Posted on 02/02/2004 6:20:27 PM PST by John W
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Two former presidents and the widow of Lyndon B. Johnson are calling on the History Channel to investigate a documentary it aired alleging President Johnson was involved in the Kennedy assassination. Lady Bird Johnson said the film "falsely and irresponsibly" accuses her husband of conspiring to kill President Kennedy.
No accusation made against Johnson "has hurt as painfully," the 91-year-old former first lady said in a Jan. 29 letter. Her husband died in 1973.
Copies of her letter were sent to the chief executives of three companies that own A&E Networks, which includes the History Channel. The letters went to Bob Wright of NBC, Victor Ganzi of Hearst Corp. and Michael Eisner of The Walt Disney Co.
Former Presidents Ford and Carter also sent letters citing the documentary, "The Guilty Men," which aired last November as part of a series of History Channel specials on the Nov. 22, 1963 assassination.
Ford, noting he was the last surviving member of the Warren Commission that determined Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy, called the History Channel documentary "reprehensible."
Alleging that Johnson, as Kennedy's vice president, was part of a conspiracy to murder him is "the greatest, most damaging accusation ever made against a former vice president and president in American History," Ford, 90, wrote in his Jan. 23 letter.
The letters were released Monday to The Associated Press by Tom Johnson, chairman of the LBJ Foundation and a representative of the Johnson family.
Calls to NBC and Disney were not immediately returned.
"We don't comment on correspondence with our chief executive officer," said Hearst spokesman Paul Luthringer.
Tom Johnson said he and three other former Johnson aides planned to meet Wednesday with executives of the History Channel and A&E Television Networks to press for an investigation and for its findings to be made public.
Nickolas Davatzes, president of A&E Television Networks, was expected to take part, History Channel spokeswoman Lynn Gardner said Tuesday.
Other Johnson aides scheduled to participate are Jack Valenti, now head of the Motion Picture Association of America; journalist Bill Moyers; and attorney Larry Temple.
"I'm puzzled, bewildered, that a distinguished enterprise like the History Channel would put on the air such garbage, such ugliness," Valenti said in November. "It makes one sick."
When the Kennedy series aired, the History Channel said in a statement that the point of view in "The Guilty Men" was "meticulously researched."
"By presenting different viewpoints we enable our viewers to decide to agree or disagree with them and to arrive at their own conclusions," the channel said.
Earth to Bobber, Johnson was a tax and spend liberal Democrat.
Here, here! Immediately after we roll FDR down the wheelchair-access ramp to the gates of Hell.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
.......making a comment deriding the 'single bullet theory'....
Hahahahahahahahahahah!
Yes there was. A Ford glass specialist confirmed that the windshield was immediately changed.
He was a lawyer on the staff of the Commission, but not a member of the Warren Commission itself.
And I'm not sold on the "jet effect" explanation either.
That doesn't even take into account the fact Oswald was a shady character who had federal and foreign connections, some of whom may have had reasons for wanting Kennedy dead.
There's too many coincidences and contradictions to accept him as the lone assassin.
Oh yes. Of course. I forgot about the army of conspiracists who were swarming over every piece of evidence, "cleaning up" everything before they could actually be examined, unseen by anyone.
Silly me.
Oooooookay.....
Second, Connally was in the line of fire and as he and Nellie both said, hit by a different bullet than the one that hit Kennedy in the back. Their testimony is credible to me. My point was that a professional shooter takes pride in his work, one shot one kill. He would not want to harm women. This was no John Hinkley emptying his pistol and hoping to get lucky. Connally was hit when Kennedy leaned to the left.
Unlike you, I have no political axe to grind. I look at it like any other murder case. Personally, I wish Teddy had been in the jump seat that day instead of Connally.
Insiders have a different story that the government, simple as that. The Zapruder shows three shots hitting Kennedy at once. Eyewitnesses say Oswald was at the theater when Tippet was killed. Kennedy didn't have earlobes, many of the autopsy photos show a man with earlobes. Doctors say Kennedy was shot in the front with a large exit wound to the back. Eyewitnesses say there was a hole in the windshield. A Ford engineer says the windshield was replaced immediately. Brain debris was thrown backward, not forward. Eyewitnesses say a loud shot came from the knoll. Doctors at Parkland say the back wound only went in two inches. Eyewitnesses at Tippet's murder say it was a bigger guy than Oswald that did it and his clothes didn't match what Oswald was wearing at the theater. A police car was seen honking outside of Oswald's house right before Tippet's murder. Thread patterns on the magic bullet don't match Kennedy's shirt or jacket...I could go on.
That's just too many anomalies for the government's story to be true.
They did!
The Zapruder film would have disappeared.
Parts of it did disappear. Frames have been removed if I'm not mistaken. They say they screwed up in developing it. Yeah right, the most important film of our time and they screw up?
The autopsy records would have disappeared.
The whole point of killing Tippet was to fake an autopsy.
The magic bullet would have disappeared.
The bullet was planted to show it was Oswald's rifle. Kennedy was actually shot from behind by a 7.5.
No, it isn't. I've read all of it and more. You cant dismiss it because it doesn't support your theory.
Marshall was murdered while pursuing Johnson for defrauding the ag markets.
How can a bullet enter the back at a 45 degree downward angle and exit farther up at the throat?
Fascinating. Then why didn't they show up on the neck X-rays?
Oh, right, they must have been those "invisible-to-X-rays" bullets that were so common in 1963. And the shooters (plural) who made those shots chose to use these magic bullets (!) while the other shooter(s) (that's 3+ so far) used ordinary metallic bullets because... um... they liked variety?
Oh, wait, I know -- because despite the fact that the conspiracy theorists all claim that even hitting a "moving target" at all was somehow an "impossible" shot, you'll have us believe that the "additional" gunmen were such perfect shots that they *knew for certain* that they could make shots on a moving target so precisely that they could put them into JFK's neck from two different angles so perfectly that they could create the illusion of a single in-and-out pass-through shot, thus "hiding" their handiwork, because they knew for certain that the doctors weren't going to probe the neck wound too thoroughly *and* that the magic un-X-rayable bullets would have no chance of passing through the neck and spoiling the illusion. What a perfect plan!
Do you guys even *listen* to yourselves?
Oops, wait, they found metallic bullet fragments in the neck wound after all:
EXAMINATION OF X-RAY FILMS[...]
Films #8, 9 and 10 allowed visualization of the lower neck. Subcutaneous emphysema is present just to the right of the cervical spine immediately above the apex of the right lung. Also, several, small metallic fragments are present in this region. There is no evidence of fracture of either scapula or of the clavicles, or of the ribs or of any of the cervical and thoracic vertebrae.
The foregoing observations indicate that the pathway of the projectile involving the neck was confined to a region to the right of the spine and superior to a plane passing through the upper margin of the right scapula, the apex of the right lung and the right clavicle.
-- from the 1968 Panel Review of Photographs, X-Ray Films, Documents and Other Evidence Pertaining to the Fatal Wounding of President John E Kennedy on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas
The four physicians on the panel were:
1) Carnes, William H., MD, Professor of Pathology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, Member of Medical Examiner's Commission, State of Utah, nominated by Dr. J. E. Wallace Sterling, President of Stanford University.
2) Fisher, Russell S., MD, Professor of Forensic Pathology, University of Maryland and Chief Medical Examiner of the State of Maryland, Baltimore, MD, nominated by Dr. Oscar B. Hunter, Jr., President of the College of American Pathologists.
3) Morgan, Russell H., MD, Professor of Radiology, School of Medicine and Professor of Radiological Sciences, School of Hygiene and Public Health, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, nominated by Dr. Lincoln Gordon, President of The Johns Hopkins University.
4) Mortiz, Alan R., MD, Professor of Pathology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH and former Professor of Forensic Medicine, Harvard University, nominated by Dr. John A. Hannah, President of Michigan State University.
When the murderers are in the government in the positions they are in (Johnson, Hoover), they can easily manipulate the evidence.
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