"Chasing Shadows" by Ken Hughes (2014)

The cover of this book is intriguing at first glance. It is a photo of President Lyndon Johnson in a White House elevator with President-Elect Richard Nixon on November 11, 1968, just days after Nixon won the Presidential election by the 2nd closest margin in the 20^th century; the first being John Kennedy’s victory over Nixon in the 1960 election. There is almost an irony to that alone.

The author mainly concerns himself with tying the Watergate Affair to the 1968 Presidential election, when Nixon basically sabotaged the Paris Peace Talks; talks which would have possibly cost him the election against Vice President Humphrey. Through back channel maneuvers with Anna Chennault; widow of the man who commanded the Flying Tigers during World War Two; Nixon was able to accomplish just that, narrowly winning the election in the bargain. That was in 1968; in 1972 he would win by a landslide.

The real surprise here is the role Lyndon Johnson played in defeating his own Vice President, whose aims and goals regarding Vietnam did not match the party position in reference to the bombing halt. Johnson wanted it pegged to the restoration of the DMZ; with which the Republicans agreed; while Humphrey and McCarthy wanted to stop the bombing without conditions in order to show “good faith” to the North Vietnamese.

Relying on thousands of hours of tape recordings at the Johnson Library and the Nixon Archives, the author paints an accurate picture of the political ambitions which got us into the war in the first place, and then kept us there far longer than was necessary. There were no “clean hands” in the bunch. The Republicans and Democrats were both focused on politics rather than what was right. These tapes prove the point.

While Johnson was advising Nixon; and Nixon was working with Chennault to delay the Peace Talks; an atmosphere of secrecy and subterfuge became the standard operating procedure in Washington. That attitude led directly to Nixon forming the celebrated “Plumbers Unit” in the White House; ostensibly to stop “leaks.” Left to their own devices they went on to embroil Nixon in the Watergate scandal; something he knew nothing about until after it happened. This was Nixon’s Bay of Pigs. He was blindsided by the same group of people in the same way in which Kennedy’s administration was blindsided by the last minute revelation of the full extent of the Bay of Pigs Invasion.

This is a very important book in that it finally ties the Watergate scandal to the things which preceded it. There are many who believe that Nixon was set up by the CIA and Howard Hunt; who were working with some Cuban exiles that were connected to the Bay of Pigs fiasco. The real question is why?

Nixon was asking for the CIA files on the Bay of Pigs and even stuff related to Dallas from the moment he took office. Why? He was surrounded by people who all had ties to George Bush; either as an oil tycoon, or later as a politician and head of the CIA. Why? This book doesn't answer these questions, but they are inherently connected. The author has touched only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The name Bush doesn't even appear in the index. 

The author even blames the entire ineffectiveness of the B-52 bombing of the Ho Chi Minh trail on Pentagon and Cabinet leaks while completely ignoring the Walker Spy Ring, which cost the U.S. approximately 15-20,000 more battle deaths. It is impossible to discuss the B-52 bombing raids, and their having been compromised, without at least mentioning the Walkers. But that is exactly what the author does.

This book is a very detailed and helpful account of the proposed policy to halt the bombing in Vietnam and how it was used as a campaign issue by both sides in the 1968 election. It even shows how Nixon forged a policy of secrecy and paranoia which would eventually culminate in the Watergate burglary and his eventual departure from the White House.

But the book never really answers the crucial question of how; or even why; Nixon would have allowed this to happen. For a wider scope on the issues raised in this book; particularly the “why” behind the Watergate break in; you can do no better than to read Russ Baker’s 2009 book “Family of Secrets.”

In spite of any shortcomings, this book is still an important one, if only because it goes beyond the basic assumptions of Watergate being the product of an overzealous staff and a paranoid President. Nothing as complicated as Watergate could possibly be that simple.

Jim Garrison's Closing Summation -

Jim Garrison is still the only person to have ever brought to trial the conspirators in the murder of John F. Kennedy in 1963. His reputation has been tarnished for the ages by ridicule and disbelief. If you have ever seen Oliver Stone’s film “JFK” then you have heard the following closing argument made by Mr. Garrison in court on February 28, 1969. Although copies were handed out to the press at the end of the proceedings, the summation has never really garnered much attention in the mind of the public. Much of this is due to the reaction against the film by Mr. Stone. Yet, when you actually read the text of Mr. Garrison’s closing remarks, one cannot help being affected by the veracity of his words. It is an important and eloquent speech which contains much truth. Here is that argument, just as it was delivered in court in 1969.

May it please the court. Gentlemen of the jury. I know you're very tired. You've been very patient. This final day has been a long one, so I'll speak only a few minutes. In his argument, Mr. Dymond posed one final issue which raises the question of what we do when the need for justice is confronted by power. So, let me talk to you about the question of whether or not there was government fraud in this case--a question Mr. Dymond seems to want us to answer. A government is a great deal like a human being. It's not necessarily all good, and it's not necessarily all bad. We live in a good country. I love it and you do too. Nevertheless, the fact remains that we have a government which is not perfect.

There have been indications since November the 22nd of 1963--and that was not the last indication--that there is excessive power in some parts of our government. It is plain that the people have not received all of the truth about some of the things which have happened, about some of the assassinations which have occurred--and more particularly about the assassination of John Kennedy.

Going back to when we were children, I think most of us--probably all of us here in the courtroom--once thought that justice came into being of its own accord, that virtue was its own reward, that good would triumph over evil--in short, that justice occurred automatically. Later, when we found that this wasn't quite so, most of us still felt hopefully that at least justice occurred frequently of its own accord.

Today, I think that almost all of us would have to agree that there is really no machinery--not on this Earth at least--which causes justice to occur automatically. Men have to make it occur. Individual human beings have to make it occur. Otherwise, it doesn't come into existence. This is not always easy. As a matter of fact, it's always hard, because justice presents a threat to power. In order to make justice come into being, you often have to fight power.

Mr. Dymond raised the question: Why don't we say it's all a fraud and charge the government with fraud, if this is the case? Let me be explicit, then, and make myself very clear on this point.

The government's handling of the investigation of John Kennedy's murder was a fraud. It was the greatest fraud in the history of our country. It probably was the greatest fraud ever perpetrated in the history of humankind. That doesn't mean that we have to accept the continued existence of the kind of government which allows this to happen. We can do something about it. We're forced either to leave this country or to accept the authoritarianism that has developed--the authoritarianism which tells us that in the year 2029 we can see the evidence about what happened to John Kennedy.

Government does not consist only of secret police and domestic espionage operations and generals and admirals--government consists of people. It also consists of juries. And cases of murder--whether of the poorest individual or the most distinguished citizen in the land--should be looked at openly in a court of law, where juries can pass on them and not be hidden, not be buried like the body of the victim beneath concrete for countless years.

You men in these recent weeks have heard witnesses that no one else in the world has heard. You've seen the Zapruder film. You've seen what happened to your President. I suggest to you that you know right now that, in that area at least, a fraud has been perpetrated.

That does not mean that our government is entirely bad; and I want to emphasize that. It does mean, however, that in recent years, through the development of excessive power because of the Cold War, forces have developed in our government over which there is no control and these forces have an authoritarian approach to justice--meaning, they will let you know what justice is.

Well, my reply to them is that we already know what justice is. It is the decision of the people passing on the evidence. It is the jury system. In this issue which is posed by the government's conduct in concealing the evidence in this case--in the issue of humanity as opposed to power--I have chosen humanity, and I will do it again without any hesitation. I hope every one of you will do the same. I do this because I love my country and because I want to communicate to the government that we will not accept unexplained assassinations with the casual information that if we live seventy-five years longer, we might be given more evidence.

In this particular case, massive power was brought to bear to prevent justice from ever coming into this courtroom. The power to make authoritive pronouncements, the power to manipulate the news media by the release of false information, the power to interfere with an honest inquiry and the power to provide an endless variety of experts to testify in behalf of power, repeatedly was demonstrated in this case.

The American people have yet to see the Zapruder film. Why? The American people have yet to see and hear from the real witnesses to the assassination. Why? Because, today in America too much emphasis is given to secrecy, with regard to the assassination of our President, and not enough emphasis is given to the question of justice and to the question of humanity.

These dignified deceptions will not suffice. We have had enough of power without truth. We don't have to accept power without truth or else leave the country. I don't accept either of these two alternatives. I don't intend to leave the country and I don't intend to accept power without truth.

I intend to fight for the truth. I suggest that not only is this not un-American, but it is the most American thing we can do--because if the truth does not endure, then our country will not endure.

In our country the worst of all crimes occurs when the government murders truth. If it can murder truth, it can murder freedom. If it can murder freedom, it can murder your own sons--if they should dare to fight for freedom-- and then it can announce that they were killed in an industrial accident, or shot by the "enemy" or God knows what.

In this case, finally, it has been possible to bring the truth about the assassination into a court of law--not before a commission composed of important and powerful and politically astute men, but before a jury of citizens.

Now, I suggest to you that yours is a hard duty, because in a sense what you're passing on is equivalent to a murder case. The difficult thing about passing on a murder case is that the victim is out of your sight and buried a long distance away, and all you can see is the defendant. It's very difficult to identify with someone you can't see, and sometimes it's hard not to identify to some extent with the defendant and his problems.

In that regard, every prosecutor who is at all humane is conscious of feeling sorry for the defendant in every case he prosecutes. But he is not free to forget the victim who lies buried out of sight. I suggest to you that, if you do your duty, you also are not free to forget the victim who is buried out of sight.

You know, Tennyson once said that, "authority forgets a dying king." This was never more true than in the murder of John Kennedy. The strange and deceptive conduct of the government after his murder began while his body was warm, and has continued for five years. You have seen in this courtroom indications of the interest of part of the government power structure in keeping the truth down, in keeping the grave closed.

We presented a number of eyewitnesses as well as an expert witness as well as the Zapruder film, to show that the fatal wound of the President came from the front. A plane landed from Washington and out stepped Dr. Finck for the defense, to counter the clear and apparent evidence of a shot from the front. I don't have to go into Dr. Finck's testimony in detail for you to show that it simply did not correspond with the facts. He admitted that he did not complete the autopsy because a general told him not to complete the autopsy.

In this conflict between power and justice--to put it that way--just where do you think Dr. Finck stands? A general, who was not a pathologist, told him not to complete the autopsy, so he didn't complete it. This is not the way I want my country to be. When our President is killed he deserves the kind of autopsy that the ordinary citizen gets every day in the State of Louisiana. And the people deserve the facts about it. We can't have government power suddenly interjecting itself and preventing the truth form coming to the people.

Yet in this case, before the sun rose the next morning, power had moved into the situation and the truth was being concealed. And now, five years later in this courtroom the power of the government in concealing the truth is continuing in the same way.

We presented eyewitnesses who told you of the shots coming from the grassy knoll. A plane landed from Washington, and out came ballistics expert Frazier for the defense. Mr. Frazier's explanation of the sound of the shots coming from the front, which was heard by eyewitness after eyewitness, was that Lee Oswald created a sonic boom in his firing. Not only did Oswald break all of the world's records for marksmanship, but he broke the sound barrier as well.

I suggest to you, that if any of you have shot on a firing range--and most of you probably have in the service--you were shooting rifles in which the bullet traveled faster than the speed of sound. I ask you to recall if you ever heard a sonic boom. If you remember when you were on the firing line, and they would say, "Ready on the left; ready on the right; ready on the firing line; commence firing," you heard the shots coming from the firing line--to the left of you and to the right of you. If you had heard, as a result of Frazier's fictional sonic boom, firing coming at you from the pits, you would have had a reaction which you would still remember.

Mr. Frazier's sonic boom simply doesn't exist. It's part of the fraud-- a part of the continuing government fraud.

The best way to make this country the kind of country it's supposed to be is to communicate to the government that no matter how powerful it may be, we do not accept these frauds. We do not accept these false announcements. We do not accept the concealment of evidence with regard to the murder of President Kennedy. Who is the most believable: a Richard Randolph Carr, seated here in a wheelchair and telling you what he saw and what he heard and how he was told to shut his mouth--or Mr. Frazier with his sonic booms? Do we really have to reject Mr. Newman and Mrs. Newman and Mr. Carr and Roger Craig and the testimony of all those honest witnesses--reject all this and accept the fraudulent Warren Commission, or else leave the country?

I suggest to you that there are other alternatives. One of them has been put in practice in the last month in the State of Louisiana--and that is to bring out the truth in a proceeding where attorneys can cross-examine, where the defendant can be confronted by testimony against him, where the rules of evidence are applied and where a jury of citizens can pass on it--and where there is no government secrecy. Above all, where you do not have evidence concealed for seventy-five years in the name of "national security."

All we have in this case are the facts--facts which show that the defendant participated in the conspiracy to kill the President and that the President was subsequently killed in an ambush.

The reply of the defense has been the same as the early reply of the government in the Warren Commission. It has been authority, authority, authority. The President's seal outside of each volume of the Warren Commission Report--made necessary because there is nothing inside these volumes, only men of high position and prestige sitting on a Board, and announcing the results to you, but not telling you what the evidence is, because the evidence has to be hidden for seventy-five years.

You heard in this courtroom in recent weeks, eyewitness after eyewitness after eyewitness and, above all, you saw one eyewitness which was indifferent to power--the Zapruder film. The lens of the camera is totally indifferent to power and it tells what happened as it saw it happen--and that is one of the reasons 200 million Americans have not seen the Zapruder film. They should have seen it many times. They should know exactly what happened. They all should know what you know now. Why hasn't all of this come into being if there hasn't been government fraud? Of course there has been fraud by the government.

But I'm telling you now that I think we can do something about it. I think that there are still enough Americans left in this country to make it continue to be America. I think that we can still fight authoritarianism--the government's insistence on secrecy, government force used in counterattacks against an honest inquiry--and when we do that, we're not being un-American, we're being American. It isn't easy. You're sticking your neck out in a rather permanent way, but it has to be done because truth does not come into being automatically. Individual men, like the members of my staff here, have to work and fight to make it happen--and individual men like you have to make justice come into being because otherwise is doesn't happen.

What I'm trying to tell you is that there are forces in America today, unfortunately, which are not in favor of the truth coming out about John Kennedy's assassination. As long as our government continues to be like this, as long as such forces can get away with such actions, then this is no longer the country in which we were born.

The murder of John Kennedy was probably the most terrible moment in the history of our country. Yet, circumstances have placed you in the position where not only have you seen the hidden evidence but you are actually going to have the opportunity to bring justice into the picture for the first time.

Now, you are here sitting in judgment on Clay Shaw. Yet you, as men, represent more than jurors in an ordinary case because of the victim in this case. You represent, in a sense, the hope of humanity against government power. You represent humanity, which yet may triumph over excessive government power-- if you will cause it to be so, in the course of doing your duty in this case.

I suggest that you ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.

What can you do for your country? You can cause justice to happen for the first time in this matter. You can help make our country better by showing that this is still a government of the people. And if you do that, as long as you live, nothing will ever be more important.

"LBJ" by Phillip F. Nelson

This is the latest in the myriad of books about the assassination of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, in Dallas, Texas, on November 22nd, 1963. I am an avid fan of the genre, both pro, and anti-conspiracy. It is, for me, the parlor game to end all parlor games. Who killed JFK, and more importantly, why?

Mr. Nelson has made a splendid effort, according to the author's bio on the cover he retired early to pursue writing this book. His premise is that the assassination was the sole brainchild of Lyndon Johnson, and further that the whole episode was caused by Johnson's lifelong desire to be President. He has even included the oft told story of LBJ declaring, at age eleven, that he would someday be President. Truth be told, many an American boy, and now girls, have harbored that same dream.

To set the record straight concerning my own feelings about the murder of JFK; I say murder rather than assassination simply because assassination usually involves a political goal, whereas the murder of JFK was more of a business decision by a wide group of influential people and organizations; I believe that Kennedy was killed by a group which included the CIA, Cuban exiles, the Mafia and Military Intelligence Units. Their motivation was a confluence of events, which, when taken collectively into consideration, affected all of these groups in such a way that it was deemed necessary to take action.

Mr. Nelson hits most of the key points, but never really connects the dots. For instance, take the Presidents changed route to the Trade Mart; the question is not so much who changed the route, as much as it is why the Trade Mart was to be the venue in the first place, rather than the larger Convention Center? The President should have been speaking at the Convention Center, which was booked in advance by Pepsi Cola for their annual meeting. LBJ was even a keynote speaker at that event. Their main concern was the spiraling price of sugar, caused in large part by Castro's takeover of Cuba. One of the guests, who flew out of Dallas just hours before the assassination/murder, was then ex-Vice President Nixon. He, ironically, was not involved in the plot.

The Convention Center was booked in order to force the President to utilize the Trade Mart instead. In that way he would have to pass the Texas Book Depository, which had only been purchased 6 months before the President’s visit, and leased, to a private firm only 6 weeks before November 22nd. The name Texas School Book Depository is also an attempt to camouflage the real owners. Most people still think that the Book Depository was a state owned facility at the time, and that it had been in operation for years.

The flight of Air Force One from Dallas is called into question by the author. His conclusion of Johnson wanting to fly aboard Air Force One, rather than Air Force Two, as further proof that LBJ was the "mastermind" of the plot to kill the President is not credible at all. Officially, he was there to accompany the body of the slain President in order to show a continuity of government at the height of the Cold War. But, in reality he was the de-facto "getaway driver."

Under Federal law in 1963 it was not a crime to kill the President. The location of the assassination held the jurisdiction for the murder and any subsequent trial. Indeed the President's security detail clashed violently with the Dallas Police Department when they removed the Presidents body from Parkland Hospital. Weapons were drawn, with the Secret Service the obvious winners.

In addition, both sides wanted the body for different purposes; the doctors at Parkland wanted to conduct an autopsy, which would have fulfilled their obligations under Texas law at the time. Dr. Crenshaw, at Parkland, had already established that JFK was shot from the front, rather than the rear. The Secret Service wanted the body back in Washington to conceal the drugs in Kennedy's system, as well as his STD's. It was at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland where the autopsy was altered to indicate one lone gunman firing from the rear.

Once aboard Air Force One with the body of JFK, and having taken the Oath of Office as the new President, who was to stop the plane from taking off with the body? The autopsy was then performed, with dubious results, at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, rather than at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, as required by the applicable laws of the time. The assassination of the President would not become a Federal Crime until 1967.

Although Mr. Nelson is correct in that there was a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy, his work has all the earmarks which make one wonder if this book was deliberately written to discredit "Family Of Secrets" by Russ Baker, which manages to tie together all of the principal culprits from the Bay of Pigs affair through the Watergate Burglarly. All of the same players are neatly tied together in a fully researched and believable fashion. That book answers all of the questions which may be lingering in reference to the death of President Kennedy. Zapata Offshore Oil, anyone?

Family of Secrets by Russ Baker

This book is the final word on the JFK Assassination and it’s connection to the Watergate break-ins in 1972 and the eventual seating of the first unelected President in the history of the United States. From there it moves on to explain how George H.W. “Poppy” Bush, with the aid of Zappata Off Shore Oil (headquartered in Medilin, Columbia (200 miles from shore) went on to become President of the United States, establishing a political dynasty along the way and leading to the election of Geoge W. Bush and the Iraqi war.

Ever wonder what the Pepsi Convention in Dallas had to do with the murder of the President? Ever asked yourself how could anyone possibly engineer a plot so tightly that it would ensure that the President would pass by the Book Depository? Ever wonder who owned the Book Depository Building and how Oswald got the job a mere 6 weeks before Kennedy’s visit? Ever think about what, if any, was Vice President Johnsons’ role in all of this? Why were 3 of the countrys’ subsequent Presidents in Dallas on the day of the assassination and what does their presence there indicate?

What was Abraham Zapruders unwitting role in all of this? And why was his 8mm film taken by Time-Life and locked away from the public until New Orleans Attorney Jim Garrison forced its release with a Freedom of Information Act Lawsuit?

These are not rhetorical questions. They are the details that have bugged me for years. And this book takes it all the way back to Prescott Bush and his early days establishing his family in finance and oil. The trail is murky until you shed some light on it as Mr. Baker has painstakingly done with this book.

For those that believe Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone nut, acting of his own twisted accord, this book will not interest you. But if you, like myself, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, to name a few, have any lingering doubts as to what really happened, then this is the book for you.

Layer upon layer of twists and turns all lead back to the inescapable conclusion that the Oil Lobby along with the CIA plotted, planned for and finally executed the President of the United States. Who pulled the trigger is another story- and a backseat one at best. The real story is who paid for and orchestrated the biggest crime of the 20th Century. A crime that has continued to pay dividends to the oil industry, the munitions manufacturers and one particular family.

Follow the political growth of the Bush family from its nefarious oil dealings as Zappata Off Shore Oil Group through the turbulent late 50’s and the 60’s. Follow the money as it flows and funds covert op after covert op. Follow George H.W. Bush on his climb to the 41st Presidency of the United States.

Who was George DeMohrenschildt and why did he and his wife take Lee and Marina Oswald under their wing during the months leading up to the assassination of the President?

What was the connection between the Bay of Pigs and Dallas and later Watergate? Why did President Nixon demand that the Watergate Burglars be paid off or it would “lead back to the whole Bay of Pigs thing.” And why did Richard Helms react so violently when this was relayed to him by H.R. Haldeman?

This is the penultimate book on the covert operations of the 1950’s CIA in Latin America and Southeast Asia. It ties together all the questions raised and argued by conspiracy theorists and refutes all the assertations put up by the Lone Assassin Theorists, showing along the way what the real goals were and how they were achieved.

Follow George W. in his early years and see how he was groomed to protect the family and secure power, both political and financial.

I cannot recommend this book enough. For me it is the final word on the events of November 22nd, 1963. It is also an explanation of the Watergate Burglary and its ultimate consequences for American politics, right up to the present day.

You will be amazed by this painstakingly researched and annotated book.