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W. Tracy Parnell

Debunking JFK Conspiracy Theories

Lee Harvey Oswald: An Annotated Timeline
The Bishop Hoax
Jefferson Morley
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Robert Reynolds on the Media and the JFK Files

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A great new article by Robert Reynolds who is an expert on the JFK files was posted recently at Max Holland's site: When is the News Media Going to Catch On? Thanks Robert for mentioning my work in the endnotes!

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The Maurice Bishop Story

Note: My eBook The Bishop Hoax supercedes my previous work on the subject. In March of 1976, Senate investigator Gaeton Fonzi interviewed Alpha 66 founder Antonio Veciana who told a story of a shadowy figure named Maurice Bishop. Veciana said that Bishop had masterminded and directed his anti-Castro activities over the course of 13 years from 1960 to 1973. Fonzi, who was the primary investigator for the HSCA in this area, wrote the committee's report on the matter and later authored an infamous article in the Washingtonian magazine that expanded Veciana's allegations. Fonzi went on to publish a book, The Last Investigation , that promoted Veciana's story and Fonzi's own CIA-killed-JFK theories. Fonzi also popularized the notion that Bishop was really career CIA man David Atlee Phillips. However, for over 30 years, in sworn congressional testimony and numerous media interviews, Veciana denied that Bishop was Phillips. Then, On November 22, 2013, the 85-year-old V...

Palmer McBride

January 19, 2017

Palmer McBride inhabits a special place in the research of John Armstrong as it was his 1963 statement to the FBI (FBI 105-82555 Oswald HQ File, Section 11, pp. 2-5) that eventually initiated the Harvey & Lee double Oswald theory. Armstrong explains all this beginning on page 3 of his book ( Harvey & Lee: How the CIA Framed Oswald ) in a section titled "The Beginning of My Project." McBride recalled that he had worked and socialized with Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) in New Orleans in 1957 and 1958, a period when records show he was in the Marine Corps. Instead of accepting the obvious, that McBride was mistaken, Armstrong used his statement as the catalyst for the theory that McBride knew "Harvey" while "Lee" was in the service. Using the work of noted researchers, this article will examine McBride’s assertions. I will explain why he was honestly mistaken regarding the dates he knew LHO and Armstrong’s theory is therefore invalid. I will also discu...

Book Review: I Was a Teenage JFK Conspiracy Freak

October 04, 2018

Canadian Fred Litwin, a marketing professional who worked nine years for the Intel Corporation, has written a book on the JFK assassination with a catchy title- I Was a Teenage JFK Conspiracy Freak . This concise, entertaining and well written volume will be of interest to conspiracy skeptics and open-minded newcomers to the case. It may even be of interest to long-time conspiracy buffs who actually read it. Litwin previously authored a book called Conservative Confidential: Inside the Fabulous Blue Tent , which is about his journey from anti-nuclear activist to Conservative party campaigner. His JFK book describes an analogous trek from conspiracy believer to “lone nutter.” Litwin begins by documenting the missteps of the early critics of the Warren Commission. An important point made by Litwin, one that he returns to frequently, is that these early critics (and subsequent generations) often consisted of individuals on the political left. They included Bertrand Russell, Raymond Ma...

The Truth About Oswald's Birth Certificate

January 05, 2017

One issue mentioned frequently by conspiracy theorists is Lee Harvey Oswald’s birth certificate, or as is sometimes maintained, the absence of one. In May, 1997, on pages 17-20, the assassination journal The Fourth Decade published an article by two Oswald theorist John Armstrong (with Jerry Rose) entitled “Oswald’s Birth Certificate” that posed numerous rhetorical questions about the document. In 2003, Armstrong published Harvey and Lee: How the CIA Framed Oswald . During the six years between the publication of the article and the book, Armstrong’s views about the birth certificate changed somewhat, although he still believed Oswald’s birth certificate was not available for unstated nefarious reasons. This article will examine the birth certificate controversy using Armstrong’s criticisms as a template for discussion and offer what seems to be a final resolution to the matter. First, we need some definitions. There are two documents in the public record reflecting Oswald’s birth. ...

Veciana and the CIA

UPDATED July 11, 2017 Journalist Jefferson Morley, who is the editor at JFK Facts.org, has recently been using that website to promote the ramblings of former Alpha 66 member Antonio Veciana as related in his book Trained to Kill . [1] Morley, who has several reasonable positions regarding the JFK assassination, first presented himself as a truth-seeking JFK assassination agnostic who was merely interested in obtaining all currently withheld JFK documents. However, in recent years he has possibly flipped to the conspiracy side because the books he is writing about individuals such as Winston Scott and James Angleton are of interest to that audience. Morley, who calls Veciana’s appearance at the 2014 Assassination Archives and Research Center Conference a “once in a lifetime experience,” [2] is either unaware of or has chosen to ignore the numerous problems with Veciana’s story as documented at this blog. Now Morley has written a piece for Newsweek [3] that again ignores the eviden...

Gaeton Fonzi and the Veciana Allegations

Introduction Over 50 years after the assassination of JFK, the CIA remains the most popular suspect among conspiracy advocates. The allegations of Antonio Veciana Blanch, one of the founders of the militant anti-Castro group Alpha 66, are cited by theorists as proof of Lee Harvey Oswald’s (LHO) connection with that agency. Veciana’s story first came to light in March, 1976 [1] when he was interviewed by Gaeton Fonzi who was then an investigator for Senator Richard Schweiker of the Church Committee. [2] After the committee disbanded, Fonzi became an HSCA investigator and authored their Volume X section on Veciana. [3] Veciana, who at the time was employed by a Havana bank, claimed that in mid-1960, he was approached by a shadowy American named Maurice Bishop who recruited him to perform anti-Castro and anti-communist activities. Bishop supervised and directed those activities and masterminded assassination plots against Castro in Havana in 1961 and Chile in 1971. [4] ...

James Wilcott

Update: May 3, 2020. Researcher Lance Payette brought the following information to my attention. To lend credibility to his story, promoters of the Wilcott affair have sometimes referred to his position in the CIA as “finance officer” (see, for example, Armstrong’s Harvey and Lee, page 262). But Payette told me in an email, “As far as I can tell, he was never a GS-9. He had been hired as a GS-5 and made a career employee at GS-7. A Resignation Interview Report dated April 15, 1966 shows him as still a GS-7 when he left the CIA. No matter how anyone tries to spin it, no one at GS-5 or GS-7 is an officer.” The dubious allegations of James Wilcott, a former CIA employee who testified before the HSCA in executive session, are still repeated by theorists promoting the idea that the CIA was involved in the JFK assassination. [1] Wilcott (born 9-27-31 in Cleveland, OH [2]) told the HSCA that he had been informed by a fellow CIA employee while posted in Tokyo that Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) ...

Newman's "New Paradigm"

February 03, 2020

JFK conspiracy theorist and author John Newman has done a good job of convincing both conspiracy skeptics and some members of the JFK conspiracy community that former anti-Castro activist Antonio Veciana lied about how and when he met David Phillips in Cuba, thereby casting doubt on Veciana’s whole sorry tale. Unfortunately, instead of issuing a clarion call to his devotees that further research regarding the duplicitous Veciana is a waste of time, Newman is using his success as a launching pad for an entirely new conspiracy theory. And it is likely not a coincidence that this thesis supports the preferred villains in Newman’s hypothetical JFK assassination scenario. These alleged conspirators include Generals Edward Lansdale, Curtis Lemay and Lyman Lemnitzer as well as the “enigmatic Texan Howard Burris” and perhaps others. Newman's presentation at the 2019 Citizens Against Political Assassinations Conference titled, "Turning Antonio Veciana's Misdirection into a Road...

Paul's Shoe Store

February 28, 2017

One of the photos of the “real” Marguerite Oswald, according to the Harvey & Lee theory of John Armstrong, was taken at Paul’s Shoe Store in Fort Worth in 1957. Armstrong’s book describes her as follows: The tall, nice-looking, well-dressed Marguerite Oswald, the mother of Lee Oswald, appears as a quiet, pleasant, hard-working woman who got along reasonably well with co-workers. She was about 5'7" tall, average build, had dark hair with streaks of gray, did not wear glasses, and dressed well. But what can the shoe store photo tell us about Marguerite’s true height? The one and only Marguerite Oswald’s height was listed as 5’2 1/2” inches on a 1965 passport and 5’3” on an undated driver’s license. I’ll use the 5’3” height just to make it simpler. If you are interested, the process I use to calculate heights from photos is found here: http://wtracyparnell.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-two-marguerites-part-1.html Here is the Paul’s Shoe Store photo cropped and captioned ...

The Two Marguerites Part 1

January 27, 2017

John Armstrong’s theory of “Harvey and Lee” postulates two Oswalds as most researchers know. But he also maintains there were two Marguerite Oswalds. Here is how Armstrong described them in his book ( Harvey & Lee: How the CIA Framed Oswald ). The tall, nice-looking, well-dressed Marguerite Oswald, the mother of Lee Oswald, appears as a quiet, pleasant, hard-working woman who got along reasonably well with co-workers. She was about 5'7" tall, average build, had dark hair with streaks of gray, did not wear glasses, and dressed well. The FBI never once interviewed the real Marguerite Oswald, but thoroughly investigated her work and family history from the early 1940's thru the mid 1950's. They obtained payroll information and interviewed employers and employees who worked with her in retail clothing shops beginning with Princess Hosiery in New Orleans in 1943 and continued with stores in Fort Worth, New York and New Orleans through 1956. The short, dumpy, heavy-s...