. Subsequently, special attention was paid to an incoming small aircraft in Mexico City, and the alleged transfer of a single passenger to a Cubana Airlines flight that had been delayed there, as though waiting only for that passenger. According to an obscure little footnote in Dick Russell's "The Man Who Knew Too Much," after the assassination CIA had discovered luggage at the Mexico City airport for one Lee Oswald.

When Oswald was arrested, I suggest that there was no ID in his wallet containing the name "Hidell." Had there been, one might have expected any of the arresting officers - several of whom were contemporaneously interviewed by the media - or any of the DPD hierarchy to have mentioned that fact. Upstanding citizens don't use an alias, and those who carry false ID are immediately suspect for that fact alone. Despite the received history on this aspect of the case, it wouldn't be for a full 24 hours that the name "Hidell" was first uttered by those who arrested Oswald and purportedly found "Hidell" ID on his person a the time.

In fact, I suggest that all the so-called "Hidell" ID was actually discovered in the wallet located at the Tippit crime scene. This is why the name "Hidell" entered the nomenclature of the crime only after the rifle had been traced back to a mail-order buyer using that name, via Oswald's PO box. It was only when Captain Fritz was confronted by two wallets, both ostensibly belonging to the same suspect, that this became problematic, as we'll soon see.

Taking the foregoing into account, let us assume that shortly after the assassination, the man known as Lee Harvey Oswald simply vanished. What would have been left behind, and what inferences would have been drawn from that residue?

The wallet at the Tippit crime scene would have disclosed that a man named Lee Harvey Oswald, who also used the alias "Hidell," had killed a policeman. In tracking down this man's whereabouts, DPD would have discovered - as they did - incriminating photographs of Oswald posing with weapons. After the rifle had been found in the TSBD, it would have been traced back to Klein's in Chicago, and from there to a buyer named "Hidell" at Oswald's PO box. In short order, Oswald's masquerade as a FPCC radical would have surfaced, along with his criminal arrest in New Orleans, and the subsequent TV and radio appearances in which he advocated strongly on behalf of Castro.

Soon thereafter, sources within the US government would have disclosed that Oswald had made approaches to two enemy embassies in Mexico City, and CIA would have revealed - as it did - that one person Oswald met there was in charge of Soviet assassination plotting in the western hemisphere.

At which point, it would have come to the public's attention that a light plane had left Redbird airport shortly after the assassination, that a plane of similar description had landed in Mexico City, and that a single passenger had deplaned and entered a waiting Cubana Airlines flight bound for Havana. Conveniently, that passenger would have been identified as Lee Oswald, based on luggage that had mistakenly been left behind there. [So central to the plot was this airplane story that even after Oswald's capture, the tale was subsequently retro-fitted so that the mystery passenger morphed into several other Cuban actors with purportedly strong Castro allegiances.]

Had Oswald simply disappeared and left behind this breadcrumb trail of evidence, what inescapable conclusions would have been drawn, and what would have been the official US response?

The assassination didn't transpire precisely as had been planned. Yes, it succeeded in killing the President. It failed, however, to deliver the ancillary benefits of placing direct blame upon the Havana despot, as had been hoped.

The single most critical failure in achieving that end was Oswald being arrested with his own wallet in his own pocket.

It has long been my contention that if Oswald was framed, as the majority here seem to argue, then it is by locating and examining the elements of that frameup, pre- and post-assassination, that we can identify both the methods employed and those responsible for executing it.

When I had a chance to discuss this in person with Peter Dale Scott, whose own hypothesis is slightly different, he asked me "If the purpose was to incite a military response against Cuba, why didn't it happen?" I replied that Oswald's arrest had derailed the most critical aspects of the plan, for the same reasons outlined above. Exemplifying intellectual impartiality, he agreed it was worthy of further consideration.[/COLOR]