THE JFK ASSASSINATION:

PHONY SCHOLARS,

PHONY SCHOLARSHIP

© 1996

Harold Weisberg

CONTENTS

Table of Contents	I

1.	Walt Brown and His "Insights"	1

2.	The Government "Robbed Us of the Truth — Until Now": Walt Brown	11

3.	Scholar and Demon Investigator	25

4.	"Wanna Buy the Alamo — Cheap, Mr. Brown?"	49

5.	Making Something Out of Nothing	79

6.	Making Oswald an FPCC "Leader" and "Castro's Most Ebullient Protégé "	99

7.	Some of Brown's "Persuasive Evidence"	125

8.	Stones from Glass Houses	157

9.	"Real" Is Not Real	187

10.	Brown Can't See Black	215

11.	The Catch-All Wrap-Up	229

12.	Desecrating History	259

Bibliography	281

Chapter 1

Walt Brown and His "Insights"

In late 1991 or early 1992, the stranger on the phone introduced himself as Walt Brown, a former FBI agent of Hillsdale, New Jersey. He was teaching high school. He told me he had written a book on the imagined trial of Lee Harvey Oswald and asked me if I could refer him to a publisher. Believing what Chairman Mao said but neither believe nor practiced, that all flowers should bloom, I gave him the name of a friend and, his writing not being like mine, he had a publisher.

We met the summer of 1994 when Brown and his wife came to videotape an interview for my friend Hal Verb. Hal then had a local cable TV show in San Francisco. Brown was to save him a trip east.

It was soon apparent that Brown believed he knew all there was to know about all aspects of the JFK assassination and pretty much all else. Including videotaping, although this appeared to be the first time he had ever done that.

It also was soon apparent that the program he planned to make as what he wanted, not what Hal had told him. It was to be his, not Hal's; his views, not mine. I knew it was not what Hal wanted. Brown insisted that it was.

He was going to have the outside light at my back and into the video camera's lens. I knew from long experience being filmed and videotaped that was wrong as my earlier experience taking pictures also told me. He agreed to eliminate that but insisted that inside he needed no artificial light. I knew, again from experience, that, too, was wrong but he knew better so we started. Besides he had brought no lights.

His video camera, run by his wife kept cutting off, when the red light went off I told them. That he did not recognize was a problem and he did not know what to do about it.

He said he'd get that taken care of back home or would return with a different camera.

That gave me time to write Hal and for Hal to write Walt the questions he was to ask when he returned.

But he still did not have the lights all professionals always used. I offered a flood lamp used to take still pictures but he said he did not need it. So the show Hal had little choice but to air was less clear than it could and should have been and the lack of those lights made it dim and not easy to see.

He had told me a little about a book that was to be published. I asked him if he would send me that information, he said he would, and from that day to this I've not heard a word from him.

Life is not always simple or easy for those who believe they know all there is to know about just about everything when they face the fact that they do not. Especially not when they are impressed by having been an FBI special agent and having a Ph.D. degree. Such people, impressed with themselves and their experiences and education, have no problem recognizing that fault always lies elsewhere.

He had written another book by then. From what he said it could be a useful research tool to some. It is titled The Reference Index Guide to the Warren Commission.

It is somewhat less than that. It is limited to what the Commission published. It does not include those several hundred cubic feet of the Commission's unpublished files or the hundreds of thousands of pages of pages once-withheld agency records relating to the assassination. Its absolute indispensability in any serious research on the crime is reflected by the sample of its contents he uses to sell it:

KELLERMAN, ROY, SS SA. II, 45. 115, 117, 119, 121, 127, 131, 133-134, 135, 137,141-
143, 146, 153; IV, 130-131, 133-134, 320-321, 325, 331, 342, 346-347, 349, 351; V, 67, 180-181; VII, 473; outline of SS career, II, 62; instructions to SA Lawson re: bubbletop on Nov. 22,1963, II, 67; identifying President Kennedy's entrance wound as being in hairline in front of right ear, II, 81; on hearing JFK indicate he had been shot, II, 73, 75; on limousine gaining speed, II, 77; on black and white film of assassination he viewed. II, 92; on local official desiring to perform autopsy, II, 96; on lack of SS protection for next in line at time of testimony, II, 112; TESTIMONY OF, II, 61-112

What Brown did not regard as worthy of mention about him is the fact that Kellerman was the Secret Service agent in charge of the President's protection that day and that in his testimony before the Commission he swore to not the three shots of the official account but to a "flurry" of them.

He has also written The JFK Assassination Quizbook. He quotes the Open Achives Press, a subsidiary of Prevailing Winds Research, as describing his quizbook as "the ultimate question and answer book on JFK."

Encouraging those who buy it to "ENJOY!!!"it. His sales pitch and his illustration of its value, of the fact that those intending serious, research simply must have it, is:

One hundred challenging categories, ranging from JFK's life, to the motorcade, to weapons, to books written on JFK, to the movie JFK, with 10 questions in each category, and answers supplied.

Who was the first doctor to see JFK at Parkland? Who brought a Mauser into the TSBD on Nov. 20? Who were the 8 agents in the follow up car? Who wrote Oswald's Game? Who gave JFK the last rites? Who were Perry and Clark? (Trick question: they were Parkland doctors and also 2 Dallas officers in "showups" with Oswald).

He also sells Sound Bytes from the Warren Commission. Of it he says:

--- a 60-minute look at the lighter side of the Q. and A. of the Warren Commission ---

One: Sound-bytes: the most absurd questions asked by the Warren Commission, with invented answers;

Two: Keystone Cops: the weekend of Nov. 22- 24 viewed through the eyes of a journalist in the basement of the DPD on Sunday morning --- giving the DPD their "due."

Three: "Who Shot First?" a parody of the famous Abbott and Costello comedy routine "Who's on First?" A "must for that friend who still believes the official verdict."

On this "must" on assassination research and scholarship he quotes Probable Cause, the issue of June 10, 1995 as saying:

"Walt Brown has outdone himself with this audio cassette --- you have to hear it to believe it. It is a classic and a must have, (lision Brown's).

On all these he gives their prices. He also has for sale what he gives no price for.

JFK AUTOPSY PHOTOGRAPHS

I have recently purchased the "Fox negatives" of the autopsy of President Kennedy. I have had a number of inquiries regarding availability of sets of the photos. If you need a set of the photos for your research, please contact me and include a SASE for details concerning the cost of me putting together a set for you.

James K. Fox was the Secret Service agent on the White House detail who handled its photographic work. He did not take any pictures at the autopsy, he was not even there. He did print the black and white autopsy pictures at the Navy lab but he handed the negatives in and ultimately they wound up in the National Archives. The official Secret Service account of this to me by its Assistant Director Tom Kelley appears in my 1975 Post Mortem on page 274. There are other references to Fox and those photographs on pages 277 and 558.

There are no "Fox negatives."

What was not known for years is that Fox, in making prints from the black and white negatives he turned in, also made an unknown number of prints, more than there are in the official accounting. He had a set when he retired.

He retired to a convenience store in Chestertown, Maryland. He then became friends with Mark Crouch. Crouch then managed a nearby small radio station. In time, from Crouch's account to me, Fox let him have those illicit black and white prints of the autopsy photographs with the restriction that Crouch would keep that secret as long as Fox lived. After Fox died Crouch did let others have prints he had made from the prints he got from Fox. They have been printed often. I have the set Crouch was kind and placed in plastic envelopes in a binder that he gave me along with his explanation of how he came into possession of those prints and what until then he had done with them.

Fox had no color prints because all of the color work was done by the Navy. It was only the black and white photographs Fox developed and printed.

Brown does not say what he means by "the Fox negatives" of the autopsy of President Kennedy." If he got from Crouch the negatives made from the Fox stolen set of prints, perhaps they can be called "the Fox negatives." Those who are not well informed about those autopsy photographs and their history have no way of knowing from Brown's sales pitch that they are not the original negatives and do not include any of those made with color film.

It also seems from the way Brown put it that those who want to get prints from him will have to bargain with him to get them. He has the same costs no matter who the customer may be. He could state his price if did not intend to bargain to get as much as the traffic would bear.

For some reason, possibly to sell his own printing of it, he offered his next book for four dollars more than the coming Carroll & Graf printing of it would cost in the book stores. Of this book, re-titled Treachery In Dallas, he says:

Formerly titled "Blue Death, Red Patsy, White Lies," Treachery in Dallas is a textbook tour de force of the events in Dealey Plaza, as well as their immediate aftermath and subsequent cover-up..

Beginning with "Theories," the author presents a menu of the major "Whodunit?" concepts, demonstrating where strengths and/or weaknesses exist and giving each theory an in-depth analysis.

"Blue Death" details the multi-layered involvement of the Dallas Police on November 22, with insights never previously published.

"Red Patsy" demonstrates the ease with which a fraudulent case was made against Oswald, and how his "resume," not evidence, made the case credible.

"White Lies" is the Warren Commission laid bare. The who, why (and why not . . .) of the Commission are all noted, and every question asked by the Commission is tallied in a never before seen matrix.

An "Hypothesis," eight pages of photos, and statistical tables complete the work.

Saying that in it "every question [which he has italicized and underlined and in very black, bold-faced type] asked by the Commission is tallied" is no small boast, especially not in a single book in which he says there is so much else. The questions asked by the Commission and answers by its witnesses take up fifteen of those twenty-six volumes it published.

Brown also does not say how he "presents a menu of the major 'Whodunit?' concepts, demonstrating where strengths and/or weaknesses exist and giving each theory an in-depth analysis" is possible for him when his knowledge excludes those several hundred cubic feet of the Commission's files and the enormity of FBI, CIA and other records so long available. The assassination records I got from the FBI alone total about a quarter of a million pages. He did not look at them and he asked me for not a single page of them, knowing that I give all writing in the field unsupervised access to them and to our copier.

With complete ignorance of all but those twenty-six volumes Brown did not have what he refers to as Oswald's "resume." He had at most only what the Commission chose to publish of that "resume." And of it, it cannot be said that the "resume" rather than evidence "made the case [against Oswald] credible. That is propaganda. The full "resume" in fact exculpates Oswald as, among other sources, my books made clear before Brown wrote this one.

Whether or not he "details" what; he refers to as "the multi-layered involvement of the Dallas Police on November 22, 1963" and that "with insights never previously published," those "insights," if that is what they are coming from only what the Commission published, he does in this and in his book have the police "involved" in the assassination.

There is no false modesty in this, as should be noted before getting into the substance of his book. If substance it is. This "insight," of the Dallas police "involvement" in the assassination, could not have come from FBI training or experience. Ordinarily, this kind of "insight" does not come from the studies for or the thesis required for a doctor of philosophy degree. It has to come from Brown's natural endowments.

What the Dallas police knew without question is that if any president were assassinated there it would not and could not control any federal investigation and without doubt, though sole jurisdiction was in Dallas, there would be a federal investigation.

In fact, in this case, the Dallas police not only surrendered all the alleged evidence to the FBI, it depended entirely on the FBI for all the lab work. That FBI lab work, without any question at all, would include all the scientific testing, particularly of the bullets and shells. It led to information the Dallas police could have no influence over.

The Dallas police also had no control over the autopsy. It had no representative at the autopsy, either. If it did not anticipate in advance that the corpse would be kidnaped, in violation of Texas law so that no autopsy examination was or could have been made in Dallas, it knew very well that it could not prevent a separate, independent federal autopsy and had to expect one.

Under these and other similar matters over which the Dallas police neither had nor had any possibility of influencing, it would have been -- and other words do come to mind -- exceptionally daring of it to have any "involvement" in the assassination.

It would have been at the mercy of the FBI whose director was not renowned for acts of mercy, particularly not when showing no mercy redounded to his and his FBI's credit, in this instance, everlasting credit.

This "insight" could not have come from Brown's thesis or his research and studies to be able to write it. Brown is not unduly modest about his degree. When he speaks, as is indicated on the program for the annual convention of the Coalition on Political Assassinations for October 1995, "Ph.D." is after his name. There had been no presidential assassination since that of William McKinley, long before Brown was born. The circumstances in it and in any other Presidential assassination have no relationship with the assassination of President Kennedy. There thus is in them no possible "involvement" in the assassination of President Kennedy.

Whatever Brown means by his "insight," and we learn the answer for ourselves in what follows, he has written what from his description of it is a rare, a unique book of the hundreds of books supposedly on the assassination. Not one of them "involves" the Dallas police in the assassination.

We see how Brown does, in his own words.

The Walt Brown who as we see above refers to other books supposedly on the subject as "Whodunits" and as of "theories."

As he refers to his book, it is neither. It is a book of "insights."

Rare "insights" for sure.