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COPA 97 had 75 people and was a bit confusing, with John Armstrong and another speaker being cut off before the end of their presentations. One of John Judge's assistants was a vociferous woman that protests nuclear power plants all over the world when she is not annoying COPA members. It is impolite to talk in the auditorium when members are giving their presentations. One member complained to John Judge since he was sitting in the center of the middle aisle and could hear the babble from the back row.
Dr. William Pepper and his bodyguard arrived exactly at 3 P.M. Pepper was excellent on the King assassination, as was John Newman on the Contra drug connections, whose speech was a "Barn Burner". Armstrong's second Oswald bit had new information and was graded "A" by one of the new members that has a radio talk show in Ohio. This in spite of the fact that John was cut off 20 minutes early. Perhaps he could have had an A+ if he were allowed to finish.
There were only 12 hours of meetings each day. The slide projector got stuck and Robert Groden with 2 assistants took 10 minutes to fix it. The movie didn't start on time, with some new M.L. King stuff. No "ZRRIFLE" this time.
It took over an hour to start the conference due to the microphone being broken. That's why they cut Armstrong off early, since Dr. Wecht had to catch a plane.
Harry Livingstone crashed the awards dinner and Joe Backes lost his ticket with the folder attached. Someone blamed Joe for giving Harry the ticket, but he knew nothing about it.
Then Harry crashed the meeting on Sunday morning, setting up his video camera without having paid admission. The security guard was called and then told to back off when he threw some money at the woman working for John Judge. He put his camera away and then left after the ZFilm presentation.
Russ Shearer fell in the bathtub breaking his arm.
We learned that British documentary filmmaker Alan Frankovich, producer of the PA003 BBC special, "Maltese Double Cross" had a heart attack at the Houston Airport while being detained by U.S. Customs. He was doing a documentary for Dr. Pepper on the James Earl Ray case and was going to testify in a hearing for Lester Coleman former DIA employee, who is in Federal lockup in Atlanta. (author of the book, "On the trail of the Octopus".)
On the way to the airport met Jim Lesar in the Metro. He asked me up to the archives, and I stayed till 5. What a huge collection, many files not cross-referenced. He has no idea what many of the boxes contain. Allowed me to copy an excellent article he wrote in the Washington Post June 8 about James Earl Ray. It was another highlight in an interesting trip.
The Georgetown Campus was very conducive to learning, and had historic charm. The weather was 84 degrees and humid. The $50.00 dorm rooms were a good value compared with other hotels we have stayed at in the past in D.C. Only 2 members of the ARRB attended, since it was over a holiday weekend, but C-Span and BET (Black Entertainment TV) covered the press conference along with UPI, ABC, Washington Post, Spectator and Max Holland. You can download the info on C-Span at www.c-span.org or order the tape of the press conference at 800-277-2698 and press "2", cost is $36.95. Refer to ID#86700.
The meeting was worth attending, even though Frank DeBenedictis didn't show up for his speech on the Florida Johns Committee Records which is an interesting area of interest, and was scheduled for Saturday the 14th at 5 P.M.
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