BOOK REVIEW -- "Reclaiming History" By Vincent Bugliosi (Part 3)
David Von Pein
=====================================================
"RECLAIMING HISTORY:
THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY"
AUTHOR: VINCENT BUGLIOSI
=====================================================
CHAPTER 16 (16 PAGES) -- "INTRODUCTION TO CONSPIRACY":
DVP: This chapter begins what Mr. Bugliosi refers to as "BOOK TWO:
DELUSIONS OF CONSPIRACY: WHAT DID NOT HAPPEN".
Vince is quite smart in the way he's organized the material in the
book. He offers up enormous support (naturally) in the first section
of the book (which is called "BOOK ONE: MATTERS OF FACT: WHAT
HAPPENED"). In "Book One", Mr. Bugliosi proves beyond a shred of a
doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald killed John F. Kennedy with Mannlicher-
Carcano Rifle #C2766.
Therefore, since we know by the end of "Book One" that Oswald murdered
the President beyond any and all reasonable doubt (based on a sum
total of evidence that would make any prosecutor's mouth water), the
only big-ticket question that really remains to be answered is: Did
Lee Harvey have anyone aiding him behind the scenes in any fashion
prior to or after 11/22/63?
And that's where "Book Two" takes over. And if you read all of these
"Book Two" chapters in depth (plus the exhaustive and very important
endnotes on the CD-ROM as well), the only reasonable and sensible
answer that can be arrived at with respect to that question is -- No.
Let's begin "Book Two".....
"In the Kennedy case, I believe the absence of a conspiracy can be
proved to a virtual certainty." -- VB; Page 973
-------------------
"One of the principal frailties in the thinking processes of the
theorists is that they rarely ever carry their suspicions, which are
based on some discrepancy, anomaly, or contradiction they find, to
their logical conclusion. If they did, they'd see the 'reductio ad
absurdum' of their position.
"But for them, if something looks suspicious, that's enough. Instead
of asking, "Where does this go?"--that is, where does the discrepancy,
contradiction, or whatever, lead them?--they immediately give their
minds a breather and conclude that what they find is itself proof of a
conspiracy (or proof that Oswald is innocent).
"The discrepancy or contradiction is the ENTIRE story. And being the
entire story, it by itself discredits the entire twenty-six volumes of
the Warren Commission. Nothing else has to be shown or even argued."
-- VB; Page 978
-------------------
"A substantial majority of the conspiracy community is also extremely
gullible, believing every story they hear without bothering to check
it to see if it is accurate or makes any sense. As long as the story
helps their theory, they buy it. They would improve the quality of
their research appreciably by simply embracing rule number one of the
journalistic profession: "If your mama says she loves you, check it
out"." -- VB; Page 978
-------------------
DVP: Judyth Baker's ridiculous fairy tale is discussed in an endnote
on the Compact Disc, with the justified sarcasm being doled out in
copious quantities, as VB lights into Judyth with all barrels blazing.
It's a treat-and-a-half to see. A few examples.....
"The story Judyth {Vary Baker} came up with was so fraudulent on its
face that even most conspiracy theorists have ganged up on her to
debunk it. .... Judyth's story started when she saw Oliver Stone's
fantasy film 'JFK' in 1998 and decided she had an even bigger fantasy
story to tell, partially through the technique of "recovered" memory.
"And as with so many of the fantastic tales told by nuts in the
assassination saga, there's some small kernel of truth on which she
built her fable: the fact that for a short period in the late spring
and summer of 1963, she may have worked for the same company in New
Orleans that Oswald did, William B. Reily and Company, Inc. ....
"Before she got her job there, Judyth...was on the fast track to a
bright and promising future flipping hamburgers at a small White
Castle chain restaurant in New Orleans. But because Judyth had shown
promise {in high school}...for her amateur work on cancer
research...she says she was recruited...into a clandestine project
funded by the CIA and Mafia: developing a bioweapon with which to kill
Fidel Castro. ....
"It was around this time that she met and fell hopelessly in love with
Lee Harvey Oswald, who became a part of the project and with whom she
had a torrid sexual affair.
"In an amusing footnote to the affair, Judyth said that their feelings
for each other got "out of control," and they "were so desperate we
even slept together in a red van that was being overhauled in Adrian
Alba's garage." .... But she said that when Clay Shaw learned about
their lack of money forcing them to make love in such places, he felt
sorry for them and started paying for their trysts at nice hotels in
the city." {It's time for a large-sized "LOL" here.} ....
"Just how does Judyth say she came by her knowledge? She claims she
either personally met conspiracy icons like Jack Ruby, David Ferrie,
Carlos Marcello, Clay Shaw, Guy Banister, et cetera, or Lee told her
about them during pillow talk. So the remarkable 20-year-old, in just
a few months, had more contact in New Orleans with the leading figures
of conspiracy lore than perhaps any other known figure in the
conspiracy community. I, for one, find this to be perfectly
reasonable. {LOL time once more.} ....
"Judyth claims the National Enquirer offered her $600,000 for her
story (an amount the publisher might offer if Jesus returned and his
agent promised an exclusive), but Judyth apparently wasn't interested.
Only British producer Nigel Turner, who has made a fortune peddling
phony stories, gave Judyth national exposure, devoting a full segment
to her on his television show 'The Men Who Killed Kennedy'. ....
{ http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/f0a3e91565c5c2cf
} ....
"It is an established fact that the CIA did do research...to develop
some medical concoction to kill Castro. But what we didn't know until
Judyth told us was that the CIA decided to also fund the motley group
in New Orleans {consisting of Judyth, Oswald, and David Ferrie}. ....
"Judyth Baker has been called a "pathological liar." Although her
story is a lie, this might be too harsh an indictment. From what I
have read, she sounds more like a sick puppy to me. ....
"If anyone even had the smallest doubt that Judyth is a gold-plated
phony, all he or she has to do to remove that doubt is to read (if you
can withstand the pain) Baker's book {"Lee Harvey Oswald: The True
Story Of The Accused Assassin Of President John F. Kennedy By His
Lover"; Volumes 1 and 2}. ....
"Baker's book is a total, embarrassing failure. Is there any way to
stop Judyth from continuing to propagate her fantasy? Two volumes of
nonsense, at this late date, show that the answer to this question is
no." -- VB; Pages 539-541 and 543-544 of Endnotes
http://g-ec2.images-amazon.com/images/I/51JJ9WTBVYL._SS500_.jpg
-------------------
"To say, as conspiracy theorists do, that the backyard photo of
Oswald, is a composite photo is to also say that Marina Oswald was
part of the conspiracy to frame her husband, since Marina says she
took the photo.
"But the notion that Marina was part of any conspiracy to frame her
husband for Kennedy's murder is absurd on its face, so the argument
that the backyard photo is a composite "doesn't go anywhere"--that is,
unless you are willing to say that Marina was, indeed, part of said
conspiracy.
"If people want to use such absurdity and illogic as their guide in
analyzing the assassination, I submit that they should not have a
ticket into the theater of serious debate on the assassination. The
price of admission to the debate, as it were, should be sense, not
nonsense." -- VB; Page 979
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/abf2ea54c9dddca4
-------------------
"The dreadful illogic and superficiality of the conspiracy theorists'
modus operandi has inevitably resulted in the following situation:
Though they have dedicated their existence to trying to poke holes in
the Warren Commission's findings, they have failed abysmally to tell
us (if the Warren Commission was wrong) what actually did happen.
"In other words, other than blithely tossing out names, they have
failed to offer any credible evidence of who, if not Oswald, killed
Kennedy. Nor have they offered any credible evidence at all of who the
conspirators behind the assassination were.
"So after more than forty years, if we were to rely on these silly
people, we'd have an assassination without an assassin (since, they
assure us, Oswald didn't kill Kennedy), and a conspiracy without
conspirators. Not a simple achievement." -- VB; Page 982
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/7e70b829247b4a49
-------------------
"It couldn't have been more obvious within hours after the
assassination that Oswald had murdered Kennedy, and within no more
than a day or so thereafter that he had acted alone. And this is
precisely the conclusion that virtually all local (Dallas), state
(Texas), and federal (FBI and Secret Service) law enforcement agencies
came to shortly after the assassination. Nothing has ever changed
their conclusion or proved it wrong." -- VB; Page 984
-------------------
"The notion that major federal agencies of government (or even one
such agency) would decide to murder Kennedy because they didn't agree
with certain policies of his is sufficiently demented to be excluded
at the portals of any respectable mental institution short of an
insane asylum." -- VB; Page 987
-------------------
"It's as if these {conspiracy} authors believe there's no need to
connect Oswald to the CIA or the mob, or show that they got him to
kill Kennedy for them. If, as I say, they can prove that one of these
groups had a motive to kill Kennedy, then, IF Oswald was the assassin,
he MUST have killed Kennedy FOR them. This crazy, incredibly childlike
reasoning is the mentality that has driven and informed virtually all
of the pro-conspiracy sentiment in the Kennedy assassination from the
very beginning." -- VB; Page 987
==============================
CHAPTER 17 (11 PAGES) -- "HISTORY OF THE CONSPIRACY MOVEMENT":
"The conspiracy community, a potent and formidable body through the
decades, has by sheer force of numbers clearly dominated the debate in
front of a national audience, one which apparently hasn't minded
hearing, for the most part, only one side of the story." -- VB; Page
999
==============================
CHAPTER 18 (12 PAGES) -- "MARK LANE":
"Assistant Warren Commission counsel Wesley J. Liebeler says
that..."if {Mark Lane} talks for five minutes, it takes an hour to
straighten out the record"." -- VB; Page 1001
-------------------
"It is nothing short of incredible that Lane, who finds room in his
book {"Rush To Judgment"} for 353 people who he claimed were connected
in some way to the Kennedy case, couldn't find room for a single
paragraph on people like {Robert} Jackson, {Johnny} Brewer, and
{Police Officer M.N.} McDonald." -- VB; Page 1003
MOVIE REVIEW -- MARK LANE'S "RUSH TO JUDGMENT":
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/85d4d330812f3728
-------------------
"The transcript of the tape {a taped telephone call between Mark Lane
and Helen Markham on March 2, 1964}, revealing Lane's gross and tawdry
effort to put words into the mouth of Mrs. Markham, shows why Lane
desperately sought to prevent the Commission from hearing it. .... The
tape had revealed {Lane's} blatant attempt to improperly influence,
almost FORCE {Markham} to say what he wanted her to say." -- VB; Pages
1008-1009
DVP: Here's a transcript of that taped phone call, with Mr. Lane's
despicable handiwork on vivid display:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/lane1.txt
And here's my "simulated" courtroom session with Helen Markham on the
witness stand, and Vincent Bugliosi doing the questioning:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/8a64790b792f771f
==============================
CHAPTER 19 (9 PAGES) -- "MYSTERIOUS AND SUSPICIOUS DEATHS":
"The vast majority of the witnesses on the various mysterious-death
lists of the conspiracy theorists (e.g., Jim Marrs's book "Crossfire"
lists 104 witnesses) weren't connected with the case in any known way
whatsoever, and had absolutely nothing of any known value to say about
the case. .... But of those who did have a connection -- such as Roger
Craig, Earlene Roberts, Lee Bowers, and Buddy Walthers -- all of them,
WITHOUT EXCEPTION, had already told their story, most of them on the
public record, so what could possibly be achieved by killing them?" --
VB; Page 1018
-------------------
"The question is, if Kennedy's killers silenced {Naval Lieutenant
Commander William Bruce} Pitzer to send a message to other autopsy
witnesses to remain silent, why did they wait almost three years to do
so? You mean they only started worrying about witnesses "talking"
after over a thousand days had already passed?" -- VB; Page 561 of
Endnotes
-------------------
"The only thing mysterious is how anyone with an I.Q. above room
temperature could possibly buy into such {"Mysterious Deaths"}
nonsense." -- VB; Page 1020
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/d52845e6c744cccf
==============================
CHAPTER 20 (36 PAGES) -- "THE SECOND OSWALD":
"For those few who...want to believe {Irving Sports Shop manager Dial
D.} Ryder's fable, if it were Oswald in the store {supposedly having a
scope mounted on a non-Carcano rifle}, his owning a second rifle would
in no way militate against the evidence of his guilt in the Kennedy
assassination. ....
"And the imposture argument here is even more inane than in those
cases where the alleged impersonator does nothing that in any way
would incriminate Oswald. Here...if the framers of Oswald know he owns
a Carcano...why would they want to put a different rifle...in Oswald's
hands? Predictably, the conspiracy theorists don't avail themselves of
this logic and also have no trouble with Ryder's credibility." -- VB;
Pages 1028-1029
DVP: As a footnote to the silly "imposter" nonsense regarding one Dial
D. Ryder -- Unbelievably, the Warren Commission felt that Ryder's
scope-mounting story was important enough to waste two lengthy
sessions of detailed testimony on this guy Ryder, with the transcript
taking up many, many pages on each of his two days of testimony in
March and April of 1964. You've got to give the Commission points for
thoroughness indeed. Even the CTers of the world should recognize that
fact...shouldn't they? ~wink~
Another fascinating yarn told in this "Second Oswald" chapter (in
great detail, as per the VB norm, on pages 1030 to 1035 of this book)
is the story of a possible "Imposter Oswald" taking a "reckless" test
drive (at speeds of up to "75 to 85 MPH") in a new Mercury Comet in
November 1963 at a local Dallas car dealership.
>From the believability of the testimony given by the man (Albert G.
Bogard) who accompanied this "Oswald" individual for the wild test
drive, Mr. Bugliosi believes that it could very well have been the
real Lee Oswald taking that car for a high-speed spin.
Obviously, though, as Vince adeptly points out, the fact the Oswald
took a test drive in a new car doesn't in any way erase the evidence
of LHO's obvious guilt in the Kennedy and Tippit murders. (Even
though, as is widely accepted, there's the fact that Oswald couldn't
drive very well, and had only taken a few driving lessons from Ruth
Paine by that date in early or mid-November of '63. Paine, however,
said that Lee's driving ability was improving and that Lee had
"learned well".)
The part about the Bogard/test drive incident I got a chuckle out of
is when Vince informs us that the FBI and two car salesmen took the
time to rummage through the car lot's trash dumpster on 11/23/63, as
they searched high and low for a business card that Bogard had
supposedly thrown out...a card that Bogard said he had written the
name "Lee Oswald" on the back of. The extensive dumpster search turned
up no such card, however.
But that once again shows the extent of the investigation by the
various authorities in the wake of JFK's assassination. We've got an
FBI agent rooting around in trash barrels for a tiny business card and
the Warren Commission questioning a Sports Shop manager for hours on
end about a totally-unimportant matter.
That type of activity demonstrates a thorough investigation in my
book, and certainly is not activity that is synonymous with the
actions of authorities who merely wanted to sweep everything under the
rug in order to paint Lee Harvey Oswald as a lone killer (or a lone
"patsy").
-------------------
"It's always assumed, of course, that the imposter would impersonate
Oswald {in Mexico City} without his knowledge, that he would be
someone Oswald did not know. But {HSCA investigator Edwin} Lopez
raises the possibility--are you seated?--that maybe the impersonator
was "one of his [Oswald's] companion's" in Mexico City. To think that
our tax money went into the preparation of the Lopez Report." -- VB;
Page 1053
DVP: I think it's time for a big "LOL" here. Don't you? .... With
respect to this same silly "Oswald Imposter In Mexico" topic, another
good-sized laugh can be obtained by reading VB's caption for a photo
of the supposed Mexico City "Oswald Imposter", a photograph depicting
a heavy-set man in his 40s who looks nothing at all like Lee Harvey
Oswald:
"Shouldn't an impersonator at least resemble the man he's standing in
for?" -- VB; Photo Section
And Bugliosi adds this laugh-out-loud moment at the end of the "Second
Oswald" book chapter:
"The conspiracy theorists are so unhinged that they believe Oswald's
framers would use an impersonator who looks as much like Oswald as
Danny DeVito does." -- VB; Page 1056
-------------------
"John Armstrong actually went on to publish a 983-page book in 2003
called "Harvey and Lee: How the CIA Framed Oswald", in which he
carries his fantasy about a double Oswald to such absurd lengths that
not only doesn't it deserve to be dignified in the main text of my
book, but I resent even having to waste a word on it in this
endnote. ....
"Obviously, if Armstrong had a source for any of the things he
charges, he would be only too eager to give it. Instead, his only
source is his exceptionally fertile imagination. ....
"On the day of the assassination, Armstrong has both Lee Harvey Oswald
and Harvey Oswald, two people {per looney author Armstrong} who are
spitting images of each other, in the Depository. .... At the moment
of the assassination, HARVEY Oswald was in the second-floor lunchroom
having lunch and LEE Harvey Oswald was on the sixth floor firing at
Kennedy. ....
"Lee Harvey Oswald escaped arrest, but Armstrong doesn't tell his
readers what happened to him thereafter, though...he tells them near
the beginning of the book that he may be "very much alive"." -- VB;
Pages 565-567 of Endnotes
DVP: Vince Bugliosi was right when he said on page 567 of the endnotes
that the premise for Mr. Armstrong's whole book is "prodigiously
ridiculous" and the book represents a "long tribute to absurdity".
Incredibly, though, Vince spends 14 full endnote pages (and part of a
15th) debunking many aspects of Armstrong's "Double Oswald" insanity.
-------------------
"Redbird Airport played into another invented story about the
assassination, this time by a fraud so pathetic that he is an insult
to those who make their living by fraudulent means. His name (can we
even believe this about him?) is William Robert "Tosh" Plumlee." --
VB; Page 587 of Endnotes
DVP: After briefly describing Plumlee's illogical and idiotic lie of a
story involving a "CIA abort team" being flown to Dallas to prevent
JFK's murder, Bugliosi concludes his endnote on Plumlee with this
remark.....
"My gosh, Tosh, wherever you are you should apologize to your loved
ones for making such a fool out of yourself in public."
==============================
CHAPTER 21 (14 PAGES) -- "DAVID LIFTON AND ALTERATION OF THE
PRESIDENT'S BODY":
"One theory that perhaps "takes the cake" is set forth by conspiracy
author David Lifton in his book "Best Evidence". .... Out of his 747
pages, {Lifton} unbelievably devotes no more than 6 or 7 full pages,
if that, to Oswald." -- VB; Pages 1057-1058
-------------------
"One could safely say that David Lifton took folly to an unprecedented
level. And considering the monumental foolishness of his colleagues in
the conspiracy community, that's saying something." -- VB; Page 1066
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/0de08844600b8c7a
==============================
CHAPTER 22 (74 PAGES) -- "RUBY AND THE MOB":
DVP: This chapter deals with Jack Ruby's so-called "Mob
connections" (which are allegations that Bugliosi thoroughly
destroys). Plus, this chapter contains an excellent and extremely-
entertaining Jack Ruby biography, tracing his life from his birth in
Chicago in 1911 to the day before JFK's assassination (Chapter 1 of
the book picks up the Ruby chronology from there).
And when reading about Ruby's early life in the so-called "ghetto" of
Chicago, the similarities between Jack Ruby's life and Lee Harvey
Oswald's are rather startling in some ways. Jack and Lee had similar
personalities and traits (volatile, hard to get along with, disliked
their mothers, and often skipped school). In fact, truancy was a
direct reason for why both Ruby and Oswald were examined by
psychiatrists as young boys.
Also, both Ruby and Oswald garnered identical "sharpshooter" rankings
in their brief military careers (Ruby in the U.S. Army Air Force and
Oswald in the U.S. Marine Corps). Ironically, each man's military
service lasted approximately the same amount of time, three years
(Ruby served from 1943 to 1946; while Oswald's Marine Corps duty was
from 1956 to 1959).
Another interesting parallel in the lives of these two future
assassins is that both Ruby's and Oswald's mothers were total kooks.
Perhaps that fact, right there, gives us a hint as to why these two
men ended up doing what they ultimately did in November 1963 in
Dallas, Texas. (Maternal food for thought anyway.)
Several humorous anecdotes are weaved into the "bio" portion of this
chapter, including this tidbit about Jack Ruby's earlier years:
"Eva {Jack's sister} recalls that her brother also worked as a singing
waiter {in Los Angeles in the early 1930s}, but apparently ruined a
lot of good meals and, she says, "nearly starved to death"." -- VB;
Page 1084
-------------------
DVP: So much detailed info about Oswald's killer is packed into this
fascinating 74-page chapter, it's absolutely amazing. Anybody who
still thinks that Jacob Leon Rubenstein (aka Jack Ruby) was a member
of "The Mob" after reading every one of the pages in this chapter is a
fool. Simple as that.
"The twistboard was the latest gadget Jack was selling, and he was
very serious about it. .... In the last few weeks before the
assassination, Ruby had been getting up...earlier than normal to visit
department stores in Dallas in an effort to promote the
{twist}board. .... Just, of course, what you would expect a big mob
hit man to be doing in the weeks and days leading up to the biggest
day of his mob career, when he would be "silencing" Oswald for them."
-- VB (with his always-insightful sarcasm on full display); Page 1096
-------------------
"{Jack Ruby} was a terrible driver. His first of many tickets in Texas
came in April 1950 as a result of speeding. .... It's interesting to
note that on the morning he shot Oswald, Ruby admitted to making an
illegal left turn on Main Street after he saw a bunch of people
gathered around City Hall. If only an officer had been there to give
him a ticket on the spot that day." -- VB; Page 1100
DVP: Too bad indeed. If that had occurred, Lee Oswald almost certainly
would have lived to see the dawn of Monday, November 25th, 1963.
As a humorous footnote to the above topic of Ruby's bad driving -- It
occurs to me that perhaps part of the reason Jack illegally ran so
many stop signs and red lights (documented in detail by VB in the
book) could have been due to the debris and junk that must have been
piled about a mile high in Ruby's car. (See the "Little-Known Facts"
section of my review for more hilarious details about this "debris"
statement.)
-------------------
"The fact was that Jack Ruby never saw a crowd that he didn't want to
be a part of. On that fateful Sunday morning, what he saw at City Hall
motivated him to take himself, with his hair-trigger temper, with his
desire to right any wrong, with his penchant for taking the law into
his own hands, into that basement." -- VB; Page 1120
-------------------
"Even if we were to assume the total invalidity of the polygraph test
given to Ruby, his willingness--in fact, his insistence--that he be
given one is strong circumstantial evidence of his innocent state of
mind and the truthfulness about everything he said.
"Lay people, including Ruby, for the most part believe that lie
detector tests can detect lies. It is a considerable stretch to
believe that if Ruby were guilty of being involved in a conspiracy, he
would insist on taking a polygraph test, supremely confident he could
conceal his guilt and pass the test." -- VB; Page 645 of Endnotes
-------------------
DVP: The tongue-in-cheek, "Dragnet"-like conversation between
"Vito" (a mob henchmen) and Jack Ruby at the end of this chapter
provides another smile....especially this segment:
"Vito: Jack?
Jack: Yeah, Vito?
Vito: One last thing before I go. We have to make real sure that
Oswald is killed, in fact, right on the spot. We can't afford to have
him last for even a minute. So make sure you don't aim at his head. In
fact, don't even aim at his heart. Shoot him in the belly, Jack.
That's the quickest way by far to kill him right on the spot.
Jack: Okay, Vito, anything you say. ....
"Because Ruby actually shot Oswald in the stomach, Oswald's dying
wasn't a sure thing. In fact, he survived for almost two hours after
the shooting." -- VB; Pages 1143-1144
-------------------
DVP: In VB's endnotes section connected to this Ruby chapter, tears of
laughter came to my eyes on more than one occasion as I read through
some of the crazy "Ruby Knew Oswald" allegations made by CTers over
the years, including this passage from an endnote on page 630 of the
CD:
"Did you ever hear of a man committing suicide by jumping through a
plate glass window?"
For the full story of house painter Hank Killam (to whom the above
quote pertains), check out the "Ruby And The Mob" endnotes.
~~~~~
JACK RUBY: THE SECOND "LONE NUT" ASSASSIN IN DALLAS:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/77edb3f67ec3350a
==============================
CHAPTER 23 (44 PAGES) -- "ORGANIZED CRIME":
"In any criminal case, if you're going to accuse someone of a crime,
you have to come up with some evidence that he committed it. There is
no credible evidence of any kind that organized crime was involved in
the assassination of President Kennedy." -- VB; Page 1161
-------------------
"To believe the mob would employ an unknown quantity like Oswald to
carry out its most important murder ever turns logic completely on its
head." -- VB; Page 1167
-------------------
"{Judith Campbell Exner's February 1988} story gets even funnier. ....
The two mobsters {Giancana and Roselli} apparently had no way of
communicating with each other, so Kennedy had to get Exner to deliver
an envelope from one to the other.
"What could have possibly been in all these envelopes? Exner believes
that she "was probably helping Jack orchestrate the attempted
assassination of Fidel Castro with the help of the mafia." I see. ....
I haven't met too many people who actually believe Exner's fairy
tale. ....
"What prompted Exner to tell such a fable? She had terminal
cancer...and she says she wanted to clear her conscience. The more
likely reason is a sadder one: she understandably wanted to give some
meaning and importance to what was probably only a physical
relationship with her on JFK's part." -- VB; Page 662 of Endnotes
-------------------
DVP: This Mafia chapter (plus its companion endnotes) provides us with
the names of all kinds of colorful characters associated with
organized crime. Some of my favorites include: Vincent "The Chin"
Gigante, Antonio "Tony Ducks" Corallo, Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll, Frank
"The Enforcer" Nitti, Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, and Murray "The Camel"
Humphreys.
However, there isn't a single mention of Jack "The Buffoon" Ruby being
connected in any way to the Mafia with respect to plotting a murder
(or two) in Dallas in November of 1963.
==============================
CHAPTER 24 (26 PAGES) -- "CIA":
"Since it has been established beyond all doubt that Oswald killed
Kennedy, the conspiracy theorists who propound the idea of the CIA
being behind Oswald's act are necessarily starting out in a very deep
hole before they even take their first breath of air. This is so
because Oswald was a Marxist, and a Marxist being in league with U.S.
intelligence just doesn't ring true." -- VB; Page 1195
-------------------
DVP: The way Vincent T. Bugliosi, Esq., handles the "Joannides/DRE"
matter is nothing short of sheer poetry, with massive doses of VB's
CS&L (my little shorthand for Common Sense & Logic) on display
throughout Vince's 15-page-long dismantling of the Joannides'
conspiracy theory. Let's listen in to some pertinent excerpts.....
"If the {George} Joannides conspiracy theorists ({Jefferson} Morley
and his inevitable band of followers) actually think that the only
reason why the CIA is resisting the release of documents pertaining to
Joannides is because the agency must have something to hide, they
clearly haven't learned from years and years of experience. ....
"The CIA had nothing to hide in thousands of previous documents the
agency initially refused to release voluntarily but ultimately did
release under court order. The CIA specializes in always acting
guilty, even when it is not, and always being, from a public relations
standpoint, its own worst enemy. ....
"If one reads Morley's article LITERALLY, one can only conclude that
Joannides, not the DRE {an anti-Castro group} with whom he dealt, may
have been involved in the assassination. And this, of course, defeats
the whole unstated premise of Morley's writing, because if the DRE
didn't kill Kennedy or have him murdered, then what is Morley's point?
That Joannides got SOMEONE ELSE to murder Kennedy?
"But if so, why is he writing about Joannides and the DRE? What seems
to have eluded Morley is that if he exonerates the DRE, which he does
by default in his writing, he thereby also exonerates Joannides. ....
"Just two weeks before the assassination (when, if Morley's story
makes any sense, DRE should be gearing up to kill Kennedy, under
Joannides's direction), Joannides's superior, {Ted} Shackley, is
assessing the group as unreliable and incompetent, and like children
who should be sent back to where they belong--school.
"There seems to be nothing to the Joannides-DRE story, and I'm
confused that someone like Morley feels there is possible merit to
it. ....
"In Morley's quest to put the conspiratorial hat on Joannides and the
CIA, there's one very staunch ally he can count on to help him in any
way it can, the CIA.
"To the point, arguably, of perversity, the silly spooks at Langley--
like the pathological liar who lies even when it would be to his
benefit to tell the truth--will fight Morley and his lawyer every inch
of the way, thereby helping them, every inch of the way, to convince
everyone that it has something to hide--Joannides's and perhaps its
own complicity in the assassination.
"But as I've said before in the book and these endnotes, it's all just
sublime silliness. Joannides and the CIA conspired with Oswald to kill
Kennedy as much as you and I did." -- VB; Pages 678-679, 682, and 684
of Endnotes
==============================
CHAPTER 25 (24 PAGES) -- "FBI":
"No one, ever, has produced one piece of evidence connecting J. Edgar
Hoover with Kennedy's death, and your more responsible conspiracy
theorists don't devote any space to the charge. Indeed, the very
thought that J. Edgar Hoover decided to murder President John F.
Kennedy is too far-fetched for any but the most suspicious and
irrational minds.
"Hoover had already proved ({via} the March 22, 1962, luncheon with
JFK over Judith Campbell Exner) the power he had to blackmail the
president, and it is therefore ridiculous to say that he would try to
kill Kennedy--and thus expose himself to a sentence of death--in order
to keep his job." -- VB; Page 1238
==============================
CHAPTER 26 (9 PAGES) -- "SECRET SERVICE":
"Even if it could be shown that the Secret Service was responsible for
the selection of the luncheon site and the motorcade route {neither of
which the SS was ultimately responsible for}, the notion that the
Secret Service was behind the assassination is, like virtually all the
conspiracy theories, ridiculous on its face.
"What conceivable motive would the Secret Service have had? In fact,
even if Secret Service agents got away with it, it would only hurt
their individual careers in the Secret Service that the president had
been killed on their watch." -- VB; Pages 1241-1242
-------------------
"The Fromme, Moore, and Hinkley [sic] cases {re. the two 1975
assassination attempts against Gerald Ford and John Hinckley's 1981
attempt against Ronald Reagan} are far more egregious examples of a
lack of adequate Secret Service protection than the Kennedy
assassination, yet the conspiracy theorists remain silent about them."
-- VB; Page 1245
DVP: See pages 1244 and 1245 for Mr. Bugliosi's excellent comments
that fully support his "far more egregious examples" quote that I just
cited.
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/b49e204b20abb3dc
==============================
CHAPTER 27 (12 PAGES) -- "KGB":
"While Oswald was in the Soviet Union between 1959 and 1962, the KGB,
rather than conspiring with Oswald, initially thought he might be an
American intelligence agent, and even when that appeared unlikely, its
agents followed him everywhere, including opening his mail and bugging
his apartment in Minsk. Such conduct by the KGB really sounds as if it
were in a conspiracy with Oswald to murder Kennedy, doesn't
it?" [rolling eyes skyward] -- VB; Page 1249
DVP: The "rolling eyes" remark was inserted by this writer, not Vince.
But I'm guessing VB's orbs were probably moving northward too, as he
wrote those words on page 1249. ;)
-------------------
"Even were we to imagine the unimaginable, that the Soviets wanted to
murder Kennedy, they obviously would have employed someone who was
stable, not completely unstable like Oswald. Also, to distance
themselves from the vile deed as much as possible, they would have
chosen someone with no known previous contact or association with
them, not a Marxist who had defected to their country just a few years
earlier. .... Such a proposition is too absurd to even comment on." --
VB; Page 1259
==============================
CHAPTER 28 (13 PAGES) -- "RIGHT WING":
"Henry Hurt didn't tell his readers that immediately after {suspected
assassination plotter Joseph} Milteer said, "They will pick up
somebody within hours afterwards," his very next words were "IF
anything like that would happen," words clearly showing that Milteer
was not saying Kennedy was about to be murdered, but rather, what
would happen IF he were." -- VB; Page 1271
-------------------
"The argument that the right wing was behind Kennedy's assassination
suffers, like all other conspiracy theories, from the inconvenient and
stubborn reality that there is no evidence of its involvement." -- VB;
Page 1272
==============================
CHAPTER 29 (8 PAGES) -- "LBJ":
"The notion that LBJ would actually decide to have Kennedy murdered
(or be a party to such a plot by others) is not one that, to my
knowledge, any rational and sensible student of the assassination has
ever entertained for a moment. But conspiracy theorists are not
rational and sensible when it comes to the Kennedy assassination." --
VB; Pages 1274-1275
-------------------
"The {Presidential} limousine was not, as the buffs allege without any
supporting authority, immediately rebuilt. The rebuilding of the car
did not commence until over a year later in Detroit." -- VB; Page 1276
==============================
CHAPTER 30 (14 PAGES) -- "CUBA":
"Three separate, independent bodies investigated the possibility of
Cuban complicity in Kennedy's murder. In 1964, the Warren Commission
concluded it could find "no evidence" that Cuba was "involved in the
assassination of President Kennedy."
"In 1976, the Church Committee said it had "seen no evidence that
Fidel Castro or others in the Cuban Government plotted Kennedy's
assassination..."
"And in 1979, the HSCA concluded that "the Cuban Government was not
involved in the assassination of President Kennedy." Wherever
President Johnson is today, he should defer to this collective
judgment." -- VB; Page 1294
-------------------
"Unbelievably, out of...fabricated statements and nothingness, a
reportedly well-credentialed German filmmaker, one Wilfried Huismann,
directed a...documentary {in 2006}, titled "Rendezvous with
Death". ....
"The entire thrust of Huismann's documentary is that Castro's Cuban
intelligence people (G-2) used Oswald to kill Kennedy once he made the
offer at the Cuban consulate to kill Kennedy. ....
"Remarkably, Huismann, for all his labors, was able to come up with
only one new "face" to justify this "documentary," an alleged former
Cuban G-2 agent who is the clear star of Huismann's flick. He is also
a joke. .... His name, Oscar Marino, is not his real name. .... Marino
has absolutely nothing to say. ....
"Marino knows...his story is fabricated nonsense that only nonsensical
conspiracy theorists would have any interest in. .... This
"documentary" {is} patently worthless." -- VB; Pages 731, 735-736, and
741 of Endnotes
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.assassination.jfk/msg/dffb53d9dde8b76d
==============================
CHAPTER 31 (41 PAGES) -- "THE ODIO INCIDENT AND ANTI-CASTRO CUBAN
EXILES":
"No one examining the evidence in the {Sylvia} Odio matter can feel
too sanguine about the conclusion he reaches, yet I feel that the
slight preponderance of evidence is that Oswald was, in fact, the
American among the three men who visited Odio {in late September
1963}." -- VB; Page 1309
-------------------
"While admittedly the {Odio} incident does raise suspicions that go in
that direction {i.e., toward conspiracy}, the suspicions seem to be
spontaneous and visceral in nature. A more sober analysis of what
actually transpired and what was said would seem to substantially
diminish the virility of the conspiracy conclusion." -- VB; Pages
1314-1315
DVP: In addition to a detailed look into the "Odio Incident", this
chapter also includes a brief overview of the October 1962 "Cuban
Missile Crisis", along with a very thorough and (IMO) immensely-
satisfying chronology of the April 1961 "Bay Of Pigs" invasion, which
was probably JFK's darkest hour as the 35th U.S. President, when the
small brigade of 1,390 (mostly) Cuban exiles, men with little to no
military experience who ranged in age from 16 to 61, were easily
defeated on Cuba's beaches by Castro's much-stronger Army of 20,000.
-------------------
DVP: While referring to John Martino's worthless allegation that anti-
Castro Cubans had Jack Ruby snuff out Oswald, Vince provides yet
another chuckle.....
"And here, all along, I thought Ruby killed Oswald for the mob. But I
guess he did it for anti-Castro Cuban exiles, who must have somehow
"owned" Ruby. That's what's nice about life. You learn something new
every day." -- VB; Page 748 of Endnotes
-------------------
DVP: Vince slices into "Ultimate Sacrifice" authors Waldron's and
Hartmann's "C-Day" absurdities in depth during 8 pages of endnotes to
the Odio chapter. And, once again, reading Mr. Bugliosi's reasoned
arguments is kind of like watching a "Common Sense Machine" in action.
Let's have a look:
"From the {Top Secret U.S.} CONTINGENCY invasion {of Cuba} plan,
conspiracy author Lamar Waldron (with coauthor Thom Hartmann) has
produced one of the most empty, vacuous books ever written about the
assassination {2005's "Ultimate Sacrifice: John And Robert Kennedy,
The Plan For A Coup In Cuba, And The Murder Of JFK"}.
"Although it is well written, it makes incredible assumptions, the
authors untroubled by the lack of support for these assumptions in the
record. ....
"If the reader hasn't figured it out by now, all of this is much to-do
about nothing, which would be a much more apt title for Waldron's
book. Even assuming everything Waldron says is true, SO WHAT? It is
common knowledge that the CIA had multiple plans to overthrow or
assassinate Castro. If C-Day was one we hadn't heard of before Waldron
told us, so what? What's the relevance?
"Listening to Waldron, one might believe that all the other well known
attempts on Castro's life or to overthrow him were subsumed by his C-
Day. But even if this absurdity were true, again, so what?
"Waldron knows he has to show the SO WHAT, and that's what he tries to
do in the other half of his book. In this other half...Waldron makes
one ludicrous assumption after another, never bothering to present a
lick of evidence to support any of the assumptions. .... Waldron's
theory could hardly be more ludicrous.
"One gets the definite sense from Waldron's book that the U.S.
government, RFK, and the CIA were much more interested in protecting
the secrecy of the attempt on Castro's life on December 1 {1963} than
they were in bringing JFK's killers (the mob, per Waldron) to
justice. ....
"Without bothering to present one tiny speck of evidence to support
his allegation, Waldron says in several places in his book that {Mafia
mobsters} "Marcello, Trafficante and Roselli planned the
assassination" of JFK. ....
"The source for all this? You guessed it: Lamar Waldron. You see, he
was present during all these meetings {involving Mafia kingpins as
they planned JFK's demise}...and was nice enough to pass on what he
saw and heard. And apparently no editor of Waldron's book was about to
tell Waldron that his book was supposed to be nonfiction, not fiction,
so he would have to have a source for all of this other than his own
silly mind. ....
"One thing he {Waldron} knows. Oswald was innocent and just a patsy,
Waldron totally ignoring the mountain of evidence against Oswald. ....
"Waldron started his book with nothing to say, added a whole lot of
nothing to it, and ended up with nothing. So why have I wasted my time
and space in this endnote talking about nothing? Because of a few
things. Waldron's book is one of the longest (904 pages) {960 pages in
its re-released 2006 paperback "Updated Edition", which promises
"Dramatic new revelations"} ever written on the assassination
and...gives the outward appearance of being a scholarly work. ....
"So to expose, as I believe I have, the ridiculous nature of a book
like this demonstrates...the absolutely utter and total bankruptcy of
the conspiracy movement in this country." -- VB; Pages 759 and 762-766
of Endnotes
==============================
CHAPTER 32 (11 PAGES) -- "COVER-UP BY THE CIA AND FBI IN THE WARREN
COMMISSION'S INVESTIGATION OF THE ASSASSINATION":
NOTE -- This chapter was originally going to be titled "Cover-Up By
Federal Agencies Of Alleged Conspiracy To Murder President Kennedy",
but it was changed by author Bugliosi shortly before the book's
release.
"We can assume he {Fidel Castro} knew that if the separate and
distinct Bay of Pigs invasion had succeeded {separate from the CIA/Mob
plot to murder him}, the U.S. plans for him did not include
expatriating him to the United States and supporting his run for
Congress." -- VB; Page 1345
DVP: You gotta love VB's wit. (I know I do anyway.) ;)
-------------------
"The conspiracy theorists have tried to convert the FBI's attempt (in
destroying Oswald's note to Hosty) to avoid the accusation it could
have prevented the assassination, and the CIA's attempt to cover up
its misdeeds on another matter (plot to kill Castro), into an attempt
by both agencies to cover up their participation in {JFK's}
assassination. This is the world of non sequiturs and enormous broad
jumps in which the conspiracy theorists dwell and for which they are
justifiably famous." -- VB; Page 1346
DVP: As a footnote to VB's remarks in this book re. the FBI (and
Hoover specifically)....It seems to me, as I look back in hindsight at
the events that occurred in November 1963, J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI
boys would have had a much bigger motive for wanting to UNCOVER a
conspiracy in the JFK assassination than they would have had in
COVERING ONE UP.
I say that because of the FBI's (James Hosty's) knowledge of Lee
Harvey Oswald's having been in Dallas around the time of Kennedy's
murder. In other words, it seems logical (to me anyway) that Hoover,
if anything, would be bending over backwards to CLEAR the name of
Oswald, who, after all, was a man whom had been under Hosty's watchful
eye (loosely) just days before JFK was killed.
If Hoover could somehow clear Oswald of the vile charges of murdering
JFK, wouldn't it tend to give his own department (the FBI as a whole)
a cleaner bill of health in the eyes of the public?
Instead, many conspiracists seem to think that Hoover did everything
he could to FALSELY blame ONLY Oswald for the crime. But that type of
"Let's Blame Only Oswald (Whom We Should Have Been Watching More
Closely)" thinking with regard to the FBI just doesn't make any sense,
in my view.
==============================
CHAPTER 33 (90 PAGES) -- "JIM GARRISON'S PROSECUTION OF CLAY SHAW AND
OLIVER STONE'S MOVIE 'JFK'":
DVP: I was very glad to see Mr. Bugliosi devote a lengthy chapter like
this one (close to 100 pages) to the topics of Jim Garrison and Oliver
Stone, two conspiracy theorists whom I would classify as "mega-kooks".
I think this chapter deserves this kind of length and detail due to
the fact that so many people of today's generation have gotten
virtually all of their information regarding the JFK assassination
from Mr. Stone's wholly-inaccurate 1991 motion picture. And,
obviously, VB thought this section of his book warranted a lot of
pages too.
And upon seeing this fairly-large chapter on Stone/Garrison, it made
my February 2007 wish come true:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/2fa93b6e293e5e96
Bugliosi's scathing verbal assault on both Garrison's ludicrous 1969
trial against an innocent man (Clay Shaw) and Stone's fanciful movie
is an assault that had me smiling from ear to ear as I made my way
breezily through these ninety wonderful (and side-splitting) pages of
"Reclaiming History".
My favorite segments from this chapter include the following:
"In {Oliver} Stone's hands, the thoroughly discredited {Jim} Garrison
became a courageous, Capraesque, American patriot fighting for justice
and to save the country from dark and sinister forces out to subvert
our American way of life." -- VB; Page 1353
-------------------
"The problem I have is this: Am I elevating Oliver Stone's movie by
holding it to be worthy of denigration? Only theoretically. The
denigration {within the pages of "Reclaiming History"} will be so
complete that to say Stone and his movie have been elevated would be a
contradiction." -- VB; Page 1355
-------------------
"{Oliver Stone} wanted his movie, he wrote with towering arrogance in
the January 1992 edition of "Premiere" {magazine}, to "replace the
Warren Commission Report." Can you imagine that? A Hollywood producer
wants his movie to REPLACE the official and most comprehensive
investigation of a crime in history. .... Arrogance thought it already
had a bad name. That was before it met Oliver Stone." -- VB; Page 1358
-------------------
"Not one scrap of evidence has ever emerged that on February 24
{1967}, the day Garrison announced that he and his staff had "solved
the case," he had any evidence connecting anyone, in any way, with the
assassination. IF THERE WERE NOTHING ELSE AT ALL, THIS ALONE, BY
DEFINITION, WOULD BE ENOUGH TO PROVE BEYOND ALL DOUBT THAT GARRISON
HAD NO PERSONAL CREDIBILITY WITH RESPECT TO THIS CASE." [All emphasis
Mr. Bugliosi's.] -- VB; Page 1365
-------------------
"Newsweek magazine reported that "some of [Garrison's] staff became
alarmed about his behavior. He would call meetings, then disappear
into the men's room for awhile, emerge with a new theory and send
aides to try to prove it"." -- VB; Page 1368
-------------------
"Garrison, of course, smelled a rat in {James} Braden's story and had
his investigators pursue the matter. Remarkably and unbelievably for
Garrison, he concluded that "after sustained analysis...it was clear
that Braden's contribution to the assassination was a large zero."
When you can be cleared of conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination by
the likes of Jim Garrison, you must be clean." -- VB; Page 823 of
Endnotes
DVP: You said it. I'm surprised Jim didn't accuse members of his own
DA's office of being involved in JFK's murder. ;)
-------------------
"I personally know of no American prosecutor who has ever abused his
office's power of subpoena and power to file unwarranted criminal
charges against perceived adversaries to the degree that Garrison did
in the Shaw case." -- VB; Page 1369
-------------------
"Playboy {magazine} gave Garrison the longest interview in the history
of the magazine in its October 1967 issue, 37 pages, and among other
radio and TV appearances, Mort Sahl got him on the Johnny Carson show
on January 31, 1968. "Johnny" may have been a comedian, but he had a
good, solid head on his shoulders, and he could spot a phony, or at
least an empty vessel, when he saw one." -- VB; Pages 1369-1370
DVP: Much more info about Garrison's 1967 Playboy Magazine interview
(which is littered with hilarious and outrageous Garrison lies and
fantasies) and Jimbo's 1968 appearance on "The Tonight Show" with
Johnny Carson can be found at the following weblinks:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/2317ac73008b3c8a
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/9d4772fbe4df0bcd
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/7e730615fc2a0a14
-------------------
"One can see why {Perry} Russo needed truth serum and hypnosis to
recall hearing three people plot to murder President Kennedy four
years earlier. Without truth serum and hypnosis, a plot to murder the
president of the United States just wasn't important enough for
someone like him to remember." -- VB; Page 1374
-------------------
"In the final, by far the most important addition to his story, Russo
{said} in the truth-serum session that {David} Ferrie told him, in the
presence of Bertrand and Oswald, that "we are going to kill John F.
Kennedy." When Sciambra asked Russo whom Ferrie meant by "we," Russo
responded, "I guess he was referring to the people in the room."
"In other words, Ferrie, for some inexplicable reason, wanted Russo to
hear that he, Oswald, and Shaw were going to kill Kennedy. After all,
Russo was a friend, of sorts, to Ferrie, and Russo (as, I imagine, all
of Ferrie's other friends) was entitled to know all about such
things." -- VB; Page 844 of Endnotes
DVP: ~Laugh Break~
-------------------
"It had been reported in the New Orleans newspapers a week before
{Kook Russo's} second hypnotic session that Clay Shaw was at the San
Francisco World Trade Center on the day of the assassination, so Russo
added another nice little touch to his fairy tale.
"Ferrie, he said, told his co-conspirators that they'd have to
"establish alibis" for themselves by being seen "in public" on the day
of the assassination. Bertrand said he would "go to the coast on
business" that day, per Russo.
"You have to understand: Clay Shaw knew that he could only be seen in
public in San Francisco, 2,500 miles away. Wherever he'd be in New
Orleans...he apparently believed he'd be invisible to others and hence
have no alibi.
"Obviously, Russo couldn't even make up a good lie. If a conspirator,
say Shaw, needed to establish an alibi, the very best way to have done
so would have been to stay right at his desk at the Trade Mart in New
Orleans, where everyone knew him, not go to a distant city where he
was largely unknown." -- VB; Page 847 of Endnotes
DVP: Oh, my poor bladder! How could this kook Russo keep his OWN
laughter under control while spouting such transparent tripe?! ~ROFL~
-------------------
"What the case boiled down to, Garrison told {"Saturday Evening Post"
writer James} Phelan, was a homosexual conspiracy masterminded by
David Ferrie." -- VB; Page 853 of Endnotes
DVP: Oh, yes. I see. Ferrie was the top dog. Which must mean, per
Garrison, that Ferrie also must have orchestrated that fabulously-
idiotic 3-shooter (or 4-shooter, or 5-shooter) "Patsy" plot that was
supposed to have Lee Oswald take the LONE fall for Kennedy's murder,
too. Some mastermind, that Ferrie.
Who said Mr. Garrison didn't have a sense of humor? (Certainly not
this writer.)
-------------------
"{Clay} Shaw would later say {after he was declared "Not Guilty" of
the charges against him on March 1, 1969}, "If a jury could convict me
on such shoddy evidence as Garrison presented, I would gladly have
gone to jail -- it would be the safest place in a world gone mad"." --
VB; Page 1376
-------------------
"Instead of referring to Shaw (or "the defendant") a great number of
times as he tried to connect him to the conspiracy and murder, as any
prosecutor would do if he believed the person he was prosecuting was
guilty, unbelievably Garrison only referred to Shaw ONCE in his entire
summation {to the jury}, and then not to say that the evidence showed
he was guilty. NOT ONCE did Garrison tell the jury he had proved
Shaw's guilt or that the evidence pointed toward Shaw's guilt." -- VB;
Page 1380
-------------------
"{A} benefit to Garrison of only charging Shaw with conspiracy
{instead of both conspiracy AND murder itself} is that under Louisiana
law...when conspiracy alone is alleged, only 9 out of 12 jurors must
concur to render a guilty verdict. So Garrison only needed nine jurors
to convict Shaw. He couldn't even get one." -- VB; Page 1380
-------------------
"OLIVER STONE, IN HIS MOVIE 'JFK', NEVER SAW FIT TO PRESENT FOR HIS
AUDIENCE'S CONSIDERATION ONE SINGLE PIECE OF EVIDENCE THAT OSWALD
KILLED KENNEDY!" [All emphasis Mr. Bugliosi's.]
"So a murder case (the Kennedy assassination) where there is an almost
unprecedented amount of evidence of guilt against the killer (Oswald)
is presented to millions of moviegoers as one where there wasn't one
piece of evidence at all. There oughta be a law against things like
this." -- VB; Page 1386
-------------------
"Garrison's assistant...tells Garrison that it "takes a minimum of 2.3
seconds to recycle this thing [the Carcano]." .... Stone does not tell
his audience that the HSCA concluded that the 2.3-second minimum was
only if a shooter...used the telescopic sight on the rifle. .... {The
HSCA} found that it was possible for two shots to be fired within 1.66
seconds {by using the open iron sights}." -- VB; Pages 1388-1389
DVP: Here's kind of an interesting thought I had while reading this
chapter ..... If we're to assume (for the sake of argument) that any
of the incidents as depicted in Stone's film actually took place, then
any such incidents would have been taking place, of course, in the
1960s, years before the HSCA made their "1.66 second" determination
re. Oswald's rifle.
So, from a purely "calendar" standpoint within the framework of a
"period" movie taking place between the years 1963 and 1969 (as Oliver
Stone's "JFK" does), Mr. Stone cannot (or at least he SHOULD not) have
placed anything in his movie that occurred after March 1, 1969 (the
date the Clay Shaw trial came to an end).
But Stone violates this chronology of events by throwing Beverly
Oliver into his conspiratorial pot during the course of the motion
picture "JFK". Miss Oliver, however, didn't pop up on anyone's
assassination radar screens until the year 1970, one year AFTER the
Clay Shaw trial concluded.
Therefore, how can Stone possibly justify having Beverly, in the film,
talking with New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison and his assistant in the
late 1960s? It doesn't add up.
I initially was going to defend Mr. Stone to a certain extent with
regard to Mr. Bugliosi's many "HSCA" references during this "Garrison/
Stone" chapter of VB's book, by saying (in defense of Stone's 1960s
period movie) that Vince was not justified in criticizing Stone for
not telling his movie audience something that the HSCA said in the
1970s, because it stands to reason that Stone wouldn't be putting
words in his actors' mouths relating to the HSCA investigation, since
that occurred a full decade AFTER the events in Stone's film.
But with Beverly Oliver's presence in the movie, that "1963-1969
timeline" rule can be thrown out the window, because Stone himself
violated that rule. He's put a person in his film who wasn't even part
of the 11/22/63 tapestry until a year after the Clay Shaw trial ended.
Getting back to the last VB quote I provided up above (about the
Carcano's recycling capabilities) -- It has occurred to me that Mr.
Bugliosi could have also added the following humorous piece of irony,
with respect to this "recycling" discussion....
Inadvertently, Director Stone shoots himself in the foot RIGHT ON
CAMERA when the Garrison assistant (played by Jay Sanders) actually
debunks one of the main contentions purported in the film....i.e., the
contention that Oswald didn't have enough time to get off his three
shots in the amount of time Stone, per the movie, says LHO had (5.6
seconds).
Indeed, we can clock Sanders' recycling of the bolt-action rifle he
uses in the film, and guess how many seconds it takes Sanders
(portraying investigator Lou Ivon) to dry-fire three shots? Answer:
5.5 seconds.
Kevin Costner (playing Garrison) tells Sanders/Ivon that it took
"between 6, 7 seconds", but he was wrong. Just cue up the DVD of the
movie yourself and watch your player's time counter and see. (On the
DVD which contains the longer "Director's Cut" version of the movie,
the scene in question occurs at the 1:14:50 mark of the film.)
Irony at its finest indeed.
OSWALD'S SHOOTING PERFORMANCE....AND OLIVER STONE'S BLUNDER:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/9bce073792dae800
-------------------
"On July 17 {1967}...the pathetic {Dean} Andrews called a press
conference and not only confessed again that "Clay Shaw ain't Clay
Bertrand," but finally admitted that Clay Bertrand "never existed,"
saying he made the whole story up to get attention for himself." --
VB; Page 1394
-------------------
"{Joan} Mellen's book {2005's "A Farewell To Justice"} is dreadfully
bad on all counts. All the completely discredited witnesses, even
mental cases, who had made bizarre allegations years ago in the Shaw
case...were actually, per Mellen, telling the truth. ....
"There have been several pro-Garrison books before {Mellen's}, every
one of them lacking in credibility, but hers is the very worst. ....
"Where Mellen can't find some already well-known nut in the Garrison
case to rely on or tell her what she wants to hear, she comes up with
more obscure nuts. ....
"The Kennedy assassination has already been polluted beyond all
tolerable limits by nuts and quacks and phony stories. Mellen is a
university professor. How dare she publish such misleading material on
so serious a subject." -- VB; Pages 910-911, 915, and 923 of Endnotes
-------------------
"Since we know that the conversation between X and Garrison never took
place and was invented by Stone for his movie, and inasmuch as no one
has ever produced one single particle of evidence that the military-
industrial complex was behind Kennedy's assassination, no further
discussion of the issue is really necessary. However, even though
the...theory is offensive to one's intelligence, because of Stone's
movie...millions of otherwise intelligent Americans now subscribe to
it." -- VB; Page 1410
-------------------
"If Stone had told {the whole story surrounding "National Security
Action Memorandum [NSAM] #273"}, his whole thesis would have
crumbled. .... Even though NSAM 273 was issued under President Johnson
on November 26, 1963, four days after Kennedy's death, the draft,
containing the identical language in its relevant clauses, was
prepared by McGeorge Bundy, Kennedy's special assistant for national
security affairs, on November 21, 1963, WHILE KENNEDY WAS STILL
PRESIDENT. So no inference can be drawn that after Kennedy died,
Johnson, by NSAM 273, changed course. ....
"Not only was the draft prepared while Kennedy was still alive, but
its language can only be interpreted as referring to President
Kennedy, not LBJ. ....
"Moreover, NSAM 273 (November 26, 1963) does not, as Stone's audience
was told, reverse NSAM 263 (October 11, 1963). In fact, it
specifically REAFFIRMS Kennedy's decision to withdraw 1,000 troops
{from Vietnam} by the end of 1963. ....
"The main issue being discussed by {Kennedy} and his advisers during
the period of the October 2 {1963} memo and the October 11 NSAM 263
was not the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam, but whether to support
a coup of {Vietnam's President} Diem.
"But we learned years later from a Hollywood producer and his daffy
adviser, Colonel Prouty, that the real coup being contemplated at the
time, and eventually carried out, was not against Diem but against the
president of the United States." -- VB; Pages 1411-1414
-------------------
DVP: Footnote -- Another very good resource which reveals Stone's film
for what it is (i.e., almost 100% fiction; or, as VB says in his book,
"virtually one continuous lie"), is this webpage authored by an
assassination researcher with an immense amount of common sense, Dave
Reitzes:
http://www.jfk-online.com/jfk100menu.html
~~~~~
A few more Oliver Stone-related links:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/51b89da58d3e6489
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/0a931249aa0eddff
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/22e70f88404a998b
==============================
CHAPTER 34 (25 PAGES) -- "CONCLUSION OF NO CONSPIRACY":
"No evidence plus no common sense equals go home, zipper your mouth
up, take a walk, forget about it, get a life. Of course, the hard-core
conspiracy theorists, who desperately want to cling to their
illusions, are not going to do any of these things. ....
"If these conspiracy theorists were to accept the truth, not only
would they be invalidating a major part of their past, but many would
be forfeiting their future. That's why talking to them about logic and
common sense is like talking to a man without ears. The bottom line is
that they WANT there to be a conspiracy and are constitutionally
allergic to anything that points away from it." -- VB; Pages 1437-1438
DVP: How true, Vince. How so very true. Three good examples
illustrating VB's above points are provided below:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/c6fc623a7f9d0738
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/24f8834034ebccf7
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/b1e24b5f97bed883
-------------------
"The purpose of this book has been twofold. One, to educate everyday
Americans that Oswald killed Kennedy and acted alone. .... And two, to
expose, as never before, the conspiracy theorists and the abject
worthlessness of all their allegations. I believe this book has
achieved both of these goals." -- VB; Page 1461
==============================
CHAPTER 35 (20 PAGES) -- "THE MURDER TRIAL OF JACK RUBY":
DVP: The 35th chapter begins the final section of "Reclaiming
History", subtitled "BOOKENDS".
"On March 14 {1964}, the jury, after only 2 hours and 19 minutes of
deliberation...reject{ed} {Melvin} Belli's insanity defense and
{found} Ruby "guilty of murder with malice" and assess{ed} "his
punishment at death." ....
"On October 5, 1966...Ruby's murder conviction {was reversed on
technical grounds}. .... Before a new trial date could be set, Ruby
died at Parkland Hospital in Dallas on January 3, 1967, the same
hospital in which Kennedy and Oswald had died." -- VB; Pages 1477 and
1483-1484
DVP: This "Bookend" chapter includes the amazing tale of Vaschia
Michael Bohan, an Iowa man who murdered his stepfather on the very
same day that Ruby killed Lee Oswald. Read page 1483 to see how
justice was served in the Bohan case. Unbelievable.
==============================
CHAPTER 36 (4 PAGES) -- "A CONVERSATION WITH MARINA":
DVP: Vincent Bugliosi interviewed Marina Oswald-Porter, in person, on
the afternoon of Thursday, November 30, 2000, in Dallas.
"At what point in time, I asked her, did she come around to the belief
that her husband {Lee Harvey Oswald} was innocent? "About 15 to 20
years later," she said. .... She was sure of one thing -- "Lee was set
up as a patsy"." -- VB; Page 1486
==============================
CHAPTER 37 (11 PAGES) -- "THE PEOPLE AND GROUPS INVOLVED IN THE PLOT
TO KILL KENNEDY":
DVP: In this humor-filled short chapter, VB provides some lists of the
various people and groups who, per the conspiracy kooks of the world,
were supposedly involved in JFK's murder. Vince comes up with 44
different organizations/groups/countries who (at one time or another)
have had a finger pointed at them over the years, including NASA and
"Martians and Venusians". ~big grin~
Although admittedly only a "partial" list, Vince has 82 individual
persons who have been implicated by one conspiracy kook or another
since 1963 as having physically fired a weapon at President Kennedy in
Dealey Plaza or having been part of the "Dealey Plaza team of
killers", including (yes) Lyndon Johnson and J.D. Tippit. (The madness
never ends, does it?)
And on another list, Vince B. is able to provide 214 different alleged
non-triggerman "co-conspirators", including Abe Zapruder, Marina
Oswald, and ex-baseball great Joe DiMaggio (that Marilyn/JFK affair,
remember....yep, Joltin' Joe MUST have been in on the plot).
Additional LOL moment.....
"{Quoting author Edward J. Epstein}..."It would still be at least
THEORETICALLY conceivable that the rifle was passed from the hands of
one sniper to another between shots." .... Yes, and it is also
THEORETICALLY possible that the assassin was a robed nun whose eyes
were closed and who used her Catholic prayer book as a gun rest." --
VB; Page 1496
==============================
CHAPTER 38 (3 PAGES) -- "LINCOLN-KENNEDY COINCIDENCES".
CHAPTER 39 (4 PAGES) -- "EPILOGUE".
CHAPTER 40 (4 PAGES) -- "IN MEMORIAM".
Abbreviations (2 pages).
Acknowledgments (6 pages).
Bibliography (23 pages).
Index (71 pages).
=====================================================
LITTLE-KNOWN FACTS REVEALED IN "RECLAIMING HISTORY":
"Reclaiming History" is also worthwhile for the many "little-known
facts" (or, in some cases it would seem, "completely unknown facts")
that are weaved into the 1.5-million words of text that reside between
the covers of this info-packed behemoth. A few such examples are
provided below:
When reviewing all of the previous assassination attempts of U.S.
Presidents in a lengthy footnote on page 118, author Vincent Bugliosi
mentions the seldom-talked-about attempt against Richard Nixon. It
occurred on February 22, 1974, when a super-kook by the name Sam Byck
tried to hijack a Delta DC-9 jetliner in Washington, D.C., in an
apparent plot to crash the plane into the White House and kill
President Nixon.
Byck's crazy plan probably would have had a better chance at
succeeding if he hadn't shot both pilots. After gunning down the only
pilots on the jet, Byck grabbed a passenger out of the cabin, and
ordered her to fly the aircraft. Smart move there, huh?
Byck ended up committing suicide on the plane, with the jet never
taking off at all. The White House was spared.
Some people don't classify the Byck attempted hijacking as an official
"Presidential assassination attempt", which is understandable (seeing
as how Byck didn't get close to his intended victim, Nixon).
However, on the flip side of that argument, Byck's "attempt" on the
President's life was actually initially implemented, with the
shootings at the airport and Byck's attempted hijacking of the
aircraft.
More Byck Banter.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Byck
-------------------
Bugliosi, on page 42 (via a footnote), reveals that "In a large-sample
national poll in March of 1964, an astonishing 53 percent of those
interviewed said they had wept when they heard the news of Kennedy's
death. This percentage is remarkable by itself, and becomes even more
so when you factor in the number of people who, though grieving as
much, cannot bring tears to their eyes".
-------------------
On page 896, a footnote tells us that the wind was blowing at a speed
of "13 knots" (approx. 15 MPH) at exactly 12:30 PM on 11/22/63 in
Dallas, Texas (at Love Field, where the measurement was taken).
-------------------
Do you know exactly how many "Fair Play For Cuba" leaflets were found
among Lee Oswald's possessions after the assassination? --- Vince
Bugliosi tells us on page 938. The answer is: 358.
-------------------
Another interesting fact, regarding Jack Ruby and his gun, pops up in
a footnote on page 1077 (VB's footnote cites Larry Sneed's book "No
More Silence" as the source for this information):
"The gun that Ruby used to kill Oswald...was registered to a friend of
his, Dallas police detective Joe Cody! .... To save Ruby the eight or
nine dollars in sales tax, a tax police didn't have to pay when they
bought guns in Texas at the time, Cody paid the $62.50 purchase price
himself and Ruby reimbursed him."
-------------------
I certainly never knew this before reading page 1090 of this book (in
the chapter highlighting the life of Jack Ruby):
"Ruby did occasionally have "first-class" entertainment {at one of
Jack's Dallas night clubs}, including Tennessee Ernie Ford, the
country western singer Tex Ritter, and big bands including Artie Shaw
and other entertainers, many of whom he also, it seems, tried to
shortchange. .... On one occasion Jack had considerable trouble when
he tried to cheat Tex Ritter out of $200 that Ritter was owed."
-------------------
The book's "Ruby And The Mob" chapter also provides readers with a
"Trivial Pursuit"-worthy nugget re. Jack Ruby's car. A footnote on
page 1095 informs us that the license-plate number of the car that
Jack drove into downtown Dallas on 11/24/63 just before he shot Oswald
was "PD-768".
The car was a white, 2-door, 1960 Oldsmobile and was filled with an
ungodly amount of junk and miscellany when it was impounded by the
Dallas police following the shooting of Oswald.
Vince, on page 1095, lists many of the assorted oddball items that
were inside Jack's "rolling, lowbrow thrift shop" when the police took
control of the vehicle. Amongst all the junk, it's amazing that Jack
had room for his dog, Sheba, at all.
Here's just a small sampling of the stuff found in Ruby's car
(including the trunk):
Rubber tips for chair legs, a can of varnish stain, a paper sack
containing $837.50, unpaid traffic tickets, a box of razor blades,
bars of soap, handerchiefs, hardware, stationery, an adding machine,
sport coat and slacks, golf shoes and several golf balls, a roll of
toilet paper, gobs of newspapers, an umbrella, a bathing cap, some
bail bond cards, an empty wallet, a carton with hundreds of 8x10
glossy photos of Jack's nightclub stripper "Jada", and (my favorite)
two pairs of aluminum knuckles.
As Vince says in the book, looking over the seemingly-endless list of
misc. items in Jack's car "conjures up visions of a homeless person's
car overflowing with all of his life's belongings".
Ruby should probably have had a garage (or maybe "Oldsmobile") sale to
get rid of some of his overstocked items....which wouldn't have been a
bad idea at all, considering the fact that Jack owed the IRS
$44,413.86 in back taxes as of late 1963 (yet another hunk of trivia
that can be found in this incredible book).
If you'd like to see the full list of items that weighed down Ruby's
Oldsmobile on 11/24/63, you can peruse the many pages that comprise
Warren Commission Exhibit #1322 (linked below):
http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh22/html/WH_Vol22_0266a.htm
-------------------
A very humorous anecdote and little-known fact pops up through
Vincent's writing on page 1234 when discussing the odd personality
traits of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover:
"Hoover {was}...beset by obsessions, paranoia, and insecurities that
would run off the edge of the paper of any psychiatric report
analyzing him. Just one example: In 1959...Hoover's chauffeur-driven
car was struck from behind while in the process of making a left turn,
and he was shaken up. Thereafter, on instructions from Hoover, his
drivers had to take him to his destination without making a left
turn."
That must have been quite a cumbersome task for J. Edgar's drivers,
indeed. They had to map out "only right turn" routes no matter where
they carted the FBI bigwig. ~LOL~
-------------------
If you ever have a burning desire to know what Ruth Paine's telephone
number was in Irving, Texas, as of November 1963, Vince B. can tell
you (and does, on page 1337). The number was BL3-1628.
-------------------
Lee Harvey Oswald's last income-tax refund check was for the amount of
$57.40. He received that check on April 2, 1963. This tidbit of data
can be found in a footnote on page 1451 of "Reclaiming History".
Via a source note provided by author Bugliosi that leads the reader to
"CD 107; Page 38", linked below, it can be seen that LHO dated his
1962 tax return "January 29", 1963.
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=10507&relPageId=44
-------------------
In another money-related anecdote (on page 953 of the endnotes), Vince
writes:
"To me, one of the most poignant of all Warren Commission exhibits,
one that, in its smallness, speaks largely, is a December 13, 1963,
FBI report that reads, "Records of the First National Bank of Fort
Worth reflect Savings Account No. 8218 opened December 11, 1951...by
Marguerite C. Oswald in the name of Lee H. Oswald with address 7408
Ewing. The account was opened with a deposit of $1.00 and additional
deposits of $1.00 on December 14, 1951, and January 10, 1952. A total
of $3.00 contained in this account was withdrawn July 1, 1952"."
-------------------
In Paris, prior to the assassination, an astrological booklet
predicted this: "For November 1963, the tragic end of the President of
the United States". (Via an endnote on page 20 on the CD-ROM.)
-------------------
In case you're dying to know, Lee Harvey Oswald's Social Security
Number was 433-54-3937. (Via page #76 of the book's endnotes.)
-------------------
I found this next tidbit kind of interesting (in that it sort of
"links" Vincent Bugliosi, Jack Ruby, and Melvin Belli together in a
small, peripheral fashion). This comes via a footnote on page 944 of
the CD's endnotes:
"In the Charles Manson murder case, before Manson settled on a lawyer
to represent him, Los Angeles County jail records reflected that over
200 lawyers came to visit him, including {Jack Ruby's attorney} Mel
Belli, who I later learned offered to represent Manson without payment
of a fee."
-------------------
Here's a real head-scratcher (and a great hunk of trivia, to boot):
Lee Oswald, after he was arrested, had a paycheck stub on him "for a
James A. Jackson from American Bakeries Company dated August 22, 1960,
or August 27, 1960, reflecting the amount of pay as $66.17, less
federal income tax of $7.40 and Social Security tax of $1.99 for a net
amount of $56.78.
"The FBI located Jackson, who confirmed this was his paycheck stub. He
said that he had never met Lee Harvey Oswald and had no idea how
Oswald came into possession of the stub, only conjecturing that
perhaps he had accidentally dropped the stub on the street and someone
picked it up. Why Oswald would have on his person a three-year-old
paycheck stub of Jackson's is unknown". -- (From Page 76 of endnotes.)
-------------------
In kind of a sad footnote to the history of the assassination, Mr.
Bugliosi provides this tidbit of info on page 340 of the endnotes:
"With respect to Marina's...lawsuit against the U.S. government to
receive "just compensation" for all of her husband's personal effects
(including the two weapons)...{in 1973} Marina received $17,729.37
(Porter v. United States)."
-------------------
In December 2000, Dallas assistant DA Bill Alexander revealed to
Bugliosi an interesting piece of trivia....Alexander knew who Tippit
murder witness Helen Markham was prior to 11/22/63. Bill told VB this:
"Helen Markham used to be a waitress at the Courthouse Cafe [before
she moved to the Eat Well Restaurant]. She served me a barrel of
coffee throughout the years. She wasn't dumb, but she was a completely
uneducated old country girl who was inarticulate and didn't understand
people too well. And they didn't understand her, and that caused
problems for her in communication."
-------------------
Some interesting trivia about the disposal at sea of the casket that
brought JFK from Dallas to Washington is revealed in incredible detail
by VB on page 612 of the endnotes:
"On February 17, 1966, 42 holes were drilled through the casket, 3
sandbags weighing 80 pounds each were placed inside the casket, the
lid was locked into place, and the casket was bound with metal banding
tape.
"The casket was turned over to Department of Defense representatives
early on the morning of February 18. .... At 10:00 a.m. that same day,
the casket was dropped from a height of 500 feet from a C-130E cargo
plane into the Atlantic Ocean in an isolated area off the coast
near...the Maryland-Delaware border {into} 9,000 feet of water."
=====================================================
A FEW ERRORS HERE AND THERE:
"Reclaiming History" author Vincent Bugliosi has, in my opinion,
written a very FACTUAL book, with only a very few mistakes cropping up
here and there (that I noticed).
There are very, very few misspelled words within this mass of text,
which I found impressive all by itself. (There are some misspellings,
though...."bullet" comes out "bulled" on page 480, and "Dealey" is
missing its second "e" in at least two places in the book, but the
total number of such spelling mistakes is extremely small for a
publication of this length.)
There are, however, a few small factual errors within the tonnage of
information supplied to the reader on these many pages. But none of
the errors in the book, in my opinion, are major enough to discredit
(in any way) Bugliosi's bottom-line conclusion of "Oswald Acted
Alone".
I've catalogued a few of these minor mistakes below. I did this for no
particular reason; perhaps just to illustrate that not even the "King
of Common Sense and Logical Thinking" (who is, IMO, Mr. Vincent T.
Bugliosi) is totally immune to making a mistake every now and then. ;)
Here's my short "Errors" list:
1.) Vince tells us that the Secret Service follow-up car that was used
in the Presidential motorcade on 11/22/63 was a "1955" Cadillac. (It
was really a 1956 Caddy. In fact, Vince twice errs re. the model year
of that vehicle, at one point labeling it a "1958" car.)
2.) VB has Eddie Barker located at Parkland Hospital when JFK's death
was announced. (Barker was really at the Dallas Trade Mart at that
time.)
3.) Patton Avenue is called "Patton Street" and Beckley Avenue is
referred to as "Beckley Street" at various points throughout the book.
But, to be fair, VB also mentions Beckley "Avenue" correctly, on page
765. (I'm really nitpicking now, huh?) ~sly grin~
4.) In footnotes on pages 118 and 1475, Vince three times identifies
the man who shot Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981, as "William
Hinckley". (He should have said "John Hinckley". Vince, though,
correctly calls Hinckley "John" on several other pages in the book.)
5.) This one has me scratching my head a little bit (although it's
only a very small issue and doesn't mean much at all) -- In Chapter
One (on page 37), Mr. Bugliosi includes a very strange version of
Nellie Connally's final words to JFK that I had never heard before.
Just prior to the shooting in Dealey Plaza, Nellie turned and said to
the President, "You can't say that Dallas doesn't love you, Mr.
President". But Bugliosi's version of this quote is quite different,
however. In fact, it's not even close to the quote I just mentioned. I
could be wrong I suppose, but I don't think VB's variant is an
accurate one.
6.) Vince has the date of Elvis Presley's death listed incorrectly on
page 872. VB has it as August 17, 1977 (it was actually August 16th of
that year).
7.) Page 897 contains an error with respect to Secret Service agent
George Hickey. On that page, Bugliosi claims that Hickey was in the
"vice president's car" during the motorcade. Hickey, however, was one
of eight SS agents riding in the Secret Service follow-up car
immediately behind JFK's limousine.
VB repeats this same oddball error on page 925. Oddly, though, Vince
gets it right on the very next page (page 926) as he correctly says
that Hickey was riding in JFK's Secret Service follow-up car.
8.) In a lengthy and excellent footnote on page 953, Vince makes a
slip of the tongue when he says that Bullet CE399 caused the
President's head wounds. Obviously, he didn't mean to say "Commission
Exhibit No. 399" caused JFK's head wounds. It was an honest mistake.
But I'm guessing there are some rabid conspiracists out there
somewhere who will contend that this error negates every argument in
the ENTIRE book and, therefore, Bugliosi cannot be trusted.
9.) Vince gets his DPD officers mixed up on page 938 of the CD's
endnotes, when he claims that is was "Officer McDonald" who stopped
Oswald in the 2nd-Floor lunchroom. (It was actually Officer Baker.)
Mr. Bugliosi, of course, knows full well that it was Marrion Baker in
the lunchroom, because of the many others times in the book when VB
gets Baker's name right when referring to the lunchroom encounter with
Oswald.
10.) Another confusion about names crops up on page 942 of the
endnotes, when VB says that Ralph Paul (a close friend of Jack Ruby's)
had several telephone conversations with "Oswald" over the weekend of
the assassination. Vince, of course, meant to say that Paul was
speaking to Ruby, not Oswald.
(Note -- I noticed that the number and frequency of small mistakes
like this increases during the last several pages of endnotes on the
CD-ROM. I don't know if this indicates a lack of proofreading these
pages in the days just before the book went to press or not; but I
suppose that's one potential explanation for it.)
11.) Vincent B. tells us multiple times in the book that Lee Oswald
started out the day on November 22, 1963, with "$13.87" in his
pockets. But this has to be incorrect. Why? Because the $13.87 figure
is the exact total that Oswald had on his person when he was arrested
on that day. And we know that he spent $1.23 on bus and cab rides
PRIOR to being arrested. So, Lee had to have started the day with at
least $15.10 on him.
It was probably even a little more than $15.10, because LHO also
bought that Coke, remember, from the TSBD soda machine (and I can only
assume he didn't break into the machine and pilfer the beverage); and
I think Cokes cost a nickel back in 1963.
But even the Warren Commission must have forgotten about the Coke
purchase, because it's not reflected in the WC's microscopic
examination of Oswald's finances that is furnished in the Warren
Report, but the odd amount of precisely "$1.23" is mentioned for
Oswald's bus and taxi fares on 11/22/63. .....
http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wr/html/WCReport_0385a.htm
=====================================================
THE FINAL VERDICT RE. "RECLAIMING HISTORY":
Per the "letter of the law", everyone who is accused of a crime is
considered to be innocent until proven guilty....and this is just as
it should be. However, even lacking the advantage of an official
courtroom trial, Vincent Bugliosi, in my opinion, HAS definitely
proven that Lee Harvey Oswald, alone, was guilty beyond all doubt of
the two murders he was charged with in 1963.
And I also feel that any reasonable person who reads this incredible
and comprehensive book will have no choice but to arrive at that very
same "Bugliosi Has Proven Oswald Was JFK's Lone Assassin" conclusion.
Yes, the more rabid of JFK conspiracists are likely to be unimpressed
by Mr. Bugliosi's all-encompassing body of work here. They will likely
still balk and squawk about how Vince hasn't proved a darn thing and
about how you can never prove there WASN'T a conspiracy.
But it won't matter what the "zanies" continue to say. Because to any
level-headed and sensible person, "Reclaiming History: The
Assassination Of President John F. Kennedy" represents the equivalent
of Moses bringing the tablets down from the mountain. And each and
every tablet says the same thing: "Oswald's Guilty and No Conspiracy".
Upon finishing this tome, it becomes even more obvious that the title
of this book is, indeed, very appropriate and on target -- because Mr.
Bugliosi, within these pages, has done a more than admirable job of
"reclaiming history" from the JFK assassination conspiracy theorists
of the world.
David Von Pein
May/June 2007
=====================================================
A FEW MORE RELATED INTERNET WEBLINKS:
FROM A "LONE ASSASSIN" POINT-OF-VIEW:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/c027e4d0a9f1141a
"RECLAIMING HISTORY" (PRE-RELEASE COMMENTS RE. BUGLIOSI'S BOOK):
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/302fd5a5c5103a23
MY BEST VINCE BUGLIOSI IMITATION:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/3ae26a3befc052b8
VINCENT BUGLIOSI INTERVIEWS AND AUDIO/VIDEO CLIPS:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/511db468713f2b73
A LEE HARVEY OSWALD "TIMELINE" FOR NOVEMBER 22, 1963:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/3a3d654f3c43ed16
A COMMON-SENSE APPROACH TO THE SINGLE-BULLET THEORY:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/a7cf61c59d09bc05
THE ILLOGIC OF THE "OSWALD-WAS-ONLY-A-PATSY" CONSPIRACY PLOT:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/606503e4d63e74ad
A SHORTCUT TO BECOMING AN LNer -- THE 11/22/63 TV COVERAGE:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.conspiracy.jfk/msg/addeb5d529d1fb03
AMAZON.COM -- "RECLAIMING HISTORY" DISCUSSION FORUM:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/discussionboard/cd/forum.html/ref=cm_cd_dp_sap/002-2065385-6525668?ie=UTF8&cdForum=Fx2TVHW5I0UEY9A&asin=0393045250
=====================================================
RICLAND
I really would like to read this, David, because it seems brimming with
ammunition I can throw back in your homely face. But the one thing that
may prevent me from slogging through it is your irrepressible pandering.
Why must you attach your smarmy comments to every other sentence? Where
did you get that from, Bugliosi?
Bugliosi is not a writer. Were he a writer he'd have learned long ago
that Juvenilia like his is the mark of half-wit not a wit.
You're not witty, David. You'll never be a wit, so your best course in
life is to keep as much of your toadying out of your writing as you can
then maybe it will raise to the level of readability and not piss off
witty writers like myself.
Gabesh?
ricland
--
Max Holland on Bugliosi:
"He is absolutely certain even when he is not necessarily right."
-- Max Holland
---
Reclaiming History -- Bugliosi's Blunders
The Rebuttals to Bugliosi's JFK Assassination Book
http://jfkhit.com
David Von Pein
When will you utter your next hunk of "wit", btw? I want to be on the
lookout, because I'm likely to miss it entirely.
BTW, have you found those extra bullets that went into JBC & JFK yet?
I'm still waiting for one of those babies to show itself too.
David Von Pein
To head off the next round of "Bugliosi Was Wrong" idiocy posted by CT-
Kooks (re. the Mac Wallace print)......
Allow me to lead researchers to Page #18 of CE3131....
http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh26/html/WH_Vol26_0423a.htm
....That document comes from J. Edgar himself, and specifically states
that the ONLY print left unidentified on the TSBD boxes was a "PALM
PRINT", not a fingerprint (which aligns with what VB says in his
book).
"There is one latent palm print remaining unidentified, and
investigation is continuing in an effort to identify same." -- CE3131;
Pg. 18
Plus: A footnote written by Bugliosi on page 922 of "Reclaiming
History" provides additional quotes from Hoover re. the print in
question.....
"...Only one latent palm print remains to be identified."
All other prints were IDed as belonging to police officers.
This quote below deserves a replay at least twice a month (lest anyone
forget who they are dealing with here, and the type of support he
garners for all his assertions)......
"If there's one thing I take pride in, it's that I never, ever make a
charge without supporting it. You might not agree with me, but I
invariably offer an enormous amount of support for my position." --
Vincent T. Bugliosi
tomnln
Look where they put the 4 fragments they took outta JBC's wrist.
Look where they put the Mauser.
Look where they put part 3 of the P O Box application.
There's MORE.
"David Von Pein" <davev...@aol.com> wrote in message
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