Sunday, 28 June 2020 00:10

Gary Hill’s The Other Oswald: A Wilderness of Mirrors

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Paul Bleau reviews Gary Hill’s new book, The Other Oswald: A Wilderness of Mirrors, and assesses the new evidence that suggests Robert Webster and Lee Harvey Oswald both had links to the MKULTRA mind control program. As Gary reveals his evaluation of the JFK assassination after more than 50 years of research, Paul breaks down the good and the bad in his overall case.


Summary

This book is a worthwhile read for a mature JFK assassination research audience.

The author is quite knowledgeable and has shown himself to be proficient at information gathering from mostly a smart selection of credible work performed by serious JFK assassination researchers, documentary proof, collaborations with other solid researchers, and adding his own personal sleuth efforts in the form of interviews of people of interest.

Gary Hill’s instincts and logical construction are mostly solid, but at times flawed.

The book is important, because of its focus on “defector” Robert Webster and his comparative analysis value to Oswald, as well as the author’s attempts to explain the murder in an all-encompassing manner based on some of the most recent information available.

The author offers many footnotes and presents a large number of photos as well as documents that support his writings. A number of the footnotes, however, do not really help researchers access key sources and some important points that are made are written in a vague manner. The basis on which the author forms his conclusions are at times tenuous and hard to follow.

There are a large number of chapters that barely mention Webster.

Because the book is so full of information, which is sometimes put out without proper context, seasoned researchers may learn a lot, beginners, however, may be confused.

Gary Hill exposes himself to criticism by at times referencing controversial writers and anecdotes that have been mostly discredited—which could be used to undermine his mostly solid rationale.

Like most of us who have written about the case, the author could have used additional layers of editing to weed out errors of grammar, minimize risky affirmations, and add clarity to certain explanations.

In terms of understanding the big picture of what really happened on November 22, 1963, Warren Commission apologists including most journalists and history book writers deserve a score of 0 on ten, Gary Hill deserves at least an 8.

Introduction

When I was asked to review this book, I was intrigued by the subject matter. My knowledge of Robert Webster was sketchy at best, yet I always felt that his story could be important. There were only a handful of Americans who set foot on Soviet soil before the early sixties and there was a false defector program going on that most likely included Oswald:  the fact that Webster entered and departed Russia at around the same time as Oswald is significant. This book could perhaps reveal similarities or differences between the two that could bolster the case that Oswald was an intelligence asset.

While writing one of my articles for Kennedysandking.com, I came upon an interesting piece about how U.S. intelligence reacted when two genuine defectors, National Security Agency (NSA) officials Bernon Mitchell and William Martin, committed treason against their country and defected to Russia. They left no stone unturned in their investigation that required thousands of man-hours in detective work and damage control. Even though Oswald worked at the Atsugi intelligence base in Japan as a radar operator for the prized U2 spy planes, the post defection investigation of him was cursory at best—a sure sign that something fishy was going on.

Was Webster an intelligence asset? Had he really met and associated with Marina Prusakova? What were his background and M.O.? What became of him upon his return? Who, if anyone, was running him?

Otto Otepka was kicking a hornet’s nest when, in 1960 as head of the State Department's Office of Security, he began querying the false defector program. The Oswald file was a hot potato. Otepka’s career spiraled downwards shortly after his insistent efforts. What could we find out about the other false defectors? According to Mary Ferrell: “The CIA did admit privately to HSCA staff that at least one officer named Thomas Casasin had ‘run an agent into the USSR’ and, like Oswald, this agent had come back with a Russian wife.”

Like the author, I strongly believe in the common threads approach to solving who was behind the Kennedy assassination. This is why the analysis of prior plots and alternative patsies has occupied a large part of my analysis and writing. I am of the opinion that there is a template that points to the same puppeteers who were stringing Oswald along.

This rationale applies elsewhere:

If Oswald was an informant and infiltrated the FPCC like many others…find out who was behind the FPCC infiltration program;

If Oswald was being overseen by Clay Shaw, Guy Banister, George de Mohrenschildt, Ruth Paine, and others, find who they were connected to;

If there were other similar political assassinations, internal or abroad, find out where they lead;

If witnesses were being eliminated or threatened to keep silent, solve these crimes and you may discover axes that intersect;

Find out how the media and investigative cover-up is orchestrated and you may zero in on the usual suspects;

Gary Hill uses similar case analysis and entity linkage around the false defector program, that Oswald was most likely part of, in his contribution to fully solving the case. For advancing this area of research forward, the research community can thank him and should build on this promising area by shining the spotlights on every other defector, false or genuine, of this era so as to find out exactly how Oswald fit into a template here also and who designed and oversaw it.

Gary Hill… The researcher

I hadn’t heard much about Gary Hill, so I tried to find out a bit more about his background and came upon an article about him and his book which was quite impressive and showcased solid credentials:

Hill has spent 50 years of his life researching the Cold War in general and the assassination of JFK specifically. He has appeared on talk shows, published articles, and given lectures on the topic.

His substantial JFK library consists of hundreds of books, articles, and photos and thousands of documents obtained from the CIA, FBI, Military, and NARA via the Freedom of Information Act. He has interviewed witnesses and published articles in local newspapers and journals such as The Fourth Decade and JFK/Deep Politics Quarterly and local newspapers such as the Cranberry Journal and New Castle News.

He was a charter member of the Citizens for Truth about the Kennedy Assassination (CTKA), Cyril Wecht's Coalition on Political Assassinations (COPA), and JFK Lancer. He is listed in the Master Researcher Directory.

The preface of his book is by Bill Simpich and the foreword by Walt Brown, two JFK assassination researchers of repute who put the book on a solid foundation before even reaching the first chapter. I was further reassured when I read the bibliography:  Many of my favorite authors and books were listed, I was even surprised to see one of my articles referenced. Four books that I noticed that were not in his impressive list are Destiny Betrayed and JFK; The Evidence Today (though Probe articles and Lisa Pease are referenced); Nexus; and On the Trail of the Assassins, which are must-reads in my view.

Over and above being very well-read, the author received support from super investigators Carol Hewitt and Dick Russell, who were able to visit a mostly unresponsive Robert Webster. Hill himself interviewed some of Webster’s family members, friends, and ex-work colleagues. He was able to obtain photos, writings, and Webster’s detailed life and professional chronology based on solid primary source documents.

The book is filled with anecdotes, claims, and facts and is quite well documented and footnoted, but with some inconsistencies. I found that some of the points that were very interesting were either not referenced or at times based on shaky evidence (I will give examples later). However, the overall construction is quite tight.

There is no doubt that the author is experienced, connected, dedicated, and driven. The challenge authors who cover this subject always face is how to make such a complicated case easy to digest and interesting while avoiding pitfalls.

Robert Webster

This book has been recently released, so it is not my intention to reveal everything about the lead protagonist. That would lower the need to read it. I have read some 40 books about the assassination, as well as over 100 articles, and I can attest that this reading enriched my knowledge about the case and will add to some of the areas I have been researching. Let me suggest the leading reasons to add this book to your collection based solely on the subject of the lead character.

The author presents a strong case that Webster and Marina likely knew one another, which, of course, leads us to speculate that Marina may have been a Russian intelligence asset. The author does a good job of describing Russian brides becoming sleeper agents through their marriage to foreigners.

We also find out that police forces in the U.S. took a special interest in Webster on the very day JFK was assassinated and that he may have been using Oswald’s name.

Readers get to see striking similarities in Webster’s work history and Oswald’s. Both simply cannot be tied down. Oswald and Webster both joined the Navy where the ONI played a leading role in the false defector program.

The parallels don’t stop there:  Webster worked for intel-connected The Rand Development Company; he possessed important plastics technology experience he could tease the Russians with; he married a Russian with whom he fathered a child; his sojourn in Russia had a number of similarities with LHO’s.

I found Hill’s research around the reactions to the defection in Webster’s ultraconservative community and how it was closely held by his friends to be very interesting.

Hill reveals to us how Webster left his American wife and kids under financial stress, met a Russian girl, who could very well have been an intelligence asset, ended up marrying her and fathering a child, both of whom he eventually left behind when he returned to the U.S.

Hill argues soundly that Webster, contrary to Oswald, was a genuine defector who moved to Russia not for ideological reasons, but to escape his family problems, marry his Russian sweetheart, and exploit a business opportunity around bringing Russia up to speed in plastics technology. These affirmations are backed by witness descriptions of him, as well as CIA profile reports.

He makes the point that, before 1959, there had only been two U.S. defectors to the Soviet Union and then, in an eighteen-month period between 1959 and 1960, there were nine who all had military backgrounds and were privy to sensitive information.

Like a number of other “defectors”, Webster followed Richard Snyder’s advice to renounce citizenship on a Saturday, when it was technically not possible to do so. (Snyder was a CIA asset under diplomatic cover in the Moscow embassy). This made it easier to return to the U.S. Curiously, Webster was accompanied by his intel-connected bosses from Rand during his defection visit.

Hill underscores that Webster was codenamed Guide 223 and was linked to a project related to the mechanization of documents called Longstride. Very interestingly, Hill points out a link here to Ruth Paine’s sister of all people, a psychologist with strong intel relations, employed by the Air Force.

Rand has a number of similarities to some of Oswald’s employers in that it is clearly a CIA-friendly company. It would be interesting to see if there is a 301 file on it. There was a 201 file on its president H. G. Rand. Rand’s Washington representative was ex-CIA agent and psy-war specialist Christopher Bird.

One of the key points Hill makes is that Webster upon his return to the U.S. testified intensely for two weeks before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee… a fate Oswald avoided. This, on its own, is worth the price of admission. Does anyone really believe that Oswald was not debriefed? Can anyone explain why Webster’s debriefing was done openly and Oswald was given special treatment? But there is more… Webster could no longer work at Rand, because of the classified projects it was involved in, whereas Oswald was parked at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall where he was involved in sensitive work.

From all of this, Gary Hill presents a strong case for who oversaw both Oswald and Webster’s files. To find out who: Read the book! I can confirm that the case makes sense.

The above wealth of information is presented to the reader by the fourth chapter… Need I say more?

The fourth chapter focuses on the false defector program and Oswald’s defection. While the author does a good job here of comparing the two defections, he is less convincing when he tries to argue that Oswald was suddenly rushed into the Soviet Union because of Webster’s defection so that he could be part of a double dangle by the CIA, that they were both being “manipulated” by U.S. Intelligence while in Russia, and that they could confuse the KBG because they were lookalikes. I had to read this chapter more than once and still had trouble following the line of reasoning. It is also in this chapter that he discusses links between MKULTRA mind control and Oswald, which he will later include Webster as a probable victim. The author claims that there are many indications that Oswald was under psychic driving conditioning (e.g. at his stay in Atsugi well before his defection). He also indicates that there could be a smoking gun document that proves Webster was an MKUTRA subject. We will get to this later.

A 50 year research veteran’s view of the case

By chapter 5, the author shifts sharply to another theme, where information around Webster and false defector programs is minimal.

I have to say, I would have liked to see more around the original subject matter. He does mention that at one point in the early sixties, six out of seven ex-marine defectors returned to the U.S. like Oswald and Webster. What were their stories? How do they compare? What conclusions can be drawn? Unfortunately, this area was not developed.

The cases of Bernon and Martin, two real defectors, are also quite well documented. This would also have bolstered his analysis.

Instead, for some ten chapters, we get to hear Hill’s take on the whole JFK assassination, and I mean everything: Mockingbird, MKULTRA, Mexico City, Garrison, Tippit, Rose Cheramie, LBJ, RFK, prior plots, Oswald doubles, the cover-up, who is behind the assassination and a lot more. His focus on Webster only comes back in the very last chapter.

If you go on the basis that even one new piece of information was gained by reading a book and that you are better off for that experience, then almost anyone who reads these ten chapters will be winners, because there is bound to be new knowledge to be gained from a well-read old-timer who is passionate about the subject. Gary Hill, now seventy-two, passes on his conclusions from fifty years of research to the next generation of researchers. This project is ambitious and not without risk, however. While I feel much of the author’s research and conclusions are solid, I also feel there is, at times, overkill, overreach, questionable sources, faulty reasoning, and potential for confusion.  If ever Mr. Hill would like to write a second edition, let me provide some constructive criticism. But first let’s cover some of the interesting points he makes.

The overall case chapters 5 to 13:  The Good

Hill emphasizes how the HSCA contradicted the Warren Commission by underscoring Charles Murret’s, Oswald’s uncle, links to organized crime including Marcello and Jack Ruby.

He shines a light on LHO’s cousin Dorothy Murret who, like LHO, travelled around the world on a dime. He presents evidence that she may have been connected to intelligence.

One of the areas where the author is at his best is when he describes how intelligence departments of police forces are intertwined with the CIA. This goes a long way in explaining the suspicious behaviors of key players in the police forces in Dallas pertaining to the JFK assassination, Chicago related to the failed plot in early November 1963, L.A. with respect to the RFK assassination botched investigation, and even Mexico City where key witness Sylvia Duran was tortured.

You will also find in this book a nice summary of the MKULTRA program and its roots.

Because I have written pretty extensively about failed plots to assassinate JFK and potential patsies, I was especially interested in his prior plots chapter. He covers the subjects of Vallee (Chicago), Lopez (Tampa) and Powers (San Antonio) pretty well the way I had, which is normal as we have similar sources. When I wrote about FPCC infiltrator John Glenn of Indiana, I saw nothing to convince me that he was implicated in a failed plot, nor any evidence of plans to frame him. What I did observe is a clone of Oswald the informant, in this sense his inclusion in this chapter could create confusion. I was happily surprised to find out about the name of yet a new suspicious character named Miguel Casas Saez, whom the author describes as a Cuban agent with FPCC links and who may have tracked JFK in Chicago and Tampa, before being in Dallas the day of his assassination. He then ran into money, made his way to Mexico through Laredo, and was flown to Cuba with special seating arrangements in the cockpit of a Cuban plane that had been held up for hours awaiting him.

Wow! This to me sounded very much like a report on another potential FPCC-marked patsy, Policarpo Lopez, who would have made a similar escape and was allegedly flown to Cuba as the lone passenger on a Cuban passenger plane: a sure sign of a template!

It smacks of yet more Castro was behind it malarkey… Coming out of JMWAVE’s David Morales’ network.

I was frustrated here, however, by his footnote to the intel document which is limited to 104-10021-1004.

So, on my own, I eventually found the document at Mary Ferrell and upon closer perusal, this anecdote ended up being somewhat of a wet firecracker.

  1. He claims that Saez was reported to be at an FPCC meeting in Tampa on November 17—yet after scouring files, talking to Larry Hancock (who is referenced in this section), and reading the writings of John Newman and others about Saez, I could find nothing to back this up. If the author can show evidence of this, I strongly urge him to reveal his sources as it would be, in my opinion, quite important.
  2. The author relies on Lamar Waldron to state that Saez (similar to Policarpo Lopez) received the red-carpet treatment by being seated in the cockpit on a Cuban plane for his escape out of Mexico. The intel. document reveals no such thing. Is there another solid source? Larry Hancock and I discussed this point and he believes that with time some authors mixed up the alleged Saez escape M.O. with Policarpo Lopez’.
  3. Larry also pointed out the weakness of the source (and sub-sources), in that it comes from a likely biased Cuban exile, who got this from a Cuban source in Cuba, who got his info from a dentist, who got it from Saez’s aunt, who got it from lord knows where.
  4. Larry, having seen many wild Cuban stories to try and frame Castro, stated that this one was too amateurish to be even a CIA planted story. “Think about Cuban agents coming into the U.S. after battling a hurricane, one then heads up to New York to visit an ex-girlfriend’s uncle, and then after involvement in killing JFK, Saez ends up back in his village showing off American made T-shirts and shoes.”

The following is the intel document, which is hardly a smoking gun but is not entirely insignificant:

Intel document: 104-10021-1004

No mention of the FPCC, sitting in a cockpit, and very weak sources and sub sources! It does not even come close to the CIA documents on Policarpo Lopez in terms of explosiveness. The two elements that I feel are suspicious, however, are the mention of an agent being present in Chicago on November 1 during the Vallee incident and the entering of Mexico through Laredo as had Lopez and Oswald, which would have been known by very few at the time the report was written, and could suggest that the supposed sources were being given inside information. One could also ask why this document just floated around all these years without closure. Was it kept in the plotters’ back pockets for future consideration and then kept hidden because it became more embarrassing than anything else? So, mark this section of his book down as a mixed bag.

Let’s get back to some of its strengths.

The whole picture of Oswald being part of a network of informants is becoming crystal clear, when you consider his FPCC behavior and the company he kept with the Paines, Guy Banister, Clay Shaw, David Ferrie, the FBI, White Russians, and Cuban exiles. Hill nails this point down and adds a few delicious observations I had not been aware of. Consider this beautiful quote: “Dan Hardaway (sic) may have discovered a slip-up [David] Phillips inadvertently made in a footnote of a self-published book entitled Secret War Diary. Phillips wrote, ‘I was an observer of Cuban and Soviet reaction when Lee Harvey Oswald contacted their embassies.’ According to Hardaway (sic), ‘One of the purposes of an intelligence dangle is to observe the reaction, and from the observation, identify roles, procedures, and processes of the enemy.’”

The author goes on to describe interesting links between the De Gaulle assassination plots and persons of interest in the Kennedy assassination. However, some of his writings in this section are based on the research of Steve Rivele, whose work is far from being unanimously accepted.

From Spartacus:

“Rivele's material was used in the 1988 television documentary, The Men Who Killed Kennedy. As well as Lucien Sarti, he also named Sauveur, Pironti, and Roger Bocognani as being involved in the killing. However, Pironti and Bocognani both had alibis and Rivele was forced to withdraw the allegation.”

In his babysitters section, Hill goes over many of the connections that have come out through the years between the people who were close to Oswald (the Paines, de Mohrenschildt, etc.) that completely destroy the Warren Commission’s description of Oswald as a lone nut.

We also get a pretty good snapshot of the Tippit murder and the controversies that surround that investigation.

The author’s exposé culminates with what seems to be a growing consensus among the most serious researchers:  that there was, what Hill calls, a three-headed monster made up of the Cuban exiles, the Mafia overseen by Intelligence that was behind the assassination with a cover-up led by LBJ, enabled by the media, the Warren Commission, and Hoover.

Many of the villains he points the finger at are becoming usual suspects. The author, however, ventures even further in an area that does not get enough attention:  The role of the 488th Military Detachment. His focus on Pappy Bush buddy, Jack Crichton, is potentially important. His role in the motorcade logistics, security lapses, and the cornering of Marina with his own hand-selected translator should be of interest.

So overall, I would say that this is a solid read with lots of substance and interesting information about Webster and the case overall.

But it is not without pitfalls.

The overall case: The Bad

One of the theories the author puts forth is that both Webster and Oswald were subjects of MKULTRA mind control programs. In the case of Oswald, he points to his ability to face interrogations after capture, his aversion to doctors and dentists, that he was secretive towards Marina, that he had been in Atsugi (one of two CIA bases involved in MKULTRA), that his loner, rebel personality with a dark side made him a great candidate for mind control (sounds a bit Warren Commission apologetic), he was at the right place, at the right time, and had all the qualifications! One witness noticed a change in personalities in Oswald after his stay in Atsugi. Marina stated that he had two personalities. Oswald once made an inquiry about LSD.

This is all interesting but highly speculative… Where is the beef?

This already highly tenuous path opens the door to the author’s next even more tenuous deduction: “If Oswald was part of a behavioral-changing project aimed at creating false defectors, who, in fact, believed themselves to be genuine, and Oswald and Webster’s stories are nearly identical in every other facet including like personalities which fit the desired mold perfectly, was Webster also part of MKULTRA?”

I have many problems with this line of logic:

  1. It is far from demonstrated that Oswald was part of MKULTRA.
  2. There is at least one major difference between Oswald and Webster that the author himself pointed out earlier: Webster was a genuine defector and Oswald was not! So why even talk about creating a false defector with Webster? But this particular part of his book gets worse!

While the links the author makes between Webster’s employer and Rand’s Christopher Bird with mind control experimentation and a reference to Webster’s psychiatric help are interesting, he posits that perhaps Oswald and Webster were being programmed during their hospital stays… in Moscow. For me this is where this whole theory is guilty of overreach. It was so difficult to get a spy into Russia in the first place, how in the heck are you going to pull off an LSD/hypnosis treatment of your subjects there, one of whom is a genuine defector… over a two-year period!

Let me play the devil’s advocate on another opinion that is dear to Gary Hill:  That Webster would have been the patsy had there been a motorcade in Cleveland. While I agree that Webster’s eccentric personality and odyssey could put him on a long list of candidates, he may have had some disqualifying characteristics:

  1. Many, if not all, of the other potential patsies including Oswald were either willing informants, intel pawns, or mafia-linked, who were therefore easy to give marching orders to. This is not the case for Webster.
  2. We do not know that his personal or professional relations could have synergistically nudged him in the right direction the way Oswald’s babysitters and others did.
  3. The two weeks of senate hearings he attended may have shone too much light on him thus staining him for any strategic manipulation. So, while plausible, Webster’s potential for being an ideal patsy is far from a slam dunk.

Like other authors, Hill expresses the opinion that the assassination strategy was so brilliant that it even placed the CIA in a bind and that it was made purposefully confusing with an overabundance of evidence, so as to have investigators running in circles:  A wilderness of mirrors. I had a nice discussion with Larry Hancock about this. My take is that there is so much evidence because of two quasi-catastrophic glitches that occurred:

  1. The plotters fully expected that the assassination would be blamed on Castro and lead to an invasion of Cuba. They were completely blindsided when they suddenly had to go the lone nut route:  Had Plan A gone ahead, there would have been no problem with front shots, Oswald associates, the Zapruder film, witnesses, etc. Instead, they had to bring in Mockingbird, intimidate and remove witnesses, hide the Mexico City charade, put the Warren Commission in place, concoct a slap-happy autopsy, push the single-bullet theory, contain the Cuban and Mafia partners, destroy subsequent investigations, hide files, and everything else that goes with putting the genie back in the bottle!
  2. The second problem was that Oswald survived 48 hours! He began talking and had to be silenced by a Mafioso. This, of course, opened up a whole other flank… and forced an equally ridiculous cover story. This is why there is so much evidence. This is why the case has been largely solved. This is why there is so much mistrust of the media, politicians, and other cornerstones of the U.S. There was nothing brilliant about it!

Another problem that should be underscored is that a volume this ambitious is also very risky and should get many layers of vetting and editing. While I am convinced that Gary Hill is quite knowledgeable and performed a lot of research, I believe that he could have added a few extra waves of fact checking and quality control. Some of the things he has written will undoubtably present openings for critics to pounce on, while unfairly omitting to point out the quality of much of the book’s contents.

According to the index, there are approximately 750 names of places, people, projects, organizations, etc. in the book. This is certain to cause confusion among readers and create a monster for even the writer when it comes to fact checking.

I cannot tell you how many times people like Jim DiEugenio, Albert Rossi, Chris Lamay (who sadly departed us last year), Larry Hancock, Steve Jaffe, Vince Palamara, Dick Russell, and others pointed me in the right direction, had me remove unsound evidence and corrected my grammar. Despite all this, I find myself cringing sometimes when I read some of my earlier writings whenever I see a spelling error or a false fact.

In this book, there are a number of grammar errors:  Poor Dan Hardway sees his name spelled Hardaway no fewer than seven times (this is the second book review I write where this has happened). Dealey Plaza is spelled correctly some twelve times and Dealy three times; Bathesda should be spelled Bethesda, Marsaille should be spelled Marseille… add a number of typos to these errors and good work like this will take a credibility hit. My suggestion is to proofread the document yourself only when alert, use Antidote software, and get two wordsmiths known for their pickiness to go over your work.

My editor would have recommended against bringing up Tosh Plumlee, Steve Rivele, Barr McClellan, Judith Vary Baker, and referring to the whole Joseph Kennedy Mafia-double-cross saga, because of the doubts they evoke in the minds of many. I am certain that his friends Walt Brown and Carol Hewitt would have urged caution.

Though I found most of the sources the author refers to reassuring and clear, at times I felt that he too often went with other authors’ writings rather than examining the original source documents, the Saez files being a good example. At times the author refers to documents with no way for the reader to find them: “Documents unearthed in the 1970s show the FBI had suspected Osborne as a major suspect in its massive JFK assassination investigation”; “According to testimony given by a witness in an assassination attempt on a district judge to assistant attorney Bill Alcorn, on November 22, 1963, Osborne and ten riflemen were living at 3126 Harlandale Street”; “New forensic evidence suggests that two individuals known as Lee Harvey Oswald enlisted in the Marines in 1956.”

Generally speaking, I think Gary Hill would have been better served by focusing more on Webster and false defectors and by staying clear of some of the more debatable stories that have popped up over the years. This, however, is a personal opinion and I do understand the temptation to broaden the scope, as many authors end up doing.

Final thoughts

The JFK assassination was arguably the most important one in the last century. We are still feeling the aftershocks, quite intensely actually. The pillars of U.S. democracy cracked at the seams in 1963. An elected and popular president was taken out, for the benefit of so few. A masquerade of law and order was put in place by the benefactors. The fourth estate shamed itself by choosing the side of the winners. Historians brainwashed decades of young students by parroting the Warren Commission fairytale. In power behind the scenes and emboldened, the perpetrators were pulling the strings on a number of political assassinations that followed, unholy drug and arms deals, political dirty tricks, coups and wars, Wall Street money games, and other major scandals that came in waves and went unpunished. You know something is wrong when the people responsible for millions of deaths in Vietnam alone, trillions of dollars in damages and inequalities in the world’s most powerful country are living the life of Riley, while at the same time four white cops took George Floyd’s life because of a fake 20 dollar bill.

While most people believe there was a conspiracy in the murder of JFK, those who have a pretty good idea of what actually happened probably number under 1000 worldwide. Gary Hill is one of them. While some of the details in his book are debatable, he understands the large picture.

The U.S. and much of the world is disease-ridden right now with punch-drunk leadership that seems clueless. The pandemic is not just one of COVID-19. It is one of intolerance, inequality, distrust, brutality, weaponized citizens, climate threats, stress, and division.

There is mobilization going on right now, all around the world that is seeing people of all ages and all races demanding change from their leaders. It is reminiscent of how Vietnam was finally forced to an abrupt end by young, concerned citizens on a mission. Ordinary people are demanding much more than the end of chokeholds by police. They are asking for meaningful and just progress. If change is to be long-lasting, they need to get at the root of what has caused these problems in the first place, which begins with understanding the real political systems we live under. Why does everyone want sensible gun laws, climate policies, and health care, but cannot get it? Find out who the real power brokers are and you will understand how your country really does govern itself.

Which brings us back to understanding 1963. Within a few months, two major pieces of work will be released that will shed even more light on the JFK assassination, which will bring us very close to a complete picture of what really took place and its impact on the world we live in. One is Oliver Stone’s new documentary JFK: Destiny Betrayed, the other, based on a preview I have received, is a paper written by Larry Hancock which will appear on the Mary Ferrell site.

Gary Hill solved the case to his content after fifty years of reading, researching, and networking. He did not sit on this. He decided to pass on his knowledge and opinions about the overall case to the rest of us and to document what he found about Robert Webster and he shares these findings. He did not do this for money or glory. His book is not perfect, but it is good and he deserves our gratitude for doing his share in fitting in small pieces of the puzzle.

Last modified on Tuesday, 30 June 2020 17:20
Paul Bleau

Paul Bleau holds an MBA from McGill University; he owned and ran a leading marketing communications agency for 25 years, and supervised Canada’s first "denormalization" campaign of the tobacco industry.  Since 2006, he has been professor at St. Lawrence College. His break-through study of how history textbooks cover the JFK assassination and how their authors defend themselves, along with a series of follow-up pieces, are published on this site. He has also been a guest on BlackOp Radio.

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