Rob Reiner's New Book Recycles JFK Assassination Conspiracy Nonsense
Who Killed JFK? by Rob Reiner, David Hoffman & Dick Russell recycles a variety of JFK assassination conspiracy nonsense.
Here are some relevant links on my blog about that podcast series:
A few thoughts about this book.
There is no evidence tying Willoughby to the assassination.
How on earth could Rob Reiner and his partners believe this ridiculous story?
We take apart the second five episodes of Reiner's podcast on the JFK assassination.
We take apart the first five episodes of Reiner's podcast on the JFK assassination.
Was there a fake defector program at Nags Head, North Carolina?
Flimsy evidence is cited that originated in Hustler Magazine.
Reiner believes the two-Oswald theory.
This blog post also covers the concluding episode of Reiner's podcast.
Conspiracy theorists have no regard for truth.
At the Amazon link you can read a preview of Who Killed JFK?
Right off the bat, Dick Russell's introduction is misleading:
They were not completely different conclusions. The HSCA also concluded that Oswald fired three shots and killed JFK. The HSCA concluded that the JFK assassination was "probably" the result of a conspiracy, but they couldn't find it. And, of course, they relied on the now-discredited acoustics evidence to support their conspiracy conclusion.
Russell then introduces three "critical occurrences."
The first is the Richard Case Nagell story:
A Minolta camera certainly not a Minox and it sold for between $25 and $90 in 1963. It was a very common consumer camera. Nagell had an entry for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee chapter in Los Angeles in his notebook because he was friends with the owner of a bookstore who was a member.
Did Nagell tell Bundren at his preliminary hearing that "I really don't want to be in Dallas."?
In Russell's book, Bundren says he is not sure whether Nagell said that before or after the assassination. In fact, Bundren only came out with that story in 1990, and did not include it in his 1975 interview.
That's a rather important point. I wonder if that is mentioned in Who Killed JFK?
Dick Russell also talked with Edward J. Murphy, an FBI agent who had interrogated Nagell. Here is what he said: (page 65, first edition)
"When Murphy emerged from a meeting, the moment I mentioned Nagell's name a startled look crossed the agent's face. "Well, sir," I asked, "do you remember any mention of a connection between that man and the assassination of President Kennedy?" Murphy's face blanched, and he shook his head rapidly from side to side. "I don't recall anything like that, no."
Fred Morton, the assistant U.S. attorney who had called for "sanity tests" for Nagell, said:
"As long as I was in the case," Morton said with a shrug, "I don't recall any statement by Nagell in any way concerning the assassination. The first I remember hearing this was in some magazine years later. It'll always be a mystery to me as to what the hell he was really doing in that bank that day."
And so Russell could not find any corroboration for this statement.
The second incident in Russell's introduction is the supposed plot against JFK in Chicago in early November 1963.
There is no credible evidence that the FBI received a phone call about "four men with paramilitary connections and high-powered rifles." The allegation comes solely from Abraham Bolden which was then written up by Edwin Black, and there is not one piece of corroborating evidence. In addition, every time Bolden has told this story, it has changed.
Abraham Bolden's Latest Version of the Chicago Plot
And Vallee did not threaten JFK; he just made some critical remarks:
Vallee was not stationed at a U-2 base in Japan. He was stationed at Camp Otsu which did not have any U-2s stationed there when he served.
There was no Chicago plot. Vallee did not threaten JFK. JFK's trip was cancelled because of the assassination of Diem.
Previous Blog Posts on the supposed plot in Chicago
Bolden testified before Anna Paulina Luna's task force and told yet another version of his Chicago plot story.
Was Vallee really a threat?
This document was supposedly destroyed by the Secret Service.
Chad Nagle tries to argue that there was a plot.
The HSCA did speak to Edwin Black. It was a memorable interview.
There is no evidence of a plot in Chicago against JFK.
Bolden's story about the supposed Chicago plot has changed over the years.
An examination of supposed other plots against JFK.
Bolden didn't say one word about a supposed plot against JFK in Chicago.
The last major incident cited by Russell in his introduction is Humes burning his initial draft of the autopsy.
Humes started writing his draft of the autopsy report on late November 23rd basing it on notes made during the autopsy. On November 24th, Humes went over the draft with Boswell and Finck and then submitted it to be typed up. He burnt the notes that he took during the autopsy which were stained with blood.
Here is what Vincent Bugliosi said about this in his book, Reclaiming History: (pp. 3565)
... if one believes that Humes was willing to lie on his autopsy report (his draft notes reflecting the true and different situation), why wouldn’t he likewise have been willing to lie on his notes, thereby obviating the need to destroy them? Did those behind the assassination come to Humes after he wrote the first draft and convince him, for the first time, to join the conspiracy, he agreed, and then they told him what they wanted his autopsy report to say? But what about Drs. Boswell and Finck? Did they join the conspiracy too? Because if they didn’t, how is it that their conclusions just happened to coincide with Humes’s new, conspiratorial conclusion?
And so what exactly are conspiracy theorists claiming? (pp. 3569-3570).
Just a moment’s reflection on the allegation by the conspiracy theorists that Humes burned his first draft of the autopsy report (which presumably pointed away from Oswald as the killer) reveals its outlandish dimensions. If, in fact, Humes had done such a thing, this would make him a willing and conscious accessory after the fact to Kennedy’s murder, a very serious crime. Why in the world would he want to do something so enormously ignoble and dangerous to him? The conspiracy theorists don’t say, nor do they even ask the question. But even if Humes were insane enough to engage in such conduct, since two other pathologists, Boswell and Finck, were also present at the autopsy, when Humes presented the new, supposedly bogus draft of their combined findings for their review, comments, and eventual signature, wouldn’t they have immediately recognized that the draft presented to them was terribly erroneous and refused to sign off on it? Or do the terminally absurd buffs want us to believe that Boswell and Finck decided to join in with Humes in becoming accessories after the fact to Kennedy’s murder?
And there is another point to make. The conspiracy theorists, whose taste for conspiracy skews their thinking processes, are not stopping to realize the obvious. If Humes, did, in fact, do the extremely serious and criminal thing that they accuse him of doing, why in the world would he choose to volunteer before the Warren Commission, and hence, the world, that he had done this? I mean, who else but him could ever possibly know his secret? In fact, on the very day he burned his notes, November 24, 1963, Humes certified, on a Naval Medical School document, that he had done so (CE 397, 17 H 48).
In addition, we have the autopsy x-rays and photographs. And every single forensic pathologist who has examined them has come away with the same conclusions: JFK was shot from behind and only one shot hit him in the head.
If this is the best that Dick Russell can do, I cannot wait to see what is in the other chapters.
On Google books, you can see some of the footnotes and yes, the Tosh Plumlee story of taking E, Howard Hunt and Johnny Roselli to Dealey Plaza on November 22 1963 is in the book. Charles Nicoletti is in the book, as is Jean Souetre.
It is a veritable who's who in conspiracy land.
Stay tuned for in-depth coverage when the book arrives on November 17th.
