This is the conclusion of Greg Doudna‘s interview with John Curington.
All posts in this series:
1. Billionaire Logic and the Death of JFK
2. Billionaire Logic and the Death of JFK / 2 —
3. Billionaire Logic and the Death of JFK / 3 —
4. Billionaire Logic and the Death of JFK / 4 —
5. Billionaire Logic and the Death of JFK / 5 —
6. Billionaire Logic and the Death of JFK / Conclusion . .
But first, here is what I wrote at the beginning of this series:
. . . . Since reading the interview I have followed up some of the information and names mentioned and the more I learn the more questions I have. . . . .
I have never followed closely the many statements that have been published in relation to JFK’s assassination and have routinely shunned conspiracy theories for anything on principle. Sometimes, though, historical research does lead to new questions and interpretations of events. Historians have ironically noted that ancient history and contemporary history are very similar in the sense that so much vital information is either lost or hidden from view so we are left to posit only the most tentative explanations for events pending new discoveries.
On re-reading the interview as I have been posting it here, I am in the same position as when I began. I find myself suspending judgment entirely. I simply don’t know what to make of it all. Others more familiar with related details will have stronger views for or against what one might make of events raised in this interview. I would encourage others more knowledgeable than myself to add their own questions or thoughts in the comments on these posts. Hopefully comments will reference accessible sources. Some may dismiss everything Curington has said in this interview and I would appreciate comments to that effect as long as they give fair reasons for doing so. I have linked to a review of the book Motive and Opportunity beneath the cover image below.
At the end of this interview is another statement by Greg Doudna.
~ ~ ~
GD: There’s one question I’ve got to ask because other people will ask. Many of these important events, you were at the heart of it. It’s a long time now, and people might say, why didn’t you say something earlier? I mean, when the Warren Commission and the House Committee were investigating—
JC: It was their job to find out what was involved. Mr. Hunt was well enough known that somebody should have gone and talked to him.
GD: Yes.
JC: And they would have talked to me first before they talked to him. I would have answered their questions. But that could have been planned. Johnson—Johnson and Hoover had to present this lone theory shooter in the initial beginning. Johnson had more to gain from the lone shooter than anybody on the face of the earth, you understand that? He didn’t want Sam Giancana involved, or Lucky Luciano, or H. L. Hunt, or Joe Civello. He wanted a lone shooter, acted alone, that’s the only way he’s going to save his own ass there.
GD: The 1976 House Select Committee on Assassinations, they didn’t contact you?
JC: No.
GD: What about Garrison, in Louisiana?
(Jim Garrison was the District Attorney of New Orleans 1962-1973. In the late 1960s Garrison undertook criminal prosecution of a conspiracy in the death of President John F. Kennedy which Garrison charged involved New Orleans figures in conjunction with the CIA. Garrison was the inspiration for and the central character of the Oliver Stone movie, JFK.)
JC: Well he came in our office. He became a big pest. I imagine I talked to him maybe twenty-five or thirty times. He had nothing to hang his hat on. Of course he was always trying to get a little money. And Mr. Hunt, as far as I know, never let him have a nickel.
GD: He was asking Hunt for money?
JC: Yo.
GD: For what?
JC: Well, to help build his case on—
GD: How’s the money going to help build his case?
JC: Well, you have to have traveling expenses. You have to—and he’s on a limited budget with the DA’s office—you know he was just an attorney there.
GD: But he suspected Hunt. How is he asking a suspect for money?
(“The assassination, Garrison charged, was ordered and paid for by ‘a handful of oil-rich psychotic millionaires’ … he refused to say how many ‘Texas style’ millionaires were involved, although he identified them all as extreme conservatives … Garrison said he could reveal the latest developments because his investigators were finished in Dallas.” The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, Sept. 22, 1967.)
JC: Well, I never got that feeling in talking to him. Mr. Hunt may have met him a time or two, but he’d <unintelligible> step into my office, when Garrison came in.
GD: So Garrison was seeking extra funds for the investigation?
JC: Yeah. He was seeking funds to help him on the investigation. Of course as a district attorney, you know, you have certain things available to you, but if Garrison could pick up ten thousand here, or twenty thousand there, he wouldn’t be averse to it, no.
GD: So Garrison was—
JC: Garrison wanted to make a name for himself, and he didn’t care whose toes he stepped on to do it there. And he got laughed out of the courtroom.
GD: OK. Thank you Mr. Curington.
~ ~ ~
The following is from the close of Mr. Curington’s 2018 book, Motive and Opportunity: The Means by which H.L. Hunt influenced the assassination of JFK, King, Bobby & Hoffa.
“Mr. Haroldson Lafayette Hunt died on November 29, 1974, at Dallas’ Baylor University Medical Center. His assassin was pneumonia, along with complications from cancer. The open-casket funeral was held at the First Baptist Church of Dallas and was officiated by none other than the Rev. W. A. Criswell himself.
“Mr. Hunt and I had parted ways five years earlier, when I resigned from the company on November 14, 1969 … Looking back, I had a lot of interesting experiences during the time I was associated with Mr. Hunt. I went to fascinating places, met powerful people, and did things that I would otherwise never have …
“As I look around me, I find that most everyone else involved from this time is gone—I’m the sole survivor, the last man standing, and I simply want to tell my story. Like I’ve said all along, it’s not my intention to make anyone believe anything. I’m simply telling you the true stories about what happened …
“There’s one more thing that I should mention—I’ve been hesitant to do so, because quite honestly, even though it’s the absolute truth, it sounds a little far out. My original intent was to leave it out of the book, but as I’m wrapping things up, I believe that it deserves to be written down.
“During the period of time before the 1960 Democratic Convention and continuing after that, H. L. Hunt became more and more interested in what he called a ‘Removal Group.’ That sounded all nice, clean and sterile, but it was far from that. I nicknamed it the ‘Kill Squad,’ because that is what it was really going to be. Mr. Hunt always believed that his programs Facts Forum and Life Line would, over time, convince a certain type of listener to do things in accordance with the dogma that these programs were putting forward.
“In some of the more serious situations, however, it was clear that Life Line might simply be too slow. If Mr. Hunt could develop a ‘Removal Squad,’ then in that event, results could take place almost overnight.
“Remember that Joe Civello, the Dallas organized crime boss, had given Mr. Hunt some information that I have previously mentioned in the book: It would definitely be possible to kill an important public figure and to keep the assassin from revealing the plan, you would simply kill the killer. If that were impossible, it would be necessary to make sure the assassin pleaded guilty to the murder itself, which would stop any further investigation.
“Based on Civello’s information, a unique plan was developed and organized. Mr. Hunt wanted to establish four separate groups, each operating independently of each other, totally compartmentalized, and with no contact among the groups.
“1) The job of the first group would be to determine who might be a candidate for ‘removal.’ They would make suggestions based on the individual’s political beliefs, their ability to get results that had opposite purposes of H. L. Hunt, and their ability to have an influence on other people.
“2) The second group would then take those names and develop a detailed history of their lifestyle, including where they lived, where they worked, where their family was located and their everyday habits—both good and bad.
“3) The third group would develop a plan of how that person could be most easily ‘removed.’ Mr. Hunt did not want just a shooting death, that would be too messy and draw way too much attention. Instead, the preferred death for the mark would involve an accident, drug overdose, family matter, or even an unexplained case. That was Mr. Hunt’s goal.
“4) The fourth group, based upon all the independent information provided by the other groups, would evaluate the situation and the person, make the final decision as to how it would be carried out, and then arrange for the final event. Afterwards, the affair would be cleaned up in the manner described by Joe Civello.
“What Mr. Hunt hoped to accomplish was to have as much insulation as possible surrounding the removal of a particular person—to have the ‘Removal Squad’ groups act independently of each other. This would give a high degree of insulation and protection between the group that said, ‘This person should be removed,’ and the group that said, ‘Let’s do it.’
“To my knowledge, this entire ‘Removal Squad’ plan—or ‘Kill Squad’ as I called it—never moved past the planning phase … I do have to say, however, that in looking back at history, when JFK was killed, his assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was shot in very short order … the ‘killer was killed,’ as Mr. Civello advised …
“Coincidence? Possibly. Still, it appears that—at least on the surface—there could have been other elements at work in these killings, and some of them could have been provided by my former employer, H. L. Hunt.”
~ ~ ~
My interview with Mr. Curington focused on the John F. Kennedy assassination. Mr. Curington’s book, Motive and Opportunity, also discusses the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968) and of Robert F. Kennedy (1968).
J. Edgar Hoover and H. L. Hunt regarded the successes of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement—and King’s even larger vision of a “total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty” by means of a guaranteed income for all Americans paid for by ending the war in Vietnam—as an existential threat to the foundation of the nation. Here is King in his final months before a sniper’s bullet silenced the voice with rolling cadences heard across the land …
1 Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? (New York: Harper & Row, 1967). Jordan Weissmann, “Martin Luther King’s Economic Dream: A Guaranteed Income for All Americans,” The Atlantic, Aug. 28, 2013: “King noted an estimate by John Kenneth Galbraith that the government could create a generous guaranteed income with $20 billion [1960s dollars], which, as the economist put it, was ‘not much more than we will spend the next fiscal year to rescue freedom and democracy and religious liberty as these are defined by “experts” in Vietnam.’”
“We are wasting and degrading human life by clinging to archaic thinking. The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization … The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.”1
Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. Two months later James Earl Ray, a professional criminal, was apprehended in London, extradited back to the United States and charged with the killing of Martin Luther King. In Motive and Opportunity Mr. Curington tells of his personally conveying $125,000 in cash in a briefcase—equivalent to about a million dollars today—from H. L. Hunt to Percy Foreman of Houston, Texas, the most prominent defense attorney in America, to have Foreman’s client, James Earl Ray, plead “guilty.” A “guilty” plea closes a case without further investigation or testimony coming out in court. Mr. Curington recounts in his book,
“At Mr. Hunt’s instruction, I traveled to call on Percy Foreman with a briefcase and laid it on the desk in front of him. ‘I have one hundred and twenty-five thousand reasons why James Earl Ray should plead guilty to killing Martin Luther King,’ I said.
“Foreman looked at me and said, ‘Well, just leave them with me, and I’ll take a look at them.’ I walked out of the room, not having been there more than a minute or two. I left the $125,000, which would be just under a million dollars in today’s money, and sure enough, James Earl Ray entered a guilty plea.”
Two months after the Martin Luther King assassination, New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated on June 5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles moments after Senator Kennedy won the California Democratic presidential primary and seemed poised with the momentum to go on to win the nomination and then the presidency in the general election of 1968.
A few hours after my interview with Mr. Curington, my flight taxiing down the runway at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, the lyrics of a song from the late 1960s came to mind, as well as its haunting rendition by Dion: “Abraham, Martin, and John.”
Has anybody here seen my old friend John?
Can you tell me where he’s gone?
He freed a lot of people, but it seems the good
they die young.
I just looked around and he’s gone.
Has anybody here seen my old friend Martin?
Can you tell me where he’s gone?
He freed a lot of people, but it seems the good
they die young.
I just looked around and he’s gone.
Has anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he’s gone?
I thought I saw him walkin’ up over the hill
With Abraham, Martin and John.
~ ~ ~
Gregory Doudna is a scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls. He holds a master’s degree from Cornell University in Near Eastern studies under the supervision of Martin Bernal and a doctorate in theology from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.
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Billie Sol Estes alleged Hunt’s participation in the financing of the hit on JFK (Reymond et Estes, JFK: Le dernier temoin). The noise on this subject is deafening (intentionally so), but if you stay focused on the legal evidence, you’ll see where it leads. The removal of the President’s body from Dallas in violation of Texas law and over the strenuous objection of the Dallas coroner, the destruction of the evidence-ridden limousine, the killing of Oswald, the suppression of all dissenting witness testimony and evidence (photos confiscated, etc.), the removal of the investigation from its lawful jurisdiction to a Commission controlled by (among others) a man fired from his position as head of the CIA by the victim of the crime (conflict of interest), and predetermined conclusion—none of these things happens if Oswald is, in fact, the lone assassin and there is nothing to cover up. See also Douglas Horne’s 4 hour video on youtube about the autopsy. Do not believe what anyone says about Garrison without reading his book or learning about him from an unbiased source. Do not trust wikipedia or major broadcast news sources. Email me if you’d like book recommendations. Good luck.
When I was doing some follow up reading to see what I could find about both Curington and his testimony in the interview with Greg Doudna, I did come across earlier records of some of what John Curington has said in this interview but the context in which I found them left me with the distinct impression that the authorities had already heard all of Curington’s story but for presumably reasonable grounds they dismissed it all as unreliable.
Yet some of the detail JC provides does make one wonder what is really going on. When you say that the “legal evidence …. leads …. to the suppression of all dissenting witness testimony and evidence” then I am left wondering all the more what has been going on, that Curington’s early testimony was part of that suppression.
It goes way beyond Curington, and includes basically all or most testimony that conflicts with the tendentious Warren Commission conclusions. You can see actual witness statements on youtube, including the recorded statement of E. Howard Hunt, the railroad men on the overpass, eyewitness testimony to shooters or evidence of same, statement of Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig, and so many others, and how they were ignored or misrepresented by the Warren Commission. Mark Lane is always a good source. Curington seems pretty minor compared to the other sources. Beware of false leads which are intentionally planted.
Correct
By destruction of limousine, I mean the clean up of the car. It still exists, but was refurbished in Detroit at LBJ’s order.
I have read dozens of books about the Kennedy assassination. The best book to start with is Plausible Denial by Mark Lane.
In the interview I tried to keep my own views low-key, with the focus on drawing out Curington’s story as oral history. My view on the JFK assassination at this point is basically represented in the following two articles which make the case for following the lead of G. Robert Blakey, Chief Counsel of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, in focusing on Carlos Marcello, New Orleans crime boss, as the figure of interest: Nicholson Baker, “Dallas Killers Club” (2014), https://thebaffler.com/salvos/dallas-killers-club; and David Talbot, “The man who solved the Kennedy Assassination” (2003), https://www.salon.com/2003/11/22/conspiracy_6/.
When the HSCA got as far as finding that conspiracy and the involvement of the mafia were both “probable,” the funding was cut off and Blakey went in to keep the focus on the mob while exonerating the CIA and other govt actors. Problem is, the people who illegally removed the body from Dallas (which would make all autopsy evidence inadmissible at trial, had there been a trial) were Secret Service under the direction of LBJ. When you follow the accounts of the evidence, what you see again and again is that the Secret Service and the FBI suppress it, destroy it, make it disappear, or help to alter it. They would have no reason to do this for the benefit of the mafia unless they were acting in complicity with them. The absurdity of the Bethesda autopsy had no mafia involvement, but military figures were present, and orders not to discuss it were issued on pain of imprisonment; and participants went on record claiming it was falsified. No mafia there, and no reason to support them.
Clarke, I don’t know whether it is significant or not, but my interview with Curington brings forth previously unknown testimony or allusion to direct, in-person meetings between Marcello and H.L. Hunt, apparently in the general time frame surrounding the assassination (mid-Part 4 of Neil’s serialization of the Curington interview). That Marcello is a leading suspect in the JFK assassination is simply plain: the information that Marcello, who controlled Dallas, apparently controlled Ruby and Ruby’s nightclub, Ruby’s contacts and payoffs to the Dallas police department, and then the Ruby killing of Oswald; and according to FBI informant Jack van Laningham, who was considered truthful by his FBI handler, Marcello confessed, told how he did the JFK hit, including use of Oswald, the nephew of one of Marcello’s bookie operatives in New Orleans, as patsy. (A fair discussion of this is https://anthonysummersandrobbynswan.wordpress.com/2013/11/23/the-claims-that-mafia-bosses-trafficante-and-marcello-admitted-involvement-in-assassinating-president-kennedy/)
But as brought out by Stefano Vaccara in Carlos Marcello: The Man Behind the JFK Assassination (2014)–Vaccara, himself Sicilian and comparing Marcello with old-world Mafia practices and culture in Italy–such a hit would require a favorable political climate, some nod of approval at some level within the existing power structure, to go forward. Rather than thinking in terms of one or two Mob bosses just deciding on their own to start a war with the U.S. government by assassinating a president and bringing down the total wrath of God back on themselves as a result, the better hypothesis is a picture of Mob figures with semi-legitimate allies in public life and politics. One such ally of the Mob is known: FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who consistently every year would literally deny to Congress that any such thing as a Mafia or organized crime existed in America–even as Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy was simultaneously undertaking large numbers of successful and highly damaging prosecutions of organized crime figures threatening their livelihood. As is known now, Hoover was compromised by and friendly to organized crime. Hoover was going to be removed (forcibly retired) as FBI director by Kennedy but benefitted from LBJ becoming president; LBJ kept Hoover on.
Now you bring up claims of some researchers that the JFK autopsy photos, x-rays, the Zapruder film et al were intentionally altered or in some cases fabricated. The major forensic investigations have not found such theories convincing and I personally am skeptical of such claims. Yes, the removal of JFK’s body–the body of a murder victim–from Texas was illegal per Texas state law prior to an autopsy in Texas–the stated reason was that LBJ was urged for reasons of national security to get back to Washington, D.C. without delay; LBJ refused to leave Dallas without Jacqueline, and Jacqueline refused to be separated from JFK’s body or leave without it. So the Secret Service simply forcibly took JFK’s body over the pitched objections of Texas officials and loaded it on Air Force One back to D.C. Was this part of a well-planned, carefully orchestrated, well-oiled conspiracy, or was this chaotic pragmatic actions in the heat of crisis and the moment? Who knows, but I think at this point the latter is more likely.
The House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that Mob figures Marcello and Trafficante, specifically, had motive, means, and opportunity to kill JFK (but did not claim to have found evidence of such), and hoped that the FBI would further investigate after the House Select Committee ended its mandate. That never happened.
Greg, have you read about the tragic death of Pulitzer-prize-nominated investigative journalist Dorothy Kilgallen, perhaps the most famous and respected female journalist of the 1930s-early 1960s, who was investigating the assassination of JFK in the 18 months before her death? She was the only journalist ever to have a private (8 minute) jailhouse interview with Jack Ruby (w/o lawyer or guards present). She died under very suspicious circumstances shortly before a planned visit to speak to an informant in New Orleans in 1965. She claimed her new book on the JFK assassination would crack the case wide open and told her lawyer it would be “the biggest scoop of the century.” Some believed New Orleans mob boss Carlos Marcello was responsible for her death, which was staged as due to an accidental lethal combination of alcohol and barbiturates, like Marilyn Monroe. (See most recently Mark Shaw’s 2016 book, “The Reporter Who Knew Too Much,” which caused the Manhattan DA to reopen the Kilgallen case as a possible murder.) The notes for her book on JFK disappeared, including her conversation with Ruby, and a close friend to whom she entrusted another copy of her notes died two days later, with those notes also disappearing. Seems a couple stages hinky to me. Although I am pretty much the opposite of a conspiracy theorist or a JFK assassination buff, it might be of interest to you–and to Vridar’s readers!
Russell, Is it too much trouble to add a few citations that we can follow up to confirm some of the details you set out, or does “The Reporter Who Knew Too Much” contain it all?
There is a Wikipedia page on Dorothy Kilgallen with a lot of biographical background. My wife Carolyn Tracy and I knew Dorothy through the show What’s My Line (1950-1965) — very articulate, smart, witty, beautiful. We knew she had a syndicated newspaper column (“Voice of Broadway”, 1938-1965), but we hadn’t realized her many other accomplishments, including important investigative pieces.
Mark Shaw has written two books:
Denial of Justice: Dorothy Kilgallen, Abuse of Power, and the Most Compelling JFK Assassination Investigation in History (Simon and Schuster, 2018)
The Reporter Who Knew Too Much: The Mysterious Death of What’s My Line TV Star and Media Icon Dorothy Kilgallen (Post Hill Press, 2016)
I haven’t read these yet, but they are reserved for me at my local library.
Carolyn and I watched a YouTube episode on her suspicious death that Carolyn accidentally ran across. Carolyn’s father was a private detective and she helped him on some of his cases, and I have a bit of an investigative bent, so we both found this fascinating.
Trace Evidence – 054 – The Mysterious Death of Dorothy Kilgallen – Conclusion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rCGqtaHyz8)
See also the interview with the author: Mark Shaw: Who Killed Dorothy Kilgallen? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvpkE29X3tM)
Note that the Manhattan DA’s office did not find enough new evidence to reclassify her death as a murder. I would disagree with their conclusion based on my current understanding of the autopsy and circumstantial evidence.
Thank you
Russell I agree with what you bring out re Dorothy Kilgallen; I have read the reports of the Mark Shaw book. Kilgallen’s death was extremely suspicious, and following, as you say, a private meeting with Jack Ruby and then Kilgallen’s trips to New Orleans and telling her friends she had cracked the case, which leads to the reasonable speculation that she may have been looking into Marcello … and then she is suddenly dead. It looks like a hit. The hit could have been done as a favor upon request among friend mobsters, who would not need to know, or care, why the hit was requested, only that someone wanted it done. I remember growing up in Akron, Ohio and Dorothy Kilgallen was in the news locally because of her involvement as a reporter in a Sam Sheppard murder trial (unrelated to the JFK assassination). Any secrets she had died with her. So did Jack Ruby’s, a tormented soul who wanted to talk but was trapped and could not, until he (maybe) did to Dorothy Kilgallen. Ruby thought he was poisoned before he died in prison himself, and unless one buys the idea that Ruby’s legal alibi story was actually the truth, Ruby’s secrets died with him too.
I just think we need an algorithm and charts to show all these connections.
As well we have now facial technology that could perhaps check the various doubles and people in various photos.
I’m a lab field scientist and Canadian Australian and think the
Zapruder film could be compared to Polaroids other movies etc.
As for the autopsy of various and Oswald Ruby Wecht seems to answer it. Consider along with the pics of the Vehicle. Why was his normal car formation different We need brave to stand up still as some might know. God bless US in Jesu Mary’s pray Virus away again with Sts Jos Al Roche
I’m familiar with your information, and I don’t doubt Marcello’s involvement. You, however, are ignoring the main thrust of my point, which is that the entire follow up to the crime is riddled with violations of law (evidence tampering, witness intimidation, murders) perpetrated by government officials. They would have no reason to do this to protect the mafia. Anyone who practices criminal law knows that even in the simplest murder case you don’t have a confirmed suspect, to the exclusion of all others, within a day of the crime. And yet in this case Oswald’s photograph was published in Asia before the crime occurred (Fletcher Prouty). Even if that didn’t occur, it’s criminal evidence 101 where every cop learns that you don’t hose out the bullet and blood-ridden limo, because it’s a crime scene chock full of evidence. It was Secret Service who began hosing it out at Parkland Hospital. The Parkland hospital doctors told a different story than the phony Bethesda autopsy, as everyone knows who has studied the issue, and this is despite the occasional retraction from a doctor who was later shown the WC results, at a time when the WC was all we had.
Clarke O., with respect several specifics you name I think turn out upon investigation to be red herrings. (1) I don’t think there is anything to the stories of falsification of autopsy photos or x-rays. There were photos at Bethesda taken during the autopsy and again after the body was prepared for viewing which accounts for differences in photographers’ memories of what they saw. The famous autopsy photo of JFK’s head showing no massive gaping hole in his head–when all the doctors obviously saw a huge gaping hole–is well explained by those who were there as skin with hair had been pulled back over the wound, covering the wound back up in that photo, not a body double, etc. Please see https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-reviews/a-coup-in-camelot.
(2) There was no publication of a photograph of Oswald elsewhere in the world before the crime occurred or any evidence the Oswald story was prewritten or preprepared for the press prior to the assassination, per Prouty’s story; that has been debunked.
(3) On Billie Sol Estes, after reading the JFK assassination chapters of the online pdf of Estes’s 2005 book in English, A Texas Legend, I conclude that he is spinning pure bullshit (re the JFK assassination), without going into detailed explanation of reasons.
(4) On the E.H. Hunt [no relation to H.L. Hunt] sickbed (he lived three more years) recording, I don’t know what to make of that. On its face it seems as if he may have been guessing at what happened, in support of a Hollywood film plot his son was trying to sell, which E.H. Hunt wanted presented realistically. A prior question is genre: was it a confession, or was it background for a film plot. If intended as the former, it is odd that E.H. Hunt would make no provision for something more substantial in the way of evidence or notarized detailed statement to be revealed whether then or posthumously. In the end I am skeptical there is anything substantial there.
Mr. Doudna. There is a “debunking” of every claim that is made by every dissenting witness. I have heard them all, I have read them all, and I have no great desire to find a conspiracy. But I can’t get around, and you have not answered (because you cannot answer) the FACT that the autopsy was ILLEGAL. That the treatment of the limousine was ILLEGAL. That the murder of Oswald was ILLEGAL. That shooting witnesses before they are about to testify to the HSCA is ILLEGAL. That creating the Warren Commission was a skirting of LEGAL JURISDICTION. That ordering Henry Wade and the Dallas law enforcement people to “back off” was LEGALLY UNNECESSARY for anyone interested in catching the perpetrators, because of the concept of CONCURRENT JURISDICTION, which is followed in every other crime (e.g., the Beltway Sniper case), but not in this one. That appointment of Allen Dulles to the WC was a FLAGRANT CONFLICT OF INTEREST, in violation of well known principles of LEGAL ETHICS; and don’t tell me the President of the U.S. did not have access to competent LEGAL ADVICE or that J. Edgar Hoover, who made the recommendation, did not know the law, because he had 2 law degrees. Do not tell me that the Parkland Hospital doctors, to a man or woman, did not report what they are on record as having reported, or that it makes no difference, somehow. Do not tell me that it means nothing that the Bethesda autopsy doctors were not well-trained in autopsies or forensic medicine, or that the room was full of military men, or that Jerrol Custer and the other technician present in the room should have been threatened with imprisonment for telling what they saw, or for later reporting that the Bethesda autopsy did not reflect what they themselves saw with their own eyes. And above all, do not tell me that this fact, or most of the other facts mentioned above (ALL INDISPUTABLE FACTS) were carrried out by agents of Carlos Marcello. That’s all I have to say on the matter.
Clarke, not sure where your heat is coming from. I agree that the things you name were improper and (with the possible exception of some killings of witnesses) not carried out by agents of Marcello.
I do not, however, buy into an automatic conclusion that because a range of government agencies (a) did illegal actions; (b) did incompetent actions; or (c) did actions to cover up said illegality and incompetence, that it logically or necessarily follows that (d) therefore they all were in on a conspiracy to assassinate JFK.
For example the Secret Service actions on that fateful day in Dallas, the lack of securing open windows of tall buildings, etc. can be criticized, but (with the exception of a nagging question mark over reduction in security that day) I am not convinced of evidence of intent to murder the President on the part of any Secret Service, no matter what they later did or did not do with the limousine. Please try not to attack straw men (as you have done with me in your comment above). I have no desire for an argument with you and am not sure what is the argument.
As a general statement, as a sign posted at Marcello’s headquarters in New Orleans is said to have read: “Three can keep a secret if two are dead.” If there was a conspiracy in the death of JFK (Mob hits by definition are conspiracies, and if the JFK assassination was a Mob hit it would have had witting support or approval at some level within the government itself), I just have a visceral instinct that the number of witting participants would not be high and would not be spread over huge sectors of the federal bureaucracy. Anyway my take on it. Everyone works out what they think for themselves. As Curington puts it, he doesn’t care whether anyone believes what he has to say, he just wants to tell his story. I just wanted to do the best job I could in helping this story be told, in the interests of contributing this small part to modern historical understanding and context of this watershed event in American history.
“Actions to cover up illegality” are referred to, in the law, as acts of “complicity.” Complicity by agents of government in the murder of a President are, prima facie, legally equivalent to participation in the crime. “We got the little bastard, and we got his brother, the son of a bitch, too.” –David Morales, CIA.
Yes, where established and proven. On coverup, which there certainly was, notably Hoover did not want any leads to Marcello or other Mob investigated, and neither did the ones driving the Warren Commission investigation, such that the very name of Marcello, one of the most powerful Mob bosses in the US and with white-hot hatred of the Kennedys and in control of the city where the assassination occurred, does not even appear once in the 888 pages of the final Warren Commission report–even though the Warren Commission knew from phone records that Oswald’s killer Ruby had been in phone contact with Marcello associates in New Orleans.
The Warren Commission waited until they had mostly wrapped up the rest of their investigation to go talk to Ruby for the first time, sort of as a formality, in his Dallas jail cell where Ruby directly pleaded to Earl Warren and Gerald Ford right there in the jail cell that his life was in danger and that if only they would get him out of there to secure protection he would tell them everything, but they blew him off and that was the end of that, and Ruby reverted back to his alibi story of an impulse shooting of Oswald out of pity for the widow and children of JFK.
Hoover shielded Marcello from FBI investigative scrutiny (by otherwise for the most part honest FBI field agents) as brought out in Mark North, Act of Treason: the Role of J. Edgar Hoover in the Assassination of President Kennedy (2013). North documents that Hoover received a report of the existence of a Mob contract on JFK, in Sept. 1962, from a credible informant’s report of Trafficante of Florida speaking of the existence of a contract, which would have pointed toward Marcello, but did not inform the Secret Service. Hoover, who hated JFK, was friends with LBJ, and compromised by the Mob, did not allow FBI investigators to pursue leads pointing to Marcello, the single Mob figure in all of America, with the possible exception only of Hoffa, who had the most motive to get rid of JFK/RFK.
Neither did New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison go after the elephant in the room, Mob boss Marcello of his own city of New Orleans, in all of Garrison’s sensational charges as to who was responsible. Marcello in New Orleans–whose organized crime operations were the biggest industry and sector of the economy of Louisiana above any legal enterprise (as brought out in John H. Davis, Mafia Kingfish: Carlos Marcello and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy [1989])–controlled all sorts of politicians and had public figures in his pocket. According to street talk this included the elected District Attorney, Garrison, which is why Garrison never looked at a role of Marcello with respect to the JFK assassination. The final chapter of Vaccara’s 2015 book on Marcello contains interesting interviews carried out by the author in New Orleans relating to this aspect of Garrison. Even when Garrison was on to an actual link of Oswald with David Ferrie, neither Garrison nor the Warren Commission brought out the most direct connection of Ferrie with Marcello–that Ferrie WORKED FOR Marcello (employed by Marcello’s attorney actually), had a HISTORY with Marcello, and Ferrie was personally WITH Marcello all day the day of the JFK assassination, etc. Garrison charged that Oswald and Ferrie were part of an assassination conspiracy yet Garrison entirely overlooked, as did the Warren Commission, Ferrie’s boss Marcello.
On the David Morales statement, reported and confirmed by two friends who heard Morales say this with passion in 1975 after Morales had been heavily drinking and had gone into an anti-Kennedy tirade about the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, this is the kind of statement that could go several ways in meaning. On the hypothesis that Morales, a spooky figure for sure, had his tongue loosened by the alcohol and was speaking truthfully or something he believed, was this referring to Morales action personally, CIA ops that Morales knew something about, or an allusion to proxy accomplishment of purpose via Mob contacts (on analogy with CIA/Mob cooperation in the Castro-assassination plots)? Is it claiming credit (“we”) for something Morales did not actually know? Morales did not give further details or specifics, and to my knowledge there are no reports that he ever repeated that when he was sober. Therefore what it means, in the end, in my opinion remains unclear.
Well for those of us who loved John and Bobby
And still do we find satisfaction then The Lord says Vengeance is mine we can smile knowing H LHunt and all his Conspirators are Burning in Hells Hottest Fires
Sure. Along with Hitler and Mae West lol
For what it’s worth the 2 things that persuaded me of conspiracy more than anything else were:
(1) the fact that Dallas policeman Joe Marshall Smith, a Dallas cop posted at Elm & Houston streets during the parade, who was the first to run up the grassy knoll and scale the fence where he (with drawn pistol) confronted a lone man who showed him a Secret Service badge, there being no Secret Service or FBI personnel up there; and
(2) the near-universal Dealy Plaza witness testimony that the second and third shots “were near simultaneous,” “very close together,” while the Zapruder film appears to depict (along with recently rehabilitated as accurate acoustical evidence) that two shots were 1.8 seconds apart—
—for me render it extremely improbable there was not a conspiracy
Also youtube search “Only The Shadow Knows: Prayer Man” for very compelling evidence Oswald could not have been a shooter during the assassination…. (3).