Reiner's podcast
https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/who-killed-jfk/id1714611578

The podcast is reviewed as it goes along. Follow along at the link above if you can. Many URLs here are just posted as references, not links (my html writing program allows no space to post them as links, and still to write them out). You can copy a URL reference as needed and type it into the search box at a search engine to see it.

"Shots Have Been Fired" (8 Nov 2023)

Hosts film director Rob Reiner and journalist Soledad O’Brien begin the story "from the end, because the story is not over". I don’t need to recount or question their descriptions of the history everyone knows; just their claims about what we supposedly don’t know. My question is, how much of what Reiner says might actually be true?

The hosts start with Jack Ruby killing Oswald, just as Rob and I watched on national TV. Ruby’s supposed reason for killing Oswald, to spare Jackie Kennedy’s feelings, is "ridiculous". I agree, but actual reports say this was just something Ruby was told to say, and that the main reason he killed Kennedy was because he wanted to be seen as a hero for killing his idol. Ruby also killed him because of his concern that Jews would be blamed. Like many conspiracy theorists, Reiner is hypnotized by Oswald’s statement "I’m just a patsy". But people like myself and Oswald’s brother Robert who are convinced that Oswald killed Kennedy do not take Oswald’s statement at face value, because criminals and assassins are prone to lies. That seems patently obvious. It is clear that Oswald lied many times while in custody. The case is best introduced by the PBS documentary Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald. Its latter parts deal with some of Reiner’s claims very well. I link this doc from when Oswald is arrested, and people can rewind and see more as they wish.

Like Rob Reiner, as a fan and supporter of Kennedy I remember exactly where I was when I heard JFK was dead, and the shock I that felt. Like him I have become obsessed with the story, but from another view. I believed the conspiracy theory until I started taking a closer look in the late 1980s. By 2023, the USA was being taken over by conspiracy theory, lies and distrust, and it all started on Nov.22, 1963. So we need to go back and reclaim history, as Vincent Bugliosi later put it. Reiner followed an opposite path. While doing comedy at the Hungry I in San Francisco back in the 1964-66 era, he saw Mort Sahl there question the official story of the assassination. Soon he read the book Rush to Judgement, published in 1966, which got the conspiracy theory movement going by pointing out supposed mistakes and coverups in the 1964 Warren Commission Report. It was not until 2015 that Reiner met up with Dick Russell, who has recounted the story of Richard Case Nagell, and from this meeting "the pieces began to fall into place" for Rob. Reiner went to Dallas and talked to some witnesses. Like most liberal JFK conspiracy theorists, he focuses on the motive for the JFK crime as keeping the military state going despite JFK’s plan to end it, and on our need for truth about what our government secretly does. Co-Host Soledad O’Brien is not the theorist on this podcast, but she leads master story-teller Rob Reiner through the tale, and historian James Meacham sets the scene in which the motive develops. But-- a motive alone does not prove a crime.

Ironically, attributing events to this kind of motive can be traced back to the predominant 1950s theory that the communist conspiracy was infiltrating America and could take over the USA. Now, it is Reiner’s own opposite kind of conspiracy theory that leads to a possible fascist takeover of the USA, as PBS Frontline reports If you watch this doc, notice that conspiracy theorist Alex Jones introduces on his Info Wars program his fellow conspiracy theorist Roger Stone, whose book as Jones points out was The Man Who Killed Kennedy, and Jones and Stone went on to make conspiracy theorist and neo-fascist Donald Trump’s election as president possible. They even used a JFK conspiracy theory as a political slogan.

Cuba was the main foreign policy issue of Kennedy’s times. In 1961 JFK fired Allen Dulles as CIA chief after the Bay of Bigs invasion of Cuba by Cuban exiles failed, and this and the danger of nuclear war in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 led Kennedy to split from the prevailing anti-communist paranoia policy and from the military and CIA hardliners who upheld it. Kennedy and Castro embarked on a secret peace initiative.

The Investigations (15 Nov 2023)

USA authorities like J. Edgar Hoover and President Johnson thought that too many investigations into the JFK assassination could be a circus, and feared that a nuclear holocaust could happen if it were found that communists did the crime. And there were secret misdeeds by our government that needed protecting. Here Dick Russell mentions the Nick Katzenbach memo. Reiner calls it marching orders. But was it? Even the memo, whatever else it says, stated that all the facts should be revealed. An independent commission was set up by the president to find the truth. Earl Warren was in charge of it, not Katzenbach or Hoover, and to find the truth was Warren’s directive to the Commission’s investigators.
https://stanfordmag.org/contents/truth-was-our-only-client
https://youtu.be/8AlKUJHXYxQ?si=w6oLqNDJHBHmmEYH&t=470

Allen Dulles was considered a respectable figure above politics, and so LBJ appointed him to the Commission. Reiner points out that in 1964 the people of the US believed the government always did the right thing. So true or not, why would Dulles not be appointed? Many secret misdeeds had not been known, and the people and the media didn’t look beneath the surface back in those days. And "Johnson appointed Dulles to the commission at the recommendation of then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy." according to Philip Shenon in this article about CIA coverups and the Warren Commission https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/jfk-assassination-john-mccone-warren-commission-cia-213197/ "Did Castro kill the president because the president had tried to kill Castro? Had the administration’s obsession with Cuba inadvertently inspired a politicized sociopath to murder John Kennedy?", Shenon asked. That second question has been asked by fact-oriented, "lone-nutter" researchers like Gus Russo and Gerald Posner too.
Posner: https://youtu.be/r7hcDCZ8GTs?si=JRpNbLaOR2rWuYIY&t=1066
Russo: https://www.youtube.com/live/evMoapZNVXE?si=8UPyL4Pm_b0ofycf&t=3896
We know some relevant witnesses were not interviewed or were sent away by some Commission investigators like Specter. I mentioned Robert Groden’s first release of the Zapruder film on my review of his 2021 lecture on "Absolute Proof". Reiner believes the bogus idea that the film showed JFK was shot from the front, contrary to Warren Commission and autopsy doctors’ conclusions, and we all know about the Rivera program where Groden showed the film.

Reiner depends a great deal in this podcast on the views and reports of conspiracy theorist Dick Russell, co-author with Jesse Ventura of the fast-selling book American Conspiracies. Russell believes a lot of outlandish charges-- as I saw on a video of his lecture 13 years before this podcast. He is a producer as well as chief researcher in this podcast by Rob. Back in 1978, Russell interviewed Richard Sprague, the original chief counsel to the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA). Russell says he refused to let the CIA and FBI control what the staff could see or what was disclosed, so the House fired Sprague. Nevertheless, successor chief counsel and attorney Robert Blakey had investigated organized crime and was open to all leads and possibilities about who was involved. Jefferson Morley, creator of jfkfacts.org, says that CIA liaison to the Committee George Joannides was hiding his support for anti-Castro Cuban exiles and their alleged contact with Oswald from the HSCA. See #7 at https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKbringuier.htm

Forensics (22 Nov 2023)

Dr. Humes did not destroy his notes from the autopsy of JFK, as Reiner charges, but had transcribed them BEFORE burning his bloodied copies of these same notes. "when I noticed that these bloodstains were on this document that I had prepared, I said nobody's ever going to get these documents. So I copied them ... and burned the original notes in the fireplace." https://www.npr.org/2013/11/10/243981006/inconsistencies-haunt-official-record-of-kennedys-death

James Tague very likely felt the results of Oswald’s first shot. The second shot hit both men. The Warren Commission got this sequence wrong, saying this missed shot was the second shot. This confused Connally and probably secret service agent Clint Hill too. Specter was right, but the single bullet was not the first shot fired by Oswald, as the Warren Commission thought, but the second, and Specter could not prove the single bullet theory beyond all doubt in the Warren Report. About Tague: https://www.jfk-assassination.net/tague.htm

Dr. Wecht is an outdated, discredited critic of the "official" versions of the JFK case. His account of the "single bullet" has been proven wrong by subsequent accounts. The suit coat evidence is not valid because the coat was shoved up next to his head at the time. It is necessary to examine the autopsy photos that show the actual bullet wounds in his body. Reiner ignores these.

JFK was not posed "upward" (or especially downward either). Connally was sitting in the jump seat 1 or 2 inches left/inward and downward from JFK’s back seat, where JFK sat relaxed right up against the door. Connally was sitting in the middle of the jump seat (middle seat) and turned to the right. He was hit and reacted at the same time as Connally was hit. Wecht’s view of how the men were seated has long been proven false, as mentioned in many other accounts. How can Reiner be so out of date on so much of this? Vincent Bugliosi relates some of the facts about the single bullet:
https://youtu.be/JV5aUSrcHFI?si=taMvxa4vWpOrct3h&t=2050
https://youtu.be/L9DQ_oM4cQc?si=eERFqK93dgz23dso&t=740
See more links right below the picture of the single bullet below.

Connally NEVER SAW JFK when he turned to the right-- long before Rob says, back when the first shot was fired (that James Tague probably felt the result of). Connally testified to this turn to the right. https://youtu.be/SI8Vp9Zyfp8?si=XkugqU5AkjU4mnvn&t=1834 Connally thought JFK was hit by the first bullet and that he was hit by the second, but as we see here he was going by the Warren Commission’s claim that the single bullet was the first shot that hit both him and JFK. Connally was right that this was false. He was hit by the second shot, which the HSCA, Failure Analysis Associates and Dale Myers etc. verified was the single bullet, but he didn’t see JFK hit by the first shot, which actually missed both men.

Wecht was wrong in what he said next here; the bullet went downward through JFK’s neck, not upward. The actual wounds showed in the autopsy photos and the autopsy doctors’ analysis confirm this.

The single bullet CE399 was far from "pristine", as the picture shown by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) reveals, but the picture shown by the Warren Commission (WC) did not. Wecht and Reiner are the ones who missed something here. CE399 was severely flattened.

The single bullet CE399:

https://philosopherswheel.com/single%20bullet%20smaller.jpg

References on the magic bullet (the single bullet):
Frontline: https://youtu.be/PYI4PqtIyE0?si=olsjzNOB2L1dHj4Z&t=5140
Posner: https://youtu.be/r7hcDCZ8GTs?si=TQM9YjERllTM_1MK&t=1162
PBS Nova: https://youtu.be/EQcac3D6uTs?si=mXxLFTjzMzwIXQXd&t=1035
Dale Myers: https://youtu.be/8AlKUJHXYxQ
Dale Myers: https://www.youtube.com/live/evMoapZNVXE?si=FtsHTrI2kraCOT0s&t=3554

SS agent Landis never said anything about a bullet in at least half a dozen other sworn and reported accounts over 60 years. CE399 was proven to come from Oswald’s rifle. How could a pristine bullet from a high-powered rifle set itself on the back of JFK’s and Jackie’s seat? Why didn’t Landis give this supposed bullet to someone in charge? Why was no separate bullet which hit Connally from the rear ever found?
https://www.youtube.com/live/evMoapZNVXE?si=mNad5ClWmMOi-f2d&t=4513

Dr. Perry said he didn’t know if the bullet hole was an entry wound. There was no way he could have known. He changed his story over many years, not just after Moore threatened him. He said he thought the small hole in Kennedy’s throat looked like an entrance wound. Right after his entrance-wound statement, Dr Perry said: "Neither Dr Clark nor I know how many bullets there were or where they came from." "I shouldn’t have surmised. If I hadn’t said that, there wouldn’t have been a conspiracy theory." This site reports, "The exams later showed it was an exit wound. No matter now. The conspiracy theories clutched the throat wound." https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-10037146.html

Of course there was a massive wound in the back of JFK’s head. Whatever they say now, most of the doctors never saw the wound, because his body was placed face up on the gurney. Such a big hole was not just an exit wound; it was an explosion by the bullet hitting JFK’s skull. "If you have a gunshot wound of bone and it is punched out on one surface and beveled out on the opposite surface, then the bullet entered on the punched-out surface, and the beveled surface is the exit," said Vincent J. M. Di Maio, chief medical examiner for Bexar County, Tex. "Based on these statements {made to JAMA}, there is absolutely no doubt that the bullet came from the rear and exited from the front." (from Washington Post, see link below)

The Warren Commission did not interview witnesses saying they saw a shooter from the front, thanks to Specter? That was a mistake by the Warren Commission (WC), yes. But some of those witnesses could have been mistaken too.

The autopsy photos were supported by the autopsy doctors, not denied by it. See other articles. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1992/05/20/2-jfk-autopsy-pathologists-defend-conclusion-on-fatal-bullet/83e63cf2-ef0b-4dbe-9b27-8da7bbd3fedb/ Dr. Mantik is not credible. The cerebellum was not hit, despite what Doug Horne says-- he is not a credible commentator either. Two doctors said that their original views that the cerebellum was hit was a mistake, as reported on the 1988 NOVA documentary with Walter Chronkite. https://youtu.be/5kXU72RN4-M?si=onBKed8Gh9qyEo8h&t=3041

The autopsy photo referred to by Reiner did not show the back of JFK’s head intact. They show the top of his skull pulled over the wound. And it shows the entry wound of the head shot. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/JFK_posterior_head_wound.jpg/800px-JFK_posterior_head_wound.jpg In the documentary by NPR some of the autopsy photos are showing that the bullet hit the back of JFK’s head. https://youtu.be/EQcac3D6uTs?si=2Fm0qfaexQrnroiS&t=2377

The conversation between Dr. Perry at Parkland and the doctors at Bethesda concerned Perry’s original observation of a wound at the throat, which the Bethesda doctors did not see because of Perry’s tracheotomy. It was probably not an argument over whether the throat wound was from the front or not. But Perry did not see the wound in his back, which the Bethesda doctors saw. So it was about each side informing the other about the wounds the other did not see. There was no "argument". It was an exchange of information.

Humes and Boswell dismissed the claims that they had no experience with gunshot wounds, saying they had much experience with them in the armed forces on the front lines. https://www.nytimes.com/1992/05/24/weekinreview/may-17-23-j-f-k-autopsy-after-29-years-of-silence-the-pathologists-speak-up.html Also quoted in wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopsy_of_John_F._Kennedy#Site_selection (see note 2)

The Patsy (29 Nov 2023)

Reiner and Company believe Oswald’s statement as a criminal that "I’m just a patsy", but not his statement that "I am a Marxist". We agree that we can’t understand what happened on Nov.22, 1963 without understanding Lee Harvey Oswald. But for Reiner and Co., this means we need to realize that Oswald worked for or was programmed by the CIA. I see only innuendo of this accusation so far in Reiner’s report, but no evidence.

Dick Russell tells of Dr. Hartogs, head of a psychiatric hospital called Youth House, but Oswald was also examined by Evelyn Siegel https://youtu.be/PYI4PqtIyE0?si=A4QoZ6CN16Im6FZv&t=576 . Russell says Dr. Hartogs "associated with" Dr. (professor) Sidney Mallots, who was on contract for a CIA hypnosis program which was grooming troubled kids who might be "useful". Russell "suggests" without evidence that Oswald was part of the "background" of the MK Ultra brainwashing program.

Oswald joined the Marines and in Sept.1957 was assigned to the Atsugi U-2 spy-plane base in Japan. Richard Case Nagell, who worked at Field Operations Intelligence (FOI), and is a major player in Reiner and Russell’s podcast-narrative, spotted Oswald at an expensive nightclub there, and later worked with Oswald in an effort to get a Soviet officer to defect to the USA, says Russell. It failed, he says, and nothing is said about how they could possibly do any such thing while in Japan.

While Oswald was serving next in Santa Ana CA, says Russell, David Bucknell said Oswald told David "he was going to be sent to Russia on a mission of American intelligence". Couldn’t Oswald had just been bragging, or covering up his planned defection? Tosh Plumley, CIA mercenary pilot, says he was "under the impression" that Oswald while serving in North Carolina was part of a CIA plan to use troubled teens. Proof, much? The CIA cultivated disgruntled young people as defectors, and "Oswald was there". So Reiner and Russell assume, again without evidence, that Oswald’s apparent Marxism is just a cover for this mission. Was Oswald's constant talk to his fellow marines about the virtues of Marxism all just part of the cover too? https://youtu.be/PYI4PqtIyE0?si=rqUW8kZVBdwesQ1W&t=865

I have read about Wilcott’s claim before about Oswald being paid to be a double agent for the CIA. The New York Times reported about the falsity of Wilcott’s testimony as hearsay about code names. But Wilcott claimed he was harrassed by the CIA. The HSCA investigated and refuted Wilcott’s claims. https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/180-10142-10413.pdf (page 8)

Oswald’s request to renounce his US citizenship to Ambassador Snyder at the US Embassy is recounted in the Frontline doc. Reiner and Russell claim another associate named McVicker suspected Oswald’s speech was rehearsed by someone else, and therefore part of a CIA plan. But Frontline showed Oswald’s diary which said he wanted a "showdown" because his request to remain in the Soviet Union was being delayed. The Reiner podcast omits the statement made by the KBG chief at the time that everything Oswald was sharing with the Soviets about what he knew from his service at the Atsugi base was old information, saying "the sparrows had already chirped". Still, the US authorities were told and radio codes were changed. Reiner says the Church Committee investigating the CIA found out that it had a secret program to cultivate fake defectors. And this proves Oswald was one of these? Reiner offers no evidence that he was. Jefferson Morley, creator of jfkfacts.org, says here that James Angleton then opened a file on Oswald. The Frontline doc said the CIA had these files and was still withholding them in 1993. So Reiner infers the competing narratives about this.

Reiner mentions that Oswald "faked" suicide to force the Soviets to let him stay. Frontline showed the KGB chief saying "we were convinced that this would not be his last act of blackmail" and wanted to avoid an international incident over "such a nobody", so they let him stay and sent him to Minsk, as Russell mentions, where they surveilled him and bugged his apartment. They say Oswald got a "free" apartment, but Frontline only says it was a "choice" one. https://youtu.be/PYI4PqtIyE0?si=nakEP6Q282JWvw7U&t=1092 Reiner says the US lost contact with him during this period. Oswald’s Mom Marguerite got in to see the Secretary of State Rusk, amazingly they say, and Mrs. Oswald said her son was a "government agent" but she hadn’t heard from him in a year. So they wonder how Oswald’s mother got to see Rusk if Oswald was not an agent, and then they mention that Lee found out about her Mom and wrote her back, so he must have been told. Then they mention how Lee met Marina, whose uncle worked for the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and that Oswald called himself Alek. They suspect the meeting was set up, but was it? They don’t say how they know this. David Talbot here claims this relationship was set up in order to watch Oswald. Lee and Marina were married 6 weeks later "into the world of Soviet intelligence", they say. But the Frontline doc says Lee was told about Marina by "a friend", not her uncle. The couple actually did fall in love and had a baby, according to Priscilla Johnson McMillan. https://youtu.be/PYI4PqtIyE0?si=vCrSsu-Yp9yzpuBl&t=1655

Rather than just believing Oswald’s dairy that Oswald had become disillusioned with life in the Soviet Union, Russell and Talbot call this weird. He was loaned money and was let back in easily. The CIA did all this for him, they say. Of course, they don’t mention that it took him a year and a half to get his visa, and that the Soviets had concluded that he was not working for US intelligence, as the former KGB chief said on the Frontline doc (see link above).

The Wilderness of Mirrors (6 Dec 2023)

They begin this episode by describing the career of James Jesus Angleton (source of the title of this segment) and the Church Committee’s 1970s revelations about the CIA and other agencies. The CIA was set up to conduct dangerous missions to "protect America" without the president’s knowledge or any restraint. Oswald upon his return was connected to the Traveler’s Aid Society, which they claim was secretly connected to the CIA. George de Mohrenshildt, they say, is an unfamiliar name. Not to me, of course. George told author Edward Epstein that CIA operative Jay Walton Moore gave George Oswald’s address in Fort Worth Texas and suggested that he watch him for the CIA, find out what he did in the Soviet Union, and babysit him. George was awarded a mineral contract, and George assumed this was a reward for this help to the CIA. George introduced Oswald to Ruth Paine at a private party, and she says here on this podcast that she was interested in Marina because she spoke Russian. Ruth’s sister worked for the CIA, and her father worked for an international development agency. It was "suggested" that the CIA was using this agency. Jim Garrison tried to get the Paines’ tax records and was told it was classified. In general though, tax records are usually confidential for everyone, and Garrison in general is not credible. Russell and Reiner further claim here that Ruth’s "friend" Mary Bancroft was Allen Dulles’ mistress, but Mary’s relationship with Dulles was brief and happened back in 1942 when Mary was a spy, and Mary’s friendship with "Ruth Paine" was with Ruth Paine’s husband Mike Paine’s mother from 1926 to 1933. Russell and Reiner didn’t get their facts straight on this. Mary Bancroft later became a writer and advocate of Carl Jung’s psychology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Bancroft

Allen Dulles met with George de Mohrenshildt during the Warren investigation, they say. They falsely claim Dulles was controlling "all information" given to the Warren Commission, although what they said in the Nov 15 segment was that he was a gate-keeper to and from CIA information. That is not "all information"; there were a lot of honest investigators who found information too, like those who spoke in the links I posted in that segment. George later told Edward Epstein, according to Jefferson Morley’s statement here, that he would never have contacted Oswald unless he had been told to by CIA contact Jay Walton Moore. George came to believe in the JFK conspiracy theory, but this was just his view, and is not evidence. George McMillan was in contact often with George deMohrenshildt and said deMohrenshildt had no new evidence to report when he died. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1977/04/03/the-man-who-knew-oswald/70414dd6-bf50-47e1-bdb5-e92239712bc1/

Oswald got a job in New Orleans at the William Reilly Coffee Company late in April 1963. They claim here that Reilly was connected to the CIA, and that the coffee company was located close to buildings of secret government agencies. But no witnesses ever saw Oswald associate with Reilly, but only with 6 low-level employees and the manager who fired him. This claim about the CIA and Reilly may originate from the fantasies of Judyth Baker. https://www.tpaak.com/the-castro-coffee-story

Russell mentioned CIA agent William Harvey’s role in assassinating foreign leaders through his ZR Rifle program, including his plan to kill Fidel Castro. Bill Harvey considered President Kennedy, who had demoted him, as an obstacle to his plans to overthrow and/or kill Castro. Angleton encouraged this plan, and he was opposed to the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Just as Angleton was making these views known to the government (except to the White House), Oswald formed his New Orleans branch of Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Its president Vincent T. Lee discouraged him, but he went ahead anyway, and his new chapter was never certified. http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh20/html/WH_Vol20_0268a.htm http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh20/html/WH_Vol20_0269b.htm https://www.thecollector.com/lee-harvey-oswald-unravelling-john-kennedy-asssassination/ James Angleton continued to monitor Oswald and other defectors.

Oswald, Reiner says, likely didn’t know for sure what he was "part of". Reiner, Russell and co-host Soledad O’Brien mention Oswald’s attempt to infiltrate his enemies, such as Carlos Bringuier’s student anti-Castro organization (which they say "memos" show was funded by the CIA), and imply that maybe he really was anti-Castro, just like his CIA "handlers" such as Angleton were. They say Bringuier’s confrontation with Oswald handing out pro-Castro leaflets, and their arrest, was staged and deliberately filmed to create this narrative about Oswald being pro-Castro. This claim seems like a typical conspiracy-theory explanation based only on their OWN narrative. They are merely speculating about why this confrontation happened. In reality, Oswald wanted to be arrested by the police and notify the FBI because he wanted to be known as a pro-Castro activist so he could join their fight, not because he was in league with a conspiracy. The Frontline doc covers these events in a more sensible way. https://youtu.be/PYI4PqtIyE0?si=9mJb_WIIuWhz-Egn&t=2739 See also this FBI report: https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/2018/docid-32201884.pdf

The Lead Up (13 Dec 2023)

On Sept.20, 1963 Richard Case Nagell shot at the ceiling of the State National Bank in El Paso TX, allegedly in order to be in jail during the assassination of JFK which he thought was coming, hoping then he wouldn’t be blamed. Dick Russell wrote about this in his book The Man Who Knew Too Much.

Nagell was part of the FOI (Field Operations Intelligence), a covert extension of CIA activities and objectives. In the early sixties, says this Reiner podcast, the CIA gave Nagell the mission of renouncing his US citizenship and offering his services to the Soviets, much like (Russell says) they did with Oswald. He became a double agent. The Soviets recruited him to penetrate a violent group of anti-Castro exiles, and to watch Oswald. Nagell went to New Orleans when Oswald was there in the Summer of 1963. He "learned" there (from whom Russell does not say) that Oswald was being brought into plans that "he" (Oswald?) didn’t understand, and that plots to kill JFK and blame Oswald were being discussed. The Soviets, apparently aware of these plans (made aware by Nagell?), instructed Nagell to kill Oswald because nuclear war would follow if the Soviets were blamed, Russell says. Nagell was concerned he would be killed if he didn’t obey. So, Russell and Nagell say, he met Oswald to talk him out of associating with Cuban exiles, and to tell him he was being used as "the fall guy" in an attempt to kill Kennedy so the USA would invade Cuba. Oswald shrugged Nagell off on all this. Nagell, Russell says, sent letters to J. Edgar Hoover and the CIA about what he knew, and then got himself put in jail with his bank stunt. He was put in a psych ward, which started a narrative that he was nuts. This story sounds pretty nutty to me, indeed. But Russell said that the CIA later tried to kill Nagell, he said, and Nagell died in 1995 when he was about to be interviewed by the Assassinations Records Review Board (ARRP). Russell also says that Nagell’s son’s apartment was ransacked, and someone stole a purple trunk in which he kept secrets. The jfk archives has a huge collection of statements by and articles and documents about Nagell. https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/104-10305-10005.pdf So far indications that Nagell was a double agent are lacking. The all-important question of where Nagell got his information about an upcoming JFK assassination remains unanswered anywhere, so far. Nagell thought the assassination would happen on Sept.26.

They also say George deMohrenshildt died before he could talk to the HSCA about his views on Oswald. Murder is suspected, but the evidence indicates otherwise. The Palm Beach Post reported that Gabino "Cuevas, who performed the autopsy, said "the findings were consistent with a suicide, introducing a shotgun in the mouth and blowing himself up."" He had both talked about and actually attempted suicide several times in recent years. https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/local/2013/12/04/dueling-views-kennedy-assassination-officials/6977100007/

Oswald decided to travel to Mexico City for a visa to go to Cuba on Sept.23, and left on the 25th. His wife needed a place to stay in case Oswald was allowed to leave the country, so she asked her friend Ruth Paine to bring her back to Fort Worth, and Marina moved in with her. Also on Sept.25th, Dallas newspapers announced JFK would be coming to Dallas on Nov.22. Later Ruth Paine helped Lee get a job at the building overlooking the JFK motorcade route.

The false innuendo that Rob Reiner and other conspiracy theorists make, including at this point in the podcast, is that the "CIA connected" Ruth Paine got that job for Oswald so he could be accused of shooting President Kennedy. It is much more complicated. The motorcade route itself was not chosen until Nov.16th, and not publicized until Nov. 18th. Oswald got his job at the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) about a month earlier. Ruth Paine was not told by the CIA to get Oswald a job there. She was at a neighbor’s house at a party. The neighbor’s friend Linnie Mae Randle said her brother Wesley Buell Frazier had a job at the TSBD and thought they were looking for workers. So hearing this, and because Lee needed work to support his family, on Oct.15 Ruth called the TSBD manager Roy Truly. He had two openings for work at two different locations, only one of which was downtown in Dealey Plaza. By coincidence, Truly hired Oswald for the downtown location, and Oswald started work there the next day. Were Ruth’s neighbor, and Randle, and Frazier, and Truly, also all CIA operatives helping in the plan to kill JFK? Even though Reiner explicitly says that Frazier was not? All this is guilt by association. I wish the conspiracy theorists would just let Ruth Paine alone! https://youtu.be/r7hcDCZ8GTs?si=qPa4CPgVt3gJmaIp&t=772

Reiner, like Robert Groden, agrees that no "smoking gun" document relating a government plot to kill JFK will be found among still-unreleased (unredacted) archives, because it would have been destroyed long ago. But they claim that a 1962 document found in 2001 describing the corrupt CIA "Operation Northwoods" is at least suspicious. What if something violent was deliberately staged as a pretext or "false flag" to invade Cuba, the document asked? If Americans apparently died and Castro could be blamed, the people would demand the invasion. Jefferson Morley and Rob Reiner claim that JFK knew about this Operation and rejected it, and that the conspirators in the government used it anyway to kill Kennedy himself. And, say Reiner and Co., Oswald had already been groomed by all these arrangements we have described as the pro-Castro, pro-Cuban "patsy" who could be blamed instead of the actual conspirators who committed the violence. Former HSCA leader Blakey agrees. This Oswald false-flag claim fits the overall narrative of this podcast, but as usual there is no actual evidence presented here that this "operation" was deployed, or by whom. But we have already mentioned the person Reiner and Company will blame; stay tuned.

Strange Bedfellows (20 Dec 2023)

Who had the most to gain from Kennedy’s death, asks Reiner? He names three: 1. the Cuban exiles who wanted their country back, but whose plans Kennedy had sabotaged, 2. the MAFIA bosses like Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante who had lost their Cuban casino and drug business, and whom the Kennedys had targeted, and 3. the militarists in the government who thought JFK had gone soft on communism and Castro; (but #4 is not Castro, Cuba or the Soviets who were the actual enemies of the USA, apparently). In a swanky Miami hotel meeting in about 1961, mob bosses Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana had been hired to kill Castro by Bill Harvey, who ran the CIA’s ZR Rifle program which assassinated world leaders. Allen Dulles, CIA leader and a lawyer for permanent war profiteers, had approved this plan. Mafia and CIA cooperation had an earlier history too, such as when James Angleton arranged for the Mafia to help the US in Italy in World War 2. Then in October 1963, national security memo 263 stated that Kennedy would withdraw US troops from Vietnam. LBJ reversed this memo on Nov.26, 1963.

Who could put together an untraceable team to assassinate Kennedy? Reiner names Allen Dulles, James Angleton, and above-all, William Harvey-- whom Morley and others describe as a very paranoid, dangerous man and whom Reiner says had been taken off the Cuban case by the Kennedys for his actions and banished to Rome. (so, is the culprit William Harvey, instead of Lee Harvey (Oswald) ?) "Patriot" Johnny Roselli was William Harvey’s go-to guy for murder plots. Records of Harvey’s activities were kept from the HSCA by George Joannides, and despite David Talbot’s attempts the state department still keeps them secret. Harvey also worked with financier David Atlee Phillips (aka Maurice Bishop?) who was recruited to the CIA by Howard Hunt, and James Angleton supposedly got Phillips or someone to help fund violent Cuban exiles in Miami such as Op 40 and Alpha 66, led by Antonio Vecianna. Kennedy knew that Alpha 66 sank two Russian ships in Havana harbor and had claimed US government support. Kennedy told Khruschev that he was determined to stop this sabotage of his peace efforts since the Cuban Missile Crisis. So he directed the coast guard to seize their ships and banned Vecianna and his cohorts from leaving the US. The motives to assassinate Kennedy among the 3 groups were now aligned, Reiner says.

Antonio Vecianna later said at a JFK assassination "researchers" conference in 2014 that he "knew" that a group of CIA officials had gotten together and planned to kill JFK. In early September, Vecianna said, he and Phillips met Oswald in a Dallas bank lobby, Reiner says (although Oswald was not in Dallas in September, but still in New Orleans). A released document says Oswald was not at the meeting after examining photos of the meeting, but that Veciana had testified that Oswald was there. https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/docid-32356760.pdf Meanwhile, Dallas Mayor Earl Cabell had been a CIA asset, and his brother Charles had been fired from the CIA after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. Reiner claims that a document hidden for 54 years shows that Mayor Cabell set the JFK motorcade route. The archives, on the contrary, says secret service agents Forrest V. Sorrels and Winston G. Lawson planned the motorcade route in cooperation with Chief Curry and other Dallas police commanders. Mayor Cabell and his wife rode in the motorcade 4 cars back of JFK. https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-2.html#motorcade An article on the WhoWhatWhy website shows the 54-year old document proving that Earl Cabell was a CIA asset, although what information he may have gathered nobody seems to know. The document had earlier been determined to be irrelevant to the assassination. This is a conspiracy theorist picking out another person for guilt by association, it seems to me. The article also claims that he planned the motorcade route, but this claim is not part of the 54-year old document as shown, and the article provides no source or document substantiating this claim. This article may be Reiner’s source for this claim. There are a bunch of other JFK conspiracy articles on this site under Hidden Power. https://whowhatwhy.org/politics/government-integrity/dallas-mayor-jfk-assassination-cia-asset/

Mobster Johnny Roselli and CIA agent E. Howard Hunt had flown into Dallas from Florida for JFK’s visit, according to their pilot. But in 1975 the Rockefeller Commission found that Howard Hunt was in DC and never went to Dallas on Nov.22, 1963. https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/releases/178-10002-10363.pdf Reiner mentions that before Roselli could testify before the HSCA in the 70s, he was killed and his body stuffed into a barrel and dumped. I think I remember this being reported on the news in real time back in the 1970s, along with some other suspicious deaths.

11/22/63 (27 Dec 2023)

What happened after "Camelot arrived in Dallas"? Reiner starts by recounting the known facts about what JFK and Oswald were doing that morning. From then on, Reiner’s account is riddled with lies. Wesley Frazier measured his friend’s carcano rifle (his "friend" was famous conspiracy theorist Josiah Thompson; see my review of his 2021 documentary with Dan Noyes), and now says this gun could not fit in the package he saw in the back seat of his car when he drove Oswald to work on Nov.22. But Reiner says the bag was not big enough to hold even a "broken down" carcano rifle. The package was photographed where it was found in the sniper’s nest, and it looks quite big enough to me to hold a disassembled rifle. And Frazier said he never got a good look at the package. See Inside the Book Depository (2023)
https://youtu.be/5u7euN1HTuU?si=BEo9FbydOH8G0zyT&t=3810
See also here: https://youtu.be/6GFiqLzeKJ4?si=l1qtGfbmOLaMWVxo&t=2001

Uh, regarding where he was, what Oswald says about this does not matter; he’s a liar. Carolyn Arnold’s claim that she saw Oswald eating lunch and drinking a coke at 12:25 was unreliable testimony from 15 years after the assassination. She changed her original story after first claiming she saw a glimpse of him from outside; then denying that she said it (see "The Alibis" chapter at above link to Inside the Book Depository). Reiner claims a second witness saw Oswald on the 2nd floor then, but doesn’t say who. From Carolyn Arnold’s reported account it is not even clear when she saw Oswald in the lunch room, assuming she did so.

The correct account by Officer Baker and Superintendent Truly of their encounter with Oswald 90 seconds after the shooting was not that he was "sitting down drinking a coke" as Reiner claims. He was walking into the lunchroom, looking calm (see "Inside the Book Depository", The Escape: https://youtu.be/5u7euN1HTuU?si=YmNUoFl8rJ5mBo12&t=2471 , and Frontline doc https://youtu.be/PYI4PqtIyE0?si=sLpHqM3Kpp7G8JFw&t=5235 ), and other sources. Baker pointed a gun at Oswald touching his stomach and asked Truly whether he knew this man. Truly said Oswald was an employee, and so he let Oswald go. The re-enactment times varied; it was not necessarily 75 seconds. Baker said it was probably "longer".

Woah! Reiner claims not only that Oswald wiped his fingerprints off the gun, although he didn’t have time to do it, but that no fingerprints were found on the gun. That is a baldface lie. The gun was dusted for fingerprints immediately on the 6th floor. A clear palm print was found on the barrel, and hard-to-read fingerprints were found on the trigger guard. For PBS Frontline, HSCA expert Vincent Scalise found Oswald’s fingerprints on his rifle, with "no doubt about it" https://youtu.be/PYI4PqtIyE0?si=BPUNEeXn95UN4K4G&t=6397

I dealt with the Victoria Adams/Sandra Styles story in my review of Oliver Stone’s film JFK Revisited https://philosopherswheel.com/stonefilmrevisited.html . Gerald Posner found that Adams and Styles did not see Lovelady and Shelley as they walked out, so they must have exited the building after Oswald. "Inside the Book Depository" in "The Stairway" gives this account: https://youtu.be/5u7euN1HTuU?si=v5kgMwMwjJT0sgTs&t=2767

A paraffin test done on Oswald’s cheek was negative, but it was positive on his hands. FBI expert Cortland Cunningham testified that before the assassination he did experiments showing that paraffin tests are unreliable. "I personally wouldn’t expect to find any residues on a person's right cheek after firing a rifle" https://www.jfk-assassination.net/factoid2.htm

As Oswald left his boarding house wearing his white jacket and revolver at 1 PM, J.D. Tippit stopped him at 1:16 PM and Oswald shot him 4 times and then rushed away down Patton Street, according to as many as 12 witnesses. But Reiner said the witnesses gave conflicting accounts. Maybe it was Oswald, and maybe it wasn’t, he says. And yet we know several witnesses identified him in police lineups that day as having shot Tippit or leaving the scene. So how can Reiner impune the witnesses, and how can he also ignore that the cartridges found at the scene matched Oswald’s pistol to the exclusion of all other pistols in the world? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC8tO16xdrY&t=3716s

"Someone" saw Oswald enter the Texas Theater without buying a ticket and called the police, says Reiner. That someone was Johnny Brewer, who followed Oswald after he dipped for a few minutes into the shoe store he managed, and the ticket clerk Julia Postal called the police. Reiner said Lee Oswald sat down next to Jack Davis, looking for his handler. In fact we know he didn’t sit next to anyone. He just moved between two seats within one row. How long was he inside the theater? Police cars were already running up and down Jefferson Blvd. right outside the theater when the police were called, and they arrived there quickly at about 1:45 PM. There was no time for Oswald to wait there for a contact person, whatever the popcorn salesman might have said. Johnny Brewer went into the theater and pointed out Oswald to the police. After attempting to murder Officer McDonald who approached him, he was grabbed by 7 officers and arrested. They found in his pocket the pistol Oswald had just shot Tippit with and had ordered using the name A.Hidell, along with his fake Alek J. Hidell ID card. This story is found on the memorial plaque to Tippet placed by the City of Dallas at 10th and Patton Street near where Tippet was shot, and which I saw and photographed during my trip to Dallas on Nov.22, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/live/evMoapZNVXE?si=nUtSKeGk0oXlsXru&t=749
More about McDonald and Brewer here: https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2014/oct/23/city-posthumously-honors-office-who-arrested-oswal/
More on the Texas Theater here: https://thetexastheatre.com/about/ (click on History)

48 Hours After (3 Jan 2024)

This chapter stars the volatile nightclub owner Jack Ruby. The Frontline doc says that after shooting Oswald on national TV (which I watched), Ruby shouted "you killed my president, you rat!" and "I’m happy that I got him". Without citing a source, co-host Soledad O’Brien said Ruby did gun running to Cuba. I have read this as well. In Sept. 1959, Reiner says, Ruby went to Havana as a guest of his friend Lewis J. McWillie, whom mob boss Santo Trafficante chose to run his casinos in Havana and later to run Meyer Lansky’s and Sam Giancana’s casinos in Las Vegas. Ruby was seen with McWillie in Las Vegas 5 days before the assassination, says Russell. How do we know this, and does it matter? Jack Ruby made over 100 calls to some shady figures in November. Bugliosi and the HSCA said it was about showbiz labor troubles.

Vincent Bugliosi said in one of the links I show above the single bullet picture that none of the witnesses who claimed to see Oswald and Ruby together were genuine. Oswald could not have dropped off any car for one of them, as claimed here, since he did not drive. Reiner and mob researcher and HSCA leader Robert Blakey claim Ruby said that he feared for his life if he told what he knew. Others like Ruby biographer Danny Fingeroth, however, have said he was a blabbermouth at any occasion and no-one could shut him up. https://youtu.be/ephb5a2P2yg?si=gIFZe0tAAgMMLavG&t=1938 He talked to the Warren Commission, Fingeroth says, only when a fellow Jewish guy Arlen Specter was there to question him. Jewish heritage was a big deal for Ruby.

Again, it does not matter what the liar Oswald said. Oswald wasn’t denied a lawyer; he was visited by H. Louis Nichols, president of the Dallas Bar Association, and Oswald refused his offer of representation because he wanted New York communist attorney John Abt to represent him; but Oswald could never reach him. https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-5.html#legal We know, contrary to Reiner’s claim, that Oswald didn’t try to call John Hurt, a military intelligence agent (but only in world war 2), but only that Hurt tried to call Oswald as a prank and did not reach him, as the secretary at the police station noted. https://www.jfk-assassination.net/Raleigh.htm

Ruby stalked Oswald that weekend, no doubt, but Posner disagrees with Reiner that the timing of the shooting shows it was not coincidental and impulsive https://youtu.be/r7hcDCZ8GTs?si=bTWQ2vYp2HziKiW9&t=1521 and Officer Jim Leavelle says the same on the Frontline doc https://youtu.be/PYI4PqtIyE0?si=XC_G15A129XLQ1-l&t=6075 Posner pointed out that Oswald delayed his own transfer 15 minutes to get another sweater, so could Oswald himself have been part of the plot to get himself killed by delaying his own transfer until Ruby was done sending his telegram? How could anyone from the police station tell Ruby when to enter? In a test of timing it took Leavelle 83 seconds to walk from the former Western Union office to the former police station ramp. When I visited Dallas Nov.21, 1963 it took me 100 seconds. A lot of people thought about killing Oswald that weekend, said Leavelle. According to Russell and Reiner, Ruby reminded police at a press conference on Saturday that Oswald was in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and this shows he already knew about Oswald. Interesting, perhaps; but wasn’t this made known in the press that weekend?

John Currington was a right-hand man of Dallas oil bigwig E. L. Hunt (no relation to Howard), who was connected to General Willoughby. Hunt asked Currington on Nov.23 to check on the security around Oswald at the police station. Currington says here that he discovered it was lax enough that Oswald could be taken out. So Hunt tells Currington to ask Dallas mob boss Joe Civello, who knew Jack Ruby, to see Hunt early on Sunday morning Nov.24. At 10:35 AM, Dick Russell says, a TV technician sitting in a newsvan outside "city hall" (the police station?), was asked by Ruby if he knew when Oswald would be coming out to be transferred to the county jail. Reiner says Ruby hung around to make sure he was there when Oswald emerged. But we also know Ruby was still at home at 10 AM and that he left his dogs in the car when he arrived, and then came to the Western Union office down the street to send his stripper employee a moneygram at 11:17. So where he really was at 10:35 on Sunday seems unclear. Why would Ruby think that a newsvan tech would know when Oswald was coming out, when no-one knew? Was he part of the plot to keep Ruby informed by some policeman inside the station as he waited for Oswald?

David Talbot says Ruby was a mob errand boy, but Posner and Ruby’s friends say Ruby was as crazy and unreliable as Oswald. Ruby (formerly Jacob Rubenstein, aka "Sparky") was known to be a fighter with a violent temper. An impulsive shooting is more in character. But both Reiner and Frontline also quote Robert Blakey who says the Ruby shooting of Oswald was a mob hit. https://youtu.be/PYI4PqtIyE0?si=zp5i3imorZV3kSI4&t=5873 Frontline focuses on the Campisi’s and Marcello instead of on Civello and Hunt as the possible mob hit link. The Civello link is more plausible, but in both cases these links are not conclusively established. If Hunt contracted with Civello only on Sunday morning to have Oswald killed, why had Ruby already been stalking Oswald since Friday afternoon? Why would Ruby, having got instructions from Civello, take his leisurely time and not even leave home at the time Oswald was supposed to be vulnerable to killing as he is taken out of the police station? Reiner points out that Ruby once said we will never know the true facts behind what he did, but the consensus is that Ruby was referring to the Jews being blamed for the assassination. Frontline reviews this situation: https://youtu.be/2cjwKxuie2o?si=tSupxMoDZj0OCh4F&t=9439

The chapter closes by restating what they claim is the motive, method and pretext for the event: The groups who hated Kennedy for not taking out Castro got a phony-communist patsy to take the blame for the assassination they pulled off so that the USA might attack Cuba. Would the clever plotters really have believed this could have worked? JFK had already agreed not to attack Cuba after the Missile Crisis, and on Nov.23, 1963 LBJ ordered the Dallas District Attorney to drop any reference to a communist conspiracy in their indictment, for fear of WW3. https://youtu.be/PYI4PqtIyE0?si=ssKO6BkwUmluWx8S&t=257 The blame the patsy game flopped. The Oswald posing as a communist to justify an invasion of Cuba theory reminds me somewhat of the "crisis actors" alleged to stage gun massacres to get gun control. In the next chapter Reiner names names, as promised.

Who Killed JFK? (10 Jan 2024)

Richard Chase Nagell worked for General Charles Willoughby aka Adolph Sheffy Liedenbach (sp?) who helped set up Field Operations Intelligence (FOI) and who figures in the JFK plot. Bill Harvey’s ZR Rifle had "explored" the tactic of using a pro-communist scapegoat for assassinations, and Operation Northwoods had conceived a similar pro-communist scapegoat for their plan to foment an attack on Cuba. Harvey wrote that a phony counter-espionage file should be set up to document the pro-communist scapegoat. From these foundations Reiner and Russell build their theory.

Reiner uses his faulty "forensics" discussed in the "Forensics (22 Nov.2023)" segment above to assert there were 4 shots in Dealey Plaza on Nov.22 at 12:30 PM. He says there was a shooter on the Depository 6th floor, but it wasn’t Oswald-- although there is no evidence for anyone else being there. Another shooter was behind the picket fence on the grassy knoll, even though there is no evidence for this. Most likely, Reiner says, shooters were located in the Dal Tex and County Records buildings across Houston Street, although Reiner’s assertion is false that the wounds in JFK and Connally align with these buildings, and no evidence exists of shooters at those buildings on that day, except for one supposed bullet shell found on a roof. Finally "we believe" that the fatal shot came from the overpass on the south knoll, which would not align with JFK’s head wounds at all. But the CIA pilot Plumley who brought Johnny Roselli to Dallas that day says a shooter was there.

Dick Russell makes a "highly educated guess" about who the 4 shooters who fired the 4 shots were, and who placed them there. One was Cuban exile and former assassin Herminio Diaz Garcia, whom former Cuban intelligence officer Fabian Escalante says was involved. In 2013 Rinaldo Martinez Gomez gave an interview in which he says Diaz Garcia confessed to him as being involved in killing JFK, and that he was killed in 1966 trying to kill Castro. More on Diaz Garcia: https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKgarciaH.htm French assassin Jean Souetre was in Dallas according to declassified CIA files and was deported immediately, they say. But Souetre was apparently not in Dallas, and was mixed up with a Michael Roux who visited Ft. Worth that weekend. https://larryhancock.wordpress.com/2018/12/10/jean-souetre Charles Nicoletti, hit man for Sam Giancana, was murdered in 1977 before due to testify at the HSCA. But Nicoletti was accused by known liar James Files and murdered by another Chicago gangster (wikipedia). Jack Cannon worked under Charles Willoughby's unit according to Nagell, who said Cannon was involved in the JFK plot. The shooters were all unaware of each other.

So who orchestrated the plan? Allen Dulles was aware of the JFK plan, because Reiner says it would be inconceivable that he was not, and because he was at secret CIA facility The Farm according to David Talbot during the fateful weekend. James Angleton and Atlee Phillips were responsible for setting up Oswald with these assumed (but unproven) methods of making him the pro-communist "patsy". Reiner speculates that if Oswald weren’t a patsy like he said he would have admitted and "owned" his act, but this is irrelevant if Oswald was a criminal as the physical evidence which Reiner ignores proves. Oswald said he was a patsy because they took him in because of the fact that he lived in the Soviet Union, not because he was set up in a plot. And his charge that Oswald was connected to the CIA is unproven, as we have seen. Reiner says that all the people that were connected to and took care of Oswald "closed ranks" and protected themselves by covering up what they did to make him the patsy. But that’s too many people to keep this secret. Russell names anti-Kennedy ZR Rifle chief William Harvey as strategist, and right-wing General Charles Willoughby as tactician, and they contacted the Mafia and Cuban exiles to provide the shooters. Blakey says Harvey and Roselli trained and directed the assassins. He says Howard Hunt helped with arrivals and departures of those involved. .

Typical of other liberal JFK conspiracy believers like Oliver Stone and Josiah Thompson and their followers, Reiner says the most important thing to know is not who did it, but why; that they murdered Kennedy because he was bringing progress and peace, and that perhaps this would have happened if he had lived. But they may have been expecting too much of Kennedy; one president alone could never have done this. Thus, I would say, our illusions that a president could have created peace and progress were shattered that day, and we are left with disappointment. Believing conspiracy theories helps assuage our feelings of traumatic loss.

Reiner and Blakey suggest that today’s cynicism and distrust stem from the Warren Commission’s inadequacies and subsequent revelations. I certainly agree that the JFK assassination became the first catalyst for this trend of distrust. Soledad O’Brien and Dick Russell say that full closure may never happen, but that knowing more of the truth will help. Reiner says future progress toward a more perfect union depends on the people knowing this "truth". Robert Groden says something similar. But ironically, that begs the question severely. Making up conspiracy theories built on rumor and speculation instead of on evidence is not the way. Instead, this destroys our ability to find the truth at all. It is not so much the supposed revelations that show a conspiracy, but the conspiracy theories like Reiner’s themselves that have created our cynicism.

Withheld Documents (Bonus) (17 Jan 2024)

As of Nov. 2023, 4684 documents related to the JFK Assassination still remain not "fully" revealed. In Dec. 2022 the CIA released a statement that withheld information would damage CIA operations if revealed. Reiner says this gets harder and harder to justify. I think such redactions are fully justified because harm could still come to people whose cover is blown. Reiner says these people could still be interviewed, and when their documents have been released these redacted people have died. But what more could they say that’s not in the documents? Really?

Jefferson Morley joins Rob Reiner and Co. again to talk about the documents. The JFK Records Act in 1992 called for the release of all records after 25 years unless the president sees identifiable harm from their release. CIA Director Pompeo requested President Trump not release 15,000 documents; 11,000 from the CIA, Morley and Reiner say. President Biden directed that the 4684 documents should each be withheld in part until given permission for release. But Fred Litwin and Burt Griffin say that only the names and methods have been withheld, and all of the documents have been reviewed. https://www.youtube.com/live/evMoapZNVXE?si=6_T-wRQtDs93PB8s&t=5759

In 2022 it was revealed from a document that the CIA station in Miami was investigating whether Cuban exiles had a "role" in killing JFK by blaming the pro-Cuban scapegoat. Morley says the results of their investigation have not been released from the Miami CIA office. Whatever Joannides did is also still kept secret by the CIA. Morley says (like in the Joannides case) they are hiding how they were "using Oswald". The JFK case tests our ability to hold our government accountable. These claims by Morley contradict what Litwin and Griffin say. But it is possible that the CIA on its own has kept documents out of the National Archives where all the documents about the JFK case were directed to be held by the JFK Records Act in 1992.

The Secret Service Agent Who Witnessed It All (Bonus) (24 Jan 2024). I have covered this allegation from Landis above in the "Forensics 22 Nov 2023" segment, and I cited the answer given by we "lone nutters" who say Oswald acted alone, as told by Litwin, Griffin, and Russo https://www.youtube.com/live/evMoapZNVXE?si=mNad5ClWmMOi-f2d&t=4513 Gus Russo claims that Landis still says that JFK was shot twice from behind, despite the hype that he destroyed the single bullet theory.

Loose ends? Unproveable claims?

There is much we don’t know about the secret world Reiner, Russell and Company explore in this podcast. As with Oliver Stone’s 2021 movie JFK Revisited, it is harder to refute their stories about various conspirators and secret activities than their forensic mistakes. But connecting them to actual evidence of the JFK shooting is another matter. Just like with Oliver Stone, it is there where Reiner’s story is weakest. JFK Conspiracy theorists and their believers seem to believe that if the Warren Commission made mistakes, that therefore its conclusion is wrong. But that conclusion is itself wrong, because there have been many other investigators since then that have filled in most of the gaps and corrected most of the errors.

The JFK Conspiracy theories depend a great deal on witnesses who changed their stories decades later to better fit the conspiracy theories they have heard. How can it be verified whether they changed their stories or not? We can’t be totally sure. But we know that witness testimony is among the least reliable kinds of evidence, and that is especially true regarding a shooter who was sitting all alone at a window 6th floors above his victim, and about a grassy knoll site where none of the supposed shooters or any relevant physical evidence were ever seen, found or verified on the day of the crime. David Bucknell said that Oswald told him in Japan that he was going on a mission to Russia for US intelligence. We don’t know if either David or Lee were lying or mistaken.

Does the CIA or its Miami station still withhold actual information on Oswald or the JFK crime? Or have they all been reviewed, as Litwin says? Did the state department keep David Talbot from obtaining information on William Harvey? Maybe we don’t know about some documents withheld. Did Oswald "fake" his suicide in Moscow, as Reiner says, or could he have died? We don’t really know. Was his fake suicide part of the narrative Oswald was programmed to participate in somehow? It seems unlikely.

Listening to this podcast it seems that millions of people were CIA agents or assets. It feels like the surveillance going on in early 1960s America was like that in Cuba or Russia. How true are these charges? I don’t know if the Travellers Aid Society that Oswald joined upon return to the USA in 1962 was connected to the CIA. If Mayor Earl Cabell of Dallas was a CIA asset, did that make him part of the assassination plot? Not by changing the motorcade route; he didn’t.

Did Richard Case Nagell "learn" in New Orleans about plots to kill Kennedy and make Oswald the patsy? Did he meet Oswald and inform him of the plans? Was Nagell hired as a Soviet agent? We have to take Russell and Nagell’s word here. How did Nagell learn of plots to kill Kennedy in Dallas before Sept.20, when his trip to Texas had not even been decided yet? And from whom did he supposedly learn them?

It took Oswald 15 minutes to get from 1026 Beckley to 10th and Patton to kill Officer Tippet, and I tested and found that this can be done myself; but it took almost half an hour for Oswald to get to the Texas Theater and get arrested. The distance between these points is about the same. He did loiter inside Hardy’s shoe store, and he ducked behind, in and out of a few places before that one. The police took a few moments (perhaps 10 minutes as Mr. Beat says ) to converge on the theater, then turn on the lights and go through the theater to find him. Was he in the theater long enough to have met someone there or talk to the popcorn vendor? It seems unlikely, given how close the police were to the theater when they were called, and with Brewer inside waiting for them, that he could have been there very long. But still, the longer timing to his second location than to the first is a bit puzzling.

Reiner and Co. claim more witnesses saw Oswald and Ruby together than I have heard before. The 10:35 AM TV tech story does suggest Ruby might have been close by Oswald earlier than we thought. But why did he hang around waiting to kill Oswald while leaving his dogs in the car when he needed to send the moneygram to his employee? We know Ruby knew mob boss Civello, but we don’t know whether Civello actually called Ruby and told him to shoot Oswald, or how E.L.Hunt got involved in the plot. Are John Currington’s statements correct? We have no corroboration.

The accusations against the 4 shooters are not based on any physical evidence. Diaz Garcia is accused entirely on the hearsay of others. Was Jack Cannon a shooter just because Nagell said so? 2 other shooters are debunked above, and there’s no forensic evidence that any of them shot anyone from any of the locations in Dealey Plaza cited by Reiner. CIA plotters like Harvey, Willoughby and Angleton are plausible conspirators, but the only reason for suspicions are because of their other activities and plans.

The podcast thus raises some questions I can’t fully answer yet. Maybe more will be known about these accused plotters and shooters someday, and what they did. Their connection to the actual shooting remains very tenuous. No-one except Oswald has been proven to have shot JFK, and assertions that he was made into a patsy lack evidence except for the only thing that this theory really offers as clues on anything: hearsay. Listening to Reiner on this podcast, I can still hear Michael Stivic aka Meathead the angry young idealist arguing, and in a debate he might make me feel like I am Archie Bunker. But I am more like Mike, and Rob and I share many of Mike's liberal concerns.

I think liberal conspiracy theorists like Reiner and Russell have misplaced their idealism. We have plenty of genuine reasons to criticize the authorities and powers in our society without making stuff up or presuming that a lone gunman can’t change history. The cynicism of the JFK conspiracy theory may be worse than the naive assumption that we can trust our government. We need to ask why our society produces so many disturbed, lonely and angry young folks like Lee Harvey Oswald, or even paranoid, violent people like William Harvey, and how we can be better people than that. And one of the changes we urgently need, and still seem unwilling to make, is to end the easy access to powerful guns like Oswald’s. The gun control movement is the greatest legacy of the tragic assassinations of the 1960s, not conspiracy theory.