Mother Denies Victoria Man's Claim He's Son of JFK

by DENISE RYAN / Vancouver Sun

The family of Jack Worthington, the Victoria man who claims to be an illegitimate son of president John F. Kennedy, released a statement to Vanity Fair magazine today stating Worthington is not related to JFK.

"It is our understanding that Jack R. Worthington, Jr. has made the statement that he is the son of John F. Kennedy and that his mother, Mary Evelyn Worthington, was introduced to president Kennedy by Lyndon B. Johnson."

"It is the position of the family that the above statements are unequivocally false and have been fabricated by Jack R. Worthington Jr. for reasons unknown to his family."

The statement also says that his mother, Mary Evelyn Worthington, never met either John F. Kennedy or Lyndon B. Johnson.

"Jack R. Worthington Jr. is the natural-born son of Jack R. Worthington, Sr. and Mary Evelyn Worthington," said the statement.

Worthington, who until today was unaware his family had released the statement, spoke to The Vancouver Sun within minutes of getting the news that his family had spoken out against his claims.

Worthington, who stands by his story, said "my mother is not telling the truth. She has reservations. She just doesn't want to deal with it now, the publicity."

Within hours of receiving the statement from Worthington's family, Vanity Fair circulated it to media, and published an article by David Friend on its website entitled "A Claim to Camelot," with the overline "The Man Who Would be Jack."

Friend's article positions Worthington as a possible poser whose approach to the magazine through his lawyer Douglas Caddy immediately rang "alarm bells."

"How many time had would-be Kennedy heirs come out of the woodwork? And how many tall tales had originated...in the dark heart of conspiracy country - vast, incorrigible Texas, where JFK was murdered, LBJ connived and thrived, and two presidents Bush catapulted from the oil business to the Oval Office?" Friend writes.

News about the story of a possible JFK love child living in the wilds of British Columbia first surfaced when the New York Post ran an item in its well-read Page Six gossip column a few weeks ago. The report suggested Vanity Fair had spiked a politically hot-button item on the alleged JFK son, caving under pressure from Ted Kennedy.

The item proved a source of fascination and Worthington immediately became the target of an international media hunt. He was reluctant to come forward, but did speak at length to The Vancouver Sun, alluding to himself as "a potential Rosetta Stone for a confusing time in American history," and suggesting the Vanity Fair article might provide some information that would solve the cloud of mystery that still hangs around the assassination of JFK.

The article published on its website today does anything but, giving Worthington a starring role as a man of "conflicting assertions and motives and press conferences," a man whose mother denies him and who "was told [by Vanity Fair] that he was free to take his story elsewhere." ... [Read the full story here]

Dallas DA Says Unearthed JFK Documents Will Likely be Given to Sixth Floor

By DAVID FLICK / The Dallas Morning News

It appears that what happened in Dallas will stay in Dallas.

Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins Jr. said Friday that, while he will not make a final decision until next week, he likely will donate long-hidden documents regarding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.

"I feel an obligation," he said. "This is where I live, this is where it happened, and I think it would be good for tourism and good for the local economy to keep the documents at The Sixth Floor Museum."

The 15 boxes of materials were stashed and then kept secret by Mr. Watkins' predecessors for four decades before being revealed by Mr. Watkins two weeks ago ... [Read the full story here]

The CIA vs. Jefferson Morley

by DALE K. MYERS

The CIA is in court again today defending its refusal to turn over documents on the activities of now-deceased career undercover officer George Joannides to journalist Jefferson Morley.

Joannides was the chief of the CIA’s Miami-based psychological warfare operations against Cuban president Fidel Castro in 1963.

Mr. Morley believes the Joannides files “could shed light on the question of whether CIA officers overlooked, underestimated or manipulated Oswald as he made his way to Dallas.” [emphasis added]

It’s pretty clear that Morley is satisfied that he is going to find pay-dirt (i.e., a “smoking gun” in the Kennedy assassination) among these withheld documents. I’m not so sure.

While I applaud all efforts, including Morley’s, to secure the truth about circumstances surrounding the death of President Kennedy, I haven’t seen anything yet that suggests that George Joannides was involved directly or indirectly in the Kennedy assassination, or with Oswald, and neither has Morley.

Mr. Morley’s not-so-subtle suggestion that there is fire amid these unreleased “smoking” documents centers around the fact that Joannides was in charge of guiding and monitoring the Directorio Revolucinario Estudentil (DRE) (i.e., Cuban Student Directorate), an anti-Castro Cuban exile student group based in Miami.

In August, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald approached Carlos Bringuier, the self-proclaimed one-man delegate of the Miami-based DRE in New Orleans, and offered to join Bringuier’s organization to train guerillas to fight Castro. Bringuier was suspicious of Oswald and thought he might be an undercover FBI agent looking to infiltrate Bringuier’s one-man organization.

Oswald was rebuffed and later got into a street fight with several of Bringuier’s associates and was arrested for disturbing the peace. Oswald later wrote to the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) in New York and bragged that he had “infiltrated” Bringuier’s group (he had not). Oddly, both Bringuier and Oswald, who claimed leadership of the FPCC in New Orleans, were running one-man operations.

A week after the street fight, Oswald debated Bringuier and INCA’s Edward Butler on WDSU radio. Oswald’s attempted defection to the Soviet Union was revealed during this debate and Oswald’s career as an agent provocateur was over.

In the wake of the debate, Bringuier sent out a press release, which consisted of a typed message on plain-white paper, to the local New Orleans media in an effort to get the media and others interested in investigating Oswald, whom Bringuier considered dangerous. Bringuier was the only person who tried to warn people about Oswald prior to the assassination.

During the process of getting the withheld documents on George Joannides released from CIA vaults, Jefferson Morley has inflated Bringuier’s connections to the Miami-based DRE by suggesting that Bringuier’s one-man New Orleans delegation was receiving money from Miami (“…The CIA was passing money to the DRE leaders at the time…”) and that the Miami-based DRE called for an investigation into Oswald (“…the DRE issued a press release calling for a congressional investigation of the pro-Castro activities of the then-obscure Oswald…”). Morley claimed to have support for these allegations after “interviewing” Bringuier.

However, Bringuier recently said that he refused Morley’s invitation for an interview after reading an article Morley had written.

“Morley never interviewed me,” Bringuier said. “He contacted me over the phone and initially we agreed to an interview here in my house. When I checked his credentials and found out the inaccuracies that he had written about me I called back and cancelled the interview. He persisted claiming he had already an airplane ticket to come here and I told him that this area is a very nice place and he can enjoy a vacation here but that I would not allow him to put a foot inside my house.

“We discussed his allegation that the CIA was giving me $25,000 a month in 1963, at a time when I was working in Casa Roca as co-Manager with a salary of $60.00 and living with my wife and 4 children in low-income apartment of the New Orleans Housing Authority. He backed up stating that the money maybe was going to the Miami office and then from there trickling down to me. I told him I never got a penny from the Miami office.

”I was a delegate of the Miami Central office from where I received mail communication. Maybe I visited that office one or two times while I had been vacationing in Miami. I never met George Joannides nor any other non-Cuban person during those couple of visits to the Miami office.”

In an article posted online yesterday announcing today’s CIA court battle over the Joannides documents, Morley continued to fan the flames of conspiracy, writing “the disputed [Joannides] files could prove more significant to the JFK case than the much-publicized files of Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade, made public last week [emphasis added],” “all efforts to pierce the veil of secrecy around Joannides’ actions in 1963 have been thwarted,” and “agency lawyers will make their first response to a court order to explain the secrecy surrounding a career CIA undercover officer allegedly involved in the events that led that to the murder of the president on Nov. 22, 1963.”

Mr. Morley didn’t mention that the allegation that Joannides might have been involved in Oswald’s New Orleans shenanigans is his own, and so far, one that remains unsubstantiated.

Instead of facts, we get inflammatory statements from Mr. Morley like this: “What remains unknown is the extent of Joannides’ control over his agents in the Cuban exile community who sought to link Oswald to Fidel Castro. [Editor’s note: A reference to the Buchanan brothers’ post-assassination allegations that Oswald was connected to Castro.] The day after JFK was killed the Cuban communist leader scorned the reports that Oswald was a supporter of his revolution and suggested that the CIA was behind the charge. The available records show that Castro was right: CIA funds did help publicize the allegation.”

Castro was right? How does the use of CIA funds which might have been used to publicize Oswald’s well known and well-founded admiration of Fidel Castro show that Castro was correct when he claimed Oswald’s support of Fidel was a CIA fantasy?

It’s no real surprise that the CIA (or the independent actions of the Cuban exile groups they supported) would capitalize on the fact that Oswald was a real-life Castro supporter, is it?

That fact alone, however, doesn’t mean that George Joannides or the CIA were complicit in the assassination or connected to Oswald’s activities, no matter how bad some people want it to be so.

In any event, it would be prudent to wait until the CIA actually releases the files on Joannides before crowing about what they contain or how they relate (if it all) to Oswald and the Kennedy assassination.

Papers Show DA's Role in JFK Film

by DAVID FLICK and DAVID TARRANT / The Dallas Morning News

Henry Wade, the legendary Dallas County district attorney known for his no-nonsense style, apparently was not immune to the lure of a little movie magic.

And the man with a reputation for unshakeable integrity was agreeable to receiving thousands of dollars in return for giving filmmakers exclusive access to legal documents connected to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, some of which were kept from the public for another four decades.

The existence of 15 boxes of JFK-related material, locked away in a DA's office safe, was announced Monday by Craig Watkins, the current district attorney, who said his predecessors had kept the documents under wraps even after Mr. Wade's retirement.

Mr. Wade died in 2001, and several calls to surviving family members were not returned.

Tantalizing new details about the little-known episode of Mr. Wade's involvement in a movie venture about the Nov. 22, 1963, JFK assassination and the trial of Jack Ruby were found in a Dallas Morning News examination of the long-hidden files.

What emerges is a story that sometimes resembles comic opera but contains what appears to be a breach of ethics.... [Read the complete exclusive story]

Examine the Lost JFK Files

by DALE K. MYERS

Well, they're really not lost. Obviously they've been located. But the Dallas Morning News is asking for your help in locating the real gems (if any) in the recent Dallas District Attorney files released earlier this week.

One, large chunk of the documents (Group 1 through 29) can be downloaded in PDF format from the Dallas Morning News by going here. The News promises that in the coming days, more will be made available for your review.

The alleged "transcript" of the conversation between Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald (released earlier this week) can be obtained in PDF format by going here. For more on the story behind the "transcript," read "Wading Through the Muck."

The documents contained in the current release are those that the district attorney's office made available in electronic form – an estimated 90 percent of all the documents from the vault. Another 10 percent had not yet been scanned when the current files were released to the Dallas Morning News.

The contents include transcripts, personal and official letters, newspaper clippings, lists of jurors, police reports, rap sheets, autopsy reports, trial notes, police notebooks, photographs and much more.

The documents appear exactly as they were received by the News. They are neither cataloged nor indexed, and they are in no apparent order.

After a quick perusal, there are no "smoking guns." The most interesting (at least to this writer) were the ones pertaining to the documentary film deal that received so much press when this story first broke. You'll find those documents in Group 6 (PDF's #50-55).

Happy hunting!

Radio Waves: NPR and the Assassination Truth

by DALE K. MYERS

In the wake of the Dallas D.A. document debacle earlier this week, National Public Radio’s Diane Rehm Show featured three prominent assassination experts today in another effort to satisfy public curiosity about the case that never ends.

Guest host Susan Page (USA Today) spoke with Max Holland (author of “The Assassination Tapes”), Gary Mack (curator of The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza), and David Kaiser (professor at the Naval War College and author of “The Road to Dallas”) about the Dallas D.A., the “new” document release, and the assassination in general. You can listen to the entire archived hour here (Windows Media) or here (Real Audio).

At one point, Mr. Mack quipped, “After this show ends today the conspiracy folks will be beating us all up for whatever we said.”

No doubt they will, given some of the decidedly anti-conspiracy comments made during the hour. But that goes with the territory.

I did note some rather ironic statements offered up by the three participants.

For instance, Mr. Mack said, “Most people just are not convinced by the official story that it was just Lee Harvey Oswald. Now they may base that opinion on some good information or some misinformation but that’s – that’s unfortunately one of the legacies of President Kennedy.”

Frankly, the legacy Mr. Mack is talking about has nothing whatsoever to do with Kennedy or his life. It’s a legacy left to us courtesy of the self-described research community at large – both pro-lone-assassin and pro-conspiracy. It seems that in the heat of the argument, neither side is able to stick to ‘good information’ (i.e., the facts of the case).

I thought it was more than a little ironic that Mr. Mack, the voice of reason on the NPR program, was one of the principle people behind two of the most popular conspiracy theories ever - the Badge Man theory and the acoustic evidence theory – both of which continue to be hotly debated.

Even the NPR radio program itself couldn’t escape the legacy of misinformation.

Case in point: In discussing his forthcoming book, “The Road to Dallas,” historian and author David Kaiser said, “The book was based entirely on documents that were released in the late 1990’s as a result of the JFK Assassinations Record Act which was passed by the Congress.”

A few minutes later, Kaiser, who believes a Mafia led conspiracy was behind the Kennedy murder, claimed as fact, “…Oswald had to be killed because of what he might have told although actually there is some evidence – this is what John Martino said, the mobster who was in the conspiracy – Oswald didn’t actually know who he was really working for. Ah – I tend to agree with Gary [Mack] –ah – if Oswald had gotten a quick trial and speedy execution [Editor’s Note: Mack never said this.] – ah – we would probably be having the same arguments but I think obviously, you know, there was a reason why he was killed, a very important reason. The - in fact, and this is in ‘The Road to Dallas’ at some length – there is a lot of evidence, again from Martino, the plan was to make Oswald disappear and – to murder him – which was fouled up when he shot Officer Tippit and then there would have been rumors come out as there were anyway that he had fled to Cuba. And that would have put enormous pressure on President Johnson to invade Cuba.”

Huh? The John Martino story has been around since 1975. None of it is new and certainly didn’t come from the release of documents in the late 1990’s as Kaiser claimed. If his statements on NPR are any indication, I have serious doubts that Kaiser’s forthcoming book is going to be a ‘book for the ages.’

Host Susan Page asked, “Max Holland, how do you access the conclusions in David Kaiser’s book? Do you find them credible?”

“No,” Holland replied. “Daniel Moynihan liked to say that you’re entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts…”

Oh, really? A few minutes later, Mr. Holland brought up his completely unsupported theory that the first shot was fired before Zapruder began filming.

“It’s always been a presumption,” Holland said, “which I think turns out to be unwarranted, that the whole assassination was captured on the Zapruder film, because it is so gruesome to watch the second and third shots that people naturally thought the first one must be on it also. In fact I believe that the first shot occurred just before Zapruder started filming. That means three shots in a little over 11 seconds which relatively speaking is all the time in the world that he needed.”

Of course, it’s never been a presumption, as Max Holland claims, that all three shots were fired while Zapruder’s camera was turning. There is just no credible evidence that any shots were fired before the first frame was exposed, despite Holland’s past and present claims.

I agree with Mr. Moynihan’s sentiments – ‘You’re entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.’ When it comes to an early, pre-Zapruder film shot, Mr. Holland has offered up a spade full of supportive facts – all of his own making.

I’ve already spent oodles of hours laying out the holes in Mr. Holland’s folly, so I won’t repeat them here. For those of you who missed it, read: “Max Holland’s 11 Seconds in Dallas,” or the more recent, “Holland Déjà Vu.”

Of course the NPR program didn’t end the debate that never ends. How could it? It did prove to be an amusing hour though, with just a hint of what we can expect from two prominent authors and their forthcoming books.

Too bad the American public can’t get more true facts and less opinion on the assassination question.

When DA Spoke of JFK, He Misspoke for Dallas

by STEVE BLOW / Dallas Morning News

“Irresponsible" is a strong word, and I hate to use it. But it's the word that came to mind after Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins' news conference this week.

I'm talking about the casual way he pumped up conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

And let's be clear right at the start. Let's say what the district attorney should have. Absolutely nothing revealed from the DA's "treasure-trove" sheds the slightest new light on the president's murder.

Instead of saying that, however, Mr. Watkins blithely brushed aside questions of truth or relevance. "But what we do know," he said at the news conference heard around the world, "is that this will open up the debate as to whether or not there was a conspiracy to assassinate the president."

Well, yes. If the district attorney in Dallas, Texas, predicts that newly discovered material will reignite conspiracy theories, it most surely will.

And true to that irresponsible, ill-informed prediction, how about this headline? "John F. Kennedy 'assassins' plot revealed.' "

A plot revealed? Good grief. Not even close. Yet that's the story Great Britain got Tuesday from London's Daily Telegraph.

The Web site for an Iranian news service showed a bit more restraint: "Plot to assassinate JFK revealed?" it asked.

The International Herald Tribune, the English-language newspaper read around the world, headlined its story: "Conspiracy buffs may feast on JFK documents."

And for this worldwide blitz of misinformation, we have our very own district attorney to thank. If he or his staff had done just a smidgen of research, that news conference would have never been called.

This whole matter got off to a bad start. The DA's staff went in search of Kennedy material because it had heard that the gun Jack Ruby used to kill Lee Harvey Oswald might be in an office safe.

Wrong. A 30-second Google search would have revealed that the gun was held for years by Ruby's executor and ended up being sold into private hands.

Furthermore, a similar Google search would have immediately shot holes in the ballyhooed "transcript" of an alleged conversation between Ruby and Oswald.

Mr. Watkins unveiled it Monday like a stunning new find. The truth is that it has been sitting in the Warren Commission report all these years – thoroughly discredited as the fevered imagination of a Dallas lawyer with a big drinking problem.

It's Warren Commission Exhibit 2821. You can look it up.

"It was thoroughly debunked at the time," said Kennedy assassination expert Gary Mack, curator of The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.

Do you suppose Mr. Watkins might call a news conference to say: "Never mind" ? Don't count on it.

I hate to criticize Mr. Watkins. I think he has done a good job as district attorney. I admire his willingness to do things differently.

But he has to realize that his words now carry the weight of his office – including his half-baked views on the Kennedy assassination.

He told me Wednesday that he has never believed Oswald acted alone. "I believe in conspiracies," he said. "I think that's just too simple of an explanation."

But he also admitted that he has never studied the matter. "Just all the stuff I see on TV," he said. "I never have delved into it. I just think there's got to be more to it than that."

Let's hope he's not prosecuting crimes based on hunches rather than investigation.

Precisely because he knows so little about the assassination, Mr. Watkins said he chose not to state the obvious at the news conference – that the transcript is clearly bogus. "I never believed it," he said. "People just don't talk like that. But I didn't want to give my opinion of it."

Mr. Watkins is still fairly new to the job. And maybe there's a good lesson for him here: When you don't know much about a subject, don't call a news conference to announce it.

Wading Through the Muck

by DALE K. MYERS

You don’t even have to be a student of the assassination to know that the “smoking gun” in the Kennedy assassination, as some news commentators are calling a newly released document that had been locked up in the Dallas D.A.’s office safe for the past forty-one years, is nothing to get worked up over. You only have to have an Internet connection and know how to use ‘Google’ – something the Dallas District Attorney’s office apparently doesn’t have or know how to use.

This past weekend, the Dallas DA.’s office revealed that they had a transcript of an alleged conversation between Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby. Any conversation between these two individuals would be big news since no one has been able to connect the two men for more than 45 years. All of the evidence – and I do mean ALL – shows that the two men did not know each other, never met, and never had a conversation.

The transcript kept in the Dallas D.A.’s safe for more than four decades wasn’t just some ordinary conversation between Oswald and Ruby, it was the granddaddy of all conversations – a discussion about killing the President of the United States.

A FOX News commentator who wasn’t even born at the time of the Kennedy assassination gushed that it looked like “conspiracy theorists finally have their smoking gun.” While that might make great television in a world that embraces tabloid style journalism over vetted news items (a style that seems to have gone the way of covered wagons), it hardly brings us closer to the truth about the assassination. What it will bring is another layer of muck to an already mucky swamp of misinformation about this pivotal moment in American history. The sad thing is it could have all been avoided.

It took me all of five seconds to find the answers to the key questions about this alleged conversation on the Internet. The Dallas D.A.’s office, which announced today during a live news conference that they had been cataloging the items in former District Attorney Henry Wade’s safe for a year, apparently never lifted a finger to find out what the supposed transcript was and what the source for it was.

The Sixth Floor Museum’s curator Gary Mack knew instantly what the transcript was related to (as did any serious student of the assassination) and laughed when told of the transcript by the Dallas Morning News. Mack said that the transcript resembled one published by the Warren Commission and was a “re-created” conversation given to authorities by now-deceased Dallas attorney Carroll Jarnagin after he told investigators that he recognized Oswald in a newspaper photo as the man he saw talking to Ruby at the Carousel Club on the night of October 4, 1963 – seven weeks before the assassination.

Mr. Mack told the News that it's well documented that Oswald was in Irving the evening of Oct. 4, at the home of Ruth Paine where his wife was staying. He could not have been at Ruby's club. Mack suggested that the transcript in the Warren Commission report was probably used as a model for the one found in the district attorney's safe.

Did Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins, who was born four years after the assassination and who admitted to the Dallas Morning News that he is “always a conspiracy theorist” and “never believed Oswald acted alone,” check into any of this before today’s press conference? Of course not; why spoil a good story? Mr. Watkins was quoted over the weekend as saying, “"It will open up the debate again about whether there was a conspiracy.” No kidding.

It’s quite obvious that District Attorney Watkins is more interested in jumping into the international spotlight and taking credit for revealing the “smoking gun” in the Kennedy assassination to the world rather than doing his job and determining the truth about the contents of Henry Wade’s safe. It wasn’t that hard, Mr. Watkins.

On December 5, 1963, Dallas attorney Carroll Jarnagin, an admitted alcoholic who was in the middle of divorce proceedings due to his drinking, wrote a letter to J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI, and claimed that on the night of October 4, 1963, he went to Jack Ruby’s Carousel Club in the company of Shirley Mauldin, a strip tease dancer who worked under the name ‘Robin Hood.’ While there, he allegedly overheard a conversation between Ruby and a man using the name ‘H.L. Lee,’ whom Jarnagin recognized as Lee Harvey Oswald after Oswald had been murdered by Jack Ruby on November 24, 1963. Ruby and ‘Lee’ were supposedly discussing the assassination of the Governor of Texas. [26H 254-59; CE 2821]

Jarnagin claimed that he anonymously telephoned the Texas Department of Public Safety the next day (Oct. 5) and warned them of the conversation they overheard. An FBI investigation later determined that the Department of Public Safety never received any such call. [26H 254-59; CE 2821]

Shirley Mauldin told authorities that on the night she was released from jail on a drunk and disorderly charge, she and Jarnagin went to Ruby’s Carousel Club. She denied that she overheard any conversation between Ruby and anyone and certainly didn’t hear anyone discussing the murder of the Governor of Texas. In short, it didn’t happen. [26H 259-60; CE 2821]

Police records show that Mauldin was arrested on September 19, 1963, for drunk and disorderly conduct after a one-car accident and fined $100. Yet, this arrest was two weeks before her alleged trip to the Carousel Club. [26H 260-61; CE 2821]

Police records also show Jarnagin had been arrested in the past for drunk and disorderly conduct. [26H 260; CE 2821]

Jarnagin subsequently gave an affidavit to Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade in which he reiterated his account of the events of October 4, 1963. A polygraph examination was given to Jarnagin by the Dallas Police on March 2, 1964 to determine the truth of the matter. Jarnagin flunked with flying colors. Here are the eleven pertinent questions asked, the answers given, and the test indicator:

(1) From here on, do you intend to answer my questions with the truth? Answer: Yes. Indication: False.

(2) Have you told the complete truth in this affidavit? Answer: Yes. Indication: False.

(3) Did you actually overhear this conversation between Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald? Answer: Yes. Indication: False.

(4) Were you drinking that night? Answer: Yes. Indication: True.

(5) Did you actually see Oswald and Ruby at that table on the night of October 4, 1963? Answer: Yes. Indication: False.

(6) Did you hear this conversation between these two men on that night? Answer: yes. Indication: False.

(7) Did you hear the name of H.L. Lee in this conversation? Answer: Yes. Indication: False.

(8) Is any part of this affidavit false? Answer: No Indication: False.

(9) Did you deliberately make up this affidavit to get some publicity? Answer: No Indication: False

(10) Were you drunk that night? Answer: Yes Indication: True

(11) Did you hear everything that you put in this affidavit? Answer: Yes. Indication: False.

[John F. Kennedy Archive, Dallas City Archives, Box 13, Folder 4, Item 45 - Polygraph Transcript, by P. L. Bentley. Polygraph examination of Carroll Jarnagin, (Photocopy), 03/02/64. 00002690 2 pages 2690-001.gif 2690-002.gif]

The only two questions that Jarnagin answered truthfully were that he had been drinking and he was drunk. What a surprise. The results of this polygraph were obtained from the Dallas City Archives online with a simple search. Someone should show the current Dallas District Attorney Mr. Watkins where that is and how to do it.

Henry Wade told Dallas journalist Hugh Aynesworth that after failing the polygraph, Jarnagin grinned and said, “Well, some things you remember and others you don’t,” and walked out. [Aynesworth, Hugh, JFK: Breaking the News, International Focus Press, 2003, p.217, 231]

Jarnagin was a bit more forthcoming with the Dallas Police when questioned about his flunking the polygraph exam and admitted that he made the whole thing up and said that he felt that the police would connect Ruby and Oswald sooner or later and just wanted to get in on the ground floor and get a little extra publicity. [Dale K. Myers Collection, Interview of James R. Leavelle, April 7, 1983, p. 24]

Former Dallas Morning News city editor Johnny King described Jarnagin as “a nice-enough guy, but a bad lush.” King said that Jarnagin had told the News other tales, “One about LBJ that we would have loved to believe, another about John Tower. The guy gets around – especially in his own mind.” [Aynesworth, Hugh, JFK: Breaking the News, International Focus Press, 2003, p.223]

But the Jarnagin story doesn’t end there. Jarnagin later approached Forth Worth Star-Telegram reporter Waldo Thayer with a new claim that he witnessed Bernard Weissman (who was the signer of the infamous black-bordered advertisement that appeared in the Dallas Morning News on November 22), Jack Ruby, and Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit meeting in the Carousel Club on November 14, 1963, just a few days before the assassination. Later investigation showed that the meeting never happened. Thayer later told conspiracy author and attorney Mark Lane about the claim which became a featured part of Lane’s 1966 book Rush to Judgment, although Lane didn’t reveal the name of the informant who he considered a reliable and responsible person. [Aynesworth, Hugh, JFK: Breaking the News, International Focus Press, 2003, p.231; Lane, Mark, Rush to Judgment, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1966, p.249]

In his December 5 letter to J. Edgar Hoover, Jarnagin ‘re-created’ the conversation he heard between Ruby and ‘Lee’. That transcript contains phrases similar to the alleged “transcript” found in Henry Wade’s safe, including the alleged Ruby statement, “…the Feds would get into everything…” [Jarnagin] “…it would get the Feds into everything…” [Wade safe ‘transcript’].

According to Terri Moore, Dallas District attorney Craig Watkins' top assistant, she believes the transcript is part of a movie that Henry Wade was working on with producers.

"It's not real. Crooks don't talk like that," she said. Mr. Wade wrote about the movie, Countdown in Dallas, in letters also found in the safe.

“I believe it important for the film to be factually correct, that it come from official files, that the witnesses who in any way were participants should appear in person in the film, and in my opinion, will result in an excellent film not only of interest at present but the record of events for history,” Mr. Wade wrote.

You would think that Dallas District Attorney Craig Watson would have spent a few minutes to find out what the Wade transcript was all about before crowing to the world that he had discovered something of significance. Instead, he managed to further muck up the works.

No doubt, in twenty years time, we’ll be still dealing with this current round of lunacy brought on by the Dallas D.A.’s office. I can hear the question now, “Didn’t they discover a transcript that proves Ruby and Oswald knew each other?”

“No, little Johnny,” I’ll have to say. “It was just some nincompoop in the D.A.’s office who was overloading it and everyone jumped on the bandwagon.”

Which only goes to prove, that it never ends.

Dallas DA's Office: JFK Assassination Memorabilia

DALLAS (AP) — A curious transcript purportedly about President John F. Kennedy's assassination has been discovered among boxes of memorabilia that were long forgotten in an old safe at the Dallas County district attorney's office.

While the transcript reads like a conspiracy theorist's dream — Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby plotting to kill Kennedy — the DA's top assistant said it's likely material for a proposed movie.

Other items found in an old safe on the 10th floor of the county courthouse include letters to and from former DA Henry Wade, the now-dead prosecutor in the Ruby trial, The Dallas Morning News reported in Sunday's editions. Ruby shot and killed Kennedy assassin Oswald two days after the president's death.

There are also letters to Ruby, records from his trial, a gun holster and clothing that probably belonged to Ruby and Oswald, said District Attorney Craig Watkins, who planned to discuss the find at a news conference Monday.

Much of the attention is bound to focus on the transcript purporting that Ruby and Oswald met at Ruby's nightclub on Oct. 4, 1963, less than two months before the Nov. 22 assassination. In it, they talked of killing the president because the Mafia wanted to "get rid of" his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

Says Oswald in the transcript, "I can still do it, all I need is my rifle and a tall building; but it will take time, maybe six months to find the right place; but I'll have to have some money to live on while I do the planning."

Gary Mack, curator of the Sixth Floor Museum near where the president was shot, hasn't seen the transcript but doubts it's real. It is well-documented that Oswald was in Irving the evening of Oct. 4, at a home where his wife was staying, Mack said.

"The fact that it's sitting in Henry Wade's file, and he didn't do anything, indicates he thought it wasn't worth anything," Mack said. "He probably kept it because it was funny. It's hilarious. It's like a bad B movie."

Terri Moore, Watkins' top assistant, said she believes the latest transcript is part of a movie Wade was working on with producers. The former prosecutor wrote about the proposed movie, "Countdown in Dallas," in letters found in the safe.

"It's not real. Crooks don't talk like that," Moore said. "If that transcript is true, then history is changed because Oswald and Ruby were talking about assassinating the president."

The transcript resembles one published in a report by the Warren Commission, which investigated Kennedy's assassination and determined that Oswald was the lone gunman. The FBI determined that conversation between Oswald and Ruby about killing the governor was definitely fake.

The account in the commission report was "re-created" for authorities by a now-deceased Dallas attorney who claimed he recognized Oswald in a newspaper photo as the man he saw talking to Ruby.

It's unknown whether the boxes Watkins and others found in the courthouse about a year ago have information previously undisclosed to the public or the Warren Commission.

The search began after Watkins was told the gun used to kill Oswald was somewhere in the courthouse. They didn't find the gun, which Mack said is privately owned. The boxes probably sat in the safe since being moved when the courthouse opened in 1989.

The items are still being processed and eventually will be donated to an entity that can authenticate them, preserve them and make them available to the public, Watkins said.

"It's interesting, and it's not ours," Watkins said. "It's the public's."

America's Favorite Pastime

by DALE K. MYERS

In a recent article posted on Scout.com, sports writer John Holler takes Senator Arlen Specter to task for sticking his nose into what has become known as Spygate – the illegal videotaping of defensive signals being called in by opponents by the New England Patriots in 2007. Specter got involved after it was learned that the illegal taping pre-dated the Patriots’ 2007 bust.

Sports writer Holler declared that the obvious reason for Specter’s involvement was to score points with his constituency before the 2010 Senate race. Mr. Holler writes that “Specter should be the last person criticizing someone else’s investigation,” and proceeds to give his readers a “brief history lesson” on why “a man at the center of the most controversial murder investigation in history” shouldn’t be “the man that heads up an investigation into the NFL.”

In five short paragraphs, Mr. Holler manages to jam so much disinformation about the JFK assassination that it’s hard to know where to begin setting the record straight. But this much is certain: Holler’s twisted take on the assassination is not an isolated perspective. His wholly uninformed viewpoint is unfortunately shared by a vast majority of otherwise intelligent Americans who are convinced that a conspiracy was behind the President’s murder. Here’s what Holler wrote:

“…Specter came to national prominence and received the kind of recognition that propels political candidates when he served on the Warren Commission, which most historians view as an inept, incomplete investigation of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Unlike probes that hire investigators with a police background, the Warren Commission investigators were made up almost entirely of lawyers. They weren’t necessarily looking for all the facts, they were looking for a scenario in which the Warren Report would serve as a legal brief explaining why Lee Harvey Oswald was guilty. If facts didn’t jibe with the one-man, three-shots-from-the-Book Depository theory, they were quickly discarded. Eyewitness statements were ignored. Compelling evidence that others were involved was slanted or swept under the rug and evidence that had historical significance was routinely destroyed…

”For those with any knowledge of the Kennedy assassination, they know that, up until the 11th hour of the “investigation,” there were serious flaws in the commission’s theory and that the commission was having a difficult time making three shots in a little over six seconds work for a shooter with a cheap Italian-made bolt-action rifle. With the wounds to the president and Texas Gov. John Connally, as well as a bystander named James Tague who was slightly injured by a piece of shrapnel from a missed shot, it seemed clear that the commission was dealing with four shots – one more than Oswald could have possibly fired in the short window of time that the shooting took place. Enter Arlen Specter.

”At the time, Specter was a junior counsel with the Warren Commission, which was scrambling to find a way to achieve its goal of soothing the American public that Oswald was the lone assassin and didn’t have any confederates that could still be at large. Desperate to make the lone gunman theory work, Specter proposed a theory so against the laws of physics that it became known as the Magic Bullet Theory. While many people have likely heard of the MBT, they may not know that it was Specter’s creation – his lone theory.

”For those unfamiliar with the Magic Bullet Theory, a shot allegedly fired by Oswald from 60 feet above the president’s limousine at a clear downward angle hit Kennedy in the back at the level of the third thoracic vertebra, moved upward to exit Kennedy’s throat, then hit Connally in the chest blowing away three inches of one of his ribs, went through his right wrist and shattered a dense, heavy bone and somehow tumbled and lodged in his left thigh. The bullet that was said to be the magic bullet was found on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital in Dallas (not in Connally’s body) and the bullet was in pristine condition with no deformity or even traces of blood or tissue on it.

”Specter’s theory was so outlandish that a minority of the Warren Commission members wanted to write a second conclusion that claimed they didn’t want to sign off on Specter’s MBT. But, in the Cold War hysteria of the early 1960s, it was felt that it was in the public good to keep a uniform front that Oswald was the killer, he acted alone and was simply a “lone nut” with no ties to any conspiracy, foreign or domestic. Thanks to Arlen Specter, Oswald’s guilt became cemented in the minds of the American public. It was only when the video of the assassination, locked away by Time-Life for more than a decade, surfaced, that public opinion began to turn. But, despite other investigations that followed, the MBT still stands as the official government conclusion on the assassination…”

How many false statements did you count in the five paragraphs above? Here are the major fabrications I spotted (I’ll skip the minor ones for brevity):

”…the Warren Commission, which most historians view as an inept, incomplete investigation of the assassination of John F. Kennedy…”

Mr. Holler, who couldn’t possibly have gotten within a mile of the Warren Commission’s twenty-six volumes of testimony and exhibits, must have been thinking of historians like Oliver Stone and Robert Groden. Mr. Holler (and many other Americans just like him) don’t realize or want to acknowledge that the Commission took sworn testimony from 489 witnesses completely independent of other testimony and evidence upon which they relied which was gathered by the Dallas Police, Dallas County Sheriff’s Department, the Secret Service (who conducted 1,552 interviews and submitted 800 reports totaling 4,600 pages), The Department of State, the IRS, military intelligence agencies, and the FBI (who relied on 169 field agents to conduct 25,000 interviews resulting in 2,300 reports totaling approximately 25,400 pages) to name a few. I could go on, but it’s pretty obvious to even an amateur historian that the Warren Commission conducted what may go down as the most exhaustive investigation in American history.

“…Eyewitness statements were ignored. Compelling evidence that others were involved was slanted or swept under the rug and evidence that had historical significance was routinely destroyed…”

Eyewitness statements ignored? Compelling evidence that others were involved slanted or swept away? Evidence destroyed? No doubt Mr. Holler would tell us that he heard all of this happened somewhere along the way. In fact, I’ve heard similar things repeated time and again, but where is the actual meat and potatoes of these allegations? In the thirty-five plus years of following this case, I’ve read many an allegation along these lines, but not one – I repeat – not one has stood up under scrutiny. It’s fantasy, and one that Mr. Holler an many other Americans choose to believe because it fits their world view, not because it’s true.

“…For those with any knowledge of the Kennedy assassination, they know that, up until the 11th hour of the ‘investigation,’ there were serious flaws in the commission’s theory and that the commission was having a difficult time making three shots in a little over six seconds work for a shooter with a cheap Italian-made bolt-action rifle...”

Indeed. Anyone with any knowledge of the Kennedy assassination knows that Holler is full of it. I can only imagine that Mr. Holler concocted his vision of the Warren Commission struggling to piece together a case against Oswald in the 11th hour of their investigation from a pile of the worst conspiracy books ever written. What I don’t understand is why Holler doesn’t recognize the inconsistency in his own theory. I mean, if the Warren Commission is ignoring eyewitness statements, sweeping evidence under the rug, and routinely destroying vital historical evidence, then how on Earth are they struggling to build a case against Oswald in the 11th hour? I would think a frame-up of the proportions that Mr. Holler describes would make their job a cinch, wouldn’t you? The fact is, the case against Oswald is rock solid and has stood the test of time for the better part of 45 years. And as for Oswald’s “cheap Italian-made bolt-action rifle,” I’ve got a duplicate model and I’ll gladly give any takers a running start before testing just how cheap that rifle is.

“…Desperate to make the lone gunman theory work, Specter proposed a theory so against the laws of physics that it became known as the Magic Bullet Theory. While many people have likely heard of the MBT, they may not know that it was Specter’s creation – his lone theory…”

It is clear from this and his descriptions of the bullet’s alleged flight path that Holler has bought the conspiracy notion of a zig-zagging bullet that is able to hang in mid-air hook, line, and sinker. Of course, this is not what Spector proposed. This is a twisted and completely fabricated version quoted as gospel by conspiracy theorists in order to make Specter and the Warren Commission look foolish. Intelligent people recognize who the real fools are. But that is not my primary bone of contention here. What I object to is Mr. Holler’s suggestion that Specter invented the Single Bullet Theory out of thin air. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. The physical evidence proves there was only one gunman (one rifle, one gunman seen firing, bullets recovered were fired from one rifle, etc.) in Dealey Plaza, and therefore it was inevitable that one bullet pierced Kennedy and Connally. The re-enactments conducted by the FBI and Secret Service confirmed that Oswald’s sniper perch, the wound in Kennedy’s back, and the wound in Connally’s back existed along a straight line. Consequently, Specter’s single bullet theory was an inevitable conclusion born from the facts of the case – not something invented out of whole cloth as Mr. Holler and the conspiracy crowd would have you believe.

“…Specter’s theory was so outlandish that a minority of the Warren Commission members wanted to write a second conclusion that claimed they didn’t want to sign off on Specter’s MBT…”

This is absolute rubbish. The real story is that Representative Hale Boggs and Senators Richard Russell and John Cooper (three of the seven-member Commission) expressed strong doubts about the single bullet theory. Only Russell wanted his opposition acknowledged in a footnote at the bottom of the page in the Commission’s report. No one suggested that a second conclusion be drafted. It is interesting to note that the three men who questioned the viability of the single bullet theory were also among those members who attended the fewest Commission hearings. Two of them were the worst attendees. Cooper missed 44 out of 94 hearings, the fourth worst attendance record; Boggs missed 74 hearings, the second worst; and Russell (who wanted to add the footnote dissention) attended only 6 out of 94 hearings. Despite the misgivings of these three members regarding the single bullet theory, all seven members of the Commission agreed that all of the shots which struck Kennedy and Connally were fired from Oswald’s sixth floor sniper’s nest perch in the Texas School Book Depository.

“…Thanks to Arlen Specter, Oswald’s guilt became cemented in the minds of the American public. It was only when the video of the assassination, locked away by Time-Life for more than a decade, surfaced, that public opinion began to turn…”

Intelligent people know, of course, that Oswald’s guilt wasn’t determined solely by Arlen Specter. It was substantiated by a mountain of physical, eyewitness, and circumstantial evidence which 45 years of conspiracy-sleuthing has failed to upset. The video of the assassination, as Mr. Holler describes it, was actually an 8mm home movie film made by Abraham Zapruder. And it wasn’t locked away by Time-Life. Crucial frames showing what happened in Dallas were published by Time-Life within a week of the assassination - so much for hiding the truth. Yes, it is true the film was not show as a motion picture for reasons of taste for more than a decade. I know that seems a novel concept in this instant gratification culture, but there was a time when we didn’t need to see our president’s head blown off to feel the terrible loss. When the Zapruder film was finally shown to the American public, many average Joes (driven by the drum beat of conspiracy theorists) who had no background in physics or wound ballistics suddenly thought they were qualified to explain the president’s backward head snap. Now that the head snap has been adequately explained by those in the know, conspiracy theorists have turned to calling the film a fake – all in the name of keeping the big conspiracy alive and well.

America’s favorite past time used to be the sport of baseball.

Now, it seems, the great American past time is playing the role of historian and pontificating on ‘Who Killed JFK?’ Because, as we all know, it just couldn’t have been Lee Harvey Oswald.