Dorothy Kilgallen TV Movie
EPaddon
movie about the life of gossip columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, reportedly to star
Anne Heche.
What makes this relevant to a JFK forum (unfortunately) is that the movie is
based on Lee Israel's 1976 bio, and as such is going to hype the long
discredited theory that not even a pro-conspiracy magazine like Ramparts found
credible, that Kilgallen's drug overdose death, confirmed as nothing sinister
by the autopsy report and by the HSCA, was somehow connected to the JFK
assassination, and that she was "silenced" for what she knew.
As I pointed out in my own article "Dorothy Kilgallen And The JFK
Assassination" which was based in part on FBI files released in the last ten
years, Kilgallen never had a clue as to what she was doing, and based her JFK
columns entirely on information spoon-fed to her by Mark Lane (who in turn,
spoon-fed a great deal of misinformation to Lee Israel, in particular his false
assertion that Howard Brennan wasn't looking up at the TSBD at the time of the
head shot based on the Z-film, when Brennan in fact isn't even in the film at
that point).
What a pity that we once again have to see Hollywood serving up its own
sensationalized and bogus view of history.
Eric Paddon
SKeat97
>From today's New York Post, comes word that Showtime is planning to make a
>movie about the life of gossip columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, reportedly to
>star
>Anne Heche.
That would be appropriate, eh? Heche who was found drunk or doped up a few
days ago after the dramatic split with Ellen is to play a booze hag
(Kilgallen). Seems right to me since both Kilgallen and her husband were
fall on their ass drunks. Regards.
Steve K.
EPaddon
>(Kilgallen). Seems right to me since both Kilgallen and her husband were
>fall on their ass drunks
I will say that Kilgallen at least played a pretty good game on "What's My
Line?".
Eric Paddon
dglas...@my-deja.com
epa...@aol.com (EPaddon) wrote:
> From today's New York Post, comes word that Showtime is planning to
>make a
> movie about the life of gossip columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, reportedly
>to star
> Anne Heche.
Anne might not have enough strength to go through with it. Shirley
MacLaine turned down a chance to play Kilgallen in 1981.
> What makes this relevant to a JFK forum (unfortunately) is that the
>movie is
> based on Lee Israel's 1976 bio,
It reached bookstores in October of 1979. By that time two of the
people who had told stories to Lee in 1976-77 were dead of old age. Had
the book come out in 1976, Lee would have had to start the book prior
to January of 1975, when Dorothy's secretary Myrtle Verne died. Myrtle
left behind no family, just an old friend from the fashion business who
cremated her. The friend, alive today, never paid attention to the
Warren Report or any other post-mortems on JFK, Oswald or Dorothy.
>and as such is going to hype the long
> discredited theory
Who has discredited it besides you, John McAdams and other Internet
posters? Can you name one writer whose 20-year-old review of the
Israel book is available via Book Review Digest or the Newsbank
microfiche? Those few newspaper contributors who dismissed the JFK
connection theory pointed out good qualities in the rest of the book,
like the Chicago Sun-Times man who also dismissed any negative
statements about Frank Sinatra.
>that not even a pro-conspiracy magazine like
>Ramparts
Woops. Try using adjectives like "New Left" and "iconoclast." Ramparts
died in 1972, many years before a niche for conspiracy magazines
emerged. Stuff like Steamshovel Press started in a much later era, very
different from 1972, when the entire American media was different. In
1966, when Ramparts included Kilgallen in the issue with the jigsaw
puzzle of JFK's picture on the cover, it was considered radical for an
editor to put an Allen Ginsberg poem in the same magazine with
non-fiction prose. Such a poem appears several pages after the
Kilgallen page. Don't forget what was going on in Berkeley, California,
a few miles from the Ramparts headquarters. Those people weren't too
concerned about what Myrtle Verne had to say.
>found
> credible, that Kilgallen's drug overdose death, confirmed as nothing
>sinister
> by the autopsy report and by the HSCA,
Jacqueline Hess (AKA "Jackie" in the HSCA routing slips) said all her
evidence was in the autopsy report. She did not interview anyone who
had ever met Kilgallen or handled her body. The 1978 Dominick DiMaio
letter at the Archives simply says he's handing over the autopsy report.
Jackie didn't interview him or Lee Israel, whose book was still in
progress in 1977-78.
That autopsy report, also available at the National Archives in
Maryland, offers no verdict one way or the other about the category of
the death. It supports the death certificate, as nearly all autopsy
reports do, citing "undetermined causes pending further investigation."
You'll find that on the death certificate, which is a public record.
Comments by Dr. James Luke in the New York Post, Herald Tribune and Long
Island Newsday match this bland, buck-passing phrase. You can find
these New York articles through interlibrary loan. They all appeared
either the day of or the day after Dr. Luke's announcement exactly a
week after her death, depending on whether it was a morning or evening
paper.
>was somehow connected to the
JFK
> assassination, and that she was "silenced" for what she knew.
>
> As I pointed out in my own article "Dorothy Kilgallen And The JFK
> Assassination" which was based in part on FBI files released in the
last ten
> years,
You skipped the ones documenting her father's attempt to alert the HSCA
to stuff she placed in a safe deposit box and his concern for his
grandson, Kerry Kollmar and the documentation of Ron Pataky's college
football career. You twisted the autopsy report, making it say her
death is not JFK-related when it's really an effort of some medical
school graduates to assert their own power. Dr. Michael Baden did that
in the highly publicized 1980s case of Michael Stewart, hiding evidence
in his car. I won't even go into O.J. Simpson.
You also ignore, in your autopsy segment, the well-documented perjury of
biochemist Dr. Charles Umberger in the 1966 Carl Coppolino trials. A
book by famous trial reporter Theo Wilson devotes an entire chapter to
those two strange trials. Umberger was the only person in the medical
examiner's office who could prove Kilgallen's brain contained a megadose
of three different barbiturate forms that she couldn't have swallowed,
not even in a suicide. Umberger died in 1977 without having discussed
Kilgallen publicly, but his co-worker John Broich is still alive and
sharp. It seems Dr. Umberger hated James Luke, head man at the
Kilgallen autopsy, and once traveled from Manhattan to Oklahoma to ruin
Luke's job there. After that Dr. Luke ran to the DC medical examiner's
office, then the Armed Forces one. He gave the final word on some
Persian Gulf War deaths.
You also ignore, in your autopsy segment, the still-living Dominick
DiMaio, the one who actually signed the Kilgallen death certificate.
You can get that public document by mail, which you can't do with
National Archives documents. DiMaio was chief of Brooklyn deaths. Lee
Israel learned about him after her book came out, but no one would pay
her to update the book. Since the early 70's she has lived in the same
Manhattan efficiency with a Murphy bed. She is better off without
Usenet access.
>Kilgallen never had a clue as to what she was doing,
Do you have a clue what you're doing?
>and based
>her JFK
> columns entirely on information spoon-fed to her by Mark Lane
What about the September 27, 1964 one in which she cites the following
sources?: American Guild of Variety Artists concerning William Crowe,
St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Beaumont, Texas concerning the theory that
an inadequate medical response to Oswald's bullet wounds contributed to
his death, etc. Interlibrary loan will bring it to you. Mark Lane
can't do everything at once.
>(who in
>turn,
> spoon-fed a great deal of misinformation to Lee Israel,
Did he spoon-feed it or just talk to her on the phone? She never
visited DC. She never contacted Henry Wade, clearly very talkative in
Dorothy's company in ABC News footage, but then Lee had a budget and a
deadline. Most paper writers do. Cyberspace writers don't.
>in particular
>his false
> assertion that Howard Brennan wasn't looking up at the TSBD at the
>time of the
> head shot based on the Z-film, when Brennan in fact isn't even in the
>film at
> that point).
So his mistake about something obsessive like that casts doubt on both
Dorothy and Lee?
> What a pity that we once again have to see Hollywood serving up its
>own
> sensationalized and bogus view of history.
At least they don't invade Usenet pretending to be academic and humble.
The Web sites for their movies show colors that are pleasing to some
eyes.
> Eric Paddon
>
>
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
dglas...@my-deja.com
ske...@aol.com (SKeat97) wrote:
> >From: epa...@aol.com (EPaddon)
>
> >From today's New York Post, comes word that Showtime is planning to
make a
> >movie about the life of gossip columnist Dorothy Kilgallen,
reportedly to
> >star
> >Anne Heche.
>
few
> (Kilgallen). Seems right to me since both Kilgallen and her husband
were
>
> Steve K.
>
And Betty Ford, wife of Gerald, was always sober? And Jean Stafford,
author of "A Mother In History," the 1965 book on Marguerite Oswald?
EPaddon
>posters?
Excuse me, but can you tell me just who among conspiracy authors have been
bothering to tout a Kilgallen-JFK connection of late? As I noted, even
Ramparts magazine, a haven for publishing the works of conspiracy authors in
the 60s, found that too much to swallow.
>connection theory pointed out good qualities in the rest of the book,
What merits the book has as a straightforward biography of Kilgallen are
totally overshadowed by how Israel shamefully chose to play up the JFK angle in
order to sell more copies.
>You skipped the ones documenting her father's attempt to alert the HSCA
>to stuff she placed in a safe deposit box and his concern for his
Excuse me, but there was no such document in the search engine available at the
National Archives JFK files. I received every document with her name in
them, and the sum total is FBI reports from 1964 (in which quite tellingly,
Ruby's then attorney Jospeh Tonahill is caught telling the FBI that Kilgallen
had no private interview with Ruby, despite his later claims to the contrary a
decade later to Lee Israel) that deal chiefly with their concern over who in
the WC staff leaked the transcript of Ruby's testimony to her, and the HSCA
request for the autopsy.
I'm afraid also that you totally missed the point of my article, which wasn't
about going into the exact details of Kilgallen's death, which frankly are not
the issue. The issue is whether based on what her knowledge was of the
assassination, and the nature of her "investigation" whether she could possibly
have ever known anything that would have required her being "silenced." Once
that element was explored and the JFK connection eliminated, then the exact
circumstances of whether it was accidental drug overdose
or not become totally irrelevant as far as I'm concerned. As I said in the
conclusion, "Someone may be able to prove someday that there was more to
Dorothy Kilgallen's death, but he will not be able to show that it could have
had any connection with the JFK Assassination whatsoever."
>Do you have a clue what you're doing?
I most certainly do. The FBI files revealed that every one of Kilgallen's JFK
related columns in 1964-65 were based entirely on information spoon-fed to her
by Mark Lane who had yet to publish "Rush To Judgment" at that time.
Kilgallen never performed any original research herself on these matters, she
merely acted as a conduit for Lane to find a public voice. And on the rare
occasion where she did some actual "investigating" such as getting her husband
Richard Kollmar to play act with a stick from the window of her apartment to
decide that Howard Brennan wasn't being truthful, she demonstrated her
appalling lack of ability to conduct a proper scientific investigation. The
fact that Kilgallen's "reenactment" didn't remotely match the conditions of
Dealey Plaza that day totally escaped Lee Israel's attention, who chose to give
it a credibility it didn't deserve. If I'm going to try and prove that
Brennan couldn't have seen LHO in the window, I'd at least be mindful of the
fact that the conditions were sunny and noontime, with Brennan seated on an
elevated ledge, and I wouldn't do it at night standing at street level as
Kilgallen did.
>What about the September 27, 1964 one in which she cites the following
>sources?: American Guild of Variety Artists concerning William Crowe,
>St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Beaumont, Texas concerning the theory that
>an inadequate medical response to Oswald's bullet wounds contributed to
>his death, etc.
Which once again, is a matter of Kilgallen acting as a conduit, not performing
any investigating herself, and therefore only reinforces my point that since
she was merely the courier and mouthpiece for conspiracy buffs, her need to be
"silenced" was therefore non-existent. Simple common sense would mean that
Lane and Mr. Crowe would be the ones at risk. Your little exception merely
proves the general rule that Kilgallen could not possibly have known anything
of any significance that didn't come to light within a year in the books of
Mark Lane and in the Garrison investigation.
>Did he spoon-feed it or just talk to her on the phone?
As Israel wrote, they met several times, and even resorted to comical
clandestine meetings under streetlights to exchange information.
>So his mistake about something obsessive like that casts doubt on both
>Dorothy and Lee?
First off, Lane wasn't making a mistake, he was engaging in a deliberate
falsehood in an attempt to bolster the credibility of Kilgallen's worthless
"reenactment" and Lee Israel, in buying Lane's line on this hook line and
sinker without bother to check the Z-film herself or Brennan's original
testimony for that matter, in the end says a lot about the agenda Lee Israel
wanted to make sure was presented in her book.
>At least they don't invade Usenet >pretending to be academic and humble.
If there's a translation for that in plain English, I'd like to know what that
is.
Eric Paddon
SKeat97
>> That would be appropriate, eh? Heche who was found drunk or doped up a
>few
>> days ago after the dramatic split with Ellen is to play a booze hag
>> (Kilgallen). Seems right to me since both Kilgallen and her husband
>were
>> fall on their ass drunks. Regards.
>>
>> Steve K.
>>
>
>And Betty Ford, wife of Gerald, was always sober? And Jean Stafford,
>author of "A Mother In History," the 1965 book on Marguerite Oswald?
Certainly not. The two you mention were also fall on their ass drunks and booze
hags too. Regards.
Steve K.
dglas...@my-deja.com
epa...@aol.com (EPaddon) wrote:
> >Who has discredited it besides you, John McAdams and other Internet
> >posters?
>
> Excuse me, but can you tell me just who among conspiracy authors have
been
> bothering to tout a Kilgallen-JFK connection of late? As I noted,
even
> Ramparts magazine, a haven for publishing the works of conspiracy
authors in
> the 60s, found that too much to swallow.
>
> >connection theory pointed out good qualities in the rest of the book,
>
> What merits the book has as a straightforward biography of Kilgallen
are
> totally overshadowed by how Israel shamefully chose to play up the JFK
angle in
> order to sell more copies.
>
> >You skipped the ones documenting her father's attempt to alert the
HSCA
> >to stuff she placed in a safe deposit box and his concern for his
>
> Excuse me, but there was no such document in the search engine
available at the
> National Archives JFK files. I received every document with her
name in
> them
You mean you received every document you requested on a slip of paper.
Did you try doing a keyword search for "kilgallen" instead of "dorothy
kilgallen?" Did you see the document about Melvin Belli slamming her
publication of the Ruby testimony without mentioning her name? You have
to look around a little in order to see that one. Sorry to disappoint
you in the event that you live far away from the Archives and must allow
for transportation and lodging in order to visit there.
I don't know how this alt.assassination group works. I just spent two
hours replying to this post in detail. When I clicked on the "send"
command, the Deja server said that it had logged me out for my own
protection. I tried to return to the stuff I had written, but it was
gone. How much time does someone have to compose, edit and send a post
here?
EPaddon
I used a computer search engine, which the Archives has devised for the
JFK files as it is so popular with visitors and typed in the name of
Dorothy Kilgallen and was given all of the documents the search engine
came up with. That consisted of the FBI reports concerning the
investigation of the Ruby testimony leak, which they then decided to drop,
fearing that Kilgallen would exploit the matter to make the FBI look bad,
copies of all JFK related columns Kilgallen wrote in this period, and the
HSCA request for the autopsy which also included the autopsy report as
well. There was nothing else.
I visited the Archives in 1997 while doing research for my dissertation on
an unrelated matter. Because the JFK files can be accessed so easily, the
computer search of Dorothy Kilgallen (I can not confirm that I merely
typed in the name Kilgallen on a follow-up search) enabled me to obtain
every file mentioned within an hour.
So far though, you haven't cited a specific thing wrong with my article in
terms of how extensive her knowledge of the assassination facts could have
been, and why my argument that she was a mere conduit who had developed
nothing significant out of any original research of her own, is wrong.
Again, the issue is not whether her death was sinister or not. I do not
think it was, because I've watched ten years worth of her appearances on
What's My Line? from Game Show Network reruns, and it's quite clear that
alcohol and drugs was taking a toll on her by then, with a noticably
thicker speech by 1965, a slurred introduction of fellow panelist Tony
Randall on her last show, just hours before her death, and a lot heavier
make-up by then to conceal the visual effects her dependencies were having
on her.
Eric Paddon
John McAdams
>
> In article <20000920020410...@ng-co1.aol.com>,
> epa...@aol.com (EPaddon) wrote:
>
> I don't know how this alt.assassination group works. I just spent two
> hours replying to this post in detail. When I clicked on the "send"
> command, the Deja server said that it had logged me out for my own
> protection. I tried to return to the stuff I had written, but it was
> gone. How much time does someone have to compose, edit and send a post
> here?
>
Sorry about that, but I'm afraid we moderators can do nothing about it,
since deja.com didn't send the post to us :-(.
I take it that when you hit "send" it went to another screen, and when
you tried to return, the post you had in the form was gone?
I would suggest that you copy your post to the Windows clipboard before
you hit "send." That way you can paste it into a new form if the first
post is lost.
Better still is to get a real newsreader like Free Agent, and dump the
web interface.
.John
--
Kennedy Assassination Home Page
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm
lowkey
Hi dglass....Checked the backup. See only 3 posts from you on this topic.
All of which have appeared. Perhaps it arrived late on your server.
dglas...@my-deja.com
epa...@aol.com (EPaddon) wrote:
> >You mean you received every document >you requested on a slip of
paper.
>
the
> JFK files as it is so popular with visitors and typed in the name of
> Dorothy Kilgallen and was given all of the documents the search engine
> came up with. That consisted of the FBI reports concerning the
> investigation of the Ruby testimony leak, which they then decided to
drop,
> fearing that Kilgallen would exploit the matter to make the FBI look
bad,
the
> HSCA request for the autopsy which also included the autopsy report as
> well. There was nothing else.
Wrong. I will identify "record numbers" and "agency file numbers" of
some stuff you missed. If you've saved photocopies of the
"identification forms" of the stuff you did get, then you'll know what
those numbers mean. If not, don't worry about it until you can arrange
transportation and lodging for another trip.
Let's start with Record Number 180-10103-10391
Agency File Number 013450
Ninety-year-old Jimmy Kilgallen has made a collage of newspaper
clippings from 1977-78 concerning the build-up publicity for the HSCA.
He has mailed it "special delivery" in a 9 X 12 envelope to Louis
Stokes, postmarked December 3, 1978, possibly too late for the HSCA to
do much with it.
Jimmy wants the HSCA to know about Richard Helms denying that any
anti-Castro plots had "ever got[ten] out of the laboratory planning
stage," Jose Aleman's oft-repeated comment that Santos trafficante said
JFK would get hit with Republican votes and the two Zurich hotels where
his daughter may have left her papers. Oddly, Jimmy includes a New York
Post Page Six plug for Lee Israel's in-progress book (issue of August 8,
1978).
Moving on to Record Number 180-10001-10393
Agency File Number 000124
We learn of Jimmy Kilgallen's concern, in early 1977, for the emotional
well-being of his grandson, Kerry Kollmar. That is why he refused to
help Lee Israel and why he told Kerry to stay away from her. A 1996 CNN
segment about Kerry's Georgia-based business clarifies this point.
Who can forget Record Number 180-10061-10445 ?
Agency File Number 44-24016
It's simply a clipping from the Sunday, August 23, 1964 edition of the
Boston Herald reporting Melvin Belli's anger at Dorothy, with whom he
had been photographed and newsreeled six months earlier at the Ruby
trial, for her printing the Ruby-Warren transcript. Among the quotes:
"But the leak to a columnist of Ruby's testimony before the Chief
Justice has detracted horribly from the Commission and detracted from
the efficacy of its report."
A quick stop at Record Number 180-10062-10214
Agency File Number 44-24016
tells us only that the "Worker" communist newspaper assumed incorrectly
that Kilgallen's February 21, 1964 front-pager ran "in all the papers of
the Hearst chain." Wrong. It only appeared in the New York Journal
American and the post-H.L. Mencken American Mercury, then based in
Oklahoma. The "Worker" quotes from some of it.
The last one I have time to summarize is
Record Number 180-10062-10264
Agency File Number: 44-24016 Box 17 Section SUB A-4
It's a 1964 Kilgallen column that does not appear in the Lee Israel
biography:
"Spectators and press at the Jack Ruby trial in Dallas may expect
forensic fireworks when the State offers medical testimony to prove the
corpus delecti. Melvin Belli and Joe Tonahill, co-counsel for the
defendant, will attempt to show that Lee Harvey Oswald did not did as a
result of the single bullet pumped into him by Ruby, but because of
bungled surgery during which he allegedly suffered a fatal embolism."
> I visited the Archives in 1997 while doing research for my
dissertation on
> an unrelated matter. Because the JFK files can be accessed so easily,
the
> computer search of Dorothy Kilgallen (I can not confirm that I merely
> typed in the name Kilgallen on a follow-up search)
Can you confirm that you filled out a separate paper request slip for
every file that turned up under "Dorothy Kilgallen?" You can't just
tell an Archives employee you want all the results of your keyword
search. You have to fill out a lot of slips. Unfortunately, even that
might not get you everything. The piece about Melvin Belli's anger at
Dorothy only turns up in a keyword search of him, not her.
enabled me to
obtain
> every file mentioned within an hour.
It may have taken an hour, but you didn't get every file.
> So far though, you haven't cited a specific thing wrong with my
article in
> terms of how extensive her knowledge of the assassination facts could
have
> been,
You couldn't have done that, either, because she's dead and no one knows
what she knew. The "could have been" approach is a flaw of any writing
that purports to be the historical record.
and why my argument that she was a mere conduit who had
developed
> nothing significant out of any original research of her own, is wrong.
What's this business with the words "mere conduit?" Any good reporter
is a conduit as opposed to a biased participant in an event. Bob
Woodward was a mere conduit for Deep Throat, and we don't even know who
the latter was. Does that mean Nixon always told the truth?
> Again, the issue is not whether her death was sinister or not. I do
not
You can make any rules you want. Dr. Charles Umberger of the New York
City medical examiner's office thought her death was sinister, but he
preferred to hold his evidence on the back burner until such time that
he might use it to screw Dr. James Luke, head man at the Kilgallen
autopsy. It turned out that wasn't necessary because Dr. Luke switched
to the Oklahoma ME's office and Dr. Luke ruined his career there.
Source: John Broich of Southampton, New York. He is the anonymous
biochemist quoted at the very end of Lee Israel's book. Lee writes of
meeting him and his (now estranged) wife on a "snowbound New York night"
in 1978.
> think it was, because I've watched ten years worth of her appearances
on
> What's My Line? from Game Show Network reruns, and it's quite clear
that
> alcohol and drugs was taking a toll on her by then,
I've watched them, too. She talks more slowly and laboriously than she
had in the 50's, but we don't know what caused it. It doesn't
sound like a drunk's speech. Arlene Francis appears obviously dazed and
shaken on her first few shows after a 1963 car accident for which the
family of a dead woman sued her for over a million dollars. She
admitted in her 1978 biography that she was very clumsy and often
scratched the corneas of her eyes. A 70-year-old swimwear designer
named Hank Weisinger who knew Arlene says her charming demeanor was a
front and that she could be very curt with people.
Also, those who pick on Dorothy for an unhappy love live haven't
questioned the still-living writer Jess Stearn about his relations with
Arlene during her marriage. During that era Stearn spent years working
on a biography of Edgar Cayce, the supernatural kook. He never achieved
much else.
>with a noticably
> thicker speech by 1965,
only on the February 28, 1965 show with mystery guests Nancy Sinatra and
Tommy Sands
a slurred introduction of fellow panelist Tony
> Randall on her last show, just hours before her death,
What about the major improvement in her enunciation the next time she
talks a few minutes later, not to mention sharp guesswork?
and a lot
heavier
> make-up by then to conceal the visual effects her dependencies were
having
> on her.
How do you know the change in both Dorothy's and Arlene Francis' make-up
had nothing to do with the improvement in television floodlights in the
early 1960s? Even Jimmy Breslin, who appeared on the "Hot Line" TV
show with Dorothy and Malcolm X and discounts all JFK conspiracy
theories, admitted in a 1992 Newsday column that these strong lights
were "relatively new" in 1963 and irresistible to Oswald in the police
station.
Arlene's make-up is very heavy on Dorothy's last show. (Nov. 7, 1965)
I don't suppose you will suggest that the failure of New York's WPIX
Channel 11 to preserve any "Hot Line" episodes means "What's My Line?"
videos tell us everything about Dorothy's health and life? Just a few
films exist of Dorothy outside the "Line" milieu. Newsreel footage by
three networks during recesses of the Ruby trial show her to be sharp as
a pin. It is possible that newsreel cameramen from other parts of the
world captured her including her many questions to Melvin Belli, Joe
Tonahill, Henry Wade and others. ABC News Video Source in New York says
it has lost footage of Belli introducing her to "courthouse employees."
EPaddon
What you've posted in the end, doesn't amount to anything that states that
she possessed any significant knowledge concerning the JFK assassination.
The idea of LHO dying not as a result of Ruby's gunshot is just silly.
But so then, was a lot of the stories she gave credence too in her
columns.
>You couldn't have done that, either, because she's dead and no one knows
>what she knew.
Oh, in other words, what she wrote in her columns, and what is recounted
of her knowledge about the case in Israel's biography doesn't count?
Let's recap the specifics, all of which you're unfortunately ducking here.
1-Kilgallen is only investigated by the FBI with regard to the Ruby
transcript leak, and more than a year before her death, the FBI elected to
drop all further interest in her, fearing she would make the bureau look
bad. That means she wasn't under surveillance, and there is no evidence
that any government agency gave a damn about what she was doing in 1965.
2-Kilgallen's columns are exclusively that of passing on information given
by other authors, none of whom ever had any fatal accidents or foul play
befall them.
3-Kilgallen never had any "private interview" with Ruby, according to
Joseph Tonahill, who told this to the FBI while she was still alive, and
this is more credible than his account in the 1970s. And even if she had,
Ruby's blatherings in the latter stages of his life where he was telling
stories about Jews being killed in the basement of the DPD show that
whatever he might have said could not possibly have been of any
significance.
4-Kilgallen's own attempt at investigating, with regard to trying to
discredit Howard Brennan, was laughably incompetent, and if that was her
modus operandi for how she was gathering JFK data, then that only further
shows how she couldn't possibly have come up with anything of
significance.
5-She relied heavily on Mark Lane, a gent whom we now know is a man with a
reckless penchant for not telling the truth about many things when it
comes to the assassination.
>What's this business with the words "mere conduit?"
It means that her columns were exclusively passing on information from
other gentlemen, and since those gentlemen were already in the public eye
(unlike Deep Throat) and would make themselves quite prominent later on
with no ill fortune befalling them, then that means the idea of Kilgallen
being singled out for elimination is just plain silly.
Don't get me wrong, I think in other areas she was quite intelligent,
especially as a WML game player, but I think this bizarre attempt to
connect her death, whatever the circumstances might have been to the JFK
assassination when there is not one shred of evidence to suggest she
either knew anything of earth-shaking significance, and there is plenty of
evidence to suggest she wasn't doing her homework properly (re: the
shameful attempt to discredit Brennan). That is ultimtely what counts
more, and you are then left with the greater problem of why her biggest
source Mark Lane, who would give book form to all of the points he earlier
fed Kilgallen, had no ill fortune befall him at any time.
Eric Paddon
JLeyden900
>From: epa...@aol.com (EPaddon)
>Date: Thu, Sep 21, 2000 14:47 EDT
>Message-id: <20000921144758...@ng-fd1.aol.com>
>
>
I have only a partial thread here so Eric may already have covered this.
But I think it's interesting to note that Dorothy Kilgallen's husband,
Richard, also committed suicide via drug overdose in the same apartment in
January 1971. Another mysterious death?
JGL
dglas...@my-deja.com
No. He was a hopeless alcoholic. She wasn't. For that reason she
deliberately withheld from him any sensitive information about JFK or the
whereabouts of her papers. During the five years and two months that he
survived her, he spent most of his time drinking at a now-defunct place at
Manhattan's Madison Avenue and 69th Street. Source: Dr. Murray Meltzer,
an ophthalmologist who rented office space in the recently departed
Dorothy's house, now occupied by Richard.