Assassinations

Dec 14, 2009

 

Bryan de la Beckwith

It would take 31-years to bring white supremacist Bryan de la Beckwith to justice for the assassination of Medgar Evers.

by Randy Radic

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Feb 1, 2009 (rev. March 27, 2009)

Lee Harvey Oswald (center) Jack Ruby (right)

There's no hard evidence that he did, but numerous people say they saw Oswald at Ruby's club, The Carousel, weeks before the JFK assassination.

by Don Fulsom

Jack Ruby (born Jacob Rubenstein) was a vulgar, violent, lowlife. But a proud one. He had risen from the Mob-dominated slums of Chicago—where, growing up, he'd run errands for Al Capone. Now, in 1963, Ruby ran his own striptease club in Dallas—seedy to some, but to Jack "a f----ing classy joint."

The Carousel was a run-down walkup on Commerce Street where Jack (or "Sparky," as the easily ignitable owner was known) oversaw a master of ceremonies, four strippers and a five-piece bump-and-grind band. On Commerce, flashing neon signs and scores of eight-by-ten glossy stock photos of near-nude gals beckoned horny guys to ascend the stairs and enjoy "Dallas's only nonstop burlesque."

Soon after Ruby murdered JFK assassination suspect Lee Harvey Oswald, Carousel emcee Bill Demar (Bill Crowe in real life) publicly identified Oswald as a recent patron. The magician-ventriloquist said he distinctly recalled Oswald because, as an audience member, Oswald had actually taken part in Demar's "memory act."

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July 24, 2005

Mariliyn Monroe in

Marilyn Monroe

Since Marilyn Monroe died in 1962, an unabated stream of books, articles and documentaries have attempted to link her death to then U.S. Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy -- despite the complete lack of any credible evidence.

by Mel Ayton

The purported affair between Marilyn Monroe and Robert Kennedy as well as claims he may have had the actress murdered have once again been resurrected with the publication of Matthew Smith's book Victim (2004) and the 2005 broadcast of the BBC's television series "Secret Map Of Hollywood." Their stories follow on from Donald Wolfe's startling allegations in his 1998 book The Assassination of Marilyn Monroe.

The myth about the RFK/Monroe affair has entered popular culture and has never been seriously questioned. It is accepted my many writers and authors and has been repeated in television documentaries ever since the publication of Anthony Summers' book Goddess in 1986. The possibility that the Kennedys and/or the CIA/Mafia/FBI murdered the actress has also become part of the myth.

Consequently, the American and British publics have become convinced that President Kennedy's brother Robert had a brief affair with the movie actress in the months leading up to her death and may have had a hand in her death.

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October 16, 2006


President Kennedy and Jackie arriving at Love Field,
Dallas, Texas, November 22, 1963. Photo courtesy NARA.

New Orleans godfather Carlos Marcello – with Jimmy Hoffa as his bagman – funded Richard Nixon's 1960 presidential bid with $500,000 in cash stuffed in a suitcase. Later Marcello – known as the Big Daddy of the Big Easy – would be named a key conspirator in President Kennedy's assassination.

by Don Fulsom

At the start of the 1920s, marijuana use in America was concentrated in New Orleans – and its intoxicating vapors were mainly inhaled by migrant workers from Mexico, by blacks, and by a growing number of "low-class" whites. Sailors and immigrants from the Caribbean brought this "new" (Its known uses go back to 7,000 B.C.) drug into major southern U.S. ports – above all into the Crescent City.

Along with jazz, pot traveled north to Chicago, and then east to Harlem – where it soon became an indispensable part of the music scene, even entering the language of the black hits of the day (Louis Armstrong's "Muggles," Cab Calloway's "That Funny Reefer Man" and Fats Waller's "Viper's Drag").

A squat but muscular fireplug of a man, rising New Orleans mobster Carlos Marcello was perfectly placed to make boatloads of money from illegal marijuana shipped into his territory. In 1938, though, Marcello sold 23 pounds of pot to an undercover agent. Convicted and sentenced to one year in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, Marcello was also fined more than $75,000. Using his political influence, that particular "Reefer Man" was able to get the fine reduced to just $400. And he was out of prison in nine months. With Louisiana Mafia boss Sam Carolla pulling the strings, Gov. O.K. Allen – a former stooge of assassinated Sen. Huey Long – provided the leniency. Legend has it that Marcello eventually had a tailor sew a foot-long pocket into the left leg of his trousers, "which he would stuff with cash as he made his rounds through (Jefferson) Parish paying off the police one by one."

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November 25, 2005


Ruby shooting Oswald (Sunday, November 24)
– Warren Commission Exhibit #2636

Contrary to the claims of conspiracy writers, Jack Ruby died telling the truth. There is no credible evidence he was part of a conspiracy. Ruby murdered Oswald for personal reasons – he wanted to show that ''Jews had guts''; he felt emotionally distraught about the Kennedys, and he wanted to fulfil his life long dream of becoming a real hero.

by Mel Ayton

In March of 1964, 52-year-old Jack Ruby was found guilty of the murder of John F. Kennedy's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, and sentenced to die.

For 32 months, since the time he shot Oswald, Ruby had been locked in a windowless cell on the Dallas County Jail's corridor 6-M. A ''suicide watch'' guard looked in on him around the clock – a single exposed light bulb glared over his bed. Several times Ruby would make attempts on his own life.

Ruby could not tell night from day. He read every newspaper he could lay his hands on, eagerly sifting them for his name. He read dozens of books, including Perry Mason novels and the Warren Report, played cards with his guards, did physical exercises – and seemed out of his mind most of the time, according to jail staff.

Ruby was clearly tipping over the edge in his psychosis and paranoia. He rammed his head against the plaster walls and raved over and over about the suffering Jews who were being killed as revenge for his crime. Near the end, Ruby screamed that his prison guards were piping mustard gas into his cell. Later, when his doctors discovered that he was suffering from brain tumors and adenocarcinoma – a cancer that had spread swiftly through most of the cavities, ducts and glands of his body, Ruby accused them of injecting him with the disease – a medical impossibility.

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James Earl Ray

From the viewpoint of a man who served time with Ray in prison, then went on to become a journalist, and continued to follow the case, with some emphasis on Ray's mentality, how he escaped from prison, and why there is reason to believe white supremacists may have been behind King's murder.

by J. J. Maloney

The first time I saw James Earl Ray, he had just arrived at the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City. Charley McCracken, a friend from the St. Louis City Jail, pointed him out to me in H-Hall, where the newly arriving convicts at the maximum-security penitentiary were oriented.

The first year and a half I paid little or no attention to Ray. He was a loner. Most of my friends were people I'd known in reform school, or people I'd met through them. Although Ray had been sentenced from St. Louis, he was not part of the St. Louis "crowd."

In September 1961, I tried to escape and pulled six months in E-Hall, a 100-year-old building whose third floor was for solitary confinement.

About two months later, Ray tried to escape, and he came to E-Hall. We had no contact, however, since he was on the other side of the building.

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Omaha11new.jpg

These photos of whites torturing and lynching black men present a side of U.S. history that most history books ignore. They provide one of the many reasons why blacks (and Indians) hold a different view of U.S. history than whites. Notice the carnival atmosphere prevailing as these crowds of U.S. citizens watch the completely lawless and most inhumane executions imaginable.

In the U.S. we often pass judgment on people in other countries: Germany, for the Holocaust; Japan, for its war crimes in Asia; Stalin for his purges.

We conveniently forget our own past, however.  A past in which we enslaved hundreds of thousands of blacks -- beating them, working them in inhumane conditions, and killing them.

There are many photographs, showing crowds of U.S. citizens attending the most inhumane butchery imaginable, and getting away with it.  If you'll notice, they seem to be enjoying themselves.

This page is a reminder that the beast dwells within all of us -- Americans, Germans, Japanese, Russian and all other nationalities.  The urge to participate in butchery is not unique to any nation -- it is a universal affliction.

If we forget that fact, the beast may prevail.

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Updated 09/19/09

John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy

Despite a 1990s law mandating the release of all JFK assassination-related documents, an estimated one million such CIA records have yet to be declassified. Some of the most critical pertain to CIA agent George Joannides (a.k.a. Walter Newby) who violated the CIA’s pledge that no CIA operational officer from the time of the JFK assassination would work with U.S. House investigators.

by Don Fulsom

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and his agents concealed critical evidence about the gruesome murder of President John F. Kennedy in the streets of Dallas in 1963.

A mid-70s conclusion by a Senate Committee headed by Frank Church, an Idaho Democrat, found that the Warren Commission’s investigation of the assassination—conducted mainly by the FBI—“was deficient” and “impeaches the process whereby the intelligence agencies arrived at their own conclusions.”

In 1979, a special House investigating committee concurred—describing the FBI’s probe as “seriously flawed” and “insufficient to have uncovered a conspiracy.”

That committee’s own investigation showed a probable plot to kill the President, a plot likely involving the Mafia and certain anti-Castro groups.

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Nov. 11. 2006 Updated March 12, 2007

Members of the Warren Commission present their report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.  L-R: John McCloy, J. Lee Rankin (General Counsel), Senator Richard Russell, Representative Gerald Ford, Chief Justice Earl Warren, President Lyndon B. Johnson, Allen Dulles, Senator John Sherman Cooper, and Representative Hale Boggs. Credit: LBJ Library photo by Cecil Stoughton

Warren Commission member Congressman Gerald Ford pressed the panel to change its description of the bullet wound in President Kennedy's back and place it higher to make "the magic bullet" theory plausible, enabling the Warren Commission to conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman. Ford was J. Edgar Hoover's informant on the commission and did the FBI director's bidding to squelch the investigation from naming other assassins. When a Dallas County deputy constable heard shots coming from the nearby grassy knoll, he rushed there to find veteran CIA asset Bernard Barker, posing as a Secret Service agent. No Secret Service agents had been assigned to cover the grassy knoll and all accompanied President Kennedy to the hospital.

by Don Fulsom

At approximately 12:30 p.m. on Nov. 22 1963, in Dallas's downtown Dealey Plaza, a large and friendly crowd lined the street, cheering and waving excitedly at the approaching presidential motorcade. Riding in the third car – an oversized Lincoln with its Plexiglas "bubble" top removed – were President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jackie, and Texas Gov. John Connally and his wife, Nellie. As the limousine carrying the Connallys and the Kennedys wound its way through the hospitable crowds, Nellie Connally turned to President Kennedy, who was seated behind her, and said, "Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you." Then the shots rang out.

Today, more than four decades later, the details on specifically how and by whom President Kennedy was assassinated are still open to question.

According to the report of the Warren Commission, released in September 1964 after a full year investigation, one single shooter – Lee Harvey Oswald – killed Kennedy and wounded Gov. Connally by firing three bullets from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.

20,042

June 12, 2005

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Obfuscation, manipulation, lies, greed, and distortion of the facts have characterized this case, allowing James Earl Ray to escape full blame. The truth of the matter is that Ray murdered King and he acted alone when he shot him. One or both of Ray's brothers -- before and/or after the fact -- may have aided him.

by Mel Ayton

More than 35 years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. polls continue to indicate that the truth about the murder is still unclear for the majority of Americans. Despite government investigations and extensive research by writers who have concluded that no evidence is available to support the claims made by the conspiracy advocates, the case remains one of America's great whodunits.

Doubts about James Earl Ray, Dr. King's lone assassin, arose almost immediately after the civil rights leader was fatally shot on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968. From the start, during King's funeral, his aides voiced suspicions that a conspiracy was responsible for their leader's death.

The political culture of America in the late 1960s and 1970s was very favorable to any theory that gave credence to government- oriented murder plots against public figures who challenged the authority of the establishment. The U.S. public, confronted with a litany of stories about the Kennedy assassinations, CIA plots against foreign leaders, and the scandalous reports about J. Edgar Hoover's FBI domestic spying activities, were ready to believe that a pathetic individual like James Earl Ray must have received some kind of assistance from sophisticated plotters -- most likely in the pay of the government.

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