JFK discussion here!

[Cerys]

But Pepotamo, do you not realise that wading in with generalisations is biggy's job?  If you step on his toes like that then you can hardly blame him for complaining.  Please be more considerate next time.

[biggytitbo]

But Pepotamo, do you not realise that wading in with generalisations is biggy's job?  If you step on his toes like that then you can hardly blame him for complaining.  Please be more considerate next time.

Like what?

[Cerys]

Rather a lot of your posting history.  Plus graphs.

[biggytitbo]

Thats a bit of a generalization isnt it?

[Cerys]

Damn.  You noticed.

[biggytitbo]

Probably should've been clearer on that point, but my use of 'kind of' is a bit of a caveat, no? I wasn't trying to characterize anyone who has doubts about LHO as the lone assassin as part of an easily deflectable echo chamber. My point was that, such is the vast scope of the conspiracy Marrs espouses, and all the players he names, and all the factoids he trots out happily, Crossfire is very useful for getting acquainted with the vast array of utter guff you can expect to encounter when you meet a typical JFK assassination conspiracy proponent, who hasn't come into contact with the saner, more rational stuff that has flowed from the pens of Summers or Thompson.

You went straight after the the obvious cheap silly stuff though didn't you?

I mean this isn't my thread, but it could at least be a sensible discussion about the good material out there, rather than pointing and laughing at the daft stuff. Which is not only too easy, its boring.

Fetzer's drivel doesn't even warrant attention. He's on a par with classic lone nut lunatics like 'Dr' John Lattimer.

[Pepotamo1985]

You went straight after the the obvious cheap silly stuff though didn't you?

Erm, no. I mentioned one book that, whilst largely composed of hilariously daft nonsense, is the most popular assassination book by far and is full of arguments that the vast majority of conspiracy proponents I meet online and IRL regurgitate verbatim.

It could at least be a sensible discussion about the good material out there

Yeah, fair enough.

rather than pointing and laughing at the daft stuff.

As a side point, some of the 'better' conspiracy books and authors you've mentioned here I believe fall easily under the classification of 'daft stuff'.

Fetzer's drivel doesn't even warrant attention.

Well, you've brought him up more than once. I've never even mentioned his name.

[biggytitbo]

Erm, no. I mentioned one book that, whilst largely composed of hilariously daft nonsense, is the most popular assassination book by far and is full of arguments that the vast majority of conspiracy proponents I meet online and IRL regurgitate verbatim.

Where? If you hang out in daft places you'll see daft stuff. Fheres no vast majority, theres simply too big a range of views for that to be possible. Just look at MaCadams site, that still pushes utter drivel about melons, the jet effect, the thorburn position and similar bizarre anti science that the lone nut side has come up with. Most of the shit i hear people come out with clearly comes from his site not Jim Marrs.

The best forum out there is the Education Forum, where the discussions are largely sensible with only the odd nutty thread leaking through.

As a side point, some of the 'better' conspiracy books and authors you've mentioned here I believe fall easily under the classification of 'daft stuff'.

Douglas's book is one of the best at tackling the why, and the bigger issues at stake. It is a bit anecdotal at times but its a good mainstream effort.

Newman's book is still the best at dissecting how the cover up worked. Once you learn just how closely Oswald was been watched before the assassination the official story simply becomes nonsensical.  His stuff on Mexico City is definitive, showing beyond doubt that Oswald was been impersonated and the CIA covered it up.

Lone Nuts don't get impersonated. And the CIA don't cover them up either.

[Hank Venture]

What, he's dead?!

[Uncle TechTip]

What, he's dead?!

Ruby? Yep, fraid so. How convenient.

[Pepotamo1985]

Well his office was bugged

He claims his office was bugged. He also claimed a lot of things in his book that were totally untrue to paint himself as the second coming of Christ and to vindicate his wrecking the life of an innocent gay businessman enquiry.

[biggytitbo]

The CIA had whole group working to undermine Garrison.



And Larry Hancock and Jim Dieugenio have quite a lot of stuff backing up Garrisons claims in their books.

It's odd, becuause if you believed the 'critics' then Garrrison is actually the worst human being of all time, easily surpassing Hitler. Nothing to do with the CIA usng their mockingbird assets to destroy him in the media at all...

[biggytitbo]

James Phelsn, who infiltrated Garrisons office then informed on his investigation to the FBI


http://www.realhistoryarchives.com/media/phelan.htm


He was also the man behind some of the worst media hatche jobs on Garrison.

[Thomas]

Am I right in thinking that some of the photographs circulated on the web as being from JFK's autopsy were actually from Officer Tippit's?

I was under the impression that this one posted on Wikipedia (via the click-here-to-see-horrible-image green bar), for example, is actually a photograph of Tippit.

[biggytitbo]

I think that was just another of the crazy theories. No truth in it as far as I'm aware.

[Thomas]

Ah, right, so they are actually JFK.

I went to a house party thing for a bit once, and someone had been sick on a girl who was sleeping on a bed, facing the wall. Her head looked just like in those autopsy photos.

[Pepotamo1985]

The CIA had whole group working to undermine Garrison.

Doesn't mean the CIA had any links to any of the players or were involved in the assassination in any way, or that there was any truth to Garrison's 'case'. That memo is dated more than a year after the investigation started, and more than half a year since Clay Shaw was arrested, and yet they're still apparently only considering what to do about the Garrison investigation at that point. I mean, surely by that point, if there was any validity to Clay Shaw's guilt or truth to their culpability, they'd have already made contact with Shaw's lawyers, given him defence cash, or started a basic media disinformation campaign using their Mockingbird assets. But in that memo the CIA is still trying to figure out what to do about the probe.

Also, I can imagine that the CIA would be tetchy given Garrison was already on the record as saying Cubans were involved. They almost certainly had stuff they wanted to hide pertaining to the Cubans and Castro, and whoever knows what else at the time. Doesn't mean they were trying to cover up connections with Oswald or involvement.

[biggytitbo]

Doesn't mean the CIA had any links to any of the players or were involved in the assassination in any way, or that there was any truth to Garrison's 'case'. That memo is dated more than a year after the investigation started, and more than half a year since Clay Shaw was arrested, and yet they're still apparently only considering what to do about the Garrison investigation at that point. I mean, surely by that point, if there was any validity to Clay Shaw's guilt or truth to their culpability, they'd have already made contact with Shaw's lawyers, given him defence cash, or started a basic media disinformation campaign using their Mockingbird assets. But in that memo the CIA is still trying to figure out what to do about the probe.

Also, I can imagine that the CIA would be tetchy given Garrison was already on the record as saying Cubans were involved. They almost certainly had stuff they wanted to hide pertaining to the Cubans and Castro, and whoever knows what else at the time. Doesn't mean they were trying to cover up connections with Oswald or involvement.

Garrison didn't centre in on the CIA until quite late in his investigation so the timing is really not here or there.


The point is, why, if Shaw is just some innocent bloke with no connections to anything, why would the CIA set up a group purely to try and undermine Garrisons 'non existent' case at all? As for a basic media disinformation campaign, it was was from basic. Garrison had everything thrown at him, right down to child molestation. Much of this actually came from FBI assets like Phelan, but the CIAs influence on the us media was so pervasive that they could have been behind any of it.


Also I can't help feel you're having it both ways. On the one hand its absurd that the CIA tried to nobble Garrison. On the other, there might have been a CIA conspiracy to get Garrison because they wanted to cover up some stuff, just not this stuff.

[Pepotamo1985]

Garrison didn't centre in on the CIA until quite late in his investigation

He'd been tossing out groups and guilty parties pretty much since day one.

so the timing is really not here or there.

My point about the timing (quite clearly) was that, if the CIA were so threatened by the Shaw trial, why did it take them a year to even get round to considering a response to the probe? The CIA is a ludicrously powerful organisation with tentacles in thousands of pies. I find it inconceivable that, if Garrison's investigation in any way directly threatened specific assets or secrets of theirs, that it would take them anything longer than a few days to get the ball rolling on a coverup or disinformation campaign. But that document talks about setting up a group to discuss what they should do. I think that's significant.

The point is, why, if Shaw is just some innocent bloke with no connections to anything

The point is, why, if Shaw wasn't an innocent bloke who did have nefarious intelligence service connections, had they not even made proper contact with even his legal team in the six months since he'd been arrested?

why would the CIA set up a group purely to try and undermine Garrisons 'non existent' case at all?

For the reasons I explained and further elaborate upon a bit further down.

As for a basic media disinformation campaign, it was far from basic.

I was using 'basic media disinformation campaign' as an example of something effective the CIA could've organised in a few hours to counteract Garrison's probe, if they were vaguely concerned by it when the news broke. 

Garrison had everything thrown at him, right down to child molestation.

I don't know, there are some contemporary accounts of his... predilections and less than savoury behaviour that predate the assassination investigation.

Also I can't help feel you're having it both ways. On the one hand its absurd that the CIA tried to nobble Garrison. On the other, there might have been a CIA conspiracy to get Garrison because they wanted to cover up some stuff, just not this stuff.

I never said it was absurd that the CIA might try to nobble Garrison. I know the CIA took an interest in the probe (although not keen enough an interest that Agency Director Richard Helms had anything to do with it and merely had a minion report its progress to him at fairly infrequent intervals, and, as I've already pointed out, not keen enough an interest that they even thought about doing anything about it/him for 12 months). What I'm saying is that such was Garrison's wide sphere of inquiry, and all the different groups he was targeting, it's likely that the CIA feared that he might uncover something - whether a kernel or something substantive - that would shed some light on their illicit activites abroad. Lest we forget, this was happening at a time when the CIA was trying to style themselves as a benign and relatively passive force, and reflexively denied any involvement in doing anything apart from getting info on the Soviets.

[pillockandtwat]

Could I lazily ask people for some book recommendations about the JFK assassination? Biggytitbo in particular? Cheers.

Personally I don't have a problem with LHO as the lone gunman. Who he knew and what they knew about him, that's the interesting thing, I think.

I can see that Jack Ruby ties in to Sam Trafficante and Johnny Rosseli, and I can see those two tie in to the CIA over Cuba, but Oswald remains tantalisingly out of reach. Which of course would be the most important thing you need in a cut-out. But maybe it was simply synchronicity: some guys are thinking about it, while another totally different guy just decides to do it.

I agree with the sentiment expressed earlier that you can have a cover-up without having a conspiracy. Clearly it was in the US national interest to own that story, and kill speculation, as well as anything that might fall out about Oswald's links with the intelligence community. I'd include the FBI in that community, by the way, they routinely ran their own double-agents in the Cold War, often at extreme cross-purposes with Langley and State. Oswald had a Fed handler, didn't he? The Hands Off Cuba leafleting never really seemed to intellectually check out with me, but then again people are a bunch of contradictions.

Years ago I used to get all MK ULTRA over Sirhan Sirhan, but it's only the bullets and the gun that bother me with Bobby now, and that could just be confusion at the scene and police incompetence afterwards.

[biggytitbo]

Could I lazily ask people for some book recommendations about the JFK assassination? Biggytitbo in particular? Cheers.


Personally I don't have a problem with LHO as the lone gunman. Who he knew and what they knew about him, that's the interesting thing, I think.


I can see that Jack Ruby ties in to Sam Trafficante and Johnny Rosseli, and I can see those two tie in to the CIA over Cuba, but Oswald remains tantalisingly out of reach. Which of course would be the most important thing you need in a cut-out. But maybe it was simply synchronicity: some guys are thinking about it, while another totally different guy just decides to do it.


I agree with the sentiment expressed earlier that you can have a cover-up without having a conspiracy. Clearly it was in the US national interest to own that story, and kill speculation, as well as anything that might fall out about Oswald's links with the intelligence community. I'd include the FBI in that community, by the way, they routinely ran their own double-agents in the Cold War, often at extreme cross-purposes with Langley and State. Oswald had a Fed handler, didn't he? The Hands Off Cuba leafleting never really seemed to intellectually check out with me, but then again people are a bunch of contradictions

Oswald was transparently, crudely acting as an agent provocateur. We know at that exact time both the FBI and the CIA had various cointel schemes to try and smoke out and smear what were regarded as 'subversives', basically any one left wing or who expressed sympathies for Cuba. And that's exact what Oswald does. His behaviour in New Orleans is a case in point. Setting up one man chapters of the FPCC, overtly campaigning for them in the street, starting fights in the street, trying to join the DRE - a pro Castro student group,  sending pictures of himself tooled up to communist papers basically saying 'what do you think about this guys?'. Then he goes to the media and reveals himself to be a marxist who had lived in the soviet union - perfect! The handbills he was handing out in New Orleans were also from a batch that the CIA had bulk bought a few years before. And what address does he have stamped on them? The same building as Guy Bannister, who just happened to be, at that exact time, doing counter intelligence work against Castro sympathisers and left wingers. Oswald couldn't have made more bad publicity for the FPCC if he tried, which was the intention.


But I don't think it was as simple as saying Oswald was working for the CIA or the FBI. John Newman convincingly argues that he was really been ran by Angletons department, in some ways against other parts of then CIA what you said about the cross purposes between the FBI and Langley is bang on, but Newman shows how there also extreme cross purposes between Langley and Langley.


My favourite bit of Oswald spy craft was his obsession with mail order weaponry. Of course it never made any sense why he ordered guns via mail order so they could be easily traced when he could have just bought them at a shop. But he didnt just order those 2, he was obsessed with it, he had a big stash of mail order forms and he would interrogate people about their use of mail order to buy guns and ammo. Just read the testimony of Adrian alba, it's priceless. Oswald doesn't just chat about mail order weapons, ammo and gun magazines, he gives Alba a prolonged interrogation about those subjects.


And guess what, this just happened to be at the same time there was a major covert for meant investigation into the use of mail order. weapons by criminal gangs and subversives! 2 of the firms been investigated were the exact 2 firms Oswald allegedly ordered his guns from and Oswald had the name of one of the subversive groups under investigation in his notebook.

[Replies From View]

Lone Nuts don't get impersonated.

Sam Beckett gave him a good go in that Quantum Leap episode.

[Famous Mortimer]

He may be a bit of a right-wing dick who associates disagreeing with American policy as hating America, but his website on the JFK assassination is perfect for those of you who read the endlessly shifting goalposts of certain conspiracy believers and wonder if there's something to what they say:

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm

Actual evidence, researched and everything. Or if you want a book, thick enough to stop any Book Depository resident's bullet, then Vincent Bugliosi's "Reclaiming History" is a cracker. Of course, if you'd like to read character assassinations of both McAdam and Bugliosi, keep scrolling down because I'm certain they'll be there.

[jutl]

The point is, why, if Shaw is just some innocent bloke with no connections to anything, why would the CIA set up a group purely to try and undermine Garrisons 'non existent' case at all?

I don't know much about all this, but does anyone maintain Shaw had no CIA contacts? His Wikipedia page says

In 1979, Richard Helms, former director of the CIA, testified under oath that Clay Shaw had been a part-time contact of the Domestic Contact Service of the CIA, where Shaw volunteered information from his travels abroad, mostly to Latin America.[18] By the mid-1970s, 150,000 Americans (businessmen, journalists, etc.) had provided such information to the DCS.

Even that level of contact with someone associated with the plot to kill the President would be embarrassing for the CIA, and might well warrant a few meetings.

[biggytitbo]

He may be a bit of a right-wing dick who associates disagreeing with American policy as hating America, but his website on the JFK assassination is perfect for those of you who read the endlessly shifting goalposts of certain conspiracy believers and wonder if there's something to what they say:

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm

Actual evidence, researched and everything. Or if you want a book, thick enough to stop any Book Depository resident's bullet, then Vincent Bugliosi's "Reclaiming History" is a cracker. Of course, if you'd like to read character assassinations of both McAdam and Bugliosi, keep scrolling down because I'm certain they'll be there.

Not really actual evidence, researched and everything. It spouts utter discredited bullshit like the jet effect and 'Thorburn position'[nb]Not named after the snooker player but it may as well have been for all the sense it makes[/nb] and his own lame factoids about Oswald. Macadams promotion of the kook 'Dr' Latimer is equivalent to pro conspiracy people promoting the lunatic Fetzer.

As for Shaw, its pretty ludicrous today to argue he wasn't a CIA operative of some kind, way beyond the admitted domestic services stuff. We know from the AARB and people like Mellen that Shaw is linked to other still top secret CIA programs like QK ENCHANT - http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?absPageId=497118
and CIA fronts like PERMINDEX.

Also the idea that the CIA may have taken an interest in the Shaw trial merely to avoid any embarrassment would be nice if they didn't already have a long and deep  involvement with Oswald that dates back to the 50s. Was it just to avoid embarrassment that the CIA actively covered up the impersonation of Oswald in Mexico City? Was it embarrassment that led them to lie about debriefing Oswald when he got back from the USSR? Was it embarrassment that led to someone at the CIA syphoning off intelligence about Oswald away from the departments that may have been able to do something about it? Was it embarrassment that led to them planting a mole in the HSCA (George Joannides.)? You look at Oswalds life and it just makes no sense unless he's an operative of some kind. His weird circuitous defection and the way he just waltzes back into the country even though he's a traitor. And for a communist, nobody has every explained why he had no comrades. He much preferred hanging out around right wing and government intelligence characters like De Mohrenschildt and Ferrie, the kind of people who hated everything Oswald overtly claimed to believe.

[Replies From View]

Macadams

Or "Tarmac Adams" as I call him.

[jutl]

Not really actual evidence, researched and everything.

It is where the image of that memo you posted came from originally though, isn't it?

As for Shaw, its pretty ludicrous today to argue he wasn't a CIA operative of some kind, way beyond the admitted domestic services stuff.

...so that memo has no real interest then, surely? No-one - whatever their pet theory - questions that the CIA had legitimate interest in Shaw.

[mook]

patch adams.

[biggytitbo]

It is where the image of that memo you posted came from originally though, isn't it?

ARRB I think.

...so that memo has no real interest then, surely? No-one - whatever their pet theory - questions that the CIA had legitimate interest in Shaw.

I think it was a response to the claims that Garrisons claim that his investigation was been nobbled was a fantasy.

In fact as I have shown, both the FBI and the CIA were trying to undermine him. We know the FBI were stealing his evidence and giving it to the media and this is before we even address Gordon Novel's claims that he was reporting on Garrison directly to the CIA.

[jutl]

ARRB I think.

...but according to this Usenet post, first published on McAdams' site.

I think it was a response to the claims that Garrisons claim that his investigation was been nobbled was a fantasy

That memo just shows that they had some meetings about the fact that someone they had had contact with was likely (they thought) to get convicted of conspiring to kill the President. Surely that's a natural thing to do, whether or not they wished to affect the investigation?