DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I have added a few new entries to my "Kennedy Catalog", including a book written by Richard Belzer and David Wayne, entitled "Dead Wrong: Straight Facts On The Country's Most Controversial Cover-Ups" [Skyhorse Publishing; 336 pages].
You can read some sections of "Dead Wrong" at Amazon.com for free HERE, including [in the Kindle edition] Mr. Belzer's very weak argument behind this bold claim (which Belzer puts in all capital letters in the book's Intro):
"IT WAS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR OSWALD TO HAVE SHOT PRESIDENT KENNEDY!!!"
The main reason, Belzer says, to believe that Lee Harvey Oswald could not have physically murdered JFK is because the reconstructions of the alleged movements of Oswald and the known movements of Dallas policeman Marrion Baker were "rigged" by the Warren Commission, permitting Baker to arrive in the second-floor lunchroom of the Depository at just about the same time that Oswald would have arrived there.
But what Belzer never mentions in his book's brief Introduction is the fact that the man performing the Oswald portion of the reconstruction (Secret Service agent John Howlett) did not run or trot at all in any of the tests. He merely walked at two different speeds (normal and a fast walk) when attempting to duplicate Oswald's movements from the sixth floor to the lunchroom [see Warren Report; Page 152].
Quite obviously, therefore, if Oswald had been moving any faster than Agent Howlett (and he probably was moving faster), it means that Oswald could have easily gotten down to the second-floor lunchroom sooner than Howlett did in the Warren Commission re-creations.
Plus, there's the fact that Baker told the Warren Commission that it likely took him LONGER on 11/22/63 to do the things that he was re-creating for the Commission in March '64. And Belzer thinks Baker's re-creation test was rigged to intentionally slow him down, and yet Officer Baker said that the re-creations were done too QUICKLY. Go figure.
In addition, Belzer points to Commission Exhibit 3076, which is the statement signed by Officer Baker in September of 1964 with the famous "drinking a Coke" portion of the statement crossed out and initialed by Baker.
Belzer, like almost all other conspiracy theorists, wants to believe that BAKER HIMSELF wrote the words "drinking a Coke" on that document we see in CE3076, when, in fact, it's clear from the handwriting that Baker only initialed and signed that document. He did not write anything else in it.
Somebody else (probably an FBI man) wrote the statement, and then Baker corrected the incorrect things in the document--such as "drinking a Coke". And Baker was quite clear in his WC testimony (as was Roy Truly) that he did not see anything in Lee Oswald's hands when Baker encountered him on 11/22/63.
Yeah, that's some great proof you've got there for Oswald's total innocence, Mr. Belzer -- a set of reconstructions done by Baker and Howlett (as you ignore the important points about Howlett moving at a snail's pace during those tests and about how Officer Baker himself said the tests resulted in the "minimum" amount of time needed to re-create his movements, not the maximum) and a document [CE3076] which was obviously not even written by Marrion L. Baker at all.
If the rest of the book is anything like that weak-sister Intro I read on Amazon's website, then I have a feeling that the title of Mr. Belzer's book would more aptly apply to his own conclusions (when it comes to the JFK assassination anyway) -- "Dead Wrong".
"DC DAVE" SAID:
I don't know why a person would spend the time writing 549 reviews on Amazon.com, but the aptly named Mr. Von Pein shows us here how it is done. You don't bother to read the book you review. You just read the introduction.
If you're just looking for errors, I can do Von Pein one better. In the case of Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster, Wayne and Belzer write on page 221 that the autopsy doctor said that there was no exit wound. Actually, Dr. James Beyer drew a picture of a gaping exit wound about the size of a half dollar.
But the authors have chosen to examine 10 cases in which anyone challenging the government conclusions works in an environment where the margin for error is extremely large. What strikes you in case after case is that the evidence against the government and its lackeys in the mainstream press is simply massive and overwhelming.
I take a back seat to no one when it comes to knowledge of the Foster case, the ninth one that they examine, and I can say without equivocation that the authors show quite well that the man was murdered and did not commit suicide. As for that exit wound, the autopsy doctor was about the only person who said that there was one. The autopsy report was clearly fraudulent, as was much else in this case and the nine others that the authors examine.
If you're looking for an excuse not to believe the uncomfortable truths revealed in this volume, then listen to this reviewer [DVP]. But I'm putting the book on my Christmas gift list for friends who need some education.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Nice of you to totally ignore the factual things I pointed out in my review, DC Dave. Why did you do that?
My comments were based on a narrow and limited area, that's true. But I think it's an important "limited" area. Because we can know for certain that Belzer is 100% wrong in his intro when he blasts in all caps "IT WAS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR OSWALD TO HAVE SHOT PRESIDENT KENNEDY". And I prove in my review why he's wrong. It wasn't "IMPOSSIBLE" at all. In fact, per the evidence and Oswald's own actions (which are always ignored or twisted by conspiracy theorists), Oswald certainly did kill two men in Dallas in 1963.
Along with the book you'll be giving your friends for the Christmas holiday, maybe you'd also like to pass along the info I provided in my mini-review above. Your friends deserve that "education" as well....don't they?
"DC DAVE" SAID:
Nice of you to ignore 99.9% of what is in the book and call it a review.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
If the authors can be so blatantly wrong about something so incredibly easy to research (the Baker/Howlett/Oswald timelines and reconstructions), and they are wrong, then I hate to think what other myths have been turned into proven "facts" by the co-authors of this book.
And if Belzer can't be trusted to tell the truth even in his INTRODUCTION to the book (and it's obvious he can't), I have no reason to suspect that the innards of the book are any better.
In fact, I'd be willing to wager that the inaccurate conspiracy nonsense gets MUCH, much worse as the book progresses, with one already-debunked myth being spouted after another. That's almost certainly true. I'd bet my next CIA Disinfo check on it.
ANTHONY MARSH SAID:
You are wasting your intellectual capital on attack[ing] Richard Belzer? My God, man, he's just some damn comedian. That's like asking us to take Dick Gregory seriously. Our whole table at the conference openly laughed at him when he started waving around the Nixon-Ruby memo. No one takes these comedians seriously. It is a straw man argument for you to be attacking a comedian. What next, your book denouncing the UFO theories?
DAVID EMERLING SAID:
You [Tony Marsh] criticized Von Pein for being critical of a book written by a comedian. Yet, look how this discussion is going. Those who probably claim to be legitimate researchers are probably making the same arguments that Belzer made in his book. If people subscribe to Belzer's points, then it is irrelevant whether Belzer was a comedian, circus clown, or full-time JFK assassination researcher with a PhD. It is the POINTS that are under attack, not Belzer.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Oh, yes, you're absolutely right about that, David. I didn't mean to suggest that Richard Belzer's nonsense about the Baker/Howlett re-creations was anything "new". Not at all. It's the same old tired junk that CTers have tried to prop up to "prove" Oswald's innocence for decades.
It's just that Belzer's all-caps "IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE" bunk in his book caught my eye, so I decided to write a post about it.
BTW, that book ("Dead Wrong") is still selling amazingly well. As of this writing [on August 23, 2012], it's #46 at Amazon among all books sold there. That's incredible, IMO.
And just think how many more people will gobble up Belzer's "OSWALD COULDN'T HAVE DONE IT" malarkey, without even knowing about the little tidbits concerning Howlett's snail-pace movements during his part of the reconstruction.*
* = To be fair, I really have no idea whether Belzer (or co-writer Wayne) have put anything in the book about Howlett's speed during the '64 re-creations, because I have only read a small portion of the introduction (for free) at Amazon. So it's possible that Belzer talks about the stuff I mentioned earlier concerning Howlett's movements, but I would kind of doubt that he does, because if he does, it would pretty much destroy Belzer's "OSWALD HAS TO BE INNOCENT" intro piece.
David Von Pein
August 15-23, 2012
September 7—October 30, 2012
