From jmcadams@primenet.com Mon Jan 27 13:13:55 CST 1997 Article: 5568 of alt.conspiracy.jfk.moderated Path: news.primenet.com!jmcadams From: jmcadams@primenet.com (John McAdams) Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk.moderated Subject: Stockwell Critique of Files Story - 8 Date: 23 Jan 1997 21:36:08 -0700 Organization: PrimeNet Lines: 124 Approved: jmcadams@primenet.com Message-ID: <5c9e7o$2nq@nnrp1.news.primenet.com> X-Posted-By: jmcadams@206.165.5.111 (jmcadams) Xref: news.primenet.com alt.conspiracy.jfk.moderated:5568 FROM: John R. Stockwell, 105475,2627 Re: Part VIII, Further Critique In yet other areas, I found Files's tale, and West's and Vernon's methodology lacking in credibility. There seemed to be a pattern of misstatements by Files that were later corrected after I (and probably others) pointed out to West and Vernon solid factual errors. For example: Files initially said he and Oswald were "palling" around New Orleans with shipments of fake Thompson's submachine guns in 1961. Oswald was still in Minsk, that was a full year before he returned to the United States. --Files originally said that Nicoletti used a Marlin 7.62 when he fired into Kennedy's head from the DalTex building. When they told me this, I reflected. Long ago, hunting in Africa, in the Marine Corps, and in Vietnam I had not-a-little experience with weapons. While I would no longer qualify myself as any kind of "expert," I recalled that 7.62 would seemingly be a military weapon. And I did not recall Marlin ever producing a military weapon. So I called the Marlin factory. They confirmed that no such weapon had ever been made by them....but their 30.06 hunting rifle could be reconfigured, I believe they said to hold 5 rounds. I relayed this to Vernon and, a week or so later, sure enough, I was told, Files reported that he had reflected and remembered that Nicoletti used a Marlin 30.06 with a modified chamber.... Initially, Files was adamant that he was just a kid, a nobody, and that the CIA had nothing to do with the "hit" on Kennedy, altho he said he had trained Cubans for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, and that David Atlee Phillips was his "controller." As the story seemed to grow, he "palled" around with Oswald in Dallas during the week before the assassination. Phillips set up the contact. However, he was never able to give any details, or even general description, of his "commo" with Phillips. Did they communicate by phone? Did Files call Phillips? Vice vs.? Did they meet? Was Phillips in Dallas? If by phone, was it to Phillips in Mexico City?, Miami?, Dallas? If face-to-face, where? And how were the meetings set up? Over the years, as first West, then Vernon read more deeply into the assassination and related controversy, Files's alleged CIA legend grew dramatically. Knight Ridder eventually published Vernon's version of the Files story. Somewhat out of context, I was quoted as saying that one of the charming things about Files's story was that he did not aggrandize himself. THAT WAS TRUE IN THE EARLY VERSIONS. Later, Files repeatedly hinted that he was more important in the CIA than the researchers might have realized. He said that he had been in direct contact with Dick Helms and with the "Joint Chiefs of Staff." He said he had hand-written notes from the Joint Chiefs of Staff (ordering hits and what-not.) A colorful part of his story is how he fired one shot with his Fireball, took the cartridge out, bit down on it, and then left it on the fence railing. There are several unresolved problems with this. First, John Rademacher found 2 Fireball cartridges, not just one. Second, Files did apparently own a Fireball.... but the serial numbers clearly indicated that it's manufacture substantially post-dated the assassination. And finally, Joe West was conferring closely with Rademacher a year before he discovered and met Files. He and I had talked about the practicality of using a Fireball for a shot from the fence (first postulated by Josiah Thompson). Joe had photographs of the dented cartridge when he went to visit Files in prison. According to Files's chronology, he would have been in Laos with the 82nd Airborne when he was still 17 years old. No authentication of his military record has ever been found. Nor does one enlist, go directly into an elite outfit, and then immediately get assigned overseas to a sensitive assignment. The boot and basic infantry training of a recruit takes about a year (I was going through the military training process in those same years.) Jump school alone is one month, and you had to qualify to make it. I realize that the following is an area of raging controversy, but the ballistics of his firing a mercury-loaded .222 cartridge from a Fireball into Kennedy's head from close range does not work for me. First, the Fireball is LOUD. Kicks like a MULE. After you fire it, it will be pointing UP (not the slightest chance of simultaneously watching through its scope where the bullet hits, etc.) Essentially, it fires an M16 round....from a small short-barrel (compared to the M16) pistol. People below in the sonic cone of the shot would have FELT the blast. Their ears would have HURT. (Please feel free to go to a pistol or rifle range and try this with an M16 or comparable rifle--if you do, the operators of the range may well encourage you to or insist that you wear headsets to protect the ears from damage--I invite any owners of Fireballs to comment.) NO ONE BELOW the fence, I believe, would have had the slightest doubts of the source of a shot from the fence. This is a powerful weapon, for all its small cartridge. Where did it go after hitting Kennedy's "left...err, right" temple (per the confession)? The xrays of Kennedy's brain seem to show the path of a bullet and minute bullet fragments on the right side, with the left side intact. Files's .222, mercury load, would surely have wrecked major damage. Note that (and again, I am aware of the controversy) the Zapruder film shows the dramatic blasting open of the right side of Kennedy's head. Then he rolls fully around to his left until the back of his head is fully visible to the camera. There IS NO MAJOR DEFECT IN THE BACK OF HIS HEAD (Yes, I know, I talked to Bob Groden about this years ago.... While he used the Z. film to dramatize questions about the assassination, leading the the House Select Committee's hearings, when the film does not confirm his theories he blithely asserts that it was altered. I do not find this unsupported, arbitrary selectivity very satisfying.) Much of Files's story parallels information that is in the assassination books. Was he a reader? We do not know. But he was (is) a wannabe writer. I understand that the researchers did obtain possession of Files's unpublished manuscript of his life in crime. There is, of course, quite a bit more.... There was a lot of activity during the 5 years that the Files story was being developed and marketed. And I repeat my appeal to Mr. Ali, who now owns the story, and to Dick Clark and the network heads NOT to offer the world another phony "fictional version" (as Oliver Stone described his own film, JFK) of the assassination. Why not do a show instead that honestly examines the major theories....Files, Hugh, Geneva/Roscoe, Oliver Stone's in a way the readers can read and judge for themselves.