JFK Conference: Bill Kelly introduced new evidence - adding Air Force One tape recordings [View all]

[Octafish]

As a Democrat, a DUer and as a citizen of the United States, I was proud to attend the Passing the Torch: An International Symposium on the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy at Duquesne University. One of the many important things discussed there was what historian and researcher, William E. Kelly, Jr. presented to the conference. He added new information to the historical record: a more complete record of the Air Force One radio transmissions made on Nov. 22, 1963. Now a fellow DUer, please welcome Bill Kelly, should he pop up on a thread.



In his presentation, Mr. Kelly described the provenance of the new recording -- discovered among the personal effects of Gen. Chester Clifton, an aide to President Kennedy who was aboard Air Force One on the trip to Dallas. The new tapes add content to what was on the version held by the National Archives.

To get as much information as possible from the new material, Mr. Kelly contacted Ed Primeau, the audio expert who had assisted in the analysis of 9-11 recordings in the Trayvon Martin case. Mr. Kelly and Mr. Primeau combined the tapes and created a transcript. It is available online:

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/

Interestingly, the more complete tape still does not have information that was, evidently, available in the mid-1960s when authors Theodore White, William Manchester and JFK Press Secretary Pierre Salinger quoted from them in their books. Among the points those authors made that are not on the tapes available: Sections of military personnel conversations from the plane to Washington; President Lyndon B. Johnson was concerned about Soviet involvement in the assassination; McGeorge Bundy was in charge of the Situation Room at the White House; Bundy contacted Air Force One to report Oswald arrested and there was no conspiracy.

Here's an overview of what the new Air Force One tapes:

http://vimeo.com/76173546

The new combined Air Force One tape is about an hour and half long. It still may be a small fraction of what may still be available in some archive, based on the amount of material referenced and the normal procedure to tape all transmissions between Air Force One and the various governmental and military authorities. Mr. Kelly estimates there may be as much as 8 hours of AF1 tapes from that terrible day in Dallas.

Some important background on the tapes and the history:

Chilling tape from Air Force One on day JFK shot just released.

CBS News, Jan. 31, 2012

It's been nearly a half-century since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

EXCERPT...

The full audio of transmissions from White House Communications Agency (which captured the tapes) that day includes 42 minutes edited out of the original public version. It's likely to peak the interest of conspiracy theorists who are already asking why this material was cut out of the original.

Then-Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Curtis LeMay had been a frequent opponent of Kennedy's. His whereabouts on the day of the assassination has always been a mystery.

In the newly public audio, we learn that LeMay was airborne, even as JFK's body was being flown back to Washington. And an aide to LeMay tried urgently to reach his boss.

"General LeMay," the aide said, "is in a C 140. ... He's inbound. His code name is Grandson. And I wanna talk to him. ... If you can't work him now, it's gonna be too late, because he'll be on the ground in a half-hour."

Historian Robert Dallek suggests doubters will wonder if the aide's comments about not reaching LeMay within 30 minutes may be "too late" could have some sinister meaning. "I'd doubt these tapes will put the conspiracy theory to rest," he says. "They continue to believe it was a conspiracy and again, they just can't accept the proposition that a lone wolf, a single, and someone as dysfunctional as Lee Harvey Oswald, could have carried off this assassination of the president."

CONTINUED...

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57368696/chilling-tape-from-air-force-one-on-day-jfk-shot/

For those new to Gen. Curtis LeMay and his relationship with President Kennedy:

JFK Cuba crisis tapes released

By Jon Marcus
Associated Press

BOSTON (AP) -117 ‹ At the height of the Cuban missile crisis, one of President John F. Kennedy's top military commanders warned him that failing to invade the island would be like backing down to Hitler's initial demands in Europe.

"This is almost as bad as the appeasement at Munich," Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Curtis LeMay told Kennedy on Oct. 19, 1962, according to newly declassified White House tape recordings released Thursday.

LeMay's comment "was an amazing thing to say to any president, but it was a particularly amazing thing to say to this president," said Sheldon Stern, historian at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, where the tape recordings were released. "It's a deep personal insult."

Kennedy's father, Joseph P. Kennedy, served as U.S. ambassador to Britain at the time of the 1938 Munich conference, where the British and French agreed to let Nazi Germany take land from Czechoslovakia in exch ange for a short-lived promise of peace. The elder Kennedy's support of appeasement later was strongly criticized and may have cost him any hope of running for national office.

LeMay, like other military leaders, advocated immediate military intervention to destroy the Soviet missiles and unfinished silos that had been detected by aerial reconnaissance in Cuba. He said blockading ships bound for Cuba, as other presidential advisers urged, would lead to war anyway.

President Kennedy, who privately called LeMay "field marshal," did not respond to the remark and the meeting went on to cover other military and diplomatic issues.

CONTINUED...

http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl/1996_1373492/tapes-from-cuban-missile-crisis-reveal-insult-by-k.html

The tapes show that Col. Dorman wanted desperately to reach Gen. Curtis LeMay to know before he landed. The tapes also show Gen. LeMay disobeyed an order from Air Force Secretary Zuckert to return to Andrews Air Force Base on Nov. 22, 1963, choosing instead to fly to Washington National Airport. Mr. Kelly explains why this is important:

WAS GENERAL LEMAY AT CAMP X ON 11/22/63?

Where was General Curtis LeMay at the time president Kennedy was assassinated?

by Bill Kelly
JFK Countercoup, June 4, 2012

Was he on vacation hunting and fishing in upstate Michigan, as his official biographies attest, or was he at Camp X or at a secret command & control bunker overseeing the Dealey Plaza operation?

An official biography of Air Force General Curtis LeMay reports that at the time President Kennedy was assassinated he was on vacation, hunting and fishing with family members in upstate Michigan.

"Iron Eagle: The Turbulent Life of General Curtis LeMay," by Thomas M. Coffey (p.430) reports that LeMay's wife was from Michigan and he had apparently told his biographer he was in Michigan on vacation and "hurried back to Washington in time for the funeral."

But an Andrews Air Force base log book, that was salvaged from the trash and almost destroyed, indicates that LeMay ordered a special Air Force jet to pick him up in Canada shortly after news of the assassination was widely broadcast, which indicated to some that he wasn’t hunting and fishing in Michigan.

Exploring the possibility that Gen. LeMay attended JFK’s autopsy at Bethesda, as Navy medical corpsman Paul O’Conner attests, Doug Horne, the Chief Analyst for Military Records for the Assassination Records Review Board, made note of LeMay’s presence in Canada rather than Michigan, as his official biography reports.

And Larry Hancock, author of “Someone Would Have Talked” and “Nexus,” also thought it significant and notes: "I was struck by the fact that it (LeMay’s bio) made a big deal of his being so remote that he was out of contact and was not even able to make it back to Washington until the funeral. I don't see that as a minor thing, the book definitely creates the impression that he was not back in Washington that weekend. This really is an important point, if Doug is right and can be verified it looks pretty certain that LeMay was handing out disinformation and there would need to be a good reason for that. After all, it would not be unusual for him to rush back to DC or to some other AF base where he could achieve command and control capability. What seems to me not at all understandable is why he would go to Bethesda, and then lie about it."

From the salvaged Andrews Air Force Base Log Book for 11/22/63, it is officially noted that a special order to pick up LeMay in Toronto was requested at 1:20 PM CST (2:20 PM EST, 1420 GMT) and a special SAM – Special Air Mission C-140 jet took off Andrews at 1446 (1:46 PM CST 2:46 PM EST) to pick him up in Toronto, but after the plane took off (1:50 PM CST 2:50 PM EST) it was redirected to Wiarton, a Canadian Air Force base north of Toronto.

The official internet web site for Wiarton includes a photo of the Air Force base, but also makes tantalizing references to Camp X, the secret training camp for spies used by the British and Americans during World War II, and used as a hideaway for a prominent Soviet defector during the Cold War.

CONTINUED...

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/search?q=lemay+whereabouts

Why it matters.

Democracy depends on Truth. The Republic depends on Justice. That is, the reality that ours is a nation under law.

Once a criminal is, or criminals are, allowed to go free, Justice has been denied. We find ourselves operating under a falsehood, we are living a Big Lie.

We as a Nation have been on the criminal path since November 22, 1963.

DUers know you don’t need to read a history book or watch a tee vee special to know: It shows. Since 1964 and the Gulf of Tonkin, it’s been a series of wars without end for profit. And in the process, the rich became super-rich -- the richest and most powerful people in history.

Thanks for reading. Keep spreading the Truth, DU! The next 50 years can be different -- they can be decades of peace and prosperity for ALL: They can be Democratic.