JFK Assassination Forum
The JFK Assassination Discussion & Debate => JFK Assassination Discussion & Debate => Topic started by: Lance Payette on July 01, 2026, 05:12:48 PM
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“Conspiracy theorizing makes strange bedfellows.” If that’s not an old saying, it should be.
On another thread, I apparently characterized Greg Doudna’s complex fake-Walker-shooting scenario as “lunatic fringe” stuff. Michael T. Griffith then seized on this phrase as applied to Greg as an example of just what an intolerant LN punk I am. Greg then chided me for my use of the phrase. MTG and GD – strange bedfellows, no? I backed off to the extent of explaining to GD that I certainly meant the phrase – which I do tend to bandy about rather loosely – in reference to his work in a "kinder and gentler" way than in reference to MTG’s contributions.
What is the lunatic fringe of conspiracy thinking anyway? MTG likes to pretend, because it suits his purposes as a card-carrying lunatic fringer if there ever was one, that I mean “anyone and everyone who thinks the JFKA might have been a conspiracy.” If I mean every CTer, then I'm just lumping MTG with Larry Hancock and all the others, and this allows MTG to retain some veneer of credibility. This is obviously not the case, as anyone who has read my posts would know.
Let’s be honest: Rational people who are acquainted with the evidence as whole know Oswald shot JFK from TSBD6 and murdered Tippit. There’s no real doubt about this. Any conspiracy theory that deviates from these truths is edging toward the lunatic fringe, simple as that. Any theory that has elaborate alternative scenarios for the Walker attempt, Dealey Plaza and Tippit is lunatic fringe stuff, simple as that. When your theory isn’t even internally consistent, and you don’t care, you are in the lunatic fringe of the lunatic fringe. Readers, meet MTG.
A non-LF conspiracy theory accepts at least 95% of the LN narrative. It simply has to. If it accepts 100% of the LN narrative but insists there were conspirators behind the scene, it has to identify these supposed conspirators with compelling evidence and connect them to Oswald and Dealey Plaza with compelling evidence. Merely identifying possible conspirators is child’s play; that goes nowhere. John Newman, Larry Hancock, woulda-coulda-shoulda – so far, it all goes nowhere as far as I can tell. It all “swirls around” Oswald and Dealey Plaza but never really gets there. I don’t believe it ever will.
The Achilles heel of the LN narrative is the SBT and everything that goes with it – bullet trajectories, the nature of the wounds, the Magic Bullet (both its provenance and condition). If the SBT falls, the LN narrative has a hell of a problem. This is about the only Dealey Plaza aspect of the JFKA that I can see being worth a CTer pursuing. The rest is just blather – so far-fetched and inconsistent that it just makes the CT community look silly. The jury of history is not impressed and never will be. If the SBT could be conclusively disproven – as John Orr is attempting to do, but his work will always have the taint of being sponsored by a fanatical CTer – then who the conspirators were would become a much more relevant question. If I had the money and contacts, I would assemble a world-class panel of medical and ballistics experts from other countries, experts who don’t know or care bupkis about JFK or the JFKA, and have them freshly examine nothing but the SBT.
In all areas of religion and weirdness with which I have been associated, the lunatic fringe includes a wide swath of territory, from merely goofy to flat-out insane and even scary. As we see with the JFKA, occupancy of the LF bears absolutely no relation to an occupant’s intelligence, education or knowledge of the subject. All I mean when I use (and overuse) the phrase is “you are saying things that are simply too unrealistic, too far from the well-established facts, to be taken seriously.” (I have, only this morning, and with hand solemnly on a first edition of Best Evidence, vowed to stop using the LF phrase so freely since it does paint with too broad a brush.)
Much as MTG pops a vein every time I refer to the “conspiracy-prone mindset,” this is one of the keys – if not the key - to the lunatic fringe. One of the hallmarks of the conspiracy-prone mindset is a love of complexity – a preference for the elaborate, convoluted explanation over the straightforward one. Former Garrison investigator Tom Bethell addressed this in a humorous piece entitled “Was Sirhan Sirhan on the Grassy Knoll,” https://www.jfk-assassination.net/bethell.htm:
Making the Simple Complex
I promptly fell into disfavor with Jones Harris and other conspiratorialists. Some of them, I later heard, automatically relegated me to CIA status. Nevertheless, I always considered Jones a charming fellow, and he demonstrated the first quality of conspiratorialists that I want to bring out: their love of complexity.
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The extraordinary complexity involved – three Oswalds! – is a fundamental characteristic of conspiratorialist reasoning. Philosophers like to point out that any belief, more or less, can be sustained if the believer is willing to encrust his belief with enough assumptions; the only problem is that the resulting theory starts to look very complicated compared to much simpler alternatives readily at hand. It is an important principle of philosophy (although one little valued in assassination conspiracy circles) that the simple explanation should be preferred to the complicated one.
In a more scholarly vein, this is from “Why Conspiracy Thinking is So Popular: Psychological Reflections,” https://medium.com/@manfred.ketsdevries_62226/why-conspiracy-thinking-is-so-popular-psychological-reflections-54414da6e343, by a renowned Dutch psychoanalyst:
From a psychological standpoint, it is far less frightening to imagine a cabal of villains controlling events than to confront the reality that many world-shaping forces like pandemics, climate change, and economic crises, operate without central coordination or moral logic. The mind prefers a coherent fiction to an incoherent truth.
Yet the irony is that in fleeing complexity, conspiracy thinking often constructs fantasies even more convoluted than the reality that they are rejecting. The mind seeks simplicity but finds itself building baroque illusions, twisting narratives into decorative knots while insisting they provide clarity. The conspiracy theorist, attempting to escape chaos, accidentally creates a universe of even greater complexity: a universe with omnipotent puppet masters, endless secret codes, and plots within plots. The stories feel coherent only because they impose agency on the unbearable.
Just stay in the lane of plausibility as best you can, CTers, and you’ll be fine. You (we?) might even convince the jury of history!
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I could be cynical and say it includes everyone who doesn't think Oswald fired the shots that killed JFK.
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I am a believer in conspiracy, but if you can't accept that Oswald was involved then you have a problem. Why would a "patsy" kill a police officer?
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Rational people who are acquainted with the evidence as whole know Oswald shot JFK from TSBD6 and murdered Tippit. There’s no real doubt about this. Any conspiracy theory that deviates from these truths is edging toward the lunatic fringe, simple as that.
I could be cynical and say it includes everyone who doesn't think Oswald fired the shots that killed JFK.
Well, there you have it, folks. According to these two guys, anyone who doubts that Oswald shot JFK and Tippit is "edging toward the lunatic fringe," or, anyone who just doubts that Oswald shot JFK is part of the "lunatic fringe."
Now, this is mighty interesting. Here's a partial list of the people who doubt that Oswald shot JFK:
-- Dr. David Mantik, a radiation oncologist and physicist whose had numerous papers published on radiology issues in peer-reviewed scientific journals and who has examined the JFK autopsy x-rays and photos at the National Archives.
-- Dr. Michael Chesser, a neurologist who has examined the JFK autopsy x-rays and photos at the National Archives and also JFK's pre-mortem skull x-rays at the Kennedy Library in Boston.
-- Dr. Gary Aguilar, M.D., who has examined the JFK autopsy x-rays and photos at the National Archives.
-- Barry Krusch, B.S. in psychology and author of Impossible: The Case Against Lee Harvey Oswald.
-- Dallas police chief Jesse Curry, who said it was not clear that Oswald shot JFK, and that no one had yet been able to prove he fired a rifle from the sixth-floor window.
-- Dr. Halbert Fillinger, a renowned forensic pathologist, who said the ammo that hit JFK's head behaved nothing like the ammo that Oswald allegedly used.
-- Dr. John Nichols, a professor of pathology and a court-certified expert in pathology and forensic pathology.
-- Doug Horne, former Chief Analyst for Military Records for the ARRB.
-- Dr. David Wrone, historian, a former professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, and author of The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination.
-- Jacob Hornberger, B.S. in economics and a Juris Doctor degree, a former professor of law and economics at the University of Dallas, and president of the Future of Freedom Foundation.
-- Robert K. Tanenbaum, a former Deputy Chief Council for the HSCA, former district attorney for New York County, former Chief of the Criminal Courts, New York County, and a former professor of Advanced Criminal Procedure at the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley.
-- Dr. Walt Brown, Ph.D. in history from the University of Notre Dame, and a former professor of history at Ramapo College in New Jersey.
I suspect that Lance Payette and John Corbett are posting their extreme, discrediting polemic in an effort to offset the fact that they are in a decided minority on the JFK case. Recently, I've been pointing out that repeated surveys have shown that only about 1/4 to 1/3 of Americans and Europeans believe the lone-gunman theory and that about 2/3 to 3/4 believe JFK was killed by a conspiracy.
I suspect that Payette and Corbett are also posting their extreme polemic because lately I've been emphasizing the fact that the last federal investigation into the JFK assassination, i.e., the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), concluded that JFK was killed by a conspiracy, that two gunmen were involved, that four shots were fired, that one of the shots came from the grassy knoll, that scientific acoustical evidence proved that more than three shots were fired, that there is credible evidence that anti-Castro Cubans were trying to frame Oswald for the assassinations weeks in advance, that Jack Ruby had significant Mafia ties, that Ruby lied about how he entered the basement to kill Oswald, that Ruby lied about why he killed Oswald, and that someone was moving boxes in the sixth-floor window within 2 minutes after the shooting at a time when Oswald could not have been there, among other findings.
I suspect that at least part of the reason Payette specifies that one must believe that Oswald was the alleged lone gunman, instead of just believing that only one gunman fired at JFK, is that the HSCA concluded that Oswald was one of the gunmen (the sixth-floor gunman). Payette knows that if he merely required belief in only one gunman, regardless of his identity, he would have to label the HSCA as part of the "lunatic fringe."
Personally, I don't really care who the gunmen were. I have no ideological objection to Oswald being one of the shooters. I just don't happen to think he was. The core of my position is that there was more than one gunman, and that is how many conspiracy theorists view the matter. If hard evidence surfaced that proved Oswald was one of the gunman, this would have zero impact on my theory of the shooting and minimal impact on my theory of the assassination as a whole.
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Well, there you have it, folks. According to these two guys, anyone who doubts that Oswald shot JFK and Tippit is "edging toward the lunatic fringe," or, anyone who just doubts that Oswald shot JFK is part of the "lunatic fringe."
Yup. Pretty much.
Now, this is mighty interesting. Here's a partial list of the people who doubt that Oswald shot JFK:
-- Dr. David Mantik, a radiation oncologist and physicist whose had numerous papers published on radiology issues in peer-reviewed scientific journals and who has examined the JFK autopsy x-rays and photos at the National Archives.
-- Dr. Michael Chesser, a neurologist who has examined the JFK autopsy x-rays and photos at the National Archives and also JFK's pre-mortem skull x-rays at the Kennedy Library in Boston.
-- Dr. Gary Aguilar, M.D., who has examined the JFK autopsy x-rays and photos at the National Archives.
-- Barry Krusch, B.S. in psychology and author of Impossible: The Case Against Lee Harvey Oswald.
-- Dallas police chief Jesse Curry, who said it was not clear that Oswald shot JFK, and that no one had yet been able to prove he fired a rifle from the sixth-floor window.
-- Dr. Halbert Fillinger, a renowned forensic pathologist, who said the ammo that hit JFK's head behaved nothing like the ammo that Oswald allegedly used.
-- Dr. John Nichols, a professor of pathology and a court-certified expert in pathology and forensic pathology.
-- Doug Horne, former Chief Analyst for Military Records for the ARRB.
-- Dr. David Wrone, historian, a former professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, and author of The Zapruder Film: Reframing JFK's Assassination.
-- Jacob Hornberger, B.S. in economics and a Juris Doctor degree, a former professor of law and economics at the University of Dallas, and president of the Future of Freedom Foundation.
-- Robert K. Tanenbaum, a former Deputy Chief Council for the HSCA, former district attorney for New York County, former Chief of the Criminal Courts, New York County, and a former professor of Advanced Criminal Procedure at the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley.
-- Dr. Walt Brown, Ph.D. in history from the University of Notre Dame, and a former professor of history at Ramapo College in New Jersey.
Of the names I recognize on this list, most of them are bozos when it comes to the JFKA, particularly Mantik, Horne, and Aguilar. Horne actually recycled David Lifton's Invasion of the Body Snatcher's theory which tells us all we need to know about him. Of course, MTG subscribes to that theory as well. Birds of a feather.
Curry has often been cited by CTs for some of the things he said early in the investigation before the case had been nailed down. They ignore what he said in the first interview in this video, in the very first minute of it. He repeats the statement at the 2:40 mark.
I suspect that Lance Payette and John Corbett are posting their extreme, discrediting polemic in an effort to offset the fact that they are in a decided minority on the JFK case. Recently, I've been pointing out that repeated surveys have shown that only about 1/4 to 1/3 of Americans and Europeans believe the lone-gunman theory and that about 2/3 to 3/4 believe JFK was killed by a conspiracy
Given how uninformed the public at large is about the evidence against Oswald, that is not surprising. It's amazing how many people I've come across who got most of their "knowledge" about the JFKA from Oliver Stone's shitass movie.
I suspect that Payette and Corbett are also posting their extreme polemic because lately I've been emphasizing the fact that the last federal investigation into the JFK assassination, i.e., the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), concluded that JFK was killed by a conspiracy, that two gunmen were involved, that four shots were fired, that one of the shots came from the grassy knoll, that scientific acoustical evidence proved that more than three shots were fired, that there is credible evidence that anti-Castro Cubans were trying to frame Oswald for the assassinations weeks in advance, that Jack Ruby had significant Mafia ties, that Ruby lied about how he entered the basement to kill Oswald, that Ruby lied about why he killed Oswald, and that someone was moving boxes in the sixth-floor window within 2 minutes after the shooting at a time when Oswald could not have been there, among other findings.
The HSCA got it wrong. The WC got it right. 'nuff said.
I suspect that at least part of the reason Payette specifies that one must believe that Oswald was the alleged lone gunman, instead of just believing that only one gunman fired at JFK, is that the HSCA concluded that Oswald was one of the gunmen (the sixth-floor gunman). Payette knows that if he merely required belief in only one gunman, regardless of his identity, he would have to label the HSCA as part of the "lunatic fringe."
Personally, I don't really care who the gunmen were.
Obviously not. If you did, you would have concluded Oswald did it a long time ago.
I have no ideological objection to Oswald being one of the shooters. I just don't happen to think he was. The core of my position is that there was more than one gunman, and that is how many conspiracy theorists view the matter.
Yet few of you have ever tried to tell us who those gunmen were.
If hard evidence surfaced that proved Oswald was one of the gunman, this would have zero impact on my theory of the shooting and minimal impact on my theory of the assassination as a whole.
You don't seem to have a theory. Your whole gig is rejecting the WCR without even attempting to give us a viable alternative.
Please list your three best pieces of evidence that someone other than Oswald took part in the JFKA. I've issued this challenge countless times over the years and few CTs have even tried to answer. I won't be surprised if MTG dodges it as well.
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“Conspiracy theorizing makes strange bedfellows.” If that’s not an old saying, it should be.
Lance, at my own peril I have been looking at the JFK Education Forum ... their former moderator W. Niederhut would seem to be exhibit A for lunatic fringe!
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LP--
One has to concede, whether LNT'er or CT'er, there are highly intelligent people on both sides of the issue.
I happen to suspect a rather small conspiracy around the JFKA, immediately followed by President LBJ's diktat that LHO be found to be an LN. State Dept'ers lost their jobs trying to follow leads back to Havana. That does not engender confidence.
But other smart people disagree with me.
I concede there are some "fringe" CT'ers out there, usually mounted on ideological platforms, or triggered by ethnic biases. I even concede there are not really fringe LN'ers out there, although a slavish devotion to the SBT might be considered fringy.
As to whether LHO fired at JFK, I suspect he did.
But there is always the possibility he was a look-out while someone else perped the actual act, or that LHO fired to miss (having been told the he was participating in a protest, not an assassination), while someone else fired in earnest.
(There are reports of misses that struck the asphalt behind the limo, the manhole cover off Elm, and one near Tague. Shots fired by LHO?. While someone fired a rifle with a silencer? A remote possibility.)
Russo has done a good job investigating DGI/G2 leads.
I agree that the LNT-SBT theorizing does not hold water.
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LP--
One has to concede, whether LNT'er or CT'er, there are highly intelligent people on both sides of the issue.
One has to concede that highly intelligent people can come up with really stupid ideas.
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LP--
One has to concede, whether LNT'er or CT'er, there are highly intelligent people on both sides of the issue.
From my original post: "As we see with the JFKA, occupancy of the LF bears absolutely no relation to an occupant’s intelligence, education or knowledge of the subject."
"Smart people" really has nothing to do with whether one is in the lunatic fringe. If Niederwacky graduated from Harvard Medical School, I assume he has functioning brain cells. David Ray Griffin was beyond brilliant. If we can believe his self-puffery, MTG actually has academic credentials. And yet, they all believe absolutely crazy things.
Intelligence and education, alas, are not a guarantee of the ability to think rationally or analytically. Indeed, in his book Why People Believe Weird Things, Michael Shermer argues that "the number one reason why people believe weird things is because they're smart – they have a high IQ or they have an exceptionally creative intellect. Because he can rationalize away evidence, an intelligent person is better able to defend weird ideas to himself." From another source: "Highly intelligent people fall for ridiculous things primarily because their high intellect gives them the mental horsepower to rationalize beliefs they arrived at for emotional or social reasons. Instead of protecting against irrationality, high intelligence can act as a tool for sophisticated self-delusion."
How many raving CTers - or Young Earthers or Flat Earthers or Fake Moon Landing proponents - strike you as really dumb? I can answer that because I've dealt with all of these folks. The answer: pretty much NONE. They are uniformly intelligent, articulate and persuasive. It's among their followers and cultists that you will find the 15W bulbs.
And, of course, the conspiracy-prone mindset, like it or not, plays a huge role. Add a conspiracy-prone mindset to a high intellect and you have a recipe for lunacy.
I don't exactly know why - I wish I could tell people - but I was blessed to be able to step out of this trap. Partly it was my legal training, but mostly I think it was my long exposure to religion. To fit into a religious community, you must pretend to believe some wildly unlikely things or somehow convince yourself they are true. I listen to Christian talk radio several times a week where truly highly intelligent, highly educated people assert that the earth is 6,500 years old. No, sorry, it's not; that's a crazy belief, no matter how many "scientists" provide "scientific" reasons that the Grand Canyon was formed in a couple of hundred years.
In any event, at some point I was blessed with some sort of epiphany to be able to recognize the utter craziness coming from the mouths of "smart people" across all the many areas of weirdness in which I was involved. Where I used to say "Wow, tell me more!" I now say "Bs, prove it." Even in my OWN experiences that I have LIVED, as described in Duncan's new weirdness subforum, my initial reaction is one of intense skepticism. That's just how it has to be in the world where rationality and analytical thinking drive the bus.
Lest we forget: propinquity, it's all about propinquity. :D :D :D
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Crusaders like Lance Payette remind me of the leftist psychotherapists who declare that people who oppose allowing minors to get transgender surgery and/or who oppose allowing males who identify as females to play in female sports must either be uneducated or bigoted--or both. When faced with the fact that polls show that the substantial majority of Americans oppose both, they label those Americans with a host of pejorative terms.
I recall a recent TV discussion between a liberal female TV host and a parent who objected to allowing teen boys who claim to be girls to use female restrooms and to participate in female sports. The TV host made clear her disdain for this knuckle-dragging parent. At one point she said in a sneering voice, "You're just not familiar with the research. If you read the research, you might feel differently."
The TV host was quite taken aback when, much to her surprise, this Neanderthal parent responded by mentioning studies that documented the negative emotional consequences of transgenderism and by mentioning articles written by people who underwent transgender surgery as teens and who now deeply regret it, some of whom said their therapists pressured their parents into allowing the surgery. The TV host summarily dismissed these materials as "right-wing garbage."
As I mentioned in my previous reply, notice how narrowly Payette defines what supposedly constitutes "edging toward the lunatic fringe" of the pro-conspiracy camp: those who doubt that Oswald shot JFK and Tippit.
As we've seen, even by this revised definition (as opposed to his earlier definition), many successful and highly educated people with degrees in relevant fields, including university professors and former federal investigators, qualify as "edging toward the lunatic fringe."
In other replies, Payette has been even more extreme, accusing a large number of scholars and researchers of being part of the "lunatic fringe," including Dr. David Mantik and Greg Doudna, two of the most careful and respected scholars in the JFKA research community.
I won't bother dealing with John Corbett's even more extreme definition of the "lunatic fringe" (i.e., merely doubting that Oswald shot JFK), since he knows little about the JFK case and really has no business pretending to be in a position to comment credibly on it.
Payette knows that if he changed his "edging toward the lunatic fringe" definition to include those who posit a Mafia and/or anti-Castro Cuban conspiracy with Oswald as one of the shooters and with Oswald as Tippit's killer, he would be forced to apply that label to a long list of reputable, well-educated authors, not to mention the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
This, in turn, would cast further doubt on Payette's dubious claim that those who disagree with him have "a conspiracy-prone mindset."
As many people here know, quite a few pro-conspiracy researchers and scholars initially accepted the lone-gunman theory and only changed their minds years later when they began to seriously research the subject.
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I won't bother dealing with John Corbett's even more extreme definition of the "lunatic fringe" (i.e., merely doubting that Oswald shot JFK),
Yeah, that's lunacy for anyone familiar with the evidence to doubt Oswald shot and killed JFK. People who are ignorant of the evidence against Oswald can be forgivien.
since he knows little about the JFK case and really has no business pretending to be in a position to comment credibly on it.
Your problem is you know so many things that just ain't so.
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I believe the rigidity of belief of both LNs and CTs is a symptom of the lunacy.
New evidence, outside of an extremely narrow lane, cannot even be seriously considered.
"That dog won't hunt."
Patience....following archive link loads slowly...
https://web.archive.org/web/20161229162654/https://jfkfacts.org/comment-of-the-week-17/Tom S. February 16, 2016
Ronnie Wayne – February 11 (2016)
…. I guess the other main theory of the thread is it means all of DiEugenio and Mellen’s work, as well as Garrison’s is junk?
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I believe the rigidity of belief of both LNs and CTs is a symptom of the lunacy.
New evidence, outside of an extremely narrow lane, cannot even be seriously considered.
"That dog won't hunt."
Patience....following archive link loads slowly...
What new evidence? The arguments being made today are the same ones I saw 35 years ago when I first started discussing the JFKA online. I occasionally see new arguments made, but no new evidence. Just a whole lot of nothing burgers.
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You know that your viewpoint has some serious issues when you have to resort to accusing people who disagree with you of being lunatic fringe, having warped minds, having a form of mental illness, having a [fill in the blank]-mindset, having lost the ability to think rationally, etc., etc. This is usually the verbiage used by frustrated people who hold minority viewpoints.
It's interesting that those who posit a conspiracy in the JFK case don't feel the need to question the sanity of lone-gunman theorists, but some lone-gunman theorists--by no means all, but some--routinely accuse conspiracy theorists of various forms of mental illness. In all my years in JFKA forums, I have never seen a conspiracy theorist actually question the sanity of a lone-gunman theorist, nor have I read any pro-conspiracy books or articles that have done so.
What is especially curious about this is that (1) lone-gunman theorists are in a decided minority in the Western world when it comes to the JFK case, and (2) the last official U.S. Government investigation into the assassination concluded that JFK was killed by a conspiracy, that two gunmen were involved, that Jack Ruby had significant Mafia ties, that Ruby lied about how he entered the police basement to kill Oswald, that Ruby lied about why he killed Oswald, that there is credible evidence that anti-Castro Cubans were trying to frame Oswald weeks before the assassination, etc., etc.
It's not like WC believers represent the majority view in the Western world. They do not. Numerous polls have long shown that the substantial majority of Americans and Europeans believe JFK was killed by a conspiracy. Yet, some WC apologists talk like they're speaking for the dominant view, when they are not.
Granted, truth is not automatically determined by public opinion, but you'd think that WC apologists would show a bit more humility given the fact that for decades their view has been the minority view in the Western world.
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Nutters like Lance are non-conspiracy theorists [NCTs]
Like all true Nutters, he believes that Oswald shooting JFK is a FACT.
IT IS NOT.
It is just another theory.
He cannot accept this even though he pretends that he does.
Lance belongs to the Lunatic Fringe of Nutters. Tinfoil Nutters. Just like John Corbett and "Richard Smith"
Then there are LNers like Charles Collins and John Mytton.
Honest researchers who have worked their way to their own conclusions.
Not like the spoon-fed losers who have recently emerged on this forum.
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Nutters like Lance are non-conspiracy theorists [NCTs]
Like all true Nutters, he believes that Oswald shooting JFK is a FACT.
IT IS NOT.
It is just another theory.
He cannot accept this even though he pretends that he does.
Lance belongs to the Lunatic Fringe of Nutters. Tinfoil Nutters. Just like John Corbett and "Richard Smith"
Then there are LNers like Charles Collins and John Mytton.
Honest researchers who have worked their way to their own conclusions.
Not like the spoon-fed losers who have recently emerged on this forum.
And then there are zombified-by-KGB-disinfo CTs like you, danny BOY o'meara.
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And then there are zombified-by-KGB-disinfo CTs like you, danny BOY o'meara.
Why are you constantly blowing the KGB's c£ck?
If it wasn't for you no-one on this forum would have any thought about Russia or the KGB or anything like that.
Your endless promotion of Russia is recorded on this thread.
You are such a Pinko loser it defies belief.
You used to mean something.
What happened to you?
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What new evidence? The arguments being made today are the same ones I saw 35 years ago when I first started discussing the JFKA online. I occasionally see new arguments made, but no new evidence. Just a whole lot of nothing burgers.
Instead of engaging in debate....
https://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/fora/showthread.php?tid=15982&pid=125273#pid125273
01-09-2019, 09:51 PM
Jim DiEugenio Wrote:
Tom, I like you personally and I think you usually do good work and I defended you when people were attacking your approach at EF
But I am at a loss to explain how you fell for Carpenter. This is a guy who writes for Max Holland....
I only presented what author Carpenter claimed he found in the Clay Shaw archive because I was attempting to verify that my discovery, uninfluenced by Carpenter in any way, was actually original research.
My inquiry began when I noticed in the Garrison Files that attorney Monte Lemann had been approached by someone in CIA leadership to sign off on
the hiring of William P. Burke as the first head of the new NOLA CIA Domestic Contacts office.
Lemann's son, Stephen, was accused by Garrison of being the CIA paymaster in New Orleans. Mary Ferrell's file card on Stphen B Lemann described him
as head of the NOLA CIA Domestic Contacts office.
Monte Lemann's other son, Thomas Lemann, happened to be the father of Nicholas Lemann.
.
In 1947 recently widowed Monte Lemann had married Mildred Crumb Lyons.
Monte's new bride in 1947 had the same name as her daughter, Mildred Lyons.
So, Monte's second wife, Mildred, was the mother of Mildred Lyons Baldwin, mother-in-law of David Baldwin, stepmother of
Stephen and Thomas Lemann, and the step-grandmother of Thomas's son, Nicholas Lemann.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-knckgt3ASNI/Vrd2i7xQ1aI/AAAAAAAACvc/m_y25b9LkuA/s512-Ic42/BaldwinFirstCousinCarpenter.jpg)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-6e7iexAG0lM/Vrds4GJIGUI/AAAAAAAACvM/3WomDDWJrMw/s512-Ic42/BaldwinLemannStepsisterCarpenter.jpg)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-zLIoQLayKsA/VrZ3SCcgfuI/AAAAAAAACts/zP4r1-Uw53o/s512-Ic42/LemannWDSUFCC022067.jpg)
-snip-
PLEASE BEAR IN MIND THAT THE FACTS I'VE PRESENTED IN THIS THREAD SUPPORT TOM PURVIS'S OPINION GARRISON, TOM BETHELL, HIS FRIEND NICHOLAS LEMANN, HIS UNCLE, STEPHEN B. LEMANN, AND "THE CIA PEOPLE" AUTHOR JOAN MELLEN DESCRIBED TO REX BRADFORD IN A 2006 INTERVIEW, WERE ALL ON THE SAME SIDE, the smokescreen side.
-snip-
https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Unredacted_-_Episode_1_-_Transcript.html
Episode_1_-_Transcript.html
Unredacted Episode 1: Transcript of Interview with Joan Mellen Joan Mellen is the author of A Farewell to Justice: Jim Garrison, JFK's Assassination, and the Case That Should Have Changed History. This interview was conducted on 22 Feb 2006.
.......JOAN: when Baldwin was present, he was a CIA asset, his brother worked for the International Trade Mart and Clay Shaw, David Baldwin, and these, these are CIA people. Malcolm O'Hara is sitting there he doesn't know what hit him and eventually Strate did not cooperate, and he went up there, and he attacked Sheridan of course, Sheridan had immunity nothing anyone could say about Sheridan whether in court, affidavits signed against Sheridan, Sheridan had immunity as a National Security Agency asset, cleared for FBI work, cleared for CIA work, working for the Department of Justice -…....
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Instead of engaging in debate....
I only presented what author Carpenter claimed he found in the Clay Shaw archive because I was attempting to verify that my discovery, was uninfluenced by Carpenter in any way,
My inquiry began when I noticed in the Garrison Files that atorney Monte Lemann had been approached by someone in CIA leadership to sign off on
the hiring of William P. Burke as the first head of the new NOLA CIA Domestic Contacts office.
Lemann's son, Stephen, was accused by Garrison of being the CIA paymaster in New Orleans. Mary Ferrell's file card on Stphen B Lemann described him
as head of the NOLA CIA Domestic Contacts office.
Monte Lemann's other son, Thomas Lemann, happened to be the father of Niccholas Lemann.
.
In 1947 recently widowed Burke had married Mildred Crumb Lyons.
Monte's new bride in 1947 had the same name as her daughter, Mildred Lyons.
So, Monte's second wife, Mildred, was the mother of Mildred Lyons Baldwin, mother-in-law of David Baldwin, stepmother of
Stephen and Thomas Lemann, and the step-grandmother of Thomas's son, Nicholas Lemann.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-knckgt3ASNI/Vrd2i7xQ1aI/AAAAAAAACvc/m_y25b9LkuA/s512-Ic42/BaldwinFirstCousinCarpenter.jpg)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-6e7iexAG0lM/Vrds4GJIGUI/AAAAAAAACvM/3WomDDWJrMw/s512-Ic42/BaldwinLemannStepsisterCarpenter.jpg)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-zLIoQLayKsA/VrZ3SCcgfuI/AAAAAAAACts/zP4r1-Uw53o/s512-Ic42/LemannWDSUFCC022067.jpg)
Hiya Tom, I've seen you post so much over recent years but don't have the first clue what you actually think about the assassination.
What do you think and why do you think it?
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Nutters like Lance are non-conspiracy theorists [NCTs]
Like all true Nutters, he believes that Oswald shooting JFK is a FACT.
IT IS NOT.
It is just another theory.
He cannot accept this even though he pretends that he does.
Lance belongs to the Lunatic Fringe of Nutters. Tinfoil Nutters. Just like John Corbett and "Richard Smith"
Then there are LNers like Charles Collins and John Mytton.
Honest researchers who have worked their way to their own conclusions.
Not like the spoon-fed losers who have recently emerged on this forum.
Wipe that spittle off your screen and try reading some of my posts. I am not a "Tinfoil Nutter" by a long shot.
As I have educated you previously, your use of the phrase "just a theory" is badly misinformed. Like it or not, at this point the LN narrative is the only scenario that qualifies as a theory. At this point, there is no other narrative that has advanced beyond the stage of raw speculation - not even a hypothesis. There is no other "theory" apart from the internally coherent, evidence-based and repeatedly confirmed LN narrative. Breaking news: "I think I can play defense counsel and raise reasonable doubt about 17 aspects of the LN narrative" is not a theory.
The fact is, you are MTG Jr. - well-informed, I'm sure, and reasonably intelligent, I'm sure - but Exhibit A Jr. for what the lunatic fringe looks like. That is why you, like MTG, live on a steady diet of ad hominem attacks and straw man arguments. At some level, you know you aren't thinking clearly or making any sense, so all you can do is attack the messengers who point this out.
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Hiya Tom, I've seen you post so much over recent years but don't have the first clue what you actually think about the assassination.
What do you think and why do you think it?
I think that some very influential people were alarmed enough in reaction to demands growing stronger in 1966 - 67 to reopen the flawed WC investigsation
to influence them to make the proposals to reopen the JFKA investigation appear to be ridiculous, fringe.
After the 3 hour jury deliberation resulting in the Shaw not guilty verdict, there was no additional official inquiry for the next seven years, until 1975.
Garrison landed on his feet, after representing himself and miraculous winning not guilty verdicts on all federal charges. Considering a federal department of justice
conviction rate above 90%, it is not unreasonable to believe he had played his part in what amounted to a show trial.
The late Tom Purvis argued strenuously in posts on the Ed Forum that Garrison had people much more powerful than he in the New Orleans power structure,
some of which is comprised of secret societies that to this day do not reveal their membership. He shared that Burke's daughter, his wife, and her mother had all been Queens of Comus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistick_Krewe_of_Comus
....Carnival secrecy and exclusivity
The Mistick Krewe has jealously guarded the identities of its membership and the privacy of its activities (other than its parade), perhaps even more than the other Carnival organizations subscribing to the traditional code of secrecy.
....Meeting of the courts
The Mistick Krewe of Comus also originated another Carnival tradition: the "Meeting of the Courts". The practice originated in 1882, when Rex (the King of Carnival) and his Queen paid a formal visit to the throne of Comus.[8] This ritualized meeting eventually evolved into the symbolic conclusion of the Mardi Gras season, a practice which continues to this day.
Although Rex is the titular King, some observers[who?] believe that the Meeting of the Courts – in which Rex leaves his own festivities and is received by a seated Comus at the Mistick Krewe's bal masque – establishes Comus as the more prestigious of the two organizations in the Carnival hierarchy....
Seems an impressive amount of heavy lifting, if indeed the JFKA assassin was in truth a lone nut acting outside of any conspiracy!
Who "owned" Willard Robertson? He came to NOLA around 1950 to set up a sales office for a West Haven, CT small metal hull boat builder
that soon went bankrupt. He left his wife and two children for the 23 year old secretary he hired. Somehow, he landed exclusive importation
and distribution rights for Volkswagen of America southeast region dealerships. He became an important financial backer of both Garrison's
and the then Governor's political careers.
He died in 1983, leaving an estate reported to be $30 million. He was the only "nobody" selected by Volkswagen for a regional distribution monopoly....
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/803/136/381311/?__cf_chl_f_tk=zrqboHTKHit.HG7jUPDwcZZnrvPoA72ZRZHRHefGOYc-1783035456-1.0.1.1-NU47McDgs9gZOO_hjsNT5XWv3_65gaiQmmkb.ap7xZA
Playing "both sides"...
Ed Butler's first cousin Rance was Gordon Novel's partner and Novel was ushered into this saga by Robertson.
https://www.jfk-online.com/jpsebinca.htmlJerry P. Shinley Archive: Ed Butler and the Information Council of the ...
Prominently on hand was Volkswagen dealer Willard E. Robertson, who donated a microbus (NOTP; June 8, 1962; Section 3, p 11). Interestingly, it was Robertson who recommended Gordon Novel to Jim Garrison...
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Lance belongs to the Lunatic Fringe of Nutters. Tinfoil Nutters. Just like John Corbett and "Richard Smith"
Then there are LNers like Charles Collins and John Mytton.
Honest researchers who have worked their way to their own conclusions.
Not like the spoon-fed losers who have recently emerged on this forum.
Dan unwittingly and witlessly raises an interesting question: What is "research," anyway?
Dan seems to think that looking at photos and deciding what he sees, the experts be damned, constitutes research. Ya think? "That ain't Shelley and Lovelady on the sidewalk, and thus Bart Kamp must have faked his photo showing that it is, but I don't have the balls to confront Bart directly" - is that research? Ya think? Is Dan a researcher ... or just a blowhard?
I have said previously that I was amused to see myself called a "JFKA researcher" upon making one significant but purely dumb-luck discovery after an hour of goofing around on Google. (After nearly 50 years of using the legal search engine LEXIS, I am pretty good at formulating queries.)
I did spend 40 years in legal research because my practice focused largely on complex motions and appellate briefs. I know what research looks like, and it's damn hard work. When a JFKA factoid interests me enough to explore it, I do research. To wit:
https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,4962.msg178234.html#msg178234
https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,4559.0.html
https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,4484.msg168589.html#msg168589
I have now actually researched perhaps 25 of these. Each one was an absurd amount of work.
So what is "research" in the mind someone like Dan? Point us to some of yours, Dan.
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Dan unwittingly and witlessly raises an interesting question: What is "research," anyway?
Dan seems to think that looking at photos and deciding what he sees, the experts be damned, constitutes research. Ya think? "That ain't Shelley and Lovelady on the sidewalk, and thus Bart Kamp must have faked his photo showing that it is, but I don't have the balls to confront Bart directly" - is that research? Ya think? Is Dan a researcher ... or just a blowhard?
I have said previously that I was amused to see myself called a "JFKA researcher" upon making one significant but purely dumb-luck discovery after an hour of goofing around on Google. (After nearly 50 years of using the legal search engine LEXIS, I am pretty good at formulating queries.)
I did spend 40 years in legal research because my practice focused largely on complex motions and appellate briefs. I know what research looks like, and it's damn hard work. When a JFKA factoid interests me enough to explore it, I do research. To wit:
https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,4962.msg178234.html#msg178234
https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,4559.0.html
https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,4484.msg168589.html#msg168589
I have now actually researched perhaps 25 of these. Each one was an absurd amount of work.
So what is "research" in the mind someone like Dan? Point us to some of yours, Dan.
Like all Tinfoil Nutters, Lance has been told what to think by the ridiculous Warren Commission Report.
Can this ultimate of blowhards show us even the tiniest detail where he doesn't suck down what the WCR lies about?
Dear Lance - shown us a single instance where you differ from the WCR.
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I think that some very influential people were alarmed enough in reaction to demands growing stronger in 1966 - 67 to reopen the flawed WC investigsation
to influence them to make the proposals to reopen the JFKA investigation appear to be ridiculous, fringe.
After the 3 hour jury deliberation resulting in the Shaw not guilty verdict, there was no additional official inquiry for the next seven years, until 1975.
Garrison landed on his feet, after representing himself and miraculous winning not guilty verdicts on all federal charges. Considering a federal department of justice
conviction rate above 90%, it is not unreasonable to believe he had played his part in what amounted to a show trial.
The late Tom Purvis argued strenuously in posts on the Ed Forum that Garrison had people much more powerful than he in the New Orleans power structure,
some of which is comprised of secret societies that to this day do not reveal their membership. He shared that Burke's daughter, his wife, and her mother had all been Queens of Comus.
Seems an impressive amount of heavy lifting, if indeed the JFKA assassin was in truth a lone nut acting outside of any conspiracy!
Who "owned" Willard Robertson? He came to NOLA around 1950 to set up a sales office for a West Haven, CT small metal hull boat builder
that soon went bankrupt. He left his wife and two children for the 23 year old secretary he hired. Somehow, he landed exclusive importation
and distribution rights for Volkswagen of America southeast region dealerships. He became an important financial backer of both Garrison's
and the then Governor's political careers.
He died in 1983, leaving an estate reported to be $30 million. He was the only "nobody" selected by Volkswagen for a regional distribution monopoly....
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/803/136/381311/?__cf_chl_f_tk=zrqboHTKHit.HG7jUPDwcZZnrvPoA72ZRZHRHefGOYc-1783035456-1.0.1.1-NU47McDgs9gZOO_hjsNT5XWv3_65gaiQmmkb.ap7xZA
Playing "both sides"...
Ed Butler's first cousin Rance was Gordon Novel's partner and Novel was ushered into this saga by Robertson.
This is so you in my mind.
I still don't have a f%cking clue what you actually think.
I don't know if this helps - the Warren Commission Report is a childishly obvious tissue of lies.
This can be demonstrated beyond the slightest doubt.
Does that count in any way?
Do you think Oswald took the shots?
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The Warren Commission Report is a childishly obvious tissue of lies.
Dear danny BOY o'meara,
That's a suggestion I refuse to accept.
-- Tom
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Let’s be honest: Rational people who are acquainted with the evidence as whole know Oswald shot JFK from TSBD6 and murdered Tippit. There’s no real doubt about this.
Lance, I'm going to give a summary comment on the Tippit case and I would like you to explain if you classify it as "lunatic fringe" and say why. But first, a comment on the real issue you raise of what is the difference between a legitimate differing argument or interpretation of evidence, and "wacky" territory. I have an analogy here you might find instructive. It appears in a book I wrote a couple decades ago, "Showdown at Big Sandy", about a Bible college in east Texas I attended for two years in the 1970s. I was discussing the phenomenon of "cults", which is in some ways parallel to the definitional questions you raise here. What is the difference between a religion one does not personally believe, but which one does not regard it sociologically as a "cult"? At the time I wrote the book, one of the leading (supposedly) authorities on cults was Walter Martin, who wrote a book called "Kingdom of the Cults". He wrote from a conservative Christian perspective, and detailed an encyclopedic taxonomy of all sorts of various offbeat and idiosyncratic religious groups with which American history has been filled, part of America's claim to fame.
The problem was in among the extensive cult listings in his book, Kingdom of the Cults, he listed Unitarians. Unitarians?? I found that odd. As I noted at the time, Unitarians have produced four American presidents and too many famous scientists to count--how on earth did he have them defined as a "cult"? Well, he gave his reasons, three reasons. Here is what, in his view, made Unitarians a "cult", and I am not making this up: Unitarians do not believe in the Trinity, they do not believe in hell, and they replace the authority of the Bible with reason. Those three things, said Martin, quite logically make Unitarians a "cult". Obviously Unitarians in America are not a "cult", and it is clear what was going with Martin: he was confusing his definition of "heresy" categories (beliefs different from what he considered correct historic Christian doctrines) with a sociological/behaviorial phenomenon, "cultism", not the same thing, a category confusion.
Anyway, here is the text for review. Is this text "lunatic fringe"? Or is that kind of name-calling like Walter Martin's overreach in his labeling? This text is from my website, I wrote it.
[START]
Informal assessment of the Tippit case--a different way to look at it
There are evidence-based grounds for reasonable doubt Oswald killed Tippit, contrary to prevailing mainstream opinion. This has nothing to do with conspiracy theory. It has to do with did he do the crime.
The single strongest crime scene witness of all, because of how close he was from only 15-25 feet away, testified he had an excellent view of the back of the killer’s head and described a block cut rear hairline which, as it stands, is highly credible stand-alone exonerating testimony, given that all photos of Oswald show him with a tapered rear hairline. For good measure this single best crime scene witness of all was a barber. Hard to beat that for a witness favorable to reasonable doubt.
No less than eight (!) crime scene witnesses or witnesses of the fleeing gunman testified that that gunman was wearing a white or light-colored shirt, underneath a partly open zippered jacket. As everyone knows Oswald was seen by Brewer and arrested in a dark brown shirt. This is not an easy massive number of witness testimonies that can easily be accounted for as mistakes. Reasonable doubt grounds number two.
Multiple witness reports had the gunman’s hair described as “black” or very dark brown. Oswald’s appears to have been medium brown, and I am not aware of any independent testimony to a witness seeing Oswald’s hair as “black.” Reasonable doubt grounds number three.
There is a strong–more so for reasons argued earlier than has been acknowledged–argument that two sets of fingerprints lifted from the Tippit patrol car 20 minutes after the crime, deriving from the same one individual, were left by the killer. Those prints were found by expert analysis to be not Oswald’s. Those prints have never been proven to not be the killer’s. Reasonable doubt grounds number four.
The witnesses who identified the gunman as Oswald are less decisive than it appears. For some reason few seem aware that since the time of the Warren Commission in 1964 when the following was not known, studies since then have established–this is mainstream yet seems still not to have percolated consciousness of JFKA related/Tippit case discussions in a perverse illustration of scholarly compartmentalization–that witness facial recognition in cases in which the witness does not already know the person, is not reliable at over 50 feet. Reason: the human eye loses detail with distance, necessary for accurate reliability in facial recognition. This lack of reliability at over 50 feet overrides witnesses’ expressions of confidence or certainty. There goes Callaway (56 feet) and all of the Warren Reynolds auto place witnesses, right there. The Davis sisters-in-law both said they saw the killer’s face only in profile not full face.
This is not to say there isn’t a case against Oswald from the shell hulls Oswald revolver identfication if one does not consider chain of custody issues with those hulls to be significant.
And there is an argument from coincidence/proximity that Oswald was nearby in the midst of a live shooter police manhunt in process.
But the eyewitness identifications incriminating Oswald range from poor to medium quality, none exceptionally strong, with the argument for incrimination relying on the number of them more than their quality.
There is zero weight toward incrimination of Oswald from the killer’s jacket (CE 162)’s fibers, from any expert testimony. That is why neither the FBI nor Warren Commission who knew of those fibers ever claimed they were positive weight evidence of a match to Oswald’s brown shirt, because no expert ever testified to that and it is unlikely any would. Non-expert interpretations don’t count. It is like saying common cooking ingredients prove a certain kind of cake was made.
As for the jacket itself, Marina testified it was Lee’s, and Buell Frazier testified even more emphatically that it definitely was not–that he knew Lee’s gray work jacket and Lee’s was woolen and gray, not the off-white light tan cloth CE 162 which would easily pick up dirt and not be too practical as a daily work jacket in dusty or dirty surroundings doing manual labor. One is not right between Marina and Buell, take your pick.
Here is a clue: there are plenty of photos of Oswald when he was in Minsk, but none of those photos show him wearing CE 162. But the famous Minsk coworkers’ photo shows Oswald in a jacket which appears to be an exact match with Buell Frazier’s description of Oswald’s gray woolen zippered work jacket. Draw your own conclusions from that.
There is a case from the facts of the crime that Tippit’s killer was a professional. Curtis Craford, recent hire by Oswald’s killer Jack Ruby, generously given a room to sleep in exchange for work supposedly at no pay by Ruby at the Carousel Club, was a self-confessed hitman at this stage of his life. He was left-handed as the fingerprints on the Tippit patrol car, if they were from the killer, indicate the killer was. Craford had a full head of hair so dark brown that it appeared black. On this last detail, Craford’s daughter (born after Craford left Dallas and remarried) told me that as a child growing up, for years as a child she thought her father’s hair was black until belatedly learning it was actually dark brown. EXACTLY the police description of the killer’s hair color, first hour, from Callaway and one other witness as two first-hour police radio bulletin sources on that, who saw and told the color of the killer’s hair as they saw it, before there was any influence on witness testimonies of Oswald in the news.
And the Craford daughter told me her father had a habit of talking to himself, compare Scoggins hearing the gunman doing that leaving the crime scene, not a practice or habit known of Oswald.
Craford is known independently to have been mistakenly identified as Oswald by sincere witnesses–time after time, over a half-dozen confirmed. There goes the perception of strength of the witnesses’ Oswald identifications on Tippit and the argument from numbers of weak witnesses. If it’s a choice between Oswald and Craford as the Tippit gunman, it could be either one from the witnesses’ evidence.
Tippit’s killer came to the crime scene walking from the east on foot consistent with an origin point in the approximate vicinity of Jack Ruby’s apartment. Craford was driven home from the Vegas Club by Ruby at ca. 3 am the night before. Ruby could have driven him to his apartment instead of to the Carousel Club as normally. Both Ruby and Ruby’s apartment-mate George Senator, from Senator’s separate bedroom, left the apartment Friday morning. Craford could have been in Ruby’s room without Senator knowing it, then had the empty apartment to himself until the time came to walk to the crime scene four blocks west to flag down an expected arrival of Tippit as he arrived and kill him as a contract execution. Just saying.
I have developed a few things such as this on a case for Craford on Tippit in a way that has not previously been argued, though I have not had time to write the case fully, it is stopped at this moment because of another project (publication of a book on the General Walker case) and I do not know when I will have time. For anyone interested here are the first three chapters start of the case: https://www.scrollery.com/?p=1850.
Also, final point on the arrest. Oswald did have a loaded gun on him at his arrest, he did resist arrest, and he did punch an officer. But he did not attempt to shoot an officer, and he did not say, “it’s all over now” when he stood up. He said that after he was subdued and had stopped resisting, which changes the meaning. See the testimony of Walthers and others present on that timing point. The failed attempt to shoot Oswald’s revolver evidenced by the telltale “click” everyone heard was McDonald attempting unsuccessfully to shoot Oswald with Oswald’s own gun. This is not speculation but fact, from confession of McDonald that he got control of Oswald’s revolver, pointed it intentionally into Oswald’s stomach, had his finger on the trigger, and started intentionally to pull the trigger to shoot him. That’s not speculation, that’s McDonald himself on YouTube. He says he started to pull the trigger to shoot Oswald with the pistol pointed by McDonald intentionally into Oswald’s stomach. That’s McDonald saying that, not me. But Bentley’s hand was injured blocking the hammer which is why McDonald’s attempt to shoot Oswald failed. It was not premeditated on McDonald’s part to shoot Oswald with his own gun. It followed Oswald punching McDonald in the face. But Oswald no more pulled that trigger than Anthony Pretti in Minneapolis tried to shoot ICE officers as was first claimed over national news citing ICE sources. McDonald claimed Oswald did but McDonald clearly did. Once the matter is properly studied and considered it is not even ambiguous, it is as clear as the Anthony Pretti case. Not that this point materially bears on who killed Tippit, but just to clear the deck on this particular long-standing claim. If you read Westbrook in Sneed, Westbrook, the commanding officer at the scene of the Oswald arrest–he knew it was McDonald who pulled that trigger (p. 315).
Anyone is still free to consider Oswald guilty on Tippit. But there is another side to the story that was never investigated.
[END]
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This is so you in my mind.
I still don't have a f%cking clue what you actually think.
I don't know if this helps - the Warren Commission Report is a childishly obvious tissue of lies.
This can be demonstrated beyond the slightest doubt.
Does that count in any way?
Do you think Oswald took the shots?
There is certainly no body of evidence of sufficient integrity to convict Oswald beyond reasonable doubt
of firing shots from a TSBD sixth floor window at President Kennedy inside the time frame laid out in the government's
case.
Rooming house owner Gladys Johnson stated that she recalled Oswald initially asking about availablility of a room for
rent because he wanted to "be near his work". This conflicts with the reality of Oswald not being employed at that time.
Bonnie Ray Williams testified he was eating his lunch alone on the sixth floor until he left at 12:20 pm to descend to the fifth
floor to join co-workers.
In early 2013, I received a curious reaction to my telephoned request to a nephew of one of the most curious person
of interest in the investigation, Jack Dougherty, especially of sixth floor activity during the crucial window of time in which the JFK motorcade
was approaching and making the unusual turn onto Elm St.
The nephew's wife hung up on me when I identified myself as a moderator at the JFK Debate forum requesting to speak to
her husband. I immediately called back and this time the nephew answered. I requested that he consider he or members of his
family donate a photo of his uncle Jack to the Sixth Floor museum in observance of the then upcoming 50th anniversary of the
JFKA. The nephew reacted as if I was accusing his late uncle Jack of committing murder and or conspiracy.
I reminded him I was calling in the interest of history, posterity, pointing out I was not making the request out of personal
benefit in any way and I was not one of the posters on the internet he described as treating his late uncle very badly.
I asked him to consider donating a photo that could reasonably result in clearing his uncle Jack of suspicion, since so much film
evidence of the noon hour in and near the TSBD exists. It seems Jack's family chose to continue to cheat history.
Then there is the palm print DPD Lt. Day claimed he lifted off the rifle found on the sixth floor but somehow neglected to
initially catalogue for the FBI lab in DC where the rifle was sent next. No latent fingerprints were ever lifted from the rifle,
or from the stripper clip containing unfired ammuntion, nor from the 3 spent bullet hulls found on the sixth floor, nor
even from the boxes of books stacked to block the view between the boxes and the sixth floor window investigators
claimed was the sole source of gunfire at the President's limousine.
No retail transaction or other source of the unusual Carcano rifle ammo was ever identified.
Oswald allegedly had a library card with the name of his former co-worker, Jack Bowen, displayed on the back.
Bowen just happened to be the former brother-in-law of Dial Ryder, a man who claimed to have made adjustments
to the Carcano rifle at the request of a customer. A closer look at the background and history of Jack Bowen is
quite amazing. He was a convicted felon who had conned his way into being hired for a position as art director
at a firm that had a section it claimed was compartmentalized to secure to secret, federal government contract work.
That firm also hired recent defector returned from the Soviet Union, LHO.
The rifle investigators claimed to have been a mail order purchase from Klein's in Chicago was associated with a
postal money order payment that allegedly set a record as the fastest mailing from Dallas and quickest payment processing
upon receipt by Klein's that anyone could ever imagine. It certainly wasn't anyone at Klein's fault that the receiving bank
misdated the date of deposit.
But none of the above is even required for me to be a sceptic of the first government panel's conclusion and reports.
There is the matter of the DOJ sending its number 3 assistant to the Attorney General, Howard Willens to be its eyes and
ears on the WC. Willens later testified he determined who was to investigate what area and when to stop devoting
investigative resources to any given assignment. For example, Willens later testified he had ended the investigation of
Jack Ruby's foreign travel and activity. In 1956, FBI records indicate questioning of Willen's father after he had returned from
a Home Builder's Association organized trip to and tour of the Soviet Union. The senior Willens asked the FBI agents not to be prejudiced
by Willens' recent decision, at that time, to purchase and relocate his wife and son to a residence adjacent to that of Tony
Accardo. Articles exist more recently online describing the basement of the former Willens residents being connected by
a tunnel to the former Accardo residence!
Descriotion and photo of Accardo's former home,
https://archive.is/WWRPp Or, https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/15/anthony-accardo-river-forest-mansion/
"....The property had a $47,917 property tax bill in the 2023 tax year."
-
There is certainly no body of evidence of sufficient integrity to convict Oswald beyond reasonable doubt
of firing shots from a TSBD sixth floor window at President Kennedy inside the time frame laid out in the government's
case.
A ridiculous claim that makes the rest of your diatribe not worth responding to. When one looks at the forensic evidence alone, there should be zero doubt that Oswald was the assassin. Never mind that he immediately fled the scene and about 45 minutes later gunned down a Dallas cop.
-
Like all Tinfoil Nutters, Lance has been told what to think by the ridiculous Warren Commission Report.
Can this ultimate of blowhards show us even the tiniest detail where he doesn't suck down what the WCR lies about?
Dear Lance - shown us a single instance where you differ from the WCR.
I think Dan must have been placed on earth solely for my benefit, at least insofar as the JFKA is concerned, because once again he unwittingly and witlessly raises an issue that had occurred to me after I had logged off.
I love how, at the lunatic fringe where Dan lurches around, the math works like this:
SUPPORTER OF THE LN NARRATIVE = CREDULOUS FOOL WHO KNOWS NOTHING MORE THAN THE WR AND BLINDLY ACCEPTS IT = PATHETIC WC SHILL
Uh, not exactly.
In fact, nothing but a straw man for Dan to attack because he's got nothing else, just as MTG attacks a straw man of me insisting all CTers are mentally ill. I'm confident MTG and Dan do have several screws loose and cogs askew, but I'll leave the actual diagnosis to a professional like Dr. Niederwacky. :D :D :D
I had probably read 25 conspiracy-oriented books, maybe more, before I had read one page of the WR. I was posting CT-oriented blather at City Data Forum and elsewhere before I read one page of the WR. I spent almost an entire year reading NOTHING BUT what dedicated CTer Walt Brown had written, including his million-word Chronology, before I had read one page of the WR. I had read Harvey and Lee TWICE before I had read one page of the WR. I had ... well, you get the idea. AS WE SPEAK, I am rereading Gerald McKnight's Breach of Trust: How the Warren Commission Failed the Nation and Why.
The WC per se means zilch to me. I posted only yesterday in a vein critical of the WR. My original post on THIS thread describes the SBT as the Achilles heel of the LN narrative. I have said that I respect the work of John Orr and his efforts to prove Mafia involvement, which I regard as by far the most plausible CT scenario. Oswald as a dupe of angry anti-Castro types is not implausible.
The WR and all the supporting documentation is simply a body of evidence, that and nothing more. There is nothing sacred about the WR. The LN narrative does not rise or fall with the WR. The LN rises or falls with the evidence, and so far it has stood the test of time. It is the only scenario that fits the definition of a theory - i.e., a well-established explanation supported by the evidence. The only real dents in the LN narrative are the "reasonable" or not-so-reasonable doubts raised about some aspects by those who like to play Oswald defense counsel. As I said, "I don't think Oswald would have been convicted in a criminal trial" is not an explanation or theory.
Dan and MTG play these straw man games precisely because they do occupy the lunatic fringe. MTG's work is so incoherent and internally inconsistent that it's almost spooky, if he really believes what he says and isn't just slinging poop in all directions in the hope that something, anything, will stick. Dan is just an angry blowhard and buffoon; I would like to think this is just a persona he has adopted for its amusement value, but if it's an act it's a pretty convincing one.
"Lance the uninformed WC shill who thinks all CTers are mentally ill?" Not exactly, but he makes a convenient straw man.
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Lance, I'm going to give a summary comment on the Tippit case and I would like you to explain if you classify it as "lunatic fringe" and say why. But first, a comment on the real issue you raise of what is the difference between a legitimate differing argument or interpretation of evidence, and "wacky" territory. I have an analogy here you might find instructive. It appears in a book I wrote a couple decades ago, "Showdown at Big Sandy", about a Bible college in east Texas I attended for two years in the 1970s. I was discussing the phenomenon of "cults", which is in some ways parallel to the definitional questions you raise here. What is the difference between a religion one does not personally believe, but which one does not regard it sociologically as a "cult"? At the time I wrote the book, one of the leading (supposedly) authorities on cults was Walter Martin, who wrote a book called "Kingdom of the Cults". He wrote from a conservative Christian perspective, and detailed an encyclopedic taxonomy of all sorts of various offbeat and idiosyncratic religious groups with which American history has been filled, part of America's claim to fame.
The problem was in among the extensive cult listings in his book, Kingdom of the Cults, he listed Unitarians. Unitarians?? I found that odd. As I noted at the time, Unitarians have produced four American presidents and too many famous scientists to count--how on earth did he have them defined as a "cult"? Well, he gave his reasons, three reasons. Here is what, in his view, made Unitarians a "cult", and I am not making this up: Unitarians do not believe in the Trinity, they do not believe in hell, and they replace the authority of the Bible with reason. Those three things, said Martin, quite logically make Unitarians a "cult". Obviously Unitarians in America are not a "cult", and it is clear what was going with Martin: he was confusing his definition of "heresy" categories (beliefs different from what he considered correct historic Christian doctrines) with a sociological/behaviorial phenomenon, "cultism", not the same thing, a category confusion.
Greg, give me a bit of time to attempt to respond more thoughtfully to your Tippit scenario. It's 4:30 AM here, and I have six cats yapping for their food.
I have SO MUCH background in religion, and so much evolution of my own beliefs, that the "cult" label is one of my pet peeves. Insofar as what I think the actual Jesus was actually talking about, which I think had way more to do with how you live than what you believe, I have the highest respect for the supposed "cults" of Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons. I think some of their history and beliefs are "not exactly believable," but I also find it hard to believe that the Creator of the universe gives a crap about "correct doctrine." Ditto with the Orthodox, Catholics and Protestants - much that is "not exactly believable." That's why I stopped going to church many years ago; there is literally NO branch of the faith that doesn't require me to at least give lip service to major doctrines that I regard as "not exactly believable." The old saying that one man's ceiling is another man's floor can certainly be adapted in the vein of one man's religion is another man's cult. As Justice Stewart said about obscenity, I know a cult when I see one. (Scientology? Now THAT'S a cult!)
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Lance, I'm going to give a summary comment on the Tippit case and I would like you to explain if you classify it as "lunatic fringe" and say why. But first, a comment on the real issue you raise of what is the difference between a legitimate differing argument or interpretation of evidence, and "wacky" territory. I have an analogy here you might find instructive. It appears in a book I wrote a couple decades ago, "Showdown at Big Sandy", about a Bible college in east Texas I attended for two years in the 1970s. I was discussing the phenomenon of "cults", which is in some ways parallel to the definitional questions you raise here. What is the difference between a religion one does not personally believe, but which one does not regard it sociologically as a "cult"? At the time I wrote the book, one of the leading (supposedly) authorities on cults was Walter Martin, who wrote a book called "Kingdom of the Cults". He wrote from a conservative Christian perspective, and detailed an encyclopedic taxonomy of all sorts of various offbeat and idiosyncratic religious groups with which American history has been filled, part of America's claim to fame.
The problem was in among the extensive cult listings in his book, Kingdom of the Cults, he listed Unitarians. Unitarians?? I found that odd. As I noted at the time, Unitarians have produced four American presidents and too many famous scientists to count--how on earth did he have them defined as a "cult"? Well, he gave his reasons, three reasons. Here is what, in his view, made Unitarians a "cult", and I am not making this up: Unitarians do not believe in the Trinity, they do not believe in hell, and they replace the authority of the Bible with reason. Those three things, said Martin, quite logically make Unitarians a "cult". Obviously Unitarians in America are not a "cult", and it is clear what was going with Martin: he was confusing his definition of "heresy" categories (beliefs different from what he considered correct historic Christian doctrines) with a sociological/behaviorial phenomenon, "cultism", not the same thing, a category confusion.
Anyway, here is the text for review. Is this text "lunatic fringe"? Or is that kind of name-calling like Walter Martin's overreach in his labeling? This text is from my website, I wrote it.
[START]
Informal assessment of the Tippit case--a different way to look at it
There are evidence-based grounds for reasonable doubt Oswald killed Tippit, contrary to prevailing mainstream opinion. This has nothing to do with conspiracy theory. It has to do with did he do the crime.
The single strongest crime scene witness of all, because of how close he was from only 15-25 feet away, testified he had an excellent view of the back of the killer’s head and described a block cut rear hairline which, as it stands, is highly credible stand-alone exonerating testimony, given that all photos of Oswald show him with a tapered rear hairline. For good measure this single best crime scene witness of all was a barber. Hard to beat that for a witness favorable to reasonable doubt.
No less than eight (!) crime scene witnesses or witnesses of the fleeing gunman testified that that gunman was wearing a white or light-colored shirt, underneath a partly open zippered jacket. As everyone knows Oswald was seen by Brewer and arrested in a dark brown shirt. This is not an easy massive number of witness testimonies that can easily be accounted for as mistakes. Reasonable doubt grounds number two.
Multiple witness reports had the gunman’s hair described as “black” or very dark brown. Oswald’s appears to have been medium brown, and I am not aware of any independent testimony to a witness seeing Oswald’s hair as “black.” Reasonable doubt grounds number three.
There is a strong–more so for reasons argued earlier than has been acknowledged–argument that two sets of fingerprints lifted from the Tippit patrol car 20 minutes after the crime, deriving from the same one individual, were left by the killer. Those prints were found by expert analysis to be not Oswald’s. Those prints have never been proven to not be the killer’s. Reasonable doubt grounds number four.
The witnesses who identified the gunman as Oswald are less decisive than it appears. For some reason few seem aware that since the time of the Warren Commission in 1964 when the following was not known, studies since then have established–this is mainstream yet seems still not to have percolated consciousness of JFKA related/Tippit case discussions in a perverse illustration of scholarly compartmentalization–that witness facial recognition in cases in which the witness does not already know the person, is not reliable at over 50 feet. Reason: the human eye loses detail with distance, necessary for accurate reliability in facial recognition. This lack of reliability at over 50 feet overrides witnesses’ expressions of confidence or certainty. There goes Callaway (56 feet) and all of the Warren Reynolds auto place witnesses, right there. The Davis sisters-in-law both said they saw the killer’s face only in profile not full face.
This is not to say there isn’t a case against Oswald from the shell hulls Oswald revolver identfication if one does not consider chain of custody issues with those hulls to be significant.
And there is an argument from coincidence/proximity that Oswald was nearby in the midst of a live shooter police manhunt in process.
But the eyewitness identifications incriminating Oswald range from poor to medium quality, none exceptionally strong, with the argument for incrimination relying on the number of them more than their quality.
There is zero weight toward incrimination of Oswald from the killer’s jacket (CE 162)’s fibers, from any expert testimony. That is why neither the FBI nor Warren Commission who knew of those fibers ever claimed they were positive weight evidence of a match to Oswald’s brown shirt, because no expert ever testified to that and it is unlikely any would. Non-expert interpretations don’t count. It is like saying common cooking ingredients prove a certain kind of cake was made.
As for the jacket itself, Marina testified it was Lee’s, and Buell Frazier testified even more emphatically that it definitely was not–that he knew Lee’s gray work jacket and Lee’s was woolen and gray, not the off-white light tan cloth CE 162 which would easily pick up dirt and not be too practical as a daily work jacket in dusty or dirty surroundings doing manual labor. One is not right between Marina and Buell, take your pick.
Here is a clue: there are plenty of photos of Oswald when he was in Minsk, but none of those photos show him wearing CE 162. But the famous Minsk coworkers’ photo shows Oswald in a jacket which appears to be an exact match with Buell Frazier’s description of Oswald’s gray woolen zippered work jacket. Draw your own conclusions from that.
There is a case from the facts of the crime that Tippit’s killer was a professional. Curtis Craford, recent hire by Oswald’s killer Jack Ruby, generously given a room to sleep in exchange for work supposedly at no pay by Ruby at the Carousel Club, was a self-confessed hitman at this stage of his life. He was left-handed as the fingerprints on the Tippit patrol car, if they were from the killer, indicate the killer was. Craford had a full head of hair so dark brown that it appeared black. On this last detail, Craford’s daughter (born after Craford left Dallas and remarried) told me that as a child growing up, for years as a child she thought her father’s hair was black until belatedly learning it was actually dark brown. EXACTLY the police description of the killer’s hair color, first hour, from Callaway and one other witness as two first-hour police radio bulletin sources on that, who saw and told the color of the killer’s hair as they saw it, before there was any influence on witness testimonies of Oswald in the news.
And the Craford daughter told me her father had a habit of talking to himself, compare Scoggins hearing the gunman doing that leaving the crime scene, not a practice or habit known of Oswald.
Craford is known independently to have been mistakenly identified as Oswald by sincere witnesses–time after time, over a half-dozen confirmed. There goes the perception of strength of the witnesses’ Oswald identifications on Tippit and the argument from numbers of weak witnesses. If it’s a choice between Oswald and Craford as the Tippit gunman, it could be either one from the witnesses’ evidence.
Tippit’s killer came to the crime scene walking from the east on foot consistent with an origin point in the approximate vicinity of Jack Ruby’s apartment. Craford was driven home from the Vegas Club by Ruby at ca. 3 am the night before. Ruby could have driven him to his apartment instead of to the Carousel Club as normally. Both Ruby and Ruby’s apartment-mate George Senator, from Senator’s separate bedroom, left the apartment Friday morning. Craford could have been in Ruby’s room without Senator knowing it, then had the empty apartment to himself until the time came to walk to the crime scene four blocks west to flag down an expected arrival of Tippit as he arrived and kill him as a contract execution. Just saying.
I have developed a few things such as this on a case for Craford on Tippit in a way that has not previously been argued, though I have not had time to write the case fully, it is stopped at this moment because of another project (publication of a book on the General Walker case) and I do not know when I will have time. For anyone interested here are the first three chapters start of the case: https://www.scrollery.com/?p=1850.
Also, final point on the arrest. Oswald did have a loaded gun on him at his arrest, he did resist arrest, and he did punch an officer. But he did not attempt to shoot an officer, and he did not say, “it’s all over now” when he stood up. He said that after he was subdued and had stopped resisting, which changes the meaning. See the testimony of Walthers and others present on that timing point. The failed attempt to shoot Oswald’s revolver evidenced by the telltale “click” everyone heard was McDonald attempting unsuccessfully to shoot Oswald with Oswald’s own gun. This is not speculation but fact, from confession of McDonald that he got control of Oswald’s revolver, pointed it intentionally into Oswald’s stomach, had his finger on the trigger, and started intentionally to pull the trigger to shoot him. That’s not speculation, that’s McDonald himself on YouTube. He says he started to pull the trigger to shoot Oswald with the pistol pointed by McDonald intentionally into Oswald’s stomach. That’s McDonald saying that, not me. But Bentley’s hand was injured blocking the hammer which is why McDonald’s attempt to shoot Oswald failed. It was not premeditated on McDonald’s part to shoot Oswald with his own gun. It followed Oswald punching McDonald in the face. But Oswald no more pulled that trigger than Anthony Pretti in Minneapolis tried to shoot ICE officers as was first claimed over national news citing ICE sources. McDonald claimed Oswald did but McDonald clearly did. Once the matter is properly studied and considered it is not even ambiguous, it is as clear as the Anthony Pretti case. Not that this point materially bears on who killed Tippit, but just to clear the deck on this particular long-standing claim. If you read Westbrook in Sneed, Westbrook, the commanding officer at the scene of the Oswald arrest–he knew it was McDonald who pulled that trigger (p. 315).
Anyone is still free to consider Oswald guilty on Tippit. But there is another side to the story that was never investigated.
[END]
Let me start with my Roswell “UFO crash” analogy, because it’s a close analogue to the JFKA and a perfect example of how I approach extraordinary claims. Maybe I should be embarrassed to admit it, but there is nothing I don’t know about this subject. (Apologies to those for whom 500 words is a “book,” as I was accused of writing yesterday on my thread about ghosts, but I don’t deal – most of the time anyway! – in pithy sound bites, and Greg doesn’t either.)
It’s clear that something happened at Roswell in 1947. The Air Force has made two stabs at a mundane explanation, and neither stands up to scrutiny. Citizens and military officials up to the level of General have said that an alien craft crashed and debris and bodies were recovered. Witnesses insist that they and their families and livelihoods were threatened. Important records have mysterious gaps or have disappeared altogether. New Mexico “just happened” to be the epicenter of the atomic bomb program, and the 509th Bombardment Group, the only nuclear weapons unit at the time, “just happened” to be based at Roswell. Like the JFKA, the study of Roswell has been plagued by every imaginable sort of hoax and hoaxster.
The Roswell counterpart to the LN narrative is that a secret Project Mogul balloon crashed; this is demonstrably false for several reasons, and Mogul itself wasn’t even secret. The Air Force’s fallback position – “test dummies” – involves a program that wasn’t even in existence in 1947. By far the most popular “CT” narrative is that an ET craft crashed, technology and bodies were recovered, and this has been covered up at the most ultra-secret level of government secrecy. Even David Grusch, the latest in a long line of supposed insiders to come forward, promotes this narrative.
It’s easy to jump on the ET bandwagon and lose sight of the forest for the trees. I step back and ask threshold questions such as (1) what is the likelihood ETs would be traveling across interstellar space in what apparently resembled 1990’s earthly technology (sufficiently understandable that we have supposedly reverse-engineered much of it); (2) what is the likelihood such craft would crash in New Mexico thunderstorms, even once, let alone in the numbers that people like Grusch insist they have crashed around the world since at least the 1930s; (3) what is the likelihood that ETs would be even vaguely humanoid – two arms with hands, two legs with feet, mouths, big eyes, etc.; and (4) what is the likelihood that multiple generations of “keepers of the secrets” could keep a lid on all this for what is now almost 80 years? I’m forced to admit the likelihood is essentially zero, compelling as some of the testimonial and anecdotal evidence swirling around the ET hypothesis may seem. And yet, something happened – and why can’t we get a plausible mundane explanation after 80 years?
After some 50 years of involvement (The Roswell Incident was published in 1980), I must throw up my hands and admit I have no idea. I wouldn’t call the ET hypothesis “lunatic fringe” but certainly “improbable in the extreme.” And yet, I have no mundane explanation that is any better. My guess (and that’s all it is) is some sort of staged event – staged by an alien intelligence perhaps, or perhaps by the military (in which case, why all the secrecy after 80 years?).
So that’s how I approach JFKA claims and narratives. First and foremost, from the level of “Does this make any sense?” Does it have real-world plausibility? Does it reflect who the supposed participants really were, or have they been reinvented to fit the narrative? Does it fly in the face of better evidence and a simpler, more plausible narrative? When the answer to all of these questions is in the negative, I consign the claim or narrative to the lunatic fringe. In my experience, those in the lunatic fringe ignore all the threshold questions and leap directly into “connecting all the dots,” losing sight of the fact that the claim or narrative makes no sense or is wildly improbable; this is the conspiratorial love of complexity that Tom Bethell and the Dutch psychoanalyst talk about. Eventually, the claim or narrative takes on a cult-like life of its own.
With Tippit, we have a pretty straightforward narrative that extends from Oswald going to his room and getting his revolver to being arrested at the theater with his revolver. What is the raw likelihood that there was some incredible intervening event that either had nothing to do with Oswald, his revolver and the JFKA (i.e., Tippit was murdered for unrelated reasons) or was somehow part of a plot to either eliminate Oswald or further frame him? The JFKA itself framed him about as thoroughly as he could be framed. If the plot was to eliminate him, then why didn’t whomever shot Tippit just shoot Oswald (or shoot Oswald after Oswald shot Tippit)? I have a near-impossible time getting past the “What sense does this make?” question.
At one time, specifically in regard to the questions being raised about Craford in connection with Tippit, I researched him as best I could, all the way up to his death many years later. He was a complete nobody all his life. He was about as much a hitman as my grandmother and about as unlikely a Tippit assassin as one could imagine. Does his departure from Dallas look anything like a hitman on the run? Does the rest of his obscure life look like someone who had any connection to the JFKA or a hit on a policeman? In all the various scenarios into which he is plugged, all that I can see he has going for him is that he vaguely resembled Oswald and had some connection to Ruby.
The Tippit murder was a wholly unexpected, traumatic event with a chaotic aftermath. It isn’t surprising that there are conflicting witness statements and loose threads. Greg has assembled a number of items of reasonable doubt (with respect to those items) and an alternative scenario, just as he has alternative scenarios for the Walker attempt, the Furniture Mart visit and other aspects of the JFKA. They all seem to me to be creative brainstorming that was intended from the get-go to articulate an alternative scenario – and that’s fine because it’s kind of fun, but they do all seem to exemplify the conspiratorial love of complexity. Add them all together, and I say “Impossible, just flat impossible for me to believe the orthodox narrative and the hard evidence supporting it is wrong in that many respects.” I won’t use the phrase “lunatic fringe” because Greg has put a lot of original work into these scenarios and he does seem to acknowledge that he is somewhat “thinking out loud” and merely “suggesting,” as opposed to the aggressive sales job that MTG tries to do.
If there was “something more” to the Tippit shooting, my guess would be that the shooting itself took place as described in the orthodox narrative and the “something more” is to be found in (1) Tippit’s alleged actions in the time before he encountered Oswald and/or (2) the “why” questions that John Corbett chides me for even considering – Why the hell did Tippit stop Oswald? If Tippit thought there was anything suspicious, especially related to the JFKA, why the hell didn’t he take better precautions? Why the hell did Oswald completely short-circuit his escape and make things a hundred times worse for himself by immediately shooting Tippit in front of multiple witnesses?
Wow, 1,267 words. I have written almost three books already this morning! I am the Leo Tolstoy of JFKA forums! :D :D :D
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.....
...So that’s how I approach JFKA claims and narratives. First and foremost, from the level of “Does this make any sense?” Does it have real-world plausibility? Does it reflect who the supposed participants really were, or have they been reinvented to fit the narrative? Does it fly in the face of better evidence and a simpler, more plausible narrative? When the answer to all of these questions is in the negative, I consign the claim or narrative to the lunatic fringe. In my experience, those in the lunatic fringe ignore all the threshold questions and leap directly into “connecting all the dots,” losing sight of the fact that the claim or narrative makes no sense or is wildly improbable; this is the conspiratorial love of complexity that Tom Bethell and the Dutch psychoanalyst talk about. Eventually, the claim or narrative takes on a cult-like life of its own.
With Tippit, we have a pretty straightforward narrative that extends from Oswald going to his room and getting his revolver to being arrested at the theater with his revolver. What is the raw likelihood that there was some incredible intervening event that either had nothing to do with Oswald, his revolver and the JFKA (i.e., Tippit was murdered for unrelated reasons) or was somehow part of a plot to either eliminate Oswald or further frame him? The JFKA itself framed him about as thoroughly as he could be framed. If the plot was to eliminate him, then why didn’t whomever shot Tippit just shoot Oswald (or shoot Oswald after Oswald shot Tippit)? I have a near-impossible time getting past the “What sense does this make?” question.
At one time, specifically in regard to the questions being raised about Craford in connection with Tippit, I researched him as best I could, all the way up to his death many years later. He was a complete nobody all his life. He was about as much a hitman as my grandmother and about as unlikely a Tippit assassin as one could imagine. Does his departure from Dallas look anything like a hitman on the run? Does the rest of his obscure life look like someone who had any connection to the JFKA or a hit on a policeman? In all the various scenarios into which he is plugged, all that I can see he has going for him is that he vaguely resembled Oswald and had some connection to Ruby.
The Tippit murder was a wholly unexpected, traumatic event with a chaotic aftermath. It isn’t surprising that there are conflicting witness statements and loose threads. Greg has assembled a number of items of reasonable doubt (with respect to those items) and an alternative scenario, just as he has alternative scenarios for the Walker attempt, the Furniture Mart visit and other aspects of the JFKA. They all seem to me to be creative brainstorming that was intended from the get-go to articulate an alternative scenario – and that’s fine because it’s kind of fun, but they do all seem to exemplify the conspiratorial love of complexity. Add them all together, and I say “Impossible, just flat impossible for me to believe the orthodox narrative and the hard evidence supporting it is wrong in that many respects.” I won’t use the phrase “lunatic fringe” because Greg has put a lot of original work into these scenarios and he does seem to acknowledge that he is somewhat “thinking out loud” and merely “suggesting,” as opposed to the aggressive sales job that MTG tries to do.
If there was “something more” to the Tippit shooting, my guess would be that the shooting itself took place as described in the orthodox narrative and the “something more” is to be found in (1) Tippit’s alleged actions in the time before he encountered Oswald and/or (2) the “why” questions that John Corbett chides me for even considering – Why the hell did Tippit stop Oswald? If Tippit thought there was anything suspicious, especially related to the JFKA, why the hell didn’t he take better precautions? Why the hell did Oswald completely short-circuit his escape and make things a hundred times worse for himself by immediately shooting Tippit in front of multiple witnesses?
Wow, 1,267 words. I have written almost three books already this morning! I am the Leo Tolstoy of JFKA forums! :D :D :D
Lance, I slept very little and spent too much time reading and thinking about posts on this forum I wanted to respond to.
To preserve my stream of thoughts, I'm going to reply initially to the portion of your post I am quoting. Later today or tomorrow I will refine it and edit in supporting
cites.
The three that the Oswald, Tippit convergence timeline depended on demonstrated unreliable recall of time between when the housekeeper claimed Oswald came and went after his alleged ride in Whaley's taxi. BTW, I proved Whaley set his birthdate back 3 years sometime in the 1930's, yet he corrected the Chief Justice's
minor discrepancy regarding how long Whaley had been driving a cab.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/13730776/william_wayne-whaley/photo
(https://images.findagrave.com/photos/2021/248/13730776_302fa279-6eca-4833-80c2-a6ba4bc613ad.jpeg?size=photos250)
The Johnson couple who owned the boarding house both stated the DPD arrived at least an hour earlier than the detectives reported that they had.
Gladys Johnson and her husband recalled them arriving around 2:00 pm while the housekeeper fixed the arrival time closer to 1:30. Detective Potts testified
to coming in on his day off and the steps between learning of the JFKA and arriving at the boarding house at 3:00 pm.
Gladys Johnson described firing the housekeeper, Earline several times, the only stated reason was that Earline Roberts was a teller of tall tales.
Earline Robert's sister was the Ruby background witness named Bogle. She seemed intelligent but her testimony supported that she was more gifted than
her sister in the tall tales department.
Then there was the Carousel Club bartender, Nancy Perrin from Maine. She seemed to have an imagination a high functioning
1966 interview of Nancy Rich Perrin Hamilton :
Nancy's testimony :
https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/testimony/rich_n.htm
con artist could hope to have. Her husband died suspiciously in Nola, She did introduce us to the quite interesting Col. Castor.
An author named Ovid Demaris wrote a JFKA related book. He was an alumnus of the same small Biddeford, ME high school as the much
younger Nancy. He did not mention her. Mark Lane got to Nancy and Helen Markham early.
tenth
The Tippit shooter, according to a 15 year old Mrs. Virgina Davis, emptied spent cartridges from a revolver as he exited
the Tippit murder scene. She claimed to be 16 in her first statement (https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/testimony/vdavis.htm) to police on 11/22 and was still 15 when she told WC inquiry folk she was still 15 but claimed to be 16 when they deposed her in Dallas the following spring.
They were uninterested when she claimed, unprompted and possibly unnoticed that Tippit frequently parked at the house across
the street from her sister-in-law's apartment where the two were spending that afternoon.
In the interest of brevity and one stop shopping, temporary support for my claim.:
Found on Facebook :
https://www.facebook.com/groups/817506332415313/posts/825759478256665/
J.D. TIPPIT: THE REAL TRUTH ·
Rachel White
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Admin
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December 5, 2020
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. The house of at 10th & p 410E... Was resided in by Mrs witherspoon. One of her daughters. Johnnie maxie Witherspoon was having an affair with Tippit. The other daughter. Joy Dale (witherspoon) worked for Ruby in his club. & old mother witherspoon herself knew oswald.. So it's of no coincidence is that that spot at 10th & p was chosen as a deliberate Ambush spot..for Tippit
https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/testimony/davis_vc.htm
...Mr. BELIN. You mean you didn't see him?
Mrs. DAVIS. We saw him when he cut across our yard.
Mr. BELIN. Where was he when you last saw him? He was---was he still in your yard, or was he on the sidewalk on Patton Street?
Mrs. DAVIS. He was still in our yard.
Mr. BELIN. Then what did you do
Mrs. DAVIS. We already called the police.
Mr. BELIN. You called the police before you saw him
Mrs. DAVIS. When Mrs. Markham was standing across the street hollering, she told us to call the police, so Jeanette and I went in there, and Jeanette called the police and we went back and he was cutting across our yard, and we gave him time to go on because we were afraid he might shoot us.
Mr. BELIN. Did you call the police before or after you saw him cut across your yard?
Mrs. DAVIS. Before.
Mr. BELIN. In other words, to your---to the best of your recollection, you heard the shots, you ran outside, you saw Mrs. Markham---did you see anything else when you saw Mrs. Markham?
Mrs. DAVIS. No, sir; we just saw a police car sitting on the side of the road.
Mr. BELIN. Where was the police car parked?
Mrs. DAVIS. It was parked between the hedge that marks the apartment house where he lives in and the house next door.
Mr. BELIN. Was it on your side of East 10th or the other side of the street?
Mrs. DAVIS. It was on our side, the same side that we lived on.
Mr. BELIN. Was it headed as you looked to the police car, towards your right or towards your left?
Mrs. DAVIS. Right.
Mr. BELIN. Did you see any police officer in a police car when you first saw him?
Mrs. DAVIS. No, sir....
Tippit was rumored to be involved with a women, Witherspoon, staying temporarily in that house the witness Virginia associated with Tippit's
car. Estranged from her husband, she was already pregnant at that time. Her daughter, I believe, is still living. Maybe new light
can be shed if a GoFundMe could be set up to incentivize her to submit her DNA and to disclose the results of the testing....
https://www.maryferrell.org/php/marysdb.php?id=2117
A Record from Mary's Database
Mrs. C. L. Connell said General Walker and Colonel Castorr were arousing Cuban refugees. Close friend of General Edwin Walker. Wife: Gertrude or "Trudy"
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32390682.pdf
There is no record of agency association with CASTORR. An FBI report of 13 March 1969 reported that CASTORR had lunch with Viktor Ivanovich MIRONOV (201 -731 745), a KGB officer at the Soviet …
More research results on Col. Castorr who matched the desciption by Nancy Rich Perrin,
https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/25605-49th-armored-division/
https://conspiracydossiers.com/2026/04/05/robert-perrin/
Who was Robert Perrin?
Dallas to New Orleans, 1961-1962
Nancy Perrin works at the Carousel Club
The Cuba Project Meetings
The Suicide of Robert Perrin, August 28, 1962
Harassment of Nancy Perrin Rich
Dallas-New Orleans Underworld
Notes
Who was Robert Perrin?
On October 11, 1920, Robert Lee Perrin was born in Kerkhoven, Swift County, Minnesota, USA.1 Very little is known about his life...
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Tippit was rumored to be involved with a women staying temporarily in that house the witness Virginia associated with Tippit's
car. Estranged from her husband, she was already pregnant at that time. Her daughter, I believe, is still living. Maybe new light
can be shed if a GoFundMe could be set up to incentivize her to submit her DNA and to disclose the results of the testing....
WTF!!! This is what 62+ years of futility has reduced the CT's efforts to.
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WTF!!! This is what 62+ years of futility has reduced the CT's efforts to.
Post a link supporting William Whaley's claimed award of WWII Navy Cross or even any evidence he was involved in combat in the skies over the invasion of the island of IWO JIMA, or of even any WWII combat award earned by Whaley.
The claims of both Whaley and of Earline Roberts were back to back sole sourced Oswald "get away" stories.
Whaley's family in Texas claims Whaley's son and namesake, William, Jr. somehow went missing after Whaley's
first wife died of TB in 1935. The son was not hard to find. He lived his life as if his father did not exist.:
https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,180.msg54787.html#msg54787
https://www.jfk-assassination.net/russ/testimony/davis_vc.htm
....O
Mr. BELIN. Where was the police car parked?
Mrs. DAVIS. It was parked between the hedge that marks the apartment house where he lives in[/b
]
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Post a link supporting William Whaley's claimed award of WWII Navy Cross or even any evidence he was involved in combat in the skies over the invasion of the island of IWO JIMA, or of even any WWII combat award earned by Whaley. [/quote}
Why would I even care? Why would anybody care?
The claims of both Whaley and of Earline Roberts were back to back sole sourced Oswald "get away" stories.
I guess you forgot about Mary Bledsoe seeing him on McWatters bus and the bus transfer from McWatters bus that was found in his pocket when arrested. quote]
Whaley's family in Texas claims Whaley's son and namesake, William, Jr. somehow went missing after Whaley's
first wife died of TB in 1935. The son was not hard to find. He lived his life as if his father did not exist.:
https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,180.msg54787.html#msg54787
It's truly amazing the things some CT will focus on. I have no idea where you are going with this. I'm guessing you are trying to somehow discredit Whaley. It is revealing of the mindset so many CTs have. Conspiracy Derangement Syndrome is similar to Trump Derangement syndrome. It doesn't matter what Trump says or does, his enemies will find a reason to criticize him for it. Likewise, it doesn't matter what evidence is presented of Oswald's guilt, CTs will find an excuse to dismiss the evidence. Not all CTs suffer from CDS, but the ones that get it seem to be robbed of their ability to think straight.
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At one time, specifically in regard to the questions being raised about Craford in connection with Tippit, I researched him as best I could, all the way up to his death many years later. He was a complete nobody all his life. He was about as much a hitman as my grandmother and about as unlikely a Tippit assassin as one could imagine.
What do you do about his confession that he was a hitman c. 1960-1961?
I questioned his daughter closely on that. First, was it true that he had told his brother--her uncle--that, and she said yes that was true, he had told her uncle that. Curtis (that is what the family called him incidentally, "Curtis") had not told anybody else in the family that to her knowledge, not her and she did not think he had told her mother that, but he had told his brother that. Second question, was Craford--her father--a raconteur type, a make-up-stories type, a bullshitter in bars type? She was serious that the answer to that was "no". I asked if she believed her father had been a hitman at that stage of his life. She said she did not know. I asked if her uncle--Craford's brother--believed it was true. She said yes he did believe it was true.
I think Craford had a rough early life, dodged a couple of bullets (not caught and charged), remarried in Oregon and was straight the rest of his life.
Lets just say your cheerful total confidence at your distance that Curtis Craford had never been a hitman any more than your grandmother was not shared by family members who were sympathetic to him. But you just know from your distance, don't you, you can just tell? :-)
How many innocent persons in history have been wrongly convicted on the basis of narratives that sounded simple and sensible. Only problem was the person didn't do it. Innocence Project issues. That's my caution here on Oswald on Tippit. And I know if anything is considered airtight in the JFKA range of things, its Oswald on Tippit. But he never got a trial and I have brought out a few things that never were investigated. And for me, its not because of any fun out of being contrarian. Its because, rightly or wrongly, I'm actually after the truth.
And because I did my master's thesis at Cornell under the late Martin Bernal, author of "Black Athena". Smart man. He aroused the ire of the entire classics profession by challenging the "Greek miracle" model of Western civilization, in which western civilization comes from the Greeks and the Greeks started by themselves. Bernal said the Greeks didn't start by themselves, that the Greeks themselves plus everyone else anciently saw Egypt as the source prior to Greece. Bernal said that was changed in intellectual history in the 19th century for racist reasons. Bernal said classicists today are liberal and not racist, it is scholarly conservatism (that's not meant politically) which is the explanation for today inheriting an historical construction "born in sin" in the 19th century born out of racism. The week after I signed Bernal to be my thesis advisor, a review came out in the New York Review of Books by a major-name classicist literally likening Bernal to the devil. No kidding--cited Milton on Lucifer ascending to challenge God, as Bernal ascending to challenge the veritable truths of classicists. A line drawing illustrating the review drew a caricature portrait of Bernal with pointed Spock ears, to make him look like he was the devil. Bernal (from England, whose father was a famous scientist and whose maternal grandfather was Sir Alan Gardiner, one of the world's greatest Egyptologists) answered back that if classicists though he was Lucifer in that Milton analogy, who did that mean they thought they were?
Anyway, Bernal talked to me a lot about "sociology of knowledge", of how knowledge is not only about facts but about how it is constructed. Neither here nor there on JFKA and Tippit really, just a bit of my background comparable to your interesting Roswell history.
Anyway I'm not going to press this further, thanks for your comments.
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Greg, you appear to be insinuating that my grandmother was not a hitwoman! :D
Obviously, I don't KNOW that Craford wasn't a hitman, and you have the inside sources you have cited. My comment was based on his eccentric early life and placid later life, which would lead me to think his claim was more likely BS or greatly exagerrated than true. What is a hitman anyway? The term to me suggests something along the lines of "professional killer." Given the amount of evidence pointing to Oswald, and the unlikelihood (to me) of Craford actually ever having been a hitman or being recruited for that role in Dallas, it would take some really startling evidence even to persuade me this was a possible explanation for the Tippit murder. And I'll let it rest there as well.
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I guess you forgot about Mary Bledsoe seeing him on McWatters bus and the bus transfer from McWatters bus that was found in his pocket when arrested. quote]
Whaley's family in Texas claims Whaley's son and namesake, William, Jr. somehow went missing after Whaley's
first wife died of TB in 1935. The son was not hard to find. He lived his life as if his father did not exist.:
https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,180.msg54787.html#msg54787
It's truly amazing the things some CT will focus on. I have no idea where you are going with this. I'm guessing you are trying to somehow discredit Whaley. It is revealing of the mindset so many CTs have. Conspiracy Derangement Syndrome is similar to Trump Derangement syndrome. It doesn't matter what Trump says or does, his enemies will find a reason to criticize him for it. Likewise, it doesn't matter what evidence is presented of Oswald's guilt, CTs will find an excuse to dismiss the evidence. Not all CTs suffer from CDS, but the ones that get it seem to be robbed of their ability to think straight.
Trump and Whaley are victims? Thank you for the heads up!
BTW, if you moved your date of birth three years older, exactly, like I proved Whaley did sometime in his 30s years of age, do your really expect, if Trump had any say about it,
Whaley would ever be allowed to vote, again?
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Trump and Whaley are victims? Thank you for the heads up!
BTW, if you moved your date of birth three years older, exactly, like I proved Whaley did sometime in his 30s years of age, do your really expect, if Trump had any say about it,
Whaley would ever be allowed to vote, again?
When I read crap like this, I just shake my head.
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Conspiracy Derangement Syndrome is similar to Trump Derangement syndrome. It doesn't matter what Trump says or does, his enemies will find a reason to criticize him for it. Likewise, it doesn't matter what evidence is presented of Oswald's guilt, CTs will find an excuse to dismiss the evidence.
Dear John,
A psychologically disturbed and self-described Marxist former Marine sharpshooter by the name of Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK by firing three shots at him over 10.2 seconds in the echo chamber known as Dealey Plaza.
The KGB took advantage of the anomaly-replete assassination from virtually Day One by spreading nation-rending disinformation about it, culminating in Oliver Stone's 1991 self-described mythological ("to counter the myth of the Warren Report") film, "JFK," and Stone's and Jimmy DiEugenio's execrable 2021 sequel, "JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass."
Partially as a result of these "active measures" ops and others waged against us and our NATO allies over the past sixty-two years, especially during the 2016 Presidential campaign, "former" KGB Lt. Col. Vladimir Putin was able to install a traitorous orange turd as our "president" in 2017 and 2025.
-- Tom
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Dear John,
A psychologically disturbed and self-described Marxist former Marine sharpshooter by the name of Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK by firing three shots at him over 10.2 seconds in the echo chamber known as Dealey Plaza.
The KGB took advantage of the anomaly-replete assassination from virtually Day One by spreading nation-rending disinformation about it, culminating in Oliver Stone's 1991 self-described mythological ("to counter the myth of the Warren Report") film, "JFK," and Stone's and Jimmy DiEugenio's execrable 2021 sequel, "JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass."
We didn't need the KGB to spread conspiracy theories about the JFKA. We have had plenty of home grown conspiracy fanatics right from the start.
Partially as a result of these "active measures" ops and others waged against us and our NATO allies over the past sixty-two years, especially during the 2016 Presidential campaign, "former" KGB Lt. Col. Vladimir Putin was able to install a traitorous orange turd as our "president" in 2017 and 2025.
-- Tom
Your TDS seems to be getting worse. I don't know what to tell you because there seems to be no known cure. We spend millions every year on cancer research but not a dime on TDS.