JFK Assassination Forum
JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion & Debate => JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion And Debate => Topic started by: Michael T. Griffith on September 04, 2025, 12:09:33 AM
-
On November 9, 1963, a wealthy, well-connected right-wing extremist named Joseph Milteer told William Somersett, whom he did not know was a Miami police informant, that a plot to kill JFK was already "in the works" (or "in the working"). Milteer said the best way to kill Kennedy would be "from an office building with a high-powered rifle." Milteer also said the authorities would pick up someone within hours after the shooting "just to throw the public off." Somersett captured Milteer's comments on tape. The Milteer tape is available online and is included in several documentaries on the assassination.
After the assassination, Somersett had another meeting with Milteer, in which Milteer boasted,
Everything ran true to form. I guess you thought I was kidding when I said he would be killed from a window with a high-powered rifle. . . . I don't do any guessing.
Milteer said not to worry about the capture of Oswald, "because he doesn't know anything."
In 2012, historic new information about the case of Joseph Milteer came to light. The information confirmed that the FBI conducted a corrupt investigation into JFK’s death. The information came from Don Adams, a retired FBI agent and career law enforcement officer, who personally investigated, questioned, and knew Joseph Milteer in 1963. Adams was the FBI agent who interviewed Milteer five days after the assassination. Adams disclosed the information in his 2012 book From an Office Building with a High-Powered Rifle: A Report to the Public from an FBI Agent Involved in the Official JFK Assassination Investigation (Trine Day LLC, Kindle Edition).
Among other things, Adams revealed that the reason he did not ask Milteer about his recorded comments regarding a plot to kill JFK and about his whereabouts on the day of the shooting was that his FBI superior, SAIC James McMahon, prohibited him from doing so. In fact, McMahon did not even tell Adams about Milteer’s recorded comments about a plot. Said Adams,
He [McMahon] added that the Agent in Charge of the Secret Service requested that I locate Milteer immediately, interview and then hold him for the Secret Service.
At this point, McMahon got very specific with me about my interview with Milteer. He cautioned me that the interview had to be done carefully and that he was going to instruct me as to the questions I should ask. He added that I was to ask nothing more. . . .
This struck me as strange at the time, and it never happened again during my entire career with the Bureau. I voiced my concern one more time, and McMahon angrily insisted that I was to obtain descriptive data on Milteer and then ask only the five questions he had dictated, “You will do as I say and do nothing more.” Period. End of discussion.
I was still troubled by his orders, but I knew my boundaries. . . .
The Miami police and the FBI knew of this tape-recording before I was assigned to locate and interview Milteer, yet I had been told nothing about it! Something was drastically wrong. The Bureau that I had been part of and respected just did not work this way.
I did not know of the Nov. 9, 1963, tape recording until 1993. . . . Here I am, the case agent of the investigation involving Milteer, and I am never informed by anyone in the FBI about the tape recording or the direct threat. Obviously, this information was purposefully kept from me in total violation of the strictest Bureau rules. (Locs. 310-317, 944, 1345)
One of the most important parts of Adams’ book is his segment on the photographic evidence that Milteer was in Dealey Plaza as a spectator during the shooting. Adams recognized Milteer as the same man in the Altgens photo whom many other researchers have identified as Milteer. Dr. Don Wilkes discusses this evidence and the HSCA PEP’s flawed rejection of the Milteer identification in his article “The Georgian Who Knew a Sniper Would Kill JFK” (see link below).
BTW, the HSCA PEP acknowledged that the man in question in the Altgens photo “bears a strong resemblance to Joseph Adams Milteer,” that the man resembled Milteer "in age and general facial configuration," and that the man was wearing eyeglasses similar to those worn by Milteer. The PEP used a flawed facial and height analysis as their basis for concluding the man is not Milteer. Dr. Wilkes discussed some of the problems with the PEP’s analysis:
In deciding that Milteer stood 5’ 4”, the panel relied, as stated previously, on an FBI report dated Dec. 1, 1963, and now in the National Archives. That lengthy document, however, as Adams patiently explains, is not reliable; it includes a fraudulent report and information that has been altered and was not prepared by Adams, the only FBI agent who actually interviewed Milteer on Nov. 27. . . . Milteer actually was not as short as the panel believed. “I know,” Don Adams tells us, “he was taller than 5’ 4”.” Adams himself prepared descriptive data reports which stated that Milteer was 5’ 8,” and Secret Service reports listed Milteer as either 5’ 7” or 5’ 8”. (https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1182&context=fac_pm)
A little more on Milteer: He was a man of considerable wealth, and belonged to a number of radical and racist groups. He was a regional director of the fanatical Constitution Party. In addition, he held membership in the White Citizens' Council of Atlanta and was a leader in the National States Rights Party, which had close links with the anti-Castro movement. He traveled all over the country to promote the Constitution Party and the National States Rights Party.
The HSCA noted that the Miami Police Department informed the Secret Service about Milteer’s threat and advised that Milteer associated with right-wing extremists who were suspected of having committed violent acts, including the infamous Birmingham bombing in which four young black girls were killed:
During the meeting at which the Miami Police Department provided this transcript to the Secret Service, it also advised the Secret Service that Milteer had been involved with persons who professed a dislike for President Kennedy and were suspected of having committed violent acts, including the bombing of a Birmingham, Ala. church in which four young girls had been killed. They also reported that Milteer was connected with several radical rightwing organizations and traveled extensively throughout the United States in support of their views. . . . (HSCA report, pp. 232-233)
True to form, lone-gunman theorists, who frequently say “if there had been a plot, someone would have talked,” claim Milteer was crazy and that Sommersett was unreliable. They dismiss Milteer's statements as demented, over-heated speculation. They note that Milteer believed Kennedy had look-alikes for security purposes, which is hardly a wild or discrediting idea given that various world leaders used look-alikes for security reasons, including Joseph Stalin, Queen Elizabeth II, Fidel Castro, and Sukarno (https://www.businessinsider.com/global-figures-political-decoys-body-doubles-2023-10).
WC apologists also point to a few discrepancies between Somersett's initial debriefing with the Miami Police Department's Intelligence Unit and his later statement to the FBI, ignoring the many documented cases where FBI agents misrepresented what witnesses told them and/or pressured witnesses to change their story.
Lone-gunman theorists also note that an FBI official and a Secret Service official said Somersett was unreliable. They fail to mention that the FBI sought to discredit any informant who had information that pointed to conspiracy in the assassination, even if the informant had a good record for reliability. The Secret Service official whom Warren Commission apologists cite did not attack Somersett until 1967, when Somersett was cooperating with Jim Garrison's investigation. Other law enforcement officials who dealt with Somersett believed he was reliable.
And, some lone-gunman theorists claim Milteer specified that Jack Brown would kill Kennedy and/or that the assassination would happen in Washington, D.C. The Milteer tape proves both claims to be incorrect. Milteer only suggested Brown could kill Kennedy--he didn't say Brown would positively be the man to do it. Nor did Milteer say the shooting would occur in D.C. Somersett discussed this issue in his 11/26/63 interview with the Miami Police Department's Intelligence Unit:
The impression I get from him [Milteer], I think the thing was set up to kill Mr. Kennedy in the South, in some southern state. There was no particular town picked out, it was just the opportunity of the town that would suit best when the proper time comes. I think that when this man Mr. Kennedy left Miami, it was published in the papers, where he would go, and I think that they just set this man up in Texas and had him kill him right there. Because Milteer is too much enthused over it, he discussed it too much beforehand and after not to know something about it.
Furthermore, it should be noted that a Secret Service report (CE 762) documents that the Secret Service received information from an FBI source that reinforced Milteer's taped prediction and that supported Somersett's account. The report dealt with information that the Secret Service received from the FBI just seven days before the assassination. According to the report, an unnamed contact in the Ku Klux Klan said that during his travels around the country his sources had told him "that a militant group of the National States Rights Party plans to assassinate the President and other high-level officials" (see also Dick Russell, The Man Who Knew Too Much, New York: Carroll & Graf/Richard Gallen, 1992, pp. 550-551).
As mentioned, Milteer was a leader in the National States Rights Party and was involved with other radical groups. He was certainly in a position to hear about a plot by radical right-wing militants to kill Kennedy, especially given that the National States Rights Party had ties to anti-Castro Cubans.
Sources for further reading:
“The Georgian Who Knew a Sniper Would Kill JFK”
https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1182&context=fac_pm
“Additional Milteer Information”
https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1107&context=fac_pm
“Was Milteer in Dallas?”
https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1148&context=fac_pm
“Predictions of Joseph Milteer”
https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Predictions_of_Joseph_Milteer.html
Hasty Judgment: Why The JFK Case Is Not Closed: A Reply to Gerald Posner's
Book Case Closed (chapter 20: The Case of Joseph Milteer, pp. 103-107)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JuHmh8_AXyoKFyCt0RPXEUoHDPy-qakz/view
-
Moved to my thread on Oswald and the DPD's record of planting evidence.
-
Moved to my thread on Oswald and the DPD's record of planting evidence.
Dear Comrade Griffith,
Thank God.
The fewer your "active measures" threads, the better.
-- Tom
-
Just putting on my sanity beanie for a moment, it occurs to me that if I had spoken about JFK being whacked and did in fact have inside knowledge of the hit, I probably would not have been standing on a sidewalk in full view of photographers at the scene of the crime on November 22, 1963. But maybe that's just me. Most of the Three Stooges' humor went right over my head, I'll have to admit, and perhaps Milteer did view himself as the Moe of the plot. Could he - just thinking out loud here - possibly have been Prayer Man, too?
-
Just putting on my sanity beanie for a moment, it occurs to me that if I had spoken about JFK being whacked and did in fact have inside knowledge of the hit, I probably would not have been standing on a sidewalk in full view of photographers at the scene of the crime on November 22, 1963. But maybe that's just me. Most of the Three Stooges' humor went right over my head, I'll have to admit, and perhaps Milteer did view himself as the Moe of the plot. Could he - just thinking out loud here - possibly have been Prayer Man, too?
Your sanity beanie needs a sanity check. Let's start with two key facts that you've ignored:
One, Milteer only revealed his knowledge of the JFK plot to his long-time friend William Somersett.
Two, Milteer had no idea that Somersett was a Miami police informant and that their conversations were being recorded.
So Milteer had every reason to think that it was completely safe for him to be in Dealey Plaza to watch the assassination. He had no reason to think he had anything to worry about if he were photographed or filmed by bystanders.
Furthermore, what about the man in the Altgens photo who so strikingly resembles Milteer? He's a dead ringer for Milteer. What about Adams' identification of the man as Milteer? Adams What about the fact that even the HSCA's photographic experts admitted that the man in the Altgens photo “bears a strong resemblance to Joseph Adams Milteer,” that the man resembles Milteer "in age and general facial configuration," and that the man is wearing eyeglasses similar to those worn by Milteer?
Adams surveilled Milteer before he interviewed him, even standing next to him to get a good look at him. Then, after Adams and another agent apprehended Milteer to take him in for questioning, Adams spent over an hour with Milteer in the back seat of a Georgia state patrol car on the way to the FBI office in Valdosta. He spent nearly an hour interviewing Milteer to get as much info as he could within the narrow limits that his supervisor had established for the interview.
Adams positively identified Milteer as the man in the Altgens photo.
-
Your sanity beanie needs a sanity check. Let's start with two key facts that you've ignored:
One, Milteer only revealed his knowledge of the JFK plot to his long-time friend William Sommersett.
Two, Milteer had no idea that Sommersett was a Miami police informant and that their conversations were being recorded.
So Milteer had every reason to think that it was completely safe for him to be in Dealey Plaza to watch the assassination. He had no reason to think he had anything to worry about if he were photographed or filmed by bystanders.
Furthermore, about the man in the Altgens photo who so strikingly resembles Milteer? He's a dead ringer for Milteer. What about Adams' identification of the man as Milteer? Adams What about the fact that even the HSCA's photographic experts admitted that the man in the Altgens photo “bears a strong resemblance to Joseph Adams Milteer,” that the man resembles Milteer "in age and general facial configuration," and that the man is wearing eyeglasses similar to those worn by Milteer?
Adams surveilled Milteer before he interviewed him, even standing next to him to get a good look at him. Then, after Adams and another agent apprehended Milteer to take him in for questioning, Adams spent over an hour with Milteer in the back seat of a Georgia state patrol car on the way to the FBI office in Valdosta. He spent nearly an hour interviewing Milteer to get as much info as he could within the narrow limits that his supervisor had established for the interview.
Adams positively identified Milteer as the man in the Altgens photo.
Milteer also had a hand in the killing of MLK paying Carlos Marcello to have the hit done.
-
Having now tightened the propellor on my sanity beanie, it occurs to me that if I had inside knowledge of an impending assassination of the POTUS, I (1) would probably not be standing on the sidewalk in full view when it happened, and (2) would probably not confide in casual "friends" like Willie Augustus Somersett, who was known to be gabby and indiscreet. https://www.wlrn.org/politics/2013-11-14/a-miami-police-informant-a-prophetic-racist-and-fresh-questions-about-jfks-death. But maybe that's just me.
From McAdams' site, here is a more balanced take on Milteer: https://www.jfk-assassination.net/milteer.htm.
BTW, it's Somersett, not Sommersett. No big deal.
-
Having now tightened the propellor on my sanity beanie, it occurs to me that if I had inside knowledge of an impending assassination of the POTUS, I (1) would probably not be standing on the sidewalk in full view when it happened, and (2) would probably not confide in casual "friends" like Willie Augustus Somersett, who was known to be gabby and indiscreet. https://www.wlrn.org/politics/2013-11-14/a-miami-police-informant-a-prophetic-racist-and-fresh-questions-about-jfks-death. But maybe that's just me.
IOW, although you guys always say "if there had been a plot, someone would have talked," you guys will find any excuse, no matter how lame and strained, to discredit anyone who disclosed knowledge of the plot, even if their disclosure was caught on tape without their knowledge, and you will find any excuse to reject the disclosure itself.
Naturally, you went searching for any sources that question Somersett's credibility. Somersett was considered a reliable and trustworthy informant before he agreed to cooperate with Garrison's investigation. Until then, there was not one smirch on his record as an informant. No one claimed he was "gabby and indiscreet," much less unreliable, until after he cooperated with Garrison. I suggest you read the section in Adams' book on the smear campaign that was waged against Somersett.
Let's keep in mind that Somersett did not make the Milteer tape. No one claims that Somersett fabricated the tape or staged his conversations with Milteer. The Milteer tape shows that Milteer said a plot to kill JFK was already underway, that JFK would be killed with a rifle from a building, and that the police would pick up someone quickly to throw off the public. And Milteer was certainly ran in the right circles to be aware of the plot.
Again, Milteer only disclosed his knowledge of the plot to his childhood friend William Somersett and had no idea Somersett was an informant or that their conversations were being recorded. He had every rational reason to think it was safe to be in Dealey Plaza to watch the assassination that he knew would take place.
And I notice you again declined to address the photographic evidence that Milteer was in Dealey Plaza during the shooting. As much as you say you don't think Milteer would have risked being there, you have yet to explain the photographic evidence that was in fact there.
From McAdams' site, here is a more balanced take on Milteer: https://www.jfk-assassination.net/milteer.htm.
"More balanced take"? No, a more biased and incomplete take. McAdams ignored any evidence that supports Somersett's credibility and that shows that Milteer was in a position to know about such a plot. Compare McAdams' article with Adams' book From an Office Building with a High-Powered Rifle and with the following articles:
“The Georgian Who Knew a Sniper Would Kill JFK”
https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1182&context=fac_pm
“Additional Milteer Information”
https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1107&context=fac_pm
“Was Milteer in Dallas?”
https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1148&context=fac_pm
“Predictions of Joseph Milteer”
https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Predictions_of_Joseph_Milteer.html
Hasty Judgment: Why The JFK Case Is Not Closed: A Reply to Gerald Posner's
Book Case Closed (chapter 20: The Case of Joseph Milteer, pp. 103-107)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JuHmh8_AXyoKFyCt0RPXEUoHDPy-qakz/view
BTW, it's Somersett, not Sommersett.
Yes, you are correct.
-
The negative replies in this thread provide a prime example of the strained, unserious way that lone-gunman theorists treat hard evidence of conspiracy. Here we have an actual police surveillance recording of a wealthy, well-connected right-wing extremist saying, less than two weeks before the assassination, that a plot to kill Kennedy was underway, that the hit would involve a rifle fired from a building, that the rifle could be disassembled to get it into the building, and that a patsy would be picked up by the police within hours of the shooting to mislead the public.
We also have confirmation from the FBI agent who tracked and interviewed Milteer after the assassination, Don Adams, that the Altgens photo does indeed show Milteer in Dealey Plaza during the shooting. Even the HSCA photographic experts, who were determined to deny that Milteer appears in the Altgens photo, admitted that the man in the photo “bears a strong resemblance to Joseph Adams Milteer,” that the man resembles Milteer "in age and general facial configuration," and that the man is even wearing eyeglasses similar to those worn by Milteer. Yeah, that's because the man is Milteer, as Adams confirmed.
The FBI later concocted an alibi for Milteer for 11/22, but Adams exposes the alibi as fraudulent, adding, "I am sure Milteer was not in Valdosta, nor was he in Quitman, Georgia, until five days after the assassination."
Moreover, a Secret Service report (CE 762) documents that the Secret Service received information from an FBI source that reinforced Milteer's taped prediction and that supported the Miami police informant's account. The report dealt with information that the Secret Service received from the FBI just seven days before the assassination. According to the report, an unnamed contact in the Ku Klux Klan said that during his travels around the country his sources had told him "that a militant group of the National States Rights Party plans to assassinate the President." The National States Rights Party had close links with anti-Castro Cubans, and Milteer was a leader in the party.
It is worth noting that the FBI submitted a lengthy report to the WC about Milteer but the Commission ignored it. The WC did not even publish the FBI report in its volumes. Part of the FBI report surfaced in 1971. The full report was not available until 1976.
Incredibly, the FBI report did not mention the Milteer tape, and the Secret Service did not tell the WC about the tape either. This does not excuse the WC's failure to investigate Milteer, but knowledge of the tape's existence might have made a difference. I suspect the FBI and the Secret Service feared that if they revealed the existence of the Milteer tape, at least some of the WC's members would insist on a thorough investigation into Milteer's connections and his whereabouts on the day of the shooting.
-
The negative replies in this thread provide a prime example of the strained, unserious way that lone-gunman theorists treat hard evidence of conspiracy. Here we have an actual police surveillance recording of a wealthy, well-connected right-wing extremist saying, less than two weeks before the assassination, that a plot to kill Kennedy was underway, that the hit would involve a rifle fired from a building, that the rifle could be disassembled to get it into the building, and that a patsy would be picked up by the police within hours of the shooting to mislead the public.
We also have confirmation from the FBI agent who tracked and interviewed Milteer after the assassination, Don Adams, that the Altgens photo does indeed show Milteer in Dealey Plaza during the shooting. Even the HSCA photographic experts, who were determined to deny that Milteer appears in the Altgens photo, admitted that the man in the photo “bears a strong resemblance to Joseph Adams Milteer,” that the man resembles Milteer "in age and general facial configuration," and that the man is even wearing eyeglasses similar to those worn by Milteer. Yeah, that's because the man is Milteer, as Adams confirmed.
The FBI later concocted an alibi for Milteer for 11/22, but Adams exposes the alibi as fraudulent, adding, "I am sure Milteer was not in Valdosta, nor was he in Quitman, Georgia, until five days after the assassination."
Moreover, a Secret Service report (CE 762) documents that the Secret Service received information from an FBI source that reinforced Milteer's taped prediction and that supported the Miami police informant's account. The report dealt with information that the Secret Service received from the FBI just seven days before the assassination. According to the report, an unnamed contact in the Ku Klux Klan said that during his travels around the country his sources had told him "that a militant group of the National States Rights Party plans to assassinate the President." The National States Rights Party had close links with anti-Castro Cubans, and Milteer was a leader in the party.
It is worth noting that the FBI submitted a lengthy report to the WC about Milteer but the Commission ignored it. The WC did not even publish the FBI report in its volumes. Part of the FBI report surfaced in 1971. The full report was not available until 1976.
Incredibly, the FBI report did not mention the Milteer tape, and the Secret Service did not tell the WC about the tape either. This does not excuse the WC's failure to investigate Milteer, but knowledge of the tape's existence might have made a difference. I suspect the FBI and the Secret Service feared that if they revealed the existence of the Milteer tape, at least some of the WC's members would insist on a thorough investigation into Milteer's connections and his whereabouts on the day of the shooting.
Dear Comrade Griffith,
Please, please, please answer my question:
Does "former" KGB officer Vladimir Putin pay you, or do you do it for free?
-- Tom
-
Dear Comrade Griffith,
Please, please, please answer my question: Does "former" KGB officer Vladimir Putin pay you, or do you do it for free?-- Tom
How ironic that you would post such a silly, juvenile reply in response to my point that WC apologists treat hard evidence of conspiracy in an unserious, strained fashion. I guess I should thank you for proving my point.
Do you have any idea how ridiculous you look in constantly accusing those who disagree with you of being knowing tools of Vladimir Putin? Do you have any idea how immature and odd that makes you look?
Then again, you are the one who has stated several times in this forum that the West lost the Cold War and that Russia won it. That is akin to saying that George McGovern won the 1972 election. One could infer that your grip on reality is open to question.
-
Do you have any idea how ridiculous you look in constantly accusing those who disagree with you of being knowing tools of Vladimir Putin?
Dear Comrade Griffith,
Where did I say that tinfoil-hat JFKA conspiracy theorists like you are necessarily "knowing tools" of "former" KGB counterintelligence officer Vladimir Putin?
Don't you know the definition of "useful idiot"?
Maybe you should look it up.
It's an old KGB expression.
Or . . . gasp . . . are you actually a knowing tool of his?
If so, please fess up!
Bottom line: Whether you realize it or not, you and Jim DiEugenio, et al. ad nauseam, are doing a bang-up job of fulfilling the 1959 21st Party Congress' goal of getting us to tear ourselves apart.
-- Tom
-
Dear Comrade Griffith, Where did I say that tinfoil-hat JFKA conspiracy theorists like you are necessarily "knowing tools" of "former" KGB counterintelligence officer Vladimir Putin? Don't you know the definition of "useful idiot"? Maybe you should look it up. It's an old KGB expression. Or . . . gasp . . . are you actually a knowing tool of his? If so, please fess up!
Your arguments sound like they come from a teenager and suggest a lack of knowledge of basic logic and English. When you ask if WC critics are being paid by Putin or if they're doing it for free, you are clearly arguing that they know they are doing Putin's bidding, whether for pay or for free.
Bottom line: Whether you realize it or not, you and Jim DiEugenio, et al. ad nauseam, are doing a bang-up job of fulfilling the 1959 21st Party Congress' goal of getting us to tear ourselves apart. -- Tom
Oh my goodness. This is just so bizarre and ridiculous. So anyone who disagrees with you on the JFK case is fulfilling the 1959 Soviet goal of getting us to tear ourselves apart? Uh-huh. Well, thanks for sharing.
Did it "tear ourselves apart" when the Iran-Contra conspiracy was exposed, a conspiracy that occurred on three continents, involved hundreds of participants (most of whom had no idea they were aiding a conspiracy), and reached up to the highest levels of our government? How about when Watergate was exposed? How about when the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro were exposed? Did exposing these conspiracies "tear ourselves apart"? Do you wish they had never been exposed?
Honestly, in your case these are rhetorical questions. I can only imagine the zany answer you will offer. I pose the questions mainly for the sake of others.
-
All the Milteer stuff is nicely gathered here: https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Predictions_of_Joseph_Milteer.html.
No one denies that Milteer's statements to Somersett were startling, especially the part about picking up a patsy within hours. So were some of JFK's own statements about the possibility of being assassinated. So is the bogus factoid of "Lee H. Oswald's" signature at the Museum of Atomic Energy. The article from McAdams' site that I linked puts some context on Milteer's statements that make them seem somewhat less startling - but they were indeed startling, no doubt about it.
I simply raised two commonsense questions: (1) If someone actually had foreknowledge about an impending assassination of the POTUS, would he be likely to speak freely about it to a character like Somersett, and (2) would he be standing in full view at the scene of the crime? You are free to answer yes, but I tend to think probably not.
Let's apply some additional common sense:
Milteer was a high-profile, right-wing racist. He was a member of the notoriously violent Dixie faction of the KKK. He was active and prominent in the right-wing, racist Congress of Freedom, National States Rights Party and Constitution Party. As a member of the latter's board of directors, he had helped formulate plans "to put an end to the Kennedy, King, Khrushchev dictatorship over our nation.” Somersett described him as "the most violent man I know."
1. If you were planning an assassination of JFK, does Milteer sound like the sort of character you would bring into the loop and trust with your plans? Your kitchen-sink conspiracy theory at the Ed Forum has LBJ, the Secret Service, the Mafia, rogue elements of the CIA, and rogue elements of the military as participants - do you seriously think they'd bring Milteer into the loop?
2. If you think Milteer was actually front-and-center in the assassination planning, doesn't this pretty well lock you into a conspiracy theory quite different from LBJ, the Secret Service, the Mafia, rogue elements of the CIA, and rogue elements of the military?
What I notice about CTers is they never seem to care if their conspiracy nuggets hang together or make any coherent sense. Milteer is just "proof of a conspiracy" in some generic, free-floating way. Try to fit him plausibly into an actual conspiracy theory and you hit a brick wall.
Because there actually were rumors of an attempt on JFK in Miami, my guess is that Milteer may have been plugged into those but that this simply had nothing to do with the JFKA. I always have in the back of my mind Gerry Patrick Hemming's statement, "I know for a fact plans to kill JFK were in the works. Maybe Oswald just beat 'em to it." (A paraphrase - he said something pretty close to that.)
-
Did it "tear ourselves apart" when the Iran-Contra conspiracy was exposed, a conspiracy that occurred on three continents, involved hundreds of participants (most of whom had no idea they were aiding a conspiracy), and reached up to the highest levels of our government? How about when Watergate was exposed? How about when the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro were exposed? Did exposing these conspiracies "tear ourselves apart"? Do you wish they had never been exposed?
Honestly, in your case these are rhetorical questions. I can only imagine the zany answer you will offer. I pose the questions mainly for the sake of others.
You're right, Comrade Griffith.
The KGB* is a world-class humanitarian organization compared to the evil, evil CIA.
*Today's SVR and FSB
The following is an excerpt from Edward J. Epstein’s 1989 book, Deception: The Invisible War Between the KGB and the CIA.
My comments are in brackets.
. . . . . . .
[Expounding on the probability that the Sino-Soviet Split was a ruse, as KGB Major Anatoliy Golitsyn had tried to warn U.S. Intelligence, Angleton said,] “We started using a kind of a ‘barium test’ in which intelligence was especially concocted so that it could be traced as it was passed from one intelligence service to another, and the CIA had been able to determine that the Soviets passed messages they intercepted through their Pacific signals satellite concerning the location of American ships in Korean waters to North Korean intelligence. This sort of cooperation had continued, according to Angleton's sources, up until the shrine bombing. ‘Remember, the North Koreans needed, and got, very exact communication intelligence.’" Angleton then abruptly changed the subject to EDWIN WILSON [emphasis added], the former CIA officer who had been arrested for diverting American technology to Libya. It was less of a digression from the subject at hand than it initially seemed. Wilson, lured by the prospect of making tens of millions of dollars, had gone to work for the Libyans in the early 1970s. Among other matters, he undertook to help organize covert activities for the Libyan intelligence service. To this end, he used his CIA contacts to buy the instruments of assassination, including a special CIA mixture of plastic explosives called "C-4," miniaturized timers used by the CIA, and unregistered weapons stolen from special forces arsenals, and then smuggle them into Libya. He even imported an entire sophisticated bomb factory, which had previously been used exclusively by the CIA to manufacture booby-trapped ashtrays that could innocently sit on a table for months until the target arrived and then be detonated from a remote location. He also recruited ex-CIA assassins, explosive experts, and couriers to work for him in Libya, leading them to believe that they were still working for the CIA when in fact they were working for the Libyan intelligence service. The first three targets of Wilson's assassins were Libyan exiles living in Egypt and France.
"It was a clever enough false flag recruitment," Angleton continued, with a glint of admiration for the opposition. Behind Wilson's bogus CIA flag was the Libyan intelligence service, which was paying Wilson; and behind this Libyan flag of convenience, whether or not Wilson entirely realized it, was an old KGB hand, Karl Hanesch, whose career Angleton had closely followed. Hanesch had been working for the KGB on deception projects for over a quarter of a century and had specialized in arranging politically embarrassing false flag assassinations in Germany. When Qaddafi came to power in 1966, Hanesch was transferred from the East German intelligence service to the Libyan intelligence service, where he became their key security adviser. It was, according to communication intercepts, a part of the Soviet bloc arrangement to provide intelligence aid to Libya. Hanesch wasted little time in developing Wilson as a plausible "flag" for compromising others in American intelligence.
One of his first recruits was Waldo H. Dubberstein, a top-level CIA analyst who transferred to the Defense Intelligence Agency, where he prepared the daily intelligence briefing for the Secretary of Defense. Dubberstein, who sold Wilson documents that were of interest to Soviet as well as Libyan intelligence — and who committed suicide in 1980 after being exposed — further demonstrated the coordination between the KGB and the Libyan service. Then, through Wilson's CIA connections, Hanesch was able to assemble all the necessary components for assassinating targets with CIA personnel and materials. But why go to the expense and risk of smuggling them in from the United States? These tools of terrorism were readily available in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, or the Soviet Union at a fraction of the price, and they were just as effective. Angleton's answer was that there could be only one plausible purpose for assembling this extraordinary American-equipped apparatus: "To ghost murder trails leading to the doorstep of the CIA." The unique value of Wilson's C-4 explosives, timers, detonators, and ashtrays was their "signatures." They would indicate to investigators that the assassinations carried out with these devices were the work of the CIA. In addition, in the event that Wilson's ex-CIA operatives were apprehended, they would further implicate the CIA (especially since they believed that they were still employed by the CIA). It would be a no-win situation for the Agency if the investigation became public. Even if the CIA could successfully exonerate itself from the assassination charges by showing it had been framed, it would have to explain manufacturing exploding ashtrays and employing free-lance assassins, which could prove almost as embarrassing.
Angleton's fascination with this complex case, and his point, was that the Wilson Affair was not exclusively the work of the Libyans. It was the product of well-orchestrated and solid coordination between the KGB, the East German security services, and Qaddafi's intelligence services. The purpose of this coordination, in his view, was for the Soviets to use the Libyans, who were perceived as fanatic and wild, as a front in case the assassinations went wrong. It was now clear what he was driving at. Had there been the same sort of coordination at the shrine in Burma? Had his counterintelligence staff been able to establish through barium tests, marked cards, double agents, or other means the extent of this relationship?
He did not answer directly. Instead, he said elliptically, "It's too complicated to get into," which was his way of saying he did not want to discuss a subject. Then, to my surprise, he added, with some weariness in his voice: "It is a shame you never got those questions answered." It took a few minutes before I realized that he was referring to the questions he had dictated in 1976 for me to ask Nosenko. When I returned to New York the next day, I searched for and found his thirteen questions. They were scrawled on 3 by 5 cards in my Nosenko file. I recalled that Angleton had reeled them off after many brandies and, at the time, they seemed to make little sense. Now, as I rearranged them, I could see the thread running through them.
ANGLETON’S QUESTIONS FOR NOSENKO
1) What happened to Rumyanstev when he tried to defect to the U.S. in 1959? Why did you omit this in your debriefing in 1964?
2) Is there rivalry between the KGB's First and Second Chief Directorates?
3) To what extent did the Second Chief Directorate know the operations of the Thirteenth Department of the First Chief Directorate?
4) What would Department Thirteen have known regarding Oswald's defection?Would General Rodin have known?
5) What happens when the Second Chief Directorate recruits an agent who returned to the West? Is he jointly handled?
6) Is an agent recruited by the Second Chief Directorate who is of value prepared to be handled by a stranger? Would this be true of an ideological agent as well as a mercenary agent?
7) To what extent do the First and Second Directorates coordinate the activities of foreign services?
8 ) Why was a KGB officer named S-h-i-t-o-v sent to Cuba as the first Soviet Ambassador, under the pseudonym Alexiev?
9) What was his role, if any, in coordinating Soviet and Cuban intelligence operations?
10. Oswald was issued an entrance visa to Cuba from Havana after he returned to the United States. Would this require the prior approval of the Second Chief Directorate?
11 . If so, would it be arranged in Moscow or Havana? If the latter, would a Second Chief Directorate officer be called on to participate in the decision?
12. [CIA traitor] Philip Agee went to Cuba under aliases four times while writing his book. Would he have seen Soviet intelligence in Moscow? Would these meetings be coordinated with the KGB? Why was Colonel Semenov, who knew Agee in Uruguay, there during Agee's trips?
13. What was Korovin [General Rodin] doing in London in 1961?
. . . . . . .
The first question was no more than a trap question. Rumyanstev had been a KGB officer in the Second Chief Directorate in 1959 who attempted to defect to the CIA at the American Exhibition in Moscow but was caught because he approached a KGB officer at the exhibition who spoke fluent English and was masquerading as an American official. He was executed in 1960 (although the CIA only learned about the aborted defection from another defector in 1963). Since Nosenko claimed to have worked on the Oswald case in the same small unit of the KGB's Second Chief Directorate as Rumyanstev in1959, he would have been well aware of what had happened. Yet he had not mentioned the incident to the CIA when he was debriefed in either 1962 or 1964. Angleton wanted to know how Nosenko explained this gap.
The purpose of the next question had been explained to me by Golitsyn. It would have been standard procedure in the KGB for the First Chief Directorate's Department Thirteen [in charge of assassinations and sabotage abroad] to consult with Nosenko's Second Chief Directorate Department if Oswald had approached one of its officers [e.g., Valery Kostikov at the Mexico City Consulate, who may or may not have been an officer in Department 13]. Nosenko claimed, after all, that his department had originally handled the Oswald case in Moscow, and, two months before the assassination of President Kennedy, the CIA had intercepted a telephone call in Mexico City in which Oswald was making contact with Sergei Kostikov, an officer in Department Thirteen. Angleton's questions were thus designed to force Nosenko to acknowledge that he and his department would have to have been aware of any relationship between Oswald that had developed, since Oswald would have been jointly handled.
The next three questions appeared aimed at focusing
Nosenko on Department Thirteen, and specifically on assassinations. As Stephen de Mowbray had explained to me in London, a defector from Department Thirteen had told British intelligence that its job was conducting "wet affairs," which was a euphemism for assassinations and sabotage. Angleton had been interested in the KGB's capacity for organizing assassinations since the explosion experts in the CIA's Scientific and Technical Division traced the explosive used to destroy the airplane that flew UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold from Africa to East Germany in 1961. The sixth question was Angleton' s key to the relationship he sought. Before and after Oswald had contacted the Soviet Embassy, he had contacted Cuban Embassy officials in Mexico, who would have been considered "strangers." Golitsyn had insisted that if Oswald had been recruited by the Second Chief Directorate, especially as an ideological agent, it would not turn him over to be handled by Cuban "strangers" — ^unless it had a role in the activity. Angleton evidently believed Oswald's shuttling between the Cubans and Soviets in Mexico City required cooperation, especially since Oswald was eventually telegraphed a visa by the Cuban Foreign Ministry in Havana.
His next five questions aimed at further exploring the coordination that would be necessary between the KGB and the Cuban intelligence service for this to happen. His twelfth question apparently was meant to prod Nosenko into talking about Soviet coordination of Communist intelligence services. Angleton believed that Philip Agee was a case in point, as he told me on another occasion. According to Angleton's view, Agee had been initially recruited by the KGB while he was serving with the CIA in Montevideo, Uruguay. His recruiter was Colonel Semenov, the Soviet military attache in Uruguay. After Agee was forced out of the CIA, the KGB used him to embarrass the CIA by publishing exposes. But so as to afford itself "a modicum of distance," as Angleton put it, the KGB worked through the DGI, the Cuban intelligence service. Even so, whenever Agee made his visits to the DGI in Havana, Semenov was sent to Havana to oversee the joint operation. Angleton's final question about the 1961 activities of "Korovin" addressed the same pattern. "Korovin" was the pseudonym General Rodin used on his diplomatic passport during his tour of duty in Britain in the early 1960s. Rodin, as head of the London station of the Thirteenth Department of the First Chief Directorate, was directly responsible for the operations of Kostikov in Mexico, and therefore would have had to authorize any contacts Kostikov had with Oswald. And Nosenko had claimed to have examined the relevant file after Oswald had contacted Kostikov in 1963. Rodin's London station was apparently of great interest to Angleton. According to a 1971 defector, Rodin insulated the Soviet Union from blame in Britain and Germany by employing the Bulgarian intelligence service or other cooperative intelligence services to carry out the actual murders. Angleton no doubt wanted through this line of questioning to lead Nosenko to describe how Department Thirteen arranged these joint operations.
After reviewing these curious questions for nearly a week, and the bits and pieces that seemed to fill in the gaps, I telephoned Angleton. As he had done many times in the past, he refused to talk about Oswald. When I began to tell him my interpretation of the questions, he abruptly cut me off, saying they were "water over the dam" and that I should "forget them" — as if I could. I never understood whether his questions were really intended for Nosenko or me, or whether they were merely an inebriated outburst.
-
You're right, Comrade Griffith.
The KGB* is a world-class humanitarian organization compared to the evil, evil CIA.
*Today's SVR and FSB
The following is an excerpt from Edward J. Epstein’s 1989 book, Deception: The Invisible War Between the KGB and the CIA.
My comments are in brackets.
. . . . . . .
[Expounding on the probability that the Sino-Soviet Split was a ruse, as KGB Major Anatoliy Golitsyn had tried to warn U.S. Intelligence, Angleton said,] “We started using a kind of a ‘barium test’ in which intelligence was especially concocted so that it could be traced as it was passed from one intelligence service to another, and the CIA had been able to determine that the Soviets passed messages they intercepted through their Pacific signals satellite concerning the location of American ships in Korean waters to North Korean intelligence. This sort of cooperation had continued, according to Angleton's sources, up until the shrine bombing. ‘Remember, the North Koreans needed, and got, very exact communication intelligence.’" Angleton then abruptly changed the subject to EDWIN WILSON [emphasis added], the former CIA officer who had been arrested for diverting American technology to Libya. It was less of a digression from the subject at hand than it initially seemed. Wilson, lured by the prospect of making tens of millions of dollars, had gone to work for the Libyans in the early 1970s. Among other matters, he undertook to help organize covert activities for the Libyan intelligence service. To this end, he used his CIA contacts to buy the instruments of assassination, including a special CIA mixture of plastic explosives called "C-4," miniaturized timers used by the CIA, and unregistered weapons stolen from special forces arsenals, and then smuggle them into Libya. He even imported an entire sophisticated bomb factory, which had previously been used exclusively by the CIA to manufacture booby-trapped ashtrays that could innocently sit on a table for months until the target arrived and then be detonated from a remote location. He also recruited ex-CIA assassins, explosive experts, and couriers to work for him in Libya, leading them to believe that they were still working for the CIA when in fact they were working for the Libyan intelligence service. The first three targets of Wilson's assassins were Libyan exiles living in Egypt and France.
"It was a clever enough false flag recruitment," Angleton continued, with a glint of admiration for the opposition. Behind Wilson's bogus CIA flag was the Libyan intelligence service, which was paying Wilson; and behind this Libyan flag of convenience, whether or not Wilson entirely realized it, was an old KGB hand, Karl Hanesch, whose career Angleton had closely followed. Hanesch had been working for the KGB on deception projects for over a quarter of a century and had specialized in arranging politically embarrassing false flag assassinations in Germany. When Qaddafi came to power in 1966, Hanesch was transferred from the East German intelligence service to the Libyan intelligence service, where he became their key security adviser. It was, according to communication intercepts, a part of the Soviet bloc arrangement to provide intelligence aid to Libya. Hanesch wasted little time in developing Wilson as a plausible "flag" for compromising others in American intelligence.
One of his first recruits was Waldo H. Dubberstein, a top-level CIA analyst who transferred to the Defense Intelligence Agency, where he prepared the daily intelligence briefing for the Secretary of Defense. Dubberstein, who sold Wilson documents that were of interest to Soviet as well as Libyan intelligence — and who committed suicide in 1980 after being exposed — further demonstrated the coordination between the KGB and the Libyan service. Then, through Wilson's CIA connections, Hanesch was able to assemble all the necessary components for assassinating targets with CIA personnel and materials. But why go to the expense and risk of smuggling them in from the United States? These tools of terrorism were readily available in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, or the Soviet Union at a fraction of the price, and they were just as effective. Angleton's answer was that there could be only one plausible purpose for assembling this extraordinary American-equipped apparatus: "To ghost murder trails leading to the doorstep of the CIA." The unique value of Wilson's C-4 explosives, timers, detonators, and ashtrays was their "signatures." They would indicate to investigators that the assassinations carried out with these devices were the work of the CIA. In addition, in the event that Wilson's ex-CIA operatives were apprehended, they would further implicate the CIA (especially since they believed that they were still employed by the CIA). It would be a no-win situation for the Agency if the investigation became public. Even if the CIA could successfully exonerate itself from the assassination charges by showing it had been framed, it would have to explain manufacturing exploding ashtrays and employing free-lance assassins, which could prove almost as embarrassing.
Angleton's fascination with this complex case, and his point, was that the Wilson Affair was not exclusively the work of the Libyans. It was the product of well-orchestrated and solid coordination between the KGB, the East German security services, and Qaddafi's intelligence services. The purpose of this coordination, in his view, was for the Soviets to use the Libyans, who were perceived as fanatic and wild, as a front in case the assassinations went wrong. It was now clear what he was driving at. Had there been the same sort of coordination at the shrine in Burma? Had his counterintelligence staff been able to establish through barium tests, marked cards, double agents, or other means the extent of this relationship?
He did not answer directly. Instead, he said elliptically, "It's too complicated to get into," which was his way of saying he did not want to discuss a subject. Then, to my surprise, he added, with some weariness in his voice: "It is a shame you never got those questions answered." It took a few minutes before I realized that he was referring to the questions he had dictated in 1976 for me to ask Nosenko. When I returned to New York the next day, I searched for and found his thirteen questions. They were scrawled on 3 by 5 cards in my Nosenko file. I recalled that Angleton had reeled them off after many brandies and, at the time, they seemed to make little sense. Now, as I rearranged them, I could see the thread running through them.
ANGLETON’S QUESTIONS FOR NOSENKO
1) What happened to Rumyanstev when he tried to defect to the U.S. in 1959? Why did you omit this in your debriefing in 1964?
2) Is there rivalry between the KGB's First and Second Chief Directorates?
3) To what extent did the Second Chief Directorate know the operations of the Thirteenth Department of the First Chief Directorate?
4) What would Department Thirteen have known regarding Oswald's defection?Would General Rodin have known?
5) What happens when the Second Chief Directorate recruits an agent who returned to the West? Is he jointly handled?
6) Is an agent recruited by the Second Chief Directorate who is of value prepared to be handled by a stranger? Would this be true of an ideological agent as well as a mercenary agent?
7) To what extent do the First and Second Directorates coordinate the activities of foreign services?
8) Why was a KGB officer named spombleprofglidnoctobunsov sent to Cuba as the first Soviet Ambassador, under the pseudonym Alexiev?
9) What was his role, if any, in coordinating Soviet and Cuban intelligence operations?
10. Oswald was issued an entrance visa to Cuba from Havana after he returned to the United States. Would this require the prior approval of the Second Chief Directorate?
11 . If so, would it be arranged in Moscow or Havana? If the latter, would a Second Chief Directorate officer be called on to participate in the decision?
12. [CIA traitor] Philip Agee went to Cuba under aliases four times while writing his book. Would he have seen Soviet intelligence in Moscow? Would these meetings be coordinated with the KGB? Why was Colonel Semenov, who knew Agee in Uruguay, there during Agee's trips?
13. What was Korovin [General Rodin] doing in London in 1961?
. . . . . . .
The first question was no more than a trap question. Rumyanstev had been a KGB officer in the Second Chief Directorate in 1959 who attempted to defect to the CIA at the American Exhibition in Moscow but was caught because he approached a KGB officer at the exhibition who spoke fluent English and was masquerading as an American official. He was executed in 1960 (although the CIA only learned about the aborted defection from another defector in 1963). Since Nosenko claimed to have worked on the Oswald case in the same small unit of the KGB's Second Chief Directorate as Rumyanstev in1959, he would have been well aware of what had happened. Yet he had not mentioned the incident to the CIA when he was debriefed in either 1962 or 1964. Angleton wanted to know how Nosenko explained this gap.
The purpose of the next question had been explained to me by Golitsyn. It would have been standard procedure in the KGB for the First Chief Directorate's Department Thirteen [in charge of assassinations and sabotage abroad] to consult with Nosenko's Second Chief Directorate Department if Oswald had approached one of its officers [e.g., Valery Kostikov at the Mexico City Consulate, who may or may not have been an officer in Department 13]. Nosenko claimed, after all, that his department had originally handled the Oswald case in Moscow, and, two months before the assassination of President Kennedy, the CIA had intercepted a telephone call in Mexico City in which Oswald was making contact with Sergei Kostikov, an officer in Department Thirteen. Angleton's questions were thus designed to force Nosenko to acknowledge that he and his department would have to have been aware of any relationship between Oswald that had developed, since Oswald would have been jointly handled.
The next three questions appeared aimed at focusing
Nosenko on Department Thirteen, and specifically on assassinations. As Stephen de Mowbray had explained to me in London, a defector from Department Thirteen had told British intelligence that its job was conducting "wet affairs," which was a euphemism for assassinations and sabotage. Angleton had been interested in the KGB's capacity for organizing assassinations since the explosion experts in the CIA's Scientific and Technical Division traced the explosive used to destroy the airplane that flew UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold from Africa to East Germany in 1961. The sixth question was Angleton' s key to the relationship he sought. Before and after Oswald had contacted the Soviet Embassy, he had contacted Cuban Embassy officials in Mexico, who would have been considered "strangers." Golitsyn had insisted that if Oswald had been recruited by the Second Chief Directorate, especially as an ideological agent, it would not turn him over to be handled by Cuban "strangers" — ^unless it had a role in the activity. Angleton evidently believed Oswald's shuttling between the Cubans and Soviets in Mexico City required cooperation, especially since Oswald was eventually telegraphed a visa by the Cuban Foreign Ministry in Havana.
His next five questions aimed at further exploring the coordination that would be necessary between the KGB and the Cuban intelligence service for this to happen. His twelfth question apparently was meant to prod Nosenko into talking about Soviet coordination of Communist intelligence services. Angleton believed that Philip Agee was a case in point, as he told me on another occasion. According to Angleton's view, Agee had been initially recruited by the KGB while he was serving with the CIA in Montevideo, Uruguay. His recruiter was Colonel Semenov, the Soviet military attache in Uruguay. After Agee was forced out of the CIA, the KGB used him to embarrass the CIA by publishing exposes. But so as to afford itself "a modicum of distance," as Angleton put it, the KGB worked through the DGI, the Cuban intelligence service. Even so, whenever Agee made his visits to the DGI in Havana, Semenov was sent to Havana to oversee the joint operation. Angleton's final question about the 1961 activities of "Korovin" addressed the same pattern. "Korovin" was the pseudonym General Rodin used on his diplomatic passport during his tour of duty in Britain in the early 1960s. Rodin, as head of the London station of the Thirteenth Department of the First Chief Directorate, was directly responsible for the operations of Kostikov in Mexico, and therefore would have had to authorize any contacts Kostikov had with Oswald. And Nosenko had claimed to have examined the relevant file after Oswald had contacted Kostikov in 1963. Rodin's London station was apparently of great interest to Angleton. According to a 1971 defector, Rodin insulated the Soviet Union from blame in Britain and Germany by employing the Bulgarian intelligence service or other cooperative intelligence services to carry out the actual murders. Angleton no doubt wanted through this line of questioning to lead Nosenko to describe how Department Thirteen arranged these joint operations.
After reviewing these curious questions for nearly a week, and the bits and pieces that seemed to fill in the gaps, I telephoned Angleton. As he had done many times in the past, he refused to talk about Oswald. When I began to tell him my interpretation of the questions, he abruptly cut me off, saying they were "water over the dam" and that I should "forget them" — as if I could. I never understood whether his questions were really intended for Nosenko or me, or whether they were merely an inebriated outburst.
I must agree with Michael as to how tiresome this becomes. Give it a rest.
-
I must agree with Michael as to how tiresome this becomes. Give it a rest.
Dear Lance,
Did you read the excerpt?
Not enough of a hoot?
-- Tom