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After the remembrance ceremony on Saturday, the Lancer conference resumed with a quartet of speakers, and the theme, "Justice for JFK."
First was Charles Drago, the writer and jazz critic, who was called "the moral conscience of the research community" by conference chair George Michael Evica.
Drago began by telling the audience that "the last thing in the world I want any of you to be right now is comfortable. Because what we're here for, we must remember ... is a great tragedy --- transcending America, or any single country --- it's a human tragedy, a world historic tragedy..."
It is time, Drago said, for members of the research community to rededicate themselves --- "to take our second vows, if you will. To reexamine our successes ... to understand, admit to, and attempt to correct where we may have dropped the ball. To set goals for ourselves --- to set deadlines --- because this story will come to an end."
We are entering the final stages, Drago said, "of a very long, very arduous, and bloody war --- a war for our society, a war for our freedom, a war for the truth."
He invoked the image of Dealey Plaza, scene of JFK's public execution, where most of those in the room had been barely an hour before, and quoted historian Edward T. Linenthal: "On the one hand, these sites are ceremonial centers, where various forms of veneration reflect the belief that the contemporary power and relevance of the lessons of the site are crucial for the continued life of the nation. Many people believe that the patriotic inspiration to be extracted from these sacred places depends not only on proper ceremony, but on a memorialized, preserved, restored, and purified environment. On the other hand, these sites are civil spaces where Americans of various ideological persuasions come, not always reverently, to compete for the ownership of powerful national stories."
"Listen to that," Drago said. "'To compete for the ownership of powerful national stories.' That's what we're doing. We are looking to reclaim land --- reclaim stories, reclaim history."
As important as assassination research has been since 1963, Drago said, if the intellectual aspect is not mirrored by an appeal to the viscera, "then it remains an abstraction, it remains indistinguishable from a study of the death of Julius Caesar or Abraham Lincoln. And we cannot afford to be so isolated from the feelings of this event."
Drago called for unity within the research community, "even if it means forming a Fair Play for COPA Committee ... we're going to have to overcome our internecine differences --- to forgive, if not forget --- we're going to have to join as one, or we're going to be torn asunder, and not be taken seriously. We've got to find a way to do it."
We must understand the propaganda element of what we do, Drago said. "Propaganda has been used against us to such devastating effect ... that we denigrate ourselves. We have got to play that game."
It is time to get beyond the analysis of the Kennedy case, Drago said. "We must feel the way we felt when we left the theater after we saw JFK. Love it --- hate it --- argue with it or not. It worked. The ARRB exists because people got angry. Because it was great propaganda."
The research community must come in from the lunatric fringe, Drago declared. And in another direct reference to the COPA regional meeting happening just ten blocks down the street at the Paramount Hotel, he said, "I hope that as we find ways to overcome the competition, the competitions between us, that would allow two separate ... groupings of thinkers happening here in Dallas at the same time --- for that never to happen again. Whatever it takes, while giving up nothing. While surrendering none of our integrity, to make sure that that never happens again. We cannot afford pride, we cannot afford ego. That'll come later. We've got to be on guard...
"I've asked in print, and at conventions in the past, what would constitute justice? And I would ask all of my fellow speakers today to somehow address that question. As I've said in the past, I'll repeat: justice will have nothing to do with throwing anyone in jail, but will have everything to do with reaching the truth, and using the truth to ensure, as best we can, that this will not happen again. That's my definition of justice. I would spare any living conspirator a second of jail time. I would spare the man who fired --- the men who fired the fatal shots. I would spare the men who paid for the bullets. I would spare the men who reached into their pockets to pay to make this happen --- spare them all. They are of no consequence to us. Their incarceration, their death --- we are not about vengeance. We're about justice. And justice in this case is to find one word. The truth."
As he neared the conclusion of his speech, Drago raised a thorny issue --- and a reality. "Never, ever again, refer to yourself as a 'conspiracy theorist,' or as a 'conspiracist,' or any of those other damning words that they would have us use against ourselves.
"We are in the majority. We enjoy possession of the moral high ground. We know the truth. We are not arguing a position --- we know the truth. We do not believe in a conspiracy that struck John Kennedy. We know it was a conpsiracy. And until, and unless, we proselytize that knowledge, then the endless debates will keep us mired in mud, in self-loathing, and in the internecine warfare that threatens ... to tear us apart."
And he proposed two symbolic steps toward closure in the case --- first, for researchers to never refer to themselves in derogatory terms again. Second, Drago said --- "at least in our own minds, and in our own hearts" --- would be to rename Dealey Plaza as the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Battlefield Memorial Monument.
Charles Drago stepped from the microphone to a long and loud applause.
The next speaker was Vince Palamara. Palamara was recently named an Associate Editor to JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly, the excellent Jan Stevens/Walt Brown journal. He is also author of the newly updated The Third Alternative: Survivor's Guilt, a study of the Secret Service and the Kennedy assassination.
His Lancer presentation was much the same as his article in the Sept. 1997 Fourth Decade, and Chapter XX of his book. But there was one significant difference: this day, Palamara identified by name the three Secret Service agents he suspects of having played a direct role in the assassination.
"What it boils down to," Palamara began, "is that if the Secret Service would have done their usual, thorough job, we wouldn't be here today, 34 years later."
He said that while it is a relatively easy task to point out the Secret Service deficiencies on November 22, 1963, it's been more difficult to discern the specific things that were involved regarding Presidential security. Much of his research has consisted of interviews with primary sources --- documents --- and people: former Secret Service agents, White House aides, and surviving family members.
"However, one very important and significant element has been missing up until now, due in no small part to the constant evolution of my own thinking on the subject. Who in the agency benefited? Who did not? And just how were these lapses in security allowed to happen?
"After discarding the options of just mere innocence, guilt, negligence, and more recently, the notion of a benign security-stripping test that backfired into the assassination," Palamara said, "I have now come to the firm conclusion, based on seven-plus years of heavy, primary research and numerous interviews --- twenty-one plus and counting --- that the Secret Service actions and inactions in Dallas were due largely to a significant breakdown in both the chain of command, and respect of superior authority. In addition, I believe a malignant test of the President's security was involved on or around November 22, 1963, with the actual intent to harm or embarrass President Kennedy, rather than merely shaking him into seeing that the Service needed more funds, equipment, and personnel --- these are benefits which would've arose from any kind of attempt on JFK, successful or otherwise.
"Furthermore, it is now my strong believe, after shaking of years of equivocation, that several agents had to have been involved in the actual conspiracy --- repeat that again, had to have been involved --- by getting wind of the impending threat and letting it happen, not by an unruly mob out to treat Kennedy like Adlai Stevenson, which was the byproduct of a malignant test, which was going on at the same time --- but by a 'flurry of shells,' to quote Agent Kellerman in a much different kind of context."
Having stated his belief that several agents had to have been involved, Palamara revealed his prime suspects. "I'm going to name them here for the first time. I believe that Floyd Boring, Emory Roberts, and Bill Greer are the three Secret Service agents who were sinisterly involved in Kennedy's murder. Bill Greer was the driver of the Presidential limousine ... Floyd Boring was the number two man, Special Agent in Charge of the White House detail --- in charge of planning the Texas trip. I spoke to him twice. And Emory Roberts ... was the commander of the followup car in Dallas."
Palamara had indicated he would include "never-before-seen films and photos from the author's massive private collection," and in this, the audience was not disappointed. "This is different angles of [the Kennedy motorcade] leaving Love Field," Palamara said, as the video rolled. Using a red "laser light" pointer, he identified various agents, and supplied narration: "This is John Ready ... Paul Landis ... here they are, leaving Love Field ... Henry Rybka --- thinking that he's going to be doing what he just did the last few stops --- this is when Emory Roberts rises in his seat in the followup car ... and we see some hand gestures ... basically tells [Rybka] to cease and desist from his actions. Paul Landis is even making room for him on the followup car! And this is when you'll see Henry Rybka ... I think a picture says a thousand words, well this is about as close as you can get here ---" And as the next image flickered on the screen in slow motion, the Lancer audience rumbled in astonishment --- the words "Wow!" and "Jesus!" leap out from my tape recorder. For as Henry Rybka is seen being summoned from his usual position back to the followup car, he issues a confused palms-up gesture that seems to say, "What gives?"
Rybka was left behind at Love Field. "And the most amazing thing of all," Palamara continued, "is the fact that there is not one report, not two reports, but three reports after the fact, placing Rybka in the followup car! But he wasn't there! Again --- either they assumed he did hop into the car, or there was a coverup. Take your pick..."
The clip of Rybka's confusion rolled again; I think everyone needed to see it at least twice. "When you see this clip normally, it's normally real time, it goes by real quick..."
More clips were shown, and there was more analysis of the Dallas motorcade and the role of the Secret Service. "The situation now," Palamara said as he began to wrap things up, "we've been looking at our suspects, and I think there's a lot to be said for the work of other authors and researchers ... in my interviews, I've totally debunked any notion of President Kennedy had anything to do with the security insufficiencies, and it boils down to the Secret Service being responsible for them...
"Anonymous no longer, the Secret Service will never again be taken for granted in any view of what happened on November 22, 1963..."
Up next was William Xanttopoulos (referred to here as William X), a former prosecutor in the Southern District of Florida who is now in private practice. He discussed some of the legal issues surrounding the JFK case, but his most interesting comments addressed the notion of justice, and some of the practical avenues still open.
He began by discussing the fact-finding process, which in a formal sense consists of a body such as a grand jury investigating a crime under the guidance of a prosecutor, and leading, perhaps, to an indictment and trial. Results are made public, and most important, William X said, "there is going to be with [a] verdict, a belief by the public that justice has been rendered."
There is also a presumption that the fact-finding process is final. "It is very rarely revisited," William X said. "It is very rarely overturned. And it is accepted generally by the public to be valid.
"That is the traditional case, and that is how it ought to work. Unfortunately, the reason we're all here is, that is not the case in the death of John F. Kennedy. Because, due to the death of Lee Harvey Oswald, the public was deprived of a trial. There was no jury verdict, there was no finality. And there was, basically, a lack of respect --- it took over time to accumulate --- for the, quote, 'verdict' of the Warren Commission."
So what do we do now? he asked. "Can we have justice 34 years later?" To answer his own question, he cited the example of 87-year-old Maurice Papon, the accused Nazi collaborator now standing trial in France for alleged war crimes committed in the early 1940s.
In view of that, William X declared, "It's possible. Is it possible in America? There was the case of Byron de la Beckwith. Does everyone know who Byron de la Beckwith is?" Most everyone did. De la Beckwith shot and killed NAACP Field Secretary Medgar Evans in 1963, and twice stood trial in the 1960s but was never convicted. Not until the 1990s was he finally brought to justice.
So it is possible.
"The way I have thought that this could be done is by some sort of creative solution," William X said. "At the present time in South Africa, they are grappling with a similar type of issue. They are grappling with issues --- crimes against humanity, crimes against blacks that were committed under the prior government. And because they had that problem, they had to try to grapple with how that should be solved. And what they did was come up with a solution that was a bit controversial. But it has been working there to some extent. It's called the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation." This Commission has, among its objectives, promoting national unity and reconciliation in South Africa; establishing as complete a picture as possible the causes and extent of Apartheid; granting amnesty to those who come forward with all the relevant facts; and compiling a report on the findings of the Commission.
An American commission modeled on South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission could work in the quest for justice for JFK, William X said. As the Lancer Conference neared its end, this idea --- which in all likelihood had been percolating for some time, somewhere behind the scenes --- was debated and discussed, and resulted in some concrete ideas, which are discussed in the article The Truth Commission.
Under such a Commission, William X said, there is a tradeoff between truth and justice. He noted Charles Drago's remark that he preferred truth over jail time for anyone revealed to have participated in the conspiracy to kill JFK.
"The fact that we could bring out the truth --- if we could do [everything] possible to encourage formal authority to finally take those steps to bring out the truth, which is really the compelling of witnesses to give the final testimony --- I think we will have accomplished and done a great thing."
Ian Griggs, the Secretary of Dealey Plaza UK, rounded out this group of speakers. He offered up a fascinating international perspective on the assassination, which he called "How the Rest of the World Viewed the Kennedy Assassination."
"I am going to take you now back 34 years, to the day it happened, and the following week or two weeks after the assassination," he said at the start. Several years ago he had gone to Britain's Public Records Office [PRO], the equivilant of the National Archives in the United States, and studied as many records pertaining to the Kennedy assassintion as possible. Most of those records had not previously been available for public inspection; some remains sealed to this day.
Griggs studied seven files during his visit to the PRO, but this day spoke mainly of one of them, which consisted of documents grouped under the common title, "International Reaction to the Death of President Kennedy, 1963." In the file were press clippings from the West, from Communist Bloc countries, and from the Third World.
"Every single country was obviously concerned for its own future, concerning the death of John Kennedy," Griggs said. "We also had the unexpected emergence of Lyndon Johnson as President." Questions of relations with the United States --- of trade agreements, of continued US aid, and so on --- concerned the whole of the world.
But there were two countries that didn't treat Kennedy's death with the reverence that the rest of the world exhibited. "One of these, not surprisingly, was Red China," Griggs said. "The other, somewhat surprisingly to me, was Portugal.
"In Communist China, there was nothing in the way of a tribute. And one major newspaper actually carried a front page cartoon which depicted JFK, face down, in a pool of blood. And the caption: 'Kennedy Bites the Dust.' That's how Red China looked on Kennedy.
"The reason for Portugal's cold attitude toward the assassination of Kennedy, an almost 'don't care' attitude, took me by surprise. But I've been told since, that there was something of a breakdown in communications with the US at that time, as the result of a trade dispute.
"Now, please let me quote directly from some of these files. I think that you'll find these remarks quite prophetic, in view of what we've subsequently learned...
Not surprisingly, Griggs said, the Soviet Union and Cuba were quick to try to allay fears that they had been involved with the assassination in any way. "Cuba especially seemed gripped with fear that the blame would be laid at its door. Russia was not quite as paranoid, but nevertheless stressed from an early date, 'We are totally innocent in any of this.'"
Griggs wrapped up his presentation with a quote from the Dallas Morning News, from an item commenting on the reaction of the European press to the assassination. "27th of November, 1963, the Dallas Morning News, under the headline, 'European Press Doubts that Entire Truth Revealed.' Quote: 'The European press, both Communist and non-Communist, voiced dark suspicions on Tuesday that the entire truth had not been told in the assassination of President Kennedy and the slaying of Lee Harvey Oswald. There was widespread condemnation of the Dallas Police Department for allowing television coverage of Oswald, and expressions of indignation at what the London Daily Telegraph called the monumental absurdity of Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry's declaration that the Kennedy case was closed...'"
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