Video: Josiah Thompson And The Umbrella Man

[Tommy Shanks]

Do you know of Tony Marsh? He was a very prolific poster on John McAdams forum. He seemed to be in failing health not long before John passed away so I don't know if he is still with us. He could be very obnoxious and he had many screwy ideas but he had as good a command of the facts as anyone I've encountered in 35 years of online discussions with JFKA conspiracy hobbyists. I actually learned some of the minute facts that I would otherwise have been unaware of had I not dueled with him online. His problem was that he had all that knowledge but he simply could not apply it in anything resembling a logical thought process. Like so many conspiracy hobbyists, he let his desired conclusions prevent him from objectively analyzing all that knowledge he had accumulated.

I don't know Josiah Thompson, (Tink as Tony referred to him) but he sounds like a much less obnoxious version of Tony. He may be very well versed on the facts of the JFKA but his analysis of those facts is FUBAR. An informed opinion is not necessarily a logical one.

I do remember Tony from old forums and newsgroups but I am pretty sure he passed away at some point in the last five years. Agreed: re: informed vs. logical opinion. I just like Thompson's style as relative to almost every other "well known" conspiracy researcher/author. Thankfully he doesn't trade in garbage like Oswald body doubles and altered autopsy x-rays.

[John Corbett]

I do remember Tony from old forums and newsgroups but I am pretty sure he passed away at some point in the last five years. Agreed: re: informed vs. logical opinion. I just like Thompson's style as relative to almost every other "well known" conspiracy researcher/author. Thankfully he doesn't trade in garbage like Oswald body doubles and altered autopsy x-rays.

Thompson does seem like a nice guy, something I never would have said about Tony. John McAdams let him get away with personal attacks which was against the forum rules. His favorite ploy was to call people Nazis. I think John just got tired of fighting him over it.

You say you had engaged with Tony on other forums. Were you ever a part of the Prodigy forum. I joined that shortly after I saw Oliver Stone's movie in 1991. I don't think Tony was part of that at first but joined a little later. He was actually tolerable back then but just as misguided. The Prodigy group broke up when they changed the pricing which severely limited the amount of posting one could do each month. I didn't engage in any forums until my first visit to Dallas rekindled my interest in JFKA. A search for discussion groups led me to Google groups alt.assassination.jfk(McAdams group) and the unmoderated alt.conspiracy.jfk. I suspect Tony might have had a stroke because it was clear he was having difficulty typing. A few WC defenders took some shots at Tony over that but I thought that was out of line. I think Tony might have passed a few months before John McAdams because he quit posting altogether after being easily the most prolific poster on that forum.

[Royell Storing]

John, agreed. I just meant that Thompson has always kept himself above the fray of the usual moronic conspiracy theorist battles.. I think he abandoned the subject for decades partially for that reason.

    The above makes Simple Simon look like Einstein. Even as he tells it, the Thompson life story is big time fishy. The guy was a Navy Seal before there were Navy Seals. He becomes a Prof with a cushy job and gives that up to dive into the JFK Assassination. He gets hired by Life Mag, then in the dead of night, admits to breaking into the Life Mag Lab and taking high tech photos of the 35 mm Zapruder Film. He then writes a world wide best seller, and then disappears for decades to do "private detective" work? Then he returns to the JFK Assassination to write another book? And you want to claim Thompson, "kept himself above the fray...."? You notice that Thompson has NEVER SAID what happened to those high tech photos he took of the Zapruder Film? I like Thompson, but he is actually on the level of Groden. Both are the equivalent 50 wt Bardahl. Very slippery and almost impossible to see through.