JFK Assassination Forum
JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion & Debate => JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion And Debate => Topic started by: Lance Payette on September 06, 2025, 09:09:26 PM
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I will be soooo happy - and so will you! - when my Achilles heals and I can return to normal (i.e., non-JFKA) life ...
There is a thread at the Ed Forum about Louisiana Congressman (and House Majority Leader) Hale Boggs, one of the JFKA "mystery deaths" if there ever was one. He was a member of the WC and, as CTers would have it, was about to blow the lid off the WR just before he died. (Dorothy Kilgallen would’ve beaten him to it, of course, but she became a "mystery death" seven years before he did.)
Boggs did have substantial doubts about the WR, specifically the SBT. The Los Angeles Star supposedly had reported on November 22, 1973 that “Boggs had startling revelations on Watergate and the assassination of President Kennedy.” (I wasn't able to trace the Los Angeles Star thing beyond Mae Brussell, and all other references to it seem to be CT-oriented, so it may be yet another factoid. The only reference that fleshed it out at all said the source was a “former aide” to Boggs, not Boggs himself. Since this is pretty much the foundation of the “mysterious death” speculation, I would think it would behoove we “mysterious death” folks to nail it down.)
There is also all sorts of stuff about Boggs supposedly being the motivation for Garrison’s investigation, with Joan Mellen going so far as to say Boggs told Garrison that Oswald was an FBI informant. Oh, dear. I didn’t wade into that, although I did see that Boggs’ daughter, the late journalist Cokie Roberts, described Garrison as “100% nuts” and conspiracy theories as “coping mechanisms.”
Anyway, Boggs' small plane went down in Alaska in 1972, shortly after the Watergate thing. He was 58. The pilot had 17,000 hours of flying experience. On board were Alaska Congressman Nick Begich and one of his aides. Boggs was going to campaign for Begich.
Despite one of the most MASSIVE searches in the history of aviation, NOTHING was ever found. It's right up there with Amelia Earhart and young Frederick Valentich (whose small plane was possibly abducted by a UFO in Australia in 1978, but I digress ...).
Normally, I'd say Who cares? However, I discovered that the case has a major Tucson connection! As a Tucson native, this demanded my attention. Well, not really, except that I am laid up with my ruptured Achilles.
You literally can't make this stuff up: A mere 14 months after Congressman Begich was declared dead, his widow married a Tucson Mafioso "eventually linked to as many as five murders and three bombings, including a 1968 blast outside the Tucson home of retired state Supreme Court Justice Evo DeConcini."
You can read all about it here: https://tucson.com/news/local/article_57f0c38f-d013-5fde-9e26-b452023f9e6c.html. All the Mafia names in the story were well-known to everyone in Tucson, which was Joe Bananas' territory. Homes and cars and restaurants blowing up was just business as usual. Even the Kon Tiki restaurant that figures prominently in the story was one of my alcoholic parents' favorite haunts. Another of their favorite haunts, Paulos Italian restaurant, actually did blow up while I was in high school. Lasagna was found up to a half-mile away.
The subject of the article is an intrepid reporter, Jon Walczak, who has spent as much time on the Boggs case as any rabid CTer has spent on the JFKA. He completed a multi-part podcast, "Missing in Alaska," https://plinkhq.com/i/1569883308?to=page. I have not yet listened to it, but it received rave reviews.
The original story was that Boggs' plane was brought down by a Mafia-placed bomb and that the woman who became Begich's widow (the mother of former Senator Mark Begich) had met with Bonanno prior to the crash, all having something to do with drugs, prostitution, money and the usual Mafia stuff. Alas, Walczak does not believe there was any JFKA connection at all and apparently even doubts the Mafia-bomb story. Anyway, you may find it interesting if you're into the "mysterious deaths" stuff.
One wrinkle occurred to me: Boggs was succeeded in office by his widow, Lindy. She served in office until 1991 and lived to be 97, dying of natural causes in 2013. We "mysterious death" folks can only conclude that her husband never said anything to her about his JFKA bombshell and thus there was no need for her to be whacked or marry a Mafioso or whatever. (Lindy even enthusiastically welcomed the ARRB folks to New Orleans in 1995, when she could’ve saved them a lot of trouble if she’d just shared those dang startling revelations: https://speakingwhilefemale.co/testimony-boggs/.)
We "mysterious death" folks are also agog at how the conspirators managed to arrange the crash so no remains would ever be found, as opposed to crashing someplace where evidence of the bomb would've been obvious. When they weren’t being the Three Stooges, the conspirators were pretty ingenious, weren’t they?
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Mama Mia, what a rabbit hole!
I felt that I owed it to you, my reader(s), to listen to some of the Missing in Alaska podcasts. I listened to numbers 11 and 12, which seem to be the last or at least the most recent.
The reporter doesn't completely dismiss pilot error, weather and/or mechanical failure, but he clearly leans toward the Mafia bomb angle. It all gets REALLY weird. If you are interested in the Boggs crash, you must listen to some of these podcasts even if there is no JFKA angle because this guy has spent nine years on the story and has done a fantastic amount of research.
The lead figure in the bomb angle is a low-level Mafioso named Paisley, who is the guy who married Congressman Begich's widow Pegge (mother of Senator Mark Begich). It is not entirely clear whether Pegge was knowingly involved, but her marriage was strained, there was a large insurance policy, and she went into business with Mafia cronies (but the marriage didn't last long). It's not even clear which Tucson Mafia family was behind the hit - Bonanno or Licavoli. At the wedding of Paisley and Pegge, pretty much everyone in attendance was Licavoli-connected.
In one believable version, Congressman Begich was the target. The Mafia wanted him out of the way in favor of a more Mafia-friendly candidate. By all accounts, he was the ultimate straight shooter.
But wait: While in prison for other things, Paisley confided in a serial killer named Day. In this version, HOOVER WANTED BOGGS DEAD! There are several problems with this scenario, not the least being that Hoover died five months before the Boggs crash. Day clearly did speak with Paisley because he got too many details right to be fabricating, but Paisley may have been using the Hoover angle for leverage with the FBI, with whom he was then negotiating.
Oh, the hell with it. It's fascinating, but it's all too much for me and my Achilles. I am satisfied Boggs was a "mysterious death" but not a "mysterious JFKA-related death." The plot probably did center on Begich.
Here is a photo of Pegge Begich. Her face pretty much screams "Gulty" and "A woman who will stop at nothing." Or maybe not. Damn suspicious-looking kid, too.
(https://c7.alamy.com/comp/2PA7G2W/pegge-begich-mother-of-anchorages-mayor-mark-begich-holds-marks-son-jacob-begich-5-as-the-anchorage-mayor-announces-he-is-formally-running-for-the-us-senate-seat-held-by-republican-ted-stevens-r-alaska-in-anchorage-alaska-monday-april-21-2008-ap-photoal-grillo-2PA7G2W.jpg)
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Well, that's kind of suspicious: After Begich's death, his office was filled by Salvatore "Sal the Knife" Roselli.
OK, not exactly. Even though he was missing, Begich was reelected. When he was declared dead, a special election was then held. Don Young, who had lost to Begich in 1972, won the GOP primary without opposition. On the Democratic side, Pegge Begich (!) lost to Emil Notti. While Notti sounds vaguely Mafia-like, he was in fact of Koyukon Athabaskan (what?) heritage, and about as un-Mafia-like as one could get. Don Young, who also seems distinctly un-Mafia-like, then defeated Notti, was reelected 24 times, and is the longest-serving Republican House member in history (49 years).
So, the only suspicious thing in all that is Pegge running for the seat. Maybe that was part of the plot, if there was a plot.
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Love this post. Any story featuring a guy with the name Bananas, and lasagna being blown a half-mile from a bombed Italian restaurant is worth reading.
I have long wondered about the Boggs crash, along with everyone else.
But read up on "barium acetate."
Not sure the "Deep State" would resort to such dramatic murders, when they could just give someone a heart attack.
(Scarily enough, anyone with a kid's home chemistry kit in the 1960s could do as much. Eeek!)
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Still on the case ...
A diligent Boy Scout (are there any?) could earn the coveted Factoid-Hunting Merit Badge on the Boggs case alone.
Over at the Ed Forum, Simkin repeats both the Los Angeles Star canard (citing Bernard Fensterwald’s book Coincidence or Conspiracy?) and the Garrison canard (citing Joan Mellen). What caught my factoid-hunting eye, however, was this:
“Thomas H. Boggs came under considerable pressure when he began questioning the Warren Report in Congress. On 5th April 1971, Boggs made a speech on the floor of the House accusing the FBI of tapping his phones and keeping dossiers on members of Congress. Boggs said the files consisted of information on seven persons who had written critically of the commission's findings. He accused J. Edgar Hoover, of being ‘incompetent and senile’ and that the FBI under Hoover's most recent years 'adopted the tactics of the Soviet Union and the Hitler's Gestapo.'"
For this, Simkin cites the speech itself. It is clear from the entry on Boggs at the Spartacus site, however, that Simkin is merely parroting the 1974 edition of Fensterwald’s book.
Zowie! Calling the 76-year-old Hoover “incompetent and senile” (remember, that’s a quote) on the floor of Congress could get you whacked, no? Hoover just picks up the phone to Pete Licavoli in Tucson and barks, “I WANT BOGGS WHACKED AND I WANT HIM WHACKED NOW!!!” Pete assures Jedgar the deed will be done, asks Sal the Knife who the heck this Boggs character is that old Jedgar is ranting about, and then tells bomb-guy Paisley to add it to his to-do list. Paisley indeed makes it happen, although it takes him 18 months and by that time Jedgar has been dead for five. Well, these things take time even for the Mafia.
What did that incendiary speech look like, I wondered? You can see it here, in the Congressional Record of April 5, 1971: https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/sites/default/files/pdf_documents/library/document/0204/1512895.pdf (it’s on page 12 of the PDF).
Boggs asked for one minute to address the House. His speech isn’t even one full column in the Congressional Record. HE NEVER USES THE TERM “INCOMPETENT” OR “SENILE.”
He begins, “What I am going to say I say in sorrow, because it is always tragic when a great man who has given his life to his country comes to the twilight of his life and fails to understand it is time to leave the service and enjoy retirement.” He says the time has come for the Attorney General to ask for Hoover’s resignation. Not because Hoover is senile and incompetent but because the FBI is tapping the telephones of members of the House and Senate, stationing agents on college campuses to infiltrate student organizations, and adopting tactics of the Soviet Union and Hitler’s Gestapo.
HE SAYS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT “KEEPING DOSSIERS ON MEMBERS OF CONGRESS” OR “FILES CONSIST[ING] OF INFORMATION ON SEVEN PERSONS WHO HAD WRITTEN CRITICALLY OF THE [WARREN] COMMISSION'S FINDINGS.”
Weirdly, Hoover sycophant Gerald Ford immediately asks for the floor and acknowledges that what Boggs said was somewhat accurate but strongly objects to the statement that the FBI uses Gestapo-like tactics. OK, Gerry, we'll amend that to KGB-like tactics.
Boggs’ speech was hardly breaking news. As the New York Times noted the next day, “At a political dinner March 19 in Denver, Senator Joseph M. Montoya, Democrat of New Mexico, said: ‘There is wiretapping on Capitol Hill of the telephones of Senators and Congressmen.’” https://www.nytimes.com/1971/04/06/archives/boggs-demands-that-hoover-quit-accuses-fbi-of-tapping-congressmens.html. The Times also noted that the FBI's infiltration of student organizations had likewise been known since March, thanks to documents stolen from an FBI office.
Did Boggs’ little speech and the coverage it received make Hoover happy? One would think not. Was it enough to get Boggs whacked by the Mafia 18 months later, five months after Jedgar had died? One would think not.
Was Fensterwald’s description of the speech, in a book published just a couple of years after it, accurate? HELL, NO. Does Simkin and every other CT enthusiast simply repeat Fensterwald’s factoid until it becomes conspiracy gospel, without taking the 45 seconds it takes to check the Congressional Record?. OF COURSE, because that’s how the Conspiracy Game works and how factoids become Conspiracy Gospel!
If I were inclined to attempt to craft a serious conspiracy theory, and hoped to be taken seriously by serious historians and academics, I would make damn sure every quotation, citation and footnote checked out. This is simply not the Conspiracy Game, which is in fact a game. The game is to overwhelm the audience with factoids and speculation on the safe assumption that no one will ever check anything out. The objective appears to be little more than hoping the next public opinion poll shows that 78% of the populace now believes "Dang right, there had to be a conspiracy. You cain't have 25 conspiracy theories without at least one of them being sorta kinda true." That's victory in the Conspiracy Game.
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OK, now I’m just goofing around while my Factoid Buster cape is in the washer ...
Believe it or not, Pegge Begich is apparently still with us. She was born Margaret Jean Jendro on April 21, 1938 and married Begich in 1957, when she was 18. She is still listed on the board of the Nick Begich Scholarship Fund, which they would seemingly not do if she were deceased. One site says she is living in Nevada (but of course, wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more). I could find no other scandals associated with her, although I suppose plotting with the Mafia to have the father of your six children whacked in a midair explosion would be enough excitement for most women. When I finally got her on the phone and asked for a comment, she simply said “Crashes happen, pal.” (Yes, I made that up; it’s called “CT license,” sort of like poetic license.)
Here are the FBI files on Jerry Max Paisley. What our little Pegge ever saw in him, I have no idea. He died in prison in 2010 at age 69.
https://ia803204.us.archive.org/28/items/Jerry_Max_Pasley/E77f64e4b4beda201fbf7797949b82c0045980eb3_Q86302_R359655_D2542449.pdf
https://dn790006.ca.archive.org/0/items/Jerry_Max_Pasley/E77f64e4b4beda201fbf7797949b82c0045980eb3_Q86302_R359655_D2542450.pdf
Here’s a pretty good article by an airline captain who thinks ice was the culprit: https://www.twinandturbine.com/impenitent-ice/.
According to the Washington Post, the pilot, Don E. Jonz, was “a daring bush pilot who had argued in an aviation magazine that a ‘sneaky’ pilot could ‘disregard 99 percent of the B.S. you hear about icing,’ [and thus] decided he could make it” despite the iffy weather.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/national/2010/08/15/in-alaska-crash-the-echo-of-a-mystery/72a72635-a55f-46ac-bb46-a02aa1ddf51c/.
What a wild story. What a cast of characters. What perfect fodder for a conspiracy factoid or two or 12. Well, back to the real world, wherever that is.
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OK, I’m done – and with the entire JFKA for a while because this stuff is just silly.
You will recall from the above discussion that the Los Angeles Star supposedly reported on November 22, 1973 that Hale Boggs had said he had “startling revelations” about the JFKA.
I’ve attempted to research this quotation everywhere I could. It appears – always in the exact same language – in the CT literature and only in the CT literature.
But here’s the kicker: There was no Los Angeles Star. The only newspaper called the Los Angeles Star had ceased publication almost 100 years earlier.
In 1973, there were only two publications in the area called the Star. One, the Star, is described as a “proto-punk teen magazine” that first published in February 1973 and went belly-up after five issues. The other was the Valley Star, the student newspaper of Los Angeles Valley College.
I even looked for the quotation substituting the Los Angeles Times. Nope, nada.
OK, let’s forget the newspaper. We’ll just Google “Hale Boggs” + “startling revelations” + “Kennedy.” Nope. Nothing but the Star quote and nothing but CT-oriented materials.
So we have a newspaper that doesn’t exist supposedly reporting a quotation that I can’t verify in its edition of Thursday, November 22, 1973 that “just happens” to be the tenth anniversary of the JFKA. Hmmmm. And this factoid quotation has been repeated and repeated and repeated for 50 years until it has hardened into conspiracy gospel.
Prove me wrong, someone. Track down the newspaper or at least the quotation. Right now, it smells bogus. And it appears as the deal-clincher in virtually every book, article and online thread about the “mysterious, JFKA-related death” of Hale Boggs.
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Sorry to intrude on your revels with Actual Research again - I know, it's so boring - but this is too good not to include ...
I think it’s all starting to come together. The key – or perhaps the villain – is Bernard Fensterwald, Jr.
Suffice it to say, Bernie was a piece of work. There is a 523-page FBI file on him, dating back to long before the JFKA. As a lawyer, he defended State Department employees accused of Communist affiliations by Joe McCarthy; he called the Warren Report a “fairy tale” when it was barely off the press; he was closely involved in Garrison’s circus; he cofounded the Committee to Investigate Assassinations, which focused on the JFKA; he represented Watergate burglar James McCord and MLK assassin James Earl Ray. All this and more. Yes, Bernie was a piece of work. He died in 1991 at age 69.
Here's the FBI file: https://vault.fbi.gov/bernard-fensterwald-jr/Bernard%20Fensterwald%20Jr.%20Part%2001%20%28Final%29/view
Here's the Spartacus entry on him: https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKfensterwald.htm.
In 1977, he published Coincidence or Conspiracy? about the JFKA. I don’t have it; perhaps you do. I had thought it had been published in 1974 because that’s what the Spartacus entry on Boggs says, but booksellers all say the first edition was 1977.
This book is where the Los Angeles Star factoid about Boggs apparently originated. You know, the one where Boggs supposedly said he had startling revelations about Watergate and the JFKA just before he died, but in fact the Star didn't exist and the quotation was actually attributed to an unnamed former aide.
But wait, it gets worse. As with the Star factoid, you will find this startling quotation throughout the CT literature, likewise attributed to Boggs:
“Hoover lied his eyes out to the Commission – on Oswald, on Ruby, on their friends, the bullets, the gun, you name it.”
Zowie! Did Boggs say that?
Actually, no.
Like the Los Angeles Star non-quotation, the source is Fensterwald’s book. The quotation is actually attributed by Fensterwald to an unnamed “former aide” to Boggs, as was the “startling revelations” quotation supposedly published in the Star. The actual Fensterwald text reads, “Hale always returned to one thing: Hoover lied his eyes out to the Commission – on Oswald, on Ruby, on their friends, the bullets, the gun, you name it.”
Not quite the same as Boggs having said that, eh? As CT factoids tend to do, however, it has evolved into something Boggs said because that’s way better than an unnamed former aide.
For both of these incendiary factoids widely attributed to Boggs, therefore, what we actually have are unnamed former aides (or pehaps only one) being quoted in a CT-oriented book by a truly radical CT fanatic. As CT factoids are wont to do, they have improved as the decades have gone by, and the fact that Fensterwald’s book was the source has been lost to memory. Literally every big name in CT world has used these quotations as though they were authoritative.
I’m not suggesting Boggs was a diehard Warren Report enthusiast. I am not even suggesting Fensterwald made all this up out of thin air, although I wouldn’t be surprised. I am suggesting, once again, that Conspiracy Gospel factoids simply cannot be trusted.
If you have the book, dig it out and allay my suspicions if you can.
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81T9qI82-8L._SL1500_.jpg)
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Oh, Lord, this is endless … this is my absolute last gasp … well, at least I'm showing you clucks the amount of effort required to expose one of your beloved factoids ...
1. Whatever one thinks of Harvey & Lee, John Armstrong did a staggering amount of research. The John Armstrong Collection at Baylor University is the most user-friendly collection I’ve ever encountered. In 1994, Armstrong and co-author Craig Roberts published a book called JFK: The Dead Witnesses. Boggs is included, so I thought I’d search the Armstrong Collection.
No luck. I searched all boxes relating to The Dead Witnesses and did global searches for “Boggs” and the “Los Angeles Star."
There was precisely one hit: In the short part on Boggs, The Dead Witnesses repeats the Star factoid, failing to note that the “startling revelations” language was (supposedly) that of a Boggs aide rather than Boggs himself.
To their credit, the authors say “IF THIS WERE TRUE …” it would suggest a motive for Boggs’ death. If this were true, indeed.
2. A possible breakthrough here: I found another reference to the Los Angeles Star! In Coup D’Etat in America the authors refer to “misinformation” propagated by Richard Sprague “in his article in the Los Angeles Star” concerning the famed Three Tramps.
That’s it, folks, so who cares?
Ah, but who was Richard E. Sprague? But, of course – he was a close associate of Bernard Fensterwald! He is described in those very terms in Coup D’Etat in America,. Indeed, he was the co-founder with Fensterwald of the Committee to Investigate Assassinations and was likewise involved in the Garrison circus as the team’s photographic expert.
His original estimate of the JFKA was four gunmen, six shots and 50 conspirators. With Fletcher Prouty, he later amended this to include zero shots from the TSBD and the planting of all evidence related to Oswald. Yes, he was nuts.
He is the author of The Taking of America, 1-2-3, which you can read for free courtesy of my friends and colleagues at the CIA: https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/11/1183CF937B8095F6A96DB7C9468BDE2A_The_Taking_of_America_-_Richard_Sprague.pdf.
You can read about him here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_E._Sprague and here: https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKspragueE.htm.
A Google search for “Sprague” and “Los Angeles Star” turns up nothing but the one reference from Coup D’Etat in America. Boggs is mentioned in The Taking of America, but neither of the dubious quotations is included and the Star is not mentioned.
"So how is this a breakthrough, Mr. Caped Factoid Buster person?" you ask.
A. Well, we see that the only other reference to the Star is in connection with a fellow CT whack job who was joined at the hip with Brother Bernie Fensterwald.
B. If Sprague was writing “articles” about the Three Tramps in the Star, it can scarcely have been anything resembling a mainstream newspaper.
C. Ergo and to wit: The Caped One strongly suspects that the Star was some Fensterwald/Sprague JFKA gossip sheet that is now being cited as though it were the Los Angeles Times.
As always, prove me wrong if you can.
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Yep, I've cracked the code at last!
It occurred to moi that "Los Angeles Star" might have been an attempt by Fensterwald, Sprague and other Conspiracy Loons to give Los Angeles Times-type dignity to some sleazy rag that was actually called the LA STAR.
BINGO!
Courtesy of eBay, presented for your edification is the cover of a 1974 issue of the LA Star, "An Unauthorized Newspaper" (whatever the hell that means). You can judge for yourself the seriousness of this erudite publication.
THIS, then, is where Fensterwald and Sprague published their work.
You cannot make this stuff up. Well, you can, I suppose - but only the LA Star would publish it.
(https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/tL0AAOSw0xVoXGgN/s-l1600.webp)
(https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/i2EAAOSwzmloXGgN/s-l1600.webp)
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Oh, Jesus, it only gets better ...
Below is an issue from September of 1973. The seller describes the Star as "an underground, reader-written sleaze paper. Filled with b/w erotic photographs and drawings, personal erotic experiences, art, letters, a large personals and classifieds section, and news on politics and censorship. This issue features a nude, tied up, and chained Janis Joplin on the cover."
This is your Los Angeles Star, CT fans. Are those Hale Boggs quotes starting to look just a bit iffy?
Back issues are also available at my beloved Advanced Book Exchange, although I couldn't find the 11-22-63 edition.
(https://boo-hooray.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/5871.jpg?auto=webp&v=1631287353)
(https://pictures.abebooks.com/inventory/30103329450.jpg)
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Lest the salient points in all of the above be lost, let's recapitulate and then I'll move on to greener fields ...
1. Boggs' plane most likely went down in October of 1972 as the result of a Mafia bombing that had nothing to do with Boggs but was focused on Congressman Begich and may have involved the knowing or unknowing participation of Boggs' wife, who married the confessed bomber 14 months later.
2. Alternatively, the plane may have gone down as the result of poor weather and a daredevil pilot; however, there are just too many Mafia connections for this to be the preferred explanation.
3. On the floor of Congress in April of 1971, Boggs did not say the things about Hoover that the CT literature reports him as saying; you can read the 1-minute speech for yourself.
4. What Boggs said about Hoover had already been said by other members of Congress; the only novelty of Boggs' speech was his call for AG Mitchell to demand Hoover's resignation (when Hoover was 75 and a year away from death).
5. Boggs' crash was five months after Hoover's death, at which time Nixon (a Boggs admirer) was President, Kleindienst was AG, Gray was Acting Director of the FBI, and the Watergate scandal was in full bloom.
6. The confessed Mafia bomber, years later and while in prison, floated the idea that Hoover had ordered Boggs killed; as noted above, Hoover had been dead five months at the time of the crash, and there is every reason to believe the bomber floated this as an (unsuccessful) negotiating tool in his then-ongoing negotiations with the FBI.
7. The Los Angeles Star of November 22, 1973, in which a quotation that is the foundation of the "Boggs as a JFKA mystery death" factoid supposedly appeared, did not exist. There had been no Los Angeles Star for almost 100 years.
8. A different publication, the LA Star, was the ultimate sleazy, sensationalist, sexually explicit rag that billed itself as "an unauthorized newspaper" and featured articles written by readers. It described itself as "journalism at its funnest."
9. Richard E. Sprague, a CT True Believer if there ever was one, had founded a company in the LA suburb of Hawthorne and wrote articles for the LA Star.
10. The November 22, 1973 edition of the Star (i.e., tenth anniversary of the JFKA) contained an article quoting an unnamed former Boggs aide to the effect that Boggs had "startling revelations" about the JFKA and Watergate shortly before his death.
11. The CT literature attributes the "startling revelations" quotation to Boggs, even though the piece in the LA Star attributed it to an unnamed former aide.
12. The "startling revelations" quotation first received wide attention in the 1977 "mysterious deaths" book Coincidence or Conspiracy? by Bernard Fensterwald; it has since been repeated, invariably as "reported in the Los Angeles Star," throughout the CT literature.
13. Fensterwald, a longtime radical and extreme CT True Believer, was virtually joined at the hip with Sprague, including their founding of the Committee to Investigate Assassinations and their participation in Garrison's investigation. One can be reasonably certain that Sprague and/or Fensterwald wrote the piece in the 11-22-73 edition of the Star.
14. Also appearing in Fensterwald's book is another quotation, likewise attributed to an unnamed former Boggs aide and almost surely originating in the same 11-22-73 piece in the Star, to the effect that “Hale always returned to one thing: Hoover lied his eyes out to the Commission – on Oswald, on Ruby, on their friends, the bullets, the gun, you name it."
15. The "lied his eyes out" quotation is almost always attributed to Boggs himself in the CT literature.
16. There is utterly no reason - no factual basis - for believing that Boggs was a "JFKA mystery death." He was skeptical of some aspects of the Warren Report, but this would scarcely have been a reason to blow up his plane eight years later (by which time CT books by Lane, Weisberg, Garrison and others had already been published).
17. Boggs' wife Lindy replaced him in Congress, served until 1991, and lived to be 97. She acted as the "unofficial ambassador to New Orleans" for the ARRB and authorized the ARRB's access to all of Boggs' papers at Tulane University.
18. None of the above will stop the CT community from declaring Boggs a JFKA mystery death, mischaracterizing his speech to Congress, attributing the bogus quotations to him, or claiming that said quotations were reported in the Los Angeles Star.
19. You're welcome. Please, hold your applause. Now back to masturbating over whether Baker took 83, 97 or 112 seconds to reach the lunchroom because that's really, really, really important and just might hold the key to the entire case. ::)
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Lance,
When you finally do tire of the JFK assassination discussion, please don't delete your account here. You did that on the ED forum and a lot of good info was lost.
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Lance,
When you finally do tire of the JFK assassination discussion, please don't delete your account here. You did that on the ED forum and a lot of good info was lost.
Yes, I wish I could recover some of it myself! I was fairly proud of my work on the HT LINGUAL program and the Raleigh phone call. I did only delete the posts from my most recent incarnation there. However, all the surviving ones are now shown as "Guest" posts. Since lots of other people who have departed are also shown as "Guest," mine are hell to find unless I remember exactly what I said and can search by the specific language, as with my "Beginner's Guide to the Conspiracy Game."
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Yes, I wish I could recover some of it myself! I was fairly proud of my work on the HT LINGUAL program and the Raleigh phone call. I did only delete the posts from my most recent incarnation there. However, all the surviving ones are now shown as "Guest" posts. Since lots of other people who have departed are also shown as "Guest," mine are hell to find unless I remember exactly what I said and can search by the specific language, as with my "Beginner's Guide to the Conspiracy Game."
I actually have some of what you posted in the ED Forum saved in a Doc file. Not much though.
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I actually have some of what you posted in the ED Forum saved in a Doc file. Not much though.
I've probably mentioned it before, but I lurked at the Ed Forum (as a CTer, mind you) for quite a while, AWED by how much these characters knew and feeling entirely unworthy. One day, the Klein's postal money order came up. I saw the numbers across the top and simply wondered "So what are those?" I could find no discussion of them at all. In about an hour, I discovered an article explaining the Treasury Department's then-new punch card system and that these numbers showed the money order had been processed through the Federal Reserve banking system and stored at the federal records center. Suddenly, I found myself being referred to - comically, it seemed to me - as a "JFK researcher." The fact that these numbers had apparently not been previously identified was kind of eye-opening to me about the status of JFKA "research."
It also seemed to me that my discovery pretty well killed any argument that the money order was bogus or lacking in the "bank stamps" it supposedly should have had. But NOOOOO ... Sandy Larsen just moved the goal posts and insisted the money order had been planted at the records center (but without the "bank stamps" that are the big red flags for CTers?). So now we were off to the races. I did extensive research as to how postal money orders worked and thought I had pretty well resolved the issue. But NOOOOO ... Lawyer Sandy (I think he was some sort of engineer) did his own legal research, which was completely flawed, and not only announced victory but declared it one of his greatest triumphs.
Suffice it to say, my previous AWE was long gone. I probably should have quit right there. I did realize, however, that busting CT factoids could be kind of fun in small doses. As Steve has pointed out, however, it's completely exhausting - I must have 15 hours in this Boggs nonsense alone - and entirely futile. In fact, when I joined here I was in the process of writing the DEFINITIVE expose of the money order silliness, tracing the evolution of the money order system back to the 1800s. Poor Sandy had simply worked himself into total confusion, as non-lawyers tend to do when faced with statutes and regulations. But that project became so absurdly long and time-consuming that I deleted it, too, and decided I'd let Sandy have his little victory.
Seldom have I had one as much fun as this Boggs stuff, I must say.
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I've probably mentioned it before, but I lurked at the Ed Forum (as a CTer, mind you) for quite a while, AWED by how much these characters knew and feeling entirely unworthy. One day, the Klein's postal money order came up. I saw the numbers across the top and simply wondered "So what are those?" I could find no discussion of them at all. In about an hour, I discovered an article explaining the Treasury Department's then-new punch card system and that these numbers showed the money order had been processed through the Federal Reserve banking system and stored at the federal records center. Suddenly, I found myself being referred to - comically, it seemed to me - as a "JFK researcher." The fact that these numbers had apparently not been previously identified was kind of eye-opening to me about the status of JFKA "research."
It also seemed to me that my discovery pretty well killed any argument that the money order was bogus or lacking in the "bank stamps" it supposedly should have had. But NOOOOO ... Sandy Larsen just moved the goal posts and insisted the money order had been planted at the records center (but without the "bank stamps" that are the big red flags for CTers?). So now we were off to the races. I did extensive research as to how postal money orders worked and thought I had pretty well resolved the issue. But NOOOOO ... Lawyer Sandy (I think he was some sort of engineer) did his own legal research, which was completely flawed, and not only announced victory but declared it one of his greatest triumphs.
Suffice it to say, my previous AWE was long gone. I probably should have quit right there. I did realize, however, that busting CT factoids could be kind of fun in small doses. As Steve has pointed out, however, it's completely exhausting - I must have 15 hours in this Boggs nonsense alone - and entirely futile. In fact, when I joined here I was in the process of writing the DEFINITIVE expose of the money order silliness, tracing the evolution of the money order system back to the 1800s. Poor Sandy had simply worked himself into total confusion, as non-lawyers tend to do when faced with statutes and regulations. But that project became so absurdly long and time-consuming that I deleted it, too, and decided I'd let Sandy have his little victory.
Seldom have I had one as much fun as this Boggs stuff, I must say.
I was the one who found the uncashed US Postal money order. I posted here in these forums. I think that it was David Von Pein who then posted it on the ED Forum.
(https://i.imgur.com/kOFOzoP.jpeg)
In looking through my doc file on your ED forum posts, I see that it has DiEugenio's plural version of Moe Green's remark from The Godfather. It was addressed to you. It was basically "Do you know who we are? :D
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On it goes ...
John Simkin, founder of the Ed Forum, whom I once considered rational only because I knew absolutely nothing about him and his photo looked sort of rational, posted TODAY, a mere 5 HOURS AGO, his apparent final word on the Boggs case.
He repeats the factoids from Boggs' speech in April of 1971. Boggs did NOT say "the [FBI] files consisted of information on seven persons who had written critically of the Warren Commission's findings." He said ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the Warren Commission. Boggs did NOT "accuse J. Edgar Hoover of being 'incompetent and senile'." READ THE SPEECH. BOGGS ABSOLUTELY DID NOT SAY THIS.
He repeats the "Los Angeles Star reported" factoid. Someone needs to send Simkin some of my images of the LA Star, doncha think?
He repeats the "startling revelations" factoid and attributes it to Boggs rather than an unnamed former aide.
He introduces a factoid about journalist Ron Kessler, Boggs' son, the Warren Commission, yada yada. What is the source of this factoid, you ask? You got it: BERNIE FENSTERWALD'S BOOK, Coincidence or Conspiracy! I will admit, I didn't spend hours attempting to bust this factoid, but a brief search revealed nothing to support it. Perhaps I will turn the tables and challenge you CTers to verify it - somewhere, anywhere, other than a CT source.
He says he listened to the entire "Missing in Alaska" podcast of Jon Walczak. Nevertheless, he repeatedly refers to Walczak as Walzack and Pegge Begich as Peggy. Some of what he says is accurate and some is not, but I'll let it go.
I won't beat this to death. CTers, your gods have feet of clay. They cannot be trusted, simple as that. They weave factoids until their readers are cross-eyed, entirely without regard to whether those factoids have been thoroughly busted. And, as we once again see here, what starts out as dubious factoid in a dubious source ends up being repeated 400 times and ending up as conspiracy gospel 50 years later.
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I'll admit, I'm a hopeless sucker for anything connected with the JFKA that produces giggles. This is a conversation between Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford the morning after Boggs' little speech demanding Hoover's resignation. It is, IMHO, hysterical. Tricky Dick and Goofy Gerry are absolutely AGOG. Bear in mind, Boggs was the House Majority leader. But our heroes agree, he's NUTS! he's ON THE SAUCE! if he isn't drinking, he's ON PILLS! he simply CAN'T BE TRUSTED! and must be EXCLUDED FROM MEETINGS! At one point, Tricky assures Goofy that "no person setting foot on Capitol Hill" has been taped by the FBI "since 1924." Gerry says he had no idea, but he laps it up.
Alas, they do not discuss the Warren Commission, Joe Bananas, the Mafia or bombs. Those discussions were later in the afternoon when they were just "kicking some ideas around" over cold Buds in the Oval Office.
I said somewhere up above that Nixon admired Boggs. There is evidence to that effect, but not on THIS day.
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OK, I’m admittedly like a dog gnawing on a bone – a dog recovering from Achilles surgery, mind you – but we Factoid Busters are an intrepid bunch. This what Simkin said today:
After the death of Boggs, Ron Kessler, reported in the Washington Post that his son Thomas Hale Boggs Jr claimed that the FBI had mounted a smear campaign against his father because of his criticism of the Warren Commission Report. “The material, which Thomas Boggs made available, includes photographs of sexual activity and reports on alleged communist affiliations of some authors of articles and books on the assassination.” He said these dossiers had been compiled by the FBI on Warren Commission critics in order to discredit them. “Mr. Boggs said the files consisted of information on seven persons who had written critically of the commission's findings.”
This is, I am happy to report, not totally bogus. It is, however, totally misleading.
I could not locate the Washington Post article by Kessler, but I did find it quoted in the Salt Lake City Tribune of January 21, 1975 (same day as the Post article). Kessler, in case you don’t know, is still alive, a prolific author, and has been described as The Donald’s #1 cheerleader. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Kessler. Thomas Hale Boggs, Jr., was a Washington lawyer and power-broker who died in 2014. I could find nothing where Junior criticized the Warren Commission.
Here is the Post article in its entirety:
The son of the late House Majority Leader Boggs has told The Post that the FBI leaked to his father damaging material on the personal lives of critics of its investigation into John F. Kennedy's assassination. Thomas Hale Boggs, Jr. said his father, who was a member of the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination and its handling by the FBI, was given the material in an apparent attempt to discredit the critics (of the Warren Commission).
The material, which Thomas Boggs made available, includes photographs of sexual activity and reports on alleged communist affiliations of some authors of articles and books on the assassination.
Boggs, a Washington lawyer, said the experience played a large role in his father's decision to publicly charge the FBI with Gestapo tactics in a 1971 speech alleging the Bureau had wiretapped his telephone and that of other Congressmen.
I found substantially the same information in the New York Times of January 31, 1975. The only oddity is that the Washington Post article was in the January 21 edition, whereas the Times place says Boggs, Jr., “said today,” meaning January 21. Perhaps Junior spoke to both newspapers. Here’s the Times piece, which was not a major story:
The son of the late Representative Hale Boggs, Democrat of Louisiana, said today that his father had given him dossiers that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had compiled on critics of the Warren Commission in an attempt to discredit them. “They weren't basically sex files,” said Tom H. Boggs, of Washington, a lawyer. “They had some of that element but most of the material dealt with leftwing organizations these people belonged to.”
Mr. Boggs said that he had received the material in late 1970 and had kept it in a safe deposit box.
The senior Mr. Boggs was a member of the Warren Commission established to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
In 1971, the Congressman made a speech on the floor of the House accusing the F.B.I. of tapping his phones and keeping dossiers on members of Congress. Those charges were never substantiated by Mr. Boggs, who disappeared in October, 1972, while on an airplane flight in Alaska. Mr. Boggs said the files consisted of information on seven persons who had written critically of the commission's findings.
Now wait a minute. Read that Simkin quote again. Boggs, Jr., said the FBI had mounted a “smear campaign” against his father? Is that what either article says?
Hell, no.
In fact, the FBI provided to Boggs, a Warren Commission member, dossiers containing some sexual material but principally material related to leftwing organizations that the FBI had assembled on critics of the Warren Commission in an attempt to discredit them. How did this constitute a “smear campaign” against Boggs, and why does neither article say anything like this? (Who does say it, you ask: Bernie Fensterwald. Oh, God.)
Boggs, Sr., gave the dossiers to Junior in 1970, and Junior kept them in a safe. Junior says this experience was an influence on Boggs in his later denunciation of the FBI for its “Gestapo” activities, but what on earth does it have to do with the 1972 plane crash? I’m lost. Simkin seems to be suggesting this was some warning about what the FBI could do to Boggs if he criticized the WC, but there is absolutely no hint of that.
The scales have fallen from my eyes. John Simkin, whose photo makes him look as benign and rational as Ward Cleaver, is just another CT wacko of the first magnitude.