NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/alt/conspira/jfk/4319

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From: [e-mail]
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.jfk
Subject: NEW BREED OF RESEARCHER - PART FIVE
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 27 Jan 93 07:48:55 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Lines: 263


     Again, David Perry takes on untruth in reporting.  This time
it is a famous pro-WC author, Jean Davison.  Davison wrote a book
which attempted to recast the personal story of LHO in such a light
that we can understand why he, and he alone, would assassinate JFK.
Many reading this posting will be unfamiliar with her work.  When
I started delving in earnest again into the JFK conspiracy
controversy, I not only unearthed all the anti-WC works but even
more especially dug up pro-WC authors.  Davison was one that was
very interesting to me.  She mainly bolstered the LHO as "commie"
loonie side of the tale.  She leaned very much on an LHO who was
totally enamored with Castro.  This main contention of her and
several other authors has been sitting in a workshop part of my
mind for a long time as I pick at it, push it around and otherwise
keep revising it for further consideration.  I find it very
tantalizing in relation to the speculation of what might convince
LHO to take part in an assassination in some role, if not the
shooter.
     Regardless of its validity, great weaknesses in Davison's
investigation have been found by Paul Hoch and others.  One of her
pillars of contention was that LHO was exposed to Castro's speech,
denouncing American attempts on his life.  Hoch found that the
Socialist newspapers which LHO was reading were desparately
pleading with their readers to support JFK in his stance against
the rightwing hardliners, who they felt were pitching for another
invasion of Cuba.  Hoch rightly asks that if we are to follow
Davison's contention that LHO was being so imfluenced by what he
was reading, we have to consider this also.
     Here Perry has demolished another pillar of her contention
which is a tale that another pro-WC author, Larry Schiller,
actually put into his movie, The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald.
That is that Lee and Marina watched 2 movies just before Nov.22
which inflamed LHO into thinking about killing JFK.  I find this
another example of atrociously disreputable mangling of the facts,
on par with any instance that anyone can propose of the anti-WC
authors.  How many people have watched that movie of Schiller's and
came away with a deluded version of the roots of LHO's motives?
     This piece by Perry shows the finest and most scrupulous of
investigative techniques.  Techniques one will not find in the most
popular, current assassination authors, in the later defenders of
the WC and in the original investigation by the WC/FBI.  So many
times, I have looked in askance for a simple line of questions that
would have clarified a point in testimony, a simple test used to
confirm a dangling contention by the WC, in vain.  The only
conclusion I can come to is that they were not interested in the
truth in the first place.  The secret technique of Perry's, and I
want all of you to keep this quiet, it's just between us, is that
he took the time to check out someone's contention.
Pretty slick, huh.


                         October 30, 1992

                            "SUDDENLY"

     Shortly after the Kennedy assassination the agencies of
government realized they had a predicament. Having decided Lee
Harvey Oswald murdered President John F. Kennedy there was still
the enigma of motive. Oswald had no propensity for violence.
Granted there were claims Oswald took a shot at General Edwin
Walker in April of 1963, alleged episodes of wife beating and
opinions he had an antisocial disposition. However, most of the
assertions were unsubstantiated. In a courtroom setting a competent
attorney could refute the allegations. Since the suspect was
deceased and without representation, Oswald was an easy target for
character assassination.

     Over a decade after the Warren Commission completed their work
a book was published which, on the surface, appeared to shed light
on Oswald's stimulus for the crime. We discovered in Priscilla
Johnson McMillian's "Marina and Lee" that Oswald watched two movies
on television. The movies were "Suddenly" and "We Were Strangers."
In 1983, Jean Davison's book "Oswald's Game" appeared. That book
amplified the threads of McMillian's observations into a full blown
motive. Over the years Davison's theory has become entrenched in
assassination folklore. It is used as "supporting evidence" by the
Oswald as lone gunman theorists.

     We begin with a description of both movies.


     Suddenly (1954)** Frank Sinatra, Sterling Hayden, Nancy
     Gates, James Gleason. Dated thriller. Sinatra is impressive
     as the leader of a pack of hired assassins who plan to
     murder the President during his stopover in a sleepy little
     town. Due to the uncomfortable echoes of the Kennedy
     assassination, the film was out of circulation for many
     years, but it  has not reemerged as a long-lost treasure;
     it is riddled with fifties stereotypes and mouthpiece
     characters. (Dir. Lewis Allen, 77 mins) [1]


     We Were Strangers (1949)**1/2 Jennifer Jones, John
     Garfield, Pedro Armendariz. Despite the powerhouse cast,
     this movie about political intrigue and revolution in Cuba
     during the thirties is a disappointment. (Dir. John Huston,
     106 mins) [2]

     With these summaries in mind we can review the appropriate
section of both books to put the event in perspective.

          "Lee saw two movies that night [Saturday, October 19,
     1963], both of them saturated in violence. One was Suddenly
     (1954), staring Frank Sinatra, which is about a plot to kill
     the President of the United States. In the film Sinatra, a
     mentally unbalanced ex-serviceman who has been hired to do
     the job, drives to a small Western town where the President
     is due to arrive by train, debark, and get into a car that
     will drive him to the High Sierras for some mountain fishing.
     Sinatra finds a house overlooking the railroad station and
     seizes it, subduing the occupants. He leans out of a window
     and gets the railroad tracks into the cross hairs of his rifle
     sight. He waits and waits; finally, the train comes into view.
     But it chugs through town without stopping, and in the end
     Sinatra is killed.
          Marina dozed through the first movie, and the one that
     followed, We Were Strangers (1949). This, too, was about
     assassination. Based on the actual overthrow of the Machado
     dictatorship in Cuba in 1933, the movie stars John Garfield
     as an American who has come to help the cause of revolution.
     He and a tiny band of cohorts plot to blow up the whole
     cabinet, including the president, at a single stroke. The plot
     fails and Garfield dies, but the people rise up in small
     groups all over Cuba and overthrow the dictatorship.
          Marina remembers the movie's end, people were dancing in
     the streets, screaming with happiness because the president
     had been overthrown. Lee said it was exactly the way it had
     once happened in Cuba. It was the only time he showed any
     interest in Cuba after his return from Mexico." [3]

     As reinforcement to the portrayal of events established as
fact in "Marina and Lee" enter Jean Davison. In "Oswald's Game" the
same story appears with some major modifications.

     "On the day following his birthday they went into the living
     room after supper to watch television together. Marina lay
     with her head in his lap, half-asleep, while he watched two
     old movies. Occasionally she felt him sit up straight and
     strain toward the television set, greatly excited.
     What was he watching that caused this unusual reaction? By an
     eerie coincidence, the double feature he had chosen echoed the
     theme of Castro's public warning murder plots against Cuban
     leaders could lead to retaliation." [4]

     Davison, as McMillian, explains the plots of both films,
maintaining the first movie shown was "Suddenly." She goes on to
claim, "I believe that, together with the two recent threats he
[Oswald] made against President Kennedy's life, this excited
reaction and his comments indicate that Oswald was, in fact, aware
of Castro's warning about American-backed plots to assassinate him.
He was excited because the double feature practically read his
mind." [5]

     The reality of the event as described in both books is
inaccurate. To see the not so subtle modifications one must review
a minimum of four sources. The sources are Marina Oswald's
testimony on the subject (1H71), Commission Exhibit 1790 (CE 1790)
found in 23H403 and the television pages of The Dallas Morning News
and The Dallas Times Herald. This material will be used to
dismantle both stories but in particular that of Jean Davison.

     "On the day following his birthday they went into the living
     room after supper to watch television together. Marina lay
     with her head in his lap, half-asleep, while he watched two
     old movies. Occasionally she felt him sit up straight and
     strain toward the television set, greatly excited."

     From Marina's testimony (1H71):

     Mr. Rankin.    Well, "Suddenly," was about the assassination
                    of a president, and the other was about the
                    assassination of a Cuban dictator.
     Mrs. Oswald.   Yes, Lee saw those films.
     Mr. Rankin.    Did he tell you he had seen them?
     Mrs. Oswald.   I was with him when he watched them.

     From Marina's statement to the Secret Service December 9, 1963
(CE1790).

     "Marina Oswald further stated that her husband twice saw the
     TV showing of a moving picture depicting a plot to kill a
     Cuban dictator with a bomb where the plotters had to dig a
     tunnel and that Lee did not like the picture as he said that
     was the way they did it in the old days. She also thought Lee
     saw a TV showing of a movie where an attempt was made to kill
     a President at the railroad station with a rifle, from a
     house, but she was not sure about it (emphasis mine). The way
     Marina Oswald was describing the later picture, it leaves very
     little doubt that this picture is entitled "Suddenly" staring
     Frank Sinatra." [6]

     The official reports are very different from the Davison
version of events. Marina never told investigators that she watched
the movies with Lee after supper, that she lay with her head in
Lee's lap, that they watched two movies, that Lee was greatly
excited by the movies or that they saw "Suddenly" at all!

     Davison claims, "The movie (We Were Strangers) was a
fictionalized account of an actual situation which existed in Cuba-
except that the methods shown were out of date." [7] She has
forgotten it was Marina Oswald that made this claim for her husband
in CE 1790, ". . . and that Lee did not like the picture as he said
that was the way they did it in the old days."

     "What was he watching that caused this unusual reaction? By
     an eerie coincidence, the double feature he had chosen echoed
     the theme of Castro's public warning:murder plots against
     Cuban leaders could lead to retaliation."

     Here we have the assertion that the Oswalds watched a double
feature in the comfort of the Paine living room. It is not true.

     Years ago Fort Worth, Texas researcher Gary Mack reviewed the
TV listings for the Dallas/Fort Worth area. He was the first I know
of to question the validity of McMillian and Davison's versions of
history. I decided to corroborate Mack's research and increase its
scope. I started checking the TV listings in the newspapers
beginning with Saturday, October 19, 1963. This was the date both
authors maintained Oswald viewed both films. In the end I checked
all listings between September 16, 1963 and November 15, 1963. Here
are the results.

     1)   No television station in the Dallas/Fort Worth area
          showed a double feature during the period checked. Mack
          previously discovered it was not the policy of any
          station to show double features. My research confirmed
          his work.

     2)   "We Were Strangers" was aired twice during the review
          period. First shown on Channel 11 - Saturday, October 12,
          1963 at 10 PM, it next appeared on Channel 11 the
          following day, Sunday, October 13, 1963 at 1 PM. It was
          impossible for the Oswald's to go ". . . into the living
          room after supper to watch television together."

     3)   "Suddenly" never aired during the period reviewed.
          Remember in CE 1790, "She (Marina) also thought Lee saw
          a TV showing of a movie where an attempt was made to kill
          a President at the railroad station with a rifle, from
          a house, but she was not sure about it."

     In what appears to me as nothing more than journalistic
dishonesty, both authors, and Davison to the greater extent,
fabricated a scenario that had no basis in fact. All three of us
had the same documents at our disposal. They chose to ignore the
facts. It is the average citizen that pays a price when individuals
distort the historical record.

Dave Perry 4601 Ainsworth Circle Grapevine, Texas 76051

Footnotes:
     [1]  Steven H. Scheuer, "Movies on TV and Videocassette" (New
          York:Bantam Books, 1990), p.1021
     [2]  Ibid, p.1172
     [3]  Priscilla Johnson McMillian, "Marina and Lee" (New
          York:Harper and Row, 1977), pp.475-476
     [4]  Jean Davison, "Oswald's Game" (New York:W.W. Norton and
          Co., 1983), p.224
     [5]  Ibid, p.226
     [6]  File No. CO-2-34030, CE1790, 23H403, Report of ATSAIC
          Leon I. Gopadze.
     [7]  Jean Davison, "Oswald's Game" (New York:W.W. Norton and
          Co., 1983), p.225