Cont: JFK Conspiracy Theories V: Five for Fighting

[HSienzant]

You're going to need to be more specific, because I stand by virtually every argument about 9/11 stuff I've had, and I always provide the appropriate evidence like I do here.

Hilarious. You never provide any evidence.

You cited an article by a conspiracy theorist Paul Bleau, who admits he gets his evidence from conspiracy books, conspiracy websites, and conspiracy videos. That's one article of a multi-part series.

Here's another article in the series: https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-...nation-dishonors-the-historical-record-part-2

Here's what Bleau wrote there:

== QUOTE==
There is a brief glimpse, an illustration of the level at which that deceit was carried out, in an incident that occurred during the Warren Commission's investigation. Commission chairman Earl Warren himself, with then Representative Gerald Ford at his side, was interviewing a barman, Curtis LaVerne Crafard. Crafard had worked at Jack Ruby's Carousel Club. But he was seized by the FBI as he was hightailing it out of town the day after the assassination, having told someone, "They are not going to pin this on me!"
In the interview, Warren asks Crafard what he did before he was a bartender.
"I was a Master sniper in the Marine Corps," Crafard answered.
The next question that Warren immediately asked was: "What kind of entertainment did they have at the club?"
== UNQUOTE ==

Here's some links to Crafard's testimony:

As published (three parts as published because of breaks for lunch and to resume the following day):
https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh13/html/WC_Vol13_0206b.htm
https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh14/html/WC_Vol14_0005a.htm
https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh14/html/WC_Vol14_0041b.htm

All the above combined as one file:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/crafard.htm

As on the National Archives site:
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7460439

Point out where the testimony of Crafard includes the exchange claimed by Paul Bleau.

You can't.

It doesn't exist.

Your cited author is guilty of making it up (or repeating BS he read on a conspiracy site somewhere).

And Crafard couldn't have been a master sniper in the U.S.Marines, because he enlisted in the U.S.Army, a separate branch of the United States military:

Mr. CRAFARD. No; we moved to a little place called Plainview where I attended school for a year, Strutmore High School and from there we went to Oregon. I dropped out of school and enlisted in the U.S. Army, September 18, 1958.
...
Mr. HUBERT. Where did you enlist?
Mr. CRAFARD. I enlisted in Salem, Oreg.
Mr. HUBERT. And what assignments were you given?
Mr. CRAFARD. I enlisted in the antiaircraft.
Mr. HUBERT. That is U.S. Army?
Mr. CRAFARD. Yes, sir.
Mr. HUBERT. Where did you get basic training?
Mr. CRAFARD. Fort Ord.
Mr. HUBERT. How long did you stay there?
Mr. CRAFARD. I was in Fort Ord for 2 months and then I went to Presidio, San Francisco, where I was stationed at an air defense school for a period of 2 months and then I was assigned to D Battery, 2d Missile Battalion, San Francisco Defense Organization.
From there I went to Germany in April of 1959. I was transferred to Germany to Deisley Kersne, and I was stationed with the D Battery, 2d Missile Battalion there. I stayed there until November of 1959 then I was transferred back to the United States where I was discharged November 10, 1959.

He wrote: "There is a brief glimpse, an illustration of the level at which that deceit was carried out..."

The Only deceit established here is by your cited author.

He's lying to you. And by citing him as an authority (TWICE NOW!), by extension, you're lying to us.

Stop it immediately.

Hank

PS: I found the source of Paul Bleau's nonsense story about Larry Crafard being a master sniper in the Marines. It reportedly comes from the 'well-respected [cough] conspiracy researcher [cough] Gaeton Fonzi': http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKcrafard.htm

Fonzi reportedly told this story in a speech after he was given the Mary Ferrell-JFKLancer Pioneer Award awarded "In appreciation for your lifetime of searching for the truth in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy".

You can't make this up, folks! They give a guy an award for searching for the truth, and in his speech, he makes stuff up! Your friendly JFK conspiracy authors at work.

PPS: It also turns out that Paul Bleau was simply repeating word-for-word the claim from the speech of Fonzi that is on the Spartacus site, but because of unclear attribution in Bleau's article (only the first sentence is in italics), it appears Bleau wrote the false claim, instead of merely repeating the false claim uttered by Fonzi. Either way, it's clear neither Fonzi nor Bleau nor MicahJava here ever bothered to check the supposed claim against the actual testimony.

 

[HSienzant]

PS: I found the source of Paul Bleau's nonsense story about Larry Crafard being a master sniper in the Marines. It reportedly comes from the 'well-respected [cough] conspiracy researcher [cough] Gaeton Fonzi': http://spartacus-educational.com/JFKcrafard.htm

Fonzi reportedly told this story in a speech after he was given the Mary Ferrell-JFKLancer Pioneer Award awarded "In appreciation for your lifetime of searching for the truth in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy".

You can't make this up, folks! They give a guy an award for searching for the truth, and in his speech, he makes stuff up! Your friendly JFK conspiracy authors at work.

PPS: It also turns out that Paul Bleau was simply repeating word-for-word the claim from the speech of Fonzi that is on the Spartacus site, but because of unclear attribution in Bleau's article (only the first sentence is in italics), it appears Bleau wrote the false claim, instead of merely repeating the false claim. Either way, it's clear neither Fonzi nor Bleau nor MicahJava here ever bothered to check the supposed claim against the actual testimony.

Let's be kind here and assume Fonzi didn't feel the need to confirm the quote because he remembered reading it in the testimony back in his younger days. So he simply repeated what he remembered.

But as anyone can verify, his memory was a false memory.

The exchange he remembered never took place.

This is common among beings of the human persuasion.

If MicahJava remembers anything from this brief exchange with me on Paul Bleau's writings, MicahJava should remember this false memory of Gaeton Fonzi the next time he feels it necessary to cite someone's recollection to the HSCA or the ARRB.

And that he shouldn't cite conspiracy authors like Fonzi or Bleau as founts of knowledge. He should attempt to verify their claims.

Hank

 

[MicahJava]

Dude, you are seriously getting way too obsessed with Paul Bleau and attacking the arguer instead of the argument, and of course the actual evidence compiled in the article "Three Failed Plots to Kill JFK". PARAGRAPHS from you bragging about finding a relatively small mistake made in a totally separate Paul Bleau article that I did not link. Talk about desperation. How hard did you have to work on that? Do you think you are providing valuable information just by writing paragraphs of near-total gibberish?

 

[Axxman300]

Bumping this comment because some posters here just want to fill the page with gibberish.

First problem: Paul Bleau is a hardcore CT-loon.

His first paragraph states that the Warren Commission has been discredited (It hasn't), and the Magic Bullet Theory is a lie (it is not). So Bleau has not read the WC.

His source for the first attempt on JFK's life in Beverly Hills is from work done by a professional CT-Loon, Larry Hancock, who's latest book is about UFO's and national intelligence. He even has a book titled "Surprise Attack: From Pearl Harbor to Benghazi." The man certainly knows how to market to his soft-headed, fact-challenged audience.

Hancock's site is here if you need a laugh: http://www.larry-hancock.com/

The other two cases rely on the same histrionics and hearsay information. Neither take into account the era, and the Chicago case is from a 1975 article where the assassination was trying to be linked to John Birchers.

It's not detective work it's detective woo.

 

[HSienzant]

Dude, you are seriously getting way too obsessed with Paul Bleau and attacking the arguer instead of the argument

Sorry, no. At no point did I attack Paul Bleau. I did point out his claims are unreliable and inaccurate, and I point out this was an author you specifically linked to, apparently without even attempting to verify any of the claims he made.

and of course the actual evidence compiled in the article "Three Failed Plots to Kill JFK".

Sorry, no. I don't have any specific obligation to rebut links you provide. If you think there's any evidence in that article, cite it, tell us the importance of it, and tell us what you think it implies. I'll be happy to eviscerate your claims.

I did show that Paul Bleau posts untruths that it would have taken only a minute to verify as untrue. This is the author you cited. You couldn't be bothered to attempt to verify anything in his article, as he couldn't be bothered to attempt to verify anything in his article. He also couldn't be bothered to attempt to verify his claim he obviously lifted from conspiracy theorist Gaeton Fonzi, who couldn't be bothered to attempt to verify the claim. The conspiracy website kennedysandking.com, which published Bleau's articles, couldn't be bothered to verify Bleau's claims. And the conspiracy website spartacus-educational.com (which has a page devoted to Crafard) couldn't be bothered to verify the claim either.

Are you starting to see a pattern here?

If it points to conspiracy, it doesn't matter if it's true or not. Conspiracy sites will publish it. And will publish it without taking even a minute to attempt to verify it. And these conspiracy sites are what Paul Bleau admitted to being his sources for information.

Nobody has to prove Paul Bleau's articles wrong (although I think I did an effective job of establishing he's untrustworthy, unreliable near the truth, and inaccurate). That's just an attempt by you to shift the burden of proof. You have to prove him right. Citing his article doesn't do that. When do you intend to start?

PARAGRAPHS from you bragging about finding a relatively small mistake made in a totally separate Paul Bleau article that I did not link.

Relatively small mistake? Fonzi repeats a claim that has no factual content whatsoever. He basically is claiming (as is Bleau, as is the other conspiracy sites that repeat the falsehood) that Earl Warren ignored what Crafard was saying to explore something meaningless. But it never happened. This is the kind of 'evidence' used against the Warren Commission that sucks people like you into believing in a conspiracy. Totally made-up BS.

Talk about desperation.

You must be, to cite Paul Bleau, who admits his sources for his articles are fellow conspiracy theorists who he accepts without question.

How hard did you have to work on that?

Really hard. It took me less than a minute to obtain the disproof, once I saw the claim.

You can even reproduce it.

1. I went to this site: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/wit.htm which has all the testimony in any easy to search form.

2. I clinked on "C-D" to get to the persons whose last name starts with those letters.

3. I scrolled down until I found "Craford".

4. I clicked on the link.

5. I used my browser search function to search for some of the words relayed by Fonzi via Bleau, like "sniper", "marine", etc.

6. I determined those words DID NOT APPEAR in Crafard's testimony.

7. I reported that finding here. Steps 1-6 took less than a minute.

Do you think you are providing valuable information just by writing paragraphs of near-total gibberish?

What you call it has no bearing on what it is. You need to remember that making an allegation does not make the allegation true.

I am certain plenty of others understood the import of what I wrote, and understood why exposing your cited author as someone who relies solely on conspiracy sites for his 'facts', and repeats fish stories without attempting to verify them, establishes once more why your links and your arguments are worthless. I am equally certain that those people don't see exposing the authors you cite as unreliable as gibberish.

You too get your arguments from the same conspiracy authors and websites as Paul Bleau.

Hank

PS: Thank you for your admission that Fonzi, Bleau, and the the conspiracy websites that repeat the Fonzi claim were wrong to post that falsehood uttered by Fonzi in - ironically - accepting an award for being a truth-seeker, especially since it takes less than a minute to disprove that claim. Now, do you join with me in finding the repetition of that reprehensible, or not?

 

[HSienzant]

Let's be kind here and assume Fonzi didn't feel the need to confirm the quote because he remembered reading it in the testimony back in his younger days. So he simply repeated what he remembered.

But as anyone can verify, his memory was a false memory.

The exchange he remembered never took place.

This is common among beings of the human persuasion.

If MicahJava remembers anything from this brief exchange with me on Paul Bleau's writings, MicahJava should remember this false memory of Gaeton Fonzi the next time he feels it necessary to cite someone's recollection to the HSCA or the ARRB.

And that he shouldn't cite conspiracy authors like Fonzi or Bleau as founts of knowledge. He should attempt to verify their claims.

Hank

The plot thickens... It turns out Fonzi's memory wasn't the original source of this claim at all.

Mort Sahl was, in 1994, in his one-man Off-Broadway show. Sahl supposedly read from the Warren Commission volumes, and, to get a laugh, made up that entire exchange.

The full details are in a post from July 20th, 1999, by Peter Whitmey here:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.assassination.jfk/bNhmdBDhVko/iHGkMGq3P0MJ

Whitmey writes, in part:

"In the early 1990s, Mort's career was given a second life as a result of his one-man show on "Off Broadway" entitled "Mort Sahl's America" (now available on audio). It was reviewed in several publications including the prestigious NEW YORKER magazine by theatre critic John Lahr. I learned about Lahr's review through correspondence with another JFK researcher. In the course of the review (April 25, 1994, p. 91), Lahr quotes from Sahl's act, as he comments on an interview allegedly conducted by Earl Warren and Gerald Ford of the W.C. with Curtis LaVerne Crafard, described as "a barman.. who had worked at Jack Ruby's Carousel Club before he was seized by F.B.I. men as he hightailed it out of town the day after the Kennedy assassination, saying, 'They (are) not going to pin this on me.'" Lahr indicated that Sahl was reading "verbatim a snatch of Earl Warren and the then Representative Gerald Ford and includes the following interchange: "Warren asks him what he did before he was a bartender. 'I was a master sniper in the Marine Corps," Crafard says. Warren's next question is 'What kind of entertainment did they have at the club?'" Lahr concludes his review by stating that this sudden switch of topics at an apparent crucial point in the interview with Craford is "..the one pure moment of political comedy.." in his act.
...
It was bad enough that THE NEW YORKER accepted what Mort Sahl had stated about Curtis in his one-man act, but to make matters worse, researcher/writer Gaeton Fonzi also made reference to Lahr's review in a speech he made at the JFK Lancer conference in Dallas last Nov. (1998). However, he gave no hint that the information came from Sahl via THE NEW YORKER, but, instead, implied that he had derived it directly from the Warren volumes (by the way, I have learned from a L.A. TIMES review of Sahl's show from 1996 in California that Mort had the 26 volumes of the Warren Commission's investigation on stage as part of his set, which would add to the credibility of his caustic comments)."

So should we cut Fonzi any slack for getting this wrong? I think not. It would not have taken this supposed truth-seeker much time to verify the claim wasn't true. I don't think we should cut Paul Bleau or CTKA (now KennedysandKings.com) or Spartacus.com any slack for repeating the claim.

Not one of them checked Crafard's testimony to see if it actually contained the words as claimed by Mort Sahl, and as repeated by John Lahr in the NEW YORKER article.

Clearly all of them fail to earn the 'truth-seeker' award.

Hank

 

[Pacal]

Sorry, no. I don't have any specific obligation to rebut links you provide. If you think there's any evidence in that article, cite it, tell us the importance of it, and tell us what you think it implies. I'll be happy to eviscerate your claims.

I did show that Paul Bleau posts untruths that it would have taken only a minute to verify as untrue. This is the author you cited. You couldn't be bothered to attempt to verify anything in his article, as he couldn't be bothered to attempt to verify anything in his article. He also couldn't be bothered to attempt to verify his claim he obviously lifted from conspiracy theorist Gaeton Fonzi, who couldn't be bothered to attempt to verify the claim. The conspiracy website kennedysandking.com, which published Bleau's articles, couldn't be bothered to verify Bleau's claims. And the conspiracy website spartacus-educational.com (which has a page devoted to Crafard) couldn't be bothered to verify the claim either.

Regarding the Spartacus website. I don't think calling it a conspiracy website is entirely fair. Most of it's material is not conspiracy related. I myself have found the website interesting and informative. (For example the entry on the Rosenberg case is actually quite good. The author concluded that Julius was a spy and Ethel knew about but that there were problems with the case legally speaking.)

However the section on the JFK assassination is both large and full of very dubious material, along with being very one sided. The multiple webpages there seems to reanimate virtually every nutty JFK theory there is. I suspect this stuff was written by bunch of JFK conspiracy loons.

I am constantly amazed by the attraction of conspiracy crap to so many people.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

You're going to need to be more specific, because I stand by virtually every argument about 9/11 stuff I've had, and I always provide the appropriate evidence like I do here.

Was this the thread in which you said that witness testimony is unreliable and subject to change over time, and so we should rely on photgraphic and other objective sources instead?



Or were you referring to your attempt to use a set of optional guidelines published some years after the NIST report was finished, and not applicable to that situation, to try to prove that not investigating CD was criminal because they should have been forced to use these optional and innapropriate guidelines before they had even been written?

I notice you have been studiously avoiding my question about plotting the trajectory of the supposed extra bullet you posit.
This would constitute actual evidence. You could show where you think the second shooter was. Why not do some actual work on this, instead of citing sources you clearly haven't read, and show us your theory, complete with real evidence?

 

[HSienzant]

Was this the thread in which you said that witness testimony is unreliable and subject to change over time, and so we should rely on photgraphic and other objective sources instead?

He actually said that?

Wow.

On this thread he has argued the exact opposite... that we should disregard much of the hard evidence, and rely on the recollections of witnesses made 15 or 33 years after the fact (to the HSCA and ARRB, respectively).

Hank

 

[MicahJava]

Regarding the Spartacus website. I don't think calling it a conspiracy website is entirely fair. Most of it's material is not conspiracy related. I myself have found the website interesting and informative. (For example the entry on the Rosenberg case is actually quite good. The author concluded that Julius was a spy and Ethel knew about but that there were problems with the case legally speaking.)

However the section on the JFK assassination is both large and full of very dubious material, along with being very one sided. The multiple webpages there seems to reanimate virtually every nutty JFK theory there is. I suspect this stuff was written by bunch of JFK conspiracy loons.

I am constantly amazed by the attraction of conspiracy crap to so many people.

For Sparticus, check their sources at the end of the page instead of trusting their articles on face value when it comes to JFK stuff. They have a page on Dealey Plaza witness Richard Randolph Carr which states for a fact some very questionable claims by small-time JFK conspiracy books and Carr himself, including personally foiling plots to murder him before his House Select Committee testimony with no evidence. Some myth like that you just have to flush out.

 

[MicahJava]

He actually said that?

Wow.

On this thread he has argued the exact opposite... that we should disregard much of the hard evidence, and rely on the recollections of witnesses made 15 or 33 years after the fact (to the HSCA and ARRB, respectively).

Hank

Why are you complaining about being thorough with presenting the evidence? I only post later-day witness statements when they corroborate the contemporaneous stuff.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

Why are you complaining about being thorough with presenting the evidence? I only post later-day witness statements when they corroborate the contemporaneous stuff.

Your entire case is built on exactly the opposite.

 

[abaddon]

Why are you complaining about being thorough with presenting the evidence? I only post later-day witness statements when they corroborate the contemporaneous stuff.

You are a latter day witness believer?

 

[MicahJava]

Your entire case is built on exactly the opposite.

Like when? Be specific.

 

[CORed]

Dude, you are seriously getting way too obsessed with Paul Bleau and attacking the arguer instead of the argument, and of course the actual evidence compiled in the article "Three Failed Plots to Kill JFK". PARAGRAPHS from you bragging about finding a relatively small mistake made in a totally separate Paul Bleau article that I did not link. Talk about desperation. How hard did you have to work on that? Do you think you are providing valuable information just by writing paragraphs of near-total gibberish?

Saying he was a sniper in the Marine Corps is a "small mistake" when he was never in the Marine Corps and never a sniper?

I would call that a big fat lie.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

Like when? Be specific.

Here's one, just for starters, along with HSienzant's reply showing how you rely on recollections from 30 years after the event.

Hank, the autopsy conclusion of a single gunshot to the head doesn't have to be totally fraudulent - the small head wound had internal beveling indicating entry and the large head wound had external beveling indicating exit.

And that evidence shows the autopsy conclusions were considered malleable. The throat wound stuff from earlier showed that. Lipsey did describe the autopsy pathologists discussing a scenario with a bullet entering the EOP and exiting the throat, and Tom Robinson claimed to see a probe inserted into the base of the head which emerged from the throat wound. The endless reports about some mysterious earlier autopsy conclusions about the throat wound being a fragment. The most innocent argument against that is to say the FBI just casually assumed the throat wound was a fragment and felt it was ok to report that as fact.

It doesn't have to be even a little bit fraudulent - the Sibert and O'Neill teletype YOU CITED from 2:00am on 11/23/63 (just thirteen and a half hours after the assassination) establishes that.

Don't you remember citing this line from that teletype:
"TOTAL BODY XRAY AND AUTOPSY REVEALED ONE BULLET ENTERED BACK OF HEAD AND THEREAFTER EMERGED THROUGH TOP OF SKULL."

Sibert and O'Neill, along with the autopsy report, the autopsy doctors, HSCA forensic panel, the radiographs, and the autopsy photos, not to mention the Zapruder film, all establish one shot to the head. That shot exited the top of the skull.

Any pretense on your part otherwise is just that, pretense.





And that's the same result we get no matter where we look. One shot to the head, in the back, out the top.

We're just treading old ground now once more. This is just part of your fringe reset routine you sing and dance your way through.





One conclusion changed. At the conclusion of the autopsy, the autopsy doctors in Washington were unaware that a tracheotomy had been performed in Parkland over an existing bullet wound in an attempt to save the President's life.

When they found out otherwise, the evidence they had gathered at autopsy fit the conclusion that the bullet transited the body.





How many years after the autopsy did he 'remember' this? More than 30?





That's funny, because the evidence establishes Tom Robinson wasn't at the autopsy. And how many years after the autopsy did he 'remember' this? More than 30?

We covered all this months ago, repeatedly:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12085615&postcount=3092
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12081176&postcount=3005
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12068145&postcount=2698

There are more in the prior thread, going back over a year:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11564268&postcount=1929
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11593166&postcount=2203
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11596500&postcount=2221

Repeating your points doesn't make them more true.
That admonishment goes back over a year too:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=11511320&postcount=1746





Well, I want to be fair here. Asking you to list all these 'endless' reports would clearly take you to infinity and beyond. So I'll only ask for you to document ten reports 'about some mysterious earlier autopsy conclusions about the throat wound being a fragment'.

Here, I'll even start you off, and provide the layout.

1.
2.
3.

Go ahead, list ten. Surely ten reports out of an 'endless' number of such reports won't be a hardship. We'll wait a rather long time for you to comply, I'll wager.




No, at the autopsy the throat wound was seen to be the tracheotomy performed at Parkland to attempt to save the President's life. It was only later that it was determined the throat wound was over an existing bullet wound, and the facts determined at autopsy fit the conclusion of a bullet transiting the President's neck.

This has been covered in detail with you in the past.

You're just treading old ground well after the point has been settled.

Hank

 

[CORed]

Like when? Be specific.

Here's one, just for starters, along with HSienzant's reply showing how you rely on recollections from 30 years after the event.

My first thought on reading the quoted MicahJava post was to link every post he's made on this thread, but that would take too long and really not be useful.

 

[MicahJava]

Cosmic Yak, we have been over this. The autopsy officially concluded that the head sounds were caused by a single shot from behind by the time Sibert and O'Neill departed because Dr. Finck verified that the small head wound exhibited inward beveling in the skull bone like an entrance round, and part of the large head wound exhibited outward beveling like an exit sound. Do you see how there is no proof both wounds are related? The brain was (again, officially) not sectioned to trace the path of both wounds.

 

[RoboTimbo]

Cosmic Yak, we have been over this. The autopsy officially concluded that the head sounds were caused by a single shot from behind by the time Sibert and O'Neill departed because Dr. Finck verified that the small head wound exhibited inward beveling in the skull bone like an entrance round, and part of the large head wound exhibited outward beveling like an exit sound. Do you see how there is no proof both wounds are related? The brain was (again, officially) not sectioned to trace the path of both wounds.

If I understand your argument, there was one entrance wound and one exit wound and we have no evidence they're related?

 

[Axxman300]

Cosmic Yak, we have been over this. The autopsy officially concluded that the head sounds were caused by a single shot from behind by the time Sibert and O'Neill departed because Dr. Finck verified that the small head wound exhibited inward beveling in the skull bone like an entrance round, and part of the large head wound exhibited outward beveling like an exit sound. Do you see how there is no proof both wounds are related? The brain was (again, officially) not sectioned to trace the path of both wounds.

Proof of a single GSW to the head, Exhibit A:

Case closed.