The JFK Network

Preface

Why Write This Book?

There is so much written about the JFK assassination that it is difficult to separate all the plot details. It is weighed down by minutiae, long histories, conspiracy theories and counter-conspiracy theories, a veritable poisoned well of dis-information. Many people feel that the competing theories have come to a stalemate and that the official story of the Lone Gunman is just as probable as the gunmen in the grassy knoll. Actually nothing can be further from the truth. While Kennedy's assassination is still the subject of widespread debate and has spawned numerous conspiracy theories and alternative scenarios, there is little in the official story that is authoritative and unambiguous. Worse still, the evidence used by the official story is tainted. Even one of the major pieces of evidence supporting conspiracy theories, the Zapruder 8mm movie film that captured the assassination in a few hundred frames, has a strange set of stories surrounding its chain of custody which would leave any inquirer into the subject feeling uneasy about its validity. So it is with good reason that polling in 2013 showed that 60% of Americans believe that a group of conspirators was responsible for the assassination. There is copious evidence against the official story available to the public and yet more evidence being withheld by the CIA.

This is still the case in October 2020. Despite promises of a full dump of documents in 2017, the most important CIA documents are still not available. This book was written in 2016, new revelations from the 2017 dump are written in italic.

Approach

The approach taken in this book is to provide background reading on the situation in the JFK presidency, then discuss key tangible facts, the official story and the evidence left behind. Only by looking at the wider aspects of the whole network of JFK associates, friends, enemies and unexpected deaths, can the dust around each event be swept away. Thus this book provides a clear view to the reader on the most likely set of events that occurred on November 22, 1963, and the nature of the political environment that has persisted since.

Chapter 1 Introduction

This book analyses the different stories surrounding the JFK Assassination by covering the main aspects of the assassination and putting the event in context with many other strange and anomalous evidence, mainly deaths of people strongly associated with JFK or his assassination, The JFK Network. The analysis uses probabilistic techniques as well as techniques well known to crime investigators: the diagnostic tool of motive, means and opportunity as well as who benefits.

To expand upon the probabilistic term, here is some context: to convict a defendant, only evidence linking means and opportunity is required; a motive is not. However, if a motive can be revealed it makes it easier to persuade a jury to conclude a guilty verdict. In other words, all convictions are in some way probabilistic and so criminals are not only convicted solely on evidence but also by probability.

For a single crime, there is a bias towards the defendant: it must be beyond reasonable doubt, a term which implies a strong probabilistic determination based on solid evidence, that a defendant committed the crime. What if the defendant is in court again for a similar crime? Information on past court cases against the defendant is withheld by judges because knowledge of inclusion of previous crimes is a bias against the defendant. This is used to protect defendants from injustice and is a solid principle for ensuring a fair society defending the weak from the strong. However this book does not do that or intend to do that. It will look at the pattern of criminal activity along a network radiating from JFK. And the pattern discovered is consistent.

While there are copious acknowledgments and references in this book, the author extends profound thanks to all previous investigators into this matter (and apologies if credit has not been offered). Also if there is a sense of déjà vu in the text below this may be because the story is tending towards a consensus based on the evidence which is contrary to the official narrative espoused by the mainstream media almost without discussion. All points of fact can be easily looked up on the internet and details to aid research are given in references. However, this book aims to be more than just a recycling of previously published material because of the analysis of related murders using material and insights uncovered only in the last few years.

Structure

The book is structured in three parts:

Part One, a brief background about JFK and his relationships,

Part Two, a series of case histories on the network of associated murders including JFK himself,

Part Three, an analysis and concluding set of chapters.

Case Studies

Besides the introduction to JFK and some of the people and organizations surrounding him, this book examines the death of many people and for each person, the following will be outlined:

A short introduction to the person (this detail should be easily verifiable).

The official story and key facts of the person’s death (this detail should be easily verifiable).

Problems with official story (this detail is often omitted from most sources or aspects go unmentioned).

Alternative narrative (this section provides differing points of view).

Who benefits (this describes the results of the simple point of view: cui bono)

Summary and Conclusion. This section will attempt to measure the probability of the death being other than coincidence using a fermi estimate (details of this technique is described later in the book).

Part One: Background

Chapter 2 About JFK

The Modern Age

From the moment of JFK’s inaugural Presidential address, Kennedy ignited what appears to many as the realization of the 1776 US Constitution: a revolution in the arts, science, commerce, civil rights, and diplomacy. The USA was at the apex of its power and influence and while Kennedy took the world to the brink of war, in the Cuban Missile Crisis, he managed to reverse the direction of the Cold War. JFK also seized upon the movement for Civil Rights in America and promoted a softer, kinder world in which we all still benefit, even though we are still far from completing that journey. This book cannot do justice to the legacy of JFK. He made an amazing impact on the world. And he did it in less than three years. Suffice to say, that everything before JFK is old: old thinking, prejudiced and clunky. Acknowledging all his faults, the corruption, the legacy of Vietnam and unfinished projects, many commenters have noted that the modern world, the whole space age, started on his inauguration, January 20, 1961.

Family Outline

Of Irish descent, John F Kennedy (full name John Fitzgerald Jack Kennedy aka JFK) was born on Tuesday, May 29, 1917, in Brookline, Massachusetts, USA. His parents were Joseph and Rose Kennedy. Joe Kennedy was a hugely successful businessman (including illegal bootlegging of alcohol) and an early supporter of Franklin D Roosevelt. He was appointed chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1934 and from 1937 US ambassador to Great Britain. Jack was the second eldest of 9 siblings, Joseph Jr, then Rosemary, Kathleen, Eunice, Patricia, Robert, Jean, and Edward. Joe Senior had high expectations both of himself and for his children.

Jack had an immensely privileged childhood and education. He studied at Choate Rosemary Hall, Wallingford, CT and attended the London School of Economics in the summer in 1935 but left soon afterward due to jaundice. While JFK had a whole series of illnesses throughout his childhood and young adulthood, he turned out to be a good sportsman especially as a swimmer and sailor. While being a student at Harvard University, Jack traveled in Europe, the Middle East, even the Soviet Union, acting as his father’s secretary. He graduated in 1940 and soon after joined the Navy.

Siblings

It is worth mentioning Jack’s siblings:

- Elder brother Joe Jr had the expectations of political office from his father thrust upon him and he seemed to be living up to expectations until he died. He died while testing remote-controlled bomber aircraft in a secret program during WW2. Jack and Joe Jr were in London together with their father and appeared to have a good relationship. After Joe Jr’s death, Jack was then expected to fill his brother’s shoes.

- Rosemary’s birth was difficult with oxygen starvation causing brain damage; as an adult, she had a mental age of an 8-to-12 year old. Her troublesome mood swings embarrassed her family, so in 1941, a new treatment was suggested for Rosemary which Joe Senior approved without even referring to his wife. That treatment was a lobotomy and the results were disastrous. Rosemary’s mental age regressed to a 2 year old. She spent the rest of her life in a Wisconsin institution and died in 2005 aged 84 with hardly any contact from the rest of the family.

- Kathleen nicknamed Kick because of her irrepressible nature, was a high flyer, wowing people wherever she went with her energy and intelligence. She accompanied Joe Jr and Jack to London and made quite an impact. Through her volunteer work with the Red Cross she met and married the Marquis of Hartington although he died in the war shortly afterward. Much loved by Jack, her death in a plane crash in 1948 is considered by some JFK researchers to have had a profound impact on Jack’s attitude towards women.

- Sister Eunice was profoundly affected by what had happened to sister Rosemary and she worked tirelessly and successfully for government, charities and special interests to help people with disabilities. She supported Jack’s Presidential Campaign in 1960 and soon afterward, she supported the foundation of the Special Olympics movement and helped form the Peace Corps. She married once, in 1953, had 5 children and died in 2009.

- Patricia was more arts-focused. She married British actor Peter Lawford in 1954 but filed for divorce soon after JFK’s death and never remarried.

- Jean maintained a lower profile than her siblings yet she also had a glittering career, marriage and children, while also being US Ambassador to Ireland (1993-1998) and helped broker the Northern Ireland Peace Agreement. (As of 2016, she is the only surviving JFK sibling).

- Robert (aka RFK) and Edward (Ted) are discussed at length later in this book.

Hero

In 1943, Jack was sent to the South Pacific, where he was given command of a Patrol-Torpedo (PT) boat. In August 1943, a Japanese destroyer struck and sunk his craft. Kennedy helped some of his marooned crew back to safety and was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for heroism.

By 1946 he was back in Boston preparing for a run for Congress entering the 80th Congress in January 1947, at the age of 29. He immediately attracted attention (and criticism) for his youthful appearance and relaxed informal style. On September 12, 1953, Kennedy married the charismatic journalist Jacqueline (Jackie) Lee Bouvier. Media-friendly Jackie was a great asset to JFK, doubling the size of audience attendance when she appeared at campaign events.

JFK’s poor health struck again in 1955, he had to undergo a painful operation on his back. While recovering from the surgery, Jack wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Profiles in Courage. (The book was later revealed to be mostly the work of Kennedy’s longtime aide, Theodore Sorenson.[1])

Kennedy’s Road to Presidency

After nearly earning the Democratic party’s nomination for vice president in 1956, Kennedy announced his candidacy for president on January 2, 1960. He chose Lyndon B Johnson, as his running mate. Kennedy faced a difficult battle against his Republican opponent, Richard Nixon, a two-term vice president under the popular Dwight D Eisenhower. Perhaps surprisingly now from a modern perspective, Kennedy’s policies were generally right-wing conservative. He stressed the failure of the USA to close the missile gap with the Soviet Union. It was a rhetoric that fed the Cold War fears of the time. Perhaps it was a matter of stealing Nixon’s own clothes since Nixon had long been regarded as a war hawk. Kennedy, though, offered a young, energetic alternative to Nixon and the status quo. Kennedy benefited from his performance (and telegenic appearance) in the first-ever televised debates, watched by millions of viewers. In November’s election, Kennedy won by a very narrow margin, (some claim by election fraud[2]), only by 120,000 votes out of 70 million votes cast, although a clear winner in the electoral college. What probably helped JFK over the line was him speaking out in favor of leniency towards Martin Luther King Jr (who was about to be sent to prison) while Nixon said nothing giving Kennedy an edge on the black vote. [200]

He became the youngest man and the first Roman Catholic to be elected president of the United States.

Presidency

Having escaped serious damage during WW2 and two decades of a booming economy, the USA was in an unprecedented and unparalleled position in the world. And now led by Jack and Jackie. In style and symbolism, the impact was dramatic. In his inaugural address, given on January 20, 1961, the new president called on his fellow Americans to work together in the pursuit of progress and the elimination of poverty, and also win the ongoing Cold War against communism. Kennedy’s closing words expressed the need for cooperation and collaboration: Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

It cannot be underestimated the effect that the Kennedys had on public culture and the stature of the USA across the globe. JFK was an enormously popular president, both at home and abroad, and his family drew famous comparisons to King Arthur’s court at Camelot. Jackie Kennedy became an international icon of style, beauty and sophistication. Brother Bobby served as the attorney general, while Edward (Ted), was elected to Jack’s former Senate seat in 1962.

Cuba and the Cold War

The realities of the Cold War became apparent very quickly just a few months into his presidency. In April 1961, Kennedy approved the plan hatched by the CIA to send 1,400 US-trained Cuban exiles in an amphibious landing at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. Intended to spur a rebellion that would overthrow the communist leader Fidel Castro (whose revolution had only completed in 1959). The Bay of Pigs mission was a failure. Few returned, nearly all of the exiles were captured or killed. The invasion failed for many reasons but obviously, the attack would have succeeded if the USA backed up the rebels with air support, logistical support and US troops. But Kennedy refused to be drawn into the conflict because of its potential impact on wider international ramifications. JFK blamed CIA chief Allen Dulles for the debacle and removed him from his position at the CIA. He used suitable diplomatic language in the process, thanking him for providing transition from the Eisenhower administration just the day after awarding him a medal in November 1961 at CIA headquarters.

In June 1961, Kennedy met with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna to discuss the city of Berlin, which had been divided after World War II between Allied and Soviet control. This probably did not go well since two months later, East German troops began erecting a wall to divide the city. Kennedy sent troops to reassure West Berliners of US Support. (JFK would later deliver one of his most famous speeches, Ich bin ein Berliner, in West Berlin in June 1963).

Because of the increased tension between the USA and Soviet Union and the failed invasion of Cuba, the world could easily have tipped into dangerous times. And indeed, the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962 almost brought the two superpowers to the brink of nuclear war. The Soviets were reinforcing Cuba with weaponry including building long-range missile sites that could pose a threat to the continental United States. When it was discovered that missiles were being transported to Cuba, Kennedy announced a naval blockade of the island. The tense standoff lasted nearly two weeks. The top US Military staff were advocating a first-strike nuclear attack on Moscow. Indeed, B-52 bombers were flying fully loaded with weaponry waiting for the code to start the attack. Governments the world over were preparing to retreat into bunkers. There has not been a time before or since when the world was on the brink of armageddon. However, Kennedy and Khrushchev directly communicated with each other and brokered a deal. The Soviets would dismantle missile sites in Cuba in return for America’s promise not to invade the island and remove US missiles from bases close to Soviet borders. This agreement was an immense victory for mankind. In July 1963, Kennedy won his greatest foreign affairs victory when Khrushchev agreed to join him and Britain’s Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in signing a nuclear test ban treaty. JFK installed an emergency hotline between the White House and the Kremlin to stop any future misunderstandings leading to nuclear annihilation and mutually assured destruction.

Vietnam

Meanwhile in Southeast Asia, even as JFK expressed privately his dismay over the situation[3], trapped by his pre-election promises and his continuing desire to curb the spread of communism, the Vietnam conflict had escalated significantly. Lyndon B Johnson visited Saigon in May 1961 and advocated all support to the South Vietnamese government. US troops rose from Eisenhower’s 900 advisors in around 1960 to 16,000 troops by 1963. This may be attributed to a new US Defense policy being developed by Kennedy and the incoming Secretary of Defense, Whiz Kid, Robert McNamara. The two of them wanted a flexible response, a set of choices in an emergency other than inglorious retreat or unlimited retaliation, as the president put it. Out of a major review of the military challenges confronting the US initiated by McNamara in 1961 came a decision to increase the nation's limited warfare capabilities... and that flexible response was being trialed in Vietnam.

Kennedy’s Leadership at Home

During his first year in office, Kennedy oversaw the launch of the Peace Corps, which would send young volunteers to underdeveloped countries all over the world. He was unable to achieve much of his proposed legislation during his lifetime, including two of his biggest priorities: income tax cuts and a civil rights bill. Kennedy was slow to commit himself to the civil rights cause but was forced into action, sending federal troops to support the desegregation of the University of Mississippi after riots in 1962 left two dead and many others injured. The following summer, Kennedy announced his intention to propose a comprehensive civil rights bill and endorsed the massive March on Washington that took place that August.

JFK’s other famous and inspired policy was the Manned Moon Mission which besides being another reaction to the Cold War and competition with the Soviet Union, was important in developing technology in the USA, in not only space hardware but also computing and material science. The Soviets had put the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, in April 1961 but Kennedy’s commitment to land on the moon before the end of the decade was made before any American had completed a manned earth orbit. (The US Space program's chief engineer was Wernher Willie Von Braun, the Nazi scientist behind the V2 rocket recruited via the secret Operation Paperclip.)

JFK’s Assassination

On November 22, 1963, the president and his wife landed in Dallas having given a speech in San Antonio, Austin, and Fort Worth the day before. From the airfield, the party traveled in a motorcade to the Dallas Trade Mart, the site of Jack’s next speaking engagement. Shortly after 12:30 pm, as the motorcade was passing through downtown Dallas, shots rang out. Kennedy was struck twice, in the neck and head.

A few hours later, Lyndon B Johnson was sworn in as President on Air Force One with Jackie Kennedy next to him, still wearing the same blood-splattered pink outfit she was wearing at noon.

At nearly the same time, twenty-four-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested, but two days later, while he was being led from Police HQ to jail, he was shot by local nightclub owner Jack Ruby.

Alternative theories of Kennedy’s assassination emerged immediately after his death including conspiracies run by the KGB, the Mafia and the US military-industrial complex, among others. A presidential commission led by Chief Justice Earl Warren concluded that Oswald had acted alone, but speculation and debate over the assassination persisted. At one time or another, doubters of the Lone Gunman Theory have accused 42 groups, 82 assassins and 214 people of being involved in the assassination, according to the attorney, author and JFK assassination investigator, Vincent Bugliosi. [4]

Kennedy was the fourth US president to be assassinated. Others were Abraham Lincoln (1865), James Garfield (1881), and William McKinley (1901). America's 29th president, Warren G Harding, later revealed to have been a corrupt philanderer, was widely rumored to have been poisoned by his wife in 1923. There have been at least 20 other known attempts on US presidents' lives.

Chapter 3 JFK Lovers

The halo over JFK’s presidency has been worn down in the following decades by stories of his numerous marital infidelities and personal association with members of organized crime. To set the context of JFK’s assassination, now with the benefit of hindsight, we need to review some of JFK’s relationships including famously, with Marilyn Monroe, which will be discussed later, but there is a whole string of others. Before Jackie, there was a string of relationships several of which continued even after marrying Jacqueline Lee Jackie Bouvier in September 1953.

Florence Pritchett

Florence Flo Pritchett was a model that appeared in Life Magazine. In 1940 she met and married Richard Canning and became fashion editor of New York Journal American. She divorced Canning in 1943 and the following year she met JFK who was still in the Navy. The couple spent a lot of time together and they clicked but marriage was out of the question since JFK was a Roman Catholic with political ambitions and she was a divorcee. Flo was the only person who could always be guaranteed to make Jack laugh. In JFK’s appointment book for June 28, 1947, there was an entry in Flo's handwriting: Flo Pritchett's 27th birthday! SEND DIAMONDS.

However later that same year, Florence married Earl E T Smith who was later appointed as Ambassador to Cuba in 1957. They had three children together. Jack and Flo remained friends visiting each other in New York and Washington. FBI files reveal that during 1957-58, JFK made more than a dozen visits to Cuba not to see the Ambassador but to meet with Florence. Flo also met Kennedy in Miami and Palm Beach where their homes were conveniently adjoined. JFK would hop over a fence to swim with Flo Smith much to the astonishment of Secret Service agents who would be there for his protection. On one occasion since they could not find him, the agents called the FBI. The alert came to the attention of the Palm Beach Police Chief Homer Large, a trusted Kennedy family associate, who knew exactly where to find him: in Flo’s swimming pool. Jack and Flo were alone, and as Homer put it, They weren't doing the Australian crawl. [5]

Florence continued working as a journalist. She also became a television personality and appeared on programs such as What's My Line? It was during this time she became friendly with the journalist Dorothy Kilgallen (who will be discussed later).

Gunilla Von Post

For many years pre-1960, while Jackie Kennedy was either having miscarriages or having her first baby (Caroline), JFK had a relationship with Gunilla Von Post, a Swedish socialite. She alleges in her memoirs that he called his father and told him he wanted to divorce Jackie and marry her, only to be told that would destroy his political career. [6]

Judith Campbell Exner

JFK also had sexual relationships with interns and workers at the White House as well as famous actresses. The first person to publicly comment on record of an extramarital affair with JFK was the stunningly beautiful Judith Campbell Exner. Not by choice: she was dragged out of obscurity to testify before a Senate committee in 1975 investigating alleged CIA assassination attempts on Fidel Castro. [7] Exner was a Los Angeles socialite who had previously dated Frank Sinatra. She began her affair with Kennedy during his 1960 Presidential campaign, according to her 1999 Los Angeles Times obituary. Exner and Kennedy continued their relationship during his term of office. During that time Exner claimed to have served as a courier for the President, taking mysterious envelopes to Chicago’s Mafia boss, Sam Giancana, with whom she later also had an affair, and also mobster Johnny Roselli, who is also linked to Castro assassination plots. In 1963, at her final encounter with Kennedy, she claims she became pregnant with his child and later had an abortion. Jack never in a million years thought he was doing anything that would hurt me, but that’s the way he conducted himself; the Kennedys have their own set of rules, she said. Jack was reckless, so reckless. Previous to this revelation there was no official acknowledgment of JFK’s affairs. [8] Even Exner’s revelations did not make a big media splash (although too large for her!). After Exner’s revelation slowly more and more stories JFK affairs started being reported.

Fiddle, Faddle and Other Interns

Historian Robert Dallek wrote An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 in 2003 [9] and during his research had uncovered references to Fiddle and Faddle, White House workers who were also JFK lovers. They were press aide Priscilla Weiss/Wear, code-named Fiddle; and press aide Jill Cowan, code-named Faddle. Jack frequently skinny-dipped with Fiddle and Faddle in the White House swimming pool. Weiss and Cowan’s White House duties (other than sexual services) to the President were very light but records show they accompanied him on trips to Berlin, Rome, Ireland, Costa Rica, Mexico and Nassau.

According to Mimi Alford’s autobiography Once Upon A Secret, published in 2012, [10] the author reveals that JFK’s affairs reported by Dallek were all true. While Dallek’s revelation consisted of an analysis of a few dry paper records, Alford provided a first-hand account describing JFK’s sexual appetite in detail. Alford confirmed that Fiddle and Faddle were always-willing sex partners to the president. She also recounted her own affair with JFK. In June 1962, just a few days after she started her internship in the White House press office, she met JFK while taking a midday dip in the White House pool. He swam up and introduced himself and later that day invited her to after-work drinks. She was given a private tour of the house, which culminated in JFK seducing the 19-year-old in what he referred to as Mrs Kennedy’s room. That was the start of an 18-month affair, in which she always called him Mr President. In her memoir, Alford writes that JFK dared her, successfully, into giving oral sex to another woman in the pool.

Another member of the White House staff having an affair with JFK was Pamela Turnure, originally the president’s secretary when he was a senator, but then became the first lady’s aide in the White House years. She was said to resemble Jackie and her sexual relationship with JFK started when she was 21. When Jackie was away, reportedly, Turnure would spend nights with the president.

Mary Pinchot Meyer

Mary Eno Pinchot Meyer was a longtime friend of JFK who first met him at a prep-school dance in 1938, according to biographer Peter Janney. She married (and would eventually divorce) a CIA agent and had a sister who was married to Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee. Both ties put her in Kennedy’s social circle in DC. She visited him frequently at the White House and was known to be one of his mistresses, according to another biographer, Nina Burleigh. She was also a vocal pacifist as well as a friend of Harvard LSD guru Timothy Leary. A love letter Kennedy wrote to Pinchot Meyer one month before his assassination surfaced in June 2016 (and was auctioned for just under $89,000). Pinchot Meyer died in mysterious circumstances in 1964 and her death will be discussed later in this book.

And Others

In 2009, it was reported by Gore Vidal, and recorded in Vanity Fair, [11] that JFK and Marlene Dietrich, the famous actress who wanted to be alone had a 20-minute sexual liaison at the White House. This was in September 1963 when Dietrich was putting on a one-woman show in Washington. The 60-year-old German actress who was a longtime friend and lover of JFK’s father, Joe, accepted an invitation from the president to have drinks at the White House in September of 1963 and after a clumsy pass and sexual intercourse, Dietrich had to shake JFK awake since she needed directions to exit the White House to make the