Mark Lane Question

First topic message reminder :

Is he a disinformation mole?

Discuss...

Lee,

Do you think you'll be able to start the thread on the Hosty note by this evening?

Hasan Yusuf wrote:Lee,

Do you think you'll be able to start the thread on the Hosty note by this evening?

 I'm working on it, Hasan, but it's a fucking head wrecker.  We cannot isolate the note from the other issues regarding information that Hosty alleges he sent to Washington going astray and the research that has gone into this thing by a myriad of extremely knowledgeable people over the last 10-15 years is nothing short of overhwhelming.  The problem is, as with most other aspects of the case, each researcher has taken a different path to try and create some meaning from it all and the path they take is sometimes influenced by pet-theories.

The only researcher who has taken a more cautious and level headed path is some guy called Greg Parker  

I'll start the thread tonight and then add to it.  My boss at work is less of a task master than you, bud. 

Lee David Farley wrote:I'll start the thread tonight and then add to it.  My boss at work is less of a task master than you, bud. 

 
LOL Sorry, Lee. It's just that when you read about the same thing over and over again, it comes as a breath of fresh air to read that someone has a different take on a piece of evidence. I only hope that I am able to contribute some ideas to it.

I am out of my depth here, but I will say two things -

1) we have to remember that the very characteristics of personality that (have) allowed people like Lane and Weisberg to persevere for so many years in the face of so much (potentially dangerous) resistance - obsessiveness, crazed attention to details accurate and inaccurate, natural and continuous suspicion and paranoia  - are the same things that will also make them f*** up regularly and launch preemptive personal attacks.

2) McBride apparently, from what I've read, also suspects Ken O'Donnell of setting up JFK in the motorcade, a suspicion which,  I have to admit, puts his book book, for me, as beneath contempt.

AllenLowe wrote:

2) McBride apparently, from what I've read, also suspects Ken O'Donnell of setting up JFK in the motorcade, a suspicion which,  I have to admit, puts his book book, for me, as beneath contempt.

I would have to agree with you there, Allen.

I mean, what's next? Was Jackie a conspirator too?

the problem for me is that attitudes like that make me completely suspicious of other aspects about which I have less knowledge; how can you trust the judgement of a researcher like that? Not to mention the stuff about Ferrell and his approval of Horne and Lifton's crazier theories.

Am I correct in assuming that no one here has read his book?  And if that's the case shall we at least wait before the bonfires start? 

My mother believes when she dies she's going to a place in the sky, that is full of angels, called heaven.  I think it's a fucked up belief but she's welcome to have it because she's been a great role model in almost every other aspect of my life.

Does anybody on here have the same set of beliefs concerning the JFK case?  I'll answer that one for you; NO.  

 For fuck's sake - - Jim Douglass printed the Robert Vinson story.  Am I really expected to believe that shit?  And if not - because it's wilder than believing O'Donnell had something to do with setting JFK up - do I therefore throw Douglass' book on the bonfire too?

Oh, and Allen, there have been many high profile researchers said the same thing about Ferrell over the last forty years!

I've read enough of the sample section on Amazon to be extremely wary of McBride; including the O'Donnell segment.

AllenLowe wrote:I've read enough of the sample section on Amazon to be extremely wary of McBride; including the O'Donnell segment.

 Great.  Get the bonfire started, Allen.  My entire bookcase can go in.

so criticism of a book = Nazi book burning?  Of course.

AllenLowe wrote:so criticism of a book = Nazi book burning?  Of course.

 Yes it does; if you take what I said literally; which it seems you have.

It's retorts like this one that are indicative of debating anything connected to this case.  You're an intelligent guy, Allen, so I was convinced my message concerning reading a book before criticising it would get through; alas, no.  

The entire book according to you "is beneath contempt" after you have read some segments of it on Amazon and therefore McBride is untrustworthy.  Maybe he is, but call me old fashioned if I'll wait to see what his overall thesis and evidence is before describing his book as beneath contempt.

As I mentioned but was somehow deleted, even Jim Douglass' book contained complete bollocks but somehow the guy, and his book, are above reproach, and even after Greg and I systematically went through and demonstrated how he knowingly misrepresented the evidence connected to Ralph Yates.  No one batted an eyelid.  Now, i've read Douglass' book many times and he makes some shoddy conclusions and is apt to leaving things out if they don't support what he is claiming, yet i'd still never state his book is beneath contempt.  There is lots of good info in it.

How much complete shit is in Jim Marrs book Crossfire? 

How many times did John Armstrong bend, omit and shoe horn evidence to fit his two Oswald theory?

Doesn't David Von Pein (deservedly) get lambasted for giving pro-conspiracy books poor reviews on Amazon when it is clear he hasn't read them?

I'm in no mood for an argument and I hope you take my comments in good cheer but FFS what's with the double standards in this community?

Hasan Yusuf wrote:Lee,

Do you think you'll be able to start the thread on the Hosty note by this evening?

 P.S. I haven't forgotten about this.  I have the wife's family over visiting from the U.S. so will finish it when I have a chance.

no offense taken and I understand your concerns; however, one or two strangenesses in Douglas' book does NOT compare  to:

1) calling Ferrell a spook and disinformation agent
2) suggesting Ken O'donnell helped plan the assassination (this is REALLY crazy)
3) agreeing with Lifton and hence his (thoroughly discredited) theories of body alteration, and IIRC, underground cities
4) thinking of the dictabelt, which has been thoroughly and brilliantly explained by DM Thomas, and without which the HSCA would have adjourned by likely concluding NO shot from the knoll, as disinformation - 

well, all this adds up to real garbage, in my opinion, and I have been this route before with other assassination books. I don't have to read Glenn Beck to know he's nuts, I don't have to read Holocaust-didn't-happen books to know that they're ridiculous. And in this case I can save my $15. I'm sure there are some good things in it, but, as others have said better than I, all of the above just help to marginalize the pro-conspiracy community further. So I will wait for some smart reviewer to weed out the good from the stupid in that book; I just don't have the patience any more.

AllenLowe wrote:no offense taken and I understand your concerns; however, one or two strangenesses in Douglas' book does NOT compare  to:

1) calling Ferrell a spook and disinformation agent
2) suggesting Ken O'donnell helped plan the assassination (this is REALLY crazy)
3) agreeing with Lifton and hence his (thoroughly discredited) theories of body alteration, and IIRC, underground cities
4) thinking of the dictabelt, which has been thoroughly and brilliantly explained by DM Thomas, and without which the HSCA would have adjourned by likely concluding NO shot from the knoll, as disinformation - 

well, all this adds up to real garbage, in my opinion, and I have been this route before with other assassination books. I don't have to read Glenn Beck to know he's nuts, I don't have to read Holocaust-didn't-happen books to know that they're ridiculous. And in this case I can save my $15. I'm sure there are some good things in it, but, as others have said better than I, all of the above just help to marginalize the pro-conspiracy community further. So I will wait for some smart reviewer to weed out the good from the stupid in that book; I just don't have the patience any more.

 Thanks for not taking offence because none was intended.

Concerning your list:

1.  I'm interested in what he has to say about Ferrell because I've had the same suspicions for many years and became quite concerned by some of her comments to Bob Blakey at the HSCA Critics Conference.  McBride is certainly not the first person to conclude this but he is the first that is stating he has good solid evidence to back it up. I don't think anybody will ever prove whether she definitely was working for the other side and we are left to make our own decision based upon the available evidence and I'd like to see what McBride has.  It may be a hill of beans or it may be something more substantial - so I'll wait and see.
2. If that is what McBride about says O'Donnell othen I'd agree it is somewhat off the wall.
3. I cannot fathom how anybody can support Lifton's conclusions but that does not mean  Lifton's evidence is a crock.  It is simply what he does with it and assembles it that is the great travesty. There are certainly unanswered questions concerning the transportation of the President's body and the mess left behind after the autopsy left the door open for Lifton to foist his body snatcher theories upon the public.  If McBride buys them hook-line-and-sinker then I'd like to see what he has to say.  I spent a fortune on Inside the ARRB by Doug Horne and completely disagree with his conclusions that support Lifton but his books are pretty good reference material.
4. The thought about the dicta belt being disinformation has crossed my mind from time to time.  The combination of Mary Ferrell and Gary Mack coming to the rescue has never filled me with confidence and the HSCA simply finished on something to keep everyone arguing for the next 35 years.  There were far more fruitful opportunities for the HSCA to pursue and it is contained within the extant record but they were ditched for reasons that they would have led to uncomfortable places but Blakey perhaps knew what he was doing on the dictabelt evidence which is why it was allowed to be presented.  The HSCA conclusion that there was a probable conspiracy didn't leave us in any better position than if they'd have finished with the conclusion that there wasn't one.

Just my two cents and wish I had more time to supply some further detail but right now I simply don't have time.

Cheers

Lee

Lee David Farley wrote:

Hasan Yusuf wrote:Lee,

Do you think you'll be able to start the thread on the Hosty note by this evening?

 P.S. I haven't forgotten about this.  I have the wife's family over visiting from the U.S. so will finish it when I have a chance.

No worries, Lee. Take your time. Jim Di will probably join the forum within a week, so hopefully he will contribute to the discussion as well.

Martin:

Actually McBride almost does say Jackie was part of the plot.  Not quite that of course. But he says that her "stage managing"of the funeral helped anesthetize the plot.

McBride's book is a real mixed bag and a strange one so far.  I am about halfway through.  And yes, the Ken O'Donnell stuff is in there also.  I mean its one thing to go after Walter Sheridan as a plant or double agent in the Kennedy camp.  But O'Donnell?

I am very interested in this  stuff about Hosty.  I have never heard this before.  How could Hosty destroy the whole Oswald file?  FBI files are transferred from place to place and much of the material is then shot up to HQ.  For example, I mean Dallas and Washington were in communication about Oswald's return from USSR.  Are you saying that Hosty got rid of all the stuff only originating in Dallas?  And you know that none of it went to New Orleans when Hosty transferred the file there?  This is important because in the upcoming movie Parkland, this is what they have Hosty doing.  Ripping up the file.

As per moles in the research community, well yep, there sure were some.  And there sure were some people who just didn't like each other.  I mean, Salandria and Marcus both thought Thompson was a spook.  

McBride really doesn't have a good case against Mary F.  He puts in the stuff Livingstone did about her.  That she was a rightwinger, and she worked indirectly for upper level GOP pols in Texas.  That suposedly her husband's car was used in the motorcade.  Then he throws in the stuff others have thought about:  She was in a perfect position to monitor everything that was going on--or much of it. Because, for a long time, before the ARRB was set up, she was everyone's focus because of her files.

But there is more you can say about her.  For example, in her four decades on the case, she wrote only two rather undistinguished articles for Penn Jones' TCI.  With that archive, that is all she could come up with?

Also, Mary had an estranged son. At a conference a few years back, he made an effort to seek me out.  He told me that when Tom Bethell was discovered as a double agent in Garrison's camp, he fled to New Orleans.  He made a bee line for Mary's home in Dallas.  That is really weird.

But anyway I look forward to Lee's thread on the Weisberg info I never heard about.

it is interesting about Bethell; but sometimes, I think, people are neither one thing or another but, though it may sound silly, something in between. Especially in those days. 50 years ago, politics in this country was a much different kind of thing. I mean even Allard Lowenstein worked with an organization that was revealed later to be a CIA front. So it may not be, with Ferrell, all or nothing. She may have had conflicting loyalties, pressures we don't know about, contacts that she thought she could control but who may have had other agendas. I'm not saying I have any real answers about her, only that people are usually more complex than we give them credit for.

Jim, just out of curiosity, what did McBride have to say about Gerald Hill in his book?

I have not got to that point yet.


The first hundred pages are about his childhood and meeting Kennedy through his parents who supported him in 1960.

I did read other parts, but not about HIll.

No worries, Jim. When you get to Hill, please let me know what McBride had to say about him.

"2) suggesting Ken O'donnell helped plan the assassination (this is REALLY crazy)"

Haven't read his book but did he say O'Donnell helped plan the the assassination or helped plan the Dallas trip?
One is crazy, the other sounds reasonable enough.

He does try to insinuate that O'Donnell was some kind of sinister force within the Kennedy entourage. He lists the planning of the Dallas trip, the fact that he did not tell the Commision about the shots from the front and he became an alcoholic and then his daughter wrote a book about him and JFK.

Not very convincing I thought.

O'Donnell was one of those who was closest to the Kennedy's.  McBride clearly (more than) implies, as Jim says, that he was an inside man. This theory is about as strong as the suggestion that a Secret Service agent shot JFK.

James DiEugenio wrote:Martin:

Actually McBride almost does say Jackie was part of the plot.  Not quite that of course. But he says that her "stage managing"of the funeral helped anesthetize the plot.

McBride's book is a real mixed bag and a strange one so far.  I am about halfway through.  And yes, the Ken O'Donnell stuff is in there also.  I mean its one thing to go after Walter Sheridan as a plant or double agent in the Kennedy camp.  But O'Donnell?

I am very interested in this  stuff about Hosty.  I have never heard this before.  How could Hosty destroy the whole Oswald file?  FBI files are transferred from place to place and much of the material is then shot up to HQ.  For example, I mean Dallas and Washington were in communication about Oswald's return from USSR.  Are you saying that Hosty got rid of all the stuff only originating in Dallas?  And you know that none of it went to New Orleans when Hosty transferred the file there?  This is important because in the upcoming movie Parkland, this is what they have Hosty doing.  Ripping up the file.

As per moles in the research community, well yep, there sure were some.  And there sure were some people who just didn't like each other.  I mean, Salandria and Marcus both thought Thompson was a spook.  

McBride really doesn't have a good case against Mary F.  He puts in the stuff Livingstone did about her.  That she was a rightwinger, and she worked indirectly for upper level GOP pols in Texas.  That suposedly her husband's car was used in the motorcade.  Then he throws in the stuff others have thought about:  She was in a perfect position to monitor everything that was going on--or much of it. Because, for a long time, before the ARRB was set up, she was everyone's focus because of her files.

But there is more you can say about her.  For example, in her four decades on the case, she wrote only two rather undistinguished articles for Penn Jones' TCI.  With that archive, that is all she could come up with?

Also, Mary had an estranged son. At a conference a few years back, he made an effort to seek me out.  He told me that when Tom Bethell was discovered as a double agent in Garrison's camp, he fled to New Orleans.  He made a bee line for Mary's home in Dallas.  That is really weird.

But anyway I look forward to Lee's thread on the Weisberg info I never heard about.

 Jim, McBride's book sounds more and more kooky to me all the time. Does he mean to suggest that Jackie knew who was behind the assassination?

I don't buy the idea that Mary Ferrell was any kind of mole. If she was, she didn't do much in that role. It's not like she wrote a ton of articles that embarrassed the conspiracy movement or worked to discredit popular theories. All she did was amass files that are now available to everyone.

I too am curious about Weisberg's claim that Hosty destroyed a whole Oswald file. Curious and dubious.

BTW will you be reviewing McBride's book?

Yes, I will be reviewing McBride's book.  I have about six pages of notes now.

There is some good stuff in there.  Don't get me wrong.

But there is a lot of  unearned speculation also.  These days, after the ARRB, I don't like books that have too much of that.  It means you didn't do a lot of digging in those 2 million new pages.

The stuff about Jackie Kennedy is this: somehow she should not have arranged for the funeral extravaganza with all the foreign dignitaries and the riderless horse.  Because that was all a distraction to the public.

She and Bobby should have announced instead that they knew it was a conspiracy and somehow that would have changed everything.  He takes this from the whole Naftali/Talbot thing about the message to Moscow.  I have that in my book also.  Because its solidly sourced.

Bu the thing is, of all the people who have used it, only McBride is the one who says that Bobby and Jackie should have gone on camera and screamed conspiracy on the 23rd.

The obvious question is: Based on what?  The information at that point was simply too sketchy.  As was the message sent to Moscow. In these type of cases, unless you have the tiger, not by the tail, but with a collar around the neck, you don't go to the public.  Because you will  be pilloried.  And neutralized, as was Garrison.

This is why I spent so much time in my book showing who Garrison was before 1967, and how powerful he was in his state.  Once he took on the JFK case, he was essentially wiped out of state and national politics. His political career was over.

On the 23rd, the invisible forces pushing the Oswald did it scenario were incredibly strong. This included not just Dallas, but also in Washington, and in the media chambers.  And on the 23rd, RFK was not really running the Justice Department anymore.  Because Hoover was waiting for this moment to be free from him for years.  Therefore, the FBI now controlled the inquiry.

So I have a real problem with the concept. There is a fine line between heroism and stupidity.  As most people understand. RFK and Jackie were working in the dark.  They had even less information than Marguerite Oswald.  And they would have been as marginalized as she was.