Transcript
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The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
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solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
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those of w FOCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We
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be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing
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W FOURCY Radio.
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Well, it's been over six decades, right, and the mystery
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still continues as to who was responsible for killing John F.
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Kennedy. And you know has many.
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As many people out there are opinions, but clearly the
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majority of America believes that this is a conspiracy that
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yet has been resolved. And one of the greatest mysteries
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is why the man accused of assassinating President John F.
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Kennedy was himself gonned down. Think about that, right? Well,
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Robert Tannenbaum, who was an attorney that in seventy six
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was appointed Deputy Chief Council in charge of the Congressional
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Investigation into the assassination of President Kennedy. He is the
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author of the book That Day in Dallas, Leigh Harvey
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Oswald did Not Kill JFK. He's an author of thirty
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three books twenty nine novels for nonfiction books. One of
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the most successful prosecuting attorneys, having never lost a fellow
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new trial and convicting hundreds of violent criminals. He was
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a special prosecution consultant on the Hillside Strangler case in
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Los Angeles and defended Amy Grosberg in her sensationalized baby
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death case. He was the Assistant District Attorney in New
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York County and the office of legendary District Attorney Frank Hogan,
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where he ran the homicide Bureau. Robert Tennenbaum joins us, now,
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welcome to the show. Good to have you with us.
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Sir, Yeah, thank you, thank you. It was good to
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be here.
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Well, this has been one of those questions that has
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haunted the American people for six decades as to who
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shot JFK. And in your book That Day in Dallas,
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you said, there's no question about it, it wasn't Lee
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Harvey Oswell.
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That's right.
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The evidence in the case is overwhelming. As a matter
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of fact, the way I got involved in this whole thing.
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Was in aug was in October of seventy six, and
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Richard A. Sprague, who was mister Pennsylvania as far as
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lawyers were concerned. He was a chief assistant DA in Philadelphia,
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and he was he became in the middle of October
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seventy six he was appointed Chief Counselor of the House
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of that Committee on Assassinations where I was looking into
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the assassinations at President Kennedy and the Reverend doctor Martin
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Luther King, and.
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He called me up. I didn't know who he was.
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I was, as you mentioned that, during a homicide here,
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and I was trying murder case. After I was prosecuting
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murder case after murder case turned out that the only
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person who ever tried more, no one ever tried more
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in New York than I, but Richard Spray tried more
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than I. And that's kind of guy he was. He
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was tremendous and teperity person and a brilliant, brilliant, wonderful individual.
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So he called me up in the middle of October
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seventy sixth and asked me if I wanted to be
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part of this investigation that he wanted me to work
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with him on the assassination of President Kennedy, and it
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was a subcommittee. So we met, we chatted, and I
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believed in him that he was a truth seeker, and
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indeed I was right, and we stayed together for many,
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many years. We had a forty six year friendship as
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a result of meeting through this case and what happened
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when we went to Washington. As you know, so that
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committee has a life of two years. That is to say,
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it gets funded. All the standing committees funded each every
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couple of years. They don't go through a press, but
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a select committee has a two year life. So this
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select committee was starting in seventy seven in January, and
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it would have expired or did expire in seventy eight
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December thirty one.
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Now, a lot of things.
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Happened during this period of time because ultimately Sprague and
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I obtained a commitment from the members of the committee
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that they would not interfere with the investigation, they wouldn't
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politicize this thing.
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If they did, we would leave because it's their committee.
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It was a congressional committee, wasn't a Tanaban committee or
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a Spray committee. And they agreed they were not pulled
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around with this, and we said, we have no brief
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in this case. That is to say, we're not coming
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down here to say Oswell did it or Oswell did
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it to it? We don't know and exactly, but whatever
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the evidence would be, we're going to tell the American public,
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if that's what you.
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Want, Robert, I want to make sure our audience understands
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the kind of attorney that you and Sprague represent, which
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is the majority of attorneys. You didn't come in with
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a fixed agenda. You didn't come in, you know, off
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the heels of you know, the Warrant Commission or what
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anybody else said. You just said, look at we're attorneys.
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We follow the evidence, and we follow the evidence to
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it to its truthful conclusion. Is that fair to say?
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That's exactly right to say. And that's what we started
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out doing. And as a matter of fact, what happened
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was but the evidence in this case is so overwhelming
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that when I spoke to lous Stokes every day and
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he was the chairman of our committee Lustos, he was
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a kind of he was a member of the or
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the the House for represented Cleveland, Ohio. And as a
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matter of fact, he took a special seat because his brother,
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Karl STOs was the first black mayor of Cleveland. They
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wanted to have a federal seat so that they can
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get the money and do good things with infrastructure, schools, education,
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all these kinds of things that you know, people want
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when they go to Washington. Whether they do it when
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they get there's a whole other story, whole other story.
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Anyway.
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Our story is is that first week we were in Washington,
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I got a call from Richard Schweiker. He's a Republican
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member of the so called Church Committee, which was investigating
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the assassinations of the executive intelligence agencies, and they wanted
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to know the effect on the executive intelligence agencies and
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who may have committed the murders that were involved with
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President Kennedy and ultimately with Martin Luther King. So the
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bottom line here was that Schweiker told me he wanted
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to sit in the Schweiker again a conservative Republican. He
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wasn't ounced for any kind of self angrandizement. He wasn't
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looking for any meetings with the press, etc. And as
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a matter of fact, he was very subdued because he said,
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I want you to take my notes. The evidence is
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in there from what we found. We know that you're
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not bound by it by any stretchy imagination. And I
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said that's correct. And I said, what else can I
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do for you? He said, I want you to know
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two things, both of which I know your background. You
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were head of the criminal courts and the homicide hereau
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in the New York County DA's office. And when you
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were ahead of the criminal courts, you had two hundred
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and fifty new cases every day because we arranged seven
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days a week at night as well as during the day.
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So there were one hundred and fifty new cases during
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the day and one hundred at night. And he said,
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I need someone who can evaluate caseload, who can evaluate evidence.
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You're the person for me. So that was what the
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whole thing with Sprague was. And so anyway, Schwiker gives
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me his notes and he said, what I have to
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tell you is that the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA,
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totally obstructed this investigation from inception.
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They lie told you. He told you that upfront.
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Up front, right the first week when I was in Washington,
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when he asked me to come to his office when
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it all happened in his office, and he said, they
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totally obstructed this investigation. They lied, they made things up,
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and it's all there in my notes. But what really
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rankles me, and I must say it's gut rentry for
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me to tell you, is someone who spent ten years
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in the DA's office in Manhattan doing what you were doing.
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We know about all the cases that you prosecuted. They
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were all cases, jury cases. Confernic by the way, not
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that you put a juror in the box and someone
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then polase guilty.
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Oh I haven't I just had a jury trial. Yeah, no,
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that's a dream.
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But anyway, what I'm saying is that he then said
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to me what his gut wrenchry for me to tell
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you is from the evidence as we found it, CIA
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was involved and participated in the assassination.
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Of President John F. Kennedy. Well, I must tell you
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he was right. I was shocked.
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And when he told me that, I felt that there
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were like ten gallons of ice water poured on my head.
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Because because you're kind of going into this in with
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a neutral mindset, saying okay, let me find the evidence,
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and so the guy who brings you in says, well,
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let me tell you. Let me tell you upfront all
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my research. I mean at this point, where what fourteen
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almost fifteen years since the assassination, right.
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Yeah, exactly, This was seventy seven six. I was appointed
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in October, right, and then is seventy seven It was
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the first week I was in Washington on this case
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along with Sprague. And that's when Senator Richard Schwiker called
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me to tell me what his findings were, because he
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was head of the subcommittee the Congression, the Senatorial Subcommittee
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on the assassination that occurred in the Executive Intelligence ass
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is how they responded to it. That was what his
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mission was. So he investigated the Kennedy assassination. And these
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were the things he told me the very first week
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we were in Washington.
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So what other things did he revealed to you, Robert,
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besides that the CIA was involved in the assassination of JFK.
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Did he refute the sole gunman, Lee Harvey Oswell, that.
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Is probably the evidence that was offered by the select
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committee was so embarrassing. And he said that to me
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during the course of the conversation. He said, you're not
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going to believe what people did who were on these committees.
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They definitely, in his opinion, the government contrived knowingly This
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was not some naive situation. He claimed from the evidence,
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all of which was in his notes, that the government
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knowingly contrived the predetermined conclusion through the pretense of an investigation.
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It was a pretense probe, if you will, and both
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the Warrant Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations,
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according to his opinion, were disregarded all the convincing and
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testimony of evidence that and trustworthy evidence that was there,
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and it's still there as far as he was concerned,
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You'll be very surprised.
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How would so accessible? I said, why? Why has nobody
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else come up with this?
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Exactly? That's that I want to.
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Tell you why.
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And you're going to hear this from other people who
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I'm sure Low Stokes, who was chairman of the committee,
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will tell you and verify this. People were afraid of
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retaliation from the CIA if they investigated this case properly.
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I said, that is something that I find absolutely also incredible. Moreover,
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what was incredible was the committee decided, after they came
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down with the single bullet theory with neutron activation analysis,
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the ellegts science in this case, they claimed, and you know,
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the lest science metallurgical PhDs like PhDs rather by metallurgical
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PhDs when they heard about this neutron activation analysis, which
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was the principal testing component for comparative bullet letter analysis.
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What does all that mean?
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I mean is that they claimed he's so called experts
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from neutron activation analysis. They claimed that a fragment could
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match a fragment and a fragment could match a bullet.
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Why is this important in the case, because the in
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the justification for what they decided the CIA decided to
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go through, it was that neutron activation analysis NAA was
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science and if anybody disbelieved the science of NAA, and
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this is what they said, this is not something to
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be made up, that then you believe in the world
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is flat.
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Oh yeah, exactly yeah, same argument they told us about COVID, right, yeah.
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Exactly, yeah, there's no question.
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And so what happened was no one bothered from the
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government at that time to speak to metallurgical PhDs.
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But once they found out about what was.
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Being alleged from NAA, they came in and they said
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NAA is invalid and here are the reasons why you
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can't get involved in this soup. Development of these issues
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as it relates to for example, a pistol. We know
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from every pistol that's made as an infirmity, and so
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now bullet spins through it. You have the loops in
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the world, and you can show that they came from
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the same gun. That's not what this is. That's not
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what neutron activation analysis is. That is since and the