from home news tribune: Just as the date Sept. 11 will jar memories between now and the end of the 21st century, the date Nov. 22 still stirs memories for a generation old enough to have watched Ed Sullivan introduce the Beatles, Walter Cronkite give up on Vietnam and Nixon swear he was not a crook.
Our culture changed when it was reported that "shots were fired" in Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. And we know where we were.
Every six years or so, the anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy falls on Thanksgiving. Nov. 22 is also Robert Groden's birthday. Today he will turn 62, and will spend much of today like the rest of his days, joining other conspiracy buffs near the grassy knoll, selling products that explain his version of the assassination.
"I work in Dealey Plaza every day," he explained.
Groden was living in the Fords section of Woodbridge, working as an industrial photographer, when his life was changed. He was working on an assignment with Life Magazine to examine the Zapruder film, the most famous home movie in history, which shows in gruesome detail the shots that killed Kennedy.
I met Groden when he came to the office of the News Tribune in Woodbridge to show the Zapruder film before it appeared on American television and met him again two years ago when my family visited Dealey Plaza. His theory: Oswald had plenty of help.
Groden does not cotton to those of us who believe the less-sexy theory, that Oswald acted alone.
This week the movie "Oswald's Ghost" was shown to a packed house at the Texas Theater in the Oak Hills section of Dallas, the theater where Oswald was arrested the day of the assassination. The movie, to be shown on PBS Jan. 14, explores the growth of the conspiracy industry, of people like Robert Groden.
Groden's review: "'Oswald's Ghost' is a horrible, horrible piece of crap."
When I mentioned the book by Vincent Bugliosi — the former Los Angeles County district attorney and author of books about O.J. Simpson and the Manson family — Groden dismissed Bugliosi with even stronger language. Allowing how the Bugliosi book, "Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy" is 1,612 pages long, Groden called it a "good doorstop."
"(Bugliosi) mentions me about 80 times and 79 references are inaccurate, and that's just me," said Groden.
Groden also dismisses the work of The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, located in the old Texas Book Depository. The museum allows tourists to sit in Oswald's sniper nest while giving no credence to conspiracy buffs, who have become an embarrassment to some in Dallas.
Jacquielynn Floyd, a columnist for the Dallas Morning News, wrote this week, "Too often, on Nov. 22, people have gone to Dealey Plaza in a genuine and respectful spirit of remembrance, and have found an embarrassing, exhibitionistic carnival... the date has become a high holy day for conspiracy cranks, a swap meet for oddballs to peddle their strange obsessions."
Groden acknowledges there are "goofballs who lay down on the X" that marks the spot on the roadway where the fatal shot was fired into the JFK motorcade. What he welcomes are the people with the serious questions, the people who, he said, "don't buy for a minute" the notion that Oswald acted alone.
Recently, he said, a woman from England, with tears in her eyes, hugged him and thanked him for his work.
I asked Groden about the cottage industry developing 9/11 conspiracy theories. Just as it's hard for many to accept that a lone punk killed Kennedy, others don't accept 9/11 as the work of 19 well-organized and motivated punks.
Groden, who said he used to work on the 96th floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center, said he has steered clear of 9/11 conspiracy buffs. Though he does encounter these buffs at Dealey Plaza, where he will spend his birthday today.
"Lawyers for the Central Intelligence Agency faced pointed questions in a federal court hearing Monday morning about the agency's efforts to block disclosure of long-secret records about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy."
Morley filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the CIA for failing to disclose records about a CIA officer named George Joannides. Joannides was responsible for running the DRE, an anti-Castro CIA front group that had extensive interactions with Lee Harvey Oswald in the months leading up to the assassination of President Kennedy.
The CIA has consistently refused to release Joannides' records, even though they are mandated to by the 1992 JFK Assassination Records Act.
What's at stake here matters greatly to all historians. If the government can simply choose which records to release, and which to withhold, they can pervert and deliberately misshape history to serve their purposes.
In this particular case, the CIA appears hellbent on undoing the will of the people. The JFK Act came into being due to an enormous outcry from the public when they learned, at the end of Oliver Stone's film JFK, that many records relating to the assassination were still classified.
Congress passed what became known as "The JFK Act," which mandated the creation of a board to declassify records and, if necessary, seek out new and pertinent records and make them public.
The Board, officially named the Assassination Records and Review Board, put Joannides on the JFK assassination story map when it declassified five personnel reports of his in 1998. In addition, researchers learned that it was Joannides who had helped shut down an early investigation of the CIA's possible involvement in the assassination...
If the CIA was involved in the Kennedy assassination, wouldn't that change entirely our understanding of events from that time forth, and wouldn't that call into question much of the reporting on the case, and the credibility of the media from that time forward?...
Even anti-conspiracy authors Gerald Posner and Vincent Bugliosi have sided with the law, calling for the documents to be released.
If our government can simply choose which laws to support and which to break, is it really our government anymore?
related: 'oswald's ghost'
from american experience: The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963 left a psychic wound on America that is with us still today. Few Americans then or now accept that a lone, inconsequential gunman could bring down a president and alter history.
In that breach, a culture of conspiracy has arisen that points to sinister forces at work in the shadows. Drawing upon rarely seen archival footage and interviews with key participants, Oswald's Ghost takes a fresh look at Kennedy's assassination, the public's reaction to the tragedy, and the government investigations that instead of calming fears lead to a widespread loss of trust in the institutions that govern our society.
In fresh tests of the Mannlicher-Carcano bolt-action weapon, supervised by the Italian army, it was found to be impossible for even an accomplished marksman to fire the shots quickly enough.
The findings will fuel continuing theories that Oswald was part of a larger conspiracy to murder the 35th American president on 22 November 1963.
The official Warren Commission inquiry into the shooting concluded the following year that Oswald was a lone gunman who fired three shots with a Carcano M91/38 bolt-action rifle in 8.3 seconds.
But when the Italian team test-fired the identical model of gun, they were unable to load and fire three shots in less than 19 seconds - suggesting that a second gunman must have been present in Dealey Plaza, central Dallas, that day.
Two of the bullets hit Kennedy, with the first - the so called "magic bullet", ridiculed by conspiracy theorists - also wounding the governor of Texas, John B Connally, after it had struck the president...
Nearly seven out of 10 Americans believe that Kennedy was murdered as a result of a plot. Depending on which theory they back, the participants supposedly included any or all of the CIA, the Mafia, the Cubans, the FBI chief J Edgar Hoover, the military-industrial complex and Vice-President Lyndon B Johnson.
It is the second challenge in two months to the view of the Warren Commission that Oswald acted alone. In May, researchers at Texas A&M University argued that the ballistics evidence used to rule out a second gunman had been misinterpreted.
from afp: Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks is reportedly to produce a television mini-series debunking the conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of president John F. Kennedy.
"I think that we will finally be able to make a substantial dent in the 75 percent of people in this country who still believe the conspiracy theorists," author Vincent Bugliosi told the industry insider, Variety.
His 1,630-page tome backs the official version of events that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he shot and killed Kennedy on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas.
"I totally believed there was a conspiracy, but after you read the book, you are almost embarrassed that you ever believed it," Goetzman told Variety.
"To think that guys who grew up in the '60s would make a mini-series supporting the idea that Oswald acted alone is something I certainly wouldn't have predicted. But time and evidence can change the way we view things."
Playtone is in negotiations with the TV channel HBO to diffuse the 10-part series.
Oliver Stone's movie "JFK" which came out in 1991, starring Kevin Costner, was heavily criticized for supporting the theory that there was a plot to kill Kennedy.
fair use notice: this site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. we are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, & social justice issues, etc. we believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US copyright law. In accordance with title 17 usc section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
.jpg "out w/the old & in w/ the old, the left/right charade goes on - on obama's election anniversary, repugs claim victory")
gop victories in 1st election test for obama* 
