To argue against conspiracy theories, is it valid to say "this would be a secret too hard to keep?"

[Shmendrik]

@handsomeharry

It’s not valid at all.

See Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance.

Seriously? How many people would have to be in on that “conspiracy”? About 2 to 5, right?

[handsomeharry]

@t-bonham@scc.net

Probably not.
That was 45 years ago. The people who ordered it are probably long dead. Even if they got some young guy rather than an experienced person to actually do it, that guy would be past retirement age now. More likely dead – in that business, longevity is not common.

Well, the Kennedy thing was longer ago. Those people are, mostly, long dead. Doesn’t mean there wasn’t a conspiracy.

Best wishes,
hh

[handsomeharry]

@Jackmannii

And your evidence for a “JFK conspiracy” is that no one has confessed to it, so there just had to be “serious disciplined men” behind it, otherwise someone would have confessed like on “Cops”. :dubious:

Never mind all the sleazy corporate crimes or government malfeasances like Iran-Contra that have come to light, despite having had the support of “powerful powerful” men who presumably could’ve taken out anyone who threatened to reveal their secrets.

It comes back to the idea that there are shadowy super-cabals which create master plots but always wind up being too idiotic and sloppy to carry them through without getting the attention of alert conspiracy theorists. If the cabalists were that powerful, serious and disciplined they’d do a little better job of carrying out their nefarious schemes.

So, you’re saying that one screw up, Iran-Contra, shows plainly that there are no conspiracies, or that every conspiracy will come to light after 2 years?

Using your logic, that would mean that you agree that the Kennedy thing was a conspiracy, because Mark Lane broke it in 66, and we have since had a whole list of conspirators named! ’ Didn’t Woody Harrelson’s father confess? Yep,no large conspiracies can remain hidden long, because there were too many in on it! ’
Best wishes,
hh

[handsomeharry]

@Jackmannii

And your evidence for a “JFK conspiracy” is that no one has confessed to it

No.
Read the post.

Best wishes,
hh

[handsomeharry]

@Shmendrik

Seriously? How many people would have to be in on that “conspiracy”? About 2 to 5, right?

Well, more to the point, using Hoffa points out that animalistic people, who aren’t overly well known for self discipline, or brains (I know, I know) can keep their mouths shut when it is in their best interests, and, sort of, work with groups that know how to keep their mouths shut when it is in their best interests.

Now, for the JFK thing, which I am not arguing in favor of, just addressing the OP, consider the talent, the stakes, and the resources available, assuming a conspiracy. If you had been in on it, would you be blabbing?

And, 2-5 sounds a little low, but, perhaps not too low.

Best wishes,
hh

[handsomeharry]

@Dissonance

There was a lot of speculation about the US Air Force experimenting with stealth technologies in the 1970s and '80s with various speculative drawings of the F-19 being made. The USAF didn’t acknowledge the reality behind the speculation until 1988 when the F-117 was revealed.

It wasn’t too secret: Jimmy Carter blabbed about at a presidential debate in 1980, IIRC.

Best wishes,
hh

[GIGObuster]

@handsomeharry

So, you’re saying that one screw up, Iran-Contra, shows plainly that there are no conspiracies, or that every conspiracy will come to light after 2 years?

Using your logic, that would mean that you agree that the Kennedy thing was a conspiracy, because Mark Lane broke it in 66, and we have since had a whole list of conspirators named! ’ Didn’t Woody Harrelson’s father confess? Yep,no large conspiracies can remain hidden long, because there were too many in on it! ’
Best wishes,
hh

Mark Lane did not broke anything. The case was not against Hunt but Hunt suing a Magazine for libel. The thing the jury decided was that there was no malice.

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/denial.htm

If Lane’s evidence against Hunt was as strong as he leads the reader to believe, we would expect it to convince the jury, and indeed the jury did rule against Hunt and in favor of the Liberty Lobby.

However, when a “public figure” like E. Howard Hunt is attacked in the media, he cannot win a libel judgment merely by showing that the attack is untrue and unfair. Under a 1964 Supreme Court decision called New York Times v. Sullivan, the plaintiff must show “actual malice” on the part of the defendant.

Lane explains the Sullivan decision to his readers, Endnote but insists that it had nothing to do with the jury’s verdict, since the jurors believed that Hunt was indeed an assassination conspirator.

To support his position, Lane cites jury Foreperson Leslie Armstrong. Lane describes Armstrong’s statements to the media as follows:

The evidence was clear, she said. The CIA had killed President Kennedy. Hunt had been part of it, and that evidence, so painstakingly presented should now be examined by the relevant institutions of the United States government so that those responsible for the assassination might be brought to justice.

Armstrong apparently did say that, and doubtless believed it. But there were five other jurors. Two of them told the Miami Herald that they most certainly did not believe that Lane had proven that Hunt was a conspirator. Suzanne Reach said that “We were very disgusted and felt it was trash . . . . The paper published material that was sloppy – but it wasn’t malicious.” Reach added that “We were worried that our verdict might give the wrong impression to the public” and added that Lane’s conspiracy theories were “absolutely not” the reason for the verdict.

The Herald also quoted another juror, who refused to be identified, saying that the verdict was the result of Hunt failing to demonstrate that the article was published with “reckless disregard for the truth,” and added that Lane’s conspiracy theories were “so much extraneous matter.”

Likewise, an unidentified juror told the Associated Press that (in the words of the AP reporter) “no evidence was presented showing malice toward Hunt by the publication.” Finally, juror L. L. Cobb told United Press that the jury was concerned about whether the article was damaging to Hunt, not whether it was true. Quoting the UPI story:

“What we looked at was the article and whether there was any instances of malice,” she said. “We did not find any because there had been many stories written about the issue.”

Thus, depending on whether the unidentified juror in the Miami Herald story is the same person as the juror quoted by the Associated Press, three or four of the six jurors went on record as denying Lane’s claims to have proven a conspiracy.

Indeed, if Lane was correct then enough evidence was then collected to initiate a proper case **against **Hunt, but as the context shows, demonstrating that a magazine has the first amendment right to publish a reprehensible article is no grounds to say that someone was involved in a murder.

[Jackmannii]

@handsomeharry

So, you’re saying that one screw up, Iran-Contra, shows plainly that there are no conspiracies, or that every conspiracy will come to light after 2 years?

Nah. Read my post.

What should be clear is that lots of what are loosely termed “conspiracies” (i.e. criminal acts and illegal/unethical government activities) have been revealed by whistleblowers, squealers and press reports even though the major players were wealthy/powerful people who should have been able to tie off any such loose ends. What you seemed to be invoking is the classic Super-Cabal, which pulls off dastardly crimes without being detected (except by dedicated conspiracy theorists) but can’t seem to tie its own shoelaces.

If your point is something else entirely, perhaps you could explain it a bit more lucidly.

[ralph124c]

What about the CIA? It operates with an enormous budget, it doesn’t have to operate with congressional oversight, and in many ways, it represents its own interests, before that of the USA.
I don’t trust it and I don’t like its activities-it may well be (at this moment) planning some kind of coup in Afghanistan-which will keep us mired in war for decades.
I truly belive that an outfit like the CIA could indeed conspire against the president of the USA-particularly if said president was attempting to cut the CIA appropriation. It is not beyond possible, that the CIA would engineer a war, in order to keep its funding.
As for the JFK assasination-I do think that the CIA had some very strange relationship with LHO. Will this ever be revealed? Not as long as the CIA controls the access to its own files.

[Bryan_Ekers]

Your feelings about the CIA are very convenient, since only the CIA itself could possibly dispel them.

[tomndebb]

@Dissonance

The disaster at Slapton Sands where ~749 died when German torpedo boats showed up in a pre D-Day invasion exercise remained largely buried until the 1980s.

That does not appear to be correct. From the Wikipedia article:

Some commentators have called it a cover-up, but the initial critical secrecy about Tiger may have merely resulted in longer-term quietness. In his book The Forgotten Dead - Why 946 American Servicemen Died Off The Coast Of Devon In 1944 - And The Man Who Discovered Their True Story, published in 1988, Ken Small declares that the event “was never covered up; it was ‘conveniently forgotten’”.[1] Charles B. MacDonald, author and former deputy chief historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History, notes that the incident was reported in a press release issued from the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, and appeared in the July issue of Stars and Stripes.[8] In addition, the story was detailed in at least three books at the end of the war, including, Captain Harry C. Butcher 's My Three Years With Eisenhower (1946), and in several publications and speeches in the intervening years.[8] MacDonald surmises that the press release went largely unnoticed in light of the larger events that were occurring at the time, the battle for France in the summer of 1944, and the fact that they were just glad that the war was over in 1945.[8] Harison mentioned it in his official Army history of the war (p. 270) and Samuel Eliot Morison also discussed it in his official Navy history, US Naval Operations, vol. 11, p. 66.

An event that appeared in both the public press and in the Army’s Stars and Stripes within a few weeks of its occurrence is hardly a hidden conpsiracy.

@gonzomax

The Tusgagee Experiment lasted 40 years and included plenty of doctors ,nurses and record keepers. It never broke out.

You often point to this as a hidden conspiracy and every time you do, posters provide citations demonstrating that it was published in numerous medical journals throughout its duration. That most people did not care that poor black men were being denied medical treatment indicates a rotten aspect of American society, but there was no conspiracy and it is silly for you to insist that there was a conspiracy in thread after thread.

Similar to simply forgetting the Slapton Sands event, (with a touch of Tuskegee thrown in), would be the virtual imprisonment and forced labor imposed on a large segment of the black population of the Mississippi Delta in the flood of 1927. This event had the direct result of spurring a significant amount of the Northern migration of blacks from the South, yet it is rarely recognized, today, despite being reported regularly in the news across the country at the time that it occurred.

[AtomicDog]

Thanks. I was going to respond to Gonzomax’s snark, but I see that it would do no good.

[handsomeharry]

@GIGObuster

Mark Lane did not broke anything. The case was not against Hunt but Hunt suing a Magazine for libel. The thing the jury decided was that there was no malice.

McAdams's Kennedy Assassination Home Page Index
Indeed, if Lane was correct then enough evidence was then collected to initiate a proper case **against **Hunt, but as the context shows, demonstrating that a magazine has the first amendment right to publish a reprehensible article is no grounds to say that someone was involved in a murder.

I’m referring to “Rush to Judgement” 1966, mol.

Best wishes,
hh

[FinnAgain]

@Jackmannii

What you seemed to be invoking is the classic Super-Cabal, which pulls off dastardly crimes without being detected (except by dedicated conspiracy theorists) but can’t seem to tie its own shoelaces.

Some day, research will reveal that Genius Fools are genetically drawn to conspire against the rest of the populace, and everything will become clear.

[handsomeharry]

@Jackmannii

Nah. Read my post.

You cheeky monkey you!

You seemed to be invoking is the classic Super-Cabal, which pulls off dastardly crimes without being detected (except by dedicated conspiracy theorists) but can’t seem to tie its own shoelaces.

If your point is something else entirely, perhaps you could explain it a bit more lucidly.

Well, I’m trying to say that a real Super-Cabal is not going to be the varicose screw ups that everybody else thinks that one would be. In short, once the lid is blown off, a real super anything would not cave in like like a house of cards. A group with the testes, as it were, would keep their mouths shut, brass it out, and come up with a good counter attack. Just because there have been weak idiots involved in criminal activities who were also government employees, witness Watergate/Iran Contra, etc…, doesn’t mean that there aren’t some real players pulling some strings.
Take a look at Blago. Do you think your house would be safe at night if you dared to testify against him???

Best wishes,
hh

[GIGObuster]

@handsomeharry

I’m referring to “Rush to Judgement” 1966, mol.

Best wishes,
hh

In other words, you are not capable of confronting how unreliable was Mark Lane…

And still the Hunt “confession” remains doubtful.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKhuntH.htm

(22) Letter from the Hunt Estate and the Hunt Family to the Intelligence Daily (6th April, 2007)

There is no such thing as E. Howard Hunt’s “Last Confession,” contrary to claims currently being circulated by Mr. Hunt’s two elder sons, Howard St. John and David Hunt in recent articles published in the Los Angeles Times and in Rolling Stone magazine following Mr. Hunt’s death. Motivated by an apparent need for notoriety and financial gains, these theories regarding Mr. Hunt’s alleged knowledge of a JFK assassination conspiracy involving the late President Johnson and now dead CIA agents have no basis in fact and are not credible. There is nothing inherently newsworthy in the sad tale of rogue relatives sewing seeds of dissension after the death of a well-known public figure. What is true is that in his lifetime, E. Howard Hunt’s two elder sons were a deep disappointment to their father and family. If these theories rest on the credibility of the two elder sons, then their own backgrounds and reliability are well worth investigation. St. John Hunt has actually revealed his decades of drug use, abuse and drug dealing in the Rolling Stone article. Considering their source, reputable journalists should dismiss these claims as entirely lacking in credibility.

The theories advanced by his two elder sons after his death are totally inconsistent with Mr. Hunt’s tireless efforts to fight any and all conspiracy allegations during his lifetime. The Warren Commission report investigating the Kennedy assassination is a matter of public record. Unhappy with its findings that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, a veritable conspiracy industry has arisen, and because of Mr. Hunt’s CIA background, some theorists have speculated that Mr. Hunt was connected in some way. Allegations caused Congress to act and the JFK investigation was renewed in the early 1970’s. In 1974, Mr. Hunt repudiated and rejected these absurd theories as part of a 90-page sealed deposition before the Senate investigative committee. In that recently declassified and released transcript, which is available online, Mr. Hunt detailed each and every CIA assignment and every contact during his 21-year CIA career. During Mr. Hunt’s deposition, each bizarre conspiracy theory involving President Kennedy was detailed exhaustively, and Mr. Hunt testified that he had absolutely no knowledge of anything pertaining to the assassination. In addition, Mr. Hunt engaged in protracted litigation against Liberty Lobby, a political newspaper that had published conspiracy allegations concerning him. Although he won at trial the verdict was overturned on appeal. Mr. Hunt continued to fight against defamatory accusations, and specifically repudiated each one in detail in a chapter included in his final memoirs. Mr. Hunt also resisted several Hollywood “big money” offers to “cash in” on assassination speculations by lending credibility to CIA-connected JFK assassination scenarios. It is curious indeed, and perhaps sinister, that his elder sons would wait until after their father’s death to propagate conspiracy theories in an alleged “last confession” when Mr. Hunt is no longer able to personally repudiate them. All of Mr. Hunt’s knowledge concerning LBJ and any CIA agents is dealt with extensively by him in his new book American Spy (Wiley, 2007).

Mr. Hunt had also always firmly rejected any and all conspiracy theories involving the death of his first wife. The National Transportation Board and Federal Aviation Administration exhaustively investigated her accidental death on board a United Airlines passenger plane in 1972. Should there have been a conspiracy to murder her, the opportunities were many, and it is ludicrous to believe that the most effective method was to cause an airliner to crash, killing more than a hundred others. The verdict of the inquiry into the causes of the crash was that it was pilot error combined with extremely poor weather conditions, a verdict on which rational persons agree.

In 2005, Mr. Hunt’s two elder sons proposed a book project in conjunction with an individual with film industry connections. Unfortunately, as things developed, it was clear that the project was not about the interesting details of Mr. Hunt’s life. Rather, it was a vehicle to promote further conspiracy-fueled speculations involving rogue CIA agents and LBJ in the Kennedy assassination. Mr. Hunt definitively rejected that project, and he specifically rejected the theories it contained, both to his attorney, William A. Snyder, Jr. and to his youngest son, Austin, who was living at home and finishing his college courses. When that project did not proceed because of the bizarre conspiracy theories initially promoted, the elder brothers’ opportunities for financial gain faded. Their resulting reaction has been to continue to exploit Mr. Hunt, to create conflict and division within the family, to threaten their siblings and worst of all, to further a very selfish and greedy personal agenda.

In the interests of truth and fairness, Mr. Snyder and Mr. Austin Hunt should be consulted as the family’s spokespersons on this issue as their first-hand accounts are critical to emphatically contradict these spurious claims on behalf of Mr. Hunt, his widow and his remaining four children.

Sincerely,

The Hunt Estate and the Hunt Family

[handsomeharry]

@GIGObuster

In other words, you are not capable of confronting how unreliable was Mark Lane…

And still the Hunt “confession” remains doubtful.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKhuntH.htm

Are you taking that crack again???

Get off of it! It’s destroying you!!!

What is this with you and Hunt???
Why are you bringing Hunt into my post???

BTW, since you aren’t going to be satisfied without a comment about Hunt, I’ll give you one: There ain’t no confession!
Of course, he was in on it, but he didn’t confess.
Happy???

Best wishes,
hh

[GIGObuster]

@handsomeharry

Are you taking that crack again???

Get off of it! It’s destroying you!!!

What is this with you and Hunt???
Why are you bringing Hunt into my post???

BTW, since you aren’t going to be satisfied without a comment about Hunt, I’ll give you one: There ain’t no confession!
Of course, he was in on it, but he didn’t confess.
Happy???

Best wishes,
hh

Nope, what I said was that you are just ignoring on purpose how unreliable Mark Lane was, Hunt is just one bit he got wrong. JFK Conspiracy theorists are unreliable and misleading.

And that capacity of avoiding dealing with the evidence is what is **destroying **any confidence that other readers of this thread would had for your capacity on separating the good sources from the bad.

[handsomeharry]

Get Hunt out of your head!
Hang Hunt!
That was fifteen years later, mol.
Forget Hunt!

Read Rush to Judgement. 1966-67. Lane doesn’t even mention Hunt, I don’t think. If it makes you happy, I’ll call Lane and ask him to put Hunt in it! I’ll ask him to take Hunt out! I’ll ask him to form a conspiracy with Hunt! Against Hunt!
Forget Hunt!

I’m not looking at the JFK thing at all, except as not even an example! I’m not debating it, I’m using the conspiritorial nature as defined by it. I’m talking about the nature of true, successful politicians/conspirators.

Forget Hunt!

Best wishes,
hh

[GIGObuster]

@handsomeharry

Get Hunt out of your head!
Hang Hunt!
That was fifteen years later, mol.
Forget Hunt!

Read Rush to Judgement. 1966-67. Lane doesn’t even mention Hunt, I don’t think. If it makes you happy, I’ll call Lane and ask him to put Hunt in it! I’ll ask him to take Hunt out! I’ll ask him to form a conspiracy with Hunt! Against Hunt!
Forget Hunt!

I’m not looking at the JFK thing at all, except as not even an example! I’m not debating it, I’m using the conspiritorial nature as defined by it. I’m talking about the nature of true, successful politicians/conspirators.

Forget Hunt!

Best wishes,
hh

Jumping up and down and tap dancing around the issue is amusing, but Lane can not be trusted, even if one ignores Hunt.