JFK News and Updates - JFK Lancer Blog

The Death of Yuri Nosenko

noreply@blogger.com (T.) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:33:00 +0000

Yuri Nosenko, a former KGB official and defector to the United States has died. Nosenko claimed to have handled the file of Lee Harvey Oswald for the KGB and said the KGB never took an interest in Oswald. Nosenko's story was treated skeptically at CIA and they ordered him kept in confinement where he was subjected to hostile interrogation methods. Nosenko said he was tortured and given LSD at one point.
From the Associated Press:
Ex-KGB spy, CIA's `most valuable defector,' dies
By PAMELA HESS – 11 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — A KGB spy who switched allegiances at the height of the Cold War and was considered by the CIA as its "most valuable and economical defector" has died.
Yuri Ivanovich Nosenko defected in Switzerland in 1964. Confined to a safe house in Clinton, Md., the former Soviet spy was interrogated for about four months in 1965 until transferred to a specially constructed jail because he was suspected of being a double agent, according to decades-old CIA documents released last year. He was held until October 1967, then resettled under an assumed identity.
"While I regret my three years of incarceration, I have no bitterness and now understand how it could happen," he said, according to the documents.
The 81-year-old Nosenko died Saturday, a month after the CIA delivered to his home a ceremonial flag and a letter of thanks from the agency's director, Michael Hayden, honoring his service to the United States, according to intelligence officials.
The CIA considered him the "most valuable and economical defector this agency has ever had," the long-held documents said, noting his information resulted in the arrest and prosecution of spies.
The CIA put Nosenko under a polygraph in 1964, 1966 and 1968 about Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's possible ties to the KGB. Nosenko told his interrogators that Oswald was not a KGB operative, according to a 1979 report to Congress.
Nosenko's death after a long illness was first reported in Wednesday's Washington Post, which said he lived in a Southern state."

T.

JFK Researchers Receive Prestigious Award

noreply@blogger.com (T.) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 21:34:00 +0000

Researchers at Texas A&M University that did careful scientific work to debunk previous analysis of the bullets used in the murder of John F. Kennedy were granted the 2008 Statistics in Chemistry Award by the American Statisitical Association. Dr. Cliff Spiegelman and Dr. Simon J. Sheather, professors of statistics in the Texas A&M Department of Statistics, and Dr. William D. James, a research chemist with the Texas A&M Center for Chemical Characterization and Analysis published their work in 2007. Using new compositional analysis techniques that were not available in the 1960's they concluded that the bullet fragments used in the murder were not at all as rare as previously concluded. Their work cast serious doubt on the Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) relied on by the House Assassinations Committee under its chief counsel, Robert Blakey. In light of the new study Blakey now refers to the NAA analysis as "junk science".
Also sharing in the award for their roles in the joint project: William A. Tobin, former Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI ) agent and forensic scientist; D. Max Roundhill, former head of the Department of Chemistry at Washington State University and a current consultant with Austin-based Chem Consulting; and Stuart Wexler, a humanities and advanced placement government instructor at Highstown High School in New Jersey.

See: http://media-newswire.com/release_1071753.html

For more background on the study see:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/16/AR2007051601967.html

T.

Chris Columbus to direct new film on RFK

noreply@blogger.com (T.) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 02:22:00 +0000

Chris Columbus, director as well as producer of two "Harry Potter" films and many others, has acquired the rights to Thurston Clarke's "The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days that Inspired America". Clarke's book is a New York Times bestseller and Columbus will adapt it for the screen and also serve as director for the project.

From Variety, Aug. 10, 2008:

In his first deal since forming a first-look alliance with India-based Reliance Big Entertainment, Columbus and his 1492 Prods. have acquired screen rights to the Thurston Clarke book "The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America."
Columbus will produce with 1492 partners Michael Barnathan and Mark Radcliffe. Columbus will write the script solo or invite another scribe to work with him. That choice will depend on his availability, as Columbus is currently finalizing a directing project for early next year.
Kennedy's idealistic campaign, which focused squarely on poverty, racism and ending the unpopular Vietnam War, resonated with Columbus and his 1492 partners. While losing his iconic brother made him wary of crowds, Kennedy refused to insulate himself from the public during his run.
"Chris was inspired by the fearlessness Robert showed in those 82 days," Barnathan said.

See: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117990332.html?categoryid=13&cs=1&nid=2562

FBI files released to Washington Post; Gerald Ford served as spy for Hoover on Warren Commission

noreply@blogger.com (T.) — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 00:04:00 +0000

It has long been known that Gerald Ford functioned as a spy for J. Edgar Hoover on the Warren Commission. But today's Washington Post has an "exclusive" story which includes new details on how Ford not only spied for Hoover, but also actively worked to manipulate other Warren Commission members into believing that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. In times past, Ford stoutly denied that he operated in such a way for Hoover and tried to suggest that previously released FBI documents were just a result of FBI official Cartha DeLoach trying to "puff" his own reputation. Today's documents give the lie to the late president's previous denials. Ford's reputation has already suffered considerably in recent years, such as in 2001 when documents were released which showed both he and Henry Kissinger aided and abetted Indonesia's 1975 attack on East Timor, which resulted in 25 years of slaughter in that country. (See: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB62/index.html) By arming Indonesia for this purpose Ford and Kissinger plainly violated U.S. law which does not allow arms to be sold to any country except for defensive purposes. The revelations in today's Post will further besmirch his reputation as it leaves no doubt his work on the Commission was tarnished by an all too cozy relationship with the FBI. This too casts a shadow over the independence of the Warren Commission itself. Ford sought from the beginning to paint Oswald as a lone assassin as Hoover wanted.
From the article:
"A December 1963 memo recounts that Ford, then a Republican congressman from Michigan, told FBI Assistant Director Cartha D. "Deke" DeLoach that two members of the seven-person commission remained unconvinced that Kennedy had been shot from the sixth-floor window of the Texas Book Depository. In addition, three commission members "failed to understand" the trajectory of the slugs, Ford said.
Ford told DeLoach that commission discussions would continue and reassured him that those minority points of view on the commission "of course would represent no problem," one internal FBI memo shows. The memo does not name the members involved and does not elaborate on what Ford meant by "no problem."
Ford also told DeLoach that Chief Justice Earl Warren, who headed the commission, had told its members that "they should strive to have their hearings completed and the findings made public prior to July, 1964, when the Presidential campaigns will begin to get hot. He stated it would be unfair to present the findings after July." They missed their deadline, concluding in a report issued Sept. 24, 1964, that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination. "

See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/07/AR2008080702757.html

T.

Dallas D.A.'s Reputation Sinks Amid Reversals: New D.A. blames "cowboy" mentality; 19 convictions overturned..

noreply@blogger.com (T.) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:29:00 +0000

The reputation of Dallas D.A. Henry Wade who gathered evidence against Lee Harvey Oswald and also prosecuted Jack Ruby is under assault. The Associated Press reports tonight that 19 of Wade's convictions have been overturned by DNA evidence; and 250 more of his cases are under review: No other county in America — and almost no state, for that matter — has freed more innocent people from prison in recent years than Dallas County, where Wade was DA from 1951 through 1986. Current District Attorney Craig Watkins, who in 2006 became the first black elected chief prosecutor in any Texas county, said that more wrongly convicted people will go free.
"There was a cowboy kind of mentality and the reality is that kind of approach is archaic, racist, elitist and arrogant," said Watkins, who is 40 and never worked for Wade or met him. "

The new DA and other Wade detractors say the cases won under Wade were riddled with shoddy investigations, evidence was ignored and defense lawyers were kept in the dark. They note that the promotion system under Wade rewarded prosecutors for high conviction rates.
In the case of James Lee Woodard — released in April after 27 years in prison for a murder DNA showed he didn't commit — Wade's office withheld from defense attorneys photographs of tire tracks at the crime scene that didn't match Woodard's car.
"Now in hindsight, we're finding lots of places where detectives in those cases, they kind of trimmed the corners to just get the case done," said Michelle Moore, a Dallas County public defender and president of the Innocence Project of Texas. "Whether that's the fault of the detectives or the DA's, I don't know."
John Stickels, a University of Texas at Arlington criminology professor and a director of the Innocence Project of Texas, blames a culture of "win at all costs."
"When someone was arrested, it was assumed they were guilty," he said. "I think prosecutors and investigators basically ignored all evidence to the contrary and decided they were going to convict these guys."

Read the full story here: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hYTWVc0ujswSRFycyBOqB-ATyd3QD927LK980

Caroline Kennedy Helps Obama Select VP

noreply@blogger.com (Debra Conway) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:17:00 +0000

Video from ABC News

WATCH: Caroline Kennedy to Choose VP?

New suit seeks FBI papers withheld from Congress

noreply@blogger.com (T.) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:57:00 +0000

Carlos Marcello (1910-1993)

Gregory Scarpa (1928-1994)

A new suit is being filed seeking information from the FBI concerning longtime New Orleans crime boss Carlos Marcello, who died in 1993. This information was previously withheld from Congress during their investigation of the murder of JFK. It seems as if the FBI is also in violation of the JFK Records Act as all material relevant to the assassination of John F. Kennedy was to have been released to the JFK Review Board in the 1990's. Here are some excerpts from the Times' story:

"The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Washington by the paralegal, Angela Clemente, asks the Federal Bureau of Investigation to make public any documents it may still hold related to the mobster, Gregory Scarpa Sr., who for nearly 30 years led a stunning double life as a hit man for the Colombo crime family and, in the words of the F.B.I, a “top echelon” informant for the bureau....In her suit, Ms. Clemente asked the bureau to release all papers connected to Mr. Scarpa (who died of AIDS in 1994 after receiving a blood transfusion), especially those related to Carlos Marcello, a New Orleans don suspected by some of having played a role in the Kennedy assassination on Nov. 22, 1963.
Ms. Clemente filed a Freedom of Information Act request for Mr. Scarpa’s file in April, and the F.B.I. acknowledged her request in a letter on June 9, saying that bureau officials would search their records for relevant papers. Ms. Clemente’s lawyer, James Lesar, said that the F.B.I. had not yet told her if it would release the file or not, but that under federal law, a lawsuit can be filed compelling the release of records 20 working days after such a letter is received....

In pursuing the Scarpa file and its potential to flesh out Mr. Marcello’s possible role in the Kennedy killing, Ms. Clemente is following a trail blazed in part by G. Robert Blakey, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame who also served as the chief counsel and staff director to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which from 1977 to 1979 investigated the killings of President Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
While the Warren Commission said there was no link between Mr. Marcello and the president’s death, Mr. Blakey’s report to the House was considerably more circumspect, saying the F.B.I.’s “handling of the allegations and information about Marcello was characterized by a less than vigorous effort to investigate its reliability.”
Ms. Clemente is in possession of several heavily redacted papers from the Scarpa file, which suggest, however vaguely, she said, that Mr. Scarpa, who spied on numerous gangsters for the F.B.I., may also have spied on Mr. Marcello.
Professor Blakey, reached by phone at his office at Notre Dame on Monday, said he had seen the papers, adding that no matter what the unredacted versions might eventually reveal, he was convinced that he should have seen them 30 years ago, while conducting his Congressional investigation.
“The issue here is not what’s in them,” Professor Blakey said, “so much as that they seem to have held them back from me. I thought I had the bureau file on Marcello — now it turns out I didn’t, did I? So I’m not a small, I’m a major, supporter of what Angela is trying to do.”

Link to article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/nyregion/22docs.html?ref=nyregion

This is the second time in a year that the FBI has suffered a major embarassment as a result of its relationship with Gregory "The Grim Reaper" Scarpa. In October of 2007 the Brooklyn D.A. dropped murder charges against a former FBI agent when it was learned that a mob moll had given contradictory testimony against the agent's involvement in Mafia hits. But the presiding judge blasted the FBI for its complete lack of ethics in its relationship with Scarpa.

""I was particularly struck by the testimony of Carmine Sessa, former Consigliere of the Colombo family and multiple murderer, and who testified that when he and his fellow mobsters were discussing the possibility that Greg Scarpa was an FBI informant, they ultimately discounted the idea, reasoning that it was impossible...that it would be antinomic for the FBI, charged with fighting crime, to employ as an informer a murderer as vicious and prolific as Greg Scarpa. Apparently, and sadly, organized crime attributed to the FBI a greater sense of probity than the FBI in fact possessed," wrote State Supreme Court Justice Gustin Reichbach.

"Not only did the FBI shield Scarpa from prosecution for his own crimes, they also actively recruited him to participate in crimes under their direction. That a thug like Scarpa would be employed by the federal government to beat witnesses and threaten them at gunpoint to obtain information regarding the deaths of civil rights workers in the south in the early 1960s is a shocking demonstration of the government's unacceptable willingness to employ criminality to fight crime. It is redolent of the current mindset of some in the government who argue that the practice of terror and torture can be freely employed against those the government claims are terrorists themselves: that it is permissible to make men scream in the name of national security. These are shortcuts that devalue legitimate police work, their yield is insignificant and the cost to the fundamental values they debase is enormous."

Link: http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/11/judge-in-aborte.html

Eyeball to Eyeball? A Myth of the Cuban Missile Crisis

noreply@blogger.com (T.) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:20:00 +0000

Michael Dobbs new book on the Cuban Missile Crisis (One Minute to Midnight) debunks a number of myths that were spawned about the affair. Dobbs has benefited from the declassification of both Russian and American files. "Thirteen Days" (Robert F. Kennedy's book on the crisis) told the story of a close confrontation between U.S. and Soviet vessels which in fact never took place. Secretary of State Dean Rusk had described the moment as an "eyeball to eyeball" encounter on the morning of October 24, 1962 but it didn't happen. Several other books on the crisis and films have also portrayed a dramatic showdown involving the ships of both sides. Russian documents show that Khrushchev in fact had ordered Soviet vessels to turn back 24 hours before. CIA and Pentagon analysts later reconstructed the actual positions of the American and Soviet vessels which agreed with Russian accounts. Nonetheless, RFK was correct in describing the mood at the White House on that day as tense, as the President and his cabinet still believed the Soviet vessels were on course to a confrontation. But the newly available material on the ships' positions shows the Russian ships were 500 nautical miles from the American ships. Another development which caused concern at the Kennedy White House was the presence of a Soviet submarine near the blockade line, commanded by Captain Nikolai Shumkov. Early on October 24, the Russians were warned of American intentions to force Soviet subs to surface by dropping practice depth charges. However, the information was never passed onto Shumkov and his men who suddenly heard depth charges exploding around their sub. This was another tense moment which might have escalated into something far worse had not Shumkov decided to surface rather than firing back at American ships.

Interested readers will find more details at the National Security Archive website:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/dobbs/index.htm

New documentary on murder of JFK

noreply@blogger.com (T.) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:43:00 +0000

A new documentary on the asssassination of John F. Kennedy has just been released. "Frame 313: The JFK Assassination Theories presents the various theories behind the murder and leaves the audience to make up their own minds.

“One thing we’re very proud of is that we don’t have an angle. We present evidence that supports multiple arguments and leave it up to the audience to decide who was behind the murder,” said Andersen, executive producer at Sundown Entertainment in Westmont. “It’s the first complete, objective overview of the most controversial, unresolved murder case in U.S. history.”

Interested readers will find more here: http://www.norwichbulletin.com/entertainment/x222991600/JFK-assassination-documentary-analyzes-conspiracy-theories

One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy vs. Khrushchev; More Terrible than We Thought

noreply@blogger.com (T.) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 00:04:00 +0000

It has become a truism in recent years for us to think that we know all the highpoints of the 1962 confrontation we refer to as the Cuban Missile Crisis. Many books have been written about it, and more than one movie has been made about it. But the history of recent times is still being written piecemeal as documents are slowly declassified by both the U.S. government and the Russian Republic. The latest author to take on the subject is Michael Dobbs, and he has benefited from recent disclosures. The most startling development is that it is now known that the Soviet Union had nuclear cruise missiles on Cuba that were aimed at Guantanomo Bay, the American naval base. These missiles each carried the destructive force of the nuclear bomb which destroyed Hiroshima. It was Khrushchev's intention to use them to wipe out Guantanamo Bay in the event of an American invasion. In a meeting at the Kremlin, Khrushchev had warned William Knox the head of Westinghouse that if the Americans attacked Cuba, Russians and Americans would "meet in hell." He made it quite clear that the American base in Cuba would "disappear" in the event of an invasion by the U.S. This was dismissed as "bluster" at the Kennedy White House, but in fact the Russians were deadly serious and the USA had no idea of what we were facing. The U.S. believed the cruise missiles were "unidentified artillery" and remained unaware they were in fact nuclear weapons. They were targeted on Guantanomo Bay on the very day the joint chiefs of staff urged an all out invasion of Cuba. Had Kennedy not shown restraint, the American base would have been wiped out, and a nuclear war would have been all but unavoidable. Rather than a superlative example of crisis management, the confrontation of 1962 now appears as an event in which the USA operated somewhat blindly, without vital information. However, John F. Kennedy's restraint now seems all the more important, without a doubt his refusal to invade Cuba saved mankind from a dreadful holocaust in which there would have been no victors, only the vanquished living in radioactive rubble. Those who survived a nuclear exchange would have envied the dead. The president himself had once said in a nuclear war "the fruits of victory will be ashes in our mouth." His words are more chilling and more true than he could have ever known. John Kennedy did not have the satisfaction of knowing how narrowly we avoided nuclear annihilation, it was even worse than he imagined. Those in the military such as Curtis LeMay who bitterly protested the peaceful outcome of the crisis should have been grateful that their Commander in Chief was JFK. Thanks to him, they would continue to see the sunrise, as would hundreds of millions of others. In 1961 the joint chiefs had pressed Kennedy for a nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union. The president resisted, and commented "if I give in to what they ask, none of us will be here to tell them they were wrong". At the United Nations Kennedy had warned "Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us." America has had many tomorrows since 1962, and it seems we can look forward to more. More than ever, we should be grateful that John F. Kennedy was at the helm in 1962, or there would have been no tomorrow for almost the entire world.

40 Years Ago...America Remembers Robert Francis Kennedy

noreply@blogger.com (T.) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 23:14:00 +0000

From the New York Times, Friday June 6, 2008 :

"In his brief but extraordinary political career, the 42-year-old, Massachusetts-born Robert Francis Kennedy was Attorney General of the United States under two Presidents and Senator from New York. In those high offices he exerted an enormous influence on the nation's domestic and foreign affairs, first as the closest confidant of his brother, President John F. Kennedy, and then, after Mr. Kennedy's assassination in 1963, as the immediate heir to his New Frontier policies.
Despite the deep grief he felt after his brother's assassination, Mr. Kennedy set out to replan his political life. He ran for the Senate from New York in 1964 and defeated his Republican opponent by 800,000 votes in a campaign that demonstrated the visceral appeal he had for voters.
Mr. Kennedy, who entered the 1968 presidential race only after the New Hampshire primary demonstrated voter frustration with the Vietnam war, won primaries in Indiana, Nebraska and California.
It was in the early morning hours after his California win that Mr. Kennedy was shot in a kitchen corridor outside the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, where he had just made his victory speech. He died the next day, June 6, 1968."

Forty years after the murder of Robert F. Kennedy, America still remembers him. His presence and that of his brother seem to have hovered over the campaign of 2008. Early on, almost every candidate running in both parties tried to compare themselves favorably to John F. Kennedy. This only proved the high esteem the American public still have for John F. Kennedy. The politicians know it, and are quick to try and capitalize on it for themselves. Four times since March Hillary Clinton made public (and inadvisable) comments on the murder of Robert Kennedy and how it transformed the 1968 race for the presidency. While pundits argue endlessly over the meaning of Mrs. Clinton's remarks and her intentions, it merely underscored the fact that the abiding spirit of the Kennedy brothers endures and is on the minds of many .The brothers who called America to be better than itself, "to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield". The presence of the two Kennedy brothers, both now dead for over four decades seems to cling to America's soul much more tangibly than "Oswald's ghost", the subject of a recent documentary. America still yearns for what might have been, as if the intervening years have been little more than a dark night of the national soul. Almost two generations have come since John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas, and yet many who never saw him, and never heard his speeches still hold him in high regard. Robert Kennedy is also held in a very positive light, and this transcends ideology and political party. The building which houses the U.S. Department of Justice is now named after Robert F. Kennedy, and it was a Republican president and his conservative attorney general John Ashcroft who renamed it in his honor. As Ethel Kennedy and his surviving children looked on a Republican president said this of Robert Kennedy in 2001:

"He was not our longest-serving Attorney General; yet none is more fondly remembered. And few have filled their time here with so much energy or seen events of such consequence. He was at his brother's side during the 13 days in October, 1962, where he was firm, and discerning, and calm.
In this building, he set to work on what would become The Civil Rights Act of 1964. Here, he gave the orders sending 500 U.S. Marshals to protect the Freedom Riders. He stood for racial desegregation. And to those on the other side of the issue, he said this: "My belief doesn't matter. It's the law. Some of you may believe the decision was wrong. That doesn't matter. It is the law"......With us today are some of the people who worked for our 64th Attorney General, each of whom counts it as an experience of a lifetime. They still look up to him. Time has done nothing to weaken their loyalty to the valiant and idealistic man they knew and followed. Robert Kennedy was a serious man, concerned with serious things. And he loved his friends. He was a strong man who understood weakness, a man who knew privilege, but also suffering. He fought to gain power, chose to use it in the defense of the powerless."

RFK remains a misunderstood man to this day. Some conservatives and others view him as a "limousine liberal" who believed in easy handouts and welfare. In fact, he campaigned against welfare in 1968, insisting that work must be substituted for welfare. He knew well that welfare could be a destructive force, but that work restored human dignity.

Barry Goldwater, the lion of American conservatism, was also charmed by RFK though not at first. At first Goldwater saw him as a spoiled rich kid who had not done much on his own. But then he watched Kennedy and his phenomenal work ethic as he pursued a battle against organized crime and its influence in labor unions. The two men became acquainted when RFK went to work for the McClellan committee. Goldwater was filled with admiration as Kennedy began working day and night in the struggle, driving himself as hard as he drove any of his staff. Pierre Salinger later recalled one night in particular as he and Bobby finally left the office at 1 a.m. and both were very weary. But as they passed the headquarters of the Teamsters Union, Bobby saw that the lights were still on in Jimmy Hoffa's office. "If he's still at work, then we ought to be" Bobby declared and so they returned and worked for two more hours. While some called him ruthless, an opportunist, and other names, one cannot deny his selfless dedication which showed forth brightly in 1968, his last campaign, and his last battle. Killed at the pinnacle of victory in the California primary, his funeral was held at St. Patrick's cathedral in New York City. And then began a long slow train ride as his body was carried across America to Washington D.C. Ordinary people of every kind and every color stood in silent tribute as the train rolled by. Paul Fusco, a photographer captured many of them from his perch on the train. Fusco recalled: " Three women are seated at the edge of a crowded platform, two of them holding small babies in their arms . Behind them two others reach out toward the train. A black woman kneels on the dirt, a white purse hanging from her arm, her hands locked in prayer.
A small boy holds his hands flat against the pockets of his shorts.
A woman in dark glasses bites her fingers.
A man on crutches waves one crutch high in the air.
An older woman holds a handkerchief over her mouth.
A mother holds the hands of two children; one of them holds the hand of a third.
Three teenagers salute.
A white-haired man waves his straw hat in farewell.
Some hands hold American flags; others hold wildflowers.
An old man clutches his throat, and some people fold their arms, hiding their hands as if for protection.
A man and a woman wave a big hand-lettered sign: SO-LONG BOBBY.
The train moves on, along the worn silver rails.
So long. So long. So long."

The one they called ruthless had campaigned for love in 1968, and had stated his goal "to make gentle the life of this world". His death was brutal, and provoked a controversy that rages to this day, not unlike the one that still burns over the murder of his brother. While we still seek solutions to these crimes, we also still remember two men from an extraordinary time of turmoil and tension in American politics. And a country that still remembers and longs for a piece of itself, still missing and still missed after so many years.

CNN remembers the funeral train: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/06/06/rfk.something.happening.here.cnn

Youtube has many nice video tributes, here's one that I like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr684EgCORQ#sIHl5uSlIGs

Caroline Kennedy to Assist Search for Obama's VP

noreply@blogger.com (T.) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 22:07:00 +0000

New Evidence of JFK's Vietnam Withdrawal Plans

noreply@blogger.com (T.) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 19:16:00 +0000

Due to an appeal by researcher Michael Ravnitzky, the National Security Agency (in cooperation with other agencies) has declassified some previously redacted passages from a document originally released in December 2007. That document was called "Spartans in Darkness: American SIGINT and the Indochina War 1945-1975" and covered the results of signal intelligence gathered in Vietnam during the time period specified. "Sigint" is of course an abbreviation or acronym if you prefer for signal intelligence, which simply means intelligence gathered by intercepting radio transmissions between people or between machines. While much of the material released today seems of little importance one particular passage will catch the interest of those who study John F. Kennedy's Vietnam policy. The release of previous documents have outlined Kennedy's withdrawal plans, leaving little doubt he was seeking a way out. Today's release spells out in unmistakable terms that this was indeed the case and that his assassination effectively terminated those plans. The passage :
“With the deaths of Kennedy and Diem, the struggle in the South entered a period of enormous flux and instability. A plan developed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, under guidance from the Kennedy administration, to reduce American forces in Vietnam by the end of 1965 to one-quarter the 1963 level (25,000), was quietly scrapped.” (p. 171).
On November 24, 1963 new president Lyndon Johnson stated his intention to "win the war" in a meeting with his advisors. Johnson stated: " the battle against communism… must be joined… with strength and determination. We should stop playing cops and robbers [a reference to Diem's failed leadership] and get back to... winning the war... tell the generals in Saigon that Lyndon Johnson intends to stand by our word...[to] win the contest against the externally directed and supported Communist conspiracy." (p.339 Stanley Karnow's "Vietnam") Almost immediately upon assuming the presidency Johnson commits the USA to war in Vietnam.
As McGeorge Bundy would comment later in life "Johnson held stronger views on the war than Kennedy did". The figure of 25,000 is a little curious as in fact the USA had about 16,000 troops acting as military advisers in Vietnam in 1963 at Kennedy's death. I think it must include other Americans as well, such as CIA personnel and others, so that it was Kennedy's intention that there be no more than approximately 6000 Americans in Vietnam by the end of 1965.
One has to wonder just why this passage was redacted in the first place. What this means is that as recently as December 2007 the release of such a passage was considered a threat to the national security of the United States! Those of us who are reading it now have to be more than skeptical of such a claim. Congratulations are due to Mr. Ravnitzky in pursuing his appeal. Mr. Ravnitzky is one of the most indefatigible researchers in filing FOIA requests and has succeeded now in over 2000 of them. He has compiled an index of FBI documents which is unique. It gathers together thousands of FBI documents and provides researchers with a powerful tool to read and obtain significant documents. It is not a comprehensive index of FBI documents but rather collects ones that Mr. Ravnitzky considers the most significant. He also provides practical advice for any researcher pursuing FOIA requests. Interested readers will find more information here: http://www.newstrench.com/01secret/01secret.htm#mikerav
While "Spartans in Darkness" provides a useful historical perspective, it seems in error on some points. For example it describes Kennedy's withdrawal plan as an attempt to pressure President Diem into making reforms. In fact, JFK himself made it quite clear that his withdrawal plan was just that, a withdrawal plan. General Maxwell Taylor suggested using the threat of withdrawal as a device to pressure Diem, but it was made to clear to Taylor and all concerned that the president's intention to withdraw was serious. See "JFK and Vietnam" by John M. Newman, pp. 400-417.

T.

New Canadian Film Focuses on Mafia Connection to JFK's Murder

noreply@blogger.com (T.) — Sat, 17 May 2008 13:12:00 +0000

"Le Piege Americain", (The American Trap) a new Canadian film sheds light on the life and career of Lucien Rivard, a Montreal mobster who was involved with Santos Trafficante, the Florida mafioso and others. Rivard was active in the heroin operations of the Corsican mafia in Cuba until he was expelled by Castro. He may be a person of interest in the assassination of President Kennedy but information is sketchy. The cast of characters includes CIA agents; a "Maurice Bishop" is depicted. Here's a brief synopsis: " It is the mid-1960s. The Cold War is raging. The world is still reeling from the assassination of JFK - but has yet to lose his kid brother Bobby. In the midst of all this, a reluctant hero by the name of Lucien Rivard becomes enmeshed in a web of global political intrigue and corruption. The United States, Russia and France are embroiled in a strategic battle over Third World natural resources. To keep the upper hand, each of their secret services has joined forces with various organized crime factions. Lucien is the go-between, travelling to the casinos of Havana, the night clubs of Dallas, the seedy heroin labs of Marseille, the tropical jungles of Indonesia and the urban jungles of New Orleans and Montreal. As tensions heat up, he becomes a secret weapon for a black ops organization over which he has no control - and an unwitting protagonist as a tragic chain of events begins to unfold before his very eyes"

Why the synopsis describes him as a "hero" is beyond me.

The real Rivard had been involved in drug trafficking in Canada since the 1940's and was eventually captured in France. He made a dramatic prison escape in 1965 (while awaiting extradition in Bordeaux) and wrote a letter while at large to Prime Minister Lester Pearson which led to allegations of his involvement with Canadian government officials. The scandal provoked the resignation of Canada's attorney general Guy Favreau and led to the rise of Pierre Trudeau who eventually became prime minister. Rivard was extradited to the USA through the efforts of Robert F. Kennedy and was tried for heroin trafficking in Houston Texas and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He was paroled in 1975 and returned to Montreal where some say he continued to direct a criminal empire until his death in 2002 at age 86.

The official site of the film is here: http://www.theamericantrap.com/en-ca/home.html

Theodore Sorensen Writes New Book on JFK

noreply@blogger.com (T.) — Wed, 07 May 2008 10:23:00 +0000

Theodore Sorensen, speech writer and advisor to John F. Kennedy has released a new book on the president he served and admired.

From the publisher's website:

"In this gripping memoir, John F. Kennedy's closest advisor recounts in full for the first time his experience counseling Kennedy through the most dramatic moments in American history.
Sorensen returns to January 1953, when he and the freshman senator from Massachusetts began their extraordinary professional and personal relationship. Rising from legislative assistant to speechwriter and advisor, the young lawyer from Nebraska worked closely with JFK on his most important speeches, as well as his book Profiles in Courage. Sorensen encouraged the junior senator's political ambitions—from a failed bid for the vice presidential nomination in 1956 to the successful presidential campaign in 1960, after which he was named Special Counsel to the President.
Sorensen describes in thrilling detail his experience advising JFK during some of the most crucial days of his presidency, from the decision to go to the moon to the Cuban Missile Crisis, when JFK requested that the thirty-four-year-old Sorensen draft the key letter to Khrushchev at the most critical point of the world's first nuclear confrontation. After Kennedy was assassinated, Sorensen stayed with President Johnson for a few months before leaving to write a biography of JFK. In 1968 he returned to Washington to help run Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign. Through it all, Sorensen never lost sight of the ideals that brought him to Washington and to the White House, working tirelessly to promote and defend free, peaceful societies.
Illuminating, revelatory, and utterly compelling, Counselor is the brilliant, long-awaited memoir from the remarkable man who shaped the presidency and the legacy of one of the greatest leaders America has ever known."

Walter Isaacson : "This is an important book, and it’s also a poignant one. As Jackie Kennedy once said of a speech that Ted Sorensen gave about her husband, it captures not only the soul of John Kennedy but also the soul of Sorensen. This clear-eyed but loving memoir is fascinating."

Robert A. Caro : "Ted Sorensen’s Counselor is that rare gift to history: an account of mighty events by a participant who stood at their heart, and a writer masterful enough to make us understand them as well."

"RFK" selected as Gala Opening Night Feature

noreply@blogger.com (Debra Conway) — Sun, 04 May 2008 17:45:00 +0000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

"RFK" selected as Gala Opening Night Feature at Seattle Independent Film Festival; Festival screening marks the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Robert Kennedy

May 5, 2008

The new independent documentary feature film by Director Mark Sobel, "RFK," has been selected to be the spotlight opening night presentation at the Seattle Independent Film Festival on June 6. This is of particular note, since the start of the 40th anniversary-year of the tragic assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy coincides the day before on June 5.

On June 5, 1968 in the early moments of the morning, Senator Robert F. Kennedy was brutally gunned down in the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after winning the California Democratic primary in his bid for the Presidency in the 1968 election. Kennedy was running on an anti-war platform that was in opposition to the official position of his own party and Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, his rival for the nomination. Because of the unelected super-delegates already pledged to the Vice-President as a result of his incumbency, Humphrey was seemingly assured of the nomination until Kennedy entered the race and promised a fight from the floor to amend Democratic Convention rules to allow pledged delegates to vote for, what they perceive to be, "the will of the people." Kennedy, riding a wave of political victories in his late entry into the race, told the cheering crowd at the Ambassador in his midnight victory address that change would only come about if the super-delegates at the upcoming Democratic convention in Chicago that summer were freed from their pledge to Humphrey on the first ballot and be allowed instead to vote their conscience. The historic battle that was brewing for the convention nomination was cut short by an assassin's bullets at 12:15 a.m. as the Senator greeted-well wishers among the hotel staff in the kitchen pantry as he headed for a press conference. 4 shots struck the Senator, one passing harmlessly through his jacket, two non-fatal shots entering under his armpit, and a fatal shot that entered at the rear of his skull just behind the right ear. He was pronounced dead almost 26 hours later, practically 2 months to the day after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.

In his 1968 campaign bid, Kennedy often repeated that "the American People want no more Vietnams" and that the American people needed "honesty and accountability from their elected leaders, and from the President of the United States;" words that clearly parallel today's Presidential race more closely than at any other time in the 40 years since the Senator's death.

"RFK" is not a conspiracy film, nor a tabloid-style "who-done-it," but rather the first contemporary documentary feature to present a detailed historical account of the night of June 4-5, 1968, of the subsequent trial of Sirhan Sirhan, and the 40 year aftermath that the assassination had on the lives of those who were present that night as part of the group of friends and associates encircling him at the moment of the fatal shooting. The film also presents to the American theatrical film-going public for the first time the long-vaulted hypnosis recordings of Sirhan Sirhan as he undergoes time-regression hypnosis in an effort to jog his amnesia relating to the events of the assassination. For 40 years Sirhan has continued to maintain that he cannot recall shooting the Senator, has no memory of planning the assassination, nor of writing the bizarre statements in his journal, such as "Robert Kenney must be assassinated before 5 June 68." At the 1969 trial, the defense admitted that Sirhan committed the crime, but sought reduced charges maintaining that he was acting at a reduced mental capacity at the time of the shooting. In testimony that created a sensation the world over, the defense psychiatrist argued that hypnosis sessions performed on Sirhan just prior to the trial convinced him that Sirhan was in a hypnotic trace at the moment of the fatal shooting, and that he had written many of his inflammatory statements in his journal while under a state of hypnosis. The jury rejected the defense arguments.

"RFK," Directed by Sobel, and Produced by Sobel and author/historian William Law, recently won the award for "OUTSTANDING DOCUMENTARY FEATURE" in its World Premiere at the Sacramento International Film Festival this past April. Pantry survivor Vincent Di Pierro appeared at a press conference in Sacramento at the time of the Film Festival, and requested that the California State Legislature place Sirhan Sirhan --- who is now 64 years-old and still in State custody --- back under time-regression hypnosis today, in an effort to discover who Sirhan was in contact with during the months leading up to the assassination, and exactly how the bizarre entries in his diary came to be written by Sirhan, and whether under hypnosis. Given the Defense plea, the 1969 trial had no reason to seek answers to these questions. Di Pierro said that it is still not too late for the 40th anniversary-year of the murder to prove to be "the year of full disclosure" relating to the 4-decade disputed case.

As no other Film Festival screenings are scheduled for "RFK" in the month of June, the Gala Screening of the feature on the opening night of the Seattle Festival is, effectively, its official 40th anniversary public presentation. The feature has not yet been screened by theatrical film distributors. The Festival runs June 6 - 15.

For tickets and more Festival Information, visit: http://trueindependent.org/

All questions regarding "RFK" can be directed to Director Mark Sobel:

(818) 763-5428 CinecanProds@aol.com

"RFK" official website and Electronic Press Kit: http://www.MarkSobel.com

CIA Defies U.S. Court Order on Joannides Files

noreply@blogger.com (T.) — Fri, 02 May 2008 02:33:00 +0000

From Jefferson Morley in the Washington Independent

"Flouting a federal court order, the CIA refused Wednesday to make public long-secret records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. At a federal court hearing in Washington, CIA attorneys declined to provide any records related to the secret operations of a deceased undercover officer named George Joannides whose role in the JFK story has never been explained by the agency. A three-judge appellate court panel ruled in December that the agency had to search its files for records of Joannides' secret operations in 1963, when he served undercover in Miami running "psychological warfare" operations against the government of Fidel Castro. The court also ordered the CIA to explain why 17 reports on Joannides' secret operations in 1962-1964 are missing from the National Archives. The CIA provided no written explanation of its actions during a hearing before Judge Richard Leon. Afterwords, agency attorney John Truong claimed orally that a search of files on Joannides operations found no records responsive to my 2003 Freedom of Information Act request.Truong offered no explanation, written or oral of the missing records, In December, Judge Judith Rogers ruled that the CIA's previous explanation of the 17 missing reports was inadequate. "On remand the CIA must supplement its explanation," she wrote. That has yet to happen, despite the agency promising to comply with the appellate court order by April 30. John Tunheim, a federal judge who chaired the Assassination Records Review Board in the 1990s, said the Joannides files should be made public."Had the Review Board known the truth about George Joannides everything bearing his name would have been made public," Tunheim said in an interview. The ARRB, a civilian review panel created by Congress in the wake of the controversy over Oliver Stone's "JFK," declassified thousands of assassination records between 1994 and 1998Joannides, who died in 1991, is the most curious figure to emerge in the vast JFK literature in recent years. Unbeknownst to investigators, Joannides' propaganda network proved influential in the media reaction to JFK's murder. Declassified CIA records show that he gave $25,000 a month to the leaders of a Cuban student group whose members had a series of encounters with Lee Harvey Oswald in August 1963. When Kennedy was shot dead on a Dallas street three months later, the CIA-funded group made headlines around the world by publicizing Oswald's pro-Castro activities and linking him to the Cuban leader.Joannides' role in enabling that story remained secret for 38 years. His financial support for Oswald's Cuban antagonists was not disclosed to the Warren Commission which investigated Kennedys' death and concluded that Oswald acted alone. In 1978 Joannides was called out of retirement to serve as the Agency's liaison to a congressional committee that reopened the JFK investigation. The Agency did not disclose his role in the events of 1963 to Congress. The story of Joannides' actions did not begin to emerge until 2001 when I published a story in a Miami newspaper. Tunheim said the JFK Records Act of 1992 requires an independent evaluation of the Joannides files. "He was central to the time period, and central to the [JFK] story. There is no question we were mislead on Joannides for a long time," he said. Officials of the National Archives have also sought access to the Joannides files in recent years but have been rebuffed by the Agency.The CIA must explain its actions in writing to Judge Leon by June 11."
See: http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/cia-still-stonewalls

RFK Featured in June "Vanity Fair"

noreply@blogger.com (T.) — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:13:00 +0000

This month's "Vanity Fair" highlights the 1968 campaign for president of Robert F. Kennedy. The article is an excerpt from Thurson Clarke's new book "The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days that Inspired America". Also included are many photographs, some never seen before.

Here's a sample from the article:

"Two months after John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Robert Kennedy traveled to Asia on an itinerary that had originally been planned for J.F.K. During the trip, he visited a girls’ school in the Philippines where the students sang a song they had composed to honor his brother. As he drove away with CBS cameraman Walter Dombrow, he clenched his hands so tightly that they turned white, and tears rolled down his cheeks. He shook his head, signaling that Dombrow should remain silent. Finally he said in a choked voice, “They would have loved my brother.” Dombrow put his arm around him and said, “Bob, you’re going to have to carry on for him.” Kennedy stared straight ahead for half a minute before turning to Dombrow and nodding. It was then, Dombrow said, that he knew Bobby would run for president and realized how much he loved him.
A deep, black grief gripped Robert Kennedy in the months following his brother’s assassination. He lost weight, fell into melancholy silences, wore his brother’s clothes, smoked the cigars his brother had liked, and imitated his mannerisms. Eventually his grief went underground, but it sometimes erupted in geysers of tears, as had happened in the Philippines. He wept after seeing a photograph of his late brother in the office of a former aide, wept when asked to comment on the Warren Commission Report, and wept after eulogizing J.F.K. at the 1964 Democratic convention with a quotation from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: “When he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he shall make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.”

The full article is available online here: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/06/rfk_excerpt200806

Robert Drew Produces New Documentary on JFK

noreply@blogger.com (T.) — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:38:00 +0000

Robert Drew, the maker of four earlier documentaries on John F. Kennedy, has produced a new retrospective on the Kennedy presidency. "A President to Remember: In the Company of John F. Kennedy" will be screened at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 26, at Pace University's Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts. Composed from Mr. Drew’s four acclaimed Kennedy films that represent the birth of the cinéma-vérité movement in America, the new work brings to brilliant life an American President, whose ideals and actions would often stand in stark contrast to those of today’s administration. The breakthrough documentaries, Primary, Adventures on the New Frontier,Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment and Faces of November, are thoughtfully edited together to offer a front-row look at how one man struggled to bring wisdom, honor and integrity to the nation’s top post.“Now, more than ever, it’s important for us to look back at JFK and his legacy and learn what we can as we continue to create American history today,” said Mr. Drew. “I created A President to Remember: In the Company of John F. Kennedy from the realization that young people today have never known what it’s like to have a President who is celebrated both within the country and around the globe.” A President to Remember: In the Company of John F. Kennedy travels in the company of John F. Kennedy from his days as a young Senator campaigning for the Presidency to the tune of “High Hopes” (his campaign theme song); to his early days in the White House; through to his struggles grappling with major issues, from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the desegregation of the University of Alabama, vehemently opposed by Governor George Wallace, who physically barred the entry of the first two African-American students. At the close of the film, the shock and deeply-felt sorrow of Kennedy’s assassination is captured in the faces of his compatriots.
The film notes, “Kennedy conjured visions of a more compassionate America and a more decent world.” Through Mr. Drew’s lens, the President is seen challenging the Soviet Union and its leader, Nikita Khrushchev, to a “peace race,” as he endeavors and ultimately succeeds in drafting and signing a Test Ban Treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons tests by both countries. Kennedy expresses his goal to “make the world safe for diversity” and “lessen the chance of a military collision,” which would potentially endanger the lives of millions of innocent people. In 1960, Mr. Drew revolutionized the art of the documentary with Primary, his first Kennedy film, that moved in lockstep with the rising star of the then Senator as he campaigned against Senator Hubert Humphrey in Wisconsin. Mr. Drew and his associates developed the first sync-sound motion picture cameras small enough to film intimately almost anywhere, effectively compiling a record that Kennedy himself admired as a “new form of history.” As seen in A President to Remember: In the Company of John F. Kennedy, using this new technique made it possible for Mr. Drew and his team to present “a view closer to John F. Kennedy than any President before him, or, it turns out, any President since….”
Kennedy’s decision to permit cameras to candidly record the action taking place within the White House and the inner sanctum of the Oval Office for the first time raised a storm of protest, but resulted in a journalistic breakthrough of historic proportions.
Since 1960, when Mr. Drew formed Drew Associates, his films have captured an impressive range of extraordinary people and remarkable events on film – from race car drivers competing in the Indianapolis 500 to sailors racing Tall Ships across the Atlantic, combat pilots in Vietnam to NASA scientists guiding spacecraft to Mars. With Producer Anne Drew, Mr. Drew extended his candid filmmaking into the arts, as they followed Duke Ellington on the road, and documented the life of Indian Prime Minister Nehru, Prime Minister Indira Gandi and, later, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandi, among many other striking subjects.
Mr. Drew’s more than 60 documentaries have been recognized at film festivals across the globe – from New York and London to Cannes, Venice and Brazil – earning the filmmaker major broadcast awards, including Emmy, Peabody and duPONT-Columbia.

See: http://www.drewassociates.net/Main/pressrelease.html

Virtual JFK: Vietnam if Kennedy Had Lived

noreply@blogger.com (T.) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 03:08:00 +0000

"Filmmaker and scholar Koji Masutani had to look past Cleopatra's nose to get to the heart of what president John F. Kennedy would have done in Vietnam, had he survived an assassin's bullets in 1963.
In Virtual JFK: Vietnam If Kennedy Had Lived, a world premiere at the Hot Docs film festival (April 17-27), Masutani tackles one of the thorniest what-ifs of modern history: would avowed peacemaker Kennedy have ended U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War? Or would he have been forced by circumstances to escalate it the way his successor Lyndon B. Johnson did?
"I would be happy as a filmmaker if I can at least get a viewer to seriously consider that the Vietnam War was a war of choice and was not inevitable," the Tokyo-born Masutani, 26, said in a telephone interview.
A visiting fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies in Rhode Island, Masutani begins his film by rejecting the popular "Cleopatra's nose" theory of speculative history. It was defined by 17th-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal, who wrote that if the Egyptian queen hadn't been a beauty, "the whole face of the world would have been changed" because wars wouldn't have been fought in her name."

View trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqEJnVly8Jc&fmt=18

The official site of the film is here: http://www.virtualjfk.com/

Read about the book and accompanying teacher's guide here: http://www.watsoninstitute.org/project_detail.cfm?id=77

Abraham Bolden Speaks in Newburgh

noreply@blogger.com (T.) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:14:00 +0000

Abraham Bolden, the first black Secret Service agent spoke about his new book "The Echo from Dealey Plaza" at the Newburgh Free Library last week. Appointed to the White House detail by JFK himself, Bolden soon found himself in a world of hostility and blatant racism culminating in his prosecution on trumped up charges when he tried to contact the Warren Commission to assist in their investigation. In a related story the Chicago Tribune has verified Bolden's version of events. See: http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/booksmags/chi-echobw29mar29,1,5617994.story

The Kennedys: America's Emerald Kings

noreply@blogger.com (T.) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 10:52:00 +0000

Debut Slated for April 24 at 8 p.m.
KOCE-TV, Orange County’s trusted PBS source for more than 35 years, today announced plans to present the exclusive premiere of “The Kennedys: America's Emerald Kings,” a two-hour documentary adapted from Thomas Maier’s high-profile book of the same name. The program will air Thursday, April 24 at 8 p.m.

Former JFK Secret Service Agent Bolden to Speak at Newburgh Library

noreply@blogger.com (T.) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 03:04:00 +0000

Abraham Bolden, the first African American Secret Service agent will speak in Newburgh, New York at the Newburgh Free Library on April 8. This is a free event but you must register.
Event Type: Adult Program
Date: 4/8/2008
Start Time: 7:00 PM
End Time: 8:30 PM
Description: Author Abraham Bolden will speak on his new book, The Echo From Dealey Plaza, The True Story of the First African American on the White House Secret Service Detail and His Quest for Justice After the Assassination of JFK. Book signing may be offered. Call 563-3614 for additional information.
Location: Auditorium
Presenter: Chuck Thomas
Status: Openings

New Book: JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters" by James W. Douglass

noreply@blogger.com (T.) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 16:06:00 +0000

An astonishing new examination of the Kennedy assassination and its meaning today for the struggle for peace. James Douglass lays out the journey that led JFK in the course of three years from his position as a traditional Cold Warrior to his determination to break with the logic of the Cold War and lead the world in an entirely different direction. This sequence of steps led his adversaries in the military and intelligence establishment to view him as a virtual traitor who had to be eliminated. Douglass’s book has all the elements of a political thriller. But the stakes couldn’t be higher. Only by understanding the truth behind the murder of JFK can we grasp his vision and assume the urgent struggle for peace today.

Advance Praise for "JFK and the Unspeakable" :

"JFK and the Unspeakable is an exceptional achievement. Douglass has made the strongest case so far in the JFK assassination literature as to the Who and the Why of Dallas. The conjunction of unrestrained elements in cold war America—defense industry elites, Pentagon planners, and the heads of the intelligence community—were the forces that led inexorably to Dallas and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.”--Gerald McKnight, author, Breach of Trust: How the Warren Commission Failed the Nation and Why

“With penetrating insight and unswerving integrity, Douglass probes the fundamental truths about JFK’s assassination. If, he contends, humanity permits those truths to slip into history ignored and undefined it does so at its own peril. By far the most important book yet written on the subject.” --Gaeton Fonzi, former Staff Investigator, US House Select Committee on Assassinations

“Douglass presents, brilliantly, an unfamiliar yet thoroughly convincing account of a series of creditable decisions of John F. Kennedy—at odds with his initial Cold War stance—that earned him the secret distrust and hatred of hard-liners among the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA. Did this suspicion and rage lead directly to his murder by agents of these institutions, as Douglass concludes? Many readers who are not yet convinced of this ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ by Douglass’s prosecutorial indictment will find themselves, perhaps—like myself—for the first time, compelled to call for an authoritative criminal investigation. Recent events give all the more urgency to learning what such an inquiry can teach us about how, by whom, and in whose interests this country is run.” --Daniel Ellsberg, author, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers

“For forty years Jim Douglass has been our leading North American Catholic theologian of peace. But this monumental work on the witness of JFK is something deeper still. Douglass is trying to get us to connect the dots between our ‘citizen denial,’ the government’s ‘plausible deniability,’ and the Unspeakable. This book has the potential to change our narrative about our country, and our lives as citizens and disciples. May we have ears to hear these truths, hearts able to bear their burden, and hands willing to build a new story.”

—Ched Myers, author, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus

“A remarkable achievement, outstanding even in an overcrowded field. It is profoundly conceived, researched, considered, argued, and written. Douglass shows persuasively how Kennedy’s innovative steps in foreign policy produced dangerous opposition within his own national security establishment. Not all will agree with his detailed speculation as to what happened in Dallas. But Douglass’s large picture of America’s political agony is, I believe, incontrovertible and certain to last.”--Peter Dale Scott, author Deep Politics and the Death of JFK

“This book’s story of JFK and the ‘unspeakable’ is a stunning mix of political thriller and meticulous scholarship. Even as it points persuasively to rogue powers at work in the U.S. military-industrial complex, it also witnesses to the power of spirit, inspiring prophetic voices like Thomas Merton’s, turning a president like John Kennedy toward peace, thus also enabling readers to see into the current deep structure of U.S. war and empire. Douglass’s book offers a goldmine of information and is indispensable for building prophetic spirit and hope.”—Mark Lewis Taylor, Princeton Theological Seminary

“A remarkable book: devastating in its documented indictment of the dark forces that have long deformed the public life of this country, while also illuminating JFK’s final vision of world peace and documenting beyond reasonable doubt the unspeakable assassination of our last partially admirable president. This book should be required reading for every American citizen.”—Richard Falk, Milbank Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University

James W. Douglass is a longtime peace activist and writer.He and his wife Shelley are co-founders of the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action in Poulsbo, Washington, and Mary’s House, a Catholic Worker house of hospitality in Birmingham, Alabama. His books include The Nonviolent Cross, The Nonviolent Coming of God, and Resistance and Contemplation.

Abraham Bolden Interviewed by Chicago Sun Times

noreply@blogger.com (T.) — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 12:37:00 +0000

"The American people deserve to know the truth about the tragic day of Nov. 22, 1963. I know it's a very optimistic statement, but I really believe the truth is going to come out."
Abraham Bolden, former Secret Service Agent with JFK, March 2008