Understanding the JFK Assassination Conspiracy Cover-Up

[Michael T. Griffith]

Numerous scholars have uncovered serious problems, contradictions, and clear cases of fraud in the JFK assassination medical evidence, ballistics evidence, crime-scene evidence, and other evidence. This should not be surprising if we remember the following facts:

-- The autopsy materials and other materials that the Warren Commission (WC) sealed were not supposed to be released until 2039. The WC put a 75-year seal on those records. Thus, those involved in the cover-up believed that no one would see those materials for another 75 years (1964-2039).

WC apologists often ask, "How could any halfway intelligent cover-up not have destroyed this evidence?" Answer: One, because they didn't think anyone would see it for 75 years. Two, because they didn't realize the implications of some of the evidence at the time. Three, because criminals sometimes make mistakes, some of them bad ones.

Few conspiracies are perfect. Even carefully planned military operations sometimes go wrong because a few things were overlooked or misjudged.

-- The historic evidence revealed in the House Select Committee on Assassinations' (HSCA's) sealed documents by the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) in the 1990s was not supposed to be released until 2029. The HSCA put a 50-year seal on those records. Thus, they thought it would be another 50 years before anyone would read the Lopez-Hardway report on the Oswald impersonations in Mexico City two months before the assassination and the explosive information disclosed by the autopsy witnesses and the Dallas doctors and nurses, for example.

-- The plotters could not have known in 1963 that new scientific disciplines would later provide hard evidence of conspiracy. They could not have known that the science of optical-density measurement would later prove that the autopsy x-rays were altered, and that the science of acoustical identification of gunfire would later prove that more than three shots were fired during the assassination and that one of the shots came from the grassy knoll.

And, again, the WC placed a 75-year seal on the autopsy photos and x-rays, so the plotters thought that no one would even see those materials for 75 years, long after the plotters would be dead and gone.

-- The plotters most likely believed that their cover-up version of the shooting would be readily, uncritically accepted by the vast majority of Americans, since back then most Americans believed that when all government officials from both parties said the same thing about a major event they must be telling the truth. Surely the plotters were surprised when opinion polls done a few years after the Warren Report was published revealed that over 60% of Americans doubted that only one man was behind JFK's death.

-- The plotters were not all powerful and omnipresent, and some of their cover-up operatives made mistakes, some of them severe. Most of the people who aided in the cover-up were not part of the conspiracy and did not realize they were helping to cover up a high-level assassination plot. Many of them believed they were acting patriotically and/or in the interest of national security. Some of them were ordered to do what they did.

This is why some evidence of multiple shooters and of a cover-up escaped the notice of the cover-up operatives. Not all FBI agents misrepresented or suppressed what witnesses told them. Not all local Dallas law enforcement personnel misrepresented the physical evidence and what witnesses told them. Not all FBI lab personnel misstated or suppressed the results of the lab's findings. Most of the autopsy witnesses told the truth about JFK's wounds and about the autopsy.

[John Corbett]

Just who were these "plotters" and how do you know what they were thinking?

[Paul J Cummings]

Ignore is such a beautiful feature when it comes to John Corbett.

[John Corbett]

Ignore is such a beautiful feature when it comes to John Corbett.

It comes from knowing where the focus should be placed. I choose to focus on solid evidence, that would be accepted by our criminal courts. That includes forensics, medical evidence, photographic evidence, expert testimony, etc. It also includes eye and ear witness accounts with the caveat that all such accounts should be scrutinized. Having served on four juries, two criminal and two civil, I know that is how judge's instruct jurors to treat such evidence and that is what I try to do with witness statements regarding the JFKA. That excludes the opinions of amateur sleuths and other people offering opinions about the evidence that falls outside their area of expertise.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Just who were these "plotters" and how do you know what they were thinking?

Oh, surprise, surprise: One of our two worst resident know-nothing trolls is offering another unserious, frivolous reply.

It is indeed ironic that three of the seven members of the WC, which you claim got everything right, rejected the single-bullet theory, the very foundation of the lone-gunman theory. One of those three, Congressman Hale Boggs, said that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover "lied his eyes out to the Commission, on Oswald, on Ruby, on their friends, the bullet, the gun, you name it." Another of the three, Senator Richard Russell, rejected the lone-gunman theory and the SBT and believed there was a conspiracy. Another of the three, Senator Sherman Cooper, did not believe that Oswald acted alone, did not believe the single-bullet theory, said there was corruption in the WC, said the WC knew about Jack Ruby and the Mafia but did not care, and said that the "true believers" on the Commission stated they were acting for “God and country.”

Who were the plotters? We know who some of them were:

-- Mafia kingpin Carlos Marcello, who told two people, one of them a federal informant, that he was involved in the assassination.

-- Mafia kingpin Santo Trafficante, who was overheard on federal wiretaps talking about the need for JFK to die, and revealed his knowledge of/role in the plot to two people.

The four best books on the evidence that Marcello and Trafficante were involved in the plot are Dr. David Kaiser's The Road to Dallas, Dr. David Scheim's The Mafia Killed President Kennedy, Dr. Richard Mahoney's The Kennedy Brothers, and Lamar Waldron's The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination.

-- Mafia operative Jack Ruby, whose foreknowledge of the assassination was revealed in FBI documents released in 2017. The documents reveal that a federal informant reported to his federal contact in 1977 that Ruby knew about the assassination in advance. The informant logically thought that this vital information would be of interest to the newly formed HSCA, and he assumed the FBI would make the HSCA aware of this information. The Dallas FBI office forwarded the documents about the informant's disclosure to FBI HQ, but FBI HQ did not give them to the HSCA and did not even tell the HSCA about them.

-- High-ranking CIA officer and avowed Kennedy hater William King Harvey. Mark Wyatt, who served as Harvey's aide in 1963, told his children and a French journalist that he saw Harvey on a flight to Dallas in November 1963, and that Harvey made comments to him soon after the assassination that indicated Harvey had either known about the murder in advance or had been involved in it. Wyatt’s daughter urged him to testify to the HSCA, but he could not bring himself to do it because of his sense of loyalty to the CIA.

-- CIA hitman David Sanchez Morales, who proudly admitted to two close associates in 1973 that he and some other CIA personnel "took care" of Kennedy in retribution for Kennedy's alleged treason in the Bay of Pigs operation. The two witnesses were Morales' lifelong friend, Ruben Carbajal, and Morales' attorney, Bob Walton. Morales made this admission to them at the same time in the same room. Both Carbajal and Walton confirmed this to HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi. Fonzi discussed this in his book The Last Investigation.

I'm pointing out these things for the sake of others, not because I have any hope that you will read any of the books that document this evidence.

[Lance Payette]

-- Mafia operative Jack Ruby, whose foreknowledge of the assassination was revealed in FBI documents released in 2017. The documents reveal that a federal informant reported to his federal contact in 1977 that Ruby knew about the assassination in advance. The informant logically thought that this vital information would be of interest to the newly formed HSCA, and he assumed the FBI would make the HSCA aware of this information. The Dallas FBI office forwarded the documents about the informant's disclosure to FBI HQ, but FBI HQ did not give them to the HSCA and did not even tell the HSCA about them.

Yawn.

The man's insane. Reading his posts will only make you stupider.

Let’s examine this “Ruby foreknowledge” CT bombshell:

1. Our hero was Robert Murray Vanderslice, born in 1926 and died (in Dallas) in 1979.

2. He was an IRS tax informant, focusing on bookies, from 7/23/76 to 2/18/77 (six months). He was paid $135 for his services and $2.89 for expenses.

3. His last contact with the IRS was on 1/24/77. The IRS special agent to whom he was assigned, Lawrence Sandri, said he had never mentioned Ruby or anything about the JFKA.

4. At a restaurant lunch with the IRS local Intelligence Division Manager, Arlen Fuhlendorf, early in 1977 (some 14 years after the JFKA), he started talking about stripper Candy Barr (who did have a non-romantic, non-employment relationship with Jack Ruby a decade before the JFKA).

5. This somehow led to a discussion of Ruby. Vanderslice told Fuhlendorf that on the morning of the JFKA, Ruby had contacted him to watch the motorcade and had asked if he’d like to “watch the fireworks.” In CT world, this remark can have no meaning other than Ruby’s foreknowledge of the JFKA.

6. They watched the motorcade together from a corner near the Postal Annex. Following the JFKA, Ruby left, without comment, for the Dallas Morning News.

7. At the same lunch, Vanderslice divulged that he had been arrested and incarcerated at the Dallas County Jail at the same time Ruby was there. As a jail trustee, he said, he got to know Ruby better – but he said nothing further about the supposed foreknowledge or motorcade incident.

8.  Fuhlendorf told the FBI that “as far as he knew” Vanderslice had been a reliable tax informant, but he did not know if he was truthful about Ruby. He initially reported the lunch conversation in a memorandum to the IRS national office for transmission to the HSCA, but the IRS returned the memo and told him to contact the Dallas office of the FBI. (The memorandum never surfaced.)

9. Vanderslice went to astounding lengths to avoid repeated efforts by both the FBI and IRS to contact him about his Ruby tale. Fuhlendorf thought he might have “been untruthful” or perhaps had “second thoughts” and had gotten “cold feet” after being told he might have to testify before the HSCA.

10. Because Vanderslice’s tale was inconsistent with Ruby’s WC testimony and that of a Dallas Morning News advertising department employee concerning Ruby’s activities on 11-22-63, and because Vanderslice was clearly avoiding both the FBI and IRS, the FBI abandoned further efforts to contact him.

11. On the last attempted contact, his wife said he was in Wichita Falls, “trying to make a buck here and there.”

Ho-hum, such is the stuff of which conspiratorial bombshells are made in MTG’s goofy end of the CT spectrum.

“Foreknowledge of the assassination.” BWAHAHA. 

Not exactly a major exercise in factoid-busting, I’ll concede, but an interesting 30 minutes of mental exercise for your intrepid Factoid Buster.

Minor addendum: When the Vanderslice tale surfaced with the 2017 document release, it was of course of considerable news interest. THE VAST MAJORITY of news outlets, including major MSM, described Vanderslice - in headlines, no less - as an "FBI informant." Sexier than "small-time IRS tax informant," I guess. More like "FBI non-informant," as it turned out.

I reposted the above in response to He's Insane as recently as June 3.

You're welcome. Carry on.

[John Corbett]

Oh, surprise, surprise: One of our two worst resident know-nothing trolls is offering another unserious, frivolous reply.

So you think asking you to tell us what you think happened is frivolous? That says a lot.

It is indeed ironic that three of the seven members of the WC, which you claim got everything right, rejected the single-bullet theory, the very foundation of the lone-gunman theory. One of those three, Congressman Hale Boggs, said that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover "lied his eyes out to the Commission, on Oswald, on Ruby, on their friends, the bullet, the gun, you name it." Another of the three, Senator Richard Russell, rejected the lone-gunman theory and the SBT and believed there was a conspiracy. Another of the three, Senator Sherman Cooper, did not believe that Oswald acted alone, did not believe the single-bullet theory, said there was corruption in the WC, said the WC knew about Jack Ruby and the Mafia but did not care, and said that the "true believers" on the Commission stated they were acting for “God and country.”

Who were the plotters? We know who some of them were:

-- Mafia kingpin Carlos Marcello, who told two people, one of them a federal informant, that he was involved in the assassination.

-- Mafia kingpin Santo Trafficante, who was overheard on federal wiretaps talking about the need for JFK to die, and revealed his knowledge of/role in the plot to two people.

The four best books on the evidence that Marcello and Trafficante were involved in the plot are Dr. David Kaiser's The Road to Dallas, Dr. David Scheim's The Mafia Killed President Kennedy, Dr. Richard Mahoney's The Kennedy Brothers, and Lamar Waldron's The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination.

-- Mafia operative Jack Ruby, whose foreknowledge of the assassination was revealed in FBI documents released in 2017. The documents reveal that a federal informant reported to his federal contact in 1977 that Ruby knew about the assassination in advance. The informant logically thought that this vital information would be of interest to the newly formed HSCA, and he assumed the FBI would make the HSCA aware of this information. The Dallas FBI office forwarded the documents about the informant's disclosure to FBI HQ, but FBI HQ did not give them to the HSCA and did not even tell the HSCA about them.

-- High-ranking CIA officer and avowed Kennedy hater William King Harvey. Mark Wyatt, who served as Harvey's aide in 1963, told his children and a French journalist that he saw Harvey on a flight to Dallas in November 1963, and that Harvey made comments to him soon after the assassination that indicated Harvey had either known about the murder in advance or had been involved in it. Wyatt’s daughter urged him to testify to the HSCA, but he could not bring himself to do it because of his sense of loyalty to the CIA.

-- CIA hitman David Sanchez Morales, who proudly admitted to two close associates in 1973 that he and some other CIA personnel "took care" of Kennedy in retribution for Kennedy's alleged treason in the Bay of Pigs operation. The two witnesses were Morales' lifelong friend, Ruben Carbajal, and Morales' attorney, Bob Walton. Morales made this admission to them at the same time in the same room. Both Carbajal and Walton confirmed this to HSCA investigator Gaeton Fonzi. Fonzi discussed this in his book The Last Investigation.

I'm pointing out these things for the sake of others, not because I have any hope that you will read any of the books that document this evidence.

Well, it's a start. So now tell us how the Mafia knew 6 weeks in advance of the assassination to place Oswald in the TSBD overlooking a motorcade route that had not yet even been planned. How did the conspirators get access to Oswald's Carcano rifle?

These questions will do for now. I'm sure I'll have more once I see your replies.

It's easy to propose a vague plot. The devil is in the details. That's what I never see CTs able to do. Hence the two questions I posed.

FYI. One of the first conspiracy books I read was Mafia Kingfish: Carlos Marcello and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. That was about 35 years ago. I didn't find it very compelling. Two others were  David Lifton's Best Evidence and Mark Lane's Plausible denial. It's not nice to speak ill of the dead so I just won't say anything at all about them.