The "mysterious death" of Hale Boggs, anyone?

[Tim Nickerson]

I've probably mentioned it before, but I lurked at the Ed Forum (as a CTer, mind you) for quite a while, AWED by how much these characters knew and feeling entirely unworthy. One day, the Klein's postal money order came up. I saw the numbers across the top and simply wondered "So what are those?" I could find no discussion of them at all. In about an hour, I discovered an article explaining the Treasury Department's then-new punch card system and that these numbers showed the money order had been processed through the Federal Reserve banking system and stored at the federal records center. Suddenly, I found myself being referred to - comically, it seemed to me - as a "JFK researcher." The fact that these numbers had apparently not been previously identified was kind of eye-opening to me about the status of JFKA "research."

It also seemed to me that my discovery pretty well killed any argument that the money order was bogus or lacking in the "bank stamps" it supposedly should have had. But NOOOOO ... Sandy Larsen just moved the goal posts and insisted the money order had been planted at the records center (but without the "bank stamps" that are the big red flags for CTers?). So now we were off to the races. I did extensive research as to how postal money orders worked and thought I had pretty well resolved the issue. But NOOOOO ... Lawyer Sandy (I think he was some sort of engineer) did his own legal research, which was completely flawed, and not only announced victory but declared it one of his greatest triumphs.

Suffice it to say, my previous AWE was long gone. I probably should have quit right there. I did realize, however, that busting CT factoids could be kind of fun in small doses. As Steve has pointed out, however, it's completely exhausting - I must have 15 hours in this Boggs nonsense alone - and entirely futile. In fact, when I joined here I was in the process of writing the DEFINITIVE expose of the money order silliness, tracing the evolution of the money order system back to the 1800s. Poor Sandy had simply worked himself into total confusion, as non-lawyers tend to do when faced with statutes and regulations. But that project became so absurdly long and time-consuming that I deleted it, too, and decided I'd let Sandy have his little victory.

Seldom have I had one as much fun as this Boggs stuff, I must say.

I was the one who found the uncashed US Postal money order. I posted here in these forums. I think that it was David Von Pein who then posted it on the ED Forum.



In looking through my doc file on your ED forum posts, I see that it has DiEugenio's plural version of Moe Green's remark from The Godfather. It was addressed to you. It was basically "Do you know who we are? 

[Lance Payette]

On it goes ...

John Simkin, founder of the Ed Forum, whom I once considered rational only because I knew absolutely nothing about him and his photo looked sort of rational, posted TODAY, a mere 5 HOURS AGO, his apparent final word on the Boggs case.

He repeats the factoids from Boggs' speech in April of 1971. Boggs did NOT say "the [FBI] files consisted of information on seven persons who had written critically of the Warren Commission's findings." He said ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the Warren Commission. Boggs did NOT "accuse J. Edgar Hoover of being 'incompetent and senile'." READ THE SPEECH. BOGGS ABSOLUTELY DID NOT SAY THIS.

He repeats the "Los Angeles Star reported" factoid. Someone needs to send Simkin some of my images of the LA Star, doncha think?

He repeats the "startling revelations" factoid and attributes it to Boggs rather than an unnamed former aide.

He introduces a factoid about journalist Ron Kessler, Boggs' son, the Warren Commission, yada yada. What is the source of this factoid, you ask? You got it: BERNIE FENSTERWALD'S BOOK, Coincidence or Conspiracy! I will admit, I didn't spend hours attempting to bust this factoid, but a brief search revealed nothing to support it. Perhaps I will turn the tables and challenge you CTers to verify it - somewhere, anywhere, other than a CT source.

He says he listened to the entire "Missing in Alaska" podcast of Jon Walczak. Nevertheless, he repeatedly refers to Walczak as Walzack and Pegge Begich as Peggy. Some of what he says is accurate and some is not, but I'll let it go.

I won't beat this to death. CTers, your gods have feet of clay. They cannot be trusted, simple as that. They weave factoids until their readers are cross-eyed, entirely without regard to whether those factoids have been thoroughly busted. And, as we once again see here, what starts out as dubious factoid in a dubious source ends up being repeated 400 times and ending up as conspiracy gospel 50 years later.