Bugliosi's "Conclusion of No Conspiracy"

[Gary Craig]

Mike,

This is additional information.


Warren Commission Hearings and Exhibits

The Warren Commission published 26 volumes of hearings and exhibits within a few months after issuing its report. Volumes 1 - 5 are hearings conducted by the Commission members in Washington DC. Volumes 6 - 15 are hearings conducted by staff attorneys on location in Dallas, New Orleans, and other places. Volume 15 also contains an index to names and exhibits. Volumes 16 - 26 contain photographed Commission Exhibits, usually abbreviated to CE (i.e., CE 399), plus other exhibits organized by name.

https://www.maryferrell.org/php/showlist.php?docset=1006


Sylvia Meagher was a research analyst at the UN?s World Health Organization. She took a strong interest in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and read the twenty-six volumes of the hearings and exhibits of the Warren Commission: "It was appalling to find how many of the Commission's statements were unsupportable or even completely contradicted by the testimony and/or exhibits... I began to list what is now a long list of deliberate misrepresentations, omissions, distortions, and other defects demonstrating not only extreme bias, incompetence, and carelessness but irrefutable instances of dishonesty."

In 1965 Meagher published Subject Index to the Warren Report and Hearings and Exhibits. As Meagher pointed out, studying the entire twenty-six volumes without a subject index would be "tantamount to a search for information in the Encylopedia Britannica if the contents were untitled, unalphabetized, and in random sequence."

A deep study of the Warren Commission Report convinced her that the its detailed evidence contradicted its general conclusions. Meagher therefore published Accessories After the Fact: The Warren Commission, the Authorities, and the Report (1967). Meagher was unconvinced that Lee Harvey Oswald had been a lone gunman and concluded that the Warren Commission had attempted to cover-up details of the real people behind the assassination. Meagher believed that John F. Kennedy had been killed by a group Anti-Castro exiles.

http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKmeagher.htm


Question: Why wasn't Sylvia Meager killed before she could complete her work? After the Warren Report was published: Conspirators were said to be rubbing-out anyone who might expose the conspiracy!

"Question: Why wasn't Sylvia Meager killed before she could complete her work? After the Warren Report was published: Conspirators were said to be rubbing-out anyone who might expose the conspiracy!"






DISPATCH                           CLASSIFICATION            PROCESSING ACTION
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FROM     The Director of Central Intelligence              MICROFILM
SUBJECT  Countering Criticism of the Warren Report
ACTION REQUIRED - REFERENCES

PSYCH

     1. Our Concern.   From the day of President Kennedy's assassination on,
there has been speculation about the responsibility for his murder.  Although
this was stemmed for a time by the Warren Commission report (which appeared at
the end of September 1964), various writers have now had time to scan the
Commission's published report and documents for new pretexts for questioning,
and there has been a new wave of books and articles criticizing the Commission's
findings.  In most cases the critics have speculated as to the existence of some
kind of conspiracy, and often they have implied that the Commission itself was
involved.  Presumably as a result of the increasing challenge to the Warren
Commission's Report, a public opinion poll recently indicated that 46% of the
American public did not think that Oswald acted alone, while more than half of
those polled thought that the Commission had left some questions unresolved.
Doubtless polls abroad would show similar, or possibly more adverse, results.

     2.  This trend of opinion is a matter of concern to the U.S. government,
including our organization.  The members of the Warren Commission were naturally
chosen for their integrity, experience, and prominence.  They represented both
major parties, and they and their staff were deliberately drawn from all sections
of the country.  Just because of the standing of the Commissioners, efforts to
impugn their rectitude and wisdom tend to cast doubt on the whole leadership of
American society.  Moreover, there seems to be an increasing tendency to hint
that President Johnson himself, as the one person who might be said to have
benefited, was in some way responsible for the assassination.  Innuendo of
such seriousness affects not only the individual concerned, but also the whole
reputation of the American government.  Our organization itself is directly
involved:  among other facts, we contributed information to the investigation.
Conspiracy theories have frequently thrown suspicion on our organization, for
example by falsely alleging that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for us.  The aim of
this dispatch is to provide material for countering and discrediting the claims
of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in
other countries.  Background information is supplied in a classified section and
in a number of unclassified attachments.

     3.  Action.  We do not recommend that discussion of the assassination ques-
tion be initiated where it is not already taking place.  Where discussion is
active, however, addressees are requested:
 
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a.  To discuss the publicity problem with liaison and friendly elite contacts
(especially politicians and editors), pointing out that the Warren Commission
made as thorough an investigation as humanly possible, that the charges of the
critics are without serious foundation, and that further speculative discussion
only plays into the hands of the opposition.  Point out also that parts of the
conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by Communist propagandists.
Urge them to use their influence to discourage unfounded and irresponsible
speculation.

b.  To employ propaganda assets to answer and refute the attacks of the
critics.  Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for
this purpose.  The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide
useful background material for passage to assets.  Our play should point out,
as applicable, that the critics are (i) wedded to theories adopted before the
evidence was in, (ii) politically interested, (iii) financially interested, (iv)
hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (v) infatuated with their own theories.
In the course of discussions of the whole phenomenon of criticism, a useful
strategy may be to single out Epstein's theory for attack, using the attached
Fletcher Knebel article and Spectator piece for background.  (Although Mark
Lane's book is much less convincing than Epstein's and comes off badly where
contested by knowledgeable critics, it is also much more difficult to answer
as a whole, as one becomes lost in a morass of unrelated details.)

4.  In private to media discussions not directed at any particular writer, or
in attacking publications which may be yet forthcoming, the following arguments
should be useful:

a.  No significant new evidence has emerged which the Commission did not
consider.  The assassination is sometimes compared (e.g., by Joachim Joesten
and Bertrand Russell) with the Dreyfus case; however, unlike that case, the
attacks on the Warren Commission have produced no new evidence, no new culprits
have been convincingly identified, and there is no agreement among the critics.
(A better parallel, though an imperfect one, might be with the Reichstag fire
of 1933, which some competent historians (Fritz Tobias, A.J.P. Taylor, D.C. Watt)
now believe was set by Van der Lubbe on his own initiative, without acting for
either Nazis or Communists; the Nazis tried to pin the blame on the Communists,
but the latter have been more successful in convincing the world that the
Nazis were to blame.)

b.  Critics usually overvalue particular items and ignore others.  They tend
to place more emphasis on the recollections of individual eyewitnesses (which
are less reliable and more divergent -- and hence offer more hand-holds for
criticism) and less on ballistic, autopsy, and photographic evidence.  A close
examination of the Commission's records will usually show that the conflicting
eyewitness accounts are quoted out of context, or were discarded by the Commis-
sion for good and sufficient reason.

c.  Conspiracy on the large scale often suggested would be impossible to con-
ceal in the United States, esp. since informants could expect to receive large
royalties, etc.  Note that Robert Kennedy, Attorney General at the time and
John F. Kennedy's brother, would be the last man to overlook or conceal any
conspiracy.  And as one reviewer pointed out, Congressman Gerald R. Ford would
hardly have held his tongue for the sake of the Democratic administration, and
Senator Russell would have had every political interest in exposing any misdeeds
on the part of Chief Justice Warren.  A conspirator moreover would hardly choose
a location for a shooting where so much depended on conditions beyond his con-
trol:  the route, the speed of the cars, the moving target, the risk that the
assassin would be discovered.  A group of wealthy conspirators could have
arranged much more secure conditions.

d.  Critics have often been enticed by a form of intellectual pride:  they
light on some theory and fall in love with it; they also scoff at the Commis-
sion because it did not always answer every question with a flat decision one
way or the other.  Actually, the make-up of the Commission and its staff was
an excellent safeguard against over-commitment to any one theory, or against
the illicit transformation of probabilities into certainties.



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e.  Oswald would not have been any sensible person's choice for a co-
conspirator.  He was a "loner," mixed up, of questionable reliability
and an unknown quantity to any professional intelligence service.

f.  As to charges that the Commission's report was a rush job, it emerged
three months after the deadline originally set.  But to the degree that
the Commission tried to speed up its reporting, this was largely due to
the pressure of irresponsible speculation already appearing, in some cases
coming from the same critics who, refusing to admit their errors, are now
putting out new criticism.

g.  Such vague accusations as that "more than ten people have died mysteri-
ously" can always be explained in some more natural way:  e.g., the indi-
viduals concerned have for the most part died of natural causes; the Com-
mission staff questioned 418  witnesses (the FBI interviewed far more
people, conducting 25,000 interviews and reinterviews), and in such a
large group, a certain number of deaths are to be expected.  (When Penn
Jones, one of the originators of the "ten mysterious deaths" line, ap-
peared on television, it emerged that two of the deaths on his list were
from heart attacks, one from cancer, one was from a head-on collision on
a bridge, and one occurred when a driver drifted into a bridge abutment.)

5.  Where possible, counter speculation by encouraging reference to the
Commission's Report itself.  Open-minded foreign readers should still be
impressed by the care, thoroughness, objectivity and speed with which the Com-
mission worked.  Reviewers of other books might be encouraged to add to their
account the idea that, checking back with the report itself, they found it far
superior to the work of its critics.



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Document Number 1035-960
for FOIA Review on SEP 1976

[Mitch Todd]

They saw NO human figure immediately before or immediately after. How do you explain that if you continue to ridiculously claim that LHO was there (and of course there isn't a shred of evil to show that he was)?  Was he Houdini?

It's your assertion. It is up to *you* to explain that we *should* *expect* to see a "recognizable human figure" in any photos of the TSBD, and why we should expect to see it. How long after the last shot was the earliest after-the-fact photo taken? When was the last before-the-fact photo taken of that window? I doubt the sniper spent too much time setting up or bugging out. If the no photo is taken soon enough before or after, there is no good reason to expect anyone to be in the window at the first place.

And, you have to consider the various possible stances the sniper could take, visual obstructions like the boxes in the window or the wall to the east of the window, and the angle of the photographer with the TSBD WRT to these visual obstacles.  You may have a photo showing some part of a person up there, just not a "recognizable human figure," because most of that figure is hidden by some combination of boxes, walls, window mullions, and shadow. You've done none of that. You've simply assert whatever, then petulantly whined that I don't take your assertion seriously.

Which is yet another good reason for me to not to take your assertions seriously.

[John Mytton]

Wow. You posted two on the same day. You had such a problem with me doing this. What's the difference?

Stop lying, you were posting dozens of threads at a time, as the following statistic shows in graphic detail.



Btw why are you so afraid of Bugliosi?



JohnM

[Richard Rubio]

Where is the supporting evidence for the claim that LHO did it? I have tried to help you LNers, but you folks gave up after three issues.

Why do LNers accept one theory with NO supporting evidence, but not others that mention a conspiracy? Does this make any sense?

I would urge you to read the HSCA report along with the Warren Report.  They are both online I'm sure.

[Jerry Freeman]

ABC Interview with G Robert Blakey....[The Mob did it]

The Mob?s Motive
 
ABCNEWS: In your book you point the finger squarely at Carlos Marcello and his organization. Why would he want to kill Kennedy?

Blakey: Carlos Marcello was being subject to the most vigorous investigation he had ever experienced in his life, designed to put him in jail. He was in fact summarily, without due process, deported to Guatemala. He took the deportation personally. He hated the Kennedys. He had the motive, the opportunity and the means in Lee Harvey Oswald to kill him. I think he did through Oswald.

When I say this was a mob hit, I don't mean the national syndicate. We had, from the FBI ? we being the House Select Committee On Assassinations ? we got all that illegal electronic surveillance, and we studied it for a period before the assassination and the period after the assassination. We concluded that it was so good that it precluded the possibility that the National Commission was involved, but there was no electronic surveillance in New Orleans.
****************************************************************
Oswald Assassination a Mob Hit or Kill the Killer
 
ABCNEWS: How central is Jack Ruby's murder of Oswald to your understanding of this case?

Blakey: To understand who killed President Kennedy and did he have help, I think you have to understand what happened to the assassin of President Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald. I see Jack Ruby's assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald as a mob hit.

This is in direct contradiction to the Warren Commission. The Warren Commission portrayed, wrongly I think, Jack Ruby as a wild card who serendipitously got into position to kill Oswald. I think in fact he stalked him. I can show you from the Warren Commission's evidence that he tried to get into where he was being interrogated, number one. That he tried to get in where there was going to be a lineup, number two. That he was seen around the garage, where he was announced that he was going to be moved. And we know, from Jack Ruby himself, that he had a gun with him at the time of the lineup.

I believe that Ruby was able to get in to kill Oswald through the corrupt cooperation of the Dallas P.D., that he was let in through a back door and he was given an opportunity to kill Oswald. I see that, therefore, as a mob hit. And if that's a mob hit, there is only one reason for it, and that is to cover up the assassination of the president himself. You kill the killer. That's a standard operating procedure for, for mob hits, unless the hit is by somebody who's already in the family. If you use an outsider you kill him.
**************************************************************
 Connecting Oswald to the Mob

ABCNEWS: Since you believe that Lee Oswald shot the president, and you also believe that Carlos Marcello was behind the assassination, what connections do you point to between Oswald and Marcello?

Blakey: I can show you that Lee Harvey Oswald knew, from his boyhood forward, David Ferrie, and David Ferrie was an investigator for Carlos Marcello on the day of the assassination, with him in a court room in New Orleans. I can show you that Lee Harvey Oswald, when he grew up in New Orleans, lived with the Dutz Murret family [one of Oswald's uncles]. Dutz Murret is a bookmaker for Carlos Marcello.

I can show you that there's a bar in New Orleans, and back in the '60s, bars used to have strippers and the strippers circuit is from Jack Ruby's strip joint in Dallas to Marcello-connected strip joints in the New Orleans area. So I can bring this connection.

Did Lee Harvey Oswald grow up in a criminal neighborhood? Yes. Did he have a mob-connected family? Did he have mob-connected friends? Was he known to them to be a crazy guy? He's out publicly distributing Fair Play for Cuba leaflets. If you wanted to enlist him in a conspiracy that would initially appear to be communist and not appear to be organized crime, he's the perfect candidate. Ex-Marine, marksman, probably prepared to kill the president for political reasons.

Could he be induced to kill the president for organized crime reasons unbeknownst to him? I think the answer is yes and compelling.
********************************************************
 Connecting Ruby to the Mob

ABCNEWS: You're convinced Ruby was connected to organized crime in Chicago?

Blakey: He used to be a runner for Al Capone. He was a gopher. He was violently connected with a mob-dominated union. He was connected to Zooky the Bookie. The mob took out Zooky the Bookie because they wanted to take over his business, and they told Ruby to leave town and Ruby left. This is the story of Jack Ruby in Chicago.

This guy is not somebody totally unrelated to organized crime. He gets into Dallas. I know that he has financial problems. And who is he on the phone with? He's on the phone with major figures of organized crime. I know that he meets with an organized crime figure the night before the assassination, and I know the same guy visited him in jail. Sure, he's a blabbermouth.

But what would you do if the mob came into you and said, "Jack, we want you to hit Oswald, and when you do, you're solid with us." What goes through Jack Ruby's mind? "I'm dead. I either do this or I'm dead."
*************************************************************
 ABCNEWS: How certain are you about your theory?

Blakey: What I'm saying to you is, this is not something I'd take to court. I'm talking about a judgment of history. I'm not talking about admissible evidence under a court standard. I'm talking about a jigsaw puzzle and you put little pieces in. Do I have the last piece, certainty, proof beyond a reasonable doubt? No. Could reasonable people disagree with me? Yes. What they have to do though, is deal with not strands of the evidence, but the evidence as a whole. For example, I'm more confident that the mob was involved in the assassination in of Lee Harvey Oswald and therefore, of what happened in the plaza, then I am of any connection between the mob and Lee Harvey Oswald.

The strongest part of my case is the [mob] connections to Ruby and the Ruby assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald. Why would the mob want to take out Lee Harvey Oswald, except he knows something about them that they would engage in a high risk venture to kill him.

To ask that question is to answer it. There's only one answer to that. They had a hand in the assassination.

G. Robert Blakey is the William and Dorothy O'Neill Professor of Law at The University of Notre Dame. He served as Chief Counsel and Staff Director for the House Select Committee on Assassinations from 1977 through 1979. He is the author of The Plot to Kill The President (1981), which was reissued in paperback in 1993 as Fatal Hour: The Assassination of President Kennedy by Organized Crime. An expert on organized crime, he drafted the legislation in 1970 that created the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO).

https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=131462&page=1

If the organized crime guys dispatched Oswald to kill President Kennedy...why would he be supplied with a piece of crap rifle?
An M14 would have been a better snipers choice in 1963.
Bugliosi didn't 'investigate' anything [just like the FBI didn't investigate anything]
How many other assassinations did Oswald do?---- Oswald the professional killer?  Right

[Jerry Freeman]

ABC Interview with G Robert Blakey....[The Mob did it]
https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=131462&page=1

 I believe that Ruby was able to get in to kill Oswald through the corrupt cooperation of the Dallas P.D., that he was let in through a back door and he was given an opportunity to kill Oswald. I see that, therefore, as a mob hit. And if that's a mob hit, there is only one reason for it, and that is to cover up the assassination of the president himself. You kill the killer. That's a standard operating procedure for, for mob hits, unless the hit is by somebody who's already in the family. If you use an outsider you kill him.

G Robert Blakey 'investigated'

[John Mytton]

6. If Oswald conspired with anyone, they waited quite awhile to bring him aboard. The conspiracy couldn?t have been hatched before October 1, 1963, when we know Oswald was still in Mexico City desperately trying to get to Cuba. If he had succeeded in getting to Cuba, who believes he would have ended up killing Kennedy? No one I?ve ever heard of. And how believable is it that a plot to kill the president of the United States, the most powerful man on earth, would be born after October 1, just seven weeks before Kennedy?s death? To believe something like that is to be addicted to silliness. The absurdity of the notion that Oswald conspired with others to kill Kennedy can be spotlighted by the fact that on the very day, September 26, 1963, that it was announced in both Dallas newspapers that Kennedy was going to come to Texas on November 21 and 22 and that Dallas would likely be one of the cities he would visit,11 Oswald was on a bus traveling to Mexico City determined to get to Cuba.       

Indeed, since Kennedy?s motorcade route past the Book Depository Building wasn?t selected until November 18,12 and announced in a paper for the first time on the morning of November 19 in the Dallas Morning News,13 we not only thereby know that Oswald getting a job at the Book Depository Building on October 15 was unrelated to President Kennedy?s trip to Dallas and the assassination, but it would seem that any conspiracy involving Oswald as the hit man would have had to be hatched no earlier than November 19, just three days before Kennedy?s death (i.e., unless the argument is made?which I have yet to hear even the daffy conspiracy buffs make?that wherever Kennedy went when he came to Dallas, it was Oswald?s job to track him down and kill him). Surely no person with an ounce of sense could possibly believe that the CIA, mob, and so on, recruited Oswald to kill Kennedy just three days before the assassination.
RHVB



JohnM