COPA vs. CARP

When JFK met spy fiction writer Ian Fleming at a Washington dinner party, he asked Fleming what James Bond would do with Fidel Castro, and Fleming responded, "Ridicule," - make fun of him and destroy his persona and public appeal. Assassinate his character with satire and ridicule.

That's what Boston Globe columnist tried to do to JFK assassination researchers by making fun of them, and that's what Joel Achenbach tried to do to COPA - the Coalitions on Political Assassinations, when he wrote this attempt at satire in 2001. 

Also included is COPA director John Judge's response. 


JFK II: What REALLY Happened

By Joel Achenbach
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 28, 2001; 12:53 PM

Here at the Conspiracy and Assassination Research Project (CARP), we've had some difficult times of late. The mainstream media showed absolutely no interest in our groundbreaking revelation that Lee Harvey Oswald was the youngest of identical triplets. Our so-called "three Oswalds" theory rocked the assassination community, but the major newspapers and TV networks ignored us as though we were a bunch of nuts.

So, too, did we get zero publicity for unearthing compelling evidence that the real target in Dallas in November 1963 was the driver of the limousine. Total news blackout on that one. And did anyone give us any pub when we demonstrated that at least one of the shots came from high overhead? Didn't our theory of the "stealth blimp" deserve SOME attention?

Even our non-controversial work -- such as our three-volume analysis of the Zapruder film's influence on the early work of Martin Scorcese -- was dismissed as (to quote Assassination Conspiracy Daily) "bizarre."

Why has CARP been shunned? Because we don't just challenge the Status Quo, we dynamite it and then ground the fragments into powder. No one wants to know the truth: That the tragedy in Dallas was a conspiracy involving the FBI, the CIA, the Mob, Lyndon Johnson, Ho Chi-Minh, anti-Castro Cubans, pro-Castro Cubans, the John Birch Society, the Audubon Society and the Friends of the National Zoo.

I'm not saying we've got the whole story figured out. That'll never happen. If that happened, I'd cry. There will always be an incremental new development to report, another blurry photograph to analyze, another bullet flight-path to triangulate. I have 32 overflowing filing cabinets and there's something under the pile of papers on my desk that smells.

Much of what you hear in this business is, I'll be the first to admit, truly outlandish. I think the UFO-invasion connection to the Kennedy assassination remains unconfirmed, if highly suggestive. The notion that the aliens were hoping to obtain Kennedy's DNA for use in a hybridization experiment strikes me as a bit of a leap.

In any case, this week the whole field of assassinology got a tremendous boost. You probably read about it: The grassy knoll theory has been proved.

D.B. Thomas, an assassination researcher, has re-analyzed the controversial dictabelt recording that captures the sound of gunfire in Dealey Plaza. He has concluded that there were four gunshots that day, and that one, the killshot, came from the grassy knoll. Read it. This refutes a previous analysis by the National Academy of Sciences, which itself refuted a previous analysis by the famous House Select Committee on Assassinations back in the late 1970s.

There are sounds on the dictabelt recording that could be gunshots. Thomas says there is a 96.3 percent chance that one of the sounds is a gunshot from the grassy knoll -- and that this was the shot that killed Kennedy. Thomas's report states, "One of the sounds matches the echo pattern of a test shot fired from the Grassy Knoll. The shock wave precedence associated with this pattern is consistent with the muzzle velocity of a .30 calibre rifle." G. Robert Blakey, the general counsel for the House committee, said this week, "We thought there was a 95 percent chance it was a shot. He puts it at 96.3 percent. Either way, that's 'beyond a reasonable doubt.'"

I know what you're thinking: "How could someone possibly listen to an old tape recording full of ambient noises and say that there is precisely a 96.3 percent chance that one sound is a lethal gunshot from a specific place?" The answer, my friends, is "Science." There are scientific methods that we researchers employ. Indeed, I have a special bit of explosive information I would like to impart at this time:

If you listen closely, you can tell the shooter was LEFT-HANDED.

The confidence level of this conclusion is, I should note, 93.25 percent.

There is also a 71.9887 percent chance that the shooter was wearing a hat.

I'll admit that I'm a bit jealous that Mr. Thomas got so much publicity with this latest scoop. Times have been so lean here at CARP that we've had to move our headquarters four times in the last six months, to ever more humble surroundings. I'm incredibly grateful to Vern and Bob, the owners of Vern & Bob's Body Shop in Arlington, for allowing me to use the shed back by the scrap heap. It's a modest location, but a lovely fringe benefit is that, whenever I get stressed out, I can purge my anxiety by pounding on metal with a sledgehammer.

Whatever you do, I urge you to be on guard against disinformation. Ask yourself: How solid is this evidence? Are there other explanations? What is this person's agenda? I have put my own credibility under scrutiny and can tell you that I am not entirely persuaded that I can trust my own judgment.

These thoughts that I have -- are they mine, or are they somehow planted in my brain?

Who do I really work for?????

(Rough Draft appears every so often at washingtonpost.com and is a little knoll, a mound, a knob of rationality in a limitless plain of illogic. Please join Joel today at 2 p.m., right HERE, for a Live Online discussion.)

© 2001 The Washington Post Company

JOHN JUDGE RESPONDS 

Friends,
What follows is my reply to the author of the Post piece, sent to his
email, and the article that appeared making fun of all of us and the new
revelations on the dictabelt.

John Judge

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6018-2001Mar28.html

Joel,

I don't know you, but I do head up COPA, which is the national association of researchers who actually work on political murders, the Coalition on Political Assassinations. 

We are a network of ballistics and forensic experts (including Dr. Cyril Wecht, former president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences), medical doctors and academics, independent researchers and interested citizens who have studied the major political assassinations of the 1960s. We don't much resemble
CARP, except through the distorted lens of the media which likes to pretend that all conspiracies are created equal (and equally incredible). Your parody seems to be a parody of that straw man the media itself created, but ends up discrediting the serious and scientific work that has been done in these murder cases. I know, you were only joking.

I don't believe in any Unidentified Flying Objects, especially not the single bullet that Arlen Spector claims exists. I don't think aliens killed JFK, unless you count certain German nationals imported here at the end of WWII. And the only kind of conspiracy I believe in is the one that can be proven in a court of law, an illegal act planned and taken in concert by more than one person. I was glad to see the Post article conclude that even Oswald could not be in two places at once, no matter how ambivalent he might have been about being an assassin that day.

That's a step up from the New York Times, which actually tried to suggest that a second gunman on the Grassy Knoll did not prove a conspiracy, because it could have been two lone nuts arriving at the
same time and location by coincidence. I am not a coincidence theorist, either.

There is such a thing as a fact of conspiracy, legally, scientifically and historically. They happen, ask any good lawyer. But the media can't seem to separate conspiracy and theory into two words.

The dictabelt tape is, in my view, the flimsiest piece of evidence in the case, and Lardner tries to suggest that the proof of the case comes down the to percentage of probability that a sound can be identified on
the tape as a gunshot and located in relation to the events. There is lots of unequivocal evidence of a gunshot from the Grassy Knoll that day, visual, audible and causal. Eye and earwitness accounts of that location far outnumber any other reputed location. Crowds and police converged there first to look for the shooter. Railroad workers saw smoke rise from that location. The physical damage to the limousine could only have been done by a shot from the front. The physical reaction of President Kennedy and his actual wounds as described by aides and doctors in Texas that day can only be explained by such a shot. Several films document that reaction, back and to the left at over 100mph. The location of the brain fragments recovered from the trunk and the street also show a shot must have hit from the front of the limousine. Officer Hargis, to the left rear, was hit so hard with bone fragment that he got off his motorcycle and asked if he had been hit,
seeing blood all over his jacket. The timing of the reactions visible to the various wounds in JFK and Governor Connally requires a second gun to be firing at them. The single bullet THEORY falls apart upon simple examination.

Of course, taking real evidence into account of an actual event makes me a "conspiracy theorist" since the government officially pronounced the killer as a lone nut in an upper window. The same best evidence
exonerates Oswald, who was not at the window, did not own the rifle, and did not fire a weapon that day. But even if you think him a guilty party, he cannot do it all by himself, which means conspiracy.

I know as well as anyone that there are wild theories abounding, and not just in this area. I also know some of them are spread by the government itself. The study by Thompson, which is worth the reading that Lardner fails to give it in his article, does support the work of two separate scientific teams that listened to the dictabelt tape for the HSCA, which makes it three to one against the NSA panel, who do not make a very\ vigorous defense of their position. But in the end, none of that debate matters. 

I was glad to see the article in the Post. I called to see why AP was not moving it, and they assured me they were editing it for distribution that day. It never appeared anywhere but the Post, save for a piece in
USA Today with an editorial to boot. To those not alive at the time, perhaps it seems ludicrous to try to solve these murders so many years after the fact. But history and justice have their claims. And it's not
that I can't laugh about it or even at myself and other researchers, believe me I have. There is just something ironically strange about your piece, which relies on mocking the very situation those who print you
have helped to create over these many years. I wish we could trade a serious item on the still emerging evidence in the JFK case for every snide reference to conspiracy theories or Oliver Stone that has appeared.

Our organization led the way for the creation and implementation of the JFK Assassination Records Act, which secured public release of over 6 million pages to date, with more to come. It was the largest release of
classified documents to date, just surrounding the JFK assassination and it's historical context. The independent board that reviewed the files for release noted in their final report that several key agencies had

not complied with the act. The papers relating to Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy are still not fully released. And no one has read the whole JFK release, but new interpretations are coming out in books
(Oswald and the CIA by John Newman for example) and films (13 Days was based on the new files about the crisis). And there is new evidence supporting Garrison's investigation and the critics there as well.

If you have time and want a different perspective, maybe you could contact me and talk about what is really known in these cases. After all, humor is nothing but a shift of paradigm. And I have a sense of
humor, I have to. I hope that the media will someday open to serious consideration and coverage of new evidence as it emerges, instead of damage control for the official theorists. Of course, it won't be without repercussions. Tom Wicker got it right when he said that if you believe Oliver Stone's version, you had to change your whole perspective on America and the government. But, then, what is a brain for?

In any case COPA is not CARP, and there was a conspiracy on November 22, 1963 to kill President Kennedy. We laugh so as not to cry.

John Judge
Coalition on Political Assassinations
Washington, DC

Gary Mack of the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas responded negatively to John Judge’s complaint to Joel Achenbach, the author of the Post satire mocking COPA.

JUDGE RESPONSE TO GARY MACK 

Gary,

Actually, Joel wrote back a positive and civil response and sent his
phone number for me to call. You are the only researcher who responded
negatively to my letter. As hostile as you seem to the community, I'm
glad you still think there was a conspiracy, I guess. Lardner has
consistent done the dirty work spin for the CIA at the Post, in my view.
I don't claim reporters have any such biases if they are honest, but the
media as a whole does, and that cannot be blamed on "nutty theorists".

To say that Cyril Wecht resembles the CARP profile based on his
statements regarding the alien autopsy stretches credulity if you know
him or his background. I asked him about the appearance too, and he told
me they edited his comments to make it seem he believed it was a real
alien instead of real autopsy of something else, like a radiation
victim. I won't try to defend Jim Marrs, who is a populist more than he
is a researcher. As to Oswald in two places, read the Post version
again, the exact quote is in there, maybe it didn't make the truncated
DMN story. And no matter how many are wrongly named as assassins, an
exercise I have not participated in, you can't seriously think a
two-lone-nut thesis is more credible. Maybe the two loners shared the
single bullet too, catching and refiring it?

As to the spin of the Lardner piece, I sought reactions from
non-researchers and reported their impressions. I still contend that by
focusing solely on the acoustic tape evidence, and dismissing the other
physical and visual evidence, both the HSCA and Larnder put the focus of
proof in the wrong place. If this dicatbelt analysis, which is beyond
most of the Post readership, is the only place we can hang our hat, we
had better go home. Lardner may believe it, but he made a point to
mention and quote the NAS scientists who had refuted it (a point which
did not miss the sarcasm of Auchenbach). When experts disagree, we throw
up our hands. You may say this is journalistic "objectivity" by Lardner,
but you know damn well that if analysis shows no conspiracy, they don't
come running after us to counter it in print, they just ballyhoo it.

I find it very strange that you dispute Holland and Bowers who saw smoke
and a flash by talking about cigarette butts and saying it only proves
someone was there earlier in the morning. Did the smoke from their
cigarettes linger until noon and rise? It is also significant to know
that this was a locked Dallas police parking lot at the time. And there
is other evidence, including film, of phony "Secret Service" agents in
this area, and footage of men in trench coats directing the crowd away
from the lot after the shooting. Something went on up there and it was
noticed by more than an open microphone on a police motorcycle. And I
don't even think the fatal shot came from the Knoll, but I do think
shots were fired from there.

The eye/earwitnesses who pointed to shots from the Knoll were the
majority of those who testified to the Commission, or gave affadavits.
See the lists in Rush to Judgment from years ago. There was certainly
disagreement between Parkland and Bethesda about the wounds, but not at
Parkland itself. Humes did so much to control and destroy original
findings there that we cannot know what the first impressions were. I
still contend that the visible/physical evidence of JFK's reaction and
Hargis's response, and the location of the brain and bone fragments
found afterwards can ONLY be explained by a frontal shot. I once showed
Zapruder's film to a room full of Vietnam combat veterans who had seen
people killed with shots to the head and body. I asked them which
direction the fatal shot came from, and to a person they said "the
front". Neither Jackie, "jet-effect", car brakes, nor muscular spasms
can send you slamming back at that speed. Your attitude is exactly the
one I am saying is fed by Lardner in the Post piece, that outside of
this noise analysis there is no hard evidence of a shot from the front.
That's ridiculous.

In fact, the dictabelt anaysis falls more into the area of what you call
"an indication" to me than the other evidence I have seen over the
years. If the work of all the researchers who have looked at the
forensic and ballistic evidence in this case "proves nothing" to you, I
am hard put to see how Lardner convinces you.

I am glad to hear that AP did run it. I searched the site in the
afternoon and Dan Alcorn told me he could find nothing there later, so I
concluded they had not. If they did, then I will take some of the
credit, because the woman I spoke to thanked me for pointing them to the
piece and said they were only then editing it. It's news relevance
should have been obvious to them. And I wonder how many papers outside
the DMN picked it up?

As to taking a warning, I have taken many. I am sure that Joel has never
met a serious, credible researcher nor one of the sort he parodies in
CARP, which is clearly based not on those you seem to despise but on the
false media image of a "conspiracy theorist" that has been fostered
without a breather since Oliver Stone's film came out and threatened
their consensus again. 81% still believe there was a conspiracy in the
case, despite clear efforts by the corporate owned media to push them
the other way.

You remind me of the Black sargeant in the film Soldier, who ends up
hating other Black soldiers who act as buffoons more than he does the
white racists who foster and encourage them because they meet
stereotypes that whites created. While some spin wild theories, the
presentations at COPA went through peer review and reflected the best of
the new evidence. Clearly a cut above the standardless tripe presented
at the Lancer gatherings, and without the disinformation of the likes of
Mailer and Ed Butler that marred the JFK/ASK meetings. The press was not
turned off by the nature of what we presented annually, they just
ignored us Gary, and intentionally so. Presenting the false claims is
much more sensational and easy to refute. So, stop blaming the serious
researchers who keep looking for the truth, and put the blame on the
system that killed JFK and the press that is subservient to its demands
and ownership.

I will send your letter and my reply to those who got the original piece
from me. I can only shake my head at it. And I did NOT alienate Joel, he
wrote and asked me to talk to him further.

John Judge

Summary of ARRB Votes on Records

Can anyone explain what this means? They tell you how many times they voted on records but not what the result of the votes were? Did they classify every record that's listed here, or did they vote to release some of them? - BK 

APPENDIX F – FINAL REPORT ARRB

SUMMARY OF REVIEW BOARD VOTES ON RECORDS

Documents Voted on by the Board - 

By Agency

Army                            77

Army Intelligence     2, 854

Carter Library                   1

Church Committee        185

CIA                           14,079

Department of State         20

DIA                                    5

DOJ                                  63

DOJ Civil Division            1

Eisenhower Library           2

FBI                           10, 013

Ford Library                   133

HSCA                          1,421

JCS                                   76

Johnson Library                31

Kennedy Library               31

NARA                                 1

NSA                                246

NSC                                  48

Office of Sec Defense        3

PFIAB                              18

Pike Committee                12

Secret Service                   30

Warren Commission         70

Total Documents       29, 420

Note from the Chairman of COPA ExCom

A Note from the Chairman of COPA ExCom

Dear fellow citizens,

50 years have passed since the Warren Commission declared that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin in the murder of President John F. Kennedy. During those decades, independent researches, authors, medical and ballistic experts continued to expose the hard evidence that proves the official government conclusion is invalid.

We now know that:

-          No lone gunman could have killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally.

-          The official investigations were flawed and important leads never properly pursued.

-          Significant unanswered questions remain in other political assassinations, such as those of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

-          The truth remains hidden as long as the government records on these assassinations remain sealed from the public.

Some people may feel that there is no purpose in working to solve murders that date back fifty years, but we know there is no time limit on the truth and no statute of limitations in a murder case. Until we face the truth about the assassinations of our political leaders, we cannot hope to move toward a viable democracy in this country, nor prevent other such assassinations from happening. No other event has frozen more people in time, or changed the shape of the future in the same way as the assassination of President Kennedy, and we can wait no longer for a solution,  - we must act now.

The Coalition on Political Assassinations (COPA) was formed following a “Call to Action” meeting in Dallas, Texas over twenty years ago. Our members are individuals who have worked for many years to uncover the truth. We are based in Washington D.C., near Congress and the Courts, the National Archives and the national and international press and we are working on behalf of everyone who questions the official and false official verdicts in these murders.

Many assassination documents and records have been kept secret from the American public, but due to the efforts of our members, many records are now being released under the JFK Assassination Records Act of 1992. These files are providing important new information about the assassination, and we still have a chance to break the case open if we can accelerate the release of the remaining sealed records and obtain the sworn, public testimony of new witnesses.

Our immediate goals are clear. We intend to:

- Work closely with the NARA and get Congress to fulfill their oversight mandate by holding public hearings and ensure the full disclosure of the remaining sealed records;

- Analyze the new records and educate the American people about who murdered their leaders, who covered up the conspiracies to kill them, and why;

- Correct the media spin that says there is nothing new in these records- Initiate a similar process to release the records in other assassinations, especially the HSCA MLK files that remain sealed and weren’t covered by the JFK Act;  Settle the outstanding questions, find the historic truth and seek justice.

We want to live in a country where these sort of murders will not go unpunished, and where the democratic processes cannot be frustrated by individuals, agencies or organizations who oppose the popular will and violate the Constitution.

COPA has served as a Congressional and media watchdog, and is working to release all the records and solve the mysteries surrounding these murders. To meet our goals, time is of the essence and we need your help.

We are co-sponsoring a national conference and symposium in Washington D.C. in September on the 50^th anniversary of the release of the Warren Report, that will include presentations of selected research papers on various aspects of the assassination of President Kennedy, and we expect to have national and international media coverage of this unique event.

Recent polls show that 85% of the American people agree with us about the evidence of conspiracy in this case and the need to release all of the remaining withheld records. They know they have never been told the full story by the official investigations. We need your help to reach them and to let them know that something can and must be done. Help us reveal the truth and tell the American public that there is something new in these files and something can be done about it.

This is your organization. Working together we can make a difference now.  There is an organization that supports the latest research, uses grassroots outreach and social media, is lobbying Congress for oversight hearings, using the courts to free secret files and is forcing the rule of law in political assassinations.

We need to address these unresolved political assassinations today in order to prevent political assassinations from happening in the future.

We look forward to hearing from you, 

Cyril H. Wecht, M.D., J.D.

Chairman, Executive Committee COPA

COPA v DOD 2001

Coalition on Political Assassinations

Contacts: John Judge
Daniel S. Alcorn, Atty.

For Immediate Release: May 14, 2001

Citizen's Group Sues Pentagon for Release of Surveillance Files on the
Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

(Washington, DC) The Coalition on Political Assassinations [COPA] will
present oral arguments in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C.
Circuit in their Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] suit demanding
release of all military intelligence files relating to civil rights
leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the time of his assassination in
1968.

The original FOIA request for records, in 1998, specified a full range
of Army Intelligence units that were reportedly involved in surveillance
of Dr. King up to and including the day of his assassination. Early
responses from the Department of Defense FOIA office indicated that
there was not a single file in their records regarding the controversial
civil rights and anti-war activist.

COPA persisted in its efforts to retrieve records that reportedly
existed in military intelligence files. Veterans of Army Intelligence
were reported to have seen photographic surveillance records of the
events of the assassination on April 4, 1968. COPA pursued the matter in
the courts, and the Pentagon conceded that one file had been sent to the
National Archives for review, as part of a large collection of civil
rights era records that remain classified. An expedited declassification
led to release of an "after-action summary" of the 111th and 112th
Military Intelligence Groups activities in the days surrounding the
murder of Dr. King, and confirmed that these units were in Memphis and
had him under close surveillance as part of Operation Lantern Spike. The
Pentagon also claimed that only records that had "historical
significance" would have been preserved and sent on to the National
Archives, and that others had been routinely destroyed.

COPA will appeal a lower court decision that held in favor of the
Pentagon in the case, ruling that they had exhausted the possible
searches and complied with the FOIA. "If the "after-action summary" held
enough historical significance to preserve it, would not the original
documents it was based on hold even more?" asks Daniel S. Alcorn, the
attorney representing COPA in the suit. In addition, COPA has obtained
additional records about the unit activities that were released to a
journalist in Memphis by Army Intelligence, who reported initial denials
by unit members that they were spying on King in Memphis. The Pentagon
never released these files to COPA. Also, other records were reportedly
provided by Army Intelligence to the Justice Department investigators
who recently studied allegations of a conspiracy and FBI cover-up in the
King case.

COPA believes that the Pentagon has not been forthcoming in its search
or full release of all existing documents that may shed light on its
role in the surveillance of Dr. King at the time of his death. COPA has
also demanded full release of all government files relating to earlier
investigations of the murder, including some 600,000 pages held by
Congress from the House Select Committee on Assassinations.

COPA v. Department of Defense will have oral arguments presented in the
U. S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit, at 9:30 a.m. on
Tuesday, May 15 at the Federal Courthouse, 3rd & Constitution Ave, NW,
5th Floor.

COPA is a national organization of forensic, ballistic and medical
experts, academics and authors, researchers and concerned citizens
working for release all official records relating to the still unsolved
political assassinations of the last four decades. COPA was
instrumental in the passage and implementation of the JFK Assassination
Records Act, which released over 6 million pages of classified documents
so far, the largest single release of records in American history. More
remain to be released.

A Brief History of COPA Updated

A BRIEF HISTORY OF COPA  - Updated

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2008/01/brief-history-of-copa.html

There at the conception, I can accurately describe the origins and early history of COPA – the Coalition on Political Assassination.

Having a profound interest in the assassination of President Kennedy, and disenchanted with the sealing of the records of the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), I co-founded the Committee for an Open Archives (COA) with my old college mate John Judge.

We had attended the University of Dayton, Ohio together, and after focusing my History and Latin American Studies research on Cuba and the Bay of Pigs, I began to notice the common attributes and same players involved in the assassination of President Kennedy and Watergate. With John Judge and many others, we had lobbied Congress to reinvestigate the assassination, but were annoyed when the HSCA sealed their records away for 50 years in 1978.

There were many conferences on the assassination over the years and decades, and a number of significant organizations that led to the HSCA investigation, including one founded by Mark Lane and another Assassination Information Bureau out of Boston, which opened a DC office for awhile.

But with the impending release of Oliver Stone’s movie "JFK" and a new flurry of books on the subject, the most popular conferences were held in Dallas, the most significant organized by Gary Shaw at the Omni Hotel. Shaw may have had a hand in the establishment of the Assassination Information Center (AIC), which ran out of storefront mall in the West End district behind the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD).

After Shaw’s original conference, a professional conference company from Texas organized and presented two, may three conferences under the title ASK. During the second conference, at which there were some conflicts between the organizers and researchers and presenters, it was then suggested that instead of paying a commercial, for-profit firm to attend conferences, so they can make money off of us, we considered forming our own researcher-oriented organization and hold our own conferences.

On the last day of the three day ASK conference, those who expressed obvious dissatisfaction with the way the ASK conferences were run were invited to a special lunch meeting at the West End Pub. About a dozen or so people attended, and put some tables together so business could be discussed while we had lunch.

John Newman, Bill Turner, John Craig, myself and others discussed the vision of what a new organization of assassination researchers would be like and what it could accomplish. After much discussion, John Newman gave an inspiring speech and endorsement, emphasizing that with the passage of the JFK Act of 1992 and the establishment of the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), such an organization would necessarily be based in Washington D.C., where the expected Congressional hearings would be held, the National Archives (NARA) were located, and where all the future action would be. "We need researchers with boots on the ground in Washington," is the way Newman put it.

That’s about all that was decided at the first meeting in Dallas, but word quickly spread through the ASK participants and lists of names and contact numbers were passed around and collected.

The first meetings in Washington D.C. were held over the course of a two-day, Saturday-Sunday weekend at the Quaker Meeting House on Capitol Hill, as arranged by John Judge. This group of about two dozen, invited individuals, sat facing each other around tables arranged in a square.

Dr. Cyril Wecht chaired the first meetings, asking everyone to take turns introducing themselves, their name, where they were from and interest in the organization and why it should be formed.

This group, primarily professionals – lawyers, doctors, academics, with research into political assassinations being the primary bond between them, laid the groundwork for the formation of the organization.

From New Jersey I drove to DC with Bob Danello, a Cherry Hill, N.J. police lieutenant who had previously joined the Committee for an Open Archive (COA) and had a keen interest in the assassination of JFK, the Cuban angles in particular. He was a big COPA supporter and silent benefactor.

At the table I sat next to Professor Peter Dale Scott, who I met for the first time. Also present were others who I would come to know well over the next decade or so – Jim Lesar of the Assassinations Archives Research Center (AARC), FOIA attorney Dan Alcorn, Bill Davis, of the Christic Institute and John Newman, among others.

The first meeting, on Saturday, included two guys from Philadelphia, one of whom was invited and the other a hanger on, who began to disrupt the meeting by agitating other participants, espousing weird ideas, expressing opinions on every topic and monopolizing the discussion. John Judge was the hatchet man who made sure those who disrupted the first session were not at the second, and things ran a lot more smoothly the second day.

I went to lunch on the first day of the meetings with Bill Davis, who I knew was a Catholic Jesuit priest with the Christic Institute, a radical, pro-active organization that had Dan Sheehan file a RICO suit against those involved in the Iran-Contra scandal.

Most of the participants on both days walked around the corner from the Quaker Meeting House to a row of bars and restaurants, and settled on The Hawk & the Dove, where we took up most of the tables in a back room, continuing the discussions from the meeting.

As the least known and most quiet participant, my most notable contribution was in the last session on the second day, when someone finally asked if there any other items that need to be considered and I said that we still had to come up with a name for the organization.

Sitting next to Scott, I had scribbled a series of acronymns, trying to find one that made sense and was easy to say. At first "political assassination" was all I had to work with but after awhile it came down to Committee on Political Assassination or Coalition on Political Assassination – COPA. Which I passed to Scott to have him make the suggestion, which was accepted without debate.

A few months later another major, two day, series of weekend meetings were held at a hotel in DC’s Chinatown, where further details of COPA were ironed out. There were probably close to a hundred people at this series of meetings, which included a number of important individuals who were not at previous meetings, like Jim DiEugenio of Citizens for Truth in the Kennedy Assassination (CTKA), a California based group of researchers, Gary Aguilar and Tink Thompson, among others.

At one of these meetings it was decided to make COPA a coalition of the three existing organizations – Lesar’s Assassination Archives and Research Center (AARC), the Committee for an Open Archives (COA) and Jim DiEugenio’s CTKA, with the idea that other non-profits organizations with similar goals and ideals would be included later.

The first Governing Board consisted of Gary Aguilar, MD, Daniel S. Alcorn, Esq., Walter Brown, Ph.D., Jim DiEugenio, James Lesar, Esq., Phil Melanson, Ph.D., John Judge, Janette Rainwatear, Ph.D, Josiah Thompson, Ph.D., Professor Peter Dale Scott and Dr. Cyril Wecht.

The Advisory Board included Gaeton Fonzi, Patrick Fourmy, Robert Groden, Ed Lopez Soto, David Mantick, M.D., Ph.D., Sarah McClendon, Wallace Milan, John Newman, Ph.D., Michael Parenti, Ph.D., Dick Russell, Wayne Smith, Ph.D., Oliver Stone, Robert Tanenbaum, Esq., William Turner, Jack White.

When Peter Dale Scott later resigned from the Governing Board, he was replaced by Carol Hewett, Esq., who later went over to LANCER.

There was a lot of enthusiasm in the air with the belated establishment of the Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB) and of COPA’s new role of citizen overseers of the Review Board, with the first and second COPA national conferences in DC being the best and most significant.

Held at the Washington Sheraton and Omni Shoreham Hotels in consecutive years (1994-1995), the early COPA conferences had committees that reviewed abstracts that were submitted for presentation and a series of speakers that were carefully planned out.

The main speakers addressed hundreds of people in the main ballroom, while other presentations were made by researchers in side rooms, with Judge Tunheim, the head of the ARRB, addressing both DC conferences and recognizing COPA as the primary research organization that was monitoring the work of the Review Board.

Peter Dale Scott, John Newman, John Armstrong, Dick Russell, Bill Turner, Phil Melanson, Cyril Wecht and others who had written or were writing books on the assassination spoke in the main room, while Ed Haslem, Frank Debenedictis, Martin Shackelford, Hal Verb, Carol Hewett and myself gave additional talks or held panel discussions on special subjects in the side rooms.

It was at the second conference at the Omni when I was called over to a side table where Prof. George Michael Evica and Debra Conway were talking. They told me that they were thinking of starting another organization, "to educate the next generation of researchers," and I said that COPA needed more organizations to enlarge the umbrella of groups we worked with and increase our numbers and power. I didn’t realize that Debra would start a privately held for-profit organization JFK LANCER that would end up competing with COPA in holding annual conferences in Dallas for the next decade.

It was at the second COPA meeting when I met personally with Wayne Smith, who I asked about his experiences working in the Havana embassy when Castro came to power. Smith told me that he worked there with David Atlee Phillips, and participated in an amateur acting troupe with Phillips. He also knew Col. Kael, David Morales and other Havana characters who became entwined in the assassination mythology.

It was out of that COPA conference that Wayne Smith began to organize a series of meetings between COPA members and the Cubans, held in Rio and the Bahamas.

[For transcripts of some of these talks see: Cuban Archives ].

One of the most important COPA conferences was held in Dallas at the Hotel Lawrence and Union Station in November 1998, the 35th anniversary of the assassination. While the speakers on the Grassy Knoll were terrific, the news media chose to ignore us, though I did tape record the speeches and typed out a transcript that I later posted on the internet [See: The Event that Didn’t Happen].

COPA was in disarray however, and more and more COPA members were defecting to JFK Lancer, which was holding competing conferences in Dallas at the same time. So with the ARRB dissolving and Lancer taking members, the three COPA organizations were strapped for money. AARB, which has a huge archives that needed storage rent, and CTKA, which published PROBE magazine, so there was an effort by some members of the governing board to dissolve COPA.

While I understood the motivations behind the move, I urged those on the governing board – Dr. Gary Aguliar, Jim DiEugenio and Cyril Wecht, to try to keep COPA going because the situation may change in the future and we could never start from the beginning again. By this time John Judge, COPA secretary with no voting power, didn’t care if COPA kept flying or crashed, as he was discusted with all the work he was putting in and getting only grief – from those who didn’t have enough time to make their presentations, didn’t want to pay for the dinner, felt they were slighted for some reason or another, etc. he took all the heat.

Although I thought my arguments to keep COPA going may have made a difference, I later learned that when the move to dissolve COPA was made, COPA attorney Dan Alcorn said that an on-going civil suit with the Department of Defense had been filed under COPA’s name – COPA vs. DOD, for the US Army After Action Reports from Memphis during the assassination of Martin Luther King. They didn’t dissolve COPA at the time because of the suit, which turned out to be pretty significant.

Although the Appeals Court ruled against COPA, the Army ended up leaking the After Action Report (AAR) Summary to a Memphis newspaper, and the negative publicity from the COPA suit is acknowledged as the reason behind the release of the previously secret records. [See: Phil Melanson].

Phil Melanson, John Judge, Dan Alcorn, Dr. William Pepper and other COPA members took an active role in the Martin Luther King assassination civil trial, which developed evidence of a conspiracy and won in court in Memphis.

When Lesar and the AARC and DiEugenio and CTKA left COPA, the Coalition continued but instead of a coalition of organizations it became an association of individual members, and was supported primarily by them, with a few special patrons.

Led primarily by Dr. Cyril Wecht as President and John Judge its director, COPA has continued to hold annual regional conferences in Memphis in April and Los Angeles in June and Dallas in November, and the Hidden History Museum was officially incorporated as a non-profit in Washington D.C.

But with the death of COPA director John Judge shortly after the 50^th Anniversary of the assassination in November 2013, the future of COPA is once again up in jeopardy, and its original board and long time members must decide its fate.

“A man may die, nations may rise and full, but an idea lives on.” – JFK

Amos Euinis and the Bald Spot Sniper

Besides saying the Sixth Floor Sniper wore a white shirt (Oswald wore white), one of those who eyeballed the rifleman - Amos Euins said the gunman also had a very distinguishing feature - a bald spot on the top of his head. How many times does Euins mention the bald spot in his Warren Commission testimony?

Amos Euins

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=1133&relPageId=987

Mr. SPECTER. All right.
Now, when the third shot occurred, Amos, let me ask you again, where were you looking then?
Mr. EUINS. I was still down here, looking up at the building.
Mr. SPECTER. What did you see in the building?
Mr. EUINS. I seen a bald spot on this man's head, trying to look out the window. He had a bald spot on his head. I was looking at the bald spot. I could see his hand, you know the rifle laying across in his hand. And I could see his hand sticking out on the trigger part. And after he got through, he just pulled it back in the window.
Mr. SPECTER. Did you see him pull it back in the window?
Mr. EUINS. Yes, sir.Mr. SPECTER. Do you know what the name of that policeman was, who was in that position where you have marked C?

Mr. SPECTER. Now, what kind of a look, if any, did you have at the man who was there?
Mr. EUINS. All I got to see was the man with a spot in his head, because he had his head something like this.
Mr. SPECTER. Indicating his face down, looking down the rifle?
Mr. EUINS. Yes, sir: and I could see the spot on his head.
Mr. SPECTER. How would you describe that man for us?
Mr. EUINS. I wouldn't know how to describe him, because all I could see was the spot and his hand.

Mr. SPECTER. Could you tell whether he was a Negro gentleman or a white man?
Mr. EUINS. No, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. Couldn't even tell that? But you have described that he had a bald--
Mr. EUINS. Spot in his head. Yes, sir; I could see the bald spot in his head.
Mr. SPECTER. Now, could you tell what color hair he had?
Mr. EUINS. No, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. Could you tell whether his hair was dark or light?
Mr. EUINS. No, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. How far back did the bald spot on his head go?
Mr. EUINS. I would say about right along in here.
Mr. SPECTER. Indicating about 2 1/2 inches above where you hairline is. Is that about what you are saying?
Mr. EUINS. Yes, sir; right along in here.
Mr. SPECTER. Now, did you get a very good look at that man, Amos?
Mr. EUINS. No, sir; I did not.
Mr. SPECTER. Were you able to tell anything about the clothes he was wearing?
Mr. EUINS: No, sir.

Mr. SPECTER. All right.
Let me ask you about a couple of specific things here, Amos.
In the statement you say here that he was a white man. By reading the statement, does that refresh your memory as to whether he was a white man or not?
Mr. EUINS. No, sir; I told the man that I could see a white spot on his head, but I didn't actually say it was a white man. I said I couldn't tell. But I saw a white spot in his head.
Mr. SPECTER. Your best recollection at this moment is you still don't know whether he was a white man or a Negro? All you can say is that you saw a white spot on his head?
Mr. EUINS. Yes, sir.
Mr. SPECTER. Then, did you tell the people at the police station that he was a white man, or did they make a mistake when they wrote that down here?

Mr. EUINS. They must have made a mistake, because I told them I could see a white spot on his head.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=1133&relPageId=987

Testimony:

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=1133&relPageId=987

Mr. SPECTER. All right.

Now, when the third shot occurred, Amos, let me ask you again, where were you looking then?

Mr. EUINS. I was still down here, looking up at the building.

Mr. SPECTER. What did you see in the building?

Mr. EUINS. I seen a bald spot on this man's head, trying to look out the window. He had a bald spot on his head. I was looking at the bald spot. I could see his hand, you know the rifle laying across in his hand. And I could see his hand sticking out on the trigger part. And after he got through, he just pulled it back in the window.

Mr. SPECTER. Did you see him pull it back in the window?

Mr. EUINS. Yes, sir.Mr. SPECTER. Do you know what the name of that policeman was, who was in that position where you have marked C?

Mr. EUINS. No, sir. He was kind of an old policeman. I ran down and got him. And he ran up here.

Mr. SPECTER. You mean--

Mr. EUINS. The Book Depository Building.

Then he called some more cars. They got all the way around the building. And then after that, well, he seen another man. Another man told him he seen a man run out the back.

Mr. SPECTER. Do you know who that man was who said somebody ran out the back?

Mr. EUINS. No, sir. He was a construction man working back there.

205

Mr. SPECTER. Were you there when the man talked about somebody running out the back?

Mr. EUINS. Yes, sir. He said the man had--he said he had kind of bald spot on his head. And he said the man come back there.

Mr. SPECTER. Do you know what the name of the man was who told the police that someone had run out the back?

Mr. EUINS. No, sir.

Mr. SPECTER. Now, what kind of a look, if any, did you have at the man who was there?

Mr. EUINS. All I got to see was the man with a spot in his head, because he had his head something like this.

Mr. SPECTER. Indicating his face down, looking down the rifle?

Mr. EUINS. Yes, sir: and I could see the spot on his head.

Mr. SPECTER. How would you describe that man for us?

Mr. EUINS. I wouldn't know how to describe him, because all I could see was the spot and his hand.

Mr. SPECTER. Could you tell whether he was a Negro gentleman or a white man?

Mr. EUINS. No, sir.

Mr. SPECTER. Couldn't even tell that? But you have described that he had a bald--

Mr. EUINS. Spot in his head. Yes, sir; I could see the bald spot in his head.

Mr. SPECTER. Now, could you tell what color hair he had?

Mr. EUINS. No, sir.

Mr. SPECTER. Could you tell whether his hair was dark or light?

Mr. EUINS. No, sir.

Mr. SPECTER. How far back did the bald spot on his head go?

Mr. EUINS. I would say about right along in here.

Mr. SPECTER. Indicating about 2 1/2 inches above where you hairline is. Is that about what you are saying?

Mr. EUINS. Yes, sir; right along in here.

Mr. SPECTER. Now, did you get a very good look at that man, Amos?

Mr. EUINS. No, sir; I did not.

Mr. SPECTER. Were you able to tell anything about the clothes he was wearing?

Mr. EUINS: No, sir.

Mr. SPECTER. All right.

Let me ask you about a couple of specific things here, Amos.

In the statement you say here that he was a white man. By reading the statement, does that refresh your memory as to whether he was a white man or not?

Mr. EUINS. No, sir; I told the man that I could see a white spot on his head, but I didn't actually say it was a white man. I said I couldn't tell. But I saw a white spot in his head.

Mr. SPECTER. Your best recollection at this moment is you still don't know whether he was a white man or a Negro? All you can say is that you saw a white spot on his head?

Mr. EUINS. Yes, sir.

Mr. SPECTER. Then, did you tell the people at the police station that he was a white man, or did they make a mistake when they wrote that down here?

Mr. EUINS. They must have made a mistake, because I told them I could see a white spot on his head.

Mr. SPECTER. Do you know who that man was who said somebody ran out the back?

Mr. EUINS. No, sir. He was a construction man working back there.

Mr. SPECTER. Were you there when the man talked about somebody running out the back?

Mr. EUINS. Yes, sir. He said the man had--he said he had kind of bald spot on his head. And he said the man come back there.

Amos Lee Euins statement

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=1133&relPageId=

2001 Proposal for the Revival of COPA

2001 Proposal for the Revival of COPA - By William E. Kelly

An Open Letter to the COPA Board of Directors and members of the Committee for an Open Archives, Coalition on Political Assassinations (COPA) and other interested Independent Researchers associated with the investigation of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

As an original member of COPA, I think we are at a crucial and critical crossroads, where we can either fold up our tent as a unified force and go at it alone, or we can revive our organized efforts and at least try to achieve our intended purpose to “seek the historical truth about these murders, to identify those responsible for covering them up, and to restore justice and democratic processes to our country.”

That the murder of  JFK is still a great mystery, that the evidence of conspiracy is lacking, that the trails are cold or lost in a labyrinth, that we will never know the truth in our lifetime - are all truly understandable myths that can be easily be disposed of with the truth.

All that needs to be done is to require the government to enforce the JFK Act by getting Congressional oversight to ensure that the Act is followed to the fullest extent of the law.

There is also a need to instigate legal proceedings in every jurisdiction possible to solve crimes related to the assassination, and use very legal precedent afforded the law as we have seen in other similar crimes – the indictment and conviction of the assassin of  Medgar Evers 30 years after the murder, the conviction of those responsible for the Dupont Circle Bombing, the O.J. Simpson, M.L.K. and the prosecution of Chilean dictator A. Pinochet, Birmingham bombings and all of the civil rights murder prosecutions that are only now being officially acted on. These cases provide clear precedent and legal avenues that should be followed in prosecuting crimes related to the assassination of President Kennedy.

As co-founder of the Committee for an Open Archives (COA), one of the three original groups that comprised COPA, I propose to sponsor an internet symposium on the JFK Act, the purpose of which will be to instigate Congressional oversight committees to review the work of the Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRB) and to depose additional witnesses under oath.

I ask the Board of Directors to revive COPA, not to function as it did previously - as a watchdog of the ARRB, but rather to take on a new and important role as a legal action organization, with most of its funds used primarily to pay legal costs to initiate legal action whenever and wherever appropriate in order to legally resolve the outstanding issues related to the assassination of President Kennedy.

Although the investigation and understanding of the MLK, RFK and other political assassinations are important endeavors, it is essential that there be a concentration and focus of efforts on the JFK assassination in order to obtain additional witness testimony and instigate legal proceedings in multiple jurisdictions before the case fades into historical obscurity.

While COPA has remained relatively inactive, and we recognize the contributions the organization has made on legal fronts, independent researchers have continued their work as individuals, and many of us feel that we have been left out in the cold and abandoned by the organizational umbrella that gave us recognition, legitimacy and group power.

I began this proposal as an individual, but I now ask other COPA members and all interested independent researchers to ask our distinguished colleagues and mentors to assist us in the task of fulfilling COPA’s original mission to “seek the historical truth…identify those responsible…and to restore justice and democratic processes in our country.”

We don’t have one clue, we have many. We don’t have one exhibit of evidence, we have dozens; we don’t have one new witness, we have many dozens and we don’t have forever to break this case, we only have now, or that opportunity will be lost forever.

We respectfully await your recommitment to the case, to help provide legal assistance and the organizational unity and strength to accomplish our goals, however unrealistic they may seem, however unattainable they may seem, and against the overwhelming odds of power and money that we face in opposition to the total truth.

It is something that we must do, and will do, and I thank you for your time in considering this proposal.

William E. Kelly, Jr. – Co-founder, Committee for an Open Archives.

Note: This was written over a decade ago, circa 2001.