FTR#‘s 1281 and 1282: Interviews #18 and #19 with Jim DiEugenio and David Talbot

Con­tin­u­ing our series of inter­views about JFK Revis­it­ed, we vis­it with both Jim DiEu­ge­nio and David Tal­bot, the author of Broth­ers and The Dev­il’s Chess­board. (We have high­light­ed infor­ma­tion from the lat­ter in FTR#‘s 894, 1162.)

Note that David Tal­bot is a major con­trib­u­tor to the com­men­tary in JFK Revis­it­ed.

The broad­cast high­lights the many top­ics of dis­cus­sion that David Tal­bot con­tributes dur­ing the pro­gram. We also high­light David’s prob­lems get­ting The Dev­il’s Chess­board reviewed.

Of note, as well, is David’s dis­cus­sion of a doc­u­ment that he and Lisa Pease dis­cov­ered: On the week­end of JFK’s assas­si­na­tion, Allen Dulles had decamped to Camp Peary aka “The Farm”–a major CIA train­ing facil­i­ty. The doc­u­ment lat­er dis­ap­peared.

FTR#‘s 1279 and 1280: Interviews #16 and #17 with Jim DiEugenio and John Newman

Our ongo­ing series of inter­views with Jim DiEugenio–selected by Oliv­er Stone to write the screen­play for the doc­u­men­tary JFK Revis­it­ed and to write and edit the book derived from the film—presents an extreme­ly enrich­ing guest, John New­man.

Dis­cus­sion con­cludes with what Sen­a­tor Richard Schweik­er not­ed: that there were “the fin­ger­prints of Intel­li­gence all around Oswald.” An impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tion brack­et­ing this dis­cus­sion con­cerns the CIA’s coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence search/obsession for a KGB mole with­in the Agency. John has writ­ten, and is writ­ing, about that sub­ject. Oswald’s “defec­tion” to the USSR over­lapped that dynam­ic.

Author of among oth­er titles JFK and Viet­nam and Oswald and the CIA, John was deeply involved with Stone’s 1991 opus JFK.

The inter­views begin with review of top­ics pre­vi­ous­ly dis­cussed in this FTR series, includ­ing: Pres­i­dent Eisenhower’s order to kill Patrice Lumum­ba of the Con­go, reach­ing a crescen­do with Ike’s out­burst at a nation­al secu­ri­ty meet­ing demand­ing aloud Lumumba’s ter­mi­na­tion; Pres­i­dents Trump’s and Biden’s balk­ing at the man­dat­ed release of doc­u­ments pur­suant to the ARRB’s man­date; dis­cus­sion of Oper­a­tion North­woods, Lyman Lemnitzer’s and Maxwell Taylor’s planned series of provo­ca­tions designed to pro­voke a U.S. inva­sion of Cuba.

Next, we review JFK’s Viet­nam pol­i­cy (this, too, has been cov­ered in past talks, how­ev­er we present added depth draw­ing on John’s exper­tise and pub­lished book JFK and Viet­nam.)

We then high­light Gen­er­al Cur­tis LeMay’s atti­tude toward and behav­ior with regard to JFK.

Of par­tic­u­lar note is John New­man’s dis­clo­sure that no record­ings of the meet­ings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have sur­vived intact!

FTR#‘s 1275 & 1276 Interviews #14 and #15 with Jim DiEugenio and Paul Bleau about “JFK Revisited”

This broad­cast con­tin­ues our vis­its with Jim DiEugenio–author of Des­tiny Betrayed and JFK Revisited–selected by Oliv­er Stone to write the screen­play for his lat­est doc­u­men­tary.

In these broad­casts, we are addi­tion­al­ly priv­i­leged by the par­tic­i­pa­tion of Paul Bleau, a vet­er­an JFK assas­si­na­tion researcher who is promi­nent­ly fea­tured in JFK Revis­it­ed.

The recent inquiries into the 1/6/2021 insur­rec­tion have yield­ed some jour­nal­is­tic cov­er­age (Wash­ing­ton Post) of Secret Ser­vice destruc­tion of records of 1963 threats to JFK from “white suprema­cist” groups. We begin by pre­sent­ing Paul’s analy­sis of the Chica­go plot against JFK’s life; with appar­ent shoot­ers posi­tioned in a high-rise build­ing to elim­i­nate JFK as he trav­eled in a motor­cade.

Next, Paul ana­lyzes the plot against JFK’s life in Tam­pa.

Fol­low­ing dis­cus­sion of the pre­vi­ous plots against JFK in 1963, we turn to Oswald’s pres­ence in New Orleans and the cast of char­ac­ters revolv­ing around Guy Ban­is­ter’s “detec­tive agency.”

In a pre­vi­ous pro­gram, we not­ed that the term “Con­spir­a­cy The­o­rist” was great­ly ele­vat­ed in its use and intel­lec­tu­al pro­file by stress­ing the util­i­ty of the moniker in dis­cred­it­ing War­ren Com­mis­sion crit­ics.

Instead of “con­spir­a­cy,” the term “net­work­ing” is both accu­rate and res­onates pos­i­tive­ly with the rela­tion­ships that char­ac­ter­ize the JFK assas­si­na­tion land­scape.

Among Paul Bleau’s numer­ous arti­cles avail­able on kennedysandking.com is one about Oswald’s escorts. We delve into some aspects of the net­work­ing involv­ing Oswald and the Camp Street milieu in New Orleans.

FTR#‘s 1273 & 1274 Interviews #12 and #13 with Jim DiEugenio and Dr. Gary Aquilar about “JFK Revisited”

This broad­cast con­tin­ues our vis­its with Jim DiEugenio–author of Des­tiny Betrayed and JFK Revisited–selected by Oliv­er Stone to write the screen­play for his lat­est doc­u­men­tary.

In these broad­casts, we are addi­tion­al­ly priv­i­leged by the par­tic­i­pa­tion of Dr. Gary Aquilar, one of the experts fea­tured in the Stone/DiEugenio doc­u­men­tary, as well as being one of the ground-break­ing fig­ures in the ongo­ing inquiry into the med­ical evi­dence in the assas­si­na­tion.

Dr. Aquilar high­light­ed the deep pro­fes­sion­al com­pro­mis­ing of peo­ple who filled “expert” roles in the var­i­ous med­ical exam­i­na­tions, the involve­ment of a num­ber of them as “experts” in oth­er, impor­tant intel­li­gence-con­nect­ed cas­es such as the assas­si­na­tion of Mar­tin Luther King.

In par­tic­u­lar, Dr. Aquilar parsed the incon­sis­ten­cies in a review of the med­ical evi­dence in the JFK assas­si­na­tion case that was insti­tut­ed by then Attor­ney Gen­er­al Ram­sey Clark–“inconsistencies” which are dif­fi­cult to ascribe to caprice or error.

In addi­tion to his pre­sen­ta­tion of new mate­r­i­al with which even Jim DiEu­ge­nio was unfa­mil­iar, Gary was instru­men­tal in dis­cus­sion of the medical/forensic evi­dence in the JFK assas­si­na­tion case.

FTR#1272 Interview #11 with Jim DiEugenio about “JFK Revisited”

This broad­cast con­tin­ues our vis­its with Jim DiEugenio–author of Des­tiny Betrayed and JFK Revisited–selected by Oliv­er Stone to write the screen­play for his lat­est doc­u­men­tary.

Cor­rec­tion: Mr. Emory misiden­ti­fied jour­nal­ist Ander­son Coop­er as the son of Cok­ie Roberts. He is the son of the late socialite Glo­ria Van­der­bilt.

Express­ing a sen­ti­ment that appears to have been shared by many in the gov­ern­ment, Secret Ser­vice agent Elmer Moore brand­ed JFK a “trai­tor” in a con­ver­sa­tion with Jim Gochenaur:

JFK Revis­it­ed: Through the Look­ing Glass by Jim DiEu­ge­nio; Sky­horse Pub­lish­ing [HC]; Copy­right 2022 by Jim DiEu­ge­nio; Intro­duc­tion Copy­right 2022 by Oliv­er Stone; ISBN 978–1‑5107–7287‑8; p. 205.

. . . . Jim Gochenaur: Moore leaned back in his big com­fort­able leather chair and he said, “Who killed Jack Kennedy?” Then he said, “Well, I’ll tell you who didn’t. With 100 per­cent cer­tain­ty. It wasn’t the Rus­sians.” And my head is start­ing to swim, I want­ed to break in right at that point. But then he said, “I’ll tell you why—JFK was the Rus­sians’ boy. He was giv­ing away every­thing he could. That man, for all intents and pur­pos­es, dare I say it? Jim, I will say it. JFK was a trai­tor.”

The bizarre saga of the con­vo­lut­ed jour­ney of the “Mag­ic Bul­let” (CE399) is framed by Park­land Hos­pi­tal O.P. Wright’s wid­ow, who stat­ed that “more than one nurse” had found bul­lets on stretch­ers at the hos­pi­tal on the day Kennedy was shot.

JFK Revis­it­ed: Through the Look­ing Glass by Jim DiEu­ge­nio; Sky­horse Pub­lish­ing [HC]; Copy­right 2022 by Jim DiEu­ge­nio; Intro­duc­tion Copy­right 2022 by Oliv­er Stone; ISBN 978–1‑5107–7287‑8; p. 225.

. . . . [Josi­ah] Thomp­son gave an impor­tant speech at the 2003 Duquesne Uni­ver­si­ty JFK Assas­si­na­tion Con­fer­ence. He revealed that, in a 1993 inter­view, O.P. Wright’s widow—who also worked at Park­land Hospital—said that more than one nurse had approached her I the twen­ty-four hours after the assas­si­na­tion because they had found bul­lets on gur­neys. . . .

Addi­tion­al Points of Dis­cus­sion and Analy­sis Include: The lack of iden­ti­fi­able fin­ger­prints on the rifle alleged­ly used by Oswald to kill JFK; For­mer police offi­cer and Park­land Hos­pi­tal secu­ri­ty offi­cial O.D. Wright’s claim that the bul­let he found on a stretch­er at Park­land had a point­ed tip, unlike CE399; War­ren Com­mis­sion mem­bers’ dis­sent from the offi­cial ver­sion of the assas­si­na­tion; The fact that the FBI’s and CIA’s analy­sis of the shoot­ing dif­fered from the War­ren Com­mis­sion’s the­sis; The test fir­ings of bul­lets into skulls from behind that pro­duced results anti­thet­i­cal to the War­ren Com­mis­sion’s the­sis; The dis­cov­ery of skull frag­ments in both Dealey Plaza on 11/22/1963 and in the lim­ou­sine; Dis­cov­ery of a bul­let with a bent tip in JFK’s lim­ou­sine; Admi­ral George Burkley (JFK’s per­son­al physi­cian) and his con­tra­ven­tion of the War­ren Com­mis­sion’s the­sis; Cov­er-up of Burkley’s analy­sis by the War­ren Com­mis­sion; Burkley’s fam­i­ly’s accounts of Burkley’s dis­agree­ment with the offi­cial ver­sion of the assas­si­na­tion; the curious–and ominous–reversal by Burkley’s daugh­ter on her ini­tial agree­ment to coop­er­ate with inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tors.

FTR#1271 Interview #10 with Jim DiEugenio about “JFK Revisited”

This broad­cast con­tin­ues our vis­its with Jim DiEugenio–author of Des­tiny Betrayed and JFK Revisited–selected by Oliv­er Stone to write the screen­play for his lat­est doc­u­men­tary.

Jim begins by relat­ing Oliv­er Stone’s address to the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val, fol­low­ing the screen­ing of JFK Revis­it­ed.

Not­ing the evi­den­tiary archives assem­bled and cre­den­tialed by the ARRB, he not­ed that “con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry” has become “con­spir­a­cy fact.”

Record­ed on Vet­er­ans’ Day of 2022, we not­ed Oliv­er Stone’s own ser­vice as a dec­o­rat­ed com­bat infantry­man in Viet­nam, and recapped how JFK was with­draw­ing the U.S. from Viet­nam when he was killed.

As we tran­si­tion into analy­sis of the bal­lis­tic and medical/forensic evi­dence, a telling quote frames the dis­cus­sion of CE399 (the “Mag­ic Bul­let”) and the sit­u­a­tion in Park­land Hos­pi­tal on 11/22/1963:

JFK Revis­it­ed: Through the Look­ing Glass by Jim DiEu­ge­nio; Sky­horse Pub­lish­ing [HC]; Copy­right 2022 by Jim DiEu­ge­nio; Intro­duc­tion Copy­right 2022 by Oliv­er Stone; ISBN 978–1‑5107–7287‑8; p. 225.;

. . . . [Josi­ah] Thomp­son gave an impor­tant speech at the 2003 Duquesne Uni­ver­si­ty JFK Assas­si­na­tion Con­fer­ence. He revealed that, in a 1993 inter­view, O.P. Wright’s widow—who also worked at Park­land Hospital—said that more than one nurse had approached her I the twen­ty-four hours after the assas­si­na­tion because they had found bul­lets on gur­neys. . . .

FTR#1268 Interview #7 with Jim DiEugenio about “JFK Revisited”

In this broad­cast, we con­tin­ue our dis­cus­sion with the hero­ic Jim DiEu­ge­nio, select­ed by Oliv­er Stone to write the screen­play for his doc­u­men­tary JFK Revis­it­ed. Jim also wrote the book con­tain­ing tran­scripts of both the two-hour and four-hour ver­sions of the doc­u­men­tary and sup­ple­men­tal inter­views.

The pro­gram begins with review of the man­ner in which our soci­ety is dri­ven by visu­al events: the “crawl” at the end of the movie “JFK” led to the for­ma­tion of the ARRB, in a man­ner anal­o­gous to how the air­ing of the Zaprud­er film on Ger­al­do River­a’s Good Night Amer­i­ca led to the for­ma­tion of the House Select Com­mit­tee on Assas­si­na­tions.

Next, we note that the ARRB staffers were peo­ple who did not believe that JFK’s assas­si­na­tion was a con­spir­a­cy, nor did they think that there was a cov­er-up.

Notable in the ARRB’s pro­ceed­ings is the fact that nei­ther CIA oper­a­tions records nor Con­gres­sion­al records are acces­si­ble via FOIA requests.

Notable in the ARRB’s pro­ceed­ings is the fact that nei­ther CIA oper­a­tions records nor Con­gres­sion­al records are acces­si­ble via FOIA requests.

In this regard, the ARRB was empow­ered in an impor­tant and unprece­dent­ed way.

Meet­ing resis­tance from then President–and for­mer CIA chief–George H.W. Bush, the ARRB was not staffed until Clin­ton became Pres­i­dent.

Judge Tun­heim (of the ARRB) not­ed that var­i­ous Fed­er­al Agen­cies felt that they could just wait out the ARRB until its man­dat­ed time had expired.

The board received exten­sions of its man­dat­ed time, although it still was not able to get all the doc­u­ments released.

The exten­sions stretched out ARRB’s tenure to four years.

A telling inci­dent occurred when Judge Tun­heim and the ARRB was pars­ing a CIA doc­u­ment they want­ed released. The Agency offi­cer present stat­ed that there was a rea­son that the doc­u­ment could not be released, but he just “could­n’t think of it.”

The CIA’s coun­sel, who was present, indi­cat­ed that the ARRB could pro­ceed as planned.

Of note is the fact that Judge Tun­heim dis­closed that George Joan­nides, who over saw Car­los Bringuier’s DRE for the CIA, had served as the Agen­cy’s liai­son to the House Select Com­mit­tee on Assas­si­na­tions and that the ARRB, as well as the HSCA, was mis­led in this regard.

As not­ed pre­vi­ous­ly, researcher Jef­fer­son Mor­ley’s Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act law­suit direct­ed at oblig­ing CIA to dis­close more infor­ma­tion about Joan­nides was turned down by an appeals court, with Brett Kavanaugh cast­ing a deci­sive vote, just before his nom­i­na­tion to the Supreme Court.

The CIA did release records about Lee Har­vey Oswald, which had been in the province of the late James Jesus Angle­ton.

In our long series of inter­views with Mr. DiEu­ge­nio about Des­tiny Betrayed, we not­ed that Har­ry Con­nick, who suc­ceed­ed Jim Gar­ri­son as New Orleans DA, had ordered some of Gar­rison’s files to be burned.

Many were, how­ev­er one of Con­nick­’s assis­tants did not burn those records and kept the doc­u­ments. Even­tu­al­ly, the ARRB got those doc­u­ments.

Con­nick was not pleased.

Review­ing some of our syn­op­tic dis­cus­sion about Con­nick, from the writ­ten descrip­tion for FTR#1050:

Key points of dis­cus­sion and analy­sis about Con­nick:

1.–He was seem­ing­ly omnipresent in Clay Shaw’s crim­i­nal tri­al, oper­at­ing to obstruct Gar­ri­son and aid Clay Shaw and the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment, for which he  worked.
2.–Station WDSU–very close to Clay Shaw and the vehi­cle for both the Wal­ter Sheri­dan dis­in­for­ma­tion hit piece on Jim Gar­ri­son and the Ed Butler/Carlos Bringuier inter­view of the “Com­mu­nist” Oswald–was active on behalf of Con­nick.
3.–The Gur­vich broth­ers, who infil­trat­ed Gar­rison’s inves­ti­ga­tion and net­worked with Clay Shaw’s defense team (with William appear­ing as a wit­ness in the hear­ing on Shaw’s per­jury tri­al), were active on behalf of Har­ry Con­nick.
4.–Clay Shaw him­self, as well as DRE oper­a­tive Car­los Bringuier con­tributed to Con­nick­’s elec­tion cam­paign.
5.–In his sec­ond cam­paign to replace Gar­ri­son, Con­nick was suc­cess­ful.
6.–After becom­ing New Orleans DA, he burned many of Gar­rison’s files.