San Pedro, July 28, 1994

Dear Mr. Weisberg, I'm writinc, to thank you for your contribution to exposing ?osner. I am a researcher in the JFK murder case and your Case Open has taken a hu h burden off my shoulders. To bad none off us have the time to check more of his CIA/intelligence connections. I 'an't tell you how excited I was to see your book on a bookshelf in a Santa Monica'(CA) bookstore. I will be recommending your fine work in my next JFK project (which is by and large being done to promote Lifton's work). Excuse all the envelopes. It frustrates the law breakers.

If I travel back East hope we can haVe a cup of coffee together.

I have the honor to remain, Sincerely 7ours,

C7414/ren#C-4 )3*--)°)10019/

Lawrence McManus, 1836 West First Street San Pedro, CA 90732 4.4014720trio Lz you- off,ico .7;a4itinc. :InV3 :to icloa It:1' .0 Itic10.2 dato of V. 194 thr,. v,f ti , IL:ritny 7:01T7 ,,r; of P am In V.:. Z.L.2ino,' of 2.a.lt -iovonla :Z. r it on it a :1-.::ared. 2.i.:::o-7.4-t‘70Lso no tratler2.:thexi 11-11at you did. I am nal of --ocinot for 0oe ofKtritlez but ho i-7; not an 0::oort on•the j21: assacoLL-Itton am!. full of fac';ual or-20:7s* en P l'"!=1 b00:1 in tho ooros fo u±to coil.'tic co I d o not nook" nj foz• '13io no nod of rfsinforz.0,....;:Lon./ y.:utad a puzn:10;:..,0 Da!: arm-L. Lizirold Woizthorg

$ CASE CLOSED and • the Assassination of JFK By Gerald posner (: $25; 585 pp.)

Reviewed by JonathauZzitrifteg very strong :case that- Jerk ,RuhY- ?gas s (411411 -" 11: 4-4 1 4T. ii • ase Closed. Fat chance, one-is betore. °ming him, contrary to tempted .to,„respond.10ne is tre—Wirren Commission-Posner tempted tO'Iolie that we have append y C 1 Case„Closed has going for it is ttniten oi come so far:round the circle that an . —4rra shot Oswald on impulse. THe After years of studying the evi author can now attain pop success by that all the good-young reporters unpuise irlierntk shoo dence and doing a one-hour &a espousing the looniest J.F.K. assassins:: and public officials who mistakenly , a main ppolar Mentary on PBS on the assassins tion theory-of ill4thabthe,,Warren swallowed the official FBI-CIA under his "lone nut" thesis. But the tion, I think it's unproven whethc Commission was right. (The commis line on the assassination 30 years strong or not there was a second gunmai i ago, and whose careers have evidence against him is so sion found that. Lee Oswald, a lone nut,' he evidentFy doesn't want the I:sometimes think I'm the onl killed Kennedy and that Jack. Ruby,':-brought. them to influential posi- student of the assassination wl dons, have been waiting all this reader to see it. So • the whole another lone nut, killed Oswald. j . - considers the question still ope: left a Willi time for someone to relieve them Tfratteris rettntratrrfaitfim.ah„ Gerald Posner—who - it, Ffigrer ducks a persuasive wit- the others are about equally divic carefully ed, pro and con. I've watched tk Stielclaw practice to, become an' from smart the not self-doubt to have suffered they are under too; ness that Ruby's act was author, so he can't be all bad—does not premeditated (Elnora KIT) Ey famotis of the assn as low as his slimiest predecessor]predec Posner has offered thernthis com- sination, frame by frame, wi. sink e fort, and Tom Wicker has even- quoting one line of her testimony in on the case arridon; Oliver' ston contrast to the gist of the rest of it; people (one an FBI official) wl an ar ane); he oesn't knowingly responded with a supportive bliirb lie-brusites-off-fcrart5trerWinialds are certain that it proves all tl he does on the jacket. • . present concoalons as fact. But The third factor in this book's /an NBC-TV crew.. and editor) shots came from behind, and, lie down with such predeceiso r a were mistaken, other times, with people equal "stKceis is that so much, pardon the simply nation- oo wri ers n a ony ignores a fifth (a preacher). corn- certain it proves the fatal sh •-d- avT .iorpression, crap has been pub- came from in front. All the fil mers, Jim Marrs and SMI lished about this case over the- iTge.trgitt near only ,what7he fefilir,11thi at he resents only the wants to from a sixth [Ruby's ever proved to me is that t ,s years by so many publicity-seek- President was shot. Posner clah ers and nitwits that Posner can- stripper Karen Carlin, the key to Ruby's alibi). Maybe there's a that a new, computer-enhanc readers who easily look like a sage dispelling it. version proves and for all tk: in a way that He goes on at length knocking saustactory.explanation for all this aren't aware th-Et-th-eTe's more to the evidence, but Posner doesn't-pro- the shots came from the re: stsitl—-- r7Wrether ?ostler andlhe others softballs out of the park—such as vide it any more than the Warren Yeah. posner is perfectly willing to t willfully-omitted the contrary evidence! fOurbook pages that ofclaimed text spent that refuting -J.F.K.'s a Commission did, which leaves me or just got carried away by forming thinking Ruby was indeed stalking the word of Aaron Kohn, for= I don't know. body had been switched with some N4 conviction ahead of fad, his target • • FBI agent and head of the 3eint other - corpse so that conspirators Orleans Crime Commission, as lo "caseClosecl2:1 could monkey with the real body Like other authors.in the genre, taken intic ous y by Posner constantly, quotes' selec- as Kohn is castigating the work -the—ahers. So it before the autopsy. This is "Elvis . (Garrison was I people than any of men in UFO," stuff. Posner shows tively. Posner considers Secret needs serious rem-eV:Its success, some of the more widely Service Agent 'Paul Landis a reli:; former New Orleans district attc pect, owes to three things. First, the able witness when quoting him to ney who tried to frame a lo well-written'and! followed crit: businessman in the. assassinatio book is extremely ics, like those mentioned above, are -prove that Oswald's first shot came therefore apt to be persuasive to those earlier than Warren Commission But nowhere does Posner then I - better.To .be. sure,' he you that the same Aaron Ko: without the contrary evidence. (The scarcelycontributes a public service by critics claim; this showi Oswald same talent helped popularize Stone's had plenty of time to fire off two having studied the evidence, w. movie J.F.K.; deceitfulness aside, it was cataloguing this garbage. more shots from his window perch to his grave -convinced that • .But. when.: Posner faces hard- Warren Commission (and ti brilliant filmmaking.) The second thing balls—the serous prooltinis with behind:-..the President. - Posner-- is 'right bout this.) But Posner) was dead wrong, and t Please see Page 10 the Warren Commission New Orleans Mafia Boss Cai ducks their Sy passing them find. nowhere does Posnertelryou that his .trusted witness !Landit_ then Jonathan Kwitny's latest book Is footnotes. rOr ex.more, there is a h testified that he heard the'second "Acceptable Risks" Simon shot come "from somewhere to- ward the front, right-hand side of the road." That:: would be the fern—Oils "ifirassY •knoll,_*here, ac- cording to Posner, there absolutely wasn't: a second gunman—and so he can't say- Landis (like many others) 'thought there was. • f,

Posner is - most misleading . in claiming that Ruby was an under- Bliley and the committee first world nobOdy, merely hanging on' uncovered the mass of circumstan- in a sleazy bar business and trying tial evidence linking Lee Oswald to look important. Posner's three • _xisit.twith Las yegas gambler and and to the Marcell° main sources for this view are (says they Dallas police) murderer crime .organization. Posner tries Ruby's. brother Earl, who naturally Lewis 11?CdW11Iie,' Who 'tharidgeti a Marcello,zrganized hard to belittle, then refute, this seeks to protect the family image; string of Mafia-controlled casinos evidence, but does so largely and an assistant prosecutor and in Cuba, the Caribbean and the U.S. had the plainest Motive: The Ken- through inaccuracy and omission. Dallas night club eolumnist, bath of Ruby said he went to Cuba to show nedy brothers had been relentless- He says the House Committee was whom are confessed liars about an entertainment act; Zoppi says ly prosecuting him and his friend preparing to endorse the Warren -this .case,Posner„acknowledges he planned to come with Ruby but Jimmy Hoffa, who supplied Mar- Commission conclusions, until, in - (though only in a footnotCdelpite canceled at the last moment to see cello and other.. Mobsters almost December, 1978, the scientific en- many text, references) that the another show in Las Vegas. Ruby unlimited cash from the Teamsters' hancement of the recording of a prosecutor concocted a story for spent almost the entire week in Union.) motorcycle cop's radio led an the press that J.F.K. was killed as Cuba with McWillie, who had been There is not room here to begin acoustical engineer to testify that part of a Communist conspiracy. entrusted to manage some of the to catalogue Posner's use of select- four shots, not three, were fired. The columnist, Tony Zoppi, who most lucrative businesses Lucky ed testimony and double standards This was proof of a second gunman denied that organized crime existed -Luciano and Meyer Lansky devel- for witnesses. One more example is and, hence, a • conspiracy. Only in Dal as while he helped promote oped: McWillie later explained he his distorted account of the testi- then, Posner says, did Blakey fish its buSiness fronts in his writing, didn't like Ruby, but let him "tag mony of Edward Becker, a former around for conspirators and come has still worse problems. along" in hopes Zoppi. would show Las Vegas investigator who began up with "the Mob." Though Posner quotes .Zoppi at up to review his show. Whatever promoting deals in legitimate busi- - The souhd tape evidence was jeWitUri.japaisb1,14....of Zoppi planned to do, Fidel Castro's ness with Mob help. Becker testi- mired in controversy. (Posner mobster, he never revolution intervened'a couple of fied that he heard Marcello talk wrongly says it was finally dis- tells the reader. that Zoppi,twice weeks later. This isn't in "Case about assassinating Kennedy a - credited; the discrediting has itself offered alibis for Ruby's siiipicious Closed." year before it happened. Posner been challenged, but I confess the movements and in one instance On a later trip to Cuba, Ruby paints. Becker as a visiting "geolo- evidence never sounded to me like .,adinits he lied about it. Most dis- paid a prison visit to Marcello's gist" (because Becker was promot- more than someone blowing into a turbing—Posner redently- acknowl- good friend, Florida boss Santos ing an oil deal to Marcello)- and microphone anyway.) I can, how- edged while promoting his book on Trafficante, who had controlled a makes it sound silly that Marcello ever, personally attest that Pos- a Washington, D.C. talk show that Havana casino McWillie managed would diVulge an assassination plot ner's account is inaccurate. Half a he was aware that Zoppi had lied to until Castro took over. Posner to him. He says the House Select year before this acoustic evidence protect Ruby, and quoted him any- disposes of this visit in a footnote Committee on Assassina.tio.IIS cropped up, Blakey's staff (some of . way. Posner acknowledged know- saying the only source for it is the (1978-4979) didn't believe-Becker, whom I knew from crime stories I ing that Zoppi, told investigators he word of a British journalist, and and even presents Marcello' as . had written as Wall Street Journal. was with Ruby moments before that Trafficante denied it. In fact, North African, not Sicilian, so that the assassination and that ,Ruby as.. the House Committee found, he wouldn't have used a. Sicilian appeared too calm to have been there was strong other evidence phrase Becker remembers. Thir is part of a conspiracy., Actually, Ruby visited Trafficante, including just unfair. Marcello was born in Ruby had gone to Zoppi's office at from McWillie himself. There's ev- Tunis, where his parents tried to the Dallai Morning News, over- idence Ruby was trying to ransom settle after leaving Sicily two years looking the assassination site, but Trafficanleout,of jail, though you'd earlier; • he was brought to New reporter,), AO- ttciNihiAlgtOli Zoppi ,wasn't there that morning. never know it from Posner. Orleans at age 7 months and raised ,V4M111A over-t4; Mar.:= Ruby waited in an advertising, You'd also never know that Ru- among Sicilian immigrants: - cello evidence. Having accepted office through the assassination, by knew Jimmy Hoffa and worked Becker told me a completely the Warren Commission findings then left for Parkland Hospital with Hoffa's closest associates at a believableitorY of being taken to as probably true till that point, I, where the dying Kennedy was Mob-run Chicago union before Marcello's home by someone in the too, was excited. at seeing the brought. (While Posner argues at leaving for Dallas. Or that Senator godfather's organization, talking evidence. (Journal editors, like one point that Ruby was a self - Kefauver's investigation into the business and, after several rOtinds those at other major publications, promoter who always wanted to be Mafia, around 1950, hauled in Ruby of drinks, with music playing,lall- considered Kennedy assassination at the center of events, Posner for his participation in a nationwide -big into chitchit: Gingerly, aliii6titt material too suspeet to handle.) then says Ruby was paying no ring of truck hijackings (which jesting, to make conversation, Blakey, like Aaron Kohn, believed attention to the biggest event in were commonly inside jobs with T-tog Jer„.:1 4114.8b.t. upthe Keimedys' that the evidence of contacts, Dallas, the Presidential procession; . the-coo-peration of the-Teamsters). vendetta against"Marcellif' Marcel- phone calls and movements proved Posner's own evidence, however, Or that the FBI tied Ruby to heroin lo exploded—not divulging a , de- beyond a reasonable doubt that leaves Ruby alone at an ideal importing schemes 'that Marcello tailed conspiracy plan, but rather Marcello did mastermind such a vantage point during. the assassi- controlled. None of this, of course, revealing that he wished the Presi- conspiracy. Even read most con- nation.) proves that. Ruby shot Oswald to dent dead and seriously thought he servatively, the evidence proves Zoppi later left his Dallas news- protect assassination' plotters. But could arrange an assassination. . that the Warren Commission and paper job to run publicity for a Las it does prove Posner doesn't play Contrary to Posner's suggestion, every reporter who covered the Vegas casino-hotel, where he be- fair in portraying Ruby as a classic the chief counsel to ' the House story missed the most likely ave- came vice president. Why did . he lone nut. The same goes for Pos- committee, Notre Dame law pro- nue of investigation. lie to protect Ruby, 'and why ner's portrayal of Ruby's sexual fessor G. Robert . Blakey, wrote should he be believed now? Posner habits, reporting things he alleged- favorably of Becker's credibility in said on the talk show that because ly liked to do' with dogs, and his book on the case. of Zoppi's credibility problems, he ignoring more normal things he used Zoppi only for opinions and allegedly liked to do with his club didn't rely on him for factual Information: But that's exactly what "Case Closed" does. Without Zoppi's quotes, the Ruby section of the book would fall limp: Zoppi also provided Ruby an alibi for a Cuban What persuaded me that the Warren Commission had blown the What"Siner says in his real investigation was when the House Posner -argues, however, that • clincher, repeatedly cifed, is that Assassinations Committee also tied Ferrie arid:Oswald never, in fact, -nothing Oswald did in New Orleans Oswald to Marcello. Posner argues knew each other, because Ferrie matters ehrvay because there were no such 'ties, but again Kenne- was suspended from the Civil Air dY's trip. 7 0 Dallas wasn't an- he requires , a highly selective use 1955, the year Oswald nounced Until Sept. 26, 1963, when of evidence to say ,,this; Through joined. Bid the eVidence he Oeweld haa left town thus, he most of the tiook he 'portrays Dutz -cites (all in footnotes, of course)...doesn't says, no plot could have been and Lillian Murret, the uncle and 7 preclude an overlap."-Nor does he hatched before then. But Kenne- aunt Oswald first lived with in New deal with. Edward dy's trip to Texas had long been Orleans that slimmer, quite inno- Voebel, Freder- -+ick-SO'Sulllvan,.Coliit.Hather, .planned; the 'House Committee cently; he tells us only:that Uncle George 8oesch, Anthony 'Atzen- found newspaper articles about it Dutz seemed preoccupied' with lioffer or John lriOni. these are all dating to April-24. The' release of Catholic religious retreats. When people-iirlio testified that they were details about the trip in September Oswald was bailed out of jail by a in-the group withlerrie and Os- proves nothing, and Posner seems state boxingcominis' sioner with - waist:. Several said their memories unscrupulous for asserting'tPdoes. close ties to the Marcello organize= .wetg hazy, but others were' very 'Moreover, Posner's argument tion—something other investiga- 'clear.% .t",arri; reliably told a photo- tors have wondergd at—Posner - gragi of Ferzie and_ Oswald . to- relegates It to a f5Otnote, saying - gether has been turned up, though ttiltilihOut the lioole seems.Predl- the man was just a' friend of the haven't seen it. cited ()tithe hOtIon'that ridiefet tie Murret family, and so the incident CIA nor the Mafia would do busi- offers no evidence of a Mafia ness with someone as unstable as connection to Oswald. But how did Ruby, let alone a screwball and the man get to be a friend of the Posner does mention. six, other loose cannon like Oswald. 'Posner family? Finally, on Page 465, Pos- witnesses who testified that they buys the mystique that these or- ner lets slip that Murret was "a saw Ferrie and Oswald together at ganizations are guided with wis- local gambler." In fact, the Mur- a Clinton, La., voter registration dom and probity. He obviously drive in the summer of 1963, just never heard of' WI/ROGUE, the' before J.F..K. was killed but he code-named homicidal maniac the rets—who helped raise Oswald and does so only, to cite discrepancies in CIA hired to kill Patrice Lithium- were the people closest to, him in their stories. The discrepancies ba —or _the Harlem drug peddler New Orleans—lived off-money seem serious to me, though when I who was hired to shoot Mafia boss Dtitz. made as a bookie in' the asked Blal5ey about them, he said, Joseph Coltimbo and who then, like Marcello crime organization. :* with Soirie:justiae,. that Posner is Oswald, was promptly killed him- r- The most significant link: the still using a double standard: If the self. I've met a ldt of people House Committee found between same standards Posner uses to associated with the Mafia and CIA, Oswald and Marcello was David judge the six Clinton witnesses and Surprisingly few of them would Ferrie, head of a Civil Air Patrol were applied to the witnesSes who have made the personnel commit- group Oswald 'participated in dur- saw Oswald bringing a' package to tee at Morgan Guaranty very cora- . mg high" ichool. Ferrie, a pilot, work the day of the -assassination fortable.-Neither Oswald nor Ruby gunrunner, and enthusiast for un- (which we now know contained a can be rejected as possible agents dercover work; was active in anti- rifle, but which Some said was too merely for reasons of personality: Castrci;'Oircles; He sometimes did small for that), or to the witnesses jobs-far Marcello, and met regular This is a review,' not a corrective describing the man who killed a book, andSo, I have by no means ly with, the godfather right before Dallas police officer right after the approached a thorough list of the 1. the assassination, purportedly to assassination (we now know it was distortions' help researrih his defense from the Tar _Closed." Hut 1 Oswald, but several descriptions by the -seine token, in order to latest Kennedy prosecution. On the don't match) the result would cast inject some skepticism into the night of, the assassination, he made. those facts into doubt. These are, in euph'oria that has thus far greeted a strange; rutted trip to Texas, fact, the same tactics the book, have also abbreviated about which he offered contradic- and Anthony Summers havi used my praise for Posner's real iccom- tory explanations. and if Posner's use is somehow ph:stip-lents; which have been cited more Justified,, he ought to be by-others: Posner's low-key, tors- clearer about it. mon-serise style makes both a good , read and a good antidote to the wild fantasia of Garrison, Stone and that ilk, who "portray' a conspiracy with a cast' of that:sands. Posner makes the reader think' of the characters as human beings, not ciphers, and in this light many 3, commonly cited threads of con- spiracy simply self-destruct: I-just wish the book, instead of ,being an ! unyielding'anti-conspiracy' brief, I. had been a fair report so that the. average reader could tell what Posner has proved and what he hasn't. Lowrence iv.c1anus, Jr. 1836 West First street lita ditelirliAlk°112 1111 ass itstssitstiilkIllikliklit

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