In October 2021, I wrote a blog piece on Fletcher Prouty and his antisemitism. I noted Prouty's association with the Liberty Lobby, an organization founded by Willis Carto who believed that the Jews were “public enemy number one.” This caused some controversy when Oliver Stone's film JFK was released. Stone repeatedly excused Prouty, noting in one forum that “he never made any single one anti-semitic comment” and that “he joined the Liberty Lobby late in life.” Readers of my book, On the Trail of Delusion -- Jim Garrison: The Great Accuser, will know that I actually provided firm evidence of an antisemitic comment by Fletcher Prouty. I have now decided to post this evidence here so that everybody can see it. It comes in the form of a letter that Fletcher Prouty wrote in 1981. I found this letter at NARA when going through the correspondence of Richard E. Sprague, a conspiracy theorist who focused on the photographic evidence. Here is the letter: The offensive material is found on the first page: The letter discusses the problems of military technology. Note the second paragraph: "Suppose the guy running it is a Jewish Sgt.?" Fletcher Prouty was an antisemite. Update Here is the ADL report on Willis Carto which mentions Fletcher Prouty Previous Relevant Blog Posts on Fletcher Prouty Jeremy Gunn on Oliver Stone, Jim Garrison, and Fletcher Prouty Jeremy Gunn tells an audience that Fletcher Prouty was totally unreliable. Was Marina Oswald Involved in the JFK Assassination? Fletcher Prouty actually claimed that Marina Oswald was in on the plot. James DiEugenio's Lame Excuses for Fletcher Prouty Mr. DiEugenio can't explain why Fletcher Prouty did such a poor job of testifying before the ARRB. Fletcher Prouty Talks to the ARRB A summary document of his interview with the ARRB Transcript of Fletcher Prouty's Interview with the ARRB Here is a link to the complete transcript of Prouty's interview with the ARRB along with some other documents. Fletcher Prouty and Army Intelligence in Dallas Another summary document from the ARRB about Prouty's allegations and Army intelligence. Was Fletcher Prouty an Antisemite? Prouty had some very unsavory relationships with antisemitic groups. Fletcher Prouty's Interview with the ARRB, Part One Was Fletcher Prouty's Trip to Antarctica Unusual? Fletcher Prouty's Interview with the ARRB, Part Two Regarding Christchurch, New Zealand and The Christchurch Star Fletcher Prouty's Interview with the ARRB, Part Three Regarding the 112th Intelligence Corps (INTC) Group and/or the 316th INTC Detachment Fletcher Prouty's Interview with the ARRB, Part Four Did Prouty keep the notes from his supposed phone call about Army intelligence? Fletcher Prouty's Interview with the ARRB, Part Five Prouty's experience with military presidential protection duties. Fletcher Prouty's Interview with the ARRB, Part Six Flagrant failure by the Secret Service to take minimum precautions? Fletcher Prouty's Interview with the ARRB, Part Seven Did Lee Harvey Oswald participate in a covert program in Indonesia in 1958? Fletcher Prouty's Interview with the ARRB, Part Eight Was General Edward Lansdale in one of the pictures of the three tramps?

The Mostra dell'Arte Moderna building during the Permindex show-case, 1960. After the installation of the lights, the word Trade Center stands out (ASFE42 2638 – EUR SpA Historical Photographic Archive) Many conspiracy books allege that Permindex was involved in an assassination attempt on President Charles de Gaulle of France. Let's have a look at what these books say and examine their sources. James DiEugenio, in his book Destiny Betrayed, writes: (page 386 in the Kindle edition) There were at least four international newspapers that exposed the bizarre activities of Permindex when it was in Rome. One problem was the mysterious source of funding: no one knew where it was coming from or going to. Another was that its activities reportedly included assassination attempts on French Premier Charles de Gaulle. Which would make sense since the founding member of Permindex, Ferenc Nagy, was a close friend of Jacques Soustelle. Soustelle was a leader of the OAS, a group of former French officers who broke with de Gaulle over his Algerian policy. They later made several attempts on de Gaulle’s life, which the CIA was privy to. Again, this mysterious source of funding, plus the rightwing, neo-Fascist directors created another wave of controversy. One newspaper wrote that the organization may have been “a creature of the CIA … set up as a cover for the transfer of CIA … funds in Italy for illegal political-espionage activities.” DiEugenio says that Permindex's activities "reportedly included assassination attempts on French Premier Charles de Gaulle." His source is William Davy's book, Let Justice Be Done, page 99. Here is what Davy wrote: However, one newspaper, that enjoys a better reputation, reportedly published an expose' linking PERMINDEX with the assassination attempts on French President, Charles deGaulle. In the spring of 1962, Les Echos (the French equivalent of the Wall Street Journal) ran several news and editorial reports of deGaulle's accusations of PERMINDEX involvement in many of the attempts on his life. (Since I have not seen the newspaper articles in question, I cannot comment directly on the veracity of the report). However, it seems quite clear that there was a link between PERMINDEX and the French assassination attempts. Here is his footnote for these allegations: (page 298) Executive Intelligence Review, Dope, Inc., (Washington D.C: Executive Intelligence Review, 1992.), p. 528, n.4. NOTE: I use this reference with much reluctance. I cannot, in all honesty, support most of the wild conclusions in this book. Therefore, I urge caution on the part of the reader. If there are any researchers with access to French newspaper archives, tracking this down would be a worthy project. This is an astounding footnote! Davy references a Lyndon LaRouche publication, Dope, Inc., which claimed the British Royal family, the Kennedys and others were involved in worldwide dope smuggling. He then tells his readers that they should perhaps check French newspaper archives! And this was good enough for James DiEugenio! Here is what Dope, Inc., says in its 1978 edition: By the way, here is what a later edition of Dope, Inc says: (the one referenced by Davy) The only sources I can see are to Paese Sera and there is a footnote on page 528 that says, "see also Les Echos during spring 1962 for numerous news and editorial references to Permindex's role in the assassination attempts against President de Gaulle." Interesting how no one can actually give a firm date for an article in Les Echos. And no once can source that SDECE study. By the way, Louis Bloomfield, slandered by Dope, Inc., was so alarmed that he wrote the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP): Most of the material in Dope, Inc. comes from the Torbitt Document, a notorious 'memorandum' which trafficked in the most ridiculous conspiracy theories. Here is what it says about Permindex and de Gaulle: A group of Fascist French generals dedicated to keeping Algeria as a French colony were the middle group in the 1961 and 1962 assassination attempts on French General DeGaulle. A French colonel, Bastien Thiery, commanded the 1962 group of professional assassins who made the actual assassination attempt on DeGaulle. Colonel Thiery set his group of assassins up at an intersection in the suburbs of Paris in this final attempt in 1962 to kill DeGaulle. The gunmen fired more than one hundred rounds in the 1962 Colonel Thiery assassination attempt. But General DeGaulle, traveling in his bullet proof car, evaded being hit, although all of the tires were shot out. The driver increased his speed and the General was saved. Colonel Bastien Thiery was arrested, tried and executed for the attempt on DeGaulle's life but he was the breaking point between the operating level of that assassination attempt and the people financing and planning it and he went to his death without revealing the connection. General DeGaulle's intelligence, however traced the financing of his attempted assassination into the FBI's Permindex in Switzerland and Centro Mondiale Commerciale in Rome, and he complained to both the governments of Switzerland and Italy causing Permindex to lose its charter and Centro Mondiale Comerciale to be forced to move to Johannesburg, South Africa. General DeGaulle was furious at the assassination plots and attempted assassination upon himself. He called in his most trusted officers with the French Intelligence Agency and they advised him that they were already working on the investigation to ferret out who was behind DeGaulle's attempted assassination. The French Intelligence Agency in a very short while completely traced the assassination attempt through Permindex, the Swiss corporation, to the Solidarists, the Fascist White Russian emigre intelligence organization and Division Five, the espionage section of the FBI, into the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Brussels, Belgium. French intelligence thus determined that the attempts on General DeGaulle's life were being directed from NATO in Brussels through its various intelligence organizations and specifically, Permindex in Switzerland, basically a NATO intelligence front using the remnants of Adolph Hitler's intelligence units in West Germany and also, the intelligence unit of the Solidarists headquartered in Munich, Germany. Of course, nothing is sourced in the Torbitt document. JFK researcher Jean Davison, author of the superb Oswald's Game, commented on this on John McAdams JFK assassination forum: If Charles de Gaulle actually said that a CIA front called Permindex plotted to kill him, as some claim, this should've been big news in France and elsewhere, doncha think? I've looked at a stack of books on de Gaulle in a university library and couldn't find *any* that listed Permindex or "Centro Mondiale Commerciale" in its index or in its discussion of the assassination attempts against de Gaulle. I don't see credible evidence that he ever said this. Joan Mellen, in her book A Farewell to Justice, writes: (page 136 - 137 in the Kindle edition) CIA had, in fact, founded PERMINDEX to organize its political policymaking. In Italy, this had meant opposition to a coalition of socialists and communists that would have resulted in a majority government. The CIA preferred the Christian Democratic Party and so CIA Counter Intelligence chief James Angleton filtered ten million dollars of CIA money to the Christian Democrats. In Les Echos newspaper, de Gaulle named PERMINDEX as having been involved in the attempt on his life. The French, no less than the Italians, considered PERMINDEX a “subsidiary of the CIA.” Paese Sera would call PERMINDEX “a creature of the CIA … set up as a cover for the transfer of CIA funds in Italy for illegal political espionage activities.” There is no footnote in her book about when the allegation might have been in Les Echos. Paris Flammonde, in his book The Kennedy Conspiracy, writes: (page 217) Ferenc Nagy, who, while premier of Hungary, was "compelled by Communists in key government positions to expel from his party various of its members who had been arrested for plotting ... against the government," and who, while on a trip to Switzerland on May 29, 1947, telephoned his resignation to Budapest, moved in shadowy areas of finance and politics. "President of Permindex and Board Member of the CMC," reports Paese Sera, " [he] was said by the French press to be a munificent contributor to the philo-fascistic movement of [Jacques} Soustelle, and [a] patron of far-right movements throughout Europe, including Italy." His source for all of this is Paese Sera. Jim Garrison also mentions the allegation in his book On the Trail of the Assassins: (pages 117 - 118 in the Kindle edition) As for Permindex, which Clay Shaw also served as a director, the Italian press revealed that it had, among other things, secretly financed the opposition of the French Secret Army Organization (O.A.S.) to President DeGaulle’s support for independence for Algeria, including its reputed assassination attempts on DeGaulle. This observation, had we known about it in 1967, would have brought us full-circle all the way back to the blimp base at Houma, Louisiana, where David Ferrie and others from Guy Banister’s operation repossessed the munitions from the Schlumberger bunker which the C.I.A. earlier had given to the assassination-minded O.A.S. It would certainly have helped our case against Shaw to have been able to link him definitively with the C.I.A. Unfortunately, however, with our limited staff and finances, and many leads to follow, our investigation was not able to uncover any of this crucial background information when we needed it most. Garrison's source is "the Italian press" which was Paese Sera, and he also references two books in Italian about American interference in Italy. They probably discuss the Paese Sera articles. Garrison also bizarrely lists Robert Morrow's book Betrayal as a source. In that book Morrow even spells Permindex as Permidex (an error from one of the Le Devoir articles which took the error from Pravda). Of course, Garrison is wrong about his knowledge of the Paese Sera allegations. He knew about them right after the articles appeared. Another book with the same allegation about Permindex is JFK: The Documented Screenplay, which this source for the scene in which Garrison shows Shaw a clipping from the Italian press: (page 83) Paese Sera article, Mar. 4, 1967: Rome-based Centro Mondo [sic] Commerciale and its Swiss affiliate Permindex were ostensibly trade organizations whose purpose was to “aid in the establishing of a permanent exposition and generally assist in terms involving trade.” [Flammonde, The Kennedy Conspiracy, p. 215.] In 1962, Charles de Gaulle drew attention to Permindex, publicly accusing it of raising funds for the Secret Army Organization (OAS) that tried on several occasions to assassinate him. [Marrs, Crossfire, p. 499; see also Le Devoir, Mar. 16, 1967; Torbitt, Nomenclature of an Assassination Cabal, p. 17-21; and “Permindex: Britain’s International Assassination Bureau,” Executive Intelligence Review, Nov. 14, 1981.] What a collection of sources! Flammonde and Le Devoir got their material from Paese Sera. The Torbitt document and the LaRouchian publication, Executive Intelligence Review, just made stuff up. What does Paese Sera itself say about this allegation. Here is an excerpt from their March 4, 1967, article: The March 6, 1967, edition of Paese Sera was more specific: Now, it is Permindex who is financing Soustelle and the OAS. So, this all started in Paese Sera. The Torbitt document and then the LaRouchians took this to a new level with a specific charge about Permindex and the assassination of de Gaulle. Welcome to the fantasy world of conspiracy theorists. Update Here is a .pdf of the Torbitt document. Previous Relevant Blog Posts on Permindex Did Permindex Move to South Africa After it was 'Forced' to Leave Italy? Permindex went bankrupt; it was not forced out of Italy, and it did not relocate to South Africa. State Department Documents on Permindex The complete set of State Department documents on Permindex. Permindex Was Not a CIA Front Chris Peeks interviews me about Permindex. James DiEugenio Gets it all Wrong on Permindex/CMC Conspiracy theorists mislead people on Permindex/CMC. "Coup in Dallas" - The Story of a Factoid Many books maintain that the President of Permindex, Ferenc Nagy, lived in Dallas in 1963. He actually lived in Herndon, Virginia. Was Permindex Running an Assassination Bureau? Was Montreal lawyer Louis Bloomfield running an assassination bureau? Conspiracy Nonsense Snared a Canadian Louis Bloomfield was a good man who raised a lot of money for Canadian charities. Unfortunately, conspiracy theorists have linked him to the JFK assassination. Clay Shaw's Permindex File Clay Shaw was on the Board of Directors of Permindex. Here is his file. Why Didn't Jim Garrison Go to Montreal? If Jim Garrison wanted to learn more about Louis Bloomfield, all he had to do was pick up the phone or go to Montreal. Exclusive - Louis Bloomfield's Secret Correspondence with George H. W. Bush... Revealed for the first time. Did The Umbrella Man Have Links to Clay Shaw? Yes, a conspiracy book actually makes this claim. Exposed! Louis Bloomfield's Letters to Baron Edmund de Rothschild... Revealed for the first time. Exposed! Bloomfield's Letters about David Rockefeller! They were involved! The Founder of Permindex, George Mantello, Saved Thousands of Jews during the Holocaust... George Mantello was a hero.

The Palazzo Mostra dell'Arte Moderna during the show-case of the World Trade Center, 1960. In January 1960 the company Permanent Industrial Exhibition (Perm.Ind.Ex) rented the four buildings overlooking Piazza Italia (today Piazza Marconi), by setting up an annual exhibition-market (ASFE42 2218 – Historical Photographic Archive of EUR SpA) The building of the Mostra dell'Arte Antica during the show-case of the World Trade Center, 1960. In January 1960 the company Permanent Industrial Exhibition (Perm.Ind.Ex) rented the four buildings overlooking Piazza Italia (today Piazza Marconi) , installing an annual exhibition-market (ASFE42 2636 – Historical Photographic Archive of EUR SpA) According to the conspiracy books, Permindex was forced out of Switzerland and Italy, and it then moved to South Africa. What really happened is that Permindex could not source enough capital to open its world trade center in Basel, and they then moved to Rome, Italy. They opened the Centro Mondiale Commerciale in 1960 but could not find enough tenants to make it successful. The operation was shut down in 1962. Let's have a look at what the conspiracy books say and examine their sources. James DiEugenio writes in Destiny Betrayed: (page 386 in the Kindle edition) In 1967, after Permindex had moved to South Africa, a Garrison informant reported that Regis Kennedy had confirmed that "Shaw was a CIA agent who had done work, of an unspecified nature, over a five-year span in Italy." There is no source for the claim about South Africa. Joan Mellen in her book, A Farewell to Justice, writes: (page 139 of the Kindle edition) In 1962, Centro Mondiale Commerciale was expelled from Italy, ostensibly for financial malfeasance, and specious real estate dealings, but actually for subversion and illegal intelligence activity. "Who was giving money to the CMC and what was it being used for?" Paese Sera demanded. PERMINDEX relocated to a more compatible political venue, apartheid South Africa. Clay Shaw remained on the board, providing space at the Trade Mart for a permanent PERMINDEX display. Joan Mellen's source on Permindex being expelled from Italy is Paese Sera - a communist-controlled daily in Rome, There is no source for the claim about South Arica. William Davy in his book, Let Justice Be Done, writes: (page 219 in the Kindle edition) After five years of controversy, the Italians, like the Swiss, had had enough. CMC/PERMINDEX was forced to relocate again, this time to more accommodating environs in Johannesburg, South Africa. There is no source for the claim about Permindex being forced to relocate to South Africa. Paris Flammonde in his book, The Kennedy Conspiracy, writes: (page 219) Whatever the case may be, the Centro Commerciale and Permindex got into difficulties with the Italian and Swiss governments. They refused to testify to the origins of considerable amounts of money, the sources of which are, to say the least, uncertain, and they never seemed to engage in actual commercial transactions. These companies were expelled from Switzerland and Italy in 1962 and then set up headquarters in Johannesburg. Flammonde's source for the claim about Johannesburg is the French-Canadian newspaper Le Devoir from Montreal, dated March 16, 1967. Here is what they wrote: Here is a translation: In any case, the Centro Commerciale and the Permindex were in trouble with the Italian and Swiss governments. They handled considerable funds whose origin was, to say the least, uncertain, and never carried out real commercial transactions. They were banned from Switzerland and Italy in 1962 and settled in Johannesburg. Where did Le Devoir get this from? On March 8, 1967, Le Devoir published an article from Pravda: Here is a translation of the last paragraph: In fact, the names "World Trade Center" and "Permidex" [sic] were used to refer to another, much more important organization, the U.S. secret services," said the Pravda correspondent, who noted that the Center "having drawn too much attention to itself" had to be disbanded in 1964, but was later reconstituted under the same name in Johannesburg, South Africa. This was taken from an article in Pravda, titled "Clay Shaw of the CIA," on March 6, 1967: The second to last paragraph says: In 1964, the "centre" in Rome was closed because it attracted too much attention. It was revived, under the same name, in the city of Johannesburg. The article in Pravda was sourced from Paese Sera which ran a series of articles on Permindex. The first article ran on March 4, 1967, and contained this paragraph: We know that much of the information in the Paese Sera series of article is just plain not true. Their description of Louis Bloomfield was wrong - Paese Sera said he was a banker, but he was actually a lawyer representing some of the Permindex shareholders, Paese Sera also said he was in the OSS and the CIA which was not true. Paese Sera also included the false allegation that "Clay Shaw, by his own admission, came to Rome during the time preceding the disbanding of the CMC. According to American sources, Shaw left the U.S. two days after the assassination of Kennedy and came to Europe visiting, among other places, Italy. Shaw's trip lasted about two years, except for a few short visits to the U.S." But Shaw was never in Rome, and he never attended a board meeting of Permindex/CMC. The other daily newspapers in Rome were very clear that Permindex/CMC stopped operating because of insolvency. Corriere della Sera said in a March 3, 1967 article that "the center closed in 1962, after it was forced out of the very expensive offices it occupied in Rome because of insolvency." Il Messagerio wrote about their 'eviction' in 1962. And a Life magazine memo about the Paese Sera series of articles noticed that their front page showed a picture from a 1962 issue about Permindex: The memo notes that "the CMC had been expelled for not paying the 100 million lire (about 160 thousand dollars) monthly rent." Here is that front page of Paese Sera for March 4, 1967. You can see in the lower right a photo from the February 16, 1962 issue: I wish I had a clearer copy of that issue. Might Paese Sera have decided to exaggerate their earlier usage of the word "expelled"? And George Mantello never moved away from Rome. Here are a few letters from Louis Bloomfield to George Mantello: Here is a letter that Louis Bloomfield wrote to Mantello's son, Andrea: Every single letter from Louis Bloomfield to George Mantello is addressed to Rome. In fact, there are no letters in the Bloomfield archive addressed to South Africa. As a lawyer who represented some of the major shareholders in Permindex/CMC, you'd expect to see some exchange of letters about the supposed relocation of the business. George Mantello eventually died in Rome. Here is his obituary from the New York Times of May 6, 1992. So, I have a challenge for believers in a conspiracy: please send me some solid evidence that Permindex relocated to South Africa. Paese Sera is not a solid source. Previous Relevant Blog Posts on Permindex State Department Documents on Permindex The complete set of State Department documents on Permindex. Permindex Was Not a CIA Front Chris Peeks interviews me about Permindex. James DiEugenio Gets it all Wrong on Permindex/CMC Conspiracy theorists mislead people on Permindex/CMC. "Coup in Dallas" - The Story of a Factoid Many books maintain that the President of Permindex, Ferenc Nagy, lived in Dallas in 1963. He actually lived in Herndon, Virginia. Was Permindex Running an Assassination Bureau? Was Montreal lawyer Louis Bloomfield running an assassination bureau? Conspiracy Nonsense Snared a Canadian Louis Bloomfield was a good man who raised a lot of money for Canadian charities. Unfortunately, conspiracy theorists have linked him to the JFK assassination. Clay Shaw's Permindex File Clay Shaw was on the Board of Directors of Permindex. Here is his file. Why Didn't Jim Garrison Go to Montreal? If Jim Garrison wanted to learn more about Louis Bloomfield, all he had to do was pick up the phone or go to Montreal. Exclusive - Louis Bloomfield's Secret Correspondence with George H. W. Bush... Revealed for the first time. Did The Umbrella Man Have Links to Clay Shaw? Yes, a conspiracy book actually makes this claim. Exposed! Louis Bloomfield's Letters to Baron Edmund de Rothschild... Revealed for the first time. Exposed! Bloomfield's Letters about David Rockefeller! They were involved! The Founder of Permindex, George Mantello, Saved Thousands of Jews during the Holocaust... George Mantello was a hero.

Permindex brochure found in Clay Shaw's file at NARA. Permindex was a Swiss corporation founded by George Mantello in the mid-1950s. He was a very successful businessman who wanted to take advantage of the European Community and give an opportunity for manufacturers to exhibit their products. Because of Clay Shaw's success at building the International Trade Mart in New Orleans, Mantello offered Clay Shaw a position on the Permindex board. But Shaw never attended a meeting. In conspiracy land, Permindex is an evil corporation that used CIA money to fund fascist elements in Italy. Those allegations all stemmed from a series of articles in the Communist-controlled newspaper Paese Sera. As I have shown on my blog and in my book, On the Trail of Delusion, Paese Sera made many mistakes in its articles. For instance, their description of Louis Bloomfield, a Montreal lawyer who represented some major shareholders, was just plain wrong. Unfortunately, JFK conspiracy books rely upon Paese Sera for their information on Permindex. And thus, their readers will not learn that George Mantello saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust. In fact, there are very few sources of primary documents on Permindex: State Department documents from Switzerland. Clay Shaw's file at the National Archives. The papers of Louis Bloomfield, a lawyer in Montreal who represented several shareholders. A few CIA documents, such as this one. Here is the full set of State Department documents on Permindex: 1. Foreign Service Despatch, January 2, 1957 A press conference was held at the end of 1956 to announce Permindex, a "permanent international industrial exhibition" in Basel, Switzerland. Ferenc Nagy, former Prime Minister of Hungary, flew in from the United States to help announce the project. The plan is for Permindex to build a 13-floor office=type building and a 15-floor hotel with 200 rooms. 2. State Department Despatch, January 15, 1957 Hans Seligman, one of the bankers associated with Permindex, and Ferenc Nagy have given little information about exactly who is investing in Permindex. The consulate has heard that the Schroder Bank might be one of the financiers. 3. State Department Memorandum, January 15, 1957 Ferenc Nagy is aided in Permindex by George Mantello. Two sites in Basel have been selected for the exhibition and the hotel. An agreement has been reached between Swiss Industries Fair of Basel and Permindex -- Permindex will be an exhibition of international manufacturers, while the other organization will be dedicated to Swiss products. Communist countries will be allowed to exhibit at Permindex. The three buildings (the exhibition, offices, and a hotel) will cost about $10 million. 4. Foreign Service Despatch, February 1, 1957 The local Swiss government is torn between securing funds to ensure Permindex locates in Basel and having confidence in the business integrity of its promoters. A source has told the consulate that George Mantello served in the El Salvadorean consulate in Geneva: "It appears that he was actively engaged there in the wartime Jewish refugee racket, promising to have Jews allowed to escape from Nazi countries for a price which was to be paid to him." This unfortunate sentence has repeated in many conspiracy books. The Jewish community held an investigation after the war and found that Mantello had not been paid - and that he had saved thousands of lives. He was actually a hero. The Despatch also claims that the Hans Seligman bank was perhaps "placed on the American Proclaimed List and the British Statutory List." This was a list of sanctioned firms who allegedly were working with the Axis powers. I have not been able to find proof of this. It appears that Seligman had paid some ransom to save 250 Jews from the Nazis. Lastly, it appears doubtful that Schroder Bank is one of the investors in Permindex. 5. Foreign Service Despatch, March 7, 1957 Because of the lack of information about the financing of Permindex, there are questions about its soundness: "The press organ of the Social-Democratic Party, the Basel Arbeiter-Zeitung, carried an editorial in its issue of March 2, 1957, raising the question as to whether the Permindex is not just a bit of hot air." 6. Foreign Service Despatch, October 8, 1957 The American consulate was interested in Permindex because it was supposed to be financed largely by American capital. However, this has not been confirmed and the backers of Permindex are having trouble raising the required capital. 7. Foreign Service Despatch, April 9, 1958 The Socialist newspaper, the Arbeiter-Zeitung, continues its criticism of Permindex. It has also attacked the characters of Ferenc Nagy and George Mantello: "It charged that only the action of influential friends saved him [Mantello] from expulsion from Switzerland for illegal traffic in gold during the war." What was this all about? In May 1944, Mantello was arrested by Swiss authorities on the formal charge related to his black-market activities. He had purchased a thousand chronographs which were sent to New York for British Intelligence (they wanted them for fighter planes). But he was also questioned about the sale of Salvadorian papers. He was detained for sixteen days and was only released when he paid two thousand Swiss francs to cover any fines. John Winant, American Ambassador to the U.K., reported on the results of a State Department investigation in March 1944. He noted that "the consul of San Salvador [Mantello] has acted from humanitarian motives and has charged no fee at all." I should also add that George Mantello faced ongoing harassment by Heinrich Rothmund, the antisemitic head of the Swiss Alien Police. Here is an excerpt from David Kranzler's excellent 2000 book, The Man Who Stopped the Trains to Auschwitz: (page 241) The contradictory behavior of the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs during the last few months of the siege of Budapest, as well as the persistent post-war harassment of Mantello, made it clear that several factions within the Swiss government sought to disenfranchise him. It appears that Rothmund, Mantello's old nemesis, who had been behind his arrest in May 1944, was the primary culprit. Rothmund, head of the Swiss Alien Police, disliked foreigners in general and Jewish foreigners in particular. He and Federal Councilor von Streeiger had been the major catalysts behind the German policy of stamping the J on all German-Jewish passports to prevent a mass flight across the German-Swiss border, Rothmund also enforced the racial laws of refoulement on "Jewish" "racial" refugees in contrast to the more acceptable "political" refugees. Moreover, as we saw earlier, Mantello never hesitated to respond to Rothmund without fear or even respect, a fact that surely exacerbated the police chief's animosity. The Arbeiter-Zeitung sees Permindex as a threat to Swiss industries, but another major newspaper, The National-Zeitung, disagrees. 8. Foreign Service Despatch, May 21, 1958 The backers of Permindex fail to raise enough capital and the project fails. 9. Department of State Instruction, June 4, 1958 Permindex now plans to open in Rome. 10. Foreign Service Despatch, July 18, 1958 Permindex has set up a wholly owned subsidiary, Centro Mondiale Commerciale, to serve as the "contracting agent" in Italy and to deal with the Italian authorities. Clay Shaw of New Orleans will be added to the Board of Directors. 11. State Department Despatch, November 7, 1958 This document discusses the Board of Directors of Permindex. Discussion Permindex ultimately failed. They simply could not find enough tenants to make the venture profitable. Just about all of the information about Permindex in a variety of conspiracy books comes from the Paese Sera series of articles that appeared three days after Clay Shaw was arrested. A lot of the information in Paese Sera was just plain wrong and a lot of it was just rumors. In upcoming posts, I will be examining the footnotes of the Permindex sections in conspiracy books. Previous Relevant Blog Posts on Permindex Permindex Was Not a CIA Front Chris Peeks interviews me about Permindex. James DiEugenio Gets it all Wrong on Permindex/CMC Conspiracy theorists mislead people on Permindex/CMC. "Coup in Dallas" - The Story of a Factoid Many books maintain that the President of Permindex, Ferenc Nagy, lived in Dallas in 1963. He actually lived in Herndon, Virginia. Was Permindex Running an Assassination Bureau? Was Montreal lawyer Louis Bloomfield running an assassination bureau? Conspiracy Nonsense Snared a Canadian Louis Bloomfield was a good man who raised a lot of money for Canadian charities. Unfortunately, conspiracy theorists have linked him to the JFK assassination. Clay Shaw's Permindex File Clay Shaw was on the Board of Directors of Permindex. Here is his file. Why Didn't Jim Garrison Go to Montreal? If Jim Garrison wanted to learn more about Louis Bloomfield, all he had to do was pick up the phone or go to Montreal. Exclusive - Louis Bloomfield's Secret Correspondence with George H. W. Bush... Revealed for the first time. Did The Umbrella Man Have Links to Clay Shaw? Yes, a conspiracy book actually makes this claim. Exposed! Louis Bloomfield's Letters to Baron Edmund de Rothschild... Revealed for the first time. Exposed! Bloomfield's Letters about David Rockefeller! They were involved! The Founder of Permindex, George Mantello, Saved Thousands of Jews during the Holocaust... George Mantello was a hero.

Oliver Stone's so-called documentary, JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass, greatly misleads its viewers on supposed CIA support of an April 1961 coup attempt against French President Charles de Gaulle. Screen shot from JFK Revisited with the generals (Zeller, Jouhaud, Salan, and Challe) who tried to overthrow de Gaulle. Here is an excerpt from a transcript: (1:33:33) David Talbot: Jack Kennedy did stand firm. He did not send in the military, he did not make it into an even bigger global crisis than it already was. Kennedy is just furious. He knows he's been lied to, deceived by his senior military and intelligence advisors. He announces that the Agency is going to be downsized, and he vows, famously, he tells friends, he's going to shatter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the wind. It wasn't just the Bay of Pigs that angered President Kennedy, when it came to the CIA. In that same month, in April of 1961, he was also being lied to about a coup in France. A military coup that was aimed at overthrowing President Charles de Gaulle, one of our strongest allies. Donald Sutherland: Allen Dulles, who had a long history of antagonism with de Gaulle, falsely reported to Kennedy that the vast majority of the French military was staunchly opposed to de Gaulle's support of Algerian self-determination. What he didn't tell him was that, as far back as 1959, the CIA had discussed his overthrow. This coup attempt, orchestrated by four French generals, was quickly put down, and several news reports pointed to Allen Dulles's hand in supporting the episode. David Talbot: JFK assures the French ambassador, "I had nothing to do with this. I stand in full support of President de Gaulle," but he says something very, very alarming. He tells the French ambassador, President Kennedy [does], that I am not in full control, though, of my entire government. I'm not in control of the CIA. And I can't speak for what's happening there. That's a stunning admission for a U.S. President to make. Screen shot from JFK Revisited with President Kennedy and President de Gaulle. The evidence for the allegations in JFK Revisited comes from David Talbot's book, The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, The CIA and the Rise of America's Secret Government. I will be dealing with JFK's quote about scattering the CIA into the wind in a later blog post. Today, I only want to deal with Algeria and the plot against de Gaulle. Here is an overview of what happened. The general's putsch took place in late April 1961. Maurice Challe (former commander-in-chief in French Algeria), Edmond Jouhaud (former Inspector General of the French Air Force), André Zeller (former Chief of Staff of the French Army) and Raoul Salan (former commander-in-chief in French Algeria) were all part of the plot. They were opposed to Algerian independence. Parachutists took control of major points in Algiers on April 22nd. An announcement was made that the army had taken control of Algeria. A state of emergency was declared and de Gaulle went on television on April 23rd to rally the country. The people stood behind de Gaulle, and the insurgency quickly failed. Here is de Gaulle's speech: The text of his speech is here. JFK Revisited makes the following allegation: ...several news reports pointed to Allen Dulles's hand in supporting the episode. Is there any truth to this? Here is a screen shot from JFK Revisited: The article on the screen, "Pentagon to Get Some C.I.A. Duties," is from the New York Times of April 29, 1961, and was written by James Reston. The paragraph on the screen reads as follows: Second, the disappointing performance of the Central Intelligence Agency, which masterminded the rebel attack on Cuba last week, the U-2 spy plane incident a year ago, and which was involved in an embarrassing liaison with anti-Gaullist officers who staged last week's insurrection in Algeria. Oliver Stone's so-called documentary leaves out a lot of material. For instance, from the same New York Times article: Also, in the last few days the President has looked into angry reports from Paris that the C.I.A. was in touch with insurrectionists who tried to overthrow the de Gaulle Government of France. These reports apparently go back to the fact that C.I.A. agents have recently been in touch with the anti-Gaullist generals in Algiers and that C.I.A. officials gave a luncheon for Jacques Soustelle, a leader of the anti-de Gaulle movement, when M. Soustelle was last in Washington. So, Richard Bissell, Director of the CIA's Operations section, met with Soustelle on December 7, 1960, about five months before the coup attempt. The luncheon was actually given by the French Intelligence chief in Washington and Bissell and Soustelle were his guests. Given that the CIA's work is in intelligence, and that Soustelle had a major position in Algeria, there is nothing wrong with the lunch. The real question is about the "angry reports from Paris." This is indeed true. There were angry reports from Paris - but what was the source of these reports and were they true? It is important to understand that the relationship between de Gaulle and the United States was difficult. De Gaulle was a staunch nationalist who wanted to chart a course independent of the United States and he took umbrage at the slightest hint of American interference in French internal affairs. Talbot writes that "De Gaulle quickly concluded that Challe must be acting with the support of U.S. intelligence, and l'Élysée officials began spreading this word to the press." (page 413) Talbot's source is the London Observer of May 2, 1961, and Vincent Jauvert's book, L'Amerique Contre De Gaulle. (page 198-199) Let's start with the London Observer article. I had trouble finding the Observer article in question because the newspaper was only published on Sundays and so there was no edition for May 2, 1961. However, the edition for April 30, 1961, does have a few articles about the coup attempt. The front page article, "Conspiracy 'leaders' still at large," says this: One reaction, at least in President de Gaulle's own entourage and perhaps inspired by him, is to blame the Americans. Repeated American denials that any American military or civilian - encouraged - General Challe's rebellion have not succeeded in preventing official French spokesmen from telling journalists there must have been some unofficial American backing. Talbot would never report what the same article said near the end: There is no evidence that General Challe received active encouragement from American secret agents. But he seems to have hoped for some help from this direction. What about Jauvert? What does his book say about de Gaulle? Here is a translation of an excerpt from page 198: What did de Gaulle really think of this secret service affair? Back from Paris, where he probed the Elysée, Jean-Claude Winckler, adviser at the French embassy in Washington, dines with Pentagon number two, William Bundy, and tells him about his discoveries. Bundy brings them back to the White House. “Pierre Guillaumat [minister without portfolio] told Winckler that de Gaulle really believed that a few US government officials had encouraged Challe. De Gaulle did not have in mind any action by people from the CIA, but a series of conversations - of which he was told - between General Challe and American officers linked to SHAPE [Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe]." What would they be talking about? “In January, Challe reportedly told these officers that De Gaulle's policy vis-à-vis NATO was totally bad, that an independent Algeria opened the way to chaos and communism and that a government of pro-American generals would lead to France's acceptance of greater NATO integration and other American desires. The American officers would have nodded.” That's all. In any case, this is the official version of De Gaulle's discontent. So, de Gaulle did not "have in mind any action by people from the CIA" but just a nod from American officers. Even David Talbot realizes that the rumors then spread from the French Foreign Ministry: (page 414) De Gaulle's foreign ministry was the source of some of the most provocative charges in the press, including the allegation that CIA agents sought funding for the Challe coup from multinational corporations, such as Belgian mining companies operating in the Congo. Ministry officials also alleged that Americans with ties to extremist groups had surfaced in Paris during the coup drama, including one identified as a "political counselor for the Luce [media] group," who was heard to say, "An operation is being prepared in Algiers to put a stop to communism, and we will not fail as we did in Cuba." Talbot's source for this is Jauvert's L'Amerique Contre De Gaulle. Talbot doesn't tell readers the full story. Jauvert writes that the rumor of CIA support came from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The director of information wrote to the Foreign Affairs Minister about the allegations. At the end of his paragraph on the rumors, Jauvert writes, "Rumors, unconfirmed information, but no proof." (page 193) And JFK Revisited doesn't dare tell you this from page 199 of Jauvert's book: Confidentially, "a French official from Agency A [code for Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST; English: Directorate of Territorial Surveillance, part of the French National Police]" gives the US Army counter-intelligence service some details on the alleged American support for Challe. They would be people "linked to the CIA and certain American soldiers belonging to the NATO structures. All would be opposed to the policy of the Kennedy administration in Africa and more particularly North Africa." The proof? None. Of course, the rumors emanating from the Foreign Ministry were greatly amplified by the communist press. The communist-controlled Rome daily Il Paese (the morning edition of Paese Sera) ran a story about the CIA and that traveled throughout the communist world, and then back to the mainstream press. Here is a paragraph from Christopher Andrew's and Vasili Mitrokhin's book: The KGB and the World: The Mitrokhin Archive II: (page 432) In April 1961 the KGB succeeded in planting on the pro-Soviet daily Paese Sera a story suggesting that the CIA was involved in the failed putsch mounted by four French generals to disrupt de Gaulle's attempt to negotiate a peace with the FLN which would lead to Algerian independence. Among other media taken in by the story was the leading French newspaper Le Monde, which began an editorial on the putsch: "It now seems established that some American agents more or less encouraged [General Maurice] Challe. Richard Helms testified before Congress in June 1961 about the KGB operation: All of this had a familiar ring to it. The same thing happened in 1967 when Paese Sera wrote a series of articles alleging that Permindex was a CIA front to distribute money to right-wing extremists. Those articles were picked up by the communist press and then moved to the mainstream press (in this case Le Devoir in Montreal). A few weeks back James DiEugenio, the author of the screenplay for JFK Revisited, listed the sources for the allegations about the CIA in the film: Paris-Jour Jauvert book, L'Amerique Contre De Gaulle London Observer, May 2, 1961 Andrew Tully's book, CIA: The Inside Story (page 48-49) The Nation, May 20, 1961 Washington Post, April 30, 1961 New York Times, April 28, 1961 It's interesting that DiEugenio lists the May 2, 1961 date for the London Observer. Clearly, he just took the sources from Talbot's book, and did not check them. As noted above, the Observer was not published on May 2, 1961 and the actual articles about the coup attempt appeared on April 30, 1961. Do DiEugenio's sources back up the story? We've already covered The Observer, the Jauvert book, and the New York Times. What about the other sources? Andrew Tully's book, CIA: The Inside Story I am not sure if James DiEugenio has read Tully's book. Here is a quote from page 48: Paul Ghali of the Chicago Daily News got into the act, too. He reported that "a determined campaign of anti-Americanism" had been started "within Army circles here in the French capital. These circles made it known that they had 'irrefutable' documents proving that CIA agents in Paris and Algiers promised General Challe full U.S. support if the coup succeeded. Simultaneously, the Polish Ambassador in Paris, Stanislaw Gajewski, volunteered the same information with even more precision to colleagues and social acquaintances. Certainly the Soviet propaganda machine was having a field day. But now the gossip was taken up by respected and responsible French newspapers which could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be including in the normally anti-American fringe of French opinion. The story was considered important enough to be the subject of the lead editorial in Le Monde, the most respected and influential newspaper in France. Pierre Salinger went to Paris on May 2 to make arrangements for Kennedy's upcoming trip to visit with de Gaulle. He met with Pierre Baraduc, Chief of the Press Section of the Foreign office: (page 50 from Tully's book) "Why are you putting out this story?" Salinger asked Baraduc, his voice sharp with irritation. "I'm not putting it out," Baraduc replied. "It seems to have sprung from nowhere. But you have to admit the story sounds logical. It seems to me that President Kennedy should investigate and see if it is true." "What do you want him to investigate?" Salinger asked. "No charge has been made, no evidence has been submitted. There's nothing to investigate. It looks to me as if somebody is trying to place the President at a disadvantage for his meeting with President de Gaulle." The next day there was a scene at a luncheon with James Gavin, the American Ambassador to France. A reporter asked him about the rumors and Baraduc, the French Press Chief of the Foreign Ministry, asked the reporter to leave. Gavin just answered that he was not concerned about the rumor. New York Times, May 4, 1961 But the next day, Salinger sat down with the French foreign minister, Maurice Couve de Murville: (page 52 from Tully's book) Salinger then asked De Mourville if he had any evidence that CIA was involved in the generals' revolt and, when De Mourville said he did not, Salinger suggested that the French stop putting out the story. The next day De Mourville appeared before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Deputies to testify that there was no evidence of CIA complicity. 2. The Nation, May 20, 1961 The Nation’s article, “The CIA in Algeria,” took its information from an article in the left-wing French newspaper L’Express by journalist Claude Krief. He claimed that: Both in Paris and Washington the facts are now known, though they will never be publicized. In private, the highest French personalities make no secret of it. What they say is this: The CIA played a direct part in the Algiers coup, and certainly weighed heavily on the decision by ex-general Challe to start his putsch …” Krief also mentions the Washington lunch meeting with Soustelle but then goes further: The next episode related by Krief is a meeting in Madrid on April 12 between “various foreign agents, including members of the CIA and the Algiers conspirators, who disclosed their plans to the CIA men.” Jauvert reported on these rumors in his book. They came from an article in the newspaper Afrique-Action written by their American correspondent. The meeting in Madrid was allegedly attended by a French general, two French colonels, and agents from the United States, Spain, and Germany. No evidence has ever surfaced that such a meeting took place. 3. The Washington Post, April 30, 1961 The Washington Post ran an article on April 30, 1961 entitled, "Challe Felt He Had Vow of U.S. Aid," by Waverley Root. The opening few paragraphs are illuminating: When former Gen. Maurice Challe agreed to assume command of the Generals' revolt in Algeria, it was in part because he was convinced that he had unqualified American support. In fact, an informant qualified to interpret Challe's motives told this writer, he believed that he had received assurances from President Kennedy himself of eventual support. "Who gave them?" This correspondent asked. "They came from the Pentagon," was the answer. "I thought everybody was blaming the CIA?" "The Pentagon, the CIA -- it's all the same thing." From other sources, it appears that France is shifting to the opinion that the supposed inspiration for Challe came not from American intelligence services but from the U.S. Army. The article then goes on to discuss NATO and the fact that Challe commanded the Europe-Center Sector. He might have gotten some inspiration for his coup from military and diplomats at NATO. The only other source mentioned by DiEugenio is Paris-Jour, which published pieces by Genevieve Tabouis. She made some things up, and she had it in for Allen Dulles. Richard Helms discussed her reports in his testimony before the Senate subcommittee (see above): On Friday Madame Tabouis continued the attack in an article headlined "The Strategy of Allen Dulles." She assured her readers that "the fact that the effort of Challe was encouraged, if not supported, by the most Atlantic of American services, is from now on a secret everyone knows." Waverley Root of the Washington Post commented on her in the April 30th article: Only columnist Genevieve Tabouis -- The Pythoness, as she is called here -- continued to belabor CIA chief Allen Dulles, by heading an article, "The Strategy of Allen Dulles." But she also seemed confused about who does what when she writes: 'The fact that the effort of Challe was encouraged, if not supported, by the most Atlantic of American services, is from now on a secret everyone knows.' This cryptic description must mean NATO, where Challe until early this year commanded the Europe-Center Sector, and not the Dulles-headed CIA. To sum up so far, there is no evidence that the CIA supported or encouraged the coup attempt against de Gaulle. The rumors about the CIA started from the Foreign Ministry and were then played up by the communist press. A key question is why the Foreign Ministry spread such rumors. Irwin Wall, in his book France, the United States, and the Algerian War, writes: (page 239) Joseph Alsop wrote that Challe believed he could get U.S. support by playing the anti-communist card, given de Gaulle's hostility to NATO. Another reason was thus handed de Gaulle for blaming the Americans: the generals' revolt was the consequence of the American refusal to accept French plans for the reform of NATO. Another possible answer comes from Thomas Powers' book, The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms And The CIA. Here is an excerpt from page 337: In late 1961, for example, the CIA arranged for Frantz Fanon, author of The Wretched of the Earth and a theoretician for the FLN [National Liberation Front], to be flown to Washington for treatment of terminal cancer. After Fanon's death on December 6, a CIA officer named Oliver Iselin accompanied Fanon's body back to Tunis, where the FLN carried it across the border into Algeria for burial. Iselin, accompanied by another CIA officer who flew to Tunis from Geneva, according to a State Department source, was present at the funeral. This sort of thing angered de Gaulle. Might this have been the reason why de Gaulle or others started the rumors against the CIA? Powers' source was Peter Geismer's book, Fanon. Fanon had leukemia and his treatment in Moscow had not gone well. He was desperate to go the United States and get some first-rate care. Geismer writes that "it was the C.I.A., working within the [U.S.] Foreign Service, that negotiated Fanon's transportation to the United States." The coup attempt was in April 1961 and I wondered if the CIA contacts with Fanon started before the coup. If they did, then perhaps that is what angered de Gaulle. Thomas Meaney, author of "Frantz Fanon and the CIA Man," provides some important answers: During the height of the war between the FLN and France, Iselin continued to develop contacts within the FLN. By 1960, he had two reliable informants. “One turned out to be, when Algeria became independent, very high-level. The second one I recruited was medium-level, and after a while, when he went back, he decided to pursue a business career, which lost his access. While he was an agent being paid and everything, he provided us with an unbelievable amount of material from the FLN, really. All the files of the whole Tangiers setup.” Iselin also made regular trips across the border into Algeria to get information from the ALN [Algerian Liberation Army]. “Obviously I hoped the French didn’t know about [it]. I felt very strongly, being American, what we went through here in this country, I was entirely for independence as the rightful thing to do. I was morally into this completely.” French authorities in Algeria were aware of the CIA’s interest in national liberation movements across North Africa, where the agency worked through the American Federation of Labor to infiltrate trade unions in Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria, building on its earlier support for anti-communist trade unions on the French mainland. The CIA first became interested in Fanon sometime in the late 1950s. Iselin came back to the United States at the end of 1960 and was contacted by M'hamed Yazid, an FLN representative in New York, to discuss Fanon's health. Joseph Alsop wrote in his syndicated column in February 1969 that Fanon asked the local CIA representative for help in February, 1961. It is quite possible that de Gaulle knew about these CIA contacts with the FLN. And this might indeed be the reason why the CIA was blamed for the coup attempt in April 1961. Irwin Wall agrees with Thomas Powers (page 240) but offers yet another possible explanation: Redha Malek [in his book, L'Agerie a Evian, claimed that the rumors arose because two American military attaches were seen using the studios of Radio France, which was under the control of the insurgents in Algiers, to transmit their dispatches; the Quai was alleged to have protested, but then to have withdrawn the protest with apologies. And last, but not least, U.S. News and World Report had a very simple explanation: (Jeffreys-Jones, op. cit., page 125) [There was] a search for scapegoats, particularly for non-French scapegoats. It was against this background that officials of the French government, including Cabinet Ministers and other high officials, privately encouraged the idea that U.S. generals were to blame for supporting the conspirators. Whatever the reason, Kennedy was certainly not happy about the rumors regarding the CIA. Wall notes: (page 242) Kennedy was so irritated at continued French charges of CIA complicity with the insurrection that he considered calling off his June 1961 trip to Paris. In any event, JFK Revisited misleads viewers into believing the CIA was behind the coup attempt. I also cannot find any support for its claim that JFK told the French Ambassador: I am not in full control, though, of my entire government. I'm not in control of the CIA. And I can't speak for what's happening there. This quote is not in Talbot's book, and so there is no reference. The closest I can find in his book is on page 412 where he writes "But the strange events that occurred in Paris in April 1961 reinforced the disturbing feeling that President Kennedy was not in control of his own government." There is no footnote for that statement. Jauvert's book does include the anecdote, but a little differently. Dean Rusk, the Secretary of State, told the French Ambassador in Washington, Hervé Alphand, on April 30, that their investigations into supposed contacts between the rebel generals and Americans "have shed no light." Alphand wrote the French Foreign Affairs Minister that, according to Kennedy, "the CIA is a machine so vast and so poorly understood that the most improbable maneuvers can be true. The most improbable maneuvers ..." I will be writing another blog post to discuss this quote. To summarize, JFK Revisited reported speculation and rumors about purported CIA involvement in the coup attempt. No evidence was presented in any of these sources: Paris-Jour article by Genevieve Tabouis Jauvert book, L'Amerique Contre De Gaulle London Observer, May 2, 1961 Andrew Tully's book, CIA: The Inside Story (page 48-49) The Nation, May 20, 1961 Washington Post, April 30, 1961 New York Times, April 28, 1961 JFK Revisited seems desperate to score points against the CIA. Instead of offering a measured realistic approach to what actually happened, JFK Revisited offers a quick cartoon, devoid of any nuance, and without any intent to educate viewers. It's a shame. There's no need to resort to making up incendiary material about the CIA's shenanigans. There's already enough real material out there. I want to thank Max Holland, Paul Hoch, and Alecia Long for their help with this blog post. Previous Relevant Blog Posts on JFK Revisited Max Boot on Oliver Stone's Lies Max Boot: Oliver Stone just can't stop spreading lies about JFK's assassination. "JFK Revisited" Misleads on Valery Giscard D'Estaing Did Gerald Ford really disclose to French President Valery Giscard D'Estaing that the JFK assassination was a conspiracy? Perhaps not. "JFK Revisited" Star Believes in a Massive COVID Conspiracy Robert Kennedy, Jr. believes in a massive conspiracy regarding Covid and the intelligence agencies. "JFK Revisited" Misleads on Kennedy's Back Wound While Gerald Ford edited some language in the Warren Report, he did not change the location of the back wound. Autopsy photographs show exactly the location of the back wound. "JFK Revisited" alleges Oswald was "placed" Oliver Stone's so-called documentary alleges that Oswald was "moved" to Dallas and "placed" in the Texas School Book Depository. This is totally ridiculous. "JFK Revisited" Misleads on JFK's Throat Wound The preponderance of the evidence indicates JFK's throat wound was one of exit. "JFK Revisited" Misleads on the Supposed Chicago Plot There is no evidence that there was actually a plot against JFK in Chicago. Was James Gochenaur a Credible Witness in "JFK Revisited"? Gochenaur's writings don't back up his allegations in JFK Revisited. "JFK Revisited" Misleads on Guy Banister Oliver Stone's so-called documentary claims that Guy Banister gave Oswald a room at 544 Camp Street. The evidence does not support the allegation. "JFK Revisited" Misleads on JFK's Brain, Again... Dr. Robert Kirschner's consultation with the ARRB explains a mystery in the documentary. "JFK Revisited" Misleads on the Weight of JFK's Brain JFK Revisited makes a big deal about the weight of JFK's brain and ignores a non-conspiratorial explanation. JFK Revisited Distorts John Stringer's Testimony Oliver Stone's so-called documentary makes it sound like the autopsy photographer said that he did not take the photos of JFK's brain that are in the current inventory, JFK Revisited Lays an Egg Oliver Stone took to Twitter last weekend to bemoan the fact that the mainstream press is ignoring his so-called documentary, JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass. Oliver Stone with "JFK Revisited" Crucifies Clay Shaw Once Again There is something really obscene about Oliver Stone once again going after Clay Shaw. JFK Revisited Doesn't Tell the Whole Truth about John Connally You won't learn everything you need to know about Connally's position on the shots from Oliver Stone's so-called documentary. JFK Revisited Uses Marina Porter to Mislead Viewers Oliver Stone tries to make it seem like Marina Porter has denied taking the backyard photographs of Lee Harvey Oswald. JFK Revisited: Were the Oswald Backyard Photographs Faked? Oliver Stone once again raises the issue of the legitimacy of the backyard photographs of Lee Harvey Oswald. JFK Revisited: Was Clay Shaw the elusive Clay Bertrand? This post debunks every witness that ever claimed Shaw was Bertrand. Oliver Stone's Poverty of Imagination He cannot imagine any sort of non-conspiratorial explanations for any of the suspicious pieces of evidence in his film. Was Clay Shaw a "Contract Agent" for the CIA? No, Clay Shaw was not a "contract agent." Steve Roe Blog Posts on JFK Revisited JFK Revisited: Again, Caught Creating False Mysteries "Stone/DiEugenio hatch another Bogus Mystery with Sinister Strap/Sling Mounts on Oswald's Rifle" JFK Revisited: Tripping on the Stairs Oliver Stone claims that Oswald could not have been in the sniper's nest on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. Steve Roe exposes Stone's mistakes. Oliver Stone doubles-down on the Looney Frontal Shot to the President In an interview on RT [Russia Today], Oliver Stone says that the throat wound might have been made by a flechette. Oliver Stone - Deceptive Filmmaker? Steve Roe presents some examples of Oliver Stone's 'creative' abilities. A Look at the "JFK Revisited: Through The Looking Glass" Film by Oliver Stone Oliver Stone distorts the testimony about Oswald's palmprint on the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle.

Encounters with Assassins, Spies, Presidents, and Would-Be Masters of the Universe Edward Jay Epstein, author of Inquest and Counterplot, has a new book which chronicles the main stories he has written about throughout his life. Part memoir, part autobiography, Assume Nothing has a 118-page section on the JFK assassination. Here is a short excerpt from his chapter, The Jolly Green Giant: (pages 94 -95) I met Garrison that evening for dinner. He told me he had made progress since the arrest, and release on bail, of Shaw. "I can now prove that Oswald, David Ferrie, and Clay Shaw met at Ferrie's apartment in 1963," Garrison said. "During the meeting, they planned out the assassination." I asked how Garrison could establish such a meeting took place since two of the alleged participants, Oswald and Ferrie, were dead, and the third, Shaw, categorically denied ever meeting Oswald. Garrison said there was another witness named Perry Russo, who happened to be in Ferrie's apartment at the time and had overheard the conversation. Unfortunately, Garrison said, Russo had repressed his memory of the assassination meeting when he was initially questioned by Sciambra, so no mention of it was made in Sciambra's memorandum of the interrogation. Garrison then told me he had "reconstituted Russo's memory" by using both sodium pentothal injections and hypnosis. As a result, Russo was able to recall Oswald, Ferrie, and Shaw at the assassination meeting. The problem for Garrison was that the Sciambra memo could be used to discredit Russo's reconstituted memories in court. Therefore, Garrison said, he needed a witness to connect Oswald to Shaw. This made Dean Andrews, in Garrison's view, a key witness, since he might be able to identify Shaw as the Clay Bertrand who had sent Oswald to him. "Will he?" I asked. "He will when we press him." Garrison squeezed a lemon over his oysters as if demonstrating his ability to squeeze a witness. I met Dean Andrews the next day at the Marlboro Club at 4:00 p.m. He was in his late 40s. A plump man with a boyish face, he wore a badly crumpled suit, a loud tie, and round dark glasses. After waving me over with exaggerated hand gestures, he told me he had served as an assistant DA in Jefferson Parish and knew "how the game is played." Andrews had a colorful way of describing people. He called Garrison "a thousand-pound canary." "Is Clay Shaw the person you called Clay Bertrand?" I asked. "Absolutely not," he answered. "Shaw is just an unfortunate who was grabbed out of the sky by the jolly green giant, and his wizards and practitioners of voodoo labeled him Clay Bertrand, and bang, he's been tagged 'it' ever since." You can read the infamous Sciambra memorandum in this post.

Beckham's mug shot from 1972 in Mississippi. We've written extensively about Thomas Beckham (see the links below), who testified before the Garrison grand jury and before the HSCA. You can read more about him in my book, On the Trail of Delusion - Jim Garrison: The Great Accuser. Anonymous letters sent to Jim Garrison convinced him that Fred Crisman and Thomas Beckham were persons of interest in the JFK assassination. The truth is that they were both conmen and they probably concocted the whole thing for some publicity and for a free trip to New Orleans. Beckham claimed to have known Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963. He also made up stories about being involved with a variety of people in the assassination. You can read his story in his deposition to the HSCA: Joan Mellen believed Thomas Beckham and featured his stories in her book, A Farewell to Justice. Beckham's specialty is forged/faked University degrees. Beckham even published several of them in his book, Remnants of Truth. That post includes an hilarious exchange with the HSCA on his various degrees. Once he got going talking about his professional qualifications - and Beckham never made it to high school - they realized that he was some sort of nut. Well, Mr. Beckham has now opened the Arvel Monroe University: The University was founded in 1927 and named after a Russian Jew, who fought in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War: Arvel Monroe does not sound like a Russian Jewish name. Interestingly, in a handwritten document about his life, Thomas Beckham described Arvel Monroe as his father, unless, of course, his father was named after Arvel. You can view the University's price list here. I guess you have to write to get actual prices. The application process for the University is quite simple: You can see the University staff here: I am surprised that Rabbi Beckham is not teaching any courses on Jewish theology. It appears that the Rabbi's son is also on the Board of Trustees: Dr. Brian Beckham was written up in one of the vanity magazines. Dr. Beckham operated some sort of clinic in Louisville: Here is his corporate information, and his last online annual report: Susan Lynn Doyle and Dawn Boston are also listed as members of the Board of Trustees of Arvel Monroe University. It looks like Life Management and Dr. Brian Beckham are in some trouble: As we said in an earlier post, "Like Father, Like Son?" Previous Relevant Posts on Thomas Beckham Thomas Beckham in Mississippi... In the early 1970s, Beckham spent some time in Mississippi and got in a heap of trouble. Did The HSCA Have a Confession Tape? Jim Garrison believed that the HSCA got a confession about the JFK assassination on tape. Did Thomas Beckham know Lee Harvey Oswald? Beckham's ever-changing claims regarding Oswald. Why did Jim Garrison Want to Speak to Thomas Beckham? Garrison's search to find Thomas Beckham. Thomas Beckham's Book, Remnants of Truth, Part One Some highlights from Beckham's book. Jim Garrison's Memo to the HSCA regarding Fred Crisman and Thomas Beckham, part one... Garrison hand-wrote a long memo the HSCA about Crisman and Beckham. I provide a typed transcription. Jim Garrison's Exhibits to his HSCA Memo on Fred Crisman and Thomas Beckham Here are all the exhibits Garrison sent to the HSCA to support his memo. Jim Garrison Identifies the "Cut-Out" of a "Professional, Highly Organized, Clandestine Operation." Jim Garrison writes a memo to the HSCA about Beckham Who Exactly was the Man with a Scar? Was Beckham with Oswald when he handing out his handbills in New Orleans? Did David Ferrie Have a Map of Dealey Plaza in his Desk Drawer? Beckham told the HSCA about a package of documents that he had received and the trail led to a supposed map of Dealey Plaza. Reverend Raymond Broshears Tells Even More in New Orleans! Broshears and Beckham knew each other. Was Thomas Beckham in Clinton with Shaw and Oswald? One witness from Clinton, Louisiana identified Thomas Beckham as one of the people with Clay Shaw. Bob Lavender Reveals the Secret of the JFK Assassination! A strange witness talks to a Garrison investigator about Thomas Beckham and Fred Crisman. Two Anonymous Letters to Jim Garrison Two tips to Garrison mention Fred Crisman and Thomas Beckham.

Journalist Jonathan Kay has just published, at Quillette.com, a must-read article on the JFK case and New Orleans: I learned all this not from watching Destiny Betrayed itself (life’s too short for that), but rather from reading Oliver Stone’s Film-Flam: The Demagogue of Dealey Plaza, a newly published book authored by Quillette contributor (and one-time self-confessed JFK “conspiracy freak”) Fred Litwin. By one of those happy journalistic coincidences, a review copy of Litwin’s new release was waiting for me when I got home from New Orleans, its chapter titles corresponding to Litwin’s point-by-point rebuttals of Destiny Betrayed. These include “Was Lee Harvey Oswald a Fake Defector?”, “Did the CIA Lobby to Have Allen Dulles Put on the Warren Commission?”, and “Did the Conspirators Substitute JFK’s Brain?” (A disturbing number of JFK conspiracy theories involve the weight, shape, and ultimate fate of the President’s skull contents.) This isn’t the place for a proper review of Litwin’s book because I didn’t read all of it. Rather, I skipped straight to the chapters touching on New Orleans, which (among other things) make short work of the Goldberg-intoned claim, contained in the fourth episode of Destiny Betrayed, that Guy Banister “gave Oswald his own office at 544 Camp Street. Oswald now began to use the office to print up and stamp pro-Castro literature.” As Litwin explains at great length, there is no evidence that Oswald ever had an office at 544 Camp Street (or at the adjoining Lafayette Street address for that matter). He also demonstrates that the Hands off Cuba! leaflets shown in both the original JFK and Destiny Betrayed, stamped “544 Camp Street,” are fake: The actual leaflets that Oswald handed out in New Orleans were stamped with either his own home address or post office box.

Cyril Wecht's memoir, The JFK Assassination Dissected, revisits the question of whether Oswald was on the front steps of the TSBD during the assassination: (page 267 of the Kindle version) But Marina had a mission with her call to me. She wondered if, given the advanced photographic analysis possible today, it might be possible to enhance the Ike Altgens photo that shows numerous people gathered at the entrance of the book depository. Most experts have agreed that the thin, dark-haired man on the left side is Billy Lovelady, an employee who testified to the Warren Commission that the photo is, indeed, him. Various color films also show the man in question, and they comport with the facial architecture of Lovelady. But some skeptics have always believed the man to be Oswald, which would mean he was outside while the motorcade passed by and not on the sixth floor, as authorities stated, or in the lunchroom, as Oswald claimed. Lovelady and Oswald do share a general resemblance. Recently, Ralph Cinque, a blogger who runs a website arguing for Oswald’s innocence, raised the question that when Lovelady was asked during testimony to put a black ink “X” over his image in the photo, he may have instead marked the man to his immediate left—whose arms are covering his head, obscuring his face. Cinque asserts that the black X is on a black background and can’t be detected with the naked eye. Lovelady can’t be questioned because he died in 1979, yet all of the other employees who gave sworn testimony named him as among the employees on the steps, and not one of them stated Oswald was standing with them. I can see why the matter would be of great importance to Marina and her family. I couldn’t give Marina any guidance except to say that the National Archives controls the Altgens original, so any permission for new testing would have to be approved by their curators. Why on earth is Dr. Wecht revisiting this old controversy? This was settled ages ago: By the way, Ralph Cinque believes that FBI agent James Bookhout was the killer of Oswald.

Seymour Hersh was in the news a couple of weeks ago with a tendentious claim about the sabotage of the Nordstream pipeline. The main problem with his reporting is that he only has one unnamed source. This is very similar to Tucker Carlson using one unnamed source for his story that the CIA was behind the JFK assassination. When I was younger and was on the left, I used to idolize Seymour Hersh. In fact, I was his host for a visit to Concordia University in Montreal i 1976. Here is my article: In Hersh's 2018 memoir Reporter, he discusses an encounter with Oliver Stone: (page 274) We did some work, but he was far more interested in expounding on his theory, which later became a movie, that President Kennedy's murder was a CIA conspiracy. We had a game-ending row the next morning when I told him that his idea was off the wall and he said in response that he always knew I was a CIA agent. Here is a good article on Seymour Hersh. The way to understand Hersh is to visualize most of his sources as Michael Scheuer-like individuals. It is not difficult to find such people in the intelligence world: obsessive, frustrated idiot savants who perceive themselves as stymied by the paper pushers, the bureaucrats, the know-nothing ass kissers who don’t have the courage to come out and tell it like it really is. Such people are naturally drawn to a reporter like Hersh, a crusading writer who “gets it,” who sees the world in the same conspiratorial tones they do, where dark, shadowy forces manipulate global events.

Over the past several months, I have shown in multiple blog posts how Oliver Stone's documentary series, JFK Revisited and JFK: Destiny Betrayed, misleads viewers. In fact, despite months of work, there are still many more misleading segments that need to be addressed. It's no wonder that the fact checkers of Netflix nixed the airing of the films. There is a choice between four hours of tendentious nonsense (JFK: Destiny Betrayed) and two hours (JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass). As a handy guide for viewers, here are all those posts in order of their appearance in JFK: Destiny Betrayed and JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass, preceded by some general critiques. Essays Oliver Stone's Poverty of Imagination He cannot imagine any sort of non-conspiratorial explanations for any of the suspicious pieces of evidence in his film. What Ever Happened to Jim Garrison? Jim Garrison is AWOL in Oliver Stone's so-called documentary JFK: Destiny Betrayed. The Enabling of Oliver Stone An essay on the intellectual monstrosity of JFK: Destiny Betrayed. Max Boot on Oliver Stone's Lies A good review of JFK Revisited by historian Max Boot in the Washington Post. Oliver Stone with "JFK Revisited" Crucifies Clay Shaw Once Again There is something really obscene about Oliver Stone once again going after Clay Shaw. JFK Revisited Lays an Egg Oliver Stone took to Twitter last weekend to bemoan the fact that the mainstream press is ignoring his so-called documentary, JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass. "JFK Revisited" Star Believes in a Massive COVID Conspiracy Robert Kennedy, Jr. believes in a massive conspiracy regarding COVID-19 and the intelligence agencies. Is the JFK assassination linked to 9/11 and Covid-19? Just when I thought conspiracy theorists couldn't get any crazier. "Guilt by Orientation" - The CIA Strikes Again! James Kirchick's terrific article on Oliver Stone and homosexuality. Oliver Stone's JFK Revisited Screenwriter Reprimanded by ARRB in 1998 An exchange of letters between James DiEugenio and Jeremy Gunn of the ARRB. Did the ARRB Prove a Conspiracy in the JFK Assassination? Oliver Stone makes the claim in his so-called documentary, JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass, that the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) turned conspiracy theory into conspiracy fact. But is this really true? A Letter from Bill Baxley about Oliver Stone The former Attorney General of Alabama, Bill Baxley, writes a letter about Oliver Stone. Oliver Stone Admits "JFK Revisited" is a Flop Oliver Stone admits that the mainstream media is ignoring his cartoon. Grovelling at the feet of Le Grand Complotiste A look at Oliver Stone's visit to Quebec City. When will Oliver Stone Admit he was Wrong about Clay Shaw? Isn't it time for an apology? JFK: Destiny Betrayed Episode 1 (11:49) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads on Allen Dulles and the Warren Commission The evidence is clear - Robert Kennedy wanted Allen Dulles on the Warren Commission. (23:05) "JFK Revisited" Misleads by Putting Words in Kennedy's Mouth, Part Two Did President Kennedy actually say that he was going to shatter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the wind? (24:07) "JFK Revisited" Misleads on Supposed CIA Support of the 1961 Coup Attempt in France Oliver Stone's so-called documentary claims the CIA supported the 1961 coup attempt against French President Charles de Gaulle in 1961. The only thing missing is evidence. (24:59) "JFK Revisited" Misleads by Putting Words in Kennedy's Mouth... David Talbot claims that JFK told the French Ambassador that he was not in full control of his entire government. There is no evidence he ever said that. (25:24) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads on CIA Involvement in Plot against de Gaulle JFK: Destiny Betrayed alleges the CIA was involved in an assassination plot against French President Charles de Gaulle. Scenes from a fictional film are used to buttress the allegation. The truth - the CIA had nothing to do with the supposed plot. (28:10) JFK Revisited Doesn't Tell the Whole Truth about John Connally You won't learn everything you need to know about Connally's position on the shots from Oliver Stone's so-called documentary. (47:57) Oliver Stone Disses the Sixth Floor Museum JFK: Destiny Betrayed needlessly, and unfairly, criticizes the Sixth Floor Museum. (49:32) Tripping on the Stairs JFK: Destiny Betrayed alleges that the testimony of Vickie Adams and Sandra Styles proves that Oswald was not on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. But there was a shooter on the sixth floor and they didn't see anyone going down the stairs. TSBD expert Jerry Dealey provides a simple explanation. Episode 2 (4:01) "JFK Revisited" Misleads on JFK's Throat Wound The preponderance of the evidence indicates JFK's throat wound was one of exit. (8:38) Was James Gochenaur a Credible Witness in "JFK Revisited"? Gochenaur's writings don't back up his allegations in JFK Revisited. (9:59) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads on Dr. Charles Crenshaw Oliver Stone's so-called documentary series, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, features Dr. Charles Crenshaw to bolster its claim that President Kennedy was shot from the front. Viewers are not informed of Dr. Crenshaw's credibility problems (11:48) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads on JFK's Head Wound, Part Three Oliver Stone's so-called documentary, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, misleads viewers on the opinions of Parkland Hospital doctors and Bethesda witnesses regarding JFK's head wound. (14:48) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads on the Harper Fragment Oliver Stone's so-called documentary series, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, misleads viewers into thinking the Harper fragment was occipital bone that came from the back of Kennedy's head. (35:30) Dr. Joseph Dolce: Another Problematic Witness from "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Have a look at Dr. Joseph Dolce's bad judgment (38:40) JFK Revisited Uses Marina Porter to Mislead Viewers Oliver Stone tries to make it seem like Marina Porter has denied taking the backyard photographs of Lee Harvey Oswald. (39:16) JFK Revisited: Again, Caught Creating False Mysteries "Stone/DiEugenio hatch another Bogus Mystery with Sinister Strap/Sling Mounts on Oswald's Rifle" (40:41) JFK Revisited: Were the Oswald Backyard Photographs Faked? Oliver Stone once again raises the issue of the legitimacy of the backyard photographs of Lee Harvey Oswald. (42:06) A Look at the "JFK Revisited: Through The Looking Glass" Film by Oliver Stone Oliver Stone distorts the testimony about Oswald's palmprint on the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. (44:36) A Single Photograph Disproves Oliver Stone’s Conspiracy Claim JFK: Destiny Betrayed claims that the initials of Elmer Lee Todd are missing from CE 399. Steve Roe proves them wrong. (47:56) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads on CE399 Oliver Stone's so-called documentary series, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, misleads viewers on the bullet found at Parkland Hospital, CE399. They imply that Darrell Tomlinson, the maintenance employee who found the bullet, said that bullet he found didn't look like CE399. The truth is somewhat different. (50:28) Dr. Henry Lee, Star of "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Dr. Henry Lee makes a brief appearance in this episode. He is a problematic expert. (52:43) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads by Claiming Jack Ruby was Signaled Oliver Stone's so-called documentary series, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, alleges that Jack Ruby was signaled by car horns in the basement of the Dallas Police Department. The evidence clearly shows that there were many horns being sounded in the basement. (53:30) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads on the Katzenbach Memorandum Oliver Stone's so-called documentary series, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, misleads viewers on a memo written by Nicholas Katzenbach about investigating JFK's assassination. (55:07) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads on Jack Ruby Oliver Stone's so-called documentary series, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, misleads viewers on the motivations of Jack Ruby. Episode 3 (1:33) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads on Admiral George Burkley Oliver Stone's so-called documentary series, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, makes several outrageous allegations about Admiral George Burkley, JFK's personal physician as well as a slanderous accusation. (1:33) "JFK Revisited" Misleads on Dr. Burkley's Suspicions of a Conspiracy Oliver Stone's so-called documentary, JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass, misleads viewers into believing that JFK's doctor, Admiral George Burkley, said that there were multiple gunmen. (1;33) "JFK Revisited" Misleads on the ARRB's Quest for Dr. Burkley's Lawyer's Papers Oliver Stone's so-called documentary, JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass, misleads viewers on the context of discussions between Burkley's family and the ARRB regarding supposed papers in the possession of his lawyer. (1:33) "JFK Revisited" Recklessly Accuses George Burkley of being Involved in a Cover-Up Reckless charges are made against George Burkley with no evidence. (1:33) "JFK Revisited" Misleads on Admiral Burkley and the HSCA Oliver Stone's so-called documentary, JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass, greatly misleads viewers on Admiral George Burkley and his interactions with the HSCA. (1:33) "JFK Revisited" Misleads on Admiral George Burkley and Conspiracy Theorists Oliver Stone's so-called documentary puts words in Burkley's mouth. (6:22) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads on JFK's Head Wound, Part One Oliver Stone's so-called documentary series JFK: Destiny Betrayed uses a variety of supposed witnesses to allege that the wound in the back of Kennedy's head was one of exit. Audrey Bell is one such witness and she doesn't have much credibility. (6:52) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads on JFK's Head Wound, Part Two Oliver Stone's so-called documentary series, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, tries to make the case that because Parkland Hospital doctors saw cerebellum extruding from Kennedy's head wound, that it indicated an exit wound. (10:08) "JFK Revisited" Misleads on the Weight of JFK's Brain JFK Revisited makes a big deal about the weight of JFK's brain and ignores a non-conspiratorial explanation. (12:16) "JFK Revisited" Misleads on JFK's Brain, Again... Dr. Robert Kirschner's consultation with the ARRB explains a mystery in the documentary. (15:09) JFK Revisited Distorts John Stringer's Testimony Oliver Stone's so-called documentary makes it sound like the autopsy photographer said that he did not take the photos of JFK's brain that are in the current inventory, (17:08) "JFK Revisited" Misleads on Autopsy Photographs of JFK Oliver Stone's so-called documentary tries to make the case that a White House photographer took photos at the autopsy. The only problem is that there is no evidence he was actually there. (19:30) "JFK Revisited" Misleads on the Autopsy Photographs of JFK, Part Two Did Saundra Spencer really develop a completely different set of autopsy photographs? (20:59) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads on JFK's Autopsy Photographs, Part Three Oliver Stone's so-called documentary, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, misleads viewers into believing there are missing autopsy photographs. In the process, the autopsy photographer is appallingly quoted out of context. (26:05) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads on Supposed Extra Bullet Oliver Stone's so-called documentary series, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, alleges that an extra bullet was found in JFK's limousine the evening of the assassination. This is just not true. (27:49) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads on Supposed Extra Bullet, Part Two Oliver Stone's so-called documentary series, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, misleads viewers by intimating that that there was a through-and-through hole in the windshield. This is simply not true. (34:22) "JFK Revisited" Misleads on Kennedy's Back Wound While Gerald Ford edited some language in the Warren Report, he did not change the location of the back wound. Autopsy photographs show exactly the location of the back wound. (34:45) "JFK Revisited" Misleads on Valery Giscard D'Estaing Did Gerald Ford really disclose to French President Valery Giscard D'Estaing that the JFK assassination was a conspiracy? Perhaps not. (54:07) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads on General Curtis LeMay, Part One Oliver Stone's so-called documentary series, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, claims that General Curtis LeMay was ordered by General Zuckert to land at Andrews Air Force Base from his holiday in Canada, and that LeMay then decided to go to National Airport. That is not what happened. (56:29) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads on General Curtis LeMay, Part Two Oliver Stone's so-called documentary series, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, alleges that General Curtis LeMay was at JFK's autopsy. (56:51) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads on JFK's Autopsy Oliver Stone's so-called documentary series, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, alleges that autopsy pathologists were told to fit the wounds to a presupposed conclusion. Episode 4 (1:37) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads on Otto Otepka Oliver Stone's so-called documentary series, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, misleads viewers into believing that Otto Otepka uncovered evidence that Oswald was a fake defector. (7:51) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads on Oswald's Income Oliver Stone's so-called documentary series, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, makes the erroneous claim that Lee Harvey Oswald was not paid for his last quarter of service in the U.S. Marines. (10:14) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads on David Ferrie and the CIA Oliver Stone's so-called documentary series, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, erroneously claims that David Ferrie was an asset of the CIA and that he also flew missions for the CIA. This is simply not true. (10:55) Why Does JFK: Destiny Betrayed Show Fake Oswald Handbills? JFK: Destiny Betrayed misleads viewers into believing that Oswald gave out handbills on the streets of New Orleans stamped with the 544 Camp Street address (10:55) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads Viewers on Oswald's "Hands Off Cuba!" Handbills, Part Two An early use of the fake Oswald handbill. (10:55) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads Viewers on Oswald's "Hands Off Cuba!" Handbills, Part Three A look at James DiEugenio's use of the fake Oswald handbill. (10:55) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads Viewers on Oswald's "Hands Off Cuba!" Handbills, Part Four Journalist Jefferson Morley has also used the fake Oswald handbills. (10:55) "JFK Revisited" Misleads on Guy Banister Oliver Stone's so-called documentary claims that Guy Banister gave Oswald a room at 544 Camp Street. The evidence does not support the allegation. (13:22) Was Clay Shaw a "Contract Agent" for the CIA? No, Clay Shaw was not a "contract agent." (14:03) JFK Revisited: Was Clay Shaw the elusive Clay Bertrand? This post debunks every witness that has ever claimed Shaw was Bertrand (22:03) "JFK Revisited" Misleads on the Supposed Chicago Plot There is no evidence that there was actually a plot against JFK in Chicago. (24:22) "JFK Revisited" alleges Oswald was "placed" Oliver Stone's so-called documentary alleges that Oswald was "moved" to Dallas and "placed" in the Texas School Book Depository. This is totally ridiculous. (25:06) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads on Supposed Tampa 'Patsy' Oliver Stone's so-called documentary series, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, alleges that there were plots to assassinate JFK in Chicago and Tampa in November of 1963. In addition, the documentary alleges that Thomas Vallee and Gilberto Policarpo Lopez were patsies-in-waiting in Chicago and Tampa respectively, who would have been arrested had the supposed plots succeeded. The only problems with this thesis is that there is no evidence that there was a plot in Chicago. And there is no evidence of a plot in Tampa as well. (25:06) Was Gilberto Policarpo Lopez an Assassin or a Patsy? Researcher Paul Hoch has uncovered evidence that significantly adds to our understanding of this story. It turns out that the Church Committee got an important fact wrong. (41:19) "JFK: Destiny Betrayed" Misleads on Israel and Nuclear Weapons Oliver Stone's so-called documentary series, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, makes it appear that Israel was about to use nuclear weapons in the 1973 Yom Kippur war. A key important fact was left out. JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass (26:16) JFK Revisited Doesn't Tell the Whole Truth about John Connally You won't learn everything you need to know about Connally's position on the shots from Oliver Stone's so-called documentary. (28:45) JFK Revisited Uses Marina Porter to Mislead Viewers Oliver Stone tries to make it seem like Marina Porter has denied taking the backyard photographs of Lee Harvey Oswald. (30:00) JFK Revisited: Again, Caught Creating False Mysteries "Stone/DiEugenio hatch another Bogus Mystery with Sinister Strap/Sling Mounts on Oswald's Rifle" (30:57) JFK Revisited: Were the Oswald Backyard Photographs Faked? Oliver Stone once again raises the issue of the legitimacy of the backyard photographs of Lee Harvey Oswald. (31:00) A Look at the "JFK Revisited: Through The Looking Glass" Film by Oliver Stone Oliver Stone distorts the testimony about Oswald's palmprint on the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. (38:32) "JFK Revisited" Misleads on JFK's Throat Wound The preponderance of the evidence indicates JFK's throat wound was one of exit. (42:38) Was James Gochenaur a Credible Witness in "JFK Revisited"? Gochenaur's writings don't back up his allegations in JFK Revisited. (53:05) JFK Revisited Distorts John Stringer's Testimony Oliver Stone's so-called documentary makes it sound like the autopsy photographer said that he did not take the photos of JFK's brain that are in the current inventory, (54:27) "JFK Revisited" Misleads on Autopsy Photographs of JFK Oliver Stone's so-called documentary tries to make the case that a White House photographer took photos at the autopsy. The only problem is that there is no evidence he was actually there. (56:42) "JFK Revisited" Misleads on the Autopsy Photographs of JFK, Part Two Did Saundra Spencer really develop a completely different set of autopsy photographs? (57:37) "JFK Revisited" Misleads on the Weight of JFK's Brain JFK Revisited makes a big deal about the weight of JFK's brain and ignores a non-conspiratorial explanation. (59:03) "JFK Revisited" Misleads on JFK's Brain, Again... Dr. Robert Kirschner's consultation with the ARRB explains a mystery in the documentary. (1:04:21) "JFK Revisited" Misleads on Kennedy's Back Wound While Gerald Ford edited some language in the Warren Report, he did not change the location of the back wound. Autopsy photographs show exactly the location of the back wound. (1:05:54) "JFK Revisited" Misleads on Valery Giscard D'Estaing Did Gerald Ford really disclose to French President Valery Giscard D'Estaing that the JFK assassination was a conspiracy? Perhaps not. (1:11:32) "JFK Revisited" Misleads on Guy Banister Oliver Stone's so-called documentary claims that Guy Banister gave Oswald a room at 544 Camp Street. The evidence does not support the allegation. (1:17:10) JFK Revisited: Was Clay Shaw the elusive Clay Bertrand? This post debunks every witness that has ever claimed Shaw was Bertrand (1:17:15) Was Clay Shaw a "Contract Agent" for the CIA? No, Clay Shaw was not a "contract agent." (1:23:31) "JFK Revisited" Misleads on the Supposed Chicago Plot There is no evidence that there was actually a plot against JFK in Chicago. 1:25:55 "JFK Revisited" alleges Oswald was "placed" Oliver Stone's so-called documentary alleges that Oswald was "moved" to Dallas and "placed" in the Texas School Book Depository. This is totally ridiculous. 1:33:33 "JFK Revisited" Misleads on Supposed CIA Support of the 1961 Coup Attempt in France Oliver Stone's so-called documentary claims the CIA supported the 1961 coup attempt against French President Charles de Gaulle in 1961. The only thing missing is evidence. (1:33:33) "JFK Revisited" Misleads by Putting Words in Kennedy's Mouth, Part Two Did President Kennedy actually say that he was going to shatter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the wind? 1:34:58 "JFK Revisited" Misleads by Putting Words in Kennedy's Mouth... David Talbot claims that JFK told the French Ambassador that he was not in full control of his entire government. There is no evidence he ever said that. JFK Revisited The Book of the Film Doubling down on Phony Theories Steve Roe made a rude discovery when perusing the book of the film. James DiEugenio included a debunked allegation that Oswald's money order for his rifle could not have reaching Chicago in time. Anatomy of a James DiEugenio Citation A citation about the segment on David Ferrie in the book is quite something. It leads to a Colonel William Bishop, who was quite the fabulist. Using a ridiculous conspiracy book to prop up the JFK Revisited documentary is not a good look. Anatomy of a James DiEugenio Citation, Part Two An analysis of the footnotes related to the anti-Castro training camp north of Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans in the summer of 1963. Paul Bleau's Plots Paul Bleau is a so-called expert on plots against JFK and his interview in the book, JFK Revisited, is revealing. JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass Commentary Track on the Blu-Ray Disc Highlights of Oliver Stone's and James DiEugenio's Commentary Track on "JFK Revisited" Oliver Stone's Film-Flam: The Demagogue of Dealey Plaza You can download the Source section to my book, Oliver Stone's Film-Flam:

One of the scientific stars of Oliver Stone's so-called documentary series, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, is Dr. Henry Lee, who is billed as one of the top criminalists in the United States. James DiEugenio has repeatedly discussed why Dr. Lee was a star of the series: "The reason I wanted Lee is because he has never written so much as a long essay, let alone a book on the JFK case." "It [JFK: Destiny Betrayed] proves that CE 399, the Magic Bullet, was not fired in Dealey Plaza that day and would not have been accepted into a court of law. It does the latter through an instructor in criminal justice and also the illustrious criminalist Dr. Henry Lee." "Henry Lee is probably the best man in America at reconstructions. He is certified in many states and a few countries. He told us for our film that you cannot do a trajectory analysis in this case. The simple reason being that neither of JFK's wounds were dissected." However, Dr. Lee only features once in the series, in episode 2 at 50:28: (page 175 in the Kindle edition of the book JFK Revisited) Henry Lee: The chain of custody doesn’t start in the laboratory, it starts at the crime scene. Each piece of evidence should be photographed, documented, and preserved properly. From the scene, evidence is collected, sent to the laboratory. We have to keep the chain of custody when they enter the lab. Who examined? Who did the closer analysis, and each step have to maintain and until submit to the court. If this chain broke, then my evidence become inadmissible. That's it. Supposed problems with the chain of custody are continually overplayed by James DiEugenio. The implication that much of the physical evidence has been planted is unpersuasive when you look at how events unfolded. James DiEugenio would have you believe that issues with its chain of possession can only mean that somewhere, between Dallas and Washington, the conspirators changed the bullet. But Kenneth Rahn noted that the “the window of opportunity [to plant items] came well before anyone knew what kind of fragments to plant and where.” How would conspirators know the nature of the wounds of Connally and Kennedy? How would they know what kinds of fragments or bullets to plant? What if they planted an extra bullet? The Mannlicher-Carcano rifle was found at about 1 PM on November 22nd. It was kept by the Dallas police until about 11:45 PM at which time it was released to the FBI. We know with certainty that CE399 was fired by Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. If the conspirators planted it at Parkland, they would have had to fire the bullet well before the assassination. Perhaps the conspirators switched out the bullet in Washington. But CE399 was in the possession of the FBI on the evening of November 22nd, well before they took possession of the rifle. Does DiEugenio believe the Dallas police fired the rifle and sent the bullet to Washington? In addition, researcher Steve Roe has examined courtroom procedures back in 1963 and concludes that CE 399 would have been admissible in a trial. Remember the prosecution is allowed to present relevant evidence to be considered by the jury. Is CE399 relevant? Of course it was! The bullet was a 6.5mm bullet that was examined by the FBI Lab and was determined to be fired from Oswald’s rifle. [Prosecutor Henry] Wade would have that FBI Lab report. Presented with that back-up evidence, no judge would rule that inadmissible. It is inconceivable that testimony by an expert witness firearms examiner that CE399 was fired by Oswald’s rifle was not relevant. Again remember, it’s the jury’s duty to weigh that evidence, not the judge. And it’s the prosecutor’s duty to prove CE399 was fired from Oswald’s rifle. Could the defense have had the bullet examined by their chosen expert firearms examiner? Of course, but in the intervening years, no one has suggested that another examination would have produced a different conclusion. But does Dr. Lee know much about the JFK assassination? He was consulted once by the ARRB. James DiEugenio's book JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass, contains an interview with Dr. Lee: (pages 430 - 431) Stone: As a result of the JFK Records Act, it created the Assassination Records Review Board. I know they invited you to give them your opinion on the autopsy materials for the assassination. Lee: Actually at the end of 1997, they contacted me. On January 22, 1998, I went to review this case. Stone: And what was your opinion of the quality and the quantity of the work done in the JFK autopsy? Lee: Autopsy protocol and autopsy procedure did not vary too much during those years. The autopsy is less than desired, the quality and quantity. Stone: So is it reliable and complete? Lee: The forensic scientist’s view is we need a complete autopsy to do the reconstruction, to do the analysis. Whatever the autopsy report, the photographs I got, I didn’t have enough material to do what I needed for the reconstruction of the shooting. The ARRB brought in Dr. Lee and Dr. Vincent Di Maio for a specific reason: to examine the autopsy photographs and X-rays to help determine if they should convene a new forensic pathology panel to investigate the medical evidence. They were specifically not asked to "make any substantive judgments regarding what the autopsy materials reveal in the way of injuries." Jeremy Gunn wrote that Lee was impressed by the quality of the autopsy photographs: Lee and Di Maio did not recommend that the ARRB name a new forensic pathology panel. But one wonders just how much material was examined by Dr. Lee, for the ARRB, or at some other time. Take this exchange on the Zapruder film: (page 433) Stone: When you were doing this, did you have access, did you ever look at the Zapruder film in any detail? Lee: We tried to use this information. But again, you have to find the exact location of Zapruder. The angle of the camera. The speed of the film. At that moment I do not have that information. Lee could make no conclusions: (page 433) Stone: What was your ultimate conclusion after looking at the records? Lee: The ultimate conclusion is: I don’t know. I have no idea. …With Commission Exhibit 567 and 569, we made a recommendation to do a trace analysis and a biological analysis. For those two pieces in the front seat of the limousine. James DiEugenio has made some additional claims regarding Henry Lee: As for the autopsy photos and the x-rays, they contain so many problems that the prosecution would have an uphill task getting them into evidence. Henry Lee, for one example, was shocked at how poor they were qualitatively and also the lack of essential photos that are standard practice. One thing for sure, Dr. Henry Lee is not a forensic pathologist. This hasn't stopped him from commenting on the JFK assassination. Here is an article from the Hartford Courant from September 30, 1998: I find this paragraph interesting: Although finding nothing to cast doubt on the premise that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy, questions will always remain because of unexplained problems with the president's autopsy and subsequent mishandling of evidence, he said. All this article shows is that Dr. Lee concurs with the consensus view that there are problems with the autopsy. Henry Lee's 2001 book, Famous Crimes Revisited, has a chapter on the JFK assassination. It's hard to believe that a world-class criminalist wrote this. For instance, Lee and co-author Jerry Labriola write that "several legal scholars argued that by a careful interpretation of the head injuries and the Zapruder film, one should conclude that a second assassin had fired from in front of the Presidential limousine." What legal scholars? What about the HSCA? Is this Lee's opinion or not? Then they talk about ballistics and the head shot: Even world authorities on gunshot wounds came forward to dispute the x-ray findings, noting that FMJ missiles are used by the military and stating categorically that such bullets tend to pass through the body undisturbed and do not discharge fragments in their path. Surely Lee is not claiming that a FMJ bullet fired directly into a skull would not fragment? Their next point is that one of the bullet cartridges found on the sixth floor was very different from the other two. "Unlike the other two, it was found to have a substantial dent in its lip, three sets of marks on its base and an absence of chambering marks. Taken together, these findings suggested to many that two of the cases had been ejected from Oswald's rifle but the third, possibly the one separated from the other two on the floor, was most likely an extra -- a deliberate plant." We do know that one of the cartridges, Commission Exhibit 543, did have a dent. But this is the first I have heard that there was an absence of chambering marks. Note that the dent was probably made during the ejection process. When discussing CE 399, they talk about "a major school of thought" that believes that it so pristine as to not be able to cause the wounds in JFK and Connally. But shouldn't have Lee discussed the other major school of thought -- that it was possible and that the HSCA concluded that the single-bullet theory was a fact? At the end of their JFK chapter, they ask a number of questions: Hardly an impressive list of questions. For instance, they ask why the spectrographic comparisons of CE 399 and some fragments "were never released." But these results were released, thanks to Harold Weisberg, and have been discussed by Vincent Guinn in his HSCA testimony. Lee's #5 about JFK's brain is bizarre. The HSCA looked into this extensively, and concluded that RFK was responsible: Consequently, although the committee has not been able to uncover any direct evidence of the fate of the missing materials, circumstantial evidence tends to show that Robert Kennedy either destroyed these materials or otherwise rendered them inaccessible. Lee's most original point is about DNA testing of CE 399. Even here, his conclusion is erroneous -- if DNA was only found of one of the men, it would not prove that the other was not hit -- unless it can be shown that DNA would always be present. Lee and Labriola's chapter on the JFK assassination leaves a lot to be desired. It reads like a high school essay, rather than something from an acclaimed criminalist. The two authors use a strange mythical character, Sam Constant, who appears throughout the book. Even some fans were confused: Dr. Labriola creates the fictional character of “Sam Constant," a travelling companion who expresses the sentiment of the time, while Dr. Lee intersperses modern-day comments (in bold print) using the latest scientific knowledge. This is a unique concept for sure, but a confusing read and not much actual participation from Dr. Lee. Critics have been luke-warm on this offering. What is even more peculiar -- the first appearance of Dr. Lee's own voice in the chapter is a fantasy about being at the Warren Commission's sessions (which were not public): I felt my eyes open and scan incredulously across the semicircle of distinguished-looking men before me. Actually, they sat more in a reversed letter U, clustered at one end of two long oak tables juxtaposed for greater width....I didn’t recognize one person at the table who I later learned was the Commission's General Counsel, J. Lee Rankin. On some days, his assistant, Arlen Specter, was at his side.... Within moments of my arrival, I was certain security officials, guns drawn, would approach and search me, escort me away in handcuffs or worse still, arrest me as a trespasser and haul me off to jail. But no one noticed me that day — or on any succeeding day. I showed up for every session from a modest apartment within walking distance of the nation's capitol. Moreover, during each of those days, I was never questioned — and. I'm sure, never even seen! I had become a phantom like Sam Constant; I had become a member of the Warren Commission, but without participation or visibility. Speaking of Sam, in the corner opposite me and to my left, there was a chair like mine. It was empty on that first day. So, does Dr. Lee deserve his acclaimed reputation? JFK Revisited notes that "Lee was a police captain in Taipei City, Taiwan, chief criminalist for the state of Connecticut, and also their Commissioner of Public Safety. In those functions, he supervised scores of criminal cases ... He is currently the distinguished chair professor in Forensic Science at the University of New Haven. He is a prolific author, a frequent expert trial witness, and has hosted his own show on truTV." (pages 38 and 430) Several of his cases indicate that the substance of his analyses sometimes leaves something to be desired. Let's start with the O. J. Simpson trial. Lee took photographs of the crime scene and identified shoe prints that he felt might belong to another suspect. Lee was blown up by William Bodziak, an FBI expert on shoe prints: Bugliosi commented that "if Lee's testimony in the Simpson case is any indication at all of his abilities, he is nothing short of incompetent. At best, he's an example of how Mark Twain once described an expert, "Just some guy from out of town." The problem is that the jury couldn't see through the bloated reputation of Dr. Lee and the prosecution, in its summation, never exposed Lee so the jurors could see the emperor without his clothing on." (page 55 -56 in Outrage) There are several other sources which question Dr. Lee's competency. First there is the 2008 book, Forensics Under Fire: Are Bad Science and Dueling Experts Corrupting Criminal Justice?, in which author Jim Fisher has an entire chapter on Dr. Lee. He highlights several cases in which Dr. Lee's competence has been questioned: William Kennedy Smith Case: Smith was charged with rape and Dr. Lee testified that because there were no grass stains on the accuser's pantyhose, she had not struggled. To support his argument, Lee showed a grass-stained handkerchief he had rubbed on his lawn. The Director of the FBI lab, John Hicks, said Lee's testimony was "outrageous," and "characterized Lee's handkerchief experiment as unscientific." Hicks "pointed out that the handkerchief was not made of the same fabric as the pantyhose and the conditions that had created the handkerchief stains did not necessarily replicate the environment of the alleged crime site. Kathleen Peterson Case: Michael Peterson was accused of killing his wife, Kathleen. He had supposedly found her at the bottom of a staircase, but the autopsy found several scalp lacerations on the back of her head. Dr. Lee testified in Peterson's defense, and he testified that the blood spatter was not consistent with a beating. "When asked to explain how a fall down a flight of steps could have produced the seven lacerations on the back of the victim's head, Dr. Lee said that wasn't his job either. He was a death-scene reconstruction expert, not a forensic pathologist." Phil Spector Case: Actress Lana Clarkson was shot once in the mouth at famed music producer Phil Spector's house. After the processing of the crime scene was finished, Dr. Lee and Dr. Michael Baden entered the house. They concluded that she had shot herself. It was later reported to the prosecution that Dr. Lee was seen taking something from the crime scene, like a fingernail. In 2007, Judge Fidler said "I find the following: Dr. Lee did recover an item. It is flat, white, with rough edges. I cannot say it is a fingernail. It has never been presented to the prosecution." Another controversial case was that of Shawn Henning. Everett Carr, 65 years old, was found stabbed 27 times in December 1985 in New Milford, Connecticut. The local police believed he had been killed when he stumbled across burglars. A fence in Danbury gave the police the names of two men: Shawn Henning and Ralph Birch, who had been committing burglaries in the area. Henning was interviewed two days later and talked to Birch the next day. They had stolen a car and it was found full of trash, food, clothes, blankets and electronics. The car had not been cleaned. They were arrested in late 1988 and early 1989, respectively. The main problem in the case was that "despite the substantial amount of blood on the walls and throughout the house, investigators found no biological evidence on Henning, Birch, or the stolen car." "Lee testified that although Carr had been brutally stabbed numerous times, including a cut to his jugular vein, the blood from his wounds had spattered in an "uninterrupted" fashion, meaning there was nothing between Carr's body and the wall. Asked whether the assailants would have had blood on their persons, Lee said, 'My opinion is maybe.'" The prosecution said the two men had cleaned themselves up before leaving. And Dr. Lee testified that two towels by the sink had tested positive for blood. Both Henning and Birch were convicted, and they received 55 years and 50 years respectively. In 2008, the towel was tested, and no blood was found. The lawyers for Henning and Birch claimed that Dr. Lee had testified falsely "and that prosecutors had compounded that false testimony by using his misstatement in two separate closing arguments." The case then reached the Connecticut Supreme Court: In separate opinions, the Connecticut Supreme Court granted both men new trials on June 14, 2019. The opinion said that Lee had an obligation to review records and other material before taking the stand to ensure the accuracy of his testimony. Similarly, the prosecutor had an obligation to be familiar with the material evidence. The fact that neither Lee nor the prosecutor didn’t know Lee was not telling the truth was immaterial. “To conclude otherwise,” the court said, “would permit the state to gain a conviction on the basis of false or misleading testimony even though the error readily could have been avoided if the witness merely had exercised due diligence.” The court also said that this error by the state wasn’t harmless. The challenge in this case, the court said, was for prosecutors to explain how Birch and Henning violently killed Carr but didn’t get any blood on themselves or the stolen Buick. The towel offered one theory, and without it, the court wrote, “the state’s entire case … could very well have collapsed." The charges against Henning and Birch were dismissed in July 2020. In December 2020, Henning and Birch filed lawsuits against New Milford, several police officers, and Dr. Lee. There was a similar case in 2019. And then there was the David Weinberg case. Here is a good overview of Dr, Henry Lee by Nathalie O'Neil: O'Neil's article covers the cases mentioned above and has details about the murder of Janet Myers. The 26-year-old was found dead inside her home beaten by baseball bat. Dr. Lee testified that her husband's pants were spotted with his wife's blood type. This was later disputed by a detective, Robert Masson, who insisted her blood type was never found on his pants. Masson wrote that "I was never convinced Myers was guilty of the crime for which he was convicted. This case still causes me to have concerns. It is the only case I have ever handled where I have doubt about the guilt of someone." Masson had this to say about Lee: He was going to come up with the conclusion the state wanted regardless of what the evidence showed. He ambiguously twisted things. He started with theoretical -- 'they could have done this' or 'they could have done that' -- and he went way outside his scope of expertise. Kerry Meyers spent 26 years in prison but was freed in 2016. Kerry Myers, whom Lee helped to send to prison for decades, is still seething. "Henry Lee is caught up in his own ego and loves being a forensic expert to the stars. I don't think he cares about people -- they're objects he can use to promote himself," said Myers, 62 who was set free two years ago. "It's frustrating that he's still doing it, and nobody is questioning him." Dr, Henry Lee might well be generally competent, but he is certainly not infallible. Getting back to the JFK assassination, James DiEugenio thinks that what Dr. Lee offers is a professional verdict on the trajectory of the shot that hit Kennedy in the upper back: And: Now, my argument is pretty simple. When I meet Dr. Lee, I did not expect him to say what he did about not being able to do a trajectory analysis. But after thinking about it, and considering his experience and credentials and his record, I came to think he was correct on this. That since the back wound was not dissected, there could not really be any trajectory analysis of any authority. Especially when one adds in all the other problems in doing so eg. the placement of the back wound, Perry's statement about the anterior neck wound being one of entrance, the "reverse trajectory" out of Connally's left thigh, the significant question of the bullet being found on Ronnie Fuller's stretcher etc. I could have added in the testimony of Wright's widow, about other nurses finding bullets on several other stretchers that day. I believe there is some confusion between the concept of a path through JFK's body and the concept of a trajectory. A dissection of Kennedy's upper back/neck would have yielded firm evidence of a path; but might not have helped with the trajectory of the bullet which traversed Connally and Kennedy. A dissection of JFK's neck would add little information to a trajectory unless it found firm evidence of an internal deflection. Even without dissection, there is evidence of a path: The HSCA Forensic Pathology Panel discussed the difficulty in determining the trajectory of the bullet that went through JFK's upper-back: They felt that both the medical and non-medical evidence supported the single-bullet theory: The HSCA was able to use all of this evidence to produce some trajectory diagrams: One of the Croft photographs backs up their conclusion: Dr. Lee also doesn't believe he can offer an opinion on the head wound because it wasn't dissected. But the autopsy pathologists found clear evidence of entry and exit wounds, and thus knew that there was a clear path: Here is a transcript of James DiEugenio at the 2022 CAPA conference: James DiEugenio: And so, I asked him, what do you think about doing a reconstruction of what happened to Kennedy in Dealey Plaza? He shot back, didn't even think about it for a second. "Can't do one, Jim, you can't do one of the JFK case." And I said, well, how come? And he says, "neither wound was dissected. Neither the head nor the back wound was dissected. So, anything you do is going to be guesswork. I don't know what guesswork. If I can't do something accurately, I'm not going to do it." ... What he has to say about the skull wound, he goes, because Oliver asked him about this. He goes, "look, you've got this bullet coming in. On a right to left angle. Okay, then in the middle of Kennedy's brain, it abruptly changed direction and starts going left to right. Okay, and then it exits out. And so, Oliver says, "well, what kind of angle was it?" Ninety degrees! Because, and so at the end of the interview, he said, "look, I can't give you an opinion on how Kennedy was killed. Because 50% of the jobs I do, I can give an opinion. About 30 to 40%, I can give a partial. In his case, because the material is so rotten. Okay, I can't give any opinion on what the hell happened to Kennedy." That's how bad it is. Ninety degrees? And here is a diagram which clearly demonstrates that the HSCA path does not indicate a ninety degree angle: Dr. Lee's answer is music to DiEugenio's ears. He wants someone of authority to say, we just can't determine anything. But when forensic pathologists examine the autopsy x-rays and photographs, they have no problem determining that only one shot hit JFK's head, from behind. As for the trajectory, the best reconstruction is the one done by Larry Sturdivan from his book, The JFK Myths: (page 210) Unfortunately, viewers of JFK: Destiny Betrayed will not see these diagrams nor will they hear from the many forensic pathologists who believe that JFK was shot from behind. DiEugenio's continued focus on what would be and would not be admissible in a trial of Oswald has to confront the fact that the prosecution could argue that Dr. Henry Lee should not be considered an expert witness. His 'opinion testimony' would not have been based on sufficient facts or data and it is clear that he has not "reliably applied the principles and methods [of his specialty] to the facts of the case." James DiEugenio would have you believe that Dr. Henry Lee deserves his outsized reputation. However, they could only find room in JFK: Destiny Betrayed for one short clip of an interview with Dr, Lee. Perhaps someone with better judgment than DiEugenio realized that he added little to the JFK case. Paul Hoch contributed a considerable amount of research for this blog post. Don't miss the Viewer's Guide to JFK: Destiny Betrayed and JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass. Over the past several months, I have shown in multiple blog posts how Oliver Stone's documentary series, JFK Revisited and JFK: Destiny Betrayed, misleads viewers. In fact, despite months of work, there are still many more misleading segments that need to be addressed. It's no wonder that the fact checkers of Netflix nixed the airing of the films. There is a choice between four hours of tendentious nonsense (JFK: Destiny Betrayed) and two hours (JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass). As a handy guide for viewers, here are all those posts in order of their appearance in JFK: Destiny Betrayed and JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass, preceded by some general critiques. The Viewer's Guide has now been updated to include the sources from my new book, Oliver Stone's Film-Flam: The Demagogue of Dealey Plaza. Click here to buy a copy!