Posted on 11/26/2003 7:13:20 PM PST by Destro
I spent most of my life as an absolute assassination "buff" and conspiracy theory believer. I changed my mind after reading Posner's book ... which IMHO gives the best presentation of the evidence of any book on 11/22/63, and I've read 'em all, plus it digs out the fact that people knew Oswald was a ticking time bomb with violent inclinations as far back as junior high school and nothing was done about it ... and visiting Dealey Plaza and checking out the scene with my own eyes. I now believe Oswald did it and did it alone.
Bottom line, the reason people keep searching and searching and searching and digging and digging and digging to try to find out "what really happened" is that they simply can't conceive that a piece of human debris and flotsam and jetsam like Oswald could kill the most powerful man in the world just like he was plinking cans off the top of a fence. You put those two things on either side of an equation and it doesn't equate, and because of that people keep looking for hidden reasons, meanings, etc., and refuse to accept the simple explanation.
That's just what THEY want you to do!
Run google for a search on Posner reviews, including a book entitled "Case Open." I don't know if that will move you back to a second gunman way of thinking or now, but it will show you that Posner was, at best flawed, and at worst, a hoax. The skinny is that Posner either ignored or tried to create a credibility problem for evidence that didn't fit his scheme. That's nothing new; I'm sure other JFK authors do that as well. But Posner is by no means the definitive work.
Or, maybe that was the shot that made the entry wound in Kennedy's throat.
The way I saw it, it wasn't a hard shot at all. With a rifle with a 4X scope, I think I'd have had a chance to make that shot at a target going that slowly, that was only 88 yards away at max distance. Oswald's Marine shooting records weren't all that awful, he wasn't Davy Crockett but he was a darn sight better than if you'd pulled someone off the street and stuck a gun in his hands, plus Oswald had been practicing. And as far as the time between shots, what a lot of people don't stop to think is that one shell was already chambered. So he only had to work the bolt twice, not three times.
The great importance of this book is that the author and researchers, all of whom were on or associated with de Gaulle's Security Service, realized that the assassination was the culmination of a massive conspiracy involving the most powerful individuals and organizations in the U.S. and not the job of a single lone nut.
In the weeks before Kennedy was assassinated, death threats were made against several European leaders: Harold Wilson of the U.K. , King Baudouin of Belgium, Premier Tage Erlander of Sweden and Chancllor Ludwig Erhand of Germany. [This info was originally published in U.S.News & World Report].
President de Gaulle survived numerous attempts on his life all of which were theresult of conspiracies involving powerful individuals and organizations, so it's understandable that he instinctively sensed conspiracy in Dallas. When the Warren Report was releaed, he called it "a joke."
James Hepburn is an alias for HerveLamarr, a former member of the Diplomatic Service who had close ties with French Intelligence and the President. He met Jacqueline Kennedy (then Bouvier) in 1951, the President twice during the 1960 campaign, and Bobby twice in 1964 and 1967.
The book has been published throughout the world, but the only edition printed in the U.S. was destroyed and noone else has dared or been able to do another.
It should be noted that there are a few errors and omissions in the book, inevitable when such an immense task of otherwise accurate research was done in so little time.
For example, the French show 4 different gunmen at 3 different sites, and we now know, mainly from new photographic technology, that there were more than 4 gunmen in more than 3 sites. And, while there are numerous references to the Cuban exiles, a full chapter was not written about them.
There is, however, a chapter on each of the other conspiratorial groups: politicians, military, corporate powers, oilmen, Texans, the Secret Service, Intelligent services, police and organized crime (Mafia).
The author paints a glowing picture of the many things the President hoped to accomplish in his expected 2 terms in office and an equall y evil portrait of the conspirators whose personal agendas were threatened by them.
The French tried to tell us and warn us, but too much power was stacked against them.
The book is very scarce but copies still show up at such places as The Last Hurrah Bookshop in Williamsport, Pa (Ph and FAX: 717=3211150) and The President's Box Bookshop in D.C. (703=998-7390), and they should be found through the OP book services on the internet.
Recommendation:
Essential.
The source for my information about Hepburn/Lamarr, French Security Serive et al is from an article by same title as book written by William Turner, available through The Center for the Preservation of Modern History n Santa Barbara, Cal. Phone: 805=899-3433; FAX: 805=899-4733.
You no doubt know of Wm Turner--former FBI agent turned investigative journalist with several books to his credit, especially one on the murder of Bobby Kennedy.
This review was written by leebuff@cob.com
NARRATOR : Guy Banister was actively involved in the secret training of Cuban exiles. One of Banister's comrades in the fight against Castro was a former airline pilot named David Ferrie.
Mr. SUMMERS : He was a brilliant flyer. He'd flown in and out of Cuba before and after the Bay of Pigs, taking guerrillas in, extracting them after operations. He was heard to say some time after the Bay of Pigs that President Kennedy had betrayed the nation in his conduct of that operation and he said on one occasion that the President ought to be shot. And later some people would come to think that he meant it.
NARRATOR : In the 1950s, David Ferrie commanded a squadron in the Civil Air Patrol, but was suspended for indoctrinating the young cadets with his anti-communist views. In the '50s, Lee Oswald was in the CAP and several fellow cadets said David Ferrie was one of Oswald's instructors.
Mr. SUMMERS : There are some clues to suggest that Oswald and Ferrie's paths crossed again in the summer of 1963. Most persuasive of all, perhaps, were the group of people, completely independent witnesses, who said that a car arrived one day in the little town of Clinton, outside New Orleans, and that three white men were in it. One of them was Oswald who, most oddly, got out of the car, the only white face to line up in a long line of blacks waiting to register to vote, waited -- stood in the line and then eventually departed. And they said that one of the other two white men, one of Oswald's companions, was, in fact, a man who looked exactly like David Ferrie and they had no doubt later about their recognition of Ferrie because Ferrie, by that time, looked pretty odd. He suffered from alopecia and he wore a wig and, indeed, false eyebrows. Not the sort of guy you forget in a hurry.
NARRATOR : If David Ferrie was with Oswald in 1963, it could be significant because Ferrie, as well as Guy Banister, was connected to one of the major figures in organized crime.
Mr. BLAKEY : We took very seriously the possibility that organized crime had a hand in the President's death. The FBI had an illegal electronic surveillance on the major figures of organized crime. We did a survey of that surveillance. What we did find, and shockingly, is repeated conversations by these people that indicated the depth of their hatred for Kennedy and actual discussions of, "He ought to be killed," "He ought to be whacked."
NARRATOR : No mobster hated the Kennedys more than Carlos Marcello, the Mafia chieftain of New Orleans, a prime target of the administration's war on organized crime. In 1961, Robert Kennedy had personally ordered Marcello's arrest and deportation. The boss of New Orleans was humiliated.
Mr. BLAKEY : Carlos Marcello talks about getting -- speaks in Sicilian -- getting the "stone out of my shoe" and talking about getting a "nut" to kill not Bobby Kennedy, who was his nemesis, but John Kennedy, who was the man behind the nemesis.
NARRATOR : Marcello returned to New Orleans to fight the deportation order. His attorneys hired both Guy Banister and David Ferrie as investigators in the case. For Robert Blakey, who believes the Mafia was involved in the Kennedy assassination, this is the critical link.
Mr. BLAKEY : When you find David Ferrie, who is an investigator for Carlos Marcello, being a boyhood friend to Lee Harvey Oswald and with him that summer and with Carlos Marcello at that very point in time, you have an immediate connection between a man who had the motive, opportunity and means to kill Kennedy and the man who killed Kennedy.
Mr. POSNER :I think what many conspiracy critics do, they try to take the chain, the connections, too far back. They say "Oswald knew Ferrie and Ferrie did some investigative work for Marcello and Banister did some investigative work for Marcello. Marcello hated Kennedy and therefore it must have been Marcello deciding to kill Kennedy, down to Ferrie and Banister, who then gave the order to Oswald, who went off and did it." It's wonderful speculation. There's just no evidence to back it up.
NARRATOR : Gerald Posner disputes all the sightings of Oswald and Ferrie -- in the Civil Air Patrol and in 1963. He points out there has never been any hard documentary evidence linking the two men.
Mr. POSNER : I discovered documents that were from the Civil Air Patrol which show that David Ferrie was suspended from the CAP in 1954 and not reinstated until 1958. He wasn't even in the Patrol in 1955, when Oswald was a member.
NARRATOR : FRONTLINE has uncovered the first hard evidence that places Oswald and Ferrie together: this photograph, taken in 1955 at a CAP barbecue. John Ciravolo and Tony Atzenhoffer were in the CAP with Lee Oswald.
JOHN CIRAVOLO : This is several cadets, including Oswald on the end in the white T-shirt, myself standing in front of him. And over here in the white T-shirt and the helmet is Dave Ferrie.
TONY ATZENHOFFER : Because of all of the publicity, you can recognize Ferrie, you can recognize Oswald. They were both in the CAP at the same time. They were both wearing CAP uniforms.
NARRATOR : After the Kennedy assassination, David Ferrie denied that he ever knew Lee Oswald.
LAYTON MARTENS : I never heard David Ferrie mention Lee Harvey Oswald. I never met him. I would certainly remember if I ever did.
NARRATOR : Layton Martens was also a CAP cadet. He stayed friendly with Ferrie until his death in 1967.
Mr. MARTENS : And it does appear as though David Ferrie is in the picture and on the other end of the picture there is a person who looks like Lee Harvey Oswald. It would indicate that there could be a possibility of an association, but if and to what extent -- that's another question. Of course, we've all been photographed with people and we could be presented with photographs later and --and asked, "Well, do you know this person? Obviously, you must because you were photographed with them," to which we'd have to answer, "Well, no. It's just a photograph and I don't know that person. It's just someone who happened to be in the picture," so -- but it's interesting.
Mr. SUMMERS : The shame of this thing is that the whole question of Oswald's activity in New Orleans was never properly investigated by officialdom at the beginning. Guy Banister, the former FBI agent at 544 Camp Street, was never, ever asked by anybody about Lee Harvey Oswald. David Ferrie was questioned, but the investigation was dropped very quickly and the names of neither Banister nor Ferrie are in the Warren report. It simply doesn't mention either of them.
NARRATOR If Oswald did have a secret connection to Ferrie and Banister in 1963, the nature of that relationship remains unclear. And that evidence must be weighed against the rest of what is known of his time in New Orleans, where Oswald continued to demonstrate for Castro.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.