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Whoever "They" Are...

I am a 24 year-old student of the case. I have acquired a great number of books on the case, but alas, I have yet to read most of them, as I am finishing a master's thesis and have few hours of leisure time. As soon as I am out of school, I plan on spending a substantial amount of time reading and studying the literature, as it makes a great hobby, and could possibly last the rest of my life.

In my readings to this date, however, one thing has bothered me, which was brought up in the January/February 1999 issue of Fair Play. I do not mean to detract from Penn Jones' work or posthumously question the merit of his work, but the passage of Forgive My Grief III published in Fair Play calls me to my keyboard. Jones cited John Connally's cry of "My God, they are going to kill us all!" as possible evidence that Connally knew JFK would be killed, and possibly in Dallas. I can't accept this. As we have butchered the English language over time, the pronoun "they" has often replaced the more appropriate "he" or "she." How many times have we received misdirected phone calls, only to tell others that "They had the wrong number," or "They asked for so-and-so?" This might seem like a trivial example, but we often refer to a single person as "they," right or wrong. In the heat of the moment, having been shot, I think one can forgive Connally's misuse of the English language when exclaiming "they." Maybe Connally initially thought there were more rifles in use than the one accounted for. Maybe Jones was right, and I'm wrong. But to question Connally's knowledge of the event based on Connally's choice of a pronoun, as he has been shot, seems dubious at best. Thank you.

Mike Lopez

Conference Notes

I was going to do another gossipy one this year, but had serious stuff to work on instead. So I will fill you in on some things that were not mentioned this year.

Just before Armstrong's presentation, Doug Horne said,"You are now going to hear from John Armstrong, whose research is seriously flawed. As evidence of the findings of the ARRB, you may see the ARRB releases made today, for sale from Tom Jones for $33.00.

I then heard that Jeremy Gunn walked out of the Lancer meeting since he did not approve of the attitude of Doug Horne.

When I told Cyril Wecht about this, he said that it was unbelieveable. I agree, and there are many of us that will never return to the Lancer Conference for this reason. Armstrong's presentation was scheduled for 9 P.M., but didn't start till after 10 since Lifton kept the other program going ad infinitum until John told Mr. Conway that he and his 3 witnesses that he flew in for the event would walk out at 10:05 p.m. if he did not start IMMEDIATELY.

I left his presentation at midnight because I couldn't stay awake. On Sunday morning, the most important presentation on Crisman, and intelligence, started at 7:30 a.m. when most of the members were asleep. I arrived a half hour late at 8:00 a.m. and heard most of the info, re; Crisman's son being employed by the school in Oregon where the student blew away his classmates. there were 25 people at the beginning, and at the end there were 75. Then Sherry Sullivan started her excellent presentation at 9:00 am......Missing CIA employees was her topic, and touched on very moving facts about her plight, since her father was missing shortly before the JFK hit.

Glad you could attend most of the meetings.

Bill Drenas did the most outstanding bus tour in 5 years, having all the passengers disembark, and stand in the position of the witnesses to the Tippit shooting, and came back raving about the tour. Bill is to be commended for this tour.

The Hyatt charged $129.00 for a room with a view, and the Grand charged $79.00, without a view of Dealey Plaza.

The prize this year went to COPA, whose meetings started on time, were very informative, and there was no continuous noise in the presentation room by the projector operator who had a cell phone at LANCER and took many calls, which disturbed the attendees.

--Ed Sherry

In Response to the Above...

Fair Play, when this issue was originally uploaded on February 28, did not include the following reply by Lancer's Debra Conway to Ed Sherry's email. We regret the omission, which was certainly not in the spirit of fair play.

I guess [neither] Ed Sherry nor John Kelin felt it their responsibility to share this little post with George Michael Evica or anyone else with Lancer. We typically welcome constructive critism of the conference because God knows we need it, but there are so many things written here that are just seriously false.

George Michael, even though very ill, ran a tight schedule. In fact, we seldom ran behind or overtime at all for four full days! Only twice do I remember being off and that was when Larry Teeter was late and another with the Horne presentation, which I address below. Tom and I have watched all 4 days of tape and were just thrilled with how well each moderator ran things.

  1. I did not hear Doug Horne make the statements about John Armstrong but I will watch the rough tapes and see exactly what was said. I'm sure it wasn't in this context. And yes Tom had Doug's memos for sale --THANK GOD--at the conference.

  2. Jeremy Gunn decided not to speak at the Award's Banquet. I have not addressed this publicly because I just didn't want to have to explain what a disappointment he was. (Which became pretty obvious after reading the Parkland Doctor's transcript.) He wimped out--that's the whole story. If it wasn't Horne he had a fit over, it would have been some other excuse. He is no friend of the JFK research community.

  3. Yes, Armstrong's presentation didn't start until 10:05pm or so. That was approximately 35 minutes later than he expected, but due to substantial negotiations before the conference and considering we provided people to run his audio/visual equipment and later lock up the room after midnight, he was very gracious. At least to my face. I explained to the audience that Horne had just given his first presentation of his material and as we have all done, gone past his time. As we were hearing this vital evidence for the first time, I had not one person complain and many thanked us --and still thank us-- for having him there.

  4. The Sunday morning Intelligence panel did not begin until after 8:00am. I was there. It was scheduled to begin at 8:10am -- never at 7:30am. The audience did fill up slowly which is to be expected on the actual anniversary day (to go to Dealey Plaza) and beautiful weather to boot.

  5. I have no idea who is referred to as the projector operator with the cell phone. There was no such person. My husband, Steve Conway and researcher Ron Friedrich used walkie-talkies to control the equipment in the large ballroom. Perhaps that is it. I can't imagine a few words on lighting or audio would be so disturbing. I was sitting pretty near the front of the room during this entire panel and was not disturbed once.

All these little complaints and not one comment on the actual evidence presented by over 45 speakers! That is what is unbelievable and very, very sad.

Sincerely Frustrated,

--Debra Conway

We Are Wonderful

I just wanted to say you guys are awesome! I have been looking at all the things you have written, all the back issues, and I am amazed at the wealth of knowledge and interesting thoughts you all have. I have been interested in the Kennedy assassination since I was 14, 7 years ago. I saw the movie "JFK" and was instantly hooked. Unfortunately, I have only been to Dallas once. Your site is just great, really full of important info. My favorite thing I have read is "Harvey and Lee--Just the facts, Please" by John Armstrong. That story was almost scary in its startling explanation. I am so glad there are other people out there who think the same way I do...I really appreciate your hard work!

Sincerely yours,

Courtney L. Redd

JFK Exhibition

Dear Sir or Madam:

My name is Mathias Bergendahl and I'm the Public Relations Coordinator for the Florida International Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida.

We are currently planning John F. Kennedy: The Exhibition which will open on November 12, 1999 and run until May 29, 2000. If we are successful in receiving sufficient funding, the exhibition will move to our third floor and become permanent.

The temporary exhibition will feature items from what is the largest private collection of Kennedy memorabilia in the world and includes many items of a personal nature relating to the former President and First Lady as well as other Kennedy family members.

The majority of items that will be in the exhibition comes from the collection of Robert L. White of Baltimore, Md. Among the featured objects are Kennedy's rocking chair, bearing the imprint of his back brace; the flags that flew on Kennedy's car in the Dallas motorcade; the President's christening ring; the Omega watch worn during his Inauguration; and the red, white and blue telephone that provided a hotline to the White House during presidential travels.

Also in the collection is correspondence, which includes letters written by Kennedy following his injury in the PT-109 incident and a threatening telegram from then Soviet President Nikita Khrushchev. Since Kennedy's last stop before his trip to Dallas was in the Tampa Bay area, memorabilia from that visit will be a feature of the exhibition. Kennedy also had other Florida ties, which will be included.

White, 50, has collected Kennedy items ever since the President's secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, responded to the teen's request for an autograph and photo. Over the next three-and-a-half decades, he collected thousands of items by contacting Kennedy's friends and Cabinet members. When Evelyn Lincoln died in 1995, she willed a significant portion of her collection to White.

Attached are two logos for John F. Kennedy: The Exhibition, one horizontal and one vertical.

I would appreciate an opportunity to be mentioned on your John F. Kennedy web site as well as a link to our web site.

In return, I plan to create a link page to various John F. Kennedy sites, and would like to include yours.

Our web site address is http://www.floridamuseum.org. It currently features Empires of Mystery, which will close on May 16, 1999. We will then update it a John F. Kennedy: The Exhibition site.

Please don't hesitate to contact me if there's anything I can assist you with.

Sincerely,

Mathias Bergendahl

Public Relations Coordinator

Florida International Museum

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