I'm currently reading "The Assassinations",

[Matilda]

a series of articles from Probe magazine, edited by James DiEugenio
and Lisa Pease. We don't get Probe in Australia, so I don't know
much about it, but the standard of the articles is very high indeed.

It details minutely all the records currently available on the
assassinations of JFK, RKF, MLK and Malcolm X, including 60,000
documents recently released by the Assassinations Records Review
Board, which apparently have been largely ignored by the media.

It's very slow to begin with, as there are so any names, but it
gets easier as you go on. I'm only just finishing the section on
JFK, which takes about half the book, and it makes stunning reading.
I thought I'd read a lot, but I'd only scratched the surface until
I got hold of this book. One thing is very clear - the cover-ups
came from the very highest echelons of power, and there's a creepy
feeling that these people are, if not exactly the same people, at
least the same group who are running the U.S. today behind the cover
of G.W. Bush. The book does connect all the assassinations to this
group, and with the exception of Malcolm X, whom I'd never tied in
with the others, this is something I've long believed too.

It was printed in 2003, and some of you may have already read it,
but it's never been released in Australia, and I had to order it
from Amazon. I'm so glad I did, even though it's depressing and
still makes me sad.

[NV Whino]

1. I've gotten bogged down in it and gone to something "lighter," but

I thought the part about the two Oswalds particularly interesting.

[Matilda]

2. Yes - it's hard to get my mind around that one,

but there certainly is some very convincing evidence, most especially
the fact that he was able to speak fluent Russian - I believe it's
a very difficult language to pick up, and it's hard to believe
that a somewhat under-educated Oswald was able to do it in a
relatively short time. But for someone Russian-born, not so
surprising.

I'm also taking a break before moving on to the next section.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

3. He wrote an entire book on it - "Harvey & Lee"

that came out on the 40th anniversary:

http://www.jfkresearch.com/armstrong/index1.html
also http://home.wi.rr.com/harveyandlee/

be sure to read the articles debunking his (& other two Oswald*) theories by people like W Tracy Parnell & David Reitzes, as well as the work done by the HSCA. Whilst I do think there are some Oswald sightings that are genuinely interesting (and the foremost of these is Sylvia Odio), I have real problems with the 'Harvey & Lee' thesis.

*the origin of which is most probably the following essay by Professor Robert Popkin in 1966:
http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/The_critics/Popkin/The_second_Oswald/Second_Oswald.html

[Matilda]

4. Thanks for the links.

I'm only sure of two things - that their was more than one assassin,
and that Oswald was set up.

If there were two Oswalds, we have to wonder what happened to the
second one? I think it would have been too dangerous to have left
him alive, so there would probably have been yet another victim.

From my reading so far though, it does seem that the conspiracy
was very high up in the circles of power, and that's just so scary.
Way beyond the CIA - makes me think of the Smoking Man in the
X-Files - perhaps that was very close to the truth.

[NAO]

5. Introduction by TV Celebrity "Judge Joe Brown" who has personal experience

on one of the cases and the cover-up. That was a nice treat. My wife would not normally even look in the direction of a "conspiracy" book, but she watches that judge TV show and was intrigued by the introduction.

[Matilda]

6. Yes - I don't know the judge (not in Australia),

but what he said is first-hand and very interesting.

Very very interesting too about how the JFK "revelation" books have
been backed by vested interests. That he was very attractive and
made the most of it I don't doubt, but if half the stories about
his sexual exploits were true, he wouldn't have had time to do
anything else at all. And he was a good hands-on president, IMO.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

7. I really hope that one day Sy Hersh apologizes somewhat

for "The Dark Side of Camelot". I'm not saying that Kennedy was a basitan of purity, but his record doesn't deserve the very sloppy & poorly sourced treatment that Hersh awards.

[Matilda]

8. I haven't read it, but I was surprised to read that Hersch

had written such a book. I thought he was one of the good guys.

I read about the Judith Exner book, but couldn't be bothered reading
it; I thought it all sounded very suss from the start. I couldn't
believe what she said about carrying money and letters between
Giancana and Kennedy. Not that the Kennedys were all lily-white -
old Joe certainly wasn't - but I figured that it was highly unlikely
that Kennedy would ever need to take money from such a dubious
source, and if he was ever to get involved in anything shady, there
would be people to do that for him - he'd never personally get his
own hands dirty. So I thought it all sounded like a load of garbage.

I never thought that there was anything sinister though, until I
read this book - I just figured there's always someone who'll try to
make a buck by muckraking, and always people who'll buy, but it
makes sense that there might be a darker reason behind it all.