Updates

COPA Executive Secretary John Judge writes:

Leading experts on criminalistics, forensic science, medical and photographic evidence, and ballistics, scholars of recent history and political science, as well as knowledgeable authors and researchers will present papers on the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy, covering their latest findings on the evidence, and interpreting the newly released files at the National Archives.

Keynote speaker at the conference this year will be Jennifer Harbury, whose husband was the victim of CIA-financed torture and assassination squads in Guatemala. Dr. William Pepper, author of Orders to Kill and the current attorney for James Earl Ray, will speak about his book. Dr. Philip Melanson will discuss new developments in the Robert Kennedy case. Special panels will discuss new documentary evidence on Ruth and Michael Paine, the Assassination Records Review Board, and historical aspects of the JFK assassination. COPA will provide van service to National Archives II on Friday, October 18, for those interested.

For information, call the Conference Hotline at (202) 310-1858.

In other COPA news, Mr. Judge says the Coalition will soon be online. "We have finally, via donations, gotten a computer that has enough memory and function to put us on the Internet," he writes. "We have a located a cheap server. We have a volunteer that will design a Web page in HTML for us. We already have fax capability with our new computer. Our new fax # is (202) 584-1021."

As soon as a COPA Web page has been established, it will be accessible from the Fair Play links page.

Summers refers to accusations leveled by Carol Hewett and Anna Marie Kuhns-Walko in an essay appearing in both The Fourth Decade and Fair Play (see "Updates" in FP Issue #9, March-April 1996). In that essay, Hewett and Kuhns-Walko stated that they "had the unpleasant experience of finding out that a supposed newcomer to the 'amateur' research community who was picking our brains was, in fact, employed by a professional author well known to JFK researchers." They say that Summers, though not mentioned by name, tried through an intermediary to obtain a manuscript by the late researcher, Cindy McNeill.

In his published response, Summers says, "Yes, I was interested in taking a look at the manuscript in question, because it seemed it might be relevant to my research for a forthcoming book on President Nixon. And yes, a freelance researcher working for me did make the enquiry --- one of perhaps three hundred minor tasks she had on her plate at the time --- without mentioning my name. But there was no attempt to deceive." Summers goes on to re-emphasize that he was not hiding behind the identity of the freelance researcher, Julie Ziegler, and calls the essay by Kuhns-Walko and Hewett "plain silly."

Responding to Summers' comments in the same Fourth Decade, Carol Hewett writes that since Summers has now identified himself, "we can tell the full story." Late last year or early this year, Ziegler called Hewett and Kuhns-Walko "out of the clear blue sky" seeking to obtain information about Watergate figure E. Howard Hunt, supposedly for a magazine article she was working on. Hewett and Kuhns-Walko grew suspicious when Ziegler declined to identify the magazine or provide any background on herself, but, Hewett writes, "we decided to assist anyway."

The crux of the matter is Ziegler's effort to obtain a manuscript by the late researcher Cindy McNeill, which Hewett was evaluating for possible submission to a publisher. "All told I probably spent 1 to 1.5 hours on the phone with Ms. Zeigler and she never mentioned Mr. Summers. Anna-Marie did the same ... the conversations always came back to the manuscript to which she most definitely wanted access." Acting on their suspicions, Hewett and Kuhns-Walko checked up on Ziegler, decided she was not to be trusted, and stopped cooperating with her.

A few months later, Hewett writes, Summers entered the picture by contacting Hewett and enquiring about the manuscript himself. The link between him and Ziegler was soon made, as was the fact that Summers employed her as a research assisstant. Summers denied at that time that there had been any intent obtain the manuscript by deception. But according to Hewett, obtaining it was clearly his objective. She says he repeatedly offered "a modest sum" for it. But the manuscript, Hewett informed him, was not for sale.

Hewett concludes her letter to The Fourth Decade: "Perhaps I am just a silly lawyer writing silly letters to the editor, but I can assure Mr. Summers that in my silly legal opinion, he and [his] employee came perilously close to theft by fraud of proprietary material."

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