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CTKAformerly published Probe Magazine. Most of the articles on this site first appeared in Probe.

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Jim DiEugenio's Upcoming appearances and radio Interviews:

April 13th, Barnes and Noble, Metro Pointe, 901 B South Coast Drive Ste 150, Costa Mesa, CA
714-444-0226, 12-3PM

May 4th, Barnes and Noble, Orange Town & Country 791 South Main Street Suite 100, Orange, CA
714-558-0028, 12-2PM

NEW DATE! May 18th, Barnes and Noble Bookstore in Manhattan Gateway Shopping Center 1800 Rosecrans Avenue Building B, Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
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October 16-19th Passing the Torch Conference, at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh

November 21-24, November in Dallas, at the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas

Who is Anton Batey?

Part Two: Batey Backs the Warren Commission Cover-Up

by Brian Hunt with James DiEugenio

Structuralism Makes a Quick Exit

As made clear in the first part of this essay, in his distorted and misinformed view of President Kennedy, Anton Batey models himself on Noam Chomsky. He uses a structural approach in his analysis of President Kennedy. That is, since the USA operates in a sick political and economic system, no one can rise above it. Therefore, Kennedy was really no different than Presidents Nixon, Johnson, and Eisenhower. Like Noam Chomsky, Batey then uses that premise to attack Kennedy’s presidency. The problem, as we showed, is that they both begin with the premise. And, to them, upholding that premise is more important than evaluating the evidence. Therefore, they have to manipulate and distort and omit so much evidence that their analysis is stilted and eccentric. The underlying problem—as writers like Donald Gibson and Richard Mahoney have demonstrated—is that Kennedy was not part of the Power Elite, and did not aspire to be part of it. This is why, as Donald Gibson has shown, Kennedy and David Rockefeller—the acknowledged leader of the Eastern Establishment at the time—had no time or sympathy for each other. (See Gibson’s Battling Wall Street throughout, but especially pgs. 73-76) The reason Kennedy made his historic 1957 Senate speech on the pitfalls of French colonialism in Algeria and Vietnam is because he had been in country when the French empire there was falling. So he understood that the Vietnam conflict was not really about communism, but about nationalism. And he said this many times, and took considerable heat for it. (See Mahoney, JFK: Ordeal In Africa, pgs. 14-23)

As we have seen, in his structuralist approach, Batey somehow misses all of this pertinent material—and much more—which no serious historian could do. This indicates the dangers of using this approach to history. First, a structuralist approach is only as good as the person who uses it. If that writer is too biased one way or the other, the result will suffer greatly. To make a point of comparison, Michael Parenti is also a structuralist. Yet he understands that there are men and women who occasionally manage to rise above the system and do some good for a great number of people, e.g., Franklin Roosevelt. And Parenti also understands that political conspiracies do exist, and they are proven to exist. To use one example, the heist of the 2000 election in Florida by Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris. Even though this was done in broad daylight—what with roadblocks set up to hinder people from voting—no person was even interviewed by any law enforcement arm, let alone indicted. The political result of this was catastrophic: George W. Bush created a totally unjustified war in Iraq. A war that Al Gore would not have started. So not only do political conspiracies exist, if not addressed, prosecuted, and stopped, they can have horrendous results for hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people.

The second problem with using the structuralist approach is that it tends to sweep all contrary facts or evidence into an ideological whirlpool. That is, facts get discounted, data gets warped, and key events are sometimes omitted. Because, as alluded to above, what matters the most to people like Chomsky and Batey is keeping the structure intact. If facts or data collide with that structure, it’s the facts or data that get discarded or discounted. This is a serious problem for people who actually care about things like accuracy, fairness, and completeness. This glaring shortcoming was manifest in the first part of this essay, when Batey dealt with Kennedy’s presidency. It is just as evident in this part, dealing with Batey’s comments and approach to Kennedy’s murder.

But what is so odd about Batey’s structuralist allegiance is that it now—with Kennedy’s murder—completely disappears. That is, in his discussion of the Warren Commission and its presentation of evidence, you will nowhere find any discussion of the lives and careers of men like Allen Dulles, John McCloy, Gerald Ford, and J. Edgar Hoover. This is astonishing, in two aspects. First, it was these men, not Kennedy, who had played such a huge role in being ‘Present at the Creation,’ that is in forming and supporting that Eastern Establishment, which is responsible for setting up and maintaining the structure of American government in the 20^th century. Therefore, a structuralist should surely be concerned with that. Because in this case, unlike with Kennedy’s, one would not have to juggle, manipulate, and distort the evidence. There are books on these men in which tons of evidence exists to make that straightforward case. They were clearly responsible for some of the worst American crimes of the 20^th century. Secondly, to somehow suppose that these men would not manipulate the evidence if they wished to is simply to ignore the reality of who they were. And the proof of that is a fact that Batey completely ignores. Sen. Richard Russell, Representative Hale Boggs, and Senator John Sherman Cooper had to be gulled into supporting the Warren Report. And Russell conducted his own investigation in which he came to the opposite conclusion of the Commission. (See here for the proof of that, and also for summaries of who Dulles, McCloy, and Ford really were.)

In other words, in an unexplained inconsistency, Batey now completely drops his method of approach when he discusses the Commission. Why? Since he never tells us, we can go ahead and logically deduce a reason. If one were to detail just who these men were, then one would have to question what they did, and why President Johnson had them running this investigation. After all, President Kenney had fired Allen Dulles , thereby ending his long intelligence career. Robert Kennedy was the first Attorney General who actually exercised some degree of control over Hoover. After JFK was killed, Hoover had Bobby Kennedy’s private line to his office removed. (Antony Summers, Official and Confidential, p. 315) As Walt Brown has shown, Dulles was the most active member of the Commission. (See, The Warren Omission, pgs. 83-87) The Warren Report itself says that Hoover and the FBI were responsible for the vast majority of the investigation. (See, p. xii) Why would such men, who clearly had no love for JFK, bend over backwards to find out the truth about his death? The fact is they did not. For example, the day after the murder, Hoover was so concerned about who killed President Kennedy that he was at the racetrack. (Summers, op. cit.) To leave things like this out, and much more, is not writing history. And it is not honest scholarship. It is depriving the listener of important information. As we will see, not only does Batey do that, he goes even further. He eliminates any record of evidence manipulation, and he then rushes to embrace discredited sources who he knows will give him false information without the fingerprints of manipulation on it, e.g., David Von Pein and John McAdams and Dale Myers.

Chomsky Discredits Himself

As we have seen, Batey supports Chomsky in his unsupportable take on Kennedy’s intent to withdraw from Vietnam. He supports him even though there is now a small shelf of books on the subject featuring new evidence to support the thesis set forth in Oliver Stone’s film by Fletcher Prouty and John Newman. One reason these new books are there is that the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) declassified new documents that support Prouty and Newman and discredit Chomsky. This declassification process occurred in 1997. Any serious scholar would have to consider new evidence when it is declassified. Chomsky did not. In his recent book called Hopes and Prospects, in conjunction with this issue, he wrote: “On these matters see my Rethinking Camelot... . Much more material has appeared since, but while adding some interesting nuances, it leaves the basic picture intact.” (pgs. 123, 295) In other words, the 800 pages of new ARRB documents in release on the subject, and the several new books published amount to “nuances.” As we revealed in Part One, the “nuances” include President Johnson confessing in February of 1964 that he himself knows he is breaking with Kennedy’s policy. They include the records of the May 1963 Sec Def meeting in Hawaii where McNamara is actually formulating that withdrawal plan—with no reference in that plan to a contingency upon victory. We can go on and on. But the point is made. Through a combination of arrogance and ideology, Chomsky and Batey are immune to evidence.

It is imperative to keep the above in mind as we go to Batey now using Chomsky as an authority on the JFK assassination—which he does. Consider this quote by Batey on the record of the JFK assassination: “Chomsky studied it, but found no evidence of conspiracy. And he’s right.” (One year ago, Batey’s JFK and Vietnam YouTube channel.) In light of what we discovered in Part One, this is stunning. For the truth is precisely the opposite. As Ray Marcus (in Probe) and Martin Schotz (in his book History Will not Absolve Us) have revealed, in mid-1969, Chomsky was utterly convinced by just four pieces of evidence that Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy. He was so convinced that he seriously contemplated leading an attempt to reopen the investigation into the assassination. Now are we to believe that Chomsky then read the over 30 volumes of the Warren Commission and House Select Committee on Assassinations, plus the total of four million documents, including the two million declassified by the ARRB, at the National Archives on the Kennedy case? Not a snowball’s chance in Hades. So either Chomsky is lying and Batey is rubber-stamping the lie, or Batey is lying and Chomsky did not say this. Either way, Chomsky is in no way, shape, or form an expert on the evidence in the JFK case. For Batey to proffer him as such is simply piffling.

But yet, neither is Batey. In the “comment” sections of his YouTube videos labeled “Oswald Debate: 1963”, he admits that he has read 14 books on the subject. In the hierarchical pantheon of JFK researchers, this would rank him as about a second semester freshman. Now, if he has only read 14 books on the subject, then one can imagine what his reading level is in regards to official government reports (e.g. CIA Inspector General reports on the plots to kill Castro, and the Bay of Pigs), and the hundreds of thousands of pages declassified since 1994.

Now if Chomsky is an amateur on the JFK case, and if Batey is a freshman, where does Batey get his information on the assassination? He himself says that, “Concerning the assassination itself, probably Posner’s book.” (Batey’s Channel 6) This is the repeatedly discredited Gerald Posner, whose book, Case Closed, was published before the ARRB began its work. From that statement one can see that Batey is as biased and irresponsible on the facts of the murder of President Kennedy as he is on his policies.

The date of this colloquy was in late March of 2009 on the IMDB forum concerning Stone’s film. And in his conversation with Von Pein, Batey admits his reason for the recruitment drive. He first calls Von Pein “among the leading lone gunman advocates” and then adds, “And you obviously know more than me of the subject... which is why I asked you to be on.” Von Pein’s Youtube channel is also the only one in which Batey subscribes to regarding the Kennedy assassination (see Batey’s Youtube Subscriptions, and you’ll find Von Pein). In other words, he knows his 14 books are not anywhere near enough to survive a debate with any serious Commission critic. But the crucial point to be made here is this: Not only does Batey have only a small background knowledge of the Kennedy case; but that he is so biased in his viewpoint that he is irritated that so many people believe the opposite of what he does that he goes over to the most extreme advocates of the Krazy Kid Oswald fantasy. That is John McAdams, Von Pein, and Reitzes. In other words, to men who are as imbalanced and monomaniacal as he is. Again, this is not scholarship. This is not an appeal to the so-called declassified record. This is a man on a Vince Bugliosi type of jihad.

Batey on the Evidence in the Kennedy Assassination

“Yes I believe in the single bullet fact, which I can easily defend. If you want to check it fine with me.” (Batey’s Channel—11) “The bullet did not have to curve. Conspiracy theorists don’t have Kennedy and Connally lined up right in their diagrams. In reality, Connally was sitting more inward and was lower. When you account for that, it goes in a straight line. It doesn’t curve all over the place.” (Batey's Channel—13)

Comment: This is clearly based upon the ABC/Dale Myers fraud as represented in the Peter Jennings debacle back in 2003. Evidently Batey’s incontinent scholarship allowed him to avoid all the eviscerating critiques of Myers’ simulation. Or the fact that Myers used to be in the conspiracy camp, but is making a lot more money now as a Commission supporter. Either Batey is unaware of these facts, or if he is aware of them he is keeping them from his listeners. (Click here to see a devastating expose of Myers, that somehow Batey missed.)

But there is a second point to be made here that is even more potent from an evidentiary point of view, and indicates just how uninformed Batey is. If there is one thing that the ARRB declassified files reveals without question it is this: The single bullet theory never happened. And the FBI and Hoover knew it didn’t. Gary Aguilar and Josiah Thompson combed the FBI files to find the evidence that Hoover had sent an agent to interview the witnesses who had discovered CE 399 at Parkland Hospital. The record of said interview did not exist in individual summary form. It only existed as part of a large report. So the two men went and talked to the agent who reportedly gave the nearly pristine bullet, exhibit CE399, to hospital workers Darrell Tomlinson and O. P. Wright. When they found Bardwell Odum he said that no such thing happened. And he would have remembered if it did because he knew Wright. Further, he would have filed a detailed report on it. (The Assassinations, edited by James DiEugenio and Lisa Pease, p. 284.) In other words, Hoover falsified the record. And in fact, the FBI knew that CE 399 was planted on the day of the assassination. For they called Tomlinson, the man who actually picked it up off a gurney, late on the night of the assassination. “They wanted to speak to him about the bullet. Tomlinson said that thy ‘told me to keep my mouth shut...[about] what I found....Just don’t discuss it.’ ” (Best Evidence, by David Lifton, p. 591)

How did the FBI know that CE 399 was a plant that they had to shut up Tomlinson about? Because it was not the same bullet found at Parkland. Wright had told this to Josiah Thompson in 1966 for his book Six Seconds in Dallas. (p. 175) He described the bullet as a lead colored, sharp-nosed hunting round, not the copper coated, round nosed, military round in evidence today.

But they knew it that day for another reason. Whatever bullet was found on the gurney was turned over to the Secret Service. It ended up at the White House and was given to FBI agent Elmer Todd. Todd then gave the bullet to FBI examiner Robert Frazier at the FBI lab that same day. Here is the problem. Todd got the bullet at 8:50 PM. Frazier received the bullet at 7:30 PM. Which, of course, is impossible. Further, Hoover wrote that Todd’s initials are on the bullet. Today, on whatever bullet is in the National Archives, they are not.

In and of itself, just this point proves that there was a conspiracy, and that the FBI was involved in the cover-up the day it happened. So much for Batey’s single bullet “fact.”

“Also, there is no ‘circumstantial evidence’ that suggests that there was a second shooter.” (ibid, Chomsky on JFK & Vietnam—3)

Comment: Oh really? What about the testimony of Lee Bowers, a worker in the railway yards behind the picket fence. He talked about three cars he saw drive into the parking lot area behind that fence about 25 minutes before the assassination. The driver of the second car looked like he was speaking into a phone or a mike, since he held something up to his mouth. At the time of the assassination, Bowers saw two men standing between his vantage point and the mouth of the triple underpass. The place where many people believe the grassy knoll assassin fired from. As immortalized by the film JFK, this is what Bowers then said: “At the time of the shooting, in the vicinity of where the two men I have described were, there was a flash of light... or something I could not identify... some unusual occurrence—a flash of light or smoke or something which caused me to feel that something out of the ordinary had occurred there.” (Jim Marrs, Crossfire, pgs. 75-77)

But that’s not all. Not by a long shot. Bowers testimony is especially compelling when coupled with that of Sam Holland. Holland was standing on the overpass watching the motorcade. He then heard four shots, the last two almost on top of each other. He looked over at the grassy knoll and said he saw a puff of smoke beneath some trees there. Holland and three other witnesses ran to that area because of the sound and smoke. (Thompson. p. 121) When he got there, he saw footprints that resembled a lion in a cage pacing back and forth. J. C. Price said he saw someone running from this area with something in his hand, which he said could have been a headpiece. (ibid, p. 123)

The list could go on and on, but the point is made. Batey’s 14 books are failing him. So is his reliance on McAdams, Reitzes, Myers, and Von Pein.

“... just as the films shows the back of Kennedy’s head perfectly in [tact], while showing a huge wound to the FRONT, which is consistent with a shot from behind. The Zapruder film is also unswerving regarding eyewitness testimony, the autopsy photos and X-rays.” (ibid, Chomsky on JFK & Vietnam—4)

Comment: This is simply not true. As many commentators have proven, e.g., Robert Groden and Jim Fetzer included, you can see a hole in the back of JFK’s head in the Zapruder film. (See the last photo in the book High Treason, especially in the hard cover version.) You can also see, as Bill Miller has shown with stills, the coning effect of the back of his head being stretched out. What this indicates is a hit to JFK from the front. What the last part of this one means is Batey’s secret. The film actually backs up the most recent critical work on things like the autopsy photos and x-rays. Work by people like Doug Horne, David Mantik, and Groden, which indicates they were tampered with.

“I think that’s the crux of the matter. Not only is there not a shred of evidence suggesting a “second gunman” on or around the grassy knoll (if you want to continue the debate I’d love to) but all of the evidence points to Oswald—ONLY Oswald.” (ibid, Chomsky on JFK & Vietnam—4)

Comment: The first part, about the grassy knoll, has been discredited already. But to say that “all of the evidence points to Oswald—ONLY Oswald,” well, this is again made in spite of the evidence not because of it. For starters, there is the ammo problem. The FBI searched every gun and ammo shop in Dallas. No one ever sold Oswald this particular type of ammunition. And there was no such ammo found in his belongings after the fact. (Henry Hurt, Reasonable Doubt, p.105) Does Batey think that someone gave Oswald four bullets and then said, “Go kill Kennedy with these.”?

What about the fact that the Warren Commission, using some of the best riflemen from the military, could not find anyone who could duplicate the shooting skill of Oswald, i.e., firing three shots in six seconds and scoring 2 of 3 direct hits. (Sylvia Meagher, Accessories after the Fact, p. 108) And by doing this, as in other matters, the Commission cheated. Because Oswald was a quite mediocre shot. Not anywhere near the skill level of the military officers employed by the Commission. (Hurt, pgs. 98-100)

Third, what is the evidence that Oswald was on the sixth floor at the time of the shooting? According to Victoria Adams and Sandra Styles, who were on the stairs headed downward about 20 seconds after the shooting, they did not see him. (Gerald McKnight, Breach of Trust pgs. 113-14, p. 399) Further, Carolyn Arnold said she had seen Oswald on the first floor at around 12:25 PM. (ibid, p. 114) How on earth could Oswald be downstairs at 12:25, and then go upstairs and do all the things necessary to prepare for the shooting in that short of a period of time? Less than five minutes. For example, like putting the rifle together, erecting a barrier of boxes, and then wiping some of the boxes clean of his fingerprints. Especially since Bonnie Ray Williams said he was on the sixth floor until 12: 20. And he saw no one. (Anthony Summers, Conspiracy, p. 76)

The capper in all this is a piece of evidence that David Josephs has found: an official invitation for Dallas citizens to attend Kennedy’s speech at the Trade Mart that day. The time of the dinner was twelve noon. In other words, the motorcade, as often happens, was late. Oswald would have had to be perched with gun in hand at that window from before noon until 12:30, and we know he was not. (Click here for the evidence.)

In other words, Oswald was not in the window when he needed to be, did not have the shooting skill necessary, and he never purchased the ammo for that rifle. And as we already established, the bullet found at Parkland was not the right one for the rifle anyway. So much for “all the evidence” pointing toward Oswald.

“Going ‘back and to the left’ is not an indication of where the shot was fired from, especially if you get hit directly in the brain. Also, frame 312-313 Kennedy’s head goes forward.” (Chomsky on JFK & Vietnam—5)

Comment: Again, this shows just how current Batey is in the research field. The man who first publicized this slight, soft, forward movement was Josiah Thompson in his book Six Seconds in Dallas. He had to watch the film several times to catch the forward movement, it was that indiscernible. (pgs. 87-89) At 313, Kennedy’s entire body—not just his head—rockets backward with tremendous force, bouncing him off the back seat. It is a singular strophe that is unforgettable to see. At the time, Thompson matched up this double head movement with Holland’s testimony of hearing two shots almost simultaneously. That is, Kennedy was hit twice in the head at almost the same time. (ibid, p. 95)

Batey obviously is trying to explain this in pure Von Pein/McAdams mumbo-jumbo about the “neuromuscular reaction” as devised by inveterate Warren Commission employee Larry Sturdivan. Ignoring the fact that Sturdivan has been completely discredited by two peer-reviewed reports for his work on the Neutron Activation Analysis, David Mantik and Randy Robertson have both discredited him on this issue. First, the experiment used by Sturdivan, the shooting of a goat, was misrepresented. All four extremities of the animal extended outward. This did not happen with Kennedy. But secondly, as Mantik notes, the nervous system of a human is quite different and more complex. And there were differences noted in the literature for humans. First, the time it takes to get a reaction is not at the time of impact but at or near the time of death. Secondly, “...the observed reaction in the film is much too fast to fit with such a reflex” and by a factor of 5 to 10, which makes this explanation highly implausible. (Assassination Science, p. 281)

Third, there is no other way to explain the hole in the back of Kennedy’s head than with a shot from the front. And, as we shall see, although Batey tries to deny it, there is no doubt that this rear skull wound existed. Fourth, there is no other way to explain the massive damage done to Kennedy’s brain except by two shots. The witness testimony on this is almost as convincing as the testimony about the hole in the back of the head. And as Doug Horne proves in the third volume of Inside the ARRB, the photos of Kennedy’s brain in the National Archives are substitutes, not the originals. This is certified by the powerful ARRB testimony of the man who was supposed to have taken them, John Stringer. Stringer says they are not his. (Horne, pgs. 806-10)

“The evidence that there was not nor could there have been a gunman on the knoll is overwhelming. Lee Bowers did not see him, Marilyn Sitzman, Abraham Zapruder, and Emmet Hudson did not see him or hear him, even though they should have. This ‘knoll gunman’ was unseen by anyone, and left no evidence behind.” (ibid)

Comment: Of the four witnesses mentioned, only Bowers was actually behind the picket fence. Contrary to what Batey writes, Zapruder and Hudson indicated the sounds of the shots came from behind them, that is behind the picket fence. (Marrs, Crossfire, pgs 66, 72) We already went over the testimony of Bowers, who said he saw moving cars, men, and a flash of light behind the picket fence. But Bowers indicated in a letter to bookseller Al Navis that he saw more than what he had told the Commission. Or even what he later told Mark Lane. What he actually saw finally surfaced in 2001.

At that time researcher Debra Conway interviewed Olan Degaugh. He was the Supervisor of the yard Department Union Terminal Railroad Company. He was one position above Bowers’ boss. Olan owned the parking lot behind the picket fence. He talked to Bowers after the assassination. Bowers told him that, after the shooting, he saw a man run from the fence, open the trunk of his car and throw something inside that looked like a rifle. The car had been parked next to the picket fence, and it then left the area. (Beyond the Fence Line, by Casey Quinlan and Brian Edwards, p. 157) James Sterling, a friend of Bowers, told Gary Sanders of Jim Garrison’s staff roughly the same thing back in 1967.

Somehow Batey missed all this. But that is what you get by relying on the work of Von Pein, Reitzes, and McAdams.

“The Zapruder film also shows the back of JFK’s head intact after frame 313, which, along with the autopsy photos and personnel at Bethesda Hospital, contradicts what the doctors at Parkland said.” (Oswald Debate: 1963—2)

Comment: Again, as adduced above, the first part of this is just plain wrong. The part about the Bethesda hospital personnel was exposed as an official lie by Gary Aguilar eleven years ago in the book Murder in Dealey Plaza. Using the declassified files of the House Select Committee as declassified by the ARRB, he showed that what was written in the HSCA report about a difference of opinion about this wound to the back of the head was actually a deception. And this deception had been bandied about by Commission advocates like John McAdams. Aguilar put together a chart in that book which showed that, far from there being a difference, the personnel agreed that there had been a hole in the back of the skull. (See p. 199) Gary uses over forty interviews and affidavits to prove this point—over twenty witnesses from each location, Parkland and Bethesda.

The clincher in this argument is the testimony of Dr. Robert Canada to Michael Kurtz, reprinted by Doug Horne in Volume III of his series Inside the ARRB. (pgs. 927-28) Canada was the commanding officer at Bethesda that night. He told Kurtz that there was a large avulsive wound in the rear of Kennedy’s skull. When Kurtz replied that this was not in the autopsy report, Canada said, “... the document had to be rewritten to conform to the lone assassin thesis... Dr. Canada insisted that the contents of this interview be kept secret until at least a quarter century after his death.”

Lee Harvey Oswald

“Although I officially claim to be agnostic on the subject, I think Oswald acted alone, and did it to make a name for himself. One thing that the Warren Commission did that even Jim Garrison agreed with is catalog EVERYTHING Oswald did the 2 or 3 weeks leading up to the assassination. Now of course, Garrison uses that to prove Oswald was totally innocent, and didn’t conspire with anyone. But we know Oswald shot [Kennedy], and it’s an indication that he did it alone.” (ibid, Oswald Debate: 1963—2)

Comment: This is more of Batey showing his reliance on 14 books, and then McAdams and Von Pein. Try and find in the Commission volumes any reference to the call attempted by Oswald the night before he died. The call was attempted by Oswald in the Dallas jail to former military intelligence officer John Hurt in North Carolina. Many people today, including former CIA officer Victor Marchetti, believe that call sealed Oswald’s death. (Click here for what Batey missed.)

Further, the Commission tried to discredit each and every instance of an Oswald impersonation that occurred in this time frame. A good example being the one at the Lincoln Mercury dealership in the first week of November. Yet, even Vincent Bugliosi admits that this happened! (Reclaiming History, pgs. 1030-35) Also around this time period, Robert Litchfield claimed to see Oswald at Ruby’s Carousel Club. (John Armstrong, Harvey and Lee, p. 745) Litchfiield’s name is not in the Warren Report. There were credible reports by Det. Buddy Walthers that Oswald was seen a 3126 Harlendale, a reported safe house for anti-Castro Cubans in the Dallas area during the second week of November. (Ibid, p.763) This is also not in the Warren Report. Two witnesses said that there were records of phone calls between Ruby and Oswald in mid-November. (ibid p. 768-69) Try to find this in the Warren Report. This list could go on and on. And contrary to what Batey maintains, it does place Oswald in a conspiratorial backdrop.

“You’re just talking about [the Fair Play for Cuba Committee] in New Orleans. My uncle was a member in California.” (Oswald Debate: 1963—4)

Comment: Batey is trying to say here that since the Fair Play for Cuba Committee had several chapters throughout the USA, including California, then Oswald’s chapter in New Orleans was genuine. Batey overlooks the facts that 1.) New Orleans was not in any way as liberal as say San Francisco. In fact, it was a center of CIA and anti-Castro activity at the time Oswald was there. Which would make it a rather unusual place to start such an organization. 2.) Because of this, there were no other members of this Oswald/New Orleans chapter. And further, Oswald had no reported activity with any other person of communist persuasion in that city. 3.) As any communist of the time period will tell you, if you are trying to encourage citizens in such a place to attend meetings, it is not a good idea to leaflet on busy streets at the rush hour. It is much better to do it at night, leaving the literature in the foyer so people do not have their interest exposed in public. 4.) As John Newman details in his book Oswald and the CIA, there were both CIA and FBI penetration operations going on against the FPCC at this time. The CIA operation was headed by David Phillips and Jim McCord. (Newman, p. 243)

All the above, which Batey ignores, is important in regards to his next pronouncement.

“I don’t think there is any credible evidence that Oswald was CIA. Of all the research I’ve done on the subject, the only strange thing I keep thinking about is the 531 Lafayette St/544 Camp Street connection. Also, on September 17, 1963, Oswald went to the Mexican Consulate and got permit number 24085 for a 15 day tourist permit. The interesting part is that number 24084 belonged to William Gaudet—someone who DID have established connection to the CIA.” (Oswald Interview—3)

Comment: Again, the above shows the dangers of making wide-ranging and authoritative declarations on the basis of reading fourteen books. Even though there have been entire volumes written about Oswald’s associations with the intelligence community—e.g., John Newman’s Oswald and the CIA, Philip Melanson’s Spy Saga—Batey can only surface two pieces of evidence in this regard. Let us fill in some more background on the issue. How did Oswald learn Russian as quickly as he did in the Marines? And why was he administered a test in the language? Why did the Commission receive a report that Oswald was receiving language training at the Monterey School of the Army? (Melanson, pgs. 11-12)

Could this have anything to do with his odd discharge from the Marines and his very fast transit to Russia after the suspicious discharge? Oswald left the service just three months before his enlistment was up. And his mother knew nine months in advance that he was leaving. (Armstrong, p. 221) The entire hardship discharge process took all of two weeks to process. Yet the HSCA discovered that these usually took from 3-6 months. (HSCA interview with Lt. Col. B. J Kozak, 8/2/78) Although the hardship discharge was centered on an alleged injury to his mother, Oswald stayed with her only a few days before he prepared to leave for Russia. As Melanson notes, and as Batey ignores, there was a false defector program being utilized by the Pentagon and CIA at the time to garner inside information about Russia. (Melanson p. 24) To most objective observers, this is what the Russian language training for Oswald and the phony discharge were all about.

And this is just the beginning. There has been so much information released by the ARRB on this subject, that in the afterword to the reissue of his book, Newman actually named CIA counter- intelligence chief Jim Angleton as Oswald’s controlling officer. (Newman, pgs. 636-37) And his book outlines a scenario in Mexico City in which he and David Phillips controlled and segregated Oswald’s files at CIA HQ in order to complete the plot that made Oswald the patsy.

“Oswald missed the fascist ultra right winger Edwin Walker in the spring of ’63 by inches with the Mannlicher Carcano, then reused it successfully in November.” (Oswald Debate—1)

Comment: Batey is very poor at ballistics analysis. As we showed earlier, the bullet found at Parkland did not match the rifle found in the Texas School Book Depository and later attributed to Oswald. Well the same thing is the case in the Walker shooting. As Gerald McKnight writes in his fine book Breach of Trust, Walker had held the bullet fired at him in his hand. When he saw it displayed on TV during the HSCA hearings he was shocked. It bore no resemblance to the bullet he had handled. He then tried to start a campaign to withdraw this “substituted bullet” from the records of the Kennedy case. (p. 52) That makes two bullets fired by Oswald that altered their shape, form, and color in transit. Like Von Pein and McAdams, Batey doesn’t bat an eyelash.

Jack Ruby

(The following series of quotes comes from Batey's Channel—15)

“Ruby was nuts. For some reason, conspiranoids have issues with that particular fact. The idea that Ruby was insane, despite a wealth of evidence indicating this, is something they cannot handle. There are no prizes for guessing why.”

Comment: This is where Batey begins to show his true colors, and it gets pretty disgusting. Now, instead of using the rubric of Oswald being crazy, he shifts it to Ruby. The problem is, that there is even less evidence for that in Ruby’s case than in Oswald’s. No serious biographer of Ruby has ever held the position that Ruby was demented at any time before the assassination of President Kennedy or when he killed Oswald. Not Seth Kantor, not Tony Summers, not Vincent Bugliosi, not even the Warren Commission. But now Batey plucks it out of the ozone and asks the listener to supply the reason.

And note the cheap smear of calling Warren Commission critics, “conspiranoids.” More than anything else, this shows just how far Batey has descended into the Von Pein/McAdams camp. For these are the kinds of personal insults hurled by them when they also have no evidence to back up their bald assertions. For McAdams it’s “conspiracists” and “factoids;” for Von Pein it’s “kooks.”

The truth is this: The HSCA concluded, after a careful consideration of the evidence and the uncovering of new witnesses, that Ruby had help getting into the police basement to kill Oswald. (HSCA Vol. IX, pgs. 134-39) In other words, they said the Warren Commission verdict on this key issue was flat wrong. This is something that Batey “cannot handle.” So he does not tell the listener about it. And then smears those who do.

“Beyond doubt, Jack Ruby believed there was a conspiracy, and he believed President Johnson was part of it. But wait! That does NOT mean he believed President Johnson was involved in the assassination... Ruby believed, as his Warren Commission testimony made clear, that there was a conspiracy, led by the John Birch Society and supported by President Johnson, to blame the murder of President Kennedy on the Jews and to use him (Ruby, who was Jewish) as a scapegoat for this conspiracy. Nuts? Yes, totally nuts.”

Comment: If Ruby believed that LBJ was a part of the conspiracy, how could he not think he was involved in the assassination? What conspiracy is Batey referring to then?

The second assertion, that Ruby outlined some conspiracy in his Warren Commission testimony is more of Batey’s balderdash. The reader can see this is nonsense by looking at Ruby’s testimony himself. There is no such reference to any such conspiracy there. Which makes one wonder if Batey has read this himself, or if he is relying on his 14 books again.

Ruby did compose an erratic letter while in jail which was later smuggled out. (Marrs, p. 430) In this letter he did use the term “Nazi” and he did implicate Johnson as part of the plot. And his behavior did get more erratic in jail. But there are two things to remember about this point. Ruby’s behavior was altered after he was in jail. Not before. Secondly, while in jail he was visited by the infamous CIA MK/ULTRA doctor Louis J. West. (Michael Benson, Who’s Who in the JFK Assassination, p. 475) West once injected an elephant with so much LSD, he killed the animal. (Acid Dreams by Martin Lee and Bruce Shlain, p. 189) The visit by West was made about a month after Ruby was convicted. West diagnosed Ruby as being in a paranoid state and suffering from hallucinations. Ruby denied this strongly, which West took as further proof he was correct in his diagnosis. Ruby now became a candidate for treatment of mental disorders. So Ruby was now put on “happy pills,” which did not seem to work well. Now his behavior got even more and more erratic. (ibid)

Again, somehow Batey leaves out the telling detail that casts a different shadow over the event.

“Conspiranoids place great emphasis on Oswald’s continual denials that he was responsible for murdering the President, even when he was dying, yet they seem unable to extend the same courtesy to Ruby, who, in the days before his death, offered to take another lie detector test to prove he acted alone in murdering Oswald, and stated ‘There is nothing to hide. There was no one else.’ ”

Comment: This is ridiculous and it proves that those 14 books Batey read must have been written by the likes of David Belin, Jim Moore, and Gerald Posner. It does not appear that Batey has even read the HSCA volumes. For one of the few good things the HSCA did was to do an analysis of Ruby’s FBI polygraph. The expert panel was appalled by what it discovered. (HSCA Vol. VIII pgs. 197-218) They concluded that Bell Herndon, the FBI technician conducting the polygraph, broke at least ten rules of good practice in this examination. The violations ranged from the preparation of questions to the actual equipment used to register reactions. The most serious ones were the number of questions Ruby had to answer—which were over a hundred. Herndon also was faulted for posing very poor “control” questions: those that the operator knew the respondent would probably lie to, but he wants to get a sample reading of what a deceptive reaction will look like. But third, and most serious, Herndon turned down the Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) control as the test wore on. This is one of the best detectors of deceptive criteria since it monitors sudden changes in emotion. Well, Herndon had this turned down too low at the beginning and then actually lowered it from there. The panel said the pattern should have been the opposite. Especially in light of all the questions asked.

Herndon understood that the many, many questions wore Ruby down. As the panel stated “...the more a person is tested, the less he tends to react when lying. That is... liars become so test tired, they no longer produce significant physiological reaction when lying.” (ibid, p. 209) Secondly, with the faulty “control” questions there would be no good paradigm to compare Ruby’s deceptive response with. Third, with the GSR turned down, and then turned down even further, the best mode of polygraph detection would be neutered. In other words, Herndon’s verdict that Ruby did not lie during the test was vitiated by the techniques used. For example, the HSCA panel noted that Ruby’s reaction to an early question—“Did you assist Oswald in the assassination?” recorded the largest valid GSR reaction in the first test series. Plus it had a constant suppression of breathing and a rise in blood pressure. Yet, in spite of all these indications of deception, Herndon said Ruby was being truthful.

Clearly, the fix was in on this polygraph. And either Batey does not know it, or he is relying on people like Von Pein or McAdams or Reitzes to cover it up for him. For instance, Von Pein likes to say that Ruby requested this test. As if that proves something. It only proves that Ruby thought that either 1.) The authorities would cover up for him (his friend Bill Alexander of the Dallas DA’s office was in the room during the exam) or 2.) He could bluff his way through. The second option failed, but the first option bailed him out.

“If Ruby had been hired by anyone to murder the President he would have to shut the hell up and done his time. In fact, shutting the hell up was something Jack was simply incapable of doing...”

Comment: No serious critic claims that Ruby was “hired” to do what he did. What most people believe today is that, as a low-level errand-boy for organized crime, he was called in and coerced—that is, threatened—into doing what the did.

Why? Because he was the perfect guy to do it since he knew more than half the police force and was on very good terms with many of them. This would allow him easy access to roam the corridors each day Oswald was incarcerated. Batey actually, and incredibly, does not tell the listener about Ruby’s presence at Henry Wade’s late Friday night press conference. There, decked out to look like a reporter, with notepad and pencil, he corrected an error by the DA. When Wade said Oswald was associated with the Free Cuba Committee, a conservative group hoping to oust Castro, Ruby was the only person knowledgeable enough to correct him and say it was the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. (Anthony Summers, Conspiracy, p. 457) Some nut huh? Most informed people think he was helping to preserve Oswald’s left-wing cover.

The next day, as authorities were talking about transferring Oswald, Ruby horned in, trying to get details of the move. (ibid, p. 458) On Sunday morning, several witnesses said they saw Ruby in and around the police station early in the morning, around nine or ten. (ibid, p. 460) He then arranged with Karen Carlin to send her a very small amount of money Sunday morning. And he timed the wire with miraculous precision. He was a block away just a few minutes before the transfer. As the HSCA concluded, with new witnesses, Ruby did not walk down the Main Street ramp. He came in through an alley door, which was left deliberately open and unguarded by Sgt. Patrick Dean. (ibid, pgs. 467-68) This allowed him to slip into the crowd undetected. When Oswald emerged off the elevator, a first horn went off. Will Fritz then broke the protection pocket in front of Oswald, leaving him exposed. A second horn went off and Ruby instantly plunged forward and killed him. This is not the action of a nut. They are the acts of a man who knows precisely what he is doing and exactly when to do it. Because he has the cooperation of an inside man.

Epilogue

This could go on and on. We could discuss Batey’s declarations on Operation Northwoods, Kennedy’s order to print money through the Treasury instead of the Federal Reserve, civil rights policies, speeches, etc. And we could do the same thing to these bombastic pronouncements as we have done to the above. When someone is as rigorously wrong on so many points as Batey is, it suggests that this is not a coincidence. Clearly, Batey has an agenda. And it’s quite a weird one. For there is no one quite like him in the field. Not Chomsky, not Cockburn, not even Gus Russo. The first two tend to concentrate, as we showed in Part One, on Kennedy’s foreign policy forays. Not nearly as much on the assassination itself as Batey. Gus Russo does deal with both. But in foreign policy he concentrates almost solely on Cuba, so he can manufacture his Cuban G-2 plot with Oswald as the triggerman.

So Batey stands alone, he is a nonpareil at both distorting and smearing Kennedy’s presidency, and then in attempting to prop up the disgraceful Warren Commission.

Which brings the reader full circle on the question at hand: Who is Anton Batey? Disinformationalist, simply misinformed, devoted ideologue? In essence, all three. As shown, he is greatly misinformed, not only on the details of Kennedy’s assassination, but of his presidency as well. Consequently, he feels the need to “set the record straight” by promoting this revisionist material on the web, in this case YouTube. Thus, disinformation is planted on the Internet for all to see and hear. And from his own statements, he has a strong political motivation for maligning Kennedy—it’s part and parcel with his politically slanted view of history, which is ostensibly Chomsky’s with regard to American foreign policy.

Ever since Chomsky began his “career” as a political writer in the late 1960’s, John F. Kennedy and his administration have factored into most of his political writings before and after Rethinking Camelot was published. Early on, as his books such as American Power and the New Mandarins and At War with Asia show, Chomsky managed to take some potshots at the Kennedy administration, though not as intensely and profusely as he did later. And it appears to be part of a gradual process. From the time he first became a political writer, you could see a variety of ridiculous claims about the Kennedy administration. As the years progressed, those claims slowly became more numerous and more outlandish. By the time he did Rethinking Camelot, Chomsky had already made up his mind about JFK years beforehand. Now, JFK was to be rewritten not as a visionary, a source of inspiration, and a capable leader wanting to initiate peace during the Cold War, but as a hardened Cold Warrior, a Hawk, a sponsor of “state-terrorism,” and a war criminal. Since Rethinking Camelot, that has been the modus operandi for Chomsky whenever referring to Kennedy and early 1960’s foreign policy. In most of Chomsky’s political works, it is nearly impossible to go through the pages without eventually reading portions of misinformation/disinformation about Kennedy. Some of the material is recycled from earlier books of his to promote the same revisionist historical constant about Kennedy. So from this, Kennedy is a prominent element in Chomsky’s version of history, despite claiming that Kennedy was no different from any other Cold War president. And this is why Kennedy is important. Had it not been for his assassination, the Vietnam War would have never have happened the way it did. The U.S. would not have been involved militarily; over 58,000 American soldiers wouldn’t have died; millions of Vietnamese, Lao, and Cambodians wouldn’t have perished; millions of Americans would have never had the incentive to protest in the streets out of anger of war abroad and civil discontent at home; and America as a whole wouldn’t have become so disillusioned with the veracity, competence, and ability of its government. With the assassinations of the prominent political leaders and activists during the decade, the political Left was short on motivating leadership. From the turmoil, alongside many others, Noam Chomsky emerged to take the reins, thus formally beginning his political odyssey, and a new era of stagnation for the Left. Without the tumultuous events of the 1960’s, including the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Noam Chomsky would probably never have had the incentive, or really a genuine basis, to begin his political writings; would have never found a large, disillusioned audience of young adults willing to listen; and would have probably never have been recognized (let alone revered) outside of academic circles.

But there is one important distinction between Chomsky and Batey. Batey has said he agrees with Chomsky almost completely on foreign policy, but he differs with him a lot of the time on domestic policy. This is undoubtedly true insofar as Batey writes for the Von Mises Institute. (Click here for his work there.) Ludwig Von Mises was the founder of the Austrian School of Economics, and his two most famous followers were Friedrich Hayek and Murray Rothbard. The Austrian School was virulently opposed to any kind of government planning and therefore strongly criticized communism, socialism and, most of all, the work of John Maynard Keynes. Hayek eventually was brought to the University of Chicago where his ideas were adapted for America by Milton Friedman. So with the combination of Chomsky on foreign policy and Freidman and Von Mises on economics, Batey becomes a very rare bird indeed. And as we have seen, it doesn’t matter to him that he is doubly wrong. As seen in his pleas to the likes of Von Pein and Reitzes, he can’t seem to control himself.

At bottom, these antics are the ultimate result of the motivation behind the smears and the lies. And this is why we have written this two-part essay. Such individuals have to be called out and warned against, for they are dangerous to the analysis and interpretation of history, especially if it is meant only as a means to an end in some sick political game.

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