Reclaiming History from Bugliosi again

This is a slightly modified version of a letter I sent to the author of yet another reviewer of Vince Bugliosi's book "Reclaiming History."

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I was disappointed with your review of Bugliosi’s book “Reclaiming History,” an Orwellian title, at that. As someone who spent over 15 years looking at actual documents – not just other people’s books – on the JFK case, I can assure you Bugliosi’s book is exactly the one-sided treatment he accuses the critics of writing.

I defy any honest person to follow the CIA’s pre-assassination paper trail on Oswald and argue that Oswald was not of high-level, special interest to the CIA. A top CIA official who signed off on one of these documents actually said as much to John Newman, himself a former intelligence analyst as well as a PhD in history and a professor of such. Jane Roman signed off, knowingly, on a cable and a teletype – drafted within a short time of each other. One document described Oswald accurately. The second described Oswald as older, fat and balding. She told Newman, “I’m signing off on something that I know isn’t true” when he showed her the document with her signature, and said, “Well, to me, it’s indicative of a keen interest in Oswald, held very closely on the need-to-know basis.” The document that lied about Oswald went to several agencies of the U.S. Government. The CIA was deliberately concealing Oswald’s identity from other agencies less than a month before the assassination.

Why?

In addition, Oswald provably didn’t fire a rifle that day. His cheek was tested for nitrates and came up negative. False positives were not uncommon. But false negatives were unheard of, until one of the FBI agents managed to create one¹. How did he do it? By using a second person, and having them wipe down the gun between shots. Not only would the timing of the shots not have allowed that, but if Oswald had a conspirator, then hello, it was a conspiracy!

Does Bugliosi mention that one of his key sources on Oswald and Marina, Priscilla Johnson McMillan, has confessed to being, as her CIA file describes her, a “witting” asset of the agency? So we’re to take the chief suspect’s word on Oswald’s instability and inappropriateness for agency recruitment? Isn’t that, well, awfully convenient?

I’m sorry to see you take the easy way out, and assume that because Bugliosi is a figure of stature that that makes him more honest than the people like John Newman, David Talbot (founder and Editor-in-Chief of Salon.com), and the numerous other reporters, PhD’s, MDs, JDs and others who have put in the time to learn the sad truth of the conspiracy and the ongoing cover-up.

Unlike Mr. Bugliosi, no one has paid me or any of the other highly qualified researchers in this case a million dollars to do nothing but write a book about this case, or each of us could have easily written a 1600 page book, equally well-documented, making a persuasive case that Oswald was being manipulated like a pawn by the CIA to take the fall for the assassination. But people like me aren’t given that kind of money to make that case. That’s not the end result of Kennedy’s assassination 44 years ago. The end result, as we have recently witnessed, is an increasingly criminal government, a war launched under false pretenses, and a press that is increasingly losing relevance because, unlike 80% of the public, it can’t connect these dots.

Note
1. Cortlandt Cunningham, an FBI special agent, told the Warren Commission that another FBI agent, Mr. Killion, was given two tests. He did not fire a gun on the first test - that was the control. He got only a false positive on his hands and cheek, before he fired anything. Cunningham then described what they did next:

We cleaned off the rifle again with dilute HCl. I loaded it for him. He held it in one of the cleaned areas and I pushed the clip in so he would not have to get his hands near the chamber—in other words, so he wouldn’t pick up residues, from it, or from the action, or from the receiver. When we ran the casts, we got no reaction on either hand or on his cheek. On the controls, when he hadn't fired a gun all day, we got numerous reactions. [Source: Warren Commission Hearings, Volume III p. 494]

So the only way the FBI was able to get a "false negative" was by using a second person, who cleaned the gun and loaded it for the test subject. So either Oswald had a conspirator cleaning and loading his gun, or he was innocent. That's what the FBI tests showed.