http://EducationForum.com
NOTE -- A few other people besides DVP and DiEugenio get into this fray too.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I particularly enjoyed the part of this Dallas Morning News article which says that Gary Mack changed his name from Larry Dunkel to Gary Mack (probably way back in the 1970s sometime).
Unless I'm mistaken, that name-changing declaration will probably come as a big surprise to some conspiracy theorists, who I think have asserted in the past that Mr. Mack had simply MADE UP the name Larry Dunkel in order to pose as a different person when discussing the JFK case.
The CTers will still say that by using the name Dunkel, instead of Mack, it still served to "hide" his true identity. But I just think it's kind of funny to find out that Dunkel is Gary's REAL name--and Gary Mack is, in essence, a FAKE name. Interesting irony there, isn't it? :-)
PAT SPEER SAID:
You're thinking of McAdams, David, who went to a conference pretending to be "Paul Nolan." Everyone I know who calls Gary Mack "Larry Dunkel" does so with the full knowledge this was his original name, and does so out of spite, kinda like those calling Muhammad Ali "Cassius Clay", or, even better, those calling Jack Ruby "Rubenstein."
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Okay. Thanks, Pat. You could be 100% right about this. But I had the impression that some CTers thought "Larry Dunkel" was a made-up name used by Gary to hide his true identity. But maybe I'm wrong. (There's a first time for everything, right?) :)
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
Everyone and their mother knows that Dunkel is his real name.
And he has a son from his first marriage who is a musician who uses that name.
He changed his name when he was in broadcasting. Why, I don't know. I mean, if I was in radio, I would use my real name even though it's hard to pronounce. Much harder than Dunkel.
The point is, Larry has been out of radio for a long time. So why does he still go by his stage name?
RANDY GUNTER SAID:
Larry Dunkel = Another Dunkel Donut aka "explanation full of holes". Yes, everyone knows that's his name.
I have been informed that Harrison Livingstone of "High Treason" fame first brought Larry Dunkel out into the light.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Ahh, that explains why I was in the dark. Who in their right mind would ever buy that book?
RANDY GUNTER SAID:
You love to shoot your mouth off about nothing.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Says the man named Randy who said this (about nothing) earlier today:
"I find it hard to believe that [Buell] Frazier can't recall when he started work at the TSBD." -- R. Gunter; March 5, 2013
Pot/Kettle Alert.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
I guess it's pretty easy to forget the single most important thing which ever happened in your life. Which led to you almost being indicted for the president's murder.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Oh, for Pete sake, why in the world would anyone consider Frazier's HIRING DATE to be the most important and unforgettable date in his life? How silly.
Do you think his hiring date in Sept. '63 was MORE memorable than 11/22/63 itself? And we know that Wesley misremembered a few things relating to 11/22:
1.) He told Gary Mack [in this 2002 interview] that the first time he heard the name "Lee Oswald" after the assassination was on the radio BEFORE Oswald was even arrested. (Which is dead wrong and never happened.)
2.) Wesley told Gary he saw Oswald walking on Houston St. about 5-10 minutes after the assassination. (Which is in direct opposition to Frazier's 11/22/63 affidavit, where he plainly states, in his own words, that he never saw Oswald again on November 22 "after about 11:00 AM".)
So why should the date of Wesley's being hired at the TSBD be emblazoned in his memory?
RANDY GUNTER SAID:
Frazier's hiring date was more important than his birthdate. It was the date when he became a part of history and famous.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
You think Frazier became famous and a part of history in September of 1963, eh?
That's weird.
RANDY GUNTER SAID:
What's weird about it? The guy was destined to be a nobody for eternity until he became LHO's personal chauffeur.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Well, yes, I suppose that's true. But do you remember the exact dates when you were hired for every job you've ever had in your life? (And I'm sure at least a few of those jobs of yours involved a situation where you had to serve as personal chauffeur to a future Presidential assassin. Right? ~grin~)
Some people just don't remember dates very well, Randy. Apparently Wesley Frazier is one of those people. It couldn't be more common among human beings. And I cannot understand why you're elevating his hiring date to a level of such significance. Yes, it's significant that he was hired AT ALL at the Depository. But why is the EXACT DATE so important for Wesley to remember?
BTW, what's the point of bringing up Frazier's bad memory anyway? Are you suggesting he was LYING when he was vague about his TSBD hiring date? If so, please answer this for me:
What possible reason would Buell Frazier have had to lie, or become deliberately vague, about something so incredibly mundane and innocuous?
RANDY GUNTER SAID:
BWF didn't seem to have a memory problem for the WC:
Joseph Ball: "Was it sometime around the middle of October [when you first saw Lee Oswald], do you think, would that be close to it?"
Buell Wesley Frazier: "It could have been, because it was sometime in October, because I remember I went to work there on the 13th [of September 1963] and I had been working there 4 or 5 weeks and then he come there."
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Oh, come now, Randy. He gave his Warren Commission testimony in 1964. He was talking to Gary Mack in June of 2002! Can't you cut the guy a LITTLE slack? Geez.
RANDY GUNTER SAID:
Did Gary Mack ask Frazier about the below statement? I may have missed it.
"Garland G. Slack, who also testified before the Warren Commission, claimed that he saw Oswald practicing with a rifle at a firing range on 10th November, 1963. He added that Oswald had been driven to the range by "a man named Frazier from Irving"."
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I can't recall if the stuff about Slack came up in the Frazier/Mack interview or not. But it is interesting.
I've always held out hope that Oswald's presence at the Sports Drome Rifle Range could be positively proven in some way. (Although at this point, I don't think that's possible.)
Because if it could be proven that Oswald (the REAL Oswald, not some make-believe "Oswald imposter" invented by conspiracists) really did take his rifle to the rifle range shortly before Nov. 22, it should forever silence the critics who love to say this:
There's never been any proof that Oswald ever practiced with his Carcano at all. Therefore, how are we supposed to believe he killed JFK if he never practiced with his gun in the weeks and months leading up to the shooting?
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
[Quoting Hugh Aynesworth:]
"After 12 intense hours at the Police Department, he [Wesley Frazier] was allowed to take a polygraph test, passed it impressively and was released."
[End Aynesworth Quote.]
The above is a damned lie by that pathological liar Aynesworth.
Frazier was so shook up, that the polygraph operator could not get a reading on him. He was also so upset he was emitting whining noises.
That polygraph is not to be found today. If he had passed it with flying colors, it would be hanging in the Dallas Police Department on the wall as you came in.
Jim Bishop first revealed this in his Warren Commission apologia book. Then George O'Toole took it further in his later critical book The Assassination Tapes. There was a cover up inside the DPD about this polygraph.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Of course, Jimbo. Yet another "cover-up" by those scumbag Dallas cops. Right?
PAT SPEER SAID:
Dunkel's decision to change his name was a personal choice that his detractors have chosen to mock. It's like calling Cary Grant "Archibald Leach" each time he steps out of a car at a movie premiere. It's INCREDIBLY JUVENILE, IMO.
I mean, SO WHAT? Gary was not his original name. It's not as if Dunkel had a criminal record, or anything that he was running from when he changed his name.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I totally agree with you, Pat.
And I want to take this opportunity to publicly apologize to Gary Mack for stirring up this "Mack/Dunkel" pot here at the Education Forum. (Although it was mentioned by others in this thread prior to my bringing it up.) But I dredged it up in an attempt to put a stop to what I thought at the time was another of the many myths that conspiracy theorists believe in.
But apparently most people here already knew that Gary had changed his name from Dunkel years ago. I, however, had no knowledge of that name change whatsoever. I always thought the CTers were accusing Gary of creating a fake name from whole cloth. But I see I was wrong.
But now I see that Jim DiEugenio has taken the opportunity to further ridicule Mr. Mack, with Jimbo scolding Gary and wondering why he doesn't go back to using his real name of Larry Dunkel since his days as a radio disc jockey are far behind him. I think I can speak for Mr. Mack when I type my next sentence, which seems most appropriate at this point:
Mind your own freakin' business, DiEugenio!
PAT SPEER SAID:
I mean, was "Jack White" the researcher's real name? What about the musician? And what about "Jack Black," or "Frank Black," for that matter? Their "real names" don't matter. Unless they've changed their names to avoid a connection with their past selves. And has Gary done that? I don't think so.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
The Dallas Morning News article is quite clear about the reason for Gary's name change:
"In 1969, Mack had earned his degree in journalism. He was Lawrence Alan Dunkel then, and after graduation, he went into broadcasting. During his time as a disc jockey, he changed his name to Gary Mack at the request of his boss, who thought it would be catchier."
So, we can see it wasn't even Gary's/Larry's own idea to change his name. His boss encouraged it.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
As I have said, I don't find the reminder of the name change at all a sneer or mocking.
For a trio of reasons:
How the heck can anyone compare Larry Dunkel with Archibald Leach? Please.
Secondly, back then, the studio had you by the testacles. You HAD to change your name, or else. Just like, in many cases, if you were a homosexual, you still had to pretend you were not.
Third, Gary Mack/Larry Dunkel is not in the radio business anymore. And he has not been for a long time. So why does he still use a "stage name" when he is not on the stage? And likely will never be again.
As I also said, if it had been me, I would have never done it in the first place. Even though my name is much more difficult to pronounce and recall accurately.
J. RAYMOND CARROLL SAID:
I was astonished to read David Lifton's post and the article in which Gary Mack claimed that Lee Oswald left a note on the morning of 11/22.
I have heard many lies told about Lee Oswald but this is the biggest next to the lie that he was a killer.
I don't mind Gary promoting the official lie, but now he has gone too far.
Assuming it was just his memory playing tricks, he has a duty to ensure that the newspaper prints a correction and he owes a very big apology to Marina and the family.
According to the basic principles of American law and indeed the law of every civilized country, Lee Oswald remains an innocent man.
Furthermore, it is a symptom of the utter bankruptcy of the offical story that one of its chief spokespersons has to make up NEW LIES in order to convince himself and others.
[...]
The online version of this article has been amended to remove the false story about Oz leaving a note.
It now reads:
“When he woke up the next morning, he left behind on the dresser bureau almost every dollar he had, and he left his wedding ring,” Mack said. “When a man does that, he’s made a major life-changing decision. He’s decided to do something drastic and dramatic.”
Let's think about that for a moment.
In my experience, if a man leaves something on the dresser, it means he intends to come back later to pick it up. If he doesn't want something he will probably throw it away.
By coincidence, I happen to be reading the autobiography of Sam Torrance, the great Scottish golfer who captained the winning European team in the Ryder Cup. Sam grew up in a working-class district, and he tells how the typical working man of the time, who was paid in cash, would give most of his pay to his wife and keep just enough for himself for a Friday night in the pub with his mates.
So now we have Gary Mack explaining that when a man leaves most of his money with his wife it means he is about to become a murderer.
Would someone please tell me:
What has become of the United States of America?
PAT SPEER SAID:
I agree with your last point, Raymond. It's upsetting to see Gary regurgitate this tidbit about Oswald and his money without stopping to think. Oswald lived in a boarding house. He didn't have a bank account. OF COURSE, he gave his money to his wife...WHAT ELSE was he gonna do with it...stuff it in his mattress?
Those harping on this point, moreover, miss out on the other side of this issue. When the DPD searched Oswald's room, they found approximately twelve bucks in cash. That may not sound like much, but that was the rough equivalent of a hundred bucks today. That's a LOT of money for a minimum wage employee going on the lam to leave behind. So why did he leave it?
Could it be...that he was hoping to come back?
[...]
They found $13.87 in his room. This suggested that he'd planned on returning. I mean, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. If his leaving some money for his wife can be used to suggest he was up to something, his leaving money in his room can be used to suggest he planned on coming back.
Right, Gary?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Why are you misrepresenting the evidence, Pat? There was no money found in Oswald's room on Beckley. The $13.87 was found IN OSWALD'S POCKETS when he was arrested. [See Warren Report, Page 745.]
I think it's ironic that certain conspiracy theorists are raking Gary Mack over the coals for making a mistake about the note, and here we have Pat Speer making a similar mistake--claiming some money was found somewhere where it definitely was not. Nice hunk of irony there indeed.
And you and Raymond are totally missing the boat regarding Oswald leaving behind his wedding ring and nearly all his cash ($170.00) in Irving on November 22.
How many times had Lee EVER done such a thing prior to 11/22? Answer: Never.
Doesn't that suggest something to you, Pat/J. Raymond?
J. RAYMOND CARROLL SAID:
Hello David:
You and I sometimes agree, and I have to say that even when we disagree you are always most pleasant and charming.
I too had never heard about $13 left in Lee's room, and I would be most surprised if it is true, because that rooming house had many tenants and we know nothing about those people because there never was a real investigation.
So if I were Lee, I would not leave any cash lying around.
I think Pat just forgot to take his memory pills today.
But can you please tell us how you are so sure that Lee had never previously left his money with Marina?
PAT SPEER SAID:
Sorry, David, but if you look at the Dallas Archives website, you'll see that it specifies that the receipt I posted was for materials recovered from Oswald's rooming house.
43. Property Clerk's Invoice or Receipt, by W. M. Dickey. Property Clerk's Invoice or Receipt for property removed from 1026 North Beckley, (Multipart Form), 11/30/63. 1 page 00000190 01 07 043
0190-001.gif
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Well, for Pete sake, Pat, that same inventory sheet also shows the bus transfer and Oswald's bracelet -- which are things that were ON OSWALD when he was arrested.
Don't tell me you think the bus transfer was found in Oswald's room too?
PAT SPEER SAID:
While I suspect you're right, and that these items were in fact the items pulled from Oswald, this raises another question...why the heck was this list made on the 30th, when the lists of Oswald's clothes, etc, were made on the 22nd?
And where's the list for the other stuff supposedly pulled from his person? Like his wallet? Or the bullets he supposedly carried in his pockets?
Were those items sent on to the FBI, and no longer in the DPD's possession on the 30th? Perhaps.
But that still doesn't answer the question why NO inventory of these items was created prior to the 30th.
Was Oswald carrying something when arrested that was made to disappear?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Like what, Pat? Any ideas?
Maybe a Mauser?
Or perhaps the $6500 that he obtained from co-plotters in Mexico?
Is there anything that isn't suspicious to JFK conspiracy theorists?
J. RAYMOND CARROLL SAID:
David:
You have replied to Pat, but you seem to be dodging my question:
How do you know that Lee had never previously left his money with Marina?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I'm glad you brought this up, Raymond. Because I was not entirely correct or clear when I said this in an earlier forum post:
"You [Pat Speer] and Raymond are totally missing the boat regarding Oswald leaving behind his wedding ring and nearly all his cash ($170.00) in Irving on November 22. How many times had Lee EVER done such a thing prior to 11/22? Answer: Never."
What I should have said is this (with the emphasis on the "and" being the crucial point that I didn't stress previously):
Has there ever been another occasion which had Lee Oswald leaving behind most of his money AND his wedding ring prior to him leaving for work?
It's the COMBINATION of "money + wedding ring" that is important, IMO. Because, Ray, you are correct to point out that Lee could very well have left money in that wallet at the Paine house on previous occasions (in addition to November 22).
In fact, the Warren Commission testimony of Marina Oswald actually verifies that Lee did, in fact, leave money in that wallet on prior occasions (and Marina also testified that Lee left extra money in a wallet while they were living in New Orleans as well):
J. LEE RANKIN -- "Did you usually keep a wallet with money in it at the Paines?"
MARINA OSWALD -- "Yes, in my room at Ruth Paine's there was a black wallet in a wardrobe. Whenever Lee would come he would put money in there, but I never counted it."
MR. RANKIN -- "On the evening of November 21st, do you know how much was in the wallet?"
MRS. OSWALD -- "No. One detail that I remember was that he had asked me whether I had bought some shoes for myself, and I said no, that I hadn't had any time. He asked me whether June needed anything and told me to buy everything that I needed for myself and for June and for the children. This was rather unusual for him, that he would mention that first."
MR. RANKIN -- "Did he take the money from the wallet from time to time?"
MRS. OSWALD -- "No, he generally kept the amount that he needed and put the rest in the wallet. I know that the money that was found there, that you think this was not Lee's money. But I know for sure that this was money that he had earned. He had some money left after his trip to Mexico. Then we received an unemployment compensation check for $33. And then Lee paid only $7 or $8 for his room. And I know how he eats, very little."
--------------------
There is also this from Vince Bugliosi's book:
"Friday morning, before leaving Ruth Paine's house in Irving, Oswald left behind his wedding ring and $170, believed to be virtually all of his money, for Marina, demonstrating that he realized he might never see her again--that is, he might not survive the assassination he was contemplating. Moreover, as he left Marina that morning, Oswald told her to use the money to buy..."anything" else that she felt was necessary for the children. Marina thought this to be strange since Oswald had always been "most frugal" and hardly allowed her to spend any money at all." -- Pages 955-956 of "Reclaiming History" by Vincent T. Bugliosi [sourced from CE1820, at 23 H 479]
--------------------
In summary --
Lee Oswald leaving behind the money and his ring doesn't PROVE he shot the President, of course. But the TOTALITY of unusual things he did on November 21 and 22 certainly indicate that Friday, November 22, 1963, was not just an ordinary regular work day for Lee Harvey Oswald.
E.G.:
1.) Visiting his wife at Ruth Paine's house on a THURSDAY instead of his normal FRIDAY.
2.) Leaving Marina $170 and his wedding ring (in tandem) -- which left only approximately $15.10 in Lee's pockets when he left the Paine house on November 22 (and, remember, per Buell Wesley Frazier, Lee was not planning on returning to Irving on Friday night).
3.) Telling Marina to buy "anything" that was needed for the children, which was highly unusual for the penny-pinching Mr. Oswald, according to his wife.
4.) Telling Wesley Frazier he was going to Irving to get some curtain rods at the Paine house, which we know was a lie (based on the preponderance of evidence and testimony that proves it was a lie).
5.) Taking a large paper package into work with him on Nov. 22.
6.) Taking no lunch to work on Nov. 22, which was very unusual (per Buell Frazier's testimony).
And when we add in the evidence of Oswald's guilt that was discovered AFTER the assassination, then what do all of these things suggest--in combination with one another? Do they suggest the actions of an innocent patsy? Or do they suggest the actions of a person who had a one-man plan to murder the President?
Mr. Spence, your witness.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
Wait a minute.
The real point is this, and I mention it in my article on this topic at CTKA.
This is the SECOND time Gary/Larry has done this.
For ITTC ["Inside The Target Car"] he said Jackie was in the line of fire. Yeah Gary, after you lined up the actors wrong. He was then forced to retract.
He now does it AGAIN with the so called Walker note. Which did not surface until AFTER the assassination. Via who? The omnipresent Ruth Paine. And the note did not have Oswald's fingerprints on it. Although there were other prints on it.
Gary Mack pulled off two howlers in public like that? He forgot the Walker shooting was in April?
I don't think so. And neither should anyone else.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Well then Jim, you should be asking yourself this question:
Did Gary Mack REALLY think he could get away with such a blatant and obvious inaccurate statement about Lee Oswald leaving a "What To Do If I'm Arrested" note for Marina on the morning of 11/22/63 -- when Gary has surely got to know that many sharp-eyed people on Internet forums like this one will surely point out the obvious mistake/lie and call him on it?
Now, Jim, when Gary's quote about the note is put into the above context and framework, do you truly believe that Gary Mack would have deliberately lied about such a note being left by Oswald?
Or could it possibly--just possibly--have merely been an honest mistake (which, btw, has since been corrected at the DMN site)?
I know what Jimbo's answer will likely be. But I thought I'd ask it as kind of a rhetorical question nonetheless.
DAVID G. HEALY SAID:
so.... how are things in that cloud called illusion that you inhabit? Comedian (comic, so even Von Pein can understand) isn't your gig, Studley...
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Gosh, you're a strange person, Healy.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
Question: Did the Morning News print something that was a howler? That any fact checker should have detected?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Did Gary Mack do the same thing on ITTC? Even though he was advised by [Robert] Groden that the actors were lined up wrong? Even though Gary had watched the [Zapruder] film maybe 50 times already?
Answer: Yes he did.
When a pattern of deceptive behavior is repeated it merits suspicion, since we all know Gary knows better. And especially when the alleged "mistakes" lean one way, and he knows he will be protected in the medium he made them in. Realistic people who understand the way the world works know this.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
My latest e-mail conversation with Gary Mack:
Subject: Gary Mack Explains
Date: 3/10/2013 7:08:50 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
From: Gary Mack
To: David Von Pein
Hi Dave,
Exactly right, folks who think I would make up something wrong to mislead people just make me laugh. I sat for an interview with a News reporter and spoke off the top of my head for well over an hour and got one thing wrong out of many, many topics we discussed. I sent word to him quickly and the story was corrected. What's online is the archive version people will read forever. There may even be a formal correction notice.
As for the property invoice, that was the standard form used for items retrieved with a prisoner. Unfortunately, it was misidentified twenty-five years later when the DPD's Kennedy papers were inventoried by city archivists. Such forms were kept by the property clerk and the listed items would be released to the prisoner later. Prisoners were allowed to keep their wallets but Oswald's bullets were likely withheld along with the revolver police found him trying to fire at them. There's a separate listing for the items found in Oswald's room, though I haven't seen it in years.
Gary
=================================================
Date: 3/10/2013 7:17:32 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
From: David Von Pein
To: Gary Mack
Thanks, Gary.
Did the reporter just get mixed up and confused about the "note left for Marina" topic? I mean, when you talked about a "note" in your lengthy interview with the Dallas Morning News, were you really referring to the Walker incident from April 1963 and the reporter got mixed up and thought you were referring to 11/22/63 instead?
Anyway, I appreciate your taking the time to write.
Regards,
David Von Pein
=================================================
Date: 3/10/2013 9:09:04 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
From: Gary Mack
To: David Von Pein
As for the mistake, it was probably mine, but I'm not sure. We did talk about the Walker shooting and I could have mentioned the note then.
BTW, the DPD records probably have a similar property receipt for Ruby, too.
Gary
=================================================
Date: 3/10/2013 9:14:19 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
From: David Von Pein
To: Gary Mack
Gary,
Thanks for your latest reply.
It just goes to prove that even someone who knows the JFK case backward and forward (like yourself) can sometimes make an inexplicable error about a fact relating to the assassination.
I said that exact same thing to conspiracy theorist Ben Holmes when discussing Vincent Bugliosi's "brain cramp" regarding the "ragged" nature of the wound in JFK's throat (which is a topic that Ben is absolutely positive Bugliosi "lied" about in his book).
Vincent's memory is not exactly what it was many years ago (and Vince even admits that fact himself), and I think a little bit of that failing memory did, on rare occasions, sneak into the pages of his JFK book.
Bottom line -- People are HUMAN. Not machines. They make mistakes and always will as long as we humans roam the Earth.
Best regards,
David Von Pein
J. RAYMOND CARROLL SAID:
Mr. Bugliosi suffers from the Gary Mack syndrome.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
And J. Raymond Carroll suffers from the very odd disorder known as Anybody But Oswald Syndrome.
J. RAYMOND CARROLL SAID:
[Quoting DVP:]
"3.) Telling Marina to buy "anything" that was needed for the children, which was highly unusual for the penny-pinching Mr. Oswald, according to his wife."
[End DVP Quote.]
Simply NOT TRUE.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Perhaps Raymond should review Commission Exhibit No. 1820 again:
"OSWALD then told her to...buy anything that was necessary for the children out of the money which they had saved, and which was in the wallet in the dresser drawer. MARINA states that in reflection, now she believes this to be strange, because OSWALD had always been most frugal and did not allow her to spend hardly any money." -- Via CE1820; An FBI interview with Marina Oswald, in the Russian language, on January 15, 1964
J. RAYMOND CARROLL SAID:
Since the evidence does not support your case, you and Mack and Bugliosi, et al have to try to DEMONIZE an innocent man.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
After reviewing the list of things I mentioned in an earlier post above (and when adding in all of the many, many things which show Oswald to be a double-murderer that I didn't mention in that post), only a person who has totally taken leave of every ounce of common sense he may have possessed could possibly believe that I have attempted to "DEMONIZE an innocent man" named Lee Harvey Oswald.
In other words, to the Anybody But Oswald conspiracy crackpots, the MORE evidence there is of Oswald's (double) guilt, the more INNOCENT Oswald becomes.
Now THAT'S bizarre.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
Well, how about three times?
Excerpt from my review of another trash show by Mack/Dunkel, The Ruby Connection.
It's actually four times, since I noted here how Gary the Fabricator moved Kennedy's exit wound to make that trajectory line possible. And here he just removed Fritz altogether in order to deceive the public.
Moving exit wounds, removing Fritz, moving Jackie into the line of fire, moving questionable notes from April to November, all this is possible with Mack/Dunkel. It's all just "mistakes", right? "Mistakes" that all point in one direction. Shoring up the WC.
Gary Mack has become a clown. Whatever his masters want, he does. Dave Perry trained him well. Now he has no qualms about lying his head off in public over and over.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
One of these days, it'd sure be nice if someone would sue the pants off of a few of the conspiracy-happy clowns (like DiEugenio, for example) for defamation of character, as a result of the clowns constantly calling various people liars, Presidential murderers, "accessories after the fact to murder", and various other specious and vile charges that the clowns couldn't prove if their lives hung in the balance.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
LOL.
Davey, I was just echoing what you and Paul May say about me all the time.
Geez, sensitive double standard there, eh mate?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Bull.
I've never accused you of being part of a "cover-up" in the JFK assassination (as you have done on many occasions when you accuse a whole host of people of being involved in a cover-up after Kennedy's death, including your silly little "Troika" comments when referring to Dulles, Ford, and McCloy).
And I've never accused you of planting and/or altering the evidence in the JFK case (as you do almost every day of your life when talking about the evidence that you think was ALL fabricated, planted, or manufactured in order to frame a man named Oswald).
And I think you might even have a difficult time digging up a post of mine where I have called you a liar. Because I don't think I have used that word when referring to you. "Kook", "delusional", "conspiracy-thirsty clown"--yes--I've utilized those most-appropriate terms to describe your absurd anybody-but-Oswald beliefs...but "liar", not very likely.
I'm very careful about how I use that word. I use it rarely, and only to describe a person who I know has told at least one big fat whopper of a lie regarding the JFK case (not a MISTAKE, but a provable LIE) -- with Roger Craig and Jean Hill being the top two examples.
But your list of "liars", Jimbo, goes on for miles, it seems. You surely don't deny that...do you Jim?
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
[Quoting DVP:]
“"Kook", "delusional", "conspiracy-thirsty clown"--yes--I've utilized those most-appropriate terms to describe your absurd anybody-but-Oswald beliefs...but "liar", not very likely.”
[End DVP Quote.]
ROTF LOL
To me this is a distinction without a difference.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
No. I think the difference between "kook/delusional" and "liar" is substantial. A person can be very truthful and honest and still be a kook. That type of person, when it comes to the JFK case specifically, just simply has no capacity for properly evaluating the evidence in front of him. And it has been apparent to me for quite some time now that James DiEugenio is one of those persons. I mean, when a guy can suggest that Lee Oswald didn't carry any large bag at all into the Book Depository on Nov. 22--well, I think you get my point and I can safely rest my case.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
You are saying that whatever I say cannot be trusted.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I'm saying that the conclusions you draw from your research cannot be trusted. Take that "paper bag" example yet again. Almost everyone alive--even hard-boiled conspiracy theorists--agree that Lee Harvey Oswald carried some type of large brown paper package to Buell Wesley Frazier's house in Irving on the morning of November 22, with Oswald placing that package into the back seat of Frazier's car. And almost all conspiracists love the idea that that package was too small to hold Oswald's Carcano rifle.
But you, Jim, can now never again utilize that very popular "too small" theory about the paper bag -- because you don't think Oswald had any bag at all. Therefore, if you ever try to argue the "too short" or "too small" argument, you're going to look mighty foolish, because according to you, Linnie Randle and Buell Frazier didn't see ANY bag at all. (Which should make you wonder, Jim, why on Earth those two liars known as Randle and Frazier didn't at least say that their make-believe paper bag was big enough to hold the item that they both knew had to go inside of it. That's hilarious.)
And speaking of Jim's conclusions that "cannot be trusted" -- let's have a look at another one (and this one is a real lulu):
"I'm not even sure they [the real killers of JFK, not Lee Harvey Oswald, naturally] were on the sixth floor [of the Book Depository]. I mean, they might have been. But what's the definitive evidence that the hit team was on the sixth floor? .... If they WERE on the sixth floor, they could have been at the other [west] end." -- James DiEugenio; February 11, 2010
In light of the massive amount of evidence that PROVES that an assassin was firing shots at JFK from the east end of the sixth floor of the TSBD (including the eyewitness accounts of people like Mal Couch, Bob Jackson, Amos Euins, and Howard Brennan), the above statement made by DiEugenio is so outrageous and ridiculous it deserves only a hearty laugh or two.
And in case some people think I might have just made up the above DiEugenio quote just to ridicule him, you can listen to Jimbo say those words here (at 34:17).
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
And in all the reams you have written about me, how can you be so sure you never did call me a liar? I mean why not? You called me everything else.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Oh, it's quite possible I have. I'm not 100% sure. And I left open that possibility by using the verbiage I did in my previous post, when I said:
"And I think you might even have a difficult time digging up a post of mine where I have called you a liar. Because I don't think I have used that word when referring to you. "Kook", "delusional", "conspiracy-thirsty clown"--yes--I've utilized those most-appropriate terms to describe your absurd anybody-but-Oswald beliefs...but "liar", not very likely." -- DVP
While it's "not very likely", it's still possible that I've let the L word slip through the cracks a time or two when talking about the hundreds of silly things that James DiEugenio believes concerning the Kennedy assassination.
But I've certainly never accused Jim of doing the despicable, vile, and illegal things that he has no problem at all accusing many people of doing (sans any proof whatsoever) -- such as: planting evidence in a Presidential murder case in order to incriminate an innocent "patsy" named Oswald....covering up tons of stuff relating to the assassination....falsifying official documents....coercing witnesses and forcing them to tell one lie after another about the murder of JFK....and on and on.
Those are the kinds of serious allegations that I would love to see a conspiracy theorist have to defend in a court of law someday, after somebody who has been slandered by one of those conspiracy mongers takes them to court on a defamation charge. The CTer wouldn't stand a chance.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
I pointed out four instances where Mack/Dunkel--in the best John McAdams tradition--flat out misrepresented the facts of the case. (And in two instances there have been retractions. Which is more than what McAdams does.) And, BTW, I could have gone even further in this regard. Now, when every single one of these instances points in one direction, then what is the clear bias that is evident? It seems to me to be pretty obvious: Mack/Dunkel wants to out Warren Commission the Warren Commission. Because not even they went as far as he does in these instances. At least not as far as I can see.
Now, this is all carelessness? All randomness? Just mistakes? When the guy sits atop of one of the largest repositories of information in the country? With my little library of maybe seventy books on JFK and his assassination, I don't commit howlers like that. Even though I write and speak much more often than he does.
Let's put it this way: If he was a visiting scholar at a storied institution, what do you think would happen to him?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
He would be treated with respect and would be looked upon as one of the world's leading experts on the JFK assassination (which he most certainly is).
I'll repeat the following quote from Mr. Mack (which DiEugenio undoubtedly thinks is yet another lie being uttered by Gary, even though Jimmy knows that the online version of the Dallas Morning News article in question has been corrected, and why would Gary want it corrected if he was trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes?)....
"Folks who think I would make up something wrong to mislead people just make me laugh. I sat for an interview with a News reporter and spoke off the top of my head for well over an hour and got one thing wrong out of many, many topics we discussed. I sent word to him quickly and the story was corrected. What's online is the archive version people will read forever. There may even be a formal correction notice." -- Gary Mack; March 10, 2013
And I just love this ironic remark coming from Jimmy D.:
"I don't commit howlers like that." -- J. DiEugenio
Now, with the above quote from Jimbo fresh in their minds, I'll now remind everyone to take another look at this lengthy list of DiEugenio's delusional beliefs.
Are you sure you've never committed any "howlers", Jim? None at all?
I beg to differ. Because that list I just linked to certainly suggests otherwise.
To reciprocate, if anybody from a "storied institution" would ever want James DiEugenio to visit them and (gasp!) actually give a talk about the facts of the JFK assassination, I would pity the poor people at the "storied institution" who invited him in the first place. Because those folks are going to hear some "howlers" to be sure.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
[Gary Mack] forgot Fritz had been in front of Oswald when [he was] working on a show about Ruby killing him.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
So what? Who cares? It wasn't FRITZ who got shot, was it? And it wasn't FRITZ who shot Oswald either.
Eliminating Fritz from a re-creation of Oswald's murder is the same as eliminating Nellie Connally or Roy Kellerman from a reconstruction of JFK's murder.
IOW--It makes no difference whatsoever if Captain Fritz is included in a re-creation or not.
Let's now wait for Jimbo to dish out his hogwash about how J. Will Fritz was "in" on a plot to have his prisoner murdered by Jack Ruby in the DPD basement, with Jimbo pretending that the physical "gap" that existed between Captain Fritz and Oswald was placed there by Fritz intentionally in order to allow Ruby easier access to Oswald.
What was Jimmy saying about "howlers" a little while ago?
Talk about Pot/Kettle. Looks like we've got another DiEugenio Howler regarding Fritz' "suspicious behavior".
PAT SPEER SAID:
I must say that David's defense of Gary regarding some of his mistakes is a little misguided. Whether or not GARY believed Fritz was involved in Oswald's shooting is NOT the point. The point is that, in leaving Fritz out of the re-enactment, the viewers were not allowed to decide for themselves if there was anything suspicious.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Well, actually Pat, I would guess that it's very likely that the theory about Captain Fritz being involved in a plot to kill Oswald was so outlandish and preposterous in Gary Mack's mind that he didn't give it a second thought when he didn't include Fritz in the re-creation, due to the fact that Fritz had nothing to do with Oswald's murder.
Plus, how does DiEugenio know that Gary Mack HIMSELF was wholly responsible for the re-creation that was done for that documentary? (BTW, that's a program I never have seen.) But why couldn't OTHER people have arranged the re-creation, with Gary possibly only playing a minimal role in it (if any at all)? I'll readily admit, I have no idea. I'm just asking.
Also, Pat, since you think the "Ruby Connection" program should have had Will Fritz included in the re-enactment because many people suspect Fritz of being "involved" in Oswald's killing in some way -- does that mean that you think Dale Myers' computer re-creation should have included driver William Greer too? After all, many CTers think Greer shot Kennedy. Should Myers have placed an animated Greer in his computer model so that viewers could "decide for themselves if there was anything suspicious"?
In other words, how outrageous and preposterous does a theory need to be before it can be summarily dismissed by reasonable JFK assassination researchers?
I think that's a fair question after nearly 50 years of "outrageous" nonsense surrounding President Kennedy's death. Don't you?
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
Who else on that show ["The Ruby Connection"] is an authority [besides Gary Mack]?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I haven't the slightest idea. As I said, I never saw it. I was merely bringing up the possibility that it wasn't all Gary Mack. I really couldn't care less. Because anyone suggesting Fritz was a co-conspirator is just plain off the rails, IMO.
Plus, if Fritz were bent on framing Oswald (as you also believe), he would probably have said that Oswald confessed to killing either JFK or Tippit (or both). Why didn't Fritz do that, Jimbo?
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
I, and others, showed through the weight of the evidence that Oswald was framed in both cases on the 22nd, and he did not fire at Walker.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
You've shown no such thing, Jimbo. And neither has anyone else. You're just madly in love with the idea that Oswald was innocent (for some unknown reason). But the evidence clearly shows you are dead wrong. But you'll keep pretending you have proven it's ALL fake evidence. And how likely is that?
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
Oswald never picked up that rifle.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Yeah, he was only photographed with it by his wife. His palmprint is on it (CE637). His fingerprints are on the trigger guard (Scalice; 1993). The HSCA said that C2766 was the same rifle Oswald is holding in the backyard pictures (6 HSCA 66). And we know that C2766 was shipped to OSWALD'S post office box in Dallas by Klein's.
You DO realize how many people you have to call LIARS (or boobs) in order to take that rifle out of Lee Harvey Oswald's hands, don't you Jimmy? I haven't counted up the total number of liars there would have to be in this regard, but it's certainly quite a few. (Maybe Jim will count them up for us and give us his final "Liars" total connected with the rifle issue.)
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
BTW, when the SS first interviewed Marina, she said she never saw a rifle with a scope. Just like she never knew anything about LHO in Mexico. Later, when she started getting money from a phony company, she changed her tune about this and many other things.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Oh, brother.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
I don't even want to talk about the Tippit murder today.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I don't blame you. Because anyone who has the silly idea that Oswald didn't shoot Officer Tippit should certainly want to keep that embarrassment to themselves. (But Jimbo's going to talk about it anyway--below.)
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
I mean after Barry Ernest's book and the testimony he unearthed about the time of the shooting there, I mean forget it.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
It always seems to hinge on the timing issue, doesn't it Jim? And you seem to think that the exact time of Tippit's shooting can be established by the witnesses, don't you? Well, of course, it cannot.
And while Jim is convinced that Tippit was killed at 1:06 (or was it 1:10?), Jimbo will totally ignore the BEST EVIDENCE in the Tippit case--the physical evidence--the bullet shells--that littered Tenth Street, which, as per his norm, Jimbo ALSO thinks is phony evidence. (And he gets to add more liars and con artists to his lengthy list of crooks who were bent on framing Oswald.)
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
It's obvious that the FBI ignored the best witnesses in that [Tippit] case.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Yeah, right Jim.
Davis, Davis, Callaway, Guinyard, Benavides, Scoggins, Markham, and Patterson were all rotten witnesses. Only Clemons makes the grade as "best" witness in your book. All of those other people who fingered Oswald were nothing but idiots or liars, right?
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
And DVP just got his butt kicked--what else is new--on Scoggins by Gil J.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
So you DO think Scoggins was a liar when he positively IDed Oswald, don't you? (What else is new? Jim thinks somebody was lying. I love it.)
And Jimbo will ALSO find some way to worm his way around Ted Callaway's ironclad "It Was Oswald" testimony too. Won't you, Jim?
And Barbara Davis. And Virginia Davis. And Sam Guinyard. And on and on....
And you say I'm the one in denial? Look in the mirror.
DiEugenio's campaign to exonerate a double-killer gets more pathetic (and desperate) with each passing day (as my previously posted list clearly demonstrates).
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
The Warren Commission WAS NOT a judicial proceeding. It was kangaroo court. .... They were there to frame Oswald.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Yeah, sure Jimbo.
~yawn~
~vomit~
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
In an actual court proceeding, [Dallas Police Lieutenant J.C.] Day would have been impeached by Drain and LaTona [sic] to the point that he would [have] been laughable.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
And just exactly HOW would Vince Drain and Sebastian Latona have "impeached" Lt. Carl Day of the DPD?
You actually think something Drain and Latona said means that Day couldn't possibly have lifted Oswald's palmprint from the rifle on November 22?
If you DO really believe that, you've taken a trip deeper into Rod Serling's T-Zone than even I had figured.
I'll also add this:
Anyone who thinks that J.C. Day was a liar regarding the palmprint matter needs to read "Reclaiming History", starting on Page 799.
A key excerpt:
"Warren Commission assistant counsel Wesley Liebeler told the HSCA that in "late August or September" of 1964, he suggested questioning [DPD Lieutenant J.C.] Day further in an attempt to resolve the multitude of questions that remained surrounding the discovery of the palm print.
It had occurred to Liebeler and a few other assistant counsels, as it would later to Mark Lane, that perhaps the palm print didn't come from the rifle at all. The Commission, at that time, only had Day's word for it. It wanted something stronger. But when Liebeler approached Chief Counsel J. Lee Rankin about it, he objected. "Mr. Rankin was not terribly enthusiastic about having a couple of Commission lawyers go down to Dallas and start questioning the Dallas Police Department," Liebeler told the HSCA in 1978. "Quite frankly . . . it would have raised all kinds of questions at that time as to what in the hell was going on, what are we doing going down and taking depositions from the Dallas Police Department two months after the report was supposed to be out?"
But Liebeler said they realized the problem could be resolved "in another way." Several Commission assistant counsels subsequently met with FBI inspector James R. Malley, the bureau's liaison with the Commission, and FBI fingerprint expert Sebastian Latona. Liebeler asked Latona whether there was a way to prove that the lift came from the rifle. Latona reexamined the lift submitted by Lieutenant Day and noticed pits, marks, and rust spots on it that corresponded to identical areas on the underside of the rifle barrel--the very spot from which Day said the print had been lifted.
J. Edgar Hoover sent a letter by courier to the Commission on September 4 to confirm this finding, along with a photograph showing the corresponding marks on the barrel and the lift. Liebeler was satisfied. Now, there was no doubt whatsoever--the palm print Day had lifted had come from Oswald's rifle."
-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 803 of "Reclaiming History"
[Also See: 11 HSCA 254-255.]
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
In fact, I seriously doubt if the judge would have allowed him to testify. And when you brought in the Groody testimony, I mean, please.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Jimbo thinks Paul Groody is MORE reliable than Lt. Day.
To repeat what Jimbo just said -- I mean, please! (And remember my weak bladder, will ya?!)
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
The WC was not the real world. It was a twilight supernatural world that exists only in bad novels.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Actually, the only "twilight supernatural world" associated with the JFK assassination exists on websites like CTKA.net, which wallows in fake evidence, cover-up agents, "Troikas", make-believe "imposter Oswalds", and a "Patsy" plot that is so inept and far-fetched that nobody in the whole world (even if they were half drunk) would have planned it that way -- i.e., a LONE-patsy plot featuring MULTIPLE shooters firing from the FRONT and REAR. I mean, please. LOL.
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
What's next: Oswald was a good shot?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
He was a good shot by ordinary CIVILIAN standards, yes. And he was certainly (at one time at least, in 1956) an average shot by Marine standards.
Or do you think the United States Marine Corps dishes out "sharpshooter" rankings to really, really lousy riflemen?
JAMES DiEUGENIO SAID:
A plea to the mods: put this guy out of his misery. And eliminate ours.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Good idea, Jim. Because if there's one thing you don't want to have to contend with on this forum (or any other forum), it's somebody with an opposing viewpoint who isn't shy about pointing out the long list of impossible things you believe in.
Also:
I want to remind everybody reading this that Jimmy's last quote I just cited above are words that were written by a man who said this to fellow Education Forum member Randy Gunter just eight days ago on March 6, 2013:
"Randy: After long experience, I advise anyone to avoid getting into it with DVP. He uses all kinds of rhetorical techniques to dodge the issue. .... Consider this a friendly warning." -- Jim D.
Can anyone say "hypocrite"?
PAT SPEER SAID:
Ah, yes, the Hoover letter. Note that Hoover's letter was just that, a letter. It was NOT sworn testimony. Note also that the exhibit itself is nearly impossible to make out, and that NO corresponding photo was taken showing where the heck this lift came from on the rifle.
Note also that Hoover had no problem lying even when under oath, as proved by his testimony, where he claimed the FBI had no reason to put Oswald on the watch list, months after he'd ordered an internal witch-hunt in which those failing to put him on the watch list had been persecuted.
And then there's this... The rifle was returned to the DPD on the 24th. The FBI didn't find out about the lift until the 26th. It remains possible, therefore, that the print was somehow added to the rifle, and THEN lifted.
As stated, I never came to a conclusion as to this possibility...but the evidence presented by Hoover and Bugliosi in support of the print's authenticity, is weak, weak, weak...
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Let's leave Hoover and Bugliosi out of this for a moment and talk about the people who actually set the ball in motion for re-examining the palmprint that Lt. Day lifted off of the rifle -- namely Wesley Liebeler and (most importantly) fingerprint expert Sebastian Latona:
It was LATONA, not Hoover or Bugliosi, who said the palmprint contained the rust spots and other marks that EXACTLY matched the place on the rifle where Lt. Day said he lifted the print. Or do you think Mr. Liebeler was telling a big fat lie in the HSCA testimony shown below? (I would guess that some conspiracy theorists will rake Liebeler over the coals for using the word "happily" in this testimony, even if those CTers don't have the nerve to come out and call him an outright liar regarding this palmprint issue.) ....
"Latona went back and looked at the lift [CE637; Oswald's palmprint]. He found that there were indications in the lift itself of pits and scores and marks and rust spots that had been on the surface from which the print had been lifted, and happily they conformed precisely to a portion of the underside of the rifle barrel and the FBI so reported to us. As far as I was concerned that conclusively established the proposition that that lift had come from that rifle." -- Wesley J. Liebeler; HSCA Testimony [11 HSCA 254]
So what we have here, folks, is a situation where the Warren Commission and its staff (namely Wesley J. Liebeler) weren't totally satisfied with something associated with their investigation into President Kennedy's death (the palmprint of Oswald's lifted by DPD Lieutenant Carl Day), and so Liebeler did something about it. He had Latona re-examine the print to see if further information could be obtained in order to find out whether or not it could be proven that that print had, indeed, been taken off of Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano rifle.
And even when such proof and corroboration is discovered, the conspiracy theorists (such as Pat Speer) are still not satisfied at all. The theorists will still cry foul and say that the print COULD have possibly been lifted on November 24 after the rifle was returned to Dallas (to use Pat Speer's exact words, he speculated that it was certainly possible that "the print was somehow added to the rifle, and THEN lifted").
In response to that speculation brought forth by Mr. Speer which I just quoted above, let me offer up the following excerpt from Vincent Bugliosi's book:
"Apart from the absurd notion that for some reason Lieutenant Day would decide to frame Lee Harvey Oswald for Kennedy's assassination, as he told me in 2002, "I don't even think such a thing [transferring Oswald's prints on the finger and palm print samples, or exemplars, he gave to the Dallas Police Department, onto the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle] could be done. In this day and age they might be able to figure out some way to transfer the ink print on the card to the weapon, but I wouldn't know how to do it myself. Sounds like an impossible task to me."" -- Page 802 of "Reclaiming History"
Conspiracists are quite good at offering up a wide variety of convenient excuses in order to avoid the obvious truth. With that truth being:
Lee Harvey Oswald's palmprint was lifted off of Oswald's OWN RIFLE just hours after that same rifle was found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building in Dallas, Texas.
Pat Speer says the evidence is "weak, weak, weak". But in my opinion, it's simply a case of a conspiracy theorist offering up more "excuses, excuses, excuses".
[Also see THIS POST for more information about Lt. J.C. Day and Oswald's palmprint, suggesting the high likelihood that Lt. Day lifted Oswald's palmprint off of the Carcano rifle on November 22nd, not November 24th.]
PAT SPEER SAID:
Latona did the comparison. Why was HIS report on this not entered into evidence, and why was he not asked to testify on this point, or, at the very least, sign a statement?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Good points, Pat. And I don't have the answers to those questions. But maybe Latona didn't prepare an official report or statement concerning this matter. How can we know whether he did or not?
And I'm certainly not going to jump on the "everybody's lying" bandwagon (as many CTers seem to like to do). I'm not going to call Wesley Liebeler a liar when he says Latona came to the conclusions he came to about the Oswald palmprint.
As for Latona not testifying about the "rust spots" and other markings he found in the Oswald palmprint -- well, it was a September 1964 discovery by Latona, and the final WC report was coming out in 20 more days, so that might be the answer there. No "testimony" was taken at that eleventh hour.
However, we do have J. Edgar Hoover's letter to the Warren Commission, dated September 4, 1964. It's Commission Exhibit No. 2637, at 25 H 897.
That letter from Hoover to J. Lee Rankin makes it very clear that a comparison of the print and rifle was made by "Laboratory examiners" (plural) at the FBI lab in Washington. The letter goes on to say:
"The Laboratory examiners were able to positively identify this lift as having come from the assassination rifle in the area near the foregrip."
That letter in CE2637 is certainly enough proof for me. I see no reason to disbelieve or doubt the contents and conclusions reached in that letter. Of course, the conspiracy theorists will always cast doubt on anything written by the FBI. So I'm not the least bit surprised to find out that CTers don't think the letter in CE2637 is reliable information. They always want more. Just like they want much more proof regarding the "CE399" topic and CE2011 too. The written words we find in that Commission exhibit aren't nearly enough to satisfy the conspiracy theorists either (re: Tomlinson and Wright both saying that CE399 "looked like" the bullet they each saw on Nov. 22 and the additional fact revealed in CE2011 about Elmer Todd physically marking CE399 with his own initials). So, the CTers distrust the FBI completely. But, what else is new?
I'm wondering, however, if it's possible that some kind of signed statement or report from Sebastian Latona just might be buried somewhere within the 26 volumes. Although, I kind of doubt that any such Latona report exists in the volumes, because if there were such a report, I'm guessing that Vincent Bugliosi (or somebody) would have dug it out by now. But in his JFK book, Bugliosi's only sources on this matter come from Liebeler's HSCA testimony and the Hoover letter we find in CE2637.
But I keep finding things in the Warren Commission volumes all the time that I had either forgotten were in there or I hadn't been aware of in the first place. A good recent example of that occurred just yesterday in fact, when someone was asking whether the entire transcript of Mark Lane's telephone interview with Helen Markham was available anywhere online. I responded with a link to a page from John McAdams' website which contains excerpts from the interview but not the entire thing. And then McAdams himself posted a link to the whole transcript, and it was a link to the WC volumes. I had never seen it before and was surprised that John found it in the actual WC volumes themselves. It's located
at 20 H 571.
I then responded with this comment:
"Good gosh, there's a lot of stuff in those 26 volumes, isn't there?"
So, I'm just wondering if there could possibly be something else besides CE2637 buried in those volumes about Sebastian Latona's eleventh-hour "rust spots" discovery concerning Oswald's palmprint. ~shrug~
BTW, Page 1 of that Lane/Markham transcript is rather interesting, because it confirms that in Lane's taped telephone call to Markham, there was another female voice (probably a telephone operator) who was speaking just before Markham began talking to Lane. That discovery is somewhat important because in at least one public debate (and perhaps more than one), Lane attempted to ridicule Markham when she said at one point in her Warren Commission testimony that she didn't recognize a female voice on the tape as being her own voice. And it wasn't. It was a female operator's voice. But Lane seemed to want his audiences to believe that Markham's was the ONLY female voice on the entire tape, which simply is not true. Which indicates that Mr. Lane was not being entirely fair to Mrs. Markham in that instance (listen to the audio excerpt linked below).
To give credit where credit is due -- That point about the extra female voice on the tape is something that another LNer named Bud brought up on the McAdams newsgroup today (March 15, 2013). And I think it's a good point too. Because even though Helen Markham might have exhibited some "screwball" tendencies, it's fairly clear when comparing the transcript of the Lane/Markham interview with the things Lane later tried to imply in at least one of his public appearances, that Mark Lane was trying his best to make Mrs. Markham look like even more of a "screwball" than she actually was.
In the above audio excerpt featuring Mark Lane, please note how Lane refused to tell the audience that there HAD, in fact, been another lady's voice on that tape. Lane wanted his listeners to think that the ONLY female voice on the whole tape was Helen Markham's. That was misleading and unfair on Lane's part.
David Von Pein
March 2013
