W. Tracy Parnell

We now know that filmmaker Max Good was aware of the opinion of two key JFK assassination figures on the matter of Ruth Paine but chose to ignore their input. The late conspiracy author David Lifton told Good in an interview that Mrs. Paine and her husband Michael were "essentially innocent." Lifton also said that the assistance that Ruth provided to Lee Harvey Oswald's wife Marina was not suspicious because "she really is the kind of person that will go out of her way to help another person." While Lifton expoused some far out theories, he knew the Paines and was well placed to judged their character. We also have learned that Judge Burt Griffin, who worked on the Warren Commission staff, told Good in the strongest terms that Ruth Paine was not involved in any sort of conspiracy. Griffin gave Fred Litwin permission to publish a letter he sent to Good after the latter tried to film him for his documentary. Griffin told Good: As you may be aware, ...

Edward Curtin says that he is very concerned about "human duplicity." So much so that he has written a book about it called Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies: Critical & Lyrical Essays . Seems like a noble cause. That is, until you look behind the curtain, which is what his website claims he himself does, at his review of Max Good's film The Assassination and Mrs. Paine . Good himself has promoted the review as "thoughtful." But the ostensible truth seeker Curtin spreads so much misinformation in this review that it is difficult to know where to begin. However, a look at Curtin's world view is instructive. Curtin believes that "all" of the mainstream media—CBS, ABC, The Washington Post, etc.—"speak for the Central Intelligence Agency." Curtin says that "many journalists and academics hold dual positions, since they secretly work as assets for the intelligence services." Notably, Curtin completely agrees with th...

Continuing the discussion regarding items that theorists believe “Ruth [Paine] and her garage provided” to incriminate Lee Harvey Oswald, consider the following Max Good narration from his film The Assassination and Mrs. Paine : Good (1:15:40): Two weeks after the assassination, as doubts about Oswald's trip to Mexico were surfacing, Ruth miraculously found several incriminating items sitting in a drawer in the room where the Oswalds had stayed. Before examining the evidence in this matter, a question must be asked. Since the Oswalds used Ruth's house to store many of their personal belongings, what is so "miraculous" about any particular item being found there? Ruth explained in her Warren Commission testimony how these specific items were found: "And it was not then until perhaps a week or something less after the assassination when an FBI agent asked me was there anything left in the house that would be pertinent, and he and I went together and ...

Filmmaker Max Good's narration introduces yet another series of allegations about perennial conspiracy villain Ruth Paine. This time, Good and his cohorts allege that Ruth almost single-handedly incriminated Lee Harvey Oswald: Good: "Other than Marina, Ruth Paine had been history's most important witness against Lee Harvey Oswald. Ruth and her garage provided much of the incriminating evidence..." Researcher Greg Doudna has made a series of posts on the Education Forum about Good's film. In one of his posts , Doudna notes: "Up to that point the presentation has the overt structure of a neutral narrator... The words of the narrator above depart from that overt stance of neutrality and now favor the side of Ruth’s accusers." Good's "featured" expert James DiEugenio lays out the case regarding the first item of evidence that he believes Ruth found too conveniently (1:13:10): DiEugenio: "Seven or eight days after the ...

In his film The Assassination and Mrs. Paine , filmmaker Max Good touches on an issue related to the criticism of Ruth Paine: There are those who feel that they can just tell that Ruth Paine is lying, it is written all over her face. Some say that she's too articulate, that she must be a CIA agent repeating rehearsed lines. Good, Eric Hunley and Mark Groubert expanded on this theme in a conversation on the America's Untold Stories webcast (6:48): Groubert: "Max, it's amazing how they all have the same tonality and manipulation of words, and that includes Max Holland, her [Priscilla Johnson McMillan] and Ruth Paine; they all take your question and slightly twist it around, which comes out in the film, that I notice how similar they are." Good: "Yeah, they're all very intelligent people and sometimes almost lawyerly in the way they speak; you might notice some interesting phrasing some of these people use." Groubert: "Well, I...

One of Max Good's "featured" experts on the conspiracy side in his film The Assassination and Mrs. Paine was a long time critic of Ruth and her husband Michael. The late Philadelphia attorney Vincent Salandria was a first generation Warren Commission critic who had strong opinions. Consider the following quotes from his appearance in the film: If you wanted to have a conspiracy, you’ve got to complete the circle. In this case you’ve got to get the Oswalds into the Dallas area. You’ve got to get Oswald into the Texas Book Depository in time. People with a garage where the so-called murder weapon can be stored. Suppose it's a conspiracy that says we’ll just wait, somebody will get Oswald and his family into Dallas, we’ll just wait--maybe he’ll happen to find a job in the Texas Book Depository. Once you see a conspiracy, its over for the Paines. You can’t close the circle without the Paines! There’s no way they can be innocent! No way! His [Michael's] father w...

Perhaps one of the most dubious assertions in Max Good's film concerns Ruth Paine's turn as a volunteer in Nicaragua. In addition to being wrong-headed, there is little doubt that this accusation caused Ruth much personal anguish. Max Good's main propagandist, James DiEugenio, "peace activist" Sue Wheaton and an anonymous source outline their suspicions: DiEugenio: "Later on in her life Ruth Paine goes down to Nicaragua, and there were reports of her going to Sandinista sympathizer meetings and taking notations of what went down. For many, many people, the veneer has come off Ruth and Michael Paine, and they are just not credible any more." Anonymous man (image scrambled and voice altered): "I know a woman who in the early 1990s who worked with Ruth Paine as a Christian peace activist in Nicaragua. This was during the time of the civil war in Nicaragua during the Reagan and Bush I years." Sue Wheaton: "It was a contentious t...

What was the motive of the conspirators whose yet undetected plot killed President John F. Kennedy? Filmmaker Max Good allows two of his "featured" conspiracy mavens, James DiEugenio and Gary Aguilar, to lay out the case that JFK was planning to pull out of Vietnam as part of a larger effort to spread peace throughout the world: Aguilar: (41:45) "Kennedy was telling people privately that once he got re-elected, he was going to back out of Vietnam and he was not going to commit forces of the United States to a land war in Asia. He had infuriated them [the conspirators presumably the CIA and the Joint Chiefs] with the Bay of Pigs. He infuriated them with the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. He infuriated them during the Cuban Missile Crisis. And he was not gonna let them have their war. [claps and then makes umpire’s over-the-shoulder 'you're out' sign] ‘Next’ (chuckles). Very, very few people were ever allowed the intimate details [of the alleged plot], I'm ...

Another conspiracy golden oldie that filmmaker Max Good is happy to give time to is the interpretation of the “back and to the left” motion of JFK seen after frame 313 of the Zapruder film (10:20). “Finally in the mid-seventies the Zapruder film was shown to the public,” says Gary Aguilar a California-based physician who is a vocal critic of the lone assassin theory. “It shows Kennedy going back and to the left and everybody goes ‘hey wait a minute, if he’s shot from behind why is he going back to the left?’” Aguilar continues, “So then the House Select Committee looked at it again and they concluded that it’s likely there was a conspiracy.” Dutifully, Good zooms in on a page from the HSCA report that indeed states, “President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.” But the infamous “back and to the left” motion occurs only after a nearly imperceptible (at normal speed viewing) approximately 2.3 inch movement of JFK’s head forward between frame 31...