I have very little time to devote to the newsgroup, so pardon me, please,
for not responding to each of you who have written in response to my
earlier post. I appreciate that it isn't exactly fair for me to "post and
run," but I have a very busy life that revolves around a full-time job, a
wife, two school-age children, and, believe it or not, commitments and
interests other than the JFK assassination. For this reason, but not for
this reason alone, I no longer publish here regularly. I simply couldn't
keep up even if I wanted to.
However, there are a few things I'd like to say, for the record. If you
insist on a response to each of the 30 e-mails sure to follow, I can't
promise you one. If you want to interpret that as ducking your question,
that is your right. It is not my intention.
1. Somone whose post I can't now locate -- but someone who identified
himself as a conspiracist -- wrote that he found John McAdams to be a
reasonable man. I don't know if John remembers, but the fact is that I
stood up for him at least a half-dozen times during the period of a year
or two that I was active in this newsgroup. But that was when I was on the
outside looking in. His handling of Judyth's story -- or the drippings of
it he has had fed to him -- have forced me to revise my opinion. It has
been suggested by more than one person that we have an even better book to
publish about who "done us wrong" and how. John done us wrong pretty bad.
I no longer recognize him as a "moderator" when he asks Mary Ferrell's
permission to post her phony denunciation of Judyth on his site but never
once asked Judyth's permission to post letters from her to others -- not
him. He clearly uses a double standard. Another example: his willingness
to publish Lifton's charges that Martin and I are con artists over and
over again, while refusing to publish much milder responses by so-called
Team Judyth. I refuse to write a book detailing all of his dishonesty
because it's just not the best use of my time.
2. Mary Ferrell's supposed denuncation is, as noted above, a complete
fraud. It is only the kindness of Judyth that prevents me, for now, from
presenting incontrovertible proof that Mary Ferrell knows that Judyth is
the genuine article. Martin and others we've sought advice from do not
want to upset a woman who is ill and simply wants to be left alone. I was
and remain the lone dissenting vote. Sorry. I look at how her self-styled
friends used Mary to destroy Judyth and, while I have some pity for her
(because they have dirtied her and she knows it), I do not respect her
needs nearly as much as the primary victim does. Those who know Judyth
know she has a huge heart and is quick to forgive. Judyth is truly the
second patsy. There is a truly ugly story here, which has ended with Mary
being whisked away to an "assisted living" facility, with the wagons
circled around her after she made her position on Judyth -- and, quite
specifically, on the newsgroup post -- abundantly clear to three persons
other than Judyth, Martin, and me. And their testimony is only a little of
what we've got to prove the post was a faked pastiche of old e-mails
discussing resolved issues.
3. Judyth has variously been described as addle-brained and a brilliant
researcher who has "inserted herself" into the tiny holes she discovered
in Lee's life. The real Judyth is of the absent-minded professor type. She
is, in fact, disorganized and emotional, but she is smart and quite sane.
The suggestion that she is delusional is a slander that McAdam's is only
to happy to publish without any evidence whatsoever -- except for the way
her e-mails strike him (yes, they ramble) or Rose the Dime-Store-
Psychologist's observation that Judyth "speaks fast" (I never noticed it;
we all speak pretty fast here in the Big Apple). We have decisively
refuted this slander by the most objective of measures. Anyone doubting
this need only ask for a lawsuit or wait for the book.
4. When will the book come out? I don't know. David Lifton promised to do
everything in his power to prevent the book from being published. He and
his friends have fed lies to stoke preexisting fears. It is they who
stirred Rose into contacting CBS, which was instrumental (she was, indeed,
their instrument) in scaring them off -- but not after spending more time
waffling on doing a story than on any other story they ever considered
doing (this they told us amidst awkward apologies). But they did get some
good, supportive evidence, which we were happy about, and they did find us
important allies, who have researched aspects of her story on their own.
5. So why didn't 60 Minutes bite? I take some of the blame for pointing
them in the direction of a key witness who denied saying what has been
elsewhere attributabed to him. Ultimately, however, the answer should be
obvious to anyone with their eyes open. They got scared. They blinked.
They wanted a smoking gun. When you come right down to it, the mainstream
press always wants a smoking gun on this subject, though it will accept
the flimsiest of evidence to air "shocking revelations" on other subjects.
Every assassination writer knows the difficulty of getting "reputable"
journalists and scholars to risk their reputations by going anywhere near
the assassination. Telling her he believed her, Mike Wallace stated very
clearly that they couldn't afford to be wrong like when they told the
world where Jimmy Hoffa was buried. He was being honest.
Even old stalwarts, like Robert Sam Anson, who I called out of the blue,
run like the devil when they begin to contemplate the jeering they will
face the moment a pro-conspiracy article hits the stands with their
byline. Anson got killed after his pieces in Vanity Fair. Just the words
"new witness" were sufficient to have him declare "no interest" and hang
up the phone. Why do you think Robert Tanenbaum wrote his tell-all in the
form of a novel? Because, like the lead character in his Corruption of
Blood, which you should all read, he is horrified at the thought of being
pegged a "buff" -- i.e., a nut -- by his peers.
5. Enough with Cancun! This Cancun nonsense represents 1 1/100,000 of
Judyth's story. It is Debra Conway's one claim to scholarship. It is
ludicrous to see so much written about it. There are many details that
needed clarifying - indeed, some continue to arise - when writing with a
co-author and an "active" agent. I couldn't possibly tell you who wrote
what first in each and every sentence of the manuscript. Does that mean
that I am a liar? Co-authoring is not nearly as easy as I expected,
especially when you live thousands of miles from your partner. The
internet is not like talking or looking at text together. And, let's be
clear: Martin is not a co-author; he is our lead researcher, if you will.
For the record, someone other than me wrote "Cancun" first. How would I
know where they planned to meet if I didn't see it in a note I took or a
page I read? So it remained in the manuscript until it was "caught." So
the area she was referring to was not known as Cancun in 1963. So what?
In the full panorama of Judyth's story, this is a mere speck. When you
write your memoirs, you can easily mix the way you know things now with
the way you knew it back when. What brand of gasoline did you put in your
car 40 years ago? Esso or Exxon? What was the airport you used to fly
out of 40 years ago? Kennedy or Ildewild? Heck, I can't even remember how
to spell what they called it before it was renamed in the honor of our
slain president. The fact that McAdams would use this "error" in his
classes as a perfect "I gotcha" would be laughable if it weren't so
appallingly simple-minded. How many "mistakes" were there in Posner's
book, John? I am quite ready to conceed that a good number of them were
genuine mistakes. Sometimes I have trouble reading my own notes, too.
If anyone chooses to find Cancun and other such tiny matters suspicious,
be my guest. You will have to spend 25 hours a day, 8 days a week
disproving all the book's other statements if, that is, "researchers" like
Lifton permit it to be published.
With apologies to the majority of those who post here - those without
personal agendas and outsized egos - the McAdams/Lifton newsgroup gets
nothing from us unless Judyth says it's OK. She has already written a
virtual book in response to the inanities uttered here, but mostly for the
record. She chooses not to subject herself to mindless and/or professional
hostility.
It is quite amazing: in all the time since Matt leaked his misshapen
version of her story (further misshapen by the wolves who pounced upon
it), no one has evidenced much interest in the heart of her story. Anyone
really interested in Judyth's story should long ago have looked into the
activities of Dr. Alton Ochsner. It is a measure of the superficiality of
McAdams et al. that this key figure in Judyth's story remains an unknown
in this group. Instead of badgering a poor woman trying to remember her
youth as well as she can, why not do some real research? It's not been
easy for us because none of us makes our living off the assassination, but
we have done what we can.
Howard Platzman
>All -
>
>I have very little time to devote to the newsgroup, so pardon me, please,
>for not responding to each of you who have written in response to my
>earlier post. I appreciate that it isn't exactly fair for me to "post and
>run," but I have a very busy life that revolves around a full-time job, a
>wife, two school-age children, and, believe it or not, commitments and
>interests other than the JFK assassination. For this reason, but not for
>this reason alone, I no longer publish here regularly. I simply couldn't
>keep up even if I wanted to.
>
Fair enough.
>However, there are a few things I'd like to say, for the record. If you
>insist on a response to each of the 30 e-mails sure to follow, I can't
>promise you one. If you want to interpret that as ducking your question,
>that is your right. It is not my intention.
>
>1. Somone whose post I can't now locate -- but someone who identified
>himself as a conspiracist -- wrote that he found John McAdams to be a
>reasonable man. I don't know if John remembers, but the fact is that I
>stood up for him at least a half-dozen times during the period of a year
>or two that I was active in this newsgroup. But that was when I was on the
>outside looking in. His handling of Judyth's story -- or the drippings of
>it he has had fed to him -- have forced me to revise my opinion. It has
>been suggested by more than one person that we have an even better book to
>publish about who "done us wrong" and how. John done us wrong pretty bad.
>I no longer recognize him as a "moderator" when he asks Mary Ferrell's
>permission to post her phony denunciation of Judyth on his site but never
>once asked Judyth's permission to post letters from her to others -- not
>him.
I thought you said that the e-mail I published didn't *come* from
Mary.
Now you are saying that I asked Mary for permission to publish it?
Mary politely wrote me in response to my inquiry. So I owed her
something. OTHO the Judyth e-mails "leaked out." They were important
evidence about a witness who was making explosive claims. To conceal
them would have been ethically questionable.
>He clearly uses a double standard. Another example: his willingness
>to publish Lifton's charges that Martin and I are con artists over and
>over again, while refusing to publish much milder responses by so-called
>Team Judyth. I refuse to write a book detailing all of his dishonesty
>because it's just not the best use of my time.
>
>2. Mary Ferrell's supposed denuncation is, as noted above, a complete
>fraud. It is only the kindness of Judyth that prevents me, for now, from
>presenting incontrovertible proof that Mary Ferrell knows that Judyth is
>the genuine article.
Are you calling Mary a liar?
>Martin and others we've sought advice from do not
>want to upset a woman who is ill and simply wants to be left alone. I was
>and remain the lone dissenting vote. Sorry. I look at how her self-styled
>friends used Mary to destroy Judyth and, while I have some pity for her
>(because they have dirtied her and she knows it), I do not respect her
>needs nearly as much as the primary victim does.
Now Mary has "victimized" poor Judyth.
How? You denied that the e-mail I posted was really hers.
>Those who know Judyth
>know she has a huge heart and is quick to forgive. Judyth is truly the
>second patsy. There is a truly ugly story here, which has ended with Mary
>being whisked away to an "assisted living" facility, with the wagons
>circled around her after she made her position on Judyth -- and, quite
>specifically, on the newsgroup post -- abundantly clear to three persons
>other than Judyth, Martin, and me. And their testimony is only a little of
>what we've got to prove the post was a faked pastiche of old e-mails
>discussing resolved issues.
>
Then post that evidence.
Oh, I know. You don't have time right now. You aren't interested in
doing it. You are too big hearted to do it.
But the evidence isn't going to be forthcoming, is it?
>3. Judyth has variously been described as addle-brained and a brilliant
>researcher who has "inserted herself" into the tiny holes she discovered
>in Lee's life. The real Judyth is of the absent-minded professor type. She
>is, in fact, disorganized and emotional, but she is smart and quite sane.
>The suggestion that she is delusional is a slander that McAdam's is only
>to happy to publish without any evidence whatsoever -- except for the way
>her e-mails strike him (yes, they ramble) or Rose the Dime-Store-
>Psychologist's observation that Judyth "speaks fast" (I never noticed it;
>we all speak pretty fast here in the Big Apple). We have decisively
>refuted this slander by the most objective of measures. Anyone doubting
>this need only ask for a lawsuit or wait for the book.
>
But it just happens you can't tell us what your evidence is right
*now,* eh?
If you had it, you would produce it.
If you had it, you could interest a mainstream publisher, or TV
outlet.
If you had it you could humiliate me and Leyden and David Lifton and a
lot of other people.
>4. When will the book come out? I don't know. David Lifton promised to do
>everything in his power to prevent the book from being published. He and
>his friends have fed lies to stoke preexisting fears. It is they who
>stirred Rose into contacting CBS, which was instrumental (she was, indeed,
>their instrument) in scaring them off -- but not after spending more time
>waffling on doing a story than on any other story they ever considered
>doing (this they told us amidst awkward apologies). But they did get some
>good, supportive evidence, which we were happy about, and they did find us
>important allies, who have researched aspects of her story on their own.
>
But the "supportive evidence" they found is also unavailable, eh?
How come you and Martin are always touting the great "evidence" you
have, but when something slips out from Judyth is has no evidence at
all, just wild claims?
>5. So why didn't 60 Minutes bite? I take some of the blame for pointing
>them in the direction of a key witness who denied saying what has been
>elsewhere attributabed to him. Ultimately, however, the answer should be
>obvious to anyone with their eyes open. They got scared. They blinked.
>They wanted a smoking gun. When you come right down to it, the mainstream
>press always wants a smoking gun on this subject, though it will accept
>the flimsiest of evidence to air "shocking revelations" on other subjects.
>Every assassination writer knows the difficulty of getting "reputable"
>journalists and scholars to risk their reputations by going anywhere near
>the assassination. Telling her he believed her, Mike Wallace stated very
>clearly that they couldn't afford to be wrong like when they told the
>world where Jimmy Hoffa was buried. He was being honest.
>
What a coward he is! He doesn't want to be wrong on the air!
>Even old stalwarts, like Robert Sam Anson, who I called out of the blue,
>run like the devil when they begin to contemplate the jeering they will
>face the moment a pro-conspiracy article hits the stands with their
>byline. Anson got killed after his pieces in Vanity Fair. Just the words
>"new witness" were sufficient to have him declare "no interest" and hang
>up the phone. Why do you think Robert Tanenbaum wrote his tell-all in the
>form of a novel? Because, like the lead character in his Corruption of
>Blood, which you should all read, he is horrified at the thought of being
>pegged a "buff" -- i.e., a nut -- by his peers.
>
But hard evidence would change this dynamic in an instant.
>5. Enough with Cancun! This Cancun nonsense represents 1 1/100,000 of
>Judyth's story.
If she will just make up something like this, she'll make up other
stuff too.
In early stages, a cancer is probably 1/100,000 of the cells of the
body.
>It is Debra Conway's one claim to scholarship. It is
>ludicrous to see so much written about it. There are many details that
>needed clarifying - indeed, some continue to arise - when writing with a
>co-author and an "active" agent. I couldn't possibly tell you who wrote
>what first in each and every sentence of the manuscript. Does that mean
>that I am a liar? Co-authoring is not nearly as easy as I expected,
>especially when you live thousands of miles from your partner. The
>internet is not like talking or looking at text together. And, let's be
>clear: Martin is not a co-author; he is our lead researcher, if you will.
>For the record, someone other than me wrote "Cancun" first.
But Martin said you did.
>How would I
>know where they planned to meet if I didn't see it in a note I took or a
>page I read?
I agree that you didn't invent this. Somebody else did. Somebody
whose name begins with "J."
>So it remained in the manuscript until it was "caught." So
>the area she was referring to was not known as Cancun in 1963. So what?
So there would have been no reason for Lee to meet her there.
>In the full panorama of Judyth's story, this is a mere speck. When you
>write your memoirs, you can easily mix the way you know things now with
>the way you knew it back when. What brand of gasoline did you put in your
>car 40 years ago? Esso or Exxon? What was the airport you used to fly
>out of 40 years ago? Kennedy or Ildewild? Heck, I can't even remember how
>to spell what they called it before it was renamed in the honor of our
>slain president. The fact that McAdams would use this "error" in his
>classes as a perfect "I gotcha" would be laughable if it weren't so
>appallingly simple-minded. How many "mistakes" were there in Posner's
>book, John? I am quite ready to conceed that a good number of them were
>genuine mistakes. Sometimes I have trouble reading my own notes, too.
>
It's one thing to make a mistake in recounting or interpreting
evidence. It's another to claim to have *experienced* something you
could not have.
So this is like witnesses who claimed "inside knowledge" of the
"changed parade route." They have clearly read about this in
conspiracy books, and inserted it into their story.
>If anyone chooses to find Cancun and other such tiny matters suspicious,
>be my guest. You will have to spend 25 hours a day, 8 days a week
>disproving all the book's other statements if, that is, "researchers" like
>Lifton permit it to be published.
>
Why don't you self-publish it? Let everybody see it.
>With apologies to the majority of those who post here - those without
>personal agendas and outsized egos - the McAdams/Lifton newsgroup gets
>nothing from us unless Judyth says it's OK. She has already written a
>virtual book in response to the inanities uttered here, but mostly for the
>record. She chooses not to subject herself to mindless and/or professional
>hostility.
>
Why doesn't she just release her story?
Why doesn't she just show up at Lancer and/or COPA and tell it to
anybody who wants to listen? She could have an "evidence packet"
xeroxed to hand out to anybody.
>It is quite amazing: in all the time since Matt leaked his misshapen
>version of her story (further misshapen by the wolves who pounced upon
>it), no one has evidenced much interest in the heart of her story.
The heart of her story is absurd. The CIA would not hire a
high-school graduate to do cancer research. They would not use David
Ferrie's apartment as a research facility.
And they certainly would not try to kill Castro by injecting cancer
cells into him.
>Anyone
>really interested in Judyth's story should long ago have looked into the
>activities of Dr. Alton Ochsner.
If he was engaged in any "suspicious" activities, just why has nobody
discovered them?
He seems guilty of being an anti-Communist.
Now isn't that a terrible thing to be!
>It is a measure of the superficiality of
>McAdams et al. that this key figure in Judyth's story remains an unknown
>in this group. Instead of badgering a poor woman trying to remember her
>youth as well as she can, why not do some real research? It's not been
>easy for us because none of us makes our living off the assassination, but
>we have done what we can.
>
If you have any information on Oschner, just post it right here.
You are constantly alluding to "evidence" and "information" and
"proof." But somehow none of it is ever available *now.*
.John
--
Kennedy Assassination Home Page
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm
>Why doesn't she just release her story?
Because it's bogus and will be laughed at.
They can't stand the prospect of the humilation that will follow.
The story is a joke. It's never going to be published.
Judyth's evidence won't be posted here partly because that's exactly
what you've been consistently trying to manipulate us to do, so that you
can nit pick at it out of context, as is your wont.
As for humiliating Lifton, Leyden, and yourself, the three of you seem
to be doing a fine job of that yourselves. You don't need us.
I see that you are still harping on Cancun, and I no longer think that's
out of ignorance. When I said Howard wrote "Cancun," I was in error. I
corrected the error, and yet you persist in clinging to it. That tells
me quite a lot, John, about the honesty of your arguments.
Skipping over tiresome repetitions of your earlier posts, we get to your
absurd claims about what the CIA wouldn't have done. Of course, they
"wouldn't have done" a lot of things, until we learned in the 1970s and
after that they HAD done them all, and more.
Those who look into Ochsner will find the study most interesting. You,
of course, won't pursue the lead, and will continue to harangue those
who take it seriously, to your discredit and loss. C'est la vie.
Martin
Martin
That's always been their assumption. Thus, they were mightily
puzzled as to why she turned down tabloid money.
They suspect the motives of others, knowing the nature of their
own.
Martin
Well, the best way to refute a lie is to publish the truth. I suggest you
get Mary Ferrell to endorse Judyth and then post it here in the NG. Oh,
wait a minute, that's how you got in this mess in the first place.
Platzman sent her that heavy handed e-mail (12/8/01) implying that M.F.
was "an old woman of deteriorating mind." He suggested she write
"something that expresses in detail how you came to know Judy and why you
believe her." What a charmer! Unfortunately, she seems to have taken it
the wrong and all those nasty, insulting follow-on e-mails from Judyth and
H.P certainly didn't help. But give it some thought. A slick guy like you
should be able to heal the breach.
BTW, I see you're still gagging on the Cancun thing. Let this be a lesson
to you.
JGL
Martin