Bloody Treason

Bloody Treason, by Noel Twyman
Laurel Publishing
$37.50

The advance literature on Noel Twyman's Bloody Treason promises it will be "loaded with new evidence." That's a big promise: loaded. The same promotional material promises "an explosive new explanation of the assassination and its coverup..." Explosive is a big promise, too, and while Bloody Treason may fall a tad short on that one, there is plenty of good stuff here.

Bloody Treason is a big book --- more than 850 pages, including two Appendices, that touch most of the known bases. Much of the promised new evidence comes in the form of stuff released over the last few years by the Assassination Records Review Board. Also here are 26 full color frames from the Zapruder film, included for reference in Twyman's analysis on the question of Z-film authenticity --- an issue that has loomed large in recent years.

The author is a retired engineer, and approaches his subject with an engineer's thoroughness (although he writes that he approaches the subject as a prosecutor convinced of conspiracy). After an obligatory retelling of the events in Dealey Plaza and the political climate of 1963, an exacting analysis begins. Twyman quite reasonably envisions a power elite threatened by JFK, and convinced it is powerful enough to both carry out the assassination and cover it up. A long list of suspects, both groups and individuals, is gradually narrowed down to just a handful of probable conspirators.

In introductory remarks, the author says it isn't necessary to read Bloody Treason straight through. The initiated, he writes, "may wish to skip around as their energy level and interests vary." I took him at his word, and after skimming through the first few chapters, could not resist jumping ahead to the chapter entitled "The Mastermind."

Of course, he doesn't name a single mastermind in the plot to assassinate John F. Kennedy. At least not in this early in the book (Chapter 8). More on this later.

So I jumped ahead again, this time to Chapter 27, a long account of the author's interviews with and analysis of Gerry Patrick Hemming. Hemming is a figure whose exact ties to the case have always been unclear to me. But this is a fine example of Bloody Treason being loaded with, if not new evidence, at least a lot of information that has not been brought together like this before, as far as I know.

Twyman says that unnamed "prominent researchers" had warned him not to take Hemming seriously or Bloody Treason would be "completely discredited." But I am glad he did take him seriously, going so far as to meet with him on a number of occasions and probe his story in depth. Hemming is mentioned throughout the assassination literature. The author fills in much of Hemming's background (he formed a paramilitary group as a teenager) and demonstrates how his later activities, specifically Hemming's group Interpen, may have involved him in the JFK assassination plot(s). Hemming comes across as very credible in these pages.

Hemming's is not the only supposedly dubious story given serious consideration by Noel Twyman. The so-called "Corsican Connection" was researched in the 1970s and 80s by Steven Rivele. It seemed very promising --- check out Rivele's notes, which Twyman publishes here --- but by some accounts, was poorly represented in the five (now six)-part television documentary, The Men Who Killed Kennedy. Victim of bad PR, the story faded.

But the Corsicans, in the persons of Christian David, Lucien Sarti, and others, are re-examined here, and still seem viable candidates, the "mechanics" who actually carried out the Dealey Plaza execution. One of the more intriguing documents reproduced in Bloody Treason is a page from notes by the CIA's William Harvey, released from the National Archives in April of 1995 (i.e., the most complete version of those notes to date). The notes --- a product of "the fertile, logical mind of one of our nation's master spies" --- outline the Agency's notorious ZR/RIFLE assassination program. These seem, as Twyman notes, "a master plan which has in it the key elements of the JFK assassination plot." One of sixteen points was "Corsicans recommended" as assassins.

Harvey has long been considered a prime suspect in the case. And he certainly comes to mind when reading the aforementioned chapter, "The Mastermind." In this fascinating section, Twyman adopts the conspirator's point-of-view to "think through a plot that conforms to all the known evidence and could have been concocted by a logical mind." Twyman imagines this mastermind addressing the assassinaton's sponsors and outlining a compartmentalized plot that shields those at the top, and leaves a designated patsy, a supposed lone nut, holding the bag.

When Twyman finally names his real villains, we recognize three men whose involvement has been alleged for years: Lyndon Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover, and H.L. Hunt. The author says they acted from that oldest of motivations, self-preservation, and that "they had the the power and the money to make it happen and cover it up." It is amusing, in a sick sort of way, when Twyman says that Hoover seems to be the one person involved who had no redeeming qualities. "I have searched the literature and ... if there was something likable about him I haven't found it."

One of the central premises of Bloody Treason is that the Zapruder film was altered by members of the cabal that murdered President Kennedy, as part of an effort to at least partly conceal the plot and the plotters. This notion has gained increasing credibility in recent years, but I must concede it is an idea that part of me wants to reject outright, because I just don't get it. The Zapruder film as it has been known since the 1970s is convincing evidence of a front shooter and thus a conspiracy. To dwell on alleged alteration strikes me as counterproductive, missing the forest for the trees.

As I understand the overall argument, frames were deleted from the film in order to hide evidence that Kennedy was shot from the front, which of course would destroy the lone nut scenario. The original film was seized by the conspirators and altered using what was, in 1963, sophisticated yet rather commonplace equipment. Traces of the forgery inevitably remained, but were not ferreted out for many years.

There are undeniable problems in the film, such as whether the Presidential limousine came to a stop during the fusillade. In the conventional Z-film it plainly does not, but numerous eyewitnesses gave sworn testimony that it did, or at least that it slowed down (also not observed).

Twyman writes that "a long list of eyewitnesses" told the Warren Commission that the Presidential limousine either slowed or came to a complete stop, and that he "selected a few (from many)" to include in his book. He quotes six of them. But I am bothered that one, motorcycle cop Marion Baker, actually states that he did not see the limo stop. He just heard from others that it did. This seems a strange choice to bolster the claim; indeed, since Baker was riding two cars behind JFK's limo, it seems odd that he did not notice a slowdown. Of course, Baker quickly ditched his cycle and ran to the TSBD and an encounter with Lee Oswald. Perhaps I am splitting hairs.

Another issue that Twyman focuses on is the speed with which limousine driver William Greer turns his head at two points in the shooting sequence. According to Twyman, the speed of this head turn is a physical impossibility, and further proof that key frames were deleted from the film. There are filmed re-creations of the head turn (no subject could do it the way Greer supposedly did) and discussions of calculations intended to show it couldn't be done.

These may be Twyman's most powerful demonstrations. But at this stage I am still sitting on the fence on the question of film alteration. Suffice it to say that proving the allegation the Zapruder film was tampered with is not a simple task. Respected researchers have staked claims on both sides of the question; this is not an issue that will be resolved any time soon --- if ever.

Whether, as a prosecutor, Noel Twyman makes his case against his named suspects is not for me to say here. But it is safe to say that Bloody Treason does not blow the lid off the JFK case.

"Loaded with new evidence" ultimately seems little more than marketing hyperbole. But that doesn't diminish the significance of this book. Bloody Treason deserves serious attention, and will probably be read for years to come.

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