Category: John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Part 1

Addendum

Part 3

Through the Looking Glass…

A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

~John F. Kennedy

Since the posting of our exposé on Wikipedia, Will the Real Wikipedia Please Stand Up?, to CTKA last July, we’ve been keeping an eye on Wikipedia’s “most proud“¹ author – the main gatekeeper of its Lee Harvey Oswald entry – Robert “Rob” Fernandez of Tampa, Florida (Wiki-screen-name: Gamaliel). And it seems he’s been hard at work. That is evident from a review of the changes that Gamaliel/Fernandez has made to the LHO entry during the intervening eight months. Given those elapsed months and the changes we’ve witnessed, we thought the time ripe to revisit the situation.

To see clearly now what exactly has changed, let’s start with what’s most conspicuous. Perhaps the onset of the winter inspired a bit of bulking-up, because the most noticeable difference between Wikipedia’s LHO entry of last July and the current one (March 2011) is the number of footnotes: Whereas last July’s entry weighed in with 158 notes, the current entry shows a total of 195 – a hefty 19 per cent increase. And yet, as a quick perusal of the following table shows, the Table of Contents for the two differing LHO entries reveals very little substantive change between the summer and winter entries:

In fact, a quick comparison of the above table reveals that the basic structure of Gamaliel’s/Fernandez’s² LHO entry shows no substantive change whatsoever. Yes, there are two “new” sections that have been added to the article. But even a cursory review of these “new” sections reveals that they are anything but: Each has been created from former sections. The current section, 2 Police interrogation, is simply the former section, 1.11 Police jnterrogation, now renumbered; and the current section, 6 Notes, is nothing more than a recompilation of 15 source citations that have been taken from the former section, 5 References.

Same Old “Truthiness“

But what about the 19 per cent increase in the article’s source materials? Might we expect that by increasing the citations of his source material, Fernandez might have tilted the balance of available evidence even slightly toward the light of objectivity? Could there be any possibility that a 19% increase in cited source material might translate to a corresponding increase in the article’s veracity?

Fat chance.

Yes. Fernandez is up to his same old tricks. He’s simply shoveling the same old… well… probably the best way to complete that thought is by reiterating a conclusion from last summer’s exposé:

In other words, the entry remains the same crude model that it was eight months ago: It merely buttresses the bulk of its lies through a continuing policy of blanket censorship. Rest assured. All remains safe in Wiki-World. There is absolutely no chance that these additional source materials will ever risk “overwhelm[ing] the text” of Fernandez’s LHO entry.

As we also noted this past July:

And the situation remains much the same today. As with last summer’s version, the current Wikipedia LHO article has not a single reference to The Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB). This in itself is both revealing and, at the same time, unbelievably bizarre: Revealing, in that the omission of any mention of the ARRB betrays a rather transparent attempt by Fernandez to avoid any source materials that would impugn his favorite source, i.e., the 1964 Warren Commission; and unbelievably bizarre, in that the very idea that any article on Lee Harvey Oswald written in 2011 might attempt to dodge the ARRB by simply pretending as if it never existed is, well, pushing the idea of what is Orwellian beyond the extreme. Because what this tells us about the degree of contempt that Fernandez and the folks at Wikipedia have for their readership is everything we need to know: Right in line with Allen Dulles‘ famous quote that “The American people don’t read,” the folks at Wikipedia count on an ill-informed readership. For only a readership that is unaware of its own country’s history would be gullible enough to accept Fernandez’s idea of the ARRB as non-existent.

Predictably, the overwhelming weight of source materials for Fernandez’s LHO entry still comes largely from the Warren Commission Report (WCR) and the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA). These source materials are filled out for the most part by the likes of Gerald Posner, Vincent Bugliosi, Max Holland, PBS Frontline, the Dallas Morning News, and (no surprise) John McAdams’ own site, The Kennedy Assassination Home Page. In other words, Fernandez – and his wiki-compadres – adhere to the same old conventional mainstream media view of the assassination, i.e., Oswald as “lone gunman.”

So even after an increase of some 19% of cited source material, as well as the seeming addition of two “new” sections, it seems as if nothing of substance has changed. It appears that Fernandez, in line with his self-professed prideful control as a JFK assassination information censor, simply felt the need to “rearrange the furniture.” Why? We can only guess. But without a doubt, some kind of update to the Wikipedia LHO entry was long overdue. As noted in the conclusions from our exposé of this past July:

And judging from the changes that Fernandez has made, it would appear that he felt that those retro-fitted-1964-sanitized-walls were beginning to show the wear and tear of age. After all, we certainly had shined a spotlight on the gaping cracks. So perhaps a little spackling touch-up to the walls along with, perhaps, an eye for a fashionable Feng Shui arrangement of the furniture was in order. Yes, as it turns out, surface appearances seem to have been Fernandez’s primary concern. … Or were they?

Are Fernandez’s recent changes merely cosmetic? Let’s pull back the curtain and take a closer look. Perhaps in doing so we’ll continue to shed light on important details that Fernandez (and those at Wikipedia who continue to support a policy of blanket censorship in regard to the JFK assassination) apparently would like to remain shrouded in darkness – at least, that is, for the uninitiated Wikipedia reader.

Here Today…

I think that one of the great strengths of the open collaborative approach is the fast and powerful destruction of untenable conspiracy theories. It is quite easy to watch a pseudo-documentary like “Loose Change” and to find it compelling, until you back up and do some homework with the help of sites like Wikipedia. ~Jimbo Wales,[1]02:48, 7 July 2006 (UTC); from the “9/11 Conspiracy Theories Page” of campaigns.wikia³

So what exactly has changed within Wikipedia’s LHO entry since last summer?

In order to answer that question, i.e., for the purpose of comparison, one needs to have access to the version of the LHO entry from last July. And quite fortunately for our readership, we took Daniel Brandt’s prescient warning concerning Fernandez’s reputation to heart. Recall that Brandt went to the trouble of saving an old webpage of Fernandez’s that Fernandez had forgotten to take down. Why? :

But certainly Wikipedia must have the means of preventing any one of its administrators from “whitewashing” its data. Right?

As it turns out, Fernandez’s reputation for “whitewashing” appears to be the perfect fit for the policies of Wikipedia’s central governing bureaucracy – the Wiki-anti-elitist-elite – which, the reader may recall, number no more than 1.4% of all active registered users.⁴ Back in the day, when Wikipedia had a “circulation” of no more than 5000 unique daily visitors,⁵ and so had yet to appear at the top of just about every Google search,⁶ Jimmy Wales was already thinking ahead to the problems of control over the data of his “people’s encyclopedia.” And dreaming about a “cabal membership” and the special powers it would retain:

Yes, granting special editing privileges to a small select group of experienced users in order that Wikipedia might then be able to protect itself from, say, malicious cases of vandalism would be hard to argue against. But what if that same privileged group of elect administrators – Jimmy Wales’ own “shadowy mysterious elite group” – were to use their special editing capabilities to, say, permanently delete compromising information that manifestly exposes “the project” as one whose policies support dissemination of disinformation? Or, viewed from another angle, what if the elite members of Wales’ privileged “cabal” were to exercise a form of permanent suppression of information by using their special editing powers to selectively toss anything that they wish to keep from their readers down the Wiki-memory-hole?

Now that kind of censorship would certainly be an attractive feature to a supposedly “open collaborative approach” that surreptitiously seeks a “fast and powerful destruction of [so-called] untenable conspiracy theories.”

Undoubtedly, Wikipedia, now too, makes Cass Sunstein “most proud.”

Going…

Just how large and empowered would Wales’ proposed “shadowy mysterious elite group” now be? That’s anyone’s guess. As to their numbers, it’s a safe bet that Wales’ exclusive “cabal” is composed of an even more selective group of Wiki-admins than the governing bureaucracy we have called “the Wiki-anti-elitist-elite”⁸ – in other words, just a small fraction of the less than 1.4% of all active registered users. As to the question of empowerment, one must look to ultimate objectives. For in order for Jimmy Wales to achieve his dreamed-of control over information while at the same time keeping up the surface appearance of egalitarianism, he needs to rely upon a very small select group – his inner circle – to ensure such authoritarian control. It is to such a small select group that Wales undoubtedly entrusts the finality of decisions on all Wikipedia content.

Would such finality on decision-making include the outright whitewashing of data? You bet. And based upon our own observations of changes to the Wikipedia LHO page – yes, we have witnessed information from that page disappear down the Wiki-memory-hole – it’s also a very safe bet that Fernandez has found his way into Wales’ elite inner-circle where “cabal membership” has its privileges.

So, given both Wikipedia’s and Fernandez’s reputation for censorship, we were not about to have our diligent efforts in exposing the blatant lies of Wikipedia’s LHO entry “whitewashed” away. In line with the old adage, “Forewarned is forearmed,” we took the precaution of backing up the LHO entry from last July. In fact, our Wikipedia exposé from last July does not reference the current Wikipedia LHO entry, which, over time, is (of course) subject to change. Instead, all references to Wikipedia’s LHO page within the CTKA article of last summer are now a “frozen snapshot in time” of the LHO entry from last July.⁹

You see, anticipating Fernandez’s penchant for “whitewashing,” we backed up Wikipedia’s LHO page from last July (–July 5th, to be exact) before we posted our original article. It will soon become clear to the reader just how important that backed-up version of the LHO entry from last July truly is in exposing Fernandez’s (and thus Wikipedia’s) hand.

Going…

Of all of the lies that Fernandez expected his LHO entry readers to swallow – whether lies of commission or omission – undoubtedly the most egregious that we had brought to light was his deliberate planting of outright false evidence against Oswald. Last July, as we combed through the Wikipedia LHO entry in order to shed light on its failings, we came across the following inset and accompanying caption buried about half-way through the article and on the far-right side of the page:

Here, Fernandez asserts that Oswald’s Dallas P. O. box allowed for the delivery of the alleged murder weapons because the alias to which these weapons were sent – A.J. Hidell – was supposedly on Oswald’s application for his Dallas P.O. box as an alternate name. But even Fernandez’s beloved Warren Report could not save him here. And he had to have known it. Because Oswald’s Dallas P.O. box application, which the Warren Report catalogues as “Cadigan Exhibit No. 13,”¹⁰ contains no alternate names whatsoever. What this all means is that the weapons shipped to Oswald’s Dallas P.O. box by Klein’s Sporting Goods could not have been retrieved by Oswald because existing U.S. Post Office regulations would not have permitted him to do so.

So what did Fernandez do? He simply planted false evidence. As seen in the above inset, he tried to pass off Oswald’s application for his New Orleans P. O. box – an application that did have both A.J. Hidell and Marina Oswald listed as alternates – as Oswald’s Dallas P.O. application. This “switcheroo” ostensibly allowed Fernandez to get around the pesky problem of USPS regulations that would have made it impossible for Oswald to have retrieved the alleged murder weapons. And Fernandez’s calculated planning behind such planting of false evidence becomes apparent when one considers that:

• By placing this outright lie within an inset to the entry, Fernandez was, for all intents and purposes, “hiding it in plain sight.” Why? Given our own empirically reasoned conclusion that Fernandez has by now found his way into the exclusive membership of Jimmy Wales’ “shadowy mysterious elite group,” then it follows that Fernandez must be keenly aware of the demographics of his readership: Most visits to Wikipedia are “bounces,” i.e., one page views only. And each of those single-page-visits – made mostly by “childless people under 35 [years of age]… who browse from school and work”¹¹ – average less than one minute. So on a first (and, probably, only) read-through, it’s a safe bet that most of the above cited demographic will be quickly scanning most Wikipedia articles that they view. They will not be reading for depth. (Not that you’re likely to find any depth in any Wikipedia article.) Unless a sidebar to an article is specifically designed for allure, whether through color, size, or some other eye-catching scheme, then, the readership that constitutes Wikipedia’s demographic is not at all likely to focus much attention on a black-and-white inset and caption.
• Add to this the fact that the eye reads left-to-right and then quickly back to the left, and the likelihood that Wikipedia readers might take the time to actually read this inset – placed strategically half-way through the article and on the far-right of the page – diminishes even further.
• Out of the small percentage of Wikipedia readers who might happen to take the time to read the above inset, how many would then be likely to check out Fernandez’s assertion that “A. J. Hidell was the alternate name on the post office box rented by Oswald, to which the weapon was sent^[115]” by actually linking to the footnote?
• And then, given this same demographic, how many of those readers do you suppose would link through to the cited primary source material – what Fernandez claims is CE 697 (i.e., Commission Exhibit 697)?
• And out of that acutely culled readership, how many who actually link through to what Fernandez claims is CE 697 would be perceptive enough to realize the game that Fernandez is playing here? That is: How many would be discerning enough to understand that Fernandez’s cited source material is, first of all, not CE 697 at all, but in fact CE 818 and CE 819 (though these Commission Exhibits do in fact appear on page 697 of Volume XVII) and secondly, that these Commission Exhibits have nothing at all to do with Oswald’s Dallas P.O. box, but are instead for his New Orleans P. O. box – the P.O. box to which the alleged murder weapons were never sent.

You get the picture. Fernandez is well aware of his readership’s demographic and obviously and contemptuously takes them for dupes. And when the jig is up, the game is over, what does he do? He pulls a “Minitrue.”

Down the Wiki-memory-hole.

…Gone!

Fernandez simply wiped out any trace of evidence that he had planted that lie about Oswald’s Dallas P.O. box. But not before his hand was forced.

Yes, we were keeping an eye on Fernandez. And we were curious as to how this “most proud” author would respond – if at all – to having his lie exposed for all to see. The narrative of events immediately following the posting of our exposé to CTKA provides further insight into the inner-workings of Wikipedia, Fernandez, and Jimmy Wales’ “elite cabal.” The reader should bear in mind that even though we had already taken the precaution of backing-up our own copy of Wikipedia’s LHO entry to the CTKA server (from July 5th, 2010), when our exposé was first posted to CTKA last July 15th, we still intentionally linked directly to the Wikipedia site for all references to the LHO entry. We then sat back and watched.

As judged by a number of the entries to the most widely-read message boards, it seemed that the article had generated enough interest that some were prompted to actually try their own hand at directly editing Wikipedia’s LHO entry. No doubt, this spike in activity served to focus the spotlight with an even greater intensity, not only upon Fernandez’s policy of blanket censorship, but also upon his outright planting of false evidence. In was only a matter of days before we began to take note of Fernandez’s response.

The first thing that we noticed was that Fernandez began to play with an arbitrary renumbering of the LHO entry’s footnotes. Why? Keep in mind that, because we had at first decided to link directly to Wikipedia for all references to its LHO entry, a renumbering of these footnote references within that LHO entry would place them “out of synch” with the former numbering in our article, making it difficult – if not impossible – for CTKA readers to follow the trail of evidence that we had carefully presented in exposing Fernandez’s planting of false evidence. In other words, by changing the numbering of key references to the Dallas P.O. box within the Wikipedia LHO entry, e.g., footnote 115, Fernandez was now, in effect, forcing CTKA readers to link to information that had absolutely nothing to do with Oswald’s Dallas P.O. box and the delivery of the alleged murder weapons. Was Fernandez covering his tracks?

It certainly appeared that way. And we weren’t about to let him get away with it. So after about three weeks of watching him play with the renumbering of footnotes, and having already backed-up the Wikipedia LHO entry from July 5th, 2010, we simply updated the CTKA article to now directly reference that backed-up version of the LHO entry that we held on the CTKA server. Thus, the LHO footnote numbers were now once again “in synch” with the July 5th, 2010 version that our exposé referenced. An attempt to confuse CTKA readers through a renumbering of footnotes was simply not going to work. Fernandez would have to try another tack. Which, of course, he did.

But even with his alternate tack, Fernandez still – as we shall see – comes up short. And quite predictably, though Fernandez did decide to keep the inset with reference to Oswald’s “fake selective service (draft) card in the name of Alek James Hidell,” all reference to A.J. Hidell as an alternate name on the Dallas P.O. box has – pfft – now vanished from the Wikipedia LHO entry.

Down the Wiki-memory-hole.

The Fast and Powerful Destruction of Untenable Conspiracy Theories Cover-Ups

Here’s how the inset and caption now appear:

Fake selective service (draft) card in the name of Alek James Hidell, found on Oswald when arrested. A.Hidell was the name used on both envelope and order slip to buy the murder weapon (see CE 773),[138] and A. J. Hidell was the alternate name on the New Orleans post office box rented June 11, 1963, by Oswald.[139] Both the murder weapon and the pistol in Oswald’s possession at arrest had earlier been shipped (at separate times) to Oswald’s Dallas P.O. Box 2915, as ordered by “A. J. Hidell”.[140]

Clearly, when Fernandez here cites A.J. Hidell as an alternate name, he is now not being deceptive because he is now correctly referring to Oswald’s New Orleans P.O. box – the P.O. box that had both A.J. Hidell and Marina as alternate names, but also the box to which the alleged murder weapons were never sent. By doing so, Fernandez, for all intents and purposes, has backed down. And though there’s nary a trace of his having done so, his planted false evidence against Oswald (i.e., reference to Oswald’s Dallas P.O. box as the one with A.J. Hidell as an alternate) has now been removed from the Wikipedia LHO entry.

But does this removal of planted false evidence mean that Jimmy Wales’ “people’s encyclopedia” might now be turning over a new leaf? Would Wales – with Fernandez as his entrusted LHO gatekeeper – ever possibly let slide what he considers “one of the greatest strengths of [his] open collaborative approach?” –i.e., “the fast and powerful destruction of untenable conspiracy theories?”

Observing how Fernandez proceeds to cover his tracks tells us all that we need to know about how “untenable” he and his boss Wales consider JFK “conspiracy theories.” Because the problem that presents itself now to Fernandez (and Wales’ “open collaborative approach”) is this:

• If Hidell’s name was not an alternate to Oswald’s Dallas P.O. box, and USPS regulations would have prevented delivery of any item with an addressee not listed on the box (either as a primary name or alternate), then how could Oswald have retrieved those alleged murder weapons sent from Klein’s Sporting Goods and addressed to A.J. Hidell at Oswald’s Dallas P.O. box?
• And without the ability to have retrieved those alleged murder weapons from his Dallas P.O. box, then how could Oswald be tied to the murders of either JFK or Officer Tippit?

Convenient (not to mention suspicious) Mimicry

So how does Fernandez manage to get around this problem? Apparently, the same way his beloved Warren Commission did: Following their lead, Fernandez, too, lies and misleads. Take note of the last sentence of the above revised caption:

Here Fernandez suggests by implication that Oswald must have retrieved the alleged murder weapons from his Dallas P.O. box, even though there is absolutely no evidence that he in fact did so, and even though strong evidence in fact exists that he could not have. But to uncover that strong evidence, one must upend the Wikipedia demographic by actually following Fernandez’s planted footnote 140, which currently reads as follows:

Here we can clearly observe Fernandez’s means of retreat, because though footnote 140 unequivocally states that the “box had been rented by Oswald in Dallas under his own name,” Fernandez then proceeds to fall back on the Warren Commission’s own means for tying the alleged murder weapons to Oswald, i.e., “postal inspector Harry D. Holmes of the Dallas Post Office,” who effectively testified that despite USPS regulations,¹² USPS would have delivered the alleged murder weapons to Oswald’s P.O. box, and Oswald must have retrieved them.

To support his summary of Inspector Holmes’ testimony before the Warren Commission, Fernandez provides a link to page 121 of the Warren Commission Report (WCR). The pertinent paragraph from the Report that Fernandez has summarized in his footnote 140 reads as follows:

If we are to believe the above WCR summary, then how can one account for the fact that, for another box Oswald rented, “the portion of the application [i.e., Oswald’s] which lists names of persons, other than applicant, entitled to receive mail” was not “thrown away after the box was closed” – as the above WCR summary states – but is in fact an exhibit preserved and catalogued by the Commission itself?¹⁴

But beyond this glaring inconsistency, in order to fully appreciate the extent of Postal Inspector Harry D. Holmes’ false testimony that the above summary provides, one must first grasp two straightforward USPS regulations that were in effect at the time, and which Harry D. Holmes, in his capacity as a US Postal Inspector had to have known about:

• USPS regulation no. 355.111 states that: “Mail addressed to a person at a PO Box who is not authorized to receive mail shall be endorsed ‘addressee unknown’ and returned to sender.”¹⁵
• USPS regulation 846.53a In 1963, it was legal to ship firearms through the US mail as long as both shipper and receiver were in compliance with this regulation, which required the completion of USPS form 2162. The Post Office processing the shipment of firearms was required to retain the associated completed and signed 2162 forms for a period of four years.¹⁶

If we are to believe Holmes, then, when it came to Oswald’s Dallas P.O. box, both of the above USPS regulations were simply ignored. A weapons delivery from Klein’s Sporting Goods, Chicago, Illinois to A.J. Hidell, P.O. Box 2915? And A.J. Hidell’s name is not on the application for P.O. Box 2915? Not a problem according to Holmes: “[W]hen a package was received for a certain box, a notice is placed in that box regardless of whether the name on the package is listed on the application as a person entitled to receive mail through that box.” And as far as any identification for retrieval of the alleged weapons, well according to the above WCR summary, Holmes tells us that “[o]rdinarily… , identification is not requested because it is assumed that the person with the notice is entitled to the package.” In other words USPS regulation no. 355.111 was routinely ignored by Holmes and his staff of Dallas postal workers.

As to regulation 846.53a, the above WCR summary – as well as all of Holmes’ actually WCR testimony itself¹⁷ – simply ignores it altogether! And can it be any wonder why? Either Holmes would have had to have produced the retained 2162 forms related to the shipments from Klein’s or he would have had another song and dance on his hands. And from the looks of the results of their partnering with him,¹⁸ neither David Belin nor Wesley Liebeler seemed to have much confidence in Holmes’ “stage presence.” So, as far as regulation 846.53a went, it looks as if it was “mums the word.” From the get-go.

Thus, whereas we would normally expect that the testimony of a government officer would uphold regulations, here Inspector Holmes’ testimony is put to the exact opposite purpose, i.e., to show that, in the case of delivery and receipt of items for Oswald’s P.O. box, USPS regulations were effectively ignored. How convenient. (Not to mention suspicious.) Especially when one has ample insight into the motivation of Inspector Holmes’ “testimony.”

The Ministry of Silly Dances

But before taking a tumble down the rabbit hole that leads to a greater appreciation of US Postal Inspector Harry D. Holmes’ motivation, a few side-steps are in order.

As we’ve already taken note, it’s not very likely that the average Wikipedia reader would have even read through to the details of the Fernandez’s current footnote 140. And further, that if they had come this far, Fernandez expects his readers to accept Inspector Holmes’ testimony as the final word on the matter. So in the interest of exposing what must be one of the most untenable of untenable cover-ups, let’s continue to buck such Wiki-complacency. To get to the source of the matter, let’s not settle for the mere summary of a summary of Holmes’ testimony as Wikipedia and Fernandez would have us do. Let’s instead inspect a portion of Inspector Holmes’ actual testimony.¹⁹ Specifically, let’s focus in on the following telling exchanges between Holmes and Assistant Counsel to the Commission, Wesley Liebeler:

Notice the leading questioning that Liebeler uses here. Erle Stanley Gardner would probably have thought twice before allowing any of his fictional courtroom counsel such license. Clearly, even before Holmes answers Liebeler’s question about Oswald’s Dallas P.O. box, we already know what his answer will be. And even more clearly, Holmes’ cued response is contradicted by U.S. Postal regulation no. 355.111, which unequivocally states that “Mail addressed to a person at a PO Box who is not authorized to receive mail shall be endorsed ‘addressee unknown’ and returned to sender.”

What this tells us is that Holmes – whose authoritative position as a US Postal Inspector required him to oversee the correct execution of USPS regulations – had to have known that he was being evasive and misleading in his testimony. What immediately ensues is most interesting. Almost as if grabbing at the proverbial fig leaf for some form of cover, Liebeler and Holmes then engage in the following curious dance of words:

Again, quite clearly, Liebeler establishes himself as the leading partner in this courtroom minuet apparently designed not to reveal but to obscure. Because any deposition of a Postal Inspector taken by any reputable counsel about Oswald’s ability to have retrieved those alleged murder weapons from his Dallas P.O. box would want to fully explore the USPS regulations in place at the time. The questions that should have been committed to the record during Liebeler’s deposition of Holmes, then, are questions such as: What are the regulations that govern the delivery and retrieval of items from a USPS P.O. box? What about the delivery and retrieval of firearms? In regard to Oswald’s Dallas P.O. box 2915, were these regulations correctly followed? If not, then why not? And so on …

But as far as Liebeler and Holmes were concerned, direct questions such as these would have been steps in the wrong direction. They obviously had a much different pas de deux in mind: One that waltzed around real issues by offering “theory,” assumption, and hypothetical conjecture about Oswald’s actions in regard to his alleged retrieval of weapons from his Dallas P.O. box. And what amazes most here is this pair’s absolute brazenness – one that bears no shame whatsoever – about passing off “theory,” assumption, and conjecture as an actual sealing of Oswald’s guilt.

Could Holmes have shown any more eagerness in following Liebeler’s lead than he does in the above exchange? Though Liebeler does not explicitly say so, his question to Holmes (with its built-in telegraph-cued response) – that no identification would be required of someone retrieving an item from a P.O. box – strongly insinuates that, in the case of Oswald’s Dallas P.O. box, existing USPS regulations would have either been ignored or overlooked (by Holmes and his Dallas P.O. staff), thus allowing for Oswald’s retrieval of the alleged murder weapons. At the same time, Liebeler’s clever twist of words here shields Holmes from any immediate accusation that Holmes was at all derelict in his duty as a US Postal Inspector. And without any hesitation, Holmes grabs for that shield and runs with it: “Yes, sir,” he accedes. He then practically trips over himself in his apparent eagerness to please his inquisitor. Though Holmes’ responses are merely “theory,” assumption, and conjecture – all of which could not possibly stand as any meaningful evidence against Oswald’s retrieval of the alleged murder weapons – Holmes finally and triumphantly asserts his verdict: “Either way he [Oswald] got it [i.e., the Mannlicher Carcano – the alleged murder weapon – from his Dallas P.O. box].” (!)

Talk about circular thinking that leads to a presupposed conclusion. Apparently, as with his command of USPS regulations, logic was not a strong suit for US Postal Inspector Harry D. Holmes.

But there’s more to Holmes’ story than is revealed in his silly dances with Commission Assistant Counsel Wesley J. Liebeler. Much more.

The Many Faces of Harry D. Holmes

At the JFK Lancer Conference of November 1997, Ian Griggs, a retired Ministry of Defence Police Officer, noted JFK assassination researcher, and a founding member of the UK research group, Dealey Plaza UK, presented a case study of Holmes entitled The Four Faces of Harry D. Holmes. In his presentation, Griggs makes a fairly convincing case for Holmes having greater knowledge of and contact with Oswald than we might reasonably expect from a Dallas Postal Inspector.

What supports Griggs’ case? Firstly, Griggs admits to having benefitted from the earlier work of Sylvia Meagher and George Michael Evica, both of whom had written about Holmes’ work as an FBI informant. And as Griggs points out, though there is no documentary evidence that explicitly ties Holmes to the FBI, there is one document in particular – CE 1152 – that upon close examination does in fact reveal that in 1963 Holmes was indeed working clandestinely as an informant for Hoover’s FBI. ²² “Confidential Informant T-7” must be Holmes, says Griggs, because CE 1152 “contains many precise details which can only have been known to Harry D. Holmes in his capacity as a Dallas Postal Inspector.”

There’s only one little aside here: CE 1152 primarily refers to Oswald’s Dallas P.O. box 6225 (which Oswald had rented from November 1, 1963 through December 31, 1963). Only in passing does CD 1152 mention Oswald’s P.O. box 2915 – the box to which the alleged murder weapons were said to have been sent. And this passing mention is of no real consequence in regard to Holmes as an FBI informant relative to Oswald’s P.O. Box 2915:

The point being made here is that proving that Holmes must be “Confidential Informant T-7” does not directly connect Holmes’ surveillance of Oswald’s Dallas P.O. Box 2915 – the one to which the alleged murder weapons were supposed to have been sent. And without such a connection, then the significance of Holmes’ surveillance of Oswald both in regard to time and place is significantly reduced.

Other researchers have, however, made a case for Holmes being “Dallas confidential informant T-2” referred to within Special Agent James Hosty’s²³ report of September 10, 1963:

Now if Holmes is also indeed Hosty’s mysterious “confidential informant T-2,” then this raises the question: How, in the entirety of his two depositions taken before the Commission, could Holmes not have provided more telling information in regard to the delivery of weapons to Oswald’s Dallas P.O. Box 2915? After all, if Holmes had been keeping such a careful watch over Oswald and his P.O. Box 2915 in the spring of ’63, then how did he and his staff miss the delivery of a revolver and an Italian carbine to that same box? These questions aside, from CD 1152 alone it is evident that Postal Inspector Harry D. Holmes was in fact an FBI informant – at least in regard to Oswald’s Dallas P.O. Box 6225. And this very fact, especially when viewed in light of his silence on the issue of USPS regulation 846.53a and the corresponding lack of any 2162 forms that would have detailed exactly who had retrieved the alleged murder weapons from P.O. Box 2915, serves to taint his testimony. –Severely.

But wait. There’s even more.

According to his own testimony, Holmes played an essential part in the investigation of the postal money order that Oswald was alleged to have drawn in order to purchase the alleged murder weapon, i.e., the Mannlicher Carcano. On Saturday morning of 11/23/63 – less than 24 hours after Kennedy’s death and just hours after the Dallas police had announced finding an Italian rifle which they had designated as the murder weapon – Holmes sent his secretary out “to purchase about a half dozen books on outdoor-type magazines such as Field and Stream, with the thought that I might locate this gun to identify it, and I did.”²⁵ Holmes then took a keen interest in attempting to tie the Mannlicher Carcano to Oswald by tracing the money order that had been used to purchase the rifle.²⁶ That postal money order was finally identified as order no. 2,202,130,462, with a corresponding postmark (from the envelope on which it was sent) of Mar 12 10:30 am Dallas, Tex. 12.

But there’s just one small problem with that postal money order that Harry D. Holmes worked so diligently at locating: Postal records show that the money order was purchased on the morning of March 12, 1963 between the hours of 8:00 am – when that post office opened – and 10:30 am – the time of the postmarked envelope. And work records from his employer at that time, Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall, Inc., show that Oswald was at work – present and accounted for – during that very time.²⁷

Deeper Down the Rabbit Hole

The next items, taken from Holmes’ own Warren Commission testimony, are simply beyond the bizarre:

• Holmes witnessed the assassination from the 5th floor of the Terminal Annex Building – the site of his Dealey Plaza office – with the aid of binoculars.²⁸
• Holmes, by the invitation of Capt. Will Fritz, was one of the few people permitted in the room during Oswald’s final interrogation on Sunday morning, 11/24/63. Moments after this final interrogation, Oswald was shot dead by Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas Police Headquarters, while surrounded by a phalanx of Dallas’ finest as he was being moved to the county jail.²⁹
• Under questioning by Commission Assistant Counsel David Belin, Holmes produced one of the infamous “Wanted for Treason” posters, which, according to Holmes had been obtained from one of the postal collection boxes. When Belin requested that the poster be marked as an exhibit, Holmes replied that he wanted to keep the original. The commission complied with Holmes’ request, marking a photocopy of Holmes’ original poster as “Holmes Exhibit 5” and returning the original to Holmes.³⁰

Clearly, and as judged by his own testimony, Harry D. Holmes’ interest in the JFK assassination supersedes what we might normally have expected of a US Postal Inspector. And when this apparently eccentric interest is coupled with the proof of his being an FBI informant, together with his total silence concerning USPS regulation 846.53a and related form 2165 in regard to Oswald’s Dallas P.O. Box 2195, then the picture that takes shape is one of his cooperative involvement in a cover-up.

But don’t ever expect to find such information within that “sum of all knowledge,” Wikipedia. Because such information might tend to bring about the fast and powerful destruction of untenable cover-ups.

… I Can See Clearly Now

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

~Inner Party member O’Brien in George Orwell’s 1984

Jimmy Wales would have us “Imagine a world in which every single person is given free access to the sum of all knowledge.”

“That’s what we’re doing,”³¹ he insists.

– Really Mr. Wales?

As we have seen, both through his own statements as well as through the actions of Fernandez – a Wiki-admin obviously empowered with the privileges of “karma points” granted exclusively to “cabal membership,” Wales’ idea of “free access to the sum of all knowledge” in reality turns out to be “free access to [any information that my own “shadowy mysterious elite group” and I deem to be an acceptable part of] the sum of all knowledge.”

In other words, as far as Wikipedia goes, everything apparently hinges on the question of control. The control of the past and the future through present illusion. Through the Looking Glass.

Imagine such a world? The very idea that Wales and his own “shadowy mysterious elite group” of information brown-shirts could ever impose any kind of dictatorial control over the free-flow of information is absurdity itself. No, Wales supposed “control” is, in reality, trompe-l’oeil, appearance, illusion, pseudo-control. Because, as we have demonstrated through these exposés, real information is out there, available for all who demonstrate the tenacity and discernment necessary for finding it; for all with that desire to become empowered by its truth. Those creaking-cracking Wiki-walls offer no real resistance to the resolute. Yes, ultimately, Wales and his “cabal” are powerless to staunch the free flow of information that leads to such authentic empowerment.

What Jimmy Wales and his elitist cabal do count on, however, is the game of numbers, the demographics. Gleaming most proudly at his baby – the 27 volume Warren Commission Report – Allen Dulles³² is said to have gloated, “The American people don’t read.” And though Wales and company no doubt dream about the possibility of a functionally illiterate America, it seems evident that they’ll settle for a nation of “one-page bouncers.” That is where the attack and assault upon knowledge will continue to be waged: Upon pounding waves of superficially trivial data, all equally valid and valued, all queued up and ready for presentation with the same safe “neutral point of view” designed to eradicate any connection to anything having any genuine cultural depth or politically empowering meaning, and with each viewer of the assault inured to his separation of what has been taken from him: inquisitiveness, discovery, critical reasoning, and even perhaps, an understanding of his own country’s history and thus his true place in the world.

Public education is key. Is it any wonder then that the country is witnessing the beginnings of what is arguably the biggest assault ever in its history upon public employee unions? –which includes the livelihoods and futures of just about every public school teacher in the nation? But make no mistake here. Because though it should now be apparent that it’s “open season” upon public school teachers in America, they themselves are not the ultimate target, but simply a means to an end. The real battle here is against pupils, parents, families. And though there is certainly cause for hope in empowering the resolute-to-be, there is at the same time at least as much cause for concern about those who would deny the resolute-to-be their means to ever truly be.

Can you ever imagine JFK and his administration being associated with the likes of “No Child Left Behind,” or its current successor “Race to the Top?” (If, without any hesitation, you’ve answered in the affirmative, then you’re either too young to remember or you’re now one of the inured.) –That’s how much this country has changed since his abrupt removal through state execution on 11/22/63.

But ironically, it’s JFK – not Dulles, Wales, his “elite cabal,” or even Barack Obama or Arne Duncan – who has the final word here, because what JFK has to say about the true nature of that supposed “open collaborative project,” “people’s encyclopedia,” “sum of all knowledge,” is this:

Through its policy of blanket censorship, its misleading presentation of evidence, its planting of false evidence, and then the hiding of its withdrawal of that false evidence – all of which we have demonstrated in regard to the Wikipedia’s coverage of Lee Harvey Oswald and the JFK assassination – it follows that Wikipedia is a source of (dis)information that, evidently, fears letting its readers “judge the truth and falsehood in an open market.”

Thus it follows: Wikipedia fears an educated readership.

Notes

1. from Gamaliel‘s/Fernandez’s Wiki-user page: “What I’m proudest of and spent more time working on than anything else are my contributions to Lee Harvey Oswald. The Oswald entry is even mentioned in a newspaper article (broken link) on wikipedia. If you want to witness insanity firsthand, try monitoring these articles for conspiracy nonsense.”

2. From here on out, we’ll use the real name – Fernandez

3. Please see: http://campaigns.wikia.com/wiki/9/11_conspiracy_theories

4. For a detailed explanation of how this less than 1.4% figure was arrived at, please see section IV: Poking Around the Hive within Will the Real Wikipedia Please Stand Up?

5. i.e., October, 18, 2001

6. Current estimates – March 2011 – rank Wikipedia as the 8th most visited site in the world, with upwards of 8 million unique daily visitors. (http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page)

7. Jimmy Wales, A proposal for the new software, memo of October, 18, 20011

8. Ibid. (section IV: Poking Around the Hive within Will the Real Wikipedia Please Stand Up?)

9. We invite the reader to compare last July’s LHO entry with the current entry, i.e., as of March 2011.

10. WCH, Vol. XIX, p. 286.

11. Ibid. (http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page)

12. U.S. Postal regulation no. 355.111 clearly states that “Mail addressed to a person at a PO Box who is not authorized to receive mail shall be endorsed ‘addressee unknown’ and returned to sender.”

13. WCR, p.121.

14. WCH, Vol. XIX, p. 286. See also the New Orleans application at: Vol. XVII, p. 697

15. John Armstrong, Harvey and Lee: How the CIA Framed Oswald, (Quasar Books, 2003), p. 453

16. John Armstrong, Harvey and Lee: How the CIA Framed Oswald, (Quasar Books, 2003), p. 452

17. Postal Inspector Harry D. Holmes’ complete testimony to the Warren Commission is found in WCH, Volume VII, pp. 289 – 308 (taken by Assistant Counsel, David Belin on April 2, 1964) and pp. 525 – 530 (taken by Assistant Counsel, Wesley Liebeler on July 23, 1964).

18. Ibid., WCH, Vol. VII, pp. 289 – 308 (taken by Assistant Counsel, David Belin on April 2, 1964) and pp. 525 – 530 (taken by Assistant Counsel, Wesley Liebeler on July 23, 1964).

19. Ibid.

20. WCH, Vol. VII, p. 528.

21. Ibid.

22. WCH, Vol. XXII, pp. 185 – 186.

23. Yes, the very same FBI SA James Hosty, Jr. who admitted to destroying a note that Lee Harvey Oswald had dropped off at the Dallas FBI office days prior to the JFK assassination.

24. Commission Document 11, p. 2.

25. WCH, Vol VII, p.294. Actually, the ad which Holmes did identify was from the November 1963 issue of Field and Stream, whereas the Commission finally settled on Oswald’s use of the ad from the February 1963 issue of The American Rifleman.

26. Please see WCH, Vol. VII, pp. 293- 296.

27. Please see WCH, Vol. XXIII, p. 605. Further, as Armstrong points out, in order to have completed his morning errand of March 12, 1963, Oswald would first have needed to walk 11 blocks from his place of employment to get to the post office where he allegedly purchased the postal money order. And then, the postmark zone 12 indicates that Oswald would have to have walked several miles west in order to have mailed it.

28. WCH, Vol. VII, pp. 290 – 292.

29. WCH, Vol. VII, pp. 296 – 301.

30. WCH, Vol. VII, p. 307.

31. Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales Responds, Slashdot.com interview with Wales, July 28, 2004.

32. For more on Dulles and the Warren Commission, don’t miss Jim DiEugenio’s A Comprehensive Review of Reclaiming History, Pt. 8: Bugliosi Hearts the Warren Commission: or how the author learned to like Allen Dulles, Gerald Ford and John McCloy (now in Reclaiming Parkland).