Miscellanea, Errata, Et Cetera

Dear Editor,

Recently, this nation observed the 33rd anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. I was among an estimated 500 people to stand in Dealey Plaza, scene of the 1963 murder, "...where an unrested spirit is still with us," according to a speaker at an unofficial observance by those who wanted to show they still care.

It might interest your readers to know that there is a terribly under-publicized governmental body called the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) that is overseeing the release of documents relating to this case --- documents which have been classified or otherwise unavailable to researchers and scholars since the assassination. The ARRB was created by the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, which was signed into law by President Bush. The Board's five members were appointed by President Clinton in 1993.

"When the law was passed," said author and historian John Newman, Ph.D., "and the government had to release all the files in its possession, everything changed. The force of law --- the presumption, actually --- is for full disclosure."

Poll after poll shows that the majority of Americans believe there was a conspiracy in the assassination of President Kennedy. This Review Board may represent our last chance to know for sure. But unless we act now, this last best chance will vanish, probably forever.

The Assassination Records Review Board will cease to exist in October of 1997. The work of this Board is far from over and an extension on its life is desparately needed. I would urge all of your readers to write to their Congressional representatives in the House and Senate, demanding that the Assassination Records Review Board be granted life beyond its current charter. We owe it to our dead President to know the truth about what really happened to him in November of 1963.

John Kelin
Colorado Springs

The Assassination Records Review Board, an independent federal agency overseeing the review and release of records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, released an amateur film today that was taken on November 22, 1963, the day the President was assassinated in Dallas.

The three minute 16 mm film, which has never been seen publicly, was taken by presidential aide Dave Powers. The trip to Texas taken by President Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy on November 21-22, 1963 is chronicled through a series of short film sequences (some lasting only a few seconds). The assassination of President Kennedy is not shown on the film. Powers, who was riding in the Secret Service car directly behind the presidential limousine during the Dallas motorcade, ran out of film minutes before the motorcade entered Dealey Plaza where the shots were fired that killed the President and seriously wounded Texas Governor John Connally.

"This rare film is an important addition to the historical record of the assassination," said Judge John R. Tunheim, Chair of the Board. "As a presidential aide, Powers had unique access to President Kennedy and the First Lady. Much of the film of them is taken from a perspective that news photographers were not allowed. We appreciate Mr. Powers cooperation and hope that other individuals who possess films, photographs or other records related to the assassination will contact the Board."

The film begins with the arrival of President Kennedy and First Lady in San Antonio on November 21, 1963. The arrival is followed by a motorcade through San Antonio, during which well-wishers rush to the presidential limousine to greet the presidential party. The President and Mrs. Kennedy are then seen arriving and departing from the Aerospace Medical Center at Brooks Air Force Base.

Next, the film captures the arrival of the President and Mrs. Kennedy in Houston during the late afternoon of November 21st, followed by a motorcade through the city. Footage of the Houston stop is followed by scenes of the Kennedys departing Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth for the flight to Dallas on the morning of November 22nd.

The last group of scenes on the film show the arrival of the President and the First Lady at Love Field in Dallas. The presidential limousine is then shown at various points in the motorcade through Dallas. There is a brief scene of the President, seated in the back seat of the limousine, being surrounded be excited spectators who have left the side of the street. The last scene on the film is of the presidential limousine traveling on Main Street, minutes before the assassination.

The film will eventually become part of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection at the National Archives.

Ballantyne, who also directed the play, told us the performances were "a rousing artistic success. I say artistic because audiences were far below what we had hoped." He cited indifferent press reviews as one reason why turnout was so poor, although he also said that radio and television coverage of the play was far better than he anticipated.

Coinciding with the performance of Specter of Treason was a seminar in which members of COPA and JFK-Lancer participated. "We taped the panel discussion portion of the seminar," Ballantyne told Fair Play. "It will be available for sale ... On the panel were: Debra Conway, Barbara LaMonica, Ed Hoffman, Jerry Policoff, John Judge and Steve Jones ... The show tape came out fantastic. That tape is also available for sale. Debra was so impressed with the show that she wants to do it next November in Dallas."

At each performance, the audience acted as a jury and rendered a verdict on Lee Oswald. "Every audience except the last two found Lee Guilty of Murder in the 2nd Degree. The last two found him Not Guilty," Ballantyne said.

Anyone interested in purchasing a tape of the play or the seminar, or in getting further information, should call (330) 799-6176.

Recently I had the chance to catch up on a project I've long been putting off, to wit: cleaning out my office closet and going through a bunch of cartons filled with odds and ends.

I came across a box full of books that I hadn't seen in quite some time, including Do It!, by the late Jerry Rubin. I haven't looked at this book in years. By this late date it is downright antiquated and silly, as in this legend on the back cover:

Danger! This book will become a Molotov cocktail in your very hands. Jerry Rubin has written The Communist Manifesto of our era. Do It! is a declaration of war between the generations...

Readers of Do It! are advised: "Read this book stoned!" which actually might not be a bad idea. It is apparently supposed to be funny. Within the first few pages, Rubin boasts that he dodged the draft, likes to get high, and doesn't own a suit and tie.

Yawn.

Anyway, I flipped through this book, musing that time has shown the hippies and yippies and zippies and drippies to have completely failed as a counterculture, when I came across this item:

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Are the Kennedys Assassination-Prone?

Gil and I were taking the tube back to the hostel one cool, pleasant, London night. We had just seen "Lawrence of Arabia." A man sitting nearby held a newspaper upside down with a gigantic picture of Jack Kennedy on the front page.

"What did Kennedy do?" We stood on our heads in the aisle to read the headline:

"What kind of joke is that?" Then we saw the name of the paper --- the London Communist Daily Worker. These English commies have an outrageous sense of humor.

Back at the hostel, everyone was freaked out, huddling around radios, listening to the Voice of Amerika [sic].

I thought to myself: "Kennedy --- the Jewel of Amerika --- one bullet and the beauty, money, fame, power, a family dynasty are all gone." Far out!

The next day, the papers carried a full-page picture of the accused, Lee Harvey Oswald. I couldn't take my eyes off his bitter face. I had seen that scowl so many times in the streets of Amerika.

Lee's father split before he was born. He was raised by a mother who slaved day and night to keep him alive. Lee probably felt guilty for her slavery. He hated school. He joined the Marines, probably because the recruiting posters promised that he would become a man. He drifted from job to job and from city to city. He was like millions of faceless Amerikans, denied money, dreams and ambitions. We hear about them only when they kill rich men or rape rich men's daughters.

Many Lees live in Amerika. The tantalizing Kennedy myth is dangled before their noses every moment. "KENNEDY ANNOUNCED CANDIDACY." "KENNEDYS ATTEND FILM FETE." "JFK KISSES BLARNEY STONE."

Kennedy was told at birth that he was a "Kennedy." With that name, he was predestined for greatness.

Lee wanted to be great too, but everyone told him he wasn't for shit. At school they told him if he didn't get rich, famous and handsome he had only himself to blame.

Lee's biography had an important twist. He was a troublemaker in school and in the Marines. Pissed off, he went to Russia.

Who is Lee Oswald? With a rifle Lee forced the world to see. He found he could participate in the dream of Kennedy greatness only by killing a Kennedy.

Who knows what divine madness boiled beneath that bitter scowl?

We will never know, thanks to the Dallas police, the Warren Commission, and of course, the CIA.

We have the luxury of reading these absurd lines with twenty-six years of hindsight. It is a vastly different world today than when Jerry Rubin was an angry young man. Even though he's now dead, I am not inclined to cut Rubin any slack, since he revealed himself to be an utter fraud by later totally embracing Establishment life. He even bought himself a suit and tie. He went, in short, from Sixties radical to Nineties roadkill. Rest in peace.

Hi, Joe,

What follows is a friendly challenge I have issued to JFK conspiracy advocates over the years. No one has yet refuted this challenge. Perhaps you would like a crack at it.

Years ago, there was an amusing TV commercial for a fast-food chain. Three old ladies stand around a nearly empty hamburger bun that contains only a microscopic piece of meat. Finally, exasperated, one lady turns to the camera and demands: "Where's the beef?" And that's my question to the conspiracy advocates: "Where's your evidence?" The Warren Commission, flawed as it was (which I'll come back to), at least had solid evidence against Oswald: the gun, the shells, his palm prints and fingerprints, his military training to use such a weapon, his employment in the building, ballistics evidence that at least some of the shots came from near the top of the School Book Depository, witnesses who saw a gunman in the window ~ a gunman who resembled Oswald, etc. We'll never know for sure, but it's likely that a Texas jury would have easily convicted Oswald in 1964. Conspiracy buffs, by contrast, have no solid evidence at all: no gun, no shells, no individual suspects, no ballistics evidence (and no, the head snap does not prove a frontal shot), nothing. The massive confusion by the Parkland doctors, concerning whether the throat wound was one of entrance or entry, proves nothing. Few of them saw the wound clearly. They never turned the body over to see the wounds in the back of the neck or the head, so they assumed frontal entry for both. They were desperately trying to save the man's life, not study the wounds for later criminal investigation. A tracheotomy was swiftly applied, obliterating the throat wound. When the president was declared dead, the Parkland staff simply stopped further investigation. Even a rookie attorney would dismantle such evidence of conspiracy in any court. Conspiracy buffs also like trot out another doctor, Cyril Wecht, who later looked at the autopsy photos and found evidence of wound tampering, a frontal head shot, and so forth. But 29 other doctors also looked at the photos at the same time that Dr. Wecht did, and not one of the 29 saw anything that contradicted the Warren Commission's essential findings. Dr. Wecht is entitled to his opinion, but to cite him as proof is akin to citing the one astronomer in 30 or so who suggests that, well, perhaps some of those unexplained lights in the sky just might be alien space ships. We all need stronger evidence than that before we roll out the welcome mat for E.T. And the burden of conspiracy proof still rests with its advocates. We skeptics need not prove that a conspiracy did not happen. By the way, conspiracy advocates can't use the clever ploy that UFO buffs employ, either: the evidence exists, but the government hides it. That reasoning allows one to believe ANYTHING. Nor do smudges of light in enlarged photos, shadowy connections between government and underworld figures, or someone overhearing someone overhearing someone say "I could kill that son-of-a-bitch Kennedy!" prove anything. In what court would such evidence count for a conviction?

Shoddy work does not necessarily produce shoddy results. Put another way, shoddy pursuit of a goal does not necessarily invalidate the goal. Conspiracy advocates have long pointed to the ^ let us be generous ^ less than stellar investigative techniques the Warren Commission applied. "Appalling" might better describe some of their work. But that does not necessarily mean that their central thesis ^ Oswald's lone guilt ^ is wrong. If their shoddy work "proves" Oswald's innocence, then O.J. Simpson is truly innocent. Let me explain. The incredibly botched prosecution work in the O.J. Simpson criminal trial of 1995 did not at all mean that Simpson is innocent. It simply proved that the Los Angeles County District Attorney's people graduated from the Warren Commission School of Criminal Investigation. If the world's biggest moron say that 2 plus 2 equals 4, well, he's still a moron ^ but his arithmetic is also right. You need a stronger case than this to prove Oswald's innocence and a conspiracy's presence.

But let's say, for the sake of argument, that there was a conspiracy. I lean this way sometimes myself, because the single-bullet theory is, admittedly, improbable though not impossible. The trouble is that you inevitably run into scenarios that make the single-bullet theory look like the most elementarily obvious thing anyone ever thought of. You are forced to conclude that the Dallas police were either incredibly inept (highly possible), or in on the conspiracy, or both. The Parkland doctors, or the autopsy doctors, or both must have altered wounds. A good one is that the body was tampered with, or actually switched on the plane while Kennedy's people and his wife were right there. You are forced, in short, to have everyone except John-John and Caroline involved. My God, are you at all listening to what you're saying? Besides, conspiracies just plain don't work. History proves this. Someone sooner or later screws up ^ look at that piece of tape some fool left on the lock of a Watergate door, for a security guard to find. The amount of money that could be made by someone who could PROVE a conspiracy is astronomical, so believe me, if there were genuine proof, it would have long since come out. Threats would not have prevented this.

Finally, the history of assassinations works against JFK conspiracy theories. Assassinations have tended to fall into two groups. When you have had a lone gunman murder a prominent person --- as happened with Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy --- the assassin simply walked up and shot just a few bullets. The other type of assassination involved massive hits: Malcolm X, Anwar Sadat, Indira Gandhi. In these types of murders, the assassins did not try to ensure that history would think only some lone nut had conducted the murder. They were, instead, intent on carrying out the hit. They realized they had one chance only, so they ensured that a hail of bullets would rain down on the victim. Now look again at the Zapruder film. If there truly were the 4-6 gunmen that some conspiracy buffs suggest, where was the hail of bullets? Why on earth would they fire only 3-5 shots? Connally was knocked down in his seat by one shot and thus survived. How could the assassins have known that the first bullet that hit Kennedy would NOT similarly knock him down, only because his back brace held him up? Why would they entrust just one head shot to do the job, when the car was already nearly at the safety of the overpass? Do you see what I mean? It just does not look like a group assassination, at all. It looks precisely like the work of a lone ^ and lucky -- gunman. The Zapruder film, a remarkable and remarkably fortuitous piece of evidence, makes the strongest case for this. Watch the film carefully and objectively. It is absolutely clear that Kennedy is hit by two bullets, and two bullets ONLY: one just about simultaneous with his emergence from behind the sign, and the head shot several seconds later. There is no other evidence of bullets striking Kennedy at all. If you see such evidence, you will have to demonstrate it to me.

Listen, I'm well aware of what a terrible crime President Kennedy's murder was. I was 13 years old that day and remember it well. I then matured in the post-Kennedy world, with all its lack of splendor and glory: riots, other assassinations, Vietnam, drugs, Watergate, seemingly endless assaults on our culture. It was easy to then mythologize Kennedy, to say, "If only he had not been shot, all this wouldn't have happened." This is, of course, nonsense. Yet it makes the crime seem even worse and more in need of a larger explanation than the irrational act of one lone nut. Hence, the near-lust for a conspiracy. I, too, believed in a conspiracy for many years. But when I finally looked at the facts coldly and objectively, I saw that there simply is no evidence to support a massive plot. Where others see a conspiracy, I see simply a very human tragedy. That nightmare weekend was an extremely black comedy of errors, an almost unbelievable and merciless application of Murphy's Law: wounds were mistreated and misdiagnosed, other evidence was mishandled, the wrong types of doctors performed the autopsy, laws were broken, procedures were violated, close to a Keystone Kops mentality overtook the Dallas police in their treatment of Oswald, everyone's nerves were rubbed raw -- it's a wonder that things didn't go even worse. It was easy, later, to look back and see in all of this a large group of people coolly and carefully carrying out a conspiracy. Yet people do screwy, unexplainable and inexcusable things in the heat of a highly emotional moment, such as this was. If you're truly an open-minded, objective person and not one who simply WANTS to believe in a conspiracy, I find it hard to understand how you can still advocate a plot and now-33-year cover-up. But I'm willing to listen if you want to challenge my assumptions. A good debate is always of interest.

Take care,
Tom Braun
cawriter@earthlink.net

Tom, My name isn't Joe.

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