DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Conspiracy theorist Robert J. Groden was interviewed on Jack Duffy's BlogTalkRadio Internet show on November 13, 2014, and during that one-hour interview, which can be heard HERE, I noticed this blatant lie being told by Groden regarding the murder of J.D. Tippit:
"There were several witnesses to the Tippit killing--every one of which said that Oswald was not the shooter." -- Bob Groden; 11/13/14
How about that for totally mangling and misrepresenting the facts, folks?
In point of fact, of course, most of the witnesses who were at or near the scene of Officer Tippit's murder positively identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone killer of Tippit or as the one and only person leaving the scene of the crime with a gun in his hand -- from Markham, to Scoggins, to the two Davis girls, to Callaway, and on and on.
And, of course, since Fort Worth lawyer and radio host Jack Duffy is an avid conspiracy theorist who thinks Oswald was framed as the "patsy" for Kennedy's murder, he doesn't utter a word to try and correct Groden's outrageous falsehood quoted above.
Why Groden thinks it's okay to just completely change around the witnesses' testimony is anyone's guess. I suppose he's just hoping nobody listening to him will bother to turn to the Warren Commission volumes with William Scoggins' testimony in it, or Helen Markham's, or Barbara Davis', or Ted Callaway's.
It's no wonder people like Groden have ZERO credibility. When you go on a radio show and say that nobody IDed Oswald as Tippit's murderer, well....it doesn't get much more disingenuous than that.
MARTIN J. KELLY JR. SAID:
Groden is hopeless and this post is just another data point to the conclusion.
Remember, he used [to] show photos at conspiracy conventions of black spaces from various TSBD windows and claim there was a figure who couldn't be LHO, although it could be Casper the Ghost.
I had Groden in to speak to my College Course on the Assassination in the late 90s. At lunch afterward, he claimed that his mother had died by nefarious means in NYC in about 1969 and that the cover-up autopsy was performed by Michael Baden. I called Michael Baden and he reported he didn't perform said autopsy.
Nobody can take any claim by Groden to be worthy of attention.
MICHAEL GIAMPAOLO SAID:
So Lee [Oswald] hated pennies? Did soda machines even take pennies? Who gives change for a dollar and includes pennies? Oswald hated pennies??
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Yeah, I love the "Lee hated pennies" thing from Groden too. Of course, I guess it never occurred to Groden that maybe Oswald didn't want pennies because, as you said Michael, the soda machine won't accept pennies.
But this whole topic about Oswald being in the 2nd-floor offices and getting change from Mrs. Reid at exactly 12:30 on 11/22/63 is pure fantasy in the first place. It never happened, so the "I don't want pennies" dialogue is total fiction from the get-go.
But IF Oswald had actually said that to anyone while getting change to buy a Coke, it's not illogical for him (or anyone) to not want pennies, because the Coke machine won't take pennies. (Duh!)
By the way, the 11/13/14 interview above includes many more Groden lies too (not just his blatant falsehood about the Tippit witnesses). Another lie being when Groden insists that Connally was sitting DIRECTLY in front of JFK on 11/22. Everyone knows that's a lie, because the seats are structured in such a way that Connally was inboard slightly.
Plus, there's another factor that is often overlooked....i.e., JFK was sitting as FAR RIGHT in his seat as possible (based on the photos), which placed Kennedy as FAR RIGHT of the jump seat as humanly possible.
More of Groden's fantasies can be heard HERE.
MICHAEL GIAMPAOLO SAID:
Lee Harvey Oswald hates pennies. It doesn't get more commie than that.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I think Lee was irrationally afraid of getting copper poisoning, Michael. It's surprising he used FMJ copper-coated bullets in his rifle.
MICHAEL GIAMPAOLO SAID:
Haha. He hated fives too. I'll bet he used that as an excuse to have a bunch of ones on hand for the Carousel Club.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
As an aside to the silly "Lee Oswald hated pennies because they've got Abraham Lincoln's face on them" topic....
A similar very silly line of reasoning (IMO) has crept into the brains of some JFK researchers and authors....and it's the theory about how Oswald only fired three shots at JFK because he had a fascination with the number "three".
As a matter of fact, author Mel Ayton had originally wanted to include that "Lee loved the number three" theory in the book that I helped Mel write (which, btw, should be going to print any day now--God willing).
But I was very persistent in voicing my extreme displeasure with the idea of including such utter silliness and conjecture in a book with my name attached. And so Mel did give in to my wishes and the "number three" thing won't be appearing in "Beyond Reasonable Doubt". Thank goodness. (I can just hear the conspiracy theorists jumping all over Mel and myself for putting that theory in our book.) :-)
MICHAEL GIAMPAOLO SAID:
That is some goofy speculation. Especially since he brought four bullets. I think if that was included, certain people would tell you to never bang on Jim Garrison ever again.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Exactly, Michael.
However, I think the "fascination for three" thing did make it into the defective/botched version of the book that was printed in error in late July [2014]. And that makes just one more reason (among many) for the botched version to be recalled. (Which it was.)
I'm going to go check my copies of the tainted version and see if I'm right about that "three" crap being included.
DAVID VON PEIN LATER SAID:
Yep, the "three" thing is in the first (messed up) printing of BRD, on pages 91-92. (Only a few copies of that awful version got through to anyone, fortunately.)
I will add here, though, that Mel Ayton didn't just pull that "three" business out of thin air on his own. He got it from Priscilla McMillan, who put it her book "Marina And Lee" in 1977. And McMillan got it straight from Marina Oswald. McMillan wrote on page 458 of her book....
"Marina knew that her husband attributed an altogether magical significance to the number 3 and was obsessed by it."
So Mel has a good source for the "number three" theory (McMillan through Marina), but I don't think it's worth emphasizing at all in our book. It's way too far out in left field, in my opinion.
MICHAEL GIAMPAOLO SAID:
I was wondering why Mel would include that and also where it came from. You cleared that up. I have that book but haven't read it yet. The fascination with the number three thing may be true in Marina's eyes, but why the leap to connect it to only three shots? Is that just Mel?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Just a second, Michael, let me check my "botched" version of BRD again for more info on that.
But let me add this before I check the book again....
One thing that (IMO) would certainly lead AWAY from the idea that Lee's affinity for the number "three" was a contributing factor to him firing only three shots at JFK (apart from the fact that he had FOUR bullets in his rifle prior to the first shot being fired, which is something you, Michael, also properly pointed out)....is the fact that we know Oswald shot Officer Tippit FOUR times, and might have even fired a FIFTH shot at Tippit on Tenth Street.
Plus, we know that Lee had many additional bullets in his revolver and in his pockets when he was arrested. So if he was fixated with only firing exactly "three" shots at people on 11/22/63, then why would he have taken so many extra bullets for his pistol on Nov. 22nd?
And that reasoning, again, goes back to what Michael said previously about how Oswald did have FOUR bullets with him prior to shooting at President Kennedy. Seems to me that the same basic reasoning could be applied to the Tippit shooting as well.
Of course, this whole "three" topic is kind of crazy to begin with, but I just wanted to voice my opinion on it here--just "for the record".
DAVID VON PEIN LATER SAID:
Follow-Up to Michael's question about the "three" topic....
No, Michael, Mel doesn't have any specific quotes or source from Marina or Priscilla McMillan's book that would indicate that Lee's alleged love affair with the number three would have applied to number of gunshots Lee would ever fire at a target.
And I don't have McMillan's book. But if you do have it, go to page 458 (which is the page I mentioned earlier). I would think that the whole "fascination for three" topic would be right on or near that page in "Marina And Lee". Maybe McMillan elaborates a little more on it in her book.
MICHAEL GIAMPAOLO SAID:
Page 458-459 [of Priscilla Johnson McMillan's book, "Marina And Lee"] talks about how Lee loved to bet on the horse race at an amusement park at Lake Pontchartrain. He would take Marina and June there and when he won, which was often, he would spend the winning on hamburgers for his girls. Despite the fact (he hated pennies) he was a professional penny pincher. He would starve himself to save money, to the point his ribs would be showing, and Marina would give him gas about it. He did this because he was saving up for his trip to Mexico around this time.
No mention of a fixation on the number three on those pages. I have the hard cover, copyright 1977.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I find that difficult to believe, Michael. Perhaps, though, Mel's source ("page 458") of McMillan's book is referring to a paperback version. Maybe that's why there's a difference in the page numbers. I know Mel isn't referring to the updated 2013 version of "Marina And Lee", because I have on my computer an early draft of our book ("Beyond Reasonable Doubt") in which the "page 458" source is mentioned; and that's a draft dated May of 2013. And the revised version of McMillan's book wasn't published until August of 2013.
Anyway, Mel quotes several other passages from McMillan's book. Here's an extension of the quote I previously cited....
“Marina knew that her husband attributed an altogether magical significance to the number 3 and was obsessed by it. She remembered that one year earlier, on November 11th, 1962, when the De Mohrenschildts took her away from Lee because of his violence toward her, then, too, had begged her three times not to leave him, but after the third time gave up. And on the bottom right-hand corner of the Fair Play For Cuba Committee card on which he had asked her to forge the name 'A.J. Hidell' the previous summer, he had written the number '33' to signify he was the 33rd member of his fictitious chapter - still another sign of the power he attached to the number 3." (Marina And Lee, page 458)
MICHAEL GIAMPAOLO SAID:
That's not what's on pg. 458 of the hardcover '77 book. He must have the paperback, as you pointed out.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Michael, if you check on about page 420 (or so) of the hardcover "Marina And Lee" book, I'll bet you'll find the passages Mel cites.
The hardcover has 527 pages (per the Amazon stats), while the paperback, which came out a year later, has 689 pages. So something on page 458 of the paperback would probably be on approx. page 420 to 425 of the hardcover first edition. (I'm just guessing as to the page number equivalent, but that sounds about right to me.) Anyway, thanks for looking.
MICHAEL GIAMPAOLO SAID:
Well, that isn't right either. The fact the page number on his source for the silly number three theory is wrong is just another reason it's smart to leave it out.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I doubt very much that Mel's page number is wrong. It's just that he's sourcing it from a different version of McMillan's book--almost certainly the 1978 paperback version.
I guess that can, indeed, be quite a difficult thing for authors to do when citing book sources. Because there are so many different versions of a particular book, how is the reader supposed to know for sure which "version" is being cited--is it the first edition hardback, or the later paperback, or a later "limited edition"?
That type of thing is almost never specifically cited in any book's "Sources & Notes" section. I know, for example, that Vincent Bugliosi doesn't point out in any of his sources whether he is citing "Case Closed, page 209, 1993 hardcover edition" versus "Case Closed, page 196, 1994 paperback edition".
So how is anybody to know for sure? They can't. It's just something the reader has to sort out for themselves, I guess.
In the case of McMillan's book, however, the "number three" sub-topic might be listed in the index of the book, if Priscilla has the book's index divided into sub-sections under the name "Oswald, Lee Harvey". (Just a thought.)
David Von Pein
November 21, 2014
