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http://jfkmurdersolved.com/phpBB3/vi...php?f=1&t=1899Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Expert on Kennedy assassination speaks this week at Olney Central College
By Kevin Ryden
Published: Wednesday, May 2, 2007 4:11 PM CDT
It's been nearly 44 years since President John F. Kennedy was assassinated and nearly as many years since conspiracies began forming and molding themselves into the national consciousness.
Conspiracy theorists vary in what they believe, but agree that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act as a lone gunman or possibly at all in Kennedy's death on Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas.
“The story that Oswald acted alone after 40 years seems to me more impossible, even nonsensical,” said Olney Central College instructor David Denton, who has taught a course since 2000 on political assassinations of the 1960s.
There have been numerous theories of who, besides Oswald, could have killed Kennedy: the CIA, the mob or Cuban exiles are several groups that often come up as alleged key players.
One of the more obscure theories is that Lyndon B. Johnson, who as vice president in 1963 immediately took over as president after Kennedy was killed, was involved.
That theory will be explored Thursday by Ed Tatro, a retired English teacher from Massachusetts who has studied the Kennedy assassination since it happened.
2nd read
News Thursday, May 17, 2007
Author pokes holes in official Kennedy theory
By Kevin Ryden
Published: Monday, May 7, 2007
As he began his talk about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and his belief that President and former Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was involved, Ed Tatro gave a stark but blunt warning to the audience.
“I will scare the hell out of you before I leave this place tonight,” he said Thursday during his first presentation at the John D. Stull Performing Arts Center at Olney Central College. “I promise for some of you, this is going to be a life-changing event.”
The presentation included a lot of pictures, names, documents and details about JFK's assassination and information to support Tatro's theory that powerful men, not one man, killed Kennedy.
Tatro, a retired English teacher from Massachusetts, said the novel 1984” by George Orwell and its themes of government manipulation (2+2= 5 as “controlled nonsense”) are relevant to the JFK issue and to our current society.
“We don't live in a Banana Republic”
Tatro was 16 years old when Kennedy was shot and killed, presumably by Lee Harvey Oswald, while riding in a motorcade in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. “I believed what I was being told,” Tatro said.
When he saw Oswald shot and killed by Jack Ruby on live television, Tatro jumped out of his seat and yelled, “Yes!” In his mind, justice had been served on someone who killed his president.
When he shared his thoughts with his father, the elder Tatro gave his son a counterpoint to consider. “The whole thing stinks, Ed,” he said.
He became interested in the case and read the 26 volumes of the Warren Commission's report. The commission, which was led by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, concluded Oswald acted alone.
LBJ
While the Mafia, CIA, Russians, Cubans and any number of groups could have killed Kennedy, Tatro said, they could not get Kennedy's car to drive only 11 mph without a bubbletop through Dealey Plaza in Dallas.
That came from within LBJ's powerful inner circle and some of the Secret Service, according to Tatro, who did not have kind words about the 36th president of the United States.
“He was one of the most amoral human beings who ever lived,” he said. “I think he's second only to Hitler.”
After the 1960 election, Johnson became mired in various scandals and Kennedy supposedly did not want him to be his running mate for the 1964 election.
Johnson was friends with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and had information about Kennedy's womanizing and other issues and bribed his way into being on the ticket, Tatro said.
He said notes from Kennedy's former secretary, Eleanor Lincoln, indicated that JFK wanted to drop LBJ from the ticket.
“So, there's your motive,” he said.
Trip to Texas
On April 23, 1963, Johnson went on Texas radio to announce that Kennedy would be coming to the state in the fall. Neither Kennedy or the White House ever announced that, Tatro said.
Kennedy's motorcade was not supposed to drive under 40 mph and a bubbletop was standard security procedure, he said.
The route the motorcade took in Dealey Plaza was surrounded by buildings and trees, he emphasized, something that bothered Jerry Bruno, who scouted the area for security for Kennedy.
Texas Gov. John Connally, another close friend to Johnson who was sitting next to Kennedy in the motorcade and was shot, pushed for the route Bruno did not like, according to Tatro. Expressing his displeasure to Bruno's advice, Connally apparently stated, “This is not how we do it in Texas,” Tatro said, later alleging that Connally's job was to “sucker Kennedy to get (him) to Texas.”
Bruno was asked by the White House to come back to Washington, D.C., and another aide was sent to smooth over relations with Connally.
That man, Tatro said, was Bill Moyers, who is now a famous journalist and public commentator. “One of the greatest men of all time. Hogwash,” Tatro said sarcastically.
When Moyers was questioned by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, Tatro said he was “less than clear on all the details” and could not recall if he had ever even visited Dallas.
Shots fired
The Warren Commission concluded three shots were fired by Oswald from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
Authorities stated Oswald used an Italian Mannlicher-Carcano rifle to shoot Kennedy. Tatro said it takes 2.3 seconds to **** the gun before it can be re-fired.
The time it took for Kennedy to react to his wounds and Connally to react to his was less than two seconds, he said.
Tatro roundly trashed the single-bullet theory, which was created by Sen. Arlen Specter, who served as legal counsel for the commission at the time.
Kennedy's body was taken by the Secret Service from Texas to Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, Tatro said.
Although several witnesses testified that Kennedy was shot in the back, the autopsy report stated he suffered a wound to the neck.
Twelve years after the assassination, the death certificate was released that stated that Kennedy was shot in the back and was killed by a bullet to the head, Tatro said.
A portion of executive session minutes from the Warren Commission that went missing for some time stated that a bullet entered Kennedy's back, Tatro said.
Connally's clothes were taken away and cleaned, which destroyed any chances of matching the metal from bullet fragments within Kennedy's and Connally's clothing, according to Tatro.
“Why would you do this?” he asked. “Because you're covering up the murder of the president.”
Jack Ruby
After Ruby was convicted of killing Oswald, he wrote a lot of letters from prison.
In one of those letters, Tatro said Ruby wrote, “If you hear honking of horns, it will be me. They will want my blood.”
Tatro played an audio recording of the newscast in which Oswald was shot. In the recording, one hard honk can be heard, followed by a soft honk and then the gunshot that killed Oswald.
Tatro believes Ruby was “trying to squeal.”
Tatro noted a disparaging quote by Ruby about Johnson: “Compared to Lyndon Johnson, I am a saint.”
Ruby also made many telephone calls while in prison to powerful individuals within organized crime, but the Warren Commission never investigated, Tatro said.
The Warren Commission
After the commission asked for Oswald's military file from the Pentagon, the commission was told it would not give it to them. When Congress demanded it, the Pentagon released a statement saying it had been destroyed and nothing was done, Tatro said.
The Canadian government also destroyed documents about Oswald, Tatro said after explaining that he tried to obtain that information in 1990.
“If the guy did it alone and is a nut, what are you destroying this stuff for?” Tatro asked.
In 2003, Tatro was part of a History Channel program called “The Men Who Killed Kennedy: The Guilty Men.” Part of the program discussed Johnson's alleged involvement.
According to Tatro, it was the History Channel's highest-rated show ever and made more than $2 million in DVD sales.
After the program concluded, Johnson's former advisors, including Valenti and Moyers, demanded the show never be played on the cable network again, Tatro said.
The show was removed from the History Channel's programming.
