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.

our lone nut advocate friends first and foremost deny that a mauser rifle was found . this post is not about whether one was found , its about one reason given by LNs that a mauser was not found . one witness (roger craig) said he saw 7.65 mauser stamped on the rifle , two others weitzman and boone gave signed affidavits stating the rifle was a mauser . weitzman was still saying it was a mauser as late as november 24 , they say ITS IMPOSSIBLE , a mauser cant have been found because NO MAUSER RIFLE has 7.65 mauser stamped on it .



very clearly you can see 7.65 mauser on the rifle .

“We don’t have any proof that Oswald fired the rifle, and never did. Nobody’s yet been able to put him in that building with a gun in his hand.”~Jesse Curry

some times people type a quote from memory , some times its pretty accurate , some times its near accurate but not quite there , some times its inaccurate . now lone nut advocates have commented saying that dallas police chief curry did not give the above quote . they say ITS NOT IN HIS BOOK , they say WE CANT FIND ANY REFERENCE TO ITS SOURCE . so that then allows them to dismiss this completely .

"No one has ever been able to put him in the texas school book depository with a rifle in his hand.”~Jesse Curry

this is the exact quote , how do i know ? well its in the dallas morning news SEE THE PICTURE BELOW



so yes the quote can be slightly misquoted at times , but in essence it is still accurate . but we now know that curry did make the quote and that he gave it to tom johnson of the dallas morning news .

i have read posts elsewhere that are often repeated that there was no bullet hole in he windscreen , further info added in the posts usually state that only one or two UNRELIABLE witnesses said they saw a hole . the norm usually (if one wants to push the no hole scenario) is that they (the poster ) states that these were just in effect regular joe soaps , in other words the mentality is who are they that we should believe them ? .

well most of the witnesses in this case , be that to jfks killing or officer tippits killing were regular people who just came out on what was a wet and windy morning to see if they could catch sight of jfk .

we have the witnesses that we have . all we can do is look at what they said or did , what statements they gave etc and judge their reliability or credibility based on that , if there is no earthly reason to dispute them then what they said must stand .if there are valid reasons to dispute witnesses (and in some cases there are ) then we must highlight these reasons .

only in this case will you see a whole raft of witnesses being dismissed out of hand as "simply mistaken" a term often used by lone nut advocates .when i look at any witness in order to determine if there is any reason to distrust them i ask my self several questions based a lot on the usual LN criticisms of witnesses .

can we prove they were where they said they were ?
did they try to profit from the crimes ?
did they actively seek fame ?
did they write articles or books ?
did they provably lie at any time ?

i know witnesses that never gave interviews and avoided the lime light , never wrote articles or books , never profited one cent , and never has any proof of any dishonesty on their part been shown . yet these witnesses end up being dismissed by lone nut advocates one way or another , if there is no reason to dismiss them LNs will dig one up . as an example parkland doctors , nurses , people that saw jfks wounds from no more than a few inches away . if they say what LN like to hear THEY ARE DEEMED CREDIBLE , the fact that all their original statements contradict LNs is ignored . if a witness disputes the official version of events but they cant be proven to have lied or be dishonest well the LN mantra has now become THEY WANTED TO INSERT THEM SELVES INTO HISTORY , or the so called conspiracy theorists somehow got to them and converted them from intelligent people into fools lol .


there is an old expression THEY ALL CANT BE WRONG . how many witnesses with no reason to lie and with no proof showing them to have ever been dishonest all saying the same thing do we need before we accept that THEY ALL CANT BE WRONG ? .

we were never told about many of the bethesda witnesses .bethesda is where the autopsy of jfk was performed . the bethesda witnesses were orderd to sign secrecy agreements stopping them from talking about what they saw UNDER THREAT OF COURT MARTIAL . the warren commission never spoke to them with the exception really of the pathologists whom they couldnt really ignore . but later in the 70s the hsca did speak to bethesda witnesses . now firstly ill just quickly lay the tracks . the majority of parkland staff said jfk had a gaping right rear head wound , thats nurses , doctors , neuro surgeons etc . officially they were all proclaimed wrong "SIMPLY MISTAKEN" .

i mean a neuro surgeon cant possibly be expected to be able to determine on his own whether he his looking at a mans forehead , temple or the rear of the mans head lol . from 63 untill 78 all of these witnesses were told they were mistaken , so in those 15 years some decided YES MAYBE I WAS WRONG . this because they were told that no one agreed with or corroborated them . well the hsca took statements from bethesda witnesses that did agree with them and which corroborated them . in 63 the military made sure no one heard what these witnesses had to say , in 64 the warren commission did so by ignoring them , in 78 the hsca made sure no one heard what these witnesses had to say by first SEALING AWAY their testimonies and then lying blatantly in their report stating falsely that ALL the bethesda witnesses contradicted the parkland staff . in fact they told the hsca that jfk had a gaping right rear head wound , they includes two fbi agents .

now im sorry im going a tad around the houses here . im simply trying to highlight how badly witnesses are treated and or ignored or dismissed . im highlighting that the us government and agencies and commissions of the government deceived and lied . the warren commission had a BACK wound that didnt help them (it was to low to fit the trajectory) so they lied and said it was several inches higher up on the right of the neck . the clark panel and hsca had an entry wound low on the back of the head at the hairline just above where the hair on the lowest part of the back of the head meets the neck , as above that trajectory was a problem so they lied and said the wound was some 5 inches higher up on the crown of the head .

we must judge witnesses fairly and honestly , if they be proven to have been dishonest that rightly affects their credibility . likewise we must look at how the various agencies and commissions and the government behaved , deceived and lied and they need to be judged accordingly . that said we wont judge every single employee of the above by the low standards of the agencies they worked for . for example there are fbi agents such as the two mentioned above that told the truth , another agent called odum to name but 3 that were honest and truthful and who refused to be otherwise .

so the limo windscreen . im not going to tell you what to believe , i will let you decide for your selves .

firstly it wasnt just one or two witnesses that said they saw a hole in the windscreen , it was in and around 6 that we know of that are listed and they were not all regular joes , plenty others stood by the limo at parkland that could see if it had a hole or not who we dont know about .

RICHARD DUDMAN : st louis post reporter

"some of us noticed the HOLE in the front window . we were pushed away by secret service agents when we wanted to examine the hole "

CHARLES TAYLOR : fbi report

"small HOLE just left of center"


STEVE (STAVIS) ELLIS : motorcycle cop

"you could have put a pencil through the HOLE "


HAROLD R FREEMAN : police

"i could have touched it ......it was a HOLE .....it was a bullet HOLE , you could tell what it was"


NICK PRENCIPE : police

said he saw a bullet hole

Nick Prencipe, unequivocally described the hole they witnessed as a "bullet hole."


EVALIA GLANGES : 2nd year medical student 1963

"there was a HOLE .........through and through bullet HOLE "



motorcycle officer bj martin who was at jfks left rear with bobby hargis said he saw no hole in the windscreen , all be it he said it years later late 60s and not in testimony in 64 . that said if the commission wanted to ignore hole in the wind screen witnesses i know they probably wouldnt have even mentioned the windscreen to martin , if they didnt ask well then the witness couldnt give an uncomfortable answer , if a witness did try and mention something they didnt want on the record they went off the record or cut the witness off .

so far we have 6 witnesses from police , to reporters , to trainee doctor , fbi etc , ive never seen any reason for any of them to be declared in any way dishonest . we have one cop (bj martin) that later said he saw no hole .


i havent mention the man at the ford plant who said the limo windscreen had a hole in it , and that he made a template from the old screen and made a new one from it .off hand i have no reason to distrust an elderly man who really was dead before his name became widely known . what did he gain by lying ? , if he wanted fame and fortune why not come out years earlier ? say at the shaw trial or when major books had come out ? .

there are photos of the limo in the secret service garage . logs state that the limo was in the garage when the man above said he was making a windscreen . is this true then ? did the old man lie ? , maybe he did but maybe he didnt . as i have said the secret service , fbi , dallas police , various commissions record of honesty and truthfulness is not great . for me its very hard to trust anything they came out with .yes i could list some witnesses that lack credibility because they changed their story or lied , one is marina oswald , so some witnesses can be unreliable , but on the whole in the case of most of the witnesses they seem to have given an honest version of events as they saw it and as they believed it to be true . one can be honest and still be wrong of course . but what is undeniable and what i often tell LNs when they talk about liars is that there are LN witnesses such as marina oswald and various commissions that have provably lied but LNs dont seem to see any problem with them .




above is a photo showing a cracked wind screen , as i said i invite people to research the people i mentioned ,and indeed all that i posted and reach their own conclusions .

1. TwirledOriole

If you eat a polar bear liver, you will die. Humans can’t handle that much vitamin A.
2. trevormatic

The critically endangered Kakapo bird has a strong, pleasant, musty odour which allows predators to easily locate it. Hence, it is critically endangered. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakapo
3. Sir_Ostrich

One I learned on here. The male giraffe will continuously headbutt the female in the bladder until she urinates. The male then tastes the pee and that helps it determine whether the female is ovulating. If she is, it’s business time.
4. Stoms2

Abalones (a snail) have 5 assholes.
5. shakypiss

Banana Slug penises. First off, a banana slug can be 6-8 inches. The slug’s erect penis be just as long. Also, their penises emerge from their heads. After sex, banana slugs eat each other’s penises. They’re also the mascot of UC Santa Cruz.
6. ObturateYourForamen

Dead people can get goosebumps.
7. HeyMyNamesMatt

A full head of human hair is strong enough to support 12 tons.
8. 20PoundPenis

The blood from a human erection has enough blood to keep 3 gerbals alive.
9. way_fairer

The word “facetiously” contains all 5 vowels and “y” in alphabetical order.
10. suckit2me

The national anthem of Greece has 158 verses…
11. bearsarefatcunts

Dragonflies have shovel shaped penises so they can scoop out their rival’s sperm.
12. Bluecheezeplatter

Honey does not spoil. You could feasibly eat 3000 year old honey.
13. jiggahuh

There was a ten foot tall ape called Gigantopithecus that is now thought to be extinct. The fossil record also indicates that they most likely buried their dead, which indicates a cognitive level that only one other ape possesses.
14. abbazabbbbbbba

There are more possible iterations of a game of chess than there are atoms in the known universe. It’s called The Shannon Number, here’s a wikipedia article about it
15. TheSicilianDude

If you were to remove all of the empty space from the atoms that make up every human on earth, the entire world population could fit into an apple
16. stengebt

Duck vaginas have developed “dead ends” over time to protect them from being raped by other ducks.
17. GoGoGadgetReddit

The song Coconut (“She put the lime in the coconut, she drank ’em both up…”) has only one chord in the entire song. It is the only song without any chord changes to reach the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It reached #8 in 1972.
18. biohazard13

The average blue whale produces over 400 gallons of sperm when it ejaculates, but only 10% of that actually makes it into his mate. Happy Swimming!!! :-)
19. jicty

A mantis shrimp can swing its claw so fast it boils the water around it and creates a flash of light.
20. Forkgoesontheleft

That completely blind people don’t see blackness, they see nothing.
21. DeanMarais

Llamas are born with an extra pair of fighting teeth that they use to bite off other llamas’ testicles making them the only fertile male in the group.
22. MegaMaverick

Only Asian people have black hair. Every other supposedly ‘black’ hair colour is actually really dark brown.
23. whalemango

The Indonesian Mimic Octopus can not only change colours, but will mimic the shapes of other animals, like the flounder, poisonous lion fish, and sea snakes.
[LINK]
24. Naaahhh

One species of jellyfish, Turritopsis nutricula, are immortal.
25. BruceBrewsky

A blue whale’s penis is 11 feet long.
26. Jojoseb

Cats sleep for 70% of their lives.
27. Maggieforpresident

A pig’s orgasm lasts 30 minutes and a male lion mates up to 50 times a day.
28. jackielynne94

male elephants sometimes use their penis as a 5th limb.
29. elchip

The brain named itself.
30. Me, Bobby Viner, as adapted for accuracy from ShanghaiBebop

Mozart wrote a canon entitled “Leck mich im Arsch,” which translates as “Lick me in the arse.” TC mark

yes mate he certainly had medical knowledge . the last of the 5 official murders was a grisly one that well the poor girl mary kelly was hacked to bits really . no real medical knowledge was needed there . but some of the other murders did have and require medical knowledge . as an example a kidney was removed from one victim . they tried to down play this at the time and say such a procedure required no special knowledge , doctors have said otherwise .

its sadly common that crazy guys kill , such as the yorkshire ripper . for me having read about jack and how the authorities at the time behaved tellls me that there is more to that case . if it is along the lines of what i said above in my last post , well we likely wont know any more than we do because evidence will be destroyed or covered up .

its interesting that many letters were received at the time from people claiming to be jack . they were pretty much all dismissed as cranks . however one letter , the from hell letter mentioned something interesting that only the real killer would have known . he not only mentioned in the letter that he removed a kidney but he sent part of it with the letter . the kidney being removed info was known only to police .

Who doesn’t want a telepathic ray gun? The U.S. Army sure does. It’s already researched a device that could beam words into your skull, according to the 1998 report "Bioeffects of Selected Nonlethal Weapons." The report says that, with the help of special microwaves, “this technology could be developed to the point where words could be transmitted to be heard like the spoken word, except that it could only be heard within a person’s head.” The device could “communicate with hostages” and could “facilitate a private message transmission.”

In 2002, the Air Force Research laboratory patented a similar microwave device. Rep. Dennis Kucinich seemed concerned, because one year earlier, he proposed the Space Preservation Act, which called for a ban of all “Psychotronic weapons.” It didn’t pass.

The mind games don’t stop there. The CIA’s massive mind control experiment, Project MKUltra, remains the pet project of paranoid people everywhere. Beginning in the early 1950s, the CIA started asking strange questions in memos, like:

“Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature, such as self-preservation?”

In April 1953, the CIA decided to find out. The Agency wanted to develop drugs that could manipulate Soviet spies and foreign leaders�"essentially, a truth serum. The CIA brimmed with other ideas, too, but Director Allen Dulles complained that there weren’t enough “human guinea pigs to try these extraordinary techniques.”

That lack of test subjects drove the CIA to wander off the ethical deep-end, leading the Agency to experiment on unwitting Americans.

About 80 institutions�"44 of them colleges�"housed MKUltra labs. There, the CIA toyed with drugs like LSD and heroin, testing if the substances “could potentially aid in discrediting individuals, eliciting information, and implanting suggestions and other forms of mental control.” The CIA tested LSD and barbiturates on mental patients, prisoners, and addicts. It also injected LSD in over 7000 military personnel without their knowledge. Many suffered psychotic episodes.

The CIA tried its hand at erasing people’s memories, too. Project ARTICHOKE tested how well hypnosis and morphine could induce amnesia. And when the CIA wasn’t trying to develop a memory-killing equivalent of the neurolyzer from Men in Black, it studied Chinese brainwashing techniques: Project QKHILLTOP examined ancient mind-scrambling methods to make interrogations easier.

In the wake of the Watergate scandal, the CIA destroyed hundreds of thousands of MKUltra documents. Only 20,000 escaped the shredder, and the CIA shifted its efforts from mind control to clairvoyance. In the mid 1970s, it launched the Stargate Project, which studied the shadowy phenomenon of “remote viewing.” (That is, the CIA investigated if it were possible to see through walls�"with your mind.) The project closed in 1995. A final memo concluded:

“Even though a statistically significant effect has been observed in the laboratory, it remains unclear whether the existence of a paranormal phenomenon, remote viewing, has been demonstrated.”

Conspiracy #2: The government is poisoning me.
The Truth: It poisoned alcohol supplies to curb drinking during prohibition.


Library of Congress

As the '20s roared, alcoholism soared. Booze was banned, but speakeasies were everywhere. Few people followed the law, so the Treasury Department started enforcing it differently�"by poisoning the watering hole. 

Most liquor in the 1920s was made from industrial alcohol, used in paints, solvents, and fuel. Bootleggers stole about 60 million gallons a year, redistilling the swill to make it drinkable. To drive rumrunners away, the Treasury Department started poisoning industrial hooch with methyl alcohol. But bootleggers kept stealing it, and people started getting sick.

When dealers noticed something wrong, they hired chemists to renature the alcohol, making it drinkable again. Dismayed, the government threw a counterpunch and added more poison�"kerosene, gasoline, chloroform, and higher concentrations of methyl alcohol. Again, it didn’t deter drinking; the booze business carried on as usual.

By 1928, most of the liquor circulating in New York City was toxic. Despite increased illness and death, the Treasury didn’t stop tainting industrial supplies until the 18th amendment was repealed in 1933.

Conspiracy #3: The government is trying to ruin my reputation.
The Truth: The FBI’s COINTELPRO did it for 15 years.


The FBI has never been a fan of critics. During the second Red Scare, the Bureau fought dissenters, launching a covert program called COINTELPRO. Its mission? To “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” rebellious people and groups.

Under COINTELPRO, the FBI oversaw 2000 subversive smear operations. Agents bugged phones, forged documents, and planted false reports to create a negative public image of dissenters. COINTELPRO targeted hate groups like the KKK, but it also kept close watch on the “New Left,” like civil rights marchers and women’s rights activists. It tracked Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, John Lennon, and Ernest Hemingway.

Few, however, were watched as closely as Martin Luther King Jr. After MLK gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, this memo floated through FBI offices:

“In the light of King’s powerful demagogic speech yesterday he stands heads and shoulders over all other Negro leaders put together when it comes to influencing great masses of Negros. We must mark him now, if we have not done so before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro, and national security.”

King became an unofficial Enemy of State. Agents tracked his every move, performing a “complete analysis of the avenues of approach aimed at neutralizing King as an effective Negro leader." When a wiretap revealed King’s extramarital affair, the FBI sent him an anonymous letter, predicting that blackmail was in his future. “You are a colossal fraud and an evil, vicious one at that,” the letter said. A month later, MLK accepted the Nobel Peace Prize.

COINTELPRO shut down in 1971, although the FBI continued to monitor certain groups. In the 1990s, it tracked PETA and put members of Greenpeace on its terror watch list.

Conspiracy #4: The government is germ-bombing its own people.
The Truth: It was a common practice during the Cold War.


NASA

From 1940 to 1970, America was a giant germ laboratory. The U.S. Army wanted to assess how vulnerable America was to a biological attack, so it spread clouds of microbes and chemicals over populated areas everywhere.

In 1949, the Army Special Operations released bacteria into the Pentagon’s air conditioning system to observe how the microbes spread (the bacteria were reportedly harmless). In 1950, a U.S. Navy ship sprayed Serratia Marcescens�"a common bacteria capable of minor infection�"from San Francisco Bay. The bacteria floated over 30 miles, spread through the city, and may have caused one death.

A year later, during Operation DEW, the U.S. Army released 250 pounds of cadmium sulfide off the Carolina coast, which spread over 60,000 square miles. The military didn’t know that cadmium sulfide was carcinogenic, nor did it know that it could cause kidney, lung, and liver damage. In the 1960s, during Project 112 and Project SHAD, military personnel were exposed to nerve agents like VX and sarin and bacteria like E. coli without their knowledge. At least 134 similar experiments were performed.

President Nixon ended offensive tests of the US biological weapons program in 1969.

Conspiracy #5: The government is spreading disease with insects of war.
The Truth: You may have been attacked by a six-legged soldier, but you’re fine.


Wikimedia Commons

In 1955, the military dropped 330,000 yellow fever mosquitoes from an aircraft over Georgia. The campaign was cleverly called Operation Big Buzz, and the mosquitoes buzzed their way to residential areas. In 1956, Operation Drop Kick dropped 600,000 more mosquitoes over an Air Force base in Florida.

In both cases, the mosquitoes did not carry any disease. They were test weapons, part of the military’s entomological warfare team, which studied the bugs' ability to disperse and attack. Results found that the six-legged soldiers successfully feasted on humans and guinea pigs placed near the drop area.

In 1954, Operation Big Itch dropped 300,000 rat fleas in the Western Utah Desert. The military wanted to test if fleas could effectively carry and transmit disease. During one test, a bug-bomb failed to drop, cracking open inside the plane. The fleas swarmed the cabin, biting everybody aboard.

At the time, the military planned to build an insect farm, a facility that could produce 100 million infected mosquitoes per month. Multiple Soviet cities were marked with buggy bullseyes.

Conspiracy #6: The government has exposed me to harmful radiation.
The Truth: If you’re over 50, it’s possible.




“It is desired that no documents be released which refers to experiments with humans and might have adverse effect on public opinion or result in legal suits. Documents covering such work field should be classified ‘secret.’” �"Atomic Energy Commission memo, 1947

In the late 1980s, the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce released a damning report called “American Nuclear Guinea Pigs: Three Decades of Radiation Experiments on U.S. Citizens.” The report spotlighted Operation Green Run, a military test at a Washington plutonium facility. There, in 1949, managers purposefully released a massive cloud of radioactive iodine-131 to test how far it could travel downwind. Iodine-131 and xenon-133 reportedly traveled as far as the California-Oregon border, infecting 500,000 acres. It’s believed that 8000 curies of radioactive iodine floated out of the factory. To put that into perspective, in 1979, Three Mile Island emitted around 25 curies of radioactive iodine.

The report showed that the military planned 12 similar radiation releases at other facilities.

The government sponsored smaller tests, too. In the late 1950s, mentally disabled children at Sonoma State Hospital were fed irradiated milk. None gave consent. In Tennessee, 829 pregnant mothers took a vitamin drink to improve their baby’s health. The mothers weren’t told the “vitamin” was actually radioactive iron. In Massachusetts, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission fed 73 mentally disabled children oatmeal. The secret ingredient? Radioactive calcium. (Officials told the kids that if they ate the porridge, they would join a “science club.”) From 1960 to 1971, the Department of Defense conducted whole body radiation experiments on black cancer patients, who thought they were receiving treatment. Instead, the DOD used the test to calculate how humans reacted to high levels of radiation.

The United States also conducted hundreds of unannounced nuclear tests. In 1957, Operation Plumbob saw 29 nuclear explosions boom in America’s southwest. The explosions, which 18,000 soldiers watched nearby, released 58 curies of radioactive iodine�"enough radiation to cause 11,000 to 212,000 cases of thyroid cancer. Through the 1950s alone, over 400,000 people became “atomic veterans.” Many didn’t know it.

Conspiracy #7: The government is staging terrorist attacks on itself.
The Truth: Military officials once suggested staging phony terrorist attacks to justify war with Cuba.


Wikimedia Commons

In the early 1960s, the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed the impossible: an American attack on America. The plan suggested fake terrorist attacks on US cities and bases. The goal? To blame Cuba and drum up support for war.

Officials called the proposal Operation Northwoods. The original memo suggested that, “We could develop a communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities, and even in Washington.”

Northwoods suggested that US personnel could disguise themselves as Cuban agents. These undercover soldiers could burn ammunition and sink ships in the harbor at Guantanamo Bay. “We could blow up a US ship and blame Cuba,” the memo says.

Northwoods also included a plan to “sink a boatload of Cubans en route to Florida (real or simulated)" and suggested “an incident which will demonstrate that a Cuban aircraft has attacked and shot down a charter civil airline.” Officials planned to fake a commercial hijacking, secretly landing the plane while an identical drone crashed nearby.

When the attacks finished, the government would release incriminating documents “substantiating Cuban involvement. . .World opinion and the United Nations forum should be favorably affected by developing the international image of the Cuban government as rash and irresponsible.”

President Kennedy rejected the proposal.

Conspiracy #8: The government is manipulating the media.
The Truth: From 1948 to 1972, over 400 journalists secretly carried out assignments for the CIA.


If you think the spinning on news channels today is bad, imagine what it’d be like if the CIA still steered the ship. Under Operation Mockingbird, the CIA’s sticky fingers touched over 300 newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, Newsweek, and the Washington Post.

Over 400 journalists were in cahoots with the CIA. They promoted the Agency’s views and provided services: spying in foreign countries, gathering intelligence, and publishing reports written by the Agency. Sometimes, CIA Head Frank Wisner commissioned journalists to write pro-government articles at home and abroad. And, as if a CIA spin weren’t enough, the Agency also paid editors to keep anti-government pieces off the presses. Journalists with ties to the CIA also planted false intelligence in newsrooms so that unconnected reporters would pick it up and write about it.

The CIA teamed up with journalists because many reporters had strong foreign ties. A journalist reporting from abroad could gather information that the CIA couldn’t, and he could plant propaganda better, too.

Although a congressional hearing in the 1970s put an end to inside jobs, Big Brother still manipulates markets elsewhere. In 2005, the government spent $300 million placing pro-American messages in foreign media outlets�"an attempt to hamper extremists and sway support.

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Scientists Capture the First Footage of an Anglerfish’s Parasitic Mating Ritual
BY SHAUNACY FERRO MARCH 23, 2018
The Rebikoff-Niggeler Foundation
THE REBIKOFF-NIGGELER FOUNDATION
The deep sea is full of alien-looking creatures, and the fanfin anglerfish is no exception. The toothy Caulophryne jordani, with its expandable stomach and glowing lure and fin rays, is notable not just for its weird looks, but also its odd mating method, which has been captured in the wild on video for the first time, as CNET and Science report.

If you saw a male anglerfish and a female anglerfish together, you would probably not recognize them as the same species. In fact, in the video below, you might not be able to find the male at all. The male anglerfish is lure-less and teeny-tiny (as much as 60 times smaller in length) compared to his lady love.

And he's kind of a deadbeat boyfriend. The male anglerfish attaches to the female's belly in a parasitic mating ritual that involves biting into her and latching on, fusing with her so that he can get his nutrients straight from her blood. He stays there for the rest of his fishy life, fertilizing her eggs and eventually becoming part of her body completely.

Observing an anglerfish in action, or really at all, is extremely difficult. There are only 14 dead specimens from this particular anglerfish species held at natural history museums throughout the world, and they are all female. Since anglerfish can't live in the lab, seeing them in their natural habitat is the only way to observe them. This video, shot in 2016 off the coast of Portugal by researchers with the Rebikoff-Niggeler Foundation, is only the third time we've been able to record deep-sea anglerfish behavior.

Take a look for yourself, and be grateful that your own relationship isn't quite so codependent.




Animals Firsts Fish News Oceans Parasitism Sex Video

Most people are all too aware that cockroaches are horrifyingly resilient beings. Yes, they can and have survived nuclear blasts, and surely stand to inherit the Earth after we all succumb to the apocalypse. Why is this creature able to thrive in the face of pesticides, the loss of limbs, disgusting conditions, a range of climates, and even nuclear fallout, in urban kitchens across the world? As Inside Science reports, a new study on the genome of the American cockroach shows that certain genes are key to its wild evolutionary success.

In an article published in Nature Communications, researchers from South China Normal University in Guangzhou, China report that they sequenced and analyzed the genome of Periplaneta americana, and in the process they discovered just how indestructible this scourge is. They found that the cockroach (native to Africa, despite its American moniker) has more DNA than any other insect whose DNA has been sequenced except the migratory locust. The size of its genome�"3.3 billion base pairs�"is comparable to that of humans.

They have a huge number of gene families (several times the number other insects have) related to sensory reception, with 154 smell receptors and 522 taste receptors, including 329 taste receptors specifically related to bitter tastes. These extra smell and taste receptors may help cockroaches avoid toxic food (say, your household pesticide) and give them the ability to adapt to a multitude of different diets in different environments.

They also have killer immune systems able to withstand pathogens they might pick up from the rotting food they eat and the filth they like to live in. They have many more genes related to immunity compared to other insects.

The genome analysis might give us more than just a newfound respect for this revolting pest. The researchers hope to find a way to harness this new knowledge of cockroach immunity to control vermin populations�"and create an eradication method slightly more effective than just stomping on them.

Wasteful spending by the public sector on useless projects costs every British household £4,500 a year - enough to 'buy a luxury holiday for every family', a pressure group has claimed.
The TaxPayers’ Alliance has identified cuts that it says could save about £120billion �" effectively wiping out the UK’s budget deficit �" without ‘closing a single hospital, firing a single teacher or disbanding a single regiment’.
The organisation has collated a list of ‘ludicrous examples of wasteful spending’ �" including the Ministry of Defence paying £22 for a light bulb and the Arts Council squandering £95,000 on an installation comprising a skip covered in yellow lights.


Some £19,000 was spent by Cotswold District Council on hiring a ‘motivational magician’ to boost staff morale, while Labour-run Durham Council gave chiefs a £12,000 clothing allowance, which Prime Minister David Cameron derided as ‘Geordie Armani’.

Ministers and officials ate £3 million worth of biscuits in 2011-2012 and spent £45 million on taxis to move prisoners and staff around the country.
More than £20 billion is lost through public sector fraud and £15 billion on duplicated procurement across Whitehall departments and councils.
The Home Office spent £427,000 on rubber bullets police are not even allowed tom use.
Crawley Council Spent £5,070 on 12,200 hot drinks from vending machines for employees, when the equivalent number of tea bags would have cost just £200.
The alleged wasteful spending - a sixth of the total government expenditure - is more than the whole of the NHS budget and five times the amount spent by the Ministry of Defence.
A spokesman for alliance said: ' This equates to a massive £4,500 for every household inn the UK - enough to give every family in the land a luxury holiday or pay their household energy bills three times over.'
In its annual Big Bumper Book of Government Waste, the TaxPayers’ Alliance recommends a number of major reforms to claw back cash, including shaving £53billion off the pay and pensions packages of public sector workers.
This is the amount it claims these workers are being overpaid compared with the private sector average.
‘Nearly £120billion of taxpayers’ money was wasted or spent on useless projects by the Government in 2011-12,’ the report states.
‘We have identified and listed hundreds of examples of spending by politicians and bureaucrats that can be cut without closing a single hospital, firing a single teacher or disbanding a single regiment.’
According to the research �" which the pressure group said is based on official statistics, independent reports and media coverage �" £25billion was wasted that year through inefficient public sector procurement and poor use of outsourcing, while £20.3billion was lost through public sector fraud.
About £5billion was paid out in benefits to claimants with an income in excess of £100,000, while £1.2billion was paid out in an annual subsidy to foreign farmers through the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy.