this is a must see top documentary for anyone seeking information about 9/11

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqTpGfB3VBI

this is an excellent new and must see 9/11 documentary . if you havent seen it i highly recommend it .

if you still had doubts before surely after watching this you will see things differently .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5UyynjxAyw

before i get any complaints no im not saying the uk grenfell fire was started intentionally or that it is related to 9/11 .

my point about the terrible and tragic grenfell tower fire is that it was a 24 story council building , nothing special about these towers , except as we tragically found out they are not safe .

world trade 7 was a 48 story building that had some serious work done on it to make even stronger . that building burned for several hours with just small areas of fire in different areas . grenfell burned RAGED for over 24 hours .

wtc7 which had extensive work done on it and many millions spent to strengthen it collapsed at about 5pm or so on 9/11 having sustained very little damage and with small areas of fire . no planes hit wt7 .

yet grenfell towers a very cheap building in terms of cost when compared to wt7 and a building that had none of the many millions spent on it that wtc7 had to strengthen it blazed and was a raging inferno for over 24 hours . that building still stands .

now im not trying to drag the tragic grenfell victims into anything , and no disrespect or offense at all is intended . im merely using this as a means to show that tower can burn and rage for over 24 hours and not collapse in on it self .

wt7 for atleast part of its collapsed fell at free fall speed . NIST tried to say otherwise . they now admit that this is accurate and true information , that wt7 fell atleast in part at free fall speed . this is impossible .

free fall speed is explained like this . go on a roof of a 48 floor building and drop a tennis ball over the side . what will happen ? , the ball will drop unmolested untill it hits the ground below . nothing is in the way to impeed the ball other than fresh air . thats an explanation of free fall . a building with 48 floors that collapses means that each floor from the top down will fall one on top of the other . so floor 48 lands on floor 47 and 47 lands on 46 and so on . that slows the collapse as each floor meets resistance . that didnt happen in the case of wt7 (atleast for part of its collapse ) , what happened was that the building fell from the top down in free fall speed . none of the top floors met any resistance . some 1300 engineers agree with this and nist had to reluctantly admit its true .

so how did these floors fall and not land on each other and slow the speed of the collapse ? , the only way is if there is no resistance , if the each floor below is removed , that is its support structure .

as people who have researched this case will know a 7.65 shell was found in dealey plaza and later destroyed . another shell was found on the roof of the records building in about 1974 , it was found by an air condition maintenance man .  it was heavily weathered and clearly up there for years .

clearly the shell destroyed was destroyed for a reason that can only be NO "EVIDENTIARY VALUE" . as an example of this the FBI said the zapruder film was of "NO EVIDENTIARY VALUE" , isnt that amazing ? the film showing jfks murder , showing reactions to being hit and also its a clock in terms of frames . thats to say the least . and the FBI said it was of NO EVIDENTIARY VALUE .

the only reasons for that that i can see is they didnt want to examine it and they didnt want anyone else examining it . remember it was kept from the public for over a decade .

above they had a 7.65 shell , they had two sworn affidavits stating the rifle found in the depository was a 7.65 mauser , doesnt that make the shell atleast relevant ? . and people in the norm would not be shooting weapons in and around dealey plaza , so when you are finding shells (and also they found a handgun in a waste basket  not far from dealey plaza after the assassination) especially not long after the president is murdered you would think the police and the FBI and the commissions would investigate . but no such luck . they destroyed the 7.65 shell , they even kept the fact that they had the shell secret , all that was found of that shell was the envelope that it USED to be in .

then there is the shell on the records building . they did apparently check that out atleast to some degree and they came back with IT DIDNT MATCH THE DEPOSITORY RIFLE . that means it wasnt fired from oswalds rifle , therefore it wasnt evidence in regards jfks assassination . the mentality being WE HAVE OUR LONE NUT , ONLY HE FIRED , ANY EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY IS DISREGARDED .

the official mentality .

here is another example but from 9/11 . there was provable insider trading going on just prior to 9/11 in regard the two airlines that were used for the attacks on 9/11 . what this means is that before the 9/11 attacks took place someone had information that the attacks would take place and they used that info , insider trading . this is to say the least illegal .

this was investigated and its been proven , the illegal trading was traced back . here comes he OFFICIAL mentality . when it was traced they came back said WE COULDNT TRACE IT TO BIN LADEN lol lol . as with the shells if they werent from the carcano they didnt want to know , if the provable insider trading couldnt be blamed on bin laden they didnt want to know . BUT IT LED TO SOMEONE right ? , who ? and if so why were they not arrested and question and asked how they had the information re 9/11 before it happened . if you want to find out more about the insider trading you could start with a very good documentary on youtube called incontrovertible 9/11 .

so when you are researching jfk or any of the topics on this site watch out for the OFFICIAL mentality , understand the mentality , understand how they think and work , and the lies at the very least become more clear .

 The Other Defector by george w bailey



Lee Oswald was not the only man to defect to the Soviet Union in the late 1950s. There were others such as Robert E. Webster. A former navy man, Webster was assigned to set up a trade display for the Rand Corporation in Moscow in October of 1959. For unknown reasons he decided to defect while there, just two weeks before Oswald did. Oddly, when Webster went to the US Embassy in Moscow to defect, Henry Rand, head of the corporation and a top executive, George Bookbinder, accompanied him. Both Rand and Bookbinder served together in the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), the forerunner of the CIA. The Rand Corporation did contractual work for the CIA. Like Oswald, Webster went to defect on a Saturday and failed. He was told to return the following Monday when the Embassy was open. Webster had another thing in common with Oswald--he would become disenchanted with life in the Soviet system and return to the Untied States in May of 1962.

It gets stranger. Robert Webster is on the record stating that he never knew or met Oswald while in Russia. Yet Oswald, when preparing to return to the U.S., asked embassy officials about Webster. How did Oswald know about him? Meanwhile, Webster claimed to have met Oswald’s wife Marina while there. She on the other hand, denied ever knowing him.

One thing that was very unlike Oswald, however, was Webster’s return to America. He was thoroughly debriefed by the CIA and Air Force and later spent two weeks with a Senate Internal Security Subcommittee behind closed doors. Contrast that with Oswald going virtually ignored (that we know of) upon his return, being only questioned by the FBI. And this, from a man that offered classified radar secrets to the Soviets.

Another strange item is why the two top men at Rand would accompany Webster to the Embassy. This is the height of the cold war and their employee wants to go commie. And the top people in the company are just going to walk him down there? That’s one issue, but the really odd thing is Webster intended to share a Rand Corporation product, their plastic spray gun, with the Russians. What CEO would approve of this? It is now known that the CIA had a false defector program to get assets into the Soviet Union during this time. So, this may have been an intelligence operation of some sort utilizing Rand as the set-up man, with his company, one of the few allowed to do business in the Soviet Union (also contracted with the CIA), to help put an operation like this in play.

Of course, the KGB had a similar arrangement with their agents marrying outsiders so they could later return with them to their respective countries, as Marina did with Lee. I am not saying Marina was a KGB spy; she certainly wasn’t gong to be doing much of that being a stay at home mom with two small children, but it’s an interesting coincidence.

So what do we have here? Strangeness surrounds Oswald and permeates the whole investigation of the Kennedy tragedy. There are thousand stories like this one. Apparently, when designing and acting out operations, the intelligence services cannot cover for everything they do. Just enough to make it work. There are always variables. Things stick out. Things go wrong. Agents lurk in the shadows and that’s all they leave behind. Just enough to let you know they passed by

http://www.patspeer.com/chapter12c%3Aanimania

I could go on and on in this regard. But the longest and most detailed destruction of Myers Motion is by Pat Speer. He adds that Myers Motion is not even consistent within itself. In other words, things that should be constant throughout, are not. Further, that to keep the single bullet trajectory he actually shrinks Connally in size to where he is smaller than JFK when, in fact, he was taller and heavier than JFK. At times Myers even shrinks the size of Connally's jump seat and more than doubles the distance of that seat from the side of the car. And the points made so far are not points of Vince Bugliosi style argument. They are points that are proven beyond doubt by just cutting out frames from Myers contraption or comparing that contraption to the Zapruder film. But don't believe me, just read the fascinating photo exposes by Speer and Cranor. And, by the way, Speer actually allows Myers to defend himself and even gives him the last word.

After going through all the obvious faults in Myers' ersatz simulation, it is possible to discern a motive in it. The idea was to replace the Zapruder film. The impact of the Zapruder film upon first viewing is quite powerful as to an assassin from the grassy knoll area. And, as indicated above, when you study the film, it gives you other indications of more than one gunman. By eliminating many frames, and by "interpolating" things not in the film, what you get is the Zapruder film as redone by the Warren Commission on an optical printer. With someone like David Belin supervising the effects to be added. Today Belin=Myers.

Myers tries to defend this sorry joke by saying that it actually passed inspection. See, he was grilled about Myers Motion in front of eight world-class producers for seven hours at ABC. Geez Dale, did any of them have college degrees? Didn't they compare your phony pastiche with the real thing -- the Z film -- frame by frame? Like say, Milicent Cranor did? Did they bring in a medical expert on the JFK case like Dave Mantik or Gary Aguilar to trace certain anatomical points? Of course not. That would have been actual peer review and journalistic responsibility. And Myers Motion would not have survived it. Under those circumstances, it actually would have been either booed or laughed out of the room. With what we know today about what goes on with the major networks-Dan Rather adjusting his coat collar for twenty minutes, which you can see on You Tube-nothing of any real substance was discussed. Except maybe the quality of the beer and pizza they ordered.

Myers must think that the whole world is stupid. Dale, here's another question for you: Were these the same producers who Ok'd that other ABC docudrama, The Path to 9-11 in 2006? You know, the show that tried to pin the 9-11 terrorist attacks on the Clinton administration? Or maybe they were the same ABC guys who produced and ran that horrific excuse for a debate in Philadelphia between Obama and Hillary Clinton. After which ABC was bombarded with 24, 000 complaining e mails. (See here for the powerful reaction to that shocking spectacle.)

https://kennedysandking.com/content/abc-jfk-and-the-road-to-philadelphia

As we show on this web site, ABC has not been the same since it was taken over by Cap Cities. (Click here for the background details of that takeover.)

https://kennedysandking.com/content/the-seizing-of-the-american-broadcasting-company

In my view, it is hard to take them seriously anymore as a news network. And the 2003 JFK special was symptomatic of this downward spiral. After all, the lead consultant for that show was Myers' friend and colleague in the Gang of Three, Gus Russo. We have this information from his own lips. So who does Myers think he's kidding? Between Peter Jennings and Russo, the fix was in. That is the way it is done in the MSM. And that is why Jennings picked Russo to lead it: he knew he would get what he wanted from him. Russo was well paid, he flew around first class, and he delivered the proper Warren Commission certifying goods. Including the Myers Motion induced SBT. Nothing about Standards and Practices was ever mentioned. Nothing about journalistic balance ever came up. Should we hear the other side of the story? Hell no! And the proof is this: David Wrone had just written a book on the Zapruder film at the time. Someone from the ABC show called him. Obviously this person did not know that Wrone was a Warren Commission critic. When Wrone was asked a question about the case against Oswald, he disagreed with the premise. He said to the caller, "Hold on, I want to get something about that issue." By the time he got back with the contesting source, the junior reporter understood who Wrone was. He didn't fit into the Warren Commission slant outlined by Jennings and Russo. So Wrone returned to a dial tone. Russo or someone else told the unknowing reporter to hang up.

In his response, Myers mentions my essay entitled "Who is Gus Russo?" (Probe, Vol. 6 No. 2). As usual he gets certain important details wrong. He says the essay is included in The Assassinations, edited by Lisa Pease and myself. It is not. He then says the essay pops up in edited form on search engines today. I have never touched that essay since the time it was published. But since I am proud of it, and since Myers brought it up, you can read the piece here. Rereading it, and also the replies by Russo and Myers, I stand by the original essay. Russo threw a hissy fit when it came out. So much so, that it impacted his ability to count. He says I did eight interviews for my first book, Destiny Betrayed. False. As anyone can see by consulting the end notes. Russo would have been more pleased if I had consulted with one of his favorite journalists: FBI informant on the Garrison case, and CIA applicant Hugh Aynesworth. Russo actually put this guy on his 2003 ABC debacle. Without telling the viewer of his FBI and CIA ties. But alas, he did the same thing with CIA asset Priscilla Johnson. In the PBS special he was involved in back in 1993, he featured James Angleton's buddy Edward Epstein. Again, without telling the viewer of that relationship. That's good ethics in journalism. Or how about another guy Russo trusts implicitly, CIA and State Department associate Sergio Arcacha Smith. Russo interviewed him for his book Live By the Sword. (Which comes to the rather goofy conclusion that Castro killed Kennedy.) When Jim Garrison wanted to talk to Smith during his JFK inquiry, Smith was guarded from Garrison's investigators by, among others, Mr. Aynesworth. Sorry guys, I'm just not that kind of investigator. I leave stuff like making friends with Aynesworth to the other side. But alas, Myers and Russo are the other side.

Myers accuses me of being paranoid in my original essay about Russo. I wasn't. Today I actually believe I was being naÃ"ve. In that article I wrote about a man who approached me during the Dallas ASK conference back in 1993. During my closing night speech, I talked about the PBS special Russo worked on and I also mentioned a weird letter attorney Mark Zaid had sent me. The man had listened to my address and he told me that, from his past SDS experience, Russo and Zaid fit the profiles of infiltrators. I included it in my essay, but I did not agree with him at the time. Today, after many years more experience with Russo, Myers, Vaughn, and even Zaid, plus the net worth of both the 1993 PBS special and the 2003 ABC special that both Myers and Russo worked on, I think he was right. Its the only way to explain why the Gang of Three kept on going to conferences way past the time they had flip-flopped on the issue of Oswald's guilt. A great example of this would be Vaughn's relationship with Harrison Livingstone. After the organization Coalition on Political Assassinations was formed, Livingstone tried to create a rival group. On the flyer Livingstone sent out for his group, Vaughn was listed as a member. Why? To tell the members during meetings that they were all wrong? Oswald did it. They should disband. It makes no sense. On the surface.

But if your agenda was different than the members, it does make sense. By staying inside the group you could makes speeches attacking their research and goals, thereby creating dissension and disturbances. (I detail specific instances where Russo did this in my article.) Secondly, you could monitor the newest developments and then try to think up ways to counter them in your journeys to the other side. And the other side would be receptive to this since the MSM has always been wedded to the Warren Commission. This is what Russo and Myers did with PBS and ABC. If the producers wanted someone to make the case for Oswald's guilt in the Tippit murder, hey, Myers will do it. (Forget about the 3 Oswald wallets, no Oswald fingerprints on the car, and mismatching shells and bullets.) If Russo needs someone to get off three shots in six seconds for his book, Vaughn can do that. (It doesn't matter if he isn't firing at moving targets or if the gun isn't loaded.) To counter the film JFK, Vaughn can write that for Oswald to have fired his rifle with Kennedy's limo below him, rather than further down on Elm Street, he would have been hanging out the Texas School Book Depository window. ( I was there in 1991, he wouldn't have been.) Does Dan Rather need someone to declare on TV that contrary to what the critics say, the CIA did get a photo of Oswald in Mexico City? Russo will get on camera and say they did. (Just don't ask any follow-ups about why it didn't go to the Warren Commission and where is it today.)

The final product of all this of course was Myers Motion: a way for the mainstream media to finally counter the shocking evidentiary impact of the Zapruder film. Which had always been a thorn in their side.

Like I said, today I actually believe I was naÃ"ve about the whole thing. Clearly, in retrospect, it was a classic counter-intelligence operation. Why did they do what they did? Who knows. Jim Marrs thinks that money was a prime reason. I'm not sure. But there is little doubt that Russo and Myers bank accounts grew more on this case after they flipped than before.

Myers, in his usual puerile, radio commentator way (which he used to be), says that I am jealous of him because he got on national TV and I did not. Dale, as I detail above, we all know how you got on. And I know I will never get on the national MSM. At least not on this subject. Simply because I have no intention of flip-flopping on the JFK case. But I do get plenty of attention by telling the truth. To use one example: I have been interviewed for five documentaries in the last three years. Three of them from abroad. Personally, I don't care about getting on the MSM concerning the JFK case. I was never in this to make money, to start a career, or get a name. If I ever met Dan Rather, I would leave the room. After making an obscene gesture at him. Rather made his name, fame and fortune with a lie.

The curious thing about this point is that today, a lot of people feel this way about the MSM. Even the people who work on the inside. After the Florida 2000 election heist, which the MSM made no attempt to investigate or expose; after the fraudulent premises for the disastrous Iraq war, which the MSM made no attempt to investigate and expose; after helping the worst president in history, George Bush Jr. get into office with absolutely no vetting in advance; after all that , which has resulted in so much horror for the American people, the rest of the citizenry has finally come around on the uselessness of the MSM. In fact, a former CBS producer has told me that her former colleagues are just biding their time. They see the handwriting on the wall. They will soon be beside the point. But if you study the JFK case, you already knew that. Today, everyone else is catching up to that understanding. That is why the creation of an alternative media has become so successful i.e. the blogosphere. And eventually, this will expand into TV and radio.

Myers' pretentious and gassy pronouncements are so full of holes in data and logic that I wonder if he takes them seriously as he writes them. Or maybe he thinks that someone has to protect Myers Motion from the facts. He can't let the whole thing come crumbling down. Pat Speer called the contraption a deliberate deception devised by the Wizard of OZ (wald). And we know what happened to him. But ultimately, his spiels are so vapid that he reminds me of the Black Knight from the comedy film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The Black Knight portentously intones that no one shall pass the bridge he is guarding. Then after the opponents cut off his left arm, his right arm, and then his legs, he still shouts at them as they pass by with words to the effect: Get back here, I'll massacre ya this time.

Yeah, sure Dale. Sorry, this isn't ABC. Good Bye.

Addendum: For those interested in reading Milicent Cranor's critique of Myers' original article in The Video Toaster User,
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?absPageId=519593

Jim DiEugenio discusses Dale Myers's reaction to his review of Reclaiming History.

A longer response than Dave Von Pein's to part one of my review of Reclaiming History was by, well, what shall we call him? Co-author? Writing assistant? Ghostwriter? Whatever term you prefer, it was, predictably, by Dale Myers.

Apparently, Myers didn't like me expounding on a) His past beliefs that the JFK case was a conspiracy, and b) David Lifton's inside knowledge about his ghostwriting of Reclaiming History, and his falling out with Vincent Bugliosi and his subsequent settlement that limited his talking about that ghostwriting. (Although considering how bad the book is, Myers got a good deal. He made some money but his name is off what turned out to be a book that should have never been published.)

Concerning the first, Myers actually tries to say that his former anti-Warren Commission beliefs are quite open and available. That's kind of funny. They are not at all available in the two books he has authored and co-authored, namely With Malice and Reclaiming History. And he had a lot of room to level with the reader in those two volumes. Well over three thousand pages. Or the equivalent of about eight or nine normal sized books: one-third of the Warren Commission. In fact, if John Kelin had not surfaced the tape recording of the interview he did with Myers from many years ago, I would never have known about his St. Paul type conversion.

This is an important point I believe. If an author is not equivocal, but absolute in his beliefs on an important historical event that has generated decades of controversy, he owes it to his readers to tell them he believed precisely the opposite before. Because, as I said in my review, the evidence in the JFK case has not changed. By any fair and objective standard, the releases of the Assassination Records Review Board have been quite brutal to the Warren Commission. And I used a lot of these new discoveries to illustrate the many, many shortcomings of Reclaiming History. (And I will use many more in future installments.) If an author is not forthcoming about his 180 degree pirouette, then the reader, quite naturally, has a right to suspect the worst. In previous cases, e.g. Norman Podhoretz, or David Horowitz, the authors understood this obligation. And they carried it out. In fact, both of these men wrote at least one, and a good part of a second book, trying to show how the transformation took place. Whether or not the attempts at psychological elucidation are convincing is a different story. But they made it. But surprisingly, Myers never felt any compunction at all in that direction. By not doing so, he invites the reader to wonder about the cause of the flip-flop. Which I will do later.

The second complaint, about further exposing his unbilled role in Reclaiming History, is unconsciously humorous. Last year, when Reclaiming History came out, Myers began to praise the book on his web site. And he and Todd Vaughn also began to attack writers who criticized it. Yet, I could find no instance at this time period when Myers admitted he had been a direct and paid participant in that literary exercise. And in fact, he still terms Lifton's important information on this point as speculation and rumor. In my view, this comes close to what people on the web term as "sock puppetry" . This means for example, in an e-mail forum you praise a work you are responsible for, but you do not reveal in your e-mail identity that you are the writer, or in this case, co-writer.

This weird and unbecoming behavior reached its apogee after David Lifton appeared on Black Op Radio in the summer of 2007. At that time, with host Len Osanic, Lifton revealed that Vincent Bugliosi was not the sole author of Reclaiming History He named Fred Haines as one of the co-authors of the inflated volume. He then erred and named Patricia Lambert as another. Myers used this mistake to jump all over Lifton using Bugliosi's secretary Rosemary Newton as his bullhorn. This is utterly fascinating of course. Why? Because up until this point, Lifton had been kind to Myers about the issue by not naming him as a ghostwriter. Even though he knew about his role. But the ungracious and ungrateful Myers was still concealing it. And at the same time he was trying to belittle Lifton by implying that he didn't know what he was talking about! (Consider all that for a moment.)

Well, understandably, that was it for Lifton. He then wrote a rewrite of his previous article on the issue. And this time he named Myers. In his response to me, Myers says that Lifton "discovered" these details by reading the acknowledgments section of Reclaiming History. It's writing stuff like that which really makes me wonder about Myers. The details divulged by Lifton about the contracts Haines and Myers signed are nowhere -- and I mean nowhere -- to be found in Reclaiming History. And it's this specificity, which could only be known by an insider, that impressed me enough to write about it since I think it is an important issue in any serious critical discussion about that volume.

Now, one of the things Lifton has stated is that when Myers signed his first contract to contribute to the tome, he was taken aback by how bad Reclaiming History was. Considering the condition of the book when it was later published, that must have been pretty awful. (Although in Myers' upside down world, you never know.) I really wish Myers would talk about the state of the book when he got it. And which specific parts -- with page numbers -- he wrote or seriously contributed to. Also, if all those vicious, insulting and puerile pejoratives which litter the book were his or Bugliosi's. Or, in that category, if he encouraged the prosecutor to go down that vituperative road or if he tried to soften that cheap approach. (From the stuff Myers' spews today I seriously doubt it was the latter. On the JFK case, he's our equivalent to Bill O'Reilly.) If he can't answer these questions, then we know Lifton is right about the second contract. Which provided for the terms of their literary divorce. Which I suspected was the case since last year.

Myers also objected to my pointing out to the reader, and actually linking to, intelligent and reputable sources who slice and dice his pseudo-simulation called Secrets of a Homicide. This is his 3D recreation of JFK's assassination which first premiered way back in November of 1994 in a magazine called The Video Toaster User. This illustrated article consisted of frames from his simulation plus his commentary of what he had done, how he had done it, and what it now showed. David Mantik and Milicent Cranor wrote highly critical articles at that time critiquing the methods he discussed in his articles and his description of what he said it showed. They did not go any further than that. And believe me, there was plenty of material in that sorrowful article to go after.

Mantik's article I thought was effective in a narrow but sharp way. (Probe Vol. 2 No. 3, p. 2) David has a Ph. D. in Physics and is also an M.D. He is a scientist and academic and he approached Myers' article as if he would be peer reviewing it for an academic journal. In the first three parts of his critique, he described what Myers was trying to do in a fair and complete way. He then focused his actual review on what he was most familiar with, anatomy and trajectory.

Mantik first scored him on his rather bold and perplexing claim of being able to see both men jump in the air simultaneously when they disappear behind the Stemmons Freeway sign. Mantik said that Myers' data source for this was "totally unexplained". (ibid, p. 3) He then exclaimed, "If it does not appear in the original Z film (that would appear to be impossible since both men were hidden behind the sign) then where did Myers find it? This startling assertion is not addressed in his paper." (ibid) (Mantik didn't fully understand what Myers was up to here. I will explain what I think the point of this was when I discuss Milicent Cranor's critique of this article.)

Mantik then went on to question Myers' use of points in his trajectory analysis. That is the anterior neck wound in JFK and what Myers called a point "...near the shoulder line" in Kennedy's back. (ibid, p. 3) Medical expert Mantik seriously questioned the positioning of both points, especially the latter. He wrote in "precise anatomic terms, this statement fails completely to identify the exit site-either vertically or horizontally." (ibid) (Note: Myers was working backward from Gov. Connally to fulfill a trajectory line. This is why Mantik uses the word "exit" in regards to the shoulder.) From here, Mantik went on to score the Myers' assumption that the trajectory was undeflected through both men. Mantik wrote that since the bullet shattered Connally's fifth rib this "straight line assumption might well be questioned." (ibid)

Mantik then got to the heart of the problem. Myers said that he started with Connally and worked backwards because the governor's wounds were marked precisely at Parkland Hospital. Mantik explained that this is not really true. He then went through the work by both Dr. Robert Shaw and Michael Baden in the HSCA volumes and showed why it was not true. And he also pointed out that part of the problem is actually addressed in the Warren Report (p. 107). There they say that the precise angle could not be concluded since the "large wound on the front of the chest precluded an exact determination of the point of exit." Mantik then worked out a margin of error factor for this uncertainty and added another for the rotation of Connally's body on a vertical axis. With just those two factors Mantik computed an error radius of 28 feet. He then went on to add that when you factor in the actual orientation of Connally at frame Z-223-"with right shoulder and torso visibly rotated to the rear... Such a rearward rotation immediately shifts the location of the error cone towards the Dal Tex building." (ibid) Mantik concluded that the underlying problem with any such enterprise was the placement of Connally's wounds on his body in regards to the midline. He said the information was simply not precise enough from the data we have. (ibid) He then concluded that "Without such precise knowledge it is not possible to locate the error cone in space. How Myers resolves this most difficult challenge is nowhere to be discussed in his paper." (ibid pgs 3-4)

I found Myers' response to Mantik's trenchant critique quite precious. He never once debated the anatomic arguments Mantik made. Not once. What he did is he actually tried to say he was right about being able to see through the Stemmons Freeway sign! You know, the whole "jumping in unison" thing. And this is central to what Myers enterprise is all about. And it gets to Milicent Cranor's May 1995 critique in The Fourth Decade. Milicent began her review by quoting a crucial segment of Myer's commentary. Myers wrote that he superimposed "selected frames from the Zapruder film over a matching view of the 3D computer world. Key frames were then created ..." ( p. 22, emphasis added) The obvious question, which Cranor quickly posed, was: Why leave anything out? Why not animate the whole film? Or entire crucial sequences? Myers wrote that he inserted key frames every 20 frames, "though extreme motion areas required key frames at three to five frame intervals ... " (ibid p. 23) Cranor asked, "Why substitute guesswork ... when you have actual photographic evidence." (ibid) She, of course, was referring to the actual Zapruder film.

What Cranor proved in her article and in her photo essay is that Myers was actually trying to do two things with his so-called simulation. First, he wanted to minimize the evidence that Kennedy was hit before he went behind the freeway sign. Why? Because if JFK is hit before he disappears behind the sign it likely is not by Oswald since the branches of an oak tree were camouflaging the view from the so-called sniper's nest at this time. Second, if you alter frame Z-224, you can preserve the single bullet theory. Cranor illustrates this beautifully by comparing frames from the actual Z film with Myers' pastiche. This devastating comparison gives away the whole purpose of the simulation. Because without Myers' "interpolating" frames not in the Zapruder film, the actual frame Z-224 singlehandedly vitiates the single bullet theory. As Milicent notes: "This one frame destroys the single bullet theory: it shows JFK already reacting at a time when John Connally is not." So Myers has to alchemize that frame into something it is not. And she shows how: Myers changes Kennedy's facial expression and also alters the position of his hands to transform his demeanor from one of grimacing pain to relative serenity. Therefore preserving the single bullet theory. So we now have a new type of cinematic technique. Let's call it Myers Motion. Which, by the way, also turns President Kennedy into a hunchback similar to Richard III (thereby raising the back wound on the jacket). Myers Motion also elongates Kennedy's neck which, as Cranor points out, "in effect lowers the throat wound." Dale is one determined animator. Come hell or high water, he is going to make that stubborn SBT stick.

Where Russo loses all credibility is with his Appendix A entitled "Oswald's Shooting of the President". (Here, Russo writes another confusing sentence to the effect that from 1963 to the early eighties, he doubted Oswald's lone guilt in the shooting. Yet, as I noted earlier, in his introduction, he wrote that the HSCA studies convinced him otherwise. The HSCA report came out in 1979.) This is the section where Russo tries, in 1998, to again cinch the case against Oswald. He has to go through this tired litany because if he doesn't there is no book. And since he knows 80% of the public disbelieves him anyway, he has to make the attempt to show that he just might believe it himself. As most observers of the Review Board will agree, one of its finest achievements was the extensive, detailed review of the medical evidence conducted over many months by Chief Counsel Jeremy Gunn. This package of materials was available early in 1998, so Russo could have included it in the book. It consisted of 3,000 pages of compelling evidence, much of it new, that greatly alter the entire dynamic of this case. Most objective observers would say that it shows that something consciously sinister went on during and after Kennedy's autopsy in Bethesda, Maryland. It is the kind of evidence one could present in a court of law. So how much time does Review Board watcher Russo devote to this absolutely crucial part of the case? All of four pages. How much of those four pages deal with Gunn's new and powerful evidence? Not one word. To show just how serious Russo is in this section, toward the end he trots out his buddies Vaughn and Myers. Russo uses Vaughn to show that, actually, everyone was all wrong about how difficult it would be to fire three shots in six seconds with Oswald's alleged Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. What the Warren Commission accused Oswald of doing was really not difficult at all. Yet from what I could see, Vaughn never actually accomplished this. His fastest time was 6.3 seconds and on that firing round, he did not use the scope on the rifle. Recall that the time allotted to Oswald by the Warren Commission was 5.6 seconds (Warren Report p. 115). Further undermining his own argument, Russo never describes what Vaughn's rounds were fired at, or where he was firing from, or at what distance, or if the target was moving or not.

In spite of all this, Russo moves on and clinches the case against Oswald with Dale Myers' computer recreation of the assassination. This rather embarrassing computer model of the events in Dealey Plaza was published in the magazine Video Toaster in late 1994. As we have mentioned before, Dr. David Mantik ripped this pseudo-scientific demonstration to bits in Probe (Vol. 2 No. 3). Myers actually wrote that, by removing the Stemmons Freeway sign from his computer screen, he could see both Kennedy and Gov. John Connally jump in reaction to the Warren Commission's single bullet piercing them both at frame Z-223. As Mantik wrote, this "is both astonishing and perplexing.... If it does not appear in the original Z film (that would appear to be impossible since both men were hidden behind the sign), then where did Myers find it? This startling assertion is not addressed in his paper." Mantik exposed the rest of Myers' methodology and candor to be equally faulty as his "two men jumping in unison" scenario. I would be shocked if Russo is not aware of this skewering inflicted on his friend Myers. Why? Because Myers sent CTKA a check for that particular issue once he heard Mantik had left him without a leg to stand on.

With such a weak performance, one would think that Russo would at least qualify his judgment in this section. He doesn't. In one of the most appalling statements in an appalling book, the judicious Russo can write:

When first proposed by the Warren Commission, it was known as "The Single Bullet Theory." With its verification by current, high-powered computer reconstructions, it should be called "The Single Bullet Fact." (p. 477)

This ludicrous statement and the foundation of quicksand on which it is supported expose the book as the propaganda tract it is.
Russo's Real Agenda

What is the purpose of the tract? If one is knowledgeable of the significance of this case, and is aware of the dynamic guiding it today, one realizes the not-too-subtle message behind the book. And when one does, one can see what is at stake in the JFK case, and how Stone's movie drove the establishment up the wall. For the book is really the negative template to JFK. The main tenets of Stone's film were: 1) Oswald did not kill Kennedy; 2) Kennedy was actually killed by an upper-level domestic conspiracy; 3) he was a good, if flawed president, who had sympathetic goals in mind for the nation; 4) the country was altered by Kennedy's death; and 5) the cover-up that ensued was, of necessity, wide and deep to hide the nature of the plot. If we can agree on that set, then compare them with Russo's themes. The main tenets of this book are in every way the inverse: 1) Oswald killed Kennedy; 2) Oswald was guided and manipulated by agents of Castro; 3) Kennedy's own Cuba policies were the reasons behind the murder; 4) we didn't understand Oswald at the time because Bobby Kennedy and the CIA were forced into a cover-up of JFK's covert actions against Cuba; and 5) whatever cynicism about government exists today was caused by the RFK-CIA benignly motivated cover-up. In other words, all the ruckus stirred up by Stone was unfounded. That Krazy Commie Oswald did it, and JFK had it coming. And it wasn't the Warren Commission, or LBJ, or the intelligence agencies that covered things up, it was his brother Bobby. So let's close up shop and go home. All this anguish over Kennedy and Oswald isn't worth it.

When one indulges in this kind of total psychological warfare, the reader knows that something monumental is at stake. And I mean total. For the singularity of Russo's book is that it does not just attack the critical community, or just JFK, or just Bobby Kennedy, or only Oswald. It does all this and at the same time it attempts to make fascist zealots like David Ferrie and Guy Banister into warm, cuddly persons. Extremists, but understandably so. Kennedy would have actually liked them. (I won't go into how he does this; but it is as torturous and dishonest as the stunts he pulls with the single bullet theory.) It has often been said that the solution to the Kennedy murder, if the conspiracy is ever really exposed, will unlock the doors to the national security state. The flights of fantasy that this book reaches for in order to whitewash that state and to turn the crime inward on Oswald and the Kennedys, is a prime exhibit for the efficacy of that argument.

What is one to make of Russo's journey from Delk Simpson to Robert Morrow to the single-bullet fact (Russo's italics)? Could he really have believed the likes of Blakey and the HSCA, which I have taken the last two issues to expose in depth and at length? That is, is he really just not that bright? If so, in his forays into the critical community, was he at least partly dissembling to hide what he really believed? Or does he know better and is dissembling now to curry favor with the establishment? Or did he just never have any real convictions and decided to go with the flow? Consequently, when Stone was at high tide, he pursued a military intelligence lead. When the reaction against Stone set in, he adjusted to the lone-nut scenario. How, in just one year, does someone go from following a grand conspiracy lead (Simpson), to a low-level plot (Morrow), to a straight Oswald did it thesis, which is the road Russo traveled from 1992 to 1993? I don't pretend to know the answer. To echo the closing words on Russo's PBS special about Oswald: only one man knows the truth about that mystery. But I will relate the newest riddle circulating around the research community in the wake of Russo's phony pastiche. It goes as follows: What happens when you throw Gerald Posner, ice cream, Priscilla McMillan, nuts, Sy Hersh, strawberries, and Thomas Powers in a Waring blender? You get the Gus Russo Special i.e. Live By the Sword.

I had one last communication with Russo after that fateful convention. I wrote him a letter expressing how absurd it was for him to be outraged at me for mentioning him in my speech when he had put Dennis Effle's name in the credits for his program. I told him that we had gotten several calls and comments about the curious fact of a member of CTKA being credited in such a one-sided program. I also could have added that at least my comments in front of 600 people were accurate; Effle's research was nowhere to be seen in a show watched by hundreds of thousands. Russo got in contact with Effle afterwards to try to straighten out the misunderstanding. Thus ended my direct and indirect contact with Russo.
Russo's Fateful Meeting

The next time I heard of him was in the late summer of 1994. Rumors were circulating, later verified, that Russo had lunch with two CIA heavies: former Director Bill Colby and former Miami station chief Ted Shackley. Apparently the subject under discussion was the upcoming conference of the fledgling Coalition on Political Assassinations (COPA). Some very interesting things had already begun flowing out from the Review Board. Already, the understanding was that a prime goal was getting everything out about Oswald's mysterious trip to Mexico City in September of 1963. If this was done, it would greatly illuminate the role of David Phillips since the HSCA had discovered that he played a prime role in delivering the tapes to CIA HQ and making comments about what was on them to the press. When John Newman found out about this meeting, he called Colby and asked him what the problem was. Colby admitted that they were worried about what COPA had in mind for Phillips, who they felt had gotten a bum rap from the HSCA. Newman told Colby that, if that is what they were worried about, they should come after him and not COPA.

In retrospect, the timing of this meeting, and the attendees, are quite interesting. Later, Russo's pal, Bob Artwohl also admitted to being there. Artwohl, for a brief time, was Russo's authority on the medical evidence. From Artwohl, CTKA learned that a fifth person at the meeting was writer Joe Goulden, partner with Reed Irvine in that extreme rightwing, unabashedly pro-CIA journalist group Accuracy in Media (AIM). One of the reasons for Goulden's presence was to discuss whether or not the CIA should use one of its friendly media assets to attack COPA. (An attack did come, but not until the next year in Washington's City Paper.) This meeting is endlessly fascinating and literally dozens of questions could be posed about it. For instance: How did it originate and who proposed it? Why on earth did Shackley, notorious for his low profile, decide to talk to Russo? Another important point to press is: Why was Russo there at all? The PBS special was completed. After the 1993 ASK debacle, Russo knew he would not be a prime force at any conventions. He writes in the opening of his book that he never contemplated writing a volume on the case. (We will later see that this is probably disingenuous, but for sake of argument, let it stand.) In other words, Russo was at a crossroads. He was now firmly in the Warren Commission camp, having cut his ties to the critics. He had at least collected a salary for the Frontline show. And now he shows up at a meeting with Colby and Shackley at a time when one of the things they are contemplating is a possible discrediting of COPA.
Russo Joins Hersh

At around the time of this meeting, Seymour Hersh was beginning his hit-piece on John F. Kennedy, The Dark Side of Camelot. We know from Robert Sam Anson's article in Vanity Fair that Hersh had wanted to do a television segment in 1993, but for some reason it never came to fruition. At approximately that point, Hersh began on his book, for which he got a million-dollar advance. With that kind of money, he could afford to hire researchers. On the last page of his book, the following sentence appears: "Gus Russo did an outstanding job as a researcher, especially on organized crime issues." (p. 476) One of the organized crime issues that Russo apparently worked on was the Judith Exner aspect of Hersh's hatchet job. In the first installment of my two-part piece on the negative Kennedy genre I discussed Exner at length (Probe Vol. 4 No. 6). I explained all the many problems with Exner's credibility, how her story had mutated and evolved with every retelling. I demonstrated in detail so many aspects of it were simply not credible on their face, or even on their own terms as related by Exner and her cohorts: Kitty Kelley, Scott Meredith and Ovid DeMaris, and Liz Smith. Well, for Hersh, Exner added yet another appendage to her never-ending tale: this time she said that she had served as a courier for funds between Kennedy and Giancana (Hersh pp. 303-305). This new episode concerned a transferal of funds, a quarter of a million in hundred dollar bills, in a satchel with Exner delivering the bills via train. Kennedy told Exner that "someone will be looking out for you on the train." Exner was met in Chicago by Giancana who took the bag without saying a word. Hersh knew that this story was incredible on its face. That Giancana would himself meet a messenger and himself be seen taking a bag from her; that JFK would put himself in such an easy position to be blackmailed; and that Exner's story had now grown even beyond its already fantastic 1988 Kitty Kelley version for People.
Underwood and the ARRB

Apparently Hersh, and Russo, knew this would be a tough one to swallow. So they had to come up with a corroborating witness. It turned out to be a man Exner never referred to before, but who that master of intrigue, JFK, had referred to in his above quoted cryptic quote about providing a lookout on the train. The man who Hersh says "bolstered" Exner's new claim was Martin Underwood, a former employee of Chicago mayor Richard Daley who Daley had loaned to Kennedy as an advance man for the 1960 campaign. According to Hersh, Underwood was told to watch over Exner by Kennedy's trusted aide Ken O'Donnell. Significantly, Underwood refused to appear on the ABC special that producer Mark Obenhaus made out of Hersh's book. Yet, the host of that special, Peter Jennings, did not explain why.

With the issuance of the ARRB's Final Report, we now know why. We also have a better idea why Jennings didn't explain it and why ABC has not commented on it since. Under questioning by a legally constituted agency with subpoena and deposition power, the Hersh/Russo "bolstering" of Exner collapsed. Underwood "denied that he followed Judith Campbell Exner on a train and that he had no knowledge about her alleged role as a courier." (p. 136) And with the implosion of this story, Exner is now exposed as at least partly a creation of CIA friendly journalists in the media. This is the same Exner who in the January 1997 Vanity Fair, actually talked about the Review Board uncovering documents and tapes that would strengthen her story. There are a couple of questions still left about this new revelation of another Hersh deception. Did Underwood ever actually tell Hersh or Russo the tall-tale that is in the book? Did Underwood also actually deny the story to Jennings or Obenhaus? And if he did, and if this is the reason for Underwood's refusal to appear, did ABC keep this a secret in order to further protect Hersh and their investment? (As I noted in my discussion of ABC's exposure of the previous Monroe hoax, Jennings did a carefully constructed limited hangout to minimize the damage to Hersh in that scandal. See Probe Vol. 5 No. 1.)

But the Review Board's Final Report goes even further in its detailing of the Russo-Underwood association. (The report does not actually name Russo but it labels their source as a researcher working for Hersh, and the 12/7 issue of The Nation wrote that it was Russo who led Hersh and ABC to Underwood.) It appears that Russo went to the Board with a story that Underwood had gone to Mexico City in 1966 or 1967. He was on a mission for LBJ to find out what he could learn about the Kennedy assassination from station chief Win Scott. Russo presented the Board with handwritten notes detailing what Scott told Underwood while on his mission for Johnson. The ARRB writes this summary of the notes:

The notes state that Scott told Underwood that the CIA "blew it" in Dallas in November 1963. On the morning of November 22, the agency knew that a plane had arrived in Mexico City from Havana, and that one passenger got off the plane and boarded another one headed for Dallas. Underwood's notes state that Scott said that CIA identified the passenger as Fabian Escalante. (p. 135)

What an extraordinary story. Escalante was a former officer in Castro's internal security police who was responsible for protecting him against assassination plots. So if the Underwood story is true, it would neatly fit into the pattern of Russo's book i.e. that Castro killed Kennedy as retaliation for the CIA plots against himself.

The ARRB interviewed Underwood about his trip to Mexico. He said he took the trip but it was in his function as an advance man for Johnson, not to look into the Kennedy murder. When the Board asked him about any notes he had taken on the trip, he initially claimed to have no memory of any notes. When the Board showed him the copies of notes that Russo had given them, Underwood replied that he had written those notes especially for the use of Hersh in his book. In other words, they were written in this decade. They were composed on White House stationery because he had a lot of it still laying around from his White House days. But Underwood insisted that Scott had told him what Russo had said about Escalante. The problem was that Underwood could not even recall if he had contemporaneous notes from his talks with Scott. But later, he did forward a set of typewritten notes from his trip to Mexico. They only briefly mentioned his meeting with Win Scott. And there is no mention of the Kennedy assassination in them. Ultimately, the Board asked Underwood to testify about the Scott anecdote under oath. He begged off due to health problems.
Russo Savages the Critics

Between his work for Hersh and on the ABC special, Russo has presumably been preparing his book, Live By the Sword. For me, the two most important parts of this book are the introduction and the first appendix. In the former, Russo takes up the mantle of the young Kennedy fan who has now been educated to understand that many of the early books critical of the Warren Commission were "ideologically-driven" and that:

Ideologues are dangerous enough, but the books and authors of this time inspired a clique of followers, all with a pathological hatred of the U. S. government. These "conspirati" would make any leap of logic necessary in order to say that Lee Oswald had been an unwitting pawn of the evil government conspirators.

And this is just the beginning of Russo venting his spleen against the critical community. Research seminars are called the "conspiracy convention circuit" (p. 469). The dust jacket places the two words --- Kennedy researchers --- in quotation marks. The "assassination buffs" have misled Marina Oswald (p. 569). The research community is labeled a "cottage industry" (p. 575).

After his opening blast against the critics, Russo then details the episode that convinced him that Oswald did it himself. He says the HSCA convinced him of this. (Russo writes that the HSCA "geared up" in 1978. It actually started in September of 1976.) About the HSCA, he writes, "It was their meticulous photographic, forensic, and ballistic work that convinced me that Oswald alone shot President Kennedy." This is a revealing comment. For as detailed above, when I first encountered Russo in the early nineties, he appeared to be in the high-level conspiracy camp. Revealing also was the fact that he now says that he advised Stone against doing a film based on the Garrison probe. Neither Russo, Rusconi nor anyone connected with the film ever told me this had happened. In the introduction, and throughout the book, he relentlessly pillories Garrison from every angle. Yet, at the 1993 meeting Dennis Effle and I had with him in Santa Monica, Russo actually said words to the effect that Garrison had been very close to solving the case. (Significantly, in his introductory attack on Stone and Garrison, Russo leaves out the fact that he worked for Stone on the accompanying volume to JFK, entitled JFK: The Book of the Film.)

There is something else that surprised me while reading this brief but (for some of us) pithy introduction. It now appears that the whole PBS Frontline documentary was Russo's idea in the first place! It seems that Russo had pitched the idea to PBS in the eighties. Then when Stone's film was in production, he pitched the idea to them again. This time, with the 30th anniversary approaching and Stone's film sure to create a sensation, they bit.

Russo also presents another quite paradoxical point in his introduction when he writes: "I never intended to write a book on this case." He explains this further by adding: "I never thought anyone could write a book on this subject because all the secrets were well beyond the grasp of anyone without subpoena power." He says that the main thing that changed his mind was the year he spent going through the release of new JFK files made possible by the Board. The Board did not start any serious release of files until 1995. And the files that Russo is interested in, the Cuba policy files, were not released until two years after that. Yet, when I visited his home in Baltimore at the end of 1992, Russo told me about the six figure contract he had already signed with a major publishing house with the help of New York agent Sterling Lord. He was then teamed with another writer and Russo actually explained some of the details of the contract to me. When Russo's partner dropped out of the project, that contract was apparently canceled. But he was certainly doing a book at that earlier time.
Russo, Vaughn, and Myers vs. Oswald

Jim DiEugenio writes about reporter Gus Russo and how he became a corporate mouthpiece when reporting about the JFK assassination.


Gus Russo

In late 1991, when Oliver Stone released JFK, Mark Lane decided to write his third book about the Kennedy assassination. Anyone who has read Plausible Denial, knows the significance of Marita Lorenz to that book. When the book became a bestseller, the media was eager to attack it. So in Newsweek, a man was quoted deriding Lorenz in quite strong terms as telling wild and bizarre stories and being generally unreliable. The source was, at that time, a little known Kennedy researcher. He was so obscure that Lane replied to the reporter, "So who is Gus Russo? Has he ever written a book? Has he ever written an article?" At that time, to my knowledge, he had done neither. But now Russo has written a book. It is so dreadful in every aspect that Lane's question carries more weight now than then. In retrospect, it seems quite prescient.

I can speak about this rather bracing phenomenon from firsthand experience. To my everlasting embarrassment, Gus Russo is listed in the acknowledgments to my book, Destiny Betrayed. In my defense, I can only argue that my association with Russo at that time was from a distance. We had communicated over the phone a few times because I had heard he was interested in the New Orleans scene and had done some work on Permindex, the murky rightwing front group that Clay Shaw had worked for in Italy in the late fifties and early sixties. Later, after my book came out in the summer of 1992, he called me and asked me for some supporting documents that I had used in writing it. My first impressions of Russo were that he was amiable, interested, and that, since he lived in Baltimore, he was quite familiar with what was available for viewing at the National Archives and at the Assassination Archives and Research Center in Washington D. C.




First Encounter

I encountered Russo in person a couple of times at the end of 1992 and the beginning of 1993. I attended the `92 ASK Conference in Dallas where I exchanged some materials with him and at which he did an ad hoc talk with John Newman. I did not actually attend that dual presentation but I heard that Russo's part centered on some aspects of military intelligence dealing with the assassination. Specifically it concerned Air Force Colonel Delk Simpson, an acquaintance of both LBJ military aide Howard Burris and CIA officer David Atlee Phillips, about whom some significant questions had been raised. And since he was coupled with Newman, I assumed that Russo was investigating the possibility of some form of foreknowledge of the assassination in some high military circles. My other encounter with Russo in this time period was even more direct. Toward the end of 1992, I had reason to visit Washington to see a research associate and examine a new CIA database of documents that was probably the best index of assassination-related materials available at the time. We decided to call up Russo and we arranged to spend a Saturday night at his home.

When we got there, Russo was his usual amiable self and his surroundings revealed that he was indeed immersed in the Kennedy assassination. There were photos of a man who was a dead ringer for Oswald in combat fatigues in Florida, where Oswald was never supposed to have been. Russo had obtained letters showing that George de Mohrenschildt had been in contact with George Bush at a much earlier date than anyone had ever suspected. Russo had a library of books on the Kennedy assassination that was abundant and expansive. He had secured a letter written by Jim Garrison to Jonathan Blackmer of the House Select Committee on Assassinations that examined the significance of two seemingly obscure suspects in his investigation, Fred Lee Crisman and Thomas Beckham. Russo had a letter from Beckham to a major magazine that was extraordinarily interesting. It discussed the young man's relationship with Jack Martin, the CIA, the Bay of Pigs, a man who fit the description of Guy Banister, and a personal acquaintance of his, "this double agent, Lee Harvey Oswald." (Significantly, none of the above material appears in Russo's book.)
Russo and the Anniversary

It was 1993 that proved an important year for Russo. It was the 30th anniversary of the murder and there were plenty of books, articles, and even television shows being prepared in anticipation of that event. Russo somehow had heard of a new author on the scene, a man named Gerald Posner. To some people he was actually praising the man and touting some of the new "revelations" to be unsheathed in his upcoming book. Russo had just come off of working for Oliver Stone on JFK: The Book of the Film, which had turned out fairly well. Jane Rusconi, Stone's chief research assistant at the time, seemed to like him. Russo had also secured another plum assignment right after this: he was serving as one of the lead reporters on the PBS Frontline special "Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?" In fact, early in 1993, Dennis Effle and myself had met with Russo in the penthouse bar of a Santa Monica hotel where he was staying as he investigated a reported sighting of Oswald in the Los Angeles area.

Later in 1993, three things happened that permanently altered my view of and relationship with Gus Russo. In order, they were his comments at the 1993 Midwest Symposium; the showing of his PBS special; and his helming of a panel at the 1993 ASK conference. In light of those three events, there seemed to be things I should have paid more attention to before that time. For instance, Russo argued against any change in the motorcade route on some weird grounds. First, he said that the HSCA had investigated that and found no basis for it. With what we know about Robert Blakey and the HSCA today, this is sort of like asking someone to trust the Warren Commission. Second, he commented that even if the motorcade route had gone down Main Street, a professional sniper could have still hit Kennedy. (At the time, I thought that Russo was at least arguing for a conspiracy, albeit a low-level one, although I am not so sure of that today.) Russo also seemed impressed with Jack Ruby's deathbed confession in which he seemed to dispel any notion of a conspiracy. I frowned on this because it had been made to longtime FBI asset and diehard Warren Commission advocate Larry Schiller. Also, Ruby's comments had been erratic while in jail: some of them clearly implied a larger conspiracy that seemed to go high up into the government. Related to this, the fact that a notorious CIA doctor had treated Ruby with drugs could explain the erratic behavior. Finally, there was another point that I should have considered more seriously. Before I talked to Russo at his home, he had related to me a rather intriguing fact. I had asked him if he had ever heard of the so-called "Fenton Report". This is the culmination of work-not really a report- done by the HSCA in both Miami and New Orleans. It is called the Fenton Report because HSCA Chief Investigator Cliff Fenton supervised the work. When I popped that question, Russo's response surprised me. He said, "I've heard it." He went on to explain that he had gotten access to the then classified taped interviews of the House Select Committee at the National Archives. This had been accomplished through some error by the staff there. The error had persisted for some time since Russo had heard many of the tapes.
Russo in Chicago

At Chicago in 1993, Russo stunned Rusconi, myself and presumably some others who had known him previously. As he rose to the podium he ridiculed those who had the idea that Lee Harvey Oswald had some association with American intelligence. He asked, "How many of you think Oswald was some kind of James Bond?" I thought this was an oddly posed question. Nobody had ever reported Oswald owning an Aston-Martin, or leading an army of underwater scuba divers in a spear-gun fight, or employing all kinds of mechanical gadgetry to disarm his enemies. Far from it. The question was a pointless and unserious one, at least to anyone truly interested in Oswald. It was especially unbecoming from one who was then working on a documentary about the man's life. Russo went on to advise the research community as to what they should really be investigating. He said we "should be following our Mafia leads and Cuban exile leads". In the question and answer period that followed, someone asked him to explain his recent blurb for Robert Morrow's newly published book First Hand Knowledge. Russo had the quote read back to him and he seemed to stand by the endorsement, which is interesting since Morrow was proffering a low-level plot of CIA rogue operatives led by Clay Shaw allied with the Mob and some Cuban exiles. Later, he then attributed a quote to Robert Blakey endorsing a somewhat similar line. The reference to Blakey set off an alarm bell. Although I had not done an in-depth study of the HSCA at the time, I knew enough to realize that anyone who took Blakey seriously either wasn't serious himself or had not done his homework. I didn't realize at the time that Russo and his cohorts were making Blakey one of the prime talking heads on their November special.

There was one other thing I should have noted about Russo at that conference. During the proceedings, I saw him with a tall, thin, bespectacled man who I had not encountered before. I would later recognize him as Dale Myers, who I now know as an unrepentant "lone-nut" zealot. If I had known who Myers was in April in Chicago I would not have been so far behind the curve.
The Frontline Special

Then came November of 1993. This was the coming out party for Russo and company. In Cambridge, Massachusetts I attended the fine Harvard Conference put together by Lenny Mather, Carl Oglesby and some of his friends. On the second night of that conference, Lenny somehow secured an advance rough cut of the upcoming Frontline special. Jerry Policoff, Roger Feinman, Bob Spiegelman, Lenny and myself sat around in Lenny's small living room to view this much anticipated special. We were stunned. First by the choice of talking heads. True, John Newman and Tony Summers were on, but they were overwhelmed, engulfed, obliterated by the clear imbalance from the other side. PBS, Russo, his fellow lead reporter Scott Malone and producer Mike Sullivan made no attempt to hide their bias in the show. People like Gerald Posner, Edward Epstein, Blakey, and even well known intelligence assets like Carlos Bringuier, Priscilla McMillan, and Ed Butler were given free rein to express the most outrageous bits of propaganda about Oswald and the assassination. For example, Epstein made a comment that Oswald joined the Marines because it was a way of getting a gun. As if civilians had no access to rifles or weapons. The cut we saw even used a photographic expert associated with Itek, exposed in the 1960's as having done a lot of work for the CIA, and shown long ago by veteran Ray Marcus to have an agenda on the Kennedy assassination. Second, although people like Newman had made some important discoveries while working on the project i.e. a CIA document apparently revealing that Oswald had been debriefed when he returned from Russia, this was also drowned out by the spin of the show's content which, without clearly saying so, pointed toward Oswald as the lone gunman. One of the last bits of narration in the program was words to the effect that the secrets behind the assassination were buried with Oswald. The show was so one-sided that even Summers, at that time beginning to move into his "agnostic" phase, asked that his name be removed from the credits and that his segments be cut. Feinman was so outraged by Russo and the show that he made a strong comment about not inviting Russo to the ASK conference that year.
Russo, Zaid, Vaughn and Co.

But Russo was invited by the conference producers who were not really that cognizant of the Kennedy case or its dynamics. If anybody needed more evidence about where Russo stood at this time, it was available at this conference. Incredibly, Russo got to chair a panel in Dallas. There were two people on this panel that I had serious doubts about, but Russo was glad to have. They were John Davis and Lamar Waldron. In Probe, Bill Davy and myself have written at length about why Davis is not a trustworthy writer, and as I wrote in my article on Robert Blakey in the last issue, the Review Board's release of the Brilab tapes bears this out. (Russo was one of the other culprits spreading rumors about the strong evidence on these FBI surveillance tapes supposedly implicating Carlos Marcello in the assassination. The "strong evidence" has turned out to be another dry well for the Mob-did-it advocates.) On his panel, Russo gave Waldron a solid hour, unheard of at the time, to present his "evidence" for the so-called "Project Freedom" theorem i.e. the idea that the Kennedys had already set an invasion of Cuba for late 1963, the Mob found out about it and miraculously managed to turn the whole project on its head so that RFK would now have to forever remain silent about what he really knew about his brother's murder. (Don't ask me to explain all the details. Waldron didn't seem to understand them either.) I walked out when Waldron tried to state that RFK was actually in charge of his brother's autopsy. The implication being that he ordered the unbelievable practices at Bethesda that night as part of a witting or unwitting cover-up. I later heard from reliable sources that Russo and Davis reveled in Waldron's thesis. Which, in light of Davis' book on the Kennedys, and Russo's current effort, makes a lot of sense. Russo also invited Ed Butler to that conference, and reportedly, Butler prefaced his remarks by thanking his friend Russo for inviting him. The man who was testifying before Senator Thomas Dodd's subcommittee on foreign subversion within about 24 hours after the assassination. The man who was collecting material on Oswald within hours of the murder for that appearance. The man who, in the eighties, when the Iran/Contra affair and the drugs for guns trade in Central America was heating up, came into the possession of some of Guy Banister's files. And Russo knew the latter because, as Ed Haslam relates, they discovered that fact together in the spring of 1993. (See Chapter 11 of Haslam's Mary, Ferrie, and the Monkey Virus.)

Then there was the Myers' parallel. In Dallas, Russo was chummy with people like Todd Vaughn and Mark Zaid. In Chicago, lawyer Zaid had said that Oswald would have been convicted at trial but would have later won an appeal. In Dallas, Zaid was advocating the positions of compromised scientist Luis Alvarez, who was long ago exposed as accepting money from a CIA front group. (His defense was he didn't know it was a CIA front.) On a panel discussing Oswald, Zaid argued, Russo-like, that there was no evidence that Oswald was an intelligence agent. Reportedly, when original witnesses appeared in Dealey Plaza, Zaid distributed literature making arguments against their credibility. Vaughn was in the position of Russo: an anti-critic within the critical community. Vaughn had expressed an interest to me in David Ferrie. But every time I talked to him afterwards, he seemed to get more and more close to an "Oswald did it" position. (Later on, Effle and I did a talk on the Kennedy assassination in Detroit. Vaughn and Myers both showed up and afterward tried to convince us that 1) The single-bullet theory was viable and 2) Oswald would have had no problem getting three shots off in six seconds.)
Russo vs. Wecht

I found all this quite puzzling. Why would people who apparently believed the conclusions of the Warren Commission attend a conference designed for its critics? On the last night of the conference, I decided to say something about this mini-lone-nut faction within our midst. Earlier in the year, I had written a letter to Zaid about what our coming strategy should be to try to reopen the case. (Zaid had seemed interested in this aspect and had actually met with a New York lawyer about the possibility.) He had written me back and in the response he had alerted me to the rather surprising fact that he had shown my letter to Gerald Posner, with whom both he and Russo were friendly. I mentioned that fact to the audience and then revealed some aspects of his letter to me in which he stated that we did not have enough evidence or reliable witnesses at the time to even attempt a reopening of the case. I also made some comments about Russo. Naively, I called him my friend, but I then read off the list of talking heads he had featured on his PBS show and questioned the objectivity of the show's producers. (In a conversation with me, Russo had said that he did not have editorial control of the program and I mentioned this to the audience. The implication to me was that it would have been at least a bit different if he had.)

Cyril Wecht followed me as a speaker, and at the end of his comments made a ringing declaration against inviting "fence-sitters" to any more of these seminars. He specifically mentioned Vaughn who, on the medical panel, had argued for the single-bullet theory.

That last night's panel was one of the most emotional I had ever seen at a JFK convention. John Judge, Wecht, and myself were all interrupted several times by sustained applause and Wecht's powerful peroration against equivocators brought the house down. Outside the hall, this emotional display carried over into two outbursts. Dr. Wecht had passed Russo on the escalator --- Wecht was going up and Russo down --- and scolded him about not including certain critical arguments against the lone-nut thesis of the PBS show. Russo came up to me afterward and expressed his anger at me for singling him out in my speech. I then walked upstairs to the bar at the Hyatt Hotel. As I was proceeding, a middle-aged man who I had never seen before, but will never forget, accosted me in an undeniably emotional state. He explained to me that he knew I did not know him, but what he was going to tell me was important and borne out by experience. He told me that he had been in the leftist students association SDS in the sixties. He added that SDS did not fall from without. It fell from the inside. Its leaders later learned that some of its higher-ups had actually been FBI informants. Relating that experience to this one, he looked me in the eye and said slowly and deliberately, "Mark Zaid and Gus Russo are infiltrators." He commented on Zaid by asking me how many young lawyers I knew who left a relatively small town to join an international law firm in Washington D.C.? (Which Zaid had just done.) About Russo, he added that he had worked for a time in the television business. Programs like Frontline are not designed as they go. They have a slant and a content about them from the beginning that Russo had to know about going in. Since he didn't know me, he said it was difficult to bare such heavy and unkind comments but he felt he had to do it. He then expressed reservations about whether or not I believed him, or if I thought he was demented. I said no, I didn't think he was. Before he walked away, he told me that time would prove that he was right.