The 'Suckered!' Trilogy

[David Orsam]

Was I supposed to ask Simon questions about your essay series?

No, of course not Tom. Did you actually read the questions I suggested you ask him? They were all based on clarifying what Simon Wood has written. A couple of days ago you said "I think it'd be nice to get to the bottom of this Andrews/Jarvis business." For a moment, I thought you were being serious but apparently the notion of asking Simon a difficult question about any of his theories on the Andrews/Jarvis business terrifies you so much that you fall back into repeating a ridiculous theory of your own about me which I have already told you is not true.

[Tom_Wescott]

No, of course not Tom. Did you actually read the questions I suggested you ask him?

Here's a new question - did you actually type the part in bold with a straight face?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[David Orsam]

Here's a new question - did you actually type the part in bold with a straight face?

Yes I did Tom.

Simon Wood is refusing to answer any of my questions. He has, however, made clear in this thread that he will answer any of your questions. You have said that you would like to get to the bottom of the Andrews/Jarvis business. Therefore, I suggested some questions you could ask Simon Wood which might start to assist you in getting to the bottom of the Andrews/Jarvis business. Those questions were:

1. When Simon Wood says, "Parts of the Boston Sunday Globe's chronology are clearly inaccurate". which parts of the chronology does he mean?

2. Which parts of the surveillance details described in the Boston Sunday Globe report of 23 December 1888 report are, to use his words, "melodramatic padding"?

3. What does he mean when he says "cross-checking other non-agency press reports suggests that the events described [by the Boston Sunday Globe] are fundamentally correct"? What press reports was he referring to?

4. How was Labouchere coerced into a volte-face and who coerced him?

You did not ask him any of these questions but did ask him an off-topic question about the 1549 Prayer Book Rebellion. Then, when I criticised you for this, you responded by saying: "Was I supposed to ask Simon questions about your essay series?"

None of my suggested questions were about my essay series. That is why I asked you (with a straight face) if you had actually read the questions I suggested you ask him. I rather suspect the answer was that you had not.

[Jonathan H]

http://www.kenrahn.com/JFK/The_critics/The_Buffs--Trillin.html

[Simon Wood]

Hi Jonathan,

Interesting piece. Thanks for posting.

Josiah Thompson, an assistant professor of philosophy at Haverford College, might have been discussing the Whitechapel murders when he wrote—

"This is an obsession . . . There’s a fantastic way in which the assassination becomes a religious event. There are relics, and scriptures, and even a holy scene—the killing ground. People make pilgrimages to it. And, as in any religious event, what happened there isn’t clear; it’s ambiguous, surrounded by mystery, uncertain, dubious. I think there is a feeling within some of us that it has to be clarified. It’s the symbolic status of it that’s important. Somehow, one hopes to clarify one’s own situation and one’s own society by clarifying this."

Regards,

Simon

[Jonathan H]

Calvin Trillin's piece is an absolute classic, and shows to what extent JFK being killed by a pro-Castro extremist (though hardly a typical one) in Far Right Dallas was just inconceivable and thus unacceptable to too many on the fringe Left.

Had Kennedy been killed by a Bircher or a Klansman it is unlikely that the whole Conspiracy movement/industry would have got off the ground, at least not by the sort of progressive types profiled in Trillin's "New Yorker" article.

Also instructive, I argue, is the failed attempt on President Reagan's life in early 1981 by a young, affluent malcontent who had flirted with both Neo-Nazism and Jodie Foster (by phone). This near-tragic event caused no conspiracy speculation that I am aware of. None that entered the mainstream anyhow.

One thing the JFK/Conspiracy 'Buffs' got right--and they were wrong about nearly everything--was that President Kennedy would never have sent half a million combat troops into Viet Nam, nor bombed North Viet Nam. In this opinion these naive, suburban obsessives were way ahead of the liberal establishment, which would not catch up, with much agony, until 1968 and 1969. This included Robert Kennedy who before his own assassination by a lone nutter proposed the kind of diplomatic settlement that his late brother would have hustled back in 1965, and which Nixon signed off on, more or less, in 1973.

The Buffs linking of the President's murder as a motive by shadowy forces, in order to escalate the Viet Nam War, whilst untenable is, emotionally at least, quite understandable.

[Mayerling]

Calvin Trillin's piece is an absolute classic, and shows to what extent JFK being killed by a pro-Castro extremist (though hardly a typical one) in Far Right Dallas was just inconceivable and thus unacceptable to too many on the fringe Left.

Had Kennedy been killed by a Bircher or a Klansman it is unlikely that the whole Conspiracy movement/industry would have got off the ground, at least not by the sort of progressive types profiled in Trillin's "New Yorker" article.

Also instructive, I argue, is the failed attempt on President Reagan's life in early 1981 by a young, affluent malcontent who had flirted with both Neo-Nazism and Jodie Foster (by phone). This near-tragic event caused no conspiracy speculation that I am aware of. None that entered the mainstream anyhow.

One thing the JFK/Conspiracy 'Buffs' got right--and they were wrong about nearly everything--was that President Kennedy would never have sent half a million combat troops into Viet Nam, nor bombed North Viet Nam. In this opinion these naive, suburban obsessives were way ahead of the liberal establishment, which would not catch up, with much agony, until 1968 and 1969. This included Robert Kennedy who before his own assassination by a lone nutter proposed the kind of diplomatic settlement that his late brother would have hustled back in 1965, and which Nixon signed off on, more or less, in 1973.

The Buffs linking of the President's murder as a motive by shadowy forces, in order to escalate the Viet Nam War, whilst untenable is, emotionally at least, quite understandable.

Fascinating Jonathan. I have never seen any suggestion of some deep dark conspiracy over the shooting of Reagan in February 1981 (probably because the President, though seriously wounded as was his press secretary Brady and several others, did not die). Also Hinkley was able (due to his family resources) to afford a really good defense - something other Presidential assassins have not been able to do (Guiteau, for example, had to rely on his brother-in-law Scoville, whom he didn't like).

However, I am aware that a conspiracy theory has been raised about another killing of that period. Felton Bressler wrote an account of the shooting of John Lennon, and came to the conclusion that Lennon (due to his political leanings and following) may have been earmarked for assassination by C.I.A. people using Mark David Chapman as their hit man. I have to admit I did not buy this theory when I read the book in 1990, and still don't.

The tendency in the U.S. regarding assassination plots is that they are hatched by the right wing against national figures, not the left wing. Even when a controversial figure like Huey Long is shot (supposedly by an assassin - there is an argument, and a good one, that it was an accident in a confrontation) by Dr. Weiss, whose father-in-law was one of the conservative judges who disagreed with Long's policies and his centralization of power in Louisiana. The theories of left wing conspiracies are usually about the infiltration of the government by leftist groups (as in the 1940s and 1950s regarding the "Red Scare" culminating in the McCarthy period). Occasionally a right wing figure gets shot (the forgotten assassination of the 1960s is that of American Nazi leader, George Lincoln Rockwell), and this assassination is sometimes considered a secret plot of the CIA because Rockwell was a loose cannon who could not be controlled.

It is a bit timely to be discussing this matter, as we only had the shooting of the nine victims in the South Carolina church (including a reverend who was a state senator as well) the other day - again by a right winger.

Jeff

[Mayerling]

Congrats. Really good saga.

Was researching the Carew family in 2007.

Is that the family that included the naval officer lost in the sinking of the "Mary Rose" in 1542?

Jeff

[Abby Normal]

good Lord.

Not only is this now totally off topic no one has yet to seriously engage orsam in debate on his articles.

But I guess we can attribute that to the superb quality of Davids work and his rock solid arguments!

[Mayerling]

Hi Wickerman,

"I'm left wondering why isn't Simon fighting his own battles?"

I have better things to do than waste my time with Mr. Awesome.

At present I am researching a non-fiction account of the 1549 Prayer Book Rebellion and doing my level best not to completely corrupt history.

Regards,

Simon

Hi Simon,

I should have asked this the other day but had some business to attend to.
Was this Rebellion tied to the adoption of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer that I believe Archbishop Thomas Cranmer was putting together? It has been nearly twenty five years since I read book after book on Tudor Engalnd under Henry VIII to Elizabeth I, and so my memory of these events is not as good as it should be.

Jeff

[Abby Normal]

Hi Simon,

I should have asked this the other day but had some business to attend to.
Was this Rebellion tied to the adoption of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer that I believe Archbishop Thomas Cranmer was putting together? It has been nearly twenty five years since I read book after book on Tudor Engalnd under Henry VIII to Elizabeth I, and so my memory of these events is not as good as it should be.

Jeff

for the love of God either PM him or start a new thread!

[Mayerling]

for the love of God either PM him or start a new thread!

You are probably quite right Abby, but the fact is the last three statements and questions I brought up happen to be on this thread because they are to response that were earlier on this thread. I will try to send personal messages on such from now on, but I was simply following the comments already here.

Moreover, I have no points to bring up for or against David's work. I thought his research was excellent.

Jeff

[DJA]

Is that the family that included the naval officer lost in the sinking of the "Mary Rose" in 1542?

Jeff

Yes.

George was Sir Gawain's nephew.

[Mayerling]

Yes.

George was Sir Gawain's nephew.

Thanks for verifying that DJA.

Jeff

[Robert]

Jeff's an historian. He makes connections. No harm in that.