Sirhan Sirhan may be released tomorrow

[Richard Smith]

(CNN)Sirhan Sirhan, the man convicted of assassinating Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, was recommended for parole on Friday. After spending 53 year in prison, the 77-year-old inmate's fate now rests in the hands of California's governor.

Two of Kennedy's surviving sons, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Douglas Kennedy, offered their support for parole during Sirhan's 16th appearance before the parole board Friday.
"I'm overwhelmed just by being able to view Mr. Sirhan face to face. I think I've lived my life both in fear of him and his name in one way or another. And I am grateful today to see him as a human being worthy of compassion and love," said Douglas Kennedy.
The two-person panel recommended parole, but said the decision is not yet final. Despite the recommendation for release, the board's decision could be reversed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who will review the case to determine if the parole grant is consistent with public safety, a process that could take a few months.

Most of the focus has been on RFK, Jr. (the anti-vaxer) and Douglas Kennedy (the guy arrested for attacking the nurses in the maternity ward after his kid was born).  But the vast majority of his surviving family have opposed Sirhan's release from prison:

Six of Robert F. Kennedy’s children vowed “to challenge every step of the way” the California parole board’s vote to release their father’s assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, from prison.

“We are devastated that the man who murdered our father has been recommended for parole,” they wrote in a statement issued Friday. “He took our father from our family and he took him from America. … We are in disbelief that this man would be recommended for release.”

[Charles Collins]

Most of the focus has been on RFK, Jr. (the anti-vaxer) and Douglas Kennedy (the guy arrested for attacking the nurses in the maternity ward after his kid was born).  But the vast majority of his surviving family have opposed Sirhan's release from prison:

Six of Robert F. Kennedy’s children vowed “to challenge every step of the way” the California parole board’s vote to release their father’s assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, from prison.

“We are devastated that the man who murdered our father has been recommended for parole,” they wrote in a statement issued Friday. “He took our father from our family and he took him from America. … We are in disbelief that this man would be recommended for release.”

Ahh, some sanity! 

[Jon Banks]

Most of the focus has been on RFK, Jr. (the anti-vaxer) and Douglas Kennedy (the guy arrested for attacking the nurses in the maternity ward after his kid was born).  But the vast majority of his surviving family have opposed Sirhan's release from prison:

Six of Robert F. Kennedy’s children vowed “to challenge every step of the way” the California parole board’s vote to release their father’s assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, from prison.

“We are devastated that the man who murdered our father has been recommended for parole,” they wrote in a statement issued Friday. “He took our father from our family and he took him from America. … We are in disbelief that this man would be recommended for release.”

To be fair, the Kennedy family has lots of weirdos or morally questionable people. It's dishonest to just single out the ones who you disagree with.

Paul Schrade, who was shot while standing behind RFK, supports parole for Sirhan:

The AP noted that “Schrade’s voice cracked with emotion during an hour of testimony on his efforts to untangle mysteries about the events of June 5, 1968.” He said he believed Sirhan shot him, the AP noted, but that a second unidentified shooter killed Kennedy.

The 91-year-old Schrade, a Kennedy family friend, was working as the labor chairman of the senator’s presidential campaign in 1968. He was walking behind Kennedy when the Democratic candidate was shot four times.

In part because Kennedy was struck from behind, Schrade has long advanced the argument that Sirhan fired shots that night — but not the ones that killed Kennedy.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/02/10/this-kennedy-confidant-has-spent-decades-calling-for-the-release-of-rfks-killer/?outputType=amp

Vincent Bugliosi, not known as a conspiracy theorist, believed there was a conspiracy in RFK's murder.
https://www.oklahoman.com/article/1964607/sirhan-didnt-act-alone-author-claims

If you go beyond the surface level and look at the evidence, it seems implausible that Sirhan could've fired the shots that killed Kennedy.

[Mark A. Oblazney]

Continued from my last two posts.

I don't have time to complete this now, but I will "set it up"...

You won't find any mention on wikipedia of Lowenstein's relationship with CIA from the time he was president of the NSA, the National Students Association.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allard_K._Lowenstein
"..Robert F. Kennedy assassination
Lowenstein was critical of the official account of the June 6, 1968, assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Lowenstein made a one-hour appearance on the PBS television show Firing Line in 1975, where he was interviewed by William F. Buckley Jr., in which he stated that he did not believe that Sirhan Sirhan alone had shot Kennedy. [15] ....Associations with conservatives
Lowenstein was a close friend of conservative commentator William F. Buckley, Jr., who featured Lowenstein on numerous Firing Line programs, publicly endorsed his candidacies for U.S. Congress, and delivered a eulogy at his funeral.[17][18]

Lowenstein reportedly was Republican Donald Rumsfeld's "best friend in Congress" during Lowenstein's term of office, the two having become good friends while serving as Congressional aides in the late 1950s. Despite their party and ideological differences, Rumsfeld joined Lowenstein on the victory platform upon Lowenstein's election to Congress in 1968. In 1970, Rumsfeld publicly defended Lowenstein against his Republican opponent's attacks, only to recant and endorse the opponent, Norman Lent, under pressure from the Nassau County (Long Island) Republican organization and Nixon White House. Rumsfeld's public reversal contributed to Lowenstein's reelection defeat and the end of their friendship.[10].."

It appears his charisma and ability to motivate and organize students was harnessed and repurposed for pre-emption and to lessen interference with the military draft apparatus...

Ramparts "outted him" in 1967, despite a 12 man team directed by Richard Ober to prevent publication of CIA interference in domestic affairs.

http://www.voxnews.com/index.php/component/k2/item/98-cia-userpation-press
The Userpation of the Free Press by the CIA - Harry
Written by  Alex Constintine
Jul 8, 2014 — "On March 4, 1967, Richard Ober got a report from a person who attended a Ramparts staff meeting at which magazine reporters had discussed their ..."

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1986/01/30/allard-lowenstein-an-exchange/
Allard Lowenstein: An Exchange - The New York Review of ...https://www.nybooks.com › articles › 1986/01/30 › alla...
Jan 30, 1986 — To the Editors: Hendrik Hertzberg's review of The Pied Piper, ... that the CIA/NSA link can be traced to 1949, a year before Lowenstein ...Lowenstein was clearly concerned about what the FBI and the CIA might release about his CIA affiliation under a Freedom of Information Act request. The only damaging information was the material in the portions of his CIA file that was released to him. Because of the Privacy Act, this was available to him but not to the general public.

Finally, I rely on not one but three entries in Lowenstein’s diary to show that he informed on suspected Communists in the civil rights movement.

Richard Cummings
Bridgehampton, New York"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1985/03/04/al-lowensteins-tangled-legacy/edae458a-1ac9-4b88-83dd-587a5a65abf3/
Al Lowenstein's Tangled Legacy - The Washington Posthttps://www.washingtonpost.com › lifestyle › 1985/03/04
Mar 4, 1985 — Now comes "The Pied Piper: Allard Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream," ... Cummings now points to a 1962 CIA document he just received (not ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/opinion/eugene-mccarthy-lyndon-johnson-vietnam.html
Opinion
VIETNAM '67

The Myth of Eugene McCarthy
By Joshua Zeitz
March 8, 2018

"...Throughout the late summer and fall, Lowenstein traveled the country, coalescing antiwar party activists and students at the local level into a loose coalition. “I said we’ll build the base first,” he explained, then “the candidate will come along.” He first approached Senator Robert Kennedy of New York, who took the meeting simply out of courtesy to his young staff members, then Senator George McGovern; both said no. He then went to James Gavin, a liberal, retired lieutenant general who had served briefly as ambassador to France and who now argued that America was squandering resources in Vietnam that could be put to better use in the urban communities. He likewise said no. Finally, Lowenstein approached McCarthy, the senior senator from Minnesota. It took several conversations, but when McCarthy asked, “How do you think we’d do in a Wisconsin primary?” Lowenstein knew he had found his candidate. “I was ecstatic,” he said. “It was like music, like an organ welling up in my ears.”

https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bal-curtis-gans-a-man-who-changed-the-course-of-history-20150319-story.html
Curtis Gans, a man who changed the course of history
By BY JULES WITCOVER
MAR 20, 2015
"..Gans, who died Sunday at 77, teamed at Chapel Hill with Allard Lowenstein, later a New York congressman, and orchestrated the Dump Johnson movement in 1967. Together they persuaded Democratic Sen. Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota to challenge LBJ in the 1968 New Hampshire primary, and it worked beyond their dreams.
...Gans and Lowenstein, foot soldiers in the radical Students for a Democratic Society(SDS) and in the National Student Association, headed up a group called the Conference of Concerned Democrats to dislodge the president for prolonging the Vietnam War..."

Link: books.google.com › books
1971 · ‎Snippet view
FOUND INSIDE – PAGE 29
paign : Thomas McCoy , Thomas Finney and Thomas Braden ( with Lowenstein as a possible fourth ) . McCoy was the most important , and the closest to McCarthy ...

Thomas Finney, Lawyer, Political Strategist, Dies - The ...https://www.washingtonpost.com › local › 1978/02/01

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1978/02/01/thomas-finney-lawyer-political-strategist-dies/dd8ecb8a-a8c7-4e66-bec0-32d4dd33c73a/
Feb 1, 1978 — ... Thomas D. Finney, a pioneer trial lawyer. He then served with the Central Intelligence Agency in Copenhagen, Denmark, from 1952 to 1955. ..He was a member of the prestigious law firm of Clifford, Glass, McIlwain and Finney, which he had joined in 1963...In 1968, Mr. Finney took a leave of absence from his law firm to work in the presidential campaign of Eugene McCarthy. He was considered to have the most political expertise in the organization.

Mr. Finney directed McCarthy's primary victory over Robert Kennedy in Oregon, visited the Kennedy family was assassinated and remained the McCarthy liason with Kennedy's followers..."

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=25004#relPageId=2


https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=51733#relPageId=2

Nicely 'set up', Tom.  Good posts should get bumps.

[Tom Scully]

Nicely 'set up', Tom.  Good posts should get bumps.

Thanks, Mark! It's fortunate you once worked for Leo Damore and Peter Janney attempted to leverage your and Leo's research into Mary Meyer's murder, or readers might begin to wonder if i'm registered under more than one name, here! Kidding aside, your encouragement means a lot to me.

Anyway, I'm carrying this quote from the intro the Fred Litwin's blog post he links to in a recent thread about Edgar Eugene Bradley who Garrison charged and attempted to extradite from California because the praise for Major Chris Gugas does not "add up" and it may be important or at least interesting to learn why....

https://www.onthetrailofdelusion.com/post/edgar-eugene-bradley-another-garrison-victim
....
Original caption: (January 4, 1968)

"The photo shows Edgar Eugene Bradley, who was accused by District Attorney Jim Garrison of New Orleans of being part of the conspiracy to assassinate the late President Kennedy, as he holds a press conference to report the findings of a private lie detector test he had taken to prove his innocence in the case. Posing here only to show the equipment is Bradley. Behind him at left is his attorney, George Jensen, and at right, polygraph expert Major Chris Dugas." ...

A quote excerpting some of Lisa Pease's writing...

http://the-puzzle-palace.com/files/pr598-rfk.html
....
Sirhan had been at the Ambassador the Sunday before election night. A girl matching the description of the polka dot dress girl was also seen there Sunday. Karen Ross described her to the LAPD as having a nose that had been "maybe fixed", a white dress with black polka dots, ¾ length sleeves, dark blond hair worn in a "puff" and with a round face. Sirhan and a girl were also recorded as behaving suspiciously at a previous Robert Kennedy appearance in Pomona on May 20th.

One man may have spent the last day of Kennedy’s life with this girl. While his tale is extraordinary, it is eerily credible for the nuances and details which matched other evidence of which he could not possibly have been aware. Kaiser and Houghton referred to this man by the pseudonym of "Robert Duane." His real name is John Henry Fahey.42

June 4th with the Mystery Girl
At 9:15 A.M. on June 4th, Fahey entered the back of the Ambassador Hotel. He had planned to meet another salesman there 45 minutes earlier, but had left late and been held up in traffic. On his way up the back stairs, he noticed two men he thought looked Spanish. When they spoke, however, he realized it wasn’t Spanish because he knew Spanish. He presumed they were kitchen workers.

While in the lobby area, he spotted a pretty girl and made a flirtatious comment to her. She asked him where the Post Office was, and he couldn’t help her, and she left. About ten minutes later, she returned. He invited her to join him for breakfast in the coffee shop at the hotel. She spoke "very good English" but also had a "slight accent" that he couldn’t place. He asked her where she was from. She said she had only been there three days, and that she was from Virginia. Fahey had a relative in Virginia, and asked her if she knew Richmond, whereupon the girl said she really had come from New York, and before that a middle-eastern country ("Iran" or "Iraq", Fahey thought). She mentioned specifically Beirut. (Fahey had to ask his interviewer if there was a place named "Beirut".) She also mentioned "Akaba". When he asked her name, she gave him one, and soon another, and another. He didn’t know what her real name was. She, meanwhile, pumped him for as much information as she could get, asking his name, his occupation, and his business at the hotel. When he asked her about her own business, she said "I don’t want to get you involved...I don’t know if I can trust you to tell you the whole thing."

She told him that they were being watched, and indicated a man near the door of the coffee shop. Fahey saw a man he thought might be Spanish or Greek, resembling one of the men he had seen on the back stairs when entering the hotel. He thought the man resembled Sirhan, except that this man was taller and had sideburns. When later shown pictures of Sirhan’s family, Fahey said the man was not one of the Sirhan brothers.

The girl wanted Fahey to help her get a passport. Fahey said he had no idea how to do that, at which point she explained to him that you just find a deceased person, use their Social Security Number and write to the place where he was born to get a passport. He said she seemed shaken, and very nervous, with clammy hands, and that she seemed to be genuinely in some sort of trouble.

He described her as "Caucasian" but with an "Arab complexion, very light." He called her hair "dirty-blond" and guessed her age might be 27-28. He said her clothes, shoes and purse were all tan. In addition, he felt the purse and stockings looked foreign. He also said "Her nose was of—on the hooked fashion where you can realize that she was from the Arabic world." Asked if the nose was what one might call prominent, Fahey answered affirmatively.

Fahey had business calls to make in Oxnard, and invited the girl to come along for the ride with him, since she seemed so troubled. When they got up to leave, she wanted to pay the bill, and opened a purse where he saw a fistful of money in her wallet—"big stuff—50 dollar bills—hundred dollar bills."

They drove up the coastal route through Malibu. Two different tails followed them for part of the way. At one point, Fahey was so nervous he pulled off the road, thinking the tail would leave him. As he started to get out of the car, he noticed the girl eyeing his keys, and thinking she might run off with his car, decided not to get out after all. During the ride, she said the people tailing them were "out to get Mr. Kennedy tonight at the winning reception." He thought they should call the police to get rid of the tail but she insisted they should not call the police, and asked to be taken back to Los Angeles. In the end, although they drove to Oxnard, Fahey opted out of his sales calls and returned with the girl to the Ambassador Hotel. After driving and eating meals, they returned at around 7pm, where he dropped her off. She wanted him to come into the hotel with her. When he refused, she got angry.

Fahey might not have thought of this incident again had it not been for the assassination and the story of the strange woman who ran out into the dark afterwards. A frightened Fahey called the FBI and told them he thought he might have spent the day with that woman. After talking to the FBI, Fahey read a story by journalist Fernando Faura in the Valley Times about the polka dot girl. He called Faura and told him he might know something about the girl. Faura was hot on the trail of the mystery girl, and took Fahey’s detailed description of the girl to a police artist. Fahey tweaked the image with the artist until he saw a match.

Faura then showed the drawing to Vincent DiPierro. "That’s her," DiPierro responded. "She’s the girl in the polka-dot dress. The girl’s face is a little fuller than this sketch has it, but this is the girl."43 Faura then brought in Chris Gugas, a top Los Angeles polygraph operator, who put Fahey and his story through a lie detector. Faura told Fahey he passed the test "like a champion."44

Jordan Bonfante, the Los Angeles Bureau Chief of Life magazine, was interested in publishing Faura’s account. Hank Hernandez of SUS, however, was busy trying to crack Fahey under his own polygraph test. Under pressure from Hernandez, Fahey told an untruth, saying it was Faura who had persuaded him to connect the girl he was with to the polka dot girl. But Fahey had made the connection to the FBI long before he ever spoke with Faura. But this lie was pronounced "true" by Hank Hernandez, proving again that a polygraph’s value depends a great deal upon the integrity of the operator. Sgt. Phil Alexander tried to persuade Bonfante that Fahey was not credible, and that Life shouldn’t run the story on the girl. Kaiser amusingly recounts this incident:

"I don’t think you’ve really proved that [Fahey] was mistaken," said Bonfante. He was right. It was practically impossible to do so. But if the police didn’t do so, the implications were that there was a girl who knew something about the Kennedy assassination and that the police couldn’t find her. That was a black eye for the department.

To Bonfante, this sounded too much like Catch 22 to be true. He decided to discover how important this was to the LAPD and let Alexander talk. Six hours later, Alexander was still talking, and had not yet managed to persuaded Bonfante there was no "girl in the polka dot dress."45

So then the final question is this. Was the LAPD really so deficient? Could they really not find the girl? Amazingly, the LAPD evidence log itself contains a plausible name that may well lead to the heart of the conspiracy.

The Girl Revealed? ....

In the next 5 min,, I'll flesh this out, here...

[Tom Scully]

Continued from my last post,

I'm reacting to Fred Litwin opening his blog post I linked to in my last post, with Fred's intro, mentioning of Major Chris Gugas polygraphing a man Fred describes as a victim of Jim Garrison, Edgar Eugene Bradley...

Chris Gugas, 86; leading polygraph expert found that in ...https://www.latimes.com › archives › la-xpm-2007-nov...
"Nov 15, 2007 — Chris Gugas built a career on one simple human foible: the tendency to lie. A polygraph expert, Gugas spent decades ferreting out the truth ..."

Chris Gugas, polygraph expert - The Press Democrathttps://www.pressdemocrat.com › article › news › chris-g...
"Nov 15, 2007 — A polygraph expert, Gugas spent decades ferreting out the truth using a lie detector test. The tests he administered helped confirm the sins of ..."

Chris Gugas Sr.; Administered Over 40,000 Lie-Detector Tests http://www.washingtonpost.com › AR2007111101651
"Monday, November 12, 2007. Chris Gugas Sr., 86, whose career as a leading polygraph expert uncovered whether the famous and the anonymous were telling the ..."

Polygraph expert Chris Gugas dies | National News - Winston ...https://journalnow.com › news › polygraph-expert-chris-g...
"Nov 16, 2007 — Chris Gugas Sr., a past president of the American Polygraph Association and a leading figure in the history of the profession, ..."

Chris Gugas, advocate for use of polygraph - The Boston Globehttp://archive.boston.com › Globe › Obituaries
"Los Angeles Times / November 16, 2007. LOS ANGELES - Chris Gugas Sr., a past president of the American Polygraph Association and a leading figure in the ..."

So, the guy was good, right, an expert in his field?

My question is, if Edgar Eugene Bradley was "a nothing burger," and Garrison was not actually putting on a show intended to make those demanding a reopening of the WC investigation by late 1966, seem shrill, unhinged, and unreasonable, what on earth prompted this "effort"?

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10312-10382.pdf




So, the next step seems to be to answer the question, what did a polygraph administered by Major Chris Gugas before August 14, 1968, confirm or contradict in the cases.... say... of Bradley, Sirhan, or James Earl Ray that irritated "the agency" to such an extent?

Update: Chris Gugas wasn't sought to polygraph James Earl Ray until Mark Lane represented Ray in 1977... The smear document of Aug. 14, 1968 created by the CIA seems a reaction to the following that makes it seem "the agency" wanted Garrison to arrest Edgar Eugene Bradley.:

Origin of the Chris Gugas, CIA smear was found in the Gordon Novel file...
www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=48920#relPageId=97


http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/White%20Materials/Garrison%20News%20Clippings/1968/68-01/68-01-033.pdf

[Mark A. Oblazney]

Continued from my last post,

I'm reacting to Fred Litwin opening his blog post I linked to in my last post, with Fred's intro, mentioning of Major Chris Gugas polygraphing a man Fred describes as a victim of Jim Garrison, Edgar Eugene Bradley...

Chris Gugas, 86; leading polygraph expert found that in ...https://www.latimes.com › archives › la-xpm-2007-nov...
"Nov 15, 2007 — Chris Gugas built a career on one simple human foible: the tendency to lie. A polygraph expert, Gugas spent decades ferreting out the truth ..."

Chris Gugas, polygraph expert - The Press Democrathttps://www.pressdemocrat.com › article › news › chris-g...
"Nov 15, 2007 — A polygraph expert, Gugas spent decades ferreting out the truth using a lie detector test. The tests he administered helped confirm the sins of ..."

Chris Gugas Sr.; Administered Over 40,000 Lie-Detector Tests http://www.washingtonpost.com › AR2007111101651
"Monday, November 12, 2007. Chris Gugas Sr., 86, whose career as a leading polygraph expert uncovered whether the famous and the anonymous were telling the ..."

Polygraph expert Chris Gugas dies | National News - Winston ...https://journalnow.com › news › polygraph-expert-chris-g...
"Nov 16, 2007 — Chris Gugas Sr., a past president of the American Polygraph Association and a leading figure in the history of the profession, ..."

Chris Gugas, advocate for use of polygraph - The Boston Globehttp://archive.boston.com › Globe › Obituaries
"Los Angeles Times / November 16, 2007. LOS ANGELES - Chris Gugas Sr., a past president of the American Polygraph Association and a leading figure in the ..."

So, the guy was good, right, an expert in his field?

My question is, if Edgar Eugene Bradley was "a nothing burger," and Garrison was not actually putting on a show intended to make those demanding a reopening of the WC investigation by late 1966, seem shrill, unhinged, and unreasonable, what on earth prompted this "effort"?

https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10312-10382.pdf




So, the next step seems to be to answer the question, what did a polygraph administered by Major Chris Gugas before August 14, 1968, confirm or contradict in the cases.... say... of Bradley, Sirhan, or James Earl Ray that irritated "the agency" to such an extent?

Update: Chris Gugas wasn't sought to polygraph James Earl Ray until Mark Lane represented Ray in 1977... The smear document of Aug. 14, 1968 created by the CIA seems a reaction to the following that makes it seem "the agency" wanted Garrison to arrest Edgar Eugene Bradley.:

Origin of the Chris Gugas, CIA smear was found in the Gordon Novel file...
www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=48920#relPageId=97


http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/White%20Materials/Garrison%20News%20Clippings/1968/68-01/68-01-033.pdf

So many 'smears'...... so little time.  Sigh.  You and Fred need to argue with each other, Tom.  You make life interesting.  Thank you very much+