NOTE: I like it when these guys post and publish such rubbish, as it gives us the opportunity to respond and set the record straight. - BK
W. Tracy Parnell
Debunking JFK Conspiracy Theories
Canadian Fred Litwin, a marketing professional who
worked nine years for the Intel Corporation, has written a book on the JFK
assassination with a catchy title - I Was a Teenage JFK Conspiracy Freak. This
concise, entertaining and well written volume will be of interest to conspiracy
skeptics and open-minded newcomers to the case. It may even be of interest to
long-time conspiracy buffs who actually read it. Litwin previously authored a
book called Conservative Confidential: Inside the Fabulous Blue Tent,
which is about his journey from anti-nuclear activist to Conservative party
campaigner. His JFK book describes an analogous trek from conspiracy believer
to “lone nutter.”
BK:
So this former anti-Nuke activist is now a conservative and we should pay
attention to what he has to say? I don’t think anything he has to say matters.
Litwin begins by documenting the missteps of the
early critics of the Warren Commission. An important point made by Litwin, one
that he returns to frequently, is that these early critics (and subsequent
generations) often consisted of individuals on the political left. They
included Bertrand Russell, Raymond Marcus, Sylvia Meagher, Vincent Salandria,
Thomas Buchanan and of course Mark Lane.
BK:
One of the most intriguing aspects of all Deep Political Events, as Peter Dale
Scott describes them, is that the resolution of the assassination of President
Kennedy is beyond normal political divisions like leftists and right wingers, liberals
and conservatives or democrats and republicans. It is simply a matter of the
truth, not one of political divisions.
Litwin notes that “… you weren’t a proper leftist if
you didn’t understand the “right-wing” plot to take over America and the huge
coverup.” To illustrate the critic’s mindset, Litwin quotes Marcus who thought
that If people became aware of the “fraud” of the Warren Report, “they’ll start
to demand other answers. Maybe they’ll ask about the Rosenbergs, Hiss, the
whole Cold War. Maybe we can get clean
and whole. But if this stays down, there’s no hope.” However, while Litwin is
critical of conspiracy theorists on the left, he notes that President Trump
promoted the discredited story that Ted Cruz’s father was one of the men who
handed out pro-Castro leaflets in front of the Trade Mart in New Orleans at the
behest of Lee Harvey Oswald.
BK:
Ok, the real Cruz involved with Oswald in New Orleans in the summer of 1963 was
Minguel Cruz, then a 17 year old anti-Castro Cuban who was arrested with Oswald
and never questioned properly, and is still alive today. How come nobody wants
to know about this Cruz?
Litwin begins his coverage of the investigation of
New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison early in the book and later devotes
an entire chapter (titled Jim Garrison’s Excellent Homosexual Adventure) to the
“Jolly Green Giant.” Garrison’s theories did indeed revolve around homosexuals
at first, but as Litwin points out, eventually mushroomed to include
“Minutemen, CIA agents, oil millionaires, Dallas policemen, munitions exporters,
“the Dallas Establishment,” reactionaries, White Russians and certain elements
of the invisible Nazi substructure.”
BK:
This exposes not the conspiracy theorists’ suspecting Minutemen, CIA agents,
oil millionaires, Dallas policeman and munitions exporters, - wait a minute –
where did the “munitions exporters” come in? – I get the White Russians and
certain elements of the invisible Nazi substructure, but here does the
“munitions exporters” come from?
Reading
Litwin’s concise chronology of Garrison’s farce reminds one of the myriad
absurd aspects of his investigation. These would be laughable except for the
fact that the investigation destroyed the life of an innocent man-New Orleans
businessman Clay Shaw. Garrison charged Shaw with conspiring to assassinate
JFK, but Shaw was properly exonerated.
BK:
Wait a minute, Shaw was not responsible for what happened at Dealey Plaza, but
neither was Lee Harvey Oswald. If Oswald was set up as the false assassin – the
Fall Guy and Patsy in the murder of the president, so was Shaw, an innocent
victim, falsely accused. But like Oswald, Shaw was part of the covert
intelligence network that was responsible for the assassination.
The New York Times called Garrison’s
prosecution of Shaw “One of the most disgraceful chapters in the history of
modern jurisprudence.” Garrison was ultimately barred from further legal action
against Shaw by a court injunction.
BK:
So Shaw wasn’t responsible for the assassination, only for associating with the
accused assassin, - “the most disgraceful chapters in the history of modern
jurisprudence,” is not the prosecution of Clay Shaw but the failure of the law enforcement
establishment to pursue and prosecute the actual killers of the President.
Litwin’s uses his personal journey from conspiracist
to lone assassin advocate to drive his narrative and begins in this regard with
the 1975 airing of the Zapruder film on Geraldo Rivera’s Good Night America.
Rivera appeared with Robert Groden, Dick Gregory and Ralph Schoenman. Litwin,
and millions of TV viewers, were impressed by the fact that the film showed JFK
moving “back and to the left” which seemed to indicate a shot from the grassy
knoll. But as Litwin shows, a close analysis of the evidence proves a shot from
behind.
BK:
It doesn’t matter whether the fatal head shot came from in front – as the film
indicates, or behind, where the Sixth Floor Sniper was located, the fatal head
shot came from not the Sixth Floor but from a First Class Sniper – trained in
his profession – “One shot, one kill,” and he was in front or behind the target
– which was either going towards him or away from him, but not moving from
right to left as the Sixth Floor Sniper saw it. Whether the fatal head shot
originated from in front or behind doesn’t matter, as it didn’t originate from
the Sixth Floor of the TSBD, where the Third Class Sniper’s job was only to
pump evidence into the target car and leave the rifle and shells to implicate
the Patsy. He was a diversion, not the real assassin, a First Class Sniper who
shot JFK in the head as he rode by in an open car, exactly the Pathfinder plan
to kill Castro.
Litwin goes on to refute claims by Gregory and
Schoenman while outlining the extreme leftist views of both men. Litwin also
provides some interesting background on Schoenman, who was Bertrand Russell’s
personal secretary before they had a falling out.
BK:
I know Schomeman too. He made a presentation at the NYU Law School conference
that implicated Minguel Cruz in the assassination and a Puerto Rican union
mobster – sparking me to make one of my
first Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, in which I obtained documents
that indicated Cruz was only 17 years old when he was arrested in New Orleans,
and was not the guy with the same name who was a Puerto Rican union mobster.
When I presented my documents to Schomeman, he acknowledged I was correct and
he was wrong. But he was right on a number of other points. And since then I
have become good friends and associate with Schomeman’s ex-wife Joan Mellen,
who I have called the “Unsinkable Molly Brown” of JFK research.
Speaking of Schoenman, he turns up again in Litwin’s
chapter on Oliver Stone and JFK the movie. It seems that Schoenman
wrote Garrison in 1971 suggesting that “… we take the offensive. Let’s get out
a book, hard and fast, which nails the case against Shaw that we couldn’t get
into the courts … let’s put THEM on the defensive by blowing the Shaw case sky
high with a muck-raking book that closes in on the company [CIA] even closer.”
The eventual result of this strategy was Garrison’s
book On the Trail of the Assassins, which was the basis for Stone’s film.
Litwin argues that in Stone’s upside-down world, Garrison became the hero and
Shaw the villain rather than a victim of an unjust prosecution. He goes on to
document elements of the film that are complete fantasy, but which millions of
movie fans accepted as fact. Litwin also discusses the homophobic aspects of
the film and provides historical context for his analysis.
BK:
It wasn’t the “homophobic aspects” of the film, but Shaw’s CIA connections that
make it worth looking into. So he was a gay guy – who was also a spy, as were
Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean and other spies. It isn’t their sexual perversions
that come into play here, it’s their clandestine associations with the CIA and
intelligence connections that matter. And If it wasn’t for Garrison and Stone,
we wouldn’t have the “JFK” movie or the JFK Act of 1992 that ordered the
government to assemble all of the official records on the assassination of JFK
and open them to the public through the JFK Collection at the National Archives
and Records Administration (NARA) by 2017, something that had yet to
happen.
Returning to Litwin’s personal narrative, following
a period of relative inactivity he resumed his JFK research upon seeing Stone’s
film in 1991. He subscribed to journals and had his own articles published and
even lectured on the subject himself. Two powerful influences for Litwin during
this period were the HSCA volumes, which largely agreed with the WC findings,
BK:
Wait a minute! The HSCA volumes do not largely agree with the WC findings, as
they provide a multitude of leads that we are still pursuing today – especially
the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Castro, and the HSCA conclusion that there was very
likely a conspiracy in the assassination, concluding that the Justice
Department should continue their investigation, something they didn’t bother to
do. Both the first – Richard Sprague, and second Chief Counsel – G. Robert
Blakely of the HSCA concluded there was a conspiracy, for different reasons. So
the idea that the HSCA “largely agreed with the WC findings” is patently false,
and Parnell should stand corrected.
and the writings of noted researcher Paul Hoch.
BK:
Paul Hoch is one of the most respected JFK assassination researchers and for
Litwin to say he inspired him to write this Bull Shit make a mockery of Hoch
and his decades of devoted and respected work.
HSCA findings that impressed Litwin included the
authentication of the autopsy photos and x-rays,
BK:
Then how come the photographers of the autopsy photos refused to confirm that
they took them, and said they even used a different type of film? Now that’s
impressive.
the forensic pathology panel, the photographic
panel, the study of “earwitnesses”,
BK:
Yes, the majority of “earwitnesses” said the second and third shots were right
on top of each other, so close that they could not have been fired by the same
gun. Bam, bam, thank you mam.
the handwriting and fingerprint analysis,
BK:
Yes, let’s look closely at the handwriting and fingerprint analysis on the Dear
Mr. Hunt letter, the prints on the boxes in the sniper’s nest, and the rifle.
Let’s look more closely at the handwriting and fingerprint analysis, as it
proves Oswald is innocent.
BK:
Yes, the MC firing tests prove that weapon could not have inflicted all of the
damage done, and as the accused assassin’s brother and US Marine marksman said,
“If Lee did not practice with that rifle in the days and weeks before the
assassination, he did not fire the shots that killed the President and wounded
Governor Connally.” And since the WC says the accused assassin did not practice
with that rifle at all, then he didn’t do it.
Hoch, who Litwin describes as “not your
run-of-the-mill conspiracy freak,” wrote in his newsletter “My model is that there
were many coverups, probably many independent ones … One possibility - ironically
- is that Oswald did it alone but so many people had things to cover up
[unrelated to any assassination plot] that the reaction of the government made
it look like the assassination resulted from a conspiracy.”
BK:
The idea that there was a cover-up but not a conspiracy is one that can be
shown to be false because the cover-up not only protected those actually
responsible for the assassination, but how it was accomplished, still accepting
the lone assassin myth that has been proven false.
Litwin devotes a chapter to the JFK documentaries
from producer Brian McKenna that appeared over the years on the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation’s acclaimed series The Fifth Estate. Litwin
carefully documents the abuses of McKenna, which date back to 1977. McKenna
revealed his bias toward conspiracy theories during his acceptance speech upon
receiving the JFK Lancer Pioneer award in Dallas. McKenna said that a
“sophisticated coup plotted by the US military and CIA with support from
Hoover’s FBI and Kennedy’s bodyguards” was to blame for the killing. McKenna
also fingered the Mafia, HL Hunt and LBJ as conspirators, all perennial
conspiracy favorites.
BK:
I too have been a recipient of a JFK Lancer – Mary Farrell Pioneer Award (2013)
and agree with McKenna’s description that the assassination was result of a
“sophisticated coup plotted by the US military and CIA with support from
Hoover’s FBI and Kennedy’s bodyguards,” and the Mafia (via John Rosselli), H.L
Hunt and oil interests, and of course LBJ was the Que Bono benefactor who
initiated the cover-up. They are perennial conspiracy favorites because of
their own actions, not the imaginations of silly conspiracy theorists.
A persistent rallying cry of the conspiracy
theorists has been to “release the documents.” As of 2018, approximately 99
percent of the documents have been released, depending on whose tally you use.
Litwin shows that withholding documents is something routinely done by governments
worldwide although it often makes little sense. He provides several examples of
documents that theorists were suspicious of, but ultimately proved to be
innocuous.
BK:
Yes, many, in fact most of the records released under the JFK Act of 1992 are innocuous,
but there are a number of key records that are “Smoking Documents” that lead us
to the truth, including the Higgins Memo, the HSCA interview with Warren
Commission attorney Sam Stern, and all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff records
that refer to CIA Cuban covert intelligence operations. They confirm the
conspiracy.
In the same chapter, Litwin presents evidence that
the conspiracy theorists may have been influenced by a disinformation campaign
run by the Soviet Union designed to promote the “CIA did it” angle. Litwin also
shows that conspiracy guru Mark Lane received at least $2000 from the KGB.
BK:
OK, so Lane got two grand from the Ruskies. Now compare that to the six figures
a year that Max Holland gets from the CIA to promote their disinformation. And
while speaking of official disinformation about the assassination, you can’t
ignore the continuing black propaganda disinformation campaign to blame the
murder of JFK on Castro. The people responsible for this disinformation are
very close to the actual perpetrators.
Fred Litwin has written an entertaining and
informative book that explains why he changed his mind about a JFK conspiracy.
The book does not discuss every issue of interest to JFK assassination students
(impossible since there are hundreds) over the course of its modest 272 pages.
Nor will it change many minds among the current generation of theorists, who
are motivated by a naïve view that the world, had Kennedy lived, would have
been very different.
Under this belief, the Vietnam War, Watergate and
any number of other national maladies would have been avoided by the
continuation of the Camelot regime, a view that Litwin argues credibly against.
BK:
Ok, JFK would not have changed the world, but he would have made a difference,
- not sending hundreds of thousands of troops to their death in Vietnam, and
ending the Cold War decades before the fall of the Berlin Wall. So Nitwit Litwin
is wrong on that count too.
These theorists simply choose to ignore the
voluminous evidence developed by the Warren Commission and enhanced by the
HSCA, or they say it is falsified, planted or otherwise misinterpreted.
BK;
No it’s not falsified, planted or otherwise misinterpreted, except by those who
want it all to remain a mystery, but is quite clear and easily explained – JFK
was the victim of a covert intelligence operation perpetuated by a domestic
anti-communist intelligence network that continues to operate today. No
misinterpretation there.
These same individuals scour the millions of
available documents for bits of information that when viewed through the lens
of their own bias results in confirmation of whatever pet theory they support.
BK:
There’s no theory behind the Higgins Memo, what Sam Stern said to the HSCA, or
what we now know about the Valkyie plot to kill Castro and the Pathfinder plan
to kill Castro – they confirm the pet theory that one of the CIA-Mafia plots to
kill Castro was redirected to JFK in Dallas. And that’s not pet theory of some
silly conspiracy theorist but the conclusion reached by former FBI Agent Bill
Turner, Mafia don John Rosselli, military investigator Gene Wheaton, USMC
Captain Carl Jenkins and the anti-Castro Cubans and US Army Reserve officers
who actually killed JFK or knew how it was accomplished.
Most of these people will not read Litwin’s book,
but they will criticize it. However, those open minded enough to give it a
chance will be entertained and, in the process, learn something from a guy who
has been there. For more information see: Conspiracy Freak.com
BK:
Ok, I’ll eventually get around to reading Litwin’s book, and will criticize it
with a fair analysis, but I don’t believe Litwin is a “guy who has been there.”
He hasn’t been anywhere.
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