JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion & Debate > JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion And Debate

The "mysterious death" of Hale Boggs, anyone?

<< < (2/4) > >>

Lance Payette:
OK, now I’m just goofing around while my Factoid Buster cape is in the washer ...

Believe it or not, Pegge Begich is apparently still with us. She was born Margaret Jean Jendro on April 21, 1938 and married Begich in 1957, when she was 18. She is still listed on the board of the Nick Begich Scholarship Fund, which they would seemingly not do if she were deceased. One site says she is living in Nevada (but of course, wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more). I could find no other scandals associated with her, although I suppose plotting with the Mafia to have the father of your six children whacked in a midair explosion would be enough excitement for most women. When I finally got her on the phone and asked for a comment, she simply said “Crashes happen, pal.” (Yes, I made that up; it’s called “CT license,” sort of like poetic license.)

Here are the FBI files on Jerry Max Paisley. What our little Pegge ever saw in him, I have no idea. He died in prison in 2010 at age 69.

https://ia803204.us.archive.org/28/items/Jerry_Max_Pasley/E77f64e4b4beda201fbf7797949b82c0045980eb3_Q86302_R359655_D2542449.pdf

https://dn790006.ca.archive.org/0/items/Jerry_Max_Pasley/E77f64e4b4beda201fbf7797949b82c0045980eb3_Q86302_R359655_D2542450.pdf

Here’s a pretty good article by an airline captain who thinks ice was the culprit: https://www.twinandturbine.com/impenitent-ice/.

According to the Washington Post, the pilot, Don E. Jonz, was “a daring bush pilot who had argued in an aviation magazine that a ‘sneaky’ pilot could ‘disregard 99 percent of the B.S. you hear about icing,’ [and thus] decided he could make it” despite the iffy weather.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/national/2010/08/15/in-alaska-crash-the-echo-of-a-mystery/72a72635-a55f-46ac-bb46-a02aa1ddf51c/.

What a wild story. What a cast of characters. What perfect fodder for a conspiracy factoid or two or 12. Well, back to the real world, wherever that is.

Lance Payette:
OK, I’m done – and with the entire JFKA for a while because this stuff is just silly.

You will recall from the above discussion that the Los Angeles Star supposedly reported on November 22, 1973 that Hale Boggs had said he had “startling revelations” about the JFKA.

I’ve attempted to research this quotation everywhere I could. It appears – always in the exact same language – in the CT literature and only in the CT literature.

But here’s the kicker: There was no Los Angeles Star. The only newspaper called the Los Angeles Star had ceased publication almost 100 years earlier.

In 1973, there were only two publications in the area called the Star. One, the Star, is described as a “proto-punk teen magazine” that first published in February 1973 and went belly-up after five issues. The other was the Valley Star, the student newspaper of Los Angeles Valley College.

I even looked for the quotation substituting the Los Angeles Times. Nope, nada.

OK, let’s forget the newspaper. We’ll just Google “Hale Boggs” + “startling revelations” + “Kennedy.” Nope. Nothing but the Star quote and nothing but CT-oriented materials.

So we have a newspaper that doesn’t exist supposedly reporting a quotation that I can’t verify in its edition of Thursday, November 22, 1973 that “just happens” to be the tenth anniversary of the JFKA. Hmmmm. And this factoid quotation has been repeated and repeated and repeated for 50 years until it has hardened into conspiracy gospel.

Prove me wrong, someone. Track down the newspaper or at least the quotation. Right now, it smells bogus. And it appears as the deal-clincher in virtually every book, article and online thread about the “mysterious, JFKA-related death” of Hale Boggs.

Lance Payette:
Sorry to intrude on your revels with Actual Research again - I know, it's so boring - but this is too good not to include ...

I think it’s all starting to come together. The key – or perhaps the villain – is Bernard Fensterwald, Jr.

Suffice it to say, Bernie was a piece of work. There is a 523-page FBI file on him, dating back to long before the JFKA. As a lawyer, he defended State Department employees accused of Communist affiliations by Joe McCarthy; he called the Warren Report a “fairy tale” when it was barely off the press; he was closely involved in Garrison’s circus; he cofounded the Committee to Investigate Assassinations, which focused on the JFKA; he represented Watergate burglar James McCord and MLK assassin James Earl Ray. All this and more. Yes, Bernie was a piece of work. He died in 1991 at age 69.

Here's the FBI file: https://vault.fbi.gov/bernard-fensterwald-jr/Bernard%20Fensterwald%20Jr.%20Part%2001%20%28Final%29/view

Here's the Spartacus entry on him: https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKfensterwald.htm.

In 1977, he published Coincidence or Conspiracy? about the JFKA. I don’t have it; perhaps you do. I had thought it had been published in 1974 because that’s what the Spartacus entry on Boggs says, but booksellers all say the first edition was 1977.

This book is where the Los Angeles Star factoid about Boggs apparently originated. You know, the one where Boggs supposedly said he had startling revelations about Watergate and the JFKA just before he died, but in fact the Star didn't exist and the quotation was actually attributed to an unnamed former aide.

But wait, it gets worse. As with the Star factoid, you will find this startling quotation throughout the CT literature, likewise attributed to Boggs:

“Hoover lied his eyes out to the Commission – on Oswald, on Ruby, on their friends, the bullets, the gun, you name it.”

Zowie! Did Boggs say that?

Actually, no.

Like the Los Angeles Star non-quotation, the source is Fensterwald’s book. The quotation is actually attributed by Fensterwald to an unnamed “former aide” to Boggs, as was the “startling revelations” quotation supposedly published in the Star. The actual Fensterwald text reads, “Hale always returned to one thing: Hoover lied his eyes out to the Commission – on Oswald, on Ruby, on their friends, the bullets, the gun, you name it.”

Not quite the same as Boggs having said that, eh? As CT factoids tend to do, however, it has evolved into something Boggs said because that’s way better than an unnamed former aide.

For both of these incendiary factoids widely attributed to Boggs, therefore, what we actually have are unnamed former aides (or pehaps only one) being quoted in a CT-oriented book by a truly radical CT fanatic. As CT factoids are wont to do, they have improved as the decades have gone by, and the fact that Fensterwald’s book was the source has been lost to memory. Literally every big name in CT world has used these quotations as though they were authoritative.

I’m not suggesting Boggs was a diehard Warren Report enthusiast. I am not even suggesting Fensterwald made all this up out of thin air, although I wouldn’t be surprised. I am suggesting, once again, that Conspiracy Gospel factoids simply cannot be trusted.

If you have the book, dig it out and allay my suspicions if you can.

Lance Payette:
Oh, Lord, this is endless … this is my absolute last gasp … well, at least I'm showing you clucks the amount of effort required to expose one of your beloved factoids ...

1. Whatever one thinks of Harvey & Lee, John Armstrong did a staggering amount of research. The John Armstrong Collection at Baylor University is the most user-friendly collection I’ve ever encountered. In 1994, Armstrong and co-author Craig Roberts published a book called JFK: The Dead Witnesses. Boggs is included, so I thought I’d search the Armstrong Collection.

No luck. I searched all boxes relating to The Dead Witnesses and did global searches for “Boggs” and the “Los Angeles Star."

There was precisely one hit: In the short part on Boggs, The Dead Witnesses repeats the Star factoid, failing to note that the “startling revelations” language was (supposedly) that of a Boggs aide rather than Boggs himself.

To their credit, the authors say “IF THIS WERE TRUE …” it would suggest a motive for Boggs’ death. If this were true, indeed.

2. A possible breakthrough here: I found another reference to the Los Angeles Star! In Coup D’Etat in America the authors refer to “misinformation” propagated by Richard Sprague “in his article in the Los Angeles Star” concerning the famed Three Tramps.

That’s it, folks, so who cares?

Ah, but who was Richard E. Sprague? But, of course – he was a close associate of Bernard Fensterwald! He is described in those very terms in Coup D’Etat in America,. Indeed, he was the co-founder with Fensterwald of the Committee to Investigate Assassinations and was likewise involved in the Garrison circus as the team’s photographic expert.

His original estimate of the JFKA was four gunmen, six shots and 50 conspirators. With Fletcher Prouty, he later amended this to include zero shots from the TSBD and the planting of all evidence related to Oswald. Yes, he was nuts.

He is the author of The Taking of America, 1-2-3, which you can read for free courtesy of my friends and colleagues at the CIA: https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/11/1183CF937B8095F6A96DB7C9468BDE2A_The_Taking_of_America_-_Richard_Sprague.pdf.
 
You can read about him here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_E._Sprague and here: https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKspragueE.htm.

A Google search for “Sprague” and “Los Angeles Star” turns up nothing but the one reference from Coup D’Etat in America. Boggs is mentioned in The Taking of America, but neither of the dubious quotations is included and the Star is not mentioned.

"So how is this a breakthrough, Mr. Caped Factoid Buster person?" you ask.

A. Well, we see that the only other reference to the Star is in connection with a fellow CT whack job who was joined at the hip with Brother Bernie Fensterwald.

B. If Sprague was writing “articles” about the Three Tramps in the Star, it can scarcely have been anything resembling a mainstream newspaper.

C. Ergo and to wit: The Caped One strongly suspects that the Star was some Fensterwald/Sprague JFKA gossip sheet that is now being cited as though it were the Los Angeles Times.

As always, prove me wrong if you can.

Lance Payette:
Yep, I've cracked the code at last!

It occurred to moi that "Los Angeles Star" might have been an attempt by Fensterwald, Sprague and other Conspiracy Loons to give Los Angeles Times-type dignity to some sleazy rag that was actually called the LA STAR.

BINGO!

Courtesy of eBay, presented for your edification is the cover of a 1974 issue of the LA Star, "An Unauthorized Newspaper" (whatever the hell that means). You can judge for yourself the seriousness of this erudite publication.

THIS, then, is where Fensterwald and Sprague published their work.

You cannot make this stuff up. Well, you can, I suppose - but only the LA Star would publish it.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page