re: Anyone believe Jim Garrison’s JFK assassination conspiracy?

quote:

---

Read "Case Closed" by Gerald Posner. Logically, systematically, clearly refutes every conspiracy theory. PS: Jim Garrison was a nut

---

quote:

---

Kennedy, King, Malcolm X relatives and scholars seek new assassination probes Their letter calls for a Truth and Reconciliation Committee on the JFK, RFK, MLK and Malcolm X slayings

By Tom Jackman
January 25
.

---

quote:

---

Joined by relatives of Robert F. Kennedy, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, a group of more than 60 authors and investigators have called for a new congressional investigation into the assassinations of the three men and President John F. Kennedy, saying that the four slayings were not resolved and “had a disastrous impact on the course of American history.” In a public statement, they demanded a public tribunal modeled on South Africa’s “Truth and Reconciliation” process to persuade either Congress or the Justice Department to revisit all four assassinations.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Maryland lieutenant governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (D), two of Robert Kennedy’s children, signed the statement, as did Isaac N. Farris, a nephew of King and former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Rev. James M. Lawson Jr., a Memphis pastor and mentor to King. It is also supported by G. Robert Blakey, the chief counsel of the former House Select Committee on Assassinations; Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg; Robert McClelland, the doctor who worked on President Kennedy after his 1963 shooting in Dallas

---

quote:

---

CIA may have used contractor who inspired ‘Mission: Impossible’ to kill RFK, new book alleges Was Robert Maheu, an aide to Howard Hughes, responsible for Bobby Kennedy’s assassination?

By Tom Jackman
February

---

quote:

---

Robert A. Maheu was such a colorful character that it’s widely believed the television show “Mission: Impossible” was based on him and his private investigative agency. As an ex-FBI agent, the CIA asked him to handle jobs it wanted to steer clear of, such as lining up prostitutes for a foreign president or hiring the mafia to kill Fidel Castro. For more than 15 years, Maheu and his Washington-based company were on monthly retainer to “The Agency,” CIA records show. And during much of that time, Maheu was the right-hand man to Howard Hughes as Hughes bought up vast swaths of Las Vegas and helped finance CIA operations.

Now, a new book alleges that Maheu may have performed another mission for the CIA: the assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.).

---

quote:

---

A spokeswoman for the CIA declined to comment on the book’s allegations, though she acknowledged that Hughes did finance some CIA operations. Maheu would have had access to the CIA’s experiments in hypnosis and mind control, which were being conducted at the time in California and elsewhere. That would have enabled him to frame Sirhan Sirhan as a patsy for the slaying of Kennedy, while other gunmen actually fired the fatal shots, argues author Lisa Pease, who spent 25 years researching her book, “A Lie Too Big to Fail."

---

quote:

---

Pease is not the first person to link the CIA to the June 1968 assassination of Kennedy, in the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Sirhan’s lawyers in 2010 accused the CIA of hypnotizing Sirhan and making him “an involuntary participant.” The agency may have feared Kennedy because he opposed the CIA’s expansive use of power and would have pressed the agency for answers in the assassination of his brother, President John F. Kennedy, five years earlier, Pease theorizes.

---

quote:

---

At the same time, the CIA was experimenting with programs such as “Bluebird” and “Project MKUltra,” tests on unwitting people to see whether their minds could be manipulated by drugs, torture or hypnosis. Colleges, hospitals, prisons and pharmaceutical companies participated in the project, records revealed in the 1970s showed, with the CIA hoping to be able to manipulate foreign leaders and other important figures, or program others to commit acts of espionage.

---

quote:

---

An expert in hypnosis from Harvard Medical School, Dan Brown, began meeting with Sirhan in 2008 and found him not only easily hypnotized, but also still easily triggered to re-create aggressive shooting moves out of nowhere. Brown submitted affidavits for Sirhan’s appeal stating that he believed Sirhan was an actual “Manchurian Candidate,” manipulated to perform bad acts against his will.

---

quote:

---

* We call upon Congress to establish continuing oversight on the release of government documents related to the presidency and assassination of President John F. Kennedy, to ensure public transparency as mandated by the JFK Records Collection Act of 1992. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform should hold hearings on the Trump administration's failure to enforce the JFK Records Act.

* We call for a major public inquest on the four major assassinations of the 1960s that together had a disastrous impact on the course of American history: the murders of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. This public tribunal, shining a light on this dark chapter of our history, will be modeled on the Truth and Reconciliation process in post-apartheid South Africa. The inquest -- which will hear testimony from living witnesses, legal experts, investigative journalists, historians and family members of the victims -- is intended to show the need for Congress or the Justice Department to reopen investigations into all four assassinations.

* On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we call for a full investigation of Reverend King's assassination. The conviction of James Earl Ray for the crime has steadily lost credibility over the years, with a 1999 civil trial brought by Reverend King's family placing blame on government agencies and organized crime elements. Following the verdict, Coretta Scott King, the slain leader's widow, stated: "There is abundant evidence of a major, high-level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband." The jury in the Memphis trial determined that various federal, state and local agencies "were deeply involved in the assassination … Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame." Reverend King's assassination was the culmination of years of mounting surveillance and harassment directed at the human rights leader by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI and other agencies.

* We call for a full investigation of the Robert F. Kennedy assassination case, the prosecution of which was a mockery of a trial that has been demolished by numerous eyewitnesses, investigators and experts -- including former Los Angeles County Coroner Dr. Thomas Noguchi, who performed the official autopsy on Senator Kennedy. The forensic evidence alone establishes that the shots fired by Sirhan Sirhan from in front of Senator Kennedy did not kill him; the fatal shot that struck RFK in the head was fired at point–blank range from the rear. Consequently, the case should be reopened for a new comprehensive investigation while there are still living witnesses -- as there are in all four assassination cases.

---

quote:

---

1. As the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in 1979, President John F. Kennedy was probably killed as the result of a conspiracy.
2. In the four decades since this Congressional finding, a massive amount of evidence compiled by journalists, historians and independent researchers confirms this conclusion. This growing body of evidence strongly indicates that the conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy was organized at high levels of the U.S. power structure, and was implemented by top elements of the U.S. national security apparatus using, among others, figures in the criminal underworld to help carry out the crime and cover-up.
3. This stunning conclusion was also reached by the president's own brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who himself was assassinated in 1968 while running for president - after telling close aides that he intended to reopen the investigation into his brother's murder if he won the election.
4. President Kennedy's administration was badly fractured over his efforts to end the Cold War, including his back-channel peace feelers to the Soviet Union and Cuba and his plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Vietnam after the 1964 presidential election.
5. President Kennedy has long been portrayed as a Cold War hawk, but this grossly inaccurate view has been strongly challenged over the years by revisionist historians and researchers, who have demonstrated that Kennedy was frequently at odds with his own generals and espionage officials. This revisionist interpretation of the Kennedy presidency is now widely embraced, even by mainstream Kennedy biographers.
6. The official investigation into the JFK assassination immediately fell under the control of U.S. security agencies, ensuring a cover-up. The Warren Commission was dominated by former CIA director Allen Dulles and other officials with strong ties to the CIA and FBI. 7. The corporate media, with its own myriad connections to the national security establishment, aided the cover-up with its rush to embrace the Warren Report and to scorn any journalists or researchers who raised questions about the official story.
8. Despite the massive cover-up of the JFK assassination, polls have consistently shown that a majority of the American people believes Kennedy was the victim of a conspiracy -- leading to the deep erosion of confidence in the U.S. government and media.
9. The CIA continues to obstruct evidence about the JFK assassination, routinely blocking legitimate Freedom of Information requests and defying the JFK Records Collection Act of 1992, preventing the release of thousands of government documents as required by the law.
10. The JFK assassination was just one of four major political murders that traumatized American life in the 1960s and have cast a shadow over the country for decades thereafter. John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were each in his own unique way attempting to turn the United States away from war toward disarmament and peace, away from domestic violence and division toward civil amity and justice. Their killings were together a savage, concerted assault on American democracy and the tragic consequences of these assassinations still haunt our nation.

---

quote:

---

One memorable story featured in the video is that of a notorious figure from JFK assassination lore known as the 'Umbrella Man.'

Spotted in photos and videos from the Dealey Plaza on the fateful day of Kennedy's death, this individual caught the attention of researchers for his inexplicable possession and use of an umbrella during that sunny day.

Students of the assassination speculated that 'Umbrella Man,' as he came to be known, may have played a role in the conspiracy either acting as a signal to the shooters or that his umbrella was a clandestine weapon of some kind.

The subject of considerable conjecture and debate for 15 years, the 'Umbrella Man' was finally unmasked when Louie Steven Witt identified himself as the person in question after the House Select Committee on Assassinations called on the public for answers to the mystery.

Witt claimed that he was unaware of the furor surrounding his front row seat to history and explained that his possession of the umbrella was meant as a symbolic gesture of protest against Kennedy's father appeasing Hitler during World War II.

A subsequent investigation concluded that Witt had no role in the assassination of JFK and the 'Umbrella Man' became the answer to a trivia question rather than a sinister conspirator.

---