JFK Assassination Documents to be released this year

[Herlock Sholmes]

Maybe I did a disservice yesterday to the WC questioning Bonnie Ray Williams in detail about chicken sandwiches. A chicken bone fired from a powerful catapult could well be lethal, especially if it strikes the throat. Arlen Spector had to discount that possibility before developing his magic bullet theory.

More believable that some of the conspiracists theories…

Umbrella Man
Man in the drain.
Hickey in the car behind.
Kennedy’s driver Greer (edited out on the Zapruder film of course)
Greer and Jackie firing together….the book is available.
Theres a book claiming that LBJ himself pulled the trigger.
David ‘I love unicorns’ Lifton claiming that surgery was performed on Kennedy’s head to disguise the wounds.

Believe me, conspiracy theorists have corned the market on embarrassing idiocy.

They even have their very own magician, Mark Lane……every witness that talks to Lane miraculously starts remembering all manner of things that they didn’t remember at the time.

[Herlock Sholmes]

We’re surrounded by loonies……..help!

[Herlock Sholmes]

I’m looking to learn more about the Warren Commission and how it operated; including it’s faults nd shortcomings. I’ve begun reading Philip Shenon’s weighty ‘A Cruel And Shocking Act: The Secret History Of The Kennedy Assassination.

Shenon was a reporter for the NYT where as Washington Correspondent he covered the Pentagon and the Justice and State Departments.

Ill post snippets as I go along.

Normal text is just a report on the books content. The emboldened texts are my own comments and questions.

……

One of Hoover’s deputies had told him: “We must recognise that a matter of this magnitude cannot be investigated in a week’s time.” Hoover was annoyed and made a note at the top of the Deputy’s memo which said: “Just how long do you estimate it will take? It seems to me that we have the basic facts now.” Three days later on November 29th Hoover told Johnson in a phone call: “we hope to have the investigation wrapped up today, but probably won’t have it before the first of the week.” He was too optimistic though and it wasn’t until December 9th that the FBI presented the Commission with its 5 volume 400 page report. It said: “Evidence developed in the investigation points conclusively to the assassination of President Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald, an avowed Marxist.” It didn’t rule out entirely the possibility of a conspiracy involving Oswald but offered no hint of evidence for one. The report also said that although the FBI had Oswald under surveillance earlier in the year as a possible Soviet spy the bureau never had any reason to suppose that he was a danger to the President.

I don’t know if that was true or not but a question has to be - did they have evidence that Oswald might have been a danger but failed in their duty in some way, result in them trying to cover up evidence of prior knowledge?

Just as they were setting up the Commission they received the FBI report, most of which had already been leaked to the Press. It was poorly written and confusing. Senator Russell said: “The grammar is bad and you can see that they did not polish it up at all.” It was full of gaps about medical and evidential detail. McCoy said: “That is very unsatisfactory.” Warren said: “It’s totally inconclusive.” Boggs said that it left him with: “a million questions.” The FBI’s shoddy report led to Warren changing his mind about the scope of the Commission’s investigation. It would have to be much more far-reaching and it would take much longer than originally expected. Even Ford, who was a major defender of the FBI and a fully paid up member of the J. Edgar Hoover fan club said that the report:” did not have the depth that it ought to have had.”

So it looks like the FBI’s report was a rushed and pretty shoddy piece of work and because of this the WC realised the magnitude of their task was much greater then they had first realised.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Another point to mention (that I could have added to the last point was about Warren Olney who was the man that Warren wanted as his chief counsel. Some of the commissioners were concerned though that Olney was a protégé of Warren’s and, although no one doubted Warren’s integrity, the appointment of Olney might have raised questions or concerns. The FBI were also lobbying behind the scenes against Olney as Hoover was against him for some reason. On December 6th Ford, Dulles and McCoy told Warren of their reservations about Olney. McCoy appeared to admit that the Hoover-Olney issue might prove a problem. Olney was a no go and so Rankin got the job.

Its also worth mentioning that on December 12th Gerald Ford had a meeting with Cartha DeLoach, Hoover’s Deputy, which ended with Ford agreeing to keep the FBI appraised of what was going on with the Commission. So Ford was essentially the FBI’s eyes and ears. When DeLoach sent a memo to Hoover telling him of this he wrote “well handled” at the bottom. Former FBI number 3 William Sullivan, who broke with Hoover years later and was forced into early retirement, said how excited Hoover was over Ford’s offer to feed info to the Bureau, saying that Ford was protecting them by: “keeping us fully advised on what was going on behind closed doors…..He was our man, our informant, on the Warren Commission.”

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

The magnitude of the Warren Commission's task was to convict - without allowing him any legal representation - a man of three murders he could not have committed and not allow any evidence that suggested otherwise to get in their way.

As I pointed out a few days ago, four witnesses testified to the effect that the jacket allegedly discarded by Oswald following the murder of Tippit could not have been worn by the murderer, and a workmate of Oswald testified that he had never seen him wear such a jacket.

Two men were seen driving away from the scene of the attempted shooting of General Walker.
Oswald could not drive.

As I have stated before, there is no eyewitness evidence that Oswald at any time carried a rifle or any package that could have contained a rifle anywhere inside the TSBD, nor that he at any time carried it up the stairs, nor that he placed a rifle at the top of the stairs shortly after 12.30 p.m., nor that he was anywhere on the sixth floor at the time of the assassination, and there is evidence that he was on a lower floor at the time of the assassination.

As Police Chief Curry said, the police could not have proven that Oswald participated in the assassination of President Kennedy.

The Warren Commission proceedings, as noted later by some of its members, was not an entirely honest process.

[Herlock Sholmes]

The magnitude of the Warren Commission's task was to convict - without allowing him any legal representation - a man of three murders he could not have committed and not allow any evidence that suggested otherwise to get in their way.

As I pointed out a few days ago, four witnesses testified to the effect that the jacket allegedly discarded by Oswald following the murder of Tippit could not have been worn by the murderer, and a workmate of Oswald testified that he had never seen him wear such a jacket.

Two men were seen driving away from the scene of the attempted shooting of General Walker.
Oswald could not drive.

As I have stated before, there is no eyewitness evidence that Oswald at any time carried a rifle or any package that could have contained a rifle anywhere inside the TSBD, nor that he at any time carried it up the stairs, nor that he placed a rifle at the top of the stairs shortly after 12.30 p.m., nor that he was anywhere on the sixth floor at the time of the assassination, and there is evidence that he was on a lower floor at the time of the assassination.

As Police Chief Curry said, the police could not have proven that Oswald participated in the assassination of President Kennedy.

The Warren Commission proceedings, as noted later by some of its members, was not an entirely honest process.

I’m not interested in your ill-informed, biased and clichéd opinions PI. Your comments lack judgment and the ability to properly assess evidence or to consider context and they constantly betray the all-too-obvious evidence of your sole desire to work to a conspiracist script. Your every post is just a tissue of boring white noise lacking any meaningful content. Your sole aim here is just to irritate and bore and promote your own exaggerated sense of self importance (which you display on every thread and which resulted in your previous lengthy ban. You are completely rigid in your thinking and cowardly and dishonest in your approach. You hardly ever answer a direct question or respond in a meaningful way to the points of others; preferring to change the subject to an area that you want to postulate on. You plough on and on like a horse wearing blinkers. I even very recently asked you one very simple, very specific question and what did you do? True to form you responded with a question but no answer. I’m utterly bored with dealing with your embarrassingly poor content PI. So, unlike yourself, Fishy and George, who proudly trumpet your biases by refusing to read anything other than conspiracist literature, i’m reading a non-biased book. I’m looking into the details and the background in an unbiased way. I’m trying to increase my knowledge of the subject so that I can learn. So, I’ll keep reading proper, well researched, well written works by sober, intelligent writers and you can continue to wade in works by proven fantasists and liars like Mark Lane and Jim Garrison and that cabal of ego-driven fantasists.

I hope that my tendency toward diplomacy hasn’t watered down this message too much?

[Herlock Sholmes]

A final snippet of the night for those interested in truth and not fantasy.


It’s interesting that, after the shoddy FBI report, the person that spoke out and said what the rest of Commission were thinking was Russell (Russell was pro-segregation and disliked Warren for his views on Civil Rights.) He’d initially refused to sit on a Commission with him until Johnson, who was Russell’s protege, gave him what became known as the ‘Johnson treatment.’ A mixture of cajoling, flattery, emotional blackmail and outright bullying. Johnson was a formidable man) Russell said that someone on the staff should act as: “a Devil’s Advocate who would take this FBI report,” and also any other reports from other agencies like the CIA and: “go through it and analyse every contradiction and every soft spot in it, just as if he were prosecuting them.” And that there should be one staff member who would evaluate evidence: “as if he were going to use them to prosecute J. Edgar Hoover.”

Hardly sounds like the words of a man intent on nothing but cover-up does it? Perhaps the words were faked?


Ford said that the staff that they hired should have no strong political views that might influence them to one extreme or the other. McCoy raised the issue of the importance of speaking to Jackie Kennedy early, while events were fresh in her mind. It appeared that she’d spoken to friends and family about it and that she might have found it cathartic. Warren was reluctant. McCoy disagreed and suggested talking to Bobby about the best way to approach her but Warren didn’t comment. Years later would cite this as evidence that Warren was much too protective of Jackie and the Kennedy family to the detriment of the investigation.

[Fiver]

We’re surrounded by loonies……..help!

We're on the internet, so same as always.

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

I read the previous post (# 2031) and looked in vain for anything that could be considered to belong to a category other than that of character assassination.

The irony is that it was written by someone who has declared his violent objection to the practice of character assassination.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I read the previous post (# 2031) and looked in vain for anything that could be considered to belong to a category other than that of character assassination.

The irony is that it was written by someone who has declared his violent objection to the practice of character assassination.

Boring and content-free.

Par for the course? Don’t you have anything better to do?

[PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR 1]

I don't think it is a good idea to cite Senator Richard Russell as evidence of the integrity of the workings of, and conclusions reached by, the Warren Commission.

Russell was one of the Commission's members who did not believe in the Single Bullet Theory.

The agreement to the request made by dissenting members that their dissent be recorded in the Report was not honoured by Earl Warren.

So much for Earl Warren's integrity!

[cobalt]

The weaknesses in the LGT argument remain.

The LGT advocates confuse assertion with argument. Listing 52 points that point towards a person’s guilt falls well short of evidence. To take one example: Oswald lied about the curtain rods therefore he must have been the assassin. This is facile. Puerile in fact. Buell Frazier was actually charged as an accessory during his lengthy interrogation so the evidence of a 19 year old may not be secure. And even if it was then that proves nothing either. Frazier says that in later years he was phoned and told that curtain rods had indeed been found in the TSBD. Oh, but we are told that Oswald denied having curtain rods. According to whom? Captain Fritz and his non contemporaneous notes which often deviated from those taken by the FBI agent present. And even if Oswald, by some devilish cunning managed to smuggle a rifle into the TSBD it still does make him the marksman. There is a bar that has to be set for what we call ‘proof.’

The CT argument to which I belong too often confuses correlation with causation. The fact that the DPD employed a fair whack of John Birch racists and anti-Kennedy personnel does not mean that they were committed to his execution. Even if Roy Truly and half of the TSBD had links to the CIA that does not mean they were complicit. Any more than Abe Zapruder who had some esoteric link to darker forces within Dallas. The compliant membership of the WC, selected by the very man who assumed the presidency without a popular vote, is visible to anyone who cares to look. We are right to explore these suspicious links and we can draw inferences from them, but they are no more proof than the assertions made by the WC advocates. Let us not overstate the evidence and boogie with Bugliosi.

Thought for today is Oswald’s revolver. By his own account (which might be false) he went back to his rooming house to collect a jacket (he’d left his at the TSBD) and a revolver presumably. But to what end? If he wanted a shoot out, he could have had one inside the TSBD and should have brought the revolver there. If he wanted to make a break for it, he could have gone to the bus station and boarded the first bus to Mexico and taken his chance from there. If he wanted to lie low and hope things might blow over he could have gone straight to the cinema minus the jacket and the revolver. Everyone who encountered Oswald remarked on his coolness- even the Soviets acknowledged this. So what was he up to?

[Herlock Sholmes]

I don't think it is a good idea to cite Senator Richard Russell as evidence of the integrity of the workings of, and conclusions reached by, the Warren Commission.

Russell was one of the Commission's members who did not believe in the Single Bullet Theory.

The request made by dissenting members that their dissent be recorded in the Report was not honoured by Earl Warren.

So much for Earl Warren's integrity!

I think that Russell is the ideal man to quote. Here we have a hardline segregationist, a man that we would assume to be a staunch defender of institutions like the FBI, being highly critical of the FBI’s report and stating that there should be a dedicated staff member to go through reports like it minutely as well as reports from other agencies like the CIA.

Again you are impervious to nuance. Everything is good guys and bad guys. Black and white. Warren was a human being and like all human beings he had his own fallibilities and biases. McCoy, as I’ve posted, openly said that Warren was too protective of the Kennedy family. You’re just repeating what you’ve been told. I on the other hand am attempting to look at the facts and to listen to the voices of those that were there and not just the voice of a know-all on the internet.

[GBinOz]

I’m not interested in your ill-informed, biased and clichéd opinions PI. Your comments lack judgment and the ability to properly assess evidence or to consider context and they constantly betray the all-too-obvious evidence of your sole desire to work to a conspiracist script. Your every post is just a tissue of boring white noise lacking any meaningful content. Your sole aim here is just to irritate and bore and promote your own exaggerated sense of self importance (which you display on every thread and which resulted in your previous lengthy ban. You are completely rigid in your thinking and cowardly and dishonest in your approach. You hardly ever answer a direct question or respond in a meaningful way to the points of others; preferring to change the subject to an area that you want to postulate on. You plough on and on like a horse wearing blinkers. I even very recently asked you one very simple, very specific question and what did you do? True to form you responded with a question but no answer. I’m utterly bored with dealing with your embarrassingly poor content PI. So, unlike yourself, Fishy and George, who proudly trumpet your biases by refusing to read anything other than conspiracist literature, i’m reading a non-biased book. I’m looking into the details and the background in an unbiased way. I’m trying to increase my knowledge of the subject so that I can learn. So, I’ll keep reading proper, well researched, well written works by sober, intelligent writers and you can continue to wade in works by proven fantasists and liars like Mark Lane and Jim Garrison and that cabal of ego-driven fantasists.

I hope that my tendency toward diplomacy hasn’t watered down this message too much?

Textbook toxic Narcissist use of projection.

[Herlock Sholmes]

The weaknesses in the LGT argument remain.

The LGT advocates confuse assertion with argument. Listing 52 points that point towards a person’s guilt falls well short of evidence. To take one example: Oswald lied about the curtain rods therefore he must have been the assassin. This is facile. Puerile in fact. Buell Frazier was actually charged as an accessory during his lengthy interrogation so the evidence of a 19 year old may not be secure. And even if it was then that proves nothing either. Frazier says that in later years he was phoned and told that curtain rods had indeed been found in the TSBD. Oh, but we are told that Oswald denied having curtain rods. According to whom? Captain Fritz and his non contemporaneous notes which often deviated from those taken by the FBI agent present. And even if Oswald, by some devilish cunning managed to smuggle a rifle into the TSBD it still does make him the marksman. There is a bar that has to be set for what we call ‘proof.’

Are you actually responding to a post that I made weeks ago? Or are you posting in response to the list of things that could have gone wrong?

Either way yours is a straw man point. If you take the time to read back you will find that more than once if said that the curtain rods lie doesn’t prove that Oswald fired the gun. It’s proves that he lied and combined with the package, and the missing rifle at the Paine’s, it proves that Oswald took his rifle to work. So much for your ‘point.’ The silly point about Frazier being phoned means zero. No curtain rods were found. This is just a fact. Please grow up. Just an assumption that Fritz was ‘in on it’ is, to use your word ‘puerile.’ You really are clueless.

The CT argument to which I belong too often confuses correlation with causation. The fact that the DPD employed a fair whack of John Birch racists and anti-Kennedy personnel does not mean that they were committed to his execution. Even if Roy Truly and half of the TSBD had links to the CIA that does not mean they were complicit. Any more than Abe Zapruder who had some esoteric link to darker forces within Dallas. The compliant membership of the WC, selected by the very man who assumed the presidency without a popular vote, is visible to anyone who cares to look. We are right to explore these suspicious links and we can draw inferences from them, but they are no more proof than the assertions made by the WC advocates. Let us not overstate the evidence and boogie with Bugliosi.

What a bunch of unmitigated waffle. You really should try and find a new hobby Cobaly because you’re clearly out of your depth when assessing crime. Johnson assumed the Presidency because that was what the rules stated. A President dies, the vice president takes over. Only you could see something sinister in that.

What ‘compliant’ members? Members who disagreed with the SBT? Members who slated the FBI’s report? Members who openly said that stuff from the CIA and the FBI and other agencies shouldn’t be taken at face value but analysed.

Your just like PI and just like the majority of CT’s. Obsessed with some David Icke view of the world where everyone in power is thoroughly evil. Why don’t you consult a surgeon and see if he can remove those conspiracy goggles. You’ll feel much better.

Instead of doing a George/Fishy/PI perhaps you should read Bugliosi first. Anyone that claims an interest in the case and hadn’t read Bugliosi really doesn’t merit an opinion. It’s quite clearly, and by a country mile, the best book ever written on the case. On the other hand….stick to clowns like Lane and Garrison.

Thought for today is Oswald’s revolver. By his own account (which might be false) he went back to his rooming house to collect a jacket (he’d left his at the TSBD) and a revolver presumably. But to what end? If he wanted a shoot out, he could have had one inside the TSBD and should have brought the revolver there. If he wanted to make a break for it, he could have gone to the bus station and boarded the first bus to Mexico and taken his chance from there. If he wanted to lie low and hope things might blow over he could have gone straight to the cinema minus the jacket and the revolver. Everyone who encountered Oswald remarked on his coolness- even the Soviets acknowledged this. So what was he up to?

So you’re trying to claim that Oswald carrying a revolver is somehow evidence of his innocence? I’ve heard it all now. We don’t know what his thoughts were after murdering Kennedy and Tippit or before. It’s not important. We just categorically know that he killed both men. You couldn’t name a single crime where there was so much evidence of a suspects guilt.

If I’d have been President I wouldn’t have bothered with a Warren Commission. Or an FBI report. Court next day, jury…..guilty. Electric chair. Prison sentences for conspiracy theorists. Jobs a good ‘un, as they say where I come from. Oswald got off light. You George, Fishy and PI can have a traitor and a double murderer as your hero if you like but you’ll have to excuse me, Fiver, Wulf and others if we don’t join the “we love murderers” party.